Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The CEO of AT&T said he feels no pressure nor has any intention of selling CNN or any more valuable asset in order to close its $85.4 billion deal with Time Warner.



No. I have never been told that the price of getting the [Time Warner] deal done was selling CNN," said AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.



The high-stakes acquisition is being held up by the Department of Justice, which has raised red flags for some after President Donald Trump campaigned on blocking the deal because it put too much "power in the hands of too few." The deal would include CNN, a constant target for criticism for the president who has regularly blasted the news company for "fake news."



"Are we really going to make the [Justice Department] use antitrust law to force the sale of a cable channel because the president doesn't like its news coverage?" tweeted Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission. "You can dislike consolidation but still find this extremely disturbing if true."



In a statement to ABC News, Department of Justice's new antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, said, I have never been instructed by the White House on this or any other transaction under review by the antitrust division.



The White House also denies Trump spoke with Attorney General Jeff Sessions about the merger deal.



"The president did not speak with the attorney general about this matter," said principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah. "And no White House official was authorized to speak with the Department of Justice on this matter."



A Department of Justice official told ABC News that AT&T offered to sell CNN as part of the deal. But the AT&T CEO says he and the company did no such thing.



Nevertheless, the Justice Department says it flatly denied the proposal for AT&T to sell CNN, insisting it wouldn't necessarily resolve their concerns.



According to a Justice Department source, AT&T first raised the possibility of selling off CNN. The source said the Department of Justice told AT&T that one way to resolve concerns is to sell off Turner, which owns CNN, but the Justice Department did not support selling just CNN. Another way to resolve the concerns, the Department of Justice told AT&T, is to sell off DirecTV, according to the source.



Craig Aaron, the president of Free Press, a consumer group who opposes media consolidation in general, denounced the deal.



"While there are plenty of good reasons to oppose AT&T's Time Warner takeover, punishing CNN for trying to hold this administration accountable isn't one of them," Aaron said in a statement.



If the company that wants to acquire the other -- in this case AT&T and Time Warner, respectively -- cannot agree on conditions with the Justice Department, the government can sue to block the deal. AT&T can then take the department to court, a process that has no precedent on this scale under the current administration.



I have never been told that the price of getting the deal done was selling CNN, Stephenson said. And likewise I have never offered to sell CNN. There is absolutely no intention that we would ever sell CNN. So take those two off the table.



The AT&T CEO went on to express frustration with leaks coming out of the negotiations with the Justice Department, calling the reports "rumors and suppositions."



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
ABC News(DANANG, Vietnam) -- It's become a tradition of sorts for world leaders at Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summits to don matching jackets for a "family photo."



Leading up to the summit, there was a question of whether President Donald Trump, who is rarely seen in public without his signature suit and tie, would partake in the tradition.



But he put that speculation to rest on Friday as he walked into the APEC gala wearing a dark-blue, silk button-down shirt. He shook Russian President Vladimir Putin's hand before posing with 20 fellow world leaders for a "family photo."



World leaders have Bill Clinton to thank for starting the annual tradition back in 1993, when he hosted the summit in Seattle and gifted world leaders in attendance with matching bomber jackets.



The next year, the tables turned on Clinton, and it was his turn to don a traditional Indonesian shirt selected by the summit's subsequent host country.



Since then, the trend has continued with many other hosting countries also following suit in continuing the tradition.



Former President George W. Bush had a reputation for embracing the lighthearted tradition in good humor. He donned everything from a poncho during the 2008 summit in Lima, Peru, to a traditional blue silk "ao dai" at the 2006 APEC summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, over the course of his eight years in office.



The tradition has remained strong ever since.



President Barack Obama made no secret of the fact that he wasn't such a fan of the tradition with his decision to nix it when it was his turn to host the APEC summit on his home turf of Hawaii in 2011, after previously threatening in jest that he would make world leaders wear aloha shirts or grass skirts.



I had looked at pictures of some of the previous APEC meetings and some of the garb that had appeared previously, and I thought this may be a tradition that we might want to break, Obama said at the time. We gave them a shirt, and if they wanted to wear the shirt, I promise you it would have been fine. But I didnt hear a lot of complaints about us breaking precedent on that one.



Though Obama may have managed a temporary break from the tradition, some fashion habits die hard.



At the 2014 APEC summit in China, Obama donned a deep-red silk jacket for the group photo that drew comparisons to Star Trek character Jean-Luc Picard.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, November 10, 2017

Facebook should notify users who were exposed to Russian propaganda during the last election, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) says.

"You owe your users full information regarding when, where, and how they may have been unwitting participants in Russia's campaign to sow division and spread disinformation in the United States," Blumenthal wrote Thursday in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "Facebook users deserve a comprehensive view of exactly what content they saw so they can understand and evaluate what they may see in the future."

The letter comes one week after Facebook told lawmakers that material created by Russian agents, including at least 3,000 ads, may have reached 146 million users -- 126 million on Facebook and an additional 20 million on Instagram.

Some of the ads that ran before the election obviously favored President Donald Trump. One called Hillary Clinton "a Satan," while another suggested that policies of Clinton and former President Barack Obama were responsible for "rapists, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others" illegally crossing the border.

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"Consumer service entities like yours have long understood their duty to inform their users after mistakes are uncovered," Blumenthal wrote. "You too have an obligation to explain to your users exactly how Russian agents sought to manipulate our elections through your platform."

Blumenthal requested a response from Facebook by November 22.

A company spokesperson said Facebook has received the letter. The spokesperson also pointed to general counsel Colin Stretch's testimony last week to lawmakers. "The question of reaching out to individuals who may have seen it is a much more difficult and complex one, but we believe our commitment to transparency on this issue generally should address that," Stretch said.
by Sara Guaglione , November 10, 2017

The New York Times is rolling out a monthly print-only section for kids, in response to positive feedback the Times received when it debuted its first Kids section in May.

The second edition of the Kids section will appear in the Sunday, November 19 edition of the newspaper. It becomes a regular monthly section next year, starting January 28.

According to the NYT, the first edition sparked an online petition to make the Kids section a regular feature in the paper.

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It absolutely makes us more likely to subscribe. One of the best parts of getting the newspaper on paper is that we can share it as a family, Roy Bahat, one of the petition's creators, told Nieman Lab.

The Kids section will mimic regular sections in the NYT, including sports, national news, food, opinion and arts, as well as a mix of illustrations, photography and how-tos for young readers.

Our goal here is not only to help kids learn about the complex world they live in, but also to give them a taste, through a section designed just for them, of the pleasures of print media, stated Jake Silverstein, editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine.

In the November 19 issue, readers will find a cover story about gene editing discovery CRISPR, a profile of a young DACA recipient, a story about the role of schools in natural disasters, a recipe for Thanksgiving leftovers and a new advice column featuring advice from an adult and a kid.

The second edition of the Kids section is sponsored by Google Home.

The New York Times Magazines special projects editor Caitlin Roper will oversee the section; the section design and art direction is by Debra Bishop, overseen by the magazines design director Gail Bichler.

The NYT will also travel to a different public school around the country each month to get an intimate perspective on how kids think, and what they're thinking about, according to a report from Nieman Lab. For the November edition, Roper travelled to Charlottesville, Virginia.

The popular Times podcast The Daily will also air a special episode on November 19 for children to listen to with their parents. It coincides with the section launch.

The Kids section is part of "an ongoing initiative," per the company, to "reimagine the uses of the print newspaper." It is the third special print-only section produced by the publisher.

In August, the paper ran an excerpt of The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, which went on to win the National Book Award. In December, it debuted a Puzzle Spectacular section devoted to different puzzles.

The NYT is also bringing back that Puzzle Spectacular section; it will run the second edition with the Sunday, December 17 edition of the newspaper.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, November 10, 2017

Amazon Marketing Services in Canada became available Friday. The move makes the company's suite of click-based advertising products available to brands through a self-service portal.

Sponsored Products, Headline Search, and Product Display Ads will run on Amazon.ca based on relevant keyword searches, products, and shopper interests. Campaign budgets start at $100.

The ad units serve up based on an auction model, similar to Google and Bing. Advertisers provide what they are willing to pay for each click, and only pay when a customer clicks on their ad.

The company also made available the ability for brands to create their own Amazon Store.

Yoram Weinreich, chief growth officer for Simpli Home, used Amazon Marketing Services in the U.S. and plans to expand the use into Canada.

Amazon introduced display advertising on Amazon.ca in 2015. Its offering also spans advertising on websites within and outside of Canada including IMDb, Twitch, and programmatically on third-party sites and mobile apps.

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Tamir Bar-Haim, head of Amazon's advertising business in Canada, said in a prepared statement that marketers in Canada can now tap into the range of advertising solutions available to brands just in time for the holidays.

In late October, ClickZ Intelligence released findings from an Amazon-focused study in partnership with Catalyst, part of GroupM. The data reveals that 63% of companies advertising on Amazon plan to increase their budget during the next 12 months, compared with 54% for Google, 53% for Facebook, 27% for Bing and 23% for Twitter.

The report is based on a survey of more than 250 North America-based business-to-consumer marketers in July 2017.
Living in warm, wet climes may increase your risk of harboring kidney stones, according to a new study. The findings explain the intriguing stone belt phenomenon. Share on Pinterest Kidney stones  nobody likes an uninvited guest. Kidney stones are solid clumps of material that develop in the kidney. They consist of crystal-forming substances, such as calcium, oxalate, and uric acid. They have been part of the human experience for thousands of years; a treatment for kidney stones is mentioned in an Egyptian medical text from 1500 BC . In modern-day America, an estimated 12 percent of the population will experience one or more of these uninvited guests at some point in their lives. Small stones can exit the body during urination with little or no fanfare. Larger stones, however, are a different story; although rarely fatal, they can be excruciating. To give you some idea, the following comes from a first-hand account. It was what I can imagine a knife stuck in my back being twisted all around would feel like. According to another, A female nurse told me its the worst pain a man can ever feel because a man cant go through labor. Aside from the agony, kidney stones dont come cheap, either. In 2000, around $2.1 billion was spent treating them in U.S. hospitals. This figure marked a 50 percent increase since 1994. Due to the cost, the steady increase of prevalence, and the intense pain, there is significant interest in understanding why these ghastly miniature boulders are formed.

Who gets kidney stones? Certain risk factors are well-established. For instance, if you are male or have diabetes, you are more likely to develop them. Another factor that raises your chance of growing your very own kidney stone is your ZIP code. A landmark study published in 1994 looked at data from more than 1 million men and women across the U.S. They established the so-called stone belt. Their analysis uncovered a distinct geographic pattern of kidney stones. As they rolled further south and east, prevalence increased. Men in North Carolina, for example, had an almost three times greater risk of developing kidney stones than men in North Dakota. At first glance, this map-based lottery seems strange and perhaps a little unfair. However, it makes more sense when the weather is taken into account. People living in hotter climes are likely to sweat more, so it follows that they are also more likely to be dehydrated. And, being chronically dehydrated is a well-established risk factor for kidney stones. But according to the authors of the latest study, temperature cannot be the only vagabond on the rocky road to internal stones. As they explain: [H]igher temperature does not fully account for the stone belt phenomenon. If temperature alone was the primary environmental driving factor, the American Southwest should have a similar stone prevalence to the Southeast. And it doesnt, so researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine in California set out to investigate another climate-based factor: precipitation. The results were recently published in the Journal of Endourology. To test their theory, the researchers concentrated on the good folk of California, which is a state with a particularly varied climate. They dived into data from the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development databases. They perused the facts and figures of 63,994 people who underwent kidney stone procedures in the state in 20102012. They also gathered climate information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each participants ZIP code was available, allowing the team to pinpoint their location and identify what sort of weather they were likely to experience. Once the numbers had been crunched, their hunch turned out to be spot on. Although the effect was relatively small, it remained significant even after controlling for factors such as sex, age, and the prevalence of obesity and diabetes. They found that for every additional inch of rain, there were an extra 0.019 surgeries per 1,000 people. Likewise, each degree Fahrenheit increase in mean temperature caused an additional 0.029 surgeries per 1,000 people.
A new study has demonstrated that older adults who experience obstructive sleep apnea may be at increased risk of Alzheimers disease. This is because they exhibit higher levels of amyloid beta, the chief component of the amyloid plaques that characterize the disease.

Share on Pinterest What is the link between sleep apnea and neurodegenerative conditions? Researchers investigate.

Obstructive sleep apnea is characterized by the occasional inability to breathe while asleep, due to a collapse of the airway. This may cause the sleeper to wake up repeatedly during the night whenever breathing becomes difficult, resulting in disturbed sleep patterns.

Recent data suggest that in the United States, the prevalence of this disorder is around 34 percent for men and 17 percent for women, which makes it a fairly common health issue. However, specialists say that in up to 80 percent of cases, the condition remains undiagnosed.

Tied with a large number of negative health outcomes  including heightened risk of heart attack and type 2 diabetes  obstructive sleep apnea may also be linked to an increased risk of Alzheimers disease in the older population, new research suggests.

The new study, which was published yesterday in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, shows that older people affected by obstructive sleep apnea have higher levels of amyloid beta, the peptides involved in the brain plaque buildup that is characteristic of Alzheimers disease.

Several studies have suggested that sleep disturbances might contribute to amyloid deposits and accelerate cognitive decline in those at risk for [Alzheimers disease], explains senior author Dr. Ricardo S. Osorio, from the New York University School of Medicine in New York City.

However, he continues, so far it has been challenging to verify causality for these associations because [obstructive sleep apnea] and [Alzheimers disease] share risk factors and commonly coexist.
A new study out this week claims that wounds that occur at night take 60 percent longer to heal than those sustained during the day. I disagree with this interpretation. Share on Pinterest Do wounds really heal faster if they happen during the daytime? A study conducted by Nathaniel P. Hoyle, Ph.D.  from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge in the United Kingdom  and his colleagues and published on Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine reports that some of the cells resident in our skin are under the influence of circadian rhythms. As part of the work, the team analyzed data from the International Burn Injury Database to see whether or not the same applies to healing times in human burns. They report that in a subset of burn cases, those sustained between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. took 60 percent longer to heal than burns that occurred between 8 a.m and 8 p.m. The story has been picked up by other news outlets, but I think these claims are unsubstantiated and misleading. Here is why.

Burn patient data Dr. Hoyle and his colleagues used data from major burn units in England and Wales from 2012 to 2015. The inclusion criteria were people aged 18 to 60 with a body mass index (BMI) between 20 and 30, who had been admitted to the emergency room because of their burn injury. Data from patients with any previous diseases or those who had received a skin graft were excluded. In this subset of patients, Dr. Hoyle found a significant difference in the time it took for 95 percent of each burn to heal when he compared 75 daytime burns with 43 night-time ones. We observed an about 60 percent decrease in healing time when burns occurred during the night compared with during the day, he writes in the paper. Senior study author John ONeill, Ph.D., comments on the significance of the findings in a press release. It may be, he says, that healing time could be improved by resetting the cells clocks prior to surgery, perhaps by applying drugs that can reset the biological clock to the time of best healing in the operation site. The main issue is that burns occur in individuals of all ages, all sizes, and those with underlying conditions. The burns themselves also come in all different shapes and sizes, and there are no data here to indicate the size of each burn. But size matters when it comes to wound healing times. The other problem is the exclusion of burns that received skin grafts.

Deep vs. superficial burns Skin grafts are used when a burn is not likely to heal by itself. This is the case for deep burns and large burns. I asked Dr. Hoyle why he and his team decided to leave out data from patients with skin grafts. He said, [W]e excluded skin grafts because it would affect how well the wound heals dramatically and we wanted the burns to have been treated, more or less, in the similar way. Including both grafted and ungrafted wounds would have massively increased variability. Here is the crux of the problem: by looking at a subset of the available data, it is impossible to make a sweeping statement about burns or wounds in general. I spoke to Dr. Baljit Dheansa  who is Lead Surgeon for Burns at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead in the U.K.  about the study. In his opinion, [S]ome of the data relating to burns in humans is not detailed enough to make any conclusion, as the variation in burn size or depth is too great [] we cannot say if we really are comparing like with like. I advise caution in interpreting such data and suggest that much more detailed analysis is performed before making any conclusions, he added. So, what exactly did the study find, and what are the implications on wound healing?

Cell behavior influenced by circadian clock The fact that fibroblasts  or the main cell type in the dermis, the deeper layer in our skin  are influenced by circadian rhythms is not new. The big question is whether or not this control is exerted by the cells themselves, and how this affects their behavior. Dr. Hoyle and colleagues therefore started with a proteomics screen, using fibroblasts from mice genetically engineered to carry reporters for the circadian clock. This allowed the researchers to synchronize the cells to a 24-hour rhythm. The results showed that actin dynamics were under the control of the circadian clock. Actin is a key component of the cytoskeleton, which maintains a cells structural integrity. Actin is also essential for cell movement, which, in turn, is essential for wound healing. Dr. Hoyle summarized the teams approach, saying, Our work built up from molecular biological foundations  a hypothesis-free proteomics screen in fibroblasts. So incrementally we could make clear predictions at each step as we moved up the complexity scale. First, actin would be rhythmic due to rhythmic actin regulator abundance, second that cells would therefore have rhythmic motility, and finally that wound healing would be rhythmic. Nathaniel P. Hoyle, Ph.D.

Fibroblasts in wound healing After an injury to the skin, fibroblasts multiply and migrate to the injury site to fill the void left by the lost tissue. Here, they produce collagen to make new connective tissue. Using their cell model, Dr. Hoyle shows that wounds made to a layer of fibroblasts in a petri dish, by scratching away a corridor of cells, heal faster when the cells are in their active circadian state. This is a classic wound healing experiment called a scratch assay. When I say that the wounds healed faster, what I mean is that the cell migrated to close the empty corridor more quickly. But there is a big difference between how an artificial wound behaves in a petri dish and what happens in the human body. To test his findings in living organisms, Dr. Hoyle used mice. Here, he saw that fibroblasts migrated faster during the first 2 days after wounds were made. These results are very interesting and clearly show that the circadian clock plays a role in how fibroblasts behave in the laboratory and in mice during the early stages of wound healing. But does this really indicate that human wounds heal faster when they occur during the day?
New research suggests that the diversity of bugs that live in our homes  such as insects, spiders, and other such arthropods  is more likely to be influenced by access to the outdoors than by our habits and lifestyles.

Share on Pinterest A new study has found that arthropods prefer carpeted rooms and those with access to the outdoors.

A report on the study  led by a team from California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco  was published recently in the journal Scientific Reports.

Bugs have been cohabiting with humans ever since they started living indoors some 20,000 years ago. And, while the idea may not appeal to us, the presence of these uninvited residents may have an important, if indirect, effect on our health.

A growing body of evidence suggests some modern ailments are connected with our lack of exposure to wider biological diversity, particularly microorganisms, notes senior study author Dr. Michelle Trautwein, of the California Academy of Sciences. She adds that insects may play a role in hosting and spreading that microbial diversity indoors.

In the United States, people spend around 87 percent of their time inside buildings. They share this environment with thousands of species of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes, as well as hundreds of species of arthropods, or joint-legged creatures, such as insects, spiders, millipedes, and mites.

We are only just beginning to fathom this vast indoor ecosystem and the extent to which it reflects the outdoor ecosystem, the features of the home or building, and the habits of the humans inside.

With a view to discovering implications for health and disease, so far, the research has focused mainly on the microbial communities.
Though Greg Holland turned down his $15MM player option and will also reject his $17.4MM qualifying offer, its not yet a foregone conclusion that his Denver days are in the past, writes FanRags Jon Heyman. The Rockies believe that Holland is the right leader for their young pitching staff and will seek to re-sign him to a more lucrative multi-year offer, per Heyman. They will, of course, face a fair bit of competition in that pursuit. Heyman lists the Cubs and Cardinals as teams that will possibly be in the market for Holland this offseason as well.

A few more early notes on the free agent market
Lifestyle celebrity and only Nigerian Self acclaimed male Barbie doll, Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, has been arrested in Lagos.

Bobrisky was said to be arrested at Lekki on Tuesday.

The news of Bobriskys arrests has set the social media abuzz since Tuesday as it was reported that the Nigerian male Barbie doll admitted to being a gay.

While different reasons have been given as to why Bobrisky was allegedly arrested, the two notable ones are those that said he admitted in a tweet on social media that he is gay.

The second reason given was that Bobriskys arrest was linked to a social media war he had with entrepreneur, Toyin Lawani.

But Toyin Lawani, was quick to deny she has anything to do with Bobriskys arrest. She made the denial through her assistant. Please she has nothing to do with that. You people should stop linking her to it.

If it turns out he is guilty, then Bobrisky would be facing an offense for which he would spend 14 years in prison.

Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Famous Cole, was said to have said he is not aware of the arrest but said maybe Bobrisky was invited for questioning.

Im not aware of such arrest at the moment. Maybe he was invited for questioning or he went voluntarily to make a complaint.

Bobrisky had written thus on social media:

All this house boys and girls coming to drop comment on page are you all stupid? Do you think your hate comments can change me? Why are you trying so hard to get my attention?

F**k off my page, and go and find something meaningful to do with your life. Just this morning I have mad up to 750,000 hustle still continue. You are here wasting your mb on someone else life style.

If all your insult bothered me, I should have stopped posting here. Yes am gay, I will go to hell fire. Thanks. Please what else? Am tired of that same words. I wanna hear something new. Cheers.

F**k celebrity, f**k fake friends, f**k haters. Live your life to please yourself not anybody. If u like have 1billion followers I careless about that. Michael Jackson was d top world celebrity den with so much followers.
Dancehall artiste Michael Okine, popularly referred to Jupiter in showbiz, is alleging the media favours some artistes above him.

Jupitar, who claims to have just returned from Red Bull Culture Clash in South Africa expressed worry that not many media houses reported his exploits as the only Ghanaian featured on that bill.

The show according to him, also featured Nigerias Patoraking and Davido, South African rapper Nasty C, Jamaican Reggae/Dancehall act Beenie Man and many others across the globe.

I believe media houses have their favourites. That one is too real, thats the reality and thats a fact, he said.

He told Joy News MzGee that, Over the years so many artistes have reigned, many have had their chances. They did so well in the industry and counting from then till now, any artiste that will be on top from Kojo Antwis time to Daddy Lumbas, Obrafour, Sarkodie and now Shatta Wale, when there is an artiste reigning what majority of the media normally do is they concentrate more on the artiste.

The Enemies hitmaker has bagged another feat as the only Ghanaian nominee for the 2017 edition of the Urban Music Awards in the UK slated for the November 30.

The video for his single Clown released in January is in the Best Video of the Year category.

Jupitar has also been nominated alongside Nigerias Wizkid, Mr. Eazi, Tekno, Tiwa Savage, Yemi Alade and many others from other African countries in the Artist of the Year category.

He, however, would not mention which artiste has been favoured by the media over him.

I dont want to point fingers or put out some names which might be a problem. I know mostly people find diverse ways of understanding what we say. It might end up looking like you are envying somebody, he said.

Jupitar is, however, relying on his fans and well-meaning Ghanaians to win the award.
Fast-rising Ghanaian musician, Fatau Keita, has been invited to participate in this year's edition of the Best Instrumentalists of Africa Festival (MIA) slated to take place from November 29 to December 2 in Cotonou, Benin.

Tagged as one of the biggest music festivals in West Africa, the festival which is aimed at promoting and celebrating African instrumentalists will bring together instrumentalists from Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Madagascar, Swaziland, Kenya, Morocco, Tanzania, among others to compete for various prizes.

The annual event is also expected to attract hundreds of music producers, artiste managers and journalists from around the continent.

Traditional musician Fatau Keita, who will represent Ghana at the festival, is among some selected Africa musicians billed to rock the stage during the festival. The Ghanaian musician earned the nod to represent Ghana through a fiercely contested balloting.

Fatau Keita, who is among a few Ghanaian musicians who uses the traditional instrument in composing his lyrics, has promised to use the festival to promote Ghanaian music and culture, as well as showcase his great talent and stagecraft.

With one album titled 'Selina' and a number of singles to his credit, Keita's music is a blend of traditional Dagomba styles with highlife.

The musician takes inspiration from African musical heroes like Salif Keita, Youssou N'Dour, Angelique Kidjo and Fela Kuti.

During the 2014 edition of the festival, Ghana popular guitarist, Akablay of Abiza Band, was honoured with the best guitarist trophy at the festival.

The following year (2015), two Ghanaians  percussionist Abigail Narkie Teye of the Women of Colour Band, led by Della Hayes, and keyboardist Opoku Mensa  won the top prizes in the traditional instrument and keyboards categories respectively.

By George Clifford Owusu
Actress Portia de Rossi has accused actor and producer Steven Seagal of sexual harassment.

The Arrested Development actress, who is married to US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, made the allegation in a tweet posted on Wednesday night.

She alleges that during a film audition Mr Seagal told her "how important it was to have chemistry off-screen" before unzipping his trousers.

Mr Seagal's manager told BBC News that the actor had no comment.

The 65-year-old is best known for his action roles during the 1980s and 1990s, including Under Siege and Flight of Fury. He was given Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin in 2016 .

Several other women have come forward to accuse Mr Seagal of inappropriate behaviour and harassment, including the Good Wife actress Julianna Margulies and model Jenny McCarthy.

He is the latest person in Hollywood to stand accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault after women began coming forward about producer Harvey Weinstein .

Harvey Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex made against him.

Steven Seagal has bonded with the Russian president over martial arts

In the tweet, Ms de Rossi said her complaints about Mr Seagal's behaviour were dismissed at the time by her agent.

She did not specify which movie the audition was for, or in which year the incident allegedly happened.

The Australian-American actress has been married to television host Ellen DeGeneres for nine years.

Ms DeGeneres shared Ms de Rossi's tweet with her 75 million followers on Thursday with the caption: "I am proud of my wife".
10.11.2017 LISTEN

The MTN Ghana Foundation has supported the Assistive Technology Unit of the University of Ghana with modern equipment to create opportunity for students with special needs.

The donation, worth GH 217,000, would help promote the independence of the over 2,000 students with special needs and also address their quest for special assistance in pursuing their studies.

The donation include: a Prodigy Desktop, a Sara Scanner, a projector, projector screen, three handheld Magnifiers, SMA for Jaws, three external hard drives, a Braille printer, five laptops, a LaserJet printer and 15 computers.

Mr Samuel Koranteng, the Acting Corporate Services Executive, MTN, said education was one of the critical areas of Ghana's socio-economic development agenda and that the MTN Ghana Foundation had over the years invested in projects aimed at promoting the sector.

He said the Foundation had implemented over 80 educational projects across the country, which includes the construction of school blocks, renovating and furnishing school blocks, libraries with free Internet connectivity as well as initiating teacher empowerment programmes to enhance education.

Mr Koranteng said the event was very special to the MTN Ghana Foundation, as it would help the students with special educational needs to reach their full potentials in school as they mark their 10th anniversary.

He said the Foundation since its inception, had been instrumental in national development by supporting and initiating projects in communities across Ghana and had therefore chosen the theme 'Celebrating Ten Years of Brightening Lives, Inspiring a Brighter Future,' for the anniversary.

'In a space of 10 years, the Foundation has implemented over 142 projects in the areas of health, education and economic empowerment at the total cost of over $13.3 million.

The Foundation believes that it is the right of every Ghanaian to have access to education and we are happy to be giving more Ghanaians the chance to a better education,' he added.

Mr Koranteng expressed gratitude to the Assistive Unit and the university's authorities for their cooperation.

Mr Emmanuel Baidoo, who read a speech on behalf of the Registrar, University of Ghana, congratulated the MTN Foundation for the good work done, adding that 'the institution would continue to provide equal opportunities to all students and workers for the promotion of effective teaching, learning and research.'

He said the significance of ICT in the life of any individual with disability in today's world cannot be over emphasized as it had come to serve as a major gap-bridging tool between persons with disability and able persons.

He appealed to the corporate world to support the unit and the office of students with special needs.

Mr Fareed Gombilla, a visually impaired Level 400 Political Science Student, also expressed gratitude to MTN for the support, which would enhance their education.

He appealed for more assistive devises to enable them to meet global standards, as well as making available some of these tools at the work places to enhance their output.

GNA

By Samira Larbie, GNA
10.11.2017 LISTEN

The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Ghana (EFG), organisers of 'Made in Ghana Awards and Business Quality Awards' on Thursday, announced the top 25 best quality Made in Ghana products as the world marks World Quality Day.

A statement issued in Accra by the Foundation and copied to the Ghana News Agency said the EFG conducted a survey to ask Ghanaian consumers for their opinion on the best award winning quality made in Ghana products, which were winning their hearts, minds and wallets.

The statement said the non-ranking list showed not just products which have name recognitions, but the ones truly resonating in the marketplace.

Among the top best quality made in Ghana products in alphabetical order are; Artilin 3A Mate Insecticide paint, Beatex Old Soldier Mosquito Coil, Chocho Herbal Fresh Soap, Duraplast Watatank, Everpack Toilet Roll, Fan Ice Cream, Ghandour Princess Cocoa Butter, GTP Wax Print, GIHOC Mandingo Bitters, Interplast uPVC Pressure pipe, KANE -EM Pet Bottle, Kasapreko Alomo Bitters, Latex Foam Orthopaedic Mattress.

The rest are; M & G Zintab 10 & 20 mg, Malta Guinness, Margins ID Security Cards, Medi Moses Prostacure, Mohinani Poly Tank, Neat Fufu powder, Nestle Milo, Qualiplast Waste Bins, Unilever OMO washing Powder, Samba Shito, Special Ice Mineral Water and Taabea Herbal Mixture.

The United Nations first introduced the World Quality Day in the year 1990 to increase awareness of the important role quality plays in securing nations prosperity and it is celebrated every year around the world on November 9.

According to the statement, World Quality Day is a perfect day to get people talking about quality, and the value it adds to businesses.

The day was designed to increase worldwide awareness of the important contribution that quality makes towards both organisational and national growth.

The statement said EFG introduced the 'Top 25 best Quality Made in Ghana Products' initiative to promote the use of quality and the adoption of effective quality management methodologies by Ghanaian enterprises in improving industrial competitiveness.

'This initiative will be an annual compilation of the Top 25 best quality Made in Ghana products in Ghana to commemorate World Quality Day,' the statement said.

GNA

By Julius K. Satsi, GNA
10.11.2017 LISTEN

A-four member Audit Committee for the Controller and Accountant - General's Department (CAGD) was inaugurated with a call on members to take interest in the implementation of risks management strategies.

Mr Ken Ofori Atta, Minister of Finance, in a speech read on his behalf, also urged the members to particularly pay attention in evaluating and assessing the CAGD's top management's commitments in the implementation of good corporate governance framework.

He said it was important for the Committee to ensure that the Internal Audit Division of the Department was functional and effective.

Ms Elsie Bunyan, Former Director of Audit at Ghana Exim Bank, heads the four-member committee, comprising Mr Nathan Yankey, Mr Osbert Alex Kwaku Dey and Mr Kwasi Owusu.

The Committee is tasked to support Management of CAGD to meet the financial management reforms under the Public Financial Management (PFM) Act, 2016 (Act 921).

It is also expected to provide the necessary assistance to the management of CAGD in the implementation of any recommendation contain in an Internal Audit Report, Parliament's decision on the Auditor-General's Report, Auditor-General's Management Letter and the report of an Internal Monitoring Unit in the Department.

Mr Offori Atta, therefore, urged the members to be independent, firm and committed in the discharge of their duties and to be guided always by the tenets of the PFM Act as well as sound business insight of the CAGD.

He also urged CAGD management to ensure that an Internal Audit Office was made effective, properly resourced with adequate capacity to meet the requirements of implementing an efficient risks management strategy.

'In that vein financial resources must be arranged and properly mobilised to ensure CAGD internal audit capacity is strengthened with system of internal control built and fully implemented ... the CAGD Management must make resources available to the Audit Committee to enable it effectively carry out their mandate in the interest of Mother Ghana,' he added.

Mr Eugene Ofosuhene, the Controller and Accountant-General, said their expectation was that the Committee would work assiduously to support Management to carry out its responsibilities with regard to the implementation of the audit recommendations and related risks management issues.

'I can assure you all that Management is committed to supporting the Committee to discharge its mandates,' he added.

Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo, the Auditor-General, congratulated the members and reminded them that it was their collective responsibility to ensure the judicious use of public funds.

He said payroll and pensions have lots of challenges and the Auditor-General's office would soon roll out measures to clean the system.

Mr Domelevo emphasised the need for the Finance Ministry to facilitate the statutory regulations to back the mandate of the Audit Committee.

He said though as a country, 'we're progressing, it's good to progress within the ambit of the law'.

Mr Dey, on behalf of the Committee Members, thanked the government for the confidence reposed in them and assured the Committee's commitment to assist the CAGD.

Mr Ransford Adjei, the Acting Director-General of Internal Audit Agency, urged members to work with integrity, honesty and competence, and also abreast themselves with the PFM Act.

GNA

By Patience Gbeze/Julius K. Satsi, GNA
10.11.2017 LISTEN

Mr Ron Strikker, the Netherlands Ambassador to Ghana, has commended the GhanaVeg Programme for the efforts made that led to the lifting of the European Union ban on the export of the commodity to the EU market.

He said it has been the combined efforts of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Service Department (PPRSD) and coordinated support from several development partners.

Mr Strikker was speaking at the GhanaVeg Programme Agronomy Field Day and exhibit in Accra, where farmers were educated on how to apply specific types of fertilizers on certain crops on their farmers.

The EU in a release said exporters could resume export of all plant commodities to the European Union (EU) market from January 1st, 2018, following the European Commission's decision on October 31, to lift the current ban on commodities from Ghana.

The five identified plants are chilli pepper, bottle gourds, luffa gourds, bitter gourds and eggplants.

He called on stakeholders to continue to support farmers in promoting good hygienic conditions to enable more produces enter the EU market.

'It is good news for farmers with the lifting of the ban,' he said.

Mrs Sheila Assibey-Yeboah, Deputy Programme Leader of GhanaVeg, told the Ghana News Agency that the lifting of the ban was good news for stakeholders in the vegetable value chain.

'We are grateful to all, who coordinated efforts to support farmers in doing the right thing for the ban to be lifted,' she said.

She said the challenge ahead was even greater and a lot of work needed to be done to maintain the standards.

Mrs Assibey-Yeboah said the EU were constantly changing the directives of doing things and farmers, exporters and stakeholders needed to be abreast with some of the changes.

She commended the Netherlands government for the support of their flagship programme; GhanaVeg programme.

She said efforts at educating farmers on proper hygienic environment on their farms have really gone down well with them.

'Farmers should endeavour to spend a little bit more in doing the right and adhere to quality standards,' she said.

GNA

By Morkporkpor Anku, GNA
Equatorial Guinea will vote in parliamentary elections on Sunday where the opposition, facing many hurdles but buoyed by rallies, is hoping for a breakthrough at the expense of the ruling party.

The election is widely expected to be dominated by the party of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader, who has ruled the tiny oil-rich nation for 37 years.

His Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) controls 99 percent of the seats in parliament, over which it has held sway since single-party rule was scrapped in 1991.

But opposition parties hope to make gains, even if they say they have no access to state media, which regularly broadcasts campaign ads by the PDGE and whose news broadcasts only cover meetings by the president's part.

Internet is widely censored in the country, opposition websites have been blocked since 2013, and Facebook has been blocked since the official start of the election campaign on October 27.

Rising party?

One party in particular, Citizens for Innovation (CI), has generated a buzz in Malabo, the capital. It has never taken part in elections but its rallies typically draw thousands of supporters.

"We will contest 97 percent of seats so if the elections are free, and with the popularity enjoyed by our party, we hope to win the elections," said party leader Gabriel Nse Obiang, a former army lieutenant who has returned to the country after 13 years' exile in Spain.

He was barred from contesting presidential elections in 2016 as he had not lived in the country for five consecutive years -- and was excluded from Sunday's ballot too after being sentenced to six months' jail for "serious insults" against the ruling party and banned from all political activity.

CI said some of its candidates were arrested and supporters injured in clashes with police on Sunday in Aconibe when police tried to prevent a campaign motorcade from attending a scheduled rally. Several police were hurt, it said.

Equatorial Guinea has frequently come under fire from human rights groups for suppressing dissident voices and the media, as well as widespread corruption.

The president's son, Teodorin Obiang, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence in France last month for plundering tens of millions of dollars in public money to buy luxury homes and cars, a landmark ruling which he is set to appeal.

The former Spanish colony, which borders Cameroon and Gabon, is one of sub-Sahara's biggest oil producers but a large proportion of the 1.2 million population still lives in poverty.

Weaker economy

Opposition parties hope to take advantage of a weakening economy that has been impacted by falling oil prices.

"These elections (are) an opportunity for the people who suffer from misery, unemployment, poverty, disease and injustice because of the regime... to take their destiny into their own hands," said Andres Esono Ondo, secretary general of the Convergence for Social Democracy.

The ruling PDGE is confident of winning the election though and is promising to introduce free primary education if returned to power.

The party is "the most firmly established in the country through its dynamism and its capacity to take of public affairs," PDGE member Martin Ela Ondo told AFP.

Around 300,000 people are eligible to take part in the elections, which will choose 100 MPs and 75 senators as well as the mayors of Malebo, the country's political capital, and Bata, its economic hub.
The MTN Ghana Foundation, as part of its 10th anniversary celebration has equipped the Assistive Technology Unit of the University of Ghana with modern Information Communication Technology (ICT) equipment, worth Gh 217,000.

The foundation at a ceremony held at the University of Ghana Campus handed over fifteen computers, five laptops, three Handheld Magnifiers, three External Hard Drives, a Prodigy Desktop, Braille Printer, SMA for Jaws, LaserJet, a Projector and Projector Screen to authorities at the Assistive Technology Unit.

The project is expected to create an opportunity for over 2000 students with special cases (physically challenged), to study with ease and decrease their quest for special assistance in pursuing their studies.

Acting Corporate Service Executive, Mr. Samuel Koranteng in his speech said; todays program is very special to the MTN Ghana Foundation because apart from making it possible for the students with special educational needs to reach their full potentials in schools, todays program is part of activities marking the 10th Anniversary of MTN Ghana Foundation.

He added that; todays handing over ceremony signifies a mark of strong will, determination and commitment to creating a brighter world and making lives a whole lot better, he added.

The MTN Ghana Foundation was established in 2007 and for the past ten years, the foundation has implemented over 142 projects in the areas of health, education and economic empowerment at a cost of over USD $13 million.

Theses Projects has impacted over four million people in Ghana. The theme for the 10th Anniversary is Celebrating ten years of brightening lives, inspiring a brighter future.

On his part, a representative of the University of Ghana, Mr. Alexander Bakole William observed that, the significance of information technology in the life of any person with disability in todays world cannot be over emphasized.

Persons with disability today are able to make use of various forms of technology interventions to enable the individual to accomplish from basic to complex task just as a non-disable person with the aid of what is generally known as Assistive Technology.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite coordinated position identification system that recognizes ones location or the location of objects and their inter-relations. Using the GPS system, a person or an objects position could be identified and per its relationship with everything else, it is possible to direct another entity to the former or vice versa. That being said, within some margin of error, it will be difficult if not impossible for anyone or anything to be hidden.

The Ghana Digital Address System is Ghanas open gate to the world of digital surveillance. This article will seek to outline the process by which an accurate data could be obtained for Ghana and ensure the robust assimilation of this system on a global scale. The writer might take some liberty and swing some security concerns with respect to an understanding of intelligence and its interest in such a huge undertaking.

Lets consider the system as it is currently: Users are required to download the GPS app and enter name (1st and last names) and phone number for verification. Of course the location service on the phone must be turned on for access and accuracy. The system divides the Ghanaian landscape into a 5m*5m squares, each of which has a unique digital address in codes. This allows the system to identify ones location within 3m radius accuracy.

Therefore, in order for one to be located, they must first and foremost know their own digital address, acquired from their unique code on the app, and then share it with whomever requires directions to the former. The outline above is basically the general pseudocode of the GhanaPostGPS app though the algorithm might be a little more sophisticated.

Before anyone praises or apostrophizes the creation and launching of this app, kindly pull your phone, download google earth or apple map, waze or even google maps and see if such a digital code does not already exist on these apps with even better accuracy.

How would I have Designed this had I been the brain behind GhanaPostGPS?

1: All Properties, as a task of the Ghana Lands Commission and Surveyors or GIS engineers so employed, will be re-addressed in the following manner:

i: All Streets are accurately named, What used to be the block/plot numbering system (outdated as it is) will turn into Streets, Roads, Avenues, Courts, Lanes etc.

ii: Each street name must reflect the history of the community, absorbing the collective history of Ghana and leaders within those communities whose contribution to its growth are accurately documented.

iii: All allotted plots are given numbers beginning from the start of the street name and numbered till the end of that street.

iv: The streets and Properties thus named, A 3D digital camera, mounted on a vehicle can be used to take photographs of the properties and used for street views. Satellite images will supplement the global purview of the app.

2: This being done, the GhanaPostGPS app can now make more sense. Thus the 5m *5m square division of the landscape can now add an algorithm that accommodates the plot sizes of allocated properties. Each plot is therefore going to fall within 20 by 20 or so of the 5m*5m squares. Hence a plot say :Plot 18 Block C, Adenyase( Sawaba) Kumasi Ghana will now be say: 700 Sakafiya Lane, Adenyase, Kumasi, Ghana. Or the same address could otherwise be 700 Sakafiya Street, Adenyase, Kumasi. It can be interpreted as the 7th building on the Sakafiya Lane or Street, as named, and the 00 is just to accommodate any future possibilities of turning the current housing structure into apartments like is extant in global housing structures.

It must be mentioned as a matter of fact that the 5m*5m square landscape division is an unnecessary complication that was possibly used to evade the possible mention that there was plagiary in the design of the app. The global landscape is already marked and accurately so by longitudes and latitudes of which each stretch of land already falls points within such demarkations. All we needed to do was to appropriately name the streets and and number our plots and the rest would have been a historic leap.

Lets up our game as a nation. We can do better.

As promised, the writer would here put in a note on intelligence gathering of data under the guise of service to our people. There is no need for an apps user to register his name and phone number for verification purposes unless a security need was required. What will the captured data be used for and by whom? For what and Why? How would such data be utilized by the developers of the app, the NCA and the National Security Agency? Intelligence is all about information gathering, synthesis, analysis and utilization.

The types of Data required for the creation of intelligent business environment and formal business economy for Ghana would not in anyway be feasible with the current app. To create such an environment, requires the capturing of the biometric data of every Ghanaian, unique personal identifiers: unique ID number marching biometrics and the physical address generated above.

How can the system help Ghana

With the New Addressing system so designed, Ghana Postal Services will be revitalized, commerce will be enhanced and business will have enough incentives trade globally and receive door-to-door mail service. It must be mentioned that the courier service is a multi-billion dollar industry if rightly structured. Banks and financial institutions will then have confidence to trust holdings and loans upon citizens without fear of losses. All other communicated benefits as mentioned by the Minister of communications will then be feasible.

The national Identification programs will also benefit immensely with this noble undertaken.

By Sadick Abubakar

United African Congress Inc.

USA

[email protected]
10.11.2017 LISTEN

My main task in this piece is to answer the question: Why is it difficult and sometimes dangerous to be an atheist in Africa? In answering this question, I outline the risks and difficulties that non theists face and how they play out in everyday life. I draw from the experiences of atheists in Nigeria, Ghana, and Zambia in answering this question and in supplying materials for further discussion and reflection.

Atheists across Africa face personal, social, economic, state and organizational challenges.

Personal Challenges: What kind of atheist to be.

As individuals, atheists grapple with the fact of their unbelief, their realization that there is no god. Atheists struggle to come to terms with their disbelief in a deity. This struggle entails deciding where and when to take a stand and how to come out as a disbeliever in god. Atheists grapple with whether to maintain a strictly non-theistic stand or entertaining a sit-on-the-fence, agnostic, may-be-there-could-be-some-god-out-there approach. Many atheists often have to confront the challenge of what kind of atheist to be-a closeted atheist or an atheist in the open; an atheist activist, who is assertive of his or her rights or a passive one who does not want to rock the theistic boat or ruffle theistic feathers in any way. For those living in a very intense religious environment, this personal challenge is often designated as a crisis of faith. Atheists experience this crisis not really because faith in god makes a more compelling case for truth, meaning and morality but because atheism has social implications.

Social Challenges: What Will they say? What will they do?

Human beings are social beings and their behaviours have social angles. In addition to their personal challenges, atheists contend with possible reactions of their family and community members, that is, what family members and friends would say and their other responses to their atheism. This is actually where atheists encounter much of the risks and dangers-that is how the society judges or treats them. To illustrate this point, a comment that was posted on the face book page of a Ghanaian atheist, G.A (14 October 2019) is quite appropriate. He said:

Ive been told before that my atheism is a show off. To be honest, being atheist in this country is painful. It means being at war all the time. It means standing against family, risking the support or being primed to lose that support at any moment for your worldview. Atheism means the social comfort that the church gives to others is out of reach for you. Add Feminism your position and things gets even tense (sic), you are threatening the very foundation of the patriarchal family structure. You now not only have to fight for yourself but with and for women whom the structure oppresses. If you are a humanist on top of that, now youve taken it to another level, your solidarity with LGBTIQ people now makes you a clear enemy to everyone around you who would have been a friend, brother or sister.

Truth be told, Atheism/Humanism/Feminism is a costly thing in our current social environment. It is only fun when youre with like-minded folks, otherwise you have to be fighting at many fronts at all times.

As this quotation shows, atheists deal with the social costs of their atheism. And as GA noted, the response from the social is a form of war, a painful social fight at different fronts that may likely destroy the base of ones support or comfort. This social assault comes in different forms.

Atheism: A Form of Sickness?

In some cases, embracing atheism is equated to some psychological problem or crisis. A friend of a Nigerian atheist, the Northern Atheist (N.A) posted this message online:

Recently I added the acclaimed Northern Atheist, on my friends list. In fact, I requested for the friendship. So far I found two things intriguing: First is the way people condemn him whenever he makes post that violates their system of belief, which I find really funny. But I understand why (or so I think). He was once their own. Now they cannot contain the reality of him being on the other side of the coin. The second thing I have learned from his posts, so far, is the conflict between conscious(sic) and ego. Instead of the dude to concentrate on preaching what he practices and calling upon people to the salvation that freedom offers, he resorts to ridiculing other peoples system of belief, which is tantamount to denying/questioning their choice (read freedom) of worship. Thats not even the point I am trying to make. What I have realized about N.A is that he is in a very difficult situation. His knowledge (read consciousness) of God (Allah in this case) on one and his egoistic self on the other put him in a situation of conflicting resurgence of a problematic. He cannot denounce his announcement of not believing in God just like he cannot free himself from the nagging awareness of His existence. Thats what I have learned so far. I may be wrong.

As you can see, even though this friend of the N.A added that he could be wrong, the sentiment captures a widespread reaction, that is a pathological framing of atheism. Friends and family members respond when a person comes out as an atheist thinking that ones declaration of atheism is a symptom of sickness. An atheist is seen as somebody who is out of his or her mind. People react by thinking that a person becomes an atheist due to some frustration, disappointment, difficult situation or a conflicting resurgence (whatever that means). They think that one must be mentally sick to say that there is no God. And as suggested in the quotation, one sign of this mental illness is ridiculing other peoples system of belief.

Some years ago atheists in Nigeria witnessed a situation where family members of the N.A took him to a mental hospital after he renounced Islam. Many people had wondered why relatives could take such a measure in reaction to ones renunciation of Islam. A way to explain this psychiatric interpretation of atheism, Islamic atheism, is that the family members in question had considered this step, that is taking him to a mental hospital, as a form of care and rehabilitation, as a way of correcting the maladjustment. Their thinking is that atheism is of no benefit at all in this world and in the next. After all, the penalty for apostasy under sharia is death in this world and hell fire in the hereafter. So they had wondered how anyone in his or her right state of mind could embrace atheism. And the Christian Bible puts it a bit differently in Psalm 14:1 that the fool has said in his heart that there is no God.

Interestingly a psychiatric interpretation of atheism is well known and get often alluded to, but there is a dearth of similar explanations of religious behaviours such as speaking in tongues, divine revelations, receiving prophecies and communication with the gods, throwing stones at the devil in Mecca etc. Unfortunately, attempts to provide such insights are often misunderstood or better resisted, violently resisted. Part of the social challenge to atheism is that atheistic expressions are deemed haram (forbidden); efforts to highlight absurd religious and theistic beliefs are often seen as insulting the religious gods and prophets, and a serious offence. Meanwhile theistic faith traditions are filled with narratives that ridicule atheism and unbelief, and equate atheists to fools, to psychiatric patients and also to criminals. In fact theistic traditions impose economic costs on unbelief.

Economic Challenges: How to survive as an atheist

Atheists often wrestle with how they will survive after going open with their unbelief. This is a serious concern because one way that theism legitimizes itself is by undermining the economy of atheism, by defunding unbelief, and yes, by monopolizing the belief market and capital. Put differently, theistic religions try to put atheism out of business. As noted by G.A. embracing atheism has socio-economic implications. The decision could lead to the destruction of ones means of livelihood, loss of job, and business opportunities. Part of the personal crisis that atheists experience is weighing the costs, the economic costs, of their atheism; the impact that unbelief could have on their lives, future and survival. A campus organiser in Ibadan told me sometime ago that freethought was not marketable as he explained his inability to get other students to join his group.

This concern is vital because given the harsh economic realities in the region, few atheists are ready to risk or jeopardize their means of livelihood-jobs and businesses. Many do not want to lose the support that they are receiving from their family members especially if they are still dependants  students or unemployed or the aged. In this case many atheists end up not believing but still belonging to faith organisations. They attend and participate in the church or mosque activities of that rich uncle or that in-law who lives abroad and sends money to support the family. They belong as a way of ensuring the continued flow of support, and their economic survival.

Many atheists do not want to lose their jobs or their customers. They teach in schools where they are forced to lead in morning devotions. Some atheists work with governments that observe national days of prayer and as civil servants they attend or coordinate these state functions. Some atheists work in banks and in others firms that start the daily businesses with worship and devotions. Refusal to take part in these theistic businesses could lead to their dismissal from their positions.

It is important to note that part of the economic challenge is that atheists have to confront the allegation that some real or imaginary financial benefit is the reason for their atheism.

Atheism for Monetary Purpose

Some atheists who have managed to survive and stay economically afloat have to contend with another challenge, that is the idea that it is all for some financial gain. In some cases, friends react by claiming that ones embrace of atheism is for some pecuniary purpose. This allegation is made especially where there is some known or imagined financial support from the atheist movement or from abroad. I must add here that monetary consideration is a factor in the decisions that human beings make whether it is theistic or non theistic, religious or secular. Financial consideration goes into deciding to attend or not to attend that church, or that mosque; even in deciding to participate in that atheist meetings physically or virtually. The pecuniary element may be in terms of the money received as tithes or as subsidies for pilgrimages but also the money spent, saved or the seeds sown in furtherance of theistic or atheistic affairs. In the case of atheism, people impute financial motivation in order to belittle and trivialize the decision, ridicule it and make it seem as if the decision to become an atheist is a mischievous one.

Here is a comment from the friend of the N.A. highlighting the money factor in his embrace of atheism.

Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rajuun (To Allah we belong To him we return).What a life we are living if a grown up man like THIS be born in Kano into a muslim family schooled at Hassan Gwarzo, and graduated from same department as I, at the same school ABU Zaria after he became 25 years of age decided to leave Islam and completely worship SATAN just because of MONEY. What is our love for money growing into? MAY ALLAH KEEP PROTECTING US AND GUIDE US TO THE RIGHT PART, AMEEN!.

And here is a reply from N.A:

Becoming an atheist is not easy. Drinking the blood of bats and black cats almost made me quit. But what can one do, alas! The money is in dollars. It paid off in the end. I love you Satan, Lucifer, you are the God.

So part of the challenge to atheists in this region is addressing such imputed economic  monetary- motivations for atheism. Many atheists may not have the wit and intelligence to respond the way that the N.A did.

And as noted in the quotations, the devil is designated as the invisible hand that guides atheism.

Satanization of Atheism

Atheists in this region have to contend with the fact that they are accused of being Satanists, that is, devil worshippers. As Satanists, atheists are seen as embodiment of evil. Many atheists find it difficult to comprehend this Satanist label. For them, since they find no evidence for the existence of god, how could anyone think that they could actually worship the devil, another imaginary entity. The fact is that many theists find it difficult to believe that atheists indeed do not have something that they worship at all. They assume that atheists must have their own god and their own church or their own mosque. Hence they often conclude that atheists worship Satan. A man who reacted to the registration of Atheists In Kenya said the decision was like licensing devil worshipping. Their thinking is that denying the existence of god creates a belief or worship vacuum that devils worship fills. In some places people go a bit further by equating atheist groups to secret cults.

The assumption is that disbelieving in god creates a community gap in the lives of atheists and secret societies and occult rituals fill this space. So people think that atheists belong to some cults where as N.A sarcastically noted they drink the blood of bats and black cats and revere Lucifer.

Atheism: Lacks Conscience

Furthermore, atheists have to contend with the notion that they are people without morals. An atheist from Zambia, Mr H. posted on his face book page how a friend reacted when he told him that he was an atheist.

Im an atheist, I told him and all he had to say was that he only wondered the kind of evil I was capable of doing despite my innocent look. He said someone who did not believe in the existence of God must lack conscience because he could do anything to anyone without fear of Gods punishment.

The thinking is that the atheists freedom from fear of divine punishment constitutes a moral liability. The assumption is that the fear of Gods punishment is a necessary condition for morality. This kind of reasoning has been used against atheists before now. In 1940, the British philosopher, Bertrand Russell secured as appointment to teach at a university in New York. But a woman opposed the appointment, describing him as lecherous, libidinous, lustful, venerous,  aphrodisiac, irreverent, narrowminded, untruthful, and bereft of moral fiber. As in the case of Mr H, and reechoed in Russells, people consider atheism as an outlook without a moral compass. They consider atheists as mean and vicious, as persons who act or can behave without any restrain or qualms.

Interestingly, Mr H posted a response noting that the moral deficit in the theistic position and reasoning: But I thought that is exactly the fact with most religious people. Void of their religion, they are incapable of mustering any good deeds and kindness and think it must be the same with everyone else. The only restraint they have from going completely berserk, disobedient of laws and hurting a fellow human is the belief of an awaiting punishment from a divine jurisdiction, and the only times they do good things and live morally upright is because of the expected reward from God. And more often, we see them laying their religion readily aside to commit the most heinous acts of injustice and wearing it back on when they are through, then blame it on the devil if per chance they are apprehended. If as a human, you only do the right things because of the fear of a divine authority or the promise of payment by the same authority, then youre a beast disguised in human forma disaster waiting to occur. A ticking time bomb!! Cant you be good without strings attached?

Unfortunately such a response has done very little to raise the moral ground of atheism in the eyes of many in the society. The social challenge to atheism takes a charged and threatening dimension in places where satanization and immoralization of atheism is codified in state policies and legislations.

State Challenge: Atheists as Criminals?

Atheists face an additional challenge in many countries because of the existence of state laws that could be used to prosecute them for various crimes including apostasy and blasphemy. Legal provisions exist in different countries that make it a crime to offend religious sensibilities, majority religious sensibilities. These provisions are employed to silence, suppress or eliminate atheists and freethinkers.

Under sharia law, both apostasy and blasphemy are crimes that are punishable by death. So atheism and atheistic expressions are justiciable. Although some may argue that these laws are just there in the statute books in many countries and are seldom invoked, their very existence poses a grave threat to atheists and atheism in the region.

One way that non-theists have tried to tackle this challenge is to lobby and get the state to repeal these laws. However to effectively lobby, atheists need to be organized.

Organisational Challenges: How to confront the difficulties?

The atheist movement has organizational issues that are linked to their visibility or lack thereof in several places. Few non theist groups exist in the region. Fewer individual atheists are active and much fewer are financial members. This organizational challenge is often attributed to the notion that organizing atheists and freethinkers is like herding cats. But I think it is much more than that. To confront the above listed-personal, social, economic and political-challenges, atheists need to come together as organizations, coalitions, alliances, associations and unions. Atheists need to resist this notion that atheism cannot be effectively organized. Atheists in Africa need to figure out a way of organizing that works for them and avoid blindly copying and adopting models that are used elsewhere. The organizational models that apply to atheism in Europe and America may not necessarily work for atheists in Africa. In fact organisational models may differ between countries and within countries in Africa. For instance, organizational formations that apply to Christian dominated communities may not be effective in mainly muslim areas. The urban circumstance is different from the rural situation. Thus the atheist movement needs appropriate campus, academic, parliamentary, media, educational, online, rural and urban initiatives to further the interests of atheists in all sectors and segments of the society.

Part of the challenge is also ensuring that atheist associations continue to fulfill its mission despite the political circumstances or ethnic differences. Africa is ethnically diverse and ethnicity plays prominent key role in political mobilization. Atheist organisations should guard against the ethnic fault lines and aim to take on all governments in power that violate secular values. Atheist organisations should not allow sectional/partisan interests of members to undermine their objectives.

Furthermore, atheist groups face very unique challenges due to the socio economic realities in the region. Poverty is a huge problem and sometimes constitutes the reason why people join or start groups. Given their humanist, human rights, peace and humanitarian concerns, there is a tendency for atheist and freethought groups to attract non theist, non atheist, or quasi atheist persons, NGO opportunists with other interests and agenda. Atheist groups in this region must position themselves to effectively address this challenge.

In conclusion, the various challenges facing atheists in different parts of the region have been examined. Insights into how atheists responded or could respond to such issues and difficulties have been offered. The path to atheism is a road to reason. It is a path marked by risky turns and dangerous twists. Ensuring that the atheist movement remains on track despite these dire challenges that may occasionally yield crisis is critical to the future and survival of atheists and atheism in this region. Overcoming these personal, social, economic and political hurdles on this road to reason will be the litmus test of the resilience, vibrancy and vitality of the atheist, humanist and freethought organisations in the region in the years ahead.
10.11.2017 LISTEN

A toolkit for Transfer Pricing Risk Assessment in the African Mining Industry was launched in September this year by the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) at its International Conference on Tax in Africa (ICTA). This toolkit signals the next wave of intensified effort by tax administrations in Africa in the area of transfer pricing. The toolkit is the result of a joint effort by ATAF and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Risk assessment by tax administrations is intended to ensure a more targeted approach to audit case selection. Experienced tax administrations have been applying sophisticated risk assessment procedures for years. It is well known that the South African Revenue Services has an entire unit dedicated to risk assessment across various tax types. In the effort to improve tax collections, risk assessment remains a critical component of selecting cases for audit that are likely to have the highest tax yield.

This step by the ATAF demonstrates the continuing political will by tax administrations in Africa to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting and Illicit Financial Flows, where transfer pricing is perceived as being a key culprit.

The Toolkit is available on the ATAF website and contains a step-by-step guide to assessing risk, culminating in a risk rating. Having developed such a toolkit, it is also recognised that risk assessment does not exclude the need for specialist judgement and discretion.

This effort by the ATAF is one of several to promote effective tax administrations in Africa. Other measures to aid in the enforcement of transfer pricing include the development of:

robust legislation to effect access to information;

specific tax return filing to aid in data analytics;

e-filing that can aid automated risk assessment;

training and after-support to build audit capacity;

governance processes to ensure due process; and

agreements with database service providers.

As a major emerging market, Africa has much to offer and the above efforts are both welcome and encouraging.
Arusha, (Tanzania) Nov. 10, CDA Consult  The African Continental Court has rolled-out mechanism aimed at improving judicial efficiency, Justice Sylvain Ore, President of the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights stated in Arusha, Tanzania on Thursday.

He said the mechanism which is being discussed at the on-going Third African Judicial Dialogue would pave the way further towards the realization of an improved public service justice within, our countries and at the supra-national levels.

Justice Ore noted that: In these days of street revolutions fuelled by wanting social justice and mistrust in the formal justice mechanism, improving justice systems in Africa becomes our holistic responsibility.

We must strive to avoid that failure; to achieve such is held against us by this generation and the next generations of victims, litigants, peoples and the citizenry.

Dr. Clement Julius Mashamba, member of the African Committee of Experts on Rights and Welfare of the Child, addressing the participants expressed the urgent need to improve judicial efficiency on the continent.

This belief is founded in the fact that the participation of the Chief Justices and Presidents of Supreme and Constitutional Courts of the African Union Member States represents the highest judicial authorities of the continent, he stated on behalf of the Chairperson of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Prof. Benyam Mezmur.

He said a stage has been set for fruitful interactions between national and international courts, with a view to maintaining constant dialogue with national Judges across the continent, to discuss ways and means to promote and protect human rights.

Dr Mashamba, emphasis that in fulfilling the general objective of the Judicial Dialogue, the Committee finds it pertinent to state that its recent engagement of national actors in the implementation of its decisions, particularly through amicable settlement, has proved fruitful.

To say the least, the Committee believes that in order for decisions of continental judicial and quasi-judicial bodies to be implemented at the national level, national judiciaries have to play a central role, he noted.

This is principally because national judiciaries form the inner core of the protection of human rights at the domestic level, Dr. Mashamba noted.

Third African Judicial Dialogue, organised by the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights under the auspices of the African Union (AU).

The Dialogue is being 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.

The biennial meeting is on the general theme: 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.

It also serve as platform 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.

The African Judicial Dialogue is organized in collaboration with the World Bank, the German Cooperation (GiZ) and the European Union (EU).
Barely a year after the NDC lose abysmally in the 2016 general election, the political temperature within the party has been on the increase as to who caused it and how do we bounce back in 2020?

The party considered to embark on a thorough investigation to ascertain the cause of our electoral misfortunes for remedies which the committee responsible for the investigation came out with the causes of our electoral defeat and remedies to reorganize the party for power 2020.

The party is currently on a reorganization agenda to win back the trust of the grass root and the Ghanaian people but it seems few greedy ones wont allow the systems to work.

It has come to our notice that the 10 regional chairmen of the party called on the former President, John Mahama to embark on a thank you tour and also asked him to consider contesting the flagbearer position of the party. It sad to see our chairmen think with their stomach. At this time when the party is yet to recover from the historical defeat and reorganize the grass root for 2020, they are disgracefully lobbying for only God knows their intentions. This is gross indiscipline and greediness.

They dont have the party at heart. It is during their tenure as party regional chairmen upon all the infrastructure yet the party was rewarded with 44.4% and still they want to further destroy the party with their selfish agenda. Calling upon the former president to consider contesting the flagbearer position of the party is wrong especially at the time that we need everyone on board. Whether the former president John Mahama stands tall or short out of the other candidates making an intention, we least expect our Regional chairmen to act in such a childish manner. They should be warned because we the youth wont sit and watch them make any bogus haste decision for us, never again.

They should allow the systems to work for good. It came as surprise when these party chairmen cant even sponsor TEIN activities yet are in a haste to call on someone to consider contesting. They should direct their energies to reorganizing the party rather than their selfish interest. Most of you wont ever become chairmen of this party so you can ahead with your fake endorsement.

The former president John mahama should be advised to stop entertaining those divisive Aries. Where were those chairmen when Ghanaians rewarded him President Mahama with 44.4% of the total valid vote cast upon all his hardwork.

President Mahama remains our affable, humble, gentle, fresh sweet president and we love him but our chairmen must not make a move ahead of the party and the delegates.

Finally our MPs, individuals and group of people going about openly declaring their support for those alleged candidates should put a stop to it. Lets work as a party by putting the masses first.

INDISCIPLINE WILL NOT BE TOLLERATED.

Long Live NDC.

Long Live Ghana

Kumah Alfred Brown.

0248184904

Former TEIN PRO.
UK Cadbury Report

The set of rules applicable to the direction and control of company;

Belgium Cardon Report

The legal and factual regulatory framework for management and supervising a company;

Berlin Initiative Code

The set of rules according to which firms are managed and controlled, based on norms, tradition and patterns of behaviour developed by each economic and legal system; and

Italy Preda Report

A code of conduct for those associated with the companyconsisting of a set of rules for sound management and proper supervision.

The Netherlands Peter's Report

Perhaps, the simplest working definition of corporate governance is one given by L.S. Bohen as: the responsibility and accountability for the overall operation of an organisation.

The Companies Act, 1963 Act 179 attempts to provide a fine mechanism to the practice of corporate governance. Part O: Acts by or on behalf of the Company or the Act states in part under section 137:

(1) A company shall act through its members in general meeting or its board of directors or through officers or agents, appointed by, or under authority derived from the members in general meeting or the board of directors.

(2) Subject to the provisions of this Code, the respective powers of the members in general meeting and the board of directors shall be determined by the company's Regulations.

(3) Except as otherwise provided in the company's Regulations, the business of the company shall be managed by the board of directors who may exercise all such powers of the company as are not by this Code or the Regulations required by the members in general meeting.

(4) Unless the regulations shall otherwise provide, the board of Directors when acting within the powers conferred upon them by this Code or the Regulations shall not be bound to obey the directions or instructions of the members in general meeting.

A company, being an artificial human being created by law acts through its board of directors or the members (owners) in general meeting. Act 179 under section 179 (1) provides this meaning to directors: for the purposes of this Code, the expression 'directors' means those persons, by whatever name called , who are appointed to direct and administer the business of the company.

Section 182 states the category of persons qualified to be appointed as directors of a company and provides penalties for the contravention of the section. Section 203 of the Act which states the duties of directors is very crucial and has been the bane of the failure of most state institutions. Because of the importance of that section, it is quoted in full here.

(1) A director of a company stands in fiduciary relationship towards the company and shall observe the utmost good faith towards the company in any transaction with it or on its behalf.

(2) A director shall act at all times in what he believes to be the best interest of the company as a whole so as to preserve its assets, further its business, and promote the purposes for which it was formed, and in such manner as a faithful diligent, careful and ordinarily skillful director would act in the circumstances.

(3) In considering whether a particular transaction or course of action is in the best interests of the company as a whole, a director may have regard to the interests of the employees, as well as the members of the company, and, when appointed by, or as representative of a special class of members, employees, or creditors may give special, but not exclusive consideration to the interests of that class.

(4) No provision, whether contained in the Regulations of a company, or in any contract, or in any resolution of a company shall relieve any director from the duty to act in accordance with this section or relieve him from any liability incurred as a result of any breach thereof.

Sections 138 and 193 of the Act allows the board of directors from time to time to appoint one or more of their body to the office of managing director and may delegate all or any of their powers to such managing director. So under good corporate governance practice, the power to appoint chief executive officers lie with the board of directors and not the members of the company.

If one puts these provisions of good corporate governance enunciated under Act 179 against the vile administration of bad corporate governance enunciated under the ill-advised provisions of the 1992 Republican Constitution, then one opens a Pandora box which virtually all the political administration in this country we have had since independences have used to destroy public institutions established under both the public service and the civil service. The provisions of the 1992 Constitution are antithesis to the provisions of the Act.

The 1992 Republican Constitution under Chapter 14: The Public Services, creates the public services of Ghana, the civil service and public corporations. The 1992 Republican Constitution under various articles and clauses, especially, articles 70, 193 and 195 give the President frightening powers of appointment into the public services administration contrary to the practice of good corporate governance. The power of the President to appoint virtually every employee within the public services administration is curtailed only in the case of higher educational institutions in which the1992 Republican Constitution states under article 195 (3) as follows: the power to appoint persons to hold or act in an office in a body of higher education, research or professional training, shall vest in the council or other governing body of that institution or body.

This power of the President to appoint and in reverse dismiss has been applied highly capriciously and vindictively by virtually all past political administration despite article 191 of the 1992 Republican Constitution which seeks to provide protection to public officers. The immediate dismissal of all members of boards of state institutions by John Atta Mills NDC administration on assumption of office without giving them the chance even to prepare their handing over notes and the shameful dismissal of Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng by the same John Atta Mills NDC administration under what appeared to be a certificate of urgency where the venerable heart surgeon was given 24 hours to vacate his office are classical examples of how to destroy state institutions by not applying good corporate governance practices.

Again the appointment of chief executive officers to state institutions many of whom do not have constituted board of directors by the presidency is a clear breach of good corporate governance practice. How can a body exist without a board of directors as it do happen many times with state institutions and very often managed by an acting chief executive officer. Indeed the report of the DAILY GRAPHIC gives the information that the present chief executive officer of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Dr. Felix Anyah was appointed into office at a time when there was no board in place. How do you embarrass such a fine gentleman?

E-mail: [email protected]

From Kwame Gyasi
The District Chief Executive (DCE) of Afigya-Kwabre, Akwasi Karikari, has expressed grave concern about the continued poor performance of students in public schools in his area particularly in the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE).

He accordingly appealed to public school teachers to help the government to improve the performance of students.

Speaking in an interaction with teachers at Tetrem and Boaman Schools in the district during a day's working visit, Mr Karkari called for proper stakeholders' engagement to tackle the poor academic performance in government schools at the basic level.

He was not happy about the increasing rate of examination malpractices in the district, which he indicated led to the cancellation of students' results in mathematics in the last BECE.

If you have any help for the children, please don't wait until examination day before you assist them to cheat, he admonished.

He pledged his commitment to motivating teachers to help the students to obtain the best results in the final examinations.

I am prepared to work with the district education directorate to institutionalize teachers' award scheme as part of efforts to motivate and address some of the problems facing you, he told his audience.

The DCE was also concerned about the high rate of teenage pregnancy among school-children and called on the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) to work with other relevant stakeholders to curb the canker.

Mr Karikari said he would collaborate with the chiefs and elders in the various communities to enact bye-laws to tackle truancy among school-children in the district.

From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi
10.11.2017 LISTEN

Folks, the rash manouevre by these NDC Regional Chairmen spells more doom than the NDC can cope with in its attempt to regain public confidence, trust, and electoral capital to win Election 2020.

I have already made it clear in earlier opinion pieces that what the NDC has to do in this period after losing Election 2016 is not to nominate the flagbearer for Election 2020 but to rebuild itself so it can shed the negative image that made it unattractive to the electorate.

Doing so goes beyond the isolated rhetorical battles that some of its functionaries are fighting with Team Akufo-Addo and the NPP cabal. It calls for purposeful and concerted efforts wrought by genuine interests to put the NDC back in power. It means much commitment to putting the party in the public domain as far as its accomplishments vis-a-vis what is unfolding under Akufo-Addo is concerned. Party growth matters here, not personal aggrandizement.

One major fact used advantageously by the NPP against ex-President Mahama that the NDC apparatus or his supporters therein don't consider as a big blow is obvious: John Dramani Mahama rose through the ranks in Ghanaian politics to become the President of Ghana, meaning that he should have known better than he did when at the helm of affairs. Yet, major problems couldn't be solved, which infuriated the electorate to dump him at Election 2016.

The timeline is obvious: his student activism at the University of Ghana (Commonwealth hall), his role as an Assemblyman for Bole, the MP for that constituency, the Deputy Minister and substantial Minister of Communication under Rawlings, the Vice-President under Atta Mills and President of Ghana. What did he have in mind to help solve Ghana's problems that he couldn't implement but would now want to do on a rebound at Election 2020?? That's a powerful argument.

And what lesson has he learnt after his defeat to do things differently? Another important question.

Folks, I have been quick to suggest that if the strategy of using "Unity Walks" could help the NDC rebuild itself by doing purposeful political mobilization, then, it should be sustained. Unfortunately, reports indicate that such a forum serves the personal agenda and purposes of ex-President Mahama more than needed, especially when others interested in staking their luck at bearing the party's flag are either slighted, shunned, or intimidated out of contention at such forums. They are not given the floor to sell themselves. Too appalling, assuming even that such "Unity Walks" should be designed for self-projection as such!

I have also advised anybody interested in leading the party to Election 2020 to hasten slowly at this time because that's not the party's priority.

Unfortunately, happenings of the sort being reported about the party's Regional Chairmen paint a horrible picture, especially when ex-President Mahama himself has just stated that the time isn't ripe for him to declare his intentions on the flagbearership. So, who is fooling whom now? And what for? Certainly, not for the NDC's good.

What must have motivated these Regional Chairmen to go this way? How about the 80 NDC MP's who sought audience with Mahama to do same when his schedule took him out of the country?

Folks, the matter is worse than appalling now. If these Regional Chairmen had done their assignments well, the NDC wouldn't have been consigned to the opposition. They flopped and are still flopping.

In sum, let it be known that the NDC will run around in circles to its own disadvantage if it doesn't use better ways than this childish and unproductive approach toward re-asserting its influence on Ghanaian politics.

Has any lesson been learnt from the findings of the Kwesi Botchwey report at all? What sort of political mobilization is being done to make the difference?

Overall, ex-President Mahama himself must rise above pettiness so he can prevent a further erosion of support for the NDC. If he gets carried away by such unscrupulous and ingenuous endorsements or lopsided appeals to be where he shouldn't place himself, he will come out none the wiser or better.

It is one thing manipulating the situation in one's own political party to be uplifted as the flagbearer and another winning the hearts of the electorate at the general elections.

A careful assessment of the outcome of Election 2016 should have sobered him to tread cautiously. How many endorsements didn't he get from just anybody or anywhere all over the country where his government's provision of development projects seemed to pave the way for him to win Election 2016? What happened in the end?

Mere public endorsements don't automatically lead to electoral victory. In any case, any contest between him and Akufo-Addo at Election 2020 will be a repeat of Election 2016 unless Akufo-Addo fails to meet the expectations of the voters as far as the factors that doomed Mahama are concerned. And there are obviously challenges already, which must redirect Mahama toward party building, not the mad and premature search for endorsements to lead the NDC.

This is where the inadequacies of the NDC's leaders at all the levels crop up. Mere bootlicking will sink the party.

No more. It is important for ex-President Mahama to rein himself in so he doesn't fall for cheap characters to become the agent to thicken the crisis in the NDC. It is time for rebuilding the party, not grandstanding for personal quests.

I shall return
The loudmouth Brong Ahafo Regional Youth Organiser of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwame Baffoe otherwise known as Abronye DC, has stated that former President John Dramani Mahama shouldn't border to lead the NDC party again to avoid another disgrace.

His statement comes on the back of the NDC party's 'Unity Walk' held in Cape Coast on Sunday, November 5, 2017, where the former President was given the platform to criticise the ruling government.

Speaking to the media, the youth Activist and National Youth Organiser aspirant of the governing NPP, Abronye DC said the former President failed to manage the economy from 2012 to 2016.

According to him, as the immediate past President of the Republic of Ghana, you couldn't get money to settle the energy debt, NHIS, feeding grant for SHS and Colleges of Education.

He added that because of bad management, the former President cancelled the nursing and teacher training allowances.

Abronye DC also said former President Mahama under his watch, failed to employ over 27,000 nurses before the NPP took power from him.

"You cancelled the nurses and teachers allowances left behind 27,000 nurses at the hook".

The Maverick Youth Organiser alleged that former President John Dramani Mahama used billions of Ghana Cedis to organise 'Unity Walk' across some Regions in the country.

According to him, former President Mahama failed to manage the economy well but this same person has been able to get Gh7m cedis for Tamale Unity Walk, Gh10m cedis for Greater Accra Unity Walk and Gh5m cedis for Cape Coast Unity Walk. This is a clear indication that the National Democratic Congress is now 'November December Criminals' (NDC) under JDM milked the nation's economy.

He added that if Ghanaians make a mistake and bring back former President John Mahama in 2020 to lead Ghana, the country will be in 'hell'.

He, therefore, called on Ghanaians to have confidence in President Akufo-Addo led administration and not to listen to the propaganda of former President Mahama and the NDC party.

Source: Daniel Kaku
Interior Minister Ambrose Dery has been summoned to Parliament over some police brutalities that occurred at Asawase in Kumasi in the Ashanti region Thursday night.

The invitation is at the behest of the minority chief whip and Asawase MP Muntaka Mubarak.

According to Muntaka, some two suspects who were in Police custody were shot and killed by the Police, who accused them of robbery.

He told Parliament that the Police told him that they killed the suspects after they attempted to abscond while assisting them to arrest their accomplices in criminal activities in the area.

According to the deputy minister for interior, the gentlemen tried to abscond and the Police shot and killed them. I was disturbed over the incident so I asked the deputy minister some questions and he said he was going to get back to me after speaking to the IGP. Last night, I heard there was some massing up in the area so I had to go to a popular radio station in the area to calm them down, but I don't think this is right. It is worrying that individuals will die in the company of the Police, he said.

The development has sparked rage among the youth of Asawase who insist the deceased were not robbers.
The purpose or the object of this article is to correct the impression that June 4th, 1979 was a "revolution". June 4th event was an insurrection, rebellion and an uprising - refusal of obedience to the established order. It was an open resistance against the orders of an established authority. Which provoked a spontaneous reaction within the military and spilled over to the public. The early hours of a cloudy Monday morning heralded announcement of the release from prison custody, a group of soldiers linked with the May 15th, 1979 revolt, led by a unknown Flight Lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force.

Over a period of a decade and a half, the military had points in time faced various forms of agitation with the "rank and file" of its members. Varying levels of misconceptions and discontent was on the ascendancy, and has given rise to distrust about the officer corps, especially the seniors within their fold. The officer was seen by many of the enlisted as more of a problem than the former "British Officers".

These Ghanaian officers who at some stage felt they could handle fellow Africans became very autocratic and in many instances despots. Most of the suspicion was caused by the fact of an almost illiterate enlisted corps, that could not stand the perceived arrogance and spiteful attitude of the "Blackman Oyibo" as the Nigerian will say. The discontent have simmered for a long, long while.

During the intervening years, most enlisted viewed the officer as more of a stranger than a compatriot, whose doings was inimical to their welfare. The underlying cause/causes could be attributed to the class identity. That's the segregation within; the open biases by the media and the citizenry added to this hostile space, for the reasons that, all because all that was worthy was laid out at the doorstep of the officer.

The enlisted were called names. The enlisted was more of a caricature. They were ridiculed ridiculously with taunts from the Nigerian musician and songwriter Fela Okusun - with his notorious song, "zombie no go turn unless you tell am". Even the officer whom the enlisted was to find some sympathy were more often than not, the worst offenders.

The truth is, the running of the military rest mostly on the shoulders of the NCOs, Senior NCOs and Warrant Officers. The are the backbone of the military, therefore the attempt to usurp their importance led to events where adventurists took opportunity to subvert authority.

It can be recalled, most officers during the military political era were blinded by the fact, that, suppressed anger when vented is very difficult to extinguish. It was exactly what happened. The genesis of distrust and misconception between the two sides starts with the relationship between a platoon commander and platoon sergeant, where a false impression or step can make or break a unit.

The relationship between platoon commanders and their platoon sergeants could be likened to arranged marriages. These two individuals don't choose who to work with, but it is a responsibility, they must accept the relationship and it shows work, not only for the platoon they oversee and command, but also for "the community". The company they belong and the battalion or the regiment.

Most of the problems normally faced by the two sides starts with, by an inexperienced commissioned officer leading a much more experienced noncommissioned officer, could ignite tension, if the officer don't recognize the importance of the Noncommissioned officer.

First, let me caveat by saying that officers by training go through a lot more leadership training in the beginning than enlisted personnel. So, no matter what the personality of the officer, there can always be something learned from them. Unlike the enlisted soldiers from erstwhile "Junior Leaders" most enlisted personnel don't learn this leadership training until their later ranks. I say "most" because some pick it up at a lot faster than others.

Notwithstanding these pointers, often times officers don't get this concept themselves. On occasions, you will have a junior officer who believes he or she is superior to any enlisted person just based off of their rank.

These type of officers usually learn later that, senior NCOs/Warrant officers know what is going on more and more so, than they do. As a former Regimental Sergeant Major I did experience instances where senior officers tell junior officers to listen to what their senior enlisted had to say. Any good leader would! And most senior officers have grasped this concept thoroughly. Any young officer with two neurons firing at once needs to learn - quickly - that senior NCOs are their best defense against ignorance, inexperience or other shortcomings.

As an offshoot from the erstwhile Junior Leaders Company (ex-Boy), I can only make this statement from my side of the yard, because it always struck me that, the quickest way to prove most of the young officers were ignorant and full of pride was not their failure and inability to listen or hear, but unable to recognize and act on solid advice.

In an earlier paragraph, I stated that by their training the Commissioned Officer go through a lot more leadership training. Notwithstanding the evidence, there was a situation where soldiers from the erstwhile Junior Leaders were given training parallel to that of officers from the Military Academy. The difference between the two groups was that, the 'Boys' had an extended period of 3 years program as against eighteen/twenty four months to get commissioned. The duration difference compensated for the requirement shortfall for entry and the training of each group.

Between the officer and the ex-Boy grouping emerged a kind of rivalry which eventually led to the underutilization school. To many it was a surprise but the fact of it all could be better deciphered, as being the collective minds of the officers and the enlisted personnel who go through a six-months basics, found the resilience and exuberance the ex-Boy exudes as offensive and tantamount of disrespect . The rivalry between the officer and the ex-Boy was due to the Ghanaian Commissioned Officer intemperate outbursts to accept the caliber of enlisted from the erstwhile junior leaders.

The animosity between the officers and the ex-Boys mutated into ugly arguments, distrust and sometimes open rebuff and other such situations. Many of such events during the periods of the 31st December 1981 epoch, eventually culminated in underutilization of the school. A situation that has robbed the military quality NCOs that earlier commanders enjoyed.

It is an accepted fact that the officer lead soldiers, but the NCOs/SNCOs run the Army by their experience. It takes years to mold or form professional soldier and a good one. Officers are breed (or made at) at the officer cadet school over one or two years period, and a parchment gives them Command no matter the experience, the NCO or SNCO takes years to gain experience and respect through the ranks to learn the job.

The problem that still confront the Ghanaian officer is his inability to recognize the crucial importance of the NCOs. Who are they or who they are?

The NCO corps can be grouped into three groups: Junior NCOs, Senior NCOs and the Warrant Officers. At the base of the hierarchical triangle is the junior category - Lance Corporals and Corporals; at the intermediate or the middle belt level are - Sergeants and Color or Staff Sergeants; the senior level of hierarchical triangle are the - Warrant Officers and Quartermaster Sergeant Majors (WO2). Then at the pinnacle of the tree are the Regimental Sergeant Majors (RSMs) Warrant Officers Class 1 (WO1).

Many outside the military have very little knowledge of what should be or the relationships that functions in the institution. There are many several ways of describing the "role" of the NCO and the place they hold in the military. The role the officer/NCO play in the military is complex but lets simplify the complex role in a very simplistic terms- the commissioned officer per his commission leads, command and directs - the NCO on the other hand organizes and administers - the soldier executes. The relationship is not easy to analyze. A belief held by the majority of the general public concerning image of NCOs, oftentimes represented in the media, and which continues in modern soap is a mistaken view or shortcomings of a wrongly held opinions, and far from the truth and the reality of soldiering in our contemporary times.

It is of great significance for the media and the public to understand the officer - NCO - soldier triangular relationship is an impressively complex educated issue to discuss. Each part of the triangle is an equal in the context of the team in which they operate. This is so for the reasons that, the way in which all work have effect on each other, and the relationship revolves on demonstrated mutual recognition of each, that's trust and respect. In specialized units the officer/NCO relationship could be better described as not visible, but still not quite.

What many outside the military fail to grasp is that, modern soldiers who are well educated and resourceful can think for themselves and have their own clear opinions. Every segment of the military chain of command have distinct and overlapping roles. When the groups are well connected having the same object and concepts through a well oiled training, mutually understanding and trusting each, oftentimes a complete absence of direct orders in the old fashion sense will be non existing.

The aspect that sets the officer apart is that NCOs in general terms, do not command soldiers. Nonetheless, they are absolutely critical in providing tactical and technical expertise, administration and discipline through the ranks. It was this absence and recognition that became the propellant undercurrents that exploded leading to the June 4th, 1979 rebellion against the military itself.

The failure of recognition coupled with varying levels of abuse of inferior; cruel and disgraceful conduct and the hypocritical, scandalous abuse of power were enough of munitions to set the stage of the 'revolt of May 15th 1979 and finally June 4th, 1979 "insurrection" and its attendant events.

The June 4th, 1979 was not a 'revolution' in the real sense. It was an event of a sudden urge or better still a spontaneous reaction from the rank and file of the Ghana Armed Forces which spilled over, and affected the general conscience of the people. A sympathetic affectations to a supposed "bravado" of an unknown Flight Lieutenant, the leader of the May 15th 1979 revolt. He had told the Court Martial to hold him solely accountable for the revolt that the soldiers acted on his orders.

In concluding, what historians should bear in mind is that the insurrection or the rebellion was directed to, and in opposition to the Supreme Military Council by young officers and the rank and file. It was a mutiny, a rebellion against the military itself. It was an in-house event that somehow caught up with, and found favor with the general populace. The June 4th, 1979 was a violent mutiny within the Ghana Armed Forces which did upset the ruling military hierarchy though it brought a change in the country, in reality it was rebellion.

As stated earlier, at the root of all, was a brewing discontent among the rank and file, and a disconnect between the top and bottom, due to a combination of indiscretion and corruption, lack of discipline and frustration especially in the military.

The June 4th, 1979 insurrection, though illegitimate as it was, overthrew an equally illegitimate military junta that has also hoisted itself on the country. It was the military that felt the brutal brunt of rebellion. In the wake of the ensuing events, eight (8) Generals were killed. Seven (7) out of the eight (8) and a Colonel were tied to the stakes and executed by a firing squad, whiles the other General, Gen. Odartey Wellington lost his life in action. Several other officers were also sentenced to long prison terms. Although some civilians suffered, it was purely a supposed house-cleaning that change the perception of the officer in relation to the officer-NCO-soldier relationships.

Finally, here is some advice that I proffer to the officer. You can demand respect or you can earn it. The uniform demands certain protocols. But would you rather prefer that the enlisted salute you do so because they have to, or because they admire you and respect you. Let me state it bluntly, you can be a leader or you can be an a..hole. I still remember from nearly five decades ago the ones I admired and respected and still do to this day. There are both officers and enlisted I would like to put in their place if I ever saw them today.

Respect and trust is earned. You can demanded it but won't survive the test of time.

Once A Gunner Always A Gunner.

Nana Akwah

Ex-WO1/RSM

[email protected]
The Education Ministry has rebutted Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwas claim that the Minister of Education misled parliament on the issue of disbursement of funds for the progressively free SHS policy by the erstwhile John Mahama-led administration.

On Wednesday, November 8, Mr. Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu and Deputy Education Minister (tertiary), in the Mahama administration, released a statement to challenge Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, Minister of Education on his stance that the erstwhile government had not disbursed any funds for its progressively free SHS policy.

Related: Dr. Opoku Prempeh misled Parliament on Mahamas free education policy  Ablakwa

According to Mr. Ablakwa, Government released all funds being 12.78 million Ghana Cedis. This covered the period September to December 2015.

A second release of 17 million Ghana Cedis was effected for the second term covering January to April 2016, he explained.

But in a statement issued by the Ministry dated November 10, the Education Ministry has indicted Mr. Ablakwa for either deliberately or inadvertently misquoting the Minister.

The Ministry maintains its stance that, nothing at all was paid in respect to the 120,000 boarding students who were to benefit from the NDC governments Progressively Free SHS programme, nor was any provision made for same.

The payment that Ablakwa was referring to was the initial payments for day students, the letter said.

And even in respect to that, the Nana Akufo-Addo government came to meet arrears to the tune of GHS 30, 120, 552. 00 which cover the period from the first year (2015/2016) of the progressively free SHS that covered day students, it added.

That money has already been paid by the Akufo-Addo government, according to the letter.

The release added that the current government inherited a total of GHS 1, 251, 893, 573. 01 (one billion, two hundred and fifty-one million, eight hundred and ninety-three thousand five hundred and seventy-three cedis and one Peswa) as arrears.

The arrears were for payment of "Compensation of Employees, Social Intervention Programmes (SIP), Other goods and services and Capital Expenditure.

The letter further states that the government is working assiduously to clear such a hefty debt.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com| Oswald K. Azumah| [email protected]edu.gh| Twitter: @OKAzumah
Mr. Mahama Socrates Samuel

10.11.2017 LISTEN

An ardent supporter and communication member of the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Mahama Socrates Samuel has call on party supporters across the length and breadth of the country to actively participate in the ongoing registration exercise by the party.

According to him, active participation by party members in the ongoing registration exercise will ensure the needed unity and stability required in the party.

After an abysmal performance at the 2016 general elections, the NDC ditched its biometric register and are now embarking on manual registration process as recommended by the Prof. Kwesi Botchwey Committee.

Mr. Mahama Socrates Samuel, who is likely to contest deputy communication director position of the party urged party members to encourage individuals who believe in the NDC to register to become members at the ongoing registration process to make the party stronger.

One must remember that the reorganization cannot be complete if we fail to woo people to register as members. Aside being a member through registration, it also allows one the right to vote and be voted for. It is therefore necessary, to undertake this important exercise and encourage others to do same he said.

The NDC Communication member believes with proper reorganization as prescribed by the Prof. Kwesi Botchwey Committee, the NDC will recapture power in 2020.

Read below the full post on his facebook page below:

In view of the recent membership registration of the NDC, it is imperative that every Ghanaian desiring to become a member of the NDC must endeavor to take a bold step by partaking in registration process. It is in this that we get stronger and united. Per the Kwesi Botchwey report which has been kept clandestine, the leadership of the party has urged us to get involved in the reorganization and it starts now.

However, one must remember that the reorganization cannot be complete if we fail to woo people to register as members. Aside being a member through registration, it also allows one the right to vote and be voted for. It is therefore necessary, to undertake this important exercise and encourage others to do same.

Soon afterwards, the party will begin electing executives from the Branch to the National level, since it has now provided the roadmap to the national congress which shall be due in July, 2018.

Lets join the movement and take over for the NDC!

Victory 2020 is assured!
As thy tongue hath been razor unto others, so shall theirs be unto thee an advice to Sir Francis Bacon

In response to the former presidents label of the GhanaPostGPS national address system as a scam, our current Vice President felt the need to defend his novel NDPAS system. Dr. Mahamud Bawumia had a good laugh listening to what the former presidents reasons were in labeling the initiative as a scam. The irony is just that we may all laugh with or at him after we analyze his response.

It is well to say that the Vice President assumes the responsibility of a teacher to the former president and was bent by all means to disrepute the presidency by equating his vice presidential position with the former commander in chief of our republic. We might here therefore assume a non-prejudicial stance and ask two questions: Was the former president right with his pronounced label? And was it pertinent for the VP to respond and in what manner would it have been appropriate? These are questions we will leave for the reader to decide. It is however hoped that should the need arise from this analysis, Dr. Bawumia will exercise the same restraint and humility- same as he asked of the former president, to be taught a lesson or two and of the errors in his response.

In his response, the Vice President alluded to the fact that the entire Ghanaian landscape is divided into a 5m*5m squares and that each such square property was assigned a digital address with a region, district and post-code embodiment.

Basically every 5x5m property has a unique digital address on the grid with region, district and postcode. Under this system, 16.1 billion addresses have been generated for the whole of Ghana. It relies on surveyed data from Lands Commission and the Latitude and Longitudes to generate postcodes and addresses for every square inch of Ghana. The NDPAS comes with the National Address Registry to keep records of all citizens on where they register as their office and residential addresses.  Dr. Mahamud Bawumia

It must be made clear here that Ghanaian properties are not in a 5m * 5m square sizes. Consecutive squares on the grid will share the same region and to some extent, same post-code if they fall within one as such. However, the generation of the unique addresses, post-codes and regional demarcations could not be by square inches. No square inch could have a unique address. A 5m * 5m square space will be equivalent to a 985.25sqin. The VP also mentioned a reference to a National Address Registry which will keep records of citizens. However the reference to the accuracy of the data solely on where citizens register as their offices or residence. The accuracy of any data acquired by this means can not be relied on. Reliability of data is key if the essence of this initiative is transitioning our economy into a formal structures. Unreliable data is worse than no data in risk assessment.

Others have pointed out the contradiction with the use of a google platform. The understanding of what an API is and how the NDPAS utilizes an open API to allow access by institutions who need that access. In truth, we are using google platform for the GhanaPostGPS app. The National Address Registry must be an Address Registry of physical properties, not acquired from digital address generated from the app but by input from the registered properties with the lands commission. Again I must emphasize the need for a prudent re-addressing system that makes this whole brouhaha settle down. If the country would conduct a census nationwide, leverage the results with a a coherent address system nationally, and then use that data to design and populate the National Address Registry, only an insane mind will dare criticizing it.

It is laughable to say that the app uses gps systems whereas any other global mapping system uses mathematics. The algorithms that generate gps feeds are mathematical. Arent they? Would the VP want a lesson in Algorithms or at least the understanding behind how google combines its powerful search engine with its highly powered mapping system? To obfuscate reality with skewed maze of words would not help the VP. Talk of local relevance: the only thing unique about the GhanaPostGPS is that it added a mesh of grids- each 5m * 5m in size. Each with an assigned code or address.

To say the data used in the design of the app relies on surveyed data to provide the addresses is incommensurables with the fact that the same data is generated from an algorithm that gave us the 16.11billion addresses and post codes. This is quite misleading. The addresses from the VPs own words are generated from a gps technology(a leapfrogging technology) and we know this to be true. Is the VP throwing dust in our eyes or is he rather blowing dust off of our eyes. Why the 5*5m square meshes are relevant is yet to be explained by the VP. Are the squares identifying the properties or are the properties defining the squares? We cant have it both ways. And when the size of a property overlaps multiple squares, as it will be for Ghanaian properties, which unique address will define or identify the property?

Ghana is 92,099square miles which retrospectively is 2.385353 x 10^11 square meters. With an economics background, non of us doubts the VPs mathematical acumen in computing the number of 25square meters that could be contained within the periphery of Ghana. We helped the VP do this computation, since he gave us his 16.1billion addresses figure, and came up with 9.541413 X 10^9 addresses. In simple terms, since we have 2.385353 X 10^11 sqm space which is divided into 25sqm squares, what we end up having is approximately 9.6 billion squares. 16.1 billion generated addresses is about 6+ billions in redundant codes or addresses.

The Vice President also asserted that Ghana is leapfrogging into the 21st century. Seriously! We are at least 18years into the 21st. The technology of the day is automation and Artificial Intelligence. I may agree with the Vice President when he said that the GhanaPostGPS is unique and quite unheard of. He is absolutely right. Such ridiculousness must be unheard of and unique as a testament to our giddiness and lack of proper planning on a National scale.

As to the issue of local relevance Mr. Vice President, let give a brief description of our local set ups in Ghana. Majority of our houses are compound or multi-family houses-maybe this is where the idea of 5mX5m squares originated. The house could be seen as a postal stop, if you may. However, each room might contain a family of varying number. Proper addressing system would be that each house is uniquely identified by its unique marker as in Street name and number, 419 Bawumia Road, say. Each room would then have a unique number say; I may live in room 7. So my address is 419 Bawumia Road, Room 7. If this Road is in Bekyem in the Ashanti Region then my complete address will be: 419 Bawumia Road, Room 7, Bekyem, Ashanti Ghana etc. under this address, the National Address Registry system, National Identification Card System and the Ghana Postal System will coordinate to create a more reliable, formal and economically viable structure which will merit the leapfrogging description you may assign to it.

Ghanaians will not only be able to do business with one another but with the world. The business opportunity this will create will be enormous and our young Ghanaians May be able to gain employment with an expanded postal service industry which is State owned. We can train more youth in data acquisition and management. We can establish a credit system that is less risky and generate the financial trust of entities that can move our economy into a more productive future. This is what will amount to local relevance.

These are the technicalities with which I have differed with you in your response to the former President HE John Dramani Mahama and I leave the subsequent rhetorics for your proving. If after nearly a year in office your administration has not been able to call any former executive into account then referring to them as scammers amounts only two possibilities and none of which I will say.

Our VP has placed so much credulity on his appreciation for economic facts to the point that they have clouded his appreciation for respect of facts. It is here hoped that Ghanaians will drop partisan egos and address the issues bordering around our collective progress as a Nation. In the age of superior intelligence, Ghanaians and other Africans have no time for political extravaganzas. We require leadership that understands the world not just of today but also of what is to come. Lets leapfrog into times endless possibilities and show ones for all that let alone, the Ghanaian is capable of manning his own affairs.

By Sadick Abubakar

Mechanical Engineer, Security expert

National Youth President

United African Congress Inc. USA
10.11.2017 LISTEN

The Mastercard Foundation has presented its third annual Clients at the Centre Prize to Jumo, the South African-based company as a large-scale, low-cost financial services marketplace that serves poor people.

A statement from Mastercard Foundation said the US$150,000 prize highlights best practices in financial services where client satisfaction was a priority.

Close to 100 financial service companies around the world submitted entries to the competition.

An international panel of judges selected three finalists, who presented to the audience at the 2017 Symposium on Financial Inclusion in Accra, Ghana.

The 400-person audience then voted for the world's most impactful and sustainable financial service provider that puts 'clients at the centre' of its thinking and operations for the benefit of poor people in developing countries.

The award is to be used to expand or reinforce client-centric practices within the winning organization.

After being awarded the Prize, Buhle Goslar, Director of Customer Intelligence at Jumo said: 'For anybody in a customer function, this is probably the most exciting prize to win because of the people who are voting for it. They really know about customer centricity; for them to vote for us is a great acknowledgement of the work that we've been doing.'

The Mastercard Foundation believes that banks and other financial service providers in developing countries should focus more on the needs and expectations of people living in poverty. Putting poor clients at the centre of the design of new financial products and services helps bring them into the formal banking system, improving their livelihoods and their ability to plan for the future.

'The Symposium on Financial Inclusion (SoFI) has focused on client centricity for the past five years,' said Ann Miles, Director of Financial Inclusion at the Mastercard Foundation.

'We are thrilled to award this year's prize to Jumo for its exemplary work of putting clients at the centre of its business model.

'As we reflect on the past five years of SoFI, it is more important now than ever before to recognize companies such as Jumo and encourage them to continue providing access to financial products for those who need it most.'

The other two prize finalists were ftcash, one of India's fastest-growing financial technology ventures which aimed to empower micro-merchants and small businesses with the power of digital payments and loans, and Destacame, a free online platform in Latin America that empowered users by giving them control over their data to build their financial capabilities and to access financial products.

The Mastercard Foundation works with visionary organizations to provide greater access to education, skills training and financial services for people living in poverty, primarily in Africa.

As one of the largest private foundations, its mission is to advance learning and promote financial inclusion to create an inclusive and equitable world.
The story of how communities situated ...
Yves here. One of the striking things about this piece is how little outsiders know.

By Irina Slav, a writer for the U.S.-based Divergente LLC consulting firm with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. Originally published at OilPrice

Events in Saudi Arabia are unfolding at a blinding pace, with a radical shift taking place within the upper echelons of government. Last weekend, King Salman announced the set-up of a special anti-corruption force that wasted no time in rounding up more than a dozen government officialsboth former and currentfive members of the royal family, and several businessmen. Since then, the list has been growing, to more than 60 as of today.

Now there are reports about the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton being turned into a luxury prison for the detainees. There are rumorswhich Riyadh has deniedthat one of the targets of the purge, Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd, was killed while resisting arrest. There are also reports that the purge could fill the state coffers with as much as US$800 billion in assets seized from those arrestedall members of the Saudi elite.

Speculation abounds and there is growing worry that the situation could spiral out of control. There is a constant flow of new information coming from Saudi Arabia, such as that one of the Arab worlds leading broadcasters, MBC, has been put under government control. Part of its management was removed and the owner detained. News is also emerging that even the former Saudi Energy Minister Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabias media face for decades, has been forcibly confined to his quarters.

There is talk that a travel ban has been issued for a number of government officials, including executives from Aramco. Thats on top of reports that Aramco board member Ibrahim al-Assaf, a former Finance Minister in the Kingdom, was also among those arrested.

Naturally, in oil industry circles this raises the question over the safety of Aramcos IPO and, more than that, what will happen to oil prices if the instability intensifies. For now, the news is all bullish for prices. The purge is widely seen as a pre-emptive strike and power grab by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, head of the new anti-corruption agency and heir to the throne, as well as the champion of the Vision 2030 reform program.

The Crown Prince is also the driving force behind the Aramco IPO, which should provide the funds for the reform program. Now, for the IPO to be as successful as Prince Mohammed wants it to be, global oil prices need to be high, perhaps higher than they are now.

Any political instability in the Kingdom is naturally fueling bullish sentiment. Now there are reports that some royals fleeing prosecution from the new anti-corruption agency have been offered asylum in Yemen by the Houthi rebels that are backed by Saudi Arabias arch-enemy, Iran. This is nothing short of astounding, since Saudi Arabia has been at war with the Houthis for two years now, with Prince Mohammed at the spearhead of the conflict.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia accused Iran of direct aggression, citing the missile attack the Houthis launched on Riyadh, which was intercepted by the Kingdoms defense system.

It is difficult to predict where all this will lead. Some, like Dennis Gartman, warn that although the immediate impact of the latest Saudi events is positive for prices, it will turn negative in the longer run as this sort of instability is unsustainable. Others, such as Morgan Stanleys commodity analysts, are revising upwards their oil price forecasts, encouraged by these same events. OPECs Vienna meeting, where the cartel will discuss the extension of the oil production cut it agreed almost a year ago, is less than a month away. There are voices suggesting that Saudi Arabia could make a U-turn on its support for the deal in light of the now higher prices resulting from its internal tumult and the spike in tensions with Iran.

In the meantime, the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh is fully booked until February, as per the hotels website, and all guests were asked to leave or had their reservations cancelled.
Zombie ant brains left intact by fungal parasite Phys.org

Soothsayer in the Hills Sees Silicon Valleys Sinister Side NYT. Mr. Lanier believes that Facebook and Google, with their top-down control schemes, should be called Behavior Modification Empires.'

1 big thing: Sean Parkers jarring Facebook tell-all Axios. Parker is a Facebook founder. Be sure to read to the immortal overlords part.

Facebook Isnt Recording Your Conversations, But It May as Well Be LifeHacker

YouTubes algorithms are terrorizing a generation of children Quartz

Monopoly critics decry Amazon amendment The Hill (Re Silc).

Why Blocking the AT&T-Time Warner Merger Might Be Right NYT

The DOJs Case Against AT&T Is Stronger Than You Think  Again. Wet Machine

Only Sinclair Can Save You Salon

FTC Files Amicus Brief in Appeals Court Case Involving for-Hire Drivers in Seattle FTC

Driverless shuttle involved in crash on first day of service in downtown Las Vegas 3 News Las Vegas

SEC Chief Fires Warning Shot Against Coin Offerings WSJ

How Deutsche Banks high-stakes gamble went wrong FT

Deutsche Bank CEO suggests robots could replace half the companys 97,000 employees CNBC (Re Silc). Re Silc: So then theyd be an automated laundromat?

Hiding in Plain Sight: How UK companies are used to launder corrupt wealth Transparency International UK (Richard Smith). Richard: First time in years that anyones had a single panoptic long form look at the abuses. Ugly.

Brexit

Syraqistan

Puerto Rico

U.S. military joins Brazil army exercises in Amazon Reuters (Timotheus). Timotheus: With the unelected Temer at 1% support, NOW is the time to perform joint military operations in the unprotected Amazon, of course!

North Korea

India

Kobe Steel trapped in endless chain of scandals Nikkei Asian Review

Malcolm Turnbulls Nuclear Option To Handle The Citizenship Mess: Recall Parliament Before Christmas HuffPost (KW). KW: The Australian Constitution say you cannot have dual citizenship if you are in Parliament. Several months ago a few politicians were outed as dual citizens; some resigned and other went to the High Court where most were booted including the Deputy Prime Minister which ended the Governments one-seat majority. More are being outed and the Government refuses to do a full audit of Parliament suggesting that instead that they state that as far as they know they are not dual citizens. The Opposition wont back down so this drama goes on.

New Cold War

Trump Transition

Rand Paul and his neighbor havent talked in years CNN

Moore allegations threaten to spark a GOP Senate crisis McClatchy

The Powerful Predators on Capitol Hill The Cut

Louis C.K. Is Accused of Sexual Misconduct by 5 Women NYT. Cf. this Gawker blind item, 2012.

Why we cant separate Louis C.K. from his art Quartz

Health Care

Imperial Collapse Watch

How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war Guardian

Class Warfare

Blight & Flight: The Wisdom of Abandoned Buildings The American Conservative

The night the lights went out in Napa Recode

How to Build a Fallout Shelter Using Nothing but IKEA Furniture Vice (Re Silc). News you can use!

Marijuana Won Tuesdays Election Forbes

Mail-Order CRISPR Kits Allow Absolutely Anyone to Hack DNA Scientific American

The Unsung Role That Ordinary Citizens Played in the Great Crime Decline NYT

Flying the Mail in Remote Idaho Air & Space

Antidote du jour (PM):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Im behind on Brexit, and not yet able to write the sort of big picture post Id like to, probably because it is too ambitious to do properly in a post format. Id like to identify and discuss the importance of boundary conditions and become more systematic about trying to come up with a decent list. One disincentive is that you dont have to identify all that many to see that it is very hard to see how the UK even gets to a hard Brexit, meaning an formal departure agreement but no trade deal by March 2019 or the longest transition period the EU has apparently said it is willing to offer, until the end of 2020. That means the UK is at a serious risk of what I have been calling a disorderly Brexit, or crashing out of the EU with no deal at all.

Since this the EU and UK are in talks this week, an update is overdue. But let me spend a few more minutes on the disorderly Brexit issue. The reason it is important isnt just that it might very well happen, but that the outcomes are so catastrophic that the UK officialdom is literally averting its eyes from it. Yet in yet another bizarre display of Brexit schizophrenia, the UK keeps overplaying its hand in the talks, although some UK leaders seem to be waking up to the fact that Brexit will be a national disaster and they can think of no way to back out, even though the EU reportedly will allow that up to the very drop dead date. Recall that we quoted a press report of Theresa May acting like a broken woman, with a visitor finding her unwilling to speak, resulting in a full ten minutes of silence before the guest withdrew. Our Richard Smith regards the fixation of the sex scandals as a form of official displacement, to keep from looking in the maw of Brexit.

Reader Mark P. recommended the October 25 testimony of Sir Ivan Rogers, the UKs former Permanent Representative to the EU, along with other experts, to the Treasury Committee. The entire document is important reading. Let me flag this section. Its a bit lengthy perhaps because Rogers finds it necessary to leave no room for misunderstanding:

To complete my point on no deal, I have looked at all the no deal literature at the moment. I have extensively gone through every argument in favour of no deal that I have been able to examine. Everybody talking about no deal does not mean no deal. They mean when we get to the wire there would be a succession of mini deals that we would be able to negotiate, and that the other side would be willing to negotiate. They would assure us of very significant continuity in all the areas that we would be most concerned about, ranging, as I say, from electricity interconnectors, to financial services, to data protection, to whatever. The proposition that you really get from the people advocating no deal is not no deal. No deal does not mean no deal, if I can coin a phrase. No deal equals no deal. I have not seen anybody actually advocate no deal, because they know that jumping into a legal void without any legal provisions in any of these areas is potentially very damaging. I do not think no deal does not exist. I think it is so dire to contemplate that people, as soon as they talk about no deal, say, But in practice there would be lots of mini deals. I am questioning just how valid a proposition that is, and how viable it is. Maybe I could give you a couple of examples. People get very bogged down in this and think It is so dire it obviously would not happen, and something would happen. I do not want to be unfair to no dealer rhetoric, but people always come back to say, Obviously they would not allow that to happen, because they would be damaging themselves either more than us or as much as us. I have been working on this and multiple of other examples in case the Committee is interested. With no agreement in place, our air carriers lose the right to operate EU-UK air services. Any flights between the EU and the UK would cease to operate. UK air carriers that had been operating within the single market pre-Brexit would lose their EU air traffic rights. To keep operating flights within the EU and continue to qualify as EU air carriers, which is the precondition to operate intra-EU air services, those companies would need to relocate their principal place of business into the EU27, i.e. where they oversee those air services conduct, maintenance and repairs and maintain their principal financial functions. This is not theoretical. Air companies were coming and talking to me about that in 2015, 2016. Immediately after the referendum CEOs were coming to talk to me. The UK would fall out of 50 aviation agreements between EU and third countries, including the EU-US Open Skies Agreement, under which UK-US air traffic currently accounts for about 40% of the EU-US air traffic. We need to negotiate new bilateral agreements with third countries in replacement. Then you say, Can you not revive the old bilateral air service agreements with the individual member states? Would that not provide a solution? I defer to my legal colleagues, but my advice is I do not think so, because those are outdated, restrictive and unfit for purpose. Where the EU has exercised competence, which it has in this case, it seems to me very improbable that individual member states would step back.

Keep in mind that even the tah dah of lots of mini-deals that keep the UK out of the ditch requires staffing, organizational capacity, and focus that has been sorely wanting on the UK side. Politico points out that today is the midpoint between the date of the Brexit vote and when the UK is set to leave the EU. The Government has largely frittered away this time.

The fact that the UK is simply refusing to consider what a pretty probable worst case scenario also means the UK is too often playing hardball with the EU when it is in no position to do so. (FWIW, I peg the likelihood of a disorderly Brexit at 40%, which is higher than the 20-30% odds I gave to a major financial crisis as of early 2007, and deemed then to be uncomfortably high).

Mind you, there was much more sobering material in Sir Ivans remarks. He thought that the UK, meaning both the Government and businesses, were not prepared for being put off again until March for a decision on future relationship talks, and youd see increasing panic among businesses (panic is not a Rogers word, but that was the drift of the gist). He also thought the UK was unrealistic as to what kind of trade deal it would get. It expects a special deal, a Canada plus plus plus when the EU will say that the sort of relationship the UK wants looks like a Canada or even Canada minus deal, which the UK pols and press would deem to be insulting (We are much bigger and closer than Canada. What are you talking about?). A hostile reaction to what ought to be understood as the logical outcome of the EUs clearly articulated parameters would be yet another impediment to getting a pact completed. Rogers also pointed out that a trade deal would take until the early to mid 2020s, when the longest transition period the EU is reportedly willing to entertain is to the end of 2020.

Sir Ivan also took note of this subtle but important source of friction:

There are things that are more difficult because we are a diverging partner rather than a converging partner. All trade deals in history are struck between people that are trying to get closer together. This is the first trade deal in history struck between partners who are trying to get further apart. If you are them, that is quite a worrying trade deal to strike because you are striking a trade deal with a partner who is deliberately taking themselves further out of your regulatory orbit. You can imagine the kinds of things that the other side will be putting on the table as part of the negotiating, and I can imagine some of the political reactions to the things they will put on table.

Jonathan Lis identified another critical impediment to the negotiations in his November 6 tweetstorm, a basic incomprehension by the UK of the EU view of negotiation procedures. And remember, the EU does set the rules. Article 50 stipulated that the EU side would come up with the guidelines, and also stipulates that the European Parliament must give a qualified majority approval to an exit pact.





Now finally to the update. Recall that December is a critical month. It is another decision point for the EU, as to whether it will authorize entering into discussions on the future relationship, meaning above all, trade. As the tweetstorm above indicated, the UK making a concession on the exit obligations is critical. Other important issues are that the UK is expected to put more meat on the bones of the transition proposal that Theresa May sketched out in her Florence speech and the Northern Irish border conundrum.

At first blush, the Financial Times and Politico differ sharply on the state of play. Yesterday, the Financial Times stated that the Tories were coming around to recognizing the need to commit more to the so-called divorce bill. From the pink paper:

Theresa May is ready to increase Britains offer to the EU over the Brexit divorce bill, after signs that the hard Eurosceptics in her party will tolerate paying more money to break the deadlock in negotiations. Mrs May has said that Britain will honour commitments we have made during the period of our membership and her team are working on different scenarios that would see her considerably increase the 20bn she has already put on the table. No big breakthroughs on money were made in the sixth round of Brexit talks, which conclude on Friday in Brussels. But the two sides touched on the delicate choreography of a possible December deal, where a UK financial pledge would be tied to an agreement in principle on a transition period after Brexit.

However, if you read this carefully, I am skeptical that this is consistent with the EUs repeateldy stated position, which is that the UK must show sufficient progress on three issues, the exit bill, the treatment of EU and UK citizens, and the Irish border issue, before any other issues are up for consideration. And the EU has also said it regards Mays Florence sketch as promising but it needs more detail to know what to make of it. To demand a transition commitment in parallel with considerably narrowing the differences after money, as opposed to afterwards, and when that transition idea is still a pig in the poke as far as the EU is concerned, sound like another UK face-saving scheme that wont get very far.

Politico is far more downbeat:

Brexit negotiators sat face to face in Brussels Thursday for the first time in nearly a month  but officials close to the talks said there was no progress on the key stumbling block, the U.K.s financial settlement. No major breakthroughs, was the straightforward assessment of one senior U.K. figure close to the talks. A senior EU official agreed. If the U.K. is planning on making a great leap forward soon, they havent told the EU According to a senior EU official involved in the Brexit process, there had been no substantive discussions on the money question up to this round of Brussels talks since Theresa Mays Florence speech on September 22. EU leaders welcomed Mays pledge in the Florence speech that the U.K. would continue making EU budget payments until the end of the current budget round in 2020 and honor commitments during its four decades as an EU member. But the U.K. has refused to be more specific on the latter component  something that the EU27 leaders say they need for the talks to progress The EU is looking for a commitment from the U.K. not just to keep the EU budget whole, but to cover its share of ongoing EU programs such as regional and overseas aid (known as the reste a liquider or RAL), plus pension obligations accrued during Britains four decades as an EU member.

The Northern Ireland front isnt going well either. The Telegraph reports that the Irish border issue was being deferred until the future relationship negotiations were underway. I do try to keep on top of these things, and I dont recall the EU agreeing to that, which is why the tone of outrage in this article seems surprising:

British hopes of opening Brexit trade and transition talks this December were thrown into renewed doubt as it emerged that Ireland is making fresh demands over the Northern Ireland border question, the Telegraph can reveal. The toughened Irish stance, reflected in a leaked European Commission document obtained by The Telegraph, blindsided British officials at Brexit negotiations in Brussels on Thursday as Ireland piled on pressure in the talks. British officials had believed that question of how to avoid creating a hard Irish border when the UK quits the EU single market and customs union had been parked until the EU opened talks over trade and the future relationship. However the leaked talking points paper entitled Dialogue on Ireland/Northern Ireland shows Ireland is now pushing hard for concrete reassurance on the Irish border question ahead of the crucial EU leaders summit in December.

Of course, the reason the Government had been hoping to deal with this hot potato later is that there does not seem to be any solution other than a hard border, which among other things would fatally undermine Mays shaky coalition.

And thats before we get to the wee problem that Mays government looks like it wont last till Christmas thanks to the exodus of randy ministers and that the Great Repeal Bill is also going pear shaped.

As Sir Ivan stated:

We cannot expect simple continuity, whether it is in energy, telecoms, financial services or multiple other things. The British cannot simply expect the world to carry on broadly as is. They cannot suspend free movement of people because that is no longer applicable to them, live outside the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice, but still have everything that they liked about the levels of market access when they were inside the venture.

Translation: assume the brace position.
Trump, who said hed do only great trade deals and would designate China a currency manipulator, announced $250 billion of trade deals with China as proof that he has successfully wrestled mano-a-mano with Premier Xi and bringing home lots of goodies for long-suffering American workers.

A more accurate point of view might be that Xi appears not to have gone out of his way to put Trump down, as Trump had done during Xis Mar-a-Lago visit, by arriving after Xi had landed and other diplomatic snubs. Worse, while Xi was under US surveillance, the US launched air strikes on a Syrian airbase. I thought if I were Xi, Id be furious at my inability to talk freely to my aides and military advisers, and most important, diplomats who handle Russia and Syria, while such a potentially destabilizing event was in play.

Instead, Xi engaged in the classic Chinese strategy of overwhelming leaders with ceremony and pampering. Quartz explained that this show is effective:

But Chinese president Xi Jinping added a creamy layer of pomp and circumstance to the mix when the White House delegation reached Beijing. Trump has been feted with everything from an unprecedented private dinner in the Forbidden City to a red carpet welcome in Tiananmen Square, the Beijing landmark where hundreds of students were killed by the Chinese military in 1989 Chinas government is playing Trump like a fiddle, said Jorge Guajardo, Mexicos ambassador to China from 2007 to 2013. You dont have good chemistry with a Chinese leader who doesnt speak your language and is geared to not develop chemistry, he said. The Communist Partys top aides are masterful at making diplomats and foreign businessmen feel special You leave that meeting thinking It went great, said Guajardo. And then when it comes time to negotiate a practical agreement, if you invoke the special friendship youve formed, Beijing officials laugh and say No, lets not confuse all that pomp and circumstance with the meat of the matter. I would be lying to you if I tell you I didnt fall for it when I was there, he added.

Max Bauchus confirmed Guajardos take:

Max Baucus, a former U.S. ambassador to China, told Bloomberg Television, This is classic Chinese. They have been doing this for thousands of years. Its their technique to try to suck you in, Baucus said. I think all this ceremony here is designed by the Chinese in part to prevent any serious conversation. The more there is pomp and circumstance, the less there is time to talk.

This snippet from the Washington Post indicates expectations from this summit were low:

While both sides were pleased to see a high-stakes visit end without incident, there are questions about what was gained and what, perhaps, was lost.

Trump was on good behavior:

Trump brought up North Korea but said Xi could solve it. He raised the trade deficit but said it was not Chinas fault. He said the Chinese people are very proud of Xi.

Trump is hampered not only by being a foreign policy newbie who has a distaste for boing up, but also by having gaps in staffing of his Asia team. And underpreparation didnt help. From Bloomberg:

The non-committal nature of many of the deals reflects a lack of planning or advance work ahead of Trumps visit to pin down significant agreements or concessions from China, according to two administration officials who asked not to be identified to speak about private deliberations.

The result was a big headline number  $250 billion!  that is mainly hot air. Many of the actual deals were either already done or largely done or things that China wanted and had previously been denied. The rest were handwaves that may not get done. From Bloomberg:

The reality, however, is that the roughly 15 agreements unveiled on Thursday are mostly non-binding memorandums of understanding and could take years to materialize  if they do at all. A day earlier, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced $9 billion of deals, many also MOUs with few details, rather than contracts The officials pointed to the fact that there were no agreements on giving U.S. companies more access to Chinese markets, or opening up Chinese financial markets  something investors have been demanding for years China Aviation Supplies Holding Co. agreed to buy 300 aircraft worth about $37 billion from Boeing Co. Still, it was unclear how many of them were new orders.. The lack of substance during the trip risks undercutting one of Trumps main objectives in Asia: to cut deals that effectively narrow the U.S.s trade deficits with some of the regions biggest economies. Trump walked away from Japan and South Korea largely empty-handed from visits that focused mostly on solidifying security ties.

And from the Independent:

There was very little detail announced. A number of them are non-binding, so could easily collapse. Some would probably have happened anyway. It was announced that China plans to invest $100bn in US energy projects. This will include an $84m Chinese state investment in West Virginian shale gas and chemical manufacturing and $43m for Alaskan liquefied natural gas. But the reality is that China has been eager to invest in Western energy for years. It was famously rebuffed by the US Congress when it attempted to buy a minor American oil company called Unocal way back in 2005. The problem has been Western reticence to allow Beijing to do so. Trump is simply giving China what it has long wanted.

The Independent goes through other major categories. It deems the aviation deal potentially more meaningful but questions how many of the planes were already on order. Qualcomm getting a deal to sell chips for Chinese smartphones is just a MOU plus Qualcomm is already a significant in China, raising questions as to whether this handshake was even a meaningful advance. China made another non-binding commitment to import $5 billion of soyabeans. With Chinese demand rising, this again looks like nothing more than extrapolating the current trend.

One possible upside, if you are of the tough on China school, is that Trump may engage in another regular practice, of giving good meeting (Trump is apparently very likable in person) and then stabbing his guest in the back a day or two later. From Bloomberg:

Still, the business community in Beijing is abuzz with talk that Trump may announce very tough trade policies against China when he gets back to Washington, said McGregor, who attended the signing ceremony with Ross on Wednesday. The U.S. is currently investigating Chinas intellectual property practices, a move that Beijing has said could lead to a trade war.

So the most you can say about this trip is Trump has managed to sabotage himself less than when in the US. Maybe he should stay on the road.
On Monday, 13 November 2017, the NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will attend the European Union Foreign Affairs Council in Defence format.

Media Advisory

14:15 The Secretary General will give a doorstep upon arrival at the European Council  Europa Building

The doorstep will be streamed live on the NATO website. Still and video images will be available after the event.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg)
Today (10 November), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg travelled to rland, Norway to welcome the arrival of Norwegian F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The Secretary General praised the continuing modernisation of NATOs air forces and the strong partnership between European and American industry. These planes, the Secretary General noted, make the Atlantic Ocean narrower.

rland Main Air Station is a crucial component of NATOs air defence in the region and is home to several of NATOs AWACS aircraft. During his visit, the Secretary General met with King Harald of Norway, Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen.
(Natural News) Despite an abundance of smoking cessation aids available, many people struggle to kick this dangerous habit. Its not surprising that some adults who have been smoking for decades cannot imagine living without their cigarettes, but are the chances any better of getting young people to abandon the habit?

A study that was recently published in the Journal of Community Health discovered one very effective way to help younger smokers give up smoking for good. It involved a combination of informal conversations with young people about the consequences of the habit and a quit kit stocked with behavior-replacement activities.

A Street Team of nearly 30 college and high school students was put together to deliver interventions to young smokers. The team was trained by Breathe Californias Sacramento Taking Action Against Nicotine Dependence (STAND) project, and they attended street fairs, mall activities, concerts and other community events in Sacramento to deliver their message. Lasting five to ten minutes, this entailed one-on-one education about the dangers of smoking, motivational messages, and referrals to resources that can help people quit.

At the interventions, the Street Team also handed out quit kits to smokers that contained giveaways packaged inside a water bottle. These included tobacco alternatives that they could hold in their hands or put in their mouths, like trail mix, toothpicks, honey sticks, gum and distress balls.

Over a period of four years, 279 young smokers participated in the interventions, and the team made follow-up calls to 76 of the participants three times in a six-month period to ascertain how effective the intervention had been.

Quit rate from intervention more than twice the typical quit rate

They discovered that those who participated in their intervention had a 12.5 percent quit rate at six months, which compares very favorably to the 5 percent who typically manage to quit on their own. Seventy percent of the participants said that the quit kit helped them give up the habit, and they were particularly positive about the tobacco alternatives. They also said the discussions they had with the Street Team were useful, particularly those that helped them strategize and warned them about the financial and physical costs of smoking.

UC Davis Health Internal Medicine Physician and Senior Author Elisa Tong pointed out that nearly all smokers pick up the habit by the time theyre 26, so by finding a way to reach young smokers and get them to stop before the behavior becomes hard wired, they can hopefully counteract the aggressive marketing that tobacco companies use to try to get young people hooked on cigarettes and set them up for a lifetime of tobacco buying.

Meanwhile, study co-author and STAND Senior Program Director Kimberly Bankston-Lee said that the smoking cessation efforts that are most commonly geared toward newer smokers are unsuccessful because theyre based upon quitting methods that work for longer-term smokers. Younger smokers, she said, tend to be social smokers, so a different approach is called for.

One of the key differences with our approach was the comfort factor. Younger smokers were able to interact with people their own age in locations where they all typically hang out, she said.

Next, the researchers would like to test out the intervention at other sites, such as community college campuses, with the help of delivery teams from those sites. Although their effort may have started out in Sacramento, theyd like to develop tools that the entire nation can use to help curb this behavior. It couldnt come at a better time, as the CDC reports that if the current youth smoking rate continues, 5.6 million Americans  or one out of every 13  who are presently younger than 18 will die early due to smoking-related illnesses

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

CDC.gov
Scientists are as sceptical as they come  but many still engage in personal rituals or use totems in the lab and field.

While investigating how experience can influence brain circuitry, students and postdocs in Robert Froemke's neuroscience lab have developed various rituals to 'bring luck' to their investigations.

The electrophysiologists of the group, who record the activity of single neurons, watch their monitoring apparatus obsessively, even though their experiments can run unattended.

By contrast, the molecular biologists leave their experiments to run unmonitored to avoid 'jinxing' the results, Froemke says. Superstitions reach into every corner of human endeavour  including the science world.

One student routinely calls off her Friday-night plans, because in the past when she's cancelled, she's noticed that she had greater success with training the mice in her studies.

Froemke's lab members know that none of these minor rituals actually improves the odds of their experiments working, but they do them anyway  if somewhat furtively.

Such rituals tap into something deep about the human condition, says Froemke, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute faculty scholar at the New York University School of Medicine.

As a graduate student, he recalls, he wouldn't leave his own neuronal-recording experiments, even to visit the toilet. It's both heartwarming and a little heartbreaking, he says. These things make the science really personal and the process our own.

Whether in archaeology or astronomy, rituals and lucky charms abound among rational, logical scientists who are fully aware that engaging in them has no effect whatsoever on their science. Some principal investigators decry them as distractions or a waste of energy. But other lab heads and behavioural experts support their use, arguing that they serve important roles that might benefit research.

There is some evidence that rituals can soothe anxiety and reduce stress levels, and might therefore serve to prepare experimentalists for a gruelling day's work1. The uncertainty and long hours of science can be hard to deal with  so hard that some labs and scientists turn to familiar rituals and routines to lower the pressure, build team spirit and normalize the culture of frequent failure.

Rituals, say psychologists and behavioural-science experts, can also personalize a project and bring an illusion of control to an unpredictable endeavour. By the very nature of the word, experiments are often not going to work, says Stuart Vyse, an emeritus behavioural scientist at Connecticut College in New London who has studied the psychology of superstition.

Researchers who are setting up complex experiments or planning a risky field expedition prepare meticulously for every contingency, he says. But that might not seem like enough to some people. Once the person has done everything they can think of that rationally can help the outcome, then they are looking for something extra, Vyse says.

The benefits of distraction

For Loren Davis, an archaeologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, and his team, that something extra was a totem dubbed Rock Ness. At a dig in an Idaho canyon in 2007, Jessica Curteman, then a master's-degree student in Davis's group, unearthed a rock that looked like the head of the mythical Loch Ness monster. Curteman whipped out a marker pen and drew an eye on it. Ever since, Rock Ness has enjoyed a prominent place in the field each summer to 'watch over' digs around the western United States, says Davis, who studies early human inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.

Curteman, now a senior archaeologist for the cultural-resources department of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in Oregon, is the keeper of Rock Ness. She says that the propped-up rock 'reminds' team members at the field site to keep the floors and walls of their excavations neat and organized as they uncover fossils and artefacts. Sometimes, she reports with a wink, the rock seems to 'move closer' to researchers who need an emotional boost, perhaps to yank more sandbags out of a site or to deal with a disruptive rodent burrow.

Dimitris Xygalatas, an experimental anthropologist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, has found evidence both in and out of the lab that repetitive hand motions and ritualistic prayers soothe anxiety.

In one lab study, his team induced anxiety in a group of participants by asking them to prepare a public speech on an artwork2. A control group was not given the stress-inducing task. Both groups were then asked to clean the artwork while their hand motions were recorded and analysed. The high-stress group showed more-repetitive and predictable  or more-ritualized  hand movements. The work, say Xygalatas and his co-authors, suggests that people perform rituals as a way of coping with anxiety. Behavioural ecologist Walt Koenig checks on an acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus).

In fieldwork not yet published, Xygalatas's team induced stress in study participants by having them write about a natural disaster. The researchers found that indicators of anxiety, including increased heart rates, were reduced more quickly in individuals who participated in ritualistic prayers afterwards, compared with those who did not.

Aside from alleviating physiological stress, argues Xygalatas, a ritual can also confer a psychological lift. If it boosts your confidence and you believe you are going to be better and less stressed, then you are going to perform better, he says.

But some group leaders see rituals and lucky charms as a waste of time, or a distraction from the hard work of research. Patrick Druckenmiller, Earth-science curator at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks, has never developed rituals during fieldwork, nor does he encourage it. I am mostly on my guard the whole time, making sure that work is getting done, the field crew is reasonably happy and, most importantly, safe, he says. Distractions, he adds, can be dangerous at the remote field sites in the Arctic where he and his team work, with harsh, unpredictable weather and the risk of bear encounters. In such settings, there is little time or opportunity to develop other follies.

But some researchers say that rituals and routines, such as doing a brief dance before running an experiment, saluting a cuddly toy above the bench or listening to a specific playlist of songs, can help scientists to relax. This can be an important aspect of work that often requires both fine motor control and sharp focus. Benelita Elie, a PhD student in cancer biology at the City University of New York, likes to set the tempo of her music playlists to match the tempo of her bench work. During shorter experiments, she always hums along to a specific piece by Bach that she knows by heart. It gives me predictability, she says, in a space where there is a lot of unpredictability.

Team totems

When rituals or totems are part of a group setting, Xygalatas says, they can become traditions that promote social bonding. Rock Ness brought a sense of fun to Davis's field team and helped them to gel. It's an intellectual pursuit, but it's also a lot of physical labour, and we all have to work as a team to get things done, he says.

Michael Long, a neuroscientist at New York University School of Medicine, says he has seen lab rituals that served to lighten the mood after inevitable experimental failures. During Long's graduate-school days at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, he developed a daily ritual to ward off failure  and the routine spread through his lab. Studying delicate slices of rodent brains, he had to keep the cells alive in a lab dish for several hours and record the activity of the firing neurons. The tricky experiments took all day, but Long wouldn't know until the end whether he had obtained good recordings. On those days, he started buying lunch at his favourite hot-dog shop, Spike's Junkyard Dogs.

Once the person has done everything they can think of that can rationally help the outcome, then they are looking for something extra.

The days I ate at Spike's, I had beautiful slices. It happened every time, so then everyone else in the lab started going to Spike's more and more often, recalls Long. A lab mate's husband even adopted the practice, and ate there before a job interview. I don't even know if they liked hot dogs, says Long with a laugh.

Some scientists partake in group rituals that have a serious side. In Japan, it's common practice for universities and research institutes to hold an annual memorial service for animals that have been killed as part of experiments. Researchers say that they participate in these services to show appreciation and gratitude for the animals and to console their spirits3.

About half of the services are religious in nature, and those are about evenly split between Buddhist and Shinto rites, says Naoki Morishita, an ethics professor at Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan, who has studied the ritual services. He says that they are deeply rooted in Japanese cultural and spiritual beliefs. Communication with the soul of the dead is at the heart of it, he says. Japanese researchers participate to express feelings of gratitude and appreciation. They do not feel calm without it. In that sense, the memorial service is important for them.

Routine success

Elsewhere, researchers use rituals and habits on a daily basis. In his work, Walt Koenig, a behavioural ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, has two routines to help him to locate the nests of acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) and band the birds for study.

To find active nests, which are usually 612 metres above the ground in the cavities of oak trees, Koenig yells, Hello? in a specific, drawn-out vocal tone towards nest holes to get a bird to peer out. I'm sure that it has to have that particular nasal quality to get them to look out, jokes Koenig. Catching the adult birds is a feat that involves climbing a tree, setting an ambush to trap the birds inside the cavity and sawing a new entrance from which to carefully remove them. It's something of an art form, says Koenig.

So, when he triumphs, Koenig performs his second ritual, both as a celebration and as a quirky benediction for the bird's continued health. When I finish banding and measuring them, I kiss them on the head and say, 'Live long and prosper.'

He has passed the rituals on to junior researchers as a symbolic way of sharing his successes, and says that he would be disappointed if they failed to repeat his speeches. You hope that your little rituals will make it work the next time round, he says. I do indeed show them and claim, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that such things are important to the project.

For his part, Davis carries a personal totem in his pocket  a replica of a 13,000-year-old spear point  to remind him how luck led to the discovery of the original.

On a field trip to Idaho in 1997, he accidentally used the wrong compass setting, and so incorrectly laid a baseline that shifted his field site. That mistake uncovered a pit loaded with stone tools and spear points. It was an incredible find that documented the technologies of some of the earliest hunter-gatherers in North America. If I had not set the line wrong, Davis says, we would have missed it.

A collaborator of Davis's, Dennis Jenkins at the University of Oregon in Eugene who also studies North America's earliest inhabitants, always dons his lucky field hat before entering a work site, and takes it off when he leaves in the evening. He also considers his bright orange, multi-pocket field vest and the buck knife that hangs from his belt indispensable items that support his field 'persona', which he says helps him to lead students through dicey situations.
The group of teachers and staff accused of sexually assaulting or harassing students at a Catholic high school for girls in San Jose is growing after an explosive essay published in the Washington Post last month described the sexual assault of two students by a former Spanish teacher nearly three decades ago.

Since Presentation High School graduate Kathryn Leehane published that essay, NBC Bay Areas Investigative Unit has learned of accusations against several other teachers or staff members, including at least one thats still employed at the school.

Several sources who spoke with NBC Bay Area also described reporting incidents of sexual misconduct they witnessed or learned of to school Principal Mary Miller, but they question whether those incidents were ever reported to authorities.

San Jose attorney Robert Allard is now formally representing two women who say they were victimized as students at the private high school, but he says hes been contacted by many more who have come forward with stories of abuse. Allard said hes since hired a team of former San Jose police sergeants and a former Santa Clara County prosecutor to investigate.

Ive been doing this for 10 years, and Ive had many sex abuse cases against many school districts in the Bay Area, Allard said. Ive never had a situation like this, where it goes back for such a long period of time, literally decades, involving a multitude of teachers within the same administration.

Allard said his team is currently investigating sexual abuse allegations against at least seven different teachers or staff members at Presentation going all the way back to 1990. He says in many of those cases, the schools administration failed students.

Theres one common denominator, and that is Principal Mary Miller, Allard said. The same recurring theme is being brought up over and over again. Inappropriate sexual activity is being brought to her attention, as committed by (school staff). And not only does she not call the police, but there have been active acts on her behalf to intimidate and frankly bully these victims into not coming forward.

Over the past several weeks, NBC Bay Area has spoken with many Presentation graduates concerned the administration swept accusations of sexual assault under the rug. At least four say they reported incidents of sexual misconduct by teachers to Miller ranging in time from 1990 to just last year.

One former student named Ellen, who graduated in 2005, spoke with NBC Bay Area on the condition her last name would not be reported.

In one incident, she describes witnessing a classmate leave the office of a teacher visibly upset.

She was crying, Ellen said. She was really, really upset.

Ellen said her underage classmate told her what happened in the office.

(The teacher) told her he loved her and tried to touch her, Ellen said. I believe it was her leg.

Ellen describes taking her classmate to the principals office to report the incident.

I was disgusted, she said. This is somebody I had trusted implicitly.

Ellen said the teacher was gone from campus soon after they reported the incident. But Ellen says weeks later, the teacher was back.

So she says she confronted him herself.

I said I dont want you here, and I dont want you ever teaching again, she said.

Looking back on the incident, Ellen says she doesnt believe Miller ever reported the incident to authorities. She says she was never interviewed by police or Child Protective Services.

That same year, Ellen took her concerns about another teacher to Miller after seeing an email from a recent Presentation graduate warning students to avoid him.

Dont be alone with him, and dont be around him, Ellen says the email warned.

Ellen says she soon learned that teacher was accused of having sex with a student who had just graduated. She says she immediately brought those claims to Miller, and the teacher was soon gone.

Miller has so far declined to be interviewed for this story, but she released a statement regarding the accusations against those teachers.

Because the law prohibits us from disclosing employee or student information, we cannot comment on personnel issues or decisions, but we can tell you neither of these men have been employed at Presentation High School for at least 12 years. As in all instances at PHS, the administration followed the appropriate protocols and procedures required by the law. Because of privacy laws affecting both students and staff, we cannot disclose additional information.

Ellen says shes somewhat conflicted about speaking out. Miller, she says, is someone always trusted and looked up to. In a time of need, Ellen says Miller personally helped her. She credits the principal with helping hundreds of young women who have gone through Presentation, including herself. But looking back, she says she doesnt believe her principal did enough to protect students.

I think the school was concerned about its reputation, she says.

What often happens in the school environment is the school administration thinks that they need to do some investigation before reporting," said Bill Grimm, senior attorney at the National Youth Law Center.

Grimm said laws passed in 1980 require school staff to immediately call police or Child Protective Services, not to interview victims or suspects themselves.

The law requires as soon as you have a reasonable suspicion, you need to report it, and then leave it to the professionals or law enforcement to investigate, Grimm said. Its important to report quickly and have the investigation conducted quickly so that all the other students in that same school environment are protected.

In the social media firestorm that followed Leehanes Washington Post essay, many Presentation graduates are defending Miller and the school.

In an email to NBC Bay Area, Presentation grad turned science department chair and physics teacher Diane Rosenthal said she believes Miller has handled these incidents with her best judgment.

I have known Mary Miller for more than 30 years, Rosenthal wrote. Her whole life has been dedicated to educating women and I have 100 percent faith in the fact that she would never knowingly put a child in a danger.

Although Leehane has so far not spoken publicly about the essay thats focused a spotlight on the small San Jose high school, her older sister Maria Alderete, class of 1988, defended Leehane against critics that accuse her of dragging Presentations name through the mud.

I believe my sister, Alderete said. I believe it happened, and I believe that Mr. Fernandez made several poor decisions. The impact of his actions have scarred women for decades.

Alderete said letting these issues fester beneath the surface will only hurt the school and its students.

If we create a culture of silence, were never going to be able to get better, Alderete said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, both of California, are in San Francisco on Friday, discussing the proposed GOP tax plan.

Both have been blunt about their disapproval of the Tax Cuts and Jobs act. Specifically, they are opposed to eliminating medical, student loans and state and local tax deductions.

Were fighting a historic fight and its more than just Democrats and Republicans, said Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi said. Its about who we are, as a country and how we support opportunity and fairness.

The Mission Bay fire station served as Pelosis stage on Friday as she discussed how the new GOP plan affects everybody across the country and benefits only the rich.

This whole tax bill is a gift to corporate America. $1.5 trillion, said Pelosi.

Pelosi on Twitter even went so far as to call the proposal a #GOPTaxScam.

Not everyone agrees with Pelosi, like California Republican Vice-Chair, Harmeet Dhillon, who says the drastic dip in the corporate tax rate will lead to new jobs, investments and wage growth.

But there are people who might pay for the corporate cuts in other ways.

This plan could seriously disincentivize me and many of my colleagues from pursuing graduate degrees and using our disciplines to contribute to the common good, said recent USF grad, Shara Caya who is worried about the vanishing tax deduction on student loan interest.

President Donald Trump has made a self-imposed deadline for the tax plan to be passed: Thanksgiving.
The Vallejo Police Department spent close to 2,000 hours protecting Paramount Pictures film sets during the production of "13 Reasons Why" and the latest Transformers spinoff "Bumblebee," according to public records.

The city billed the Hollywood-based production company about $155,000 for more than 1,845 hours of police labor over the course of 2016, records show. Police officers diverted traffic away from the film sets and provided security services, according to Joanna Altman, assistant to the city manager.

Altman said the invoices are direct reimbursements for resources the city expended during filming. The benefits of having film crews in the area come from the added economic activity caused by production, Altman said.

It wasnt an increase in revenue to us by any means, Altman said, noting that the studio had their debts. As for the ancillary support to the community, they are here shopping, purchasing locally and staying in hotels.

The film crews have primarily been stationed downtown, where several buildings received a facelift to accommodate production. The facade of the fictional Monets coffee shop and Bakers Pharmacy from 13 Reasons Why is still up on Georgia street, drawing in young fans who like to take selfies in front of the building.

There are people there all day looking through the windows, said Ray Prather, who has been renting his parking lot to the film crews. Just a stream of little girls, mostly, taking pictures.

The Transformers spinoff Bumblebee also filmed scenes in the downtown area and Mare Island.

For the most part, nearby residents and business owners who spoke to NBC Bay Area say they have been pleased with the production companys presence. When film crews are in the area, staffers often shop at local retailers and drive tourism to the small city, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Kent Fortner, owner of Mare Island Brewing Co., lives and works two blocks away from production. He said any inconveniences have been mitigated by the boon film crews have brought to his business.

There is no doubt that it was disruptive, but I found it very entertaining, Fortner said. Economic activity is always a little disruptive, but the crews love to drink beer and it brought some good notoriety to the city.

But the experience hasnt been universally positive. Some residents, including Fortners neighbor and some small business owners, have grown frustrated with street closures.

Paramount Pictures also caused controversy over the summer when a production crew painted over a beloved city mural that featured community members who died tragically.

The muralist, Alvaro Garcia, said Paramount Pictures' response to the controversy felt "superficial." Although top producers apologized to people depicted in the mural and vowed to pay for a new one, they never reached out to him directly.

"I feel like my mural was hijacked," he said. "People have been focusing on one aspect of it, without looking at the broader picture of what that mural represents in our city's history."

Netflix has not yet confirmed whether "13 Reasons Why" will be back for a third season. If it is renewed, Fortner is hoping Paramount will return to Vallejo.

For a city that was once in bankruptcy and kind of took one on the chin, I think traffic and all of that stuff are good problems to have, he said.
A woman who says she was kicked off a United Airlines flight in 2016 after being falsely accused of having a communicable disease is suing the carrier.

Alexandra Jicol-Huylebroeck's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges negligence and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The complaint filed Tuesday seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

"This is a legal matter so we are not able to comment,'' United Airlines Director of Corporate Communications Frank Benenati said.

The suit states that Jicol-Huylebroek has been diagnosed with acute allergies by her Torrance physician. Whenever the woman flies, she informs the airline that she has a medical disability, the suit states.

Jicol-Huylebroeck provided two letters at check-in about her condition before boarding Flight 151 from Guam to Osaka, Japan, on July 20, 2016, the suit states.

"She has severe, life-threatening allergic reactions to various foods, medications and flavorings,'' the letters read, adding that she must always carry with her the appropriate medications.

However, while sitting in her seat in front of the passenger cabin before Flight 151 took off, an airport security guard, flanked by two United Airlines attendants, told Jicol-Huylebroeck to leave the aircraft, the suit states.

"The command was loud and confrontational," the suit alleges.

Jicol-Huylebroeck was "humiliated'' because the incident was witnessed by other passengers, the suit states.

After the sobbing plaintiff asked why she was being forced to leave, the guard told her, "You must get off the plane," the suit states.

Two days later, Jicol-Huylebroeck demanded an explanation from United Airlines, the suit states.

United Airlines sent her an email in August 2016 that stated the carrier had the right to remove passengers "who appear to have symptoms of or who have a communicable disease that could pose a threat to the health or safety of others on the flight, or who refuse a screening for such circumstances," the suit states.

Jicol-Huylebroeck never showed any signs of a communicable disease and did not refuse to undergo a screening, according to her lawsuit.

Despite an obligation to provide a response within 30 days to the plaintiff's written demand for an explanation as to why United Airlines thought she had a communicable disease, no further clarification was offered, the suit alleges.
Long past the days when they mightve filed in to lunch with military precision, the three elderly men arrived by wheelchairs and a walker  pushing gingerly into their routine corner of the Sunrise Villa senior home lunchroom in San Jose.

For these three veterans of World War II, the daily call to lunch is a time to slip back more than seven decades  into memories of when their young lives were uprooted and they were dispatched far from home to fight against strangers.

Every day, they sit in their corner and remember the war  the sacrifices they made, the things they saw  the lives they returned to.

The younger generation, they dont know what went on, said Tony Gelardi who at 93 years is the youngster of the group.

Across the table, one-hundred-and-one year old Joe Checke and Tony Cecchin,102, sipped coffee, straining to hear one another over the growing lunchtime din.

All three rode the seas during the war  Gelardi and Checke served in the Navy  Gelardi in the Philippines and Checke in the South Pacific.

All we did was fight, whispered Checke, who served 21 years in the Navy.

As a U.S. Marine, Cecchin experienced the brunt of combat on the island of Iwo Jima. His unit came under constant fire from enemy soldiers perched in the mountains above his position  he lost friends, commanders.

A bomb exploded just beyond his foxhole lodging shrapnel in his head. Not long after, a bullet through his shoulder during a jeep ride finally sent him home. A tiny scar on his forehead still marks the spot where shrapnel remains as a macabre souvenir.

I was forced into the Marine Corps, offered Cecchin, who had a wife and child during the time he was drafted. I didnt want to go. But I went.

Some 16 million Americans answered the call during World War II. According the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, that population has dwindled to fewer than 600,000.

There are increasingly few who can sit and break bread together, sip coffee and take comfort in the shared experience of a war the world has not since seen.

Gelardi, who grew-up in San Franciscos North Beach, recalled the moment when the war ended. He was aboard the USS Pocono when the captains voice bellowed over the loudspeaker.

Alright mates, the war is over, Gelardi remembered hearing. Japan has surrendered unconditionally.

Gelardi said his commanders fired fireworks off the ship as the U.S. flag raised, the National Anthem began to play and he fought back tears. Drinking wasnt allowed on the ship but for the occasion, the captain opened the beer locker and instructed the crew to help themselves.

Cecchin remembered life after his war ended, arriving back in the Bay Area on Treasure Island.

So after fighting a war, Cecchin said, were back here in the United States trying to pick up our lives.

Even with hearing aids, the men sometimes had trouble hearing one another. Yet the bond of camaraderie seemed to rise above mere words. In a facility with dozens of seniors, the men somehow gravitated to each other as if their military background was a name tag.

At one point, Cecchin leaned over paternally to cut Checkes lunch into bite-sized pieces as Checkes right hand involuntarily clenched up. Its become part of their daily routine.

Hes been through an awful lot, Gelardi said, looking over at Cecchin who earned a Purple Heart for his wounds.

Even though for most, World War II drifts further into memory, farther into the ephemera of history  it was as fresh as yesterday for these three men who had not only survived war  but also time. And along with memories of combat, came the first-hand lessons of wars finality that only an eye-witness could validate.

We were made to live as best we can, lets do it, with everybody, Cecchin said to his table mates. No more wars for anybody.
Devin Patrick Kelley, the shooter who killed 26 people in a Texas church, was court-martialed in 2014 while in the Air Force for domestic assault after he beat and choked his wife and fractured his infant stepsons skull. He also sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, authorities said.

Hes not the first mass shooter with links to domestic violence.

The California man who killed four people and wounded 10 in a Tuesday shooting rampage in rural Northern California first killed his wife a day earlier and hid her body under the floor boards of their home, investigators said.



"The majority of mass shootings are domestic or family violence events, where a mass shooter shoots (or) targets his intimate partner and/or family members," April M. Zeoli, an associate professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, said by email.



In more than half of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016 the perpetrator shot a current or former intimate partner or family member, according to a report by Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization working to end gun violence. That 54 percent does not account for those who, like Kelley, had a history of domestic violence and went on to kill strangers. Sixteen percent of attackers in the mass shootings studied had previously been charged with domestic violence.

Federal law bans firearm possession by domestic violence offenders in two ways: prohibiting an individual who is under a restraining order for domestic violence, and prohibiting someone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence crime from purchasing or possessing firearms. But vaguely written laws, ineffective implementation and gaps such as private sales and the so-called "boyfriend loophole" often allow domestic abusers who shouldn't be allowed to possess guns to have them anyway.

The federal law regarding domestic restraining orders has significant holes in it, Daniel Webster, who has studied the topic with Zeoli and serves as director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, told NBC.

"It does not include temporary or emergency orders, and honestly thats the most dangerous time for victims," Webster said. Furthermore, the law only applies to current restraining orders, most of which only last for one year. People often don't renew them.

"So you can have individuals who might have had several restraining orders for pretty serious acts of domestic violence, but all of those orders have expired," he said.

Then there is what is called "the boyfriend loophole," which means the law only applies if the victim and the perpetrator are married, formerly married, have lived together or have children together.

"In this day and age, the vast majority of domestic violence occurs in other kinds of contexts: dating partners, for example, and so this so-called boyfriend-girlfriend loophole is a very important gap in our federal laws," Webster said.

Another issue is that even when individuals are prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm, they can sometimes still keep a gun they already own.

"At the federal level and in many states  it sounds a little bit illogical, and it is they will say someone is prohibited from possessing a firearm if you meet one of those conditions. But they wont actually compel a person to hand over any gun that he possesses," Webster said.

Some states have passed their own laws to close loopholes in the federal laws, such as extending the definition of domestic violence to include dating partners.

Multiple studies have confirmed that state laws prohibiting those under domestic violence restraining orders from buying or possessing a gun is associated with lower homicide rates between domestic partners, Zeoli noted.

But these laws must be properly implemented and enforced to be effective, which Zeoli said is not always the case.

"In order to prevent purchase, the disqualifying record (whether a domestic violence misdemeanor conviction or domestic violence restraining order) must be in the background check system," she said. "If it isn't, the purchase will go forward. So, we clearly need to focus on implementation."

Kelley, the Texas church shooter, was able to buy a gun because the Air Force failed to enter his domestic violence conviction into a national database so that it would have showed up on a background check. When Kelly purchased the rifle he used to carry out Sunday's mass shooting, he checked the box indicating that he did not have a disqualifying criminal history, CNN reported.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday that Kelley should not have been able to get a gun after being convicted of domestic abuse. More needs to be done to enforce the "laws on the books," Ryan said.

But even if an individual has a domestic violence conviction or a restraining order that would be revealed in a background check, he or she might still be able to purchase a gun.

Under federal law, licensed firearm dealers must conduct a background check to sell a gun. But private sales, including those on the internet and at gun shows, do not require this step. And while some states have legislation requiring background checks even in private sales, many do not.

"What this means, in practice, is that in many states, a person who can't pass a background check can buy a gun from a private seller without one," Zeoli said.

In more than one-third of mass shootings, the shooter was already prohibited from possessing firearms at the time of the shooting, according to Everytown.



In Webster and Zeoli's joint research on the nuances of policies that aim to keep guns out of the hands of domestic violence offenders, one of their main takeaways was that the way laws are written matters.

"Distinctions matter," Webster said. "We find in remarkably consistent ways that the broader and more robust the laws are to disarm domestic violence offenders, the greater effect we see in reductions in intimate partner homicide."

It is difficult to say whether keeping guns away from domestic violence offenders could reduce mass shootings, partly because up until recently mass shootings were much more rare events, Webster said.

But because even Republican-dominated states with many gun owners have been strengthening their laws regarding domestic violence offenders and firearm possession, he is somewhat optimistic that progress can be made in addressing the weaknesses in the current laws.

And depending on the strength of the laws, he guesses there will be an observable impact on mass shootings, he said.

While the nation is polarized on aspects of gun control such as bans on certain types of firearms and ammunition, it seems that people are more united about keeping guns away from domestic abusers.

Eighty-three percent of Americans support preventing sales of all firearms to people who have been convicted of violent misdemeanors, including domestic assaults, according to an internet survey of registered voters conducted by Morning Consult.

Most Americans  84 percent  also support criminal background checks for all gun purchases, according to recent polls.

Gun rights groups take the opposing view on many of these issues.

When Rhode Island moved to pass its own law making it harder for convicted domestic abusers to buy guns and requiring that they give up guns they already own, the National Rifle Association called it a "gun confiscation bill masquerading as 'domestic violence'" and called for action from its members to try to stop the bill. The bill passed in September.

"As we have repeatedly stated, domestic violence is an abhorrent crime, but this bill doesn't protect domestic violence victims," the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action wrote on its website. "Current federal and state laws are in place to make sure convicted violent abusers cannot possess firearms, and this bill is as dangerous as it is unnecessary."



Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, a gun rights organization based in Virginia, said in an email to NBC that gun control costs lives and that women benefit from owning firearms to protect themselves in domestic violence situations.

Still, studies have shown that having firearms in a household increases the risk of homicide and suicide for both women and men. A Harvard study found that of more than 300 cases of sexual assault reported in a data sample from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) from 2007 to 2011, none were stopped by the use of a firearm.



Pratt noted that violent felons give up their rights to bear arms. But "federal law disarms both men and women for misdemeanor offenses which means that couples who engage in shouting matches (where there is no actual violence) can suffer lifetime gun bans," he said.

The law, often called the Lautenberg Amendment after its sponsor, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, defines a misdemeanor domestic violence crime as involving the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a current or former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabiting with or has cohabited with the victim as a spouse, parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated to a spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim."

The 1996 amendment extended the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 to include misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence as well as felony domestic violence convictions, which were already covered.

Gun Owners of America supports a repeal of the gun ban for all misdemeanor offenses, Pratt said.



Misdemeanor convictions on a background check only prohibit gun possession if the crime is punishable by imprisonment of more than two years, according to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System website.

Many misdemeanor crimes are punished only with monetary fines, and the maximum jail time for most misdemeanors is one year.
Layoffs are reportedly coming to General Electric as the company continues to move forward with building their new Boston headquarters.

According to the Boston Herald, GE said the layoffs are expected to be limited; however, GE would not give exact figures.

Their new headquarters, which will be located in the citys Fort Point neighborhood, has an estimated price tag of $200 million and was intended to house 800 employees.

Mayor Marty Walsh told the Boston Herald he was not informed of the move.

GEs deal to move the headquarters from Fairfield, Connecticut, to Boston came with $25 million in tax breaks connected to how many employees were hired.

The company plans to have a portion of the new complex open by 2018.
A man has been sentenced to over seven years in prison in connection with the death of his 20-month-old stepson after the medical examiner's office determined the child died of acute fentanyl poisoning.

Leo Witham, formerly of Hampton, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty Thursday in Rockingham County Superior Court to negligent homicide, fentanyl possession and other charges.

Prosecutors said the child was in Witham's care in October 2016. Witham found the toddler unresponsive and took him to the fire department before fleeing to his apartment. He dropped a baggie of fentanyl in the parking lot. Police later found evidence of fentanyl in his apartment.

Prosecutor said it the case went to trial, the state's expert witness would have testified that the toddler ingested the fentanyl by taking it in his mouth and swallowing it.
More than 40 rounds were fired by police into a white pickup truck, which had no weapons inside, during a deadly police shooting on Interstate 95 in Rhode Island, and the man who stole a state police cruiser, triggering the manhunt, is still on the run, according to police.

Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare also discussed footage from body cameras worn by some of the officers during the shooting, which happened Thursday around 10:45 a.m. on the a jam-packed section of road where two highways merge alongside the city's downtown district.

Earlier, Pare said nine to 10 officers fired their weapons; of those officers, five are Providence police officers. It's still unclear how many state police officers fired their weapons. Of the five Providence police officers who fired their weapons, three had body cameras on their person, but only one was properly turned on by an officer. The body cameras were installed a few months ago.

Footage from a nearby traffic camera that caught the incident was released Friday. The video shows the truck ram into several cars to try to get away from police. The truck's windows were completely blacked out so they could not see if there were weapons or who was inside, according to police.

Police said the man killed in the pickup truck was 32-year-old Joseph Santos and his passenger was Christine Demers. She was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where she remains in critical condition.

Police said on Thursday that the shooting on Interstate 95 was connected to the theft of a Rhode Island State police cruiser on Route 146 earlier that day; however, police later clarified that day the people involved in the shooting were not connected to the cruiser theft.

"The individual that was shot and killed by police officers is not the person that stole the trooper car," Pare said.

Pare added the shooting wasn't a mistake because the driver of the pickup truck was driving aggressively, noting that the truck was ramming other vehicles and reviving its tires.

"We are investigating why this person did not stop and why police had to use deadly force," he said.

No officers were injured in the shooting.

Police have identified the man who stole the trooper's cruiser as Donald Morgan, who was handcuffed at the time when the trooper had to stop at a crash scene in Providence. Morgan allegedly somehow got into the driver's seat and drove off, eventually leaving the cruiser on Vineyard Street.

Police were reportedly told that the suspect in the cruiser had fled in the bed of a white pickup truck. Cranston police then tried to stop a white pickup truck, which led to the shooting on Interstate 95.

Law enforcement officials could be seen combing the South Providence neighborhood with guns and police dogs after it was determined the people in the pickup truck on Interstate 95 were not connected to the stolen cruiser.

Rhode Island State Police ask anyone with information on Morgan's whereabouts to call police at 401-444-1000.
A man believed to be the first known participant of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program deported under President Donald Trump's Administration was arrested for allegedly attempting to illegally cross the border from Mexico back into the United States.

Juan Manuel Montes, 23, was arrested around 11:50 p.m. Monday near the border town of Calexico in Imperial County, California, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.

Agents at the Calexico Border Patrol Station were notified by Remote Video Surveillance Systems operators that someone had made an illegal entry across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Montes ran approximately 200 yards north of the international boundary fence and laid down on the ground. When agents approached him, he attempted to run away, CBP said.

He was arrested after a short foot chase and transported to the Calexico Station for processing.

Montes claims he was wrongfully deported to Mexico in February by Border Patrol agents and was arrested a day later while attempting to re-enter the U.S. illegally, CBP officials said.



"Our agents witnessed and arrested (Mr. Montes) making an illegal entry into the United States for the second time this year," said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim. "Border Patrol Agents will always stop, detain, and arrest anyone making an illegal entry into the country irrespective of their immigration or citizenship status."

Montes came to the U.S. when he was 9 years old and pursued a welding degree at a community college after his high school graduation.

According to his attorneys, he qualified for the DACA program in 2014 and renewed his status for two years in 2016, granting him protection through 2018.

On Feb. 18, according to his attorneys, Montes was on his way home from visiting a friend when he was stopped by CBP agents in Calexico. Agents asked him for identification but Montes did not have his wallet, California ID or EAD card on him.

Montes was driven to a port of entry near or in Calexico and was allegedly asked the sign documents written in English by CBP agents. He was then deported to Mexico.

On Feb. 19, he tried to cross back into the United States and was detained by CBP. He was again deported on Feb. 20.

In April, Montes filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking information about his case. According to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Montes sought an explanation on the legality of sending him back to Mexico despite his enrollment in DACA, which gave him protected status through 2018.

CBP told NBC News at the time that Montes' DACA permit expired in August 2015 and, according to the agency's records, was not renewed. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later said that after a detailed records search, it was determined that Montes did have a valid status via DACA through Jan. 25, 2018.

However, the DHS refutes Montes account of his detainment by CBP on Feb. 18, saying that he was detained on Feb. 19 after illegally trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico.

The DHS said Montes "lost his DACA status when he left the United States without advance parole on an unknown date prior to his arrest" by the border patrol on Feb. 19.

The National Immigration Law Center, which represented Montes in the lawsuit, stood by its account and sought records on why their client was deported, alleging that immigration officials violated the Freedom of Information Act for failure to respond to its request beyond acknowledging receipt.

A trial was set for Dec. 4, and the Justice Department agreed with a federal judge in San Diego to let Montes back into the country so he could testify on his own behalf.

But in October Montes asked his lawyers to drop the case, saying he wanted to remain in Mexico where he had been living with family for eight months, according to USA Today. On Oct. 19, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel issued an order dismissing the case, USA Today reported.

Curiel was thrust onto the national stage when during the campaign by then-candidate Donald Trump, who questioned the the Indiana-born judge's impartiality due to his "Mexican heritage." At the time, Curiel presided over a case alleging the now-defunct Trump University misled customers. He approved a $25 million settlement to victims in the case.

CBP officials said Montes was booked into the Imperial County Jail following his arrest this week on pending charges of re-entry after removal. No further details were released.
Three weeks after Jennifer Carroll Foy launched her campaign for the Virginia House of Delegates, she found out she was pregnant with twins.

The former public defender from Woodbridge gave birth to her identical boys, Alex and Xander, at only 23 weeks gestation. They weighed 1.5 pounds each.

On Tuesday, Foy won the 2nd District seat, beating Republican Mike Makee by a 26 percent margin.

Just three days later, Xander was healthy enough to come home from the hospital. Foy said her second baby, Alex, should be healthy enough to come home in about a week.

Throughout the election, the new mom said she had to divide her time wisely.

Foy said she spent days campaigning and nights with her newborns in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Inova Fairfax Hospital.

There were no outside conversations about anything else that was happening in the world" at night, Foy said. "There were no phone calls regarding jobs or campaigns, it was just us and them  and it was absolutely amazing.

Foy said her twins have shaped some of her policy interests. The VMI grad said she is passionate about paid maternity leave and medicaid benefits.

Her new district, which covers areas of eastern Prince William County and northern Stafford County, was left open after Republican Del. Mark Dudenhefer retired to run for supervisor in Stafford.
There is a new twist in the murder case involving an Ellington man who is accused of killing his wife.

The attorney for Richard Dabate is asking a judge to drop the charges against his client who is accused of killing his wife Connie in their Ellington home back in December 2015.

On Wednesday, attorney Hubert Santos filed a motion in Rockville Superior Court to dismiss on the ground of "prejudicial pretrial publicity" he believes has been generated by proceedings in the probate court in Rockville. Judge O. James Purnell III has been presiding over the probate proceedings, but has not gone through Santos motion.

"I havent read it. I havent seen it. I have no idea what is in it," Purnell said.

Purnell would not go into specifics on the Dabate case, but he said all probate cases go through a relatively standard process.

"The application comes in and the next document that comes in is an inventory saying what probate assets are. Next is a final accounting, there may be some motions in-between final accounting, and then a distribution," he said.

According to Santos, the Dabate case has not been so cut and dry. In his motion, the Probate Court at Rockville has "acted as if the Defendant is presumed guilty" and "ignored the evidence supporting the Defendants innocence."

Jim Bergann, who is a Hartford attorney with no connection to the case, spoke to NBC Connecticut on Thursday.

"It is unusual for a defense lawyer to take this aggressive position that Attorney Santos has taken and it's a smart position because he lays it out very clearly," Bergann said.

The motion highlights evidence pointing to Dabates innocence. It cites the time it took to arrest the defendant, the DNA of another person that was also found on the gun and lack of gun residue on Debates hands following the murder.

While Bergann does not believe the charges will be dropped, he said the motion may have already accomplished more.

"(Santos is) alerting the public, the judge and the states attorney this is a not so simple a case. 'You got the wrong guy and I am going to fight'," Bergann said.

Santos and Tolland states attorney Matthew Gedansky did not return NBC Connecticuts request for comment.
Bulkeley High School in Hartford needs warm clothes donations this year because of the number of students coming from hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

"Many students are now coming, theyre being enrolled due to the hurricane in Puerto Rico and they have no place to go so theyre coming here. And when they come here, they often dont have the items they need in order to be prepared for a winter in Connecticut," Gretchen Levitz, the program director at Bulkeley High School, said.

The school is hoping you can help donate items to keep these students warm: scarves, hats, coats, gloves and socks are needed. The school is also looking for donations of personal hygiene products including, maxi pads, toothbrushes, liquid soap, shampoo, lotion and deodorant.

"Since I came here I was coming to school with this blazer and it was very cold and this doesnt work for this cold," Gia De Leon, who just moved from Puerto Rico three weeks ago, said. "I didnt come with any jackets. I dont have scarves. I dont have enough boots or socks that I could feel warm in this weather."

Within the last two months, a total of 36 students have arrived just from Puerto Rico.

The items donated would not only go to those students but also students from other countries like Jasmine Lall from Guyana and Etienne Trotman from Guinea.

"I get cold really fast and its sort of difficult for me but Im trying to cope," Lall said.

"I used personally before the clothes they give us and I really think it can benefit us," Trotman said.

If youd like to donate, just contact the school and ask for Levitz to arrange to bring any items or email her directly.

For more information, go to the school's website or the Facebook page.

Separately, the Taste of Bulkeley will be held on Dec. 7. All proceeds will go to students for needed programming, items and supplies. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite for $20. There will also be a silent auction.
A Cheshire family is hoping for a miracle or Denada Rondos will soon be deported back to Albania, a country she hasn't been to in 15 years.

"I was shocked. I still don't believe it. I don't believe this is happening to me," said Denada.

At the age of 16, Denada escaped Albania, fearing for her life, she said.

Her attorney, Erin O'Neil-Baker, said she came to the United States in 2002 due to severe discrimination and harassment in Albania that was directed at her family for their political opinions.

Denada said she met her husband, Viron, in New York and they moved to Connecticut. They started several businesses with their latest being Viron Rondos Osteria, a restaurant that employs more than 50 people. And they're currently looking to expand.

"He bought a business that had gone dark. The restaurant was closed. There was nothing going on up here in terms of restaurant business, and he turned this place around," said Cheshire Mayor and Town Council Chairman Robert Oris. "If his wife isn't here to support him, I'm sure that this business is going to be put into jeopardy."

Denada's attorney said the mother of three has a removal order against her that was issued by the Immigration Court in New York in 2007. The attorney said Denada had received stays of removal but that her last stay was denied in September.

Denada was given an ankle monitor to keep an eye on her movements.

"We don't have criminal records," said Viron. "I am an American citizen. I pay my taxes. I have no criminal record. My wife doesn't. I don't know why this is happening."

Viron and Denada's three children were all born in the U.S. Niko is 7-years-old. Katerina is 5-years-old. Alxandra is 1 year old. If their mother is deported, the family said they're unsure if the children will go with her or stay behind.

"As a father, I feel I cannot do anything for my kids and my family right now," said Viron.

"I cannot imagine myself being split from my children and husband," said Denada.

Denada's attorney said they've filed a motion to reopen with the Board of Immigration Appeals in Virginia.

O'Neil-Baker said they want to reopen Denada's old removal order from 2007 and that they've also filed an emergency stay of removal with the board and DHS and ICE.

She said they've filed a waiver to excuse her removal order so that she can get permanent residency based on her marriage to a U.S. citizen.

"In an exercise of discretion, ICE has allowed Mrs. Rondos to remain free from custody with periodic reporting requirements. The agency will continue to closely monitor her case to ensure her departure in compliance with her final order of removal," a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says.

U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty will meet with Rondos Friday afternoon.

She said she wrote a letter to immigration authorities in support of Mrs. Rondos, urging them to grant every consideration possible to remain in the United States and continue her pathway to citizenship.
A 54-year-old Seymour man is dead after another man who was fleeing from police and driving the wrong way crashed into his car in West Haven Thursday night, according to state police.

Police said a 45-year-old East Haven man had fled the scene of a crash in Orange and led police on a chase.

Around 9:55 p.m., the East Haven man was driving east on the westbound side of Meloy Road, sideswiped a 2006 Scion XA , kept going and hit a 2012 Subaru Outback driven by 54-year-old Phillip Hunt, of Seymour, state police said.

Hunt and the driver who hit him both sustained serious injuries and were taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to state police, and Hunt was pronounced dead at 11:59 p.m.

Orange Police Chief Robert Gagne released a statement saying their thoughts and prayers are with the family of Philip Hunt.

They said they were initially called to the scene of a crash at Route 34 and Route 152 in Orange after a light-colored minivan struck another vehicle from behind, then fled the scene and went eastbound, on Route 34 without stopping.

Shortly thereafter, Orange Police observed a vehicle matching the description of the offending vehicle traveling southbound on Dogwood Road near New Haven Avenue. The vehicle had front-end damage and was being operated in an erratic manner. The vehicle initially slowed to a stop (or near-stop) for police on Dogwood Road near Route One, but then continued east on Route One, and then south on Meloy Road into West Haven, prior to crashing on Meloy Road, police said in a statement.

Orange police said they were cooperative with the West Haven Police Department at the scene of the crash and are cooperating fully with the Connecticut State Police, who are investigating this incident.

The original crash at Route 34 & 152, and its connection to the West Haven crash, remains under investigation, Gagne said in a statement.

Connecticut state police have taken over the investigation and they ask anyone with information about the crash to call 860-779-4917.

Gagne and said any further comment would have to come from the Connecticut State Police.

Here is the statement released by Orange Police:
For the first time in years, Jim Riopel has a clear view of the odometer in his 2015 GMC Terrain.

"I could not read the mileage on the odometer due to the spider and the spider web," Riopel said.

According to Riopel, a spider found its way inside the console about six months after he bought the SUV. He took it to the dealership and said he was told the repair wouldnt be covered under warranty.

Riopel then contacted General Motors (GM) directly. The automaker opened an investigation and after about two months came back to Riopel with the same answer.

"They stated it wouldnt be covered due to it being caused by nature," he said.

Riopel argued the spider should never have been able to get inside the dash.

"It was supposed to be a sealed unit and the spider was able to get into a sealed unit. So I was telling them it seems to be a defect with their design," Riopel said.

Eventually, Riopel let the issue drop.

"I have two children and they thought it was pretty funny. They were a little grossed out by it, but they kind of got used to it over time," he said.

But the longer he owned the vehicle, the more concerned Riopel got about its potential trade-in value. He emailed NBC Connecticut Responds to see if we could get things restarted with GM and at NBC Connecticut's request, they reopened the case.

Riopel said there was a lot of back and forth with the automaker and the dealership, but in the end, he got the all clear. His Terrain now has a brand new instrument cluster and eight fewer legs.

"(The spider and I) parted ways on mutual terms," Riopel said.

A spokesperson for GM told NBC Connecticut the company does not believe there was anything wrong with the seal. GM replaced the instrument panel as a goodwill gesture.
The Consolidated School District of New Britain in partnership with the CCSU-Ana Grace Project Relief Effort officially announced their Hurricane Relief Welcoming Campaign.

The campaign hopes to welcome students from Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other communities impacted by the recent natural disasters. The district has enrolled 97 students from hurricane-ravaged areas.

One of the students is 12-year-old Yariana Velasquez who moved from Puerto Rico three weeks ago with her pregnant mother and stepfather, Francisco Morales. Luckily, Morales has an uncle theyre staying in New Britain after Hurricane Maria ravaged much of the island.

No branches, no leaves like mass destruction, said Morales.

With at least 75 more students expected to come from the island, the school district has teamed up with the CCSU-Ana Grace Project Relief effort  announcing today, the start of the citys Hurricane Relief Welcoming Campaign.

Once families who need to register their children in school arrive in New Britain, they will be asked to go to visit one of three locations to register the child, depending on their grade.

The first one is located on 183 Steele Street these are for students entering grades pre-k through grade 8, said CSDNB Superintendent, Nancy Sarra. The address is located behind Slade Middle School.

Students grades 9th through 12th grade should register at New Britain High School on 110 Mill Street. And at each of these registration locations, there will be a translator on site.

Students interested in enrolling at Central Connecticut State University should go to the universitys admissions department.

The Hurricane Relief Welcome Campaign is all about 'love wins'  its the phrase Nelba Marquez-Greenes family adopted  shes the founder of the Ana Grace Project which started after her daughter was killed in the Sandy Hook Shooting.

"This is how love wins  making sure that all students have the opportunity to be successful," Marquez-Greene said.
The owner of a medical marijuana production company in Portland has been arrested on drug charges.

Portland police said the state Department of Consumer Protection reached out to them on June 30 with a complaint about Connecticut Pharmaceuticals in Portland.

Authorities said the owner, 54-year-old Andrew Bozzuto, of Northford, had entered the cure room at the facility the day before, removed marijuana from some bins, placed it in what looked like a paper towel, put in his pocket and left the room.

Soon after, Bozzuto left the facility and was backing through the parking lot when he appeared to pass something to an employee, police said.

The employee then went back into the facility, went to his locker, secured what Bozzuto gave him and notified his supervisor, police said.

The marijuana was then put in a quarantine room and the state Department of Consumer Protection was notified.

Bozzuto voluntarily turned himself in to police on Oct. 2 and has been charged with illegal manufacture, distribution, sale, prescription or dispensing; and illegal possession.

He was held on a $500 bond and is due in court.
A man driving a stolen pickup was shot with a stun gun and arrested in Oklahoma after a 2-hour police chase, part of which he streamed live on Facebook.

NBC affiliate KFOR reports that officers first started pursuing the driver after reports that the truck was stolen.

The driver led officers on a chase through the city, reaching high speeds at times.

Police in Moore, Oklahoma have released dash cam video of a recent high speed chase involving a stolen truck on November 10th. This week, charges have been filed against 25-year-old Brenton Hager, who led authorities on the chase.

Authorities say the man stopped to talk to a postal worker during the chase before driving into a field. The man drove through rough terrain and even went right through several fences.

As officers approached, the driver started driving backwards. The chase finally ended when the man backed into a stock pond.

Officers approached the truck with guns drawn, and the man then took off, even running through water at times.

After a short foot chase, one of the officers used a stun gun on the suspect. he was then arrested and taken into custody.

It's unclear what charges he may face.


A California Highway Patrol officer sued the agency, saying his managers have harassed him and denied him time off for military assignments with the Air National Guard.

Christopher Lutz is an officer in the CHP's Oakhurst office near Yosemite National Park. He sued last week after trying for months to solve the problems with his supervisors, The Sacramento Bee reported Wednesday.

"I've devoted my entire life to service of people, I've never known anything different. But it was tearing me emotionally apart inside, and I just didn't know what to do," Lutz told the newspaper last week after returning from a three-week relief mission to hurricane-ravaged St. Thomas and Puerto Rico.

Lutz joined the California National Guard in 1996, ending up as a pilot in the Air Guard and deploying to missions around the country and abroad. He also a 12-year veteran of the highway patrol.

Lutz said he was told his absences pose a burden to the CHP's Oakhurst office, which only has 19 patrol officers. He acknowledged that he has spent about 200 days on military duty since 2016 but has little say in when he is required to ship out. He said the highway patrol knew he was in the National Guard when he was hired.

Both the CHP and the guard declined to comment on Lutz's lawsuit. But in court papers, the highway patrol asked for the suit to be dismissed, arguing that California does not have to obey the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA, a 1994 federal law aimed at protecting guard members from job discrimination based on their military duty.

CHP attorneys argue that the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides "sovereign immunity" to California from the law and that Lutz cannot sue the state for damages under a U.S. law.

"There is no California law that permits USERRA actions against the CHP," the agency said in court filings.
When one door closes, another one opens.

It's been less than a week since the Los Angeles Dodgers lost Game 7 of the World Series to the Houston Astros, but the front office is already making plans for the future.

Those plans began earlier this week, when the Dodgers declined the 2018 option on veteran outfielder Andre Etheir, making him a free agent after spending the last 12 years of his career in Los Angeles.

Now before you grab your pitchforks and torches and gather a mob outside Dodger Stadium, fans need to understand that the reason why the team declined the option on the fan-favorite Ethier was strictly for financial reasons only.

Ethier was set to make $17.5 million for the 2018 season, despite playing in just 38 total games the last two seasons. Ethier's buyout was just $2.5 million, saving the Dodgers $15 million to either re-sign Ethier at a lower price, or go after big name free agents in the offseason like current starter Yu Darvish, free agent Jake Arrieta, or Japanese sensation Shohei Otani.

As much as Dodger fans love the player they affectionately call "Dre," Ethier has been a shell of his former self over the last two seasons, missing the first five months of both the 2016 and 2017 season with injuries.

First, Ethier broke his tibia during spring training in 2016 after he fouled a ball off his shin in a preseason game. Nearly a year later, Ethier missed the first five months of the 2017 season with a herniated disc in his back as well as ankle injuries.

Relegated to rehabilitation for the better part of the last two seasons, Ethier has taken on more of a leadership role in the clubhouse, mentoring Rookies Cody Bellinger and Andrew Toles among others.

On the bright side, despite being riddled with injuries, Ethier made the postseason roster in each of the last two seasons and was a valuable pinch-hitter off the bench.

The 35-year-old left-hander went 8-for-34 with two home runs and four walks in the final month of the regular season, and batted .308 with a home run in 15 plate appearances in the playoffs.

Ethier also drove in the only Dodgers' run with a pinch-hit RBI single in Game 7 of the World Series in what could be his final at-bat in Dodger blue.

If it was his last at-bat as a Dodger, Ethier finishes with a .285/.359/.463 slash line during his 12 years in Los Angeles. Over that time, the outfielder appeared in two All Star Games, won a Gold Glove, and hit 162 home runs.

Ethier's future is now entirely in his own hands. He could return to the Dodgers on a less expensive one-year deal, he could opt for a DH role with an American League team, he could sign with the his hometown team the Arizona Diamondbacks, or he could opt for retirement after injuries shortened his last two seasons.

One player that will be returning to the Dodgers for the 2018 season is second baseman Logan Forsythe. One day after declining the option on Ethier, the team exercised their option on Forsythe.

Forsythe will return for $9 million in 2018 and is projected to be the starting second baseman for the Boys in Blue.

Forsythe had an up-and-down season with the Dodgers in 2017, batting. 224 with 37 home runs, 57 doubles and a career-high 69 walks.

Despite his regular season struggles, Forsythe shined in the postseason, slashing .297/.435/.351 with nine runs scored and nine walks in 14 playoff games.
At nearly 90 years old, Betty Oldfield is a grandmother and dedicated community volunteer. She is also "best friends" with Erik Menendez, one of California's most notorious inmates.

According to Oldfield, her friendship with one of the brothers convicted for killing their parents in 1989 began when she served as an alternate juror on Erik Menendez's first murder trial, which ended with a hung jury.

"Erik and I have adopted one another. He has a new mother, and I have a new son," Oldfield said.

Erik and his brother Lyle Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989 at the familys Beverly Hills home and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1996. Tried separately, it took a total of three trials to find the brothers guilty, as the first two resulted in hung juries.

During first trial's five months of testimony, Oldfield listened to details of the murders, as well as the brothers' graphic allegations of sexual abuse by their father.

"You could see when they testified  the expressions, the tears," said Oldfield. "They were damaged young men."

Trial proceedings led Oldfield to believe the brothers were driven to murder their parents, she said.

She said she spoke to Erik Menendez for the first time shortly after the mistrial. Oldfield was attending a dinner held by defense attorney Leslie Abramson. The attorney had arranged for Erik Menendez to call from jail during the dinner to thank some of the more sympathetic jurors.

The friendship developed easily from there, Oldfield said, and Erik Menendez continued to call her. The two have now maintained this "very fulfilling" relationship for more than 20 years.

She said she still gets calls from him two or three times a week, and that they'll discuss everything  except the events in his life leading up to the murders.

Oldfield said Erik Menendez has spent his time behind bars putting his energy into positive things.

"He is so busy. He is taking college courses," she said. "He has championed causes for elderly and ADA inmates."

While she declined to share the personal contents of the correspondence, she pointed to the way Erik Menendez signed his letters as evidence of his softer side and their genuine bond. Erik Menendez has written that Oldfield is his "angel on Earth."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to correctly characterize the sibling relationship between Erik and Lyle Menendez.
In the last 72 hours alone, Los Angeles County has seen seven police pursuits, creating a surge in chases since last year.

"Every time I see a police chase on the news, I think of the families that are affected by it and how I felt when I was affected by it," Lucas Aragon, whose sister was killed during a pursuit, said.

The recent spike not only has some Southern California residents concerned about safety, but also the Los Angeles Police Department, who have been tracking the pursuits.

Police have recorded 632 pursuits so far in 2017, 113 more than 2016. Due to the surge in chases, the LAPD has been brainstorming ways to keep bystanders and motorists safe from these dangerous encounters.

"Every time I turn around, there is another police chase," Aragon said. "Its really upsetting to see that it happens on a regular basis."
What to Know Elijah Silvera went into anaphylactic shock Nov. 3 at the Seventh Avenue Center for Family Services in Manhattan, his family said

The boy, who has a severe dairy allergy, had been given a grilled cheese sandwich at school, his family says; he died at a hospital

His family says the school knew of the allergy and his death was completely preventable; the pre-K has been shut down

The family of a 3-year-old New York City boy who suffered from a severe allergy to dairy says he died after allegedly fed a grilled cheese sandwich at a pre-K that knew and had documentation that the boy had the dairy allergy, according to a GoFundMe page set up by relatives.

The online donation page says Elijah Silvera went into anaphylactic shock Nov. 3 at the Seventh Avenue Center for Family Services in Manhattan and was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he died.



His family says his death was completely preventable.



City health officials ordered the pre-kindergarten school closed on Wednesday for failing to follow its written safety plan and failing to adequately supervise a child. Officials say they're investigating the boy's death, and the city is helping find other preschools for their kids in the meantime.

Other parents who went to the preschool on Thursday were incensed they didn't find out about Elijan's death sooner.

"This means my child went to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and I didn't know this happened," said Demaris Lugo.



News 4 has reached out to the Department of Education and the medical examiner's office.



Elijah leaves behind his father and mother, his 5-year-old brother and dozens of friends and family members, according to the GoFundMe page.

Family members who started the page said they are seeking financial support for time off work, funeral and memorial expenses and a second autopsy. They described the boy as sweet and joyful.
A 33-year-old New Jersey man has been busted with more than 200 pounds of high-grade pot and more than 15 pounds of marijuana oil, a drug haul worth about three-quarters of a million dollars, investigators alleged Friday.

The Hudson County Prosecutor's office said authorities had been looking into Miguel Capellan, of North Bergen, for months. On Wednesday, narcotics detectives arrested him following a search of his home and garage.

Five vehicles, about $100,000 in cash and a stolen handgun were also seized.

Capellan faces a number of charges, including money laundering, drug possession and possession with intent to distribute. It wasn't immediately clear if he had retained an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
Lara Wilson can see through her wall.

Thats because her upper Manhattan apartment building has a gaping crack -- at least a couple centimeters wide -- up an exterior wall that has splintered up from the second floor to the roof. And the crack is growing -- leading fire officials to hastily evacuate Wilson and nearly 30 other tenants while they assess the stability of the structure.

Today, we looked out it and you could see out to the street, she said. So its pretty bad.

Fire officials said its unclear what caused the crack at the building on East 96th Street and Second Avenue -- directly over the new Second Avenue subways final stop.

But they said the owner had known about it for some time and had called in engineers to make a fix; Wilson said she had even been moved out of her top-floor apartment so work could be done. A tenant called the city on Thursday afternoon when they were unhappy with the fix, prompting the evacuation.

FDNY Chief Roger Sakowich said Thursday evening that monitors showed the wall had moved an inch in the last 24 hours, and they made the decision to evacuate the building, which they said was in danger of a partial collapse. Metal barricades surrounded the building to make sure people stayed away from it.



The FDNY said a "total but temporary vacate" order was implemented "until engineers can device a plan of correction." It's not clear how long that'll take. The Red Cross has offered assistance to the displaced tenants.

Four tenants were in the home at the time the evacuation was ordered and had enough time to grab a few things. But Wilson told News 4 that her cat is still inside the building and doesnt know if or when shell able to reunite with her pet.

They said we can get the cat but I dont know where were going, she said, tearing up. So I dont know if I can bring her with (me).

She added, I just hope shes safe up there.

Building management declined to comment to News 4.
President Donald Trump will host a fundraising breakfast in New York City next month, according to a published report.

The Daily News reports that an invite shows that the president will be hosting a breakfast with tickets ranging from $1,000 per individual to $50,000 for a VIP table for 10.

Organized by Trumps campaign and the RNC, the breakfast will likely include discussion of the GOP tax plan. Democrats and Republicans alike in the state have opposed the GOP proposal to scrap state and local property taxes deductions as part of the bill.

Republican Rep. Peter King stated that high-tax states like New York would take the brunt of the damage.

Hopefully he comes in and doesnt get a free ride, King told the News. Its an opportunity to really drive home how devastating this is for New York.

The event is scheduled for Dec. 2.
What to Know Mayor de Blasio says the new law will help eliminate the gender wage gap

It was authored by NYC's public advocate, Letitia James, who says the wage gap costs NYC women $5.8 million in potential earnings annually

It went into effect Nov. 1

As of Nov. 1, a new law in New York City prohibits employers from asking job applicants about their salary history. The goal of the law is to eliminate the gender wage gap so women with lower paying jobs wont face continued lower salary offers, but there are several other things to know about how the law affects you. CNBC reported on four of them.

Narrowing the gender wage gap

Women earn 20 percent less than men performing the same job, CNBC reported, citing the Institute for Womens Policy Research; thats about $0.76 for every dollar men make. Women of color tend to be paid even less, with African American women earning 37 percent less and Latina women earning 46 percent less than their male counterparts. Earlier this year, the citys public advocate Letitia James said the wage gap deprives women of $5.8 million in potential earnings each year. The law seeks to stem that trend.

Other U.S. cities have similar laws

New York isnt the only place that has banned or will ban the salary question. Its illegal in New Orleans, Oregon and Puerto Rico, and will soon be illegal in Delaware, Massachusetts and California. A similar law in Philadelphia is facing legal challenges from the citys Chamber of Commerce, according to CNBC.

The law doesnt stop some questions

While the law bans employers from asking about salary history outright, they can still ask about salary expectations and objective measures of productivity (like how much an applicant previously made in annual bonuses). Employers can also ask applicants to disclose their salary after an offer is made, according to CNBC. Jill Rosenberg, a labor attorney who represents employers, told CNBC that employers arent usually trying to low-ball candidates, but trying to figure out what an appropriate and respectful offer is.

If youre asked the question

Merrick Rossein, a lawyer and professor at the City University of New York School of Law, told CNBC that candidates should politely remind hiring managers of the law if theyre asked about their salary. After that, Rossein says candidates should still express their interest in discussing compensation ranges and goals. Even with the law, refusing to answer questions about salary could hurt a candidates chances of getting a job, and they wont have many legal avenues (though the employer could be fined under the law).
A member of the Coast Guard from Gloucester County, New Jersey, died in a wrong-way wreck in Virginia Beach -- and police have charged a reality TV star with DWI in the crash.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Dill died after the car he was driving was struck head-on around 2 a.m. on Nov. 4, according to Virginia State Police. He had been driving eastbound on I-264; the car that struck him was traveling westbound in the same lane.

Dill died of his injuries the next day at a nearby hospital. Melissa Hancock, who appeared on Lifetimes "Little Women: Atlanta," was charged with driving while intoxicated/maiming and driving the wrong way.

VSP, Lifetime

More charges are possible, state police said.

It was unclear if Hancock had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.

"It satisfies nothing in me to talk to her or about her," said Dill's father, Chris. "I am just disgusted that her poor decision cost my son, who was making all the right decisions, his life. It's just so unfair."

Dill, 29, was going to pick up his wife when he was struck. His wife had been out celebrating, and Dill wanted to get her home safely.



Dill was a Logan Township, New Jersey, native who was stationed at the Command, Control and Communications Engineering Center at Base Portsmouth.

His two brothers also served in the Coast Guard; Dill had just returned from a mission to help rebuild Puerto Rico.

Dill will be buried with military honors on Saturday.
A member of President Donald Trump's commission on voter fraud sued in federal court on Thursday, alleging that the commission is violating federal law by excluding him and others from participating and refusing to provide documents available to other members.

The lawsuit, filed by Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap in Washington, D.C., claims violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. It asks the court to compel the commission to hand over all documents he's requested, share all future documents, to include him in all communications and to prevent the release of any final report until he has had a chance to review it.

"My goal in filing this lawsuit is to bring the commission into full compliance with FACA, which would allow me and all of my fellow commissioners to fulfill our roles as full, participating members and provide a meaningful report to the President upon concluding our work," Dunlap said in a statement.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who serves as the commission's vice chair, blasted the lawsuit as "baseless and paranoid." He said he hasn't received any communications either, and said the commission's work has been stalled by eight lawsuits, the unrelated arrest of a staff member and the death of a fellow commissioner.

"Ironically, Dunlap's lawsuit is only going to increase the workload faced by Commission staff and Department of Justice Attorneys," Kobach said in a statement.

Emails seeking comment from the office of Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the commission, and Andrew Kossack, the commission's executive director, were not immediately returned. All three are named defendants, along with the Executive Office of the President, which is staffing the commission and maintaining its records. The lawsuit was filed on Dunlap's behalf by American Oversight, a watchdog group.

The commission has spurred controversy from the moment it was established in May. Its first significant action was to request a wide range of information about all registered voters in every state, including partial Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and voting history.

Critics say Trump is using the commission to find support for his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that cost him the popular vote during the 2016 election. Democrat Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more votes nationwide than Trump.

After facing strong criticism from both Republican and Democratic state officials, the commission scaled back the request but questions remain over how useful the information will be since 15 states have refused to participate, according to a survey by the Associated Press.

Dunlap's lawsuit said Trump, Pence and Kobach included the four Democrats serving on the 11-member panel "to provide a veneer of legitimacy by making the commission's membership bipartisan." Instead, the lawsuit said, "the Commission and its staff have compromised the legitimacy of any findings that may emerge from this process."

While there have been isolated cases of voter fraud in the U.S., there is no evidence of it being a widespread problem.

Critics have said the commission is stacked with people who favor voting restrictions, rather than expanding access, and has a predetermined agenda that will result in recommendations making it more difficult for people to register to vote, remain registered and cast ballots.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office agreed with a group of U.S. senators to investigate their concerns of a lack of transparency. Democratic senators have filed at least five separate requests for information with the commission since June, and a Sept. 12 follow-up letter noted that none had received a response.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law also is suing, alleges the commission is violating federal open meetings and disclosure laws. Kristen Clarke, the group's president, said Dunlap's lawsuit shows how chaotic and dysfunctional the commission has been.

"That its own members are in the dark about the way that the Commission operates and deliberates makes clear that this Commission is no more than a tool to advance this administration's voter suppression agenda," Clarke said in a statement.
President Donald Trump will not have a formal sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the two attend a summit, the White House said Friday shortly before Trump landed in Vietnam, the fourth stop on his first official visit to Asia.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force Once, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed scheduling conflicts on both sides for the fact that the leaders will not meet formally during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit taking place in the coastal city of Danang.

But Sanders said it was "possible" and "likely" that they could have a less formal encounter, either in Danang or later in the Philippines when Trump and Putin attend another regional conference.

"Now, they're going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely," she said. "But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one."

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that there was no reason to schedule a meeting if the U.S. and Russia are unable to make significant progress on issues including Syria and Ukraine.

"The view has been if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting," he said.

Both sides have been working to reach agreement on how they hope to resolve Syria's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated. The potential understanding comes as an array of forces are near a final defeat of IS, the extremist group that once controlled vast stretches of both Iraq and Syria. Fighting the group is no longer top priority, shifting the focus back to Syria's intractable conflict between Russian-backed President Bashar Assad's government and armed rebels, to whom the U.S. lends at least rhetorical support.

The news comes a day after Trump set aside his blistering rhetoric in favor of friendly overtures to China on Thursday, trying to flatter his hosts into establishing a more balanced trade relationship and doing more to blunt North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Winding down his two days in Beijing, Trump suggested that if the U.S. and China jointly took on the world's problems, "I believe we can solve almost all of them, and probably all of them."

In the name of furthering that relationship, Trump largely shelved his campaign complaints about China, at least in public. He focused on exhorting Beijing to help with North Korea, an effort expected again to take center stage at an international summit in Vietnam on Friday.

The Chinese rolled out a lavish welcome for the American president. Trump returned the kindness, heaping praise on China's Xi Jinping and predicting the two powers would work around entrenched differences. On Twitter later, Trump called his meetings with Xi "very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea."

On trade, Trump criticized the "very one-sided and unfair" relationship between the U.S. and China. But unlike his approach during the campaign, when he castigated China for what he contended were inappropriate trade practices, Trump said Thursday that he didn't blame the Chinese for having taken advantage of the U.S.

Trump said China "must immediately address the unfair trade practices" that drive a "shockingly" large trade deficit, along with barriers to market access, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.

"But I don't blame China," he said. "After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?"

To applause, Trump said, "I give China great credit."

Reacting from afar, Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said Trump's comments "make the United States look weak and as if we are bowing to China's whim. ... Instead of giving China credit for stealing American jobs, the president should be holding China accountable." Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is on trial for alleged bribery.

Tillerson offered a blunt assessment of China's trade surplus with the United States, which in October widened by 12.2 percent from a year earlier to $26.6 billion. The total surplus with the United States for the first 10 months of the year was $223 billion.

"I think the best way to characterize it is that while we appreciate the long hours and the effort that our Chinese counterparts have put into those trade discussions, quite frankly in the grand scheme of a $300- to $500-billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved are pretty small," Tillerson told reporters in Beijing.

Tillerson also acknowledged there were differences in "tactics and the timing and how far to go with pressure" on North Korea. But he insisted that the two countries shared common objectives.

"There is no disagreement on North Korea," he said.

The comments by Trump and his top diplomat came after lengthy meetings with Xi. The day included announcements that the U.S. and China had signed agreements valued at more than $250 billion for products including U.S.-made jet engines, auto parts, liquefied natural gas and beef.

Such contract signings, a fixture of foreign leaders' visits to Beijing, are intended to defuse complaints about China's trade policies.

Xi promised a more open business environment for foreign companies in China and said his country was committed to further opening its economy to outside investment.

"China will not close its doors" and will open them "even wider," he said, pledging that foreign companies in China, including American ones, would find the market "more open, more transparent and more orderly."

It is unclear how far China will go to fulfill its pledges. Previous U.S. administrations have hailed market-opening promises only to be left disappointed.

Before arriving in China, Trump had delivered a stern message to Beijing, using an address in South Korea to call on China, North Korea's biggest trade partner, to do more to confront and isolate the North.

Trump appeared far more conciliatory on Thursday, thanking China for its efforts and saying he'd been encouraged by his conversations.

"China can fix this problem easily. And quickly. And I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," Trump said. "If he works on it hard it will happen."

Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen, Darlene Superville and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
What to Know Meek Mill is being housed in a SCI Graterford after being sentenced to 2 to 4 years in prison for violating probation.

Mill's legal team has vowed to appeal the sentence. An online petition calls for his release from prison.

Born and raised in Philly, Meek Mill grew a local following in the hip-hop scene before gaining national recognition.

Popular rapper Meek Mill sits behind bars in the Philadelphia suburbs after a judge sentenced him to two to four years for violating probation in a nearly decade-old gun and drug case. And his fans hope they can help him get out.

In his mugshot from the state prison in Graterford, Montgomery County, Mill is seen in a yellow jumpsuit, staring straight at the camera. The yellow outfit is worn by newly received inmates at Graterford and is different from the normal department of corrections jumpsuit, DOC spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said.

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

The prison garb is a stark contrast from the suit Mill wore when he entered a Philadelphia courtroom Monday for a hearing on probation violations.

AP

When sentencing the 30-year-old musician, Common Pleas Judge Genece Brinkley cited a failed drug test and a failure to comply with a court order restricting his travel.

Philly hip hop artist Meek Mill was sentenced two to four years in prison for violating his parole.

Mill, born Robert Rihmeek Williams, was convicted on drug and gun charges in 2008 but released in 2009 under a five-year parole agreement. Since then prosecutors say Mill has violated parole by repeatedly changing his court-approved travel schedule and ducking a drug test.

In 2016, Mill was ordered to serve 90 days on house arrest for violating the terms of his parole. Prosecutors described violations that included unapproved travel to New York for a benefit concert and efforts to join his then-girlfriend, rapper Nicki Minaj, in various cities. They also accused him of turning in cold water instead of urine for a drug test.

[NATL] Famous Mug Shots: Sam Hunt

In March, Mill was accused of being involved in an altercation at an airport in St. Louis, Missouri. He was also arrested this year in New York City for reckless driving.



"I've been trying to help you since 2009," Brinkley said, citing a failed drug test, failure to comply with a court order restricting his travel and two other unrelated arrests. "You basically thumbed your nose at me."

The handing down of the sentence came after a prosecutor recommended that Mill not be imprisoned for the violations, saying that he has been clean since January and that he has grown as a person since his original crime. Brinkley said the prosecutor was too new to the case to understand how Mill just "does what he wants."

Mill owned up to the violations in his only statement during the hearing and said that jailing him would likely end his musical career. He said that he has battled addiction to the prescription painkiller Percocet and that he has only tried to escape a life of crime.

"I may have made a mistake but I never had the intention of disrespecting you," he said.

His lawyer, Brian McMonagle, restated the prosecutor's recommendation of no prison sentence back to the judge as Mill emptied his pockets and removed jewelry from his wrists. With a court officer looming behind him, Mill turned his head and looked backed in the direction of his mother before standing up and being led out of the room by the officer.

McMonagle vowed to appeal the decision as more than a dozen friends and family members stormed out of the courtroom.

A Change.org online petition quickly showed up online and by Thursday morning had more than 150,000 signatures. The petition calls for "Somebody," ideally Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, to reconsider Mill's sentence.

Mill was born and raised in Philadelphia, where he became a key figure in the local hip-hop scene before gaining national recognition.

He has released three studio albums since 2012; the most recent, "Wins & Losses," peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
President Donald Trump sought to present a united front with Chinese President Xi Jinping following two days of meetings Thursday, despite lingering differences over trade and North Korea.

On trade, Trump criticized the "very one-sided and unfair" trade relationship between the U.S. and China but stopped short of castigating Xi by saying he doesn't blame the country for having taken advantage of the U.S.

Trump said China "must immediately address the unfair trade practices that drive" what he said is a "shockingly" large trade deficit, along with barriers to market access, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft. "But I don't blame China," he said. "After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?"

To applause, Trump said: "I give China great credit."

His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered a blunter assessment of China's trade surplus with the United States, which in October widened by 12.2 percent from a year earlier, to $26.6 billion. The total surplus with the United States for the first 10 months of the year was $223 billion.

"I think the best way to characterize it is that while we appreciate the long hours and the effort that our Chinese counterparts have put into those trade discussions, quite frankly in the grand scheme of a $3- to 500 billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved are pretty small," Tillerson told reporters in Beijing, adding that, "in terms of really getting at some of the fundamental elements of why this imbalance exists, there is still a lot more work to do."

Tillerson also acknowledged that there were differences in strategy and timing when it came to Chinese action on North Korea. But he insisted that the two countries were on the same page.

Trump and Tillerson's comments came during Trump's second and final day in China and after lengthy meetings with Xi. The day included announcements that the U.S. and China had signed agreements valued at more than $250 billion for products including U.S.-made jet engines, auto parts, liquefied natural gas and beef.

Such contract signings are a fixture of foreign leader visits to Beijing and are intended to defuse foreign complaints about China's trade policies.

Trump had made narrowing the multibillion-dollar U.S. trade deficit with China a priority for his administration. During the presidential campaign, he accused China of "raping our country" on trade and pledged to minimize the countries' trade imbalance.

For his part, Xi promised a more open business environment for foreign companies in China and said his country was committed to further opening its economy to foreign investment.

"China will not close its doors" and will open them "even wider," he said, pledging that foreign companies in China, including American ones, would find the market "more open, more transparent and more orderly."

The United States and other trading partners have been pressing Beijing to give their companies more access to its state-dominated economy. But it remains unclear how far China will go to fulfill its pledges. Previous U.S. administrations have hailed market-opening promises only to be left disappointed.

North Korea remained a focus of the talks. Before arriving in China, Trump had delivered a stern message to Beijing, using an address in South Korea to call on China, North Korea's biggest trade partner, to do more to confront and isolate the antagonistic nation. That included urging China to fully implement U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at depriving the North's government of revenue for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Trump on Thursday appeared far more conciliatory, thanking China for its efforts and saying he'd been encouraged by his conversations.

"China can fix this problem easily. And quickly. And I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," Trump said. "If he works on it hard it will happen."

Before the meetings, China rolled out the red carpet for Trump, treating him to an elaborate welcome ceremony on the plaza outside the Great Hall of the People before the leaders turned to their private talks.

Trump looked on approvingly as a Chinese honor guard played the national anthems of both countries, cannons boomed and soldiers marched. He clapped and smiled as children waving U.S. and Chinese flags and flowers screamed and jumped wildly.

Trump said the welcome "was truly memorable and impressive and something I will never forget."

Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen, Darlene Superville and Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
A Northern California police chief resigned after a newspaper revealed he is the subject of a sexual assault investigation involving a former police cadet.

Aaron Easton, the former police chief for Marysville, a town of 12,000 people 45 miles north of Sacramento, left his post Thursday, the city manager said in a statement.

City officials announced Easton's resignations hours after the Marysville Appeal Democrat published a story saying the Yuba County Sheriff's Office and the Yuba County District Attorney's Office are investigating Easton in the 2008 alleged sexual assault of a police cadet.

The woman, who was not identified, made the allegations last year while she was an inmate of the Sacramento County jail for failing to appear on a charge of misdemeanor driving, according to affidavits obtained by the Appeal Democrat.

The woman said Easton forced her to perform oral sex on him while they were on a ride-along as part of her police training. At the time, Easton was a part time instructor at the Yuba College Police Academy and a full-time sheriff's deputy.

She said she believed the sexual assault led to her dismissal from the academy and that it ruined her life.

Easton's attorney, Adam Gasner, said in a text message to the newspaper that his client categorically denies the allegations.

He "trusts that when this investigation is complete these allegations will be shown to be what they are: false and unfounded," Gasner said.

Details of the sexual assault allegations were explained in affidavits sworn by a Yuba County Sheriff's Department investigator as he sought cellphone and computer information that had been gathered in a probe of the 2015 death of Easton's wife, Sara Easton, the newspaper said.

The investigation into Easton's wife's death has not been concluded, and the Sutter County coroner has not yet determined a cause of death. The probe was turned over to the state Department of Justice, which wouldn't comment on that investigation, the newspaper reported.
Two dozen San Diego wineries are holding a fundraiser Sunday to help workers devastated by the October wildfires in Northern California.

Most vineyards were not heavily damaged, in part because vineyards have a high moisture content, and acted as firebreaks.

Most of the grapes were also spared from the wildfires. In Sonoma and Napa counties, 90 percent of the grapes were already harvested because of the extreme heat in August and early September.

The brunt of the destruction was to residential and personal property.

That damage is deeply felt by many of the winery workers.

Knowing this, winery owners in San Diego came up with an idea to help out their colleagues.

"A lot of these winery workers don't really have insurance claims, or they've been displaced from their jobs temporarily," said Samantha Nawrocki, Marketing & Advertising Director at Bernardo Winery, in Rancho Bernardo. "They might not have big insurance claims, they might not have an insurance claim at all, but they and their families are affected by the fires."

On Sunday, Bernardo Winery will host a Wine Aid benefit along with 23 other San Diego wineries. The event will offer wine tasting and food from local restaurants.

All of the money raised will go to winery workers through a fund created by the Sonoma County Grape Growers Foundation.

A portion of the proceeds will also go to the Sonoma Humane Society, which is working to reunite pets with their families.

Local wineries hope Sunday's fundraiser will also give people a chance to learn more about San Diego's growing wine industry.

"Some of these are wineries that might not even have their own tasting rooms, that are up in the hills, people can come and taste the wines that they've never tasted before," explained Nawrocki.

"The (San Diego) wine industry has made a really big resurgence, especially in the last 15 years where we've gone from 10-11 wineries, to now, we're over 110 in the county," said Ross Rizzo Jr. President & Winemaker at Bernardo Winery, which was founded in 1889.

Much of the growth can be attributed to small wineries opening in county jurisdiction.

In 2010, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors revised the wine ordinance, making it easier and cheaper for smaller farmers to open a boutique winery.

Budding winemakers are discovering the soil and climate in many parts of the county, such as Ramona and Highland Valley, provide ideal conditions to grow grapes.

The influx of wineries has also allowed winemakers to experiment.

"A lot of the wineries in San Diego are growing and making different styles of wine and different varietals," said Rizzo.

In Northern California, wineries are asking people to visit and support the wine industry.

Most tasting rooms in Sonoma and Napa are open for business.

A thriving wine industry in San Diego and Northern California is crucial to the entire state.

According to the Wine Institute, California produces 85 percent of the wine in the United States.

Tickets for Sunday's Wine Aid benefit at Bernardo Winery are $50 per person online. Tickets at the door are $60 (cash or check only). Tickets for designated drivers are $25.
Danica Roem, a 33-year-old journalist turned public works advocate, has won Virginias 13th District House of Delegates seat, becoming the first openly transgender person elected and seated to a state legislature in the United States.

Roem beat out the districts 26-year incumbent, conservative values and government transparency champion Bob Marshall.

The race attracted national attention as Marshall, 73, a conservative who proposed a bill restricting which bathrooms transgender people could use, faced off against the transgender stepmother who plays in a metal band.

The district also found itself in the spotlight as one of a few Republican-governed areas that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

Roem, speaking to MSNBC by phone following her victory, said that her campaign was based on a platform of "building up our infrastructure instead of tearing down each other."



She said she didn't want to "pile on" after a hard night for Marshall and his supporters. But she said it was important to note that discrimination "is a disqualifier."



THE CAMPAIGN

Roem ran on a platform focused on infrastructure projects to create jobs and fix Virginia's clogged Route 28, along with raising teacher pay.

Marshall put government issues at the center of his campaign, promoting government transparency, small businesses and school choice for parents.



Roem spent more time in the spotlight than her opponent. Marshall refused to debate Roem and often declined interviews.

In an NPR interview in September, Marshall said the election was about America's national character and Roem was going against nature.

"Danica clearly is out here doing this for making a marker in the national character that you can engage in this behavior -- which clearly goes against the laws of nature and nature's God -- and hold public office to make decisions on behalf of the common good," Marshall said. "That is what is kind of at stake here."

He refused to speak with News4's Julie Carey about flyers his campaign sent out last month. Those flyers referred to Roem as "him."

"When Delegate Marshall realized that he cannot win on public policy issues, on traffic, jobs, schools and health care, he resorted to trash," Roem responded.

Roem told News4 that when she was knocking on Virginians' doors, voters didn't ask about her gender. But across the country, a number of groups and individuals took interest in the race because of Roem's background.

After President Donald Trump announced on Twitter his intention to ban transgender people from the military, Roem received $52,000 in donations in one day, News4 reported.

The outside money came throughout the campaign, though. Roem was supported by Victory Fund, a national group that aims to elect LGBTQ leaders. Some of her largest campaign donations, according to Virginia Department of Elections filings, were from individuals in New York and Chris Abele, a county executive from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who donated $40,000.

During the final fundraising period of the race, Roem brought in more than $300,000, significantly more than Marshalls roughly $165,000. Few of Marshalls donations came from outside Virginia.

Roem becomes not only her state's first transgender legislator but also the only out trans state legislator in the country, according to the Victory Fund.

In 2012, Democrat Stacie Laughton became the first openly transgender candidate elected to a state legislature. But she was never seated in the New Hampshire House after revelations that she had failed to disclose a felony conviction, The New York Times reported. Another lawmaker, Althea Garrison, came out as transgender while serving in the Massachusetts House but lost subsequent races.



THE CANDIDATES

Both Roem and Marshall have a long history in Virginias 13th District, which encompasses parts of Prince William County and Manassas City.

Roem was born in Manassas and attended Catholic school in northern Virginia until she moved away for college. After college, she returned to Virginia and worked for the Gainesville Times, a local newspaper. She later worked for the Prince William Times and the Montgomery County Sentinel.

In 2013, Roem began her transition to life as a woman. She changed her name and started hormone replacement therapy.

It was great. I could just keep doing my job, Roem said on her website.

Marshall was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, and moved to Prince William County with his family in 1980, according to his website. He was elected to the House of Delegates in 1991 and has served in the legislature since.

In office, he fought to preserve privacy and help small businesses, supporting a measure that prohibited police from searching phones without a warrant. He also wrote a bill cutting the burden of paperwork on Virginia businesses.

He has championed conservative causes. Marshall sponsored Virginias own failed bathroom bill, which would have effectively banned transgender people from using opposite-sex bathrooms in government buildings and schools. He tried to block Virginia from adding sex and gender discrimination to anti-discrimination rules.

"Starting next year Delegate Marshall will be one of my constituents and I'm not going to attack my own constituents," Roem said Tuesday night on MSNBC. "I think if there's any lesson that came out of the race this year it's that attacking your constituents, singling them out, stigmatizing them and trying to make people feel bad about themselves  that's not our Virginia."



Abby Vesoulis contributed to this report.
The transgender woman who unseated one of Virginia's longest-serving and most socially conservative lawmakers for a spot in history is a former journalist with a reputation for producing hard-hitting but fair stories.

Danica Roem is also known for her unwavering, almost obsessive focus on fixing a congested, critical commuter road in her northern Virginia district. She also sings in a metal band.

Roem, a Democrat, defeated Republican Del. Bob Marshall, a culture warrior whose commitment to the cause often led to clashes with his own party's leadership. Roem will become the only out transgender state legislator in the U.S. and the first to both get elected and take office openly, according to the Victory Fund, a political action committee that works to get openly LGBTQ people elected.

Her national profile skyrocketed after her win, but she brushed off the significance in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press, circling back yet again to the campaign issue she's driven home in one interview after another.

"It's going to be really historic when a trans woman helps fix Route 28," a sarcastic, exhausted Roem said, her cellphone ringing off the hook with congratulatory calls and interview requests.

Roem will be one of at least 10 Democratic women joining the ranks of the House after an extraordinarily successful election night for the party. Democrats swept all three statewide races and nearly wiped out Republicans' overwhelming majority in the House. They picked up 14 of the 17 seats they would need to retake the chamber, with a handful of races that will decide control too close to call.

That group of women will include the state's first Latina delegates and its first female Asian-American.

"The General Assembly will truly look more like this state than ever before," said Julie Copeland, executive director of Emerge Virginia, which helps prepare Democratic women to run for office.

Copeland said she was struck by Roem's knowledge of the issues, energy and dedication.

"She knocked every door," Copeland said. "I bet she talked to every person who voted for her."

Roem graduated from St. Bonaventure University in New York and spent about a decade working for the Prince William Times and the Gainesville Times, both local newspapers in Virginia. Working as a reporter taught her how to listen and understand people and complicated issues, she has said.

Kari Pugh, executive editor of The Fauquier Times, Prince William Times and Gainesville Times, didn't supervise Roem but knew of her reputation. She said Roem knows the issues in the Manassas area better than "just about anyone" because she grew up there and reported on the community for so long.

Don Shaw, who lost to Marshall in 2015 and recruited Roem to run, said she was already an "institution" in the area as a reporter.

"When she called you... you were going to answer her questions or she was going to keep asking," he said.

Roem started her gender transition about five years ago when she was 28 and began taking hormone replacement therapy in late 2013.

She told AP earlier this year that she quit her job as a journalist to focus on campaigning full time. She also said it was hard to find time with her metal band, Cab Ride Home.

Her opponent was a lightning rod for controversy, sponsoring a bill this year that would have restricted which bathrooms transgender people could use. He also authored a now-void constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between a man and woman, and sponsored a bill banning gay people from openly serving in the Virginia National Guard.

On the campaign trail, Marshall and other Republicans repeatedly misidentified Roem's gender.

Since Marshall was first elected in 1991, the district of 80,000 people in the sprawling Washington suburbs has become more populous, diverse and left-leaning politically. In November, it was one of 17 Republican-controlled House districts Hillary Clinton won over Donald Trump in the presidential race.

Roem's win was the most high profile of what the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, says were at least seven victories by transgender candidates Tuesday. Minneapolis elected Andrea Jenkins, a black transgender woman to its city council. Tyler Titus, who is openly transgender, won a seat on a western Pennsylvania school board.

"2017 will be remembered as the year of the trans candidate - and Danica's heroic run for office the centerpiece of that national movement," Victory Fund chief executive Aisha C. Moodie-Mills said in a statement.

At least two transgender people have been elected to state legislatures in the past, but Roem will be the first openly transgender person to campaign and be seated. One transgender woman was elected to the New Hampshire Legislature, but she resigned before the term started. And in Massachusetts, a transgender woman served in the Legislature but did not campaign as an openly transgender person. She came out while in office but didn't win re-election.

___

Rankin reported from Richmond. Associated Press writer Matthew Barakat in Fairfax contributed to this report.
A man and a woman who said they were Moorish nationalists claimed sovereign rights to a multimillion-dollar mansion up for sale near Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Park Wednesday.

No one lives in the house currently, but the couple that owns the home lives nearby, and when the wife received an alert about the alarm going off, she rushed over expecting to find a real estate agent. Instead, she found a man and woman who claimed they owned the land because their ancestors were the original inhabitants.

This is our ancestral estate, the man can be heard saying in security video.

We sent you a letter, reversal of estate, to your office, the woman said.

The man and woman can be heard repeatedly saying they were Moorish nationalists who had a sovereign right to the home.

Moorish American Nationals believe black Americans are descendants of an ancient Moroccan empire. Most members are law-abiding citizens, but a splinter group believes their ancestors were here before the U.S. government so many federal and local laws dont apply to them.



Its not your property, the woman said. This is our land.

The homeowner tried to keep her distance as she called police, but she grew increasingly concerned for her safety.

These are very frightening people, she said.

Surveillance video shows the man and woman breaking into the home, then taking down the for sale sign before the homeowner responded to the alarm.

They knew they set the alarm off, the homeowner said. Im sure they were expecting someone to come, and they waited around to confront me.

Once police arrived, the couple continued insisting the land was theirs.

Shes on our land, the woman said.

After more than 30 minutes, the couple became more argumentative with police, beginning to yell.

Finally, the man appeared to try to push past police, who then arrested the couple. They remained defiant as they were escorted out by police.

The suspects were both charged with misdemeanor unlawful entry and released pending a court date. They were ordered to stay away from the home.

A similar incident took place in 2013 when Lamont Butler moved into a vacant mansion in Bethesda, Maryland. He said his religious beliefs as a member of the Moorish Nation entitled him to the home. The police disagreed.
His party suddenly and bitingly divided, Alabama Republican Roy Moore emphatically rejected increasing pressure to abandon his Senate bid on Friday as fears grew among GOP leaders that a once-safe Senate seat was in jeopardy just a month before a special election.

Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge, attacked a Washington Post report that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers decades earlier as "completely false and misleading."

In an interview with conservative radio host Sean Hannity, he did not wholly rule out dating teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.

Asked if that would have been usual for him, Moore said, "Not generally, no." He added: "I don't remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother." As for the encounter with 14-year-old Leigh Corfman, as described by Corfman in Thursday's Post article, he said, "It never happened."

The story has produced a wave of concern among anxious GOP officials in Washington but little more than a collective shrug from many Republicans in Alabama, which holds a special election on Dec. 12 to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"Humphrey Bogart started dating Lauren Bacall when she was a teenager," said state Auditor Jim Ziegler, referring to the then-19-year-old actress.

"I'll always vote for him," said 28-year-old Erica Richard, of Altoona, Alabama, adding that she wouldn't change her mind even if the allegations of sexual misconduct are proven true. "He's a good man. I love him and his family, and they are all good people."

Paul Reynolds, Alabama's Republican National Committeeman, called it "a firestorm designed to shipwreck a campaign in Alabama. I think it's sinister."

Despite such support, experienced Republican operatives believe the Alabama Senate seat, held by the GOP for the last 20 years, is now at risk.

They fear the controversy could exacerbate the party's broader Trump-era challenge in appealing to college-educated suburban voters  the same group that fueled a big Democratic victory in the Virginia governor's race this week.

Those familiar with recent polling of the Alabama race suggest it was always going to be close despite the state's strong Republican leanings  largely because of Moore's controversial past.

In the immediate aftermath of the Post report Thursday, a wave of national Republican leaders called for Moore to drop out of the race if the allegations are true. They included the White House, the head of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

It got worse Friday.

The Senate GOP's campaign arm formally ended its fundraising agreement with Moore.

The GOP's 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney condemned his colleagues' caveat  only if the allegations are true.

"Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman," he said of the Alabama woman who said Moore molested her when she was 14. "Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."

Facing a tough re-election, Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., likened Moore to Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, former Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Fox News executive Roger Ailes, all men accused of sexual misconduct.

"The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disgusting," Comstock wrote. "Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate."

Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Steve Daines, R-Mont., withdrew their endorsements.

Yet there is no sign Moore is going away quietly. And the Alabama secretary of state's office reported that it's too late to remove his name from the ballot.

The Republican Party's options, including the possibility of a write-in campaign, "are all being researched," said Steven Law, who leads the pro-Republican Senate Leadership Fund.

Those who think Moore should be replaced have little hope of that happening.

"I don't think anyone expects Roy Moore to drop out of this race," Law said. "I think he enjoys being an object of intense controversy. The fact that this has happened may make him even more committed."

Moore was twice removed from his state Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.

He also previously said homosexuality should be illegal, and last week he refused to back off comments that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., should not be allowed to serve in Congress because he's a Muslim.

Virtually the entire Republican establishment  including President Donald Trump  opposed Moore's primary bid in September.

In Friday's radio interview, Moore cast the Post story as an effort by Democrats  "and maybe even establishment Republicans"  to undermine his campaign. He also mentioned an effort to investigate his accusers.

"We're also doing an investigation and we have some evidence of some collusion here, but we're not ready to put that to the public just yet," he said without elaboration.

The lawyer for Gloria Deason, one of the women cited in the Post story, issued a statement Friday saying Deason has no affiliation with either the Republican or the Democratic party, and has never contacted Moore's election opponent, Democrat Doug Jones.

The lawyer, Paula Cobia, said, "It is reprehensible that so many Alabama Republican officeholders and leaders of their party have rejected wholesale the magnitude of evidence reported in The Post."

Democrats, meanwhile, were quietly stepping up their mobilization efforts in Alabama, though being careful not to publicly ignite partisan backlash by attempting to capitalize on the troubling allegations.

Jones stood to capitalize in places where Moore had shown weakness in past statewide elections. Some Republicans conceded that Moore would likely suffer in the state's reliably, mainstream-Republican suburbs.

In Shelby and Baldwin counties  suburban Birmingham and Mobile  Moore ran more than a dozen percentage points behind Romney in his 2012 bid for the Alabama Supreme Court.

"It's a bad situation," said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committeeman from neighboring Mississippi. "Do people find it believable? If they do, he will lose."

Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alan Fram in Washington, Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Brynn Anderson in Altoona contributed to this report.
What to Know Mass. State Police trooper Ali Rei is expected to file a lawsuit accusing commanders of forcing her to alter a police report.

Rei's lawsuit will be the second one filed by a trooper.

Trooper Ryan Sceviour filed suit saying he was forced to remove embarrassing statements in a police report by a district court's daughter.

A second Massachusetts State Police trooper is expected to file a lawsuit Friday or Monday accusing commanders of forcing her to alter a police report.

Trooper Ali Rei is joining Trooper Ryan Sceviour, who says he was forced to remove embarrassing statements made by Alli Bibaud from a police report when she was arrested and charged with operating under the influence of alcohol.

Sceviour claims he was ordered by the head of the state police, Col. Richard McKeon, to remove references in the report to Bibaud's father, District Judge Tim Bibaud.

McKeon didn't comment Thursday when asked about the first lawsuit but his attorney said he's issuing subpoenas for all involved to read their emails and texts.

"We are going to get electronic communications, emails, texts," said Sceviour's attorney, Leonard Kesten. "It won't take long to find out where this originated."



According to the original report, Alli Bibaud offered sexual favors for leniency. Sceviour says he was ordered to delete that and other inappropriate remarks about sex acts and drugs.

"This is a question of integrity," said Dana Pullman, president of the Massachusetts State Police Association. "And the trooper has it."

Pullman says troopers have now lost faith in their command staff. And he disagrees with a state police spokesman who said this week that sensationalistic statements made by suspects can be removed from police reports.

"It's a joke," said Pullman. "It's completely false. It doesn't make any sense to anybody in law enforcement."

Gov. Charlie Baker is now reviewing the allegations.

"I don't think it is going to take a long time to complete, but, it is a serious set of allegations, it is a significant set of issues, and I don't believe in making decisions on stuff like this without having a chance to fully vet everything that is in front of us, which we are going to do, and we are going to do it quickly," said Baker.

While the state police superintendent wouldn't comment immediately he did say he may speak in the future.
The Massachusetts Senate has passed a wide-ranging health care reform bill that calls for the state to study the cost of a possible single-payer insurance system.

The Senate gave final approval to the measure on a 33-6 vote just before midnight on Thursday.

The 100-page bill seeks to limit price disparities between large Boston hospitals and smaller, community hospitals, and curb rising pharmaceutical drug costs.

Senators adopted an amendment that calls for the state to analyze what a government single-payer health system would cost Massachusetts, and compare those costs to the present market-based system.

The bill faces an uncertain road ahead.

The House is expected to draft its own, less expansive health care bill, and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker is questioning whether the Senate bill would save the state money.
A 15-year-old boy has been found safe after walking away from a group home Thursday in Methuen, Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts State Police Air Wing unit was assisting in the search for 15-year-old John Zell over the area of Lowell Street and Richard Avenue. Police confirmed shortly before 10 p.m. that the teen had been found.

Zell is not from the area, and police believed his cellphone battery was dead.

Methuen Police expressed gratitude to everyone who helped spread word of the search.
On Sunday 23 April there will be a ceremony to honour the memory of a young man killed while serving in Palestine during the First World War. Major Philip Musgrave Neeld Wroughton of Chaddleworth, died in 1917 aged 29. Family and members of Berkshire Yeomanry will lay wreaths at the stone cross memorial near Fawley, to mark the centenary of his death.

At the unveiling ceremony of Chaddleworths war memorial, Philip Wroughton was referred to as a fine English country gentleman. Born in 1888, he was the son of a landowner and Conservative politican, also Philip, who was the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1857, and who sat in the House of Commons from 1876 to 1895; firstly as MP for Berkshire, then as MP for Abingdon. On his fathers death in 1910, young Philip inherited the manors of Brightwalton, Chaddleworth and Woolley.

The 26 April 1917 edition of the NWN reported the sad news thus:

The news has been received that Major Philip Musgrave Neeld Wroughton of Woolley Park was killed in action whilst serving in the Yeomanry in Palestine. At the outbreak of war, Major Wroughton was an officer in the Berks Yeomanry, and went into training with his regiment in England, subsequently going with it to the East. After a period spent in Egypt the regiment was drafted to Gallipolli and took part in the memorable action on the Peninsula in August 1915 in which so many Berkshire lads were killed, wounded or incapacitated by disease. Major Wroughton was wounded and invalided home, where he recovered sufficiently to resume duty with his regiment which has latterly been operating in the campaign against the Turks. 

He was 29 years old. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he had been expected to follow in the footsteps of a very worthy father, whose memory is still revered, serving his county with zeal and ability. But for the war, the young Squire would have taken a prominent part in Berkshire affairs. He put aside all personal considerations in response to the call of King and country, and died at the post of duty, as so many sons have done.

Sincere sympathy is respectfully offered to Mrs Wroughton, who lost a younger son, Christopher in a very distressing bicycle accident.

A memorial service was held at the parish church in Chaddleworth on 22 May, following one in London, in order that the inhabitants of North Berkshire should have the opportunity to pay their last respects. There was not a vacant seat in the church. The NWN report (24 May 1917) told how the local people knew him from boyhood and had all received many acts of consideration and kindness, both from him and his family. When in his younger days, Master Phil, as he was known won a race at the local flower show on his pony, everybody was more than pleased, and cheered him to the echo. It was the same all through his life, and when he became Squire of Woolley, everyone knew that the high ideals of consideration and regard for the welfare of all would be maintained and strengthened.

The NWN received a letter from an officer in Major Wroughtons Brigade  part of which read He was gallantly leading his squadron on April 19th in a dismounted attack, when he was killed by shrapnel fire. Although he never liked soldiering, he was a born soldier and leader of yeomen- they all loved him. He was the ideal Yeomanry officer  the English country gentleman  who disliked the war intensely, but made every sacrifice to help finish it, and died like the very gallant gentlemen he was, fighting at the head of his squadron. Not only his own regiment, but the whole brigade will miss him, more than they would any other officer in the brigade.

Major Wroughton is remembered in Gaza War Cemetery, in a memorial in the grounds of Woolley Park, on the Chaddleworth war memorial and in the churches of St Marys Fawley, All Saints, Brightwalton and St Andrews Chaddleworth, which also holds the cross that marked the original grave in Gaza.

Major Wroughtons descendants have carried on the family tradition of public service. His great-nephew is Sir Philip Lavallin Wroughton, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire from 1995 until 2008. Other family members include Berkshires current Lord Lieutenant James Puxley, and the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commsioner, Anthony Stansfeld.
President Kovind launches Bihar Krishi Road Map 2017-2022

Patna (Bihar) , Nov.9 : President Ram Nath Kovind launched the Bihar Krishi Road Map 2017-2022 in Patna on Thursday.





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Speaking on the occasion, the President said it was a moving and emotional experience for him to come to Bihar for the first time as President of India. He would always remember the regard and affection received from people of all sections and regions of the state during his tenure as the Governor of Bihar.The President stated that the centenary year of the Champaran Satyagraha is being commemorated from April 2017. As such this was the best time to introduce the new 'Agricultural Road Map' in the interests of farmers. Mahatma Gandhi had emphasised through the Satyagraha that farmers are at the centre of Indian life and policy making. And this remains true even today.The President said that the Government of Bihar had launched the first 'Agricultural Road Map' in 2008 after consulting farmers, agricultural scientists and other stakeholders.The 2017 road map is the third. It provides comprehensive and coordinated plans for the development of agriculture. All concerned Departments have been directed to design their policies keeping the welfare of farmers in mind. This is a fundamental change. The President expressed confidence that the 3rd Agricultural Road Map' released today will further energise the agricultural sector's performance in Bihar and empower the farming community.
Govt finalising new national education policy: HRD Ministry

New Delhi Nov. 9 : The government is in the process of finalising the new national education policy which will focus on making India's education system learner-centric instead of teacher-centric, said a top official of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on Thursday.





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While addressing the FICCI Higher Education Summit 2017 here, Dr. N. Saravana Kumar, Joint Secretary, MHRD, said, "The government is in the process of finalising the new national education policy which will focus on making India's education system learner-centric instead of teacher-centric. Also, the highly regulated education sector is being liberalized and private sector participation is being encouraged for India to acquire global citizenship in education."Sixty-seven countries are participating in three-day FICCI Higher Education Summit 2017. One thousand delegates, of which more than 247 are foreign delegates predominantly from Africa, SAARC, Middle East, CIS, Finland, New Zealand, Malaysia, Australia, USA, etc. are participating at the summit.In line with the government's focus to reform the Indian education system to cater to the needs of the future, the theme for the summit is 'Leapfrogging to Education 4.0: Student at the Core'.Speaking on the occasion, Sudhanshu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said, "In the wake of protectionism, knowledge sharing and student exchange programmes become critical and gives a new hope for tomorrow. Around five million students move around the globe for education. India is among one of the nations with high outflow of students, the country spends more than $20 billion on students studying abroad and there is a need to make India the centre of education."He further added that Pandey said that the student has been at the core of education and shall remain at its epicenter in future as well.In his video message, Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for HRD, said that the government had come out with learning outcomes and was providing greater autonomy to the institutes to pursue research and development and innovation.Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, in his message, urged the stakeholders including industry and academic to recommend ideas to promote the business of education globally.Nina Vaskunlahti, Ambassador of Finland to India; Prof (Dr) Rajan Saxena, Chair-FICCI Higher Education Committee; Prof Vinod Bhat, Co chair, FICCI Higher Education Summit; Dr Sanjaya Baru, Secretary General, FICCI; Shobha M. Ghosh, Assistant Secretary General, FICCI; and Sangeeta Godbole, Director General, Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) also spoke on the occasion, where FICCI-EY report 'Leapfrogging to Education 4.0: Student at the Core' and FICCI Report on Social Outreach in Higher Education were also released.
CollegeFindMe Joins America's Promise Alliance

CAMBRIDGE, Mass: CollegeFindMe today announced it has become an official partner of the America's Promise Alliance. As a partner, CollegeFindMe will work with America's Promise to help America's young people receive the resources they need to lead healthy, successful lives.





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CollegeFindMe is a higher education organization based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. CollegeFindMe works with a large database of colleges looking for students based on different criteria including extracurricular activities, test scores, GPA, and more. CollegeFindMe broadens students' opportunities by providing access to colleges across the United States, who can then send students offers. For counselors, CollegeFindMe facilitates their communication with students, in an easy and organized way.America's Promise Alliance is the nation's largest network dedicated to improving the lives of children and youth. The Alliance brings together more than 400 national organizations and thousands of community leaders to focus the nation's attention on young people's lives and voices, lead bold campaigns to expand opportunity, conduct groundbreaking research on what young people need to thrive, and accelerate the adoption of strategies that help young people succeed. GradNation, a signature campaign, has helped to increase the nation's high school graduation rate to a record high. In the past 12 years, an additional 2 million young people have graduated from high school."Creating stronger communities where youth feel supported and encouraged is essential to America's future strength and vitality," said John Gomperts, president and CEO of America's Promise. "By coming together in common purpose, we demonstrate our commitment and the fact that we all have a role to play in the success of our children and youth, and we are infinitely more powerful as a united force. We're thrilled that CollegeFindMe has joined this movement."Founded in 1997 at the Presidents' Summit for America's Future, America's Promise leads an alliance of organizations, communities and individuals dedicated to fulfilling the presidential declaration signed on that day calling upon the nation to keep five crucial promises to every young person in America: the presence of caring adults in their lives; safe surroundings to live, learn and grow; healthy starts and healthy childhoods; an effective education that builds marketable skills; and opportunities to serve others.As an official partner, CollegeFindMe will support and take part in the work of America's Promise to help more of the nation's young people experience the Five Promises and finish high school prepared for college and the 21st century workforce."CollegeFindMe connects students, school counselors and colleges worldwide to simplify and expand the college application process and foster an outstanding educational experience. Our students go on to be open minded, global citizens; contributing to their community in impactful ways," said Christina Bai, CEO and Founder of CollegeFindMe. "We are excited to join the America's Promise Alliance, ensuring the success of America's youth."
BayCare Health Care Navigators Offer Free Assistance

TAMPA, Fla: With the status of the Affordable Care Act changing daily, BayCare Health System in west central Florida wants to help consumers understand their options. BayCare's Health Care Navigators are available to assist.





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"Affordable health insurance is essential to improving the health of any community," said Keri Eisenbeis, director of Government Relations and Community Outreach for BayCare. "A lot of people are receiving care who didn't have access to it before the Affordable Care Act. More than 1.7 million Floridians currently receive coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Some people may be uncertain about whether the Marketplace still exists after various efforts by Congress this year to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. We can assure our communities that the Marketplace is still here and will be open for business on Nov. 1."Open Enrollment for 2018 health coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace begins Nov. 1 and runs through Dec. 15. "It is important for the public to know that the enrollment period was reduced from three months to just 45 days this year," Eisenbeis said.Coverage begins Jan. 1, 2018, if people are enrolled and premiums are paid by Dec. 15. BayCare Health Care Navigators are available to offer free, one-on-one assistance to help anyone understand their options and enroll in a plan. They are trained to provide unbiased information to consumers about health insurance, the Health Insurance Marketplace, qualified health plans and public programs, including Medicaid and Florida KidCare. Services are available year round to anyone seeking affordable health care in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties.In addition, BayCare Health Care Navigators will be on site for an Enrollment Event (NAV Labs) where the public can either make an appointment or just walk in:aNov. 18, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. - South Florida Baptist Hospital, 301 N. Alexander St., Plant City, FL 33563.aNov. 19, noon - 5 p.m. - Morton Plant North Bay Hospital, 6600 Madison St., New Port Richey, FL 34652."Despite reports that some areas of the country may not have any health plans available, all the counties we represent within the Marketplace have health plan options ready for purchase for 2018," Eisenbeis added.Financial help is available for most Marketplace consumers. Surveys show that many of the remaining uninsured believe that they cannot afford coverage but have not explored their options. Nearly 90 percent of Marketplace enrollees in Florida receive financial help paying for premiums and more than 70 percent receive help with lowering deductibles and co-pays. The government estimates that many of the 28 million Americans that remain uninsured could be eligible for this help.For more information about Open Enrollment, visit www.coveringtampabay.org. To reach a BayCare Health Care Navigator, please call (855) 404-3334.
Lisa Bodell To Deliver Keynote At KPMG's 27th Annual Accounting and Financial Reporting Symposium

NEW YORK: Global innovation expert and award-winning author Lisa Bodell will serve as a keynote speaker at KPMG LLP's 27th Annual Accounting and Financial Reporting Symposium, one of the financial reporting industry's most popular educational programs.





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The audit, tax and advisory firm's annual Symposium focuses on the existing and emerging issues that financial executives need to know about.This year's Symposium, offering 16 CPE credits, will occur Nov. 30 - Dec. 1 in Las Vegas."Lisa Bodell will provide Symposium participants valuable techniques to help businesses embrace change and become world-class innovators," said John Ebner, KPMG's National Managing Partner - Audit.Additional speakers throughout the two-day event will focus on implementation of the new revenue recognition, leases, and financial instruments standards; cyber security; data and analytics; IFRS; business combinations; and internal controls. Discounts are available for KPMG alumni, and for groups of three or more. Visit KPMG Executive Education's Symposium website to learn more about the content and to register to attend. Watch a video about the Symposium at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwHsCrLh2s&feature=youtu.be.
No talks till terrorists are getting Pak's support: MEA

New Delhi , November 9 : India's stand on talks with Pakistan remains unchanged, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Thursday.





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"Our stand remains unchanged. For the talks to go ahead there should be a conducive environment which has to be created - an environment has to be created which is free of terrorism and free of terrorists getting support from Pakistan," MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.Yesterday, a delegation of Pakistan Rangers led by Director General (Sindh Rangers) Major General Muhammad Saeed arrived in New Delhi for 44th Biannual DG-level talks.Tensions have been running high between India and Pakistan since the Uri attack, with border skirmishes further aggravating the situation.However, Indian Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale, who was earlier the country's envoy to Pakistan, ruled out talks between the two countries unless Islamabad stops cross border terrorism.
It's '10 years and counting' in Bollywood for Sonam Kapoor!

New Delhi , November 9 : It's a big day for actress Sonam Kapoor as today she has completed 10 years in films since her debut in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Saawariya' in 2007.





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The 32-year-old actress thanked her fans for making her journey "so successful."Since her debut, the actress has starred in movies like 'Neerja,' 'Aisha,' 'Khoobsurat,' and 'Delhi 6.'Sonam, who is currently shooting for her upcoming flick 'Veere Di Wedding' in Bangkok, took to Instagram and put out posters of films that she has done so far starting from 'Saawariya' to 'Neerja.'The pictures were captioned, "10 years and it's been one hell of a journey! I'm soo grateful for everything I have achieved! 10 years and counting..Can't believe it's been 10 years since my debut! I have learnt so many things, Gratitude , Patience , Acceptance, Perseverance, Love... Thank you all for making this journey so successful for me! 10 years and still learning everyday! ?? All these years would mean absolutely nothing if it wasn't for my fans and the way y'all supported me through thick and thin. Thank you so much for the love ?"On the work front, her upcoming film 'Veere Di Wedding,' which also stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Tulsania, is all set to hit the theatres on May 18.
Locals boycott MP by-polls over poor infrastructure

Chitrakoot (Madhya Pradesh) , November 9 : Irked over poor infrastructure in their areas, voters from two villages in Madhya Pradesh's Chitrakoot Assembly constituency boycotted the by-elections held on Thursday.





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Locals from Berhana and Semara village in Chitrakoot boycotted the by-polls alleging that the authority doesn't provide them basic facility.One of the locals shared their plight while talking to ANI."Barring schools, none of the facilities is being given to us. We decided to boycott by-elections because no one listens to us," said a local.The villager further said that they would continue boycotting other elections if the authority doesn't pay heed to their problems.The polling was held today for the Chitrakoot Assembly seat.The by-elections were necessitated following the death of Congress MLA Prem Singh (65) after prolonged illness on May 29 this year. Singh was a three-time MLA from Chitrakoot, from where he had won in 1998, 2003 and 2013.Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Shankar Dayal Tripathi, Congress nominee Nilanshu Chaturvedi and 10 others are in fray for the by-election in the Assembly segment.There are 1.98 lakh voters in the Chitrakoot Assembly constituency, an EC official earlier said.
Himachal polls: BJP Media Cell Chief confident about Congress' debacle

New Delhi , November 9 : Anil Baluni, BJP Media Cell Chief, on Thursday expressed confidence about the party sweeping the Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls with 60 out of 68 seats.





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Speaking to ANI, Baluni further said the Congress would face debacle in the polls."People in Himachal Pradesh are saying that out of 68 assembly constituencies, the BJP will win 60 seats and the Congress will win the remaining eight, which means it will go down to single digits," he said.Himachal Pradesh assembly elections have recorded the highest ever 74 per cent voter turnout till 5 p.m.The voting was conducted in 68 assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh in a single phase to choose the next chief minister of the state.A total of 337 candidates, including 19 women, are in fray to sweep the polls in the hilly state.Incumbent Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal were among the 62 sitting MLAs who contested the polls.The counting of votes will take place on December 18.
Delhi: Prince Charles, Duchess visit British High Commissioner's residence

New Delhi , November 9 : Prince of Wales Charles Philip Arthur George, accompanied by Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles, on Thursday visited the British High Commissioner's residence in the national capital.





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While addressing a gathering here, Charles said, "All the great religious traditions, the great wisdom of remaining indigenous communities represented in our family of nations, speak of the essential requirement to work in harmony with nature as our ultimate sustainer.""As the world's largest democracy, India's role in all of this could not be more crucial nor her contribution to the commonwealth more essential. So many areas such as Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi's impressive and admirable focus on renewable energy, India offers a compelling example for others to follow. The world can learn so much from India today as indeed it has done throughout history," Charles added.Earlier in the day, Charles along with Camilla Parker Bowles paid tribute to the martyrs at Delhi's Amar Jawan Jyoti.The Prince had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday and discussed a wide range of issues, including that of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which will take place in April 2018 in the United Kingdom.The royal couple is on a two-day visit to India.The visit is a 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.India-U.K. trade is at USD 12.19 billion. India is also the third largest investor and the second largest international job creator in the U.K.U.K. is the third largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000 - June 2017.U.K. is the third largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000 - June 2017.
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Xi, Trump reiterate commitment to denuclearization of Korean Peninsula

Beijing [China], November 10 : Chinese President Xi Jinping and his United States counterpart Donald Trump have reiterated firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and working towards a solution through dialogue and negotiation.





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"On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, we reiterated the firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the Peninsula and upholding international nonproliferation regime. The two sides will continue to fully and strictly implement U.N. Security Council resolutions. At the same time, the two sides commit to working toward a solution through dialogue and negotiation," said Present Xi in a joint statement with Trump after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing."And we are ready to discuss with relevant parties the pathway leading to enduring peace and stability in the Peninsula and the Northeast Asia. The two sides will maintain communication and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula issue," he added.President said the two sides need to step up communication and cooperation on Asia Pacific affairs, foster common friends, build constructive interactions, and jointly maintain and promote peace and stability and prosperity in the region.The two leaders also discussed the Middle East, Afghanistan, and other issues, and agreed to deepen cooperation on counterterrorism, nonproliferation, nuclear security, and stronger support to U.N. peacekeeping operations.Trump urged all responsible nations to join together to stop arming and financing with the "murderous North Korean regime"."All responsible nations must join together to stop arming and financing -- and even trading with -- the murderous North Korean regime. Together, we have in our power to finally liberate this region and the world from this very serious nuclear menace. But it will require collective action, collective strength, and collective devotion to winning the peace," he said.The two also committed to working toward a peaceful future for Afghanistan.Asserting that terrorists are a threat to all of humanity, Trump said, "We will stop radical Islamic terrorism."Trump had arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a three-day state visit.
Three Canadian ministers to visit India

New Delhi , Nov.10 : Three ministers of the Government of Canada will undertake a visit to India between November 13 and 17.





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A High Commission of Canada release said that Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains; Minister of International Trade Francois-Philippe Champagne and Minister of Transport Marc Garneau will lead a trade, technology and innovation mission to India next week. They will be accompanied by a delegation of nearly 200 Canadian business representatives.While in New Delhi, the ministers will participate in the Canada-India Technology Summit, held at the Lalit Hotel on November 14-15. They will also meet several Indian Ministers and leaders of business and industry.In the context of the technology summit, there will be several significant business and innovation announcements involving top-tier Canadian companies.In addition to Delhi, Minister Champagne will visit Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad while Minister Bains will visit Pune.High Commissioner for Canada to India, Nadir Patel, said: "Canada-India bilateral relations are growing at a fast pace and India is a priority country for Canada. Canadian investment into India has increased by nearly $15 billion over the past three years, and the number of Canadian companies active in India stands at over 1000. The timing of this visit by three senior Canadian Ministers couldn't be better to further advance our business relationship and deepen Canada's engagement across India."
RS Components appoints Chris Poullaos as Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand

SYDNEY: RS Components (RS), the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc (LSE:ECM), the global distributor for engineers, has appointed Chris Poullaos as Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand.





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The appointment supports the company's ongoing commitment to become first choice for its customers and suppliers by delivering a one-stop solution, powered by technology, innovation and data-led insight that fulfils the needs of engineers and procurement officers in the industrial and electronics sectors.Based in Sydney, Chris will focus on driving growth and expanding the RS Australia and New Zealand business. With an aim to provide best-in-class customer services, he will concentrate on reinforcing the company's promise to provide a broad range of industrial and electronic products, high stock availability, together with extensive sector-specific knowledge and technical expertise. Chris will lead the local team to continue to improve the customer experience, develop new channels to market, drive customer expansion and implement supplier and brand promotion activities."Chris brings a valuable mix of industry knowledge from across multiple sectors such as information technology, industrial product, food processing, facility and office supply management with a proven track record of success in enhancing business performance. Building on the solid foundation of the Australia and New Zealand markets, Chris will play a key role in driving growth as we continue to adapt to the needs of our customer base in the markets," commented Frank Lee, Regional Vice President APAC at RS.Prior to joining RS, Chris was General Manager of the Food Processor Supplies business unit of Bunzl Australasia. He also held senior sales management and director roles with Educations Works Australia, Electus Distribution (Jaycar Electronics) and Corporate Express Australia.
Video Encoder Market Growth Steady at 4.26pc CAGR to 2023 Led by Broadcast Application

PUNE: The video encoder market size will reach USD 2.19 billion by 2023 from USD 1.70 billion in 2017 at a CAGR of 4.26pc during (2017-2023) driven by the ease of connecting analog cameras to the network, the use of cloud services to store a large amount of data and the adoption of high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard for video encoding according to RnRMarketResearch.





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The major key players operating in the video encoder market include Harmonic Inc. (US), Telairity, Inc. (US), Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Co., Ltd (China), Axis Communications AB (Sweden), Haivision Systems Inc. (US) & (Canada), Dahua Technology Co., Ltd. (China), ARRIS International plc (US), Bosch Security Systems GmbH (Germany), ATEME SA. (France), Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd. (Canada), The Vitec Group plc (UK), and Delta Digital Video (US).The video encoder market in RoW is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period. The Middle East, Africa, and South America are some of the major countries driving the growth of the video encoder market in RoW. The video encoder market in RoW is expected to grow significantly because of various factors; government initiatives to implement surveillance cameras in applications such as infrastructure, commercial, and industrial as well as the adoption of encoders by the broadcasters to deliver superior video quality to the subscribers.The broadcast application held the largest share of the video encoder market in 2016 followed by surveillance. The need to stream videos over the Internet without interruption is continuously increasing. One of the major reasons behind the use of video encoders in the broadcast application is the increasing demand for ultra-high definition (UHD) or 4K videos to transmit content over a small bandwidth. Video encoders are also used in surveillance application as it allows an existing analog CCTV system to be integrated with a network camera system. The verticals covered under surveillance application include retail, transportation, commercial, residential, institutional, and military and defense.The single channel devices to lead the video encoder market in the coming years. North America was the leading market for video encoders in 2016. North America has been one of the largest markets for broadcast and surveillance equipment. A detailed competitive landscape has been provided that includes key players, revenue of key players, and strategic developments, among others. Illustrative segmentation, analysis, and forecast for markets based on the number of channels, type, application, and geography have been conducted to give an overall view of the market.The video encoder market study discusses key drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges pertaining to the market. The report gives a detailed view of the market across four main regions: North America, Europe, APAC, and RoW (comprising South America, the Middle East, and Africa). In this report, various segments such as the number of channels, type, application and geography of the video encoder market have been covered.Breakdown of the profile of the primary participants:aBy Company Type: Tier 1 - 24%, Tier 2 - 31%, and Tier 3 - 45%aBy Designation: C-Level Executives - 44%, Directors - 19%, and Managers - 37%aBy Region: North America - 38%, APAC - 28%, Europe - 26%, and RoW - 8%
Tissue Genesis LLC, and Human Life CORD Japan, Inc., Announce Exclusive Agreement to Advance Adult Stem Cell Therapies in Asia

HOUSTON: Human Life CORD Japan, Inc., (HLC) a group company of Nihon Trim (Cord No. 6788, Tokyo Stock Exchange 1st Section) is pleased to announce a strategic agreement with Tissue Genesis LLC (TG) to distribute its propriety stem cell processing products in commercial clinics, research institutions, and hospitals in Japan and China.





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The 10-year agreement marks a major leap forward in advancing the field of regenerative medicine through state-of-the-art point-of-care platform technology, to meet the broad needs of a growing, global healthcare market.Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/590657/Human_Life_CORD_Japan_logo.jpgLogo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/590557/Tissue_Genesis_LLC_Logo.jpgUnder the agreement, HLC will hold exclusive rights to license and market Tissue Genesis' high-performance Icellator machine, a highly efficient, fully automated stem cell isolation system utilizing autologous adipose tissue for human use. The Icellator has already been approved for commercial use in Korea as a Class III medical device by the Korean FDA (KMFDS) and has been used in more than 1,200 commercial applications. The Ukraine and the Bahamas have also given regulatory approval for the Icellator. Clinical trials registered with the FDA using the Icellator are underway for indications including osteoarthritis, diabetic leg pain, amputation site pain, cranio-fascial trauma, and erectile dysfunction.Through this unprecedented alliance venture, HLC and TG will work together to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals to maximize the potential benefits of adult stem cells for the patients in Asia. The first targeted indication is breast reconstruction through an on-going clinical research trial at Kansai Medical University in Hirakata, Japan."We are very excited to add Icellator into our medical device portfolio. This device can improve patient outcomes and add value in the management of tissue repair," said Human Life CORD President Masamitsu Harata. "We hope to take full advantage of an accelerated path to regulatory approval so that use of the Icellator receives reimbursement coverage for Japanese patients given that Icellator has already navigated the regulatory process and launched in multiple countries.""At Tissue Genesis, we believe excellence and innovation is a continual process," said Tissue Genesis CEO Anton Krucky. "Our scientists and engineers are currently working on next generation innovations to match an aggressive product development plan. We believe we can achieve tremendous success as this whole industry begins to grow."CEO Dr. Marc Penn of Black Beret Life Sciences (BBLS), which oversees the investment and management of Tissue Genesis, said: "This is an exciting partnership that will foster a robust exchange of scientific research and data. The teams at Tissue Genesis and Human Life Cord will be working together to enhance the outcomes of patients seeking to treat chronic conditions or to improve their wellness and healthy living. Through this valuable collaboration, we can offer the other highly novel technologies within the BBLS portfolio access to the Japanese market."The Tissue Genesis Icellator requires no user intervention once in operation, providing simple and efficient processing while simultaneously eliminating the potential for human error. Through a completely sterile single-use processing pathway, it isolates a consistent yield of stromal vascular fraction (SVF), which include multiple types of adult stem cells, from a small sample of adipose tissue in about one hour, using a patented purification process.Tissue Genesis will provide training on the Icellator machine in both commercial and clinical settings for a range of indications from plastic surgery to orthopedics, heart failure and erectile dysfunction. Other propriety Tissue Genesis products include the Icellator kits and Adipase enzyme blend used to improve cell isolation yields from human adipose tissue.
JinkoSolar Invited as the Sole PV Module Manufacturer to Speak at the Sustainability Summit Asia hosted by The Economist

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. (NYSE: JKS) (the Company, or JinkoSolar), a global leader in the solar PV industry, today announced that it was invited as the sole PV module manufacturer to deliver a keynote address at the Sustainability Summit Asia hosted by The Economist in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.





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The Sustainability Summit Asia will, among various issues, discuss China's current leadership position in the global renewable energy space and its implications for Southeast Asian nations. As the only PV module manufacturer slated to speak at the summit, JinkoSolar will share its outlook on the renewable energy industry in China, particularly recent advancements in solar research and development, manufacturing, and deployment. Furthermore, JinkoSolar will highlight how technical progress in PV will affect public and private sector solar advancement in other developing countries.JinkoSolar, as the world's largest solar module manufacturers, and other Chinese solar companies have made great contribution to scale up PV technologies and drive down the cost of solar power. In addition, following China's Belt and Road Strategy, JinkoSolar has made heavy investments abroad and built its largest overseas production facility in Malaysia. JinkoSolar's Malaysia production facility has a solar cell manufacturing capacity of 1.5 GW and module manufacturing capacity of 1.3 GW, creating over 4000 jobs for the local community.Through representing the renewable energy industry at various global conferences, JinkoSolar has not only elevated its own international profile, but has also raised public knowledge, awareness, and engagement about sustainability issues. From co-chairing the B20 Energy, Climate, and Resource Efficiency taskforce earlier this year to attending the World Bank Private Sector Liaison Officers Energy Mission earlier this month, JinkoSolar has provided private sector insights on the global energy transition. JinkoSolar's invitation to speak at the Sustainability Summit Asia reflects the company's stature as a leader in the photovoltaic industry.
U.S. News - Best Lawyers release 2018 Best Law Firms list

WASHINGTON: U.S. News and World Report and Best Lawyers, for the eighth consecutive year, announce the Best Law Firms rankings.





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Firms included in the 2018 "Best Law Firms" list are recognized for professional excellence with persistently impressive ratings from clients and peers. Achieving a tiered ranking signals a unique combination of quality law practice and breadth of legal expertise."U.S. News has decades of experience evaluating key institutions in societyafrom colleges to hospitals," says Tim Smart, executive editor at U.S. News. "Law firms perform a vital role in American life, and ranking them is a key extension of our overall mission to helps individuals and companies alike make important life decisions."The 2018 rankings are based on the highest number of participating firms and highest number of client ballots on record. To be eligible for a ranking, a firm must have a lawyer listed in The Best Lawyers in America, which recognizes the top 4 percent of practicing attorneys in the U.S. Over 13,000 attorneys provided more than 1,000,000 law firm assessments, and over 7,500 clients provided more than 65,000 evaluations."We have been ranking law firms for eight years," says Steven Naifeh, CEO and co-founder of Best Lawyers, "having ranked individual lawyers for almost 35. This year we reviewed 13,745 law firms across the United States - across 75 practice areas - and a total of 1,911 firms received a national law firm ranking. We continue to expand our reach even as we also work to simplify the process for the law firms that provide us with the information that we use to create the rankings. We are proud that the legal profession views our law firm rankings with such serious and widespread respect."Ranked firms, presented in tiers, are listed on a national and/or metropolitan scale. Receiving a tier designation reflects the high level of respect a firm has earned among other leading lawyers and clients in the same communities and the same practice areas for its abilities, its professionalism, and its integrity.Awards were given in 75 national practice areas and 122 metropolitan practice areas. One "Law Firm of the Year" is named in 74 nationally ranked practice areas.The 2018 "Best Law Firms" list will be featured in two publications. The national First Tier rankings will be featured in the Fourth Edition of the "Best Law Firms" Legal Issue, which will be distributed in January to more than 35,000 C-level executives. National and metropolitan First Tier rankings will be featured in the"Best Law Firms" General Counsel Publication, which will be distributed in December to more than 30,000 in-house counsel, and in digital format to more than 60,000 private practice lawyers worldwide.The 2018 "Best Law Firms" rankings can be seen in their entirety by visiting bestlawfirms.usnews.com.
Docplexus Surpasses 250,000 Members, Retains Position as India's Largest Online Community of Doctors

PUNE: Three-and-a-half-year-old healthtech player Docplexus has crossed the 250,000 members mark, firmly securing itself as the largest digital professional network of Indian allopathic practitioners.





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This phenomenal growth is a result of the platform's ability to maintain the quality of its offerings while consistently adding new, innovative features. While some of the initial offerings like patient case studies, online CME courses and live interactive webinars continue to be widely accessed by physicians, some newer initiatives like 'Docplexus News', a weekly news series covering latest healthcare happenings, are also driving huge engagement.Since it first began operations, Docplexus portal has witnessed more than 40,000 clinical case discussions. Currently, over 18,000 doctors log onto the website or app every single day. Phanish Chandra, CEO & Co-founder, notes, "For a long time, doctors lacked sufficient avenues to hold meaningful dialogue with peers, consult experts on challenging patient cases, learn about latest therapies or even stay updated on healthcare policies. Docplexus has eliminated all barriers and successfully united doctors across regions and specialties on a single digital platform. Our portal is now the only thing a doctor needs to effectively meet all his knowledge needs."Dr. Yasoda Kurra, Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, corroborates, "Docplexus enables a doctor to clarify all clinical doubts in a more professional manner. All experienced doctors give their opinions and practical guidance. I have really benefitted through this platform."Docplexus' steady ascent as the Valued Digital Knowledge Partner of Indian Doctors has gained recognition from academia and industry alike. It recently won the 'Best Brand in Social Media and Digital Marketing' award from CMO ASIA, Indira Group and World Federation of Marketing Professionals & World Sustainability.Docplexus has also emerged to be the Most Trusted Digital Marketing Partner of Pharma industry. Using its core expertise of engaging doctors via insightful content, it has developed a range of marketing solutions like webinars, and content marketing strategies for launching new products, shaping therapy areas, reviving legacy molecules and so on. So far it has acquired 25 digital marketing projects with 17 reputed pharma players including Lupin, Eli Lilly & Co., Dr. Reddy's, Cipla, Novartis, GSK, Merck, Piramal, Sanofi and Sun Pharma.Phanish observes, "We have witnessed a remarkable shift in the industry's mindset towards digital initiatives. Indian pharma marketers today fully realize the high potential of digital technology for physician outreach and engagement, and are taking concrete steps to leverage platforms like Docplexus to the fullest."
ASCENT Foundation, a Not-for-profit Initiative Started by Harsh Mariwala, Back With its Second Edition of ASCENT Conclave Aimed at 'Enriching the Journey of Entrepreneurs'

MUMBAI: Scheduled on November 11, 2017 at St. Regis Mumbai, the ASCENT Conclave is a signature event where India's thought leaders, change-makers and innovators, share, inspire and celebrate their entrepreneurial journeys





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ASCENT Foundation, a not-for-profit, peer-to-peer learning platform for entrepreneurs founded by Harsh Mariwala, Chairman, Marico Ltd., is hosting its second edition of ASCENT Conclave, scheduled on Saturday, November 11, 2017 at St. Regis, Mumbai. The full day event brings together India's most inspiring and recognised leaders who will share their entrepreneurial journey over the years, learnings and success stories.Leveraging the 'power of the collective', the ASCENT Conclave 2017, is an eminent platform that welcomes industry experts to share and exchange their experiences, ideas and insights that can empower entrepreneurs in their business growth and development. The Conclave will bring together over 500 like-minded entrepreneurs for a day-long interactive engagement program and networking event.The event will witness Harsh Mariwala (Founder, ASCENT Foundation and Chairman Marico Ltd.); Sajjan Jindal (Chairman, JSW Group); Prasoon Joshi (CEO, McCann World Group India and Chairman, McCann [Asia Pacific]); Piyush Pandey (Co-Executive Chairman and National Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather India and Vice Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific); Ameera Shah (Managing Director, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd); Kunwer Sachdev (Managing Director and Founder, Su-Kam); Siddharth Roy Kapur (Erstwhile Managing Director, The Walt Disney Company India, Current President, Film and Television Producers Guild of India); Radhika Aggarwal (Co-founder, ShopClues); Pratap Nambiar (Founder and Chairman of Thought Perfect Pte. Ltd.), Kanika Tekriwal (Founder and CEO JetSetGo); Tanmay Bhat (Co-Founder, All India Bakchod [AIB)]); Tarun Mehta, (CEO and Co-Founder, Ather Energy); Vineet Rai (Co-Founder and Chairman, Aavishkaar and Intellecap Group) and Sweta Mangal, (Director, MUrgency Inc.) discuss pertinent aspects for entrepreneurs in their journey to scale-up. Motilal Oswal Private Wealth Management is the lead partner at ASCENT Conclave 2017.The event will include a keynote speech by Sajjan Jindal, who will elucidate on how, based on his own journey, entrepreneurs can leapfrog towards building billion-dollar enterprises. Entrepreneurs will also gain valuable insights from the unique session formats on various themes such as the importance of brand building, scaling of businesses amidst challenges and working towards effective leadership. Tanmay Bhat for the first time will be seen sharing his story of AIB becoming an international brand.The Conclave will also include different session formats that will be moderated by Vikram Bhalla, (Senior Partner & Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group); Menaka Doshi (Managing Editor, BloombergQuint); Atul Kasbekar (Indian Fashion Photographer, Bollywood Film Producer and Entrepreneur); Shruti Mishra, (Assistant Features Editor, CNBC-TV18) and Roopak Saluja (Founder and CEO, The 120 Media Collective and Sooperfly).Harsh Mariwala, Founder, ASCENT Foundation and Chairman, Marico Ltd. says, "The ASCENT Conclave is a platform that celebrates entrepreneurship. This year's Conclave will see stalwarts and achievers from diverse fields coming together, to discuss not only business acumens, but various other eclectic themes like creativity, innovation, personal challenges and growth strategies for entrepreneurs, etc. We want entrepreneurs to receive maximum quality inputs and leave highly charged and inspired - which is the purpose of ASCENT Foundation itself."Vijay Kumar Goel, Chief Executive Officer, Motilal Oswal Wealth Management Ltd. added, "We are happy to be associated with ASCENT Conclave 2017. It is a unique and powerful knowledge sharing platform for entrepreneurs to share and exchange experiences, ideas and insights. As Motilal Oswal Wealth Management, we always focus on our core expertise of 'Know ledge-based investing' and the Conclave is a natural fit for our brand proposition to engage with entrepreneurs and assimilate exceptional learnings from thought leaders."Last year, the ASCENT Conclave 2016 brought together the country's best thought leaders, change-makers and innovators. The speakers included Uday Kotak (Executive Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Bank); Ronnie Screwvala (Founder, Unilazer Ventures and Swades Foundation); Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Founder, PayTM); Falguni Nayar (Founder, Nykaa); Ashish Hemrajani (Chief Executive Officer, BookMyShow); Sandeep Singhal (Co-founder, Nexus Venture Partners); Neeraj Kakkar (Chief Executive Officer, Hector Beverages), and Sasha Mirchandani (Chief Executive Officer, Kae Capital). The ASCENT Conclave 2016 felicitated awards for Entrepreneur of the Year, Business Innovation of the Year and Growth Strategy of the Year.
The 4th Anniversary Development Forum of the 21th Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative and the 5th CMEC Brand Promotion Conference held in Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: The 4th Anniversary Development Forum of 21th Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative and the 5th CMEC Brand Promotion Conference, co-hosted by China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) and Peking University, took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 27, 2017.





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Several key guests delivered speeches at the event, including Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (Malaysia) YB Datuk Wira Dr. Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah, vice president of the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce (MCCC) Kerk Loong Sing and Minister of City Planning and Water Supply (Sri Lanka) Rauff Hakeem, as well as the former Malaysian Ambassador to China. A high-ranking executive from Electricite du Laos (EDL) gave a speech on user experience on behalf of CMEC's users in markets outside of its domestic market in China. As evidence of strong support from the Chinese government, the Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Malaysia Shi Ziming was in attendance. The event also brought together over 300 representatives from 17 countries and regions worldwide, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Attendees included Deputy Minister of Housing and Infrastructure (Maldives) Maumoon Abdulsamad, among other government officials, representatives from industry associations, top researchers from high-end think tanks and representatives from the industrial and commercial communities in the countries targeted by the initiative. CMEC president Zhang Chun delivered a keynote speech themed "CMEC-Your Partner for Success" and took part in several business meetings and conferences during the event.The event received wide attention from the media community. China Radio International (CRI) conducted an exclusive interview with CMEC president Zhang Chun. Additionally, several dozen local and international media outlets, including leading Chinese news agencies, issued featured reports on the event. Among them, Xinhua News Agency, China News Service, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM), NanYang Siang Pau, Sin Chew Daily and Oriental Daily News.To further increase CMEC's brand influence, the CMEC Brand Promotion Conference was organized using what the event organizer termed as the "one plus three" approach: one conference held in the morning and three sub-forums held in the afternoon related respectively to the engineering design, procurement and construction, the financing and the academic aspects of machinery engineering. CMEC, in cooperation with its strategic partners, including General Electric (GE), demonstrated the company's outstanding competence in engineering integration to its customers during the "EPC plus new technology"-themed events. High-level executives from nearly 20 Chinese and international financial institutions, including China Development Bank, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank, outlined their cooperation with CMEC, serving as a testament to CMEC's reliability as an investment and financing partner. In addition, Peking University formally released its Report on the Interconnections among Countries along the 21th Century Maritime Silk Road and invited specialists and academic experts from the countries involved to participate in the discussions on potential collaborations between China and Malaysia and on the future of the 21th Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative.The Forum and Brand Promotion Conference has been held in Southeast Asian countries for three years in a row following the inaugural gathering in Indonesia in 2015 and the first anniversary event in Thailand in 2016. The organization of the events was undertaken by CMEC's controlling subsidiary CMEC International Exhibition. This year's event which included demonstrations on the use of photoelectric technology and multimedia interactions proved to be an especially vivid presentation and demonstration of CMEC's brand image and strength."CMEC highly values its markets in Southeast Asia, especially South Asia, and has identified the region as one of the company's key strategic markets outside of its home market," said president Zhang in his keynote speech. "Going forward, CMEC plans to continue embracing innovation as the firm keeps perfecting the business model as part of its mission to achieve the vision of becoming a leading global international engineering contractor and service provider and of making further worthwhile contributions to the fulfillment of the 'One Belt, One Road' Initiative and the creation of a community of a shared future for mankind."
V-Younger International Medical Group Could be The Best Choice for Miss International

NEW YORK: The 57th Miss International China Finals was held in Beijing Stars Film and Television Park on Sep 23, 2017. The chairman of China Organizing Committee, the chairman Liu Shuwen of Oriental Flying Films, the vice chairman Zhang Tongsheng of Chinese Photographers Society, the president Li Yihan of Asian Medical Cosmetic Association, the dean Ma Lin of V-Younger International Medical Group, and the general manager Yingdong Qiao of Prettyology on-line shopping mall were invited to attend in this beauty pageant.





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After voting and careful deliberation among Organizing Committee and industry experts, Wang Shengxu was chosen as winner of the contest. She will attend the 57th Miss International Finals and represent China.Miss International, first held in 1960 in the Long Beach, California, is one of the three most famous beauty pageants in the world. It has been successfully held for 56 times. Selecting an attendee for the "Miss International Beauty Pageant" has always been an important national activity, so "Miss International Beauty Pageant" is also known as "Beauty Olympics". The purpose of Miss International China is to select "Miss China" to attend the annual Miss International Finals and to represent China. Since China Times Media organized the Miss International China, it has cultivated lots of excellent young candidates, and Miss International China has become an influential beauty pageant in China.V-Younger International Medical Investment & Management Ltd (5V Group) is a subsidiary of Singapore China Knowledge Investment Holding Group, a comprehensive multinational enterprise involved in many fields. Its head office is located in Beijing. With years of cultivation, 5V Group has accumulated sufficient capital and excellent resources in concerning areas. 5V Group has established 7 clusters globally and 13 subsidiaries in provinces and cities of China, The group owns V-Younger Medical Beauty Clinic, Weijia International, Hongxiang Network, 5V Business College, Qing Wei Fundation and other strategic business units. Currently, the group has several subsidiaries in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other key provinces. At the same time, the group has established strategic cooperation with medical organizations in America, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore and Thailand.The beauty industry has always been involved in the development of Beauty Contest. 5V Group offers customized services for candidates. Prettyology on-line shopping mall is an E-commerce platform which focuses on Chinese people's health and has six themes including skin care, body care, healthy food, health screening and healthy cosmetics.Wei-Yang charcoal facial mask, for instance, is one of the flagship brands in Prettyology on-line shopping mall. It is a bold innovation incorporating cutting-edge technology and big data. The research and development of this facial mask incorporated the unique characteristics of cosmetics industry and different female skin types. R&D center and large database of 5V Group are key factors involved in the production of Wei-Yang charcoal facial mask.The support provided by 5V Group in Miss International China Finals indicates the leading position of 5V Group in the beauty industry and its corporate social responsibility. In the 57th Miss International China Finals, skin care products from 5V Group will help candidates to enhance their skins, so they can perform with confidence.
Merck and Samsung BioLogics to Extend Strategic Alliance

DARMSTADT, Germany: Merck, a leading science and technology company, today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Samsung BioLogics for a strategic alliance on biopharmaceutical manufacturing and biologics process development.





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The alliance would accelerate process development and clinical material production at small biotech start-ups focusing on novel drug development for which Samsung BioLogics acts as a contract manufacturer. Under the agreement, Merck would provide process development and support technical training, in addition to its Mobius single-use systems to Samsung BioLogics.The new MoU is an extension of a MoU signed in 2014 that encompasses a long-term supply agreement where Merck would provide raw materials for biopharmaceutical manufacturing."Our collaboration with Samsung continues to strengthen with this agreement," said Udit Batra, Member of the Merck Executive Board and CEO, Life Science. "Merck's process development expertise and Mobius, the wide single-use bioprocessing portfolio, will allow innovations to reach patients faster."Merck has been the key solution provider for Samsung BioLogics' 30KL facility and 152KL facility in Korea, and has trained Samsung BioLogics team on building a robust biologics development process."This alliance will create synergy and maximize our technology potential," said Dr. Tae-Han Kim, President and CEO of Samsung BioLogics.Merck's portfolio of Mobius single-use systems delivers greater flexibility and continuity for scale-up, reducing the need to retrain operators. These are some of the multiple reasons that companies such as Samsung BioLogics have become early adopters of Merck's technologies.At Merck's M Lab Collaboration Centers, customers work with the company's scientists and engineers in a shared exploratory environment to solve customers' toughest biomanufacturing challenges and help accelerate development of new therapies. Merck has nine M Lab Collaboration Centers around the world, including one in the U.S. and one in Korea.Merck is a premier supplier of process development and clinical-stage manufacturing solutions, materials and services needed to produce biopharmaceutical drugs. The company is committed to delivering superior bioreactor technology to manufacturers, several of which are already collaborating with the company in that space in North America, Europe and Asia.In the growing biopharmaceutical market, manufacturers are moving toward end-to-end solutions a from process development and scale-up through to manufacturing for pre-clinical, clinical and commercial supply a as they seek to cut costs while increasing quality and efficiency. At the same time, single-use, disposable equipment and systems have increased in popularity because they offer many advantages over conventional stainless steel systems, such as improved batch success rates, less cross-contamination risk, decreased water and waste water requirements, shortened project duration and reduced project costs.
California Laborers' Union Endorse Gavin Newsom For California Governor

PLEASANTON, Calif: The Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) and its affiliated Northern California District Council of Laborers and Southern California District Council of Laborers announced its unanimous endorsement of Gavin Newsom for California Governor.





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"Gavin Newsom is one of the most effective and responsive leaders I have worked with," said LIUNA Vice President and Northern California District Council of Laborers Business Manager, Oscar De La Torre. "As the Mayor of San Francisco and California Lieutenant Governor, Newsom has consistently demonstrated a track record of fiscal responsibility, social consciousness and a commitment to fight for the working class." De La Torre continues, "These qualities are what sets him apart from the crowded field of gubernatorial candidates; and I believe he is the right man at the right time to be the next Governor of California.""I am honored to receive this important endorsement," said Newsom. "We've worked together for years because we share the same vision, and I admire their hard work and steadfast commitment to providing living wages, health care, and retirement benefits for working-class Californians.""The California Governor's Office needs to be occupied by a serious candidate who understands what it means to govern responsibly," said LIUNA Vice President and Pacific Southwest Regional Manager, Rocco Davis. "Newsom is the right candidate for the working men and women of California. He will stand strong with all Californian's by enforcing labor laws and ensuring job opportunities that allow hard working trades men and women an opportunity to provide for their families and retire with dignity. ""Newsom has the right combination of executive level experience and commitment to balanced job growth and working class values to lead California," said Jon Preciado, Southern California District Council of Laborers Business Manager. "I am confident that he will balance the needs of working class Californians with a sound fiscal policy that will continue to attract employers and job creation in the years to come."With over 65,000 laborer members and 4500 signatory employers strong - The Northern California District Council of Laborers and Southern California District Council of Laborers are on the forefront of the construction industry, a powerhouse of workers and employers who are proud to build California.
Setesca Boosts its International Business with the Opening of an Office in London

BARCELONA, Spain: Setesca, an ICT consultancy specializing in increasing the value of companies, promotes its international business to Europe with the opening of an office in London.





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The company has its headquarters in Barcelona and offices in Madrid and Medellin (Colombia). With presence in London, the company strengthens its international presence with the opening of the market in England. In addition, it has also recently opened the market in Germany and Switzerland.The corporation offers various ICT consulting services, among which is programming as well as remote systems management (DEVOPS) (nearshoring) at a competitive price. Moreover, through Setesca Talent, a division specializing in digital headhunting, it offers Recruiting services for ICT personnel. This way, coverage will be given to those Spanish companies that require selection processes in European countries, and European companies that require a specialized selection service in Spain.The Setesca Talent model is a 100% model focused on success and specialization in profiles of managers and ICT technicians; marketing and in general, new digital profiles have been some of the keys to the rapid expansion of the digital headhunting firm."Europe is a potential market for the type of ICT consulting service we offer. It is an environment where today well-prepared ICT profiles are required and companies that offer flexible, competitive and quality services," says Jordi Damia, CEO of Setesca. The new London offices are located inEaling district (London).
The Kazarian Foundation and Columbia Business School Collaborate on New Sovereign Risk Initiative

NEW YORK: The Charles and Agnes Kazarian Foundation (the Kazarian Foundation) is collaborating with Columbia Business School to launch a new Sovereign Risk Initiative. The Sovereign Risk Initiative has the potential to radically improve the analysis of sovereign risk and public financial management.





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The Sovereign Risk Initiative recognizes the importance of analyzing consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with internationally agreed-upon public sector accounting standards, audit standards, and the best practices of a full system of public financial management.Shivaram Rajgopal, the Roy Bernard Kester and T.W. Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing, will oversee the Initiative for Columbia Business School. Paul B. Kazarian, Chairman and CEO of the Kazarian Foundation and Japonica Partners, will support the Initiative as an adjunct professor in the sector of public financial management.The analysis of sovereign credit risk, as advanced via the four pillars of the Initiative, will include an analysis of both quantitative and qualitative information related to consolidated financial statements. The Initiative will connect credit analysis of sovereign risk to insights into comparative credit quality rankings and merit-based sovereign credit ratings.The Sovereign Risk Initiative has four pillars:1.Development of business school case studies related to sovereign risk course content;2.Creation of multi-disciplinary professional publications;3.Launch of MBA coursework focused on understanding sovereign risk by analyzing government financial statements; and,4.Convening of a public symposium comprised of thought leaders in the area of sovereign risk and public financial management."Columbia Business School is excited to be the pioneer in this new field of assessing sovereign risk using financial statements and to extend our core competency as an international leader in the sectors of accounting and value investing," stated Professor Rajgopal."We are honored to team up with Columbia Business School in a visionary initiative that will change the landscape of assessing sovereign risk by smartly integrating select tools of value investing and public financial management," stated Paul B. Kazarian.
ITB Asia 2017 wraps up 10th anniversary with record highs

SINGAPORE: Asia's leading travel trade show, ITB Asia 2017, organised by Messe Berlin (Singapore) Pte Ltd, has completed its milestone anniversary event with record-breaking numbers. The tenth edition of ITB Asia came to a close today at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.





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Over three days, the event hosted about 940 exhibitors from 113 countries, an 11% increase over the previous year. ITB Asia 2017 also welcomed its strongest ever buyer participation across the Corporate, MICE and Leisure sectors. Since 2014, ITB Asia has experienced a 1:1 ratio for exhibitors and buyers. This year, there were over 22,000 business appointments recorded during the show.Unveiling its largest exhibitors showcase yet, ITB Asia 2017 reported a spectacular 77% growth from its inaugural edition, featuring new exhibitors such as the Rwanda Development Board, Tourism Tunisia, Promote Iceland, Tourism & Foreign Affairs Department of Almaty City, Republic of Kazakhstan, Jeju Convention and Vistor Bureau, amongst others. Exhibitors also invested more in the quality of their booths, with Greece, Japan, Russia and Korea putting up impressive and engaging experiences.This year's conference programme looked at the role of technology, setting the tone for the changes that the industry is likely to see in the next ten years. Speakers from big names IBM Asia Pacific and Google delivered insights on the potential of Artificial Intelligence, Ctrip presented its global strategy, while fast-growing start-ups Hiverlab, Zebra Design and Savioke shared on the exciting realities and opportunities for augmented reality and virtual reality in hospitality and tourism."In view of ten years of ITB Asia, we've taken every effort to celebrate the past as well as to provide attendees with a useful view to the future. While we are very pleased with our achievements in terms of the quality and numbers, what brings us most satisfaction is bringing together all the different stakeholders across the industry to network and inspire each other. The relationships built and strengthened will continue to boost our efforts in making ITB Asia the region's go-to event and a hub for unforgettable content and enriching experiences for many years to come," said Katrina Leung, Executive Director of Messe Berlin (Singapore), the organiser of ITB Asia.ITB Asia will continue to be held in Singapore, following the past ten years of consistent support from the Singapore Tourism Board and the Singapore Exhibition Convention Bureau. Following this year's successful show, ITB Asia has received the highest exhibitor rebookings for ITB Asia 2018. As early as now, the surge in interest for next year's show has been seen from destinations such as Greece, Middle East, Africa, Spain and the Scandinavian region as well as continued strong support from Asian markets such as Thailand and the Philippines. Melia Hotels International and Global DMC Network by the JTB Group have also confirmed their stand bookings for the 2018 show.
Trump's Asia visit through the Indian prism

Washington DC [USA], November 10 : As Air Force One wheels down in its next Asian stop for US President Donald Trump's 12-day visit, the United States will further unveil a new and extended Indo-Pacific policy for the region. The big idea of pushing India deeper into East Asia and the Pacific region is to only to act as a balancing power and compete against China, reveal analysts. One of the most important ideas that the President is projecting with his Asia trip is that the US is an Indo-Pacific power and is serious about its new strategy.





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As part of the move, which Beijing perceives as a strategy to contain it, the US will offer not just military components, but will also include economic, geopolitical and cultural components that will emerge into a stronger Washington-Delhi strategic partnership, said Dennis Wilder, a former chief of China studies in the CIA and senior East Asia director at the National Security Council, in an interview with ANI.Trump will present the new US vision for Asia in a speech he is expected to deliver on November 10 at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum for 21 Pacific Rim member economies that promote free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.India's request to join APEC could formally be endorsed by the United States. The US will advocate India to join APEC under Donald Trump's logical extension of the Asia strategy, Dennis Wilder, an ex-CIA official reveals, "This idea has been kicking around between the US, Japan, Australia and India for a while, I think President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have a very good relationship and when they meet in Manila they will discuss APEC. The US will take a stand and be vocal about India's participation and the importance of India joining the forum", said Wilder, now a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University in Washington.The support of the United States for India's inclusion into APEC will not only be seen as a major gesture towards Prime Minister Modi's government by the Trump administration, but will also be a move that would be a boost to India's economy and will give India a stronger control and a better standing in its relationship with China."It would be a step towards realising the United States' strategic objective of involving India more fully into the region something I think that will help India to stand with China," said Wilder.The US is keen on expanding the Malabar naval exercises which currently include India, Japan and the US to include Australia. A meeting of the India-Japan-US-Australia quadrilateral is expected in Manila on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit. These four regional democracies would ideally like to emerge as guarantors of free trade and defense cooperation across a stretch of ocean from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean to Africa."There was a discussion that came up on the Indo-Pacific concept and the idea that there is a need to work on infrastructure, just what the Chinese are doing on the One Belt, One Road project as a competitive strategy," said Dennis Wilder in a telephonic interview."Indo- Pacific" is a relatively new geopolitical word game that is being played out by the US lately. Trump administration officials have started to refer to Asia as the "Indo-Pacific," rather than the "Asia-Pacific" region. A deliberate effort to change how the world strategically views the region. "The United States is an Indo-Pacific power," said a senior administration official travelling with Trump."We've been one since the dawn of our republic. Our security and our prosperity depend on the United States maintaining access for free flow of commerce to this region, because we're a Pacific nation."Asked if the new policy was aimed at containing China's rise, the official said "certainly not" and instead emphasised the importance of India - which views China as a political rival and potential military threat - to US security and prosperity. "We have strong and growing ties with India. We talk about an Indo-Pacific in part because that phrase captures the importance of India's rise," the official said."If you look at President Trump's Asia trip so far, the phrase Indo Pacific has travelled with him.It has clearly become the new American strategy which will find more usage in the months to come. So far there is not much resistance but neither any strong acceptance to the term. The White House is formulating a plan to realise a detailed and evenly sketched out strategy." said Wilder, the Georgetown Professor in Washington DC. Experts reveal China reads 'Indo Pacific' word play as a containment strategy and the Chinese have immediately jumped into calling the Indo-US alliance as a containment strategy because that's the easy way to knock it down."It's not a containment strategy, because there is a substantial amount of trade that China does with the US and also with India. Who is containing China? We are not containing China? The White House is very clear this is not a containment strategy, but it is a competitive strategy. Now, is that going to worry China if India and US get closer? Obviously it will", said Wilder a former white house official, It's unclear how China will respond to Trump's "Indo-Pacific" plan when the US president leaves the Continent.The Chinese will watch the development in the region closely and study it. Experts don't think they have heard the last from the Chinese as yet. And onIndia, Wilder says the White House is holding meetings on the new US Indo-Pacific strategy, and sources reveal officials are talking about how to make the big idea into a reality that willdevelop by next year or so. And it depends how fast India gets engaged.Wilder concludes, "India needs to take decisions. What Trump is doing is an invitation to India, India needs to decide how much it wants to engage in this endeavour.By Reena Bhardwaj
UAE, Qatar seek to contribute to NATO's Resolute Support Mission

Brussels [Belgium], Nov.10 : The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar are ready to contribute to NATO's Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan.





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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels, "UAE and Qatar are seeking to contribute to Resolute Support. Their presence is a strong symbol of global support for Afghanistan."Both countries, however, need to give details on how they wish to participate, Stoltenberg said.Twenty-seven nations have committed to increasing troop numbers in the structure of the Resolute Support Mission in the coming months, TOLO News quoted the NATO chief, as saying.Hailing, the growing war capabilities of the Afghan Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF), the NATO Secretary General said conventional Afghan security forces have prevented the Taliban from taking provincial capitals this fighting season."In addition, NATO allies and partners will continue to provide USD one billion a year to the defence and security forces (of Afghanistan) until at least 2020," he added.In a separate press conference, Afghanistan's acting Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami said the government welcomes the UAE and Qatar's wish to assist Afghanistan.Bahrami said, "The government welcomes this offer of support and that their support is important to Afghanistan. They are our friends."Resolute Support Mission or Operation Resolute Support is a NATO-led train, advise and assist mission consisting of over 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, which began in January, 2015.
Congress terms GST architecture, design 'defective'

New Delhi , November 10 : The Congress on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that the entire Goods and Services Tax (GST) architecture and design was 'defective'.





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The Congress' statement came close on the heels of the 23rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.While speaking to ANI, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said, "A consistent pressure put by the Congress especially by vice-president Rahul Gandhi and also finance minister has finally worked on some items. A ruler, who is completely autocratic, finally has seen some reason to reduce the GST on certain items of daily use. But the problem is that the entire GST architecture and design is 'defective'.""The Congress meant GST to be single, uncomplicated taxation. That's why we called it 'Genuine and Simple Tax'. But under Modi ji, it has become 'Gabbar Singh Tax'. If we go to see, Prime Minister Modi has only given temporary relief. When will be the day we all will live in peace? Why is electricity and petrol kept out of GST?" he said.The GST Council, earlier in the day, decided to slash rates on more than 175 items, reducing taxes on these from the existing 28 per cent.This is being considered as one of the biggest tax reductions since the new system kicked-in from July 1.
IIM Calcutta in Association with Training.com Announces the Second Batch of Advanced Program in Data Sciences

New Delhi, Delhi, India : IIM Calcutta has announced the second batch of Advanced Program in Data Sciences, in association with Training.com - a multi-modal learning platform by NIIT, to help build a great career in the field of Data Science.





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The program will enable the learners to acquire a strong foundation in interpretation of data to succeed in leading organizations.The one year Advanced Program in Data Sciences (APDS) will provide in-depth knowledge of different tools and techniques used for handling, managing, analysing and interpreting data. The applicants should also have a work experience of at least 3 years. On successful completion of the program the participant will receive a certificate of completion from IIM Calcutta. The candidates will also be awarded Alumni status by IIM Calcutta.Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Prakash Menon, President, Global Retail Business, NIIT Ltd. said, "We are delighted to launch the second batch of the pioneering APDS program. The first batch was a great success enabling students to provide data analysis in a visual manner, leading to faster and better decisions for the organizations they are working for.""The programs offered by training.com are uniquely positioned to meet the changing requirements of the industry. Through this program in association with IIM Calcutta, we aim to develop globally competitive workforce who can take on various challenging role and add greater value to their organization," added Mr MenonProf Indranil Bose, Professor of Management Information Systems at IIM Calcutta, said, "IIM Calcutta, one of the most reputed business schools in Asia, believes in creating a distinct career path for professionals through its cutting-edge programs. Having received enthusiastic response to the first batch we are now introducing the second batch of APDS in association with Training.com. Through this Avant Garde program, we will help participants to acquire a strong foundation in applying advanced quantitative and statistical tools in the industry."Prof Preetam Basu, Assistant Professor of Operations at IIM Calcutta, said, "Due to extensive growth of data science across industries, there is an immense need for professionals with appropriate data science skills. Specialized training in data science will provide students with skills aligned to the industry needs, and accelerate their career. Through this program we aim to continue to work towards creating a pool of professionals trained in data science."The Advanced Program in Data Sciences will introduce learners to software such as XL-Miner, SAS Enterprise Miner, SPSS, R, @Risk, Arena, Apache Spark etc. The program is suited for working professionals who would like to have a hands-on feel on working with data and making sense of it. There will be 275 hours of live online classes and 3 campus visits spanning 10 days at the beautiful IIMC campus. As part of the program, participants will be required to form small teams and undertake projects of their choice, in the areas of marketing, finance, operations, agriculture, construction and healthcare to be guided by IIMC faculty. These projects will have to be submitted and presented during a 4-day IIMC Campus module towards the end of the program. Successful completion of the program will enable the participants to acquire a strong foundation for applying advanced quantitative and statistical tools to make most effective decisions driven by sound data analysis.Professionals undertaking the program will be trained in statistics in data science, data representation and visualization, econometric methods, stochastic processes and stimulation, machine learning, big data storage and analysis and much more.For more information: -Call: 18002081050 (or) visit https://www.training.com/management-courses-online/advanced-program-in-data-sciencesAbout IIM CalcuttaThe Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) was established as the first national institute for Post-Graduate studies and Research in Management by the Government of India in November 1961 in collaboration with Alfred P. Sloan School of Management (MIT), the Government of West Bengal, The Ford Foundation and Indian industry.Over the years, IIMC has grown into a mature institution with global reputation, imparting high quality management education. It has been playing a pioneering role in professionalizing Indian management through its Post Graduate and Doctoral level programs, Executive Training Programs, Research and Consulting Activities.The vision of the Institute is to emerge as an International Centre of Excellence in all facets of Management Education, rooted in Indian ethos and societal values. Over the past four decades, IIM Calcutta has developed into one of Asia's finest Business Schools. Its strong ties to the business community make it an effective mechanism for the promotion of professional management practices in Indian organizations. Today, IIM Calcutta attracts the best talent in India to its faculty and the best and brightest young men and women pursue its academic programs.The residential experience is a foundation of the IIM Calcutta culture, which promotes teamwork and the building of lifelong relationships. Students and partners live on or near campus, making social events and shared activities a way of life. Through a core curriculum which stresses general management skills and advanced elective and seminar courses, IIM Calcutta students have access to a preeminent faculty of thought leaders.To its students, IIM Calcutta offers intellectual depth, abundant resources, and individual attention. To our alumni, we provide a lifelong connection to excellence. To the world, we have a commitment to developing ethical and responsible leaders.IIMC's Accreditations and RankingsIIM Calcutta is the only Management Institute in India with triple accreditations by AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), AMBA (Association of MBAs) and EQUIS, the three major international accreditation bodies for Business Schools. It is also the only Indian school to be part of the prestigious CEMS Alliance comprising 30 top Business Schools from around the world. This alliance is in addition to our existing partnerships with leading Universities, B-schools and renowned institutions such as Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University; Ivey Business School; Asian Institute of Management; etc. (A list of our academic partners across the globe can be found at https://www.iimcal.ac.in/about/international-office/currentpartner-institutes).An internationally recognized Business school, IIMC stood at rank no. 16 globally and 2nd in Asia in the Financial Times' Master in Management rankings 2015.IIMC was the top ranked B-school in 'Finance' in Asia and 2nd in 'Economics' worldwide, in this list.About Training.comTraining.com, an NIIT initiative, offers industry relevant training programs in Executive Management, Technology, Data Science, Digital Marketing and Finance. Many of the programs are offered in collaboration with premium institutions like IIM Calcutta, edX, DMI amongst others, and delivered by reputed industry experts through live online classes. All the training programs are live online instructor-led classes that engage learners in an interactive session at a convenient environment that can be their home or an office.Industry experts and mentors with deep experience and extensive functional expertise help learners to understand the intricacies of the subject with confidence for competency enhancement. Learners also receive a verified certification from globally recognized institutes.Training.com is powered by NIIT's expertise in learning science and technology through distributed delivery of education. The next-gen platform enables learners to experience the best features of conventional classroom education coupled with advanced e-learning methodologies. The learning techniques focus on improving learning outcomes leading to relevant job roles while increasing convenience and reducing time to competence.
Evolve Enters into Agreement to Purchase ETF Management Contracts from Sphere

TORONTO: Evolve Funds Group Inc. (Evolve), a Canadian Exchange Traded Fund provider, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Sphere Investment Management Inc. (Sphere), to purchase the management contracts for each of the following five Sphere listed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs):





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aSphere FTSE Canada Sustainable Yield Index ETF (TMX: SHC)aSphere FTSE US Sustainable Yield Index ETF (TMX: SHU)aSphere FTSE Europe Sustainable Yield Index ETF (TMX: SHE)aSphere FTSE ASIA Sustainable Yield Index ETF (TMX: SHA)aSphere FTSE Emerging Markets Sustainable Yield Index ETF (TMX: SHZ)Evolve has agreed to acquire the right to manage the five ETFs with approximately $68MM in assets under management, subject to obtaining unitholder and regulatory approvals."We are excited to expand and complement our existing product lineup with Sphere's suite of ETFs," said Raj Lala, President & CEO at Evolve. "As an innovative ETF provider, this transaction will further deepen our commitment to providing Canadian investors with products designed to address the changing global economic environment.""We are very pleased that Sphere's products will be managed by Evolve and add a dimension to an already impressive array of products," said Keith McLean, CIO for Sphere. "These ETFs will continue to act as a core holding for client portfolios, as they provide an opportunity for good risk adjusted returns and enhanced yield for investors.""The family of Sphere ETFs will continue to be offered as part of the carefully selected range of product solutions that we offer to our clientele," said Stuart Raftus, President of Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management in Canada. "We look forward to working with the team at Evolve, as they share our commitment to providing innovative investment opportunities for investors."While the acquisition is subject to regulatory and unitholder approvals, it is expected the ETFs will continue to utilize a strategy that follows the Sustainable Yield Indices. Unitholders will be asked to approve the transaction at special meetings of the ETFs to be held on December 11, 2017. Further details of the special meetings and the proposals will be described in an information circular that will be available at www.sedar.com and www.sphereetfs.com on or about November 10, 2017.
4 Energy Efficiency Megatrends to be Covered at EMEX London, the Must-Attend Energy Management Show in the UK

LONDON: EMEX (www.emexlondon.com) and its community is returning to the ExCeL Centre in London on 22nd and 23rd November with a packed programme spread across 4 free-to-attend CPD-accredited seminar theatres.





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EMEX is the must-attend energy management show that connects all energy users with leading experts, policy makers, suppliers and technical solutions.EMEX is over 150 exhibitors and 100 free-to-attend CPD-accredited seminars spread across 4 theatres:aKnowledge, Skills and ExperienceaWater & Energy StrategyaFacilities, Technology & InnovationaRenewables, Supply and StorageContent provided at EMEX is curated by the Energy Managers Association and its Board of major energy users and will include the opportunity for you to meet with top industry experts, peers and numerous leading suppliers that will unveil the latest technology and energy efficiency strategies available right now.1. Are you aware about the latest technology and innovation?With over 150 exhibitors ranging from major utilities to brokers and consultants, equipment manufacturers to training companies and showcasing a broad range of energy efficient solutions and services under one roof, EMEX has become a unique opportunity to learn about the new technology, systems and services available in this fast-changing environment.Participants include E.ON Energy Solutions, Siemens, Vinci Facilities, ScottishPower, Dong Energy, Good Energy, ABB, Affinity for Business, Carlo Gavazzi, Kingspan Light + Air, Carbon Trust, BRE Global, Ecopilot, Harvard Technology, Grundfos, Lightsource, Argand Solutions, EcoCooling, Enercon, Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES), EATON Electric, ebm-papst, Green Energy Consulting, Savills, Sabien Technology, SMA, SES Business Water, Thorlux Lighting, Vattenfall, Wilo, Wilson Power Solutions and many more.2. Have you got the skills, knowledge and experience to promote your energy efficiency projects within your organisation?In addition to the technical expertise and data analysis, the role of the energy management team is evolving. Influencing and negotiation, communication and stakeholder engagement skills are becoming ever more important. EMEX seminars will cover a vast range of energy management strategies and experiences across various sectors, providing attendees with vital knowledge and new skills on how to build a robust business case for investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, and gain buy-in from senior stakeholders.Wendi Wheeler, Energy & Carbon Strategy Manager at Network Rail; Rodrigo Matabuena, Energy Manager at London Borough of Sutton; Mohammad Rafique, Energy and Environment Officer at Surrey Police; Rachel Ward, Sustainability Manager at London Metropolitan University; Tristan Wolfe, Energy Manager at University of Aberdeen; Ian Lane Head of Sustainability at University of the Arts London will share their learning on how to make the business case for a successful energy management plan and to gain 'buy-in' to their energy projects within such complex and highly regulated environments.Luke Richardson, Environmental Partnership Manager at Virgin Trains East Coast, will share his approaches and outline the key learning points he has identified in securing successful bids and persuading directors, managers and operational staff to engage with energy and environment issues.Scott Armstrong, Group Head of Energy and Sustainability at Bourne Leisure will discuss about the importance of investing in Team. In 2017, Bourne Leisure decided to enhance its traditional annual Sustainability CAPEX programme by investing in the creation of a team of energy champions.3. Does your business require flexibility in energy supply?The UK's energy mix is fast changing and demand reduction is a key area the government is very keen on. Demand Side Response (DSR) is a fast-growing market that enables National Grid to balance Britain's electricity system cost-effectively, while our energy landscape changes rapidly. If your business has the flexibility to increase, decrease, or shift its electricity use, then the power is in your hands to take full advantage.In this context, EMEX has launched the 'Flexible Power Zone' in partnership with Power Responsive (National Grid). This area is designed for the uninitiated to understand and evaluate this widely talked about opportunity. A dozen participating DSR and Battery Storage partners of National Grid will each give a presentation (schedule below) and be available to talk with you one on one. It's your opportunity to find a supplier that talks your language and makes sense for your business. Participants confirmed so far in the Flexible Power Zone include Dong Energy, EDF Energy, E.ON, ENDECO Technologies, Energy Pool, EnerNOC, Flexitricity, Open Energi, Orginami Energy and Scottish Power.Lord Redesdale, CEO at the EMA, explores how changes in the electricity codes are developing so trading energy demand reduction through the use of batteries can become a compelling investment for businesses with onsite renewables and balancing mechanism units.4. Does your organisation keep on top of the coming taxes and regulations?Gary Shanahan, Head of Business and Industrial Energy Efficiency, Tax and Reporting at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), will provide an update on business and industrial energy efficiency, including the development of a streamlined energy and carbon reporting, preparations for the next phase of the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and progress on the Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) and the CRC Energy Efficiency Schemes.Evan Joanette, Policy Manager at the Consumer Council for Water; Adam Yarnall, Network Utilities Manager at Camping & Caravanning Club; and James Tiernan, Group Energy & Environment Manager at Unite Students, will reveal how they approached the opportunity offered by the recently deregulated water retail market. They will also discuss the barriers and the opportunities they unveiled as they switched their service.ISO 50001 energy management system is being revised into the new structure and is expected to be launched in 2018. Attendees will get a brief on the 6 key tools in ISO 50001 and how organisations can prepare, implement and transitions to the new ISO 50001.With such diverse solutions, knowledge and expertise on offer, it is not surprising that thousands of small and medium businesses, as well as household names such as NHS, British Airways, Harrods, Hilton Worldwide, Boots, RBS, TATA, British Land, Ministry of Defence, AstraZeneca, Sodexo, Bellrock, BAE Systems, Co-Operative Group, Ofgem, Network Rail, MITIE, CBRE, Whitbread, Mitchells and Butlers, British Telecom, House of Fraser and many county and city councils are already registered to attend.EMEX will be opened on Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd November at ExCeL in London.
Statement by Oasis Management Company Ltd. on "A Better Pasona"

Hong Kong : Oasis Management Company Ltd. (Oasis) is the manager to funds that beneficially own approximately 4.8pc of Pasona Group Inc. (2168 JT) (Pasona or the Company), making Oasis one of the Company's largest minority shareholders. Oasis has adopted the Japan FSA Principles of Responsible Ownership (a/k/a Japan Stewardship Code) and in line with those principles, Oasis monitors and engages with our investee companies.





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We have been monitoring the Company for a long time and have sent our proposals on its strategic implementation and governance restructuring to the Board of Directors of the Company. Despite our efforts, to date we have neither received formal response to our proposal nor had a chance to meet with the Company's Board members, even though we have requested a meeting several times.We are very disappointed with the Company's lack of effort in engaging in dialogue with us, even though the consciousness towards interactive communication with shareholders is widely increasing in Japan. Therefore, we have today announced "A Better Pasona" campaign (www.ABetterPasona.com) in response to the situation at the Company.The key objective of our campaign is to urge transformational change at Pasona and enhance the Company's business and governance structure for every stakeholder, including employees, customers, lenders, creditors, and minority shareholders. Pasona is one of the least profitable companies in its industry, despite its history, expertise, and scale. We fear that there is a material risk in the short- and medium-term for every stakeholder if the company continues its very low level of profitability, including risk to:Employees: Risk of stable employment and economic interest;Clients: Risk of stable and value-added service from the company;Lenders and creditors: Risk of debt collection; andMinority shareholders: Breach of the board of directors' duty to increase shareholder equity over the long term. The board has failed to increase profitability over the short, medium and long term.We believe that this is caused by 1) the lack of substantial investment into profitable and growing business in the industry, 2) no cost management, and 3) a poor governance structure. As a result of its weak profitability, the company's stock price has underperformed industry peers over an extended period, and is currently valued at around half of the value of the Benefit One Inc. (2412 JT) stake that Pasona owns. Our proposed implementations are designed to resolve these issues, and have been compiled into a presentation uploaded to our "A Better Pasona" website.We will continue our effort to meet with Pasona's Board members in order to engage in a collaborative and positive dialogue with the Company to realize "A Better Pasona".We also welcome Pasona stakeholders to contact us via our "A Better Pasona" website to join the movement to improve Pasona.
UAE Cabinet Meets Amid 1.5 Million Titles at Sharjah Book Fair

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates : A lot becomes evident about the cultural values of a nation and the leadership's vision for its people when a mass book fair transforms into a venue for high-level discussions.





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In what became the first-ever event of its kind in the world, the UAE Cabinet members left their offices to hold a meeting amid 1.5 million titles, thousands of school and university students, and lovers of literature at the 36th Sharjah International Book Fair - now the third largest in the world.Presided over by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, the meeting at the Sharjah International Book Fair venue clearly reflected not just SIBF's importance as a prestigious platform that inspires discussions of national interest, but the UAE's recognition of the fact that culture is an industry that will build the world's future.The meeting's underlying theme was in set in continuing efforts to give the UAE's people, recognised time and again by the leadership as the nation's most valuable assets, fulfilling lives by building a knowledge-based society where generations can thrive in an environment enriched by books, culture, literature, and arts.Staying true to tradition, the current edition of SIBF has broken its previous visitation records by attracting 728,000 in the first five days. The fair continues until Saturday, 11 November, and has an itinerary packed with 393 authors, intellectuals, and artists from 48 countries partaking in over 2,600 activities.
Violent discipline, sexual abuse and homicides stalk millions of children worldwide - UNICEF

NEW YORK: Staggering numbers of children - some as young as 12 months old - are experiencing violence, often by those entrusted to take care of them, UNICEF said in a new report released today.





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"The harm inflicted on children around the world is truly worrying," said UNICEF Chief of Child Protection Cornelius Williams. "Babies slapped in the face; girls and boys forced into sexual acts; adolescents murdered in their communities - violence against children spares no one and knows no boundaries."A Familiar Face: Violence in the lives of children and adolescents uses the very latest data to show that children experience violence across all stages of childhood and in all settings:Violence against young children in their homes:aThree-quarters of the world's 2- to 4-year-old children - around 300 million - experience psychological aggression and/or physical punishment by their caregivers at home;aAround 6 in 10 one year olds in 30 countries with available data are subjected to violent discipline on a regular basis. Nearly a quarter of one-year-olds are physically shaken as punishment and nearly 1 in 10 are hit or slapped on the face, head or ears.aWorldwide, 1 in 4 children under age five - 176 million - are living with a mother who is a victim of intimate partner violence.Sexual violence against girls and boys:aWorldwide, around 15 million adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forced sexual acts in their lifetime.aOnly 1 per cent of adolescent girls who had experienced sexual violence said they reached out for professional help.aIn the 28 countries with data, 90 per cent of adolescent girls who had experienced forced sex, on average, said the perpetrator of the first incident was known to them. Data from six countries reveals friends, classmates and partners were among the most frequently cited perpetrators of sexual violence against adolescent boys.Violent deaths among adolescents:aGlobally, every 7 minutes an adolescent is killed by an act of violence.aIn the United States, non-Hispanic black boys aged 10 to 19 years old are almost 19 times more likely to be murdered than non-Hispanic white boys of the same age. If the homicide rate among non-Hispanic black adolescent boys is applied nationwide, the United States would be one of the top ten most deadly countries in the world.aIn 2015, the risk of being killed by homicide for a non-Hispanic black adolescent boy in the United States was the same as the risk of being killed due to collective violence for an adolescent boy living in war-torn South Sudan.aLatin America and the Caribbean is the only region where adolescent homicide rates have increased; nearly half of all homicides among adolescents globally occurred in this region in 2015.Violence in schools:aHalf the population of school-age children - 732 million - live in countries where corporal punishment at school is not fully prohibited.aThree-quarters of documented school shootings that have taken place over the past 25 years occurred in the United States.UNICEF prioritises efforts to end violence across all its work, including supporting government efforts to improve services for children affected by violence, developing policies and legislation that protect children, and helping communities, parents and children to prevent violence through practical programmes like parenting courses and actions against domestic violence.To end violence against children, UNICEF is calling for governments to take urgent action and support the INSPIRE guidance which has been agreed and promoted by WHO, UNICEF and the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, including:aAdopting well-coordinated national action plans to end violence against children - incorporating education, social welfare, justice and health systems, as well as communities and children themselves.aChanging behaviours of adults and addressing factors that contribute to violence against children, including economic and social inequities, social and cultural norms that condone violence, inadequate policies and legislation, insufficient services for victims, and limited investments in effective systems to prevent and respond to violence.aFocussing national policies on minimizing violent behaviour, reducing inequalities, and limiting access to firearms and other weapons.aBuilding social service systems and training social workers to provide referrals, counselling and therapeutic services for children who have experienced violence.aEducating children, parents, teachers, and community members to recognise violence in all its many forms and empowering them to speak out and report violence safely.aCollecting better disaggregated data on violence against children and tracking progress through robust monitoring and evaluation.
The Royal Canadian Legion names National Silver Cross Mother 2017

OTTAWA: The Royal Canadian Legion's Dominion President David Flannigan is honoured to introduce Mrs. Diana Abel as the National Silver Cross Mother for 2017.





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Mrs. Abel's only son, Corporal Michael David Abel, died on May 3, 1993 while serving in Belet Huen, Somalia, as part of Operation Deliverance. This operation was part of a United Nations peacekeeping effort during the early part of the Somali Civil War.Born in Ottawa, Mrs. Abel and her late husband David C. Abel raised two children, their son Michael and daughter Laura. Mrs. Abel now lives in Brampton, ON where she spends time volunteering and traveling with her daughter and three grandchildren.As the National Silver Cross Mother, Mrs. Abel will place a wreath at the National War Memorial on November 11, 2017. She will do so on behalf of all Canadian mothers who have lost a son or a daughter in the military service of Canada. Mrs. Abel will be accompanied by her grandson John Michael McRae, who is a member of the 557 Lorne Scots Army Cadet Corp in Brampton.From November 1, 2017 to October 31, 2018 this year's Silver Cross Mother will also perform a range of duties honouring the Fallen from all conflicts.The Silver Cross, introduced on December 1, 1919, is a symbol of personal loss and sacrifice on behalf of widows and mothers who lose a child on active duty, or whose death is later attributed to such duty. Royal Canadian Legion provincial commands and individuals submit nominations for the National Silver Cross Mother who is chosen by a Dominion Command selection committee.
Workers' compensation boards have USD 6.8 billion more employer money than they need

TORONTO: As of 2016, eight out of 12 workers' compensation boards in Canada are overfunded, depriving employers of billions of dollars that could otherwise be used to invest in their businesses, create jobs and improve wages and worker safety, finds a new report released today by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).





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"Boards are holding onto $6.8 billion in extra money. Typically, when you overpay your taxes, you get a refund. It's time boards give that refund. There is no shortage of great ways it could be put to work in a business, including investing in staff," said Laura Jones, Executive Vice-President and Chief Strategic Officer at CFIB. "The bottom line is that overcharging employers is unfair, unproductive, and unnecessary."In Canada, workers' compensation insurance is entirely funded through mandatory employer premiums and investment earnings. The funding position of a board is typically measured as the ratio between a board's total assets and liabilities. The report recommends a funding ratio of between 100 per cent and 110 per cent, meaning a board in excess of 110 per cent is over-funded. A 10 per cent cushion is more than sufficient to protect against the premium volatilityafive boards already target this range.For boards that are overfunded, the funding ratio ranges from a low of 112 per cent in New Brunswick to a high of 159 per cent in Prince Edward Island. Seven of the 12 boards do have rebate policies in place, but these are triggered at the discretion of the board and are only exercised well beyond the 110 ratio."While some might view the boards as being prudent, it's important to remember that the source of funding for workers' compensation comes solely from employers. It's easy to be overly cautious with someone else's money. So when a board has excess money, it's only fair to return the extra funds to employers," said Marvin Cruz, Senior Research Analyst and author of the report.To bring overfunded positions back in line, the report recommends that boards issue surplus rebates directly to employers and/or lower premiums once the 110 per cent threshold is exceeded. For a business with five employees, the rebate would range from $500 in New Brunswick to $8,165 in British Columbia. While this would be a big boost to small business, even governments awho are also subject to workers' compensation a would benefit from such a rebate.
Lendio Provides Loans to Small Businesses in 75 Countries Through Kiva

SILICON SLOPES, Utah: Lendio, the nation's leading marketplace for small business loans, today announced that through its Lendio Gives program, the company has provided more than USD 25,000 in loans to over 1,200 small business owners in 75 countries around the world.





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Kiva is a San Francisco-based nonprofit with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty, to field and identify loans that can help borrowers start or grow a business, go to school, access clean energy, or realize their potential. Lendio Gives is an employee-driven program where Lendio matches every dollar an employee donates."Lendio's mission statement is to fuel the American Dream for small businesses, but the other company pillar is to foster a culture that gives back. That is why we chose Kiva's 'Back A Dream' program, which is highly aligned with Lendio's mission to help small business owners get access to capital, typically when others have already told them no," said Brock Blake, CEO and founder of Lendio. "It goes without saying that our team is incredible, and I'm extremely grateful to them for generously contributing to support the Lendio Gives initiative through Kiva."The top five sectors supported by Lendio's funding are agriculture, food, retail, clothing, and services. Of the loans Lendio has funded, 86 percent have gone to women, or women's groups. Employees select which loans to support and Kiva then pools Lendio employee funds into $25 increments with other groups to provide loans in more than 80 countries. The top countries Lendio has supplied funding to include Zimbabwe, Peru, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, the Philippines, Kenya, El Salvador, and Senegal. Once Lendio receives repayment, it reinvestments the funds by putting it back into new loans.Kiva and their localized partners vet small business borrowers and provide short-term micro loans, typically in amounts from $150 to $5,000 to early stage small businesses in impoverished countries around the world. One hundred percent of every dollar a company lends to Kiva goes to funding loans. Kiva covers costs primarily through optional donations, as well as through support from grants and sponsors.
Jack Ma-Backed Yunfeng Capital Invested in Xiaozhu.com, Airbnb's No.1 China Rival

BEIJING: Xiaozhu.com, China's largest house-sharing platform, announced it had raised USD 120 million in its latest financing round, making it a unicorn startup.





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This round of funding is led by Yunfeng Capital. Founded in early 2010, Yunfeng Capital is named after Alibaba chairman Jack Ma and Target Media founder Yu Feng. Existing investors including Joy Capital, Morningside Ventures, and Capital Today also participated. TH Capital is the exclusive financial advisor.Xiaozhu entered its fifth year of establishment in 2017 when China's online house-sharing industry entered the explosive period. Since its last round of funding in 2016, Xiaozhu had grown rapidly and become the absolute leader in market share, service system and other areas."After 5 years of exploration, Xiaozhu pioneered house-sharing business model in China and created a new bilateral market from ground up by building an entire service system that consists of cleaning and photography services. With largest market share, Xiaozhu.com will continue to lead in product upgrading in the future," said Kelvin Chen Chi, co-founder and CEO of Xiaozhu.House-sharing was pioneered and had thrived in western countries. However, it has not been easy for overseas house-sharing companies to develop in China. "Only local companies with a sense of mission and commitment to the domestic market can stand a chance in gaining leadership in the Chinese market." Kelvin added.Li Na, managing director of Yunfeng Capital, managed this round of funding. She said: "Going off Airbnb's business model, Xiaozhu has developed a proven successful model for house sharing to develop in China. Yunfeng Capital is looking forward to witnessing and helping Xiaozhu to grow rapidly and drive the upgrading and transformation of Chinese accommodation industry, providing better accommodation experiences to more users."Li Xiao, founding partner of Joy Capital said: "Joy Capital is very optimistic about sharing economy. Now that the entire market is rapidly maturing, we believe that Xiaozhu will continue to lead the house sharing industry."Cheng Yu, a partner of Morningside Ventures claimed that the team of Xiaozhu took a seemingly slow but right way to cultivate this market from ground up and create value for users and that Morningside Ventures firmly believe in the huge opportunity in this market and Xiaozhu's business model.Xu Xin, president of Capital Today, said: "Believing in sharing economy, we invested in Xiaozhu three years ago and have waited for the spring to come. And now, the spring has come."Founded in 2012, Xiaozhu now has listings in over 400 destinations in and outside of China. As house-sharing becomes popular, people focus more on the security of it. "Xiaozhu will invest more resources to introduce technologies further enhancing security of house-sharing and building a sustainable platform ecosystem for the whole industry," said Kelvin.
Foxit Software Releases ConnectedPDF for the Enterprise and new PhantomPDF Version

FREMONT, Calif: Foxit Software, a leading software provider of fast, affordable, and secure PDF solutions, today announced ConnectedPDF 2.0 for the enterprise, Foxit's leading edge technology that powers document intelligence, security, and collaboration services for PDF files. The company also introduced version 9.0 of its PhantomPDF editor software.





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ConnectedPDF is a breakthrough PDF technology that provides a variety of benefits including:aDocument Intelligence - Enables knowledge workers to understand how readers are using their documents after publication.aDocument Security - Protects valuable document information that follows the document everywhere it goes.aDocument Collaboration - Allows multiple users to be part of a single document review, spurring innovation and enabling all users to see and respond to comments in real-time.ConnectedPDF 2.0 introduces both single-tenant private cloud and on-premise versions of the solution, with both including integration with enterprise account management systems like Active Directory to provide single sign-on. ConnectedPDF continues to be available in a multi-tenant cloud version as well. The latest version of Foxit's award-winning technology also includes a variety of other usability enhancements such as Document Share, which allows users to quickly, easily, and securely share information via a file link, social media, or privately to a select group of recipients."Foxit continues to be a leader in innovative PDF technology and is passionately focused on helping businesses and government agencies become more productive with their documents," said Frank Kettenstock, marketing vice president at Foxit Software. "This new version of our award-winning software brings the power of our innovation to the millions of people looking to accomplish more with their PDF software."In addition to ConnectedPDF 2.0 for the enterprise, Foxit announced the latest version of its popular PhantomPDF editing software. Some of the new features available in PhantomPDF 9.0 include:aPhantomPDF OnlineaBundled with Phantom Business, Standard and Education editions, this new feature enables users to access PhantomPDF functionality through a browser from any computing device.aSection 508 Compliance aThe software is compliant with Section 508 of the federal Workforce Rehabilitation Act requiring access for the disabled. PhantomPDF can also assist authors in generating 508-compliant documents by allowing them to insert tags to determine reading order, set alternative text, check documents for 508 compatibility, and help fix compatibility issues that are discovered. The solution includes integration with JAWS (Job Access With Speech), the screen reader program for Microsoft Windows that allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text-to-speech output or a refreshable braille display.aFIPS Compliance - Compliant with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), which are standards developed by the United States federal government for use in computer systems by non-military government agencies and government contractors.aAdvanced editing aImproves editing efficiency by linking all text blocks throughout a document so users can edit text without worrying about text reflow and image overlaps.
First Resource Bank Named 2017 Best Bank In Chester County

EXTON, Pa: First Resource Bank (OTCQX: FRSB) announces that it has been named 2017 Best Bank in Chester County by readers of The Daily Local.





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The Chester County Newspaper, which has hundreds of thousands of online followers, more than 18,000 subscribers and hundreds of news stand locations throughout Chester County, held its annual "Best of Chester County" voting from mid-August through September of this year. First Resource's fierce following of loyal clients and community supporters overwhelming stepped up to show their support for our 12 year old Chester County small business.President & CEO, Glenn B. Marshall, stated "We are honored to be selected as the Best Bank in Chester County. When we opened First Resource Bank in 2005 we set out to help strengthen the community's landscape, and we have delivered what we believe our community has asked for, second to none, raving fan level service through our Exton and West Chester locations. Since opening we have donated over $1 million in scholarships and community event sponsorships as well as made over $550 million in loans, primarily in Chester County. While we never intended to do this in order to win an award, we are thrilled and humbled that our customers, supporters, and readers of the Daily Local would select us to win this 2017 Best Bank award. On behalf of everyone at the First Resource Bank family, thank you!"About First Resource BankFirst Resource Bank is a locally owned and operated Pennsylvania state-chartered bank with two full-service branches, serving the banking needs of businesses, professionals and individuals in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The Bank offers a full range of deposit and credit services with a high level of personalized service. First Resource Bank also offers a broad range of traditional financial services and products, competitively priced and delivered in a responsive manner to small businesses, professionals and residents in the local market. For additional information visit our website at www.firstresourcebank.com. Member FDIC.This press release contains statements that are not of historical facts and may pertain to future operating results or events or management's expectations regarding those results or events. These are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and other statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts. When used in this press release, the words "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "seeks", "estimates", or words of similar meaning, or future or conditional verbs, such as "will", "would", "should", "could", or "may" are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are either beyond our control or not reasonably capable of predicting at this time. In addition, these forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions with respect to future business strategies and decisions that are subject to change. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers of this press release are accordingly cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. First Resource Bank disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly any of the forward-looking statements herein, whether in response to new information, future events or otherwise.
HD View 360 Implements End-to-End IT Solutions for European Wax Center Franchise Locations

MIAMI: HD View 360 (HD View or HDVW), (OTC Markets OTCQB: HDVW), a comprehensive B2B information technology provider focusing on national franchise brands, announced today the completion of three extensive IT installations at several European Wax Center locations across the northeast.





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These installs are just a few of many under the HD View 360 umbrella, which leverages innovative technologies and cross-state technician teams to secure its client's business operations."Our goal when working with a new franchise is to standardize the process of the installation, so we can provide the same high-level of craftsmanship with no guesswork or mistakes," said Dennis Mancino, HD View 360 CEO. "We've partnered closely with EWC for some time now, allowing our techs to hit the ground running the minute they step into a new center."The IT install services provided to the three EWC locations included connecting structured cabling throughout the centers, installing commercial audio equipment with streaming brand content, PCI-compliant firewall setups, POS software and credit card terminal implementation, setting up VOIP phone services and networking servers, and mounting high-definition surveillance systems at two of the three locations.The three centers were in Livingston, New Jersey; Meriden, Connecticut; and Shrewsbury, Massachusetts."Our solidified business relationships in the franchise market have grown our brand recognition exponentially. This has not only lowered costs for our clients but makes us a very lucrative investment option for new shareholders," added Dennis Mancino, HD View 360 CEO.Similar technology installations are currently underway at additional European Wax Centers and other HD View 360 franchise clients. The company will update shareholders with further announcements as they develop.
Advocis helping Canadians build financial savvy to shape their futures

TORONTO: As Financial Literacy Month gets underway, Advocis is launching an ambitious initiative to help Canadian consumers build their financial knowledge so they can make sound decisions at every life stage.





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"I'm very excited about what we, and our members, are doing to help Canadians build their financial savvy to shape their futures," says Greg Pollock, president and CEO of Advocis.Branded MyMoneySmarts - Build your financial savvy. Shape your future, the initiative focuses on educating Canadians across generations about how money, credit and debt management; and saving, spending and investing, all work together."Canadians are very smart, educated people. But it's our 'money smarts', our knowledge of what you need to know to make sound financial and life decisions, that's lacking," says Pollock.MyMoneySmarts is the start of a long-term plan by Advocis to promote financial literacy in support of the national financial literacy strategy, Count me in, Canada, launched by the federal government in 2015."We're starting with small steps. Over time, we'll be developing more resources for both the public and our members," Pollock says.The core of MyMoneySmarts is a new micro-website (mymoneysmarts.ca), launched today. The site, which will grow over time, features articles on topics including:ahow having joint bank accounts can make your financial life easierathe value of having a financial advisor to guide youawhy financial savvy is important in the new "freelance" economyThere's also an interactive graphic that shows consumers how all the essential elements of personal finance work together.Across the country, Advocis chapters will be sending out a MyMoneySmarts tip of the day in public posts on Facebook during Financial Literacy Month."There are some key reasons why everyone in the financial services sector needs to do their part to help Canadian consumers become more financially savvy," affirms Pollock.According to a 2015 CIBC report, a whopping 82 per cent of Canadians age 18-34 feel as though they don't have enough financial knowledge or investing know-how.Household debt in this country is at an all-time high. According to an August 2017 report from Moody's Investor Service, Canadians owe $1.69 for every dollar of disposable income.As well, Canadians aren't being taught enough about money early enough in school. In some provinces, financial literacy isn't even part of the education curriculum.Advocis encourages financial advisors to actively promote and participate in MyMoneySmarts, and financial literacy. Individual Advocis chapters across Canada have already begun taking the lead in presenting Junior Achievement (JA) Canada financial literacy programs on a voluntary basis to students in their local elementary, middle and high schools."Financial advisors have a critically important role to play," says Pollock.Advocis is also encouraging its 40 chapters to help create financial literacy networks in their local communities. The networks would bring together representatives of municipal councils, Advocis, JA Canada and chambers of commerce, to develop stronger financial literacy programs in their communities."This initiative is currently in the works in our Kingston, Ontario chapter," explains Pollock. "Once the Kingston financial literacy network is established, it will be a model other Advocis chapters can follow."In the new freelance economy, people need professional financial advice that's affordable and timely more than ever. Financial literacy is something Canadians need to pay attention to every day."Canadians' financial savvy can affect their quality of life. It can mean the difference between living in comfort, or struggling to barely get by and not having any future financial security," says Pollock.
Canadian Patient Safety Institute joins World Health Organization in calling for improved medication safety

EDMONTON: On behalf of all Canadians, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute is joining the World Health Organization in their global campaign to reduce medication errors.





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The goal for the Medication Without Harm global patient safety challenge is to reduce the level of severe, avoidable harm related to medications by 50% over 5 years. As a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety and Patient Engagement, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute is coordinating the Medication Without Harm campaign in Canada. "Know. Check. Ask." is the call to action to encourage patients and healthcare providers to take an active role in medication use and for global solidarity and action by the international community to reduce avoidable medication-related harm."The Canadian Patient Safety Institute is uniquely positioned to lead this campaign in Canada, and we look forward to working with the World Health Organization and our domestic partners in the development of a Canadian implementation strategy. As a country, we can do better," said Canadian Patient Safety Institute CEO Chris Power."Everyone uses medicine at some point in their lives and it is the most common treatment intervention used in healthcare. Unfortunately, harm resulting from unintentional, yet preventable, errors are all too common in processes involving prescribing, preparing, dispensing, administering and monitoring the use of medications.""Everyone, patients and their families included, has a role to play in safe medication use," said Maryann Murray, member of Patients for Patient Safety Canada, who lost a child due to a preventable medication incident. "To see the international community come together now and commit to reducing medication harm around the globe is very meaningful to all of us who have lost loved ones."The World Health Organization states that unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in healthcare systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually.In Canada, harmful incidents associated with medications are among the most frequent. Medication safety issues can impact health outcomes, length of stay in a healthcare facility, readmission rates, and overall costs to Canada's healthcare system.Over the course of the next five years, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute together with patients and partners will develop and execute an implementation plan, monitor and evaluate progress made and work closely with the World Health Organization to ensure the long-term sustainability of strategies implemented over the course of the Medication Without Harm campaign.
Minister Joly Announces New Appointments to the Canada Science and Technology Museum

GATINEAU, QC: The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, today announced the appointment of three new part-time members to the Board of Trustees of the Canada Science and Technology Museum.





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Radosveta Ilieva (Quebec), three-year term effective immediatelyMs. Ilieva is an experienced leader who has implemented governance and internal control mechanisms in many companies and industries. A professional accountant specializing in information technology, she currently works for Loto-Quebec as a strategic advisor in the areas of risk management, standards and internal audit. Ms. Ilieva is a graduate of HEC Montreal.Andreanne Leduc (Quebec), four-year term effective immediatelyA co-founder of the Comite de consultation en gestion de Polytechnique at the Polytechnique Montreal, Ms. Leduc is currently completing her MBA at Harvard University in the United States. She has worked for various consulting firms, including the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company. During her studies in industrial engineering (BEng and MEng) at the Polytechnique Montreal, she developed a keen interest in operational strategy.Marianne D. Sadar (British Columbia), four-year term effective immediatelyDr. Sadar has over 20 years of experience in developing treatments for prostate cancer. She is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia, a Distinguished Scientist at the BC Cancer Agency's Genome Sciences Centre, and a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of ESSA Pharma Inc., a biotechnology company.These appointments were made through the Government of Canada's open, transparent and merit-based selection process.The Canada Science and Technology Museum is one of the three museums comprising the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation, which is responsible for preserving and protecting Canada's scientific and technological heritage and promoting and sharing knowledge about it. The three Museumsathe Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museumatell the stories of Canadian ingenuity and achievement in science and technology, and demonstrate how these accomplishments have contributed to the building of our country.Quotes"Canadians are fascinated and inspired by the world of science. As active members of their communities with years of experience in a range of different fields, these appointees are sure to provide strong support to the Museum as it continues its work to promote our scientific achievements and inspire Canadians of all ages and backgrounds."aThe Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian HeritageQuick FactsThe Board of Trustees of the Canada Science and Technology Museum consists of a Chairperson, a Vice-Chairperson and not more than nine other trustees appointed by the Minister with the approval of the Governor in Council. The Crown corporation is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage.In 2016, the Government of Canada adopted a new approach to appointments by the Governor in Council. This approach respects gender parity and is supported by an open, transparent and merit-based selection processaone that will result in the recommendation of exceptionally competent candidates who truly reflect Canada's diversity.This new approach requires a selection process for full- and part-time positions.All appointment opportunities for the 18 organizations in the Canadian Heritage Portfolio are posted as they become available on the Governor in Council Appointments website. Interested parties can apply online.The Board of Trustees of the Canada Science and Technology Museum is responsible for strategic guidance and oversight of the business activities and affairs of Ingenium in accordance with a variety of legislation, including the Museums Act and the Financial Administration Act.
SC Johnson Aids Pets Waiting for New Forever Home

RACINE, Wis: SC Johnson announced the donation of USD 50,000 to support the construction of the Wisconsin Humane Society's (WHS) new animal shelter. The new building will allow WHS to provide a safe and healthy environment for animals awaiting adoption. The SC Johnson donation also marks the start of WHS's public capital-raising campaign to build the shelter.





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Today's donation was made in part because of WHS's pledge that it does not euthanize animals because of lack of space or time in the shelter. All animals in its adoption program can stay as long as it takes to find a new home."SC Johnson has a long history of support and belief in animal welfare programs around the world," said Kelly M. Semrau, Senior Vice President - Global Corporate Affairs, Communication & Sustainability at SC Johnson. "For many, pets become members of the family, so we're especially happy to support this local project. It will improve the welfare of animals in our community, as well as offer a convenient location to better serve those wanting to adopt a pet."The new 16,000-square-foot animal care center will be more than twice the size of the current WHS facility. The new building will include an expanded area to better manage disease control and sheltering of animals, as well as provide designated veterinary space and a multipurpose community room. The shelter will be built on the northeast corner of 16th Street and 90th Street in Mount Pleasant."We're grateful to partner with SC Johnson on a project that will have such a positive community impact," said Anne Reed, President and CEO of WHS. "We believe the new shelter will be a community destination, and a place where more Racine County residents can volunteer and make a difference for animals in need."The estimated cost of the project is $5.4 million. When WHS has raised approximately 85 percent of the funds needed, construction will begin. After breaking ground on the site, construction is estimated to be completed in nine months.SC Johnson works to make lives better in the communities in which it does business. Since 1937, the company has given 5 percent of all pretax profits to charities.
Vision Care Specialists Acquires Englewood Eyecare

DENVER: Vision Care Specialists announced today that Denver eye-care firm Englewood Eyecare has become the latest member of the growing Vision Care Specialists' family.





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Englewood Eyecare was founded by David J. Newman, OD, a leading Denver optometrist who's been in private practice for more than 30 years."Having Dr. Newman and his staff join the VCS family creates great symmetry for our expanding company and for the Englewood community," said Vision Care Specialists chief executive officer Jeff Poe. "As part of a larger network, Dr. Newman will have access to more resources and be able to serve Englewood's growing community. His long-term stability and success in Denver make him and his practice a great fit for the Vision Care Specialists' family."Dr. Newman and his staff, including optician Nikky Roberts, will continue to provide vision care and personalized optometric service to patients at their office at 850 Englewood Pkwy Suite 100A. This location will become the seventh in the Vision Care Specialists group, which also includes offices in Aurora, Highlands Ranch, Lakewood, Parker, University Hills, and downtown Denver.In joining Vision Care Specialists, Dr. Newman becomes part of Denver's leading group of eye-care doctors, who've been providing cutting-edge optometry services in Colorado for more than forty years.A Southern California College of Optometry graduate, Dr. Newman says he is looking forward to working with Poe's team. In joining the VCS family Dr. Newman joins two of his Southern California College of Optometry class mates Dr. Gerlock and Dr. Roberson."I'm thrilled about the opportunity to join such an illustrious practice," said Dr. Newman. "This is a perfect fit for Nikky and I, since Jeff Poe and his team share our vision of making patient care our top priority. Their large network of doctors and staff will help us offer even more services to our patients."Founded in 1974, Vision Care Specialists has earned a reputation for making a difference in its patients' lives. While many eye-care practices have followed the industry trend of private equity buyouts or have joined franchises and hospital-owned physician groups to gain advantages of scale, Vision Care Specialists believes strongly in physician-defined standards of care. That dedication to an independent medical practice model allows investment in state-of-the-art technologies; in 2014, it became the first private group of surgeons in Denver to offer laser cataract procedures.
Iconic Australian Cat Care Brand Snappy Tom Expands to U.S

CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif: The growing demand for specialized pet care products has a new answer - Australian brand Snappy Tom has just launched a new U.S. centered site designed to help cat owners throughout the country get access to higher quality pet food and pet care items.





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A Long History of Exceptional ProductsSnappy Tom was initially launched in 1965 in Australia, and it quickly became one of the top brands in the country. With memorable television commercials, many Aussies can recite from decades ago, the company has worked to provide real nutrition and better options for Australian cat owners for decades.A Move Across The PacificSnappy Tom has long been able to offer something few other brands can - all natural human grade cat food that's made with real fish and meats. Because of their success in Australia and concern that North American brands lacked the vitamins and minerals cats truly needed, they made a move to Canada just a few years ago. With that move came great success, and now the brand is ready to challenge the market in the United States."Pet owners are looking for companies that are formulated to address the problems with pet food today. They're looking for natural products with clean labels and whole food ingredients. At Snappy Tom, that's always been part of the equation, and we're excited to launch a brand-new formula for U.S. cat owners," said Jack Tan; President.The new formula includes absolutely no grain or byproducts. As with all Snappy Tom products, there are no artificial ingredients or colors either. It's a high-protein option that was designed to help cats of all ages reach their daily nutritional targets.More Than Cat FoodSnappy Tom is hardly just an option in today's healthier pet food market, though. They're the best way to care for cats from every aspect, and that includes their cat litter. Safer for both cats and the environment, it contains no sodium bentonite. Because of its specialized formula, cat owners can use less and each bag lasts far longer.Snappy Tom is making a move to change the way cat owners in the United States care for their pets. It's a move that has certainly paid off for cats in other countries.
California Legislators Make Cybersecurity Education a Top Priority

SACRAMENTO, Calif: No matter how you count, there's a major shortage of cybersecurity workers in California. There are some 40,000 unfilled positions across the state, and that number is growing every day.





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California's higher education system is poised to meet that need through its 114 community colleges, 23 CSU campuses and 10 UC campuses. With so many players involved, communication and collaboration are key to making meaningful progress. Those conversations are already happening throughout the state and recently received the support of the California State Assembly.The California Cyberhub, along with key players from education, industry and government, were brought together by the State Assembly Joint Oversight Committee for a hearing titled "Cybersecurity Education and the Needs of the Workforce." (Video) The hearing included representatives from the University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges, California Cyberhub and National University, as well as industry partners like Cisco Systems and CompTIA.Committee chairs Jose Medina and Jacqui Irwin called upon those stakeholders to work together to ensure that California's students have the opportunity to pursue degrees that will prepare them for cybersecurity jobs.Creating a pathwayA great demand exists for cybersecurity professionals in both the public and private sectors. The public sector is especially challenged because salaries can't compete with private employers, as the committee heard from Amy Tong, California's chief technology officer, and Mike Petit, chief information officer for Ventura County.One way to combat that is to make students interested in cybersecurity earlier, which is already happening in several key ways across the state."We are creating a recruitment pipeline that starts in K-12 and continues through community college and CSU," Tong said. "We want to help students see themselves as public servants."The cybersecurity education pathway may also include certifications provided through CompTIA, one of the world's leading technology associations. James Stanger, CompTIA's chief technology evangelist, told the committee that including certifications as part of the cybersecurity pathway ensures that students earn marketable skills in addition to an academic degree."Here's how we can upskill the workforce and here's an opportunity to meet demand," Stanger said. "Certifications help students apply what they learn. It is all about pragmatic, practical applications of information technology."A robust cybersecurity curriculum will include elements of business and technology to ensure that students are able to understand and meet the needs of their future employers."Cybersecurity is not just a technical problem, it's very much a business problem and our workforce needs to be trained accordingly," Petit said.California Cyberhub: A collaborative approachCollaboration around cybersecurity education is also happening is through the California Cyberhub, a collaboration of public education and industry that is compiling a central library of resources and encouraging support for cybersecurity competitions around the state.The Cyberhub brings together partners from K-12 education, higher education, government organizations and the cybersecurity industry to provide opportunities for middle and high school students to become interested in cybersecurity at an early age and begin a pathway that leads to a college degree.Cyberhub Community Manager Donna Woods said that the earlier students become interested in cybersecurity, the more likely they are to stick with it."The Cyberhub offers an opportunity for everyone work together on creating the best learning experience for our students," Woods said. "We are trying to create a better path for our students moving forward."The Cyberhub concept was introduced at the California Cyber Innovation Challenge held at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo over the summer. Bill Britton, the school's CIO and vice president of information technology, said he looks forward to continuing the discussions started at that event."The Cyberhub is one example of a solution to this program. Now we need others," Britton said. "There are so many things that need to get accomplished and a lot of good work going on across the board."While the assembly hearing was taking place, across the street, the State of Cybersecurity Education Summit was underway which brought many of those same education, industry and government leaders together for a discussion on how to shape a cybersecurity curriculum pathway that extends from middle and high school to a college degree."The technology community is one community," Tong said. "You do not need to have the title of a public servant to help protect the public's assets."Looking forwardThe Joint Oversight Committee encouraged those conversations to continue, both in the area of middle and high school outreach and in the area of college transfer credit articulation. There are currently about 27,000 students who are enrolled in cybersecurity-related classes at California community colleges, but there are far fewer opportunities for them to turn those classes into the degrees employers want to see.Moving forward, leaders from California Community Colleges, CSUs and UCs will work together to map that pathway for college students across the state."We were able to help the committee discover the bottleneck that we have," said Steve Wright, Information Communication Technology sector navigator in the community college Doing What Matters program. "We received clear instructions from the committee chairs to work together and continue these conversations moving forward."
The Laramie Project Returns to NYC After Almost 10 Years

NEW YORK: Direct from an award-winning run at Washington D.C.'s Capital Fringe Festival, The Wandering Theatre Company brings its bold new staging of contemporary classic The Laramie Project to New York City's Access Theatre.





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The story of Matthew Shepard broke headlines in 1998. A gay college student, he was kidnapped and beaten by two men, tied to a fence, and left to die in the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. The play is based on more than 200 interviews with Laramie residents conducted during the year immediately following the crime by playwright Moises Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project.Nearly 20 years later, the play is more relevant than ever. The Wandering Theatre Company's production reflects on Shepard's murder, and "more broadly, our present political climate, which may allow people of any racial, gender, ethnic, or sexual orientation minority to feel marginalized," says Erica Sloan of Washingtonian. Ravelle Brickman wrote in DC Metro Theater Arts, "The Laramie Project is a work that deserves to be seen, again and again. It is a sobering reminder of the hatred and fear that still divides our country."A movement-based ensemble, The Wandering Theatre Company explores the play using the Viewpoints method, providing the audience with beautiful dance-like movement and striking tableaus. The minimal stage becomes the town with the infamous fence looming over all. Matthew Shepard, usually unseen, silently throughout this innovative production. Nine other actors embrace 60 roles and let us touch the pulse of small-town America in the 1990s.Director Natalie Villamonte Zito says, "I chose to do 'The Laramie Project' three days after the presidential election; it was my response. We were starting to see hate crimes pop up again all over, toward people of Muslim faith, toward African Americans, toward gay people, so this was just an extremely important story for us to tell again now."The Wandering Theatre Company, a movement-based ensemble using The Viewpoint Technique, is dedicated to creating new American plays and reinventing established plays in order to spotlight issues affecting American culture and people.WHATThe Wandering Theatre Company presents National Medal of Arts winner Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project a one of the most important American plays of the last decade and the first major treatment of the play to appear in New York City since 2009.WHENLimited Engagement: November 9a19, 2017Evenings: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and SundayMatinees: Saturday and SundayTimes vary: see complete schedule at end of release
Aflac's Latest Product Offering to Shape the Future of Benefits Delivery

COLUMBUS, Ga: Aflac, the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite in the United States, is enhancing its benefits offerings through the launch of its BenExtend product.





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As the first release in an evolving life stages coverage line, BenExtend is a group insurance product that combines accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness benefits into one simple plan design.For employers seeking more creative solutions to manage health care costs while also trying to help employees manage out-of-pocket expenses, BenExtend delivers an innovative alternative to the marketplace."Simply put, BenExtend provides a next-level benefits strategy because it acts as a solution first and a product second," said Stephanie Shields, vice president of Product Innovation and Marketing at Aflac. "At Aflac, we recognize the future of health care is far from certain, and we champion the need to transform the traditional ways our industry has historically built and positioned products. BenExtend answers the call of our broker partners and employers who seek to offer benefits that adapt to evolving employee lifestyles while also containing costs."According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 84 percent of employers have begun to offer consumer-directed health plans. In 2017, high-deductible health plans (HDHP) range from $1,300 to $6,550 in out-of-pocket costs for an individual policyholder and $2,600 to $13,000 for a family.1 BenExtend helps employees mitigate these costs and limit exposure to financial risk to help ensure they are able to maintain the lifestyle for which they are accustomed, even if the unexpected occurs.Aflac's initial BenExtend release is available on an employer-paid basis for businesses with 100 or more benefits-eligible employees. Highlights of the plan include:aHealth advocacy and bill negotiation services included at no additional charge to brokers, employers or employees.aHigh, middle and low options are available to accommodate a variety of client benefits budgets and scenarios. Each level features core coverages with premiums and benefits amounts differing based on the level selected.aEmployers have the option to choose employee-only or full-family coverage.aCoverage is guaranteed issue, so insureds can enroll in coverage regardless of their health status with no underwriting questions.aBenefits are paid directly to the insured, unless otherwise assigned, and are paid regardless of any major medical insurance.aNo waiting period for benefits to be paid.aNo reduction in benefits as insureds get older.aDesigned with health savings account (HSA) compatibility in mind.Future releases planned in Aflac's life stages coverage line will continue to deliver even more flexible and unique coverage opportunities, further adapting benefits delivery to the demands of the ever-changing American workforce and ongoing shifts in the health care industry.
The Linux Foundation Announces 20 New Silver Members

SAN FRANCISCO: The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced that 20 new organizations have joined the Foundation as Silver members.





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Linux Foundation members help support development of the greatest shared technology resources in history, while accelerating their own innovation through open source leadership and participation."The newest Silver members of The Linux Foundation represent leading organizations in consulting services, telecommunications, knowledge sharing, finance and more," said Jim Zemlin, executive director, The Linux Foundation. "We are excited that they have made a commitment to supporting open source, and welcome the contributions their expertise and experience will bring to the community."In addition to joining the Foundation, many of these new members have joined Linux Foundation projects such as Automotive Grade Linux (AGL), Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Hyperledger Project and Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP). For a full list of members, visit https://www.linuxfoundation.org/members/corporate.New members include:aAlauda, with its container-centric enterprise Platform-as-a-Service offerings, empowers professionals in software and IT with a razor focus on delivering cloud native capabilities and DevOps best practices to enterprise customers across industries.aBooz Allen Hamilton is a global firm of 22,600 diverse, passionate, and exceptional people driven to excel, do right, and realize positive change in everything they do.aChina Unicom is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator of China.aCloudvisory provides centralized management of cloud native security controls - delivering real-time visibility, intelligent micro-segmentation, security policy orchestration and continuous compliance enforcement for Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, OpenStack, VMware and bare metal environments.aCodefresh is a CI/CD platform built for containers which allows you to manage and automate the lifecycle of Docker apps: Build, Test, Deploy & Collaborate.aCognition Foundry makes enterprise class IT accessible to startups.aDLT Labs is a global group of blockchain experts and dedicated business professionals committed to accelerating the implementation of blockchain solutions.aEquinix connects the world's leading businesses to their customers, employees and partners inside the most interconnected data centers.aFiberdyne Systems provides an OEM design and manufacturing service for automotive and home audio products.aGibraltar Stock Exchange is a stock exchange based in Gibraltar.aGravitational, Inc. offers tools to manage distributed applications across multiple hosting regions, including on-premise clouds.aKernkonzept develops the open-source L4Re operating system and hypervisor for security/safety-critical and virtualization-enabled applications.aMajid Al Futtaim Holding is the corporate center representing the shareholders' interests across the portfolio of the companies that operate diverse lifestyle and destination brands.aMedicalchain uses blockchain technology to securely store health records and maintain a single version of the truth.aNuance Communications is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world.aSplunk provides a leading platform for Operational Intelligence to search, monitor, analyze and visualize machine data.aTradeShift is an open platform that powers SMB to enterprise with solutions for procurement, spend management and business travel.aTurkcell is a leading mobile phone operator in Turkey.aWikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia and its mission of free knowledge for all.aZTEsoft is a leading provider of telecom software, solutions and services, specializing in providing comprehensive BSS/OSS, Big Data and managed service solutions to global operators of wireless, wireline and broadband cable services.With the support of its members, The Linux Foundation hosts open source projects across technologies including networking, security, cloud, blockchain and more. This collaborative development model is helping technology advance at a rapid pace in a way that benefits individuals and organizations around the world.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Discriminates Against HIV/AIDS Patients in Violation of the Affordable Care Act, Reports Consumer Watchdog

MEMPHIS, Tenn: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee is attempting to circumvent the central reform of the Affordable Care Act-the so called guaranteed issue provision, which ensures all patients are guaranteed access to health insurance regardless of their health condition-by discouraging patients with HIV/AIDS from enrolling in or remaining enrolled in its health plans, according to a new class action lawsuit.





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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee patients with HIV or AIDS must obtain their medications from a "specialty pharmacy" and potentially face dramatic cost increases and threats to their health and privacy. The specialty pharmacies either provide HIV medications by mail, or from a limited number of brick-and-mortar pharmacies such that patients must travel for up to 2 hours to obtain their medications, according to the lawsuit."What's the good of an insurance policy if an insurer is allowed to create roadblocks to the very medications you need to stay alive?" said Consumer Watchdog Litigation Director Jerry Flanagan. "HIV patients are forced to choose between either foregoing essential counseling from an expert pharmacist at a community pharmacy who is best positioned to detect potentially life-threatening adverse drug interactions and dangerous side effects, or pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for their HIV medications.""Blue Cross provides either no or limited coverage for HIV medications costing thousands of dollars each month if patients do not obtain those medications from a specialty pharmacy. For all but the wealthiest HIV patients, such dramatic cost increases are untenable," said Jerry Martin of Barrett Johnston & Garrison, LLC. "Even short interruptions in access to HIV/AIDS Medications can have a profound negative impact on a patient's health."Whatley Kallas, LLP and Consumer Watchdog have settled six similar lawsuits against major health insurers. Under those settlements, HIV/AIDS patients have a right to obtain their HIV medications from a community pharmacy of their choice."Blue Cross patients should have a choice about how they obtain these life-saving medications and from whom, just as other companies have agreed," said Edith Kallas of Whatley Kallas LLP.Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee's treatment of HIV/AIDS patients is discriminatory under the Affordable Care Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and other federal and state law:aDue to the complex nature of HIV/AIDS drug regimens, patients rely on their community pharmacists who, working directly with patients, monitor potentially life-threatening adverse drug interactions and side effects.aMail-order delivery of these medications, often requiring large refrigerated containers, is not a viable option for many patients and can raise major privacy implications, particularly for those individuals who have not revealed their medical condition to employers, co-workers, friends, and family members due to the social stigma that continues to be associated with the disease.aBecause there is no cure for HIV/AIDS, the virus continually mutates around the medications prescribed to treat it, requiring constant monitoring and immediate provision of new medication regimens to address changes in the disease that can only be provided by community pharmacists.aCommunity pharmacists, who often have greater contact with HIV/AIDS patients than physicians and know their complete drug regimen, provide essential advice and counseling that help HIV/AIDS patients and families navigate the challenges of living with a chronic and often debilitating condition.aBlue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee's specialty pharmacy program replaces these life-saving interactions with an 800 number that places the burden of securing life-sustaining medications on chronically ill patients.aHIV/AIDS patients must call-in each month to renew their prescriptionsaand work their way through automated robocalls, messages and multiple call center staffaincreasing stress and fatigue for patients who are literally fighting to stay alive, exacerbating their condition.aThe use of mail-order providers also creates the very real risk of delayed, lost or stolen shipments, resulting in dire consequences for many patients who must strictly adhere to their medication regimes or face serious illness or death.aIf HIV/AIDS patients do not obtain their medications from a specialty pharmacy, they must pay full-price for their medicationsaeasily thousands of dollars or more each monthato purchase their medications at their community pharmacy.
The Luxury Collection Hotels and Resorts Set to Open Hotel on the Stunning Beaches of Okinawa

OKINAWA, Japan: The Luxury Collection today announced the signing of IRAPH SUI, a Luxury Collection Hotel in Okinawa, Japan. Owned by The Mori Trust Group and slated to open in late 2018, the new island resort will be will be located in the city of Miyakojima, in Okinawa Prefecture and will be the third Luxury Collection hotel in Japan.





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"We are thrilled to welcome this island resort to our portfolio in Japan," said Mitzi Gaskins, Global Brand Leader, The Luxury Collection. "The luxury vacation market in Japan is a well-established one, and sophisticated travelers are always looking for exciting new destinations and authentic experiences wherever they go. This latest addition to The Luxury Collection in Japan will enhance the brand's position in the global hospitality market and provide an exceptional indigenous experience to global luxury travelers."The new Luxury Collection resort will be located on an elevated headland on the southwestern coastline of Irabu, a small island in the Miyako Island group, where its 57 guest rooms will enjoy stunning sea views. In addition to nine suites with private plunge pools, the resort will also feature 10 luxurious Junior suites and one Executive suite. Amenities will include a 72-foot outdoor swimming pool, a state-of-the-art fitness center and spa. IRAPH SUI will also feature an all-day restaurant, a relaxing pool bar and beach club."Together with the Mori Trust Group, we look forward to bringing another prestigious Luxury Collection hotel to Japan," said Raj Menon, Chief Operating Officer, Marriott International Asia Pacific, excluding Greater China. "With over 100 hotels in 32 countries, each Marriott International Luxury Collection hotel celebrates the distinctive character of its locale with beautiful settings, exquisite decor and the impeccable service of The Luxury Collection Concierge, giving our guests a truly unforgettable travel experience."With their pristine white sand beaches and crystal-clear waters, the Miyako Islands are famous scuba diving destinations, boasting spectacular underwater rock formations resulting from volcanic activity, colossal RyAkyA limestone arches, underwater caves and grottoes, as well as abundant coral and sea life. The Miyako Islands are also becoming a popular port of call for international cruise companies, receiving a total of 703,000 visitors in 2016 compared to 514,000 in the previous year. The islands are located approximately 250 miles east of Taipei, and Miyako airport has direct flight connections to Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.The Luxury Collection takes guests on journeys to the world's most inspiring places, enriching and transforming modern global travel with authentic and timeless experiences that evoke lasting, cherished memories. There are currently 28 Luxury Collection hotels in Asia-Pacific welcoming guests to some of the most enchanting destinations in the region, where each iconic hotel serves as a portal to the indigenous charms and treasures of its particular location. The signing of IRAPH SUI in Okinawa will add another jewel to the crown of the Marriott International luxury portfolio in Japan, driving the strategic growth of the Luxury Collection brand in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as globally."We are glad to combine the resources of the Mori Trust Group with the prestige of the Marriott International Luxury Collection brand to bring this exciting new resort to Okinawa," said Miwako Date, President, Mori Trust Group. "This warm, unspoilt and idyllic region of Japan is well-known for its stunning seascapes and natural beauty, and our new hotel will showcase its charms and treasures to the most discerning of luxury travelers."
L'Oreal Paris Announces 2017 Women of Worth Honorees

NEW YORK: As part of its signature philanthropic program, L'Oreal Paris has announced the 2017 Women of Worth Honorees, recognizing 10 women across the United States who selflessly and passionately commit their lives to better serve their communities and foster positive change.





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Women of Worth is inspired by the L'Oreal Paris belief that "we're all worth it" and honors the intrinsic beauty and worth of everyday women making an extraordinary difference. With stories born out of diversity and tragedy, the Women of Worth represent a wide range of causes from supporting survivors of human sex trafficking to raising awareness about mass incarceration.In addition to receiving $10,000 to support her charitable cause, each 2017 L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth Honoree will have opportunities for networking, marketing support and a platform to tell her story. Beginning today, the public is invited to support the Women of Worth by voting for one woman to become this year's National Honoree, who will receive an additional $25,000 to support her cause for a total of $35,000.Visit WomenofWorth.com to learn about the 2017 Honorees' stories and vote once per day through November 29, 2017 for the woman's organization with the mission that resonates with you the most.aVisit WomenofWorth.com and register with an e-mail address to vote once per daya"Like" a post about an Honoree on the L'Oreal Paris Facebook pageaRe-tweet a mention about one of the Women of Worth made by L'Oreal Paris on Twitter"This year's ten Women of Worth Honorees represent women of very diverse ages, backgrounds and circumstances who are working daily to improve the lives of the people they serve," said Tim Coolican, President, L'Oreal Paris. "It is the greatest honor to help these extraordinary women expand their reach, touch more lives, and create even more positive change throughout the world," added Karen T. Fondu, President Emeritus and Chairwoman of L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth.MEET THE 2017 WOMEN OF WORTH HONOREESSelected by a distinguished panel of judges including leaders in business and media, the 2017 L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth Honorees were chosen from thousands of nominations for their unwavering commitment, drive and desire to better the lives of those around them.aRana Abdelhamid - Palo Alto, C.A.; Founder, the International Muslim Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment or WISE, a self-defense, social entrepreneurship and leadership development movement for young Muslim women.aLulu Cerone - Encino, Calif.; Founder, LemonAID Warriors, a non-profit youth-activism organization that connects children to worthy causes and provides unique action plans to create tangible social good.aTheresa Flores - Worthington, Ohio: Founder, S.O.A.P. Project, which stands for "Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution" raises awareness and provides resources for victims of human trafficking by placing educational materials and bars of soap in hotels and motels across the country with information on how to seek help.aLeanne Huebner - Los Angeles, Calif.; Co-founder, Minds Matter National, an educational nonprofit that transforms the lives of accomplished high school students from low-income families by broadening their dreams and preparing them for college success.aDeborah Jiang-Stein - Minneapolis, Minn.; Founder, unPrison Project, an organization that works to build literacy, mentoring and life skills for women and girls in prisons and for their children to help cultivate critical thinking tools to plan, set goals and prepare for successful life after prison.aSreyRam Kuy - Missouri City, Texas; Partner, Dog Tag Bakery, a nonprofit organization that sells baked goods and trains veterans in business and the first female Cambodian refugee to work as a surgeon in the U.S.aCassandra Lin - Westerly, R.I.; Creator, project Turn Grease Into Fuel (TGIF), a sustainable system that collects used cooking oil from residents and restaurants, coverts it to biodiesel, and distributes the biofuel to local families for emergency heating assistance, developed by Westerly Innovations Network.aCharolette Tidwell - Fort Smith, Ark.; Founder, Antioch for Youth & Family, a nonprofit that provides supplemental food assistance to approximately 7,000 people in the community, in addition to youth development services and family assistance through a variety of personal enrichment programs.aValerie Weisler - New York, N.Y.; Founder, The Validation Project, an international organization that works with more than 6,000 teenagers in 105 countries, providing them with the resources and guidance they need to develop confidence and gain self-worth.aShandra Woworuntu - Corona, N.Y.; Founder, Mentari human trafficking survivor empowerment program that provides direct services, resources, advocacy, education and mentoring initiatives to help survivors as they reintegrate into society.
DoorDash Launches In More Than 50 Cities In Philadelphia Area, Offers Door-to-Door Delivery From Top Local Restaurants

SAN FRANCISCO: DoorDash -- the technology company connecting customers with the best local businesses through door-to-door delivery -- today announced its launch in the Philadelphia area. This marks DoorDash's expansion into its 51st major metropolitan market across the U.S. and Canada.





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Upon launch, DoorDash will be available in the surrounding suburbs of Philadelphia and parts of the city, with downtown coming soon. Customers along the Main Line, as well as communities stretching from Malvern to Warrington, King of Prussia to Jenkintown, and Upper Darby to Plymouth Meeting will all be able to place DoorDash orders, starting today.Customer in the Philadelphia area can order DoorDash between the hours of 11am to 10pm from a selection of local favorites, including:aTiffinaPokeOnoaSaffronaThe Spicy BellyaBiryani BowlaFuelaSal's PizzeriaDoorDash's national partnerships with P.F. Chang's, The Cheesecake Factory, and Buffalo Wild Wings will also extend to the Philadelphia area."As one of Philadelphia's most highly recognized Indian restaurants with locations in Ambler, Bala Cynwyd, and Wayne, Saffron is delighted to bring our mouth-watering curries and kabobs to customers' doorsteps using DoorDash's elegant, user-friendly platform and reliable service," said Rahul Bhatia, owner of Saffron Indian Kitchen.At launch, delivery fees will range from $1.99 to $5.99. To celebrate the debut of DoorDash in Philadelphia, new users can receive $5 off their first order of $15 by using promo code "DASHPHILLY" at checkout."This is one of our largest east coast launches to date," said Tony Xu, CEO and co-founder of DoorDash. "Restaurant owners and customers alike have been requesting DoorDash in the Philadelphia area, so we are excited to finally bring our delivery network to the City of Brotherly Love."
Depletion of a fatty molecule in human blood propels malaria parasites to stop replicating and causing illness in people and instead to jump ship to mosquitoes to continue the transmission cycle, according to a new study by an international research team.

The discovery, published online in Cell Nov. 9, answers a longstanding question about what controls this critical step in the life cycle of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for about half a million malaria deaths worldwide each year. It could also open doors to new strategies for malaria control and treatment.

The key molecule the researchers identified has the catchy name of lysophosphatidylcholine, or LPC for short. It appears to be a building block the parasites use to construct new cell membranes when they divide, the team found.

"When LPC is plentiful, the parasites happily reproduce in humans," said J.P. Gerdt, a research fellow in the lab of Jon Clardy at Harvard Medical School and co-first author of the study. "When LPC drops, the parasites can't multiply anymore and commit to a different pathway."

"This is a first big step in dissecting the details of what's going on," added Gerdt.

The purpose of the research was to illuminate the biochemical motivators in Plasmodium's decision making. Although important, the findings won't immediately translate into new therapies, cautioned Clardy, the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at HMS and co-corresponding author of the study.

Even so, Clardy said, by pinpointing a previously unknown control switch, the work suggests new ways to try to prevent Plasmodium parasites from re-entering mosquitoes and infecting more people- a major goal of global malaria eradication programs.

"Treating patients with antimalarial drugs usually kills the replicating parasites, but if you don't also block transmission, the disease will never disappear from the population," said co-corresponding author Matthias Marti, adjunct professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor at the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology at the University of Glasgow.

Zeroing in

Plasmodium parasites lead complex lives.

They pass into humans through the bite of an infected Anopheles mosquito, congregating first in the liver and later in red blood cells, where they multiply and burst forth in cycles that cause waves of illness.

Eventually, if the host is lucky enough to survive, some of the parasites stop multiplying and follow a different path known as sexual commitment or differentiation. In what Gerdt likens to a parasitic puberty, they morph from asexual into sexual creatures.

If mosquitoes bite an infected person during this phase, the parasites- now male and female- travel back into the insects and breed. The transmission cycle begins anew.

"Almost everything we try to do to treat malaria is at the blood stage, because that's when you know people have it," said Clardy. "Researchers are putting more effort lately into studying the transmission stage in light of campaigns to eliminate malaria."

Even though sexual commitment is a linchpin in malaria dynamics, scientists didn't know much about what prompts it. Three years ago, Marti, then an associate professor at the Harvard Chan School, and study co-first author Nicolas Brancucci, then a postdoctoral fellow in Marti's lab, set out to discover whether any substances in human hosts- rather than in the parasites themselves- played a role.

To find out, they combined their expertise in parasitology with the Clardy lab's specialty in tracing the source of molecular signals.

Something in the blood

When the researchers cultured Plasmodium cells in flasks without their usual bath of human blood serum, the parasites skipped replication and went straight for sexual commitment- hinting that a control switch lurked in the missing blood.

Next, the researchers grew Plasmodium with serum. As expected, after a while the parasites lost their zest for replicating and began to undergo sexual commitment. But when the team added fresh serum, the parasites went on replicating. They were indeed grabbing something from the serum.

The researchers decided to separate and study all the serum components to see if they could identify the molecule or molecules at play.

"Serum is so complex; no one would do a test like that," Marti recalled. "But it actually worked. We found a single factor that's necessary and sufficient for regulating sexual commitment."

With each round of parasite replication, the researchers observed that LPC levels dropped. When LPC fell low enough, the parasites switched to sexual commitment.

Fluorescent microscopy revealed that Plasmodium cells were absorbing LPC from the bloodstream as they prepared to divide.

"The parasites suck it up," said Gerdt.

The scientists believe that when the parasites sense that their raw materials are running low, they change strategies.

The researchers found similar patterns of LPC depletion in a mouse model of malaria. Their findings were further reinforced by blood serum data from previously published studies that showed LPC depletion is a hallmark of acute malaria infection in humans.

Testing the waters

The study is the first to identify a factor in human hosts that Plasmodium uses as an environmental sensor.

"This was surprising at first, but once you know about it, it makes sense," said Marti. "Plasmodium is a blood parasite, after all, and it travels through many different environments during its life cycle. It samples those environments, and in this case, it responds to reduced LPC levels in the blood during acute malaria infection by deciding to move into the mosquito."

Moving from the study findings to a malaria therapy won't be straightforward, said Clardy. For instance, doctors can't simply deplete LPC to prevent the parasites from replicating, because LPC plays important roles in the body, including forming healthy cell membranes.

Nonetheless, now that they know "at least the first step and a few downstream steps" of how the parasite regulates transmission, Marti said he envisions new combination strategies that would safely block transmission while also treating the people who already have malaria.
A researcher team from Penn State has found mushrooms to contain high levels of two antioxidants that could promote good health and also lead to anti-aging benefits. The results of the study were published in the latest issue of Food Chemistry.

Mushrooms have high amounts of the ergothioneine and glutathione  both antioxidants, said Robert Beelman, professor emeritus of food science and director of the Penn State Center for Plant and Mushroom Products for Health. Different species of mushrooms contain different amounts of these two antioxidants. He explained that mushrooms are the richest source of these two antioxidants and some are really rich in these.

Image Credit: Champignon mushrooms. Sailorr / Shutterstock

Antioxidants are also found in other foods such as egg yolk, liver, beans, oat bran etc. Mushrooms still remain the richer source Beelman said. Beelman explained that as the body broke down food to produce energy it releases certain chemicals called free radicals. These can lead to a condition called oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress due to these free radicals containing unpaired electrons can damage cells and the DNA leading to several diseases and even cancers, dementia, Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease and coronary heart disease. This is because these free radicals are highly reactive and they can travel throughout the body to pair up with electrons. Free radicals are also associated with accelerated aging, inflammation and age related damages. The body can be protected from these free radicals with antioxidants.

The study looked at 13 different species of mushrooms to check for the amounts of the antioxidants - ergothioneine and glutathione in them. They noted that porcini species, a wild variety, contained the highest amounts of the two compounds. Beelman said that the species is popular in Italy calling searching for this mushroom a national pastime there! White button mushrooms, that are most commonly consumed, contain similar antioxidants but in lesser amounts he added.

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The study further showed that those mushrooms that contained more glutathione were also high in ergothioneine. Beelman also added that cooking does not spoil the antioxidant compounds because ergothioneine for one is very stable in heat.

Beelman called for further research that would see if consuming these mushrooms for long periods of time could protect patients from neurological diseases sich as dementia, Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons disease etc. One indication of benefit, he noted, was the fact that people living in France and Italy had lower incidence of these neurodegenerative diseases compared to those living in the United States. This could be because the former consume more of these mushrooms. This could be causative or a correlation he said and needs to be explored. He added that the average difference in mushroom consumption between these countries is around 3 milligrams per day, which is about five button mushrooms each day.

The study was conducted by Beelman along with Michael D. Kalaras, postdoctoral assistant in food sciences, John P. Richie, professor of public health sciences and pharmacology and Ana Calcagnotto, research assistant in public health sciences.

Reference: http://news.psu.edu/story/491477/2017/11/09/research/mushrooms-are-full-antioxidants-may-have-antiaging-potential
The Department of Defense has awarded a multi-institutional team of scientists a series of grants totaling $4.37 million to investigate the potential role of airborne pollutants as triggers of Parkinson's disease via the nose.

"It increasingly appears that a complicated mix of biological and environmental factors contribute to Parkinson's," said study lead Patrik Brundin, M.D., Ph.D., director of VARI's Center for Neurodegenerative Science. "Unraveling this tangled web will go a long way in helping us develop ways to evaluate an individual's risk for the disease as well as developing therapies to prevent, slow or stop its onset and progress."

To undertake the four-year study, Brundin has teamed up with collaborators Caleb Finch, Ph.D., the ARCO/F. Kieschnick Professor in the Neurobiology of Aging and University Professor at University of Southern California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology; Honglei Chen, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine; and Todd Morgan, Ph.D., Research Professor of Gerontology also at the USC Leonard Davis School.

The project will be supported by three Department of Defense grants--$1.4 million to Brundin, $1.45 million to Finch and $1.5 million to Chen.

Finch and Morgan have previously shown that airborne particulates cause inflammation that spreads from the nose into the brain in disease models while Chen studies Parkinson's disease incidence on a population-wide scale.

Together, they will investigate how long-term exposure to airborne particulates relates to Parkinson's onset later in life. Increasing evidence suggests that inflammation in the nose, which is directly connected to the brain's olfactory region, could be among the first triggers of the disease.

An estimated 90 percent of people with Parkinson's disease have problems with their sense of smell or entirely lose it in the years preceding their diagnosis.

"The nose is a direct gateway into the body and, in fact, it is one of first places we see evidence of Parkinson's pathology in the form of abnormal alpha-synuclein proteins," Brundin said. "From there, it appears that these proteins move from the olfactory bulb deeper into the brain, leaving a path a destruction that manifests as symptoms such as loss of sense of smell and, eventually, motor deficits."

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Environmental factors, such as pollution, are likely low-level contributors that are superimposed upon genetic influences and age, the greatest single risk factor for Parkinson's. The team believes that younger people, particularly those born with low genetic risk, may be able to cope with nasal inflammation and live a long life without developing the disease. Other elements also play a role.

"At the same time, gender differences may also be a factor in the greater vulnerability of men to Parkinson's," Finch said.

After their initial studies, the team will explore whether anti-inflammatory medications may be able to slow the progression of Parkinson's. They include the over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drug ibuprofen, and an experimental anti-diabetic drug called MSDC-0160.

In 2005, Chen and his associates published evidence that ibuprofen may significantly reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease. MSDC-0160, meanwhile, has shown promise for slowing Parkinson's progress in lab models of the disease, according to a 2016 study from Brundin's lab.

They also plan to use the rigorous population-scale methods to compare groups of people who have lost their sense of smell in late adulthood versus those who have not. The clues found in their genetic profiles and health histories, including use of anti-inflammatory medications, may yield important correlations that the team can follow up in the lab, Chen said.

"This is an exciting opportunity for joined forces of basic and population scientists to search for the origins of Parkinson's disease," Chen said.

Between seven to 10 million people have Parkinson's disease worldwide. Currently, there is no way to definitively diagnose the disease and no therapies that slow or stop its progression.

All medical decisions should be made in close consultation with a physician, including prolonged use of ibuprofen.
The vaccine that protects against cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV) also prevents an uncommon but incurable childhood respiratory disease, according to a new study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. The findings suggest that the chronic and difficult-to-treat condition, recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, is disappearing in Australian children as a result of the nation's highly successful HPV vaccination program.

"This is a world-first finding of evidence that the HPV vaccine has actually prevented recurrent respiratory papillomatosis cases," said study author Julia M.L. Brotherton, MD, PhD, MPH, of the Victorian Cytology Service in Melbourne, Australia. "It's really exciting that we finally have a way to prevent this terrible disease. It adds to the list of strong reasons why you as a parent should choose to vaccinate your child."

The condition is thought to occur in children when HPV (specifically, HPV type 6 or 11) is spread from mother to child around the time of birth. In some children, the virus can cause wart-like, non-cancerous growths called papillomas to develop in the respiratory tract, eventually making it difficult to breathe. The condition can be life-threatening, and repeated surgeries are usually required to keep the airway clear. Medical costs related to the disease in children total $123 million annually in the U.S., where approximately 800 children develop the condition each year, according to previously published estimates.

In the new study, Australian researchers report the initial results from a nationwide surveillance program created to monitor the disease, building on an existing program that monitors rare pediatric diseases using reports from clinicians. Seven cases of juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis were reported in 2012, the surveillance program's first full year. The number of new cases reported annually declined over the next five years. Clinicians reported just one case in the entire country in 2016. None of the mothers of the children who were diagnosed with the disease from 2012-2016 had been vaccinated against HPV prior to their pregnancy.

Australia's publicly funded HPV immunization program provides the quadrivalent vaccine, which protects against four HPV types (types 6, 11, 16, and 18), through school-based programs. Nationwide, 86 percent of girls and 79 percent of boys 14-15 years of age have received the first dose of the vaccine, according to current estimates. Although rates have improved in the U.S., only 60 percent of teens 13-to-17-years-old had received one or more doses of the HPV vaccine in 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported. CDC currently recommends two doses of the vaccine for teens younger than 15 and three doses for those who start the vaccine series at ages 15 through 26.

In a related editorial commentary, Basil Donovan, MD, and Denton Callander, PhD, both of the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and who were not involved in the study, called the downward trend in cases of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis in children encouraging. They also urged high-income countries with excellent HPV immunization rates to fully evaluate similar population-level impacts of their vaccination programs.

"National and individual vaccine hesitancy remains common," they wrote in their accompanying commentary, "and, unless these hesitant countries are persuaded by the ever-expanding benefits of quadrivalent HPV vaccination, millions of dollars in health spending along with countless unnecessary episodes of disease and death will occur in the coming decades."

Fast Facts
Consumers will soon be eating gene-edited foods that have added nutrients, potatoes that do not turn brown, and mushrooms with a longer shelf life, scientists at The University of Queensland predict.

UQ Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation Director Professor Robert Henry said gene technology was a potential game-changer for agriculture.

The next generation of genetically altered foods are here and waiting for regulatory approval, he said.

While most consumers dont understand what gene editing is, many also dont understand genetics or the conventional breeding techniques that have been delivering us new and improved foods for centuries.

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Professor Henry said there have been major advances in gene technology, and the regulatory environment needed to keep up.

Gene editing involves a snip or tweak of DNA at precise locations on the genome, using technologies such as CRISPR.

Gene editing is the same as conventional breeding but a faster, safer and a more precise process  with benefits to human health as well as agriculture and food, Professor Henry said.

He said gene editing had not attracted the controversy surrounding GMOs from consumers.

We have not had the same public response, because gene editing does not require inserting new genes into the cells nuclei.

Researchers in China and the United States have already successfully edited the genomes of human embryos to correct disease carrying mutations.

Professor Henry said there would soon be similar innovations in the crop, horticulture and livestock industries.

We will see more nutritious, longer-lasting, disease-resistant crops, fruits and vegetables, and more effective ways to develop desirable welfare traits like polled (hornless) cattle, he said.

Gene editing allows us to do things more efficiently and faster than we are able to do with conventional genetic improvement and plant breeding.

Professor Henry said that the technology was advancing rapidly and regulatory considerations needed to encompass more than technological tools or processes.

The Australian Gene Technology Act is under review and States and Territories must agree to new regulations.

Professor Henry is part of a panel of international experts discussing the regulation of gene editing in agriculture at a breakfast hosted by the Queensland Rural Press Club, as part of National Agriculture Day during the TropAg2017 conference in Brisbane on 21 November.
These findings could help public health organizations craft more effective messages

If you were bitten by a bird, would you be concerned about getting sick? How likely would you be to seek medical attention? As it turns out, those answers may depend on your knowledge of other animals susceptibility to disease.

In psychology, its called inductive reasoning  thats the process of generalizing information to novel scenarios. And according to a new study from the University of Sydney and Texas Tech University, inductive reasoning can play a big role in how people perceive the risks involved with animals and infectious diseases.

Dr Micah Goldwater from the University of Sydneys School of Psychology collaborated with Texas Tech Assistant Professors Tyler Davis, Molly Irelandand Jason Van Allen and independent research consultant Nicholas Gaylord.

Their paper will appear in PLOS ONE, an open-access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

Co-author at the University of Sydney, Dr Goldwater, explained that the World Health Organization and the Centre for Disease Control had different approaches to communicating about Ebola, with different results; while the CDC only listed bats and non-human primates, the WHO also listed porcupines and forest antelope.

We showed that people reading the WHO inspired warning generalized further, and for example, judged that eating "bushmeat" (i.e., meat from wild animals) had greater risk, Dr Golwater said. This is a crucial result as eating bushmeat is a frequent root of new emerging diseases.

The idea behind inductive reasoning is simple. Suppose you are bitten by an animal  maybe a bird, maybe a bat or maybe a dog. If you know that other similar animals are susceptible to communicable diseases, such as Ebola or rabies, you are likely to be more concerned about the possibility of getting infected by the bite. This happens because you generalise your knowledge from other animals to the one that bit you, even though that may not be entirely accurate.

Weve been interested for a while in how everyday people reason about risks associated with animal contact, said Assistant Professor Davis, the lead author.

An overwhelming number of new emerging diseases come from animal sources and get introduced to the human population as a result of animal contact.

Thus, everyday people without expertise in infectious diseases or how to interact with animals are at the frontlines of potential future pandemics, yet very little is known about how they reason about the risks of animal contact.

While a person may not know much about the risks posed by a specific animal, they likely have beliefs about which animals in general may be susceptible to disease.

Assistant Professor Davis highlighted that this study tested whether people use knowledge about the range of animals that are susceptible to a disease when judging their own risks of contact with a specific type of animal. The researchers measured this in a variety of ways, including the likelihood of reporting animal bites to a health professional and the perceived safety of eating different animals meat.

The study found that risk perception increases in two different scenarios. First, if the animal you encountered is similar to a type of animal you believe may carry a disease  for instance, encountering a coyote when you know that local foxes can carry a disease  you may perceive a greater risk to your own health. Second, if you know that a particular disease is found in a wide variety of animals, you may perceive a greater likelihood that the animal you encountered could carry it  for example, if bats, cats and birds all carry a disease, then the coyote you encountered may well pose a risk, as well.

Although there has been a lot of research on inductive reasoning, this research has not been widely applied to health behaviors in general and perception of disease risk from animals in particular, Assistant Professor Davis said.

Were also very hopeful that this work can inform better public health messaging in the developing world, where awareness of risks can be very low and responses to outbreaks are often slow and costly.

Dr Goldwater said small changes to the message, informed by cognitive psychology, may have a big impact. The next steps in our research are examining messages about food-borne illnesses in developed western countries, and bringing the research on bushmeat to the developing world, he said.

Source: https://sydney.edu.au/
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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
Donald Trump concludes China visit, next stop Vietnam

Beijing : US President Donald Trump on Friday departed from Beijing for Vietnam, after an official three-day visit to China where he urged all countries to stop arming, financing and trading with the "murderous" North Korean regime.

The presidential Air Force One aircraft took off from the Chinese capital at 9.15 a.m. (local time) for the coastal city of Da Nang, where Trump will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum Economic Leaders' Meeting, reports Efe news.

Trump's first trip to China as President hoped to bridge the gap between Beijing and Washington on key issues such as North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, US complaints about their massive trade deficit, and to establish a path of increased cooperation in global affairs.

North Korea figured majorly on the agenda when Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump held talks at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday.

Trump indicated that he wanted China to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear designs.

While Xi promised cooperation and coordination, Trump said China had the solution to the problem.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump asks China to cut trade ties with North Korea

Trump was effusive in his praise of X, referring to him as a "very special man" and describing his visit to Beijing as "truly memorable".

The two countries also announced memorandums of understanding to increase trade by $253 billion, which the leaders said was a sign of greater cooperation. The deals include purchases of Boeing aircraft, Ford automobiles, US soybeans and joint development of liquified natural gas in Alaska.

Trump's warm tone during the visit contrasted sharply to the rhetoric of his 2016 presidential campaign, in which he repeatedly attacked China, saying at one rally that "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world".

Trump was in China on the third leg of his five-nation Asia tour after stops in Japan and South Korea.

ALSO READ: Donald Trump cancels surprise visit to North Korea border

After attending the APEC meeting in Vietnam, Trump will travel to the Philippines for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit.
Saudi Arabia asks its citizens to leave Lebanon amid political crisis

Riyadh : Saudi Arabia on Thursday asked its nationals who are visiting or residing in Lebanon to leave that country as soon as possible.

Official news agency SPA reported that the government also advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon amid accusations that Riyadh is playing a role in the current Lebanese political crisis.

Tension has risen between Riyadh and Beirut since last Saturday, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation while on a visit to Saudi Arabia, prompting some in Lebanon to assert that the Saudis forced Hariri to step down.

Hariri, who remains in Riyadh, met Thursday with French Ambassador Francois Gouvette and with the head of the European Union delegation, Michele Cervone d'Urso.

Hariri, a dual Lebanese-Saudi citizen, has denied that he is under house arrest in Riyadh.

In announcing his resignation, Hariri denounced an alleged plot to assassinate him. The prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, also criticized Shiite-majority Iran for interference in Lebanese political affairs.

Hariri's critique of Iran is connected to Tehran's support of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.

Saudi Arabia, where the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam is dominant, views both Iran and Hezbollah as adversaries.

Hariri's resignation has not yet been accepted by Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, who said he awaits Hariri's return to Lebanon to learn the reasons behind the resignation.

Lebanon's three main sectarian groups: Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, have tried to maintain a delicate power- sharing arrangement since achieving independence in 1943.

Under the terms of the so-called National Pact adopted then, a Maronite Christian is supposed to be the country's president, a Sunni Muslim holds the post of prime minister and a Shiite Muslim serves as speaker of parliament.

There have been times in recent history, such as the 1975-1990 civil war, when the division of power among groups has been unable to stem the tide of sectarian violence.

Saad Hariri's fear of possible assassination may come from his family's relationship with politically motivated murder. In 2005, his father, former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, died in a car bombing, an incident that led to the Cedar Revolution and Syria's exit from Lebanon.
The goal of the HELLADS (High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System ) program is to develop a 150 kilowatt (kW) laser weapon system that is ten times smaller and lighter than current lasers of similar power, enabling integration onto tactical aircraft to defend against and defeat ground threats. With a weight goal of less than five kilograms per kilowatt, and volume of three cubic meters for the laser system, HELLADS seeks to enable high-energy lasers to be integrated onto tactical aircraft, significantly increasing engagement ranges compared to ground-based systems.

A unit cell produces a 75 kW beam, and modules can be combined to create beams of 150-300 kW in power with no beam combining like low-power fiber lasers. General Atomics also plans to offer the Gen 3 to the U.S. Army for their High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL-MD) when its power levels increase to 120 kW in the early 2020s.

It has a weight goal of less than 5 kg/kW, approximately 750 kg, or 1650 lbs, an order of magnitude less than current laser weapon systems with similar power. This weight reduction enables tactical aircraft, such as fighters, bomber, tankers, and UAVs to carry the HELLADS. HELLADS will significantly increase engagement ranges compared to ground-based systems.

The fourth phase shall consist of a ground-based laser weapon system demonstrator with an approximate average power of 150 kW. The laser weapon system demonstrator constructed in this phase shall employ a design and materials which demonstrate the ability of the final weapon to achieve low specific weight (5 kg/kW) and a compact geometry suitable for deployment on tactical systems. The High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defence System (HELLADS) will weigh just 750 kilograms and fit into a space about the size of a large refrigerator.

General Atomics should have been testing a 150-kilowatt-class laser in 2016 and is moving towards putting a system into an AC130 gunship.

AC-130 laser tests are to begin in 2018.

In 2015, General Atomics indicated the HELLAD laser is designed for use on land, sea, and airborne platforms and will be available in four versions at the 50, 75, 150, and 300 kilowatt laser output levels.

Antimissile drone

If the weight goal for 150 Kw is achieved at 1,650 pounds. A one megawatt laser would have a weight requirement of 11,550 pounds which is right in the Missile Defense Agencys drone payload requirement.

In 2015, the head of the Missile Defense Agency claimed that a drone flying at 63,000 feet or higher would have a much longer range, in the hundreds of kilometers, due to the lack of laser-degrading particles in the atmosphere at very high altitudes. A scaled-down technology demonstration is scheduled for 2021.
LPPFusion has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to raise $1 million to fund the next major stage of their research to develop a cheap, clean, safe and unlimited source of energy. The campaign, which went live at Noon EST, Nov. 9 on the leading crowdfunding website Wefunder, is the first time that shares in LPPFusion will be available to all investors. In previous equity rounds, sales of shares in the US were limited to accredited investorsthose with more than $1 million in assets or $200,000 in annual income. However, under new SEC rules approved last year, through the crowdfunding campaign, all investors, accredited and non-accredited, US and non-US, will be able to buy shares. A previous crowdfunding effort by LPPFusion in 2014 on the Indiegogo website raised $180,000 in donations, before the new rule allowed equity (share) crowdfunding.

LPPFusion is a small New Jersey R and D firm with the ambitious goal of reaching and developing a new route to producing fusion energy, the energy that powers the sun. Their technology is called Focus Fusion.

New experimental results, published in the October issue of the leading peer-reviewed journal Physics of Plasmas, demonstrated the highest confined mean ion energy of any fusion experiment in the world, an ion energy equivalent to a temperature of over 2.5 billion degrees C. This is over 200 times hotter than the center of the sun.

UC San Diego and LPPFusion have formalized a collaboration with an agreement on October 2. They aim to develop a dense plasma focus (DPF) device for fusion energy. The alternate fusion schemes offer a potential route to fusion energy that could be faster and much cheaper than other approaches, explains CER Director, Farhat N. Beg. LPPFusion is a leader in this field and will make available to CER its research data and expertise to help us set up our own DPF facility at UC San Diego.

LPPFusions FF-1 device is one of only a few mega-ampere DPFs in the world. Our research in the coming year will involve the first experiments using hydrogen-boron fuel. This fuel produces energy in the form of charged particles only, not neutrons, which both eliminates radioactive waste and makes possible inexpensive direct conversion of energy to electricity.

The collaboration with the Center for Energy Research will help us to better analyze and understand our data, said LPPFusion President and Chief Scientist Eric J. Lerner. Their expertise in plasma simulation will aid our efforts in modeling our experiments. We also expect that, once their own DPF is functioning, we can perform joint experiments that will help demonstrate how the DPF energy output scales with energy input. That is crucial to achieving the goal of getting more energy out of the device than we put into it.

The $ 1 million dollars that the company hopes to raise through the crowdfunding camping will go to speed the scientific research by allowing the hiring of more researchers and by funding the next set of experiment. These experiments will use beryllium electrodes in the experimental FF-1 device and then proceed to the use of hydrogen-boron fuel. This fuel produces no radioactive waste.

This funding round has already raised $128000 as of Nov 10, 2017.

AMBITION

To achieve the future we want for ourselves and our children, we must replace fossil fuels with a cheap, clean, safe, and unlimited energy source. Our small, decentralized 5 MW generators will use hydrogen and boron fuel, both of which are essentially unlimited in nature, to allow a direct conversion of energy to electricity without expensive turbines or radioactive waste. The cost will be 10 times cheaper than any existing energy source, meaning our Focus Fusion technology can change the world.

KEY FACTS

Achieved the highest confined temperature of any fusion generator device, over 2 billion degrees, which is sufficient for hydrogen-boron fusion.

Raised a total of $6 million from 90 investors since 2008.

ROADMAP

PHASE I: [What the $1 million is for, fund experiments to prove fusion breakeven with this approach]

Build on progress of past 3 years and continue enhancing LPPFs DPF research device Focus Fusion  1 until it has achieved Fusion Breakeven Milestone.

With adequate funding LPPF projects net fusion output in 12 years. Having proved feasibility, assemble grants and investment capital to fund Phase II.

They need to experiment with the Beryllium electrode.

Beryllium, a very light metal, has long been planned for the next set of electrodes and has strong advantages over other materials. We expect that beryllium electrodes will solve the impurity problem that has been limiting fusion energy yields for years, says LPPF Chief Scientist Eric J. Lerner. The key reason is that the effect of impurity ions on the plasma is proportional to the square of the ions electric charge. Since beryllium has only 4 electric charges (four protons in the nucleus) each beryllium ion has an effect of 16. That is 300 times less than one tungsten ion (used in the current FF-1 electrodes) and 50 times less than one copper ion.

This great reduction in impact on the plasma is expected to greatly lift fusion yield. In addition, the plasma will radiate far less energy, reducing x-ray damage to the anode tip. Finally, beryllium is nearly transparent to most x-rays, further reducing the damage to the anode. This will allow anodes in a future fusion generator to withstand hundreds of millions of fusion pulses before needing replacement.

PHASE II:

Expand staff and facilities and begin engineering development of a prototype continuously operating Focus Fusion generator. Contract out some system development to engineering companies with best in class expertise in necessary technologies. Add to patents/intellectual property. Estimated duration 34 years.

PHASE III:

Negotiate non exclusive licensing agreements with several large international high tech companies to manufacture LPPF design fusion power units. LPPF will provide consulting services to licensees as they refine their commercial designs prior to mass production. At some time in Phase III LPPF expects to engage an investment bank to manage an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
A US tax bill (if one is passed) will more closely resemble the Senate bill because they can only lose two votes and still pass it without Democrat support.

Republicans control 52 votes in the 100-seat Senate, meaning they can only lose two members if they want to pass a bill without Democratic support. A 50-50 tie would go to Republicans, as Vice President Pence would cast the tiebreaking vote.

To use special Senate procedures to get around a filibuster from Democrats, Republicans must write a bill that does not add more than $1.5 trillion to the debt over 10 years.

The Senate tax package would delay cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent until 2019.

The one-year delay would lower the cost of the tax bill by more than $100 billion, and negotiators are trying to preserve as much revenue as they can for other changes.

The Senate bill would prohibit Americans from deducting state and local income and property taxes from their federal bills, a change which could raise taxes overall for Americans in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey, California, and Illinois.

The Senate plan would also keep the mortgage interest deduction largely intact, capped at the current level of $1 million.

The Senate bill will propose to lower tax rates across income levels as a way to lower tax bills for most Americans, Senate Finance Committee aides said.
Uber says that by 2020 they will be testing a few flying cars in Los Angeles and a real commercial flying car service will follow a few years later.

Uber Elevate and UberAir are the names of the service they will launch with Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft . Uber Elevate has already started exploring the barriers well need to overcome to make this a reality. Read our white paper to learn more about the future.

Uber is working with respected aerospace partners at Embraer, Bell Helicopter, Pipistrel, Aurora Flight Sciences, and Mooney Aviation. Experts agree that the technical challenges of building a drone capable of carrying passengers are crackable. New materials facilitate lightweight vehicles. Distributed electric propulsioni.e., putting lots of rotors all over the placemakes vertical take off and landing possible, with less noise and pollution than a helicopter. Advanced computer controls make the vehicles easier to fly, and eventually should make them autonomous.

Uber is proposing point-to-point transport from airpads.

Uber says the full commercial service should be up and running well before the 2028 Olympics arrive in LA.
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The United States loses, according to my estimates, close to $70 billion a year in tax revenue due to the shifting of corporate profits to tax havens. Thats close to 20 percent of the corporate tax revenue that is collected each year. This is legal.

Meanwhile, an estimated $8.7 trillion, 11.5 percent of the entire worlds G.D.P., is held offshore by ultrawealthy households in a handful of tax shelters, and most of it isnt being reported to the relevant tax authorities. This is not so legal.

These figures represent a huge loss of resources that, if collected, could be used to cut taxes on the rest of us, or spent on social programs to help people in our societies.

How do they do it?

For an example, look no further than your search bar. In 2003, a year before it went public, Google (now a multinational conglomerate known as Alphabet) began a series of moves that would allow it to obtain favorable tax treatment in the future.

(now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings bermuda Managed (now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings bermuda Managed (now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings bermuda Managed Google Ireland Limited IRELAND (now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings bermuda Managed Google Ireland Limited IRELAND Google Affiliate Google Affiliate Google Affiliate Africa europe Middle east (now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings bermuda Managed Google Ireland Limited IRELAND IRELAND $$$ Google Affiliate France (now Alphabet) Google Ireland Holdings $$$ bermuda Managed Google Ireland Limited IRELAND IRELAND $$$ Google Affiliate France First, it transferred ownership of intellectual property related to its all-important search and advertising technologies to an entity named Google Ireland Holdings. Why Ireland? Because not only did it have favorable corporate tax rates, its regulations also allowed Google Ireland Holdings to incorporate there but be managed in Bermuda. Google Ireland Holdings then created another Irish subsidiary, Google Ireland Limited, and granted it a license to use the technology now owned by the Irish parent company. Under this arrangement, which as far as we know is still in place, it is Google Ireland Limited that actually licenses the tech of Googles main business to all the Google affiliates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. (Google has a similar offshoot in Singapore that covers business in Asia). Google France, for example, pays royalties to Google Ireland Limited. That entity in turn moves its profits to Bermuda via a royalty payment to the Google Ireland Holdings.

See where this is going? In 2015, $15.5 billion in profits made their way to Google Ireland Holdings in Bermuda even though Google employs only a handful of people there. Its as if each inhabitant of the island nation had made the company $240,000.

The corporate tax rate there?

Zero

In doing this, Google didnt break the law. Corporations like Google are simply shifting profits to places where corporate taxes are low. Its not just Internet companies with valuable intellectual property that do this. A car manufacturer, for instance, might shift profits by manipulating export and import prices  exporting car components from America to Ireland at artificially low prices, and importing them back at prices that are artificially high.

According to the latest available figures, 63 percent of all the profits made outside of the United States by American multinationals are now reported in six low- or zero-tax countries: the Netherlands, Bermuda, Luxembourg, Ireland, Singapore and Switzerland. These countries, but above all the shareholders of these corporations, benefit while others lose.

My colleagues Thomas Torslov and Ludvig Wier and I combined the data published by tax havens all over the world to estimate the scale of these losses. The $70 billion a year in revenue that the United States is deprived of is nearly equal to all of Americas spending on food stamps. The European Union suffers similar losses.

So what can be done?

Thankfully, Ireland has announced it will close the double Irish loophole that Google used, and arrangements that take advantage of that loophole must be terminated by 2020. But similar strategies will be used as long as we let companies choose the location of their profits.

Just look at what Apple did in 2014  its one of the most spectacular revelations from the newly released Paradise Papers. After learning Irish authorities were going to close loopholes it had used, Apple asked a Bermuda-based law firm, Appleby, to design a similar tax shelter on the English Channel island of Jersey, which typically does not tax corporate income. Appleby duly obliged, and Jersey became the new home of the (previously Irish) companies Apple Sales International and Apple Operations International.

A potential fix would be to allocate the taxable profits made by multinationals proportionally to the amount of sales they make in each country.

Say Googles parent company Alphabet makes $100 billion in profits globally, and 50 percent of its sales in the United States (a relatively similar scenario to the first quarter of this year, in which that figure was 48 percent). In that case, $50 billion would be taxable in the United States, irrespective of where Googles intangible assets are or where its workers are employed. A system similar to this already governs state corporate taxes in America.

Such a reform would quash artificial profit-shifting. Corporations may be able to shift around profits, assets, and subsidiaries, but they cannot move all their customers to Bermuda.

This system is not perfect, but its orders of magnitude better than both the laws that now govern the taxation of international profits and the tax package being proposed by congressional Republicans. Under the proposed plan some international profits would be taxed at 10 percent, but there are many likely exemptions.

One advantage of allocating taxable profits as I suggest is that this reform can be adopted unilaterally. There is no need for the United States (or any other nation that wants to cut down on tax avoidance) to obtain permission from anybody.

But wed still face an equally daunting problem, the far more shadowy  and ultimately illegal  tax evasion of ultrawealthy individuals, many of them with net worths already bolstered by the proceeds of corporate tax avoidance. Heres an example.

Meet Michael. Michael is the (fictional) chief executive and owner of an American company, Michael & Company. Like many people, he would like to pay as little in taxes as possible. But unlike most people, he can take some steps that will allow him to do just that.

Michael & Co. America Anonymous Shell Co. Inc. Cayman Islands Michael & Co. America Anonymous Shell Co. Inc. Bank Cyprus Cayman Islands Michael & Co. America Anonymous Shell Co. Inc. Bank Cyprus Cayman Islands Michael & Co. America Anonymous Shell Co. Inc. Bank Cyprus Cayman Islands First, he creates an anonymous shell company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which has lax regulations on disclosing the identities of company owners. He then opens an account under the shell companys name in Cyprus (or one of many other tax havens, such as Switzerland, Hong Kong and Panama, whose banks cater to the wealthy and aren't reliable about cooperating with foreign tax authorities). Finally, Michael & Company buys fictitious services from the Cayman shell company (consulting, for example) ...  and, to pay for these services, wires money to the shell companys Cyprus account.

The transaction generates a paper trail that can appear legitimate at first glance. But the reality is more insidious. By paying for fictitious consulting, Michael fraudulently reduces the taxable profits of Michael & Company, and thus the amount of corporate income tax he pays.

And once the money has arrived in Cyprus, it is invested in global financial markets and generates income that the Internal Revenue Service can tax only if Michael reports it or if his Cypriot bank informs the I.R.S.

Its supposed to, but many offshore banks have routinely violated their obligations in the past, by pretending they didnt have American customers or hiding them behind shell companies. So this way, Michael can evade American federal income tax as well as paying fewer corporate taxes through his company.

And meanwhile, in America, if he wants to use any of the money stashed in Cyprus, he can simply go to an ATM and make a withdrawal from his offshore account.

How do we know all this?

Until recently, we did not have a good sense of who owns the wealth held offshore, but with my colleagues Annette Alstadsaeter and Niels Johannesen, we have been able to make progress thanks to leaks over the last few years. In 2015, the Swiss Leaks revealed the owners of bank accounts at HSBC Switzerland, and in 2016 the Panama Papers revealed those of the shell companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. These showed that 50 percent of the wealth held in tax havens belongs to households with more than $50 million in net wealth, a minuscule number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals who avoid paying their fair share. In the Paradise Papers, we see that these are not only Russian oligarchs or Belgian dentists who use tax havens, but rich Americans too.

As I mentioned above, about 11.5 percent of world G.D.P. is held offshore by households. For a long time, the bulk of it was held in Switzerland, but a fast-growing fraction is now in Hong Kong, Singapore and other emerging havens.

We can stop offshore tax evasion by shining some light on darker corners of the global banking industry. The most compelling way to do this would be to create comprehensive registries recording the true individual owners of real estate and financial securities, including equities, bonds and mutual fund shares.

One common objection to financial registries is that they would impinge on privacy. Yet countries have maintained property records for land and real estate for decades. These records are public, and epidemics of abuse are hard to come by.

The notion that a register of financial wealth would be a radical departure is wrong. And the benefits would be enormous, as comprehensive registries would make it possible to not only reduce tax evasion, but also curb money laundering, monitor international capital flows, fight the financing of terrorism and better measure inequality.
Americas Wildest Place Is Open for Business

The upper Colville River and headwaters on Alaska's North Slope | Joel Sartore

Several years ago a mapping expert pinpointed the most remote place in the Lower 48 states. The spot was in the southeast corner of Yellowstone National Park, 20 miles from the nearest road. Roman Dial read the news and wasnt much impressed. To him, 20 miles  the distance a hungry man could walk in a long day  didnt seem very remote at all.

Mr. Dial is a professor of biology and mathematics at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, and a National Geographic explorer. He decided to figure out the most remote place in the entire nation. His calculations led him to the northwest corner of Alaska, where the continent tilts toward the Arctic Ocean. The spot lay on the Ipnavik River on the North Slope, 119 miles west of the Haul Road (otherwise known as the Dalton Highway), which brings supplies and roughnecks to the oil fields at Prudhoe Bay.

Judged by miles, Mr. Dial reckoned, the place was six times more isolated than that corner in Yellowstone. So he decided to walk there. On the journey he and his companion didnt see anyone else for 24 days.

Their destination lay within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. NPR-A, as it is known, is the single largest parcel of public land in the United States. The reserve sprawls across nearly 23 million acres, which makes it larger than Maine or South Carolina or 10 other states. The reserves eastern border sits about 100 miles to the west of the more famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Separating the two like a thorn between roses lies the industrial sprawl of Prudhoe Bay.

Beaufort Sea National petroleum reserve Bering Strait arctic national wildlife refuge ALASKA ANCHORAGE BETHEL JUNEAU Gulf of Alaska Beaufort Sea National petroleum reserve arctic national wildlife refuge Bering Strait ALASKA Nome ANCHORAGE BETHEL JUNEAU Gulf of Alaska Beaufort Sea National petroleum reserve arctic national wildlife refuge Bering Strait ALASKA Nome ANCHORAGE BETHEL JUNEAU Gulf of Alaska

If the reserve still doesnt ring a bell, youre not alone. Even Google Earth doesnt know it, though the reserve is 10 times the size of Yellowstone. It is the wildest place in America that youve never heard of, as one conservationist recently told me.

Yet the reserve deserves attention, now more than ever. The Trump administration has declared the nations public lands and waters open for business, particularly to oil and gas companies. In its first six months the administration offered more onshore leases to energy companies to drill on public property than the Obama administration did in all of 2016, the secretary of interior, Ryan Zinke, boasted to the conservative Heritage Foundation in late September.

Our goal is an America that is the strongest energy superpower that this world has ever known, he told the group, and added, the road to energy dominance goes through the great state of Alaska.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the North Slope. In April, Mr. Trump signed an executive order aimed at lifting President Barack Obamas closure of federal Arctic waters to drilling, a decision now being challenged in court. Both the administration and the Republican-held Congress are trying yet again to open the Arctic refuge for oil exploration, an effort that provoked a fierce battle a dozen years ago.

A grid of vehicle tracks from geophysical explorations of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management

In May during a visit to Alaska, Mr. Zinke signed an order to jump-start energy production in the petroleum reserve, ordering officials to review the reserves management plan with an eye toward potentially revising it to maximize output. He ordered new estimates of how much oil and gas lay under the ground of both NPR-A and part of the Arctic refuge. Mr. Zinke stood beside the famed Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which now pumps about one-quarter of the oil it did in its heyday in the late 1980s, a reflection of years of declining output. He placed his hand to the pipeline as some place their hands to their hearts, and he pledged to help fill it.

In late October, he started to make good on his pledge, announcing that the largest offering of public lands for lease in the history of the Bureau of Land Management  10.3 million acres  will be up for bid on Dec. 6.

All of this comes as several recent finds on state and federal lands and in the waters of the far north, including potentially the largest oil discoveries in the state in at least two decades, have spurred a surge of interest there. Alaskan Republicans are cheering these efforts, desperate for rescue from a recession caused by the cratering of oil prices. The pressure to drill the top of the world is high.

Though he is chief steward of our public heritage, Mr. Zinke has proved himself more wedded to drill, baby, drill than to educating himself about the public lands he oversees. He seems willfully ignorant of the reality that the National Petroleum Reserve is more than an untapped oil drum waiting for a straw. The western Arctic contains a world, wild and rich and like no place else. It must not be sacrificed.

President Warren Harding created the reserve for the United States Navy in 1923, years after Alaskan Natives first showed oil seeps to Yankee whalers. Over the decades the military and a few companies pricked the ground with exploratory wells. Nothing came of it commercially. As a result the place largely remains much as it was  nearly roadless and all but unpeopled except for the Inupiaq, whose ancestors roamed the region starting at least 13,000 years ago.

Chukchi Sea Beaufort Sea the far north Teshekpuk Lake Kasegaluk Lagoon NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE COLVILLE RIVER UtUkok river uplands the far north Teshekpuk Lake Kasegaluk Lagoon NATIONAL pETROLEUM RESERVE COLVILLE RIVER UtUkok river uplands The reserve is so large that its best understood in pieces. To the south, the towering Brooks Range softens to a vast, rolling plain of tundra flecked with wildflower and cotton grass called the Utukok River Uplands.

To the west, near the Bering Strait, lies Kasegaluk Lagoon, a coastal lagoon protected by barrier islands.

In the far north, hard by the Arctic Ocean, the land grows as flat and as soggy as a sponge.

Defining the southeast border is the Colville River.

In the far northeast is the shallow Teshekpuk Lake, larger in area than Lake Tahoe.

Each region supports a distinct ecosystem. The Utukok River Uplands are about four times bigger than the largest grassland in the continental United States, according to Debbie S. Miller, who spent four summers in the reserve for her book On Arctic Ground. She calls it our Serengeti, pulsing with the migration of the 200,000-strong western Arctic caribou herd, and the bears and wolves that follow them.

Peregrine falcons, gyrfalcons, golden eagles and rough-legged hawks perch like hood ornaments on the bluffs of the Colville River, which scientists say is one of the most important raptor nesting areas in the world.

As co-owner of the guiding outfit Arctic Wild, Michael Wald has paddled the Colville and many other rivers in NPR-A. He adores the reserve. Its the last place you can go and hide from the 21st century, Mr. Wald said.

The Kasegaluk Lagoon is home to thousands of beluga whales, spotted seals and polar bears. Walruses gather in huge rookeries on Kasegaluks beaches as ice floes, their preferred resting and feeding places, melt away, making these shores a key substitute as climate change upends their world.

In the far north lies one of the largest complex of wetlands in all of the Arctic  an expanse of ponds, streams and marshes larger than Delaware. The centerpiece is the shallow Teshekpuk Lake, larger in area than Lake Tahoe.

Teshekpuk and the area surrounding it is vital to a rich array of birds that journey there from around the world  from ducks and geese to shorebirds, gulls and jaegers, according to a 2013 study in the journal Conservation Biology. Every spring at least 29 species of shorebirds  perhaps six million of them  land there from other continents to breed, nest and raise their young. Its an international nursery, at the edge of the continent.

DUNLIN Red Phalarope Rapid development in East Asia has caused a decline in dunlins that also breed in the NPR-A. Experts speculate this species is declining because of increases in the red fox population. Spectacled Eider The eider is one of just two species from the NPR-A that is listed under the Endangered Species Act. Black Brant Yellow-billed loon Since the 1970s, the NPR-A population has increased because of coastal flooding. The NPR-A has the highest concentration of this loon in Alaska. Illustrations based on photos from the U.S. Geological Survey. llustration of spectacled eider based on photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket from Getty Images. Birds not to scale. DUNLIN Rapid development in East Asia has caused a decline in dunlins that also breed in the NPR-A. Black Brant Since the 1970s, the NPR-A population has increased because of coastal flooding. Spectacled Eider The eider is one of just two species from the NPR-A that is listed under the Endangered Species Act. Red Phalarope Experts speculate this species is declining because of increases in the red fox population. Yellow-billed loon The NPR-A has the highest concentration of this loon in Alaska. Illustrations based on photos from the U.S. Geological Survey. llustration of spectacled eider based on photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket from Getty Images. Birds not to scale.

Exotic returnees include the Arctic tern that can shuttle to and from Antarctica, and another visitor, the bar-tailed godwit, which after pausing to fatten up still more on the Yukon Delta, will fly without pause to New Zealand, a journey of more than 7,000 miles, the longest-known nonstop over-water migration.

CANADA Bird Migration From the NPR-A U.S. Bird locations, each month MEXICO Bird Migration From the NPR-A U.S. Bird locations, each month CANADA Bird Migration from the NPR-A U.S.A. Bird locations, each month MEXICO

Teshekpuk also nourishes the winged flashes of color that brighten our daily lives in the Lower 48: The swan seen on a Maryland lake. The duck pursued by a hunter in Texas. The Lapland longspur that spends the harsh winter picking through the cutover wheat fields of Kansas. Birds from all four major American flyways converge here, and the central Pacific and East Asian-Australasian flyways, too.

While the Arctic refuge is deservedly famous, researchers in that 2013 study found that when it came to all the species of aquatic birds they were looking for, they found more of them, packed more densely, along the coast of the petroleum reserve, the place that almost no one knows.

Snow geese migrate along the coastal flats of the western Arctic. Florian Schulz/Visions of the Wild, from On Arctic Ground, 2012

In 2013, President Obamas secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, signed off on a sweeping management plan that earmarked 11.8 million acres, 52 percent of the petroleum reserve, for potential oil and gas development. That land was thought to hold 72 percent of the recoverable oil, according to estimates at the time.

The plan also set aside five special areas for wildlife and other values in the rest of the reserve, in areas that included the Utukok River Uplands, the Colville River and Teshekpuk Lake. Not every acre of these special areas is off limits to oil and gas leasing nor immune to the construction of the pipelines, gravel roads and ice roads in winter needed for resource extraction.

Even so, this hard-fought compromise won wide support from sportsmen, Native villages and major environmental groups. It had taken three years to hammer out. Amazingly, no one sued over the final result. It did a good job of zoning this big place, said Melanie Smith, director of conservation science for Audubon Alaska.

Land Up for Lease Tracts available for lease Already leased Currently unavailable detail Particularly high potential for oil Teshekpuk Lake LAND AVAILABLE FOR LEASE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR LEASE Land Up for Lease Tracts available for lease Already leased Currently unavailable detail Particularly high potential for oil Teshekpuk Lake LAND AVAILABLE FOR LEASE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR LEASE Land Up for Lease Tracts available for lease Already leased Currently unavailable Particularly high potential for oil LAND AVAILABLE FOR LEASE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE FOR LEASE

More than 40 years ago, Congress had recognized that the reserve had more of value than simply oil. The 1976 Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act gave the Department of the Interior a novel mandate to explore the energy resources in a manner which will assure the maximum protection of surface values such as wildlife, subsistence hunting and recreation. Congress even mentions Utukok and Teshekpuk.

The 2013 plan strikes the balance that Congress wanted. While the plan isnt perfect, it mostly works. Wildlife gets protection, while oil companies get annual lease sales in the reserve (1.8 million acres during the Obama administration, the B.L.M. says, hardly an Obama administration lockup of public lands that Mr. Zinke has suggested). In late 2015, ConocoPhillips drew the first commercial oil from Native land within the reserve. The company is already at work on several other projects there.

Now, however, this hard-won compromise is in jeopardy. With big oil finds happening just outside the reserve, and tantalizing new ones within it, state officials want the reserve open wider.

First, Mr. Zinke announced on Oct. 25 that every available tract under the 2013 plan would be up for lease, at once. This is unprecedented, both in scale and approach, said Nicole Whittington-Evans, the Alaska regional director for the Wilderness Society.

In the past, the B.L.M. has offered leases based on industry interest, she said. This is not based on industry interest, its based on a wholesale approach to selling off whatever they can in the NPR-A.

The next step, many now fear, will be to scrap the 2013 plan entirely. Were viewing this as Step 1, she said of the lease sale.

Indeed, in August, the B.L.M. invited oil companies and the public to nominate parcels they would like to see put up for bid in a future sale. Included on the map were parcels throughout the special areas that are now off limits to drilling. Stacie McIntosh, the B.L.M.s Arctic district manager, said the announcement was intended to gauge future interest, and that there could be no lease sales there until after thorough environmental review.

But the writing is on the wall.

Caribou on their westward migration in the Utukok Uplands area. Florian Schulz/Visions of the Wild, from On Arctic Ground, 2012

One area now off limits but posted in August for lease is a piece of soggy ground north and east of Teshekpuk Lake. Government geologists think this general zone is particularly rich in oil. Its also some of the best bird habitat on the planet. Though the area covers just 18 percent of the reserve, it is home to more than 40 percent of all the aquatic birds that visit the North Slope, government scientists reported in the 2013 study.

Florian Schulz/Visions of the Wild

North of the lake is also a protected calving area for the 41,000-animal Teshekpuk caribou herd. Caribou return time and again to the same calving grounds, where they remain for a few weeks as females give birth, Ms. McIntosh said.

The herd then moves around the lake as the caribou seek ocean breezes to gain relief from the murderous Arctic mosquitoes and botflies, and later to migrate.

If industry is allowed to enter into some of these very sensitive habitat areas, it would change these areas permanently, said Ms. Whittington-Evans. Roads, pipelines and drill rigs would all fragment the habitat.

These lines show caribou herd movements The Teshekpuk herd encircles the lake during calving season Arctic Ocean Beaufort Sea Teshekpuk Lake ALASKA High Oil Potential Region NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE Chukchi Sea These lines show caribou herd movements The Teshekpuk herd encircles the lake during calving season ALASKA Teshekpuk Lake High Oil Potential Region Arctic Ocean NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE These lines show caribou herd movements The Teshekpuk herd encircles the lake during calving season ALASKA Arctic Ocean Teshekpuk Lake High Oil Potential Region NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE Chukchi Sea These lines show caribou herd movements ALASKA The Teshekpuk herd encircles the lake during calving season Teshekpuk Lake High Oil Potential Region NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE These lines show caribou herd movements ALASKA The Teshekpuk herd encircles the lake during calving season Teshekpuk Lake High Oil Potential Region NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE

The Inupiaq people live here, too, including subsistence hunters who rely on the caribou and harvest up to 4,000 annually. We strongly urge B.L.M. to maintain the leasing prohibitions, Vern Cleveland Sr., the chairman of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group, wrote the B.L.M. in September. The group represents subsistence hunters, hunting guides and conservationists, among others.

The push by Mr. Zinke to open up still more country seems all the more hawkish given that drilling has scarcely begun on existing leases in the reserve. To fully develop the lands currently available for lease will take decades, Ms. Smith of Audubon Alaska said. To take such risks to meet total American oil needs for a few months, based on the available estimates of what may be in the ground, seems madness.

Or willful blindness. Or greed. The history of America is the chronicle of a grasping people. We take, and we take still more. What has redeemed us, in part anyway, is that we aspire to be better than who we are.

The western Arctic presents us the choice again of who we want to be. Do we possess the generosity of imagination to gently handle a place still mostly untouched and pristine, one almost no one has have ever heard of, and even fewer of us will ever visit? For once, can we restrain ourselves to half?
5 militants arrested from Meghalaya

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Backed by the Meghalaya police, an Assam Police team arrested five militants. The 5 include a self-styled commander along with a cadre of the outlawed Tiwa Liberation Army (TLA) and three rebels of Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA.)

The 5 were arrested from the Salang area of Meghalaya in late on Wednesday night.

Motilal Deora, the self-styled 'Commander' of the TLA, had allegedly issued an extortion note to Paban Manta, Chief Executive Member of the Tiwa Autonomous Council demanding Rs 50 lakh.

"A hunt was launched for the militants based on the FIR lodged by the Chief Executive member" stated Swapnanil Deka, Superintendent of Police, Morigaon, Assam.

Acting on a tip-off, the Assam police team backed by a police team from Meghalaya raided the Salang area of Meghalaya where the militants were camping. It is believed that they were undergoing arms training in the camp.

The five arrested were identified Motilal Deori, TLA cadre Sourav Deka along with Meghalaya based GNLA militants Khasang A Marak, Smart A Marak and Arween A Marak. Arween is believed to be acting as linkman.

OneIndia News
Parliament House can't be used for strikes, fast anymore

7th Pay Commission: Benefits for Arunachal college, varsity teachers announced

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu announced to extend the benefits of 7th Pay Commission to the teachers of colleges and universities. Mr. Khandu, while inaugurating a programme at Dera Natung Government College here, said the matter will be examined by the education department and implemented at the earliest.

Noting that faculty shortage was a common problem in several government colleges, he said, the state has created 130 new posts for teaching and non-teaching staff in 29 higher education institutes.

"The state government is putting emphasis on quality education and every effort will be made to address manpower shortage and infrastructure-related problems," the chief minister said.

Mr. Khandu also assured to sanction funds for building a boundary wall around the college campus and installing a transformer for power cuts.

He congratulated the editorial board members of a college research journal, which was released on the occasion.

In his advice to the students, the chief minister asked them to make good use of social media and participate in social welfare activities.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 9:00 [IST]
Highest projected salary

The highest projected salary rise is seen in the energy, FMCG and retail sectors. "Salaries in India are projected to rise 10 per cent in 2018, same as the actual increase in 2017," according to the 'Q3 2017 Salary Budget Planning Report' released by global advisory, broking and solutions company Willis Towers Watson. The report covered a range of industries, including BPO, chemicals, construction & engineering, consumer products & retail, financial services, high tech, manufacturing, media, pharmaceutical & health sciences, business and technical consulting and transportation and logistics.

Survey conducted

For this, a survey was conducted in July among 4,000 respondents in Asia Pacific, in which about 300 companies participated in the India market. Although salaries in India are seeing a decreasing pattern in the year-on-year salary increases, the country's projected salaries for 2018 is still the highest in the Asia Pacific region, the report said. Among other countries, Indonesia is projected to record 8.5 per cent growth, China 7 per cent, The Philippines 6 per cent and Hong Kong and Singapore both 4 per cent, it added.

India continues to show salary increments

"India continues to show high salary increments compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific region. However, given the decreasing pattern in the year-on-year salary growth, Indian employees could see a single digit salary increase in 2018 for the first time since 2011," Willis Towers Watson Data Services Practice Leader, Asia Pacific, Sambhav Rakyan said. He said given this trend and the rapid evolution of jobs, skill and the future of work, especially for tech-savvy talent, companies are required to rethink their talent attraction and retention strategies and realise that simply increasing compensation is not a sustainable solution.

"We are also seeing that progressive employers are beginning to leverage employee benefits as a strong lever in differentiating their employee value proposition and ensuring greater transparency in compensation and benefits related communication," he added. Salary allocation for top performers in 2017 grew to 39 per cent, up from last year's 38 per cent, Rakyan said. On the other hand, the budget set aside for average performance decreased by 1 per cent to 27 per cent, he added. These changes are marginal, but as salary budgets get tighter, it still reflects the sentiment of employers to reward top performers, Willis Towers Watson India Director, Rewards, Arvind Usretay said.

"Therefore, now we see more companies relying on robust processes, governance and training at driving linkages between performance and pay. We expect this trend to gather greater momentum in the next couple of years as companies sharpen their pay for performance policies," he added.

Who benefits

Among the industries covered in the report, the highest projected salary increase is seen in the energy, FMCG and retail sectors. At 10.5 per cent, these sectors are expected to do better than the overall projected salary of 10 per cent. While at 9.1 per cent, the financial services is the only sector where the projected salary is less than the overall estimated rise, the report added. "Given the labour arbitrage advantage, segments such as back office operations based out of India can be expected to offer above average increases."Start-ups and smaller MNCs are also likely to offer above average salary increases to attract and retain critical skill employees," Rakyan added. This should bring some cheer to the Central Government employees who have been waiting for good news after the 7th Pay Commission let them down badly.
As BJP, Congress, AAP engage in blame game, politics adds more pollution to Delhi

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, Nov 10: What is more toxic--Delhi air or politics over Delhi pollution? It's difficult to answer the question as both politics and environment have turned too poisonous.

At a time when the national capital is facing a "public health emergency situation" due to severe air pollution level, our politicians instead of joining hands to tackle the situation are busy engaging in blame game.

From the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the Congress, leaders of all these political parties are either maintaining a stoic silence over the worrisome environmental crisis or are busy blaming the other person for the current layer of smog engulfing the national capital for the last few days.

On Thursday, the AAP, Delhi's ruling party, decided to target the Narendra Modi government for keeping "mum" over the alarming level of air pollution in the national capital and said that its government was ready to work with neighbouring states to combat the problem.

The AAP did not stop at that. Hitting out at Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan, who was away to attend the United Nations (UN) Climate Summit in Germany, AAP's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai said the minister is "missing" in the hours of crisis.

"Why is the Centre mum over this problem? The BJP and Congress are projecting the crisis in a way that the Delhi government is doing nothing. We appeal to both these parties that Delhi government wants to work keeping all its political differences aside," Rai said.

Now, here is what the Congress has to say about Delhi air pollution.

Since the grand old party is out of power both in Delhi and at the Centre, except for its government in neighbouring Punjab, decided to attack both the BJP and the AAP.

On Thursday, the Congress accused the Centre and the Delhi government of failing to take effective steps to check the high pollution level in the city and asked how they intended to combat the situation in the long-run.

"The central and Delhi governments are responsible for the pollution (levels) in Delhi. They cannot shy away from their responsibilities by blaming farmers," Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters.

Referring to Prime Minister Modi's remark that India is committed to Paris Climate Change Accord, Surjewala asked if "he could see the change in climate in the national capital".

As earlier Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had blamed the thick, deadly smog covering the capital mainly on stubble burning in neighbouring states, his Punjab counterpart Amarinder Singh on Thursday angrily reacted to the AAP convener's allegation.

"Mr Kejriwal is a very peculiar person...he has his own viewpoints on everything without understanding the situation," Singh said.

"If I have got 20 million tonnes of paddy straw, if I ask the farmer to store this, farms will be covered with the paddy straw. Mr Kejriwal doesn't understand this problem," added the Punjab CM.

However, unlike his party colleague Rai who had blamed the Centre for the situation, good sense prevailed when Kejriwal asked Punjab (ruled by the Congress) and Haryana (ruled by the BJP) governments to rise above politics and help evolve a solution to Delhi's air quality emergency.

Stubble burning in neighbouring states of Delhi during the winter season is one of the major causes of alarming rise in pollution level in the national capital. However, experts maintain that stubble burning is not the only cause of air pollution but is an addition to the already frightening scenario.

"All of us (North Indian states) will have to keep politics aside and work together to tackle this huge problem of pollution," Kejriwal said.

In fact, the Delhi CM has been requesting his Haryana and Punjab counterparts to sit together to discuss Delhi's apocalyptic scenario. But Singh disagrees with Kejriwal and wants a meeting of the PM with the CMs of all affected states.

"Have requested PM to convene meeting of Chief Ministers of affected states along with union ministers... Just my meeting with Delhi CM resolves nothing," Singh said.

When Delhi is in a state of coma as thick smog has choked the skyline of the city, our politicians can't even arrive at an understanding over a simple act of arranging a meeting and discussing the problem.

While no senior BJP leader has mouthed any venom over the pollution issue, the silence of the PM is more suffocating as he is yet to say a single word about the crisis.

Targetting the PM over his silence on the grave matter, his party colleague and Bihar BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha tweeted, "Humble appeal to our one-man show & two man army...what are we doing about the deadly pollution crisis? Why have we not spelt out our short term & long term measures? Why not top priority to tackle this poisonous killer?"

Humble appeal to our one man show & two man army...what are we doing about the deadly pollution crisis? Why have we not spelt out our short term & long term measures? Why not top priority to tackle this poisonous killer? 1>2  Shatrughan Sinha (@ShatruganSinha) November 9, 2017

The environment minister attempted to brush aside the concern over the pollution issue by stating that air quality levels in the national capital will come back to normal within the "next few days" and that pollution levels had dropped considerably over the last 24 hours.

His cabinet colleague Nitin Gadkari said, "Automobiles, industries and construction work continues round the year, so, why is it that such a situation has occurred now? The reason behind this should be researched for thoroughly to find a solution."

If only our politicians had realised that the "gas chamber" Delhi might explode anytime soon, they won't have possibly acted so irresponsibly by bringing politics into pollution.

OneIndia News
Bharat Ratna for Field Marshal Cariappa: 'Onus is on government', says Army Chief

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Days after the Army Chief called for Bharat Ratna to Field Marshal KM Cariappa, General Bipin Rawat has said that the final decision in this regard rests with the government.

He added, "Whatever is decided will be acceptable."

When asked about the situation in Kashmir, General Rawat said that stone pelting incident have come down.

"Stone pelting incidents have come down to some extent. Army, BSF, CRPF, Jammu and Kashmir Police are working together in the state," he told the media on Friday.

General Bipin Rawat had on November 4 said it's time to recommend Field Marshal Cariappa for the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India.

Cariappa was the first Indian commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the Indian Army. He led Indian forces on the Western Front during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. He is one of only two Indian Army officers to hold the five-star rank of field marshal. The other being Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the Indian Army in 1949.

[Field Marshal KM Cariappa deserves Bharat Ratna: General Rawat]

His distinguished military career spanned almost three decades. He was the first Indian military officer to attend the Staff College, Quetta, the first Indian to command a battalion, and was also one of the first two Indians selected to undergo training at the Imperial Defence College, Camberley, UK. He served in various staff capacities at various unit and command headquarters (HQ) and also at the General HQ, New Delhi. Before taking over as the C-in-C of the Indian Army, Cariappa served as the commander of the Indian Army's Eastern and Western Commands.

OneIndia News
Cabinet approves amending DTAA with Kyrgyzstan

India

oi-Madhuri

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval for the protocol amending the Agreement between India and Kyrgyz Republic for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.

The Protocol amending Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) aims to update Article 26 (Exchange of Information) of the DTAA to international standards.

Cabinet also approved creation of National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained testing organization to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.

Cabinet noded for the Development of Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre, Dwarka (New Delhi) and allied infrastructure, to be completed by year 2025.

Cabinet gave approval to utilize part of stock of pulses in Central buffer, for meeting the protein component under various Central Government schemes that provide nutrition to various target groups.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 18:36 [IST]
Delhi air pollution: Hospitals asked to take steps to deal with rising number of patients

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Nov 10: The health ministry directed all the central government-run hospitals to take measures to deal with the increasing number of patients in the wake of a severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who reviewed the situation today, also directed the hospitals to stock nebulizers and other related equipment in a good condition and be ready to meet any exigency. The national capital remained in the throes of a pollution emergency.

The thick smog has prompted the city government to declare a return of the odd-even scheme from November 13 (Monday). "J P Nadda directed the officials and heads of all central government hospitals to keep a close watch on the situation," an official statement said.

At a meeting with Nadda, experts said the number of cases being reported with breathing troubles and respiratory diseases was varying every day. The statement said the recent increase in the air pollution levels in Delhi-NCR and the surrounding areas had become "a cause of concern". It added that the health ministry had continuously been monitoring the situation.

The ministry had also issued a health advisory earlier. Additional secretary of the ministry Sanjeev Kumar had held a meeting with the representatives of all the central government hospitals, including Safdarjung Hospital, RML Hospital, LHMC and associated hospitals and AIIMS, New Delhi, yesterday.

According to the health experts, the higher air pollution levels may result in an increase in the burden of diseases -- from stroke, heart ailments, lung cancer and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.

In the short run, the higher air pollution levels might result in an increase in the severity of the symptoms of respiratory diseases, the experts said. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had yesterday recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 486, on a scale of 500, in the national capital. The AQI of neighbouring Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon were also in the emergency category till yesterday.

PTI
'Poor' no more: 'Moderate' Delhi air to improve further with strong winds

Delhi smog: Fitness enthusiasts remain undeterred

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Recommended Video

Delhi Air Pollution : Fitness enthusiasts remained undeterred by thick smog | Oneindia News

The fitness enthusiasts remained undeterred by thick smog which has engulfed Delhi and continued their exercise routine in Rajpath area. Almost all of them could be seen wearing masks.

Exposure to smog can be severely harmful to the health of the exposed as it can cause/aggravate health conditions such as chest infections, asthma, cold and eye irritation.

On Friday morning, Delhi woke up to yet another foggy morning with extremely poor visibility levels. The Air Quality Index across the city remained in the "hazardous" category. In Mandir Marg it was 515, in Punjabi Bagh it stood at 802, Anand Vihar was at 571 while in Dwarka it was 420.

Fitness enthusiasts at Rajpath An analysis of the Central Pollution Control Board's AQI bulletin archives has shown that air quality has become worse across the northern-Gangetic region in places such as Lucknow, Agra, Kanpur and Muzzafarpur, reported The Indian Express. (Image credit - ANI/Twitter) India Gate The National Green Tribunal (NGT) pulled up Delhi Government and civic authorities for failing to take measures to control air pollution in smog-covered Delhi. The NGT directed that industrial activities should not be carried on in Delhi till the next hearing and asked the government to depute an officer to monitor the polluting activities. (Image credit - ANI/Twitter) Extremely poor visibility in the capital The Arvind Kejriwal government on Thursday announced the return of the odd-even plan from November 13 to 17 as air quality in the Capital worsened for the third straight day. (Image credit - ANI/Twitter) Lodhi Road Crop burning in the neighbouring states is said to be the main culprit. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has requested the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana to put an end to crop burning. Hitting back at Arvind Kejriwal for pointing fingers at the neighbouring states for pollution in the national capital, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said that his Delhi counterpart does not understand the problem. (Image credit - ANI/Twitter)

Kejriwal had earlier said that people and the Government of Delhi are ready to take all steps but these steps will not be enough until a solution to the crop stubble burning is found.

The odd-even car rationing scheme will be enforced in Delhi for a five-day period from November 13, city Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said on Thursday.

Under the Odd-Even formula, vehicles with the registration number ending with an even number are allowed on roads on an even date while those ending in an odd number are allowed on odd dates. The scheme was enforced in Delhi twice in 2016.

OneIndia News
Delhi smog: Moily calls for Centre-state dialogue

India

pti-PTI

Hyderabad, Nov 10: With Delhi and neighbouring areas reeling under smog, former union minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday called for an immediate dialogue among the Centre, Delhi and the neighbouring state governments.

The senior Congress leader termed the alarming rise in air pollution as a fallout of "financial and administrative problem".

"It can be tackled if they put their mind on it, instead of getting into the blame game," the former Karnataka Chief Minister told PTI.

The accumulation of waste and its disposal by burning is the main reason for the poor air quality, Moily said adding that "lot of funds" need to be allocated to address the issue by giving it "highest priority".

"Mere rhetoric and sloganeering is not going to serve the purpose," he said.

The former Union Environment Minister said the main responsibility to address the issue lies with the Delhi government.

"They need to do it. The Centre is also part of it, (but) there is no eye-to-eye meeting between the central and the state government," he said.

"At least some hours the prime minister of the country should allot for (to address) such (a problem). In the capital where he is living, these problems are happening. Has he called for one meeting at his level?...Forget, even at the level of Environment Minister?, I don't think. I think this is the failure of governance on the part of the Government of India as also the state (Delhi) government".

He said farm residue burning (in north India) is one of the factors (contributing to poor air quality), but that's not the sole factor. It also needs to be tackled.

"War footing method should be adopted to dispose of the waste. Waste they burn within here (Delhi) also. And that has to be stopped forever. We have to pump in lot of money for that," Moily said.

"The state government has no funds; central government has to allocate immediate funds. And first there should be a proper dialogue between the Central government and state government, then inter-states dialogue, with Haryana in particular. They need to do it and address it immediately on war footing, (but) there is no sense of war footing (urgency on their part to address the issue)," he said.

In Delhi, pollutants touched calamitous levels as a thick grey smog hung low across the region over the past few days, prompting the authorities to declare schools shut till Sunday, halt construction activities and ban the entry of trucks into the city.

PTI
Karnataka government puts on hold decision to drop chapter on Tipu Sultan from class 7 textbooks

Morphed image of Chhatrapati Shivaji being shared as that of Tipu Sultan

Focus on good deeds of Tipu Sultan: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

In a statement which is likely to incur the wrath of right-wing political parties, Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar urged people to focus on good deeds of Tipu Sultan.

The spiritual guru told a private TV channel that, "Every leader did something right and something wrong. Learn something from the leader and focus on his good deeds."

The BJP, some right-wing groups and the members of Kodava community are opposing the celebrations alleging that Tipu was a religious "bigot" who had massacred many people and forced them to embrace Islam.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tweeted in honour of Tipu Sultan Jayanti. He tweeted, "Honouring India's first freedom fighter and the Tiger of Mysore for his bravery and sacrifice in fighting the British. Karnataka salutes his patriotism, courage and military excellence."

No procession will be allowed in the city that is related to Tipu Jayanti, except for the one organised by the state government, according to police.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar said, "We are not giving permission to any profession, whether it is in favour of Tipu Jayanti or against it. The government itself is celebrating the event in various parts of the city for which we have made elaborate arrangements."

Tipu Jayanti celebrations Bengaluru Members of Tipu Sultan United Front gather outside Bengaluru's Tipu Sultan Palace on Friday. Courtesy: ANI news Young Tipu near Tipu Sultan place A young boy dressed up as Tipu Sultan took part in Tipu Jayanti celebrations near the palace in Bengaluru. Courtesy: @ArunDev1 Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah's floral tribute to Tipu Sultan Last year, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah paid respects to Tipu Sultan in the presence of ministers R Roshan Baig and K J George during the inauguration of the Hazrat Tipu Jayanthi in Bengaluru. PTI file photo #Tipujayanti in #Bengaluru #Tipusultan pic.twitter.com/SkTmVu9VqA  Chennabasaveshwar (@channuOneIndia) November 10, 2017 Watch the celebration near palace Bengaluru has come under a thick security blanket on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the 18th-century ruler of the Mysore Kingdom. Thirty Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) platoons and 25 armed platoons, besides policemen and officers of city police, are deployed.

OneIndia News
No decision yet on joining BJP or AAP, says Hardik; hails saffron party over Ayodhya issue, Article 370

Is Hardik Patel joining BJP today? This is what he says

Gujarat elections: Congress gives Hardik Patel three options

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Recommended Video

Gujarat Assembly elections: Kapil Sibal meets Hardik Patel in a late night meeting | Oneindia News

In a late night meeting, the Congress gave Hardik Patel three options ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections 2017. The members of the Patel led Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) said that they would seek a legal opinion before taking a final call.

The options were conveyed to the PAAS members by senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal at the meeting which took place at 11:30 pm and ended at about 2 am.

"We have been given three options by the Congress party on how to provide reservation to our community in educational institutions and government jobs," PAAS convener Dinesh Bambhania said after the meeting.

He, however, did not divulge the details of the options.

"The options that have been given will be kept confidential till we discuss it with Hardik, social leaders of the community, legal experts and then it would be kept before our community. If the community accepts the demand, we will convey it accordingly to the Congress party," Bambhania said.

He said, "The Congress proposal has not touched 49 per cent reservations for SC, ST and OBC which exists in the state. The options that have been given are over and above it."

The PAAS convener said the meeting took place in a "very cordial atmosphere".

"We have rejected the Congress' reservation offer under the Economically Backward Class as it is not constitutionally valid," Bambhania said.

Sibal, after the meeting, told a press conference that "today's meeting between Congress leaders and PAAS has brought hope that something can be worked out."

"We have discussed all the aspects and will do all the things (to provide reservation to the Patidar community) as per the constitution," the Congress leader said.

He said they would again meet in the next two-three days.

"We expect that the matter will become clear in two to three days," he added.

The PAAS members met Sibal to discuss modalities of providing reservation to Patidars if voted to power in the upcoming Assembly polls in Gujarat.

The meeting was scheduled at 9 pm but Sibal reached the venue late. Hardik, the Patidar quota agitation spearhead, who had earlier set a condition that he would support the Congress in the Assembly election, due next month, only if the party committed itself to allotting reservation in education and government jobs to his community, was not present in the meeting.

He had set November 7 as the deadline for the Congress to make its stand clear on the issue.

The polling for the two-phase elections in the state will take place on December 9 and 14 and votes will be counted on December 18.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 8:38 [IST]
Cong for Muslims, BJP for Hindus: Did Rahuls temple visits in Guj help to bust the myth?

Gujarat polls: Rahul fires corruption salvo at Modi over SEBIs penalty order against Rupani

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, Nov 10: Just a few weeks before the Gujarat Assembly Elections 2017, the opposition Congress got fresh ammunition to target the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) imposed penalties on 22 entities, including Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), for "manipulative trading".

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his commitment to fight against corruption.

Rahul tweeted in Hindi, "Na Khaoonga, na khane doonga ki kahani; Shah-zada, Shaurya aur ab Vijay Rupani (the tale of not allowing corruption; Shah-zada, Shaurya and now Vijay Rupani)," Gandhi tweeted.

 ,     

-,      https://t.co/OGHtSurQ5K  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) November 9, 2017

Rahul was referring to Modi's promise of not allowing corruption under his watch. Referring to allegations against BJP chief Amit Shah's son Jay Shah and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's son Shaurya Doval, Rahul said the case involving Rupani's entity belonged to the series of irregularities. Both Jay and Shaurya have denied the allegations against them.

In fact, the Congress on Thursday demanded removal of Gujarat CM over the SEBI slapping fine on his firm for alleged manipulative share trade.

Gujarat is going to poll in two phases on December 9 and December 14.

Another Congress leader, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, accused Modi of being tight-lipped on the issue involving Rupani. He asked the PM to come clear whether the BJP would face the coming Gujarat Assembly polls under a CM fined by the capital market regulator.

Speaking to reporters, Singh said, "The people who talk about zero tolerance against corruption should show zero tolerance in this case. We demand Rupani's resignation. If he doesn't, the PM should sack him."

According to media reports, the SEBI charged 22 entities, including Rupani's Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), for "manipulative trade" in a little-known company, Saran Chemicals. The HUF has been asked to cough up Rs 15 lakh.

The Securities Appellate Tribunal's (SAT) order published on its website on Thursday, however, said that the SEBI will pass a fresh order in the case of alleged manipulative share trade involving Rupani's HUF and 21 others.

In its order, the SAT said "SEBI shall pass fresh order after giving an opportunity of hearing to all the parties".

The tribunal has "set aside" the penalty order, dated October 27, after hearing an appeal filed by Akash Harishbhai Desai, one of the 22 entities penalised by the regulator for alleged manipulative trading in the shares of Saran Chemicals Limited during the January-June 2011 period.

Rupani, too, on Thursday defended himself against the charge of manipulative trading and asserted that the SEBI order had been overruled by the appellate tribunal and he had committed no financial irregularities.

Soon after the SAT order was made public, Rupani tweeted, "After six years one officer of SEBI passed an order against 22 persons imposing penalty without even hearing anyone, including Vijay Rupani HUF".

"In 2011, the share broker of Vijay Rupani HUF had carried out only one transaction which is a minuscule part of the total transactions done by several unconnected entities," he said in another tweet.

He also posted a copy of the SAT order on his Twitter page and said one such person against whom the ex parte order was passed approached the tribunal by filing an appeal.

"Having found that none of the persons against whom the SEBI officer has passed an order was even heard, the tribunal has quashed and set aside the said order," he tweeted.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 11:30 [IST]
Stage 4 of pollution action plan: Here's what will be affected in Delhi

'Severe' yet again: Delhi air continues to remain toxic with AQI at 431

High pollution in NCR likely to hit tourism prospects

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, November 10: Assocham said on Friday said the alarming level of pollution in Delhi-NCR may hit tourism in the region as November and December are the peak months for foreign travellers to visit India and majority of them opt for the Golden Triangle tourist circuit -- Delhi, Agra and Jaipur.

The industry chamber interacted with 350 tour operators and based its findings on their feedback.

"International tourists are quite particular about their health and safety and with such negative developments Delhi is bound to drop off from the map of international tourists who will pick 'cleaner' South Asian destinations.

"Even domestic tourists are avoiding Delhi. In comparison, international tourists are more sensitive about green tourism," said the industry body.

It said the feedback from tour operators and hoteliers clearly points out a deep concern over the negative impact pollution can cause to the economy.

"Along with tourism, transportation linked to the sector would also take a hit if investment and tourists traffic gets a setback. The transportation is one of the key contributors to the national economy in the services sector. Transportation and tourism are highly employment-oriented and jobs may be a casualty of the pollution," said Assocham.

However, the chamber noted that currently, no major cancellation has been recorded as money is paid in advance.

During the peak tourist season, foreigners who are still in the planning stage, will become sceptical about visiting Delhi, said Assocham.

PTI
Places of Worship Act: SC gives more time to Centre to file affidavit by Dec 12

High voltage drama in Supreme Court as CJI takes charge of medical scam case

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There was plenty of drama in the Supreme Court which is hearing the medical scam matter. In an unprecedented development, the Chief Justice of India constituted a five judge Bench to hear the case.

In doing so, the CJI overturned the ordered of a two judge Bench which had listed the matter before a five judge Bench earlier. The CJI held that the decision by the two judge bench is contrary to the law and annulled it.

It may be recalled that a two judge Bench headed by Justice Chelameswar had set up a five judge Bench to hear a petition in which an allegation of judge-middlemen nexus to favour medical colleges to admit students was made.

However another two judge Bench headed by Justice A K Sikri on Friday referred a similar petition to the CJI for listing before an appropriate Bench. The CJI said that he alone could constitute the Bench. The CJI is the master of the administrative side for listing cases and hence he alone can constitute such a Bench, Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra observed.

Appearing for the petitioner, Prashant Bhushan questioned the latest order. He said such an order could not be passed as the medical scam case contained the name of the CJI. The Bench however shot back and asked, " can anyone file an FIR against the CJI?"

Bhushan and advocate Kamini Jaiswal however did not get support. They were outnumbered and out voiced by a battery of advocates who sought initiation of contempt proceedings. The lawyers wanted contempt proceedings initiated against Dushyant Dave, Bhushan and Jaiswal.

Bhushan walked out of the court hall amidst the chaos. Jaiswal however stayed on as the Bench passed the verdict.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 17:12 [IST]
ITR Filing 2022: How to check your income tax refund status if you havent received it yet

Jaya TV IT raid involved 1,800 officials and was biggest in recent times

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The raids conducted on Jaya TV and 187 other places was probably one of the biggest operations carried out by the Income Tax Department in recent times. Raids took place simultaneously at 187 locations in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Bengaluru.

The raids carried out under "Operation Clean Money," involved 1,800 officials of the IT department. While at the Jaya TV office, there were 10 officers and in other places, the strength was between 10 and 12 each. In addition to this, there was security personnel to assist the IT sleuths.

Sources in the IT department say that there were complaints about shell companies, dubious investments, fund flow and fudging of accounts by Jaya TV, started by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and currently controlled by the family of Sasikala.

The raids began early this morning at the Jaya TV office at Ekkatthuthangal in Chennai. Sources say that raids were conducted simultaneously at different locations.

Those who were the target of these raids were Sasikala's aides. Her brother Dinakaran's home too was raided by the IT officials. The IT sleuths were also at the Kodanad tea estate, the luxurious hill resort that belonged to Jayalalithaa.

The other places that were raided were the residence of AIADMK leader T T V Dhinakaran at Mannai Nagar in Mannargudi. Sasikala's brother Dhivakaran's residence at Sundara Kottai, the residence of Vivek Jayaraman in Chennai, Jazz Cinemas owned by Sasikala's family members.

Residence of Pugazhendi, Karnataka AIADMK secretary at Bangalore, office of Dr Namadhu MGR, Sasikala's elder brother Sundaravadanam's residence in Gandhi Nagar in Pudukkottai and Sasikala's husband M Natarajan's Thanjavur residence were also raided.

OneIndia News
J&K residents would be able to speak to Dineshwar Sharma directly

Guns and Roses: The job of the next Governor in Jammu and Kashmir

Talks a priority in Valley, but only within framework of Indian Constitution

Kashmiri Pandit organisations meet Dineshwar Sharma in Jammu

India

pti-PTI

Jammu, November 10: Representatives of several Kashmiri Pandit organisations on Friday met Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre's special representative for Kashmir, and sought the setting up of an institutional mechanism for the welfare of the displaced community.

Sharma, who was appointed the Centre's point person on Jammu and Kashmir last month, began the second leg of his visit to the state and reached Jammu last evening to hold consultations with various groups and political parties.

He called on Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti last night and discussed ways to reach out to the stakeholders in the state, officials said.

"The displaced Kashmiri Pandits are the biggest stakeholders in their rehabilitation in Kashmir.Therefore, it is they who should have the maximum say in deciding modalities of return and the methodology," the KP representatives said in a joint memorandum submitted to Sharma.

The delegation was led by BJP legislator G L Raina and included leaders from All India Kashmiri Samaj, All India Kashmir Pandit Conference, Jammu and Kashmir National Front, Vichar Manch and Zeishtadevi Prabandik Committee.

"It is our demand that the government put in place (a mechanism) which regularly engages the community in dialogue to work out the agreed principles on return," the memorandum said.

"One way of achieving it is to have a welfare board on the lines of Gujjar Board or Pahari Board with representatives from different districts of the state and a chairman to look into the issues that concern the community," it said.

After meeting Sharma, Raina told reporters that delegation members also raised the issue of encroachment of properties of temples, shrines and cremation grounds.

Raina criticised the poor implementation of the prime minister's employment package for youths from the community. The Kashmiri Pandit leadership have demanded a commission of inquiry into the targeted killings of members of the community in the Valley and their subsequent exodus.

PTI
Padmavati was funded from Dubai, its a conspiracy to defame Hindu women: Swamy

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Recommended Video

Padmavati Release row : Subramanian Swamy alleges 'Dubai funding' to defame Hindus | Oneindia News

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has added a totally new dimension to the controversy over the movie Padmavati by saying that it was funded from Dubai and is a part of an international conspiracy to defame Hindus.

"People from Dubai want that Muslims kings be portyaed as heros in the cinema, they want to show as if Hindu women wanted relationships (with them). This is a controversy, and showing (Queen) Padmini in poor light was a part of it. They tried that even with Akbar and Jodha Bai. Many such films have come in the last 10 years. Under UPA regime, such things got a boost," Swamy told news agency ANI.

"This needs to be stopped, and therefore Sanjay Bhansali's finances should be probed by the Enforcement Directorate," he added.

The Supreme Court earlier on Friday dismissed the petition seeking a stay on the release of the movie, saying that let the Censor Board take an independent view.

The petition had claimed that the movie allegedly hurts the sentiments of the Rajput community by "distorting and twisting historical facts".

[SC dismisses petition seeking stay on 'Padmavati's' release]

The petition, filed through advocate Somesh Chandra Jha, urged the court to intervene as the filmmaker has "wrongly depicted" Rani Padmavati in the movie. It further said that the producers of the film had taken undue liberty and completely changed the historical facts, dubbing it as "highly objectionable".

Last week, Maharashtra Tourism Minister Jaykumar Rawal had demanded a ban on the film and said the state government would be writing to the Censor board on the issue.

OneIndia News
With the number of anonymous rogues from Pak rising, here's how BSF is beating down the drones

Pakistan's 'Rooh Afza' cannot be sold in India: Delhi HC

Pakistani man requiring liver transplant to get visa: Swaraj

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, November 10: A Pakistani national requiring liver transplant in India will be given visa, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday announced.

Swaraj's announcement on Twitter came after Karachi resident Muhammad Talha last week requested the external affairs minister to grant visa to his father for treatment in India.

"Amna - We have approved medical visa for your father Mr.Shamim Ahmed.

@AmnaShamim4 @IndiainPakistan," she said. Talha had in a tweet to Swaraj sought visa for his father's liver treatment at a hospital in India.

Swaraj has been taking a sympathetic approach in granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals, notwithstanding strain in ties between India and Pakistan over a host of issues, including cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

PTI
Pollution horror: When Delhi turns 10 times more polluted than Beijing

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, Nov 10: Recently, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal compared the national capital to a gas chamber as he tweeted in this regard.

"Delhi has become a gas chamber. Every year this happens during this part of year. We have to find a soln to crop burning in adjoining states," he tweeted.

Delhi has become a gas chamber. Every year this happens during this part of year. We have to find a soln to crop burning in adjoining states  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 7, 2017

The comparison by the CM is not an aggravation, but a sad reality about the severe level of air pollution in the national capital.

Delhi is literally choking in the last few days as it has become impossible for people to breathe. As a precautionary measure, schools in Delhi and neighbouring areas have been closed till Sunday.

Since early morning, thick blanket of smog could be seen hovering over the city skyline, which many might confuse with the winter fog. But the layer of smog is nothing but suspended pollutant particles mixed with moisture that is refusing to leave the city anytime soon.

The seriousness of the situation hit us more as experts have declared the current pollution level in the national capital 10 times more than Beijing, the capital city of China, which is infamous for air pollution. India's national capital is facing a "public health emergency situation".

"The city's (Delhi's) air quality is off the charts. The Air Quality Index (AQI) was over 999 in some parts of the capital -- that's almost 30 times the safe limits set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and 10 times more polluted than Beijing, the city infamous for air pollution," stated a report by CBS News.

"PM 2.5 particles, which are small enough to settle inside your lungs and cause severe respiratory diseases, peaked above 700 micrograms per cubic meter. At this level, not just children and elderly, but everyone is warned to remain indoors. The WHO safe limit is 60," added the report.

Residents of the city are complaining about difficulty in breathing, eye and skin irritation and low visibility on roads, some of the common grouses of Delhi during every winter.

But this time the situation is far worse and is fatal, as experts say. The administration has decided to reintroduce odd-even formula to reduce the number of vehicles on roads, suspension of all construction work and ban on entry of heavy trucks into the city, except those carrying essential items, to name a few emergency steps taken by the authorities to tackle the situation a bit.

Environment activists like Sunita Narain said that temporary measures taken by government bodies are not enough. Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), cautioned against putting too much hope in temporary solutions such as closure of schools.

"Cities and administrations need to implement solutions and take bold decisions to reduce emissions. The range of actions recommended and directed by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) is targeted at doing just that, and it is now up to the political leadership of Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) to take their implementation forward," she added.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 6:55 [IST]
Murmu vs Sinha: India to get its 15th President today; Counting begins at 11 am

Cross-votes for Murmu, TMC's abstinence from VP Poll: All's not well in opposition's camp

Will not join any other political party: Yashwant Sinha

Probe should be against everyone, whether Jayant Sinha or Jay Shah: Yashwant Sinha

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Veteran BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha have said that his son Jayant Sinha, who is a Union Minister, should be probed in the Paradise Papers case, along with Jay Shah, whose firm a spike in revenue after tht BJP came to power, said reports.

Last week, a host of documents called the Paradise Papers were released by the International Consortium of Journalists. The name of Civil Aviation Minister, Jayant Sinha, also appeared in the papers.

"My question is when an inquiry against Jayant Sinha, then why not Jay Shah - there you say file a case in court. So a probe should be against everyone," an NDTV report quoted Yashwant Sinha as saying.

The veteran BJP leader also said that probe should be held in a time-bound manner.

Jay Shah, son of BJP chief Amit Shah, filed a 100-crore defamation suit following the allegations that his firm benefitted from his father's office.

Jayant Sinha earlier clarified that the transactions were not done for any "personal purpose" after his name cropped up in the leaked list of 'Paradise Papers'

Jayant Sinha said, "Whatever we did was completely bonafide and legal. No reason to doubt."

"I had no personal interest in the deal. I did it for a company when I was not in politics. Everything was disclosed," he added.

Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt's wife Manyata, Union minister Jayant Sinha and corporate lobbyist Niira Radia are among the Indians named in a fresh set of data leaks showing alleged offshore dealings of the world's rich and famous.

[Paradise Papers show Jayant Sinha's links with Omidyar in Appleby files]

In September, Yashwant Sinha had lashed out at the BJP Government over the economic policies adopted. He had come down hard at the government over demonetisation and the implementation of the GST.

OneIndia News
Why a religious bigot called Tipu Sultan deserves no place in history

Karnataka government puts on hold decision to drop chapter on Tipu Sultan from class 7 textbooks

Morphed image of Chhatrapati Shivaji being shared as that of Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan Jayanti: Stones hurled at bus in Madikeri, over 100 BJP workers detained in Hubli

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Recommended Video

Tipu Sultan Jayanti: Protesters hurl stones at bus, as court refuse to stay on celebration |Oneindia

Miscreants hurled stones at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus during a protest against Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Madikeri on Friday.

Ahead of Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebrations, the district administration has imposed Section 144 and security has been heightened to maintain law and order in the district. Prohibitory orders to be in place until Saturday 6 am. 1 SP, 8 DySP's, 23 CPIS, 68 SIS, 133 ASIS and 1,500 police personnel have been deployed.

Kodagu Bandh has been called on November 10. Private transportation is off the road.

Also, security has been stepped up in Kalburgi, Shimoga, Kodagu, Uttara Kannada districts.

Meanwhile, Renuka Sukumar, DCP, said "Detained more than 150 BJP workers in Hubli protesting against Tipu Jayanti celebration."

BJP workers take part in anti-#TipuJayanti protests in #Karnataka's Hubli & Kodagu; protesters detained by Police at both places. pic.twitter.com/i9Zz95gjEI  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court refused to stay the Tipu Sultan birth anniversary celebrations on November 10. Also, the court issued a notice to the government to raise objections in four weeks on the contention that the day must never be celebrated.

This year also, the Siddaramaiah-led government is all set to celebrate Tipu Jayanti despite widespread protests and violence that had marred celebrations in the last two years.

Large-scale communal violence erupted during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations in 2015 when it was first organised by the state government.

Tipu was a ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore. He was considered an enemy of the British East India Company. Tipu was killed in May 1799, while defending his fort of Srirangapatna against the British forces.

OneIndia News
Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000

Will Tejashwi be RJD face in next Bihar poll?

India

pti-PTI

Patna, November 10: Former Deputy CM of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav could be the RJSD's face in the next assembly election in Bihar, said party supremo Lalu Prasad on Friday dropped a hint that his younger son.

Asked for reaction on state RJD President Ramchandra Purve's comment that next government would be formed by the party under leadership of Tejaswi Yadav, Lalu Prasad praised leadership quality of his younger son.

"He (Tejashwi) is way ahead of all of us in terms of leadership ability and oratory. I am not saying this merely because he is my son," the RJD chief told reporters.

Speaking after being elected the state president for the fourth consecutive terms recently, Purve had exulted, "we will form the next government in Bihar under the leadership of Tejashwi Yadav".

Tejashwi Yadav, who turned 28 yesterday, had served as the Deputy Chief Minister in the Grand Alliance government of RJD, JD(U) and Congress.

However, a note of dissent came from RJD national vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who said the issue of a Chief Ministerial candidate was "premature" and that "good leadership should be allowed to emerge by the time the state goes to polls.

On Purve comment, Singh told a news channel "at party meetings, leaders tend to express their sentiments. Ramchandra Purve (state president) had done the same. In any case, no other claimant is going to come forward. Elections are quite far.

We will take a decision at an appropriate time." "It is premature to think who will be the Chief Ministerial candidate when elections are far away. If Purve has said something, it is his personal opinion," the RJD National Vice President said.

"Our endeavour should be to work for the people of Bihar. They are our 'malik' (master). It is the people who will put a stamp of approval on who should be the Chief Ministerial candidate, Singh said.

Asked to comment on Singh's reaction, Lalu Prasad sought to clear the air saying "there is no mara mari (discord) within the party over the issue of Tejashwi".

Meanwhile, the BJP reacted to Lalu's statement saying it was "an endorsement of dynasty rule which the people will not accept".

The BJP's Bihar unit chief Nityanand Rai said, "Lalu's statement is an open endorsement of dynasty rule in his party. While the stance of his party members remains to be seen, the prevailing public sentiment in the country is clearly against dynasty rule."

PTI
Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage

Woman arrested in connection with her husband's unnatural death

India

oi-Amitava

By Amitava

At a time when crime against women is steadily on the rise, a woman has been arrested in Kolkata in connection with the death of her husband who was a Joint Commissioner of Commercial Tax, Directorate of Commercial Tax, West Bengal.

52-year-old Sukriti Kumar Roy was found dead in the prayer room of his residence located on Ramakrishna Sarani in Garia, Kolkata.

Relatives and neighbours had forced open the locked door of the prayer room located on the terrace of his residence to find him dead on Wednesday night. He was found seated on a stool with his neck tied to the window grille.

Recently Roy had been released from a hospital where he had been admitted for having consumed an overdose of sleeping pills.

Roy's wife Chandana had been arrested in connection with his death. Charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code including Abetment have been slapped on her.

"We have arrested the wife of the deceased as there is a mismatch between her statements and circumstantial evidences. Prima facie it looks like a death from hanging. However we have to wait for the post mortem report to confirm the cause of death" stated Saikat Ghosh, Additional Superintendent of Police, Baruipur.

Chandana claims that her husband was mentally depressed and he feared that his brothers were trying to take away his property.

She stated that on Wednesday she had gone to school to collect her son. Roy was at home. On returning she did not see Roy around. After finding the door of the prayer room locked, she had called up Roy's family. They arrived, broke open the door to find him dead.

Subodh Roy, father of the deceased claimed that Chandana had called him up on Wednesday evening and had enquired about her husband's whereabouts. She even claimed that her husband was in Subodh Roy's home.

Sensing trouble, the Roy's had rushed to Sukriti's house. Along with neighbours, they had forced open the door to find him dead. They had then informed the police.

Roy's family claim that Chandana used to mentally and physically torture him. Prittish Roy, Sukriti's brother alleged that Chandana was not of sound moral character and hinted at multiple extramarital affairs that Chandana was allegedly involved in.

"She killed my brother and then staged a suicide. It is all for his property" alleged Kajal Roy, the brother.

Kajal further alleged that after Sukriti had remarried in 2005, his new wife Chandana had made it clear that she did not approve of Sukriti's father and brothers staying with them.

"Since then we have been living separately. It has been more than 10 years that we have visited this house" added Kajal Roy. Neighbours have complained of frequent quarrels between Chandana and her husband.

OneIndia News
Zakir Naik wants Indian Muslims to migrate to Kerala, a state he mastered in radicalising

The crimes of Zakir Naik: Extolling every Muslim to be a terrorist, paid Rs 50k per Islamic conversion

Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

Zakir Naik all set to be extradited as legal process nears completion

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

India is all set to seek the extradition of Dr Zakir Naik, the radical Islamic preacher from Malaysia. The legal process is almost complete and the official request would be sent out very soon.

Ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said that the ministry's internal process was underway in the case.

"The formal request for assistance of a foreign government in such cases requires a legal process. We are nearing the completion of this exercise. Soon an official request will be made to the Malaysian government. The internal process we have to complete is also underway," he said.

According to media reports, Naik was in Malaysia after obtaining permanent residency five years ago.

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 country's anti-terror laws and has declared Naik an absconder.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 8:30 [IST]
Coimbatore: 24 years back and now, the radical Islamists are of the same family

Afghanistan: Explosion in Lashkargah city leaves 1 killed, 5 injured

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

At least on police personnel was killed and five other injured in a heavy explosion reported in Bolan area of Lashkargah City, Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Provincial governor's spokesman Omar Zwak says the blast was as a result of a car bombing, that was close to a police outpost in Lashkargah City. Exact number of of casualties not yet known.

Last month, a suicide attacker detonated a car full of explosives outside Afghanistan's top military training center in Kabul, killing at least 15 soldiers. That was the second terror attack in the capital in 24 hours after a suicide attack at a Shi'ite mosque killed more than 50 worshipers.

Residents of Lashkargah City, the center of Helmand province, are worried about their safety as clashes have intensified between government forces and Taliban militants in the outskirts of the city. The military operations in Nad Ali and the outskirts of Lashkargah City were launched on Wednesday. Taliban had captured Babaji area two years ago. Meanwhile, some parts of Nad Ali district have fallen to the Taliban over the last three years.

OneIndia News
The Western bias and why it cannot digest Indias success

Explained: Why has US removed India from its currency monitoring list

India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Greenwood in tight race for ICJ seat

International

pti-PTI

United Nations, November 10: India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a tight contest for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the UN could not decide between them after electing four out of five judges to the World Court.

The 193 members of the UN General Assembly and 15 of the Security Council will reconvene on Monday to decide between Bhandari, 70, and Greenwood, 62.

Based in The Hague, the ICJ has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Established in 1945, the role of the ICJ is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018. Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidates for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after the fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received an absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat. In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got a majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari. As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nation's ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other. That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting an absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari was elected to the International Court of Justice on April 27, 2012, following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

In May, the ICJ, on India's petition, stayed the execution of Indian national and former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on the charge of "spying".

PTI
The Western bias and why it cannot digest Indias success

Explained: Why has US removed India from its currency monitoring list

Indo-Pak tensions: US wont play mediator

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Much to the disliking of Pakistan, the US said that it does not intend to play the role of a mediator in the conflict with India. While President Donald Trump's new South Asia Strategy focuses on reducing tensions between India and Pakistan, there is no intention of playing the role of a mediator.

Alice G Wells, the acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, told lawmakers that the Trump administration is increasingly concerned about the threat to strategic stability in South Asia associated with the introduction of new nuclear capable ballistic or cruise missile systems in the region.

"The South Asia strategy also focuses on reducing tensions between Pakistan and India+ ," she told lawmakers yesterday during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan held jointly by House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees for Middle East and North Africa, and Asia and Pacific.

She said the US does not seek a role as a mediator between India and Pakistan, but encourages both countries to restart dialogue+ at the earliest opportunity.

"An improved relationship between these two countries is critical to regional security and stability," Wells said.

"In particular, the region and the world looks to both Pakistan and India to safeguard against a nuclear conflict in South Asia," she said.

She said the US remains concerned about Pakistan's growing fissile material stockpiles and its expanding and diversifying military nuclear and missile programmes.

Wells also voiced concern over the stability and security of the South Asia region and said the US is ready to work constructively with Pakistan against the terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e Mohammed and the Haqqani Network.

"We remain concerned about the stability and security of the region, and of Pakistan itself," she said.

"We are prepared to work constructively with Pakistan to move against these terrorist groups, including the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed," she added.

She also told lawmakers that the Trump administration values the role India can play in global security and stability as part of its shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We also want to work with India to counter terrorist threats. And we see significant economic and business opportunities in both countries that we intend to explore for the benefit of all of our citizens," she said.

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Story first published: Friday, November 10, 2017, 8:46 [IST]
Pakistan allows Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife on humanitarian grounds

International

pti-PTI

Islamabad, Nov 10: Pakistan said it will allow convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, months after India had requested Islamabad to grant a visa to his mother on humanitarian grounds.

"The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds,'' Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said in a statement. "A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today,'' he said, adding that the meeting will take place on Pakistani soil.

In a rare move, Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April on charges of espionage and terrorism.

The International Court of Justice in May halted his execution on India's appeal. It is not clear what prompted Islamabad to allow Jadhav's wife to meet him in Pakistan, the Express Tribune reported. There were speculation that the two countries discussed the issue in a recent meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj and the newly-appointed Pakistani High Commissioner to New Delhi Sohail Mahmood, the daily said. India had requested for a Pakistani visa for Jadhav's mother, Avantika, who wanted to meet her son in Pakistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies. Jadhav has filed an appeal with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to seek clemency, which is still pending.

Last month, the Pakistan Army had said it is close to a decision on the mercy petition of Jadhav. Pakistan claims its security forces arrested him from restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's sentencing had evoked a sharp reaction in India. After India approached the ICJ, a 10-member bench on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case. The ICJ has asked Pakistan to submit its response or memorial by December 13 before the court could start further proceedings in the case.

PTI
Paris attacks: Salah Abdeslam still remains an enigma

International

pti-PTI

Paris, Nov 10: Salah Abdeslam, one of the perpetrators of Paris terror attacks, still remains an enigma. Captured after four months on the run following a massive international manhunt, Salah Abdeslam is now France's most closely guarded detainee.

But the 28-year-old petty criminal-turned-jihadist has not been the goldmine of information investigators have hoped for: he refuses to talk. Abdeslam's role in the events leading up to November 13, 2015, when Islamic State jihadists armed with guns and bombs killed 130 people enjoying a Friday night out, has yet to be fully understood.

His suicide belt was found in the southern Paris suburbs several days after the bloodshed. Did he change his mind about blowing himself up, as he told friends before he was finally arrested in Brussels? Or was the device defective?

Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin, is known to have played a key role in organising logistics for the attacks, renting cars and hideouts and helping several jihadists get into Europe via the migrant trail. And the sprawling investigation has revealed links to the jihadists involved in the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016 -- four days after his arrest.

What is infuriating for investigators -- and for the families of victims seeking answers -- is Abdeslam's refusal to cooperate since French authorities charged him last year with terrorist murders. His silence has even prompted his lawyers, Frank Berton of France and Sven Mary of Belgium, to abandon his defence.

Jailed in Europe's biggest prison at Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, Abdeslam is being held in solitary confinement and monitored around the clock in his cell. In recent months the conditions of his detention have been slightly relaxed after signs that his mental health was deteriorating. Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet yesterday confirmed fears he could commit suicide -- something that the victims' families want to avoid, eager to see him stand trial.

"We are doing everything to make that impossible," Belloubet told LCI television, saying Abdeslam had now been granted a window and limited contact with others. He has received letters in prison -- sometimes praising his actions -- and responded to some of them, including to a woman whom he reportedly told: "I'm not ashamed of who I am."

Abdeslam surprised many by offering to appear at a separate trial in Belgium for the attempted murder of police officers injured in a shootout at an apartment in the Brussels neighbourhood of Forest, three days before his capture. He is believed to have fled during the shootout before finally being captured across the city in Molenbeek, where he once ran a bar with his brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers. The Brussels trial is due to take place from December 18 -22, with a Paris appeals court expected to rule soon on whether to give the greenlight for Abdeslam's temporary transfer.

It remains to be seen whether he will break his silence at the trial, and some of the victims' lawyers fear he will use it as an opportunity to avoid being sent back to France.

"Why would this guy, who isn't talking to investigators in France, demand to be sent to trial in Belgium?" said Gerard Chemla, lawyer for some of the plaintiffs.

"We should ask ourselves 'is this is an attempt to escape from French authorities?'" A date for Abdeslam's French trial -- expected to be one of the most closely watched in decades -- has not yet been set.

PTI
Radicalised to the core: Indian origin lady arrested in Singapore for ISIS links

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Munavar Baig Amina Begam, a 38 year old lady of Indian origin was arrested in Singapore on the allegation of being an Islamic State sympathiser. She was arrested along with two others under the Internal Security Act.

Adzrul Azizi bin Bajuri (19) was issued with a Restriction Order, while Abu Thalha bin Samad (25) and Munavar Baig Amina Begam (38) were issued with Detention Orders, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement.

Amina, a housewife and a naturalised Singapore Citizen originally from India, is an ISIS supporter and harboured the intention to make her way to the conflict zone to join ISIS, the ministry said.

She was radicalised by a foreign online contact, who shared pro-IS materials with her and convinced her that ISIS was fighting to defend Sunnis in the conflict zone, it said.

"She was radicalised to the extent that she was prepared to undergo military training and take up arms to fight for ISIS in the Middle-East if called upon by ISIS to do so," the statement said.

She shared on social media materials promoting terrorism. This month, she was issued a Detention Order for a period of two years.

Of the two men, Abu Thalha was found to be a member of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). He was educated in JI-linked schools in the region and also underwent paramilitary training in some of the schools he attended.

"In 2014, he took baiah (pledge of allegiance) and became a JI member. He understood it to mean that he was duty-bound to carry out whatever instructions the JI leaders had for him, including performing armed jihad and sacrificing his life for the JIs violent cause," the ministry said.

He has been teaching in a JI-linked school since 2016 and had also served in a committee which was involved in spotting students for membership in the terror group.

"In August 2017, we worked together with a regional government to deport him to Singapore where he was arrested under the ISA for his involvement in a terrorist organisation. He was issued with an Order of Detention for a period of two years in September 2017," the ministry said.

Adzrul, a former full-time National Serviceman who served as a Logistics Assistant in the SAF, is a supporter of the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, it said.

"In mid-2016, Adzrul considered fighting for ISIS in Syria, as he saw the armed conflict there as a sectarian struggle between Sunnis and Shias. From August 2017 onwards, he started having some doubts about the legitimacy of ISISs ideology and its violent tactics," the ministry said.

It said that Adzrul will be required to undergo counselling, including religious counselling.

OneIndia News
Somalia: US air strike kills 'several militants'

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Nov 10: Several militants were killed in an air strike by the US millitary against Al- Shabaab jihadists in Somalia.

The attack took place early today in the Bay region in the center of the country, about 100 miles west of Mogadishu.

The strike was carried out "in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia," the US Africa Command said in a statement.

"Al-Shabaab has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and is dedicated to providing safe haven for terrorist attacks throughout the world," it said.

Al-Shabaab was blamed for the October 14 truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed 358 people, and an attack on a hotel on October 29 that left 27 dead. On Saturday the US mission to Somalia urged all non- essential staff to leave Mogadishu immediately following a specific threat against them.

That was one day after the US Africa Command launched drone strikes that targeted an Islamic State base in the country's northeast.

['Several terrorists' killed in US' first strike against IS in Somalia]

Even on November 4, the US had conducted a pair of drone strikes against IS jihadists in Somalia.

The strikes occurred in northeastern Somalia and killed "several terrorists," the US military's Africa Command said in a statement.

PTI
Carles Puigdemont detained in Germany: Who is this Catalonia separatist leader?

Speaker of Catalonia's sacked parliament detained over independence bid

International

pti-PTI

Madrid, November 10: The speaker of Catalonia's sacked parliament, Carme Forcadell, was detained on Friday over her region's controversial drive for independence from Spain. Forcadell was held by Spain's Supreme Court in Madrid pending bail of 150,000 euros, a court spokesman said.

Forcadell and five other deputies appeared in front of Spain's highest tribunal on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds -- which carry a maximum jail sentence of 30 years -- for aiding the Catalan parliament's secession bid.

They are suspected of having followed a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official declaration on October 27, deepening Spain's most serious political crisis in decades.

That declaration was annulled yesterday by Spain's Constitutional Court. Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena ordered one Catalan lawmaker freed, but the four others apart from Forcadell must pay 25,000 euros within a week to avoid jail.

The Catalan crisis has prompted hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region and caused disquiet in the European Union still dealing with Britain's shock decision to leave the bloc.

On Thursday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe. Trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon were disrupted. Authorities said around 150,000 people were affected.

PTI
Blacklisting Mahmood blocked by China: The man who raised funds under garb of religion in India

Wealthy nations shirking on climate treaty: Developing countries

International

pti-PTI

Paris, November 9: A block of 134 developing countries, including India and China, on Thursday at UN that warned that the failure of wealthy nations to deliver on short-term climate commitments could hinder the rollout of a landmark treaty.

The diplomatic spat has underscored the difficulty of reaching a consensus at the 196-nation talks.

"If we do not respect decisions that we have made, then how can we build trust among the parties?" said Chen Zhihua, China's senior negotiator, referring to long-standing pledges by rich nations to enhance financial support and "revisit" targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions before 2020.

"And how can we lay a good foundation for the implementation of the Paris Agreement?" he added at a press conference, flanked by diplomats from India, Iran, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

The treaty, inked outside the French capital in 2015, calls on the world to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius and even 1.5 C if possible.

With one degree of warming so far, the planet has already seen an increase in drought, deadly heatwaves and superstorms. The pact rests on voluntary carbon-cutting pledges from virtually every country in the world.

"The science is clear: if we don't get our act together before 2020, you can forget about the 2 C and 1.5 C targets," said Paul Oquist, Nicaragua's chief negotiator at the talks. "There has been a failure to comply with existing commitments," he added.

Under the terms of the UN's core climate convention, the burden of action before 2020 falls mainly on wealthy countries historically responsible for the rapid rise of greenhouse gases. China is the world's top carbon polluter, followed by the United States, the European Union, India and Russia.

Developing countries sought to have a "pre-2020 agenda" formally added to the negotiating process, but the move was shelved at the start of the 12-day talks. Efforts to resolve the issue have so far been fruitless.

"It would be a bad thing if this hangs over into the second week and becomes a political issue for ministers," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC.

"It has been a pretty sterile debate that has degenerated into a finger-pointing exercise," he told AFP.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some 20 heads of state are scheduled to appear at the UN climate forum next week.

PTI
John Ralston Saul argues for the "originality of the Canadian project", that contained elements of a rejection of the Enlightenment project of Europe/the US, which was based on secular rationality and liberal revolution. Canada was never a monolithic nation state, but rather based on consensus, supposedly incorporating the native philosophy of man as part of nature. In A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008), he argues that Canada is a "Metis civilization", not a European one. "We are a blend of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, but the driving ideas underneath are the Aboriginal ones."

Saul argues that Canada was 'founded' as a modern nation not in 1867 but in 1701 with the Great Peace of Montreal between New France and 40 First Nations of North America. This treaty, achieved through negotiations according to Native American diplomatic custom,was meant to end ethnic conflicts. From then on, negotiation would trump direct conflict, it was thought, and the French would agree to act as arbiters during conflicts between signatory tribes. The paradigm is a confederation of tribes, consensus, the Aboriginal circle, "eating from a common bowl". The treaty is still valid and recognized as such by the Native American tribes involved.





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This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

From Alternet

With a sketchy past in the counterterror swamp, Watts has suggested media censorship as a remedy to Russian interference.





Nearly a year after the presidential election, the scandal over accusations of Russian political interference in the 2016 election has gone beyond Donald Trump and reached into the nebulous world of online media. On November 1, Congress held hearings on "Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online." The proceedings saw executives from Facebook, Twitter and Youtube subjected to tongue-lashings from lawmakers like Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who howled about Russian online trolls "spread[ing] stories about abuse of black Americans by law enforcement."

In perhaps the most chilling moment of the hearings, and the most overlooked, Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer who had branded himself an expert on Russian meddling, appeared before a nearly empty Senate chamber. Watts conjured up a stark landscape of American carnage, with shadowy Russian operatives stage-managing the chaos.

"Civil wars don't start with gunshots, they start with words," he proclaimed. "America's war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America."

Next, Watts suggested a government-imposed campaign of media censorship: "Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced: silence the guns and the barrage will end."

The censorious overtone of Watts' testimony was unmistakable. He demanded that government news inquisitors drive dissident media off the internet and warned that Americans would spear one another with bayonets if they failed to act. And not one member of Congress rose to object. In fact, many echoed his call for media suppression in the House and Senate hearings, with Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Jackie Speier agreeing the most vehemently. The spectacle perfectly illustrated the madness of Russiagate, with liberal lawmakers springboarding off the fear of Russian meddling to demand that Americans be forbidden from consuming the wrong kinds of media -- including content that amplified the message of progressive causes like Black Lives Matter.

Click Here to Read Whole Article
On election day in 2016, Donald Trump surprised most of us by defeating Hillary Clinton (although he garnered only 46.1 percent of the popular vote). One year later, what have we learned?

1. Trump is not a joke. There were some of us who dismissed Trump, gave him no chance to win. A terrible mistake.

After the election, some observers hoped that Donald would "grow into" the presidency, begin acting presidential. Sadly, Trump shows no sign of doing this. He's continued the same erratic, self-centered behavior.

As a result, Trump is "a clear and present danger" to the U.S. A recent CNN poll (http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/28/politics/poll-politics-low-point/index.html) indicated that 71 percent of respondents believe that "politics has reached a dangerous low point."

2. Trump's base has stuck with him. Just before the election, the Huffington Post "Poll of Polls" showed Clinton with a five point lead -- 47.3 percent to 42 percent. Last-minute voters broke mostly for Trump. A recent Center for American Progress study (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2017/11/01/441926/voter-trends-in-2016/) suggests that these were primarily white non-college-educated voters.

Twelve months later, Trump averages 38 percent approval.

Many of his adherent refuse to believe the negative reports on Trump's behavior; they dismiss it as "fake news." Others are focussed on a particular issue and, as long as Trump supports that issue, they stand with him. Based upon the results of the recent Pew Research poll of political typology http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/24/political-typology-reveals-deep-fissures-on-the-right-and-left/), Trump's supporters are those who share one or more of these opinions: Washington politics are fatally flawed and need to be "blown up;" Taxes are too high; Immigrants burden the U.S.; and Washington has taken away "religious liberty."

3. Trump's base is driven by a level of desperation that most Democrats don't understand. Running up to the presidential election there was persistent polling indicating Americans were dissatisfied with the direction the country has been taking and felt the country wasn't working for them.

Arlie Hochschild's book, "Stranger in Their Own Land," describes the viewpoint of Tea-Party / Trump voters. They feel that they have been unfairly denied their shot at the American dream. These voters don't trust government to do the right thing. They turned to Trump because they saw him as someone outside the government who could shake things up; "Make America Great Again."

4. On election day, there was an enthusiasm gap. It was a very close election and there are many reasons why Hillary Clinton lost: bad campaign decisions; the Comey announcement; Russian subterfuge; Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters; disgruntled Bernie voters; among others. Nonetheless, the very few voters I know who voted for Trump tell a similar story, "I didn't like Trump but I couldn't stand Clinton."

On election day, undecided voters broke for Trump; they saw him as the lesser of two evils. Trump's supporters felt more positively about him than Clinton supporters felt about her. In the latest Pew Research report this shows up: Trump is viewed favorably by 90 percent of his core supporters; Clinton is viewed favorably by 70 percent of her base.

5. Obama was an effective President but a crummy leader of the Democratic Party. On the November 3rd PBS News Hour, commenting on recent revelations about the relationship between the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, Mark Shields observed, "It's proof... of how little Barack Obama cared about the Democratic Party or about politics. He was great at getting elected... He was leaving the party $24 million in debt, therefore, vulnerable to Hillary Clinton's coterie of big givers."

One of the many reasons that Clinton lost was that the national Democratic Party was weak. The blame for this has to laid at the feet of the leader of Democratic Party, Barack Obama,

6. Bernie Sanders probably has an important role going forward but it's not clear what it is. There's a lot of mainstream media attention given to divisions in the Democratic Party, primarily Bernie supporters versus Hillary supporters. I don't see this here (Berkeley). In 2018, there's so much work to do that Bernie, and his supporters, will be an asset to the resistance.

7. Russia impacted the election but it probably wasn't the determining factor. There's little doubt that Russia intervened in the election: by hacking the DNC emails, by running malicious social media ads, and other activities. Nonetheless, I believe that, in 2016, if Obama had been running against Trump, Barack would have won.

8. Trump has been a disaster for the environment. Trump is so terrible across the board that it's difficult to focus on particulars but here are two. Trump, by his statements and his political appointments, has set out to reverse everything the Obama Administration did to protect the environment. As one consequence, the U.S. stands alone in opposition to the Paris Climate Agreement.

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November 7, 2017 was the 100th Anniversary ("new," Gregorian, Calendar) of the Russian Revolution. According to the "old," Julian calendar still in use in the Russia of the time, the Revolution occurred on October 25, 2017, which is why, in many quarters it is still referred to as the -- da, da! -- "October Revolution." (It is interesting to note that the "Julian" calendar was named after Julius Caesar, whose government introduced it in what would come to be known as 45 B.C [or B.C.E.. depending upon your religious/calendrical point-of-view]. The "modern," Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.) The current calendar date was celebrated, noted upon, denigrated, around the world. It was also ignored in certain quarters, although most of those persons-to-institutions that did, like the government of Vladimir Putin, which did for the most part ignore it, made it clear that they were ignoring it .

Outside of Russia, it has been widely noted that the Soviet Union, which was established as a result of the October Revolution, lasted only 75 years. Many observers, capitalist or socialist or other, have taken some satisfaction in this occurrence. Many Marxist-Leninists, including myself, took and have taken the demise of the Soviet Union with sadness. However, some of us, at least, recognize that among Lenin's many great contributions to the understanding of human history and how it works is the concept of "two steps forward/one step back."



Petrozavodsk Lenin Statue

(Image by Espino Family) Details DMCA



Indeed, what can be considered as the first capitalist revolution against the then predominant feudal order (or a variant of it) can be said to have been the Cromwellian Revolution in England, 1640-61. To be sure, it did not represent industrial capitalists, for the industrial revolution would not get underway until the mid-18th century. But it did represent the rising mercantile capitalists --- and it failed. Now one could have said at the time, "see, capitalism will never work; feudalism and royal primacy in government will always be the systems of state control." And one would have been wrong. In judging what happened in the Soviet Union, one should certainly take the Cromwellian lesson intro account.

Now Lenin for the most part applied his "two steps forward/one step back" formula to what was happening in the early development of the Soviet Union that occurred during his lifetime that was cut short so tragically. But in my view (and perhaps Lenin's too) the concept can be applied, not simplistically of course, but applied never-the-less to the overall development of socialist revolution (as happened in the development of capitalism). And let us hope that that is the case. For if socialist revolution does not begin to develop around the world, fairly soon, our species and many others will be gathered up in what I have termed "The Suicide of Capitalism."

There is another model for what some see as a road to socialism and that is the Chinese hybrid socialist-capitalist system. But the Soviet approach, at least until it became corrupted (in the literal sense of the word), was at least intended to build a purely socialist state, at the time. Which failed, as is well-known. But it did not fail on its own. For, for the entire 75 years of its existence it was confronted by what will someday come to be known as "The 75 Years War Against the Soviet Union."

In this series of two columns I will VERY briefly review/list the major events in that major war that was waged by Western Capitalist/Imperialism against the Soviet Union. It was mainly non-military (with the exception of the Great Patriotic War, 1941-45). But nevertheless, it was a war which had the very definite aim of overthrowing the Soviet system. I list below its major elements. In Part 2 of this column, I will discuss each one in a bit of detail. Of course, a full treatment would require much more space than we have on OpEdNews. Indeed, a book could well be written on the subject. But this can be considered to be a start on a subject which has been widely ignored. In my view, however, it has to be taken into account in any accounting of what happened in and to that great socio-historical experiment known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Major Elements of the 75 Years War :

1. "The Intervention," on the side of the "White Russian" resistance to the Red Revolution, began almost immediately after its initial success in overthrowing the Provisional Government.

2. After the end of the Russian Civil War in 1921, the Western Powers were slow to recognize the Soviet government. The United States was the last to do so, in 1933.

3. During the rise of Nazi German militarism, the two major Western powers, France and Great Britain refused to negotiate any joint defense pacts with the Soviet Union.

4. The "non-intervention" policy of the Western Democracies" (including the United States) in the Spanish Civil War made the continuing anti-Soviet policy clear.

5. Then came Munich; https://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/dr-js-bf-commentary- no-160-peace-in-our-time-obamas-munich/10178-dr-js-bf-commentary-no-160- peace-in-our-time-obamas-munich.

6. 1941-45, Anglo-American cooperation with the SU.



Stalingrad

(Image by haahr) Details DMCA



7. But the delayed opening of the Second Front in France was interpreted by some as confirming this approach.

8. Anti-Soviet policy was under development before WWII was over. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/wipe-the-ussr-off-the-map-204-atomic-bombs-against-major-cities- us-nuclear-attack-against-soviet-union-planned-prior-to-end-of-world-war-ii/5616601)

9. The atomic bombing of Japan was not necessary for the US to win there. A major factor was the aim of U.S. policy to keep the Soviet Union a) out of Japan and b) from enabling the Korean Resistance to take over the whole peninsula from the Japanese occupiers (See my Korea column for text.)

10. Stalin wanted peaceful co-existence, to occur after the end of World War II. (His approach is detailed in a book entitled Stalin's Wars (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300136227/stalins- wars).

1' . Interference to prevent the development of pro-Soviet but non-Soviet sphere of influence European govts.: in the Italian election in 1948, in the Greek civil war.

12. Churchill's Declaration of the Cold War in the famous "Iron Curtain" speech.

13. U.S. post-war German policy: unilateral currency reform; setting up the GFR; the Berlin Blockade.

14. The Hungarian counter-revolution of 1956. The Arrow-Cross.

15. The Cuban "Missile-Crisis."

16. The maintenance of the Cold War even during the major diversion for the U.S. of the War on Viet Nam.

17. Carter/Brzezinski and Afghanistan: "We will create the Soviet Union's Viet Nam." And they did.

18. Leading to the Reaganite Final Arms Race.
From Alternet

With the addition of Wisconsin, right-wingers promoting a Constitutional Convention have 28 states; they only need six more.

While Democrats on Wednesday were feeling encouraged and empowered by Tuesday's coast-to-coast rejection of Trumpism, Republican legislators who control Wisconsin did what the GOP does best in elections: voted to rig the system to favor their agenda. Only this time the target wasn't voter suppression; it was the U.S. Constitution.

On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Legislature voted to call for what's known as an Article V constitutional convention, becoming the 28th state to do so in recent years. Thirty-four states are needed, according to the nation's founding document, to launch a process that would open up the foundation of American's rights and laws to revision.

"Sadly, this is not fake news," said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. "The specter of an Article V convention to rewrite the Constitution remains one of the most alarming threats to our democracy that nobody has ever heard of before."

"The deep-pocketed special interest groups behind this effort to call a convention are not likely to stop with a single amendment when there are no rules to prevent opening up the Constitution to a full rewrite in a runaway convention," Flynn explained. "The effort to call the convention is funded by wealthy special interest groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council that have long pushed for a broad legislative agenda in the states, and it is hard to imagine them not foisting that agenda on the Constitution itself through unelected and unaccountable delegates to the convention."

Revising the U.S. Constitution is not the only big idea that has surfaced following 2017's Election Day. On Wednesday morning, the New York Times endorsed the national popular vote compact, where states agree to award all of their Electoral College votes for the next president to whoever wins the national popular vote. (In 2016, that was Hillary Clinton, by nearly 3 million votes. So far, 10 states and the District of Columbia have signed on, pledging 165 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed.)

Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who dubiously called for an Article V convention a half-dozen years ago to reform the nation's campaign finance system, has another big idea that would shake up the electoral process in unpredictable ways. His non-profit, EqualCitizens,US, has sued to reallocate Electoral College votes by congressional district instead of the current winner-take-all system that exists in 48 states. (Maine and Nebraska split up their Electoral College votes.)

But an Article V convention is closer to reality than either the national popular vote or Lessig's Electoral College reshuffling (even though two states, Minnesota and Virginia, saw lawmakers introduce 2017 legislation to reapportion these votes; both stalled). In the past three years, 12 red-run states have called for an Article V convention (Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas and Missouri). Meanwhile, four blue states (Delaware, New Mexico, Maryland and Nevada) that previously voted for a convention, under the assumption it would only be concerned with balancing the federal budget, rescinded that earlier vote because of fears a convention would become a runaway train.

These offensive moves by the right and defensive moves by the left show the prospect of an Article V convention is not just another fanciful idea, but is moving closer to something the nation may eventually face. Before 2017's Election Day, the next six states targeted by proponents were Kentucky, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina and Virginia, according to Common Cause's background memo. Virginia's election of a Democratic governor, and the partisan majority of its lower House of Delegates still unknown (due to ballots that are still being counted), dampens the nearer-term possibility of reaching 34 states.

But no one should underestimate the Republicans. The GOP, more so than Democrats, have kept their eyes on longer-term political prizes. They did that with partisan gerrymanders in 2011 to lock down red supermajority legislatures and U.S. House delegations. The Supreme Court is now reviewing a challenge to Wisconsin's extreme gerrymander. It's no coincidence that it voted Tuesday to call for a federal constitutional convention. (In New York State on Tuesday, voters rejected a call for a state convention to revise the state constitution, but approved a proposal to seize pensions from corrupt politicians.)

The rhetoric from those calling for a federal convention is simplistic, given the stakes, complexity and chaos of the consequences. From the mid-1970s until three or four years ago, the call for a convention was to rein in federal spending via a balanced budget amendment, said Jay Riekenberg, a campaign strategist at Common Cause. But today, proponents are talking about more sweeping reforms, which becomes an open-ended invitation to revise the Constitution to accommodate virtually every right-wing goal that cannot be adopted through state legislatures or Congress.

"The messaging change we are seeing coming out of the convention of states [the main advocacy group] is forcing the conservatives to talk differently about this," Riekenberg said. "The convention of states folks talk about how simple this is; this is all about taking back power from Washington."

"The conservative movement has basically made this a long-term strategy," he continued. "They had a lot of momentum between 2011 and maybe Monday night. They need six states... Four are firmly in Republican hands."

Virginia and in Minnesota are the likely near-term exceptions, where Democrats either gained power on Tuesday or may do so in 2018. But as far-fetched as an Article 5 convention sounds, the unknowns associated with it should prompt notice. It could be a runaway convention. It could be a bonanza for special interests. There are no certain convention rules laid out in the Constitution or a ratification process. There's no guarantee participants would be representative of the electorate.

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall already had a serious understanding of the Internet and its implications for media and democracy while I was still figuring out how to use email. Some see Internet connectivity solely as a means toward power and profit; Rob's book, Bottom up, sees and offers it as a vehicle for bettering society and ourselves."



Jeff Cohen, Founder, FAIR, and founding Director of the Park Center for Independent Media
The Indian government on Thursday said it has sought details about the US announcement to provide financial aid to NGOs to promote religious freedom in India.

The US has announced it wants to "increase societal tolerance" and reduce "religiously-motivated violence" and discrimination in India with the nearly $500,000 grant to NGOs in the country.

The state department had on Wednesday announced the grant for organizations that can come up with ideas and projects to promote religious freedom in India.

The department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in a notice, had said that it seeks to "reduce religiously-motivated violence and discrimination in India" through its $4,93,827 grant program.

"The goal of the program is to increase societal tolerance and improve civilian security to reduce religiously-motivated violence and discrimination, and the funds will support activities that work toward that end," a department spokesperson told Press Trust of India in Washington.

The State Department said the NGOs applying for the grant should come out with proposals to develop and implement early warning systems to mitigate large-scale violence and implement conflict mitigation programs between minority and majority groups.

The applicants should also have proposals to educate civil society and journalists about legal protections for religious freedom, particularly for members of religious minorities; document and report religious freedom violations to authorities; and educate law enforcement on human-rights standards.

Among other proposals could be ideas to engage law enforcement to better protect rights of religious minorities, including preventing incidents of discrimination and violence and holding perpetrators accountable, the State Department said.

The countries currently receiving grants from US in the region are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhastan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In its latest International Religious Freedom report, the State Department said Christian and Muslim activists stated the government was not doing enough to protect them against religiously motivated attacks.

There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs and proselytize, it said.

There was an increase in violent incidents by cow-protection groups against mostly Muslim victims, including killings, mob violence, assaults, and intimidation. Hindus threatened and assaulted Muslims and Christians and destroyed their property, it added.

During his confirmation hearing last month, the new US Ambassador-designate to India, Ken Juster, said that human rights and religious freedom would be one of his priority areas during his assignment in New Delhi. Juster was confirmed by the Senate last week.

Violence by cow vigilantes increased in India in 2016: US report

There was an increase in violent incidents by cow-protection groups mostly against Muslims in India in the year 2016, an official US report on international religious freedom said in last August, noting that authorities often "failed" to prosecute cow vigilantes.

The report, the first under the Trump Administration, released by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said members of the civil society expressed concerns that under the BJP government religious minority communities felt vulnerable due to Hindu nationalist groups engaging in violence against non-Hindu individuals and places of worship.

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Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Rob Kall has been the center of a vast, decentralized conversation for years, letting us hear in interviewees' own words the power of connection in every realm. His new book brings it all together, showing us that the old order is broken and fast being replaced from the bottom up. The old power elite may not know it yet, but millions of us -- organizers, artists, thinkers and doers -- have gotten the message. So should you, by reading Bottom-Up."



Arlene Goldbard, author of The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & The Future
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From Consortium News



The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ross fires a tomahawk land attack missile from the Mediterranean Sea at Syria, April 7, 2017.

(Image by (Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Robert S. Price)) Details DMCA



A new United Nations-sponsored report on the April 4 sarin incident in an Al Qaeda-controlled town in Syria blames Bashar al-Assad's government for the atrocity, but the report contains evidence deep inside its "Annex II" that would prove Assad's innocence.

If you read that far, you would find that more than 100 victims of sarin exposure were taken to several area hospitals before the alleged Syrian warplane could have struck the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Still, the Joint Investigative Mechanism [JIM], a joint project of the U.N. and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW], brushed aside this startling evidence and delivered the Assad guilty verdict that the United States and its allies wanted.

The JIM consigned the evidence of a staged atrocity, in which Al Qaeda operatives would have used sarin to kill innocent civilians and pin the blame on Assad, to a spot 14 pages into the report's Annex II. The sensitivity of this evidence of a staged "attack" is heightened by the fact that President Trump rushed to judgment and ordered a "retaliatory" strike with 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian airbase on the night of April 6-7. That U.S. attack reportedly killed several soldiers at the base and nine civilians, including four children, in nearby neighborhoods.

So, if it becomes clear that Al Qaeda tricked President Trump not only would he be responsible for violating international law and killing innocent people, but he and virtually the entire Western political establishment along with the major news media would look like Al Qaeda's "useful idiots."

Currently, the West and its mainstream media are lambasting the Russians for not accepting the JIM's "assessment," which blames Assad for the sarin attack. Russia is also taking flak for questioning continuation of the JIM's mandate. There has been virtually no mainstream skepticism about the JIM's report and almost no mention in the mainstream of the hospital-timing discrepancy.

Timing Troubles

To establish when the supposed sarin attack occurred on April 4, the JIM report relied on witnesses in the Al Qaeda-controlled town and a curious video showing three plumes of smoke but no airplanes. Based on the video's metadata, the JIM said the scene was recorded between 0642 and 0652 hours. The JIM thus puts the timing of the sarin release at between 0630 and 0700 hours.



The photograph released by the White House of President Trump meeting with his advisers at his estate in Mar-a-Lago on April 6, 2017, regarding his decision to launch missile strikes against Syria.

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But the first admissions of victims to area hospitals began as early as 0600 hours, the JIM found, meaning that these victims could not have been poisoned by the alleged aerial bombing (even if the airstrike really did occur).

According to the report's Annex II, "The admission times of the records range between 0600 and 1600 hours." And these early cases -- arriving before the alleged airstrike -- were not isolated ones.

"Analysis of the ... medical records revealed that in 57 cases, patients were admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun," Annex II said.

Plus, this timing discrepancy was not limited to a few hospitals in and around Khan Sheikhoun, but was recorded as well at hospitals that were scattered across the area and included one hospital that would have taken an hour or so to reach.

Annex II stated: "In 10 such cases, patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 125 km away from Khan Shaykhun at 0700 hours while another 42 patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 30 km away at 0700 hours."

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Bernie Sanders | U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont spea. | Flickr1024 -- 683 - 190k - jpg

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After this week's enlightening details divulged by Donna Brazile about the DNC and it being controlled by Hillary Clinton, it is small wonder that the Progressives in the party, as well as those that backed Bernie Sanders are very angry.

The DNC has been taken to court with little if any media coverage about what occurred in last year's primaries, and now it has been solidified by what Ms. Brazile wrote in her book.

Of course, the party has been dying for many years. Andrew Jackson the racist native American killer (at his time Indian killer), the war monger Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and the invasion of Vietnam by Kennedy have helped kill the party or at least shoot itself in the proverbial foot. Hillary Clinton was only one of the players in a game of stripping people of their democracy and freedoms. One should have known since her husband's inability to keep his fidelity almost led to his impeachment. Only a viable third party will ever remedy the duopoly America is stuck with. Senator Sanders woke many people to this fact and paid a price.

Not only was Senator Sanders robbed of his nomination but the people that joined with him were also. Many of these same people had actually joined the party to support Senator Sanders and in the interim have left the party in disgust with the elitist attitude of the party and its constituency's attitude toward Progressives. Many stayed and became involved in a movement of the Justice Democrats but since the revelations of both the court case and Ms. Brazile it is doubtful that many of these people will remain in a party which can only be called corrupt on a level with the Republican Party.

In recent months Ms. Clinton has blamed the Progressives and Senator Sander's supporters for her loss without giving any indication that her takeover of the DNC was the issue. She continued to browbeat Senator Sanders at every opportunity using any trick in her playbook to negate the democratic process. She had believed she was preordained into the Presidency regardless of who ran against her. This gave the Republicans who despised Clinton and the entitled politicians a chance to vote for someone that spoke to their need for change in Washington. The fact remains that the very egregious dirty tricks Clinton used were the stepping stones to our current administration.

Had Clinton been enlightened and Progressive enough to let democracy and our system work the way it was devised we may have had Senator Sanders as President of the United States at this moment, as every poll has shown his win over Trump was a reality. Senator Sanders is fighting about the issues that affect America at this moment, as he did when campaigning. A few Democrats are joining him in support for "Medicare for all" and his campaigns for legislation for education, immigration, and other issues. However, there are many of the "elite" Democrats that oppose anything Sanders has proposed.

Among the elite Democrats America finds much the same as any Republican although toned down a bit. They still press for insurance companies in our healthcare system which quite frankly shows who receives sums from the insurance lobbies and who doesn't. Although these Democrats call foul about the new terrorist event in New York they still kick the can down the road on gun legislation weeks after the event in Las Vegas. One can only guess why, but it does suggest a certain amount of collusion with their Republican counterparts.

The Democratic Party has shown that their need for young millennials does not make a difference to their agenda to this very day. Senator Sanders had activated many of these young people and Ms. Clinton and the DNC concluded that the Progressive agenda was not something they wish to follow. Their message seems that they are quite willing to keep the status quo and not focus on their need to grow and change. Change would help the party quite a bit at this time as even more and more people are becoming Independents (40+%) or joining the Green party as a result of Democratic arrogance.

That arrogance has led to the current DNC leader to oppose many of the issues the Progressive wing of the Party has brought to the fore. In fact, he has waged war on Progressives and continues to adopt the same agenda as the party elites have adopted. If the party wants to flourish and not shoot itself in the foot, it is high time they worked with Progressives on the issues that face the poorest of our American community and drop many of the tactics used during last year's campaigns.

As an example, the use of money in both democratic campaigns encapsulates the destruction of the Democratic Party. They, the party, are crying a lack of funds since the primaries and do not realize their arrogance about campaign funding has actually helped this to occur. They still use big money donors as their primary source of income and did not learn anything from many of the progressives that run on donations only from their supporters. The numbers of these supporters were evident during Senator Sanders run last year with an average of $27 and far outdid his expectations.

As referenced above the healthcare issue has also been arrogantly handled by the party elite. Although some have adopted Senator Sander's "Medicare for all" many still take the stance of the former candidate Hillary Clinton. That stance of keeping the healthcare insurance companies viable, as well as Big Pharma, shows a certain unreal dismissive attitude to their would be constituents who require a stable healthcare system and not the bipartisan quagmire it has become. Luckily the Republicans have been instrumental in the demise of the last healthcare legislation. Democrats have not come even close to getting any kind of replacement to the ACA which does have flaws and needs to be improved if it is to survive. The Republicans have made it clear they will repeal and replace the law and they are the majority in the House and Senate and the administration.

If the Democratic Party does not adopt an ability to thrive and grow there will be a second term for Trump and his cohort. It is time for them to stop thinking of lobbyists as more worthy of our democracy than we the people. It is also imperative that meddling in our democratic process is dropped and replaced with a party of the people and for the people. Or they can just suffer major losses in 2018 and 2020. This would be an, even more, blundering massive series of errors than we saw in 2015 and 2016, with the blindsiding of the voters by the corrupt DNC, which was all too quick to sweep Hillary's shortcomings and her ponderous baggage under the national rug of her nomination.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/post-abc-poll-voters-favor-democrats-over-republicans-in-2018-house-midterms-by-widest-margin-in-years/2017/11/05/b3b2f620-bf4d-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.d8888cf9e3d2
Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"In Bottom-Up, Rob Kall offers important insights on why our society is in such disarray and what we must do to change it. He demonstrates how "top down" thinking is what has produced our current mess, and how bottom up thinking is much more efficient for solving problems and producing change. Rob shows how lasting change must come from the people themselves and not from the leaders. This was as true in the days of the Magna Carta as it was for the Bill of Rights as it was for the Union movement that first gave workers' rights and protection in this country, as it is today. Indigenous elders have told me, "if you want to change the world, start talking and keep talking." Rob is doing this with this book and with his OpEdNews, and he is making a difference. I recommend this book to all who wish to see lasting, human-friendly, compassionate change that will sustain humanity is this crazy world of today."



Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, author of the Coyote trilogy that discusses healing practices from Lakota, Cherokee, and Cree traditions and how they intersect with conventional medicine
From The Nation

If there is an American elected official who is the opposite of Donald Trump, it could well be Ravinder Bhalla. A Sikh-American lawyer with a record of fighting discrimination, Bhalla says, "I'm everything that Trump hates. A brown man wearing a turban, and a proud American with the know-how to stop his assaults on our country's values."

And while Trump is losing, Bhalla is winning. On Tuesday, when voters across the country rejected the president's Republican allies in what political analysts referred to as "nothing less than a stinging repudiation of Trump on the first anniversary of his election," Ravi Bhalla was elected mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey. The win in the city of 55,000, located just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, was celebrated by the Sikh community in the United States, which has frequently been targeted by racists who know little about the 500-year-old religion that has produced many political leaders in India and Canada.

"Given how much we've endured in this country, and frankly the fact that we have been here for more than a century now in the U.S. and have felt largely ignored and neglected as a minority community, this is for us a signal shift, where we feel like we're getting on the map. This is a major development for us," declared Simran Jeet Singh, a religion fellow at the Sikh Coalition. "And it comes in a context where, like many minority groups, we're facing xenophobia."

Bhalla's victory came on a night of breakthrough victories for women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, democratic socialists, and others who have been the targets of Trump's crude slurs and discriminatory policies. Like many of the candidates who ran on the state and local levels, in partisan and nonpartisan contests, Bhalla was blunt about his disagreements with the president, telling interviewers, "I am the son of two Indian immigrants and I'm willing to stand up against President Donald Trump whenever his policies are not in line with the U.S. Constitution, and in this case the New Jersey State Constitution."

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From Counterpunch



Dangerous Bike Path

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This week's ISIS-inspired truck attack in lower Manhattan by Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov has prompted discussions on a number of fronts. There is blowback, the foreign-policy-chickens-come-home-to-roost indicated by an increasing number of radical Islamists emerging from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, a Central Asian nation whose brutal dictatorship is financed and armed by our U.S. taxdollars.

There is the ongoing verbal diarrhea of our mentally diseased president, whose tweets that Saipov deserves the "DEATH PENALTY" (caps his) were overshadowed by his even more outlandish suggestion that the suspect be reclassified as an "enemy combatant" (a Bush-era phrase undefined by American law) and sent to the U.S. torture-concentration camp at Guanta'namo. Always the opportunist, Trump also said the "diversity visa" program ought to be abolished because Saipov came to the U.S. under what is more commonly known as the visa lottery.

Seems to me that the biggest issue raised by the New York attack is the one we're not talking about: the need to protect bicyclists from cars and trucks on public roadways.

Saipov drove his rented Home Depot truck down the West Side Highway onto what becomes West Street, the six-lane road that follows the Hudson River in Manhattan. At Houston Street, just south of Greenwich Village, he made a quick right and a quick left onto the joint pedestrian-bike path that runs alongside the highway. There he mowed down cyclists and pedestrians, killing eight people.

Those eight people aren't dead solely due to Saipov. They were also killed by the City of New York and its lousy urban planning.

Though in recent years there has been considerable progress in terms of setting aside asphalt for bike paths, walkways and urban parklets, New York and many American other cities, city officials seem largely oblivious to the risks of placing soft human bodies in close proximity to speeding cars, SUVs and trucks.

New York, where I live, is one of numerous cities to report success with bike-rental programs. Ours is called Citibike; you rent a bike from a kiosk and return it to a docking station near your destination. In between you make your way down and across city streets, where cars and trucks rule.

I almost understand the city's reluctance to dedicate a bike lane to, or to dedicate entire streets, along smaller crosstown thoroughfares. They're too narrow; you'd have to eliminate a lot of street parking, which would create more congestion. But the way New York has handled bike lanes along big boulevards is nothing short of inexplicable.

Nothing separates the bike lane from motor vehicle traffic but a line of white paint or, in some cases, short plastic sticks. Forget terrorism-hype aside, terrorism kills so few people that the only rational way for individuals to respond to it is to ignore it and live your life. It's the ordinary accidents that worry me: two cars collide, one or both lose control and enter the bike path. It happens all the time in New York and elsewhere.

The West Street path where Saipov murdered his victims benefits from a short jersey barrier along the automobile section. But it's easily accessible to even a large truck driven by a person of ill will, as we saw a few days ago -- not to mention the random drunk who thinks it's a service road. And it contains yet another ridiculous design flaw: putting pedestrians and bicyclists in the same space. Cyclists weave between walkers, terrifying them. Walkers are oblivious to cyclists, creating more accidents. Both deserve two safe, discrete spaces to enjoy the outdoors.

What's maddening about this is that this is the kind of tragedy that is predictable and easy to avoid with minimal expense. Bike paths running adjacent to traffic should be separated by solid concrete or metal barriers between intersections. At intersections, a series of metal bars wide enough to allow bikes to pass through but too narrow for cars, and solid enough to stop one traveling fast, should be installed.

The same precautions should be taken along densely-populated urban streets in order to protect pedestrians. In May 2017 a man high on PCP drove on a sidewalk in Times Square, killing a woman and leaving more than dozen others injured. But it would have been worse had his vehicle not been blocked by a bollard. Sturdy metal barriers should be installed along busy streets to protect pedestrians from out-of-control cars; at intersections they should go with those poles I mentioned above.

You can't protect everyone. You can't anticipate every nefarious plot. But disasters that are predictable, easy to avoid or mitigate, and relatively inexpensive are a no-brainer.


The Parkin' Meters play Bob Dylan

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The title's lyrics are from one of Bob Dylan's greatest songs of social commentary, "Things Have Changed ". Actually, to this writer the lyrics are about the empire we live under and how it has adversely affected our lives. Just recently, The American Psychological Association conducted a survey and found that 2/3 of Americans feel stress about the future of our country. Why not? Where shall I begin? Well, random acts of murder are on the rise, and not just the fake 'talking points finger pointing' at so called terrorists. No, too many mass murders are committed by obviously stressed out and emotionally disturbed people from a wide spectrum of demographics. It is easy to pin the blame on foreign terrorist groups for the craziness of domestic killers. Maybe if more of our national treasure was spent on psychological therapy and not on warrior therapy....

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain't doing me any good!

We have the 'masters of the empire' who control the corporations, the Pentagon, the mainstream media and of course our phony 2-Party/One-Party political system. They mesmerize most of the public into thinking that it is OK to become mega rich... after all the mega rich all worked hard for it (sic), and used ingenuity and creativity with long hours to succeed (sic). They sell you the doctrine of the 'Free Market' and the allure of 'Flipping houses' and 'Rental property' as a means of financial success. They pin white working stiffs against black and Latino working stiffs... with ALL against the 'sleeper cell jihadists' who also live here. They give you a Donald Trump to demagogue and phony populist away the phony and warmongering Mrs. Clinton.

Some things are too hot to touch

The human mind can only stand so much

You can't win with a losing hand

The masters of empire create and handle every president that they allow to win office. They give you the Chinese restaurant choice of column A) the predatory Republican Party and column B) the 'I feel your pain' hypocritical Democrats. Column A will go backwards faster to a feudal Amerika with 'dog eat dog' economic and racial polarization. Column B will suck up to the corporations while saying they don't. And of course both sides of the empire's menu will give away our federal revenues to the War economy in the name of 'defense of the realm or homeland'. They all thank our soldiers for their 'service to our country' when in reality they do NOT serve you and me, but the War Empire.

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose

Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

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From Smirking Chimp

After 2017's election night, the Republicans are on the brink of falling apart as a national party -- and everybody who has been around politics longer than President Trump knows it.

"Ed Gillespie's resounding loss in Tuesday's Virginia governor's race -- coupled with a series of other losses in lower-profile races around the country -- will likely take what was bubbling concern among Republicans about their prospects in the 2018 midterms and transform it into a frothing cauldron of panic," wrote Chris Cillizza, CNN's editor-at-large and a longtime Washington analyst. "That panic is born not from the fact of Gillespie's defeat but the way in which he lost -- and the role President Donald Trump and Trumpism played in that loss."

As bad as the results were for Republicans on Tuesday (Democrats won two governors' races as well as legislative majorities in several states, and elected a deep bench of progressives to mayoral and other down-ballot posts), Trump's response in the aftermath will only make matters worse for the GOP.

First, Trump tweeted that Gillespie didn't follow his cues. "Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for," Trump said. That's false, because Gillespie did what Republicans across the country thought was their best strategy: embrace Trumpism but not Donald Trump. Gillespie defended Confederate monuments, made racist attacks against Latin Americans (by accusing youths of being gang members), and pledged to outlaw sanctuary cities and repeal the restoration of voting to ex-felons.

What did the president do next? His administration Wednesday issued its latest Cuba sanctions, alienating many Latinos, who according to exit polls, turned out to vote in record numbers in Virginia on Tuesday.

Trump isn't going to change course. Neither is his base, nor its stalwart supporters. On Steve Bannon's Breitbart.com, Wednesday morning's lineup completely ignored Tuesday's results. Instead, there was a gamut of stories revving up nostalgia for Trump's victory a year ago. The lead story was, "November 8, 2016: The Untold Story of Breitbart's Election Night." Down the page was its preview of Virginia's governor's race, instead of coverage of the results. "The contest between the two milquetoast and uninspiring establishment candidates represents nearly everything voters hate about politics," Breitbart claimed.

Outside Trumplandia, as many Republicans and political observers know, the opposite is true. A majority of Virginia voters rejected Trump's divisive politics and embraced competent governing -- or the prospect of it. The conservative National Review's Jim Geraghty put this rejection of Trumpism as bluntly as any seasoned Republican.

"If last night had brought a routine disappointment for Republicans -- say, the statewide candidates losing by a few points and only a handful of state assembly seats flipping to the Democrats -- the 'blame Trump' argument would be weaker," Geraghty wrote. "But last night was the worst night for Republicans in Virginia in a long time. Gillespie lost by the worst margin for a Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state since 1985. No GOP statewide candidate hit 48 percent. Perhaps more significantly, Republicans entered Election Day with a 17-seat margin in the state assembly and lost at least 13, with seven seats too close to call this morning." (By midday Wednesday, Democrats had won 15 of those seats, including 11 by women candidates.)

What's apparent to Republicans who haven't drunk the Trump-Breitbart-Fox News Kool-Aid is that Trumpism and following the party's white nationalist fringe is a recipe for sending the GOP into the wilderness. Trump-style extremism may help copycats win low-turnout primaries to get onto fall ballots. But it's increasingly apparent that such extremism is a formula for losing in the general election.

CNN's Cillizza, who used to write the Washington Post's Fix column handicapping candidates, noted Gillespie's Trump-like messaging completely failed in the party's wealthier northern Virginia suburbs, which are like many GOP strongholds across America. David Wasserman, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report, noted that Trump's messaging also failed in Richmond and the suburbs around Hampton Roads, which are conservative and home to nearby military bases. As a result, six of 10 Virginians told exit pollsters they strongly disapproved of the job Trump is doing -- that is, his style, his substance and his accomplishments.

"There's simply no way to explain the demolition of Gillespie in the suburbs and exurbs other than a strong distaste for Trump among those voters," Cillizza said. "And, for all of the caveats and the don't-read-too-much-into-one-race-ism by the 'smart' political reporters, the simple fact is that every single Republican politician in the halls of Congress will be paying very close attention to what happened in Virginia Tuesday night and wondering what it all means for them." He continued:

"What it means -- at least as of today -- is this: Trump remains a potent and powerful force in Republican primaries. But, he is a potentially toxic taint with the broader general electorate. Which puts Republicans -- especially those facing potentially serious primary challenges or who sit in swing districts in the general election -- in a no-win position. Run away from Trump and risk losing your primary fight. Run with Trump and risk losing the general election. Badly."

This no-win frame -- that standing with Trump will be an electoral death knell in next November's federal elections -- was also seen in results outside Virginia. In New Jersey, where voters were tired of the antics of another GOP bully, outgoing Gov. Chris Christie, Democrats won a complete lock on legislative and executive branch power. In Maine, where another red belligerent is governor, voters said no to dismantling Obamacare and voted to expand Maine's Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act.

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Trump climate change denier in chief.

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[Revised from article by Sophie Mangal, Inside Syria Media Center]

Ironically, Syria has expressed a desire to join the Paris climate accord, while the number one polluter, user of hydrocarbons and destroyer of countries in illegal regime change projects is pulling out.

Earlier this year the Trump administration said that the accord is "too expensive" for the richest country in the world. On the other hand Syria, a country that has suffered the destruction of its infrastructure and millions of people killed, maimed, widowed and orphaned, mostly at the hands of the US, shows its concern for the citizens of the world who are threatened by climate change. Trump tells the citizens of the world to "go to hell".

Nicaragua, itself a victim of a US regime change project in the 1980's and a country in the path of many deadly hurricanes, said last month that it is joining the accord. That left just Syria as the last of 200 countries. It is understandable that Syria would be the last country to join the Paris accord as it has had an invasion to defend against and the anxiety of coping with immediate concerns struggling with the challenge of rebuilding and recovering. It is incomprehensible that the country that prides itself on being "exceptional" would demonstrate its exceptionalism by the planned 2020. US exceptionalism can only be interpreted as being a scofflaw, rouge, war criminal and climate change denier.

In an address to delegates at a global climate meeting in Bonn, Germany, Syria's deputy minister of local administration and environment, M. Wadah Katmawi, said his country would join the Paris deal "as soon as possible." Katmawi said that, "Nations that are entering the phase of post-war recovery, as my nation has seen a war that was oppressed upon it -- should give priority in reconstruction and reorganizing the environment and climate."

Syria's ascension to the treaty is the first major news to emerge from this year's UN climate talks, which are being held in Bonn, Germany, this month.
From Mondoweiss

A British government minister was apparently so dedicated to her work that she spent a "family holiday" in Israel conducting 12 undisclosed meetings with Israeli officials, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Those covert meetings brought about the downfall of Priti Patel on Wednesday night. She was forced to resign as international development secretary, responsible for Britain's overseas aid budget, admitting her actions "fell below the standards of transparency and openness" expected of a minister.

Her position became untenable as further revelations this week showed she had held two additional unrecorded meetings with Israeli officials in London and New York in September, organized and attended by a prominent Israel lobbyist.

All meetings conducted by British ministers on official business are supposed to be recorded by government civil servants.

Although the office of Theresa May, the British prime minister, has insisted it did not know of these meetings until the BBC revealed them on November 3, a report from Britain's Jewish Chroniclenewspaper suggested otherwise. It claimed that, while the meetings were not authorized beforehand, May's officials learnt of them almost immediately through Israeli counterparts.

During her vacation in Israel, Patel also dispensed with sightseeing to head instead to the Golan Heights, Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Thoughtfully, the Israeli army accompanied her and had the chance to explain in detail their "humanitarian work" running a field hospital patching up those injured in southern Syria, including al Qaeda combatants.

Patel was reportedly so impressed she wanted to give the Israeli army a chunk of Britain's limited international aid. Her department's budget is apparently so tight that, according to the Independent newspaper, she approved cuts last year in aid to the Palestinians of 17 million, including projects in Gaza.

In other words, Patel hoped to give British aid intended for the most unfortunate directly to one of the best-funded and equipped armies in the world, one that already receives $4 billion a year in military aid from the United States, and which has used its swollen budget to sustain a five-decade belligerent occupation of the Palestinians and enforce its continuing occupation of the Syrian Golan.

All of this was done unofficially. In an example of understatement, the British media called all of this a "breach of ministerial protocol." The Guardian newspaper characterized Patel's behavior as a sign of her "incompetence." But is that plausible?

Was Patel so astoundingly ignorant of government protocol that she held meetings off the books with senior Israeli officials? Was it political naivety that led her to venture into the Golan under the auspices of the Israeli army and into an area from which Israel has been deeply meddling in the six-year Syrian proxy war raging just a few miles away?

And was it simply a coincidence that her unusual holiday excursion occurred as analysts have begun warning of an imminent renewed outbreak of hostilities between Israel and its northern neighbors, Syria and Lebanon?

It is worth picking through the debris in an attempt to work out what she, and Israel, might have been trying to achieve.

Patel is a prominent member of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a pro-Israel lobby group to which 80 percent of the ruling Conservative party's members of parliament, including most government ministers, belong. They and a similarly entrenched group of opposition Labour MPs belonging to Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) are there to advance Israel's case in parliament and in British foreign policy.

Such MPs are invited on official "educational" trips to Israel where they get access to Israeli leaders and are wined and dined. The damaging influence of these lobbies on British politics -- and the covert nature of their activities -- were highlighted earlier this year in a four-part undercover investigation broadcast by Al Jazeera.

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Russian Physicists Research Might Lead to a New Generation of Microprocessors

https://www.urfu.ru/en

Anatoly Zatsepin, head of the laboratory named "Photonics and VUV Spectroscopy" of the Department of Physical Methods and Instruments of Control (Institute of Physics and Technology, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg, Russia) received a special certificate for his public presentation of the research at a congress in Valencia, Spain. The scientist's report was devoted to fundamental studies of oxides of rare-earth elements with reduced dimensionality. The objects of research raise interest of the scientific society as they can be used as new materials with predetermined properties for devices converting UV and IR radiation. In the long run, the research may lead to creation of a new generation of microprocessors which are dozens of times faster and smaller than the existing ones.The congress, which was organized by the International Scientific Federation, brought together more than 300 participants from Spain, France, Italy, the USA, Great Britain, Japan, India and other countries."The audience received my report with great interest and were really impressed by some of the results we had achieved," said Anatoly Zatsepin. In the course of studies of gadolinium oxide nanoparticles, we discovered the so-called giant softening effect of optical phonons. We managed to create conditions under which the energy of UV and IR radiation absorbed by these nanoparticles can be converted into visible light with maximum efficiency. At the same time, the energy losses, which inevitably exist, turned out to be an order of magnitude lower than they should be in theory."According to Anatoly Zatsepin, the effect has been repeatedly checked and confirmed. Such result allows to achieve an increase in efficiency of long-range space communication systems, complex integrated chips, in the creation of new generation microminiature nanolaser, which will be in demand in both medical and biological studies and in practical medicine. At the moment, scientists of the UrFU Institute of Physics and Technology are developing a theoretical model which could adequately describe the results.The project for the study of rare earth oxides with reduced dimensionality has already received support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. It is planned that the state will be supporting the project for three years. The project involves young employees, postgraduates and students of several departments of the UrFU Institute of Physics and Technology."I would like to underline that these achievements were the result of a young researchers teams work. A post-graduate student of the department, Yulia Kuznetsova, made a significant contribution to the experiments, data processing and preparation of materials. Her diploma project gave impetus for the research; we started developing this field and received support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, established contacts with leading Russian and foreign researchers," said Anatoly Zatsepin.Ural Federal University (UrFU) is one of the largest higher educational institutions in Russia, which brings together fundamental education and innovative approach towards the challenges of modern times.Currently, the university is home to 32,000 students from 76 countries of the world and more than 4,000 faculty members, including the top-notch global experts in the spheres of natural sciences, engineering and social sciences. Our institutes offer about 400 Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Programs in natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, economics and management taught in Russian and English. The number of UrFU alumni exceeds 360,000 people.Breakthrough studies are pursued in 72 research excellence centers. The university is open to international collaboration having almost 400 partners all over the globe and being an active participant of such initiatives as BRICS Network University, SCO Network University, CIS University.Ural Federal University19, Mira Str., Ekaterinburg, Russia, 620002Marina Sannikova, Head of International Marketing Officeinfo.international@urfu.ru+7 343 374 54 34
North America to Dominate the Global Biosimulation Market

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has added a new report in its repository titledBiosimulation Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Forecast (2017-2022). This report presents in-depth insights on the global biosimulation market over the forecast period 2017-2022. To precisely estimate the market value share and volume forecast, the report gauges 2016 as the base year. Moreover, to present a comprehensive forecast of the market, the report provides information on the various factors that are likely to boost market revenue growth during the forecast period. Several key trends expected to govern the market during this period are also presented in detail in this report. The report stresses on the tools that can aid in predicting the future outcome of drug development through stimulation of the biological process and analyses the impact of micro and macroeconomic forces on the revenue growth of the global market during the period of forecast.Free Copy of Sample Report @Few key elements covered in the report include information on the disposal of biosimulation process, usage of advanced tools for the development of the product, future opportunities in the global market, and data on new drug and wide researching applications for drug discovery, along with a list of the biosimulation supply chain and the key market participants.Global Biosimulation Market: Segmental AnalysisThe study further analyzes the global biosimulation market on the basis of product into software and service; by end user into Regulatory Authorities, Academic and Government Research Institutes, Pharmaceutical and Biotech Companies, Contract Research Organizations and others, by application into drug recovery, drug development and other application. The regions assessed in the report include North America, Japan, Latin America, APEJ, Europe and MEA. The report presents a detailed comparison of the revenue forecast and the market size for the application, end user, and product type segments across each of these assessed countries and regions, hence providing an overall view of the global market on biosimulation. Among the regional markets, North America is the leading market and will register highest CAGR in terms of revenue over the coming years and this trend will sustain throughout the said period.Read Full Report with TOC @Global Biosimulation Market: Research MethodologyExtensive primary and secondary research has been deployed to determine the market size of the global biosimulation market. Appropriate market size is derived through interviews with manufacturers and key stakeholders functioning worldwide in the biosimulation market. The report presents a forecast in terms of value for the biosimulation market and further evaluates the global market by studying parameters such as Y-o-Y growth to help the reader understand future opportunities likely to emerge in the global market pertaining to biosimulation.Global Market Study on Biosimulation: Vendor InsightsA few dominating companies functioning in the biosimulation market at a global level that are being profiled in the study include Schrodinger, Inc., Acceryls Inc. , L.P., Dassault Systemes SE, Evidera, Inc. , Inc., Entelos, Inc., Genedata AG, Simulations Plus, Inc., Leadscope Inc., Advanced Chemistry Development and Certara.Enquire About this Report @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Label Printer Market Insights by Elite Manufacturers - HP, Mutoh, Roland, Seiko, Xerox, Ricoh

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Global Label Printer Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2021ReportsWeb.com published Global Label Printer Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2021 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.The Global Label Printer Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2021 is a valuable source of insightful data for business strategists. It provides the Label Printer industry overview with growth analysis and historical & futuristic cost, revenue, demand and supply data (as applicable). This Label Printer market study provides comprehensive data which enhances the understanding, scope and application of this report. The research analysts provide an elaborate description of the value chain and its distributor analysis.This report provides comprehensive analysis ofKey market segments and sub-segmentsEvolving market trends and dynamicsChanging supply and demand scenariosQuantifying market opportunities through market sizing and market forecastingTracking current trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive insightsGlobal Label Printer Market: Regional Segment AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaRequest a Free Sample Now atThe Major players reported in the market include:HPMutohRolandMimaki EngineeringSeiko EpsonAGFA GraphicsRicohXeroxKonica Minolta...Global Label Printer Market: Product Segment AnalysisType 1Type 2Type 3Global Label Printer Market: Application Segment AnalysisApplication 1Application 2Application 3Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a six-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsTo Order the Detailed Report with its Complete TOC now visit atOverview for Table of Contents of Report Global Label Printer Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2021Chapter 1 Label Printer Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Label Printer IndustryChapter 3 Global Label Printer Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Label Printer Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)Chapter 5 Global Label Printer Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2012-2017)Chapter 6 Global Label Printer Production, Revenue (Value) , Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Global Label Printer Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Global Label Printer Manufacturers AnalysisChapter 9 Label Printer Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 10 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 11 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 12 Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 13 Global Label Printer Market Forecast (2017-2021)Browse Complete Report Now 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-411028
Chili Sauce Market Growth and Regional Forecast 2017

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Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD) , market share and growth rate of Chili Sauce in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast) , coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaFor more information about this report atGlobal Chili Sauce market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingMaggiKuhneRozaMeileYumartBaishaZycLee Kum KeeLaoganmaHeinzHadayOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoU.S. Grade AU.S. Grade CSubstandardOn 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, includingPhysical StoresOnline StoresRequest a sample copy atTable of Content1 Chili Sauce Market Overview2 Global Chili Sauce Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Chili Sauce Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Chili Sauce Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2012-2017)4.1 Global Chili Sauce Consumption by Regions (2012-2017)4.2 North America Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Chili Sauce Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global Chili Sauce Production, Revenue (Value) , Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Chili Sauce Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global Chili Sauce Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global Chili Sauce Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global Chili Sauce Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global Chili Sauce Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Chili Sauce Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global Chili Sauce Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/Countries7 Global Chili Sauce Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Maggi7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Chili Sauce Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Maggi Chili Sauce Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Kuhne7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Chili Sauce Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Kuhne Chili Sauce Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Roza7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Chili Sauce Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Roza Chili Sauce Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview8 Chili Sauce Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Chili Sauce Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 AppendixPurchase Complete Report atWe provide best in classcustomer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries. Our commitment to customer service is best exemplified by free analyst support that we offer to our clients which sets us apart from any other provider. We also offer enterprise subscriptions which provide significant cost savings to our clients.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.com533, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
North America to Lead in Terms of Revenue in the Global Pet Food Packaging Market

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has recently introduced a new report in its repository titled Pet Food Packaging  Global industry analysis, size, share, growth, trends and forecast 2017-2022. This report presents a thorough understanding of the global pet food packaging market for the five year forecast period 2017-2022. The report also highlights the past growth of the global pet food packaging market to provide information on the growth prospects in near future. The different qualitative aspects responsible for the growth of the pet food packaging market globally are also indicated in the report. Some of the key elements covered in the report include information on the supply chain, cost structure of the product, pricing analysis, raw material sourcing strategies, list of the various pet food packaging distributors and leading market players.Free Copy of Sample Report @Factors Fueling Revenue Growth of the Global Pet Food Packaging MarketThe report presents insights on various macro and microeconomic factors that are expected to influence the growth of the global pet food packaging market in the coming years. Increasing advancements in the pet care sector are responsible for the growth in revenue of the global pet food packaging market. The demand for quality pet food has led to the upsurge in the requirement of qualitative food packaging to maintain the quality of pet food products. This is the key factor impacting the growth of the global pet food packaging market in the coming years. Further, an increasing adoption of pets by individuals is another key driving factor for the growth of the global market for pet food packaging.Global Pet Food Packaging Market: Segmental AnalysisThe study segments the global pet food packaging market by packaging materials into plastic and paper, paperboard, metal, and others; on the basis of application into frozen food, wet food, dry food, and pet treats; and by end use into cat food, dog food and others. Regions assessed in the report include Japan, North America, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Based on packaging material, plastic is the predicted to be the highest utilized material in the global market for pet food packaging due to its widespread usage and will share the highest value in terms of revenue towards the close of the forecast period in 2022. Among the regional markets, North America  currently the leading market  is expected to remain the key market in the global pet food packaging market during the forecast period. Europe is also expected to be one of the major contributors in the worldwide pet food packaging market over the coming years.Read Full Report with TOC @Global Pet Food Packaging Market: Manufacturing InsightsThe dominating key players in the global market for pet food packaging are described in the report and information is provided on their key strategies, geographical presence, and product catalog. Companies such as Crown Holdings Inc., Mondi Ltd., Smurfit Kappa Group Plc, DS Smith Plc, Bemis Co. Inc., Packaging Corp. of America, Amcor Ltd., Ardagh Group SA, Berry Global Group Inc., Ball Corporation, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Sealed Air Corp., and Bemis Co. Inc. are some of the leading players in the global pet food packaging market.Enquire About this Report @About MRRSEMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Manganese Battery Market 2017 Global Analysis By key Players Panasonic, BYD, MYJ, Westinghouse, Fujitsu, Hitachi Maxell, vinnic, Toshiba etc.

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This report studies Manganese Battery 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, coveringPanasonicBYDMYJWestinghouseFujitsuHitachi MaxellvinnicToshiba...Request a Sample Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoZinc-Manganese CellLithium Manganese Dioxide BatteryOtherBy Application, the market can be split intoAutomotiveElectronicsOtherBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaMake an enquiry of this Report @If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsGlobal Manganese Battery Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Manganese Battery1.1 Definition and Specifications of Manganese Battery1.1.1 Definition of Manganese Battery1.1.2 Specifications of Manganese Battery1.2 Classification of Manganese Battery1.2.1 Zinc-Manganese Cell1.2.2 Lithium Manganese Dioxide Battery1.2.3 Other1.3 Applications of Manganese Battery1.3.1 Automotive1.3.2 Electronics1.3.3 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 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Manganese Battery2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Manganese Battery2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Manganese Battery2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Manganese Battery3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Manganese Battery3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Manganese Battery Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Manganese Battery Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Manganese Battery Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Manganese Battery Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Manganese Battery Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Manganese Battery Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Manganese Battery Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Manganese Battery Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Manganese Battery Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Manganese Battery Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Manganese Battery Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Manganese Battery Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis5.2 China Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.2.1 China Manganese Battery Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Manganese Battery Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Manganese Battery Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Manganese Battery Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis5.6 India Manganese Battery Market Analysis5.6.1 India Manganese Battery Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 Manganese Battery Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Manganese Battery Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Manganese Battery Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Manganese Battery Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Zinc-Manganese Cell of Manganese Battery Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Lithium Manganese Dioxide Battery of Manganese Battery Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.3 Other of Manganese Battery Growth Driving Factor AnalysisContinuedPurchase Report @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
Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market - Present Scenario & Growth Prospects 2017 - 2025

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Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: OverviewThe global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market is estimated to witness a healthy growth in the coming years. Some of the key factors encouraging the growth of the market include cost containment in pharmaceuticals, rise in the funding for generics, and growing investments in biopharmaceutical research. The technological advancements in labeling and serialization solutions are anticipated to boost the growth of the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. Rising emphasis on labeling and serialization to counter the problem of counterfeiting of medicines will fuel the demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment. The market however faces one challenge. The threat from being substituted by refurbished packaging equipment is present in the market. Refurbished packaging equipment is a viable alternative to new packaging equipment, which costs high. This is likely to restrain the growth of the market.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Key TrendsSome of thy key trends observed in the market are increasing investments in the manufacturing sector by players and consistent technological innovation taking place in the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. The flourishing pharmaceutical industry is directly responsible for the growth of the pharmaceutical packaging equipment market. Rising incidences of diseases and infections are pushing the pharmaceutical industry to grow, which in turn is pushing the demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment. The market for pharmaceutical packaging equipment is especially slated to witness a high growth in developing nations such as China and India as these countries do not have high import duties. The need for inexpensive manufacturing facilities is making developing nations in Asia Pacific, a potential market for pharmaceutical packaging equipment.Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Market PotentialPackaging of pharmaceutical product is extremely vital for the pharmaceutical industry as packaging enables safety and quality of drugs. Thus, there will always be a demand for pharmaceutical packaging equipment in the pharma industry. In contrast with conventional packaging systems, pharmaceutical packaging equipment are automated, modern, and flexible, including primary packaging and secondary equipment, and labeling and serialization equipment. This helps in reducing the time for packaging, boosting production.Request TOC of the Report @Companies such as Robert Bosch Gmbh participate in innovation and develop new products, which is creating a positive outlook for the market. The company recently launched a new Sigpack VPF vertical flat pouch machine and also a HML horizontal flow wrapping machine. The former is developed to pack powders by producing sachets that can pack pain killers in powder form. The machines enables the production of sealed packages and can fill up to 1500 sachets per minute.Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Regional OutlookThe report segments the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market on the basis of geography into Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. North America led in the global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market on account of advancements in the pharmaceutical industry and economic growth of the region. The patent expirations of a number of drugs will also help the market in the region to grow.Get Discount @Pharmaceutical Packaging Equipment Market: Competitive LandscapeThe global pharmaceutical packaging equipment market is highly fragmented. The market is characterized by the presence of several local, regional, and multinational players. Some of the players in the market are: IMA S.p.A. (Italy), Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Korber AG (Germany), Multivac Group (Germany), Marchesini Group S.p.A. (Italy), Romaco Pharmatechnik GmbH (Germany), and OPTIMA Packaging Group GmbH (Germany). Key players in the market are striving for innovation so as to maintain their shares in the competitive market.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
Oilfield Communications Market - Current Scenario and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Oilfield Communications Market: OverviewThe global market for oilfield communication is expected to grow at a strong pace in the next few years. A substantial rise in the number of oil fields across the globe is projected to encourage the growth of the overall market in the next few years. Moreover, the rising emphasis on development and adoption of new and effective communication techniques are anticipated to benefit the key players in the market across the globe.Global Oilfield Communications Market: Key TrendsThe increasing vulnerabilities to cybersecurity threats for the oil and gas industry are anticipated to augment global oilfield communications market in the coming years. Moreover, the integration of several departments in the industry is likely to offer potential opportunities for growth in the next few years. On the flip side, the stringent regulatory framework and the rising risk of inadequate data security and asset security are projected to curtail the growth of the global oilfield communications market in the near future.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Oilfield Communications Market: Market PotentialThe discovery and development of new subsea oilfields are the key factors that are anticipated to encourage the growth of the global oilfield communications market throughout the forecast period. In addition, the growing demand for advanced and cost-effective solutions in the overall oil and gas industry is predicted to supplement the growth of the market in the coming years. The research and development activities and the emergence of new techniques are some of the other aspects that are projected to fuel the growth of the market in the near future. However, the security of information is expected to act as a key challenge for the key players in the global market.Global Oilfield Communications Market: Regional OutlookThe global oilfield communications market has been classified on the basis of geography in order to provide a clear understanding for readers and market players. Among the regional segmentation, North America is anticipated to witness a high level of growth in the next few years. This region is considered as one of the major oil and gas producers across the globe, owing to which the market is estimated to encourage the growth of the market in the coming years. In addition, the rising focus of key players on enhancing their digital communication solutions is predicted to supplement the development of the market in the near future.Request TOC of the Report @Furthermore, the oilfield communications market is estimated to experience a healthy growth in several emerging nations across the globe. The rising focus of the leading players on untapped markets is predicted to generate promising opportunities for key players operating in the oilfield communications market over the forecast period.Global Oilfield Communications Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global market for oilfield communications is fairly competitive in nature and is predicted to witness substantial growth throughout the forecast period. The increasing number of players in the market is estimated to enhance the competitive landscape of the market over the next few years. In addition, the growing focus on research and development activities and innovations are predicted to contribute towards the overall development of the market in the near future.Get Discount @Some of the prominent players operating in the oilfield communications market across the globe are Siemens AG, Rad Data Communications, Inc., Airspan Networks, Inc., Commtel Networks Pvt. Ltd., Inmarsat PLC, Baker Hughes Incorporated, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Rignet, Inc., Speedcast International Limited, Tait Communications, Hughes Network Systems LLC, Commscope, Inc., ABB Ltd., and Ceragon Networks Ltd. Detailed profiles of the mentioned players have been included in the scope of the research report.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
Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK) Market - Insights, Size, Share, Opportunity Analysis, and Industry Forecast till 2025

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Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK) is a colorless semi-crystalline poly-aromatic thermoplastic polymer with high heat and mechanical resistant properties. PEEK can withstand high temperature up to 500 F, thus, can be used with boiling water or superheated steam in sterilization equipment and autoclave. In solid state, PEEK is readily machinable. For instance, filled grades of PEEK can be machined by Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine and can be used to produce high quality plastic parts that are thermally and electrically stable. Owing to its high performance, it is increasingly used in biomedical applications such as orthopedic surgery, spine surgery, and maxillo-facial surgery.Request Sample Copy of this Report:Owing to high temperature feasibility, cost effectiveness, high performance in corrosive and extreme weather conditions, and lightweight properties, PEEK is increasingly used for application in automotive, electrical and electronic, and medical industries. This is one of the factors driving growth of the Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK) market. It is used for reducing the overall weight of the product and is a better replacement for metals in automotive and medical applications such as for artificial bone and surgical instruments.Europe is expected to hold dominant position in the global polyether ether ketone (PEEK) market, with 38.8% market share, and exhibiting a CAGR of 8.1% over the forecast period (2017-2025). Rapid advancement in medical and health care application has fueled demand for PEEK in the region, owing to its usage in artificial bones as an alternative to metal and diagnostic devices such as diabetes homecare products, dialysis equipment, and orthopedics appliances. According to the Centre for the Promotion of Imports (CBI) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the total production of surgical instruments in Europe was valued at US$ 15.25 billion in 2015, with an annual average increase of 12.4% during the period of 2011-2015. Germany accounted for major share of 31%, followed by Belgium and the Netherlands. Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region in the global polyether ether ketone (PEEK), especially such as China, South Korea, and India, with a CAGR of 12.0% and to be valued at US$ 269.6 million by 2025. This is mainly owing to rising purchasing power, rapid industrialization, and rapid expansion of the automobile sector in these countries. According to Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), the Indian automobile industry accounts for 7.1% of the countrys GDP in 2017. Two wheelers automobile segment accounts for 80% share in the Indian automobile market and this is attributed to increasing middle-class and young population. Owing to growth of the automotive industry, there is an increasing use of polyether ether ketone in automotive parts, such as engine, gaskets, transmission rings, friction rings, and thrust washers, which is in turn driving growth of the market.View Full Report @Among product type, glass-filled polyether ether ketone (PEEK) segment holds dominant position in the polyether ether ketone (PEEK) market, with a market share of 80.6% and was valued at US$ 364.4 million in 2016.Major Players in the Polyether Ether Ketone (PEEK) Market:Some of the major players operating in the global polyether ether ketone (PEEK) market are Zyex Ltd., Solvay S.A., Victrex plc, Panjin Zhongrun High Performance Polymers Co. Ltd., Caledonian Industries Ltd., Quadrant EPP Surlon India Ltd., Evonik Industries AG, and Jrlon Inc.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 UsMr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702
Offshore Decommissioning Market - Industry Analysis,Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: OverviewOffshore decommissioning is the process of disassembling offshore oil platforms, which also includes burying the holes drilled into the ground for exploration and extraction purposes. Mature oil platforms can have an adverse impact on the surrounding environment, which necessitates their removal. The global offshore decommissioning market is likely to remain a key sector of the global oil and gas industry in the coming years, as the latter is likely to emphasize increasingly on offshore petroleum extraction. Well plugging and abandonment is likely to remain the key segment of the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years, with the extensive scale of the operation key in ensuring a steady dominant share for the segment in the global market.Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Key TrendsThe global offshore decommissioning market is likely to exhibit steady growth in the coming years due to the rising number of mature oilfields, which no longer remain commercially viable. The high number of aging platforms in shallow water is also likely to remain a key driver for the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years.Request Sample Copy of the Report @On the other hand, the high cost of offshore decommissioning projects could hinder the growth of the global offshore decommissioning market. Due to the large scale of offshore oil and gas platforms, significant expenditure needs to be dedicated for effective offshore decommissioning projects. Since the expenses go toward removing a nonfunctional asset rather than expanding the existing capacity, many players in the global oil and gas industry have remained reluctant about offshore decommissioning. The technology required to carry out offshore decommissioning efficiently are also lacking in several regions, as is systemic support from the regulatory framework. This is also likely to restrain the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years.The rising use of techniques to maximize and prolong the viability of oilfields is also likely to restrain the growth of the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years. Refilling and other techniques can help extend the operational lifespan of oilfield by a few years, and result in further profits for the oil and gas operator. This remains a key challenge for the offshore decommissioning market in the coming years, as offshore decommissioning remains unprofitable both economically as well as logistically compared to these techniques.Request TOC of the Report @Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Market PotentialOil and gas operations in the North Sea are likely to be vital to the global offshore decommissioning market in the coming years. The U.K. and Norway are among the leading oil producers operating in the North Sea and are likely to remain among the key consumers of offshore decommissioning technology in the coming years. As a result, Europe is likely to be the leading regional offshore decommissioning market over the coming years.Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Geographical DynamicsFollowing Europe, North America is also likely to retain a significant share in the global offshore decommissioning market due primarily to the rising role of the U.S. in the global oil and gas sector. The U.S. has traditionally been a major player in the oil and gas industry and is a leading operator of offshore oilfields at present. The rising prominence of Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia in the global oil and gas sector is also likely to drive the Asia Pacific market for offshore decommissioning in the coming years.Get Discount @Global Offshore Decommissioning Market: Competitive DynamicsThe leading players in the global offshore decommissioning market include AF Gruppen ASA, Amec Foster Wheeler Plc, John Wood Group Plc, Ramboll Group, Aker Solutions ASA, and Tetra Technologies 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
High-resolution Melting Analysis Market - Trends, Share,Growth & Forecast upto 2025

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Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: OverviewHigh resolution melting analysis is a powerful and strong methodology in molecular biology for the purpose of detecting epigenetic differences, polymorphisms, and mutations in double-stranded DNA samples. It was first discovered and developed by the Idaho Technology and University of Utah. High resolution melting analysis has several advantages over genotyping technologies such as cost effectiveness, it is powerful and fast as compared to genotyping technologies, and it is comparatively simple. Based on products and services, the global high-resolution melting analysis market can be segmented into software and services, consumables and reagents, and instruments. In terms of application, it can be segmented into epigenetics, pathogen identification, species identification, mutation scanning, and SNP genotyping.The global market for high-resolution melting analysis is likely to have a fruitful future owing to ongoing research and developments in this field sponsored by several leading companies operating in this particular field. For instance, FDA in the U.S. approves many treatments which are made for addressing a specific genomic profile or genetic makeup of the tumor of the patient.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe prime factors that are boosting the growth of the market comprise the growing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, COPD, chronic diseases such as cancer, and other different infectious diseases. The prime benefits associated with high-resolution melting analysis are optimization of therapies, patient compliance, drug safety, cost savings on several treatments, and disease diagnosis. In return, these are also expected to propel the demand for DNA testing services. Moreover, rising awareness pertaining to the applications of high resolution melting analysis technologies for HLA typing, mutation discovery, and DNA mapping are additional aspects that are anticipated to propel the growth of the high-resolution melting analysis market during the forecast period. High resolution melting analysis is a technology employed for assessing melting curve plots of amplified gene. This particular technology is basically used for gene mutation scanning, microbial species identification, methylation profiling, and other different diagnostics based on PCR. Thus, mutation scanning and other applications are likely to gain prominence over time owing to rising prevalence of advancements in technology of molecular biology, genetic disorders, and growing awareness pertaining to SNP typing.Request TOC of the Report @Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Market PotentialGrowing government budget provision for research and development in the field of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and applied life sciences is a crucial factor heightening the demand for numerous diagnostic techniques and tools. For instance, in 2015, the Obama led administration announced the introduction of the Precision Medicine Initiative with a huge investment of US$216 mn in the Presidents budget of 2016. This initiative is further expected to have positive impact on the growth of the high resolution melting analysis market.Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Regional OverviewRegion-wise, the market can be segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World. North America is expected to perform extremely owing to factors such as robust adoption of advanced technology in healthcare, numerous genetic testing centers, strong biotech and pharmaceutical industry, prevalence many academic universities, and high prevalence of diseases. Asia Pacific has also been identified as one of the potential regions where the market can grow steadily owing to dynamics such as rising prevalence of chronic diseases such as HIV, COPD, and cancer, growing cases of genetic disorders, and rising private and public expenditure on genetic testing and molecular diagnostic.Get Discount @Global High-resolution Melting Analysis Market: Competitive LandscapeThe top drawer companies operating in the market are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Kapa Biosystems, Idaho Technology Corporation, and Roche Molecular Systems.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
Thermal Barrier Coatings Market- Insights, Size, Share, Opportunity Analysis, and Industry Forecast till 2025

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Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are advanced materials, which aid in insulating components, operating at relatively high temperatures such as in gas turbines, ducting and nozzle guide vanes, aerospace parts, and other metallic surfaces. TBCs enable gas turbines to operate at high temperature. Low thermal conductivity, low thermal shock, and high thermal expansion coefficient are some of the characteristics of TBCs, which are expected to be factors leading to increasing demand for TBCs for higher engine operation. Growing demand for gas turbine application due to growing aerospace industry. In 2016, Boeing and Airbus, manufactured a combined 1,436 jets. Also, massive orders from Indian companies such as SpiceJet, Indigo and Jet Airways is expected to boost the market. Furthermore, increasing demand for TBCs for automotive application such as coatings for internal combustion engines and gas turbines has positively affected growth of the market.Request Sample Copy of this Report:Thermal barrier coatings market is classified on the basis of product type such as metal, ceramics, intermetallic, and others. Ceramic segment accounts for the largest revenue share in thermal barrier coatings market owing to high thermal resistance and high temperature applications of ceramic TBCs in aerospace and automotive industries. Thermal barrier coating market is also classified on the basis of coating materials such as Al2O3, ceramic YSZ (yttria-stabilized zirconia), MCrAlY, and others. Al2O3 segment is expected to account for the largest market share, over the forecast period, as compared to other materials in global thermal barrier coatings market. This is attributed to low thermal conductivity and high thermal stability of Al2O3 coatings. In addition, alumina also provides chemical inertness and strong hardness which is essential in manufacturing components.TBCs market is further segmented on the basis of technology as HVOF (high velocity oxy-fuel), vapor deposition, and air plasma technology. HVOF technology segment accounts for the highest revenue share as the technology enables the use of various coating materials such as ceramics, metals, and other alloys to provide coatings. The coating applied through HVOF technology offers high corrosion resistance and high adherence properties and fine-as-sprayed surface finishes, and low oxide levels. This market is segmented on the basis of application such as automotive, industrial, energy, and aerospace.North America is the most dominant region in the global thermal barrier market and was valued at US$ 3.65 billion in 2016. Growth of the market in North America is driven by growing technological advancement such as reduction of in-cylinder heat, thermal fatigue protection of metal surface and reduction of emissions, increasing demand for gas turbine, and lead the market in thermal barrier coatings application. These coatings aid in operating at higher temperatures leading to increased efficiency, and reduce CO2 emissions.View Full Report @Asia Pacific is the second largest region in terms of market share in the global thermal barrier coatings market. This is attributed to increasing demand for global power and cleaner solutions and growth of industrial and automotive sectors in the region. The auto-components industry in India is expected to register a turnover of US$ 100 Billion by 2020. Countries such as India and China are expected to contribute significantly to growth of the market owing to increasing number of power generation projects and demand for vapor deposition technology. Europe market is expected to show a significant growth owing to growth in energy and aerospace sectors in the recent past.The thermal barrier coatings market was valued at US$ 12.86 Billion in 2016 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.70%, in terms of revenue, over the forecast period (2017-2025).Ceramics segment accounted for 33.5% market share, in 2016, in global thermal barrier coatings market. This is attributed to its high temperature applications in various end-use industries such as automobile, power generation and aerospace. High cost of manufacturing techniques of thermal barrier coatings, is expected to adversely affect growth.Major Players in the Global Thermal Barrier Coatings Market:Some of the players in this market include Metallisation Ltd., Praxair Surface Technologies, A&A Thermal Spray Coatings, H.C. Starck Inc., THERMION Inc., Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Flame Spray Coating Co., ASB Industries, Inc., The Fisher Barton Group, and Metallizing Equipment Co. Pvt. Ltd.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 UsMr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Website:
Termite Control Market- - Insights, Size, Share, Opportunity Analysis, and Industry Forecast till 2025

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Termites belong to a class of insects, phylum Arthoropode and order Isoptera. Over 2,000 different type species of termites are found globally with distinct scientific names. Termites feed on cellulose (an organic fiber found in food), paper, and drywall. They are destructive pest, and can cause damage to property such as building or house foundation, shelves, furniture, and even books. According to Center Of Disease Control And Prevention, subterranean termite is the most destructive termite in the U.S, which causes more property damage than that caused by windstorm and fire combined.Major drivers propelling growth of termite control market includes increasing awareness about destructive effects of termites such as damaged caused to buildings and infrastructure. Moreover, stringent regulations by governments for instance U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), should have to review studies on pesticides that it will not pose any risk to the environment and to the human health. Further, According to Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted many test on termite applicators (Cholopyrifos Exposure), plays an important role in termite extermination and pest management efforts.North America is the leading region in the termite control market, exhibiting a CAGR of 4.1% over the forecast period (20172025). Increasing pest control services in the U.S. is driving growth of the market for termite control. According to CMI, there are approximately 27,000 different types of pest control businesses operating in the U.S. Some of the major players in the U.S. pest control industry include Rentokil, Terminix, Orkin, and Ecolab. Asia Pacific is the second largest market in the termite control, exhibiting a CAGR of 7.8% over the forecast period, and expected to be valued at US$ 1,723.9 Mn by 2025.Subterranean termite species accounts for major market share among species type segment. Subterranean termites are found in almost all states of the U.S. Subterranean termites live in soil, and their nest is connected via mud tubes to sources of their food such as timbers in house, trees, and walls. Drywood termites do not require contact with soil, as requires by subterranean. They feed on wood and can cause significant damage to homes. They typically cause less damage than subterranean. On the basis of termite control methods, chemical termite control method segment dominated the market in 2016. The biological control method segment is expected to be the fastest growing segment during the forecast period. This can be attributes to rising awareness about adverse effects of harmful chemicals and strict government regulations.Figure 1. Global Termite Control Market Share, By Region, 2016termite control marketSOURCE: COHERENT MARKET INSIGHTS (2017)North America was the dominant region in 2016 followed by Asia Pacific and Europe. North America accounted for 35.58% market share for the same year and exhibiting a CAGR of 4.1% over the forecast period. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing termite control market, and is expected to be valued at US$ 1,723.9 Mn by 2025 and increasing at a CAGR of 7.8% over the forecast period.Major Players in the Termite Control Market:Key players are adopting various strategies such as mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, and product innovations to ensure their long-term sustenance in this market. In 2017, Arrow Exterminating Company, Inc. acquired Bugmaster Exterminators, which specializes in commercial and residential termite control, based in Houston, Texas.Some of the major players in the termite control market include The Dow Chemical Company, Syngenta AG, BASF SE, Bayer CropScience AG, FMC Corporation, United Phosphorus Limited, ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., and Control Solution Kft.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 UsMr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Website:
Mammography Market - Future Market, Growth & Forecast upto 2025

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Global Mammography Market: OverviewThe global mammography market is growing at a significant pace, owing to the increasing cancer cases worldwide. The key players in the market, government organizations, and NGOs are making notable efforts to create an awareness and offer treatment to patients, which is expected to enhance the growth of the market in the near future. Thus, the market is likely to register a strong growth rate in the forecast period.Global Mammography Market: Key TrendsThe high prevalence of breast cancer worldwide and the rising number of innovations concerning screening and diagnostics are estimated to offer lucrative opportunities for key players operating in the market. The improving healthcare facilities in the developing economies are projected to supplement the markets growth in the coming years. Furthermore, governments across the globe are making efforts to provide treatments at low cost in order to reach a large number of audience in the near future.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Mammography Market: Market PotentialTechnological advancements in the healthcare sector and the emergence of innovative devices and effective therapeutics are the key factors projected to fuel the growth of the global mammography market throughout the forecast period. In addition to this, the rising number of cancer cases across the globe is expected to accelerate the growth of the overall market in the near future.On the other hand, the lack of awareness among patients in several developing economies and the high cost of treatment are estimated to curb the growth of the global mammography market in the next few years. Nonetheless, the use of digital mammography devices is predicted to generate promising growth opportunities for the key players in the market.Request TOC of the Report @Global Mammography Market: Regional OutlookIn the previous years, the North America market for mammography held a major share of the global market and is estimated to retain its position over the forecast period. The rising number of breast cancer cases and the increasing women population are the key factors anticipated to encourage the development of the North America market in the coming years. In addition, the availability of advanced therapeutics and healthcare infrastructure are predicted to accelerate the markets growth in the near future.On the other hand, the development of the economy and the rising popularity of medical tourism are projected to augment the growth of the Asia Pacific market in the next few years. The increasing contribution from China and India and the rising awareness among patients are predicted to supplement the markets growth in the forecast period. Moreover, the favorable government initiatives and the enhancement of the healthcare sector are likely to contribute towards the growth of the Asia Pacific market in the near future.Get Discount @Global Mammography Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global market is projected to grow progressive throughout the forecast period. The rising emphasis of the leading players on introducing new therapeutics and devices to offer enhanced products to patients is likely to encourage the growth of the overall market in the coming years. As a result, several new players are predicted to participate in the market in order to create a brand name across the globe.Some of the leading players operating in the mammography market across the globe are I.M.S. Srl, GE Healthcare, Hologic, Planmed Oy, Phillips Healthcare, Fujifilm, Siemens Healthcare, Mindray Medical International Limited, Toshiba Medical Systems, and Metaltronica. The research study provides a detailed overview of the competitive landscape and throws light on the key strategies and policies that have been adopted by them in order to sustain in the global market.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
Hospital Lighting Market - Future Market with Current Trend Analysis upto 2025

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Global Hospital Lighting Market: OverviewLighting in healthcare plays a critical role not only in enhancing the patient experience but also in improving the healthcare staffs ability of catering to the various levels of care required by the patients. As a result, the global market for hospital lighting is likely to reach new heights.By application, the global hospital lighting market can be segmented into dentistry, operating room, doctors offices, kitchen, maternity ward, patient rooms, laboratory, library, bathrooms, first aid ward, corridors and staircases, and waiting areas. Based on technology, the LED, CFL, florescent, and renewable energy. By product, the global market for hospital lighting systems can be segmented into surgical lights, surface-mounted lights, and troffers.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Hospital Lighting Market: Key TrendsSince good illumination ensures the safety of patients, allows smoother operation of activities, creates an amiable environment, and promotes a sense of well-being among the patients, the global healthcare lighting market holds vast potential for growth. The LED lighting is expected to emerge as the leading segment by technology, thanks to the growing deployment of LED based fixtures across various parts of hospitals.The florescent lighting systems are also gaining traction. They are being increasingly installed across hospitals by virtue of their relatively lower costs and power saving capabilities. By product, troffers are likely to claim the largest share in the global market for hospital lighting. By application, the patients wards segment might represent the largest share in the global market for hospital lighting.Request TOC of the Report @Global Hospital Lighting Market: Market PotentialEnhancement of user experience is increasingly being acknowledged by some leading hospitals. For instance, the new Beacon Childrens Hospital in South Bend (US), features a two-story atrium that has pleasant, soft-green lights. These firefly lights give a splendid appearance to the entire ambience of the hospital. The nature and healing theme of the hospital is designed to aid patients recover faster. With a forest mural, interactive games, and tree sculptures along with these lights, the hospital aims at boosting interaction between fellow patients, staff, family, and the physical space itself. The hospital welcomed its first patients in May 2017.The global market for hospital lighting has been witnessing collaborations, partnerships, and mergers. For instance, an emerging non-profit, Market Driven Community Corporation (MDCC) made an announcement in April 2017 pertaining to its signing a contract for installing LED lighting systems at Rochester General Hospital (New York, US).Get Discount @Global Hospital Lighting Market: Regional OutlookThe global market for hospital lighting can be segmented into Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and North America. North America currently holds the dominant position in the global market for hospital lighting. Beneficial government initiatives and technological advancements in the area of lighting solutions have been the key factors driving the growth of the market.The countries such as India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan are witnessing an increase in the number of hospitals. This can create significant opportunities for the growth of the market. The expanding healthcare infrastructure in Asia Pacific and growing preference for efficient lighting solutions in the region have also been accelerating the expansion of the hospital lighting market in the region. The Middle East and Africa and Latin America are also bursting forth with opportunities.Global Hospital Lighting Market: Competitive AnalysisKoninklijke Philips N.V., Acuity Brands Lighting Inc., KLS Martin Group, Eaton Corporation PLC, Hubbell Incorporated, General Electric Company, Cree Inc., Zumtobel Group AG, and Trilux Lighting Ltd are some of the leading companies operating in the global market for hospital lighting.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
Automotive Gear Oil Market to Discern Magnified Growth by 2020

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Automobile gears (or cogs) are rotating machine part having cut teeth, or cogs which mesh with another toothed part in order to transmit torque. The arrangement of two or more gears forms automotive transmission system. Automotive gear oil can be petroleum or synthetic based, used especially for lubricating automotive gears for all class of vehicles. It provide high transmission efficiency, reduce engine heating, provides proper clutch friction, insure better oxidation and protects gear teethes from corrosion.Request For Report Sample:Automotive gear oil generally has high viscosity level in comparison to transmission fluid and automotive engine oil. This is necessary for better performance and protection of gears. The high viscosity level provides better transmission of lubricant throughout the gear trains. Devices requiring heavy oil do not have to use extra force to transfer the oil, since only a fraction of the lowermost gears are covered in an oil sump. Gear oils have extreme pressure or EP stabilizer and anti-wear stabilizer to deal with the sliding action of gears. Based on technology, gear oils can be broadly categorized as synthetic gear oil and petroleum-based gear oil. Synthetic gear oils are superior to petroleum-based gear oil as they provide superior resistance to shear breakdown and reduce energy consumption due to its low friction coefficient.The gear oils are standardised by American Petroleum Institute (API STANDARDS) based on the viscosity level and their use in automatic and manual transmission based vehicles. The different classification of the API includes GL-1, API GL-2, API GL-3, API GL-4, API GL-5 and API GL-6 and, SAE 75W-90, SAE 75W-140, SAE 80W-90, SAE 85W-140 and LS- for limited slip. For maximum transmission efficiency, gear oils must lubricate, cool and protect complete gear systems. It also supposes to transfer damaged particles away from the contact areas, guarantee protection against extreme pressure and temperature and reduce noise in the transmission operation.North America is the largest market for automotive gear oil mainly attributed to large volume of motor vehicle in this region, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The market is witnessing an escalating growth in Asia Pacific region. China, in recent years, has become the global hub for the automobile industry. Some of the other region in Asia Pacific such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines have emerged as the largest small cars markets in the world.Growing middle class, rising disposable income, developing surface transportation infrastructure, growing aspiration of owning private vehicles, increasing mobility due to development of satellite township near megacities and increase demand of goods carriers from micro, small and medium size enterprises are fueling the market for automotive gear oil in Asia Pacific region. Growing automotive aftermarket and do it yourself (DIY) culture in North America and Europe is fueling the growth of automotive gear oil in retail sector in these two region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the major players operating in the automotive gear oil market include Saudi Arabian Oil Co., Total S.A, Gazprom, ROSNEFT, LUKOIL oil company, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Exxon Mobil Corporation, BP p.l.c, Statoil, Chevron Corporation., Sinopec Lubricant Company, JIANGSU LOPAL TECH. CO.,LTD and Ashland Inc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Naphthenic Acid Market To Witness Enhanced Demand For Paint Driers And Rubber Additives Applications Till 2021 | Million Insights

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The global Naphthenic Acid market is classified on the basis of product type, application and geography. Naphthenic acids (mostly mono or dicyclic cycloalkane carboxylic acids, e.g., cyclopentane carboxylic acid) are components of naphthenic crude oils. Being corrosive, they have to be removed from crude oils or distillates by alkali extraction in the distillation process. The separated naphthenic acids are marketed as acidic extractants for metals and naphthenates are used as metallic soaps.Naphthenic acid is a dark coloured liquid with an unpleasant door. Naphthenic acid is insoluble in water. Naphthenic acids will burn though naphthenic acids may take some effort to ignite. The main hazard is the threat to the environment. Immediate steps should be taken to limit its spread to the environment. Since Naphthenic acids is a liquid, naphthenic acids can easily penetrate the soil and contaminate groundwater and nearby streams. Naphthenic acid is used to make paint dryers, detergents, and solventsFull Research Report On Global Naphthenic Acid Market Analysis available at:Naphthenic acids are usually obtained by caustic extraction of petroleum distillates boiling between 200 and 370 degree C. A continuous process has been developed for removing naphthenic acids from refinery streams by caustic washing. Caustic extraction also removes other acidic constituents of the petroleum fraction.Typical of the acid materials present in commercial naphthenic acids are cyclopentylacetic acid and alkyl substituted cyclopentylacetic acids. The mixtures also contain fused chains of cyclopentylacetic acids and small amounts of cyclohexylacetic acids.Factors propelling the growth of Naphthenic Acid market include its increasing demand owing to various applications such as paint driers, rubber additives and so on.On the other hand, some factors hamper the growth of the market such as inhalation of vapor causes coughing, liquid is moderately irritating to skin and eyes and also excessive exposure could result in dermatitis.In addition, naphthenic acids have both acute and chronic toxicity to fish and other organisms as they are the major contaminant in water produced from the extraction of oil. On the basis of product type, the market research report is classified asrefined naphthenic acid and high-purity naphthenic acid.On the basis of application, the market research report is classified as paint driers, wood preservatives, fuel and lubricant additives, rubber additives and others. On the basis of geography, the Naphthenic Acid market is classified as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa.The North American region consists of U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The European region consists of Germany, France, England, Russia and Italy. Asia Pacific region consists of China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia. Some of the prominent players that fuel the growth of the Naphthenic Acid market includes Merichem, Umicore, JXDC Chemical, Ming Ring, Zhangming, Fulltime, Sea Chemical, Changfeng, and Rare-Earth.Request for Free Sample Copy:This report studies Naphthenic Acid in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with Production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering Merichem Umicore JXDC Chemical Ming Ring Zhangming Fulltime Sea Chemical Changfeng Rare-EarthMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Region, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Naphthenic Acid in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like North America China Europe Japan Taiwan KoreaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into Refined naphthenic acid High-purity naphthenic acid Type IIISplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Naphthenic Acid in each application, can be divided into Paint driers Wood preservatives Fuel and lubricant additives Rubber additivesRelated Reports of this Category available at Million Insights:Million Insights, is a distributor of market research reports, published by premium publishers only. We have a comprehensive market place that will enable you to compare data points, before you make a purchase. Enabling informed buying is our motto and we strive hard to ensure that our clients get to browse through multiple samples, prior to an investment. Service flexibility & the fastest response time are two pillars, on which our business model is founded. Our market research report store, includes in-depth reports, from across various industry verticals, such as healthcare, technology, chemicals, food & beverages, consumer goods, material science & automotive.Office No. 302, 3rd Floor, Manikchand Galleria,Model Colony, Shivaji Nagar, Pune, MH, 411016 IndiaPhone: 91-20-65300184Email: sales@millioninsights.com
Global Cold-Rolled Steel Market - Forecasts & Trends (2017-2025)

IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Flat-Rolled Products Of Iron Or Steel (Not Further Worked Than Cold-Rolled) - Market Report. Analysis and Forecast to 2025" ( no link?utm_source=opr ).This report is best suitable for you if you: Are planning to enter a new geographical market and wish to know which one is best for your product Are planning to enter a new product market and want to have a detailed overview of the market before entering Already work in a given market and want to update your knowledge on the topic Are developing/reviewing your company strategy and wish to know the existing trends in the market Want to find the best country to import a product from Are consulting a client in the given industry and wish to get a deep understanding of the situation in the market Are planning to open new production facilities and wish to choose the best location.The report serves the above mentioned purposes by providing a deep survey of the key indicators of the cold-rolled steel market. It includes a market overview, which consolidates the key conclusions made from the analysis of the market study, giving insights on the most extensive markets based on the comparative analysis. The report also provides a outlook of how the market is expected to change in the coming years, based on historical trends, external and internal factors, and the main drivers changing the market. Each section contains a a detailed survey of the data provided. Specifically, the report exhibits the historical developments and relevant prospects of cold-rolled steel production volumes, consumption data, as well as producer prices.The trade section provides crucial data, such as historical data on imports/exports, changes in the direction of trade, as well as import/export prices. Analysis of cold-rolled steel trade shows the opportunities that are opening before producers and suppliers in a changing market.Product coverage: Flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel, not further worked than cold-rolled; flat-rolled products of stainless steel or of other alloy steel, not further worked than cold-rolled (except products of silicon-electrical steel or high speed steel).Countries coverage: Worldwide - the report contains statistical data for 200 countries and includes detailed profiles of the 50 largest consuming countries (United States, China, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Italy, Russian Federation, India, Canada, Australia, Republic of Korea, Spain, Mexico, Indonesia, Netherlands, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Sweden, Nigeria, Poland, Belgium, Argentina, Norway, Austria, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Denmark, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Singapore, Egypt, Philippines, Finland, Chile, Ireland, Pakistan, Greece, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Czech Republic, Qatar, Peru, Romania, Vietnam) + the largest producing countries.Data coverage: Cold-rolled steel market value and size; Major trends in the cold-rolled steel market; Historical data of production volumes and its dynamics; Per capita consumption data and its dynamics in recent years; Breakdown of cold-rolled steel production by region and country; Outlook of the market in the middle term; Trade volumes and prices; Profiles of major cold-rolled steel producers.Methodology:Our methodology consists of obtaining information from various trusted sources (both paid and open), which include, but are not limited to: International official statistical agencies Governmental statistical agencies Official trade statistics Paid trade databases Industrial associations Company reports Industry experts.Our analysts compare the information gathered, confirm it with sources when required, and analyze the collected data, developing a full clear picture of the market and coming up with the final numbers. It is crucial to understand the trends of the market, for which we do provide study, taking into account events in the market, in adjacent and related markets, raw material markets, and markets, which are the main demand creators for the product under research. As for the forecast, it is conducted using analytical models of country-by-country data on consumption, production, exports, imports, prices, as well as the industry trends, economic trends, consumption trends, possible political and technological trends.Source: no link?utm_source=oprIndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, 44 Main Street, Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, ML11 0QW
Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market to Grow at CAGR of 17.66% between 2017-2021 : Rise of multi-country and centralized outsourcing models.

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RPO is a sub-segment of the human resource outsourcing (HRO) market, in which recruitment processes are outsourced to external or third-party service providers. External service providers manage end-to-end or partial recruitment process of HR department. Many vendors in the market also provide RPO consulting services along with outsourcing services.Technavios analysts forecast the global recruitment process outsourcing market to grow at a CAGR of 17.66% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global recruitment process outsourcing market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated by the RPO solution and service vendors.Request For Sample Copy Of Report :The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Recruitment Process Outsourcing Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsADPIBMManpowerGroupRandstad SourcerightOther prominent vendorsAccentureAlexander Mann SolutionsAllegis Global SolutionsFuturestepHaysHudsonInfosysKellyOCGPontoon SolutionsMarket driverEmergence of nearshore outsourcing destinations.For a full, detailed list, view our reportSend An Enquiry :Market challengeConcerns regarding security and quality of service.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendRise of multi-country and centralized outsourcing models.For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.MRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Seat Belt Safety System Market Extensive Growth Opportunities to be Witnessed by 2017-2025

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Seat Belt Safety System Market: OverviewSeat belts, or commonly known as safety belts are the necessary part of every vehicle and seat belts protect drivers and co-passengers from sudden accidents. Sometimes seat belts are known as life saviors most of time because it saves lives, so that's why wearing seat belt is necessary while driving. The seat belts design primary focus is to offer the higher level of security to the drivers and passengers.Seat Belt Safety System Market: DynamicsThe major driving factors of the seat belt safety system market are such as, increase in some production of vehicles and growth in demand for passenger vehicles. Moreover, other factors are various rules and regulations made by the government to fulfill different safety standards, is also helps in increase in some seat belts. Another driving factors are the growth of automotive industry and increase in investments in this field by various seat belt manufacturing companies. Some challenges of the seat belt safety system market are such as; seat belts do not provide the full safety against the side accidents. Another major restraining factor is the quality of seat belt, i.e. it should be maintained at standard level. Some opportunities of the seat belt safety system market are such as; this can be used in highly commercials vehicles and high load lifting vehicles for protecting against dangerous accidents. There are some trends of the seat belt safety system are the use of biosensors as the input source for the safety purposes in the seat belts.Request For Report Sample@Seat Belt Safety System Market: SegmentationBased on the type seat belt safety system market can be segmented:Two point beltThree point beltFour point beltFive point beltSix  point beltBelt-in seatBased on the vehicle type seat belt safety system market can be segmented:Passenger vehicleLight commercial vehicleHeavy commercial vehicleBased on the technology seat belt safety system market can be segmented:Bag-in-beltPretensionerActive seat beltRetractorLoad limiterSeat belt reminder systemSeat Belt Safety System Market: Regional OverviewThe global seat belt safety system market is divided geographically into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific exclusive of Japan (APEJ), Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Asia-Pacific is the major region in the seat belt safety system market regarding application and revenue sharing. Followed by Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America are expected to grow relatively at a higher CAGR during the forecast period since the use of seat belt safety system market in Germany is very well established and it is the largest contributor in this region. North America is the second biggest manufacturer of seat belt safety, and it contributes substantial revenue. The global seat belt safety system market in Japan is well established and expected to grow at average CAGR over the forecast period. MEA and Latin America are projected to expand at the sluggish growth rate in forth coming years due to increase in investments in the automobile sector.Seat Belt Safety System Market: Regional SegmentationThe increase of the seat belt safety system market in Asia-Pacific is very high due to many developing countries in this region. Overall, the global market for the seat belt safety system market is expected to grow significantly by the end of forecast period. The seat belt safety system market in Asia-Pacific is rapidly growing due to developing economic conditions .huge population, significant investment market and more application. Increase in the adaptation of the seat belt safety system market in various vehicles such as, for cars, buses, trucks and in loading vehicles is fuelling the market growth. India and China are major countries which show significant growth in the seat belt safety system market and forecast period this country show very positive increment.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Seat Belt Safety System Market: Key PlayersIron Force IndustrialAutolive Inc.Far EuropeTakata CorporationTIW SafetyTokoi Riko Co.LtdRobert Bosch GmBhToyoda Gosei Co.Ltd.Continental AGHyundai Mobis Co.Ltd.Key Safety 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 USState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Website:Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
New Research Update Anthracene Market,Industry Analysis,Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2023

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Anthracene is a colorless, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and a product of coal tar, a by-product formed by carbonization of coal. It is used in the production of dyes. Anthracene is converted into anthroquinone, which is used in the manufacture of dyes. Anthracene market being an organic semiconductor is used as a luminescent material in the detection equipment of high-energy photons, alpha particles, and electrons. Polyvinyltoluene and other plastics are doped with anthracene to create plastic luminescent material, which is ideal for usage in dosimetry radiation therapy. Anthracene is also used in the production of wood preservatives, coating materials, and insecticides.Click Here For Free Sample Report @Anthracene, like most PAHs, is used to make luminescent material crystals and smoke screens. Subsequently, it is also used in the production of dyes, plastics, and pesticides. These luminescent material crystals are known as scintillators. The function of a scintillator is to produce luminescence when energized by ionizing radiations. Major end-use industries involved in the consumption of anthracene include electronic devices, textiles, coatings, and chemicals. Dyes and coatings was a major end-user industry of the anthracene market, accounting for substantial share in 2014. A similar trend is expected to continue during the forecast period due to rising demand for anthracene in the textile industry for the production of textile dyes. Anthracene, which is used as a luminescent material in scintillators, is expected to grow into a major market owing to its utility in identifying situations such as radiation leaks. Post the radiation leak in Japan, demand for proper radiation leak checking equipment has been rising in nuclear reactor sites across the globe. This is expected to propel the market for anthracene, which is used as a luminescent material in scintillators. Unlike most PAHs, anthracene is not a carcinogen. However, health advisories have issued multiple notifications in support of avoiding direct exposures. The European Union has issued a sanction for ban on all PAHs in the region. This has been the only restraining factor for anthracene in the past few years.North America is expected to be the strongest market for anthracene, accounting for substantial share of the global demand. Growing research and development activities related to anthracene applications have proved to be a critical market driver in North America. Europe was the second-largest market for anthracene in terms of regional segmentation in the past few years. The market is likely to stagnate in the region, exhibiting sluggish growth during the forecast period due to recent sanctions imposed on PAHs by the European Union. Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness extensive growth in the next few years due to increasing demand for anthracene in end-use industries such as textiles and chemicals. Furthermore, presence of growing economies such as China and India is expected to boost the market due to increased research in electronics in the region. The market in Latin America is expected to witness steady growth due to high demand for anthracene in end-user industries in the region. The market in Middle East and Africa (MEA) is also anticipated to witness growth, especially in growing economies such as South Africa and countries in GCC.Some of the key companies involved in the anthracene market include Fisher Scientific, Anward, CHEMOS GmbH & Co. KG, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc., Amadis Chemical, Haihang Industry Co., Ltd., Vitas-M Laboratory Ltd, RUTGERS Group, and Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.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.Read Full Report With TOC @Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant 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 marketMake An Enquiry @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 Dialysate Market Will Target Emerging Markets by 2022

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Report Overview:The Global Dialysate Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Dialysate Market. The study offers an insight into current and future market trends, key drivers and restraints, market strategies of key market players along with detailed segmentation and forecast. The study offers industry overview by covering basic aspects such as product definition and classification, market size and share of segments and sub-segments. This report offers market insights into the changing dynamics by analysis the elements of industry chain structure, key marketing channels and the innovative strategies adopted by key market players to gain a competitive advantage in the market.Get Exclusive sample copy @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Dialysate in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Dialysate market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingRockwell MedicalBaxterB.BraunuGuangdong Biolight MeditechWeigaoFreseniusFarmasol...On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into2.5mEq/L3.5mEq/LOthersOn 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 Dialysate for each application, includingHospitalMedical CenterOthersBuy a single user copy of this Report For the price of USD 2900 @Table of Contents1 Dialysate Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Dialysate1.2 Dialysate Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Dialysate Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Dialysate Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 2.5mEq/L1.2.4 3.5mEq/L1.2.5 Others1.3 Global Dialysate Segment by Application1.3.1 Dialysate Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospital1.3.3 Medical Center1.3.4 Others2 Global Dialysate Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Dialysate Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Dialysate Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Dialysate Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Dialysate Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Dialysate Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Dialysate Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Dialysate Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Dialysate Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Dialysate Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion.Browse This Report @Who we areResearch Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.Reach us at:Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +1 6269994607 (USA), +91 7507349866 (IND)Web:Skype ID: researchtradescon.
Document Outsourcing Market Size Share -Evolving Technological Advancement, Industry Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Today organizations try to gain competitive advantage in industry through outsourcing their business processes to third party service providers. This helps them to reduce operational cost and focus on key functional areas. Organizations use a large quantity of information in daily business operations which are stored in the form of files, blueprints, invoice and mail orders. The maintenance and storing of these valuable documents requires more space and is costly issue for any organization. Hence organizations try to convert and store these documents in digital format in order to save cost and space. Organizations opt for document outsourcing services where third party service provider transforms typed and handwritten text document into electronic or digital information. This electronic information can be stored in computer or server and used directly for future purpose. Document outsourcing involves a combination of intelligent character recognition (ICR) and optical character recognition (OCR) method to convert hand-written documents into electronic information. In some cases, important paper documents are converted to electronic format by experienced data entry clerks. Traditional document outsourcing services include data and content scanning, mailroom and print management. However, due to increasing demand for outsourcing in organization, document outsourcing service providers have tried to solve customer business challenge by providing value added services. Today, document outsourcing service providers provide a wide range of advance services apart from delivering traditional document outsourcing services. Document outsourcing service providers focus on providing value added services such as cross-media service, digital mailbox services and marketing analytics.Request For Sample Copy Of Report :Today organizations are finding problem in providing quality information to their customers due to lack of expertise in quality writing. Hence, document outsourcing providers are providing email writing service where content writers provide relevant information based on customer query. Document outsourcing is also used in creating technical brochures, product specifications and repair manuals. Document outsourcing is also used in creating both printed and digital marketing communication documents to promote brand image. Thus, the role of document outsourcing has increased in many areas of a business.Many financial institutions too, such as banks and insurance, favor document outsourcing for delivering accurate and complete archiving of financial information. Thus, document outsourcing providers are becoming strategic partners for organizations through providing value added services. Document outsourcing also helps to improve process as well as distribute risk between the organization and the service provider.The major challenge for document outsourcing service provider is the flexibility in service level agreement (SLA). Organizations which do not plan on future business strategies, may not include relevant clauses in the service level agreements. These may later result in problem for document outsourcing service providers in providing service to organizations as the service requirements would vary as per the clients they cater to.Request To Check Discount Here :The demand for document outsourcing market will increase in coming years as organizations will try to reduce operational cost and gain competitive advantage among its competitors. Although, the document information may be critical for organization, document outsourcing solutions such as marketing analytics can help organization to use information in order to improve organization operations. Document outsourcing service finds its application in the area of financial services, insurance, healthcare, legal, telecommunication and manufacturing.Some of the key document outsourcing service providers are Hewlett-Packard Company, Lexmark International Inc, Integreon Inc, Ricoh Company Ltd, Xerox Corporation, Canon Inc, Konica Minolta Holdings Inc, Swiss Post Solutions AG, Kyocera Document Solution Inc, Williams Lea Holdings Plc, Firstsource Solutions Ltd, Formost Mediaone, Pitney Bowes Inc and Toshiba Corporation.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.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 marketNote: Although care has been taken to maintain the highest levels of accuracy in TMRs reports, recent market/vendor-specific changes may take time to reflect in the analysis.MRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
New Research Study Report Thermal Insulation Market,Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2023

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Anthracene is a colorless, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and a product of coal tar, a by-product formed by carbonization of coal. It is used in the production of dyes. Anthracene is converted into anthroquinone, which is used in the manufacture of dyes. Anthracene market being an organic semiconductor is used as a luminescent material in the detection equipment of high-energy photons, alpha particles, and electrons. Polyvinyltoluene and other plastics are doped with anthracene to create plastic luminescent material, which is ideal for usage in dosimetry radiation therapy. Anthracene is also used in the production of wood preservatives, coating materials, and insecticides.Click Here For Free Sample Report @Anthracene, like most PAHs, is used to make luminescent material crystals and smoke screens. Subsequently, it is also used in the production of dyes, plastics, and pesticides. These luminescent material crystals are known as scintillators. The function of a scintillator is to produce luminescence when energized by ionizing radiations. Major end-use industries involved in the consumption of anthracene include electronic devices, textiles, coatings, and chemicals. Dyes and coatings was a major end-user industry of the anthracene market, accounting for substantial share in 2014. A similar trend is expected to continue during the forecast period due to rising demand for anthracene in the textile industry for the production of textile dyes. Anthracene, which is used as a luminescent material in scintillators, is expected to grow into a major market owing to its utility in identifying situations such as radiation leaks. Post the radiation leak in Japan, demand for proper radiation leak checking equipment has been rising in nuclear reactor sites across the globe. This is expected to propel the market for anthracene, which is used as a luminescent material in scintillators. Unlike most PAHs, anthracene is not a carcinogen. However, health advisories have issued multiple notifications in support of avoiding direct exposures. The European Union has issued a sanction for ban on all PAHs in the region. This has been the only restraining factor for anthracene in the past few years.North America is expected to be the strongest market for anthracene, accounting for substantial share of the global demand. Growing research and development activities related to anthracene applications have proved to be a critical market driver in North America. Europe was the second-largest market for anthracene in terms of regional segmentation in the past few years. The market is likely to stagnate in the region, exhibiting sluggish growth during the forecast period due to recent sanctions imposed on PAHs by the European Union. Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness extensive growth in the next few years due to increasing demand for anthracene in end-use industries such as textiles and chemicals. Furthermore, presence of growing economies such as China and India is expected to boost the market due to increased research in electronics in the region. The market in Latin America is expected to witness steady growth due to high demand for anthracene in end-user industries in the region. The market in Middle East and Africa (MEA) is also anticipated to witness growth, especially in growing economies such as South Africa and countries in GCC.Some of the key companies involved in the anthracene market include Fisher Scientific, Anward, CHEMOS GmbH & Co. KG, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc., Amadis Chemical, Haihang Industry Co., Ltd., Vitas-M Laboratory Ltd, RUTGERS Group, and Tokyo Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.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.Read Full Report With TOC @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 playersEmerging niche segments and regional markets An objective assessment of the trajectory of the market Recommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketMake An Enquiry @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 :
Matrix to Display Enterprise Grade Telecom and Security Solutions at the Hyderabad Road Show

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Matrix, an avant-garde manufacturer of Telecom and Security solutions, is going to participate at the Hyderabad road show organized on 17th November17 from 10:00 am  04:00 pm. The futuristic manufacturer is enthusiastically taking part in the road show in association with its esteemed partner, The Advanced Communications.With an aim of allowing attendees to witness the future of telecommunication and security solutions, Matrix will display modernistic Unified Communication Servers, intelligent VOIP and GSM Gateways, advanced converged PBX and a range of aesthetically improved User Terminals. The solutions that are expected to capture maximum attention are Mobility, Multi-location Collaboration and SIP Trunking Gateways.From the Security domain, Matrix will display its field proven Time-Attendance, Access Control, Visitor Management and Cafeteria Management solutions. The well-known manufacturer will also highlight newly launched Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Device  COSEC VEGA FAXQ which finds its application in the government sector.Matrix will display innovative 2MP and 3MP IP Cameras powered by SONY Starvis Sensor. Equipped with sensors built on SONYs patented EXMOR Technology, the camera offers reduced noise, smoother action sequences and high image quality especially in low light conditions at as low as 0.08 lux.Road Shows are a perfect medium to meet resellers and system integrators and network with them. We are expecting lengthy discussions with attendees and look forward to explaining applications of our solutions in different scenarios, said Ganesh Jivani, Managing Director.Matrix invites you to visit us at the Hotel Taj Banjara, Road Number 1, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, Telangana for a glimpse of our technologically rich Telecom and Security solutions.About MatrixEstablished in 1991, Matrix is a leader in Telecom and Security solutions for modern businesses and enterprises. Matrix, an innovative, technology driven and customer focused organization, is committed to keep pace with the revolutions in the telecom and security industries. With more than 40% of its human resources dedicated to the development of new products, Matrix has launched cutting-edge products like IP Video Surveillance, Access Control, Time-Attendance, Unified Communications, IP-PBX, Universal Gateways, Convergence, VOIP Gateways and GSM Gateways. These solutions are feature-rich, reliable and conform to the international standards. Having global footprints in Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia through an extensive network of more than 1,000 channel partners, Matrix ensures that the products serve the needs of its customers faster and longer. Matrix has gained trust and admiration of customers representing the entire spectrum of industries. Matrix has won many national and international awards for its innovative products.Matrix Comsec394 GIDC, Makarpura, Vadodara-390010
U.S. Tile Adhesives Market Research Report- Trends & Forecast 2017-2023

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U.S. Tile Adhesive Market Information- by type (cementitious adhesive, dispersion adhesive and reactive resin adhesive), by end user (residential and non-residential)-forecast till 2023Market Synopsis of US Tile Adhesive Market:Economic slowdown in 2008-09 had an adverse effect on the construction sector of U.S market. However, the market dynamics have changed and the construction section is regaining its pace in the U.S market. In line with the latter trends, the U.S market has witnessed upsurge in various reconstruction activities, with increasing consumer preference towards more appealing tiles. Also, the penetration of ceramic tiles in various applications in the residential and commercial construction such as flooring, wall coverings, countertops and backsplashes among other applications is further pulsating the demand for tile adhesives across the country. Considering the aforementioned factors the US tile adhesive market has is poised to grow at a healthy CAGR of 8.69% to reach a value of USD 590.02 million by the end of 2023.Request a sample copy of Tile Adhesives Market Report @Based on the different types of tile adhesives, the U.S. tile adhesive market is segmented into cementitious adhesive, dispersion adhesive and reactive resin adhesive. Cementitious tile adhesives holds the largest market share as compared to other types, owing to its versatility in applications in construction activities. It is widely used as a wall tile adhesive & ceramic floor tile adhesive. Also, the water resistant cements and polymer modified cements compatibility for internal and external use makes it more desirable in construction applications. Hence, the segment is growing at a higher CAGR compared to other types. Cementitious tile adhesive segment is followed by dispersion adhesive, which accounted for a market share of nearly 25% in 2016.The U.S. tile adhesive market is further segmented based on end user into residential and non-residential. Residential segment is estimated to dominate the market with an estimated value share of 54.9% as of 2016. The segment is anticipated to retain its dominance over the forecast period.U.S. Tile Adhesive Market Share, by Type, 2016 (%)Sources: ASC-Adhesive and Sealant Council, FRED Economic Data, World Bank, Press Releases, Journals, Annual Reports, Whitepapers, Company Websites, Factiva and MRFR AnalysisRegional AnalysisThe U.S. tile cement advertise is growing at healthy CAGR of 8.69%. This market development is ascribed to expanding reproduction exercises embraced by house proprietors. Mortgage holders in this locale are in an offered to give a stylish look and alluring inside to their homes, which in turn is witnessing increased demand of tile adhesive in the U.S. Also, the key players are launching new products that give better attachment and delayed holding capacity. The major players operating in the U.S. tile adhesive market includes, Bostik, Custom Building Products, H.B Fuller, and Saint-Gobain Weber, among others. Arkema has opened its new Bostik production facility in Dallas, Texas, in line with the increasing demand from the region. Also, Saint-Gobain Weber has recently launched its new epoxy adhesive with three parts, heavy duty, chemical resistant adhesive for fixing tile & stone. Aside from this, another organization named Custom Building Products, has presented superior glass tile premium thin-set mortar, which is a colossal advancement step and would impel development of the market in coming years.SegmentationThe U.S. tile adhesive market is segmented on the basis of type and end-user. On the basis of type, market is segmented into cementitious adhesive, dispersion adhesive and reactive resin adhesive. By end use, the U.S. tile adhesive market is segmented into residential and non-residential.Key PlayersThe key players in the U.S. tile adhesive market Bostik , Custom Building Products , H.B. Fuller , PAREX Group SA , Sika AG , ARDEX Group , Terraco , Pidilite Industries Ltd , Mapei S.p.A , Henkel AG & Co. KGaA , and Saint-Gobain Weber among others.Key FindingsThe U.S. tile adhesive market is projected to reach USD 590.02 million by 2023 with 9.08% CAGR growth rate during review period of 2017-2023. Among the three major types of tile adhesives, Cementitious adhesive accounts for the largest share due to its low price as compared to dispersion adhesive and reaction resin adhesive. Among residential and non-residential end users of tile adhesives in the U.S., residential segment is estimated to be a dominant end user during the forecast period.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:
Halal Cosmetics Market: Asia Pacific Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment

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Increasing awareness among consumers on their religious obligations has created greater demand for Halal products among people, especially in the Asia Pacific region. The Asia Pacific Halal cosmetics market was estimated to be worth US$ 1,411.2 Mn in 2014. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 9.9% during forecast period 2015-2020. The Asia Pacific Halal cosmetics market is segmented on the basis of product type and region.Asia Pacific Halal Cosmetics Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the market is segmented into skin care, colour cosmetics, hair care, and fragrances. Furthermore, colour cosmetics segment is segmented into lip care, eye care, nail care, and face care. On the basis on region, the Asia Pacific Halal cosmetics market is segmented into Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia and Oceania.Obtain Report Details @Skin care segment was valued at US$ 453.4 million in 2014 with 32.1% market share. It is expected to gain its market share by 10 BPS through 2020. Colour cosmetics is the largest segment in terms of revenue with 37.4% market share; it is likely to maintain its dominance during the forecast period with 38.0% market share, reflecting an increase of 60 BPS over the forecast period.The colour cosmetics segment is likely to exhibit the highest CAGR of 10.2% during 2015-2020 with rising y-o-y growth through the forecast period.Asia Pacific Halal Cosmetics Market: Key RegionsGeographically, Southeast Asia is the dominant market for Halal cosmetics and it is likely to grow at the fastest rate, as compared to other regions; South Asia is the second most lucrative market for Halal cosmetics market. Both Southeast- and South- Asia have high consumer base that is looking for Halal-certified products.Request Sample Report@Increasing awareness about transdermal nature of cosmetics is another driver for the growth of the Halal organic cosmetics market in Asia Pacific. Demand for organic/vegan-friendly cosmetics, greater availability of colour cosmetics variants, and increase in distribution and marketing channels are other growth factors for Halal cosmetics market.Some of the market leaders in the Asia Pacific Halal cosmetics market are INIKA, Martha Tilaar, Wipro Unza, Clara International, Brataco Group Of Companies, Ivy Beauty Corporation Sdn Bhd, and Paragon Technology & Innovation.About UsFuture 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.ContactFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email:sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
The Global Peptide Therapeutics Market is Anticipated to Mark A CAGR of 8.2% by 2023, According to Research Nester.

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The global peptide therapeutics market is segmented into application such as cancer, cardiovascular, central nervous system, metabolic disorders, infection, hematological disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory disorders and acromegaly. Among these segments, cancer segment is projected to be the fastest growing segment by 2024. Likely, rising demand for peptide therapeutics owing to growing occurrence of long term diseases such as cancer is predicted to propel the growth of global peptide therapeutics market. Moreover, rise in spending on healthcare is yet another major growth driving the growth of peptide therapeutics market.Global peptide therapeutics market is projected to register a CAGR of 8.2% over the forecast period i.e. 2016-2023. Moreover, the global peptide therapeutics market is anticipated to reach at noteworthy revenue of USD 26.2 Billion by 2023. The market is expected to expand on the back of increasing investment in healthcare sector by the government authorities.The parenteral segment by route of administration is projected to grab the biggest share in overall peptide therapeutics market by 2023. In the terms of geography, highest demand for peptide therapy was seen from North-America. Further, increasing aging population and favorable reimbursement policies are some of the factors propelling the growth of peptide therapeutics market. Apart from this, Asia-Pacific peptide therapeutics market is expected to expand at a robust CAGR during the forecast period owing to rapid expansion of biotech companies.Increasing Geriatric PopulationIncrease in aging population across the globe is believed to trigger the prevalence of diseases such as cardiac, cardiovascular and osteoporosis which is likely to increase the burden on emerging economies, thus intensifying the demand for peptide therapeutics so as to reduce the burden and minimize the health expenditure.Request For Free Sample Pages:Rising Healthcare ExpenditureRising biotech companies and increasing healthcare spending by the government authorities, rising prevalence of cancer and nervous system disorders are some of the factors expected to fuel the demand for peptide therapeutics in near future. Furthermore, rising awareness towards peptide therapeutics and introduction of favorable re-imbursement policies by the government organizations across the globe is envisioned to bolster the growth of the global peptide therapeutics market in next upcoming years.Although, high cost of peptide therapeutics is expected to limit the growth of peptide therapeutics market by the end of 2023. Moreover, lack of awareness in under-developed nations is hindering the demand for peptide therapeutics.The report titled Peptide Therapeutics Market: Global Market Size, Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2023 delivers detailed overview of the global peptide therapeutics market in terms of market segmentation by application, by route of administration, by Synthesis, by drugs, by type of molecule, by end-user and by region.Further, for the in-depth analysis, the report encompasses the industry growth drivers, restraints, supply and demand risk, market attractiveness, BPS analysis and Porters five force model.This report also provides the existing competitive scenario of some of the key players of the global peptide therapeutics market which includes company profiling of Teva Pharmaceutical Ltd., Novartis AG, Bachem Holdings AG, Sanofi, Pfizer Inc., Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and Company, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The profiling enfolds key information of the companies which encompasses business overview, products and services, key financials and recent news and developments. On the whole, the report depicts detailed overview of the global peptide therapeutics market that will help industry consultants, equipment manufacturers, existing players searching for expansion opportunities, new players searching possibilities and other stakeholders to align their market centric strategies according to the ongoing and expected trends in the future.Request For TOC Pages:Request For Buy Now:Research Nester is a leading service provider for strategic market research and consulting. We aim to provide unbiased, unparalleled market insights and industry analysis to help industries, conglomerates and executives to take wise decisions for their future marketing strategy, expansion and investment etc. We believe every business can expand to its new horizon, provided a right guidance at a right time is available through strategic minds. Our out of box thinking helps our clients to take wise decision so as to avoid future uncertainties.For Table of Content & Free Sample Report Contact:Name:-Ajay DanielEmail: ajay.daniel@researchnester.comU.S. +1 646 586 9123U.K. +44 203 608 5919Website:-
Essential Oil Market to Witness Steady Expansion During 2017-2022

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The global essential oil market demonstrates a highly concentrated competitive landscape with leading players capturing maximum market share and creating high entry barriers for new ventures, states a new research report by Transparency Market Research (TMR). With a significant rise in product and service extensions by key companies, the competition within this market is likely to intensify in the years to come.Over the coming years, players are expected to engage into new partnerships and the acquisition of distributors in a bid to escalate their sales and expand across the world, reports the market study.Request to view Sample Report:Rising Demand for Natural Products to Boost Global Essential Oil MarketThe increasing shift of consumers towards natural products is influencing the global market for essential oil substantially, says an analyst at TMR. With the increasing concerns over the environmental pollution from chemicals, consumers have begun to take interest in being aware of the ingredients present in food items, beverages, skin care products, and cosmetics, which is compelling producers to utilize bio-based and natural products more and more. This, as a result, is reflecting greatly on the sales of essential oil across the world.According to TMR, the opportunity in the worldwide essential oil market is expected to worth US$17.36 bn by 2017. Analysts predict the market to further rise at a CAGR of 9.60% over the period from 2017 to 2022 and reach a value of US$27.4 bn by the end of the forecast period.Although the future of this market looks thriving, it may face obstacles in its growth trajectory from the high price of essential oils and the dearth of awareness among consumers regarding their benefits over the next few years, however, the increasing demand for essential oil in aromatherapy and various natural remedies are expected to propel this market in the near future, notes the research study.Request to view Brochure Report @Demand for Essential Oil to Remain Strong in Food and Beverages and Personal Care and Cosmetics IndustriesAs per the report, the food and beverages and the personal care and cosmetics industries have surfaced as the key application areas for essential oil, globally, and are expected to retain their position in the years to come. Currently, citrus oil is enjoying a greater demand than other types of essential oil across the world. This trend is anticipated to remain so over the next few years, with citrus oil continuing as the most valued product in this market.Europe has emerged as the leading regional market for essential oil, thanks to the high demand for natural nutraceuticals and cosmetics and beauty products. However, the growth of the Europe market for essential oil will slowdown in the years to come due to saturation. North America, which closely follows the European market, is predicted to register a steady rise in its market share over the next few years, states the research report.View Report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
New Zealand Oil and Gas Industry Market 2017- Develop Strategies Based on the Latest Regulatory Events 2022

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled New Zealand Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook"New Zealand Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022 - Market Forecasts for Oil Storage, Pipelines, Underground Gas Storage and Gas Processing", is a comprehensive report on midstream oil and gas industry in New Zealand. 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, underground gas storage sites and gas processing plants in New Zealand till 2022. Further, the report also offers recent developments and financial deals awarded in the countrys midstream sector.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- Updated information related to all active and planned oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines, underground gas storage sites 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 and financial deals related to midstream oil and gas industry in the countryKey points 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, underground gas storage sites and gas processing plants in the country- Analyze the latest developments and financial deals 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 market.Table of Contents1 Table of Contents2 Introduction3. New Zealand Oil Storage Industry4. New Zealand Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry5. New Zealand Underground Gas Storage Industry6. New Zealand Gas Processing Industry7. Financial Deals Landscape8. Recent Developments9. Appendix..CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise 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
Global Cab Service Market Future Market Growth Analysis towards 2022

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global Cab Service Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the global Cab Service market has been compiled by research analysts of the industry, with a primary aim to offer relevant information on the current market conditions for the global Cab Service. Its objective is to talk about the growth prospects of the market and reach out to a wider range of audience such as government agencies, manufacturers of Cab Service, and multiple consultancy services. The research report offers comprehensive analysis of the vital driving factors that will have a huge impact on the global Cab Service market. It also studies the impeding or restraining aspects, upcoming and latest trends in the global Cab Service market which the prominent players in the global Cab Service market should make a note of to enhance their market presence. The potential of other factors of the Cab Service market can be assessed by studying its multiple segments such as products, end users, types, application, services, and others, whichever are applicable. The report also studies the future conditions of the global Cab Service market in all the important regions across the world, such as Latin America, Middle East and Africa (MEA), North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.Download Sample Copy of Report @The report of the global Cab Service market gives out the projection of the market size in terms of its revenue (USD billion). Top-down as well as Bottom-up approaches are applied in the study report to give an estimate and confirm the size of the global Cab Service market and of its other different sub-segments. The research report also extensively discusses the opportunities that may arise in the global market for Cab Service by type and application in the manufacturing countries, and provides a prediction for the period of 2017-2022.Access the full TOC @List of Tables and FiguresFigure Cab Service Product ScopeFigure Global Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) (2012-2017)Table Global Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Global Cab Service Market Share by Regions in 2016Figure United States Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure EU Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Japan Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure China Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure India Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Southeast Asia Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate by Regions (2012-2017)Figure Global Cab Service Market Share by Application in 2016Table Key Downstream Customer in Single passengerFigure Cab Service Market Size (Million USD) and Growth Rate in Single passenger (2012-2017)About 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
Near Vision Devices Market Size Share - Technological Advancement, Industry Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Near vision devices are implantable devices used for near vision correction in patients who didnt had cataract surgery. The device blocks unfocused light rays from entering the eye to improve patients near vision. These devices resemble the contact lenses and are made from hydrogel material. The device is implanted on a cornea of one eye to improve near vision in patients with presbyopia. Many of the surgeons use a laser to make a lappet on a cornea in order to implant near vision device. Presbyopia occurs in people aged between 40 to 50 years that results in difficulty with near vision. The growing prevalence of presbyopia has propelled the use of near vision devices owing to the ease of usage and effectiveness compared to cataract surgery. According to Medscape, around 14% of people of 80 million presbyopia patients develops from emmetropic presbyopia.Get The Sample Copy Of Report :Currently, there are only two near vision devices are approved by FDA i.e. Raindrop Near Vision Inlay and KAMRA inlay. AcuFocus manufactured Kamra Inlay was the first implantable near vision device approved by FDA in April 2015. Now the devices are commercially available in around 50 countries across the globe. Similar, ReVision Optics manufactured Raindrop Near Vision Inlay was approved in June 2016 and is commercially available in the U.S. Apart from these two; there are many vision care products manufacturers looking forward to develop implantable near vision devices. For example, Presbia PLC, an Ireland-based manufacturer has designed innovative corneal inlay i.e. flexivue microlens for the correction of presbyopia. The specialty of this devices is that it can be removed and replaced with a higher or lower power according to requirement. The devices did not receive FDA approval; however, it received CE mark for commercialization in European countries.The growth of the global near vision devices market is driven by increasing geriatric population prone to ophthalmic disease, growing prevalence of presbyopia and technological advancement in the healthcare industry. Similarly, sedentary lifestyle and increased usage of computer, television viewing would contribute towards the growth of near vision devices globally. Moreover, with the increase in the disposable income levels and health consciousness among the general population, the adoption of near vision device is expected the boost in the near future. Despite several advantages, the devices have few drawback such as, it cannot be used by patients with severe dry eye and active eye infection, the use of devices can lead to a risk of eye infection and inflammation, and can cause a decrease in distance vision.Request To Check Discount :The global near vision devices market can be segmented based on end user and geography:By End User:HospitalsOphthalmic ClinicsBy Geography:North AmericaLatin AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificMEAGeographically, North America occupies the substantially larger market share, which is followed by Europe. The high attentiveness level in this region will lead the increasing adoption of implantable near vision devices. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, one of 5 American use reading glasses, which depicts the huge need for implantable near vision devices in North America. Moreover, it has been estimated that around 2.1 billion people are expected to suffer from an eye disease known as presbyopic by 2020. However, in the case of emerging economies, affordability has become a restraining factor for implantable near vision devices in, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Similarly, increase in disposable income, rising aging population, and growing awareness level are some of the key factors driving the global implantable near vision devices market. The Asian market is expected to witness entry of the higher number of new players compared to those in developed regions. Some of the top players in the global near vision devices market are AcuFocus, Presbia PLC, ReVision Optics, etc.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 marketNote: Although care has been taken to maintain the highest levels of accuracy in TMRs reports, recent market/vendor-specific changes may take time to reflect in the analysis.MRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Brown Sugar Market to Witness Steady Expansion During 2017-2022

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The global brown sugar market is likely to exhibit robust growth in the coming years on the back of rising demand from the food and beverage industry. Brown sugar is a type of refined sugar containing molasses, which also imparts the brown color. Production of molasses is a part of the production process of ordinary refined sugar, but can also be added to refined sugar afterwards to turn it into brown sugar. Brown sugar is a staple in the production of various commercially important food and beverage products such as bakery products and sweetened beverages. The global brown sugar market is thus likely to exhibit steady growth in the coming years due to the steady growth trajectory expected from the food and beverage industry.According to Transparency Market Research, the global brown sugar market was valued at US$18.3 bn in 2017 and is likely to rise to US$26.5 bn over the 2017-2022 forecast period at a solid CAGR of 7.7%.Request to view Sample Report:Here are the key insights into the global brown sugar market:Rising demand for bakery products in urban areas is likely to be a major driver for the global brown sugar market. The bakery products industry is a key consumer of powdered, granulated, as well as syrup brown sugar and is likely to remain a major contributor to the global brown sugar market due to the increasing awareness of Western bakery products in emerging markets. The rising indigenous bakery products industry in emerging regions such as Latin America and Asia Pacific is likely to remain a significant contributor to the global brown sugar market in the coming years due to the rising popularity of bakery items in urban areas in these regions. Household production of bakery products is also likely to increase in emerging regions due to the increasing interest in cooking bakery products, leading to a steady rise in the demand from the brown sugar market.The beverage industry is likely to be a major contributor to the global brown sugar market in the coming years. Aerated and fruit-based beverages have become widely popular across the world due to the instant appeal and demand for brown sugar in beverage production is thus likely to benefit massively over the coming years. The rising popularity of local beverage manufacturers, who can compete with international players due to the cheaper regulatory expenses, is likely to remain a major driver for the global brown sugar market in the coming years, particularly in emerging regions such as Southeast Asia and Latin America. The dairy industry is also likely to contribute significantly to the brown sugar market across the world due to the rising awareness about the utility of dairy products as a healthier alternative to conventional sweetened and aerated beverages.Request to view Brochure Report @Geographically, Asia Pacific except Japan is likely to remain the leading contributor to the global brown sugar market over the coming years. The region accounted for more than 33% of the global brown sugar market in 2017 and is likely to remain relevant to the global brown sugar market figures over the coming years in spite of a fall in market share. North America is likely to become increasingly relevant to the global brown sugar market in the coming years due to the growing demand from the packaged food and beverage industry. The longstanding popularity of bakery products in North America has been a major driver for the brown sugar market in the region. The North America market for brown sugar is expected to grow from US$2.5 bn to US$3.8 bn over the 2017-2022 forecast period at a robust 8.7% CAGR.Europe is also likely to remain a dominant contributor to the global brown sugar market thanks to the widespread presence of traditional bakery practices, which often make use of molasses more than modern operations. The Europe brown sugar market is expected to be valued at more than US$4.7 bn by 2022, with the region likely to exhibit a 7.7% CAGR over the 2017-2022 forecast period.Competitive TrackingThe global brown sugar market is highly competitive due to the presence of several players looking to claim a major share in global figures. Leading players in the global brown sugar market include AkzoNobel NV, Masco Corporation, Hempel A/S, Jotun A/S, The Valspar Corporation, Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., Nippon Paint Holding Co. Ltd., BASF SE, and PPG Industries Inc. Moreover, new entrants could join the brown sugar market over the coming years due to the increasing commercial prospects of the food and beverage industry in the urbanized modern world.View Report @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan defined the vector for academic collaboration development between two countries

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During the XIV Interregional Cooperation Forum in Chelyabinsk Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed the issues of bilateral collaboration in the sphere of education and scienceThe main subject of the Forum was the development of human capital. One of the most important topics discussed during the large-scale event was the collaboration between Russian and Kazakh universities in the sphere of research.Vladimir Putin came forward with a proposal of establishing joint Russian-Kazakh research centers on the basis of the leading higher educational institutions of two regions. As an example the President cited the collaborative development of Ural Federal University with the partners from Kazakhstan in the sphere of reducing the energy intensity of production. He underlined that its large-scale implementation will allow not only to conserve energy resources, but as well to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is of significant importance for a number of regions both in Kazakhstan and in Russia.The President noted that Russia and Kazakhstan agreed to extend relations between regional universities and added that education is a key sphere of the human capital development.Another important initiative discussed by the Presidents of two countries was the organization of joint Olympiads for school students of Russia and Kazakhstan in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. This proposal was put forward by Nursultan Nazarbayev in the course of his opening speech at the Forum.This initiative might open up new opportunities for the development of academic collaboration between two countries. Today 928 students from Kazakhstan study at Ural Federal University.Based on the materials byUral Federal University (UrFU) is one of the largest higher educational institutions in Russia, which brings together fundamental education and innovative approach towards the challenges of modern times.Currently, the university is home to 32,000 students from 76 countries of the world and more than 4,000 faculty members, including the top-notch global experts in the spheres of natural sciences, engineering and social sciences. Our institutes offer about 400 Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Programs in natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, humanities, economics and management taught in Russian and English. The number of UrFU alumni exceeds 360,000 people.Breakthrough studies are pursued in 72 research excellence centers. The university is open to international collaboration having almost 400 partners all over the globe and being an active participant of such initiatives as BRICS Network University, SCO Network University, CIS University.Ural Federal University19, Mira str., Ekaterinburg, Russia, 620002+7 343 374 54 34info.international@urfu.ruMs. Marina Sannikova, Head of International Marketing Office
Increasing Investment in the Field of Research & Development to Foster the Growth of Chromatography Instrumentation Market in Future, according to Research Nester

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Chromatography Instrumentation Market: Global Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2021The global chromatography instrumentation market is segmented into consumables such as columns, frits, pumps, flow cells, tunings and others. Among these segments, columns chromatography instrument segment is expected to occupy top position in overall chromatography instrumentation market during the forecast period. Wide scale application of the columns in pharmaceutical, food production and others are anticipated to foster the growth of columns chromatography instrumentation market. Apart from this, recent advancements in the design of columns are consequently raising the utilization of chromatography instrumentation which further is boosting the growth of the chromatography instrumentation market.Global chromatography instrumentation market is expected to flourish at a CAGR of 4.5% over the forecast period. Moreover, the global chromatography instrumentation market is anticipated to garner USD 9.5 Billion by the end of 2020. Factors such as expansion of pharmaceutical and food & beverage industries across the globe, favorable government initiatives are anticipated to be the dynamic factor behind the growth of chromatography instrumentation market.North America dominated the overall market of chromatography instrumentation in 2016 and is projected to continue its dominance over the forecast period. Presence of major pharmaceutical companies, government funding for research and development activities are expected to foster the growth of chromatography instrumentation market in the North America. Asia Pacific chromatography instrumentation market is anticipated to witness lucrative growth during the forecast period. Factors such as expansion of chromatography manufacturers and increasing set up of development and research facilities in the developing nations of Asia Pacific are anticipated to garner the growth of chromatography instrumentation market in the Asia Pacific region.Request Report Sample@Wide Scale UtilizationIncreasing utilization of chromatography in drug discovery research, agricultural industries and food & beverage industries are anticipated to impel the demand for chromatography instrumentation market during the forecast period. Furthermore, rising application of chromatography in drug approval process is anticipated to swell the demand for chromatography instrumentations during the forecast period.Technological Advancement and DevelopmentsAdvances in technologies such as development of counteract chromatography and flash chromatography is anticipated to accelerate the growth of chromatography instrumentation market during the forecast period. Further, increasing utilization of Nano-materials in chromatography is also expected to drive the growth of chromatography instrumentation market. However, high cost of chromatography instrumentation and economic slowdown in various nations are likely to inhibit the growth of the global Chromatography Instrumentation Market in the near future.The report titled Chromatography instrumentation Market : Global Demand Analysis & Opportunity Outlook 2021 delivers detailed overview of the global chromatography instrumentation market in terms of market segmentation by system, by consumables, by applications and by region. Further, for the in-depth analysis, the report encompasses the industry growth drivers, restraints, supply and demand risk, market attractiveness, BPS analysis and Porters five force model.Request For TOC Here:This report also provides the existing competitive scenario of some of the key players of the global chromatography instrumentation market which includes company profiling of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., PerkinElmer, Inc, Agilent Technologies, Shimadzu Corporation, Novasep Holding S.A.S, Waters Corporation, JASCO, Inc., Pall Corporation, AB SCIEX LLC and Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. The profiling enfolds key information of the companies which encompasses business overview, products and services, key financials and recent news and developments. On the whole, the report depicts detailed overview of the global chromatography instrumentation market that will help industry consultants, equipment manufacturers, existing players searching for expansion opportunities, new players searching possibilities and other stakeholders to align their market centric strategies according to the ongoing and expected trends in the future.Research Nester is a leading service provider for strategic market research and consulting. We aim to provide unbiased, unparalleled market insights and industry analysis to help industries, conglomerates and executives to take wise decisions for their future marketing strategy, expansion and investment etc. We believe every business can expand to its new horizon, provided a right guidance at a right time is available through strategic minds. Our out of box thinking helps our clients to take wise decision so as to avoid future uncertainties.Buy This Premium Reports Now @Research Nester is a leading service provider for strategic market research and consulting, serving clients from 120+ countries across the globe. We aim to provide unbiased, unparalleled market insights and industry analysis to help industries, conglomerates and executives to take wise decisions for their future marketing strategy, expansion and investment etc. We believe every business can expand to its new horizon, provided a right guidance at a right time is available through strategic minds. Our out of box thinking helps our clients to take wise decision so as to avoid future uncertainties.Contact for more Info:Name:- Ajay Daniel1820 Avenue M, Suite# 1113,Brooklyn, New York 11230Email: ajay.daniel@researchnester.comU.S. +1 646 586 9123U.K. +44 203 608 5919
Global Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market 2017 - Shell, Total, Chevron, Sinopec, JX Nippon

Global Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market

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Apex Research, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil 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 Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil industry, and estimates the future trend of Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportExxonMobilShellTotalChevronSinopecJX NipponLUKOILGulfCastrolAegeanBPIdem ItsuThe market research report explores the Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil 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 Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil 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 Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The global Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil production volume, data pertaining to demand and Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil 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 Marine Medium Speed Engine Oil across the world.About UsApex 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.Contact UsFrank ValadezCorporate Sales Specialist155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Phone: +17739042683Email id - sales@apexmarketreports.comWebsite -
Load Cell Market : Evolving Technology, Trends and Industry Analysis

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The global load cell market is witnessing considerable rise in its valuation, thanks to the increasing demand for load cells in healthcare sector. The escalating need for home hemodialysis (HHD) machines has been the key factor behind the augmenting usage of load cells in the medical and healthcare industry. The market is also gaining substantially from the rising application of load cells in the testing applications across the aviation and the aerospace industries across the world.The opportunity in the worldwide market for load cells is likely to increase at a CAGR of 3.50% from 2016 to 2014, surging from US$1.87 bn in 2015 to US$2.55 bn by 2024. With the increasing demand for digital load cells in the heavy lifting industry, the future of this market looks thriving. However, its growth may be affected by the slowdown in the demand for analog load cells across various industries in the years to come.Obtain Report Details @The worldwide market for load cells stretches across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Europe, among these, has emerged as the leading regional market for load cells and is expected to remain seated in this position over the next few years. In 2015, the Europe market for load cells contributed US$561.0 mn in revenue. The high usage of these cells in the oil and gas, aerospace and defense, automotive, and bulk material handling industries has been boosting this regional market substantially.Going forward, the presence of a number of firms, which specifically cater to bulk material handling industries, such as the cement, coal and iron ore mining, and railway sectors, is likely to propel this market for load cells in Europe over the next few years. Germany and the U.K. are expected to surface as the key domestic markets for load cells in this region.Make an Enquiry @Technologically, there are two types of load cells available in the global market: analog load cells and digital load cells. The majority of load cells found in the market are of analog nature. In 2015, the total share of analog load cells in the overall market was more than 80%. However, over the coming years, the demand for digital load cells is expected to increase remarkably in heavy lifting applications in the near future.The global load cell market is highly fragmented in nature. Honeywell International Inc., Vishay Precision Group Inc., Flintec Group AB, OMEGA Engineering Inc., FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology Inc., Zhonghang Electronic Measuring Instruments Co. Ltd., Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik GmbH, Novatech Measurements Ltd., Yamato Scale Co. Ltd., Thames Side Sensors Ltd., Mettler Toledo International Inc., and Precia Molen are some of the key manufacturers of load cells across the world.Get ToC@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:
Weatherproof Camera Market is to grow at a CAGR of 7% by Forecast to 2023

Weatherproof Camera Market

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Market Highlights:Weatherproof surveillance cameras is used to capture excellent footage, similar to that of high-quality indoor surveillance camera. These camera are resistant to water and survive in all-weather condition. Weatherproof camera can be used to detect motion and generate alarms and thereby, more effective monitoring can be achieved. It supports security surveillance at home or offices at challenging environments.The weatherproof camera market is expected to grow at approximately USD 9 Billion by 2023, at 7% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.The study indicates city infrastructure to boost the market of Weatherproof Camera Market Infrastructure development, growing urbanization and expansion of business across globe are few of the significant factors driving the growth of the market. The study indicates, government initiatives regarding safety of citizens from foreign attacks and strong border security implementation with water resistant camera is boosting the market growth. The study also indicates that enterprises are implementing safety measures for employees within and outside the work premise. That contributes to the growth of weatherproof camera market. High adoption of weatherproof cameras by photographers, security agencies, enterprises and government organization is boosting the weatherproof camera market.Request a Sample Report @Major Key Players: Vicon Motion Systems (U.K.) Arlo Corporation (U.S.) FLIR Systems (U.S.) Honeywell International Inc. (U.S.) Shenzhen Heshi Technologies Co.Ltd (China) Nest Cam (U.S.) Pelco Corporate (U.S.) Amcrest Technologies (U.S.) Zosi Technology Co. Ltd (Hongkong) Frontpoint Security Solutions (U.S.)Regional Analysis:The regional analysis of weatherproof camera market is being studied for region such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. North America is one of the leading player in the weatherproof camera market owing to major camera manufacturers present in the region.The emergence of HD analog products is engaging a new, lower-end market. Asia-Pacific region is expected to have fastest growth in the market due to the growing number of weatherproof camera manufacturers and increasing infrastructure development.Weatherproof Camera Market Segmentation:The weatherproof camera market has been segmented on the basis of product, type and application. The range segmentation includes waterproof upto 100 feet. Waterproof upto 100 feet camera comprised of GPS system, interactive world map and Wi-Fi connectivity, plus an altimeter and underwater depth instrument for measurement. It offer users with high resolution service and function down to a depth of 100 feet.Market Research Analysis:Regional analysis for weatherproof camera market is studied in different geographic regions such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of World. North America region is mainly dominating the market due to advanced technology implementation in security system. European region is also gaining growth owing to increase demand of citizens and investment by government in weatherproof camera market.Europe region is facing frequent terror attacks that enable government and security agencies to implement advanced and powerful security equipments to combat foreign attacks. The protection of citizen in the region and across the border has risen the need for strong security surveillance gadgets. Asia-Pacific region is the prominent player in the weatherproof camera market owing to advanced infrastructure development from countries such as China and India is boosting the market growth. Increasing urbanization, business expansion across and industrial developments is driving the growth of weatherproof camera in the region.Weatherproof Camera Market (MRFR) Research Analysis:By range segment, weatherproof camera can be water resistant upto 50 feet. This camera has gauges to measure air or water pressure, altitude or depth and shows electronic compass directions which is useful for climbing and trekking.By region, MRFR analysis shows that North America region accounts for largest market share in weatherproof camera owing to growing security concerns of citizens and frequent occurrence of natural calamities that is effecting the security devices. Asia-Pacific region is constantly investing into research and development of weatherproof camera market to directly address the security of citizens. Europe region is one of the prominent player in weatherproof camera market to combat terror attacks and security & safety of citizens. The region is investing into strong border security for safeguarding the citizens from foreign attacks.Browse Full Report Details @Intended Audience: Investors and consultants System Integrators Government Organizations Research/Consultancy firms Technology solution providers IT Solution Providers Original Equipment ManufacturersTable of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market Structure2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Type2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research2.4 Forecast Model2.4.1 Market Data Collection, Analysis & Forecast2.4.2 Market Size EstimationContinuedList of TablesTable 1 Weatherproof Camera Market, By ProductTable 2 Weatherproof Camera Market, By RangeContinuedList of FiguresFigure 1 Research TypeFigure 2 Weatherproof Camera Market: By Product (%)ContinuedAbout 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. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market to Register Unwavering Growth During 2025

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As per a report by Transparency Market Research, the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market will likely expand at a 9.3% CAGR between 2017 and 2025 to become worth US$5.74 bn by 2025 from US$2.606 bn in 2016.Read Report Overview @The three types of tests used in the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market are rapid tests (POC), ELISA, and nucleic acid test, among others. Of them, the segment of rapid test (POC) accounts for maximum market share. It was worth US1.526 bn in 2016, finds the report by TMR. The test is popular on account its easy usage and swift results. In the near future too, the segment of rapid test (POC) is predicted to hold on to its dominant share due to its relative affordability and ability to produce accurate results faster.Geographically, the key segments of the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market are North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. At present, North America dominates the market with a leading share. In the upcoming years too, the region is expected to hold on to its dominant share by expanding at a CAGR of 8.7% from 2017 to 2025. This is mainly because of the increasing awareness about the different diagnosis, initiatives by government to thwart HIV, and superior research and development facilities.Request Sample Report @Alarming rise in occurrence of HIV worldwide and the growing awareness about diagnosis is said to be the root cause of growth in the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market. A release by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in 2015, showed that an estimated 36.7 mn people were living with HIV, and the prevalence rate of HIV was 0.8% worldwide. Most of the HIV-afflicted people live in low and middle income countries. To tackle the menace, government organizations and agencies are focusing on public awareness campaigns about diagnosis, treatment, and care, elaborates the lead analyst of the TMR report.In many cases HIV is asymptomatic, which means even though the immune system is gradually getting affected, there is no outward signs. Many people can go without the symptoms, and hence without realizing they have HIV, for as long as 10 years. This is posing a roadblock to the global HIV/AIDS diagnosis market.Request HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market Report Brochure @The global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market has a handful of dominant players competing against one another. Competition is moderate in the market on account of a few products being approved for commercial use. In fact, all the products in the U.S. are used only for the purpose of research. Another factor serving to keep competition moderate is the high entry barriers to aspiring players. This is because development of diagnostic kits require a lot of research. Going forward, however, the competition may intensify because of the competitive pricing strategy adopted by key companies.F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., Alere, Abbott Laboratories, OraSure Technologies, Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, and Siemens Healthineers are to name a few key companies operating in the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market. While some of them have expanded their shares through mergers and acquisitions, others have made impressive strides through research and development and introduction of new products.Buy Full HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market Report @About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Plastic Films and Sheets Packaging Global Market, By Product & Data Validation, Analysis and Forecast 2022

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The Global Plastic Films and Sheets Packaging Market is poised to reach $138.3 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 5.5%. Rising demand for bi-axially oriented films and increased demand for bio plastic materials are the key drivers of the market. Regulations restricting the use of non-biodegradable plastics and matured western European markets are restraining factors of the market. The opportunities lie in adoption of specialty films and growing usage of plastic films & sheets in agriculture. The increasing disposable income of the consumers together with the growing demand for packaged food is driving the market for plastic films & sheets.For more information about this report:Global Plastic Films and Sheets Packaging market is segmented by type, by application and by geography. Based on type, market is segregated into Linear Low-Density Polyethylene (LLDPE), Polyamide (PA), Low-density polyethylene (LDPE), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP), Polyethersulfone (PES), High-density polyethylene (HDPE), Cast Polypropylene (CPP) and others. Based on application, the market is categorised into packaging and non-packaging. Packaging is further divided into food packaging, industrial packaging, consumer goods, pharmaceutical & medical packaging and others. Non-packaging is further divided into agriculture, construction, medical & health care and others. Market by geography is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World.The Key players in the market include, Qingdao LAF Packaging Co. Ltd., Trans Ocean Bulk Logistics Ltd., Yunjet Plastic Packaging Co. Ltd., Braid Logistics, Trans Ocean Bulk Logistics Ltd., KriCon, Environmental Packaging Technologies Inc., Bulk Liquid Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and K Tank Supply Limited.Request Sample Copy atWhat our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 8 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsCompany Profiling9.1 Sealed Air Corporation9.2 Berry Plastics Group, Inc.9.3 Bemis Company, Inc.9.4 Uflex Ltd.9.5 Toyobo Co., Ltd.9.6 Amcor Limited9.7 Toray Industries, Inc.9.8 Jindal Poly Films Ltd.9.9 Toyobo Co., Ltd.Inquire before Buying atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Online Education Market is expected to grow at USD 423 Billion by Forecast to 2023

Online Education Market

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Market Scenario:Online Education Market refers to learning in a 100% virtual environment. Online education can play a major role in developing the education industry overall in terms of money as well as innovation. With growing popularity of internet and many active user, online education market is expected to witness high growth rate during the forecast period. Increasing implementation of IT security and cloud based solutions and rapid growth in digitization are the factors responsible for the growth of online education market.Online Education Market has been segmented on the basis of product, learning type and end user. The learning type segment is further bifurcated into synchronous learning and asynchronous learning. Asynchronous learning refers to online spaces where work is supported through the use of digital platforms like threaded discussions or emails. In asynchronous learning, the participants need not be compulsorily online at the time whereas in synchronous learning type, the users need to be online and is moreover like face-to-face learning environment. It involves real-time responses that allow better provision for clarity.The global Online Education Market is expected to grow at approx. USD 423 Billion by 2023, at 24% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.Major factors driving the growth of online education market are conducive government policies and increasing demand for technical education. Increase in popularity of distance learning is another major factor driving the growth of online education market.Request a Sample Report @Major Key Players: Adobe Systems (U.S.) McGraw-Hill Education (U.S.) Pearson Education (U.K.) Blackboard (U.S.) Lynda.Com (U.S.) Aptara (U.S.) Docebo (Italy) Edmodo (U.S.) PowerSchool Learning (U.S.) Tata Interactive Systems (India)Study Objectives of Online Education Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the online education market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. 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 perspective. To provide country level analysis of the market for segmentation on the basis of product, learning type and end user. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for online education 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 online education market.Segments:Online education market can be segmented on the basis of following:By Product Content ServicesBy Learning Type Synchronous Learning Asynchronous LearningBy End User K-12 Education Higher Education Industry & ProfessionalRegional Analysis:The regional analysis of online education market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period.The major growth in online education market in North America is attributed to technical advancements and increasing use of internet, mobiles and tablets in that region.Access Report Details @Intended Audience Technology investors Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) Research/Consultancy firms Educational Institutions StudentsTable of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinued.List of TablesTable 1 Online Education Market, By ProductTable 2 Online Education Market, By Learing TypeTable 3 Online Education Market, By End UserContinued.List of FiguresFigure 1 Research TypeFigure 2 Online Education Market, By Product (%)Figure 3 Online Education Market, By Learing Type (%)Continued.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our clients 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 Solutions, Application, Logistics 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.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Market 2017 - Current and Future Plans

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Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products factual study report gives an all-inclusive examination of the Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products market and its key assessment and predictions for the forecast period. The report considers the current conditions of the market and joins a discussion on the market drivers, restraints, opportunities and challenges as well as the trends. It also studies and furnishes the summaries of the important manufacturers in the market, which includes their product/service offering, their financial overview and the strategies followed, with their competitors.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Global Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingMartha Tilaar GroupINIKA CosmeticsPT Paragon Technology and InnovationIvy BeautyColgate-PalmoliveJetaineTanamera TropicalWipro Unza HoldingsINGLOTMuslimah ManufacturingOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoHair Care ProductsSkin Care ProductsToiletriesConvenience ProductsOthersOn 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 for each application, includingSupermarketsConvenience StoresExclusive ShopsOnline StoresTable of Content: Key PointsGlobal Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales Market Report 20171 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Market Overview2 Global Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application3 United States Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4 China Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5 Europe Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products (Volume, Value and Sales Price)9 Global Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data9.1 Martha Tilaar Group9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Product Category, Application and Specification9.1.2.1 Product A9.1.2.2 Product B9.1.3 Martha Tilaar Group Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 INIKA Cosmetics9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Product Category, Application and Specification9.2.2.1 Product A9.2.2.2 Product B9.2.3 INIKA Cosmetics Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.3 PT Paragon Technology and Innovation9.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.3.2 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Product Category, Application and Specification9.3.2.1 Product A9.3.2.2 Product B9.3.3 PT Paragon Technology and Innovation Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.4 Ivy Beauty9.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.4.2 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Product Category, Application and Specification9.4.2.1 Product A9.4.2.2 Product B9.4.3 Ivy Beauty Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.5 Colgate-Palmolive9.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.5.2 Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Product Category, Application and Specification9.5.2.1 Product A9.5.2.2 Product B9.5.3 Colgate-Palmolive Halal Cosmetics and Personal Care Products Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.6 JetaineContinuedACCESS 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
BOMBAY BEAUTY CO - THE EVOLUTION OF BOMBAY BROW BAR

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday October 27, 2017BOMBAY BEAUTY CO.THE EVOLUTION OF BOMBAY BROW BARBombay Brow Bar Opens New Concept Store, Bombay Beauty Co.,at The Fairmont WaterfrontVancouver BC, October 27, 2017- After seven years of rocking perfect brows in Vancouver BC, Bombay Brow Bar will launch its newest concept store, Bombay Beauty Co., in the Fairmont Waterfront on November 4, 2017. Inspired by ancient Ayurvedic beauty rituals and traditions, Bombay Beauty Co. is a natural beauty brand that captures the essence of East meets West. Bombay Beauty Co. will continue to offer an expanded beauty services menu available at their Bombay Brow Bar locations including the Bombay Rose Facial, an Ayurvedic inspired clay- based facial designed for all skin types using their signature natural skincare line, Bombay Rose.Ravy Mehroke, CEO and Co- Founder of Bombay Beauty Co. and Bombay Brow Bar, says, We really had the desire to innovate and expand Bombay into a natural beauty brand where we could share the time-tested ingredients and beauty practices of Ayurveda in a new and modern way. Bombay Beauty Co. is a natural evolution of Bombay Brow Bar and we are extremely excited about the new concept store being located at the Fairmont Waterfront, just steps away from the Convention Center, Gastown, and Financial District of Vancouver.Bombay Beauty Co. is all about perfectly individualized brows and facial experiences using our own natural, organic handcrafted, Ayurvedic skin and body care products. Bombay Beauty Co. will be officially open for business on Saturday, November 4, 2017.Bombay Beauty Co. Waterfront829 West Cordova St (Located at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel), Vancouver BC604.669.2769The Bombay Beauty Co. ConceptWith a culture and mantra of empowering women through self- love, self- care, and self- confidence, Bombay Beauty Co. is an evolution of Bombay Brow Bar into a natural beauty brand inspired by ancient Ayurvedic beauty rituals and treatments, while still staying true to its mission of spreading love through the world naturally and beautifully, one person at a time.Bombay Beauty Co. Waterfront829 West Cordova St (Located at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel)Vancouver BC, V6C 3L5604.669.2769CEO/ Co-FounderRavy Mehrokeravy.mehroke@bombaybeautyco.com604-719-1649Marketing ManagerCandice Chiccandice.chic@bombaybeautyco.com
Culture Media Market Projected to Witness Vigorous Expansion by 2025

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The global culture media market stood at US$5,296.8 mn in 2016 and is projected to be worth US$10,138.6 mn by the end of 2025 expanding at a CAGR of 7.7% between 2017 and 2025.In terms of media type, the culture media market is segmented into dehydrated culture media, chromogenic culture media, and prepared culture media. The segment of dehydrated culture media dominated the market in 2016 and is anticipated to retain its position until the end of 2025. Prepared culture media stood as the second-leading media type segment of the market in the same year. These segments offer benefits of faster because of which they are extensively used in diagnostic laboratories and research institutes.Read Report Overview @In terms of end-user, hospitals dominated holding 43.5% of the culture media market in 2016. This was followed by the segment of academic and research institutes and is expected to maintain its second-leading position over the forecast period between 2017 and 2025. On the other hand, the diagnostic centers segment is expected to display a declined market share between 2016 and 2025.In terms of geography, the global culture media market is divided into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. North America, among these accounts for the leading contribution to the global culture media market. Between 2016 and 2025, the share of this region is expected to increase from 39.3% to 43%. Advances in medical technology with a corresponding increase in application of culture media are key factors for the dominance of North America in the global market. The U.S. accounts for the major share of North America culture media market.Request Sample Report @Europe is the second-leading regional segment in the culture media market. The significant position of this region is mainly due to substantial investments from top players for research and development pursuits for disease diagnosis.Increasing demand for antibiotics is the primary factor propelling the culture media market. The increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is necessitating the development of new antibiotics for treating disease indication. Research and development initiatives for newer pharmaceutical products for application in disease diagnosis is further benefitting the growth of this market.On the downside, high cost associated for the preparation of various types of culture media and stringent process controls are challenging the markets growth.Request Culture Media Market Report Brochure @Transparency Market Researchs (TMR) new report on the global culture media market says the degree of competition in this market is high as companies are engaged in consistent breakthroughs and new discoveries for culture media. Nevertheless, the culture media market exhibits a fairly consolidated vendor landscape with top five companies holding close to 60% of the market in 2016.Leading companies in the culture media market are focused on mergers and acquisitions and strategic alliances with businesses with complementary strengths, says a lead analyst at TMR. An excellent example is Thermo Fisher Scientific. In February 2014, the company acquired Life Technologies Corporation to strengthen its biosciences and bioprocessing businesses, thereby accelerating its drug discovery, development, and production capabilities.Buy Full Culture Media Market Report @About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
By Ruth Anderah:

The Chief Justice Bart Katureebe has asked government to quickly address demands of judicial officers to end the current disputes within the judiciary.

Justice Katureebe was this morning meeting judges and magistrates in Kampala to discuss how they can improve administration of justice in Uganda.

His call comes after judges and magistrates in October this year gave government up to December 11th to increase their salaries and improve their working conditions or they resume their strike.

Justice Katureebe says addressing the judicial officers concerns will raise workers moral and end industrial disputes that are disrupting the administration of justice and endangering the population.

He adds that if judicial officers are well remunerated, they would devote their time and energy to discharge justice and settle disputes in society instead of concentrating on other income generating activities which may undermine the sanctity and effectiveness of the judicial process.
Digital Assistance Market 2017 Leading Growth Drivers, Emerging Audience, Segments, Sales, Profits & Analysis

Digital Assistance Market

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Market Highlights:The study reveals that digital assistance is trending in North America region. The latest digital assistance are widely used in these region due to increasing use of machine-learning, cognitive methods and natural language processing. Recently, Apple Inc. has announced Apple Siri which is coming for users that enables to search for photos, documents, music via voice commands, and others. The enterprise digital assistance are deployed for interaction with a specific enterprise including interactive websites, mobile applications, voice response systems, kiosks, and wearable devices.In North America region, the next generation virtual digital assistances engine demand are growing in these region as it can provide a better user experience as well as enhanced productivity. The prominent companies such as Amazon.com Inc. (U.S.), Apple Inc. (U.S.), Facebook Inc. (U.S.), Google Inc. (U.S.), are offering digital assistance are driving the growth of the digital assistance market. Moreover, the digital assistance market is growing with the growing trend of digital technology. For instance, the hound apps which is virtual digital assistance, are launched for Android and iPhone with its great features which is competitor of Siri, Google Now, Cortana.The Global Digital Assistance Market is growing rapidly over 24% of CAGR and is expected to reach at USD 14 Billion by the end of forecast period.Major Key Players: Amazon.com Inc. (U.S.) Apple Inc. (U.S.) Facebook Inc. (U.S.) Google Inc. (U.S.) International Business Machines Corporation (U.S.) Microsoft Corporation (U.S.) Nuance Communications, Inc. (U.S.) Samsung Group (South Korean) Artificial Solutions (Spain), MindMeld (U.S.) Openstream Inc. (U.S.)Request a Sample Report @Digital Assistance Market Segmentation:The global digital assistance market is bifurcated on the basis of connectivity, product, deployment, applications and region. The connectivity is segmented into professional, managed and others. The product is segmented Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortona, Samsung S-voice/Bixby, Chinese Assistant and others.The deployment is segmented into on premise, on cloud and others. The applications is segmented wearable device, smart homes, TV device, and others. The region includes North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and rest of the world.Market Research Analysis:On geographic basis, global digital assistance market is studied in different regions as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of world. It has been observed that North America region is leading with market share growth in the digital assistance market.The digital assistance is gaining huge demand due to growing use of artificial intelligence. In this market, Europe is to be estimated to be the second largest market share for digital assistance during the forecast period.Regional Analysis:The regional analysis of digital assistance market is being studied for region such as Asia pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. North America is one of the leading region across the world in terms of market share in digital assistance market as it has huge demand as the technology has becomes more advanced and the consumers has started adopting these virtual digital assistant applications.The digital assistance market in Europe region is expected to witness rapid growth in the forthcoming period. Whereas, Asia-Pacific countries like China, Japan and India is an emerging market for digital assistance market and expected to be the highest CAGR in the coming years as the companies are taking interest in targeting the digital assistance in these markets.Intended Audience: Digital assistance manufacturing companies Original equipment manufacturers Digital assistance providers Research and development companies Market research and consulting firms Solution providers Technology standards organizations Technology investors System IntegratorsAccess Report Details @Table of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market Structure:1.3.1 Global Digital Assistance Market : By Connectivity1.3.2 Global Digital Assistance Market : By Product1.3.3 Global Digital Assistance Market : By Deployments1.3.4 Global Digital Assistance Market : By Application1.3.5 Global Digital Assistance Market : By RegionContinuedList of TablesTable 1 Digital Assistance Market, By ConnectivityTable 2 Digital Assistance Market, By ProductTable 3 Digital Assistance Market, By DeploymentContinuedList of FiguresFigure 1 Research MethodologyFigure 2 Digital Assistance Market: By Connectivity (%)Figure 3 Digital Assistance Market: By Product (%)ContinuedAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our clients 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 Solutions, Application, Logistics 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.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Cell Expansion Market to Record Ascending Growth by 2024

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According to the report, the global market for cell expansion is anticipated to witness a significant surge in its opportunity at a CAGR of 14.70% during the period from 2016 to 2024, rising from US$7.7 bn in 2015 to US$26 bn by the end of the forecast period. Human stem cells register a stronger hold on this market when compare to their animal and differentiated counterparts and the trend is anticipated to remain so over the next few years. Hospitals, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, CMO and CRO, and academic and research institutes have emerged as the key end users of cell expansion products across the world. North America, among all the regions, has occupied the leading position in the worldwide market for cell expansion, thanks to the presence of a large pool of participants. Researchers anticipate the North America cell expansion market to remain dominant over the period of the forecast.Read Report Overview @The global market for cell expansion is witnessing a tremendous surge in its valuation. An analyst at TMR states that the increasing cases of rare and chronic medical conditions across the world is the key driving force behind the growth of this market. The continued rise in the demand for biopharmaceuticals is also boosting this market significantly.In addition to this, the increasing preference for regenerative medicines, offering faster results, will propel the global cell expansion market remarkably in the years to come. The emergence of cell-based therapies, with high patient compatibility, is also projected to drive this market over the next few years, notes the research study.Request Sample Report @Though all these factors point towards a thriving future of the global market for cell expansion, there are several roadblocks that can hold the market from growing smoothly in the years to come. The high cost associated with the operations is one such obstacle, which the market is expected to face over the forthcoming years. The dearth of high-tech instrumentation and a skilled workforce will also pose severe challenge for this market in the years to come. However, the increasing investment by companies and rising government support will normalize the effect of these restraints in the near future, states the research report.With a handful of established players, the global cell expansion market demonstrates a consolidated structure, states a new report by Transparency Market Research (TMR). The top eight companies, namely, Merck Millipore, Thermo Fisher Scientific, GE Healthcare, Danaher Corp., Becton, Dickinson and Co., Lonza, and Corning, collectively held nearly 79% of the overall market in 2016. To strengthen their presence in the worldwide cell expansion market, the leading players have increased the investment in the research activities in order to develop novel cell lines and discover new applications. Going forward, the focus of these companies will shift to product differentiation in the near future, making the competitive environment much stiff.Buy Full Cell Expansion Market Report @About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Internet of Things Market to Reach US$1490.31 bn by 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Internet of Things Market to Reach US$1490.31 bn by 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.The Internet of Things refers to the interrelated devices that are able to transfer data over a network without requiring computer and human interaction devices. Internet of Things is directly and indirectly associated with daily lifestyle products across the globe. Internet connectivity is one of the major requirements of different application as it is expected to grow at high rate in next forecast period. Furthermore, internet connectivity requires more monitoring through applications and human interactions. Moreover, Internet of Things offers an easier and comfortable controlling of different electronic devices from one place. Internet of Things is definite as an invisible and intelligent network of things that correspond directly or indirectly with each other which is fueling the enlargement during the forecast period.Global Internet of Things Market: DriversIoT is expected to transform how we work, live and other things. Smart object and their different applications such as smart cities, smart homes, and smart environment is dynamic the evolution of the universal market. Moreover, increasing demand of smart wearable electronic products in different application is boosting the market growth. The prospective for cyber physical systems to improve productivity in the production process and supply chain are growing the demand of industrial sector in Internet of Things market. Additionally, fast technological advancement is increasing the global IoT market growth. Wi-Fi connectivity is growing rapidly and due to various government initiatives supporting the widespread usage of WiFi and collaboration between various companies, market is experiencing a surge and is forecasted to grow considerably during the forecast period. Consequently, all drivers are set to contribute to the expansion of global market of Internet of Things in the upcoming years. Moreover, IoT finds in application such as urban planning and environmental planning, is could create immense opportunities for the IoT market.Growing acceptance in the various industrial segments along with strong economic growth in growing economies are contributing to the prospective growth opportunities of the global Internet of Things market. Internet of Things is anticipated to increase acceptance through end-user applications like medical and manufacturing and this will lead to the increase in the growth of IoT market in the upcoming years. However, the major challenge that Internet of Things markets likely to face is the lack of standardization in IoT products and interoperability problems. The privacy and security problems with usage of cloud technology is likely to obstruct the anticipated growth of IoT market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Internet of Things Market: Scope of the StudyBased on application, the Internet of market is generally classified into media, manufacturing, medical and healthcare, consumer application, energy management and others. Geographically, Internet of Things market is classified into Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific.The key companies in the global Internet of Things market have been competitively profiled across the five broad geographic regions. This competitive landscape is inclusive of the various business strategies accepted by these key players and their recent developments in the field of Internet of Things. Furthermore, the report contains analysis of market attractiveness of different applications and provides an insight into various application areas of the Internet of Things. A detailed analysis of the various dynamics of the market of global Internet of Things market is provided in the report. Opportunities, restraints and market drivers are also covered in this report. Thus, the report of global Internet of Things offers a detailed report of the market and that includes the projection of the global IoT market revenue-wise (USD Million) from the period of 2016 to 2024.The global Internet of Things market is characterized by the presence of numerous major players in the market. The major players of the market compete their competition on the basis of factors such as price, performance, quality, support services and innovations of product. Major players in IoT market are Intel Corp. (U.S), Amazon (U.S), Microsoft Corp. (U.S), Cisco Systems Inc. (U.S), Google Inc. (U.S), AT&T (U.S) and Apple Inc. (U.S) among others.The global high resolution dispensing systems and equipment market has been segmented into:Internet of Things Market, by TechnologyZigbeeBluetooth Low EnergyNear Field CommunicationWi-FiRFIDInternet of Things Market, by ApplicationMediaManufacturingMedical and HealthcareConsumer ApplicationEnergy ManagementOthersInternet of Things Market, by Geography: The market is broadly segmented on the basis of geography into:North AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaBrowse 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.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 @
Symeo at the China Hi-Tech Fair: Innovative LPR radar technology provides safe operation processes and optimal protection for crane systems

Symeo installed a series of wireless sensors at one of China's largest steel manufacturers as part of a crane automation project.

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Neubiberg (Germany), November 10, 2017  Radar specialist Symeo GmbH will exhibit at the China Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen from November 16 to November 21 in hall 1, booth 1A91-9. The focus will be on Symeo's patented LPR radar technology, which provides optimal crane system safety and high efficiency for operational and transport processes. As an innovative provider of precise positioning and reliable anti-collision solutions, Symeo sold a series of sensor units last year to one of China's largest steel manufacturers for the use in a large-scale automation project.Increased safety, more efficiency and higher availability: Symeo's wireless sensor systems are deployed wherever real-time localization of cranes and industrial vehicles, seamless movement tracking and timely detection of potential collisions are required. Using contactless wireless measurements, the radar-based systems continuously tracks crane and vehicle positions in order to optimize logistics, transport and production processes. The positioning and distance measurement sensors from Symeo are based on a proprietary local positioning radar technology that does not interfere with existing WiFi networks. The technology is suitable for both indoor and outdoor applications and works extremely robust and maintenance-free.Large-scale automation project in China using Symeo LPR-1DHP radar sensorsLast year Symeo carried out an automation project for one of China's largest iron and steel companies. The project involved the installation of 52 LPR-1DHP sensor units in a steel works for the real-time positioning of cranes, complete tracking of the crane movements and to protect the crane systems against collisions. Because of their high availability, the wear-and-tear-free radar systems are frequently installed in demanding industrial work environments with a high degree of dust, dirt and vibrations  such as in the metal and steel industry, in the mining sector, for bulk material handling processes and for container terminal operations. In addition, Symeos wireless sensors are impervious to extreme weather conditions such as heat, direct sunlight and rain.About the China Hi-Tech FairThe China Hi-Tech Fair, with its focus on state-of-the-art technologies, has been held each year since 1999 and is one of the most influential trade fairs in China. The fair attracted 600,000 visitors in 2016, where 3,533 companies and organizations exhibited in the 150,000-square-meter space. The exhibition serves as a forum for decisions-makers, as well as a showcase for investment opportunities and the chance to network with industry professionals.About Symeo GmbHSymeo GmbH develops and markets products and solutions for precise, contact-free and maintenance-free position detection, distance measurement and collision avoidance of road/rail vehicles and cranes. Furthermore, the company develops certified, customer-specific telemetry solutions with mobile data transmission. Products from Symeo are designed to be especially robust for applications in rough environments.With its LPR products, Symeo offers a wireless-based, real-time-capable measurement system that is ideally suited for industrial applications. Symeo has several years of experience in the development of cost-effective, customer-specific industrial solutions on the basis of LPR and GNSS positioning technology (GNSS = Global Navigation Satellite Systems GPS, Glonass and Galileo).The company delivers standardized products and complete solutions to system integrators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and end customers worldwide.Symeo GmbHProf.-Messerschmitt-Str. 385579 NeubibergGermanyT: +49 89 6607796-0E: info@symeo.comW:Presscontact:Sabrina KasparT: +49 89 6607796-206E: sabrina.kaspar@symeo.com
Advances in Global Healthcare Cyber Security Market During The Forecast Period 2016 - 2023

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Advances in Global Healthcare Cyber Security Market During The Forecast Period 2016 - 2023" to its huge collection of research reports.The global healthcare cyber security market is predicted to lay a strong foundation of propelling growth on the growing need of network security, a type of IT security widely sought by healthcare organizations. Access control and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) mitigation are some of the highly sophisticated types of network security solutions that ensure protection. Interestingly, the end-user expenditure on these solutions is prognosticated to continue seeing a rise due to its mounting awareness. In 2016, network security showcased a dominating performance in the market. Other types of security such as wireless, cloud, and application could also contribute to the overall growth.While cyberattacks are prophesied to be amongst the primary drivers of growth in the global healthcare cyber security market, data breaches could well be in the run. An escalating count of healthcare institutions are expected to take to cyber security solutions to protect patient and their own data too. The implementation of connect medical devices and digital medical record systems coupled with the surging usage of laptops, tablets, smartphones, and other mobile devices is foretold to set the tone for a valuable demand in the market.Focus on the introduction of technologically advanced solutions could be a key strategy adopted by leading players operating in the global healthcare cyber security market, followed by merger and acquisition. The rapid shift toward cloud computing technology is envisaged to supplement an additional boost to the demand in the market. More opportunities could take position in the market as players look to run new strategies to magnify their presence.Cyber security technologies and solutions are evolving due to the changing threat landscape, where threats are becoming smarter and damaging. In todays connected health environment, cyber security is no longer an option or afterthought whereas it is a critical strategic asset that is being addressed by every organization. Over the past decade, healthcare industry has implemented a healthcare information technology (healthcare IT) infrastructure to access, send and receive electronic health data. Given that medical records contain a wealth of information that can be used for identity theft and fraud (such as social security number, address or claims data), personal health information carries a higher value on the black market than other industries. The key factors driving the healthcare security market is the increasing cyber-attack threat. Recent estimates suggest that in the period from 2010 to 2014, approximately 37 million healthcare records were compromised in data breaches. Moreover, rise in the patent infringement cases, business records, medical identity fraud, and loss of patient health records are expected to boost the healthcare cyber security market during the forecast period of 2015 to 2023. However, lack of awareness about cyber security related to the healthcare industry would act as a restraining factor, thereby hampering the growth of the healthcare cyber security market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The global healthcare cyber security market has been segmented into solution type, end user and geography. On the basis of the solution type, the healthcare cyber security market has been segmented into risk and compliance management, identity and access management, security information and event management, and intrusion detection system (IDS)/intrusion prevention system (IPS), firewalls, antivirus, antimalware software, data encryption software, and others. The identity and access management is the fastest growing segment in the healthcare cyber security market. The market for end users in segmented into pharmaceuticals & chemicals manufactures, medical devices companies, health insurance companies, hospitals and others. Pharmaceutical companies held the major share of healthcare cyber security market in 2014 and is expected to witness a substantial growth during the forecast period. During the past decade, cyber-attacks on medical device companies, insurance and pharma companies is on the rise, thus fueling the market growth of healthcare cyber security market.Geographically, North America held the largest share of the healthcare cyber security market followed by Europe in 2014, due to the presence of highly developed medical and healthcare infrastructure, high spending on the healthcare information technology, presence of the major pharmaceutical and medical devices companies in the region and government initiatives which have led the growth of the healthcare cyber security market. Asia Pacific is the most attractive market for the healthcare cyber security market due to the rapid improvement in the healthcare industry, economic development in the countries such as China, Japan, India and Australia, which would further booth the healthcare cyber security market during the focus period. Rest of the world holds immense potential for the growth as there are untapped opportunities in the health care cyber security market.Developing a cyber-security platform is no more an option today, it is a necessity. Some of the major players engaging in the health care cyber security market include Cisco Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, MacAfee, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Symantec Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, FireEye, Inc., Northrop Grumma Corporation, Kaspersky Lab 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 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 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 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.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 @
Cyber Security Market Overview, Size, Segments, Trends, Top Key Players and Growth Analysis by Forecast to 2027

Cyber Security Market

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Market Scenario:Cyber security is one of the most important concerns for all the countries around the globe. As the technology is growing and new applications are coming into picture, hackers are finding the new loopholes and by that they are stealing the important and confidential datas from the servers and selling it to the other countries or in black market.The report on Global Cyber Security Market shows that total market size for the cyber security has been increase to billions and currently growing with the CAGR rate of high During the forecasted period it is expected that cyber-security market will touch the market size of USD in billion and will grow with the CAGR.Major Key Players: Cisco Corporation Mcafee Corporation Fortinet Inc, Trend Micro Inc Cassidian Cybersecurity Company Computer Science Corporation Booz Allen Hamilton Corporation Kaspersky Lab Fireeye inc, Symantec CorporationRequest a Sample @Study Objective of Cyber Security Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the global cyber security market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the cyber security 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 solution, by service, by application 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 cyber security solutions marketMarket SegmentationFor the better understanding of the report, the market for Global Cyber security has been segmented by solutions, services and by application verticals. Solutions include Network Security, Endpoint Security, Content Security, Application Security, Industrial Control System Security and Cloud Security. Services include- Design Services, Consulting Services, Risk Assessment Services, Training Services and Others. On the basis of application verticals, the market has been segmented as Telecommunication, BFSI, Manufacturing, Aerospace and Defense, Healthcare and OthersRegional AnalysisNorth America is leading in the market of Cyber Security. Countries like the US and Canada are well developed in the field of technology and also some of the major players who provide cyber security options are located in the North America. Europe is accounted for the second largest market share in the Cyber Security Market.Europe holds USD billions in the global market which is and currently growing with the CAGR rate. The main reason behind this is some countries of Europe have good command over the technology and most of the company in Europe region update their cyber security model periodically. Asia Pacific and MEA are fastest growing market for the cyber security.AmericasNorth America US Canada EuropeWestern Europe Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of Western EuropeAccess Report Details @Eastern EuropeAsia PacificAsia China India Japan South Korea Rest of AsiaTable of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinuedAbout 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.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
13.68% Growth In Global Online Tutoring Market During The Forecast Period 2017 - 2021

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "13.68% Growth In Global Online Tutoring Market During The Forecast Period 2017 - 2021" to its huge collection of research reports.Online tutoring services include digital content and products that facilitate learning through ICT tools. These tools include mobile apps, activities, e-books, games, videos, audio clips, digital software, and learning lab equipment. They are interactive, allow real-time feedback, and enhance learning processes as they involve different formats.Technavios analysts forecast the global online tutoring market to grow at a CAGR of 13.68% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global online tutoring market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated by providing online tutoring services to learners.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaROWTechnavio's report, Global Online Tutoring Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsClub Z! TutoringFleet Education ServicesHuntington Learning CenterPearson ELTTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Other prominent vendorsArborBridgeA Plus-All Subjects TutoringBenchPrepC2 EducationEF Education FirstKaplanKnewtonRevolution PrepSylvan LearningMarket driverRising emphasis on entrance examination.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengePerceived failures of learning process by parents.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendIncreasing emphasis on marketing.For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse 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.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 @
Europe Molecular Diagnostics Market Poised to Garner Maximum Revenues During 2025

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As per a report by Transparency Market Research, the Europe molecular diagnostics market will likely rise at a steady CAGR of 6.6% during the period between 2017 and 2025. At this rate, the market will become worth US$769.0 mn by 2025-end from US$395.7 mn in 2016.The different types of product in the market for molecular diagnostics in Europe are real-time PCR systems, liquid handling systems, and DNA extraction systems. Of them, the real-time PCR systems accounts for maximum market share and going forward too will likely dominate the market owing to a range of advantages over conventional PCR systems.Read Report Overview @From a geographical standpoint, the key segments of the of the Europe molecular diagnostics market are France, the U.K., Germany, Spain, and Italy. Germany, among them, leads vis-a-vis revenue and in the near future too will retain its leading position in this aspect. This is mainly on account on the increased investment of the government in the domain of healthcare, the thrust on bolstering the biotechnology sector, and the growing number of biotechnology companies in the country.The market for molecular diagnostics in Europe has seen steady progress so far on the back of an ever-increasing healthcare expenditure. Besides, rising awareness about different chronic diseases and disorders, abundant availability of diagnostic centers, and increasing affordability of diagnostics are also serving to catalyze growth in the market. Rising support from the government and growing investments in research and development of advanced diagnostics are also positively influencing the market.Request Sample Report @A noticeable trend in the Europe market for molecular diagnostics is the move toward automation. In fact, quite a few automated products, particularly in the area of automated liquid handling systems has been launched and are predicted to boost sales in the market in the upcoming years.Currently, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are resulting in maximum demand in the market because of substantial amounts being poured into research that has generated the need for molecular diagnostic devices.Posing a hindrance to the molecular diagnostics market in Europe is the shortage of skilled labor, which makes it tough for companies to control costs. Further, the constant thrust on new and improved technologies is also predicted to thwart market growth. Take, for example, the surging popularity of next generation sequencing (NGS) which is snipping away the market share of real-time PCR systems. However, the demand for non-contact dispensing technologies stoking sales of liquid dispensing systems, will likely help the market overcome the challenge.Request Europe Molecular Diagnostics Market Report Brochure @The market for molecular diagnostics in Europe is slated to see competition increase in the near future as companies focus on research and development to come up with better products. With product differentiations and customizations they are attempting to increase their sales and revenues. To that end they are partnering or collaborating with research institute. Dominant players are also focusing on mergers and acquisitions to increase their market share.Some of the key players in Europe molecular diagnostics market are Agilent Technologies, Inc., Becton, Dickinson and Company, Tecan Group Ltd., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., QIAGEN N.V., Danaher Corporation, Eppendorf AG, PerkinElmer, Inc., and Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. Of them, Bio-Rad Laboratories and Thermo Fishcer Scientific accounted for almost half the share in the market in 2016.Buy Full Europe Molecular Diagnostics Market Report @About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Terephthalic Acid Market Professional Survey Report 2017

Terephthalic Acid , Terephthalic Acid industry, Terephthalic Acid market, Terephthalic Acid sales, Terephthalic Acid report

https://www.reportsandmarkets.com/reports/global-terephthalic-acid-market-professional-survey-report-2017-1547591

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Browse the full report with a table of contents :This report studies Terephthalic Acid 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.Request a sample copy:This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringHitachiBP AmocoCapcoDAK AmericasDupontSABICInterquisaKoch IndustriesMitsubishi ChemicalMitsui ChemicalsOrder a Purchase Report Copy:By types, the market can be split intoPure Terephthalic AcidCrude Terephthalic AcidBy Application, the market can be split intoTexilesBottling and PackagingFurnishingOthersBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaAbout Reports And MarketsReports And Markets is part of the Algoro Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Are you mastering your market? Do you know what the market potential is for your product, who the market players are and what the growth forecast is? We offer standard global, regional or country specific market research studies for almost every market you can imagine.Contact PersonSanjay JainManager - Partner Relations & International Marketinginfo@reportsandmarkets.comPh: +1-214-377-1121 (US), +44-020-3286-9338 (UK)
Thin Film Materials Market Professional Survey Report 2017

Thin Film Materials ,Thin Film Materials industry,Thin Film Materials sales,Thin Film Materials market,

https://www.reportsandmarkets.com/reports/global-thin-film-materials-market-professional-survey-report-2017-1547592

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Browse the full report with a table of contents :This report studies Thin Film Materials 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.Request a sample copy:This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringDunmore CorporationACI AlloysIndium CorporationVictrexKaneka CorporationKAMISMaterion CorporationUmicoreAngstrom EngineeringSENTECH InstrumentsSuper Conductor MaterialsOrder a Purchase Report Copy:By types, the market can be split intoCadmium TellurideCopper Indium Gallium SelenideAmorphous SilicaBy Application, the market can be split intoProtective CoatingsDecorative CoatingsOptical CoatingsThin Film Photovoltaic CellsThin Film BatteriesBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaAbout Reports And MarketsReports And Markets is part of the Algoro Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Are you mastering your market? Do you know what the market potential is for your product, who the market players are and what the growth forecast is? We offer standard global, regional or country specific market research studies for almost every market you can imagine.Contact PersonSanjay JainManager - Partner Relations & International Marketinginfo@reportsandmarkets.comPh: +1-214-377-1121 (US), +44-020-3286-9338 (UK)
By Samuel Ssebuliba

Doctors under the Uganda Medial Association have maintained their strike despite a directive by the health minister to return to work today.

The doctors laid down the tools on Monday over low pay and poor working conditions paralyzing operations at all public hospitals across the country.

At an emergency news conference called last night health minister Dr Jane Acheng ordered all medical workers to immediately resume work saying the strike is illegal and that the association is not a registered union to lobby for workers rights.

While quoting the President Musevenis circular, Dr Aceng said the Resident District Commissioners will among other things record the time of reporting to work of all health workers plus monitoring the usage of medicines.

I have a circular for the President with me directing the RDCs to monitor all activities in health facilities in their districts, she said.

Dr Aceng said yesterday while addressing a hastily organized emergency press conference held at the Ministry of Health to declare the strike called by the Uganda Medical Association illegal.

All health workers who adhere to this directive shall not be subjected to any disciplinary action, Dr Aceng said.

Dr Acheng added that all doctors who resume work would be given adequate protection from government and will not be subjected to the disciplinary process.

She has also asked all intern doctors to return to work immediately, warning that failure to do so shall lead to the termination of their internship.

However, the Uganda Medical workers Association spokesperson Dr. Brian Kasagga says the strike will continue until their demands are met.

The strike is still on until we see some results from this industrial action. The minister knows our grievances , she is also a doctor like us. Our remuneration is so low and the hospitals are ill equipped, he said.

Dr Kasagga also denies claims by the minister that the strike is illegal and that their association has no mandate to speak for doctors saying an association of more than 6,000 members can come out and voice complaints that may be raised.

Dr Acheng however admitted that the doctors demands are genuine have been forwarded to the Public Service Negotiation and Consultation Council.
Talking About Liposuction In More Details

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With the assistance of blunt tipped cannulas, surgeons remove fat through very small skin incisions. These cannulas allow sterile and safe aspiration of excessive fat cells that is attached to a closed negative pressure system. Surgeons can apply this procedure in numerous areas of the body which includes abdomen, outer thighs, calves, ankles, upper arms and many other areas.Prior To SurgeryThe surgeons will recommend a pre operative check up and two days before the liposuction surgery, anesthesiologist will be seen in consultation with the candidate. Before the surgery, surgeons will advice the candidate to stop taking any kind of medicine, which contains aspirin. The candidate will be advised not to eat or drink for six hours before surgery, according to the type of anesthesia.Type Of AnesthesiaDepending on the number of areas to be treated, this procedure can be performed with general anesthesia or local anesthesia associated with intravenous sedation. Usually after a discussion with candidate, surgeons and anesthesiologist, the type of anesthesia will be chosen.Knowledge About The ProcedureTo obtain the best possible results, every surgeon has their own technical skills which one adapts for the patient. However there are some common principles which the surgeons need to follow.In a natural fold, skin incisions are small and discrete in nature. The smooth cannulas are inserted through the subcutaneous tissue layers by the surgeons, while aspiring out fat cells from superficial and deep fat layers, damages are avoided to blood vessels and nerves. For the quality of the final result, the quantity of fat removed is adapted to the amount of the overlying skin, which represents an essential factor. In the post operative phase, a pressure dressing is made with an elastic bandage and very often a particular pressure garment is put on top of it.After The Surgery Is OverThe recovery time is dependent on amount of the fat which has been aspired out of body. There can be bruising and swelling in the treated area after the surgery though pain varies from patient to patient. Especially, if the procedure is a large one, then fatigue is common problem with patients. Depending on the type of procedure and the way surgeon handled the procedure, one can go back to usual activity within 4 to 7 days after surgery.Surgeons will recommend patient to wear pressure garment for approximately two to four weeks and after surgery, bruising may usually disappear between ten to twenty days. Due to the tissue swelling in the operated areas, there is no spectacular improvement of body contour in the first two to three weeks.Harley Body Clinic performs Liposuction in which fat is aspired out from abdomen with the help of cannula thus providing a better contour. To know more about this process one should log on toHarley Body Clinic(Subsidiary of Harley Cosmetic Group)61 Harley StreetLondon W1G 8QU
Asia Pacific Automotive Parts Aluminium & Magnesium Die Casting Market Report 2017, Trends, Analysis, Share, Estimates and Forecasts to 2022.

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The Asia Pacific Automotive Parts Aluminium & Magnesium Die-Casting report provides an in-depth analysis of the various market segments and its sub-segments.Product types Covered: Pressure die casting Semi-solid die casting Squeeze die casting Vacuum die castingApplications Covered: Body assemblies Engine Parts Transmission parts OthersFor More, Please Visit:The report focuses on current and upcoming market trends such as Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, and Challenges, technological advancements, Porters Five Forces analysis to assess the intensity of competition in the market. The market values are presented in the form of tables and graphs for better interpretation.Market Size EstimationsThe market assessment is made by the core industry experts using our 360 research approach. The data is derived from the most reliable, authenticated data sources and is validated by the industry experts (Primary Research). Both top down and bottom up analysis are implemented to enhance the accuracy of the market figures. The market projections are calculated for the next 8 years using the actual market numbers of previous year as the base year.Company ProfilingThis section provides the overview of the key players that are leading in the industry, covering their business operations, financials, list of products & services, SWOT analysis, major developments such as mergers & acquisitions, agreements, partnerships, joint ventures, new product launch, expansions etc.Report Highlights:- Market share assessments for all the mentioned market segments and sub-segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 8 years for all the given segments- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping, mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsFor More, Please Visit:We offer wide spectrum of research and consulting services with in-depth knowledge of different industries. We are known for customized research services, consulting services and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) services in the research world. We explore the market trends and draw our insights with valid assessments and analytical views. We use advanced techniques and tools among the quantitative and qualitative methodologies to identify the market trends. Our research reports and publications are routed to help our clients to design their business models and enhance their business growth in the competitive market scenario. We have a strong team with hand-picked consultants including project managers, implementers, industry experts, researchers, research evaluators and analysts with years of experience in delivering the complex projects.STRATISTICS MRC17049 King James Way, Gaithersburg,MD, 20877, USA
Geographic Information System (GIS Software) Market Analysis and Outlook 2017-2022 Covering Key Players Trimble, Caliper, Esri

Geographic Information System (GIS Software) Market Overview

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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 Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, industry executives and other key people get 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 Autodesk, Bentley System, Incorporated, Environmental Systems Research Institute, General Electric, Hexagon, Pitney Bowes, Topcon Corporation, Trimble, Caliper, Esri, GIS Lounge, Hitachi Solutions, Arup, GIS Planning & Pitney Bowes.Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia], by product /end user type, by applications [Mapping, Surveying, Telematics and Navigation & Location-Based Service] in overall market. The in-depth information by segments of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) 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 Geographic Information System(GIS Software)Market.This study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) Market, some of them are Autodesk, Bentley System, Incorporated, Environmental Systems Research Institute, General Electric, Hexagon, Pitney Bowes, Topcon Corporation, Trimble, Caliper, Esri, GIS Lounge, Hitachi Solutions, Arup, GIS Planning & Pitney Bowes. 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 Mapping, Surveying, Telematics and Navigation & Location-Based Service with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)Mapping xx xx xx xx% xx%Surveying xx xx xx xx% xx%Telematics and Navigation xx xx xx xx% xx%Location-Based Service 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 Geographic Information System(GIS Software) in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2017 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2017-2022)United States xx xx xx xx% xx%EU xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Geographic Information System(GIS Software) market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) , Applications of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Geographic Information System(GIS Software) Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Geographic Information System(GIS Software) Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type, Market Trend by Application [Mapping, Surveying, Telematics and Navigation & Location-Based Service];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Geographic Information System(GIS Software) ;Chapter 12, to describe Geographic Information System(GIS Software) Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Geographic Information System(GIS Software) 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
Ice Rescue Equipment Machine Market Analysis by Segments, Size and Forecast 2017 - 2025

Ice Rescue Equipment Machine Market

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Global Ice Rescue Equipment Market: OverviewIce rescue equipment is used by rescuers who risk their lives to save people stuck in cold icy and harsh environments or stuck under glaciers. It is a priority for the rescue industry to provide flawless, robust, efficient ice rescue equipment in order to avoid accidents that might occur during a rescue operation. Nature is always unpredictable and people living in icy areas or people who go for expeditions to regions in icy terrains of the world are under natures mercy. Improvements in ice rescue systems or equipment is necessary to carry out efficient lifesaving operations in the most adverse climatic conditions. Ice rescue suits, rescue sled kits, response kits and accessories, slings, throwing devices, swift water gear and ice rescue tools such as ice screws and marker recovery systems are some of the ice rescue equipment used globally.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Ice Rescue Equipment Market: DriversIncreasing natural calamities in icy terrains are posing hazards to local residents as well as people undertaking trips to icy regions. Further, the dangers of global warming are creating grave situations of landslides, glacier meltdowns, and other calamities in regions covered with ice; these situations call for emergency and advanced rescue operations, necessitating the use of efficient ice rescue equipment. Safety of both the rescuer and the individual being rescued is becoming an important issue. Increasing awareness of safety coupled with government initiatives to conduct training programs in remote areas are the main growth drivers of the global ice rescue equipment market.Global Ice Rescue Equipment Market: RestraintsThe costs involved in manufacturing ice rescue equipment, along with the associated quality control and experimentation costs could be hindering the growth of the ice rescue equipment market during the forecast period. Certain economies cannot manufacture all the rescue equipment and they need to import the equipment and gadgets which again incurs huge costs. Other challenges such as lack of knowledge and low quality equipment are likely to affect the growth of the ice rescue equipment market. Also, people tend to resort to traditional rescue operations and do not have faith in advanced technology owing to the complexities involved. This might have an adverse effect on the global ice rescue equipment market.Request For Report Sample:Global Ice Rescue Equipment Market: Key RegionsNorth America is likely to show good growth in the global ice rescue equipment market during the forecast period followed by Europe. APAC is catching up but is expected to witness moderate growth in the coming years.Global Ice Rescue Equipment Market: Key PlayersThe key market players operating in the global ice rescue equipment market include MARSARS Water Rescue Systems Inc., Oceanid, Dive Rescue international, Mustang Survival, Northwest River Supplies (NRS), Atlas Outfitters, Ice Rescue Systems and Rescue Technology to name a few.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:
Cyber Security Market 2017 Global Size, Segments, Growth and Trends by Forecast to 2023

Cyber Security Market

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Market Scenario:Cyber security is a body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from unauthorized access. Cyber security is basically computer security. There is a significant increase in the cyber security market because cyber security solutions increase cyber speed and offers number of options to save data.Major forces driving the growth of cyber security market are the need for stringent compliance and regulatory requirements. Increased deployment of web and cloud based applications are responsible for rapid growth of cyber security market.The cyber security market has been segmented on the basis of solution, service, security type, deployment and vertical. The security type is further bifurcated into network security, end point security, application security, cloud security, wireless security and others.The application security type is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to internet of things and BYOD trends and connected number of devices.The global Cyber Security Market is expected to grow at approx. USD 251 Billion by 2023, at 11% of CAGR between 2017 and 2023.Major Key Players: Intel Security (U.S.) Symantec Corporation (U.S.) Hewlett Packard Enterprise (U.S.) IBM Corporation (U.S.) Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.) Rapid7, Inc. (U.S.) EMC RSA (U.S.) FireEye, Inc. (U.S.) Trend Micro, Inc. (Japan) Sophos Ltd. (U.K.)Request a Sample @Study Objectives of Cyber Security Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of thecyber security market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. 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 perspective. To provide country level analysis of the market for segmentation on the basis of solution, service, security type, deployment and vertical. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for cyber security To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the cyber securitySegments:Cyber security market can be segmented on the basis of following:By Solution: Identity & Access Management Risk & Compliance Management Unified Threat Management Disaster Recovery Firewall Antivirus Web Filtering OthersBy Service: Managed Services Professional ServicesTraining & Education Consulting Support & Maintenance Design & Integration Risk & Threat AssessmentBy Security Type: Network Security End Point Security Application Security Cloud Security Wireless Security OthersBy Deployment: Cloud On-PremiseBy Vertical: BFSI Manufacturing Healthcare Retail IT & Telecommunication Aerospace & Defense Government OthersRegional Analysis:The regional analysis of cyber security market is being studied for regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Rest of the World. It has been observed that North America is estimated to account for the largest share of the market, whereas Asia-Pacific is projected to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period.The major growth in cyber security market in North America attributes to the technical advancements and increasing use of mobiles and tablets in that region.Browse Full Report Details @Intended Audience: Technology investors Integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) Research/Consultancy firms Government agencies Cyber security vendors Network solution providers Independent software vendors Consulting firms System integrators IT security agencies Managed Security Service ProvidersTable of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinuedAbout 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.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Glass Bottles Market is Anticipated to Reach US$ 71 Billion By The End of 2022

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A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine Glass Bottles Market: Outright Demand for Moulded Glass Bottles: Global Industry Analysis (2012 - 2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017 - 2022) is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Get Free Sample Report@Glass holds some of the most remarkable characteristics as a raw material, and bottles made out of it are identified for their predominant use as containers in the packaging industry. Glass bottles continue to appease customers for being durable, aesthetically pleasing and hygienic. From a manufacturing standpoint, their impermeable and malleable features have translated into million-dollar cost-savings. According to Future Market Insights, the demand for glass bottles will remain steady throughout the globe during the forecast period, 2017-2022. Being a competent packaging commodity, glass bottle will also witness a rise in its application across other industrial verticals. By the end of 2022, the global market for glass bottles is anticipated to reach a value of over US$ 71 billion. Over the next five years, production and demand for glass bottles will remain concentred in the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region.Moulded Glass Bottles will account for 90% of Global Revenues in 2017The report has analysed the global glass bottles market on the basis of manufacturing. In 2017, around 93 percent of revenues procured in the global glass bottles market are anticipated to be accounted by bottles manufactured with moulded glass. Over the forecast period, the sales of moulded glass bottles are pegged to outpace the sales of tubular glass bottles. The categorically high demand for moulded manufacturing will be factored by advantages of such manufacturing processes in packaging end-uses of glass bottles. Moulding processes have advanced to an extent where the bottles being manufactured exhibit high strength, increased thermal and mechanical durability, and lowered risk of splits. Tubular manufacturing, on the other hand, is anticipated to lose traction in the global glass bottles market over the forecast period. By 2022-end, less than US$ 5 billion worth of glass bottles being sold globally will be manufactured through tubular processing.View Full Report At@Application of Glass Bottles in Ready-to-Drink Beverage Packaging to gain tractionThe report also projects that application of glass bottles in packaging of ready-to-drink beverages will gain steadfast traction through 2022. During the forecast period, ready-to-drink glass bottles will register impressive revenue growth at an estimated 7.7% CAGR. In contrast to the rising application of glass bottles in ready-to-drink beverage packaging, the report expects that application glass bottles will showcase moderate application in packaging of beers, carbonated drinks and wine.Towards the end of the forecast period, application of glass bottles in food packaging will register a sluggish growth. While beers will contribute for largest share on global market revenues, pharmaceutical applications are anticipated to create an incremental opportunity of nearly US$ 750 million between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, cosmetic applications of glass bottles will witness robust growth in terms of revenues. By the end of 2022, glass bottles worth nearly US$ 2.5 billion will be used for packaging of cosmetics.Key Manufacturers of Glass BottlesThe APEJ region will be widely observed lucrative for production of glass bottles. Ample availability of resources, easy procurement of sand and silica, and low labour wages have collectively instrumented the predominant presence of leading glass bottle manufacturers in this region. Companies namely, Central Glass Co., Ltd., Owens-Illinois, Inc., Consol Glass (Pty) Ltd., Frigo Glass Jebel Ali Fzco, Hng Float Glass Limited, Vidrala SA, Vitro SAB de CV, AGI Glasspack Limited, Ardagh Group SA, and BA Vidro, S.A. have been profiled in the report as key players in the global market for glass bottles. A majority of these manufacturers will be focusing on enhancing bottle designs and handling features. The overall competition landscape in the global glass bottles market will be highly engaged in combating the rising adoption of plastic bottles in the packaging industry.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:
Illuminating Signs Market Share by Industry Research 2017 - 2025

Illuminating Signs Market

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Illuminating Signs Market: IntroductionSignage is an integral part of any business. It aids the presence of any business by highlighting the services, products etc. Throughout the day signs keep customers alert about the offerings, but it is difficult to read and understand the same sign during night time. Darkness reduces the visibility of the sign board, indirectly affecting business. Illuminated signs give value addition to the business, keep customers prompt and alert about the various offerings throughout the entire day and an effective decorative illumination on a sign reflects the strength of the business and lures many customers. New technologies have emerged which improve the quality of the illumination. Now-a-days, LED technology is opted which not only helps scrolling message signs but it can be used as a light source as well thereby giving pleasant lighting effects. They also consume less energy thereby saving costs. Illuminating signs helps in advertising any business features, products, services and USPs. Moreover, they give clarity on a particular topic. They are also used on highways to guide the vehicles through night and day in order to avoid accidents.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Illuminating Signs Market: TypesThere are various types of illuminating signs. They are classified based on the illumination. Incandescence, photoluminescence, electroluminescence, fluorescence, cathodoluminescence, radioluminiscence and phosphorescence are few of the types of illumination used. In electroluminescence lighting is obtained when strong electric field or electric current is passed in typical select materials, especially semiconductors. Examples are LED (Light Emitting Diodes) and LEC (Light Emitting Capacitors). They have longer life and are energy efficient; however their lower light output limits their uses. Cold Cathode lamps give light owing to the fluorescence that occurs when the phosphor coating is exposed to UV radiation. They are similar to fluorescent lamps, but a main difference being that the cathodes used in cold cathode lamps are bot electrically heated. Examples are CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps) and Neon Lamps. Fluorescent Lamps create light owing to the fluorescence that occurs when the phosphor coating is exposed to UV radiation, same as cold cathode lamps. LFL (Linear Fluorescent Lamps) and CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) are few examples. High Intensity Discharge (HID) lamps give light via electric arc discharge which takes place when the metal salts and gas in a transparent arc get ionized by using a pulse of high voltage across the entire lamp and between two tungsten electrodes. These type of lamps are more efficient than fluorescent. Mercury vapour lamps, ceramic metal halide, low pressure sodium lamps etc., are few examples. Halogen lamps are also used which produce light through incandescence. They have longer life span and greater efficiency. Radio luminescent lamps generate illumination when a radiation particle like an electron is emitted via beta decay through gaseous tritium and collides with a molecule or an atom. It creates fluorescent light. Photo luminescent products generate illumination by absorbing photons and then re-emitting them. Generally the source is ambient light. This type of illumination is used in Glow in the dark signs, marking and tapes.Request For Report Sample:Illuminating Signs Market: Advantages and DisadvantagesThere are several advantages of illuminating signs. The use of illuminating signs is seen in various industries such as automotive, manufacturing, medical, road construction etc. They give catchy look to the signage, increasing the intensity of the purpose of that signage. The affordability of different illuminations used and their respective advantages has increased the adoption of illuminated signs dramatically. The message delivered will be clear and will create a good impact on the customers. Any news or new features that it reflects will be remembered by the individual owing to the attractiveness of the signage. Illuminated signs help business that open late or close late. Illuminated sign can take a business to a level, standing out from the competition, attracting more people and arousing interest of people. It gives a shape to the activities, strengthens visibility and improves credibility. They can be used indoors as well. To sum up the advantages, illuminating signs catch customer attention even from long distances, give better visibility and strengthens overall appearance and credibility.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:
Growing Demand For Global Cancer Diagnostic Market with Focus on Lung and Breast Cancer, 2016 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Growing Demand For Global Cancer Diagnostic Market with Focus on Lung and Breast Cancer, 2016 - 2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The report entitled Global Cancer Diagnostic Market with Focus on Lung and Breast Cancer (2016-2020), provides analysis of the global cancer diagnostics market and the US cancer diagnostics market, with detailed analysis of market size and growth, penetration and market share. The report also provides the analysis of the global and the US cancer market, by prevalence, new cases, deaths, type of cancers, etc. The report provides the market sizing of the global lung and breast cancer diagnostic market by value and by segments.The report also discusses about the different diagnostic test of lung cancer and breast cancer. The diagnostics test analyzed in the report are: MetaStat (Meta Test) (Breast Cancer Test), OncotypeDX (Breast Cancer Test), OncoCyte (Lung Cancer Test), Veracytes Test (Lung Cancer Test) and Integrated Diagnostics, Inc. Test (Lung Cancer Test).Country CoverageNorth America (US)Executive SummaryA disease caused by abnormal growth of cells in the body, is called Cancer. In this disease, the formation of new cells slows or start dividing, forming lumps. However, all lumps are not cancerous; and this can be known by diagnosis.There are various types of cancer- prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung and bronchus cancer, colon and rectum cancer, bladder cancer, melanoma of the skin, non-hodgkin lymphoma, kidney and renal, pelvis cancer, thyroid cancer, endometrial cancer and others.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Cancer is diagnosed using various tools, which confirm the presence of tumour, and the rate of its growth within the body. Cancer diagnosis can be segmented into: imaging testing, endoscopy, biopsy and tumour marker. Each segment can be sub segmented.The global cancer diagnostic market is expected to increase at a significant growth rate during the forecasted period (2016-2020). The global cancer diagnostic market is supported by various growth drivers, such as the rising incidence of cancer, sedentary lifestyle, growing technological advancement, increasing awareness, etc.Table Of Content1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Cancer Overview2.2 Cancer Diagnostic: Overview2.3 Cancer Diagnostic: Liquid Biopsy3. Market Analysis3.1 Cancer Prevalence Analysis3.1.1 Global Cancer New Cases and Death3.1.2 Global Cancer Prevalence, New Cases and Death by Type3.1.3 US Cancer Prevalence3.1.4 US Cancer New Cases and Death by Type3.2 Cancer Diagnostic Market Analysis3.2.1 Global Cancer Diagnostic Market by Value3.2.2 Global Cancer Diagnostic Market by Segments (Type of Tests)3.2.3 Global Cancer Diagnostic Market by Segments (Type of Ca)Browse 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.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 @
Adjustable Pressure Switches Market Global Industry Volume and Region Analysis 2017 - 2025

Adjustable Pressure Switches Market

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Adjustable Pressure Switches Market: OverviewAdjustable pressure switches are the pressure switches which are meant to control the circuit on the type of setting it is adjusted to. The control can be done by opening or closing of the circuit by the rating of the pressure it has been set to. The amount of pressure needed in the circuit is being set in the system and the circuit remains closed till the pressure reaches the required value. When the amount of pressure is being achieved, the circuit gets opened and the electrical signal flows through the circuit. The pressure in the circuit gets converted into the electrical signal with the help of mechanical motion in the circuit. The motion of the element of spring is being done by the allowable pressure through the circuit and thereby, the switch contact actuates. The counter pressure is being set by the adjustable screw and therefore the process pressure is being maintained to counter the pressure adjusted and thereby the switching signal is being activated through the circuit. Adjustable pressure switches are being more advantageous than electronic pressure switches as going through the safety prospect than adjustable pressure switches are far ahead. The adjustable pressure switches can be closed or opened at any time from the electrical contact without a power supply. Since adjustable pressure switches have simple monitoring functions and controls, they find a relative of high applications in the pressure switches market.Adjustable Pressure Switches Market: Market DynamicsThe increasing rate of automation is the key factor for the growth of the adjustable pressure switches market. The developing countries prefer to use automation as the technique to improve the sales of products in the market and thereby the economy of the country gets improved. The use of industrialized products and the increasing mobility in the market is another factor to be driving the growth of the adjustable pressure switches market. Due to this factor, the use of energy-efficient products with the pressure controlled switch is driving the growth of the market. The trend in the adjustable pressure switches market is the increasing use of IoT for the pressure monitoring. This factor will enable manufacturing of adjustable pressure switches in a flexible way and provide accurate conditions in the market. This has also allowed the use of switches in the market without affecting the flow of safety conditions in different products. The Ethernet based networks in the adjustable pressure switches market will allow the market to manufacture switches with high speed, low expenditure and lesser impact on the environment.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Adjustable Pressure Switches Market: Market SegmentationThe adjustable pressure switches market can be segmented on the basis of product type, end user type and on the basis of geography.On the basis of product type, the adjustable pressure switches market can be segmented into:-Single output adjustable pressure switchesDouble output adjustable pressure switchesOn the basis of end user type, the adjustable pressure switches market can be segmented into:-Chemical IndustryPower Generation IndustryMachine Tool IndustryGas IndustryPetrochemical IndustryOil IndustryAdjustable Pressure Switches Market: Regional OutlookThe adjustable pressure switches market can be segmented on the basis of geography into seven main regions as North America, Western Europe, Japan, APAC, Latin America, Eastern Europe and MEA. North America is the leading vendor in the market due to the developed countries in the region and the development of new technologies will propel the growth of the market. Latin America and APAC will have the opportunity of growth in the forecast period as the industrial and machinery plants are rising in the region making the growth of new manufacturers to rise. The revenue pockets from the regions like MEA is having a slow growth but is likely to rise in the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Adjustable Pressure Switches Market: Key playersThe prominent players in the Adjustable pressure switches market are:-Parker HannifinDanfossBD SensorsBosch RexrothHoneywellHuba ControlSMC CorporationLEEG InstrumentsSetra SystemsWako ElectronicsBaumer GroupUnited Electric ControlsAdjustable Pressure Switches Market: Competitive AnalysisThe adjustable pressure switches market has to go with some of the norms and rules with the safety purpose to adjust in the environment. The consumers want the products to be environment-friendly and energy efficient. The factor to be considered by the manufacturers to raise the sales of adjustable pressure switches in the market. The automation is another aspect to be considered when going through the production of the adjustable pressure switches market. This factor will have the rising demand in the developing countries and can give the driving growth to the adjustable pressure switches market.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:
Forecast and Analysis on Mustard Market for Period (2017-2025)

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Mustard plant belongs to the genera of Brassica and Sinapis within the Brassicaceae family. Being native to sub-Himalayan region of the Indian sub-continent, Mustard plant is cultivated majorly for its edible leaves and oil seeds with wide-ranging culinary uses. Mustard is a seasonal crop grown in the winters and their leaves are more flavorful and crisp and available between November and March. The young tender leaves are used widely as a leafy vegetable and being extracted for from the plant when it got about two feet tall. Furthermore, the plant grows about four to five feet in height and endures flowers of golden-yellowish shade which later develop into mustard oil-seeds pods.Mustard Market SegmentationMustard is segmented on the basis of type, nature, form, application, distribution channel, end use and region. On the basis of type mustard market is segmented as Black mustard and Indian mustard. Both these varieties of mustard possess distinctive properties and uses. However, Indian mustard is more common in use and is also known as yellow mustard. Black mustard plant is grown exclusively for its seed and seed oil which find more medicinal uses such as in the treatment of arthritis.Request Report Sample@On the basis of nature Mustard market is segmented as; Organic and conventional. In the rising urge and demand of organic food products globally, mustard market is no longer remain as an untapped market. There is a growing demand of mustard products grown organically.On the basis of form Mustard market is segmented as; seed, powder, paste and oil. The seed form mustard is marketed majorly in direct sales to various companies involved mustard oil manufacturing. However, a large number of powdered and paste form mustard products are also available in the retail market.On the basis of application mustard market is segmented as; Food, Pharmaceuticals and personal care. The food segment of mustard market can be further categorized into seasonings & condiments sauces; spreads, dips & relishes; snacks and cooking oil.On the basis of distribution channels mustard market is segmented as; direct and indirect sales. The indirect sales of mustard market can be further segmented into retail stores, food wholesale stores, modern trade, and online retail. The major share of revenue being driven by retail segment, the online retail is expected to attain a superior growth rate and a substantial market share by showcasing the information available on internet.On the basis of region the mustard market is segmented into Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe and Middle East & Africa. Mustard plant with its higher culinary usage across minor Asian region with an established market for both its edible leafs and seed oil hold a prominent market share in the countries like Thailand, Indonesia, China, India and others in the Asia Pacific region. However, the cultivation of mustard plant as a crop is now naturalized in the areas of North Africa and in some of the European regions. The market for yellow mustard/Indian mustard is now growing even across the North American region.Mustard market Global Market Trends and Market Drivers:The rising migration levels around the world with the emergence and acceptance multi-culinary food culture and urge for new taste and food flavors is driving the demand of mustard seed oil across the world as a prominent condiment sauces and cooking oil. Moreover, the rising trend of using more and more herbal and natural medicinal products coupled with rising awareness among consumers around the globe about the therapeutically beneficial mustard herb & oil is adding up in the rising demand for products in global mustard market. Being a seasonal crop of winter, the natural cultivation is not sufficient to maintain the supply to demand ration throughout the year leading to frequent price fluctuations.Visit For TOC@Mustard Market Key Players:Variety of mustard formulations have been introduced by the manufacturers and some of the global market players in mustard market include; Conagro Brands Inc., McCormick Foods, Unilever, Mustard and Co., H.J. Heinz Company, Frenchs, Cargill Inc. 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:
By Samuel Ssebuliba.

NASAs leader Raila Odinga has asked Kenyas international partners to engage the country more robustly and help it end the current political stalemate.

In a 30-minute lecture in Washington DC, Odinga asked the West to act, saying western diplomats had concentrated more on guarding against the rise of extremism and terrorism, ignoring the democratic space.

He said that Kenya is slowly sinking in a deeper crisis thus all countries including America must get concerned.

His call comes after NASA leaders called for fresh weekly demonstrations in Nairobi starting today.
Mrs. India Earths Appeal for the Public to Awake to the Alarming Situation of Delhi

Appeal for the Public to Awake to the Alarming Situation

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Shweta Chaudhary, Mrs. India Earth 2017 openly throws limelight on the burning issue of SMOG choking the beautiful capital of India. The once called Green Delhi, Clean Delhi has now got blanketed in thick layers of smog. She appeals the general public and the government to take necessary actions to fight with this pollution on immediate basis. She ponders deeply that why are we all just watching over the whole scenario to solve on its own? Is walking with our mouths covered in those hefty masks, preventing our children to step outside or just visiting doctors, the permanent solution? And the answer to this question is absolutely No.Everyone knows that the whole situation has gone out of control but no one is uniting for our mother earth. Even the Government has not taken any proactive measure till now. Why is everyone sleeping over this hazardous situation?According to Central Pollution Control Board, the Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi has hit the severe level of 451 on a scale where the maximum reading is 500 and anything above 100 is considered unhealthy. In fact, in some regions of Delhi, the AQI has reached 999 beyond which no readings are available. Just imagine when the healthier people couldnt get spare by the attack of this smog, what would be happening with the people with diseases?Her bold look in the photograph depicts a common man. The black hand tells us the situation that we are facing at the moment and undoubtedly responsible for it. The hand covering the lips portrays an important message of staying quiet in an emergency situation and not coming forward united to save our Mother Earth despite of the fact that thousands of people are suffering. The black color depicts the air pollution around us and compels us to look over the chaos that we have created.Though the situation has risen to an alarming level but we still have time. Time to come forward and save not only our mother earth but ourselves as well. So lets come forward and unite with all our hearts to save everyone until its too late.Webpulse, an award winning web designing and development company in India aims to deliver world class mobile responsive websites, built to serve your purpose and to grow along with your organization, therefore we put our best effort on every single website project considering it as own site.Name. WebpulseAddress: 71/7A, 2nd Floor, Rama Road Industrial Area, New Delhi, Delhi 110015Mobile No. 095558 44888Website:
Nov, 10 2017: Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market Forecast 2023 Ecoprog, MWH Global, Suez, Ecolab, Sydney Water

Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant

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Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market Research 2017A market study "Global Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market" examines the performance of the Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market 2017 report includes Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant market Revenue, market Share, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant industry volume, market Trends, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market 2017 :Kingspan EnvironmentalGE WaterEcolabHitachiSydney WaterEmersonMWH GlobalEcoprogSuezVeolia Water TechnologiesDAS EEIndustrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market : By ApplicationWater treatmentWater recycleIndustrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market : By TypeElectric power plantsFood industryIron and steel industryMines and quarriesNuclear industryPulp and paper industryFirstly, the report covers the top Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant industry, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant 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 Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant market revenue worldwide.Finally, Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant 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
Pressure Calibrators Market Industry to Boost Growth 2017 - 2025

Pressure Calibrators Market

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Pressure Calibrators Market: Market OverviewThe pressure calibrators are used to test the pressure in the industries where the amount of pressure given or out from an equipment needs to be checked. The amount of pressure in the pressure calibrators is also used as a measurement tool to be used in the equipment. The amount of pressure so set in the pressure calibrators will be the exact measurement for the equipment to use the same amount of pressure. In this way, the error gets minimized and the exact amount of pressure is being sent to the system. The pressure calibrators also help to reduce the time to measure the pressure than the other pressure measuring equipment. The pressure generated in the pressure calibrators is with the use of the electric pump of high performance and usually, the pressure calibrators are light weighted calibration device. The portable type pressure calibrators are more demanding than the desktop type but desktop type pressure calibrators are more efficient than the portable type pressure calibrators.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Pressure Calibrators Market: Market DynamicsThe pressure calibrators are being driven by the rising demand in the power industry. These factors along with the advanced technology led to the growth of the pressure calibrators market. Pressure calibrators are used for various applications such as testing, calibration, measurement and many others. These functions along with achieving higher precision in technology and improving the efficiency of the system are the major factors to improve the growth of pressure calibrators market. The increase in the investments in manufacturing facilities of pressure calibrators market has led to increasing the demand of pressure calibrators. Various other factors like reduction in time to complete the process and improved efficiency are growing the demand for pressure calibrators. The pressure calibrators have helped to reduce the workforce and the number of workers required to complete the task. The restraint to the market will be the trust in the technology gets decreased when a single error is being observed in the system. The portable pressure calibrators are in the trending demand in the market due to their portability, they can be easily used and are growing the demand in the pressure calibrators market.Pressure Calibrators Market: Market SegmentationThe pressure calibrators market can be segmented on the basis of product type, end user type, and on the basis of geography.On the basis of product type, the pressure calibrators market can be segmented into:-Desktop type pressure calibratorsPortable type pressure calibratorsOn the basis of end user type, the pressure calibrators market can be segmented into:-Chemical industryMetallurgy industryPetroleum industryPower industryRequest For Report Sample:Pressure Calibrators Market: Regional OutlookThe pressure calibrators market can be segmented on the basis of geography into seven regions, namely North America, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Western Europe, Latin America, Japan, and MEA. North America is the leading vendor on the market due to the advancement in technology and being a well-developed region. APAC is expected to grow well in the forecast period and will lead the pressure calibrators market due to the rise in investments by the manufacturers in countries such as India mainly in the petrochemical and power industries and defense and aerospace sector. The rise in smart manufacturing in the market of Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, India, and China will also help to the growth of pressure calibrators market in APAC. The Western and Eastern Europe is also growing and will continue to rise in the forecast period.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:
Government Support will boost Hemp Seeds Market size During Forecast Period (2017-2025)

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Hemp seeds are produced from the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa L. Hemp is commonly confused with marijuana, as it belongs to the same family, the two plants are quite different from each other. Hemp seeds contain less than 1% of the psychoactive drugs while marijuana contain more than 20%. Hemp seeds are perfect and natural blend of easily digested proteins, fibers, essential fats, amino acids, antioxidants, iron and vitamins. These seeds are a gift of nature and are the most nutritious seeds. These seeds contain protein in high amount. This is one of the potent food available supporting optimal health and well-being for life.Hemp seed market segmentationHemp seeds market can be segmented on the basis of form, applications, distribution channels and region. On the basis of form hemp seeds market can be segmented into four forms such as: Whole hemp seed, Shelled hemp seed, hemp seed oil, and hemp seed protein.Request Report Sample@On the basis of application, hemp seed market is segmented into Food (containing hemp milk), tea and hemp juice, hemp fiber which has been used extensively for the production of hemp dresses, hemp sacks, ropes, canvas, hempcrete which is a building material which are extremely strong and durable, plastic and composite material- used in automobiles and household, hemp paper used for packaging, fine arts, business card, journals and stationery.On the basis of distribution channels, hemp seed market is segmented by direct and indirect sales. By indirect sales it can be obtained by online, modern trade format, convenience stores, departmental stores, retails and others.Geographically hemp seed are consumed and produced maximum in North America, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Japan. North America is expected to lead the regional hemp seeds market. According to the consumption, Western Europe is expected to hold second largest market share in hemp seeds market. Asia-Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region, due to the increased demand for hemp seeds from India and China.Not many people around the world know about the health benefits of hemp seeds and hence the growth of hemp seeds market is bit at a slower rate. The hemp seed market is growing at a significant rate over the forecast period due to growing health and nutritional rich benefits.Hemp seeds market Drivers, Restraints and TrendsThere are many different advantages and benefits of consuming hemp seeds such as Hemp seeds are easily digested by the body and is one of the most nutritious foods available in nature. Hemp seeds contain a blend of easily digested protein, essential fats (omega 3&6), Gama Linolenic Acid (GLA), antioxidants, amino acids, fiber, iron, zinc, carotene, phospholipids, phytosterols, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, vitamin D, vitamin E, chlorophyll, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, copper, potassium, phosphorus, and enzymes. The omega fats supplied by the seeds provides sufficient and continuous energy throughout the day. More digestible protein than meat, eggs, cheese, human milk, cow milk, or any other high protein food. The nutritional enrich and beneficial properties of hemp seeds are driving the hemp seeds market. These are rich in vitamin E. Can be eaten by those person who are unable to tolerate nuts, gluten, lactose or sugar. There are no known allergies to hemp foods till now. If substituted saturated fats with hemp seeds, the chances of fatal cardiac arrhythmia or heart attack can be reduced drastically. Hemp seeds reduces the amount of cholesterol in the body, thereby removing fat build-up in the arteries.Hemp seeds contain- All 20 amino acids, including the 9 essential ones (EAAs) which our body cannot produce. A high protein percentage of simple proteins which strengthen immunity and reduces toxic substances. These seeds consumed in any form could heal immune deficiency diseases. Natures highest botanical source of fatty acids. A superior vegetarian source of protein considered easily digestible. A rich source of phytonutrients which protects immunity, blood stream, tissues, cells, skin and mitochondria.Visit For TOC@Key players of Hemp seedsSome of the prominent and famous suppliers and manufacturers of hemp seeds are:- Navitas Naturals, Hemp Oil Canada, North American Hemp and Grain co., Kenny delights, Manitoba, Harvest Hemp Foods, Green source organics, CHII Naturally Pure Hemp, GFR Ingredients Inc.About Us  Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centers in the U.S. and India.Contact Us:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way,Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage,New York 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Fax: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Eye Health Ingredients Market to exceed $290mn by 2024: Global Market Insights Inc.

Eye Health Ingredients Market

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Eye Health Ingredients Market size is projected to exceed USD 290 million by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.Rising diseases including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma and cataracts will propel product demand. Protection from UV radiation, elimination of free radicals and enhancing strong vision are other key features stimulating the industry growth.Zeaxanthin and Lutein are the broadly used eye care ingredients, high efficiency and effectiveness in lower dosages causes low zeaxanthin consumption compared to lutein. Lutein will witness CAGR exceeding 6.5% up to 2024. Rising demand for infant supplementary to overcome vision deficiency among children are the main factors driving lutein demand.Request for a sample of this research report @Bilberry extracts will be worth over USD 25 million by 2024. Potential application outlook in healthcare industry to treat vision disorders will enhance the product penetration. Retinal health enhancement and blood sugar level maintenance are the key substantial benefits.Demand for animal eye health ingredients market will witness over 7% growth up to 2024. Preventive care among owners of pet and commercial animal will remain a key driving factor for the segment.Shifting consumer preference towards naturally sourced products will drive the industry growth. Synthetic eye health ingredients market is driven by low processing costs with high benefits which will impact natural eye health ingredients market price trend.High surgery costs are the factors influencing consumers toward OTC supplements to avoid substantial costs on clinical treatments. Development and innovation in terms of product personalization and customization will be a key strategy for the nutraceutical industry.Browse key industry insights spread across 300 pages with 315 market data tables & 14 charts & figures from the report, Eye Health Ingredients Market Size By Source (Natural, Synthetic), By Ingredient (Lutein, Zeaxanthin, Beta Carotene, Vitamin A, Bilberry Extracts), By Form (Soft Gel, Capsule & Tablets, Liquid, Powder), By End Use (Human, Animal), By Disease Indication (Age Related Macular Degeneration, Cataract, Dry Eye Syndrome), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, Netherland, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa), Application Potential, Price Trend, Competitive MarketShare & Forecast, 2017  2024 in detail along with the table of contents:Capsule, soft gel & tablets accounted for more than 40% of the industry share in 2016. Reduced side effects along with ease in consumption are the factors positively influencing the product penetration.Age related macular degeneration treatment is the leading segment for the product consumption. Rising dry eye syndrome diseases globally is another factor fueling the eye health ingredients market.U.S. eye health ingredients market could witness over 5% growth through to 2024. Growing consumer health consciousness coupled with increasing product launches will drive the regional demand. Low vision and blindness is observed in over 3.2 million people in the North America in 2015, which is estimated to surpass 6 million by 2024.Europe, led by Germany and UK will witness growth over 5.5%. High geriatric population along with increasing consumer spending on healthcare will propel the regional industry growth.China and India together will witness CAGR over 6.5% up to 2024. Increase in consumer purchasing power along with growing consumer interest for a healthy lifestyle will stimulate industry growth.Global industry share is fragmented with large number of manufacturers including Allied Biotech, FMC Corporation, DSM and BASF. MacuShield, Alcon, Amway, Bausch & Lomb, Efamol, Solgar and Swanson are the major customers. Technological advancement and product innovations have led manufacturers to launch gummies for vision enhancement.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Eye health ingredients market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with estimates & forecast in terms of volume in tons and revenue in USD million from 2013 to 2024, for the following segments:Eye Health Ingredients Market, By Source Natural SyntheticEye Health Ingredients Market, By Ingredient Lutein Zeaxanthin Beta Carotene Vitamin A Bilberry Extracts Others (Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Zinc & Omega-3 fatty acids, Astaxanthin)Eye Health Ingredients Market, By Form Soft gel, capsule & tablets Liquid PowderEye Health Ingredients Market, By Application Human AnimalEye Health Ingredients Market, By Disease Indication Age related macular degeneration Cataract Dry eye syndrome Other indicationsThe above information has been provided on a regional and country basis for the following: North America U.S. Canada EU Germany UK France Italy Spain Poland Russia Netherlands Asia Pacific China India Japan Australia South Korea Malaysia Indonesia Thailand Singapore Latin America Brazil Argentina Mexico Middle East and Africa Saudi Arabia UAE South AfricaGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter
Cheese Snacks Market Set to Witness Steady Growth through (2017-2025)

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Cheese snacks are the new emerging product into modern day market and lifestyles. Cheese snacks can be said as meal-replacements or convenience foods and can be consumed anywhere, anytime and at any occasion. With city life shifting works to speed into fast lane, the rise of convenience food for time controlled on-the-go citizens is strengthening attractiveness, and the cheese snack is a majorly growing. The Cheese snacks are the portable food products with the high amount of protein, calcium, adequate amount of carbohydrate and calories which one can intake in a day as a meal-replacement. With the city-life changing gear into speed, the convenience foods are emerging as primary beneficiary foods for the consumers.Cheese Snacks Market SegmentationCheese snacks market can be segmented by flavors, packaging, distribution channel and region.By flavors, cheese snacks market can be segmented by Cheddar Cheese Snacks, Cheddar Mozzarella Cheese Snacks, Sharp Cheddar-Jack Cheese Snacks, Colby-Jack Cheese Snacks, Double Cheddar Cheese Snacks, Pepper Jack Cheese Snacks, String Cheese Snacks, and Vermont Sharp White Cheddar Cheese Snacks.Request Report Sample@By packaging, cheese snacks market can be segmented into PET jar, pouch, can, and carton box. By distribution channel, cheese snacks market can be segmented by direct and indirect sales, which can be further sub-segmented into the hypermarket, supermarket, departmental stores, convenience stores, online retail, and others.By the regional outlook, cheese snacks market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle-East, and Africa. Among these regions, North-America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific are leading in cheese snacks market, followed by Middle-East and Africa. The growth of food retail industry in emerging economies of Asia-Pacific is driving the growth of cheese snacks market in these region. The continuous focus on development in China, India, Thailand, and Japan is promoting growth of retail industry which in turn is shifting consumer focus towards new snack products leading to growth of cheese snacks market.Cheese Snacks Market Drivers, Trends, and RestraintsThe change in the lifestyle of the urban consumers and the new trends coming up in new generations for convenience foods and snacks instead of meals is driving the cheese snacks market. Apart from the other snacks, cheese snacks market is growing in a faster way because of its taste ad beneficiary nutrients in them like protein, calcium and adequate amount of carbohydrate. As cheese snacks are fortified with functional nutrients and ingredients, it is an effective solution for weight gain and meal replacement, which is resulting the growth of cheese snacks market.The high-calorie content in the cheese snacks is one of the major restraints for cheese snacks market. The consumers who are highly calorie conscious, they do not prefer to have cheese snacks. Instead, they go for other nutritional snacks or bars with low calories content.Increasing number of health effects from consumption of high calorie content food is also restricting growth of the market at slower rate. Growing ill effects from chronic diseases such as heart attack, diabetes, increase in cholesterol level, problems of blood pressure have intended consumer for eating healthy food products.Visit For TOC@Cheese Snacks Market Key PlayersThe rise in demand for cheese snacks products is driving the snacks manufacturers to increase the production of cheese snacks with high nutritional value. Snacking is the biggest growth opportunity for cheese manufacturers and a few companies are already getting immense sales with increase in profitability from focusing on snacking. Some of the key players include Sargento, Frito-Lay, Frozen Treats, McCain Foods, Cheese Fusions, DFM Foods, The Connoisseurs Delish and othersAbout 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:
Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market Industry Insights With Key Company Profiles 2017 - 2025

Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market

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Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market: OverviewIn the wire cut electric discharge machine, a thin wire of metal is used on a work piece. This work piece is then dipped in a tank filled with dielectric fluid usually deionized water. The wire cut electric discharge machine can also cut plates of thickness up to 30mm. the machine is also used to make dies, tools, and punches from hard metals which are difficult to be made from other machines. In the process used in a wire cut electric discharge machine water is being used as a dielectric fluid. To control the various properties such as resistive and electrical properties, deionizing and filters units are used. In the process, the brass wire is mostly used. The water used as a dielectric is also used to flush away the debris left during the cutting of the metal. The flushing of the debris in the period of time is necessary to observe the rates at which the process is being completed and the degree of thickness to be achieved. The wire cut electric discharge machine is used in the process where lesser stress to the material is required where the materials are not so stiff to absorb the extra force on them. It should also be checked whether the number of thermal cycles to the work piece is not so much so that the work piece or the metal deforms in its shape. Due to these thermal cycles, the layers of casting and tensile stresses due to residual induction can also occur. Therefore care must be taken when working on the wire cut electric discharge machine.Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market: Market DynamicsThe rise in automation is the major factor driving the growth of the wire cut electric discharge machine market. The companies are seeking the rise in demand from the market when they are accepting the automation as the work criteria during manufacturing. This led the automation to be the driver for the market. The demand for the improved quality products and machines is another factor to be driving the growth in the wire cut electric discharge machine market. The product to the consumer must be precise in shape which will bring the rise in demand from the market. The wire cut electric discharge machine is made so to complete the process in such a way that the cutting and shaping are done and alongside protecting the exact shape of the work piece. The increase in demand for the products used in mechanical engineering has also grown the demand for the wire cut electric discharge machine in the market. The trend in the market to use the light weight products and the tools used in the machines has deliberately come from the wire cut electric discharge machine market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market: Market SegmentationThe wire cut electric discharge machine market can be segmented on the basis of system type, parameter type, end user and on the basis of geography.On the basis of system type, the wire cut electric discharge machine market can be segmented into:-Dielectric systemPositioning systemWire feeding systemPower supplyOn the basis of parameter type, the wire cut electric discharge machine market can be segmented into:-Electrical parametersNon-electrical parametersElectrode based parametersDielectric supplyOn the basis of end user type, the wire cut electric discharge machine market can be segmented into:-Electronics industryMedical industryAerospace industrySemiconductor industryDie making and tool industryRequest For Report Sample:Wire cut Electric Discharge Machine Market: Regional OutlookThe wire cut electric discharge machine market can be segmented on the basis of geography into seven regions as North America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Japan, APAC, Western Europe and MEA. APAC market is the dominating market in the wire cut electric discharge machine market globally. China is expected to rise in the forecast period surpassing the North America region. The North America is the leading region in the market with the highest number of sales. The APAC is rising and is expected to be the leading vendor in the forecast period. The Europe is also expected to rise from its current economic condition and the demand will increase in Germany and Italy later in the forecast period.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:
Thermosets Manufacturers in Finland: New Research Study Offers Information and Analysis on Leading Companies

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A new research study added to the behemoth database of Market Research Hub (MRH) offers valuable insights on the performance of various thermoset manufacturers in Finland. The report is titled Thermosets Manufacturers (Finland) - Industry Report and offers valuable information on the leading thermosets manufacturers in Finland.Request Free Sample Report@The highlight of the study is the Plimsoll Chart which represents the performance of several thermoset manufacturers in a graphical format. The report has been divided into three sections  which offers readers comprehensive information on the qualitative and quantitative aspect of the performance of key players in the Finland thermosets landscape. The report is ideal for readers looking to gain understanding on the industry trends and the performance of different companies in the Finland thermosets manufacturers. The report offers information on the market size, profit analysis, sales growth analysis, rankings, best trading partner, and company analysis. Stakeholders looking to gain intelligence on the industry trends will also benefit from this report.According to the report, RUNTECH SYSTEMS OY is one of the best trading partner across the thermosets manufacturing landscape in Finland. The report also offers information on the best and worst performing companies in the country. These insights are according to Plimsoll financial rating, which analyzes each company in detail. The market sizing for leading companies is offered in the report, and a comparison for the last years and current years performance is also offered which gives readers complete insights on the report.The rankings for largest 20 are provided to readers  the rankings have been arrived at after carefully scrutinizing various financial parameters. These rankings can help stakeholders know the attractiveness of a particular company, and how it compares to other leading thermosets manufacturers in Finland.Browse Full Report with TOC@Overall, the report is one of the best repositories of information for readers looking to gain intelligence on the key thermosets manufacturing companies in Finland. Readers will gain complete insights on how different thermosets manufacturers are planning their strategies. The key information a reader can get after thoroughly reading this report is whether a company is heading for a strong heading or a failure. It can also tell the reader important points about how well a company is utilizing its investments and the debt burden undertaken by different companies. Information on the thermosets manufacturers in Finland that are getting the most from their resources is also offered to readers.Enquire 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 Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: - 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email:- press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:-Read Industry News at :-
Reserach on Industrial Robotics Services Global Market 2017-2021

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"Global Industrial Robotics Services Market 2017-2021" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.. .Description-' '-- About Industrial Robotics ServicesIndustrial robots can be classified into many types such as material handling, welding, assembling, painting, and for other purposes based on their area of application. Major demand will increase from companies in sectors such as automotive, electrical and electronics, chemicals, food and beverages (F&B), and industrial machinery.. .Get Sample Report With TOC @' '-- -- Technavios analysts forecast the global industrial robotics services market to grow at a CAGR of 10.16% during the period 2017-2021.-- Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global industrial robotics services market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of industrial robotics services.-- The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEATechnavio's report, Global Industrial Robotics Servcies Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.-- Key vendorsABBFANUCKUKAOmron Adept TechnologiesRemtec AutomationYaskawa Motoman-- Other prominent vendorsApplied Manufacturing TechnologiesEISEssertGeku AutomationICS RoboticsInMotion RoboticsPhoenix Control SystemsRobotWorxScott Automation & Robotics-- Market driverEnhancements in robot programming languageFor a full, detailed list, view our report-- Market challengeChallenges in implementing a holistic customer service experienceFor a full, detailed list, view our report-- Market trendEmergence of virtual commissioningFor a full, detailed list, view our report-- Key questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?. .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
Power Management IC Market Flourishes by 2022 and Attracts Investors

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The Global Power Management IC Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Power Management IC Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global Power Management IC Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Power Management IC industry a propos classification, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Download Report Sample @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Power Management IC Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Power Management IC Market.The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Power Management IC industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Power Management IC industry in the global markets.Get Report Discount@Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the global Power Management IC Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.The major players profiled in this report include: Texas Instruments Inc. ON Semiconductor Corp. Analog Devices, Inc. Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. Dialog Semiconductor PLCAbout Market Research Globe:Market Research Globe is a competent consulting company in the field of Global Market Research. We provide our clients a wide range of customized Marketing and Business Research Solutions to choose from, with the help of our ingenious database developed by experts. We help our clients understand the strengths of diverse markets and how to exploit opportunities. Covering a diverse range of business scopes from Digital products to Food industry, we are your one- stop solution right from data collection to investment advices.Contact us:Liberty Society,Koregaon Park, Pune- 411001,Maharashtra, India.US: +1-888-376-9998Email- sales@marketresearchglobe.comWeb-
By Moses Ndhaye:

Uganda Medical Association has now threatened to withdraw emergency services.

This is after the health minister Dr Jane Acheng ordered the striking medical doctors to return to work today with RDCs asked to carry out roll call in public hospitals.

Addressing a news conference this afternoon, the association president Dr.Ekwaru Obuku has described the ministers statement as irresponsible.

He has also threatened to summon the minister to appear before the associations disciplinary committee, because she is a member.

Obuku adds that if the government fails to address issues affecting the medical workers by November 13th they will force to stop handling emergency cases.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ekwaro maintains that the strike will continue until they meet the president on November 17th.
Research Report on Prefabricated Wooden Building Manufacturers in Nordic Offers Valuable Insights

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A new research study based on in-depth analysis of prefabricated Wooden Building Manufacturers industry in Nordic has recently been added to the vast database of Market Research Hub (MRH) with title Prefabricated Wooden Building Manufacturers (NORDIC)-Industry Report. The comprehensive study offers valuable insights on the performance of prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic. The study is very useful for new entrants and existing players to gain deeper insights into the prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic.Request Free Sample Report@The thorough report on prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic is segmented into three sections and represents information in the form of text and graphics both. The study has listed and shared the analysis of 100 largest companies in prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic. The readers will find latest and up to date key information shared in the report including financial data of the companies.The report based on prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic has shared its analysis over some of the important aspects of market such as best trading partners, sales growth analysis, profit analysis, market size, rankings and company analysis.The details shared under best trading partners are the companies that are strong in terms of sales and financial stability. According to the report, the company called ALVSBYHUS AB has been ranked as a best trading partner in the industry of prefabricated wooden building manufacturers in Nordic. In another section, the report focuses on sales growth analysis wherein companies are discussed for which sales has grown as well as declined over the years. In the next section, the report examines profit analysis of the company which involves analysis of gross profit and pre-tax profit over the last ten years. It also provides a profitability summary in which profits are compared as against the small, medium and large companies in prefabricated wooden building manufacturers industry in Nordic.The report examines market size of companies in prefabricated wooden building manufacturers industry in Nordic. It has compared current market size with previous years performance for 100 companies. According to the report, the market size for prefabricated wooden building manufacturers industry in Nordic has increased by 18.7% in current year. The report has ranked top 50 companies as per their sales growth, gross profit, market share and pre-tax profit.Browse Full Report with TOC@The study report has examined the prefabricated wooden building manufacturers industry in Nordic using Plimsolls unequivocal model and Plimsoll Chart. The Plimsoll Model analyzes a company graphically and measures its ability to attain sales growth while maintaining financial strength.The Plimsoll Chart is a simple and reliable method to analyze financial strength of a company. Using such methods, readers will be able to know the position of a company in the prefabricated wooden building manufacturers industry in Nordic.Enquire 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 Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: - 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email:- press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:-Read Industry News at :-
Market 2017 of Security Information and Event Management Global Research with Forecast-2021

Security Information and Event Management

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"Global Security Information and Event Management Market 2017-2021" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.. .Description-' '-- About Security Information And Event ManagementSIEM includes solutions and services that help enterprises to analyze log (large volumes of computer generated data also known as audit records and audit trials) and event data in real time to identity potential threats and provide event correlation and incident response. The data is collected from security and network devices, systems, and applications. The data is collected in a central repository for interpretation of logs and trend analysis and provides automated reporting for compliance and centralized reporting. SIEM solutions provide quicker identification, analysis, and recovery of security events. The events are alerts generated by a network security device such as a firewall or intrusion detection system (IDS).. .Get Sample Report With TOC @' '-- -- Technavios analysts forecast the global security information and event management to grow at a CAGR of 12.03% during the period 2017-2021.-- Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global security information and event management for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of SIEM solutions and services.-- The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaMEATechnavio's report, Global Security Information And Event Management 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 vendorsIBMHewlett PackardMcAfeeLogRhythmSplunk-- Other prominent vendorsAlienVaultBlackStratusEventTrackerDell TechnologiesFortinetMicro FocusSolarWindsSymantecTenable Network SecurityTIBCO SoftwareTrustwaveZOHO Corp-- Market driverNeed to comply with regulatory requirements.For a full, detailed list, view our report-- Market challengeSecurity risks associated with SaaS offerings.For a full, detailed list, view our report-- Market trendGrowing popularity of managed security service providers.For a full, detailed list, view our report-- Key questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?. .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
Nov, 10 2017: Gear Motors Market Forecast 2023 Emerson Electric, Eaton, Bauer Gear Motor, Bonfiglioli Riduttori, Winergy

Gear Motors

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Gear Motors Market Research 2017A market study "Global Gear Motors Market" examines the performance of the Gear Motors market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Gear Motors market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Gear Motors market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Gear Motors Market 2017 report includes Gear Motors market Revenue, market Share, Gear Motors industry volume, market Trends, Gear Motors Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Gear Motors Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Gear Motors Market 2017 :Eaton Corporation PLC.Siemens AGBaldor Electric CompanySew-Eurodrive GmbH & Co.KgWinergyBonfiglioli Riduttori S.P.A.Brevini Power Transmission S.P.AChina High Speed Transmission Equipment Group Co.Ltd.Elecon Engineering Company Ltd.Emerson Electric Co.Johnson Electric Holdings LimitedSumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd.Bauer Gear Motor GmbHWatt Drive Antriebstechnik GmbHGear Motors Market : By ApplicationWind PowerMaterial HandlingFood & BeverageCement & AggregatesMetals & MiningAutomotiveConstructionPower GenerationChemicals,Rubber & PlasticsGear Motors Market : By TypeHelicalHelical-BevelPlanetaryWormFirstly, the report covers the top Gear Motors manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Gear Motors report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Gear Motors industry, Gear Motors industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Gear Motors Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Gear Motors 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 Gear Motors market revenue worldwide.Finally, Gear Motors 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
Interesting Research Report on the Future of Die Cut Interior box Market 2017-2025

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Over the years, the packaging industry has changed from just meeting the primary obligation of goods transfer to a significant factor for the sale of the product. Coupled with the modern technological advancement, the demand for appealing & convenient packaging solution has added to the growth of the global die cut interior box market. Die-cutting is the method of cutting and creasing high volumes of paperboards usually cartons with the use of die cutting machines. Manufacturers coupled with retailers are gaining traction towards die cut interior box as it is an economical packaging solution that provides safety to the product which essentially fuels the growth of the global die cut interior box market. Die Cut Interior boxes are majorly used in the promotional packaging of pharmaceuticals as well as food & beverages industry. Die cut interior box packaging protect the product as well as nurtures the structural integrity of that package.Die Cut Interior box Market: Drivers & RestraintsOne of the key factors that have led towards the growth of the die cut interior box market is the significant evolution in the retail sector. Die cut interior boxes has emerged as an advanced packaging solution from vendors and retailers point of view and are in high demand from small business institutions which operate across the globe. However, die cut interior boxes are non-reusable towards other kinds of products. As a result, this boxes need to be dumped, thus contributing towards the increasing waste issues.Request Report Sample@Die Cut Interior box Market: SegmentationThe global die cut interior box market is segmented as followsOn the basis of material used, the global die cut interior box market is segmented into:PaperboardSingle wall fluteDouble wall fluteTriple wall fluteOthers (Plastic)On the basis of material used, the global die cut interior box market is segmented into:PharmaceuticalsPersonal careStationeryFood & beveragesothersDie Cut Interior box Market: Segmentation OverviewThe global die cut interior box market can be segmented based on material type and end use. Based on the type of material used, paperboard material is expected to dominate the die cut interior box market over the forecast period. Paperboard is likely to bag a comparatively higher market share owing to emersion of a negligible carbon footprint on the environment in comparison with plastic in the global die cut interior box market. By end use, die cut interior boxes are in high demand for packaging of electronic appliances, home & personal care products, etc. and are expected to drive this market over the forecast period.Die Cut Interior box Market: Regional OverviewGeographically, the die cut interior box market is segmented into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).The die cut interior box market in North America and European nations is expected to grow at a steady rate as this regions are projected to be the largest markets for die cut interior box owing to the higher use of e-commerce portals which leads to healthy sales of home care & customer durable products in this region. The Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to have a high market attractiveness concerning growth in die cut interior box market. The boom in the retail sector in the developing economies such as China & India is expected to further drive the sales of the die cut interior boxes in this region by the end of the forecast period. Likewise, growth in other end-use industries across Latin America and MEA region is estimated to boost the growth of demand of die cut interior box in the near future. Overall, the global die cut interior box market is expected to show a healthy CAGR over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Die Cut Interior box Market: Key PlayersSome key players that currently operate in die cut interior box market across the globe are RFC Container Company, Ltd., Cactus Corrugated Containers Inc., Visy Glama Pty Ltd., Fitzpatrick Container Company, Packaging Source Inc, Dallas Container Corp., Tyoga Container Co Inc. and DeLine Box & Display.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:
Research Report on Power Over Ethernet Powered Devices Market Outlines Growth Opportunities & Industry Status

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The Global Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices industry a propos classification, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Download Report Sample @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Market.The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices industry in the global markets.Get Report Discount@Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the global Power Over Ethernet(PoE)Powered Devices Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.The major players profiled in this report include: Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (U.S.) Microsemi Corp. (U.S.) Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.) STMicroelectronics N.V. (Switzerland) Linear Technology Corp. (U.S.) Axis Communications AB (Sweden)About Market Research Globe:Market Research Globe is a competent consulting company in the field of Global Market Research. We provide our clients a wide range of customized Marketing and Business Research Solutions to choose from, with the help of our ingenious database developed by experts. We help our clients understand the strengths of diverse markets and how to exploit opportunities. Covering a diverse range of business scopes from Digital products to Food industry, we are your one- stop solution right from data collection to investment advices.Contact us:Liberty Society,Koregaon Park, Pune- 411001,Maharashtra, India.US: +1-888-376-9998Email- sales@marketresearchglobe.comWeb-
Nov, 10 2017: Fire Alarm Equipments Market Forecast 2023 Halma, London Security, Siemens, Johnson Controls, Honeywell

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Fire Alarm Equipments Market Research 2017A market study "Global Fire Alarm Equipments Market" examines the performance of the Fire Alarm Equipments market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Fire Alarm Equipments market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Fire Alarm Equipments market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Fire Alarm Equipments Market 2017 report includes Fire Alarm Equipments market Revenue, market Share, Fire Alarm Equipments industry volume, market Trends, Fire Alarm Equipments Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Fire Alarm Equipments Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Fire Alarm Equipments Market 2017 :United Technologies Corporation(UTC)Siemens AGBosch Security SystemsTyco International LimitedLondon Security PLCJohnson Controls, Inc.HalmaHoneywellFire Alarm Equipments Market : By ApplicationManufacturingTransportationEnergy&PowerFire Alarm Equipments Market : By TypeAnnunciatorsNotification DevicesManual pull StationsFirstly, the report covers the top Fire Alarm Equipments manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Fire Alarm Equipments report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Fire Alarm Equipments industry, Fire Alarm Equipments industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Fire Alarm Equipments Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Fire Alarm Equipments research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Fire Alarm Equipments market revenue worldwide.Finally, Fire Alarm Equipments market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"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
Demand for PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Industry Booms, Resulting in Growth of the Market Worldwide

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The Global PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the PV Solar Energy Charge Controller industry a propos classification, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Download Report Sample @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Market.The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the PV Solar Energy Charge Controller industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the PV Solar Energy Charge Controller industry in the global markets.Get Report Discount@Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the global PV Solar Energy Charge Controller Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.The major players profiled in this report include: Phocos Morningstar Steca Shuori New Energy Beijing Epsolar OutBack PowerAbout Market Research Globe:Market Research Globe is a competent consulting company in the field of Global Market Research. We provide our clients a wide range of customized Marketing and Business Research Solutions to choose from, with the help of our ingenious database developed by experts. We help our clients understand the strengths of diverse markets and how to exploit opportunities. Covering a diverse range of business scopes from Digital products to Food industry, we are your one- stop solution right from data collection to investment advices.About Market Research Globe:Market Research Globe is a competent consulting company in the field of Global Market Research. We provide our clients a wide range of customized Marketing and Business Research Solutions to choose from, with the help of our ingenious database developed by experts. We help our clients understand the strengths of diverse markets and how to exploit opportunities. Covering a diverse range of business scopes from Digital products to Food industry, we are your one- stop solution right from data collection to investment advices.
Spill Pallets Market Intelligence and Analysis for Period (2017-2025)

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The need to keep the goods safe and in proper condition during transportation has been one of the major concerns for shipping and logistic entities today. In order to overcome this challenge, particularly the chemical and petrochemical industry is now shifting from convention pallets to spill pallets, ensuring safety for longer journeys. Spill pallets are used in transportation, storage, and handling of the bulk containers such as drums, IBC, tanks and jerry cans. The use of spill pallets not only improves the convenience in handling of the bulk containers by spill containment of industrial fluids but also ensures the safety of crew and housekeeping members by improving facility protection system. Spill pallets are commonly made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) material as it has high resistance to most of the chemicals and corrosive liquids, and for achieving high load carrying capacity, steel is used for manufacturing of spill pallets. Spill Pallets are available in various formats to support various functions such as outdoor storage, transportation, and other unique storage requirements.Spill Pallets Market: Market DynamicsThe ability of spill pallets for containing the leaks or spills of hazardous fluids from the loaded containers is the key factor for driving the spill pallets market. Transportation of crude oil in such large quantity to meet the energy need, poses the risk of not only environment degradation while transporting and handling large containers eliminates but also the risk of oil spillage in the ecosystem. Low cost and ease of availability of the plastic pallets is another factor boosting the demand in the spill pallets packaging market. In addition, plastic spill pallets can also be recycled easily and are lighter in weight in comparison with wooden pallets, hence making plastic pallets sustainable and suitable choice for shipping companies. However, the entrance of flexi tanks in industrial bulk packaging market is eliminating the need for drums, IBC and other containers for transportation which is ultimately hampering the spill palettes market. Use of spill pallets can reduce the environment liability on shipping and transportation companies thus opening new opportunities for spill pallets market.Request Report Sample@Spill Pallets Market: Market SegmentationSpill Pallets market is segmented by product type, by carrying capacity type, by the shape of pallets, by material type, by application type and end-use industries.Based on the product type, the spill pallets market is segmented into:Nesting palletsHard top spill palletsOthersBased on the carrying capacity type, the spill pallets market is segmented into:1500-3000 lb3000-6000 lb6000-8000 lb8000-10000 lbBased on the shape of pallets, the spill pallets market is segmented into:Inline palletsSquare palletsBased on the material type, the spill pallets market is segmented into:SteelPlasticHDPEOthersBased on the application type, the spill pallets market is segmented into:DrumsIntermediary Bulk containersJerry CansOthersBased on the end-use industries, the spill pallets market is segmented into:Chemical & petrochemical industryPharmaceutical & Medical industryFood & beverage industryAutomotive industryOther ManufacturingSpill Pallets Market- Regional Outlook:Regionally global spill pallets market is segmented intoNorth AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAsia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ)Middle East & Africa (MEA)JapanBeing the worlds largest oil exporter, MEA region is expected to emerge as a key geographic region over the forecast period. North America is expected to follow the MEA region with considerable opportunities from countries such as Canada and US. However, APEJ, Eastern Europe, and Latin America are expected to exhibit moderate growth in spill pallets market over the forecast period. While Western Europe is expected to show sluggish demand in spill pallets market over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Spill Pallets Market - Key Players:Some major players of the spill pallets market are UltraTech International, Inc., Safety Storage Systems, Eagle Manufacturing Company, Justrite Mfg. Co., L.L.C., Nilkamal Limited., Robinson Industries, Inc., T.M. Fitzgerald & Associates, GEI Works, Jonesco (Preston) Ltd, CEP Sorbents, Inc. Shanghai Sourcing International Trade Co., Ltd. And Qingdao Huading Imp. And Exp. Co., Ltd.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:
Breakfast Drinks Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain 2017-2027

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Breakfast drinks are defined as a food products that are formulated through processing cereals with milk or other liquid ingredient. It is marketed as a supplementary food and positioned as a healthy, fast and convenient option for breakfast. Breakfast drinks must be shelf stable and liquid or dairy based. It must contain added minerals and vitamins and should be packed in on-the-go format. Growing number of single individuals along with rising number of working women across the globe is leading to changing lifestyle, improving living standards and increasing urbanization are some of the factors which are expected to drive the market of breakfast drinks over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:Market Dynamics of Breakfast Drinks Market:Consumers are increasingly shifting preference from edible breakfast products to drinkable breakfast products. They are looking for new product variants in the on-the-go market, owing to which, manufacturers are expanding product offerings by launching new flavored breakfast drinks regularly. For instance, in August 2016, Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing launched new flavors such as Up & Go Raspberry, Coconut & Yoghurt and Up & Go Energize Choc Coconut, followed by launch of Up & Gos 500ml bottle range in April 2016. In addition, younger consumers are shifting their preference towards healthy alternative drinks owing to increasing awareness regarding healthy lifestyle and wellness. Instead of having coffee or tea, these consumers prefer healthy alternatives such as soy drinks or other dairy-based drinks. This in turn is fuelling demand for on-the-go breakfast drinks among this consumer segment. For instance, in Australia, under 25-years consumers are the prime target segment for on-the-go breakfast products, with around 13% buying breakfast drinks each month. Consumers aged 3549 are also developing a taste for breakfast drinks, which is further expected to drive growth of the market during the forecast period.Market Segmentation of Breakfast Drinks Market:Breakfast drinks market is segmented on the basis of region which includes North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Middle East & Africa and Japan. Geographically, Europe is expected to be the major market in terms of value for breakfast drinks, owing to increasing consumer shifting preference towards convenient breakfast options. Among the countries, U.K. is expected to remain major markets in terms of consumptions for breakfast drinks followed by Germany. North America is expected to represent the favorable market for breakfast drinks in terms of consumption. In the region the U.S. is expected to represent major value share during the forecast period. Increasing consumption of on-the-go breakfast alternatives is expected to support the market growth in the country. Asia Pacific is expected to represent a rapid growth in breakfast drinks market. Presently Australia is the largest consumer of breakfast drinks in the region as well as across the globe. Continuous product launch and targeted towards specific segment is expected to support the market growth in the country. For instance in Australia manufacturers are focusing on the children or pre-teen segment, who are known to skip breakfast. Independent surveys reveal that 1 in 10 children skip breakfast daily. In order to tap into opportunities this segment offers, manufacturers are introducing new products specially designed for kids. In 2013, Kellogg NA Co. launched its first two breakfast drinks for kids in Australia. The product was launched under its Nutri-Grain and Coco Pops brands. Moreover, among ASEAN countries Singapore is expected to represent potential market both in terms of value and volume consumption.Continuous introduction of new breakfast drink products coupled with increasing awareness among the consumers through aggressive advertisement by the manufacturers is expected to drive the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, increasing per capita expenditure on prepared food coupled with rising demand for convenience breakfast products is further expected to fuel the market growth in the near future.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Key Market PlayersSome of the key players operating in breakfast drinks market includes Quaker Oats Company, Kellogg Co., General Mills Inc. MOMA, Sanitarium and Anchor among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Submarine Battery Market to Reach CAGR of X.X% by 2022, According to Recent Study by MRG

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The Global Submarine Battery Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Submarine Battery Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global Submarine Battery Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Submarine Battery industry a propos classification, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Download Report Sample @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Submarine Battery Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Submarine Battery Market.The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Submarine Battery industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Submarine Battery industry in the global markets.Get Report Discount@Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the global Submarine Battery Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.The major players profiled in this report include: EnerSys Systems Sunlight SA Exide Technologies Zibo Torch Energy Co., Ltd. Exide Industries EverExceed HBL GS YuasaAbout Market Research Globe:Market Research Globe is a competent consulting company in the field of Global Market Research. We provide our clients a wide range of customized Marketing and Business Research Solutions to choose from, with the help of our ingenious database developed by experts. We help our clients understand the strengths of diverse markets and how to exploit opportunities. Covering a diverse range of business scopes from Digital products to Food industry, we are your one- stop solution right from data collection to investment advices.Contact us:Liberty Society,Koregaon Park, Pune- 411001,Maharashtra, India.US: +1-888-376-9998Email- sales@marketresearchglobe.comWeb-
Flexible Battery Market - Technological Advancements, Evolving Industry Trends and Insights 2017 - 2025

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The flexible battery market is presently at a nascent stage and is anticipated to rise rapidly with increasing research and development taking place in the field of battery technology. Huge investments from companies such as Panasonic Corp. and Samsung SDI Corp. Ltd. among others is expected to have a positive impact in the field of battery technology.Flexible batteries are light weight and easy to use and are increasingly used in products with limited internal space. As flexible battery are thin and bendable, they can be used as power sources on curved surfaces. Moreover, these batteries are eco-friendly and have low impact on the environment.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @The growth of global flexible battery market is driven by factors such as rising demand for IoT devices. Technological advancement in portable devices is expected to fuel growth of the global flexible battery market over the forecast period. Flexible batteries are used in portable devices as they can be adjusted in any size for different purposes.The surging demand for wearable devices in the past few years is positively impacting the growth of this market. With innovation in wearable electronics, the demand for flexible power source with high performance that can be integrated into various products is expected to be on the rise. Moreover, the increasing demand for thin flexible batteries across various application segments such as smart cards, medical devices, and wearable devices due to its low self-discharge rate is anticipated to have a positive bearing on this market over the forecast period.The global flexible battery market was valued at US$230.0 mn in 2016 and is expected to be worth US$2437.6 mn by 2025, rising at a CAGR of 32.9% between 2017 and 2025.Smart Packaging End-use Segment to Continue Dominance in FutureThe global flexible battery market is segmented in terms of chargeability into chargeable flexible battery and single use flexible battery. Of the two, the segment of chargeable flexible battery held the leading share in 2016 and is expected to retain its dominance during the forecast period.On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into thin film and printed battery, flexible zinc carbon battery, laminar lithium-polymer battery, and advanced lithium ion battery. Thin film and printed battery, among these, held the leading market share in 2016 and is anticipated to maintain its dominance over the forecast period.In terms of end user, the market is segmented into consumer electronics, smart packaging, healthcare, and transportation and logistics among others. Smart packaging displayed the leading demand for flexible batteries in 2016 accounting for 26.6% of revenue contribution. The segment is expected to display rapid growth owing to development of smart packaging industry across various parts of the world. The segment of smart packaging is anticipated to display the leading demand for flexible batteries among other end-use segments.Browse Market Research Report @Asia Pacific to Emerge as Significant MarketOn the basis of geography, the global flexible battery market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. In 2016, North America held the leading share of 32.5% in the market and was followed by Europe and Asia Pacific. The North America flexible battery market is predominantly driven by the U.S. This is due to the presence of a large number if flexible battery manufacturers combined with rising investment in extensive research and development pursuits in the field of battery technology.Top companies operating in the global flexible battery market include Panasonic Corporation, LG Chem Ltd., Ultralife Corporation, Blue Spark Technology, NEC Energy Solutions Inc., ST Microelectronics N.V., Enfucell Oy, Samsung SDI Co. Ltd., and Brightvolt Inc.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:
Global Hearing aids Market Sales Industry Research Report 2023

Infinium Global Research

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Infinium Global Research has added a new report on Global Hearing aids Market. The report predicts the market size of Hearing aids is expected to reach XX billion by 2023.Infinium Global Research has added a new industry research report on Global Hearing aids Market. A hearing aid is used to improve sound waves that support people with hearing loss. Microphone, amplifier, and speaker are the key component present in the hearing aid. The microphone receives the sound waves and converts it into electronic signal. The amplifier reproduces this signal and sends them to speaker that is place in the device.Get a Sample Report @Market InsightsThe global hearing aids market was sized over USD 5.15 billion in 2015. The global Hearing aids market is projected to grow with a CAGR between 4.5% and 5.0% during 2017-2023. Growing number of patients with hearing loss, technological advancements in hearing aids sector, increased use of binaural fittings are the key factor driving the growth of global hearing aids market. Moreover, Lack of awareness and social stigma, high cost of hearing aids, recompense issues and competition from cochlear Implants are the key factors restraining the growth of this market. Growing potential offered by emerging countries, Innovation in Design, and introduction of directional microphones are likely to bring more opportunities to this market.Segments Covered:The report segments the hearing aids market by product and by region. Market segmentation based on product include behind-the-ear, in-the-ear, and receiver-in-ear. Behind-the-ear are specially recommended for children, as they grow they need changes in hearing devices.Make an Enquiry @Company ProfilesSivantos Pte. Ltd.Starkey Hearing Technologies, Inc.Sonova, Cochlear LimitedGN Store Nord A/SMED-ELSeboTek Hearing Systems, LLCWidex, William Demant Holding A/SZounds Hearing, Inc.Other companies.Key topics covered:1. Preface2. Executive Summary3. Global Hearing aids Market Overview4. Global Hearing aids Market: IGR Snapshots5. Global Hearing aids market by Product (USD Million) 2017  20236. Global Hearing aids Market Analysis, by Region (USD Million) 2017  20237. Company ProfilesClick to View Complete Report @Infinium Global Research and Consulting Solutions is started with a single motto of being business partner of first choice.Infinium Global Research,Bhau Patil Road,Pune, MH 4110 20Toll Free:U.S. + Canada: 1-800-638-0796,UK: +44-2033182010sales@infiniumglobalresearch.comskype: Infiniumglobalresearch
Amscreen provides Clear Channel Ireland digital screens for their recent Tesco contract win

Amscreen provides Clear Channel Ireland digital screens for their recent Tesco contract win

 Digital screens are being built in partnership with Amscreen Powered by Play IQ - Intelligent scheduling & content managementClear Channel Ireland has won the contract to install 70 digital screens in Tesco stores nationwide, it has been announced.Following a competitive tendering process, Clear Channel is to launch the Tesco Live network of screens and will be responsible for maintaining and selling the associated advertising space at selected Tesco stores.The screens will be located in premium positions at the entrance to Tesco Stores and are being provided by Amscreen, Europes leading digital signage solutions company. The portfolio will be powered by Play IQ, Clear Channels intelligent scheduling and content management system which enables seamless ad-serving across all sites.We are delighted to win the Tesco contract at this exciting time for Out Of Home in Ireland. This is a significant investment in Digital Out of Home, said Terry Buckley, Managing Director, Clear Channel Ireland. This digital development will enable advertisers to reach the much sought-after Tesco shoppers when they are most receptive to advertising messages. The 70 HD screens are supported by Clear Channels Play IQ, enabling complex media scheduling and dynamic creative opportunities.Ruairi Twomey, Marketing Director, Tesco Ireland said: We are always trying to improve the shopping experience for our customers. We believe this new partnership with Clear Channel will further develop our offering to shoppers by bringing them new, relevant advertising content across our stores nationwide.Simon Sugar, Amscreen CEO, said: We are so pleased to be partnering with Clear Channel Ireland for the launch of Tesco Live. This deal offers up various efficiencies  one of these being the speed of delivery via our European-based production headquarters. As well as optimising the ever-important lead times, we have the unique ability to provide easy local access to every stage of the build, ensuring the Clear Channel team has complete visibility and transparency through the delivery process.Clear Channel are now Irelands leading Digital Out of Home Media Owner bringing to 280 the number of digital screens across Ireland. In another media-first, Clear Channel Northern Ireland were the first to install digital screens at Bus Shelters .Amscreen are specialists in delivering wireless, real-time digital signage. With a network of more than 15,000 screens and 20 years experience in providing IoT and digital screen solutions, Amscreen are an established global leader in the screen solutions sector.The current partner portfolio includes blue chip retail businesses from BP, Shell and Tesco for indoor screens through to Outdoor Advertising Media Owners such as Clear Channel for sunlight readable large format screens.Amscreens portfolio of products range from 24 inch indoor screens to 75 inch Outdoor screens located at bus shelters, free standing with town centres and outside Asda and Sainsbury supermarkets.Amscreen offer a maintenance service using our innovative IoT Remote Monitoring System (RDM) to manage the screen network, ensuring service levels exceed customers expectations.Maximising screen uptime is important to us. We produce field serviceable products, where modular assemblies can be swapped out on site quickly without requiring any specialised expertise.Amscreen offer a full end-to-end service, where our experts get involved at the outset of a project to understand requirements and challenges; through to developing and delivering a fit for purpose product, that encompasses installation, maintenance, content creation and screen operation; as well as enhancing solutions over time as customers needs develop.Amscreen, Amscreen House, Paragon Business Park, Chorley New Road, Horwich, Bolton, Lancashire, BL6 6HG
Flooring Global Market 2017: Key Players  Mohawk Industries, Interface, Anderson, Armstrong, Beaulieu Of America

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Flooring IndustryDescriptionThe Global Flooring market accounted for $246 billion in 2014 and it is projected to reach $367.82 Billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 5.16% from 2014 to 2022. Rapid focus on break-through flooring that is long-lasting in nature is expected to drive market growth. Augmented insulation demand is also expected to give thrust to the market. Changing customer lifestyles, growing demand for insulation and surging demand in the construction industry are the major drivers. New trends, innovations and availability of several designs have considerably driven flooring market growth. Presently, consumers are resorting to more cost-effective and eco-friendly materials, which is also expected to positively impact flooring market growth. Accessibility of durable construction solutions that require low maintenance is to spur the demand for flooring solutions. Customer knowledge and their readiness to use the product are likely to fuel the market growth.The Flooring market is segmented into Material, Flooring Systems, Applications and Regions. Depending on the type of materials the market is further classified into Carpet, Ceramic Tile, Hardwood, Laminates, Stone, Vinyl, and other Resilient. On the basis of Flooring systems market is classified into Hard Flooring Systems and Raised Flooring Systems. Depending on applications it is segregated into Residential, Commercial and Industrial. Residential segment was the largest application area in 2014, accounting for over half of the market volume. Owing to the increasing demand from the construction industry, increased home improvement and renovation projects, the market for flooring products in residential applications is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period.Request for Sample Report @Geographically flooring market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (ROW). The increased affordability, rising urbanized population, and increase in industrialization in recent years are the favorable factors for the market growth in Asia Pacific region.Key industry participants include Shaw Industries,Mohawk Industries, Interface, Anderson, Armstrong, Beaulieu Of America, Amtico, Congoleum, Forbo, Gerflor and Interface Global.What our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 8 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsLeave a Query @1 Executive Summary2 Preface2.1 Abstract2.2 Research Scope2.3 Research Methodology2.4 Research Sources3 Market Trend Analysis3.1 Introduction3.2 Drivers3.3 Restraints3.4 Opportunities3.5 Threats4 Porters Five Force Analysis4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers4.2 Bargaining power of buyers4.3 Threat of substitutes4.4 Threat of new entrants4.5 Competitive rivalry5 Global Flooring Market , By Material5.1 Introduction5.2 Carpet (Broadloom And Carpet Tile)5.3 Ceramic Tile5.4 Hardwood5.5 Laminates5.6 Stone5.7 Vinyl5.8 Other Resilient (Includes Cork, Linoleum, Rubber)6 Global Flooring Market , By Flooring System6.1 Introduction6.2 Hard Flooring Systems6.3 Raised Flooring Systems7 Global Flooring Market , By Application7.1 Introduction7.2 Residential7.3 Commercial7.4 Industrial8 Market outlook by Geography8.1 North America8.1.1 US8.1.2 Canada8.2 Europe8.2.1 Germany8.2.2 France8.2.3 Italy8.2.4 UK8.2.5 Spain8.3 Asia Pacific8.3.1 Japan8.3.2 China8.3.3 India8.3.4 Australia8.3.5 New Zealand8.3.6 Rest of Asia8.4 Rest of the World8.4.1 Latin America8.4.2 Middle East8.4.3 Africa8.4.4 Others9 Key Developments9.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures9.2 Acquisitions & Mergers9.3 New Product Launch9.4 Expansions9.5 Other Key Strategies10 Company Profiling10.1 Anderson10.2 Armstrong10.3 Beaulieu Of America10.4 Bentley10.5 Congoleum10.6 Coronado Stone Products10.7 Daltile10.1 Dupont10.9 Emser Tile10.10 Florim UsaBuy now @Continued...Contact Us: Sales@Wiseguyreports.Com Ph: +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 LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
GSM Module Market 2022 - Industry Survey, Market Size, Competitive Trends, Outlook and Forecasts

GSM Module Market

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Latest report based on thorough research on GSM Module market. This in-depth report discusses this industrys market in forms of overview/definition, application, classification, predictions pertaining value and volume, and future predictions. It also prominently attributes the current situation and outlooks with industrial and financial aspect. Furthermore, it comprises of current events, latest market trends, schematic representation of the global companies with their prime developments, mergers & acquisitions, deals and agreements, expansions and investments, etc. Additionally, it talks about the vital prospects such as market restrains growth drivers, challenges and potential opportunities that may affect the overall GSM Module market.Get Sample Copy of this Report @Due to the constant altering business landscape, enhancements in the technology, the process of communication in several organizations have become intricate. Moreover, nowadays, customers demands have increased and expanded, this in return expects efficient and effective communication inside an organization. Escalated use of social networking websites, increased use of smartphones, and ascending demand for improved enterprise efficiency are the prime growth factors of the GSM Module market. Enhanced technologies and several Information technology tools better the productivity of the business and escalate functional efficiency. Additionally, many services and solutions are put to use in various industrial verticals which includes banks, insurance (BFSI), public sector, travel & hospitality, healthcare, energy & utilities, education, IT & telecom, transportations and logistics, retail, many other industry sectors such as media and communications.The methodological analysis which is used to approximate and forecast the GSM Module Market starts with gathering data on vital vendors with the help of secondary research through various trusted sources that include news articles, presentations, journals and paid database. In addition, information which the vendors provide is also taken into consideration to analyze the segmentation of the market.This extensive professional market research report renders an in-depth study of this markets industry along with growth prospects for the forecast period with exclusive focus on the size and characteristics of the market, major market manufacturers, present trends, growth forecasts, competitive landscape for the predicted frame of time coupled with market restrains and prime success. Besides, this exclusive report cloaks the global GSM Module Market based on applications, regions, competitive landscape and products. The report enlists profiles of several companies of prime market players, market share, financial metrics, business strategies, and forecasts and predictions.Browse full report with Table of Content @The GSM Module Market report wraps: Industry summary with market definition, key elements such as market restrains, drivers, potential opportunities, challenges, trends in the market, etc. Market sectioning depending on product, application, geographical region, competitive market share Market size, approximates, forecasts for the said frame of time Distribution channel assessment Competitive analysis of crucial market manufacturers, trends, company profiles, strategies, etc. Factors accountable for the growth of the market Thorough assessment of prime market geographically Factual information, insights, market date backed by statistics and industryKey Companies Analysis: - Huawei Technologies, Siemens, Sagem, Telit Communications, Wavecom, Quectel, Simcom, BenQ and others.The report offers a basic outline of the industry comprising of the definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure.Ask for Discount @Some points from TOC:-Global GSM Module Market Research Report 20171 GSM Module Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of GSM Module1.2 GSM Module Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global GSM Module Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global GSM Module Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 GPRS Module1.2.4 EDGE Module1.2.5 3G Module1.2.6 Pure SMS Module1.2.7 Other1.3 Global GSM Module Segment by Application1.3.1 GSM Module Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Consumer Electronics1.3.3 Automative1.3.4 Power Systems1.3.5 Surveillance System1.3.6 Other1.4 Global GSM Module Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global GSM Module Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 EU Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of GSM Module (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global GSM Module Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global GSM Module Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Enquiry Before Buying @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Email- sales@qyresearchgroups.comWebsite-
ESD Foam Packaging Market : APEJ Ranks Higher and Continues Dominance with Larger Revenue Earning

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The global electrostatic discharge (ESD) foam packaging market is expected to impress with a substantial rise in demand due to the swift surge in the miniaturization of electronic devices. Moreover, there is a rise in the demand for mobility in devices around the globe, which could augur well for the market. The adoption of smaller, lightweight devices could be greatly augmented with the demand for mobility.Furthermore, the popularity of smaller electronics in the automotive and telecommunication industries could translate into a hefty demand for the miniaturization of semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) as well. The advantage of ESD foam packaging over other products in the neutralization of tribocharging in densely-built, smaller semiconductor ICs and printed circuit boards (PCBs) could promote the market growth.Request Sample:The global ESD foam packaging market, according to Transparency Market Research (TMR), is foretold to touch a revenue collection of US$233.8 mn by the end of 2022, advancing from a valuation of US$172.5 mn achieved in 2017. During the forecast period 20172022, the market could expand at a 6.3% CAGR.Global ESD Foam Packaging Market: Major InsightsThe international ESD foam packaging market is envisaged to ride its growth on powerful and lasting trends such as the emergence of smart cities. Nations around the world could consider developing smart cities at a quicker pace by integrating multitudinous IT solutions. The development of solutions for the growth of smart cities announced by major companies such as Cisco could add to the demand for ESD foam packaging. The use of public physical infrastructure via data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) and improvement of the intelligence of cities could be crucial factors for improving the market growth.The international ESD foam packaging market is prognosticated to be segregated as per application into two segments, i.e. electrical and electronic component and others. Amongst these, the market for electrical and electronic component could bag a larger share in the coming years. By 2022, it is anticipated to secure a share of 93.1%. In view of material and additive, the market could be divided into conductive and dissipative polymer, metal, and additive. In terms of type of end-use industry, the market is predicted to see a classification into aerospace, manufacturing, defense and military, automobile, electrical and electronics, and others.Browse Research Report:On the basis of geography, the international ESD foam packaging market is prophesied to be segmented into different regions and a country, i.e. Japan. However, Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ) could top the market with respect to share in the foreseeable future. It is envisioned to expand at a 5.8% CAGR. North America and Europe could be other prominent regions of the market offering ample of growth opportunities to industry players. Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) are foreseen to display discouraging figures in the latter forecast years.Global ESD Foam Packaging Market: Vendor LandscapeThe worldwide ESD foam packaging market is projected to witness the presence of notable players such as Statclean Technology (S) Pte Ltd., Electrotek Static Controls Pvt. Ltd., Helios Packaging, Conductive Containers, Inc., Botron Company, Inc., GWP Group Limited, Elcom U.K. Ltd., Tekins Limited, and Nefab AB.About Us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. 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:US Office90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Liquid Sugar Market Research Study for the Period (2017-2027)

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Liquid sugar is a sweeting agent which is often used instead of normal sugar. It is prepared by mixing water with mostly white or at times with brown sugar. The commercially produced liquid sugar are mostly used in our homes or widely seen at restaurants. The production of liquid sugar can be done by any kind of sugar, the sugar granules should be crushed finely, so that the granules are dissolved in the water very easily. In order to create healthy liquid sugar alternatives can also be used. Liquid sugar have now become an alternative to the common sugar which is used in variety of recipes. Liquid sugars are used more these days in the restaurants to make tea or coffee. Liquid sugar is not just a good alternative to the regular sugar but one benefit of liquid sugar over the conventional sugar is that it is much sweeter than conventional sugar, only a little amount of liquid sugar is required to get good amount of sweetness.Market Segmentation:Liquid sugar market is segment on the basis of type, application, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of type the liquid sugar market is segmented into 65% sucrose dissolved or 67% sucrose dissolved. 67% dissolved sucrose is also known as amber liquid sugar, much preferred in the restaurants or hotels where brown colored food is desired, whereas the 65% sucrose dissolved liquid sugar preferred by the consumers for their household. The demand for liquid sugar is also more as it is easily available in the market. On the basis of application the liquid sugar market is segmented into cosmetics and food industry. On the basis of distribution channel the liquid sugar market is segmented into supermarkets/hypermarkets, convenience stores and online stores. It is expected that supermarkets/hypermarkets will hold a relatively higher share in the liquid sugar market compared to other distribution channel. On the basis of region the liquid sugar market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe and MEA.Request Report Sample@Market Regional Outlook:Regional segment for the market of Liquid Sugar is divided into five different regions: North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Japan, Europe and MEA. Among these segment Asia Pacific is expected to be the leader of liquid sugar market around the world and is expected to dominant the market in the forecaster period. In Asia Pacific region the countries like India is the key market for liquid sugar, India is also generating quite high revenue, as the country is worlds second largest producers of sugarcane. In terms of revenue Latin America is also expected to be the second leading contributor in the liquid sugar market, which is further followed by Europe.Market Drivers:Consumers increasing demand for low calorie sugar is playing a key role to drive the liquid sugar market in the forecast period. Increasing opportunities in the bakery industry is also a key factor which is driving the global liquid sugar market. The cooks in the restaurant prefer liquid sugar for creating cakes or baked products. Liquid sugar also saves the labor cost and also saves the time taken for the filtration of the normal sugar, which will boost the demand and growth of the liquid sugar market. The Liquid .Sugar also increases the shelf life of baked products, which is also another driving factor for the growth of Liquid Sugar market. Some of the restraining factors of liquid sugar can be the cost of the raw material, which is consistently rising and the cost associated with supply chain for liquid sugar is also rising. Moreover, food that contents high level of sugar can causes obesity, diabetes and heart disease.Visit For TOC@Market Key Players:Some of the key players in Liquid Sugar market are Banah, Sudzucker, Maui Brand Sugars, Natural Raw Liquid Sugar, Eye kandy, Da vinci gourmet and Monin 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:
Global Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status and Trend Report 2013-2023 Top 20 Countries Data

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Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems-Global Market Status & Trend Report 2013-2023 Top 20 Countries Data offers a comprehensive analysis on Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems industry, standing on the readers' perspective, delivering detailed market data in Global major 20 countries and penetrating insights. No matter the client is industry insider, potential entrant or investor, the report will provides useful data and information.Key questions answered by this report include:Worldwide and Top 20 Countries Market Size of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems 2013-2017, and development forecast 2018-2023Main manufacturers/suppliers of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems worldwide and market share by regions, with company and product introduction, position in the Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems marketMarket status and development trend of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by types and applicationsCost and profit status of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems, and marketing statusMarket growth drivers and challengesRequest a Sample Report@The report segments the global Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems market as:Global Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market: Regional Segment Analysis (Regional Production Volume, Consumption Volume, Revenue and Growth Rate 2013-2023):North America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia, Spain and Benelux)Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, Southeast Asia and Australia)Latin America (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia)Middle East and AfricaGlobal Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market: Type Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume, Average Price, Revenue, Market Share and Trend 2013-2023):Tableware DisposablesDurable Plastic GlassesFinger Food DisposablesGlobal Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market: Application Segment Analysis (Consumption Volume and Market Share 2013-2023; Downstream Customers and Market Analysis)Hotel & Other Accommodation FacilitiesRestaurantsCafe and BistroBars & PubsClubsInstitutionsFoodservice Providers/CaterersGlobal Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market: Manufacturers Segment Analysis (Company and Product introduction, Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Sales Volume, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin):Dispo InternationalEFG FoodserviceFirst PackGo-Pak GroupITP ImportsSustainable Disposables Trading BV (SD Trading)MashersMBS WholesaleParty & Paper SolutionsPattersons UKGet Discount for Report@In a word, the report provides detailed statistics and analysis on the state of the industry; and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Companies Mentioned:Dispo InternationalEFG FoodserviceFirst PackGo-Pak GroupITP ImportsSustainable Disposables Trading BV (SD Trading)MashersMBS WholesaleParty & Paper SolutionsPattersons UKTable of Contents:Chapter 1 Overview of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems1.1 Definition of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems in This Report1.2 Commercial Types of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems1.2.1 Tableware Disposables1.2.2 Durable Plastic Glasses1.2.3 Finger Food Disposables1.3 Downstream Application of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems1.3.1 Hotel & Other Accommodation Facilities1.3.2 Restaurants1.3.3 Cafe and Bistro1.3.4 Bars & Pubs1.3.5 Clubs1.3.6 Institutions1.3.7 Foodservice Providers/Caterers1.4 Development History of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems1.5 Market Status and Trend of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems 2013-20231.5.1 Global Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status and Trend 2013-20231.5.2 Regional Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status and Trend 2013-2023Chapter 2 Global Market Status and Forecast by Regions2.1 Market Development of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems 2013-20172.2 Sales Market of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Regions2.2.1 Sales Volume of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Regions2.2.2 Sales Value of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Regions2.3 Production Market of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Regions2.4 Global Market Forecast of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems 2018-20232.4.1 Global Market Forecast of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems 2018-20232.4.2 Market Forecast of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Regions 2018-2023Chapter 3 Global Market Status and Forecast by Types3.1 Sales Volume of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Types3.2 Sales Value of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Types3.3 Market Forecast of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by TypesChapter 4 Global Market Status and Forecast by Downstream Industry4.1 Global Sales Volume of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Downstream Industry4.2 Global Market Forecast of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Downstream IndustryChapter 5 North America Market Status by Countries, Type, Manufacturers and Downstream IndustryChapter 6 Europe Market Status by Countries, Type, Manufacturers and Downstream Industry6.1 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Countries6.1.1 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Sales by Countries (2013-2017)6.1.2 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Revenue by Countries (2013-2017)6.1.3 Germany Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.4 UK Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.5 France Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.6 Italy Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.7 Russia Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.8 Spain Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.1.9 Benelux Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)6.2 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Manufacturers6.3 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Type (2013-2017)6.3.1 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Sales by Type (2013-2017)6.3.2 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Revenue by Type (2013-2017)6.4 Europe Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Downstream Industry (2013-2017)Chapter 7 Asia Pacific Market Status by Countries, Type, Manufacturers and Downstream IndustryBuy this Report@Chapter 8 Latin America Market Status by Countries, Type, Manufacturers and Downstream Industry8.1 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Countries8.1.1 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Sales by Countries (2013-2017)8.1.2 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Revenue by Countries (2013-2017)8.1.3 Brazil Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)8.1.4 Argentina Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)8.1.5 Colombia Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status (2013-2017)8.2 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Manufacturers8.3 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Type (2013-2017)8.3.1 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Sales by Type (2013-2017)8.3.2 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Revenue by Type (2013-2017)8.4 Latin America Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Status by Downstream Industry (2013-2017)Chapter 9 Middle East and Africa Market Status by Countries, Type, Manufacturers and Downstream IndustryChapter 10 Market Driving Factor Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems10.1 Global Economy Situation and Trend Overview10.2 Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Downstream Industry Situation and Trend OverviewChapter 11 Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Market Competition Status by Major Manufacturers11.1 Production Volume of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Major Manufacturers11.2 Production Value of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Major Manufacturers11.3 Basic Information of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems by Major Manufacturers11.3.1 Headquarters Location and Established Time of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Major Manufacturer11.3.2 Employees and Revenue Level of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Major Manufacturer11.4 Market Competition News and Trend11.4.1 Merger, Consolidation or Acquisition News11.4.2 Investment or Disinvestment News11.4.3 New Product Development and LaunchChapter 12 Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems Major Manufacturers Introduction and Market DataChapter 13 Upstream and Downstream Market Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems13.1 Industry Chain of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems13.2 Upstream Market and Representative Companies Analysis13.3 Downstream Market and Representative Companies AnalysisChapter 14 Cost and Gross Margin Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems14.1 Cost Structure Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems14.2 Raw Materials Cost Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems14.3 Labor Cost Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution Systems14.4 Manufacturing Expenses Analysis of Foodservice Disposables Distribution SystemsChapter 15 Report ConclusionChapter 16 Research Methodology and Reference16.1 Methodology/Research Approach16.1.1 Research Programs/Design16.1.2 Market Size Estimation16.1.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation16.2 Data Source16.2.1 Secondary Sources16.2.2 Primary Sources16.3 ReferenceFor more information about 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 Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Roll Forming Machine Market Size, Analysis, and Forecast Report 2017  2027

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Roll forming is a type of rolling involving the continuous bending of long strips of sheet metal which are typically coiled steel into any desired cross-section. In roll forming machines the metal strips which are to be formed into desired shapes are passed through sets of rolls mounted on consecutive stands, where each set only performs an incremental part of the bend, till the desired cross-section is obtained. Roll forming machines are ideal for large quantities, producing constant-profile parts with long lengths. Roll forming machines are available in different sizes, shapes, and material thickness. Roll forming machine achieves variations in size by making the distance between the rolls variable by computerized or manual adjustments which allows rapid changeover. The portable based roll forming machines has been bringing metal roof manufacturing to the job site making it easy for the requirements. On site roll forming machines eliminates shipping damages many size errors and short shipments and provides freight and packaging savings.Request For Report Sample:Global Roll Forming Machine Market: Market DynamicsThe global roll forming machine market is driven by manufacturing and automation industry as roll forming has a significant and a puzzling peculiarity. Since past few years roll forming machine has developed to be the most productive metal forming technology. Owing to the high efficiency of roll forming machine the labor content of many products is drastically reduced. The challenges faced by the roll forming machine market would be the tighter profile tolerances, compressed lead time, wider product ranges. The equipment based manufactures who use roll forming machines face problem with more flexibility, cost of the roll forming machine and to produce a wide range of products which are productive. The challenges with roll forming machine can be eliminated by enhanced product design, improved materials, better and more efficient equipment, improved tooling and better educated and motivated work force. The progress of the roll forming machine market is driven by fast changing technology tougher requirements and growing global competition. With tougher requirements it takes more time and costs more for the roll forming machine.Global Roll Forming Machine Market: Market SegmentationOn the basis of process, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:Pre-punchMid-line punchingPost punchingOn the basis of machine type, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:ComputerizedManualOn the basis of type, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:PortableNon portableOn the basis of product type, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:Roofing sheetRoof panelCeiling sheetC-Z purlingCorrugatedOn the basis of application, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:Open loop stoppingOpen loop flying dieClosed loop stoppingClosed loop flying dieOn the basis of end users, the global roll forming machine market is segmented into:Manufacturing industryAutomotive industryGlobal Roll Forming Machine Market: Segment OverviewGlobal roll forming machine are widely used by manufacturing and automation industries.Global Roll Forming Machine Market: Regional OverviewBased on the geographies, the global roll forming machine market is fragmented into seven key regions- Latin America, North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Middle East & Africa Asia-Pacific except Japan, Japan. Among the regions mentioned above in North America most of the steel produced are processed through roll forming machines which is widely used in automotive industry. Followed by Western Europe Overall the global roll forming machine market are expected to witness the high growth with increased opportunities in the manufacturing environment over the next forecasted year.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Roll Forming Machine Market: Market playersSome of the market players identified in the global roll forming machine market includes:Samco MachineryENGLERT INC.Zeman Bauelemente  Mechanical EngineeringForm Process EngineeringHowick LtdMetform international Ltd.GASPARINI S.p.A.FormtekHayes InternationalABOUT 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:
Dashboard Camera Market Size Share - Industry Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020

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"The Latest Research Report Dashboard Camera Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2014 - 2020 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Dashboard cameras are real-time video recording devices usually attached on the windshield of vehicles and integrated with dashboards in the vehicle. These devices are designed to record real-time videos that capture the inward as well as outward sides of vehicles. Dashboard cameras find its applications in private cars, law enforcement vehicles, and rental and other commercial vehicles. These cameras provide continuous video recording, which could be used as evidence in event of an accident or civil or criminal lawsuits. Dashboard cameras are categorized based on technology, type and geography. The demand for dashboard cameras is majorly driven by their numerous advantages, especially their utility in case of accidents, emergency services, and for evidence gathering, among others. Dashboard cameras help insurance companies to expedite claim settlements as these cameras provide lucid evidence of the incidents. Various insurance companies offer discounts on insurance premiums for car owners who equip their vehicles with dashboard cameras. Rising support from insurance companies to install dashboard cameras is another major factor influencing the growth of this market.Get Sample Copy of this report @The report on the dashboard cameras market provides the current scenario as well as the future market potential of dashboard cameras, globally. The market for the dashboard cameras has been extensively analyzed on the basis of product type, technology and geography. Based on type, this market is also segmented into basic dashboard cameras, advanced dashboard cameras and smart dashboard camera. The market size and forecast in terms of revenue (US$ Mn) as well as volume (thousand units) for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2012 to 2020, considering 2012 and 2013 as the base years. Based on the technology, dashboard cameras are categorized into single lens (single channel), multi lens (dual channel) and rearview dashboard cameras. The report also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for each segment of the market for the forecast period from 2014 to 2020 and analyzes the contribution of sales channels i.e. OEMs (car manufacturers and retail). This would help dashboard camera manufacturers to select ideal distribution channels according to their requirements. The report also highlights the views of car manufacturers about integrating dashboard cameras with their new cars.Geographically, the market for dashboard cameras has been segmented into regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Rest of the world. The market size and forecast for each region have been provided for the period from 2012 to 2020 along with the CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2014 to 2020. The report also includes country level analysis for major markets in Europe (Russia, France, Germany, UK, Norway and Sweden) and Asia Pacific (China, Korea, Japan and Oceania). The dashboard camera market report includes the quantitative analysis in terms of unit shipment (thousand units) as well as revenue (US$ Mn) and forecast for the period 2014 to 2020. The report also highlights attractive market segments in each regional and global market which helps manufacturers and suppliers in their tactical decision making. The study also includes qualitative analysis of the competitive scenario in these regions. The market overview chapter in the report includes qualitative analysis of the overall market highlighting the factors determining the market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities along with market attractiveness analysis and value chain analysis. This report also highlights demand supply trends, product and technology trends, original equipment suppliers and manufacturer trends in the global as well as in regional markets.View Sample PDF @The report also provides a section on the competitive landscape, wherein the market positioning of leading players in the global dashboard cameras market in 2013 has been analyzed. The report concludes with the profiles of major original equipment suppliers (OESs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the global dashboard cameras industry such as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) US LLC, Delphi Automotive Systems Pvt Ltd, Papago Inc., Toyota Motor Corp, Harman International Inc, Garmin International Inc, Qrontech Co., Ltd. (Lukas), Pittasoft Co. Ltd. (BlackVue), DCS Systems Ltd. (RoadHawk UK), and others.The global dashboard cameras market is categorized into the following segments:Dashboard Camera Market, by TypeBasic Dashboard CamerasAdvanced Dashboard CamerasSmart Dashboard CamerasDashboard Camera Market, by TechnologySingle Lens (Single Channel)Multi Lens (Dual Channel)Smart Dashboard CamerasDashboard Camera Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeRussiaGermanyUKSwedenFranceNorwayRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaKoreaJapanOceaniaRest of APACRest of the World (RoW)Send An Enquiry Request @Table Of ContentsChapter 1 Preface1.1 Report Description1.2 Global Dashboard Cameras: Market Segmentation1.3 Research Methodology1.3.1 Sources1.3.1.1 Secondary Research1.3.1.2 Primary ResearchChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Market Snapshot: Global Dashboard Cameras Market (2013 & 2020)2.2 Global Dashboard Cameras Market, 2012  2020, Revenue (US$ Mn) and YOY Growth (%)Chapter 3 Global Dashboard Cameras Market Overview3.1 Introduction3.2 Market Trends and Future Outlook3.2.1 Product and Technology Demand3.2.1.1 Dashboard Camera with Superior Features3.2.1.2 Dashboard Cameras with Night Vision3.2.2 Regional Demand-Supply Trends3.2.3 Original Equipment Suppliers (OES) and Aftermarket Trends3.2.4 View of Original Equipment Suppliers on Dashboard Camera3.3 Dashboard Installation Laws in Major Countries3.3.1 List of Major Countries in Which Dashboard Camera is Legal3.3.2 List of Cameras in Which Dashboard Camera is Illegal3.3.3 Laws/Guidelines in Installation of Dashboard Cameras3.4 Market Dynamics3.4.1 Drivers3.4.1.1 Government Encouragement for Installation of Dashboard camera3.4.1.2 Wide Range of Dashboard Camera for Consumers3.4.1.3 Encouragement from Insurance Companies for Installation of Dashboard camera3.4.1.4 Impact Analysis of Drivers3.4.2 Restraints3.4.2.1 Government Restriction on Dashboard camera in European Countries may Hamper the Market Growth3.4.2.2 Impact Analysis of Restraints3.4.3 Opportunities3.4.3.1 Partnerships with Automobile Manufacturers3.4.3.2 Untapped Potential in Emerging Markets3.5 Value Chain Analysis: Global Dashboard Camera Market3.6 Porters Five Forces Analysis: Dashboard Camera Industry3.6.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers3.6.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers3.6.3 Threat of New Entrants3.6.4 Threat from Substitutes3.6.5 Degree of Competition3.7 Market Attractiveness Analysis: Global Dashboard cameras Market, by Price3.8 Competitive Landscape3.8.1 Market Share of Leading Dashboard Camera Manufacturers - 2013 (%)3.8.2 Regional Positioning3.8.3 Competitive Strategies Adopted by Key PlayersBuy Now 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
Sugar Confectionery in Philippines Market 2017- Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Research Report 2021

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Sugar Confectionery (Confectionery) Market in PhilippinesSugar Confectionery (Confectionery) Market in Philippines - Outlook to 2021: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics is a broad level market review of Sugar Confectionery market in Philippines.Sugar Confectionery include sugar-based confectionery items including hard boiled sweets, mints, caramels & toffees, gums and jellies, marshmallows, fudges and medicated throat lozenges.Sugar Confectionery market in Philippines registered a positive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.05% during the period 2011 to 2016 with a sales value of PHP 19,904.50 Million in 2016, an increase of 2.76% over 2015. The research handbook provides up-to-date market size data for period 2011-2016 and illustrative forecast to 2021 covering key market aspects like Sales Value and Volume for Sugar Confectionery and its variants Caramels and Toffees, Gums and Jellies, Hard Boiled Sweets, Liquorice, Lollipops, Medicated Confectionery, Mints, Other Sugar Confectionery.Furthermore, the research handbook details out Sales Value for top brands for the year 2013 to 2016, Demographic Analytics and overall market sales by Distribution Channel (Hypermarkets & Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Department Stores, Dollar Stores, Variety Store, Cash & Carries and Warehouse clubs, eRetailers, Food & Drinks specialists, Drug stores & Pharmacies, Health & Beauty Stores, Other general retailers and others) where ever applicable.The research handbook acts as an essential tool for companies active or planning to venture in to Philippines's Sugar Confectionery (Confectionery) market. The comprehensive statistics within the research handbook provides insight into the operating environment of the market and also ensures right business decision making based on historical trends and industry model based forecasting.Sales Values in the handbook are depicted in USD ($) and local currency of country and Volumes are represented in M Kilograms.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- Overall Sugar Confectionery (Confectionery) market value and volume analytics with growth analysis from 2011 to 2021.- Value terms for the top brands.- Distribution channel sales analytics from 2013-2016.Key points to buy- Get access to authoritative and granular data on the Sugar Confectionery (Confectionery) market and fill in the gaps in understanding of trends and the components of change behind them.- Enhance your understanding of the market to update your strategic and tactical plans based on volume and value changes, brand dynamics and distribution trends.- Analyze the components of change in the market by looking at historic and future growth patterns.- Use the data to understand future patterns of the market trends from winners and losers to category dynamics and thereby quickly and easily identify the key areas in which you want to compete in the future.Table of Contents1 Face Make-Up Market Overview2 Saudi Arabia Face Make-Up Market Analytics3 Saudi Arabia Face Make-Up Market Analytics, by Segment4 Saudi Arabia Face Make-Up Brand Analytics by Value5 Saudi Arabia Face Make-Up Distribution Channel Analytics by Value6 Appendix..CONTINUEDAbout USWise 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.For accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise 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. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) bUSiness sector reports as cUStom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Frozen Yogurt Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain 2017  2027

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Frozen yogurt is a frozen dessert which is made up of yogurt and at times other dairy products are also used. The prime ingredient of frozen yogurt are milk fat, milk solid, sweetener (artificial sweetener such as aspartame is used) and culture of yogurt. Frozen yogurt are also known as frogurt. Frozen yogurt was originated in America and now its popular all over the world. Frozen yogurt are generally tarter than ice-cream and is also very much low in fat because of the use of milk instead of cream. It is a conventional soft serve but is very different from ice- cream. It is also termed as low fat light ice-cream. Unlike the normal yogurt, frozen yogurt is not regulated by FDI. There is a misconception in people that frozen yogurt is a probiotic, but its not always true, frozen yogurt may or may not contain live and active bacteria cultures in it. Frozen yogurt also contains vegetable additives such as guar gum, carrageenan, etc. and animal gelatin to stabilize the yogurt which reduces the crystallization of yogurt when it is kept in low temperature.Request For Report Sample:Market Segmentation:Frozen yogurt marketis segment on the basis of type, fat content, flavour, distribution channel and region. On the basis of type the frozen yogurt market is segmented into regular frozen yogurt and sugar free frozen yogurt. On the basis of fat content the frozen yogurt market is segmented into low fat and no fat. The low fat frozen yogurt is made up of part-skim milk or low fat milk and the percentage milk fat is between 2% - 0.5%. No fat frozen yogurt is prepared from skim milk which contains milk fat less than 0.5%. On the basis of flavour the market is segmented into chocolate, peach, mango, strawberry, lemonade, banana, pineapple and others. In this category, strawberry and mango flavored frozen yogurt are gaining the popularity worldwide and is expected to remain dominant over the forecast period. On the basis of distribution channel the market is segmented into supermarket/hypermarket, online stores, specialty stores, grocery stores, and others. Frozen yogurt sold through the specialty stores is expected to hold relatively higher revenue share in the frozen yogurt market, which is followed by supermarket/hypermarketsegment.Market Regional Outlook:Regional segment for the market of frozen yogurt is segmented into seven different regions: North America, Latin America, APAC, Europe and MEA. Among these region North America is expected to have the major market share globally. Europe has also emerged as a prominent market for frozen yogurt, as the popularity of frozen yogurt is increasing in the countries like France, U.K. and Germany, which is expected to fuel the growth of frozen yogurt.Market Drivers:Consumers are more health conscious these days, they tend to consume desserts that are low in fat and has minimal amount of sugar, and frozen yogurt becomes the best alternative to unhealthy desserts as frozen yogurts fulfill both the requirements of consumers, and these factors are expected to drive the market of frozen yogurt. Another factor which is anticipated to boost the sales of frozen yogurt is the distribution of these products through online channels, as online retailers offers a wide variety of frozen yogurt. Moreover, online stores offer frozen yogurt with lucrative offers or coupons. All these benefits combined are expected to act as positive factors driving growth of the global frozen yogurt market over the forecast period. The frozen yogurt market is also driven by the love for refreshing ice-cream alternative by the kids. Kids prefer chilled desserts in the summer seasons and frozen yogurt is a perfect answer to their demands. Moreover, increasing penetration of organized players ensures a highly competitive market scenario, and results in launch of an increasing variety of frozen yogurts, which is expected to boost overall growth of frozen yogurt globally to a substantial extent over the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Market Key Players:Some of the key players in frozen yogurt market includes Menchie's Frozen Yogurt Company, Pinkberry, Honey Hill Farms, Scott Brothers Dairy, Red Mango, Inc., Yogurtland Inc., Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., TCBY, and Nestle among others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Cleaning Chemicals Global Market 2017: Key Players  Hindustan Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Procter& Gamble, 3M, Henkel

Cleaning Chemicals Market

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Cleaning Chemicals Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com adds Cleaning Chemicals 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 Cleaning Chemicals Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Cleaning Chemicals 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.This report studies Cleaning Chemicals 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, coveringHindustan UnileverReckitt BenckiserProcter& Gamble3MHenkelDiverseySchevaran LaboratoriesEcolabBASFAlbemarle CorporationSatol ChemicalsBuzil RossariJyothy LaboratoriesDabur India LimitedHaylide ChemicalsS.C. Johnson ProductsAltret IndustriesRequest a Sample Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoGeneral Purpose CleanersToilet CleanersKitchen Care CleanersFloor Care CleanersLaundry Care CleanersOtherBy Application, the market can be split intoInstitutionalResidentialIndustrialOtherBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaThis 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:1 Industry Overview of Cleaning Chemicals1.1 Definition and Specifications of Cleaning Chemicals1.1.1 Definition of Cleaning Chemicals1.1.2 Specifications of Cleaning Chemicals1.2 Classification of Cleaning Chemicals1.2.1 General Purpose Cleaners1.2.2 Toilet Cleaners1.2.3 Kitchen Care Cleaners1.2.4 Floor Care Cleaners1.2.5 Laundry Care Cleaners1.2.6 Other1.3 Applications of Cleaning Chemicals1.3.1 Institutional1.3.2 Residential1.3.3 Industrial1.3.4 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 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Cleaning Chemicals2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Cleaning Chemicals2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Cleaning Chemicals2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Cleaning Chemicals..8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Cleaning Chemicals8.1 Hindustan Unilever8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Product A8.1.2.2 Product B8.1.3 Hindustan Unilever 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.1.4 Hindustan Unilever 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.2 Reckitt Benckiser8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Product A8.2.2.2 Product B8.2.3 Reckitt Benckiser 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.2.4 Reckitt Benckiser 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.3 Procter& Gamble8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Product A8.3.2.2 Product B8.3.3 Procter& Gamble 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.3.4 Procter& Gamble 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.4 3M8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Product A8.4.2.2 Product B8.4.3 3M 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.4.4 3M 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.5 Henkel8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Product A8.5.2.2 Product B8.5.3 Henkel 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.5.4 Henkel 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.6 Diversey8.6.1 Company Profile8.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.6.2.1 Product A8.6.2.2 Product B8.6.3 Diversey 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.6.4 Diversey 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.7 Schevaran Laboratories8.7.1 Company Profile8.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.7.2.1 Product A8.7.2.2 Product B8.7.3 Schevaran Laboratories 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.7.4 Schevaran Laboratories 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.8 Ecolab8.8.1 Company Profile8.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.8.2.1 Product A8.8.2.2 Product B8.8.3 Ecolab 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.8.4 Ecolab 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.9 BASF8.9.1 Company Profile8.9.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.9.2.1 Product A8.9.2.2 Product B8.9.3 BASF 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.9.4 BASF 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution Analysis8.10 Albemarle Corporation8.10.1 Company Profile8.10.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.10.2.1 Product A8.10.2.2 Product B8.10.3 Albemarle Corporation 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.10.4 Albemarle Corporation 2016 Cleaning Chemicals Business Region Distribution AnalysisContinued.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
Listeria Monocytogenes Infections Treatment Market  by Type of Infection Gastroenteritis  Global Industry Insights, Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 20172025

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Listeriosis is a dreadful common bacterial infection named listeria monocytogenes. Listeriosis spreads by consumption of contaminated food, such as ready-to-eat meats, raw or unpasteurized milk, cheeses, processed foods, vegetables, and smoked fish products. Infection with listeria Monocytogenes results in mild to severe gastroenteritis and can lead to meningitis and septicemia. In people with weak immune system it can lead to diabetes, HIV, cancer, chronic liver, and kidney disease. Additionally, listeriosis is a threat to life in pregnant women resulting in stillbirth, premature delivery, and meningitis in the infants leading to permanent disability.Request to download and view Sample Report:Global Listeria Monocytogenes Infections Treatment Market Taxonomy:On the basis of type of infection, global listeria monocytogenes infections treatment market is segmented into:GastroenteritisEndocarditisMeningitisBacteremiaBrain AbscessNew findings to develop novel therapeutic approach and major investments in research and development activities by FDA are expected to stimulate the growth of the listeria monocytogenes infection treatment marketCurrently there is no specific treatment available for listeriosis. New research findings may help to develop new strategic treatment for the listeria monocytogenes. For instance, in May 2017, Prof. Birgitte Kallipolitis from the University of Southern Denmark conducted a study on listeria monocytogenes and found a potential health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, which can help to deactivate the genes in listeria monocytogenes. According to the Prof. Kallipolitis, the omega-3 fatty acids may help to possibly develop new treatments against listeria monocytogenes.Request a Customization:In October, 2017, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggested to develop a new therapeutic approach for the listeria monocytogenes infection considering the constant outbreak of listeriosis in the U.S. and FDA recommends to increase research and development activity on listeria monocytogenes to reduce the threat of outbreak in the U.S. Thereby, need of treatment shown by FDA generate an opportunity to develop breakthrough therapies on listeriosis and is expected to stimulate growth of the listeria monocytogenes infection treatment market over the forecast period.In May, 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made public health announcement of avoiding restaurants food. Retailers recalled raw milk cheeses made by Vulto Creamery. Creamerys raw milk cheeses were distributed in over the U.S. in March, 2017. Afterwards outbreaks of listeria infection were observed all over in the U.S. Regulatory officials, the CDC, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated an outbreak of listeria monocytogenes infections caused by Vulto Creamerys raw milk cheeses and strict actions was taken for food safety and prevention, which results in product recall. Thereby, constant outbreak of listeriosis demand for precise treatment, which would help to gain listeria monocytogenes infections treatment market growth.Increasing incidence of listeria monocytogenes infection and initiative action by government in prevention and treatment measurement is expected to fuel the growth of the listeria monocytogenes infections treatment marketAs listeriosis poses a potential threat to an individuals health, in October, 2017, the Ministry of Health and Welfare China with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) China is planning to officially assign listeriosis as a statutory communicable disease, a condition which requires to report local health authorities a confirmed infection within 72 hours. The Ministry of Health and Welfare China intends to trace the origin of unknown food safety accidents with the help of CDC authorities. Thereby, such plan is expected to help in development of better treatment for listeriosis. This in turn is expected to boost the growth of the listeria monocytogenes infections treatment market over the forecast period.To know the latest trends and insights prevalent in Listeria Monocytogenes Infections Treatment Market, click the link below: ttps://According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2017, listeria is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and around 1,600 people suffer from listeria every year. Moreover, as per the CDC, approximately 0.24 new cases per 100,000 were reported in 2015 in the U.S. The U.S. government aims to minimize listeriosis infection to 0.2 cases per 100,000 people by 2020. Furthermore, according to the British Columbias CDC, in 2015, around 14 cases were reported with invasive listeriosis in British Columbia.According to the Public Health England, in 2014, around 180 cases of listeriosis were reported, among which around 87% were non-pregnancy associated and 12.4% were pregnancy associated listeriosis. Therefore, rising incidence of foodborne listeriosis infection and growing demand for reliable treatment is expected to fuel the listeria monocytogenes infections treatment market growth.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com
Nov, 10 2017: Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market Forecast 2023 Abbott Vascular, Ge Healthcare, Cordis

Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment

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Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market Research 2017A market study "Global Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market" examines the performance of the Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market 2017 report includes Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment market Revenue, market Share, Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment industry volume, market Trends, Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market 2017 :Ge HealthcareSiemens HealthcareToshiba CorporationEdwards LifesciencesGore MedicalMedtronicSt. Jude MedicalAbbott VascularBoston ScientificCordis CorporationNumedPediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market : By ApplicationASDVentricular Septal DefectPatent Ductus ArteriosusPediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market : By TypeImaging ProductsPediatric Interventional Cardiology DeviceFirstly, the report covers the top Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment industry, Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment 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 Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment market revenue worldwide.Finally, Pediatric Interventional Cardiology Equipment 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
United States Construction Industry -Key Trends, Top Players, Revenue and Opportunities to 2021

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To understand the US construction Industry Status worldwide, Market Research Hub (MRH) has included the latest Forecast report titled Construction in the US-Key Trends and Opportunities to 2021, to its vast database. This study offers data about the prime regions operating in the US construction 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 Free Sample Report@The US construction industry grew from US$1.0 trillion in 2012 to US$1.2 trillion in 2016, and is expected to reach US$1.4 trillion by 2021, in real terms measured at constant 2010 US dollar exchange rates. Economic recovery, coupled with government investment in infrastructure construction, healthcare, manufacturing, educational facilities and affordable housing is expected to drive forecast-period (20172021) growth.President Trump is focusing on infrastructure development, announcing in August 2017 plans to spend US$1.0 trillion to rebuild the nation's roads, tunnels, bridges, airports and other infrastructure by 2027, whilst also eliminating permitting regulations to speed up the construction of roads, bridges and pipelines projects.According to the US Census Bureau, total construction spending in the country increased by 6.7%, from US$13.3 trillion in 2015 to US$14.2 trillion in 2016. Moreover, it increased by 4.5% during the first eight months of 2017, rising from US$9.4 trillion in JanuaryAugust 2016 to US$9.8 trillion in JanuaryAugust 2017.However, there are risks associated with the outlook for the construction industry in the US over the forecast period. The governments strict immigration policy and high budget deficit are expected to affect construction activity. The Trump government aims to reduce federal deficit from 3.5% of the countrys total GDP in FY2017 to 1.8% by FY2022.The industrys output value in real terms is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.13% over the forecast period, compared to 5.03% during the review period (20122016).SummaryMarket Research HUBs Construction in the US-Key Trends and Opportunities to 2021 report provides detailed market analysis, information and insights into the US construction industry, including:The US construction industry's growth prospects by market, project type and construction activityCritical insight into the impact of industry trends and issues, and the risks and opportunities they present to participants in the US construction industryProfiles of the leading operators in the US construction industryScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the construction industry in the US. It provides:Historical (2012-2016) and forecast (2017-2021) valuations of the construction industry in the US using construction output and value-add methodsSegmentation by sector (commercial, industrial, infrastructure, energy and utilities, institutional and residential) and by sub-sectorBreakdown of values within each project type, by type of activity (new construction, repair and maintenance, refurbishment and demolition) and by type of cost (materials, equipment and services)Detailed profiles of the leading construction companies in the USReasons To BuyIdentify and evaluate market opportunities using Market Research HUB's standardized valuation and forecasting methodologies.Assess market growth potential at a micro-level with over 600 time-series data forecasts.Understand the latest industry and market trends.Formulate and validate strategy using Market Research HUB's critical and actionable insight.Assess business risks, including cost, regulatory and competitive pressures.Evaluate competitive risk and success factors.Request Free Sample Report@Key HighlightsMarket Research HUB expects the residential construction market to grow at a CAGR of 5.40% in nominal terms, driven by rising residential buildings permits in the country. The total residential building permit issued in the country grew by 2.0%, rising from 1.18 million units in 2015 to 1.20 million units in 2016. Moreover, it grew by 5.7% in the first seven months of 2017, rising from 690,000 units in January,July 2016 to 729,000 units in January,July 2017.The government plans to invest US$1.9 trillion to upgrade transport infrastructure of the country by 2025. In addition, in March 2017, the government announced a plan to spend US$1.3 trillion on the construction of transport infrastructure. This is expected to drive the forecast period growth of infrastructure construction market.Market Research HUB expects the energy and utilities construction market output to record a forecast-period CAGR of 3.52% in nominal terms, driven by governments focus on renewable energy infrastructure. The government aims to generate 30.0% of the total countrys electricity need from renewable energy by 2025. Accordingly, it plans to construct 100GW solar power generation plants with an investment of US$130.0 billion.Market Research HUB expects institutional construction market output to record a forecast-period CAGR of 2.74% in nominal terms, driven by the governments investment on healthcare and education. In the 2017 Budget, the government increased its spending on department of education by 2.0%, from US$68.1 billion in 2016 to US$69.4 billion in 2017.The construction industry is exposed to several risks, such as rising labors costs due to Trumps policy to restrict immigrants and the implementation of Buy American, Hire American policy, which may increase construction material cost and affect long-term growth.Enquire 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 Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: - 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email:- press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:-Read Industry News at :-
Construction in Sweden-Key Trends, Top Players, Revenue and Opportunities to 2021

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The market for Swedish construction industry is growing with the expansion of this Industry Sector Worldwide. Market Research Hub (MRH) has added a new report titled Construction in Sweden-Key Trends and Opportunities to 2021 which offer details about the current trends as well as scope for the Swedish construction industry in the near future. This research study also covers information about the production and market share based on different active regions. Furthermore, an anticipated growth at a double-digit CAGR for the concerned sector is highlighted in the report which indicates a prosperous future.Request Free Sample Report@The Swedish construction industry grew by 4.7% in real terms in 2016, following an annual growth of 9.6% in 2015 and 2.8% in 2014. This growth can be attributed to the recovery in global economic conditions and favorable government policies for manufacturing companies. In addition, investments in infrastructure construction, healthcare, manufacturing, educational facilities and housing projects supported the growth during the review period (20122016).The industrys value is expected to continue to grow over the forecast period (20172021), with investments in public infrastructure, energy, commercial and industrial construction projects, and improved consumer and investor confidence. A rise in permits for the construction of residential and non-residential buildings in the country is also expected to support the industrys growth over the forecast period.The government also plans to invest SEK12.9 billion (US$1.5 billion) to develop a fossil fuel free transportation system and construct renewable energy power plants by 2020. Additionally, it plans to invest SEK5.9 billion (US$701.9 million) for the maintenance of railway infrastructure and SEK133.6 billion (US$15.6 billion) to develop regional railway network and tramway by the same year.The industrys output value in real terms is expected to record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.85% over the forecast period-up from 3.22% during the review period.SummaryMarket Research HUBs Construction in Sweden-Key Trends and Opportunities to 2021 report provides detailed market analysis, information and insights into the Swedish construction industry, including:The Swedish construction industry's growth prospects by market, project type and construction activityCritical insight into the impact of industry trends and issues, and the risks and opportunities they present to participants in the Swedish construction industryProfiles of the leading operators in the Swedish construction industryScopeThis report provides a comprehensive analysis of the construction industry in Sweden. It provides:Historical (2012-2016) and forecast (2017-2021) valuations of the construction industry in Sweden using construction output and value-add methodsSegmentation by sector (commercial, industrial, infrastructure, energy and utilities, institutional and residential) and by sub-sectorBreakdown of values within each project type, by type of activity (new construction, repair and maintenance, refurbishment and demolition) and by type of cost (materials, equipment and services)Detailed profiles of the leading construction companies in SwedenReasons To BuyIdentify and evaluate market opportunities using Market Research HUB's standardized valuation and forecasting methodologies.Assess market growth potential at a micro-level with over 600 time-series data forecasts.Understand the latest industry and market trends.Formulate and validate strategy using Market Research HUB's critical and actionable insight.Assess business risks, including cost, regulatory and competitive pressures.Evaluate competitive risk and success factors.Browse Full Report with TOC@Key HighlightsMarket Research HUB expects the residential construction market to remain the largest segment over the forecast period, driven by rising residential building permits and the governments efforts to reduce housing shortage. In addition, urbanization, population growth, affordable housing projects and positive developments in regional economic conditions are expected to support demand for residential properties over the forecast period.The Swedish government plans to invest SEK955.7 billion (US$113.0 billion) to develop Stockholms metro and railway infrastructure by 2030. Under this, the government plans to build Bypass link in Stockholm to connect the northern and southern parts of the country by 2025.Market Research HUB expects the energy and utilities construction market to record a forecast-period CAGR of 6.82% in nominal terms, driven by the government aims to make the country completely fossil free by 2040. The government also plans to increase efficiency of power grids across the country with an aim to reduce wastage of electricity during transmission, which in turn expected to increase investment in transmission power grids construction.To support economic development and growth, the government plans to provide a broadband connection to all citizens under the National Broadband Strategy 2025. Under this, it aims to build infrastructure to provide an internet connection speed of 100Mbps to at least 95% of households by 2020.Market Research HUB expects institutional construction market output to record a forecast-period CAGR of 6.89% in nominal terms, driven by government efforts to build educational and healthcare infrastructure in the country with an aim to provide quality medical and education facilities to every citizen. In the 2017 Budget, the government announced a plan to invest SEK2.4 billion (US$265.9 million) in the education sector in 2017, as well as SEK3.5 billion (US$390.5 million) in 2018, SEK3.97 billion (US$445.5 million) in 2019 and SEK3.99 billion (US$450.3 million) in 2020.Enquire About this Report@About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: - 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email:- press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:-Read Industry News at :-
Global Leadless Pacing System Market is Anticipated to Grow US$ 63.5 Mn by 2025

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According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research titled Leadless Pacing Systems Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) & Forecast (2017  2025), the market is poised to expand at a CAGR of 10.0% in terms of value over the forecast period (20172025). The overall market is anticipated to grow 2.15x in terms of value over the forecast period of 20172025. Certain factors such as rise in the number of eligible patients, increasing reimbursement scenario, rising disposable income, preference for new technology, growing geriatric population, rising number of cardiovascular diseases and increasing number of medical insurers is expected to support market growth over the forecast period. Revenue growth is also supported by several technological benefits of leadless pacing systems over traditional pacemaker systems. The report analyzes the leadless pacing systems market in terms of value (US$ Mn) by application type, end user and region. The report also provides information regarding market dynamics, macro-economic factors, opportunity analysis, pricing analysis, regulations, competitive landscape, regional volume analysis, current trends, market estimation and forecast, technology assessment and major deals in the leadless pacing systems market.Request Sample Report@ sample linkSegmental ForecastThe global leadless pacing systems market is expected to exceed US$ 63.5 Mn by 2025, attesting the highest growth of the atrial fibrillation application segment, which is expected to expand at 10.1% CAGR over the forecast period. Atrial fibrillation segment will dominate the market in terms of value. In the end user segment, hospitals represent more than 85% of the market share.In terms of value, the North America regional market holds the highest share in the global market followed by Europe. This is because of higher demand in these regions, product affordability and a favorable reimbursement scenario. Middle East & Africa represents a significant market share in the global leadless pacing systems market given the historical acceptance in the number of procedures for leadless pacing technology over traditional pacemakers. In terms of growth rate, Europe leads with a CAGR of 11.2% followed by Asia Pacific with an increasing product acceptance. Latin America is anticipated to have the least market size over the forecast period. The global market for leadless pacing systems is anticipated to expand at a significant growth rate over the forecast period providing good growth opportunities for market players.Request to view table of content @Key Research FindingsDemand for leadless pacing systems is anticipated to remain high through 2025, registering a CAGR of 10.0% over the forecast period owing to the rising number of cardiovascular diseases and increasing pacemaker implant rateDue to the technical advantages of leadless pacing systems, this product segment is anticipated to absorb significant market size in the single chamber ventricular pacing systems marketThe higher pricing of leadless pacing systems than normal pacemakers is a major limiting factor in the leadless pacing systems marketThere are only two companies with their products commercially approved by regulatory bodies while some other companies have their products still in the development phase. Medtronic plc. is the only company with FDA approvalAcquisitions, mergers, expansions, product approvals, product launches and adoption of new technologies are the key strategies adopted by manufacturers and integrators for technology transfer and to increase consumer base in different geographiesRead Report @North America is anticipated to remain the largest consumer base for leadless pacing systems owing to a higher acceptance rate and a favorable reimbursement scenarioSeveral opportunities are available for companies to improve their product penetration such as development of dual chamber and multi chamber pacing, providing professional education & training, distribution reach etc.The report profiles some of the leading players operating in the global leadless pacing systems market such as Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic plc. Boston Scientific Corporation and Biotronik are still in the development phase for leadless pacing systems.Buy Leadless Pacing System 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.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:
Technical Films Market size and Key Trends in terms of volume and value 2017 - 2027

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Technical Films Market: IntroductionTechnical films are specialized films they are used in variety of applications such as building constructions, automotive industry, electronics industry, battery production, greenhouse and others. Technical films are used in both flexible and rigid packaging. Technical films are used for the purpose of providing oxygen barrier, UV barrier, vapor barrier and others. Technical films are also used for providing safety for the surfaces of automobile parts or electronic devices etc. These are used as in labels also. They are applicable on any surfaces including metal, plastic, glass etc. Increasing applications of these films is the main factor influencing the growth of the technical films market. Technical films market is very lucrative at present times. Manufacturers of technical films are striving to introduce high end technical films which are more durable and efficient. Investments in research and developments have continuously increased, which is the positive outlook for the technical films market. Traditional packaging manufacturers are started to focus more on this segment, and modifying the product portfolio accordingly.Request For Report Sample:Technical Films: Market DynamicsGlobally technical films market is witnessing a healthy growth due to increased demand for barrier and safety applications in manufacture of medical equipment, semiconductor & electronics and automobiles. Technical films are very much necessary in greenhouse and battery separator applications. Technical films are used extensively in insulation of rigid PVC pipes. In construction these are used to provide vapor and water barrier in lower-ground slabs and also used as glass coatings to provide sunlight protection or modifying the visibility through the glass walls in buildings such as skyscrapers or any tall buildings. In greenhouse technical films act as UV barriers and they transfer controlled sunlight. In battery production they are used as battery separators between anode and cathode, here they actually act as catalysts for electrons movement when charged and discharged. Today packaging manufacturers can design and produce cleanest, toughest, and high cost efficient technical films with highest barrier and safety properties. Today technical films manufacturers can produce films with any technical requirements. But they rarely consider or envision the cost and marketing viability of those products. Non-availability of efficient technology and expert professionals in technical films market is restraining the growth of this market. Technical films come with anti-static properties, which can with stand stable between 20 C to 60 C temperatures. These films have very tensile strength and can be given opaque or clear material properties. These films are very stable and static when they come in contact with chemicals and acids. These properties are driving the global technical films market. Technical films are used in paper mills, production of these kind of films are going for many years and they are constantly developed and improved on changing needs. In paper mill industry these are generally used for primary or secondary packaging of handkerchiefs, toilet papers and diapers and big rolls.Technical Films: Market SegmentationThe global technical films market is segmented on the basis of product type, material and end use industries. On the basis of product type, the global technical films market is segmented into sealant films, label films and carrier films. On the basis of material type, the global technical films market is segmented into PE, PP, PVC, PA and Poly (multi-layer) films. On the basis of end use industries, the global technical films market is segmented into automobile industry, semiconductors & electronics industries, Pharmaceutical equipments industry, greenhouse, building and construction, food and beverages and others.Technical Films Market: Regional outlookTechnical films market has been segmented on the basis of region into North America, Latin America Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Japan. Technical films market in APEJ is fastest growing market. The main drivers contributing to this fact are growing infrastructure development, irrigation, greenhouse and battery production activities in APEJ.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Technical Films Market: Key playersSome of the players in the global technical films market are POLIFILM Group, TERMOPLAST S.r.L., Klockner Pentaplast, ENTEK., Daramic, Asahi Kasai, Celgard LLC, Mitsui Chemical, Nitto Denko, DSM, Tonen, Ube Industrie, Ginegar Plastic Products, Essen Multipack Limited, RPC BPI Agriculture, KLERKS.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global In Mold Coatings Market to Reflect a Significant CAGR 4.9% By 20172025

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Persistence Market Research delivers key insights on the global in-mold coatings market in its latest report titled In-Mold Coatings Market: Global Industry Analysis (20122016) and Forecast (20172025). The long-term outlook on the global in-mold coatings market remains positive, with market value expected to increase at a CAGR of 4.9% during the forecast period (2017  2025). Among the product types, the solvent based segment is expected to expand at a healthy CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period. Global sales of in-mold coatings is estimated to be valued at US$ 187.5 Mn by the end of 2017. Asia Pacific is estimated to account for a value share of 38.4% in the global in-mold coatings market by 2017 end and it is anticipated to retain its dominance throughout the forecast period. In this report, Persistence Market Research throws light on the drivers and restraints likely to impact the market during the forecast period.Request Sample Report@ sample linkMarket DynamicsThe global in-mold coatings market is greatly influenced by many applications such as automotive, building & construction, sanitary products, electronics & appliances, etc. The Automotive segment accounts for a high market share in terms of value and volume as compared to other applications. Moreover, growth in the building & construction segment is expected to influence the in-mold coatings market positively, marking a high growth rate in developed as well as developing countries. This is expected to create strong growth opportunities in the global in-mold coatings market. Establishing long-term supply contracts with end users across specific industry segments can provide stability as well as growth opportunities for manufacturers in terms of revenue generation.However, the global in-mold coatings market is expected to face some challenges. Complete dependency on petrochemical feedstock, recyclability issue of composites and high cost of raw materials are the factors that may impact global demand for in-mold coatings, thus in turn restricting revenue growth of the global in-mold coatings market.Read Report @Segmentation AnalysisOn the basis of product type, the solvent based segment is anticipated to continue to dominate the market in terms of value over the forecast period. The water based segment by product type is estimated to grow at a value CAGR of 5.1% over the forecast period.By resin technology, the polyurethane segment is expected to witness for significant growth owing to significant market value share, incremental $ opportunity and a healthy CAGR. This segment is projected to hold a market value share in excess of 70% throughout the forecast period.In terms of formulation, the one component (1k) segment is expected to remain the most lucrative. The two component (2k) segment is expected to create incremental $ opportunity of US$ 22.6 Mn between 2017 and 2025.On the basis of coating layer, the top coat segment is likely to dominate in terms of market value, projected to hold a value share in excess of 60% throughout the forecast period.By substrate, the SMC segment of thermosetting is expected to register healthy growth between 2017 and 2025 while the physical form segment is expected to gain significant traction among other types.Request to view table of content @Regional Market ProjectionsOn the basis of market value share, Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a healthy CAGR of 5.1% during the forecast period followed by Europe and North America. Europe is expected to hold a market value share of about 30% during the forecast period. North America is expected to represent incremental $ opportunity of US$ 20.2 Mn over the forecast period.Vendor InsightsThe report highlights some of the top companies operating in the global in-mold coatings market such as OMNOVA Solutions Inc, Stahl Holdings B.V., Berlac Group, AkzoNobel NV, The Sherwin Willams Company, Fujichem Sonneborn Ltd, RASCHIG GmbH., Protect Powder Coating Inc, and KECK Chimie. Top market players have been focusing on mergers and acquisitions of small and established players to strengthen their presence in the global in-mold coatings market.Buy In Mold Coatings 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.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:
Dry Powder Inhaler Market Volume Forecast and Value Chain Analysis 2017  2027

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Globally there is an increasingly urgent need for effective treatment options for inhalation. Increasing prevalence of the chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases globally has led to the advent of a large number of inhalation devices. Dry powder inhalers refers to a device which helps in an effective delivery of medication to the lungs in the form of dry powder. The dry powder inhalers are portable and easy to carry which makes them a popular choice amongst respiratory disease patients. Moreover, they are variable in design due to which they fit in a majority of different requirements of the patients. Dry powder inhalers in the healthcare device market are expected to expand at a healthy CAGR attributed to an increasing number of respiratory tract infection and diseases contributed by unhealthy lifestyle globally.Request For Report Sample:Global Dry Powder Inhaler Market: DynamicsAccurate dosing is a prime concern for patients suffering from respiratory diseases. Dry powder inhalers also referred to as metered dose inhalers and they ensure proper dosing. Demographic changes and a rising aging population is leading to an increased demand for devices for inhalation which is anticipated to drive the global dry powder inhalers market. Also, a large number of medicines for diseases today are being designed for inhalation which is further expected to drive the global dry powder inhalers market. One factor restraining the growth of the dry powder inhalers is that they are moisture sensitive which leads to an increased risk of the medicine losing its properties. Also, there is strong competition from other types of inhalation methods such as nebulizers and electric pumps. There are ample opportunities of growth for the global dry powder inhalers market wherein the dry powder inhalers manufacturers are using new techniques such as the computational fluid dynamics to develop a whole new generation of dry powder inhalers.Global Dry Powder Inhaler Market: SegmentationThe global dry powder inhalers market is segmented on the basis of product type, application type, end use, and geography.On the basis of product type, the global dry powder inhaler market is segmented intoSingle dose dry powder inhalerMulti dose dry powder inhalerOn the basis of application, the global dry powder inhalers market is segmented intoAsthmaCOPDCystic FibrosisCardiovascular DiseasesDiabetesOthersOn the basis of end use, the global dry powder inhalers market is segmented intoClinics & HospitalsHome & Personal CareGlobal Dry Powder Inhaler Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of geography, the global dry powder inhalers market is segmented into North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America is expected to lead the global dry powder inhalers market as the region is marked by the presence of countries which are early adopters of the healthcare technology. North America dry powder inhalers market is followed by Europe wherein the market is expected to increase due to a well-established pharmaceutical and medical devices market. The region is also represented by rising healthcare investment. Asia Pacific region is expected to expand at the highest CAGR due to rising disposable income of the population especially in economy such as India. Economies such as India and China are also market by an increasing geriatric population further bolstering the demand of dry powder inhalers in the region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Dry Powder Inhaler Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players operating in the global dry powder inhalers market are Catalent, Inc.,Cipla Inc., Hovione FarmaCiencia SA. GlaxoSmithKline Plc., AstraZeneca Plc., Teicos Pharma Ltd, Bespak Europe Ltd, Presspart Manufacturing Ltd., Luckys Pharma, Beximco Pharma Ltd., and SRS Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Gabon Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2021

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Midstream Oil and Gas, Midstream Oil and Gas Market, Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Market Forecasts for Oil Storage and PipelinesReportsWeb.com published Midstream Oil and Gas 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."Gabon Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2021: Market Forecasts for Oil Storage and Pipelines" is a comprehensive report on midstream oil and gas industry in Gabon. The report provides oil production, consumption and exports from 2000 to 2020. The report also provides natural gas production and consumption from 2000 to 2020. It also provides historic oil and gas reserves for the period 2000 to 2015. Further, the report provides details such as name, type, operational status and operator for all active and planned (new build) oil storage terminals and major trunk pipelines in Gabon till 2021.For more information about this report@Scope- Historic and forecast of oil data related to production, consumption and exports for the period 2000-2020, and reserves for the period 2000-2015- Historic and forecast of natural gas data related to production and consumption for the period 2000-2020, and reserves for the period 2000-2015- Updated information related to all active and planned oil storage terminals and major trunk pipelines in the country, including operator and equity detailsRequest Sample Copy@Reasons to buyReasons to buy- Gain a strong understanding of the country's energy sector and midstream oil and gas industry- Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of production, reserves and capacity data- Assess your competitor's major oil storage terminals and major trunk pipelines in the countryTable of Contents1.1 List of Tables 41.2 List of Figures 52 Introduction 62.1 What is This Report About? 62.2 Market Definition 63 Gabon Energy Sector 83.1 Gabon Energy Sector, Market Overview 83.2 Gabon Energy Sector, Oil 93.2.1 Gabon Oil, Overview 93.2.2 Gabon Oil, Supply and Demand Balance 93.2.3 Gabon Crude Oil, Regulatory Structure 153.3 Gabon Energy Sector, Gas 163.3.1 Gabon Gas, Overview 163.3.2 Gabon Gas, Supply and Demand Balance 163.3.3 Gabon Natural Gas, Regulatory Structure 204 Gabon Oil Storage Industry 214.1 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Key Data 214.2 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Overview 214.3 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Storage Operations 214.3.1 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Total Storage Capacity 214.4 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Company 234.5 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity Share by Area 244.6 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Terminal 244.7 Gabon Oil Storage Industry, Asset Details 25Inquire for Report@ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Download Global Cancer CDK Inhibitors Market and Clinical Pipeline Outlook 2022

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Global Cancer CDK Inhibitors Market and Clinical Pipeline Outlook 2022 report gives comprehensive insight on clinical and non-clinical parameters related to emergence and growth of CDK inhibitors in cancer therapy. As per report findings, CDK inhibitors have emerged as new growth frontier for the organizations involved in the research, development, licensing and commercialization of targeted cancer therapies. There are 2 CDK inhibitors commercially available in the market for the treatment of cancer and more than 45 CDK inhibitors are in various phases of clinical pipeline.Global Cancer CDK Inhibitors Market and Clinical Pipeline Outlook 2022 report highlights:Selectivity and Working Mechanism of a Cancer CDKs InhibitorRecent Advances in the CDKs Related Cancer TherapyGlobal Cancer CDK Inhibitors Clinical Trials Insight: 45 Drugs in PipelineMarket Opportunity Assessment: More Than US$ 20 Billion (2022)Price Analysis of Cancer CDKs Inhibitors:Sales Analysis of Available Drugs: More Than US$ 2 Billion (2017)For Report Sample Contact: neeraj@kuickresearch.comReport Weblink:The Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) Inhibitors have recently emerged as one of the most promising therapeutics in the cancer pharmaceuticals segment. The progress in the scientific and technical knowledge of how the cell cycle works, pathways involved in normal and tumorous cells and the role of cyclin in tumor cell formation (Tumorigenesis) has led to an excellent boost in the research and development of special molecules or inhibitors which can prevent tumorigenic processes in effected cells.Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) Inhibitors are considered as promising and immensely effective targeted therapy of the future as it aims at targeting the tumor cell formation at its root level, before it can progress to affect other healthy cells of the body. In addition, it has opened up multiple opportunities and avenues for the life sciences industry to work upon due to the vast diversity and variations seen in the CDK pathways and their specific role and response in various types of tumors, thus suggesting the need of different types of inhibitors for different cancer therapies.Currently, Pfizers Ibrance is the only successfully market drug that has shown impressive growth in within two years of its introduction into the cancer therapy segment. Ibrance or Palbociclib first received an accelerated approval in February 2015, becoming the first CDKs inhibitor to receive approval for breast cancer therapy. In just two years Ibrance has shown excellent growth with time which is sure to make Ibrance the dominant CDKs inhibitor in the breast cancer therapy segment.The recent advances in the discovery of newer cyclin pathways and their inhibitors have opened up new avenues in the CDKs therapy market. Multiple companies are now currently working on various therapeutics that have shown some kind of novel response in stopping or inhibiting the cell cycle. While it is obvious that Pfizers Ibrance is currently the most effective drug in breast cancer tumor management, it is expected that Eli Lilly and Novartis are currently working on much better therapeutic having higher overall efficacy than the Ibrance.A strong clinical pipeline presents an encouraging scenario regarding the future of a particular therapeutic like the CDK inhibitor. The intense research and development in the CDK inhibitor segment has led to many of these newly discovered compounds showing excellent results in various phase of the clinical trials. While very few CDKs have come out of the clinical pipeline and showed excellent commercial success, many of the inhibitors are anticipated to be a blockbuster drug once they come out of the clinical pipeline.With the advancement in science and further knowledge about the technical know-how of the cyclin dependent kinase and cell cycle, the ability and potential of CDKs inhibitor as cancer therapeutic is bound to improve. Previous success of approved CDKs inhibitors like Ibrance has shown the immense market potential of the CDKs inhibitor market which largely remains untapped, especially in the developing countries which are bound to show an increased demand for effective cancer therapeutic like the CDKs in the future.For Report Sample Contact: neeraj@kuickresearch.comReport Weblink:Table of Contents1. Cyclin Dependent Kinase Inhibitors andndash;An Introduction to a Promising Cancer Therapeutic1.1 History of Discoveries Leading to Cyclin Dependent Kinase Inhibitor Drug1.2 An Insight into Cell Cycle, Cyclin and the Role of CDKs1.3 Cyclin Dependent Kinase Inhibitors for Cancer - An Overview2. Cyclin Dependent Kinase Pathway as Targets for Cancer Therapy2.1 CDK Pathway and Cell Cycle Checkpoints2.2 Role of Cyclin Dependent Kinases in Carcinogenesis2.3 Cyclin Dependent Kinases Associated With Various Cancers3. Selectivity and Working Mechanism of a Cancer CDKs Inhibitor4. Types of CDK Inhibitors4.1 ATP Competitive CDK Inhibitors4.2 ATP Non Competitive Inhibitors4.3 Allosteric Inhibitors5. Recent Advances in the CDKs Related Cancer Therapy5.1 CDK 4/6 in Breast Cancer5.2 Role of CDKs in Hematological Malignancies6. CDK Inhibitors as Combinational Cancer Therapeutic7. Current Market Scenario of Cancer CDKs inhibitors7.1 Commercial Aspects of CDKs Inhibitor7.2 Key Market Players in the Cancer CDKs Inhibitor Market7.3 Global Cancer CDK-Inhibitors Pipeline Overview8. Marketed Cancer CDK Inhibitors Clinical Insight8.1 Palbociclib (Ibrance)8.2 Ribociclib (Kisqali)9. Price Analysis of Cancer CDKs Inhibitors9.1 Commercially Available CDK Inhibitors Price Analysis9.1.1 Cost of Approved Cancer CDKs Inhibitor9.1.2 Average Cost of CDKs Inhibitors Currently Under Research9.2 Comparison of Cancer CDKs inhibitor to other Cancer Drugs and Therapies10. Driving Factors of the Cancer CDKs Inhibitors Market10.1 Accelerated Approval of Previously Introduced CDKs Inhibitor for Breast Cancer- Ibrance10.2 Increasing Prevalence of Cancer10.3 Presence of a Robust Clinical Pipeline10.4 Advancement in Research and Development10.5 High Unmet Medical Needs11. CDK Inhibitors Market Challenges11.1 High Cost Factor Associated with Cancer CDKs Inhibitor11.2 Scientific and Technical Limitations11.3 Side Effects and unreliable Efficacy11.4 Competition from other Cancer Therapeutic Segments11.5 Slow FDA Approvals11.6 Commercial Challenges12. Anticipation Regarding the Future of CDKs Inhibitor Cancer Therapy Market13. Global Cancer CDK Inhibitors Clinical Trials Insight by Company, Indication and Phase13.1 Preclinical13.2 Phase-I13.3 Phase-I/II13.4 Phase-II13.5 Phase-III13.6 Preregistration14. Competitive Landscape14.1 Amgen14.2 Anygen14.3 Astex14.4 Bayer Pharmaceuticals14.5 BioCAD14.6 Cyclacel14.7 Eli andndash; Lilly14.8 G1 Therapeutics14.9 Nerviano Medical Science14.10 Merck14.11 Pfizer14.12 Piramal Life14.13 Syros Pharmaceuticals14.14 Sanofi-AventisKuick Research is a market research and analytics company that provides targeted information for critical decisions at business, product and service levels. We are quick, predictive and known by the recommendations we have made in the past. Our result-oriented research methodology offers understanding of multiple issues in a short period of time and gives us the capability to keep you full with loads of practical ideas. By translating research answers into strategic insight and direction, we not only rate the success potential of your products and/or services, but also help you identify the opportunities for growth in new demographies and find ways to beat competition.Neeraj Chawlaneeraj@kuickresearch.comKuicK ResearchL29 - L34, First FloorBlock L,Connaught PlaceNew Delhi-110001+91-11-47067990
Recent Study and Technology Advancement in Touch Panel Market Forecasts To 2022

Touch Panel Market

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QY Research Groups has released a latest report based on thorough research on Touch Panel market. This in-depth report discusses this industrys market in forms of overview/definition, application, classification, predictions pertaining value and volume, and future predictions. It also prominently attributes the current situation and outlooks with industrial and financial aspect. Furthermore, it comprises of current events, latest market trends, schematic representation of the global companies with their prime developments, mergers & acquisitions, deals and agreements, expansions and investments, etc. Additionally, it talks about the vital prospects such as market restrains, growth drivers, challenges and potential opportunities that may affect the overall Touch Panel market.Request for sample of Touch Panel Market research report @Top Manufacturers -TPKNissha PrintingIlijin DisplayGISO-filmWintekTrulyYoung FastCPTHannsTouch SolutionJundaEach-Opto electronicsChung Hua EELYDue to the constant altering business landscape, enhancements in the technology, the process of communication in several organizations have become intricate. Moreover, nowadays, customers demands have increased and expanded, this in return expects efficient and effective communication inside an organization. Escalated use of social networking websites, increased use of smart phones, and ascending demand for improved enterprise efficiency are the prime growth factors of the Touch Panel market. Enhanced technologies and several Information technology tools better the productivity of the business and escalate functional efficiency. Additionally, many services and solutions are put to use in various industrial verticals which includes banks, insurance (BFSI), public sector, travel & hospitality, healthcare, energy & utilities, education, IT & telecom, transportations and logistics, retail, many other industry sectors such as media and communications.The methodological analysis which is used to approximate and forecast the Touch Panel Market starts with gathering data on vital vendors with the help of secondary research through various trusted sources that include news articles, presentations, journals and paid database. In addition, information which the vendors provide is also taken into consideration to analyze the segmentation of the market.Detailed TOC and Charts & Tables of Touch Panel Market Research Report available @This extensive professional market research report renders an in-depth study of this markets industry along with growth prospects for the forecast period with exclusive focus on the size and characteristics of the market, major market manufacturers, present trends, growth forecasts, competitive landscape for the predicted frame of time coupled with market restrains and prime success. Besides, this exclusive report cloaks the global Touch Panel Market based on applications, regions, competitive landscape and products. The report enlists profiles of several companies of prime market players, market share, financial metrics, business strategies, and forecasts and predictions.The Touch Panel Market report wraps: Industry summary with market definition, key elements such as market restrains, drivers, potential opportunities, challenges, trends in the market, etc. Market sectioning depending on product, application, geographical region, competitive market share Market size, approximates, forecasts for the said frame of time Distribution channel assessment Competitive analysis of crucial market manufacturers, trends, company profiles, strategies, etc. Factors accountable for the growth of the market Thorough assessment of prime market geographically Factual information, insights, market date backed by statistics and industryThe report is worth a buy because:This report on Touch Panel Market assists in analyzing the condition and situation of the market in primary regions of the world. Apart from rendering an overview of product manufacturing processes, the research report also renders impeded strategy of the industry, latest technological developments, cost structures, product specifications, etc. Future predictions based on the development of this industry are also covered. The report also reviews micro and macro factors vital for the new entrants along with the current market players.Check for Discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Touch Panel Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Touch Panel1.2 Touch Panel Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Touch Panel Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Touch Panel Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Capacitive Touch Panels1.2.4 Resistive Touch Panels1.3 Global Touch Panel Segment by Application1.3.1 Touch Panel Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Computer1.3.3 Smartphone1.3.4 Home Appliances1.3.5 Other1.4 Global Touch Panel Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Touch Panel Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 EU Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Touch Panel (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Touch Panel Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Touch Panel Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Touch Panel Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Touch Panel Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Touch Panel Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Touch Panel Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Touch Panel Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Touch Panel Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Touch Panel Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Touch Panel Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Touch Panel Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Touch Panel Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion...About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Email- sales@qyresearchgroups.comWeb-
American Smoking Tobacco Market: 2017-2025

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ReportsWeb.com published Smoking Tobacco 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."Smoking Tobacco in the US, 2017" is an analytical report by Publisher that provides extensive and highly detailed current and future market trends in the American tobacco market. It covers market size and structure along with per capita and overall consumption. Additionally, it focuses on brand data, retail pricing, prospects, and forecasts for sales and consumption until 2025.Smoking tobacco is the smallest sector of the US tobacco market, with just 4.8% of overall volume, yet it has recently been the most buoyant sector in the overall market, mainly growing at the expense of manufactured cigarettes. Two manufacturers have historically dominated the smoking tobacco market. These are Top Tobacco, part of the private Republic Group, and Lane Ltd., which is now owned by Scandinavian Tobacco Group having been divested by Reynolds American in March 2011. Republic took 41% of the market in 2015 while STG Lane took a further 33%.For more information about this report@Key Findings- The branded domestic budget hotel chains are the driving force for the growth of online hotel booking sales in India. According to the Google Travel Trends report, with an online market presence of more than 300 million Indians and just 20% of the total hotel inventory available online, both new and established branded budget hotel chains such as Lemon Tree and Treebo Hotels are looking for the opportunity to bring quality budget hotels to the online platform across the nation. In 2015, brand budget hotel queries' annual growth increased at 179%, compared to the general queries on the budget hotels, which was just 37%. Overall accommodation queries grew at 37% annually. Budget hotel queries accounted for 35% of total accommodation queries- Louver Hotels, the second largest budget hotel in Europe, allied with China's biggest bank card provider Union Pay in 2016 to reach the increasing number of Chinese travelers abroad. Chinese tourists are reluctant to carry cash on French streets due to fears of insecurity. To overcome this, French hotels are accepting the Chinese Union Pay credit cards to boost tourism across the countryRequest Sample Copy@Reason to Buy- Get a detailed understanding of consumption to align your sales and marketing efforts with the latest trends in the market.- Identify the areas of growth and opportunities, which will aid effective marketing planning.- The differing growth rates in regional product sales drive fundamental shifts in the market.- This report provides detailed, authoritative data on these changes - prime intelligence for marketers.- Understand the market dynamics and essential data to benchmark your position and to identify where to compete in the future.Table of Contents1 Global Budget Hotels - Key Trends and Issues2 Global Budget Hotels - Mergers and Acquisitions3 Global Budget Hotel KPIs - the Americas3.1 The Americas - Number of Budget Hotel Establishments (2011?2015)3.2 The Americas - Number of Rooms in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.3 The Americas - Room Occupancy Rates in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.4 The Americas - Room Nights Available in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.5 The Americas - Room Nights Occupied by Hotel Category (2011-2015)3.6 The Americas - Average Room Revenues per Available Room in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.7 The Americas - Average Room Revenues per Occupied Room in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.8 The Americas - Average Total Revenues per Available Room in budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.9 The Americas - Total Room Revenues of Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.1 The Americas - Total Non-Room Revenues of Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.11 The Americas - Total Revenues of Budget Hotels (2011-2015)3.12 The Americas - Numbers of Guests in Budget Hotels (2011-2015)Inquire for Report@ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Face Make-Up in Israel Market 2017  By Analyzing the Performance of Various Competitors 2021

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Face Make-Up (Make-Up) Market in IsraelFace Make-Up (Make-Up) Market in Israel - Outlook to 2021: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics is a broad level market review of Face Make-Up market in Israel.Face Make-Up - includes both female use and make-ups for men. Includes all use of blusher, foundation, face powder and concealers.Face Make-Up market in Israel registered a positive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.15% during the period 2011 to 2016 with a sales value of ILS 233.89 Million in 2016, an increase of 5.31% over 2015. The research handbook provides up-to-date market size data for period 2011-2016 and illustrative forecast to 2021 covering key market aspects like Sales Value and Volume for Face Make-Up and its variants Blusher, Face Powder, Foundation and Other Face Make-Up.Furthermore, the research handbook details out Sales Value for top brands for the year 2013 to 2016, Demographic Analytics and overall market sales by Distribution Channel (Hypermarkets & Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Department Stores, Dollar Stores, Variety Store, Cash & Carries and Warehouse clubs, eRetailers, Food & Drinks specialists, Drug stores & Pharmacies, Health & Beauty Stores, Other general retailers and others) where ever applicable.The research handbook acts as an essential tool for companies active or planning to venture in to Israel's Face Make-Up (Make-Up) market. The comprehensive statistics within the research handbook provides insight into the operating environment of the market and also ensures right business decision making based on historical trends and industry model based forecasting.Sales Values in the handbook are depicted in USD ($) and local currency of country and Volumes are represented in M Kilograms.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- Overall Face Make-Up (Make-Up) market value and volume analytics with growth analysis from 2011 to 2021.- Value terms for the top brands.- Distribution channel sales analytics from 2013-2016.Key points to buy- Get access to authoritative and granular data on the Face Make-Up (Make-Up) market and fill in the gaps in understanding of trends and the components of change behind them.- Enhance your understanding of the market to update your strategic and tactical plans based on volume and value changes, brand dynamics and distribution trends.- Analyze the components of change in the market by looking at historic and future growth patterns.- Use the data to understand future patterns of the market trends from winners and losers to category dynamics and thereby quickly and easily identify the key areas in which you want to compete in the future.Table of Contents1 Face Make-Up Market Overview2 Israel Face Make-Up Market Analytics3 Israel Face Make-Up Market Analytics, by Segment4 Israel Face Make-Up Brand Analytics by Value5 Israel Face Make-Up Distribution Channel Analytics by Value6 Appendix..CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise 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
Advance Battery Technologies Market to Rear Excessive Growth During 2017-2027

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Energy storage is a key factor leading towards technological advancements primarily in energy and power sector. Thus, demand for batteries, which are efficient, low cost and safe is anticipated to record significant growth in the coming years. This is further supported by investments by public as well as private sector for projects on energy storage. Advance battery technologies are majorly used in power-intensive applications. Conventionally, batteries were used in used either in consumer products or automobiles. Technological advancements have led towards development of advance batteries including metal hydride, lithium-ion and zinc-air designs. Advance battery technologies are expected to witness upsurge in wind-power energy storage, utility-load leveling systems and plug-in vehicles. Advance battery technologies are anticipated to have a significant transformation in the transportation industry as well as energy markets globally. In addition, development of combination batteries equipped with renewable sources of energy might lead towards a shift from non-renewable sources such as coal, gas and oil. Thus, leading towards attainment of energy efficiency across the globe. Battery manufacturers are focused towards development of high performance products, which cater to the demand for high energy storage, better speed and energy optimaisation.A sample of this report is available upon request @Advance Battery Technologies Market Segmentation:Advance Battery Technologies market is segmented on the basis of battery type and applications. On the basis of battery type, the segmentation includes nickel-cadmium batteries, lead acid batteries, lithium-ion batteries, lithium-polymer batteries, metal-air batteries, nickel-zinc batteries, silver cadmium secondary batteries, silver-zinc secondary batteries, nickel-hydrogen secondary batteries and others. On the basis of application, the advance battery technologies market segmentation includes automotive, UAV, wearable electronics, hybrid and electric bus, military/aerospace batteries, residential energy storage, industrial electric and others. Military/aerospace industry is expected to witness upsurge in adoption of advance battery technologies in the next five to six years, which is further anticipated to lead towards high competition among players in this sector.Geographically, the advance battery technologies market is segmented into seven regions namely North America, Western Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Advance Battery Technologies Market Dynamics:Demand for better speed, reliability and energy is expected to fuel the demand for advance batteries and thus, growth of advance battery technologies market. In addition, battery manufacturers need to focus on development of batteries catering to the need of specific application. For instance, in case of hybrid vehicles, high-power lithium batteries are used to offer better electricity stability when compared to other conventional batteries. Increasing demand for electric boats, aircrafts, wearable electronic devices and other consumer electronics have led towards development of advance battery technologies for the same. This is further expected to fuel the advance battery technologies market growth in the near future. However, increasing number of manufacturers in the battery technologies is a concern for development of efficient products, which is restricting the advance battery technologies market growth. In order to achieve competitive advantage, key areas for manufacturers to focus and invest in for battery manufacturers comprise battery life, cost, range, power density, charging time and battery thermal management. Moreover, commercialisation of certain advance batteries is at nascent stage, which ultimately restricts adoption of advance battery technologies among end users.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Advance Battery Technologies Market Key players:Some of the players in the battery market include Exide Corp., Hitachi Maxell Corp., Honda Inc., American Battery Charging Inc., Sony Corp., China Bak Battery, Inc., General Electric Co., Fujitsu Ltd and Honeywell Batteries. Players on the advance battery technologies are engaged in continuous research and development in order to offer better and efficient battery solutions across the varied end use applications worldwide.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:
Nuclear Power in Spain Market Outlook to 2030

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Nuclear Power in Spain, Nuclear Power in Spain Market, Nuclear Power in Spain IndustryPublished Nuclear Power in Spainfrom 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."Nuclear Power in Spain, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017-Capacity, Generation, Investment Trends, Regulations and Company Profiles", is the latest report from Publisher, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the nuclear power market in Spain.The report provides in depth analysis on global nuclear power market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Spain (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 Spain 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.For more information about this report@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 Spain 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 Spain 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.Request 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 Spain 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 industry's growth potential.-Identify key partners and business development avenues.-Understand and respond to your competitors' business structure, strategy and prospects.Table of Contents1 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 Thermal Power is the Dominant Source in the Power Mix 62.4 Reduced Reliance on Nuclear Energy 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 20Inquire for Report@ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Energy Efficient Elevators Market: Evolving Technology, Trends and Industry Analysis 2022

Energy Efficient Elevators

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Latest Report Available at Orbis research Energy Efficient Elevators Market provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamics and a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining industry growth.Request sample copy of this report @The Global Energy Efficient Elevators market is valued at USD XX.XX billion in 2016 and is expected to reach a value of USD XX.XX billion by the end of 2022, growing at a projected CAGR of XX.XX% during the forecast period of 2017  2022. Energy efficient elevators are smartly designed on advanced energy saving technology. The energy efficient Elevators can be termed as smart as they provide automated features for energy management. The advanced technology saves energy operating cost and also helps to accomplish values of green infrastructure inside a workplace. Hence, the Energy Efficient Elevators technology is experiencing increasing adoption worldwide.The energy efficient elevators system comprises of technologically advanced digital security controls such as touch screen access controls, biometric access controls and others. Energy efficient elevators work on advanced systems like controllers ,sensors, motors and drivers which help consume less energy and decreases the waiting time of passengers.The major restraints of Energy Efficient Elevators market are lack of information and awareness of the actual electricity consumption of escalator systems, lack of information and awareness of the energy efficient technologies in the market and low state of knowledge on the economic efficiency of the technological measures. Worldwide, fast growing economies and growing construction businesses is further fueling the market growth. Instant rising concerns related to the developments and safety towards the merging of access controls will be the major factors for the growth of energy efficient elevators market. Other drivers include demand for more convenience, energy efficiency, urbanization and enhanced security.Purchase a copy of Energy Efficient Elevators Market @Nowadays, commercial applications contribute to the highest market share worldwide due to high acceptance of office building applications. However, residential applications are estimated to boost the market in future due to rising market for high-rise buildings.Since few years, Asia-Pacific region is experiencing rapid market growth due to rising real estate spending. In future Asia-Pacific region is expected to lead the market.The global energy efficient elevators consists various products such as Keypad and Touch Based Systems elevators, Card based system elevator, biometric based system elevators and others.Global Energy Efficient Elevators market is segmented from products perspectives; the market is segmented into elevator modernization, elevator access control & security and elevator automation. Elevator modernizations products/services are gaining rapid growth and expected to witness higher growth rate. Elevator access control & security products are also receiving traction in the market due to increasing security concerns worldwide. These advancements in the elevator technology will raise the growth of energy efficient elevators market in the coming years.The global energy efficient elevators market key players are Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Evident Technologies, Schindler group, Hyundai elevators co., Ltd., Honeywell International, Digitalpersona, Inc., Linear LLC and others.Browse Complete Report @Key Points Covered in Global Energy Efficient Elevators Market Report: Introduction Executive Summary Market Insights Energy efficient elevators Market Segmentation Honeywell International Energy Efficient Elevators Market by Region Competitive Intelligence Company Profiles Investment Analysis Future of Global Energy Efficient Elevators MarketAbout Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Information:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Global Identity & Access Management Market 2017: Drivers and Restraints Factors Expected to Reach at a CAGR of 13.3% by 2024

Global Identity & Access Management Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024

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Global Identity & Access Management Market 2017 Industry Research Report has been analyzed in detail to assist clients with all the vital data to frame tactical business judgments and propose strategic growth plans. The Identity & Access Management Market report offers a comprehensive insight into the development policies and plans in addition to manufacturing processes and cost structures.The Global Identity & Access Management Market accounted for USD 8.24 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 13.3% 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.Get a Free Sample Report @TOP Competitors of Market: IBM Corporation, Oracle, CA Technologies, Microsoft Corporation, Dell, Micro Focus, Okta, Inc., Hitachi ID Systems, Inc., SailPoint Technologies, Inc., HP Development Company, L.P., Core Security SDI Corporation, Among others.Get a Detail TOC @Major Market Drivers & Restraints: Rise in awareness about compliance management Increase in security concerns among organizations Increasing demand for mobility solutions Lack of knowledge about identity & access management solutions Lack of information security of consumer dataCompany Share Analysis:The report for identity & access management 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.Avail 10% Discount on this Report @Key Questions Answered in Global Identity & Access Management Market Report:-Our Report offers:-What will the market growth rate, Overview and Analysis by Type of Global Identity & Access Management Market in 2024?What are the key factors driving, Analysis by Applications and Countries Global Identity & Access Management Market?What are Dynamics, This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, and price analysis of top Vendors Profiles of Global Identity & Access Management Market?Who are Opportunities, Risk and Driving Force of Global Identity & Access Management Market?Who are the opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in Global Identity & Access Management Market?Business Overview by Type, Applications, Gross Margin and Market ShareWhat are the Global Identity & Access Management Market opportunities, market risk and market overview of the Market?Market Segmentation:On the basis of component:- Provisioning, directory services, single sign-on, advanced authentication, password management, audit, compliance and governance.On the basis of organization size:- small & medium enterprises (SMES), and large enterprises.On the basis of deployment model:- cloud, and on-premises.On the basis of vertical:- BFSI, telecom and IT, retail and CPG, public sector and utilities, energy, education, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, 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.Read more about This Report @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.Follow us on LinkedIn: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 Blog:
Kendallville, IN (46755)

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Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Market  Global Industry Insights, Trends, 2024

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Cancer is the disease in which cell grows abnormally and may cause a tumor. In lung cancer, the cells of lungs starts to grow in uncontrolled manner later form a tumor and can be spread into other body parts. Small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer are the two main types of lung cancer. As per the stats of Lung Cancer Alliance (leading nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting lung cancer), out of overall lung cancer, around 80 to 85% cases found are of non-small cell lung cancer type and 15-20% cases found are of small cell lung cancer type.The different, commonly diagnosed types of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma, large cell neuroendocrine tumors. Out of all these types adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma accounts around 60% of lung cancer.There are no exact reason defined till yet by doctors behind lung cancer but some possible reasons are smoking, air pollution, mineral and metal dust, radiation treatment of chest or breast. The lung cancer symptoms are not noticeable in its early stage because they are considered for other type of illness for example pneumonia or collapsed lung. Some symptoms of lung cancer are chest pain, harsh/raspy sound during breathing, wheezing, weight loss, continuous coughing, hoarseness or voice changes, shortness of breath, lung problems like bronchitis or pneumonia etc. might be the symptoms of lung cancer. Also, if it spreads in other parts of the body then it shows symptoms like bone pain, weakness in arm or leg, yellow skin, yellow eyes, headache and balance problems.Some diagnosis test are performed by doctors to detect the lung cancer includes diagnostic imaging test like X-ray, MRI, Ultrasound, CT scan and PET scan, also by checking the mucous when the patient cough up for cancer cells which is called as sputum cytology or also by taking the cells of your lungs from abnormal growth area of your lung or from the fluid of lungs which is called as fine needle aspiration biopsy, bronchoscopy and Mediastinoscopy.Request For Sample Copy@Non-small cell lung cancer market (NSCLC) taxonomy:Global NSCLC Market by Type of NSCLCAdenocarcinomaSquamous cell carcinomaLarge cell carcinomaLarge cell neuroendocrine tumorsGlobal NSCLC Market by Type of TreatmentSurgeryChemotherapyTargeted therapyRadiation therapyGlobal NSCLC Market by GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeAPACLatin AmericaMiddle EastAfricaIncreasing research and development on drugs and the prevalence of lung cancer are the major factors driving the growth of non-small cell lung cancer marketNon-small cell lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related mortality in U.S. According to the data of American Cancer Society, Inc. (ACSI), NSCLC is the second most common type of cancer found in both men and women. As per the estimation of ACSI, in the year 2017 there will be around 222,500 new cases of lung cancer and 155,870 deaths will happen due to lung cancer in the united states.Therefore, U.S. holds the largest market share of non-small cell lung cancer market followed by Europe as the large number of smokers are present in this region but in last few years the APAC region showed increased number of smokers. According to the stats of International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), China is the worlds largest consumer of tobacco having around 301 million smokers. While in western region the growth in number of smokers. According to the data published by World Health Organization (WHO), for the year 2012 there were around 58% of cases occurred in less developed regions.The increasing prevalence and incident rate of lung cancer and emerging drugs will drive the market towards positive direction, also the increasing awareness about the treatment will support the growth of non-small cell lung cancer market. There are some growth restraining factors are also available that are less awareness about treatment options in emerging countries, availability of generic drugs, lack of research and development about drugs and increased expenditure on advertisements of tobacco products. According to the stats of IASLC, in 2012 tobacco industry spent $ 9.6 billion on tobacco products advertising and promotion which is 40 times greater than NIH research which spent $ 233 million on lung cancer research.Some are the leading companies in non-small cell lung cancer are AstraZeneca Plc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Eli Lilly and Company, Agennix AG, ArQule Inc, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited, Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., Sanofi-Aventis, and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH. Also as per U.S. Food and Drug Administration some latest drug approvals in Market of non-small cell lung cancer by USFDA are on October 24, 2016 pembrolizumab (Merck & Co., Inc.) received approval, also FDA approved atezolizumab for the treatment of NSCLC on October 18, 2016.Get More Details On this Report:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit our news Website:
Global Automotive Air Filter Market Anticipated for Progressive Growth

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An Automotive air filter is a device composed of fibrous materials which evacuate solid particulates, for instance, mould, bacteria, pollen, and dust from the air. Filters that comprise of a catalyst or absorbent, for instance, charcoal (carbon) may in like manner clear foul odors and vaporous pollutions, for instance, volatile organic compounds (VOC) or ozone. Air channels are useful in applications where air quality is fundamental, strikingly in building ventilation structures and also in motors. A couple of structures, and also airplane and other human-made circumstances (e.g., satellites and space transports) use foam, spun pleated paper, or fiberglass filter. Another procedure makes the use of fibers, air ionizers or segments with a static electric charge, which pull in particles of dust. The air admission of inside ignition engines and air compressors have a tendency to use either cotton filters, foam, or paper. Oil bath filters have dropped out of assistance. The development of air admission filters of gas turbines has improved basically in the recent times, due to changes in the fluid dynamics and aerodynamics of the air-compressor part of the gas turbines.Get sample copy of this Report:Key Players In Market: Hollingsworth & Vose Toyota Boshoku Corporation Parker Hannifin Corp Robert Bosch GmbH K&N Engineering MAHLE GmbH Neenah Paper Inc Ahlstrom Corporation Mann & Hummel Hengst GMBH & Co.Drivers and Restraints of the Automotive air filter market:Positive viewpoint towards development in vehicle deals is foreseen to boost the automotive air filters estimate. Passenger cars and two-wheelers are extensively used and have encountered increment in sales since past few years. Growing consciousness about health risks is predicted to build the development and grow automotive air filters market measure. CCC and EPA develop awareness among vehicle proprietors about the health outcomes caused because of auto engine frameworks due of lack of legitimate filtration and ventilation system establishments. This may advance the demand of the product and secure individual health. Rise in discretionary income, increasing demand of tourist transport and developing customer consciousness towards health concerns is foreseen to drive industry development. Developing industry of trade and commerce and transportation of business merchandise through roadways ought to empower industry development. Furthermore, Government regulations and increasing consciousness to maintain the efficiency of engine and cabin has prompted high demand for automotive air filters market.Make Inquiry about Report:Competitive and Regional Outlook:On the basis of product the market is segmented into Intake and cabin. On the basis of application the market is segmented into Two wheelers,Light & heavy commercial vehicles and Passenger cars. On the basis of end user the market is segmented into OEM and aftermarket. The major players in the market are Hollingsworth & Vose,Toyota Boshoku Corporation,Parker Hannifin Corp,Robert Bosch GmbH,K&N Engineering,MAHLE GmbH,Neenah Paper Inc,Ahlstrom Corporation,Mann+Hummel and Hengst GMBH & Co. The industry is segmentedinto top five automotive air filters market players constituting around 45 percent of the market. This industry may encounter mergers & acquisitions taking place resulting in consolidation. In February 2014, Mann+Hummel Group acquired Vokes Air, a Sweden based company producing air filtration system from The Riverside Company which boosts the production capacity of automotive air filters. Geographically, the market is segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world.Table of content:1. Introduction1.1. Report Description1.2. Research Methodology2. Executive Summary2.1. Key Highlights3. Market Overview3.1. Introduction3.2.1. Drivers3.2.2. Restraints3.2.3. Opportunities4. Automotive Air Filters Market, By Product4.1. Introduction4.2. Automotive Air Filters Market Assessment and Forecast, By Product, 2012-20224.3. Cabin Air Filters4.4. Intake Air Filters5. Automotive Air Filters Market, By Application5.1. Introduction5.2. Automotive Air Filters Market Assessment and Forecast, By Application, 2012-20225.3. Light & Heavy Commercial Vehicles5.4. Passenger Cars5.5. Two Wheelers6. Automotive Air Filters Market, By End User7. Automotive Air Filters Market, By Region8. Company ProfilesBuy Report:About Crystal Market Research:Crystal Market Research is a U.S. based market research and business intelligence company. Crystal offers one stop solution for market research, business intelligence, and consulting services to help clients make more informed decisions. It provides both syndicated as well as customized research studies for its customers spread across the globe. The company offers market intelligence reports across a broad range of industries including healthcare, chemicals & materials, technology, automotive, and energy.Contact Us:Judy304 South Jones Blvd, Suite 1896,Las Vegas NV 89107,United StatesToll Free: +1-888-213-4282Email: sales@crystalmarketresearch.comBlog: blog.crystalmarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Digital Security Market 2017-2022: 3M, Fireeye Inc, HID Global, Oberthur Technologies, Vasco Data Security International

Digital Security 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 Digital Security market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, industry executives and other key people get 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 Morpho Inc, NEC Corporation, Gemalto NV, 3M, Fireeye Inc, HID Global, Oberthur Technologies, Vasco Data Security International, SafeNet & RSA Security LLC.Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Digital Security market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia], by product /end user type [Hardware, Software & Services], by applications [BFSI, Mobile Security and Telecommunication, National Defense and Security & Other] in overall market. The in-depth information by segments of Digital Security 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 Digital Security Market.This study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of Global Digital Security Market, some of them are Morpho Inc, NEC Corporation, Gemalto NV, 3M, Fireeye Inc, HID Global, Oberthur Technologies, Vasco Data Security International, SafeNet & RSA Security LLC. 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.Global Digital Security (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Hardware, Software & ServicesMarket Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022Hardware xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Software xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Services xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%The research study is segmented by Application such as BFSI, Mobile Security and Telecommunication, National Defense and Security & Other with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Digital Security (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)BFSI xx xx xx xx% xx%Mobile Security and Telecommunication xx xx xx xx% xx%National Defense and Security 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 Digital Security in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2017 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2017-2022)United States xx xx xx xx% xx%EU xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Digital Security Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Digital Security marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in Global Digital Security market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Digital Security market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Digital Security market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Digital Security market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Digital Security , Applications of Digital Security , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Digital Security , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Digital Security Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Digital Security Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Digital Security ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Hardware, Software & Services], Market Trend by Application [BFSI, Mobile Security and Telecommunication, National Defense and Security & Other];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Digital Security ;Chapter 12, to describe Digital Security Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Digital Security 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.Connect with us atHTF 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
Paints and Coatings | Quantitative Market Analysis, Current and Future Trends

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The global paints and coatings market is expected to increase from $128,228.5 million in 2014, and reach up to $173,048.2 million by 2020, with a CAGR of 5.2% during 2015-2020. In terms of volume, the global paints and coatings market is expected to increase from 37,273.7 million kilograms in 2014, to 46,697.4 million kilograms, by 2020.The global paints and coatings market is mainly driven by advancements in the end user industries of paints and coatings. Car ownership ratio is high in developed countries, as most of the consumers use personal transportation for travelling. It has been observed that in Eastern Europe and Arab countries, there is a considerable growth in the passenger car ownership. In Europe, Germany has the highest number of commercial vehicles, and is also a logistics hub of Europe. The increasing inclination of individuals towards personal conveyance, advancements in the road infrastructure, and improving economy are some of the major factors, driving the growth of the automotive industry.Request For Sample Pages:Asia-Pacific led the global paints and coatings market in 2014, in terms of value and volume, and is expected to maintain its dominance during the forecast period. The Asia-Pacific paints and coatings market is expected to grow with the fastest CAGR, 6.4% in terms of value and 5.2% in terms of volume, within the forecast period. The Asia-Pacific paints and coatings market dominance is due to increasing infrastructural development in the region. The infrastructure development in the Asia-Pacific region is due to the availability of debt, and Asias increasing trade relations with other regions and private sector involvement, such as Build Own and Operate (BOO), Build Operate-Transfer (BOT), Build Operate and Lease (BOL), and Public Private Partnership (PPP). This will support the growth of the paints and coatings market in the region.The information and data in the publication Global Paints and Coatings Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2020 represent the research and analysis of data from various primary and secondary sources. P&S Market Research analysts and consultants interact with leading companies of the concerned domain to substantiate every value of data, presented in this report. The company bases its primary research on discussions with prominent professionals and analysts in the industry, followed by informed and detailed online and offline research.Explore Full Report With TOC:The industrial paints and coatings market is expected to grow fastest, with a CAGR of 4.3% in terms of volume and 5.6% in terms of value, among the products of paints and coatings. The green coatings category in the paints and coatings industry is becoming essential within the consumers, due to increasing concerns about global warming and growing awareness about environment friendly coatings. The low volatile organic compounds are present in green coatings, to preserve low vapor pressure inside the room. Also, the companies use Green as a marketing scheme, to appeal the consumers with a green certification label. The increasing demand for low volatile organic compounds paints is providing ample growth opportunities for the paints and coatings market.The major companies operating in the global paints and coatings market include PPG Industries Inc., The Sherwin-Williams Company, RPM International Inc., The Valspar Corporation, Akzo Nobel N.V., Kansai Paint Co. Ltd., Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, BASF SE, and Asian Paints Limited.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Electrical Services Market 2017: (Alliance Electrical Services, Housejoy, Texas Electrical Services) Analysis, Share, Growth, Trends & Forecast to 2022

Electrical 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 Electrical Services market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, industry executives and other key people get 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 Alliance Electrical Services, Housejoy, Texas Electrical Services, Able Electrical Services, Wyer Electrical Services, SSI Electrical Services, District Electrical Services, Mister Sparky, CIBSE, LKT Electrical Services, Greenway Electrical Services, Aspull Electrical Services & ITI Electrical Services.Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Electrical Services market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia], by product /end user type [], by applications [Domestic & Commercial] in overall market. The in-depth information by segments of Electrical 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 Electrical Services Market.This study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of Global Electrical Services Market, some of them are Alliance Electrical Services, Housejoy, Texas Electrical Services, Able Electrical Services, Wyer Electrical Services, SSI Electrical Services, District Electrical Services, Mister Sparky, CIBSE, LKT Electrical Services, Greenway Electrical Services, Aspull Electrical Services & ITI Electrical Services. 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.Global Electrical Services (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such asThe research study is segmented by Application such as Domestic & Commercial with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Electrical Services (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)Domestic xx xx xx xx% xx%Commercial 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 Electrical Services in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2017 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2017-2022)United States xx xx xx xx% xx%EU xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Electrical Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Electrical Services marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in Global Electrical Services market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Electrical Services market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Electrical Services market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Electrical Services market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Electrical Services , Applications of Electrical Services , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Electrical Services , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Electrical Services Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Electrical Services Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Electrical Services ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [], Market Trend by Application [Domestic & Commercial];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Electrical Services ;Chapter 12, to describe Electrical Services Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Electrical 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.Connect with us atHTF 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
Medical Panel PC Market Subdivision, Technology, New Innovations, Future Guidelines, Key Players, Trends and Forecast 2022

Medical Panel PC

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The Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Report conducts an analytical evaluation of the latest industry trends and business statistic to help the Medical Panel PC market aspirants in making key business decisions. All the vital aspects of Medical Panel PC like the current developments, growth opportunities, Medical Panel PC industry chain structure, applications are covered in this report. Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC report also conducts the regional analysis of Medical Panel PC market based on market size, manufacturing cost, key market players and their Medical Panel PC market revenue. This report conducts a complete Medical Panel PC market review covering the main regions like North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle-East, and Africa.Request for sample of Medical Panel PC Market research report @The report on Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Medical Panel PC industry a propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Medical Panel PC Market on a regional as well as Asia-Pacific level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Medical Panel PC Market.Detailed TOC and Charts & Tables of Medical Panel PC Market Research Report available @The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Medical Panel PC industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Medical Panel PC industry in the Asia-Pacific markets.Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.Manufacturers Analysis - Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors N.V, Qorvo Inc, Broadcom Limited, Toshiba Corporation, Qualcomm Inc, Mitsubishi Electric CorporationMany otherCheck for Discount @Table of ContentsAsia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Report 20171 Medical Panel PC Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Medical Panel PC1.2 Classification of Medical Panel PC by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 < 15 Inch1.2.4 15-17 Inch1.2.5 17-21 Inch1.2.6 21-24 Inch1.2.7 Others1.3 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Clinics1.3.4 Others1.4 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Medical Panel PC (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Panel PC Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)Enquiry before Buying @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Jia Wang, Room B1510, ShijiKemao Building, No.66,Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing, 100190,China
future maket insights

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Valuable insights on the global scenario of microscope digital cameras have been presented systematically in a recently carried out research on microscope digital cameras market by Future market Insights in its new publication titled Microscope Digital Cameras: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2027). This research focusses on key players, trends, growth drivers, opportunities, developments and restraints across several key geographies of North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Latin America, Japan and Middle East and Africa (MEA). On the basis of a structured research process and taking into consideration the past and present scenario, forecasts are provided in the research report from the period 2017 to 2027, a ten year forecast model, across each and every segment of the market.Global Microscope Digital Cameras Market: Forecast HighlightsAccording to the insightful market survey on microscope digital cameras, the global microscope digital cameras market is anticipated to grow at a high pace to register a robust 9.2% CAGR during the assessment period. During the 2017-2027 period, the global market is estimated to reach a market evaluation of about US$ 1.2 Bn by the end of 2027.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Global Microscope Digital Cameras Market: Segmental InsightsGlobal microscope digital cameras market is segmented by product type (biological microscope cameras, industrial microscope cameras), by sensor type (CMOS, CCD), by mount type (C mount, eyepiece mount/ocular mount), by end user (hospitals, research laboratories, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, clinics) and by region.North America region shows high lucrativeness and is expected to dominate the global microscope digital cameras market during the forecast period with respect to high market valuation. This region is estimated to grow at a stellar growth rate to reach a valuation of about US$ 353.3 Mn by 2027 end. Japan region is expected to grow at the highest rate, a shade higher than North America to register a 10.3% CAGR throughout the forecast periodBiological microscope cameras segment by product type, is projected to register a higher CAGR of 9.3% during the forecast period and is more likely to lead the global market by product type in terms of high market valueBy mount type, C mount segment shows high potential as it grows at a comparatively high rate to reach a 9.4% CAGR and is likely to show dominance over eyepiece mount/ ocular mount segment. The C mount segment shows a market value almost seven times that of the eyepiece mount/ ocular mount segmentThe CCD segment by sensor type is expected to lead the market with a high value share. The CMOS segment shows high growth rate to register a stellar CAGR of 11.3% throughout the assessment periodBy end user, research laboratories (clinical and non-clinical) segment dominates the global market with a valuation of about US$ 645.7 Mn in 2027, growing at a robust growth rate. With respect to growth rate, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries segment is projected to register the highest CAGR of 9.7% during the period of forecast 2017-2027Request for Table of Contents @Global Microscope Digital Cameras Market: DynamicsVarious factors favour the growth of the global microscope digital cameras market and the impact of these factors changes from region to region. Diverse application of microscope imaging technology, rising preference for CMOS and CCD, increasing penetration of international players through mergers, growing partnerships for direct distribution, higher spending on academic research along with focus on digital pathology, emergence of digitalization in the life science research, rising demand for microscopy cameras in scientific applications, new product innovations and launches, advancements in microscope digital cameras and rising laboratory automation are supporting the growth of the global microscope digital cameras market. However, factors such as premium pricing limiting market penetration ability, limited manufacturing facilities for microscope cameras, high equipment cost and entry barriers for small players to enter the consolidated market are posing growth restraints to the growth of the global microscope digital cameras market.Global Microscope Digital Cameras Market: Competition AnalysisThe global microscope digital cameras market has profiled key players such as Danaher Corporation, Nikon Corporation, Roper Technologies, Inc., Carl Zeiss AG, Olympus Corporation, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K, Basler AG, Guangzhou Micro-shot Technology Co., Ltd., BMS microscopes bv., and Euromex Microscopen bv.Buy Microscope Digital Cameras Market Research Report @ABOUT USFuture 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.CONTACTFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Specialty Chemicals Market Estimated to Grow Strongly by 2022

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The global specialty chemicals market was valued at $828.9 billion in 2015, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5% during 2016 - 2022. The factors driving the growth of the global market include large base of end-use industries, high demand from Asia-Pacific, increasing demand from automotive industry, and technological advancements in the global specialty chemicals market. The growth of the global specialty chemicals market is largely driven by high demand for specialty chemicals agriculture and construction industries. The growing construction activities in Asia-Pacific and development of environment friendly products offer ample revenue generation opportunities to the manufacturers of specialty chemicals.Request For Sample Pages:Among the various types of specialty chemicals, the agrochemicals segment held the largest share (15.9%) with the market size of $131.4 billion in 2015 in the global specialty chemicals market. The construction chemicals segment is anticipated to witness the highest growth at a CAGR of 6.8% during the forecast period. The construction chemicals segment in the global specialty chemicals market was valued at $79.3 billion in 2015, and it is anticipated to reach $125.6 billion by 2022. The high growth in the construction chemicals segment is attributed to the increasing construction activities in Asia-Pacific, and increasing focus on buildings renovation in developed economies and government initiatives for green buildings.In 2015, Asia-Pacific held the largest share (39.7%) in the global specialty chemicals market with a market size of $340.4 billion. The specialty chemicals market in the region is anticipated to witness the highest growth at a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period. The major reasons behind the growth of the specialty chemicals market in the region include increasing infrastructure investment, and high demand in major end markets, such as construction, automotive, agriculture, packaging, textiles, and personal care.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:The information and data in the publication Global Specialty Chemicals Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast to 2022, represents the research and analysis of data from various primary and secondary sources. An amalgamation of bottom-up and top-down has been used to calculate the market size. P&S Market Research analysts and consultants interacted with leading companies of the concerned domain to substantiate every value of data presented in the report. The company bases its primary research on discussions with prominent professionals and analysts in the industry, which is followed by informed and detailed, online and offline research.Some of the major players operating in the global specialty chemicals market include Albemarle Corporation, Akzo Nobel N.V., Ashland, BASF SE, Clariant AG, Evonik Industries, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Eastman Chemical Company, Huntsman Corporation, INEOS Group, and The Dow Chemical Company.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Animal Health Services Worldwide Market 2017-22: Vetoquinol, Elanco Products, Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh

Animal Health Services

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HTF MI published a new industry research that focuses on Animal Health Services market and delivers in-depth market analysis and future prospects of Global Animal Health Services market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, analysts, industry experts and other key people get 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 [Production Animals & Companion Animals], products type [Feed Additives, Pharmaceuticals & Vaccines] and various important geographies like United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia].Get Access to sample pages @The research covers the current market size of the Global Animal Health Services market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data along with company profile of key players/manufacturers such as Vetoquinol, Elanco Products Company, Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh, Ceva Sante Animale, Virbac SA, Novartis Animal Health Inc., Bayer AG, Merial Ltd. & Merck & Co. Inc.. The in-depth information by segments of Animal Health Services 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 Animal Health Services Market.The study provides company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of key manufacturers of Global Animal Health Services Market, some of them listed here are Vetoquinol, Elanco Products Company, Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh, Ceva Sante Animale, Virbac SA, Novartis Animal Health Inc., Bayer AG, Merial Ltd. & Merck & Co. Inc.. 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 Animal Health Services (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Feed Additives, Pharmaceuticals & Vaccines. Further the research study is segmented by Application such as Production Animals & Companion Animals 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 Animal Health Services in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia and its Share (%) and CAGR for the forecasted period 2017 to 2022.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Animal Health Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Animal Health Services marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in Global Animal Health Services market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Animal Health Services market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Animal Health Services market?Buy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Animal Health Services market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Animal Health Services , Applications of Animal Health Services , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Animal Health Services , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Animal Health Services Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Animal Health Services Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Animal Health Services ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Feed Additives, Pharmaceuticals & Vaccines], Market Trend by Application [Production Animals & Companion Animals];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Animal Health Services ;Chapter 12, to describe Animal Health Services Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Animal Health 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.Connect with us atHTF 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
Nano Biosensors Market Expected To Observer Major Growth By 2022

Nano Biosensors Market

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The Asia-Pacific Nano Biosensors Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Nano Biosensors Industry on a Asia-Pacific level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.Request for sample of Nano Biosensors Market research report @The report on Asia-Pacific Nano Biosensors Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Nano Biosensors industry a propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Nano Biosensors Market on a regional as well as Asia-Pacific level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Nano Biosensors Market.Geographically, this report split Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Nano Biosensors for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), including:China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Southeast Asia, AustraliaAsia-Pacific Nano Biosensors market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Nano Biosensors sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players including:Analog Devices, Robert Bosch, Denso, Omron, Roche Nimblegen, Freescale, STMicorelectronics, Sensonor, ToshibaOn the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume (K Units), revenue (Million USD), product price (USD/Unit), market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into:Electrochemical Nano Biosensors, Calorimetric Nano Biosensors, Optical Nano Biosensors, Acoustic, Nano BiosensorsOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Nano Biosensors for each application, including:Consumer ElectronicsPower GenerationAutomotivePetrochemicalHealthcareIndustrialOtherDetailed TOC and Charts & Tables of Nano Biosensors Market Research Report available @The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Nano Biosensors industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Nano Biosensors industry in the Asia-Pacific markets.Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the Asia-Pacific Nano Biosensors Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.Check for Discount @Table of Contents10 Asia-Pacific Nano Biosensors Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data10.1 Analog Devices10.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.1.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.1.2.1 Product A10.1.2.2 Product B10.1.3 Analog Devices Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.2 Robert Bosch10.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.2.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.2.2.1 Product A10.2.2.2 Product B10.2.3 Robert Bosch Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.3 Denso10.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.3.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.3.2.1 Product A10.3.2.2 Product B10.3.3 Denso Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.4 Omron10.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.4.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.4.2.1 Product A10.4.2.2 Product B10.4.3 Omron Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.5 Roche Nimblegen10.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.5.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.5.2.1 Product A10.5.2.2 Product B10.5.3 Roche Nimblegen Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.6 Freescale10.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.6.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.6.2.1 Product A10.6.2.2 Product B10.6.3 Freescale Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.7 STMicorelectronics10.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.7.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.7.2.1 Product A10.7.2.2 Product B10.7.3 STMicorelectronics Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.8 Sensonor10.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.8.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.8.2.1 Product A10.8.2.2 Product B10.8.3 Sensonor Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview10.9 Toshiba10.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors10.9.2 Nano Biosensors Product Category, Application and Specification10.9.2.1 Product A10.9.2.2 Product B10.9.3 Toshiba Nano Biosensors Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)10.9.4 Main Business/Business OverviewEnquiry before Buying @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Jia Wang, Room B1510, ShijiKemao Building, No.66,Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing, 100190,China
Human Identification Market to See Incredible Growth During 2017 - 2022

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The global market for human identification has been projected to register a CAGR of 6% throughout the forecast period 2017 to 2022, according to Future Market Insights (FMI) recently published report. The global human identification market is estimated to account for more than US$ 1,000 Mn revenues by 2022-end.Use of Skin Microbiome for Human Identification  A Major TrendOne of the major trends observed in the global human identification market is use of skin microbiome. Although this process is excessively time consuming, extending to approximately 3 years, it is anticipated to offer a preliminary market panel, creating opportunity for future development of a reproducible & robust technique for human identification. New product developments, and increasing M&A activities are other key trends being witnessed in the market. A key challenge for market players is price erosion in genomics services as well as instruments. Several molecular detection procedures for human identification are yet in their validation stage. However, few of them are available in the market, and are being implemented in several laboratories worldwide.Request to View Sample of Research Report @The global human identification market has been experiencing a continuous launch of new & advanced products over the recent past. In addition, rapid DNA analysis has gained immense traction in improving the process of human identification. Leading companies in the human identification market are shifting their focus towards minimisation of cost & time required for DNA analysis. Several governments around the world are offering funds for R&D activities related to human identification technologies.Forensic Investigation to Remain Dominant Modality of Human IdentificationOn the basis of modality, forensic investigation will retain its dominance in the global human identification market, with revenues estimated to surpass US$ 450 Mn by 2022-end. Paternity testing will also remain a lucrative modality of human identification, and will account for nearly one-fourth share of the market throughout the forecast period. In contrast, anthropology is expected to be the least lucrative modality of human identification.Based on end-users, research institutes will witness the fastest expansion in the global human identification market through 2022. Contract research organisations, on the other hand, will witness a relatively slower expansion than other end-users in the market through 2022. In addition, forensic laboratories and hospitals are projected to account for the largest revenue shares of the market during the forecast period.Request for Table of Contents @Increased Government Spending on Forensic Science to Drive the Market Growth in North AmericaCurrently, North America dominates the global market for human identification, and the trend is anticipated to continue over the forecast period. Growth of the market in North America can be highly attributed to increased government spending on forensic science, coupled with robust expansion of DNA database in the U.S. North America will witness the fastest expansion in the global human identification market through 2022. Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) will also register a significant CAGR in the market. This is mainly because of various government initiatives for increasing awareness about forensic technologies and their implementation in DNA analysis. China and India are expected to be the fastest growing markets for human identification in APEJ.By technique, dominance of polymerase chain reaction in the global human identification market is expected to remain unchallenged over the forecast period, followed by capillary electrophoresis. Next generation sequencing technique will register an impressive expansion through 2022, as it has the potential of being the ultimate platform of genotyping for human identification. In addition, rapid DNA analysis will continue to register the highest CAGR in the market through 2022.Company ProfilesKey players identified by FMIs report on the global human identification market include Promega Corporation, New England Biolabs Inc., LGC Limited, Roche Holding AG, IntegenX Inc., Flinn Scientific, Inc., QIAGEN N.V., Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., Merck & Co. Inc., General Electric Company, and Thermo Fischer Scientific, Inc.Buy Human Identification Market Research Report @ABOUT USFuture 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.CONTACTFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Oil & Gas Global Group of Eight (G8) Industry Guide 2017

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ReportsWeb.com published Oil & Gas 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.The G8 Oil & Gas industry profile provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including: market size (value and volume 2012-16, and forecast to 2021). The profile also contains descriptions of the leading players including key financial metrics and analysis of competitive pressures within the market.Essential resource for top-line data and analysis covering the G8 oil & gas market. Includes market size and segmentation data, textual and graphical analysis of market growth trends and leading companies.- The G8 countries contributed $684.1 billion in 2016 to the global oil & gas industry, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of -17.5% between 2012 and 2016. The G8 countries are expected to reach a value of $1,244.1 billion in 2021, with a CAGR of 12.7% over the 2016-21 period.Request Sample Copy at- Among the G8 nations, the US is the leading country in the oil & gas industry, with market revenues of $346.6 billion in 2016. This was followed by Russia and Japan, with a value of $98.2 and $61.0 billion, respectively.- The US is expected to lead the oil & gas industry in the G8 nations with a value of $674.8 billion in 2016, followed by Russia and Japan with expected values of $148.8 and $98.5 billion, respectively.Scope- Save time carrying out entry-level research by identifying the size, growth, major segments, and leading players in the G8 oil & gas market- Use the Five Forces analysis to determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of the G8 oil & gas market- Leading company profiles reveal details of key oil & gas market players' G8 operations and financial performance- Add weight to presentations and pitches by understanding the future growth prospects of the G8 oil & gas market with five year forecasts by both value and volume- Compares data from the US, Canada, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia and Japan, alongside individual chapters on each countryInquire for Report atReasons to buy- What was the size of the G8 oil & gas market by value in 2016?- What will be the size of the G8 oil & gas market in 2021?- What factors are affecting the strength of competition in the G8 oil & gas market?- How has the market performed over the last five years?- What are the main segments that make up the G8 oil & gas market?For more information about 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 Bauxite Mining and our customer support Bauxite Mining is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Synthetic Leather Market - Application, Competitive Analysis, Trends and Forecast 2023

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Owing to the lower costs associated with synthetic leather and rising applications in clothing, footwear, furnishing and automotive industries, the global synthetic leather market is estimated to grow at a significant level during the forecast period (2017-2023). The increasing demand-supply gap and high cost of genuine leather has led to the widespread adoption of synthetic leather. Synthetic leather, also known as faux leather, is a man-made polymeric material produced from PVC or PU. It is treated and dyed for making shoes, clothing, head gear and others.The global market for synthetic leather has been segmented in terms of type, end-use industry, and region. By type, synthetic market has been categorized into PU-based, PVC- based and bio-based. Polyurethane (PU) leather is waterproof, dry-cleanable, soft, supple and lighter than the actual leather. PU is made from soft polymers and without the addition of plasticizers.To Browse Full Report Visit Here:PU tears off easily but it is resistant to fading and cracking under sun, and hence, are used to create spandex and to add buoyancy to competitive swimsuits. PU are comparatively more environment-friendly than PVC-based synthetic leather market. The demand for these types of synthetic leather are widely increasing in the Europe and North America regions. Additionally, the growing automotive and fashion industry in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to further spur the demand for global synthetic leather market during the forecast period.On the basis of end-use industry, the global synthetic leather market is classified as footwear, furnishing, automotive, clothing, bags, purses and wallets. The market is led by the footwear industry due to the growing disposable incomes and rapid change in the human lifestyle. On the basis of region, the global synthetic leather market is categorized into North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America. Asia-Pacific is expected to lead the global synthetic leather market, in terms of value, followed by Europe. The growth in the Asia-Pacific region is attributed by the rapid growth in clothing, automotive and construction industry.Request For Sample Pages:The major restraint to the growth of global synthetic leather market is the stringent regulations set by the government against the usage of toxic chemicals including PU and PVC that poses health and environmental concerns. This would in turn, result in countries focusing on bio-based routes to shift towards the production of synthetic leather across the globe.The major companies in this market are KURARAY Co. Ltd., SAN FANG CHEMICAL INDUSTRY CO., LTD., Teijin Limited., Mayur Uniquoters Limited, NAN YA Plastics Industrial Co. Ltd., FILWEL CO., LTD, Zhejiang Hexin Industry Group, Alfatex, H.R. Polycoats Pvt. Ltd., and Yantai Wanhua Synthetic Leather Group Co. Ltd.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems Market Trends 2017

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems-Medical Devices Pipeline,Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems use in The MRI System, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems Market, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems Industry.ReportsWeb.com published Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems  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 Medical Devices sector report, "Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems-Medical Devices Pipeline Assessment, 2017" provides an overview of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems currently in pipeline stage.The report provides comprehensive information on the pipeline products with comparative analysis of the products at various stages of development. The report reviews major players involved in the pipeline product development. It also provides information about clinical trials in progress, which includes trial phase, trial status, trial start and end dates, and, the number of trials for the key Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems pipeline products.For more information about this report@Scope-Extensive coverage of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems under development-The report reviews details of major pipeline products which includes, product description, licensing and collaboration details and other developmental activities-The report reviews the major players involved in the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems and list all their pipeline projects-The coverage of pipeline products based on various stages of development ranging from Early Development to Approved / Issued stage-The report provides key clinical trial data of ongoing trials specific to pipeline products-Recent developments in the segment / industryRequest Sample Copy at@Reasons to buy-Assists in formulating key business strategies with regards to investment-Helps in identifying prominent locations for conducting clinical trials which saves time and cost-Provides top level analysis of Global Clinical Trials Market which helps in identifying key business opportunities-Supports understanding of trials count and enrollment trends by country in global therapeutics market-Aids in interpreting the success rates of clinical trials by providing a comparative scenario of completed and uncompleted (terminated, suspended or withdrawn) trials-Facilitates clinical trial assessment of the indication on a global, regional and country levelCompanies Mentioned:Advanced MRI TechnologiesALA Scientific Instruments IncAspect Imaging IncBoston Children's HospitalBrigham and Women's HospitalButterfly Network, Inc.C4 Imaging, LLCCincinnati Children's Hospital Medical CenterClear Cut Medical Ltd.Diagnosoft Inc.Duke UniversityElekta ABGE Global ResearchGE Healthcare LLCGeorgetown UniversityHarvard UniversityInquire for Report at@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:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Defense Robotic Technologies Market Growth, Size, Trends and Regional Forecast from 2017 to 2022

Defense Robotic Technologies

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The Global Defense Robotic Technologies Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Defense Robotic Technologies Industry on a Global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.Request for sample of Defense Robotic Technologies Market research report @The report on Global Defense Robotic Technologies Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Defense Robotic Technologies industry a propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Defense Robotic Technologies Market on a regional as well as Global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment. Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Defense Robotic Technologies Market.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering:Clearpath Robotics Inc.Lockheed Marin CorporationElbit System Ltd.Thales GroupBAE Systems Plc.Boston DynamicsKongsberg GruppenSaab ABNorthrup Grumman CorporationAeroVironmentBoeing CompanyOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into:AutonomousHuman OperatedBy Application, the market can be split into:FirefightingSearch and RescueTransportationMine ClearanceIntelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)Combat Support, EODOthersBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want):North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaDetailed TOC and Charts & Tables of Defense Robotic Technologies Market Research Report available @The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Defense Robotic Technologies industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Defense Robotic Technologies industry in the Global markets.Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the Global Defense Robotic Technologies Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.Check for Discount @Table of ContentsGlobal Defense Robotic Technologies Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Defense Robotic Technologies1.1 Definition and Specifications of Defense Robotic Technologies1.1.1 Definition of Defense Robotic Technologies1.1.2 Specifications of Defense Robotic Technologies1.2 Classification of Defense Robotic Technologies1.2.1 Autonomous1.2.2 Human Operated1.3 Applications of Defense Robotic Technologies1.3.1 Firefighting1.3.2 Search and Rescue1.3.3 Transportation1.3.4 Mine Clearance1.3.5 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)1.3.6 Combat Support, EOD1.3.7 Others1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Defense Robotic Technologies2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Defense Robotic Technologies2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Defense Robotic Technologies2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Defense Robotic TechnologiesEnquiry before Buying @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Jia Wang, Room B1510, ShijiKemao Building, No.66,Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing, 100190,China
Smart Cards Market Size Share - Industry Trends and Forecast 2016- 2023

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"The Latest Research Report Smart Cards Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016 - 2023 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Smart cards are IC-based cards that accumulate and retrieve information using various computer systems. Smart cards consist of central processing units and memory units. Smart cards primarily act as a cost-effective way to store, manage, and maintain credentials for their users. This makes these products highly convenient for different applications. In addition, the portability of smart cards enables their extensive adoption across different applications. Currently, smart cards are widely used across sectors such as telecommunications, BFSI, and government. Due to the numerous advantages they offer, smart cards are increasingly used in the healthcare, government IDs (e-passports), and retail sectors. Thus, strong ongoing adoption of smart cards across different sectors is estimated to substantially spur the markets growth in the coming years.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @The research study titled Smart Cards Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2016 - 2023 provides in-depth analysis of the market and related sub-segments. The report strategically focuses on market segments including different types of smart cards and components. In addition, this report provides market insights and forecasts of the size and growth of each segment across each of the geographic regions. The report includes detailed analysis of prevalent market trends and profiles of key players. In order to provide better understanding of competition in the market, the report offers ecosystem analysis and competitive landscape. The study on the global smart cards market has been conducted with the objective of providing thorough coverage of the underlying technological and socio-economic factors driving the market.The smart cards market is expected to see consistent growth in the coming years due to the increasing demand for secure and reliable payment transactions across the retail and BFSI sectors. Moreover, cost-saving schemes for merchants from payments brands such as Visa, MasterCard, and Europay is driving the smart card technology innovations. The decreasing prices of subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and tariff rates are increasing the number of mobile subscribers, and thus further contributing to the growth of the smart cards market. However, factors such as price pressures and technological challenges along with the cost of migrating to smartcard compatible readers affect the adoption of smartcards. Conversely, technological advancements, falling prices, and the introduction of high-end SIMs offer potential opportunities for the growth of the smart cards market.View Sample PDF @This report studies the current scenario as well as the future market potential for smart cards globally. The market for smart cards has been segmented based on three major parameters: card type, components, and geography. The major types of smart cards used are contact smart cards, contactless smart cards, hybrid smart cards, and dual-interface smart cards. On the basis of components, the smart cards market is segmented into microcontroller-based smart cards and memory-based smart cards. The demand for microcontroller-based smart cards is significantly high owing to the wide adoption of such cards for contactless and dual-interface smart cards. The market size and forecast, in terms of revenue and volume (US$ Mn & Mn units), for each of these segments has been provided for the period from 2013 to 2023, considering 2013 and 2014 as the base years. For 2015, report provides actual data for the first half and estimate for the second half. Also, the report provides market size and forecast in terms of volume (Mn Units) for various segments for the above mentioned period. The report also provides the compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) for each segment of the market for the forecast period 2016 to 2023.Geographically, the market for global smart cards has been segmented into four regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. The report also provides a competitive landscape, wherein the market share analysis of leading players in the global smart cards market for the year 2014, in terms of value percentage, has been discussed. The report concludes with the company profiles section, which provides an overview of the major companies operating in the market including strategies deployed by them to gain competitive advantage, annual revenue generated by them in the past two years, and key developments in the market. The companies profiled in this report include the American Express Company, Atos SE, NXP Semiconductors NV, Infineon Technologies AG, Gemalto NV, INSIDE Secure, Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) GmbH, and Texas Instruments, Inc.Send An Enquiry Request @The global smart cards market is categorized into the following segments:Smart Cards Market, by TypeContact Smart CardsContactless Smart CardsHybrid Smart CardsDual-interface Smart CardsSmart Cards Market, by ComponentMicrocontrollerMemory CardSmart Cards Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeAsia PacificMiddle East & Africa (MEA)Latin AmericaTable of ContentChapter 1 Preface1.1 Report Description1.2 Market Segmentation: Smart Cards Market1.3 Research Methodology1.3.1 Sources1.3.1.1 Secondary Research1.3.1.2 Primary ResearchChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Market Snapshot: Global Smart Cards Market, 2014 & 20232.2 Global Smart Cards Market Revenue, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn) and Y-o-Y Growth (%)2.3 Global Smart Cards Market Volume, 2013  2023 (Mn Units) and Y-o-Y Growth (%)2.3.1 Global Smart Cards Market, by Type, 20142.3.2 Global Smart Cards Market, by Components, 20142.3.3 Global Smart Cards Market, by Geography, 2014Chapter 3 Global Smart Cards Market Analysis, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.1 Overview3.2 Key Trends Analysis3.3 Impact Analysis3.3.1 Impact Analysis of NFC Technology3.3.1.1 Global NFC Enabled Smart Phone Shipment Market Volume and Forecast, 2014  2018 (Mn Units)3.3.2 Impact Analysis of M2M Communication on the Smart Card Market3.3.2.1 Global utilities market (Electricity, Water & Gas) M2M, Volume and Forecast, 2011  2016 (Mn Units)3.3.3 Impact Analysis of Direct Antenna Attach Technology on Smart Cards Market3.3.3.1 Global Smart Cards Y-o-Y Revenue Growth (US$ Mn) and Global Contactless Card Revenue Contribution (%).3.4 Market Dynamics3.4.1 Drivers3.4.1.1 Growing demand for secure and reliable payment transactions across the retail and BFSI industry3.4.1.1.1 Global Mobile Payments Transaction, Revenue and Forecast, 2010  2017 (US$ Bn)3.4.1.2 Cost savings scheme for merchants from payments brands such as Visa, MasterCard and Europay3.4.1.3 Rising number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide3.4.1.3.1 Mobile Subscribers Worldwide: 2011  20143.4.1.3.2 Mobile Subscribers Worldwide, by developed and developing nations: 20143.4.1.3.3 Mobile Subscribers Worldwide, by Regions: 20143.4.2 Restraints3.4.2.1 Initial high cost to migrate to smartcard compatible readers affects the adoption of smartcards3.4.3 Opportunities3.4.3.1 Delivering complete solutions including software and services related to smart cards3.4.3.2 Introduction of high-end SIMs in terms of NFC capability and LTE providers3.5 Technology Overview3.5.1 Comparative Analysis of Smart Card Technologies3.5.2 Comparative Analysis of Smart Card Components3.6 Ecosystem Analysis for Global Smart Cards Market3.6.1 Raw Material Suppliers3.6.2 Smart IC Manufacturers3.6.3 Solution Providers3.6.4 OEMs3.6.5 End-users3.7 Global Smart Cards Market Analysis, By Type, 2013 - 2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.1 Overview3.7.2 Contact Smart Cards3.7.2.1 Global Contact Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.2.2 Global Contact Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2015 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.3 Contactless Smart Cards3.7.3.1 Global Contactless Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.3.2 Global Contactless Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2015 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.4 Hybrid Smart Cards3.7.4.1 Global Hybrid Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.4.2 Global Hybrid Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2015 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.5 Dual-interface Smart Cards3.7.5.1 Global Dual-interface Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2013  2023 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)3.7.5.2 Global Dual-interface Smart Cards Market Revenue and Volume, 2015 (US$ Mn & Mn Units)Buy Now 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
Recent Market Study Explore Raytheon Growth Analysis In Coming Years

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SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Raytheon CompanyRaytheon is involved in developing technologically advanced and integrated products, services and solutions in its core markets: sensing; control, effects; command, communications, computers, cyber and intelligence; mission support; and cybersecurity. It serves both domestic and international customers, primarily as a prime contractor or subcontractor on a broad portfolio of defense and related programs for government customers.Premiums company strategy reports provide in-depth coverage of the performance and strategies of the worlds leading defence and security companies. The reports detail company operations in key geographies as well as comprehensive analysis of each companys growth strategy and financial performance. Furthermore the reports allow benchmarking company performance through the provision of key performance indicators including: arms sales, order backlog, and contracts.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Key Questions Answered- How does Raytheon Company rank among defense and security service providers in the Europe and globally?- What are Raytheon Company main growth strategies and how successful has the company been at implementing them?- How has the company performed since 2013 in terms of arms sales, and order backlog?- How has Raytheon Company performed in comparison to competitors such as Lockheed Martin Corporation, The Boeing Company and BAE Systems?- What is Raytheon Company strengths and weaknesses and what opportunities and threats does it face?Scope- Company Snapshot - details key indicators and rankings of Raytheon Company in terms of arms sales and Market Share in the companys key markets.- Company SWOT Analysis - outlines Raytheon Company Strengths and Weaknesses, and weigh Opportunities and Threats facing the company.- Growth Strategies - understand Raytheon Company corporate goals and strategic initiatives and evaluate their outcomes.- Company Performance and Competitive Landscape - analyse the companys performance by business segment compared to other players across key markets on metrics such as arms sales.- Key Developments - showcase Raytheon Company significant recent corporate events, changes, or product initiatives.Key points to buyRaytheon reported a strong financial performance in 2016:Raytheons strong financial performance in 2016 improved investors confidence in the company and provided it with capital it needed to pursue its growth plans. In 2016, the companys revenue increased by 3.5%, from US$23,247.0 million in 2015 to US$24,069.0 million in 2016, which was primarily due to an increase in the revenue of its IIS, MS, SAS, and Forcepoint segments by 1.4%, 7.9%, 7.0%, and 72.6% respectively.The companys operating income increased by 7.5% to US$3,240.0 million in 2016, compared with US$3,013.0 million in 2015. Similarly, its net income increased by 6.6%, from US$2,074.0 million in 2015 to US$2,211.0 million in 2016.The company aims to expand its advanced cyber solutions into international and commercial markets:With the aim of extending its significant cyber capabilities into commercial markets, the company created Forcepoint, a new commercial cybersecurity joint venture company (with Vista Equity Partners) that combined Websense Inc. (Websense) and Raytheon Cyber Products (RCP), formerly part of its IIS business. Forcepoint leverages its unique combination of capabilities to deliver streamlined defense-grade cybersecurity solutions to commercial markets worldwide.New contracts could enable the company to gain substantial revenues:New contracts could provide a sustainable source of revenue to the company. In February 2017, Raytheon entered into a memorandum of understanding with Tata Advanced Systems to jointly develop Stinger air defense missile components. In September 2016, it secured a contract from the US Air Force to construct Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) for US$573.0 million. In April 2016, the company secured a contract from the US Navy to provide Engineering and Manufacturing Development models.Table of ContentsCompany SnapshotCompany SWOT AnalysisGrowth StrategiesCompany PerformanceCompetitive LandscapeDealsKey DevelopmentsICT Spending PredictionsFinancial Summary..CONTINUEDFor accessing accurate and deep understanding and to gain latest insights and key developments in the area of your interest, we also have a list of conferences in which you will be interested in, for more information, cordially checkFor updating knowledge or for thoroughly understanding various terminologies, we also have vast list of seminars for your reference, for more information cordially checkWise 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
4 top benefits of Remote Monitoring Services

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Texas (USA), Canada (Toronto) & India (Business Network)- 19th June 2017:Remote monitoring services specifically defines the information that any network monitoring system will be able to deliver. Remote monitoring often includes remote diagnostic capability, which allows the team to diagnose issues and often take corrective action remotely.Remote monitoring services enable organizations to efficiently respond to multiple sites and issues.Following are the 4 benefits offered by remote monitoring services:Limit downtime by 80%- Downtime can cost organizations by the loss of customer trust and can be proved extremely costly. By implementing remote monitoring services, companys servers will be on watch 24/7. Remote monitoring escalate and address problem remotely.Enhance Security- Cyber security being the top priority of all organizations, they outsource remote monitoring services so that threats can be more quickly detected, identified, analyzed, prioritized and dealt with accordingly.Reduce total cost of ownership by 50%- all the expenses that go along with recruiting, hiring, training and retaining staff are saved by 50% by outsourcing remote monitoring services.Early threat detection- After an issue arises, remote monitoring services send an alert enabling IT administrators to take immediate and necessary measures to ensure that the threat does not result in diminished productivity and downtime. Lack of remote monitoring, results in an issue going unnoticed for days or weeks, resulting in an expensive and large-scale problem.About Suma Soft: Suma Softs remote monitoring services offer 247 Remote Monitoring Services Team with experience of handling 500+ Remote Monitoring Projects. It saves 70% Costs by outsourcing and reduces downtime by 99.99%.7880 San Felipe Street, Ste 120, Houston TX 77063-1647
Gasoline Generator Market Steady Growth to Be Witnessed by 2027

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The global gasoline generator market accounted for almost 4% of the global generator market in 2016 making its study critical. Future Market Insights in its recent report 'Gasoline Generator Market: Global Industry Analysis 2012 2016 and Opportunity Assessment 20172027' has done exactly that and the prospects for key stakeholders in the global gasoline generator market seem bright indeed. The gasoline generator market is anticipated to record a CAGR of 3.7% for the period 2017- 2027 and approach a billion dollars in value by the end of the forecast period.Type  Global Gasoline Generator Market is all About Portable GeneratorsThe global gasoline generator market is essentially the portable generator market as the latter has a market share of more than 97%. Portable generators will nonetheless gain 30 BPS by 2027 and it would not be surprising if major players decided to overlook stationary generators entirely. More than 610,000 portable generator units were sold in 2016 alone as portable generators are perfect for a number of end users in the commercial, industrial, and residential sectors.Request to View Sample of Research Report @Power Output  1 to 3 KW Generators Have Maximum Charge in Gasoline Generator MarketThe 1 to 3 KW segment is poised to dominate the gasoline generator market in terms of power output throughout the duration of the forecast period. The 1 to 3 KW generators are on track to be worth more than US$ 520 million by end 2027, making it larger than all other generators combined in the gasoline generator market. 1 to 3 KW generators are mainly utilized in the commercial and residential sector. A rising population coupled with greater affluence and increased power outages should boost the demand for these generators.Application  Gasoline Generators Serve the Urgent Need of Standby Backup PowerThe standby backup power segment is far more critical than continuous power in the gasoline generator market. Standby backup power has a market attractiveness index of 5.0 and this is estimated to continue for the foreseeable future. Global grids are unable to keep up with the surging demand for power leading to frequent cases of rolling blackouts, especially in emerging economies. Furthermore, new backup power generators loaded with features such as wireless monitors and remote monitoring systems are entering the gasoline generator market, encouraging adoption.End Use  Prioritise Residential Users over All Others in Gasoline Generator MarketGasoline generators are preferred by residential users over diesel generators because of their lower comparative cost. In addition to this, gasoline generators are compact and air cooled, both of which are particularly desired by residential end users in the gasoline generator market. The residential end use segment is projected to record the highest CAGR of 3.9% by value from 2017 to 2027 in the gasoline generator market.Request for Table of Contents @Region  Focus on North America in the Gasoline Generator MarketNorth America accounts for more than 1/3rd share of the global gasoline generator market in 2017 and is unlikely to cede this strong position to APEJ anytime soon. An incremental dollar opportunity of more than US$ 110 million exists in North America between 2017 and 2027 that can be mainly attributed to non-residential construction activities in the U.S., supported by large infrastructural investments.Competition Dashboard in the Gasoline Generator MarketThe companies profiled in the gasoline generator market report are Kohler Co., Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Generac Power Systems, Yamaha Motor Co., SGS Engineering, Hyundai Power Equipment, Stephill Generators Ltd., Champion Power Equipment, Stanley Black & Decker, Techtronic Industries, Briggs & Stratton Corporation, WEN Products, Lifan Power USA, A-iPower, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Honeywell International Inc., Zhejiang Wanhao Machine Science and Technology Co. and Nidec Corporation.Key Insights on the Gasoline Generator MarketCompanies have to optimise their value chain to enhance and strengthen their presence in the global gasoline generator market. Innovation is critical as the gasoline generator market is brutally competitive with smaller players struggling to make their mark. Noise and weight reduction in portable gasoline generators can be a game-changer along with developing products that are cost-effective. All these factors will further the penetration of gasoline generators in the residential sector of the gasoline generator market.Buy Gasoline Generator Market Research Report @ABOUT USFuture 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.CONTACTFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
TRES 24 Plus  a full 24 hours on your wrist

TRES 24 Plus: The full-day watch - precise to the second

https://www.botta-design.de

(Konigstein, November 2017) The watch manufacturer Botta-Design stands for modern functionalism in product design. In the wristwatch segment, the Konigstein-based brand is known first and foremost for its UNO one-hand watch. This circular watch with the appearance of a precision instrument is a prime example of functional minimalism. It is also considered to have heralded in a new category in the watch-making world.Klaus Botta and his development team do not design only one-hand watches, however. Botta-Design also has watches with more than one hand in its range. What all of the different models have in common is their own contemporary philosophy and consistently high design standards.One very good example of the brands concise style is the new TRES 24 Plus, a watch featuring three hands and a 24-hour display.The principle of the 24-hour watch is of course not new. What is new, however, is the stringently technical logic that characterizes this watch.In conventional 24-hour watches, the midnight mark is generally to be found at the top while midday is at the bottom. Exactly the reverse is the case in Botta-Designs 24-hour watches.According to company owner Klaus Botta, the justification for this somewhat unusual arrangement is that the dial is laid out to be synchronous with the sun. The hour scale precisely reflects the position of the sun in the sky at the time in question. At 12 pm, for example, when the sun is at its zenith, the hour hand is also pointing to the number 12 at the top. At 6 in the morning and at 6 in the evening, when the sun is on the horizon, the hand of the TRES 24 Plus is also to be found along the artificial horizon on the dial. Finally, at midnight, when the sun is under the Earth, the hour hand also points to the number 0 at the bottom of the dial. At the same time, it passes the date line which runs from the centre of the dial to the date window, and the date displayed switches to the next day.Besides the 24-hour scale on the middle ring of the dial, there is also a second outer scale that shows the minutes and seconds. The two scales are not only distinguished by their different colours, but are also physically separate. The differences in height between the circular scales correspond to the heights of the respective hands.In terms of its appearance, the TRES 24 Plus is reminiscent of an aircraft instrument with an artificial horizon  the day half at the top, the night half at the bottom. The numbers and markings are designed to make them as easy to read and distinguish between as possible.As with any 24-hour watch, it takes a short period of time to get used to this way of telling the time. Especially at the beginning, the clearly readable hour numbers make it easier to understand the system and tell the time.The TRES 24 Plus is designed not so much with the average user in mind. It will appeal far more to people with an affinity for technology and unusual products. Fans of high-quality materials and subtle craftsmanship will also find this watch attractive.Botta-Design is one of the few brands that still develop, design and produce entirely in Germany. That is clear from every detail of the painstakingly designed case  it features no angle or surface that is not the result of a conscious design decision.The case has a diameter of 45mm, putting the watch firmly in the larger-watch category. Nonetheless, the overall dimensions of the watch are not excessive thanks to the geometry of the lugs on the underside of the case, and it remains comfortable to wear.A Ronda quartz movement ensures a comfortable and reliable drive system. The sapphire glass is domed and antireflective on both sides. The watch is splash-proof to 3 atm and comes with a two-year manufacturers warranty.The TRES 24 Plus comes in three different colour versions: with a light dial, a dark dial or a dark dial in a completely black PVD-coated case. The normal price of the watch starts at 448. The watch will be ready for shipping from the end of November 2017 but can already be ordered at an advance purchase price starting at 398.Klaus Botta has had a major influence on the watch industry with his philosophical approach to design. Launched in 1986, his UNO one-hand watch was the worlds first wristwatch to use the one-hand principle. Botta-Design timekeepers have long become classics, and are exhibited in the collections of renowned museums around the world. 60 international awards are testimony to the high level of design proficiency. The entire collection, which also includes other mechanical watches and quartz models, is developed and designed at the companys headquarters in Konigstein. Production in specialized workshops in Germany and the use of the highest-quality components is your guarantee of the very high quality and durability of the watches.Designed in Germany, hand-made in GermanyBotta-DesignKlaus BottaKlosterstr. 15 15A61462 Konigstein im TaunusGermanyTel.: +496174961188E-Mail: info@botta-design.de Web:
Global GIS Market To Grow At A CAGR Of 10.53% During The Period 2017-2021 | Autodesk, ESRI, Hexagon, MDA, Pitney Bowes, SuperMap

GIS Market

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global GIS Market 2017-2021" to its huge collection of research reports.GIS (geographic information system) is a set of tools used to interpret business and geospatial data. It integrates hardware, software, data, and services for processing business and geographically referenced data. GIS digitizes the received geospatial data and processes them to provide the desired output. Sectors such as national government, transportation, natural resources, military/law enforcement, utilities, communication, and telecom are the major end-users of GIS. Its other uses include disaster management, finding location details, viewing digital maps, marketing, and designing facilities. End-users across industries rely on GIS to enhance their productivity, decision-making ability, and safety and security standards. GIS is a major revenue contributor to the global geospatial industry.Technavios analysts forecast the global GIS market to grow at a CAGR of 10.53% during the period 2017-2021.Get Comple TOC With Tables and Figures @Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global GIS market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the actual values for 2016, whereas the values are estimated for 2017-2021.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEAGlobal GIS Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsAutodeskESRIHexagonMDAPitney BowesSuperMapTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Other prominent vendorsAutoNaviCaliperChina Information TechnologyGoogle MapsHEREMapboxNavinfoRolta IndiaMarket driverIncreased adoption of GIS in healthcare and insurance sector.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeCommunication gap between developers and end-users.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendHigh use of GIS solution for soil and water management.For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Browse Detail Report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.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 @
Cereal Ingredients Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand to 2020

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Cereal ingredients are mainly used in the breakfast cereals (Hot and Cold breakfast cereals). Cereal ingredients play an important role in breakfast as it helps in maintaining the taste and nutritive quality in the food product. Some of the benefits of having a regular nutritional breakfast are improvement in memory, balanced cholesterol and insulin levels, physical activeness and low risk of obesity. The practice of skipping breakfast has been reducing, while the per capita consumption of breakfast has been increasing globally over the past few years. Cereals are considered to be an ideal breakfast category due to their high nutritional and low calorific value. Breakfast cereals are mostly made of whole grains ingredients such as oats, wheat, rice, barley and other grains.Request For Report Sample:North America is the largest market for cereal ingredients, followed by Asia-Pacific and Europe. Asia-Pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing market followed by Europe and North America.Increasing demand for healthier food, changing consumer preference, increasing urban population and increasing health issues are the major driving force for cereal ingredients market. Research and development plays an important role in cereal ingredients market as it helps in developing new ingredients.According to the WHO, in 2010, the number of overweight children under the age of five was around 42 million globally. Obese people are more likely to develop diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases at young age. High obesity rate among children is a major concern for parents, which compels them to keep their children away from high calorie breakfast food and opt for low calorie food such as breakfast cereals.The lifestyle of urban population is more fast-paced as compared to the rural population. Fast-paced lifestyle along with an aspiration to stay fit attracts people to breakfast cereals. Being more aware of the nutritional aspects of ingredients used in various breakfast cereals, the urban population is keener to have a better breakfast with healthy ingredients. With urbanization increasing worldwide, this trend is expected to continue for a long period. According to the United Nations, urban population is expected to increase from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion in 2050. Increasing health issues such as obesity has become one of the most challenging problems in the world.Palm oil is one of the necessary ingredients in the production of breakfast cereals. Palm oil has specific and limited areas of cultivation since its plantations require a particular climate. This is creating a hurdle in procurement for breakfast cereal manufacturers. Around 90% of palm oil plantations are found in the tropical countries of Indonesia and Malaysia. Prices of cereal ingredients such as corn, wheat, soybean oil, sugar, cocoa and palm oil, have been increasing continuously. According to the statistics of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the global average price per kilogram of maize increased from around USD 0.16 in 2007 to USD 0.29 in 2012, and is expected to rise further. The global soybean prices also rose from USD 0.32 per kilogram in 2007 to USD 0.56 in 2012. Cost of packaging materials such as carton board, corrugated box and plastic, and prices of fuel including natural gas, propane and diesel have been rising constantly. This poses a serious challenge to the industry in balancing its price structure. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the price of natural gas, which was 0.50 million metric British thermal units (mmBTU) in 2011, rose to 0.58mmBTU in 2012.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the major companies operating in the cereal ingredients market are Associated British Food Plc, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Bunge Limited, SunOpta Inc and Cargill Inc.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesT: +1-646-568-7751Tollfree: +1 800-961-0353Website:
Beer Market Analysis, Segments, Growth and Value Chain to 2020

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Beer is one of the alcoholic beverages containing 4% to 6% alcohol by volume. The main ingredients of beer include water, a starch source (such as malted barley, helps in saccharification and fermentation), a brewers yeast and flavors such as hops. Flavoring such as hops helps in adding bitterness and act as a natural preservative. Beer is the most widely consumed alcoholic beverage in the Asia Pacific region. Growing drinking population in the countries such as India and China is boosting the market for beer in the Asia-Pacific region. By types, Beer market can be segmented into premium, mainstream and economy.Request For Report Sample:Countries such as China have the largest consumption of beer in the Asia Pacific region, followed by Japan. Increasing population and more inclined towards western culture are the major factors for the growth of beer market in the Asia Pacific region. Countries such as India, Singapore and South Korea are the fastest growing market for beer in the Asia-Pacific region.Rising disposable income, ever-increasing population, increasing in the number of bars and restaurants, increase in the acceptance of western culture and relaxation in the rules and regulation related to the operation of beer industry are some of the major driving force for beer market. Increasing disposable income among the working class population allows the customer to go out more to restaurants and bars and spend more on beer. In addition, consumers are now willing to pay more for premium segments also. According to the National Bureau of Statistics China, annual per capita disposable income of urban households in China increased from USD 2,271.0 in 2008 to USD 3408.5 in 2012. The overall annual disposable income in India medium household income increased from USD 1,366.2 billion in 2010 to USD 1,587.6 billion in 2013. Quick adoption of western culture has largely influenced the drinking habits in the Asia Pacific region. People living in the west usually have a habit of drinking beer with their meals, at parties and even during meetings. Rising Anti-alcohol campaigns and rising aging population are some of the major restraints for beer market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):The major companies operating in the beer market include Anheuser-Busch InBev, Tsingtao Brewery, Beijing Yanjing Brewery, San Miguel Brewery, Asahi Breweries and China Resources Enterprise.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesT: +1-646-568-7751Tollfree: +1 800-961-0353Website:
Food Encapsulation Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand to 2020

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Food encapsulation technology helps in stabilizing food ingredients to allow flavor retention, and remove bad taste from the food. With the help of food encapsulation, food and beverages industry tried to overcome challenges such as maintaining taste, color and nutrition of the product and preservation of the product. Food encapsulation has the ability to make easy coating of food particles or ingredients such as acidulants, fats, flavors, and whole ingredients such as raisins or nuts. With the increasing health awareness, consumers are giving more preference for tasty, healthy and convenient and these demands can be achieved by food encapsulation. On the basis of technology type, global food encapsulation market can be segmented into microencapsulation, nanoencapsulation and hybrid technologies. Food encapsulation technologies such as microencapsulation and nanoencapsulation have improved the food encapsulation industry. Microencapsulation is largely preferred over nanoencapsulation and hybrid technologies due to its cost-effectiveness, flexibility and versatility.Request For Report Sample:North America is the largest market for food encapsulation, growing at a slower pace due to the saturated end-products market. Europe is the fastest growing market for food encapsulation. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for food encapsulation due to its booming food industry. In addition, rise in disposable income and increasing urbanization boost the food encapsulation market in this region.Increase in health conscious consumer, increasing consumption of functional foods and growing demand for convenience foods are some of the major driving force for food encapsulation market. With the increasing number of diseases such as diabetes and obesity globally, people are showing more consciousness towards their food and drinks. Health conscious consumers demand for healthy, tasty and nutrient rich products and these demands can be met by food encapsulation, thus driving the market for food encapsulation. Due to the busy life schedule consumers are demanding more for convenience foods. These are ready-to-eat foods which require certain shelf life and should maintain taste, color and flavor of the food. Food encapsulation helps in increasing shelf life and increasing product appeal by improving taste, color and flavor of the food. Growing demand for convenience foods boost the food encapsulation market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):The major companies operating in the food encapsulation market include ABCO Laboratories Inc, Advanced BioNutrition Corporation, Aveka Group, Balchem Corporation, Cargill Inc, Blue California, Encapsys Microencapsulation, Coating Place Inc, FrieslandCampina Kievit and Firmenich Inc.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesT: +1-646-568-7751Tollfree: +1 800-961-0353Website:
Cattle Feed and Feed additives Market size and Key Trends in terms of volume and value to 2020

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Cattle feed and feed additives are used for improving the quality of feed to enhance yield and overall cattles health. Cattle feed are gaining popularities mainly due to the enhance performance and increasing application such as growth promoter, prevention and cure of diseases and for improving feed digestibility in cattle.Request For Report Sample:Based on animal type, the global cattle feed market is categorized in three broad segments namely mature ruminants, young ruminants, and others. Based on the different product type, the market is segmented in six broad categories: antibiotics, vitamins, antioxidants, amino acid, feed enzymes, feed acidifier and others.The rising awareness among consumers towards the nutritional content and safety of milk and meat, coupled with recent disease epidemic in cattle are some of the leading drivers of the market. Moreover demand for milk and meat is increasing in most part of the world and hence the formers are now more concern over the health and yield of the cattle which in turns helping the global cattle feed and feed additives market.Increasing prices of raw materials is one of the major challenges for the industry. However, the growing demand of cattle feed from the emerging economics such as China, Brazil and India are providing new growth opportunities for the cattle feed and feed additives markets. The manufacturers are advancing their production technology for both cost and capacity benefits.Asia Pacific is the largest market for cattle feed and feed additives market attributed to the large share of cattle population in this region. It is followed by North America and Europe. Asia Pacific and North America collectively account for more than 60% of the total market share of cattle feed and feed additives market. Asia Pacific is also the fasted growing region mainly fueled by the increasing demand from China and India. The rising dairy market in this region is expected to boost the cattle feed and feed additives market in upcoming years.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the major companies operating in global cattle feed market include, Kent Corporation Godrej Group, Land Olakes Inc., V. H. Group., Archer Daniels Midland Company, BASF SE, Cargill, Inc., CHR., Hansen Holdings A/S., Evonik Industries AG, and Royal DSM N.V.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesT: +1-646-568-7751Tollfree: +1 800-961-0353Website:
Pet Food Market Volume Forecast and Value Chain Analysis to 2020

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North America has largest pet food market and an impressive pet population. According to The US National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, in 2013, around 83.3 million dogs and 95.6 million cats owned by US households and this figure will increase over the forecasted period. Pet foods are mainly sold in pet stores and supermarkets. Pet foods are mainly packaged in boxes or cartons, cans, pouches, bags and others. Bags are the most commonly packaging type used for pet food in the U.S. In the U.S. quality of pet food is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Pet food market can be segmented into pet type: cat food, dog food and others. On the basis of food type pet food market can be segmented into: Nutritious food, dry food, wet or canned food and snacks or treats and others. Cat food and dog food represent the largest category of the U.S. pet food market. Dry food is the largest segment of pet food market followed by snacks or treats.Request For Report Sample:North America continued its dominant position in the global pet food market. U.S. represents the largest market for pet food in the North America region. Increasing pet humanization, increase in pet ownership, emergence of private label store brands and growing urbanization are some of the major driving force that are propelling the growth of North America pet food market. Due to the increase in pet humanization, pet owners become more concerned about the food their pet eats. Due to the pet humanization major changes can be seen in the pet food production and packaging. Development of functional food to address specific health needs of pets. The introduction of functional pet food has also affected the packaging of the pet food. By new packaging material and shapes, pet food manufacturers tries to convey the premium nature of the product through new package design. With the result of this plastic containers and laminates are becoming more popular. Now the moist food is packaged in retort pouches or plastic trays with peelable lids instead of metal cans. The factor like this will boost the pet food market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the major companies operating in the North American pet food market include Nestle, Proctor & Gamble Co., Del Monte Foods Co and Mars Inc.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway,7th FloorNew York City, NY 10007United StatesT: +1-646-568-7751Tollfree: +1 800-961-0353Website:
Global Soil Treatment Market to Reach $49.25 Billion with 9.2% CAGR Forecast to 2022

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SummaryGlobal Soil Treatment Market is accounted for $26.52 billion in 2016 and expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% to reach $49.25 billion by 2023. Factors such as growing organic food market, demand for high-quality food, upcoming soil and water remediation technologies and shrinking arable land are driving the market growth. However, emergence of bio-tech seeds, low technical knowledge among farmers and stringent regulations are restraining the market growth. Rapid growth in the bio-agrochemical, demand for herbicide tolerant seeds, government initiatives for creating vigilance among people are some of the major trends prevailing in the market.The soil protection segment is anticipated to be the largest market followed by the organic amendments segment, in terms of value. North America accounted for the largest market share, followed by Europe. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market owing to rapid growth in agricultural sector.Request a Sample Report @Some of the key players in Global Soil Treatment market are Syngenta AG,BASF SE,ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., Solvay S.A. ,Monsanto Company, American Vanguard Corporation, Arkema S.A., Novozymes A/S, Platform Specialty Products and Kanesho Soil Treatment.Types Covered: pH Adjusterso Gypsumo Aglimeo Others Soil Protectiono Pest Controlo Weed Control Organic Amendmentso Animal Dungo Crop Residueo Composto Sewage Sludgeo Other Organic AmendmentsTechnologies Covered: Biological Treatmento Enhanced Bioremediationo Bioventingo Biospargingo Phytoremediation Thermal Treatmento Electrical Resistance Heatingo Hot Air/ Steam Injectiono Radio Frequency /Electromagnetic Heating Physiochemical Treatmento Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE)o Solidification & Stabilizationo Chemical Oxidationo Electro Kinetic Separationo Fracturingo Soil FlushingRegions Covered: North Americao USo Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo Franceo Italyo UKo Spaino Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Japano Chinao Indiao Australiao New Zealando Rest of Asia Pacific Rest of the Worldo Middle Easto Brazilo Argentinao South Africao EgyptAt any Query @Table of Contents1 Executive Summary2 Preface2.1 Abstract2.2 Stake Holders2.3 Research Scope2.4 Research Methodology2.4.1 Data Mining2.4.2 Data Analysis2.4.3 Data Validation2.4.4 Research Approach2.5 Research Sources2.5.1 Primary Research Sources2.5.2 Secondary Research Sources2.5.3 Assumptions3 Market Trend Analysis3.1 Introduction3.2 Drivers3.3 Restraints3.4 Opportunities3.5 Threats3.6 Technology Analysis3.7 Emerging Markets3.8 Futuristic Market Scenario.5 Global Soil Treatment Market, By Type5.1 Introduction5.2 pH Adjusters5.2.1 Gypsum5.2.2 Aglime5.2.3 Others5.3 Soil Protection5.3.1 Pest Control5.3.1.1 Macro Organism5.3.1.2 Micro Organism5.3.2 Weed Control5.3.2.1 Glyphosate5.3.2.2 Atrazine5.3.2.3 Acetochlor5.3.2.4 2,4-D5.3.2.5 Other Weed Control5.4 Organic Amendments5.4.1 Animal Dung5.4.2 Crop Residue5.4.3 Compost5.4.4 Sewage Sludge5.4.5 Other Organic Amendments6 Global Soil Treatment Market, By Technology6.1 Introduction6.2 Biological Treatment6.2.1 Enhanced Bioremediation6.2.1.1 Aerobic Enhanced Bioremediation6.2.1.2 Anaerobic Enhanced Bioremediation6.2.1.3 White Rot Fungus6.2.2 Bioventing6.2.3 Biosparging6.2.4 Phytoremediation6.2.4.1 Enhanced Rhizosphere Biodegradation6.2.4.2 Phyto Accumulation6.2.4.3 Phyto Degradation6.2.4.5 Phyto Stabilization6.3 Thermal Treatment6.3.1 Electrical Resistance Heating6.3.2 Hot Air/ Steam Injection6.3.3 Radio Frequency /Electromagnetic Heating6.4 Physiochemical Treatment6.4.1 Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE)6.4.2 Solidification & Stabilization6.4.3 Chemical Oxidation6.4.4 Electro Kinetic Separation6.4.5 Fracturing6.4.6 Soil FlushingBuy Now @What our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 7 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsContinued....Contact Us: sales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US) ; Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRESS:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
New Re-closable Pouches Market,Industry Analysis, Trends & Forecast 2017 - 2023

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In order to meet the customers growing need for convenient packages and growing emphasis on developing sustainable packaging alternatives, the traditional packaging forms are being replaced by the novel and flexible forms of packaging. One such novel form of packaging is the re-closable pouch. The term re-closable pouch refers to a pouch that, as against conventional packaging pouches, can be resealed or closed after use or dispensing the contents of the package. Re-closable pouches, also referred to as re-sealable pouches, have witnessed a swift growth in demand as compared to that for conventional pouches. Re-closable pouches can be customized and manufactured in a variety of shapes and sizes and thus prove to be an ideal solution to numerous packaging needs. The demand for re-closable pouches have been projected to witness a steady growth during the forecast period. Re-closable pouches find application across various end user industries including pharmaceuticals, personal care, food and beverage.Click Here For Free Sample Report @Market Dynamics: Drivers, Opportunities, & RestraintsRe-closable pouches market has witnessed a steady growth over the forecast period. The uniqueness of the re-closable pouches is their ease of use, versatility of design, and sustainable form of packaging among others. The demand for the re-closable pouch packaging exists across diverse set of industries. However, food & beverages industry is a major end use industry for re-closable pouches. As such, growth of food and beverages industry in general and the emphasis on developing aesthetically appealing yet functional packaging solutions is expected to drive the demand for re-closable pouches over the forecast period. Major factors propelling the demand for re-closable pouches are their versatility, barrier properties and sustainability. The fact that these re-closable pouches are available in multitude of shapes, sizes and colors plays a crucial rule in enhancing the shelf appeal. Some of the variants of re-closable pouches include those with handles, zippers, caps, among others. Thus, a re-closable pouch is one of the most versatile packaging solution that is functional so also aesthetically appealing. Another major advantage of re-closable pouches is their composition. The materials and laminated films that these re-closable pouches are made of help them resist relatively higher temperatures vis-a-vis conventional packaging, thus improving shelf life of the contents. The relatively higher costs for these re-closable packages as compared to conventional packages may act as an impediment to the growth of global re-closable pouches market over the forecast period.Re-closable pouch packaging market- SegmentationRe-closable pouch packaging can be segmented on the basis of type, end use and application. Depending on the type of re-closable pouches, re-closable pouch market has been segmented into side-gusset pouch stand up pouch spout Vacuum pouch OthersOn the basis of applications, re-closable pouch market has been segmented in to the following key market segments Food & Beverages Pharmaceuticals Personal CareRe-closable pouch packaging market- Regional OutlookDepending on geographical regions, global packaging machines market can be divided into seven major regions including North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East & Africa.Re-closable pouch packaging market: Market PlayersBrowse Full Report With TOC @Some of the players operating in global re-closable pouches market include: Ampac Holdings, LLC Mondi Group Accredo Packaging, Inc. Pacific Bag, Inc. LPS Industries, LLC. Glenroy Inc. Kung Long Hong Co. LTDThe 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 categories such as market segments, geographies and product types, end use industry.The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Segments Market Dynamics Market Size Supply & Demand Current Trends/Issues/Challenges Competition & Companies involved Value ChainRegional analysis includes: North America Latin America Asia Pacific Japan Western Europe Eastern Europe Middle East & AfricaThe report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts, and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides an in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macroeconomic indicators and governing factors, along with market attractiveness within the segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and various geographies.Report highlights: Detailed overview of parent market Changing market dynamics in the industry In-depth market segmentation Historical, current and projected market size in terms of volume and value Recent industry trends and developments Competitive landscape Strategies of key players and products offered Potential and niche segments, geographical regions exhibiting promising growth A neutral perspective on market performance Must-have information for market players to sustain and enhance their market footprintThe 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 marketMake An Enquiry @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:
Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Market 2017-2023: Industry Analysis, Demand, Technology Research, Trends.

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Artificial intelligence assists the machines to perform any task without human interventions. It uses different algorithms and software that help the machine to inculcate perception and reasoning for various situations. AI is widely applicable in the healthcare sector for various purposes such as drug discovery and precision medicine. In addition, it is used to analyze patients medical data, to predict disease onset, and personalize treatment provided to the patient. The global AI market was valued at $1,441 million in 2016, and is estimated to reach at $22,790 million by 2023, registering a CAGR of 48.0% from 2017 to 2023.Get Sample Copy of the Report:The AI market is segmented based on offering, technology, application, end user, and geography. On the basis of offering, the market is divided into hardware, software, and services. By technology, it is classified into deep learning, querying method, natural language processing, and context aware processing. Applications covered in the study include robot-assisted surgery, virtual nursing assistant, administrative workflow assistance, fraud detection, dosage error reduction, clinical trial participant identifier, preliminary diagnosis, and others. According to end user, the market is categorized into healthcare provider, pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Company, patient, and payer geographically, it is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.The market growth is driven by rise in adoption rate of AI systems and delete technological advancements in the AI field. In addition, the ability of these systems to improve patient outcomes, increase in adoption of precision medicine, and increase in need for coordination between healthcare workforce & patients are expected to fuel the market growth. However, lack of standard regulations and guidelines and reluctance among healthcare professionals to adopt AI-based technologies are expected to hinder the market growth.Enquiry about Report:KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERSThis report offers a detailed quantitative analysis of the current market trends from 2016 to 2023 to identify the prevailing opportunities.The market estimations provided are based on comprehensive analysis of the key developments in the industry.In-depth geographical analysis facilitates to analyze the regional market to assist in strategic business planning.The developmental strategies adopted by key manufacturers are enlisted to understand the competitive scenario of the marketGet More Information & Research at AI in Healthcare:About 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.Contact UsGlobal Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesMail Me - mailhelp@researchbeam.com
Companion Diagnostics Market 2017: Key Players  Dako, Qiagen, f. Hoffmann-la Roche ltd, Abbott Laboratories, Inc. and More

Companion Diagnostics Market

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Some of the Key Players in this Market are: Dako (Denmark), Qiagen (Germany), f. Hoffmann-la Roche ltd (Switzerland), Abbott Laboratories, Inc. (US), Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (US), Agilent Technologies (US), Resonance Health (Australia) and othersMarket Research Future published new report, titled Global Companion Diagnostics Market -Research Report: Forecast to 2023.GET SAMPLE REPORT@Dako (Denmark), Qiagen (Germany), f. Hoffmann-la Roche ltd (Switzerland), Abbott Laboratories, Inc. (US), Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (US), Agilent Technologies (US), and Resonance Health (Australia) are some of the prominent players competing in the Global Market of Companion Diagnostics and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Companion Diagnostics Market  OverviewThe Companion Diagnostics market is accruing and expected to gain further prominence over the forecast period mainly due to the growing prevalence of diseases such as cancer or HIV and technological advancements. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global market of Companion Diagnostics is projected to accrue at a rapid pace during the forecast period (2016  2022). The Market is forecasted to accrue over its previous growth records with a striking CAGR during 2016 and 2022.Companion diagnostics market is driven by continuous advancement in medical technology both for the diagnosis and the treatment of patients. Growing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer or HIV is fostering the market growth of companion diagnostics. Additionally, awareness among physician and patient about the drug toxicity is providing impetus to the market growth.However in developing countries due to less awareness it is not as much in practice as in developed countries but the developing countries with huge population like India & china have a huge potential to pool in the market share. In the developing countries lack of skilled professionals and lack of awareness is hampering the growth of companion diagnostics Market. Other challenges in the development of companion diagnostics is the logistic issues raised so as to develop companion diagnostics and drug together.A companion diagnostic is a therapeutic device, used in diagnosing the treatment response of the patient frequently an in vitro gadget, which gives data that is crucial for the effective and safe utilization in comparing drug or organic products. The test helps a healthcare professional to figure out if a specific drug is advantages to patients will or exceed any potential genuine symptoms or risk. Biomarker presence or absence determines whether or not the patient will respond to the treatment. This test require a biopsied tissue to access the expression of biomarker protein or mutant or aberrant genes.Companion diagnostics are also used in drug development process by determining Companion biomarker that help predict likely response of toxicity. There are different types of biomarker available in market such as Colorectal Cancer, Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer, Gastric Cancer, Melanoma Cancer, Genital Cancer, Other Infectious disease like HIV.Co-development, particularly of drugs with assays for pharmacogenomics biomarkers necessary for patient selection, will be an important component of the shift to precision or personalized medicines. The division of responsibilities could also maintain gaps in controls, in the pre-analytical phases of biomarker testing, on the quality of specimens, particularly during their storage and transportation, and in the monitoring of the reproducibility of tests.GET FULL REPORT @Companion Diagnostics Market  Competitive AnalysisThe embryonic market of Companion Diagnostics appears to be fairly stable as far as the eye can see. With the handful of players operating in the market, Companion Diagnostics seems to be consolidated industry. Marketers compete based upon price and brand reinforcement. Well established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and technology launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position. Key Players operating in the market compete based on pricing, innovation and service. In view of growth and immense revenue generation opportunities potential that market is currently demonstrating is in turn attracting several new entrants to enter the Companion Diagnostics market.Sep. 2017  Thermo Fisher Scientific has signed an agreement with the Institute of Pathology Heidelberg (IPH). The initiative focuses on forging strategic collaborations with leading, European-based organizations that can lead studies using Thermo Fishers Oncoming portfolio of research panels destined for development as Companion Diagnostics to help drive precision oncology in the region.Industry News - Sep. 2017  The European Union has been overhauling its rules on in-vitro diagnostics (IVD), particularly companion diagnostics, to bring them more into line with internationally agreed standards. But despite the changes, it is still retaining a regulatory system that keeps the approval of IVDs separate from those for pharmaceuticals. The authorization of medicines and diagnostics will continue to be done along different regulatory pathways even though the use of companion diagnostics (CDx) is considered to be crucial to the performance of the drug.Companion Diagnostics Market  SegmentsThe Companion Diagnostics Market is segmented in to 4 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;Segmentation By Types: Comprises Theranostics And Monitoring Tests, and other.Segmentation By Application: Comprises Cancer Diseases, Cardiovascular, Central Nervous Systems, and other.Segmentation by End Users: Comprises Hospital, Research Laboratories, Medical Institutes and others.Segmentation by Regions: Comprises Geographical regions - North America, Europe, APAC and Rest of the World.Companion Diagnostics Market  Regional AnalysisGlobally North America is the largest market for companion diagnostics, and is expected to grow at a substantial CAGR. Europe is the second-largest market for companion diagnostics which is expected to grow at a considerable CAGR. Whereas Asia pacific is expected to be a fastest growing market and expected to grow at a rapid pace during the forecasted period.CONTINUEDGET DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Vitamin D Testing Market 2017: Key Players  Abbott Diagnostics, Vitamin D Company, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Biomeriux Diasorin

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SummaryGlobal Vitamin D Testing Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.2% during the forecast period. Rising aging population and growing number of vitamin D deficiency diseases are some of the key factors favouring the market growth. However, growing price burden on patients is hampering the market. North America commanded the largest market share due to the higher healthcare expenditure as compared to other developing countries. Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at the fastest CAGR due to increasing funds by several market vendors in the region.Request a Sample Report @Some of the key players in Vitamin D Testing market include F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics, Vitamin D Company, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, Biomeriux Diasorin, Roche Diagnostics, Diazyme Laboratories, Danaher Corporation, Quest Diagnostics, Tosoh Bioscience, DiaSorin S.p.A., Qualigen and Biokit.End Users Covered: Physicians office Hospitals ASCsProducts Covered: 1,25-Dihydroxy vitamin D 25-Hydroxy Vitamin DRegions Covered: North Americao USo Canadao Mexico Europeo Germanyo Franceo Italyo UKo Spaino Rest of Europe Asia Pacifico Japano Chinao Indiao Australiao New Zealando Rest of APAC Rest of the Worldo Middle Easto Brazilo Argentinao South Africao EgyptWhat our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 7 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsAt any Query @Table of Contents1 Executive Summary2 Preface2.1 Abstract2.2 Stake Holders2.3 Research Scope2.4 Research Methodology2.4.1 Data Mining2.4.2 Data Analysis2.4.3 Data Validation2.4.4 Research Approach2.5 Research Sources2.5.1 Primary Research Sources2.5.2 Secondary Research Sources2.5.3 Assumptions3 Market Trend Analysis3.1 Introduction3.2 Drivers3.3 Restraints3.4 Opportunities3.5 Threats3.6 End User Analysis3.7 Product Analysis3.8 Emerging Markets3.9 Futuristic Market Scenario4 Porters Five Force Analysis4.1 Bargaining power of suppliers4.2 Bargaining power of buyers4.3 Threat of substitutes4.4 Threat of new entrants4.5 Competitive rivalry5 Global Vitamin D Testing Market, By End User5.1 Introduction5.2 Physicians office5.3 Hospitals5.4 ASCs6 Global Vitamin D Testing Market, By Product6.1 Introduction6.2 1,25-Dihydroxy vitamin D6.3 25-Hydroxy Vitamin D8 Key Developments8.1 Agreements, Partnerships, Collaborations and Joint Ventures8.2 Acquisitions & Mergers8.3 New Product Launch8.4 Expansions8.5 Other Key Strategies9 Company Profiling9.1 F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.9.2 Abbott Diagnostics9.3 Vitamin D Company9.4 Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics9.5 Biomeriux Diasorin9.6 Roche Diagnostics9.7 Diazyme Laboratories9.8 Danaher Corporation9.9 Quest Diagnostics9.10 Tosoh Bioscience9.11 DiaSorin S.p.A.9.12 Qualigen9.13 BiokitBuy Now @Continued....Contact Us: sales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US) ; Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRESS:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Global Timing Gear Market Research Report 2017 Key Manufacturers : URO Parts, BorgWarner

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Timing Gear Market Research Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The report Timing Gear Market is a comprehensive industry study featuring qualitative and quantitative analysis. In todays complex business environment, players in the global Timing Gear market need to remain updated about the latest trends. The latest intelligence on the Timing Gear market can help companies form more informed business decisions. Furthermore, knowing the latest market trends will also help companies avoid any unnecessary business risks in the changing landscape of the global Timing Gear market. The research report on the global Timing Gear market presents to readers recent news, key deals, and other trends that are shaping the market. Furthermore, the valuable recommendations provided in the global Timing Gear market report will help companies form a more effective strategy, whether to penetrate a new market or expand their portfolio.The research report begins with a brief industry overview. In this section, the report offers definition, specifications, classifications, and applications of Timing Gear. Further to this, key data on the latest industry news and major deals is covered. This will update readers regarding the key events that are shaping the global Timing Gear market. Moreover, the report also provides the latest news and details regarding the regulatory framework of the global Timing Gear market.Get Research Summary Of The Report:Global Timing Gear market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingBorgWarnerTorqtek Design and ManufacturingRACL GeartechW M BergBhagat ForgeMelling Engine PartsJBM IndustriesAisinURO PartsBorgWarnerGKNPCILastly, the research report delivers a comprehensive analysis of the competitive landscape of the global Timing Gear market. This section covers the analysis of key companies operating in the global Timing Gear market with their portfolio, production data, company profile, price, revenue, and cost. In addition to this, this section also enlists the contact information of these major firms.Table of Contents1 Timing Gear Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Timing Gear1.2 Timing Gear Segment by Type (Product Category)1.3 Global Timing Gear Segment by Application1.4 Global Timing Gear Market by Region (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Timing Gear (2012-2022)2 Global Timing Gear Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Timing Gear Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Timing Gear Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Timing Gear Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Timing Gear Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Timing Gear Market Competitive Situation and TrendsView TOC (table of content) of the Report:7 Global Timing Gear Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 BorgWarner7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Timing Gear Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.3 BorgWarner Timing Gear Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Torqtek Design and Manufacturing7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Timing Gear Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.3 Torqtek Design and Manufacturing Timing Gear Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Timing GearFigure Global Timing Gear Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2012-2022)Figure Global Timing Gear Production Market Share by Types (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global Timing Gear Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)Figure Global Timing Gear Consumption (Sales) Market Share by Applications in 2016Figure Global Timing Gear Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Timing Gear Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Table Global Timing Gear Capacity Market Share of Key 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
Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Market Report 2017 : GCM Products, Apex Biotechnol

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The research report, Tongkat Ali Powder Market offers a detailed analysis of the key segments of the global Tongkat Ali Powder market. The report provides valuable historical and forecast data to companies. Backed by extensive primary and secondary research, the research study offers key statistics on the global Tongkat Ali Powder market to help companies achieve on long-term as well as short-term business goals.Broadly, the global Tongkat Ali Powder market is segmented on the basis of criteria such as type, application, end use, and geography. Each key segment of the global Tongkat Ali Powder market has been analyzed with its historical data. The forecast values of these segments are also covered in the report. This will help clients gain a better understanding of the segments that need to be considered when thinking of investing in Tongkat Ali Powder market. Moreover, the vast data regarding present and past growth prospects of the market could help companies understand the segments that could gain traction in the near future.Details related to the manufacturing cost and other technical data are also presented in the global Tongkat Ali Powder market research report. Analysis of raw material suppliers, price analysis of Tongkat Ali Powder, equipment suppliers, labor costs, and other costs is provided. In addition to this, the study also delivers a manufacturing plants analysis. This section features analysis of capacity and commercial production data, raw material sources, and R&D status and technology sources of the Tongkat Ali Powder industry.Get Complimentary Research Summary Of The Report:Global Tongkat Ali Powder market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Tongkat Ali Powder sales volume, Price (USD/MT), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingCambodia Moringa Leaf Powder(Kampuchea)Changsha Herbway Biotech Co., Ltd(CN)Masmani Sdn Bhd(Malaysia)Sweet Heart Food Industries Sdn Bhd(Malaysia)Shanghai Greensail Biotechnology Co., Ltd.(CN)GCM Products(Malaysia)Nutra Green Biotechnology Co.,Ltd.(CN)Xi'an Pincredit Bio-Tech Co., Ltd.(CN)Apex Biotechnol(India)The report also includes a detailed analysis of the vendor landscape of the global Tongkat Ali Powder market. Along with the detailed business profiles of some of the leading companies in the market, the report also presents an overview of the recent developments in the Tongkat Ali Powder market in terms of strategic collaborations, M&A, and product launches. Lastly, the report covers investment feasibility analysis for new projects. This is a valuable source of guidance for professionals or companies operating in the global Tongkat Ali Powder market. It will safeguard clients from making any investments in projects that pose a risk to their business.Table of Contents1 Tongkat Ali Powder Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Tongkat Ali Powder1.2 Classification of Tongkat Ali Powder by Product Category1.3 Global Tongkat Ali Powder Market by Application/End Users1.4 Global Tongkat Ali Powder Market by Region1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Tongkat Ali Powder (2012-2022)2 Global Tongkat Ali Powder Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Tongkat Ali Powder Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.2 Global Tongkat Ali Powder (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global Tongkat Ali Powder (Volume and Value) by Region2.4 Global Tongkat Ali Powder (Volume) by ApplicationObtain Table of Content @9 Global Tongkat Ali Powder Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data9.1 Cambodia Moringa Leaf Powder(Kampuchea)9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Tongkat Ali Powder Product Category, Application and Specification9.1.3 Cambodia Moringa Leaf Powder(Kampuchea) Tongkat Ali Powder Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Changsha Herbway Biotech Co., Ltd(CN)9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Tongkat Ali Powder Product Category, Application and Specification9.2.3 Changsha Herbway Biotech Co., Ltd(CN) Tongkat Ali Powder Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Tongkat Ali PowderFigure Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Volume Comparison (K MT) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Comparison (K MT) by Application (2012-2022)Figure Global Sales Market Share of Tongkat Ali Powder by Application in 2016Figure Global Tongkat Ali Powder Market Size (Million USD) by Regions (2012-2022)Figure United States Tongkat Ali Powder Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Tongkat Ali Powder Sales Volume (K MT) 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
emtas CANopen FD protocol stack and tools released

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Merseburg, October 2017After the release of the CANopen FD specification CiA 1301 1.0 by the CAN in Automation e.V. emtas now announces their CANopen FD Master/Slave protocol stack.Based on its field proven CANopen protocol stacks emtas has developed their new CANopen FD Master/Slave protocol stack, which can be used to develop CANopen FD master and slaves devices. The stack is delivered as source code for various targets and licensed under a royalty-free license.The CANopen FD protocol stack has been implemented according to the CiA specification 1301 1.0. This latest version of the specification has been developed by the SIG application layer in CAN in Automation e.V. with active participation of emtas' engineers. The released stack supports all new CANopen FD features such as PDOs with up to 64 bytes, extended emergency messages, the new error history and the new Universal SDO (USDO) service, which includes new possibilities such as broadcast and routing of USDO messages. The stack can be used on various embedded micro controllers which already support CAN FD. It has been successfully tested on a STM32H7, NXP LPC546xx, Microchip's Atmel SAM C21 and with Microchip's external CAN FD controller MCP2517FD. In addition to these embedded platforms the protocol stack can also be used on Windows or Linux with various CAN FD interfaces from different manufacturers.Together with the stack emtas has updated its CANopen DeviceDesigner  a PC tool to design CANopen and CANopen FD devices. This tool generates code for the object dictionary and configuration header files to configure the stack and it generates as well electronic device description files based on the object dictionary of the devices to ensure the implementation and documentation are always in sync.Also emtas CANopen DeviceExplorer has been updated for CANopen FD with its new features. The CDE is a versatile CANopen FD configuration and analysis tool.Supporting CANopen and CANopen FD the tool is available for Windows, Linux and OS X.Experience the emtas products live at the SPS IPC Drives fair 2017 in Nuremberg at the emtas booth 125 in hall 6. The exhibition takes place in November 28 to 30.emtas GmbHFounded in 2012, emtas GmbH is located in Merseburg, Germany. The company is an established supplier of CANopen, EnergyBus, J1939 and EtherCAT protocol software and tools. Additionally emtas offers integration support, development services as well as consulting and training for the topics CANopen, CANopen FD, EnergyBus, J1939 and EtherCAT.press contact:Torsten GedenkManaging Directoremtas GmbHFritz-Haber-Str. 9D-06217 MerseburgTel.:+49 (0)3461 / 79416-18Fax.:+49 (0)3461 / 79416-10service@emtas.de
Protein Drinks 2017 Global Market Key Players  Arla Foods, Nestle, Coconut Palm, Glanbia, Archer Daniels Midland, Westland  Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Protein Drinks Market

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Protein Drinks Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com adds Protein Drinks 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 Protein Drinks Market using SWOT analysis i.e. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat to the organization. The Protein Drinks 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 Protein Drinks market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer;The top key players including ;GlanbiaCytoSportArla FoodsCoconut PalmChende LuluDaliyuanNestleDavisco Foods InternationalWestlandLaguna BlendsArcher Daniels MidlandWeider Global NutritionRequest a Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Protein Drinks 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 intoby ComponentVitaminIronFibreOther Nutritional IngredientsType IIOn 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, includingHypermarket & SupermarketFood & Drink SpecialistsConvenience StoresIf 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 Protein Drinks Market Research Report 20171 Protein Drinks Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Protein Drinks1.2 Protein Drinks Segment by Component1.2.1 Global Protein Drinks Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Component (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Protein Drinks Production Market Share by Component (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Vitamin1.2.4 Iron1.2.5 Fibre1.2.6 Other Nutritional Ingredients1.3 Global Protein Drinks Segment by Application1.3.1 Protein Drinks Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hypermarket & Supermarket1.3.3 Food & Drink Specialists1.3.4 Convenience Stores1.4 Global Protein Drinks Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Protein Drinks 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 Protein Drinks (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Protein Drinks Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Protein Drinks Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022).7 Global Protein Drinks Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Glanbia7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Glanbia Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 CytoSport7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 CytoSport Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Arla Foods7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Arla Foods Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Coconut Palm7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Coconut Palm Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Chende Lulu7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Chende Lulu Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Daliyuan7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Daliyuan Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Nestle7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Nestle Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Davisco Foods International7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Davisco Foods International Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Westland7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Westland Protein Drinks Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Laguna Blends7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Protein Drinks Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Laguna Blends Protein Drinks 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
Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Market Report 2017 : Hisense, Angelcare, Mattel

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The exhaustive report here gathers various viewpoints having a place with the general Advanced Baby Monitor 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 Advanced Baby Monitor 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.This report other than stations into the general Advanced Baby Monitor 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.KNOW MORE WITH FREE SAMPLE STUDY @Global Advanced Baby Monitor market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Advanced Baby Monitor sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingHisenseMayborn GroupAngelcareiBabyGuard InternationalJablotronSnuza InternationalMattelRest DevicesMonDevicesRespisenseThe report uses a few indicated industry examination and entire contraptions. They allow the examination assemble pass on a revealed basic evaluation of the general Advanced Baby Monitor 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 Advanced Baby Monitor market in the years ahead.Table of Contents1 Advanced Baby Monitor Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Advanced Baby Monitor1.2 Classification of Advanced Baby Monitor by Product Category1.3 Global Advanced Baby Monitor Market by Application/End Users1.4 Global Advanced Baby Monitor Market by Region1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Advanced Baby Monitor (2012-2022)2 Global Advanced Baby Monitor Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Advanced Baby Monitor Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.2 Global Advanced Baby Monitor (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global Advanced Baby Monitor (Volume and Value) by Region2.4 Global Advanced Baby Monitor (Volume) by ApplicationInterested in report: Please follow the below link to meet your requirements:9 Global Advanced Baby Monitor Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data9.1 Hisense9.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.1.2 Advanced Baby Monitor Product Category, Application and Specification9.1.3 Hisense Advanced Baby Monitor Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview9.2 Mayborn Group9.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors9.2.2 Advanced Baby Monitor Product Category, Application and Specification9.2.3 Mayborn Group Advanced Baby Monitor Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)9.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Advanced Baby MonitorFigure Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Volume Comparison (K Units) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Comparison (K Units) by Application (2012-2022)Figure Global Sales Market Share of Advanced Baby Monitor by Application in 2016Figure Global Advanced Baby Monitor Sales Volume (K Units) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Advanced Baby Monitor 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:1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market Research 2017 : Nihon Kohden, Zoll Medical

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market Research Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The thorough report here assembles different perspectives having a place with the general Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators 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 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators 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.Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingBoston ScientificSt. Jude MedicalMedtronicNihon KohdenZoll MedicalOrder a Free Copy of Sample Report @This report other than stations into the general Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators 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 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators 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 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators market in the years ahead.Table of Contents1 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators1.2 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Segment by Type (Product Category)1.3 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Segment by Application1.4 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market by Region (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators (2012-2022)2 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Market Competitive Situation and TrendsView TOC (table of content) of the Report:7 Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Boston Scientific7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.3 Boston Scientific Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 St. Jude Medical7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.3 St. Jude Medical Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business OverviewList of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Wearable Cardioverter DefibrillatorsFigure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Production (K Units) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2012-2022)Figure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Production Market Share by Types (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Consumption (K Units) by Applications (2012-2022)Figure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Consumption Market Share by Applications in 2016Figure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillators Capacity, Production (K Units) Status and Outlook (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
Palau Welcomes the Future of Shipping Regulation

Port State Control could be about to change and move away from black, grey and white performance lists as pressure grows to concentrate more on targeted inspections of under-performing ships, a potential move welcomed by Palau International Ship Registry (PISR).Panos Kirnidis, CEO of PISR has responded positively to the recent workshops held at the IMO headquarters in London in October that has suggested a range of proposals and recommendations centred on harmonisation and information sharing.I have spent the last 12 months on behalf of Palau registry highlighting how the Paris MoU Blacklist is stopping the growth of new registries, is anti-competitive and has become a vicious circle. Along with the calls I and other registries have made for more common standards it is now very encouraging to see that the industry is starting to appreciate how vital it is for the worlds shipping industry to be unified and working for the benefit of everyone, not just the leading players. Currently Port State Control Officers dont work to a common standard for PSC inspections and the mathematical formula used is biased against smaller registries. I am very pleased to see that the IMO workshop recommended that port state control (PSC) regimes consider developing and maintaining a coordinated list of under-performing ships. This focus on individual ships will give us greater flexibility and enable the smaller and newer registries to concentrate on raising the standards and their own performance. This is precisely what I have been asking for over the past 12 months. Panos Kirnidis welcomes the suggestions of the development of a common platform for interregional exchange to facilitate informal exchange among PSC regimes. He believes this will eradicate many of the complaints about political and geographical bias as well as tackling the volatile mix of corruption and sheer incompetence he believes some PSC personnel currently exhibit.The idea of harmonising procedures and establishing the training of new entrants in port state and flag state personnel is an excellent idea and one we should have considered many years ago. Getting flag state inspectors and PSC officers trained to one standard is not just a question of establishing a set of rules, it is more about giving the industry a code of conduct we can all adhere to. At the end of 2016 I complained about the incidents of corruption in the Black Sea region to name one area and I still see politics at play there. But with a transparent code and one agreed set of rules, we can all agree on, there is real hope for the future when dealing with such cases. Moving away from black/grey/white lists towards an individual ship risk profile approach puts greater pressures on shipowners and here registries can work with them to raise their standards as well as those of the industry.An increasing number of PSC regimes are implementing targeted inspections mechanisms and incentive schemes. Ships found in compliance with international standards are subject to fewer inspections pushing the focus more onto substandard ships. This is another idea that Panos Kirnidis sees as helping registries.The IMO is a very important part of the world shipping industry and its presence and influence is felt across the globe, It is very encouraging to see so many new ideas being floated to bring this sector into the 21st century and help not only the giants of the seas, but also the smaller registries who are just as important. I was hoping in 2018 that I would not have to be so negative about the rules and regulations registries operate under and this could well be the start of that process. Palau registry is a strong registry with strong ideas and vision. We are also just one of many registries that are working diligently behind the scenes to keep the industry afloat and the world economy moving.EndsThe Palau International Ship Registry (PISR), an open registry headquartered in Houston, USA and has its European head office in Athens, Greece. PISR was created by an amendment to the Title 7 of the Republic of Palau National Code in 2010 and was appointed by the Government of the Republic to carry out the day-to-day management of vessels registered to the flag as the Ship Registry Administrator. PISR provides full administrative and technical support to the registration of vessels. PISR is an active member of both the IMO and ILO and is a member of BIMCO, WCPFC. Compact agreement of Free Association (COFA) with USAImage Line8 Skyline Business VillageE14 9TS London
Advanced Analytics Market to Witness Huge Demand for Addressing Diverse Business Requirements

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Future Market Insights (FMI) has offered an exhaustive analysis on the global advanced analytics market, for the forecast period 2017 to 2022, in its one of the recent research reports. FMIs report projects the global market for advanced analytics to reflect a steady 5.5% CAGR through 2022. Revenues from the global advanced analytics market will exceed US$ 13,500 Mn by 2022-end.Advanced Analytics to Witness Huge Demand for Addressing Diverse Business RequirementsAdoption of advanced analytics solutions has witnessed a considerable surge over the recent past, with increased demand for addressing diverse business requirements. With increasing competition, businesses are focusing on rapid expansion for gaining higher market shares along with retaining their customers.These businesses require intelligence, which will help in predicting future scenarios, identifying opportunities, improving processes and anticipating problems. Advanced analytics helps in meeting all these business requirements by analysing structured as well as unstructured data.Obtain Report Details:A number of niche players are entering the market with the provision of advanced analytics solutions at a relatively lower costs, which in turn has fuelled the adoption of these solutions.In addition, several medium- and small-sized industries are now offering updated services & solutions to optimise business efficiency at low costs. The introduction of advanced analytics is helping various organisation in incorporating efficient techniques including big data analytics, location intelligence, and data mining. The organisations are able to extract valuable information, and make better business decisions.Key Takeaways from FMIs Report on Global Advanced Analytics MarketThe global advanced analytics market is projected to witness the fastest expansion in North America, with sales estimated to reach approximately US$ 2,500 Mn in revenues by 2022-end.Enterprises in the region are increasingly adopting advanced analytics solutions for gaining insights on the available data, and identifying various industry trends. Asia-pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) and Europe are anticipated to follow the footsteps of North America in terms of CAGR through 2022.In addition, APEJ will remain the largest market for advanced analytics, in terms of revenues. Middle East & Africa will exhibit a sluggish expansion in the global advanced analytics market over the forecast period.Make Enquiry @Based on solutions, big data analytics and visual analytics are projected to register a parallel expansion in sales through 2022. Revenues from these solutions will collectively account for over one-third share of the market in 2017.However, sales of big data analytics and visual analytics will exhibit the lowest CAGRs in the market through 2022. Predictive analytics will register the highest CAGR in sales, to remain the most lucrative solution of advanced analytics over the forecast period. In addition, risk analytics will also discern a rapid expansion in its sales through 2022.Advanced analytics solutions are anticipated to experience the fastest sales expansion in retail & consumer goods industry, with sales poised to account for nearly US$ 3,000 Mn revenues by 2022-end. Government and healthcare industries are also projected to ride on a high CAGR in the market through 2022.In contrast, BFSI industry will register a relatively lower CAGR throughout the forecast period. However, BFSI will remain the most lucrative industry in the global advanced analytics market, in terms of revenues.Vendors being Encourages to Integrate Analytics Solutions with Technically Advanced FeaturesSeveral enterprises in the market viewed advanced analytics to be an expensive technique. However, this perception is witnessing a rapid transformation, as enterprises are realising the advantages of analytics in developing market strategies that are customer-oriented. This is further encouraging vendors to integrate these solutions with technically advanced features.Key companies profiled by FMIs report, who are actively contributing to expansion of the global market for advanced analytics, include CA Technologies, Oracle Corp., Teradata Corporation, Infor Inc., SAS Institute Inc., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., and IBM Corporation.Get Toc @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:
Russell Bedford Hong Kong appoints new director

Russell Bedford Hong Kong, member firm of the Russell Bedford global accounting and audit group in Hong Kong, announces promotion of Erica Xiong to director of tax and business advisory services.Erica has acquired almost 15 years experience in the tax and business advisory field, joining Russell Bedford Hong Kong in 2008. She spent her early career in Australia having graduated from Monash University, Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Finance).Erica is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Tax Institute of Hong Kong.Commenting on the new appointment, James Ngai, managing partner of Russell Bedford Hong Kong said: "We are delighted to announce Erica's promotion to director. Having established herself as an expert in her field over the past 15 years, we are delighted to see Erica lead the tax and business advisory services team and we are confident that her leadership will support the development and growth of our firm."Russell Bedford Hong Kong is a full-service firm of Certified Public Accountants, established in 1994. The firm joined the Russell Bedford network in 2001. In 2012, James Ngai was elected as an APAC regional director on the board of management of Russell Bedford International.At Russell Bedford International, we specialize in helping companies meet the challenges that international business expansion presents. Since 1983, our worldwide network of accountancy firms has provided financial expertise and business consultancy to companies within many different markets and industries.Russell Bedford International3rd Floor, Paternoster House65 St Paul's ChurchyardLondonEC4M 8ABUnited Kingdom
Coconut Milk Market North America will Grab Largest Market Share

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Nutrition-rich foods are becoming top choice of consumers in developing markets, while developed economies are already viewing them as top-grossing products. High nutritional content of coconut milk is garnering the interests of consumers in countries such as the US and Canada.Future Market Insights recent report on the global coconut milk market reveals that North America will be a dominant consumer & producer of coconut milk in the years to come. The global market for coconut milk, which is expected to witness sales of over 430,000 MT by the end of 2017, will garner around 25% of these sales from North America.According to the report, revenues from global coconut milk sales reached US$ 780.4 Mn in 2016, and are estimated to soar towards US$ 830 Mn by the end of 2017Obtain Report Details:Key findings in the report project that the global market for coconut milk will soar at a healthy 7.3% CAGR to bring in US$ 1,687.7 Mn in revenues during the assessment period, 2017-2027. In terms of volume, the market will exhibit a 6.4% CAGR and record an estimated sales of more than 800,000 MT towards the end of 2027.Increasing demand for plant-based, organic beverages among consumers, in developed as well as developing countries, is being observed as the key attributor for growth of global coconut milk market. Besides the healthy content, consumers are also growing inclined towards new tastes, which is why savouring Asian cuisines enriched in coconut milk are gaining popularity across the globe.However, high price of procuring raw coconut meat (in some countries), and growing proliferation of organic substitutes for coconut milk, are likely to restrain the markets growth to a considerable extent.Make Enquiry @Demand for Coconut Milk Powder Losing TractionOne of the vital findings compiled in the report indicate that in 2017, coconut milk in the form of powder is predicted to gain traction, reflecting a market share of 38%. However, towards the end of the forecast period, presence of coconut milk powder products on global market revenues is likely to incur a significant dip.Demand for coconut milk in form of fluids will grow steadily, and dominate with nearly 65% revenue share by 2027-end. Likewise, the demand for conventional coconut milk is expected to gain traction in 2017, but may witness a decline in its global revenue share by the end of forecast period. Organic coconut milk products, on the other hand, will reflect an uptick in global sales, registering a value CAGR of 8.2% through 2027.Growing consumption of coconut milk is mainly attributed by effective end-use. Household, food services and food & beverage manufacturing are observed as three profitable end-uses of coconut milk. Collectively, revenues from these three end-use applications will collectively account for more than 80% of global coconut milk revenues by the end of 2027.The report also profiles leading producers and manufacturers of coconut milk in the world as key participants in the global coconut milk market, which include Mc Cormick & co., The Whitewave foods, Goya Foods, Charoen Pokphand Foods, Theppadungporn Agricultural Industry,Ducoco Ailmentos SA, Thai Agri Foods, Celebes Coconut Corporation, Pacific Foods of Oregon, GraceKennedy Group, Thai Coconut Public Company Limited, M&S Food Industries, The Sambu Group, Fresh Fruit Ingredients Inc., Chefs Choice Food Manufacturer Company Limited.Get Toc @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:
Neuropsychiatric Disorders And Treatment 2017: Key Players  Astrazeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Biogen, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Eli Lilly and More

Neuropsychiatric Disorders And Treatment

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The World Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment Market Report is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.2% during forecasted period.The Worldwide Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment Market report explores the Top Key Players in-depth analysis as Astrazeneca (UK), GlaxoSmithKline (UK), Universal Health Services Inc. (US), Biogen (US), Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH (Germany), Eli Lilly (US), Bristol-Meyer Squibb (US), Johnson & Johnson (US), Pfizer (US), Wyeth (US), Otsuka Holdings Co. Ltd (Japan), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Japan)GET SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment- Market Research Report: World Forecast to 2023.Market Highlight:Neuropsychiatric Market is the mental disorder occur due to disturbance in the function of cerebral system. Mania and hallucination are some of the major neuropsychiatric diseases. Neuropsychiatric diseases occur at any age but the pediatric neuropsychiatry is getting a huge demand due to increasing number of infants, children and adolescents suffering from neuropsychiatric diseases. Increasing prevalence of different neuropsychiatric diseases across the globe is the major driving factor for the growth of the market. While long term treatment and lack of clinical trial data for neuropsychiatric diseases may hamper the growth of the market.The World Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment Market Report is segmented on the basis of disorders into degenerative diseases, neurotic disorders, psychosis and others. On the basis of treatments it is segmented as shock treatment, drug treatment, others and on the basis of end users it is hospitals, clinics, research centers and othersThe report for World Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regions.Regional Analysis:On regional basis, North America commands the largest share of World Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Treatment Market. Increasing prevalence of neuropsychiatric disorders and governmental support for the research and development of the medicines in this area are the major driving factor for the growth of the market in North America. Europe commands the second largest market followed by Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is expected to grow at a fastest rate due to rapid development of the healthcare sector in this regions.GET FULL REPORT @Some of Major TOC:1 Introduction1.1 Definition1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations1.2.2.1 Assumptions1.2.2.2 Limitations1.3 Market Structure:2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Process:2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research:3 Market Dynamics3.1 Drivers3.2 Restraints3.3 Opportunities3.4 Macroeconomic Indicators4 Market Factor Analysis4.1 Porters Five Forces Model4.2 Bargaining Power of Suppliers4.3 Bargaining Power of Buyers4.4 Threat of New Entrants4.5 Threat of Substitutes4.6 Intensity of Rivalry...10 Company Profile10.1 Astrazeneca10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Product Overview10.1.3 Financials10.1.4 Key Developments10.2 Glaxosmithkline10.2.1 Overview10.2.2 Product Overview10.2.3 Financials10.2.4 Key Developments10.3 Universal Health Services Inc10.3.1 Overview10.3.2 Product Overview10.3.3 Financials10.3.4 Strategy10.3.5 Key Development10.4 Boehringer Ingelheim Gmbh10.4.1 Overview10.4.2 Product Overview10.4.3 Financials10.4.4 Key Developments10.5 Eli Lilly10.5.1 Overview10.5.2 Product Overview10.5.3 Financials10.5.4 Key Developments10.6 OthersCONTINUEDGET DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
Photographic Services Market (Lifetouch, Getty Images, Studio Alice) Global Research on Growth, Development & Forecast to 2022

Photographic Services Market Study

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Global Photographic Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 is latest research study released by HTF MI evaluating the market, highlighting opportunities, risk side analysis, and leveraged with strategic and tactical decision-making support. The study provides information on market trends and development, drivers, capacities, technologies, and on the changing capital structure of the Global Photographic Services Market.Global Photographic Services market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includes Lifetouch, Getty Images, Studio Alice, Picture People, Dimension Studios & Portrait InnovationsGlobal Photographic Services (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Portrait Studios & Commercial StudiosMarket Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022Portrait Studios xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Commercial Studios xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%The research study is segmented by Application such as Children, Youth & Adult with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Global Photographic Services (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)Children xx xx xx xx% xx%Youth xx xx xx xx% xx%Adult xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx 100% xx%Get Access to sample pages @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Photographic Services in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringMarket Segment by Regions 2012 2017 2022 Share (%) CAGR (2017-2022)United States xx xx xx xx% xx%EU xx xx xx xx% xx%Japan xx xx xx xx% xx%China xx xx xx xx% xx%India xx xx xx xx% xx%Southeast Asia xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx xx% xx%This independent 91 page research with title Global Photographic Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 covers geographic analysis that includes regions/countries like United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia and important players/vendors such as Lifetouch, Getty Images, Studio Alice, Picture People, Dimension Studios & Portrait Innovations. With n-number of tables and figures examining the Photographic Services , the research gives you a perfect visual, products, submarkets and market leaders revenue forecasts as well as analysis to 2022Each player highlighted in the research study contains companies Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors, in-depth business overview, geographic footprint and contact information. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to SWOT Analysis.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @This study is the collection of primary and secondary data including valuable information from major vendors in the market and the projections are derived on data from 2012 to current date and projected forecasts till 2022 which makes the research study a valuable resource for industry personnel, and other people looking for key industry related data in readily accessible documents with easy to analyze graphs and tables. The report is a perfect answer to future development roadmap of Photographic Services based on ongoing outlook to assist industry player understand the development journey of Photographic Services Market.Key questions answered in this report - Global Photographic Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Photographic Services marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in Global Photographic Services market spaceBuy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Photographic Services market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Photographic Services , Applications of Photographic Services , Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Photographic Services Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Photographic Services Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Portrait Studios & Commercial Studios], Market Trend by Application [Children, Youth & Adult];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of ;Chapter 12, to describe Photographic Services Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Photographic 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.Contact Us:CRAIG FRANCIS (PR & Marketing Manager)sales@htfmarketreport.comPh: +1 (206) 317 1218Connect with us atHTF 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
Asparagus Market Lucrative in Various Regions Accross Globe

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Key excerpts from Future Market Insights latest report on the global asparagus market project that by the end of 2027, around 10,300,521.7 metric tonnes (MT) of asparagus will be consumed across the globe. The sales of 10 million MT of asparagus are estimated to bring in revenues worth over US$ 37 Bn.Rising awareness among consumers regarding benefits of consuming asparagus is expected to instrument the growth in global consumption. By helping consumers boost their immunity, enhance brain function, and at certain extent, fight cancer, asparagus will continue to be an essential vegetable rich in nutrients.Obtain Report Details:In terms of production, China is expected to remain the worlds largest asparagus producer throughout the forecast period, 2017-2027. In 2014, China recorded production of half a million metric tonnes of asparagus. Chinas contribution to the asparagus market in Asia-Pacific will remain significant.However, brimming demand for asparagus makes Western Europe the largest market, procuring over 40% share of global revenues. North America is also expected to be at the forefront of expansion of the global asparagus market, recording consumption of nearly 2 million MT of asparagus by 2016-end.In spite of ample production and growing awareness regarding benefits of asparagus, the market is poised to grow at a moderate place. In terms of volume, the market is projected to showcase a 2.2% CAGR, while global asparagus revenues are projected to soar sluggishly at 3.1% CAGR during the forecast period.The report, titled Asparagus Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2017-2027, has identifies key restraints for the growth of global asparagus sales, which include:Farmers Opting for Direct Marketing  Farmers cultivating asparagus sell their produce by themselves, through traditional village bazaars and roadside outlets.Large and small restaurants as well as common consumers are also preferring to purchase this farm-fresh asparagus through direct marketing of farmers. This practice is impacting the global asparagus sales, but at a moderate extent.Make Enquiry @High Costs for Processing & Storage of Asparagus  The most crucial inhibitor for growth of global asparagus sales is the need for higher capital investment in storage and processing of asparagus. Cost of packaging, cooling and transportation is relatively high, which reduces the price per pound of asparagus.Reduction in price per pound further leads to monetary losses for manufacturers. Processed asparagus, such as asparagus in brine, soups, mixed vegetable products etc., being sold at higher cost price, is expected to result in lower uptake among some sections of consumers in the world.Leading manufacturers of asparagus include: Altar Produce LLC, Sociedad Agricola Viru, DanPer Trujillo S.A.C., Limgroup B.V., TEBOZA BV, THIERMANN SPAGEL FARM, ILIOS - The Greek Asparagus Company, BEJO SEEDS LTD., Spargelhof Elsholz Gbr, Cutter Asparagus Seed, JERSEY ASPARAGUS FARMS, INC., Consorzio Associazione Produttori Ortofrutticoli Foggia, Mazzoni Vivai, and California Asparagus Seed and Transplants, Inc.Additional Highlights from the Report -By the end of 2017, the report estimates that over 8.2 million MT of asparagus will consumed globally, raking in US$ 27.7 Bn revenuesTowards the end of 2027, over three-fourth of global revenues will be accounted by sales of fresh asparagusLikewise, green asparagus will also hold 75% share of global revenues throughout the forecast period, registering revenue growth at 3.3% CAGRGet Toc @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:
Vulvar Cancer Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2023

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Market Research Future adds new report of Vulvar Cancer Market Research Report it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of Content. Global vulvar cancer market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa region.Global Vulvar Cancer Market Research Report, by Types (adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinomas, melanoma, sarcoma), by Treatment (radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgery, drug treatment) and by End User (hospitals and clinics, cancer research institutes) - Forecast Till 2023Get a Copy of Sample Report @SegmentationGlobal vulvar cancer market is segmentedOn the basis of vulvar cancer which includes adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinomas, melanoma, sarcomaand other.On the basis of treatment the market is segmented as radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgery and drugs treatment. Surgery is further sub segmented into excision, radical vulvectomy, partial vulvectomy and other.On the basis of end user the market is segmented into hospitals and clinics, cancer research institutes and other.Market Synopsis of Global Vulvar Cancer Market:Market Scenario:Vulvar cancer is a rare disease that comprises of a malignant and invasive growth in the vulva. Being a rare disease it accounts for only 0.6- 0.7 % of total cancer diagnosis. Labia majora is the common site of this cancer as compared to labia minora. The major driving factor for this market is increasing prevalence of different types of like vulvar and vaginal cancer and changing lifestyle which is responsible for causing this cancer. On other hand high price associated with this disease and number of adverse effect of treatment may hamper the growth of this market.Global vulvar cancer market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.8% during forecasted period of 2017-2023.Regional AnalysisOn regional basis the global vulvar cancer market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa. North America contribute the largest share in the market of vulvar cancer. Due to increasing prevalence of cancer in this region this market is expecting a swift growth. Europe is the second largest market followed by Asia Pacific. The outstanding development of healthcare sector in Asia Pacific region, it is responsible for the highest growth rate of this market in this region.Key Players for Global Vulvar Cancer MarketThis market has various players, some of the key players in this market areAbbott Diagnostics (US)Ono pharmaceutical co ltd (Japan)PDS Biotechnology Corporation (US)Becton Deckinson and Company (US)Siemens Healthcare (Germany)Qiagen (Germany)ISA Pharmaceuticals B.V. (Netherland)ORYX GmbH & Co. KG (Germany)PfizerInc(US)Johnson & Johnson (US)Novartis AG (Switzerland)Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd (Switzerland)Celgene Corporation (US)Merck&Co.(US)Browse Full Report @Table of Content1 INTRODUCTION2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3 MARKET DYNAMICS4 MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS5. GLOBAL PAIN MANAGEMENT DEVICES MARKET, BY DEVICE TYPE6. ABLATION DEVICES.7. GLOBAL PAIN MANAGEMENT DEVICES MARKET, BY APPLICATION8. GLOBAL PAIN MANAGEMENT DEVICES MARKET, BY REGION9. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE10 COMPANY PROFILEAbout 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 North America, 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 questionsContact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
China IUCD Market 2017: Key Players  SMB Corporation Of India, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc., Mona Lisa, Teva Womens Health, DKT Internationa and More

China IUCD Market

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Market research future has a half cooked research report on China IUCD Market. The market for IUCD in China is growing continuously and expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.72% from 2017 to 2023.China IUCD Market Players: SMB Corporation Of India, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. (US), Mona Lisa (Belgium), Teva Womens Health, DKT International (US).GET SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled China IUCD Market - Research Report: Forecast to 2023.SMB Corporation of India manufacturer of intrauterine device, copper T intrauterine device, copper IUDs. Products by the company are are Copper T 380A, TCu 380Ag, TCu 380 Plus and Cu 375. The company also manufactures IUD kits. Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals manufactures a product cal;led Skyla which is a ultra-uterine system. Another Product named Minera IUD is also a product manufacture by the company for controlling pregnancy. Mona Lisa is manufactures Cu375 / 375 SL, CuT 380A, CuT 380A QL, NT Cu380 / 380 Mini and ST Cu300 IUDs.Market HighlightsChina IUCD market was about is expected to reach US$ 250 billion by 2023 at a CAGR of 12.7% during forecast period 2017 to 2023.Test the market data and market information presented through more than 45 market data tables and figures spread over 80 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on IUCD market Research Report China Forecast to 2023.IUCD stands for Intra-Uterine Contraceptive Devices. It is a device inserted into the uterus to prevent pregnancy. The device is T-shaped made up of flexible plastic with a coating of thin copper wire. China, ICUD was the most important tool to limit the couples to have one child. One child policy of China was introduced in 1979 favored the growth of this market till 2015. But in January 2016, a new law named Two-child policy become effective, which was passed by standing committee of National Peoples Congress in December 2016. According to census 2010, the population change in is 7.39 per year.Segmentation:The market for China IUCD Market report is segmented into types which include hormonal IUD, copper IUD and other types. The end users are hospitals, Clinics and others.Regional Analysis:On the basis of regions market for IUCD in China is segmented into North China, Northeast China, East China, South Central China, Southwest China and Northwest China. East China account for the largest market share. It has the highest population and largest population density. The market in China is showing steady growth due to an increase in the population in all the regions.The report for China IUCD 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regionsGET SAMPLE REPORT @Some of Major TOC:1 Report Prologue2 Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations2.3 Market Structure2.4. Market Segmentation3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation3.5 Forecast Model4 Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Threats4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators5 Market Factor Analysis5.1 Value Chain Analysis5.2 Porters Five Forces5.3 Demand & Supply: Gap Analysis5.4 Pricing Analysis5.5 Investment Opportunity Analysis5.6 Merger and Acquisition Landscape5.7 Up-Coming Trends in IUCD Market5.7.1 Market Trends5.7.2 Technological Trends...10 Company Profile10.1 SMB Corporation of India10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Product/Business Segment Overview10.1.3 Financial Updates10.1.4 Key Developments10.2 Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc.10.2.1 Overview10.2.2 Product/Business Segment Overview10.2.3 Financial Updates10.2.4 Key Developments10.3 Mona Lisa10.3.1 Overview10.3.2 Product/Business Segment Overview10.3.3 Financial Updates10.3.4 Key Developments10.4 Teva Womens Health10.4.1 Overview10.4.2 Product/Business Segment Overview10.4.3 Financial Updates10.4.4 Key Development10.5 DKT International10.5.1 Overview10.5.2 Product/Business Segment Overview10.5.3 Financial Updates10.5.4 Key Developments10.6 OthersCONTINUEDGET DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
High Throughput Screening Market 2017: Key Players  SMB Corporation Of India, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc., Mona Lisa, Teva Womens Health, DKT Internationa and More

High Throughput Screening Market

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The Worldwide High Throughput Screening Market report explores the Top Key Players in-depth analysis as Aurora Biomed Inc. (Canada), Beckman Coulter, Inc. (US), Agilent Technologies Inc. (US), Life Technologies Corporation (US), Luminex Corporation (US), Roche (Switzerland), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. (US), Bio-Rad Laboratories (US), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (US)GET SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled High Throughput Screening Market -Research Report: Global Forecast to 2027.Market Synopsis of World High Throughput Screening Market:The High Throughput Screening (HTS) Market Research report is a drug-discovery process generally utilized as a part of the pharmaceutical business. It influences mechanization to rapidly examine the natural or biochemical action of an expansive number of medications like compounds.The World High Throughput Screening Market Report has been segmented on the basis of applications which comprises of Target Identification, Primary Screening, Toxicology, Stem Cell Biology and Others. On the basis of product which consists of software, instruments, consumables and others. On the basis of end users Hospitals and clinics, pharmaceutical companies/ Manufacturers, government organizations, research facilities and others.Market Study Objectives:To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the High Throughput Screening Market, insights about factors affecting the market growth, to analyze the High Throughput Screening Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc. historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective, analysis of the market for segments by product type, by application by end users and its sub-segments. Overview of key players and their strategic profiling 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 High Throughput Screening Market.The report for World High Throughput Screening 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regionsGET FULL REPORT @Some of Major TOC:1 Introduction1.1 Definition1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations1.2.2.1 Assumptions1.2.2.2 Limitations1.3 Market Structure:2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Process:2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research:3 Market Dynamics3.1 Drivers3.2 Restraints3.3 Opportunities3.4 Macroeconomic Indicators4 Market Factor Analysis4.1 Porters Five Forces Model4.2 Bargaining Power of Suppliers4.3 Bargaining Power of Buyers4.4 Threat of New Entrants4.5 Threat of Substitutes4.6 Intensity of Rivalry...10 COMPANY PROFILE10.1 Aurora Biomed INC.10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Product Overview10.1.3 Financials10.1.4 Key Developments10.2 Beckman Coulter, INC.10.2.1 Overview10.2.2 Product Overview10.2.3 Financials10.2.4 Key Developments10.3 Agilent Technologies INC.10.3.1 Overview10.3.2 Product Overview10.3.3 Financials10.3.4 Key Development10.4 Life Technologies Corporation10.4.1 Overview10.4.2 Product Overview10.4.3 Financials10.4.4 Key Developments10.5 Luminex Corporation10.5.1 Overview10.5.2 Product Overview10.5.3 Financials10.5.4 Key Developments10.6 Roche10.6.1 Overview10.6.2 Product Overview10.6.3 Financials10.6.4 Key Developments10.7 Sigma-Aldrich Corporation10.7.1 Overview10.7.2 Product Overview10.7.3 Financials10.7.4 Key Developments10.8 Bio-Rad Laboratories10.8.1 Overview10.8.2 Product Overview10.8.3 Financials10.8.4 Key Developments10.9 OthersCONTINUEDGET DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
Refurbished Medical Devices Market 2017: Key Players  GE Healthcare, Stryker Corporation, Phillips Healthcare, Siemens Healthcare, Agito Medical and More

Refurbished Medical Devices Market

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The World Refurbished Medical Devices Market Research report is expecting a luxurious growth of 10.8 % during forecasted period.The Worldwide Refurbished Medical Devices Market report explores the Top Key Players in-depth analysis as GE Healthcare (US), Stryker Corporation (US), Phillips Healthcare (Netherlands), Siemens Healthcare (Germany), Agito Medical (Denmark), DMS Topline (U.S.), Johnson & Johnson (US), First Source, Inc. (U.S.), and Soma Technology (U.S.), Toshiba Medical System (Japan), Block Imaging International (US).GET SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Refurbished Medical Devices Market -Research Report: World Forecast to 2023.Market Synopsis of World Refurbished Medical Devices Market:Refurbished Medical Devices means devices which are restored to its original working condition by manufacturer or by other experts. These devices are checked and tested by the quality control department. The devices that are commonly refurbished are designed to have long-use periods. Global refurbished medical devices market is driven by an affordable alternative to expensive devices, e-marketing and poor reimbursement policies in many countries. Increasing patient population also contributed in the growth of the market. Whereas huge taxes on imported devices and lack of awareness regarding refurbished medical devices may hamper the growth of the market.World Refurbished Medical Devices Market report is segmented on the basis of diagnostic devices into X-Ray Machines, CT scanners, Ultrasound Systems, MRI machines, ECG systems, patient monitors and other. Patient monitors are sub segmented into portable patient monitoring devices and others. On the basis of therapeutic devices the market is segmented in heart-lung machines, coagulation analyzers, infant incubators and warmers, defibrillators, infusion pumps and other.Regional analysis:On regional basis, World Refurbished Medical Devices Market is dominated by North America. Increasing awareness about refurbished devices and well developed healthcare sector has driven the market of North America. Europe and Asia Pacific share nearly similar type of market. But Asia Pacific refurbished medical devices market has the highest growth rate. Middle East and Africa has the least market for the refurbished medical devices.The report for World Refurbished Medical Devices 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regions.GET FULL REPORT @Some of Major TOC:1 Introduction1.1 Definition1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions & Limitations1.2.2.1 Assumptions1.2.2.2 Limitations1.3 Market Structure:2 Research Methodology2.1 Research Process:2.2 Primary Research2.3 Secondary Research:3 Market Dynamics3.1 Drivers3.2 Restraints3.3 Opportunities3.4 Macroeconomic Indicators4 Market Factor Analysis4.1 Porters Five Forces Model4.2 Bargaining Power of Suppliers4.3 Bargaining Power of Buyers4.4 Threat of New Entrants4.5 Threat of Substitutes4.6 Intensity of Rivalry...9 Company Profile9.1 GE Healthcare9.1.1 Overview9.1.2 Product Overview9.1.3 Financials9.1.4 Key Developments9.2 Stryker Corporation9.2.1 Overview9.2.2 Product Overview9.2.3 Financials9.2.4 Key Developments9.3 Phillips Healthcare9.3.1 Overview9.3.2 Product Overview9.3.3 Financials9.3.4 Strategy9.3.5 Key Development9.4 Siemens Healthcare9.4.1 Overview9.4.2 Product Overview9.4.3 Financials9.4.4 Key Developments9.5 Agito Medical9.5.1 Overview9.5.2 Product Overview9.5.3 Financials9.5.4 Key Developments9.6 OthersCONTINUEDGET DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.com
High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy Market 2017: Key Players  ZEISS, Rigaku Corporation, Bruker, Nikon Metrology NV, HORIBA Ltd

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Market Research Future adds new report of High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy Market Research Report it contains Company information, geographical data and Table of ContentGlobal High resolution 3D X-ray microscopy Information, by application (Medical Diagnostics, Advanced package development, Failure analysis and others), by end users (Hospitals, clinics, research institutes and others) - Forecast to 2027Get a Copy of Sample Report @SegmentationGlobal High resolution 3D X-ray microscopy market has been segmentedOn the basis of application which comprise of Medical Diagnostics, Advanced package development, Failure analysis.On the basis of end users; market is segmented into Hospitals, clinics, research institutes.Market Synopsis of Global High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy Market:Market Scenario:3D X-ray microscopy is also known as industrial computed tomography. This 3D X-ray microscopy provides effective imaging solutions for characterizing the properties and behavior of the materials revealing details of microstructures. This technique provides unique details that may not be visible by any other microscopy technologies.Market for High resolution 3D X-ray microscopy is booming. This is due to the progress of scientific research & technology development in the field of image solutions.Key PlayersSome of the key players in this market are:ZEISS (Germany)Rigaku CorporationBrukerNikon Metrology NVHORIBA LtdThe report for Global High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy Marketof Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regionsBrowse Full Report @Regional AnalysisOn regional basis, North America has the largest market of High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy. Due to the increasing diabetic and obese population in this region, these have become a major driving factor for this markets growth. Moreover increasing governments support has also lead to the growth of this market. Europe is the second largest market due to increasing aging population and technological advances here. Emerging economies like India and China in Asia-Pacific region has provided to be a fuel for the growth of this market here. Middle East and Africa contributes less to this markets growth.Market AssessmentThe report of global High Resolution 3D X-ray Microscopy market by Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with detail analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts and key opinion leaders to gain a deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives a clear picture of current market scenario which includes past and estimated future market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides detail information about and strategies used by top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the markets segments and regions.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.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 North America, 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 questionsContact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Fuel Injection Market for Automotive  Trends, Opportunities, Challenges Strategies and Forecast 2023

Automotive Fuel Injection Market

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/automotive-fuel-injection-market-2758

Market Highlights:The automotive fuel injection typically refers to the fuel introduction to an internal combustion engine. This process is typically done with the fuel injector. The fuel injection system is typically used for consistent and smoother throttle response and better fuel efficiency. The use of fuel injection systems typically replaces the need for the use of mechanical choke. The ever increasing global automotive production is driving the need for automotive fuel injection systems. Also stringent environmental laws on automobile emissions and the rising demand for fuel efficiency is driving the market.Top global automotive manufacturers across various continents are determined to meet the emission standards and fuel injection systems provide definite advantage over the traditional automotive carburettor engines. The market is also driven by the OEM and aftersales demand of fuel injection systems.The automotive fuel injection market is expected to grow with the CAGR of approximately 5.75% from 2016 to 2023.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players:The key players of global automotive Fuel Injection markets are Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany), Delphi Automotive PLC (U.K), Denso Corporation (Japan), Carter Fuel System (U.S.), Edelbrock, LLC (U.S), NGK Spark Plug Co., Ltd. (Japan), Infineon Technologies AG (Germany) and Keihin Corporation (Japan).Market Research Analysis:Globally, the automobile sector has been witnessing increased sales in the recent years. This is mainly due to the increased purchase capacity of the Asia-Pacific region. Additionally, fuel injections systems of automobiles have gained prominence in recent years because of increased demand for the fuel efficient as well as reduced emission vehicles.The Asia-Pacific region is expected to be the largest market for automobile fuel injections especially because of countries like China, Thailand and India in the region. The fuel injection market in North America and Europe is driven by the strong aftersales market in the regions. Global manufacturers are required by law to reduce the emission from automotive engines and also increase cleaner burning of fuels. All these factors are contributing to the growth of the automobile fuel injection market.Scope of the Report:This study provides an overview of the Global automotive fuel injection market, tracking four 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 automotive fuel injection market by components type, fuel type, vehicle type, technology type and regions.By Components Type ECU Fuel Injectors, Pressure regulators, Fuel Pumps SensorsBy Vehicle Type Passenger Vehicle Commercial VehicleBy Fuel Types Gasoline Diesel Alternative FuelBy Technology Type Gasoline port injection Gasoline direct injection Diesel direct injectionBy Region North America Asia Pacific Europe Rest of the 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 Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By Components Type4.1Introduction4.2 ECU4.3 Fuel Injectors4.4 Pressure regulator4.5 Pump4.6 Sensors5 Global Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By Vehicle type5.1 Introduction5.2 Passenger Vehicle5.3 Commercial VehicleContinueAccess Report Details @List Of TablesTable 1 Global Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By TypeTable 2 Global Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By Technology TypeTable 3 Global Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By ApplicationTable 4 Global Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By RegionsTable 5 North America Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By TypeTable 6 North America Automotive Fuel Injection Market, By Technology TypeContinueAbout 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 FuturePune, Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
eSentire Ranks 247th Fastest Growing Company in North America on Deloittes 2017 Technology Fast 500 List

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Cyber Security Company Attributes Revenue Growth to Development of Leading-Edge Technology to Meet Midmarket Security Services DemandCAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO  November 10, 2017  eSentire, Inc., the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, today announced it was named one of North Americas fastest growing technology companies in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 awards for the third consecutive year. The Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and energy tech companiesboth public and privatein North America. eSentire ranked #247 (up 41 spots from last year), with 391% percent revenue growth from 2013 to 2016. While accelerating its growth eSentire remains committed to its industry leading service promise.The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment, said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers.Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this years North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and a strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment, said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLPs emerging growth company practice. Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this years Fast 500 winners.2017 Performance HighlightsOver the past year, eSentire reported strong growth across sales, client acquisition, and customer expansion. Its flagship service, eSentire Managed Detection and Response (eSentire MDR) is currently deployed at more than 1500 sites globally, across numerous industry verticals including legal, finance, manufacturing, healthcare, and many others. eSentire MDR leverages purpose-built technology, and highly trained security analysts to detect, investigate and rapidly resolve cyber threats in customers internal and cloud environments before they become business-impacting events.In August of this year, eSentire announced a sizeable growth equity investment from global private equity firm Warburg Pincus. eSentire will use the investment to accelerate its growth by expanding its technology services to existing clients, as well as allow the company to help more organizations in new markets mitigate the risks associated with cyberattacks.Additional highlights include: Recognition by Gartner as a representative vendor in its 2017 Managed Detection and Response Market Guide. Numerous industry awards and accolades (including SC Awards, Branham 300, Canadas Top 100 Small and Medium Employers, and several HFM awards). Continued global expansion with clients located in over 44 countries.Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with median growth of 380 percent.Our ranking on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list for the third consecutive year, proving our stronghold in the cybersecurity space, and our unwavering commitment to develop industry leading technologies and exceptional service delivery, said J.Paul Haynes, eSentire CEO. Our leadership position in the MDR space, combined with our recent growth equity investment from Warburg Pincus, will allow us to further propel our growth trajectory, while continuing to expand and serve the midmarkets cybersecurity demand and needs. We are honored to be recognized on this prestigious list once again.About Deloittes 2017 Technology Fast 500Deloittes Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies  both public and private  in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America.Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee (DTTL), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as Deloitte Global) does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the Deloitte name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please seeto learn more about our global network of member firms.About eSentireeSentire is the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider, keeping organizations safe from constantly evolving cyber-attacks that technology alone cannot prevent. Its 24x7 security operations center (SOC), staffed by elite security analysts, hunts, investigates, and responds in real-time to known and unknown threats before they become business disrupting events. Protecting more than $5.7 trillion in corporate assets, eSentire absorbs the complexity of cybersecurity, delivering enterprise-grade protection and the ability to comply with growing regulatory requirements. In 2016, eSentire was named Best SME Cybersecurity Solution by SC magazine, and was included on Deloittes Technology Fast 500tm list. eSentire is a leader in Gartners 2017 Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response Services  a list of service providers that can support organizations seeking to improve their threat detection and incident response capabilities. For more information, visitand follow @eSentire.PR Contacts:Angela TuzzoMRB Public Relations2 East Main StreetFreehold, NJ 07728+1 732.758.1100, x. 105atuzzo@mrb-pr.com
Tool Steel Market Size, Share, Analysis, Industry Demand and Forecast to 2023

Tool Steel Market

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/tool-steel-market-2754

Market Highlights:Tool Steel refers to a wide range of carbon and alloy steels which are well-suited to be converted into tools. Tool steels are known for their hardness, deformation and resistance to abrasion.One of the key drivers for the growth of Tool steel market is the increase in the demand for tool steels for manufacturing various cutting tools, such as tool bits, drills, taps, gear cutters, saw blades, planers, jointer blades, milling cutters, router bits, punches, and dies, among others. Tool steel provides certain benefits such as high resistance to wear, good thermal conductivity and good hardenability, cost-effective machinability and excellent polishing and acid-treatment properties. These properties makes tool steel suitable for use by various end use industries including Automotive industry, Mechanical and plant engineering, Power-generation, Aviation, Food and packaging industry, Structural and civil engineering and Mining, thereby driving the growth of the market.The Tool steel market is expected to grow with the CAGR of approximately 5% from 2016 to 2023.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players:The key players of Tool steel market are Voestalpine AG (Austria), Sandvik AB (Sweden), Fushun Special Steel Co., Ltd. (China), Baowu Steel Group Corp., Ltd. (China), Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. (Japan), QiLu Special Steel Co,.Ltd (China), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan), Eramet S.A. (France) , Universal Stainless (U.S.) and Hudson Tool Steel Corporation (U.S.) among others.Market Research Analysis:Asia-pacific region is expected to be the fastest growing region in the Tool steel market. The growth of the market can be attributed to emerging economies in China and India, along with growing applications of tool steel in the energy, metal manufacturing & fabrication, construction, and automotive industries. The growth of this region can also be attributed to factors such as booming automobile industry. The existence of major players in the region which are into the manufacturing of tool steel such as Fushun Special Steel Co., Ltd., QiLu Special Steel Co. Ltd. and Hitachi, Ltd. Among others also contribute to the growth of the market in the Asia-Pacific region.Scope of the Report:This study provides an overview of the global Tool steel 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 Tool steel market by its type, application and region.By Type High Speed Tool Steel Carbon Tool Steel Alloy Tool Steel Metal Cutting OthersBy Application Shipbuilding Automotive Machinery OthersBy Region North America Asia Pacific Europe Rest of the 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 Tool Steel Market, By Type4.1 High Speed Tool Steel4.2 Carbon Tool Steel4.3 Alloy Tool Steel4.4 Metal Cutting4.5 OthersContinueAccess Report Details @List of TablesTable 1 Global Tool Steel Market, By TypeTable 2 Global Tool Steel Market, By ApplicationTable 3 Global Tool Steel Market, By RegionsTable 4 North America Tool Steel Market, By CountryTable 5 north America Tool Steel Market, By TypeTable 6 North America Tool Steel Market, By ApplicationTable 7 U.S. Tool Steel Market, By TypeContinueAbout 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
Crop Sprayer Market To Witness Steady Growth Through 2022

Crop Sprayer Market

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Market Highlights:Sprayers are generally used for spraying insecticides and pesticides on crops and plants. They are used in agriculture sector. Various government initiatives to increase the production of the agriculture and prevent the crop from harmful pest and disease will ultimately increase the demand of crop sprayers. Lack of awareness among farmers about the new technology may hamper the growth of the global Crop sprayer market.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

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/grinding-machinery-market-3753

Market Highlights:The grinding machine is an industrial equipment used for creating smooth surface finish by removing unnecessary or excessive amount of material on a given product. The grinding machinery market has been experiencing continuous evolution over the years to cater the various needs of diversified industry verticals. The applications of grinding machines includes grinding of tools & cutters and their resharpening.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
Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market 2022: Industry Growth, Demand & Forecast

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The global Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market expected to grow at the CAGR of 8%.Orthopedic trauma is a type of orthopedic surgery to heal the injuries happened to the musculoskeletal system of the body after trauma. It may lead to traumatic amputations, dislocations, connective tissue injuries and damage of soft tissues. Orthopedic trauma devices plays a key role during surgical treatment of traumatic orthopedic injuries. Increase in road accidents and severe fracture incidences worldwide are some of the factors driving the market for orthopedic trauma device.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players for Global Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market: Invibio (UK) BIOTEK (India) Auxein Medical (India) Stryker Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (US) DePuy Synthes Companies Ortho Max Manufacturing Company Pvt. Ltd. NuVasive, Inc. Orthofix Holdings, Inc. (Italy) Smith & Nephew MEDTRONIC B. Braun Melsungen AGStudy Objectives Global Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market: To provide detail analysis of the global orthopedic market structure along with forecast for the next 7 years of various segments and sub-segments of this market. To provide insights about factors which are affecting the market growth. To analyze the market based on various factors which includes price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters Five Force analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments of four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to current market size and future growth prospective. To provide country level analysis of the markets segments by material type, by product type, by end users and other sub segments. To provide overview of key players and their strategic profiling in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies and drawing a competitive structure of the market To track and analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments along with research and developments that is happeningSegments:Global orthopedic trauma device market has been segmented on the basis of material type which comprises of bioabsorbable materials, non-absorbable materials and others. On the basis of product type; the market is segmented into screws, plates, patient specific implants and others. On the basis of end users; market is segmented into hospitals, rehabilitation centers, clinics and others.Get Discount @The report of Global Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market by Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with detail analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain a deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives a clear picture of the current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in of the market. The report provides detail information and strategies of top key players in the industry also gives a broad study of different markets segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Global Orthopedic Trauma Devices Market - 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
Mobile Middleware Market 2017 Global Analysis By key Players  IBM, Kony, Oracle, SAP SE, TIBCO, Microsoft, KidoZen, AnyPresence

Mobile Middleware Market

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WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On - Mobile Middleware Market 2017 Global Analysis By key Players  IBM, Kony, Oracle, SAP SE, TIBCO, Microsoft, KidoZen, AnyPresence.This report studies the global Mobile Middleware market, analyzes and researches the Mobile Middleware development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeIBMKonyOracleSAP SETIBCOMicrosoftKidoZenAnyPresenceAxwayOpentextPegasystemsAdobeAligoRed HatVerivoGet a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, the product can be split intoMobile Asset ManagementMobile Operating SystemMobile Device ManagementMobile Application ManagementMarket segment by Application, Mobile Middleware can be split intoBFSITransportation and logisticsManufacturingHealthcareIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Ask Query @Table Of Contents  Major Key PointsGlobal Mobile Middleware Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Mobile Middleware1.1 Mobile Middleware Market Overview1.1.1 Mobile Middleware Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Mobile Middleware 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 Mobile Middleware Market by Type1.3.1 Mobile Asset Management1.3.2 Mobile Operating System1.3.3 Mobile Device Management1.3.4 Mobile Application Management1.4 Mobile Middleware Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 BFSI1.4.2 Transportation and logistics1.4.3 Manufacturing1.4.4 Healthcare2 Global Mobile Middleware Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Mobile Middleware 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 IBM3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Kony3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Oracle3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 SAP SE3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 TIBCO3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Microsoft3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 KidoZen3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 AnyPresence3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Mobile Middleware Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)Continue.Buy 1-User PDF @currency=one_user-USD&report_id=2484243For 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.
Orthodontic Headgear Market 2022: Global Key Player Analysis & Trend

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Orthodontic Headgear Market Information, by Product Type (cervical pull, high-pull headgear, reverse-pull (facemask)) by End-users (dental clinics, hospitals, others) - Forecast till 2022Market Synopsis of Orthodontic headgear Market:Market Scenario:The global Orthodontic headgear Market is growing steadily. Factors that influences the orthodontic headgear market are increasing demand of device over surgeries, increasing advance technology used in orthodontic devices, increasing advanced painless surgeries and many others. Globally the market for orthodontic headgear is expected to grow Significant Market Size from 2016 to 2022.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players for Orthodontic headgear Market: Ortho Kinetics Corporation DB Orthodontics SmileDirectClub OraMetrix, Inc Heilongjiang Label Technology Co. LtdStudy Objectives of the Market: Providing detail analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 7 years of various segments and sub-segments of the orthodontic headgear market Giving insights about factors affecting the market growth Analyzing the market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters Five Force analysis etc. Giving the past and predicted future revenue of market segments and sub-segments with respect to the main market and various other markets globally Giving regional level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospects Giving regional level analysis of the market with respect to segments, sub-segments, products, and end-users Providing an overview of key players and their strategic profiling in the market followed by comprehensively analyzing their core competencies and drawing a competitive structure of the market Tracking and analyzing competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments along with research and developments in the global orthodontic headgear marketGet Discount @Table of Contents1 Introduction2 Research Methodology3 Market Dynamics4 Market Factor Analysis5 Global Orthodontic headgear Market, by Product type6. Global Orthodontic headgear Market, by End User7 Global Orthodontic headgear Market, by regions8 Company Landscape9 Company Profile10 AppendixThe report about Orthodontic Headgear Market by Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts and key opinion leaders to gain deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives a clear picture of the current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors of the market. The report provides detail information about top key players in the industry including their strategies. The report also gives a detail study of different markets including their segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Orthodontic Headgear 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
MRSA Drugs Market 2022: Industry Trend, Growth & Global Forecast

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MRSA Drugs Market Analysis, by Drug Origin (semisynthetic and synthetic drugs), by Drug Class, By Key Companies (Allergan, Plc, Merck Inc, Pfizer, Savara Pharmaceuticals, Sealife Pharma) - Forecast to 2022Market Synopsis of MRSA Drugs Market:Market Scenario:Global MRSA Drugs Market is expected to reach USD 3.1 Billion by the end of the forecasted period from 2016 to 2022; it is confidently expected that this market has a bright future.Most MRSA infections occur mostly to individuals who've been in hospitals or in other medicinal services facilities, for example, nursing homes and dialysis centers. When it occurs in these places, it's known as healthcare services related MRSA (HA-MRSA). HA-MRSA infection normally is related with obtrusive techniques or gadgets, for example, surgeries, intravenous tubing or fake jointsAnother type of MRSA disease has happened in most healthy individuals. Methicillin-safe staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) contamination is caused by a type of staph microscopic organisms that is resistant to a number of anti-toxins which are used to treat ordinary staph infections.Among these individuals who are diagnosed with MRSA (CA-MRSA), it ideally starts as an excruciating skin boil and spreads by skin-to-skin contact. People who are contaminated maximum are at-hazard populations which includes, secondary school wrestlers, child care workers and individuals who live in crowded places.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players for MRSA Drugs Market: Allergan, Plc Merck Inc Pfizer Savara Pharmaceuticals Sealife Pharma Sequella Inc Theravance Biopharma Baxter International AstraZeneca GSK Cempra Inc Biopharma AS Galapagos NV XBiotech NovaDigm Therapeutics Inc.Regional Analysis of MRSA Drugs Market:Globally North America is the largest market for MRSA Drugs; Europe is expected to be the second-largest market. Furthermore Asia Pacific market is expected to be the fastest growing market for MRSA Drugs.Segments:MRSA drugs market has been segmented on the basis of drug class which comprises of folate antagonist, lipopeptides, tetracycline, oxazolidinone, cephalosporin, and lipoglycopeptide. On the basis of drug origin the market is also segmented into semisynthetic drug, synthetic drugs and others.Study Objectives of MRSA Drugs Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 7 years on various segments and sub-segments of the MRSA drugs market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters Five Force Analysis etc. To provide past and estimated future revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospect. To provide country level analysis of the market for segments by drug class, by drug origin, and its sub-segments. To provide overview of key players and their strategic profiling 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 along with research and developments in the global MRSA drugs market.Get Discount @The report for MRSA Drugs 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regionsContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from MRSA Drugs 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
Renal dialysis Market Global Analysis & Forecast to 2023

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Global renal dialysis market research report, by type (primary dialysis and secondary dialysis), by product (hemodialysis products and peritoneal dialysis products), by end user (hospital care and home care) - Forecast Till 2023Market Scenario:Global Renal Dialysis Market was valued at $ 17.6 Billion in 2016 and is expected to reach at $ 26.6 Billion till 2023 at a CAGR of 7.1% during forecasted period 2017-2023.Renal dialysis is the process of removing the toxic substance like urea and creatinine from the body. During impair function of kidney caused due to acute or chronic renal diseases this method is one of the lifesaving treatment for a patient. Global renal dialysis market is driven by continuously increasing prevalence of the kidney and other associated renal diseases. Besides this increasing diabetic patient, patient suffering from hypertension has provided fuel for the growth of the market. On other hand due to high cost of treatment and complication after the treatment may restrain the growth of the market.Get a Copy of sample Report @Key Players for Global renal dialysis market Baxter International Inc. (US) Fresenius Medical Care (German) DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc. (US) B.Braun Melsungen AG (Germany) Medical Care AG & Co., Gambro AB (Sweden) Nipro diagnostic Inc. (US) Diaverum Deutschland GmbH (Germany) KGaA (Germany) Covidien (Ireland) Nikkiso Co. Ltd. (Japan) Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan) NxStage Medical, Inc. (U.S.)SegmentationGlobal renal dialysis market is segmented on the basis of types in primary dialysis and secondary dialysis. Primary dialysis is further sub segmented into hemodialysis, hemofiltration and peritoneal dialysis. Secondary dialysis is further sub segmented into hemodiafiltration and intestinal dialysis. On the basis of product this market is segmented as hemodialysis products and peritoneal dialysis products and on the basis of end user global renal dialysis market is segmented as hospital care and home care.Regional AnalysisOn regional basis, global renal dialysis market is segmented as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa. North America has the largest market for the global renal dialysis market. Increasing patient suffering from renal diseases in North America is increasing continuously which is the major factor for the growth of the market. Europe and Asia Pacific has nearly similar market for renal dialysis but the growth rate of Asia Pacific renal dialysis market is higher. Middle East and Africa contribute the least market for the renal dialysis market.Get Discount @The report for global renal dialysis 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 and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Renal dialysis Market Research Report Forecast to 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
Global Insulated Packaging Market Analysis 2017 Forecasts to 2022

Insulated Packaging Market 2017

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Insulated Packaging Market 2017MarketResearchFuture adds Insulated Packaging Market 2017: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, Forecast to 2022reports to its Database.Key PlayersThe key players of global Insulated Packaging market are Deutsche Post DHL (Germany)I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co. (U.S.)Huhtamaki OYJ (Finland)Sonoco Products Company (U.S.)Exeltainer (Spain)American Aerogel Corporation (U.S.)Thermal Packaging Solutions (Australia)TemperPack (U.S.)Insulated Products Corp (U.S)Davis Core & Pad Co.(U.S.)Market ScenarioAn insulated material is the combination of materials that have low thermal conductivity and reduce or prevent the transmission of heat. Various industries such as food & beverages, pharmaceutical, chemicals, cosmetics depend heavily on insulated packaging to protect the product from fire or explosion. Products in these industries needs proper packaging because they are subjected to extreme weather conditions, and pressure while transportation.The key driver for the growth of insulated packaging market is the rising disposable income, and the growth in packaging industry. This has led to a rise in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and their safety. Other growth drivers for this market are the retailers who mainly focus on the delivering the product safely to the local market. The growth in the packaging industry will result in the increased use of insulated packaging, which will indirectly result in the growth of this market.Study Objectives of Insulated Packaging MarketTo provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global insulated packaging marketTo provide insights about factors affecting the market growthTo analyse the global insulated packaging Market based on various tools such as Supply Chain Analysis, and Porters Five Forces AnalysisTo provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to regions and their respective key countriesTo provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospectiveTo provide country level analysis of the market segmented by material, by packaging type, by application, and by regionTo provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the marketTo track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global insulated packaging market.Request For Sample Report @Regional Analysis of Insulated Packaging MarketThe Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow during the forecast period due to rising middle class population, increase in disposable income, and increase in FMCG sector. The growth of countries such as Japan, India, U.K., and Brazil is mainly due to the improved condition of economy and increasing concern for the product safety. Europe is the second largest market due to the rapid growth in the parent packaging market.Intended AudienceInsulated packaging manufacturersDistributer & Supplier companiesEnd Usersconsultants and Investment bankersGovernment as well as Independent Regulatory AuthoritiesProduct AnalysisProduct matrix which gives a detailed comparison of the market for different recycled product typesAdditional InformationRegulatory LandscapePricing AnalysisMacroeconomic IndicatorsGeographic AnalysisGeographical analysis across 15 countriesCompany InformationProfiling of 10 key market playersIn-depth analysis including SWOT analysis, and strategy information of related to report titleCompetitive landscape including emerging trends adopted by major companiesThe report for Insulated Packaging 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.Complete Report Details @Table of Contents1... Executive Summary2 Research Methodology.8... Competitive Analysis8.1 Introduction8.2 Competitive Scenario8.3 Deutsche Post DHL (Germany)8.4 E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co. (U.S.)8.5 Huhtamaki OYJ (Finland)8.6 Sonoco Products Company (U.S.)8.7 Exeltainer (Spain)8.8 American Aerogel (U.S.)8.8 Thermal Packaging Solution (Australia)8.10 TemperPack (U.S.)8.11 IPC Pack (U.S)8.12 Davis Core & Pad (U.S.)Continued.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.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 industryCONTACT US:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Erythropoietin Drug Market -Business Arranging Exploration and Assets, Income, and Estimates 2023

Erythropoietin Drug Market

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Global erythropoietin drug market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% during forecasted period.The report for global erythropoietin drug 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.Erythropoietin drugs are also known as hematopoietin. It is a glycoprotein hormone that controls erythropoiesis or production of RBC. They are used in treatment of different diseases like cancer, chronic renal diseases, AIDS, anaemia and many more. Global erythropoietin market is driven by increasing prevalence of diseases like cancer, AIDA and renal diseases. Beside this introduction of new drugs and different government initiatives for research are also has synergistic effect on growth of the market. Whereas high cost of treatment and side effects of the treatment may restrain the growth of market.Global erythropoietin drug market is segmented on the basis of type of product into biosimilars, first generation formulation and second generation formulation. On the basis of application market is segmented as oncology, renal diseases, HIV and other and on the basis of end user they are segmented into hospital and pharmacy.Key players for global erythropoietin drug marketHoffmann-La Roche (Switzerland), Johnson & Johnson (US), Amgen (US), Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Intas Pharmaceuticals (India), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Israel), Biocon (India), Emcure Pharmaceuticals (India), Celltrion, Inc. (South Korea), Hospira (US), Dahua Pharmaceutical (China), LG Life Sciences Ltd. (Korea), 3SBio, Boehringer Ingelheim (US), BIOSIDUS (Argentina).Request a Sample Report atRegional AnalysisOn regional basis, global erythropoietin drug market, North America contribute the largest market which is followed by Europe. Due to continuously increasing cancer population and patient suffering from renal diseases in North America helped to grow this market in North America. Beside this technological advance and governmental initiatives for research has provided fuel for the growth of the market. Asia Pacific is the third largest market and is the fastest growing market for erythropoietin drug market. While Middle East and Africa has the least contribution in global erythropoietin drug market.Ask Question to Expert atStudy Objectives global erythropoietin drug marketDetail information about the factors affecting the growth of the global erythropoietin drugDetail analysis of parent market with respect to all the possible segmentation of the market.Detail analysis of emerging key players for the market with their effective strategies.Detail Information about the present and forecasted market and factors that influences the market on global scale.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 erythropoietin drug market.Analysis of the market of the different factors like- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc.Detail information on the possible segments and sub segments of the market. And regional analysis of the market- North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa.Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untappedDetail information on trends and the opportunities in various regions.Table of Content1 INTRODUCTION2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3 MARKET DYNAMICS4 MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS4.1 PORTERS FIVE FORCES MODEL4.2 BARGAINING POWER OF SUPPLIERS4.3 BARGAINING POWER OF BUYERS4.4 THREAT OF NEW ENTRANTS4.5 THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES4.6 INTENSITY OF RIVALRY5. GLOBAL ERYTHROPOIETIN DRUG MARKET, BY PRODUCT5.1 BIOSIMILARS5.2 FIRST GENERATION FORMULATION5.3 SECOND GENERATION FORMULATION.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comMRFR has the distinguished objective of providing the optimal quality research and granular research to 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 answer your most important questions.Our Research Analysts are eager to share their knowledge and assist you in refining market research parameters, choosing right market studies, and evaluating both the market scope and the research methodologies of varied segments.We bridge the gap between our clients and their clients by identifying and decoding just the target group, while generating leads with the highest accuracy.Years of research into diverse fields of work has ingrained within us, a proficiency so distinguished that our industry-specific specialists identify with your business ideas and feel the pulse of your challenges and opportunities. This enables us for providing assistance, through our consulting and strategic consulting services, in informed managerial decision making. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industries, WantStats Research and Media often conducts industrial visits for its research analysts. Relevant inputs from various established market participants, help our clients make significant contribution in respective markets are a huge motivation for all of us to endlessly furnish quality. We depend greatly on profound insights into complex realms of our study.Pune, India
Filters and Particle Monitoring Market worldwide Vital Profits Judged by 2027

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Filters and Particle Monitoring Market play very vital role in the life science industry. As this industry is highly sensitive towards the external contamination and cannot bear a single foreign particle inside the facility, thus this market becomes the very important in the development of life science industry.In the life science these equipments are mostly get used in the air monitoring and filtration and water monitoring and filtrations and others. Global Filters & Particle Monitoring Market has been evaluated as million and is continuously growing from past 2 decades as the government and private institutional become more sensitive and knowledgeable for the need of medical science research and development. Life science industry is only industry which helps to bring out a patient from the any condition by the new achievements.Get Sample Report @Global Filters & Particle Monitoring Market: ApplicationsFilters & Particle Monitoring Market segmented On the basis of product: Filtration accessories, Filtration assemblies, Filtration media.Filters helps to keep the environment clean under the facility as per the need of the facility. Some research facilities does not tolerate .001% of change in the environment by any means including the level of nitrogen and oxygen in the air and monitoring equipments helps to keep the record of the environment for both air and water. Filters and particle monitoring market application includes the air monitoring & filtration, water monitoring and filtration and others. Global Filters and Particle monitoring market research report provide the detailed analysis of how the filters and particle monitoring get used in these applications. This is very important for the research institutions to monitor the environment of the facility in order to bring out the best and pure conclusion. Filters and particle monitoring are those equipments which helps to monitor the environment and keep it safe and clean for various applications.Global Filters & Particle Monitoring Market: Market SegmentationFor the better understating of the Global Filters & Particle Monitoring Market, this report has been segmented on the basis of Filters and Particle Monitoring:For Filter, market has been segmented:On the basis of technology:Ultra filtration, Vacuum filtration, Micro filtration, Nano-filtrationFor Particle Monitoring, market has been segmented:On the basis of product type:Monitors (Fixed, Portable), Sensors, SoftwareOn the basis of Monitoring:Air Control monitors, Water Control monitors, otherOn the basis of SensorsDigital (Temperature, Noise), Analog (Chemical testing, Moisture control)On the basis of end UsersPharmaceutical Companies, Research institutions, Hospitals and Diagnostic centersBrowse Report @Companies Involved:Cantel Medical Corporation (Filtration), Sartorius Group (Filtration), MachereyNagel Gmhb & Co. Kg (Filtration), Cantel Medical Corporation (Filtration), Merck Millipore (Filtration), Danaher Corporation (Particle Monitoring), Thales Group (Particle Monitoring), Siemens AG (Particle Monitoring),TE Connectivity Ltd. (Particle Monitoring), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (Particle Monitoring)Global Filters & Particle Monitoring Market Report: Regional AnalysisNorth America is having lead in the market of Filters and Particle monitoring with the market share followed by the Western Europe and Asia Pacific. Countries in the North America are well developed and established in the segment of technology and this industry is totally driven by the growth and development of the technology. As the research institution and pharmaceutical market is growing these countries, demand for the filters and particle monitoring market is also increasing. The next big market for the filters and particle is Eastern Europe. Countries like Germany and France who pays high attention to the life science industry consumes more equipments of filters and particle monitoring. Asia Pacific market is emerging as the fastest growing market in the market of Filter and Particle Monitoring as countries like China, India is adapting the new technologies for life science industry.Market Influencer:New technological developments in the life science on the daily basis are demanding more of new facilities. Life science industry is one of the fastest growing industries in todays worlds and as the new developments are taking places, it is creating heavy demand for the filters and particle monitoring market.In the 21st century, Life science industry plays very vital role in the development of healthcare industry. As the life science industry is growing it is taking the healthcare industry to the new highs. The main market driver for the filters and particle monitoring market is the development in the both industries.Get Discount @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.At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Earlier today, reports emerged that Senate nominee and Trump-brand populist Roy Moore has been accused of initiating sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in 1979, which is sexual abuse under Alabama state law. Republicans in the Senate have been steadily disavowing themselves, but at least one lawmaker in Alabama has a very different take:

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Moore backer: "Even if you accept the Washington Posts report as being completely true, its much ado about very little. " #ALSEN#alpolitics  Brian Lyman (@lyman_brian) November 9, 2017

That's an almost unbelievable statementwe expect Moore and his supporters to deny, and to obfuscate, but to actually say that sexual abuse is no big deal? It takes very little to shock us when it comes to Republicans, but this does the trick. All in all, between the Moore allegations, this tweet, and the NYTimes story on Louis CK, today is apparently a day for unmasking gross men.

Update: More extremely dubious rationale from Zeigler:
Theres a sequence in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus in which player character BJ Blazkowicz is tasked with carrying a portable nuclear bomb through Roswell, New Mexico in 1961. The entire beginning of the level is combatless and nearly devoid of mechanical interactionBJ cant break his cover as a fireman. You are locked into walking and listening to the crowds celebrating Victory Day, the day the Nazis completed their formal takeover of the United States.

Its a strange walkabout, with traditional early-60s Americana imagery infused with Nazi symbolism. Its also strange because its not terribly different from the real world.

In most depictions of midcentury Americana, just as in Nazi Roswell, the marginalized are invisible. The faces seen are white and smiling. It evokes the same feeling as Bioshock: Infinites sterilized Columbia, but without the specifically American oppression. Roswell emphasizes something that Wolfenstein does exceedingly well: it reminds the player that the world we could have had under Nazi rule was not that different than the one that misty-eyed nostalgia displayed to Americans for decades.

Outside of a coffee shop, a woman gushes excitedly to her aunt about her upcoming wedding. Her aunt has just put up a crop of hardworking slaves for auction, and wants the new fiance to tell her father, back on the family farm. Overhead, warplanes blaze a colorful trail of red and whiteno blue here. Roswell is depicted as an almost-America, but where it succeeds is in how it so clearly is America.

In our world (the one where the Nazis lost) 1961 was the year of the publication of Hitlers posthumous second book, simply titled Zweites Buch or Second Book. Written in 1928, it elaborated on the Nazi rulers praise for American foreign policy, specifically that of the immigration quotas of the early 1920s. Among other things, it was American legal policy around race and ethnicity that led to the Nazi system of oppression. The genocidal actions of the Nazi regime echoed, incidentally or purposefully, American extermination campaigns of Native populations.

What we see in Roswell is an imagined exaggeration of Nazi rule, but also one that is deeply rooted in American values: immigration quotas designed to keep non-White populations as minorities, complete erasure of Native histories, and a thriving African slave trade were all present before WWII. Even in the lead-up to the war, Americans overwhelmingly opposed taking in refugees from Europe. Anti-Semitism was alive and well in America in the 1960s, regardless of specific Nazi presence.

The evils of the Nazis were unique in their time and deserve to be recognized as a series of specific and despicable actions and ideologies. But they werent unheard of. Roswell in The New Colossus gives us a glimpse into a hypothetically different main street American town; whats scary about it is how familiar it is.

Dante Douglas is a writer, poet and game developer. You can find him on Twitter at @videodante.
Petoskey library hosting food drive this holiday season

The Petoskey District Library has partnered with Manna Food Project to host a food drive Nov. 14  Dec. 23 to help people in need this holiday season.
PokerNews Podcast 469: Brad Owen and WSOP Europe Updates

November 10, 2017 PokerNews Staff

On this episode of the PokerNews Podcast, Sarah talks to video blogger Brad Owen. Brad is a cash game grinder who shares his adventures through a Vlog on YouTube. Sarah and Brent talk about Chris Ferguson becoming the latest WSOP Player of the Year, and the two hosts then discuss the World Series of Poker Europe and the photo that got Phil Hellmuth in some hot water. Thanks to the Playground Poker Club for sponsoring our interview segments and hope you enjoy the episode.

00:14: Intro

1:59: Chris Ferguson is the WSOP Player of the Year

4:58: Phil Hellmuth congratulates Ferguson with a photo and catches some heat.

14:29: Dominik Nitsche wins fourth WSOP bracelet in the 111,111 One Drop High Roller

17:37: Check Out the Playground Poker Club Fall Classic and WPT Montreal

19:00: WSOP Europe Main Event

21:00: 'DukeofSuffolk' finds collusion on partypoker

25:50: Interview with Brad Owen brought to you by Playground Poker Club

27:12: How Brad decided to start his Vlog

29:40: The logistics of filming a casino

32:30: It's important to share your mistakes

35:30: Venturing through the comments section

39:22: The Vlogger community

42:55: Brad went broke, what did he do next?

50:20: Vlogging makes it easier for his parents to share what he does for a living

52:10: California wildfires in Brad's hometown - How to donate

58:00: The Poker world is mourning the loss of Emma Fryer

Don't forget to check out Sponsor Harry's Razors and get a free set with code POKERNEWS, all you pay is shipping!

#BrentNotBrett

#Deuces

You can subscribe to the PokerNews podcast on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. The PokerNews Podcast family of podcasts is now available on audioBoom.

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Juan Gonzalez Wins First-Ever World Poker Tour Event in Uruguay

November 09, 2017 Kim Yuhl Contributor

The big party that everyone anticipates in South America is Carnival - that is until the World Poker Tour rolled into town this month. Brasil Poker Live partnered with the WPT to showcase South American poker on the beautiful, beach-lined coast of Uruguay.

The televised WPT Uruguay Main Event is a first for the country and the WPT and capped an eleven-tournament series that brought poker pros from around the world to the luxurious Conrad Punta del Este Resort & Casino from some exciting action - South American style.

Argentinas Juan Gonzalez parlayed fantastic, steady play into a win despite starting the final table as the short stack, keeping the title in South America. There were a total of 410 entries in $1,500 Main Event, and Gonzalez was the last man standing to stake claim to the $109,860 first-place prize.

WPT Uruguay Results

Place Player Country Prize 1 Juan Gonzalez Argentina $109,860 2 Kaue Vinicius De Souza Brazil $76,960 3 Miguel Branas Uruguay $49,475 4 Brian Kaufman Uruguay $33,045 5 Mario Bonanata Uruguay $25,420 6 Laura Moreno Colombia $21,075

Final Table Summary

When play began on Day 4, the final table looked like this:

Kaue Vinicius De Souza: 4.53 million

Brian Kaufman: 3.04 million

Laura Moreno: 1.63 million

Miguel Branas: 1.12 million

Mario Bonanata: 1.015 million

Juan Gonzalez: 940,000

The first elimination of the day came when Moreno found herself sitting on a short stack, after losing chips early. She pushed her last 375,000 with and saw a caller in Kaufman from the big blind with .

The flop favored Kaufman when he paired his queen, and Moreno failed to improve on the turn or the river. Leaving the tournament in sixth-place, Morena collected $21,075 for her efforts.

The next elimination came pretty quickly when De Souza opened for 250,000. Branas called, and Bonanata reraised for all his chips, 1.005 million. De Souza called while Branas folded and it didn't take long for Bonanata to see the bad news as the hands were tabled.

Bonanata:

De Souza:

Bonanata needed help, and he wouldn't find it on the board . Bonanata claimed $25,420 as he hit the rail in fifth place.

De Souza continued his dominance when he went to battle with Kaufman. The action folded to De Souza in the small blind, and he tried to take advantage of the situation by putting pressure on Kaufman by moving all in. Kaufman, in the big blind, decided to call with which put him at risk. De Souza revealed .

Kaufman couldn't find a pair, and De Souza's king-high took the pot, eliminating Kaufman in fourth place and a claim to a $33,045 paycheck.

Play lasted a few hours before the next elimination came, with chips making their way around the table, as they often do when players are waiting for spots.

Once again, action folded to the small blind where Branas open-shoved for his final 1.45 million with . Gonzalez, who had been amassing quite the stack along the way, had him covered and called with .

Things were looking good for Branas when he flopped a jack on the . But as we all know the Poker Gods have a sick sense of humor, and it was on full display when the turn and river followed with . Not quite what he was hoping for, but Branas walked away with $49,475 for his third-place finish.

The stage was now set for heads-up play with Gonzalez holding nearly a 2:1 chip lead with 7.55 million in chips to De Souza's 4.2 million.

It only took four hands of heads-up play to put the first-televised and much celebrated WPT Uruguay Main Event in the history books.

The final hand was a cooler situation and here's how it played out:

Gonzalez raised from the button to 550,000, and De Souza reraised to 1.4 million. Gonzalez moved all in, and De Souza made the call.

Gonzalez:

De Souza:

With two outs to start the hand, by the time the flop and turn came, De Souza was left with only one out. Unfortunately, it was the that showed up, and De Souza had to settle for second-place and $76,960, after starting the day as the chip leader.

With De Souza's elimination, the first every WPT Uruguay presented by Brasil Poker Live Champion was crowned. Gonzalez managed to weave his way from the short-stack to the win by eliminating only one player. This was his biggest paycheck of his career by about five times and his first tournament cash since 2012, where he placed 49th in the EPT - 8 - Grand Final in Monte Carlo.

A Return to Uruguay?

We've all heard how South American poker is booming, well with the WPT making a recent stop in Brasil and now Uruguay, you can expect that trend to continue. Beautiful scenery, exciting nightlife, and plenty of action on the felt make South America, and notably Uruguay another not-to-be-missed stop on the poker schedule.

Uruguay is one of the most amazing places I have ever been," said WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage. "The enthusiasm of the regions poker community ranks up there with the best in the world. I was very happy with the turnout for WPT Uruguay with a competitive international field of more than 400 entries. It was an honor to witness Argentinian Juan Gonzalez win the first South American televised WPT title in the tours history. I cannot wait to visit Punte Del Este again in the future.

Photos c/o World Poker Tour/Flickr
LOS ANGELES  For most artists, winning an honorary Academy Award would mark the culmination of a long and extraordinary career. Few careers in any field are as long or extraordinary as that of Agnes Varda, but as she sits down at Le Parc Suite in West Hollywood, the 89-year-old Brussels-born, Paris-based director greets the prospect of her accolade more or less the same way that she greets everything else  with great equanimity, mild perplexity and a winsome sense of humor.

With her duo-tone pageboy haircut, her diminutive stature and her wonderful openness to new experience, Varda would be an enchanting screen presence even if she were not also one of the worlds most innovative filmmakers. Often described as the godmother of the French New Wave, though she is more properly thought of as a member of the Left Bank movement, she made her feature directing debut with La Pointe Courte (1955), a portrait of a crumbling marriage set in a Mediterranean fishing village, steeped in documentary and neorealist techniques.

She followed that with the real-time landmark Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962), which, along with later standouts like Vagabond (1985), her daringly nonlinear study of a female drifter, confirmed her implicit, forthright feminism as well as her desire to advance the language of the medium. Over the past several decades, she has never lost her flair for mixing things up  color and black-and-white, video and film, documentary and narrative, past and present. While she has said that her latest documentary Faces Places, a richly empathetic tour of rural French life co-directed with the 34-year-old visual artist JR and currently playing at Laemmles Royal Theatre, will be her last theatrical feature, its hard to imagine that adventurous magpie spirit abating anytime soon.

Youve spent quite a bit of time in Los Angeles before this.

I love the city. I came here for the first time with (my husband) Jacques Demy in 67, and I made a film in 68 called Lions Love (  and Lies), with Viva, James Rado and Gerome Ragni, who had written Hair. So its really the hippie time, and it was an incredible liberation because everything was free, men had beautiful shirts with flowers, everybody loved everybody. Then I came back here 10 years later and I made Mur Murs, about the murals. In 1980, nobody spoke about street art. Thirty-five years later, its everywhere. The street artists are famous now. I love the people in Los Angeles.

And now youre back in L.A. to accept an honorary Oscar.

A side Oscar. Honorary, yes. What is honorary? I have received an honorary Cesar. I have received an honorary Palme dOr in Cannes. So its like the academy is saying, That old lady has been working so continuously for cinema, at some point we should recognize that she worked. I feel like its recognition of my decent work. I made my first film, La Pointe Courte, in 1954, a radical film. How could somebody think that one day I would be recognized by the Hollywood world? This is strange for me. Do they give four little Oscars (to the honorary winners)? Or are they the same size?

I think theyre the same size.

Are they half-finished-size Oscars? Because the ceremony is held in November, and not in February or March? Do we have to give a little speech, even if were at tables? I know Angelina Jolie will be the one to present the award to me. Shes an incredible, interesting woman. She has not only the talent of acting, but she has a position in life that I like about her. Im very feminist, as you know, as everybody knows. So the position she takes regarding women, children and her own stardom  she uses this in a very interesting way.

What does winning an honorary Oscar mean for you and your career at this point?

I dont think it will help because I no longer find money for films; this is it. Making cinema that goes into theaters has become so difficult, because we are in competition with some incredible films, well made, with a lot of special effects. Thats what young audiences want. Big films make money because they cost money. This is the Hollywood system. I dont belong to it.

So (getting this award) is a surprise, and I love good surprises. So I take it, I say, Thank you, Im delighted. But I feel it has been a mistake. No, its not a mistake, because I know that this honorary Oscar  it goes to decent people. Last year I know there was another documentary filmmaker, Frederick Wiseman, who got it.

Jean-Luc Godard got it too.

Godard is more assertive than I am, even. Hes an adventurer. And he does things I really love and respect. We need people like him. He doesnt make money, either, but I think hes necessary. Some people are necessary. What do you think Metropolis made at the time, when it came out? Think it was a success? No. But its an incredible, beautiful experience.

Is there a difference between how your films are received at home in France, and how they are received abroad?

Some people have recognized my films as being valuable in the search for what cinema can do. The search is not as violent as it is in Godards films, but (more in line with the films of) Alain Resnais and Jacques Demy, doing things that have not been done before. But I am in the margins of cinema. In France my films are very well-known, but they dont make what youd call big money. They make enough money to survive, but theres no way that Im bankable. I cannot say, I wish to make a film. Give me the money. It doesnt work like this. Ive never had one film made with easy money, never. Even being old, even having a closet full of awards  I got a Golden Lion, I got a Silver Bear, I got a lot of animals. But each time I want to make a film, its the same. Im not bankable.

Your last several films have been documentaries, many of them intensely personal.

In a documentary you have to be modest, because the subject is the people you film, and I love that. By making a documentary, I still learn something from real life. And then I try to make a link between the film and the audience. So far its worked. In Faces Places, JR and I earned the respect of unknown people, we shed light on them, we listened to them. We had a good time, and I felt that it was one more documentary in which I question: How can we approach people who have no power? How could we achieve more empathy, more understanding between people?

You got to know a lot of people during the making of Faces Places, and you made a point of never asking them about their politics.

We never spoke about politics with people, and we knew that maybe some of them were going to vote for things we dont like. We decided it was best to skip the subject. I didnt want to know. They exist as persons. They deserve that. Its good to speak to them, to listen to what they want to say, how they feel.

And look, its not that I dont know about the world, the disgusting world  the news on television, the news in the papers, the messages of hate, the separations between religions and between countries, the horrible experiences of migrants all over the world. But I dont want to add another layer of drama, another layer of terrifying life. I really wish to be on the side of a daydream, of utopia. I want to be on the side of the question: Could art help people? Could cinema help people think about their lives?
Following the untimely cessation of the much-beloved underground eclectics Sun City Girls in 2007 due to the death of percussionist Charles Gocher, the brothers Bishop (Alan and Richard) have shown no signs of slowing down their respective creative output. As the voice (and low end) of Sun City Girls, Alan Bishop (aka Alvarius B.) has continued, in his own way, to further the late bands legacy with a sprawling series of appropriately avant-garde recordings and world music experimentalism. As co-founder of the Seattle-based Sublime Frequencies, he and Hisham Mayet have tapped into the spiritual predecessors of Sun City Girls pan-globalism, offering up little-heard recordings both classic and contemporary from around the globe.

Given this level of global fetishism, it should come as no surprise that his latest release under the Alvarius B. handle recorded in Egypt with an array of collaborators both Western and non relies heavily on assorted world music idioms, many of which he has explored previously but rarely with this level of accessibility. Where Sun City Girls built an aesthetic around all manner of often wildly cacophonous sounds and competing textures, Bishop as Alvarius B in recent years has lessened somewhat the insularity of the music, expanding into what could be argued as not only more accessible but ultimately more musically intriguing and nuanced.

This isnt to say he has mellowed by any stretch of the imagination; simply listen to 2014s acoustic guitar freakout record

What One Man Can Do with an Acoustic Guitar, Surely Another Can Do with His Hands Around the Neck of God or 2013s less-than-subtle Fuck You and the Horse You Rode in On. These were intentionally lo-fi, almost antagonistic records that continued the legacy of Sun City Girls at its basest level. By comparison, With a Beaker on the Burner and an Otter in the Oven, recorded over nearly four years, is his Sgt. Pepper moment wherein he pulls out all the stops, upping the production quality to previously unheard of realms of listenability and clarity, dialing back the grating dissonance and create a 35-song collection that only vaguely recall anything he has done previously.

Of course, his misanthropy remains fully in place, the album being released as a two-CD set and three individual LPs  Natural Wonder, A Mark Twain August and Heathen Folklore  and with accompanying commentary from Bishop remarking on his 133 fans' and whether or not he really feels that he wants any more, regardless of the perception of the new album(s). Fair enough. Parsing each out into their respective vinyl formats is perhaps the best way in which to approach any critical assessment of the sprawling collection he has assembled with the help of members of Invisible Hands and Master Musicians of Bukkake, among others.

Vol. 1  Natural Wonder is by far the most accessible of the three, at times sounding downright quaint and pleasant in its spectral folk mysticism. Zion the Rocket Ship could be a 21st-century reimagining of a shadow Dylan filtered through a deaths head croak, the words and meaning alternately obsequious and absurd: Look out for creeping globalist two-party majorities / And watch out for groping morons hands at airport security / Watch out for four-eyed DJs who dont smoke and never pee / And my academic vocabulary exclusivity.

Despite the intentionally abstruse nature of the lyrics, the music itself proves highly hypnotic, a circular chord progression and challenging harmonic intervals within the vocals. Its but one example of what amounts to an extremely solid opening act (see also: Their Words Disappear, Yellow Dog Prairie and Central California Nightmare for accessibility and lush melodicism, both musical and lyrical).

Indeed, many of the tracks on Vol. 1  Natural Wonder could be categorized as freak folk, albeit at its most coherent. Those looking for the atonal dissonance of either Sun City Girls or previous Alvarius B. outings will be left scratching their heads from note one, the album largely acoustic, subdued and  apologies in advance  downright pleasant to listen to. Where other elements of his recorded output can be appreciated, Vol. 1  Natural Wonder can be listened to and enjoyed to a level not previously associated with either Bishop brother. That, of course, proves to be something of a false approximation of what the rest of the collection has to offer. Thankfully, the albums eight-minute closing The Reason serves as a palate cleanser with its needling feedback and frenetic guitar noodling. Here Alvarius B. returns to more familiar avant-garde territory, though admittedly briefly, before embarking on the more (contextually speaking; theres nothing that couldnt be put on in mixed company without fear of clearing the room) outre sonic experiments that make up Vol. 2  A Mark Twain August and Vol. 3  Heathen Folklore.

The world is a big mystery / Where death is the land of the free / Im blinded by history / I cant see what I can see, he sings on the menacing psychedelia of Big Mystery, alluding to a certain another song to which many swear allegiance. Its about as overtly political as he can get, the remainder of his lyrical vitriol reserved for those around him. Mark Twain August plays vaguely country in its drunken swagger, banjo comingling with the faintest hints of eastern modalities. Like the songs that make up Vol. 1  Natural Wonder, Mark Twain August is in no hurry, rolling along as if in the late-August heat, slowed to a near crawl yet still radiating the warmth of an afternoon spent venturing inward.

Dark iIn My Heart goes full country-shuffle and offers up some of Bishops best faux-folk musings (like an acid-tongued John Prine or less strident Shel Silverstein): Well they told me if I smoked too much that I could never sing, never sing / So I started screaming / I jumped into a taxi, and the driver was a dwarf, was a dwarf / Now hes my lawyer / Oh its dark, yeah its dark in my heart / Got a phone call from some cretin who told me that I should vote, I should vote / rather slit my throat. His catalog of grievances goes on to encompass ageism, the commodification of art and general prickliness. The reaches its apex in Me & Me, one of the best songs Vol. 2 has to offer, a genuine pop song with country underpinnings that still retains its underground palmares.

In the cranky press releases accompanying each volume, Bishops assessment of Vol. 3  Heathen is the most indicative of what listeners can expect: Serial killing was one of historys greatest art forms. Now its becoming almost impossible to get a skull-drilling startup off the ground unless you murder for the corporations or governments where you have highly organized protection from any enforceable law but at the expense of sacrificing all the glory for the anonymity required to maintain employment. So, unfortunately, the days of any zit topography random commoner being able to string together a few killings to hit the big time before being caught has almost come to an end. Sad. This record, the third and final volume of my new three-LP set called Heathen Folklore, could serve as somewhat of a manual of inspiration on how one could start such a career, as risky and unpopular as it is. It gets much more fucked-up than the previous two LPs, and sometimes I think its the best one due to that aspect. Id have to give it one more listen but I also think this is the LP with coded messages that could trigger an unsuspecting listener to start his/her career in extreme behavior.

Intentionally provocative and confrontational  albeit rather humorously and absurdly so if taken at face value  its nonetheless an appropriate summation of the songs on this third and final volume of

With a Beaker on the Burner and an Otter in the Oven. While still largely acoustic-based, the songs here offer more layers of instrumentation and an increasingly irritable sensibility that manifests itself in the swarm-of-angry-bees guitar buzz of Icicle Pillar and the sour blues of Cantaloupe Brain.

On the whole, With a Beaker on the Burner and an Otter in the Oven has a great deal to offer; so much so that its best consumed as three separate entities rather than taking in the full 35 tracks in one sitting. And while it wont necessarily make Alvarius B. a household name  how strange would that be?  this may well be the album that sees his fan base grow (at least temporarily) well beyond 133. If not, those of us already held under his strangely surrealistic sway will manage to get on just fine.
Based on Maile Meloys short story compilations Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Director Kelly Reichardts Certain Women uses a triptych format to interweave the distinct stories of four Montana women repressed by their jobs, families, and surrounding patriarchal norms. It is a deeply American film which explores the value of lives shackled by class-based identities.

Reichardt  a shoestring budget virtuoso known for using Western style landscapes as a principal narrative device  masterfully utilizes 16-milimeter film to accentuate the vastness and iciness of each of the films three quietly haunting tales.

In the first installment, Laura Wells (Laura Dern) is a middle-aged personal injury lawyer situated in Livingston: a sleepy town which, all fancy restaurants notwithstanding, is silent, isolated, and has a staid conservative ambience punctuated by a whistling freight train repeatedly passing through it. The films opening scene introduces Wells during a dry, disconnected post coital exchange with her paramour, Ray (James LeGros). The scene, as with much of the film, is anti-climactic  the motel walls are drab, and the conversation barely polite. As Ray leaves, Wells sad half-smile is only seen by the audience from a small mirror at the opposite end of the room  a signal of a relationship which is fragmented and distant.

Wells professional life is even more unsatisfying, as she has to rid herself of a gadfly client, Will Fuller (Jared Harris). Wells has to put up with Fullers stubborn (and increasingly antagonistic) insistence that the law must be fair; that regardless of procedures which clearly say otherwise, there must be a way for him to recover injury damages from a construction employers faulty site design.

Dern provides an expressive, solemn portrayal of a routine day in the life of an average lawyer, which is a welcome contrast to the exaggeratedly grandiose fast talking court room bravado which comprises most legal dramas. Highlights include Wells barely muffled outrage when Fuller readily accepts a male counterparts interpretation of the law, which was exactly the same as Wells repeat recitations of it. Later on, when Fuller pleas for compassion by detailing the brutal side effects of his head injury, Wells facial expression - full of barely contained remorse  is a precise portrayal of lawyers struggles to repress compassion in order to maintain a distant professional relationship.



Michelle Williams ( IFC Films / IMDB)

Wells inability to find emotional satiation within her job dovetails nicely with the second story, in which Gina (Michelle Williams) tries to find contentment within her emotionally disconnected yuppy family by building a house with authentic sandstone.

First seen in body hugging workout spandex, with her flaxen hair wrapped in a tightly coiled bun, Gina is a walking poster for fitness. Except rather than sip on an energy drink, Gina covertly puffs a cigarette well away from her familys sight. Watch how Williams  an actress who exudes emotion through silent mannerisms  goes the extra mile to capture Gina digging that cigarette into the ground, with the obsessive thoroughness of someone desperate to keep her delicate image intact.

Indeed, Gina is so firmly entrenched in her exercise guru suburban colonist identity that she simply cannot let herself go, not even to her own family. Her husband, Ray  last seen canoodling with Wells in Livingston  cant even get her to crack a smile. Her bratty teenage daughter, who has an Android tethered to her hand, isnt even going to bother to try.

Only the authentic sandstone which sits outside a senile elderly mans home (Rene Auberjonois) seems to soften Ginas eyes and put a smile on her face. At one point upon realizing the old man may not have his wits about him during negotiations to acquire it, Gina looks out the window at the sandstone. A wide shot captures the sandstone as nothing but a tiny pile amid a vast, gray void which represents Ginas life. While the audience knows this, Gina doesnt  she beams at the site of the insufficient filler  thereby emphasizing an even greater feeling of disconnect between Ginas image and her reality.



Lily Gladstone ( IFC Films / IMDB)

The third story makes the triptych come around full circle. The two lead characters are a quiet rancher (Lily Gladstone) living in Belfry, Montana, and Beth, a newly admitted attorney situated four hours away in Livingston (Kristen Stewart). Beth has been commuting to Belfry twice a week to teach an adult education night course she prematurely took before landing a firm job.

They meet at Beths class (the rancher attends simply because she is bored), and form what the rancher treats as a courtship over quick dinner runs at a truck stop diner. As with most of Certain Women, the conversations are plainly spoken and full of poignant, unspoken truths. The rancher, whose days are full of immense land and gentle animals, can only stare admiringly at Beth as she talks about her disillusionment with her office colleagues. At the same time Beth is so centered on her new identity as an overworked attorney that she quickly changes the subject from the ranchers stories about breaking horses to her job.

Class divides these two sensitive souls, whose tones and affectations are similarly soft and tender. Unsurprisingly, the scene in which they finally connect is an impromptu horseback ride with no dialogue, where both characters simply let go and enjoy nature. Stewart  a virtuoso at continuously pivoting between emotional restraint and revealed vulnerability  rests her head against Gladstones back as the horse carrying them clops against the asphalt in the pitch cold night. Gladstones face, beaming with pride, shows a better version of America, where fresh air and animals as more important than money.

Its debatable whether the ranchers subsequent heart-wrenching trip to Livingston should have concluded Certain Women. But the films final sequence  in which Wells, Gina, and the rancher are revisited is necessary to preserve the films overarching meditation on the ways people temporarily buoy themselves from lifes banalities, injustices, and disappointments. Perhaps this is all one can hope for, and Certain Womens extraction of so much humanity and visual beauty from this despondent outlook renders it a minor masterpiece.

Extras

Reichardt, Meloy, and producer Todd Haynes each provide interviews from enriching interpretative angles.

In the first installment, Reichardt details various directorial and script decisions made in adapting Meloys short stories. Haynes provides an essayistic interpretation of the film, with acute analysis of the characters decision-making and behavior. Meloy discusses notable adaptations from her prose to the big screen.

An attentive viewing of their interviews will likely lead one to revisit Certain Women to integrate the subjects viewpoints into appreciation of the film.

Film Rating: 9

Extras Rating: 9
First, the title. Never Use Futura is somewhat hypocritical, wrongheaded advice for any graphic designer, not to mention an unusual and perhaps deliberately controversial title for a book that essentially chronicles the history and everyday usage of that ubiquitous typeface. Think of it as title clickbait.

Author Douglas Thomas  a professional graphic designer with an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art  explains in both the beginning and end of his new book that Never Use Futura was advice bestowed upon him in his early days as a graphic design student. This legendary typeface instantly transmits familiarity and depth of meaning, but it risks just as many unwanted visual associations, he writes. Used uncritically, Futura becomes little more than a fetish for the past or a lazy habit.

Nevertheless, Futura  the geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Paul Renner and released in the 20s  is one of the most recognizable and widely used typefaces in history, championed by everyone from Wes Anderson to NASA to USA Today. Introduced nearly a century ago to promote and accompany the new modern age, the font has trickled down into virtually every aspect of our lives.

Breaking down the typefaces early beginnings, Thomas explains that while Futura was essential in bringing a sense of 20th century modernity to the masses, it soon gained an important sociopolitical foothold in its use for anti-Nazi literature and artwork. Furthermore, the book features a fascinating poster distributed to American designers in 1939 urging them to Boycott Nazi Type and Encourage American Design with a list of Nazi-made types and their preferred American counterparts (despite the fact that the designs themselves largely followed German fashions).

The chapter Degenerate Typography breaks down how Futura has been used for decades in political campaign materials. Richard Nixons 1972 presidential reelection campaign relied heavily on Futura, mainly as a way of promoting him as modern and forward-thinking (and it worked, at least until Watergate). Even as recently as last year, presidential candidates from Hilary Clinton to Jeb Bush to Marco Rubio used variations of Futura in their campaigns. Interestingly, Donald Trump, in Thomas words, seemed to care less about the mode of communication than the message itself with typography that was loud and inconsistent. Even his bright red Make America Great Again hats used Times New Roman, a graphic design choice Thomas calls almost an anti-choice.

One of Futuras most influential users has undoubtedly been NASA, whose longtime use of Futura has been both legendary and practical. The labels and instructions on all manner of NASA spacecraft were emblazoned with Futura words not just for ease of use  Futura unified the components of the system, Thomas writes  but also as a symbol of trustworthiness. Futura meant that the component had been vetted and approved.

The chapter Futura in the Wild mostly consists of images: signs of business and civic buildings displaying Futura in all its manifestations. Best Buy. Costco. The Baltimore City Fire Department. Caution: Automatic Door signs. With the possible exception of shut-ins, the average American consumer encounters a form of Futura several times a day. The mark it has left on civilization is almost frightening.

Despite this books title, Thomas writes near the end, you should use Futura. When you do, youll find yourself alongside the pantheon of designers, corporations and campaigns that made Futura famous. Indeed, Futuras ubiquity makes Never Use Futura an essential handbook on the way the modern world looks and how we read its words.

Rating: 8
The year was 1992, and R.E.M. were on a roll. Each of their previous three albums brought them to new levels of commercial success. After a handful of years as college radio critical darlings, their 1987 album

Document yielded The One I Love, their first single to crack the U.S. top ten pop charts. In 1988, Green became their major label debut. Out of Time, from 1991, contained the single Losing My Religion, which made them (somewhat reluctant) music video stars. At this point drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and vocalist Michael Stipe could essentially write their own ticket.

Automatic For the People was, not surprisingly, another huge commercial success, but its artistic merits are difficult to pin down. Its an astonishingly good record, and many critics and fans feel its their crowning achievement, but what is it that makes it so great? A 25th-anniversary deluxe edition, released this month, goes a long way in helping to interpret the albums greatness.

Originally planned as a heavier rock album in the wake of Out of Times somewhat gentler sound, this approach was soon abandoned as demo tracks began to come together and Stipes lyrics took shape. The result was a collection  recorded with longtime producer Scott Litt in Upstate New York, Miami, Seattle, New Orleans and New York City  that gathers the bands greatest strengths into a combination as yet untested by the celebrated quartet. Theres a whole heap of acoustic instrumentation (including lots of organ and piano), but a few rockers come out of the woodwork as well. Stipes lyrics are still as puzzling as ever, but the mumbling singing style hed been known for in the bands earlier days is all but gone, allowing fans to hear his unique, bracing voice clear and unfettered.

The band also dove headfirst into gorgeous, layered orchestrations, hiring Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones to do the arranging honors. This decision  possibly one of the smartest ones made during the making of the album  results in a striking new phase in the bands evolution. Automatic for the Peoples opening track  the stark, minor-key masterpiece Drive  mixes gloomy acoustic guitars with Jones expressive strings, while the nursery rhyme style of the lyrics (Hey, kids / Shake a leg / Maybe youre crazy in the head) provide an unsettling counterpoint. Its an unusual approach for R.E.M. to open an album with such a low-key downer, seeing as how their last several albums have all kicked off with more friendly, upbeat tracks (its also interesting to note that this is their first album since 1986 to not open with a song that has the word song in the title  Radio Song, Pop Song 89, Finest Worksong, but I digress).

The more rocking songs on Automatic for the People are few and far between but work well within the context of the album and are nice palette cleansers between the albums moodier tracks. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite gallops along like the cousin of Shiny Happy People but with a bit more structure and more of an idiosyncratic edge. The full-on assault of Ignoreland  sounding not unlike the potent activism of Green  marries an aggressive, arena-style sound with Stipes venting anti-Reagan/Bush lyrics, which pull no punches: These bastards stole their power from the victims of the Us-V-Them years / Wrecking all things virtuous and true is the songs first line, and it gets even angrier from there.

Despite the welcome presence of Ignoreland, Automatic For the People isnt much of a political album. Stipes lyrics focus primarily on areas of personal relationships and general reflection, and the instrumentation helps buttress these topics. One of the albums best-known songs (although not its highest-charting single), Everybody Hurts is a gospel-flavored ballad, simply executed with electric piano out in front of the full band (along with Jones ever-present stings) and an optimistic outlook. Everybody Hurts / Sometimes, Stipe implores. So hold on. While the lyrics may initially come off as hackneyed and cloying, their simplicity, paired with the musics soulful, emotional heft, pack a simple, graceful punch.

R.E.M. seemed perfectly happy to step out of their musical comfort zone on many of the albums tracks, whether its in the form of New Orleans Instrumental No. 1, an obvious demo track that crept into the albums final track sequence, or the meditative gloom of Sweetness Follows, which features droning cellos, bright organ chords, and the atonal buzz of electric guitar distortion. Readying to bury your father and your mother, Stipe sings, What did you think when you lost another? But like Everybody Hurts, the sadness is tempered by the simple, hopeful chorus: Oh, sweetness follows.

Unlike most albums  by R.E.M. or anyone, really  the more downbeat songs on Automatic For the People tend to be the better-known ones. Man on the Moon  a loping country/folk homage to the late comedian Andy Kaufman  was one of the albums singles, and its popularity soared past its initial radio airplay to become a partial inspiration for Milos Formans Oscar-nominated Kaufman biopic of the same name. Likewise, Nightswimming  while not an enormous hit single by any stretch  has gone on to become one of the bands more beloved ballads, and the beauty of its lyrics and arrangement make it an easy song to fall in love with. Stipes impeccable vocal performance and Mills piano (recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami using the same piano Layla was recorded on  a little something for you trivia nerds) are complemented by a heavenly orchestral arrangement. Its definitely not Radio Free Europe. Rather, its the sound of a band evolving beyond its wildest dreams.

Due to the high quality of the initial album and its importance within R.E.M.s discography, a 25th-anniversary single disc reissue would be adequate and perfectly excusable, but a number of additional extra recordings have been assembled for this edition, making it a true deluxe edition. The second disc is a live recording from the legendary 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, an old local stomping ground of the bands early days, recorded November 19, 1992, about six weeks after the release of Automatic For the People. The band seem relaxed and confident, reveling not only in the adulation of the small town college crowd but energized by the new songs (which they mix in with plenty of older material). Despite the relatively inferior quasi-funk version of Drive (somewhat dulling the gothic vibe of the studio version), most of the songs stay close to their original arrangements. Plenty of the singles are included (Losing My Religion, Fall on Me, Finest Worksong) and blend in nicely with covers theyve been known to perform (the Troggs Love Is All Around, featuring Mills gentle, soothing lead vocal, and a rousing cover of Iggy Pops Funtime). Its a winning set that sounds surprisingly clear and crisp for a live recording.

Disc Three is meant for Automatic diehards, but fans of all stripes will find plenty to enjoy. Demo recordings show the songs in various forms of completion. An acoustic version of Drive is basically complete, albeit without the string arrangement. A rough take of The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite (complete with some charming off-key vocals from Stipe) is initially titled Wake Her Up. Lots of early instrumental versions of songs that would eventually make the final cut are here under different working titles, like C to D Slide 13 (Man on the Moon), Howler Monkey (Ignoreland) and 10K Minimal (Find the River). Theres also a couple of unreleased tracks that were eventually discarded for whatever reason: Mikes Pop Song is fairly self-explanatory, a wistful, up-tempo earworm that sounds like the Posies covering an AM radio pop gem from the 70s. Devil Rides Backwards includes plenty of typical Automatic for the People atmosphere: gentle acoustic guitar fingerpicking, piano chords, and organ stabs backing Stipes vocals, which are mostly la la la vocalizing and an occasional line or two (Devil rides backwards on a mule named maybe / Down the road of indecision). Its a lovely, intimate peek at what could have been a slightly beefier final track list.

The fourth and final disc in the deluxe edition is a Blu-Ray that includes the full album remixed in Dolby Atmos (which, according to the press release, is technology that delivers a leap forward from surround sound with expansive, flowing audio that immerses the listener far beyond what stereo can offer). Theres also a final unreleased track, Photograph, which features additional vocals by Natalie Merchant. Its another fine recording that could have lived comfortably with the rest of the original track list.

Looking back on the album a quarter-century later, Buck admits he was always surprised by the albums success. I didnt expect it to be a huge hit, he says. Its a strong record, but Im a little confused with what we came up with. Indeed, Automatic for the People is a bit baffling in that it doesnt rely on any of the current sonic trends of the time. It possesses a magical, wholly independent aura. This is an album of elegant simplicity, full of grand, sweeping gestures. There would be much more to come, but this was their apex.
Global Agricultural Drones Market was worth USD 0.86 billion in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 29.15% to reach USD 3.1 billion by 2021.

Agricultural Drones

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 08:45:39

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Agricultural drones use an automated process to make farming more productive and they are about to be the brink of becoming the new workhorses on farms. Drones provide better, more flexible visualization. With the focus on productivity in agriculture spiraling upward in the farming sector, drones could be the answer to improved automation and precise control of farm monitoring and operations.Robots are beginning to transform the way the agriculture sector functions and the advent of agricultural drones could take that change to a whole new level. Globally, farmers are adapting to drone availability, using aerial cameras to visualize plants. Video, specialized video, targeted video, and agricultural spraying systems are offered. Agricultural Drones use Technology for Spraying, Mapping, Pest Control, Seeding, Remote Sensing, and Precision Agriculture.View Full Report @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/agricultural-drones-market-4167/ The market is primarily driven by the increasing adoption of drones for crop spraying application resulting in an increase in the yield and reducing the wastage in spraying fertilizers & pesticides. Also, farmers are increasingly implementing this technology, in farming, to gain better productivity and to increase the efficiency in usage of water, land, and fertilizers. Moreover, the technological advancements, including sensors, better materials, and imaging capabilities, are also expected to drive the agricultural sector. However, lack of awareness and a limited number of skilled professionals are restraining the growth of the market.Free sample of the report is available @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/agricultural-drones-market-4167/request-sample The Global Agricultural Drones Market is segmented by product, application and region. In term of product, agriculture drone market classified into the Hardware and Software. Hardware segment consists of fixed wing, rotary blade and hybrid whereas, the software segment consists of data management, imaging software and data analysis. Based on application, global agriculture drone market is segmented into field mapping, variable rate application, crop scouting, crop spraying, livestock, agriculture photography and others. Hardware accounted for the majority of agricultural drone market share in 2016, owing to high-cost components such as fixed wing, rotary blade and hybrid UAVs. Hybrid UAVs will witness growth in the forecast period since they can perform long distance tasks along with hovering the agricultural fields. Field mapping applications dominated the global agricultural drones market size. Benefits such as increasing yield by analyzing and monitoring the crops are expected to support the segment growth over the forecast timeline. Crop scouting is expected to witness significant growth owing to its accuracy of fertilizer spraying.Inquire before buying @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/agricultural-drones-market-4167/inquire Based on the region, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle -East and Africa. North America Agricultural drones market size was over 30% of the global revenue in 2016. Rising trend of implementation of UAVs for enhanced productivity and increasing awareness of precision agriculture for crop scouting and field mapping is expected to drive the industry growth in this region. APAC agricultural drones market will benefit from growing adoption and technological developments. Companies are investing in the region to develop low cost and effective UAVs for numerous applications in the agricultural sector.Some of the major key players in the market are Trimble Navigation Ltd., DJI Technology, 3D Robotics, PrecisionHawk, AeroVironment, Inc., Parrot SA and DroneDeploy.About 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 sksillset dedicatedly serve clients from various industries and regions.
An expert meeting was held at the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Serbia to discuss the upcoming early presidential elections, as well as the progress and dynamics of systemic political reforms carried out by the President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 10:14:01

AHF Zambia Donates 100,000 Sanitary Pads to First Lady of Zambias Foundation

AHF ZAMBIA MEDIA CONTACT

Francis Kasonde | Prevention Program Manager

Francis.Kasonde@aidshealth.org

or

AHF AFRICA MEDIA CONTACT

Oluwakemi Gbadamosi | Senior Manager PR and Communications  Africa

Oluwakemi.Gbadamosi@aidshealth.org

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Zambia has donated one hundred thousand sanitary pads to the Esther Lungu Foundation Trust (a brainchild of Her Excellency, The First Lady of Zambia - Madam Esther Lungu). The donation, which is part of AHFs one million pad initiative for Africa, happened at a ceremony hosted by Her Excellency at the State House in Lusaka yesterday.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711100052

First Lady of Zambia (Madam Esther Lungu) receives Sanitary pads from Dr. Mabvuto Kango (Country Program Manager - AHF Zambia) (Photo: Business Wire)

According to a UNESCO report, 1 in 10 girls in Sub-Saharan Africa misses school during their menstrual periods, which is about 20% of a given school year, and so many more drop out of school completely once they start menstruating due to lack of sanitary pads and menstrual health services.

These dire statistics spurred AHF to roll out its One Million-Pad Initiative at the just concluded International Day of the Girl Child commemoration (observed October 11th) in order to help keep girls in school and reduce their risk of contracting HIV.

At the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, we believe in giving every child every means necessary to live up to their greatest potential. Every child should be celebrated, and being a woman should never be treated as an impediment. Girls will shape the world of tomorrow and we all have the obligation to give them the confidence to succeed in building a better world, said Michael Weinstein, President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).

In his address, Dr. Mabvuto Kango, AHF Zambia Country Director, explained the reason for the donation  AHF decided to intervene for three reasons:

- Providing the girl child with basic needs such as sanitary pads reduces their chances of going to ask for such commodities from persons who could take advantage of them.

- It would help improve their performance in class; leading them to become educated and self-reliant.

- To support Zambias government new policy of providing sanitary pads to school girls.

This one hundred thousand (100,000) sanitary pads donation to the Esther Lungu Foundation, is in addition to the fifty thousand (50,000) we donated last month, and we trust that the foundation will use its vast network and ability to reach the vulnerable girls, especially those in hard-to-reach areas, he added.

Receiving the donation from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Her Excellency, Madam Esther Lungu expressed deep respect for AHFs work in the country over the past ten years.

I have noted with admiration the different work you are doing such as HIV Counselling and Testing, especially the door-to-door testing, inclusion of notable change agents such as our own BFlow in your prevention activities, and training of community volunteers. I am excited that some of your achievements recorded till date include treatment of over 65,585 clients on ART and HIV testing of over one million five hundred people, she stated.

She also commended AHFs response to address issues that affect the girl child globally, underscoring a similarity of vision with her foundations commitment to empower young women and girls.

The issue of sanitary towels as one of the barriers to girls completing their education and a key driver to HIV infection for this population is real. It is for this reason that the Esther Lungu Foundation Trust in its current and future deliverables, included the commitment to facilitate for the provision of sanitary towels for rural girls, she explained.

It is gratifying that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has risen to the challenge to partner with my organization in this program. Your generous support through the donation of one hundred thousand sanitary towels will go a long way towards the elimination of HIV transmission and also reduce girls' absenteeism from school, she enthused.

This year, AHF Zambia is commemorating its 10-year milestone of providing free HIV/AIDS services and lifesaving treatment in Zambia.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 819,000 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: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711100052
Global Crude Oil Carriers Market was valued at US$160 Bn in 2015, will reach to US$217 Bn by 2023 at a CAGR of 3.5% from 2016 to 2024

Crude Oil Carriers Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 13:58:15

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Crude oil carriers are designed for the bulk transport of crude oil. Basic types of oil carriers include crude oil carriers and product carriers. Crude oil carriers transport unrefined crude oil from exploration and production facilities to crude oil refineries, while product carriers ship refined products to points close to consuming markets. Coastal tank vessel trades are functioned by crude carriers, tank barges, and product tankers. Crude oil carriers serve the West/Alaska coast crude oil trades. Crude oil carriers are generally referred to as oil tankers which transport crude oil from one location to another.Read Report Overview @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/crude-oil-carriers-market.html Crude oil carriers are designed for the bulk transportation of oil. Crude oil carrier shipping provides a convenient way of transporting bulk liquid for international seaborne trade. Transportation rates in the shipping industry are determined by time charter equivalent. Oil tankers have become an integral part of the transportation process. In terms of exports, crude oil heads across the Atlantic to Europe, reducing North Americas dependency on crude oil from other regions, such as the Middle East.The crude oil carriers market has been segmented on the basis of vessel type and region. In terms of vessel type, VLCC and ULCC together held about 63% share in 2015; a large number of VLCCs are in operation as compared to other vessels. Suezmax accounted for nearly 14% of the crude oil carriers market in 2015. Aframax accounted for nearly 21% and Panamax accounted for the rest 2% of the market.Request Sample Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2046 Demand for crude oil carriers majorly depends on oil product consumers, crude oil production, and refining facilities. The cargo carrying capacity of a crude oil carrier is 90%95% of its deadweight capacity, depending on the distance to the succeeding bunkering port. Long haul crude oil generates an incentive to build large-sized crude oil carriers. This is expected to lower the shipping costs through economies of scale up to the largest carrier such as ultra large crude carriers (ULCC). The international crude oil carrier fleet utilizes a classification system to establish shipping costs, standardize contract terms, and determine the capability of ships to travel to bunkering ports and through channels and certain straits. This system is known as Average Freight Rate Assessment (AFRA) system and was established by Royal Dutch Shell plc.AFRA system classifies crude oil carriers in terms of deadweight tons (DWT), a measure of a carrier's capacity to carry cargo. A classification used to describe a large portion of the international crude oil carrier fleet is Aframax. Aframax vessels refer to crude oil carriers between 80,000 and 120,000 DWT. The international demand for oil from other countries has developed considerably faster than that from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.Buy Full Crude Oil Carriers Market Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=2046<ype=S About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
Global Market revenue for energy management systems stood at US$9.87 billion in 2014, will reach US$ 35.92 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 13.4% from 2016 to 2024

Energy Management Systems Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 14:06:04

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According to Transparency Market Research (TMR), the key energy management systems players have a very strong grip on the global market. Siemens AG, Johnson Controls, Inc., and Schneider Electric SE are the top three players in this market and had collectively accounted for 50% of the revenue share in 2014. Emerson Process Management and Honeywell International operate on a global scale and hold wide energy management systems portfolios. Their products and services are a built to suit a wide array of end users.Transparency Market Research suggests that players in the energy management systems can focus towards emerging economies such as China and India, where the rapid industrialization rates are generating a rich environment for the implementation of modern EMS services.Read Report Overview @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/energy-management-systems-market.html Energy management services are expected to receive a major boost over the coming years in the form of heavy investments by end users. Two core factors responsible for the high end user interest in energy management systems are the strengthening government regulatory efforts to impose EMS and reduce carbon footprints, and the ability of EMS to significantly reduce operations costs.Another globally concurrent effort that will benefit energy management systems companies is the increasing focus on renewable energy sources. This factor is especially visible in Japan, China, Germany, and the U.S., where renewables are taking the foreground in terms of research, development and implementation.Request Sample Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=9647 Energy Management Systems Highly Sought for Operations Cost ReductionThe cost of raw materials and cost of energy are the two largest expenses in a manufacturing plant, and are also the two most variable ones, states a TMR analyst. For the majority of manufacturing industries, energy consumption is a leading expense that has to be managed. As energy supply dwindles, it is no longer feasible to simply hold a manufacturing process in full speed. There has to be a schedule for the processes and the use of modern equipment and systems that allow a company to cut back on the money spent on energy.Take the iron and steel industry as an example, continues the analyst, From the total cost of the produced steel, nearly 20% to 25% arises from its consumption of energy. This can be reduced using EMS; in fact, the steel and iron manufacturers can achieve an energy consumption rate of up to 30%. In the long run, that can count for massive savings in power consumption and consequently, the cost of manufacturing.A similar effect can be achieved on commercial structures. The annual energy consumption within the U.S. shows a 40% share taken up by commercial buildings. Currently, this amounts to about US$40 bn annually spent on energy alone. The energy management systems players need to provide optimal solutions to help reduce this energy consumption in order to gain a larger market share and demand.Request Energy Management Systems Market Report Brochure @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=9647 Industrial Demand for EMS Will Continue to be the LargestAbout 71% of the global energy management systems market was taken up by the industrial sector in 2014, based on applications. In that year, the global market was valued around US$9.8 bn. With a CAGR of 13.4% from 2015 to 2023, this market is expected to reach about US$36 bn by the end of 2024.Although the industrial segment is expected to lose some of its share to the segments of home and buildings, it still leads the energy management systems market by a wide margin. Buildings and industries are expected to reach shares of about 25% and 65% respectively by 2024.Buy Full Energy Management Systems Market Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=9647<ype=S About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 06:39:36

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Esoteric testing is the analysis of 'rare' molecules or substances. It is not performed in a routine clinical laboratory. These test are performed when there is requirement of additional information external routine lab testing, for proper diagnosis of disease, establish a prognosis or select and supervise a therapeutic treatment. Esoteric testing requires skilled personnel to perform the test and analyze the results due to usage of sophisticated chemicals and instruments. The tests are performed by specialized and independent clinical reference laboratories owing to high cost. It is not feasible for physician office laboratories and hospitals to perform these tests in-house. The test are regulated by regulatory stringent regulatory framework. These tests are not performed regularly.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=30377 Based on test type, the global esoteric testing market has been segmented into genetics, endocrinology, immunology, molecular diagnostics, microbiology, oncology, serology, and toxicology. Molecular diagnostics is the fastest growing segment of the market, followed by the immunology and oncology segments, owing to increased prevalence of rare and genetic diseases and high demand for personalized medicine treatment. In terms of technology, the esoteric testing market has been segmented into chemiluminescence, ELISA, mass spectrometry, real time PCR, and flow cytometry. The chemiluminescence segment is expected to witness strong growth, followed by ELISA, because it is the most widely used technology in esoteric testing due to high efficiency and small sample required for testing. The real time PCR segment is expected to be driven by rise in prevalence of genetic disease and increase in demand for genetic testing. Growing use of information technology has allowed instant and efficient data transfer. These developments will provide more efficient results and improved patient care creates huge demand for esoteric testing market. Complex diseases difficult to diagnose and treat through conventional methods are diagnosed using esoteric testing. Rising prevalence of such complex and rare medical diseases is expected to contribute to the growth of the esoteric testing market. Additionally, high investments in proteomics, increasing demand for personalized medicine, and genomics boost the growth of the esoteric testing market. However, stringent government regulations and dearth of qualified and trained professionals are likely to restrain the esoteric testing market.In terms of region, the global esoteric testing market can be classified into North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa. North America dominates the esoteric testing market, followed by Europe, due to higher incidence and prevalence rate, growing awareness about early disease detection, and quick adoption of sophisticated instruments. Asia Pacific is an emerging market for esoteric testing due to increasing prevalence of disease, gradual development of medical infrastructure, rising awareness, and significant patient pool with unmet medical needs. However, high cost, lack of availability of trained personnel, and poor patient awareness are factors restraining the esoteric testing market in regions such as Middle East & Africa and Latin America.Request for Report ToC: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=30377 Major players operating in the esoteric testing market include Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, OPKO Health, Inc., ARUP Laboratories, Genomic Health, Inc., Quest Diagnostics, American Medical Laboratories, Gold Standard Diagnostics Corp, and ZeptoMetrix Corporation.
Global Gas Insulated Substation Market revenue stood at US$ 14.75 Bn in 2015 will reach US$ 35.83 Bn by 2024 at a CAGR of 10.31% from 2016 to 2024

Gas Insulated Substation Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 14:02:11

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90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Head  Internet Marketing+1-518-618-1030

Substations are a crucial part of electricity distribution infrastructure, as they control distribution as well as transmission of electricity. Substations perform many important tasks in an electricity distribution system, such as converting a high-voltage current to one with a lower voltage value, and vice versa. The higher efficiency of a gas-insulated substations has driven their demand in the global scenario in recent years. According to TMR analysts, the global gas-insulated substations market is expected to more than double in valuation from 2015 to 2024. The market was valued at US$14.7 bn in 2015; exhibiting a robust 10.31% CAGR from 2016 to 2024, the market is expected to rise to a valuation of US$35.8 bn.Read Report Overview @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/gas-insulated-substation-market.html Gas-insulated substations utilize sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) for insulation, which enables them to be much smaller than air-insulated substations, since less gas is needed for insulation. Gas-insulated substations can be up to a tenth of the size of normal substations. Sulfur hexafluoride is not only highly dielectric, which makes it an excellent insulating material, but it is also quite stable and doesnt degrade or deplete over time. This brings down the costs of gas-insulated substations significantly.The compact nature of gas insulated substations is particularly important in regions where there is a significant risk of natural disasters  Japan, where these substations were developed, is a prime example. The rising urbanization in Japan and other Asia Pacific countries has also been a major driver for the global gas insulated substations market, since they can be installed in urban areas, causing little inconvenience to citizens living near it. Gas insulated substations can also easily be installed in harsh terrain, where their compact size and increased efficiency over air-insulated substations are a major benefit.Request Sample Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2974 According to geography, TMR analysts have segmented the global gas insulated substations market into Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and Rest of the World. The report looks into the performance of the market for gas-insulated substations in each of these regions. Within North America, the U.S. and Canada are the major regional markets for gas-insulated substations. In Europe, Germany, the U.K., and France lead the demand along with the CIS countries. The Asia Pacific market for gas-insulated substations is led by India and China, whereas Brazil and the GCC countries are the major regional markets in the rest of the world.With an aim of explaining the competitive dynamics of the market, the report profiles major players in the global gas insulated substations market such as ABB Ltd., Hitachi, Ltd., Schneider Electric SE, GE, Fuji Electric Co., Ltd., Siemens AG, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Eaton Corporation plc, and Crompton Greaves Ltd. A financial overview and SWOT analysis is provided for each of these key players, along with an analysis of their business strategies and recent developments.Buy Full Gas Insulated Substation Market Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=2974<ype=S About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
Transparency Market Research

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 06:30:50

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Persistence Market Research

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# 741 Words

Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comAssociate Consultant800-961-0353

A hand geometry biometric solution recognize the user identity by the dimension of their hands. This technology measures a user's hand along several extents and match those dimensions to measurements stored in a file. Owing to the public acceptance of biometric systems across the globe, the execution of this biometric technology in numerous end use industries has added extra value in last few decades. In addition, this hand geometry biometrics technology is a major invention of the global biometric technologies industry. There are numerous key features has added valuation of this technology which includes efficient use and on time result, security benefits and functional integration among others are expected to drive the growth of this product market during the forecast period. The global Hand Geometry Biometric market is well-established, owing to widespread use in time & attendance maintenance applications in various end use industry. This hand geometry biometric technology also majorly finds widespread use in time & attendance maintenance applications. The market of hand geometry biometric is predicted to be stable during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=27170 The global Hand Geometry Biometric market has been segmented on the basis of end use and geography. Based on end use, global Hand Geometry Biometric market has been bifurcated into government, defense, banking and finance, travel and tourism, security and healthcare among others. Hand geometry scanners with reflectors and infrared light is used for taking the hand image. However, the method are used for measuring individual identity are not unique. Thus, this solution is not considered to be a fruitful method for the verification and identification of every individuals. This factor is expected to restraining the growth of this product market in coming years. In addition, various organizations are installing this hand geometry biometrics with the help of smart cards to improve their verification of individuals. This in turn is triggering the demand of Hand Geometry Biometric market in coming years. Moreover, multimodal biometrics technology is also additional type technique which is used by various end use industry such as banking and financial, retail, others for authenticating individuals.Therefore, the hand geometry biometric are expected to grow at a faster rate in the upcoming years. Hand geometry biometric is expected to remain a perfect choice for end user confirmation in harsh work situations and able to identify the correct information from the large workforce. Relatively simple technology architecture, low upfront costs, and less intrusiveness among others factor is expected to increase the adoption of this technology market in coming years. Across the globe, various end use industry are installing this system in cloud computing to address breach concerns which is also act as an major factor for the development of new services and products. Another aspect contributing to the growth of this biometrics is their increasing usage for over the years, this hand geometry biometric technology has been driven by government rules and regulations instructing stringent security methods to be in place for major commercial and infrastructure centers such as factories, office buildings, nuclear plants, healthcare facilities, universities and hospitality among others. On the flip side, technological problem associate with this product is predicted to hinder the growth of the global Hand Geometry Biometric market in coming years.Geographically, global Hand Geometry Biometric market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle- East & Africa (MEA) and Latin America. In 2016, North America held the highest market share of global Hand Geometry Biometric market. Rising security concerns owing to the crimes and terror attacks and rising government initiative such as e-passports verification, national voting and identification programs, others are largely accountable for the growth of this product market in North America region. Rapid development in public sector, construction, residential and commercial in Asia Pacific region will create new opportunities for hand geometry biometrics based access control systems in coming years.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=27170 The global Hand Geometry Biometric market consists of many renowned players such as Fingerprint Cards AB (Sweden), Cross Match Technologies Inc. (The U.S), 3M Company (The U.S), Fujitsu Ltd. (Japan), Safran SA (France), Facebanx (The U.K), NCE Corporation (The U.S), RCG Holdings Limited (China), Siemens AG (Germany), Fulcrum Biometrics LLC. (The U.S), Validsoft UK Ltd. (The U.K) among others.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 12:30:23

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# 823 Words

ACN Newswire+65 6304 8926

Symposium Opens Today; Officials Call for Closer Economic CooperationHONG KONG, Nov 7, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The Hong Kong Trade Development Council's (HKTDC) mega promotion event, "In Style, Hong Kong," is underway in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Two of the campaign's highlight events, In Style, Hong Kong Symposium and In Style, Hong Kong Expo, opened this morning at the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur. YB Datuk Seri Ir Dr Wee Ka Siong, Minister in Prime Minister's Department, Malaysia; Rimsky Yuen, Secretary for Justice, the Government of the Hong Kong SAR; and Vincent HS Lo, Chairman of the HKTDC, each delivered speeches at this morning's opening ceremony."The eagerly anticipated free trade agreement between Hong Kong and ASEAN will be signed very soon," said Mr Lo. "The pact is a momentous one, as the world's focus now falls on Asia to drive economic growth. Against this backdrop, the relationship between Malaysia and Hong Kong is taking on new significance." Mr Lo remarked that China's Belt and Road Initiative spans more than 60 countries, covering 30 per cent of the world's GDP, presenting massive business opportunities for infrastructure investment, financial and trade integration, as well as social and cultural exchange. "A plan of this scale also needs us to work together. To mine the potential, Malaysian enterprises can work with Hong Kong, which offers unmatched advantages," he said."While Malaysia develops its own economy, it is also a major player in the ASEAN community; and as Hong Kong remains a vital international gateway to the Chinese mainland, it is also repositioning itself as a springboard for intra-Asia and international interaction. As such, we each play important roles in driving the region's development as we evolve ourselves. At this special time, we are delighted to bring 'In Style, Hong Kong' here to showcase the best of Hong Kong business and lifestyle. And more importantly, we will suggest ways to turn these into opportunities for your own business and market." Also speaking at the opening ceremony, Rimsky Yuen, Secretary for Justice, the Government of the Hong Kong SAR highlighted Hong Kong's role as trend-setting city in the region, and said he is "confident that 'In Style, Hong Kong' will foster even closer and stronger links between Malaysia and Hong Kong." "Building on the flourishing relationship between Malaysia and Hong Kong, the Hong Kong-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement and related investment agreement will be signed very soon. We are grateful to all the members of ASEAN, including Malaysia, for their contribution in attaining our shared goal. Not only will the free trade agreement provide an appropriate forum to further enhance the flows of trade and investment between Hong Kong and ASEAN, it will further strengthen Hong Kong's role facilitating mainland China business to go global and overseas enterprises to enter the mega mainland market," said Mr Yuen.YB Datuk Seri Ir Dr Wee Ka Siong, Minister in Prime Minister's Department, Malaysia, also mentioned the free trade agreement in his remarks. "To further strengthen our relationship within ASEAN with Hong Kong, our government has agreed to ratify a free trade agreement and investment agreement between ASEAN and Hong Kong. Among other measures under this FTA, Malaysia will abolish import duties on certain trade goods and streamline our import regulations with those of the World Trade Organization," he said. "The FTA will facilitate more effective and efficient trade links between the region and Hong Kong. This is significant for Malaysia, too, to take part in the ASEAN-Hong Kong trade, which generated US$106.8 billion in total merchandise trade in 2016.""Moving forward, we will continue to cultivate our warm bilateral relationship with Hong Kong, whose people are as close to Malaysians as any others," YB Datuk Seri Ir Dr Wee added.A showcase of Hong Kong's multi-faceted advantagesThe In Style, Hong Kong mega promotion campaign seeks to promote Hong Kong's multi-faceted advantages. Key events include the Symposium, which spotlights Hong Kong's professional services, and the Expo, which showcases products from Hong Kong's leading brands.The Symposium has invited a number of Hong Kong and Malaysian business leaders and government officials to promote the strengths of Hong Kong's professional services. The main symposium featured Professor Royce Yuen, CEO, MaLogic; Joseph Phi, President, LF Logistics; Kevin Huang, CEO, Pixels Ltd; and Nicholas Ho, Deputy Managing Director, hpa. The speakers examined how Hong Kong's service companies can help Malaysian companies expand their business. Five thematic sessions followed the main symposium, covering such topics as e-commerce, Fintech, Smart City, Innovative Design and Marketing, and Legal Risk Management in International Trade.In addition, a business support zone was set up at the symposium venue, with a group of Hong Kong professional service providers from the accounting, legal, marketing, finance and business services sectors offering free onsite consultations.To continue, please go to http://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/39501/hktdc-mega-promotion-
India STATCOM UPS market was valued at US$27 mn in 2014 and is projected to reach US$113.9 million by 2024 at a CAGR of 16.0% from 2016 to 2024

India STATCOM UPS Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 13:36:42

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# 623 Words

90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Head  Internet Marketing+1-518-618-1030

A TMR analyst reported, The economic liberalization of India since 1991 has put the country in a race to achieve better GDPs, improve employment rate, and create an independent success story. Over time, these reforms have accelerated manufacturing activities in the country and set in a noteworthy momentum to industrialization, thereby creating a huge demand for energy.As the policies on foreign direct investments (FDI) are being relaxed, India is expected to witness a boom in the manufacturing sector in the forecast period. STATCOM UPS players have taken a cue from this recent development o keep up with the mammoth energy demand to cater to the ambitions of the manufacturing hubs spread across India. Therefore, the growth in manufacturing activities of India will lead to a profitable opportunity for STATCOM UPS market in the near future.Read Report Overview @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/india-statcom-ups-market.html TMR findings indicate that opportunity of the STATCOM UPS market in India will be worth US$113.9 mn by 2024 from US$27 mn in 2014, surging at a CAGR of 16.0% from 2016 to 2024. This growth will be attributable as the evolution of India evolves as an important manufacturing hub in the world. For instance, the automobile industry, a significant application segment of the overall market, will expand at a 15.9% CAGR all through 2024. The need to speed up automobile production to cater to the global demand will encourage the adoption of STATCOM UPS in Indian automobile market.The aforementioned analysis has been substantiated with the research report published by Transparency Market Research. The document titled, STATCOM UPS Market - India Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends, and Forecast 2016  2024, provides a detailed outlook of the market and its impact on the Indian economy.Request Sample Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=10805 The biggest restraint in the India STATCOM UPS market is the poor awareness of its benefits amongst industries. This issue can be attributed to the infancy of the STATCOM UPS market and the small and medium-sized companies that do not have the knowledge about the benefits these systems can provide over conventional technologies. These restraints are also being complicated by the high costs of installations that are dissuading large scale manufacturers from adopting these UPS systems.Buyers in the India static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) UPS market are giving brand image exceptional importance, prompting companies to differentiate both their offerings and brand value, finds TMR in a new study. This sentiment has percolated to building customer loyalties that are driving STATCOM UPS suppliers in India, thereby pushing players to focus on their branding building. Keeping in line with this trend, while companies such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) are focusing on increasing their vendor base to improve competitiveness, others such as ABB India Limited are focusing on product management.The leading players will also have to focus on improving their manufacturing facilities and increasing their research and development investments to gain a stronger footing in the Indian market, TMR recommends.Buy Full India STATCOM UPS Market Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=10805<ype=S About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
Persistence Market Research

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 06:25:32

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# 486 Words

Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: http://www.persistencemarketresearch.comAssociate Consultant800-961-0353

With the advent of industrial automation, macro 3D printing is expected to gradually gain market in the construction industry. 3D printers use materials such as concrete, steel and aluminium to build three-dimensional structures under computer system control. Macro 3D printing is a technology for printing large structures of as big as six meters in each dimension. Thus, with the increasing adoption of industrial automation, technologies such as macro 3D printing will be used for printing building structures.Macro 3D printing technology is at infant stage and its mainstream adoption is still expected to be ten years away. It is anticipated to have wider applications in construction for printing buildings or components of buildings, in medical field for printing medical devices and in automotive for printing cars and automotive components and in aerospace for printing components.A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12658 Global Macro 3D Printing Market: Drivers and RestraintsConstruction industry is expected to be the largest application market for macro 3D printing. According to United Nations, around three billion people will need basic infrastructure and proper housing by 2030. Macro 3D printing technology can help to solve the housing shortage issue in the future by printing large building structures. Macro 3D printing technology minimizes material and labor cost, thus it can be expected to have positive impact in developing countries.However, as macro 3D printing technology is at infancy stage thus it is very expensive, causing insignificant mainstream adoption by consumers. Further, calibration and maintenance of the machine is also one of the factors that might limit the wider adoption of macro 3D printing technologies in future.Global Macro 3D Printing Market: Market OpportunitiesThe gradual shift to industrial automation will create opportunities for macro 3D printers in the future. For instance, the future of construction industry includes 3D printers, drones and robotic bulldozers which will provide support for creating robotic building site. Further, Local Motors, a US based company has already developed a 3D printed car named Strati.Open collaboration platforms for 3D printing such as Spark, support companies to build different types of 3D printing technologies by providing extensible Application Programming Interface (API) for different stages of the 3D printing workflow. Using this application, companies can build 3D models for any 3D printer. This type of platform is helping to create awareness and promote macro 3D printing.Global Macro 3D Printing Market: Market SegmentationSegmentation on basis of End-user in Macro 3D Printing Market:The major segments of End-user in Macro 3D Printing market include:ConstructionHealthcareAutomotiveAerospaceOthersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/12658 Global Macro 3D Printing Market PlayersCurrently, very few companies are producing macro 3D printers. Some of the players in the Macro 3D Printing market include: Genesis Dimensions, iBox Printers, Worlds Advanced Saving Project (WASP) by Centro Sviluppo Progetti (CSP).
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 00:02:01

- More than 300 medical professionals in attendance, with presentations from over 40 international surgeons

- Scientific sessions available for viewing on Medactas website

Medacta Japan Highlights Success of 2nd Japanese M.O.R.E. Symposium

For Medacta International, Inc.

Jill Bongiorni, 516-729-2250

Jill@torchcomllc.com

Medacta Japan, a subsidiary of Medacta International, the privately held, family-owned global leader in the design of innovative joint replacement and spine surgery products, today announced the success of its 2nd Japanese M.O.R.E Symposium, held on September 30 to October 1, 2017 and attended by over 300 medical professionals.

Reflecting Medactas ongoing commitment to continuous medical education, the event focused on how implant design, techniques and patient-specific treatment can improve outcomes and patient satisfaction in the changing orthopaedic landscape, positively impacting the sustainability of the healthcare system.

More than 40 Japanese orthopaedic surgery experts presented at the meeting, covering topics on innovation, education and healthcare sustainability, with important contributions from international experts who traveled from Australia, Europe and the United States to attend the event.

Surgical education and training has been a pillar of Medactas mission and identity since the company began. We believe it is the foundation for optimal clinical outcomes and both patient and surgeon satisfaction, said Francesco Siccardi, Executive Vice President of Medacta International. The success and the incredible growth of Medacta Japan, in both joint and spine, is a further confirmation of that belief. Were honored that a growing number of surgeons depend on us as a reliable partner, and we will do our best to maintain our vision for a bright future in Japan.

For more information about the 2nd Japanese M.O.R.E. Symposium and Medacta, including scientific sessions, visit: https://2more-jpn.medacta.com/.

About Medacta International

Medacta International is a world leading manufacturer of orthopedic implants, neurosurgical systems, and instrumentation. Medactas revolutionary approach and responsible innovation have resulted in standard of care breakthroughs in hip replacement with the AMIS system and total knee replacement with MyKnee patient matched technology. Over the last 10 years, Medacta has grown dramatically by taking a different approach and placing value on all aspects of the care experience from design to training to sustainability. Medacta is headquartered in Castel San Pietro, Switzerland, and operates in over 30 countries. To learn more about Medacta International, please visit www.medacta.com or follow @Medacta on Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711090067
PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 10:24:03

Razer Inc. Announces Results of Global Offering

Instinctif Partners

Crystal Chan

Tel: +852 2884 3301 / 2972 2127

Mobile: +852 9122 9008

Crystal.Chan@instinctif.com

or

Galyna Kulachek

Tel: +852 2884 3301 / 37912287

Mobile: +852 9634 3211

Galyna.Kulachek@instinctif.com

Razer Inc. (Razer or the Company, HKEX stock code: 1337), the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announces its Offer Price and results of its Global Offering. Razer has successfully set the Offer Price at HK$3.88 per Offer Share (excluding brokerage of 1%, SFC transaction levy of 0.0027%, and Hong Kong Stock Exchange trading fee of 0.005%), which results in Razer having a market capitalization of approximately HK$34,389 million (assuming the Over-allotment Option is not exercised).

Razer initially offered a total of 1,063,600,000 Offer Shares in the Global Offering, comprising an International Offering and a Hong Kong Public Offering.

The Hong Kong Public Offering was very significantly over-subscribed by 290.24 times of the total number of 106,360,000 Offer Shares initially available for subscription under the Hong Kong Public Offering. Due to the over-subscription in the Hong Kong Public Offering, a total of 425,440,000 Offer Shares have been reallocated from the International Offering to the Hong Kong Public Offering. As a result of such reallocation, the final number of Offer Shares allocated to the Hong Kong Public Offering and the International Offering are 531,800,000 Offer Shares and 531,800,000 Offer Shares respectively, representing 50% and 50% of the total number of Offering Shares initially available under the Global Offering. The Offer Shares initially offered under the International Offering were also very significantly over-subscribed.

Based on the Offer Price of HK$3.88 per Offer Share, the net proceeds from the Global Offering to be received by the Company, after deduction of the underwriting fees and commissions and estimated expenses payable by the Company in connection with the Global Offering and assuming that the Over-allotment Option is not exercised, are estimated to be approximately HK$3,930.7 million.

Dealings in the shares of Razer on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange are expected to commence at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, November 13, 2017.

Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited and UBS Securities Hong Kong Limited are the Joint Sponsors of the Global Offering. Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited and UBS AG Hong Kong Branch are Joint Global Coordinators. Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited, UBS AG Hong Kong Branch, China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited, CMB International Capital Limited, ICBC International Capital Limited and UOB Kay Hian (Hong Kong) Limited are the Joint Bookrunners. Evercore Asia Limited acts as the Companys Financial Advisor in relation to the Global Offering.

About Razer

Razer is the worlds 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 worlds largest gamer-focused ecosystem of hardware, software and services.

Razers award-winning hardware ranges from high-performance gaming peripherals (for the PC and console platforms) to the Razer Blade gaming laptops. Razers 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 worlds 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.

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS NOT AN OFFER OF SECURITIES FOR SALE IN THE UNITED STATES OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION. THE SECURITIES REFERRED TO HEREIN HAVE NOT BEEN AND WILL NOT BE REGISTERED UNDER THE U.S. SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AS AMENDED, AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES ABSENT REGISTRATION OR AN EXEMPTION FROM REGISTRATION. ANY PUBLIC OFFERING OF SECURITIES TO BE MADE IN THE UNITED STATES WILL BE MADE BY MEANS OF A PROSPECTUS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE COMPANY AND THAT WILL CONTAIN DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY AND ITS MANAGEMENT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS. THE COMPANY HAS NOT REGISTERED, AND DOES NOT INTEND TO REGISTER, ANY OFFERING OR ANY PART THEREOF OR TO CONDUCT A PUBLIC OFFERING OF SECURITIES IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS WRITTEN MATERIAL IS NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201711100052
Global Zonal Isolation Market was valued at US$14.80 bn in 2014 and is projected to reach US$27.88 bn by 2024 at a CAGR of 6.6% from 2016 to 2024

Zonal Isolation Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-11-10 13:52:44

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Traditionally, cementing technique has been used by operators to provide zonal isolation throughout the life of a well. However, in the past few years, several mechanical and chemical techniques have been developed to prevent cross flow of water, gas, or oil between different formations. Mechanical zonal isolation consists of the use of several mechanical equipment such as sliding sleeves, packers, perforated/slotted liners, and plugs. Chemical zonal isolation, on the other hand, comprises the use of polymer gels, monomer systems, bio polymers, and elastomers.Read Report Overview @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/zonal-isolation-market.html Multiple technologies along with primary and remedial cementing are deployed by well operators for isolating a particular zone during well completion and intervention. Deployment of such techniques depends on several well parameters such as type of producing zone (oil or gas), depth of well, wellbore geometry, and temperature of the wellbore. Zonal isolation is considered very critical for developing unconventional resources. It is very essential to predict flow rates to successfully design and implement multistage hydraulic fracturing in low permeable shale gas reserves. Cost of isolating a particular zone is generally 2%-5% of the total well completion cost. Shift of exploration activities from onshore to offshore areas coupled with increasing focus toward the development of unconventional reserves has spurred the market for the zonal isolation across the globe.Request Sample Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3658 The zonal isolation market has been segmented on the basis of technology and application. Based on technology, the market has been segmented into mechanical and chemical zonal isolation. However, on the basis of application, the market has been segmented into offshore and onshore zonal isolation. Chemical zonal isolation holds the highest market share in terms of technology. However, in terms of application, offshore zonal isolation holds the highest market share. Key players in the zonal isolation market are Schlumberger Limited, Superior Energy Services, Inc., Weatherford International, Baker Hughes, Inc., Halliburton Company, Nabors Industries Ltd., Trican Well Service Ltd., Expro International Group Holdings Ltd., Aker Solutions ASA, and Tendeka.Increase in drilling activities, especially in the offshore areas coupled with growing demand for unconventional energy sources have driven the global market for zonal isolation in the past few decades. Despite fluctuations in the global crude oil prices, it is anticipated that the market for global zonal isolation would reach US$ 27,888.8 Mn by 2024.Buy Full Zonal Isolation Market Report @ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=3658<ype=S About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.
The popular Nigerian cross-dresser, Idris Okuneye, popularly known as Bobrisky, has slammed ace Nigerian rapper, Eedris Abdulkareem, for tagging him as fake.

Bobrisky who was arrested at his Lekki, Lagos home on Tuesday, was released on bail on Friday morning.

Bobrisky, who was still in a hotel in Abuja at the time of this report, has also promised to release details of what led to his arrest. He also hinted that he would be quiet for now; but not before he responds to all those who criticised him during his detention. And his first target is Eedris.

The latter granted an interview with television station TVC wherein he slammed Bobrisky for his sexual orientation.

Bobrisky writing on his Instagram page condemned Eedris, for trying to judge him.

Bobrisky wrote, One thing I wont take from nobody is saying trash to other people all in d name of FAME !!!!dis idiot that look like fire wood dust is saying rubbish to me. Hey man I dont know  u cos u are nobody. The energy u are putting to bring other celebrities down pls use that energy to build ur dusted future back to life. U keep granting different interviews up and down as if dey are paying u to say all dis rubbish u are vomiting from ur damage lips .You are judging other people..who are u to judge  them. U never tell us say na u be d son of God who he sent to start judging people fool . Cheers guys Bobrisky is back #itakenoshitfromnobody, (sic)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbSiiZYjYIQ/?tagged=bobrisky

The controversial figure also recorded a video, which didnt show his face. In the video, he thanked friends, family and some Nollywood stars which included Tayo Sobola and Tonto Dikeh.

Bobrisky was arrested in his Lekki, Lagos home on Tuesday, after he admitted to being gay in a post, which he later deleted.

After his arrest, he alleged that business mogul, Toyin Lawani, ordered his arrest because she accused him of stealing her customers.

Lawani has, however, denied the allegations.
Nigeria has again ignored the commitment it made alongside other African countries 16 years ago on funding of health care services for its citizens.

Nigeria hosted the Heads of State of member countries of the African Union (AU) in 2001 who made the Abuja Declaration under which the leaders pledged to commit at least 15 percent of their annual budgets to improving their health sector.

Since the declaration, Nigeria has not attained the pledged funding benchmark as the federal government has never voted more than six percent of its annual budget to the health sector.

The highest percentage since the declaration was in 2012 when 5.95% of the budget was allotted to health.

In the 2018 Budget proposal President Muhammadu Buhari presented on Tuesday to the National Assembly, he allocated N340.45 billion, representing 3.9 percent of the N8.6 trillion expenditure plan to the health sector.

The allocation is less than the 4.16 percent and 4.23 percent made to the health sector by the administration in the 2017 and 2016 budgets.

In July 2013, Nigeria again hosted over 50 African Heads of State in a special summit that was tagged The Abuja +12 meeting, which reviewed the progress made on the promise of the Abuja Declaration on health funding.

Breakdown of the 2018 Health Budget proposal

If the appropriation bill is passed as presented on Tuesday by President Buhari, the N340 billion allocated means that government plans to spend N1,888 on each citizen for the whole year.

It is estimated that Nigerians spend N359.2 billion on medical tourism annually.

The budgetary allocation is against the backdrop of recent outbreaks of Monkey pox, Measles and Lassa fever, and the fight to end polio and high maternal and child deaths.

The country is also beset by poor primary health facilities, lack of functioning cancer machines or treatment centres, poor health emergency responses and low coverage of the health insurance scheme, among other issues.

In the 2018 health budget proposal, N269.34 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure which refers mainly to expenditure on operations, wages and salaries, purchases of goods and services, and current grants and subsidies; while N71.11 billion is for capital expenditure.

Though there was a little increase in capital expenditure when compared to the N51.1bn earmarked for it in 2017, in percentage term it was a decline as the 2017 budget was N7.4 trillion while that of 2018 budget is N8.6trillion.

Details of the budget proposal revealed that health came 12th as Power, Works and Housing got the highest capital project proposal with N555.88 billion, almost eight times that of health.

Nigerias health situation is of growing concern especially in the insurgency ravaged North Eastern region where access to medical care has diminished.

Various statistics also show that Nigeria has one of the worst health care delivery records in the world.

According to the World Health Organization, Nigeria is rated 187th out of 191 countries in terms of health care delivery.

WHO said one-third of more than 700 health facilities have been destroyed in the country and about 3.7 million people are in need of health assistance.

The health body placed Nigeria at third highest in infant mortality rate in the world.

Medical experts described as worrisome the recent figure released by international agencies which put Nigerias maternal mortality rate at 58,000 in 2015. This showed that Nigeria recorded the second highest maternal death rate in the world.

Apart from poor health interventions apparently caused by lack of funds, the sector has also experienced series of industrial actions by its workers over unpaid salaries and other administrative anomalies.

The Joint Health Sector Unions and Assembly of Healthcare Professionals, JOHESU, recently called off its nationwide strike which it embarked on September 20 to protest among other issues, salaries adjustments, promotion arrears, and improved work environment for its members.

The fact that the Abuja declaration was made in Nigeria, we should be taking the lead, but other smaller countries like Kenya, The Gambia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Swaziland are the ones making bold steps in terms of budgetary allocation for health, Aremu Fatai, the director, Policy and Legislative Advocacy at Partnership for Advocacy in Child and Family Health, a coalition of non-governmental organisations.

Mr. Fatai, a medical doctor, said the proposal was short of expectation.

This doesnt speak well of Nigerias image as the Giant leader in Africa and it doesnt go well for the health sector because what this means is that the government does not prioritize health, he said.

Infrastructure, building roads and bridges are bad but then even when you build the road and bridges its only a healthy population that can utilize them. When you talk about agriculture, its only when the farmer is healthy that he can be more productive in the farm.

He urged the National Assembly to use its power as it is constitutionally guaranteed to make necessarily adjustment to the appropriation bill and make sure that health gets a better deal in the budget.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has condemned what he described as unverified allegations raised by a senator against his ministry.

Dino Melaye, Kogi-APC, had first as a petition, and later as a motion, accused the ministry of mismanaging funds to the tune of $35 million and another attempt to break away with $350 million Eurobond.

Reacting to these allegations, the minister in a statement he personally signed said he will cooperate with the Senate as he and his staff has done nothing wrong in management of the said fund.

With all emphasis, I state that there is no factual basis for the allegations, he said. The ministry, my staff and I have done nothing wrong and we will collaborate fully with the investigating committee when called upon.

Mr. Fashola noted that he was not a minister in 2013, the period for which the senator claimed the funds were received. He also said the responsibility of managing government debt like Eurobond is that of the Debt Management Office and not his ministry.

He alleged an ulterior motive in the presentation of the allegations as the senator made different allegations while raising it as a petition and later during its presentation as a motion.

The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) had on Monday, 6th November 2017 issued a statement on the front page of The Nation Newspaper explaining that the money was not missing, stating also that the $350 million had been invested and that interest had even accrued on the money.

If there was no ulterior motive for the allegation, this was enough reason for a reconsideration of the presentation of the motion on the floor of the Senate on the 8th of November 2017.

But the story seemed to have changed from missing money last week, to a desperate attempt to retrieve the money , this week.

For the Afam Fast Power project which the senator accused his ministry of spending $35 milion without appropriation and feasibility study, Mr. Fashola explained that it was kickstarted as an investment by a U.S. firm, General Electric, to boost power supply in the country.

They offered to do this by providing Nigeria with mobile turbines of 600MW if we could find a location with Gas and Transmission evacuation infrastructure. The Afam Power Station fitted because it had transmission and evacuation facilities but all its turbines had been virtually run down.

The investment was contingent on paying $27,990,000 million which was 15% of 8 (eight) units of 30MW turbines each totalling 240MW valued at about $186,600,000:00.

This payment of $27.9m was made without breaching any law.

At this moment, the turbines have arrived Nigeria and currently at the Onne Port. This is verifiable just as works are on going on the site  civil and engineering  preparing to receive the turbines , and install other equipment already at site.

Describing it as the fastest power project when delivered, the minister said the project will add 240MW to the grid when commissioned.

He added that investors do not require parliamentary approval to invest in the country while cautioning the Senate against pushing out unverified information as it poses an imminent threat to our investment climate.

HOW IT STARTED

News of the alleged fraud first emanated from the floor of the Senate on November 2 when 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 the Nigerian Electricity Bulk Trading Company, NBET, while another $35 million was paid to General Electric and some others.

In July 2013, the federal government raised $1 billion from Eurobond issue. From the proceeds, $350 million was given to NBET 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. The Ministry has spent so far $35 million on the Afam fast power project that has no appropriation or feasibility studies, he said.

However, presenting it as a motion on Wednesday, November 8, the senator said the ministry had been making frantic efforts to secure the release of $350 million domiciled in the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority to finance electricity projects.

He alleged that the ministry is mounting pressure on NBET to retrieve this fund ($350 million) and divert same to fund the Fast Power Projects.

The Senate mandated its committees on power and public accounts to invite Mr. Fashola, to render an account of funds spent on the project.
A lawyer to the whistle-blower that helped in the recovery of $43.5 million, 27,800 and N23.2 million at No. 16 Osborne Road, Flat 7B Osborne Towers in Ikoyi, Lagos, has said his client is yet to be paid his due reward five months after a court ordered a final forfeiture of the money.

Reacting to a claim by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that his client is now a millionaire, the lawyer, Yakubu Galadima, told PREMIUM TIMES on Friday that several efforts to get the money have been unsuccessful.

The truth is that this guy has not been paid a penny, Mr. Galadima said.

In fact, from April till date, the guy has been living under my meagre resources, his security was just zero. Ive had to relocate this guy from one place to another so nobody knows his whereabouts.

The Nigerian government in December 2016 adopted a policy on whistleblowing to encourage citizens to report financial and other related crimes to relevant authorities.

According to the policy, whistleblowers whose revelations lead to the recovery of money are entitled to as much as five percent of the recovered sum.

Since the introduction of the policy, the government has recovered about N17 billion, according to the EFCC.

Some of those monies had been recovered from LEGICO Plaza in Victoria Island, Lagos; the luxury apartment in Ikoyi; a building in Kaduna belonging to Andrew Yakubu, a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; among others.

Last June, the Nigerian government announced it had released about N375.8 million for payment of 20 whistleblowers who provided information for the recovery of over N11.6 billion.

On Wednesday, while speaking at the 7th session of the Conference of State Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, Ibrahim Magu, the EFCC acting chairman, said the individual who helped uncover the Ikoyi apartment money had become a millionaire.

We are currently working on the young man because this is just a man who has not seen one million Naira of his own before.

So he is under counseling on how to make use of the money and also the security implication. We dont want anything bad to happen to him after taking delivery of his entitlement. He is a national pride.

The true position

Mr. Galadima said the EFCC bosss position is not correct.

According to the lawyer, the Ikoyi whistle-blower accompanied by friends had approached him in early April this year to inform him about their suspicion of a huge amount of money stashed away in one of the apartments at the Osborne Towers.

In fact, what came to their mind was to go and burgle the place since they know the security network of the house, said Mr. Galadima.

I was the one that advised them that, you dont do that because that will amount to crime. That since there is a policy of the federal government, let us exploit that avenue.

I took them, we went to the Commission, discussed with them, they said they were going to give the boy a form to fill and that if the story turns out to be false that the guy will go to jail. We said no problem, we undertook and we signed.

The next day, we went to the house, all of us were all shivering thinking there was nothing inside. And then we started to discover all sorts of money in different denominations, pounds, dollars, naira. These monies were all recovered and taken to the Commission. It was counted. They brought a staff of CBN and he came and counted the money.

In April, the EFCC headed to a federal court in Lagos seeking for the forfeiture of the money to the Nigerian government and, in June, Justice Muslim Hassan ordered a permanent forfeiture of the money to the government.

The judge had earlier granted an interim forfeiture giving 14 days for anyone interested in the funds to appear before it and show reason why the money should not be permanently forfeited to the federal government.

Nobody appeared before the court to claim the money.

The moment the final forfeiture was made, I wrote a comprehensive letter to Magu, attaching the judgement, and said court has made a final forfeiture, where is the reward and commission of the whistleblowers? Mr. Galadima continued.

In fact, the letter was addressed to the Acting President then through the Office of the Acting Chairman since the money was recovered by the EFCC. That was the first letter.

A month later, I wrote a reminder. It was after that reminder that they said we should bring the boy to Abuja. We took the boy to Abuja, he had one on one interface for the first time with the acting president. We went together with the acting chairman.

The acting president congratulated him for a job well done and that with the money theyll pay him, hes now a millionaire. We all laughed.

Mad whistle-blower

Mr. Galadima said while he was out of country on vacation, his client contacted him on the phone and told him about receiving threats to his life.

The day we went to the office of the acting president, they gave him a number that he can reach them at any time. So he has been communicating with the acting president. Following the threats, they detailed some SSS to be working around him, the lawyer said.

The whistle-blower was later taken to the SSS facility at Shangisha, Lagos, and given an apartment.

Because the guy had always been looking forward to see(ing) this money and it wasnt forthcoming, he started shouting. When he started shouting, they said hes mad, that hes having a mental problem.

The SSS people called me and said I should come and carry my luggage. They brought him to the EFCC and abandoned him there. The EFCC people called me that I should come and carry my client.

On getting to the Commissions office, Mr. Galadima said he was informed of his clients mental illness and plans to take him to the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Yaba.

I said hes not mad, that its because you people are holding his money thats why hes reacting this way. They insisted the guy is mad, that they have to take him to a psychiatric hospital, they bundled this man. I said ok, if thats how to prove that hes not mad, no problem, we went to the psychiatric hospital in Yaba.

They injected him and said they have to monitor him for a month. They monitored him for a month. The day they were going to release him, the EFCC called me again to come and carry my critical asset. This was a boy I never knew from Adam.. I said ok, I went to the EFCC the guy said hes ok theres no problem anymore, they handed him over to me three weeks ago. Ever since then, I pay money into his account on a weekly basis for his upkeep.

Phone calls and text messages to Wilson Uwujaren, the EFCC spokesperson, were not answered.

The phone lines of Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant to the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, did not go through.

On October 12, Mr. Galadima wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari seeking the prompt payment of the commission due to his client.

I have written twice while you are away receiving treatment to the Acting President through the office of the Acting Chairman of the EFCC on 7th June 2017 and 24th July 2017 respectively, Mr. Galadima stated in a copy of the letter he made available to PREMIUM TIMES.

Please note that the discovery (of the money) was a result of my clients efforts and consequently, I respectfully urge Your Excellency to use your good offices to facilitate the prompt payment of the reward/commission due to my clients.

Mr. Galadima said that contrary to media reports that his clients commission is N350 million, the correct figure is N850 million.

Because the money discovered was about N17 billion and not N13 billion that is being declared. It was calculated as at the time the money was recovered.

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For the past three weeks, Kolo Adamu has slept on the floor beside her daughter Naomis hospital bed in North-east Nigeria, unable to afford the surgery she needs for a kidney condition.

Naomi, 27, was one of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, North-east Nigeria, in April 2014. She is among the 82 girls freed by the jihadists in May after negotiations with the Nigerian government, adding to 24 others who were released or found last year.

After months of counselling and medical care in the capital, Abuja, as part of a state rehabilitation programme, the government sponsored the girls to start a special catch-up course in September at the American University of Nigeria, AUN, in Yola.

Naomi and five of her Chibok classmates enrolled at the AUN are suffering due to injuries inflicted during their time in captivity  from shrapnel in their bodies to fractured bones  said Yakubu Nkeki of the Chibok parents association.

Yet the government and the university are passing the buck on paying for their healthcare, according to the girls parents  mostly farmers  who say they are unable to cover the costs.

The school said that they are not responsible, that the government is supposed to take care of everything, Naomis mother Adamu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

At first, the hospital gave her drip and medicine, but for the past four days they havent given her any because they said the medicine is finished, added Adamu, who said she feels helpless and cries every time her daughter screams in pain.

The doctor has not shown up. I am confused.

A spokeswoman for the ministry of womens affairs said the school fees paid by the government include medical bills.

The federal government has handed over the girls to their parents after paying their school fees and everything, said Suleiman Dantsoho. The school should take care of her (Naomi).

The AUN however said the university only offers primary healthcare to students, which it said does not extend to surgeries at government hospitals.

The spokesperson for the university, Dan Okereke, said, We agree with the Ministry of Women Affairs, all of our students, including the young women from Chibok, are covered at our AUN Health Centre on campus, this is accurate. All students pay a health centre fee at AUN, whether AUN students or the young women from Chibok, and this fee covers the cost of the care at our AUN Health Centre on campus. Our AUN Health Centre on campus is not a hospital, but it does provide basic health care for routine medical illnesses. When a student has a health issue that is beyond our AUN Health Centre, we inform the students parents and refer the student to FMC-Yola, which we have done with our student. We look forward to her return to our learning community soon.

Chibok parents are irritated by the buckpassing between government and the university. This is not the reality we arranged with President Buhari, said Nkeki, chairman of the Chibok parents association.

They said they will take care of our daughters  make sure that they dont suffer again, he added.

BURDEN

The pain in Naomis abdomen began in captivity, but a doctor kidnapped by Boko Haram treated her with medicine, she said.

Naomi was referred to a government hospital in Yola last month after a scan at the AUNs clinic revealed that she had a kidney condition, and the schools doctor recommended surgery.

The pain is too much. Anything I eat, I vomit, Naomi said over the phone, her voice weak and barely audible.

Their three weeks together in hospital is the longest period Naomi and her mother have spent together since the abduction, which sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls.

But each day has been fraught with pain and tears.

Sometimes, the pain in her abdomen is so intense that Naomi rolls about on the floor or soaks herself in cold water.

She told me that if she knew her health would be such a burden on me, she would have stayed back in the forest, said Adamu, who had to rely on donations to pay for the five-hour journey from Chibok to Yola. That statement pained me so much.

Naomi worries about her mother, and tries to console her.

If they will not pay my medical bill then they should allow me back in school, so that she can go back to Chibok, she said.

(This story was first published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. We have the authors permission to republish.)

EDITORS NOTE: This post has been updated with comments by authorities at the American University of Nigeria.

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The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, on Friday told President Muhammadu Buhari to withdraw Nigeria from international religious organisations, address insecurity in the country and ensure payment of workers salaries.

The President of CAN, Sampson Ayokunle, disclosed this to State House correspondents after a meeting of the leadership of the association with Mr. Buhari in his office.

Mr. Ayokunle, who said the meeting was called by Mr. Buhari, long after the association complained that its request for an audience with the president had not been granted, said the meeting was better to be late than never.

The CAN leadership has been critical of many actions of the government under Mr. Buhari, including the recent receipt of a N100 billion Islamic Sukuk bond, which the government distributed for the construction of some federal roads.

CAN has also accused the president of plotting to Islamise Nigeria.

Speaking with reporters after the meeting, however, Mr. Ayokunle said the Christian leaders were very humbled by the calm disposition of the President.

He said such meetings with the president will always make people be ready to offer help to the government.

The CAN leader said the associations objection to Sukuk was because it believes that it was an abuse of the Nigerian constitution.

As I said before, there wasnt any demon in Sukuk bond. But what was wrong is the constitutionality, he said.

He said while no CAN member was opposed to any Muslim running their own financial system, what is wrong is for the government to be the one who will be promoting it and initiating it. It was a violation of the constitution.

CANs opposition to the Sukuk bonds has, however, been faulted by several analysts and economists including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor. The proponents say while Sukuk might have an Islamic origin, it has been used by several non-Islamic countries including the UK to raise funds. The Nigerian government has already announced the infrastructure projects it will use the fund for.

Mr. Ayokunle said the meeting with the president discussed the need for the government to keep the sanctity of the constitution, which will guide the behaviour and actions of citizens.

He said apart from the demand to withdraw Nigeria from all religious organisations, CAN also asked the president to ensure constant payment of salaries to Nigerian workers.

He said governments inability to pay workers salaries across the country has heightened tension and led to suicide and increase in crime.

When people cant find food to eat, they resort to whatever they can lay their hands on, he said.

Mr. Ayokunle also said CAN advised Mr. Buhari to authorise the recruitment of more police officer to beef up security across the land.

We have the problems of kidnapping, armed robbery, herdsmen attacks, militancy is also on the increase, about 300,000 police cannot police a nation of about 200 million people, even if they are given the best of equipment.

There are lots of young people who are ready to work. Government should therefore vote more funds for security.

We also advised the government to address the issue of Fulani herdsmen squarely, he said.

The CAN leader said the president responded in the affirmative.

He said the menace of rampant attacks was as a result of the end of late President Muamar Ghadafi in Libya whereby those who were armed by him have now moved down South, infiltrating into our country and are living with the herdsmen in Nigeria ravaging entire communities.

He said Mr. Buhari said he was doing something to stop the menace.

CAN said it looks forward to more action from Mr. Buhari, especially in the area of lopsided appointments, where some states have 30 people and another states having less than three. This will not give any sense of belonging to the government and to the country.

He said CAN had been helpful to Mr. Buhari by constantly speaking out against what it perceived to be going wrong in the country.

The people that dont talk are the enemies of the nation. When you see things going wrong, you quickly speak out so that they can be corrected, so that the nation can move together as one, he said.

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The Bring Back Our Girls Group, #BBOG, has said it would resume its daily protest marches on Tuesday to the State House, after its brief hiatus, to remind the government that it is yet to rescue 113 Chibok girls that were kidnapped on April, 14, 2014.



The group said though it was gladdened that 82 of the girls were rescued six months ago, it would not relent until the last girl returned home.



In a release issued by its media team on Friday, the group said it was optimistic that the renewed marches, which were suspended recently as a sign of good faith, will pressurise the government to show more commitment to the issue.



Following the return of 82 of our girls 6 months ago, not much has been heard from the Government of Nigeria. Three months ago the presidency made commitments none of which have been implemented. For this reason, our movement mobilised for marches to the State House to ensure that the federal government lives up to its commitment, but we put them on hold at various times.



Most recently, one month ago, the vice president made open commitments about our #ChibokGirls, likewise the president in his Independence Day address. We, therefore, in line with our principle and practice of reasonableness put a hold on our marches, expecting to see the outcome of the commitments made. Up to now we see no evidence of any outcomes.



The families of our #ChibokGirls have been completely in the dark all these six months. The likewise public has been in the dark. Within this time Lassa women (among them police service personnel) were kidnapped by the terrorists, also an oil exploratory team which included staff of the University of Maiduguri, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and members of our military were kidnapped.

None of the victims in both incidences is back, none of their families has been contacted. These are only two of many incidences within the last six months under review, the group said.



It said the marches, which will commence 9 a.m. daily from Tuesday at the Unity Fountain, Abuja would refocus the attention of the authorities to the plight of the traumatised families.



Our movement, therefore resumes daily marches to the State House, in order to refocus attention on the plight of our #ChibokGirls and all the incidences of abductions, killings, and general insecurity as well as the abysmally poor handling of the situations; to demand their immediate return, the statement said.

More than 100 girls are still missing after they were abducted from their school in the North-east town of Chibok in 2014 by the Boko Haram.

About 276 girls were kidnapped, leading to global social media campaigns nationally and globally, using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.

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The police have paraded 16 suspects arrested for alleged kidnapping, armed robbery and illegal possession of prohibited firearms in Sabo Wuse area of Niger State.

Among the suspects was a 75-year-old man the police said was engaged in defrauding people with fake currencies.

Police spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood, told journalists at Divisional Police Headquarters in Tafa, Sabo-Wuse Thursday afternoon that the suspects belonged to four gangs of criminals.

Mr. Moshood, a chief superintendent of police, named members of one of the gangs as Abdulkareem Isah, 48, Mohammadu Mustapha, 25, Yunusa Mohammed, 40, Ahmadu Musa 23, and Bashir Yero 30.

He said the suspects engaged in kidnapping and armed robbery along Abuja  Kaduna, Abuja  Minna  Bida, Birnin Gwari  Funtua, Abuja  Lokoja highways, while dressed in fake military uniforms.

Mr. Moshood said the police had also reinforced their Operation Absolute Sanity with additional personnel and logistics to tackle kidnappers, armedrobbers and car snatchers on the Abuja  Kaduna, Abuja  Minna  Bida, Birnin Gwari Funtua, Abuja  Lokoja and other highways nationwide.

This Operation Absolute Sanity is equally being carried out by the Police Joint Forces throughout the country, he added.

Mr. Moshood paraded another group of suspects, led by Yakubu Sulaiman, 40.

Other members of the gang are Usman Ibrahim 29, Ahmed Sulaiman 37, Abdumalik Sadiq 29, and Isah Sulaiman 29.

He said the suspects specialised in kidnap for ransom and armed robbery; and that they were suspects in the murder of a police officer.

The police also paraded Usman Bawa, a 75-year old man who could barely stand, as the leader of a vicious group who specialises in defrauding people with thousands of fake US dollars and Nigerian currency.

Mr. Moshood said the suspects were arrested on November 6 at their hideouts by operatives of Operation Absolute Sanity comprising the Special Tactical Squad STS, Police Mobile Force, PMF, and Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS.

The security operatives, raided identified kidnappers dens, camps, armed robbers and car snatchers in their camps, black spots and criminal hideouts in the forests located in the FCT, Niger and Kaduna states and successfully smashed four vicious and notorious gangs; and in the process arrested the following 16 suspects in the act of kidnapping and collection of ransom, car snatching and armed robbery, he said.

He said the suspects would be arraigned in court on completion of police investigation.

Investigation is being intensified to arrest other suspects at large, he added.

Items he said were recovered from the suspects include two AK 47 riffle, one SMG OFN Mode 12 gun, one locally made revolver pistol, three pump action gun, two Bareta pistol and one, air riffle.

Also paraded were 85 rounds of 7.62X39mm ammunition, 10 Rounds of 9mm ammunition 6 ROUNDS OF 380 AUTO three live cartridges and five AK 47 magazines.

Other items were two pairs of military camouflage uniforms, one fabricated master key, two Toyota Corolla cars, and one Toyoto muscle car among others.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiRs-vfZgMU&w=560&h=315]

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The Texas Institute of Letters Literary Awards

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is offering a free Dreamers sticker with the option to purchase more as a fund raiser for the campaign to pass the Dream Act.to get yours.

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The grift. The scam. The double-cross. Blackmail and burglary; murder and larceny. Blood Business tracks the underbelly of human nature through the muck of our lesser angels in twenty-seven crime stories set in this world...and beyond.





Join Hex Publishers' editors Josh Viola and Mario Acevedo, contributing authors Carter Wilson, Mark Stevens, Jeanne C. Stein, Warren Hammond, Betsy Dornbusch, Manuel Ramos, Sean Eads, Dean Wyant, Aaron Michael Ritchey, Angie Hodapp, Jason Heller, and artist Aaron Lovett for an evening of horror, mystery and crime.




Roughly every six minutes, a woman somewhere in the world bleeds to death in child birth. But a new medical trial shows that there is a way of combating the problem.

The trial has found that a simple drug called tranexamic acid, a blood clot stabiliser first discovered in Japan in the 1950s, could cut deaths from bleeding by a third if given to women within three hours.

In London this week, experts on the issue of what the medical community calls post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) met to highlight the trials findings and to discuss how to promote the use of the drug.

The event took place at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which hosts the collaboration known as the WOMAN Trial.

PPH is the leading cause of maternal death globally. It kills about 100,000 women, mostly in low and middle income countries.

Philanthropist Toyin Saraki, the founding president of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa and an ambassador for the International Confederation of Midwives, told the meeting that the risk of death in childbirth remains painstakingly high in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Nigeria, for example, the country of my birth, a woman incurs a one in 23 risk of dying during childbirth in her lifetime, she said.

In Chad, with the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world, this figure is closer to one in 17. It is countries such as these that can benefit the most from tranexamic acid.

Mrs. Saraki said the use of a cheap and effective drug such as tranexamic acid could constitute a significant step closer to fair and equal maternal care around the world

If administered across Africa, the health outcomes would be immense and would lead to lives of thousands of women across Africa being saved.

But, she added, this will not be easily achieved.

(This story was first published by All Africa. We have their permission to republish).
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with members and leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at the presidential villa, Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, and Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita.

The meeting, being held behind closed doors at the council chamber of Aso Rock, was also attended by ministers, while the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, was represented by the permanent secretary, Ecological Fund Office, Habiba Lawal.

The president is also expected to meet with representatives of the Muslim community in Nigeria at same venue by 2 p.m. (NAN)

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Over 5, 000 post-graduate students are trapped at the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, due to their failure to meet the universitys requirement for graduation.

According to the policy of the university, a student is required to earn a minimum cumulative grade point average, CGPA, of 3.0 and a specified total credit earned, TCE, to graduate.

The 3.0 CGPA is the equivalent of second class lower in other Nigerian universities, while the TCE is the totality of points amassed from courses the student registered for and passed in the course of the programme.

According to a group of students who have completed their programmes but earned less than the stipulated CGPA, they were not informed of the No 3.0, No Graduation policy at the point of their admission into the university.

In a statement they issued Monday, a group of the students called on the Minister of Education and the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission to direct NOUN to suspend the obnoxious policy and let them go.

In addition to this, the institution should be made to explain why it chose to conceal the policy from students at the point of admission, only to impose it on them at the pont of graduation, they said in the statement signed on their behalf by Tony Christian.

While it is a common knowledge that the policy is nothing but a deliberate scheme by NOUN to up its IGR, it was however not surprising that all students affected by the policy were deliberately made to fail some courses in a bid by the institution to generate funds from payment arising from re-registration of carried-over courses.

Yet, after writing these carried-over courses, with no outstanding and scored at least 2.5 GP, it is baffling that NOUN has refused to graduate these students on the ground that they did not meet its 3.0 GP benchmark.

In the history of Nigerias education system, it is unheard of that the certificate of a post graduate student was being withheld on the account of the status of his or her GP. The standard rule is either a student passed or failed. Whichever way it goes; it is within the right of the student to be issued either certificate of graduation or attendance. No law or policy of any university is empowered to do otherwise.

It is therefore alien that a post graduate student who has no outstanding course and scored at least 2.5 GP, which is by universal grading, Second Class lower, is denied certificate of graduation because he or she did not score up to 3.0 GP  which is still within the range of Second Class lower .

The students further alleged that NOUN was admitting candidates from other universities with pass degree into its M. Sc programme, but denies its own PGD products who scored a minimum of 2.5 GP from graduating or proceed to pursue their M. Sc programme.

A spokesperson for NOUN, Ibrahim Sheme, confirmed the policy, but said it was in compliance with the standard set by NUC.

Mr. Sheme later issued a press statement on the development on Tuesday.

In the statement, he insisted that it was the prerogative of the Senate of a university to deliberate and make policies on all academic matters which include both admission and graduation requirements.

In line with NUCs Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards, BMAS , for Nigerian universities, which is a policy document in the public domain that can easily be accessed, the minimum pass mark for ALL postgraduate courses is a C, which is a Credit and carries a grade point of 3. In clinical/pharmaceutical sciences, it is a B,Mr. Sheme said.

In terms of the graduation requirements for most programmes, a student is required to have earned a minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average, CGPA, of 3.00 and a Total Credit Earned, TCE, meaning the summation of all the courses registered and passed, of 30 before they may be pronounced graduated by the university.

For professional programmes like the MBA, the TCE is far higher.

In addition to CGPA and TCE, postgraduate students are similarly expected to have fulfilled other academic requirements like passing all the courses registered, particularly the core courses.

For example, a postgraduate student must pass the Good Study Guide (GST707/807), which is an introductory course for an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) student, etc.

A postgraduate student cannot, for example, fail a core course like Research Project, Research Methodology, and expect to be graduated even though he/she has met the minimum TCE and CGPA for the programme.

Mr, Sheme said NOUN was not unaware that in the formative years of the university, some of our operations were not properly aligned with the regulatory dictates of the NUC.

Some of the postgraduate students may not have been properly informed on the degree awarding rules for the programmes they applied for.

Steps are being taken to, adequately sensitise the students who were given admission with effect from the 2016 First Semester on the need to fully comply with the NUC BMAS.

On the fate of the trapped students, Mr. Sheme said the university would come up with a justifiable modality that would ensure that older students who are caught up in the system as a result of their inability to meet the minimum graduation requirements are accommodated.

A spokesperson for NUC, Ibrahim Yakassai, confirmed that 3.0GP is the minimum requirement set by NUC for post-graduate degrees.

But he said individual institutions can also set their own benchmark to accommodate peculiar situations of their students.
The Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, on Thursday arrived Owerri, the Imo state capital for a two-day working visit during which she is expected to be honoured by the state government.

On arrival, the Liberian leader was taken to the Eze Imo Palace, where she was conferred with a chieftaincy title by the Chairman of the State Council of Traditional Rulers, Samuel Ohiri.

Just like Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Nana Ado Akufo of Ghana, the Liberian leader was inducted in the Imo Hall of Fame, received Imo Merit Award and her statue also unveiled in her honour.

Speaking after the honour, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf said she was excited to be in Imo, adding that with education, hardwork and unity of purpose, Africa would soon get to the promised land.

A statement by the chief press secretary to the Governor, Sam Onwuemeodo, on Tuesday said Mrs. Johnson-Sirleafs visit is principally to meet students of the Rochas Foundation especially Liberian students whose parents died of Ebola.

On Friday, Mrs. Sirleaf met with students of the foundation where she stressed that education is the most effective way to fight poverty in Africa. She said that if most children in the region have access to quality education, the problem of the continent would be solved.

She also applauded the foundation for its efforts in building a community for African children to thrive and giving them a platform to grow.

I have travelled to every part of the world and I have travelled all over Africa, I have never experienced something like this. I have seen leaders of Africa build schools, roads, give scholarships, and so on, in all of these things. I have not seen any of them go beyond the ordinary by gathering indigent children of Africa from all of our countries, bring them together in our family, sharing together, I thank you. There is no other better way to fight poverty and preach unity than this, she said.

In his speech, Governor Rochas Okorocha said the Foundation was not set up to show affluence, rather a platform to foster the kind of unity Africa yearns for.

What I do today is not a dramatisation of affluence as I am not amongst the richest in Africa, Rochas foundation is a dramatisation of sacrifice. This may as well be the Africa we are looking for, I do know that this institution will grow beyond me and my generation. This may be the beginning of the unity we all crave for in Africa. These children now see themselves as one family, he said.

Mrs. Sirleaf also delivered a lecture to Imo women on the Women in Politics at the Imo women at the Imo International Convention Centre (IICC).

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The last may not have been heard of the Kabba Day drama as traditional rulers and community leaders of the ancient town allege that a senator, Dino Melaye, was told to stay away from the event.

Mr. Melaye has, however, described such as false saying nobody asked him not to come.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the lawmaker was attacked by a mob even after he had donated money at the event. Although the senator is believed to have been unhurt from the incident, one of his cars was damaged with the police eventually dispersing the crowd with tear gas.

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi is believed to have turned back from attending the event upon getting information there could be violence.

Speaking during a courtesy call on Governor Yahaya Bello in Lokoja, Thursday, the President General of the Kabba Development Union, Emmanuel Ajibero, hailed the governor for his wisdom and statesmanship, insisting that the governors decision to tow the path of peace shows he is a peace loving leader.

Mr. Ajibero thanked the governor for donating N20 million towards the completion of the Kabba Civic Centre.

Also speaking at the event, a community leader, Chief Olowodola, said Kabba community will remain eternally grateful to the governor for his uncommon leadership.

He said he thought Mr. Melaye would use the opportunity to iron out his differences with the Governor.

Mr. Olowodola said a federal lawmaker opposed to the governor, Abiodun Faleke, displayed utmost respect for the Kabba people by avoiding any confrontation with the governor. He urged the people of Kogi State to give maximum support for the success of the governor.

On his part, the Obadofin of Oweland, Michael Yusufn thanked the governor for honouring the Kabba people as well as embracing peace. He narrated how the community allegedly prevailed on Mr. Melaye to stay off the event.

He said, We sent some royal fathers and chiefs to him to stay away when we heard he was coming to disrupt the event. He promised us he wont come only to sneak into Kabba and caused the havoc that happened that day.

We have learnt our lessons and we now know better. The event also afforded us the opportunity to know how peace-loving the governor is.

The Chief of Staff to the Governor, Edward Onoja, called on the governor to continue to see the Okun people as responsible despite what happened at the Kabba Day.

According to him, Okun land is made up of responsible and great people. The sin of one should not be visited on all.

Since the creation of Kogi State, Kogi has never been this favoured in terms of appointment into strategic and high placed positions. Okun must prove to the governor and the current administration that they appreciate their new found relevance in the politics and governance of Kogi State.

The Kabba Day incident has helped the governor to shine. People were expecting to see an arrogant governor as misconceived by the media only to find out the real Yahaya Bello who is prepared to sacrifice anything to safeguard the lives of his people.

There is no administration in this state in which the Okun people have the positions of a Speaker, Secretary to the State Government and State Security Adviser all at the same time. It has been made possible by this administration. We know where we are coming from, where we are and where we are going.

Responding, the governor, Mr. Bello thanked the members of the delegation for their visit.

He said he bears no grudge against anyone and that he will continue to respect the position of Kabba as the headquarters of the old Kabba Province.

I do not bear grudge against anyone. What happened belongs to the past. I cannot waste the lives of my people on the platter of ego. We thank God for making the day a success.

Let me also thank my supporters for showing the character of their leader by refusing to take laws into their hands. The security agencies also did great by providing adequate security to forestall breakdown of law and order.

Kogi State is one big family and my administration shall continue to promote peace and unity across the state.

The governor urged the Kabba people to continue to support his administration in his bid to continue to serve the people of the state.

Politicians should stop testing God by thinking of 2019. I was made Governor by God and only HE knows where I will be in 2019.

I will continue to give my best to this great state of great people. My ego is not worth any life. We shall continue to put Kogi on the right path.

In his vote of thanks, the Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Matthew Kolawole, thanked the governor for his love for Kabba. He said the people will always reciprocate his good gestures.

DINO REACTS

In an email response to PREMIUM TIMES, the Senator however denied being asked not to show up at the event.

Giving an account of a warm welcome he received, he challenged Governor Bello to explain why he ran away from venue of the occasion.

Nobody asked me not to come and nobody could have stopped me from coming, he replied to an enquiry by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday. The governor was embarrassed but his political appointees have always lied to him that Im not on ground and everybody is for him.

He added that the National President and organiser of the Kabba Day celebration flew from Lagos to Abuja to personally invite him for the event and decorated him as an ambassador same day.

The triumphant entry and total acceptability that I got when I entered Kabba obviously got the governor and his appointees taking cover and couldnt approach the venue where I had a fill day. The entire crowd cheered me all through till the point I drove out of the stadium.

About 5 hired Ebira thugs were throwing stones at my convoy, the people caught them and gave them community beating before handling them to the police. The governor should explain why he ran away after getting to Kabba all the way from Lokoja. No one can stop the peoples revolt.

The senator noted that he will continue to contend with the governor until he heeds to the cries of the workers.

I have pictorial evidence and video. Please ask them for evidence of their lies. The governor is simply the most unpopular governor in Nigeria for stealing the salaries and pension of workers. The battle to make him responsible and pay workers is a battle of no retreat no surrender. If I die I die. But I will never keep quiet in the face of deliberate wickedness.
The Ogun State Chief Judge, Olatokunbo Olopade, on Thursday granted pardon to 106 inmates as part of efforts to decongest prisons in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mrs. Olopade pardoned the inmates during her three-day tour of prison formations at Ibara and Oba in Abeokuta as well as those in Ilaro, Sagamu and Ijebu-Ode.

NAN reports that 38 inmates were released from Oba prison, 31 in Ibara, 13 in Ilaro, eight in Sagamu, while 16 inmates were set free in Ijebu-Ode prison.

Speaking during the visits, the judge said the pardon was to decongest the prisons across the country in line with the directive of the Attorney General of the Federation.

According to Mrs. Olopade, state chief judges were directed to visit prison formations within their jurisdictions and release inmates that should not be in custody.

She said the exercise, the second in 2017 legal year, was aimed at decongesting the prisons and release inmates who had been in custody without trial over a long period of time.

According to her, the prolonged detention of most of the inmates is due to negligence on the part of the prosecuting authorities.

Most of the inmates have been on awaiting advice from the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution) for years, and the DPP failed to render legal advice, and issues of missing case files as well as prison officers not producing inmates to court at the appropriate time are responsible for the delay in the judicial process.

I see no point keeping people here for years without no file or delay in legal advice; it is injustice, she said.

Mrs. Olopade, however, charged all stakeholders in the administration of justice to accelerate trial of cases and make effective use of the fast-track clinics provided by the state government to achieve the set objective of decongesting the prisons.

The CJ appealed to the prisons service to address the issue of not transporting inmates to court.

She said the prisons service should work effectively with the Ministry of Justice in the discharge of their duties towards speedy dispensation of justice to help in eliminating congestion in prisons.

She appealed to the government to provide more magistrates and magistrates courts, saying that the courts needed more qualified personnel.

The magistrates and judges are trying, we need more magistrates courts and magistrates in Ogun in order to manage legal cases, she said.

She, however, admonished the freed inmates to make the best use of the amnesty by shunning crime and criminal activities capable of bringing them back to prison.

Kolawole Olatunde, the deputy comptroller in charge of Ibara Prison commended the CJ for freeing the inmates and called for frequent visits by the chief judge.

He also commended the Federal Government for supporting the prisons with logistics.

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A 30-year-old housewife, Funke Ajayi, has confessed that she assists her husband, Dele, a suspected armed robber to sell goods stolen after robbery operations.

The woman, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Friday at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS headquarters in Abeokuta said she knew her husband was an armed robber.

She said her husband once spent months in prison custody over alleged armed robbery but was released on bail. Speaking further, the suspect said her husband usually leaves home at about 12 a.m. for robbery operations and returns at 4 a.m.

I know my husband is an armed robber. I used to assist him to dispose some of the stolen goods, and at times collect money on his behalf from the buyers, she said.

The mother of four said she had earlier told her own parents about the criminal lifestyle of her husband and they warned her to stay away from him. She said she was planning to divorce him when she was arrested by the police for aiding the crimes allegedly committed by her husband.

The suspect is an hairdresser and resides in Oluwo, Egbeda axis of Ibadan in Oyo State capital with her husband and children.

Her husband is also currently in police custody in Ibadan and is expected to be transferred to Abeokuta for trial.

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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.




Barrages performances used to feature talented 20-something musicians who blended eclectic violin music with high-energy physical choreography and top-notch lighting and production values.

All those elements will be present in the new showexcept with even younger performerswhen Barrage: Next Generation takes the stage Nov. 19 for a two-hour show at West Salems Marie W. Heider Center for the Arts.

Anthony Moore, co-creator of the original Barrage and director of the current show, explained that this incarnation of Barrage features a super troupe of teenage virtuoso string players from all over the U.S.

People are going to be amazed at the skills these young people have, Moore said. They might be only 16, but theyve been playing a violin for 13 years. Theyre not only talented but extremely dedicated.

According to Moore, the prototype for this group was the Music City Strings, a Suzuki school in Franklin, Tennessee with students ranging in age from 12 to 20. We started working with them about five years ago to give them a more presentational style, Moore said. They became so popular that we took them on tour to China and Europe and they were very well received.

The original Barrage began in Calgary, Canada. We were using alternative kinds of string music as a teaching aide for classical studieseven though a lot of teachers at the time thought playing folk music would damage the development of classical players, Moore said. We wanted to get musicians out from behind their music stands.

Like the original group, Barrage: Next Generation delights in breaking boundaries by playing old songs in new ways.

The unique thing is youll hear songs youve heard before, but never in this way, Moore said. Well do everything from traditional fiddle tunes like Turkey in the Straw to jazz, classical music and film scoreseven contemporary rock. There really are no boundaries.

To cite just one example, Bartoks Romanian Dances will be performed with a pulsating back-beat and multiple string parts. We try to make things more accessible, Moore said.

For the Heider Center show Moore said there will be 21 musicians on stage. Most of them will be high school students, with a few slightly older Barrage alumni sprinkled in to act as guides and mentors.

Moore said that from a directors standpoint the most challenging part of the new show was making sure the alumni members could adapt their skill set to do more solos or trios as well as taking on more talking and announcing roles.

Still, the stars of the show are the incredibly skilled young musicians who are still in high school (theyll miss a few classes for this part of the tour). The kids will miss school on Friday and Monday, Moore said, but they tend to be high achieving kids anyway so they get a little more leeway from teachers.

Moore believes these youngsters are destined to do great things. Were showing America the wonderful things just around the corner, he said.
DENVER, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 1st Reverse Mortgage USA, a division of Cherry Creek Mortgage Company, Inc., today announced the promotion of Steve Scheiern to Director of Reverse Mortgage Business Development. Scheiern has served as the 1st Reverse Mortgage USA National Retail Sales Manager for more than 6 years.

His new role includes continued sales management and development of the 1st Reverse Mortgage USA Retail Sales Division as well as his new role in teaming with over 250 Cherry Creek Mortgage Company (CCMC) loan officers to assist with their reverse mortgage clients.

Scheiern has over 23 years leadership experience in business development in financial services and the mortgage industry including American Express and Wells Fargo. He is expected to be a tremendous resource for CCMC loan officers based on his longstanding track record of mentoring high-performing loan officer teams.

"In my new position, I want to encourage CCMC's traditional loan officers with the opportunities we've available for them --- and for those they serve --- in the Reverse Mortgage space," said Scheiern. "Our experience and full-service mentality extends to CCMC as well as our other partners. We're dedicating significant energy and resources to their success."

"With more than 10,000 baby boomers turning 62 each day, we know, many will be seeking the benefits offered by reverse mortgage. We are geared up to accommodate those working to meet that demand --- both in the retail and wholesale space," said Dan Harder, Vice President of 1st Reverse Mortgage USA.

Harder foresees a rapidly approaching era when reverse mortgage will no longer be viewed as a specialty loan product.

"Reverses will be as common as FHA, VA, USDA, Conventional and so on," Harder said, "Traditional loan officers recognize this trend and are seeking to provide a more complete spectrum of financing options to their senior clients."

"Steve's market expertise, sales acumen, and ability to build key relationships fits perfectly with our drive to build the leading Reverse Mortgage Platform for loan officers," he said.

Harder has been honing the 1st Reverse USA business model to meet increased demand and provide a complete, personalized partner experience through a series of significant promotions leading to the creation of the Concierge Team. The team provides clients and partners with subject matter expertise in sales, marketing, operations and loan structuring;

"Our Concierge group provides valuable support by turning complicated processes into simple experiences. The team is knowledgeable, saves time and increases efficiency," said Harder.

"Assisting our clients and partners to develop a high level of product comfort is a top priority. Our experience, customer service mentality and culture is keeping us solid and growing. Those who grab this opportunity and partner with us will be glad they did," said Harder.

About

1st Reverse Mortgage USA is a national, full-service mortgage company that provides origination and servicing through retail, wholesale, bank, credit union and correspondent divisions. 1st Reverse Mortgage USA has carved a unique niche in the marketplace by combining the best of traditional mortgage lending with the innovation and expertise of a mortgage bank. A division of Cherry Creek Mortgage Company, Inc., the company includes over 60 retail branches across the country with over 250 experienced and knowledgeable Mortgage Loan Specialists, ready to serve our clients and their needs.

1st Reverse Mortgage USA offers a diverse set of products including Reverse Mortgages, FHA Loans, VA Loans, USDA Loans and Conventional Loans. The company is a division of Cherry Creek Mortgage Company, Inc., with direct endorsement authority from HUD, Fannie Mae (FNMA), Ginnie Mae (GNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC). Visit www.1stmortgage.com or call (877) 217-0166.

Media Contact

Dale Jones

[email protected]

(303) 854-3047

SOURCE 1st Reverse Mortgage USA

Related Links

http://www.1stmortgage.com


DUBLIN, November 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Acrylonitrile (ACN): 2017 World Market Outlook and Forecast up to 2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The present report is an essential resource for a one looking for detailed information on the world acrylonitrile market. The report covers data on global, regional and national markets including present and future trends for supply and demand, prices, and downstream industries.



In addition to the analytical part, the report provides a range of tables and figures which all together give a true insight into the national, regional and global markets for acrylonitrile.



Report Scope:



The report covers global, regional and country markets of acrylonitrile

It describes present situation, historical background and future forecast

Comprehensive data showing acrylonitrile capacities, production, consumption, trade statistics, and prices in the recent years are provided (globally, regionally and by country)

The report indicates a wealth of information on acrylonitrile manufacturers and distributors

Region market overview covers the following: production of acrylonitrile in a region/country, consumption trends, price data, trade in the recent year and manufacturers

Acrylonitrile market forecast for next five years, including market volumes and prices is also provided

Key Topics Covered:



1. INTRODUCTION: ACRYLONITRILE PROPERTIES AND USES



2. ACRYLONITRILE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES



3. ACRYLONITRILE WORLD MARKET



3.1. World acrylonitrile capacity

- Capacity broken down by region

- Capacity divided by country

- Manufacturers and their capacity by plant



3.2. World acrylonitrile production

- Global output dynamics

- Production by region

- Production by country



3.3. Acrylonitrile consumption

- World consumption

- Consumption trends in Europe

- Consumption trends in Asia Pacific

- Consumption trends in North America



3.4. Acrylonitrile global trade

- World trade dynamics

- Export and import flows in regions



3.5. Acrylonitrile prices in the world market



4. ACRYLONITRILE REGIONAL MARKETS ANALYSIS



Each country section comprises the following parts:

- Total installed capacity in country

- Production in country

- Manufacturers in country

- Consumption of in country

- Suppliers in country

- Export and import in country

- Prices in country



4.1. Acrylonitrile European market analysis

Countries covered:

- Belarus

- Bulgaria

- Germany

- Netherlands

- Romania

- Russia

- Spain

- UK



4.2. Acrylonitrile Asia Pacific Pacific market analysis

Countries included:

- China

- India

- Japan

- South Korea

- Thailand



4.3. Acrylonitrile North American market analysis

Countries under consideration:

- US



4.4. Acrylonitrile Latin American market analysis

Countries overviewed:

- Brazil

- Mexico



4.5. Acrylonitrile Africa & Middle East market analysis

Countries examined:

- South Africa

- Turkey



5. ACRYLONITRILE MARKET PROSPECTS



5.1. Acrylonitrile capacity and production forecast up to 2021

- Global production forecast

- On-going projects



5.2. Acrylonitrile consumption forecast up to 2021

- World consumption forecast

- Forecast of consumption in Europe

- Consumption forecast in Asia Pacific

- Consumption forecast in North America



5.3. Acrylonitrile market prices forecast up to 2021



6. KEY COMPANIES IN THE ACRYLONITRILE MARKET WORLDWIDE



7. ACRYLONITRILE FEEDSTOCK MARKET



8. ACRYLONITRILE END-USE SECTOR



8.1. Consumption by application

8.2. Downstream markets review and forecast



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/n8pqkh/acrylonitrile



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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(under IFRS and all amounts in US dollars unless otherwise stated)

VANCOUVER, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Alterra Power Corp. (TSX: AXY) ("Alterra" or the "Company") is pleased to report its financial and operating results for the quarter ended September 30, 2017. For further information on these results please see Alterra's Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A").

At September 30, 2017, Alterra consolidated 100% of the results of operations from its Icelandic subsidiary HS Orka, while Alterra's interests in the Toba Montrose, Dokie 1, Shannon, Jimmie Creek, and Kokomo renewable power projects were accounted for as equity investments. In certain statements in this news release, Alterra's results are disclosed as Alterra's "net interest", by which the Company means the operating results that the Company would have reported if each of HS Orka (66.6% through July 27, 2017 and 53.9% thereafter), Toba Montrose (40%), Dokie 1 (25.5%), Shannon (50% sponsor equity interest), Jimmie Creek (51%), and Kokomo (90% sponsor equity interest) were reported in the proportional ownership interests shown above. Management believes that net interest reporting, although a non-IFRS measure, provides the clearest view of Alterra's performance. Refer to our MD&A for further information on non-IFRS measures. The Company also has disclosed information below regarding Adjusted EBITDA, another non-IFRS measure. Please refer to the Company's definition of Adjusted EBITDA and further commentary thereto, which is incorporated in the Financial Results table below (note c).

Highlights for the quarter and subsequent period include:

Improved generation: Quarterly generation was 95.5% of budget, up from 91.9% in the comparative quarter with strong performance from BC projects partially offsetting low winds at Shannon .





Quarterly generation was 95.5% of budget, up from 91.9% in the comparative quarter with strong performance from BC projects partially offsetting low winds at . Revenue and Adjusted EBITDA: Consolidated revenue increased by 19% to $16.8 million in 2017, and net interest revenue increased by 14% to $32.1 million predominantly due to a strengthening Icelandic krona, increased retail sales, an increase in aluminum prices during the quarter (25% of sales at HS Orka are linked to the price of aluminum), plus increased generation at Toba Montrose along with the inclusion of a full quarter of results from Jimmie Creek (comparative quarter only from August 1, 2016 ) and Kokomo. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA and net interest Adjusted EBITDA increased by 13% and 9% respectively to $24.2 million and $20.8 million .





Consolidated revenue increased by 19% to in 2017, and net interest revenue increased by 14% to predominantly due to a strengthening Icelandic krona, increased retail sales, an increase in aluminum prices during the quarter (25% of sales at HS Orka are linked to the price of aluminum), plus increased generation at Toba Montrose along with the inclusion of a full quarter of results from (comparative quarter only from ) and Kokomo. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA and net interest Adjusted EBITDA increased by 13% and 9% respectively to and . Geothermal field improvement at Reykjanes: Recent field enhancement efforts (including wellhead cleaning and adjustments to turbine pressure and reservoir levels) have resulted in increased generation. The Company expects further increases in plant output in 2018 from the drilling of planned new wells and well work-overs. Generation at Reykjanes has been above budget all year except for a plant maintenance outage in September, which resulted in lower than forecast generation during the quarter. The plant is currently generating at 76 MW, the highest output level since second quarter 2016.





Recent field enhancement efforts (including wellhead cleaning and adjustments to turbine pressure and reservoir levels) have resulted in increased generation. The Company expects further increases in plant output in 2018 from the drilling of planned new wells and well work-overs. Generation at Reykjanes has been above budget all year except for a plant maintenance outage in September, which resulted in lower than forecast generation during the quarter. The plant is currently generating at 76 MW, the highest output level since second quarter 2016. Completion of Flat Top financing:





Project financing completed: On July 19 , the Company closed a $287.2 million non-recourse credit facility for Flat Top supplied by Citi, Santander and the Royal Bank of Canada , consisting of a $216.7 million construction loan plus $70.5 million in letters of credit. The loan facility is expected to be retired by a $221.1 million tax equity investment to be supplied by subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Citi (subject to typical conditions precedent). Alterra's total equity contribution for its 51% equity stake was $43.2 million .





On , the Company closed a non-recourse credit facility for Flat Top supplied by Citi, Santander and the Royal Bank of , consisting of a construction loan plus in letters of credit. The loan facility is expected to be retired by a tax equity investment to be supplied by subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Citi (subject to typical conditions precedent). Alterra's total equity contribution for its 51% equity stake was .

New partner: On July 19 , the Company entered into a partnership agreement under which a fund managed by BlackRock Real Assets acquired a 49% interest in the project. Alterra owns 51% and will continue to manage the project.





On , the Company entered into a partnership agreement under which a fund managed by BlackRock Real Assets acquired a 49% interest in the project. Alterra owns 51% and will continue to manage the project.

Construction update: Construction continues on schedule and on budget. Access road construction, excavation and concrete work for turbine foundations, construction of the operations and maintenance building, and delivery and installation of the main power transformer are complete. Construction of the transmission line is 75% complete, and construction of the substation is expected to be completed by the end of November. Turbine erection is now underway. The Company expects commercial operations to commence in the first half of 2018.





Construction continues on schedule and on budget. Access road construction, excavation and concrete work for turbine foundations, construction of the operations and maintenance building, and delivery and installation of the main power transformer are complete. Construction of the transmission line is 75% complete, and construction of the substation is expected to be completed by the end of November. Turbine erection is now underway. The Company expects commercial operations to commence in the first half of 2018. Acquisition of Jawbone: In September, the Company acquired Jawbone, a 40 MW wind development project located in Kern County, California that is fully zoned for wind-powered generation. The Company commenced construction of the project's main power transformer in 2016 in anticipation of acquiring the asset, and expects the project to qualify for federal production tax credits ("PTC"s) at the full rate. New meteorological towers have been installed on the site.





In September, the Company acquired Jawbone, a 40 MW wind development project located in that is fully zoned for wind-powered generation. The Company commenced construction of the project's main power transformer in 2016 in anticipation of acquiring the asset, and expects the project to qualify for federal production tax credits ("PTC"s) at the full rate. New meteorological towers have been installed on the site. Spartan acquisition and financing completed:





Project financing completed: In August, the Company secured a non-recourse project financing for Spartan, an 11 MW solar project under construction in East Lansing, Michigan . The financing features a $19.8 million construction loan, which will be retired upon commercial operations by a $10.2 million term loan and a $9.7 million tax equity investment provided by 1st Source Bank, a subsidiary of 1st Source Corporation, subject to typical conditions precedent and other factors.





In August, the Company secured a non-recourse project financing for Spartan, an 11 MW solar project under construction in . The financing features a construction loan, which will be retired upon commercial operations by a term loan and a tax equity investment provided by 1st Source Bank, a subsidiary of 1st Source Corporation, subject to typical conditions precedent and other factors.

Initial tax equity funding: On November 6 , the first segment of the project achieved mechanical completion, resulting in payment of the first installment of tax equity funding ( $1.9 million ), which was used to partially repay the construction loan.





On , the first segment of the project achieved mechanical completion, resulting in payment of the first installment of tax equity funding ( ), which was used to partially repay the construction loan.

Construction update: Construction for the project continues on schedule and on budget, with approximately 90% of overall construction complete. Commissioning and performance testing is expected to occur throughout November to early December. The project is expected to achieve commercial operations in December, at which point the 25 year power purchase agreement term will commence.





Construction for the project continues on schedule and on budget, with approximately 90% of overall construction complete. Commissioning and performance testing is expected to occur throughout November to early December. The project is expected to achieve commercial operations in December, at which point the 25 year power purchase agreement term will commence. $119 million financing completed at HS Orka: On September 14 , HS Orka executed a $133.2 million (112.0 million) corporate loan, subsequently revised down to $119.4 million . The new loan, provided by Arion Bank hf., carries an initial term of five years with options to extend the loan's term up to 18 years. Primary uses of loan proceeds include construction of the Bruarvirkjun project, drilling and other field development activities at Reykjanes, and the retirement of 40.5 million of HS Orka's previously outstanding loans (completed later in September).





On , HS Orka executed a (112.0 million) corporate loan, subsequently revised down to . The new loan, provided by hf., carries an initial term of five years with options to extend the loan's term up to 18 years. Primary uses of loan proceeds include construction of the Bruarvirkjun project, drilling and other field development activities at Reykjanes, and the retirement of 40.5 million of HS Orka's previously outstanding loans (completed later in September). Settlement of $71 million Icelandic bond: On July 27 , the Company's subsidiary Magma Energy Sweden A.B. ("Magma Sweden") settled and extinguished the $70.8 million liability associated with the Reykjanesbr bond. Under the settlement, Magma Sweden also delivered the bond collateral (a 12.7% ownership stake in HS Orka) to the bondholder Fagfjarfestasjourinn ORK. The Company recorded a gain of $32.0 million on the debt settlement of which $8.0 million was recorded in the statement of operations and the remaining $24.0 million was recorded directly in equity.





On , the Company's subsidiary Magma Energy Sweden A.B. ("Magma Sweden") settled and extinguished the liability associated with the Reykjanesbr bond. Under the settlement, Magma Sweden also delivered the bond collateral (a 12.7% ownership stake in HS Orka) to the bondholder Fagfjarfestasjourinn ORK. The Company recorded a gain of on the debt settlement of which was recorded in the statement of operations and the remaining was recorded directly in equity. Expansion of AMP loan facility: On July 19 , the Company received $21.1 million of new funding related to an expansion of its North American holding company loan (provided by affiliates of AMP Capital Investors Limited). The proceeds funded a portion of Alterra's equity contribution for Flat Top. The interest rate for the new tranche is LIBOR plus 5.75% and in conjunction with funding the loan expansion, the interest rate for existing two tranches of the facility was reduced from CDOR plus 6.5% to CDOR plus 5.75%.





On , the Company received of new funding related to an expansion of its North American holding company loan (provided by affiliates of AMP Capital Investors Limited). The proceeds funded a portion of Alterra's equity contribution for Flat Top. The interest rate for the new tranche is LIBOR plus 5.75% and in conjunction with funding the loan expansion, the interest rate for existing two tranches of the facility was reduced from CDOR plus 6.5% to CDOR plus 5.75%. Distributions: The Company received project distributions during the quarter of C$7.2 million and another C$1.6 million subsequent to quarter-end. The company also received a dividend of $2.3 million that had been declared by HS Orka in 2016.





The Company received project distributions during the quarter of and another subsequent to quarter-end. The company also received a dividend of that had been declared by HS Orka in 2016. Shareholder dividends: On September 15 , the Company paid its regular quarterly cash dividend of C$0.0125 per common share, and subsequent to the quarter approved the next regular dividend (also C$0.0125 per common share), which will be distributed in cash on or about December 15, 2017 to common shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 30, 2017 . The Company's dividends are designated as eligible dividends for the purposes of the Income Tax Act ( Canada ), unless otherwise notified.





On , the Company paid its regular quarterly cash dividend of per common share, and subsequent to the quarter approved the next regular dividend (also per common share), which will be distributed in cash on or about to common shareholders of record as of the close of business on . The Company's dividends are designated as eligible dividends for the purposes of the Income Tax Act ( ), unless otherwise notified. Acquisition by Innergex Renewable Energy Inc.: On October 30, 2017 , the Company announced that it had entered into an arrangement agreement with Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. ("Innergex") pursuant to which Innergex is offering to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company ("Alterra Common Shares") by way of a plan of arrangement. Alterra shareholders will receive, at the election of each such shareholder, either (i) C$8.25 in cash or (ii) 0.5563 common shares of Innergex ("Innergex Common Shares") for each Alterra Common Share , subject in each case to proration, such that the aggregate consideration paid to Alterra shareholders will consist of approximately 25% in cash and 75% in Innergex Common Shares. The price of C$8.25 per Alterra Common Share represents a premium of 58% to Alterra's 20-day volume weighted average price of C$5.21 on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of October 27, 2017 .



Completion of the transaction with Innergex is subject to approval of at least 66.7% of the Alterra Common Shares represented in person or by proxy at a special meeting of the Company's shareholders to be called to consider the transaction (expected to be held on December 14, 2017 ), and satisfaction of other customary approvals, including key third party consents, regulatory, stock exchange and court approvals. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.



More detailed information concerning the transaction and the special meeting of the Company's shareholders will be included in a management information circular expected to be mailed to Alterra's shareholders on or about November 16, 2017 .

Financial Results

The following table shows Alterra's net interest in select operating and financial results for the quarter, in addition to key financial information extracted from the consolidated results ($000):





















For the three

months ended

September 30, 2017 HS Orka Toba

Montrose Dokie 1 Shannon Jimmie

Creek Kokomo Development

and head

office Net interest

total Consolidated

results (53.9%)(a) (40%) (25.5%) (50%) (51%) (90%) Generation (MWh) 139,118 152,878 20,063 56,081 56,948 2,462  427,550 242,779 Total revenue(b) 9,748 13,510 1,711 1,360 5,595 200  32,124 16,842 Gross profit (loss) 615 11,193 916 (889) 4,765 76  16,676 1,255 Adjusted EBITDA(c) 3,602 11,836 1,205 369 5,112 146 (1,509) 20,761 24,185



















For the three

months ended

September 30, 2016 HS Orka Toba

Montrose Dokie 1 Shannon Jimmie

Creek Development

and head

office Net interest

total Consolidated

results (66.6%) (40%) (25.5%) (50%) (51%) Generation (MWh) 180,159 140,170 15,441 72,212 33,043  441,025 270,509 Total revenue(b) 9,391 11,852 1,337 1,628 3,897  28,105 14,100 Gross profit (loss) 1,516 9,693 472 (636) 3,388  14,433 2,323 Adjusted EBITDA(c) 4,693 10,266 765 190 3,580 (483) 19,011 21,367

(a) The operating results for HS Orka reflect 66.6% ownership through July 27, 2017, and 53.9% ownership thereafter. For comparative purposes the adjusted results for HS Orka reflecting ownership at 66.6% for the full three months would have been generation of 161,691 MWh, revenue of $11.2 million, gross profit of $0.8 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $4.7 million. (b) Revenue for Shannon excludes power hedge accounting adjustments. (c) Here and elsewhere, adjusted EBITDA ("Adjusted EBITDA") is defined by the Company as earnings before interest, taxes, foreign exchange, depreciation and amortization, as well as adjustments for changes in the fair value of holding company bonds (Sweden) and derivatives, write-offs of development costs, other income (expense) except business interruption insurance proceeds, amortization of below market contracts, value assigned to options granted, share of results of equity investments, the Company's proportionate interest in Adjusted EBITDA of its equity investments, research and development costs for deep drilling program and non-recurring items (insurance deductibles, litigation and arbitration costs). Adjusted EBITDA has been calculated on a consistent basis with the comparative period. The Company discloses Adjusted EBITDA as it is a measure used by analysts and by management to evaluate the Company's performance. As Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS measure, it may not be comparable to Adjusted EBITDA calculated by others. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA is not a substitute for net earnings. Readers should consider net earnings in evaluating the Company's performance. For a reconciliation of consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to Alterra's consolidated financial statements refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Consolidated Results

Revenue was $16.8 million for the quarter, up 19% from the comparative quarter predominantly due to foreign exchange, with the Icelandic Krona strengthening in the quarter, in addition to increased retail sales and an increase in aluminum prices.

The Company recorded net income of $51.6 million (comparative quarter $10.4 million), primarily due to the gain from the sale of 49% of Flat Top, as well as changes in the fair value of derivatives and foreign exchange movements.

Consolidated cash and cash equivalents at September 30, 2017 were $14.0 million of which $6.1 million is held in the Company's Icelandic subsidiary ($31.6 million and $0.3 million, respectively at December 31, 2016). The decrease in consolidated cash is primarily a result of the significant development and construction activities undertaken by the Company during the period.

The Company's consolidated working capital deficit at September 30, 2017 was $51.3 million compared to a working capital deficit of $62.3 million at December 31, 2016. Excluding HS Orka, the Company's consolidated working capital deficit at September 30, 2017 is $35.0 million, resulting primarily from one of the holding company bonds (Sweden) valued at $38.2 million being classified as current at September 30, 2017. Subsequent to the quarter, HS Orka received $8.9 million in additional funding from the $119.4 million Arion loan which was used in part to repay a portion of the short-term credit facility.

Net Interest Results

Alterra's net interest revenue increased by 14% to $32.1 million and net interest Adjusted EBITDA increased 9% to $20.8 million in the current quarter primarily due to increased generation at Toba Montrose and Dokie 1, as well as inclusion of Jimmie Creek generation for the full quarter.

The net interest cash position at September 30, 2017 was $26.6 million.

Operating Results

The Company achieved fleet-wide generation of 95.5% of its budgeted generation (net interest) for the current quarter.











Q3 2017 Generation (MWh)





Total

Net Interest



Facility Budget

Actual

Budget

Actual

% of Budget Reykjanes 125,560

120,873

70,902

68,459

96.6% Svartsengi 127,919

121,906

74,010

70,659

95.5% Toba Montrose 380,930

382,194

152,372

152,878

100.3% Jimmie Creek 101,222

111,663

51,623

56,948

110.3% Dokie 1 71,909

78,680

18,337

20,063

109.4% Shannon 155,736

112,161

77,868

56,081

72.0% Kokomo 3,040

2,736

2,736

2,462

90.0% TOTAL 966,316

930,213

447,848

427,550

95.5%

 Budgeted amounts include planned maintenance outages.

"This is a very exciting time for the Company with the announcement of the acquisition by Innergex and the continued progress of our construction and development projects," said Lynda Freeman, Alterra's CFO. "With Spartan nearly complete and Flat Top well underway, our success of bringing projects in on time and on budget looks set to continue."

Alterra will host a conference call to discuss financial and operating results on Friday, November 10, 2017 at 12:00 pm ET (9:00 am PT). North American participants dial 1-888-390-0605 and International participants dial 1-416-764-8609; the conference ID is 05734740 The call will also be broadcast live on the Internet at http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=1528363&s=1&k=A92DCD956D83156D28A7D3056656AB58 The call will be available for replay for one week after the call by dialing 1-416-764-8677 and entering replay PIN 734740#

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Information

Certain of the statements and information included in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements or information. This information may involve known and unknown risks, assumptions and uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the future results, performance or achievements implied by such statements or information. Specifically, forward-looking statements within this news release relate to, among other things: successful development, financing (including construction debt, tax equity and sponsor interest sales) and construction of all of our pre-operational projects and properties, Alterra's successful acquisition from or partnership with the owners of projects currently owned by other developers, marketing of power and ability to secure power purchase or offtake agreements in respect of the same and the expected timing to implement such agreements; successful development, construction and financing (or achievement of conditions precedent related to equity funding thereto) of the Flat Top wind project, the Spartan solar project, and the Bruarvirkjun hydro project, and the timing of each of the same, timing for commercial operations for the Flat Top, Bruarvirkjun and Spartan projects, the equity ownership expectations of the Spartan project, Alterra's continued management of the Flat Top project, potential to increase production resulting from deep drilling, programs to upgrade, return capacity and develop the Company's geothermal resources, including expectations for further field and plant output improvements and the continued success thereof, estimates of recoverable geothermal energy resources or power generation capacities, the success of Alterra's project acquisition, development and expansion programs and greenfield development efforts, whether the wind development projects actually or ultimately qualify for all, or a portion of, the production tax credits, the number of projects and generation capacity that may ultimately achieve commercial operations, all statements regarding the Company's plans and expectations for the declaration of future dividends, including the timing and amount thereof, the timing of HS Orka distributions, refinancing, repayment or the return of collateral of other the holding company bonds, all statements relating to the potential sale or retention of the Blue Lagoon, including the purchase price in respect thereof, if any, all statements relating to the successful closing of the Innergex Transaction, including the timing, effect, results and completion thereof, the timing of the Company's special meeting and the mailing of the related management information circular, and the final pro-ration of the consideration paid to shareholders upon closing, prospective generation, and management's assumptions related to, and all instances of, forward-looking financial information.

These statements and information reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant operational, business, economic and regulatory uncertainties and contingencies. These assumptions include, among others, the expected power generation from our operations, the success and timely completion of financing efforts (including satisfaction of conditions precedent to release of capital related thereto), the success and timely completion of planned development, expansion and construction programs, and modeling and budgeting based on historical trends, whether Alterra's on-site and off-site early-stage construction activities will be sufficient to qualify the wind development projects for the full value of the PTCs; rules, regulation or other guidance may be promulgated pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (as the same may be amended, updated or otherwise modified from time to time) that could jeopardize or otherwise impede the effectiveness of such on-site and off-site early-stage construction activities qualifying such projects for the full value of the PTCs and securing tax equity financing on such basis, risks associated with the recently announced proposed changes to the U.S. federal tax plan, including prospective reduction in the corporate tax rate and reduction, retroactive repeal and/or modification of the PTC program, specifically, under certain proposed tax changes this could result in less valuable project capital investment deductions, reduction in tax equity investment appetite and/or a reduction in PTC value for wind projects not yet under construction, each of which could have a material effect on Alterra's financial position and results of operations and its ability to fund growth prospects, that third party transmission infrastructure will be operational within projected timelines, the expected timing for realizing the output capacity of the well, if any, due to the conceptual nature of the deep drilling preliminary output potential, the risk that there has been insufficient testing to define geothermal resource, assumptions concerning temperature and underground fluids, that the Company and its partners will continue to retain the Blue Lagoon, that the Innergex Transaction will proceed to closing as anticipated, including timely receipt of shareholder, court, regulatory and other third party approvals, liquidity risks associated with the near term maturity of the holding company bond (Sweden) and the refinancing or retirement thereof and the failure of the Innergex Transaction to close, expectations and assumptions concerning availability of capital resources, current conditions and expected future developments. Forward-looking statements and information also involve known and unknown risks that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed by such statements or information, and the Company has made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. These risks include volatility of renewable energy resources, inherent risks in operating and constructing power plants and development programs related to the same, contractual risks related to credit facilities, partnership and power purchase agreements, prospective power, currency and commodity price fluctuations, the implementation of lower corporate tax rates may impede our ability to obtain sufficient amounts of tax equity investment or achieve desired economic returns, successful development of each of the wind development projects, including the financing thereof and if applicable, completion of third party infrastructure, within a timeframe that permits Alterra to obtain the value of such PTCs with respect to each project, future issuances of equity securities, future declarations of dividends and the amounts thereof, risks related to the financing or refinancing of holding company bonds, health, safety, social and environmental risks, risks inherent to the Innergex Transaction, including satisfaction of the closing conditions thereto, receipt of shareholder, court, regulatory and other third party approvals, whether assessments of value made by Alterra and Innergex are ultimately correct, realization of any strategic, operational or financial benefits from the Innergex Transaction, and timing thereof, risks related to the announcement of the Innergex Transaction and devotion of Company resources to completion of the same, capital resources, derivative financial instruments, interest and exchange rates, financial leverage and restrictive covenants, and risks related to reliance on, and relationships with, third parties (including with respect to transmission). Additional risks, assumptions and influential factors are set out in the Company's management discussion analysis and Alterra's most recent annual information form, copies of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, given the inherent uncertainties in such forward-looking statements and information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, described or intended. Investors are cautioned against undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements or information, which apply only as of their dates. Other than as specifically required by law, Alterra undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information to reflect new information.

SOURCE Alterra Power Corp.

Related Links

www.alterrapower.ca/


ARS celebrated its eleventh year in business in September of 2017, and the privately-held company has seen tremendous growth. Additionally, 2017 marked an exciting new partnership for ARS with Google and Nest. Now, the trend-setting, nearly 1 billion dollar company is leading the industry in home modernization and has more than 70 locally-manager service centers in their network and spans 23 states across the country.

The leadership of ARS credits their employees for their success; "We would not be where we are today as the leading company in our HVAC and plumbing fields without our best-in-class employees," notes Dave Slott, Co-CEO of ARS. "Their hard work, professionalism, willingness to evolve, and ability to make our customers happy is the key to our success."

ARS recognized the high-achieving branches and top company performers, and they include the following:

Customer Service/Quality Branch of the Year (Plumbing): Rescue Rooter Portland

Customer Service/Quality Branch of the Year (HVAC): Columbus Worthington Air

Home Depot Branch of the Year (Plumbing): ARS of Myrtle Beach

Home Depot Branch of the Year (HVAC): ARS of Vero Beach

Corporate Support Award: Caroline Giovannetti

Safety Branch of the Year: ARS of Illinois

Safety Branch of the Year (Mid-Atlantic): Conway Services

Safety Branch of the Year (North Carolina): ARS of Raleigh

Safety Branch of the Year (Texas): Rescue Rooter Dallas

Safety Branch of the Year (Southeast): ARS of Columbia

Safety Branch of the Year (Southern California): Rescue Rooter San Diego

Safety Branch of the Year (Florida): ARS of Miami

Safety Branch of the Year (RightTime): ARS of Colorado

Safety Branch of the Year (West Division HVAC): Beutler Air Conditioning and Plumbing

Overall Safety Branch of the Year: Rescue Rooter Portland

Most Improved Branch: ARS of Myrtle Beach

Largest Revenue Increase (Plumbing): ARS of Houston North

Largest Revenue Increase (HVAC): ARS of Houston North

Turn-Around Branch of the Year: Beutler Air Conditioning and Plumbing

Highest Margin Branch (Plumbing): Rescue Rooter Portland

Highest Margin Branch (HVAC/Combo): Columbus Worthington Air

Most Profitable Branch in Dollars (Plumbing): ARS of Houston North

Most Improved Combo Shop Gross Profit (Plumbing): ARS of Houston South

Most Profitable Branch in Dollars (HVAC/Combo): ARS of Houston North

Most Improved Region: Southeast Region

Net Promoter Score (West Zone): Rescue Rooter Seattle

Net Promoter Score (North Zone): ARS of Detroit

Net Promoter Score (East Zone): ARS of Manassas

Division of the Year: Texas Division

General Manager of the Year: Joey Dooley  ARS of Houston North

ARS is proud of the achievements of all of their employees and their ability to keep ARS as a leader in their industry.

ABOUT AMERICAN RESIDENTIAL SERVICES: Based in Memphis, Tenn., privately-owned ARS operates a network of more than 70 locally-managed service centers in 23 states, with approximately 6,500 employees. The ARS Network features industry-leading brands including, A.J. Perri, Aksarben ARS, Allgood, Andy's Statewide, ARS, Aspen Air Conditioning, Atlas Trillo, Beutler, Blue Dot, Bob Hamilton, Brothers, Columbus Worthington Air, Comfort Heating & Air, Conway Services, Efficient Attic Systems (EAS), Florida Home Air Conditioning, Green Star Home Services, Irish Plumber, McCarthy Services, Rescue Rooter / Proserv, Rescue Rooter, RighTime Home Services, RS Andrews, The Irish Plumber, Unique Services, "Will" Fix It, and Yes! Air Conditioning and Plumbing. As an Exceptional Service Provider, the ARS Network serves both residential and light commercial customers by providing heating, cooling, indoor air quality, plumbing, drain cleaning, sewer line, radiant barrier, insulation and ventilation services. Each location has a knowledgeable team of trained specialists. ARS requires background checks and drug tests on all employees. We hire professionals with the highest level of integrity. Providing exceptional service and ensuring the highest standards of quality, ARS has the experience to do any job right  the first time, with all work fully guaranteed. ARS: "Making it work. Making it right."

Press Contact:

Stephanie Beliles: [email protected]

SOURCE American Residential Services
For this report, Franchise Business Review surveyed approximately 25,000 veteran franchise owners representing over 250 brands regarding their overall satisfaction with their brands and their likelihood to recommend them to others. AtWork's franchisees were surveyed on 33 benchmark questions about their experience and satisfaction regarding critical areas of their franchise systems, including training & support, operations, franchisor/franchisee relations, and financial opportunity.

"We found that veterans make outstanding franchise owners as they are natural leaders and continue to serve their local communities every day," said Jason Leverant, president and COO of AtWork Group. "We have great respect for our veterans, and it's an honor for AtWork to receive this recognition as it is purely based on our veteran franchise owners' high level of satisfaction."

As part of its support for military veterans, AtWork offers a 20 percent discount on the initial franchise fee for veterans. AtWork also offers employment to many veterans through its nationwide franchise system of close to 100 locations.

Robert A. Donnell, the owner of both AtWork Personnel Services and AtWork Medical Services in Phoenix, is a U.S. Army veteran who has had three years active duty. In addition to being one of the most successful AtWork multi-unit franchise owners, he frequently has the opportunity to hire former military personnel because of the industries he serves.

"I've always felt that some of our best employees were former military personnel because of their work ethic, integrity, and leadership skills, along with their drive to be the best," Donnell said. "Many of the men and woman that we have hired after they decided to build a career outside of the military, are looking for entry-level positions that they can grow in and showcase their distinctive attributes."

AtWork Group is currently operating in 26 U.S. states and plans to expand its footprint to almost 200 locations within the next five years. The company offers staffing solutions to businesses in all industries, providing quality candidates for administrative, call center, customer service, accounting and light industrial positions. Flexible employment solutions are available including temporary, temp-to-hire, payrolling and full-time placements.

In addition to being listed as a Top 100 Franchise for Veterans, AtWork recently received a Franchise Times Top 200+ ranking for the fifth year in a row, Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) recognized AtWork as being one of the largest staffing companies based on revenues, as well as one of the fastest-growing staffing firms in the U.S. AtWork has also been listed on Inc. Magazine's Inc. 5000 annual list four times, coming in at No. 2,790 in 2017. In addition, AtWork was ranked No. 139 on Entrepreneur Magazine's 2016 "Franchise 500" list, and secured a spot on Inavero's 2017 Best of Staffing Client and Talent Award winners list.

Complete results of Franchise Business Review's Top Franchises for Veterans 2017 can be found at https://franchisebusinessreview.com/top-franchises-veterans-2017/.

For more information about franchise opportunities, visit www.atworkfranchise.com or call 800-383-0804.

About AtWork Group

AtWork Group is an award-winning and nationally-known franchisor of staffing services including AtWork Personnel Services, AtWork Medical Services, AtWork HelpingHands Services, and AtWork Search Group under the umbrella of the AtWork Group. The company was founded in 1986, and today, AtWork has grown to be cited as one of Staffing Industry Analysts' top U.S. staffing firms. AtWork Group's remarkable growth is fueled by the vision of founders John and Glenda Hall: think ahead, create opportunity, give exceptional support to franchise offices, and always look for the better way, every day. For more information, visit www.atwork.com or call 800-383-0804.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Heather Ripley

Ripley PR

865-977-1973

[email protected]

SOURCE AtWork Group

Related Links

https://www.atwork.com


MONTEREY, Calif., Nov.10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Warm up this winter with a romantic rendezvous in Monterey County. From charming B&Bs to dips in 6,000-year-old hot springs to sun-splashed coastal views, the treasure trove of couple-focused fun and pure scenic bliss found in the Central Coast will make your hearts soar. Consider these love-inspired ideas to create the ultimate romantic getaway.

YOUR ROMANTIC REFUGE

Amid Pacific Grove's breathtaking coastal scenery, experience the romance and charm of the Victorian era when you stay at historic Centrella Inn. Enter your private cottage or elegant Lover's Loft where the fragrance of a dozen roses greets you, along with chilled Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries to share. When you decide to venture out from your antique-furnished room, enjoy a complimentary fresh breakfast each morning, witness the sunrise together at Lovers Point Park and take in magnificent Monterey Bay panoramas with strolls along the coast-hugging recreation trail.

Fall asleep to the whisper of waves and awaken to birdsong when the two of you enjoy a unique glamping experience at Ventana Big Sur, a dreamy hideaway amid the alluring Big Sur coastline. Book a luxurious new glampsite in the resort's Redwood Canyon. Connect with nature as you cozy up around the fire pit and dine on fresh dishes from their nearby restaurant. Hike among redwoods and waterfalls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and then dip your toes in the river at the Big Sur River Inn.

DINING FOR TWO

With the churning Pacific Ocean 800 feet below and Santa Lucia Mountains above, cliffside restaurant Nepenthe invites you to celebrate your love over a romantic dinner. Dine on the terrace, toast each other with glasses of wine and savor their signature Ambrosia burger followed by generous slices of four-layer chocolate fudge cake for dessert.

A relaxed and romantic dining experience awaits at the Beach House at Lover's Point. Perched on an outcropping that juts into Monterey Bay, massive windows and a heated outdoor patio immerse you in endless vistas of azure blue sea and glowing red sunsets. Arrive early and savor "Sunset Special" menu selections such as rigatoni tossed with fresh pesto cream sauce, bacon-wrapped meatloaf or grilled salmon served with a lemon beurre blanc.

Grab a romantic table for two at Carmel-by-the-Sea's charming Anton & Michel. You won't be disappointed with European offerings like maple leaf duck breast, paella Valencia and rack of lamb. Be sure to arrive beforehand to shop along the quaint storefronts on Ocean Avenue.

ROMANCE BY LAND AND BY SEA

Sail beside sea lions and playful porpoises while soaking up the vibrant hues of a gorgeous Monterey Bay sunset on a romantic sunset cruise. Glide through translucent waters abundant with sea life during a tandem kayak ride. And for a truly magical way to light up your night, paddle by starlight through the sparkling bioluminescence of Elkhorn Slough, one of California's largest wetlands.

For a more intimate wine-tasting experience, sample award-winning Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays with a visit to one of the many boutique tasting rooms like Twisted Roots and Cima Collina in Carmel Valley. Unwind with your love in the stunning cliffside setting of Big Sur's Esalen Institute. Experience a soothing outdoor massage for two inspired by the rhythm of the ocean waves, and immerse yourself in the healing waters of millennia-old natural hot springs.

Hike to a secluded vista at Jacks Peak County Park for a private picnic, take in sweeping ocean views when you cruise along Highway 1 or soar with the eagles over the beautiful Central California coast during a heart-stopping drop with Monterey Bay Skydive.

Whatever your perfect romantic getaway looks like, cozy up this winter in Monterey County and transform your dreams into reality. For more information on lodging, eateries and attractions in our destination, please visit SeeMonterey.com.

CONTACT:

Jessica Keener, Monterey County CVB

(831) 657-6413

[email protected]

SOURCE Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau

Related Links

http://www.seemonterey.com


Staff at Scenic Bluffs Community Health Centers recently hosted a campaign to raise funds to help support the Stephen F. Austin Community Health Network in Alvin, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. The fundraiser, which was also open to the community, raised more than $1,250. Nearly 600 pairs of new socks were also collected to send to the Health Centers staff and families.

When the opportunity arose to support another Community Health Center that was faced with the destruction of Hurricane Harvey, staff at Scenic Bluffs decided to help, said Mari Freiberg, CEO of Scenic Bluffs Community Health Centers.

Stephen F. Austin Community Health Network has been providing medical and oral healthcare in a mobile unit to Hurricane Harvey evacuee sites, treating minor injuries, providing vaccinations, maintaining chronic disease care and bringing dental services on site. Donations raised by Scenic Bluffs and the surrounding communities will help support the mileage associated with transportation to and from shelter sites. The efforts will also help staff members, many of whom lost homes and belongings in the storm.

In addition to staff and individual community support in fundraising efforts, Pasture Pride Cheese, located in Cashton, sent staff at Stephen F. Austin Community Health Network a taste of Wisconsin with a box of their award-winning cheese.

Scenic Bluffs and your communitys generosity have been like a comforting blanket enveloping us in your care, said Penny Pabst, Director of Development for the Stephen F. Austin Community Network. Well never forget what youve done to lift our spirits.

Scenic Bluffs Community Health Centers is an independent, non-profit healthcare provider, providing medical, dental, chiropractic, behavioral health, health education and pharmacy services for patients in Monroe, Vernon, Crawford and La Crosse counties. Scenic Bluffs has health centers in Cashton and Norwalk, dental services in Viroqua and behavioral health services in Sparta. Scenic Bluffs also maintains Lugar de Reunion, a Hispanic outreach center, in Sparta.
VENICE, Fla., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Brittle Diabetes Foundation (BDF), begun in 2012, does not seek a cure for diabetes. We leave that to the hundreds of foundations and Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) who raise millions of dollars each year in search of a cure. What BDF does seek is a treatment handbook for physicians, especially Endocrinologists, to follow, when Brittle Diabetes (BD) is suspected or diagnosed.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the Division of Diabetes within the NIDDK/NIH would have Americans believe that Brittle Diabetes, also referred to as labile diabetes, is just a term sometimes used to describe hard-to-control type 1 diabetes (T1D). They refuse to recognize Brittle Type 1 Diabetes (BT1D) as a separate and distinct disease despite suggesting that people with T1D are at greatest risk of developing the condition. The NIH also lists Brittle Diabetes as a rare disease on its Genetic and Rare Disease (GARD) website.

Each year the ADA publishes a guidebook referred to as the Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes. In their latest issue 2017, they make no mention of: Brittle Diabetes, unstable, uncontrollable or unpredictable characteristics that describe BT1D, the latest diagnostic criteria to differentiate stable T1D from BT1D, that the rate of depression in BT1D is no different than those with stable T1D raising doubts about it being a psychosocial ailment rather than physiological and instead treat all patients with T1D as if they were the same with some harder-to-control.

The number one question posed by patients and their families to BDF is "where do we find a physician who truly understands the nature of this disease and who knows how to treat it properly? Most individuals with BT1D refrain from going to hospitals because the type 1 treatment guidelines established by the ADA do not work when applied to those suffering with BT1D.

The problem encountered when dealing with the ADA, is the assumption made by the ADA and its' Professional Practice Committee, that in its' process of reviewing last year's medical findings for incorporation into their guidelines, that decades of information that serves as its base, is correct.

Evidence now suggests that this assumption is false. According to John Ioannidis M.D. from Stanford Medicine and his colleagues, the bulk of monies being spent on medical research is wasted because of poor research design and intrinsic bias leading to data that is useless and incorrect. He has been addressing this issue since 2005 to which ADA has apparently turned a deaf ear.

Add the fact that most major medical experiments are only run once without replication, a key requirement of the scientific method for the performance of research, compounds the problem. Growing evidence exists that attempts at replicating medical research that presently serves as the foundation for various ailments are proving to be unreproducible. As such, the likelihood that the ADA's process of building data onto a questionable foundation of false information might well explain why their guidelines fail to function when applied to BT1D.

It is simpler for the ADA to take an ostrich approach to the issue of Brittle Diabetes impacting some 4,500 individuals in the U.S., than spend time, energy, resources and money to help so few.

For those unfamiliar with Brittle Diabetes, it is characterized by rapid shifting in blood glucose levels from high (hyperglycemia) to low (hypoglycemia) or reverse, in a short period, leading to symptoms that disrupt quality of life, causing frequent hospitalizations and at times death.

Contact Information

Emanuel V. Sorge Ph.D.

President

Brittle Diabetes Foundation

www.bdtype1.com

917-355-3486

SOURCE Brittle Diabetes Foundation
Big Y and Instacart first joined forces in May 2017 and are expanding the partnership to provide customers in the Boston and Worcester area with the great experience of shopping at their local Big Y World Class Market, while getting back something truly valuable: time.

"We know our customers are busy, and that any found time in their week can make a difference," said Michael D'Amour, Executive Vice President for Big Y. "By partnering with an industry leader like Instacart, we're able to provide our customers with the quality and service they've come to expect from Big Y, without leaving their house."

Big Y customers can now visit https://www.instacart.com/big-y or download the Instacart app to fill their virtual carts with all their favorite items -- from produce and meat to everyday essentials -- and have them delivered straight to their doorstep by Instacart. At checkout, customers can add their Silver Savings Club number to receive advertised discounts, then choose a delivery window within one hour, two hours, or up to seven days in advance. Instacart's shoppers will do the rest.

"Instacart's success hinges on our ability to offer customers same-day delivery from the stores they love within their own communities," said Andrew Nodes, Vice President, Retail Accounts for Instacart. "We are proud to partner with Big Y to give customers a convenient, time-saving option to get the products they have come to rely on from this beloved brand."

Instacart delivery starts at just $5.99 on orders of $35 or more. Instacart Express membership is also available, enabling unlimited, free same-day deliveries on orders over $35. After a free trial period, Instacart Express membership is just $14.99 a month or $149 a year.

About Big Y World Class Market

Big Y Foods, Inc. is one of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England. Big Y operates 77 locations throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut including 70 supermarkets, 39 pharmacies, Fresh Acres Market, Table & Vine Fine Wines and Liquors and 5 Big Y Express gas and convenience locations throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts with over 11,000 employees. Big Y has been named a 2015 Employer of Choice by the Employers Association of the Northeast. Founded in 1936 by brothers Paul and Gerald D'Amour, the store was named after an intersection in Chicopee, Massachusetts where two roads converge to form a "Y".

About Instacart

Instacart helps people cross grocery shopping off their to-do lists with just a few clicks. Customers use the Instacart website or app to fill their virtual shopping cart with items from their favorite, local stores and Instacart connects them with shoppers who hand pick the items and deliver them straight to their door. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Instacart has quickly scaled to over 150 markets nationwide and partnered with retailers across the United States, including popular national chains as well as local, regional grocers. By combining a personal touch with cutting-edge technology, Instacart offers customers a simple solution to save time and eat fresh food from the most trusted grocery brands. Instacart is the only grocery service that can meet today's on-demand lifestyle by delivering in as little as one hour. First delivery is free at www.instacart.com.

SOURCE Instacart

Related Links

http://www.instacart.com


RIDGEFIELD, Conn., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Boehringer Ingelheim today announced that important sub-analyses from three major trials in anticoagulation care will be presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2017 in Anaheim, California, November 11-15. In total, five abstracts investigating Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) and its reversal agent, idarucizumab, marketed in the U.S. as Praxbind, have been accepted.

"We look forward to sharing important new insights about Pradaxa and idarucizumab from RE-DUAL PCI, RE-CIRCUIT and RE-VERSE AD, three pivotal trials that have all been published in the New England Journal of Medicine this year," said Sabine Luik, M.D., senior vice president, Medicine & Regulatory Affairs, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. "The safety and efficacy of Pradaxa has already been well-established, and these sub-analyses add to the growing body of evidence on its clinical impact in patients with atrial fibrillation."

Details of the data presented at the AHA Scientific Sessions 2017 are as follows:

Abstract Title Details (Venue: Anaheim Convention Centre, Anaheim, California, USA) Subgroup analysis from the RE-DUAL PCI trial: Dual antithrombotic therapy with dabigatran in patients with atrial fibrillation undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention Session Title: New Insights into the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Antithrombotic Therapy Session Date: Tuesday, November 14, 10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Presentation Time: 11:00 a.m. - 11:10 a.m. Location: Main Event I (Hall D, Main Building) Speaker: Jonas Oldgren Idarucizumab in dabigatran-treated patients requiring emergency surgery or intervention: Updated/final results from the RE-VERSE AD study Session Title: Cardiovascular Surgery Research: The Cutting Edge Presentation Date: Monday, November 13, 5:30 p.m. - 5:40 p.m. Speaker: Jerrold Levy Regional differences in patient characteristics and outcomes during uninterrupted anticoagulation with dabigatran versus warfarin in catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation: The RE-CIRCUIT study Session Title: Stroke Risk Stratification and Prevention in Atrial Fibrillation Session Date: Tuesday November 14, 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. Location: Science and Technology Hall - Clinical Science Section Speaker: Stefan H. Hohnloser Idarucizumab is effective and safe in the inhibition of dabigatran anticoagulation in patients presenting with a gastrointestinal bleeding: Insights from the RE-VERSE AD study Session Title: Clinical Studies and Trials for Prevention Session Date: Monday, November 13, 3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. Location: Clinical Science III Section, Science and Technology Hall Speaker: Menno V. Huisman Monitoring of safety and effectiveness of dabigatran relative to warfarin in routine care Session Title: EP.RFO.21 - Pharmacoepidemiology Session Date: Monday, November 13, 1:30 p.m. - 2:40 p.m. Presentation Time: 2:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. Location: Science and Technology Hall - Population Science Forum Speaker: Chandrasekar Gopalakrishnan

More information on the Boehringer Ingelheim data due to be presented or published at the AHA Scientific Sessions 2017 can be found here .

Idarucizumab is the first and only approved specific reversal agent for a novel oral anticoagulant currently available. It is approved as a specific reversal agent for Pradaxa by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under accelerated approval. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon the results of an ongoing cohort case series study.

About Praxbind (idarucizumab)

INDICATIONS AND USAGE

PRAXBIND is indicated in patients treated with Pradaxa when reversal of the anticoagulant effects of dabigatran is needed:

For emergency surgery/urgent procedures

In lifethreatening or uncontrolled bleeding

This indication is approved under accelerated approval based on a reduction in unbound dabigatran and normalization of coagulation parameters in healthy volunteers. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon the results of an ongoing cohort case series study.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS

Thromboembolic Risk

Dabigatran-treated patients have underlying diseases predisposing them to thromboembolic events. Reversing dabigatran therapy exposes patients to the thrombotic risk of their underlying disease. To reduce this risk, resumption of anticoagulant therapy should be considered as soon as medically appropriate.

Re-elevation of Coagulation Parameters

Elevated coagulation parameters (e.g., activated partial thromboplastin time or ecarin clotting time) have been observed in a limited number of PRAXBIND-treated patients. If reappearance of clinically relevant bleeding together with elevated coagulation parameters is observed or if patients requiring a second emergency surgery/urgent procedure have elevated coagulation parameters, an additional full dose may be considered.

Hypersensitivity Reactions

There is insufficient clinical experience evaluating risk of hypersensitivity to idarucizumab, but a possible relationship could not be excluded. Risk of hypersensitivity (e.g., anaphylactoid reaction) to idarucizumab or excipients needs to be weighed cautiously against the potential benefit. If serious allergic reaction occurs, immediately discontinue PRAXBIND and institute appropriate treatment.

Risk in Patients with Hereditary Fructose Intolerance

PRAXBIND contains 4 g sorbitol as an excipient. When prescribing PRAXBIND in patients with hereditary fructose intolerance consider the total daily amount of sorbitol/fructose consumption from all sources as serious adverse reactions (e.g. hypoglycemia, hypophosphatemia, metabolic acidosis, increase in uric acid, acute liver failure and death) may occur.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

The most frequently reported adverse reaction in 5% of idarucizumab-treated healthy volunteers was headache (12/224). The most frequently reported adverse reactions in 5% of patients were hypokalemia (9/123), delirium (9/123), constipation (8/123), pyrexia (7/123) and pneumonia (7/123).

As with all proteins there is a potential for immunogenicity with idarucizumab. In treated patients, treatment-emergent antibodies with low titers were observed (9/224).

USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS

Pregnancy and Nursing Mothers



PRAXBIND should be given to a pregnant or nursing woman only if clearly needed.

Please see full Prescribing Information .

About Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate mesylate)

Indications and Usage

Pradaxa (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) capsules is indicated:

to reduce the risk of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION ABOUT PRADAXA

WARNING: (A) PREMATURE DISCONTINUATION OF PRADAXA INCREASES THE RISK OF THROMBOTIC EVENTS, (B) SPINAL/EPIDURAL HEMATOMA

(A) PREMATURE DISCONTINUATION OF PRADAXA INCREASES THE RISK OF THROMBOTIC EVENTS

Premature discontinuation of any oral anticoagulant, including Pradaxa, increases the risk of thrombotic events. If anticoagulation with Pradaxa is discontinued for a reason other than pathological bleeding or completion of a course of therapy, consider coverage with another anticoagulant

(B) SPINAL/EPIDURAL HEMATOMA

Epidural or spinal hematomas may occur in patients treated with Pradaxa who are receiving neuraxial anesthesia or undergoing spinal puncture. These hematomas may result in long-term or permanent paralysis. Consider these risks when scheduling patients for spinal procedures. Factors that can increase the risk of developing epidural or spinal hematomas in these patients include:

use of indwelling epidural catheters

concomitant use of other drugs that affect hemostasis, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), platelet inhibitors, other anticoagulants

a history of traumatic or repeated epidural or spinal punctures

a history of spinal deformity or spinal surgery

optimal timing between the administration of Pradaxa and neuraxial procedures is not known

Monitor patients frequently for signs and symptoms of neurological impairment. If neurological compromise is noted, urgent treatment is necessary. Consider the benefits and risks before neuraxial intervention in patients who are or will be anticoagulated.

CONTRAINDICATIONS

Pradaxa is contraindicated in patients with:

- active pathological bleeding;

- known serious hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., anaphylactic reaction or anaphylactic shock) to

Pradaxa;

- mechanical prosthetic heart valve

WARNINGS & PRECAUTIONS

Increased Risk of Thrombotic Events after Premature Discontinuation

Premature discontinuation of any oral anticoagulant, including Pradaxa, in the absence of adequate alternative anticoagulation increases the risk of thrombotic events. If Pradaxa is discontinued for a reason other than pathological bleeding or completion of a course of therapy, consider coverage with another anticoagulant and restart Pradaxa as soon as medically appropriate.

Risk of Bleeding

Pradaxa increases the risk of bleeding and can cause significant and, sometimes, fatal bleeding. Promptly evaluate any signs or symptoms of blood loss (e.g., a drop in hemoglobin and/or hematocrit or hypotension). Discontinue Pradaxa in patients with active pathological bleeding.

Risk factors for bleeding include concomitant use of medications that increase the risk of bleeding (e.g., anti-platelet agents, heparin, fibrinolytic therapy, and chronic use of NSAIDs). Pradaxa's anticoagulant activity and half-life are increased in patients with renal impairment.

Reversal of Anticoagulant Effect : A specific reversal agent (idarucizumab) for dabigatran is available when reversal of the anticoagulant effect of dabigatran is needed:

: A specific reversal agent (idarucizumab) for dabigatran is available when reversal of the anticoagulant effect of dabigatran is needed: For emergency surgery/urgent procedures

In life-threatening or uncontrolled bleeding

Hemodialysis can remove dabigatran; however clinical experience for hemodialysis as a treatment for bleeding is limited. Prothrombin complex concentrates or recombinant Factor VIIa may be considered but their use has not been evaluated. Protamine sulfate and vitamin K are not expected to affect dabigatran anticoagulant activity. Consider administration of platelet concentrates where thrombocytopenia is present or long-acting antiplatelet drugs have been used.

Thromboembolic and Bleeding Events in Patients with Prosthetic Heart Valves

The use of Pradaxa is contraindicated in patients with mechanical prosthetic valves due to a higher risk for thromboembolic events, especially in the post-operative period, and an excess of major bleeding for Pradaxa vs. warfarin. Use of Pradaxa for the prophylaxis of thromboembolic events in patients with AFib in the setting of other forms of valvular heart disease, including bioprosthetic heart valve, has not been studied and is not recommended.

Effect of P-gp Inducers & Inhibitors on Dabigatran Exposure

Concomitant use of Pradaxa with P-gp inducers (e.g., rifampin) reduces exposure to dabigatran and should generally be avoided. P-gp inhibition and impaired renal function are major independent factors in increased exposure to dabigatran. Concomitant use of P-gp inhibitors in patients with renal impairment is expected to increase exposure of dabigatran compared to either factor alone.

Reduction of Risk of Stroke/Systemic Embolism in NVAF

For patients with moderate renal impairment (CrCl 30-50 mL/min), reduce the dose of Pradaxa to 75 mg twice daily when dronedarone or systemic ketoconazole is coadministered with Pradaxa.

For patients with severe renal impairment (CrCl 15-30 mL/min), avoid concomitant use of Pradaxa and P-gp inhibitors.

ADVERSE REACTIONS

The most serious adverse reactions reported with Pradaxa were related to bleeding.

Most frequent adverse reactions leading to discontinuation of Pradaxa were bleeding & gastrointestinal (GI) events.

Pradaxa 150 mg resulted in higher rates of major and any GI bleeds compared to warfarin.

In patients 75 years of age, the risk of major bleeding may be greater with Pradaxa vs warfarin.

Patients on Pradaxa 150 mg had an increased incidence of GI adverse reactions. These were commonly dyspepsia (including abdominal pain upper, abdominal pain, abdominal discomfort, and epigastric discomfort) and gastritis-like symptoms (including GERD, esophagitis, erosive gastritis, gastric hemorrhage, hemorrhagic gastritis, hemorrhagic erosive gastritis, and GI ulcer)

Other Measures Evaluated

In NVAF patients, a higher rate of clinical MI was reported in patients who received Pradaxa (0.7/100 patient-years for 150 mg dose) than in those who received warfarin (0.6).

Please see full Prescribing Information , including boxed WARNING and Medication Guide .

About Boehringer Ingelheim

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., based in Ridgefield, CT, is the largest U.S. subsidiary of Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation.

Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, the company operates globally with approximately 50,000 employees. Since its founding in 1885, the company has remained family-owned and today creates value through innovation for three business areas including human pharmaceuticals, animal health and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing.

Boehringer Ingelheim is committed to improving lives and providing valuable services and support to patients and their families. Our employees create and engage in programs that strengthen our communities. Please visit our website to learn more about how we make more health for more people through our Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

In 2016, Boehringer Ingelheim achieved net sales of about $17.6 billion (15.9 billion euros). R&D expenditure corresponds to 19.6 percent of its net sales.

For more information please visit www.boehringer-ingelheim.us, or follow us on Twitter @BoehringerUS.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. either owns or uses the trademarks Pradaxa, RE-VERSE AD, RE-DUAL PCI and RE-CIRCUIT under license.

SOURCE Boehringer Ingelheim

Related Links

http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.us


WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, will discuss the role of a united and integrated Africa in the global community at a National Press Club Headliners Luncheon on Wednesday, November 15.

The address at the National Press Club is part of the Chairperson's three-day inaugural visit to Washington, where he is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and attend the 2017 AU-US High Level Dialogue.

"It is an honor to welcome H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson, African Union Commission, on his first visit to Washington DC," said H.E. Dr. Arikna Chihombori Quao, African Union Ambassador to the United States. "We look forward to mutually fruitful work during a November 15-17 high level itinerary that will strengthen our valued and longstanding AUUS relationship and advance our collaborative priorities for an integrated, entrepreneurial, prosperous, secure and peaceful Africa."

H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat took office as Chairperson of the African Union Commission in March of 2017, after winning a close contest against his Kenyan counterpart, Amina Mohamed. He is the fifth Chairperson of the Commission and the second Central African candidate. Prior to his election as Chairperson, he served as the Foreign Minister of Chad, a position he had held since April 2008. Moussa Faki Mahamat served as the Prime Minister of Chad from June 2003 to February 2005.

Lunch will be served in the club's Ballroom at 12:30 p.m., with remarks beginning at 1 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session ending at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $25 for National Press Club members (members may purchase two tickets at this rate) and $39 for all other non-member tickets. Please click here to purchase tickets.

For all ticketing-related questions, please email [email protected]. Tickets must be paid for at the time of purchase. To submit a question for the speaker in advance, put AUC in the subject line and email to [email protected]. The deadline for submitting questions in advance is 10 a.m. on the day of the luncheon.

NPC Members who have a paid reservation to the Luncheon and wish to attend the pre-luncheon reception must send their RSVP via email to [email protected] at least 48 hours before the date of the Luncheon. Space may be limited.

The National Press Club is located on the 13th Floor of the National Press Building at 529 14th St., NW, Washington, D.C.

PRESS CONTACT: Lindsay Underwood, [email protected], (202) 662-7561

SOURCE National Press Club
ATLANTA, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cox Media Group (CMG) has appointed four highly-talented and proven leaders who will work together to fully integrate CMG's portfolio of traditional and digital media platforms in the Atlanta area beginning in 2018.

Moya Neville is CMG Atlanta's new VP of Sales. Neville returns to CMG after spending the last three years at Cox Media, a division of sister company Cox Communications. "I can't tell you how fortunate I feel to be able to work with the powerhouse teams and brands that make up CMG Atlanta," she said. "I know for a fact, that some of the best media talent in the country sit in WSB radio, TV and at the AJC. Working side-by-side with that talent and our assets to do great things for our customers, will be game changing."

In her previous role at Cox Media, Neville developed and led the sales strategy for the enterprise, and she oversaw the revenue and profit growth of operations in Cox Media's 20 local sales offices. Before joining Cox Media, Neville was Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Donna Hall is CMG Atlanta's new VP of Marketing. A 30-year Cox veteran, Hall has been VP and Market Manager for CMG Atlanta and Athens radio stations since 2014. In Dayton, she was the Sr. VP of Marketing and Client Solutions for CMG Ohio when the company integrated its radio, TV and newspaper operations in 2010. She has great experience with operating in a fully-integrated role overseeing newspaper circulation, TV programming and Creative Services, radio promotions and B2B/B2C research and marketing for all platforms, including digital.

"I look forward to discovering how we can leverage all of our award-winning Atlanta media brands by working more closely together as one powerful media group in this highly competitive market," said Hall. "I believe we will all truly be better together to deliver what our readers, viewers, listeners and clients count on us for." In addition to her new CMG Atlanta marketing responsibilities, Hall will oversee programming for all Atlanta-area music stations, including in Athens, Ga.

Mark Medici is CMG Atlanta's new VP of Audience and Newspaper Operations. Medici has been the Multi-Market Vice President of Audience. He has deep roots in free and paid consumer platforms. Medici and his teams have led the business intelligence, platform development, content optimization, content distribution and consumer sales strategies and tactics that drive CMG Newspapers' successful print and digital audience, revenue and product development results.

"Local content has always been at the heart of CMG and at the heart of our local communities," said Medici. "The opportunity to shape what local content looks like and how it is delivered for Atlantans and future generations, like my own kids, is pretty special."

CMG Atlanta's new VP of Content and Broadcast Operations is Paul Briggs. Briggs has many years of media experience in both TV and radio. During his tenure at WHBQ-TV, Briggs and his team significantly improved the performance of the station, achieving record high ratings and revenue performance, and elevating the station to a leadership position in the market. Prior to moving to Memphis, Briggs was the Director of Sales at WSOC-TV in Charlotte.

"I am thrilled to be joining the outstanding CMG Atlanta team," added Briggs. "No other media company can match our combined TV, radio, newspaper and digital footprint in the Atlanta market. The exciting opportunities to build on integrating our award-winning news organizations and improve the experience for our readers, viewers and listeners and customers are limitless. I am very excited to get started."

"This is the perfect leadership team to take CMG Atlanta into the future," said CMG's Executive Vice President Jane Williams. "Integrating CMG Atlanta is part of the company's multi-faceted strategy to position us for future growth and success. With our integrated media approach, we have a unique opportunity in CMG's flagship market where we offer our audiences unparalleled award-winning content, our customers comprehensive strategic business solutions, and our employees unrivaled cross-platform career opportunities." Williams added that CMG will begin the search for Briggs' successor in Memphis immediately.

CMG's Atlanta-area media brands include: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, MundoHispanico, News 95.5 FM AM 750 WSB, 97.1 The River, B98.5, KISS 104.1 FM, and WSB TV Ch. 2 Action News, as well as 960 The Ref, WGAU 98.7 FM & AM1340, Magic 102.1 FM, 103.7 Chuck FM, Power 100.1 and Your Country Georgia 106.1/107.1 in Athens, Ga.

About Cox Media Group Cox Media Group is an integrated broadcasting, publishing, direct marketing and digital media company. The company's operations currently include 14 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, more than 60 radio stations, seven daily newspapers and 11 non-daily publications; and more than 100 digital sites and services, like Rare.us, Clark.com, Dawg Nation, SEC Country, Hookem.com, Mundo Hispanico, Southern Kitchen and All22. Additionally, CMG operates the National Advertising Platform businesses of CoxReps - the country's biggest television rep firm - Gamut, and Videa. CMG currently operates in more than 20 media markets and reaches approximately 52 million Americans weekly, including more than 31 million TV viewers, more than 3.5 million newspaper readers, and nearly 15 million radio listeners. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.

SOURCE Cox Media Group

Related Links

http://www.coxmediagroup.com


SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- For a long time, there was such a bitter joke on the topic of SaaS enterprise-class service, "You do not need to worry about falling behind in doing company business services, because every year is the 'first year' anyway". There has also been a saying, "The enterprise market is an industry that could fail the tuyere theory (Lei Jun's theory), even BAT and old software giants met problems in this area one after another." And everyone knows that Chinese entrepreneurs are very good at saving and making money, but they are not that good at spending money. Conquering such a shrewd group of people is like preparing for a long march. It is a very long-term work.

Entering the second decade of the 21st century, Testin found that the gloomy SaaS market in the past suddenly begun to blow spring breeze. Synergy and symbiotic have become a wind direction, and even the giants were in complement with each other on the short board. "Romance between Lu Han and Guan Xiaotong" made the microblog offline, and Sina borrowed server resources from Ali cloud; far from the opposite side of the Earth, Google and Facebook handed over their important test works to China's Testin.

The maturity of technology, of course, is a necessary factor for growth of SaaS, but what actually makes this industry lively are these three forces of industry power:

Innovation of startups

Awareness of crisis traditional enterprises

Desire of monopoly of mature Internet companies

The most important thing is that the mobile Internet has changed the entire business competition environment, allowing SaaS to change from aid to infrastructure. And whether it is the Docker and cloud computing platform (characterizing in development constructions, expanding services) or the cloud test platform (objecting in bug fixes, acceptance test), they are all constantly realizing the rebirth of the SaaS format after fire in the major changes.

SaaS services are entering the 3.0 era of deepening reform

Primary exploration of SaaS 1.0 era (the first 10 years of the 21st century):

Includes Kingdee, UF and other enterprise software giants' on-line SaaS products, as well as new forces like Ali software. This stage emphasizes more on the point that service provider itself supports the coverage of all application content and functionality. The process is closed and single. The orientation of product in this era is to meet the basic needs of enterprise's OA management.

Rapid development of SaaS 2.0 era (the rise of the mobile Internet tide to 2017):

This period is the industry's rapid growth period. In 2016, China SaaS market surged by 38%. Large and all inclusive, integration became the main characteristic of SaaS development. 2.0 era not only requires the provision of flexible customization, real-time deployment, rapid integration of SaaS application platform by software application service operators, but also requires the provision of web-based application customization, development, deployment of tools to achieve the no programming's ability of applying, stability, and deployment. The design-oriented product also changed from meeting the OA office management needs into meeting individual needs of different enterprises gradually.

Deepening reform SaaS 3.0 era (from 2017 onwards):

SaaS's Software-as-a-Service concept was reconstructed. The new SaaS is considered as Security + AI + API + Symbiosis, that is, collection of concept, security, intelligence, connectivity and symbiotic. The essence behind it is that SaaS begun to think about more profound business problems beyond big and full. Based on further and deeper needs of enterprise development, the product needs also evolved and were discussed from two dimensions at the same time, namely the commercial stage and the client property. The project management cooperation is deepened, meanwhile, the situational symbiosis mode is becoming more humanized. The product-orientation at this time is gradually deepened from meeting the individual user needs to creating a collaborative, symbiotic win-win concept.

SaaS 3.0 era, Testin's four "Chinese-style" highlights

In the SaaS 3.0 era, Testin has evolved from dark horse to a real unicorn, and now has grown into the pioneer and a leader in cloud test industry. Co-founder of Testin once said: "Let Testin always go beyond the developers' needs." This sentence can be fully confirmed in the following four product highlights of Testin SaaS 3.0. It also reflects the Chinese characteristics of the service under the new era of SaaS:

1. The on-cloud reorganization of the whole industry chain of mobile - cloud test

From point of view of the industry, the popularity of cloud computing will lead to a comprehensive reorganization and reshuffle of the IT industry. Cloud test is a creature of the cloud computing era. Also, Testin has originated from China. Test is a time-consuming and labor-intensive high-marginal cost work. In order to solve this management pain point, Testin moved the test work to the cloud platform, through the automated AI + artificial way, greatly liberating enterprises' unnecessary manpower costs and hardware costs and improving the quality of application and efficiency of management.

2. Improving management efficiency while mobilizing human dividends - public test

The so-called "public test" is the test industry's "DiDi" (a famous taxi business in China), it can effectively connect the test demand side and professional testing experts, so it can let experts on the platform accept the test task, do the testing and evaluation in the real network environment according to the test requirements. As with DiDi, the public test mobilizes idle resources, reorganizes the customers' assets and value chain. And through weakening proprietary rights, emphasizing usage rights, it increased the value of production and reduced the costs. Testers can get high rewards while the demand side can save costs and improve widths and abilities of tests. This mode of mobilizing the power of the masses and social resource enterprise users is the "Chinese mode", the unique mode in the world.

3. Situational product forms - release test

Testin release test clarifies the value of an app test itself and the product concept of differentiated needs of customers for the first time. Its biggest advantage is that it changes the status quo of enterprises' app tests, which is without standard, logic, emphasis, or quantization. It enables the quality check of the pre-release scientific and standardized test. Performing app test according to Testin release test services, it can not only ensure that the app is released on time, stable and without hidden dangers, but also eliminate developers' previous malicious business attitudes towards users in the product iteration. The release test is created for solving the last thing before an app is released. It saves the developers' complicated testing processes before an app is available online.

4. Collaborative Project Management - SaaS 3.0 Platform

During different phases of product test by developers, Testin can provide the according service, synchronize the progress and accompany enterprises through each stage of the product test. Focusing on a project, Testin coordinates the different needs of collaborative test team within different stages, allocates the resources and modifies the bug flows more conveniently. Briefly, Testin actually accomplishes the goal of making enterprises' on-the-ground-level employees feel pleased, and understands more about the business nature of enterprises' users.

Testin SaaS 3.0 with Chinese characteristics

From the "four highlights" above, it is possible to summarize that, Testin SaaS 3.0 pays more attention to high efficiency, comprehensiveness, humanity and synergy of product value. From standardization to personalization, from tooling to situational, the requirements of corporate internal management collaboration are deepened and became more intense, which gave birth to a number of new representative platforms, for example, testin SaaS 3.0. This product evolution is driven by situational needs of enterprises and will continue to go deeper in big strides.

About Testin

Testin is a testing service based company which specializes in mobile app QA testing. After testing of 2+ million apps, iteration tests 170 million times, in 6 years' time, Testin has grown from an idea to a leader in the Mobile APP Quality Assurance industry. Testin has secured US$84.9 million in 3 Rounds from IDG, Banyan, Haiyin, and CEL, and it succeeded not only in capturing the domestic market of China, but also in setting its foot into the global arena. Testin has been recognized as 2014 and 2015 Zero2IPO v50 China, 2014 Red Herring 100 Asia Finalist and 2015 Red Herring 100 Global Finalist, 2015 and 2016 Deloitte High-Tech & Growth Top 50 China. By addressing mobile and OS fragmentations, app's compatibility, functionality, user experience, performance, security and analytics, Testin has helped thousands of developers (including McDonald's, Nestle, Starbucks, Daimler, Philips and Kabam). It's Testin's pleasure to assist companies building up confidence in apps, and ensuring a great experience for their users.

Contact:

Jerry Wang

Tel/Mobile: +1(516)277-6800

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Testin
CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jacki Davidoff, Principal and Senior Consultant, Davidoff Mission-Driven Business Strategy, Chicago and Washington, D.C., was elected to the the board of Chicago Women in Philanthropy (CWIP), as announced at CWIP's recent 2017 annual meeting.

CWIP, a Chicago-based nonprofit, educates and encourages philanthropy by facilitating dialogue and uncommon connections that positively impact the lives of women and girls. Jacki Davidoff, an accomplished management executive with 30 years of experience bridging the corporate and philanthropic sectors said, "CWIP is uniquely positioned to address the social issues Chicago is facing as the organization brings together women who care about our city and have a clear vision to leverage the nonprofit sector's capacity to improve conditions for people across all neighborhoods."

Davidoff Mission-Driven Business Strategy is a national strategy consulting firm incorporating the academic principles of transformational leadership to guide organizations to expanded visions of their potential and their impact For more information about Davidoff's Mission-Driven approach to strategy and marketing, visit www.davidoffstrategy.com.

CONTACT: Marie Hale, 1-630-631-7713

SOURCE Davidoff Mission-Driven Business Strategy

Related Links

http://www.davidoffstrategy.com


The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is out and is soon to be heading to a drag strip near you. Dodge//SRT started shipping the most powerful muscle car in history on Nov. 10, 2017.

Just 3,300 customers (3,000 in the United States, 300 in Canada) will receive a limited-production, 840-horsepower 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon  the industry's first and only purpose-built, street-legal production drag car. Certified by the National Hot Rod Association as the world's fastest quarter-mile production vehicle with an elapsed time of 9.65 seconds at 140 miles per hour, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is capable of achieving 0-60 mph in 2.3 seconds and is the first-ever production car to achieve a front-wheel lift as certified by Guinness World Records.

"The people who bought a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon are performance enthusiasts to the core, and having a custom car with accessories that improve overall performance is critical," said Tim Kuniskis, Head of Passenger Cars, Dodge//SRT, Chrysler and FIAT, FCA North America. "With that passion for both performance and their new limited-production Demon in mind, we've pulled together a collection of materials designed to help them learn about, track, protect and maintain the newest member of the family. These accessories are designed to build on the exclusivity and future collectability of this limited-production car."

In the quest for absolute drag strip domination, engineers reviewed every part and piece of the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon to ensure it provides the ultimate in performance. That quest continued on to the development of accessories.

Standard one-of-a-kind Challenger SRT Demon leather-bound track tech manual adds to collectability

Every Demon owner will receive a collectible leather-bound track tech manual written by the editors of Hot Rod magazine. The collector's book details all of the technical components of the quickest, most powerful muscle car in history and instructs owners on how to set-up their cars for the track.

Demon Authentication Package available for $1

Having documentation that tracks every stage of each individual Demon build adds to the vehicle's collectability. Each owner can get the 12 individual build sheets that track the build of their specific car packaged in a hermetically sealed sleeve designed to manage and protect these important Challenger SRT Demon documents, as well as a carbon-fiber Certicard; available for $1 as part of Demon Authentication Package.

The Demon Authentication Package includes:

Build Sheets (12 per car): These authentic production build sheets document each Challenger SRT Demon's unique configuration and detail every inch of each vehicle's assembly

These authentic production build sheets document each Challenger SRT Demon's unique configuration and detail every inch of each vehicle's assembly Carbon-fiber Certicard: This card certifies each owner of the fastest quarter-mile production car in the world. The exclusive real carbon-fiber card features the owner's name, vehicle VIN, serial number and production option(s) sales codes

This card certifies each owner of the fastest quarter-mile production car in the world. The exclusive real carbon-fiber card features the owner's name, vehicle VIN, serial number and production option(s) sales codes Archive Portfolio: Provides safekeeping of all original Challenger SRT Demon documents

Custom Personalized Demon Car Cover available to protect Demon when it's not on the track

Custom tailored to fit the dimensions of the Demon, the satin stretch indoor cover matches a customer's Challenger SRT Demon paint scheme and has their chosen name embroidered above the driver's door. This car cover is available to each Dodge Challenger SRT Demon owner at a U.S. MSRP of $695.

Demon Crate available for a U.S. MSRP of $1

After vehicle delivery, each Challenger SRT Demon buyer also has the opportunity to unleash the Demon's 840 horsepower, 770 lb.-ft. of torque and full potential at the drag strip with the exclusive, personalized Demon Crate and the full array of parts it holds. Available for just $1, the Demon Crate is personalized with the buyer's name, VIN and serial number.

The Demon Crate contains:

Direct Connection Performance Parts:

Performance powertrain control module with high-octane engine calibration



Replacement switch module containing high-octane button



Conical performance air filter



Passenger mirror block-off plate



Narrow, front-runner drag wheels



Demon-branded track tools:

Hydraulic floor jack with carrying bag



Cordless impact wrench with charger



Torque wrench with extension and socket



Tire pressure gauge



Fender cover



Tool bag



Foam case that fits into the SRT Demon trunk and securely holds the front runner wheels and track tools

Rear-seat Delete Package available exclusively through Mopar (late availability)

Available through Mopar exclusively for Dodge Challenger SRT Demon owners who configured a Demon with the available $1 rear seats, the Rear-seat Delete Package (part number 82215918) allows them to remove the rear seat when heading to the track. The Rear-seat Delete Package includes seatback closeout panel, Demon seatback panel bezel, lower seat tray with cargo net, seat belt delete C-pillar covers and rear packaging shelf to cover the tether holes.

Demon Street Tire Package available for extended on-road driving (late availability)

Available through Mopar exclusively for Dodge Challenger SRT Demon owners who want to keep their drag radials fresh for track use only, the Demon Street Tire Package (part number 82215919) includes a set of four lightweight forged 20x11-inch Devil's Rim wheels (stock wheel for Hellcat Widebody) and are delivered ready to bolt onto the vehicle with Pirelli 305/35ZR20 performance tires mounted and balanced with Tire Pressure Monitoring System sensors.

Speedlogix four-point harness bar available for the track

Dodge Challenger SRT Demon owners can purchase a new four-point harness bar, available through Speedlogix, for use while at the track. In its standard configuration, the Demon's rear seat is deleted and mounting points are made accessible, making it easy for customers to install the bar without cutting or drilling.

Exclusive Dodge Demon VBOX Video HD2 system logs data, records runs in real-time

Owners also now have a new real-time precision tool available to prove how their muscle car dominates at the drag strip. Available through Racelogic, the producer of the industry standard VBOX systems, is the exclusive Dodge Demon VBOX Video HD2 data logger and in-car camera system.

Featuring a 10-Hertz GPS system synchronized with video capture capability to display and track real-time vehicle performance information, the Demon VBOX Video HD2 system tracks the following:

60-, 330-, 660-, 1,000-feet, quarter-mile and 0-60 mph elapsed times

Accelerator/brake use

Gear selection

Engine RPM

Vehicle speed

G-force reading from launch

Wheel slip

Air temperature

Altitude

Launch Control activation

TransBrake activation

The Demon VBOX HD2 Video system is exclusively available to Challenger SRT Demon buyers and is customized with the buyer's name, VIN and serial number on a personalized metal ID badge on the harness bar mounting bracket and the black carrying case.

About Dodge//SRT

Dodge//SRT offers a complete lineup of performance vehicles that stand out in their own segments. Dodge is FCA North America's mainstream performance brand, and SRT is positioned as the ultimate performance halo of the Dodge brand, together creating a complete and balanced performance brand with one vision and one voice.

For more than 100 years, the Dodge brand has carried on the spirit of brothers John and Horace Dodge, who founded the company in 1914. Their influence continues today. New for 2018, the 840-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, the fastest quarter-mile production car in the world and most powerful muscle car ever, is taking the world by storm, along with the new 2018 Dodge Durango SRT, America's fastest, most powerful and most capable three-row SUV, and the 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Widebody. These new SRT ultimate performance models join a brand lineup that includes the Durango, Grand Caravan, Journey, Charger and Challenger, including the 707-horsepower Challenger SRT Hellcat and the Charger SRT Hellcat, the quickest, fastest and most powerful sedan in the world.

Follow Dodge, SRT and FCA US news and video on:

Company blog: http://blog.fcanorthamerica.com

Company website: www.fcanorthamerica.com

Media website: http://media.fcanorthamerica.com

Dodge brand: www.dodge.com

Dodge blog: blog.dodge.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/dodge or https://www.facebook.com/FiatChrysler.NorthAmerica/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/dodgeofficial or www.instagram.com/FiatChrysler_NA

Twitter: www.twitter.com/dodge or www.twitter.com/FiatChrysler_NA

YouTube: www.youtube.com/dodge or www.youtube.com/fcanorthamerica

SOURCE FCA US LLC

Related Links

http://www.fcanorthamerica.com


The ICP is 100% owned by the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Formation Capital Corporation, U.S. The FS was prepared by Micon International ("MI") in conjunction with SNC Lavalin ("SNC") both of Toronto, Canada. The FS is based on an underground mine with a target production rate of 800 short tons per day ("tpd") and a weighted average annual production of 2.4M lbs of cobalt, 3.3M lbs of copper and 3,000 oz of gold over a 12.5 year mine life with an estimated pre-production period of 24 months utilizing a 0.25% cobalt cut-off grade. The FS outlines the production and processing feasibility of ICP as an underground mine and mill, developing the Company's Ram deposit, located within the Idaho Cobalt Belt outside the town of Salmon, Idaho and the Cobalt Production Facility ("CPF"), a hydrometallurgical refining operation to be located on a railhead in Blackfoot, Idaho. The ICP would be a vertically integrated project designed to produce cobalt chemicals for the rechargeable batteries market in addition to by-products of copper concentrate, copper sulphate, magnesium sulphate and gold. The feasibility recommends the ICP progress through detailed engineering, procurement and construction phases.

Mr. Paul Farquharson, President and C.E.O. of the Company stated: "The filing of our Feasibility Study FS signifies a significant milestone in the development of the ICP. With a Technical Report on file, the Company can now disclose additional details of the project to potential financiers and their due diligence teams to assist in the advancement of the Project through financing and ultimately, construction and production. To that end, our management team has been aggressively pursuing the marketing of the project to potential financiers in North America and abroad. Additionally, potential offtakers have toured the project and as previously announced, pre-construction activities are underway in preparation for project construction and mine development with the intent of recommencing construction in the summer of 2018 contingent upon successful project financing. The near-term aspect of high grade primary cobalt produced in the United States is the essence of the ICP's main competitive strengths."

Feasibility Study Description

As previously described, the FS is based on an underground mine with a target production rate of 800 short tons per day ("tpd") and a life of mine production of 31.8M lbs of cobalt, 42.8M lbs of copper and 39,241 oz of gold. The project has over 12.5 year mine life with weighted average annual production of 2.4M lbs of cobalt, 3.3M lbs of copper and 3,000 oz of gold and an estimated pre-production period of 24 months utilizing a 0.25% cobalt cut-off grade. The economic model uses a 34% corporate tax rate and a 7.5% discount rate, resulting in an after tax NPV of $135.8M and an IRR of 21.3% using an average base case price of $26.65/lb for contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate.

The Company completed a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on March 10, 2015 utilizing the Company's September 14, 2007 (revised May 19, 2008) feasibility study as a basis. The PEA included the completed environmental permitting process and construction at the mine and mill that was completed from 2011 to 2013 and subsequently placed on care and maintenance in May 2013. The FS utilizes an updated resource, mine model and mine schedule with a feasibility study level of design for the CPF to produce cobalt sulphate. A combined cobalt/copper/gold concentrate is to be produced from the mine and mill and processed at the CPF through hydrometallurgical processing of cobalt and copper bearing sulphides to produce cobalt sulphate heptahydrate which is used in the production of cathodes for rechargeable batteries.

Marketable by-products include copper concentrate, copper sulphate, magnesium sulphate and gold. Gold will be recovered through a gold carbon in leach circuit producing gold-loaded carbon which will be refined at a contract facility to produce dore. The stripped carbon will be returned to the CPF for reuse.

The ICP is 100% owned by eCobalt and there is no underlying royalty on the property. The FS has been compiled in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 guidelines. Readers are strongly encouraged to review the final National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report in its entirety.

Mineral Resource and Reserves

MI updated the estimate of cobalt, copper, and gold resources in a three-dimensional resource wire frame and block model to be used for mine planning, design, and scheduling as part of the FS. MI utilized the previously estimated resources for the Ram deposit (completed by Mine Development Associates for the PEA) supported by their own geostatistical model and reserve criteria. The resulting model moved some PEA level Measured resources into the Indicated category and adjusted grades within the resource categories. Cobalt, copper, and gold reported resources in the FS model are shown in the table below. The stated resource is reported at a cobalt cut-off grade of 0.20% cobalt. There is approximately 34% dilution forecasted in the stope designs with additional dilution applied, by mining method and stope conditions, for over-break. The copper and gold resources and reserves are those resources and reserves carried within the stope blocks which attain the cobalt cut-off grade. No metal value is given to the copper or gold in determining the cobalt resource cut-off. No metal recoveries are applied, as this is an in-situ resource.

Ram Deposit Mineral Resources at 0.2% Co Cut-off

Category Resource

(Tons) Co

(%) Co

(lbs) Au

(opt) Au

(ounces) Cu

(%) Cu

(lbs) Measured 1,725,000 0.54 18,589,700 0.014 24,300 0.76 26,324,900 Indicated 1,711,000 0.64 21,988,000 0.017 29,900 0.71 24,110,600 M+I 3,436,000 0.59 40,577,700 0.016 54,200 0.73 50,435,500 Inferred 1,543,000 0.51 15,593,800 0.012 18,700 0.68 21,032,200

Ram Deposit Mineral Reserves at 0.25% Co Cut-off

Category Resource

(Tons) Co

(%) Co

(lbs) Au

(opt) Au

(ounces) Cu

(%) Cu

(lbs) Proven 1,987,209 0.43 17,107,067 0.013 25,276 0.69 27,383,521 Probable 1,674,685 0.52 17,409,858 0.017 28,010 0.67 22,372,024 Total

Reserve 3,661,894 0.47 34,516,925 0.016 53,286 0.68 49,755,545

Economic Highlights

The FS economic model uses a 34% corporate tax rate and a 7.5% discount rate, resulting in an after tax NPV of $135.8M and an IRR of 21.3% using an average price of $26.65/lb of contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate. Gross revenue during the life of mine is estimated to consist of 75% cobalt sulphate, 15% copper sulphate, 5% magnesium sulphate, 4% gold and 1% copper concentrate. A pro forma cash flow was developed using conventional methodology utilizing the base case discount rate, before and after-tax determination of project economics, annual cash flows discounted on an end of year basis with costs estimated in Q3-2017 US dollars.

LOM Cobalt Sulphate and By-Product Revenue

By Year through LOM the following chart demonstrates the projected Sales Revenue by Product

LOM Cobalt Sulphate and By-Product Revenue

The total LOM capital and reclamation cost is estimated at $288.1M, including $186.7M for initial capital, $5.8M for long term water treatment bond collateral, and $95.6M in sustaining capital and mine development capital during production over the LOM, reclamation and closure cost. Prior to the deferral of the ICP to care and maintenance status in May 2013 due to depressed market conditions; the Company spent $65.3M on the ICP for earthworks, engineering, and milling equipment including the crushing, ball mill, flotation and filtration circuits, pumps, grizzlies, hoppers, conveyors, etc. These are sunk costs and not included in the remaining initial capital costs.

Project sensitivities were evaluated against standard potential variances in the cobalt price, discount rate, capital expenditures, and operating costs. Results of the sensitivity analysis are presented in the following tables and charts.

Cobalt Sulphate Price Forecasted Sensitivity:

Co Sulphate Price: $19.50 $22.50 $25.50 $26.65* $28.50 $31.50 $34.50 After-Tax IRR 10.4% 15.1% 19.5% 21.3% 23.6% 27.4% 31.1% After-Tax NPV @ 7.5% $27.8M $73.7M $118.4M $135.8M $162.4M $204.0M $245.8M



*Base case

The table above shows that $1.00/lb change in the price of cobalt will lead to a $14.4M change in after tax NPV and 1.3% change in after tax IRR.

Discount Rate Forecasted Sensitivity:

Discount Rate: 5.5% 6.5% 7.5%* 8.5% 9.5% After-Tax NPV using Base Case Prices $174.0M $154.0M $135.8M $119.3M $104.3M



*Base case

The following table and chart depicts the gross and net cash flow for the project LOM and by year respectively.

Life-of-Mine Cash Flow Summary

Item LOM total

($ 000) $/t milled $/lb Cobalt Cobalt Sales 846,837 231.26 26.66 Selling Costs 2,117 0.58 0.07 Mining 196,692 53.71 6.19 Mill/Concentrator 52,494 14.34 1.65 Transport 5,199 1.42 0.16 Cobalt Production Facility (CPF) 149,121 40.72 4.69 G&A 37,309 10.19 1.17 Total Operating Costs 442,932 120.96 13.94 By-product credits (282,510) (77.15) (8.89) Net Operating Costs 160,422 43.81 5.05 EBITDA 686,415 187.45 21.61 Capital Costs 288,146 78.69 9.07 Net cash flow before tax 398,269 108.76 12.54 Tax 66,814 18.25 2.10 Net cash flow after tax 331,454 90.51 10.43

Summary of Annual Forecasted Cash Flow

Sensitivity of Estimated After-Tax NPV to Prices (all products), CAPEX and OPEX

Cobalt Market- Growing Demand and Supply Deficit Forecasted (CRU)

The Company commissioned a marketing study with CRU Consulting of London, United Kingdom, to provide data and forecast on cobalt and by-product markets and specifically cobalt sulphate used in rechargeable batteries applications and the ICP's position within the battery supply chain. The following cobalt marketing information is referenced from the Market Study for the Idaho Cobalt Project September 2017 Report authored by CRU Consulting.

Cobalt consumption has remained strong over the past six years because of stable demand in alloys, established chemical markets and rapid uptake in lithium ion batteries. CRU expects global refined cobalt demand to approach 166,210 tonnes by 2026 (2016 - 96,000 tonnes). Demand is forecast to grow at 6% CAGR in the mid-term spurred on by growing demand for lithium ion batteries. Demand is then expected to increase at CAGR 4.1% in the long-term (2021-2026) as the EV sector matures and the metals sector continues to grow robustly.

Cobalt mine supply is consolidated in a small number of countries and dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country's share of global supply is forecast to reach 67% in 2021 despite considerable risks to political stability, infrastructure development and energy supply. Cobalt chemicals supply is dominated by China, the largest importer of cobalt concentrates and hydrometallurgical intermediates. Being located in the United States, the ICP with access to its own mined feedstock, sustainable operating practices following ethical principles is an advantageous position in the current market environment. The ICP has the opportunity to become the reliable and transparent source of cobalt sulphate supply to the domestic market and export markets outside DRC.

Cobalt sulphate demand is rising strongly and is likely to outperform demand for other cobalt chemicals and demand in metallurgical applications in the future. Tightness in both the metallurgical and non-metallurgical sectors will lead to increasing competition for both mined and refined supply helping support prices at or above current levels over the next ten years. Most of this deficit will be felt in the non-metallurgical market, where supply and demand is expected to increase at CAGR 7.0 % and CAGR 7.9 % respectively. This means additional chemical refining capacity will need to be created in the mid-term. Delays in capacity increases could occur as a function of political instability, energy disruption or as a function of falling copper and nickel prices. The global supply of refined chemicals is becoming increasingly prone to mine supply bottlenecks, a major upside risk to cobalt chemical prices.

Based on CRU's long term real price forecast, the FS uses a weighted average price of $26.65/lb for contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate, which has an average premium of $1.47/lb above 99.3% cobalt price forecast.

Current Activities

Pre-construction activities continue at the ICP Mine and Mill site. These activities include the installation of the main substation and extension of power lines to the portal bench, the concentrator pad, and the water retention ponds and control wells. Mobilization of the crushers to the mill site for early spring resumption of waste pad construction has been completed.

Project Opportunities

There are significant opportunities that could improve the economics of the ICP. Including those opportunities typical to all mining projects, such as changes in metal prices, exchange rates, etc., there are additional opportunities that exist. The mineral resource has not been fully delineated and there is an excellent opportunity to expand this resource. As a result, the Company initiated a targeted drilling program, in consultation with MI. The first drill hole completed has successfully intercepted additional mineralized material within a deeper Indicated zone to the South of the deposit. Pending the receipt of assays, the results of this drill hole have the potential to immediately increase the indicated mineral resource. In addition, over a dozen potential targets have been identified in the immediate area within the claim block of the ICP. Four of these have been drill tested with several intercepts exceeding the current cut-off grade. There is also potential to add additional resources from the nearby Black Pine property owned by the Company which potentially could provide additional feed for the ICP mill.

There is an opportunity for the mine to process higher grade material for short durations through the optimization of the mine plan and sequence production to capitalize on market conditions. Opportunities for CPF capital and operating cost improvements exist through optimization studies during detailed design. There is potential to increase overall recoveries and obtain better shipping and handling terms through formal negotiations in the future and to incorporate offtake and/or streaming agreements on some or all of the products to be produced.

FS Risks

The most significant potential internal risks associated with the ICP are uncontrolled dilution, lower metal recoveries than those projected, operating and capital cost escalations, unforeseen schedule delays, and the ability to raise sufficient financing to execute the project. The central external project risks are product prices and markets. These risks are common to most mining projects, many of which can be mitigated with adequate engineering, planning and pro-active management.

Conclusions

MI and SNC have concluded that the FS contains adequate detail and information to support the positive FS outcome shown for the ICP. Standard industry practices, equipment and design methods were used in the FS. MI and SNC further concluded that the ICP contains a viable cobalt and base metal resource that can be successfully mined by underground methods and recovered to concentrate with conventional milling processes. Using the assumptions contained in the FS; in the professional opinions of MI and SNC, the project economics merit consideration by eCobalt to proceed to the project financing and execution stage. To date the Qualified Persons, in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, are not aware of any fatal flaws for the ICP. The advancement of the ICP towards production is contingent upon financing.

Moving Forward

The positive results of the FS have given Management and the Board of Directors a clear mandate to move the ICP towards project financing and development. Management has conducted project marketing discussions with potential finance and off-take partners who have executed non-disclosure agreements with the Company and begun due diligence reviews and testing of product samples.

Independent of the FS, Management's is evaluating a variety of opportunities for the ICP in cooperation with the FS engineers and in response to offtake discussions.

Preparation of the ICP mine and mill site for construction activities, expected to commence in earnest next year with successful mine financing in place, continues with access road upgrades, existing facilities maintenance, preparation of temporary power for construction, and approved water discharge line maintenance. At the CPF located in Blackfoot, ID, the existing pre-purchased building has been transported to the site.

Concurrent with the above activities, Management also plans on pursuing the numerous opportunities for project enhancement.

The Qualified Persons as defined by National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the FS and this news release are listed below:

Qualified Person Organization Overall Responsibilities Chris Jacobs CEng MIMMM Micon International Limited Project Economics and Cost Estimates. Charley Murahwi P.Geo.

FAusIMM Micon International Limited Geology and Mineral Resource Estimates Barnard Foo P.Eng. Micon International Limited Mining and Reserve Estimates Richard Gowans P.Eng. Micon International Limited Metallurgy and Process Design David Makepeace M.Eng. P.Eng. Micon International Limited Environmental Engineering E.R. (Rick) Honsinger, P.Geo. eCobalt Solutions Inc. Review and approval of the

contents of this news release

About eCobalt Solutions Inc. (www.ecobalt.com)

eCobalt Solutions is a well-established Toronto Stock Exchange listed company committed to providing ethically produced, environmentally sound, battery grade cobalt salts, essential for the rapidly growing rechargeable battery and renewable energy sectors, made safely, responsibly, and transparently in the United States.

eCobalt Solutions Inc.

"J. Paul Farquharson"

J. Paul Farquharson

President & CEO

Cautionary Statement on Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Statements in this news release pertaining to expected financings, filings, uses of proceeds or project completion dates are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Such projections are and will inevitably always be dependent on assumptions about future mineral prices and development costs which will be subject to fluctuation due to global and local economic and industry conditions. Further information regarding risks and uncertainties which may cause results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements is included in filings by the Company with securities regulatory authorities and is available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company 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. 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. Although the Company has disclosed that the Idaho Cobalt Project remains the sole, near term, environmentally permitted, primary cobalt deposit in the United States and offers a unique potential for North American consumers to secure an ethically sourced, environmentally sound supply of battery grade cobalt chemicals, there is no guarantee that the Company will attain commercial production of such cobalt chemicals for use in the rechargeable battery sector. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The statements contained in this news release in regard to eCobalt Solutions Inc. that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including eCobalt Inc.'s beliefs, expectations, hopes or intentions regarding the future. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and are based on information available to eCobalt Solutions Inc. as of such date. It is important to note that actual outcome and the actual results could differ from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties such as technological, legislative, corporate, commodity price and marketplace changes.

SOURCE eCobalt Solutions Inc.

Related Links

http://www.ecobalt.com/


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5144652

The Report covers the therapeutics market revenue, treatment practice/algorithm and forecasted market size of Epilepsy from 2017 to 2025 segmented by seven major markets. In addition, the report includes the forecasted epidemiology of Epilepsy till 2025. The Report also covers market drivers, market barriers and unmet medical need.

Our report provides the subtype specific prevalent population i.e. Focal Epilepsy, Generalized Epilepsy and Unclassified Epilepsy.

In addition, the report also covers the prevalent cases of TSC associated Epilepsy in 6MM (excluding Japan). According to DelveInsight, the prevalent population of Epilepsy is expected to reach up to XXX cases by the end of 2025 at a CAGR of 4.13% from 2015-2025. High prevalent cases were observed in United States as compared to EU5 and Japan.

The market is dominated by approved therapies that are used for the treatment of Epilepsy. The three best selling drugs of 2016 were Vimpat (UCB), Lamictal (Glaxosmithkline) and Keppra (UCB).

United States contributes the major share of Epilepsy market as compared to EU5 countries and Japan. The therapeutic market of Epilepsy in 7MM is expected to reach USD 8.8 Billion in 2025 at the CAGR of XX% from 2015-2025.

Key Coverage and Benefits:

 The report will help in developing business strategies by understanding the trends shaping and driving the Epilepsy market in 7MM.

 Organize sales and marketing efforts by identifying the best opportunities for Epilepsy in US, European Union 5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan.

 To understand the future competition in the Epilepsy market (7MM) and Insightful review of the key market drivers and barriers.

 The report provides historical as well as forecasted epidemiology of Epilepsy in the 7MM covering United States, EU5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan from 2015-2025.

 The Report also covers the detailed historical and forecasted Epilepsy market covering United States, European Union 5 (EU5- Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom), Japan and Rest of the World (RoW) from 2015-2025.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5144652

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

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Etched into Donleigh Gaunkys memory is his promise to his mother that he would bring younger brother Alex back from the Mideast war zone, where the siblings served in different units.

That memory is bittersweet now, even though Gaunky fulfilled the vow.

Donleigh, who goes by Don, acknowledged his mixed feelings during an interview this week.

Im grateful because I was the one to bring him home, but sad because it was not the way we would have preferred. I was supposed to keep him safe, Don said of being assigned the task of accompanying Alexs body after he died from severe head wounds and other injuries suffered in Iraq in November 2005.

The extra duty was an exception to protocol. It is rare indeed that a relative  let alone a sibling  escorts a fallen soldier home.

Don, a 34-year-old Sparta native who now lives in La Crosse, recalled his promise to his mother, Lori Friske, in advance of the publication today of his book, The Hardest Journey Home  A True Story of Loss and Duty During the Iraq War.

Mom said, You dont have to do that, Don said. I said, I know, but Im just letting you know Ill keep my eye on him. Mom never made me promise that.

Don, a packaging associate at the La Crosse Tribune, said the book came to him in fits and starts, from the time in 2006 when he first thought it might be a good story to tell.

Well, the story was a nice snapshot, but I thought I wanted to give the whole picture, he said, adding that he was leaning more toward a memoir of his own military career, with the trip home with Alex as an element.

Dad kept on me for a while, but I pushed back, he said.

Movie amped up urgency

Dons decision to proceed with writing the book came quite by chance, after he saw the TV movie Taking Chance, based on an experience similar to his, a few years ago. The 2009 production starred Kevin Bacon as Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, who escorted the body of Pfc. Chance Phelps because they were from the same hometown.

Strobls encounter with a sergeant who told Strobl that he was accompanying his brother home struck a chord with Don.

I looked for the other sibling for years to no avail, he said, so he read Strobls own account of that transport in a quest for clues  only to discover that it was a fictional plot twist to an otherwise factual story.

OK, it was Hollywood playing with sympathies, Don recalled. I thought, Crap! Now I really need to tell the story. Originally, I thought I was going to tell this, then I thought of a memoir, then back to this.

The result is a detailed account in a simple narrative style that can make readers feel as if they are taking the journey along with the Gaunky boys.

Asked about that the simplicity of his prose, Gaunky said, It was a conscious decision to be able to explain what happened.

Many parts of the book inspire chills, such as when he was on duty Nov. 17, 2005, in Baghdad, reviewing reports on enemy encounters and happened upon one that he knew involved Alexs unit.

He left repeated texts and messages on Alexs phone to determine whether he had been involved. Repeatedly checking for a response and finding none, Don assumed Alex was asleep or on another mission. He discovery Alex had sustained a severe head injury came in an email from his dad, David, which began:

Hi Don,

This is a letter I hoped Id never have to write .

The email informed him that Alex was being moved to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a military hospital in Germany. After forwarding the message to his brother Dave, who was on his second Navy tour in the Persian Gulf, Don went outside.

I finally caught my breath, and the reality of what I was going to have to deal with in terms of my little brother being, at that point, severely injured, he wrote in the book. My arms shook violently. It wasnt a cold night either, so I knew enough that this was a sign of my body going into, most likely, a state of shock.

Don was able to call parents and learned that military officials were trying to expedite passports for them and Don's twin brother, Bob, so they could go to Landstuhl to be with Alex.

Before Don boarded a plane to Germany, a first sergeant told him she had received word that Alex had arrived at the hospital. When she asked about Alex's condition on Don's behalf, she was told to contact Alex's family, Don wrote in the book.

Last to know

Even though Don was closest to Alexs geographic location, basically, I was the last to find out he had died.

Technically, he didnt leave the theater alive  basically, he was brain dead, but they were keeping him alive with machines, Don said in the interview.

Don described his assignment as Alexs escort home as a matter of circumstance. They usually dont try to have family members do it because of the emotions, he said. I heard about a Gold Star father (and a service member himself) in the States who requested several times to take his son home, and it was denied.

In Gaunkys case, however, his superiors realized that he would be left to his own devices to arrange flights on civilian planes to get home. Because it was the holiday season, it would have been nearly impossible to get to Sparta in time for the funeral.

The easiest way was for me to fill (the escort) role and go with him, Don said.

In the book, Don lists many intricate details about the process, including efforts to acquire the uniform escorts are required to wear, observations at the airport and other fine points throughout the journey, including the fact that he had been upgraded to first class on the civilian flight, as Bacons character had been in Taking Chance.

Similar to the movie scenario, in which Chance Phelps mother and father each received a flag in memory of their son instead of just one between the two, the same was the case for Alexs parents.

At each stop and every turn, Don chronicles how carefully he followed procedures  as both a soldier and as a brother  to ensure that Alexs body was treated with reverence during the trip home. They arrived in Sparta on Thanksgiving Day.

He recalled during the interview that he was numb most of the time, with activities seeming to be in slow motion, because I was so busy on autopilot, there was no way for emotions.

He also outlines the familys discussion of funeral preparations, when Lori informed them that one song in particular had been selected in advance  picked by none other than Alex himself.

A premonition?

During Alexs last visit home, the song My Immortal had come on the radio, their mother told the family.

It was a beautiful but sad song, and at some point, I had to turn it off, Dons book quotes his mother as saying. I told Alex, Thats a beautiful song, but its a little bit too sad. It always makes me cry. After telling him that was the reason I had to turn it off, Alex said, Yeah, I know. I can hear it being played at my funeral.

Dons narrative continues, The room went silent for about a minute. No one said a word, but it felt as though everyone was in agreement on this. Alex, for whatever reason, felt as though he knew something. Therefore, we knew that the decision was made that this song would be played.

After the funeral, the procession of mourners encountered a stunning scene, Don writes.

What I saw, and everyone behind us saw, was something unexpected. On turning that corner, we found that all along both sides of the road were people holding up American flags. Parents. Kids. Veterans who broke out their uniforms and put them on in order to pay their respects.

During the interview, Don said he isnt sure exactly what Alex had aspired to for his life, although he had shown interest in construction and architecture.

He was in the Engineer Corps, and he was proud of it, Don said. I think he was interested in re-enlisting, maybe making a career of it.

Asked about the recent controversy over President Donald Trumps comment to Myeshia Johnson after her husband, Sgt. La David Johnson, was killed, that he knew what he signed up for, Don said opinions were divided even within the Gold Star community, which is made up of immediate family members of fallen U.S. troops.

Initially, they were split over whether it was appropriate or taken the wrong way, Don said.

After White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, himself a retired Marine general whose son, Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, addressed the issue, Gold Star families became more unified, Don said.

Gold Star families are not monolithic and often disagree on issues, he said. But when Trump came out again and defended himself, they (Gold Star families) turned on him.

Don talked of the strain on his family of having a band of four brothers in the military  he and Alex in the Army, and Dave and Bob in the Navy  including one period during which three were in the same region at the same time.

The family doesnt come from a strictly military tradition, he said, although his dad was an Army medic during the Vietnam War era but not in the war itself, and stepdad Brad Friske was in the Navy.

Family rolled the dice

Dad used to say we rolled the dice so many times, he recalled. My parents had to deal with six deployments.

Don suggested the scenario when his dad went home for lunch one day, and a phone message awaited him.

He probably thought, OK, this is bad  I just dont know which one, Don said.

Don has a tattoo on his right arm in memory of Alex. It depicts the traditional symbol of a Battlefield Cross, with a helmet atop a rifle, dog tags dangling and boots at the base. Dons tat is modified with wings on each side, as well as the symbol and the motto of his unit, Ne Desit Virtus, Latin for Let Valor Not Fail.

Don, who was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Ky., and later, to the 205th Military Intelligence Battalion at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, served two tours of duty in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.

After leaving the military, Don earned his bachelors in political science from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He is an advocate for veterans and survivor issues, with an emphasis on veteran suicides.

He is more comfortable talking about his brother and their journey home these days, although he often doesnt because it seems to make some people uncomfortable.

And some things haunt him, such as Taps and the 21-gun salute. I have a lot of a shivers with that. Its probably also hypersensitivity from the military.

Invoking his dads mantra again, Don said, We rolled the dice so many times, there always was a possibility.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ernst & Young LLP Tax leaders commented on today's release of the US Senate's tax reform summary.

Michael Mundaca, Ernst & Young LLP's National Tax Department Co-Director and former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy at the US Treasury Department, said:

"We are still at the beginning of the process, and there is a lot left to be done. Companies have only begun to analyze the impact of the proposals, and many are focused on evaluating the new international provisions. Companies need to model the effects of the overall package of proposals and see where they balance out. We need tax reform to make the US tax system more competitive, and CEOs have to look at the big picture in assessing the effects of the proposals on their companies."

Cathy Koch, EY Americas Tax Policy Leader and former Chief Policy Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader for Tax and Economics as well as former Tax Chief on the Finance Committee, said:

"It's crunch time. The drafting of the House and Senate plans has been a monumental undertaking and will impact taxpayers in every industry. As we look to action in the Senate, we have to remember that Senate Republicans have a very thin margin to work with, and they have to satisfy diverse constituencies, so the bill has to have broad appeal.

The Senate had the advantage of moving after the House, and differences in the Senate draft may reflect taxpayer reaction to the House bill. Key provisions in the corporate and foreign tax titles are different. And some of the provisions benefitting individual taxpayerslike the medical expense deduction, dependent care credit and current mortgage interest deductionwhich were removed or limited in the House Ways and Means bill are retained in the Senate Finance summary. All of these help with support for the bill but make the arithmetic more challenging.

They could be the reason for one of the most significant differences in the Senate bill  the delay in the corporate rate reduction.

It will be very interesting to see how the full House reacts to the Ways and Means product on the floor, given the differences in the Senate Finance proposal."

Ray Beeman, co-leader of the Washington Council Ernst & Young practice and former Tax Counsel and Special Advisor for Tax Reform with the US House Committee on Ways and Means and former Legislative Council for Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation, said:

"The approval of the Republican tax bill by the House Ways and Means Committee and the release of the Senate Finance Committee plan are both pivotal moments in the tax reform process. While various aspects of the plans are similar, the Senate tax reform proposal differs from the House in significant ways that are possibly affected by limitations imposed by the budget process. There are still several key issues to work through like lower business income tax rates, international tax changes and base broadening, but we expect it to be a fluid process with an aggressive year-end deadline and an even tighter margin for Republicans in the Senate than in the House."

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP, a member firm of EY serving clients in the US.

SOURCE EY

Related Links

http://www.ey.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In response to a new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) global alert released this week, the international humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger issued an urgent call for political leadership to end the conflict-driven hunger crisis in South Sudan. Although famine is no longer occurring in the two counties where it was declared earlier this year, acute food insecurity is now affecting 1.4 million more people than at the same time last year, and has been classified at emergency levels (IPC Phase 4) in fairly stable parts of the country not directly impacted by armed conflict. According to the IPC alert, in the worst-case scenario, famine is possible in 2018 in multiple locations throughout the country.

"It is not unusual to see seasonal spikesor declinesin levels of hunger in different parts of the country," said Action Against Hunger's Country Director in South Sudan, Guy Halsey. "But what we are seeing is devastating. Prevalence of acute malnutrition has exceeded the emergency threshold throughout the country. Persistent conflictcompounded by economic instability and climate changehas eroded people's livelihoods and forced millions of people to flee."

The IPC alertreleased by the government of South Sudan, several UN agencies, and humanitarian partners, including Action Against Hungerwarns that 45 percent of South Sudan's population will face severe food insecurity during the harvest season this year, from October to December, when food is usually most plentiful. In early 2018, the lean season (the period between harvests when food supplies run low), is expected to begin three months earlier than usual, putting already vulnerable people at even greater risk.

A surge of international humanitarian assistance after the famine declaration earlier this year improved food security and saved the lives of malnourished children in the areas of Unity, Jonglei, and Northern Bahr el Ghazal that were then of greatest concern.

"This progress is very fragile and dependent on humanitarian assistance," said Halsey. "We need resources not only to provide lifesaving treatment for acutely malnourished children, but also to address the underlying causes of hunger. People need help to rebuild their livelihoods and to ensure reliable access to affordable food, health care, clean water, sanitation, and markets for the long term."

Severe shortfalls in funding for the international humanitarian response resulted in delays, limited coverage of services, and shortages of essential relief commodities. In fact, funding for humanitarian emergencies is often short-term and does not allow for sustained programming that helps communities recoverin South Sudan or in other countries experiencing severe crises.

Mobilizing resources for immediate, lifesaving interventions and longer-term recovery efforts in South Sudan are urgent prioritiesbut Action Against Hunger warns there is an even more urgent need for viable political solutions to end the crisis.

"Humanitarian efforts have kept people from catastrophe and alleviated suffering," said Action Against Hunger's East Africa Regional Director, Hajir Maalim. "But humanitarian aid cannot end the conflict in South Sudan. Without a political solution, hunger will worsen and persist, despite our efforts."

Action Against Hunger is meeting urgent humanitarian needs of populations in Jonglei, Northern Bahr el Ghazal, and Warrap. The organization is reaching more than 580,400 people with lifesaving emergency food and nutrition programs, as well as support for livelihoods and water and sanitation interventions. Action Against Hunger's multisector emergency team is supporting emergency assessments and delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance in parts of the country where needs are most urgent, including the counties of Ayod and Pagiur in Jonglei, where no other humanitarian actors are present.

SOURCE Action Against Hunger USA

Related Links

http://www.actionagainsthunger.org


A top-notch panel of judges from the German Design Council - the top German authority for brand and design - has once again honored a product from Borgward. The Borgward BXi7, an all-electric concept SUV, has won the German Design Award for 2018. This award has also previously been presented to three other Borgward models: the Borgward BX7, the Borgward BX5, and the BX6 SUV coupe concept.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/599949/German_Design_Award.jpg )



The German Design Council seeks to promote innovative products and projects that play a pioneering role in both German and international design. This means that the Borgward design style, which has been described as "innovative" and "typically German" on many occasions, has received official praise from the highest authority. The Design Council, which consists of high-profile experts, was established as a foundation in 1953 at the initiative of the German Bundestag. Today it is considered one of the world's leading centers of expertise for design communication and brand management.

"This honor for our Borgward BXi7 electric model in 2017 is already the fourth time we have received the renowned German Design Award," said Anders Warming, Global Design President at Borgward Group AG, at the company's headquarters in Stuttgart. "We regard this as an additional incentive to continue creating automotive design that exemplifies the paradigm shift that is taking the auto industry toward electric mobility. We have also shown where this path can take us in the future through another pioneering vehicle, the Borgward Isabella Concept."

The award-winning model from Borgward

The characteristic exterior design of the BORGWARD BXi7 was created at the design center in Renningen near Stuttgart. It reflects the fresh and future-oriented spirit of the Borgward ePROPULSION variable electric drive platform.

The electric version of the vehicle differs from the normal Borgward BX7, which is powered by a combustion engine, in a number of significant details. For example, the exterior boasts the exclusive LIGHTNING BLUE paint job, which will be reserved for all Borgward concept vehicles featuring an electric drive system in the future. Other exclusive design features in the BXi7 include the roof rails with their seamless transition into the roof spoiler, the front and rear bumpers, the rear diffuser, and the aerodynamically optimized wheels. The exterior design is rounded out by the blue color applications in SKY COLOUR and the signature LED daytime running lights.

The interior of the BXi7 is also upgraded by distinctive design features. These features include large decorative elements in LIGHTNING BLUE, discreet trim, and the typical BORGWARD diamond-shaped seat stitching in SKY COLOUR. All of them send a clear message that this is a different kind of drive system. This impression is enhanced by the newly designed gear selector lever in the center console and the two large LCD displays on the dashboard.

Ideal for daily use, thanks to the innovative electric drive system

The Borgward BXi7 concept SUV, which is close to the eventual series production model, is ideally suited for daily use thanks to its battery, which was developed jointly with Borgward's strategic partner LG Electronics. In the next development steps, the BXi7's electric range is scheduled to be increased to as much as 500 kilometers, depending on how the vehicle is driven. The charging cycle to 80 percent of capacity takes only 30 minutes at a fast-charging station.

The eAWD electronic control system and electric motors at both the front and the rear axles turn the SUV into an all-wheel-drive vehicle with a fully variable torque distribution system. The two permanent magnet synchronous motors with integrated converters have a combined output of 200 kW/272 hp, deliver a maximum torque of 400 Newton meters, and unite, in line with the driver's wishes, sporty performance and handling with the highest degree of efficiency.



Further information

BORGWARD GROUP AG

Kriegsbergstrasse 11

70174 Stuttgart, Germany

Marco Dalan

Head of Global Communications

e-mail: [email protected]

Tel. +49(0)711-365-101-041

http://www.borgward.com



SOURCE BORGWARD Group AG
LAKE CITY, Fla., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First Federal Bancorp, Inc. ("FFBI"), the holding company of First Federal Bank of Florida ("First Federal") is pleased to announce the signing of a definitive merger agreement under which FFBI will acquire Coastal Banking Company, Inc. (OTCQX: CBCO), the holding company of CBC National Bank ("CBC").

CBC, is a $650.8 million-asset company headquartered in Fernandina Beach, Florida. CBC currently has full-service bank branches in Florida and South Carolina, with residential lending offices and small business lending offices in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, and Maryland. This agreement would expand First Federal's bank branch presence to Ocala, Florida, and South Carolina, and increase First Federal's influence in Nassau County. First Federal will also gain residential, SBA, and USDA lending offices across Florida and in multiple states.

Under terms of the definitive merger agreement between FFBI and CBCO, FFBI will pay $21.50 per share in cash for each CBCO common share and stock option outstanding in a transaction valued at $83.2 million plus the repayment of $8.2 million of debt. The merger agreement has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both FFBI and CBCO and is subject to CBCO shareholder approval, customary closing conditions, and regulatory approval and is expected to close late in the first quarter of 2018.

"We are delighted to announce this partnership with CBC National Bank," said Keith Leibfried, President and CEO of First Federal. "CBC has built a strong reputation in the markets they serve and we look forward to continuing that tradition. We share common values and traits with CBC and want to extend a warm welcome to CBC employees, customers, and the communities they serve."

"This partnership with First Federal is a great fit for our customers and the communities we serve," said Mike Sanchez, Chairman & CEO of Coastal Banking Company, Inc. "Our team will be able to build on the strength and stability of First Federal and work together in providing our customers with the convenience of 16 additional branch locations and a greater level of service and benefits."

Hovde Group LLC served as financial advisor to FFBI and Smith Mackinnon, PA and Reznicsek, Shaw, Shaffer & Jeans provided legal counsel to FFBI. The Burke Group LLC served as financial advisor to CBCO and Bryan Cave, LLP served as legal counsel.

First Federal Bank of Florida is a community bank founded in the heart of North Florida in 1962. Today, First Federal is a $1.5 billion-asset institution offering a full line of personal and business financial solutions, loans, and services from Florida's Panhandle to the First Coast. First Federal is a mutual savings bank and continues to receive a "5-Star, Superior" financial rating from BauerFinancial, Inc., of Coral Gables, FL. For more information, visit www.ffbf.com.

Important Information for Investors and Shareholders

This communication relates to the proposed merger transaction involving FFBI, First Federal, CBCO, and CBC and does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation to buy any securities or solicitation of any vote or proxy. A definitive proxy statement will be mailed to shareholders of CBCO. Before making any voting or investment decision, investors and security holders of CBCO are urged to read the proxy statement and other documents in their entirety when they become available because they will contain important information about FFBI, First Federal, CBCO and CBC. Investors and security holders will be able to obtain free copies of the proxy statement (when available) and other documents from CBCO, copies of which will be available free of charge on CBCO's website or by contacting CBCO.

FFBI, First Federal, CBCO and CBC, their respective directors and executive officers and other members of management and employees may be considered participants in the solicitation of proxies in connection with the proposed transaction. Information on the directors and executive officers of CBCO is set forth in its proxy statement for its 2017 annual meeting of shareholders, which was posted on CBCO's website. Other information regarding the participants and the proxy solicitation and a description of their direct and indirect interests, by security holdings or otherwise, will be contained in the proxy statement and other relevant materials to be posted on CBCO's website when they become available.

Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is intended to be protected by the safe harbor provided by the same. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of the words "anticipate," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "target," and words of similar import. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts but instead express only management's beliefs regarding future results or events, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of management's control. It is possible that actual results and outcomes may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results or outcomes indicated in these forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties to which these statements are subject include, but are not limited to, the following:; the timing to consummate the proposed merger; the risk that a condition to closing of the proposed merger may not be satisfied; the parties' ability to achieve the synergies and value creation contemplated by the proposed merger; the parties' ability to promptly and effectively integrate the businesses of First Federal and Coastal; the diversion of management time on issues related to the merger; the failure to consummate or delay in consummating the merger for other reasons; changes in laws or regulations; and changes in general economic conditions. No assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of First Federal and Coastal. Forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this communication, and neither First Federal nor Coastal undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or conditions after the date hereof.

SOURCE Coastal Banking Company, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.coastalbanking.com


DRAPER, Utah, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Flexpoint Sensor Systems, Inc. (FLXT) today announced it will hold a corporate update conference call at 4:05 pm EST/1:05 pm PST on Thursday, November 16, 2017. The company will discuss financial results that will be filed earlier in the week and recent business developments.

To participate in the call please dial 530-881-1212 and enter ID pin number 615-253-385#.

Over the weekend, on November 3, 2017, Flexpoint attended the Uptick Newswire 1st Annual Uppie Awards where they went home a winner in the Best Outstanding Manufactured Products category. They were also nominated in two other categories including Best Scientific Breakthrough and Best Medical Technologies for Humans or Animals.

Please visit http://www.flexpoint.com/ for more information.

About Flexpoint Sensor Systems, Inc.

Flexpoint Sensor Systems, Inc. (FLXT) is an innovative technology firm specializing in developing products that feature the Company's patented Bend Sensor and related technology. The Bend Sensor is a groundbreaking sensing solution that is revolutionizing applications in the automotive, safety, medical and industrial industries. The Bend Sensor's single-layer, thin film construction cuts costs and mechanical bulk while introducing a range of functions and stylistic design possibilities that have never before been available in sensing technology. Flexpoint's technology and expertise have been recognized by the world's elite business and academic innovators for over 17 years. The company is setting a new standard for sensing solutions in the "smart" age of technology.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that certain statements in this release are "forward-looking statements" and involve both known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Such uncertainties include, among others, certain risks associated with the operation of the company described above. The Company's actual results could differ materially from expected results.

Contact Information:

Flexpoint Sensor Systems

Clark Mower, President

801-568-5111

Brokers and Analysts

Chesapeake Group

410-825-3930

SOURCE Flexpoint Sensor Systems, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.flexpoint.com


"In giving this donation, I want to thank Americans with all my heart for rescuing us during the war," Darty said. "The gratitude I feel to these men is beyond words. They were saviors, doling out sweets to half-starved, war-worn children who had almost given up hope of freedom. That is why I want to support American veteransand why I support America. I hope my donation inspires others to do the same."

Darty's donation will support two key WWP programs: Warrior Care Network, which connects wounded veterans and their families with individualized mental health care, and the Independence Program, which works with warriors with moderate to severe brain injury, spinal cord injury, or other neurological conditions to ensure each wounded veteran can live as independently as possible.

"We are incredibly grateful to Mr. Darty for his generosity, which will enable us to reach even more veterans, particularly those most in need," said WWP CEO Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mike Linnington. "We serve the most critical needs of our nation's wounded heroes, including those who live with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Thanks to generous supporters like Mr. Darty, we provide them crucial support services free of charge, making a tremendous difference in the lives of wounded veterans of this generation and their families."

Holocaust story illuminates strong ties to America

Darty was born in 1934 to a Jewish family that had fled the pogroms in Poland for France, hoping for safety there. With the German invasion of France in 1940, however, the family was again at risk. An older brother was sent on the first convoy to Auschwitz, but fortunately survived. Darty's mother was not so lucky when, on July 16, 1942, the French police led a big round-up of Jews. At 6 am that morning, Darty recalls the police came to the family's apartment. Darty, age 7, was able to escape to an aunt's house that was considered safe, but his mother was sent to Auschwitz and likely died three weeks later. Darty spent the next few years living in foster homes on the outskirts of Paris, afraid and living on borrowed time. The day American troops came ashore at Normandy in June 1944, Darty finally felt the relief of freedom.

That was the beginning of his connections to America. Since then, he and his wife, also a Holocaust survivor, have wintered in South Florida ever since his retirement 26 years agoto which he says, "I have had the chance to meet many American people who I am lucky enough to call my friends. First, Americans saved us, and then 50 years later they welcomed us."

Darty hopes his donation will deepen that trans-Atlantic connection, inspiring other families throughout Europe to help American veterans in deference to the shared history of the Allied forces of World War II.

About Wounded Warrior Project

Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) connects, serves, and empowers wounded warriors. Read more at http://newsroom.woundedwarriorproject.org/about-us.

SOURCE Wounded Warrior Project

Related Links

https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org


David Giles , U.S. Navy Veteran  Served on nuclear submarines primarily as a Machinist Mate and Engineering Laboratory Technician, responsible for the operations, maintenance, radiological control and chemistry associated with a nuclear reactor. Giles built on his Navy nuclear experience by starting his career at Vogtle 1 & 2 in 2011, then transferring to Vogtle 3 & 4, where he now serves as a Senior Engineer in Field Engineering.

Eric Jackson , U.S. Navy Veteran  Served as Third Class Petty Officer (E-4) Machinist Mate onboard USS Saipan LHA-2 in a role equivalent to a System Operator at Plant Vogtle. Currently works on the Vogtle 3 & 4 project providing support to engineers in the design department.

Supporting the U.S. military is also a focus for Georgia Power in every community it serves. A recent initiative spearheaded by Georgia Power employee Sarah Beth Todd is featured in a new video released this week by Georgia Power. Working with employees, friends and family, as well as local students throughout the state, Todd collected more than 1,200 letters of thanks for military service members. Click here to watch the video.

Assisting veterans

Approximately one in 10 Georgia Power employees are veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. In addition to a concentrated veteran recruitment effort, Georgia Power's Military Veterans in Power (MVP) internal employee resource group brings company executives and a diverse group of veterans from across Georgia Power together to help veterans transition from the military to the civilian workforce. The group also focuses on charitable activities and volunteering with organizations that support veterans and their families across the state.

Programs, partnerships and accolades

Georgia Power's parent company, Southern Company, is a founding partner of the Troops to Energy Jobs program, a recruiting source that links veterans to job openings in the energy industry, and actively recruits members of the Navy as a Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program partner. Through this program, Georgia Power has been able to transition veterans directly from military bases including Fort Stewart near Savannah to positions within the company. Southern Company is consistently recognized for its veterans programs, including being named to G.I. Jobs' annual Top 100 Military Friendly Employer listing and as a "Best for Vets Employer" by Military Times EDGE for multiple years.

About Georgia Power

Georgia Power is the largest electric subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), America's premier energy company. Value, Reliability, Customer Service and Stewardship are the cornerstones of the company's promise to 2.5 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties. Committed to delivering clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy at rates below the national average, Georgia Power maintains a diverse, innovative generation mix that includes nuclear, coal and natural gas, as well as renewables such as solar, hydroelectric and wind. Georgia Power focuses on delivering world-class service to its customers every day and the company is consistently recognized by J.D. Power and Associates as an industry leader in customer satisfaction. For more information, visit www.GeorgiaPower.com and connect with the company on Facebook (Facebook.com/GeorgiaPower), Twitter (Twitter.com/GeorgiaPower) and Instagram (Instagram.com/ga_power).

SOURCE Georgia Power

Related Links

http://www.georgiapower.com


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid a "new normal" of the economy since the beginning of the 12th Five-year Plan period, the Chinese government has pressed ahead with its policies to shut down outdated production facilities, the practices which have depressed traditional industries like steel, nonferrous metal and building and then reduced demand for sawing machines and bi-metal band saw blades.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/921089



The country's sales of bi-metal band saw blade fell from 53.50 million meters in 2011 to 46.91 million meters in 2015, representing a CAGR of negative 2.6%. As infrastructure construction and manufacturing picked up between 2016 and 2017, the bi-metal band saw blade industry grew slightly with sales reaching 49.72 million meters in 2016 and expected to attain 52.96 million meters throughout the year 2017, up 6.0% and 6.5% from a year ago, respectively.



Even so, it is predicted that the bi-metal band saw blade industry will still maintain a downward trajectory as the Chinese economy will fall modestly and the manufacturing will face greater uncertainty. The market demand is expected to stand at 47.87 million meters by 2021, an annual decline of 0.8% from 2016.



Over 60% of the Chinese bi-metal band saw blade market is seized by local brands which focus on mid and low-range products and are represented by Bichamp Cutting Technology (Hunan) and Benxi Tool; the Chinese high-end product market is partitioned by foreign brands represented by U.S. LENOX, Japan's Amada and Swedish BAHCO. Amada has a factory for the production of bi-metal band saw blade in Lianyungang city (Jiangsu) and BAHCO in Kunshan city (Jiangsu).



Among local brands, Benxi Tool has the largest capacity, capable of annually producing about 15.05 million meters of bi-metal band saw blade, primarily branded by LIONS, FORK, SHARE, and ROMANCE, all middle and low-end brands; Bichamp Cutting Technology (Hunan), with annual capacity of 14.24 million-meter bi-metal band saw blade (2017), provides a full range of products. Bichamp Cutting Technology (Hunan) holds a safe lead over other local brands by comprehensive strength. The company achieved revenue of RMB245 million (up 2.5% year on year) from sales of 10.3103 million meters of bi-metal band saw blade in 2016.



China Bi-Metal Band Saw Blade Industry Report, 2017-2021 focuses on the followings:

Bi-metal band saw blade industry in China (definition & classification, development history, industry chain, industry policies, development trends, etc.);

Bi-metal band saw blade-related industries including high-speed steel and sawing machine (market size, competitive landscape, import & export);

Global bi-metal band saw blade industry (market size, competitive landscape, development trends, etc.);

Chinese bi-metal band saw blade market (market size, import & export, competitive landscape, etc.);

3 domestic high-speed steel producers (Tiangong International, Heye Special Steel, Jiangsu Feida) (profile, financial position, products, production & sales, latest developments, etc.);

8 foreign players (DOALL, Lenox Tools, Starrett, Amada, BAHCO, WIKUS, EBERLE, and RONTGEN) and 6 Chinese bi-metal band saw blade producers (Bichamp Cutting Technology (Hunan), Benxi Tool, Hunan Techamp Saw & Manufacture, Benxi Bi-Metal Saw, Dalian Bi-Metal S&T, and Dalian Special Steel) (profile, financial position, products, production & sales, R&D, latest developments, etc.);

7 sawing machine manufacturers (Zhejiang Julihuang Sawing Machine Group, Shijiazhuang WinFox Machinery, Zhejiang Weiye Sawing Machine, Zhejiang Chendiao Machinery, Zhejiang Aolinfa Machine, Zhejiang Hujin Machine Tool, and Zhejiang Hengyu Sawing Machine (profile, financial position, products, production & sales, R&D, latest developments, etc.)



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/921089



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


CLEVELAND, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NeverBounce, the world's fastest-growing email verification and list cleaning service, is excited to announce that it now supports over 50,000 worldwide users. Key enterprise partnerships, public and private companies, nonprofits, and SMBs alike are all helping drive unparalleled growth, doubling revenue and profitability in 2017.

"As a self-funded company, reaching this milestone in under three years confirms that we are delivering on our core values," said Brad Owen, CEO and Founder of NeverBounce. "With the swelling demand for email verification, we are positioned to seamlessly integrate our solutions for businesses in order to solve the issue of deliverability. We now provide all major connectivity methods including JavaScript, Webhook, API, as well as direct integrations with leading email platforms and marketing services." To learn more about our available features, click here.

"Though we're proud of this year's growth and expansion, we're not resting on our laurels," said Owen. "We're expanding our enterprise service offerings, as well as rapidly adding new features and email verification software integrations, allowing our customers easier access to their favorite platforms."

NeverBounce guarantees the removal of up to 99.9% of all bounced emails from your list.

Register Now for a free analysis.

About NeverBounce

Over 50,000 users trust NeverBounce for their real-time email verification and list cleaning services. NeverBounce ensures you reach your customers by dramatically increasing the delivery of your emails to the inbox. By removing outdated email addresses and checking if an email is valid, NeverBounce improves deliverability and helps businesses adhere to strict email provider guidelines. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, a dedicated team of engineers are available to assist with integrations.

Learn more by visiting http://www.NeverBounce.com, following NeverBounce on Twitter, or connecting on Facebook.

SOURCE NeverBounce

Related Links

http://www.neverbounce.com


DALLAS, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Associates at Golden Events Group are determined to support a different nonprofit every month. The firm's Director discussed the importance of organizational goals, and the causes that the company has already supported.

Golden Events Group

"Our team is big on being able to give to the community. We know our business would not run without community support, so whenever we can give back we definitely want to!" declared Kaitlin, Golden Events Group's Director of Operations. "I think it also creates a culture of positivity and human betterment by helping our people feel like they are helping others and benefiting the less fortunate."

Kaitlin's perspective on generosity has encouraged Golden Events Group team members to set a goal for giving to one nonprofit every month. The company has a specific charitable events committee that oversees the process of finding nonprofits and foundations that could use the firm's support. Then, the group commits to donating time, money, items, or a combination of these things.

"I think allowing the team to be a part of something bigger and add value to other people and organizations helps them feel a sense of fulfillment," Kaitlin stated. "As a team, we are very motivated by the thought of volunteering to help different organizations and giving back to the Dallas community."

Golden Events Group's Director Shows How Goals Make a Positive Impact on Community Giveback

The Director sets goals for every area of the company that matters, including sales, revenue, growth, and even number of associates promoted to leadership positions. This goal-oriented approach also applies to charitable giving and the amount of time, money, and items donated to community giveback efforts.

"Setting a goal to support one cause a month has been very motivating for our team, and we hope to invest in a couple new groups this year based on some new team member interests," Kaitlin shared. "The organizations we've been able to help the most on a recurring basis are the Ronald McDonald House, our local Women's Shelter, and the Dallas school system. We chose these due to the specific interests of our team members, but also because every time we go the kids and women are so thankful and really get a lot of enjoyment out of our time there."

The firm's giveback efforts include making Valentine's Day cards and hosting a movie night for families at the Ronald McDonald House and donating school supplies. Also, the team raised $300 for Susan G. Komen and have donated over $1,000 worth of items to the women's shelter.

"We truly appreciate the success we've enjoyed by being a part of the Dallas community, and we're excited about giving back and donating whatever is needed to the worthwhile causes in our area," explained Kaitlin. "I'm looking forward to continuing our efforts with the groups we already support and identifying new volunteer opportunities."

About Golden Events Group, Inc.

Golden Events Group, Inc. is known for memorable dynamic sales promotions that drive awareness, buyer loyalty, and rapid growth in new markets. The firm's advertising experts manage this through in-depth research and analysis, as well as flawless campaign launch. Team members at Golden Events Group, Inc. know how to fully engage the public to boost revenue for brands. This has led to impressive growth, with the firm poised for further expansion. To learn more about their services, visit goldeneventsgroupinc.com.

Related Images

image1.jpg

Christmas Angels

image2.jpg

Valentine Day Cards

image3.jpeg

CDP - Back To School Donations

image4.jpg

Ronald McDonald Donations

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJWrOyEQVbw

SOURCE Golden Events Group

Related Links

http://goldeneventsgroupinc.com


Homes in Florida are in danger of collapsing into the ocean due to beach erosion elevated by Hurricane Nicole, the U.S. now has a record numbe
MELVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, has announced that it will showcase its eyecare devices and teleretinal solution at the American Academy of Ophthalmology 2017 meeting, where ophthalmologists will have the opportunity to see how the Canon eyecare product portfolio can help improve their practice workflows and help them meet the retinal imaging needs of their patients. This year's show will be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana from Saturday, November 11 through Tuesday, November 14.

On display in the Canon U.S.A. booth (#3306) will be the CR-2 PLUS AF Digital Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera and imageSPECTRUM Image Management System Software1, an intuitive software solution offering image management and portability to help improve workflow (sold separately). By utilizing this solution, eyecare professionals using either the Windows 7 with SQL 2012 or Windows 10 with SQL 2016 operating system are able to perform retinal screenings and then quickly transmit the images to doctors' offices, both domestic and overseas2, to assist in making a diagnosis. The imageSPECTRUM software includes a set of digital RGB filters to assist with the viewing of suspect pathologies and an opacity suppression tool to help provide clear images of the eye.

Featuring advanced Canon EOS optics and CMOS image-capture technology, the CR-2 PLUS AF camera features a customized 20.2 megapixel digital camera. With the press of a button, users can switch between auto and manual focusing for ultimate control and ease-of-use. The Auto Capture function can help retinal imaging professionals determine the appropriate moment to capture an image by analyzing when exposure and alignment are ideal. The CR-2 PLUS AF camera includes a non-invasive Fundus Autofluorescence imaging mode that provides the reviewer with the ability to quickly assess the condition of the RPE layer.

Another device on display that will be of interest to ophthalmologists in attendance is the CX-1 Hybrid Digital Mydriatic/Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera. The CX-1 allows users to capture Fluorescein Angiography images using either the Mydriatic or Non-Mydriatic alignment mode  both of which can be enabled with the switch of a button. High quality images are available in either mode, as well as a 2x mode, which allows the user to magnify the image by automatically cropping out the peripheral edges to enlarge the examined area. The CX-1 offers five photography modes: Color, Red-Free, Cobalt, Fluorescein Angiography (FA), and Fundus Autofluorescence (FAF).

Also among the items in the Canon booth will be:

CR-2 AF Digital Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera: The CR-2 AF incorporates Canon EOS technology and provides superb retinal images under just about any condition. With integrated AutoExposure, AutoFocus, AutoFundus, AutoCapture and Image Error Detection, Low-Flash and Quick Preview modes, this retinal camera is easy to operate. Enhanced from the previous CR-2 Digital Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera, the CR-2 AF features Canon contrast enhancement technology never before offered in a Canon retinal camera to emphasize the differences in "redness" and "brightness" of blood vessel structures relative to their surroundings.

The CR-2 AF incorporates Canon EOS technology and provides superb retinal images under just about any condition. With integrated AutoExposure, AutoFocus, AutoFundus, AutoCapture and Image Error Detection, Low-Flash and Quick Preview modes, this retinal camera is easy to operate. Enhanced from the previous CR-2 Digital Non-Mydriatic Retinal Camera, the CR-2 AF features Canon contrast enhancement technology never before offered in a Canon retinal camera to emphasize the differences in "redness" and "brightness" of blood vessel structures relative to their surroundings. RK-F2 Full Auto Ref-Keratometer : Including a Full Auto Mode which allows professionals to automatically align, focus, and acquire a reading for one eye and continue to the opposite eye to perform the same function  all with one touch of a button. This feature contributes to a comfortable, efficient screening process for the patient.

: Including a Full Auto Mode which allows professionals to automatically align, focus, and acquire a reading for one eye and continue to the opposite eye to perform the same function  all with one touch of a button. This feature contributes to a comfortable, efficient screening process for the patient. TX-20 Full Auto Tonometer: Designed to be compact and lightweight, the non-contact tonometer is easy to transport and install. With soft air puffs, the TX-20 tonometer easily measures Intraocular Pressure (IOP), enhancing patient comfort and allowing eyecare professionals to perform simple eye exams efficiently. The TX-20 Tonometer, as the RK-F2 Keratometer, also offers one-touch Full Auto Mode to automatically align, focus, and capture readings.

For more information about Canon eye care devices and solutions, please visit http://www.usa.canon.com/eye-care.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean markets. With approximately $29 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE: CAJ), ranks third overall in U.S. patents granted in 2016. Canon U.S.A. is committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based service and support for all of the products it distributes in the United States. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. In 2014, the Canon Americas Headquarters secured LEED Gold certification, a recognition for the design, construction, operations and maintenance of high-performance green buildings. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss and follow us on Twitter @CanonUSA. For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].

Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Availability and specifications subject to change without notice.

1 Requires Windows 7 with SQL 2012 or Windows 10 with SQL 2016 operating system. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

2 Requires internet access and imageSPECTRUM Image Management System software to both send and receive data.

Canon U.S.A. Web site:

http://www.usa.canon.com



For sales information/customer support:

1-800-OK-CANON

SOURCE Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Related Links

http://www.usa.canon.com


LONDON, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4985956

This report provides understanding of the patients affected, diagnosed patterns, treatment trends, unmet medical needs and current developments for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) . It enables understanding of the historical and forecasted epidemiological data for the diagnosed prevalent cases of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) for 7 major markets.

The market outlook also provides understanding of country specific revenue and share by analyzing performance of the current therapies and thorough potential uptake of new products. Additionally, the Report highlights the frontrunners, the drivers and barriers for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) market, as well as treatment algorithm, current treatments & advancements are included. The chapters including marketed products highlights the advantages and disadvantages associated with therapies associated with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) , providing an in-depth analysis of emerging therapies which will create an impact through their launch.

According to DelveInsight, the forecasted patient population of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) for the year 2025 will be XX, increasing at a CAGR of XX% from 2015 to 2025 and the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) 7MM market size is estimated to be USD XX by 2025. The DelveInsight Report will help in enhanced understanding of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) market from inside out, with transparency into the calculated patient forecasting data and estimated market size.

Key Coverage

 Understanding historical and forecasted epidemiological data for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) covering 7MM from 2015-2025.

 Segment level epidemiology and market split for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) .

 The thorough assessment of competitors, market, current trends & treatments along with upcoming treatments for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) .

 The Report also covers the market size for 7MM (United States, EU 5 (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan) from 2015-2025 and detailed historical and forecasted Human Papillomavirus (HPV) market trends.

 Thorough market distribution based on market share for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) .

Reasons to buy

 The report will help in developing business strategies by understanding trends shaping and driving the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) market.

 To understand the future market competition in the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) market and Insightful review of the key market drivers and barriers.

 Organize sales and marketing efforts by identifying the best opportunities for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in US, Europe (Germany, Spain, Italy, France and United Kingdom) and Japan.

 Identification of strong upcoming players in market will help in devising strategies that will help in getting ahead of competitors.

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4985956

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

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UPPSALA, Sweden, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IAR Systems, the future-proof supplier of software tools and services for embedded development, launches a new version of the functional safety edition of the complete development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RX family of microcontrollers (MCUs). The new version integrates IAR Systems' add-on tools C-STAT and C-RUN for powerful static and runtime analysis. In addition, support for the Renesas RXv2 CPU core is now available.

Functional safety is one of the most important features in many embedded systems and companies must consider development tools as an integral part of the system certification. The proof of compliance for the tools increases cost and time of development. To solve this problem, IAR Systems provides a certified version of the complete compiler and debugger toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for RX.

The build chain of IAR Embedded Workbench for RX has been tested and approved according to the requirements on support tools put forth in the international umbrella standard for functional safety IEC 61508, as well as the standard for automotive safety-related systems ISO 26262. The latest version also adds certification according to IEC 62304, defining the life cycle requirements for medical device software. IAR Embedded Workbench for RX is certified by TUV SUD.

The added support for C-RUN and C-STAT enables complete code control through the entire development cycle. C-STAT performs static analysis that can detect defects, bugs, and security vulnerabilities as defined by CERT and the Common Weakness Enumeration, as well as help keeping code compliant to standards like MISRA C:2012/2004 and MISRA C++:2008. C-RUN performs runtime analysis by checking application execution directly within the development environment. It features arithmetic checks, advanced bounds checking, and heap checking. Thanks to the complete integration of the tools in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE, developers get up and running quickly with the analysis.

IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RX provides a complete IDE including the IAR C/C++ Compiler with Renesas RX ABI compliance, an assembler, a linker and the C-SPY Debugger. The latest certified version adds IDE enhancements and new tutorials for boosted user experience.

The certified version is delivered with a functional safety certificate, as well as a safety report from TUV SUD and a Safety Manual. With the certified tools, IAR Systems provides a Functional Safety Support and Update Agreement with guaranteed support for the sold version for the longevity of the contract. In addition to prioritized technical support, the agreement includes access to validated service packs and regular reports of known deviations and problems. More information is available at www.iar.com/safety.

Editor's Note: IAR Systems, IAR Embedded Workbench, IAR Connect, C-SPY, C-RUN, C-STAT, IAR Visual State, IAR KickStart Kit, I-jet, I-jet Trace, I-scope, IAR Academy, IAR, and the logotype of IAR Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by IAR Systems AB. All other products names are trademarks of their respective owners.

IAR Systems contacts

AnnaMaria Tahlen

Media Relations

IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: [email protected]

Stefan Skarin

CEO

IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/iar-systems/r/iar-systems-adds-static-and-runtime-analysis-to-functional-safety-tools-for-renesas-rx-mcus,c2387226

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE IAR Systems

Related Links

http://www.iar.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- As we commemorate Veterans Day 2017, it gives us great pride at VETS Indexes to salute all our United States Military Veterans.

We offer our genuine gratitude and thank these brave men and women for tirelessly serving our great nation both near and far, so that we may live in freedom. It also gives us great satisfaction to wish the United States Marine Corps a happy 242nd birthday on this most fitting day. The service and sacrifices made by all veterans from each branch of service is to be commended with reverence and appreciation.

"On this Veterans Day, we thank all the men and women who have selflessly served our country," said Karl Snyder, Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist of VETS Indexes. "As a Marine Corps veteran, I am proud to demonstrate that companies who hire and professionally develop our brothers and sisters in uniform benefit tremendously in their enterprise value."

VETS Indexes is built on the premise that companies who consistently employ, develop and support our military veterans reap the benefit of their specialized skill sets, mission-critical approach and strategic training to achieve greater enterprise performance.

ABOUT VETS Indexes: VETS Indexes is an independent provider of custom indexes within the Environmental, Social and Governance arena. Drawing on deep and broad industry experience, we construct and disseminate thematic impact indexes for investors, exchanges and asset managers which serve as the underlying portfolios for financial products.

As the world's first resource for US Military Veterans' themed indexes, our mission is to provide innovative solutions that recognize the value created by the mission critical mindset, unique skill sets and specialized training that US Military Veterans bring to the workplace. Additionally, our Mission includes a commitment to always donate a significant portion of our net profits to charitable organizations that support the wellness of our Military Veterans and their families.

"SERVING THOSE WHO SERVED" - VETS Indexes provides a social impact via those public companies that support the hiring and professional development of our military veterans.

Learn more about us at VETSIndexes.com and follow us on social media channels via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

PR Contact:

Nicholas Antaki

Director of Marketing

VETS Indexes

E-Mail: [email protected]

Phone: 914-837-1860

SOURCE VETS Indexes
The Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar is an important industry event that attracts senior business leaders and investors to present and discuss market opportunities and challenges. "The importance of the seminar continues to grow, as the lasers and photonics world is changing faster than evermore acquisitions, new markets emerging, and new applications wherever you turn. And it's continued to be a wild ride between political turmoil in the US and Europe, and strong economic growth worldwide," said Conard Holton, editor in chief of Laser Focus World .

The seminar agenda will include two keynote speakers. Scott Keeney, President and CEO of nLight, will discuss high power lasers diodes. The afternoon keynote with Chuck Mattera, CEO of II-VI Incorporated, will be presented in a conversational style. Mattera and Holton will explore Dr. Mattera's views on the different applications driving photonics markets, including industrial processing, optical communications, defense, life sciences, and semiconductors.

Allen Nogee, Laser Analyst, will present his analysis of the global laser market segments and growth trendswith data and insights to help photonics businesses plan the future. New this year, Conard Holton will join Allen Nogee onstage after his talk to explore the most important topics and provide more opportunity for questions.

Other presentations will include a senior executive panel on global business and technology trends, talks on photonics company valuations and on changes in Chinese laser markets, and an end-user panel on needs in bioinstrumentation. The full agenda is available online.

The Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar will feature speaker sessions from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The day includes a continental breakfast, lunch, and cocktail reception. Executives are given opportunity throughout the day to network and discuss industry opportunities.

Attendees can save $200 on their registration by booking before Friday, December 1, 2017. Colleague discounts are available.

Information for potential attendees and sponsors:

Registration  Information about online registration and colleague discounts

Sponsorship  Information about sponsorship benefits and pricing

About the Laser Focus World

Laser Focus World (LaserFocusWorld.com) has provided comprehensive global coverage of photonics technologies, applications, and markets for over 50 years. The Laser Focus World audience includes over 80,000 engineers, researchers, scientists, and technical professionals from around the world. The magazine is published monthly and is available in both print and digital formats.

About PennWell Corporation

PennWell Corporation is a privately held and highly diversified business-to-business media and information company that provides quality content and integrated marketing solutions. PennWell publishes over 130 print and online magazines and newsletters, conducts 60 conferences and exhibitions around the world. For more about PennWell Corporation, visit Pennwell.com.

Contact: Gillian Hinkle, Marketing Manager

PennWell Corporation

[email protected]

603-891-9126

SOURCE PennWell Corporation

Related Links

http://www.Pennwell.com


HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- DCS Corporation announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Infoscitex Corporation (IST), has been awarded a 3-year research contract to participate in the Army's Synergistic Unmanned Intelligent Teaming (SUMIT) evaluations program. The SUMIT program will evaluate the impact of new and recent autonomy, decision aiding, and human-machine interface (HMI) technologies in Army Aviation missions. This exploratory research program is managed by the US Army Aviation & Missile Research, Development & Engineering Center (AMRDEC) Aviation Development Directorate. The overall program goal is to inform the Acquisition and User communities of emerging capabilities that can meet the demands of the Army's next generation Future Vertical Lift program.

Under the SUMIT contract, IST human systems engineers and simulation developers will integrate innovative and advanced Manned Unmanned Teaming (MUMT) enabling technologies onto the AMRDEC's Future Open Rotorcraft Cockpit Environment simulator. Leveraging the Fusion Advanced Human-Machine Interface framework and the Unmanned Air/Ground/Surface Autonomy Services (UxAS) automated route planning tool, IST will provide its specialized software suite Tasking and Execution of Collaborative Unmanned and Manned Systems with Autonomy (TECUMSA) for use in the SUMIT evaluations. IST will be assisted by aviation subject matter experts from Nobletech, Inc. and researchers from the University of Dayton Research Institute.

"We look forward to leveraging IST's deep autonomy and human systems expertise to assist the Army in improving its synchronization of manned-unmanned aircraft systems operating in a tactical environment," commented Jim Benbow, DCS Chief Executive Officer. "We are also excited for the opportunity to be a part of the ever growing technology sector in Huntsville and to bring expanded DCS/IST capability to our DoD customers on Redstone Arsenal, Alabama and across the Army as part the Force Modernization effort."

About the Company

IST and its' parent company, DCS Corporation, offer advanced technology and management solutions to Government agencies in the DoD and national security sector. The transformative ideas, commitment to quality and entrepreneurial spirit that characterize our 1,100 employee-owners allow us to ensure the success of each client's mission and actively contribute to the well-being of the Nation. For more information please visit: http://www.infoscitex.com and https://www.dcscorp.com.

U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center provides increased responsiveness to the nation's Warfighters through aviation and missile capabilities and life cycle engineering solutions.

CONTACT: [email protected], 571-227-6000

SOURCE DCS Corporation

Related Links

http://www.dcscorp.com


BOCA RATON, Fla., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- If you're a recognized fashion influencer and your inexperienced ex-retail partner trashes your reputation on National Television, you hire the toughest, fiercest attack-dog lawyer you can find. Right?

That's exactly what international fashion influencer Jackie Beard Robinson has done in retaining no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners lawyer Larry Klayman, to deal with her nemesis, New Jersey Housewives star Melissa Gorga.

Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, has a reputation of fighting corruption in government and wrongdoers. He's the first lawyer to obtain a court ruling that Bill Clinton committed a crime, the first such ruling by any lawyer against an American president. Klayman is representing Robinson in his personal capacity.

"In January my client and Gorga had a falling out in their business relationship, but that doesn't mean Gorga had the right to bash her ex-partner's integrity publicly in press interviews and on Bravo's network that aired The Real Housewives of New Jersey," said Klayman.

Any business venture can hit a snag as it did in the Montclair, NJ boutique, Envy. A difference of opinion on the store's future direction turned ugly, but that's no excuse for disparaging your ex-partner so publicly.

"Gorga said it was her client's fault that led to shutting the boutique, yet of the two partners, Robinson was the only experienced one in fashion retail," said Klayman.

The two clashed on the seventh season of "Real Housewives of New Jersey" about the store's direction -- specifically about Robinson's desire to expand selection to accommodate shoppers who aren't, say, a size 2.

The business partners opened Envy in December 2015, and it was a source of tension between Gorga, formerly a stay-at-home mom, and her husband, who allegedly didn't want his wife working.

"I was blindsided," Melissa told The Daily Dish. "I woke up one morning and Envy was completely emptied  not even a hanger left. I cried for three days straight."

Media reported Robinson had teamed up with Gorga's on-and off-screen nemesis Kim DePaola. Yet, the boutique's merchandise was indeed owned by Robinson, who has now had her reputation smeared on National TV.

According to Klayman, "we'll show that Gorga was so naive and inexperienced in fashion retail, she didn't deserve a hanger to hang on."

Media Contact: Adrienne Mazzone 561-750-9800 x2270; [email protected].

SOURCE Larry Klayman
NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05153082

Summary

The aircraft category remains one of the key growth drivers of the Japanese defense and security industry, accounting for 48.0% of capital expenditure in 2016; followed by the C4ISR electronics and IT category with 15.2%. The country's defense expenditure recorded a CAGR of -8.3%, falling from US$59.1 billion in 2012 to US$41.6 billion in 2016. However, due to the procurement of defense equipment, and security concerns propelled by ongoing territorial disputes with China and Russia, expenditure will reach US$45.7 billion in 2021, representative of a forecast-period CAGR of 1.7%.

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.

Key Highlights

Japan has strong military ties with other countries:A strong military relationship with other countries enables Japan to procure advanced weaponry. It has solid defense relations with the US; the two countries having signed a treaty to assist each other in defense capability developments on January 19, 1960. In fact, the US accounts for 90% of Japan's total defense imports. Aside from the US, Japan has agreements with the Philippines and Vietnam and is in the process of extending defense equipment cooperation agreements with the UK, France, and Australia.

Japan has a modest defense budget compared to China and India:

Japan's defense expenditure recorded a CAGR of -8.0%, falling from US$51.1 billion in 2012 to US$41.7 billion in 2016 in sharp contrast with China and India which registered respective CAGRs of 9.0% and 5.0% to reach US$146.3 billion and US$45.7 billion in 2016. Japan allocated an average of 1.0% of its GDP to defense during 2012-2016, with its primary focus being social development and structural reforms.

Defense import expenditure to increase due to aircraft procurements:

Total import expenditure increased at a CAGR of 7.8%, from US$244.0 million in 2012 to US$330.0 million in 2016, due to the import of missile defense and C4ISR systems from US companies. The government signed a contract with Lockheed Martin for 42 JSFs, driving the country's import expenditure.

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 Japanese defense and security market.

- Industry SWOT Analysis - Discover the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats impacting market performance and investment in the Japanese defense and security market.

- Industry Benchmarking - Benchmark how the Japanese 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 - Detailed overview and product offerings of the leading defense and security players in Japan.

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 Japanese defense and security industry compared to other Asian countries?

- What is driving the performance of key industry segments such as aircraft, C4ISR electronics & IT, naval ships, helicopters, military vehicles, and others?

- Who are the leading players in the Japanese defense and security industry and their overview and product portfolio?

- What trends are being witnessed within the Japanese defense and security industry?

- What are the Japanese Defense and Security industry's Strengths and Weaknesses and what Opportunities and Threats does it face?

- What are the recent developments and innovations in the Japanese defense and security industry?

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05153082

About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Having traveled the world over the past few years experimenting with some of the most exceptional foods to gather unique recipes, Jared Hadaway decided to bring them to the United States.

The idea turned into opening his own restaurant called AMVROSIA, a Greek-themed restaurant based on unique flavors from all over the world to the people of America.

Jared Hadaway, Jared Hadaway New York, Jared Hadaway New York City

"After graduating, I started my travels just hopping around from country to country," Hadaway says. "I developed strong relationships with so many fellow food lovers, and it felt like I was living a new life every time I was moving from city to city."

AMVROSIA became an instant success in New York City and is gaining more attention from foodies and critics across the city.

Many patrons cannot name just one fabulous dish prepared by Jared Hadaway. When recommending what to order, Hadaway has these five favorites.

Grilled Meat

"Greeks are masters of spit-roasted and charcoal-grilled meats," explains Hadaway.

Souvlaki is one of Greece's favorite foods, both the skewered meats and gyro versions wrapped in pita bread with tomato, onion, and lashing of tzatziki. Hadaway glows about the local free-range lamb and pork, which dominate in sales with customers.

Fresh Fish

Fresh fish and calamari at AMVROSIA will let customers imagine they are seaside and eat like a local of the Mediterranean.

These fish dishes are incredibly tasty and cooked with minimum fuss, grilled whole and drizzled with a lemon and oil dressing called ladolemono. Flavorsome smaller size fish such as red mullet and whitebait are ideal lightly fried.

Moussaka

There are many different variations on moussaka that are found throughout Greece. Moussaka is usually an eggplant- or potato-based dish. The classic Greek baked dish is based on layering sauteed eggplant, or potato, with garlic, sauces like allspice and cinnamon, minced meat, fried pureed tomato, and onion. The final step includes topping it with a fluffy layer of cheese.

This dish has become a favorite at the restaurant, bringing former residents of Greece to take a bite of their home, and letting others experience the vast flavors of the Greek love.

The casserole-style dish can also be made with sauteed eggplant and lamb. Moussaka is usually found in Turkey and the Middle East in addition to Greece.

Greek Dips

Greece has many various dips that are integral to the main course or meze platters. Tzatziki is a favorite dip that pairs well with grilled meat dishes.

It is cold and creamy and made with cucumber, garlic, and strained yogurt. Melitzanosalata is an eggplant-based dip made with lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, herbs, and red onion. It pairs perfectly with meat or crusty bread. For a fried cod dish, skordalia is a creamy dip made of garlic and potato. And finally, taramasalata is a paste made of fish roe, bread, lemon juice, olive oil, and onions. It's often served with bread for dipping.

Horiatiki Salata

The salad that is made in most Greek-themed restaurants is a far cry from the traditional Greek salads. While there are many variations of the dish, the traditional Greek style does not use lettuce.

As Jared Hadaway explains, vegetables like tomatoes, cucumber, onion and bell pepper are mixed with olives and hot peppers and seasoned with extra virgin olive oil, oregano and sea salt. It's finished off with generous slices or crumbles of feta cheese.

While there are many other dishes at Hadaway's restaurant that customers rave about, these are the plates he has put the most time into.

"I wanted to bring the finest Greek food to America," Hadaway proudly states. "To have many Greek patrons say that my dishes take them back home means the world to me."

Press Contact: Eric Blankenship 786-332-6554

Related Images

image1.jpg

Jared Hadaway, Jared Hadaway New York, Jared Hadaway New York City

image2.jpg

Jared Hadaway, Jared Hadaway New York, Jared Hadaway New York City

image3.jpg

Jared Hadaway, Jared Hadaway New York, Jared Hadaway New York City

SOURCE Jared Hadaway
HEALDSBURG, Calif., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Jordan Vineyard & Winery has unveiled a new holiday gift guide website for those seeking wine Christmas presents and other gourmet gifts for loved ones, employees or corporate clients. The Jordan Holiday Gift Guide, found at www.jordanwinery.com/shop or http://holidaygifts.jordanwinery.com, features several new wine gift boxes, gourmet food gifts, unique build-your-own gift boxes with special vintages and dedicated corporate gifting services, as well as 15-50 percent off shipping on multi-package orders.

New products debuting with this holiday gift guide include the Jordan Signature Trio Collection in a three-bottle gift box, featuring Jordan Russian River Valley Chardonnay, Jordan Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Jordan Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil; 2013 Jordan Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon in a three-bottle wine gift box; a wooden box gift set of Jordan 2001, 2002 and 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon unveiling on Cyber Monday; the new Jordan Chef's Reserve Caviar by Tsar Nicoulai; and Champagne gift boxes featuring the new Jordan Cuvee by Champagne AR Lenoble, which can only be shipped to California addresses. Introduced last year, Jordan wine gift boxes for one or two bottles are also available to buy online. Flexibility to build your own gift box in three different sizes, filled with your personal vintage selections, is also now offered.

Personalized services for corporate gifts are also highlighted in the Jordan Holiday Gift Guide and in the dedicated corporate gifting services section at www.jordanwinery.com/shop. Jordan Winery's new online shopping cart also offers convenient shipping to multiple addresses, though customers can contact the Jordan concierge to help provide easy, stress-free fulfillment, or to simply provide a price quote.

"We pride ourselves in personalized gifting services for businesses," said Maribel Soto, Director of Jordan Estate Rewards, who works closely with customers who purchase corporate gifts for clients or employee appreciation gifts. "Our Guest Services management team personally oversees all corporate orders to help alleviate the stress customers can endure when coordinating corporate gift orders."

Shipping discounts for corporate and other multi-package gift orders are also available, based on quantity:

Order 10 or more gift boxes or wooden gift sets and receive 15% off shipping.

Order 20 or more two-bottle gift boxes or wooden gift sets and receive 50% off shipping.

Spend $2,500 or more on any combination of products and receive 30% off shipping.

All Jordan wine and gourmet food gift orders must be placed by November 19 for Thanksgiving delivery and by December 13 for Christmas and New Year's Eve delivery due to winery holiday closure dates. Please note that 10 or more orders require three additional business days to process. Orders can be placed by calling 800-654-1213, emailing [email protected] or shopping online at www.jordanwinery.com/shop.

Other Jordan corporate gifting services include personalized wine gifts for a unique gift ideas, including custom-etched wine bottles and laser-etched wooden wine boxes. Personalized gift orders require additional processing time 7-14 days due to the custom artistry.

About Jordan Vineyard & Winery

Jordan represents refinement, quality and consistencyCalifornia classicism expressed with a Francophile spirit for more than forty years. Today, Jordan Winery is one of the authentic houses still family owned and sharply focused on crafting a singular red wine and a singular white wine of balance and elegance. Giving the gift of one of California's most iconic and recommended wines leaves a lasting impression. Learn more at www.jordanwinery.com/shop.

CONTACT

Lisa Mattson: 707-431-5268

[email protected]

Photos:

www.jordanwinery.com/trade/editorial-photos

SOURCE Jordan Winery

Related Links

http://www.jordanwinery.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Society of Voice Arts & Sciences (SOVAS) hosted the 2017 Voice Arts Awards at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Fredrick P. Rose Hall this past Sunday, November 5th. Critically acclaimed documentary film maker Ken Burns was in attendance to accept the prestigious Muhammad Ali Voice of Humanity Honor. This special segment of the Awards featured a tribute to Ken Burns by three time Emmy winner Keith David, who is currently starring in Oprah Winfrey's hit show "Greenleaf" on OWN. Ken's attendance was a highly-anticipated highlight at this year's show, where a packed house stood to their feet to honor his achievements. "What is so extraordinary about this evening is the name of this award for Muhammad Ali is one of the people who took this world and widened it so that everyone in the world could see, that he spoke his voice even when he no longer had one," Ken Burns said during his inspiring acceptance. "This award was created in collaboration with the Champ himself before his passing and has the full support of the Ali Center. We were truly honored to present this award to the Ken Burns this year," said Emmy Award-winning producer and SOVAS CEO, Rudy Gaskins.

Keith David, Joan Baker, Ken Burns, Deborah Cox Rudy Gaskins, Keith David, Joan Baker, Ken Burns

Award winning actress Lily Tomlin also took the stage at this year's event to accept the Voice Arts Icon Award. Bob Bergen, also known as the voice of Porky Pig, introduced a video of Lily's lifetime achievement in film & television before she was presented with the Award by Society of Voice Arts & Sciences (SOVAS) founders, Rudy Gaskins and Joan Baker. "I am floored by the caliber of talent and competition tonight," said Lily Tomlin when she took the stage to accept the award.

Music, and stage superstar Deborah Cox brought glamour to this year's red carpet. Deborah was on hand as a presenter as was Inside Edition's Senior Correspondent Les Trent, and legendary voiceover star Nancy Cartwright, best known as the voice of Bart Simpson on Fox's hit show "The Simpsons."

The 2017 Voice Arts Awards featured more than 50 winners across multiple media genres. Previous award winners include Jon Hamm, Kate Winslet, James Earl Jones, Lena Dunham, and William Shatner.

Good Morning America called the Voice Arts Awards, "The Oscars of voiceover acting."

Visit http://sovas.org/2017-winners/ for a list of the 2017 Voice Arts Awards winners.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Pink Street PR at 917-597-0464 or email at [email protected].

Contact: Niki Dec

Telephone: 917-597-0464

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.pinkstreetworld.com

SOURCE Society of Voice Arts & Sciences
TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Kerr Mines Inc. ("Kerr" or the "Company") (TSX: KER, OTCQB: KERMF, FRA: 7AZ1) announces that it intends to complete a proposed private placement offering of approximately 16,666,667 common shares of the Company ("Shares") at a price of $0.30 per Share for gross proceeds of $5 million (the "Offering"). The Company will use the net proceeds from the Offering to finance its ongoing exploration program at its flagship Copperstone Mine in Arizona

"This financing represents another positive milestone in advancing Copperstone's development," stated Claudio Ciavarella Kerr's Chief Executive Officer. "With the recent success of the first phase of our exploration program we continue to remain focused on moving the project towards the successful completion of our updated resource and pre-feasibility Study in Q1 of 2018 and subsequent production decision."

The pricing of this financing is offered at a 7% discount to the 30 day volume weighted market closing price of $0.32 per share.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about November 30, 2017 and the Company may complete the total Offering in one or more tranches. The Offering has been conditionally approved by the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") but remains subject to final approval from the TSX.

The Common Shares issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a four month hold period in accordance with applicable securities laws.

About Kerr Mines Inc.

Kerr Mines is a North American gold development and exploration company currently advancing the fully permitted past-producing Copperstone Mine project. Copperstone is a high-grade gold project located along the Walker Lane mineral belt in mining-friendly Arizona. The project demonstrates significant upside exploration potential within a 12,000 acre land package which includes a production history of over 500,000 ounces of gold. The Company's current focus is on maximizing Copperstone's potential by defining and expanding current resources and strengthening the mine's economics leading to a production decision.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements, including current expectations on the timing of the commencement of production and the rate of production, if commenced. These forward-looking statements entail various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations, are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks, and actual results may differ materially from those contained in such statements. These uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, the strength of the Canadian economy; the price of gold; operational, funding, and liquidity risks; the degree to which mineral resource estimates are reflective of actual mineral resources; and the degree to which factors which would make a mineral deposit commercially viable are present; the risks and hazards associated with underground operations. Risks and uncertainties about Kerr Mines' business are more fully discussed in the Company's disclosure materials, including its annual information form and MD&A, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and available at www.sedar.com and readers are urged to read these materials. Kerr Mines assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from such statements unless required by law.

Neither TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release and no stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

SOURCE Kerr Mines Inc.

Related Links

www.kerrmines.com


LONG BEACH, Calif., Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 8, 2017, Diana Lejins, a 32-year resident of the City of Long Beach entered into a settlement of a lawsuit she filed against the City of Long Beach in September 2016. Ms. Lejins, a civic activist, claimed that the City's Water Department has been illegally charging its water and sewer customers "Pipeline Permit Fees." The Pipeline Permit Fees, totaling approximately $11 million per year, serve no legitimate purpose and were blatantly designed to bolster general fund revenues on the backs of ratepayers. Proposition 218, passed by People of the State of California in 1996 and enshrined in our State Constitution, prohibits local governments from charging more than it costs to provide utility service and from using utility fees for non-utility purposes.

The settlement requires the City to stop charging the Pipeline Permit Fees when it adopts rates in the future. The City must reduce its water and sewer rates to eliminate the Pipeline Permit Fees from the current rate structure within 60 days. The City will also restore $12 million in previously-transferred Pipeline Permit Fees from the City's general fund to its Water Department over the next four fiscal years.

After the lawsuit was filed, the City commissioned cost-of service studies to ascertain the amount of right-of-way and public safety costs that the general fund pays on behalf of the Water Department. The settlement allows the City to transfer some of the costs identified in the studies, but they are less than half the Pipeline Permit Fees that the City has agreed to eliminate. Utility ratepayers will save millions of dollars in the future as a direct result of the lawsuit.

Ms. Lejins stated, "The Pipeline Permit Fees were bogus from the start. Hard-working citizens don't appreciate it when their government plays games. Hopefully, this lawsuit serves as a warning to those 'money-is-no-object' politicians who so fervently attempt to extract and spend every last dime they can from hard-working taxpayers. This victory transcends the exploitation, validates the people's vigilance and is truly OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people."

Ms. Lejins' attorney Gerrie Schipke said, "This settlement is not only a tremendous win for the water and sewer customers in the City of Long Beach but also for the voters of California who approved Proposition 218, requiring voter and taxpayer control over local fees and taxes. The law is clear: cities, like Long Beach, cannot assess fees merely because they want to raise revenue."

Ms. Lejins was also represented by Eric J. Benink, Esq. of Krause Kalfayan Benink & Slavens, LLP, a San Diego law firm with substantial expertise in Proposition 218 matters.

Contact:

Eric Benink

1-619-232-0331

[email protected]

SOURCE Krause, Kalfayan, Benink & Slavens, LLP

Related Links

http://www.kkbs-law.com


AURORA, Ill., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 7th, Labor United and representatives from various trades attended Trades Day at Waubonsie Valley High School to educate groups of students on apprenticeship programs and career opportunities in the trades. Trades Day was led by Johnetta Ryan of CISCO (Construction Industry Service Corporations).

There's a general lack of awareness amongst young people that the trades is even an option post-high school: it's often either college or the military. Coupled with a "there's an app for that" culture, millennials are simply unaware of the opportunities that come with a career in the trades. It was Labor United's goal to articulate the importance of the trades as intelligent and valuable work that contributes to society while giving individuals the tools to lead a successful life.

The students were briefed on the 25 trades underneath CISCO. Representatives from five of the union organizations were present to speak on their specific trade: sheet metal, carpentry, bricklaying, laborers, and operating engineers. The students were able see union leaders not only support Trades Day, but each other. Although each has a different specialization, unions are bound by the same underpinning principles that enable them to do the work they do. The presentation concluded with an open Q&A. Questions arose not only about the trades, but about unions overall, such as "why do union workers strike?"

At the event, a conversation about trade work shifted to talking about life. Every representative alluded to the visceral truth that work in the trades can help foster professional and personal growth. They give young people opportunities to assert their independence while obtaining valuable skills they will carry with them throughout all phases of their lives.

Labor United is available to host a Trades Day at any high school in the greater Chicago area.

ABOUT LABOR UNITED

Labor United's mission is to enhance public education as to the importance of trained, skilled labor and to encourage the public to consider fair wages for all workers.

Unions reached their membership peak during the 1970s, and since have experienced a steady decline. Unions have fallen victim to intense criticism while trying to carry out their mission of preserving a worker's right to just treatment and a life of their choosing, the very aspects that made America the land of the free. Labor United was formed in 2017 to be a positive change to the negative perception surrounding modern unions.

SOURCE Labor United
CLACKAMAS, Ore., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leslie Gregory, MSBS, PA-C, is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a 2017 Pinnacle Professional in the field of Healthcare.

Gregory is Founder and President at Right to Health, which specializes in nonprofit health services. In her role, she utilizes extensive expertise in primary care medicine and preventative cardiology, and works to mitigate the effects of racism on health. Prior to this year, she was managing the 501(c)3 organization mostly on her and claims that her new team has been incredibly helpful.

Gregory says that she created Right To Health, "out of frustration that our nation had made so little progress in addressing the hate and ignorance related to ethnic disparities and America's problems with its history and founding principles of inequity."



"Health disparities and other racist results of that legacy are costing our nation untold billions in dollars," she goes on to say, "and massive numbers of citizens and healthcare funding that we cannot afford. Join me in saving our national soul as well as the most important resource we have: our humanity."

Gregory earned her Master of Biological Science degree with a focus in Physician Assistant Studies and Medicine from the University of Toledo/Medical Center for Health Sciences. While she was a student, she earned several honors, including induction into the Gold Key Honor Society, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the American Academy of Physician Assistants and is certified by the National Commission of Physician Assistants.

To further her professional development, Gregory is a member of the American Health Association, the National Association of Professional Women, the NAACP, and Uniting to Understand Racism Dialogues, the National Juneteenth Observation Foundation and National Juneteenth Medical Commission, and the National Sickle Cell Foundation. She also serves as a Go Red for Women Ambassador. Gregory also cites Drs. James Mason, John Lake and Dr. Michael Brodeur as her professional mentors.

When not working, Gregory enjoys music production and performance, martial arts, exploring the mind-body discipline connection, precision and distance swimming, inquiries into intercultural communication and exploring the peace process.



Additionally, she volunteers time to campaigning against the health effects of racism and being a "minority" health advocate. She dedicates this recognition to both her mentors, and in loving memory of her parents, Mary Booker Gregory and Raymond D. Gregory.



For more information, visit www.right2health.us.org.

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.right2health.us.org


BROOKVILLE, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new Long Island University Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling and Analysis poll finds that a majority of Americans oppose President Trump's efforts to make immigration policies more restrictive, including opposition to both his plans to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico and end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

While 35 percent favor President Trump's plan to build a wall along the Southern border to enhance border security, a 54 percent majority opposes that policy. Respondents were also asked about President Trump's plan to end the DACA program, just 31 percent supported that policy, while 53 percent opposed it.

The LIU survey found that while 38 percent of Americans believe that current immigration policy is not strict enough, 53 percent either want to maintain current immigration policies or make them less restrictive. Underpinning attitudes about immigration, an overwhelming 63 percent of Americans agree with the statement that "immigration into the United States is a good thing" while just 19 percent believe that it "is a bad thing."

"Despite making a major push to make immigration policies more restrictive, the American people oppose the specifics of President Trump's efforts, including building a wall and ending the DACA program," said Dr. Edward Summers, Fellow at the Hornstein Center. "Americans continue to see immigration as a good thing for our nation, which undercuts efforts to curb it."

The findings are based on a published public opinion poll conducted from October 29-November 5, 2017 conducted through SurveyMonkey of 813 Americans.

"We are encouraged from the results that our web-based survey is providing valuable insight," said Dr. Summers. "The Steven S. Hornstein Center has a robust research portfolio, and we are excited to explore these crucial public policy issues."

Dr. Summers, who obtained his PhD in Public Policy, is a Fellow at the Hornstein Center. His career includes experience in public policy, higher education, and opinion research.

Questions and results follow:

Long Island University

Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling, and Analysis

Immigration Survey

October 29-November 5, 2017

1) When it comes to immigration in the United States, which of the following best describes your position?

The current immigration policy is not strict enough, it should be harder for a person from a foreign country to become a citizen of the United States: 38%

The current immigration policy is fair, and I think it should not be any harder nor easier for someone to become a citizen of the United States: 34%

The current immigration policy is too strict, it should be easier for a person from a foreign country to become a citizen of the United States: 19%

No opinion: 9%

2) President Trump has said that he would build a wall on the Southern border of the United States to enhance border security, what is your opinion of this?

Approve: 35%

Disapprove: 54%

No opinion: 11%

3) Do you think immigration into the United States is a good thing or a bad thing?

Good thing: 63%

Bad thing: 19%

No opinion: 18%

4) President Trump recently announced that he would end the Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an executive order issued in 2012 that granted eligible Dreamers protection from deportation. What is your position on President Trump's decision to end the DACA program?

Approve: 31%

Disapprove: 53%

No opinion: 15%

Polling Methodology

This Long Island University Steven S. Hornstein Center for Policy, Polling & Analysis poll was conducted online through SurveyMonkey from October 29-November 5, 2017 in English to 813 Americans over the age of 18. Polling data was sorted by age, gender & geographic location in efforts to ensure a nationwide representative sample. This poll has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.4 points.

SOURCE Long Island University

Related Links

http://www.liu.edu


NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, November 8, the Lung Cancer Research Foundation (LCRF) held its Fifteenth Annual Strolling Supper at Gotham Hall in New York City. During the event, LCRF announced its recent merger with Free to Breathe, a lung cancer research and advocacy organization. By coming together, the new LCRF will make an even greater impact on closing the funding gap for lung cancer research.

LCRF Board Chair Brendon M. Stiles, MD delivered the news of the merger in a video titled, Together, which debuted during the Strolling Supper. "Together, the new Lung Cancer Research Foundation will help forge the kinds of strong personal connections between patients, families, clinicians, caregivers, and scientists that we already know dramatically improve patients' lives and experiences," said Dr. Stiles. "And together, one day we will win our long, good fight against lung cancer."

The Fifteenth Annual Supper raised over $1.2 million for lung cancer research. WABC's Bill Ritter hosted this year's event, which was attended by more than 500 people. Guests enjoyed a special performance by Tony Award-Nominee and Television Star, Norm Lewis, accompanied by Joseph Joubert.

"By uniting with Free to Breathe, we are a more powerful organization and have a truly national reach," said Mary Ann Tighe, Vice Chair, LCRF's Board of Directors. "We are committed to being the leading nonprofit funder of lung cancer research in the country. I look forward to the great work we will accomplish together."

LCRF hosts 50 public events annually across the country. The Strolling Supper is part of LCRF's New York event series, which also includes the Strides for Life Run/Walk, the Lung Cancer Awareness Luncheon, Elliot's Legacy: Kites for a Cure and the Brooklyn Free to Breathe Run/Walk.

This year's Strolling Supper's Research Grant sponsors included: Blum Family Foundation on behalf of Richard C. Blum and Senator Dianne Feinstein; Broad Street Development, Raymond Chalme and Daniel Blanco; CBRE; CBRE New York Consulting & Agency Groups; The Durst Organization; The Edward John & Patricia Rosenwald Foundation; Marjorie and Roy Furman; Greenlight Capital, Inc.; The Judy and Fred Wilpon Foundation; Michael R. Pascucci Lung Cancer Association; Office of Dr. David Hidalgo; Pershing Square Capital Management, LP; Silverstein Properties, Inc.; The Tighe Hidalgo Foundation; Tishman Speyer; Tom Zangas Memorial Lung Cancer Foundation

About the Lung Cancer Research Foundation

The Lung Cancer Research Foundation is the pre-eminent national nonprofit focused on funding innovative, high-reward research with the potential to extend survival and improve quality of life for people with lung cancer. The organization's mission is to improve lung cancer outcomes by funding research for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of lung cancer.

To date, the Lung Cancer Research Foundation has provided 342 grants, totaling nearly $34 million to institutions around the world for critical lung cancer research. In addition to funding lung cancer research, the organization focuses on lung cancer awareness and education programs. The Foundation will host over 50 public events nationwide through the Free to Breathe Event Series.

Contact: Emily Prager, 212-588-1580, [email protected]

SOURCE Lung Cancer Research Foundation

Related Links

http://www.lungfund.org


MILWAUKEE, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN) and Rockwell Automation (NYSE: ROK) celebrate the first military veterans to graduate from the Academy of Advanced Manufacturing and secure high-paying jobs in the rapidly-evolving manufacturing industry.

The 12-week program launched in August combines classroom learning with hands-on laboratory experience. Veterans are trained in Rockwell Automation's state-of-the art facility in Mayfield Heights, Ohio for in-demand jobs in advanced manufacturing. All of the graduates are in the process of being placed into new jobs with some receiving multiple job offers that significantly increase  some graduates even doubling  their previous salaries.

"This program felt like it was made just for me," says Travis Tolbert, U.S. Navy veteran and academy graduate. "It focused on controls and automation, which is something I've always wanted to do, but was never able to do until now. The academy helped me take my military skills and understand how I could make them relevant for jobs outside of the Navy."

[To see more stories from the graduates click here]

The manufacturing sector in the U.S. is estimated to produce up to 3.5 million new jobs over the next decade. With close to 2.5 million manufacturing workers set to retire by 2025 and ongoing skill shortages, up to 2 million of those new jobs could go unfilled. Military veterans often work in technology intensive roles and with on-the-job training these adjacent skills can be transferred to roles in advanced manufacturing.

"Manufacturing employers in the U.S are experiencing a significant gap between the skills they need and the skills people have. Our solution was to look for people with adjacent skills  skills that are closely connected and can be adapted easily, developed and applied to new roles," said Becky Frankiewicz, President of ManpowerGroup North America. "Veterans share many skills that are relevant to manufacturing - including effective problem solving and a team work mindset. This program is a win-win, we're helping service men and women earn more and stay employable for the long term while helping employers address their skills gap."

"In recognition of Veterans Day, on behalf of Rockwell and ManpowerGroup, we thank all our veterans for their service," said Blake Moret, CEO of Rockwell Automation. "We are honored to recognize our first military veterans to graduate the Academy of Advanced Manufacturing. We've seen their unique combination of core work and tech-savvy skills evolve to successfully position them for careers in the industry. We're confident this program will help solve a challenge critical to the growth of advanced manufacturing."

The program expands Rockwell Automation's long-standing Engineer-in-Training (EIT) program, which combines classroom learning with hands-on laboratory experience, producing hundreds of graduates annually.

It also adds to the number of programs ManpowerGroup provides for military personnel, veterans and spouses, including:

More than 10 years of Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) in Australia : ManpowerGroup Australia's public-private collaboration with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has filled 7,000+ jobs each year in the Navy, Army and Air Force. DFR has achieved impressive results in the diversity space: more than one in four recruits are women and in the Navy and Air Force it's more than 40 percent; and the percentage of Indigenous people joining the ADF is currently double their representation in the Australian population.

: ManpowerGroup Australia's public-private collaboration with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has filled 7,000+ jobs each year in the Navy, Army and Air Force. DFR has achieved impressive results in the diversity space: more than one in four recruits are women and in the Navy and Air Force it's more than 40 percent; and the percentage of Indigenous people joining the ADF is currently double their representation in the Australian population. For more than 10 years, the U.K. Career Transition Partnership (CTP)  an agreement between the Ministry of Defence and ManpowerGroup's Right Management UK - has helped more than 180,000 veterans find sustainable employment by adapting their qualifications to new roles outside the armed forces.

Read more about ManpowerGroup's work with veterans here.

About Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., Rockwell Automation employs approximately 22,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.

About ManpowerGroup

ManpowerGroup (NYSE: MAN), the leading global workforce solutions company, helps organizations transform in a fast-changing world of work by sourcing, assessing, developing and managing the talent that enables them to win. We develop innovative solutions for over 400,000 clients and connect 3+ million people to meaningful, sustainable work across a wide range of industries and skills. Our expert family of brands  Manpower, Experis, Right Management and ManpowerGroup Solutions  creates substantially more value for candidates and clients across 80 countries and territories and has done so for nearly 70 years. In 2017, ManpowerGroup was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies for the seventh consecutive year and one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies, confirming our position as the most trusted and admired brand in the industry. See how ManpowerGroup is powering the future of work: www.manpowergroup.com

SOURCE ManpowerGroup

Related Links

http://www.manpowergroup.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175254

Learn what your team gets right, and where it's going wrong in Medical Affairs Reputations: Melanoma (US).Comparing 8 major melanoma treatments from Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co., Novartis, and Roche this report reveals:

Find out what more doctors want from your medical affairs team including:

How doctors rate your team overall, and on 12 key medical affairs services.Which medical affairs services are most important, and what you can do to improve them.

How, and how often doctors want to meet with your team.

That's actionable information you can use to turn your team into one that doctors rely on.

Insight into Medical Affairs Teams for These Melanoma Treatments

Cotellic (cobimetinib; Roche)

Imlygic (talimogene laherparepvec; Amgen)

Keytruda (pembrolizumab; Merck & Co.)

Mekinist (trametinib; Novartis)

Opdivo (nivolumab; Bristol-Myers Squibb)

Tafinlar (dabrafenib; Novartis)

Yervoy (ipilimumab; Bristol-Myers Squibb)

Zelboraf (vemurafenib; Roche)

An Expert-designed Competitive View of Your Medical Affairs Team

Developed with the help of medical affairs specialists, this report gives you an in-depth comparison of 8 medical affairs teamsanswering important questions like:

What do doctors need?

How, and how often are they using your medical affairs team?

What services do they consider most important?

How often should you contact them? What channels are best?

Does your medical affairs team deliver?

How memorable are your team's interactions with doctors?

How do doctors rank your team for performance and satisfaction in 12 key areas?

How does your team compare to the competitionin each area, and overall?

What needs improvement?

Are you delivering the services that are most important to doctors?

Where do you need to improve?

How can your team enhance its services?

Based on Interviews with Practicing Doctors

We surveyed 100 US medical oncologists and dermato-oncologists, chosen from the largest community of validated physicians in the world

All respondents:

Have been practicing for between 3 and 35 yearsSee at least 5 patients with melanoma in a typical month

Devote at least 50% of their time to direct patient care

Have interacted with at least one listed product's medical affairs team in the past 6 months.

We conducted the survey between June 1st and June 7th, 2017.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175254

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

http://www.reportlinker.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Is 'moderately satisfied' good enough? According to this latest survey of 100 US medical oncologists and haematologists, the performance of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia medical affairs teams still has a way to go in some key areas before higher satisfaction ratings can be achieved across the board. Find out what physicians think is done well; what they want to see more of; and why some are dissatisfied.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175274

Use Medical Affairs Reputations: Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia 2017 (US) to discover how your team can better meet the high expectations of physicians at the frontline.

This report compares the current activities of medical affairs teams for the six leading CLL treatments from Novartis, Gilead, Roche, Janssen Biotech, AbbVie and Biogen. It shows:

How physicians rate each team overall, and for 12 key medical affairs services.What is most important to physicians, plus what can be done better.How, and how often physicians want to meet with your team.

It's time to find out exactly how well your medical affairs team is performing against fierce competition  and establish an action plan to gain competitive advantage

Top Takeaways

Stand out or forgettable? One team strides ahead with 85% of physicians recalling an interaction within the last 6 months  whereas another is lagging way behind with a half-hearted response. How does your team stack up?

Patient focus: How much do US physicians rely on medical affairs to help them improve patient access, education and outcomes? And are they spending more or less time doing this than before?

Not so dynamic duo: Two teams top the satisfaction table for many (but not all) medical affairs attributes. Where are their weak spots and who is maximising on them?

Shared goal: Physicians identified the same important opportunity for improvement for 3 out of 6 medical affairs teams. Just what should all of them be focusing on right now?

Good news for all: Physicians praised every drug for at least 4 areas of support provided by medical affairs teams.

Consider the 80:20 rule: 1 in 5 survey respondents suggest more can be done to provide specific information, and that attitudes could be improved. Could addressing these tip the balance?

Insight into Medical Affairs Teams for These CLL Brands

Arzerra (ofatumumab; Novartis)

Gazyva (obinutuzumab; Roche)

Imbruvica (ibrutinib; Janssen Biotech/AbbVie)

Rituxan (rituximab; Roche/Biogen)

Venclexta (venetoclax; Roche/AbbVie)

Zydelig (idelalisib; Gilead)

An Expert-designed Competitive View of Your Medical Affairs Team

Developed with the help of medical affairs specialists, this report gives you an in-depth comparison of 7 medical affairs teamsanswering important questions like:

What do physicians need?

How, and how often are they using your medical affairs team?

What services do they consider most important?

How often should you contact them? What channels are best?

Does your medical affairs team deliver?

How memorable are your team's interactions with doctors?

How do doctors rank your team for performance and satisfaction in 12 key areas?

How does your team compare to the competitionin each area, and overall?

What needs improvement?

Are you delivering the services that are most important to doctors?

Where do you need to improve?

How can your team enhance its services?

Based on Interviews with Practicing Doctors

We surveyed 100 US-based medical oncologists and haematologistschosen from the largest community of validated physicians in the world.

All respondents:

Have been practicing for between 3 and 35 years

See at least 5 patients with CLL in a typical month

Devote at least 50% of their time to direct patient care

Have interacted with at least one listed product's medical affairs team in the past 6 months.

We conducted the survey between August 1st and 16th, 2017.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175274

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

http://www.reportlinker.com


A juvenile has admitted writing threats on a bathroom stall of Eau Claire Memorial High School, Eau Claire Police said Thursday.

The threats on Wednesday led Memorial officials to evacuate students and shorten the school day.

The juvenile is being referred to Eau Claire County Juvenile Intake under a section of Wisconsin law covering making a bomb scare and whats considered to be a terrorist threat.

The incident started at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday after the school reported the threats which included: Get your students out B4 I kill them, If you dont they will die!, I have a bomb and loaded gun, and Im hiding somewhere. You have until lunch to get them out.

The Eau Claire School District decided to do a controlled evacuation of staff and students, and were helped doing that by several members of the police department.

After the evacuation, the department called in five bomb detection dogs from area law enforcement agencies. No signs of explosives or firearms were found in a search.

Police talked with several students and faculty members and reviewed video footage. A suspect was identified and interviewed.

The police department received help from the La Crosse Police Department, the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota) Airport Police Department and the U.S. Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Their assistance with providing bomb detection dogs helped ensure a safe building within a very timely manner, Eau Claire Police said.
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MUFG Union Bank, N.A. (MUFG) today announced its partnership with The Student Conservation Association (SCA) to officially launch "MUFG Gives Back" volunteer month. This past Saturday, MUFG and SCA kicked off the month of November helping conserve public lands in Seattle and New York City. Five additional events are planned across the country.

The MUFG Union Bank Foundation will also donate $150,000 to SCA to support activities that help protect the environment, which include job training and the introduction of "green" careers for young professionals. Through volunteer activities, MUFG Union Bank employees will partner with SCA alumni and youth groups to learn conservation skills while mentoring them on leadership.

"MUFG is committed to fostering a legacy that includes protecting the environment for future generations. Our investment in SCA supports many aspects of conservation and provides our employees with opportunities to give back to the communities where we live and work," said Julius Robinson, the bank's Head of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Although MUFG encourages volunteerism throughout the year, November is the month when the company unites its employees to support the local communities in which it operates. MUFG established November as global volunteer month in 2013 in response to the outpouring of support Japan received following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

"MUFG embraces its role in supporting the economic well-being of its communities, and is also doing its part as an environmental steward to secure the health of future generations," said Jaime Matyas, President and CEO of SCA. "We look forward to working together and setting a positive example of sustainable practices for our young adults."

The MUFG Union Bank Foundation ("The Foundation") is a nonprofit public benefit corporation that serves as an agent for charitable contributions made by MUFG Union Bank, N.A. Since its creation in 1953, The Foundation has supported the bank's commitment to help meet the needs of the communities that it serves. Its mission is to make philanthropic investments that expand access to economic opportunity in low- and moderate-income communities especially in the areas of affordable housing, community economic development, education, human services, and the environment.

About MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

As of September 30, 2017, MUFG Union Bank, N.A. operated 361 branches, comprised primarily of retail banking branches in the West Coast states, along with commercial branches in Texas, Illinois, New York and Georgia, as well as 18 PurePoint Financial Centers and two international offices. We provide a wide spectrum of corporate, commercial and retail banking and wealth management solutions to meet the needs of customers. We also offer an extensive portfolio of value-added solutions for customers, including investment banking, personal and corporate trust, global custody, transaction banking, capital markets, and other services. With assets of $118.6 billion, as of September 30, 2017, MUFG Union Bank has strong capital reserves, credit ratings and capital ratios relative to peer banks. MUFG Union Bank is a proud member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (NYSE: MTU), one of the world's largest financial organizations with total assets of approximately 304.2 trillion (JPY) or $2.7 trillion (USD), as of June 30, 2017. The corporate headquarters (principal executive office) for MUFG Americas Holdings Corporation, which is the financial holding company and MUFG Union Bank, is in New York City. The main banking office of MUFG Union Bank is in San Francisco, California.

1 Exchange rate of 1 USD=112.0 (JPY) as of June 30, 2017

About the Student Conservation Association

The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is America's largest and most effective youth conservation service organization. SCA conserves lands and transforms lives by empowering young people of all backgrounds to plan, act, and lead, while they protect and restore our natural and cultural resources. Founded in 1957, SCA's mission is to build the next generation of conservation leaders, and 70% of its 85,000 alumni are employed or studying in conservation-related fields. For more, visit www.thesca.org.

2017 Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. All rights reserved. The MUFG logo and name is a service mark of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., and is used by MUFG Union Bank, N.A., with permission. Member FDIC.



SOURCE MUFG Union Bank, N.A.

Related Links

http://www.unionbank.com


ARLINGTON, Va., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A new poll shows Americans are unaware of the United States' current overseas commitments, disconnected with the burden placed on military families, and believe our men and women in uniform are overstretched. By and large, our nation's veterans share this perspective.

According to a poll from The Charles Koch Institute and RealClearPolitics, 77% of veteransand some 67% of the American publicfeel that the average civilian does not understand the toll deployment takes on service members and their families.

This comes on the heels of the revelation that the U.S. military is deployed in Niger, a fact which was unknown to 71% of the general public and 55% of veterans. The poll, released today by the Charles Koch Institute (CKI) and RealClearPolitics, surveyed 1,000 members of the American public, including 500 active military and veterans. The survey, taken at the end of October 2017, showed Americans are not confident that U.S. military involvement abroad makes their families safer at home.

"Americans are unclear of all the places where the U.S. military is engaged, concerned about whether our foreign policy has been making us safer, and wary of war with North Korea. These views are also shared by veterans," said Will Ruger, vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. "This survey shows that veterans are actually a diverse group when it comes to issues of using force abroad. They aren't all enthusiastic about relying on military power to solve problems, as is sometimes stereotypically assumed. The majority don't believe that challenging the wisdom of the United States current approach to the world is unpatriotic and are divided on things like whether additional military engagement abroad would make America safer."

"United States foreign policy, and the public's attitude about it, is an incredibly important issue that too often gets short shrift in the current political climate," said David Craig, editor of RealClearDefense. "This survey shines a spotlight on the issue and provides valuable insights into what voters AND military veterans think about the cost and conduct of America's foreign policy."

Poll results show that Americans and veterans, alike, lack confidence in the ability of our government decision-makers and foreign policy elite to make us safer:

Some 71% of both military veterans and the general population feel that the number of terrorists that intend harm against Americans has increased over the past 20 years.

A majority of the general public and a plurality of military veterans believe that a military intervention in North Korea would compromise American security. In fact, 57% of the general public and 47% of veterans share this perspective.

would compromise American security. In fact, 57% of the general public and 47% of veterans share this perspective. Overwhelmingly, respondents from the military and the general public believe that foreign interventions demand a clear exit strategy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 77% of veteransand some 67% of the American publicfeel that the average civilian does not understand the toll deployment takes on service members and their families.

Regardless of who occupies the White House, both groups overwhelmingly (76% of veterans and 79% of the general population) feel that the president must seek Congressional authorization before ordering a military intervention in a country that did not attack the United States .

AMERICANS AREN'T CONVINCED U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION HAS MADE THE COUNTRY SAFER

Veterans: When asked if United States foreign policy over the past 20 years made the United States more or less safe, 41% said less safe, 35% said more, and 19% said safety levels had stayed the same.

General Population: 43% said less safe, 28% said more, and 21% said safety levels had stayed the same.

Veterans: When asked if United States foreign policy over the past 20 years had made the world more or less safe, 40% said less safe, 35% said more, and 19% said safety levels had stayed the same.

General Population: 40% said less safe, 28% said more, and 20% said safety levels had stayed the same.

Veterans: When asked if the number of terrorists threatening to harm the United States had increased, decreased, or stayed the same over the past two decades, 71% said there are more terrorists threatening the United States. Only 9% said there were fewer while 18% said the number stayed the same, and 2% did not know.

General Population: 71% said there are more terrorists threatening the United States . 6% said there were fewer, 20% said the number stayed the same, and 4% did not know.

Veterans: When asked if additional military engagement abroad would make America more or less safe, 40% of respondents said more safe, 34% said less safe, and 18% said neither more or less safe.

General Population: Only 27% of respondents said more safe, 41% said less safe and 19% said neither more or less safe.

Veterans: When asked if military intervention in North Korea would make the United States safer, 47% said it would create a situation that is more dangerous. Only 33% said intervention would make our country safer. 12% said it would neither make us more or less safe and 9% did not know.

General Population: 57% said it would create a situation that is more dangerous. Only 20% said intervention would make our country safer; 11% said it would neither make us more or less safe and 12% did not know.

AMERICANS WANT CLEAR LIMITS ON MILITARY INTERVENTION AND SERVICE

Veterans: Veterans believe that it is acceptable to question the wisdom of America's leading military role in the world. When asked whether they believe it's unpatriotic to question the wisdom of American primacy, 56% said it is not. Just 37% said it is not patriotic while 7% did not know.

General Population: 63% said it is not unpatriotic. Just 29% said it is not patriotic while 8% did not know.

Veterans: 76% of respondents said the president should have to get Congressional authorization before committing U.S. military intervention in a country that did not attack the United States or Americans. Only 21% said the president does not need authorization; 3% did not know.

General Population: 79% of respondents said the president should have to get Congressional authorization. Only 15% said the president does not need authorization; 6% did not know.

Veterans: 78% of respondents believe the U.S. military should have an exit strategy before intervening in a foreign country. (58% of whom think it's very important.) 16% said they don't believe it's important and 3% said it's neither important nor unimportant.

General Population: 74% of voters believe the U.S. military should have an exit strategy. (50% of whom think it's very important.) 16% said they don't believe it's important and 6% said it's neither important nor unimportant.

Veterans: 61% of respondents said the U.S. military currently is overextended. Only 32% said it is not. Another 7% did not know.

General Population: Americans are also weary of intervention. 50% of respondents said the U.S. military currently is overextended. Only 36% said it is not. Another 14% did not know.

AMERICANS ARE ONLY SOMEWHAT AWARE OF THE COSTS OF WAR

Veterans: When asked what percentage of the federal budget goes to the U.S. military, the median answer was 25%.

General Population: The median answer was 30%.

Veterans: When asked if they knew the United States had troops in Niger before hearing about recent American military casualties there, 55% said they were not; 42% were aware and 2% said they did not know.

General Population: 71% said they were not aware the U.S. military was embedded in Niger ; 26% were aware and 4% said they did not know.

Veterans: When asked if the average American civilian understands the impact of deployment on service members and their families, 21% said yes, 77% said no, and 2% did not know.

General Population: 26% said yes, 67% said no, and 7% did not know.

Veterans: 29% said they are very confident in the quality of medical care that United States veterans receive through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); 41% said somewhat confident and 24% said not at all confident.

General Population: 18% said they are very confident in the quality of medical care that United States veterans receive through the VA; 34% said they are not at all confident and 38% said they are somewhat confident in the quality of medical care that veterans receive through the VA.

AMERICANS DON'T NECESSARILY TRUST POLITICAL, MILITARY LEADERS

Veterans: When asked about the leaders who send troops abroad, 62% said they would trust them more if they served in the military themselves or have kids who have served; 12% said they might trust them less and 26% said it would not matter.

General Population: 55% said they would trust leaders more if they served in the military themselves or have kids who have served; 12% said they would trust them less, and 32% said it would not matter.

Veterans: 45% said they do not believe the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is a good steward of taxpayer money and does a poor job managing resources and funds; 44% said the DoD is a good steward and manager and 11% did not know.

General Population: 42% don't believe the DoD is a good steward of taxpayer money and does a poor job managing resources and funds; 38% said the DoD is a good steward and manager and 20% did not know.

Veterans: 76% believe waste is a problem when it comes to military spending, including 36% who believe waste is a significant problem. Only 22% believe waste is not a problem or not much of a problem; 2% did not know.

General Population: 77% believe waste is a problem when it comes to military spending, including 36% who believe waste is a significant problem. Only 17% believe waste is not a problem or not much of a problem; 5% did not know.

A leading survey research firm, Survey Sampling International, fielded the nationwide survey from October 26 to 31 of 2017. The survey had 1,000 respondents. Half of those respondents were current or former members of the U.S. military. The other half of respondents were from the general population of the United States. Half of all participants were surveyed using a web-based opt-in panel and half of all recipients were surveyed using random phone dialing. This even split of survey mode was preserved across both samplesthe general public and military veterans. Results for the general public sample are weighted to be representative of the national population. The data from military veterans are un-weighted. The estimated margin of error for the general population sample is +/- 4 percentage points.

FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT:

CHARLES KOCH INSTITUTE

The Charles Koch Institute is an educational organization focused on the importance of free societies and how they increase well-being for the overwhelming majority of people. Through the Institute's professional education, research, and training programs, the Institute works to prepare professionals for careers that improve well-being by advancing free societies.

REALCLEARPOLITICS

RealClear Media Group (RCMG), led by its flagship brand RealClearPolitics, encompasses 15 specialty areas of coverage, with original reporting from our staff of seasoned reporters, live events, the well-known RCP Poll Average, and original video. With a wide array of news and analysis available online, insiders rely on RealClear's sites as a go-to source for reporting, commentary, and analysis on all sides of the most pressing issues impacting news and politics."

SOURCE Charles Koch Institute
EAST HANOVER, N.J., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Novartis, a global leader in ophthalmology, announced further positive results from two Phase III studies of brolucizumab versus aflibercept. Results showed non-inferiority in primary endpoint, superiority in key retinal health outcomes, and long-lasting effect in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), a leading cause of blindness. The results of the head-to-head trials, HAWK and HARRIER, were presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) 2017 Annual Meeting1.

In neovascular AMD, abnormal blood vessels leak fluid into the eye, ultimately causing damage and blindness2. At week 16, relative to aflibercept, 35% fewer brolucizumab 6 mg patients showed presence of IRF and/or SRF in HAWK, and 33% fewer in HARRIER (P<0.0001 for both)1. Again at week 48, relative to aflibercept, 31% fewer patients on brolucizumab 6 mg had intra-retinal fluid (IRF) and/or sub-retinal fluid (SRF) in HAWK, and 41% fewer in HARRIER (P<0.0001 for both)1. The absence of fluid for patients in the brolucizumab arm suggests the potential for a long-lasting effect and decreased treatment need.

Additionally, brolucizumab 6 mg patients demonstrated superior reductions in central subfield thickness (CST)1. In nAMD, an elevated CSTas measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT)is a key indicator of abnormal fluid accumulation in the retina3. Significantly improved CST reductions were evident at week 16 (P=0.0016 in HAWK and P<0.0001 in HARRIER) and at week 48 (P=0.0023 and P<0.0001, respectively)1.

Brolucizumab met the primary efficacy endpoint of noninferiority to aflibercept in mean change in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) from baseline to week 48 in both trials1. These results were achieved while a majority of brolucizumab patients57% in HAWK and 52% in HARRIERwere maintained on a q12w dosing interval immediately following the loading phase through week 481.

"HAWK and HARRIER demonstrated that brolucizumab has the potential to positively impact disease management and provide long-lasting treatment effect," said Dr. Pravin U. Dugel, Managing Partner, Retinal Consultants of Arizona; Clinical Professor, Roski Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; and principal investigator of both trials. "HAWK and HARRIER showed that brolucizumab outperformed aflibercept on disease activity assessments, including key measures of disease progression seen on OCT, which forms the basis of a clinician's treatment decisions. Importantly, improvements in these key OCT measures were seen as early as week 16 and maintained at week 48, with a majority of brolucizumab patients on a 12-week treatment interval."

Frequent injections into the eye, a standard requirement for nAMD therapies, can be a significant hardship for patients and burden on caregivers4,5. Brolucizumab is the first and only anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment for nAMD to demonstrate robust visual gains with a majority of patients maintained on a less-frequent 12-week (q12) treatment interval immediately following the loading phase in randomized clinical trials1.

"Having delivered on our non-inferiority endpoint with a majority of patients on a q12 week interval, we're truly excited to share these data showing that brolucizumab clearly improves key anatomical outcomes that are biomarkers of disease," said Vas Narasimhan, Global Head, Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, Novartis. "Brolucizumab represents a major scientific and clinical advancement for patients, caregivers and retina specialists around the world."

With brolucizumab, significantly fewer patients had active disease at week 16 in a matched head-to-head comparison. Active disease was observed in 23.5% of brolucizumab 6 mg patients versus 33.5% of aflibercept patients in HAWK, and in 21.9% of brolucizumab patients versus 31.4% of aflibercept patients in HARRIER (P=0.0022 for both)1.

Brolucizumab safety was comparable to aflibercept with the overall incidence of adverse events balanced across all treatment groups in both studies1. The most frequent ocular adverse events (greater than 5% of patients in any treatment arm) for brolucizumab 3 mg, 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively, in HAWK were reduced visual acuity (8.7%, 6.9% and 8.9%), conjunctival hemorrhage (8.4%, 6.4% and 5.6%), vitreous floaters (6.7%, 5.0% and 3.1%) and eye pain (5.9%, 4.4% and 4.2%)6. The incidences of these events for brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively, in HARRIER were reduced visual acuity (5.9% and 6.2%), conjunctival hemorrhage (1.9% and 3.3%), vitreous floaters (3.0% and 0.8%) and eye pain (2.7% and 3.3%)6. The most frequent non-ocular adverse events were typical of those reported in an nAMD population; there were no notable differences between arms6. The incidence of arterial thrombotic events (ATE) was 3.9%, 2.5% and 5.5% (brolucizimab 3 mg, brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept respectively) in HAWK and 1.6% and 1.1% (brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively) in HARRIER1.

About brolucizumab (RTH258)

Brolucizumab (RTH258) is a humanized single-chain antibody fragment (scFv) and the most clinically advanced, humanized single-chain antibody fragment to reach this stage of development. Single-chain antibody fragments are highly sought after in drug development due to their small size, enhanced tissue penetration, rapid clearance from systemic circulation and drug delivery characteristics7,8,9.

The proprietary innovative structure results in a small molecule (26 kDa) with potent inhibition of, and high affinity to, all VEGF-A isoforms7,10. In preclinical studies, brolucizumab inhibited activation of VEGF receptors through prevention of the ligand-receptor interaction7,8,9,10. Increased signaling through the VEGF pathway is associated with pathologic ocular angiogenesis and retinal edema11. Inhibition of the VEGF pathway has been shown to inhibit the growth of neovascular lesions, resolve retinal edema and improve vision in patients with chorioretinal vascular diseases12.

About HAWK and HARRIER study design

With more than 1,800 patients across 400 centers worldwide, HAWK and HARRIER are the first and only global head-to-head trials in patients with nAMD that prospectively demonstrated efficacy at week 48 using an innovative q12w/q8w regimen, with a majority of patients on q12w immediately following the loading phase1. Both studies are 96-week prospective, randomized, double-masked multi-center studies and part of the Phase III clinical development of brolucizumab13,14.

The studies were designed to compare the efficacy and safety of intravitreal injections of brolucizumab 6 mg and 3 mg (HAWK only) versus aflibercept 2 mg in patients with nAMD. The primary efficacy objective of HAWK and HARRIER trials was to confirm that brolucizumab is noninferior to aflibercept in mean change in BCVA from baseline to Week 48. Secondary endpoints include average mean change in BCVA from baseline over the period week 36-48, the proportion of patients on a q12w interval at week 48 and anatomical parameters13,14.

In both trials, patients were randomized to either brolucizumab or aflibercept. Immediately following the 3-month loading phase, patients in the brolucizumab arms received a q12w dosing interval with an option to adjust to a q8w dosing interval based on masked disease activity assessments at defined visits. Aflibercept was dosed bi-monthly according to its label13,14.

Week 16 was an important pre-defined data point, as it represents a timepoint when the treatment assessment for brolucizumab and aflibercept were identical, providing an opportunity to observe how both drugs performed in a matched comparison1.

About neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD or wet AMD)

nAMD is the leading cause of severe vision loss and legal blindness in people over the age of 65 in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, impacting an estimated 20 to 25 million people worldwide15,16. nAMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels form underneath the macula, the area of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. These blood vessels are fragile and leak fluid, disrupting the normal retinal architecture and ultimately causing damage17,18,19.

Early symptoms of nAMD include distorted vision or metamorphopsia and difficulties seeing objects clearly20. Prompt diagnosis and intervention are essential. As the disease progresses, cell damage increases, further reducing vision quality. This progression can lead to a complete loss of central vision, leaving the patient unable to read, drive or recognize familiar faces17. Without treatment, vision can rapidly deteriorate21.

About Novartis in ophthalmology

Novartis is a leading ophthalmology company, with therapies that treat both front and back of the eye disorders, including retina diseases, glaucoma, dry eye and other external eye diseases. In 2016, approximately 200 million patients worldwide were treated with Novartis ophthalmic products.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "potential," "can," "will," "plan," "expect," "anticipate," "look forward," "believe," "committed," "investigational," "pipeline," "launch," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures; general economic and industry conditions, including the effects of the persistently weak economic and financial environment in many countries; safety, quality or manufacturing issues, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Novartis

Located in East Hanover, NJ Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation is an affiliate of Novartis which provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, cost-saving generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals and eye care. Novartis has leading positions globally in each of these areas. In 2016, the Group achieved net sales of USD 48.5 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 9.0 billion. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 121,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are sold in approximately 155 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com (link is external).

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References

Dugel P, et al. HAWK & HARRIER: 48-week results of 2 multi-centered, randomized, double-masked trials of brolucizumab versus aflibercept for neovascular AMD. Presented at: The American Academy of Ophthalmology 2017 Annual Meeting on November 10, 2017 , New Orleans . NHS Choices. Macular Degeneration. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Introduction.aspx (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . Kang SW, et al. The correlation between fluorescein angiographic and optical coherence tomographic features in clinically significant diabetic macular edema. Am J Ophthalmol 2004;137(2):313-322. Mantel I. Optimizing the Anti-VEGF Treatment Strategy for Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration: From Clinical Trials to Real-Life Requirements. Translational Vision Science & Technology. 2015;4(3):6. Gohil R, et al. Caregiver Burden in Patients Receiving Ranibizumab Therapy for Neovascular Age Related Macular Degeneration. PLoS ONE. 2015;10(6):e0129361. Data on file. Escher D, et al. Single-chain antibody fragments in ophthalmology. Oral presentation at EURETINA congress. 2015. Abstract. Available at: http://www.euretina.org/nice2015/programme/free-papers-details.asp?id=4072&day=0 (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . Nimz EL, et al. Intraocular and systemic pharmacokinetics of brolucizumab (RTH258) in nonhuman primates. The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting. 2016. Abstract 4996. Gaudreault J, et al. Preclinical pharmacology and safety of ESBA1008, a single-chain antibody fragment, investigated as potential treatment for age related macular degeneration. ARVO Annual meeting abstract. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2012;53:3025. http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2354604 (link is external) . Tietz J, et al. Affinity and Potency of RTH258 (ESBA1008), a Novel Inhibitor of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A for the Treatment of Retinal Disorders. IOVS. 2015; 56(7): 1501. Qazi Y, et al. Mediators of ocular angiogenesis. J. Genet. 2009;88(4):495-515. Kim R. Introduction, mechanism of action and rationale for anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs in age-related macular degeneration. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2007;55(6):413-415. ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier NCT02307682. Available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02307682 (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier NCT02434328. Available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02434328 (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . Schmidt-Erfurth U, et al. Guidelines for the management of neovascular age-related macular degeneration by the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA). Br J Ophthalmol. 2014;98:1144-1167. Chopdar A, et al. Age related macular degeneration. BMJ. 2003;26(7387):485-488. World Health Organization. Priority eye diseases: Age-related macular degeneration. Available at http://www.who.int/blindness/causes/priority/en/index7.html (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . NHS Choices. Macular Degeneration. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Introduction.aspx (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . National Eye Institute. Facts About Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Available at https://nei.nih.gov/health/maculardegen/armd_facts (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . NHS Choices. Macular degeneration - Symptoms. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Symptoms.aspx (link is external) . Accessed November 2017 . van Lookeren Campagne M, et al. Mechanisms of age-related macular degeneration and therapeutic opportunities. J Pathol. 2014; 232(2):151-64. doi: 10.1002/path.4266.

Novartis Media Relations Central media line: +41 61 324 2200 E-mail: [email protected]

Eric Althoff Martin DeBenedetto Novartis Global Media Relations Director, Communications +41 61 324 7999 (direct) (862) 778-7619 (direct) +41 79 593 4202 (mobile) (973) 738-4104 (mobile) [email protected] [email protected]

Novartis Investor Relations Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944 E-mail: [email protected]

North America Richard Pulik +1 212 830 2448 Cory Twining +1 212 830 2417

SOURCE Novartis

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NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Which two US NSCLC brands are streets ahead of the competition?



There are various options available to US medical oncologists to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Clearly some of these options are achieving greater levels of loyalty and satisfaction than others  but why? What are the key factors driving physician choice and how does each of the leading brands compare to its competitors?







Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175268







NPS+ NSCLC (US) gives a unique insight into the overall brand health of 12 leading treatments for NSCLC currently being used in the US. 100 medical oncologists were surveyed on key issues including brand messaging, prescribing behaviour and satisfaction levels. The results provide valuable insight for brand marketers seeking new ways to stand out.





Top Takeaways



Two brands are streets ahead of the competition. And one of these brands has hardly any detractors. Which one is it, and why is it trouncing the competition?



Loyalty for the leading brand bucks the trend. Loyalty scores of 4 or more are what brands are aiming for, and the leading brand is clearly doing something right. But why is loyalty so low at the other end of the league table?



High levels of satisfaction, but at what cost? Medical oncologists in the US seem to be a satisfied bunch, but is that due to one particular treatment option, or because they have a wide range of choices? And what could improve satisfaction rates even further?



Winning over detractors could drive significant market share growth for some brands.But which ones? Old, established therapies or the new kids on the block?



Marketing messages for some brands will be key. Are any brands associated with key product attributes such as slowing progression, good efficacy and a positive risk/benefit profile? If not, what could be done to drive better brand association?



In their own words. What do doctors say each brand means to them? For example, which brand is described as the 'new, easy to use, but very expensive' and which brand 'has no role in the treatment of NSCLC'?



Insight into 12 leading treatments for NSCLC



Alecensa (alectinib; Roche)

Cyramza (ramucirumab; Eli Lilly)

Gilotrif (afatinib; Boehringer Ingelheim)

Iressa (gefitinib; AstraZeneca)

Keytruda (pembrolizumab; Merck & Co.)

Opdivo (nivolumab; Bristol-Myers Squibb)

Portrazza (necitumumab; Eli Lilly)

Tagrisso (osimertinib; AstraZeneca)

Tarceva (erlotinib; Roche)

Tecentriq (atezolizumab; Roche)

Xalkori (crizotinib; Pfizer)

Zykadia (ceritinib; Novartis)





A Report Based on Expert Knowledge



We surveyed 100 US medical oncologists chosen from the largest community of validated physicians in the world.



We conducted the survey between 3rd and 13th July 2017.



Explore Important Brand Loyalty Issues



NPS+ NSCLC (US) offers valuable insight into brand loyalty from the perspective of those currently prescribing small molecule and biologic treatments to patients with NSCLC. You'll discover:



How satisfied doctors are with available treatments.

How loyal doctors are to your brand.

How many other brands your Promoters recommend.

Which other brands your Promoters and Detractors recommend.

How much market share your brand has among Promoters and Detractors.

How much market share you stand to gain by converting Detractors into Promoters.

Which messages Promoters, Passives and Detractors associate with your brand.

Your brand DNA: what doctors really think of your brandin their own words.



What is Net Promoter Score?



NPS is a customer loyalty metric developed by (and a registered trademark of) Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix. It was introduced by Reichheld in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article One Number You Need to Grow.



How does NPS work?



NPS measures overall brand satisfaction and loyalty by asking one simple question:

"How likely are you to recommend this brand to a colleague?"

Responses - given on a scale of 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely)are used to classify respondents into 3 categories:



Detractors are those who answer 0  6.

Passives are those who answer 7  8.

Promoters are those who answer 9 - 10.



How is NPS calculated?



The percentage of detractors - the percentage of promoters = NPS.



For example, 25% Promoters, 55% Passives and 20% Detractors give you an NPS of +5.



NPS can range from -100 (everybody is a Detractor) to +100 (everybody is a Promoter). The higher the score the healthier the brand.



What is FirstView NPS+?



NPS+ turns your Net Promoter Score into actionable information by answering key questions about brand loyalty.



Each NPS+ report examines doctors' relationships with the brands used to treat a major disease areameasuring brand loyalty and showing you how it affects your market share. NPS+ also examines "brand DNA", revealing in doctors' own words what brands mean to them.



Instead of one simple metric, NPS+ gives you a detailed picture of brand health that highlights areas for improvement, and helps you see exactly what steps you need to take next.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05175268



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



https://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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"Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands right on the heels of Hurricane Irma, and together, the two storms left behind incredible devastation. Despite infrastructure and communication challenges, the Red Cross has worked alongside dozens of partners to provide critical support and help reconnect families," said Brad Kieserman, vice president of Disaster Services Operations and Logistics for the Red Cross. "Puerto Rico has a long road ahead. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, the Red Cross will continue to stand with residents in the difficult weeks and months ahead."

Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico in late September as a Category 4 storm  the most intense hurricane to hit the U.S. territory in more than 80 years. The deadly storm caused widespread destruction, tearing off roofs and reducing homes to rubble; wiping out roads, bridges and crops; knocking out power and cell phone service; and creating devastating floods and mudslides. In Maria's aftermath, countless residents faced heartbreaking personal losses and challenges from damaged infrastructure. Millions in Puerto Rico were left without power; many also lacked phone service and safe drinking water.

The global Red Cross Red Crescent network also came to the American Red Cross's aid to help after back-to-back hurricanes. In fact, more than 30 Red Cross disaster responders from around the globe deployed to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to help American Red Cross teams deliver aid and reconnect families who lost touch because of the storm. These disaster responders came from Red Cross societies in Colombia, Costa Rica, Finland, Mexico, Spain, and from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Thus far, the American Red Cross has also deployed five disaster specialists and contributed $150,000 towards Hurricane Maria relief efforts on Dominica. The responders are helping the Dominica Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies with damage assessments, telecommunications connectivity, reconnecting family members, and are currently evaluating the feasibility of distributing cash as aid.

WHERE YOUR DONATIONS ARE GOING

As of October 20, the Red Cross raised $31.6 million in designated donations for the Maria relief effort. All donations earmarked for Hurricane Maria will be used to support relief and recovery efforts for this disaster. Learn more about how donations are helping in this video or in our detailed report. The following are examples of how donations are being used:

Donations pay for provision and delivery of food, water and relief items , accounting for $24.2 million of our preliminary budget estimate. In the first month, the Red Cross served 1.3 million meals and snacks, and distributed more than 843,000 relief items.

, accounting for of our preliminary budget estimate. In the first month, the Red Cross served 1.3 million meals and snacks, and distributed more than 843,000 relief items. Donations pay for health and mental health services , accounting for $500,000 of our preliminary budget estimate. In the first month, the Red Cross provided more than 11,000 services to support and care for people.

, accounting for of our preliminary budget estimate. In the first month, the Red Cross provided more than 11,000 services to support and care for people. Donations pay for individual and community recovery programs , accounting for $4.1 million of our preliminary budget estimate. The Red Cross is working alongside local partners to plan for long-term recovery and helping communities rebound and prepare for future disasters.

, accounting for of our preliminary budget estimate. The Red Cross is working alongside local partners to plan for long-term recovery and helping communities rebound and prepare for future disasters. Donations pay to transport, lodge and feed thousands of trained disaster workers who work in shelters, drive food trucks, hand out relief supplies, replace medications and eyeglasses, provide emotional support and coordinate with local officials.

who work in shelters, drive food trucks, hand out relief supplies, replace medications and eyeglasses, provide emotional support and coordinate with local officials. Donations pay for the freight, warehousing and other logistics expenses that enable the Red Cross to provide food, water and the truck-loads of relief items we've given out.

that enable the Red Cross to provide food, water and the truck-loads of relief items we've given out. Donations pay for the equipment, maintenance and fueling of emergency vehicles and rented trucks that deliver food and relief items to people in need.

and rented trucks that deliver food and relief items to people in need. Donations pay for the full-time program staff, disaster information technology, communications and call center infrastructure that make all of this help possible.

and that make all of this help possible. Donations also pay for our management, general and fundraising expenses that support our work at its core and are indispensable to running the organization and helping people in need. They include the people and systems to maintain our enterprise-wide computer and telecommunications, HR and payroll systems to support our more than 20,000 employees and nearly 314,000 volunteers, fundraising and communications functions, and other support services across all program lines.

About the American Red Cross:

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross.

SOURCE American Red Cross

Related Links

http://www.redcross.org


SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Outdoorsy announced today an incentive program creating entrepreneurship and economic opportunities in the recreational travel industry for active-duty and veteran service members. The company is waiving 100 percent of its service fees for the entire first year when active-duty and veteran service members list their RVs on Outdoorsy's peer-to-peer recreational vehicle marketplace.

Outdoorsy, the largest and most trusted RV rental marketplace, is honoring Veteran's Day but waiving 100 percent of service fees for any veteran or active duty military member listing their RV on the platform.

With $1.87 billion spent each day in the U.S., the recreational travel and services industry is experiencing unprecedented growth. Combined with low startup costs and the ability to utilize unused assets, the RV and camper rental industry is an ideal fit for military service members seeking to supplement their incomes or transition into civilian life.

"Service members make for exceptional business owners," says Outdoorsy's founder and CEO Jeff Cavins. "They know how to lead teams, work with systems, and have the dedication and perseverance to succeed  no matter what. Our platform provides them with the technology, marketing, and world-class customer service needed to succeed."

Outdoorsy's platform is simple, scalable, and highly profitable, providing aspiring entrepreneurs with a steady pipeline of booking requests and a raft of safety features such as GPS vehicle tracking and DMV driver verification. Additionally, the platform's $1 million insurance policy ensures that all rental transactions conducted through its platform are safe and secure.

Outdoorsy also has a massive network of successful, like-minded RV and camper rental business owners who offer support, camaraderie and advice to new business owners about how to easily scale a rental business to multiple vehicles.

"Service members and veterans are among our most successful pro operators on our platform, making anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 with just one or two vehicles," says Jennifer Young, co-founder and CMO. "Take Eddie Macias, a Navy veteran, and one of Outdoorsy's top owners. He lives in Monterey, California, and rents out his Forest River Sunseeker to eager tourists. Renting out his RV has given him time back in his day and he plans to expand his business further adding more vehicles and revenue."

Outdoorsy's program is free to join, easy to get started, and even easier to earn money so we hope to see the message get to all active duty military service men and veterans," added Young.

Any active-duty and veteran service member will enjoy waived service fees for their first year in business (on average representing more than $2,800 retail value) upon listing an RV with Outdoorsy. To list your RV or find out more, please visit outdoorsy.com/veterans.

For more information please contact:

Jennifer Young

Co-founder, CMO

Outdoorsy

[email protected]

Related Images

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Outdoorsy Veteran's Program Military Discount

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Outdoorsy - The Largest and Most Trusted RV Rental Marketplace

image3.jpg

Military Vets Receive 100 Percent Discount on Service Fees for One Year on Outdoorsy

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Military Vets like Eddie Macias Receive 1 Year of No Outdoorsy Service Fees

SOURCE Outdoorsy, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.outdoorsy.com


MADISON, N.J., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom held its 4th Annual Conference this past weekend at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. The theme of this conference was "Rising up Against Hate." More than 600 Muslim and Jewish women gathered to learn from the nation's leading scholars and activists on ways to combat bigotry and hate.

Fourth annual Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom Conference

Notable religious scholars like former president of the Islamic Society of North America Dr. Ingrid Matson was one of four keynotes for the event. Matson spoke about her heroes Hajar and Saffiyah and said: "Love doesn't mean the absence of conflict, it means that despite that conflict, we will work together." Author of the New York Times best-selling novel The Red Tent and Jewish Keynote Anita Diamant said: "Friendship is as essential as bread and as crucial as chocolate."

A surprise appearance by Senator Corey Booker had the audience up on their feet, empowered by the courage to wage peace.

"America is not a nation of tolerance but a nation of love," said Booker.

With several dozen breakout sessions, there was something for everyone. Workshop themes ranged from the action-packed self-defense moves by founding President of the Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment (WISE) Rana Abdelhamid to the introspective text studies of Director of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer and Scholar of Islamic Studies Homayra Ziad of the Institute of Islamic, Christian and Jewish studies.

Facilitator Sarah Aptilon of Kansas City conducted a workshop titled "Encountering 'Us vs. Them': How to Talk to a Bigot" on how to address those within or outside of our own communities whom we consider to be closed-minded in some way  the server who makes an offhand racist joke, the argumentative friend, the stranger whose comments you overhear at the gym, the relative who makes offensive remarks at the holidays.

Aptilon says, "I was inspired by the experiences that participants shared. They described what had and hadn't worked for them. Our discussion confirmed that arguing and presenting facts isn't usually effective, while listening deeply, asking questions and sharing personal stories can work in subtle but powerful ways."

Professor and co-founder of the Sisterhood Atiya Aftab, Esq., conducted a workshop on "What You Wanted to Know About Judaism and Islam and Were Afraid to Ask" with Rabbi Shira Stern.

Women from over 26 different states and the District of Columbia attended this year's event with many of them taking to social media to memorialize the event with photos and videos. Manika Patel of Austin, Texas, wrote, "What an amazing weekend I had at the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom 4th annual conference in Morristown, NJ this weekend. Making new lifelong friends from all across the US, listening to some amazing and inspiring speakers, I can't wait to see what wonderful things you ladies are going to do in the Sisterhood for 2018."

Board President Donna Cephas spoke about the power of each of our Sisters to reach many others, to create deep interfaith relationships and to initiate change through waging peace. "Our movement now includes young women leading their own Teenage Chapters."

The day-long event culminated in a panel discussion moderated by American comedian and host of SiriusXM Progress The Dean Obeidallah Show, the only daily national radio show hosted by a Muslim American. Panelists included author of the recently released Adnan's Story Rabia Chaudry, founder of Ms. magazine Letty Cottin Pograbin, founding President of the Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment (WISE) Rana Abdelhamid and the Executive Director of the Sisterhood Sheryl Olitzky.

When asked what was her hope for the future of the organization, Olitzky said: "when we are no longer needed."

If membership growth is any indication, they are a long way from reaching that goal. The tripling of Sisterhood Chapters and their online communities reflect a burning need to continue this work.

"We have over a thousand women still on a waiting list and are expanding by the minute. We are not just a group anymore, we are a movement!" says Olitzky.

Media Contact:

Sheryl Olitzky

Phone: 609-306-1221

Email: [email protected]

Related Files

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Related Images

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More than 600 women in unity

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Building new bonds

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Rising up against hate

Related Links

Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom website

SOURCE Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom
SOMERVILLE, Mass., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Revolutionary Clinics, a vertically integrated medical marijuana company, today announced that its new dispensary, located at 67 Broadway, Somerville, MA, opened to patients on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 11:00 AM Eastern Time. The company hosted a Grand Opening for the dispensary on Thursday, November 9, 2017 for the community. Investors, media and customers were invited to attend this special event to view the dispensary's unique selection of premium medical cannabis products.

Meg Sanders, Managing Director, said, "We have worked for years to get this location opened to serve the people of Somerville and surrounding areas and the date has finally arrived."

Revolutionary Clinics is proud to be the 15th licensed RMD in Massachusetts, serving Somerville and the greater Boston area. The dispensary will offer premium medical cannabis, flowers, shatters, waxes and oils, among several other high-quality cannabis products from a selection of highly reputable providers of superior grade medical cannabis.

"We are incredibly excited to serve the community here in Somerville. We aim to have the best quality products and the high end service and will work hard to meet the needs of all of our clients," Keith Cooper, CEO, stated.

The company started as a nonprofit, providing heart screenings to young patients. After the founder's daughter died of an opioid overdose, the company pivoted, encouraged by studies demonstrating reduced opioid deaths in areas with friendlier marijuana laws. This passion for helping the community and patients led to creating the Somerville dispensary and plans for a Cambridge, MA location.

Revolutionary Clinics' hours of operations will be:

Monday: 11am  8:30pm

Tuesday: 11am  8:30pm

Wednesday: 11am  8:30pm

Thursday: 11am  8:30pm

Friday: 11am  8:30pm

Saturday: 11am  8:30pm

Sunday: 11am - 4pm

About Revolutionary Clinics:

When you become a Revolutionary, you'll experience an approach to health and well-being that is unlike any other.

Our mission is rooted in our commitment to changing the world:

Challenging the status quo

Cultivating passionately

Producing thoughtfully

Serving respectfully

Showing love and care in all of our actions

Providing the Revolutionary experience in all that we do

For more information about Revolutionary Clinics visit: https://www.revolutionaryclinics.org/

Visit us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RevClinics/

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RevClinics

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revclinics/

Media Contact

Meg Sanders

Managing Directors

Phone number: (617) 213-6006

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Revolutionary Clinics

Related Links

http://www.revolutionaryclinics.org


NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05153088

Summary

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.

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.

Key Highlights

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.

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.

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 industry?

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05153088

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The holiday shopping season got off to a flying start last night, quite literally, in Times Square where Sean Astin was on hand to officially open a playground-themed Sharper Image pop up shop that invites hands-on, try-before-you-buy fun. As for the flying, Jordan "Jet" Temkin, two-time International Drone League World Champ thrilled the VIP crowd with myriad remote airborne stunts, while New York's Finest (NYPD) faced off against New York's Bravest (FDNY) for "best NYC driver" bragging rights on a huge RC car track, complete with hairpin turns and checkered flags.

Jordan Jet Temkin, two-time international champion of the Drone League World Championship, and actor Sean Astin fly the new Sharper Image drone at the Sharper Image pop-up store launch party in New York's Times Square, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. From drones of all sizes and radio-controlled toys to hi-tech barware and beyond, Sharper Image offers something for everyone in the familyfrom the gadget lover or jet-setter, to the kids or kid-at-heart. (Stuart Ramson/AP Images for Sharper Image)

The two-story showcase at 4 Times Square returns Sharper Image to brick and mortar retail this holiday season, inviting New Yorkers and visitors from across the country, and around the world, to Shop Sharper by offering a curated selection of premium gifts for play and the home, at prices worth celebrating. It's high-tech, high-touch, high quality, minus the high price tag.

"I mean, who doesn't love Sharper Image. Like so many of us here tonight, I grew up with Sharper Image," said Astin. "Playing with all the awesome stuff in this store takes me back, while showing off everything that Sharper Image is today ... 100 percent fun, and right in the heart of Times Square."

"The Times Square community couldn't be happier to have Sharper Image with us this holiday season," said Tim Tomkins, President, Times Square Alliance. "Like Times Square itself, their seasonal store is about many things at once, and not least among those, the intersection of fun and commerce. We invite New Yorkers, and visitors from across the country, and all throughout the world, to experience it for themselves."

For those who can't make it to 42nd and Broadway, items featured at the Sharper Image pop-up can be found nationwide at major retailers such as Target, Kohl's and Bed Bath & Beyond. Among Sharper Image items sure to delight this holiday season, and well beyond:

Drone FPV : first-person POV let's you see what the drone sees, with video that streams right to your smartphone equipped with VR viewer (included), and auto landing and take-off for maximum control ( $119.99 )

first-person POV let's you see what the drone sees, with video that streams right to your smartphone equipped with VR viewer (included), and auto landing and take-off for maximum control ( ) RC Action Flip Stunt Rally Vehicle : two cars in one! Dual sided flip design lets it perform 360-degree spins and flips, complete with with high-performance rubber tires and extra-bright LED headlights ($19.99)

two cars in one! Dual sided flip design lets it perform 360-degree spins and flips, complete with with high-performance rubber tires and extra-bright LED headlights Memory Foam Pillow with Cool Touch Cover : there's never a "wrong" side of the pillow! Vented airflow with ice cool fibers keep you cool, while natural bamboo charcoal keeps odors under control and Visco elastic memory foam molds to your body ($49.99)

there's never a "wrong" side of the pillow! Vented airflow with ice cool fibers keep you cool, while natural bamboo charcoal keeps odors under control and Visco elastic memory foam molds to your body Robotosaur : run him into a wall, he gets angry and roars, his eyes changing to match his mood. Wave your hands over his nose, he calms back down. With a motion detector-powered "hunt mode," Fido and Fluffy have some new competition ($99.99)

"Sharper Image was in so many ways the original experiential store, and our holiday pop-up takes the idea of hands-on fun at retail to an entirely new level," said David Conn, Chief Executive Officer at Sharper Image brand owner ThreeSixty Group. "Our holiday selection, available here and at leading retailers like Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl's, showcases what Sharper Image is all about today, and that's having fun!"

About Sharper Image/ThreeSixty Group

Sharper Image brand owner ThreeSixty Group, originally known as MerchSource, was founded in Southern California in 1999. Today, ThreeSixty designs, sources and distributes consumer products across diverse categories under a portfolio of owned and licensed brands. The Company provides curated merchandise programs which it distributes to major retailers across almost every retail channel in the U.S. representing over 70,000 retail stores. In 2015, ThreeSixty received a majority investment from AEA investors LP, one of the oldest private equity firms in the U.S.

SOURCE Sharper Image

Related Links

https://www.sharperimage.com


SAN DIEGO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Seismic, the leading global marketing and sales enablement solution, today announced it ranked 132nd on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Seismic grew 872 percent during this period.

"Our continued rapid growth is a direct reflection of the bottom line success our customers have in improving the effectiveness of their sales content and closing larger deals," said Doug Winter, Seismic co-founder and CEO. "With this in mind, we are honored to once again be named one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America in Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500."

"The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers."

"Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this year's North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and a strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment," said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLP's emerging growth company practice. "Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this year's Fast 500 winners."

Seismic previously ranked 83rd as a Technology Fast 500 award winner in 2016. Last year was also the fifth consecutive year in which the company experiences triple-digit revenue growth. Thus far, 2017 has also seen Seismic expand internationally, with the company opening its first overseas office in Sydney, Australia.

Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with median growth of 380 percent.

About Seismic

Seismic is the leading global marketing and sales enablement solution, improving close rates and delivering larger deals for sales while increasing marketing's impact on the bottom line. Large enterprises use Seismic to increase sales productivity through the automatic distribution of relevant information and personalized content to reps for any buyer interaction. Powerful content controls and visibility into usage ensures brand integrity and reduces risk. Seismic's machine learning and analytics capabilities continuously improves the entire enablement process for large enterprises, increasing the ROI of sales content and tying it directly to revenue. Headquartered in San Diego and with more than 300 employees across the globe, Seismic is privately held by its executive team and investment firms General Atlantic, JMI Equity, and Jackson Square Ventures.

To see how Seismic is being used by firms in your industry, visit http://www.seismic.com.

About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies  both public and private  in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms.

Media Contact

Jason Fidler

PR Manager, Seismic

[email protected]

SOURCE Seismic

Related Links

http://www.seismic.com


ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The untold story of Coastal Georgia's extraordinary contributions during World War II will be brought to life in an inspiring cultural attraction unlike any other in the nation. Opening in fall 2018, the new World War II Home Front Museum on St. Simons Island will recount how one quiet community was transformed when the United States went to war.

When the U.S. was drawn into World War II in late 1941, Americans marshaled many resources to support the war effort. Around the country, 18 shipyards were dedicated to building Liberty ships, which would serve as workhorses supplying the troops overseas. Additionally, the U.S. Navy established 10 airship bases for operating blimp patrol that would be essential for protecting supply convoys from enemy attacks. Five naval radar training schools also went into full-time operation.

Remarkably, Glynn County was the only county nationwide to operate all three critical types of facilities  a Liberty shipyard, an airship base, and naval radar training facilities.

Developed by the Coastal Georgia Historical Society, the Home Front Museum will detail Glynn County's multifaceted role during the war, including the bold initiatives it took to protect the Atlantic Coast from German submarines, using blimps in aerial reconnaissance; to train naval officers in the latest radar technology; and to build Liberty ships  a total of 85 from 1942 to 1945.

The museum will be housed in the Historic Coast Guard Station on St. Simons Island, a beloved community icon listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1936 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's Federal Works program, and transferred to the U.S. War Department in 1941, the Coast Guard building itself is a major artifact of the home front story.

As one of the only permanent exhibits in America related to World War II home front history, this standalone museum is unique, museum officials say, because it is dedicated to documenting the story from a single community's perspective. Using first-hand accounts, artifacts, historical photographs and interactive technology, the museum will preserve and bring to life the personal narratives of men and women from diverse backgrounds who rolled up their sleeves to support those on the battlefield.

"This museum will feature an important Georgia story," said Dr. Jamil Zainaldin, president of Georgia Humanities, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Georgia's rich culture. "While the home front activities took place on the coast, people came from all corners of our state to assist in the efforts  from working in the shipyards in Brunswick to volunteering for the Civil Air Patrol, organizing war bond drives, developing Naval air stations, and more. The home front story is one all Georgians can be proud of  it celebrates the patriotism, heroism and enterprise of Georgia's men and women, who contributed profoundly to winning World War II."

One individual with close ties to Glynn County is philanthropist A.D. "Pete" Correll, chairman of Atlanta Equity Investors LLC and the chairman emeritus of Georgia-Pacific LLC. A Brunswick native born in 1941, Correll contributed the lead gift to the $3.3 million capital campaign to fund the new museum. He also donated a photograph of himself as a young boy, being held in his father's arms, at the launching of SS R. Ney McNeely, a Liberty Ship built in the Brunswick yards in 1943.

"The home front story is a major part of Coastal Georgia history that should not be forgotten. Because of the shipyards and other military and civilian activity, Brunswick became a boomtown almost overnight," Correll explained. "Most people experienced World War II because their loved ones went to the war overseas  that was their connection  but the war never actually came to them. However, it came to Glynn County and transformed our community forever."

The museum will also highlight the local legacy of World War II. Bill Jones III, a Coastal Georgia Historical Society board member, Georgia businessman, and third-generation Glynn County resident, said, "The home front efforts had a lasting impact on Glynn County and the state of Georgia, driving manufacturing progress, the shipping industry and economic development for decades to come. Innovation and infrastructure developed during the war led to the launch of new businesses, the expansion of Georgia's ports and the establishment of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center."

For information about the museum and how to get involved, visit www.coastalgeorgiahistory.org.

About the Coastal Georgia Historical Society

Founded in 1965, the mission of the Coastal Georgia Historical Society is to tell the inspiring stories of Coastal Georgia through the collection and historic structures entrusted to its care. The purpose is to preserve and share these cultural resources, which illuminate the past and give meaning and value to the present and future. As the only American Alliance of Museums accredited history institution in the Coastal Georgia region, the Historical Society impacts the lives of over 250,000 people annually through its museums and programs.

The Historical Society's facilities include the St. Simons Lighthouse and Museum, the A.W. Jones Heritage Center, and the World War II Home Front Museum, which will open in October 2018 at the Historic Coast Guard Station on St. Simons Island.

SOURCE Coastal Georgia Historical Society

Related Links

http://www.coastalgeorgiahistory.org


Under the theme Empower Cities, Empower People , Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on smart cities will host on 2017 its biggest edition to date. From November 14 to 16, Fira de Barcelona ' s Gran Via venue will gather 700 cities worldwide as well as 675 exhibitors and 420 speakers, all of them record-breaking figures. The event will focus on strategies to empower metropolises and their citizens through active participation, critical reflection, awareness and access and control over important decisions and resources.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367297LOGO )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/600044/SMARTCITY.jpg )

The event's director, Ugo Valenti, said that, "We believe that the role that citizens will play in the near futures will be crucial. Top-down governance approaches are gone for good and we need to shift the relation between city governments and residents taking it one step further. Never before in history has there been so much talent and creativity concentrated in so little space."

On 2017, SCEWC will host 675 exhibitors, a 14% increase compared to 2016. Over 30,000m[2] of exhibition floor space, where top international companies from every industry within the smart urban ecosystem will showcase their latest solutions.

The event will also gather representatives from over 700 metropolises from around the globe. Among them, Atlanta, Berlin, Casablanca, Dubai, Grenoble, London, Lyon, Montevideo, Moscow, New York City, Puebla, Quebec, Taipei, Tel Aviv and Zheijhang. While the event will also host several country pavilions such as those of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Denmark, Dubai, Finland, Germany, Holland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden and USA.

SCEWC will showcase examples of projects currently being developed Worldwide that will reshape the way cities function and are managed. Dubai, for example, will showcase an Autonomous and electric Air Taxi service jointly developed with German company Volocopter. Spanish company FCC will also display an Aerial Robot for Sewer Inspection and within the Safe Cities field, SCEWC will show the world's tiniest panic button embedded in a ring.

A total of 420 international experts will share their insights about how the urban future should address its most pressing challenges. All of them will delve into the future of urban settlements through a conference program structured in 8 themes: Government, Safe cities, Economy, Sustainability, Circular, Society and Data Technology.

SOURCE Fira de Barcelona
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Sorenson Media today announced it ranked number 229 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Sorenson Media grew 426 percent during this period.

Sorenson Media created the Spark platform, a next generation television advertising and analytics software suite that harnesses the potential of addressable content. The Spark platform allows personalization on the vast scope of global broadcast television, giving advertisers interactive, addressable options with second-by-second measurement; features previously only found in digital.

"We're thrilled to be recognized as part of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500," said Marcus Liassides, CEO at Sorenson Media. "Our technology, partnerships, scale and team position us well for widespread adoption of our Spark platform as a key for success in television advertising."

Deloitte Technology Fast 500 selects companies based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth over a three year period. Deloitte LLP compiles the ranking from public record research and information submitted by applicants.

"The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers."

Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with median growth of 380 percent.

"Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this year's North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and a strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment," said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLP's emerging growth company practice. "Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this year's Fast 500 winners."

This growth award is the latest to recognize the accelerating adoption of Sorenson Media's Spark platform among advertisers and broadcasters. In August, Sorenson Media was ranked No. 70 on Mountain West Capital Network's Utah 100, naming them as one of the fastest growing companies in the state.

About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies  both public and private  in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms.

About Sorenson Media

Founded in 1995, Sorenson Media provides trusted solutions to the broadcast television industry and is an innovator in next generation television--the fusing of the power and scale of broadcast TV with the data and addressability of digital. Using the capabilities of internet-connected devices to deliver addressability, interactivity, and measurement, Sorenson Media's Spark platform provides broadcasters and advertisers with a complete toolkit to enable, enhance, and improve the TV content and advertising viewing experience. For more information, visit www.sorensonmedia.com and follow us on Twitter, @sorensonmedia.

Media Contacts

Megan Herrick

Sorenson Media

(801) 831-4663

[email protected]

Roger Johnson

Method Communications

(801) 461-9781

[email protected]

SOURCE Sorenson Media

Related Links

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LISLE, Ill., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SunCoke Energy, Inc. (NYSE: SXC) announced today that, after seven years, Frederick A. Henderson has decided to retire as SunCoke's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, and SunCoke's board of directors has elected Michael G. Rippey as Chief Executive Officer and President, effective December 1, 2017. Mr. Rippey also has been elected a member of SunCoke's board of directors, effective December 1, 2017. In addition, Mr. Rippey will serve as Chairman, CEO and President of the general partner of SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: SXCP), SunCoke's master limited partnership subsidiary. In connection with these changes, Mr. Henderson has agreed to serve as SunCoke's Executive Chairman until December 31, 2017, and Mr. John W. Rowe, currently SunCoke's Lead Director and Governance Committee Chair, will serve as the non-Executive Chairman of the Board, beginning on January 1, 2018.

"It has been a privilege to serve as SunCoke's President, CEO and Chairman, leading the company through the IPO and then working collaboratively with the employees, the senior executive team and the board of directors to build sustainable profitability in SunCoke's core coke production business and diversify its revenue and customer base into a profitable logistics business, while judiciously using its cash flow for the benefit of shareholders," said Mr. Henderson.

Commenting upon Mr. Henderson's decision to retire, Mr. Rowe stated, "We thank Fritz for his outstanding service and contributions to SunCoke during his tenure, and we wish him and his family the best. His energy, vision and strategic leadership have been of immense benefit both to our employees and our stockholders. He has our enduring admiration and respect. While we are sorry to see Fritz leave the company, we are nonetheless excited about our new leadership at SunCoke. Mike is exceptionally talented and, under his leadership, we look forward to continuing to improve operational efficiencies at our existing businesses."

A financially astute leader and veteran steel industry executive, Mr. Rippey, 60, has overseen operations of some of the largest and most capital intensive assets in the world. He joins SunCoke most recently from Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (a leading global steelmaker), where, since 2015, he has served as Senior Advisor. From 2014 to 2015, he served as Chairman of the Board of ArcelorMittal USA (a major domestic steel manufacturer), and from August 2006 through October 2014, he was ArcelorMittal USA's President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to that, he successfully rose through progressively responsible financial, commercial and administrative leadership roles at ArcelorMittal USA and its predecessor companies.

Mr. Rippey is an accomplished senior executive with a wealth of finance, sales, operations and management experience in the metals industry. He has successfully dealt with dynamic and challenging business environments and, as a past executive officer and Chairman of ArcelorMittal USA, he has an intimate knowledge and understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing SunCoke as it continues to serve the steel industry.

Mr. Rippey earned a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, a Master of Science in Banking and Finance from Loyola University, Chicago, IL, and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Chicago. Mr. Rippey currently serves on the Board of Directors of Olympic Steel, Inc., a $1.1 billion steel service center headquartered in Ohio, where he is a member of the Nominating Committee, the Compensation Committee and the Audit and Compliance Committee.

"Mike's reputation for strategic and tactical direction, managing a major manufacturing enterprise, speaks for itself. He has proven to be a successful leader with a strong execution orientation. In addition, he has a keen understanding of the steel industry and how SunCoke can best serve its customers," said Mr. Henderson. "With his qualifications and clear record of accomplishment, Mike is ideally suited to position SunCoke for future success."

Speaking on behalf of SunCoke's board of directors, Mr. Rowe said, "The Board has engaged in a successful succession process as it sought to find a CEO with excellent credentials and experience to succeed Fritz Henderson. We are confident that Mike has the qualifications, record of performance, and strategic perspective to champion the growth of SunCoke's businesses and contribute to SunCoke's success from the start. We are very pleased that he is joining the Company."

Commenting on his new appointment, Mr. Rippey said, "SunCoke is a great company with industry-leading cokemaking technology and a promising portfolio of strategically located logistics assets. This is an exciting opportunity. I am eager to join the leadership team of a company with such an attractive value proposition and such dedicated employees."

ABOUT SUNCOKE ENERGY, INC.

SunCoke Energy, Inc. (NYSE: SXC) and its sponsored master limited partnership subsidiary, SunCoke Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: SXCP), supply high-quality coke used in the blast furnace production of steel, under long-term, take-or-pay contracts that pass through commodity and certain operating costs to customers. We utilize an innovative heat-recovery technology that captures excess heat for steam or electrical power generation. Our cokemaking facilities are located in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Brazil and India. We have more than 50 years of cokemaking experience serving the integrated steel industry. Through SXCP, we provide export and domestic coal handling services to the coke, coal, steel and power industries. Our coal handling terminals have the collective capacity to blend and transload more than 35 million tons of coal each year and are strategically located to reach Gulf Coast, East Coast, Great Lakes and international ports. To learn more about SunCoke Energy, Inc., visit our website at www.suncoke.com.

SOURCE SunCoke Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.suncoke.com


CHICAGO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A safe, cost-effective medical procedure conducted by Dr. Eugene Lipov, a Chicago-based physician and founder of www.healinghero.org, is being credited with reversing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS) in more than 500 hundred patients over a decade, half of whom are veterans and active duty military personnel. Dr. Lipov's patients credit him and the stellate ganglion block (SGB) for saving their lives, including Army Captain (Sep.) Clint Byers, a high-level intelligence officer who had a bounty put on his head by the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan.

Army Captain (Sep.) Clint Byers, who received a Bronze Star, is pictured here with local children after completing a patrol in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Dr. Eugene Lipov, founder of www.healinghero.org and the Global PTSI Foundation

"It's been two years since I received the SGB treatment and my life has completely turned around," said Byers, who was targeted for assassination by the Taliban. "You learn to accept the graphic nature of violence in war. But when I was told that the Taliban had a put a hit out on me because of my role in the Army, which was to identify and target high-risk Taliban military leaders, my brain and body began to react in unfamiliar and scary ways."

Byers had six months left "in country" but began to experience anxiety, panic and a "hyper- awareness" of the violent attacks he had witnessed  and been victim to  during his deployment. Fearing for his own life, Byers returned home and began a four-year battle with paranoia, nightmares, alcoholism and both physical and mental anguish. Ultimately, Byers successfully traversed the Veteran's Administration's healthcare quagmire and, not surprisingly, was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress. Despite medication and therapy, he couldn't seem to find a solution for his symptoms until he sought treatment from Dr. Lipov.

"I was despondent, acting irresponsibly and drinking heavily. I didn't want to be around my family and had given up on suggested treatments for my PTS," continued Byers, a Tampa area resident. "My parents saw Dr. Lipov's show on "The Doctors" and asked me to go see him. I was skeptical, but I went to appease them. The SGB procedure has been completely life-changing. Today, I am back to the man I was before war."

Byers is referring to the stellate ganglion block (SGB), a minimally invasive anesthetic procedure that takes approximately 15 minutes to administer and has a success rate of more than 80 percent. Dr. Lipov conducts the federally-approved procedure in the downtown Chicago office of Advanced Pain Centers, which he founded and where he serves as medical director. In addition, Dr. Lipov founded and serves as Chief Science Officer of the Global Post-Traumatic Stress Injury Foundation based outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day, most of whom suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress," said Dr. Lipov. "The treatment I provide is safe, proven, painless and inexpensive. I have treated hundreds of veterans (and others) who have the same experience as Captain Byers  their symptoms go away, leading to dramatic improvements in their lives, experiences and relationships."

Dr. Lipov's Global PTSI Foundation has raised money and treated hundreds of veterans at no cost to the patients. Dr. Lipov hopes to continue raising awareness of how the SGB can successfully help those suffering from PTS as well as military sexual trauma (MST).

Media contact for information and interviews: Dan Springer at 858-790-9551 or [email protected].

SOURCE www.healinghero.org

Related Links

http://www.healinghero.org


NEW YORK and MUMBAI, India, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, has been recognized as a Leader in Cloud ERP Implementation in the recently published IDC MarketScape, "Worldwide Cloud ERP Implementation Services 2017 Vendor Assessment."1.

"Cloud ERP adoption is an important part of our customers' digital transformation journeys, driven largely by business imperatives," said Krishnan Ramanujam, President, Business & Technology Services, TCS. "This recognition as a Leader is a validation of our business-centric transformational approach, and of our market success."

In the Cloud ERP solutions space, TCS offers a full, consulting-led suite of services spanning business transformation, cloud strategy and roadmap definition, cloud ERP implementation, upgrades, program governance, and change management.

These cover the entire scope of Cloud ERP applications including finance and accounting, human capital management and payroll, supply chain management, procurement and order management, enterprise asset management, and customer relationship management (CRM) functions, offered by OEM partners.

In addition, TCS offers its own ERP-on-Cloud platform, a fully managed, secure, scalable, global, and consolidated enterprise application based on a Tier 1 ERP package, for customers with complex business processes requiring quick on-boarding, low up-front investment and standardized business processes.

A key differentiator has been TCS' investments in intellectual property in the Cloud ERP area, represented by:

Flagship BPaaS platforms, TAP to simplify the procure-to-pay cycle, and CHROMA for transforming talent management

Suite of proprietary, OEM-certified tools and accelerators to fast-track implementations and automate data transformation, testing, and documentation  resulting in quicker time to market for customers.

Pre-built PaaS solutions addressing OEM SaaS whitespaces such as employee engagement, dealer portal, predictive logistics, and Smart supply chain, all available in the Cloud OEM Marketplace.

"As customers launch large scale Cloud ERP transformation programs that have deep, complex interlinkages to existing systems, our contextual knowledge, industry depth, experience, and breadth of innovative solutions, position us uniquely to meet their need for certainty and quick time to market," added Krishnan Ramanujam. "We remain focused on building out new services offerings, assets and methodologies to sustain our position as our customers' strategic and trusted business advisor, and partner for Cloud ERP programs."

About IDC MarketScape: IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor's position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS):

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, Infrastructure, Engineering and Digital services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata group, India's largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 389,000 of the world's best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of U.S. $17.6 billion for year ended March 31, 2017 and is listed on the BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com.

To stay up-to-date on TCS news in North America, follow @TCS_NA. For TCS global news, follow @TCS_News.

1 IDC Marketscape, "Worldwide Cloud ERP Implementation 2017 Vendor Assessment,"(# US41523417, June 2017).

SOURCE Tata Consultancy Services

Related Links

http://www.tcs.com


NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The South African Accounting Sector:

The accounting industry is part of the wider business services sector which contributed 20.2% to GDP in 2016. There were more than 41,000 Chartered Accountants (CAs) registered in South Africa in 2016 and some 2,000 active audit firms. Of concern in the domestic arena is that South Africa has lost its status as the global leader when it comes to the strength of auditing and reporting standards. The local industry is also beset with concerns over recently promulgated regulations, slow transformation and a perceived decline in independence due to allegations relating to the KPMG South Africa scandal.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p03876301



Technological Developments:

The accounting sector is changing rapidly as a result of technological advancement and firms are increasingly turning to cloud computing, data analytics and outright automation in an effort to reduce the amount of laborious, repetitive and time-consuming tasks and focus on a more strategic and consultative role for their clients. However, analysts comment that while technology promises to significantly reduce the amount of time accountants and auditors spend on low-level tasks, the sector is also increasingly aware of the threat of serious disruption, and potential replacement, of a number of key value propositions offered by accountants.

Report Coverage:

The South African Accounting Sector describes current conditions and developments, focusing on Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation (MAFR), a rule published by the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) in June 2017. This rule and other factors that influence the success of the sector are discussed in this detailed report. Profiles for 19 companies are provided, including market leaders, the locally-owned operations of the largest audit firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte, EY and KPMG. Also profiled are the Auditor-General of South Africa and medium-sized South African accounting firm PKF South Africa, which in May 2017 announced the acquisition of Durban-based audit and accounting practice De Witt & Saestad. The deal sees PKF's Durban office grow to 240 employees, solidifying the firm's position as the largest independent accounting firm in KwaZulu-Natal.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p03876301

About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

Contact Clare: [email protected]

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Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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PURCHASE, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The PepsiCo Foundation today announced a grant of $750,000 to the Warrior-Scholar Project ("WSP"), an intensive program hosted at America's top universities to prepare student-veterans for the transition from a military culture to an academic culture.

The PepsiCo Foundation grant, which will vest over the next three years, will support the established one and two-week college preparatory 'boot camp' and also fund the development of a new WSP model with a business-focused curriculum to benefit and prepare recipients with relevant and practical skills in years to come. As a founding partner of the Business Initiative, PepsiCo leaders will also mentor students through their studies and ultimately as they transition into jobs.

"We are immensely grateful to all those who have sacrificed to preserve, protect, and defend our country, and we are deeply committed to not only hiring veterans, but also supporting the training they need as they transition from serving our country to pursuing a higher education, and then entering the workplace," said Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo. "At PepsiCo, we have long-believed that veterans enrich our organization and bring valuable leadership skills that can immeasurably strengthen our business."

"We are delighted to partner with PepsiCo as we build the new Business Initiative and incorporate business-focused curriculum into our program," said Dr. Sid Ellington, WSP Executive Director. "This program extension will not only provide useful skills training, it will also help veterans and active-duty personnel who have not yet completed a bachelor's degree, gain confidence to reenter and become leaders in the classroom."

The Warrior-Scholar Project began in 2012 with a liberal arts/humanitiesbased curriculum. In 2015, WSP expanded the one week course offering with a second week of instruction focused on STEM curriculum. This year, approximately 250 veterans participated in the program, across the following universities: Amherst College, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Syracuse, Texas A&M, University of Michigan, University of Arizona, University of Chicago, Yale, University of Oklahoma, University of Southern California, University of Notre Dame.

PepsiCo has a long legacy of military hiring and as a leading military and business partner. Last year, nearly one quarter of the company's external supply chain hires were veterans, and the Army was one of PepsiCo's top-three sources for recruits. In 2010, the company established an employee resource group called VALOR to recognize, appreciate and support PepsiCo's veterans, military members, their families, and the communities in which they live and work. PepsiCo also invests in the wider military community through organizations like Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation, which provides children of fallen military an opportunity for a college education; and Operation Shower, which hosts baby showers for military moms-to-be. In addition, PepsiCo has played an active role in events like Fleet Week, the USO's September 11th annual remembrance and Carry the Load.

About PepsiCo Foundation

Established in 1962, the PepsiCo Foundation works with non-profit partners to develop innovative, sustainable solutions that address challenges in underserved communities around the world. The Foundation, along with PepsiCo and its employees, seeks to catalyze efforts that advance our Performance with Purpose 2025 goals.

For more information, please visit: www.pepsico.com/Purpose/Global-Citizenship.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated approximately $63 billion in net revenue in 2016, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. PepsiCo's product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including 22 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.

At the heart of PepsiCo is Performance with Purpose  our fundamental belief that the success of our company is inextricably linked to the sustainability of the world around us. We believe that continuously improving the products we sell, operating responsibly to protect our planet and empowering people around the world enable PepsiCo to run a successful global company that creates long-term value for society and our shareholders. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com.

About the Warrior-Scholar Project

The Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP) runs immersive academic boot camps hosted at America's top universities for enlisted military veterans. The majority of enlisted personnel exiting the military have not been in a classroom setting for several years, and find it hard to transition, being unprepared for the fundamentally different social and cultural environment. WSP helps veterans rediscover and develop the skills and confidence necessary to successfully complete 4-year undergraduate programs in higher education. WSP unlocks their educational potential and transforms the way veterans view themselves as students. For more information, visit http://www.warrior-scholar.org , email [email protected] or call 202-625-4313 .

SOURCE PepsiCo
"We are happy to be here in the heart of New York City, on the day before we honor veterans across the nation, to celebrate the reopening of the Times Square Recruiting Station," said Stephanie Miller, Director of Military Accession Policy for the Department of Defense. "This is an iconic building in a truly iconic location, and the updates made to this building will allow our recruiters to better serve the community. This station is just one of the 3,500 recruiting stations located throughout the country that help to recruit the 250,000 young men and women each year to serve in our All-Volunteer Force."

Located at 200 West 43rd Street, in the middle of Times Square, the station is often referred to as the most well-known recruiting station in the country and was the nation's first joint armed forces recruiting station. In 2006, the Municipal Art Society of New York City designated the building one of "30 under 30": one of 30 buildings built in the past 30 years deemed worthy of landmark status.

To mark this occasion, representatives of all Services took part in cutting the ceremonial ribbon including:

Major General Garrett Harencak , Commander, Air Force Recruiting Services

, Commander, Air Force Recruiting Services Lieutenant Colonel Judd Floris , Commander, New York City Army Recruiting Battalion

, Commander, New York City Army Recruiting Battalion Commander Christian Gaskill , Commanding Officer of Navy Recruiting District New York

, Commanding Officer of Navy Recruiting District New York Colonel Ivan I. Monclova , Commanding Officer, 1st Marine Corps District

, Commanding Officer, 1st Marine Corps District Colonel Robert Hailey , Acting Deputy Commander North Atlantic Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Every day, the station serves as an office for military recruiters to interview applicants and eventually enlist the future members of the U.S. armed forces. The building is synonymous with iconic celebrations to end World War II or Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines waiting to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve. With the renovations made, this state-of-the-art recruiting station in Times Square will shine brighter under the backdrop of Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force heraldry, as a beacon of freedom and liberty.

SOURCE Joint Advertising Marketing Research & Studies, a component of the United States Department of Defense
NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Summary

China is the second largest savory snack market in the world, valued at just over US$10 Billion in 2016 and an overall volume of about 1 Billion kg. With a projected value CAGR of about 11%, it is the highest in the world, giving China the highest reward score of the countries analysed. However, this high reward score is toned down somewhat by a relatively weak risk score, which stems from China's status as a developing economy. This risk can be reduced as the technological and transit infrastructures improve along with tighter effective regulations to combat corruption.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05190852

The Chinese savory snacks market grew at a CAGR of almost 8% during 2011-2016 from over US$7 Billion in 2011 to more than US$10 Billion in 2016. The growing number of consumers in China with long working hours and busy lives are changing their consumption patterns from traditional meals to frequent snacking options. Consequently, the market is forecasted to register a faster growth at a CAGR of above 11% during 2016-2021 and is expected to be worth just above US$18 Billion by 2021.

Chinese savory snacks market is led by the processed snacks category in US dollar terms, which grew at a CAGR of about 7% in the last five years and is forecasted to record faster growth at a CAGR of above 11% during through to 2021. On the other hand, the potato chips category, which recorded growth at a CAGR of almost 8.5% during 2011-2016, is expected to be the fastest-growing category with a CAGR of more than 14% in the next five years. Meanwhile, the meat snacks and pretzels categories are forecast to record the slowest value growth at a CAGR of just above 10% during 2016-2021.

The report "Top Growth Opportunities: Savory Snacks in China", provides recommended actions and detailed analysis of how to target the best growth opportunities for savory snack producers and retailers. Readers can understand what categories, channels, companies, and consumers will drive the success of savory snacks food markets in China through our detailed and robust data, expert insight, and case studies.

This report provides the following information in-depth -

- Key consumer demographic groups driving consumption within the China market. Improve your consumer targeting by understanding who's driving the market, what they want, and why.

- A study of market value and volumes over 2011-2016 for China, 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.

- White space analysis, to pinpoint attractive spaces in the market and the key actions to take.

- 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 regional product innovation targeting key consumer needs.

Companies mentioned in this report: China Resources Vanguard, Quik (Kuaike), Want Want China Holdings Limited, Fujian Jinjiang Fuyuan, Foodstuff Co Ltd, PepsiCo, Family Mart Yamijiang, Tenfu, Ruisong, Bobocorn, Dahewei.

Scope

- China ranks as one of the smallest market in the global Savory Snacks sector in terms of per capita expenditure in US$ terms.

- After a period of strong growth at a CAGR of 7.9% in US Dollar terms between 2011 and 2016, the China's Savory Snacks market will grow even faster in the five years to 2021, at a CAGR of 11.5%.

- Savory Snack consumption is centered on younger consumers. Having grown up in the age of globalization and Western influence, they have much more positive perceptions of Savory snacks products, especially in regards to novel and unique features/flavors.

- Over 2016-2021, processed snacks will remain the highest value category, while potato chips is expected to record the fastest value growth in US$ over the same period.

Reasons to buy

- This report brings together consumer analysis and market data to provide actionable insight into the behavior of China 's Savory snacks consumers.

- This is based on GlobalData'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.

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05190852

About Reportlinker ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

https://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

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ZURICH, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Would you pay to say thank you? Tributize.com founder, James Smith, believes you will.

The idea behind Tributize is that users create permanent online tribute pages to people they care about  friends, family and loved ones.

Tributize.com Homepage James Smith - Tributize.com Founder

"Look at the greeting card market," says Smith. "Americans buy an average of 30 cards each year - spending $7 billion to tell people that they care about them."

Tributize wants to take that concept to the online world.

But e-cards have been around for years and have never taken off

Smith has the answer to why that is. "An e-card fails to demonstrate investment in time or money from the sender," says Smith. "Most e-cards are free, and fast. Contrast that with a hand-written greeting card which involves effort to choose, purchase, write and send. It tells the recipient that you care."

Tributize aims to bridge the gap between paper and e-cards, and also offer advantages over the paper card. It's environmentally friendly and can be updated.

"When you create a page on Tributize, it is a lasting expression of how much someone means to you, but you can also edit and add to the page whenever you like. Spelled something wrong? Just remembered another picture which would be great? No problem," continues Smith.

The initial response to Tributize has been very positive.

"We asked some pilot users to create a tribute page, tell us how they felt writing it, and how the recipient reacted. The feedback that we got was really encouraging." Check out https://tributize.com/testimonials for Tributize user reviews.

Smith is so confident that users will enjoy the experience that Tributize offers a 30-day money back guarantee. "Just ask for your money back and we will give a 100% refund. No conditions and no small print."

Company: Tributize AG, Switzerland

Founder & CEO: James E R Smith

[email protected]

+41 79 719 51 07

Website: https://tributize.com

Resources: https://tributize.com/press

SOURCE Tributize AG

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Qatar is continually thankful for the strong military relationship between itself and the United States. This partnership has been further strengthened with the recent opening of the new Qatar Defense Attache Office in Washington, DC, headed by Brigadier General Yousef al-Kuwari. Reflecting on the upcoming holiday, General al-Kuwari offered the following thoughts: "On behalf of Qatar's Defense Attache Office, we would like to join all Americans on this Veterans Day in honoring the men and women who have served their country. The spirit of a true hero is defined by the size of their heart and love for their country. The people in uniform of Qatar and the United States are exemplars of patriotism and national service."

Admiral William Fallon USN (Ret.), former Commander of USCENTCOM and Board Member of the Qatar-America Institute, a U.S.-Qatar non-profit organization based in Washington, DC which seeks to enhance understanding and friendship between the people of Qatar and the U.S., had these remarks to share: "On this Veterans Day, 2017, people in the U.S.A. remember and honor the service that the men and women of our armed forces have offered to secure peace and liberty for their fellow Americans and in many distant parts of the world. It is particularly heartwarming to see our Qatari partners join in honoring veterans."

The United States and Qatar are longtime partners committed to preserving stability in the region through joint military operations and efforts against terrorism. Qatar is an inaugural member of the US-led counter-ISIL Coalition. Qatar is home Al Udeid Air Base, which is host to U.S. Central Command Forward, U.S. Air Force Central Command Forward, U.S. Special Operations Command Forward, the Combined Air Operations Center, and the 379th Air Wing. The growing number of American military personnel on the base  now upwards 10,000  is a reflection of the trusted friendship and strong bilateral strategic relationship.

SOURCE Qatar-America Institute

Related Links

http://qataramerica.org


Philanthropic organizations working diligently to expand democracy and influence the national conversation on key issues should take note  independent news sources with a median outlet size of 50,000 subscribers have a significant impact on the national conversation.

Specifically, the study found that if just three outlets write about a particular topic, it can increase public discussion of that topic across social media, boosting traffic on the subject by 63 percent over the course of a week, as compared to a typical day's traffic.

A long-time proponent of the power of independent media, Voqal was pleased to support this cutting-edge work. Philanthropic organizations know inherently that democracy thrives on an informed and engaged public. What Professor King's study indicates is that quality independent journalism has an impact. "Dr. King's team scientifically established that real journalism is influential," said Voqal president John Schwartz. "Grant-makers and others should take note that when we support the coverage of important issues, it produces real results."

According to Jo Ellen Kaiser, executive director of The Media Consortium, over 60 percent of the participating outlets were small, independent news outlets including such publications as Truthout, In These Times, Ms. Magazine and The Progressive.

"In this era of fake news and decreasing trust in corporate media, trust in independent news is strong," said Kaiser. "If we want to foster robust conversations about national policy, we need to continue to support independent news outlets."

Voqal is a national collaboration of EBS (Educational Broadband Service) licensees that work to advance social equity by building an educated, empowered and engaged public. Voqal provides grants and investments for organizations and individuals, affordable mobile internet and wireless spectrum advocacy. Our efforts center around using media and technology to increase access, community and knowledge.

Contact: Kristen Perry, Voqal Communications Director

Phone: 303.557.3616

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Voqal

Related Links

http://www.voqal.org


CALGARY, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (TSX:CP) (NYSE:CP) announced that William R. Fatt has resigned from the Board of Directors of Canadian Pacific Railway Company and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. for health reasons. Mr. Fatt's resignation is effective as of the close of business on Thursday November 9, 2017.

"On behalf of the board, I want to thank Bill for his outstanding contribution to CP," said Andrew F. Reardon, Chairman of the Board. "His wisdom and guidance during his tenure on the board have been invaluable and will be truly missed."

Mr. Fatt joined the board in September 2016 and has acted as the Chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the Audit Committee of CP during his tenure.

"Being on the CP board has been a great honour for me," said Mr. Fatt. "I would like to express my appreciation to the board and management of CP for all of their support during my time as a director. I have nothing but the highest regard for CP, its board and its leadership."

About Canadian Pacific

Canadian Pacific is a transcontinental railway in Canada and the United States with direct links to eight major ports, including Vancouver and Montreal, providing North American customers a competitive rail service with access to key markets in every corner of the globe. CP is growing with its customers, offering a suite of freight transportation services, logistics solutions and supply chain expertise. Visit cpr.ca to see the rail advantages of CP. CP-IR

SOURCE Canadian Pacific

Related Links

http://www.cpr.ca


BEIJING, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- As anticipated, U.S. president Donald Trump and his business delegation have energy high on the agenda for their official visit to Beijing. Yesterday representatives from the two countries confirmed $250 billion in deals, among which energy businesses figure prominently. As a global leading thin-film solar power company, Hanergy believes that the transactions between the two countries will greatly benefit the cooperation and the development of energy industry. As these companies move forward in their business with China, they might look to Hanergy's business presence in America as a model of win-win US-China cooperation.

For the past few years, Hanergy has been actively pushing forward the US-China clean energy industry with its farsighted investments in thin film solar technology. Hanergy has acquired three US thin film solar companies -- MiaSole, Alta Devices, and Global Solar Energy, revitalizing them and bringing technological advantages together to expand the scope of the thin film solar industry to the entire globe within just a few years.

Following the acquisition and successful technological integration of three U.S. thin-film solar companies, Hanergy's subsidiaries have realized significant synergies. Hanergy continuously invests in research and development, enhancing the vitality of U.S. companies. In December 2012, Hanergy acquired Silicon Valley based solar company MiaSole, the world leader in Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar technology. In the five years since the acquisition, the money poured into research and development has allowed the company to increase the conversation efficiency of its solar cells at an average rate of 1 percent a year, eventually attaining its current conversion efficiency of 18% -- the world's highest for sputtering CIGS flexible modules.

Meanwhile, through global technical integration and independent innovation, Hanergy has become a world leader in thin-film solar technology, holding five world records in conversion efficiency. As of October 2017, the company holds over 2000 patents. In addition, Hanergy has over 1,800 employees working in R&D, including world leading experts on semiconductors and photovoltaics.

Hanergy has also brought thin film solar technology to China, contributing to the green transformation of the country's energy mix. In July 2017, Hanergy launched Hantile, a new product combining highly efficient solar cells with traditional roof tiles. When deployed at a large scale, the tiles can abate significant amounts of carbon, making homes and buildings more eco-friendly. On the transportation side, Hanergy's U.S. subsidiary Alta Devices works with German car maker Audi to integrate solar cells into panoramic glass automobile roofs. Hanergy is also cooperating with major bike sharing companies, including Mobike, 99 Bicycle and MTBike to integrate thin-film solar panels into the bodies of more than 15 million bicycles over the next three years.

Media contact

Danning Wang

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +86(10) 83914567 ext 3118

SOURCE Hanergy Holding Group
DUBLIN, November 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Ammonium Nitrate (AN): 2017 World Market Outlook and Forecast up to 2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The present report is an essential resource for a one looking for detailed information on the world ammonium nitrate market. The report covers data on global, regional and national markets including present and future trends for supply and demand, prices, and downstream industries.



In addition to the analytical part, the report provides a range of tables and figures which all together give a true insight into the national, regional and global markets for ammonium nitrate.



Report Scope:



The report covers global, regional and country markets of ammonium nitrate

It describes present situation, historical background and future forecast

Comprehensive data showing ammonium nitrate capacities, production, consumption, trade statistics, and prices in the recent years are provided (globally, regionally and by country)

The report indicates a wealth of information on ammonium nitrate manufacturers and distributors

Region market overview covers the following: production of ammonium nitrate in a region/country, consumption trends, price data, trade in the recent year and manufacturers

Ammonium nitrate market forecast for next five years, including market volumes and prices is also provided

Key Topics Covered:



1. INTRODUCTION: AMMONIUM NITRATE PROPERTIES AND USES



2. AMMONIUM NITRATE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES



3. AMMONIUM NITRATE WORLD MARKET



3.1. World ammonium nitrate capacity

- Capacity broken down by region

- Capacity divided by country

- Manufacturers and their capacity by plant



3.2. World ammonium nitrate production

- Global output dynamics

- Production by region

- Production by country



3.3. Ammonium nitrate consumption

- World consumption

- Consumption trends in Europe

- Consumption trends in Asia Pacific

- Consumption trends in North America



3.4. Ammonium nitrate global trade

- World trade dynamics

- Export and import flows in regions



3.5. Ammonium nitrate prices in the world market



4. AMMONIUM NITRATE REGIONAL MARKETS ANALYSIS



Each country section comprises the following parts:

- Total installed capacity in country

- Production in country

- Manufacturers in country

- Consumption of in country

- Suppliers in country

- Export and import in country

- Prices in country



4.1. Ammonium nitrate European market analysis

Countries covered:

- Austria

- Belgium

- Bulgaria

- Croatia

- Czech Republic

- France

- Germany

- Greece

- Hungary

- Iceland

- Italy

- Lithuania

- Poland

- Portugal

- Romania

- Russia

- Spain

- Sweden

- Switzerland

- Ukraine

- UK



4.2. Ammonium nitrate Asia Pacific market analysis

Countries included:

- Australia

- China

- India

- Indonesia

- Kazakhstan

- Philippines

- Thailand

- Uzbekistan



4.3. Ammonium nitrate North American market analysis

Countries under consideration:

- Canada

- USA



4.4. Ammonium nitrate Latin American market analysis

Countries overviewed:

- Brazil

- Chile

- Colombia

- Mexico

- Trinidad



4.5. Ammonium nitrate Africa & Middle East market analysis

Countries examined:

- Algeria

- Egypt

- Iran

- Tunisia



5. AMMONIUM NITRATE MARKET PROSPECTS



5.1. Ammonium nitrate capacity and production forecast up to 2021

- Global production forecast

- On-going projects



5.2. Ammonium nitrate consumption forecast up to 2021

- World consumption forecast

- Forecast of consumption in Europe

- Consumption forecast in Asia Pacific

- Consumption forecast in North America



5.3. Ammonium nitrate market prices forecast up to 2021



6. KEY COMPANIES IN THE AMMONIUM NITRATE MARKET WORLDWIDE



7. AMMONIUM NITRATE FEEDSTOCK MARKET



8. AMMONIUM NITRATE END-USE SECTOR



8.1. Consumption by application

8.2. Downstream markets review and forecast



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zk325k/ammonium_nitrate



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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The World Trade Center steel incorporated into the V-42s was originally presented by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to the United States Army Special Operations Command. Lieutenant General John F. Mulholland, Jr., a senior officer in the United States Army and former Associate Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for Military Affairs, coordinated the delivery of the recovered World Trade Center steel to the Case factory in Bradford, Pennsylvania, and commissioned the development of the memorial knives.

"W.R. Case has been a long-time supporter of the U.S. Armed Forces," commented Lt. Gen. John F. Mulholland, Jr. "As we set out to create a tribute to the World Trade Center and the men and women who have fought bravely to defend our freedom since that fateful day, we knew that Case was the right partner to help forge a symbol of American strength and resilience."

Case presented commemorative V-42's to two units that were among the first to respond in the face of the 9/11 tragedy in 2001: the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group (the first American unit deployed into Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom) and the Central Intelligence Agency. A third commemorative was presented to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Colonel Lewis Powers, Commander of the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group; Toni Hiley, Director of the CIA Museum; and Alice Greenwald, President and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, were on hand to accept the specially-prepared memorials.

Also in attendance was Gene Gutierrez, an original member of the 1st Special Service Force, an elite American-Canadian commando unit that was the first to carry the original V-42 in World War II. Two others who were assigned to the very first teams to enter Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom were on hand to witness yesterday's event  Chief Warrant Officer Brad Fowers and Sergeant Major Michael Bowman.

"We are extremely humbled that Lt. Gen. Mulholland invited Case to be part of this powerful project," remarked George Duke, Owner, W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co. "Throughout our nearly 130 year history, Case has been proud to be a quality American-made company with the privilege of working alongside some of the finest people our country has to offer, and we are honored to present these V-42s as a small token of our collective appreciation for the sacrifices made every day by members of our military and first responders."

The original V-42 is one of America's most famous wartime fighting knives. With the "V" standing for "Victory" and "42" for the year it was created, the stiletto was originally manufactured by Case from an original design submitted by the commander of the 1st Special Service Force, then-Colonel Robert T. Frederick. The 1st Special Service Force, which became better known as "The Devil's Brigade," now serves as one of the forefather units of today's U.S. Army Special Forces. In recognition, an image of Case's V-42 stiletto sits in the center of the U.S. Army Special Forces crest and Regimental colors, and occupies a central place of honor in the official Task Force Dagger graphic.

Like the original V-42, the distinctive stiletto blade is double-concave ground, yielding the knife's signature center line along the length of the blade, and blued to retain its characteristic patina. Other notable attributes include a leather-covered and blued steel guard, a hand-worked leather handle, and a threaded and pinned-on pommel. A specially engraved 'thumbprint' is embedded within the knife's ricasso, which historically served to help soldiers orientate their blades with a sure grip. The newly crafted September 11 Memorial V-42 features a special tang stamp on the blade to accentuate the historical significance of the steel which comprises it.

The commemorative V-42, which will be a part of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum's permanent collection, joins America's Response Monument as 9/11 tributes whose compositions include reclaimed World Trade Center steel. Stationed in Liberty Park overlooking the 9/11 Memorial, America's Response Monument  created by acclaimed sculptor Douwe Blumberg  commemorates members of Task Force Dagger who rode into combat on horseback in October 2001 for the first time since World War II. Each Special Forces team continuously carried a piece of World Trade Center steel throughout their tour of duty. Lt. General Mulholland dedicated the statue to the Special Forces with Vice President Joe Biden on November 11, 2011.

Media Contact

Chelsea Kelly

DeVries Global

212.546.8651

[email protected]

SOURCE W.R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co.
Wisconsins two-year UW Colleges are set to become branch campuses of nearby four-year universities by the start of the 2018 school year after the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a sweeping and controversial reorganization of the schools Thursday.

The Regents backed the proposal from System President Ray Cross over concerns from former UW Colleges officials, student and faculty groups, Democratic lawmakers and two board members that it lacks key details and was made with minimal input from those affected by the mergers.

Cross and the plans supporters say it will change the unsustainable structure of the UW Colleges while ensuring the predominantly rural communities those institutions serve still have access to local higher education.

A motion to move forward with planning for the reorganization, which would also shift the functions of UW-Extension under UW-Madison and central System administration, was approved on a voice vote during Thursdays Regents meeting in Madison.

Although the mergers would unfold on an aggressive timeline  they are set to take effect July 1  Regents noted that Cross will return to the board at each of its next six meetings to provide updates on the implementation process.

A vote to merge is not the end, its the start of hard work, said Regent Bryan Steil, who voted in favor of the plan.

State Superintendent Tony Evers, a Democrat who is running for governor, and Regent Janice Mueller voted against the proposal.

Mueller, a former state auditor, asked to delay a vote on the plan until the Regents December meeting to give board members more time to understand the proposal and hear specifics about its potential financial impact on the UW System.

UW leaders have said the proposal would result in savings, but did not provide the board with estimates for how the reorganization of Colleges and Extension  institutions with combined annual operating budgets of nearly $300 million  would affect the Systems bottom line.

And while Cross acknowledged Thursday that the changes would result in job losses over time as campuses consolidate administration and other services, he has not said how many positions would be cut.

Very little detail

We have to be deliberative, and I dont know if weve had enough time to really study this proposal, Mueller said. Theres very little detail in the proposal; theres nothing in terms of revenues or expenses.

Muellers concerns mirror some of those raised by the plans critics, who have questioned the fast pace of the proposed mergers.

Cross presented the question before the Regents on Thursday as a choice between his proposal and less palatable alternatives, such as merging the UW Colleges with technical schools, or keeping their structure the same and eventually being forced by deficits and declining enrollment to close colleges.

Closing campuses would violate one of our core principles: Our commitment to provide quality higher education that is accessible and affordable no matter where you live in Wisconsin, Cross said. Our presence in these communities has never been more important  we need them and they need us.

The plan, which Cross announced last month, partners each of the 13 two-year UW Colleges with one of seven four-year universities. UW-Rock County, for instance, would become a branch campus of nearby UW-Whitewater.

Students attending the two-year schools would continue to pay their substantially less expensive tuition.

The System will now put together a steering committee to oversee the merger process, though Cross said many details will be worked out at individual campuses in consultation with students, faculty and staff.

Representatives for those groups have complained that Cross did not involve them when he developed the proposal.

The Regents heard more than an hour of testimony at Thursdays meeting from student and faculty groups, business leaders and UW System chancellors, many of whom supported the plan.

Cross lists benefits

Cross has argued the move will strengthen the pipeline into the four-year schools, make it easier for students to transfer and result in greater educational opportunities at the two-year campuses.

He acknowledged that the proposal was not a fully developed plan with all the details worked out, but said the time had come to put Colleges and Extension on a more sustainable path.

We could continue to study this for months or even years before coming to a decision, Cross said. But the challenges we face will not change.
NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- China's President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump met this week in Beijing to "foster a new type of international relations and build a community of shared future for mankind," according to the Chinese Office of Foreign Ministry.

Student Exchange Program Linda Wong teaching Exchange Students Chinese Calligraphy

It was announced that the two countries would participate in corporate deals with a face value of $250 billion. According to news reports, President Trump called Xi Jinping "a very special man" and praised the Chinese people for what they have achieved. The two leaders pledged increased cooperation and have now developed a personal connection as they tackle problems such as trade and strengthened communications in Asia-Pacific affairs.

Linda Wong, Chairman of Yihai Group, believes strongly in fostering understanding between China and the United States and welcomed the news of the successful meetings between President Jinping and President Trump.

She believes that education is pivotal to future relationships and underwrites the Student Leaders Exchange Program, which is administered by the National Committee for United States-China Relations (NCUSCR). With Yihai's support for the past three years, the Student Leaders Exchange has sent exemplary high school students to China for a two week visit that includes meeting with their contemporaries, staying with host families and learning about Chinese history and culture. "These students represent America's future leaders and we know that this exchange of ideas will strengthen their understanding of China and its people that is essential to the peaceful development of the world," said Ms. Wong. Since Yihai Group began supporting the program, 36 students from America have travelled to China.

From 2012 through 2014, Yihai Group has also supported the "Sino-US Teacher Exchange Program" where Chinese and American teachers learn about another country's education system along with its politics and economy. They then bring this knowledge back to their own classroom and communities.

Ms. Wong has also donated $500,000 to the National Committee's 50th Anniversary Campaign in recognition of this group's vision for constructive U.S.-China relations, which are essential to the global community. In total, Yihai Group has contributed more than $1.5 million in support of programs that foster understanding between the United States and China.

"The successful visit between President Jinping and President Trump is vitally important and Yihai Group is committed to strengthening the ties between these two great countries through programs that emphasis the importance of education to international understanding," said Ms. Wong.

Under Linda Wong's leadership over the past 20 years, Yihai Property has developed major real estate projects in China. Ms. Wong is also a philanthropist, who has been recognized globally for her work with children and educators, the elderly and the arts. Education is personally so important to her that she created a development model in her Chinese housing complexes that includes schools for the youngest members of a family and an elder college.

For Further Information:

Kathy Tompkins

Yihai United Development Corporation

90 Broad Street, Suite 1707, New York, N.Y. 10004

[email protected]

Cell: 917 716 9525; Office: 646-455-0600

SOURCE Yihai Group
TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Veteran's Day, Yogurtology will offer, for FREE, 5 ounces of frozen yogurt to each veteran or active military personnel member who visits one of their participating locations. This is the fourth year in a row that Yogurtology has honored veterans and active military personnel by providing free frozen yogurt on Veteran's Day.

Yogurtology invites veterans or active military personnel at participating locations to share images of their Veteran's Day experience on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using the hashtag #yogurtology.

Yogurtology storefront.

"Honoring the veterans and active military personnel in our community is one of the most important activities we take part in each year. With several locations near MacDill Air Force Base, we sincerely hope that many of you will stop by and enjoy a sweet treat on us," said Jordan Levy, President, Yogurtology Franchising, LLC.

"Veterans and active military personnel are the reason why we have the freedom to live in this great country. We appreciate the sacrifices that they've made through their service to protect our freedom. I'm proud to have Yogurtology offer free frozen yogurt to those who have served as a heartfelt token of our gratitude," said Ean Mendelsohn, Vice President, Yogurtology Franchising, LLC.

About Yogurtology Franchising, LLC

Yogurtology is a frozen yogurt franchise headquartered in Tampa, FL., where "the art + science of frozen yogurt" converge to provide a healthy and delicious dessert experience. Yogurtology offers over 100 exclusive Premiyum flavors, Bottomings (toppings for the bottom of your cup), Sloppings (syrups and sauces), fresh toppings, along with healthy probiotics in each serving. Yogurtology was recently recognized as one of the Tampa Bay Times Top Workplaces for the second year in a row. A total of 100 organizations made the list, and Yogurtology was ranked 2nd out of the top 50 organizations listed with less than 100 employees.

For more information regarding franchising opportunities, please visit http://yogurtology.com/franchising/

Media Inquiries:

Jennifer Dufek

Director of Marketing

Yogurtology Franchising, LLC

813-867-8628

[email protected]

Related Images

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Inside Yogurtology

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Inside Yogurtology

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SOURCE Yogurtology
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PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.
Shane Burcaw is a writer and speaker working to change the public perception of disability with his honest candor. His 2014 memoir for teens, Laughing at My Nightmare, collected a number of stories about Burcaws life with spinal muscular atrophy, showcasing his determined positivity and sense of humor. His new book, Not So Different, in picture book format for a younger audience, also features Burcaws open sincerity as he addresses questions people have about life with a disability, no matter how uncomfortable. Burcaw spoke with PW about his first foray into writing for young readers, using humor to combat negative situations, and writing for different media and audiences.

In writing about life with a disability, do you have a specific mission in mind?

Im hoping to change the public perception of disability. Right now, society still holds a pretty damaging set of beliefs and attitudes about living with a disability. Theres an ingrained idea that people living with disabilities lead sad, pitiable lives, and that (highly inaccurate) mindset creates many of the social hurdles we face on a daily basis. In other words, Im trying to teach the world that having a disability is not incompatible with happiness, love, success, and excitement.

What is your writing process like?

I like to listen to quiet jazz music while I write, and I usually spend a few days formulating ideas in my head before I put pen to paper. Speaking of pen to paper, because of the extreme muscle weakness caused by my disease, all of my writing is done on various apps on my iPhone. How Apple hasnt given me some sort of sponsorship yet is beyond me. Tim Cook, are you reading this?!?!

Does your writing process vary depending on the audience for which you are writing?

Not So Different was my first foray into kidlit, and I will say it was an entirely different monster from the experience of writing my YA memoir. For this book, I had to learn how to write for a younger audience while making sure I wasnt unintentionally talking down to the imagined readers. For the books Ive done and am working on, theres definitely much more time spent evaluating what Ive written, whereas on my blog and other online outlets, I allow myself to speak off the cuff, which inevitably leads to my online writing being a little cruder here and there. Cruder feels like it shouldnt be a real word.

Your sense of humor comes through in your work, including your books, your website, and other forms of outreach. Does humor come naturally to you? Do you test ideas while or before writing?

Thank you! My sense of humor developed as a coping mechanism for the obstacles Ive faced living with spinal muscular atrophy. Its so much more enjoyable to make light of challenges rather than allow them to consume me. It combats the negative mental effects of difficult situations. So yes, its pretty natural today! Ive learned that life doesnt make sense most of the time, and I believe the best way to handle that is to laugh at it!

How involved were you with integrating the photographs and text in Not So Different? Did you play a role in choosing which pictures would be shot or used?

The photographs were a collaborative effort between myself, my editor and the creative team at Roaring Brook, and the uber-talented photographer Matt Carr. I sent them a preliminary list of ideas for pictures we could do to illustrate the concepts I wrote about, and then we worked together to narrow them down and make the whole project manageable.

Do you have plans to publish another book for young readers? What are you currently working on?

Id love to, but write now (get it?) the only thing Im working on is the later stages of my upcoming essay collection, Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse. Its all about the ridiculous misconceptions people have about living with a disability.

You have a Tumblr, called Laughing at My Nightmare, on which you share things that make you smile each week, along with photographs. Where did the idea for this project come from?

My Weekly Smiles was a personal effort to take daily stock of the positives in my life. Its a well-understood idea in psychology that forcing yourself to express daily gratitude can increase your overall happiness, so I started writing down one thing each day that made me smile, usually food-related, and over time I began sharing these each week to encourage others to do the same. You should try it!

You are the co-founder of the nonprofit charity, Laughing at My Nightmare, Inc. Between your books, your charity, and other outreach, what is your ultimate goal?

Putting it briefly: my goal is to make the world a happier place. With our charity, we teach kids about methods for living happier and effectively overcoming adversity. We also provide vital equipment to people living with muscular dystrophy. My writing, both online and my books, shares the overarching goal of showing people that it's possibleand beneficialto approach adversity with a positive attitude. I hope my work makes some kind of tiny impact that will live beyond me!

Not So Different: What You Really Want to Ask About Having a Disability by Shane Burcaw, photos by Matt Carr. Roaring Brook, $17.99 ISBN 978-1-62672-771-7
How Did Libraries Fare on Election Day?

As is true of every Election Day, there were a number of local ballot initiatives involving libraries facing voters across the country. So, how did libraries make out on November 7? According to EveryLibrarys John Chrastka, pretty well.

Overall, it was an amazing Election Night for libraries, Chrastka reported on the EveryLibrary blog on Wednesday. Though several results were still outstanding, EveryLibrary tracked 37 libraries on the November 7, 2017 ballot in 16 states. And as of now, it appears that 27 communities passed their library measures, three lost, and six are still too early to call.

Among the big wins: New Jersey voters approved a statewide New Jersey Library Construction Bond, a $125 million authorization for state matching funds for local construction projects. Similar measures passed in Denver, Dallas, and Houston. Check out the EveryLibrary site to see the full list of winners and losers.

And if youre if youre planning on being at the upcoming Miami Book Fair, come hear more about the state of libraries today and learn more about EveryLibrarys efforts from Chrastka himself, who will join yours truly and a great slate of panelists in a discussion on the state of public libraries in America. The discussion will be moderated by Christopher Kenneally, host of the Copyright Clearance Centers Beyond the Book podcast series, and will also feature the director of the Miami-Dade Public Library System, Ray Baker. The panel is set for Sunday, November 19 at 11 a.m. in Room 7106 (Building 7, 1st Floor) on the Miami Dade College campus, which houses the fair.

No question, libraries are facing significant challenges on the national level in the age of Trump. But the old adage all politics is local is especially true when it comes to public libraries, so if youre not already engaged with EveryLibrarys work, take this opportunity to check them out, and donate while you're at it.

Since 2012, EveryLibrary has helped bring 72 libraries to the ballot and helped secure over $255 million in stable tax funding for these libraries-incredible work. In 2018, Chrastka says he expects EveryLibrary to support another 20-plus library initiatives.

A Literary Lion: Carla Hayden Is Honored by WNBA and NYPL

This must have been a fun week for Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. On Monday night, she was honored by the New York Public Library at its annual Literary Lions Galaalong with some pretty good company: Tom Brokaw, Michael Chabon, Colson Whitehead, and Robert Wilson.

And, on Tuesday she accepted her 2017 Women's National Book Association Award at an intimate gathering at the new (and incredible) Pen & Brush Gallery in New Yorks Flatiron District. Again, Hayden, accompanied by her mother, was in some rariified airacclaimed novelist Louise Erdrich was also honored this year by the WNBA. The award, founded in 1940, is presented every two years to a living American woman who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.

Last week, I wrote how the library community has been energized by Hayden's work since taking office last fall. This week shows that her impact is not just confined to the library worldHayden is energizing the entire literary and publishing worlds.

ISPs, Search Engines Ordered to Block Pirate Site Sci-Hub

A U.S federal court has ordered that Internet Service Providers (ISP) search engines block access to the pirate site Sci-Hub. The order comes after the American Chemical Society (ACS) won a default judgment against Sci-Hub, which proudly bills itself as the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers, and states as its goal the cancellation of intellectual property, or copyright laws, for scientific and educational resources.

The order is the latest legal ruling against the site, as Elsevier also won a default judgment against the site and was ordered to pay $15 million in damages (ACS was awarded $4.8 million in their suit as well). Of course, the site, founded by Kazakhstani neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, operates from Russia, meaning that there is little hope of ever collecting any money.

More interesting is what the order to block the site might mean. In practical terms, observers say it likely wont be difficult for Sci-Hub to evade the order and force ISPs and search engines to play whac-a-mole. As of today, the site was still easily found online. Still, as one observer told the magazine Science, the order is notable. This case could set precedent for the extent third-parties on the internet are required to enforce government-mandated censorship, Daniel Himmelstein, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the magazine.

A "Reckoning" Coming For Scholarly Journal Publishing?

Coming off Open Access week, Patrick Burns dean of libraries and v-p for information technology, Colorado State University, has a piece up at The Conversation that suggests why, court rulings notwithstanding, sites like Sci-Hub are able to operatethe current system, Burns writes, is not financially sustainable, and not serving the needs of researchers.

The 123 members of the Association of Research Libraries alone report spending about $1 billion per year purchasing subscriptions to journals, Burns writes, with journal inflation costs greatly outpacing the consumer price index.

Efforts like [Sci-Hub] to bypass paywalls are only symptoms of the problem, Burns concludes. Unsustainability embedded in the current economic model for journal publications is the source. If we are to maintain healthy education and research environments, changes are incipient and imperative.

arXiv Celebrates its One Billionth Dowload

Now that's a milestone: This week, arXiv.org, the popular scientific pre-print database, surpassed 1 billion downloads. The arXiv is providing the latest results in science at more than one per second, and has done so since before the web came into existence, said Steinn Sigurdsson, scientific director of arXiv, which is supported and stewarded by Cornell University Library. We are proud of the over 1 billion e-print downloads, and look forward to providing scientists worldwide with many more.

The repository was started some 26 years ago at Los Alamos, by Paul Ginsparg, professor of physics and information science. The milestone comes as arXiv, funded by the Simons Foundation, Cornell University Library and around 190 member libraries, is in the process of updating its aging code without changing its primary mission: fast, free and open access to the latest scientific research.

ALA at the Sharjah International Book Fair

Once again, the American Library Association is hosting a library conference at the Sharjah International Book Fair, with ALA president Jim Neal among those presenting. According to the Gulf News, Neal told attendees that the most important role of libraries was the work that they do to support public interest, saying that users depend on them to maintain those core information values and to fight for them in the public arenas. The complete agenda featured a wide range of issues, including public, school, and academic libraries.

Texas Library Association Still Working to Help Libraries Hit by Hurricane

The Texas Library Association (TLA) this week announced that $102,600 from the organizations Disaster Relief Fund will be awarded to 25 libraries impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Grants range from $2,500 to $15,000 and can be used for technology, facility repair, collections, furnishings, or other needs related to storm damage. Academic, public, school and special libraries were eligible to receive assistance.

As of October 31, more than $160,130 has been donated to the TLA Disaster Relief Fund by 1,100 individuals, organizations and corporations. TLA continues to accept donations which will be used to fund future grants.
Perus public broadcaster TV Peru is getting ready to launch its international feed in selected US markets, while it continues contemplating a release date for Europe.





The Instituto Nacional de Radio and Television del Peru (IRTP) has announced that TV Perus international signal will launch in Los Angeles, Miami and New Jersey, targeting local Peruvian communities abroad. The broadcaster has not yet unveiled what pay-TV operators will deliver the network.According to IRTPs president, Hugo Coya, the network will soon arrive in Europe, following a distribution agreement signed with Frances Mobibase in July The international feed will be a mix of programming from TV Perus four national signals, said Coya. Our goal is to be available not only to Peruvian homes abroad, but to anyone interested in Perus culture, food and tradition.The network is going through a last phase of technical tests before it launches in the US. The IRTP estimates 3.5 million people as the potential audience of Peruvians living abroad.
Pay-TV subscribers in the United States are growing increasingly satisfied with over-the-top (OTT) streaming TV services compared with traditional cable TV, but are also spending nearly an hour more a week watching regularly scheduled programming than they did two years ago.





That is the topline finding of a JD Power survey which added that in terms of satisfaction, AT&T customers are the happiest.That increasingly complex consumer relationship with streaming and cable television is explored in detail in the study which also found that customer satisfaction with the overall streaming video service experience (7.91 on a 10-point scale) and performance and reliability (7.97) has slightly improved year over year. Conversely, overall satisfaction with traditional pay-TV services has fallen to 710 this year (on a 1,000-point scale) from 724 last year.However, the percentage of likely cord-cutters has declined slightly: the number of customers who say they plan to cut the cord on pay-TV during the next 12 months has declined to 8% this year from 9% in 2016.Although it seems like the world is consumed with idea of cord-cutting in the wake of Hulus first Emmy and the proliferation of new shows on Netflix and Amazon, the number of current pay-TV customers who plan to cut the cord has actually declined, and the number of hours spent watching old-fashioned, time-slot television is growing, said Peter Cunningham, lead for the technology, media, and telecommunications practice at JD Power . Were seeing a trend toward the co-existence of traditional and alternative service providers, with each offering some lessons to the other on how best to drive an increase in customer satisfaction.In terms of pay-TV customer satisfaction , AT&T/DIRECTV performs highest in overall satisfaction in the national segment with a score of 731. Due to small market share, Verizon was not eligible for the national segment, but does rank highest in the East region (755), where the bulk of its footprint is. DISH Network ranks highest in the North Central region (722) and South region (740). AT&T/DIRECTV ranks highest in the West region (726).Were thrilled that Verizon has earned this recognition again from JD Power and we remain committed to delivering the best possible customer experience every day," said Kelley Kurtzman, vice president of customer care at Verizon.The report also found that destination TV viewing has reached a three-year high. Despite growing satisfaction with streaming video services and widespread use of DVR and video on-demand (VOD), the number of hours spent watching regularly scheduled television programmes has increased by nearly an hour between 2015 and 2017. In a typical week, households have spent an average of 17.4 hours watching regularly schedule programming this year, up from 16.6 in 2015.At the same time, mobile app adoption low, but satisfaction high among early adopters: nearly two-thirds (65%) of pay-TV customers never watch content from their provider via mobile app, and only 6% said they watch via mobile on a daily basis.Interestingly, overall satisfaction with pay-TV providers increases with the frequency that customers use a mobile app to watch their providers content.
Google could gain increased clout in the pay-TV market as interest from operators in Android TV picks up and creates a surge in shipments of Android TV STBs.





According to S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Greg Potter, the snowballing amount of Android TV STB trial deployments in 2016 and 2017, and the fact that many OEMs are beginning to offer devices with the operating system, is good news for Google, which has struggled in the pay-TV market since its ill-fated launch of Google TV in 2010. But now, Googles second stab at the market, Android TV, takes a savvier approach, Potter said: its based on the Android mobile OS, making it much easier for developers to port apps from the mobile version of Android to Android TV.Consumer electronics, or CE, vendors choosing to use Android for their products gain the advantage of an ecosystem that is supported by a huge number of developers without the development costs, Potter said. Additionally, the operating system is upgraded at a regular cadence, and security updates come as needed.Smart televisions and set-top boxes (STBs) are expected to be the two dominant product categories for Android TV through the end of 2021, S&P predicts. Worldwide shipments of all Android TV devices, including STBs and smart televisions, are projected to increase from 7.6 million in 2016 to 40.1 million in 2021.Initially, most Android TV deployments were by smaller IPTV (and some cable) companies in Europe and parts of Asia. But both DISH and DIRECTV in the US announced Android TV boxes in 2017, while Bouygues Telecom in France announced a new 4K Android TV box to be released in 2018 to supplement the one it released in 2015. In Japan, NTT DoCoMo announced an Android TV-powered box for its IPTV service to be released in 2018.Accordingly, for the Android TV-powered STB market, unit shipments are expected to grow from 1.2 million in 2016 to nearly 12 million in 2021. Revenue in this segment should grow from $97 million in 2016 to $730 million in 2021.Android TV smart televisions also are expected to increase as the OS becomes popular in the consumer market. In 2016 S&P estimated that 4.2% of smart televisions shipped with Android TV, with that number forecasted to grow to 13.3% in 2021. Unit shipments are expected to increase from 5.5 million to 27 million during that same timeframe. The installed base should reach 80.3 million by 2021, rapidly increasing from 14.6 million in 2017 because of the long replacement cycles of televisions.Using Android TV gives operators the flexibility to offer popular over-the-top (OTT) apps like Netflix and Hulu, as well as the other apps that are found in the Google Play store. Other popular types found on Android TV include gaming, social media and weather apps. Smartphones and tablets with Android can stream video and photos to as well as control an Android TV device.The platform also recently added new features as part of the 6.0 update released earlier this year. As part of the upgrade, support for Googles home automation platform, Google Assistant, was added, allowing the platform to include the television as part of its toolset. Using Google Assistant, one can change what is playing on the television, power it on and off, view security cameras, and potentially more as new devices and abilities are added to the Google Assistant ecosystem.There are trade-offs, Potter noted: losing control of the OS means that any potential revenue generated by the OS, notably revenue from advertising, viewership data and app stores, is lost as well.Disadvantages to using Android TV are still present, and more significant in the STB market than other CE device types, he said. Using Android TV could cannibalise revenue for VOD services, even if there is a profit-sharing agreement with Google. It can also be an invitation for users to trial other operators OTT services found in the Google Play store. And finally, the integration with Google Assistant could cannibalize revenue from home automation/security services already offered by the operator in favour of cheaper services offered by Googles own Nest division.
Thanksgiving travel: What to expect at the Indianapolis airport

Thanksgiving at the Indianapolis International Airport will be defined by inflated prices, nearly pre-pandemic crowds and competitive seat booking.
The Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) militant group might be foes on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but off it they are united against a common enemy: the Afghan media.

Both extremist groups have threatened and deliberately targeted major TV and radio stations and their staff members recently across Afghanistan, carrying out deadly attacks that have killed dozens of journalists and media employees.

The attacks have made Afghanistan one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists and forced media companies to adopt new security measures, although it is unclear if the violence has had a chilling effect on news coverage.

They want to create fear among journalists so the media does not report their atrocities, says Najib Sharifi, head of the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC), a local media watchdog. They also want to capture headlines and assert their power and visibility. They want to silence the media because they see the media as a threat to their propaganda strategies.

'Serving Infidels'

In what was arguably the most high-profile attack of its kind on a media organization in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber in January 2016 attacked a minibus and killed seven employees of Tolo TV, the countrys largest private television network.

Those killings came months after the Taliban said it no longer recognized Tolo TV and another major TV network, 1TV, as media outlets and considered them "military objectives.

The fundamentalist militant group said the move was a direct response to the commercial networks' coverage of the Talibans brief takeover of the northern city of Kunduz in September 2015 -- specifically, their reports of Taliban fighters allegedly raping women at a female hostel there. The Taliban denied the reports, saying the coverage was an "example of propaganda by these satanic networks."

Since then, IS militants have adopted a similar strategy, and there have been several major attacks against media outlets. In May, IS militants attacked the building of state-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Among the six people killed were four RTA employees, including a driver, a guard, and two technical personnel, as well as two policemen.

On November 7, gunmen killed a security guard and opened fire on the staff of Shamshad TV, a private television station in Kabul, in an attack that was claimed by IS militants.

The IS-affiliated Voice of the Caliphate radio station, which broadcasts in eastern Afghanistan, warned it would continue to target media outlets and their journalists if they did not stop serving infidels, a reference to foreigners. The broadcast said the group was monitoring your actions and are well aware of your evil intentions and plans.

Propaganda is a big pillar of the war being waged by the Taliban and IS, says Sharifi. They want their narratives to dominate the political and military landscape. They see the media as a big obstacle to advancing their propaganda goals, so they use coercion to silence the media and make them resort to self-censorship.

Journalists [in Afghanistan] are conscious of the implications of critical reporting. The media is consciously and unconsciously self-censoring. Sometimes, the media may not run a story because they are afraid of the security implications.

Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based media watchdog, says the attacks are also designed to inspire new recruits.

A public show of brutality both inspires and intimidates, he says.

Since IS militants emerged in Afghanistan in 2015, they have fought deadly clashes with the Taliban in the countrys east and south, although they have also conducted joint operations against Afghan security forces. Many IS fighters in Afghanistan are former members of the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

'Self-Censoring'

Lotfullah Najafizada, the director of Tolo News, says the 2016 attack has not affected the news channels coverage, although it has prompted its staff to be on heightened alert.

The attack and the threats thereafter have certainly changed the way we operate from a security perspective, but not the way we report as an independent news channel, Najafizada said.

But a BBC journalist in Afghanistan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, says the attacks have taken a toll on the media.

Journalists are conscious of the implications of critical reporting, says the Kabul-based journalist. The media is consciously and unconsciously self-censoring. Sometimes, the media may not run a story because they are afraid of the security implications.

Violence Against Reporters

Afghanistan's media development is often cited as one of the biggest achievements of the past decade, following years of Taliban strictures or outright prohibitions on all forms of music and television, as well as independently reported news.

Despite the gains, independent media have come under constant attack and pressure not only from militants but also from religious leaders, ex-warlords, and sometimes even the government itself.

International media watchdogs have said militants have greatly contributed to the climate of fear by explicitly targeting journalists for reporting deemed unfavorable and have condemned the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for crimes of violence against media personnel in Afghanistan.

According to a report issued by the AJSC in July, in the first six months of 2017, 10 journalists were killed and 73 cases of violence had been reported including "killing, beating, inflicting injury and humiliation, intimidation, and detention," marking a 35 percent increase over the same period last year.

AJSC said at least 13 journalists and media personnel were killed in 2016. In 2015, the figure was four, said the watchdog.
Canada is making a significant diplomatic push to gather international support behind Ukraine's UN peacekeeping plan, its foreign minister has announced.

"Around the world Canada has been leading conversations with a number of countries about the viability and utility of peacekeeping and policing in Ukraine," Chrystia Freeland said on November 9.

Freeland said she "personally explored the feasibility and prospects of such a mission" last week with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, U.S. Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In addition, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pressed the issue with his German counterpart, Chancellor Angela Merkel, she said.

"Our government has been at the heart of international efforts to support Ukraine, and we are working hard to ensure any peacekeeping effort guarantees Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Freeland said.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in Kyiv's war with Russia-backed separatists, which broke out after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014.

Ukraine has a longstanding proposal to put United Nations peacekeepers along its borders to ensure Russian troops and weapons are not allowed into the country -- a proposal rejected by Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently suggested putting peacekeepers near the line of demarcation between government forces and separatists in eastern Ukraine to protect international observers who are monitoring the conflict.

Kyiv opposed the proposal, but said it was willing to negotiate over it.

Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said on November 9 that Ottawa supports Kyiv's plan because it "respects Ukraine's original borders," while it opposes the Russian counterproposal, which he said would "freeze" Moscow's incursion into Ukrainian territory.

Sajjan said he met with his U.S. and European counterparts on the conflict in Ukraine on the sidelines of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels this week.

'Now Is The Time To Act'

Sajjan said he was "cautiously optimistic" about Canada's drive to establish a peacekeeping presence in Ukraine because Russia's proposal at least shows it wants stability there. But he said he remains skeptical about "Russias intentions."

"Any opportunity that can de-escalate a situation and bring stability is good. But at the same time, what we don't want to do is deal with Russia's current proposal is freeze it in the current situation."

Sajjan did not say whether Ottawa would be willing to provide troops to participate in a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine. He is hosting a UN peacekeeping conference next week in Vancouver.

Canada's opposition Conservative Party is also behind the push for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine which opposition leader Andrew Scheer said on November 9 would allow Kyiv "to restore control over its eastern border with Russia, ensuring the Russian military stays within its own country, and out of Ukraine."

"The defense of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity should be a priority for Canada's government on the international stage," Scheer said. "Now is the time to act."

Canada has a sizable population of 1.3 million with Ukrainian ancestry -- a factor which has led Canadian political leaders of all parties to side strongly with Kyiv in the conflict.

Like the United States and the European Union, Canada has imposed sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Ottawa also announced the extension until 2019 of a military mission to train Ukrainian soldiers, and the two countries formalized a defense cooperation pact.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said during a visit to Canada in September that he expects more stability in eastern Ukraine when Canada assumes the presidency of the Group of 7 (G7) world powers in 2018.

With reporting by AFP, the Toronto Sun, and Globe and Mail


The blast in NATO-member Poland that killed two people was likely caused by a Ukrainian air-defense missile but it was Russia that was ultimately responsible because it started the war, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg has told a news conference in Brussels.

The Polish Foreign Ministry said a Russian-made missile fell on November 15 on the village of Przewodow, a village in eastern Poland about 6 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, killing two people and raising global alarm that the Ukraine war could spill into neighboring countries.



"Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air-defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks," Stoltenberg told a news conference after an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors on November 16.



"An investigation into this incident is ongoing and we need to await its outcome. But we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack," Stoltenberg said.



"But let me be clear. This is not Ukraine's fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine," he added.



Stoltenberg said the incident proved the risks of the war in Ukraine but added that there was no indication Russia was preparing offensive military actions against NATO allies.



The preliminary findings came after U.S. President Joe Biden, citing information about the trajectory of the projectile, said November 16 that it was "unlikely" that Russia fired the missile before adding, "I'm going to make sure we find out exactly what happened."

Poland, meanwhile, signaled it may in the end not invoke NATO's Article 4, which provides for consultations among allies in the face of a security threat, since the blast was likely caused by a Ukrainian air-defense missile and not by Russia.



"From the information that we and our allies have, it was an S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket, and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side," Polish President Andrzej Duda said. "It is highly probable that it was fired by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense."

WATCH: Russia launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine on November 15, hitting energy infrastructure facilities in regions across the country and plunging Kyiv and other cities into darkness.

The incident occurred during what Kyiv said was Russia's most intensive wave of missile attacks on cities across Ukraine since the start of the war in February.



Ukraine says it shot down most of the incoming Russian missiles with its own air-defense missiles. Ukraine's Volyn region, just across the border from Poland, was one of the many Ukraine says was targeted by Russia's attacks.

Russia has denied its missiles hit Polish territory, saying the reports were "a deliberate provocation" to escalate the situation.

Biden, speaking after convening emergency talks with leaders of Western allies in Indonesia on the sidelines of a G20 summit, pledged support for Poland's investigation into what it had called a "Russian-made" missile.

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.

Biden stressed that investigations into the incident were still ongoing, but said there was "total unanimity" among world leaders in supporting Poland in its efforts to establish the circumstance of the incident.



"It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we'll see."

The Kremlin on November 16 hailed Washington's "measured" response to the incident.



"In this instance, attention should be paid to the measured and more professional response from the American side," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.



Peskov said that, as opposed to the U.S. response, a number of countries had made "baseless statements" about Russia's involvement "without having any idea of what had happened."



"We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied Russophobic reaction, which was not based on any real data," Peskov told reporters.



The Russian Defense Ministry said on November 16 that its strikes on Ukraine on the previous day were no closer than 35 kilometers from the Polish border, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Biden spoke by phone with Duda, offering "full U.S. support for and assistance with Poland's investigation," the White House said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron -- all leaders of NATO member states -- voiced solidarity with Poland.

The incident came as Russia unleashed one of the heaviest missile attacks since the start of the war on sites across Ukraine aimed at crippling the country's energy infrastructure.Ukrainian officials said that more than 90 missiles were fired in the attacks.

Biden on November 16 called those attacks "barbaric," and Zelenskiy described them as a "slap in the face" for the G20 summit.



The summit has been dominated by the Ukraine war, with members struggling to find common ground on Russia's unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.



In a joint statement issued November 16, leaders came together to condemn the war's effects but remained divided on assigning blame.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and BBC
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking Chinas resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Im RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish.

Before we get started, a few announcements: The newsletter is now biweekly, rather than going out only on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. To subscribe, click here.

And I will also be launching Talking China In Eurasia, a new podcast. It will air live on Twitter Spaces and later be available on RFE/RLs website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. We will be taking questions live starting at 2 p.m. CET/8 a.m. EST on November 16. Ill be joined by the Royal United Services Institutes Raffaello Pantucci to talk about Xi and Putin. Tune in here.

Xi Gets Pragmatic About Russia At The G20

It was light on optimism, but U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping injected a healthy dose of pragmatism back into the U.S.-China relationship with their meeting in Bali at a time when global anxiety is rising over Russias war against Ukraine.

Finding Perspective: The meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit was far from a breakthrough, but it did repair some damage from the recent backslide in relations between both countries and send some signals that the world isnt necessarily destined for Cold War 2.0.

The more than three-hour talks saw some blunt exchanges over contentious issues like Taiwan and North Korea, but the two leaders also pledged more frequent communications and decided that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing for follow-up talks in 2023.

Of particular note, Biden raised Russias invasion of Ukraine and threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. Both leaders reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought, according to a White House readout.

While far from a sea change for Chinese policy, thats notable. The credibility of Beijings claims to be neutral on the Ukraine war continue to come under scrutiny, and China has shown discomfort of late with the Kremlins nuclear saber-rattling.

Xi made similar comments after a November 4 summit with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and during another G20 meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the French readout.

Why It Matters: Xi is not abandoning Putin, but this marks the latest shift for Beijings balancing act over Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Four Chinese officials briefed on the February 4 meeting between Xi and Putin, where they declared a no-limits partnership, told the Financial Times that Putin didnt tell Xi the truth about the invasion and that Beijing was caught off guard by it.

What Xi knew about Putins war plans has been a topic of debate, and there is evidence to support both the idea that Xi was aware and that he was caught off guard.

Many analysts are of the opinion that Xi knew about Putin's decision to invade but expected a quick victory, which perhaps was what Putin believed at the time.

Others point to a steady stream of dismissals from Chinese officials and experts about the likelihood of an invasion in February and the fact that Beijing did not evacuate its citizens from Ukraine  like Western nations did  as evidence that China was not expecting a war.

China certainly has its own interests in keeping a distance from Moscows war and using that space to do some upkeep with the West. But perhaps the most important point here is that even if Putin did blindside Xi, China has stuck with Russia despite its battlefield failures, political isolation, and the atrocities its troops are accused of committing.

Again, this is pragmatism more than anything else. As Chinese experts often say, even if Russia is looking unattractive these days, why would Beijing abandon its main anti-Western partner as China continues to be in the crosshairs of rising American pressure?

Read More

 Want to hear more about Russia and Chinas complex relationship amid the Ukraine war? Then tune in to the debut of Talking China In Eurasia today at 2 p.m. CET/ 8 a.m. EST. You can listen live here and find the episode on RFE/RLs website and wherever you listen to your podcasts.

 Condemning Russias invasion of Ukraine and its global fallout is shaping up to be the key theme of the G20, with the Financial Times reporting that a joint communique from the summit takes aim at Moscow.

Expert Corner: The Future Of The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)

Readers asked: Did Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs recent trip to Beijing breathe new life into the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)? How do Islamabad and Beijing really feel about the project after all these years?

To find out more, I asked Filippo Boni, an expert on China-Pakistan relations at the Open University in Britain:

Shehbaz Sharif's visit to China was high on symbolism and relatively low on substance. While the two sides were keen to reaffirm and emphasize the strength of their strategic partnership, no significant new commitment was made. Apart from a few memorandums of understanding and attempts from the Pakistanis in the run-up to the trip to address some of CPECs issues  including payments to Chinese independent power producers  nothing major came from the visit. This is despite Sharif's attempts at revitalizing CPEC since April and the very close ties he enjoys with the Chinese leadership.

The outcome of this visit is not entirely surprising, especially if interpreted against the backdrop of Pakistan's current domestic predicaments. The security situation for Chinese nationals has deteriorated, the economy is struggling, and political instability is at one of its highest points in recent years. All these dynamics, coupled with the global scaling down of Belt and Road Initiative financing, have likely impacted Beijing's lack of commitment to new projects.

After almost 10 years and $25 billion worth of projects, there seems to be a general consensus on both sides that the first phase of CPEC  the one focused primarily on energy projects  was largely successful. The same cannot be said for the second phase, including the slow progress on the development of Special Economic Zones, and for the port of Gwadar, where little progress has been made for the ports full commercial functioning.

Do you have a question about Chinas growing footprint in Eurasia? Send it to me at StandishR@rferl.org or reply directly to this e-mail and Ill get it answered by leading experts and policymakers.

Three More Stories From Eurasia

1. 'Sweep It Under The Rug'

Recent allegations of China operating 54 overseas police stations have fueled controversy around the world and sparked investigations, but in Hungary and Serbia the new findings are being met with swift denials by authorities, despite growing evidence.

The Details: My colleagues Akos Keller-Alant from RFE/RLs Hungarian Service, Mila Durdevic from RFE/RLs Balkan Service, and I reported on the fallout from these revelations and the slew of probes launched in many European countries recently.

The stations are overseas operations of the public security bureaus from two Chinese provinces and are used to persuade citizens to return to China, including through pressure on family members at home. While most of those involved appear to be suspected of crimes such as telecommunications fraud or corruption, dissidents have also reported that the stations have been used to monitor and threaten them.

Fourteen governments have already launched investigations into the overseas police stations, and the Dutch and Irish governments have ordered China to shut down the facilities in their countries.

But in Hungary and Serbia  two countries where Beijing is said to operate such facilities and whose governments prize their warming political and economic ties with China  officials appear to be trying to sweep it under the rug, as one analyst characterized it, despite growing scrutiny from opposition lawmakers in each country.

2. Global Ripples Hit Central Asia

Political and economic shocks from Moscows war in Ukraine, coupled with added strains from tensions between Beijing and Washington, are taking their toll around the world, especially in Central Asia, where countries in the region are closely tied to both China and Russia.

What It Means: As RFE/RLs Uzbek Service reported, Vladimir Norov, the countrys foreign minister, warned about geopolitical tensions affecting stability in the region and beyond while addressing his counterparts at an Organization of Turkic States meeting in Samarkand.

The breakdown in global cooperation is felt particularly strong in Central Asia. While some economies have been able to benefit by becoming a new home for businesses and capital relocated from Russia, others are seeing investment dry up and their economies coming under strain.

World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Anna Bjerde recently warned that Uzbekistan needs to continue with its market reforms in order to withstand the global economic shocks that are to come.

RFE/RLs Kyrgyz Service also reported that the countrys government is trying to court more investment but that questions remain from investors about Kyrgyzstans stability and investment climate. According to official statistics from January to June of this year, China is the leading source of foreign investment, with $129 million during that span.

3. The Tech In Moscows Iranian Drones

A new investigation by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, looked into electronic components underpinning Tehran's production of the Mohajer-6 drone, which Russia has used in its war in Ukraine, and found that theyre far from homegrown.

What You Need To Know: The Mohajer-6 drones contain components produced by companies from the United States and the European Union, both of which have sanctions restricting the export to Iran of technology that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

The investigation also found drone components produced in China, including a real-time mini-camera made by a Hong Kong firm.

The drone also contains a microchip bearing the logo of a California technology company and a thermal-imaging camera that Ukrainian intelligence says may have been produced by a firm based in Oregon or China.

The international tech in the drone not only highlights the complex ecosystem that allows firms and buyers to circumvent sanctions slapped on both Iran and Russia, but also the close networks between Chinese and Western tech companies that still exist, despite a recent push to break some of those linkages.

Across The Supercontinent

On The Mainland: The watchdog group Freedom House recently launched a new project called the China Dissent Monitor, which tracks protests and other forms of dissent inside China. Read it here.

Censored: Chinese authorities behind a major trade expo in Shanghai pulled an opening ceremony address by European Council President Charles Michel that was set to criticize Russia's illegal war in Ukraine and call for reduced European dependency on China, Reuters reported.

Backtracking: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has softened his countrys stance toward China, moving away from his predecessor Liz Trusss decision to label it a threat.

One Thing To Watch

How long will Chinas stringent COVID policies stay in place?

New infections are rising as a winter wave hits and popular frustration continues to boil over inside the country as investor confidence stays dented over the measures. New footage also showed crowds of residents in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou escaping a compulsory lockdown and clashing with police.

Thats all from me for now. Dont forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.

Until next time,

Reid Standish

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your in-box on the first and third Wednesdays of each month.
Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte has thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for "timely" deliveries of weapons and equipment that he said were instrumental in defeating pro-Islamic State militants in his country.

"I want to pass on words of thanks from the Philippine people for the timely aid that Russia provided by giving us trucks and weapons," Duterte said on November 10 as the two met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Danang, Vietnam.

The Philippine military last month declared victory in the southern city of Marawi against militants loyal to the Islamic State extremist group, after Russia sent army trucks and thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles to Duterte.

The Philippines enjoys major non-NATO U.S. ally status, but Duterte last year threatened to sever defense ties with Washington following criticism from former U.S. President Barack Obama's administration over his crackdown on drugs, which has seen police kill thousands of people.

American lawmakers, concerned with Duterte's human rights record and rising killings, have blocked the sale of more than 20,000 assault rifles from the United States to the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Manila and Moscow signed a military deal on logistics, including a contract with a state-owned company for the supply of equipment, during the first-ever visit by a Russian defense minister to the Philippines last month.

"The weapons we received from Russia, modern weapons, were given to special police regiments. That was very important. I intend to continue buying these weapons in the future," Duterte told Putin, adding that he was "delighted" by the Russian arms' quality.

Putin said that "weapons are important" but Duterte's "readiness...to fight the threat of terrorism" is even more significant.

"We are ready to develop our relations, including in the military sphere," he said.

Duterte, 72, won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

He remains popular with many Filipinos, but critics warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial killings, carried out by corrupt police and vigilantes.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP


An ammunition explosion at Russia's Tsugol firing range in Siberia has killed two military personnel.

The Defense Ministry said an officer and a contract soldier were killed in the blast on November 10 when the group was clearing unexploded mortars from the firing range in the Zabaikalye Krai region.

Another officer and three soldiers were injured in the explosion and are currently being treated in a hospital, the ministry said.

The ministry officials cited doctors as saying that the injures are not life-threatening.

A special commission of the Eastern Military District has been sent to the scene from the city of Khabarovsk to investigate the incident, ministry officials said.

Based on reporting by Interfax and TASS


A court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals has fined and ordered the deportation of a Belarusian man for an attempt to set a monument to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin on fire.

The Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for the Sverdlovsk region says that a local court fined the 31-year-old man 2,000 rubles ($33) on November 9 before ordering him to be deported to Belarus.

Belarusian media identified the man as Ihar Shchuka, a member of the ultraleftist party The Other Russia, which is led by firebrand Russian writer and politician Eduard Limonov.

Shchuka was arrested on November 7 -- the day when Russian Communists and leftist groups marked the centennial anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution -- after throwing a Molotov cocktail at Yeltsin's monument in the late presidents native city of Yekaterinburg.

The group's 23 members had previously been detained by police on November 6 in St. Petersburg after they rallied against capitalism on the eve of the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Limonov formed the unregistered party under the name The Other Russia in 2010 after his National Bolshevik Party was outlawed.

The National Bolshevik Party had been part of an opposition coalition that was also called The Other Russia and included liberal Kremlin opponents, but the name now refers only to Limonov's organization.

Based on reporting by RIA, TASS, and tut.by
Nuclear safety institutes in Europe have measured high levels of levels of ruthenium-106, a radioactive nuclide that is the product of splitting atoms that does not occur naturally. The IRSN , which is the French nuclear safety institute, on Thursday, ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine. Fortunately, no impact on human health or the environment in Europe its supposed to be produced. Monitoring stations in Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland all detected very low levels of ruthenium-106 from late September.

The most plausible zone of the accident lay south of the Ural mountains, between the Urals and the Volga river. However, Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory, IRSN director Jean-Marc Peres told the media. Kazakhstan could be involved too but had no reaction. IRSN estimates a significant quantity of ruthenium-106 was released, between 100 and 300 terabecquerels. Because of its short half-life of about a year, ruthenium-106 is used in nuclear medicine  for example in cancer therapy for eye tumours  but can also be released when nuclear fuel is reprocessed.
Your Role

Research and Development. Understanding the scientific developments in the market space, exploring innovation scope, collaboration etc.

New trend

Behaviour/Attitude change, communication technology, bio-informatics are some of the areas I am watching carefully and I believe they will help in my business as well. Certainly social responsibility as well.

Tools of BI

I did not understand the question clearly. However, TATA group of industries I consider to be the best model.

Comparison of current work from previous one
Srikanth Matrubai is a member of:

My role model

No Role model as such.



Returns have been my Role Model

As with almost all investors, Warren Buffet inspired in the intial stages of my investment career, but I found his concept of Holding Shares 'FOR EVER' quite unremunerative for middle class and lower income level people.



Numbers and Returns have been role model.

Important lesson learned

Yes. Surely.

In the first Meltdown (1991), I learnt that "Never Invest All your Money at one go, it may be at the peak that you are investing".

In that Meltdown, where I burnt my finger as speculator, I qualified to become myself as an Investor. Lesson Learnt : Invest regularly at periodic intervals.

In the IT Sector Meltdown of 2001, I learnt that "Never Overexposure yourself to One Particular Sector". Lesson Learnt : Do not put all your eggs in 1 Basket.

In the next 2008 meltdown, I have learnt not one but Two Big lesson, First, Book Profits Periodically.

Second, Spread Your Investment across Asset Classes including Debt.



I have taken these losses as tuition fees that I have paid to learn from the Markets.

Important decision

When I first diversified into Advisory, there was sceptism all around. People viewed with suspicion; in fact they were surprised that I was not pitching Insurance but Mutual Funds. I got absolutely ZERO support from my relatives. But I was in love with this profession and was determined. And, I did not want to missell.

Insurance were giving absurd commission of 40% whereas Mutual Funds were giving 2% (some were giving a crazy 5%, but that is another story).

I could have made huge money selling Insurance which people were only willing to buy.

But I stuck to my decision to sell only what is good for Investors. And it paid.

ULIPs got massive negative publicity and the Funds I recommended gave above average returns and people were now more than willing to listen to me.

So, my decision to stick with WHAT IS GOOD FOR INVESTOR IS GOOD FOR ME paid off.

And I still follow the same.

My achievements

1. The US based research firm ETF database ranking my Blog http://goodfundsadvisor.blogspot.com among the Top 50 Buy and Hold Investing Blogs and mine was been ranked at NO.3.



2. Being able to identify the Winner in RELIGARE TAX PLAN, BNP PARIBAS EQUITY FUND, etc which the Experts were not even willing to touch these funds with a barge pole.



3. Delivering a number of Presentations to not just my clients, but also at Public conferences and Workshops.



and most importantly,



Clients treating me as one of their family members and inviting to their family functions. That surely is the icing on the cake.

Degree that I recommend

CFP is a course which should stand you in good course.

But, still ultimately, it is the "Ground Knowlege" more than Book knowledge which will help both you and your investors.

My family background
Wisconsin veterans need our help. As our country and state temporarily shift their focus to honor the sacrifices of the men and women who served this Veterans Day, the moment also lays bare glaring shortfalls in actual commitments to our veterans.

I am an Army veteran of 36 years and have been active in the Wisconsin American Legion for 17. Much has changed over those years in the veterans community, in fact, the community itself has changed. We have a new, younger generation of veterans who have served in conflicts since the attack on the World Trade Center and who have a unique set of post-conflict challenges.

All wars have their heroes, but they also produce broken souls and bodies. What we now know to be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is at an all-time high, as is massive abuse (over prescription) of pain-relieving opioids. Suicide among our veterans is at an alarming rate  20 per day, which is more than 7,300 a year. More have been lost to suicide than to actual battle conflict. This should concern all who profess to care about veterans, their families and the specialized health care they deserve.

Every day that I wake as the Wisconsin American Legion state commander I ask myself, am I are we, doing enough? No. We need to get more serious and fight harder for the veterans who are not able to fight.

Well-meaning Wisconsin legislative leaders, the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs and the administrators at state-run health care facilities need to ask themselves the same question. Are we really doing the best for our state veterans and their families? The solutions are complex, but they start with a heartfelt commitment to our veterans community. At the Wisconsin American Legion, we need to do a better job of articulating how we are fighting for this new generation, what services we can provide and where veterans can turn for effective health-care treatment and job opportunities.

Money doesnt cure all ills or solve all problems, but adequately funding those programs that address veteran homelessness, drug addiction, suicide and job opportunities should be an imperative. Debate over what represents the most effective approach is valid, but let us not get bogged down to the degree that we continue to lose our warriors who have survived war. They made it home. They deserve not only our respect and gratitude, but quality services as well. Our veterans deserve better.

Caring for veterans is not a partisan issue. There are those in the Legislature and the WDVA who have accused the Wisconsin American Legion of getting too political. This is easy and let me be clear, the Legion both at the state level and nationally will continue to aggressively advocate as we lose veterans to neglect, institutional drug dealing and, ultimately, suicide. It matters little to us whether you have an R or a D by your name. The 100-year mission of the American Legion is crystal clear  we fight for veterans and their families.

Saturday is Veterans Day and we need to be sure that once the political speeches, hometown parades and news media coverage end that we still stand for the care of veterans. No more empty symbolism and flag waving. Lets unify and get to work.

This Veterans Day ask yourselves, are we doing enough for veterans?

No, we are not. That must change and that change has to start today.
Notes: What if Navy blitz becomes blueprint? Notre Dame 'would welcome that'
Standing Tall

NASA

On Nov. 9, 1967, NASA launched the first Saturn V moon rocket test flight: Apollo 4. See photos of the launch, and Earth from space, from the amazing Apollo 4 mission here.

This image: Gigantic, at 363-feet tall, the Apollo Saturn V space vehicle stands at attention at Launch Complex 39 on Pad A on November 8, 1967 ready to launch. Th Apollo 4 unmanned Earth-orbital space mission launched on November 9, 1967.

Together

NASA

The IU rests securely atop the S-IC/S-II assembly. The unmanned Apollo 4 mission will test craft safety during launch and reentry for upcoming planned manned missions.

Sealing the Tank

NASA

A technician puts the final welds on the liquid oxygen tank for the unmanned Apollo 4 mission.

Last Steps

NASA

As the final assembly operation begins the instrument unit (IU) is prepared for mating to the S-IC/S-II assembly in the VAB high bay.

All Done

NASA

The Saturn V vehicle, following the assembly operation, stands at the ready after the work platform was removed and before being rolled out to the launch pad.

Preflight Prep

NASA

On June 20, 1967 the Apollo Spacecraft 017 is positioned in the high bay area of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The capsule will be mated with the Saturn V launch vehicle for the Apollo 4 space mission.

Transition to the Launch Pad

NASA

Aboard a crawler-transporter on August 26, 1967 the Apollo 4 stack (Spacecraft 017 and Saturn 501) attached to its mobile launch tower are moved from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39 Pad A.

Awaiting Launch

NASA

At Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the complete Apollo Saturn 501 launch vehicle, mated to the Apollo spacecraft 017, sits on the launch pad after its ride over on the crawler-transporter.

A Stunning View

NASA

Early on the morning of Nov. 9, 1967, the Apollo 4 spacecraft sits on Pad A at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39 with an awe-inspiring backdrop of sunrise.

Liftoff!

NASA

A successful launch of the Apollo 4 space mission, made of the Apollo Spacecraft 017 and the Saturn 501, headed to space on November 9, 1967. The rocket launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Apollo 4 unmanned flight was designed as a test of the translunar motors and of the high speed entry required for a manned flight on return from the moon.

Launch Begins

NASA

The Apollo 4 space mission launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39 Pad A on November 9, 1967. During its eight and a half hour journey the mission successfully completed two mission objectives.
Fossil remains of a <em>Tyrannosaurus rex</em>, a dinosaur species that became extinct due to extreme climate conditions at the end of the Cretaceous period about 65.5 million years ago.

Dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops became extinct about 66 million years ago, after an asteroid strike resulted in plunging temperatures. According to a new study, the frigid weather that ultimately led to their extinction was far worse than earlier models suggested.

At the end of the Cretaceous era, a massive asteroid  approximately 7 miles (12 kilometers) wide  crashed into a limestone- and gypsum-rich region, now known as the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. A new study estimates that the sun-absorbing sulfur  which vaporized into the atmosphere after the asteroid hit the gypsum  was three times more abundant than previous models estimated.

Of course, the asteroid impact itself was terrible for local animal inhabitants, which may have perished in the crash's immediate aftereffects such as tsunamis and landslides. But the asteroid's impact site was an extra stroke of bad luck for the rest of the planet, according to Natalia Artemieva, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and co-author of the new study.

"The impact site in the current Gulf of Mexico had 3-km [of] thick sedimentary cover, a combination of limestone and sulfur-bearing evaporites," Artemieva told Space.com in an email. "It's kind of a joke that 66 million years ago the asteroid fell into the worst possible place on Earth .... "would impact [have] occur[ed] into the ocean or into silicate rocks (such as granite), dinosaurs would be still alive."

Imaging from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 99 (STS-99) reveals part of the 10-mile-diameter (180 kilometers) ring of the crater. The numerous sinkholes clustered around the trough of the crater suggest a prehistoric oceanic basin in the depression left by the impact. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/David Fuchs/ Wikimedia Commons

The so-called Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event wiped out many species, including all of the non-avian dinosaurs, according to a 2012 study by Paul Renne et al. According to a statement released by the American Geophysical Union, researchers often attribute that extinction event  to the asteroid collision that hit the Yucatan Peninsula, which combined with other forces of climate change - like the Deccan Plateau volcanic eruptions - to make for hostile global environments.

The space rock would have thrown enormous amounts of dust, sulfur and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and it was the abundance of sulfur in these clouds that may have caused Earth's average surface air temperatures to drop by as much as 47 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius) in the long term. According to the new study, detailed Oct. 30 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the dramatically cooler temperatures lasted about three years after the asteroid impact.

An artist's rendering from 1994, illustrating the Chicxulub asteroid impact that killed off most of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. (Image credit: Donald E. Davis/NASA/JPL)

Artemieva, co-author Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London and their team came across these findings by using a model that, according to the study, had "the capability to simulate the dynamics of different materials within the impact plume." The different materials displaced by the space rock each act differently when shock-waves hit them, so by fine-tuning the ejection models, the team could predict how much of each temperature-altering gas was ejected high enough to linger in the atmosphere upon impact.

The team calculated only the gases that flew with a minimum velocity of 1 kilometer per second (0.62 miles per second, or 2,200 mph) into the atmosphere, because gases thrown at slower speeds were likely unable to reach a high enough altitude to influence the climate, Artemieva said. Older models with less computing power are therefore less accurate, she added, because they didn't isolate for a material's chances of staying in the atmosphere. Instead, the older models calculated all of the material that turned into vapor upon impact. Researchers now know that if material is vaporized, it doesn't mean it reached the atmosphere and caused climatic change, since much of it actually stayed near the crater.

Recent geophysical studies, including more up-to-date information on how rocks behave under extreme conditions and various impact angle models, suggest the Chicxulub crater formed when hit at an approximately 60-degree angle. The revised data means more sulfur was ejected into the sky, the researchers said. According to Artemieva, volcanoes may offer insight into the effect this mineral has on Earth's climate when it gets pummeled into tiny solid particles known as aerosols.

"Sulfur aerosols  cause cooling as they block incoming sunlight. Currently, the amount of CO2 and SOx [sulfur oxide] in Earth's atmosphere are balanced somehow, and we have our current (quite comfortable) climate," Artemieva said. Volcanic eruptions, for example, release a lot of sulfur into the atmosphere, which can cause local cooling, and even global cooling for one to two years, she added.

Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter@salazar_elin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
U.S. Air Force fighter jets may soon be able to instantly disable enemy targets using invisible, energized beams of light shot from a small, compact laser cannon. The laser-equipped vehicles might call to mind the heavily armed "helicarriers" from Marvel's "Captain America" films.

Yesterday (Nov 6), the U.S. Air Force Research Lab signed a $26.3 million contract with Lockheed Martin to develop high-energy laser weapons that are lightweight and compact enough to be mounted on fighter jets. Lockheed Martin is a defense, aerospace and technology company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland.

There's nothing new about laser weaponry, but most laser systems that are powerful enough to be effective are too heavy and bulky to be carried by a plane. Rather, most of these lasers are limited to ground and sea use. But now, that's changing. Lockheed Martin conducted flight tests in 2015 with laser-equipped research planes to determine whether mounting powerful lasers on planes was feasible.

"Earlier this year, we delivered a 60-kW [kilowatt]-class laser to be installed on a U.S. Army ground vehicle," Rob Afzal, a senior fellow of laser weapon systems at Lockheed Martin, said in a statement. "It's a completely new and different challenge to get a laser system into a smaller, airborne test platform. It's exciting to see this technology mature enough to embed in an aircraft." [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]

The new contract is part of the LANCE program, or Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments, which seeks to develop a high-power laser that can disable military targets without weighing down the plane carrying the weapon. LANCE, along with research developing targeting and cooling systems, falls within the Air Force Research Laboratory's Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) initiative.

Unlike the colorful, bullet-like lasers that fly back and forth between Stormtroopers and Rebel soldiers in the "Star Wars" films, real-life laser weapons are invisible and travel to their targets at the speed of light. The weapons can be used to destroy or disable rockets, drones and vehicles, sometimes without leaving any external sign of the damage  although some lasers can burn holes into their targets.

Lockheed Martin said that it envisions that lasers, once they become more commonplace and lightweight, better equipping soldiers to disable new threats that didnt exist a few years ago. For instance, lasers could help U.S. armed forces target small, cheap drones or explosives that are hard to hit with traditional guns and defense systems. The company refers to those traditional systems as kinetic weapons, because they launch physical projectiles, such as bullets or missiles.

"I really see laser weapons and kinetic weapons being side by side on the battlefield, and together providing the defense that our forces need against traditional threats  kinetic weapons  emerging, inexpensive proliferated threats  laser weapons," Iain McKinnie, the business development lead for laser sensors and systems at Lockheed Martin said in a video the company produced about laser weaponry.

"This advanced turret design will enable tactical aircraft to have the same laser-weapon-system advantages as ground vehicles and ships," Doug Graham, the vice president of missile systems and advanced programs at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, said in a statement after the 2015 test flights.

Under the terms of the contract, Lockheed Martin plans to test a high-energy laser weapon mounted on a fighter jet by 2021.

Original article on Live Science.
Veterans Day is uniquely special to me because it is the recognition of all veterans, those currently serving and those who previously served, from all branches of the military, and those who have served in all capacities.

Its uniquely special and meaningful to me because in my capacity as a public servant, I have the extraordinary opportunity to interact with the wide cross-section of veterans among us in addition to being able to attend memorial services for those veterans who have served our country so honorably.

I get the chance to work with everyone from our County Veterans Service Officers to the leaders we have at Fort McCoy. I get to work with everyone from community leaders to business people who have previously served or are currently serving in the National Guard. I also have the opportunity to facilitate conversations and help solve problems for those I speak with and who contact me with issues where federal personnel are more equipped to help. On top of that, I have the unique opportunity to work with the spouses and families of those currently serving and who have served.

I share this because I wanted to take the opportunity to share the commonality that exists among the variety of individuals and groups I have the opportunity to work with, and it will come as no surprise. The common trait is the desire and willingness to do whatever they can to help other veterans. This is a trait that runs as deep and as strong in our veterans as the characteristics of honor, respect and dignity.

Although consensus cant always be reached among various stakeholder groups on the best way to help veterans, I think that for the most part, one would be hard-pressed to find parties not interested in doing what can be done to both help and recognize our veterans. Yes, there are a variety of things that have been done and can be done legislatively to help aid in this pursuit but that said, there are also a variety of things that can be done close to home and 365 days a year, from community groups to non-profit organizations focused on assisting our veterans. Here in Monroe County, were especially blessed to have Fort McCoy, a tremendous asset to our region, close to home. With this home comes a variety of opportunities to give back.
A solid gold model of NASA's Apollo lunar module is now up for auction, as one of the only two others in existence remains missing after a museum heist.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin's gold scale model of the spacecraft that he and Neil Armstrong piloted to the first moon landing in July 1969 promptly exceeded its opening bid of $10,000 at RR Auction's space memorabilia sale on Thursday (Nov. 9). The Boston-based firm expects that the Cartier-crafted model will command $150,000 or more by the close of the auction on Nov. 16.

"Intricately reproducing the iconic lunar module in solid [18 karat] gold and presented to one of the first humans on the moon, this is a spectacular piece of the utmost rarity," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. [Apollo 11 Moon Landing Pictures]

The French jeweler Cartier was commissioned to produce the three gold lunar modules by the newspaper "Le Figaro" for presentation to Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins during the astronauts' post-mission visit to Paris in October 1969. Le Figaro invited its readers to help underwrite the models' creation and they gave generously.

The names of the newspaper's supporters and subscribers were listed on microfilm rolls that were hidden inside each of the models, secreted under the descent stage engine. A plaque affixed to the front of each model also notes that is it a gift from "Les lecteurs du journal Le Figaro" (in English, "Readers of the newspaper Le Figaro").

Collins' gold lunar module was auctioned in 2003 for more than $55,000. Cartier reacquired it and it is now part of the jeweler's collection.

Armstrong's model was displayed at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio  the late astronaut's hometown  until July of this year, when a thief absconded with it, as well as several awards and medals that were on exhibit alongside the model. To date, the artifacts have not been recovered.

Aldrin divested of his gold model some time ago and he is not directly involved in its present sale. At some point in its history, Aldrin's model was separated from its red leather, pyramidal case and sustained some damage. A few pieces of the lunar module are missing, including an ascent stage support post, supporting brackets near the ladder, and the antennas on top. The model also exhibits some tarnishing to its golden finish.

Cartier has told RR Auction it is willing to restore the lunar module at its Paris facility at the winning bidder's expense.

Cartier has offered to restore Buzz Aldrin's lunar module model for the winning bidder, at the buyer's expense. (Image credit: RR Auction)

"The moon landing is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. This Cartier model pays tribute to the bravery of the Apollo 11 astronauts," stated Livingston.

RR's sale, which features the space memorabilia collection of the late inventor of the aftermarket air conditioner for the Volkswagen Beetle in 1969, includes some 20 other lots of Apollo 11 mementos among the 200 total items. One of the highlights is a page from the mission's flown Lunar Module Activation Checklist, with Armstrong's notations listing the steps to prepare for undocking with the command module Columbia prior to the lunar landing.

Also for sale are letters from Collins and Aldrin, including a 1976 note from the latter describing the view on the moon as "very stark and absolutely without any color, just black and shades of gray."

For more information on the auction and Buzz Aldrin's gold lunar module model, see RR Auction's website at www.rrauction.com.

See a 360 degree video of Buzz Aldrin's gold lunar module model at collectSPACE.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2017 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
People from Connecticut to South Carolina may be able to see the planned Nov. 11, 2017, launch of Orbital ATKs Cygnus cargo spacecraft toward the International Space Station.

Update for Nov. 11: The launch of Orbital ATK's Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ship has been delayed 24 hours to Sunday, Nov. 12, at 7:14 a.m. EST (1214 GMT). It will still be visible along the U.S. East Coast. Full story: Orbital ATK Aborts Rocket Launch to Space Station Due to Wayward Plane

Original story posted Nov. 10:

If you live on or near parts of the U.S. East Coast, you may be able to see a rocket launch Saturday morning (Nov. 11).

An Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying the company's uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch toward the International Space Station (ISS) Saturday at 7:37 a.m. EDT (1237 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Weather permitting, folks as far north as Connecticut and as far south as South Carolina may be able to spot the arc of fire that the Antares carves into the sky as it climbs, according to visibility maps produced by NASA and Orbital ATK. (You can also watch the liftoff live online here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.)

There is a complicating factor, however.

"We'll be flying into the sunrise, so it may make it a little harder to view it far down range," Kurt Eberly, Antares deputy program manager at Orbital ATK, said at a prelaunch news conference today (Nov. 10). "But near range, it should be plenty viewable."

And a lot of people will get a near-range eyeful: About 1,000 to 2,000 people are expected to watch the launch from the Wallops Visitor Center, Wallops spokesman Keith Koehler told Space.com.

To learn more about viewing launches from Wallops and the surrounding area, check out the flight facility's viewing guide here. You can also download the "What's Up at Wallops" app to learn how to see the launch from your location. And Wallops officials will post updates on Twitter and Facebook leading up to the liftoff.

Visibility map for the planned Nov. 11, 2017, launch of Orbital ATKs Cygnus cargo spacecraft. (Image credit: Orbital ATK)

Saturday's launch will kick off Orbital ATK's eighth commercial cargo run to the ISS for NASA. The Cygnus spacecraft  which is named S.S. Gene Cernan, after the late Apollo astronaut, who was the last person to walk on the moon  is loaded up with supplies, equipment and a variety of scientific experiments.

One of these investigations will study the effect of the microgravity environment on bacterial antibiotic resistance, and another will look into plant growth in space.

Orbital ATK isn't the only private company with a NASA ISS cargo contract. SpaceX flies such uncrewed missions as well, using its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.

Editor's note: If you capture an amazing image of the Antares rocket launch that you would like to share with Space.com and its news partners for a story or photo gallery, send photos and comments to: spacephotos@space.com.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Algiers, Nov 09, 2017 (SPS) - Sahrawi Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ould Salek on Wednesday called on all stakeholders in the Western Sahara conflict, namely the United Nations, the African Union and mainly France, to assume their responsibilities and find a lasting solution.

He also denounced the complicity between Paris and Morocco and their desire to undermine and block the peace process in Western Sahara.

Following the speech of Morocco's King Mohamed VI marking the anniversary of Moroccan military invasion of the Sahrawi territories, Ould Salek said that the King of Morocco has reneged on the commitments made by his country under the auspices of the UN and the AU, regarding the referendum on self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

"Morocco is not the only one to block the peace process; France, which is a permanent member within the UN Security Council, is doing likewise," he told a press conference held at the Embassy of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in Algiers.

"We have called on the UN Secretary General and his personal envoy as well as the AU to assume their responsibilities," said the Sahrawi Foreign minister.

He underlined that France should play another role to restore peace in the region, adding that "Morocco has undermined all UN efforts."

He also deplored France's attitude vis-a-vis the Western Sahara issue.

"France has intervened in other conflicts in the region, like in Mali, where its sent troops with a view to restoring peace, preserving the borders and establishing democracy in this country, whereas in the case of Western Sahara, France has just done the opposite," he said.

As regards SADR participation in the next EU-AU Summit in Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) in late November, Ould Salek stressed "there would be no EU-AU Summit without SADR. It has been ratified by the AU and there is an agreement between the EU and the AU."

"The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) is a fact and a national, continental and international reality. Morocco has to accept it," concluded the Sahrawi Foreign minister.SPS

125/090/700
B anks may be getting better, but there still arent many youd want to buy shares in, what with the endless fines, investigations and post-financial crisis red tape.

There is one company in the sector youd have made a fortune on if youd bought in a few years back, though: Navigant.

This consultancy became one of the go-to firms for US regulators when they wanted to install monitors to miscreant banks. The job: to check theyre complying with court orders to clean up their act on money laundering, sanctions-busting and all the other naughties.

At $1200 an hour or so per operative, thats been rather lucrative work, which has translated into a near-doubling of Navigants share price on the New York Stock Exchange since 2010. Youd have thought Navigants compliance mine would have run out of gold by now. After all, the financial crisis which got it started was a decade ago.

Clearly not.

Navigants operatives have been in Standard Chartered since 2012s Iran sanctions-busting case. Yet the programme  which has been extended before  just got pushed forward again until next summer.

Is the bank dragging its feet? Apparently not.

Relations seem cordial between StanChart and the monitor, despite Navigant helping to get the bank fined an extra $300 million a few years back.

The reason its taking an age to complete is because the problems at the bank ran so deep, for so long.

That means new personnel, new training, new assurance and testing processes on a global scale.

Its a massive job, and StanChart bankers and shareholders shouldnt bet on it not being extended again in July.

Good news for Navigant and the compliance industry. Bad news for StanChart.

Bakkavor from dead

So the dead parrot that was the Bakkavor flotation was only resting. Its bankers may have told us last week it was pushing up daisies, killed by the horrific IPO markets, but actually, it was only stunned. Pining for the fjords.

If you believe the spin, it was revived because a new cache of investors emerged with a keen appetite for Icelandic-owned food companies with interesting pasts.

Nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the megabanks whod been flogging this mid-sized float originally priced it too greedily.

Or that Peel Hunt, a specialist in medium-sized firms like this, was promoted to a more active role and sensibly slashed the valuation.

Bakkavors not got beautiful plumage but theres a right price for any bird. Even a second-hand Icelandic Blue.
A takeover deal involving underwater warfare technology for the US Navy was never going to slip quietly beneath the radar.

And so it has proved for defence contractor Ultra Electronics after it said an antitrust ruling by the US Department of Justice on the companys takeover of NYSE-listed Sparton was now not expected until the end of March.

Ultra, whose shares slid 139p, or 8%, to 1578p today, had previously hoped to get the approval tied up by the end of this year. Ultra and Sparton have been joint venture partners for many years, making sensors used to track submarines for the US Defense Department. Ultra believes the proposed deal will preserve the status quo for the US Navy by ensuring continuity of supply.

The FTSE 100 was 15.34 points off at 7468.76, having started the session at a two-week low on fears of the health of the retail and housebuilding sectors.

Burberry shares, which fell 10% yesterday on chief executive Marco Gobbettis plans to take the brand upmarket, slid by another 59p, or 3% to 1728p.

There was also a 2% fall for SSE  down 29p to 1365p  after its plan to revive an idle coal-fired unit at Fiddlers Ferry power station was rejected by National Grid.

The companys shares are now back where they started the week, having initially surged on a deal with npower to create a new UK energy supplier. In the FTSE 250 Index, which fell 35.54 points to 20,036.33, there was better news from the house-building sector thanks to an update from Galliford Try.

The companys Linden Homes division reported average sales rates of 0.62 units per site per week since the start of the financial year, up from the 0.56 units seen a year earlier.

In the wake of this weeks poorly received update from Persimmon, shares in Galliford Try recouped some recent losses to stand 16p higher at 1193p.

Fellow second-tier stock Vedanta Resources rose 2p to 855.5p after it said strong performances in zinc and aluminium production helped lift underlying half-year earnings by 37% to US$1.7 billion (1.3 billion).

Anil Agarwal, who founded the group in 1976 and has grown it from an Indian domestic miner into a global natural resources group, also announced new projects to boost growth in oil and gas and Indian copper.

Among AIM stocks, Independent Oil and Gas continues to pump out the good news in relation to its 100%-owned Harvey licence in the southern North Sea.

Chief executive Mark Routh said Harvey has the potential to become the companys largest gas asset after an independent appraisal placed an expected value of 79 million on the structure, which is positioned close to its other assets.
F or a country to change, as Somaliland has done, from one where 98 per cent of women are subjected to female genital mutilation to one in which all three main candidates in its presidential election are committed to end the practice, is revolutionary change and the Evening Standard has been part of it.

We have been at the forefront of the campaign to confront the practice of female genital mutilation  both by people living in the UK who have their daughters mutilated abroad and, perhaps most pertinently, in countries where the practice remains commonplace. The tide is now turning.

In Somaliland, the campaign has been led by a brave Londoner, Nimco Ali  whose efforts the Standard has fully supported  and has now secured the backing of all three candidates in the election.

Writing today one of them, Musa Bihi Abdi, promises I will lead an administration that will complete the circle of a campaign that the Evening Standard has endeavoured to highlight over the last five years; the campaign to end the practice of FGM.

What this shows is the importance of continuing to carry on the fight to end FGM worldwide: by raising its profile here, the issue becomes harder to ignore in places where the problem remains endemic.

Indeed, as Mr Abdi writes in this paper today, there is a virtuous circle at play  for by ending FGM in places like Somaliland, it becomes much harder for young women and girls from the diaspora, including Britain, to be taken back to Africa to be cut.

But change cannot simply be imposed from outside, which is why Nimco Ali, who was born in Somaliland, has been so effective in her efforts.

This is a campaign with roots here, which is why I believe it can succeed, Mr Abdi writes. Health workers, religious leaders and politicians are now behind the campaign: this means real change.

The mutilation of young girls is child abuse which is still widespread throughout Africa; but with the efforts of committed campaigners like Nimco Ali, it can be ended.

Free Nazanin

The dreadful position of London mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been centre stage this week, for all the wrong reasons.

This week the Foreign Secretary blundered in his remarks to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to give the impression that she was teaching journalism in Iran rather than the truth: she was visiting her family.

This blunder may mean she serves an extra five years in a grim Iranian prison, Evin.

Just how grim is clear from our report today on the cramped and filthy Womens Wing, where some of Irans leading political activists and journalists serve long sentences.

One survivor calls it a black hole of evil. It has a shameful reputation from the past for violence and beatings, and even now the UN has identified abuses from inadequate food to withholding medical treatment.

Mr Johnson is shortly to visit Iran: he must make the release of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe a priority. Her family want her home for Christmas; so do we all.

Enninful, changemaker

Edward Enninfuls first edition of Vogue  of which he is the first male and black editor  is out today and it is remarkably, refreshingly diverse in content and style: a reflection of the world as it is right now.

He has also styled the new Pirelli calendar, launching today, which has 18 personalities from the worlds of fashion, acting, activism and music, all of whom are black.

As his friend and muse Naomi Campbell says, it represents a new time.

Shes right: change is overdue.
T he pack has been shuffled again. After Priti Patels departure from the Cabinet for going rogue on diplomacy, Penny Mordaunt is the new International Development Secretary  an MP who has expressed little interest in aid, although you can be sure were going to hear all about her time working in Romanian hospitals.

Mordaunt, a Royal Navy reservist, seemed a far more logical choice for Defence Secretary, a job that only came up last week. There lies the madness of Cabinet reshuffles under May. Mordaunt is replacing a female Brexiteer  and aping that trumps all other considerations. It has also allowed May to overlook past poor Mordaunt judgments: her claim pre-referendum that the UK couldnt veto Turkey joining the EU and her participation in the excruciating Leadsom for leader march.

This is no way to build a Cabinet. One puzzle of politics to outsiders is how little experience ministers have of their briefs. Luckily for Mordaunt, Patel had been an even odder appointment, having previously called for the Department for International Development (DfID) to be abolished. When Patel got the job, a civil servant there told me it was like getting the arsonist to run the fire station.

So what is Mordaunts challenge? DfID needs a champion who will make the case for aid to an often sceptical party and public. When I interviewed Bill Gates last year, he argued that the UK should be particularly proud of our record helping those in refugee camps. But DfID also needs a minister who grasps the problems in the development sector. A story buried by Patels exit this week revealed that less than three per cent of the cash spent on British aid contracts goes to suppliers in developing countries, and nearly all of that three per cent went to one business  the Ethiopian arm of management consultancy McKinsey & Co. This is dubbed boomerang aid  money that never really leaves Britain.

Mordaunts great immediate advantage is that shes inheriting a job from someone who was disliked by the department. Whether she proves to be Pennywise or Penny Dreadful, at least the headline writers will have a little fun.

Who is new International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt?

Boris must pull out the stops to rectify his Nazanin gaffe

I first met Richard Ratcliffe in May 2016, six weeks after his wife  Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe  was detained in Tehran. Nazanin, as the Foreign Secretary didnt grasp despite being repeatedly told by the couples MP, Tulip Siddiq, was visiting her family in Iran when she was arrested. An Anglo-Iranian who works for the charitable arm of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Nazanin has been accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

In blunders Johnson. The Foreign Secretarys incorrect statement to a Commons committee last week  that Nazanin was teaching people journalism  is being cited by Iranian state TV as evidence in favour of her prosecution. A single sentence from him has undermined 18 months of campaigners efforts to get her home.

Although the political implications of this could be enormous  Johnson may seem unsackable but he has potentially put his career in the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard  the implications for the Zaghari-Ratcliffes could be heinous. Five more years of Richard being separated from both Nazanin and his daughter Gabriella.

Over the past 18 months Ive been staggered by Richards strength. He has held himself together as his world has been ripped apart. As I revealed on Wednesday, Richard is now asking if he can join Johnson on an official trip to Iran.

Nazanin, meanwhile, has asked if Johnson will meet her when he travels to Tehran soon. That would be the least Johnson could do. He must put every effort into getting Nazanin home.

Fights need to be stopped not filmed

The most accurate filmic portrayal of the common fight scene is in Bridget Joness Diary. Most punch-ups are messy shows of machismo  more The Great Expectations boff-on-the-nose than a bout of Muay Thai. This is usually the kind of fight you see on the street or on public transport  and according to statistics from TfL, theres been a surge in such low-level violence recently.

Twice in the past fortnight Ive stumbled across a fight. The first was exactly this  two men had jumped out of their cars to wallop one another. A cyclist restrained the angrier man and was rewarded by a driver running over his bike.

The second  at Vauxhall bus station  was more frightening: a group of teenagers set upon an older man. What troubled me too was the response. Another woman and I called the police. Everyone else filmed it.

Human error will always be with us

This week a driverless bus crashed just after its launch. Many took this as evidence that driverless vehicles are a long way from becoming mainstream but the problem was human error: a lorry reversed into the bus. Driverless vehicles just havent yet grasped how flawed humans are. In the future, the news story will be that these flawed humans cause crashes by refusing to hand over the wheel to a computer.
W hen historians write about the politics of this period in the years to come, they will almost certainly refer to it as the Social Media Age; an era in which Facebook, Twitter and the like changed everything for the better. And for the worse.

Weve seen both quite clearly on display these past months. The Harvey Weinstein scandal is the most notable but far from the only example of the once all-powerful being held to account. From the lecherous MPs of Westminster to the world of those who hide their money away in offshore tax havens, there is no hiding place any more for those who abuse their power. Social media has  quite literally  given a voice to the once voiceless, and the world is changing visibly around us as a result.

But at the same time, go on Twitter any day of the week and you dont have to look far to find the dark side of this revolution. Check out the comments aimed at pretty much anyone in public life (particularly women) and the vitriol simply takes your breath away. I am still addicted to Twitter. As a news feed, it is second to none. But it has also become a place where people go to hurl abuse at each other.

The net result is the increasingly tribal nature of our politics. People start with a view, or an idea, or a grudge, and they create a pathway to public life that quickly becomes no more than an echo chamber. They are emboldened to discover others with a similar outlook and each exchange amplifies that sense of identity.

Anyone who doesnt share this world view risks being seen not just as an opponent  as they once might have been  but an enemy. And the politicians who thrive, such as Donald Trump, are increasingly those who manage to surf these waves. The idea that one political party, outlook or approach might hold the clue to solving all the worlds ills is patently absurd, when you come to think of it. But if in a rational world that might encourage everyone to treat opponents with cordiality, the reverse now appears to be happening. We are increasingly warring tribes.

Does all this matter? Well, yes, I think it does. An old friend sent me an article from a magazine called Wired the other day. The headline attached to it reads Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens and it outlines, in measured terms, Chinas plans to make its social-credit system compulsory by the year 2020.

At the moment, this futuristic idea is a voluntary option and you could almost convince yourself it makes sense. At its heart is a basic idea; what if there was a national trust score that rated the kind of citizen you were?

Id urge you to read the article in full, because it goes on to outline how this dystopian version of the Big Brother society appears to be integral to the future of what will soon be the most powerful nation on Earth.

In a nutshell, different pilot systems are being tried out but the aim appears to be to come up with a single trustworthiness rating. If it is high, it could be easier to get visas to travel abroad, or get your children into a good school. If it is low, you might quickly find something even as basic as getting a mortgage is a struggle.

In any society, this might be troubling. In the China of today, it is terrifying. Read the Chinese presidents (very long) speech to his partys congress a few weeks ago and you can see that his agenda for his country is detailed and specific. It involves a world of tightening, and not loosening, control. And that has indeed been the story of modern China. I was ITVs Asia correspondent at the time of Tony Blairs first visit to Beijing in 1998. I can recall him insisting that China was moving towards political reform. But I have never seen any sign of it. In this context, its social -credit system starts to sound like something from Orwells 1984.

From China to Russia  and many dictatorships in between  leaders aim to exert total control at home even as they sow dissent abroad

In fact, the direction of most of the autocratic states in the world seems increasingly clear. Their leaders might loot vast billions from their own people just as they always have (see the Panama Papers), and they may still like to store much of this money in the West. But from China to Russia  and a multitude of dictatorships in between  leaders aim to exert total control at home even as they sow dissent abroad.

The attempts by Vladimir Putins intelligence agencies to disrupt Western democracies are now beyond doubt. And it is surely time we woke up to the dangers that face us.

Social media is liberating. It allows us to communicate as never before, to exchange ideas and thoughts with hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. It is the enemy of the powerful everywhere, because it can so easily be used by the once powerless to hold those above them to account. It is enervating, it is energising, it is liberating. But unless we get a grip on ourselves soon, it runs the very real risk of ruining us, too.

Sooner or later, Facebook and Twitter and all their ilk are going to have to do something about the attempt to undermine Western civilisation. But that is the easiest bit. The much harder part is to come up with a cure for the illness we are creating for ourselves. So, by all means, lets keep hurling the abuse and insulting each other. Lets drive everyone further and deeper into their trenches. But lets not pretend we can do it without a cost.

Tom Bradby is the anchor of ITVs News at Ten.


This week our favourite style crush has donned everything from glamorous evening gowns, to a pussycat adorned shirt. After all, Holly's wardrobe is nothing but versatile.

As always the This Morning presenter has perfectly mixed high end with the high-street in order to create stylish looks that we can easily recreate - that is, until they sell out.

And it seems were not the only fans of Hollys fashion sense this week.

Taylor Swift launched her new album Reputation wearing an Ashish sequin rainbow dress, a design very similar to the mesmerising number Holly wore back in September.

So, if you've already spent hours googling her outfits with little luck, here's everything you need to know.

Monday's Outfit

What could be better on a Monday than wrapping up in a faux fur-collared coat?

Holly layered her snuggly and chic coat by Very over a simple navy Whistles dress and Kurt Geiger boots.

Get The Look

Dolly Coat With Faux Fur Collar by Very, 65, Shop it now

Maike V Frill Crepe Dress by Whistles, 95, Shop it now

Cooper Boots by Kurt Geiger, 59, Shop it now

Tuesday's Outfit

Holly served up some major winter wardrobe inspiration on Tuesday, layering a polo neck under a beautiful leather shift dress from Oasis.

Get The Look

Leather Shift Dress by Oasis, 120, Shop it now

White Roll Neck Sweater by John Smedley, 140, Shop it now

Cooper Boots by Kurt Geiger, 59, Shop it now

Wednesday's Outfit

The mum-of-three really caused a stir on Wednesday when she wore a feminine floral skirt by Lily and Lionel.

The midi-skirt was fittingly adorned with poppies that matched the one fastened to Holly's Massimo Dutti jumper.

To finish off the look, Holly donned a pair of statement red heels from Mint Velvet.

Get The Look

Cashmere Round Neck Sweater by Massino Dutti, 119, Shop it now

Poppy Black Silk Midi Skirt by Lily and Lionel, 200, Shop it now

Red Leon T-Bar High Heel by Mint Velvet, 139, Shop them now

Thursday's Outfit

Holly looked adorable on Thursday sporting a nude shirt with black pussycats all over it.

In order to smarten up the look the 36-year-old paired it with a pair of skinny black trousers from French Connection and trusty black court heels.

Get The Look

Dora In The Big Black Pussycat by Tabitha Webb, 250, Shop it now

Glass Stretch Skinny Trousers by French Connection, 75, Shop them now

On To Point Court Heels Black Suede by Office, 69, Shop them now

Thurday's Evening Outfit

On Thursday evening the presenter slipped into something a little more glamorous as she attended the star studded ITV Gala.

ITV 2017 Gala - In pictures 1 /53 ITV 2017 Gala - In pictures Holly Willoughby attends the ITV Gala Dave Benett Nicole Scherzinger Ian West/PA Holly Willoughby Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Emma Willis, Jennifer Hudson, Olly Murs and Danny Jone PA Gemma Collins Getty Images Katie Price Getty Images Caroline Flack Getty Images Kym Marsh Getty Images Nicole Scherzinger Ian West/PA Maya Jama PA Pixie Lott Tristan Fewings/Getty Images Jessica Shears Getty Images Kirsty Gallacher Getty Images Nicole Scherzinger Getty Images Megan McKenna PA Jessica Wright Getty Images Laura Whitmore PA Lauren Pope PA Rochelle Humes and Marvin Humes PA Chloe Sims PA Ashley Roberts PA Georgia Harrison PA Phillip Schofield PA Charlotte Hawkins PA Alison Hammond and Holly Willoughby PA Emma Willis PA Montana Brown PA Laura Tobin PA Kate Garraway PA Becky Mantin PA Jennifer Hudson PA Ben Fogle PA Lorraine Kelly PA Ashley Banjo and Jordan Banjo PA Olivia Attwood and Chris Hughes PA Courtney Green PA Lucy Verasamy PA Andrea McLean PA Michael Ball and Alfie Boe PA Joey Essex PA

She turned heads in an Old Hollywood style outfit, the black tuxedo dress by Pallas Paris boasting a plunging neckline and high-leg slit.

Get The Look

Open-Back Wool Halterneck Gown by Pallas, 1,1995, Shop it now
With Veterans Day approaching, I want to thank Wisconsin veterans and their families for their service to our country and invite them to attend the Veterans Town Hall I am holding today in La Crosse.

On this Veterans Day, I wanted to give Wisconsin veterans the opportunity to hear from other veterans or share your own story about the challenges of rejoining civilian life.

We can enjoy the freedoms we have because of the brave men and women who have sacrificed to keep us safe. However, many people fail to realize the struggle many of our service members go through when transitioning back to civilian life.

When many of our veterans return to civilian life, they struggle to find good- paying jobs and financial security. We need to make it easier for them to find good-paying jobs.

Unfortunately, the current Republican Tax Bill will make it harder for veterans to find jobs by repealing the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which incentivizes employers to hire veterans. I am working to make sure this critical credit isnt repealed and in the coming weeks will introduce a comprehensive bill to support our veterans as they search for jobs.

In addition to finding good-paying jobs, one of the biggest issues facing veterans is VA medical facilities struggle to recruit and retain qualified health professionals, especially in rural areas like many parts of Wisconsin.

In recent years a number of VA clinics, including ones in Wisconsin Rapids and Wausau, have been forced to turn away veterans due to a shortage of physicians. The Tomah VA Medical Center has also been forced to cut back services due to problems recruiting physicians. That is unacceptable. I am working on the bipartisan Veterans Access to Care Act to fix this problem and help VA facilities recruit qualified mental health professionals, doctors, dentists, and nurses.

The personal stories and experiences of Americas veterans are the most powerful record that we have to document the sacrifice and hardship of our nation at war. I encourage all veterans, even if they are not able to make it to the town hall, to participate in the Veterans History Project.

The Veterans History Project, which I helped create, uses volunteer interviews to record the experiences of veterans and their families. The stories are recorded and entered into the permanent collection of the Library of Congresss American Folklife Center. This project is the largest oral history collection.

Veterans Day is a great opportunity for Americans to encourage veterans they know to share their stories. I have always thought it important for us to honor the heroic, selfless work of our men and women in uniform. By having veterans share their experiences, they can help other veterans who might be struggling with the same problems.

I hope you will be able to join me, local veterans and veterans advocate at 1 p.m. today at the American Legion Post 52.
M alaika Firths story is the kind of story that, were you to read it in a Hollywood script, you would think was too farfetched, too unbelievable, too good to be true.

As a 17-year-old living in Barking  having moved there from Kenya with her family at the age of seven  she was obsessed with Channel 4s The Model Agency. She harangued her mother into calling the agency featured in the show, Premier. And that was that.

She rang them and said: My girl loves your show, she would love to model for you guys. They went: Yeah, bring her in. They didnt know how I looked, they didnt know anything. She was signed on the spot, picked out a new name (there was already a model with her birth name, Tamara, making waves at the time), and within weeks had her first job offer. I was still in sixth form and I had to choose between school and Burberry. I chose Burberry.

Working nine to five, every single day under the soon-departing Christopher Bailey, other offers quickly followed, from ASOS to Marc Jacobs to Prada (she was the first black model to star in a Prada campaign since Naomi Campbell).

LOEWE dress, 1,725 (loewe.com) GARRARD earrings, POA (garrard.com) Urban Decay Nagel Vice Lipstick Palette, 30; All Nighter Liquid Foundation, 29; Naked Skin The Illuminizer Translucent Pressed Beauty Powder, 24 (urbandecay.co.uk). Elizabeth Arden Grand Entrance Dramatic Volume Mascara, 22, at net-a-porter.com

From the outset, Firth had a very clear plan for what she was going to do with the money she made: namely provide for her family. She has been able to build a house back home in Kenya (her dad designed it), where they all now live. Im like a film to them, she says, when I ask how they have reacted to her success.

OSMAN top, 1,820 (osmanlondon.com). DIOR JOAILLERIE Rose Dior Bagatelle garnet earring, 1,350; diamond earring, 1,600, both worn as choker with velvet ribbon (020 7172 0172) Urban Decay All Nighter Liquid Foundation, 29; Vice Revolution High-Colour Lip Gloss, 15; Afterglow Highlighter Palette, 27 (urbandecay.co.uk). Chanel Le Vernis de Chanel longwear nail colour in particuliere, 20 (chanel.com)

Thats what I am. I feel like theyre just watching me on TV and theyre seeing me coming up and theyre just like, in awe of me. One day I can be Tamara, at home on the sofa, and the next day Im like dressed up Malaika. If Im going out to a party or an event, for them its just like a roller coaster, just watching me going to all of this stuff.

DELPOZO shirt, 1,650 (020 7881 0950). CELINE earrings, 520 (020 7491 8200) Urban Decay All Nighter Liquid Foundation, 29; All Nighter Long Lasting Makeup Setting Spray, 10; Heavy Metals Metallic Eyeshadow Palette, 43 (urbandecay.co.uk). Victoria Beckham EstEe Lauder Matte Lipstick in Victoria, 50, at net-a-porter.com

For just a few months now, Firth has been residing, solo, in her first-ever parent-free home on the Upper West Side of New York City. She is single and happy about that fact (I dont want to be held up by anyone, she says). Anyway, she notes, there is plenty to be getting on with.

This page, OSMAN dress, 5,950 (osmanlondon.com) ATELIER SWAROVSKI X PAUL ANDREW earrings, 249 (atelierswarovski.com) Urban Decay All Nighter Liquid Foundation, 29; 24 /7 Glide-On Eye Pencil, 15.50; Troublemaker Mascara, 19.50 (urbandecay.co.uk). Pat McGrath Labs Skin Fetish Illuminator Kit, 70, at net-a-porter.com

The campaigns keep coming in and she is about to start taking acting classes, because I really want it, the acting thing. Just have to push. She is ambitious. Very ambitious. For example, when I ask her whether fame on the level of a Cara or a Naomi would scare her, she gives an answer that sits in stark contrast to pretty much everyone else to whom I have ever put that question. You know what? she says. I lived a completely different life when I was young. I didnt have anyone following me around. So I think Id like it!

ERDEM dress, POA (020 3653 0360). V BY LAURA VANN earrings, 75 (vjewellery.co.uk) Urban Decay Naked Heat Lipstick in heat, 15.50; Naked Heat Eyeshadow Palette, 39.50; All Nighter Liquid Foundation, 29; All Nighter Long Lasting Makeup Setting Spray, 10; 24 /7 Glide on Lip pencil in liar, 13.50 (urbandecay.co.uk). 3INA The Ultra Curl Mascara, 9.95 (3ina.com)

Interview by Hamish MacBain

Photographs by Olivia Frlich

Styled by Sophie Paxton Beauty Editor Katie Service

Fashion assistant: Eniola Dare. Make-up by Mel Arter at CLM using Urban Decay. Hair by Leigh Keates at Premier Hair and Make-up. Nails by Sabrina Gayle at The Wall Group. Set designer: Victoria Spicer. Model: Malaika Firth at Premier Model Management
W hen the global glossy posse feels the pressure of staying stylish under the glare of the worlds media, they turn to make-up mogul Trish McEvoy.

Shes been in the business since I was three, she deadpans, and has built up a powerful roster of clients stretching from the White House to Hollywood.

I find the Upper East Side queen enthroned in a private shopping suite at Harvey Nichols. Trim in a black skater dress, shes petite with sleek dark hair and brown eyes deftly framed with her trademark dotted liner. You know, I was never the prettiest girl in the class, she tells me. I was smart but not pretty and I taught myself to be prettier. Its a nice thing to be able to pass that along.

She started her eponymous company in 1975 and, unusually for the beauty industry, remains at the helm. Oh, everyone has tried to buy my brand, she says. I like control of everything I do. She is a top seller in some 300 stores worldwide, with sales driven by an army of fans who are drawn to her unique brand of American sleekness combined with practicality of design and include Brigitte Macron, Ivanka Trump and Angelina Jolie.

Ivanka Trump / Getty Images

I knew Angelina when she use to carry her boyfriends blood in some thing around her neck. She has always loved drama in her look  she still does. But her whole style is more serious now  she has a family and causes, and her look has changed to reflect more seriousness.

McEvoy met Ivanka when she lived in the same apartment block as the Trump clan at 800 Fifth Avenue. I venture that Ivanka confuses people, being so clearly allied to her fathers political career as a White House adviser, while trying to promote womens rights in the workplace. Beautiful is beautiful, raps Trish.

She did Ivankas make-up when the daughter of the then property marketer was establishing herself in the Big Apple. We lived in the same building so it was very casual  she could just drop in and wed try things, but she always had a controlled sense of how she wanted to look. If you have that, youre not swayed all the time by some trend that might not work for you. She has almost perfect features, which helps.

Ivanka Trump in Berlin 1 /13 Ivanka Trump in Berlin Ivanka Trump, daughter and adviser of US President Donald Trump, arrives for a dinner in Berlin REUTERS Ivanka Trump attends the W20 Summit in Berlin REUTERS Ivanka Trump during the W20 Summit REUTERS Ivanka Trump with German Chancellor Angela Merkel REUTERS Ivanka Trump with German Chancellor Angela Merkel REUTERS Ivanka Trump visits the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin REUTERS Ivanka Trump visiting the Siemens Technik Akademie after participating in the W20 Summit REUTERS Ivanka Trump at the Siemens Technik Akademie REUTERS Ivanka Trump in Berlin REUTERS Ivanka Trump with Christine Lagarde and Angela Merkel REUTERS

We turn to glossy posse hair, which is very, very important. It must look tended, to balance the soigne make-up, but not stiff; we are not in the Mad Men era. Locks are almost always long  flowing tresses until mid-thirties, shoulder-length thereafter, not the crops or bobs of us frazzled mortals.

How would she define the difference between a well turned-out denizen of Islington and the New York elite? New Yorkers have perfected a look that is casual but pulled together. Its I want to look like I dont care, but I care a lot!

Key to the glossy life is that no one apologises for being high maintenance. Today she is travelling with Katie, my dear hair person, who comes with her if I have hectic days. Any other treats? In London I head straight to Michael Prager (a cosmetic dermatologist, as is McEvoys other half in New York, Dr Ronald Sherman). He gives me that rested look and then I get some temporary hair extensions. New York ladies, we like a quick clip-clip, maybe a Botox spritz and a couple of lash extensions. Its no big secret to add a little something if it lifts your look.

What do we Londoners get wrong? Too much pink blusher, she sighs. English ladies have a lot of pink in the complexion anyway. Use more BB creams to even it out. Redness will come through and get a natural glow and not so much, you know, that shepherdess look.

The first step to emulating the New York look is simply to look less tired. OK, so eliminate eye darkness  especially the upper eyelid. Dont use brown in the hollows, its ageing.

McEvoys favourite European of the moment is Brigitte Macron. I absolutely LOVE her look and the confidence she is giving to women. Shes the modern version of Brigitte Bardot. Its pretty cool. She breaks the rules with her clothes and her strong eye make-up and I like that.

Brigitte Macron is scared (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images) / AFP/Getty Images

The feminist argument looms over clever women who have made a fortune from pots and paint. McEvoys slogan is beauty as confidence. But isnt it a bit limiting in these days of full-blooded equality, to sell confidence in a tube?

Ive never seen more diversity in beauty than now in four decades in the business, she replies. You can be full-bodied, or have a big behind. When I started, God forbid you were a little plump. No one cares a hoot now.

She has been the bestseller in Harvey Nichols for two decades  and has only just been edged off that pedestal by Fenty, the brand launched by Rihanna, which she finds hilarious. Doesnt she mind, just a bit ? Not at all. We were kicked in the ass by Rihanna! Its so funny. You need more challenge in a business. Am I right?

Anne McElvoy is Senior Editor at The Economist.
F or adventure, head for London Gatwick. The Sussex airport has departures across Spanish-speaking America, from Mexico and the Caribbean to the mountains and jungles of Costa Rica and Peru. Cancun is the gateway to the Yucatan Peninsula, the broad shoulder of Mexico  at its best between November and February, I reckon. Culture and coast coincide at Tulum, where a Mayan city is dramatically located above the Caribbean.

Delving inland, the finest Mayan site in Mexico (and I have checked) is Chichen Itza. The tallest pyramid in this magnificent city, built a millennium ago, was named El Castillo (the castle) by the awestruck Spanish conquistadors. But I like to lace archaeology with adventure. If you delve deeper into the Yucatan, you can trek through raw jungle to reach the enigmatic ruined city of Calakmul.

About 1,000 miles south and a little east of the Yucatan, rainforest drapes itself beautifully across Costa Rica. The capital, San Jose, is handily located at the heart of a verdant nation that has let nature run wonderfully wild. You can access dramatic highlands draped in cloud forest and profoundly rich in bird and animal life. The towering landscapes have been sculpted by the restless earth, and its power still flows  on display at the Arenal volcano, where molten lava lights up the night sky.

Youll find a wealth of interesting wildlife in Spanish-speaking America / Alamy

Terra is a little firma at Punta Cana, at the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic. Close to the airport and the big resorts, Bavaro Adventure Park generates plenty of adrenalin with zip lining and zorbing (rolling downhill in a giant plastic inflatable ball  much more fun than it sounds). But for a richer experience, sign up for a 4x4 or overland truck tour into the interior. The Dominican Republic is the second largest nation in the Caribbean (after Cuba), and has a wealth of wildlife. You will encounter creatures such as iguanas and migrating birds, get to swim in natural pools fuelled by waterfalls, and have the opportunity to meet the local people in their villages. Or plan an adventure based around the nature reserves, staying in one of a blossoming number of eco-lodges.

Looking ahead to next summer, Lima beckons. The June solstice is a magical time to be in Peru  whether in Cuzco, on the Inca Trail or deep in the Amazon jungle.

Book a British Airways holiday with a deposit and pay the balance as late as five weeks before you travel (150 per booking up to a holiday of 1,500). Terms and conditions apply. Visit BA.com/wintersun
T his is the moment a group of Londoners rallied together to fight off a hammer-wielding moped robber who attempted a brazen raid at a tapas bar.

Diners enjoying food grabbed bar stools to fend off the thug who stormed into the restaurant.

Gessica Lastrucci, the manager of Bar Esteban in Crouch End, was left scared for her life after a man wearing a helmet stormed into her restaurant on Tuesday evening and attempted to steal her laptop.

When the guy came in, I actually didnt realise what was happening, Ms Lastrucci said. I thought he was like any other guest. I said hi, thinking he was a customer.

CCTV footage shows the brazen robber grab Ms Lastruccis laptop from under her nose and attempt to flee the shop, on Park Road.

The moped raider stormed into the restaurant and grabbed the computer. / Bar Esteban

But quick-thinking Ms Lastrucci grabbed the computer cable, which was plugged in at the wall, and pulled on the lead, forcing the bungling thief to come back.

As he re-entered the shop appearing to search around for his hammer, diners armed themselves with bar stools and charged at him.

The guy came close to me, took the laptop and tried to run away, Ms Lastrucci said.

The manager pulled tight on the cable lead to drag the computer back into the bar. / Bar Esteban

But the laptop was plugged in to the cable. I just tried to pull the cable in the opposite direction and got the laptop.

Afterwards he came back in. I think he was looking for his hammer. Then I was very scared, I thought he was going to hurt me.

But all my guests helped me, they took a chair and tried to help. At one point, there was a large guy standing at the back of the restaurant, he took a stool and pushed him outside.

Diners grabbed bar stools to help defend the manager. / Bar Esteban

They fought a little bit and then the guy starts to run away.

It was so fast. I was really thankful to my guests, especially to the guy who grabbed a stool. He saved my life.

The end of the footage shows Ms Lastrucci visibly shaken as she staggers backwards and is offered a seat and comforted by others in the restaurant.

Police are now investigating the attempted raid.

A spokeswoman for the Met said: Two suspects entered the premises in Park Road and grabbed a laptop from a table.

The laptop was dropped at the scene, and the suspects made off on mopeds.

A hammer was recovered at the location. No arrests have been made.
A young mother left paralysed by a hit-and-run driver tearfully said she hopes to one day walk again, after seeing the man responsible jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Chanelle Higgins broke her neck and was left with devastating spinal injuries when she was mowed down by Pascoe Petgraves BMW.

Shocking CCTV caught the moment Petgrave mounted the pavement and accelerated into Ms Higgins and her friend Nikisha Cox as they walked home from a night out.

Ms Higgins, the mother of two children, spent six months in hospital recovering and is now confined to a wheelchair with limited upper-body movement, needing round the clock care.

But after seeing Pascoe sentenced to two-and-a-half years behind bars, she told the Standard: I have not walked since that day and have been told by a doctor I will never walk again, but I live in hope.

Pascoe Petgrave, 21, has pleaded not guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving

There are things they said I would not be able to do and I have already started doing them. I hope there is a time when I can walk again on my own, even if it is with crutches.

She said seeing Petgrave being jailed gave her partial closure, but she would like to speak to him face-to-face to get answers.

I just want to ask the person who ran me and my friend over - why would you drive on the pavement?, she said.

Why would you run us over and not stop to see if we were OK and call an ambulance? Instead you drove off and left us both for dead.

Ms Higgins is comforted by her friend

Ms Higgins, who sat through the whole trial at Inner London crown court, added: I want to sit in front of him, speak to him, and say look me in the face and tell me why.

The crash happened at around 4.30am on May 29 last year, as Ms Higgins, then 29, and Ms Cox walked home from a night out at Scandals nightclub in Norwood High Street.

Petgraves BMW, which had tinted windows, mounted the pavement and then ploughed into the two women, not stopping as they were sent flying through the air.

He denied at trial causing serious injury by dangerous driving, claiming he had no choice but to pull the dangerous manoeuvre because he feared two men coming at his car wanted to kill him.

Jurors heard Petgrave had been the target of previous attacks and a specialist Met gang officer had recommend he flee Croydon for his own safety.

But after deliberating for more than four hours, the jury rejected his defence and found him guilty.

Passing sentence, Judge Nigel Seed QC said: This is as bad a case of causing serious injury by dangerous driving as one could imagine.

It has had a devastating impact, one person has suffered severe trauma and destruction to her life.

He said Petgrave showed no remorse by driving away from the scene even though you must have been aware what you had done.

He was arrested more than two weeks later, and Ms Higgins then went on BBCs Crimewatch to appeal for witnesses to the crash to come forward.

The court heard Petgrave was working as a care assistant before his first conviction, in 2015, for threatening someone with a knife.

He then racked up convictions for driving without insurance and taking a vehicle without consent, and was jailed for 18 months in September this year for a robbery.

Welcoming the sentence, CPS lawyer Claudette Hamilton said: This callous individual, who was uninsured at the time, drove into both women from behind and fled the scene.

He did not report the collision to police, forcing the victim to take part in media appeals to identify him.

This incident has had profound consequences for one victim. Her life has changed dramatically and she will now require round-the-clock care as a result of Petgraves actions.

Petgrave, who lived in Croydon, was banned from driving for the next two years as part of his sentence, and must take an extended test before getting behind the wheel again.
E ven as cocaine kingpin Klodjan Copja was led in handcuffs from the plane bringing him to the UK on a European arrest warrant, police were unsure of his true identity.

For three years detectives had tracked his movements and steadily dismantled his Albanian crime syndicate, which had flooded London and the South-East with millions of pounds worth of Class A drugs. While detectives arrested his couriers and trusted lieutenants and seized huge hauls of cocaine from safe houses, the identity of the boss of one of the biggest-ever drugs gangs to target the city had remained elusive.

Like Keyser Soze in the film The Usual Suspects, Copja always seemed to be a step ahead of his pursuers. Once, as officers raided a safe house in Earls Court, they caught sight of a figure being driven past in a car but were unable to apprehend him in time. It was Copja.

Detective Inspector Nick Blackburn, who investigated the case, told the Standard: He had no footprint in the UK. He used false documents and multiple IDs and he had no real previous convictions. It was very difficult for us to work out who this individual actually was. Copjas luck finally ran out on the border of Greece and Albania, when he was caught using a false passport.

Elaborate: police examined this Citroen for hours before finding a mechanism to open a hidden compartment full of drugs

He was extradited to the UK but Mr Blackburn said: We only really knew who he was when we had back him in the UK and we had his fingerprints.

After the three-year undercover and surveillance operation by the Mets Organised Crime Command, Copja, 30, was finally jailed in August for 17 years and four months. But his case barely merited a mention in the national headlines  submerged as it was in a stream of other prosecutions of Albanian nationals for serious drug trafficking.

The scale of his offending highlights the mounting concern among senior officers at Scotland Yard and other UK law enforcement agencies over the threat from organised Albanian gangs.

In Copjas case, police seized 204 kilos of high-grade cocaine but believe he may have trafficked as many as 800 kilos: worth an estimated 150 million.

Hideaway that almost scuppered police raid Albanian criminals have become skilled at creating hiding places in cars to stash cocaine. Police stopped a Renault from Copjas gang in Oxford and spent hours examining it. A detective said: We had seen the stuff going in but we just couldnt find it. Eventually officers located a mechanism which opened up the dashboard to reveal several kilos of drugs.

In a threat assessment in June, the National Crime Agency warned about the rise of Albanian criminal gangs in cocaine trafficking. The Standard has examined recent court cases which show Albanian nationals are engaged in routine drug trafficking in London.

Last December, a 23-year-old from Albania ran a red light on Bishopsgate. After he presented police with a poor-quality Lithuanian ID, they searched his car and found 13 wraps of cocaine in the gear stick casing. His satnav revealed a delivery address in the heart of the City. That month, police also stopped Admir Palushi, 23, in a Audi A6 in Aldgate with 30 bags of cocaine. The criminal, who was later jailed for more than two years, had a fake Greek driving licence and told officers he could not remember where he lived. His two phones revealed a list of 18 postcodes and times for meeting.

Admir Palushi was stopped with 30 bags of the drug in the Aldgate area

In March, Florentino Gonzales was jailed for 24 years after he tried to smuggle 30 kilos of cocaine worth 3.6 million to London in a custom-made cache in the roof of his Bentley Flying Spur.

A month earlier, two men who acted as controllers for street-level cocaine dealers across the capital were jailed in a case that prompted the City of London police to issue a warning about Albanian crime. Sources in the force tell of routine arrests of couriers caught driving or walking drugs into the Square Mile.

Det Ch Supt Mick Gallagher, the head of the Mets Organised Crime Group, said Balkan crime gangs arose from the turmoil of war and conflict which has engulfed the region in the recent past. He said while the threat from Albanians is real, there are many more groups vying for control of the cocaine trade.

He said: In our experience they are very well organised and like to operate under the radar so they dont bring themselves to attention. There is not a lot of violence associated with their activity, certainly not on the surface.

Mr Blackburn, who investigated Copja, said the kingpin kept a low profile, renting an expensive but anonymous modern flat in Wandsworth. None of his gang were showy, always using ordinary, nondescript cars  though Copja himself would never drive. In the UK, Mr Blackburn said, the criminals lead mundane, sensible existences. The cash is smuggled to Albania, where they are men of wealth and status.

Steve Bennett, deputy director of the NCAs National Intelligence Hub, said the success of Albanian traffickers is built more on a reputation for reliability than for violence, as popularised in films such as Taken, starring Liam Neeson. Mr Bennett said: They are good business partners, rather than being feared business partners.

This acumen has seen Albanian gangs forge alliances with some unlikely partners in Londons criminal underworld. In recent months detectives have seen Albanian and other Balkan factions travelling to cocaine source countries in South America to deal directly with the cartels. The Colombians are said to be more reluctant to operate in Europe and want people to come to them.

One Albanian source said: Albanian organised crime has built up extensive networks in Europe, especially in Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium. They saw the opportunity in the UK and only expanded there because of the huge market for cocaine.

Most of the couriers are illegal immigrants who came to the UK for a better life and paid up to 12,000 to be smuggled into the UK. They are in debt to the traffickers and get into drug-running.

Florentino Gonzalez tried to smuggle cocaine in the roof of his Bentley

Couriers routinely use false ID documents, particularly from Greece and Italy, to travel freely through Europe.

The National Crime Agency now has several officers stationed in Eastern Europe to gather information on the crime networks, but close-knit family ties make the mafia clans hard to penetrate.

A regular smuggling route for Albanian gangs is among legitimate cargo being driven into the UK on lorries. In Copjas case, Romanian drivers were recruited to drive loads to rendezvous points in Kent where drugs were transferred to smaller vehicles and driven to safe houses. Couriers from crime gangs around London and the South-East would then collect the drugs.

Although senior officers play down the threat of violence from the Albanian crime gangs, others warn of the risks of violence playing out on the streets of London. Scotland Yards Trident unit, which investigates gangs, said it is seizing more guns than ever in the capital. Last year they recovered about 700 live firing weapons. One senior officer said: The weapon is there as a mechanism to protect your Class A trade  and Class A is the lifeblood of gangs and organised criminal networks.

The police never recovered the cash from Copjas multi-million-pound drug deals. Detectives know all the money went back to Albania, but there the trail went cold.
S cotland Yard is targeting up to 100 Albanian mafia gang members who are flooding Londons streets with cocaine, the Standard reveals today.

Detectives have identified 50 to 100 suspects based in the capital with links to groups involved in a booming trafficking racket. Police say Albanian gangs are smuggling huge quantities of the Class A drug into London and the rest of the UK using the Channel Tunnel and cross-Channel ferries.

Detectives fear the soaring trade is fuelling violence  including stabbings and shootings  among Londons street dealers.

Senior officers say the individuals associated with Albanian organised crime are engaged in activity ranging from drugs importation to people trafficking. They are linked to gangs based back home and are thought to be engaged in fixing and enforcing the cocaine trade. The controlling hands remain in Albania.

The Met has joined forces with the National Crime Agency to target the gangs. In recent years, more than 130 people have been convicted in the courts and millions of pounds worth of drugs and cash seized. Officials say the success has seen the criminals resort to increasingly complex ways of hiding cocaine in compartments built into cars and lorries.

Details of the rise in Albanian gangs are revealed in the Standard today, including how Scotland Yard smashed one of the biggest ever drugs organisations to target the UK. Albanian kingpin Klodjan Copja, 30, was jailed for 17 years in August at Kingston crown court after pleading guilty to a series of drugs offences, including three counts of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

He ran a huge cocaine supply network for more than three years with links to British and other organised crime groups in London and across the UK. Officers from the Mets Organised Crime Group seized more than 200 kilos of high-grade cocaine and arrested 20 couriers and trusted lieutenants associated with Copja, as they dismantled his network from bottom to top.

The Met worked with colleagues from four different police forces in a surveillance and undercover operation to track Copjas activities. In total, officers seized more than 500,000 in cash and recovered cocaine from numerous vehicles, including 4 million worth of drugs from a car on Battersea Bridge.

Police believe Copja was just one of a series of powerful Albanian drug dealers now flooding London and the UK with cocaine. Home Office statistics released yesterday showed the amount of the drug seized by Border Force and police officers surged by almost a third in the past financial year. Officials seized 5,516 kilos, the largest quantity since 2003.
C ommuters have been terrorised by youths spraying liquid on them on the Tube using the same technique acid thugs are known to use to carry out their attacks.

In alarming video filmed on the Victoria Line, two youths fire liquid at unsuspecting passengers from Lucozade drinks bottles.

The type of bottle seen in the video is preferred by acid attackers as they can be used to eject liquid accurately and from a distance.

Police announced earlier this year that they are arming officers with kits to allow them to check the contents of suspicious bottles of liquid found on people being stopped and searched in the streets.

In September this year James Turvey, 18, a rising star with National League side Dagenham and Redbridge, said a gang pulled on balaclavas and started spraying a noxious substance from Lucozade bottles when he was attacked in Stratford, east London.

Police said they had not received any complaints of anti-social behaviour on the Victoria Line in relation to the incident

He suffered irritated skin around his eyes, while his friend was one of three people rushed to hospital.

In the alarming footage which has emerged online, two youths can be seen "spraying everyone with juice."

The video shows them target a male commuter minding his own business on a Victoria line train, a man travelling with luggage down an escalator, and a woman looking at her phone.

Their actions were condemned online.

Two men and one woman were targeted in the video

One person wrote: "Why can't people like this just grow up? Too many acid attacks around to even suggest doing something like this."

Another posted: "With all the acid attacks happening, this is ridiculous"

A third said: "Hope they get dropped by security cos of the acid attacks"

A spokeswoman for the British Transport Police said they had not received any complaints of anti-social behaviour on the Victoria Line in relation to the incident.

It comes as shocking figures revealed violent acid-related crimes nearly trebled in the last 15 years.

Since 2002, the number of such crimes has risen from 145 a year to 416 last year.

The total number of corrosive fluid offences, not necessarily considered violent, stood at 664 last year.

The age of offenders has also dropped dramatically as more teens are convicted of crimes relating to corrosive liquid.

In London, over the last few months acid attacks have been reported mostly in the north and east of the capital.

Delivery driver Muhammed Nawshad Kamal is likely to lose his sight in both eyes after he was targeted with the harmful fluid by moped robbers in Walthamstow on November 2.

The Met believe his attackers struck again in the same night in Tottenham in another attempted robbery.

Last month, new Government proposals were unveiled proposing thugs who are caught carrying acid twice will automatically be jailed for at least six months.
H undreds of apartments being built on a site that includes a former east London council estate are being marketed to wealthy Far Eastern buyers as a high-yielding investment.

Flats at the 300 million Blackwall Reach development in Blackwall, which is replacing the Robin Hood Gardens estate, have been advertised as best value flats with prices starting from 565,000 for a two-bedroom home.

High-profile launch events in Hong Kong and Shanghai hotels followed a three-month window for local buyers  when just 17 were sold out of more than 800 earmarked for private sale.

Tower Hamlets council and developer Swan Housing face allegations that they are prioritising overseas investors ahead of the needs of locals.

A advertisement attracting investors in Hong Kong

A spokesman for campaign group Generation Rent said: Given the scale and depth of the London housing crisis, we need genuinely affordable rentals.

As soon as your business plan is to flog them off overseas first, they are investments rather than homes for social need.

Peter Golds, leader of Tower Hamlets Conservative group, said: The council has more than enough funds to develop this site for affordable and social housing. It should be done now. If Tower Hamlets is dithering the Government should force them to release these homes for local people.

The new development will feature 561 rented apartments and 118 for shared ownership, but the rest of the homes are being sold to private buyers.

Brochures at the launch events say investors can expect 545 to 830 a week in rent, equivalent to a return of 4.2 to five per cent. Average pay in Tower Hamlets last year was 32,581, or 626 a week.

A Tower Hamlets council spokesman said: The sale is of entirely private properties rather than the enhanced social rent properties which remain for rent by local residents at Blackwall.

Borough mayor John Biggs added: The overseas marketing of these homes just goes to show the housing market is broken. It cant be right that to pay for social homes we have to sell private homes overseas.

Swan Housing Association said it has complied fully with the Mayor of Londons Concordat [on] the sale of properties overseas.

The agreement between the Greater London Authority, council and Swan has strict protocol, stating these properties were to be marketed exclusively to those living or working in Tower Hamlets for a three-month period, followed by a further three-month period when properties were marketed exclusively to those living or working in London, before being marketed overseas.

A spokesman for Sadiq Khan said: The Mayor has been entirely clear he wants Londoners to have an opportunity to buy homes first, before they are marketed overseas, and this was the case with Blackwall Reach.

Demolition of the estate began in September after a failed attempt by the Twentieth Century Society to have it listed for its Brutalist architecture.
T his was the dramatic moment a double-decker bus shunted vehicles down the road for 20 metres after a crash in east London.

Two people were injured in the collision which happened on Lower Clapton Road in Hackney on Thursday afternoon, police said.

Shocking footage shared on social media shows a Route 254 bus smash into the back of a black 4x4, which is then pushed into a white car in front.

The bus does not appear to immediately stop as it pushes the helpless vehicles down the road to the shock of bystanders.

The bus was seen pushing two cars down the road in Hackney / @courtwhisperer

Passengers on the bus and people in the vehicles were shouting for help, an eyewitness told the Daily Mail.

Police cordoned off the road following the collision and Transport for London has launched an investigation.

A Met Police spokesman said: Police were called at approximately 16:40hrs on Thursday, 9 November to Lower Clapton Road, E5 following reports of a Route 254 bus in collision with a number of vehicles.

Officers attended. Two people sustained minor injuries. Road closures remain in place. There have been no arrests.
WARRENSRenovating and transforming the former Bog restaurant site into Lost at Donna Ks Bar and Grill has been a challenge.

But the end is in site, and the restaurant is tentatively expected to open Wednesday, Nov. 15 pending a state health inspection.

Chuck Bowers, owner of Donna Ks, said there were more problems with the building than expected.

This was a long road, he said. This building was very distressed, run into the ground. The previous owner did good when he was here, but as the end came they let things go.

There was a lot to fix, Danielle Laehn of Donna Ks, said.

There were more troubles here than we thought as far as plumbing and electricity; there was a lot of remodeling, she said.

It all turned out well in the end, Bowers said.

We went in and reconditioned the entire building, he said. It looks different  calmer and homey.

This is not Bowers first restaurant; he has another Donna Ks in Black River Falls. He used to own another restaurant in Black River Falls; however, it burned down and he owned four other restaurants in Madison but sold those about two years ago to focus on the Black River and Warrens sites.

Bowers said his restaurants are for the communities they are in, including Warrens.

Were happy to be serving the Warrens community, he said. Tomah and Warrens need something like this ... Our hopes for the future is to have more Donna Ks .... to put more into the communities that need a restaurant, need something reasonably priced, and we put our hearts and souls into it. Its not about money to us. We want to make a living, but its more about serving the community, to give something back to the community.

Laehn said the food at Donna Ks can be described as home-cooked.

Its all home-cooked meals ... from scratch, and Chuck puts his own twist on recipes in terms of seasoning, she said.

The food is inspired by Bowers mother. Bowers said she is the reason he pursued a restaurant career.

A passion of hers was always the food industry, he said. We owned a couple restaurants and bars, and she got me into it. She was the one who taught me how to cook.

Bowers mother was also the inspiration for the restaurants name. He renamed the restaurants Donna Ks in remembrance of his mother, who died four months ago.

Bowers is anxious to open the business.

Im very excited for the opening. I wish it was a month ago, two months ago, he said. Im excited. I want to bring what we have to the community.
T he mother of a London schoolboy who was told to cut his dreadlocks off is taking legal action against the school.

Tuesday Flanders made an official complaint to Fulham Boys School after her son Chikayzea, 12, was told that his hair breached its appearance policy.

She said the schools response to her complaint was unsatisfactory and is taking the case to a judicial review.

Chikayzea was taught in isolation after he arrived for his first day at the free school and has now moved to a nearby academy. His mother said he has dreadlocks because he is a Rastafarian and they are part of his religion.

Dreadlocks row: Chikayzea Flanders / GetWestLondon/BPM MEDIA

Working Action Group, which is supporting Mrs Flanders, said: Fulham Boys School have failed to acknowledge the unlawful discrimination that clearly exists in their uniform policy under current legislation. As a result of which, legal proceedings will commence.

Almost 5,000 people signed a petition to support Chikayzea and a protest was held outside the school last week. Mrs Flanders said: To hear someone telling you to change your way of life to attend a school is heartbreaking.

Protesters carried placards saying stand-up racist school policies and shame on you Fulham Boys School.

Protesters gather outside the school / Get West London / BPM Media

Today headteacher Alun Ebenezer said he was unaware of the legal action. After the protest, he told the Standard: We are a strict academic boys school and have a strict uniform and appearance policy. I would stress that everyone is welcome to the school. We are not a racist school in any way, shape or form. But we have a distinct culture and when boys come to the school we expect them to respect that culture. We are strict and no-nonsense .

He said seven per cent of pupils are Asian, 10 per cent are black African and 13 per cent are black Caribbean.

He added: Fifteen per cent of our pupils come from private backgrounds and 44 per cent are on the pupil premium. They rub shoulders together and you cant tell who is who, they are all wearing the same.
A student who went into the Thames to rescue a woman has been praised by police for his amazing work.

Paris Hammond-Hagan, 18, was walking with friends near Blackfriars Bridge at 5am on Thursday when he noticed the woman, who appeared distressed, standing by the water with no shoes.

He asked what she was doing. When she said that she was planning to go for a swim, but admitted she did not know how to, he tried to dissuade her. However, she then waded in to waist height.

Mr Hammond-Hagan, from Bromley, told his friend to call the police and jumped over the wall and walked down the stairs towards the water.

He said: I dont remember making the decision to jump in and help her, I just did it. I asked her, Whats your name? Do you have any pets, family?

The woman responded to him and the began talking about their shared desire to go travelling.

She told me that she wanted to go to Thailand, he said.

However, when the police arrived on lifeboats, she began to back away into the water and he grabbed her arm to prevent her from moving further out.

At this point the woman pleaded with him to let her go. I said, If youre going in, Im going in with you. I wont let you do this by yourself, he said. Eventually the police were able to rescue her and Mr Hammond-Hagan returned to dry land. He said: I was blown away that it had happened and that she was safe.

Lambeth police tweeted: Female suffering mental health crisis climbed over railing and walked down a set of steps into the freezing cold river, totally submerging herself. Nearby member of the public, Paris Hammond-Hagan, decided to put his own safety second and help her.

He heroically climbed over the railing and grabbed hold of the female, himself half- submerged in the water, and held on to her until help arrived.

Female now safe and receiving the help she needs. Amazing work Paris!

For confidential support call the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123
B oris Johnsons job will be on the line if jailed London mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is given a higher sentence, the Standard has been told.

The charity workers family are expecting a new court hearing in Iran within days. There are fears that the Foreign Secretarys blunder last week in saying that she had been training journalists in the country could be used as an excuse to keep her behind bars there for even longer.

Senior sources say Mr Johnson may struggle to remain in his Cabinet post if the Iranian authorities extend Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes jail term beyond the current five-year sentence and link this to the Foreign Secretarys unguarded remarks.

British diplomats today stepped up action to raise support for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38. Ambassador Nicholas Hopton said the Government had no doubt that she was on holiday when she was arrested at Tehran airport in April last year.

Sir Simon Gass, a former British ambassador to Iran who was political director at the Foreign Office from 2013 until last year, told BBC radio: Its clear that the Foreign Secretary misspoke and his statements after that have said as much.

INazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella / PA

What needs to happen is that the British Government needs to be talking very privately to the Iranian government. All my experience of these sort of issues with Iran are that the more you say in public, the more difficult it becomes in private. Im in no doubt that the Iranians know what the real position is, whatever they may say about Mr Johnsons comments.

Today a survivor of the prison where Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held claimed it is a black hole of evil where women have been tortured and beaten. Marina Nemat spent two years in sprawling Evin prison in the foothills of northern Tehran.

In an interview with the Standard, she appealed to Britons to keep Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes hopes alive by campaigning for her release from Evin.

It was a black hole of human-made evil, which had sucked you in, said Ms Nemat, who now lives in Canada. I just want her to know shes not forgotten. She just needs to hang in there because it will come to an end  she will come home. She has to believe that.

Being forgotten is the worst thing in prison because you feel you have been wiped from the end of the Earth.

Ms Nemat was rounded up by Iranian police in 1982 aged 16 alongside her classmates and accused of criticising the regime. She was tortured by having her feet beaten with cables by guards.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who holds dual Iranian-British citizenship, has been in Evin since June 2016, shortly after she was arrested by Irans Revolutionary Guard at the end of her family holiday. She was separated from her daughter Gabriella, who is now three and living with her grandparents in Tehran.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Hampstead, was charged with trying to topple the Iranian regime, which she denies. She has been suicidal and on hunger strike and months in solitary confinement have left her physically weakened.

Now she is on the womens wing and living in cramped conditions alongside some of Irans leading political activists, journalists and artists serving long sentences. Reports of sex assaults, violence and beatings have dogged Evin for decades and it was internationally condemned in 2003 when Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi-Ahmadabadi was reportedly beaten to death there.

Ms Nemat, now in her fifties and an author, said: Back then it was a given that you would be tortured. They took me in a small room and took off my socks and shoes and lashed the soles of my feet. Im not saying they are doing the same thing to Nazanin but it was, and is, common.

Amnesty International has criticised the womens wing for denying prisoners medical care and proper food, and human rights campaigners in Iran call its curbs on visiting rights cruel.

Last week Mr Johnson told a Commons committee that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been simply teaching people journalism in Iran. His words are believed to have been cited when she was taken back to court on November 4, raising fears that her sentence could be lengthened from five to up to 16 years.

On Tuesday, amid criticism, Mr Johnson told the Commons that he had been talking about Iranian allegations that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been training journalists and backed her family and employer in saying that she had been on holiday.
B rexit can be reversed despite Government claims, the man behind Article 50 has said.

Lord Kerr, the architect behind the document claims the Brits are in danger of being misled" by Government suggestions that quitting the bloc is set in stone.

The former UK ambassador to the European Union, will insist Theresa Mays decision to trigger the withdrawal process does not mean departure is inevitable.

"We can change our minds at any stage of the process," he will say as negotiations continue in Brussels on the UK's separation from the bloc.

Brexit Secretary David Davis and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier will meet in Brussels on the second day of the latest round of talks before a crunch summit of European leaders next month which could decide whether to move on to the next stage of the process covering a future trade deal.

Lord Kerr, who played a key role in drafting Article 50, the legal mechanism for a country to leave the EU, will use a speech in London to contradict the Government's view that the process is irreversible now that it has begun.

Warning: Lord Kerr / PA

At an event hosted by the pro-EU Open Britain campaign, the cross-bench peer will say "we are not required to withdraw just because Mrs May sent her letter" to Brussels.

"The fact is that a political decision has been made, in this country, to maintain that there can be no going back.

"Actually, the country still has a free choice about whether to proceed. As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view.

"And there's nothing in Article 50 to stop them.

"I think the British people have the right to know this - they should not be misled."

Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures 1 /26 Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Common PA Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images European Council President Donald Tusk holds a news conference after receiving British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter in notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May takes her seat after announcing in the House of Commons PA The time 12:20pm shows on Big Ben on March 29, 2017 in London, England. The British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Houses of Parliament as Article 50 is triggered and the process that will take the United Kingdom out of the European Union begins Carl Court/Getty Images D-day: pro-EU protesters outside of the Houses of Parliament today as Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 AFP/Getty Images EU Council President Donald Tusk holds British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter which was delivered by Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow (not pictured) that gives notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters PMQ's in The House of Commons PA Jeremy Corbyn speaking at PMQ's in The House of Commons Sky News Theresa May leaving for the House of Commons Jeremy Selwyn Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the headquarters of Vivendi in Paris where he took part in TV interviews to discuss the imminent triggering of Article 50 by the UK to leave the EU Stefan Rousseau/PA Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow arrives at the EU Council headquarters for as meeting before hand delivering British Prime Minister Theresa May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow arrives at the British representation of the European Union in Brussels Aurore Belot/AFP/Getty Images A giant headed Theresa May in Parliament Square, London during a protest by Avaaz after PM signed a letter to trigger Article 50 that starts the formal exit process by the UK from the European Union David Mirzoeff/PA British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walks down Whitehall Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's PM Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. AFP/Getty Images

Before his meeting with the Brexit Secretary, Mr Barnier said the moment was approaching for a "real clarification" of Britain's position on issues like citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's financial settlement.

If the EU27 agree next month that sufficient progress has been made on these issues, they will give a green light for negotiations to move on to the questions of trade and transition to a new post-Brexit negotiation.

European Council President Donald Tusk holds the letter giving Britain's official notice under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to leave the European Union / EPA

Mr Barnier said close economic ties would depend on a "level playing field" and questioned whether the UK intended to break away from the European model of standards and regulation.

In a speech in Rome, he said: "Of course, the UK remains in Europe. But the British must tell us if they still adhere to the European model.

"Their answer is important because it will set the direction for the discussion of our future partnership and the conditions for its ratification."

Mr Barnier said the UK had to be clear about the consequences of leaving the EU and its single market and customs union.
G ordon Brown today refused to give Jeremy Corbyn his full backing and urged him to come up with a credible and costed programme for government.

The former prime minister repeatedly stopped short of saying he supported Mr Corbyn as Labour leader.

He said Mr Corbyn was a phenomenon who was articulating the worries of millions of people who felt, rightly or wrongly that problems of stagnant wages, inequality and the need for proper funding of public services were due to the failure of centrist governments in managing globalisation.

They had expressed this through the ballot box by electing Donald Trump in America and Emmanuel Macron in France, he added.

Asked on BBCs Today programme if Mr Corbyn was the answer in Britain, he said: When he attacks Universal Credit he is speaking for many people.

When he says the health service is underfunded he is speaking for many. What he is saying on these things is absolutely right. But pressed by presenter John Humphrys on whether he approved of Mr Corbyn as Labour leader, he refused to say he did.

Gordon Brown has refused to back Jeremy Corbyn / Getty Images

Instead, he said: The question for Jeremy is this  you go back to first principles in Opposition  what do we really believe in and Jeremy is articulating a view of a fairer society.

What he has now got to do, and this is his challenge, you have got to convert this sense that you have restored peoples faith in your principles to a plan for the future that is credible and therefore a programme that is electable and popular.

He said shadow chancellor John McDonnell now accepted that the Bank of England should remain independent, a position established shortly after New Labour came to power in 1997.

Questioned whether Mr McDonnell and Mr Corbyn were now moving to the centre, he said: I dont know.

They are now with the responsibility and I hope they can ... produce a programme which is costed and popular and which is both radical and credible. That is the challenge for any Left-wing, progressive party.

Labour did publish a costed election manifesto for the snap election in June but economic experts argued that it had a huge funding black hole in it.

Pushed again on whether he approved of Mr Corbyn leading the Labour Party, Mr Brown responded: He would accept I did not vote for him, but he did not vote for me.

He voted against our Government 500 times.

But we are in a new world. People have to accept that people are looking for answers that at least for the last few years, the traditional political leaders have not been able to provide.
T he leader of a new political movement attempting to take over Tory-run Kensington & Chelsea in the wake of the Grenfell fire today claimed residents would be prepared to see council tax rise to tackle the boroughs housing problems.

Annabel Mullin says her Advance party will in return deliver meaningful change to the way local politics works after next Mays borough elections, by giving residents a more direct say.

She accepts that government cuts have become a fact of life for town halls but says her party will be more creative about making efficiencies.

In an interview with the Standard, she said: There are ways of raising money. You could increase the council tax. People wouldnt necessarily be opposed to that, I believe. I think generally people feel they can afford it.

Ultimately, she wants ministers to look at re-banding council tax nationally. Advance will field at least one candidate in each of K&Cs 18 wards.

We hope the community will feel that this is a vehicle for them to come forward, she said.

Grenfell Tower aftermath - In pictures 1 /18 Grenfell Tower aftermath - In pictures The top section of the death trap Grenfell Tower Jeremy Selwyn The tower today, after the flames were extinguished Jeremy Selwyn A close up of the tower's damaged windows PA Fire service personnel survey the damage PA The tower today, after it emerged at least 17 were killed Jeremy Selwyn Rows of blackened windows after the fire Jeremy Selwyn Police sent in sniffer dogs today to search for bodies Jeremy Selwyn PA The Grenfell Tower at dawn today Jeremy Selwyn Donations have flooded in for victims Jeremy Selwyn Water is sprayed on Grenfell Tower PA Rows and rows of blackened windows. It is feared over one hundred people may have perished Jeremy Selwyn Part of the scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London as firefighting continue to damp-down the deadly fire AP Fire crews examine the wreckage PA

They are Remainers at heart and hope to attract the one in four voters in the borough who are EU nationals. Ms Mullin, 39, believes that, if successful, the movement could be franchised across the country.

Advance has already elicited comparisons with French president Emmanuel Macrons En Marche! party. One supporter was a key backer of the French president.

I dont mind if people make associations but thats not what were about, she said.

The whole point of Advance is about striving for change, striving for action. Theres also hope there.

The magistrate and former policewoman will not be standing in the local elections herself (she has a PhD in criminology to finish) but promises shes in for the long haul.

She would hand over to one of her deputies if the party wins seats.

Ms Mullin ran for the Lib Dems in Kensington in June - more than doubling the partys vote and aiding Labours shock win  but became disillusioned with institutional politics.

She set up Advance with former Independent editor Simon Kellner, now party chairman, after reading an article he had written. She recognises the challenge. Dont get me wrong, I think its a very, very difficult task.

Advance is not registered as a political party yet, although it intends to be fully fledged before May. It held a big launch event in the borough on Wednesday night and has raised 15,000 in donations so far.

Unlike mainstream parties, it will not run on a manifesto because everyone breaks them anyway. However, housing will be a key focus. Ms Mullin, who volunteered after the Grenfell fire, accepts that the housing of its victims is massively complex but believes the handling of individual families has been pretty poor.

She denies that by picking K&C  where she was brought up and still lives  the party is politicising the tragedy. Thats not what this is about. Grenfell has happened and were very much about trying to make it better. Advance is looking at replacing K&Cs Tenant Management Organisation, responsible for 10,000 homes, with community land trusts or listing it to attract private investment. Other ideas include air filtration systems in schools and more cycle lanes, campaigning to save Notting Hill police station and offering a referendum on creating a mayor.

Ms Mullin predicts the Tories will fall. Its an entrenched Tory area ... but I think they expect to lose it.

Wont the town hall then go to Labour?

It will be a tough campaign because I believe Labour feel that theyre going to have the pitch for themselves. This is going to upset that.

Advance has been holding tentative discussions with a group of independents, who could play a key role. Ms Mullin said: I dont know how success is defined, but if we change the conversation, thats pretty successful. My expectation is that well do better than that and well have people making the difference in the council, come May.
T heresa Mays leadership came under fire from both wings of her party today as an attempt to bind Tories into a firm Brexit date opened up divisions.

Conservatives against a hard Brexit accused the Prime Minister of trying to appease hardcore Eurosceptics by announcing a surprise Commons amendment that will fix in law the EU departure date as March 29, 2019.

At the same time, Mrs May was under attack from Right-wingers after days of turmoil over her handling of sex scandals and Cabinet feuding that led to two emergency reshuffles.

Today, the editor of the Conservative-supporting Spectator magazine, Fraser Nelson, said the chances of her being ousted were rising and she could not survive more mistakes.

She is aiming for stagnation, a remit thats depressing enough itself, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. But if she cant even manage that, then her party will have no choice but to see if someone  anyone  could do better.

He said things were falling apart in Downing Street and ministers looked in vain for a sense of purpose or direction at the centre.

A former minister told the Standard that in recent days views had hardened among backbenchers and ministers that Mrs May was not up to the task of holding the Government together. The plates have shifted slightly over the past week of mishaps, said the MP.

Mrs May sought to unite her ranks by writing the Brexit date into law by amending the Withdrawal Bill, which returns to the Commons next week. Brexit Secretary David Davis said the change will make the UKs departure date crystal clear. The Prime Minister issued a blunt message to pro-EU MPs that she would not tolerate any rebellion against the move.

But there was an angry response from Tories fighting for a pro-business Brexit, who said the move was a bid to sabotage their own attempts to let Parliament take charge of the final Brexit deal through an amendment  known as Amendment Seven  carrying cross-party support. Former business minister Anna Soubry said: I find this deeply disappointing. Yet again she is appeasing a hard core of about 35 people and by putting something in the way of a middle-of-the-road consensus.

A senior Tory MP said: The amendment entirely undermines the purpose of Amendment Seven and is a surrender to the hard Brexiters. It delivers no possible advantage in negotiating with the EU and threatens to land the Government with a serious problem if negotiations go to the wire, as the Government keeps on saying they might.

Writing in the Telegraph, Mrs May said: We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union.

Meanwhile, Lord Kerr, the diplomat who drafted Article 50, said in a speech that Britain was free to change its mind unilaterally. The Government refused to say whether or not it agreed.

Several big tests of Mrs Mays ability to survive as Tory leader lie ahead. The Budget takes place this month, while growing calls for a bold reshuffle will test her nerve and authority. She is set to cave in to Brussels demands for an extra 20 billion of cash, ahead of a EU summit in December.
A veteran Tory MP has allegedly blamed female journalists for the Westminster sex scandal and described victims of sexual harassment as wilting flowers.

Sir Roger Gale, who has previously described the scandal as a witch hunt, said politicians were being treated as guilty and put "on the rack.

He added that it is the decision of journalists, now speaking out about alleged incidents that happened years ago, to wine and dine MPs.

It comes as Parliament continues to be rocked by a series of allegations of sex abuse and sleaze, with several Conservative and Labour MPs being investigated over alleged sexual misconduct.

Sir Michael Fallon quit as Defence Secretary last week after it emerged he had repeatedly put his hand on a journalist's knee during a party conference dinner in 2002.

Sir Michael Fallon said his past behaviour may have fallen below the high standards expected of him / EPA

Mr Gale told MailOnline: Well mainly female journalists are responsible.

There are female journalists who after years have suddenly said oh well you know I had an experience...'

Im sorry, where are all these people coming from who are such wilting flowers?

Nobody makes a journalist go and have lunch with a Member of Parliament and drink.

There is no come back. Damian Green is now on the rack, for what? He is guilty until he is proved innocent.

Mr Green, Theresa Mays second-in-command, has denied a claim that police found pornographic material on a computer in his Westminster office during a raid in 2008.

Sir Roger added that he has stopped allowing interns to work for him over fears he could leave himself open to baseless allegations.

The MP for North Thanet has previously urged people not to rush to judgement over the scandal.

He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme last week: "I don't think there's anybody who would seek to defend rape or sexual abuse in the context there's no proof that I can see yet of any wrongdoing.

How does a member of Parliament refute that?"

The Standard has approached Mr Gale for further comment.
A Flybe airliner has landed with no nose gear at Belfast International Airport.

Fifty-six people were on board Flybe flight BE331 when it was forced to carry out an emergency landing with the front of the plane unsupported.

The Bombardier Q-400 had taken off from Belfast City Airport and was due to fly to Inverness before being diverted.

The plane burned fuel in a holding pattern off the coast of Belfast for around two hours before landing at Belfast International Airport with the runway closed to other aircraft.

Flybe said one passenger was taken to hospital with a minor hand injury / PA

A Flybe spokeswoman said: "Flybe can confirm that there has been an incident involving one of our Bombardier Q-400 aircraft, flight BE331, which landed with no nose gear in place.

"The aircraft departed from Belfast City at 11.07am bound for Inverness. The incident occurred at Belfast International Airport at approximately 1.30pm.

"There are 52 passengers on board and four crew members.

"Our primary concern is for the welfare of the passengers and crew."

A spokeswoman for Belfast International Airport said: "A Flybe flight from Belfast to Inverness declared an emergency and landed at Aldergrove at about 1.20pm today.

"The airport is still open and full emergency procedures have been deployed."

Flybe later said one passenger was taken to hospital with a minor hand injury.

No other casualties were reported, an airline spokeswoman said.

Images from Belfast International Airport published on social media show the aircraft tipped forward on to its nose, with fire brigade vehicles nearby.

This story is being updated
A former RAF airman held hostage in Iraq and tortured for seven weeks during the First Gulf War says he still jumps out of his skin hearing fireworks  but bears his captors no ill will.

John Nichol was a 27-year-old navigator with the rank of Flight Lieutenant when he and pilot John Peters were shot down in their Tornado behind enemy lines while flying 50ft above the desert at 600mph, on a mission to destroy an enemy airfield in 1991.

The pair, from 15 Squadron, were held in the notorious Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. They were interrogated by Saddam Husseins secret police and beaten with fists, boots and clubs, and forced to appear on Iraqi television under duress.

On Remembrance Sunday, Mr Nichol, now a 53-year-old veteran, will march with thousands of others past the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Speaking to support the Royal British Legions Poppy Appeal, he said that during his ordeal he discovered an incredible inner strength, but there was nothing brave about what I did, I simply existed amidst adversity.

Mr Nichol, who lost two-and-a-half stone while locked in a fetid cell, was also pistol-whipped, burned with cigarettes, forced into stress positions and subjected to mock executions.

Carol Vorderman and John Nichol, the RAF veteran shot down during the first Gulf War / PA

Still affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, he paid tribute to RAF psychiatrist Professor Gordon Turnbull, who treated the two airmen following their release after 47 days.

He explained how we might react, how we might feel and the PTSD symptoms we might have in the coming weeks, months and years, he said.

Within days of getting home to my parents house I remember sitting bolt upright in bed as a train went past nearby, which sounded like screaming low-level aircraft coming over, which was the prelude to being bombed when we were in captivity in Baghdad.

On Guy Fawkes Night I will still jump out of my skin when a firework goes off. Undoubtedly it made me a more emotional person, more aware of human frailty. I literally thought I would die on two or three occasions.

He added: I have no ill feeling towards the Iraqis for what happened to me, most of them were good honest, decent people. I just feel so sorry for them now. What had the potential to be a fantastic country has endured 26-and-a-half years of hardship.

If youd said to me in 1991, young men and women from the British military, not born when I was in captivity, will still be fighting, I would have said youre mad. What a failure of politics across the world that is.

Mr Nichol served in the RAF for 16 years, including five years after being released from captivity.

The father-of-one, who lives in Hertfordshire, is now a motivational speaker and author of 15 books. He said that without being a prisoner of war he might never have met his wife, Suzannah, who he was introduced to following his second book launch in 1992.
Wisconsin has a rich heritage of conservation. From the Native American tribes who inhabited this land for generations, to John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Warren Knowles and Gaylord Nelson  Wisconsin has been a national leader in protecting our land, water and air. The public trust doctrine, enshrined in our state constitution, guarantees that the waters of Wisconsin belong to the people of Wisconsin.

There was a time when this was a shared ethic among Democrats and Republicans. Our greatest environmental achievements have always been accomplished together, working toward the goal of making a better Wisconsin for our children and grandchildren. But today, I am disturbed by the erosion of that shared commitment. Governor Scott Walker and legislative Republicans seem to be rushing toward a new era, one where the bipartisan promises of the past are cast aside in the name of eliminating obstacles for business. Three examples from this legislative session alone demonstrate this regression.

In the early 2000s, water bottling giant Perrier had a plan to open a facility in the central sands of Wisconsin. There was great concern for the impact this might have on our groundwater resources. High-capacity wells in that area have a direct impact on surface waters. As we can see today, they cause lake levels to decrease and rivers to run dry. The threat of Perrier brought together Republicans, Democrats and Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle to pass what was supposed to be the first step in protecting groundwater quantity. Wisconsin Act 310 was passed nearly unanimously, 99-0 in the Assembly and 31-1 in the Senate and signed into law by Doyle. In the years that followed, bi-partisan study groups continued to look at the issue to determine what those next steps forward might be to ensure everyone has reasonable access to the waters of the state.

The 2010 election resulted in the Republican control of both houses of the Legislature, the governors office and an about face on the approach to environmental protection. Earlier this year, Republicans passed Wisconsin Act 10 on a partisan 62-35 vote in the Assembly and 19-13 vote in the Senate. The law allows for the repair, replacement and transfer of high-capacity well permits without DNR approval. Because high-capacity well permits are the only environmental permits without an expiration date, the provisions of this bill essentially grant permanent access to groundwater for those permit holders. This is in direct conflict with the Wisconsin state constitution, which protects the waters of Wisconsin for the benefit of all users. It guarantees that the current problems with surface waters in the central sands will continue to get worse.

In the mid-1990s, the threat of a sulfide mine in Crandon brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass the mining moratorium. This legislation, 1997 Wisconsin Act 171, was passed with overwhelming support, 91-6 in the Assembly and 29-3 in the Senate and signed by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. Sometimes referred to as the Prove it First law, it simply requires that anyone wanting to operate a sulfide mine in the state of Wisconsin needs to demonstrate that another similar mine has been able to operate and close somewhere in the United States without polluting for at least 10 years. Because there has not yet been an example of a mine that can operate without causing pollution, Republicans now want to change the law.

Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, and Rep. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, have introduced Senate Bill 395 and Assembly Bill 499, which repeal the current Prove it First law. The bill appears to have widespread support on the Republican side. It passed the Senate Sporting Heritage, Mining and Forestry Committee on a partisan 3-2 vote and is rumored to be scheduled before the full Senate later this fall. It is widely opposed by Native American tribes, conservationists, and government watchdog organizations. But that is virtually meaningless against strong Republican backers like Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and Americans for Prosperity.

The most recent attack was unleashed at the end of September. A new bill is being circulated by Sen. Roger Roth, R-Appleton, and Rep. Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, that will end protection for isolated wetlands in Wisconsin. There are two kinds of wetlands and they are regulated differently. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through the Clean Water Act, has jurisdiction over wetlands that are connected to navigable waters. Other wetlands, those that are geographically isolated, are protected by Wisconsin, thanks to a dedicated group of bi-partisan lawmakers.

In 2001, a U.S. Supreme Court decision, SWANCC vs. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, left all geographically isolated wetlands unprotected. In the wake of that decision, legislators in Wisconsin sprang into action. A concerted effort over a five-month period led to Republican Gov. Scott McCallum calling a special session to pass a bill which put in place state-level protection for isolated wetlands. Wisconsin Act 6 was passed unanimously by both houses of the Legislature. Since 2011, a number of proposals have chipped away at the 2001 law, but the latest, LRB 4115/1, proposes eliminating state protection for isolated wetlands.

What has happened to Wisconsin? Not that long ago, when faced with an environmental crisis, Democrats and Republicans worked hand-in-hand to come up with common-sense solutions. I worked diligently with my colleagues on both the wetlands and groundwater laws during my tenure in the State Assembly and was proud to have voted for both. Now I see a new generation of Republican lawmakers, very different from the last, who fail to see the forest for the trees.

Native Americans, originating from the Great Law of the Iroquois, have approached conservation with the concept of the seventh generation. Decisions made today should be ones that benefit seven generations from now. While I know we have fallen short at times, the core of that philosophy has been at the heart of Wisconsins past environmental law. Its what brought us together to ban sulfide mining and protect groundwater and isolated wetlands in an overwhelming, unified voice.

Today, there is not thought given to seven generations. Rather, the next generation will be saddled with the damage inflicted today. I hope that they are able to rise to the challenge and repair what has been broken.

Democrat Mark Miller, Madison, represents the 16th state Senate District.
T he American man repeatedly mistaken for department store John Lewis on social media has received a personal heartfelt message from John Lewis on behalf of the star of their new advert, Moz the Monster.

The 2017 John Lewis Christmas advert was unveiled to a huge fanfare on Friday morning and has already racked up millions of views online.

But for one real-life John Lewis living in Virginia US, the annual advert sparks a frenzy as scores of people mistake his account with the one belonging to the UK retail giant.

The father-of-four uses the handle @johnlewis which all year round is confused with @johnlewisretail as customers tweet him with their complaints or comments.

On Friday, after the advert was released, the computer science teacher tweeted: I say this is one of your best! It brightened my day (which I needed, ironically, thanks to you.

The department store's popular advert was released on Friday morning. / John Lewis

The John Lewis store replied to his message with a short video clip showing Moz the Monsters paw writing a note.

The handwritten message reads: That means so much coming from the other John Lewis! followed by a heart symbol and signed by the character.

This years two-minute advert, set to a cover of Beatles track Golden Slumbers by Elbow, tells the story of little boy Joe who befriends a scruffy imaginary monster who sleeps under his bed.

John Lewis Christmas Ad 2017 - #MozTheMonster

Joe, who is played by seven-year-old twins Tobias and Ethan from London, gets up to mischief with Moz and the pals play together into the small hours of the morning.

The advert will be broadcast on TV at around 9.30pm on Channel 4 during Gogglebox and at a similar time across all Sky channels.

Last year, after being inundated with tweets, the American John Lewis was sent a Christmas package by shop bosses.
N igel Farage has been ridiculed for blasting the World Health Organisation as a club of 'clever bullies' after it backed the Popes ban on cigarettes being sold in the Vatican City.

Internet users urged the former Ukip leader to start smoking 500 a day as they mocked his foolishness for picking a fight with the Vatican and the worlds top scientists in one swipe.

Taking to Twitter, Mr Farage referenced the WHOs statement welcoming the Vaticans decision to ban the sale of cigarettes from next year.

The pro-Brexit politician then added: The World Health Organisation is just another club of clever people who want to bully and tell us what to do. Ignore.

Thousands of people replied to his message, with many calling him stupid for attacking the expert organisation over smoking, which is one of the biggest causes of death and illness and kills 100,000 people in the UK every year.

The WHO also said you shouldnt take your toaster into the bath, one internet user wrote. Just ignore them Nige.

Steven Dunne wrote: Youre so right Nigel. And just to show them whos boss why not double or even treble your tobacco intake so theyll really know theyve been rumbled.

Another Twitter user added: And keep on drinking. That will really show those people with all their medical education what you think of their expert opinion and how to stop people dying.

Someone else added: Yeah, who needs scientists, cancer specialists, doctors, teachers etc. Lets just wallow in our own stupidity!

Part of the United Nations, the WHO works to improve public health across the globe. Thanks to its experts, smallpox was eradicated and it is working to tackle HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and TB.

Pope Francis ordered a ban on the sale of cigarettes earlier this week because of health concerns.

In a statement, his spokesman said: The motive is very simple: the Holy See cannot be cooperating with a practice that is clearly harming the health of the people.
T he UK has finally supported a ban on all bee-killing pesticides in the countryside.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said a total ban on bee-harming pesticides in the countryside across Europe would be supported by the UK and kept in place after Brexit.

In a reversal of the Government's previous position on "neonicotinoid" pesticides, Mr Gove said new evidence indicated the risk to bees and other insects from the chemicals was "greater than previously understood".

Environmental campaigners have hailed the move.

The science justifies the further restrictions on their use which have been proposed by the European Union, and unless the evidence changes the Government will maintain the controls post-Brexit, he said.

Since 2013, the EU has banned three neonicotinoids for use on certain crops such as oil seed rape, after authorities identified risks to honey bees.

Environment secretary Michael Gove / Reuters

The UK Government initially opposed the ban, claiming there was not enough evidence that bees were harmed by the pesticides, but other member states disagreed and the ban was implemented across the EU.

The European Commission has since proposed restricting the three neonicotinoids to only allow use on plants in greenhouses, which would extend the ban to crops such as sugar beet and winter cereals with seed treated with the chemicals.

Research estimates the value of the UK's 1,500 species of bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects to crops as being around 400 million to 680 million a year due to increased productivity.

They are also a key part of wildlife food chains.

Mr Gove, a leading Brexiteer, said he wanted to see a "Green Brexit" in which environmental standards were not only maintained but enhanced.

"The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our 100 billion food industry, is greater than previously understood.

"I believe this justifies further restrictions on their use. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk."

Michael Gove said new evidence indicated the risk to bees and other insects from the chemicals was "greater than previously understood" / AFP/Getty Images

He added: "I recognise the impact further restrictions will have on farmers and I am keen to work with them to explore alternative approaches both now and as we design a new agricultural policy outside the European Union."

The Environment Department's (Defra) chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Boyd said: "The important question is whether neonicotinoid use results in harmful effects on populations of bees and other pollinators as a whole.

"Recent field-based experiments have suggested these effects could exist.

"In combination with the observation of widespread and increasing use of these chemicals, the available evidence justifies taking further steps to restrict the use of neonicotinoids."

Research last month found three-quarters of the honey produced worldwide contains neonicotinoids, highlighting how widespread they had become in the environment.

Separate research published in October revealed 76% of flying insect biomass in German nature protection areas had been lost in 30 years, while ongoing monitoring shows falls in many species of insects in the UK in recent decades.

Evidence has increasingly linked neocotinoids with declines in bees, with one recent paper suggesting one of the pesticides can potentially wipe out common bumblebee populations by preventing the formation of new colonies.

Professor Dave Goulson, from the University of Sussex, said: "It is great to see the Government responding to the weight of evidence linking neonicotinoids to declines of wild insects such as bees and butterflies.

"However, if the pesticide industry simply replace neonicotinoids with some new generation of pesticides we will not have made progress, but will simply be repeating mistakes we have made over and over again for 70 years.

"We need to encourage farmers to move away from reliance on pesticides as the solution to the many problems that industrial monoculture cropping create."

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: "Michael Gove is absolutely right to listen to the science and back a total ban on neonicotinoids.

"Study after study has shown these pesticides can harm bee colonies and contaminate our environment for years.


M ichael Barnier has given the UK government two weeks to concede on a divorce bill or trade talks will not open.

Following the latest round of talks in Brussels, Mr Barnier said the EU still had to see "sufficient progress" on the arrangements for Britain's withdrawal before they could move to the second phase of negotiations.

"We are not asking the UK for concessions, nor are we planning to make any concessions ourselves," he told a joint news conference with Brexit Secretary David Davis.

Mr Barnier indicated that he would need further clarification from the UK on its positions within two weeks to be able to recommend to European leaders that "sufficient progress" has been made at December's summit.

The Brussels chief said the sixth round of talks had largely involved "deepening discussions, clarification and technical work".

Negotiations: Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis and European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier / REUTERS

He said his "top priority" was to secure sufficient progress on the issues of citizens' rights, the border with Ireland and Britain's "divorce bill" by the time of the next EU summit in December.

"Only sufficient progress - that is to say sincere and real progress - on the three main key issues of these negotiations will enable the triggering of the of second phase of our negotiation," he said.

Mr Davis said the negotiations had narrowed to "a few outstanding - albeit important - issues".

He said: "Now is the time for both sides to move together to seek solutions.

David Davis: Now time for both sides to seek Brexit solutions

"This is a serious business. If we are to find a way forward it will require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides.

"This is now about moving into the political discussions that will enable both of us to move forward together.

"We must now look ahead to moving our discussions on to our future relationship.

"For this to happen, both parties need to build confidence in both the process and indeed in the shared outcome."

The UK was "ready and willing" to engage with Brussels "as often and as quickly as needed" ahead of the December 14-15 summit, he said.

"But we need to see flexibility, imagination and willingness to make progress on both sides if these negotiations are to succeed and we are able to realise our new deep and special partnership."

Mr Barnier said the UK side had offered some "useful clarification" on citizens' rights, but more work was needed on a number of issues including the role of the European Court of Justice.

On Ireland, he said "technical and regulatory solutions" had to be found to prevent the re-imposition of a "hard border" between the North and the Republic while preserving the integrity of the single market.

On the financial settlement, Mr Barnier said the sides needed to establish an "objective interpretation" of Theresa May's undertaking in her Florence speech that no EU member state would lose out as a result of Britain's withdrawal.

"This is absolutely vital if we are to achieve sufficient progress in December," he said. "It is just a matter of settling accounts as in any separation."

Mr Davis said there was "no doubt that we have made, and continue to make - including this round - significant progress across a whole range of issues".

"That will continue at pace between now and December and I hope it will lead to sufficient progress."

Mr Barnier refused to be drawn on speculation that Brussels was concerned that Mrs May's Government could collapse following recent upheaval which has seen two Cabinet ministers quit, although he admitted the situation was being watched closely.
A lmost all women in Somaliland have undergone female genital mutilation.

On Monday, the self-declared state in east Africa will elect a new president  and all the candidates have pledged to outlaw the barbaric practice following a campaign backed by the Standard.

About 98 per cent of women in the former British colony, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, have undergone FGM.

London campaigner Nimco Ali travelled to Somaliland to lobby the three main political parties on the issue. They all met her and promised to bring in legislation to end the procedure.

Frontrunner Musa Bihi Abdi writes today in this newspaper that ending FGM in Somaliland will complete the circle of a campaign that the Evening Standard has done so much to highlight over the last five years; the campaign to end the practice of FGM or female genital mutilation.

Ms Ali said: I cant explain how beautiful it is or how overwhelmed I am that these things are materialising.

When I first started campaigning there was a lot of shame, stigma and fear, but now there is hope, conviction and pride.

I am so honoured they met me and what a level of respect I have for each and every one of them.

Ms Ali met Faisal Ali Warabe of the UCID party, a representative for Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi of the Waddani party, and Mr Abdi of the Kulmiye party.

She offered to work for free for 100 days as a gender adviser to whoever becomes president. She was so shocked by the mens positive responses that she high-fived them in delight.

The presidential election is seen as one of the few genuinely positive events in the region at the moment.

Nearly 800,000 voters have been registered for the first election in Africa to use iris-recognition software to prevent electoral fraud.

Ms Ali said: The candidates were incredibly busy travelling from one city to another campaigning. For them to make time and speak so patiently and openly about something so deeply-rooted and stigmatised was amazing.

We are meant to be ashamed of this thing, but by talking about it it showed how progressive they are.

They were all super-informed about FGM but were waiting for someone to give them the legitimacy to talk about it. She admitted that speaking to the men about the issue was daunting, but added: Ending FGM through legislation is the key thing for a place where prevalence levels are so high.

It is fundamental to the success of Somaliland. It cannot be successful if the women are repressed.
T he CIA was working to kill Fidel Castro on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, newly released files reveal.

The latest batch of JFK documents, published online on Thursday, contain details of a US plot to kill the Cuban leader with a lethal ballpoint pen.

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. On the same day, a CIA officer in Paris gave a Cuban asset a pen rigged with a syringe.

The evidence indicates that the meeting was under way at the very moment President Kennedy was shot, the document says.

JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 / Walt Cisco/Dallas Morning News via Reuters

The plot was one of many considered by US defence forces to remove Castro, who was feared by Kennedy, as detailed in the files.

We cannot overemphasize the extent to which responsible Agency officers felt themselves subject to the Kennedy administrations severe pressures to do something about Castro and his regime, the report says.

The release of more than 13,000 records by the US National Archives is the fourth release of documents this year.

Most of the overall collection comprising about five million pages of records has been released to the public, but some documents have been withheld over the years to protect individuals, intelligence sources and methods and national security.

The latest documents are being released according to a law that President George H.W. Bush signed on October 26 1992.

That law required all records related to the assassination be released within 25 years, unless the president says doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations.

Last month, on the 25-year deadline, President Donald Trump wrote in a memorandum that he had "no choice" but to agree to requests from some government agencies to continue withholding certain information.

Mr Trump, however, directed agencies to again review each of their redactions during the next 180 days.

JFK: John F Kennedy Assassination - In pictures 1 /33 JFK: John F Kennedy Assassination - In pictures U.S. President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally ride in a limousine moments before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963 Walt Cisco/Dallas Morning News via Reuters President John F. Kennedy seen working in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, U.S. in 1963 Robert Knudsen/JFK Library/The White House/Reuters U.S. President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy arrive at Love Field in Dallas, Texas less than an hour before his assassination in November 1963 Cecil Stoughton/JFK Library/The White House//Reuters Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade in Dallas Jim Altgens/AP US statesman John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US, and his wife Jackie Kennedy travelling in the presidential motorcade at Dallas, before his assassination Keystone/Getty Images Kennedy is struck by an assassin's bullet as he travels through Dallas in a motorcade on November 22, 1963 Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images AP Passers by Bill and Gayle Newman cover their children as CBS News photographer Tom Craven (centre) and White House photographer Tom Atkins (right) take pictures in Dealey Plaza after shots were fired at Kennedy Cecil W. Stoughton/White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum/Reuters Kennedy's killer Lee Harvey Oswald during a press conference after his arrest in Dallas. Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby on 24 November on the eve of Kennedy's burial AFP/Getty Images Lee Harvey Oswald pictured with Dallas Police Sgt. Warren (right) and a fellow officer Dallas Police Department/Reuters Nightclub owner Jack Ruby, foreground, is seen approaching Oswald in the underground garage of the Dallas police headquarters on November 24 Jack Beers/AP Ruby guns down Oswald Bob Jackson/Dallas Times Herald/AP Oswald is hurried into an ambulance after being shot at Dallas City Prison by night club owner Jack Ruby Three Lions/Getty Images A map of Oak Cliff in Dallas, showing the location of eyewitnesses to the movements of Lee Harvey Oswald in the vicinity of the killing of police officer J. D. Tippit, on November 22, 1963. Tippit was shot by Oswald whilst attempting to bring him in for questioning in relation to the assassination Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The Texas School Book Depository at Dallas, Texas, from which Kennedy was shot and killed Central Press/Getty Images The view from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, from which Lee Harvey Oswald is thought to have assassinated Kennedy Hulton Archive/Getty Images Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office as President of the United States, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963 National Archive/Newsmakers/Getty Images Kennedy's widow, first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and his brother U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, walk into the White House grand foyer behind his casket upon its return from Dallas to Washington, DC in the early morning hours of November 23 Robert Knudsen/JFK Library/The White House/Reuters The funeral procession of President John F. Kennedy goes into Arlington Cemetary in Washington National Archive/Newsmakers/Getty Images Jacqueline Kennedy, Edward Kennedy and Robert Kennedy stand as Kennedy's coffin passes them Keystone/Getty Images Honor guard place a flag over the casket of Kennedy during his funeral service November 25, 1963 in Arlington Cemetery National Archive/Newsmakers/Getty Images Members of the Kennedy family at the funeral. From left: Senator Edward Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, (aged 6), Jackie Kennedy (1929 - 1994), Attorney General Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy (1960 - 1999) (aged 3) Keystone/Getty Images Jackie Kennedy (1929 - 1994) and her children John Jr. (1960 - 1999) and Caroline, walking down steps past a guard of honour at the funeral. Robert Kennedy is following them Central Press/Getty Images Jackie Kennedy leaves the US Capitol Building with her children John and Caroline after attending the ceremony National Archive/Newsmakers/Getty Images The memorial to US President John F Kennedy Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

He said agency heads needed to be extremely circumspect in recommending that information still needed to be withheld from the public.

Government agencies have until March to tell the National Archives why any part of their records should still be redacted.

The records included in this latest public release have not yet been re-reviewed by the agencies as part of that process.

Conspiracy theorists have long questioned the official conclusion that Mr Kennedy was murdered in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald and that he was acting alone.
A Christian school in Florida is selling bulletproof panels for pupils to put in their backpacks.

Florida Christian School, in Miami, lists the ballistic panel for parents to purchase on its website at a cost of $120 (90).

The schools head of security, George Gulla, said the panels offer another level of protection to students in the event of an active shooter.

"The teachers are trained to instruct the students to use their backpacks as a shield to protect themselves," he told CNN.

The panels are slim pieces of material that reportedly weigh less than a pound.

More than 200 school shootings have taken place across the US since the infamous Sandy Hook attack in 2012, the LA Times reported.

In that incident, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults in a school in Connecticut.

But school safety consultant Kenneth Trump told NPR he was sceptical of the new panels.

"After every high-profile school shooting, we have an explosion of gadgets, gurus and charlatans," he said.

"Corporations see dollar signs, and believe that schools have huge budgets to buy new products and services."
A survivor of the prison where London mother Nazanin Zaghari- Ratcliffe is being held today claimed it is a black hole of evil where women have been tortured and beaten.

Marina Nemat spent two years in sprawling Evin prison in the foothills of northern Tehran. In an interview with the Standard, Ms Nemat appealed to Britons to keep Mrs Zaghari- Ratcliffes hopes alive by campaigning for her release from Evin.

It was a black hole of human-made evil, which had sucked you in, said Ms Nemat, who now lives in Canada. She added: I just want her to know shes not forgotten. She just needs to hang in there because it will come to an end  she will come home. She has to believe that.

Being forgotten is the worst thing in prison because you feel you have been wiped from the end of the Earth.

When I was in prison the most difficult thing for me was the thought that the world had forgotten me, and doesnt give a damn.

Ms Nemat was rounded up by Iranian police in 1982 aged just 16 alongside her classmates and accused of criticising the regime. She was tortured by having her feet beaten with cables by guards.

Charity worker Mrs Zahghari- Ratcliffe, 38, who holds dual Iranian-British citizenship, has been in Evin since June 2016, shortly after she was arrested by Irans Revolutionary Guard at the end of a family holiday.

She was charged with trying to topple the Iranian regime, which she denies.

She could now have her five-year prison sentence doubled after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wrongly suggested she had been training journalists. Months in solitary confinement at the prison have left her physically weakened.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella / PA

She has been suicidal and on hunger strike. Now she is on the womens wing and living in cramped conditions alongside some of Irans leading political activists, journalists and artists serving long sentences.

Reports of sex assaults, violence and beatings have dogged Evin for decades and it was internationally condemned in 2003 when Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi- Ahmadabadi was reportedly beaten to death there.

Ms Nemat, now in her fifties and an author, said: Back then it was a given that you would be tortured by tying you up and beating you on the soles of your feet with a length of cable. Your nerve endings are in your feet.

It happened after I was arrested. They took me in a small room and took off my socks and shoes and lashed the soles of my feet. Ive given birth since and broken bones but that pain was its indescribable. Im not saying they are doing the same thing to Nazanin but it was, and is, common.

From her cell she said she heard people cry and moan and scream.

She said: They moved people all the time  one of the [methods] was to disorientate you. I really had the feeling that they just walked us in circles.

Torture isnt for getting information out of you  you tell your torturers whatever. When youve got two men standing over you, and they can kill you or rape you, when they say sign here you just put your name there. If they tell you to sign something, you sign. Torture is designed to destroy the human.

She said she began to lose her mind when she was in solitary confinement.

She said: I started talking to the walls, talking to God, every day felt like 3000 years. You had absolutely no contact with the outside world.

Amnesty International has criticised the Evin womens wing for denying prisoners medical care and proper food, and human rights campaigners in Iran call its curbs on visiting rights cruel.

Nassim Papayianni, an Iranian researcher at Amnesty International, said: Conditions vary greatly in Evin, but the quality of food is consistently poor and prisoners are routinely forced to buy extra food from the prison shop to maintain something close to an adequate diet.

A major issue, especially with political prisoners, is the Iranian authorities denial of medical care, even when individuals have serious medical conditions. Its clear that the authorities will deliberately toy with the lives and wellbeing of prisoners as a further layer of punishment.

Britains ambassador to Iran, Nicholas Hopton, today said the Government had no doubt Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Hampstead, was on holiday when she was held at Tehran airport. Mr Johnson is facing calls to resign over his gaffe, but said he had been quoting Iranian allegations against her.

Her young daughter Gabriella is now living with her grandparents in Tehran.
F irst Lady Melania Trump played the tourist in China today, viewing pandas at Beijing Zoo and visiting the Great Wall while her husband attended a summit in Vietnam.

The 47-year-old former model fed a giant panda named Gu Gu and learned about his nutrition and training.

She greeted a group of school children waving miniature Chinese and American flags, handing out stuffed toy eagles after watching the children sing a Chinese folk song at the panda enclosure.

Meanwhile Mr Trump was speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, which was attended by other leaders including Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump visits China - In pictures 1 /18 Donald Trump visits China - In pictures U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump pose during a tour of the forbidden city, AP U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with opera performers at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China Reuters US First Lady Melania Trump (C-R) and China's First Lady Peng Liyuan (C-L) are surrounded by students after a cultural performance during a visit to Banchang Primary School in Beijing, China EPA U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) looks up as he sits beside First Lady Melania Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping (2nd R) and his wife Peng Liyuan (R) during a tour of the Forbidden City in Beijing AFP/Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping Getty Images Military troops march during a welcoming ceremony for U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing, China Getty Images U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a welcoming ceremony in Beijing, China Reuters U.S. first lady Melania Trump and China's First Lady Peng Liyuan, left, are escorted by a student after a cultural performance during a visit to the Banchang Primary School in Beijing AP President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump exit Air Force One upon their arrival at Beijing Capital Airport in Beijing, China Getty Images U.S. First Lady Melania Trump (3-R) and Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan (2-R) visit a fashion class during their visit to the Banchang Primary School in Beijing, China EPA U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania arrive on Air Force One at Beijing, China Reuters U.S. First Lady Melania Trump (2-L) assist a student to adorn a gown near Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan (C) during their visit to the Banchang Primary School in Beijing, China EPA U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China. Trump is on a 10-day trip to Asia Getty Images

On Tuesday, in one of two speeches, the US President declared he and President Xi Jinping of China can solve "probably all" the world's problems.

Trump is in Beijing as part of his five-nation tour of Asia and held lengthy talks with Xi on Thursday, after which he announced the signing of $250bn (190bn) worth of business deals.

However it is unclear how much of the staggering amount is previous deals being re-announced or just the potential for future deals.
A ctress Ellen Page has accused director Brett Ratner of homophobic harassment, claiming he outed her in front of the cast and crew of X-Men when she was 18.

In a frank Facebook post published on Friday, the Juno star, 30, wrote about what she described as the horrific exchange at a pre-production meeting for the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand.

The Canadian actress said she was 18 and standing next to a woman 10 years her senior when the film producer pointed at her and told the other woman: You should f*** her to make her realise shes gay.

Page, who has also starred in Inception and drama The Tracey Fragments, came out as a lesbian publicly in 2014.

Writing on the social media site in a lengthy post in which she condemns abuse against women, Page wrote: I felt violated when this happened. I looked down at my feet, didnt say a word and watched as no one else did either.

Actress Ellen Page and girlfriend Emma Portner in LA in October 2017. / Getty Images for L.A. Dance Proj

This man, who had cast me in the film, started our months of filming at a work event with this horrific, unchallenged plea

He outed me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic.

Brett Ratner denies accusations of sexual misconduct from six women / Getty Images

This public, aggressive outing left me with long standing feelings of shame, one of the most destructive results of homophobia. Making someone feel ashamed of who they are is a cruel manipulation, designed to oppress and repress.

She later went on to speak about another instance when, aged 16, she went to dinner with an unnamed director in a professional capacity but he went on to touch her leg and told her: You have to make the move, I cant.

Lets remember the epidemic of violence against women in our society disproportionately affects low income women, particularly women of colour, trans and queer women and indigenous women, Page wrote.

The film star added that working on a Woody Allen film was the "biggest regret of her career".

An attorney for Ratner, who has been accused by at least six women of sexual harassment, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. He denies all six allegations.

Last week it was revealed Hollywood director Ratner is suing a woman accused him of rape.
Westby Times

November 8, 2007

10 Years Ago

Morris Enghs military career spanned 20 years and took him through three wars, WWII, the Korean War and the Viet Nam War. Engh and other area veterans will be honored during the annual Veterans Day Ceremony to be held at Westby Area High School on Nov. 12.

State wildlife officials are encouraging hunters to help eliminate a growing population of feral pigs by reporting feral pig sightings or shooting them if they encounter them in the field while pursuing other game.

By a vote of 17  11 the Vernon County Board of Supervisors passed an amended resolution to support the multi-use path construction between the cities of Westby and Viroqua.

The Times

November 5, 1992

25 Years Ago

After several months of careful planning and deliberation by hospital staff and others, the Vernon Memorial Hospital Board last week voted to approve extensive remodeling of the present facilities, according to Garith Steiner, chief executive officer.

The Fremstad family is taking a Jersey heifer to the All American Jersey Sale in Louisville, KY early in November. People from this area who are exhibiting cattle include Jory Fremstad, Jason Fremstad, Michael Hagen, and Kari and Sara Bekkedal of Viroqua. Accompanying the young people will be Mike and Myrna Fremstad, Alden Fremstad, and Monte and Shirley Hagen.

The 10-member Facilities Study Committee met for the first time Monday in the Westby high School library. Hazel Cornell, Mike Harstad, Terrie Haugen, Roger Lewison, Dawn Snodgrass, Stephen McGovern, Eric Nottestad, Ella Raasch, Tonya Rakozy and Phil Strand are members of the committee.

The Times

November 9, 1967

50 Years Ago

Anyone interested in modern dairying will no doubt enjoy attending the open house being held at the La Verne Hall & Sons farm this weekend. Milking will begin at 4:30 p.m. so everyone can have the opportunity to watch pipeline milking.

Relatives and friends called on Eddie Lunde, Sr. Monday evening in honor of his birthday anniversary.

Mrs. Duane Mashak , Patricia, Pamela and Paula, and Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn Bjornstad were Sunday afternoon visitors at the Harold Johnson home to help celebrate Cheryls birthday..

Free Saturday matinees will be held at the Westby Theatre beginning November 25. These free shows are sponsored by Westby merchants and business places.

The Westby Times

November 11, 1942

75 Years Ago

Case weather with rain is the weather report from here for Monday, but this morning (Tuesday) its cold with high winds from the west.

Seventh grade students held a sample election, having ballot clerks Marilyn Homand, Audrey Giese; inspectors Jimmy Bergtold, Nola Mockrud, Winnifred Olson; clerks of election Richard Perkins and Lilah.

Westbys first trial blackout on Tuesday night was a complete success. These blackouts, it is hoped, may never have to be real, but it is better to be prepared if a real air raid should come to not be a good target for the Hitler or Jap bombs.
T he BBC has dropped an Agatha Christie drama starring Ed Westwick from its Christmas schedule amid a police investigation into allegations of rape made against the actor.

A spokesperson for the BBC explained that Ordeal by Innocence, which was due to air on BBC One over the festive period, would not be scheduled until these matters are resolved.

Mr Westwick strenuously denies the allegations, made by two women.

The BBC said in a statement: These are serious allegations which Ed Westwick has strenuously denied.

The BBC is not making any judgement but until these matters are resolved we will not include Ordeal by Innocence in the schedules."

The statement also confirmed that the actor is no longer filming the BBC comedy White Gold in which he plays a double glazing salesman. Filming continues without him.

The independent production company making White Gold has informed us that Ed Westwick has paused filming while he deals with these allegations.

Westwick has been accused of rape by two women, with the LAPD announcing they had launched an investigation into one of the allegations earlier this week.

Starring role: Westwick in teen drama Gossip Girl / Warner Bros

The Gossip Girl star has denied all allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him, writing on his Twitter and Instagram accounts after the second claim was made: It is disheartening and sad to me that as a result of two unverified and provably untrue social media claims, there are some in this environment who could ever conclude I have had anything to do with such vile and horrific conduct.

I have absolutely not, and I am cooperating with the authorities so that they can clear my name as soon as possible.
 Tesco has defended its Christmas advert after it came under fire for featuring a Muslim family.

The festive short film follows a string of families celebrating Christmas Day as they prepare dinner, pull crackers and feast on leftovers.

One scene shows a Muslim family greeting each other with gifts as they arrive at someones house.

The clip sparked a racist backlash with some deeming the clip very wrong while others vowed to boycott the supermarket.

One user tweeted: I wonder will they have a white family celebrating a Muslim holiday.... political correctness is ruining this country. Tesco have lost my .

Another wrote: How dare you feature a Muslim family in your CHRISTMAS advert!!! They do not celebrate CHRISTIAN festival! #willnotshopintesco.

Tesco hit back, saying the ad was intended to show how people come together at Christmas.

Marks & Spencer releases Christmas advert featuring Paddington Bear

In a statement a spokesperson said: Everyone is welcome at Tesco this Christmas and were proud to celebrate the many ways our customers come together over the festive season.

The supermarket added that the Christmas campaign will celebrate the many ways we come together at Christmas, and how food sits at the heart of it all.

It comes days after Marks and Spencer was forced to shut down reports its advert featured a festive F-bomb.

The short film sees Paddington Bear befriend a thief and help him change his ways, with the man thanking the childrens character for his assistance.

But some viewers claimed the man didnt say Thank you, little bear, but instead told Paddington: F*** you little bear.
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In late 2017 Argentina finally found an affordable way to upgrade and refurbish its eleven elderly Super Etendard bombers. The Argentine bombers had been inoperable since 2005 because it was too expensive to get an aircraft like this refurbished much less upgraded as well. The solution was to buy five of the recently retired French Super Etendard along with some unused upgrade kits for $16.5 million and first allow its pilots to learn how to fly a modernized Super Etendard and then to use upgrade kits and parts from the French Super Etendards to get all or most of the Argentinian Super Etendards back in service.

Super Etendards remained in French service until July 2016 and received several rounds of upgrades (the last one in 1998). The Argentine Super Etendards entered service in 1979 and never received major upgrades and even the refurbishments were minimal.

The French upgraded their Super Etendards so they could use fire and forget versions of the Exocet and ASMP air to ground missiles. Upgrades also included better radar and electronic warfare pods mounted on two new pylons under wings. Later upgrades enabled pilots to use night vision goggles. Other new features included improved electronic defense systems along with satellite communications system and the ability to use smart bombs like the laser guided GBU-49/-58 and AS-30L missile. Argentina does not need all these upgrades and will only upgrade its elderly Super Etendards with the ones they can use (or afford to use).

All this fuss is over an aircraft that was developed, and remained in service for so long by accident. The 12 ton Super Etendard is basically a customized version of the ten ton Etendard IV light bomber modified to operate from aircraft carriers. The Super Etendard could carry about two tons of weapons and max operational range was 850 kilometers. The Etendard IV was a 1960s design and only 90 were built. Most Super Etendards served with the French navy from 1978 until 2016. In contrast the Etendard IV retired in 1991. All Super Etendards were built between 1974 and 1984.

Argentina bought 14 of them in 1979 and in 1982 these aircraft, using Exocet anti-ship missiles sank a British destroyer and a large merchant ship converted to operate helicopters as well as haul supplies. France also lent Iraq five Super Etendards for a year in 1983 (pending the arrival of more modern aircraft Iraq had bought). One of these Super Etendards mistook an American frigate for Iranian and heavily damaged it with an Exocet missile. Four of the Iraqi Super Etendards were returned to France, the other one having been shot down by the Iranians.

In French service Super Etendards saw combat in Lebanon in 1982, Serbia in 1999, Libya in 2011 and Syria and Iraq in 2015. In all this handful of Super Etendards served for 38 years. Not bad for an adapted land-based light bomber produced in small numbers. American carrier aircraft like the F-14 and A-6 have served in larger numbers for longer but they got plenty of publicity. Super Etendards just kept at and did the job it was designed for.

With this improvised upgrade the Argentine air force will be able to use their only supersonic military aircraft again. However even with upgraded Super Etendards these will be defenseless vs four British Typhoon fighters and rapier air defense unit stationed on Falkland Islands. Memories of 1982 linger. -- Przemysaw Juraszek
Marines conduct an amphibious landing at Kin Blue Beach in Okinawa, Japan, Nov. 2, 2017, during Blue Chromite, an exercise to strengthen Navy-Marine Corps capabilities in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Aaron S. Patterson

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President Buhari got elected in part because he seemed honest and willing to take on the huge (possibly a majority) portion of the senior elected and civil service officials who do most of the stealing. The kleptocracy that has prospered off this plunder for half a century is not willing to just give it up and instead fights back with lawsuits, threats and bribes for many of the corruptible people in the judicial system. But the kleptocracy (including family members) comprises only a few percent of the population. Documenting and publicizing that over the last decade (thanks in part to the Internet) has created a population willing to support elected officials who really are willing and able to take on the kleptocrats. Since Buhari is a retired general the kleptocrats cannot depend on a lot of help from the security forces and must depend more on the criminal gangs they tend to use mainly to coerce voters and election officials to cooperate during elections. Currently corrupt military and police commanders are too busy dealing with their own vulnerability to prosecution. The mass media, normally neutralized with bribes and threats (the hired gangsters again) are becoming uncontrollable and trying to outdo each other in reporting, and even exposing corruption and unrepentant kleptocrats.

Despite all this the kleptocracy could not resist the billions poured into aid for the victims of Islamic terrorism in the north over the last few years. The pervasive corruption up there was one of the primary reasons Boko Haram was formed, gained so many adherents, got radicalized and set fire to the northeast. The Boko Haram violence began in 2009, even though the group had been around since 2002. Boko Haram switched from preaching to Islamic terrorism violence in 2009 and at first appeared to have been shut down by the security forces. But the police employed their usual methods, which involved killing or arresting a lot of innocent civilians. That crackdown generated more popular support for Boko Haram and in 2010 the violence reappeared and escalated until, by 2014, Boko Haram controlled nearly half of Borno State.

President Buhari, a Moslem and a retired general from the north got elected in early 2015 largely on the hope that he would and could deal with the corruption and failure to deal with Boko Haram. It wasnt just Islamic terrorists in the northeast, but angry locals down south in the Niger River Delta where all the oil was. Most of the population down there was Christian and religion was not an issue; pollution, corruption and poverty were. The Delta violence began in the late 1990s and was less scary than Islamic terrorism but more persistent because it was carried out by criminal gangs stealing oil (and addressing the poverty problem) and gradually becoming more political about their activities. By 2009 the oil gangs accepted an amnesty (bribe) deal that included promises to reduce corruption. That did not happen and the violence returned as Boko Haram was being defeated in 2016.

The situation in the northeast and the delta had several things in common. Many local officials and politicians were willing to work with the oil gangs or Boko Haram, up to a point. But the politicians all tend to react violently to groups that threaten their wealth (corrupt practices like stealing any government funds they have access to). In both the northeast and the delta the angry young men who comprised Boko Haram and the oil gangs were also seeking to end (or greatly reduce) the corruption. In both cases the kleptocrats encountered a foe they could not buy or intimidate. Scary times indeed.

Currently local corruption is as bad as ever but nationwide there has been some progress exposing the extent that oil income has been stolen and real efforts are being made to halt that and recover some of the lost billions. It has not been easy. But that effort is apparently one reason why the economy is recovering from the sharp, and apparently permanent, fall in oil prices. Yet even with Boko Haram and oil thieves still active and more and more corrupt officials being indicted, the kleptocrats know they still have a lot of power and do not hesitate to use it. Case in point is the need for economic reforms and changes in the government spending. This has to go through the national legislature where budget details are subject to all manner of legal, and illegal adjustments by legislators and senior government officials. Despite the growing waves of bad publicity this year the kleptocrats in the legislature are doing what comes naturally and ignoring the increased risk of indictment and prosecution.

Despite the resistance Nigeria is starting, for the first time, to look better in the international rankings for things that, indirectly, rate the degree to which corruption cripples the economy and public wellbeing in general. The World Bank, which has pioneered a lot of these international rankings. Nigeria is becoming a more attractive place to invest in legitimate (legal) businesses. But the larger (and long term) investments requiring some certainly that the good government will last.

Corruption has at least become a major and persistent issue in the media. Beyond that not much has been actually been done other than a few prosecutions (not always successful) of notoriously corrupt former officials (usually former state governors). Corruption is now a news staple and those speaking up no longer have to worry as much about retribution (which was once often fatal). But people notice that the billions of dollars allegedly recovered so far are now showing up in new projects. Lots of plans and promises but not much to show for it so far. Some of this bad news is expected but still disappointing. For example journalists in the Niger Delta can now see coastal tankers (as pointed out by locals) still engaged in smuggling. A little more investigation confirms that these tankers do indeed obtain oil stolen from ruptured pipelines and sold to brokers who pay bribes to allow their tankers to move the oil to neighboring countries where it is sold as legitimate. Revelations like this put officials of the national oil company under more pressure but so far not much to show for it. The Delta is still notoriously corrupt and recent renewed threats by local militants is suspected of being connected with yet another effort by corrupt local politicians to deal with (and evade) anti-corruption investigators.

Many Nigerians attribute the corruption stalemate to the fact that the major political parties (especially the APC, currently in power) are busy trying to avoid accepting any blame for ignoring the corruption until recently. It has become fashionable to declare corruption allegations an excuse by political rivals to bring down an honest opponent. Popular opinion considers all of them dirty to one degree or another and that the most corrupt should be tended to first. These politicians have the most to lose and have been very effective in hiding behind this its all politics smokescreen. Corruption is deeply entrenched and difficult to clean up but in a democracy you have to show some tangible progress or get voted out of office by less honest politicians.

Oil

The final data is in and its official; Nigeria returned to record oil production levels in July, levels not seen since early 2016. Actual production in July was 2.o1 million barrels per day (BPD). Back in August it was believed to be higher but it takes months to get the actual and final figure. Total July production was 62.46 million barrels. At the same time actual oil income is less than expected because world oil prices remain low. That has been the trend for most of 2017. Production rose 22 percent in April to 1.48 million BPD. Production was 1.53 million BPD at the start of 2017 but then declined to 1.43 million in February and 1.21 million BPD in March. The April increase is largely the result of the federal government making acceptable peace deals with the local tribal rebels who have been bombing pipeline and other oil facilities. That violence returned in 2016 because of corruption in the local state governments that became an issue once more. Back in late 2016 the government proclaimed the 1.56 million BPD in November 2016 put Nigeria on the way to the goal of 2.5 million BPD by 2020. Then reality intervened as promises to the locals were broken. Peace and more oil production is unlikely to be achieved much less sustained unless there are some fundamental economic and political changes in the Niger River Delta oil fields. That is happening, but at a glacial pace because so many of the local politicians and government officials have gotten rich from corrupt practices and are still opposing change.

Lingering Boko Haram Violence

Boko Haram continues to be a problem in the northeast, mainly in Borno State, but the attacks are fewer and frequently fail. In part this is because Boko Haram has split into two major and several minor factions. But it is also a matter of the security forces, including local militias, benefitting from more experience and much less corruption in the military. President Buhari, as expected, got rid of many senior commanders that were incompetent and usually corrupt as well. This made a big difference and the troops appreciated it big time.

November 9, 2017: In the northeast (Borno State) a group of Boko Haram gunmen was spotted. Soon soldiers and airstrikes were used to kill 13 of the Islamic terrorists, wound many of those who escaped and capture several vehicles and a large quantity of weapons and equipment.

November 8, 2017: President Buhari fired a high ranking government official who had been suspended in April after he was charged with stealing money meant for the 1.7 refugees in the northeast. There are also about five million people up there in need of food aid. Despite its oil wealth Nigeria has called on the UN for a billion dollars of foreign aid to help with the problem. Despite months of efforts only 60 percent of the money has been pledged by donor nations and many of them have made it clear that if any of this round of aid ends up stolen Nigeria will be added to the growing list of nations that are not worth sending aid to because much, if not most of it, gets stolen.

November 7, 2017: In central Nigeria (Plateau State) Moslem Fulani raiders ambushed Christian villagers and left nine dead. The government is under growing pressure from the Christian community (half of all Nigerians) to recognize the growing (since 2010) threat in central Nigeria (mainly Plateau, Jos, Kaduna, Benue and Nassarawa states) from the Moslem Fulani herders moving south. While these attacks often trigger reprisals by local militias the Fulani keep attacking. Most of the victims of the Fulani violence are Christian. Thus there were over 800 Christians killed in 2016 along with extensive property damage. To make matters worse the raiders have also been attacking soldiers or police who intervene. Attempts to negotiate peace deals with the Fulani generally fail. Tribal violence in this area has been a problem for generations because Moslem and Christian tribes do not get along and, according to many Moslem clerics and religious teachers, never will. The violence has gotten worse lately. There were over a thousand casualties a year since 2013 and as it got worse in 2016 and 2017. The prompted officials from both states to meet with Moslem and Christian tribal leaders to work out a peace deal. That has not worked, at least not yet.

November 6, 2017: In the northeast (Adamawa state) a Boko Haram attack on a village near Sambisa forest was repulsed by local defense volunteers and soldiers soon arrived to join in the pursuit. At least one civilian died from a stray bullet but most of the casualties were suffered by the fleeing Boko Haram. .

November 3, 2017: In the south the NDA (Niger Delta Avengers) announced that they were ending, immediately, their August ceasefire. Their attacks will resume but, as before, their attacks will avoid casualties. Government efforts to persuade the NDA to remain peaceful failed. In January the government resumed payment of salaries to Niger Delta rebels who accepted the 2009 amnesty. Most of these belonged to MEND (Niger Delta tribal rebels) and many have gone on to form a new group; the NDA. In 2009 the government thought it had solved the Delta rebel problem with an amnesty deal. Like everything else in Nigeria, corruption prevented that arrangement from working. Many former rebels accepted government sponsored security jobs. These jobs were basically a payoff for gang members to ensure they observed the no more violence part of the amnesty deal. The violence against oil production declined substantially in 2009 because of the peace deal that over 30,000 local rebels accepted. That eventually changed as corruption caused the government payoffs to the former rebels to gradually disappear. In 2015 the violence began to reappear and by early 2016 there were one or more major attacks a month on oil facilities. The new government has been reducing corruption and has promised the 2009 amnesty crowd that the payments will now reach them. The Niger Delta community has heard this before and expects the corruption to soon return and make their payments disappear. A lot of Delta rebels arent waiting and are already seeking to extort large payments or other concessions from the oil companies or the government to avoid more attacks that will reduce oil exports.

October 30, 2017: In the northeast (Borno State) an army convoy ran into a Boko Haram ambush involving over a hundred Islamic terrorists. The soldiers and local defense volunteers reacted quickly and repelled the attack, killing at least twenty Boko Haram men while losing four troops to a roadside bomb during the pursuit.

October 24, 2017: In the northeast (Yobe State) a Boko Haram faction, now part of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), attacked an army base outside the state capital Damaturu, killing 15 soldiers and possibly capturing some others. This is the third such attack on the army in this area in the last two weeks. These night attacks are mainly to capture vehicles, weapons, ammo and other supplies and tend to use overwhelming force against a small army base of checkpoint.

October 23, 2017: In the northeast (Borno State) a Boko Haram suicide bomber carried out an attack (the first in more than a month) in the state capital and left 13 dead and five wounded. At the same time two other suicide bombers attacked other targets in the capital and wounded 13 people. In Borno state most of these Boko Haram suicide bombers are intercepted and captured or killed (a few surrender) before they can act.

October 19, 2017: In the northeast (Borno State) an airstrike hit what appeared to be a large gathering of Boko Haram members. Among the many (more than a dozen) killed was one of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekaus four wives. Shekau has a $7 million price on his head and does believe to live with or travel with more than one wife at a time.

October 16, 2017: Chad announced that it had to withdraw several hundred troops it had sent to Niger to deal with Boko Haram violence around Lake Chad (southeast Niger). Chad needed additional troops for a security emergency in the north, along the Libyan border. Some say this troop movement is an effort to force the United States to remove Chad from a recent travel ban.

October 14, 2017: The first batch of accused Boko Haram members were tried in secret proceedings. As expected most (91 percent) of the first 513 accused were released although some were ordered to undergo deradicalization programs. The 45 who were convicted were sent to prison for periods from three to 31 years. The government is prosecuting 1,700 people accused of being Boko Haram and committing various crimes in that capacity. The trials ae closed to the public, which is mainly for security reasons and are largely held in military bases in the north.

October 13, 2017: In the northeast (Borno State) across the border in Cameroon 60 Nigerian men (and several hundred family members) surrendered to local defense volunteers and told of being taken captive in Borno during 2015 and moved to Cameroon where they expected to be used as slaves (a common Boko Haram practice). But instead they were ordered to become a Boko Haram fighter or be executed. Cameroon will eventually return all these Nigerians to Nigeria but first wants to make sure what they say happened is what actually took place.
The rumor that Amazon has set its sights on disrupting the pharmaceutical industry has gained greater currency recently, just months after the company set the grocery business on fire with its acquisition of Whole Foods, and in the midst of its widely publicized search for a second U.S. headquarters location.

Amazon reportedly has taken major steps toward becoming a drug distributor and seller  actions that have caused concern among potential competitors and may have figured heavily in CVS negotiations to buy health insurance firm Aetna for US$66 billion.

Amazon has obtained licenses to sell drugs as a wholesaler in 12 states, including Nevada, Arizona, Alabama, North Dakota and Louisiana, according to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The E-Commerce Times was able to obtain documents showing that Amazon has licenses to sell wholesale drugs in New Jersey and Connecticut, two other states on the papers list.

If Amazon wanted to get into the business of shipping pharmaceuticals directly to consumers, it also would have to obtain pharmacy licenses, the report notes.

The newly obtained licenses are related to the companys growing healthcare supply business, which is part of a growing B2B segment at Amazon, said spokesperson Lori Torgerson.

As part of that business, Amazon sells professional medical supplies to doctors, dentists and other medical professionals.

Wholesale licenses are required for Amazon Business to sell professional-use only products to healthcare companies, Torgerson told the E-Commerce Times.

B2B Boom

Amazon this summer announced that its Amazon Business segment, which launched in 2015, had reached more than one million customers. The procurement business had grown to reach more than 85,000 business sellers, providing professional supplies to a range of healthcare and other business customers.

Amazon has licenses to sell to various healthcare providers, including hospitals, doctors, dentists and healthcare clinics, in most states.

The news that CVS Health was in talks to buy Aetna, the nations No. 3 health insurance firm, surfaced last week in a Wall Street Journal report. The rumored $66 billion deal values the Aetna stock at $200 a share. CVS is not only one of the largest retail pharmacy chains, but also one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the U.S.

The negotiations, which have been ongoing for months, directly involved the top executives at both firms  CVS CEO Larry Merlo and Aetna CEO Mark Bertonlini  according to multiple reports.

A major reason cited for the talks was rampant speculation that Amazon has been making moves to enter the prescription drug business, following its blockbuster $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, a move that shook the U.S. grocery industry to its foundations.

CVS officials did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

We dont comment on rumors or speculation, Aetna spokesperson T.J. Crawford told the E-Commerce Times.

Ripe for Disruption

Amazon may be poised to disrupt the retail pharmacy business because it is a highly competitive market where the majority of profits are taken not on the drugs themselves, but on the household products, supplements, groceries and other purchases that customers make while browsing the aisles.

With Amazons focus on customer convenience and reorders/auto-orders, this is a logical next step for the company, said Cindy Zhou, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

Bulk orders for regular prescriptions have been offered by the insurance carriers for decades, but Amazon can deliver it to the end customer conveniently, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Reordering prescription drugs easily could be accomplished using voice-operated Alexa commands or Amazon Dash buttons, Zhou suggested.

I think the logical reason Amazon would want in is that when consumers go to drug stores they have to walk all the way to the back to pick up their prescriptions, said Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at RSR Research.

Thats how the chain stores get real profit. They have much bigger margins on the products they pick up on the way back there or on the way out, she told the E-Commerce Times. So I suppose its another way for them to increase their share of the wallet.
Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and the founding president of Facebook, is now speaking out against the potential dangers of social media.

During a recent Axios event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Parker recounted how he used to tell holdouts that they would eventually get reeled into social media. He conceded that he didn't know if he really understood the consequences of what he was saying due to the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to have billions of users.

It literally changes your relationship with society and with each other, he said, noting that it probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," he added.

Parker also said the thought process that went into building Facebook was about trying to figure out how to consume as much of a user's time and conscious attention as possible.

To get there, Parker notes that they needed to give users "a little dopamine hit every once in a while" in the form of a Like. This, in turn, will get people to contribute more content, generate more Likes and comments (and so on). It's something the creators of Facebook understood consciously, he said, but did it anyway.

Do you agree with Parker's stance? Do you think social media has changed society? If so, is it a good or bad change?
New handsets often launch with technical problems that force manufacturers to release updates. It's something Google knows all about, thanks to its Pixel 2 XL. But other than the company warning about potential screen burn-in, Apple hasn't had the same experience with the iPhone X. However, it seems that, like a lot us, the flagship device can struggle when it gets really cold.

A number of users have highlighted the problem on Reddit. They say that using the handset in cold weather causes the touchscreen to become unresponsive.

"I've noticed that my iPhone X screen becomes very unresponsive as soon as I step outside. It literally takes 2 seconds from going inside to the cold outdoors and my screen stops being very responsive. I try swiping on websites and it doesn't register my finger. It's very noticeable. Is anyone else having this problem?" writes Redditor Darus214.

Some manufacturers warn that using their devices in low- or high-temperature conditions can cause issues such shortened battery life or unexplained resets, but this seems to be a new problem with the iPhone X.

Apple has acknowledged the issue, which it says is only temporary, and will be fixing it in an upcoming software update.

"We are aware of instances where the iPhone X screen will become temporarily unresponsive to touch after a rapid change to a cold environment. After several seconds the screen will become fully responsive again. This will be addressed in an upcoming software update."

Additionally, Apple has now rolled out a fix for the iOS problem that was automatically changing the letter "i" into "A[?]" when users were composing messages.
The U.S. blockade against Cuba stimulates migration given that it depresses the standard of living of the population, recalled Diplomat Fernandez de Cossio. | Read More
4 Police Officers in Philadelphia Hurt in Two-Vehicle Crash

Four police officers in Philadelphia were reportedly injured in a two-car crash on Friday, 6ABC reported.

The crash involved two Philadelphia Police cruisers at 10 a.m. local time in the Kensington area of the city.

Footage shows a police SUV with serious front-end damage. Another SUV was up on the sidewalk with side damage, and that vehicle appears to have struck a utility pole and a building.

Two officers were in each SUV, and all of them were hospitalized and listed in stable condition.

4 Philadelphia police officers were injured in this crash.. @GregArgosCBS3 is live from the scene at Noon on #cbs3. @CBSPhilly pic.twitter.com/Pf3CVTUPx1  Cathy Molique CBS3 (@CathyMolique) November 10, 2017

The cars crashed while they were responding to a shooting at C Street and Allegheny, according to 6ABC.

One officer involved in the crash suffered a head injury and was taken to Temple Hospital, CBS Philadelphia reported.

4 Philadelphia Police Officers injured in crash while responding to shooting in the city's Kensington neighborhood. https://t.co/HnuoL5wrL4  The Tornado News (@TheTornadoNews) November 10, 2017

NEWS: Philadelphia police vehicles involved in crash, injuries reported  https://t.co/672bY6OOjn | Details: https://t.co/GZEj28ikyI  WORLD ALERTS /7 (@WorldALERTS247) November 10, 2017

Philadelphia police vehicles collide during pursuit; 4 officers hurt https://t.co/1YwWl4awpK  Police World News (@PoliceWorldNews) November 10, 2017

An eyewitness said one of the SUVs was traveling in the wrong direction at the time of the accident.

Transit police arrested a suspect in the shooting near Kensington and East Allegheny Avenues. No victim was found in the shooting, the CBS affiliate reported.
Parents hold children who are being given infusions at an area hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in this file photo. (China Photos/Getty Images)

A Broken Leg Exposes a Broken Health Care System in China

Lack of funding, corruption, and inappropriate guidelines are among top problems

It was supposed to be a simple surgery for Mr. Zhous 63-year-old mother, at Weixian Peoples Hospital in Xingtai City, Hebei Province. When she fell from her electric bicycle, she sustained a bone fracture in her right leg, which required a steel plate to hold the bones in place. But after the surgery, she had nonstop pain. Four months later, Zhou brought his mother back to the hospital, and unintentionally, a corruption scandal was revealed.

On Nov. 1, Chinese media outlet Jiangxi News Net reported that the steel plate had split in half and become embedded in her flesh. The surgery was initially successful, but the steel plate had later broken.

An undercover investigation by Jiangxi News, which initially sought to determine if the steel plate was made with substandard materials, or if it had failed to meet safety standards, revealed that Weixian Peoples Hospital had sold the steel plate and bone screw to hospital patients at an exorbitant price, much higher than what the hospital paid. For example, a supplying company sold the steel plates to the hospital for 480 yuan (about $72) apiece, but the hospital charged patients 4,662 yuan (about $700).

The money from the price hike, according to Jiangxi News Net, had been pocketed by staff at different levels of the hospitalthe director, dean, pharmacist, department director, and doctor.

For years, the country has been plagued by hospital scams, kickback scandals, unsafe medications, bribery, and substandard vaccines.

Corruption at Weixian Peoples Hospital is just a microcosm of wider issues in Chinas health care system. For years, the country has been plagued by hospital scams, kickback scandals, unsafe medications, bribery, and substandard vaccines.

It is not uncommon for confrontations to break out between doctors and patients when the treatment doesnt go smoothly. Yet underneath all the conflicts lie even bigger problemssome that have been addressed publicly by Chinese Communist Party officials.

One reason China lags behind the United States in quality of health care is the money the Chinese regime puts into the health sector. According to the World Bank, health care accounted for 17 percent of the U.S. GDP in 2014, compared to Chinas 5.5 percent.

On paper, the Chinese regime says that 95 percent of its citizens are covered by medical insurance and can access state reimbursement of up to 70 percent for a range of illnesses. But many say that the insurance scheme is not comprehensive enough. Patients still pay half their medical costs from their own pockets, according to a 2013 analysis by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Health guidelines are another source of the problems within the Chinese health care system, reported Chinese news portal Sohu, citing comments made by Fan Daiming, director of the State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology.

The guidelines are protocol for different aspects of health care, such as dental care and hospital stays. Fan said that 96 percent of the guideline content is copied from Western sources, but there should be rules unique to Chinese health issues, such as guidelines based on the eating habits of Chinese, rather than those of Westerners.

Speaking at a political meeting in March 2014, Zhong Nanshan, the former president of the Chinese Medical Association and the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic Disease, said that health reforms had failed to solve many fundamental problems.

For example, Zhang said that many Chinese living in poverty continue to have no access to health care due to high costs. Additionally, public hospitals in China, with a lack of financial support from the Chinese authorities, continue to operate like private hospitals, desperate to improve their earnings. To make his point, Zhang pointed out that doctors at public hospitals have more outpatient clinic appointments than they can handle, in order to make more money off patients.

These are not typical problems. These are deeper, systemic problems, said Zhang.

In June 2016, the death of Wei Zexi, a 21-year-old college student who was diagnosed with a rare form of tissue cancer, gained attention when it was revealed Wei had received useless cancer treatment for six months prior. Chinese media investigated and found that the hospital that had provided Wei the treatment was part of the Putian Network8,600 private hospitals, controlled by businessmen and Party officials, that had placed online ads to market their fake treatments and drugs.
Law enforcement officials gather near the First Baptist Church following a shooting on Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. (Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

Apple Staff Claim They Offered to Help FBI Unlock Texas Shooters IPhone, but Were Ignored

Apple said they offered to help the FBI gain access to the Texas church shooters iPhone, contrary to reports that the FBI investigation is delayed because of cellphone technology, Buzzfeed reporter John Paczkowski reported in a tweet.

Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people in a Texas church, including children, when he opened fire on the congregation. Witnesses said babies were shot from point-blank range, according to CBS News. He eventually shot and killed himself after he tried to get away and crashed the car he was driving.

Apple's statement on the phone used by the Texas church gunman is quite something pic.twitter.com/RVwk13tM6U  John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) November 8, 2017

Local authorities sent Kelleys iPhone to the FBI to help gather evidence from the device.

Unfortunately at this point in time, we are unable to get into that phone, said an FBI official at a press conference, via NBC News.

May God be w/ the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI & law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2017

The FBI official put the issue in a larger context of not being able to access personal technology devices during investigations.

So it actually highlights an issue that you have all heard about before, with the advance of the technology and the phones and the encryptions, law enforcement, whether its at the state, local, or the federal level, is increasingly not able to get into these phones, added the official.

The FBI didnt name Apple specifically, and also tried to avoid giving away what type of phone it was, lest it encourages criminals, but a Washington Post report confirms it is an iPhone.

FBI official, citing encryption tech, says federal agents have not been able to access the Texas shooter's phone https://t.co/CacbcOGFxq  NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2017

But a Reuters/CNBC report said that the FBI didnt contact Apple for help, and therefore missed out on advice about utilizing the killers finger to unlock the phone within a 48-hour window. It would have allowed them to unlock the device without knowing the passcode. This would still depend on whether or not Kelley enabled the Touch ID feature.

The issue draws a comparison to the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack where a Muslim couple killed 14 people at an office party. The FBI took Apple to court to unlock an iPhone found on one of the killers. The agency later unlocked the phone by other means but the case highlighted the conflict between protecting user data versus law enforcements quest for evidence in brutal mass shootings.

From NTD.tv
Baby giraffe Tamu (C) explores his outdoor enclosure at the Tierpark Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg, northern Germany, on April 16, 2013. (Sven Hoppe/AFP/Getty Images)

April the Giraffe Might Be Expecting Again

April the Giraffe, whose last pregnancy and birthing were live-streamed on Aprils own web page, is expecting again.

Jordan Patch, the owner of Animal Adventure Park, where April lives, announced on Good Morning America on Nov. 9, that he could not confirm or deny another pregnancy.

This naturally prompted a flood of questions. Park spokesperson Kerry Gallagher tried to clarify.

April was cleared for pregnancy about a month ago and weve been letting nature take its course, Gallagher said, according to CBS News.

I can only confirm what Jordan said on GMA (Good Morning America), that we cannot confirm nor deny that April is pregnant, she added.

Aprils last pregnancy and the birth of her son, Tajiri, was watched by people around the world. Her YouTube channel has about 350,000 subscribers and during Aprils last pregnancy attracted over 3.4 million views per day, according to Naibuzz.

People followed Aprils progress through the last 65 days of her 15-month pregnancy and watched the birth of Taijiri live on April 15, 2017.

Happy 6 months to our "not so little" Tajiri!

He is standing just shy of 10' tall!

Thank you to his fans for your following and support. pic.twitter.com/ePTlQ662iB  Tajiri The Giraffe (@tajthegiraffe) October 15, 2017

Aprils YouTube channel still broadcasts for several hours a daythe hours are nominally 8 a.m.2 p.m. ET daily, but if theres enough light, the keepers leave the camera rolling. On Nov. 9 the camera didnt shut down until 4:20 p.m.

If April is pregnant again, this would be her fifth calf. She has never had a miscarriage or a still birth. Giraffe births are considered important events throughout the zoo community as giraffes are categorized as vulnerable to extinction on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and their number has decreased by about 40% in the last three decades.

A very happy, and healthy mother and calf!Captured today by a guest. #AprilTheGiraffe #AnimalAdventurePark pic.twitter.com/stta46LUAQ  April The Giraffe (@AprilTheGiraffe) May 25, 2017

According to Aprils web page, there are only 100,000 giraffes left in the wild today, divided into four species.

Animal Adventure Park is part of the Species Survival Plan (SSP). This program, started in 1981 by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, seeks to maintain genetically diverse and demographically stable populations of animals that are endangered in the wild.

Species are added to the SSP list when it is determined that their best chances for survival lie in a captive breeding program.

A quick check in from our end! All is well and we have a cute shot of mom and baby enjoying breakfast!

"Baby" has quite the personality! pic.twitter.com/2UkAnfpAcw  April The Giraffe (@AprilTheGiraffe) April 19, 2017

Eventually young Taijiri will probably join the program to help other zoos expand their giraffe populations with an outside source of DNA.

Animal Adventure Park, located in Harpursville, New York, is a petting and feeding zoo boasting some 49 species of mammals and 19 species of birds. Not every animal can be petted or fedthe wolves and black bears are not quite as visitor-friendly.

We are excited for Sunday!

Special Treats for Mom & Dad Giraffes at 12 Noon!

BBQ meal  $8 While they last!

(First 50 dads enjoy it Free!) pic.twitter.com/YfXSX6X4Yc  April The Giraffe (@AprilTheGiraffe) June 16, 2017

From NTD.tv
Coast Guard Officer Dies After Crash With Drunk Driver Who Starred in Reality TV

A Virginia Coast Guard officer died on Sunday from severe injuries inflicted in a head-on car crash with a drunk driver.

Daniel Dill was driving to pick up his wife from the Virginia Beach oceanfront at 2 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4, when a woman driving the wrong way on I-264 slammed into his car.

Dill, a petty officer 2nd class with the Coast Guard, was rushed to a hospital. Doctors told the family he had a major spinal cord injury, a severely swollen brain, broken bones, and internal injuries. The family decided to withdraw care after hearing the prognosis, The Virginian-Pilot reported. Dill died shortly after midnight on Sunday.

The driver was identified as 25-year-old Melissa Ann Hancock. She told police that she had two to four drinks at Peabodys Nightclub at the Oceanfront about an hour before the crash. Her blood alcohol level was measured at 0.112, above the 0.08 legal limit.

The victims wife, Natalie Dill, is devastated by the loss, her father said. She was out with friends celebrating her birthday and Dill, who never drank or smoked, was coming to pick her up and be the designated driver.

The couple had dinner hours earlier to celebrate Natalies 27th birthday. Her father, Steven Rocha, said Dill was the most compassionate guy you would ever meet.

He was the best son-in-law a father could ever have, Rocha said. We loved him as if he were our son.

The Dillsmet at a Sushi restaurant in Suffolk. Daniel came in once with his Coast Guard friends and later became a regular.

Dan didnt even like seafood, Rocha said. He just kept going back to see her.

The couple dated for a year and married. They bought a home in Portsmouth and were hoping to start a family.

They were an awesome couple, he said.

Police charged Hancock, 25, with driving under the influence of alcohol at the site of the crash. That charge may be upgraded, according to an attorney for the prosecutor.

A judge set Hancocks bail at $15,000 and ordered her to wear a GPS tracking device that also monitors her blood alcohol level. The prosecutors objected to the bond and filed an appeal.

Everyone involved feels horrible about the tragic accident, Stephen Pfeiffer, Hancocks attorney, said. We are investigating the accident and the allegations against Miss Hancock.

Hancock appeared in a Lifetime reality television show Little Women: Atlanta.

Warning: some viewers may find the content disturbing.

Hancock was driving a 2011 Cadillac and Dill was driving a 2009 Mazda.

The deadly crash occurred west of the Birdneck Road exit on I-264.

Hancock moved to Virginia Beach four weeks ago and started working in insurance sales for GEICO three weeks ago, according to her court file. She has a prior marijuana conviction.

Dill joined the Coast Guard in 2006, following in the footsteps of his older brother. Their younger brother joined later on as well.

He was the most clean-cut guy, Chris Dill Sr., Dills father, said. He never drank or smoked, and you had to really push his buttons to get him to curse. There wasnt a confrontational bone in his body.

From NTD.tv
Court Reverses Marine Snipers Conviction for Urinating on Dead Taliban Fighters

A military court on Wednesday, Nov. 8, ruled to throw out the conviction of a U.S. Marine who urinated on the corpses of Taliban combatants in 2011, saying it appears that a top military official unfairly meddled in the case, reports the Washington Post.

The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals announced the decision over half a decade after Staff Sergeant Joseph Chamblin was originally convicted of the offense, says USMC.

In the incident, a group of Marine snipers desecrated the corpses of three killed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and posted a video of the act on YouTube.

The images went viral, making global headlines and prompting calls for disciplinary action against the Marines.

Rob Richards, former Marine sniper and one of the four shown urinating on the corpses, offers some background to the teams actions in a video interview.

Richards says the capture-or-kill mission culminating in the videotaped incident targeted high-value members of a Taliban IED (improvised explosive device) squad responsible for killing a fellow Marine.

Knowing the Marines standard operating procedures are to retrieve the bodies of their fellow slain, Taliban hostiles dismembered the dead Marine and booby-trapped parts of his body with IEDs with the assumed intent of killing other U.S. soldiers, explains Richards.

After his conviction, Chamblin was cited as saying that battlefield logic justified the teams actions because it served to undermine enemy morale.

[If] anything, it was more of a psychological effect on the enemy because if an infidel touches the body, theyre not going to Mecca or paradise, reports the New York Post. So, now these insurgents see what happens when you mess with us.

The new Navy-Marine Corps Court ruling revealed that now-retired Gen. James F. Amos, the highest ranking officer supervising the case at the time, and some of his staff allegedly took steps to severely and systematically influence the case to make sure the Marines embroiled in the controversy would be punished more harshly, says Fox.

Navy Cmdr. Marcus N. Fulton, author of the recent ruling, said reversing the conviction was a drastic but necessary step to strengthen public confidence in the justice system.

The highest-ranking officer in the Marine Corps told [the military official supervising the case] that the appellant and his co-accused should be crushed, the court ruling states, according to The Washington Post.

The ruling labeled Amoss actions as an unusually flagrant instance of unlawful command influence, a legal concept in U.S. military law. This occurs when an individual of authority tries to sway military judicial proceedings.
Crime scene tape remains stretched along a road near the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs on November 7, 2017 in Sutherland Springs, Texas. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Father of Texas Church Shooter Says Family Is Grieving

The father of the 26-year-old gunman who killed 26 churchgoers and wounded 20 others in the Sutherland Springs Texas First Baptist Church on Nov. 5 spoke publicly for the first time since the tragedy occurred.

We are grieving, Michael Kelley told ABC News on Nov. 8. Our family is grieving.

The Kelleys live in the small southeast Texas city of New Braunfels, about 25 miles northeast of San Antonio, and 35 miles north of Sutherland Springs.

Michael was worried about the effect the shooting would have on the rest of his family. Rural Texas communities tend to be tight-knit, where everyone knows one another. Devins mother-in-law attended the church.

I dont want our lives, our grandchildrens lives, destroyed by this media circus, Michael said.

A Troubled Son

Michael Kelleys son seemed to be a normal, if somewhat awkward, teenager whose life took a dark turn after he left school.

Devin joined the Air Force in 2010, right after graduating from High School. He was stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

He got married in 2011, but not happily; in 2012 he was arrested for assaulting his wife and infant son on several occasions, and, on one occasion, fractured his sons skull.

He was placed in a mental health facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, later in 2012 after trying to smuggle guns into the base, CNN reported. According to a police report, he planned to kill his superior officers.

Kelley escaped from the facility, but was captured in El Paso, Texas and was returned.

He was tried for the assault charges later that year; he pleaded guilty and was placed in a military prison until 2014 before being given a Bad Conduct Discharge.

After his discharge, Kelley remarried. He and his wife lived briefly in Colorado, then moved to in New Braunfels, Texas, where Kelleys mental state continued to deteriorate. He drove away many of his remaining friends with virulent anti-Christian, pro-atheist posts on Facebook.

Before the attack, Kelley had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, who attended the First Baptist Church, according to Time.

Its a senseless crime, but we can tell you that there was a domestic situation going on within this family, Freeman Martin, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Monday at a press conference.

We cant go into details about that domestic situation that is continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated, Martin said, but we want to get that out therethat this was not racially motivated, it wasnt over religious beliefs, there was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws.

Early on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 5, Kelley donned black tactical gear, including a bulletproof vest and a helmet, loaded two pistols and a rifle into his truck and drove the 35 miles south to Sutherland Springs.

After walking up and down the aisle of the church methodically shooting parishioners in each pew, Kelley exited the church where he was engaged by a local resident, Stephen Willeford. A gunfight ensued.

Willeford shot Kelley, who jumped into his Ford Expedition and fled. Willeford flagged down another townsperson, Johnnie Langendorff, and the pair took off in pursuit.

Kelley eventually crashed the truck and shot himself, according to local police.

From NTD
The arrest of four for alleged kidnapping and home invasion robbery in Baker, Fla., on Nov. 7, 2017. (Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office)

Gun-Wielding Dad Protects Daughter and Their Home From Kidnapping, Robbery

Guts, gun, and good sense saved a family from being robbed and a family member kidnapped. It also probably saved four teens from spending a much longer time in prison.

A 51-year-old man from Baker, Florida, got a call from his 17-year-old daughter in the evening on Tuesday, Nov. 7, he told police. She was returning home and said somebody had blocked the road to their house with barrels.

What could have been a harmless prank was actually a plot to kidnap the girl and rob the fathers house, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriffs Office.

Four young men armed with guns, a knife, and latex gloves, dark clothes, face masks, and a roll of tape, intended to block the road and thus force the girl to exit the car. They could then kidnap her. They further planned to head to the house, subdue the father, and rob the house as they believed the man to be wealthy, the sheriffs office stated, referring to its investigation.

But thats not what happened.

The girl decided to drive around the barrels and so got safely to the house.

The alleged criminals didnt give up though.

A short while later the father heard his dog barking and saw that the motion-activated front floodlights had come on. He also heard something like a car door closing.

He went to get his gun.

He then proceeded to check out what was going on, spotting several individuals trying to force their way into his garage.

He fired three shots, sending the intruders fleeing into the woods. He later found some of his security lights unscrewed.

The police were alerted to the intruders around 10:30 p.m. by a neighbor who saw a suspicious car near her house. She described the car to the deputies who then spotted the 2016 white Jeep Liberty on Highway 4, stopped it, and arrested four young men: 19-year old Keilon Johnson, 17-year old Austin French, 16-year old Tyree Johnson, and 15-year old Kamauri Horn, all of Crestview, a town some 6 miles southeast of Baker.

All four have been charged with attempted kidnapping and attempted home invasion robbery. Johnson was booked into the Okaloosa County Jail. The others were transferred to a Department of Juvenile Justice facility.

The sheriffs department shared the details of the case on Facebook, where it has been shared more than 2,000 times. Many commenters congratulated the family and the police on a job well done. Some also noted the situation could have turned out much worse if the father and daughter didnt manage to thwart the intruders plan. The family could get hurt. But also, ironically, it helped the intruders, who could have otherwise ended up with much more serious charges.

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A hacker has hijacked North Korea's short-wave station, playing "The Final Countdown" by the Swedish rock band "Europe."

Hacker Hijacks North Korean Radio Station, Plays The Final Countdown

An unknown hacker has allegedly hijacked North Korean short-wave radio station, 6400kHz, and is broadcasting the 1986 hit song from 80s Swedish rock band Europe, The Final Countdown.

News of the incident was posted on Twitter by vigilante hacker, The Jester, who has in the past gained fame by hacking jihadist websites, and who in October 2016 defaced the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the message, Stop attacking Americans.

A god among us has hijacked 6400kHz (North Korean station) and is playing the Final Countdown, said The Jester on Twitter on Nov. 9, and posted a link to a recording of the broadcast.

A god among us has hijacked 6400kHz (North Korean station) and is playing the Final Countdown >> https://t.co/rPJ1aEccUs  JSR  CUL (@th3j35t3r) November 9, 2017

The 6400kHz station is based in Kanggye close to the North Korean border with China, and is used by North Korean radio station Pyongyang Broadcasting Station (Pyongyang BS), which also broadcasts on the 621, 1053, and 3250 frequencies.

The North Korean communist regime has in the past used the 6400kHz radio station to broadcast coded messages. Strategic Sentinel, a Washington-based nonpartisan geostrategic consulting company, noted that North Korea often broadcasts messages on the station ahead of provocations.

On Sept. 23, Strategic Sentinel stated on Twitter, Radio Pyongyang has broadcasted coded messages on 6400kHz. Usually when they do this it signals an up coming provocation.

Radio Pyongyang has broadcasted coded messages on 6400kHz. Usually when they do this it signals an up coming provocation.  Strategic Sentinel (@StratSentinel) September 23, 2017

The most likely speculation for these messages is an upcoming missile test on the heels of #DPRK FM #UNGA statements, it stated in September, just after North Korea announced it was considering a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific Ocean.

The most likely speculation for these messages is an upcoming missile test on the heels of #DPRK FM #UNGA statements  Strategic Sentinel (@StratSentinel) September 23, 2017

It also noted that, previously, North Korea made broadcasts two days before conducting a nuclear test, one day before a ballistic missile test, and one day before Japanese flyovers.

In fact we have. Examples are, 2 days before 6th nuclear test, 1 day before 1st ICBM test, 1 day before both Japan fly overs.  Strategic Sentinel (@StratSentinel) September 23, 2017

After the North Korean broadcast was hijacked to play an 80s rock song, many reacted on Twitter with applause and laughs while poking fun at the totalitarian regime.

People in North Korea be like: https://t.co/uNHcJWrsnZ via @youtube  Hal Sear (@HalSear) November 9, 2017

Glorious Leader Field Marshall Kim Jong Un promises swift retribution, as North Korea disdains One-Hit Wonders  Mr. Lewis (@LewisUnderscore) November 9, 2017

While the North Korean regime has continued making threats against the United States and other countries including South Korea, Japan, and Australia, it is also feeling the effects of UN sanctions.

The North Korean regime has even allegedly ordered its military to acquire its own food supplies, and its military personnel are required to collect provisions themselves.

In the past, the Chinese Communist Party was North Koreas main backer, but in recent months, the Chinese regime has signaled that it is ending this support. It is now working with the UN and the United States to put pressure on North Korea.

President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in China on Nov. 9, and the two leaders reaffirmed their stance against North Koreas attempts to obtain nuclear weapons. Trump said, All nations must come together to ensure that this rogue regime cannot threaten the world with its nuclear weapons.

Xi said, On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, we reiterated the firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the Peninsula and upholding international nonproliferation regime.
New Twist in Story of Two Women Lost at Sea for Five Months

Jennifer Appel, 48, and Tasha Fuiaba, 26, and their two dogs were lost at sea for five months when a Taiwanese fishing vessel found them and, eventually, they were rescued. At least those have been the headlines since the U.S. Navy picked them up on Oct. 25.

But after multiple interviews the women described a very different story. One that includes some disputed claims, but also one that may have been distorted by the media.

Now theyre saying they werent lost and the only reason they needed a rescue was because they thought the crew on the Taiwanese vessel wanted to kill them.

We were never lost at sea. We knew where we were the entire time, Appel told NBC News. While the media portrayed a rescue with the Taiwanese fishing vessel, they were actually the reason why we called for help.

The Taiwanese fishing vessel was not planning to rescue us, she continued. They tried to kill us during the night.

Appel said the fishing vessel put them in tow but also intentionally rammed their boat. She also described her getting onto the fishing vessel and using its satellite phone to call for help.

I was able to get on a surfboard and get on their boat, make an actual phone call. Because no one spoke English, it was easier and safer for me to relay the information to the U.S. Coast Guard-Guam sector that we were in danger without them realizing what we were saying, she said.

That fits some of the womens earlier claims. After they were picked up by the USS Ashland, Appel said they thought they would have been dead within 24 hours. But she didnt say it was because they were lost.

They said they had consumed 90 percent of their food supplies, but that would have still left them enough for a few weeks. They also didnt use an emergency beacon they had onboard over the five months, which would suggest they didnt consider themselves in immediate danger.

Appel also explained they didnt use the beacon after feeling threatened by the fishing vessel because using it would have alerted the vessels captain.

In fact, in one of the first Fuiabas comments on record she mentioned their biggest worry was the fishing vessel.

We thought we had it bad during the entire trip and then that 24 hours of being towed, kid you not, that was the scariest moment in the entire trip, she said when the Navy interviewed them on the Ashland.

Yet some other claims the women made have been disputed.

The women set sail from Hawaii on May 3. Appel said that on the first day they encountered a Force 11 storm, and it lasted for two nights and three days. Such a storm would have wind speeds of 6472 mph and caused waves 3752 feet high.

But meteorologists detected no such storms around Hawaii on that day or at any time during several subsequent days, Fox reported.

I understand fish stories. I believe that the storm advisory that the U.S. Coast Guard did say that they put out  was anticipated to be smaller than some of the downdrafts that we saw, Appel told NBC TODAY on Wednesday, Nov. 8. If you were there, you would say the same thing I did. It really felt a lot bigger.

The women met late in 2016 and within a week decided to take a trip together. They wanted to sail to Tahiti on Appels boat, the Sea Nymph, and then travel the South Pacific. Fuiava had never been on a sailing trip before that.

They packed two water purifiers, food for six months, and took their two dogs along. Appel said one of the purifiers didnt work and they used its parts to maintain the other one.

The Coast Guard made radio contact with a vessel that identified itself as Sea Nymph in June near Tahiti. The captain said they were not in distress and expected to make land the next day.

But the women said they never reached Tahiti, because they encountered a 10-knot current that was pushing them west, away from their course, while their engine could only do four knots to push them back.

Appel said their account will be confirmed by their GPS record after their boat is recovered.

She said that around May 25 they encountered a storm that flooded the ignition of the engine so they couldnt start it anymore.

But that still didnt make them activate their beacon.

Appel told The Associated Press she thought the beacon should only be used if one is in danger of dying within 24 hours.

Our hull was solid, we were floating, we had food, we had water, and we had limited maneuverable capacity, she said. All those things did not say we are going to die.

It is not clear who was aboard the Taiwanese fishing vessel and what exactly they did upon discovering the Sea Nymph on Oct. 24, 900 miles southeast of Japanover 3,000 miles west of Hawaii.

Though it looked like the women were genuinely happy to see the Navy pick them up the next day.

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Parents Arrested After Neglecting Daughters 17 Rotten Teeth: Officials

A Florida couple were arrested after failing to treat their daughters rotting teeth despite offers from school officials.

For months, officials at a school in Southport offered to give help to Jeremie Ervin Maloy, 31, and Cynthia Grace Maloy, 32, after they found that the child, whose name was not released, needed 17 rotten teeth removed. They didnt seek treatment, prompting Bay County Sheriffs Office officials to step in, according to the News Herald.

They appeared in court on Monday, Nov.6, and they were told not to have contact with the child except at the direction of a judge.

On each of these visits, (school officials) offered to arrange transportation for the Maloys to tend to the childs dental needs, officers wrote in a statement. The Maloys never took advantage of this offer for the sake of the child, but Cynthia Maloy did ask for rides to the nearby dollar store to buy cigarettes and food.

School authorities went to the Maloys home several times to offer assistance.

The child came to school in early 2016 with severely decayed teeth, sheriffs officials said.

When asked why necessary extractions were not performed, Cynthia and her husband, Jeremie, gave vague excuses about changes in insurance and a lack of transportation, officers added. Throughout this time, Jeremie admitted that he was aware of the childs decayed teeth and that his wife was having difficulty making necessary appointments.

Teachers said that the child complained daily about tooth pain and had to eat soft foods, WJHG reported.

They were arrested Nov. 3.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during the APEC CEO Summit, taking place ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on Nov. 9, 2017. (Hoang Dinh Nam/Pool/Reuters)

Philippines Duterte Offers to Host World Summit on Human Rights

MANILAPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte said his country was willing to host a world summit to tackle how nations can protect human rights.

The firebrand leader, who spoke in a news conference late on Thursday, Nov. 9, while in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, said the summit should focus on human rights violations not just in the Philippines but globally.

President Duterte has faced criticism from some western countries and human rights groups for his war on drugs in the Philippines. Dutertes anti-narcotics campaign that has killed more than3,900 suspected drug users and peddlers, in what the police called self-defense after armed suspects resisted arrest.

Critics dispute that and say executions are taking place with zero accountability, allegations the police reject.

Lets have a summit of how we can protect human rights for all human race, Duterte said shortly after meeting with the Filipino community in Vietnam, where he also renewed his attacks against United Nations human rights expert Agnes Callamard.

What makes the death of people in the Philippines more important than the rest of the children in the world that were massacred and killed, he asked.

He said all victims of human rights violations are welcome to attend the summit and air their grievances.

Duterte reiterated his threat to slap Callamard if she investigates him for the rising death toll in his war on drugs and would ask her why she has made no comments on the victims of bombings and violence in the Middle East.

What have you been doing all the time? Why are you so fascinated with drugs? Duterte said.

Duterte also threatened to ban two American lawmakers from coming to Manila after they criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for inviting him to visit the United States.

If you do not like me, I do not like you. Were even, he said without naming the lawmakers. Democratic Rep. James McGovern and Republican Rep. Randy Hultgren had called on Trump to highlight the human rights situation in the Philippines in his upcoming visit to Manila.

I will tell them, you are too presumptuous. What made you think that I am even planning or thinking about visiting your country?

At the same time, Dutertes Philippines has also been fighting a five-month long battle in the countrys south against pro-ISIS terrorists, winning praise for defeating the ISIS-backed Maute and Abu Sayyaf Salafi jihadist groups without any human rights violations.
Plane Crash-lands Without Nose Gear in Northern Ireland

A Flybe aircraft crash-landed in Belfast after an emergency landing in Northern Ireland, the Guardian reported on Friday.

Flight BE331 to Inverness crashed on Friday with 56 passengers and crew on board. They escaped serious injury, but one passenger was taken to the hospital for a hand injury, the report said.

#BE331 landed without nose gear at Belfast International Airport with minor injuries. ? pic.twitter.com/3yVeAUyeVy  Flight Alerts  (@FlightAlerts777) November 10, 2017

The plane took off from George Best Belfast City Airport at around 11:20 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 10, and was forced to circle the city and dump fuel before coming back to the airport to crash-land, Flybe said.

A Flybe representative told the newspaper: Our primary concern is for the welfare of the passengers and crew. All statements relating to this incident will be posted.

There are no further reports of any other passenger or crew injuries, the representative said.

The plane then landed without any nose landing gear.

We are sending a specialist team to Belfast to offer assistance and we will now do all we can to understand the cause of this incident, the Flybe spokesperson told the paper.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) told the BBC that it will send investigators to look into the crash-landing.

Landing without a nose gear is a very difficult manoeuvre, but one pilots train extensively for, the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) tweeted. The Flybe pilots appear to have done a sterling job, the agency added, as the BBC reported.

Several flights were subsequently delayed.
Police: Utah Family Dead in a Apparent Murder-Suicide

A family of four in Mapleton, Utah, and their dog were found dead with gunshot wounds Thursday, Nov. 9, in what is believed to be a murder-suicide, local police report.

The bodies of an adult man, an adult woman, a teenage girl, and a young boy were discovered inside the home in Mapleton, Utah, Mapleton Police Chief John Jackson said in a press release. Officers went there after getting a call to check on them.

Update: Man, woman, a teenage girl, a very young boy and a dog are shot to death in possible murder-suicide in Mapleton, Utah https://t.co/4JKoczNAV1 pic.twitter.com/eVGESiulvI  G.Alexander(BRKNEWS) (@MajorNews911) November 10, 2017

Update: Family of 4 and one dog shot to death in possible murder-suicide in Mapleton, Utah https://t.co/RCxflhCjtm pic.twitter.com/uipBEMjZ8z  G.Alexander(BRKNEWS) (@MajorNews911) November 10, 2017

A family of four, 2 adults & 2 children, found dead in this Mapleton, Utah home from an apparent murder/suicide pic.twitter.com/mpML68QYFU  scott mckane (@macfox13) November 10, 2017

One of the family members hadnt shown up for work, and the familys cars had not moved for consecutive days. The light had been turned off for days, raising alarm with a neighbor, who called the police, Jackson said.

An investigation is currently underway.

The identities of those who were killed have not been released. Police have also not revealed a motive for the slayings.

Once inside, officers found four individuals that were deceased from what appears to [have been] gunshot wounds, Jackson said. Also found deceased with a gunshot wound was a large dog.

Preliminary evidence suggests a murder suicide, Jackson continued. However that ruling will not be made until the medical examiners office has completed their examination and officers have had a chance to follow up on information collected at the scene.

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Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, Roy Moore greets supporters at an election-night rally on Sept. 26, 2017 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

President Trump Responds to Roy Moore Allegations

President Donald Trump said that if allegations about Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore are true, then he should do the right thing and step aside.

The Washington Post published an article on Thursday containing unverified claims that Moore at the age of 32 made unwanted sexual advances to a 14-year-old girl.

Like most Americans the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Nov. 10.

However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside, Sander said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders during a press briefing on Oct. 31, 2017.(Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Moore, 70, forcefully disputed the allegations, describing them as a completely false and desperate political attack.

The Judge has been married to Kayla for nearly 33 years, has 4 children, and 5 grandchildren. He has been a candidate in four hotly-contested statewide political contests  After over 40 years of public service, if any of these allegations were true, they would have been made public long before now, Moores campaign said in a statement.

Before the publication of The Washington Post article, Moore had a 6 percent lead over his Democratic opponent Doug Jones according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls.

The Alabama Senate special election to fill former Senator Jeff Sessions seat will take place on Dec. 12.

Trump endorsed Moores opponent, Luther Strange, during the Republican primaries.
President Donald Trump speaks at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. (ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump Tells Asian Leaders Trade Abuses Will No Longer be Accepted

Calls for a free, peaceful, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region

President Donald Trump told Asian leaders gathered for the annual APEC summit held in Vietnam that the United States wont tolerate trade abuses against the United States anymore.

Trump said that while the United States over the years opened its economy to foreign countries with few restrictions, other countries have not opened their markets. This has led to large trade imbalances.

Americas largest trade imbalance is with China. While the United States exported $115 billion in goods to China, it imported almost $462 billion in goods, causing a trade deficit of $347 billion.

President Donald Trump at a gala dinner at the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

But China is hardly the only country. With this years APEC host nation, Vietnam, for example, the United States had a trade imbalance of nearly $30 billion last year.

With Malaysia the United States has a trade imbalance of $17.5 billion, with Thailand $15 billion, and Indonesia $10 billion.

We adhered to WTO principles on protecting intellectual property and ensuring fair and equal market access. They engaged in product dumping, subsidized goods, currency manipulation, and predatory industrial policies, Trump said.

The president said these practices hurt jobs, factories, and industries in the United States as well as in other countries.

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russias President Vladimir Putin as they pose for a group photo ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit leaders gala dinner in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. (MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite years of broken promises, we were told that someday soon everyone would behave fairly and responsibly. People in America and throughout the Indo-Pacific region have waited for that day to come. But it never has, Trump said.

Trump said the United States will no longer tolerate the chronic trade abuses, and said that the current trade imbalances are not acceptable.

However, he did not blame the Asian countries for having taken advantage of the United States.

Instead, he blamed previous U.S. administrations for not doing anything about it.

President Donald Trump speaks at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. (NYEIN CHAN NAING/AFP/Getty Images)

If their representatives are able to get away with it, they are just doing their jobs. I wish previous administrations in my country saw what was happening and did something about it. They did not, but I will, he said.

Trump said that from now on trade will be on a fair and equal basis, and the United States wont be taken advantage of anymore.

I am always going to put America first the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first, he said.

Read More Trump and Xi Agree to Cooperate On Counter-Narcotics Operations

Trump said he is open to make a bilateral trade agreement with any Indo-Pacific nation that will abide by principles of fair and reciprocal trade. Such deals would be on a basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit.

We will respect your independence and your sovereignty. We want you to be strong, prosperous, and self-reliant, rooted in your history, and branching out toward the future, Trump said.

In his speech, the president praised Asian nations for their political and economic developments in recent years and decades.

He called for a peaceful, prosperous and free Indo-Pacific region.

We will be blessed with a world of strong, sovereign, and independent nations, thriving in peace and commerce with others, he said.

Trump also called on the nations to chose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride.

Let us never forget the world has many placesmany dreams, and many roads. But in all of the world, there is no place like home, he said.

For family, for country, for freedom, for history, and for the glory of God, protect your home, defend your home, and love your home today and for all time.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shows the way to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a joint press conference in Tokyo on Dec. 16, 2016. Abe said Friday that he and Putin had agreed to strictly enforce U.N. sanctions. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool)

Putin Agreed to Strictly Enforce North Korea Sanctions, Says Abe

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have agreed to strictly implement U.N. sanctions on North Korea, Abe told reporters on Friday.

The two countries will also be cooperating closely in an attempt to get the Kim Jong Un regime to stop its nuclear program.

On North Korea, we have agreed to implement U.N. sanctions strictly and to continue cooperating closely, Abe told reporters.

Abe made the remarks after holding a meeting with Putin in Danang, Vietnam where the two leaders are attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Abes meeting with Putin comes less than a week after his formal meeting in Tokyo with U.S. President Donald Trump where the two leaders agreed that more cooperation was needed from Russia and China.

Russia and China have remained holdouts on the North Korea issue, maintaining trade and diplomatic ties that have been critical to sustaining the regime.

In recent comments, Trump praised Chinas progress on implementing the sanctions, though he has also maintained that China could do much more given that it accounts for 90 percent of North Koreas foreign trade.

Trump has offered little praise for Putin, however, and has suggested the Russian leader is compromising the sanctions.

China is helping us, and maybe Russias going through the other way and hurting what were getting, Trump told Fox Business earlier this month.

When I say maybe, I know exactly what Im talking about, he added.

In September, U.S. officials accused Russia, which has a small land border with North Korea, of smuggling vital supplies into North Korea.

The Soviet Union was the Kim regimes principal benefactor until the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. Thats when the regimes economic mismanagement and loss of Soviet support let to a famine believed to have killed up to 3.5 million North Koreans. In 1989 North Korea was estimated to have a population of almost 20 million.

For Russia, regaining influence with North Korea is a potential lever against China should their relationship sour, writes Carl Schuster, retired Navy captain and now an adjunct professor at Hawaii Pacific University, in an email interview.

In Putins eyes, backing Kim Jung Un in the current nuclear crisis provides a two-fer, increased influence for Moscow and a significant distraction of U.S. attention and resources from Russias highest priority regions of concern (Europe and the Middle East).

A friendly nuclear North Korea, which I believe Putin has calculated is an inevitable development, can be a very important potential ally/partner against China or the U.S., wrote Schuster.

For Putin, influence with North Korea and open defiance of U.S. policy also bolster nationalist sentiment at home, an important factor in Putins continued popularity as a leader.

Maintaining collective self-esteem is essential for Putins regime legitimacy in Russia, Samuel Ramani, an expert on Russian foreign policy and doctoral candidate at Oxford University told Epoch Times in an earlier interview.



As economic conditions have deteriorated due to falling oil prices and a lack of diversification, foreign policy has become an increasingly important driver of Russian nationalism and regime consolidation, Ramani said.

If Putin is sincere in his willingness to strictly enforce U.N. Security Council sanctions, it could present a significant development in the ongoing North Korean nuclear crisis.
In this file photo people line up outside of the Social Security Administration office in San Francisco on Feb. 2, 2005. A senior White House official has said that the administration is planning to phase out the Social Security number system, in the aftermath of Equifax hack. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Social Security Numbers Are on the Way Out, Says White House Official

WASHINGTONIn light of the recent hacking of credit rating firm Equifax which stole the personal data of 145 million Americans, the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator has confirmed that the administration is making plans to phase out the Social Security number system, which was thoroughly compromised in the Equifax hack.

The remark made by Rob Joyce, the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator on Nov. 9 during the Defense One Summit, an annual conference on American and global security sponsored by the Defense One website, could be the first ever official confirmation of ongoing plans to replace the Social Security number. Joyce, a special assistant to the president and a top official in the Trump administrations cybersecurity team, is well-known for his prior criticism of the Social Security number system, and has previously hinted that the system has outlived its usefulness.

Joyce said on Thursday that the Trump administration has formed an inter-government agencies working group, which holds a weekly meeting to work on the plan to phase out the Social Security number. The working group is looking at how to move away from Social Security numberwhich is tremendously intertwined with existing institutions and practicesand to adopt a better and safer alternative system.

While not giving much specific detail, Joyce said that the administration is determined in its effort to eventually remove the reliance on the Social Security number.

If we dont start on the journey, we will never finish it, Joyce said.

The recent Equifax hack, which took place between May and July and became publicly known in September, resulted in the stealing of the personal data of 145 million Americans by unidentified hackers. While many details surrounding the hack have yet to be revealed, it is known that the hackers managed to steal the Social Security numbers and dates of birth for almost all adult Americans with some form of credit record.

Critics of the Social Security number have long charged that the system, which was designed in the early 20th Century, is severely outdated, creating a privacy and security nightmare for all the Americans that rely on it for interactions with both the government and the private sector. The most commonly cited weakness is that the number cant be changed even if it has been compromised.

Equifax hack was my enough moment, said Rob Joyce, We want to push this with an end goal in mind and try to use this burning platform to say, we got to move out.

Just a day before Joyces remark, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing questioning the current and former executives of Equifax and Yahoo. While the executives did not reveal much additional detail about the hackings of their respective companies, multiple senators and other expert witnesses at the hearing also voiced support for the idea of phasing out the Social Security number.

Removing the Social Security number from American life, however, will not be an easy task. Joyce said on Thursday that the administration will need help from the Congress and the industry to push forward the transition. The administration is looking at what technologies and proxies can be used to replace the Social Security number, said Joyce.

Joyce has previously proposed a public-private key system to replace Social Security number, which will utilize the latest technologies to create an encrypted system in which Americans would use a private key to match their public key in the process of validating their identity.

Such a system will be less vulnerable to be compromised on a massive scale, as in the case with the Equifax hack, since the government can always issue a new private key to someone whose key is compromised. The added process and complexity, however, means that it will take considerable time and resources to complete the transition for hundreds of millions of Americans with existing Social Security numbers.
An undated image released Nov. 10, 2017 shows detainees staging a silent protest inside the compound at the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea. (Refugee Action Coalition/Handout via REUTERS)

Some Leave Remote Australian-Run Asylum Detention Center as Deadline and Crisis Loom

SYDNEYAbout 20 asylum seekers left an abandoned Australian-run detention center in remote Papua New Guinea on Friday, Nov. 10, leaving hundreds threatened with forcible eviction within days amid an immigration standoff.

Nearly 600 men have barricaded themselves inside the Manus island center for more than 10 days, despite having no regular food or running water, defying attempts by Australia and Papua New Guinea to close the camp. The United Nations has described the situation as a looming humanitarian crisis.

The men fear violent reprisals from the Manus island community if they move from the camp to transit centers, pending possible resettlement to the United States. The camp was closed on Oct. 31 and water and power have been cut off.

Bowing to pressure from Papua New Guinea which said it would forcibly evict and apprehend those that remained as of Saturday, around 20 men left the camp on Friday for one of the transit centers, three asylum seekers told Reuters.

The remaining detainees said they would stay put, setting the scene for a potential clash.

Some left this morning, but there are more than 500 men that remain and we will not move, said one detainee who declined to be named for fear of jeopardizing his application for U.S. resettlement.

Australia has used the Manus island center, and a camp on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, to detain asylum seekers who try to reach its shores by boat. It says boat arrivals will never enter Australia, even if they are found to be refugees, as this would encourage people smugglers in Asia.

Australia says the policy prevents people drowning at sea but it has been condemned by many groups.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee said on Nov. 9 Australia should bring its migration laws into line with international standards. It is concerned about conditions in Manus and on Nauru, citing serious safety concerns and instances of assault, sexual abuse, self-harm and suspicious deaths.

Papua New Guinea police returned on Friday, where they were dismantling parts of the camp.

The asylum seekers, who include asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Syria, have used rubbish bins to collect rainwater, while makeshift shelters have been erected to provide protection against the tropical heat and rain.

They are destroying our shelters. They destroyed the rubbish bins where we have been collecting water too, said Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist from Iran who has been detained for more than four years.

Papua New Guinea on Thursday removed large parts of the camps fences, stoking fears amid threats of reprisals from locals.

By Colin Packham
Suspect Dead After Stealing Police Cruiser and Leading Police on Manhunt in Providence

The suspect who stole a police cruiser in Providence, Rhode Island, and led the police on a wild chase was killed in a shootout near a mall, WPRI reported.

Authorities said another person was taken to a local hospital with serious injuries. A vehicle from the Medical Examiners Office was at the scene.

The suspect stole the police cruiser during a traffic stop on Route 146 at around 9 a.m.

Rhode Island State Police Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin said the car was later found abandoned on Vineyard Street.

A suspect is dead after shots were fired on the highway near Providence Place Mall following a police chase in Rhode Island. https://t.co/Z0skbIqBGA pic.twitter.com/XqH3wD6TJR  WBZ Boston News (@cbsboston) November 9, 2017

A gun, which was in the police cruiser when the car was stolen was still in there when police found the abandoned vehicle. Police used a GPS tracker in the cruiser to locate it.

Shots were fired near Providence Place Mall and police advised people to stay away from the area and the I-95 highway nearby.

WPRI spoke to a security guard at a nearby convention center who heard several shots fired.

1 killed, 1 injured in shooting on busy I-95 in Providencehttps://t.co/Q01HPj7x4b (Via 7News Boston)https://t.co/Q01HPj7x4b  JADIANN THOMPSON (@JadiannTV) November 9, 2017

Police know the identity of the dead suspect but have not yet release it.

Four schools were on lockdown as police hunted the suspect.

Police officers walked with rifles out and dogs on leashes in the area where the police cruiser was found.

WHAT WE KNOW: One person dead. Police focused on white pickup truck riddled with bullet holes on Rte 95 ramp near Providence Place mall. According to law enforcement, may be related to the theft of RI State Police cruiser earlier Thursday https://t.co/hvz0DnfX3r pic.twitter.com/TLQIoyIyRY  Providence Journal (@projo) November 9, 2017

Police swarmed near a white pickup truck on a ramp to I-95. At least a dozen bullet holes can be seen on the drivers side of the car.

Authorities closed I-95 as they investigated the scene.

Providence Journal reported seeing officers in white gloves picking up bullet casings around the car.

Some cars responding in that providence chase pic.twitter.com/dsFPXDcmW3  CF/Pawt/Lincoln (@CFRIscanner) November 9, 2017

State police units going house to horse seemingly looking for a suspect or suspects in Providence neighborhoods. pic.twitter.com/xIe6uhlvkq  Tony Gugliotta (@NBC10_Tony) November 9, 2017

From NTD.tv
President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping shake hands during dinner at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump and Xi Agree to Cooperate On Counter-Narcotics Operations

On Nov. 9, President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping said they would cooperate on counter-narcotics operations, with a special focus on the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Synthetic opioids that can be ordered online often originate in China and have become the most deadly drug group in the United States, leading to some 20,000 overdose deaths last year. Among the most serious is fentanyl, an opioid 50 times stronger than heroin that is often mixed with other drugs without the users knowledge.

In a joint statement with Xi, Trump said, Every year, drug trafficking destroys millions and millions of lives. He and Xi discussed ways we can enhance coordination to better counter the deadly drug trade and to stop the lethal flow of poisonous drugs into our countries and into our communities.

A special emphasis will be placed on the new phenomena: fentanyldestroying lives by the millions, Trump said.

He and Xi are going to be focusing very strongly on it.

Xi gave a nod to the agreement, stating that we will deepen counter-narcotics cooperation.

In the past, the Chinese Communist Party was unresponsive to requests to help curb the flow of these drugs into the United States, which are often routed through Mexican cartels.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave more details on the agreement during a Nov. 9 press briefing in Beijing. According to a transcript, he stated, On the critical issue of opioids, weve made some good progress on actions to curb the flow of the harmful narcotics into the United States in order to save American lives.

[Xi Jinping] is committed to take new actions, including agreements to control the export of new fentanyl precursors, sharing intelligence on drug trafficking, and exchanging trafficking information packages to identify individuals and criminal networks responsible for trafficking, Tillerson said.

Manufactured in China

Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids in the United States rose by 264 percent between 2012 and 2015, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Although prescription rates have fallen, overdoses associated with fentanyl have risen dramatically, contributing to a sharp spike in synthetic opioid deaths, the report states.

Many drugs flowing into the United States either originate in China or are reliant on Chinese-made precursor chemicals. This includes key ingredients for the drug methamphetamine and many synthetic drugs including fentanyl.

In the past, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was unresponsive to requests to help curb the flow of these drugs into the United States, which are often routed through Mexican cartels.

Jorge Guajardo, the Mexican ambassador to China from 2007 to 2013, told the Chinese news outlet South China Morning Post: Before I came to China, the first briefing I had with the [Mexican] attorney general was on the problem of precursors flowing from China to Mexico. It was the No. 1 issue I had to address. However, we never got anywhere.

There was never any cooperation from the Chinese side and no intelligence sharing. It got to the point where all [Mexican] government officials visiting China had instructions to bring up the issue.

The synthetic drugs are often manufactured by companies publicly listed in China. In 2015, there were 150 Chinese companies openly selling the synthetic drug alpha-PVP, also known as flakka.

Drug Warfare

For the CCP, the drug market has in the past been part of its subversive strategy to undermine the United States through non-military means, according to an Oct. 13, 2014, report from U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

The specific strategy is called drug warfare, and the Army report says that it is tied to a broader Chinese military strategy designed to destabilize an adversary.

The use of drug warfare has been common throughout communist systems. Former Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Joseph D. Douglass explained this strategy in his book Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and the West. It states that communist regimes have been using narcotics for several decades as a decisive weapon in the ongoing low-level warfare they are waging against Western civilization.

In China, the history of drug warfare goes back to the Opium Wars waged against China by the British in the 19th century, which fueled the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. Mao Zedong took a lesson from this during the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party, and according to Douglass, he ordered his subordinates to begin cultivating opium on a grand scale to both finance the regime and to poison its enemies.

He adds that under the Chinese regime, opium production was nationalized, and trafficking of narcotics, targeted against non-communist states, became a formal activity of the new communist state. He notes this formal activity continued even after it was exposed by investigations in Japan and the United States in 1951.

This trend is still continuing, and a Drug Enforcement Administration official told Stars and Stripes in 2012 that China has become the top supplier to Mexican traffickers due to loose regulations on its chemical manufacturing and export industry.

The new agreement from Trump and Xi, however, signals that the Chinese leadership may be willing to change this.
Trump Proclaims World Freedom Day to Oppose Communism and to Uphold Individual Liberties

President Donald Trump proclaimed Nov. 9 as World Freedom Day, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall and to denounce communism, while recognizing those who have stood up against communism and other totalitarian systems.

The Berlin Wall was built by communist East Germany to keep people from escaping its totalitarian regime. In his proclamation, Trump honored the events on Nov. 9, 1989, when people of East and West Germany tore down the Berlin Wall and freedom triumphed over communism.

The fall of the Berlin Wall spurred the reunification of Germany and the spread of democratic values across Central and Eastern Europe, Trump said. Through democratic elections, and a strong commitment to human rights, these determined men and women ensured that their fellow and future citizens could live their lives in freedom.

He added, Today, we are reminded that the primary function of government is precisely this, to secure precious individual liberties.

On World Freedom Day, we recommit to the advancement of freedom over the forces of repression and radicalism, Trump said. We continue to make clear that oppressive regimes should trust their people and grant their citizens the liberty they deserve. The world will be better for it.

The proclamation comes on the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, between Nov. 6 and Nov. 9, 1917, which began a series of communist dictatorships that collectively have killed more than 100 million people.

Trump had also signed a proclamation recognizing the victims of communism, and named Nov. 7 as National Day for the Victims of Communism. According to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, this was the first time America has declared a day recognizing the victims of communism.

These movements, under the false pretense of liberation, systematically robbed innocent people of their God-given rights of free worship, freedom of association, and countless other rights we hold sacrosanct. Citizens yearning for freedom were subjugated by the state through the use of coercion, violence, and fear, the office of the White House press secretary said in a statement.

It noted that in addition to those killed under communism, countless more were subjected to exploitation, violence, and untold devastation.

Congress is also getting behind the stand against communism. On Nov. 7, members of Congress formed a bipartisan Victims of Communism Caucus, with Representatives Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), Dennis Ross (R-Fla.), and Chris Smith (R-N.J.).

According to a press release, the caucus is dedicated to raising awareness of how communism victimized and enslaved more than one hundred million people in the past and how its tyranny in the five existing communist countries (China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam) and its legacy in the post-Soviet sphere shapes international relations today.

It will focus on issues including Russias expansion into Ukraine, the deteriorating socialist system in Venezuela, continued human rights abuses under the Castro familys communist regime in Cuba, and ongoing nuclear threats from North Koreas communist regime.

At the same time, the caucus will recognize those who were killed by communism, and those who are still standing up against it. The release says, The Caucus will honor the memory of the 100 million victims of communism and raise awareness about the dissidents who continue to protest against current communist regimes.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), co-chair of the caucus, said in the release, As many of my constituents have personally experienced, the successful struggle for freedom from under the yoke of authoritarianism, inherent to communism, deserves special attention in the annals of history. This caucus will shine a light on the victims struggle, and work to keep the flame of human rights around the world alive.

Congressman Dennis A. Ross (R-Fla.) said in the release, Our caucus will ensure that we do not forget those victims who were forced to choose between their faith and the cruelty of a dictatorship. We must hold fast to the virtues of freedom.

Many experts on communism believe the number of those killed under the ideology based on atheism and struggle could be as high as 150 million or more. According to the Heritage Foundation, the estimates even vary drastically on those killed under Vladimir Lenins Bolshevik Revolution.

It notes that historian Richard Pipes says Lenins revolution, and the Stalinist regime that followed, killed 9 million, while historian Robert Conquest says the number is at least 20 million, with another 30 million killed under the Great Terror.

As communism spread, other countries experienced similar tragedies under its totalitarian system. The report notes that the murderous regime of the Soviet Union was surpassed only by Mao Zedongs Chinese Communist Party, which it says killed between 44.5 million and 72 million people.

It adds, however, that it isnt just the loss of life that stains the history of communism. Its legacy is also one of grinding poverty. Most of the 88 countries that score repressed or mostly unfree on the Heritage Foundations Index of Economic Freedom are either communist, former communist, or some type of socialist economy. They are also the worlds poorest nations.

Recognizing these tragedies and destructive ideologies, Trump said in his proclamation for World Freedom Day, While we live in a time of unprecedented freedom, terrorism and extremism around the world continue to threaten us. The ultimate triumph of freedom, peace, and security over repressive totalitarianism depends on our ability to work side-by-side with our friends and allies. When nations work together, we have and we will secure and advance freedom and stability throughout our world.
US Woman Jailed for Calling African Dictator a Sick Man Is Released on Bail

An American woman facing charges of subversion in Zimbabwe for insulting the countrys president was released Friday on $1000 bail.

According to CNN, 25-year-old Martha ODonovan was granted bail at a court hearing on Thursday, Nov. 9, after being detained on Nov. 3.

She has been released to US Embassy officials. Thats all we can say, Kumbirai Mafunda, a spokesman for Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights told CNN.

ODonovan, a graduate of New York University, allegedly called Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, 93, a sick man in a Twitter post that included a photo illustration of Mugabe with a catheter, Fox News reported. But she denied the allegations, calling them baseless and malicious.

Her conditions for bail include reporting twice a week to police, surrendering her passport, not interfering with witnesses, and residing at her home until the case is finished, CNN reports. The next hearing in her case is scheduled for next Wednesday.

Defense attorney Obey Shava of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights told CNN on Thursday that the charges against her client were made up.

There is no substance in what the state is saying, he told CNN. It is not Martha ODonovan which is the real target here. But the whole idea behind the charges is to discourage people from putting their ideas on social media, and it is about a clampdown on social media by the state.

Although Mugabe was elected democratically, many refer to him as a dictator for using violence to preserve his grip on power, according to the BBC.

According to Fox News, ODonovan was arrested after Zimbabwe authorities tracked tweets to her IP address.

ODonovans lawyer, Rose Hanzi, told the court that the subversion charge was illegal because police did not inform her of that charge before she was taken from her home in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare. At the time the court disagreed, ruling for her to remain in custody over the weekend.

She made no statement in court and showed no emotion as the request was dismissed, according to Associated Press. She did wave to a small crowd of supporters as she was escorted into a prison truck.

ODonovan had been working with a local social media outlet Magamba TV, which described itself as producing satirical comedy sensations. She called herself a manager for Magamba TV and a media activist, CNN reported.

The American womans arrest was the first case since Mugabe appointed a new cybersecurity minister last month. Last year Zimbabwe was had its biggest anti-government protests in a decade amid growing frustration under the collapsing economy, Fox News reported.

The organization representing ODonovan said they have represented nearly 200 people that were all charged for insulting Mugabe, the worlds oldest head of state, in recent years.

According to Fox News, ODonovan was going to face 20 years in prison over her charges.

This arrest marks the start of a sinister new chapter in the Zimbabwean governments clampdown on freedom of speech, and the new battleground is social media, said Amnesty Internationals deputy regional director, Muleya Mwananyanda, Fox News reported.

From NTD.tv
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Friday, November 10, 2017

The Alaska Supreme Court resolved (with a limited remand) a lengthy battle between a law firm and its Native corporation client.

An attorney represented a Native corporation in litigation nearly three decades ago. The corporation disputed the attorneys claim for fees, and in 1995, after the attorneys death, the superior court entered judgment on an arbitration award of nearly $800,000 to the attorneys law firm, then represented by the attorneys son. The corporation paid eight installments on the judgment but eventually stopped paying, citing financial difficulties. The law firm sought a writ of execution for the unpaid balance, and the writ was granted. The corporation appealed but under threat of the writ paid $643,760 while the appeal was pending. In a 2013 opinion we held the writ invalid and required the firm to repay the $643,760.

The corporation was never repaid. The original law firm moved its assets to a new firm and sought a stay of execution, averring that the original firm now lacked the funds necessary for repayment. The corporation sued the original firm, the successor firm, and the son for breach of contract, fraudulent conveyance, conspiracy to fraudulently convey assets, violations of the Unfair Trade Practices Act (UTPA), unjust enrichment, and punitive damages. The firm counterclaimed, seeking recovery in quantum meruit for attorneys fees it claimed were still owing for its original representation of the corporation.

The superior court granted summary judgment for the corporation on the law firms quantum meruit claim and, following trial, found that the son and both law firms fraudulently conveyed assets and were liable for treble damages under the UTPA.

The son and the law firms appeal. They argue that the superior court erred in these ways: (1) holding that the quantum meruit claim was barred by res judicata; (2) holding the defendants liable for fraudulent conveyance;(3) awarding damages under the UTPA; and (4) making mistakes in the form of judgment and award of costs. But seeing no error or abuse of discretion in the superior courts decision of most of these issues, we affirm its judgment, with one exception. We remand for reconsideration of whether all three defendants are liable for prejudgment interest from the same date.

The fee issue

In 2013 we reversed the superior courts grant of the writ of execution. We held that Leisnois contingency fee agreement with Merdes violated [the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Acts] prohibition against contingency fee agreements, as did the Arbitration Panels fee award, the superior courts 1995 entry of judgment, and the 2010 writ of execution. Leisnoi was therefore entitled to recover the balance that it paid after the writ of execution was unlawfully issued.

After that setback and given the opportunity to prove quantum meruit, the law firm's actions were rebuked

This transfer of assets, the [lower] court concluded, was simply not defensible. The court considered eight badges of fraud and found that seven of them weigh[ed] strongly in favor of finding that the capitalization of [Merdes Law Office] with the assets of [Merdes & Merdes] was done with the intent to defraud Leisnoi and prevent the payment of the debt owed to Leisnoi. The court found that the fraudulent conveyance was also by definition a deceptive and unfair act for purposes of the UTPA, and that all three defendants  Merdes & Merdes, Merdes Law Office, and Ward Merdes  violated the UTPA by participating in the asset transfer. The court therefore voided the transfers to Merdes Law Office and Ward Merdes and found Merdes & Merdes, Merdes Law Office, and Ward Merdes jointly and severally liable for Leisnois compensatory .damages. Pursuant to the UTPA the court trebled this amount to $1,931,280.

The underlying representation involved title to land on Kodiak Island. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/11/the-alaska-supreme-court-an-attorney-represented-a-native-corporation-in-litigation-nearly-three-decades-ago-the-corporatio.html
How to watch and what to know about Northern Iowa at South Dakota
Spirit Airlines, at least, is honest about the tight quarters on its planes. Were a cosy airline, it says on its website. We add extra seats to our planes so we can fly with more people. This lowers ticket prices for everyone, just like a car pool.

Its not news that airlines have been squeezing more  and smaller  seats into the backs of their planes. The question is how far they can push their quest for higher profits before running into a backlash from their customers.

The commercial side  primarily the people who run airline revenue departments  want more seats on planes, said Henry Harteveldt, co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group, an airline and travel industry analyst. Theyre up against the people in the airlines marketing departments, who are trying to act as their passengers advocates and push back on some of these initiatives.

To accommodate the airlines, seat manufacturers have been skimming and trimming from just about every dimension, relocating the seat back pocket, replacing padding with elastic mesh and whittling down the armrests.

There are two goals with seats: to squeeze in more people and to make the plane lighter, said Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst with the Teal Group.

While low-cost airlines such as Spirit have narrowed the distance between rows of seats to as little as 28 inches (71.12 centimetres), most of the big American airlines have kept the distance  whats known in the business as seat pitch  at 30 inches (76.2 cm). Anything less, the major airlines have found, pushes beleaguered travellers to their limits.

This year, the news leaked that American Airlines was considering a cabin redesign that would leave a few rows in its new Boeing 737 Max fleet with just 29 inches (73.66 cm) of pitch, plans the carrier quickly dropped after a rash of complaints.

We got a lot of pushback from our customers and, most notably, from our team members, the airlines chief executive, Doug Parker, told investors in July. While we could convince ourselves that that might be able to produce somewhat higher revenues on the aircraft, what it was doing to our perception with our team wasnt worth it.

The push to shrink the space between rows of seats comes as major carriers are squeezing 10 abreast in more long-haul jets, so the middle section has four seats  and, by definition, two middle seats  rather than three.

But customers will be spared this experience on most flights within the United States, Aboulafia said, because there just isnt enough space. The good news is that pretty much every domestic flight youre going to take is going to be in a 737 or A320  no way can you do four-three, he said.

Traditional airline seats were fashioned out of rigid aluminum frames, then wrapped in thick foam padding. But that approach, said Alex Pozzi, vice-president of research and development in interior systems for Rockwell Collins, a manufacturer of aircraft seats, is no longer used, with the availability of more sophisticated, high-tech materials.

Weve been using a lot of advanced materials, a lot of composite materials, to allow the actual physical structure to get smaller, he said. Weve also removed a lot of the hard points in the seat and gone to fabric suspension systems, leading, he said, to seats more akin to ergonomic desk chairs.

The less size that the seat structure itself takes up, the more space thats left over for the passenger, Pozzi said.

Or, as the case may be, for more passengers. Over the last five years, as slimline seats become more common and were adopted by more airlines, airlines took the opportunity to basically take the space they were saving and, depending on the airline, most of the airlines took that space and added in an extra row or two, said Jami Counter, vice-president of TripAdvisor Flights, which owns the site SeatGuru.com. The actual pitch would shrink, but theoretically, your leg room wouldnt.

Now, he added, youre cramming another person in there so you still have more people in that exact same space. It becomes a much more unpleasant flying experience.

On American Airlines new 737s, coming into service soon, seats have a minimum 30-inch pitch, although American says most seats have 31 inches. Seat-back TV screens were eliminated and replaced with brackets that passengers can use to mount their own devices to watch video, and power sources to keep those devices running. The magazine holder is now closer to the top of the seat back to free up more knee room.

Those seats are designed to make the best possible use of the space, Josh Freed, an American spokesperson, said.

Airlines contend that improved ergonomics and, in some cases, slightly wider seats make up for a tighter pitch. A spokesperson for Spirit Airlines, Paul Berry, said the emphasis on pitch was an inaccurate way to assess todays newer seat designs.

If you just go by inches, its kind of an old measure. Were kind of basing it on comfort level and the way weve engineered our seats, he said. While its only 28 inches in pitch, it actually feels like its about 30 inches, he said.

But some consumer advocates say the issue goes beyond comfort. One group, Flyers Rights, is petitioning the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to set minimum dimensions for airline seat width and pitch. The group won a round in its court battle with the FAA in July, when a U.S. District Court told the agency to address what it referred to as the incredible shrinking airline seat.

Paul Hudson, president of Flyers Rights, said the need for seat regulation is driven by safety concerns. Passengers have been getting taller and wider, even as airlines push for slimmer seats, but regulations still stipulate that planes have to be able to be evacuated in just a minute and a half.

Obviously, if youre squeezed into a very confined space, its going to be harder to get up and get out in an emergency, Hudson said.

The seats were originally designed for people, for men who averaged about 5 foot 10 inches and 170 pounds, he said. Right now, the average man is just under 200 pounds.

The airline industry contends that further regulation is unnecessary. Carriers referred questions to the trade group Airlines for America, which responded with an emailed statement that read, in part, All U.S. carriers meet or exceed federal safety standards and we continue to believe that there is no need for government to interfere.

But some air travel professionals contend that advocates such as Flyers Rights may have a point in arguing that tightly packed seats may be an impediment to evacuations.

It wont be necessarily a passenger comfort regulation, but more around safety, Counter said.

Harteveldt agreed. There may be a legitimate issue around safety, he said. Thats why were now starting to see this topic bubble up.

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LONDONWhen Dyson Ltd. began developing an electric car  a radical departure for a company known for vacuums and hand dryers  executives knew it would be tough to keep the plan under wraps. But what they didnt know was that an engineer who they had picked for a small and highly secretive group to work on it already had a job offer from Tesla Inc.

Court documents dating back to 2015, and published for the first time Monday, reveal the story of how a 30-year-old engineer, Pierre Pellerey, told Tesla about Dysons electric car more than two years before it was made public, kicking off months of legal battles.

It is one of many legal disputes to reveal the high stakes when tech workers move to new jobs. In a courtroom thousands of miles away in San Francisco, Waymo LLC, the self-driving car unit of Alphabet Inc., is suing Uber Technologies Inc. over claims that the ride-hailing company is basing the future of its business on technology that was stolen by a former employee.

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Pellerey, whose role was so secret that company founder and chair James Dyson had told him not even to discuss it with colleagues, forwarded an email to Teslas lawyer that barely disguised Dysons plan. The lawyer said he didnt share it with anyone else at Tesla. But the court case that followed, in which Dyson won an injunction preventing Pellerey from working for Tesla for nine months, meant that Tesla would have known of Dysons plans two years before they were made public in September 2017.

The law firm that represented Pellerey, who now works at Tesla, declined to immediately comment. Representatives of both Dyson and Tesla also declined to immediately comment. The court case was publicly disclosed after Dyson announced its car plans in September.

The race to dominate the electric cars market is increasingly competitive, with manufacturers from Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG to Toyota Motor Corp., as well as Tesla and now Dyson, investing in the technology. Dyson said in September that it was spending 1 billion ($1.67 billion Canadian) to develop the car and the same sum to create solid-state batteries to power it. James Dyson predicted that within a few years cars would be the largest source of revenue for the company. Pellerey would have known that Dysons plan was to use a solid-state battery in its electric car, rather than the lithium ion batteries used in most electric cars, according to an October 2015 court ruling on the dispute.

Pellerey, a French national and a senior engineer earning 51,000 a year at Dysons headquarters in Wiltshire, U.K., accepted a job from Tesla in March 2015, but didnt immediately tell Dyson because the offer was conditional on getting a visa to work in the U.S., according to the court ruling released this week.

In May, with the visa still not approved, he was called into a secret meeting with two colleagues and told that James Dyson wanted the company to develop an electric car. They would be drafted to work on the confidential project, known only as Project E. The three were told to take their laptops and move to a secure area within the research department.

I felt a little uncomfortable about being involved in that project, as I knew I would be involved with electric vehicles at Tesla, Pellerey later told the court in a closed hearing, recounted in the court ruling.

But, he said, he was torn. If hed come clean, he feared that it would have compromised my future prospects at Dyson should Tesla have not confirmed an unconditional job offer with me. And he said the work he was involved in at Dyson was different from the work he was going to do at Tesla. So, he kept quiet.

In June, however, Tesla offered him a job in Europe, which avoided the visa difficulties, and he told Dyson he was leaving. When he did that, Dysons lawyers told him in a letter that he couldnt work for Tesla for 12 months because your proposed new employer is engaged in the same type of business as the business comprised in Project E. Dysons electric car project was described as highly sensitive and confidential.

But Pellerey told Teslas associate general counsel Yusuf Mohamed about the letter. When Mohamed asked to see the document, Pellerey said he wasnt sure he could share it because it was marked confidential.

Yes, just dont put it on Twitter, Mohamed replied, according to the court judgment. Mohamed said he needed it to carry out our indemnity obligations because Tesla was agreeing to cover Pellereys costs in a legal battle with Dyson.

Pellerey later told the court that he thought Mohamed would handle it confidentially because he was a lawyer  an explanation that a judge accepted while saying it seems obviously inaccurate to a lawyer.

The disclosure of that letter to Mr. Mohamed told him, a member of the outside world, that DTL (Dyson) was working on an electric car, Judge Keith Lindblom ruled in February 2016. That was just the type of disclosure that the Project E team had had impressed upon it that it must not make.

Mohamed said in a letter to Pellereys solicitors in September 2015 he had not shared the letter with anyone at Tesla. But, another London judge, Richard Snowden, said in his October 2015 ruling that Tesla must by now have deduced that Dyson is working on an electric car project.

It does not require a great deal of imagination to come to the conclusion that DTL would not be going to such trouble if the only confidential information he possessed related to vacuum cleaners and hand dryers, Judge Snowden said in the October 2015 ruling.

Dyson won the injunction preventing Pellerey from working at Tesla for nine months, but lost a bid for a second one stopping him from using its confidential information. Judge Snowden ruled in October 2015 that there was no basis for the second injunction because the engineer would not immediately be working on electric cars, though he said a court might have to look at that again if Pellerey started working for a car manufacturer. Pellerey does not intend deliberately to disclose details of Project E to any third party, the judge ruled.

Court hearings in the case were held in secret in 2015, so that the media couldnt find out that Dyson was planning an electric car  a move that the company made public in September. Pellerey started working at Tesla in June 2016 and still works there now, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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REYKJAVIK, ICELANDThough a steady stream of tourists has been a blessing for Iceland after the financial crash a decade ago, signs are emerging that local inhabitants are beginning to tire of the influx, an industry assessment said.

We are seeing some signs that the tolerance is getting lower, especially in the most popular areas, said Helga Arnadottir, director of the Icelandic Tourism Industry Association.

As tourism is the North Atlantic islands second-most-important industry, this is something to take seriously, she said.

This is the biggest threat  the tolerance of the inhabitants, Arnadottir said.

According to Arnadottir, tourism was a lifesaver for Iceland after the severe 2008 financial and banking crisis. Since 2010, the number of visitors has more than quadrupled in the small country of 330,000 people.

And this year, financial institution Islandsbanki forecasts about 2.3 million visitors  a 30-per-cent increase over 2016.

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According to Islandsbanki, every fifth person in the country is a tourist during the summer. In September, the national statistics office counted 378,300 overnight visits, with Germans being the most frequent visitors, followed by Americans.

Most Icelanders are still positive about tourism and understand its importance, Arnadottir said.

She suggested, however, that the industry may need to set some limits, saying that questions have to be answered as to the number of buildings in Reykjavik to be converted into hotels, the number of restaurants to be built and the number of apartments to be rented out.

These decisions must be made by the government, she said.

Locals complain mainly about vandalism, the introduction of entrance fees for national parks, price increases and hotel construction sites.

And there have been weeks of discussion over the past year about the lack of public toilets that has forced tourists to use shrubbery and other public spaces instead.

On the positive side, tourism has enriched Icelands quality of life in some respects, said Arnadottir, noting that there are restaurants all over the country where there were once only hotdog kiosks.

The aim of government and industry for visitors to come all year  even in the dark winter. And that they would travel all over the country  not just to the southwest around the capital, Reykjavik.

But the government must be more involved for this to happen, Arnadottir said.

The infrastructure like roads needs to be strengthened for this industry, she said, citing the need for roads to tourist destinations to be safe and passable even in winter.

According to Islandsbanki, tourists account for almost 40 per cent of Icelands foreign exchange income. Each visitor contributes about $1,860 (U.S.) to the domestic economy.

Half of the jobs created since 2010 are directly or indirectly related to tourism.

Further risks to Icelandic tourism over the past two years have been the unstable political situation and the exchange rate of the Icelandic krona, the head of the tourist association said.

The tourists do not stay so long because it is expensive, Arnadottir said.

Statistics suggest that in 2015 the prices for overnight stays and meals were 44 per cent above the European Union average. Arnadottir therefore expects the tourism boom to weaken soon and settle into normal growth of 3 per cent to 5 per cent.

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A man arrested in the U.S. in connection with the slaying of his ex-girlfriend in southern Ontario will be extradited back to Canada after a Texas court found the evidence against him was extensive.

Court documents show a San Antonio judge also denied Ager Hasans request to be released on bail pending his extradition, noting his past behaviour suggested he is both a danger to the community and a serious flight risk.

Hasan has been in custody since his arrest in the southern U.S. city in July. The charges he faces in Canada include second-degree murder.

U.S. court documents allege Hasan had difficulty accepting the end of his year-long relationship with 22-year-old Melinda Vasilije, which they allege led him to stab her more than 30 times with a steak knife.

Read more: Hamilton man accused of Kitchener stabbing death arrested in Texas, police say

The documents lay out what investigators believe happened leading up to and following Vasilijes death in late April, though the allegations have not been proven in court.

Its alleged Vasilije broke up with Hasan, who is from Hamilton, by text message in early April, prompting him to become increasingly agitated over the course of the day.

He allegedly broke into her Kitchener, Ont., home that night, an incident that saw him charged with break and enter and assault, documents show.

He was released on bail on condition that he stop contacting Vasilije and stay out of the Kitchener region, but cellphone records show the pair remained in touch, the documents say.

A few weeks later, the two arranged to meet up late at night at Vasilijes home to discuss their breakup, the documents say. Vasilijes roommate and a friend were also there, though they left twice during the night, they say.

At one point they heard someone they believed to be Hasan with Vasilije in her room, the documents allege.

Its alleged CCTV footage shows Vasilije walked Hasan to his car around 1:45 a.m. while her friends were out but he followed her back inside. He was then captured on video leaving about 15 minutes later, the documents say.

When the women returned for the second time shortly before 3 a.m., they found Vasilije lying in a pool of blood on the floor, with stab wounds to her throat and chest and two steak knives nearby, the documents say.

The documents allege Hasan texted Vasilije shortly after 3:30 a.m. saying: Nice seeing you tonight glad we worked things out! You better have deleted that (expletive) dorche (sic) bag lol. Anyways see you soon.

Far from raising doubt as to Hasans actual involvement in the murder, this text message, when viewed against all of the other evidence, suggests Hasan was merely attempting to cover up his guilt, the San Antonio court said.

The court said it is evident that Hasan was the man who was in the apartment that night.

Its alleged Hasan drove a car registered to his mother across the border a few hours later. Police eventually issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant for him.

A person believed to be Hasan posted a long document on Reddit a few days later that contained alleged details about the incident and contended he was acting in self-defence, the documents say.

He was arrested in Texas on July 11 and a request was made for his extradition. No date has been set for his transfer so far.

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VICTORIAThe unprecedented overdose death toll in British Columbia means it may be time to have a courageous conversation about decriminalizing the drugs that are killing so many people, says the provinces minister of addictions.

While decriminalizing drugs is a federal matter, Judy Darcy said Thursday the province is doing everything it can to stem the number of deaths.

I think the fundamental issue here is we need to start treating addiction like a health issue, she said, adding many people living with addictions are homeless or living in poverty.

We need to be pouring on the supports so that we have a pathway to hope for people and so they dont end up in the criminal justice system.

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The death toll from illicit drug overdoses reached 1,103 for the first nine months of this year, the coroners service said. In 2016, 982 people fatally overdosed in British Columbia.

The opioid fentanyl was detected in about 83 per cent of the deaths, representing a 147 per cent increase over the same period last year, it said.

In most cases, the powerful opioid painkiller was combined with other drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

Darcy said removing the threat of being arrested for those who are caught using the drugs could be helpful.

I think we should be prepared as a country to have a courageous conversation about it. In the meantime we are pushing the envelope and we are being bold and innovative in doing everything we can within the context of the present federal framework.

Health Canada said in an email statement that the federal government is not considering decriminalizing or legalizing all drugs.

The Government of Canada is committed to a comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and evidence-based approach to drug policy, which uses a public health approach when considering and addressing drug issues, the statement said.

The statement said harm reduction has been restored as a core pillar of Canadas drug policy, along with prevention, treatment and enforcement.

Safe consumption sites have opened around the province for addicts and the coroners service said there have been no deaths at them.

Ninety per cent of the deaths happened indoors, half of those in private homes.

Darcy said her ministry is working to counter the factors that lead to most of the deaths.

We are also ramping up .... a major anti-stigma campaign and a major campaign to reach out to people who are using alone because nine out of 10 people who are dying are using at home alone. Thats about overcoming stigma, thats about everybody in a family, in a community, friends reaching out and having conversations with people and reducing the stigma.

Three-quarters of those who died are between the ages of 30 and 59, and four out of five of them are male.

The Fraser Health Authority, which covers Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods from Burnaby to Hope on the east side of the Fraser Valley, had the most deaths this year at 295, followed by Vancouver at 269.

In 2012, fentanyl was detected in just four per cent of overdose deaths.

Darcy said the government is looking at enlarging a program used at overdose prevention sites in Vancouver where people can check their illicit drugs for fentanyl.

But we plan to do everything we can including expanding drug checking to keep people safe from these poisoned drug supplies on the street.

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Ontarios Ministry of the Environment is investigating after a Sarnia-area plant failed to report a possible chemical leak as legally required, a spokesperson said Thursday.

Nova Chemicals in Corunna, south of Sarnia, evacuated staff to a safe location Wednesday after an internal alarm went off for hydrogen sulphide, the company said. Hydrogen sulphide, which has a rotten egg odour, can paralyze the human sense of smell and cause death at high enough concentrations.

The ministry spokesperson said staff are investigating why Nova didnt immediately report the incident, as required by law.

We are communicating to Nova that it is our expectation that in incidents like this they do notify us, said the spokesperson.

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The ministry also said its staff contacted Nova shortly after the alarm sounded, and the company let it know about the situation. The company later notified the ministry that the incident was resolved by 5:45 p.m.

Last month, a joint investigation by the Star, Global News, National Observer, the Michener Awards Foundation and journalism schools at Ryerson and Concordia universities revealed a troubling pattern of secrecy and potentially toxic leaks in the Sarnia area. There are 57 polluters within 25 kilometres of the city registered with the Canadian and U.S. governments.

The investigation also raised questions about whether companies and the provincial government are properly warning residents of Sarnia and the nearby First Nations community of Aamjiwnaang when potentially toxic substances are leaked.

In a statement released to media, Nova said two incidents happened Wednesday at its Corunna site, which employs about 500 people.

The first happened at 1 a.m., when ethylene and methane, both flammable and explosive gases, spilled from an open valve, the Nova statement said. The company called an all-clear 45 minutes later.

The possible hydrogen sulphide leak happened at about 4:50 p.m. Nova called the all-clear about an hour later.

When plant staff arrived Wednesday morning, they received written instructions to wear respirator masks in certain areas. Nova didnt answer questions about how high the exposure levels must reach before staff are asked to wear protection, but said the mask memo was unrelated to either incident.

Nova said the companys air monitoring didnt show any effects to the surrounding community.

We reiterate that these two events were unrelated, said the company statement. Both are still under thorough investigation. Nova Chemicals has been in close contact with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.

Nova said it contacted the local fire department and Aamjiwnaang, which notified residents of the afternoon leak at about 5 p.m. The company said it also posted information on a phone line residents can call for information. The City of Sarnia didnt send out an alert.

Meanwhile, the provincial government unveiled a policy proposal Thursday intended to toughen air pollution standards in Sarnia and Hamilton  two heavily industrialized areas. If approved, it would consider the combined effect of local pollution rather than focusing on individual plants emissions.

Sarnia-area residents have been asking for such a measure for at least eight years.

The policy would apply only to facilities that are new or expanding. It covers emissions of benzene in the Sarnia area and benzo[a]pyrene and benzene in the Hamilton area.

Both chemicals are known to cause cancer. Levels of the contaminants frequently breach provincial air standards in the two regions, the proposal said.

The policy wouldnt require action from industry currently in the Sarnia area  only periodic review from the ministry, the proposal reads.

With files from Carolyn Jarvis and Andrew Russell, Global News

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MONCTON, N.B.Ottawa will order boats to give right whales a 100-metre buffer zone as it looks at a variety of options to protect the endangered mammals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, says Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

LeBlanc met Thursday in Moncton, N.B., with scientists, aboriginal groups and representatives from the fishing and marine transport industries to discuss possible solutions after a deadly summer.

LeBlanc emerged from the meeting, saying there were many good suggestions.

From fishing gear changes to sharing data and real time information, to looking at ways to have more reliable surveillance that will allow, for example, certain shipping corridors or certain speed limits in different areas to reflect better data. I was quite inspired and encouraged by the suggestions.

Read more:

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Twelve right whales have turned up dead in Canadian waters this year, and another four died in American waters.

Scientific research can and must necessarily take some time, and in the case of protecting the North Atlantic right whales, time is not necessarily on our side, LeBlanc told the conference during his opening remarks.

LeBlanc said he will soon be releasing new marine mammal regulations that will include a buffer zone.

I intend to include in the updated regulations a requirement for a 100-metre buffer between vessels and most marine mammals, including obviously the North Atlantic right whale, he said.

Many of the whales died as a result of blunt force trauma after being struck by boats, while other deaths have been attributed to fishing gear entanglements.

LeBlanc said future solutions could include new fishing gear that uses less rope, or rope that could be easily broken by whales.

I want to understand how ready is this technology to be used, he said. Were open very much to technology and innovation as part of the solution.

Ottawa has taken steps to reduce the risk by reducing the speed limit in the Gulf  which has led some cruise ships to cancel visits, and prompted at least one shipping line to hike rates  and shutting down a snow crab fishery.

LeBlanc has said the government will look at every option possible to protect whales, including making the speed limit permanent, enacting new regulations on fishing gear, and changing crab fishing season dates to ensure equipment is removed before the whales migrate into the Gulf.

He said everyone understands that changes must come quickly.

The fishing industry said for example some of the gear we may ask them to change will be under the snow in the next few weeks. The cruise ship industry and the tourism industry said some of the programs that cruise companies are setting must be done in the next few months, the minister said.

Rene Trepanier, executive director of Cruise the Saint Lawrence, said the cruise industry suffered as a result of speed limits imposed mid season.

He said the port of Gaspe had 16 cancellations  representing 60 per cent of their cruise season  and he expects the same impact next year.

However Trepanier said while the industry will hurt in the short term, they want to help reduce the number of whale deaths, and may be able to find a positive for the long term.

Whales are a great tourism product. We want to turn it into an advantage, he said.

The biggest impact of new regulations will likely be on fishermen. Martin Noel, who represents crab fishermen in northern New Brunswick, said theyll probably have to reduce the number of crab pots and the amount of rope used.

He said pots are lost every year and the Fisheries Department could help to retrieve them  removing a hazard for whales.

Noel also said the federal government could assist them by allowing the crab fishery to start earlier.

If we could get ice breakers in to open the ports and allow the crabbers to start their season earlier next year. That would help, he said.

LeBlanc wouldnt say exactly how much money his department was ready to spend to protect the whales, but did say they have hundreds of millions of dollars they didnt have just a few years ago.

There are roughly 450 right whales left in the world, and Tonya Wimmer of the Marine Animal Response Society said that number is declining.

Probably the more alarming component of that is very few of those are females that are breeding and we are losing them faster than we lose anyone else in the population. If they keep going with the number of deaths of these adult females, were going to lose them within 20 to 25 years. If you lose all your breeding females, your population is done, she said.

Hundreds gathered in Halifax last month for the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortiums annual meeting, where the deaths were described as a dire blow to the endangered species survival.

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Friday, November 10, 2017

The Kansas Supreme Court imposed a published censure for mishandled bankruptcy matters.

The misconduct involved a lack of diligence and failure to communicate with clients.

From the hearing panel findings below

On January 29, 2013, the respondent filed a chapter 7 bankruptcy petition on behalf of A.J. and M.J., husband and wife. At that time, the respondent's practice was to not list a possible federal and state earned income tax credit exemption on the schedule C to the bankruptcy petition. Rather, the respondent's practice was to amend the schedule C if a client received a federal or state earned income tax credit exemption. The respondent acknowledges that his practice was not the best practice. However, the respondent points out that a debtor may amend a schedule any time prior to discharge.

The practice led to unnecessary complications in a number of chapter 7 matters but now

Since the time of the misconduct, the respondent has made improvements to his practice to ensure that he timely responds to all motions filed. Additionally, in the 2 years between the misconduct and the hearing on the formal complaint, the respondent did not fail to respond to any additional motions. The hearing panel is convinced that the respondent's diligence issues have been resolved. To resolve the communication issue, the hearing panel urges the respondent to fully explain to C.C. the ramifications of the court's order revoking the discharge. The hearing panel also feels strongly that the respondent should notify the disciplinary administrator in writing confirming that he has rectified the previous failure to properly communicate with C.C., by fully explaining the ramifications of the court's order revoking the discharge. Nevertheless, while the hearing panel urges the respondent to take this corrective action, the hearing panel's formal recommendation, stated below, is not contingent upon the respondent's compliance with these steps.

A judgment had been entered against one client which the attorney later paid.

The court

The only remaining issue before us is the appropriate discipline for respondent's violations. At the panel hearing, the office of the Disciplinary Administrator recommended a 3-month suspension from the practice of law and that respondent undergo a reinstatement hearing pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 219 (2017 Kan. S. Ct. R. 263). The respondent argued that suspension seemed harsh and that his actions were the result of negligence and not done knowingly. The panel recommended published censure.

At the hearing before this court, the attorney for the office of the Disciplinary Administrator reported that after the panel hearing she had twice contacted Hon. Janice Miller Karlin, United States Bankruptcy Judge, the complainant in this case. Judge Karlin was contacted to discern whether she had observed any continuing concerns with respondent's practice. Both times, Judge Karlin responded that she had not witnessed further concerns. Due to the panel's recommendation and the observation from Judge Karlin, the office of the Disciplinary Administrator recommended that respondent be disciplined by published censure. We agree with the recommendation of both the Disciplinary Administrator and the panel, and we hold that respondent is to be disciplined by published censure.

Video of the oral argument is linked here.

If professional responsibility professors want to educate their students on discipline process, this 16 minute oral argument, dealing with lapses of a 40 year practitioner with no prior discipline, is worth showing. Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/11/the-kansas-supreme-court-imposed-a-published-censure-for-a-mishandled-bankruptcy-matter.html
Public Safety Canada will review a recommendation from the national inquiry mandated to examine violence against Indigenous women and girls to create an independent civilian-led body that could reopen cases or review investigations.

On Nov. 1, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its highly anticipated 119-page interim report. One of the 10 recommendations asked the federal government to work with provinces and territories to create a national police task force that could assess, reopen cases or review investigations.

The next day, Public Safety Canada said it would look at the inquirys recommendations.

In an earlier statement a Public Safety Canada spokesperson said that processes are already in place to deal with the cases of missing and murdered women and girls.

Karine Martel said the MMIWG inquiry is mandated to refer families to provincial or territorial police authorities if and when a family might want information about an ongoing or past investigation, prosecution or inquest. Martel also noted that Justice Canada supplemented its victim fund to provide culturally responsive services to family members.

When asked about creating a national cold case unit that could prioritize cases, Martel said that unsolved cases are not considered cold and that homicide and missing persons units work closely with one another to solve unsolved cases. The RCMP has established special units across the country to review these files.

Public Safety Canada, a federal department that, according to its website, deals with issues including national security, border strategies and emergency management, oversees the RCMP.

In a statement, the RCMP said while policing is within its purview, the creation/implementation/funding of a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency, pan-Canadian task force is not the RCMPs decision to make.

But many families and advocates of missing women have pleaded for years that a lack of trust and confidence in officials, such as police and coroners or medical examiners, means an oversight civilian body is needed.

There are historical pieces that have created this mistrust or created the divide, said Jennifer Lord, director of Violence Prevention and Safety at the Native Womens Association of Canada, referring to the high incarceration rate of Indigenous people, racial profiling or simply being followed around in stores by security guards.

Ideally, advocates and family members say, this civilian body would be independent of the police and could investigate or re-examine solved, unsolved, unresolved or missing persons cases for family members. It would be an investigative agency and an avenue for family members to take their loved ones case to, other than a police authority.

They all protect themselves, says Pamela Palmater, a Mikmaw lawyer and associate professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University about Public Safety Canadas statement about not creating an independent civilian body for family members.

Public Safety protects police and national security agencies, and police unions protect the police officers. The last thing they want exposed is significant problems in police investigations and police conduct.

In May 2014, the RCMP reported 1,181 of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and 225 unsolved cases of missing or murdered Indigenous females. Advocates and family members say the number of the missing and murdered is as high as 4,000.

Advocates point to Ontarios Special Investigations Unit (SUI) as one example of an oversight body. The SIU investigates serious injury, death or allegations of sexual assault involving a police officer and has the power to lay charges against officers.

An independent civilian body for missing and murdered cases could have similar powers, advocates say, and it could also identify any faulty investigations by officials and hold them to account. In its interim report the inquiry recommended Indigenous people be part of any police oversight bodies.

Wilfred Catcheway of Portage la Prairie is the father to Jennifer, 18, from Skownan First Nation, Man., who went missing in 2008. The family claims the police did not take their daughters disappearance seriously.

Something has to be in place where the RCMP are doing their job, especially when a person goes missing, that is a crucial time, says Catcheway. The way the system is in place now, it hasnt worked and thats why theres so many missing Aboriginal women.

This past summer, the inquiry said they will look into police conduct, refer information about cases to police authorities for police to re-examine and set up a forensic team to review police files.

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HALIFAXNova Scotia sexual assault victims will now have access to free legal advice to help them consider their options after an assault.

Victims will receive up to four hours of independent legal advice through a federal-provincial pilot project.

Justice Minister Mark Furey says the government has been told clearly that victims and survivors needed better support.

We know most sexual assault cases do not get reported, he said in a statement. This pilot program will provide victims with the advice they need to make informed decisions about how they want to move forward.

Victims of sexual assault, or people who think they may have been sexually assaulted, can call the provinces 211 phone service and obtain certificates for services from a pre-approved list of lawyers.

A justice official wasnt available for an interview Friday afternoon, but the department provided a frequently asked questions pamphlet that says people can use the service at any stage after an assault, regardless of whether it has been reported to police.

The lawyer can help you to determine your legal options, such as whether you should report the matter to the police or take civil action, says the pamphlet. You may decide after meeting with the lawyer, and receiving information about those processes, that you are choosing no further action at this time. This program is to help you make informed decisions. You have some choices on what happens next.

The selected lawyers in the three-year pilot program  funded by $810,000 in federal cash  will be provided with extensive training and will share their experiences and best practices.

Nova Scotia Liberal MP Bernadette Jordan said a better understanding of victims needs leads to a more just and fair criminal justice system.

If victims do not report sexual assaults because they fear they will not be believed, or they lack confidence in the criminal justice system, then the integrity of the system is called into question, she said in a statement.

Jackie Stevens, executive director of the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre in Halifax, says the project is an important first step toward legal advocacy for victims.

We are excited that this service is in place as there is a major need for legal advice and support for survivors of sexualized violence going through the court process, said Stevens. We encourage the Nova Scotia government to continue to prioritize justice reform.

The Public Prosecution Service will also create a guide for victims of sexual assault on the court process and provide sexual-violence training for Crown attorneys.

The Ontario government last year announced a $41-million plan aimed at combating sexual violence and harassment that includes a pilot program to provide free, independent legal advice to survivors of sexual assault.

Newfoundland and Labrador has announced a similar program.

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An Ontario court judge has found that ORNGE air ambulance service was not negligent for failing to provide night-vision goggles to two pilots killed in a helicopter crash in Moosonee, Ont., more than four years ago.

In a decision highly critical of the safety regulations governing air ambulance services, Justice Bruce Duncan told a Brampton court Friday he was dismissing three charges under the Canada Labour Code that ORNGE failed to ensure employee safety at the northern Ontario outpost on James Bay.

The law requires that decisions be made in a dispassionate and objective manner. However, the unavoidable result of that is the proceedings may appear to be technical, analytical and maybe even cold, Duncan told the court. I want to assure, particularly the families and friends and the public as a whole, that the tragic loss of life here has not been forgotten.

Captain Don Filliter, co-pilot Jacques Dupuy, and flight paramedics Dustin Dagenais and Chris Snowball were killed on May 31, 2013 when an ORNGE Sikorsky S76 helicopter taking off from Moosonee in pitch darkness crashed shortly after takeoff.

In dismissing two of the counts related to ORNGEs decision not to outfit the pilots and helicopter with night-vision goggle capability, the judge ruled that no reasonable operator in 2013 would have introduced the visual aids for several reasons, including that they were not required or urged by regulator Transport Canada; their use was not common practice in Canadian helicopter emergency medical services at the time; the helicopters and the crew at Moosonee were all capable of flying on instruments alone; and that the life expectancies of the S76s, already more than 30 years old, could not justify the public cost to retrofit them.

On the remaining count, targeting ORNGEs decision to eliminate the position of base manager at Moosonee  a move the Crown argued deprived the operation of a vital safety check  Duncan wrote that in his view the presence of experienced pilots and employees, including Filliter himself who had been base manager for a helicopter EMS company that operated out of the airport prior to ORNGE, collectively filled any void in responsibility.

There was also evidence that pilots as a group are very safety conscious  for obvious reasons  it is their lives that are at risk. There are no risk-taking heroes or cowboys among them, he wrote in his 33-page decision. In this atmosphere and with all the responsible senior people around (with nothing else to do in Moosonee) it seems to me that there would be little additional pulse-taking role for the base manager.

While Justice Duncan dismissed the three charges, his ruling didnt give ORNGE a free pass and was in many ways a clear rebuke of the current regulatory framework within which air ambulance services operate. He noted that as of 2013, Transport Canada did not require night-vision goggles for helicopter EMS operations or helicopter flights in general.

And of this writing in 2017, it has still not done so! Duncan wrote.

He also expressed concern with the absence of a North America-wide standard within the helicopter EMS industry to outfit aircraft with reasonably available technology to improve safety. He highlighted, for example, that in the U.S., a helicopter flown by a single pilot with no training in flying on instruments alone is considered acceptable.

What is an acceptable level of safety within the industry is given a rather generous interpretation, he wrote.

While ORNGE was not facing any charge that alleged the crashed chopper, known as C-Gimy, was underequipped or unsafe, the judge nonetheless took aim at the agency saying it could have taken steps, such as installing autopilot and a ground proximity alarm, to avoid or lessen the possibility of an accident.

I find it difficult to understand why these items were not required by the regulator or, absent such requirement, provided by the operator. This is the sort of extra step that in my view does fall in the space between regulation and an acceptable level of safety and for which an operator is responsible, he wrote. A compelling case could be made that the overall lack of automation and safety equipment on C-Gimy was completely unacceptable.

Crown Attorney Nick Devlin told the Star that the trial and the judges reasons put aviation operators across Canada on notice that they will be held to account where evidence suggests that they have not prioritized the safety of their employees, including those brave first responders who provide vital air ambulance services.

He said the Public Prosecution Service of Canada will review the judgment before deciding whether an appeal is viable or in the public interest.

During the trial, which began in April, court heard that ORNGE bought its newer, more powerful fleet of AgustaWestland 139 helicopters in 2008 without night-vision goggle capability. Justice Duncan concluded that ORNGE was negligent in this respect, but he noted that such negligence had no bearing on the S76s, the accident or the charges in this case.

The purchase of those 12 AgustaWestland aircraft under former ORNGE boss Chris Mazza is now part of an OPP criminal investigation involving allegations of kickbacks, among other things. An OPP spokesperson told the Star on Friday the almost six-year-old probe is ongoing.

In a statement, ORNGE spokesperson James MacDonald said that while the agency is grateful to the court for the careful manner in which it has evaluated the evidence, it is mindful that this tragic accident claimed the lives of four friends and colleagues.

He said the agency has taken many steps to enhance safety. These include investments in equipment, training, and changes to policies and procedures. Night-vision goggles are in place at a number of ORNGE bases across Ontario, with full implementation across our fleet to be completed by early 2018. We continuously review our practices to ensure we are meeting or exceeding regulations and industry best practices.

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MONTREALA national split is emerging on marijuana legalization that pits Ontario and eastern provinces opting for total control over pot sales against private retail regimes emerging in the West.

The regional divide reflects a clash of opinions about whether it is more important to put black-market pot producers out of business or heed public health warnings when access to the drug becomes legal on July 1, 2018.

So far, only three Canadian provinces have spelled out their approach to the sale of marijuana. Both Ontario and New Brunswick have opted to control access to cannabis through retail stores that will be operated by the provincial liquor boards.

Ontario plans to launch 40 stores in time for next summer that will be run by a subsidiary of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. The plan calls for 150 stores by 2020.

New Brunswick has unveiled an even tougher plan to have a maximum of 20 government-run pot stores in 15 communities. Identification will be checked at the entrance, there will be no advertising or window displays and the product will be kept locked glass cases.

But Manitoba came out this week in contrast to its eastern counterparts and other western provinces look poised to follow suit.

Premier Brian Pallister said Manitobas liquor board will distribute legal marijuana to private retailers who will have freedom to market the product, with certain restrictions, and set competitive prices. Bids on retail licenses are being accepted through to Dec. 22.

It will help achieve our goal of eliminating the black market which has controlled the cannabis trade for a very long time, Pallister said of the private sales model.

The emerging plans pit a Prohibition-era mentality in Eastern Canada against a free-market view that reigns in the West, said Andrew Klukas, president of the Western Convenience Store Association, which represents 7,000 retail outlets in the four western provinces as well as Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

New Brunswicks cannabis legislation, for example, requires pot smokers to keep their stash in a locked container or room in their home to prevent minors from getting at it. Ontario will ban people from smoking anywhere but their private residences.

Out here in the West were being a bit more pragmatic and looking at it from the perspective of tomorrow and what the worlds going to look like, Klukas said. The stigma is not going to exist in the future.

More troubling, he said, is that the decision by governments to limit the legal supply of marijuana will only encourage illegal distributors to continue filling the demand.

Youre going to undermine one of the main intentions of the federal legislation. Thats what youre seeing in Ontario, Klukas said.

British Columbia has expressed openness to having a mix of private stores, as the city of Vancouver has specifically requested, and government-run outlets in other parts of the province. In Saskatchewan, Deputy Premier Don Morgan said of Ontarios plan: I suspect we would probably be looking at other options, according to the CBC.

Albertas NDP government noted in an October framework document that the Ontario model allows for oversight and control, while private retailers may be more effective at choking off the black-market supply.

The Edmonton Journal reported Friday that legislation to be tabled next week will allow private stores to sell pot and have government handle online sales.

This approach is at odds with the advice of some public health advocates who say the private enterprise will inevitably try to promote increased consumption.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority noted in a written submission to the B.C. government that a state monopoly is the most socially responsible option, followed by stand-alone stores that sell marijuana and no other products.

The goal of private retail outlets is to promote their product and increase sales, at odds with a government goal of reducing public health harms associated with cannabis consumption, the agency wrote in September.

In line with that, most every province agrees that marijuana should not be sold in the same location as alcohol.

But its not yet clear what direction Quebec will take. A government spokesperson refused comment, saying legislation would be tabled very soon. But Reports suggest that the distribution and sale of pot will be overseen by the Societe des alcools du Quebec, the provincial liquor board.

Unlike Ontario, though, Quebec has a more liberal regime for alcohol sales, allowing beer and some varieties of wine to be sold in corner stores.

The provinces convenience-store industry group, the Association quebecoise des depanneurs en alimentation, is split on getting into the marijuana market.

President Michel Gadbois said there are concerns about the profit margins if governments fix an artificial price on pot. Competition with black-market suppliers selling a cheaper product and paying no taxes is another potential headache.

On this one weve been sitting on it for a year and I just cant come to my board with a final proposal, he said.

But Alain Bouchard, head of Quebecs Couche-Tard convenience store chain, wants in, having hired lobbyists to make the companys case to the provincial government.

I will be very disappointed if our government doesnt give us our chance. We are business people. We will put efficient procedures in place and well operate affordably and securely, he told the Journal de Montreal.

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MONTREALPerhaps as early as next week a Quebec court will be asked to suspend the recent provincial prescription that anyone dispensing or receiving provincial and municipal services do so with ones face uncovered.

Those challenging the newly-adopted Quebec law on religious neutrality on behalf of the minority of Muslim women who wear the face-covering niqab and burqa want its most contentious sections to be set aside until their constitutionality has been validated in court.

If the judge agrees, the Quebec face-covering ban could be in limbo for years. Even the wheels of politics grind more quickly than those of Canadas justice system. To wit, more than a year after the federal law on medically assisted death was initially challenged the parties involved are still going through some preliminary legal moves.

Justin Trudeaus government could speed up a definitive determination of the issue by referring the Quebec law to the Supreme Court. But whether a decision by the federal government to take matters in hand would clear the air or simply add a new level of toxicity to the debate is an open question.

It is not uncommon for Ottawa and the provinces to face off in Canadas top court. In its day, Stephen Harpers government lost some big federal-provincial battles in the Supreme Court. The Conservative plan to make the Senate an elected house of Parliament died there.

Justin Trudeau is weighing in further on the Quebec law banning people from covering their faces while receiving public services. The prime minister says it is not the role of government to tell women what they can or cant wear. (The Canadian Press)

But for the federal government to take a province to court over a law adopted by its legislature in an area of its jurisdiction is a politically aggressive move, especially when the legislature in question is as notoriously jealous of its autonomy as the National Assembly.

For a token of how extraordinary a federal decision to take the lead in challenging what is still commonly known as Quebecs Bill 62 would be, consider that in the case of the provinces equally controversial language law back in the 70s and 80s, Ottawa stuck to a support legal role.

The timeline is also problematic. The current law may not survive the upcoming Quebec election. Both main opposition parties are committed to replacing it with more muscular legislation.

And then federal sources say the initial legal advice Trudeau received from his own governments lawyers suggested the Quebec law was charter-proof. At the very least, it seems the issue is a matter of debate within the federal justice department.

Notwithstanding some of the prime ministers comments there is no default federal position to defend charter rights or to fight on the side of minorities  religious or otherwise  in court.

On the contrary, under both Liberal and Conservative prime ministers, the federal government has regularly been on the opposing (and losing) side of some of the most defining charter challenges.

Think of abortion rights, same-sex marriage and, more recently, the right to medically assisted death.

Under Trudeaus father, federal government lawyers argued (unsuccessfully) that the charter right to receive ones schooling in ones official language did not give minority-language communities the attendant right to run their own schools.

Throughout the debate over Quebecs face-unveiling law there has been a glaring disconnect between polls and electoral outcomes.

In Montreals hard-fought municipal election for instance, the face-unveiling prescriptions did not emerge as a wedge issue because neither Valerie Plante nor Denis Coderre would agree to apply them. They both presumably stood on the wrong side of what polls purport to be a winning issue.

Just this week, the Parti Quebecois caucus balked at leader Jean-Francois Lisees plan to concoct a more restrictive religious neutrality proposal before the end of the year. The PQ rode that battle horse in the 2014 election campaign and was sent back to the opposition benches.

Meanwhile Trudeau  whose opposition to all variations of niqab bans is well-documented  leads in the voting intention polls in his home-province.

This is not the first disconnect between polls and voting patterns. For years the electoral performance of the pro-independence Quebec parties has not matched the strong support for sovereignty reported in the polls. Thats because the polling answer that mattered was the one that showed a solid majority did not want to revisit the issue.

In the same vein, the religious neutrality issue  even as it elicits responses that are solidly supportive of coercive measures  has not so far emerged as a defining ballot box issue for a critical number of voters.

But the principle that the National Assembly does not operate under the supervision of the federal government falls in an entirely different infinitely more consensual category.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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Friends of a 27-year-old transgender woman who disappeared have organized a search for her.

Toronto police said Alloura Wells, also known as Alloura Hennessy, was last seen in July 2017 in the downtown Toronto area and that a report was made to 51 Division on Nov. 6.

A community meeting with Wells family and friends has been scheduled for Nov. 10 and the search set for Nov. 11.

Wells is described as having a slim build, brown shoulder-length hair which may be dyed blonde or pink.

Michelle Wheeler, Wells sister, told the Star Wells has been homeless for about three years after she stopped paying rent when their mother died. She had been living with her boyfriend under a bridge near Bloor and Parliament Streets.

I think our mother dying is why she started living on the streets. I think if our mom was still here, things would have been different, said Wheeler.

Allouras just in a really bad spot in her life right now. Shes just a great person.

Wheeler said Wells was on Facebook everyday and when her Facebook wasnt updated mid-July, she became suspicious.

She stopped responding to my Facebook messages and I had a bad feeling about it.

Wheeler said that Toronto police told their father that Wells disappearance was not high priority, because shes homeless.

Thats certainly not the proper response from any part of this organization, Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash told the Star.

Pugash said that 51 Division Supt. Tony Riviere has taken a personal interest in the case and he has been trying to contact Wells family to apologize.

Every missing person case is important and we will update and put out a second news release if theres more information or photographs provided.

Before her disappearance, Wells frequented Maggies: Toronto Sex Workers Action Project, an organization that aims to improve the lives of sex workers, said Andrea Sterling, the organizations chairperson.

Sterling is an organizer of the community meeting and search party for Wells. She said she believes Wells disappearance wasnt taken seriously or immediately made priority by police because Wells is a sex worker.

We are fed up that police have really not cared for trans sex workers and theyve written (them) off (and decided) that their lives are not valuable, said Sterling.

She said she thinks its absurd that Wells friends and Maggies feel the need to schedule searches and to pressure Toronto police to investigate the case by going to the media.

When media reports came out about Alloura, it was then that Toronto police put out the report about her, said Sterling.

Sterling said shes partnered up with the organizers of the searches for missing Toronto man Andrew Kinsman, who was last seen in April.

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The Hamilton son of a murdered mob boss turned himself in to police on his 47th birthday on Friday to face multiple charges in a massive international police investigation into organized crime, including fentanyl trafficking.

Giuseppe (Joe) Violi was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for a day after his brother Domenico Violi, 51, was arrested in a pre-dawn raid in Hamilton on Thursday. At a news conference announcing the charges, RCMP Supt. Chris Leather alleged the brothers are well-established in organized crime, with a reach into Italy and other parts of Europe.

The brothers are the sons of Paolo Violi and grandsons of Giacomo Luppino, both once considered major leaders of the Ndrangheta, or Calabrian Mafia, in Canada.

Paolo Violi was murdered in 1978 in Montreal in the midst of an underworld war with the Rizzuto crime family. Luppino died of natural causes in Hamilton in March 1988 at the age of 88.

Back in the late 1960s, the RCMP hid recording devices amongst Luppinos tomato plants in the backyard of his cozy, detached brick home on Ottawa St. S. in east Hamilton.

Those recordings captured Luppino talking about a variety of things  ranging from the freewheeling playing style of colourful Maple Leafs forward Eddie Shack to what Luppino considered the abundance of crime opportunities in his new homeland.

The RCMP also overheard Luppino talk with his wife Domenica about work stress and his feelings of contempt for a man who didnt respect the traditional family unit.

Luppino was secretly recorded talking dismissively of a man who he considered a coward.

I told him what kind of a half a man is he?, Luppino says. If I have to do something in fear, Ill go and drown myself in the lake. I told him that if a man is weak and has to do things because of fear and these things are wrong, then its better for him to kill himself.

I told him if they want, kill me. Because I say so. And if they should kill me, Ill always spit in their faces and tell them they are the dishonerate (the dishonoured).

The recordings from the tomato plants also gave an insight into Paolo Violis moral code. On one occasion, the RCMP bug captures him telling his father-in-law that he is going to warn a man in Toronto to stay away from a married woman who has three children, according to police summary of the conversations. He is going to tell the person to stay away or he will be either severely beaten or killed.

The secret recordings from Luppinos tomato plants were later used by the RCMP to help prove the existence of the Ndrangheta in Canada.

In one of the recorded talks, Luppino told his wife that he and their son Jimmy had recently met with Stefano Magaddino, an undertaker who was then head of the Buffalo mob family, about Toronto mobster Paul Volpe.

Magaddino told Jimmy that if he went with or had dealings with Paul Volpe to be very careful, because he will cheat you or see that you are sent to jail. Magaddino also mentions that Volpe cheated him once, Luppino said.

Summaries of the conversations were filed as exhibits in a trial in Hamilton in August 1982.

Giuseppe and Domenico were eight and 11 respectively when their father was murdered in 1978 in the Montreal ice cream shop which had been his headquarters.

Two uncles of Giuseppe and Domenico Violi were also slain in a protracted war with the Rizzuto crime family. The Violi family moved the brothers back to Hamilton, where they lived under the protection of their grandfather Luppino.

The police operation announced this week, nicknamed OTremens, targetted 14 individuals, including the Violi brothers.

Also turning himself in to authorities on Friday was Masimigliano Carfagna of Burlington.

Both Violis and Carfagna are charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance; possession for the purpose of trafficking a controlled substance; trafficking a controlled substance; trafficking contraband tobacco; trafficking firearms, and criminal organization offences, including instructing and participating in a criminal organization.

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A high-profile case involving four Toronto police officers accused of planting heroin on a car dashboard then falsifying court testimony has collapsed before going to trial, after the Crown withdrew the more than two dozen perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges.

Despite the charges being prosecuted with energy and determination, Crown attorney Jason Nicol told the court Thursday that a series of disclosure set-backs had caused delays too significant to proceed to trial as planned early next year.

The move means Const. Michael Taylor, Const. Benjamin Elliot, Const. Jeffrey Tout and Det.-Const. Fraser Douglas walk before their case can be tried in court.

Nicol acknowledged the case dealt with very serious allegations against police. But he nonetheless felt he had no choice but to withdraw the charges due to the delays, which were caused by information sharing problems between prosecutors and Toronto police professional standards, the unit that conducted an internal investigation that led to the charges.

As lawyers for the accused officers commended the move, some legal experts accused the prosecutor of folding the tent prematurely.

They say there were other options to prosecute the case, one that raises critical issues about police conduct and the administration of justice.

You have the police who screwed up their own disclosure obligations? It just stinks, said Kim Schofield, whose client Nguyen Tran was the officers alleged victim and whose case blew open allegations against the officers.

Schofield said the withdrawal of the charges allows the system to hide things by screwing itself up.

It seems Kafkaesque to me.

Given the significance of this case, I do not understand why the Crown is giving up at this point, said Toronto lawyer Peter Rosenthal, who was not connected to the case.

Outside Ontario Superior Court, Peter Brauti, Taylors lawyer, called the withdrawal a decisive win, denying that the officers were let off through a kind of legal technicality.

There are no technical wins. Theres wins and losses, and this was definitely a win. The officers maintained their innocence right from the get-go, Brauti said.

Brauti added that the officers were prepared to have their trial, and he was confident they would have been found not guilty had it happened. They are presumed to be innocent, he said.

Its not clear when, or if, the officers will return to regular duty. Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, said he would be having discussions with Toronto police about the officers return to work, saying, I think they should be brought back to duty.

This is the way the law should be administered. People have their rights and we think justice was done today, said McCormack.

All four officers have been suspended with pay since January 2016, when Toronto police chief Mark Saunders announced the charges against the officers at a sombre press conference.

All face professional misconduct charges under the Police Services Act, a move that Nicol said could serve, in some measure, the public interest.

Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash declined to comment on the Crowns withdrawal of the charges.

Its up to them to speak. They do make a point that our professional standards officers investigated this vigorously, he said, citing comments made by Nicol about the services commitment to probing the case with a view to rooting out the truth.

Charges against Elliot, Tout, Taylor and Douglas stem from a a damning 2015 rulingfrom a Toronto judge, which found the officers planted heroin in a suspects car to justify a search, then colluded in their testimony in court.

There is too much falsehood, and too many unexplained and otherwise unexplainable elements in the police testimony, wrote Justice Edward Morgan, calling their misleading testimony and actions egregiously wrongful conduct.

A subsequent investigation by Toronto polices professional standards unit resulted in a total of 25 charges against the four officers. Elliot, a 10-year veteran of the force, faced 10 of those charges.

But Nicol told the court Thursday that complications arose surrounding the disclosure of evidence to the officers lawyers, including the inadvertent release of privileged information. Nicol did not detail the nature of the information, but called it difficult and complex.

Issues date back to March, when the Crown received notice that privileged information had inadvertently been disclosed. Thus began a back-and-forth between the Crown and Toronto police.

Flip-flopping within Toronto police over what could and could not be disclosed led the Crown to decide that it had a duty to review and re-examine its own voluminous case and conduct a painstaking and detailed reappraisal.

Such a review would take a considerable period of time and defense counsel would lose some or all of their work-product to date, Nicol said.

If the case were to proceed, it would be delayed at least until late fall of next year, Nicol said. If that were the case, it would exceed the strict new timeline limits placed on criminal trials in a landmark Supreme Court of Canada case known as R v. Jordan.

Daniel Brown, a Toronto criminal lawyer not connected to the case, said the case may have been a candidate for some of the exceptions under the Jordan ruling, which does ease time limits in exceptional circumstances.

Nicol said there was not a realistic prospect of succeeding if he applied for such an exception. But Brown said the Crown folded the tent before even exploring whether the exceptional circumstances could have justified the delay.

That the Crown attorney on such an important case would simply give up in the face of these issues is shocking and disheartening, Brown said.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

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Kyle Ashley became a hero to Toronto cyclists. After years of complaints to Toronto police that often went nowhere, cyclists finally had their champion cop. Armed with a ticket book and a Smartphone, he doled out fines and took to Twitter to publicly admonish drivers and corporations who routinely parked in bike lanes.

Then last week he went silent as his Twitter account disappeared.

Officially, he deactivated his account on Nov. 3 after being visited by two Toronto Police Service supervisors who admonished him for his tweets, and said his account is being reviewed for appropriateness after numerous complaints.

If Toronto police always responded to numerous complaints this quickly, issues like the random carding of young men of colour would have ended a long time ago. In this case, Ashleys tweets were often cheeky, and he posted selfies while making funny faces at the illegally parked vehicles he was ticketing. He was also a very human tweeter, wearing his heart on his sleeve; emotionally involved in work he genuinely seemed to love. In short, he was the public advocate bike lane protection needed.

Where he crossed a line was likely when he criticized city councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, a bike lane opponent, and MPP Yvan Baker, who targeted distracted pedestrians with his recent private members bill rather than drivers and bad road design. Councillor Shelley Carroll, whos a member of the Police Services Board that oversees the force, said she was worried his tweets were veering from advocacy to purely political territory.

Indeed, getting political in public can be dangerous. Anybody who works for somebody has to worry about this. What if certain political views arent in line with the boss? Or the bosss boss? Or the people who buy the bosss product? Or the people who vote for the boss? Public opinions and feelings are a tricky business. Whether or not thats fair is another debate.

Its an interesting question, though. What is political? For those who dont care to tweet, think of tweeting as standing on the corner and speaking your mind aloud. Somebodys inevitably going to come along and not like what youre saying.

As a freelance writer I have among the most liberty to tweet as anybody, yet still I have to think about what I say. Theres this newspaper that lets me write for them that I have to think about. Theres the University of Toronto where I teach to think about. Theres my mom.

All of those institutions, mom included, allow me a lot of liberty to express what I hope is an informed opinion, more than average employers, but ultimately its my own reputation that I have to think about. I have a lot of feelings and thoughts, but can they be backed up with reason and truth? And if so, is it the right time to express them? Its as important to know when to keep the powder dry, as it is to know when to light it all up to make an important point.

Thats probably why Ashleys tweets in defence of the bike lanes were so powerful and fierce, and why many people saw him as a hero: he lit his powder at the right time and brought needed attention to the issue. Hes a public servant, though, whose head rose above the rest, taking a principled stand in defence of the work he was hired to do. Other public servants in higher positions have felt the heat when theyve done that.

Kyle Ashley has one job and that's to patrol bike lanes in the city and capture lane invaders for the Toronto Police Parking Enforcement. Ashley is on the front lines in the battle of cyclists and car owners. This video was originally published onJune 15, 2017.

At Statistics Canada, chief statistician Munir Sheikh resigned in 2010 when the long-form census was cancelled, and in 2016 Wayne Smith resigned from the same position over his agencys loss of independence. Closer to home in Toronto, TTC chief general manager Gary Webster was fired in 2012 when he resisted Mayor Rob Fords subway scheme, and many see chief planner Jennifer Keesmaats recent departure as a result of her early public resistance to Mayor John Torys championing of Fords subway plan.

With this climate in mind, Ashleys strong voice from the ground was likely doomed.

Whats curious about Ashleys case is other kinds of politics have made their way into police tweets without this kind of response. This past summer, the Toronto District School Board was debating whether or not to keep controversial School Resource Officers in certain schools that critics said targeted racialized communities and gave schools a prison-like atmosphere.

Though the TDSB ultimately decided to temporarily suspend the program, a number of members of the police force tweeted support for it. That every one of their Twitter accounts wasnt shut down in order to review their tweets for appropriateness is a continued indication of where bike lanes fit into the hierarchy of what matters in police headquarters.

Most people arent on Twitter so the politics that play out there may not seem to matter, but an awful lot of Torontos political machinations, and some of its theatre, play out on Twitter. Its part of what the ancient Greeks called the agora, a civic gathering space. Not all citizens choose to visit their agora, but its where things that affect them happen.

So Ashleys tweets defending bike lanes, something he was hired to do, were important and he should be allowed to continue. Lots of cops on Twitter tweet passionately about the dangers of drinking and driving. Theres nothing wrong with that, and Ashleys advocacy for road safety was in the same tradition.

The line all civil servants walk when doing their job in public is between speaking truth and speaking truth to power. Ashley likely got in trouble when he spoke truth to power in criticizing his political bosses. Let him defend what hes been trained to defend and speak, or tweet, that truth as he did.

However, truth to power is best left to voters and others with more liberty because for a civil servant with limited powder, thats the nuclear option, and can only be used once.

Shawn Micallef writes every Saturday about where and how we live in the GTA. Wander the streets with him on Twitter @shawnmicallef

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A man claiming to be a mystical healer is wanted on fraud and sexual assault charges, according to Toronto police.

The man approached a 38-year-old woman in the Eaton Centre on Oct. 15, offering his faith-healing services, police allege. The pair met up two days later on Oct. 17 at around 3:45 p.m., and the woman paid the man for his services.

Police say that over the course of the healing session, the man sexually assaulted the woman.

The suspect is described as approximately 35-years-old, and 58 with a stocky build and a dark, thick moustache. He was wearing a blue sweater over a white dress shirt, black pants and shoes, and carrying a black messenger bag. The man was also wearing a black hat with a skull decal.

Anyone with information about the incident is encouraged to contact Toronto police at 416-808-5200.

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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.
An onslaught of union-funded attack ads aimed at Patrick Brown appears to be hurting the Progressive Conservatives with female voters, a new poll suggests.

The blitz of negative commercials from public- and private-sector unions seems to have tightened an already close race in the June 7, 2018 election.

The Campaign Research survey shows Browns PCs at 35 per cent, Premier Kathleen Wynnes Liberals at 32 per cent, Andrea Horwaths New Democrats at 23 per cent, and the Greens led by Mike Schreiner at 9 per cent.

The third-party ads are all targetted toward women and it appears to be having a strong effect on (female) voters, Campaign Research CEO Eli Yufest said Thursday.

Using an online panel of 1,263 Ontario voters, Campaign Research polled between Monday and Thursday. A probability sample of that size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 out of 20 times.

In last months tracking poll, the Tories were at 36 per cent, the Liberals 32 per cent, the NDP 25 per cent, and the Greens at 7 per cent.

Yufest said the most significant change in the November survey is the effect of the attack advertising on Browns personal approval ratings.

The spots are by Working Ontario Women (WOW), bankrolled by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Working Families, a coalition of public- and private-sector unions that includes Unifor.

Working Families puts out new ad against Patrick Brown called "Change."

They blast the rookie PC leader for his pro-life voting record as an MP in former prime minister Stephen Harpers Conservative government between 2006 and 2015 and question his claim of now being pro-choice.

This months poll found Brown has a 21 per cent approval, 29 per cent disapproval, with 50 per cent having no opinion.

In September, he had 25 per cent approval, 25 per cent disapproval, and 50 per cent didnt know.

But among female voters, Browns approval rating has dropped to 15 per cent from 22 per cent a month ago and to 27 per cent from 28 per cent among males.

Wynnes personal approval ratings remain the lowest of the three major party leaders. She has a rock-bottom 16 per cent approval rating, 65 per cent disapproval, and 19 per cent werent sure.

The premier is at 16 per cent approval among women and 16 per cent among men. Last month, she had 16 per cent approval among female voters and 23 per cent among males. In total, she was at 19 per cent approval, 64 per cent disapproval, and 17 per cent didnt know.

Yufest said even with that dramatic drop among male voters, Wynnes flat-lining 65 per cent disapproval rating suggests Tory attack ads accusing her of leading a politically corrupt Liberal party  had relatively little overall impact.

Horwath was at 31 per cent approval, 17 per cent disapproval, and 52 per cent werent sure. She boasts a 33 per cent approval among male voters and 28 per cent among females. That compares to 35 per cent for men and 35 per cent for women last month.

In October, she had a 35 per cent approval, 17 per cent disapproval, and 48 per cent had no opinion.

The Conservatives are concerned about the potentially corrosive effect of the unions assault against Brown.

On Thursday, Tory Deputy Leader Steve Clark and two other PC MPPs held a Queens Park press conference to complain about the cozy ties between the SEIU, which is paying for the WOW ads, and the Liberals.

We knew all along that taking down a politically corrupt party would get ugly, said Clark, noting the SEIU would benefit from the governments quietly announced new secret agency to deliver home-care services.

But WOWs Megan Lorius said the Tory leader cannot run from his votes on Parliament Hill.

As a career politician, he has a long-record of voting against women and families, said Lorius, adding Brown is against us.

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WASHINGTONHe was the Ten Commandments judge, a self-proclaimed defender of Christian righteousness. He founded a group called the Foundation for Moral Law, warned of the danger of Muslims, accused gay people of perversion.

Now he is accused of a sex crime.

Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for an open U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, was plunged into an explosive scandal on Thursday when the Washington Post reported that an Alabama woman alleges that Moore had sexual contact with her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney.

Read more: Woman says GOP candidate Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge, initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32

The Post also found three other women who said Moore pursued them when he was in his early 30s and they were teens. One was 16, one was 17 and one was 18. Those three women said he did not force them into sexual activities.

But Leigh Corfman, the woman who was 14, said he picked her up outside a courthouse, then, days later, kissed her.

On a second visit, the Post reported, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

The age of consent in Alabama was, and is, 16. Corfman, who said she voted for Donald Trump in 2016, did not report the incidents to police before the statute of limitations expired.

Corfmans accusations rocked a race in which Moore was a strong favourite to win. And it put Republicans in a bind: because the election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions is less than five weeks away, it would be too late to remove Moores name from the ballot even if he wanted to withdraw.

Republican members of Congress and Vice-President Mike Pence were united in calling for Moore to leave the race  if, they specified, the accusation were true. Some, such as Sen. John McCain, were more forceful, calling for Moore to withdraw immediately.

It was not clear whether Moore could be influenced by party pressure. He is known for his defiance, having been twice kicked out of his job as Alabamas chief justice for refusing to accept the rulings of other courts, and he was selected as nominee over the opposition of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Moore delivered a scathing attack on the Post along with vehement denial on Thursday, saying this garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation. In an especially audacious response, he sent out a fundraising email asking for donations to fight the allegations.

The scandal boosts the Democrats chances in a race about which some had already been cautiously optimistic because of Moores polarizing history of far-right behaviour and bigotry. Their candidate, lawyer Doug Jones, was tied with Moore in one recent poll and down less than 10 points in two others.

The stakes are high. A Democratic upset would give the Senate 49 Democrats to go with 51 Republicans.

But Alabama is one of the countrys most reliably Republican states, and Moore received strong support from local party activists across Alabama. Their response was another sign of the intense partisanship that has gripped much of the U.S. right over the last decade.

Five Republican county chairmen told the Star they believed the allegations were false. One of them, moreover, said he would vote for Moore even if there were proof Moore had abused a girl.

I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldnt want to vote for Doug, said Bibb County chairman Jerry Pow. Im not saying I support what he did.

Covington County chairman William Blocker also said hed consider voting for Moore even if hard evidence of sexual abuse emerged.

There is no option to support Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee. When you do that, you are supporting the entire Democrat party, he said.

Geneva County chairman Riley Seibenhener said he did not think Moore should withdraw even if the allegations were true.

Other than being with an underage person  he didnt really force himself, Seibenhener said. I know thats bad enough, but I dont know. If he withdraws, its five weeks to the election . . . that would concede it to the Democrat.

It was 40 years ago, said Marion County chairman David Hall. I really dont see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. He added, incorrectly, Shes not saying that anything happened other than they kissed.

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WASHINGTONThey ditched school and marched to Capitol Hill en masse, then filled four floors of balconies in the vast atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. Silent at first, fists raised in the air, they soon erupted into bellowing chants that echoed through the massive marble-clad room.

Dream Act. Dream Act.

Si se puede. Si se puede.

The demonstration Thursday involving high school and college students from the Washington, D.C., region and beyond was the latest attempt by undocumented immigrants and their advocates to keep Congress focused on their plight.

In September, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would kill the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which grants work permits and deportation protection to nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants brought here as children.

If Congress cant pass legislation to replace the program, work permits will begin expiring in March.

Read more:

DACA uncertainty shakes immigrant chef just shy of his dream

They know where we live: Young DREAMers react with fear and sadness after Trump ends protection

Competing bills have been proposed to offer DACA recipients a path to citizenship, and a group of Republican lawmakers held a news conference Thursday to urge action on that legislation this year. But the Republican leadership  currently consumed with plans to cut taxes  has said no vote is likely before January.

Its been two months since DACA has been rescinded, and we have no solution yet, said Bruna Bouhid, communications manager for United We Dream, the organization that helped plan Thursdays protest. Immigrant youth are honestly fed up, and they are tired of waiting.

Students wore orange shirts that said Clean Dream Act, a reference to legislation that would offer a path to citizenship without adding tough new anti-immigration measures. They came from local high schools and colleges.

Groups also travelled from states as far as Washington and Arkansas. Kristina Saccone, a spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools, said the protest was not a sanctioned school event and students who participated received unexcused early dismissals.

A U.S. Capitol Police officer used a megaphone to warn the crowd that it is illegal to demonstrate in the building.

Stop chanting if you do not intend to be arrested, the officer said.

Most people became quiet and raised their fists in the air, but a handful of protesters continued their refrain.

Eva Malecki, a spokesperson for U.S. Capitol Police, said 15 people were arrested, all of them were adults.

Martin Martinez, a 24 year-old DACA recipient from Spokane, Wash., said he came to Capitol Hill to fight for his future. He immigrated from Mexico with his family when he was 8, and now attends college and works as a field organizer for United We Dream.

I consider this country my country, Martinez said. DACA gave me the opportunity to feel safe and provide for myself and my family. That power that I have been given to help myself and my community is at stake.

Rep. Keith Ellison stood with some of his staff in the corner of the Hart Senate Building watching the protest unfold early Thursday afternoon. He said it was a powerful display, and that he wants to vote for a clean Dream Act as soon as possible.

We need to just get Ryan to put something on the floor so we can vote on it, Ellison said, a reference to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

On Wednesday, Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trumps nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security was asked about DACA recipients during her confirmation hearing.

Nielsen said participants in the program would not be an enforcement priority for Immigration and Customs Enforcement if Congress fails to act, an assurance that drew criticism from anti-immigration groups on social media.

She also told Sen. Kamala Harris, one of the administrations fiercest critics, that the government would not use personal information it has compiled through the program to track down individuals whose DACA permits expire and deport them.

No matter. The young protesters who came to the Senate a day later said they would not stop demonstrating until Congress passed firm legislation.

As they exited the Hart building Thursday, again with their fists raised, they chanted once again.

Undocumented, they yelled. Unafraid.

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SANAA, YEMENThe United Nations and more than 20 aid groups said Thursday that the Saudi-led coalitions tightening of a blockade on war-torn Yemen could bring millions of people closer to starvation and death.

The announcement comes a day after the UNs humanitarian chief warned that unless the coalition lifts its blockade, the nation will face the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims.

About two-thirds of Yemens population relies on imported supplies, said the aid groups, which include CARE, Save the Children and Islamic Relief. Over 20 million people need humanitarian assistance, including seven million facing famine-like conditions, they said. Food supplies are expected to run out within six weeks while vaccines will last only a month.

They urged an immediate opening of all air and seaports.

If I have to compare Yemen to a person, I would say that this person is very sick, this person is very weakened, and is being drip-fed, so if you want to keep the patient alive, we need to reactivate drip-feeding as soon as possible, International Committee of the Red Cross regional director for the Near and Middle East Robert Mardini told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The blockade has already led to a fuel crisis in the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, where hundreds of cars lined the roads Wednesday after the Houthis ordered the closure of fuel stations. The rebels said they closed the stations after merchants refused to fix prices. The price of fuel has risen by 50 per cent since the coalition tightened the blockade.

Mark Lowcock told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors Wednesday that there must be an immediate resumption of regular air flights to the cities of Aden and Sanaa by the UN and its humanitarian partners.

What we need to see is a reduction of blockages on all sides, not an increase on them, he said.

The coalition closed all ports and halted humanitarian shipments after Yemens Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile over the weekend that was intercepted near Riyadh. Saudi Arabia blamed the strike on Iran, which supports the Houthis but has denied arming them.

The U.S. has also accused Iran of supplying advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles, to the Houthis.

On Thursday, the Houthis rejected the U.S. allegations, saying they built the missile themselves and fired it in response to coalition bombings that have killed civilians and the ongoing blockade.

Washington aids the forces of aggression, politically and militarily, and has pushed them into dangerous pitfalls, Houthi spokesperson Muhammad Abdul Salam said on the groups Al-Masirah TV channel.

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A year ago, Western democracies were reeling from the biggest political shock in decades. American voters had just made a reality-TV star the most powerful person in the world. A presidential candidate who had campaigned on a divisive platform cheered on by white nationalists was now going to lead the worlds most venerable democracy. An anti-establishment neophyte would soon be in charge of the American nuclear arsenal. Leading European statesmen struggled to contain their bemusement.

Among those celebrating, though, were members of Europes far right. U.S. President Donald Trumps unlikely triumph was, for them, a dramatic repudiation of a liberal status quo they had long reviled. Trumps right-wing populism was a validation of their own anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ultranationalist agendas. As various far-right parties geared up for a series of national elections in 2017, they hailed Trump as a harbinger of things to come.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Their world is crumbling, Florian Philippot, then the vice president of Frances far-right National Front, tweeted a day after Trumps election win. Ours is being built.

Read more: U.S. has abandoned international leadership for half-baked nationalism: John McCain

Geert Wilders and the mainstreaming of white nationalism

One year later, however, the establishment in Western Europe hasnt quite crumbled. Far-right parties in the Netherlands, France and Germany won unprecedented vote shares in their countries elections, but are no closer to taking power  and are possibly bumping their heads on the ceiling of their political potential. Moreover, the past year has also seen many of the same European politicians who exulted in Trumps victory now trying to distance themselves from an American president who has become staggeringly unpopular on both sides of the pond.

While Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders heaped praise on Trump in the aftermath of his win, he grew more quiet around the time of his own countrys national elections in March. There were early fears that his anti-Islam, anti-EU Freedom Party might emerge a winner, but Wilders finished behind a center-right ruling party that cast itself as a bulwark against Trumpism.

Voters have now become negative about the measures taken by President Trump, a Dutch pollster told Bloomberg News in mid-March.

In France, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who cast himself as an outsider, trounced the National Fronts Marine Le Pen in the presidential election. The French far-right party performed better than it ever had, but still remains firmly in the minority. Just as they had during Frances 2002 presidential election, when Le Pens father made the final round, the countrys constellation of conservative, establishment and left-wing parties declared a Le Pen victory a threat to their republic, and endorsed Macron. What momentum Trumps success may have given Le Pen has long since dissipated.

Nor is Trump much of a hero for the French far right. In a recent interview with HuffPost, Cecile Alduy, a French politics expert at Stanford University, suggested that Trumps targeting of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad with a missile strike, as well as his chummy summer visit with Macron, would have won him little sympathy from the National Fronts base.

Since hes been president, Trump has disappointed on some issues  including strikes in Syria. Marine Le Pens party is a non-interventionist party, they were supportive of Assad and their policy is that nations should keep to themselves, said Alduy. She added that theres also this sense that Trump, for all his bravado, could be seduced and calmed down by a young 39-year-old president. That undermines his image for National Front supporters. Meanwhile, factional infighting has taken its toll on the party. Philippot, who gloated about the crumbling liberal order, was sidelined and compelled to quit the National Front in September. Speculation looms still over Le Pens fitness to lead after two failed presidential campaigns.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wanted to "win back" those who voted for the nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which entered parliament for the 1st time after a campaign that centred on harsh criticism of Merkel. (The Associated Press)

In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, delivered a shock to the nations politics by entering the German Bundestag as the countrys third-biggest faction after elections in September. Critics of the far-right, xenophobic AfD link it to the countrys dark Nazi past. But even its senior figures see Trumps behaviour as occasionally being beyond the pale.

Trumps equivocating response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was completely unnecessary, said Alice Weidel, a leading AfD politician, when asked about it in August by German reporters. She also suggested that Trump should focus more on policies and less on tweeting and Twitter, adding that if I had a wish list, then I would wish that Donald Trump would focus . . . more on cleaning up his own house, and being a little more devoted to his governing responsibilities.

But while Trumps appeal may have dimmed thanks to his chaotic first months in office, the influence of Europes far right has not. Anti-establishment populism  on both the left and the right  is reshaping politics across the continent. Meanwhile, center-right establishment parties are veering further to the right, adopting more of the hard-line nativism of the xenophobes on their flank. In Austria, for example, the far-right Freedom Party has formally entered coalition talks to form the next government.

Cas Mudde, an expert on European populism at the University of Georgia, warns that such accommodation may only lead to their demise, gesturing to the existential war consuming the Republican Party in the United States.

By pushing politics more and more to the right, [center-right parties] will have only one choice left: stay somewhat true to their [own] ideological core, and face the rage of the radicalized electorate, or give them what they want and become a radical right party, Mudde wrote in the Guardian. We can see how that looks currently in the U.S. It is imperative that European mainstream right wing parties do not make the same mistake.

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Forty years ago this month, Ms. magazine put sexual harassment on its cover for the first time. Understanding the sensitivity of the topic, the editors used puppets for the cover image  a male hand reaching into a womans blouse  rather than a photograph. It was banned from some supermarkets nonetheless.

In 1977, the term sexual harassment had not been defined in the law and had barely entered the public lexicon. And yet, to read that Ms. article today, amid a profound shift in discourse, is to feel haunted by its familiarity.

It describes an executive assistant who quit after her boss asked for oral sex; a student who dropped out after being assaulted by her adviser; an African-American medical administrator whose white supervisor asked if the women in her neighbourhood were prostitutes  and, subsequently, if she would have group sex with him and several colleagues.

Citing a survey in which 88 per cent of women said they were harassed at work, the author said the problem permeated almost every profession, but was particularly pernicious in the supposedly glamorous profession of acting, in which Hollywoods casting couch remained a strong convention.

What we have so far seen, the article stated, is only the tip of a very large and very destructive iceberg.

Four decades later, as allegations against Harvey Weinstein and others continue to metastasize, it feels as if we have crashed into the iceberg. Disaster metaphors  tsunami, hurricane, avalanche, landslide  seem to be in endless rotation to describe the moment, but the point is that a great many powerful men have seen their careers disintegrate, and with astonishing speed.

The allegations against Harvey Weinstein spanned three decades. His downfall came in three days. AP film writer Jake Coyle says Hollywood now faces fresh questions about gender equality. (The Associated Press)

A great many women  and some men, too  have also spoken out more openly and more forcefully than ever before about what happens behind closed doors or even in the open spaces of studios, newsrooms and other workplaces. Companies have rushed to reassert zero-tolerance policies and whipped together training programs.

We have seen this movie before. Sexual harassment complaints to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increased 73 per cent in the year after Anita Hills televised testimony about Clarence Thomas behaviour in 1991. Still, Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, while Hill went quietly back to being a law professor in Oklahoma. In the ensuing years, the issue cycled between headlines and whispers in a seemingly endless loop.

But this sequel seems to have a surprise ending, or at least a plot twist: The public outrage is deeper and more sustained, and the dominoes continue to fall.

Maybe its that the accusers this time were famous, media-savvy and mostly white actors with more star power than the accused (unlike, say, Paula Jones vs. Bill Clinton). Maybe its reflective of a specific period in U.S. history, in which working women of a new generation  those who had grown up with working mothers  decided that enough was enough.

Certainly the endlessly expanding power of social media plays a role: The #metoo hashtag has been used in millions of posts over the past few weeks; been translated into Italian (#QuellaVoltaChe, or that time when) and French (#BalanceTonPorc, or out your pig); and inspired a congressional spinoff.

Several experts likened it to a dam breaking, the cumulative effect of harassment claims over decades and especially the last few years. Some see it as the other shoe dropping after Donald Trumps taped boasting about offensive behaviour did not block his path to the presidency: He may have gotten away with it, but women were no longer going to let that boss, that mentor, that colleague get away with it, too.

There is no doubt that having an accused sexual predator in the White House is hanging over this, said Jaclyn Friedman, author of Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All, scheduled for publication this month. People feel like they cant do anything about that right now, but at least they can do something about this.

If you are a woman, or know somebody who is, its safe to assume you have talked about Weinstein at the dinner table, on the subway, in bed, at work, and any other place where people gather. Perhaps youve asked your partner, your mother, your boss or your friend for the first time, as I have, if she, too, is among this strange new tribe. (Who was your Weinstein? we all suddenly want to know.)

Ive heard from women who said theyve retroactively confronted their harassers and those who enabled them, and from men who are re-examining, perhaps somewhat nervously, their own behaviour. The new conversation goes way beyond the workplace to sweep in street harassment, rape culture and toxic masculinity  terminology that would have been confined to gender studies classes, not found in mainstream newspapers, not so long ago.

In the womens movement of the 1970s we had this phrase the click moment, Barbara Berg, a historian and author of the 2009 book Sexism in America: Alive, Well and Ruining Our Future, said. This is the click moment. Its like, Enough. And then theres a snowball effect: Once you see women speaking truth to power and not being told, This is just what you have to put up with, then it encourages other women to stand up.

With Weinstein, the accusers were on the record, poised, and more of them seem to emerge each day, so no individual had to bear the burden alone, as Hill had. When you have Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow in the same sentence, well, people take note, sociologist Michael Kimmel said.

But behind these famous faces was an army of ordinary voices, too, using social media to collectively tell their stories  but also for action. In the case of Bill OReilly, remember, it was a co-ordinated effort, by groups that included the organizers of the Womens March, that urged advertisers to #DropOReilly. They, and Fox News, ultimately did.

Another significant new element is the presence of what many have called silent co-conspirators: dozens of people, over dozens of years, who knew what was going on but did nothing.

There is this web of enablers, Kimmel, who runs the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook University, said. Bob Weinstein doesnt say to Harvey, You better stop or Ill kick you out of the company. Billy Bush does not say to Donald Trump, Thats disgusting, not to mention illegal. In the sexual assault world we often talk about how we incorrectly interpret womens silence as consent. Well we also mistake mens silence for assent.

If this is a moment of historical social change, it is worth looking at what led us here.

It was two years after that Ms. magazine cover, in 1979, that Catharine A. MacKinnon published a groundbreaking legal argument: that sexual harassment was a form of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was based on a legal theory she had developed while in law school.

That legal argument was tested with Mechelle Vinson, one of a number of African-American women who were involved in early sexual harassment lawsuits  this one a bank teller who said she was repeatedly raped by her married boss. In 1986, her case, with MacKinnons help, was part of a Supreme Court ruling that enshrined the harassment-as-discrimination theory into law.

Then came Hill, whose televised testimony about Thomas, her former boss  at the EEOC, of all places  was, Berg said, in effect home-schooling a generation of Americans in what sexual harassment was. Almost immediately, the phone hotline for 9to5, a support group for working women, began ringing off the hook.

People were almost bewildered, the groups director told The New York Times in 1992. You mean this is sexual harassment? You mean I could do something about this?

Berg said she remembers a former colleague calling to ask, of their former boss, Did he proposition you, too? (He had.) Kimmel said his mother told him over dinner that she was harassed in graduate school.

It was literally water-cooler conversation everywhere, said Freada Kapor Klein, who conducted one of the first surveys on sexual harassment in the 1970s.

But most of those stories were shared in private  in part because of what the world watched Hill endure. Before an all-male Senate judiciary panel, she was accused of bringing sleaze into the nomination process, portrayed as suffering from delusional fantasies, and famously called, by pundit David Brock, a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.

I remember the anger of that moment, Teresa Younger, then a 22-year-old nanny and now president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, said. Anita Hill was the example of a strong, accomplished black woman, and if she of all people could be discredited then it seemed women, particularly women of colour, had no voice when it came to sexual harassment.

Its worth noting that the campaign slogan back then, on buttons and bumper stickers rather than Facebook and Twitter, was not Me Too but I Believe Anita  a message of solidarity, not self-exposure.

After Hill came Jones, whose lawsuit against Clinton was dismissed. Others won in court but struggled in the aftermath: Paula Coughlin, a Navy lieutenant who was sexually assaulted by drunken officers, was sidelined and ultimately quit her job. Rena Weeks, a law secretary who was harassed by a partner, never worked again.

I think for a long time it shut women up, at least publicly, Kimmel said.

In her 2017 book, Butterfly Politics, MacKinnon adapts a concept from chaos theory in which the tiny motion of a butterflys wings can trigger a tornado half a world away. Under the right conditions, she posits, small actions can produce major social transformations.

Ashley Judd is the butterfly of this moment, MacKinnon said of the actor who began the recent groundswell of accusations against Weinstein. She is the one who broke it open, who has made this possible for so many other women. And so you have an explosion of it because its for so long been suppressed.

Kimmel, the sociologist, said, There comes a tipping point when the frame changes.

One day, segregated water fountains seemed normal if you were a white Southerner, he noted. Its just how things were. Then theyre illegal, and a few years later you say, Wow, how did we ever see that as OK?

Friedman, though, said she is waiting for an important moment: When are we going to start believing people the first time?

When is it going to be that one instance is enough, and that you dont have to find out 30 years later? she asked. I also worry that there is the possibility for this to be treated like a cancer, and now Harvey is gone so the cancer is excised. But Harvey is not the only cancer.

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Brexit is reversible and Britons should be given the right to change their minds, the man who helped write the rule book on leaving the European Union said.

Prime Minister Theresa Mays letter in March, which triggered Britains departure under Article 50 of the blocs Lisbon Treaty, can be unilaterally withdrawn, John Kerr said in a speech in London Friday. Kerr played a key role in drafting the exit clause as secretary-general of the European Constitutional Convention in 2002-2003.

We are not required to withdraw just because May sent her letter, Kerr told an event hosted by Open Britain, a pro-EU pressure group. We can change our minds at any stage during the process.

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Brexit negotiations resumed in Brussels on Thursday and the resignation of two members of Mays Cabinet in the space of a week has sparked concerns among European diplomats. While there are signs both sides want to reach an agreement by year-end, the Europeans are taking a cautious approach.

While Britain must negotiate an exit by March 2019, the Article 50 letter only states an intention to withdraw, Kerr said. European legal experts and figures including EU President Donald Tusk and European Parliament President Antonio Tajani have all indicated the U.K. can change its mind, and would be welcomed back.

We still have all the rights of a member state, including the right to change our minds, Kerr said. I am concerned that some aspects of the article seem to me rather inadequately reflected, or indeed misinterpreted, in our current public debate.

Kerr also said that most EU leaders think Brexit would be a disaster, worst for us, but bad for all.

If we were to change our minds, Putin and Trump would be disappointed, but our near neighbours, and our true friends across the Atlantic and in the Commonwealth, would cheer, he said. I think the country should know that.

The European Commission said that it was the U.K.s decision to trigger Article 50 and that once triggered, it cannot be unilaterally reversed. Article 50 does not provide for the unilateral withdrawal of the notification.

In private, EU officials say it is legally possible to revoke the clause. But theres disagreement over whether this would need unanimous agreement of the blocs leaders. In any case, its unlikely the EU would oppose any U.K. decision to reverse its decision.

The U.K. formally announced its decision to leave the European Union following a historic referendum last June. Find out the next steps in this short animated video.

Kerr also said the EU would grant Britain an extension, should Parliament need more time to consider a final deal, or decide to call another election or another referendum. Seeking extra time to work out a deadlocked financial negotiation may not receive such unanimous consent, he added.

I am uneasy that the country isnt being told much about the possibility of taking more time, Kerr said. I dont know why both government and opposition now seem to discount the possibility of our seeking an extension. Much would depend on our perceived motive.

The U.K. government has repeatedly said that it has no intention of changing course, and that it will leave the bloc in March 2019 to respect the result of the 2016 referendum.

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DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATESIran manufactured the ballistic missile fired by Yemens Shiite rebels toward the Saudi capital and remnants of it bore Iranian markings, the top U.S. Air Force official in the Mideast said Friday, backing the kingdoms earlier allegations.

The comments by Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, who oversees the Air Forces Central Command in Qatar, further internationalizes the years-long conflict in Yemen  the Arab worlds poorest country.

Saudi Arabia long has accused Iran of giving weapons to the Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, though Tehran has just as long denied supplying them. Riyadh quickly backed up Harrigians allegations in a statement to The Associated Press.

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There have been Iranian markings on those missiles, Harrigian told journalists at a news conference in Dubai ahead of the Dubai Air Show. To me, that connects the dots to Iran.

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

Saudi Arabia says it shot down the missile Nov. 4 near Riyadhs international airport, the deepest yet to reach into the kingdom. Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry later said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them. It did not elaborate, though it also mentioned it found similar evidence after a July 22 missile launch. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly this week described the missile as obviously Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement Tuesday that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant. Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in Syria over twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile U.S. officials believed it was, nor did he show any images of the debris. He also didnt explain how Iran evaded the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition, which intensified after the missile targeting Riyadh.

How they got it there is probably something that will continue to be investigated over time, the lieutenant general said. What has been demonstrated and shown based on the findings of that missile is that it had Iranian markings on it. That in itself provides evidence of where it came from.

The Houthis have described using Burkan-2 or Volcano Scud variants in their recent attacks, including the one Nov. 4. Those missiles are reminiscent of the Qiam, wrote Jeremy Binnie of Janes Defence Weekly in a February analysis.

The Burkan-2 is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran is helping Yemens rebel forces to develop their ballistic missile capabilities, Binnie wrote.

Adding to that suspicion is the fact that Yemens missile forces previously never had experience in disassembling and rebuilding the weapons, said Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy who previously worked in Yemen.

It is not a stretch to believe that Tehran is supporting the Houthi missile program with technical advice and specialized components, Knights wrote in an analysis Thursday. After all, the Houthis have rapidly fielded three major new missile systems in less than two years while under wartime conditions and international blockade.

Saudi Arabias Ministry of Culture and Information later contacted the AP and sent military briefing papers alleging Iran smuggled weapons into Yemen by boat and truck.

The parts are later assembled under supervision of Iranian military experts, who also help the Houthi militia plan attacks targeting Saudi civilians, the ministry said in a statement to the AP. Smuggled Iranian Qiam or Zelzal warheads are mounted onto Yemeni-made Burkan ballistic missiles.

The U.S. already is involved in the war in Yemen and has launched drone strikes targeting the local branch of Al Qaeda, though it stopped offering targeting information under the Obama administration over concerns about civilian casualties. That prohibition continues today, though the Air Force continues to refuel warplanes in the Yemen theatre and offers support in managing airspace over the country, Harrigian said. The Saudi-led coalition also uses American-made bombs and ordinance in its attacks.

The U.S. has come under attack once amid the Yemen war. In October 2016, the U.S. Navy said the USS Mason came under fire from two missiles launched out of Yemen. Neither reached the warship, though the U.S. retaliated with a Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemens Red Sea coast.

At the time, authorities said the missiles used in that attack were Silkworm missile variants, a type of coastal defence cruise missile that Iran has been known to use.

When the Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014, their allied fighters also took control of the countrys ballistic missile stockpile. The Yemeni military was widely believed to possess around 300 Scud missiles at the time, though exact figures remain unknown.

The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015 on the side of Yemens internationally recognized government. It then attacked Sanaas ballistic missile base in April 2015, touching off massive explosions that killed several dozen people. Saudi Arabia implied at the time that the Scud arsenal in Yemen had been seriously degraded, if not entirely destroyed, as a result of the airstrikes.

But by June 2015, the rebels fired their first ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia near the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. In the time since, Yemens rebels have fired over 70 ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies missile defence project.

For its part, Iran long has denied offering any arms to Yemen, though it has backed the Houthis and highlighted the high civilian casualties from the Saudi-led coalitions campaign of airstrikes.

But others in Iran have been coy about the ballistic missiles in Yemen. Mehdi Taeb, an influential hard-line cleric who is a brother to the intelligence chief of the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, said in April that Iran tried three times to send missiles to Yemen. The Guard, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversees Irans missile program.

The cleric said ultimately the administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered the transfers stopped over negotiations on the nuclear deal with world powers, without offering a specific time for the attempted shipments.

They said come back because the Americans said, If you send missiles to Yemen, we will end the negotiations,  Taeb said.

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DANANG, VIETNAMTrade ministers from 11 Pacific Rim countries said they reached an agreement Saturday to proceed with the free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership deal that was in doubt after President Donald Trump abandoned it. However, an immediate formal endorsement by the countries leaders meeting in Vietnam appeared unlikely.

A statement issued in the early hours Saturday said an accord was reached on core elements of the 11-member pact. The compromise was delayed by last-minute disagreements that prevented the TPP leaders from meeting to endorse a plan on Friday.

Ministers are pleased to announce that they have agreed on the core elements of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 11 nations said in a statement.

Japans delegate to the talks, Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, told reporters that disagreements that cropped up Friday had been resolved in five hours of talks that stretched late into the night.

We have confirmed there was no mistake about us having reached a basic agreement, Motegi said.

Asked by reporters if the deal had the support of Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not show up for the meeting planned for Friday, Motegi said yes.

Canada did agree, and that means the top also agreed, he said. Japanese media reported that the Japanese and Vietnamese co-chairs of the ministerial meetings would hold a news conference Saturday on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which wraps up later Saturday.

Despite enthusiasm for sticking with the plan following the U.S. withdrawal under Trump in January, criticism over various issues persists. Detractors of the TPP say it favours corporate interests over labour and other rights. Trudeau said days before arriving in Danang that he would not be rushed into signing an agreement that did not suit Canadas interests.

Aspects of the trade pact have raised hackles also over a requirement that companies be allowed to sue governments for lack of enforcement of related laws.

The proposed basic agreement reached in Danang said that the ministers maintained the high standards, overall balance and integrity of the TPP while ensuring the commercial and other interests of all participants and preserving our inherent right to regulate, including the flexibility of the parties to set legislative and regulatory priorities.

The TPP member countries are trying to find a way forward without the U.S., the biggest economy and, before Trump took office, one of its most assertive supporters. Trump has said he prefers country-to-country deals and is seeking to renegotiate several major trade agreements to, as he says, put America first.

Trump reiterated his markedly different stance on trade before the 21-member APEC summit convened late Friday with a gala banquet.

The U.S. president told an APEC business conference that we are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. He lambasted the World Trade Organization and other trade forums as unfair to the United States and reiterated his preference for bilateral trade deals, saying I am always going to put America first.

Trump said he would not enter into large trade agreements, alluding to U.S. involvement in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the TPP.

In contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the same group that nations need to stay committed to economic openness or risk being left behind.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will not be pressed into signing an updated version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement if it doesnt align with Canadas best interests. (The Canadian Press)

The Chinese president drew loud applause when he urged support for the multilateral trading regime and progress toward a free-trade zone in the Asia-Pacific. China is not part of the TPP.

APEC operates by consensus and customarily issues nonbinding statements. TPP commitments would eventually be ratified and enforced by its members.

But even talks this week on a declaration to cap the APEC summit had to be extended for an extra half day as ministers haggled over wording. Its unclear what the exact sticking points were, but officials have alluded to differences over the unequal impact more open trade has had on workers and concerns over automation in manufacturing that could leave many millions in a wide array of industries with no work to do.

As a developing country with a fast-growing export sector, this years host country, Vietnam, has a strong interest in open trade and access for its exports to consumers in the West. The summit is an occasion for its leaders to showcase the progress its economy has made thanks largely to foreign investment and trade. Danang, Vietnams third largest city, is in the midst of a construction boom as dozens of resorts and smaller hotels pop up along its scenic coastline.

APECs members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.

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DANANG, VIETNAMU.S. President Donald Trump stood before a summit of Asian leaders keen on regional trade pacts and delivered a roaring America first message Friday, denouncing China for unfair trade practices just a day after he had heaped praise on President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore, Trump told CEOs on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.

The president  who pulled the United States out of the Pacific Rim trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership  said the U.S. would no longer join large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.

Instead, he said, the U.S. will pursue one-on-one trade deals with other nations that pledge fair and reciprocal trade.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

As for China, Trump said hed spoken openly and directly with Xi about the nations abusive trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produces with the United States.

It was a stark change in tone from the day before, when Trump was Xis guest of honour during a state visit in Beijing. There, Trump opted for flattering Xi and blaming past U.S. presidents for the trade deficit.

Trump said Chinas trade surplus, which stood at $223 billion for the first 10 months of the year, was unacceptable. He repeated his language from Thursday, when he said he did not blame China or any other country for taking advantage of the United States on trade.

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But Trump added forceful complaints about the audacious theft of intellectual property, massive subsidizing of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises, and American companies being targeted by state-affiliated actors for economic gain.

U.S. officials have raised similar concerns in the past about China, especially with regard to intellectual property.

Behind the scenes, White House officials quietly negotiated with the Kremlin over whether Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would hold a formal meeting on the sidelines in Danang, with the Russians raising expectations for such a session.

As speculation built, the two sides tried to craft the framework of a deal that Trump and Putin could announce in a formal bilateral meeting, according to two administration officials not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

Though North Korea and the Ukraine had been discussed, the two sides focused on trying to strike an agreement about a path to resolve Syrias civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated, according to officials. But the talks stalled and, just minutes before Air Force One touched down in Vietnam, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the meeting was off.

When asked about the outcome, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later snapped at reporters: Why are you asking me? Ask the Americans.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that even without a formal meeting, Both presidents are in town, and their paths will cross one way or another.

That they did Friday night during the summits welcome gala: The two men, each wearing traditional Vietnamese shifts, shook hands and greeted one another as they stood side-by-side for the group photo of world leaders.

In a major breakthrough, trade ministers from 11 nations remaining in the Trans-Pacific Partnership  representing roughly 13.5 per cent of the global economy  said Saturday they had reached a deal to proceed with the free-trade pact after it was thrown into doubt when Trump abandoned it.

Separately, a 16-member region-wide pact called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership was also under negotiation. It encompasses China and India but also does not include the U.S.

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Senate Republicans unveiled their big tax proposal Thursday, with Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch hailing it as a way to give hard working taxpayers across the country growing paychecks and create a vibrant economy.

Tax cuts are the centrepiece of U.S. President Donald Trumps economic plan that Republican lawmakers are aiming to get to him by Christmas. The Senate had the benefit of going after the House, so senators saw what generated the most outcry in the first go around.

Read more: Republicans unveil tax plan, slashing corporate rate and lowering taxes for most Americans

Heres a rundown of the winners and losers. Its likely that most Americans would pay less in taxes under the plan, but it depends on a persons specific circumstances. Under the House bill, 31 per cent of middle-class households would pay higher taxes by 2027, the Tax Policy Center found. Studies of the Senate plan will come out soon.

Winners

Big corporations. Americas mega companies get a big tax cut: From 35 per cent down to 20 per cent. Yes, the lower rate doesnt kick in until 2019, a one-year delay from what Trump promised, but its still coming. These businesses also get to deduct any new equipment purchases right away, another tax savings. And the whole business tax system shifts from worldwide (where income anywhere in the world gets taxed) to a territorial system (where income only in the U.S. is taxed), something corporations have wanted to see change for a long time.

Many small businesses. The vast majority of Americas businesses (about 95 per cent) are organized as pass through entities like partnerships, sole proprietorships and S-Corporations. Under the Senate plan, most pass throughs would be able to deduct 17.4 per cent of their income tax free. The rest of the business income would be taxed at the business owners individual income tax rate. Service businesses (i.e. law, finance or medicine) that earn more than $75,000 ($150,000 per married couple) would not be able to take the deduction. The National Federation of Independent Business said it was encouraged by the Senate plan that includes real tax relief for small businesses.

The wealthy. The rich get a tax cut from 39.6 per cent to 38.5 per cent. They also get some expanded tax breaks in the Senate GOP plan. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) goes away and they can deduct more of their charitable giving. Families making up to $1 million can also claim the child tax credit, well above the current $110,000 threshold where the credit starts to phase out now. The Senate plan would, however, keep part of the estate tax, but well get to that later.

People with homes worth $500,000 to $1 million. Under the Senate plan, Americans can deduct the interest paid on the first $1 million of mortgage debt. The House bill capped the deduct for new mortgage debt worth up to $500,000. The current threshold is $1 million, and the Senate keeps that in place, a boost to home builders, real estate agents and wealthy homeowners. Only 6 per cent of U.S. mortgages are worth more than half a million.

Americans with hefty medical bills. The Senate keeps the popular medical deduction in place, which allows Americans with really high medical expenses to reduce their income taxes to help defray the costs of treatment. The deduction is currently taken by 8.8 million Americans, including many seniors suffering from diseases such as Alzheimers.

Families that adopt children. The Senate keeps the one-time credit worth up to $13,570 for every child that families adopt. The House had originally proposed getting rid of the credit, but public pressure restored the credit on both the House and Senate plans. The credit helps families offset the sizable legal fees and adoption agency payments.

Graduate students. Many PhD students were concerned about the House bills provision to count tuition waivers from their universities as taxable income, a move that would raise many graduate students tax bill by thousands of dollars. But the Senate plan keeps the tax breaks in place for graduate students.

Losers

People living in high-tax states such as New York and California. All state and local tax deductions (SALT) are gone in the Senate plan. Taxpayers would lose the ability to deduct their state and local property and other taxes from their federal taxes, a break used by about 44 million people (or 30 per cent of tax filers.) A number of Republican House members insisted on only a partial repeal in the House bill, but the Senate has gone for a full repeal in an effort to raise more money to pay for tax cuts elsewhere.

Law, architecture, consulting, finance or medicine small businesses. The Senate plan does not allow service businesses that earn more than $75,000 a year ($150,000 per married couple) to benefit from the small business tax break. Other small businesses like pizza shops can deduct 17.4 per cent of their income, but service businesses cannot. Business owners also lose the ability to deduct many of their daily expenses for supplies, home office costs, legal fees, etc.

1,800 super healthy heirs and heiress. The Senate has opted to keep in place the estate taxes (sometimes called the death tax by critics). At the moment, the tax only impacts about 5,000 wealthy families a year and its only assessed on assets worth over $5.49 million ($11 million per couple). Under the Senate plan, the threshold doubles so people wont pay tax on the first $11 million they inherit (or $22 million for couples). The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that only 1,800 families would end up paying the estate tax after the change.

The poor. More than 70 million Americans dont make enough money to have to pay federal income taxes. Many of those people currently receive money back from the government because they qualify for refundable credits. Under the Senate plan, those credits arent going away, but they also arent growing. On top of that, the plan raises Americas debt, which will likely require cost cuts somewhere down the line. Republicans have proposed sizable cuts in the past to some safety net programs used by the poor.

People who bike to work. The Senate plan does away with the $20 per month deduction people can take who bike to work.

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How awkward. Youve directed a wacky movie about J. Paul Getty called All the Money in the World, its set to drop on Dec. 22 with all the attendant ho! ho! ho! but theres one problem. It stars Kevin Spacey.

As we now know, plenty of Hollywood movies are made by and feature sex creeps and rapists, but audiences generally arent aware of that at the time. Poor Ridley Scott must be kicking himself for not having signed Christopher Plummer, 87, to the role as he is said to have originally planned, instead choosing Spacey, 58, for his greater star power.

Now Scotts getting a do-over from the studio. Hes going to hastily remake the film starring Plummer, which means, I take it, that Plummer will plant himself in front of a green screen for 12 hours a day and pretend to be Spacey playing Getty. I mean, hes played worse.

Its the concept of the do-over that calls out to me, the erasing of the first catastrophe, if that were possible, which it is not. If only Adolf Hitler had been admitted to art school in 1908. If only President Barack Obama had not publicly mocked Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011. In a case of the Butterfly Effect  where small events have huge consequences  the butterflys wings cannot be re-flapped. Still, one can dream.

I imagine Americans, including many Republicans, would like a 2016 election do-over. It would answer an urgent question: are they really like this? Did they deserve Trump?

Brits would like another go at that Brexit referendum, this time demanding a crushing overwhelming Yes or No to the question Are we grubby Little Englanders or can we beat the Germans once more at ruling Europe? Yes, a loaded question, but a good one.

There are things everyone wants to do over. Your first marriage. Your university major (should have taken History along with EngLit). Newspapers not taking the classified ads digital themselves. That one year you cant remember because you were high. A wiser you would fill that lost year with such productivity, loads of learned lumber in your head. You will not be buying marijuana at the LCBO next year.

Canadian Oscar-winner Christopher Plummer is replacing Kevin Spacey in a new movie. The film is called "All the Money in the World" and is already complete. (The Canadian Press)

That time you ate heartily of a croquembouche (a pyramid of choux pastry balls strung with threads of caramel) that had been sitting out in the shop all day because the French dont understand the concept of refrigeration. You exited the other side of Christmas all bony and dehydrated.

The Treaty of Versailles. Residential schools to get the Indian out of Indigenous peoples. Wiping out the bison. The Alberta tar sands. Introducing rabbits to Australia. Failing to scrape zebra mussels off the hull as you entered the St. Lawrence Seaway from the Atlantic.

Destroying the cod stocks off Newfoundland so that I cannot eat bacalhau (like choux pastry but with fish) without worrying that I am eating David Attenboroughs last fish out of a stupid passion for nursery food.

I would reach over and put a seatbelt on Princess Diana. I wouldnt overreact to terrorism. Best do over the day U.S. President George W. Bush ignored a warning of an imminent attack on American soil. Do over that wrong turn taken by Archduke Franz Ferdinands chauffeur in Sarajevo that morning in 1914.

Brutalism is a crime. Id brick over every grimy stained cement hulk that passed for a fashionable building in 1969 and then served as an appropriate backdrop for public hangings in TVs The Handmaids Tale in 2017. Londons Victoria and Albert Museum is actually preserving a chunk of a horrible Tower Hamlets housing block on the assumption that all brutalist buildings will eventually be bulldozed, which isnt soon enough for me. If the Gardiner Expressway had been built in neo-Gothic red brick and coloured stone, railway-style, we wouldnt mind it quite so much.

The coffee pod: John Sylvan regrets inventing it. Its like a cigarette for coffee, he says, a single-serve delivery mechanism for an addictive substance.

I only included that to prepare you for the worst invention of the past century which is plastic. I pour laundry detergent from thick plastic jugs that will remain intact long after the human race expires. Like pods, they are single-use. What is wrong with us?

Plastic defined the last century by combining its worst characteristics  artificiality, disposability and synthesis  all rolled into one, writes Stephen Fenichell, plastics popular historian.

Most things, including us, chip, wear, abrade, erode, distress, and die, he mourns. Whether they burnish, tarnish, rust, mellow or patina, soften or fade, most things grow graceful with age.

Plastic does not. It just cracks, and lives forever. Plastic is intrinsically bad, a life-detractor, a bad technological bargain. And we cant do it over.

I would go on about do-overs but theyre beginning to overlap as in a Venn Diagram. Who first drilled for oil? In retrospect, would they have sealed the cut and quietly gone home?

I wont see All the Money in the World anyway. Plummers do-over wont eliminate the ghost of the monster. Spacey is like plastic. He will crack eventually but hell be around forever, and so will his type of man.

hmallick@thestar.ca

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So insistent was Canada in pushing for nuclear disarmament that we became known among top NATO generals as the nuclear nag.

Make no mistake  that was meant as an insult. But it gives me a shiver of pride to think that Canada was smeared because of our insistence on challenging NATOs top brass over its determination to keep the world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

There have been impressive moments in our history when Canada, under previous Liberal governments, asserted itself as a feisty middle power by supporting, even occasionally leading, the push to get nuclear disarmament onto the global agenda, which makes the retreat by our current Liberal government all the more disappointing.

Its certainly tragic that Canadas once-brave resolve on the nuclear front should wither at such a critical moment. Not only does the world find its fate in the hands of arguably the two most infantile men ever to control nuclear weapons, as North Koreas Kim Jong Un and his U.S. counterpart play a game of nuclear chicken, but the worlds nations have just come together as never before in an effort to dismantle the globes nuclear arsenal.

This unprecedented action, the first such breakthrough in the 70-year effort to avert a nuclear war, happened at the United Nations last month. After months of talks, two-thirds of the UNs 192 nations agreed to a 10-page treaty aimed at ultimately destroying all nuclear weapons and prohibiting the creation of new ones.

Canada was not among those nations, having boycotted the process, as demanded by Washington. (In a letter last fall, the U.S. insisted NATO countries boycott the talks, and almost all complied.)

Canada argued that, with no nuclear powers at the table, the talks were pointless.

So why do the majority of the worlds nations keep yammering on about something that, admittedly, does seem hard to imagine happening?

Perhaps its just a perverse desire to live. Theres also the precedent of how similar big-power resistance was overcome, enabling the signing of international treaties banning biological and chemical weapons, cluster bombs and landmines. Today, anyone harbouring or using such weapons is treated as a pariah.

Yet nuclear weapons, the most deadly and world-ending of armaments, are somehow regarded as legitimate (at least for our side to have). NATO documents describe them as essential. Imagine a NATO general saying that about chemical weapons!

Canada played a particularly impressive role in achieving a global ban on landmines. Despite initial opposition from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, then Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy took extraordinary measures, creating a parallel set of international negotiations that became known as the Ottawa process. Through sheer effort, ingenuity and close co-operation with popular movements, that led to the global ban in 1999.

Ottawa also acted boldly in challenging the NATO leadership over its staunch pro-nuclear stance, obliging it to carry out a review in 2000.

Canada showed resolve again in 2002 when it broke rank with Washington and NATO by voting in support of a UN disarmament resolution advanced by a group of middle powers. In 2003, Canada took this gutsy action again, this time prompting seven NATO countries to follow its lead, and again in 2005, with fourteen NATO nations coming on board.

It took bravery for Canada to do this, notes Douglas Roche, who served as Canadian ambassador for disarmament in the 1980s.

For that matter, a spirited refusal to accept the nuclear status quo was behind Pierre Trudeaus one-man peace mission to the worlds nuclear capitals in 1983.

Roche said that former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev once told him that Pierre Trudeaus anti-nuclear efforts helped set the climate for the 1986 Reykjavik summit where Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan famously contemplated the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

In my professional experience, Roche said, I have always found that Canada had influence, particularly in building the global security agenda, beyond our population size.

Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau decided not to support the current push for a UN treaty banning nuclear weapons, perhaps out of fear of annoying Washington.

Still, its not too late  now that its negotiated, countries will begin signing the treaty Sept. 20.

Memo to Justin: As head of an influential nation, you could play a vital leadership role in the global struggle to abolish nuclear weapons and outlaw them forever. Its an action the world desperately needs, now more than ever. A side benefit would be exceeding expectations about filling your fathers shoes.

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Dont let Ontarios college system suffocate itself, Cohn, Nov. 9

At some point the essential nature (if any) of Ontarios colleges must be addressed. Martin Regg Cohn seems to think that they are glorified trade schools that are not materially different from high schools and dont merit inclusion in the conversation about academic freedom.

In the alternative, Bill Davis original mandate required only that the colleges focus on applied, not theoretical knowledge; the same could be said for Harvard and MIT. Colleges were to be academically comparable to universities and were to include an average of 40 per cent of every students curriculum  whether studying international business or small appliance repair  in the liberal arts. The main difference? Colleges were to be more financially accessible.

Then, over the past 50 years (Ive been teaching at Seneca for over 48), the system mimicked Stephen Leacocks Lord Ronald and rode madly off in all directions. Whereas Bob Raes 2005 study of higher education recommended that they become more involved in apprenticeship programs and commended them for being so cheap, many colleges entered into articulation agreements with universities to produce joined diploma/degrees (Seneca and York offer half a dozen). Moreover, many are offering their own Bachelors degrees (Seneca has almost a dozen) and are attracting university graduates for postgraduate diplomas. Its complicated.

One result of the confusion is that, in my workplace (Faculty of Communication, Art and Design), a PhD is the minimum requirement for consideration for a full-time job (while our bosses are expected to supervise us with only an MBA). This is a jumble that cries out for tidying  we have a healthy tolerance for ambiguity, but this looks a lot more like chaos. More importantly, until such matters are clarified, employer-employee relations will continue to deteriorate and chronic disputes over the colleges business model will worsen.

Howard Doughty, Richmond Hill

As a contract faculty member in the university system, Ive been following the college faculty strike with great interest. The problem of precarious, short-term, contract work in the universities is bad enough, but its even worse in Ontarios colleges.

I agree with Martin Regg Cohn that its unfortunate that the strike has continued for close to a month now. However, I think the blame rests on the college employers and the provincial government. The college employers are not offering real action or even a decent compromise around the excess amount of contract work. The employers are still proposing concessions. Its unbelievable to me that the Wynne government is letting this hardball approach prolong the strike.

From my perspective, the only real option is for the college faculty to reject this bad deal and have the two sides sit down and bargain.

And the provincial government needs to make it clear that they want to improve the post-secondary education system for faculty and for students.

Murray Cooke, Toronto

Martin-Regg Cohn has provided a fair assessment of managements shenanigans during the college system strike. He has a problem with college instructors conceit of elevating their disputes to the realm of academic freedom. Maybe he is not aware of how the colleges intend to apply this. According to a management academic freedom proposal:

The College affirms that faculty shall be free to act and speak in their capacity as public citizens provided they indicate they are speaking as individuals and not acting as representatives of the College. As professionals and representatives of their institution, their discipline or field of study, faculty have a responsibility to be honest, accurate and respectful in all statements and activities.

Language counts, especially in contracts. I recently had a letter published in the Toronto Star about the strike that was well received in my community. In light of the above language, I have had to ask my union the following: Does this language indicate I am not free to speak my mind since I indicate I am a professor at Seneca College and I talk about an internal policy change and an internal strategy to pass more students? Also, if this is the case  what is the penalty?

We learned from our last strike that some perceived gains could be stonewalled and language is important. Good will is not enough when management includes a clause about part time that may render any full-time professor given only six teaching hours a part-time position and having to reapply for his full-time job.

Russell Pangborn, Keswick

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China will ease restrictions on foreign ownership of bank and insurance sector firms in the world's second-largest economy, the government said Friday, as President Xi Jingping continues to push his reform agenda following the cementing of his leadership at the Communist Party Congress.

Foreign firms will immediately be allowed to own majority stakes in Chinese companies in the futures, securities and funds markets, Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, said, but full ownership would not be permitted for at least three years. Insurance firms can be fully owned in five years under the new rules, which were also part of a major push by President Donald Trump in his months-long discussions with Xi that began earlier this year in Mar-a-Largo.

Shares in China-based Ping An Insurance (Grp) Co (PNGAY) , the world's largest, were marked 5.38% higher in Shanghai trading while rival New China Life Insurance rose 5.66% and China Pacific Insurance Group gained 4.47%. China's benchmark CSI index closed the Firday session 0.88% higher at a 2017 high of 4,111.91 points.

Trump capped his two-day summit in China Thursday with a litany of new commercial contracts for some of America's biggest companies even as he continued to criticise trade relations between the world's two biggest economies.

Around $250 billion in new and existing deals between U.S. and Chinese firms were touted by the President and his team as they departed from the third leg of his 11-day Asia tour. Boeing Co. (BA) - Get Free Report , General Electric (GE) - Get Free Report , Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) - Get Free Report and Ford Motor Co. (F) - Get Free Report were just names on the list of deals and contracts linked to the Trump visit and the broader ambitions of trade policy changes between the world's two largest economies.

Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Free Report also said it would establish a $5 billion investment vehicle with China Investment Corp., the country's sovereign wealth fund, in what could be a precursor for cross-border stakes in the financial and insurance sector.

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Bitcoin prices fell below the $7,000 mark Friday, extending its two-day slump past 14% amid questions over the planned delay of a software change that would have potentially split the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoins were marked $400, or 5.7% lower in London trading on the bitsmap exchange and changing hands at $6,722 each, have fallen some $1,200 since reaching an all-time high of $8,000 earlier this week on reports that the so-called "fork" in bitcoin's architecture would be delayed.

"Our goal has always been a smooth upgrade for Bitcoin. Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together, saidBitgo CEO, Mike Belshe. "Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin's growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x."

The roll-out of a new Bitcoin data source, called SegWit2x, was designed to relive some of the pressure on the main network and speed up cryptocurrency transaction times, thus increasing their value.

Blockchain, the architecture that supports bitcoin's existence, has a cap on the information it can process, which some argue slows the speed of payment processing. To ease that congestion, software developers pushed to allow some data to leave the spine of the bitcoin system, a move some bitcoin miners say would reduce their ability to verify transactions, thus eroding their "bullet proof" appeal.

However, there has been intense speculation on social media that the proposed delay in Segwit2x hasn't entirely satisfied the cryptocurrency community, a view that was expressed last night on Twitter by one of its founding members, entrepreneur Charles Shrem.

The debate has, according to some, boosted the value of bitcoin's rival, bitcoin cash -- also known as BCH -- which was marked 27% higher at $800 each on the coinmarket.com exchange Friday.

Here's author Michael Lewis' take on Bitcoin:

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Ashland Inc. provides additives and specialty ingredients worldwide. It operates through Life Sciences; Personal Care & Household; Specialty Additives; and Intermediates and Solvents segments. The Life Sciences segment offers pharmaceutical solutions, including controlled release polymers, disintegrants, tablet coatings, thickeners, solubilizers, and tablet binders; nutrition solutions, such as thickeners, stabilizers, emulsifiers, and additives; and nutraceutical solutions comprising products for weight management, joint comfort, stomach and intestinal health, sports nutrition, and general wellness, as well as custom formulation, toll processing, and particle engineering solutions. The Personal Care & Household segment provides a range of nature-based, biodegradable, and performance ingredients; solutions for toothpastes, mouth washes and rinses, denture cleaning, and care for teeth; and household supplies nature-derived rheology ingredients, biodegradable surface wetting agents, performance encapsulates, and specialty polymers. The Specialty Additives segment offers rheology modifiers, foam control agents, surfactants and wetting agents, pH neutralizers, advanced ceramics used in catalytic converters, environmental filters, ingredients for the manufacturing of ceramic capacitors, plasma display panels and solar cells, ingredients for textile printing, thermoplastic metals, and alloys for welding. The Intermediates and Solvents segment produces 1,4 butanediol and related derivatives, including n-methylpyrrolidone. It offers its products to customers in a range of consumer and industrial markets, such as architectural coatings, construction, energy, food and beverage, nutraceuticals, personal care, and pharmaceutical. The company was formerly known as Ashland Global Holdings Inc. Ashland Inc. was founded in 1924 and is based in Wilmington, Delaware.
TopBuild Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the installation and distribution of insulation and other building products to the construction industry. The company operates in two segments, Installation and Specialty Distribution. It provides insulation products and accessories, glass and windows, rain gutters, afterpaint products, fireproofing products, garage doors, fireplaces, closet shelving, roofing materials, and other products; and insulation installation services. The company also offers various services and tools to assist builders in applying the principles of building science to new home construction, which include pre-construction plan reviews, diagnostic testing, and various inspection services; and home energy rating services. In addition, it distributes building and mechanical insulation, insulation accessories, and other building product materials for the residential, commercial, and industrial end markets. The company serves single-family homebuilders, single-family custom builders, multi-family builders, commercial general contractors, remodelers, and individual homeowners, as well as insulation contractors, gutter contractors, weatherization contractors, other contractors, dealers, metal building erectors, and modular home builders. It operates approximately 235 installation branches and 175 distribution centers in the United States and Canada. The company was formerly known as Masco SpinCo Corp. and changed its name to TopBuild Corp. in March 2015. TopBuild Corp. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Brookdale Senior Living Inc. owns, manages, and operates senior living communities in the United States. It operates in three segments: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care, and Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The Independent Living segment owns or leases communities comprising independent and assisted living units in a single community that are primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors. The Assisted Living and Memory Care segment owns or leases communities consisting of freestanding multi-story communities and freestanding single-story communities, which offer housing and 24-hour assistance with activities of daily living for the Company's residents. This segment also operates memory care communities for residents with Alzheimer's and other dementias. The CCRCs segment owns or leases communities that provides various living arrangements, such as independent and assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing; and services to accommodate various levels of physical ability and healthcare needs. It also manages communities on behalf of others. As of December 31, 2021, the company owned 347 communities, leased 299 communities, and managed 33 communities on behalf of others. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. designs, manufactures, and distributes products serving the oil, natural gas, industrial, and renewable energy industries in the United States and internationally. It operates through three segments: Drilling & Downhole, Completions, and Production. The Drilling & Downhole segment designs, manufactures, and supplies products, and provides related services to the drilling, well construction, artificial lift, and subsea energy construction markets, including applications in oil and natural gas, renewable energy, defense, and communications. This segment offers drilling technologies consisting of capital equipment and a line of products consumed in the drilling process; well construction casing and cementing equipment, and protection products for artificial lift equipment and cables; and subsea remotely operated vehicles and trenchers, submarine rescue vehicles, specialty components and tools, and complementary subsea technical services. The Completions segment offers hydraulic fracturing pumps, cooling systems, high-pressure flexible hoses, and flow iron for pressure pumping, hydraulic fracturing and flowback services markets; wireline cable and pressure control equipment for well completion and intervention service markets; and coiled tubing strings and coiled line pipe. The Production segment designs, manufactures, and supplies products, and provides related equipment and services for production and infrastructure markets. This segment offers engineered process systems, production equipment, specialty separation equipment, and various industrial valves for oil and natural gas customers, power generation, renewable energy, and other general industrial applications. The company was formerly known as Forum Oilfield Technologies, Inc. and changed its name to Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. in August 2010. Forum Energy Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The following companies are subsidiares of Roper Technologies: AC Analytical Controls B.V., AC Analytical Controls Holding B.V., AC Analytical Controls Services B.V., Abel Pump, Acton Research, Acumen PM LLC, Aderant Canada Company, Aderant Company, Aderant Holdings Inc., Aderant International Holdings LLC, Aderant Legal (UK) Limited, Aderant Legal Holdings (AUS) Pty Ltd, Aderant Legal Holdings (NZ) ULC, Aderant Legal Holdings Inc., Aderant North America Inc., Aderant Parent Holdings Inc., Advanced Sensors Limited, Advanced Sensors Ltd., AiCambridge Ltd., Alpha Holdings of Delaware I LLC, Alpha Holdings of Delaware II LLC, Alpha Technologies B.V., Alpha Technologies GmbH, Alpha Technologies Japan LLC, Alpha Technologies Services LLC, Alpha Technologies U.K., Alpha Technologies s.r.o., Alpha Trust Corporation, Alpha UK Holdings LLC, American LegalNet Inc, Amot Controls Corporation, Amot Controls GmbH, Amot/Metrix Investment Company Inc., Amphire Solutions Inc., Amtech Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, Amtech Systems LLC, Amtech World Corporation, Antek Instruments, Archisnapper BV, Ascension Technology Corporation, Assureweb Limited, Atlantic Health Partners Inc., Atlas Database Software Corp., Avitru, Bellefield Systems, BillBlast, C/S Solutions Inc., CBORD Holdings Corp., CBORD Holdings Corporation, CIVCO Holdings Inc., CIVCO Medical Solutions B.V., Centurion Research Solutions LLC, Chalwyn Limited, Civco Holding Inc., Civco Medical Instruments Co. Inc., Clackamas Pump LLC, CliniSys Group, CliniSys Group Limited, Clinisys Scotland Limited, Clinisys Solutions Limited, Cointec Ingenieros y Consultores S.L., Commerce Pump LLC, Compressor Controls (Beijing) Corporation Ltd., Compressor Controls Corporation B.V., Compressor Controls Corporation Middle East, Compressor Controls Corporation S.r.l., Compressor Controls LLC, Compressor Controls Mauritius Ltd., Compressor Controls Pty Ltd., Compressor Controls Saudi Arabia LLC, ComputerEase Software, ConceptShare, ConstructConnect, ConstructConnect Canada Inc., ConstructConnect Inc., Cornell Pump Company, DAT Solutions LLC, DATSolutions Private Limited, DCMH Group Holdings Inc., DCMH Group Holdings LLC, DCMH Holdings Inc., DI Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., DI Dutch Holdings LLC, DI Hong Kong Limited, Data Innovations, Data Innovations Canada Ltd., Data Innovations Cooperatief U.A., Data Innovations Europe S.A., Data Innovations LLC, Data Innovations Latin America Ltda, Dawning Technologies LLC, Deltek, Deltek Ajera Inc., Deltek Asia Pacific (HK) Limited, Deltek Australia Pty Ltd., Deltek Danmark A/S, Deltek France SAS, Deltek GB Limited, Deltek GmbH, Deltek Inc., Deltek Nederland B.V., Deltek Netherlands B.V., Deltek Norge AS, Deltek Sverige AB, Deltek Systems (Canada) Inc., Deltek Systems (Colorado) Inc., Deltek Systems (Philippines) Ltd., Deltek TNSCore Holdings LLC, Deltek WST LLC, Dominion I Inc., Duncan Technologies, Dynamco Inc., Dynamic Instruments Inc., Dynisco Enterprises GmbH, Dynisco Enterprises LLC, Dynisco Europe GmbH, Dynisco Holding GmbH, Dynisco Instruments LLC, Dynisco Instruments S.a.r.l., Dynisco LLC, Dynisco Parent Inc., Dynisco S.r.l., Dynisco Viatran LLC, Dynisco Viatran (M) Sdn Bhd, Dynisco-Viatran Instrument Sdn Bhd, EPSI, FMS Purchasing & Services Inc., FSI Holdings Inc., FTI Flow Technology Inc., Flow Technology, Fluid Metering, Fluid Metering Inc., Foodlink Holdings Inc., Foodlink Holdings Inc., Foodlink IT India Private Limited, Foundry, Foundry Visionmongers (Ireland) Limited, Freight Market Intelligence Consortium, Gatan, GeneInsight Inc., Getloaded Corporation, HRsmart Canada Inc., HRsmart France SAS, HRsmart Germany GmbH, HRsmart Inc., HRsmart International, HRsmart International Holdings LLC, HRsmart Mexico, HRsmart SA (Pty) Ltd., HRsmart Talent Management Solutions Europe Limited, HRsmart Ventures LLC, Handshake Software Inc., Handshake Software Inc., Hansco Automatisering B.V., Hansen Technologies, Hansen Technologies Corporation, Harbour Holding Corp., Hardy Process Solutions, Horizon Lab Systems LLC, Horizon Software International LLC, IDS, INPUT Inc., IPA Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., ISL Finance SAS, ISL Holding SAS, ISL Scientifique de Laboratorie - ISL S.A.S., Impact Financial Systems, Industrial Products Investment Company, Innovative Product Achievements LLC, Innovative Product Achievements LLC, Inovonics Corporation, Instill Corporation, IntelliTrans Limited, Intellitrans LLC, Intellitrans Sweden AB, JLT Mobile Computers Inc., Job Access LTDA, Laser App Inc., Link Logistics Holding LLC, Loadlink Technologies Corporation, Logitech, Logitech Limited, Lumenera Corporation, MASD, MED Professional Services LLC, MEDTEC Inc., MEDTEC LLC, MHA Long Term Care Network Inc., MHA Long Term Care Services Inc., MIPS Austria GesmbH, MIPS Deutschland GmbH, MIPS France Sarl, MIPS Nederland B.V., MIPS Schweiz AG, MIPS Software Iberica SL, MPR Readers Inc., Managed Health Care Associates Inc., Media Cybernetics L.P., Medical Information Professional Systems NV, Medina Acquisition LLC, Metrix Instrument Co. L.P., NDI Europe GmbH, NDI Holding Corp., Navigator Group Purchasing Inc., Neptune Technology Group (Canada) Co., Neptune Technology Group Holdings Inc., Neptune Technology Group Inc., Neptune Technology Group Mexico S.de R.L. de C.V., Neptune Technology Group Services Inc., Nippon Roper K.K., Northern Digital Inc., Omega Legal Systems Inc., On Center Software LLC, Onvia Inc., PAC (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PAC Denmark ApS, PAC GmbH, PAC Instruments (Thailand) Company Limited, PAC Instruments Asia PTE. Ltd., PB Bidco Limited, PB Holdco Limited, PB Midco Limited, PB Topco Limited, PGP UK Limited, PMC/Beta, Petroleum Analyzer, Petroleum Analyzer Company L.P., Petrotech, Phase Analyzer Company Ltd., Photometrics, PowerPlan, PowerPlan Canada ULC, PowerPlan Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Inc., PowerPlan Intermediate Holdings Inc., PowerPlan Operations ANZ Pty Ltd, PowerPlan Operations Ltd., Princeton Instruments, Project Aloha Merger Sub Inc., Project Diamond Intermediate Holdings Corporation, Project Torque Intermediate Holdings Inc., Project Viking Holdings Inc., Project Viking Intermediate LLC, QSC 1208 Limited, QSC 1209 Limited, Quantitative Imaging Corporation, RF IDeas, RF IDeas Inc., RI Marketing India Private Limited, RIL Holding Limited, RMT Inc., RT Merger Sub Inc., Rebate Tracking Group LLC, Redlake Imaging Corporation, Resonant Software Inc., Roda Deaco Valve Inc., Roper Acquisitions Holdings Inc., Roper Brasil Comercio E Promocao De Productos E Servicos LTDA, Roper Canada Holdings LP, Roper Canada UK Limited, Roper Denmark UK Limited, Roper EUR Pte. Ltd., Roper Engineering s.r.o., Roper Europe GmbH, Roper GM Denmark Holdings ApS, Roper Germany GmbH, Roper Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Roper Holdings Limited, Roper IH LLC, Roper Industrial Products Investment Company, Roper Industries Denmark ApS, Roper Industries Deutschland GmbH, Roper Industries Inc., Roper Industries Limited, Roper Industries Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Roper Industries Mauritius Ltd., Roper Industries UK Limited, Roper International Holding Inc., Roper International Holding Limited, Roper International Holding SCS, Roper LLC, Roper Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Roper Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Roper Middle East Ltd. FZCO, Roper NL1 UK Limited, Roper NL2 UK Limited, Roper Operations Company I LLC, Roper Operations Company II LLC, Roper Pte. Ltd., Roper Pump Company, Roper Scientific B.V., Roper Scientific SAS, Roper Scot LP, Roper Singapore Holding LLC, Roper Southeast Asia LLC, Roper Swiss Finance GmbH, Roper T1 LLC, Roper T1000 Corp., Roper T2 LLC, Roper Tech. Middle East Ltd. FZCO, Roper Technologies (Ireland) Limited, Roper Technologies (Scot) LP, Roper UK Investments Limited, Roper UK Ltd., Roper-Mex L.P., Ropintassco Holdings L.P., SHP Group Holdings Inc., SIRA LLC, Shanghai Roper Industries Trading Co. Ltd., Sinmed Holding International B.V., Societe de Distribution de Logiciels Medicaux, SoftWriters Inc., Softwriters Holdings, Softwriters Holdings Inc., Sohnar Pty Ltd, Star Purchasing Services LLC, Strata Acquisition Subsidiary Inc., Strata Decision Technologies LLC, Strata Decision Technology LLC, Strata Parallel II Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker 2 Inc., Strategic Healthcare Programs Blocker LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs Holdings LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs Holdings LLC, Strategic Healthcare Programs L.L.C., Struers, Struers (Shanghai) International Trading Ltd., Struers A/S, Struers GmbH, Struers Inc., Struers K.K., Struers Limited, Struers SAS, Sunquest Europe Limited, Sunquest Holdings Inc., Sunquest Information Systems (Europe) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (India) Private Limited, Sunquest Information Systems (International) Limited, Sunquest Information Systems Inc., Sunquest Information Systems Pty Ltd, TLP Holdings LLC, Team TSI Corporation, Technolog Group Limited, Technolog Holdings Limited, Technolog Holdings Ltd., Technolog Limited, Technolog SARL, The CBORD Group Inc., The Foundry Topco No.2 Limited, The Foundry USCo Inc., The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd., The Tidewater Healthcare Shared Services Group Inc., The Washington Management Group Inc., Torque Acquisition Holdco Inc., Transcore Atlantic Inc., Transcore CNUS Inc., Transcore Holdings Inc., Transcore ITS LLC, Transcore LP, Transcore Nova Scotia Corporation, Transcore Partners LLC, Trinity Integrated Systems Limited, Trinity Integrated Systems Ltd., UHF Purchasing Services LLC, Union Square Software (International) Limited, Union Square Software Inc., Union Square Software Limited, Union Square Software Pty, United Controls Group Inc., Uson L.P., Uson Limited, Utilitec Limited, Utilitec Services Limited, Utility Data Services Limited, Verathon Canada Holdings Inc., Verathon Holdings (Delaware) Inc., Verathon Inc., Verathon Inc., Verathon Medical (Australia) Pty Limited, Verathon Medical (Canada) ULC, Verathon Medical (Europe) B.V., Verathon Medical (France) SARL, Verathon Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Verathon Medical (Japan) K.K., Verathon Medical (UK) Ltd., Vertafore, Vertafore Canada Inc., Vertafore Inc., Vertafore India Private Limited, Viastar Services LP, Viatran Corporation, WELIS, Walter Herzog GmbH, WorkBook APAC Ltd., Workbook Software A/S, Zetec (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zetec Canada Ltd., Zetec France, Zetec Inc., Zetec Korea Inc., Zetec Services Inc., iPipeline, iPipeline (TCP) Limited, iPipeline Canada Inc, iPipeline Co. Ltd., iPipeline Holdings Inc, iPipeline Inc, iPipeline Limited, iSqFt Holdings Inc., iSqFt Parent Corporation, iSqFt Sub Inc., iTradeNetwork Inc., and mySBX Corporation.

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Today's best Huawei Mate 10 Pro deals 838 Amazon customer reviews (opens in new tab)      (opens in new tab) (opens in new tab) $179 (opens in new tab) View (opens in new tab)

Is there enough room for yet another full-screen phone? That's the question Huawei hopes to answer with the $799 Mate 10 Pro, the company's latest phablet, which leverages artificial intelligence in ways no one has done before.



Huawei bumped up the screen size in the Mate 10 Pro model to 6 inches, shrank the bezels and maximized the battery life. But the biggest change is the Kirin AI processor, which enables real-time objection recognition in the camera in addition to blazing-fast performance. This device is one of the most ambitious smartphones of the year, and a worthy alternative to Samsung's Galaxy Note 8.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro at Amazon for $179 (opens in new tab)

We've updated our review of the Mate 10 Pro based on our in-depth smartphone drop tests. See the results below.



Design: Understated good looks

The bigger that displays get, the less space there is for product differentiation. That could be why Apple didn't mind giving the iPhone X a notch and why Huawei has emblazoned the Mate 10 Pro's bottom bezel with the company logo  just to remind you who made the phone.

The Mate 10 Pro sandwiches a polished-metal frame between two slabs of curved Gorilla Glass 5, with minimal bezels all around. The screen's border is every-so-slightly less chunky than that of Samsung's Galaxy Note 8. This is no Infinity Display, though, so you don't get the same illusion of depth.

Along the bottom edge, you'll find a USB-C port next to one of two stereo speakers (the other doubles as the earpiece up top), and an IR blaster on the opposite side. Most devices don't feature IR blasters anymore, so the Mate 10 Pro is one of your only options if you want your next smartphone to double as a TV remote. Still, we would have preferred a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack up there instead, as you won't find that jack anywhere on the device.

The metallic band that surrounds the camera provides a distinctive bit of flair that really lifts the otherwise-stoic aesthetic.

Huawei has traded the Mate 9's brushed-metal back for glass, though not for the reason you might think. When Apple moved to glass for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X, the goal was to add wireless-charging support. Huawei has made a similar change, though wireless charging is nowhere to be found on this phone. As a result, the Mate 10 Pro feels a bit less premium than it should, considering the price this phone will likely command.

Around the back, you'll still find centrally mounted, Leica-branded dual cameras. This time, they're set in a reflective band that encompasses the entire module, including the flash and sensors. It's a distinctive bit of flair that really lifts an otherwise-stoic aesthetic. Right below the camera module is the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, which I'm happy to report is lightning-quick  so quick, in fact, that I'd prefer some kind of haptic feedback as a sign of confirmation that its done its job.

The Mate 10 Pro comes in three colors. Our unit was clad in Titanium Gray, though we've seen the Midnight Blue and Mocha Brown versions and can confirm the device looks classiest and most eye-catching in its cafe-inspired guise.

Just like the iPhone 8 and Google's Pixel 2, the Mate 10 Pro benefits from IP67 water and dust resistance, protecting the handset for 30 minutes in up to 3.3 feet of submersion.

Durability: There are tougher phones

We tested the Huawei Mate 10 Pros toughness by dropping it on its face onto wood from a height of 4 feet and 6 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face onto concrete from 4 feet; we then dropped it on its edge and face from 6 feet onto concrete.

Huawei's phone withstood drops from 4 and 6 feet onto wood without issue. It also survived a 4-foot edge drop onto concrete with only minor scratches to the bottom. However, a 4-foot face drop caused the touch screen to stop working in the upper right corner, and a 6-foot edge drop resulted in distorted screen colors on the right side.

A 6-foot face drop onto concrete shattered the Mate 10's screen so thoroughly that several pieces of it flew off completely, revealing the electronics underneath. The Mate 10 Pro ended up with a poor toughness score of 4.3 out of 10.

To see the results of other smartphones, as well as our complete scoring methodology, check out our smartphone drop tests.

Huawei Mate 10 Pro Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally Price $799 OS Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI 8.0 Screen Size (Resolution) 6 inches (2160 x 1080) CPU Hisilicon Kirin 970 RAM 6GB Storage 128GB microSD Slot? No Rear Camera 12-MP main, 20-MP monochrome, dual f/1.6 Front Camera 8-MP, f/2.0 Battery Life (Hrs:Min) 14:39 Water Resistance Yes (IP67) Size 6.07 x 2.93 x 0.31 inches Weight 6.28 ounces

Display: Not quite the Note

The Mate 10 Pro's 6-inch, 2160 x 1080 display follows the trend of 2017 flagships, with its AMOLED tech, high dynamic range (HDR10) support and 18:9 aspect ratio. This display is a step up from the 5.9-inch LCD found on the standard Mate 10  though, oddly, that screen touts a slightly higher resolution than the one in the more expensive model.

Based on our side-by-side testing, the Mate 10's screen is good as far as AMOLED panels go, but it can't quite measure up to what the Note 8 offers. The significantly lower resolution of the Mate 10 Pro's screen means UI elements and text look more jagged and pixelated upon closer inspection. On the Huawei's Normal color profile, hues are a bit brighter and cooler than in the Note 8's Basic mode, but those shades lack the same deep color range. Viewing angles are a tad worse as well, with a slightly more-pronounced blue cast as you tilt the handset from side to side.

Still, this is a solid display, even if it isn't necessarily the best one available. The Mate 10 Pro registered a peak full-screen brightness of 449 nits, which is slightly above the 433-nit average for smartphones. The display covered 147.2 percent of the sRGB color gamut and notched a Delta-E color-accuracy score of 0.62. The Note 8 fared a bit better, with results of 204.8 and 0.5, respectively. (Color-accuracy scores closer to 0 are better.)

MORE: iPhone X Is King of OLED Screens

Users who prefer more-saturated tones will appreciate the Mate's optional Vivid setting, which dials up the intensity and produces an even-cooler tint. However, the phone's auto brightness mode proved to be a source of serious frustration during both daily use and testing, simply because the setting wouldn't turn off.

Camera: AI-assisted shooter creates brilliant portraits

The Mate 10 Pro's dual cameras represent a series of firsts for Huawei. The handset combines a 12-megapixel main sensor with a 20-megapixel monochrome one, both of which sport f/1.6 apertures  the widest of any camera the company has ever produced at the time of the Mate 10's release. Only the LG V30 equals the Mate 10 Pro's camera, though with just one lens; the Galaxy S9 subsequently surpassed it with a variable aperture that widens to f/1.5 in low light settings.



Also impressive, the Mate 10 Pro is Huawei's first smartphone to launch with a dedicated chip for handling artificial intelligence, called the neural network processing unit (NPU). The phone's cameras leverage this unique resource through object recognition by tuning exposure parameters when they identify certain things. There are 13 identifiable scenarios in total, including faces, flowers, plants, food, dogs and cats, and Huawei says it will add more if necessary in future updates. Since we posted our original review, this feature has made its way to other Huawei phones like the P20 Pro (which isn't available in the U.S.) and the Honor View 10 (which is, and a bit cheaper than the Mate 10 Pro).



I focused the Mate 10 Pro camera on a document, and the app responded by presenting a little "T" icon below the viewfinder, signifying that the camera was in text mode and had recognized what it was seeing. The phone then sharpened the image, slightly boosted the contrast, and opted for a cooler white balance to improve clarity and help separate the print from the paper.

The Mate 10 Pro consistently outperformed the Galaxy Note 8 in Portrait Mode comparisons.

And we haven't even touched on the sheer number of camera features offered in this phone: Portrait mode, true black-and-white photography and a 2.0x optical zoom, matching offerings from the iPhone X, iPhone 8 Plus and Note 8. The Mate 10 Pro's cameras are about as complete as any you'll find on competing flagships, and in our testing, they proved just as capable.

We pitted the Mate 10 Pro against the Galaxy Note 8 and that phone's dual-rear cameras. In this first photo comparison, the Note 8 breaks out to a strong start, capturing the vivid tapestry of crimson, gold and green in this lush fall scene. Huawei's phone, on the other hand, delivers a sharper but ultimately more muted representation.

Yet the Note 8 wouldn't hold the lead for long. The following images demonstrate how both phones handle portraits, with the Mate 10 Pro benefitting from the aforementioned AI processing core. While it was difficult to quantify precisely how the NPU aided this exposure (you can't turn object recognition off), the Huawei consistently outperformed the Samsung in Portrait Mode.

The Mate 10 Pro's more-aggressive bokeh evokes a more-profound sensation of depth, helping the model burst from the background. The Note 8's attempt is certainly brighter overall but a bit blurrier to my eye, with unrealistic, overpronounced highlights in the subject's skin tone and hair. You will notice some strange artifacting in both shots in specific areas around the model's head, as neither phone perfectly scaled back the blur effect along the boundaries of the foreground.

Moving back indoors for a low-light test, the Note 8 claimed the brighter scene overall, despite the Huawei's much-vaunted aperture advantage. However, the reddish tone of the wooden wall in the background isn't quite true-to-life. And again, if we zoom in, the Note 8 doesn't preserve the same level of detail as the Mate 10 Pro. An ideal photo would mix aspects of both exposures.

There's definitely a pattern here, as the Mate 10 Pro favors sharper but darker exposures, whereas the Note 8 has a tendency to produce punchier colors. Notice how the Samsung picks up the reflection of the blue sky in the hood of this Porsche and brings out the burgundy of the car parked to the left. The Huawei falters in capturing those hues, though it nails the finer details, like the texture of the asphalt.

Our last trial, a selfie of yours truly, shows that the 8-MP front shooters on both phones mostly emulate what we observed from the rear cameras. The Mate 10 Pro displays brighter highlights and darker shadows, while the Note 8 delivers more-robust color universally, at the expense of contrast. And just as before, sharpness remains a part of the story. Notice the differences in my hair and the texture of the canvas on my backpack. The Huawei also lends a subtle blur effect to the trees in the background, a result I prefer.

Performance: Huawei's in-house chip is a winner

Unlike the majority of Android flagships powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets, the Mate 10 Pro employs Huawei's own Kirin 970 silicon. But in typical usage, you'd never know there was any difference; the device performs just as flawlessly as the best phones we've tested this year.

The Mate 10 Pro achieved a multicore Geekbench 4 score of 6,784, edging out the Pixel 2, at 6,282, and Note 8, at 6,564. However, Huawei was slightly off the mark in the Ice Storm Unlimited 3D graphics test, in which the device notched a result of 31,908. The Note 8 achieved 39,834.

Still, the 6GB of RAM in our Mate 10 Pro kept things humming at a reasonable clip, and we didn't encounter any lag when switching between apps, using multiwindow mode or snapping photos all day. The phone does get quite warm when charging, however  something to keep in mind as you put the handset through its paces.

For a real-world test, we had the Mate 10 Pro transcode a 4K video file into 1080p using the InShot app, then compared its time against the Galaxy Note 8. The Huawei finished the task in 58 seconds, a hair faster than the Samsung at 1 minute and 4 seconds. We typically use Adobe Clips for our video editing tests, but the app consistently crashed each time we attempted to run it on the Mate 10 Pro.

There's also the NPU to talk about. Huawei's co-processor is the first in an Android phone built specifically for handling AI. Huawei says the chip will keep the Mate 10 Pro running as smoothly two years into its lifespan as it does the day it's taken out of the box, but for now, that's a claim that we can't substantiate.

Battery Life: The new flagship leader

The Mate 10 Pro's exceptional battery life is one big reason why you'd opt for this machine over other top flagships.

The first time we tested the Mate 10 Pro back in the fall, its 4,000-mAH battery delivered 14 hours and 33 minutes of web surfing on T-Mobile's LTE network, which was good enough to beat the Note 8 by more than 3 hours. But that was the international model, which Huawei tells us wasn't optimized for U.S. networks and cellular bands like the version the company has just released in the States.

We recently got our hands on that U.S. variant, and the results were even a hair better than what we achieved the first time. This Mate 10 Pro lasted six minutes longer, for a total time of 14 hours and 39 minutes. For reference among premium flagships, the Pixel 2 XL lasted 12:09 and the iPhone X, 10:49. The iPhone 8 Plus hit 11:16.

MORE: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

Huawei has also packed in a reverse-charging mode, allowing you to top off other devices using the Mate 10 Pro's battery. That's something you'd expect to see in a rugged phone like the CAT S41, rather than a device this premium. Plus, with the included SuperCharge adapter, the Mate 10 Pro can reach a 60 percent charge from empty in about 30 minutes. That's a welcome addition, especially considering the size of the Mate 10 Pro's battery  though, again, we would have liked to see Huawei make the most of that glass back by supporting wireless charging.

Software: EMUI offers unique features, but needs polish

Android 8.0 Oreo is paired with Huawei's EMUI interface in the Mate 10 Pro. If you've never used EMUI, strap in  it takes a little getting used to.

The most defining characteristic of EMUI is the glut of options Huawei provides for literally everything, from home screens to themes to battery-saving modes and even navigation. The Mate 10 Pro gives you the option to completely ignore Android's built-in on-screen nav bar, and instead use a single, movable floating button that can be pressed, held and dragged for various functions. This allows you to use the device more easily with one hand, but as it's drawn over on-screen content, it's pretty much always in the way.

The skeuomorphic icons for system apps feel like little portals back to 2010.

Really, that button encapsulates EMUI in a nutshell: The feature is there if you want it and can be dismissed if you don't, but either way, it adds to the noise of the software. There's just too much going on, and the result is an experience that simply doesn't look as good or feel as swift as it should.

Let me give an example. On many occasions during my time with the Mate 10 Pro, I accessed the camera from its lock screen shortcut. Id then try to fiddle with the camera settings, which end up stacked along the left edge when youre holding the device in landscape mode, occupying what would typically be the top of the display. Whenever I did this, the phone would stop me with a full-screen overlay telling me not to cover the top of the screen. Huawei calls this "Touch Disable Mode," and it's designed to prevent unintentional taps when the phone is in your pocket. But in this case, it prevented me from taking photos properly, simply because I hadn't unlocked the phone first  which negated the whole purpose of the camera shortcut anyway.

Those are the kinds of little annoyances that build as you navigate the Mate 10 Pro, and they're made even worse by EMUI's dated and inconsistent design direction. The skeuomorphic icons for some system apps, like Email and Files, feel like little portals back to 2010, and the text scaling fluctuates from the settings menu to the notifications shade to third-party apps, which feels like an inefficient use of all that screen space.

That's not to say all Huawei's enhancements are unwelcome. Longtime users of the company's handsets will appreciate the return of knuckle-tapping gestures to trigger certain actions, like screenshots and multiwindow mode. And the fingerprint sensor can be used for gestures as well, like swiping to view notifications.

Actually, that fingerprint sensor is central to one of my favorite features of the Mate 10 Pro: Private Space. Originally appearing on the Mate 9, Private Space allows you to create an alternate profile that is accessible only through a specific fingerprint or unlock code, but is otherwise completely hidden from the device. Apps, accounts and settings are sandboxed in each profile, so the secret one almost acts as a completely separate phone.

The Mate 10 Pro may not be pound-for-pound the best smartphone we've used all year, but Huawei is chasing features nobody else is.

Meanwhile, another returning feature, App Pair, brings similar functionality to individual apps. With App Pair, you can keep two versions of Facebook on your device, for example, with each one connected to a different account.

Price and Availability

In the U.S., the Mate 10 Pro is available unlocked from Huawei's own website, as well as an assortment of third-party retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Microsoft, B&H and Newegg. The phone lists at $799, though many retailers now offer it at a lower price. As it's a GSM device, the Mate 10 Pro not work on Verizon or Sprint. Huawei will offer the Mate 10 Pro in two colors: Midnight Black and Titanium Gray.



Contrary to reports leading up to Huawei's announcement at CES 2018  as well as a statement by CEO Richard Yu  the Mate 10 Pro is not sold through any American carriers. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Huawei had originally struck a deal with AT&T to launch the phone. However, the network backed out of the agreement a day before Huawei was scheduled to announce it. There had been rumors that Verizon was also intending to sell the Mate 10 Pro this summer, though that plan may also be in jeopardy.

For those with a bit more to spend, there's the Porsche Design version of the Mate 10 Pro. This limited edition sports a unique body and double the storage space, as well as a bunch of goodies including a car charger, flip cover case and a pair of earbuds. It retails for $1,225.

Bottom Line

With the Mate 10 Pro, Huawei hasn't just delivered a product on par with those of the company's main rivals  it's also given us a top-line smartphone that sets a new standard for battery life among high-end phones, and AI-assisted cameras that come alive when inspiration strikes you.

It's not perfect, though. The EMUI interface could use some trimming down, and although there's no doubting the build quality, the Mate's design isn't very innovative. But even in areas where the Mate 10 Pro doesn't quite lead the way, it still holds its own. The OLED screen is solid, and software features like knuckle gestures, Private Space and App Pair either rarely or never appear on other handsets  and that includes the iPhone X and Galaxy Note 8.

Credit: Tom's Guide


The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a very innovative and exciting foldable phone, but Samsung doesnt justify the high price for this first-generation device.

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a phone that elicits mixed emotions. On the one hand, theres the sheer wonder and excitement of holding a foldable phone  and seeing it transform from a 4.6-inch handset to a 7.3-inch tablet and back again. That excitement continues when you see an app that's running on the front screen instantly pop up on the larger display, and when you start running three apps at once on the bigger canvas.

The other emotion is trepidation. Even though Samsung has made several enhancements to make the Galaxy Fold more durable since it delayed the devices launch, the company strongly suggests that you use a light touch when pressing on the display. Then theres the emotional sticker shock when you realize that this phone costs nearly $2,000.

As I used the device for this Samsung Galaxy Fold review, I vacillated between all of these emotions  and kept coming back to a single question: Who is the Galaxy Fold made for? The answer is: Very brave and very well-off early adopters who are willing to live with a product that feels like a refined prototype.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Cheat sheet

Galaxy Fold specs Starting Price: $1,980

OS: Android 9.9 with One UI

CPU: Snapdragon 855

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 512GB

External display (closed): 4.6 inches (HD+)

Main display: 7.3 inches (QXGA+)

Rear cameras: 12-MP wide-angle (f/1.5 to f/2.4); 12-MP telephoto (f/2.4); 16-MP ultra-wide (f/2.2)

Front camera (closed): 10-MP selfie (f/2.2)

Front camera (open): 10-MP selfie (f/2.2); 8-MP RGB depth (f/1.9)

Fingerprint sensor: Bixby button

Colors: Space Silver, Cosmos Black

Battery: 4,380 mAh

Battery Life: 10:01

Size: 6.3 x 2.5 x 0.66 inches (62.9 x 160.9 x 17mm)

Weight: 9.48 ounces

Samsung has durability improvements to the Galaxy Fold, including extending the top display, adding caps to the hinges, and putting a metal layer beneath the screen.

The 7.3-inch display is very immersive and lets you run three apps on the screen at once, but the front 4.6-inch screen is quite small.

When folded, the Galaxy Fold is considerably thicker than other phones, which means its best stored in a jacket pocket or purse.

The Galaxy Fold lasted 10 hours on the Tom's Guide web-surfing battery test, which is not great, but you can save power by using the front screen for checking notifications.

AT&T is the only carrier that is selling the Galaxy Fold directly, but you can also buy it unlocked. And that's not a bad idea; the AT&T version comes with lots of bloatware.

A Galaxy Fold case comes in the box to further protect the device, along with a pair of wireless Galaxy Buds.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold went on sale through AT&T (opens in new tab) and Best Buy (opens in new tab) on Sept. 27, as well as through Samsung.com .

The Fold is one of the most expensive phones ever. It costs $1,980 in the U.S. and 1,800 in the U.K. (2,000, $2,214), or about double the price of most premium flagships. (For context, the Galaxy S10 Plus starts at $999, and you can get a model with 1TB of storage and 12GB of RAM for $1,599. The iPhone 11 Pro Max with 512GB of storage costs $1,449. In essence, youre paying about a $380 to $530 premium for the Folds ability to fold.

For those scoring at home, the Fold would cost you $66 per month, at least if you pay off your phone in 30 months using one of AT&T's Next plans.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Design

Even though this is my second go-around with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, theres still a real Wow factor to this device. Thanks to a sophisticated, 20-part, dual-axis hinge, you can open this clamshell just like a book, transforming the Fold from phone to tablet mode.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The motion is fairly smooth and natural; Ill admit I felt a bit like a secret agent as I used the Fold in public, surfing the web or watching a video and then closing the whole thing up before I walked away. But I also felt nervous that someone might try to steal the device from me.

It's worth noting that the main display is plastic, not Gorilla Glass, like the outer cover display. But Samsung has fortified the larger panel by placing a metal layer beneath the screen. (See more on the Galaxy Folds durability below).

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

When closed, the Galaxy Fold feels like a throwback phone, and a chunky one at that. Its quite tall and narrow, and 0.66 inches thick. Thats about double the thickness of the Galaxy S10 and iPhone 11 Pro Max. This size was not optimal for the front pocket of my pants; its a better fit for a blazer pocket or a purse.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Galaxy Fold weighs a hefty 9.5 ounces, compared to 7.97 ounces for the iPhone 11 Pro Max and 6.9 ounces for the Galaxy Note 10 Plus. And I felt this weight strain my hands and forearms a bit when playing games for more than 10 minutes at a time; but if youre watching a movie or TV show, you can lean the Fold on your lap.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Im not a fan of the Galaxy Folds button layout: Samsung decided to separate the power button and fingerprint reader on the right edge of the Galaxy Fold. It would have made more sense to combine them, which would have enabled users to power on and unlock in one fluid motion. Instead, the fingerprint sensor doubles as the Bixby button, which you can program to open other apps, as well. Even though its less secure, I wound up using facial recognition to unlock the Fold because its simply faster.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The device comes in two color options: Space Silver and Cosmos Black. That's a bummer, because Samsung was going to offer funkier colors like Astro Blue and Martian Green through its site before it redesigned the phone.

The other important thing to note is that the Fold doesnt have a headphone jack, but this isnt a huge deal because Samsung includes wireless Galaxy Buds in the box.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Durability

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Samsung made several changes to the Galaxy Fold's design to address durability concerns before it launched for the public.

Top display extended: Some reviewers accidentally removed this protective layer, so now it goes all the way to the edge; users are much less likely to accidentally damage the device.

Some reviewers accidentally removed this protective layer, so now it goes all the way to the edge; users are much less likely to accidentally damage the device. Hinges now have caps on them: This move should prevent debris from getting caught behind the screen.

This move should prevent debris from getting caught behind the screen. Samsung narrowed the gap between the two sides: There's still a small space for stuff to get inside the Fold when closed, but it's improved.

There's still a small space for stuff to get inside the Fold when closed, but it's improved. Metal layer added underneath the display: This increases rigidity and makes touch interactions feel more solid.

All of these tweaks add up to a foldable that feels much closer to a $2,000 phone. Closing the phone still has a reassuring clap, like a book, and the hinge system feels pretty smooth. However, Samsung still treats this as a different class of phone when it comes to how it wants you to handle it. The company cautions that you  use a light touch when touching the 7.3-inch display and to keep the Fold free of water and dust.

One reviewer from TechCrunch (opens in new tab) reported that his Galaxy Fold was damaged after one day of use. The center of the screen became pixelated with a blob, but the cause is not clear. Thus far, we have not encountered issues with our review unit.

Samsung claims that the Galaxy Fold can withstand 200,000 opens.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Displays

Its best to think of the front display on the Samsung Galaxy Fold as an at-a-glance screen for quick interactions. Thats because its just 4.6 inches, which is Lilliputian compared to even the best small phones (typically 5.5 inches and up). Because the screen is narrow, its also difficult to type on.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

During my testing, I used the front display maybe 15% of the time, which included checking Gmail (but not responding), reading a news story with one hand while on the subway, and changing tracks on Spotify. Anything more made me feel that I needed the larger screen.

Samsung Galaxy Fold (left) and Apple iPad Mini (right).

The interior 7.3-inch display is where the real action is  an oversized Super Active Matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) canvas thats sharp and colorful but with a couple of trade-offs. On the plus side, I really enjoyed watching the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer; it really felt like I was using a tablet. I could even access and edit articles in our site's CMS because of how wide the display is. This is something I cant do as easily on the 6-inch-plus-size screens of the Galaxy Note 10 and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

(Image credit: Future)

During one commute home, I watched The Boys on the Prime Video app and felt like I had a mini movie theater in front of my eyes. If youd rather not have big bars above and below the display you can choose which apps go full screen in the Settings app.

However, the crease in the middle of the Folds display is noticeable when you use apps with a white background, such as Chrome and Gmail. Its not ugly, just distracting. And you can feel the crease when youre using various apps. The good news is that the crease isnt as noticeable when viewing head-on movies, photos or anything with lots of colors.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

On our testing, the Galaxy Folds display averaged 525 nits of brightness, which is not as bright as the Galaxy Note 10 Plus (686 nits) and nowhere near as bright as the iPhone 11 Pro Max (761 nits).

The OLED panel on the Fold of the color gamut registered 124.8% of the sRGB color gamut in Natural mode, which is about the same as the Galaxy Note 10 Plus and a bit higher than the iPhone 11 Pro Max (118.6%).

The notch in the top right corner of the display can cut off videos should you decide to watch in full-screen mode; you can hide this notch by turning on an option in Software, but this just creates a black bar across the top of the screen.

My bigger problem with the Folds notch is that you cant swipe down from the right side of the screen to reveal your notifications and quick settings. Instead, I had to shift my finger toward the middle of the display. However, you can also use the fingerprint sensor to open and close the notification shade with a swipe down and up.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Software

To make the most of its foldable design, Samsung worked with Google to devise a couple of clever software features. The first is App Continuity, which enables you to open an app on the cover display and then have the app immediately fill the larger screen when you unfold the phone.

One of the coolest features of the Galaxy Fold is App Continuity. If you're using an app like Google Maps on the front screen, you can open the display and it will instantly fill the larger display. This feature worked really well in my testing, with most apps popping up instantly.But you will need to tweak a setting if you want a given app to keep running on the small screen when you close the phone again.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The other handy feature is Multi Active Window, which allows you to run up to three apps at once on the Galaxy Folds large display. You swipe in from the right side of the screen to open additional apps, and can also easily resize the apps and move them around with your finger.

A decent number of third-party apps already support this multitasking mode, such as Spotify and Slack, but I noticed that Skype does not. It will take time for more developers to update their software for foldable phones like this.

By default, the big-screen keyboard offers a split layout to speedup thumb typing on such a large canvas, but I found myself switching to a regular layout because it felt like less work. No matter which mode you choose, swipe typing is supported.

If youre not a fan of carrier bloatware, I recommend that you buy the unlocked version of the Galaxy Fold. The AT&T model I reviewed had 19 apps from AT&T and AT&T-owned brands, including everything from DriveMode and Visual Voicemail to Bleacher Report and AT&T TV. I would prefer a much cleaner canvas for a $2,000 smartphone and I think Fold owners would, too.

(Image credit: Future)

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Cameras

Having six cameras on a phone seems like overkill, but it isnt given the Samsung Galaxy Folds unique design. Just like the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 10 , theres three shooters on the back of the Galaxy Fold: a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 16-MP ultra-wide lens and a 12-MP telephoto lens.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Up front  when the Fold is closed  theres a 10-MP camera for selfies. And when unfolded, the Galaxy Fold has another 10-MP main camera plus an 8-MP depth camera for portraits.

Shooting with the Fold closed feels borderline sneaky because its so compact. You just double press the power button and start firing away. Its particularly good for selfies, as you dont have to stretch your thumb far at all to shoot.

The problem is that the 4.6-inch screen is pretty small for framing shots; I found myself using the larger 7.3-inch panel when I wanted to make sure that I liked what I was capturing. Surprisingly, I didnt find shooting with a tablet-size display in front of my face embarrassing, which is probably due to the small bezels around the screen. But, in this mode, it is a two-handed affair.

Image 1 of 3 (Image credit: Tom's Guide) (Image credit: Tom's Guide) (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Galaxy Fold is capable of delivering gorgeous photos with saturated color and a stunning amount of detail, as evidenced by this flower close-up. The rich purple really shines through, and the veins in the petals are well defined.

Image 1 of 3 Galaxy Fold (standard lens) (Image credit: Tom's Guide) Galaxy Fold (wide-angle lens) (Image credit: Tom's Guide) Galaxy Fold (zoom lens) (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

I also had fun playing with the multiple lenses in Times Square. The standard wide-angle camera captured the myriad signs with crisp detail, and I could easily make out details on the signs as I zoomed in. The wide-angle shot resulted in a noticeable fish-eye effect toward the edges, but it got a lot more of the surrounding buildings into the frame.

Like the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10, the Galaxy Fold comes with artistic new Live Focus modes, including spin bokeh, zoom bokeh and color print. I especially like the latter option, as it colorizes the main subject while leaving everything else black and white.

However, the Fold fell flat compared with the iPhone 11 Pro Max in this portrait of my two colleagues, Henry and Kate. The camera washed out both of the subjects faces and made Henrys jeans look like pants. Adam Ismail, who reviews lots of phones for Toms Guide, said of the Folds shot that Henry and Kate looked like they needed medical attention. You can also make out more texture and details in Kates shirt on the iPhone 11 Pro Maxs shot.

The Galaxy Fold also offers a dedicated Night mode, which I put up against the Night mode of the iPhone 11 Pro Max. When I snapped a photo outside around 7:30 p.m. in almost complete darkness, the Fold produced a brighter image, as you can make out more of the tree in the foreground. The iPhone 11 Pro Maxs shot also has more of an orange cast to it, especially in the street, it's image also provides better contrast in the bricks and better detail.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The front camera on the Galaxy Fold can take sharp selfies. Theres a fair amount of detail here in my hair and in the folds in my shirt.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Video

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a very capable phone when it comes to shooting video. It can record in 4K at up to 60 frames per second. And the device can shoot super steady video when you press the hand icon in the camera app.

In our footage shot near Bryant Park, the Galaxy Fold kept stead as I walked, but the camera had some trouble with the bright sunlight, as some faces looked washed out. However, the fountain looked pretty sharp, and the Fold did a good job rendering the surrounding buildings when I activated the ultra-wide camera.

When I engaged the telephoto lens on the Fold to shoot a nearby Le Pain Quotidien, I could make out small details like the Pick Up Here sign.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Performance

Given that the Samsung Galaxy Fold has the same Snapdragon 855 processor as the Galaxy S10 and Note 10 line of phones, its not a surprise that it offers comparable performance. The main difference is the whopping 12GB of RAM included in the Fold, which did seem to help juggle having multiple apps open on screen at once. I didnt notice much lag as I ran three apps simultaneously.

On Geekbench 5, a relatively new benchmark that measures overall performance, the Galaxy Fold scored 728 on the single-core portion of the test and 2,619 on the multi-core portion. The Galaxy Note 10 Plus scored 736 and 2,691 respectively, which is pretty much identical, while the OnePlus 7T scored a slightly higher 744 and 2,802.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max blew away the field with a single-core mark of 1,334 and a multi-core score of 3,517. We'll be running additional tests throughout our time with the device.

To gauge graphics performance on the Galaxy Fold, we ran GFXBench; the phone turned in a score 1,038 frames on the high-tier version of the Aztec Ruins Vulkan test (offscreen). The iPhone 11 Pro max notched a higher number  1,657 frames.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Battery life

With a 4,380 mAh battery, the Samsung Galaxy Fold has pretty good staying power given its huge display, but other phones last longer on a charge. On the Tom's Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G LTE (we used AT&T's network) at 150 nits of screen brightness, the Galaxy Fold's battery lasted 10 hours and 1 minute.

This runtime is pretty good when you consider that we used the larger 7.3-inch display for the entire duration of this test. (We will be retesting where we use the smaller front display for a quarter of the time.) By comparison, the Galaxy Note 10 Plus lasted an average of 11:09 on our test, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max averaged 11:54.

Best phone battery life: Longest-lasting smartphones

On a day with intermittent usage, which included snapping photos, streaming music, watching video clips and checking email, the phone still had 60% capacity left at 9:15 p.m; I had unplugged the phone at 6:30 a.m.

On a day when I used the Galaxy Fold more heavily, which included watching two full TV episodes on Netflix, the Fold was down to 25% come 9 p.m. Thats still more than a full days worth of endurance.

(Image credit: Future)

I loved being able to fire up the Wireless PowerShare feature on the Galaxy Fold, which allows you to charge other phones and accessories by simply placing them on the back of the Samsung handset. This includes the wireless Galaxy Buds, which Samsung throws in for the $1,980 price.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: Verdict

The Galaxy Fold feels like a phone from the future, and yet from a practical perspective it falls a bit short. When I was using Slack in one window, Gmail in another and Spotify in yet another on the 7.3-inch screen, I could see myself using my laptop less and a device like this more. I also liked being able to review and edit large documents on the go. And its just cool to close the whole thing up when youre ready to walk way.

But that doesnt mean you should invest $2,000 of your own money. Even if you put aside the lingering durability concerns around the Galaxy Fold, I find the overall design bulky and heavy, and the front display is too small. And while the cameras are solid, the iPhone 11 Pro has leapt ahead with its better HDR and night mode.

So as much as I appreciate what Samsung has accomplished with this first-generation foldable phone, I would suggest that most people wait for the sequel and for other foldables to hit the market before they take the foldable plunge.
On the one side of a table sat a Galaxy Note 8 and LG V30. Next to them were the earlier generations of those phones, the Note 5 and the LG V20. All four phones were attempting to download a full version of Pulp Fiction off of T-Mobile's LTE network.

The Note 8 and V30 completed the task in half the time of their predecessors. And those newer phones' modems and T-Mobile's network played a key role in completing the download so quickly.

Both the Note 8 and the V30 run on the Snapdragon 835 mobile processing platform, which includes Qualcomm's X16 modem. That's the first commercially available modem to support Gigabit LTE, a faster version of the LTE networking standard theoretically capable of supporting 1 Gbps download speeds.

As for T-Mobile's network, it utilizes a trio of wireless technologies  carrier aggregation, 4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM  that can deliver higher speeds to those Gigabit LTE-capable phones.

And that's what T-Mobile, never one to shy away from the spotlight, was here in San Jose, Calif., to talk about today (Nov. 9). Joined by representatives from Qualcomm, T-Mobile says that it's brought high-speed LTE Advanced to more than 920 markets. In 430 of those markets, T-Mobile says that its customers can get Gigabit LTE speeds with capable devices  in this case phones with the latest high-speed modems from Qualcomm.

Those phones include devices powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 CPU and its X16 modem. Besides the Note 8 and V30, those phones include the Galaxy S8, HTC U11 and Moto Z2 Force.

MORE: Best and Worst Phone Carriers

T-Mobile demoed just how fast phones can be when they're capable of taking advantage of Gigabit LTE speeds. Mark McDiarmid, T-Mobile's vice president of networking, tested a Galaxy S8 connected to T-Mobile's network here in San Jose using the Speedtest app from network testing firm Ookla. The phone hit download speeds of 610 Mbps  not quite the theoretical 1 Gbps, but impressive for a phone outside of a test lab.

"This is us just getting going," McDiarmid told reporters and analysts

T-Mobile is hardly the only carrier working on deploying Advance LTE in the build-up to 5G networking a few years down the road. AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have announced plans of their own, but T-Mobile contends that it's further along. After this article was published, a Verizon spokesperson contacted us to note that it has fully deployed carrier aggregation in close to to 2,000 markets while also deploying 4X4 MIMO and 256 QAM in more than 560 markets.

Demos put on by T-Mobile and Qualcomm not only showed off the faster speed of Gigabit LTE-capable phones  a second Ookla speedtest had a Note 8 turned in download of speeds of 673 Mbps while the older Note 5 puttered along at 275 Mbps  but other benefits as well. Qualcomm VP of marketing and communication Pete Lancia said Gigabit LTE improves network congestion by using just a fraction of a network's resources, so even wireless customers without a Gigiabit LTE-capable phone figure to benefit from the technology.

Take that movie download test. Once the Note 8 and V30 completed their downloads and left T-Mobile's network, the download speeds of the older Note 5 and V20 ticked up noticeably. Because phones with Gigabit Ethernet modems handle traffic more efficiently, there's more room on the network for older devices.

Gigabit LTE also figures to be a better a standard for performance-intensive uses like streaming virtual reality, 4K videos and cloud access. Another demo featured five Daydream View headsets simultaneously streaming 4K 3D video for Next VR. I was able to watch streaming highlights of a Lakers-Grizzlies game on the headset without any lag, even with several other demos taxing T-Mobile's network taking place all around me.

Don't confuse any of this with 5G networking. (T-Mobile's McDiarmid pointedly said his company wouldn't label Advanced LTE as 5G, an apparent shot at AT&T's 5G naming controversy earlier this year.) 5G is just at least several years away from arriving. But it should mean a boost in performance until then, provided you've got the right network and hardware. LTE Advanced and Gigabit LTE are also critical to 5G's launch because they'll provide a seamless transition to the new standard, Qualcomm senior director of marketing Peter Carson said, as falling back to 4G will be less disruptive to smartphone users.

For its part, Qualcomm has already announced the next version of its LTE modem, the X20. Featuring support for up to 5x carrier aggregation and up to 12 LTE spatial streams, the X20 can reach speeds of 1.2 Gbps  a 20 percent boost over the current generation. Qualcomm expects the X20 LTE modem to start appearing in phones during the first half of 2018.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Committee of Ministers of Transport have endorsed Beitbridge, Kazungula, Kasumbalesa and Chirundu One-Stop Border Posts for the piloting of the NEPAD Agency MoveAfricas Traffic Light System (TLS), as well as the roadmap for implementation of the TLS on the selected pilot border posts.

The SADC Committee of Ministers meeting which took place in Lilongwe, Malawi from 30 October to 3 November, endorsed the selection of four one-stop border posts to pilot the Traffic Light System. The piloting will look at performance ranking and take necessary corrective action where applicable. It will also contribute to the documentation of lessons learnt to enable the development of good practices which can be replicated to other border posts in the movement of goods, people and services.

This phase of the MoveAfricas Traffic Light System completes the Institutionalisation Process which began in January 2017, with the first milestone being met in July 2017, when the SADC Ministers of Transport for the Beira Development Corridor and North South Corridor countries, endorsed it as the tool to monitor and evaluate the performance of trade corridors. This is in a bid to unlock the transport and logistics bottlenecks identified in various reports that look at logistics and trade in Africa.

Following the endorsement of the TLS in Beira, Mozambique, a technical meeting was held with the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the SADC Secretariat and private sector to develop the roadmap for piloting the tool. The technical team selected four border posts (Beitbridge  between South Africa and Zimbabwe; Kazungula between Botswana and Zambia; Kasumbalesa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia; and Chirundu between Zambia and Zimbabwe) for piloting.

The four border posts were selected based on volumes and their high levels of activity, as well as their strategic locations in the region.

The roadmap for the implementation of the TLS on the pilot border posts will be done in a 3-phase approach as follows:
Featured African trade tweets:

@AnnMbiruru: Good news for transporters from Dar. Only 3 police roadblocks are official in Tanzania between Dar es Salaam and Mutukula, said TZ President @MagufuliJP during launch of Mutukula One Stop Border Post. = less transit time.

@diwahoza: Today was a good day for the Tanzania private sector; the final ground work was laid between @tpsftz and @ESRFTZ for the State of the Private Sector Report. The first report is expected to assess the contribution of the private sector to Tanzanias economy in terms of exports, tax revenue, employment etc - a figure which has been illusive in the past. We expect to launch it at our next Ministerial Dialogue, in Dodoma, January 2018.

Featured infographics: Quartz Africa: Eurobond debt has grown rapidly in Africa between 2007-2016; Wandile Sihlobo: Sub-Saharan Africas wheat consumption is outpacing production - pushes imports higher

Namibia and SACU: Namibias struggle to get sugar rebate (The Namibian)

Under the current sugar arrangement in SACU, Namibia cannot develop downstream industries such as confectionery manufacturing because sugar becomes an industrial input, and a company in that position requires a reliable, sustainable, transparent and certain supply chain. Also, it appears that if Namibia sources sugar from South Africa, it cannot export value-added products manufactured from that sugar. Again, it will be blocking confectionery downstream manufacturing, plus it defeats the purpose of intra-SACU trade as it creates only one-way trade traffic in favour of South Africa. What appears to be a challenge in this process is that South Africa and Swaziland as SACU members do not support the Namibian sugar rebate application. Delaying tactics have been applied by sending the application from one meeting to another. And because SACU has no legal institutions to deal with such a process, ITAC has no obligation to Namibia to take its needs into consideration. In the end, it is the private sector which is losing; it is the development of the sector which is delayed; and generally, industrialisation sabotaged. In conclusion, SACU needs to sort itself out if it wants to seriously promote industrialisation and create employment through manufacturing. [The author, Maria Immanuel, is an international trade analyst, agricultural economist and entrepreneur]

Key characteristics of African tourism GVCs (Commonwealth Secretariat)

Africas tourism GVCs are notable for many features, including the durability of package booking channels, low domestic demand for tourism, the presence of global - rather than regional - lead firms and the corresponding implications for leakages from the local economy as well as the importance of business travel. This paper examines some of the most significant aspects of African tourism that influence the economic upgrading that is available to local stakeholders. It then concludes by identifying policy initiatives that may facilitate those upgrading trajectories. [The author: Jack Daly]

Aubrey Hruby, Jonathan Said: How to close Africas jobs gap (Devex)

Instead, governments that focus on a modern industrial policy - concentrating on trade-oriented sectors that can compete in the global marketplace and knocking down the barriers that can hold them back - tend to create more jobs. The word modern is deliberate. It means embracing - not shying away from - the globalized economy, technology, open trade, and markets. It means being politically savvy to foster a working partnership with the private sector that will form competitive industry clusters to create jobs at scale. However, even the best strategy will fail without effective implementation. In countries where government capacity is limited, partners should focus on working with and strengthening islands of effectiveness, or agencies staffed with technically competent employees who have sufficient authorization to develop strategies, coordinate players, execute directives, and implement, coordinate, and guide sector strategies. Examples include the Rwandan Development Board and Ethiopias Agricultural Transformation Agency. [AfDB consultancy: Research assistance on jobs in Africa project]

Tanzania: Commission launches report about national assessment on business (IPPMedia)

The Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance yesterday launched the national baseline assessment on business and human rights report showing large existing gaps in land laws and right of access to information. Delivering the findings to participants in Dar es Salaam during the programme for the multi-stakeholders workshop to launch the report, CHRGG chairman Bahame Nyanduga said that the baseline is the response that providing a comprehensive account of the status of protection of human rights with regard to business activities in Tanzania. The baseline was developed by CHRGG with technical support from the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

Kenyan firms struggling with gender inequality, corruption - UN (Business Daily)

Kenyan companies lead their African peers in the race to adopt sustainable business practices even as they struggle with gender inequality, graft and failure by firms to publish sustainability reports, the United Nations has said. The UN Global Compact executive director, Lise Kingo, said that Kenyan firms account for nearly a third of its membership base in Africa after signing up to its binding creed of sustainable pillars like anti-corruption, gender equity, labour, governance and environment. Kenya provides us with the largest membership in Africa and thats quite encouraging since it shows more firms here are striving to reach sustainability goals, Ms Kingo said in an interview in Nairobi where she is on an official visit. The agency has a membership pool of 650 companies in Africa, with Kenya leading with 200 firms. [Kenya: Strike revives automation call in worlds top tea exporter]

SADC One-Stop Border Posts to pilot MoveAfricas Traffic Light System (Nepad)

The SADC Committee of Ministers of Transport have endorsed Beitbridge, Kazungula, Kasumbalesa and Chirundu One-Stop Border Posts for the piloting of the NEPAD Agency MoveAfricas Traffic Light System, as well as the roadmap for implementation of the TLS on the selected pilot border posts. The roadmap for the implementation of the TLS on the pilot border posts will be done in a 3-phase approach. Phase 1, will look at the reporting of different indexes and sources. Phase 2, will look deeper into the market dynamics, investment potential vis-a-vis risk assessments to ascertain the type and level of effort needed in a particular corridor by classifying the One-Stop Border Posts into A, B or C categories. Phase 3 will give the overall ranking based on the variables in the first two sections to arrive at the traffic light categories of Green, Orange and Red.

Mutukula OSBP to ease trade between Tanzania, Uganda (New Vision)

Loopholes for revenue collection sealed as both Tanzania Revenue Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority have recorded marked improvement in their revenue collections at Mutukula. TRA records show it has collected Tsh 27,776,716,217.00 ($12m) since August 2016 to June 2017, the time within which OSBP operations took form, compared to the year 2014/2015 where Tsh 18,646,417,015.00 ($8.1m) was collected. URA has more than doubled its revenue collection from sh70,332,001,143 (or $20m) in 2014 to sh147,724,206,969 (or $43m) in 2017. On daily basis, 542 vehicles (310 of those cargo trucks) pass through Mutukula border post. [The author, Moses Sabiiti, is TMEA Country Director, Uganda], [Uganda: Establishment of OSBP at Lamia, Kyanika and Bunagana Border Crossings: consultance service pdf]

Reps, MAN, Falana, others reject Moroccos bid to join ECOWAS (Punch)

Members of the House of Representatives and other prominent Nigerians on Thursday warned Nigeria against supporting the application by Morocco to join ECOWAS. They also said Nigeria must not consider the option of exiting ECOWAS, having sacrificed so much for regional integration in the West African sub-region. The stakeholders spoke at a public hearing in Abuja organised by the House Joint Committees on Foreign Relations and Cooperation/Integration in Africa. All the stakeholders held the view that Morocco joining ECOWAS would have regrettable economic and political consequences for the sub-region, particularly for Nigeria. They also noted that Morocco and West Africa had no geographical closeness and would be a direct breach of the ECOWAS Treaty to admit a non-regional country into the bloc. Both Akinterinwa and Falana noted that Nigeria was the target of Moroccos plan, as the latter would use its tariff-free ties with the European Union to flood the country with foreign goods. [By trading with Morocco, Buhari in breach of AU position on Western Sahara]

The Dos and Donts of the Economic Partnership Agreement (ThisDay)

A position paper, submitted by Dr Femi Badejo (CEO/Chief Economist Global Trade Policy Initiatives), to the High-level roundtable on the EU-West Africa Economic Partnership Agreement EPA, 24 October held in Lagos. [Cameroon: No more chicken, please (pdf)]

South Africa: Financial Stability Review (SARB)

The SADC Integrated Regional Electronic Settlement System (pdf): The September 2013 and March 2015 editions of the Financial Stability Review reported on the plans to establish the SADC Integrated Electronic Settlement System (SIRESS) and provided an update on progress with SIRESS. The SIRESS system is one of the building blocks that contribute to greater regional financial integration, one of the key goals of SADC. Over the last two and a half years, participation in SIRESS has grown from nine to 14 countries, with at least one bank in each country being active on the SIRESS platform. The overall number of participants has also increased to 83 banks of which seven are central banks and 76 are commercial banks (Table 8). SIRESS volumes and values have shown gradual growth over the last two years. Volumes have grown from an average of around 22 000 transactions per month in the third quarter of 2015 to about 24 000 transactions per month in the second quarter of 2017. Values settled have also increased steadily from about R90bn per month in the third quarter of 2015 to just below R100bn per month in the second quarter of 2017. The total values settled since inception reached the R1 trillion mark in April 2015 and by end July 2017 the total value and volumes of transaction settled were R3.49 trillion (US$267.59 billion) and 813 551 respectively (Figure 43). Given the increasingly important role that SIRESS plays in the regional payment settlement environment and the significant values of transactions settled, it is likely that SIRESS will be formally designated a financial market infrastructure participant active in the payment area, warranting closer attention and supervision in terms of the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructure and will probably be designated a domestic systemically important financial institution. It is also likely that SIRESS will be able to fill some, but not all, of the gaps brought about by the decline of correspondent banking relations in SADC associated with the derisking that have taken place recently in the region by some globally active banks.

Flexible mediation in Chinese province strengthens China-Africa trade (Front Page Africa)

A trade and commerce mediation committee established in 2013 to probe misunderstanding between Chinese businessmen  manufacturers or middlemen  and foreign exporters or traders is making significant progress in a major import-export concentrated city in Eastern China. The mediation committee, comprising of Ethiopians, Sudanese and Chinese nationals, is based in Yiwu City, a coastal Zhejiang Province in eastern China. The province also has the second largest African community in the entire China. There are over 3,000 African residents living in the city. Guangzhou, in Guangdong Province  southern China, has the largest African community. Merchants from over 100 countries are based in Yiwu city. Most of the mediators are African merchants themselves living in the city and they too are traders who export tones of commodities back to the continent.

Chinas ambitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: efforts to rebalance bilateral relations still needed (Coface)

The slowdown in the Chinese economy and the reorientation of its growth model towards private consumption are reflected in a weakening of demand for commodities from Africa. This will have inevitable consequences for exporters. According to Coface economists calculations, sub-Saharan Africa had a significantly higher export dependency ratio (on a 0-to-1 scale) than other emerging countries in 2016, at 0.24 compared to 0.16 for South-East Asia (one of Chinas largest trading partners) and 0.19 for Russia, Brazil, and India. The differential is even greater with the European Union (0.07) and the United States (0.12). Unsurprisingly, the countries that have benefited the most from Chinas expansion and those with a less diversified economy are likely to feel the effects of lower demand more acutely. The strongest trade dependency is concentrated around crude oil exports and, according to the index established by Coface, South Sudan has been at the top of the ranking since its independence was declared in 2011, followed by Angola and Congo. The Gambia, which produces wood, is not far behind. Eritrea, Guinea, and Mauritania are also among the most dependent countries because of their exports of metal ores (iron, copper, aluminium).

The hardscrabble business of Chinese manufacturing in Africa (Harvard Business Review)

Irene Yuan Sun, a consultant at McKinsey, explains why so many Chinese entrepreneurs are setting up factories in Africa. She describes what its like inside these factories, who works there, what theyre makingand how this emerging manufacturing sector is industrializing countries including Lesotho and Nigeria. Suns new book is The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa. Transcription of interview: [Africa will take Chinas place as the next factory of the world]
This website is inclusive of tolerant people of all faiths, without exception. Neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia nor homophobia should ever be acceptable to anyone. We must all strive to live in peace and harmony with each other, regardless of religious affiliations, or none. Intolerance is the mother of strife and conflict.   Mark Alexander

We Britons are Europeans!Wir Briten sind Europaer! Nous, les Britanniques, sommes europeens !  Mark AlexanderEmail me at:markalexander.librabunda@gmail.com
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As we set our sights on traveling to Mars, it's important to remember the legacies of those astronauts who lost their lives in the service of discovery. Their sacrifices ultimately make future astronauts' journeys safer, and even though these disasters occurred years ago, the losses are no less poignant today.

Then-President Obama expressed this sentiment best when he spoke during the 2013 Day of Remembrance, which marked the 10-year anniversary of the loss of space shuttle Columbia, "As we undertake the next generation of discovery, today we pause to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the journey of exploration. Right now we are working to fulfill their highest aspirations by pursuing a path in space never seen before, one that will eventually put Americans on Mars."

To keep the fallen astronauts in mind, NASA commemorates all lost astronauts every year. This year, NASA's Day of Remembrance is marked on Jan. 28, the 30th anniversary of the Challenger tragedy. That explosion took the lives of Christa McAuliffe, Gregory B. Jarvis, Judith A. Resnik, Francis R. Scobee, Ronald E. McNair, Michael J. Smith and Ellison S. Onizuka.

NASA's Day of Remembrance always falls at the end of January or the beginning of February because all three disasters occurred in this window. Apollo 1 was lost on Jan. 27, 1967, claiming the lives of Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee. Columbia broke apart on Feb. 1, 2003, killing Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon.

The sense of determination that drives space exploration is a recurring theme when presidents speak about them. When then-President George W. Bush addressed the nation on the day of the Columbia tragedy, he said, "The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on."

Ronald Reagan's address to the nation on the day of the Challenger tragedy, punctuated by his famous quotation from the poem "High Flight," reinforced these sentiments.

The idea of the continued journey in spite of tragedy speaks to the kind of person willing to put his or her life at risk. This is what makes astronauts such important figures. We have a lot to thank astronauts for. Their work in space influences our life on Earth. The risks they take make them role models for children and inspirational figures for the rest of us. Astronauts are made of "the right stuff" our culture craves. Just think of the young girls who may see themselves in female astronauts and enter into a STEM field to achieve that goal.

Space travel unites us. When you watch a control room during a mission, you can see the communal sense of anticipation followed by sheer joy when the mission is a success. The euphoria of the 2012 landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars was a great example  and we celebrated with them.

The shared emotion applies to tragedies, too. Space exploration sums up what it is to be human: to wonder and to dream. NASA's Day of Remembrance reminds us to acknowledge the sacrifices of those who risked their lives getting us where we are now  planning for a manned journey to Mars.
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The popular stereotype of the van-dweller enjoying the "van life" is probably of someone of a younger vintage, who might choose to convert and live in a van to cope with high housing costs or realize a desire for a minimalist lifestyle, or for more travel opportunities. Despite the stereotype of fancy-free youngsters bucking social expectations to 'settle down', there are also more mature van homeowners who are adopting this lifestyle for numerous reasons.

Bryan and Jen Danger are yet another couple who have come into the van life, yet have also chosen to keep their bungalow in Portland, Oregon, which they rent out. We covered them previously in a post about their cleverly self-crafted homebasically, the garage attached to the bungalow, which they legally converted into an accessory dwelling unit (ADU). What we didn't see was their converted Sprinter van conversion, which they use to travel most of year in, meanwhile renting out their garage home when they aren't in Portland. Alternative-lifestyles documentarian Kirsten Dirksen brings us a peek into their equally clever, renovated van. starting at 14:45:

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

Wanting to travel and live something different, the Dangers quit their lucrative jobs five years ago. They found tenants for their bungalow and moved into a revamped VW van. After a year and a half traveling up and down the continent, they returned to Portland, and realized their bungalow now felt too big for them. That's when they began renovating their wonderfully designed 480-square-foot garage home, doing most of the work themselves (there's a lot of great design ideas here, covered in more depth in this post).

Video screen capture. Houzz via YouTube

Houzz via YouTube/Video screen capture

 Bryan & Jen Danger

The 4x4 Mercedes Sprinter van is their main home in many ways. Having sold the old VW bus in favour of something more reliable, the Dangers found that used vehicles were out of their budget, so they opted for a new Sprinter van, only because a new vehicle was the only way that their credit union would offer a loan. The couple then lived in a rough versions of van's design-in-progress for a year, before finally building out the finalized layout in lightweight aluminum and bamboo.

 Bryan & Jen Danger

The interior is wonderfully done, giving the impression of an airplane or boat -- in fact, a lot of the design is inspired by the space-efficiency found on boats. There is curved cabinetry everywhere, as the Dangers wanted to avoid injury-inducing sharp corners, and these smooth forms were made possible by the versatility and durability of bamboo.

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

The kitchen counter occupies the middle space; here you'll find a stove that can be covered up to extend counter space. The refrigerator is actually a marine appliance, and allows the couple to use solar power to operate it.

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

The bed sits on a platform, underneath which is a roll-out step for accessing the full-sized bed, which in turn hides a cartridge-style porta-potty. Under the bed is a compartment for storing the insulated, black-out curtains, which allow the Dangers to 'stealth-camp' -- saving them RV park fees, and permitting them to park almost anywhere, whether in the city or in remote areas.

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

Outside, the van has an awning that's actually made for boats, meaning that it can withstand near-hurricane-force winds, compared to flimsy RV versions.

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

Another great feature is the custom-made, hidden hanging rack that's located just above the van's step, which lets them fold out the hooks only when needed to hang up wet gear without getting the rest of the van dirty.

Fair Companies/Video screen capture

The Dangers' van is quite well-crafted and polished, but Bryan emphasizes that they didn't wait for a finalized version of the van before beginning to travel. In fact, he believes that the point is to start and not wait for everything to be perfect:

We talk to a lot of people who want to spend more time outdoors, they want to live in a van or whatever that thing is, but they spend so much time planning and thinking and worrying that they don't ever actually leave. But I don't know without just jumping and spending time, whether it's living in a van or a very small space, if you're still living in a five-bedroom home, it's almost impossible to know what it is you want or what it is you need.



 Bryan & Jen Danger

The couple continues to travel and fund their low-cost lifestyle by designing small spaces for other clients, while at the same time, securing their financial future by renting out their main house. It's a creative approach that counters the idea that van life isn't for more mature folks; in reality, it can be for anyone willing to think outside of the conventional box. For more, visit Fair Companies.
Hi me and my future wife are looking to go to puta Cana for our honeymoon! We can be quite a pair of wimps when travelling! We would love to do something like horse back riding ect. I was wondering if travelling out of resort on excursions are safe and dont make you feel too threatened by anything! Any tips would be welcome!
This is not my standard. We just found out my spouse has to be in Brisbane the week before Christmas for work. Because work will pay for two adults' flights and hotels, we thought we'd take our two children and spend Christmas in Australia. My challenge is I have to plan fast! I typically like to plan our own vacations and take months in doing so. This time I don't have that luxury. I'm open to suggestions on where I go from here. I know the challenge is Australia is huge and there is much to see. I'm wrestling with is it worth it with this little time? The facts:

Teens ages 15 & 11, very adventurous - love to be active (swimming, zip lining, snorkeling, love wildlife)

Flight tips: looking at Quantas, Virgin Australia and American. Looks to be cheaper if I choose RT to one city.

Would like to visit Sydney (spend much time in Brisbane?)

Considering dates Dec 17- 26 (9 days)

Can we split our time b/t Brisbane and Sydney? We are open to taking train or driving outside of those two cities. Are we missing out by not going to any other cities?

Should we use a travel agent?

Is this even worth it with so little time? (could vacation elsewhere in the Pacific and do Australia with more time later)

Any activities that would be fun to do on Christmas?

They can get volunteer hours for school so putting them to work on vacation is not out of the question.

Is the Great Barrier Reef a must do in Australia? I know logistics is an issue there given timeframe.

I know this trip is a challenge! Thanks for tips and suggestions I may not be considering. I hate fast planning.
Re: where would you go if you had 3 weeks in Australia?

1. Re: where would you go if you had 3 weeks in Australia?

February is after the summer school holidays finish, so you will have less competition for accommodation. Coming from the winter in Lithuania, you may like to ensure you have airconditioned accommodation as February is still full summer of course and we do have heatwaves at 40C at that time of year.

Lots of visitors have 3 things on their list - 1 Sydney Harbour Bridge/Opera house, 2 Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, 3 Uluru/Ayers Rock in central Australia. Unfortunately two of these would be extremely hot and uncomfortable in February - Great Barrier Reef and Uluru, but there are plenty of other options.

You will be in hot weather across much of Australia, especially in the most northern top half and inland - but February is ideal weather for Australian beaches and activities in coastal areas.

Flying from Europe, depending on the airline you choose, there may be an option to buy an "Open Jaw" ticket that allows you to fly in and land on one side of the country (eg west coast - Perth) and fly home from the other side (eg Sydney or Melbourne) as there is plenty to see and do on both sides of Australia - its pretty big compared to Lithuania!

Here's a useful list of ideas if you are considering a week on the west side of Australia:

You will also get plenty of ideas from others for the east side I'm sure.
Costa Rica is an amazing country. I have been there twice. The 1st time it was just my husband and I. The second time we took our 2 boys ages 9 and 11 at the time. We too love nature and tak8ng pictures. You can have many off the beaten path experiences in Costa Rica. As I the locals, they love to share the beauty of there country. You can also be as touristy as you want to be.

So that being said it can be as expensive or cheap as you want it to be. I found travelling to Costa Rica was good for us. We were lucky both times and didn't see much rain.

We went to a hot spring river in La Fortuna where the locals go. This is the same water that you pay for at places like the Tabcon. It was awesome. We also visited Manuel Antonio and were told to look for a door in the forest just a little opening that lead us to one of our favorite beaches in Costa Rica. A wonderful country and worth exploring.

Check out anywhere Costa Rica. We used them both times to help with our itineraries and they are wonderfull and all our arrangements and accommodations were exactly what we were expecting. Also check out some YouTube videos we learned a lot that way. I found Costa Rica to be very safe. We carried out go pro, do my digital, and cell phones around. Just don't leave them laying around...common sense works best. Have a great time!

Hope this helps
@3,

Re how exactly shared shuttles work - see Interbus, for ex. : https://www.interbusonline.com/rates.php . It shows the pick up times, estimated travel times to the destinations, arrival time, price per person in US, which includes 1 bigger item of luggage and 1 small carry-on.

We used Interbus and other shared shuttles lots of times. You prebook them with a CC on line or by phoning their CR phone #, which might be very hard to do, as one time, the line was continuously busy for 2 days. They send you an e-mail with a confirmation #, which we print and bring with us. One time, our hotel in CR assisted us with booking the next leg of travel, by faxing Interbus a special form the owners had for them. We had done it 3 days prior to our travel date, but it was in low season, and we were flexible - if we could not get seats on the AM van, we could have gone in PM. Some destinations have only 1 trip a day. The Interbus phoned the hotel back later to adjust the pick up time a bit.

They are vans for about 9-10 passengers total. The luggage goes right behind all the seats, there is a cargo net. You can get lucky and the van might not be full, or it can be full, and everyone will be going to various hotels, requiring the driver to leave the most direct route to pick up (hopefully, without waiting!) and then drop off the others, thus extending the overall travel time. One time our trip advertised as 4.5 hrs long took 5 hrs 45 min. Another time a long segment was supposed to include a 15-min. long stop, with a change of shuttle (lots of shuttles meet by the same restaurant/shop/washroom/parking lot, etc., and drivers switch the luggage, while you keep your valuables on you), but the stop ended up being 55 min long, the drivers were chatting. The above were not great examples, but since we were not rushing to catch a flight, it was not a big deal in comparison to the overall length of the transfer - about 7 hrs in the last case. The rest of the times it was more or less on time.

Note that they do not pick up straight from the SJO airport. You first need to get a short taxi ride to the parking lot of Denny's restaurant. When you are waiting for your luggage by the baggage carousels at SJO, Interbus now has a new desk there, where the employee told us they could help clients get to Denny's faster, if you see you are about to miss your shuttle. The shuttles wait max 10 min., after which they leave, you lose your $$, and need to look for an alternative.

When they pick you up from your previous hotel, they arrive right to the parking lot of the accommodations, and you are supposed to be there prior to the scheduled pick up time. We always have directions and address of the next place we are going to, incl. in Spanish, to show the driver, in addition to the info used during the booking. The drivers we had spoke English.

The vans have a/c, but WiFi - only once with Interbus.

Re: reliability: you can search for TA reviews of Interbus and other companies. Plenty of reviews.

You may also want to look under the Top Qns about CR on the right side of the screen for Travelling Options. It has links for other shared shuttles, too.

Edited: 5 years ago
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- Babu Owino is a happy man after more than three local banks agreed to employ at least ten youths from Embakasi East constituency as per his previous demands

- Babu had asked the banks to employ at least ten youths from Embakasi East constituency in order for him to maintain or even open new CDF accounts

Kenyan banks including Equity Bank,CBA,Co-operative Bank and KCB have heeded to Embakasi East Babu Owino's baleful request to employ youths from his constituency.

The banks have promised to hire at least ten youths from Embakasi East following Babu Owino's earlier request,TUKO.co.ke has learnt.

The move by the aforementioned banks come barely hours after Babu Owino threatened to stay away from them.

READ ALSO: Mwanamke mmoja kutoka Nyandarua ashtua wakazi kwa kugeuka shetani mchana

Babu Owino gets response from Kenyan banks following his threats. Photo: Babu Owino/Facebook

READ ALSO: NASA cancels planned street protests at the last minute and TUKO.co.ke has the details

The controversial legislator in a Facebook post seen by TUKO.co.ke asked the banks to employ at least ten youths from Embakasi East constituency in order for him to maintain and even open new CDF accounts.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, November 9, the newly elected member of parliament said if the conditions are not met, the banks should forget doing business with him.

"For me to open Embakasi east cdf account with any bank in Kenya or proceed with the existing account,the bank must provide employment opportunities to at least 10 residents of Embakasi east.If the above Condition is not met the bank should forget business from us.DO ME I DO YOU." He wrote.

READ ALSO: Bungoma MCAs paid KSh 1.1 million to attend Uhuru's rally

Babu Owino gets response from Kenyan banks following his threats. Photo: Babu Owino/Facebook

READ ALSO: 5 stunning photos of the KSh 40k a night presidential suite Raila is staying in while in the US

Well,following his threats,Coop bank,CBA,KCB and Equity bank agreed to employ youths from Embakasi East.

The new development was made public by Babu Owino himself through his Facebook page.

''The following banks contacted me today and have agreed to employ residents of Embakasi east.Coop bank,CBA,KCB and Equity bank. Embakasi east residents love you.Need cvs''Babu wrote.

However,TUKO.co.ke cannot independently verify if indeed the banks contacted the firebrand first-time MP.

Babu's menacing demand came just days after his party leader ,Raila Odinga called for product boycott from specific companies.

Have something to add to this article? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli is in Uganda for a three-day state visit

- Magufuli and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni have struck deals that will improve relations between the two countries

- They include construction of a KSh 350 billion ($3.5 billion) oil pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga, Tanzania. The pipeline was initially supposed to go through Kenya to the coast

- The two countries have continued to isolate Kenya with the governments lately appearing hostile towards Kenya

Uganda and Tanzania have struck mega deals that underline the two countries' continued isolation and sidelining of Kenya in development matters.

Tanzania President John Magufuli flew to Uganda on Thursday, November 9, to start his three-day state visit. He was welcomed by Uganda's Yoweri Museveni.

During the visit, the two leaders struck deals that will see the two countries benefit economically and improve relations between them.

Magufuli is in Uganda for a three-day state visit Photo: Facebook/Yoweri Museveni

READ ALSO: Jubilee MP exposed for using witchcraft to win election

They commissioned a one-stop customs centre at the Mutukula border of Uganda and Tanzania and lay groundwork for the construction of a mega pipeline that will run from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga in Tanzania.

"We also laid a foundation stone for the KSh 350 billion ($3.5 billion) oil pipeline from Hoima to Tanga. This is a big win for us in realising the core objective of the East African Community, in as far as ease of movement of persons and trade is concerned," Museveni's office said.

The latest comes amid heightened diplomatic tensions between Kenya and the two countries over border rows.

Magufuli and Museveni enjoy some drum beating in Kampala Photo: Facebook/Yoweri Museveni

READ ALSO: Police arrest super eye-witnesser Dennis Ngengi in Naivasha

As reported by TUKO.co.ke, Tanzania confiscated and auctioned at least 1,035 cows belonging to Kenyan herders that had crossed to Tanzania for pastures.

Magufuli warned that Tanzania is not grazing grounds for Kenya livestock. His government also burned 6000 chicks that were on the way to Dar es Salaam from Nairobi.

Kenya wrote a protest letter to the Tanzanian government demanding answers on their actions.

The two first ladies were also in the company of their husbands Photo: Facebook/Yoweri Museveni

READ ALSO: Babu Owinos vicious threats against Kenyan banks bear fruits

At the same time, police officers from Uganda arrested and locked up in Ugandan cells over 20 Kenyan fishermen who were allegedly found fishing in Ugandan waters in L.Victoria.

The move angered leaders from the Luo Nyanza region but the Jubilee administration said the fishermen should face the consequences if they were found in Uganda waters.

Museveni and Magufuli have isolated Kenya and are charting their own way Photo: Facebook/Yoweri Museveni

READ ALSO: In pictures: All the global leaders who Uhuru has met vs those Raila has met in the last 12 months

The pipeline Uganda and Tanzania are constructing was destined to pass through Kenya but Museveni's administration changed mind when it emerged it would cost less to construct it through Tanzania.

The latest is likely to escalate further the diplomatic tension between Kenya and her two neighbours who are seemingly charting their own way as Kenya remains isolated.

Governor Wahome Gakuru died following a traggic road accident 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
Russian-backed militants launched 19 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 19 times. The Ukrainian Armed Forces opened fire on the enemy 12 times. As a result of fighting, two Ukrainian soldiers were wounded," the statement reads.

The tensest situation was observed in Luhansk direction, where Russian-backed militants launched attacks on defenders of Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk), using 82mm mortars and weapons on infantry fighting vehicles. The same types of weapons were used to fire at Ukrainian positions near Krymske (42.5km north-west of Luhansk). ATO troops also came under the enemy fire outside Trokhizbenka (33km north-west of Luhansk), Zolote (67km north-east of Luhansk) and Valuiske (20km north-east of Luhansk). In addition, militants fired 122mm artillery on Ukrainian positions on the outskirts of Staryi Aidar (20km north-west of Luhansk).

In Donetsk direction, illegal armed formations opened fire from grenade launchers on Ukrainian positions near Avdiivka (18km north of Donetsk).

In Mariupol direction, ATO troops came under small arms fire outside Slavne (25km south-west of Donetsk).

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The defence ministers of Canada and Ukraine will meet during the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial conference to be held next week in Vancouver, Canada.

This was announced by National Defence Minister of Canada Harjit Sajjan, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Canada has focused its assistance to Ukraine on increasing the capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, launching free trade and the recently signed defence deal. Next week I will meet with Minister Poltorak to discuss these issues and others," Sajjan said.

He stressed that Canada is ready to continue to support Ukraine.

"Our government, as always, is determined to continue to provide the assistance to the people of Ukraine in preserving sovereignty, stability and security," the minister said.

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Two Ukrainian soldiers were 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 combat actions, there were no losses among the Ukrainian servicepersons Two soldiers were wounded, they were immediately sent to healthcare establishments, Lysenko said.

Russian-backed militants launched 19 attacks on the Ukrainian positions over the past day. The Ukrainian Armed Forces opened fire 14 times in response, Lysenko added.

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The reform of the state coal mines, enshrined in the national energy strategy, is aimed at modernizing the coal mines and providing the state with its own coal.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said this during an hour of questions to the government at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Government portal reports.

We are the country that must provide itself with all the components, including coal. Our task is to stop to import coal, but this takes time. Private coal mines extract coal at a normal cost price. Meanwhile, workers at the abandoned state coal mines, which are not modernized, do not have the protection equipment, Groysman said.

The Head of Government stressed that the state should invest in the modernization of coal mines and the safety of miners and also consider the possibility of selling mines and attracting new owners to coal enterprises.

"We need to learn how to extract gas by ourselves, extract coal, increase capacities, do everything to become the exporter of energy resources," Groysman said.

As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the concept of reforming the coal industry in May this year.

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A delegation of the Government of Ukraine headed by State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Development Oleksiy Perevezentsev held negotiations with a delegation of the Government of the Republic of Turkey on concluding an agreement on development cooperation.

This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.

"On November 8-9, under the chairmanship of State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Development Oleksiy Perevezentsev, the negotiations were held on the conclusion of an agreement on development cooperation between the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the Republic of Turkey. The delegation of the Government of the Turkish Republic was led by Mehmet Parlak, the chairman of the legal department of the Turkish Cooperation Agency (TIKA)," the report said.

During the talks, the parties noted that the signing of this agreement would create legal bases for the establishment of the Office of Program Coordination in Ukraine with the aim of developing a fruitful cooperation in the economic and social spheres between the governments of the countries. As a result of the negotiations, the parties agreed on the text of the draft agreement.

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Ukraine has not been dependent on Russian natural gas for two years thanks to the energy reform, President Petro Poroshenko has said.

He stated this at the forum of representatives of local communities elected from the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko's Solidarity Party, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The energy reform today eliminates shadow schemes and ensures the effective competitiveness of our state, on the one hand, and energy independence, on the other hand. For two years, Ukraine has been completely independent of supplies of Russian gas, which brought us to our knees for 24 years," Poroshenko said.

The all-Ukrainian forum of representatives of local communities is held in Kyiv's Ukrainian House. The forum is attended by 115 heads of united territorial communities elected in the first elections on October 29, 2017.

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Ukraine is ready to enhance cooperation with Japans government and companies in implementing large-scale projects, first of all in the infrastructure.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said this at a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan Kazuyuki Nakane, the governments press service reports.

We appreciate the principled position of official Tokyo regarding the support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state. And we are determined to strengthen economic cooperation, in particular, in implementing large-scale projects with Japanese companies, Groysman said.

The prime minister informed the interlocutor about the key principles of the Ukrainian government's reform policy, which is aimed at accelerating economic growth and raising social standards.

Kazuyuki Nakane, in turn, stressed that Japan notes the progress in Ukraine and is ready to continue supporting social and economic changes in the country. Therefore, the Japanese foreign minister assured of further bilateral cooperation between the countries, including at the highest level.

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Any peacekeeping mission in Ukraine should be in the interests of Ukraine and contribute to the restoration of its territorial integrity.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said this in a statement on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Our government has been at the heart of international efforts to support Ukraine and we are working hard to ensure any peacekeeping effort guarantees Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity," Freeland said.

"Around the world Canada has been leading conversations with a number of countries about the viability and utility of peacekeeping and policing in Ukraine," she noted.

Freeland said she personally explored the feasibility and prospects of such a mission with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Special Envoy Kurt Volker, as well as with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week.

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The U.S. officials are preparing to test Moscows willingness to end the Ukraine conflict by seeking Russias approval for 20,000 peacekeepers across Ukraines embattled east.

The Wall Street Journal informed this with reference to the U.S. and Western officials.

The U.S. is expected to raise the proposal with Russian officials in coming days.

According to the report, it is driven by hopes of some Western countries, including France and Germany, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for a way out of Moscows militant support to separatists in Donbas.

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The implementation of the Lithuanian initiative  the European Plan for Ukraine  is a matter of political will and the incentive for reforms in Ukraine, not a lack of finance.

Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs Hanna Hopko said this in a commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent during her visit to Warsaw.

"As for the European Plan for Ukraine, we clearly understand there are necessary funds [for its implementation], despite all the apologies that the budget is being reduced because of the Brexit and so on. However, the issue of political will and spelling out clear mechanisms arises: which fields the funds will be spent on to incite the development of GDP in Ukraine," Hopko said.

She added that the Ukrainian delegation will try to raise a number of topical issues at the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels.

"We want the EU to more actively oppose the Russian aggression. In particular, we wish the visit of Mogherini took place as she visited Ukraine last time in 2015. It is extremely important for us that the final declaration of the Eastern Partnership summit enshrines our right to European aspirations and prospects," Hopko stressed.

The Ukrainian lawmaker drew attention to the fact that the sectoral integration of Ukraine into the EU is very important in this context, for example, within the framework of the European Energy Union, the Common Aviation Space and the like.

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President of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim arrives in Kyiv on Sunday, November 12, for a two-day visit to discuss Ukraines progress in transforming the country.

This has been reported by the press service of the World Bank.

"Kim will meet with President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, members of the Government of Ukraine, along with civil society, private sector leaders, and representatives of the Parliament," the report reads.

The parties will discuss the ways to reinforce Ukraines reforms in agriculture, health, pensions, energy and banking sectors and efforts to tackle corruption in order to help improve peoples lives and boost competitiveness and job creation in the private sector.

Together with Prime Minister Groysman, the World Bank Group president will participate in a special event Ukraine Tomorrow- Innovation and Opportunity. This event will showcase innovation and opportunities that modern Ukraine has to offer and how best to prepare people for the jobs of the future, bringing together young people, entrepreneurs and opinion leaders.

The World Bank recently endorsed its Country Partnership Framework for Ukraine for 2017-2021, which supports the countrys efforts to achieve lasting economic recovery that benefits all the people of Ukraine.
Canada is a close friend and partner of Ukraine and is ready to support it.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said this in a statement on November 9, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The people of Ukraine can count on the continued and unwavering friendship and support of Canada," she said.

She emphasized that Ottawa condemns Russia's illegal actions in Ukraine, in particular, annexation of Crimea and ongoing support to separatists in Donbas.

"Our government has been unwavering in its support for the people of Ukraine and Ukraine's territorial integrity. We condemn Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea, the ongoing violence and ongoing support to insurgents in eastern Ukraine," Freeland said.

According to the foreign minister, the Canada-led multinational battlegroup in Latvia, as part of NATO's enhanced Forward Presence, is an example of "Canada's leadership and ongoing commitment to regional security."

As reported, during the NATO summit in 2016, Canada agreed to send its troops with equipment to Latvia and lead the multinational battalion currently deployed in the Baltic States to deter possible Russian aggression. The United States, Germany and the United Kingdom each sent a battalion and deployed their troops in other member states of the North Atlantic Alliance bordering Russia.

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Canada should support the initiative to deploy a UN peacekeeping mission to eastern Ukraine and the proposal to lead it.

This was stated by the leader of the Canadian parliamentary opposition, Andrew Scheer, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Our future Conservative government will advocate for and lead Canadian participation in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in eastern Ukraine, in accordance with the requests made by the Ukrainian government," Scheer said.

According to him, any deployment of Canadian soldiers and peacekeepers must be consistent "with our interests, our values and in keeping with our greatest traditions of offering a hand to those seeking peace, freedom and security."

"This mission will cover the entire Donbas region in Ukraine, necessitating the withdrawal of the Russian military and its proxies from Ukrainian territory," the Canadian opposition leader said.

According to him, this would allow Ukraine "to restore control over its eastern border with Russia, ensuring that Russian military stays within its own country, and out of Ukraine."

"The defense of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity from Vladimir Putin's illegal acts of aggression should be a priority for Canada's government on the international stage. Now it is time to act," Scheer said.
The Council of Europe Office in Ukraine in 2018 plans to launch a project on the protection of national minorities rights.

Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Olena Lytvynenko told this to an Ukrinform correspondent.

We make efforts so that it [the project on the protection of national minorities rights] can be launched as soon as possible. There are certain administrative procedures ... I can hardly say for sure, but I think that the project will be put into effect closer to spring," Lytvynenko noted.

According to her, the project will include the publication of textbooks in the languages of national minorities, consultations at the regional level, a regular dialogue with representatives of national minorities on the language issues and key reforms in Ukraine.

"During the first months of 2018, the main directions of the project will be determined ... I do not think it will have pilot regions, I think it will be all-Ukrainian, Lytvynenko stressed.

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The Moscow City Court has rejected a complaint filed by the defense team of Ukrinform correspondent Roman Sushchenko, who was illegally detained in Russia, against the extension of his arrest.

The journalist's lawyer, Mark Feygin, wrote this on Twitter.

"The complaint has been rejected. Sushchenko is left under the arrest," he wrote.

The lawyer also recalled that the investigation into the case against Sushchenko had been completed. "We have got acquainted with 2 volumes out of 10. According to the version of the Russias Security Service, Roman collected information about the Russian troops invasion of Ukraine," he said.

As reported, Ukrinform correspondent in France Roman Sushchenko was arrested in Moscow on September 30, where he arrived on a private visit. He was accused of espionage, allegedly being a member of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate denied allegations of the Russian Federal Security Service.

The Russian court ruled at its closed hearing on October 1 to arrest the journalist for two months.

October 7, the Russian Federation officially charged the Ukrainian journalist with spying. Sushchenko denied any guilt.

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry confirmed that Ukrinform correspondent Roman Sushchenko is not a staff employee of the Defense Intelligence.

The Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow has repeatedly extended pre-trial detention term of Roman Sushchenko.

September 25, the pre-trial detention term of Sushchenko was prolonged until November 30, 2017.

Roman Sushchenko works with the Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform since 2002 and is agency's own correspondent in France since 2010.

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Lawyer Mark Feygin, who defends the unlawfully arrested Ukrinform correspondent Roman Sushchenko in the Russian Federation, reveals that the main theory of the prosecution is that his client allegedly collected information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"The investigation into the case against Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko is over. We have got acquainted with 2 volumes out of 10. According to the version of the Russias Security Service, Roman collected information about the Russian troops invasion of Ukraine," Feygin wrote on Twitter.

Earlier on Friday, the Moscow City Court rejected the complaint against the extension of Sushchenkos arrest.

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Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death among women in South Sudan, which has the fifth highest maternal mortality rate in the world. UNICEF and partners are providing maternal medical kits to health facilities across the country to help more women have safe and healthy births.



AWEIL, South Sudan, 9 November 2017  Arek Yel Deng had given birth before but she had never experienced such pain. Her labour lasted a week and the pain was so severe she thought she was going to die.

When I was in labour I couldnt even move, it was like my lower limbs were paralyzed, she says sitting outside her home in the village of Rumwut, in northwest South Sudan. Ive never had so much pain delivering a baby.

And it wasnt just one baby she delivered, but two, with a 12 hour gap between the births. Complications with the second birth meant Arek had to be transferred from her local clinic to a larger facility in the town of Aweil, 20 kilometres away.

Arek was told her second baby was not in a proper position for delivery. Midwife Joseph Kiir Sylvester said he would need to make an internal rotation of the baby. The child was successfully delivered, but the danger wasnt over as Arek experienced persistent bleeding, known as postpartum hemorrhaging.

When I was bleeding so much after birth, I was thinking about my children. If I die how are they going to survive without me, said Arek. I just felt so worried.


 UNICEF/Fuad

This is a summary of what was said by Meritxell Relano, UNICEF Representative in Yemen  to whom quoted text may be attributed  at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.



GENEVA, 10 November 2017  Yemen is facing the largest humanitarian crisis and the worst food crisis in the world. Nearly 7 million people do not know where their next meal will come from and the survival of millions of people depends on humanitarian assistance operations. You have all seen the statements from the humanitarian community in Yemen and from the Emergency Relief Coordinator based on his last visit on the ground. Fuel, medicines and food are essential in this context. And in order to get them in, we need access.

ACCESS

The recent closure of the Yemens airspace, sea and land ports has worsened the already shrinking space for the lifesaving humanitarian work. It is blocking the delivery of vital humanitarian assistance to children in desperate need in Yemen. And it is making a catastrophic situation for children far worse. The port of Hodeida is where most of the humanitarian supplies enter and it is essential that the port resumes its activity.

Also, because missions on the ground are not possible, blocking the movement of humanitarian workers and supplies, this means that millions of children will be deprived of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

IMPACT

Let me give you some examples of the impact of the closure of the entry points to the country:

The current stocks of fuel will only last until the end of November. We need fuel to maintain health centers open and water systems functioning (both for distributing water and for treating used water). The price of existing fuel has increased by 60%.



If fuel stocks are not replenished:

UNICEFs ongoing WASH response to respond to the cholera outbreak is likely to be affected. This could impact nearly 6 million people living in cholera high-risk districts.

The operating water supply systems and waste water treatment plants will stop functioning, causing unimaginable risks.

The functionality and mobility of the Rapid Response Teams, serving nearly half a million every week, will be hindered.

Due to shortage of fuel supply, 22 Governorates/District cold rooms/district vaccine stores are at a major risk of being shut down. Vaccines for thousands of children could be damaged.



If vaccines are blocked from reaching Yemen, at least 1 million children under the age of one will be at risk of diseases including polio and measles:

The current stock of vaccines in the country will last 1 month

Shortage of medical supplies will only worsen the Diphtheria outbreak recently reported in five districts of Ibb. About 87 suspected cases were reported with nine associated deaths.



With more than 60 per cent of population food insecure, the closure of the Yemens airspace, sea and land ports will lead to more deterioration in food security level which will worsen malnutrition rates.



Children are suffering from severe malnutrition and diseases that could be easily prevented. Children need urgent care and any disruption in bringing in therapeutic nutrition supplies will only mean that more children in Yemen will die.



UNICEF calls on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to allow and facilitate safe, sustainable, rapid and unhindered humanitarian access to all children and families in need, through land, air and sea.

###



Multimedia assets available for download here: https://weshare.unicef.org/Package/2AM40805FSQX



For more information about UNICEF and its work for children in Yemen visit http://uni.cf/yemencrisis



For more information, please contact:

Juliette Touma, UNICEF Regional Office Amman, +962 79 867 4628 , jtouma@unicef.org

Chris Tidey, UNICEF New York, Tel: +1 917 340 3017 , ctidey@unicef.org

Marixie Mercado, UNICEF Geneva, +4179 559 7172 mmercado@unicef.org

Christophe Boulierac, UNICEF Geneva, +41 799639244 cboulierac@unicef.org
Page Content

Student veterans will share their experiences as part of several free, public events at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point as the campus marks Veterans Day.

A Veterans Day ceremony, "My Life as a StudentMy Life as a Soldier," will be held noon to 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, in the Alumni Room of the Dreyfus University Center. Former Marine sergeant Tegan Griffith, a communications and public relations major, is a keynote speaker. UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson, a U.S. Army veteran, will give a welcome address.

In addition, a panel of four UW-Stevens Point student veterans and Patterson will offer a question and answer session. Captain Nathan Wallin, a UW-Stevens Point graduate student, teaching assistant and member of the Minnesota Air National Guard, will moderate the panel. The ROTC Color Guard will present the colors, and the UW-Stevens Point Pep Band will perform.

Griffith served as an aircraft maintenance administration specialist in the Marine Corps. At UW-Stevens Point she is public relations director for the Student Government Association and an active member of the UW-Stevens Point Veterans Club. She plans to graduate in May 2018.

She has been active in veterans' causes, including working for the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs and as an active leader in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. She is a member of the Women Marines Association, Disabled American Veterans, Plover VFW, Wittenberg American Legion, Student Veterans of America and VFW of Wisconsin Legislative Committee.

At 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, the UW-Stevens Point Veterans Club and Boots on the Ground Theater will present "See Me For Who I Am: A Theatrical Event" in the Dreyfus University Center Laird Room. Based on the book "See Me For Who I Am," a collection of essays written by UW-Stevens Point student veterans, the event features professional actors and student veterans portraying the harsh realities of war and the void between military and civilian life.

At 6:30 p.m. Monday in the Laird Room, Marine Corps veteran Thomas Brennan will talk about his book, "Shooting Ghosts," a memoir he co-authored with photographer Finbarr O'Reilly. A recipient of the Purple Heart, Brennan served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times "At War" blog and is founder of "The War Horse," an award-winning nonprofit newsroom chronicling the effects of post 9/11 conflict. The book will be available for purchase.

UW-Stevens Point is home to more than 300 student veterans, National Guard members, reservists and military dependents. The university is consistently named a Military Friendly School by Victory Media, publisher of G.I. Jobs, STEM JobsSM and Military Spouse.

For more information on veterans' programs at UW-Stevens Point, contact Ann Whipp, coordinator of Veterans Services, at 715-346-3237 or awhipp@uwsp.edu.




The detained leader of Cambodias opposition, Kem Sokha, will be questioned by a judge at the rural prison where he is being held on treason charges at the end of the month.

Court documents filed on Tuesday show that Ky Rithy, investigating judge from the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, will visit Sokha at Correctional Center 3 in Tbong Khmum province.

The court has also summoned Sokhas lawyers to attend the questioning, scheduled for November 24.

Sokha was arrested and charged with treason in early September for allegedly conspiring with a foreign power to overthrow the government, allegations he denies. Many believe the charges to be politically motivated, and the government has yet to produce evidence supporting its claim.

Sam Sokong, Sokhas lawyer, said the visit to the prison violated legal procedure, which should see his client questioned in a courtroom.

He added that the legal team would also feel under pressure in the prison environment, overseen by a prison service widely seen as corrupt.

Y Rin, a court spokesman, could not be reached for comment.

Sok Sam Oeun, a veteran human rights lawyer, however, said it was at the judges discretion whether to question a suspect in prison or in a courtroom.

If an investigating judge thinks it is difficult to transport him or they may face other difficulties, he can go to question him [Sokha] by himself, he said.

It does not matter, but the trial must be conducted in a court.
Cambodias top general has repeated warnings that the military will intervene if its leadership believes anti-government actions threaten the countrys stability ahead of elections next year.

Gen. Pol Saroeun, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), told officers during the anniversary of the founding of the Cambodian military this week, that his troops would oppose all activities of opportunistic groups supported by foreigners that aim to topple the legitimate government through incitement to cause violence.

He said the first duty of the military was to maintain and protect, absolutely, peace and also to crackdown on any color revolution, a reference to the widespread perception among Prime Minister Hun Sens top officials that there exists a foreign plot intent on overthrowing his government.

The international community has continued to express its concerns ahead of next years election after the government moved to disband the main opposition party, arrested its leader, Kem Sokha, expelled foreign democracy advocates from the country, and shuttered a number of media outlets.

Gen. Tea Banh, defense minister, echoed Gen. Saroeuns remarks during a separate speech to soldiers at the ceremony at Kampong Speu provinces Infantry Institute. Gen. Banh has previously said the military will smash the teeth of anti-government protesters.

He said the Cambodian Peoples Party leadership expects tensions ahead of the election to reach the highest level.

We have to prepare for anything, he said. The events that could take place in 2018 is a situation that we have to keep track of tightly ... and agree to work together from the top to the bottom to do something [to prevent the governments overthrow].

He went on to describe the arrest of Sokha as a gift from an angel.
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The leaders of the United States and China offered starkly contrasting views of the direction for trade in Asia in separate speeches Friday to regional business leaders.

U.S. President Donald Trump told the APEC CEO Summit that he is willing to make bilateral trade agreements with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but he firmly rejected multinational deals such as the 12 nation Trans Pacific Partnership, which was quickly abandoned in the first days of his administration.

I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade, Trump said. What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.

WATCH: Trump: US Will No Longer Enter Into Large Agreements

The U.S. president said that in the past when his country lowered market barriers, other countries didnt open their markets to us.

From now on, however, Trump warned the United States will, expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules. We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment.

How to achieve those goals

But making that happen is something that is easier said than done.

China has already shown that it has no intention of playing by the rules, said Fraser Howie, co-author of the book "Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise."

China has been in WTO terms simply much sharper and smarter than the Americans, Howie said. While the Americans went in with good faith thinking the Chinese would change and whatever, the Chinese never had any intention of changing.

Howie added that trade and access issues are difficult and sophisticated, and so far Trump has a poor track record when it comes to follow through - be it his travel ban, the wall, healthcare or tax policy.

Yes youre going to get tough on them, but how do get tough without penalizing them, he said. He added, how can China be penalized when Xi Jinping is your best mate? It doesnt make any sense.

China has shown that it has no intention of playing by the rules, said Fraser Howie, co-author of the book Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of Chinas Extraordinary Rise.

China has been in WTO terms simply much sharper and smarter than the Americans, Howie said. While the Americans went in with good faith thinking the Chinese would change and whatever, the Chinese never had any intention of changing.

Howie added that trade and access issues are difficult and sophisticated, and so far Trump has a poor track record when it comes to follow through, be it his travel ban, the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, health care or tax policy.

Yes youre going to get tough on them, but how do you get tough without penalizing them, he said. He added, how can China be penalized when Xi Jinping is your best mate? It doesnt make any sense.

Chinese contrast

Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose countrys rise has been driven greatly by large-scale government planning, immediately followed Trump on the stage in Danang.

Xi embraced the multilateral concept, in particular calling for support for a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), which would harmonize regional and bilateral economic pacts.

China was left out of the TPP, which was led by the United States and Japan, and was meant in great part as a bulwark against Chinas strategic ambitions.

Xi also termed globalization an irreversible trend, but said the world must work to make it more balanced and inclusive.

The speeches came just hours after Trump left China where he and Xi met several times Wednesday and Thursday.

Softer tone with China

In Beijing Thursday, the U.S. president had struck a markedly softer tone than in the past on touchy subjects such as North Korea and trade saying he had an incredibly warm feeling for Xi.

Trump noted the U.S. must change its policy.

Its too bad that past administrations allowed it go get so far out of kilter, Trump said. But well make it fair, and it will be tremendous for both of us.

WATCH: Trump: US Is Very Behind on Trade With China

The Chinese leader said Beijings relationship with Washington now stands at a new starting point and vowed to enhance communication and cooperation on the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula and other issues.

For China and the United States, cooperation is the only viable choice, and win-win cooperation can take us to a better future, said the Chinese president.

On North Korea

Much of Trumps Asia tour has focused on North Korea, which is developing a nuclear and missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Trump pressed Xi privately on the North Korea nuclear issue, Trump administration officials said. According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump told Xi, Youre a strong man, Im sure you can solve this for me.

Speaking in Beijing, Tillerson said there is no disagreement on North Korea between the United States and China. The diplomat pointed out that the Chinese have been clear and unequivocal over two days of talks that they will not accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons.

Theres no space between both of our objectives, Tillerson said. We have our own views of the tactics, the timing and how far to go with pressure and thats what we spend a lot of time exchanging views on.

Beijing correspondent Bill Ide contributed to this report.
Award-winning actor John Hillerman, best known as Jonathan Higgins, the sidekick to TVs Magnum P.I., died Thursday in Houston.

Hillerman was 84, and no cause of death was given.

Hillerman was a stage and screen veteran when he took on the role that made him one of televisions most familiar faces and voices.

Magnum P.I. starred Tom Selleck as a detective based in Hawaii. Hillerman played the caretaker of the resort out of which Magnum operated. It ran from 1980 until 1988 and earned Hillerman an Emmy as best supporting actor.

Before Magnum made him a star, Hillerman proved to be adept at both comedy and drama on the stage, on television and in films, including the slapstick Blazing Saddles and dark detective drama Chinatown.
The U.S. Air Force pilot crisis has grown, with the force's numbers short by about 10 percent.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that as of last month, the Air Force was about 2,000 pilots short, in a force that is supposed to have about 20,000 pilots.

"We are too small for all of the missions we are being asked to carry out on behalf of the nation, and as a result we're burning out our people," Wilson said.

Wilson said she met an airman last week who had just returned from his 17th deployment.

"They are carrying a very heavy burden," she said.

Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein blamed the problem on sequestration  government spending caps imposed by Congress  followed by lawmakers' inability to pass a budget.

"What keeps me up at night is that if we cannot move past sequester in its current form, we're going to break this force," Goldfein said.

"Our biggest need right now is for a higher and stable budget," Wilson added.

She criticized Congress' current continuing resolution on the budget, saying it was both delaying readiness and accumulating risk.

'National-level issue'

The majority of the pilot shortage lies in the number of U.S. fighter pilots needed on the front lines of combat, Air Force officials told VOA Thursday.

Goldfein said that despite the shortages, the force should be able to prevent front-line degradations within the next year, but he added that missions were being carried out "on the backs on our airmen."

"We as a nation don't produce enough aviators, don't produce enough pilots to adequately service the requirement for military, business and commercial aviation," he said, calling the crisis a "national-level issue."

He added that the shortage crisis went beyond the pilots, stretching into the number of airplane mechanics as well.
Federal inspectors have repeatedly ordered a southeast Iowa fur farm to improve the grim living conditions for ferrets, foxes, raccoons and skunks it sells to government laboratories and pet stores.

Many of the animals have been forced to live in sweltering heat or maggot-infested filth, sometimes with decomposing carcasses in their cages, officials found over the last two years.



So far no charges or enforcement action has been taken against the Ruby Fur Farm near New Sharon, 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines. However, animal rights groups are calling for rescue of the animals, revocation of the farm's federal license and fines for neglect.

U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors documented the most recent problems when they returned to the farm seven times between December and August after finding suffering animals.

'Severe heat distress'

A building housing 290 raccoons reached 100 degrees in July, with many of the animals panting and drooling and 26 in severe heat distress, according to a July 21 inspection report.

Reports from 2015 show injured or sick raccoons as well as skunks and ferrets that didnt receive veterinary treatment. In one cage a skunk was found living with its dead cage-mate.



A December 2016 report noted: One dead, decomposing, headless juvenile ferret was found incorporated into the fecal material buildup on the wire floor in the corner of the cage, which also housed a live adult and six juvenile ferrets.

Federal contracts show that even as USDA inspectors were writing up the reports about the farms treatment of raccoons, the agency was signing contracts to buy animals from the company for research. It spent nearly $30,000 in June and December of 2015 and in July 2016.

Contracts with USDA

The business since 2007 received more than $67,000 from USDA contracts to provide skunks, raccoons, and foxes. USDA has expansive research enterprises with divisions that focus on food safety, animal health and food production improvements. One of the contracts indicates raccoons were obtained by a USDA lab in Colorado focusing on wildlife diseases, and another noted young foxes would be used as research models.

The farm is licensed to Randy Ruby as a registered federal dealer by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and it holds state permits as an animal dealer and a pet shop.

Ruby declined to discuss the reports with The Associated Press when reached by telephone. He referred calls to The Cavalry Group, a Missouri-based animal business advocacy organization to which he is a member.

Claims exaggerated?

Its president, Mindy Patterson, said some of the USDA inspectors claims are exaggerated and when there has been an issue Ruby has addressed them immediately.

What we witnessed up close and personal this summer was Randy Rubys farm being targeted and harassed with hyper-aggressive inspections, she said. We have time-tested agriculture practices to ensure the health and safety of both people and animals that are being redefined as inhumane treatment of animals by these groups who have nothing but an emotion-based agenda.



The farms website says it has been in business for more than 65 years and raises our animals with tender, loving care, and we can ship them anywhere in the world.



Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an Ohio-based nonprofit that monitors U.S. research and animal holding facilities, has called for the termination of the fur farms federal animal dealers license and rescue of the animals.

Letter calls for fines

In an Oct. 16 letter to Robert Gibbens, a veterinarian and the USDAs director of Animal Welfare Operations based in Colorado, Budkie asked the agency to fine Ruby Fur Farm. He said inspection reports clearly demonstrate a total disregard for the health and well-being of these animals.



USDA spokesman R. Andre Bell confirmed the agency has discussed the farm with an animal rights group but declined to say whether it was considering enforcement action or terminating the license. He also declined to discuss whether USDAs purchased of animals from the fur farm had any impact on its enforcement of animal welfare regulations.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture, which has issued state permits for the farm to operate as a pet shop and registered federal dealer, has no enforcement action pending, said spokesman Dustin Vande Hoef. The agency can revoke the permits if it were to find standard of care issues but it has received no complaints, he said.



Any animal neglect charges must come from a law enforcement officer under Iowa law.

Mahaska County Sheriff Russ VanRenterghem said he accompanied a USDA inspection team to the fur farm three or four times in July.



I don't see any violations, he said, describing the farms owners as very reputable, very good people.

Iowa's laws are lax

Iowa is ranked the second worst in the nation for animal welfare behind Kentucky, according to the Animal Legal Defense Funds annual rankings released in January.

Iowa enforcement is weak because with a few exceptions animal neglect is not considered a felony, and laws defining adequate shelter conditions are unclear, the group said.

In general if I was picking a state to be an animal in, Iowa would be very far down my list, said David Rosengard, a staff attorney for the groups criminal justice program. I could be neglected. I could be starved. I could be abandoned and the person who did that wouldnt face the sort of repercussions they would have to deal with in a lot of other states.
Burundi's government says it will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court over its plan to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the country. The east African nation recently withdrew from the ICC charter, but the court argues the pullout does not affect its jurisdiction over crimes committed earlier.

Speaking to reporters in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, Justice Minister Aimee Laurentine said the ICC has no right to conduct an investigation in her country.

Burundi, not being a state party to the ICC statute, is not concerned with those so-called decisions of that court," said Laurentine . "The government of Burundi rejects that decision and reiterates its firm determination that it will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court or any other fraudulent manipulation intending to facilitate extended mandate of the ICC in the territory of Burundi.

The government response comes a day after three judges at the ICC authorized the prosecutor to open an investigation into alleged human rights abuses committed inside and outside of Burundi between April 2015 and October 2017.

Burundi became a member of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, in 2004. The country announced the plan to withdraw from the statute in October 2016 and the notification took effect last month. Burundi accused the court of targeting African countries.

Vital Nshimirimana heads Burundis Forum for Strengthening the Civil Society. He says pulling out of the ICC won't save those behind crimes against civilians.

Now it's very well informed that it cannot escape justice because victims are crying for justice and today no crime can go unpunished in the modern world, said Nshimirimana.

According to human rights organizations, between April 2015 and May 2017 at least 1,200 people were killed, 900 disappeared forcefully and more than 10,000 people were illegally detained amid Burundi's political unrest.

Security forces and the ruling party youth wing better known as Imbonerakure have been accused of being behind much of the killings of civilians and political opponents.

Laurentine says her country has the capacity to prosecute those behind the human rights violations.

Burundi has efficient and able institutions and legal mechanisms to conduct investigations and to take it before justice of any kind of crimes committed in its territory without discrimination, fear or favor, she said.

Some rights groups, however, doubt that Burundi's judiciary can give justice to the victims of political violence.
The Texas church where a gunman opened fire during Sunday services, killing 26 and injuring 20, may not reopen.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this week that it would be too painful to continue using the church as a place of worship.

Pomeroy, who lost his own 14-year-old daughter in the massacre, proposed turning the site into a memorial and building another church on a different site.

The final decision on the fate of the building will be made by the denomination's top leaders, who traveled to the rural community in a show of support. But a national Southern Baptist spokesman said the pastor's wishes will be taken into consideration.

Other sites of mass shootings have been torn down, including Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in December 2012. A new school was built elsewhere.

A one-room Amish schoolhouse near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was torn down in 2006, 10 days after an assailant took children hostage and shot and killed five girls ages 6 to 13. The original site of the school is now a pasture. A nearly identical schoolhouse with a security fence was erected nearby.

Gunman's father speaks

Also Thursday, the father of the Texas gunman broke his silence to say his family is in mourning.

Michael Kelley spoke to ABC News on Wednesday from his home in New Braunfels, about 55 kilometers north of Sutherland Springs.

He refused to comment further, saying he does not want the "media circus'' surrounding the attack by Devin Patrick Kelley to destroy "our lives, our grandchildren's lives.''

A motive for the carnage remains unclear, but the younger Kelley appears to have targeted the church because it was attended by his wife's family. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two residents as he was leaving the church.
Pacific islanders may be among the first people in the world forced to migrate as a clear result of climate change, but thorny legal obstacles stand in the way of that happening successfully, researchers warned Thursday.

Addressing those now, and putting in place a regional plan to deal with migration before it picks up speed, will be key to avoiding a future emergency, they said.

"I believe in preparedness rather than humanitarian crisis," said Cosmin Corendea, a senior legal expert at the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and lead author of a study released on the sidelines of international climate talks in Bonn.

The study, based on household surveys and other research in Fiji and Vanuatu, looks at how human rights, climate change and migration law need to be joined up in the Pacific.

It explores how the region's unusual hybrid legal systems  built on old traditional law overlaid by modern national law  could be harmonized to deal with migration.

Many Pacific islanders, for instance, consider group rights more important than individual ones. That is a challenge in accepting the importance of the international human rights protections at the core of migration law, because those focus on individual rights, Corendea told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"They don't perceive human rights as we see them. They see them as Western values imposed by government," he said by telephone. "That means they don't feel very comfortable with a human rights approach."

Because of such concerns, combined with a lack of time and resources, few countries have put in place any legal framework to guide climate-related migration, either when their own citizens leave or other islanders arrive, he added.

Today that is not a significant problem, as migration flows are relatively small and most islanders have a long history of welcoming migrants, dating back to when people traveled regularly between islands looking for food and other essentials.

But as resources, including land, water, food and jobs, become scarcer on Pacific islands and migration increases, that generosity may start to wear thin, Corendea warned.

"If someone comes and takes your job ... people start to not necessarily be so open anymore," he said.

Group land rights

Across the islands, up to 90 percent of land is held in customary tenure by groups rather than individuals, meaning it usually cannot be bought or sold, the study noted.

That suggests finding new land for migrants is likely to be extremely difficult, particularly with 70 percent of people in Vanuatu and 58 percent in Fiji telling researchers they would be unwilling to see outsiders occupy any of their land, even if they were financially compensated.

More than 90 percent of people surveyed in Fiji and Vanuatu also said they do not believe their government has a responsibility to help incoming migrants, the report noted.

They cited competition for land and jobs, alongside cultural differences, as reasons. "From this perspective, forced relocation is extremely problematic," the report noted.

Wesley Morgan, an international relations expert at the University of the South Pacific, noted that for many island communities with deep ties to land, moving elsewhere "is generally considered an option of last resort."

Some countries are exploring ways around the roadblocks. Kiribati, one of the lowest-lying and most threatened nations in the region, has bought 20 square kilometers of land on a Fijian island from the Church of England, to use for farming and perhaps eventually to resettle families.

But other early efforts to find land for relocation have been a struggle. Migrant families from the low-lying Carteret Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, spent more than a decade trying to find land and funding to move to Bougainville on the mainland. Some have now relocated.

Other migrants are turning to New Zealand and Australia, the region's dominant economies. In 2014, a New Zealand judge granted residency to a family from Tuvalu, in part on humanitarian grounds related to climate change.

At U.N. climate talks in Warsaw in 2013, governments established an international mechanism to figure out how to deal with unavoidable losses and damage from climate change, including migration and displacement. But it has made little concrete progress on the issue so far, experts say.

Answers needed soon

With more than 90 percent of households in Kiribati and Tuvalu already hit by climate-related hazards such as flooding, storms and saltwater intrusion over the last decade, finding better answers to migration questions soon is important, the UNU-EHS study noted.

It urges Pacific island nations to not only work on their own national and customary laws, to ensure they are fit to deal with migration pressures, but also to develop a regional policy that can head off problems such as countries beginning to demand visas for travel among islands.

Creating a regional plan  rather than waiting for any global climate migration deals to come into effect  "will better help the countries preserve their values and traditions," Corendea said.

Countries should also recognize climate-related migration is a problem that is here to stay, he said.

"We can't talk about climate change anymore without talking about migration," he said. "It's happening."
United States President Donald Trump on Friday wished a happy birthday to the Marine Corps, honoring its 242nd year in existence.

"On behalf of an entire nation, Happy 242nd Birthday to the men and women of the United States Marines!" Trump wrote on Twitter, in a post accompanied by several pictures of him posing with Marines.

Saturday will mark the first Veterans Day of Trump's administration, and he spent Friday in Danang, Vietnam, where he met with American veterans who served in the Vietnam War.

"Our veterans are a national treasure, and I thank them all for their service, sacrifice and patriotism," Trump said, noting that he signed a proclamation to honor veterans of the war.

Trump said he had met a few of the veterans and called them "tough, smart cookies" before inviting them to speak. Several of them praised Trump, including Max Morgan, who thanked Trump for his support of the military.

"Mr. President, from my heart, thank you for your support of the military, and it's an honor to be here as one of seven Vietnam veterans representing the 58,000 heroes who never made it home," Morgan said.

Trump is in Vietnam as part of his 12-day trip through Asia. Later, he will attend an international economic summit.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Danang Friday, the next leg of his 12-day sweep across east Asia in which he is discussing trade, diplomatic relations and North Korea.

Trump is in Vietnam to attend an APEC summit, where leaders of the major economies in the region will discuss growth and regional cooperation. While there, he will also attend a meet-and-greet gathering with U.S. veterans living in Vietnam.

Some members of Danang's U.S. veteran community have told the South China Morning Post that they are looking forward to Trump's visit, while others said they are skeptical about the president's performance.

Trump, who is 71, did not serve with U.S. troops in Vietnam. He has been criticized for his five draft deferments, four of which were student deferments and the final one for medical reasons that he has attributed to heel spurs.

He also drew fire from members of the Republican Party in 2015 for criticizing Senator John McCain, who served as a naval aviator in Vietnam and survived five years' imprisonment in a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.

"He's a war hero because he was captured," Trump said in public comments at a 2015 family leadership summit in Iowa. "I like people who weren't captured."

Later Friday, Trump will attend a gala dinner and a performance showcasing Vietnamese culture.

Softer tone

In Beijing on Thursday, the U.S. president struck a markedly softer tone than in the past on touchy subjects such as North Korea and trade with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump spoke of his "incredibly warm" feeling toward Xi.

During joint statements after talks in Beijing, Trump expressed optimism the U.S. and China will resolve the North Korea nuclear crisis. "I do believe there's a solution to that, as you do," Trump said.

Trump said he has "great respect" for Xi's leadership on trade and noted the U.S. must change its policy. "It's too bad that past administrations allowed it go get so far out of kilter," Trump added. "But we'll make it fair, and it will be tremendous for both of us."

The Chinese leader said Beijing's relationship with Washington "now stands at a new starting point" and vowed to "enhance communication and cooperation on the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula" and other issues.

"For China and the United States, cooperation is the only viable choice, and win-win cooperation can take us to a better future," said the Chinese president.

North Korea

Much of Trump's Asia tour has focused on North Korea, which is developing a nuclear and missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Trump pressed Xi privately on the North Korea nuclear issue, according to Trump administration officials. According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump told Xi, "You're a strong man, I'm sure you can solve this for me."

Speaking in Beijing, Tillerson noted "there is no disagreement on North Korea" between the United States and China. The diplomat pointed out the Chinese have been clear and unequivocal over two days of talks that they will not accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons.

"There's no space between both of our objectives," said Tillerson. "We have our own views of the tactics, the timing and how far to go with pressure and that's what we spend a lot of time exchanging views on."

Later, Trump and Xi spoke to a meeting of business leaders. Trump said, "I thank President Xi for his recent efforts to restrict trade with North Korea and cut off banking ties. China can fix this problem easily and quickly."

Bilateral trade

The shift in Trump's rhetoric on trade was especially notable because the U.S. leader has long complained about the trade imbalance between China and the United States.

For the first 10 months of the year, China's trade surplus with the U.S. was $223 billion, according to recent data released by China's General Administration of Customs.

Trump said the U.S. trade deficit with China is, "shockingly hundreds of billions of dollars" annually.

President Xi said there is a wider and prosperous future for U.S.-China cooperation on trade, adding that $250 billion worth of business deals were signed during President Trump's visit to China and that, "Chinese investment in the United States is rising rapidly."

But the roughly 15 agreements unveiled in Beijing are mostly non-binding memorandums of understanding, and according to Bloomberg News, "could take years to materialize  if they do at all."

Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is pessimistic that such deals will do much to address the real hindrances to trade relations with China.

"The president likes deals, and he likes big numbers, but we're not going to change something he doesn't like, like the trade deficit, without changing Chinese trade practices," Scissors said. "China has to have a different approach to trade in the world than it does."

Scissors said that more than the deficit, it is what is behind the numbers, such as the fact that Chinese state-owned enterprises never go out of business.

"Which means American goods and services can't ever win in the China market," he said.

In his joint statement, Xi said, "there needs to be in-depth discussions on the trade imbalance" with the United States, among other issues.

After the trade talks, Secretary Tillerson said the accomplishments were "pretty small," adding the U.S. concerns about the pace of progress was communicated to Chinese officials Thursday.

Human rights

Trump and Xi also had a "frank exchange" on human rights, according to Tillerson, though human rights did not appear to be a major part of Trump's agenda.

The U.S. president made no public mention of China's alleged human rights abuses during his stop in the country, which is ruled by a one-party, authoritarian government that severely restricts dissent.

That is in contrast to many of Trump's predecessors, including Barack Obama, who on his trips to China would often bring up human rights concerns during addresses to students or other members of the Chinese public.

While Trump has not forcefully and publicly raised human rights concerns in authoritarian countries such as China, White House officials have suggested that he is doing so in private  a strategy they say is more effective than public shaming.

"Show me the money," said Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch. "All I see is a half-sentence reference in Tillerson's remarks from yesterday that he and Trump discussed human rights. I have no idea what those were, or if anybody actually suggested that one side improve."

But it was unclear how effective such a public condemnation would be coming from Trump, who at various times has referred to Xi as a "terrific guy," a "great leader," and a "very special man," Richardson says.

No questions taken

Many rights activists were also concerned after Trump did not take questions from reporters during an appearance alongside his Chinese counterpart Thursday.

Such a move reinforces China's "authoritarian impulses," according to Richardson, even while noting that Obama also did not take reporters' questions during his first visit to the country in 2009.

"It is a catastrophically stupid thing to do in China, where the press is already deeply limited, and in fact Chinese journalists get locked up for honest reporting all the time," she said.

When asked why Trump did not take questions from reporters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "It was at the Chinese insistence," according to CNN.
Eighteen people, including a provincial lawmaker, went on trial in eastern Congo on Thursday for the rapes of dozens of children, victims' rights activists said.

At least 46 children, some as young as 18 months, were raped near the village of Kavumu between 2013 and 2016, sparking an international outcry and criticism of Democratic Republic of Congo's government for its slow response.

In June last year, authorities arrested Frederic Batumike, a deputy from South Kivu province, and members of a militia he is alleged to have led.

Rights groups hope the trial, which is expected to last several weeks, will strike a blow against impunity in Congo, where they say government forces and militia groups in the lawless eastern borderland have long used rape as a weapon of war.

The trial opened in a military court in Kavumu on Thursday with the defendants facing charges of rape, murder and organization of an armed group, Jean Chrysostome Kijana, an activist representing the victims, told Reuters.

Proceedings began 10 hours late and lasted just 20 minutes, during which the defendants' names were read aloud.

"The start of the trial is a strong signal in the fight against impunity," said Kijana. However, he added that the delay to proceedings did raise fears that the trial could end up just being "yet another in a long list of botched trials."

Millions died in eastern Congo in regional wars between 1996 and 2003, most from hunger and disease. Dozens of armed groups continue to prey on local populations and exploit the area's rich natural resources.

Experts say Congo has made some progress in combating sexual violence and several high-level militia and army commanders have been successfully prosecuted in recent years, but the problem remains pervasive.

According to the government, Batumike's militia employed a spiritual adviser who told its fighters that raping very young children would confer supernatural protection.

Advocacy groups involved in the case say it has been particularly difficult to investigate because the victims are so young and their families were often asleep when the alleged rapes occurred.
A former British intelligence officer who once worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union said Russian spies now have "the difficult and critical mission" of saving the world, according to a statement released Friday.

George Blake has lived in Russia since his escape from a British prison in 1966. He turns 95 on Saturday.

Blake said in a statement that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service must "save the world in a situation when the danger of nuclear war and the resulting self-destruction of humankind again have been put on the agenda by irresponsible politicians."

"It's a true battle between good and evil," he said in comments released by the intelligence service, or SVR, and carried by Russian news agencies.

Blake also said terrorism has "left bloody traces in many corners of the world."

SVR said that Blake was not available to interview on Friday. His last in-person interviews were in 2012 for a documentary by a Russian state television station and for a Russian government daily.

Born in the Netherlands, Blake joined British intelligence during World War II. He was posted to Korea when the war there erupted in 1950 and was detained by the Communist North. He said he volunteered to work for the Soviet Union after witnessing relentless U.S. bombing of North Korea.

In Friday's statement, Blake emphasized again that he decided to switch sides after seeing civilians massacred by the "American military machine."

"I realized back then that such conflicts are deadly dangerous for the entire humankind and made the most important decision in my life - to cooperate with the Soviet intelligence voluntarily and for free to help protect peace in the world," Blake said in the Russian statement.

He added that Russia has become his "second motherland," and thanked SVR officers for their friendship and understanding.

"I believe that you will serve our common cause selflessly and courageously," he said to SVR officers. "I believe in the final victory over the treacherous enemy. This belief has given me strength."

As a double agent, Blake passed some of the most coveted British secrets to the Soviet Union, including a Western plan to eavesdrop on Soviet communications from an underground tunnel into East Berlin.

SVR chief Sergei Naryshkin congratulated Blake on his birthday, saying Blake had been a role model for the agency's officers.

A Polish defector exposed Blake as a spy for Russia in 1961. He was convicted on spying charges in Britain and sentenced to 42 years in prison. In October 1966, he made a dashing escape with help from several people he met while in custody.

Blake spent two months hiding at his assistant's place and was then driven across Europe to East Berlin inside a wooden box attached under a car.

Blake said in a 2012 interview with the Russian government newspaper that he had adapted well to life in Russia. He once joked he's like a "foreign-made car that adapted well to Russian roads."
The large drop in global cocoa prices has hurt African farmers, leading some to abandon their plantations. In Cameroon, however, cocoa producers are mapping out ways to encourage more local processing.

At Nkog-Ekogo in the center region of Cameroon, a cocoa post-harvest processing and treatment center is inaugurated. Farmer Petronella Ndukong said that will help farmers dry and conserve their produce while waiting for prices to increase.

"[It] is going to be a wonderful thing for the producers," Ndukong said. "They will start learning how to transform it."

The world's fifth-largest cocoa producer, Cameroon's average cocoa production was 230,000 tons in 2015. That increased to 260,000 tons last year when demand rose in the world market.

The International Cocoa and Coffee Organization reports that in 2015 there was a boom with growing demand, particularly in the new markets of China and India. This pushed farmers to produce a surplus of 400,000 tons of cocoa against the four-million-ton annual supply. In 2016 and 2017, there has been another surplus of about 400,000 tons.

Yet, local processing in Africa is only 25 percent of production, so the continent relies on developed countries for processing.

Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Cameroon's trade minister, said this year has been the worst in the last five as the farm gate price per kilogram officially dropped to $1, from $3 three years ago. That is pushing farmers to abandon their farms.

Atangana said the main challenge is that financial and social pressure is forcing some farmers to harvest cocoa that is not ready, and drying it under unhealthy conditions. The result, he said, is that prices will continue to be drastically reduced because the cocoa is of very poor quality.

And there are indications production will plummet.

Ambe Funui, president of a cocoa producers association in the Lekie, center region of Cameroon, said environmental factors are harming production.

"I pray that the production should not reduce this year because we have noticed that there is very timid bearing of cocoa, there is late bearing and then it seems as if there is persistent black spots despite the fact that farmers are applying the insecticides and fungicides," Funui said.

During the Yaounde meeting to encourage African countries to process cocoa, Daniel Mercier of the French Confederations of Chocolate Makers and Confectioners said it will be dangerous for Africa's economy if cocoa production is abandoned because of low prices. He advises that production should not be dropped and the quality of the crop should be controlled by halting early harvests.

It is a shame, he said, that while developed countries process cocoa and make much profit from its sale, producing countries remain very poor. The best thing would be for cocoa-producing countries to process their cocoa to highly consumable food items like chocolate, he added.

Seventy percent of the world's cocoa comes from west and central Africa. Producers have suggested that the issue of cocoa price decline should be included in the agenda of the Africa-EU summit to be held later this month in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, which, together with Ghana, contributes 60 percent of the cocoa sold in the world.
The FBI has yet to gain access to data on Devin Kelley's phone four days after the former airman killed 26 churchgoers in Texas in the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Thursday, blaming "warrant-proof encryption" for impeding criminal investigations.

The FBI's San Antonio office sent Kelley's encrypted phone to the bureau's crime lab in Quantico, Virginia, earlier this week after agents were unable to unlock it, Christopher Combs, the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in San Antonio, Texas, said Tuesday.

But Rosenstein, speaking at the BWI Business partnership organization in Maryland, said the FBI has been unable to access "the data inside because of encryption."

"Nobody has a legitimate privacy interest in that phone," Rosenstein said. "The suspect is deceased. Even if he were alive, it would be legal for police and prosecutors to find out what is in the phone."

The FBI declined to say whether the bureau had been able to unlock the phone but unable to access its encrypted data.

Kelley killed 26 people and injured 20 others at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday before turning the gun on himself.

The FBI has not identified the make or model of Kelley's phone, but the Associated Press reported on Wednesday that it was an Apple iPhone.

Apple said on Wednesday that it "immediately" reached out to the FBI after "learning that investigators were trying to access a mobile phone."

"We offered assistance and said we'd expedite our response to any legal process they send us," Apple said in a statement.

Legal battle

Rosenstein said "strong encryption is good," but he criticized technology companies for building devices and applications that make it difficult for law enforcement authorities even with a warrant to access encrypted data.

A 2016 legal dispute between the FBI and Apple over the bureau's effort to gain access to the phone of San Bernardino mass shooter Syed Rizwan Farok fueled a national debate over privacy and public safety.

The FBI obtained a warrant to unlock the phone, but the data was encrypted and Apple refused to help the bureau gain access to the data.

The showdown ended after the FBI was able to open the device with the use of an unnamed third party.

FBI officials have long expressed frustration over increasingly sophisticated encryption technology that makes it harder for law enforcement to access devices and data.

In the first 11 months of the 2017 fiscal year, the FBI was unable to access the content of nearly 7,000 smartphones, more than half the total number of devices the bureau tried to access, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week.

"And that's a huge, huge problem," Wray said. "It impacts investigations across the board  narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime and child exploitation."
The crackdown on corruption in Saudi Arabia led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expanded to several members of the royal family, engulfing some of the richest and most powerful men in the Middle East. Many of them are major global investors and the economic fallout could extend well beyond the shifting political sands of Saudi Arabia.



Diplomats and global investors flocked to Riyadh's Ritz Carlton hotel a fortnight ago to hear the crown prince sell his dream of a new $500-billion mega-city in the Saudi kingdom, powered solely by renewable energy, a big shift away from the country's fossil fuel economy.

Secretly recorded video footage taken this week shows mattresses and blankets covering the floors of the ornate conference rooms of The Ritz Carlton hotel, which is being used as a holding pen for dozens of arrested Royal Family members and businessmen.



"To publicly humiliate and start to release details of alleged wrongdoing by members of the Royal Family and their allies in media and business is a totally new style of politics for the Al Saud family," Gulf analyst Jane Kinninmont of Chatham House. "It seems though Mohammed Bin Salman is betting that it's going to be very popular with the public."

Business establishment involved



Among those arrested is one of the world's richest men, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, often dubbed the Warren Buffet of the Middle East.



He is a major shareholder in giant corporations like Twitter, Apple, and Citigroup. His arrest will likely spook business partners in the West "who saw him as someone who they had done their due diligence on, and who they could safely do business with. So, this will lead many to wonder, 'Are their Saudi partners safe?'" said Kinninmont.



There also are lingering questions about how far back the corruption probe will stretch. In 2010 British defense firm BAE systems pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to false accounting on a fighter jet contract worth tens of billions of dollars, a deal known as al Yamamah. But a probe by Britain's Serious Fraud Office was quashed under political pressure from London and Riyadh.



"Will old big corruption cases like the al Yamamah case for example be reopened, and cause embarrassment to prominent Western companies?" asks Kinninmont.

WATCH: Growing Fears Over Spillover From Saudi Corruption Crackdown





Possible power grab



Many see the purge as part of the 32-year-old crown prince's efforts to consolidate power. The former head of the National Guard, Prince Miteb bin Abdullah was among those detained and dismissed from his post.



"Mohammed bin Salman has brought first the defense ministry, then lately the counterterrorism and domestic intelligence services under his oversight, and the national guard is kind of the one force remaining outside of that," said Graham Griffiths of security analysts Control Risks.



Bin Salman has framed the crackdown as part of sweeping economic and social reforms under his so-called "2030 vision." Low oil prices have created a predicted 2017 budget deficit of $52 billion, which is about eight percent of GDP. Analysts say the costs of sustaining the royal family, and the largesse of the state, are no longer affordable.



"Economic growth is very weak and there is a change in the economy of the kingdom from being an oil economy into an investing economy," said independent Lebanese economist Ghazi Wazni. "And some of the main principles of the investing economy are transparency, clarity, good governance and countering corruption."



The U.S. State Department has urged Riyadh to ensure the crackdown is "fair and transparent. "President Donald Trump has praised the crown prince on Twitter, saying corrupt officials had been "milking their country for years."



"It appears that he has really bought in to Mohammed bin Salman as somebody who is business focused, who is against extremism, and who will lift Saudi Arabia into a more modern world," said analyst Kinninmont. "But yes, of course there will be many concerns within the U.S. Foreign Service and the military about the unpredictability that exists currently."



That unpredictability is engulfing the region. Sunni-led Saudi Arabia remains at war with Shi'ite Houthi rebels in Yemen, who appear to have successfully fired a ballistic missile that nearly reached Riyadh airport Saturday.



Meanwhile, it's unclear whether the United States will continue to support the Iran nuclear deal, as Congress decides whether to demand further concessions.



Analysts fear instability in both Tehran and Riyadh could exacerbate their longstanding rivalry.
The U.S. federal government has released more than 13,000 records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

It was the fourth release this year.

Most of the collection comprising about 5 million pages of records has been released to the public, but some documents have been withheld over the years to protect individuals, intelligence sources and methods, and national security.

President Donald Trump ordered the release of all of the JFK documents on October 27, one day after nearly 3,000 records were released.

The latest documents are being released according to a law signed by President George H.W. Bush on Oct. 26, 1992, which required all records related to the assassination be released within 25 years.

Government agencies have until March to tell the National Archives why any part of the records should still be redacted.
A convicted Greek anarchist serving life in prison for 11 terrorist assassinations began a two-day furlough Thursday, infuriating the families of his victims.

Friends and supporters hugged Dimitris Koufodinas as he walked out of an Athens prison Thursday for a leave granted under prison rules.

Koufodinas is required to check in with the police station twice a day before he returns to his cell.

Koufodinas was a member of the disbanded November 17 anarchist group, which was responsible for 23 political assassinations over 30 years.

Koufodinas was involved in 11 of those murders.

November 17's victims included a CIA station chief in Athens and a British defense official.

U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt said granting leave to a convicted terrorist dishonors the memories of his victims.

British ambassador Kate Smith said she is "deeply disappointed."

Greek Conservative lawmaker Dora Bakoyannis, whose politician husband was killed by November 17, told Greece's Skai television that Koufodinas "isn't just any terrorist. He was a leader, the ideological guide, the guy who  said after the murder he went to a tavern and celebrated, while my children were crying."

Koufodinas used his interest in beekeeping and his career as a teacher to hide his membership with November 17.

The group took its name from the date of a 1973 student uprising against the former Greek military dictatorship.
In a half-forgotten field in France stands a worn monument to a regiment of U.S. soldiers who faced down racism at home and in their ranks to become World War Is most decorated unit of African American soldiers.

In the run up to Veterans Day on Nov. 11, campaigners say the record of the 371st infantry regiment needs to be fully recognized. One man is trying to have one of the units soldiers finally decorated with the Medal of Honor  the U.S. militarys highest award  a century after his death.

The 371st was largely made up of poor black laborers from segregated South Carolina.

They were drafted into the army by a military machine keen to keep them away from potential front line glory by putting them in support roles. But they soon found themselves in the heat of battle under the command of the French army, which was desperate for manpower in the dying days of the war.

You had these African Americans in the early 1900s who were subject to Jim Crow, racism was rampant, the military was segregated, said Gerald Torrence of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), a government agency that serves as guardian of U.S. military memorials and cemeteries overseas.

These men were victimized in their daily life in the United States, yet they were not victims in their minds, said Torrence, who is co-author of "Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War.

Until 2015, when President Barack Obama posthumously decorated a soldier from another regiment, the 371st contained the wars only African American winner of the Medal of Honor. But now Jeff Gusky, a campaigner, explorer and photographer, has dug through the records and believes it deserves another.

Forgotten warrior

Private Burton Holmes was in his early 20s on Sept. 28, 1918 when he was badly injured during an assault on a ridge in Champagne, eastern France. In the face of heavy machine gun fire, he returned to headquarters to re-arm and fought on, rallying the troops before being killed.

He was recommended for the Medal of Honor but it was downgraded to a lesser award, a decision Gusky believes was down to institutional racism.

An African American comrade of Holmes, Freddie Stowers, was also recommended for the Medal of Honor during the war but his paperwork was misplaced for decades and he was only recognized in 1991, 73 years after his death.

Now veterans organizations say the case of Holmes needs to be reviewed too.

I think the burden is on the present day U.S. Army to tell us why he wouldnt deserve the Medal of Honor, Gusky said.

In the tiny village of Ardeuil et Montfauxelles in eastern France (population 86), the residents have not forgotten the sacrifice of the soldiers.

Local man Frank Lesjean treks through a field after work to tend to their memorial, accessible only by a muddy track. He touches up the names of those who died with red paint and looks after the roses around the chipped granite.

Restoring this monument helps their memory to endure, he told Reuters. Without it, theyd be even more forgotten.
This week Ivory Coast signed a nearly $525 million compact grant with the U.S. governments Millennium Challenge Corporation, money that will be spent over a five-year period to spur economic growth in the West African country and promote regional stability and security.

The Ivorian government will contribute $22 million to the various projects designed to support growth and private investment by building up workers' skills and reducing transportation costs.

The money in education will be used to build classrooms to improve skills, because youth employment is an objective of the government, and it will invest in the transport of Abidjan because Abidjan is a city of 6 million people, and its congested and we need to find ways to improve the fluidity of movement in Abidjan, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara told VOA.



In a signing ceremony at the U.S. State Department, Jonathan Nash, the Millennium Challenge Corporations acting CEO, said a lack of training for workers has constrained the Ivorian economy.

Well focus on improving basic literacy and numeracy skills in secondary education, complemented by an innovative technical and vocational training model closely linked with the actual needs of the private sector, he said.

Bush initiative

Active in nearly 50 countries, MCC was established by former President George W. Bush and has over the years benefited from bipartisan support. The agency works with developing countries that have committed to good governance and economic freedom among other benchmarks.

After passing only five of 20 policy indicators in 2013, the Ivorian government adopted MCC's scorecard as its road map for reform and it was not until 2015 that the nation met the agencys demands to qualify for this grant.

Nash said this compact is expected to benefit 11 million people and is really about opportunity for education, training, access, jobs -- all of which are critical, especially in a country where more than half of the population is under age 24.

Only seven years ago, the Ivory Coast endured a deep political crisis when then-President Laurent Gbagbo was forcibly removed from office after refusing to accept the result of presidential elections won by Ouattara. But since 2012, the country has had one of Africas fastest growing economies, with annual GDP growth of about 9 percent.

Ouattara, the former Central Bank Governor and IMF executive, said discipline is key to maintaining this kind of growth.

Good macro-economic policies, solid macro-economic framework that will attract foreign investments, and, if you have good governance and your money is used in the priority sectors, obviously this leads to growth.

That growth has put a strain in the countrys power supplies, however.

Ivory Coast started producing power last week that will boost the country's electricity output by more than 10 percent. The new hydroelectric plant near the southwestern city of Soubre was financed by a $500 million low-interest loan from China's Export-Import Bank.

A day after the plants inauguration, however, the entire country experienced a power outage.

President Ouattara said the outage was caused by a minor technical problem and was repaired quickly.



We now produce 2,000 megawatt of electricity, which is quite large; its half of the production of Nigeria, which has six or seven times the population of Cote DIvoire, Ouattara said.

At Washingtons Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ouattara noted that, as the worlds top cocoa and raw cashew nut exporter, Ivory Coast needs to be more aggressive on the processing side.

We produce 40 percent of the worlds cocoa yet we only process about 30 percent. We are the first world producer of cashew nuts, yet we only process less than 10 percent," he said.

He said another challenge is the fight against terrorism. He recalled the deadly attack last year in the town of Grand Bassam and pleaded for more coordination and support for his country and the newly established G5 Sahel counterterrorism group.
Japan announced Friday it would send its largest warship to join three U.S. aircraft carriers in exercises in waters near the Korean Peninsula, a display of military force meant to pressure North Korea as U.S. President Donald Trump attends an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

"#Japan says it'll send one of its big helicopter carriers to join three U.S. aircraft carriers for exercises in waters close to #Korea peninsula," VOA Correspondent Steve Herman tweeted.

Japan will dispatch one of its two large helicopter carriers and two escorts to participate in drills on Sunday in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea, according to Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force.

The exercises will be the first time in a decade three American carrier strike groups have trained together in the region and comes as the Trump administration has insisted that North Korea halt development of a nuclear-armed missile capable of striking the U.S.

The naval drills are aimed at sending a strong signal to Pyongyang of U.S. ability to rapidly mobilize a potent military force. The 100,000 ton U.S. carriers transport a total of about 200 aircraft, including F-18 combat jets.

The last time three U.S. carrier strike groups participated in joint exercises in the Western Pacific was in 2007 near Guam.
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga told an audience in Washington Thursday that Kenyans are so upset over the presidential election that they are considering secession.

Odinga, whose speech was broadcast on Kenyan television, told his audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that exclusion is the biggest problem in Kenyan politics today. He said unless that problem is addressed, it could tear the country apart.

Odinga said all four of Kenyas presidents since independence in 1963 have been from the Kikuyu or Kalenjin communities, despite the fact that the country is home to 44 recognized ethnic groups. President Uhuru Kenyatta is Kikuyu, and his deputy, who is expected to run in the next election, is Kalenjin.

Odinga refused to compete in the recent presidential election, calling it a sham. Kenyatta won with 98 percent of the vote.

Process contested

On Monday, just when many Kenyans thought they had seen the end of the countrys long election season, three petitions to contest the process were filed with the Supreme Court. The petitions target all sides in the presidential election controversy: the electoral commission, Odinga and Kenyatta.

Former lawmaker Harun Mwau filed a petition against the electoral commission, known as the IEBC, as well as its chairman and President Kenyatta. Mwau is challenging the validity of the Oct. 26 re-run presidential election, which he argues was held in violation of Supreme Court directions, the Constitution and relevant electoral laws.

The Institute for Democratic Governance, an NGO, filed one against several officials in the opposition NASA coalition, including leader Odinga, for engaging in what it called a carefully choreographed scheme to derail, undermine and subvert the fresh election as announced by the Supreme Court.

The IDG also accused the opposition of setting unreasonable demands for the electoral commission to meet.

In addition, Khelef Khalifa, chairman of the Mombasa-based group Muslims for Human Rights, filed a petition against the IEBC and its chairman, as well as Kenyatta and the NASA coalition. Khalifa filed jointly with Njonjo Mue, Kenyas chairman of the International Commission of Jurists.

We filed this petition because there were a lot of irregularities in the last election and this election, Khalifa said. When [the] Supreme Court made a ruling, and stated there were irregularities, because the procedures were not followed, and the Supreme Court was very categorical that elections is not an event, its a process. Now, in this election, the process also was not followed. So it compelled us to go to court because we felt this election was not going to be free and fair.

Court annulled August poll

Kenyas Supreme Court annulled the August presidential poll because of what it called irregularities and illegalities in the IEBCs transmission of results, and ordered the body to conduct fresh polls within 60 days.

Kenyas Supreme Court has until Tuesday to rule on the three petitions. If the election results are upheld, Kenyatta will be inaugurated for a second term Nov. 28.
The galaxy far, far away is expanding further on screen with a new trilogy of Star Wars films outside of the ongoing Skywalker saga, Walt Disney Co. said Thursday, to be overseen by Rian Johnson, the director of the franchises upcoming film The Last Jedi.

Johnson, 43, will write and direct the first of a new Star Wars trilogy that will bring new characters and worlds not yet explored on screen, Disney said.

Hes a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy, Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement.

Disney said no release dates have been set for the new trilogy.

Johnson was brought on to write and direct the second film in Disneys rebooted trilogy of the Skywalker stories, which George Lucas first brought to screen in 1977.

The Last Jedi, which follows on 2015s hit film, The Force Awakens, is expected to focus on Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), will be in theaters on Dec. 15.

Disney is also making three standalone Star Wars films outside of the Skywalker saga, including last years Rogue One and next years Solo: A Star Wars Story, following the origins of the charming roguish smuggler Han Solo, made famous by Harrison Ford in the film.
First Lady Melania Trump is scheduled to visit with military families Friday in Alaska as she returns from Asia.

She will get a chance to see military programs for youth at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, including a program where children read to pets to enhance their reading skills.

The first lady accompanied President Donald Trump on a visit to South Korea and China.

Her visit to the base in Anchorage will come during a refueling stop on her way back to Washington, D.C. The president continues his travels in Asia.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shook hands and exchanged a few words Friday at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit dinner in Vietnam.

The brief encounter came after the White House attempted Friday to put to rest speculation that Trump might hold talks with Putin on the sidelines of the summit. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the two leaders may have a brief chat, but will have no substantive talks.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," Sanders said in a statement issued to reporters. "There is no formal meeting or anything scheduled for them.

The statement did, however, hold open the possibility that the two leaders might have an informal conversation while they are both in Danang for the summit proceedings.

"Theyre going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely," Huckabee Sanders wrote. "But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, theres not one on the calendar and we dont anticipate that there will be one."

Mixed message

Russian news agency RIA Novosti on Friday seemed to contradict the White House, holding out hope a substantive meeting might still take place. A one-line bulletin reported, "Kremlin Says Possible Meeting Between Putin and Trump at APEC Summit Still Being Worked On."

The Russian side had earlier issued seemingly conflicting views about the possibility of a meeting. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two leaders would hold talks, but Reuters quoted Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as moderating that statement, saying only that the possibility of a meeting was being discussed.

While en route to Danang on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he had seen the Russian reports but said nothing had been agreed to.

In a brief exchange, Tillerson said the United States wants progress on a number of issues, and there would be no point to hold a meeting if they didnt think they would get the progress.

A day earlier, Tillerson had acknowledged that Moscow and Washington were working behind the scenes on a "number of difficult areas." But he questioned whether this would be the right time for a follow-up to the first Trump-Putin meeting at the G-20 summit in Germany last July.

Hamburg meeting

That meeting in Hamburg lasted more than two hours, more than twice as long as scheduled. Trump was reported to have pressed Putin at that meeting on the question of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Later in the day, the two men were reported to have spoken again informally during a dinner for G-20 leaders, with only a Russian interpreter present.

Since then, however, ties between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated. In August, Trump grudgingly approved new congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia. The Kremlin responded by ordering Washington to substantially cut its diplomatic staff in Russia.

Trump himself mentioned the possibility of a follow-up meeting last weekend, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he expected to meet Putin in Vietnam to ask for help in reining in North Koreas nuclear weapons development. He made a similar comment Thursday in Beijing after meeting with Chinas President Xi Jinping.

Tillerson said officials from the two countries also are discussing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, while Trump also said that Russias interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election also remains on the table for discussion.

Several scholars of U.S.- Russia relations are leery of direct Putin-Trump talks at this delicate time in the relationship.

Kremlin critic Andrei Piontkovsky, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, says Putin stands to gain much more from the meeting than Trump.

"It would be better if the United States and Russia have good relations, but the fact is, Putin is challenging the U.S. everywhere in the world, including on their own turf, and Trump doesnt seem to consider that is hostile to western values, democracy and human rights," Piontkovsky told VOA. "Its very strange because Trump declines to notice these worrisome facts."

Piontkovsky considers it foolish to ask for the Kremlins help in lessening the North Korean threat.

"That ignores the fact that the tremendous progress of the North Korean nuclear program is enabled by Russian help," Piontkovsky argued. "Putin is much more an enthusiastic supporter of Kim Jung Un than Xi Jinping. He demands that the U.S. reconcile itself with the idea of a new nuclear power."

Charles Stevenson, associate director of the foreign policy program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, called a Trump-Putin meeting "risky" for U.S. interests.

"Presidential-level meetings can be helpful in smoothing over misunderstandings and allowing exchanges beyond the glare of publicity or even the knowledge of subordinates," Stevenson said in a written reply to VOA.

"But they can also be extremely risky if not coordinated in advance in order to achieve some agreed communique," he added. "I have real doubts that President Trump is skilled and knowledgeable enough to reach any substantive agreements with President Putin."

Pavel Sharikov, a political analyst at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, said a Trump-Putin meeting could be counterproductive if it does not produce results.

"Such meetings are usually held when there are already some accords, as well as prospects of getting a result, since a meeting without any result is even worse than a meeting that was not held at all," he said.

Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the lack of a formal meeting between the two presidents indicates relations between the two nations "are in crisis."
Pakistan says it has decided to allow a convicted Indian death row prisoner to meet his wife "on purely humanitarian grounds."

Former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav was arrested in March 2016 in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan.

A military court later tried and sentenced him to death, ruling "the serving commander of the Indian navy" was found guilty of espionage and terrorism against Pakistan.

On Friday, the foreign ministry offered to arrange Jadhav's meeting with his wife, saying India's diplomatic mission in Islamabad has been formally informed about the decision.

New Delhi admits Jadhav is a former officer of the Indian navy but rejects the charges against him as baseless, saying Jadhav has no connection with the government.

India alleges Jadhav was kidnapped and brought to Baluchistan from neighboring Iran.

The Pakistan foreign ministry reiterated Friday that Jadhav has "confessed before ... the [military] court that he was tasked by RAW [Indian spy agency] to plan, coordinate and organize espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan."

India asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in May to restrict Pakistan from executing Jadhav, arguing he was denied diplomatic assistance during the "unfair trial."

The ICJ suspended the execution, pending final judgment by the court.

Jadhav has filed an appeal with Pakistan's military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, to seek clemency, which is still pending.

Relations between India and Pakistan have deteriorated and a bilateral peace dialogue also remains suspended.

In a transcript of his confession, which was released by Pakistan's military, Jadhav said a major goal he was assigned by the Indian intelligence agency was to disrupt a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project in Pakistan being funded by China.
Pakistans government has decided to refer 29 cases of terrorism to military courts for investigation and trial.

The courts were established two years ago after the deadly Taliban attack on a military-run school in Peshawar that claimed the lives of more than 130 children.

Last week Pakistans Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal confirmed the federal cabinets decision.

In the last cabinet meeting, 29 cases were cleared to be forwarded to military courts, Iqbal told local Pakistani media.

The cabinet decision was taken after Pakistans Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa sent a letter to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi expressing his concerns that no terrorism-related case has been referred to the military tribunals this year.

I have no doubt that the government is serious about implementing the National Action Plan. However, no case has been forwarded to military courts for last many months, the Army Chief reportedly wrote.

The military is apparently concerned that the lack of referrals may undermine the rhetoric the country adopted after the Peshawar school attack, when it vowed to crack down on militants posing a threat to the countrys national security.

Iqbal said the concerns of the military have been addressed and that the federal cabinet will soon decide whether another 80 terrorism-related cases will be sent to the military courts for trial.

After this, the interior ministry will not have any more cases pending, he added.

Number of measures taken

The December 2014 school massacre in Peshawar pushed the country to take a number of measures to address the growing threat of militancy to regional security and Pakistans national security.

Following the attack, Pakistans National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) was established and the new entity devised a strategy to combat terrorism and militancy in the country. The new strategy known as the National Action Plan proposed a number of steps, including the creation of special courts under the supervision of the countrys military.

In January 2015, Pakistans lower house of parliament unanimously amended the constitution and allowed civilians with ties to terrorist organizations to be tried in military courts.

Rights activists are concerned that the establishment of these courts sets dangerous precedents because due process in military courts lacks transparency.

The politicians felt pressured after the school attack to give their approval despite rights activists reluctance and questions regarding the secret courts, Shama Junejo, a human rights activist said.

The situation was chaotic and the whole nation was in shock. So, military tribunals were thought to be the best possible solution under the circumstances, Junejo added.

Fairness concerns

Rights activists are concerned that suspects accused of ties to terrorism are deprived of their rights to a lawyer of their choice and the option to appeal a verdict. The trials are also held without access by the media and the public. There were also reports that judges deciding terrorism-related cases in military courts lacked the required legal qualifications.

According to media reports, the military courts have issued the death penalty to 160 people and 20 people have been executed so far.

Opponents cast doubt at the overall fairness of these military tribunals.

While some experts agree that there are flaws in the military courts, they point to the ineffectiveness of the civil courts, which fail to process terrorism-related cases in a timely fashion.

Hundreds of thousands of cases remain pending for decades in the civil court system. The hard-core criminals and terrorists cannot get speedy trial and justice through these courts, Brigadier Said Nazir, a defense and security analyst told VOA.

Yes, the civil rights activists have raised their concerns on military courts but theres another side to the picture. These terrorists have killed thousands of innocent people through mass killings, attacks on mosques and on security agencies, which is the biggest human rights violation in itself and deserve no mercy, Nazir added.

The law passed in 2015, which allowed military courts to operate, expired this January. Pakistans parliament extended it with new amendments, including allowing defendants to hire a lawyer of their choice to defend them in the court.

Slippery slope

Analysts like Shama Junejo are concerned that this parallel court system could be abused. She said that despite the few amendments in the existing military courts law, the government must ensure that only terrorists are tried through these courts.

There are still concerns the military courts do not fit into the national security paradigm. There was a consensus among majority of the civil and human rights activists that only known terrorists cases should be referred to these courts. This conflict is still there, in fact it has escalated with time, Junejo said.

According to local media reports, around 11 military courts are working in Pakistan, including three in Punjab, two in Sindh, three in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one in Balochistan.

VOA Urdus Behjat Gilani contributed to this report.
Panamanian prosecutors say Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, involved in a huge international corruption scandal, has paid bribes of several million dollars to the sons of former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli.

Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enriquez Martinelli are suspected of receiving more than $50 million in undue payments from Odebrecht, Panamas prosecutors said Thursday.

Odebrecht allegedly paid about $800 million in bribes associate with infrastructure contracts in a dozen Latin American countries between 2002 and 2016, including at least $59 million in Panama. Panamanian authorities say the real figure is likely much higher.

The Attorney Generals Office alleged in a statement that there were several multimillion-dollar transfers to the Martinelli brothers through accounts in Panama and abroad in 2010-2014.

It said that allegations are based on information obtained from cooperating witnesses in the investigation, the former Panama manager for Brazils Odebrecht, Andre Campos Rabello, and two other former Odebrecht executives.

The Martinelli family has denied the sons involvement in the bribery scandal, alleging persecution by political foes.

The former president, who has also denied any wrongdoing, has been detained in the United States facing possible extradition to Panama on charges of embezzlement and political espionage.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday expressed "deep concern" to Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim about the arrest of U.S. citizens and Turkish staff members at U.S. consulates in Turkey.



But Pence and Yildirim also expressed hope that their meeting would help usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue, as friends and allies, on bilateral challenges.



The Turkish prime minister arrived in Washington on Nov. 7 for a meeting with Pence. But that was postponed when Pence traveled to Texas Wednesday to honor those killed in the Sutherland Springs church massacre.



The delay gave Yildirim time to take in the local sights, and he was seen walking along the National Mall and visiting several prominent monuments and memorials with his entourage.

WATCH: Vice President Pence: 'Deep Concern' About Americans Held in Turkey





The meeting with Pence took place at the White House Thursday.



State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert shared the highlights:



The vice president thanked the prime minister for Turkey's contribution to global security and the fight to defeat ISIS. And he underscored the U.S. commitment to stand with Turkey against PKK and other terrorist threats. The vice president expressed deep concern over the arrest of American citizens, our mission Turkey local staff, who worked for our embassy there or who still do work  and urged transparency and due process in the resolution of their cases."



Nauert told VOA that Pence brought up the fate of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was jailed in Turkey a year ago on accusations of supporting U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen. Nauert said Pence has a passion for promoting human rights and religious freedom.



Before leaving Ankara, Yildirim said he wanted to discuss the extradition of Gulen and the fate of Reza Zerrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader arrested in the U.S. in March 2016 on charges of violating sanctions on Iran.



"We want the concerns we have regarding the cases of our citizens arrested in the United States to be eased. They (U.S. officials) also have similar requests, and diplomatic channels are being used for discussions, we are both seeking a way out," Yildirim said.



President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have made it clear they want to downplay differences and boost U.S.-Turkish relations.



But that will be difficult, analyst Gonul Tol of the Middle East Institute told VOA, given the concern over Erdogan's respect for the rule of law.



"And even if that is the case, even if personally Erdogan and Trump would like to resolve problems, I think because of the wider perception of Turkey here in Washington, it is very difficult for Trump to take steps and avoid that general consensus in Washington, D.C."



This week, the State Department announced the resumption of limited visa services in Turkey, signaling a sign of some improvement in U.S.-Turkish relations, after both countries had stopped issuing visas to each other's citizens over the arrests of U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Pope Francis on Friday urged countries not to stockpile nuclear weapons, even for the purpose of deterrence.

During a Vatican conference aimed at gathering support for nuclear disarmament, Francis said nuclear deterrence policies give a "false sense of security."

His remarks appeared to go further than those of previous popes, who have said that while nuclear weapons should never be used, stockpiling them to deter other countries' use of weapons could be morally acceptable.

Francis spoke to 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners who attended the conference, along with diplomats and government officials from around the world.

"International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation and the parading of stockpiles of arms,'' he said.

The pope said any use of nuclear weapons, even accidental, would be "catastrophic" for humanity and the environment.

The Vatican conference came amid mounting tensions between the United States and North Korea. In his address, Francis did not mention any conflict in particular but spoke of a "climate of instability and conflict" in the world today and a "mentality of fear."

He said peace and security between nations must be "inspired by an ethics of solidarity" rather than the stockpiling of arms.

The pope endorsed a new U.N. treaty that calls for the elimination of atomic weapons. None of the world's nuclear powers have signed the accord, arguing that its lofty ideals are unrealistic.
Somaliland's three presidential candidates have concluded their campaigns ahead of Monday's poll to elect the next leader of the breakaway region.



Muse Bihi of the ruling Kulmiye party, Faisal Ali Waraabe of the For Justice and Development party (UCID) and Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi of the Wadani party held their final rallies this week in the capital, Hargeisa.

A central issue, as always, is how to win international recognition for Somaliland. Somalia, which was once governed by Italy, wants Somaliland to be part of a single Somali state. But Somaliland, which used to be a British colony and broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991, wants to be a separate country.

All three candidates favor a fully independent Somaliland but have different visions of how to achieve it.

"Previous talks were not fruitful and they were heading to the wrong direction," Bihi told VOA. He proposes bringing in "proper and genuine mediators" to replace officials from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Waraabe wants the negotiations to come after what he terms as a genuine reconciliation among Somali tribes.

"Somalis have never reconciled among themselves; therefore, we want to hold a bottom-up approach reconciliation meeting here," he said. "Once they agree and come up with a shape of a government similar to that of 1960, when we united, we can talk and debate on the possibility of two parallel brotherly states, which I think is the interest for the future of our people."

Abdillahi of the Wadani party wants new rounds of talks with Somalia, but at a bigger venue and with international mediation.

"Principally, we want to solve our differences with Somalia through peaceful negations, review the previous talks and challenges, and finally come up with new rounds of talks, with our final vision being getting a result that makes us two neighbor states," he said.

Social media ban

Preparations for election day are under way. Public and private schools across Somaliland have been closed for eight days because most of them will serve as polling places. Also, Somaliland's National Electoral Commission said social media networks would be shut down on Monday to avoid the spread of misinformation on the election results.

"To avoid social media users who propagate hate speeches and fake news during the election or about the results, we have decided to ban the use of social media platforms for the betterment of Somaliland security," said electoral commission spokesman Sa'id Ali Muse.

Muse said 705,000 Somalilanders are eligible to cast ballots.

History of elections

A 176,000-square-kilometer, semidesert territory on the coast of the Gulf of Aden with an estimated 4 million people, Somaliland has a long history of peaceful elections and executive turnover, made possible by a blend of traditional and modern state institutions and a relative peace it has been enjoying since 1991.

In contrast, Somalia has been racked by decades of protracted lawlessness, poor governance and deadly terror attacks.

In 2010, Somaliland saw a peaceful transfer of power when then-President Dahir Rayale Kahin conceded defeat to Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud, nicknamed Silanyo. He opted not to seek re-election in the current contest.

Unlike the previous elections, this election has suffered several delays. It was scheduled at one time for last March, but drought coupled with political disagreement among the parties caused the vote to be rescheduled.

Isma'il Mohamud and Bakhad Kariye contributed to this report from Hargeisa.
A group of 37 U.S.-based scientists whose research focuses on Arctic wildlife asked two U.S. senators in a letter Thursday not to open the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, according to a copy seen by Reuters.

The scientists, including several retired former officials from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, said in a letter to Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Maria Cantwell of Washington that drilling for oil and gas in the refuge would be "incompatible with the purposes for which the refuge was established"  protecting fish and wildlife populations and the environments in which they live.

Murkowski, a Republican, introduced legislation Wednesday that would create an oil and gas exploration program on the refuge's coastal plain, letting prospectors build any roads and other infrastructure they deemed necessary inside the refuge to carry out their operations.

Half of the available drilling royalties would go to the state of Alaska and half to the federal government. The program's administrator would be required to hold at least two lease sales within 10 years after the bill became law.

The scientists said drilling on the coastal plain would be particularly harmful because it contains a "unique compression" of habitats supporting animals like polar bears, grizzly bears and wolverines, representing "the greatest wildlife diversity of any protected area above the Arctic Circle."

Praise for scientists

In a Reuters interview, Cantwell, a Democrat, praised the scientists for spelling out why drilling would be so harmful to the refuge and said she would work to oppose the legislation.

"To try to legislate mandated drilling in a wildlife refuge is just not where America is," she said.

Murkowski's spokeswoman declined to comment and referred a comment request to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The conflict over whether to allow drilling inside the refuge has deep roots. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska has up to 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude, and Republicans, who now control Congress and the White House, have long wanted to open a portion of the refuge called the 1002 area.

Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Energy Committee, called the 1002 portion a "nonwilderness area" because the government put it aside decades ago for petroleum exploration. Last month, Democrats tried and failed to pass legislation blocking drilling there.
A House committee voted along party lines Thursday to send a Republican tax reform bill to the entire House of Representatives for a final vote.

Meanwhile, the Republican-led Senate Finance Committee unveiled its version of tax reform Thursday, one that has some major differences from the House bill.

Because no Republican proposal is likely to get any Democratic support, it is up to the Republicans to put together a single bill that they can pass and the president will sign.

While both bills generally simplify the tax code, they differ on such key elements as deductions for state and local property taxes and home mortgages. A timetable for introducing reductions in the corporate tax rate is also a major difference.

President Donald Trump and the Republicans tout their tax reform as a break for the middle class and business, as they hope to lure more investment into the U.S. economy.

Democrats say the Republican plans are a boon to the wealthy and will actually raise taxes for many middle-class families.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the Republican House measure would add $1.7 trillion to the country's debt during the next decade.

The White House on Thursday called both the House and Senate proposals "important steps toward providing historic tax relief for the American people."

It also said the president is hopeful he can sign a final tax bill by the end of the year.
The neighbor accused of attacking Republican Senator Rand Paul pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge on Thursday.

Rene Boucher, a retired anesthesiologist, faces up to a year in jail if convicted of fourth-degree assault. Boucher, 59, was released from jail Saturday, a day after the attack, on a $7,500 bond.

Paul tweeted that he suffered six broken ribs and has excess fluid around his lungs. Prosecutors have said the charges against Boucher may change because of the severity of the lawmaker's injuries.

While the motive for the attack remains a mystery, Boucher's lawyer Matt Baker said, "It has nothing to do with politics. It's a property dispute between two neighbors.''

Rob Porter, a close friend of the lawmaker, said this week that Paul doesnt know why he was attacked. Paul was mowing his yard and had stopped to remove a limb when Boucher tackled him from behind, Porter said. Paul was wearing ear protection and didn't hear Boucher approaching.

On Thursday, Doug Stafford, a senior staffer in Pauls office, disputed media reports that the two men had a longstanding dispute.

The Pauls have had no conversations with him in many years, Stafford said. The first conversation with the attacker came after Senator Pauls ribs were broken. This was not a fight, it was a blind side, violent attack by a disturbed person.

Paul, a 2016 presidential hopeful, is expected to be away from Washington during a time when his vote could be crucial to his party.
Bicycle highways, urban farms and local energy hubs  just some of the ways that yesterday's smokestack cities are turning into tomorrow's green spaces.

The Urban Transitions Alliance (UTA), a network that brings together cities in Germany, the United States and China, launched this week to help members learn regeneration tricks from each other.

"What to do with your brownfield sites, how to transition with citizens in mind, create new jobs  these cities have a lot of challenges in common," said Roman Mendle, Smart Cities program manager at ICLEI, an international association of local governments.

As up to 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated in urban areas, cities have to play a leading role in addressing climate change.

Experts from more than 20 countries met in Essen, Germany, this week to launch the UTA and thrash out how post-industrial cities can reinvent themselves in plans that will be submitted to the U.N. climate talks in Bonn this week.

Essen, once a coal and steel city known as Germany's "Graue Maus" (grey mouse) for its polluted air and waterways, has gained a reputation as a trailblazer for sustainability, becoming the European Commission's European Green Capital 2017.

"There is a lot of know-how in Essen on how to transition from the age of carbon to a post-carbon world," said Simone Raskob, Essen's deputy mayor and head of its environment department.

"No city can do this by itself. There are a lot of challenges," Raskob, who leads the European Green City  Essen 2017 project, told Reuters.

Experts praise Essen for cleaning up its waterways, creating green spaces and turning grimy industrial sites into dynamic cultural centers, such as the Zeche Zollverein, a towering UNESCO World Heritage site that arose from a disused coal mine.

To ease traffic congestion, Essen built Germany's first bike highway, connecting with a 100-km (62-mile) regional network.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, once a dynamo of U.S. heavy industry, has shifted from a fossil fuel-based economy, reinventing itself as a hub for green buildings innovation and clean energy.

The former steel city has been switching over to LED street lights, retro-fitting municipal buildings for energy efficiency and developing district energy initiatives.

The city will also host the largest U.S. urban farm: 23 acres (9 hectares) on a site where low-income housing once stood.

"One of the key things we have recognized is that becoming greener also brings economic benefits," said Grant Ervin, Pittsburgh's chief resilience officer.

Founding UTA members include districts of Beijing and Shijiazhuang in China; Buffalo and Cincinnati in the United States; and Dortmund in Germany.
The government of South Sudan is denying that former army chief of staff General Paul Malong has been released after six months of house arrest.

"No, these media reports are not true. He is not released, he is in his house," South Sudan Information Minister Michael Makuei told VOA's South Sudan in Focus on Friday.

Malong's wife, Lucy Ayak, told VOA on Thursday that Malong had been released for medical reasons.

Friday, she retracted that statement, telling SSIF that her husband is closer to finalizing plans for his release.

"He is in Juba right now. He is in residence," said Ayak in a phone call from Nairobi.

Malong was fired by President Salva Kiir in May, after a string of resignations by senior military officials who alleged there was ethnic bias in the army and that soldiers were committing war crimes in the context of South Sudan's civil war.

When asked why she told VOA on Thursday that her husband was released, Ayak said she was told "by someone" that "General Malong has been released."

She said that after she talked to VOA, she called a number in Juba and was put through to Malong, who told her that he was fine and that "I have been in a meeting with the elders and they conveyed the message to me that I am to be released."

Ayak said Malong told her "they will finalize the issue of my release tomorrow morning." She said that meeting was to take place Friday morning in Juba.

Earlier Friday, government tanks and troops could still be seen outside Malong's residence.

Standoff

Recently, dozens of tanks and troops were deployed along the road leading to Malong's home in Juba after Malong refused a presidential order to release a platoon of 30 soldiers guarding him. Ayak told VOA that some of the men deployed to her husband's home were police, while some were from military intelligence.

Ayak said she would hold President Salva Kiir responsible if anything happened to her husband. Ayak also said she had written Kiir several times pleading with him to release her husband, but received no response.

Lual Dau, the former deputy governor of Lol state, told South Sudan in Focus earlier this week that most soldiers in the South Sudan army hail from Malong's home area of Aweil and were not happy about the way in which Kiir was treating Malong. Dau resigned his position in May after accusing the Lol state governor of being corrupt.

Talks have continued all week to peacefully resolve the standoff between Malong and the Kiir administration.

On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Juba posted a security alert on its website to American citizens. It said the security situation is unchanged, but said embassy personnel have been directed to avoid the two-block radius of the presidential compound until the standoff involving Malong has been resolved.
Sue Finley, now 80 years old and NASAs longest-serving female employee, recalls her early days with the space agency when she worked as a human computer, calculating rocket trajectories by hand at a time when computers were huge and expensive to operate.

Finley arrived at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, in January 1958, one week before the U.S. Army launched Explorer 1, America's first earth satellite.

It was a very big deal, she recalls of the launch, a response to the launches a few months earlier of the first satellites, Sputnik 1 and 2, from the former Soviet Union.

She was at JPL for Pioneer 1, the first satellite sent aloft by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in late 1958, which marked the beginning of the international space race.

Unmanned space probes

Since then, Finley has had a role in nearly every U.S. unmanned space probe, and some missions of other nations.

There were failures to overcome and spectacular successes, but always new goals as scientists expanded our knowledge of the earth and solar system.

We were certainly proud, she says of NASA accomplishments, but you just go onto the next thing.

Finley has been through several career changes with the space agency, one of the most important when NASA phased out human computers, moving, initially, to simple electronic versions.

We got little tiny computers, she recalls. One I had 16 wires, jumper cables to code with. One had 10 pegboards that you programmed with.

As modern computers took over navigational tasks, Finley developed and tested software as a subsystem engineer.

Among her career highlights: the Vega mission, a Soviet-French collaboration to Venus, and Halleys Comet, which received navigational help from NASA and dropped balloons into the atmosphere of Venus.

She had to change the software for the antenna that tracked the mission, and it worked, Finley recalls. Everything worked. That's what was so exciting!

Finley has worked since 1980 on NASAs Deep Space Network, which coordinates satellite facilities in California, Spain and Australia that allow communication with space probes.

Highlights of NASA career

Career highlights include developing software that generates audio tones sent back from spacecraft, informing engineers on the ground what is happening in space. It was first developed for the Mars missions.

Each tone has a meaning that communicates data, noted one of Finleys colleagues, Stephen Lichten.

If a parachute opened, it would send a tone, Lichten, manager for special projects for the Deep Space Network, said.

The spacecraft lets go of its heat shield, and it would send a different tone, and so engineers like Sue were here listening for those special frequencies which told them the spacecraft was telling them what it has just done, he said.

He notes that Finley also helped develop communication arrays that combine multiple antennas to act in unison, and other advances that now crucial to space missions.

Lichten once shared an office with Finley and says she inspired her younger colleagues.

There was a parade of people coming in constantly, to ask her advice, to ask her questions, he recalls. This was during the Venus balloon mission days and I realized that Sue was regarded as sort of a guru at JPL.

Finley has been involved with nearly every advance in space communications in recent decades, and she continues her work today, Lichten said.

There are many more women at NASA today than there were when she started, and Finley said she tells young women to be inquisitive.

I tell them to never be afraid to ask questions, never be afraid to say you don't know, she said.

After nearly six decades at the space agency, a mother of two grown sons and a mentor to her colleagues, Finley has no plans of retiring.

There's nothing else I want to do, she said. And so far, they need me.

As they have since the earliest days of the space agency.
Tensions erupted Friday as French officials and residents of a Paris suburb tried to block Muslims from praying in the street - a dispute that reflects nationwide problems with mosque shortages.

No one was hurt in the skirmishes in Clichy-la-Garenne, but both sides appeared to be digging in their heels in the dispute over prayer space in the town.

Carrying a large banner reading "Stop Illegal Street Prayers," Mayor Remi Muzeau led more than 100 demonstrators Friday in a show of force to dissuade Muslims from praying on the town's market square. Worshippers have been praying there every Friday for months to protest the closure of a prayer room.

A few dozen worshippers tried to pray anyway but sought to avoid confrontation with the protesters and retreated to a less visible spot. But the demonstrators squeezed them toward a wooden wall.

As worshippers chanted "Allahu akbar," or "God is greatest" in Arabic, the larger group of demonstrators loudly sang the French national anthem. Some held French flags and a crucifix aloft.

Amid pushing and shoving, a banner the worshippers were carrying reading "United for a Grand Mosque of Clichy" was torn down.

Police with shields then formed a human barricade between the groups and Muslims eventually unrolled their rugs on the pavement, took off their shoes and held their prayers.

When the incident was over, the worshippers clapped, and the mayor pledged to come back again next week - as did the Muslim worshippers.

"We'll do it every Friday if necessary," said Muzeau.

"I must assure the tranquility and freedom of the people in my city," he said. "We must not allow this to happen in our country. Our country, the French Republic is tarnished."

Hamid Kazed, president of the Union of Muslim Associations of Clichy, who led the prayers, said, "We are going to continue until there's a dialogue for a definitive venue."

"That's what they want. To divide the citizens," he said. "We are not fundamentalists. We are for Islam of France."

The demonstrators were joined by the president of the Paris region, Valerie Pecresse, and officials and residents of other Paris suburbs

While Islam has long been France's No. 2 religion, the country has a chronic shortage of mosques for its estimated 5 million Muslims. Muslims in several towns have resorted to praying in the streets, fueling the anti-immigrant sentiment of far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

Clichy Muslims had been renting a prayer hall from City Hall. But the town's mayor decided to turn that space into a library for the town's 60,000 residents, and the prayer hall was shut down in March following a court battle.

City Hall says Muslims can worship at a new Islamic cultural and prayer center, already used by hundreds, that the town inaugurated last year. However some Muslims say the new facility is too small, remote and doesn't meet safety standards.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday there is no indication that resigned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has been detained by the Saudis against his will.

Hariri announced he would step down as Lebanese prime minister while in Saudi Arabia last Saturday.

While en route from Beijing to Danang Friday, Tillerson told the traveling press that he was assured by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir that Hariris decision to step down was solely on his own. The two top diplomats spoke on Tuesday.

As you probably know he [Hariri] is a dual citizen of Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. His family has been living in Saudi Arabia for quite some time by his choice, so the foreign minister assured me this was a decision taken solely by him, Tillerson said.

Tillerson added Hariri needs to go back to Lebanon to make the resignation official so that the government of Lebanon can function properly.

Government officials in Beirut have said they believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the frontlines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia supported Hariri and his allies during years of political conflict in Lebanon with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The U.S. said it is watching carefully the situation surrounding Hariris resignation, while asking other outside parties to stay out of it.

I think the current structure of the government has been able to maintain a relative calm, peace within Lebanon, Tillerson said, so anytime you upset this balance of power-sharing that has been successful, it does create the potential for things to shift one direction or the other.

In his resignation speech televised from Saudi Arabia, Hariri denounced Iran and Hezbollah for sowing friction in Arab states and said he feared assassination. His father, a former prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005.
A top lawmaker from Catalonia has left a prison near Madrid after supporters posted her bail of $175,000.

Carme Forcadell, the former Catalan parliaments speaker, spent one night in jail as part of Spains investigation into the rebellion stemming from Catalonias controversial independence drive.

As a condition of Forcadells release Friday, a judge withdrew her passport and ordered her to stay in Spain. She also is required to check in at a court in Catalonia each week and to appear before the Supreme Court if summoned.

Forcadell left the prison without speaking to reporters. She later tweeted, "We're going back home  with an easy conscience for having acted correctly: to guarantee freedom of expression in [the Catalan] Parliament, headquarters of the national sovereignty.''

Forcadell is being investigated along with five other Catalan lawmakers for their role in Catalonias parliament declaring independence from Spain on October 27. The other lawmakers were granted $29,000 bail and avoided spending a night in jail.

Acting judge Pablo Llarena said his decision to grant bail was made after they either "renounced all future political activity" or agreed to respect the law, according to a court document.

Forcadell testified Thursday that the independence vote was "declarative and symbolic"  an apparent step to minimize liability if she is charged with disobeying the Constitutional Court.

Forcadell's spokesman said as Catalan parliamentary speaker she did not "have the freedom to stop a vote" in the chamber on independence.

Within hours of the parliamentary vote, the Madrid government disbanded the Catalonian parliament and removed its president, calling for new elections to be held on December 21.

The independence declaration was annulled this week by Spains Constitutional Court, which initially had suspended the declaration last month.

Ousted Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and four of his ministers have fled to Belgium, where they are challenging Spain's arrest and extradition orders.

Eight of Puigdemont's former ministers and two activists were jailed while the Spanish court considers possible charges of rebellion against them.

Catalan lawmakers argued they had a mandate to split from Spain after an October 1 referendum in which 90 percent of voters backed succession. However, less than half the electorate took part in the vote, which was denounced as illegal by Madrid.
The most destructive complex of wildfires in California history wreaked most of its damage and deaths among housing subdivisions in this San Francisco Bay Area bedroom town, leaving survivors with little but white ash and hard choices: Rebuild quickly as things were, rebuild defensively against future fires, or abandon some burned neighborhoods entirely as lethal mistakes in the country's most wildfire-prone state.



With $3.3 billion in insured losses so far and 8,900 homes and structures destroyed, the scale of loss from October's Northern California wildfires is unusual, but the devastated areas had burned before and almost certainly will again, fire ecologists say.

The weeks since have given rise to conflicting desires for rebuilding.



Many families are eager to rebuild as before, and local officials have vowed to speed them along. Wildfire experts, meanwhile, are urging California officials to consider seizing the moment to strengthen regulations.



If authorities take bigger steps toward fire-safety now, "when the next fire comes, which it will, the horrific impacts will be avoided,'' said Caitlin Cornwall, a research biologist with a Sonoma County nonprofit and one of the hundreds of survivors, regulators and developers cramming meetings and town halls to plot out recovery. The fires that started Oct. 8 burned one in every 10 acres in Sonoma County, a territory stretching from the Pacific to redwood groves to commuter cities and wine valleys.



Following wildfires, urban areas tend to build up more densely despite the remaining fire risk, and residents tend to build in only as many fire-defense measures as regulations require, researchers with the U.S. Forest Service and University of Wisconsin found from studying rebuilding after past U.S. wildfires.



Rebuilding also often takes years longer than residents realize. In California wildfires studied, just 35 percent of buildings lost were rebuilt within five years, the researchers determined.



"We found people generally don't change their behavior in terms of how they rebuild, what materials they use, or how they landscape, if there aren't incentives in place,'' said Anu Kramer, a wildfire-rebuilding researcher at UW.



The motivation to quickly rebuild often leaves little time for authorities to impose tougher fire standards, Kramer said.

In the hard-hit Santa Rosa neighborhoods of Fountaingrove and Coffey Park  where the fires obliterated block after block of homes, as well as big box-stores and hotels  some residents already are banding together to quickly rebuild houses using their old blueprints.



Flames spread fast among houses crowded together on hilltops for million-dollar views over the coastal ridges. Homeowners bent on getting as much house as possible on their lots can make them more vulnerable in wildfires, experts say.



In Fountaingrove as elsewhere now, many just want to "try and get houses rebuilt on the same footprint for the least amount of money,'' said David Rust, a retired housing contractor who wore a white hazmat suit this week to pick through the few identifiable lumps of metal in the ruins of his family's home.



The affluent neighborhood was an acknowledged fire-risk area in a state that the national Insurance Information Institute trade group says is the nation's most wildfire-prone.



Santa Rosa, a more affordable alternative to San Francisco, saw its population rise by about 10 percent in 10 years and housing pushed into formerly open areas where wildfire previously could strike without threatening humans.



Mayor Chris Coursey has worried about the loss of 5 percent of Santa Rosa's housing stock in the fires and stresses that he wants to make rebuilding as easy as possible for homeowners.



"People have a right to rebuild what they had, if that's what they want to do,'' Coursey told a meeting last month. "I don't think we have any business getting in their way, legal or otherwise.''

Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin, who lost her home on the vulnerable edge of a housing development near the vineyards in Sonoma Valley, is among those asking if it makes sense not to rebuild in fire-prone neighborhoods like Fountaingrove. She is quick to add that is a decision for Santa Rosa city officials, though.

Those neighborhoods "lost the largest number of structures, but I am not going to say you cannot rebuild,'' Gorin said.



Newer building codes already in place in California will force some new defense measures when people rebuild. They include a 2010 law mandating sprinklers even in single-family homes.



How insurance companies respond to the disaster also will be critical. Some homeowners could find it harder or impossible to get home insurance, state insurance commissioner David Jones said this week.



Fire experts point to a host of defensive measures homeowners could adopt, from fire-resistant roofing and screens that keep embers out of attics to keeping flammable vegetation far from homes. Communities require local-level planning, such as steps to discourage crowding of structures and encourage evacuation procedures, experts say.



Many homeowners also will confront the reality that their insurance payouts won't cover the additional cost of fire-proofing or other safety upgrades.



Land-use planning that could bar building in the most vulnerable areas is harder to pull off politically, fire researchers note.



Ultimately, "all of us as taxpayers are sort of picking up the bill in one way or the other'' for wildfires, said Max Moritz, a Santa Barbara-based wildfire management researcher. If the public is subsidizing the costs, it should also have a say through regulations to determine where and how people can build, he said.

In Fountaingrove, David and Shelly Rust are thinking of rebuilding on their fire-leveled lot, then selling and moving away from California and its wildfires. David Rust is planning a fire-resistant wilderness home, with a metal roof, flame-resistant siding and a gel that releases from the roof ridge to douse hot spots.



"I honestly thought it was more suburban here than could ever be taken over by an out-of-control wildfire,'' David Rust said.
President Donald Trumps two-day stop in China saw the signing of $250 billion in deals between the worlds two biggest economies and the two countries aligning themselves closer in resolute opposition to North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

But analysts say little new ground was broken on trade or North Korea, an issue that will continue to top President Trumps agenda as he travels to Vietnam and attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

And the true test of the feel-good foundation forged during the meetings, analysts said, is likely to come in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Big deal?

By design, the $250 billion sum of the deals was meant to provide a sharp contrast to the $300-500 billion deficit that exists between the United States and China, something Trump called horrible before departing for his 12-day trip to Asia.

Chinese state media have kicked into overdrive hailing the visit as a huge success. Media reports have highlighted the tone of the meetings, repeatedly noting the total amount of the deals.

An editorial in the official China Daily Friday said, Although the differences that had been pestering bilateral ties have not instantly disappeared, the most important takeaway from their talks in Beijing has been the constructive approach to these issue the two leaders demonstrated.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called the meeting historic.

We will definitely write a new chapter in the U.S.-Chinese relations. We will definitely make a new contribution to realize a beautiful future for U.S.-Chinese relations, Xi said at a banquet Thursday evening.

Whether the historic nature of the meetings will hold, however, remains in question.

Liao Qun, chief economist at China CITIC Bank International, said that the size of the deal shows trade takes priority above all else.

Though the U.S. and China do not see eye to eye, both still compete on many geo-political issues, trade still remains at the top of their agenda. With closer trade relations, the U.S.-China relation will still make headway, Liao said.

No guarantees

But not all agree with that assessment.

Some analysts said that despite Trumps softer approach and incredibly warm feeling he expressed about his Chinese counterpart, the president is likely to be back to criticizing China again in a few months.

The president likes deals, and he likes big numbers, but were not going to change something he doesnt like, which is the big China trade deficit, without changing Chinese practices, said Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. China has to have a different approach to trade in the world than it does.

Scissors said that more than the deficit, it is what is behind the numbers, such as the fact that Chinese state-owned enterprises never go out of business.

Which means American goods and services cant ever win in the China market, he said.

WATCH: Trump Touts Excellent Progress in Beijing During Talks with Xi

Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy said we may have a case of misaligned assessments of how the visit has played out.

The Chinese leadership may think that they have done a lot to give President Trump face, with all of the pomp and business deals, and that that has put the relationship on solid footing, he said.

But President Trump may go home to a domestic political environment where people are disappointed he hasnt achieved more progress on the structural trade and economics issues (market access, more fair and reciprocal treatment for U.S. businesses, intellectual property rights, forced technology transfer, and Chinese unfair industrial policies) and North Korea, Haenle said. My concern is you may see a shift towards a much harder line coming from the U.S. administration. That will be a huge surprise to China and President Xi.

Pretty small

The huge deals reached could create jobs in America and provide a small boost to exports, but the meetings did little to advance market access.

Open markets are better for both sides. It is also better for China to open up its market. But China is not interested in opening markets, said Christopher Balding, associate professor of finance at Peking Universitys HSBC Business.

In a briefing with reporters Thursday after the two leaders issued a joint statement, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that in the grand scheme of a $300- to $500-billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small.

I mean, theyre not small if youre a company, maybe, that has seen some relief. But in terms of really getting at some of the fundamental elements behind why this imbalance exists, theres still a lot more work to do, he said.

China has repeatedly pledged to do more to open its markets, and the Communist Party recently approved amendments to its charter that called for letting the market play a decisive role in the economy. But progress has been slow and contradictory.

Earlier this year, China announced it would be allowing U.S. credit card companies to operate fully owned units in the country after years of stalling. However, several sources recently told Reuters that authorities are still pressing foreign credit card companies to form joint ventures with Chinese companies.

On Friday, China announced that it will raise the ownership limits in joint venture firms involved in securities, futures and fund markets. Chinas Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said that ownership limits would be raised from 49 to 51 percent, allowing foreign companies to hold a majority stake.

No time frame for implementing the measures was given, but according to Reuters Zhu did say that all restrictions on equity holdings for the sectors would be removed in three years.

Analysts note that while it is still hard to say what else was discussed behind closed doors, on trade and North Korea, the ball is clearly in Chinas court.

Trump has put the onus on President Xi to solve the North Korea problem. This is why he said that if Xi wants something to happen, it will happen, Balding said.

VOA's Joyce Huang and Saibal Dasgupta contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump marked his first Veterans Day in office saluting American veterans in Vietnam, home to one of the most polarizing conflicts in U.S. history.



Trump on Friday traveled to Danang, Vietnam, site of an American air base during the war, and met with seven vets who had returned to the country where they lost comrades.



Thanking the veterans, Trump said: "I got to know them for a few minutes upfront, and they are definitely tough, smart cookies. We like them. I think they like me too."



He then encouraged the veterans, organized by a group called The Greatest Generation Foundation, to speak. Several praised Trump, including Max Morgan, whose voice cracked and began to cry as he talked about fallen veterans.



"From my heart, thank you for your support of the military, and it's an honor to be here as one of seven Vietnam veterans representing the 58,000 heroes who never made it home," said Morgan, of Santa Clarita, CA.



Trump, who at times appears to struggle with displaying empathy, reached out to hug him. Trump signed a proclamation Friday honoring veterans of the Vietnam War, calling them "the heroes who fulfill your duty to our nation."



On Twitter Friday, Trump honored the Marines, saying: "On behalf of an entire nation, Happy 242nd Birthday to the men and women of the United States Marines!"



Trump was in Danang as part of a lengthy trip through Asia to attend an international summit. Many government agencies are marking the Nov. 11 holiday a day early because it falls on a Saturday.



Like presidents before him, Trump has wrestled with the legacy of Vietnam. He did not serve but received draft deferments, one attained with a physician's letter stating that he suffered from bone spurs in his feet.



In 2015, Trump derided Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain, stating his fellow Republican wasn't a "war hero" and adding, "I like people who weren't captured." McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967.



Over the decades, presidents have grappled with the conflict and its meaning for the country. President Lyndon Johnson abandoned his re-election quest after an escalation in the war led to more American deaths, while President Richard Nixon faced fierce criticism for expanding the conflict. President Bill Clinton's deferment before he entered the Vietnam draft generated considerable heat during the 1992 presidential campaign.



More recently, questions about the service of George W. Bush and John Kerry were prominent in the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard but faced scrutiny over his status and why he was never deployed overseas. Kerry was a decorated veteran who threw away his medals and testified against the war before Congress. His service record was questioned in campaign ads.
When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni returned to his home region to throw an Independence Day party last month, the uniformed security outnumbered the small crowd of bored spectators.

Museveni slowly drove past the crowd, a mix of schoolchildren and farmers, in a top-of-the-range pickup truck, giving them a wide smile and a thumbs-up, the ruling party symbol. He was met with blank stares.

The apathy  on a continent where strongman rulers are traditionally feted in their home areas  reveals the slow leaching away of political support from one of Africa's longest-serving rulers.

Now, as his party plans to extend his rule, the president is increasingly reliant on a military unit from his home area, the Special Forces Command, to quell dissent over collapsing public services, corruption, growing poverty and brutality by security services.

"We've had enough of him," said butcher Steven Ruturukirira bluntly.

In a lengthy speech, Museveni, 73, studiously ignored the day's hot topic: a legislative plan to remove the 75-year age limit for the presidency, clearing the way to extend his leadership of the oil-rich nation.

"The pursuit of social and economic transformation of Africa is not a simple matter. It calls for visionary leadership," Museveni told the crowd.

Relieved to see Uganda freed from the yoke of brutal dictators, the West has given Museveni an easy ride over the last three decades, glad about his support against radical Islam and his role as power broker in the volatile Great Lakes Region.

Uganda has also welcomed foreign investors like France's Total, China's CNOOC and Britain's Tullow, who hope to start pumping 6.5 billion barrels worth of crude reserves through a planned $3.55 billion pipeline.

But as the opposition makes inroads in urban areas, Museveni relies on support in rural heartlands, as well as his special forces, exacerbating ethnic tensions and potentially sowing the seeds for conflagration when he eventually leaves power.

'We're trash to him'

Currently, the age cap bars Museveni from standing in Uganda's next elections, scheduled for 2021. But last month a ruling party lawmaker introduced a bill to scrap the rule.

The government gave each MP $8,000 to help them consult voters on the bill, provoking fury among ordinary citizens like quarry worker Ronald Malongo, 27, who is among a growing number of Ugandans who make less than a dollar a day.

"Museveni works only for his stomach and those around him," Malongo panted as he lifted a load of granite. "We're trash to him."

An opinion survey of 1,200 Ugandans by pollster Afrobarometer a year ago found three quarters opposed the bill.

Some legislators trying to promote it were met with jeers or violence in their home constituencies, media reported. Riot police have crushed protests, killing two.

Opposition lawmakers tried to filibuster the bill in September but said they were forcibly ejected from parliament by the Special Forces Command (SFC), a loyalist military unit heavily staffed with soldiers from Museveni's Hima ethnic group.

Several MPs sustained serious injuries, like Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who said SFC forces dragged him from the debating chamber and choked him in a nearby room.

Uganda is "gradually moving into some sort of a military regime," he said. "I don't see Museveni turning back. He has a group around him that can't allow a change [because they are profiting from this]."

At the time, the police chief told television reporters he had invited "sister" security agencies into parliament, a euphemism usually used for the military.

But military spokesman Richard Karemire denied soldiers had ejected legislators or strangled Nganda, telling Reuters: "Uganda is not a military state ... it's a democracy."

A privileged unit

Estimated at 10,000, SFC has evolved from a small presidential guard to a fully fledged branch of the military that enjoys better welfare and training and controls superior equipment.

Soldiers in the SFC get an $80 per month "food basket allowance" that ordinary soldiers don't get. That's a powerful incentive when the number of Ugandans who spend less than a dollar a day has surged to 27 percent of the population, up from 20 percent five years ago, according to the statistics office.

The starting wage for an ordinary soldiers is $105.

The unit also gets better housing, training and weapons than regular soldiers, two military officers told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"It's an army within an army," one the officers said.

It was formerly commanded by Museveni's son, Major General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, now a presidential adviser. Many believe he is being prepared to succeed his father after a military general, David Sejusa, wrote a widely published letter to the head of internal security in 2013.

Sejusa, an old comrade of Museveni's, asked for an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate top government officials opposed to the Museveni "family project of holding on to power in perpetuity."

Sejusa fled to the United Kingdom but returned to Uganda in 2014. He remains in the military, which bars him from politics, but has been sidelined from power.

Kainerugaba's successor at the head of the SFC is also from the Hima ethnic group. Other prominent members include military chief David Muhoozi, and Museveni's wife, Janet, the education minister.

"SFC is ethnic, it's an army built on ethnic lines," said Nganda, a former member of a parliamentary committee that oversees the military.

The danger with rewarding ethnic loyalists with favors and privileges is that beneficiaries "will not sit back and watch power slide out of their hands," Uganda political analyst Nicholas Sengoba said.

"These people will try by hook or crook to maintain the status quo," he said. "That is where you have potential for violence."
The United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council elected four judges Thursday to the International Court of Justice, the main judicial organization of the world body.

In separate, but simultaneous voting, the Assembly and the Council re-elected Ronny Abraham of France and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia. Two new justices, Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade of Brazil and Nawaf Salam of Lebanon, were also elected.

All were elected to nine-year terms, starting in February next year.

Fifth judge delayed

Established in 1945, by the U.N. Charter, the ICJ is the U.N.s main judicial body. Its mission, in accordance with international law, is to settle the disputes brought by states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions raised by the U.N. bodies and specialized institutions.

Candidates vying for the ICJ chamber were required to win at least 97 votes from the General Assembly and eight from the Security Council. The voting went into five rounds as each country had more than one vote, which complicated the voting process according to observers.

The election of a fifth judge was postponed until Monday after the two competing candidates, Christopher Greenwood of Britain and Dalveer Bhandari of India, deadlocked. Greenwood got a majority votes from the U.N. Security Council but did not receive required votes from the General Assembly. Bhandari of India got his majority from the General Assembly but failed to get enough from Security Council. The two countries are engaged in frantic diplomatic maneuvers at the U.N., diplomats say.

Victory for the Somalis

Somali diplomats at the United Nations were elated to have their candidate win support from a majority of the General Assembly and Security Council. Yusuf was first elected to the chamber in November 2008. During the last three years he served as the vice president of the court.

Somali Ambassador to the U.N. Abukar Osman told VOA Somali that Yusufs re-election is a victory for Somalis around the world.

To see a Somali judge being elected for a second time is a big victory for the Somalis, we are grateful to the support from other brothers in Africa  Djibouti, Gabon and others, Osman said.

Ambassador Osman said Yusuf won support from around the world with a majority of his support coming from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Europe.

The standing and position of Somalia in the international community is returning, that has lifted our spirit, we are very happy to see the revival of Somalia. Its a good feeling.

Yusuf, 69, was born in the Somali town of Eyl in the northeast. Formerly he taught International Law at the former Somali University and later on at the University of Geneva. He also worked as a legal adviser to a number of U.N. agencies including UNESCO.
The United Nations is set to host talks on the use of autonomous weapons, but those hoping for a ban on the machines dubbed "killer robots" will be disappointed, the ambassador leading the discussions said Friday.

More than 100 artificial intelligence entrepreneurs led by Tesla's Elon Musk in August urged the U.N. to enforce a global ban on fully automated weapons, echoing calls from activists who have warned the machines will put civilians at enormous risk.

A U.N. disarmament grouping known as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will on Monday begin five days of talks on the issue in Geneva.

But anything resembling a ban, or even a treaty, remains far off, said the Indian ambassador on disarmament, Amandeep Gill, who is chairing the meeting.

"It would be very easy to just legislate a ban but I think ... rushing ahead in a very complex subject is not wise," he told reporters. "We are just at the starting line."

He said the discussion, which will also include civil society and technology companies, will be partly focused on understanding the types of weapons in the pipeline.

Proponents of a ban, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots pressure group, insist that human beings must ultimately be responsible for the final decision to kill or destroy.

They argue that any weapons system that delegates the decision on an individual strike to an algorithm is by definition illegal, because computers cannot be held accountable under international humanitarian law.

Gill said there was agreement that "human beings have to remain responsible for decisions that involve life and death."

But, he added, there are varying opinions on the mechanics through which "human control" must govern deadly weapons.

Machines 'can't apply the law'

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is mandated to safeguard the laws of conflict, has not called for a ban, but has underscored the need to place limits on autonomous weapons.

"Our bottom line is that machines can't apply the law and you can't transfer responsibility for legal decisions to machines," Neil Davison of the ICRC's arms unit told AFP.

He highlighted the problematic nature of weapons that involve major variables in terms of the timing or location of an attack  for example, something that is deployed for multiple hours and programmed to strike whenever it detects an enemy target.

"Where you have a degree of unpredictability or uncertainty in what's going to happen when you activate this weapons system, then you are going to start to have problems for legal compliance," he said.

Flawed meeting?

Next week's U.N. meeting will also feature wide-ranging talks on artificial intelligence, triggering criticism that the CCW was drowning itself in discussions about new technologies instead of zeroing in on the urgent issue.

"There is a risk in going too broad at this moment," said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, who is the coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

"The need is to focus on lethal autonomous weapons," she told AFP.

The open letter co-signed by Musk as well as Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google's DeepMind, warned that killer robots could become "weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways."

"Once this Pandora's box is opened, it will be hard to close," they said.
The U.S. State Department says it will no longer accept new applications for a program that allowed minors fleeing violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to settle in the United States.

In a media note issued Wednesday, the department abruptly announced that no new applications to the Central American Minors (CAM) refugee program would be accepted after midnight EST November 9.

The Department of Homeland Security had announced in mid-August it was going to end the program.

"But then that communication was walked back, and no official announcement was released," said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a resettlement organization. Wednesday's note was "the official announcement of the program's closure."

The CAM program was started in 2014 under former President Barack Obama as a response to the arrival at the U.S.-Mexico border of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America seeking entry into the United States.

It allowed parents who were lawfully in the U.S. to bring in minor children from the violence-ridden Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Under the program, children under 21 who had parents lawfully living in the United States could apply for a refugee resettlement interview before making the journey to the United States.

Parole possibility

Children who did not qualify for refugee status and had no other means of reuniting with their parents in the United States could also apply for entry under the program. They would be approved for parole for two years, allowing them to travel and stay in the U.S.

Nearly 3,000 children have come through the CAM program, and thousands of others were in the midst of applying.

The International Rescue Committee said Thursday that it was working "with urgency to file or refile parents' applications prior to tonight's deadline."

The IRC condemned the abrupt end to the program, writing, "The short window to finalize in-progress applications amounts to a cruel willingness to interfere with parents who seek safety for their young children."

The State Department said that while no new applications would be accepted after the midnight deadline, applicants who had filed beforehand would continue to be pre-screened.

"This suggests that applicants will continue to be interviewed by DHS for refugee status," said Bellor, of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. "While parole [under CAM] is no longer an option for those denied refugee status, approved individuals will travel to the U.S. to be resettled by one of the nine resettlement organizations."

But for those who do not apply by the midnight deadline, "there is no orderly and safe way for kids to leave the Northern Triangle. Children fleeing the violence in the NT must now make the arduous, traumatic and dangerous journey to the U.S. over land," Bellor said.
The United States is calling for a de-escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, following the resignation of Saad al-Hariri as Lebanon's prime minister while in Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia asked its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country as soon as possible.

The U.S. State Department said it was "monitoring the situation very closely."

State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Thursday: "We would call for no kind of escalation of any sort of threats or something in that arena. But we also recognize that a government has the right to communicate with its own citizens."

Nauert confirmed in a briefing that a senior American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh  Charge d'Affaires Christopher Henzel  met with Hariri on Wednesday.

The meeting was described as "sensitive, private, diplomatic conversations," yet no details were provided on whether Hariri was being held.

Saudi Arabia supported Hariri, who is currently under house arrest, and his allies during years of political conflict in Lebanon with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Hariri's resignation was widely seen as imposed by his backers in the Saudi Arabian monarchy in reaction to the growing influence of Shiite Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, in the region. Riyadh denied claims that it had forced Hariri to resign.

A Lebanese matter

The State Department said Hariri's decision to resign was an internal matter and that Washington did not anticipate its relationship with the Lebanese government would change as a result.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir about the Hariri situation.

"The issue was brought up," Nauert said, adding, "These are all very sensitive matters."

A Saudi Foreign Ministry source quoted Thursday by the kingdom's official news agency said, "Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing" there to leave as soon as possible.

Riyadh has also discouraged its citizens from traveling to the neighboring country in the wake of Hariri's announcement of his resignation Saturday.

D.C. meeting

In late July, Tillerson welcomed Hariri at the State Department in Washington, where "Syria and regional security issues" were discussed.

Other countries in the region, including Kuwait, also called on their citizens to leave Lebanon.

The U.S. last issued a travel warning on Lebanon on February 15 "because of the threats of terrorism, armed clashes, kidnapping and outbreaks of violence, especially near Lebanon's borders with Syria and Israel. "

It was unclear whether the U.S. planned to renew its travel warning on Lebanon.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is considering a hiring surge that would more than double the agencys size in the coming six years to nearly 46,000 employees, surpassing previously published estimates, according to a government contracting-related document released this week.

In a Request for Information Wednesday seeking input from the private sector about staffing services to support such an increase, ICE stated it could hire as many as 25,700 staff members by 2023, beginning in early 2018. The agency currently employs about 20,000 people and has a well-documented struggle with finding and keeping new hires.

The higher figure surpasses the 10,000 new immigration enforcement agents and deportation officers President Donald Trump called for in a January executive order; it also goes above the more than 6,500 technical and operational support staff the agency anticipated requiring.

Asked about the potential hiring surge, an ICE spokesperson twice referred to the agencys Frequently Asked Questions site, specifically a section stating that in addition to hiring the 10,000 agents and officers, the agency would add additional operational and mission support and legal staff necessary to hire and support their activities.

The agency declined further comment.

Hiring challenges ahead

A Request for Information (RFI) is an initial step in the government contracting process to gauge the capabilities, interest and estimates of possible vendors, who in this case would be providing human resources support in recruiting, examining, selecting and placing employees at ICE.

The document lays out an estimated pace, saying its current estimated hiring need is 2,500 beginning March 2018; 7,000 hires each year from 2019 to 2021; and 2,200 hires in 2022.

An RFI does not guarantee a proposal and bidding process will follow; the document is careful to state that staffing services may be needed.

But if ICE follows through with an aggressive hiring plan, it will likely need outside help in the hiring process.

A report by the Department of Homeland Securitys inspector general in July estimated that in order to add 10,000 immigration agents and deportation officers to the current level of around 6,000, the agency would need to vet about a half-million applicants.

Vacancies

ICE has also had difficulties in keeping up with vacancies from losing 795 employees annually through attrition; DHS has the most understaffed human resource services among larger federal agencies, according to a July DHS Inspector Generals report.

ICE will need about 200 more people who work in human resources to keep up with the hiring process for so many new employees.

Another report from the Inspector General, issued this month, said the agency, along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, face significant challenges in identifying, recruiting, hiring and fielding the number of law enforcement officers mandated in the January 2017 Executive Orders.

Trump mandated CBP hire an additional 5,000 border officers in the same executive order as the ICE increase. There is no Request for Information announced for a CBP hiring surge.

But in the November report, the Inspector General noted neither agency could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the additional 15,000 agents and officers they were directed to hire, calling into question the need for what Trump ordered.

The degree to which the hiring is carried out will depend on funding allocated by Congress, and also by presidential politics  Trumps term ends in January 2021, in the middle of the anticipated increase to ICEs ranks.
The missile fired at an airport in Saudi Arabia last Saturday by Houthi rebels came from Iran and showed Iranian markings, according to the top U.S. Air Force commander in the Middle East.

Speaking at a news conference Friday in Dubai, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said authorities are currently investigating how the missile was smuggled into Yemen.

Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman accused Iran of committing a direct military aggression after the rebels launched the missile at the airport in Riyadh. He said the missile launch potentially amounts to an act of war.

Iran has denied any involvement in the missile launch and called the allegations by Saudi Arabia contrary to reality and dangerous.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused Iran of violating two separate U.N. resolutions for allegedly providing missiles to the Houthi rebels and said the United States would not "turn a blind eye to these serious violations of international law."

Saudi Arabias announcement confirms once again the Iranian regimes complete disregard for its international obligations, she said in a statement released Tuesday.

In response to the missile attack, Saudi Arabia said Monday it would temporarily shut down Yemeni land and sea facilities, and airports, intensifying its blockade of Yemen.

A coalition statement says "vulnerabilities in the current inspection procedures" allow ballistic missiles and other military equipment to reach the Houthis.

While officials say the closures are temporary, they did not say how long they would last.
A U.S. Air Force general warned Friday that a major annual military exercise between Gulf Arab countries and America is at risk over the ongoing diplomatic crisis engulfing Qatar.

Eagle Resolve, which sees countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council send forces alongside Americans to simulate working as a multinational force in battle, is being examined in light of the crisis, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said.

This year's Eagle Resolve exercise, held in Kuwait in March, involved 1,000 U.S. troops.

Another leadership course already has been cancelled over the crisis, Harrigian said. The Associated Press in October first reported exercises were at risk over the monthslong dispute.

"We continue to look at each and every exercise and have discussions," said Harrigian, who oversees Air Force Central Command in Qatar. He acknowledged that includes Eagle Resolve.

The Qatar crisis began June 5, when Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched an economic boycott while closing off the energy-rich nation's land border and its air and sea routes. The quartet of Arab nations pointed to Qatar's alleged support of extremists and overly warm ties to Iran. Qatar long has denied supporting extremists and shares a massive offshore natural gas field with Tehran that makes its citizens have the highest per-capita income in the world.

The Qatar diplomatic crisis has torn apart the typically clubby GCC, a regional Arab bloc created in part as a counterbalance to Iran. The U.S. military holds exercises in part to build the confidence of local forces, many of which use American-made equipment.

U.S. and Gulf allies also have regularly held joint, smaller-scale exercises in the region.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that the U.S. opposes action that would threaten the stability of Lebanon, and he warned other countries against using Lebanon "as a venue for proxy conflicts."

In a statement, Tillerson said, "There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state."

Tillerson also called Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri a "strong partner of the United States."

"The United States urges all parties both within Lebanon and outside to respect the integrity and independence of Lebanon's legitimate national institutions, including the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese armed forces," he said.

Earlier Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of detaining Hariri and asking Israel to launch strikes against Lebanon.

"The most dangerous thing is inciting Israel to strike Lebanon," Nasrallah said. "I'm talking about information that Saudi Arabia has asked Israel to strike Lebanon."

While he said he saw war with Israel as unlikely, Nasrallah said it was clear "Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon."

Nasrallah said he was certain Hariri, who resigned last week in an address from Saudi Arabia, was "forced" to make the announcement and called the resignation unconstitutional because it was "made under duress."

Tillerson said Friday that there was "no indication" Hariri had been detained by the Saudis against his will or that he resigned under duress.

Tillerson added Hariri "needs to go back to Lebanon" to make the resignation official "so that the government of Lebanon can function properly."

Government officials in Beirut have said they believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the front lines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia supported Hariri and his allies during years of political conflict in Lebanon with Iran-backed Hezbollah.

In his resignation speech televised from Saudi Arabia, Hariri denounced Iran and Hezbollah for sowing friction in Arab states and said he feared assassination. His father, a former prime minister, was killed in a 2005 bombing.
His party suddenly and bitingly divided, Alabama Republican Roy Moore emphatically rejected increasing pressure to abandon his Senate bid on Friday as fears grew among GOP leaders that a once-safe Senate seat was in jeopardy just a month before a special election.

Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge, attacked a Washington Post report that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers decades earlier as completely false and misleading.



In an interview with conservative radio host Sean Hannity, he did not wholly rule out dating teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.

Asked if that would have been usual for him, Moore said, Not generally, no. He added: I don't remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother. As for the encounter with 14-year-old Leigh Corfman, as described by Corfman in Thursdays Post article, he said, It never happened.

Supporters stand with Moore

The story has produced a wave of concern among anxious GOP officials in Washington but little more than a collective shrug from many Republicans in Alabama, which holds a special election on Dec. 12 to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Humphrey Bogart started dating Lauren Bacall when she was a teenager, said state Auditor Jim Ziegler, referring to the then-19-year-old actress.

I'll always vote for him, said 28-year-old Erica Richard, of Altoona, Alabama, adding that she wouldnt change her mind even if the allegations of sexual misconduct are proven true. He's a good man. I love him and his family, and they are all good people.

Paul Reynolds, Alabama's Republican National Committeeman, called it a firestorm designed to shipwreck a campaign in Alabama. I think it's sinister.

Despite such support, experienced Republican operatives believe the Alabama Senate seat, held by the GOP for the last 20 years, is now at risk.

They fear the controversy could exacerbate the partys broader Trump-era challenge in appealing to college-educated suburban voters  the same group that fueled a big Democratic victory in the Virginia governors race this week.

Those familiar with recent polling of the Alabama race suggest it was always going to be close despite the states strong Republican leanings  largely because of Moores controversial past.

National GOP leaders want Moore out

In the immediate aftermath of the Post report Thursday, a wave of national Republican leaders called for Moore to drop out of the race if the allegations are true. They included the White House, the head of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

It got worse Friday.

The Senate GOPs campaign arm formally ended its fundraising agreement with Moore.

The GOPs 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney condemned his colleagues caveat  only if the allegations are true.

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman, he said of the Alabama woman who said Moore molested her when she was 14. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

Facing a tough re-election, Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., likened Moore to Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, former Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Fox News executive Roger Ailes, all men accused of sexual misconduct.

The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disgusting, Comstock wrote. Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate.

Yet there is no sign he is going away quietly. And the Alabama secretary of states office reported that its too late to remove his name from the ballot.

The Republican Partys options, including the possibility of a write-in campaign, are all being researched, said Steven Law, who leads the pro-Republican Senate Leadership Fund.

Stands his ground

Those who think Moore should be replaced have little hope of that happening.

I don't think anyone expects Roy Moore to drop out of this race, Law said. I think he enjoys being an object of intense controversy. The fact that this has happened may make him even more committed.

Moore was twice removed from his state Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.

He also previously said homosexuality should be illegal, and last week he refused to back off comments that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., should not be allowed to serve in Congress because hes a Muslim.

Virtually the entire Republican establishment  including President Donald Trump  opposed Moores primary bid in September.

Democrats make their move ... quietly

Democrats, meanwhile, were quietly stepping up their mobilization efforts in Alabama, though being careful not to publicly ignite partisan backlash by attempting to capitalize on the troubling allegations.

Democratic candidate Doug Jones stood to capitalize in places where Moore had shown weakness in past statewide elections. Some Republicans conceded that Moore would likely suffer in the states reliably, mainstream-Republican suburbs.

In Shelby and Baldwin counties  suburban Birmingham and Mobile  Moore ran more than a dozen percentage points behind Romney in his 2012 bid for the Alabama Supreme Court.

It's a bad situation, said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committeeman from neighboring Mississippi. Do people find it believable? If they do, he will lose.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plans to ban all illicit versions of fentanyl, the highly addictive opioid painkiller responsible for tens of thousands of deadly drug overdoses in the United States in recent years.

The DEA, an arm of the Justice Department, will classify all "fentanyl-related substances" as a Schedule I drug, effectively making their sale illegal, the Department said on Thursday.

The scheduling is the latest step by the Trump administration to combat an epidemic that has killed more than a half-million Americans since 2000.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the move, calling it an important step toward halting the rising death toll caused by illicit fentanyls in the United States.

"By scheduling all fentanyls, we empower our law enforcement officers and prosecutors to take swift and necessary action against those spreading these deadly poisons, Sessions said in a statement.

DEA spokesperson Barbara Carreno said no date has been set for publishing the planned classification in the federal register.

The classification will take effect no earlier than 30 days after the DEA publishes its notice of intent and will last up to two years with the option of a one-year extension.

'Schedules' of drugs

The DEA divides drugs, substances, and chemicals used to make drugs into five categories or schedules, depending on their medical purpose and potential for abuse and dependency.

Schedule I drugs, the agency's highest classification, have no medial use and have a high potential for abuse. Heroin and marijuana are among substances currently categorized as Schedule I drugs.

Schedule II drugs have an accepted medical use but have a high potential for abuse. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid pain reliever 100 times more powerful than morphine, is currently listed as a Schedule II drug.

The U.S. opioid epidemic is being fueled in large part by the growing prevalence of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues (variations of fentanyl) imported from China, Mexico and other countries.

Last year, more than 64,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, including more than 20,000 who overdosed on fentanyl-related substances, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To evade U.S. controls, foreign manufacturers of fentanyl create structural variants of fentanyl that are not currently listed under the Controlled Substances Act, the Justice Department said.

Carreno said the scheduling of fentanyl analogues gives us the opportunity to get ahead of the rogue chemists out there to make new drugs by tweaking molecules.

Once the classification takes effect, anyone who possesses, imports, distributes, or manufactures any illicit fentanyl analogue will be subject to criminal prosecution in the same manner as for fentanyl and other controlled substances, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Venezuela's passage of a new law threatening up to 20 years in prison for "inciting hatred" is generating concerns about a growing crackdown on dissent.

The powerful, pro-government Constituent Assembly approved the measure Wednesday.

Assembly leader Delcy Rodriguez said it represented "a constructive law for peaceful coexistence" and an antidote to "the intolerances, the hatreds that the Venezuelan right has unleashed."

President Nicolas Maduro had proposed the measure during anti-government street protests that rocked the capital, and other Venezuelan cities, from April through July. More than 120 people died in the almost-daily clashes sparked by the country's deepening economic and political crisis. Activists often used social media to organize demonstrations.

The new law, which carries punishments of 10 to 20 years in prison, requires immediate actions, including administrators of social media accounts to remove any hateful posts and the creation of a commission to enforce the anti-hate legislation, according to the Associated Press.

The law prohibits using television, radio and social media to spread violence and hatred. It also requires public and private media to promote messages of peace for at least 30 minutes a week.

Critics of Maduro's socialist government denounced the law as censorship, and part of a steady erosion of democratic norms.

The United States has amped up pressure to restore those rights, with the U.S. Treasury announcing Thursday that it was sanctioning 10 current or former Venezuelan government officials for "undermining electoral processes, media censorship or corruption in government-administered food programs in Venezuela."

WATCH: Venezuela's New Anti-hate Law Derided as Censorship

'Promotes hatred'

Julio Borges, head of Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly, said the new law "doesn't stop hatred. That law promotes hatred, division and destruction of the country's freedom."

His legislative body has largely been sidelined by the Constituent Assembly, seated in August but not recognized as legitimate by the United States and many other countries.

The measure is "pretty alarming for journalists and social media users across the country," said Natalie Southwick, Americas researcher for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She added that the law is the "latest step in this ongoing effort by the Venezuelan government to monitor and to limit what's being said and shared on social media."

Venezuela's socialist government began clamping down on independent news media after Hugo Chavez came to power in 1992, according to the U.S.-based website Nieman Reports, and Maduro continued the practice when he became president in 2014.

Crimping spread of information

Luis Botello, an official with the Washington-based International Center for Journalists, said the new law would deprive the country's 30 million people of information.

"Journalists do not create or invent facts.  They are the voice of the people who have no voice," and their reports inform "politicians so that they can improve" public policies, Botello said. The law imposes censorship and cheats Venezuelans, he added, "since they will not have the correct information" to hold politicians accountable.

CPJ's Southwick, whose organization earlier this year reported on censorship of social media, expressed worry that incursions against free speech could spread beyond Venezuela.

"Historically, Latin America has been one of the few regions where we haven't seen prior restraint on speech. This could be setting a concerning precedent for other countries  especially key countries going into general elections next year," she said, citing Brazil and Colombia.

Human Rights Watch's Jose Miguel Vivanco derided the new law, tweeting in Spanish: "Nobody should be surprised that autocratic Maduro circus has come so far. The mafia that governs Venezuela has shown many times that it is ready to crush any criticism."
Venezuela's government and opposition will resume efforts to hold dialogue, the third attempt in a year by the administration of President Nicolas Maduro and his adversaries to break up a bitter political stalemate.

Previous dialogue efforts have ended in recriminations between the two sides and no concrete progress amid a dire economic crisis that has led to increased malnutrition and preventable diseases.

Opposition leaders said that even though Maduro has previously used the talks to stall for time instead of implementing serious reform, a new round would still be needed to help ensure free and fair presidential elections, which are currently scheduled for 2018.

"We have developed relations in Latin America so that in the company of friendly countries and governments, we can facilitate the conditions for a presidential election," Julio Borges, president of the opposition-led National Assembly, told a news conference.

The opposition in September walked away from dialogue with the ruling Socialist Party, insisting the government had not met demands including the release of imprisoned opposition activists and mechanisms to allow foreign humanitarian assistance.

Legislator Luis Florido, spokesman for the opposition in the dialogue process, said the opposition would seek a new elections council and would push for presidential elections.

He added that Paraguay, Mexico and Chile would accompany the process.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said via Twitter, "the dialogue continues on Nov 15 in the Dominican Republic."

The two sides in September held "exploratory meetings" with the backing of Dominican President Danilo Medina.
Vice President Mike Pence has expressed "deep concern" to visiting Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim about the arrest of U.S. citizens and Turkish local staff at U.S. consulates in Turkey. But Pence and Yildirim also expressed hope that their meeting would help to usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue on bilateral challenges. VOA State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine has more.
The ruling Zanu PF party claims that former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa sponsored a terror group in the Midlands province known as al-Shabbab in tackling opponents.

According to the state-controlled media, the Zanu PF Midlands provincial coordinating committee made the claims at a meeting convened soon after Mnangagwa was expelled from the ruling party for allegedly undermining the authority of the president and disloyalty.

The allegations are being made at a time Mnangagwa is in South Africa where he might seek political asylum.

He left the country in a huff a few day ago claiming that his life is in danger.

He has vowed to return to Zimbabwe to unseat President Mugabe, who has been in power for more than 37 years.

The state media reports that police are compiling a docket to charge Mnangagwa with various crimes, including fanning violence and alleged corruption.

In another development, 22 foreigners have been arrested in Chiadzwa in Manicaland province for allegedly contravening the Protected Areas Act after they reportedly entered a prohibited place without authority.

According to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), they include some Brazilians, South Africans, Ugandans, Swazis, Zambians and Kenyans, who were reportedly attending commemorations of Operation Hakudzokwe on a learning visit.

ZLHR lawyers David Tandiri and Passmore Nyakureba are offering emergency legal support services to those arrested.

Police were not reacheable for comment.

Chiadzwa villagers, who suffered in the hands of security forces during Operation Hakudzokwe, have told how police officers ran motorbikes on top of their victims while others were beaten to death.

Zimbabwe deployed the national army to crack down against people that were looking for diamonds in 2008. A large number of people were killed by the army.
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The East of Main subdivision in Alpharetta, Ga. (Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post)

On the income distribution charts at the center of tax overhaul plans, Courtney Mishoe knows she's doing well. She works as a tax manager at a firm in the Atlanta suburbs. Her husband is a police officer. Together, they make more than $180,000 a year. They are solidly in the upper middle class. But they have a mortgage and three kids, including one in day care and another in high school with plans to go to college. It all adds up. They depend on tax deductions to make their budget work.

I dont feel wealthy, Mishoe said. I dont have a bunch of money stashed away anywhere.

Mishoe is the type of person  affluent enough for an annual family vacation but not enough for a boat or second home  who potentially stands to lose under the Republican framework for changing the countrys tax code, which threatens to eliminate or deeply cut deductions for mortgage and student loan interest and state and local taxes. These popular deductions are widely viewed as sacrosanct in high-tax, high-cost states like New York, New Jersey and California, where residents have led the fight against the proposed changes.

But what has been widely overlooked is that residents of well-to-do suburbs in red and blue states across the nation  including here, just north of Atlanta  could find themselves in a similar tax squeeze. This threatens to further complicate efforts to pass a tax plan that many Republican officials view as essential after a year of legislative struggles. Both the House version, which passed out of a critical committee Thursday, and the Senate version, released Thursday, target this group of upper-middle-class Americans to raise revenue to offset other tax cuts.

The tax push illustrates the political risks of attacking provisions favored by prosperous but far-from-rich suburbanites, a powerful voting bloc that often faces the financial stress of living in increasingly pricey neighborhoods. Many in the GOP already are worried about losing their grip on this important group after Tuesdays result in the Virginia governors race, where Democrat Ralph Northam crushed Republican Ed Gillespie by running up votes in the dense areas outside cities.

Alpharetta is part of a booming region known as North Fulton, where no one bats an eye at $600,000 homes, Whole Foods and West Elm are eager to locate, and property taxes are relatively high to fund the top-performing public schools that attract striving white-collar professionals. And when it comes to their taxes, residents often have more in common with people living just outside New York City and Washington, D.C., than those in other parts of Georgia.



Shoppers reflected in a storefront at Avalon, a mixed-use development, in Alpharetta, Ga. (Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post)

The Republicans' plan proposes to offset $2 trillion in tax cuts in part by going after the deductions enjoyed by the upper middle class, generally those earning $100,000 to $250,000 a year, representing about the top 20 to 5 percent of earners. The Joint Committee on Taxation found, for instance, that nearly 90 percent of the state and local tax-deduction benefit went to people earning more than $100,000. The House plans would cap the deduction at $10,000. The Senate plan is said to eliminate the deduction entirely.

View Graphic Try this calculator to see where your income falls compared to other households.

In Georgias 6th Congressional District, which contains most of North Fulton, nearly half of tax filers took this deduction, well above the national average and on par with expensive coastal states.

These people will probably be hit, said Roger Lusby, a tax accountant in Alpharetta, who said he was disappointed by the Republicans offerings. They just dont realize it yet.

Rep. Karen Handel, a Republican representing the 6th District who won a closely contested special election here earlier this year, defended the plan by pointing to another Joint Committee on Taxation study that found all income groups in the nation would see lower taxes in the short term, on average. But the report did not break down the impact at the local level, and other nonpartisan research has shown that about a third of taxpayers in this income group would pay more.

Handel said it was a mistake to focus on deductions. Its important to look at this in the totality, she said.

Brandon Beach, a local state senator, said he was confident that residents would see lowered individual tax bills in the final proposal.

This is a tricky thing, Beach said. Youve got to start somewhere.

North Fulton seems like a place that could afford to pay more in taxes, but residents say their low-six-figure incomes obscure the economic challenges of living here.



A Fit4Mom exercise class at Avalon, a mixed-use development, in Alpharetta, Ga. (Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post)

A string of prosperous suburbs aligned along an eight-lane highway known as Georgia 400 that funnels cars and MARTA trains into the heart of Atlanta, the region has been transformed in the past two decades into a sought-after community with increasingly dense subdivisions and corporate campuses filled with technology and health-care firms. The headquarters of huge firms such as UPS, First Data and Veritiv are located here.

Homes nearby sell for $500,000 to $800,000. And new construction is constant, with signs in front of unfinished Craftsman-style townhouses that wishfully boast from the mid-$500s.

Yet, said Tracey Craft, a local real estate agent, you cant get them for anywhere near that.

Other residents say North Fulton is a place where earning $100,000  nearly twice the national median household income  means a surprising degree of struggle.

Some of them are living paycheck to paycheck, Ted Jenkin, a financial adviser, said. You would imagine that people are fairly well-to-do even with $200,000. But they dont consider themselves to be rich. Its challenging.

Lusby, the accountant, said people earning up to $250,000 in this region dont consider themselves to be high-earners.

He distinguished between income and wealth. Few of his clients in this bracket were socking away much for retirement or college costs. They might have a nicer house, maybe a few extras, but they feel like its all being spent and, for the most part, thats true, he said.

If Congress no longer allows individuals to deduct state and local income taxes, including property taxes, from their federal tax bills, it could change the calculus of places like Alpharetta. Education, funded by property taxes, is one of the regions main selling points. Officials here credit the public schools  stocked with Advanced Placement and honors classes  with helping to persuade Mercedes-Benz two years ago to relocate its North American headquarters and 1,000 high-paying jobs from New Jersey to Sandy Springs, a town near Alpharetta in the same county.

Broadly speaking, the Republican attack on deductions is being cheered by many economists and analysts, who have complained for years that the tax code favors deductions not available to most Americans.

But where agreement breaks down is that while many in the upper middle class will be asked to pay more, the very rich wont be.



A group tours the construction progress at Avalon, a mixed-use development, in Alpharetta, Ga. (Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post)

I do think the plan seems to be asking more from the top 20 percent, said Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who recently wrote a book called Dream Hoarders, accusing the upper middle class of gaming the system to their advantage.

But Reeves questioned a tax plan that places a greater burden on the upper middle class and delivers most of the benefits to the truly rich, the top 1 percent.

Thats absolutely not the right way to do it, Reeves said.

The tax plan, if passed, could further complicate the regions reputation as a reliably Republican stronghold. The district has a long streak of sending a Republican to Congress, including Newt Gingrich and later Tom Price. President Trump edged out a win in the district last fall, in a state that he won by five points.

After Price was tapped to be Trumps secretary of Health and Human Services  a position he later resigned  a runoff election became the most expensive House race in history, when Handel narrowly beat out Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.

In Alpharetta, many people said they could not determine how they would make out under a confusing plan littered with caps and phase-ins.

As he ate lunch at Alpha Soda, a popular local restaurant, Chris Krogh said he hadnt followed the debate closely but was troubled by what he heard. Krogh runs a custom cabinetry business and depends on homeowners as customers.

I always thought Republicans were supposed to be good on the tax breaks, he said.
Economics generally should be a softer science, not even a science, with less precision but more wisdom. Even with more insight, argue Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro in Cents and Sensibility. (Princeton University Press)

"Value investing" has lately become a whipping boy. Based on a formulaic way (low price to earnings) of classifying "value" stocks, pundits have decided the strategy is wanting. What I find wanting is the robotic, one-

dimensional definition. Done properly, value investing is not a prescription but an approach. Its methods can be studied and applied, but they do not lead to precise agreement on all stocks all the time.

That same sort of nuance is missing from economics generally. It should be a softer science, not even a science, with less precision but more wisdom. Even with more insight.

This is the thesis of the cleverly titled Cents and Sensibility, by Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro. Morson and Schapiro do not exactly say that mathematics ruined economics, but they think it. They want economists to talk to people in the humanities. They think public policy could he improved by Tolstoy, infused with an ethical sensibility.

This sounds mushy, the sort of the thing your relative who doesnt get markets is apt to say over dinner. But Morson and Schapiro get markets.

So did Larry Summers. Long ago, as chief economist at the World Bank, Summers endorsed the idea that polluting industries should be relocated to poorer countries, where the value of lost lives, measured in unrealized future earnings, would be less. A Brazilian minister rejoined that such reasoning was logical but totally insane. (Summers apologized).

The same brutal logic led a World Bank team to question whether a program with spectacular success at curing blindness in West Africa was worth it.

Economists can tell you that sanctioning a market for kidneys would raise the supply  maybe save lives  but someone else has to weigh the moral implications of auctioning body parts to the highest bidder.

And why practice economics if not to try to improve peoples lives? Morson and Schapiros point is that the standard tools of economics, while powerful, are not necessarily sufficient.

This may sound self-evident  arent university catalogues stuffed with courses in every subject from anthropology to zoology?  but economists regard other disciplines with scorn. They are intellectual imperialists. They read The Road Not Taken and smirk that Robert Frost was discovering opportunity cost. But they scarcely ask what they might learn from poets.

Like old-style imperialists, economists assume that other people resemble themselves, regardless of their culture, class or background. Thus, they assume that other people will respond in ways that economists consider rational. They subscribe to the fallacy of an abstract economic man  precultural person. But, the authors write, people are not organisms first created and then dipped in some culture, like Achilles in the River Styx. They are cultural from the outset.

Many of the questions that economists study, such as why birthrates are higher in some places, or why some countries developed earlier, or why some high school students do not apply to the best college they could get into, could be better understood through a cultural lens.

What the authors are targeting is the arrogance of economics monotheists. They skewer Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winner, for postulating that all human behavior is maximizing  that is, the product of a rational, self-interested calculation. And that, therefore, economics is a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behavior, including whom to marry and divorce, whether to have kids, whom to befriend.

Rubbish. In the first place, as Adam Smith, who wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments prior to The Wealth of Nations, recognized, people are far from exclusively selfish; indeed, they feel for others. Its worth listening to Smiths memorable description of the process of feeling for another: We enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person. This is, the authors note, what happens when you read a good novel. You develop empathy.

Literature develops a feeling for how people will behave in ways that economic models cannot. Becker's rational man has stable preferences. If he bought chicken yesterday and fish today, it must tell us something about the relative price of chicken and fish. Whereas, from literature, we learn that, over time, people change. (Correction: from good literature. James Bond never changes.)

It is surely happy news that while Morson teaches language and literature at Northwestern, Schapiro, who is the president of Northwestern, is an economist. Better still, the authors subject the humanities to the same savage scalpel as they do economics.

Economics, they note, is afflicted with physics envy. For all its pretensions, the proof that it is not a hard science is its need for narrative. You dont need a narrative to explain the orbit of Mars (Newtons laws will do just fine), whereas to assert that a shortage of bread caused the French Revolution, you do.

But if economics suffers physics envy, literature and history suffer humanities embarrassment. At Stanford, about 45 percent of the main undergraduate faculty are in humanities, but only 15 percent of the students.

Borrowing a leaf from economists  yes, the authors salute economics for wonderful achievements  Morson and Schapiro surmise that the humanities product is faulty. It is largely a case of self-depreciation. Today university faculties preach that the great novels are merely words on a page  cultural artifacts akin to the writing on cereal boxes. To quote the influential Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Literary texts, like other artworks, are neither more nor less important than any other cultural artifacts or practice.

Then why read Shakespeare? If the reason (as the academy espouses) is simply to deconstruct the authorial message, why not just teach the message? Thus, Les Miserables could be reduced to Help the Unfortunate. And Hamlet: Stop moping and do something! No, the reason we read novels is for the experience that the words inspire.

History sadly mimics economics in an attempt to systemize, to discover immutable laws. Explanations must be scientific and universal. Contingency or chance  a famine, the timely arrival of a genius or madman, a scientific discovery  are presumed irrelevant. Humanities, ideally, should wrestle with uncertainty. It is a discipline of contingent truths, of on the whole. No one ever said the Pythagorean theorem was correct on the whole. The authors prepare some very hot coals for Jared Diamond, author of the best-selling Guns, Germs, and Steel, for presuming to explain human history according to the single factor of geography  neither culture, nor chance, nor great individuals entering into it. Indeed, they assert that Diamond accounts for history by removing everything historical.

The authors target absolutists (Marx, for the single explanation of the class struggle, and many others) in the hope that economists may recognize the dubious wisdom of absolutism in their own discipline. Economics is also a field of on the whole.

I have one gripe, and it concerns the authors sullen takedown of behavioral economics as being all impression, no substance  poorly timed, given the Nobel recognition of Richard Thaler  and wrong on the merits. Behavioral economics didnt enrich the field in the way the authors propose; no matter, it did enrich it.

Cents and Sensibility is less a critique of economics than a critique of using only economics. It is especially relevant in the presence of ethical doubt. Should there be a limit to prescription drug prices? Is it right for universities to mislead the public about SAT scores, or about why they give financial aid? Such questions indeed require sensibility as well as cents. This is a bracing, original work, reminding us that economics was never supposed to be about the math but rather about the stories it tells about our lives.


Nuna artist, Boucle du Muhoun Region, Burkina Faso face mask. Mid-20th century. Wood, pigment, metal. (National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution)

Senior art and architecture critic

A video by South African artist Andrew Putter seems, at first, an odd inclusion in a new survey exhibition mounted by the Smithsonians African Art Museum. It looks like an animated 17th-century Dutch painting, showing a woman reciting a lullaby in the Nama language, and its title is enigmatic, hinting at a possible breach of basic maternal values: Secretly I Will Love You More. But its inclusion hints at a troubled history that connects Africa to places such as Holland in its golden age. Its a very subtle hint, and viewers will want to study up on the history lesson encoded in this curious piece. But it is also one of the few places that this compelling exhibition allows the dark history of colonialism to shadow its celebration of uniquely African material culture.

Unlike many of the works on view, we know exactly who made this piece, when and where. Most of the rest of the work in this show, billed as the largest reinstallation of the museums permanent collection in more than a decade, falls into gray areas of uncertain or anonymous attribution. In some cases, there isnt even a confident regional or tribal identification: A carved wooden female figure is attributed to a Ngelima or Boa artist while others are Possibly Mengbetu artist. The dates listed often span a range of decades, or even centuries, and some pieces are simply listed as date unknown.



Video still from Andrew Putters "Secretly I Will Love You More." (Andrew Putter/National Museum of African Art)

These gray areas can be traced to how the work was collected, and by whom. Is there a clear record of how it traveled through the hands of dealers, travelers, anthropologists and other collectors before arriving at the Smithsonian? In many cases, however, the uncertainty has to do with the object itself. Many on view are ceremonial or everyday objects that werent made as art in the Western sense  as work to be sold on the art market or commissioned for the delectation of a specific patron.

That distinction, between the art object in the Western sense and all the rest of the material on view, is one of several challenges faced by the museum. Kevin Dumouchelle, one of three curators who worked on the installation, says the goal was to teach our visitors how to look at African art. This meant exploring the material in a multiplicity of ways, sometimes through several lenses at once. Were trying to get the visitor to slow down, he says.

So, the exhibition is divided into seven basic approaches, the view of the art through the eyes of collectors, scholars, artists, patrons, performers and museum professionals. And one last category: the view through the visitors own eyes, which is explored in a Looking Lab that breaks down the art into basic visual or material categories: expression, gesture, proportion and so forth.

[Black women artists who make abstract art: A periphery of a periphery.]

Africa is an enormous continent, with more than 50 countries, and multiple vectors that connect it with other parts of the world, from the Mediterranean north to the Indian Ocean trade routes of the East coast to the deep European ties of countries such as South Africa. The artists represented include an Austrian-born woman, Susanne Wenger, who became a priestess in the Yoruba culture after moving to Nigeria in 1950, and many African-born artists who now work in London or New York. Some of the most magnificent pieces belonged to the collection of Paul and Ruth Tishman, which was sold to the Walt Disney Co. in 1984 (there were plans to include it a permanent exhibition at Epcot Center), before being donated to museum in 2005. Other works, acquired in recent years, explore the ways in which contemporary African cultures defy any kind of standard categorization, including Frank Marshalls portraits of a heavy metal counterculture in Gaborone, Botswana.



Crest mask, early 20th century. Possibly Etim Bassey Ekpenyong Efik artist), vicinity of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. Wood, animal skin, plant fiber, bone, dye. (Franko Khoury/National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution)

A productive thought experiment while visiting the exhibition is to imagine the same approach applied to the entire spectrum of Western material culture, from Greek statues to religious paintings and icons to basic housewares to the appropriation of African visual motifs by artists such as Picasso in the beginning of the last century. Now, make sense of all that in six or seven midsize gallery rooms.

The results are necessarily impressionistic, with the objects themselves making the strongest impressions. The works originally in the Tishman collection speak most clearly to visitors who expect an aestheticized complexity, detail and luxury in an art object. A 15th-century carved hunting horn, possibly made as a gift for King Ferdinand V of Castile and Aragon, features Western motifs and religious references delicately carved into its ivory surface. A set of multi-faced masks from Nigerias Cross River Region are striking objects that bring a powerful sense of the uncanny into the room. Their existence is due in part to a surge in artistic production during the late 19th century when the palm oil trade brought wealth to the regions population.



Olowe of Ise; Yoruba peoples; Worked in Ise, Ekiti State, Nigeria; ca. 1925; from the museum's Tishman Collection. (Franko Khoury/Smithsonian National Museum of African Art)

If the objects from the Tishman collection generally address the collectors passion for ideas of refinement, clarity and beauty, other rooms grapple with difficulties of attribution, the basics of visual language and patterning, and the complexity of African spiritual and religious experience, including the contributions of Christianity and Islam (represented in part by a magnificent Quran and its leather and cloth case).

[The Metropolitan Museum surveys the artistic riches of Kongo culture]

Lurking beneath the basic taxonomies featured in the new installation are darker questions, too, although these are quietly and sometimes silently in the background of the exhibition. Every one of the seven viewpoints brought to bear on this material has its shadow, its inclination to exploitation or distortion. Collectors often reduce art to commodities, patrons make demands that warp the freedom and creativity of artists and scholars have their own self-serving agendas. The larger museum system, founded on Western disciplines of anthropology and art history, has all too often reduced complex social systems to rigid schema that reflect Western hierarchies.

That isnt the story told in this exhibition, which is explanatory and didactic in a good way. The ugly side of Western or European encounters with Africa is a painful fact; but not everything about Africa or African art can be reduced to a story of colonialism.

The tensions at play can be felt in Andrew Putters video, Secretly I Will Love You More. It depicts a Dutch woman, Maria de la Quellerie, who brings an African child into her home. The video borrows the conventions of Dutch portraiture to create what seems to be a living painting of de la Quellerie, wife of Jan Van Riebeeck, a prominent figure in the Dutch East India company and founder of Cape Town. She sings a lullaby in the Nama language to the child: Do not fear me little one/welcome into our home!/How beautiful you are,/little shiny one, with your woolly hair . . . 

Van Riebeeck was celebrated as a founding father by the Afrikaners of South Africa, and the old Apartheid-era government used to celebrate a Van Riebeeck annual holiday. He remains a fraught and highly contested figure. Putters video uses Van Riebeecks wife to imagine an alternative history, a kinder trajectory for the clashes between black and white that defined so much of Africas history. Putters video is one of the few places where this painful history is directly represented in the new exhibition, and it says a lot about the tone that the curators wanted to set that the video treats that clash with complicated irony. Perhaps so complicated that most viewers wont detect it.

Visionary: Viewpoints on Africa's Arts is on long-term exhibition at the National Museum of African Art. For information. visit africa.si.edu.
Dear Heloise: I recently bought a new large-capacity washing machine. I was very disappointed to find that I cannot reach small items at the bottom of the washer. Plus, I have a bad back. So, I went to a pet store and bought a pooper-scooper for dogs. It is a one-handed spring-action claw. It works great to reach those items at the bottom of the washer. This has made my life so much easier.

Debbie H., Springfield, Mo.

Dear Heloise: So many companies now use those little air-filled pillows for packing, and while they can be reused for packing, I found out that they also can be used to wrap a wrist, elbow or ankle to protect an injured area and cushion it from being bumped into or reinjured.

Maddie G., Lawton, Okla.

Maddie G.: Thank you for that hint. Do any of my readers have any other suggestions for the air-filled plastic that's now commonly used for packing?

Dear Heloise: My husband and I got married three weeks ago. After pricing weddings, gowns, reception expenses, flowers and more, we decided to elope. We married in Houston, and that afternoon we flew to Maui, Hawaii, for a seven-day honeymoon. When we got back, we had a party to let everyone know wed gotten married and sent out notices to relatives to inform them of our marriage. Unless someone really needs a big wedding, its less expensive and much more romantic to elope. By eloping, we saved $20,000 that well put down on a cute little house weve found.

Meg and Brian R. in Houston.

And readers, heres another letter about weddings that was received the same day as the one above.

Dear Heloise: I spent an exorbitant amount of money on a beautiful wedding dress for my wedding last fall. We spent thousands on flowers, and the reception cost a fortune. Now I wish I had eloped. The cost of this wedding has prevented us from taking a vacation or buying a house. My parents helped us, but we took the responsibility of most of the debt. My expensive dream wedding is now a nightmare!

Julie in Michigan

Dear Heloise: I read your column in the Free Lance-Star here in Virginia and liked the tea-light idea for traveling. But it occurred to me that if you always kept your night light in your toiletry kit when you travel, youd probably never lose it.

Night lights are now available with LED lights, which would eliminate the possibility of the bulb breaking in transit.

Matthew A., Locust Grove, Va.

Dear Heloise: Often Ill find an interesting story about someone or an event, and instead of saving the whole newspaper or magazine, Ill remove just the pages with the article I enjoy, staple it together and file it away. My children and grandchildren love reading about events I lived through, such as the moonwalk, the Kennedy years, the Vietnam War, the civil rights struggle and other major events.

Diane S., Trenton, N.J.

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John Podesta on election night 2016, when his client, Hillary Clinton, lost a bitterly fought race to Donald Trump. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

For more than 30 years, the Podesta name was gold in Washington.

Tony Podesta was a respected lobbyist and a fundraiser for Democratic candidates. His younger brother, John, served as Bill Clintons White House chief of staff and as senior counselor to Barack Obama. Together, they were the most powerful brother act in liberal politics since the Kennedys.

Then John became chairman of Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, putting the Podestas in the crosshairs of the alt-right. In the middle of the campaign, Johns hacked emails led to Pizzagate, a bizarre conspiracy theory about a child sex ring. Finally, and against all expectations, his candidate lost the bitterly fought election.

Now Tonys work for a Ukrainian nonprofit group is part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs Russia investigation, prompting the powerful lobbyist to resign from the Podesta Group, the firm he founded three decades ago.

I didnt leave with a sense of tragedy or regret about anything I had done, Tony said nonchalantly in an interview last week. I thought it was better for the clients and better for the people in the office for me to get out of there.

[Amid controversy, Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta steps down]

His bravado notwithstanding, its been a really bad year for the Podesta brothers, even by the standards of political hand-to-hand combat.

Theyve become a particular fixation for President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the two in tweets and interviews. On the eve of his current trip to Asia, he told reporters he was disappointed that the Justice Department was not investigating Hillary Clinton and her advisers instead of him: Honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats, they should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty.

Meanwhile, Fox News is calling the Podesta brothers central figures in the Mueller probe.

One might expect Tony Podesta to be angry  and apprehensive  about all this, and maybe he is. But at the moment, hes smiling and cracking jokes.

There was a period when I was at People for the American Way in which I was the devil, and this is another period in which I am the devil, he says. I dont retreat from my values or my life because Tucker Carlson makes s--- up.

And hes laughing off the president.

If you tweet Podesta you get some applause from people who dont know who we are or what we do, he says. He has his phone. And I have my integrity.



Tony Podesta, now 74, worked outside politics as a lobbyist and fundraiser. (Tony Powell)

For all the talk about the Podestas being Washington insiders  and they absolutely are  the irony is that they grew up as far from elite as possible.

They were born in working-class Chicago to two first-generation Americans: their father Italian, their mother Greek, the family living in a two flat, with their aunt, uncle and cousins in the apartment upstairs. Their father worked factory jobs and lost sleep worrying about the $11,000 he borrowed to buy the apartment, Tony says. Tony attended the University of Illinois at Chicago; John went to Knox College.

From this background, colored by the Vietnam War and the political upheavals of the 1960s and 70s, emerged two men with a shared passion for liberal issues and a weakness for losing candidates: They worked for Gene McCarthy, Edmund Muskie, George McGovern and many more. We werent doing it to go to the White House, Tony says. We were doing it because we believed in what we were doing.

The two made their way to Washington, where they both attended law school at Georgetown University, worked briefly in government, then founded the Podesta Group in 1987. Their paths quickly diverged: Tony working outside politics, lobbying, fundraising and serving as president of People for the American Way, the progressive advocacy group founded by TV producer Norman Lear; John on the inside, in the Clinton and Obama administrations and as head of the Center for American Progress, the premier liberal think tank during the George W. Bush years.

The two brothers, who are very close, became power brokers on a first-name basis with every important figure in American progressive politics, and many across the aisle. Every call they made was answered, every door they knocked on opened.

Tony, 74, is expansive, expressive, a happy warrior. Hes partisan in the traditional way, which is rapidly disappearing in Washington, says longtime Republican lobbyist Wayne Berman. He understands the value of having friends on the other side. Its a happy partisanship, not a bitter partisanship.

He wears red Prada loafers and owns one of the capitals most impressive modern art collections, which serves as the backdrop for the frequent parties he hosts at his Kalorama mansion. The collection began when he worked for the failed 1980 presidential bid of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and walked away with a tube of donated art  limited editions of Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg  in lieu of a salary.

Always well known in political circles, Tony became a celebrity with his high-profile second marriage to lobbyist Heather Podesta. The two were a striking couple on Washington's sometimes traditional social scene, frequently photographed in front of one of their paintings or sculptures. The marriage ended after 11 years with no children but a custody battle over the art.



Tony Podesta and his then-wife, Heather, at a party in 2011. Before their divorce, the two were a striking couple on Washingtons social scene. (The Washington Post/Getty Images)

John, 68, declined to be interviewed for this article. Friends and colleagues describe him as more methodical, lawyerly and ideological. Hes a homebody  married to his wife, Mary, for almost 40 years, with three grown children and hobbies that include cooking, running and UFOs.

But his real passion is progressive politics, and to liberals, hes a true believer and a hero.

Theres not anyone who Ive worked with who is more committed, has more integrity and is just smarter  not just in politics, but how you get things done in government, says Jennifer Palmieri, who worked with him at CAP and in the White House.

Denis McDonough, who served as Obama's White House chief of staff, describes his strengths as a "fervid commitment to Democratic ideas like opportunity and justice, a willingness to fight for those ideas  and fight hard  and a practice of supporting and believing in his people, be they candidates, presidents, or fellow staff members."

Conservatives, on the other hand, consider him an unreconstructed partisan and blame him for a lot of the mistrust and anger in Washington because of the way he advised Obama to issue executive orders to circumvent Congress and the legislative process.

Theres an enormous gulf between many peoples opinion of John and of Tony, said one former Republican politician. Tony is obviously a big Democrat, but he has Republican friends and represents some clients that have more in common with the Republican side than the Democratic side. John is a hard partisan  a lot of people think of him as more strident, doing things that have never been done before to get your way.

Tony chose a smoother path and, according to lobbyists on both sides of the aisle, is respected by his peers as a creative, hands-on advocate.

Still, a successful lobbyist  and Tony built his firm into one of the top lobbying shops in the country  walks a delicate line between principle and profit. For every feel-good cause or nonprofit client, theres a corporation or a foreign government with public relations problems and buckets of money to spend.

To wit: Tony's work for Saudi Arabia has caused some raised eyebrows among human rights activists. Last year, the Podesta Group  one of several lobbying and PR shops the Saudis hired  was paid $140,000 a month by the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, a government entity.

I have no apologies to make, which doesnt mean that everything my clients have ever done is wise or admirable, Tony says. You try to help people tell their story, and you try to make them better. I think thats all to the good.

The two brothers made Washingtons Most Powerful lists every year. Life was good.

In February 2015, John left the White House to join Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. It was, by all indications at the time, the start of another road to the executive mansion.



John Podesta, left, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in September 2016. (Matt Rourke/AP)

Hundreds of books will be written about the 2016 presidential race, and well leave it to historians to sort out the what and the why.

But one of the most unsettling chapters was Pizzagate, the debunked conspiracy theory that linked Hillary Clinton to a nonexistent child sex ring at Comet Ping Pong, a Washington pizza restaurant. The Podestas were fans, and friends with the owner, James Alefantis.

In the fall of 2016, Johns personal emails were hacked and released by WikiLeaks. An enthusiastic amateur chef, he made frequent references to food, which became the basis for a theory that the emails were code for sex trafficking and child pornography. Although completely unsubstantiated, it quickly became a viral sensation and appeared on alt-right websites and forums.

[Pizzagate: From rumor, to hashtag, to gunfire in D.C.]

The restaurant was, as Alefantis put it, "terrorized" by threatening calls and letters. "I was inundated with death threats, sometimes many a day," he wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. In December, after watching a YouTube video about the conspiracy, a 28-year-old man stormed in with a rifle, firing shots but not injuring anyone.

Watching John go through the Russians stealing his emails, then working to concoct sick conspiracy theories to hurt him and Hillary Clinton was one of the toughest things to see, Palmieri says. He acts like it doesnt bother him, but it does.

This came after another vicious conspiracy, floated just days before the election, that the Podesta brothers had secretly traveled to Portugal in 2007 and kidnapped Madeleine McCann, a British child at the center of an unsolved disappearance.

So its no surprise that Tony Podestas link to Muellers indictment of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has caused a frenzy.

[Fox Newss Tucker Carlson on the Podesta-Manafort connection]

The indictment says that Manafort recruited two firms (identified as Company A and Company B) to lobby on behalf of a supposedly independent Ukrainian nonprofit. The investigation into Manafort claims that he was in fact secretly working for then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

Podesta and the other firm, Mercury Public Affairs, say that they were hired by the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, a nonprofit group based in Brussels, to boost Ukraines reputation in the United States and increase its chances of joining the European Union. Both firms insist that they were unaware of any connection to the Ukrainian government. The Podesta Group received $1.1 million between 2012 and 2014 from the organization.

Its representation was originally listed under the Lobbyist Disclosure Act but not the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as required. A Podesta Group spokeswoman says that following media reports that the ECMU may have been connected to Ukraines government, the firm submitted new disclosure forms, after which the FARA office at DOJ informed the Podesta Group that it was not the subject nor a target of an investigation.

Legalities aside, the question among lobbyists in Washington is why someone at the top of his game like Tony would have anything to do with Manafort, whom one Republican lobbyist described as a shady businessman advocating for murderers, thugs and thieves  even if those criminals were heads of states. Sources close to the Podesta Group assert that Manafort was not involved with the ECMU at the time the firm worked on its behalf.

Tony declined to comment on anything involving the investigation. His company has fully cooperated with Muellers office and taken every possible step to provide documentation that confirms compliance with the law, according to the spokeswoman.

But the news was enough to end Tonys tenure at his own firm. He resigned just hours after Manaforts indictment went public.



Mack McLarty, left, John Podesta and Erskine Bowles, former chiefs of staff to President Bill Clinton, at a panel discussion during Clinton 25, an event marking the 25th anniversary of Clinton's election. (Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

There are legendary second and third acts in Washington, long after careers have been declared dead.

So theres no telling whether there will be another chapter in the Podesta story. Will the Podesta Group survive? According to a report in Politico, chief executive Kimberley Fritts, who was widely expected to take over the helm from Tony, announced her own resignation to the staff on Thursday, throwing the companys future into question.

John, meanwhile, is closely linked with both Clinton and Obama at a time when the Democrats are desperately looking for a fresh start. But hes still considered one of the smartest strategists in politics and is likely, observers say, to advise future campaigns, although not in an official capacity.

And Tony?

Hes going to take some time off. Travel. Relax. Refresh. And then, he insists, hell be back, hosting parties and fundraisers and doing what Podestas always do.

Im not bowed. Im not retreating, he says. These are perilous times for the country and for the world. I hope we get through them.


The International Museum of the Baroque in Puebla, Mexico, was designed by the Japanese architect Toyo Ito. (Angela Caparroso)

Maybe its not surprising that there arent many museums devoted to the Baroque, the artistic and architectural style thats been described as clumsy in form and extravagant in contorted ornamentation and whose name may derive from the Spanish word for wart. Even little-b baroque can be synonymous with having bad taste.

And yet, the Baroque is also Don Quixote, Descartes, Rubens, Rembrandt, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Isaac Newton, Shakespeare. For a century and a half, the style pervaded nearly all artistic disciplines and aspects of transatlantic culture, a strange, frantic expression of the newfound contact between two hemispheres that would profoundly change the lives of people on both sides of the ocean. In Mexico, the Baroque left its most indelible mark on the colonial city of Puebla, two hours southeast of Mexico City.

After visiting Pueblas new International Museum of the Baroque, Im not sure I understand the style any better, but the journey, at least, was thought-provoking. Gallery after gallery in the spectacular all-white building, designed by Japanese starchitect Toyo Ito, is filled with paintings, sculptures, installations and digital interactive displays that attempt to explain what exactly the Baroque meant and how it expressed itself. Exiting a temporary exhibition this spring, I was left with the feeling that the Baroque is everywhere and nowhere, a kind of know it when I see it aesthetic that snares works from artists as diverse as Johann Sebastian Bach and David Bowie.

[If you only eat three meals in Mexico City, make sure theyre at these spots]

The museums delicate white exterior walls catch the eye from miles away. They look like sheets of paper stood on end and precariously assembled. Doubled by the surrounding reflecting pools, the walls, when seen up close, arent fragile at all but are made of 14-inch-thick cast concrete.



The traveling exhibition Clay Between Two Seas traced Islams influence on Spanish ceramics. (Angela Caparroso)

We try to break and dissolve the cold and rigid order to achieve fluid spaces, the architects wrote in a statement timed to the museums unveiling last year. We hope that when people move from one room to another, they experience a baroque space.

Ito, who won architectures Pritzker Prize in 2013, designed the building to be earthquake-resistant, a feature that was put to the test (and passed) when a 7.1-magnitude temblor struck less than 100 miles away in September. Inside, a sweeping curved staircase is bathed in sunlight streaming in through a vast glass wall that looks out on a central courtyard.

In baroque art, light symbolizes a revelation from God opposing the darkness of ambivalence, the architects wrote. In this project, light also acquires a special meaning.

A recording of choral music welcomed us as we entered the galleries, setting the tone for the journey to come, which can take several hours if you let it. A timeline written on one wall explained that the Baroque lasted roughly from 1598 to 1752, capturing a moment when Western Europe was beginning to grapple with shifts, including the conquest of the Americas and the Protestant Reformation.



The museum explores the diversity of Baroque art and architecture. (Museo Internacional del Barroco)

Silver and gold extracted from Spains colonies were flowing to the Far East and to Europe, where the Roman Catholic Church had responded to Martin Luthers threat by building temples of worship that bombarded the senses with excessive decoration and copious amount of gold. They reminded all who entered of the awesome power the church wielded. This intimidation tactic is on full display throughout the Americas, including in several remarkable Baroque churches that still stand in Puebla.

One gallery was filled with a room-size scale model of the citys centro historico, where visitors could touch a button that lit up the location of this or that Baroque structure, including the intricately tiled Casa de Alfenique and the Church of Santo Domingo. We had a chance to visit the latter, which contains the gold-dipped Capilla del Rosario (Rosary Chapel), a shining (literally) example of Mexican Baroque with acres of gold leaf coating its every surface. The museums auditorium also provides a virtual tour of the chapel, along with other famous Baroque churches around the world, on its four video screens.

Wall texts explained that the Baroque aimed to spark awe in the viewer. Drama, exaggerated emotion, theatricality and sensuality were core elements of the style, which also took on a local dimension in Mexico, the Philippines and Italy. In Cholula, one of Pueblas nearby suburbs, the eye-popping Church of Santa Maria Tonantzintla features cherubs with distinctly indigenous features, carved into every last inch of the churchs stucco interior.

[The Ranch: In Mexico, a spas luxury inspires a cultish devotion]

Another gallery demonstrated the interest that upper-class Europeans developed in the exotic cultures they were increasingly hearing about from merchants and explorers. They started collecting artifacts and animal specimens to display in their lavish homes. One installation re-created such a collection room, complete with cabinets of wonders, taxidermied birds, animal tusks and furniture from faraway lands.

The museums permanent exhibition is divided among several galleries, each devoted to a different discipline (art, theater, music, literature, clothing, etc). Most come complete with some kind of interactive technology, like headphones that demonstrate how a Baroque cello should sound, and touch screens that explore the differences between Mexican and European Baroque architecture.

Between the luxurious 18th-century gowns, the urns made from Guatemalan silver, and Peruvian gold and the artifacts on loan from institutions such as the Prado and Madrids National Museum of Decorative Arts, its too much to see in one stretch. The interior courtyard is a relaxing place to take a break next to a mesmerizing reflecting pool, where an eddy of swirling water speeds up and slows down unpredictably.



The museums interior is as striking as its exterior. In baroque art, light symbolizes a revelation from God opposing the darkness of ambivalence, the architects wrote. (Museo Internacional del Barroco)

For a longer pause, we headed upstairs to Barroco, a chic power-lunch spot whose menu was designed by celebrated Mexico City chef Martha Ortiz. Golden ears of corn adorn every table, each draped in crisp white linen. The dishes are refined takes on poblano classics like chalupas (small fried tortillas topped with chicken or pork and doused in red salsa, green salsa or mole) and tacos arabes (spit-roasted spiced-meat tacos originally brought to Mexico by Lebanese or Iraqi immigrants). The day we visited, the dining room was quiet except for a few tables of men in expensive suits having business meetings.

Like the Catholic Church centuries before, the museum projects gilded elegance at every turn, reflecting its hefty price tag. Local papers have estimated its cost to be somewhere between $350 million and $560 million (depending on the exchange rate), a sum that left many poblanos wary. The governor of Puebla has said that he hopes the museum will do for Puebla what the Guggenheim did for Bilbao, but it doesnt seem to be getting that kind of traction, at least not yet.

In the end, the museum is awe-inspiring, sometimes clumsy, and has a lot going on  a bit like the Baroque itself.

Kroth is a writer based in Mexico City. Find her on Twitter: @theemaya.

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John Hillerman, a Texas-born actor best remembered as the stuffy English foil Higgins to Tom Sellecks freewheeling private detective on the hit 1980s television series Magnum, P.I., died Nov. 9 at his home in Houston. He was 84.

A spokeswoman, Lori De Waal, said the cause of death has yet to be determined.

Mr. Hillerman was a theater stalwart and versatile Hollywood character actor before becoming a household name as Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on "Magnum, P.I.," which aired on CBS from 1980 to 1988.

Higgins, a former British army officer, was the Doberman pinscher-loving caretaker of the sprawling Hawaii property Magnum used as a home base; the ferocious dogs were his good lads. The estate, Robins Nest, was owned by an unseen author of mystery novels, Robin Masters.

Magnum, a retired Navy officer, used the guesthouse and drove the Ferrari. He sometimes bargained with the officious Higgins to use the expensive amenities, but their bickering formed a playful core of the show. Mr. Hillerman won an Emmy in 1987 for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series.

"I could do Higgins happily for 10 years without getting bored," he told People magazine in 1983. "I like to play people who are bright and who can turn a good insulting line."

John Benedict Hillerman was born in the North Texas city of Denison on Dec. 20, 1932, to a gas station owner. He developed an early enthusiasm for the arts, particularly opera, and studied journalism at the University of Texas before joining the Air Force.

He spent much of his free time in Fort Worth-area theater troupes, and after his discharge he attended the American Theatre Wing in New York. He made his Broadway debut in a 1959 revival of Eugene ONeills The Great God Brown. Dozens of supporting roles followed, on- and off-Broadway, and he was affiliated for several years with the Washington Theater Club in the District before his screen debut in 1970.

Mr. Hillerman became friends with Peter Bogdanovich early in his theatrical career, when the two performed as spear carriers in a Central Park production of Shakespeare's "Othello." Bogdanovich cast him in a small role in "The Last Picture Show" (1971), based on Larry McMurtry's drama of a fading Texas town, and Mr. Hillerman became a member of the director's stock company, playing a hotel manager in "What's Up, Doc?" (1972), a lawman in "Paper Moon" (1973) and a chauffeur in "At Long Last Love" (1975).

Other appearances included the ice cream parlor owner Howard Johnson in Mel Brooks's western farce "Blazing Saddles" (1974) and a corrupt public official in Roman Polanski's detective masterpiece "Chinatown" (1974). Over the next several years, Mr. Hillerman played radio detective Simon Brimmer on the TV series "Ellery Queen," was Betty White's estranged husband on "The Betty White Show" and was Mr. Conners on the sitcom "One Day at a Time."

He retired in 1999. Survivors include a sister.

In my humble opinion, Higgins is one of the best parts in all television, Mr. Hillerman told People. Im not the kind of actor making lots of money in television while saying, Oh, I wish I were back in the the-a-ter. They would have to offer me the whole island of Manhattan to get me to do a play in New York now.
Karin Dor, a titian-haired German actress who played an assassin sent by James Bond's nemesis Blofeld to kill the British agent in 1967's "You Only Live Twice," died Nov. 6 in Munich. She was 79.

The German news agency DPA, citing a Munich theater where Ms. Dor had worked for a long time, reported the death.

She was born Katherose Derr in Wiesbaden on Feb. 22, 1938. After studying ballet, she began working in movies as an extra before drawing the notice of Austrian-born director Harald Reinl, who was 30 years her senior and whom she married in 1954.

He gave her starring roles in several films that displayed her sensual appeal, none more than a series of westerns co-starring the former Tarzan actor Lex Barker and based on stories by Karl May.

Established as a bankable star in Germany, she ventured into international productions of widely ranging quality, including "The Face of Fu Manchu" (1965) starring Christopher Lee and "You Only Live Twice" with Sean Connery as Bond. As would-be Bond assassin Helga Brandt, she ended up being fed to piranhas by the cat-stroking Blofeld (Donald Pleasence).



Karin Dor in a scene from the James Bond 1967 film You Only Live Twice. (AP)

Ms. Dor met a similarly unpleasant fate as an anti-Castro Cuban resistance leader in Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller "Topaz" (1969), based on a Leon Uris novel about a Russian spy ring that infiltrates the French government.

The film, a rare commercial flop for Hitchcock, caused her promising career to plunge. She co-starred with David Janssen in the middling thriller Warhead (1977) and had cameos the American-made crime series Ironside and The FBI in addition to her prolific TV and stage career in Germany.

Her marriages to Reinl and Gunther Schmucker ended in divorce. Her third husband, American stuntman and actor George Robotham, died in 2007. She had a son with her first husband, actor Andreas Renell.
A man has been arrested and charged with arson in a house fire that left two dead in Seat Pleasant, Md., police said.

Thomas Gerald Deal, 53, of Northeast Washington has also been charged with two counts of murder in the fire, Prince Georges County police announced Thursday. Authorities identified the victims as Gary Alphonso Driver, 56, of Oxon Hill and Derrick McDowell, 51, of Upper Marlboro.

The Nov. 2 fire began around 5:30 a.m. in a vacant house in the 6300 block of Foote Street, police said. As firefighters worked to extinguish the flames, they found Driver and McDowell. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

A medical examiner later determined that the men died of smoke inhalation, police said.

Police said detectives discovered evidence linking Deal to the fire but did not detail what that evidence was. Police did not say what, if any, relationship Deal had with the men who died and said they are still working to determine a motive in the case.

Authorities are asking anyone with information to call 301-772-4925 or 866-411-TIPS (8477).
A 29-year-old Maryland man was arrested and charged after he stabbed another man in a fight, police said.

Law enforcement responded to a report of a stabbing and an assault, around 10:15 p.m., Thursday in the 400 block of North Horners Lane near downtown Rockville, according to the Rockville police department.

A man got into a fight with the resident of a home and punched him in the face, police said. It is unclear what they were arguing about.

A third man  identified as Dakota S. Jones of Rockville  arrived later and got into an argument with one of the men, police said. Jones threw the man out of the house, grabbed a knife and stabbed him.

Jones also stabbed himself in the leg during the fight, police said.

All three men were taken to a hospital and treated for injuries that were not life-threatening.

Jones was released from the hospital and charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and reckless endangerment, police said.
They ditched school and marched to Capitol Hill en masse, then filled four floors of balconies in the vast atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. Silent at first, fists raised in the air, they soon erupted into bellowing chants that echoed through the massive marble-clad room.

Dream Act. Dream Act.

Si se puede. Si se puede.

The demonstration Thursday involving high school and college students from the Washington region and beyond was the latest attempt by undocumented immigrants and their advocates to keep Congress focused on their plight.

[We are America: DACA recipients say they arent going anywhere]

In September, President Trump announced he would kill the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants work permits and deportation protection to nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants brought here as children.

If Congress does not pass legislation to replace the program, work permits will begin expiring in March.

Competing bills have been proposed to offer DACA recipients a path to citizenship, and a group of Republican lawmakers held a news conference Thursday to urge action on that legislation this year. The Republican leadership  consumed with plans to cut taxes  has said no vote is likely before January.

Its been two months since DACA has been rescinded, and we have no solution yet, said Bruna Bouhid, communications manager for United We Dream, the organization that helped plan Thursdays protest. Immigrant youth are honestly fed up, and they are tired of waiting.



A protester hoists a sign outside the Capitol. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Students wore orange shirts that said Clean Dream Act, a reference to legislation that would offer a path to citizenship without adding tough new anti-immigration measures.

They came from local schools including Woodrow Wilson High School in Northwest Washington, Gaithersburg High School in suburban Maryland, Georgetown University, Trinity Washington University and more.

Groups also traveled from states as far as Washington and Arkansas. Kristina Saccone, a spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools, said the protest was not a sanctioned school event, and students who participated received unexcused early dismissals.

1 of 13 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene as students march and demonstrate on Capitol Hill for DACA View Photos A demonstration involving high school and college students from the Washington region and beyond was the latest attempt by undocumented immigrants and their advocates to keep Congress focused on their plight. Caption A demonstration involving high school and college students from the Washington region and beyond was the latest attempt by undocumented immigrants and their advocates to keep Congress focused on their plight. Astrid Riecken Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

[White House pressured DHS to expel Hondurans, officials say]

My parents were hesitant to let me come, but I insisted that this is an important cause and they came around, said Gissel Bonilla, a sophomore at School Without Walls in Washington whose parents are from El Salvador. Something needs to be done.

A U.S. Capitol Police officer used a megaphone to warn the crowd it is illegal to demonstrate in the building. Stop chanting if you do not intend to be arrested, the officer said.

Most people became quiet and raised their fists in the air, but a handful of protesters continued their refrain.

Eva Malecki, a spokeswoman for U.S. Capitol Police, said 15 people were arrested, all of them adults.

Martin Martinez, a 24-year-old DACA recipient from Spokane, Washington, said he came to Capitol Hill to fight for his future. He immigrated from Mexico with his family when he was 8, and now attends college and works as a field organizer for United We Dream.

I consider this country my country, Martinez said. DACA gave me the opportunity to feel safe and provide for myself and my family. That power that I have been given to help myself and my community is at stake.



The protest inside the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) stood with some of his staff in the corner of the Hart Senate Building watching the protest unfold early Thursday afternoon. He said it was a powerful display, and he wants to vote for a clean Dream Act as soon as possible.

We need to just get Ryan to put something on the floor so we can vote on it, Ellison said, a reference to Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

On Wednesday, Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security was asked about DACA recipients during her confirmation hearing.

Nielsen said participants in the program would not be an enforcement priority for Immigration and Customs Enforcement if Congress fails to act, an assurance that drew criticism from anti-immigration groups on social media.

She also told Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), one of the administrations fiercest critics, the government would not use personal information it has compiled through the program to track down individuals whose DACA permits expire and deport them.

No matter. The young protesters who came to the Senate a day later said they would not stop demonstrating until Congress passed firm legislation.

As they exited the Hart building Thursday, again with their fists raised, they chanted once again.

Undocumented, they yelled. Unafraid.
Del.-elect Danica Roem, the transgender woman who is perhaps the best known of the flood of Democrats who won seats this week in the Virginia state house, said Friday that she wants to make it easier for people to get health insurance coverage for treatment related to gender transitions.

Roem (Prince William), who plans to focus mostly on easing traffic congestion in her district, said she also wants to work with the Democratic caucus in the House of Delegates to develop a bill that would require insurance companies to cover the costs of hormone medication, surgery and other treatments.

That kind of coverage already is mandated for most insurance plans under a 2016 anti-discrimination regulation that is part of the Affordable Care Act. But amid Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, the Trump administration has threatened to do away with the statute, LGBT advocates say.

"LGBTQ health care is health care," Roem, who will be the first transgender elected official in Virginia, said Friday during a conference call with reporters. "It is not cosmetic. It is not elective. We are following our doctors' orders."

[Our Martin Luther King Jr. moment: Transgender community exults in win]



Roem falls to her knees after getting a call from former vice president Joe Biden congratulating her on her election. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

A spokesman for state House Majority Leader M. Kirkland Cox (R-Colonial Heights), the Republican Partys designee for House speaker in 2018 should the party remain in control of the chamber, accused Roem of abandoning her message of improving traffic in her district and pivoting to a divisive social agenda.

The House is going to focus on improving our economy, schools and roads, the spokesman, Parker Slaybaugh, said in a statement.

But Roem said her top priority still is relieving congestion on Route 28. She also said any insurance coverage effort would fall under the "quality of life" platform she campaigned on in her effort to defeat conservative incumbent Del. Robert G. Marshall (R).

Advocates say several states, including Virginia, have not updated their policies to match the Obama administration statute, in part because President Trumps White House may jettison it.

Virginia is among 37 states that do not have their own laws or regulations prohibiting insurers from denying coverage due to gender identity or sexual preference, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBT research group. Maryland is also in that group.

The District implemented a ban against excluding coverage for transgender care in 2014.

A lot of insurance plans specifically forbid the coverage of those services and treatment for reasons related to gender transition, said Sarah McBride, a transgender woman who is national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, despite the fact that every major medical association has determined that that type of treatment is medically necessary.

View Graphic The latest stories and details on the 2017 Virginia general election and race for governor.

Douglas Gray, executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans, an advocacy group for insurers, said he is unaware of insurers not complying with the federal statute. But Gray added that whether such coverage is rejected could depend on the type of treatment an individual is receiving and on the nature of their insurance plan.

A self-insured plan, where a patients employer assumes all the financial risk of coverage, has rules dictated by the employer, not the insurance company, Gray said. Those plans also are regulated by the U.S. Labor Department, not the state, he said. It really does depend on the example and where it comes from to ascertain why it has not been approved, Gray said.

The idea of improving health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients more generally in Virginia could receive a warmer reception in Richmond after significant gains by Democrats in Tuesday's elections. Three yet-to-be decided races will determine whether the party gains control of the state House for the first time since 2000.

[Did you see that viral photo of Roem sinking to the floor after her victory?]

Roem said she hopes to prevent situations similar to what she experienced after she began her physical gender transition in 2013, when she was denied coverage under her insurance plan for the cost of hormone medication prescribed by her doctor.

I didnt even get to have a conversation with them, she recalled, saying she learned through an email that she would have to pay the full cost of the medicine.
Members of the Virginia House of Delegates at the State Capitol in Richmond, Va., Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP)

A Democrat conceded on Thursday in one of four razor-close races for the Virginia House of Delegates, leaving three other contests yet to be settled in decisions that will determine whether Republicans hold onto their majority in the chamber.

Democrat Larry Barnett conceded he lost in his bid to unseat Del. Roxann Robinson (R-Chesterfield) in the 27th district in the suburbs south of Richmond. Robinson was ahead of Barnett by 124 votes, which would have qualified for a state-funded recount.

Democrats have secured victories in 49 out of 100 seats in the House of Delegates as part of a historic sweep on Election Day. They need one more victory to force a power-sharing agreement with Republicans and two more to take control of the chamber for the first time since 2000. Before the election, Republicans held 66 seats. As of Thursday, they held 47.





Republicans have narrow leads in the remaining three contests: In District 40, Del. Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) leads Donte Tanner by 115 votes. In District 28, Republican Robert Thomas is ahead of Joshua Cole by 86 votes. In District 94, Del. David Yancey (R-Newport News) is hanging onto his seat by just 13 votes more than Democrat Shelly Simonds.

[Democrats make significant gains in House in historic sweep]

Provisional ballots are supposed to be counted by Monday, and recounts in the three remaining races cannot commence until election results are certified shortly before Thanksgiving.
In the last week of Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Republicans howled with outrage over an attack ad against gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie that featured a white man in a pickup truck bearing a Gillespie bumper sticker and a Confederate flag menacing minority children.

Some predicted conservatives and independents would be offended by the ad, titled American Nightmareand vote for Gillespie in protest.

That backlash didnt materialize; Democrat Ralph Northam won by nine points. And the organization behind the ad, the Latino Victory Fund, says it will continue to take a confrontational approach in future elections.

For the first time ever, a Latino organization pushed back aggressively in defense of our community. When we faced vicious, racist attacks, we turned the other cheek, said Cristobal J. Alex, president of the Latino Victory Fund. This time, we threw a jab to the throat. And we will continue to do so.

[Virginia ad features minority kids chased by driver with Confederate flag]

Alex was referring to anti-Northam ads launched through the fall by the Gillespie campaign that tried to equate illegal immigrants with violent Latino street gangs.

Colin Rogero, who produced and directed the American Nightmare ad, echoed the sentiment.

Are we going to produce ads in the future that have more emotional content than what people have seen from Democrats? Absolutely. Those are the kind that help us win, said Rogero. Are they going to be as controversial as the truck ad? Maybe. Every situation and election is addressed individually.

The ad only aired on Spanish language stations for two days before it was pulled down in the wake of a terrorist attack in Manhattan by a man driving a pick-up truck into pedestrians and cyclists.

That didnt stop a ferocious response from conservative media outlets and editorial boards. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested the ad was political racism.

The backlash was so strong that the Latino Victory Fund had to shut off its phones.

The truth hurts, and so they lashed out, Alex said.

David Turner, a Northam spokesman, said the campaign saw signs that conservatives were broadly aware of the Latino Victory Fund ad in the last week of the campaign.

But exit polls show six in 10 late-deciders broke toward Northam, suggesting that Gillespie voters had made up their minds before the controversy over American Nightmare.

Northam defended Latino Victory Fund for responding to what he called a fear-mongering campaign from Gillespie, later adding that it's not the kind of commercial he would have aired.

There were better ways to do the ad that would have been effective in a way to move independents and turn out Latinos, said Turner, stressing that he credited the Latino Victory Funds broader voter mobilization efforts for bringing Latino voters to the polls. Republicans would have found something else to glom onto and try to drive the turn-out in the same fashion by revving up the outrage machine.

A campaign spokesman for Gillespie and a Virginia spokesman for the Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
An aerial view of Tangier Island looking south just after sunrise as rain showers pass the island. Shore erosion from the Chesapeake Bay is thought to be a major threat to the island. (Timothy C. Wright/For the Washington Post)

Five months after President Trump lent his support to the mayor of a tiny island with a vanishing shoreline, Virginias senators are urging the president to protect Tangier Island from disappearing into the Chesapeake Bay.

Democratic Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both former governors who have visited Tangier, sent a letter to the White House asking Trump to fulfill his promise to the islands mayor, James Ooker Eskridge.

In the summer, Trump called Eskridge, whose constituents are overwhelmingly Republican, and said his island of mostly watermen and their families would remain intact. The pledge came despite reports that show that Tangier could be uninhabitable in 25 to 50 years.

Many island residents disagree that man-made climate change is to blame and say natural erosion washing away land has finally come to their doorsteps. In their letter, Warner and Kaine avoided the reason Tangier is disappearing at an average rate of eight acres a year.

We can debate the causes for why this is happening, but regardless, the effects are clear, they wrote. It is urgent that we address those effects.

They suggested that Trump expedite an Army Corps of Engineers study of Tangiers infrastructure needs, consider a proposal to use soil from dredging projects to build up the island, and direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage part of the island.

[Why Sen. Kaine wants to save Trump Country from sinking into the Chesapeake]

The 1.2-square-mile island off the Eastern Shore, with its 460 residents, may not score well on traditional federal cost-benefit analyses, but the senators asked Trump to consider Tangiers other assets.

View Graphic The latest stories and details on the 2017 Virginia general election and race for governor.

Its history and culture predate the United States, and its linguistic characteristics are unlike any in the world, they wrote. Letting this island wither away due to bureaucratic inertia  or worse, an active decision to write it off  would not only result in the loss of peoples homes and way of life, but would be a cultural and historical loss to America.
THE DISTRICT

Mother convicted of killing 3-year-old son

A D.C. woman was found guilty of murder Thursday in the death of her 3-year-old son, prosecutors said.

Francis Lyles, 28, was convicted by a jury in the June 24, 2014, death.

On that date, authorities went to Lyless home in Southeast Washington after she reported her son Xavier was not moving or breathing, prosecutors said.

An autopsy showed the boy died of blunt-force injuries, the statement said, and Lyles said her boyfriend had beaten him. But prosecutors learned Lyles had beaten her son twice in the week before his death, including the day before he died, when she lacerated his liver.

Lyles was found guilty of felony murder and first-degree cruelty to children.

She is to be sentenced in January.

 Justin Wm. Moyer

MARYLAND

District man charged in fire that killed two

A man has been arrested and charged with arson in a house fire that left two dead in Seat Pleasant, police said.

Thomas Gerald Deal, 53, of Northeast Washington has also been charged with two counts of murder, Prince Georges County police said Thursday. Authorities identified the victims as Gary Alphonso Driver, 56, of Oxon Hill and Derrick McDowell, 51, of Upper Marlboro.

The fire began at about 5:30 a.m. on Nov. 2 in a vacant house in the 6300 block of Foote Street, police said. Firefighters found Driver and McDowell dead at the scene, and a medical examiner determined they died of smoke inhalation, police said.

Police said detectives discovered evidence linking Deal to the fire but did not detail what it was. Police did not say whether Deal had any relationship with the men who died and said they are still working to determine a motive.

 Lynh Bui

VIRGINIA

Man fires shotgun into ATM in Fairfax

The photo shows a man dressed in a red Nike sweatshirt holding a shotgun and firing. His target: an ATM, police said.

The incident happened Sunday outside a BB&T bank in the 8600 block of Richmond Highway in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County. Police said a customer of the bank walked up to the ATM and noticed pieces of it were missing. Surveillance camera video showed the machine had been shot that day at about 4:45 a.m.

The unidentified shooter may have left the area in a sedan. Police did not say whether he got away with money.

 Dana Hedgpeth
The U.N.s labor agency said yesterday that it will stop taking funding from the tobacco industry and will not extend its public-private partnerships with a business faulted for harmful health effects.

Anti-tobacco groups say the International Labor Organization, which brings together business, labor groups and governments, has been the last U.N. agency to retain ties to the tobacco business.

The Geneva-based body has struggled to calibrate its mandate to help ensure proper working conditions, particularly in an industry linked to child labor, amid a broader U.N. fight against the health risks of tobacco use.

The ILO has received over USD15 million through partnerships that aim to fight child labor in the industry. They include deals with Japan Tobacco International as well as with a nonprofit group that is linked to some of the worlds biggest tobacco companies.

In its decision, the body decides that no new funding shall be accepted by the ILO from the tobacco industry, and that existing Public Private Partnerships with the tobacco industry will not be prolonged beyond their expiry dates.
This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree  a 75-foot tall, 50-foot in diameter, Norway spruce, weighing more than 12 tons  is moved to a flatbed truck after being cut from the yard of Jason Perrin in State College, Pa., Thursday. The tree will be driven to Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, and put in place on Nov. 11, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. (Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press)

Wisconsin

Family probes deputy fatal shooting of teen

Relatives of a 14-year-old boy fatally shot by a sheriffs deputy on a northern Wisconsin reservation questioned on Thursday why the teen, who they describe as loving and kind, was gunned down.

Holly Gauthier said authorities have provided few details about the death of her son, Jason Pero, an eight-grader who died on the Lake Superior Chippewa reservation Wednesday.

Dispatchers received a call about a male subject walking down the street armed with a knife about 11:40 a.m. Wednesday, said the Ashland County Sheriffs Office, which provides law enforcement services on the reservation.

A responding deputy fired shots, striking the male.

He was treated at the scene but died at a hospital.

Neither the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which is investigating the shooting, or the sheriffs office have identified Pero.

Gauthier tells Duluth station WDIO-TV she believes her son was murdered.

(There is) no reason you can justify shooting a 14-year-old boy, Gauthier said.

Her son was home sick from school Wednesday and staying at his grandparents house, she added. Gauthier said she doesnt know why Jason was outside.

The state justice department said a knife was recovered at the scene of the shooting.

Family members questioned whether Pero had a knife.

 Associated Press

Louisiana

Wrongful death suits filed against fraternity

Fraternity members at a Louisiana university hazed a pledge and kept him awake for three days before he fell asleep at the wheel of a car that struck and killed another student, according to a pair of lawsuits.

University of Louisiana at Lafayette student Michael Gallagher Jr., whose car struck and killed 23-year-old Rustam Nizamutdinov last November, sued the Kappa Sigma fraternity and university officials last Friday. Nizamutdinovs mother, who lives in Uzbekistan, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the fraternity and some of its members in September.

Gallaghers suit claims university officials knew or should have known about a persistent pattern of hazing by Kappa Sigma chapter members before the deadly collision. It also accuses the fraternity of failing to properly supervise members or take adequate steps to prevent hazing.

The suits come amid a broad review of hazing policies in the states higher-education system after the recent death of a Louisiana State University student.

Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) called for system presidents to review campus policies on hazing, alcohol and drugs after Maxwell Gruver, 18, died Sept. 14 in an alleged hazing incident while trying to join the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.

A coroner said the freshmans blood alcohol content was more than six times the legal limit for driving when he died after a night of drinking at the fraternitys house. Ten people were arrested last month on misdemeanor hazing charges.

Four LSU fraternities have been suspended or closed since Gruvers death.

 Associated Press

The District

Militant pleads not guilty in Libya attacks

A second Libyan militant brought to the United States to face charges in the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans pleaded not guilty Thursday in Washington.

Mustafa al-Imam, 45, captured by U.S. Special Operations forces in Misurata, Libya, on Oct. 29, was ordered to remain in custody by U.S. Magistrate Deborah A. Robinson, as he has since being flown to the federal courthouse in Washington on Nov. 3.

Imam was indicted Thursday and faces up to life in prison if convicted on one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists resulting in death in the Sept. 11-12, 2012, attacks on a U.S. diplomatic compound and nearby CIA post. He was initially charged by sealed complaint on May 19, 2015.

Ahmed Abu Khattala, an accused ringleader of the attacks, is on trial in Washington, where an FBI agent said that while in custody after his capture in June 2014, Abu Khattala said he knew Imam from when both were imprisoned by Moammar Gaddafis regime.

 Spencer S. Hsu

New Jersey

No verdict in Menendez trial

The third full day of jury deliberations in the bribery case of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has ended without a verdict, and the panel of 12 is losing a member.

Jurors had deliberated Tuesday and Wednesday. After Thursday concluded, the judge dismissed one member who had told him before the trial that she had a scheduled vacation next week.

The judge named an alternate to take her place, and ordered the panel to start deliberations Monday. The trial is recessed Friday.

Menendez and Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen are accused of a bribery scheme in which Melgen flew Menendez on his private jet and paid for luxury hotels, allegedly in exchange for Menendez lobbying government officials on Melgens behalf. Both men say there was no bribery arrangement.

 Associated Press
ASEAN Human Rights Watch yesterday urged world leaders converging for annual summits in Southeast Asia to address the regions human rights crises led by the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and what it calls the murderous anti-drug crackdown in the Philippines.

INDONESIA Police said yesterday that gunmen have occupied two villages in easternmost Papua province near a U.S.-owned gold and copper mine in a possible escalation of a separatist conflict in the region.

INDIA Volunteers took to the streets of Indias capital yesterday and placed green pollution masks over the mouths of willing residents to make a statement about the citys choking smog.

SAUDI ARABIA announced yesterday it has detained 201 people as part of a sweeping probe, estimating that at least USD100 billion has been misused through embezzlement and corruption in past decades.

ISRAEL military is holding its largest-ever air drill with pilots from eight countries simulating combat scenarios. It said yesterday that Germany, India and France are taking part for the first time in the two-week drill codenamed Blue Flag.

EGYPT President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says Islamic State militants are making their way to his country via Libya after the defeat of the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

GERMANY A nurse who is already serving a life sentence for two murders may have killed more than 100 patients over several years at two hospitals in northwestern Germany, prosecutors said yesterday.

THE VATICAN announced yesterday that it would no longer sell cigarettes to employees in its duty free shop and supermarket  giving up an estimated 10 million euros (USD11 million) a year in profit. Pope Francis made the decision because the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people.

CUBA Americans seeking to visit Cuba must navigate a complicated maze of travel, commerce and financial restrictions unveiled Wednesday by the Trump administration, part of a new policy to further isolate the islands communist government.

COLOMBIA Authorities in Colombia have seized 12 tons of cocaine worth an estimated USD360 million in what has been described as the nations largest drug bust.
SYRIA

Islamic State loses grip on another stronghold

Syrian government forces said Thursday that they have recaptured the Islamic States border stronghold of Bukamal, shrinking the militant groups remaining territory and leaving it with only a few enclaves.

The move into Bukamal, also called Abu Kamal, in eastern Syria choked off a key route for the Islamic State across the border with Iraq. The Syrian state news agency said Wednesday that pro-government forces had linked up with Iraqi troops to clear what remained of the collapsed militant group in the area.

The Islamic States self-declared caliphate, announced three years ago, once stretched across Syria and Iraq to occupy an area the size of Belgium. Now, after several defeats, the militants have been penned into Syrian towns and villages along the Euphrates River.

In a message read aloud on state television, the Syrian militarys general command described the recapture of Bukamal as the victory that marked the fall of the Islamic States project in the region.

 Louisa Loveluck

SOMALIA

Several militants killed in U.S. airstrike

The U.S. military said Thursday that "several militants" have been killed in an airstrike on al-Shabab in Somalia as

the Trump administration increasingly targets what has become the deadliest Islamist extremist group in Africa.

The airstrike was carried out in the Bay Region, about 100 miles west of the capital, Mogadishu, according to a statement by the U.S. Africa Command. The command did not specify whether any civilians were killed or injured.

The United States has carried out more than a dozen drone strikes against al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab this year after the Trump administration approved expanded military efforts against the group. The United States says the latest airstrike, like others, occurred in cooperation with Somalias government.

Earlier this month, the U.S. military carried out its first airstrikes in Somalia against the Islamic State, which is a small but growing militant presence in the northern part of the nation.

Al-Shabab has been blamed for the recent truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed more than 350 people.

 Associated Press

International court opens probe into Burundi violence: International Criminal Court judges have authorized an investigation into allegations of state-sponsored crimes in Burundi, including murder, rape and torture, announcing the decision shortly after the East African nation became the first to formally quit the court. Burundi descended into violence that left hundreds dead in 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans to run for a third term. He ultimately won the election.

Vatican to stop selling cigarettes in its shops: The Vatican said it would no longer sell cigarettes to employees in its duty-free shop and supermarket  giving up an estimated $11 million a year in profit. Pope Francis made the decision because "the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people," the Vatican said. It cited the World Health Organization, which says smoking causes more than 7 million deaths annually around the globe.

U.S. national arrested in Zimbabwe is out on bail: A U.S. citizen charged with subversion in Zimbabwe and accused of insulting its 93-year-old president as a "sick man" on Twitter should be freed on $1,000 bail, a judge ordered. Martha O'Donovan, 25, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of subversion. The charge of insulting President Robert Mugabe carries up to a year in prison. O'Donovan has denied the charges. She had been working with the local social media outlet Magamba TV, which describes itself as producing "satirical comedy sensations."

 From news services
Columnist

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri is being held by Saudi authorities under what Lebanese sources say amounts to house arrest in Riyadh, apparently as part of the Saudi campaign to squeeze Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.

A startling account of Hariris forced detention was provided Friday by knowledgeable sources in Beirut. It offers important new evidence of the tactics used by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to bolster his rule by mobilizing anti-Iran sentiment at home and abroad.

[Click here to read this story in Arabic.]

Rumors of the virtual kidnapping of Hariri, who resigned as prime minister last Saturday while in Saudi Arabia, have rocked the Arab world; Lebanese officials worry that MBS, as the 32-year-old crown prince is known, wants to force Lebanon into his confrontation with Iran. Some Lebanese analysts complain that the Saudis treat the Hariri family, who have been bankrolled by Riyadh for decades, almost as a wholly owned subsidiary.

According to the well-informed Lebanese sources, the tale began on Monday, Oct. 30, when Hariri traveled to Saudi Arabia for a personal meeting with MBS. With the crown prince was Thamer al-Sabhan, his key adviser on relations with other Arab states.

The meeting seemed to go well, the Lebanese sources said, with talk of continued Saudi support for Lebanon, even though Hezbollah dominated the Hariri-led government.

Hariri returned to Lebanon on Nov. 1 and met with the Lebanese council of ministers to brief them on his conversations in Riyadh. Sources said he told the group that the Saudis would back plans for an international conference in Paris on the Lebanese economy, a Rome meeting to support the Lebanese army and a joint Saudi-Lebanese council to encourage investment. Hariri told his cabinet, including Hezbollah representatives, that Lebanon wouldnt be a Saudi target, even though it was widely expected that MBS would be taking a tougher stance on Iran. Those reassurances proved wrong.

Hariri planned to return to Riyadh to meet with King Salman on Monday, Nov. 6. But the timetable was accelerated after Hariri received an urgent call from MBSs protocol team asking him to see the crown prince on Friday, Nov. 3, and spend the weekend with him. The Friday meeting didnt happen, and Hariri stayed that night at his lavish home on Al Takhassossi Boulevard in Riyadh.

What allegedly happened next is the scary part of the story. At about 8 a.m. Saturday, unusually early for the kingdom, Hariri was summoned to meet MBS. The trappings of protocol were gone; Hariri traveled in two cars with only his personal security. He was out of sight for several hours.

Hariri next appeared publicly on television, at about 2 p.m., reading a statement saying that he was resigning as prime minister because of Iranian threats on his life and Tehran's export of "devastation and chaos." Such belligerent language about Iran was uncharacteristic for Hariri, and none of his regular speechwriters were consulted about the speech.

Just before the broadcast, the Saudi state-owned al-Arabiya news network is said to have announced that Hariri would be resigning. As his apparently prerecorded speech was shown on television, Hariri called Lebanese President Michel Aoun and said he couldnt continue in the job and would be returning to Beirut in a few days.

Hariri didnt return to his Riyadh home until Monday, and reportedly stayed Saturday and Sunday nights in a villa on the compound of the Ritz-Carlton, where the prominent Saudis detained in Saturday nights anti-corruption sweep are being held. Hariri met with King Salman on Monday, and then traveled to Abu Dhabi to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who has been a mentor for MBS.

Back Tuesday at his residence, now carefully screened by Saudi military security, Hariri met over the next several days with diplomatic representatives of the United States, Russia and major European powers.

What do the Saudis want next? The Lebanese sources believe Hariris harder-line older brother Bahaa may be Riyadhs candidate for prime minister. Other Hariri relatives were summoned to Riyadh last week but refused to go; its said that Bahaa was already there. The sources also say that Bahaa sent Safi Kalo, a close adviser, to meet secretly 10 days ago with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to discuss future strategy for Lebanon, but Jumblatt is said to have left the meeting, refusing to discuss the subject.

The Lebanese sources told me they are worried about maintaining internal stability. In recent years, Lebanons once-warring sects have been united in trying to sustain the country despite the conflict raging next door in Syria. This internal security, especially precious for Lebanese after nearly two decades of civil war, seems at risk now.

The Lebanese feel, once again, like a Middle East ping-pong ball. They want their prime minister back home.

Twitter: @IgnatiusPost

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Columnist

The news out of Saudi Arabia has been startling. A country famous for its stability to the point of stagnation is watching a 32-year-old crown prince arrest his relatives, freeze their bank accounts and dismiss them from key posts. But on closer examination, it should not be so surprising. Mohammed bin Salman is now applying to Saudi Arabia what has become the new standard operating procedure for strongmen around the world.

The formula was honed by Vladimir Putin after he came to power in Russia. First, amplify foreign threats so as to rally the country around the regime and give it extraordinary powers. Putin did this with the Chechen war and the danger of terrorism. Then, move against rival centers of influence within the society, which in Russia meant the oligarchs  who at that time were more powerful than the state itself. Then talk about the need to end corruption, reform the economy and provide benefits for ordinary people. Putin was able to succeed on the last front largely because of the quadrupling of oil prices over the next decade. Finally, control the media through formal and informal means. Russia has gone from having a thriving free media in 2000 to a level of state control that is effectively similar to the Soviet Union.

Naturally, not every element of this formula applies elsewhere. Perhaps the crown prince will prove to be a reformer. But the formula for political success that hes following is similar to whats been applied in countries as disparate as China, Turkey and the Philippines. Leaders have taken to using the same ingredients  nationalism, foreign threats, anti-corruption and populism  to tighten their grip on power. Where the judiciary and media are seen as obstacles to a rulers untrammeled authority, they are systematically weakened.

In his 2012 book "The Dictator's Learning Curve," William J. Dobson presciently explained that the new breed of strongmen around the world have learned a set of tricks to maintain control that are far more clever and sophisticated than in the past. "Rather than forcibly arrest members of a human rights group, today's most effective despots deploy tax collectors or health inspectors to shut down dissident groups. Laws are written broadly, then used like a scalpel to target the groups the government deems a threat." Dobson quoted a Venezuelan activist who described Hugo Chavez's wily blend of patronage and selective prosecution with an adage: "For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law."

Classic centralized dictatorships were a 20th-century phenomenon  born of the centralizing forces and technologies of the era. Modern dictators work in the more ambiguous spectrum that exists between democracy and authoritarianism, wrote Dobson. They maintain the forms of democracy  constitutions, elections, media  but work to gut them of any meaning. They work to keep the majority content, using patronage, populism and external threats to maintain national solidarity and their popularity. Of course, stoking nationalism can spiral out of control, as it has in Russia and might in Saudi Arabia, which is now engaged in a fierce cold war with Iran, complete with a very hot proxy war in Yemen.

Dobson, however, did end the book expressing optimism that, in many countries, people were resisting and outmaneuvering the dictators. Yet what has happened since he wrote the book is depressing. Instead of the despots being influenced by democrats, it is the democrats who are moving up the learning curve.

Consider Turkey, a country that in the early 2000s seemed on a firm path toward democracy and liberalism, anchored in a desire to become a full-fledged member of the European Union. Today, its ruler, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has eliminated almost all obstacles to total control. He has defanged the military and the bureaucracy, launched various kinds of tax and regulatory actions against opponents in the media, and declared one potential opposition group, the Gulenists, to be terrorists. The rulers of the Philippines and Malaysia appear to be copying from that same playbook.

This is not the picture of democracy everywhere, of course, but these tendencies can be spotted in far-flung areas of the world. In countries such as India and Japan, which remain vibrant democracies in most respects, there are elements of this new system creeping in  crude nationalism and populism, and increasing measures to intimidate and neuter the free press.

President Trump, for his part, has threatened NBC, CNN (where I work) and other outlets with various forms of government action. He has attacked judges and independent agencies. He has disregarded long-established democratic norms. So perhaps even in the United States, some people are moving up this dangerous learning curve as well.

Read more from Fareed Zakaria's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Columnist

There are countries in which you are accused of an act of corruption and then you are arrested. And then there are countries in which someone decides to arrest you and only then are you called corrupt.

Saudi Arabia belongs to that second category. Last week, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, used the excuse of "corruption" to arrest several dozen people, including close members of his family, and to lock them up in the posh confines of the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh.

Nobody took the charges at face value. Corruption  theft from the state  is not easily defined in Saudi Arabia, a place where the ruling family is the state, and vice versa.

Instead, those who know the country have argued that these arrests are part of a major political transition, an assault on the country's sclerotic, traditional power structure. The crown prince appears to be "deliberately dismantling the traditional governance system in Saudi Arabia," wrote The Post's David Ignatius. The arrests were preceded by other changes: Talk of social modernization, for example  one of the world's most misogynistic societies will soon allow women to drive  as well as of the diversification of an economy almost entirely dependent on oil.

But if those are the goals, these arrests also represent another setback for U.S. leadership in the era of President Trump, and a major blow to the prestige of a very different model of modernization and political transition. Most European countries were once monarchies like Saudi Arabia, but they handed over power to parliaments. The United States once denied women many rights, but it slowly enfranchised them. That Western model  to expand rights and freedom, to establish the rule of law and independent courts, to pass sovereignty from an aristocracy to a broader group of citizens  was long promoted by Americans as a matter of course. During what is remembered as the Third Wave of democratization, from the 1970s to the 1990s, dozens of countries in Latin America, Asia and central Europe sought to emulate this tradition and carry out this kind of reform.

Now that model is in retreat. Instead of following a Western model of modernization and reform, the crown prince has taken the path of China and Russia, where "political transition" means that power is retained by a tiny, very wealthy elite. In Russia in 2003, Vladimir Putin arrested, for "corruption," Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Russia. Khodorkovsky was unluckier than the Saudi princes  he wound up in a Siberian labor camp, not the Ritz-Carlton  but his arrest served the same purpose: It frightened Russia's other rich men into submission, and it established the Kremlin, not the oligarchs, as the ultimate source of power.

In China, Trump's new friend, President Xi Jinping, has used charges of "corruption" in a strikingly similar manner. As in Russia and Saudia Arabia, almost everyone in the nepotistic Chinese ruling class has extraordinary access to money, jobs and even state assets. The decision to call anyone "corrupt" is just as political in Beijing as it is in Riyadh. Since taking power, Xi has, like Putin, used that tool to eliminate political rivals, to scare his colleagues and to establish himself as the unchallengeable ruler. And by using the language of "anti-corruption," he, like Putin, seeks public approval in a society that is well aware that the system is skewed against them.

It's not hard to guess why the Saudi crown prince has chosen to follow the Russian and Chinese road map, or why he has sought to consolidate power instead of sharing it. In part, it is thanks to the failure of the Arab Spring, a disaster that has tragically tainted "Western models" in a part of the world that will know peace only if citizens of different ethnicities can find ways to share power.

But Trump is also part of the story. By his own example  through his disdain for courts and for the media, through his scorn for ethical norms  Trump has cast doubt on the Western model. He may even have encouraged the Saudi prince more directly. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, a living embodiment of American nepotism, visited Riyadh for long talks  officially to promote Mideast peace, but perhaps business and politics came up, too  in the days before the arrest. The image of two princelings, scheming late into the night, makes a textbook illustration of the decline of American prestige and American values, even in a country that is closely allied to the United States.

Read more from Anne Applebaum's archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.
Lorenzo Flores and Terrie Smith react at a line of crosses in remembrance of those killed in the shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Nov. 9. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)

I have come to believe that we do need a wall. However, we dont need a wall between the United States and Mexico. We need a wall between those who wish to live with guns and those who do not. Lets divide the country in half. There does not seem to be any other solution in sight.

Gayle Schlenker, Arlington

The mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex., has convinced me of a truth I've been slow to embrace: Guns don't kill people; people kill people. But, unlike many of my gun-loving friends who play that National Rifle Association talking point like an unanswerable trump card, I see it as a call to action. Because we can't ban people, we must ban the guns that make it easy for people to kill large numbers of their fellow humans.

Current gun owners can keep their guns. But others must pass a background check and get trained in the use of their weapons before taking possession. Congress must ban all assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. And the federal government should institute a gun-buyback campaign to remove firearms from society.

Will it help? I dont know, but lets find out. The truth is, we will never be able to fully anticipate or neutralize people bent on mass murder. As a society, then, lets agree to make it harder for them to purchase their weapons of choice.

John Dalby, Leesburg

The Nov. 7 front-page article "Texas shooter was in domestic dispute," with the sub-headline "Shouldn't have been able to buy guns," related that the Air Force didn't put Devin Patrick Kelley's name in the national database that would have prevented him from buying guns. That would be true only if he had tried to buy a gun in a store where a background check would have been done. Texas has plenty of gun shows, and background checks are not required for gun sales at gun shows.

We need to close the gun-show background-check loophole.

Ronald Muller, Upper Marlboro

The statement in the Nov. 7 editorial "Yes, it's a guns situation" that there are more than 30,000 gun deaths a year was correct. In fact, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicates that there were more than 38,000 gun deaths in 2016. However, more than two-thirds of these deaths were suicides. So, if all guns were prohibited, some 20,000 people would have to find other ways to kill themselves.

Eleven thousand gun-related homicides are significant  but the number is a third of the editorial's stated figure.

Walter F. Welham Jr., Fort Belvoir
Jordan Cooper is a health-care policy expert. Ellen Silbergeld, a MacArthur Foundation fellow, is the author of Chickenizing Farms and Food and a special consultant to the World Health Organization Food Safety Program.

Maryland's Keep Antibiotics Effective Act of 2017 is one step in the right direction  but only one step, thanks to a loophole in the legislation large enough for a battleship to pass through.

The bill, which went into effect last month, attempts to limit the prophylactic use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry to arrest the spread of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria so as to prolong the efficacy of our antibiotic drugs. The legislation is to be commended for prohibiting the use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry to promote weight gain or to improve feed efficiency. Unfortunately, the bill does not require confirmation of disease in a herd or flock before animals can be treated with antibiotics.

The World Health Organization opposes this sort of loophole because, given the crowded conditions characteristic of factory farms, it would not be difficult for a veterinarian to conclude that every animal stands a reasonable risk of contracting a disease. This situation is analogous to how a pediatrician might conclude that every child who attends day care should take antibiotics on a daily basis throughout childhood simply because they have an increased risk of contracting strep throat.

The most compelling argument for closing this legislative loophole is that without these changes we will continue to erode the efficacy of our limited armory of antibiotics for use in medicine. It is important to administer the proper class and dose of antibiotics to animals, limiting their use to appropriate situations to prolong the effectiveness of antibiotics for use by humans and animals. While all uses of antibiotics contribute to the diminishment of their effectiveness, the volume of antibiotic use in food-animal production is greatly accelerating, increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause human disease.

Humans who consume meat from animals that received prophylactic antibiotics are exposed to strains of bacteria that have evolved to survive the effects of the antibiotics. In effect, our demand for cheap and abundant meat has led to our careless use of prophylactic antibiotics in animals. That has reduced the efficacy of antibiotics for human use. The results are shocking.

Widespread antibiotic resistance has become a crisis on a global scale in urgent need of redress. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that Marylanders endure a rate of health-care-associated infections that is higher than the national baseline. We incur large costs associated with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that infect hospitalized patients. This results in extended hospital stays, increased medical complications, increased costs and increased loss of life. Some of the most well-known culprits, sometimes referred to as "super bugs," are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C. diff). These bacteria have developed resistance to many different antibiotics.

This crisis is exacerbated by the lack of new antibiotic molecules. Developing and testing new antibiotics is a time-consuming process. While we wait for these new discoveries, we must protect the antibiotics that we have by prohibiting the administration of sub-effective and inappropriate prophylactic doses of antibiotics in industrial food-animal production.

We support the actions of the Maryland legislature in developing the Keep Antibiotics Effective Act of 2017. There is much that is good in this legislation but, in failing to prevent the abuse of prophylactic antibiotic uses in livestock, fish and poultry, we will fall short of accomplishing its intent of protecting the health of Marylanders.
AS A CANDIDATE for president last year, Donald Trump felt Haiti's pain. Campaigning in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood, Mr. Trump recounted the ravages visited by the devastating 2010 earthquake on the hemisphere's most destitute country and concluded , "Whether you vote for me or don't vote for me, I really want to be your greatest champion, and I will be your champion."

Now is the moment for Mr. Trump's administration to make good on that promise. It faces a stark choice with enormous repercussions: whether to grant another extension for some 50,000 Haitians living legally in the United States, or to expel them, a decision that would be devastating not just for thousands of screened, law-abiding migrants and their 27,000 U.S.-born children but also for Haiti itself, whose economy is heavily dependent on the remittances they send home.

The Haitians in question, some of whom have lived in the United States since at least before the 2010 earthquake, and for 13 years on average, were granted permission to stay under a U.S. government humanitarian program known as temporary protected status. After several renewals under the Obama administration, hard-liners in the Trump administration are pressing to revoke TPS for the Haitians, having already done so for several other nations, including some who had lived in the United States even longer. Their current status expires in January; a decision from the Department of Homeland Security on granting them an extension is expected by Nov. 23.

Haiti is extraordinarily ill-equipped to absorb 50,000 people arriving on its shores, most of whom would need jobs, shelter and a variety of government services, including education and health care. No country in the Americas is as dependent on remittances as Haiti, and the losses it would sustain if TPS were revoked for the 50,000 Haitians in the United States would be a severe blow.

True, the word temporary in temporary protected status should mean something; no one is proposing granting the Haitians permanent legal residence, let alone citizenship. But as Mr. Trump seemed to grasp, Haiti is an especially needy case. And the idea of the hemispheres richest country intentionally imposing sudden and significant economic hardship on the poorest is not just anathema to the United States idea of itself as a great and compassionate nation. Its also gratuitously cruel. Why would the United States, whose nominal per capita gross domestic product is more than $57,000, seek such suffering in Haiti, whose per capita GDP is $740?

It cannot be because Haitians represent a burden to the United States. Nearly all speak English; 80 percent are employed; nearly three-quarters have completed high school; and more than a third have studied in or completed college.

A great nation that wants to remain great, and to be seen as such, understands that its prestige and stature are diminished if it disregards the well-being of weak, dependent and friendly neighbors. Haiti is a test of the proposition that a great nation, as Mr. Trump seemed to understand, must sometimes be the champion of a weak one.
In her Nov. 5 Sunday Opinion essay, "Social media's ugly power," Quinta Jurecic cited excerpts from the congressional hearings on Russian involvement in our presidential election that deftly illustrated that the Russia issue is separate from the questions surrounding the new role of social media in political discourse. Ms. Jurecic's crisp analysis showed that the latter are the larger, more enduring issues.

I found myself eager to join in the questioning of the social-media representatives, particularly on the wooden claim that transparency is a sufficient justification for anything that might appear on their platforms. What meaning does transparency have if postings on social media involve the use of synthetic or made-up addresses, handles, hashtags, etc., in place of known, identified writers, columnists or other news sources?

James H. Holt, Washington
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: A pile of credentials issued to Washington Post photographer Jabin Botsford are seen the day after Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump revoked Washington Post press credentials from all future campaign events in Washington, DC on Tuesday June 14, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Contributing columnist

Gary Abernathy is publisher and editor of the (Hillsboro, Ohio) Times-Gazette.

A year ago, the Times-Gazette was one of just a handful of newspapers around the nation to endorse Donald Trump for president. Seldom has a 58-word statement in a small rural publication garnered such attention, shining a national and even international spotlight on a newspaper and a community.

Over the past 12 months, news organizations nationally and from around the world have discovered Hillsboro, Highland County and southern Ohio in general, exploring the people and interests here in an effort to determine why places such as ours so enthusiastically supported Trump (he won 76 percent of the vote in this county) and why, for the most part, those people continue to support him.

I'll spare you the long list of media outlets that have visited Hillsboro or contacted us for various segments or stories. Think of one, and it will probably be on the list. But I'll mention that in just the past few days, a writer from the Nikkei, one of Japan's largest newspapers, traveled here for an interview, and the BBC's "Outside Source" news program set up shop in our newsroom for a live two-hour broadcast. Host Nuala McGovern interviewed our staff, along with local party and government officials, about everything from Trump to guns to the opioid crisis.

I dont know whether most of the journalists who come here have predetermined ideas about what they will find. Perhaps, if they have read some of the analysis from the left on what defines a Trump supporter  racist, misogynist, uneducated  they expect a wall of Confederate flags, a KKK parade down Main Street and a collection of hillbillies making moonshine on the back porch.

Instead, they discover a landscape that is breathtaking in its physical beauty, and residents who are welcoming, industrious, smart, interesting and, yes, opinionated. People here are well informed and ready to defend their politics, while simultaneously respecting the opinions of visitors with different viewpoints.

The live BBC broadcast from our office happened to take place the day after the tragic massacre at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., that claimed 26 lives and left at least 20 others injured. Naturally, McGovern asked about the incident, particularly in regard to gun-control legislation. Not surprisingly, no one who was interviewed here thought more gun laws were the answer, and they were well prepared to defend that position. The schism that exists between the left and right on the solution to gun violence is deep and wide.

It was also not surprising that local Republicans defended the president, blaming most policy holdups or campaign promises not yet kept on fierce media and establishment resistance.

One lighthearted moment among many came when the sometimes controversial mayor of Hillsboro, Drew Hastings, was casually asked whether he would seek a third term when his second one expired in 2019. No, he replied, which was big news locally. I sarcastically thanked the BBC for coming all the way from London to scoop us on a big local news story.

The best thing about the year-long Trump Country scrutiny on our southwestern Ohio hamlet, population 6,600, and the surrounding region is that members of the national and world media who would never otherwise venture here have been obligated to visit personally, rather than just conduct phone interviews or draw conclusions based on census data or government statistics.

Its very difficult to spend time with people in an up-close-and-personal way, breaking bread, conversing about local issues and family events, or seeing their homes, and continue to hold negative, stereotypical perceptions of them.

Visitors may well return home without changing their minds about what they consider the misguided political views they encountered. But they will almost certainly find themselves unable to cling to whatever animosity they may have previously held.

The same holds true whether it is a case of liberals caught in a conservative environment or, as I know from firsthand experience, a conservative thrust for a lengthy period into a liberal universe. When you are made to feel welcome and respected, it is hard to hate.

Familiarity breeds contempt, the saying goes, but I think it is truer that familiarity leads to understanding and even friendship, if not agreement. Please, Big Media, continue to explore Hillsboro and other such communities around the nation  communities that seldom were on anyones radar, until they decided a presidential election.
Columnist

So President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and fellow Republicans think Roy Moore, the GOP Senate nominee from Alabama, should quit his Senate run only "if these allegations are true."

If true? Four women, on the record in The Post, say Moore, when he was in his 30s, tried to date them as teens, and one of the women says he had sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32. Perhaps Republicans expect video and DNA evidence from 1979 magically to emerge, or a confession by Moore? (He denies the allegations.) More likely they are just dodging so they can stick with Moore and keep the seat Republican  even if it means having an alleged pedophile join their caucus.

By comparison, there was more integrity in the defense of Moore offered by Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, who told the Washington Examiner that, even if true, "there's just nothing immoral or illegal here." Indeed there's biblical precedent for Moore's alleged behavior.

Take Joseph and Mary, Zeigler said. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

Jumpin Jehoshaphat!

Let us take seriously Zeigler's justification, which is consistent with Moore's view that "God's laws are always superior to man's laws," and the Bible stands above the Constitution and other piddling laws of man. It is true that the Bible does not say "thou shalt not strip to thine tighty whities and kiss a 14-year-old and touch her through her bra and underpants." The Bible also does not specifically prohibit colluding with the Russians, accepting emoluments, laundering money or conspiring against the United States. So Moore, and for that matter President Trump and his administration, has nothing to worry about.

But if we are to accept the Bible literally as the legal standard (and not, say, age-of-consent laws), we will also have to accept as legal certain other activities in 21st-century America, including:

Sacrificing as a burnt offering your young son (Genesis 22:2) or your daughter, if she comes out of the doors of your house to meet you (Judges 11:30-1, 34-5).

Having rebellious children stoned to death by all the men of the city (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

Purchasing slaves (Leviticus 25:44-46), selling your daughter as a slave (Exodus 21:7-8) and making sure they submit to their masters, even cruel ones (1 Peter 2:18).

Executing pagan priests on their own altars and burning their bones (2 Kings 23:20-25).

Cutting off the hand of a woman if she grabs the penis of a man who is fighting with her husband (Deuteronomy 25:11-12).

Committing incest (Genesis 19:31-36) and cannibalism (2 Kings 6:28-29).

And having the military do all sorts of things to the enemy that would violate the Geneva accords:

Kill all boys and women but spare the girls who have not known man intimately for yourself (Numbers 31:17-18).

Destroy all that they have, killing man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel and donkey (1 Samuel 15:3).

If we are going to take biblical law as the literal legal standard, were also going to have to ban some staples of modern life:

Non-submissive women (Ephesians 5:22).

Cheeseburgers (Exodus 23:19), shrimp po' boys (Leviticus 11:12) and ham sandwiches (Leviticus 11:4).

Blended fabrics (Leviticus 19:19), rounded haircuts (Leviticus 19:27), tattoos (Leviticus 19:28), rude jokes (Ephesians 5:4), divorce (Luke 16:18) and using automobiles or electricity on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:3).

Additionally, women will not be allowed to teach in houses of worship (1 Timothy 2:12), men will not be allowed in at all if their genitals have been injured (Deuteronomy 23:1), and blind people, dwarves and the lame will not be allowed at the altar (Leviticus 21:17-23).

I intend no disrespect to the Good Book  just pointing out a flaw in Zeigler's and Moore's selective application of it as a legal code. You don't have to be under sharia (which, Moore has said, is in force in parts of Illinois and Indiana) to recognize that using the Bible as a literal source of law poses some challenges.

In this case, Moores long-ago behavior will never be adjudicated in a court of law. Yet even Zeigler, in offering his biblical defense, appeared to acknowledge truth at the core of it: Moore getting romantically involved with teens when he was in his 30s.

Theres no allegation of sexual intercourse, he said, and Roy Moore fell in love with one of the younger women. That would be his wife, Kayla, who Zeigler says is 14 years his junior and whom he was dating around that time.

You dont need a judge and jury, Republicans, to determine that there was something icky going on or that there is something dangerous in having as a senator a man who places Gods law over mans  and then interprets Gods laws to suit himself.

Twitter: @Milbank

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Columnist

Saudi Arabia appears to be committing the original sin of modern Middle East politics  fighting its regional wars in Lebanon and driving that fragile country once again toward civil strife.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans target in Lebanon is Hezbollah, the nations dominant political force, which is backed by the Saudis nemesis, Iran. Unwilling to risk a direct shot at Tehran, the crown prince is instead attacking Irans clients in Beirut.

The proxy battle has escalated over the past week. First, the Saudis pressured Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign last Saturday; hours later, MBS, as the 32-year-old crown prince is known, launched sweeping arrests of rival princes and business leaders in Riyadh, creating an uproar across the region. On Thursday, the Saudi government told its citizens to leave Lebanon and advised against future travel there.

For a Sunni Arab world that fears and loathes Iran, the moves by MBS will probably be popular. Hes emerging as the strongest (if also the most impulsive) Sunni leader in decades, exercising a kind of raw power at home and in the region that hasnt been seen since Iraqs Saddam Hussein.

The Saudi moves have rattled the Lebanese political class but haven't panicked the financial sector. Riad Salameh, the governor of Lebanon's central bank for the past 25 years, said recently that the monetary authorities had more than $44 billion in reserves, enough to ensure stability. That calmed the markets.

Lebanese officials fear that whats next is a broader economic quarantine on Lebanon, much as Saudi Arabia has imposed on Qatar. Lebanese sources told me Thursday in telephone interviews that the Saudis want to force Hezbollah to leave the cabinet and parliament. Thats understandable for Riyadh, but not realistic.

Saudi Arabia's real leverage is that about 500,000 Lebanese work in the Gulf, sending home roughly $3 billion annually, a tide of remittances that keeps Lebanon's financial and property markets afloat. If those Lebanese were expelled, a dramatic downward spiral would begin.

For Lebanon, this is a familiar story. Since the 1950s, regional and global powers have manipulated the countrys all-too-pliable sects for their own advantage.

The Sunnis were played by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and then, catastrophically, by the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose challenge to the central government triggered the 1975-1976 civil war. The Israelis battled the Palestinians in Lebanon using Christian and Shiite Muslim proxies and finally invaded outright in 1982. The Syrian regime held Lebanon hostage from 1976 until 2005, when enraged Lebanese demanded they withdraw after the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, Saad's father.

Hezbollah emerged as the dominant force in Lebanon partly because of the instability that followed Israel's unwise 1982 invasion. The Iranian-backed militia has subverted Lebanese democracy and been a dangerous forward outpost for Iran's power. When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, many analysts predicted that a frail Lebanon would tumble back into chaos. But it hasn't happened  yet  because Hezbollah worked quietly with Saad Hariri and other Lebanese leaders to keep a lid on unrest.

Can such quiet cooperation continue? Not if the Saudis sabotage the countrys economy in what they describe as an effort to punish Hezbollah.

For the United States, Lebanon poses whats becoming a recurring challenge  how to encourage MBSs push to modernize the kingdom without letting him drive Saudi Arabia and the region off a cliff.

Call it the MBS conundrum: The headstrong crown prince jumped into what U.S. officials thought was an unwise war in Yemen; it's still raging, despite U.S. attempts to find a settlement. MBS escalated a feud with meddlesome neighbor Qatar; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has tried unsuccessfully to mediate. This week in Lebanon, the United States was again attempting damage control, as Ambassador Elizabeth Richard pledged $42 million for the Lebanese army and expressed support for "a stable, secure, democratic, and prosperous Lebanon."

The rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been ripping the fabric of the Middle East since the Iranian revolution of 1979, spawning terrorist movements and proxy wars among Shiite and Sunni allies of the two nations. This sectarian bloodletting seemed unstoppable when a strong, arrogant Iran faced a weak, confused Saudi Arabia.

MBS may hope to become the powerful Sunni leader who could eventually balance the region  and open the way for a grand bargain that would bring stability. Thats a desirable outcome. But in the short term, the challenge for Washington is to prevent this would-be strongman from blowing up himself and his neighbors.

Another failed state in the Middle East is not in Americas interests.

Twitter: @IgnatiusPost

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Columnist

The Trump administration marked this week's 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution by declaring a National Day for the Victims of Communism. The New York Times marked the same anniversary in a different way: by running a series of articles extolling the virtues of communism.

The irony of the series' title, "Red Century," seems lost on the Times's editors. The 20th century was "red" indeed  red with the blood of communism's victims. The death toll of communism, cited in "The Black Book of Communism," is simply staggering: In the USSR, nearly 20 million dead; China, 65 million; Vietnam, 1 million; Cambodia, 2 million; Eastern Europe, 1 million; Africa, 1.7 million; Afghanistan, 1.5 million; North Korea: 2 million (and counting). In all, Communist regimes killed some 100 million people  roughly four times the number killed by the Nazis  making communism the most murderous ideology in human history.

Never mind all that. University of Pennsylvania professor Kristen R. Ghodsee writes that Communists had better sex: "Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women . . . [who] had less sex, and less satisfying sex, than women who had to line up for toilet paper." She has tough words for Joseph Stalin because he "reversed much of the Soviet Union's early progress in women's rights  outlawing abortion and promoting the nuclear family." Yes, that was Stalin's crime. Not the purges, not the gulag, but promoting the nuclear family.

In "How Did Women Fare in China's Communist Revolution?" Helen Gao recalls her grandmother "talking with joyous peasants from the newly collectivized countryside" and writes that "for all its flaws, the Communist revolution taught Chinese women to dream big." Mao's revolution killed tens of millions of Chinese  not counting the millions killed under China's brutal "One Child" policy, which led to widespread female infanticide. Those Chinese girls never got a chance to dream at all.

In "Lenin's Eco-Warriors," Yale lecturer Fred Strebeigh writes that Lenin was "a longtime enthusiast for hiking and camping" who turned Russia into "a global pioneer in conservation." He fails to mention that Lenin was also a mass murderer who executed more of his political opponents in the first four months of his rule than the czars had in the entire previous century. In one telegram, reproduced in "The Black Book of Communism," Lenin orders the Cheka (a predecessor of the KGB) to "Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers." (The telegram concludes with an eerie "P.S. Find tougher people.") Maybe he was camping when he wrote it.

Berkeley professor Yuri Slezkine explains "How to Parent Like a Bolshevik," noting that "At home, the children of the Bolsheviks read what they called the 'treasures of world literature,' with an emphasis on the Golden Ages analogous to their own" and that "Soviet readers were expected to learn from Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes." He does not say whether they were also expected to learn from Orwell. In another piece, "Love Lives of Bolsheviks," he notes that for Russia's Communists, "revolution was inseparable from love." Except of course, when the KGB arrived in the middle of the night to separate them from their loves by hauling them off to the gulag.

While all of the articles are not this bad, the series goes on. Vivian Gornick writes about "When Communism Inspired Americans." Palash Krishna Mehrotra writes how "arrival of a Soviet Book Exhibition" made his Indian town "come alive." John T. Sidel mourns the lost "promise of Muslim Communism."

The Times's series is in the tradition set by former Times Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty, who wrote glowing reports on Stalin's rule that included repeated denials of the mass starvation from Stalin's engineered famine in Ukraine. "Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda," he wrote, while millions starved to death. And besides, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

Now, after a century of slaughter, the Times is back at it, portraying communism as a noble cause, the murders carried out in its name simply aberrations. Never mind that there is not a single example of a country where communism was tried and it did not result in terror, purges, massacres, starvation and totalitarian misery. Yet take any of the opinion pieces above and replace the word Communist with Nazi, and then try to imagine that anyone would publish them, other than perhaps the Daily Stormer.

Sadly, this twisted view of communism is being passed on to the next generation. A recent poll by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that just 36 percent of American millennials have a "very unfavorable" view of communism  the only American generation where this number is less than a majority. Worse still, 32 percent believe that more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin. The ignorance is stunning. The first post-Cold War generation has been raised almost completely unaware of the evils of communism.

Czech writer Milan Kundera once described the struggle against communism as the struggle of memory against forgetting. Communist regimes did more than kill their victims; they sought to erase their memory and humanity. Shamefully, communisms crimes against memory and humanity are still being whitewashed by the New York Times.

Read more from Marc Thiessen's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Orrin G. Hatch, a Republican from Utah, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

For too long, middle-class Americans have struggled with stagnant wages, sluggish labor markets and economic growth well below the historic average. Much of the economic stagnation stems from our nations broken tax code, which has become too big, too complex and too antiquated to satisfy the needs of 21st-century Americans. Our tax code is a self-inflicted wound on our economy.

Thats why leaders in both the Senate and House, as well as the Trump administration, have been working together on comprehensive legislation to overhaul our tax system. Tax reform will provide relief and bigger paychecks to low- and middle-income families, make America a better place to start and grow a business, and allow American businesses to compete in the global marketplace.

Those are the primary objectives of the Senate's tax plan, which we unveiled this week.

Under our proposal, a family of four with income around $73,000  roughly the median last year  could see their federal income tax bill reduced by nearly $1,500, a decrease of nearly 40 percent, and a corresponding boost in take-home pay. Of course, with close to 150 million individual income-tax filers in the United States, there is substantial variation among individuals and families. Even among those with identical incomes, precise amounts of tax relief will vary. Without question, though, the Senate tax bill provides tax relief to the middle class, as promised.

By reducing individual tax rates across the board, doubling the standard deduction and expanding the child tax credit, our proposal would put real money in the pockets of working families to help them save for the future or just make ends meet. Our proposal also vastly simplifies the tax code by clearing away numerous special deductions, credits and the like, while preserving important deductions for things such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions and medical expenses. These changes unrig our code so it works for ordinary Americans  not special interests.

In addition, the Senate proposal would give a leg up to small businesses, which are engines of job creation in our economy, employing about half of all U.S. workers and responsible for significant amounts of job creation. Under the current system, most owners of small businesses that are not incorporated have to subject all of their income  both their regular compensation and their business income  to individual tax rates, as they "pass through" earnings from their businesses onto their personal tax forms. Our plan provides a simple way to give business owners a lower rate on their salaries, allows them to deduct from their taxable income a significant portion of their pass-through business earnings and protects against those trying to "game the system" by mischaracterizing one form of income as another to get a lower tax bill.

Make no mistake, tax reform for small business helps the middle class. The Senate plan will help small businesses expand, invest, increase wages and hire more workers, all for the benefit of middle-class Americans.

On top of that, our plan will lower our punitively high statutory corporate tax rate, currently the highest in the industrialized world, from 35 percent to 20 percent, bringing us below the average rate among our major trading partners. The lower corporate rate, coupled with enhanced abilities for companies to recover costs of investing in things such as equipment, will help boost investment, leading to higher productivity and wages. A lower corporate rate, by itself, means gains for workers, because corporate taxes drag down wages.

The Senate proposal also modernizes our international tax system, giving incentives, or carrots, to attract economic activity to the United States. It also provides sticks to patrol against companies eroding our tax base by moving capital, including intellectual property, to low-tax jurisdictions simply to lower their tax bills.

Our current business-tax system punishes U.S. companies for doing business and investing in the United States and, in many ways, pushes economic activity outside the country. It also gives significant advantages to foreign companies, which is why so many American businesses have been opting to become foreign companies themselves.

The existing tax code means less U.S. economic activity and pushes American jobs, production and intellectual property abroad. Overhauling our business-tax system will increase wages, create jobs, bring back capital and investment and make the United States an inviting place to do business.

These reforms  on both the individual and business sides  ultimately translate to significant benefits for American families. We have a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity to take action to improve the lives of the middle class and to help America prosper. This is a time to pay attention to those Americans who have felt left behind in economic stagnation, by providing tax relief and economic opportunity. The Senate tax bill released this week does just that.
RUSTLING UP votes for the GOP tax plan, President Trump on Tuesday reportedly assured Senate Democrats that he would not personally benefit from the proposal. In fact, he insisted, his accountant told him he will be a "big loser" if the House Republican tax bill passes. "The deal is so bad for rich people, I had to throw in the estate tax just to give them something," the president said.

At least one of those statements is false. The deal is good for rich people. Wealthy people's after-tax incomes would rise at a substantially higher rate than for those lower down the income scale, according to an analysis of the House GOP tax plan that the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center released Wednesday.

What about Mr. Trumps own finances? Theres good reason to doubt Mr. Trumps veracity there, too. But because, unlike every other president of the modern era, he refuses to make his tax returns public, we cant be sure. If Mr. Trump wants to prove that he is promoting tax reform despite, not because of, his own financial interest, there is an easy way to do so: He can finally release his tax returns.

Mr. Trump's story is not outside the realm of possibility. The professional staff at Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation found that the House GOP bill would cut taxes for most rich people but not all. About a quarter of households with an income over $1 million would see a tax increase in 2019, in part because the bill would scale back tax breaks, such as the write-off for state and local taxes. That write-off might be quite valuable to the president, a longtime businessman in high-tax New York.

Yet the House GOP bill also contains provision after provision seemingly designed to help someone such as Mr. Trump. It would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, a policy that ensures the wealthy can't use loopholes to shrink their tax burden to nothing. The AMT obliged the president to pay $31 million in 2005, the one year for which the public has summary information about his taxes. The bill would reform how the federal government taxes "pass-through" income from certain privately held companies  companies of the sort that Mr. Trump used extensively in his real estate business. As Mr. Trump noted Tuesday, it would phase out the estate tax, an unnecessary shift that would amount to little more than a giveaway to wealthy families such as the Trumps. And then there are complex details such as how the tax bill singles out the real estate business for special consideration in how it handles corporate interest and like-kind exchanges.

Mr. Trumps comments underscore a reason every major-party presidential candidate since Richard Nixon has released his or her tax returns. The public should know what conflicts of interest the president has, particularly when questions of taxing and spending are on the table. The president says GOP tax reform is not about enriching himself. A Congress with a modicum of self-respect would answer: Great to hear. Now show us.
Columnist

It might be comforting to believe that Tuesdays election can be explained as a political primal scream aimed at President Trump and his dangerous excesses. Some may even conclude that a Democratic sweep of next years midterms will follow along with the speedy impeachment of Trump. Then, surely, reason and order will return to the business of running the United States. Unfortunately, that pipe dream ignores the more profound meaning of this weeks election results: The shellacking Republicans took proves again just how unmoored American politics has become in the 21st century.

Democrats and Republicans have held a duopoly over Washington since Franklin Pierce got elected president in 1852. For most of that time, both parties saw their governing majorities rise and fall over the course of entire generations.

The Grand Old Party more or less dominated national politics from Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 until the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democratic coalition dominated from 1933 until the Reagan Revolution began to reshape politics in 1980. When Ronald Reagan's Republican Party finally gained control of Congress 14 years later, it was the first time a GOP speaker had run the House in 40 years.

Since then, though, the political alignments that once endured decades of change have begun collapsing in two-year intervals. In 2004, Karl Rove spoke of a permanent Republican majority. Just over two years later, Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House. In 2008, many hailed Barack Obama's winning coalition as a new Democratic majority, built on a well-educated and demographically diverse coalition. Fast-forward two years and the tea party laid waste to all previous political presumptions. But their unfocused, anti-government zeal proved to be no match for Obama's reelection campaign. At that time, Obama told Mika Brzezinski and me that his 2012 victory would finally make Republicans deal with his White House. But just two years later, Republicans again routed Democrats in local, state and national legislative races. And two years after that, Trump destroyed the Democratic establishment, but only after reducing the Republican political machine to rubble.

Now, less than a year after seizing control of all branches of government, Trumpism is in full retreat. Even before Tuesday's drubbing, the president was weighed down by historically low approval ratings. The Republican Congress fares even worse, with a dismal 13 percent approval rating. Remarkably, the Democratic Party seemed even less united before Tuesday's rout. The fact that Trump's GOP was beaten so badly by the party of Donna Brazile and a Virginia gubernatorial candidate who one observer compared to a bag of mulch proves again that voters are voting against political parties instead of voting for inspiring leaders.



Incoming House Speaker John Boehner R-Ohio) holds up the gavel after receiving it from outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif.) in 2011. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

The last president to own majorities in both the House and Senate for two terms was Roosevelt. Since then, Republican majorities have been undone by the excesses of McCarthyism, Watergate and Iraq, while Democratic alliances have collapsed under the weight of Vietnam, a runaway welfare state, the enduring impact of the Great Recession and a brand of identity politics that some Democrats quietly suggest fed into Trumps destructive rise.

It seems the long-term political turbulence shaking the United States two-party system to its knees comes from the inability of either party to explain why working-class jobs keep leaving the country and why most Americans wages have stagnated for decades. More importantly, no candidates have come forward with a convincing plan to turn those trends around.

Trump promised voters last year that his unique brand of economic witchcraft would magically send millions of workers back into coal mines, return automotive assembly lines to full capacity and transport U.S. workers back to a time when factories were spinning out manufactured goods and workers had a salary that supported their families. But the dreams Trump sold working-class Americans are already turning to dust. His promise of a more affordable and accessible health-care system is dead. His plan to reform the tax code now seems to be little more than a payoff to rich political patrons and billionaires like him. And instead of draining Washingtons swamp of unethical behavior, Trump has put his White House, his family and himself in the legal sights of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Even if Tuesdays election begins the long process of removing the president from office, Americans will be left with the same corrosive system that led voters to take a chance on Trump. The only way to escape that cycle is to break apart the hyperpartisan two-party duopoly that has kept Washington too divided, too dysfunctional and too directionless for too long.

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Veterans Day is an occasion to recall the service of our troops. But women's stories have often been absent from those recollections. Works of fiction and nonfiction, memoirs (such asMary Jennings Hegar's), documentaries (including "The Invisible War") and dramas (such as "Blood Stripe") have helped show this side of the armed forces. Still, myths about female veterans endure. Kayla Williams, who wrote a memoir about serving as an Army linguist in Iraq, remembers an infantryman who was "sure that women troops would be flown by helicopter to shower every three days." Here are some of the most persistent misconceptions.

Myth No. 1

There arent that many female veterans.

The National Veterans Foundationreportedthis year that, because of stereotypes about veterans, perhaps developed from movies and television, "when most people think of 'veterans,' they think of men." A 2014report from Disabled American Veterans noted "the enduring perception that a woman who comes to VA for services is not a veteran herself, but a male veteran's wife, mother, or daughter."

Congress established a regular women's component in all branches of the armed forces in 1948 but capped women's participation at 2 percent of the total force. This kept the numbers of female veterans proportionally low until the cap was lifted incrementally, beginning in 1973, to enable the creation of an all-volunteer force. Women now make up 20 percent of new recruits, 15 percent of the active-duty force and 18 percent of the reserve and National Guard. Almost 280,000 women have served in Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn. More than 2 million veterans  about 9 percent of the total veteran population of 21 million  are women.

Myth No. 2

American women began serving in combat recently.

Many hold themisperception that "official military policy has long kept female service members away from the front lines," as a History Channel essay put it. And it's true that twoprovisions in the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 prohibited Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps women from combat Air Force sorties and naval vessels (they were already barred from direct ground combat). In 1998, an ambiguous Defense Department rule closed noncombat positions to women if the risk of exposure to direct fire, combat or capture equaled or exceeded that experienced by combat units in the same theater of operations.

But women have fought for this country as long as it has existed. In April 1775, a 35-year-old mother of six named Prudence Cummings Wright formed a women's militia in Pepperell, Mass. Dressed in men's clothing and armed, the women captured a suspected British courier at the bridge over the Nashua River and delivered him and his documents to the rebellion. At the Battle of Fort Washington in 1776, Margaret Corbin took over her husband's gun when he was killed. Disabled by grapeshot that nearly severed her arm, she was placed in the Continental Army's Invalid Regiment at West Point, drew a lifetime military pension and was reinterred at West Point with full military honors in 1926. In 1778, a Creole woman named Sally St. Clare fought disguised as a man and became the first woman to die in action in the service of America. And historians estimate that at least 200 women disguised themselves as men to fight on both sides in the Civil War.

Since the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901, American women have served overseas, under fire and at the front lines in every major U.S. military conflict.

Myth No. 3

The Pentagon integrated women as a social experiment.

In the 1990s, conservative activist Elaine Donnellyaccused Rep. Patricia Schroeder and "her feminist friends at the Pentagon" of trying to "undermine readiness and morale for the sake of social engineering" by opening combat billets to women "to advance the career ambitions of a few." This idea had staying power: In 2013, retired Army Gen. Jerry Boykinrepeated a version of it to CNN. It recurs almost daily in the comments on military-related news sites, blogs and social-media pages.

In fact, the activism of military women is what drove the expansion of their roles. Doctor Mary Edwards Walker, awarded the Medal of Honor in 1865 for her work as a military surgeon and spy, wrote in 1859 that women should serve as soldiers. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers (R-Mass.), who served in the Red Cross in Europe during World War I, and Rep. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine), who later joined the Air Force, crafted the 1948 legislation establishing permanent women's components in the armed forces. Hundreds of women in uniform assigned to personnel commands lobbied quietly for incrementally greater opportunities. Navy electrician Yona Owens, Air Force helicopter pilot Mary Jennings Hegar and other military women even sued the U.S. government to open chances for women to serve legally on naval combatants and in direct ground combat.

Myth No. 4

Women are less able to meet the militarys demands.

We've come a long way since 1979, when former Marine and future Navy secretaryJim Webb articulated this idea in a misogynistic rant in Washingtonian. Still, in September 2015, the Marine Corps sought an exemption from then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's 2013 direction to integrate women fully into every branch of the armed forces; the Marines cited a study that claimed to have found mixed-gender units slower, less lethal and unable to evacuate casualties as rapidly as all-male units. Navy Secretary Ray Mabusrejected the Marine Corps request to exclude women from infantry billets.

The 1994 Defense Women's Health Research Program, a $40 million initiative that funded research targeted at improving the health and performance of women in the armed forces, demonstrated more than a decade ago that women equal men in their ability to tolerate gravity forces, respond to stress and survive in extremes of heat and cold. A 2015 Army study found no reason to exclude women from any military occupational specialty as long as they measured up to newly established physical standards for their jobs. A few women have already met the physical, academic and leadership standards for the Army's demanding Ranger School and the Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course.

Myth No. 5

The typical homeless veteran is a man.

In a 2014study by the veterans advocacy group Got Your 6, almost half of the adult Americans who were shown a photo of a man who appeared to be homeless identified him as a veteran. The stereotype persists: a white man, often a Vietnam-era veteran, panhandling with a cardboard sign at an intersection and sleeping under a highway overpass or on the streets. He has long-term mental health issues and/or substance use disorders. Lily Casura found in a nationwide survey of thousands of female veterans that even these veterans, 40 percent of whom had themselves experienced homelessness, repeated such details when asked to describe a homeless veteran.

In fact, the Department of Veterans Affairs has found that female veterans  including those with children  are the fastest-growing share of homeless veterans. Based on VA estimates, between 20,000 and 40,000 female veterans are homeless. But most of these women, especially those with kids or histories of trauma, don't sleep on the streets or find shelter placements. They prefer to couch-surf with friends and relatives. Female veterans are two to four times as likely as their civilian counterparts to experience homelessness.

A previous version of this article misidentified Mary Jennings Hegar as an Army pilot; she was in the Air Force. The previous version also misattributed research about homelessness to veterans advocate Lily Casura; some homelessness figures conflated findings from different sources.

Twitter: @jabell27

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.
John Spencer is a retired Army infantry officer and the chair of urban warfare studies at the U.S. Military Academys Modern War Institute.

I often wonder what people will say about the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan decades from now. What I will tell my children when they are able to understand the answers to questions about what happened over there. I am afraid I will forget. As every day passes, I struggle more and more to remember all the names of the soldiers in my platoon, the hard-to-pronounce places we fought, the day-to-day things we did during my two year-long combat tours in Iraq.

But what worries me most is that we, as a nation, will forget.

On Veterans Day we pay tribute to all American veterans, living and dead. We show our thanks in many ways. We attend Veterans Day parades, visit veterans hospitals or ask veterans about their service. But most important, we remember.

Even for those wars with no living veterans  whether the American Revolution or World War I  we can remember. We can access digital archives of battlefield maps. We can examine lists online of personnel who fought in each battle. We can read written orders from commanders, or personal diaries, journals and letters sent by soldiers to their loved ones.

Unfortunately, our recent conflicts will be difficult to remember this way. That is because for the first 10-plus years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military lost or deleted a majority of its field records. And, although the military has since made a greater commitment to preserve records, an outdated archival system limits their usefulness.

It may seem counterintuitive that records and battle reports were saved more reliably before the digital age. But as a 2009 Army report found, "The increasing use of electronic records  easy to create and move but also difficult to organize and easy to erase  made the situation more complicated."

In Iraq, in part because of concerns over transporting classified material, soldiers heading home were forced to turn in computer hard drives to be wiped clean and reimaged. My own computer held hundreds of reports written after daily patrols. I would note every soldier who went on the patrol, summarize our every action, list every person we talked to and often include photos. I recorded details and filed photos of the night in 2003 when an improvised explosive device wounded three of my soldiers so badly that they needed to be evacuated back to the United States. I documented the night in 2008 when a grenade was thrown at my soldiers, missed and killed a nearby Iraqi child.

My unit analyzed patterns in our digital data and used it to inform our operations. At the end of my rotations, I handed off files for a few specific projects to the relief units. But everything on my computer was deleted. Hand-written logs were similarly shredded and burned when we rotated out.

Army units' failure to keep field records attracted the attention of Congress after an investigation by ProPublica and the Seattle Times in late 2012. Some of the most pressing concerns were about whether veterans could receive proper care with no records of their wartime experiences. Medical records in the military are well kept and rarely lost. But if a soldier who served in Iraq or Afghanistan needs to be assessed for service-related injuries or requires therapy for combat-related stress, there are often no records of the incidents that may have caused their injuries. There are often no documents to help a soldier remember and unpack what happened.

The lack of records also has operational consequences. An abundance of invaluable knowledge, often earned at great cost, wasnt available for new units that rotated into conflict zones on a yearly basis. Newly arrived troops typically would receive intelligence from Army organizations about the area, enemy forces and local populations, but they were for the most part deprived of firsthand accounts from the soldiers who preceeded them. So American units that were sent to Mosul in 2014 werent able to learn from the contextual lessons or ground tactical information collected by soldiers deployed to Mosul in 2004.

Military records have major public uses, too. Once declassified, primary source documents down to the soldier level help movie and documentary makers, historians, authors, teachers, students and other interested citizens create the stories that shape our collective memories and narrative of a particular war. They are how we research the military service of relatives weve never met. My wartime memories are our wartime memories.

One of the many official solutions to the problem of lost records was a call in 2013 to all Army units to turn in any records that had not been deleted. But because servers and hard drives from 2003 to 2013 had been erased, much of that data was simply gone. The files sent in after the call, combined with what had been previously collected by Army historians, resulted in 150 terabytes of data now held by a small organization within the military responsible for cataloguing its history. That might sound like a lot, but individual Army units can produce 4 to 5 terabytes during a 12-month rotation. There have been hundreds of Army unit deployments in the past 15 years.

For those years when there are large gaps in the account of our military history, the Pentagon could enhance the official record with documentation from individual soldiers and embedded journalists. Many soldiers have personal journals, photos, emails and letters home they may be willing to share. And already in the public domain are reports and film footage from hundreds of war journalists  Sebastian Junger, Mike Boettcher and The Washington Post's David Ignatius prominent among them  who lived with military units for weeks and months at a time. Of course, reporters weren't allowed to publish classified information. And letters from soldiers to their families and friends may offer a somewhat different view of the wars than did the official reports that were lost. Still, those documents could prove useful.

For the years since 2013, the military faces a different problem: a massive amount of data that is largely unusable.

Military units have stopped ordering field records to be deleted. But in many cases, when soldiers end their deployments, their files are just left on the computers handed over to their replacements, who can choose to delete them or leave them untouched, along with years of past profiles.

And even when data is collected and stored more centrally, it often lacks metatags, keywords or descriptions from file creators, making it practically impossible to search, sort or analyze.

The military should update its record-keeping. It should be unlawful to ever delete another combat record. Daily combat records should be tagged, stored in a searchable cloud database and attached to individual soldiers files  as their medical records are. That way soldiers could leave the service with complete histories of their combat experiences.

This is not a military issue. It is an American issue. Records and stories of the military and individual soldiers are an important part of how we remember. We should act before the forever wars become the forgotten wars.

Twitter: @spencerguard

Read more from Outlook:

Five myths about female veterans

My father doesnt talk about Vietnam. But hes grown prouder of his service.

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President Trumps longtime director of security told House investigators this week that a foreigner offered to send five women to Trumps hotel room during his visit to Moscow in November 2013.

Keith Schiller told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he rejected the offer from the man, who appeared to be Russian or Ukrainian, according to two people familiar with the discussion. He quickly dismissed what appeared to be a suggestion of procuring prostitutes for Trump, they said.

No, man, were not interested in that, Schiller told the man, the people said.

The offer came at the end of a late-morning planning meeting that Schiller attended when he accompanied Trump to Moscow for the annual Miss Universe pageant, which was produced by a company that Trump owned.

The 2013 trip was at the epicenter of one of the most salacious claims in a now-famous research dossier financed by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign. The document alleged that Trump consorted with prostitutes during his time in Moscow  a claim the president has vehemently denied.



Then-director of Oval Office Operations Keith Schiller stands in the Red Room before President Trump speaks at an event at the White House in July. (Jabin Botsford)

Schiller, Trumps longtime bodyguard who frequently accompanied him on trips, told congressional investigators that he saw no compromising, illicit or illegal behavior by Trump while in Moscow, according to the people.

The offer to send women to Trumps room came after Schiller said he attended a meeting in Moscow with about 15 people to discuss details of the pageant. Among those in attendance were Russian pop star Emin Agalarov and his father, Aras Agalarov, a business magnate with close ties to the government of President Vladimir Putin, according to the people familiar with his interview.

[Longtime Trump bodyguard to face questions about 2013 Moscow trip]

As the meeting broke up, Schiller said a man he did not know approached him and asked if he would like five women to visit Trump at his hotel room later that night, he told investigators.

Schiller told the committee that he joked about the offer with Trump later that evening as they headed back to their hotel, the people said.

Can you believe one of these guys wanted to send some women up to your room? Schiller recalled saying.

An attorney for the Agalarovs said they had no knowledge of the offer to Schiller.

Categorically, neither one of them has any knowledge of that happening, said Scott Balber, a lawyer for Emin and Aras Agalarov. They didnt do it, they didnt hear it, and they have no reason to believe its true.

A White House attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An attorney for Schiller declined to comment on the details of his interview.

NBC News first reported that the House Intelligence Committee asked Schiller for details about the episode.

Schillers long and close relationship with Trump makes him a potentially valuable witness to investigators examining Russias meddling in the 2016 election. The former director of security at the Trump Organization joined Trump at the White House, serving as director of Oval Office Operations until September.

In his House interview, Schiller said he traveled as many as five and six days a week with Trump when the businessman ran the Trump Organization, adding that he could not remember the precise details of all their trips.

Schiller told investigators that he and Trump stayed at a luxury hotel during their 2013 Moscow trip, although he said he could not recall its name. He said he was not certain if he stayed on the same floor as Trump, although he acknowledged that they usually had adjoining rooms.

According to people familiar with the questions, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Schiller if he saw Trump engage in any compromising behavior while on the trip.

"No, no, not to my knowledge," Schiller responded.

He also said he did not remember accompanying Trump on any other trips to Russia but told investigators that he could not rule it out. Schiller agreed to review his passport and get back to the committee with more information, according to people familiar with his interview.

Alice Crites, Rosalind S. Helderman and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
David McCullough is trying to stage an intervention with Congress.

The renowned historian's latest book, "The American Spirit," a collection of speeches he has delivered over the past three decades, begins with his 1989 address to a joint session of Congress and ends with 2016 remarks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, both of which included calls for lawmakers to live up to the history of the building.

This week, his publisher, Simon & Schuster, is delivering the book to every member of the House and Senate with an inscription letting them know they can enact change and help close the gap to common ground.

If they still do not get the message, McCullough is happy to be more clear: Stand up to President Trump.

I recommend that people in public office stand up and speak out, and particularly in the halls of the great Congress of the United States, that absolute acropolis that weve created on Capitol Hill, McCullough said in a 40-minute interview this week.



Author David McCullough at the National Book Festival in September. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the biographies "Truman" and "John Adams" is most definitely not a fan of Trump's presidency. He says the former reality-television star and real estate tycoon is devaluing the dignity of the Oval Office through his actions and misstatements about basic facts.

Its as if we put someone in the pilot seat whos never flown a plane and who doesnt seem to know where were on our way to, and who frequently tells us either inaccurate or grossly misleading information about how the flight is going, he said. Irresponsible words matter, and it cannot be permitted to go on.

But the historian is in some ways more upset with members of Congress, particularly Republicans, for not forcefully reining in their president. There is precedent for a greater show of leadership, in his view  a speech delivered in 1950 by Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine , one he pointed to in that 2016 Statuary Hall address.

Not quite 3 years into her first term, Smith spoke out against Joseph McCarthy, the senator from Wisconsin whose attempt to root out communists had gripped the nation. Smith accused her fellow Republican of character assassination.

In an address that the Senate Historical Office now calls "A Declaration of Conscience," Smith spoke for 15 minutes, with McCarthy looking on, of the Senate's debasement to "a forum of hate."

Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America, she said. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. She asked her fellow Republicans not to ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny  Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear.

McCullough said he appreciated the tenor of a recent speech on the Senate floor by Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona denouncing Trump with a simple enough. But the author noted that it was a retirement announcement  and that Flake was not going to stay for consequences.

She wasnt about to retire. She was a freshman, McCullough recalled of Smith, who would go on to serve 24 years in the Senate. It wasnt supposedly her turn to speak out, and she spoke out against Joe McCarthy in a way nobody had, and it changed the course of history.

[GOP senators struggle: Speak out against Trump, or achieve something for their silence]

Like many of Trumps critics, McCullough struggles with the question of just what can be done beyond strong denunciations that so far appear to have had little effect on the president. But he says that showing outrage could help: Stand up. Show courage. Show what you stand for. What are your principles. What do you believe?

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is a fan of McCulloughs work. This week, he helped distribute some copies of The American Spirit to other senators as a board member of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. A former history professor, Blunt says McCulloughs previous subjects would find todays political environment quite familiar, particularly Adams, who in 1800 lost to Thomas Jefferson in one of the most bitter presidential elections ever.

That was probably the most analogous time to now, what people say about each other, Blunt said. The newspapers were clearly Republican or Federalist  they made no bones about it. It was like MSNBC and Fox every day, and you got the paper you wanted to read.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who now holds Smiths seat and considers her an idol, considered taking Flakes route and that of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), another fierce Trump critic not seeking reelection next year. But Collins said the weight of the issues in Washington led to her decision to stay in the Senate rather than run for governor.

Some people feel that they can be more effective in bringing about change from the outside, and I respect that view, but I dont share it, she said.

Collins has not been as outspoken in her Trump criticism, but she has done so with her votes, notably in opposing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in July.

McCullough views faint criticism of Trump from Republicans as evidence of a larger regression of the entire Congress over the past few decades. The paralyzing partisanship that has set in, he says, suppresses the instinct to speak out on principle if it means crossing a member of ones party. It also makes it vastly more difficult for the body to function  to pass laws and run the government.

As an institution in the aggregate and the whole, it is bad, he said, because weve lost the capacity to bridge the divide between political parties with friendship and respect.

In the late 1970s, after writing a book about the Panama Canal, McCullough moved to Washington to essentially lobby on behalf of the Panama Canal Treaty, which faced fierce criticism. He considers Howard Baker, the Senate Republican leader at the time, a hero for supporting the treaty and rounding up the votes for it.

[Were getting nothing done: McCain, in emotional return, laments what the Senate has become]

Its a good thing that McCulloughs next book does not involve Washington, given his feelings for the state of its institutions. Hes writing about Ohio and its unique role in history, including its early days as part of the Northwest Ordinance. Its founders demanded three guarantees: freedom of religion, free education and no slavery.

Ive always wanted to write a book about people youve never heard of, who did something noble, who did something admirable, he said.

That does not mean that he has given up on todays leaders. One reason, perhaps, stems from how much time he has spent studying the history made on Capitol Hill. I still have faith in Congress, as strange as that may sound in this moment, he said.

In 2016, while accepting the Freedom Award from the Capitol Historical Society, McCullough closed out a speech by pointing to the statue of Clio, the Greek muse of history. He was standing in Statuary Hall, which served as the first chamber for the House. Clio sits atop an ornate clock that was in the chamber then, helping mark time but also marking history.

What you say today will be remembered and recalled, and will count for or against you in the future, in what is called history, McCullough said in the interview. Shes saying: How do you want to go down in the history of our country? What kind of record do you want to leave? And I think thats something that everyone who serves in Congress ought to always have in mind.

Read more from Paul Kane's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore declined Friday to rule out that he may have dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, though he said he did not remember any such encounters and described such behavior as inappropriate.

If I did, Im not going to dispute these things, but I dont remember anything like that, Moore said on Sean Hannitys radio program, when asked whether he had dated 17- or 18-year-old girls at the time.

In the same interview, Moore denied outright the claim of Leigh Corfman that he had initiated sexual encounters with her when she was 14. I dont know Ms. Corfman from anybody, he said. The allegations of sexual misconduct with her are completely false.

Moores comments came as GOP leaders scrambled Friday to limit the political damage from the allegations. Two Republican senators  Steve Daines (Mont.) and Mike Lee (Utah)  withdrew their endorsements of Moore after his interview with Hannity.

"Having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the US Senate," Lee wrote in a tweet.

In a tweet, Daines was more succinct: "I am pulling my endorsement and support for Roy Moore for U.S. Senate." Daines also retweeted Lee's statement.

Earlier in the day, the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulled out of a joint committee it had set up with Moore, depriving him of a fundraising vehicle for the final weeks of the campaign. At the same time, current and former national party leaders admitted that they have little power to force Moore from the race. The special election is Dec. 12.

The comments came a day after The Washington Post published a story in which a woman said Moore had initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was 14 and he was 32. Three other women said he had asked or taken them on dates when they were teenagers. None of those three women say Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

President Trump, who has been traveling in Asia, said Saturday that he has been too busy to focus on the allegations against Moore.

I have not seen very much about him, about it, he said in Vietnam. And you know I put out a statement yesterday that hell do the right thing.

The president referenced a statement delivered Friday by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside."

In the interview with Hannity, Moore recalled knowing two of the older women, Gloria Thacker Deason and Debbie Wesson Gibson, as well as their parents. I knew her as a friend, he said of Gibson, who has said Moore asked her on a date when she was 17, after speaking at her high school. If we did go out on dates, then we did, but I do not remember that, Moore said.

When asked about Deasons claim that he provided her wine on dates when she was 18, Moore said: In this county, its a dry county. We never would have had liquor.

Alcohol sales began in Etowah County in 1972, years before the alleged encounter, and The Post confirmed that wine was for sale at the time at the pizzeria where Deason remembered Moore taking her when she was under the legal drinking age of 19.

The legal age of consent for sexual activity in Alabama is 16, as it was at the time of the alleged encounters.

After my return from the military, I dated a lot of young ladies, Moore told Hannity.

When Hannity asked Moore again if he could unequivocally say he never dated anybody in their late teens when he was 32, Moore said, Thats out of my customary behavior.

Hannity said he would not want his 17- or 18-year-old daughter dating a 32-year-old. I wouldnt either, said Moore.

And you think thats inappropriate, too, thats what youre saying? Hannity asked. Yes, the candidate replied.

Allies of Moore in Alabama attacked the women. What these women are doing is such a shame, state Rep. Ed Henry (R) said in an interview Friday with Huntsville station WVNN-AM. As a father of two daughters, they discredit when women actually are abused and taken advantage of. Theyre not using their supposed experience to find justice. Theyre just using it as a weapon, a political weapon.

At the same time, more national party leaders came forward to call on Moore to leave the race. Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections, said Mitt Romney, the partys 2012 presidential nominee. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

Romney joined his former rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), in calling for Moore to step down immediately. Other Republican Senate leaders, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have called on Moore to quit on the condition that the reports prove to be true  but they have not yet described a process for assessing the truth of the claims.

[Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32]

Strategists saw little hope for pushing Moore out of the race. They backed away from discussions for a Republican write-in campaign, which they said would be doomed if Moore stayed in the contest. That, in turn, raised the possibility that Moores scandal will remain a problem for the party into the 2018 midterm elections, as candidates are asked to take a position on the abuse of minors and intergenerational dating.

Other Republicans are going to be dragged into it, said Steven Law, chief executive of the Senate Leadership Fund, a political committee affiliated with McConnell that opposed Moores nomination.

Indeed, on Friday, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) issued a blistering rebuke of Moore and his supporters  some of whom, she said, had offered explanations that are "beyond disturbing." Comstock represents a swing district in the Washington suburbs and is seen as highly vulnerable in next year's midterms, particularly after the defeat of six GOP state lawmakers whose districts overlap with hers in this week's Virginia elections.

Back in Alabama, Democrats familiar with the campaign of their nominee, Doug Jones, said no new ad buys or investments were planned to take advantage of the story.

[Democrats make significant gains in Virginia legislature; control of House in play]

None of the women who said Moore pursued them sought out The Post. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moores Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls.

Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they dont know one another.

In interviews since the publication of the story, state officials have either said they would investigate the claims or raised questions about the timing of the revelations, suggesting that the women were politically motivated.

After a Friday event with military veterans, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) told reporters that the people of Alabama deserve to know the truth, but she didnt hint at any particular actions she could take.

One reporter followed up, asking if the word of the women could be trusted. Why wouldnt it be? she asked.

One possibility, floated Friday night by some Republicans, was that Ivey could delay the election if Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it known that he would leave the Trump administration to run for his old seat.

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Republican, told the Washington Examiner that biblical stories offered a justification for the acts Moore is accused of committing. "Take Joseph and Mary," Zeigler said. "Mary was a teenager, and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

Even before the accusations became public, Senate Republicans were asked repeatedly about Moores more extreme positions on the proper role of the Christian faith in American political life.

Now, party leaders expect new questions about the Moore accusations. "I'm prepping my candidate for what he is going to say if he is asked," said one GOP campaign manager for a top 2018 race, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to not draw attention to the race. "At the very least, it is something that everyone is going to have to answer: Do you think Roy Moore at the age of 32 with a 14-year-old is like Mary and Joseph?"

During the 2012 elections, GOP Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana made inaccurate or controversial comments about rape that allowed Democrats to make inroads with female voters across the country. Party leaders later said those comments helped prevent Republicans from winning the Senate majority that year.

Law blamed former White House aide Stephen K. Bannon and his website Breitbart News for creating problems that could endanger Republicans in 2018. This is what Stephen K. Bannons French Revolution looks like  chaos and embarrassment for the Republican Party, Law said.

In the interview with Hannity, Moore described the allegations as a false attack by his political opponents.

This is a completely manufactured story meant to defrock this campaign, Moore said. They dont want to acknowledge that there is a God. And we have refused to debate them because of their very liberal stance on transgenderism.

Alice Crites in Washington and David Nakamura in Danang, Vietnam, contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
For the first time in its history, the Senate will require members and their aides to undergo training to prevent sexual harassment, a victory for advocates and people affected by decades of persistent misbehavior in Capitol Hill offices.

The Senate approved a bipartisan resolution late Thursday to require periodic anti-harassment training for senators, aides and interns. The secretary of the Senate will certify that each office has completed the required training during each Congress.

The measure was the Senates first effort to change its policies in response to allegations of persistent sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. Since the revelation of harassment and abuse allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein, multiple news outlets, including the Washington Post, have documented stories of lewd comments, unwanted touching and other examples of sexual misbehavior in the halls of Congress.

[How Congress plays by different rules on sexual harassment and misconduct]

By passing this resolution, we take a step to ensure that all who work for the Senate are able to do their job without feeling unsafe or uncomfortable, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), co-author of the resolution, said in a statement.

No place of work is immune to the all-too-prevalent scourge of sexual harassment, but we in Congress have a particular duty to set high standards of conduct, he said.

Lawmakers have come under pressure in recent weeks to improve the Hills workplace culture, particularly for younger women staffers who are the most frequent victims of abuse. Before the passage of Thursdays legislation, sexual harassment training was optional across the legislative branch; it remains voluntary in the House.

More than 1,300 former congressional aides signed an open letter to congressional leaders calling on Congress to implement mandatory training and reform the process for filing complaints. The letter objected to the requirement that victims pursuing recourse undergo counseling and mediation before taking legal action.

We believe that Congresss policies for preventing sexual harassment and adjudicating complaints of harassment are inadequate and need reform, the letter from former staffers stated.

Changing the way complaints are filed and addressed will be harder than requiring anti-harassment training. The law establishing the dispute-resolution process for workplace complaints on Capitol Hill was passed in 1995 and has not substantially changed since then. Several bills are in the works to make the process more victim-friendly.

Making harassment training mandatory in the Senate sends a clear message: harassment of any kind is not and will not be tolerated in Congress, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, said in a statement after the chamber approved mandatory training.

An earlier version of the legislation created a survey designed to periodically measure the scope of sexual harassment in the upper chamber. This language was not approved as part of the final resolution, though a Senate aide said leaders of the Rules Committee intend to make sure a survey is carried out.

Training must be completed by each Senate employee covered by the legislation within 60 days and repeated at least as often as each congressional session.

The Washington Post is examining workplace violations on Capitol Hill and the process for reporting them. To contact a reporter, please email elise.viebeck@washpost.com, kimberly.kindy@washpost.com or michelle.lee@washpost.com.

Read more at PowerPost
An apparent accident at a Russian facility is suspected of causing a recent spike in radioactivity in the air over much of Europe, according to a report by France's nuclear safety agency.

The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, or IRSN in French, says the release of the isotope ruthenium-106 posed no health or environmental risks to European countries. It said the plausible zone of release was between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, and suggested random checks on food imports from the region as a precaution.

In a report released Thursday based on monitoring in multiple European countries, the IRSN said the ruthenium appeared to come from an accident in late September involving nuclear fuel or the production of radioactive material. The French agency said the ruthenium did not appear to come from an accident in a nuclear reactor because that would have released other elements.

Germanys Federal Office for Radiation Protection said last week that elevated levels of ruthenium were reported in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France since Sept. 29 but that they posed no threat to public health.

After reports of a ruthenium-106 leak from a plant in the southern Urals first appeared, Russias state-controlled Rosatom corporation said in a statement last month that it had not come from its facilities.

The claim that the contamination had a Russian origin is unfounded, it said.

The French report says that the radioactivity peaked in late September and early October and affected a majority of European countries but that it is no longer detected in the atmosphere over Europe. However, it said that if such an accident were to happen in France, authorities would set up a perimeter around the site to monitor health, safety and food quality.

Ruthenium-106 is used for radiation therapy to treat eye tumors and sometimes as a source of energy to power satellites.

The French agency said that ruthenium releases could come from the reentry of a satellite into the Earths atmosphere but that the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that no satellites powered by ruthenium reentered the atmosphere during the time period.

France, which has an extensive nuclear energy industry, has reported several low-level nuclear incidents recently but none involving ruthenium or threats to public health.
The interior of the Grand Mosque of Brussels. Belgium has withdrawn the right of residence to the mosques longtime imam, Abdelhadi Sewif. (Eric Lalmand/AFP/Getty Images)

The Grand Mosque of Brussels is Belgium's biggest and oldest site of Muslim worship. Officials in Belgium say it is also a hotbed for Saudi-backed Islamist extremism.

Now the Parliament wants the country's leaders to take over the sprawling complex that is just steps from the gleaming core of the European Union. It is the latest attempt to tighten security after radicalized Belgians emerged at the heart of terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels in the past three years.

The sudden move against the mosque underscores the challenge for Western European leaders seeking to embrace what they call a "European Islam" that endorses pluralistic values. For too long, many officials say, they have stood by as imams preaching the ultraconservative interpretation of Islam favored by clerics in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have worked among their populations, encouraging frustrated descendants of North African immigrants to wall themselves off from mainstream society.

But the crackdown on the mosque puts Belgian policymakers in the unusual position of picking and choosing among strains of Islam in the name of protecting freedom of religion and democracy. The dilemma grew more pressing after Europe was struck repeatedly by Islamic State-inspired terrorist attacks, often perpetrated by disgruntled citizens born inside the countries they have targeted.

[Belgian woman killed in New York terrorist attack was the most beautiful mom]

The mosques leaders are trying to live in their splendid isolation with a radical point of view, and their aim is not to integrate into our society. And that is a big problem, said Servais Verherstraeten, one of the leaders of a Belgian parliamentary commission that recommended last month that the government break the Saudi governments 99-year, rent-free lease on the mosque. The lease was handed to Saudi King Faisal in 1969 as a goodwill gesture by Belgian King Baudouin.

We want in Belgium an Islam practiced by people who respect our constitution, who want to integrate into our country, Verherstraeten said. There is the perception that there is something to hide in the most important mosque in the country.

Leaders of the mosque and community center, which is run by the Mecca-based World Muslim League, deny that they espouse a conservative vision of Islam and say that they are working to improve openness.

I dont see any contradiction between what were trying to do and European Islam, said Tamer Abou El Saod, executive director of the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium, which oversees the mosque.

Abou El Saod, a polyglot Swedish businessman, swooped in to run the center at the end of May after his predecessor upset the parliamentary commission with halting testimony at a hearing. Several lawmakers publicly questioned what he was covering up. That former director was a replacement in 2012 for a director who was quietly asked to leave Belgium after authorities said he advocated radical ideology.

We can admit that we had some internal management issues, said Abou El Saod, who described himself as someone who was sent in to fix problems. This place has maybe not been communicating enough in Belgium.

An imam who talks to people here has to be different from one in Oman, he said in an interview in his office at the mosque, where photographs of Mecca adorn the walls along with blurry likenesses of the old Belgian and Saudi kings.

The Saudi lease is unusual but not unique. The Saudi government operates an Islamic school near Washington Dulles International Airport, for example, and it helps fund mosques and imams around the world.



Belgian counterterrorism officials acknowledge that a move against the crowded mosque will do little to stem radicalization that more often comes over the Internet or on the street, and they say they have no evidence that its imams have advocated violence or lawbreaking.

But they also say they were mistaken to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude to the squat, plain concrete mosque tucked in the corner of central Brusselss Cinquantenaire Park, across the street from apartment buildings and the boxy office block that holds the E.U. diplomatic headquarters. On Fridays, worshipers spill from prayers and mix with joggers and suited bureaucrats strolling along the parks manicured paths.

In the half-century since the Saudi government took over the site, Belgian authorities say, the mosque has espoused the hard-line interpretation of Islam favored in the conservative Persian Gulf monarchy. That has undermined an effort originally intended to help serve Belgiums then-growing Moroccan and Turkish guest-worker communities, they say. The center is Belgiums main hub for conversions to Islam, and its religious and Arabic-language schools teach 850 pupils.

The Belgian move came at the same time the newly named Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced in Riyadh that he wanted to fight extremist interpretations of Islam.

[Attempted Brussels attack could have been far worse, Belgian prime minister says]

Belgiums migration agency is also trying to expel the mosques top imam, an Egyptian cleric who is accused of preaching an ultraconservative vision of Islam to his flock during his 13 years in Belgium.

The reassessment came after the March 2016 attacks on the Brussels airport and subway that killed 32. Those attacks were led by Belgians with Moroccan roots. They are not believed to have had ties to the mosque, but the violence disturbed Belgian security services and led to a broad rethinking of their strategy.

Although the Saudi government is the leading funder of the World Muslim League, which operates the mosque, the group is independent and more than 50 other Muslim nations contribute to its operations. The leagues top leader, Secretary General Muhammad Al-Issa, was Saudi justice minister until last year.

The mosques longtime imam, Abdelhadi Sewif, said that he is mystified that the Belgian state is attempting to expel him and his family by refusing to renew their residence permits. He is appealing the decision, and he joked that his trim beard was too short and his floor-scraping robe too long to satisfy radicals.

In an interview, Sewif said that he had always advocated a moderate form of Islam and that he never called Muslims to cut themselves off from mainstream society, as Belgian authorities have accused him of doing. He said he was searching his past words for what had made him a target. Authorities have not let him see the evidence against him.

When I tell Muslims that Muslims love their Muslim brothers and have to help each other, does this then mean you should hate the rest? he said. I have always fought violence and spoken up against it. . . . I have always preached about forgiveness in Islam and in behavior.

[Attacker in Nice is said to have radicalized very rapidly]

But despite the mosques protests, the Belgian government appears ready to break the lease and boot out its imams.

Sewif is a dangerous man to the national security of our country, Theo Francken, the Belgian state secretary for asylum and migration and an anti-immigration hard-liner, told the RTBF broadcaster.

Francken declined a request for an interview. After this article was published, he disputed the characterization that he is an anti-immigration hardliner, saying on Twitter that I am not ANTI-immigration, I am in favor of a DIFFERENT, clear and firm migration policy and 100% against a laissez-faire, laissez-passer migration policy of ambiguity and arbitrariness. And I work in that direction with the support of the vast majority of our population.

Lawmakers said that they were taken aback by the testimony of the then-director and one of Sewifs imam colleagues earlier this year.

The hearing was astonishing, said Gilles Vanden Burre, a member of the parliamentary commission. It was not an open and progressive and tolerant Islam.

Inside Parliament, the two mosque officials outlined a vision of starkly regressive gender roles and a prickly attitude toward mainstream Belgian society, Vanden Burre said.

Its not objectively proved that they have a link with jihad or radicalization. But all those processes to show their goodwill to integrate, they never did, he said.

Segregation leads to alienation, Belgian security officials said. And that can make people more receptive to Islamist militant messages.

Officials said there was no recent shift at the mosque that set off alarm bells to cause the new approach. Instead, several said, it was Belgium that had changed. Policymakers have hardened their attitudes in a challenging era of terrorism.

Many of the guys say they are not violent, but then they actually do preach hatred, said a security official who is familiar with the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal intelligence matters. The issue that we have in Belgium is that people are teaching an Islam that is incompatible with Belgium or Europe.

Editor's note: After publication, this article was updated to include comment from Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Theo Francken.

Annabell Van den Berghe contributed to this report.

Read more

Could the flow of migrants to Europe be stopped?

In once-welcoming Italy, the tide turns against migrants

Migrant flow to Italy shrinks as government in Rome cracks down

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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In this Nov. 1 photo, a man tries on VR goggles at the stand of Russias state-controlled broadcaster RT in Moscow. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia plans new measures to restrict U.S. media organizations working here after a Russian English-language television channel said it was pressured into registering as a foreign agent in the United States, a senior legislator said Friday.

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said lawmakers will take up changes to the Russian law on foreign agents to extend it to the news media. Until now, that law has been applied only to nongovernmental organizations that receive financing from abroad and engage in what the government determines to be political activity. The law has been criticized as a way for the Russian government to marginalize civil society institutions.

U.S. intelligence agencies said in January that RT and the news agency Sputnik, along with a network of "quasi-government trolls," interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of the Russian government by pushing anti-American propaganda, claims that RT denies.

[RT agrees to register as an agent of the Russian government]

Volodins address to the Duma, the lower house of parliament, signaled that the government now plans to treat U.S. media organizations in Russia as agents of the United States seeking to meddle in Russian affairs.

The Duma is obliged to give its laws two preliminary approvals before passing them, which Volodin said could happen next week. After that, the law would move to Russias upper house, which supported retaliating to the restrictions on RT at a hearing this week.

All actions of American media outlets indicate that their policy and positions are totally unfriendly and that this interference is absolutely undisguised, Volodin said. Since such decisions are being made on U.S. territory in relation to our TV channels, it will be right for us to respond to these actions.

The current Russian law does not restrict activity but requires organizations to place the foreign agent label on all their documents.

It was not clear how this label would apply to U.S. media groups, how it could affect their work or how many outlets would be affected.

Pyotr Tolstoy, a deputy speaker of the State Duma, suggested that one possibility is that media outlets affected by the new law could be required to include a statement identifying themselves as foreign agents on their social media pages.

RTs registration as a foreign agent follows a months-long back-and-forth with the Justice Department over whether it was required by U.S. law to register as an agent of the Russian government.

The American Justice Department has left us with no choice, RTs editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, said in a statement posted on the organizations website Thursday. Our lawyers say that if we dont register as a foreign agent, the director of our company in America could be arrested, and the accounts of the company could be seized. In short, in this situation the company would not be able to work. Between those consequences and registering as a foreign agent, we are forced to choose registration.

[Putin says Olympic disqualifications are sign of U.S. meddling in Russias elections]

She added, We will continue to work and continue to fight this as long as its possible.

RT, previously known as Russia Today, disputes that it is an agent of the Kremlin, arguing that it merely offers alternatives to mainstream news coverage.

Reciprocal measures will be put in place to ensure the same restrictions as the Americans are now trying to impose on Russian media outlets, Tolstoy said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled that he would sign such a law last month, when he told a conference of foreign policy scholars that Russia would respond immediately and reciprocally to any efforts to limit our mass media.

Russian news media reported in October that the upper house of the Russian parliament had drawn up a blacklist of at least five U.S. media outlets whose activities in Russia could be restricted in response.

This month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow was preparing a surprise in response to pressure on Russian media outlets in the United States. Asked by a Russian television talk show host Thursday whether The Washington Post and the New York Times should pack their suitcases, she said: Hold on, not all at once  well unpack our surprise bit by bit.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment to The Post on Thursday.

U.S. intelligence agencies in January described RT America TV as a Kremlin-financed channel operated from within the United States, [which] has substantially expanded its repertoire of programming that highlights criticism of alleged U.S. shortcomings in democracy and civil liberties.

The assessment also said RT America has positioned itself as a domestic U.S. channel and has deliberately sought to obscure any legal ties to the Russian government, but behind the scenes, the Kremlin staffs RT and closely supervises RTs coverage, recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs.

[Russian prosecutors begin searching for foreign agents among civic groups]

The Russian law on foreign agents in recent years has been used on nongovernmental groups that do not toe the Kremlin party line. Memorial, one of Russias oldest human rights groups, which for three decades has sought to expose Soviet mass killings and arrests, and the Levada Center, an independent polling agency, were registered as foreign agents by Russias Ministry of Justice. The organizations have disputed the decision.

Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

Twitter bans Russian government-owned news sites RT and Sputnik from buying ads

Amid Russian investigation, Twitter is making all of its ads public

Kremlin: Attempts to tie U.S. investigations to Russia baseless and ludicrous

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
President Trump listens as Kirstjen Nielsen, his nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, speaks at the White House in October. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

Five Democratic senators say they want to hold an additional confirmation hearing for Kirstjen Nielsen, the Trump administrations nominee to lead the Homeland Security Department, citing a Washington Post report Thursday detailing efforts by the White House to pressure the agencys acting director on a major immigration decision.

Nielsen testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and made no stumbles, calmly fielding questions on a range of security topics. But five members of the confirmation panel  all Democrats  sent a letter to committee leaders later Thursday calling for her to return for further questioning under oath.

On Thursday, the panel postponed its confirmation vote on Nielsen, after senators submitted 197 written follow-up questions about her testimony. That vote is now set for Tuesday morning.

[White House chief of staff tried to pressure acting DHS secretary to expel thousands of Hondurans, officials say]

Democrats who signed the letter say they now have more doubts, after The Post described White House attempts to pressure the acting homeland security secretary, Elaine Duke, to expel tens of thousands of Hondurans, as well as Duke's plans to resign.

These developments raise important new questions not only about the political interference of the White House in a key national security matter, but also about the qualifications and appropriateness of Ms. Nielsens nomination to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the senators wrote in their letter, which was addressed to the committees chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo).

The nominee must now answer questions about her ability to maintain independence from her current immediate superior, the White House, they wrote.

As the majority party, Republicans control the committee, and Johnson could decline the request to bring Nielsen back. He has stated he wants her nomination to proceed quickly, and Senate staffers say the White House is eager for her to get a full confirmation vote on the Senate floor before the Thanksgiving recess.

[Kirstjen Nielsen, Trumps nominee to lead Homeland Security, sails through confirmation hearing]

During Wednesdays confirmation hearing before the panel, Nielsen took questions from senators on matters ranging from climate change to violent extremism and cybersecurity. Nielsen, 45, a former DHS official who is the deputy White House chief of staff, appeared to breeze through the session, demonstrating familiarity with a range of security issues.

The five senators who sent the letter  Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), Gary C. Peters (D-Mich.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.)  said Dukes potential resignation was another factor requiring additional testimony from Nielsen.

Given the possibility, based on news reports, that the Departments Senate-confirmed Deputy Secretary may soon resign, Committee members should be given a chance to revisit Ms. Nielsens management qualifications in a formal hearing setting, they wrote.

Nielsen was picked for the top DHS job by her boss, John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff. She was his chief of staff when he was DHS secretary until July, when Duke, the deputy DHS secretary, took over acting leadership of the department and its 240,000 employees and 22 sub-agencies.

The Posts article Thursday described last-minute efforts by Kelly and the White House homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, to persuade Duke to terminate the provisional residency of some 57,000 Hondurans living in the United States for nearly two decades with what is known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

The decision to renew or terminate the TPS permits is supposed to be left to Homeland Security officials in consultation with the State Department. White House officials have repeatedly said the decision would be Duke's to make.

Duke opted to end TPS protections for about 2,500 Nicaraguans but decided she lacked sufficient information to make that decision for the much larger group of Hondurans. Instead, she granted them a six-month extension  to the frustration of Kelly and others at The White House.

Jonathan Hoffman, the top DHS spokesman, disputed the accounts that Kelly called to pressure Duke, insisting she had reached out to him to seek advice on the TPS decision-making process. He said claims Duke plans to resign have zero factual basis.

DHS must also announce in the coming weeks whether it will extend, modify or cancel TPS for roughly 50,000 Haitians and 200,000 Salvadorans whose residency is due to expire early next year. On Wednesday, senators did not ask Nielsen for her views on TPS or how she would make the decision.
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This article was published 10/11/2017 (1832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MIAMI  Jose Andres has long been a legend in the culinary world.

These days, the Michelin-starred chef is a bona fide rock star in Puerto Rico. The Spaniards tremendous humanitarian efforts to feed residents on the hurricane-ravaged island have been nothing short of epic.

The restaurateur  who owns hot spots in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles and Philadelphia  travelled to Puerto Rico five days after hurricane Maria tore through the island on Sept. 20 and went right to work.

Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune Chef Jose Andres speaks during Day 2 of the Obama Foundation Summit at Marriott Marquis in Chicago on Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2017.

The chefs huge effort is just the latest led by cooks, who are showing a more agile, locally based way to feed people after a disaster.

As of last week, he and his non-profit World Central Kitchen had served more than 2.2 million people hot, fresh food such as soups, stews and paella, reports the New York Times, which adds that no other single agency, including the Red Cross and Salvation Army, has come close.

Andres  who also has a restaurant in the northern town of Dorado, Puerto Rico, called Mi Casa  teamed up with chefs, restaurants, food trucks, schools and volunteers to find any functioning kitchen and do what needed to be done. At one point during the effort, as many as 500 volunteers were making 30,000 sandwiches a day.

Desperate islanders were appreciative.

Hes much more than a hero, Jesus R. Rivera told the Times. The situation is that still some people dont even have food. He is all that is keeping them from starving.

It hasnt been an easy task. In fact, the massive undertaking has been a little nuts, says the man himself.

Every day I have this personal anxiety inside, Andres told the Times. We only came here to try to help a few thousand because nobody had a plan to feed Puerto Rico, and we opened the biggest restaurant in the world in a week. Thats how crazy this is.

Now that the group is winding down and Andres is back home in the Washington area, the Washington Post reports that the celebritys non-profit may focus more on relief work.

Every single big NGO (non-governmental organizations), they want to talk to us, Andres told the newspaper. Were becoming a food operation. Weve been noticed by many, and now we have a lot of friends who are thinking out of the box and big.

 Miami Herald
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With the legal status of nearly one million immigrants in the United States up in the air, Manitoba is keeping an ear to the ground for people entering Canada on foot  literally.

We have ground sensors, seismic sensors, RCMP Sgt. Cory Myers said of the integrated border program enforcement team, listing some of the tools it uses to patrol the 520-kilometre stretch of the Canada-U.S. border in Manitoba.

He and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) counterpart Chief Ben Tame spoke at a Manitoba Criminal Justice Association conference Thursday, about their roles and the growing number of asylum seekers walking into Canada in recent years.

CAROL SANDERS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS RCMP Sgt. Cory Myers (left) and CBSA Chief Ben Tame say asylum seekers are thoroughly vetted.

The 2016 election of U.S. President Donald Trump was followed by a spike in the number of refugee claimants picked up by RCMP near the Manitoba border community of Emerson, from 19 in January to 170 in March. Since summer, there have been around 80 arrivals a month.

Border authorities and resettlement agencies in Manitoba are on alert again, after recent announcements the Trump administration plans to remove the temporary protected status of 300,000 immigrants in the next 14 months, and to deny permanent residence to those who arrived as children of undocumented migrants.

If theres a big flood, I dont know what were going to do, said Abdikheir Ahmed, director of Immigration Partnership Winnipeg. He said the provincial governments temporary shelter at Gretna, where refugee claimants are taken after theyre picked up by the RCMP and screened by CBSA, is helping by taking in about 60 to 80 asylum seekers a month.

If thats overwhelmed, I dont know whats going to happen.

Canadas border security isnt at risk when theres a surge in asylum seekers, the RCMP and CBSA said.

Its been growing year after year, but its nothing new to us, said Myers.

In 2013, there were fewer than 80 border-crossers intercepted in Manitoba. In 2014, it rose to nearly 140. In 2015, there were about 230 and in 2016, there were more than 400.

In the first nine months of 2017, there were more than 900 border incursions, Myers said.

He talked about the journey for many that started thousands of kilometres away from Canada and the high price people paid to get to Manitoba, including thousands of dollars to smugglers and some losing body parts to frostbite during the final leg of the journey.

One Ghanaian woman died of hypothermia at Noyes, Minn., close to the Canadian border.

Most arrive in good health, with their identity documents, but some come with nothing, Myers said.

Theyre taken to the CBSA and arent released until theyre screened and cleared, Tame said.

We need to know who were dealing with, Tame said.

For example, the CBSA checks criminal backgrounds, fingerprints and databases to see if someone has a criminal background, he said.

Weve made a commitment to the Canadian public that no asylum seeker leaves until a risk assessment is done.

Its not up to the CBSA to grant protection to a refugee claimant, he said. Were determining whether or not theyre eligible to make a claim.

Only after theyre identified, pass the risk assessment and eligible to make a refugee claim, are they free to leave and apply for asylum. We have a process thats very secure, Tame said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
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Before he was accused of mailing a series of explosive packages within Winnipeg, 51-year-old Guido Amsel was questioned by a friend about his involvement in a 2013 bombing at his ex-wifes home, court heard Friday.

The accuseds friend and former co-worker, Ollie Ehrmantraut, testified that he asked Amsel about the 2013 explosion at his ex-wife Iris Amsels home while they were out target shooting together in 2014 or 2015. The explosion damaged the front of Amsels home and garage in the RM of St. Clements in December 2013, leaving a large crater behind and scattering debris onto neighbours property, court previously heard.

I had asked him about, Hey, did you bomb Iriss house?' Ehrmantraut said. He looked at me  there was no comment, there was no yes, there was no no. And just in further conversation, we were talking, he said, Do you think if people get bombed like that, do you think the second one would miss?'

MELISSA TAIT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Ollie Ehrmantraut, who owns Ollie's Garage in East Kildonan, received a package that turned out to be a letter bomb allegedly sent by Guido Amsel.

Guido Amsel has pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder arising from the 2013 explosion as well as for three bombs that were mailed in July 2015 to his ex-wife and lawyers involved in their divorce. One of the packages caused an explosion at a River Avenue law office that seriously injured lawyer Maria Mitousis.

He is presumed innocent.

Ehrmantraut, who developed a business relationship with Amsel in the automotive repair industry starting in 2002, said he didnt think Amsels silence about the bombing was normal.

In my experience with Guido, I did not find that to be normal, no, he said during questioning from Crown attorney Mitchell Lavitt. Theres no filter with Guido. If hes got something to say to you, hell say it.

Ehrmantraut said he interpreted Amsels remark about a second bombing as just a comment and didnt notify police, who he knew were already investigating.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Saheel Zaman, Ehrmantraut said he didnt remember ever having any other conversations with Amsel about the 2013 explosion.

Ehrmantraut, who described Guido Amsel as one of the smartest people I know, said he remained friends with the couple after they split, but he said Guido would rant to him about the legal process and his belief that his ex-wife was paying off dirty police and lawyers. He would sometimes become upset to the point of shaking during these conversations, Ehrmantraut said.

This was the main thing in his life that was dragging him down, he said.

The auto shop building Ehrmantraut owned and leased out was the site of a police-controlled explosion on July 4, 2015 after an explosive package was delivered there. It was addressed to Iris Amsel at Ollies Auto at 599 Washington Ave., even though she actually worked at a different business on the same lot, Ehrmantraut testified. The package exploded at 597 Washington after a police bomb robot tried to destroy it with a water cannon, court heard.

Ehrmantraut said he remembered shaking the package next to his head after a co-worker retrieved it from the Canada Post deliveryman. He said he speculated at the time that the chicken scratch handwriting on the package looked like Guido Amsels and joked that it might be a bomb. Amsels defence team questioned him on that, pointing Ehrmantraut to his police statement in which he said the package looked like it had been addressed by a child.

The return address on the package was 127 Larsen Ave. Auto mechanic Kevin McKenzie, who brought the package in from the mail that day, testified Friday that he couldnt find any such address when he looked for it later.

I just rode by on my bike and couldnt find it, he said.

McKenzie, who had previously rented space from Guido Amsels autobody business Euro-Tech, said hed thought the package was a book.

I actually thought it looked like Guidos writing, he said. I actually made that comment, he added, even though it had been years since he last saw Amsels handwriting.

The trial, presided over by provincial court Judge Tracey Lord, is set to wrap up in mid-December.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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Part of the skull of a prehistoric giant beaver  which rivalled the modern bear in size  has been found in a gravel pit in southeastern Manitoba.

The jaw bone, including a long front incisor and the back teeth in near-perfect condition, was discovered in a quarry south of Steinbach.

The giant beaver fossil is the first of its kind found in Manitoba  and only the fourth in Canada  even though it has long been believed to have existed in the province. There is a replica giant beaver skull on display at Oak Hammock Marsh.

(Randy Mooi / Manitoba Museum photo) Giant beaver jaw (Castoroides) compared to a modern beaver (Castor canadensis). Part of the skull of a giant beaver has turned up in southeastern Manitoba.

The giant beaver species became extinct more than 10,000 years ago.

Graham Young, the curator of paleontology at the Manitoba Museum, said people often telephone the Winnipeg institution with what they think is an important find, but when a staff take a look, it usually turns out to not be the case.

This fellow just walked in around lunch time and said, Ive got these things, are you interested in seeing them? He thought maybe it was a pigs jaw because the front tooth is like a tusk, said Young.

Instead, its one of the best paleontological finds in Manitoba in recent years. The jaw bone has not yet been radiocarbon dated  its in a lengthy line behind numerous other fossils found in the province  but wood in the vicinity has been dated to 44,000 years ago.

This is an amazing piece, it really is, said Young. With so many bones, you cant tell what it is right away. With this giant beaver jaw, there was no question what it was immediately.

Not only is the jaw intact, but a dentist would give its teeth a gold star: the front tooth is almost 12 centimetres long.

Theres nothing more diagnostic than finding the jaw. The big front tooth is like a chisel on these giant beavers, Young said.

The man who brought in the fossil also donated an ancient bison vertebrae and a long, curved length of bone believed to be a rib from either a mammoth or mastodon.

(It could be a mastodon because a tree radiocarbon dated in the area was black spruce, Young said, and mastodon used to feast on black spruce sprigs. A mastodon tooth has also been found in southern Manitoba, near Blumenort.)

The donor has requested anonymity, and not to reveal the exact location the beaver fossil was found.

One thing to emphasize is theres a heck of a lot of gravel out there and its rare to find anything at all. To find bone, its a real needle in a haystack, said Young.

The period of the giant beaver was during the Ice Age, but the fossils time would have likely been during an interval when the ice sheet retreated to the north somewhat before advancing again south.

The tail of a giant beaver was skinny, not flat like the modern beaver, and grew to up to 2 1/2 metres long. Its been debated whether the giants were lodge-builders or made their homes by burrowing into the ground. Its front teeth are strong and long but shaped differently than todays rodent, so they didnt eat bark, Young said.

Its believed the giant beaver wasnt as prevalent as its family members are now in Canada.

The donated fossil jaw is in such good shape, the animal likely died near where it was found, Young said. Fossils are sometimes transported long distances by various natural forces.

Previous giant beaver fossils in Canada have been found near Old Crow in the Yukon, in New Brunswick and in the Don Valley area of Toronto.

The fossil at the Manitoba Museum is now undergoing a long, slow drying process in controlled-climate conditions that will take months, in order to reduce the chances of cracking.

The pieces we got have probably been sitting below the water table for probably over 40,000 years and are incredibly saturated, Young said.

Young believes the giant beaver went extinct around 11,000 years ago, along with about 25 other large animals due to the arrival of people in North America and the animals being stressed by climate change.

He hopes to eventually put the jaw on display in an exhibit of fossils found in southeast Manitoba.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
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News of a million-dollar gift Thursday was music to the ears of students benefiting from an intensive education program with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Two donations totalling $1 million to launch a new endowment fund in support of Sistema Winnipeg were announced at an event at Elwick Community School. Longtime supporters Tannis Richardson and the Michael Nozick family each donated $500,000 to Sistema, a daily music program of the WSO in partnership with Seven Oaks School Division and Winnipeg School Division thats free to participants. Its supported through an annual campaign with assistance from the WSO community.

The program began in 2011 with 30 students. Now there are 160 children in the program, from age 6 to 14 and from Grades 1 to 8. Its inspired by Venezuelas music education system, El Sistema.

Supplied Michael Nozick and Tannis Richardson (holding certificates) are lauded at Elwick Community School Thursday after donating $500,000 each to support Sistema Winnipeg.

El Sistema is one of the greatest gifts we can give these children, Richardson said in a WSO news release. Their grades improve, their self-esteem improves and their future prospects are made so much brighter.

Children attend Sistema three hours a day after regular school hours, five days a week,10 months of the year. Students are taught by trained music educators and professional musicians, including members of the WSO. Children start in the program in Grade 1 and have the opportunity to continue to Grade 12.

Daily schedules include nutritional snacks, group lessons (string, woodwind, brass), orchestra, choir, mentorship, music theory and community building.

These kids come from high risk communities, Nozick said in the release. When they have a program like this to give them structure and purpose, they flourish. The community benefits because were giving the students a foundation that will serve them throughout their lives, Nozick said. I strongly encourage other engaged citizens of Winnipeg to support this campaign.

A University of Manitoba study that started in 2011 found math and reading levels among Sistema students improved compared to expected grade levels, school suspensions dropped from 10 to one in the first two years, and chronic absenteeism dropped by 10 per cent in the first two years of Sistema.

The $1 million will be eligible for matching funds from the Canadian Cultural Investment Fund, resulting in a potential $2 million addition for the Sistema endowment fund, which will be housed at the Winnipeg Foundation.

The creation of an endowment fund is the first step towards sustainable, renewable funding for the program, which means we can focus our priorities on offering the best student experience, said Sistema Winnipeg manager Shannon Darby.

It enables us to look at new opportunities for growth, to enroll more students, and to develop a comprehensive program for our students entering high school, Darby said.
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Canadians are showing signs of donor fatigue, concludes a new report that drilled down into a decade of charitable giving nationwide.

The Giving Report, released online Thursday, used Statistics Canada research, and data from Canada Revenue Agency, to shed light on trends in donations and insights into how Canadians share the wealth.

The proportion of families who made donations fell to 39.9 per cent in 2015 from 45.3 per cent in 2006, the study found.

Tyler Anderson/National Post files

And it was the wealthiest in the country who showed the deepest dip in giving, said the report, compiled by CanadaHelps, a social-enterprise organization that raises money for various charities through online fundraising platforms.

The study found there are more high-income families in 2017 compared with a decade ago, but they are less charitable than previous generations.

The number of families in Canada earning from $150,000 to $199,000 annually rose eight per cent in the last 10 years; those earning $200,000 to $249,000 rose 10.2 per cent; and families earning more than $250,000 a year was up 8.4 per cent.

The three high income levels also saw the greatest decline in the average donation amount, dropping three to four per cent each in the last decade, the reports summary sheet stated.

In Manitoba, a province thats consistently ranked among the highest for its generosity, the numbers werent as bad, but theyre headed in the wrong direction, the report found.

In 2015, Manitoba still had the highest rate of donations with 39 per cent of families living here claiming donations on their tax returns. In 2010, that number was slightly higher, at 41 per cent.

The report highlighted some bright spots amid the doom and gloom of donor fatigue.

Online donations are rising. The report found that while Canadians are making fewer donations overall, online donations had risen 22.5 per year on CanadaHelps website between 2006 and 2016. The report gives credit for the uptick to the ease Canadians feel about donating online and the rapid pace of digital e-commerce.

Monthly donations are another bright spot. Canadians who use online platforms for monthly donations gave an average of $699 a year, more than twice as much as Canadians who give a one-time annual donation, which averaged $322.

Meantime, small charities rely more than ever on donations, the report said.

Eighty per cent of the roughly 85,000 charities in Canada had revenue of less than $500,000 in 2015. Those small charities, in contrast with huge corporate entities, depend on donations for 43 per cent of their revenue.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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OTTAWA  The federal government has unveiled its plan for sharing tax revenue from recreational cannabis with the provinces, while suggesting municipalities will be able to ban the sale of marijuana in their towns.

Liberal MP Bill Blair, a former Toronto police chief who is helping shepherd along the federal cannabis legislation, wouldnt say with certainty Friday whether towns can outright ban pot sales, but hinted that provinces would make such decisions.

It entirely depends on the regulatory regime that the province puts in place for the distribution of cannabis, Blair told reporters in Ottawa.

SETH PERLMAN / ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The federal government announced it plans to implement an excise tax to fund research, training and public-awareness campaigns associated with legalizing recreational marijuana.

He said he hadnt yet seen Manitobas proposal.

Our provincial partners have the jurisdictional authority to establish regulations for the distribution and the consumption of cannabis within their provincial boundaries, Blair said. Im very confident well all work collaboratively together.

The federal government also announced it plans to implement an excise tax to fund research, training and public-awareness campaigns associated with legalizing recreational marijuana.

The excise tax will send 50 cents per gram to Ottawa. Provinces can add as much as 50 cents to that to flow into their own coffers.

Blair was reluctant to reveal the multiple estimates his government has received but said that a $1 excise tax split equally between Ottawa and the provinces would bring an estimated $1 billion of tax revenue to split if 400,000 kilograms were sold in one year. He added that was a very high estimate and declined to offer a lower one.

That would be in addition to the 13 per cent charged for GST and PST. For example, an $8 gram of cannabis would cost between $9.54 and $10.04 after all taxes are factored in.

Medicinal marijuana users currently pay both PST and GST on their purchases.

In a joint press release, Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana and The Arthritis Society expressed concern that the excise tax will apply to medical marijuana users, saying it unfairly disadvantages patients.

The use of medical cannabis should be recognized in line with all other prescription medications and accordingly (be) exempt from taxation, CFAMM executive director Jonathan Zaid said in the statement.

The Liberals are taking public responses on the proposal until Dec. 7, and a week later will discuss their findings with the provinces.

Premier Brian Pallister said Friday it was premature to bring up tax revenues when governments should be concentrating on the health and social costs of legalizing cannabis. He also suggested that adding a new layer of tax on marijuana would enable those selling pot on the black market to thrive.

If legalizing cannabis is going to work, then the first concern should be to provide a product of good quality at low price, he told reporters in his office at the legislature.

Ottawas insistence on continuing to talk about taxing means the price will be higher and, therefore, the market uptake on cannabis would be lower. This would be a plan which gang distributors and black-market distributors would appreciate because it will keep the distribution system as it is.

Governments first concern, the premier said, should be protecting young peoples brains and protecting the lives of all of us, whether we choose to use the product or not.

Every time I hear the federal government talk about tax I think theyve got their priorities backwards, he said.

Pallister said the bulk of the health and social costs associated with legalizing marijuana will be borne by the provinces. He said its wrong to think that the province is going to reap a tax windfall beginning next July, when legalization occurs.

This is why this pot-of-pot-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow story thats going around needs to be addressed. This is not a panacea for the fiscal challenges our province or any other province faces, and those who think it is are deeply misguided.

Meanwhile, Blair said the federal consultation includes smaller communities as well as large cities.

We acknowledge and respect the important role that they play; their input in these discussions is open to us.

Blair also pushed back on the shocked reaction from premiers at an Oct. 3 meeting where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proposed the idea of equally splitting an excise tax. Premier Brian Pallister told the Free Press that day this proposal took everybody by surprise, comparing it to negotiating on a used car.

Blair claimed thats not accurate. I would not agree with the (idea) that it was sprung on them, he said.

 with files from Larry Kusch and Solomon Israel

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
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OTTAWA  A Winnipeg MP has stuck out his neck by supporting legislation that would put his governments feet to the fire because of how it would implement an international treaty on Indigenous rights.

Ive been shaking the tree quite a bit behind the scenes, said Robert-Falcon Ouellette, a Cree MP who represents the citys downtown. Im just trying to help those discussions along, in a public way.

In May 2016, the Liberal government adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada was one of four holdouts when the declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007. The former Tory government was in power at the time.

The declaration recognizes Indigenous Peoples basic human rights, as well as rights to self-determination, language, equality and land  but it is non-binding.

NDP MP Romeo Saganash has suggested Parliament hold the government to its pledges. In April, he tabled Bill C-262, which would compel Ottawa to take all measures necessary to ensure Canadian laws abide by the declaration, by implementing a national action plan that requires annual reports for 20 years, detailing the governments progress.

Ouellette appears to be the sole MP outside of the NDP to speak in favour of the bill, at least publicly.

Its great to make a policy announcement, but a policy can be changed (just) like that, Ouellette said.

The Liberals say the declaration has the partys unequivocal support, and ministers must consult with Indigenous groups and review how it fits with laws and federal policies.

Still, the bill could be a test of how much independence the party gives its MPs. Ouellette said hes aware of many Liberals who support the bill, or have wondered why the government doesnt have a similar bill in the works.

Ouellette spoke passionately this spring against the governments move to narrow Bill S-3, which would restore Indian Act status to First Nations women who lost it through marriage, along with their descendants.

Yet, Ouellette said his government hasnt been dragging its feet on Indigenous issues. Were two years in. I think were doing quite a bit; I think theres a lot to do.

Kathleen Davis, a spokeswoman for Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, said the party has no policy on the bill, suggesting there wont be any repercussions for those who support it.

We will ensure that the implementation of the declaration goes beyond just words. It must be translated into practical benefits on the ground, Davis wrote.

Private members bills dont generally become law unless the ruling party supports them.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
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A two-month police investigation into drug trafficking by individuals believed to be linked to organized crime has resulted in the seizure of cocaine, fentanyl, ecstasy and marijuana.

Winnipeg polices tactical unit executed search warrants at two city residences on Nov. 3. Police seized from a residence in the 100 block of Roslyn Road more than $150,000 in cash, seven pounds of marijuana, 29 fentanyl blotter tabs, restricted weapons and ammunition, trafficking related items and bike-gang paraphernalia.

Joel Richard Bruneau, 28, of Winnipeg, and a 21-year-old woman, who was not identified, face several drug trafficking and weapon charges.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Police display drugs, cash, and other items at the Winnipeg police headquarters Friday morning. From left: Det. Steve Mitchell, in plaid, and Insp. Max Waddell.

The tactical team then executed a raid at a residence in the 300 block of Gertrude Avenue. Police seized 2.5 kilograms of cocaine, 502 grams of ecstasy and 75 kilograms of the painkiller Benzocaine, along with various items related to the trafficking trade.

Nicholas Dylan Bruneau, 31, of Winnipeg, and Thomas Ross Halpin, 29, of Winnipeg, face several drug trafficking charges. A fifth individual was arrested several days later. Jordan Houston, 26, of Winnipeg, has also been charged with possession for the purpose of drug trafficking.
Opinion

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This article was published 09/11/2017 (1833 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister has always been a bit coy about whether he has ever enjoyed the pleasures of cannabis. I prefer beer, has become his standard retort when asked if he ever took a hit.

Regardless of whether the premier smoked, inhaled or appreciated the mystic qualities of marijuana, you can bet that he will learn to love the tax revenues that will flow from a legalized marketplace.

Manitobas plan for the legalized wholesale and retail sales of cannabis is pretty thin right now. Pallister has only confirmed a plan to have Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries act as a wholesale distributor, with retail sales going to the private sector. Left out of the plan are any details about the age at which Manitobans will be able to purchase and consume legal pot and the taxes and other levies that will be applied.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister listens as Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen talks about the Manitoba plan for cannabis retail and distribution at the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg, Tuesday, November 7, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

The latter issue is of particular importance to a premier racing the clock to fulfil several important fiscal pledges before the next election. Chief among them is his 2016 election promise to cut the provincial sales tax to seven per cent from its current eight-per-cent level. That one pledge alone is expected to cost as much as $300 million.

It should be noted that is no ordinary pledge. When the former NDP government raised the PST by one point to help fund infrastructure  after promising never to do it  then-Opposition leader Pallister called it a crime against humanity and took the province to court.

Throughout the 2016 election, Pallisters solemn promise to cut the PST became the central point of his campaign. Right now, it stands as a political challenge that, if unrealized, could drastically hamper his plans for re-election.

In politics, a promise to remedy another politicians broken promise is a pretty big deal. Failure to live up to that lofty pledge would erode his credibility with core supporters.

However, as it stands right now, the premier has very little hope of achieving that goal without increasing the deficit and adding to the debt.

Although he is making modest progress on reducing the deficit, it is unlikely he will do so before April 2020. That means Pallister may have to actually borrow more money to pay for his tax cut, a scenario that is politically risky and fiscally idiotic.

If Pallister has another strategy outside of borrowing money to pay for a tax cut, he hasnt let anyone in on it.

The premier has steadfastly refused any suggestion of raising other taxes to help him balance the budget. Even the recently announced carbon tax is expected to be managed on a revenue-neutral basis. In other words, Pallister is going to spend or give back the gross majority of what is collected.

Federal transfer payments? Manitoba, along with all provinces, are girding themselves for a slowing in the growth of health-care transfers from Ottawa.

On the spending side, Pallister has undertaken austerity measures to slow expenditures in key program areas, but they will not amount to anywhere near $300 million annually.

Grow his way out of the deficit? Unfortunately, current forecasts show that the Manitoba economy is expected to grow less than two per cent next year and the year after. Thats not robust enough to provide the premier with an easy path to a PST cut.

What the premier needs is a revenue windfall that is politically palatable and can be used entirely to help balance the budget. Thats where legalized marijuana comes in.

Think of it as Reefer Revenue Madness.

There is no doubt that legalized pot will provide government with added revenue. What isnt known is how to maximize revenue without skewing the market to make illicit pot attractive to users.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has confirmed what many people know: the higher the price in the legal market, the smaller the consumer base. In its November 2016 report on cannabis consumption and pricing, the PBO calculated that while casual or occasional users are willing to pay a premium to get legal pot, frequent users are not.

Governments that have already legalized marijuana or those about to do so are searching for the retail-price sweet spot that is higher than illicit but does not encourage people to go to the black market for their purchase. Even those forerunning jurisdictions in the United States that were out ahead of the legalization curve are still, to some extent, looking for the right tax level.

In Colorado, recreational marijuana is taxed at an effective rate of 30 per cent, but thats not a single, flat rate tax. It includes both regular and special state sales taxes, a 15 per cent state excise tax and local sales and excise taxes. The results have been pretty impressive.

Since 2014, when Colorado became the first U.S. state to legalize pot, the state treasury alone has collected more than $500 million in marijuana taxes. That is much-needed revenue in an economically uncertain time.

However, even Colorado has concerns about continued use of the black market. As a result, on July 1, it will cut its special retail marijuana sales tax by two points, to eight per cent. The modest reduction is an attempt by Colorado to actually boost tax revenues by capturing a greater piece of the overall market.

What is Manitobas sweet spot? That is the multimillion-dollar question for the premier and his cash-strapped government. Taking into account the experience of other jurisdictions, the potential revenue may not be enough to cover the entire cost of cutting the PST back.

Colorado, with a population of 5.5 million, earned $500 million in three years; if Manitoba were able to create the same market conditions, Pallister could expect to earn about $30 million a year. Not chump change, but also not a game-changer for a premier staring down a $300-million pledge.

There are other ways Pallister can earn revenue off legalized pot. There will be increased income and business taxes from the growers and retail operations that are expected to be established over the next year. And Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries will collect fees for its work wholesaling and distributing product to private retailers; MLL channels all of its profits, after operating costs, to government general revenues.

It may still not add up to $300 million, but it will provide some help to the premier in reaching his fiscal mountain top.

Manitobans could certainly help by ensuring that all of their disposable income set aside for recreational cannabis is spent in authorized private retailers. The province could even mount a marketing campaign to connect consumption with fiscal sustainability.

Smoke a joint, balance the books.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 09/11/2017 (1833 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallisters government went stone cold silent on legal retail cannabis Thursday while federal officials considered their reaction to Manitobas plan of allowing municipal councils to have the final say on local sales.

The federal government will brief reporters in Ottawa Friday morning on its plans to legalize and regulate recreational cannabis.

But the Pallister government did not make the premier or any cabinet ministers available to the media Thursday and a communications staffer intervened when a reporter tried to ask Justice Minister Heather Stefanson about any possible reaction from Ottawa.

Dreamstime/TNS Cannabis marijuana

The province did release revenue projections and other data from a Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries expression of interest on handling all aspects of legal cannabis.

Those data projections were based on the public sectors handling cannabis, rather than the system of private retailers selling under public oversight which Pallister announced Tuesday.

The province has not yet made a decision on taxes that will be applied to pot sales, another factor the MBLL figures lack.

And MBLLs projections were filed before this weeks revelation that the Pallister government will allow municipal councils to decide if theyll allow local cannabis retail sales, using the same authority that lets them control Sunday shopping or choose whether the community will be wet or dry.

Prospective private retailers have until Dec. 22 to submit their own business plans.

The Crown corporation estimated that Manitobas annual black market is 25 million grams of cannabis at a value of $217 million to $250 million.

MBLL forecast a net profit of $12.7 million if it captured just 20 per cent of the current market. Within five years, MBLL said, it projected that an 80 per cent market share, including edible cannabis and lotions, would make a profit of $94 million.

The figures MBLL used suggest it was looking at an initial price of $5.83 a gram.

So far, Health Canada will not outright confirm whether municipalities can use their bylaws to ban pot sales.

The proposed act provides scope for provinces and territories to enact legislation that contains minimum conditions, so that public health and safety objectives are consistently addressed across the country, spokesman Eric Morrissette said.

He said that provinces could boost the minimum age, lower the possession limit, or restrict personal cultivation and could also provide their municipalities the choice of making their own decisions in those areas.

This approach allows provinces, territories and municipalities to take specific local considerations into account, wrote Morrissette.

He supplied the transcript from a Sept. 11 committee meeting, in which MPs asked senior federal officials whether provinces  not municipalities  could effectively ban marijuana sales by lowering the personal possession limit to zero.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Minister of Justice and Attorney General Heather Stefanson during the announcement of a hybrid model for distribution and retail of cannabis at the Legislature, Tuesday.

Diane Labelle, Health Canadas general counsel, said a court would likely find that illegal and order the province to change its rules.

Where the purpose of a federal act would be frustrated by the provision of a provincial one a court would examine whether there is a conflict, or whether the purposes of the federal act are frustrated, and could find the provincial law inoperable to the extent of that frustration, Labelle told the House health committee.

Conservative health critic Marilyn Gladu said that means a lack of clarity over whether towns and First Nations reserves could keep their communities dry or face a similar legal crackdown.

I certainly think thats concerning, she said. Theres a lot of abdication of leadership from the federal Liberals on this; theyre rushing ahead without thinking of any of these details and all these questions keep coming forward.

Federal NDP health critic Don Davies said courts would likely strike down municipal bans if they unjustly discriminate against a legalized form of commerce.

Balance is going to be the touchstone; there could be justifiable exceptions, Davies said. But if its nothing but a subterfuge, a cover, to frustrate federal policy without a justified reason, then I think theres going to be problems.

Manitoba Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk said Thursday that municipal pot bans likely wont work in practice, noting that Steinbach allowed alcohol sales in recent years.

I think Pallister needs to reflect, she said. Social norms are governing the day and I think hes being too cute. It would be more valuable if he put in a structure that actually reflected the use of other substances, like alcohol and cigarettes, for the whole province.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 10/11/2017 (1832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  A Manitoba MP is calling on the federal government to take a leadership role in Ukraine, by leveraging United Nations peacekeepers to flush out Russian separatists and put an end to Russia-backed fighting.

The UN has to stand up for the respect of Ukraines territory and their sovereignty, Conservative defence critic James Bezan said Thursday.

Bezan was in Toronto with Tory Leader Andrew Scheer to announce part of the partys 2019 election platform while calling on the Liberals to do more for Ukraine.

Canadas military already trains Ukrainian soldiers at locations on the stable, western side of the country, before they return to the front against Russia. Theyve also helped train police officers to stamp out corruption and patrol cities.

But Bezans idea would have Canada lead a United Nations force to remove the Russian troops and proxies that crept into Ukraines eastern flank in 2014, and push them back into Russia and allow Donbass to heal, he said, using the term for the region.

Bezan said Ukraine first requested peacekeepers in 2015, and that Canada could champion a draft proposal that is before the UN.

We would bring onside enough of our friends and allies and like-minded nations, to get enough leverage on Russia, he said.

Liberal MPs arent so sure.

Winnipeg MP MaryAnn Mihychuk, who has Ukrainian roots, said its been a topic of conversation, but that sending peacekeepers to the eastern front seems unlikely.

Mihychuk said when the Ukrainian prime minister visited Ottawa last week, the government discussed extra supports at the front line to ensure the integrity of that boundary, and to help one of our best friends.

But she said that close relationship means Canada would likely not be seen as a neutral third party in any arrangement.

You can count on Canada providing more supports to Ukraine. How it will be, Im not sure.

Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette said any peacekeeping effort would likely give recognition to the semi-autonomous states in eastern Ukraine that have been forced to break away, something Canada and other western countries would try to avoid.

Its a very dangerous slope, Ouellette said. How much do we want to escalate the conflict? Thats the question to ask.

Bezans announcement came ahead of a UN peacekeeping conference in Vancouver, which starts Tuesday. In September, Canada had just 68 peacekeepers abroad.

The Liberals pledged last summer to offer up to 600 soldiers and 150 police officers for UN peacekeeping missions, and many expected them to join one of the high-risk missions in Africa. But the Liberals havent made concrete promises, and its unclear if theyll do so next week.

Ukraine is a logical choice, Bezan said, rather than sending our troops into a convoluted battle against militants (and) terrorists.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement Thursday that shed discussed the viability and utility of peacekeeping and policing in Ukraine with the countrys officials, as well as the United States, Germany and the UN.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 10/11/2017 (1832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

University students opposed to tuition increases disrupted the Manitoba legislature by dropping leaflets into the chamber Thursday, while accusations and insinuations flew that there was collusion from some MLAs.

With four minutes to go in question period, about two dozen students in two sections of the public gallery stood up, unfurled large Stop Bill 31 banners, released strings of postcards theyd signed and dropped leaflets onto the chamber floor.

Security staff led the protesters out peacefully.

It was the second consecutive day students had been tossed out of the building. NDP education critic Matt Wiebe said a group sat in the hallway outside Premier Brian Pallisters office Wednesday morning, before building security told them to leave the legislature.

Speaker Myrna Driedger was seething Thursday, as she told the departing students theyd been informed they couldnt demonstrate or be disruptive during question period. Driedger told MLAs some of the group were mocking her as she left.

I am very concerned to see this happen, Driedger said. Im really concerned that there was any participation by anyone in this room.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew immediately told Driedger: There was no encouragement.

Pallister said he accepted Kinew at his word, but wanted to know why New Democrat MLA Nahanni Fontaine ran out of the chamber as the students were being ejected. Kinew and Fontaine later both told reporters shed dashed out to get a briefing note on a health-care issue.

Back in the chamber, Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard complained the rules do not allow Pallister to mention an MLAs absence. Driedger upheld the complaint and told Pallister not to do it again.

The final day of this legislature session was increasingly testy. In recent days, Driedger has had to chide MLAs for their heckling and inappropriate language.

Fontaine told reporters some Tories treat her frequent questions about cuts to womens reproductive health services as a joke. It does offend me as a woman, she said.

However, Tory MLAs were also commenting Thursday on Twitter that they find it offensive when Fontaine, on occasion, responds to their statements in the house with: Isnt that adorable?

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2017 (1832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prairie Theatre Exchanges poster for its Citadel Theatre co-production Ubuntu (The Cape Town Project)  depicting an African immigrant looking in wonder at a snowfall  promises something the play itself doesnt deliver.

Be glad. The image suggests were in for the kind of cultural comedy clash that might gratify the schadenfreude of bone-chilled Canadians as an African immigrant faces the challenges of life in a strange, cold new land.

Those elements are there in traces, but the play  a collaboration between Canadian and African artists initiated in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2005  is primarily an emotionally intense drama that examines the immigrant experience in an uncompromising yet poetic way.

SUPPLIED The play uses the South African Xhosa language in some scenes, which will have audience members paying closer attention to understand whats going on.

Its plot runs in two lines. Jabba (Andlie Nebulane) is a South African man suffering bouts of pain and anxiety as a result of the void left in his life by his father, who left Africa for Canada three decades earlier, when Jabba was only a year old. His sole connection to the man is a single photograph and the monthly payments sent to him all his life.

On the advice of a Sangoma (shaman), Jabba flies to Toronto to find his father and put to rest the lingering malaise of his life. Instead, Jabba meets a wall of resistance represented by the professor (David Jansen) seen in the photo with his father and the professors angry daughter Libby (Erin McGrath), who works in the university library.

The story of Jabbas father Philani (Mbulelo Grootboom) is recounted in parallel flashbacks. Philani comes to Toronto to study microbiology to do his part to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic afflicting his country. While working part time in the library, he meets Sarah (Tracey Power), an emotionally frail ornithology student, and the two lost souls fall in love.

But as the relationship deepens, it emerges that it is Philani who is the more troubled of the two, haunted as he is by the notion his medical studies may be taking him from his destiny of becoming a Sangoma himself.

The two plots intertwine in unfailingly interesting and unexpected ways. Over the course of the plays 95 minutes (with no intermission), director Daryl Cloran (who was one of the six original creators of the play along with Grootboom, Nebulane and Jansen) steadfastly avoids the soothing cliches hinted at in the poster. It helps that the cast here is superb. There may be differences in the approaches of Canadian and African theatre artists, but you wouldnt know it from the seamless display of talent here.

Cloran achieves harmonious effect through stylized movement, depicting, for example, boarding an aircraft as a clockwork procedure set against a backdrop of a wall of suitcases (kudos to set designer Lorenzo Savoini). The drama also uses dance to relay character. The courtship of Philani and Sarah is practically a ballet, and when an opportunity presents itself, the whole cast engages in a rousing gumboot dance, not so much to clarify a plot point, but to let off the steam that accumulates within the tight, intense narrative.

SUPPLIED

The title translates to I am because you are, an African concept of human interconnectedness that the audience is obliged to take to heart, given that whole scenes are played out in the South African Xhosa language without benefit of translations.

In those scenes, you may find yourself paying closer attention to understand whats going on, even if you dont speak Xhosa. That represents the works singular, sneaky success: in a time in history when immigrants are treated with unprecedented suspicion and hostility, the play compels the higher, nobler impulse to understand.

randall.king@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @FreepKing

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On Wednesday and Thursday, the defense ministers of the NATO countries met in Brussels to discuss plans for a major military escalation in Europe. As the Trump administration stokes conflict with Russia and China in the Pacific with threats of US nuclear attack against North Korea, NATO planned a major upgrade of its military facilities in Europe to wage war with Russia, as well as a renewed intervention in Afghanistan.

NATO is planning two major new military command centers in Europe. One, likely in France or Portugal, would coordinate large-scale naval operations to transport US troops to Europe and destroy Russian warships in the Atlantic. The other, likely in Germany or Poland, would coordinate ground transport of NATO forces across Europe to attack Russiaincluding ensuring that internal borders in Europe did not halt rapid transit of NATO strike forces to the east.

In its article reviewing these plans prior to the summit, the German news magazine Der Spiegel bluntly wrote, In plain language: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.

In his press conference in Brussels, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg tried to blame this situation on Russia. We reduced the command structure at the end of the Cold War, because tensions went down, said Stoltenberg, [but] we have seen a Russia which has over many years invested heavily in their military capabilities, modernized their military capabilities, which are exercising not only conventional forces but also nuclear forces, and which has been willing to use military force against a neighbor: Ukraine  NATO has to be able to respond to that.

Claims that the NATO buildup is a response to Russian aggression are political lies. Russia is carrying out military exercises on its own soil. It is NATO that, after a quarter century of Middle East wars and toppling a pro-Russian Ukrainian government with a coup in Kiev in 2014, is sending its troops up to Russias borders. Trumps threats to annihilate North Korea with fire and fury like the world has never seen on the anniversary of the US atom bombing of Nagasaki this year, was an unmistakable sign of the aggressive and frankly insane role of the NATO imperialist powers.

At the Brussels summit, NATO officials made clear they are planning a major land war in Europe against Russia, which fields the worlds second-largest nuclear arsenal after the United States. Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimondas Karoblis said building the new bases was key, as delay in transporting troops and weapons across Europe to fight the Russian army means more casualties, additional risks and losses ... Time is very important here.

Explaining the comments of Karoblis, the Washington Post claimed that the speed with which NATO can respond to any Russian aggression could make the difference between fighting to defend NATO borders and a much more grinding effort to retake territory that has already been lost.

Such discussions of NATO war planning hide from the public that what NATO is planning is a war that would rapidly escalate towards a devastating nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia that would leave hundreds of millions or even billions of people dead.

This is widely recognized by government officials and foreign policy analysts. Mike Kofman of the US Center for Naval Analyses wrote that the problem with the fixation on conventional deterrence in the Baltic fight is that, just as in the old standoff between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, this battle is fraught with opportunities for nuclear escalation. Most Russian experts I know in the military analysis community, including those in Russia, dont see much of a chance for conventional battle with NATO to stay conventional.

Reviewing the risk of a NATO-Russia war breaking out in the Baltics, the US web site the National Interest commented, Such a war will almost certainly escalate into a full-up nuclear war between the planets only two nuclear superpowerswhich means everyone loses.

Nonetheless, the Brussels summit aggressively pushed a NATO buildup in the Baltic states and Scandinavia against Russia. Finland joined 11 other countries in a program to acquire large stockpiles of US air-to-ground precision-guided weaponry. This came after Sweden held its largest military exercise in 23 years in September, with 19,000 Swedish personnel and US, French, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Estonian and Lithuanian forces. In March, Sweden brought back the draft in a policy that defense officials said was aimed to prepare the country for war with Russia.

More broadly, the NATO summit discussed war plans around the world. The EU powers made a commitment to send 3,000 more troops to participate in the US-led occupation of Afghanistan. Amid escalating tensions between Turkey and its principal NATO allies, the United States and Germany, a deal was reportedly struck between Turkey, France, Italy and Spain to collaborate on developing missile systems for Turkey.

This drive to war is objectively rooted in policies pursued by the NATO powers, led by the United States, for over a quarter century since the Stalinist dissolution of the USSR in 1991. Washington waged wars with the support of various European powers in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and beyond. While Washington aimed to use its military might to cement its world hegemony as the dominant power in the NATO alliance and dominate the Eurasian landmass, these wars proved to be horrific, bloody and costly debacles that altogether claimed millions of lives.

While Washington is threatening a major war in East Asia, aimed in the final analysis at blunting the growing challenge to US imperialist interests posed by China, conflicts are also surging inside the NATO alliance itself. Especially after Germanys 2014 decision to re-militarize its foreign policy, the election of Trump, and Britains vote to exit the European Union (EU) in 2016, which removed Americas closest European military ally from the EU, tensions among the major NATO powers have exploded.

These tensions came to the fore shortly after Trumps election, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs in an attempt to cut off German car exports to the United States.

In a planning document consulted by Der Spiegel, Strategic Perspectives 2040, the German army foresaw the possibility of a disintegration of the EU and the eruption of wars across Europe. After decades of instability, it wrote, one could have a situation where EU enlargement is largely abandoned, other states have left the EU, and Europe has lost its global competitiveness in many areas. The increasingly disordered, sometimes chaotic and conflicting world has dramatically changed the German and European security environment.

Under these conditions, NATO officials stressed their plans for continued collaboration with the EU even as EU countries, led by Germany and France, announced plans for a joint military pact. The Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), to be signed in Brussels on November 13, is reportedly designed to pool resources to create joint EU weapons systems, set up an EU military command structure, and facilitate joint operations by EU troops of different nationalities. However, this pact would exclude not only the United States but also Britain, which is leaving the EU.

NATO officials, aware of broad opposition to war with Russia in the European population, proposed that the EU help coordinate the broader political efforts for promoting the war drive. NATO will be in close talks with governments, banks, police and intelligence services across Europe which are tasked with trying to impose war plans on the European population.

Stoltenberg said, Of course, military mobility is not just about the military. It requires a whole-of-government approach. So its important that our defense ministers make our interior, finance and transport ministers aware of military requirements.

The main danger in this situation is that broad masses of the working class in Europe and around the world are not aware of the how pressing the possibility of a catastrophic global war truly is, and how devastating the casualties from such a conflict would be. This is why the WSWS stresses the urgency of building an international anti-war movement based on the working class and a socialist and anti-imperialist perspective, and asks for its readers active support in spreading its materials opposing war.
New Zealands Labour-NZ First-Green Party government has taken office this month amid heightening anxiety within the ruling elite over growing anti-capitalist sentiment and sympathy for socialist ideas among sections of the population.

Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and NZ First leader Winston Peters, an anti-immigrant populist, both declared after the election that capitalism had failed and new measures were needed to revive its human face. In fact, the Labour-led coalition is a capitalist government that will accelerate the assault on living standards at home, and prepare for imperialist wars abroad.

Moves are already under way to strengthen the powers of the state and role of the unions to police the working class and suppress emerging resistance by the working class to the deepening social austerity measures.

In her first major appearance as prime minister-designate, Ardern told a NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU) conference on October 25 that while she would introduce a series of union friendly policies, such as restoration of tea breaks and raising the minimum wage, working together with business would be key to her governments operations.

Ardern praised Air NZ, declaring that when business and workers join together, we can achieve great things. When the company was losing money and looking to cut jobs, she said, the high engagement cooperation between workers and employers, saved the company and the future of the business was transformed.

Ardern failed to mention the destruction of 180 jobs in 2013 when Air NZs Auckland engineering base was moth-balled, and the closure of seven regional flight networks from 201416 saving $1 million a month. The cuts followed job losses at the Christchurch Engine Centre, Safe Air and in technical operations. Another 60 staff were axed in 2015 when the airline moved its heavy maintenance operations to Singapore. The sackings and closures were imposed with the collaboration of the then Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), now part of E Tu.

As a result of decades of collaboration between the unions, the state and corporations to slash jobs and conditions, workers have largely abandoned these discredited organisations. Less than one in five workers is a union member, mainly concentrated in the state sector.

This historic collapse raises the prospect that class struggles will erupt outside the control of the unions. For this reason, Labour is promising measures to bolster their position. This includes restoration of the right of union access to workplaces, removing the ability of employers to deduct pay for work-to-rule and low-level protest actions and restoring the right of workers to initiate collective bargaining under the wing of the unions.

Labour will introduce industry-wide Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs), agreed by businesses within an entire industry and the unions. FPAs will set basic standards for pay and employment conditions, according to job type and experience, including for non-union members. Ardern claimed this would be done by government, businesses, and unions, sitting around the table together.

In other words, the unions through the FPAs will act as an arm of corporate management to tie the working class even more closely to the state.

Extensive anti-working class prohibitions on strikes within the Employment Relations Act, introduced by Labour in 2000 and maintained by the subsequent National government, will remain in force. This repressive legislation bans almost all strikes except during contract bargaining and over health and safety, while outlawing political or secondary strikes.

These proscriptions will now be expanded. Asked during the first election leaders debate whether the FPAs would see the return of 1970s-style national strikes, Ardern emphatically declared: No, we will not.

Ardern later told Newstalk ZB: Strikes will not be on the table when negotiating fair pay agreements. I am absolutely happy to rule that out. Asked by Radio NZs Kathryn Ryan on September 21 how she would prevent industrial action around the FPAs, Ardern replied, Easy, you legislate.

Labours threat to almost completely outlaw strikes is supported by the union bureaucracy. CTU leader Richard Wagstaff told Fairfax Media on August 26 there was zero prospect of industrial action during the FPA negotiations.

To give this agenda a progressive veneer, Labour is promising certain measures that will be enacted through parliament. Paid Parental Leave is to be extended from 18 to 26 weeks, by 2020. Greens Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter has promised to close the gender pay gap in the public sector over four years by writing equal pay for women into the performance requirements of chief executives of government agencies.

Labour has promised to lift the minimum wage to $20 an hour, from the current poverty level of $15.75, but only by 2021. This miserly increase was hailed by the leader of the Unite union Mike Treen, as a big win for workers. In April, Unite lodged a pay claim for Restaurant Brands fast food workers for a paltry 10 cents an hour increase, intended to eventually rise to 30 cents above the legal minimum.

Oppressive measures enacted by the former National Party government remain, with minor modifications. The widely-hated 90-day trial period for new employees, which discriminates particularly against young workers, will be kept. The laws fire at will provision, under which an employer can sack a new worker without reason, will be replaced with a new referee service which can hear claims of unjustified dismissal. Labours policy emphasises that it has always supported trial periods for new employees.

Labour has also promised to remove legislation that prevents film and television workers bargaining collectively. Known as the Hobbit law, it was enacted by National in 2010, under pressure from Warner Brothers and producer Peter Jackson, to force workers employed on his Hobbit films to be employed as individual contractors.

Workplace relations minister Iain Lees-Galloway said last week Labour wanted to sit down with industry players. The government is likely to accommodate demands by Jacksons company Weta Digital working on four upcoming Avatar sequels. A lot of people have said they are really happy with the contracting arrangements. We are fine with that, Lees-Galloway declared.

Further, Andrew Little, a former head of the EPMU, is now the minister responsible for overseeing the re-entry of the Pike River mine, which is currently sealed. The re-entry has been forced by a long-running campaign by family members of some of the 29 men who died in the mines 2010 explosion.

No-one has been held accountable for the disaster despite a 2012 Royal Commission finding that it was entirely preventable and that Pike River Coal had prioritised production over safety. The EPMU knew about safety breaches at the mine, which had prompted one walkout by workers, but failed to organise any action to ensure the mine was safe.

After the explosion, Little defended the company, telling the media there was nothing unusual about the mine and nothing that the union had been concerned about.

Meanwhile, the government is moving to strengthen the police in preparation to suppress working-class opposition to its big business agenda. Labour campaigned for 1,000 extra police but Ardern and Peters have since announced that police numbers will be boosted to 1,800 as part of the coalition deal. This is a 20 percent increase on the current level of 9,000 sworn officers, in a country with just 4.7 million people.

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New Zealand: Pike River mine disaster families make Supreme Court appeal

[10 October 2017]

A reply to the RMTU on the anti-working class record of the New Zealand rail unions

[29 September 2017]
Workers at a Smithville, Tennessee auto parts manufacturing and fabricating plant are facing years of not knowing if chemicals they and their families were exposed to will be the source of lung cancer and other serious diseases.

Company officials told the Tenneco Inc. workers in March of their on-the-job exposure and the likelihood that they had carried the toxic waste home with them as dust on their clothing.

The investigative story was broadcast this week by WKRN NewsChannel 5 in Nashville.

Supervisors notified employees last spring only after inspectors with the Tennessee Occupational and Safety Health Administration (TOSHA) cited the plant for 20 serious violations including exposure to hexavalent chromium, a byproduct of welding and a well-established carcinogen.

Exposure to hexavalent chromium can cause a variety of diseases, including nasal and sinus cancers, kidney and liver damage, nasal and skin irritation and ulceration, and eye irritation and damage.

Tenneco, a Fortune 500 company based in Lake Forest, Illinois, boasts of being an $8.6 billion global manufacturing company with 31,000 employees and 93 manufacturing facilities in 24 countries, including France, Germany, Belgium, India, China, Poland and Argentina.

The Smithville plant, which apparently does not have a union, manufactures mufflers, catalytic converters and exhaust systems for General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Chrysler. Ironically it is one of 13 Tenneco facilities that produces clean air products designed to meet global emission standards.

It was heart-wrenching to see Ryan Johnson, a welder at the Smithville plant since 2011, express his love and fears for a young daughter who may have been exposed to toxic dust he unknowingly brought home on his clothes.

"First thing I see in the morning is my daughter. She comes running up to me and I hold her," Johnson said, adding he hugs her when he returns home.

Im afraid I have given her a little bit of exposure to it, Johnson worried. (At)this last safety meeting it was confirmed that we are taking it home to our families.

"The last thing I want to do is have my daughter in my arms while she's hugging me and her sitting there breathing in the dust right off my uniform," Johnson told the television reporter.

Johnson added that he already suffers from nose bleeds and dermatitis, two symptoms of exposure.

Leo Chang is another worker who has worked at the Smithville plant since September. Chang said the companys behavior was unacceptable and that he was angry.

Oh, youd better believe it, he told the reporter.

What was not mentioned in the television story was what would happen to the employees and their families now. Who would see to the cost of their care if, because of the companys criminal negligence, they or their children developed cancer or other health problems?

There was no evidence in the story that these questions were ever asked by the NewsChannel 5 reporter, were ever raised by TOSHA officials or were ever volunteered by the multinational corporation. One shudders to imagine what the working conditions must be like in India and China.

A follow-up story the next day revealed only that the company would be required to install a multi-million-dollar ventilation system to eliminate the danger and that respirators issued to the workers did not fit.

Tenneco has a long history of OSHA violations that exposed workers to hazardous conditions.

Twice in the last five years, the company has faced fines at its Hartwell, Georgia plant associated with employee exposure to the same substance, hexavalent chromium. Of 16 safety and health violations reported, 14 were considered serious.

Those violations included failing to protect employees from exposure to hexavalent chromium and ensuring that employees working with and around the toxic chemical compound removed their contaminated clothing and showered before exiting the facility after a shift, the Lavonia, Georgia, radio station WLHR reported in February 2012.

The company had already been cited in October, just five months earlier, for the same violations.

The radio station also reported because of the violations the company faced $90,000 in fines. Those violations included failing to develop a plan to limit exposure, not providing a separate storage area or change area for personal protective equipment used by workers, failing to consult a physician about the chromium exposures, not maintaining an eyewash station, failing to provide clean work surfaces free from chromium accumulations and failing to dispose of waste by using a sealed container.

The radio station then reported two years later in 2014 that Tenneco had been placed on OSHAs Severe Violator Enforcement Program for what OSHAs officials described as the companys demonstrating indifference to its OSHA Act obligations to provide a safe and healthful workplace for employees.

In 2010, 2012, and 2013, Tenneco was cited for numerous and repeated safety violations and at one point was sued by a group of employees who claim they became ill after being exposed to the chemical hexavalent chromium, the radio station reported.

Tennecos crimes against workers goes back decades.

In 1980, a Tenneco Inc. subsidiary, Newport News Shipbuilding Co. of Virginia, was fined more than three-quarters of a million dollars for what OSHA officials described as more than 600 violations of health and safety regulations, the Washington Post reported then.

The story reported that federal inspectors said that the shipyards workforce of 23,000 were exposed to excessive levels of asbestos, chromate, silica, cadmium and other toxic substances.

At the time, the $786,000 fine was largest in the historymore than twice any fine levied by OSHA, then only nine years old.

On the online employment and job evaluation site Indeed.com, some Tenneco welders past and present complained about their treatment and concerns over health hazards.

Absolutely God Awful! There are not enough bad words to describe this hellhole. After a year of abuse I walked out after lunch. People are humans not slaves. Period, one former employee from the Hartwell, Georgia plant wrote in July of this year.

Another welder/fabricator from the Jefferson, Indiana facility wrote in September: Extremely fast paced environment. No air conditioning. Subpar management staff, bare minimum breaks, must ask permission to go to the restroom [and] employees are an expendable value.

In March of 2016, a former Tenneco welder wrote: The company failed to repair ventilation systems after failing air sensor tests for hex chrome for double the OSHA standards, while a Marshall, Michigan, Tenneco welder complained in October 2014: The hardest part about the job was the job itself, the hours were long with very little break time. The heat was intense, and conditions were hazardous. Weld fumes were poorly vented.

Another Michigan welder wrote of Tenneco, The hardest part of this job was dealing with the smoke from the welder.

Smithville is about 65 miles east of Nashville. It has a population of about 4,600. The median family income is $35,853, about $14,000 less than the state median of $47,275. The unemployment rate is around 7 percent.

According to City-Data.com the poverty rate in 2015 was 37.3 percent.

Decent paying jobs are hard to come by. When asked why he just didnt quit Tenneco, Ryan Johnson replied, There is no better paying job than this anywhere around.
Yesterday, the overblown state honors paid by the Chinese regime to Donald Trump, and the latters reciprocation with gushing flattery of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, failed to prevent the US president from issuing a new threat against North Korea and delivering an ultimatum to China that it grant massive economic concessions to US corporations.

Trump delivered his speech yesterday afternoon, in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, to an audience of the Chinese Communist Party elite and flanked by President Xi.

While, compared with other Trump speeches, his tone and rhetoric were measured, the content was nonetheless bellicose and ominous. On the spurious pretext that North Koreas small nuclear arsenal poses an existential danger, US imperialism is preparing to launch a devastating war on the Korean peninsula.

Trump declared: The US is committed to the complete and permanent de-nuclearisation of North Korea  All nations must come together to ensure this rogue regime cannot threaten the world with its nuclear weapons.

Time is quickly running out. We must act fast and hopefully China will act faster and more effectively on this problem than anyone.

Im also calling on Russia to help rein in this potentially very tragic situation.

US imperialism has, at the ready, the means to cause a tragic situationor, more accurately, catastrophic death and destruction. Three aircraft carrier battlegroups are positioned off the coast of the Korean peninsula, along with cruise-missile armed submarines and an unknown number of Ohio-class submarines armed with ballistic nuclear missiles. Hundreds of Air Force jet fighters and dozens of long-range bombers are based in South Korea, Japan, Guam and Alaska.

The naval armada will conduct exercises from November 11 to 14the first joint exercise involving three aircraft carriers in more than a decade. Trumps statement that time is quickly running out is particularly ominous, given that two of the battlegroups cannot stay in East Asia for much longer. One, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, is only in the region as it transits to the Persian Gulf. Another, the USS Nimitz, has been on operational deployment since June, and is scheduled to return to its base on the US west coast for maintenance and rest.

North Korea has already signaled that it rejects the US ultimatum of complete and verifiable denuclearisation before the Trump administration will even consider negotiations and the relaxation of crippling economic sanctions. One North Korean official told CNN: We dont care what that mad dog [Trump] may utter, because weve already heard enough. Iraq and Libya submitted to similar US demands, only to be invaded and their leaderships executed.

There is little doubt that intense diplomatic talks are taking place behind the scenesinvolving American, South Korean, Chinese, Russian and other officialsto pressure the North Korean elite, headed by Kim Jong-un, to make some form of capitulation to the Trump administration.

Even within the US military there is trepidation about the consequences of war. A report prepared by the Pentagon warned that the only way to achieve the Trump administrations stated objectives would be a ground invasion of North Korea.

An invasion would require hundreds of thousands of troops and, given recent experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the history of Korea itself, would need to be followed by protracted and bloody operations to suppress an anti-occupation insurgency. The financial cost would run into the trillions of dollars. The human cost would be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives.

This stark reality only heightens the danger that nuclear weapons will be used for the first time since 1945.

The threat of war against North Korea is not motivated by any concern in Washington over North Koreas nuclear program, let alone the freedom of the North Korean masses. It is part of a calculated strategy by US imperialism to use military force to reverse the ongoing emergence of China as a rival centre of strategic and economic power in the Asia-Pacific and internationally.

Trumps speech yesterday in Beijing underscored the fact that more than 25 years of continuous wars of aggression by the United States have been driven by the determination of the American ruling elite to stem the decline of its post-World War II economic and strategic dominance. He combined his threat to plunge East Asia into instability and turmoil, by launching a war on the Korean peninsula, with veiled threats that China must open its economy to US banks and corporationsor else.

Trump told Xi Jinping and assembled CCP dignitaries that the US trade deficit with China was as high as $500 billion a yearfar higher than the official figure in 2016 of $347 billion.

We must immediately address the unfair trade practices that drive this deficit, along with barriers to market success, he insisted. We really have to look at access, forced technology transfer and the theft of intellectual property, which just by and of itself is costing the US and its companies at least $300 billion a year 

We have to fix this, he concluded, because it just doesnt work for our great American companies and it doesnt work for our great American workers.

Trump declared I dont blame China and tried to score domestic political points by accusing past administrations of responsibility for the trade deficit. The reality, however, is that contained within his speech is the same confrontational stance toward Beijing that animated the Obama administrations military pivot to Asia, and its terms for membership in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc.

Obama had insisted that Beijing would only be able to join the TPP after it removed obstacles to American corporations competing in Chinas domestic markets, including, and most controversially, its banking and finance system. His administration had also demanded that China accelerate the privatisation of its state-owned companies, and legislate the same protections for intellectual property rights as exist in the US and elsewhere. Control of patents ensures the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars in royalties to American-based technology, pharmaceutical and other conglomerates.

Trump has repudiated the TPP, but is seeking the same ends as Obama, albeit through other meansthe threat of tariffs and trade war and the imposition of other sanctions on Chinese-based corporations. His Beijing remarks suggest that he will make demands for concessions to US corporate interests at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that begins today in Da Nang, Vietnam.

At the same time, while his administration has abandoned the term pivot or rebalance, it is continuing with concentrating 60 percent of the American air force and navy in the Asian region as initiated under Obama in 2011. The strategic rationale behind this military build-up is the calculation that economic competition between US imperialism and the Chinese capitalist oligarchy will ultimately lead to clashes and the potential for war between the two nuclear-armed powers.

Preparations for a conflict with China is what ultimately lies behind the drive to use the pretext of North Koreas nuclear weapons to bring about regime-change in that tiny country, and its incorporation into US-aligned South Korea. Such an outcome would create the conditions for American and allied forces to deploy directly along Chinas northeastern border with the peninsula.

In 1950, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops were sent to defend North Korea from a US-led invasion force, in order to prevent precisely this from taking place.
Saudi Arabias shutdown of all of Yemens seaports, airports and border crossings announced on Monday threatens to unleash famine of world historic proportions, leading to the deaths of millions, the United Nations and major aid groups have warned.

There will be a famine in Yemen, the UNs chief humanitarian officer Mark Lowcock told the UN Security Council Wednesday, unless steps are taken to assure the flow of humanitarian aid through all sea and airports.

It will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year where tens of thousands of people were affected, he said. It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims.

Lowcock delivered a stark description of what he had witnessed in a trip to Yemen at the end of last month, stressing that 2 million children in Yemen under the age of five are acutely malnourished and at grave risk of dying.

In Hudaydah, I met seven-year-old Nora. She weighs 11 kgthat is the average weight for a two-year-old, not a seven-year-old, he said. The doctor at the hospital where she was being treated told him that the facility was turning away large numbers of severely malnourished children because it lacks the means to treat them.

Lowcock also pointed out that the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan, which is supposed to deal with the worst humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet, is only 57 percent funded, with just $1.3 billion of the $2.3 billion needed to prevent millions from dying of starvation and disease.

In addition to mass starvation, Yemen is confronted with the worst cholera epidemic in living memory, with more than 2,100 people having died of the disease since April and the number of cases expected to climb to 1 million by Christmas.

The mass hunger and spread of disease are the direct product of the savage Saudi-led bombing campaign that has targeted factories, farms, hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and water supplies and sewage treatment plants.

Riyadh announced its total blockade Monday in supposed response to the firing of a missile from Yemen Saturday that was brought down near Riyadhs international airport. The Saudi monarchy charged that the missile was supplied by Iran and represented an act of war by Tehran. Iran denied the charge. While Tehran has supported the Houthi rebels who control the capital of Sanaa and most of western Yemen, it has denied arming them.

For their part, the Houthis have insisted the missile was of their own manufacture and that its firing was justified retaliation for the relentless Saudi bombing of Yemeni civilians.

The UN Security Council, which heard a rabid denunciation by US Ambassador Nikki Haley of Irans unsubstantiated role in the firing of a missile that claimed not a single life, made no condemnation whatsoever of the Saudi blockade.

Instead, the Security Council issued a perfunctory statement through its current president, Italian Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, lamenting the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, and affirming the importance of keeping all of Yemens ports and airports functioning. Italy, like the UK and a number of other European countries, is competing with the US for multi-billion-dollar arms sales to the Saudi regime.

Riyadh has claimed that it is stopping all shipments into Yemen in order to block arms supplies to the Houthis, but in reality the action is part of a two-and-a-half-year-old war against the countrys civilian population and a deliberate attempt to starve it into submission.

This war is being waged by the Saudi monarchy and the other Sunni oil sheikdoms to prevent the emergence of any regime not under their thumband potentially aligned with Iranon the Arabian Peninsula.

It continues only thanks to the indispensable military and political support of Washington, which began under the Obama administration and has only intensified under Trump. This involves not only massive arms deals, but also the US refueling of Saudi warplanes bombing Yemen, as well as intelligence and logistical aid. US Navy warships are deployed off the Yemeni coast, ostensibly to guard the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but in practice as a reinforcement of the Saudi blockade.

Given the depth of the current crisis, aid organizations and medical professionals have warned that the tightened blockade can become the tipping point in which mass hungerwith 7 million people already facing famine like conditions and 17 million food insecureand rampant disease turn into the cascading deaths of millions.

If I have to compare Yemen to a person, I would say that this person is very sick, this person is very weakened, and is being drip-fed, so if you want to keep the patient alive, we need to reactivate drip-feeding as soon as possible, International Committee of the Red Cross Regional Director for the Near and Middle East Robert Mardini told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

If access shuts off entirely, even for a single week, then disaster will be the result, Save the Children director Tamer Kirolos said. This is the nightmare scenario, and children will die as a result.

According to Reuters, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported on Tuesday that a shipment of chlorine tablets needed to provide safe water was turned away at the border by the Saudi forces. It also voiced fears that 50,000 vials of insulin for diabetics due to be delivered next week would be blocked.

Doctors in the capital of Sanaa told Al Jazeera that even before the Saudi announcement of a total blockade, critical drugs were running dangerously short. Unless they are restocked, they said, many of their patients will die.

Were running dangerously low on medical supplies and wont have anywhere near the necessary vials of pain-relief medication, insulin, and other specialist medicines for our patients, Abdulrahman al-Ansi, a doctor at Sanaas al-Mutawkil hospital, told the news agency.

Unless Saudi Arabia eases its restrictions and allows food and medical supplies, I could end up losing all of my cancer patientseven those suffering from diabetes [a treatable disease]will die. Hundreds will perish in the next week alone.

The immediate impact of the total Saudi blockade has been a 60 percent rise in the price of fuel and a doubling of the price of cooking oil virtually overnight. Food prices are soaring.

What is unfolding in Yemen is not only the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, but also one of its worst war crimes carried out by US imperialism and its reactionary Gulf State allies. Without any debate in Congress, and to the utter indifference of the US corporate media, Washington is pursuing its quest for hegemony over the Middle East through a war that threatens to kill millions.
Tucker Carlson, Donna Brazile (Photo: Fox News)

Fox Newss new favorite author, former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, was interviewed on Tucker Carlson Tonight Wednesday. Because of remarks she makes in her new memoir, Hacks, that are critical of Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign, Brazile is suddenly being lionized as a fearless truth-teller on Fox News. Well, not entirely: Shes also being laughed at. Carlson asked her about the widely reported leak of a debate question to the Clinton campaign, which she is accused of doing. When Brazile responded with a feeble excuse  I didnt want them to be blindsided  Carlson guffawed loudly, momentarily stopping the show. Then he semi-apologized, saying, I dont typically laugh in the middle of an interview. This is, of course, not true: Its one of Carlsons regular devices; when hes overwhelmed with contempt for his guest, he often erupts in gales of laughter, as can be seen here, here, and here.

An hour later on Hannity, Sean Hannity was having his rabid nervous breakdowns over what he called Wednesday night the fake-news-anti-Trump-Russian-propaganda-lying dossier. He wiped the froth from his jaw momentarily, however, to sing the praises of Brazile for the Tucker appearance she had just made: Donna Brazile continues to spill the Democrats dark secrets! he crowed, playing excerpts from the Tucker set-to. Its amazing, the gall the Fox News zoo-crew displays in embracing Brazile now that shes airing her grudges against their common target: Hillary. During the campaign, Brazile was not considered a brave spiller of beans  she was constantly pilloried by Fox News hosts, as a devious sneak who leaked debate info. Megyn Kelly, then at Fox, grilled her grimly here. Watch The Fives Eric Bolling say, What Donna Brazile did was shameful and treasonous, to nods of agreement from four Five hosts here. The hypocrisy, whenever its convenient, is perpetually shocking.

Less shocking was the appearance of former Donald Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon on Wednesdays Hannity. Booked to post-mortem the Republicans Election Day loss in Virginia, Bannon looked like someone had thrown an open can of tomato sauce at his face. Blaming the Democratic victory on an insufficiently Trumpian candidate, Ed Gillespie, Bannon soon veered off topic to start babbling randomly. The Clintons have been corrupt for so long, he said  not that Sean had asked a question about the Clintons. To bring unity to the party, Mitch McConnell should tender his resignation tomorrow, he said. In fact, he liked the phrase tender his resignation so much, he said it two more times in the same segment.

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And, ye gods, Bannon started in again on Hannitys super-favorite topic: the Uranium One deal. Kids, have I ever shown you Joy Reids brisk demolition of that pseudo-scandal? I have? Well, enjoy it again here. We are one year into the Trump presidency as of yesterday, friends, and Fox News is doing its best to keep reminding you of two things you already know: Donald Trump won, and Hillary Clinton lost. Sometimes you watch Fox and realize they wish the reverse was true, so theyd have their favorite person around to hate 24/7.

Tucker Carlson Tonight airs weeknights at 8 p.m. on Fox News. Hannity airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on Fox News.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Gossip Girl alum Ed Westwick is hoping to clear his name in the wake of a second claim of sexual assault.

It is disheartening and sad to me that as a result of two unverified and provably untrue social media claims, there are some in this environment who could ever conclude I have had anything to do with such vile and horrific conduct, Westwick, 30, wrote in a statement published to social media on Thursday. I have absolutely not, and I am cooperating with the authorities so that they can clear my name as soon as possible.

The Los Angeles Police Department launched an investigation after actress Kristina Cohen accused Westwick of raping her three years prior. Cohen, 27, described in a Facebook post how she fell asleep during a party at the actors home and woke up with him on top of her. I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to f me, she wrote.

Westwick, who stated he doesnt know Cohen, denied any claims of rape or forcing himself on a woman in any manner.

Former actress Aurelie Wynn then came forward with a post on social media about Westwick, alleging he raped her at the Glendower Estates in California in July 2014. I said no and he pushed me face down and was powerless under his weight, she wrote.

A spokesperson for the LAPD told EW the department is currently only investigating Cohens claims against Westwick.
Just weeks before he was accused of sexually assaulting two actresses, Ed Westwick was planning on proposing to his girlfriend Jessica Serfaty.

A source tells PEOPLE that the 30-year-old Gossip Girl star and Serfaty, a 26-year-old Los Angeles-based model and actress, were looking at engagements rings while vacationing in Paris a couple of weeks ago.

According to the source, those plans have been put on hold in light of the allegations against Westwick, though the two remain very much together. A representatives for Westwick did not respond to PEOPLEs request for comment.

Westwick and Serfaty, who has a 9-year-old son from a previous marriage, have been dating since May. Serfaty, a former Americas Next Top Model contestant, has previously been linked to Joe Jonas and Niall Horan.

Havin their fling again, younger than spring again. @edwestwick A post shared by Jessica Michel Serfaty (@jessicamichel) on Oct 24, 2017 at 5:21pm PDT

Beret babes @jessicamichel A post shared by Ed Westwick (@edwestwick) on Oct 30, 2017 at 6:34am PDT

On Thursday, Westwick denied the second rape allegation brought against him this week after former actress Aurelie Wynn accused him of sexual assault just days after actress Kristina Cohen accused him of the same act.

It is disheartening and sad to me that as a result of two unverified and provably untrue social media claims, there are some in this environment who could ever conclude I have had anything to do with such vile and horrific conduct, he wrote on Instagram and Twitter. I have absolutely not, and I am cooperating with the authorities so that they can clear my name as soon as possible.

Westwick, who also previously denied Cohens account, is currently being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department after Cohen filed a sexual assault report Tuesday.

A post shared by Ed Westwick (@edwestwick) on Nov 9, 2017 at 9:52am PST

On Wednesday, Wynn, whose stage name was Aurelie Marie Cao, alleged in a Facebook post that Westwick sexually assaulted her in July 2014 while she was visiting the actors rented home.

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I said no and he pushed me face down and [I] was powerless under his weight, she said. I was wearing a one piece bathing suit that he ripped, I was in complete shock.

Wynn said she decided to speak out after Cohen alleged on Monday that Westwick raped her three years ago at his apartment.

In a lengthy Facebook post, Cohen, who has played minor roles in several movies and TV series, alleged Westwick raped her while she was visiting the actor at his apartment with her then-boyfriend, whom she referred to as a producer who was friends with Westwick.

Cohen said she wanted to leave after Westwick allegedly suggested we should all f but felt pressured into staying because the producer didnt want to make Westwick feel awkward.

Ed insisted we stay for dinner, Cohen wrote. I said I was tired and wanted to leave, trying to get out of what was already an uncomfortable situation. Ed suggested I nap in the guest bedroom. The producer said we would stay for just another 20 more minutes to smooth everything over, and then we could leave.

I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body, she claimed. I told him to stop, but he was strong. I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to f me. I was paralyzed, terrified. I couldnt speak, I could no longer move. He held me down and raped me.

Westwick denied Cohens allegations on social media.

I do not know this woman, he wrote on Instagram and Twitter. I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape.

A post shared by Ed Westwick (@edwestwick) on Nov 7, 2017 at 8:46am PST

I know you, I know the truth. Such sadness in my heart. I love your kind gentle soul. Bless.  Jessica Michel (@JessicaSerfaty) November 7, 2017

Nah, thanks mate. l aint havin any of that. A post shared by Jessica Michel Serfaty (@jessicamichel) on Nov 7, 2017 at 6:27pm PST

Serfaty has appeared to defend Westwick via social media, tweeting on Tuesday: I know you, I know the truth. Such sadness in my heart. I love your kind gentle soul. Bless.

On Wednesday, she shared a photo of the word bulls on Instagram, captioning it: Nah, thanks mate. I aint havin any of that.

Westwicks lawyer has not responded to multiple requests for comment from PEOPLE.
Courtesy of Photofest

John Hillerman, the actor who made a career out of playing snooty types, including Tom Sellecks fastidious estate caretaker Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on Magnum, P.I., died Thursday. He was 84.

Hillerman, who received four Emmy nominations in consecutive years for portraying Higgins and won in 1987, died at his home in Houston, family spokeswoman Lori De Waal told the Associated Press. She said the cause of death had not been determined.

Hillerman also appeared as Higgins on episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Simon & Simon.

His Higgins character was a natural extension of a part he played on the TV detective show Ellery Queen: Simon Brimmer, a radio personality and affected gent who fancied himself a savvy sleuth. Ironically, Hillerman, who often played condescending characters with more than a touch of the Tory Brit  the Mayfair accent  was a Texan from a tiny railroad town, the son of a gas station owner.

He also was recognized for his character on the 1977-78 sitcom The Betty White Show, in which he played the stars director and former spouse; as Sandy Duncans father on Valeries Family: The Hogans; and as Bonnie Franklins stuffy boss Mr. Connors at a PR firm on One Day at a Time.

Hillerman received his first onscreen credit in 1971 at the relatively advanced age of 39 off a part in the 1971 Western Lawman. Also that year, he had a small role as a teacher in Peter Bogdanovichs The Last Picture Show.

Later, he appeared for the director in Whats Up, Doc? (1972), Paper Moon (1973) and At Long Last Love (1975).

Hillerman had roles in many top films, including such hits as Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles (1974), where he played a chap named Howard Johnson, and Roman Polanskis noir classic Chinatown(1974), as Russ Yelburton, deputy chief of the water department.

Hillerman also performed in High Plains Drifter (1973), Lucky Lady (1975), Audrey Rose (1977) and another Brooks film, History of the World: Part I (1981) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996).

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John Benedict Hillerman was born Dec. 20, 1932, in Denison, Texas. He attended the University of Texas at Austin for three years before serving four years in the Air Force. During his tour of duty, he worked with theatrical groups. Upon his discharge, he moved to New York City to study at the American Theatre Wing.

He landed his first professional theatrical role in Middleton, Ohio, and went on to appear in productions at The Cincinnati Playhouse; it was there that he honed his British accent and natty style.

Read more from The Hollywood Reporter:
Meek Mill is officially behind bars.

The 30-year-old rapper  born Robert Rihmeek William  entered the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Graterford in Montgomery County, on Wednesday, two days after a judge sentenced him to two to four years for violating probation in a 2008 gun and drug case by getting arrested twice this year.

In his mugshot photo, Mill is in a yellow jumpsuit, which is worn by newly received inmates at Graterford and is different from the normal department of corrections jumpsuit, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton told local Philadelphia news outlet WCAU.

Mill was previously in jail for eight months and on probation for five years due to a 2008 conviction for gun and drug charges. In 2016, Mill was placed under 90 days of house arrest for violating probation due to unapproved travel.

In March, he was charged with misdemeanor assault after an altercation with employees at St. Louis International Airport. The charges were dropped after he agreed to perform community service.

Then in August, PEOPLE confirmed that Mill was charged with reckless endangerment in New York City. He later plead guilty to reckless driving.

Despite the charges being dropped, Judge Genece E. Brinkley ruled the arrests were violations of his probation.

Mills lawyer, Brian McMonagle, told PEOPLE exclusively on Tuesday that he is planning on fighting his clients prison sentence. We fully intend to right this terrible wrong and bring him home, McMonagle said.

After news of the sentencing was released, many celebrities, including JAY-Z, voiced their support for Mill while criticizing the legal system.

In addition, a petition was created on Change.org, titled Somebody Save Meek Mill, that called for Tom Wolf, Governor of Pennsylvania, to reevaluate the rappers sentencing.

Meek Mill has been a powerful voice in the community for our youth, the petition states. He has made positive contributions to many communities and programs, dedicating time and money to the cultivation of our youth and neighborhoods; even through his own adversities. He has continued to be dedicated and shown an immaculate work ethic, even at times when the system tried to prevent him from being able to tour, which is how he makes a living.
Heather Unruh, the former Boston TV news anchor who claimed Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted her then 18-year-old son at a Nantucket bar in July 2016, is hoping the allegations coming out against the Oscar-winning actor puts an end to Spaceys alleged bad behavior.

Its more than a sex addiction, hes a predator, Unruh said of Spacey during a tearful sit down with NBCs Today show that aired Thursday. We want Kevin Spacey to be stopped, especially my son. He doesnt want another young man to be injured.

The mother of two, who appeared on Today with her daughter, first detailed the alleged incident during a press conference in Boston on Wednesday. Representatives for Spacey did not immediately return PEOPLEs request for comment in regards to Unruhs allegations.

Heather Unruh and Kevin Spacey

Retelling the alleged incident for NBC, Unruh said that her son was completely star-struck when he met Spacey at the Club Car restaurant and bar. Though underage, her son told Spacey he was of legal drinking age and proceeded to get drunk as the Usual Suspects star allegedly bought him drinks.

Soon thereafter, Unruh claims that Spacey allegedly stuck his hand inside her sons pants and grabbed his genitals.

There were a few red flags that in hindsight he can see probably should have raised his suspicion and set off alarms, but it wasnt until Kevin Spacey put his hand inside his pants that he really knew he was in trouble, Unruh said of her son, who is straight and has chosen to remain away from the cameras, asking his mother to speak out on his behalf instead.

There was no consent, it made him incredibly uncomfortable, Unruh continued. He did try to shift his body because thats the only thing he knew might help. But Kevin Spacey continued to put his hands back in his pants. And he was frozen, he just panicked.

WATCH: Its more than a sex addiction. Hes a predator. Former news anchor says Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted her son pic.twitter.com/SZVgWHtqjk  TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 9, 2017

Stepping away to use the bathroom, Spacey  who had allegedly been trying to convince her son to come to a private afterparty  left her son alone. At that point, a woman in the bar approached her son and told him to run.

Story continues

Im forever grateful to her, Unruh said of the stranger. We would be having a whole other conversation if she hadnt stepped in.

Her son then ran a mile to his grandmothers house, and called Unruh. My phone rings and he says to me, Mom, Kevin Spacey tried to rape me,  she recalled, tears rolling down her face. Thats the hardest phone call Ive ever taken.

Unruh said her son chose not to report the alleged incident to police at the time out of fear and embarrassment. He wasnt ready, she told Today.

"He says to me, mom, Kevin Spacey tried to rape me"- Heather Unruh speaks to @TODAYshow https://t.co/06EOBzaFNx  NBC News (@NBCNews) November 9, 2017

Heather Unruh

At Wednesdays press conference, she said she spoke to the Nantucket Sheriff herself and he encouraged her son to come forward with his story. Unruh said that last week her son filed a police report and handed over evidence to the Nantucket police. Unruh claimed that a criminal investigation has begun.

A Nantucket police spokesman told PEOPLE they cannot confirm nor deny any such report was filed, adding reports of sexual assaults are confidential under [state law].

A spokeswoman for The Cape and Islands District Attorneys Office, which represents Nantucket, told PEOPLE, An individual has provided information to the Nantucket Police regarding an allegation of an indecent assault and battery. The individual is represented by an attorney. We are waiting to hear from him.

She confirmed that the indecent assault and battery allegation is against Spacey.

Kevin Spacey

Her son is one of 10 people who have come forward claiming Spacey made unwanted sexual advances towards young men over the years. The first allegation came to light after Star Trek: Discovery and Rent star Anthony Rapp, 46, claimed in an Oct. 29 BuzzFeed News report that Spacey made inappropriate sexual advances toward him at a private party in New York City in 1986. Spacey was 26 at the time and Rapp was 14.

I came forward with my story, standing on the shoulders of the many courageous women and men who have been speaking out, to shine a light and hopefully make a difference, as they have done for me, Rapp said in a statement to PEOPLE.

In response to the report, Spacey tweeted a statement saying he didnt remember Rapps alleged incident and apologized for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior. He also publicly came out as gay, which was met with criticism from prominent LGBTQ celebrities.

Spacey has not issued a response to any of the allegations beyond Rapp. Last week, a representative for the actor confirmed he was seeking treatment. Kevin Spacey is taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment, said the representative in a statement. No other information will be available at this time.

Production on House of Cards has been indefinitely suspended since Oct. 31, and Netflix executives decided the streaming network wont air new episodes if the actor remains involved in the series.

After Netflix issued the ultimatum, they released a new statement to PEOPLE saying the actor had been suspended.

While we continue the ongoing investigation into the serious allegations concerning Kevin Spaceys behavior on the set of House of Cards, he has been suspended, effective immediately, the statement read. MRC, in partnership with Netflix, will continue to evaluate a creative path forward for the program during the hiatus.

Spaceys role in the upcoming All the Money in the World, set to hit theaters Dec. 22, has also been recast with actor Christopher Plummer.
Sean Hannity Spends Show Running Defense For Accused Pedophile Roy Moore pic.twitter.com/wTaw7UOU1T

 Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) November 10, 2017

On the set of Sean Hannitys Fox News show last night, the host ran full-court defense for Alabama Judge Roy Moore following a Washington Post report in which four women accused him of sexual misconduct.

Moore, the Republican nominee to fill Jeff Sessions U.S. Senate seat from Alabama, has denied the accusations  including one that he initiated sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s.

In one particular moment, Hannity invited Fox News legal analyst Mercedes Colwin to cast a broad set of aspersions not just on the women accusing Moore but of all women who bring forth charges of sexual harassment.

Also Read:Watch Sean Hannity Accidentally Refer to Barack Obama as 'President Clinton' (Video)

Do people do it for money? Do people do it for political reasons? Is that more common than people think? asked Hannity. (The woman who said Moore had behaved inappropriately when she was 14 told the Post that she had voted Republican in the last three presidential elections, including for Donald Trump in 2016.)

Oh, definitely, said Colwin.

They will lie to make money? Hannity asked.

Undoubtedly, Colwin responded. There are individuals that would come forward with these outrageous allegations.

And that hurts all women who are victims, said Hannity with indignation.

Colwin, a managing partner in the New York office of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani said that if there wasnt any damage women didnt have a real case.

Also Read:Sean Hannity Rips Ex-House Speaker John Boehner: 'I'm Sorry You Are Bitter And u Failed!'

Sexual harassment, that term is coined everywhere, she said. Frankly, there are the laws are very clear in order to be a violation of the law. You have to have some sort of damage and these individuals, a lot of these women, its all about money.

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The sweeping claim appeared even too much for Hannity, who backpedaled a bit .

This is where you thread the needle because there are women who are victims of predators, he noted.

There are, there are, said Colwin, but very few and few between.

Also Read:Cable News Ratings: Sean Hannity Beats Rachel Maddow in 1st Month of Head-to-Head Competition

It was a bad day for Hannity overall. Both at the top of his show and on Twitter the host apologized when I misspoke and was not totally clear earlier today regarding comments made on his radio show in which he appeared to agree with a claim that the relationships between Moore and the accusers were consensual.

Hannitys decision to confront the Moore allegations full bore contrasts sharply with with his primetime colleague Tucker Carlson, who confined his thoughts on the matter to a brief news item at the end of the show.

Watch above.

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Sean Hannity Rips Ex-House Speaker John Boehner: 'I'm Sorry You Are Bitter And u Failed!'
AT&T boss Randall Stephenson says both he and the Department of Justice were highly disturbed by reports that a CNN sale is the sticking point for regulatory approval of the telecom giants pending Time Warner takeover.

I have never been told that the price of getting the deal done was selling CNN  period, Stephenson said on Thursday. And likewise, I have never offered to sell CNN.

He did not make the same promise to keep DirecTV, however. Stephenson punted on that question, citing a (sudden) need for confidentiality in these negotiations.

Also Read: Joe Scarborough Mocks Trump 'Obsession With CNN': 'You Need to Just Shut Up' (Video)

Stephenson, who was speaking on-stage with New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin at the papers DealBook conference, explained that his company wants CNN to provide an attractive overall package for advertisers.

The AT&T chief executive officer did say hes received phone calls by parties interested in buying CNN, but Stephenson again reiterated that Anderson Coopers cable home is not for sale.

Later, Stephenson said it would likewise be illogical to sell HBO or Turner  two larger pieces of Time Warner  the latter of which is the umbrella above CNN.

Related stories from TheWrap:

AT&T CEO: I 'Have No Intention' of Selling CNN

AT&T Must Sell CNN for Time Warner Deal to Go Through (Report)

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Photo credit: Sulome Anderson

From Esquire

While America churns in a frenzy of Trump-related news, the Middle East may be quietly devolving into further chaos. In the days since Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri announced his surprise resignation this past weekend, one question has moved quickly to the fore: Is another war brewing in the region?

The question comes, in large part, because of the strange circumstances surrounding Hariris resignation on Saturday. In a televised address from Saudi Arabia, Hariri said that he was stepping down because he feared that he would suffer the same fate as his father, Rafic, twelve years ago. In 2005, during his own term as prime minister, the elder Hariri was killed by a massive car bomb in Beirut by operatives alleged to have been working with Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, both of which have strong connections to Iran. For obvious reasons, Saad Hariri has long had a contentious relationship with Hezbollah, which now holds 17 seats in the Lebanese Parliament, and he is known to have significant business ties with Saudi Arabia, Irans chief regional rival. (He also holds Saudi citizenship.)

But analysts were also quick to note that Hariris political party, the Future Movement, agreed last month to form a governing coalition with Hezbollah, their erstwhile political opponents. That rapprochement was preceded by a tactical alliance between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army to fight ISIS on Lebanons northern border, but it was understood to have displeased Saudi Arabia. This unhappiness, along with the fact that Hariris speech was delivered in Saudi Arabia, made some wonder whether Hariri had been forced by the Saudis to step down, and on what terms. For their part, Lebanese officials are maintaining that Hariri is being held against his will.

Joseph Bahout, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, told me that up until Saturday, Hariri was more or less finding his place in this deal with Hezbollah. Okay, things were not completely rosy, but they were doing deals, and it was working. For this reason, he believes that Hariris resignation was not voluntary. I think all the info and analysis we have points that Saad was not really willing to resign. He was summoned to Saudi Arabia, given this letter of resignation, and he read it.

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Further complicating the picture, Hariris speech in Riyadh took place just as a massive political purge in the Saudi government was getting underway. Over the weekend, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, commonly known as MbS, consolidated power by arresting dozens of powerful businessmen and members of the royal family, whose assets he also seized in what the Saudi government has described as anti-corruption initiative. The purge received the explicit endorsement of Donald Trump, who wrote on Twitter that MbS and his father, King Salman, knew exactly what they were doing. (It is possible, too, that Trump knew about the crackdown ahead of time: Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, made an unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia a few days before the purge.)

Trump was not the only one to weigh in on the situation via social media. After Hariris speech, the Israeli defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, took to Twitter to denounce Hezbollah and Iran. Lebanon = Hezbollah. Hezbollah = Iran. Iran = Lebanon, he wrote. Iran endangers the world. Saad Hariri has proved that today. Period. Liebermans words made it clear that Israel would stand with Saudi Arabia in opposing Iran and Hezbollah - at least politically.

Hezbollah doesnt want war, but we are prepared.

Whether that political alliance will translate into a military alliance remains to be seen. But the shocking events of the past weekend, along with a deteriorating security situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border, have led to a growing apprehension that Hariris resignation is the first step in a chain of events that will end with war between Israel (aided tacitly or openly by Saudi Arabia) and Hezbollah. Since Hariris resignation, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have warned their citizens to leave Lebanon, further stoking fears.

Its clear that the Saudis have taken a big decision to topple the table in Lebanon and start a kind of confrontation with Hezbollah and Iran in the Lebanese theater, Bahout told me. The question is: what are the means and the tools that the Saudis could use? The only rational thing that they could have in mind is that they are betting, or they are aware - because there are contacts between them - that the Israelis are preparing something.

Bahouts suggestion of an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel was echoed by a local Hezbollah official I spoke to in south Lebanon not long after Hariris resignation. I met the official, who insisted on anonymity, at his house in the dense green hills of south Lebanon. He believes that as prime minister, it would have been impossible for Hariri to make an allegiance with Israel against Hezbollah at the behest of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis told him to resign. They dont want him in the government so that in any upcoming war, he wont take sides against Israel.

The official also told me that Hezbollah is already well into the process of moving fighters and weaponry from Syria, where they were used in the groups fight against ISIS, to South Lebanon, in anticipation of a conflict with Israel. Everybody is coming back to the South, he says. The Hezbollah Special Forces are in Lebanon now. Every day, Hezbollah is bringing missiles, the big ones, including the S-200, a Russian-made surface-to-air missile. Hezbollah doesnt want war, he said, but we are prepared.

If the Israelis think they can keep it up, good luck.

A Hezbollah fighter I spoke to recently, who was stationed near the Israeli border and wore a face mask to hide his identity, told me that he and his fellow militiamen had been instructed to stay on full alert by Hezbollahs leadership. All the fighters are deployed, he said. At any minute, war with Israel could break out. We want Israel to make a move in order to show what we have for them. They are going to pay a big price.

In Dahieh, a southern suburb of Beirut, a Hezbollah commander chuckled grimly when I asked him about Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace, which have been occurring with increasing frequency in recent months. If the Israelis think they can keep it up, good luck, he says. We will find the medicine for that, God willing. Everyone will go crazy when we bring down an Israeli jet over Lebanese territory, which is sure to happen in an upcoming war.

Yet for all the bravado of Hezbollahs rank-and-file, the groups leadership must know that its prospects in a war against Israel, whose military remains vastly superior, remain dubious. In a speech today in Lebanon, Hezbollahs secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a speech that departed significantly from his usual fire-and-brimstone rhetoric. Nasrallah said that while he believes that Saudi Arabia is trying to incite Israel to strike Lebanon, he also thinks that the cost of such a conflict will deter such a move. As Nasrallah knows well, a new war could easily spark a massive ethnic and sectarian conflict in Lebanon and in the region. Whats more, Israel has been clear that it considers the infrastructure of Lebanon fair game in any conflict, which will put Lebanese civilians at great risk.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent and the CEO of the Soufan Group, a security intelligence firm, told me that any movement of fighters and weapons from Syria to Lebanon would suggest that Hezbollah and its allies are comfortable about the situation in Syria, especially after recent gains. At the same time, he said, preparing for war may be Hezbollahs means of trying to prevent it. Moving troops is also sending a message: that we are ready for a conflict, and that can be a form of deterrence in itself.

The most recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, in 2006, was widely viewed as unsuccessful for Israel. But since hostilities ended, Hezbollah has grown exponentially in military might. Israel has made no secret of its concern about the groups increasing power, and has always maintained that another war with Hezbollah was ultimately inevitable. According to a former deputy head of Israeli intelligence, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, Israel used to formulate its position by saying its aim is to deter Hezbollah. This has changed: Israel's target now is to defeat Hezbollah.

But Randa Slim, an analyst at the Middle East Institute, another Washington D.C.-based think tank, says shes not certain Israel would risk starting a war right now, especially given the damage Hezbollah could inflict upon Israeli civilians. The problem is going to be the calculus vis-a-vis the cost in Israel, Slim told me. They are afraid about Hezbollah's missiles targeting their infrastructure. They know that Hezbollah missiles have become much more accurate. The political cost of this war for [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his leadership may be too high for him to bear in the absence of a quick pathway to a victory over Hezbollah.

The Hezbollah official in south Lebanon is not so sure. When I asked him if theres any chance of avoiding war through diplomacy, he laughed. All efforts at peace are now drained, he says. There is no more room for peace. This war will be decisive; it is going to end here.

With additional reporting by Jack Moore.

Sulome Anderson is a print and multimedia journalist based in Beirut. Her award-winning book The Hostage's Daughter was published in 2016.

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Melania Trump is accompanying her husband President Donald Trump to Asia for an 11-day tour this week, and on Tuesday, they stopped in South Korea to meet with the president of the country.

For the occasion, Melania wore a dark plum Delpozo cape coat with structural sleeves as she met with South Korean First Lady Kim Jung-Sook during a welcoming ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea.

She offset the dark coat with a pair of bright violet shoes, neutral nail polish, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her coat reportedly retails for $4,000 and was the first of a few looks she wore for this leg of the trip. When she was in Tokyo, Japan earlier this week before heading to South Korea, the First Lady wore a striped Fendi coat with floral embellishments instead.

While in South Korea, Melania talked with students about sportsmanship and teamwork, also mentioning the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympic Games, which will take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, starting on Feb. 9, 2018.

RELATED: Melania Trump Arrives in Japan Wearing Fendi Coat Dress

"The Olympics are just around the corner. I am sure you are all very excited about next year's games," she said. "It will be an amazing opportunity to bring the world together through our shared love of sport."

After their visit to South Korea, the Trumps spent Wednesday in China for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. While arriving in Beijing, Melania wore another dark coat, only this time without the architectural details.

The First Lady matched her black Dior midi-length coat with tall black pointed heels. As they move through China, the Trumps are now halfway through their tour of Asia.
Photo credit: A+E Networks/ Scott Gries

From Country Living

Due to the high level of interest in this case, here is the mug shot of Melissa A. Hancock, 25, who was in custody Nov. 4-7 on a felony charge of DUI maiming. Media inquiries should be directed to PIO @kathymarievb at khieatt@vbso.net or 757-385-8446. pic.twitter.com/emxuaaouf2 - VB Sheriff's Office (@VBSO) November 9, 2017

Melissa Hancock, who appeared in a few episodes of Season 2 of Little Women: Atlanta, was arrested for drunk driving and allegedly killing a 29-year-old man, People reports.

Virginia State Police said the accident took place at around 2 a.m. Saturday in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Hancock was allegedly driving in the wrong direction in the eastbound lanes of I-264 when her 2011 Cadillac struck a 2009 Mazda in a head-on collision.

According to The Virginian-Pilot, a summary report of the incident said Hancock told a state police trooper she had two to four mixed drinks at Peabody's Nightclub at the Oceanfront about an hour before the crash. Her blood alcohol content tested at 0.112 two hours later. She is 4 feet tall and weighs about 77 pounds.

Photo credit: A+E Networks/ Scott Gries

The victim was identified as Daniel Dill, a petty officer 2nd class in the Coast Guard, who lived in Portsmouth, Virginia, with his wife and their two dogs. His father Chris Dill spoke with the local Virginia news outlet and said Daniel "never smoked or drank," which is why he was why he offered to pick up his wife Natalie Dill from her 27th birthday celebration the night of the accident.

"He was the best son-in-law a father could ever have," Daniel's father-in-law Stephen Rocha added. "We loved him as if he were our son."

Daniel suffered a major spinal cord injury, swelling in the brain, and had internal injuries and broken bones, according to his family members. He died after midnight Sunday at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.

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Hancock was granted a $15,000 bond during a court hearing Tuesday, and was ordered to wear a GPS device that also monitors alcohol use, The Virginia-Pilot reports.

"Everyone involved feels horrible about the tragic accident," Hancock's attorney Stephen Pfeiffer told The Virginia-Pilot. "We are investigating the accident and the allegations against Miss Hancock." Pfeiffer said he knew Hancock had appeared on a reality television show, but did not know which one.

CountryLiving.com reached out to Lifetime for a comment, but did not hear back before publication of this article.

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Iceland is one of the best places in the world to see the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. Here, at 65 north on the southern edge of the Arctic Circle, you can see auroras almost every night (and in warmer temperatures than other viewing locations in Scandinavia).

Related: How to Propose Under the Northern Lights

It's also very easy to get to a dark place in the Land of Fire and Ice, which has only 300,000 people scattered across an island that's smaller than the state of Kentucky. Between hot spring swims and glacier hikes, your chances are high that you'll see Northern Lights on your trip to Iceland  especially if you follow this guide to spotting the natural light phenomenon.

When Is the Best Time to See the Northern Lights?

Historically whens the best time to go?

The very best chance of experiencing an auroral storm is during solar maximum, when the sun is at its most active point in its 11-year cycle. The next solar maximum, however, won't happen until about 2024. While huge storms are more common during solar maximum, they can actually happen at any time  and are more frequent than many realize. If you're in Iceland, and point your camera to the north during dark, clear skies, your photo will almost always include a faint green aurora. And that can quickly become a solar storm.

Related: Everything You Need to Know to See the Northern Lights in Norway

The Northern Lights are caused by electrically charged particles from the sun smashing into Earth's magnetic field. This 'solar wind' is funneled down to the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres, creating a horseshoe-shape of excited green, red, and blue particles that swivel and shape-shift over the Arctic Circle  and they happen constantly. All you need is darkness and cloud-free skies to see them.

Whats the forecasted best time to go in 2018?

Peak viewing season for the Northern Lights is always November through March, when the nights are long in Iceland (during the winter solstice, darkness can extend for approximately 19 hours). Even if you're traveling to Iceland in the winter, be sure not to make the mistake of planning a Northern Lights hunt during a Full Moon, which can drown-out the show. Arrive about five days before New Moon and you will have a very dark week ahead.

Northern Lights Season in Iceland

In which months will you have the best chance of seeing the northern lights?

The Northern Lights are ongoing, and are visible briefly even in the months of May and August (though because it never gets properly dark in Iceland in the summer, that would be the wrong time to go looking). Although November through March is the absolute peak season for Northern Lights viewing because the nights are longest, a visit anytime between September and March should give you good odds. Just make sure you're on the lookout between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Best Places to See the Northern Lights

Northern Lights Near Reykjavik

Although you can see the Northern Lights from the capital if they're intense, it's wise to plan at least a short drive away from light pollution to maximize your chances. The beautiful Thingvellir National Park is a popular place to go from Reykjavik.

Northern Lights Near Hella

The reason to come to Hella is Hotel Ranga, which  in addition to an aurora alert service and outdoor hot tubs  features an on-site observatory with astronomers on hand to help you take full advantage of any clear skies.

Northern Lights Near Hofn

A short drive southwest from Hofn is the Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon, where icebergs from the Breiamerkurjokull glacier drift out to sea. It's a classic place to photograph the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights Near Skogar

This small town's chief attraction is the mighty Skogafoss waterfall. It faces south, so you can view the aurora above it and see the green light reflected in its river: another iconic photograph to try and capture.

Northern Lights Forecast

The SolarHam website gives a reliable three-day geomagnetic forecast used by aurora hunters, while the Aurora Forecast app shows the position of the auroral oval around the Arctic Circle  and also indicates the probability of seeing them where you are. The probability indicator goes from a dark green, at zero percent, to a vibrant red. That means you better put your phone away, and start shifting your gaze upward.

Iceland Northern Lights Tours

If you're staying in Reykjavik, there are a number of tours you can take that will search for clear skies and Northern Lights. GrayLine's Northern Lights Mystery Tour and Reykjavik Experience will both drive travelers deep into the countryside.

These three-to-five hour tours tend to visit different locations each day, depending on where its most likely you'll see the Northern Lights. These tour operators don't provide thermal suits and boots, however, so wear your warmest clothing (and then add an extra layer) before hopping on the bus.

Related: Reasons to Visit Iceland in the Winter

Typically, a decision is made at 6 p.m. each night about whether the tour will take place, depending on visibility, weather, and other factors. If it's cancelled, you either get your money back or a chance to do the tour again  so it's worth signing up early on in your Iceland trip.
Simply Vera Vera Wang celebrates 10 years with Kohls. (Photo: Simply Vera Vera Wang, Art: Quinn Lemmers)

Yahoo Lifestyle would like to introduce you to #TheCurrent, a column by Fashion Editor Julie Tong, in which she gives her stamp of approval to some of the latest fashion products and launches.

Im quite familiar with the midwest. It was not such a stretch to partner with Kohls for me. I know I grew up in Paris and I know I was at Vogue for 17 years, but I have that other side too, Vera Wang tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

There are not many fashion designers who can boast the longevity of success that Vera Wang can. At 68, the designer has easily been dubbed the Queen of Bridal while simultaneously running her successful namesake ready-to-wear line. And 10 years ago, Vera Wang embarked on a partnership with one of the biggest retailers in the country, Kohls  to launch her Simply Vera Vera Wang line.

(Photo: courtesy of Vera Wang)

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the partnership, Wang launched a special capsule collection with a diverse mix of apparel, shoes, handbags, and jewelry all affordably priced under $100. On Thursday night in New York, Wang was joined by Camilla Belle, Coco Rocha, Danielle Bernstein among many others to celebrate the special anniversary collection.

Camilla Belle, Vera Wang, and Coco Rocha celebrate Simply Vera Vera Wangs 10th anniversary collection in New York. (Photo: Courtesy of Simply Vera Vera Wang/BFA)

When Simply Vera Vera Wang first launched, it seemed like an odd fit. Heres a designer who makes couture wedding gowns which cost thousands of dollars and upwards of 45 laborious hours to make partnering with its very antithesis: Kohls. But as Wang shares, the [common] thread is there. The woman is still cool. Theres still an edge. Theres still a masculinity and a femininity. Theres an ease. And I think that carries through to the Kohls collection.

Its important to note that the line is not a fashion brand, but rather a lifestyle brand, says Wang. The brand is part of nearly 50 categories from fashion to bedding and bath, yet the collection still speaks to who Wang is and her own personal style.

One example is Wangs love of leggings and lots of black. But the designer will wear a skirt on occasion. When she does, its either a knitted skirt or a crystal pleated version (both skirt styles available in the capsule collection) and each timeless and high-fashion staples according to Wang, which she tries to bring to the Kohls consumer. The crystal pleated skirt has been done by Prada, its been done by Margiela, and its been done by us. My client at Kohls should be able to get a crystal pleated skirt and throw it into the rest of her wardrobe.

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Simply Vera Vera Wang 10th Anniversary collection. (Photo: Courtesy of Simply Vera Vera Wang/BFA)

I was fortunate to preview the collection ahead of time and tried out a few of my favorite pieces. I chose the knit gray sweater and skirt combo (the same look model Coco Rocha wore to the New York party, above).

I love the pearl details along the sleeves cuffs and the matching ribbed knit midi skirt. The skirt is definitely one of the most versatile pieces from the collection. I can easily dress it up with a classic white tee and add a black blazer or dress it down by swapping the blazer for a denim jacket.

For shoes, I selected the black velvet booties and added a pair of of sleek cat eye sunglasses. This is the kind of outfit I could wear to the office straight to a holiday party and onward to Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas, and beyond.

Yahoo Lifestyle Fashion Editor, Julie Tong wearing a full look from the Simply Vera Vera Wang 10th anniversary collection. (Photo: Casey Hollister)

This is one example of what makes this collection chock-full of festive, holiday-ready clothing. Other standout pieces include the crystal pleated skirt Wang spoke about, a sequin embroidered sweater, a romantic black and burgundy floral dress, jewel-embellished blouses, faux-fur stoles, opera gloves, and countless glittering statement earrings and necklaces waiting to spice up your holiday look.

The designer is a big believer in the idea that, fashion should not be intimidating. It should be fun. It should be expressive. You should be able to make it your own. And it doesnt matter what age you are. If youre Iris Apfel or if youre Kaia Gerber. Its about the piece. This kind of ethos is visible throughout the collection. Whether youre 22 or 42, the line is meant to incorporate bits of high-fashion pieces that you can mix and match with your current wardrobe, whether its a velvet sandal, oversized, statement earrings, a faux fur boa, or crystal pleated skirt, these are all pieces that give women across the country the opportunity to express their own personal fashion style. Its about making fashion accessible to women who are actually very fashionable, but have no access, shares Wang.

Vera Wang celebrates the 10th anniversary of her Simply Vera Vera Wang collection with Kohls. (Photo: Courtesy of Simply Vera Vera Wang/BFA)

After 10 years with Kohls, but over 40 years in the business, what lies ahead for the designer? Wang isnt slowing down anytime soon. Im just going to go on while I canwhile I have the imagination, the brainpower, the passion, the interest, the manpower to be really involved and relevant. The day that I could not be relevant anymore and not be able to give it her all, she will move on. Fortunately, Ive not seen that so far [laughs]. So I think it will be business as usual.

Shop the 10th Anniversary Simply Vera Vera Wang collection on kohls.com.

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By Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force missed at least two chances to block the shooter in last weekend's deadly church attack in Texas from buying guns after he was accused of a violent offense in 2012, according to current and former government officials and a review of military documents.

A third opportunity to flag shooter Devin Kelley was lost two years later by a twist of bad luck when a Pentagon inspection of cases narrowly missed the former airman.

The Air Force said on Monday it had failed to provide information as required about Kelley's criminal history to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's criminal databases. It gave few other details about the omission.

A review of Department of Defense procedures by Reuters shows that the military twice should have flagged Kelley, then serving at a New Mexico base, after he was accused of repeatedly beating his wife and stepson.

If Pentagon rules had been followed, the Air Force should have put Kelley into national criminal databases used for background checks soon after he was charged.

The Air Force should then have flagged Kelley, 26, again later that year after his court-martial conviction for assault, which permanently disqualified him from legally getting a gun.

When presented with this account of how the FBI was not alerted about Kelley, Air Force officials confirmed the procedures that should have happened.

"That is what the investigation is looking at now," Brooke Brzozowske, an Air Force spokeswoman, said. The FBI confirmed it never received Kelley's records.

Kelley bought guns from a store in Texas in 2016 and 2017, although it is not clear whether these were the weapons he used last Sunday to attack churchgoers in Sutherland Springs before killing himself. Authorities said he killed 26 people, including a pregnant woman's unborn child.

If the Air Force had flagged Kelley to the FBI either when he was charged and convicted, he would have been unable to get a gun legally.

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Reuters has been unable to determine exactly how or why Kelley's records were not shared.

Kelley also narrowly slipped through the system in 2014 when the Pentagon's inspector general told the Air Force it was routinely failing to send criminal records to the FBI, and urged them to correct this in some old cases like Kelley's

The then inspector general, Jon Rymer, raised the alarm with the military.

He looked at 358 convictions against Air Force employees between June 2010, and October 2012. In about a third of those cases, fingerprints and court-martial outcomes were wrongly not relayed to the FBI, the inspector general's report said.

Rymer recommended that the Air Force send what missing fingerprints and records it could from his sample period to the FBI, and the Air Force agreed. But Kelley was convicted in November 2012, a week after the sample period ended, and it appears that his case was never looked at again.

The inspector general's office said it was investigating what happened with Kelley's file, and suggested that the military should have done more after its report to correct errors in sharing information.

"Our recommendations, while directed at the period that was reviewed and future investigations, also applied to the entire system," said Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for the inspector generals office.

FIRST MISTAKE

According to statements from the Air Force and FBI and a review of Defense Department rules, the first mistake came when the Air Force failed to send along Kelley's fingerprints.

The military makes it mandatory to collect fingerprints when someone is accused of a serious crime such as assault, as Kelley was in June 2012.

By then, the U.S. military had recently switched to using the FBI's automated records-submission system for all fingerprints, which digitally scans prints and adds them to FBI databases.

It was not clear what happened to Kelley's fingerprints. The Air Force said it was investigating whether they were even taken.

Entering his fingerprints and other information in the FBI's so-called Interstate Identification Index (III) would have been enough to flag Kelley as needing further investigation in 2016 when he tried to buy a gun at a San Antonio store.

"When they hit on a record like that they delay the transaction," said Frank Campbell, a former Justice Department employee who helped develop the FBI's background check system that licensed gun dealers must consult before a potential sale.

The FBI would then have asked the Air Force the outcome of Kelley's case. The airman was convicted of a crime involving domestic violence that carries a maximum penalty of more than one year in prison, both of which disqualify a person from buying guns and ammunition under federal law.

The FBI could have then added Kelley's name to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Indices (NICS Indices), which would mean he would instantly fail future background checks.

Instead, Kelley cleared the background check and walked out of the store with a gun, and returned the following year, passed another background check and bought a second one, the store said.

According to Defense Department rules, the Air Force should have caught its error after Kelley's court-martial ended when it was obliged to notify the FBI that Kelley had been convicted, and that his crime involved domestic violence

The FBI said on Wednesday it had no record in its three databases for background checks, including the III database and the NICS Indices, of ever receiving information from the Air Force about Kelley's conviction.

Air Force officials said it was the responsibility of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the force's law enforcement agency, to take fingerprints and share any necessary information with the FBI, and it was not immediately clear why it had not.

(Additional reporting by Tim Reid in Sutherland Springs, Texas; Editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Alistair Bell)
According to Alec Baldwin, theres not as much loathing in the White House regarding his Saturday Night Live impression as one might think.

Baldwin told Brian Lehrer on the WNYC radio hosts show earlier this week that he had a fan in Melania Trump, who, per the actor, thinks his impression of President Trump is spot-on despite her husbands vocal criticisms of the show. The actor said he heard the rumor through a grapevine of well-connected acquaintances.

The White House called the assertion bizarre in a statement to Newsweek, flatly denying it.

But Thursday evening, the actor addressed the idea once again as he appeared onstage at New Yorks 92Y alongside his You Cant Spell America Without Me co-author, Kurt Andersen, and radio host Lehrer. Baldwins satirical Trump memoir was released earlier this month.

I forget where we were, he began, but somebody said, I spoke with so-and-so, who spoke with so-and-so whos in the administration or was in the administration, and he told me that Melania loves your Trump imitation, thinks its the funniest thing in the world, and he hates the fact she thinks youre funny  despises you even more because she thinks youre funny.

And Im telling you, this guy told me that somebody very high up in the administration, or formerly high up in the administration he said, trailing off amid laughter from the audience. The actor then acknowledged how the White House had responded to his claim before joking, Trumps on the phone telling her social secretary what to say to the press, but Melanias in the other room watching SNL.

Though Baldwin famously does not count himself among the presidents supporters, he noted that someone close to him might have voted Trump in the 2016 election  Jack Donaghy, the constantly besuited executive character he played on 30 Rock.

He probably voted for Trump, holding his nose the whole time, he said.

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LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 13: Dwayne Johnson, Lauren Hashian and daughter Jasmine Johnson attend a ceremony honoring him with a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame on December 13, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by JB Lacroix/ WireImage)

WESTWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 13: Will Smith and Jaden Smith attend the Premiere Of Netflix's 'Bright' at Regency Village Theatre on December 13, 2017 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 13: Annette Bening (L) and Warren Beatty attend the Museum of the Moving Image Salute to Annette Bening at 583 Park Avenue on December 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 13: Alec Baldwin (L) and Colin Kaepernick attend Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Hosts Annual Ripple Of Hope Awards Dinner on December 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Ripple Of Hope Awards)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 12: Actress Rebel Wilson arrives for the premiere of Universal Pictures' 'Pitch Perfect 3' held at The Dolby Theater on December 12, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 12: Actress Hailee Steinfeld arrives for the Premiere Of Universal Pictures' 'Pitch Perfect 3' held at The Dolby Theater on December 12, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 11: (L-R) Nick Jonas, Jack Black, Dwayne Johnson, and Kevin Hart attend the premiere of Columbia Pictures' 'Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle' on December 11, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 11: Sienna Miller attends the New York premiere of 'Phantom Thread' After Party at Harold Pratt House on December 11, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - DECEMBER 11: (L-R) Actors Sharon Stone, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Bell and Alfre Woodard attend Moet & Chandon Toasts The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards Nominations at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on December 11, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moet & Chandon )

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 08: Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron attend 'The Greatest Showman' World Premiere aboard the Queen Mary 2 at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal on December 8, 2017 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 07: Gal Gadot attends the 2017 GQ Men of the Year party at Chateau Marmont on December 7, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for GQ)

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 06: Zac Efron seen at Capital Radio Studios on December 6, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Neil Mockford/GC Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 05: Jennifer Aniston is seen at 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' on December 05, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - DECEMBER 07: Cate Blanchett attends the IWC Photocall on day two of the 14th annual Dubai International Film Festival held at the Madinat Jumeriah Complex on December 7, 2017 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for DIFF,)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 06: Demi Lovato attends Refinery29 29Rooms Los Angeles: Turn It Into Art at ROW DTLA on December 6, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Araya Diaz/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 06: Janelle Monae attends Refinery29 29Rooms Los Angeles: Turn It Into Art at ROW DTLA on December 6, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 06: Sterling K. Brown (L) and Kathryn Hahn at The Hollywood Reporter's 26th Annual Women In Entertainment Breakfast presented in partnership with FIJI Water at Milk Studios on December 6, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for FIJI Water)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 06: Angelina Jolie speaks onstage at The Hollywood Reporter's 2017 Women In Entertainment Breakfast at Milk Studios on December 6, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images)

Actress Jennifer Lawrence attends The Hollywood Reporter 2017 Women In Entertainment Breakfast, on December 6, 2017, in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / VALERIE MACON (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - DECEMBER 05: Actor Ashley Judd speaks onstage at The Paley Center for Media on December 5, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 05: Sebastian Stan, Craig Gillespie, Allison Janney, Steven Rogers, Bryan Unkeless, Tonya Harding, Ricky Russert and Margot Robbie attend NEON and 30WEST Present the Los Angeles Premiere of 'I, Tonya' Supported By Svedka on December 5, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for NEON)

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 05: Diane Kruger discusses 'In The Fade' with the Build Series at Build Studio on December 5, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/WireImage)

MADRID, SPAIN - DECEMBER 04: Actress Jessica Chastain attends 'Molly's Game' Madrid premiere at Callao Cinema on December 4, 2017 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Pablo Cuadra/WireImage)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - DECEMBER 03: Actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis arrive at the 2018 Breakthrough Prize at NASA Ames Research Center on December 3, 2017 in Mountain View, California. (Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images,)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - DECEMBER 04: Reese Witherspoon (R) and Ava Phillippe attend Molly R. Stern X Sarah Chloe Jewelry Collaboration Launch Dinner on December 4, 2017 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Sarah Chloe Jewelry)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 04: Chris Pratt is seen at 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' on December 04, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by BG017/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - DECEMBER 03: Julianne Hough attends The Trevor Project's 2017 TrevorLIVE LA on December 3, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by JB Lacroix/ WireImage)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 27: Armie Hammer and Saoirse Ronan poses with her award at the 2017 Gotham Awards sponsored by Greater Ft. Lauderdale Tourism at Cipriani, Wall Street on November 27, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 27: Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman attend the GreenSlate Greenroom at The 2017 Gotham Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on November 27, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for GreenSlate)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 27: Robert Pattinson and James Franco attend IFP's 27th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on November 27, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 27: Actor Timothee Chalamet is seen Downtown on November 27, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)

LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 27: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce the engagement of Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017 in London, England. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been a couple officially since November 2016 and are due to marry in Spring 2018. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage)

TOKYO, JAPAN - NOVEMBER 27: Actress Jessica Chastain attrends the press conference for 'The Zookeeper's Wife' at Roppongi Hills on November 27, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Jun Sato/WireImage)

SAN JOSE, CA - NOVEMBER 14: Katy Perry performs during her 'Witness' tour at SAP Center on November 14, 2017 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 24: Actors Jane Krakowski and Maya Rudolph attend FOX's 'A Christmas Story Live!' Lighting Event featuring the leg lamp at The Grove on November 24, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)

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Here at TechCrunch we serve a global audience which is why we've held casual meetup events across many different parts of the world. Now we're excited to add a new region to that list: Southeast Asia.

As someone who has watched the region's startup ecosystem grow in recent years, I'm delighted to announce that we're teaming up with Google and VC firm SeedPlus to run an event in Singapore, the hub for tech startups in Southeast Asia, on November 23!

The theme of the meetup is growing and exiting in Southeast Asia, and we will host two multi-billion-dollar firms that have literally done exactly that this year.

Nick Nash, President of Sea -- which went public in an $880 million NYSE IPO last month -- and Min-Liang Tan, CEO and co-founder of Razer -- the gaming firm will raise $504 million when it lists in the Hong Kong this month -- will be our esteemed guests for the event which starts at 11am at Google HQ, Singapore, and will include lunch.

TechCrunch Singapore Meetup: November 23

Topic: Going public from Southeast Asia

Time : From 11am start (lunch included)

Featured speakers: Nick Nash, President of Garena, and Min-Liang Tan, CEO of Razer

Location: Google Office, Singapore

Cost: Free 

Full details, including ticket availability, TBC

We couldn't have two better qualified interviewees and Im personally very excited to hear their experiences. Both are fresh from holding IPOs for companies with strong connections to Southeast Asia, a region where exits have been hard to find despite a fast-growing ecosystem with promise.

Nick Nash, President of Sea [left] and Min-Liang Tan, CEO and co-founder of Razer [right]

The day will see separate one-on-one interviews with both of them on stage, and a panel session featuring execs from startups in Southeast Asia who can discuss the challenges of growth-stage companies. Such as monetization, dealing with the regional diversity of Southeast Asia, scaling culture, funding, exit opportunities and more.

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The event will finish with a few words from our partners, and networking to discuss the topics of the day and more.

Learning from our previous meetups in Asia, where attendance numbers have massively surpassed our expectations leading to difficulties with acoustics, venue, food/drink and other operations, the event will be open to a limited number of attendees.

Watch out for a blog post soon with details on how can you apply for a ticket -- they will be free.

We are also working to provide livestreams of the interviews and panel session to enable readers who can't make the event in person to tune in remotely wherever they are in the world.

Thanks again to Google and SeedPlus for helping make this event happen!

So go ahead and note November 23 in your diaries and get ready for more information soon.
By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle BONN (Reuters) - A coalition of U.S. cities, companies and other groups said on Thursday that many in the United States remained committed to the 2015 Paris climate agreement despite plans by U.S. President Donald Trump to pull out. The "we are still in" coalition opened a 2,500-square meter (27,000-square foot) tent pavilion outside a venue in Bonn, Germany, where delegates from almost 200 nations are working on details of the pact aimed at ending the fossil fuel era by 2100. By contrast, the U.S. government delegation office at the talks covers only 100 square meters. "There is a tradition of non-partisanship for protecting our planet," said James Brainard, Republican mayor of the town of Carmel, Indiana, at an opening event. "It is unfortunate we have moved away from it." Trump, who doubts mainstream scientific findings that global warming is primarily caused by man-made greenhouse gases, said in June he would pull out of the Paris Agreement and promote the U.S. coal and oil industries. The "we are still in" coalition of states, cities, universities, faith groups and environmental activists, aims to show delegates from other nations at the Nov. 6-17 U.N. talks that many Americans are working to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It says its signatories represent more than 130 million Americans and $6.2 trillion of annual economic output. Fiji, which is presiding at the U.N. talks, welcomed the coalition as a "perfect example" of how the Paris accord aims to widen action beyond national governments. "I am confident that coalitions like yours will scale up because they are noble and inspiring," Inia Seruiratu, the Fijian minister for agriculture and disaster management, told the meeting. And Jeff Moe, director of product advocacy for Ingersoll-Rand , said the company was seeking to halve its greenhouse gas emissions. The "we are still in" pavilion is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Hewlett Foundation and NextGen America. California Governor Jerry Brown also urged more action on climate change. "Relative to the threat, the urgency is not there ... and nobody is in charge. Thats the biggest problem," he told a news conference in Brussels. Brown travels to Bonn on Saturday. (Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; editing by Andrew Roche)
(WASHINGTON)  President Donald Trumps nominee to serve as his top environmental adviser said Wednesday she is unconvinced by a new U.S. government assessment reaffirming that manmade carbon emissions are the primary cause of climate change.

Kathleen Hartnett White testified before a Senate committee weighing her confirmation as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House. White, who is from Texas, reiterated her view that carbon dioxide is a plant nutrient, not a pollutant.

Pressed by Democrats about the specific evidence linking carbon emissions to global warming, White grew visibly flustered.

I am not a scientist, but in my personal capacity I have many questions that remain unanswered by current climate policy, said White, who holds academic degrees in East Asian studies and comparative literature. We need to have a more precise explanation of the human role and the natural role.

The climate assessment released Friday as the consensus view of 13 federal agencies concluded that more than 92 percent of the observed rise in global average temperatures since 1950 is the direct result of human activity. Since 1900, Earth has warmed by 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) and seas have risen by 8 inches. Heat waves, downpours and wildfires have become frequent.

White served under former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trumps energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing that states environmental agency. White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administrations imperial EPA and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution.

She is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has received funding from fossil-fuel companies that include Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Chevron. White is also a member of the CO2 Coalition, a group that seeks to educate thought leaders, policy makers, and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide.

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Also appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee on Wednesday was Andrew Wheeler, Trumps nominee to serve as the second-highest ranking official at the Environmental Protection Agency. Until recently, Wheeler worked as a lobbyist whose clients included Murray Energy, one of the nations largest coal mining companies.

Wheeler said he had not read about the new climate report and could not comment on it. He expressed general agreement that human activities play a role in climate change, though he said there is uncertainty about how much  repeating the view often cited by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Bob Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, said in a media interview published earlier this week that he had given Trump a three-page plan to revive the nations struggling coal industry, and that about a third of that plan had already been implemented by the administration.

Asked about Murrays plan, Wheeler said he had seen it but denied having a copy. He said he couldnt remember the details of the plan, though he acknowledged attending meetings where it was discussed with members of the administration and Congress.

But it was White, with voluminous past writings and speeches denying climate science and advocating the continued burning of fossil fuels, who received the most aggressive questioning by both Republicans and Democrats on the committee.

White stood by her past statements saying particulate pollution released by burning fuels is not harmful unless one were to suck on a car tailpipe. Asked by Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey about a Harvard University study linking ozone and particulate pollution to premature deaths, especially in urban communities, White said she had not read the study but found it confusing that would qualify as a crisis when much of the country meets federal air quality standards.

Republicans peppered White with questions about her past opposition to federal biofuels mandates, which she said would cause food shortages and widespread hunger. Though opposed by the petroleum industry, the federal requirements requiring ethanol to be blended into fuel has broad support from members of Congress from states economically dependent on farming.

White on Wednesday disavowed her past opposition to the program, saying her writings on the subject relied on flawed, out-of-date data.
Flamingos rule everything around her. Her clothes are covered in them. Her workspace is littered with representations of their spindly legs and hot-pink plumes. She's spent hours studying their migratory patterns, mating rituals and native environments. She's traveled the world speaking to conservationists and ornithologists to better understand them. She even adopted 20 of the winged icons to aid in her research and their preservation.

Dance With flARmingos was made possible through funding from the Engadget Alternate Realities grant program, established in May 2017. It will debut, along with four other prize-winning immersive-media projects, at the Engadget Experience on November 14th, 2017. For more information about the Engadget Experience, the grant program and the grantees visit our events page, and click here to buy your ticket to the event before they run out.

For the past two years, artist Kristin Lucas' work has revolved around flamingos, and yet, it wasn't until this June, during her residency with Print Screen, an Israeli digital-art festival, that she saw one in the flesh.

"It's like buying a planet or something," she said. "So you have a leap of faith, and you're like, 'I have invested in these flamingos,' and you're investing in an organization anyway, but it's just hilarious to me that I would perhaps never, ever see these flamingos."

During her tireless research, Lucas located a flamingo habitat in Eilat, Israel, some 215 miles from Jaffa, where she was in residency. The director of the residency was skeptical that she'd find what she was after, but she was determined. She reached out to a conservationist at the International Birding and Research Center who agreed to take her to the site.

"We stayed at a distance inside the car, and I was able to look at the flamingos," she said. "It was incredibly emotional. I couldn't believe that I was seeing this bird, and why was this bird not pink?"

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As it turns out, flamingos come in an array of colors, from muted gray to bright pink, but our understanding of them is often limited to "hyper-real" (to use Lucas' words) depictions, the stuff of plastic lawn ornaments and Lisa Frank sticker packs.

Her latest work, Dance With flARmingos, being developed in residency at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, brings dimension to these iconic birds through the use of mixed reality. It engages the audience in a sort of animated line dance, turning the usual human-flamingo dynamic on its head. Flamingos have been pushed out of their natural habitats due to ecotourism, overpopulation and sea-level changes, leading to declines in their population -- but they've found ways to adapt. In flARmingos, Lucas wants us to adapt to them and not the other way around.

"Representations of flamingos out there by far outnumber the actual bird," she said. "The flamingo is a bit of a cultural icon for us, and there's sort of a flatness to an icon. It's really hard to approach or to get much further with the images -- it's difficult to penetrate the image of the flamingo."

Lucas broke the project down into three distinct parts that she says represent distinct types of storytelling: traditional, interactive and immersive. When viewers approach the installation, they'll be greeted by a sort of olfactory bartender or tour guide who will introduce them to a custom-made scent that mimics the wetlands flamingos thrive in. This is the traditional storytelling stage. In the interactive stage, an attendant will hand them an iPad they can use to fill an AR habitat with representations of Lucas' adopted flamingos and learn more about the birds through informational overlays.

The final "immersive" stage puts the viewer inside the habitat that they've just seen on the iPad. They'll be placed inside a room with windows where observers in the prior interactive stage can view them among the flamingos, as if at a zoo. This is where the "dance" part of Dance With flARmingos comes in: Two viewers will slip on a HoloLens headsets at the same time.

Once inside the headset, they "become" the flamingo. The two HoloLens users will see each other as flamingos, as will the audience members holding iPads outside the room. They'll then be prompted to follow Lucas' digital flock through a choreographed mating ritual. This part is set to a custom soundtrack using archival recordings of flamingos composed by Adriano Clemente.

If it sounds like she's doing a lot, it's supposed to. Flamingos aren't one-dimensional animals, and Lucas wanted that to come through in the work.

"That's why I'm interested in AR," she said. "Because I want you to be able to interact with more than one world at the same time. I like the porousness between worlds; I like the porousness between devices. And I realize that there's just a complexity to all of the subjects that I'm studying. There are many different paths to take here to have this conversation about flamingos, and I don't want them to be held separately from one another -- I want to understand the whole ecology of thoughts, of conflicts, of concepts that are part of this piece."

The porousness that she was after created a unique challenge for Lucas' technical team. Ben Purdy, the project's lead software developer, and Thomas Wester, the technical director, were tasked with getting an iPad using ARKit and a HoloLens to "see" the same thing.

"From a technology perspective, we needed to create a common virtual space that all these devices look into. So, the iPad and the HoloLens are, in a sense, views on a virtual space that we're creating. I think that's a really interesting way to start thinking about augmented reality in a space. Every device in that space should be able to look at the augmented version of that space. Instead of we all just have our own augmented realities in our phones, or in our headsets, we're all looking at a shared augmented reality."



There is no seamless way to make that happen. HoloLens was announced in January 2015 but is still largely inaccessible to the public. Meanwhile, Apple's ARKit isn't even a year old. As Purdy puts it, "The whole AR/VR landscape is very new still, and these platforms, even on their own, are very green."

For Purdy, it's been hard to let go of the idea that the eventual synchronization might not be just right. For Lucas, it's an opportunity.

"I'm really interested in the intangibility of the flamingo and the uncertainty of their future, and I think that AR does a really interesting job of working with this kind of content because of its intangibility. Because every once in awhile it loses its tracking. I love errors, and that everything isn't perfect."

The imperfections in Dance With flARmingos don't stop at the shared view of two disparate operating systems. All of the choreography on display was created using motion-capture, and while Lucas is quick to drop everything and show off all that she's learned -- mimicking the bird's signature head flagging, preening, marching and wing salutes -- the flamingos in her piece are still oddly human. Their legs bend in the wrong direction, their necks aren't nearly as expressive, and there's a big old hole in their chests -- a trait Lucas attributes to human error.

"I'm the kind of artist who gets her feet wet in everything, and that was the best flamingo I could make," she said. "But I wanted the flamingo to also be very accessible and more like a sketch. I wanted it to be approachable. I wanted it to sort of carry some of the simplicity of the types of images that I see in fashion and tourism so it'll be easily recognizable as a flamingo, but you might also actually feel bad for it."

This is the beauty of Lucas' art. It is, like her, devoid of pretense. She lives in a world that is often obtuse, even off-limits. Her work has appeared at major art institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, Dia Center for the Arts and The Whitney. She teaches transmedia in the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Art and Art History, and speaks in metaphors. She is, on paper, an artist's artist. Step inside her world, however, and you'll find a woman who loves flamingos, unencumbered.

To say that she has a preoccupation is an understatement, but it only takes a moment to realize that her fascination is completely genuine.
A second woman in one week has come forward to accuse former Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick of raping her, a claim which Westwick denied Thursday.

Aurelie Wynn, who describes herself on social media as an actor and a model, alleged that Westwick pushed her face down and tore her one-piece bathing suit three years ago after she said she rejected his sexual advances. I was in complete shock, Wynn said in a Facebook post, adding that she felt powerless under his weight.

Wynn said the incident occurred in July 2014 after she and Westwick hung out until 5 a.m. with two other friends in a large house Westwick had rented. Wynn said the sexual assault happened when they had all decided to go to sleep. I said no and he pushed me face down, she wrote.

In a statement on Twitter, Westwick said Wynns allegations were provably untrue and that he was cooperating with authorities.

Wynn said she is speaking up now after actor Kristina Cohen came forward Monday with a similar accusation, which the Associated Press reports the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating. Westwick denied Cohens allegations Tuesday in a brief statement he issued on Twitter. I do not know this woman. I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape, he wrote.

On Thursday, he addressed both claims in a new statement. It is disheartening and sad to me that as a result of two unverified and provably untrue social media claims, there are some in this environment who could ever conclude I have anything to do with such vile and horrific conduct, Westwick said. I have absolutely not, and I am cooperating with the authorities so that they can clear my name as soon as possible.

Wynn said Westwick passed out after raping her and that she then left the property. At the time, she said, she was dating former Glee star Mark Salling, who last month pleaded guilty to child pornography possession charges. Wynn said when Salling heard what happened with Westwick, he blamed her and broke up with her.

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My other friends and people around me told me it was best not to say anything, to not be that girl and that no one would believe me and think I was just out trying to get my 10 seconds of fame, she said.

A lawyer for Salling did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the Facebook post, Wynn said she eventually moved on from acting, though she still labels herself an actor on social media.

In a Facebook post earlier this week, Cohen said Westwick raped her three years ago in the guest bedroom of his house, where she was taking a nap at his suggestion. I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body, she said. I told him to stop, but he was strong. I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to fk me.

Cohen said she was paralyzed in fear and could not move. He held me down and raped me, she alleged. It was a nightmare.
(SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas)  The Texas church where more than two dozen people were killed by a gunman during Sunday services will be demolished, the pastor said.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this week that it would be too painful to continue using First Baptist Church as a place of worship.

A national Southern Baptist spokesman said Pomeroy discussed the plan with the denominations top executives, who traveled to the rural community in a show of support.

The spokesman, Sing Oldham, said the pastor described the building as too stark of a reminder of the massacre. Pomeroy expressed hope he could turn the site into a memorial for the dead and put up a new building on property the church owns.

Other sites of mass shootings also have been torn down, including Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in December 2012. A new school was built elsewhere.

A one-room Amish schoolhouse near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was torn down in 2006, 10 days after a gunman took children hostage and shot and killed five girls ages 6 to 13.

The previous site of the school is now a pasture. A nearly identical schoolhouse with a security fence was erected nearby and named New Hope School.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at a memorial service for the victims of the gunman.

Pence told the crowd that the attack was the worst mass shooting at a church in American history and called the gunman deranged.

Whatever animated the evil that descended on that small church, if the attackers desire was to silence their testimony of faith, they failed, the vice president added.

The governor said Texans come together at times of crisis and tragedy. Its what we do, Abbott said. People in the crowd responded amen.

He also proclaimed Sunday, Nov. 12 a statewide day of prayer.

Pence also visited with wounded congregants at a San Antonio hospital and met with families of the dead in Floresville, not far from Sutherland Springs. He went from table to table at a high school library, attempting to console devastated family members.

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The whole country is praying over you, he told one man who lost his sister-in-law.

He stopped to talk with John Holcombe, whose family was decimated by the shooting. Holcombe, who suffered shrapnel wounds, lost his wife, Crystal, who was pregnant with their first child. Also killed were three of her children, his parents, a brother and a toddler niece.

Pence hugged 7-year-old Evelyn Holcombe, who survived by running out of the church.

Earlier Wednesday, Pence said President Donald Trump had ordered federal agencies to provide extensive help to the investigation, including 100 on-site FBI agents.

Also Wednesday, the Texas Department of Public Safety released an official list of those killed in the rampage. The eight male victims and 17 female victims ranged in age from 1 to 77.

Eight of the fatalities were children or teenagers. The oldest of them was 16.

Authorities said the 26 dead also included Crystal Holcombes unborn baby. All the victims died at the scene, except for one child who died at a hospital.

Eleven people remained hospitalized with wounds they suffered in the attack.
Chicago (AFP) - Former US president Barack Obama answered a jury summons Wednesday, but was dismissed soon after arriving at a Chicago courthouse to perform the civic duty asked of all Americans.

As a prospective juror, Obama joined fellow citizens at Cook County's Daley Center courthouse, all waiting to see if they would be chosen to serve on a trial.

The former leader of the free world was the only juror to arrive by motorcade, however, accompanied by tight security and met with a throng of news media and court staff trying to snap a picture.

"He gorgeous!" one court clerk exclaimed upon spotting the former president, the Chicago Tribute reported. Potential juror Kelly Bulik told the newspaper she felt like a "piece of melting butter" as she shook his hand.

Obama thanked everyone for showing up, and was surprised by some who presented him with copies of his books to sign.

"Thanks everybody for serving on the jury. Or, at least being willing to," he said to laughter.

The former law professor left by midday, along with a number of others who were randomly selected for dismissal, according to the Tribune.

Before heading to court, the former president tweeted in the morning about Tuesday night's high-profile state and mayoral election results seen as a sweeping repudiation of the politics of his White House successor Donald Trump.

"This is what happens when the people vote," Obama wrote. "Every office in a democracy counts!"

Obama is not the first US president to show up for service that some Americans either dread or find excuses to avoid. Obama's predecessor in the White House, George W Bush, responded to a jury summons in 2015.

Bush was not selected to serve as a juror, but images of the smiling former president posing with delighted citizens at the courthouse in Dallas, Texas quickly showed up on social media.

Chicago has some experience with high-profile jurors. In 2004, media titan Oprah Winfrey, who at the time produced her talk show out of the midwestern city, was a juror on a three-day murder trial ending in a conviction.

While the Obamas currently live in Washington, the ex-president and first lady Michelle Obama maintain a home in Chicago, the city where he got his political start.

The south side of Chicago is also where the future Obama presidential center will be built, near the former leader's home.
A number of the winners in Tuesday's elections were from minority communities: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Barack Obama has celebrated victories for Democrats in the first US statewide elections since Donald Trump entered the White House.

This is what happens when the people vote. Congrats Ralph Northam and Phil Murphy, Mr Obama said in a Twitter post.

And congratulations to all the victors in state legislative, county and mayors' races. Every office in a democracy counts!

This is what happens when the people vote. Congrats @RalphNortham and @PhilMurphyNJ . And congratulations to all the victors in state legislative, county and mayors' races. Every office in a democracy counts!  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 8, 2017

In Virginia, Ralph Northam defeated Republican Ed Gillespie following an election campaign marked with clashes over immigration and Confederate statues.

Meanwhile, Democrat Phil Murphy easily beat Kim Guadagno to become New Jersey governor, with the Republican struggling against the unpopularity of Mr Trump in the state and the outgoing Republican Governor Chris Christie's historically low approval ratings.

A number of the winners in Tuesday's elections were from minority backgrounds, leading to speculation Mr Trump's presidency motivated more black and minority ethnic people to vote.

A black transgender activist, Andrea Jenkins, was elected to the Minneapolis City Council, while a Hispanic woman won the mayors race in Topeka, Kansas and a Sikh man was elected mayor in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Vietnamese, Latina and transgender candidates also won state legislative elections and black candidates became lieutenant governors in New Jersey and Virginia. In Helena, Montana, a Liberian refugee was elected mayor.

The results are thought to be an early bellwether of the outcome of next next year's midterm congressional elections.
Theres no arguing that sisters GigiandBella Hadidare two of the hardest-workingmodelsin the business right now. Theres also no arguing that beauty runs in the entire family. Just look at them withmom Yolanda and brother Anwar.

That beautiful family also includes their Dutch cousin, Joann van den Herik. The 18-year-oldplus-sizemodel is the daughterof one of Yolanda Hadids siblings, Cosmopolitan U.K. reports, and shes just signed with the agency 12+ UK Model Management.

A post shared by JoJo (@joannvdherik)on Nov 6, 2017 at 7:22am PST

Bella and Gigis social media feeds are largely filled withvisuals from theirlatest projects, but van den Henriks relies more on inspiring written words. Dont get us wrong, her feed is a also treasure trove of modeling photos, but its herbody positivemessaging that really piqued our interest.

A post shared by JoJo (@joannvdherik)on Oct 30, 2017 at 2:31am PDT

I was afraid to post this picture and thats why I did post it, she wrote in a recent Instagram caption for a photo of herself in her underwear. I couldve cropped it so you wouldnt see any fat, but I didnt. I wanted to show you guys that Im imperfect too. I have fat rolls, I have stretch marks. Its so easy to look in the mirror and feel disgusted by the things you dont like, but I dont want to do that anymore. I dont wanna hide my ugly side, I want to show it more often, because Ive accepted it. I love my body. Guys and girls, it doesnt matter if you dont have a six-pack, or a size zero [body]. Youre just as beautiful as everyone.

Theres also plenty of content featuring her famous family, including a recent french fry break with Aunt Yolanda (jealous) and both recent and childhood photos taken with Bella and Gigi.

A post shared by JoJo (@joannvdherik)on Nov 8, 2017 at 4:48am PST

Van den Herik told HuffPost that while shes still working toward self-acceptance, she is more comfortable in her own skin than ever before.

I used to be very insecure about myself. I was worried that people would dislike me because I felt fat," she said. I was literally obsessed with my body and losing weight, just because everyone kept telling me I should look like the models on the magazine covers and I didnt look like that. It took me a long time, and Im still on my own journey, to realize that its normal to have fat rolls and stretch marks. Im finally at a point where I accept myself and my body. I look in the mirror and tell myself every day I LOVE MY CURVES! I mean, your size doesnt define your worth, so dont let it! I dont want anyone to feel like I felt, I dont want anyone to be that unhappy with themselves."

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A post shared by JoJo (@joannvdherik)on Dec 3, 2016 at 11:37am PST

So, come for the dreamy photos, stay for the self-love fest.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Legendary big wave surfer Andrew Cotton broke his back in a horrifying tumble from a 50-foot wave off Portugal.

The 36-year-old British athlete was pounded by the surf Wednesday as he careened down the wave off Nazare, Portugal. Scores of fans watched, and a crew filmed the accident and his rescue.

I pulled up over a lump. I knew it wasnt going to barrel or that I wasnt going to outrun it, so I just hit the eject button and thought, fuck, I gotta get out of this, Cotton said in an interview with the surfer blog Magicseaweed from his bed in a Portugal hospital. Then a whole world of pain happened. He broke the L2 vertebra in his lower back. Feeling pretty sore, he added.

Photos of Cotton on a stretcher after the tumble show the pain and tears in his eyes. But, despite the dramatic accident, doctors think Cotton has a good prognosis, according to his wife.

Pain shows in Andrew Cotton's eyes as he's strapped to a stretcher. (Photo: Andrew Cotton/Instagram)

What can I say, I got a little excited this morning and ending up having possibly the worst wipeout, impact-wise, of my life, Cotton posted on his Instagram after the accident. Thank you to all the lifeguards and crew on the beach who helped stabilize me and do a great spinal recovery.

Hes already dreaming of the next big wave.

I have broken my back but Ive been really lucky, said the indomitable surfer. Im already looking forward and focusing my energy to get fit and back out there on some more big rollers!

The surfers wife, Katie Cotton, 41, had been in Portugal with her husband and their two children but returned to their home in North Devon, England, last week before the accident.

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Hes had an MRI scan and X-rays, hes got a break in his lower back. It seems like there is a good prognosis for a rapid recovery, Katie Cotton told The Telegraph.

We have a really good team of support people, and we all feel like hes got good people and contact with him, but we just want to get him home. I know that all he will be thinking about is when he can get back in the water.

Cotton rode one of the five biggest waves in surfing history in 2014 off Praia do Norte near Nazare. He was hitting the waves again during filming for a documentary on the return to surfing of Garrett McNamara of Hawaii, who successfully rode what was estimated to be a world-record 100-foot wave off Nazare in 2013. McNamara also fell spectacularly riding a 50-foot at Mavericks in California in 2016, shattering his left arm.

Also on HuffPost

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Spin, one of several dockless bike-sharing companies now vying for dominance in a number of U.S. cities, has a new weapon to wield against its competitors: Kyle Rowe, the architect of Seattle's permissive and apparently successful bike-share permit system, who is joining the company to work on government partnerships. In addition, Spin is gearing up to launch in a dozen or so new cities all around the country.

I met Rowe in Seattle this summer, funnily enough at a launch party for Spin's well-funded Chinese rival Ofo. He and the team at the Seattle Department of Transportation had put together an attractively simple process for launching dockless bike sharing in the city. It made things easy on operators while still holding them to fairly rigorous standards and requiring them to share certain valuable data so it could be used by transit officials and other companies.

This has allowed, for instance, apps like Transit and Migo to add multiple bike-share companies to their maps of local transportation options (although payments are still only available in the individual services' apps):

Between Spin, Ofo and LimeBike, the new system was already more popular in its first few weeks than Seattle's dog of a docked bike system (now defunct) was in a year.

Spin apparently liked it so much, they hired Rowe to spread the gospel elsewhere. Elsewhere, it turns out, was already interested: Rowe told me that in his time at SDOT, "the phone was ringing off the hook" with other municipalities curious about implementing a similar system.

You may be, as I was, concerned about the possible conflicts of interest that arise when a company essentially hires its own regulator right out of the job. But this sort of thing is fairly common in industries like transit, where public-private partnerships are the rule.

"I worked closely with the ethics commission," Rowe told me. They decided that he should not communicate professionally with SDOT for a year, and can't communicate with them about bike sharing stuff for two years. Someone else will just have to handle the Seattle connection, essentially.

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He admits that there was a certain level of trust between public servants that he'll have to reestablish now that he's gone private, but he also pointed out that it's a very collaborative environment.

"Each city is going to choose their own way of executing this, but we all come together at conferences, do whitepapers, find best practices," he said. "You see this for example with how bike lanes are designed  at first it was kind of all over the place, but over time we've all kind of agreed on a template that makes the most sense. That's how it's going to work for this industry as well."

Spin also announced that it is bringing its service to a double handful of new cities and regions. The timing on these is kind of hazy, since the logistics of dropping off thousands of bikes and getting everything online are complicated, but you can count on the following cities being up and spinning by the end of the year:

Los Angeles and LA County cities

Bay Area cities (including East Bay)

Durham, NC

Scottsdale, AZ

Houston, TX

Silver Spring, MD

Doral and Miami Lakes, FL

Smaller cities, Rowe noted, often don't have the staff or infrastructure to let a company like Spin just plop down its bikes. That's going to be part of his role at the company, to start those conversations and make sure any municipality has the tools to make bike sharing an option. So don't lose hope if you're in a city with fewer than 100,000 people  you'll be able to join the party sooner or later.

It looks as if dockless bike sharing is here to stay, and I for one like the idea, although I wish I didn't have to keep 3 or 4 different apps on my phone just so I can grab whichever bike is closest.
Former US President Bill Clinton has said President Donald Trumps repeated comment regarding the fake news mirrors what he called dictators club of world leaders that seek to "abolish the line between fact and fiction".

Mr Clinton was speaking with late night television host Conan OBrien in a revealing interview on the first anniversary of Hillary Clintons stunning election loss.

He said regarding the dictators club - to include leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - that "they want to abolish the line between fact and fiction and truth and lie because they figure if you don't know what's true, and you don't think you can ever know, that pretty soon everybody will accept that democracy is no longer possible."

The current President has tweeted about the fake news - a term he said he coined - in some manner 127 times since winning the election, 42 times about CNN, The New York Times, and NBC News alone.

Mr OBrien astutely asked if the former President was talking about foreign countries now or here?

Mr Clinton remained silent for a minute.

You just said a lot by saying nothing, Mr OBrien noted.

We need to tell all these people that just make up stuff on the internet to knock it off, Mr Clinton stated, hinting at the proliferation of false news sites and their promotion on social media channels like Facebook.

Mr Clinton reflected on his own anniversary as well - it has been 25 years since his first presidential election victory in November 1992.

He thinks that thankfully the country is more diverse, but the thing thats not so good is were in the middle of when the audience for the Conan show shouted Trump!

Believe me, I know, especially today, said the almost-First Man.

What followed was the type of speech Mr Clinton has become known for post-presidency, an almost academic lecture of each of the current administrations policies he finds problematic.

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He listed voter disenfranchisement, curtailing immigration, and attacks on the elderly and poor.

But, the biggest issue according to Mr Clinton was the divisiveness in the country.

We need to just go out and start going up to people who are mad at us and say lets get over it...weve got to live together, he said.
TWIN FALLS  Imagine a Twin Falls where startup food businesses take their ideas for salad dressings and snacks and turn them into a reality. Where new yogurt products developed in Idaho create demand, which results in more production centers and more innovation.

Thats what Chobani CEO and founder Hamdi Ulukaya envisions for the city thats home to his largest yogurt factory.

This place is going to be like a Silicon Valley of food innovation, he said.

And hes already working to make that happen. Ulukayas comments followed a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a new building at Chobanis Twin Falls site. The 70,000 square-foot structure will encompass a startup incubator for Idaho food businesses, the Chobani's global research and development team and offices for many more of its 1,000-plus employees.

Were welcoming all entrepreneurs, all across Idaho, Ulukaya said. And Im hoping that this will be a good educational center for our kids, especially our elementary school kids, high school kids.

The innovation and community center is set to open next summer.

The building also represents another multimillion-dollar investment in Twin Falls, further solidifying Chobanis presence in the city as a business thats here to stay. The valuation for the new building is more than $14 million.

Its designed with employees in mind. The building will include "wellness rooms" for new mothers and a 2,000 square-foot fitness center.

And Chobani's new building will send a message of openness, with some 30,000 square-feet of glass and a large gathering space for town halls and celebrations. A visitors entrance will welcome guests to learn more about the company.

Theres nothing to hide, and a lot to see, Ulukaya said.

Chobani CEO and gov take virtual tour of offices pic.twitter.com/JjVIfHul5F  Heather Kennison (@heatherkennison) November 9, 2017

The 4,000 square-feet of smart glass windows will enhance natural light, but darken as needed to reduce heat. A skylight at the center of the building will cut the company's needs for electric lighting.

This is epic for Idaho, Gov. C.L. Butch Otter said. That office building says something very definite. The trailer houses move off, the permanency is in place.

Chobani opened its initial, $450 million facility in December 2012 on a 200-acre site off of Kimberly Road in Twin Falls. It now employs more than 1,000 people in its plant thats nearly a million square-feet.

The global research and development team has been in trailers on site since moving from upstate New York to Twin Falls in 2013. The new offices are part of a $100 million expansion Chobani announced in March 2016, and will pave the way for more hiring down the road.

Chobani has been a big player in Twin Falls, arriving on scene just as unemployment was pushing 10 percent, Mayor Shawn Barigar said. People were ready to work, and the city had an incredible business climate.

We were moving at the speed of business  even a little faster at times, Barigar said. And we were excited to be a part of that.

But what was most important was the shared values between the city and Chobani, he said. Throughout the companys history in the community, Otter said, Ulukaya has demonstrated trust, commitment to excellence and love.

You showed us you care, Otter said. You care about the community. From the bottom of Idahos heart, thank you.

Working together, Chobani and Twin Falls have helped to reinvent rural, Barigar said.

Ulukaya said when Chobani broke ground on the Twin Falls factory, much of the design was still being figured out. He was getting ready to launch a brand-new product, the Flip, with no idea how it would take off.

He doesnt regret his decision to choose Idaho.

I found a goldmine in this community, Ulukaya said. The goldmine is the human spirit. Invest in that.
By Ana Mano SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Soybean growers in Mato Grosso, Brazil's largest producing state, have asked a court to cancel Monsanto's Intacta RR2 PRO patent claiming irregularities, including the company's alleged failure to prove it brings de facto technological innovation. The Mato Grosso branch of Aprosoja, the association representing the growers that filed the lawsuit at a federal court on Wednesday, claimed "the patent does not fully reveal the invention so as to allow, at the end of the exclusivity period, any person can freely have access to it." That requirement "avoids that a company controls a technology for an undetermined period of time," Aprosoja said, adding Intacta's patent protection extends through October 2022. Monsanto said it has not been formally notified of the lawsuit and therefore would not make a statement. Mato Grosso farmers are leading a push in Brazil to replace genetically modified soybeans with non-GM seeds. "Aprosoja is not against innovation or paying for intellectual property," its head Endrigo Dalcin said, but added that farmers should not have to pay for technology that is protected by what it claims to be an invalid patent. With about 53 percent of Brazil's soy area planted with Intacta technology in the 2016/17 crop cycle, Monsanto is a dominant force, Aprosoja says, citing data from consultancy Agroconsult. Some 40 percent of the country's area is grown with Monsanto's Roundup Ready seed technology and only 7 percent is non-GM, the data showed. This is the second time Mato Grosso farmers have challenged Monsanto in Brazil, its most important market outside the United States. In 2012, Aprosoja claimed Monsanto was charging royalties over a patent that had expired two years prior. By 2013, after legal disputes, Monsanto had stopped collecting royalties linked to its first-generation Roundup Ready technology, Intacta's predecessor, according to Aprosoja. At that point, some farmers agreed to a discount rate on using Monsanto's newer Intacta seeds for four years, it said. Monsanto, which is being acquired by Bayer AG , is also facing close scrutiny from regulators concerning that deal. As one condition for approval in Brazil, Aprosoja's national branch is seeking to persuade local competition watchdog Cade to force the biotech company to sell its Intacta soy seed technology. Biotech crops are genetically engineered to resist pests or disease, tolerate drought or withstand weedkillers such as glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. (Reporting by Ana Mano; editing by Marguerita Choy and Jason Neely)
Watching the new documentary short Fear Us Women and its subject Hanna Bohman  a Canadian citizen who traded her life of comfort for one of terror as a volunteer anti-ISIS soldier in Syria  its easy to view her as some sort of untouchable superhero.

She speaks to the camera with an astonishing calm, her AK slung over her shoulder, about how she lives with the other soldiers in the dirt, shooting, and that its no big deal. Its just camping with guns, she says at one point, and hunting people instead of deer. She later adds, We all die one way or another.

But after listening to Bohman speak in person about what drives her, she becomes instantly, existentially relatable  even though most wouldnt take it so far.

In 2014  I had some health scares  Id been hit by a car, I fell through a roof and split my head open, I had a heart issue  and it just kind of made me rethink living and dying and stuff like that, Bohman, 48, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. It all forced her to come to terms with the idea that death could come at any time, and to realize that she didnt want to hang around long enough to be kept alive by machines, just because others might not be ready to let her go.

What are they going to say in the obituary? Send flowers. I wanted something more, she says she realized. I want to die doing something where people are like, Holy shit, thats crazy, but she stood up for something. Ive been feeling this way for years, so unhappy, so lost with my life, I knew I had to do something else. I just didnt know what.

Thats when she first caught wind of ISIS, and how its forces were raping, killing, and oppressively traumatizing women and children, and how there existed an incredible, barely-heard-about all-female Kurdish army, YPJ (which stands for, in translation, Womens Protection Unit), fighting on the frontlines against terrorism. And Bohman wanted in.

Hanna Bohman in Syria. (Photo: Courtesy Fear Us Women)

I was in sales, so, pretty boring stuff. And I was dating this guy for a year and a half, from Lebanon, who went home and came back with a bride, she recalls of her life in Vancouver at the time. Though that was a very small part of the picture  no man is worth going to war for! So she reached out to a recruiter and began the process of getting smuggled into Syria, through Iraq, as a western volunteer with the YPJ.

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Her story is told in the stunning 27-minute film, available online as of Thursday, that was executive-produced by Olivia Wilde and directed by David Darg, from Ryot (part of the Oath brands, as is Yahoo). The title, Fear Us Women, comes from a poem Bohman wrote, to the men of ISIS: Fear us women, oh enemies of humanity, for you who die by our hand will burn in hell forever. She has it tattooed on her left arm in both Arabic and Kurdish.

She first arrived on the frontlines in February 2015, just four months after making the decision to go, and had five days of training. She was such a good shot with her AK that she was quickly made a sniper, and spent her days lying in the dirt and in the sun, ready to shoot, and often shooting. She took a break after three months, for health reasons, and then returned for another nine months, only leaving at that time because a young woman from her regime had fled Syria and needed help getting to safety in Canada.

Photo courtesy Fear Us Women

Ive been working on it since I left, she says, both because the womans mother asked her to help and because of the responsibility she feels in the situation: The government is not friends with the revolution, with the Kurds, but I was there legally so they couldnt do anything to me. So they went through her  attacked her and raped her  so thats my focus, to get her out safe.

After that, Bohmans unsure of how shell continue to fight. The war is changing now, ISIS is almost defeated, she says, so the next will be Assad and the regime of Turkey  but if I go and fight the Turks [a NATO ally], then Ill be labeled a terrorist.

Bohman is surprisingly even keeled when she speaks, both in person and on camera from the front lines, about the atrocities shes witnessed. When asked how that is, she notes that perhaps her relative comfort with such violent situations is a product of her difficult upbringing. I grew up with violence. Every male role model in my life up until the age of 18 was an abuser. So thats probably why its not scary so much, she says. We also lived on a horse ranch and had guns to chase off animals. But Im not a fan of guns. I bought my first one when I was in Iraq [while being smuggled through into Syria], and then I left it there.

But dealing with the aftermath of the trauma  particularly what lingers after seeing so many comrades killed  has been hard, she admits.

What Ive found is the best way to get over that is to make more memories as a buffer. And just time. The first friend I had killed was a few years ago, so that makes it easier, she says. Unless I think about it  like just today, not even an hour ago, a girl that I had met in May of 2015 found me on Facebook and sent me messages. She was part of a group of girls [in which] three were killed in one suicide blast, right after I saw them. So that brought it up again.

Sometimes Bohman finds solace in speaking with the handful of other Canadians she knows in Vancouver who have volunteered in Syria, although they are all men, and its not quite the same.

Now, while speaking out along with the release of Fear Us Women, her hope is that she can let the world know about the bravery of the YPJ, and the heroes that are so often unsung. There was this girl named Erin who was surrounded, and she strapped herself with explosives and blew herself up so her team could escape. These are stories we dont hear, Bohman shares. And I did nothing compared to that. But I can tell their stories, and humanize them, because right now since ISIS is almost defeated, the U.S. coalition could abandon them. But now is when they need more support than ever.

Watch the full 27-minute film, Fear Us Women, below.





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At this point, it probably won't surprise you to hear that there are strange new twists in the saga of that famous used 1996 Honda Accord, which is arguably the best-publicized-ever used car with more than 141,000 miles on it, thanks to a hilarious tongue-in-cheek commercial that has gone supersonic.

Where to start? Well, the original auction was canceled by eBay after bids had risen as high as $150,000. The car was reposted, then taken down again. It's currently not listed. And now, CarMax is stepping into the fray  more on that in a moment. Here's what Max Lanman, the seller and director of the "Luxury is a state of mind" commercial, which currently has more than 5.2 million views, told me Thursday night via email:

"The original auction had reached $150,000 with over 100 bids by Sunday. Ebay's customer service had called us earlier in the day to reassure us that they were monitoring the listing and actively removing fake/illegitimate bids. Sunday night we got a call from Ebay and we were told that Ebay had removed the listing in error. Ebay asked us to re-list the auction, which we did, back at the original starting price of $499. The most recent one was just canceled in error this morning. We haven't heard from Ebay, so don't have any updates right now. We hope they can straighten this out, as people clearly want to buy the car!"

We've reached out to eBay for comment and will update this if we hear back. The company told Jalopnik it canceled the listing because it violated its listing links policy by including Lanman's email address. Lanman also told the outlet that someone on eBay's fraud team, who was not aware of the viral ad for the car, ended the first auction early, believing it to be illegitimate, then removed the auction in error a second time.

Then Wednesday, on what was supposed to be the last day of the original eBay auction, CarMax tweeted at Lanman with its own offer, delivered by video: $20,000 for the Honda and its contents, including $5,000 for the cat, the Internet-famous Papa Puff Pants, and $2,000 for the coffee mug.

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Hey @MaxLanman, you're really good at selling cars. And we LOVE buying them. So, we put together an offer for you. It's a real offer. Seriously! See for yourself. pic.twitter.com/vjBiFvVC7R  CarMax (@CarMax) November 8, 2017

"Believe me when I tell you that your commercial has made a 1996 Honda Accord-size hole in our heart, and we will not rest until we've filled it," the man in the video says.

After going this far, it'd be difficult not to take CarMax at its word on this offer  check out the written disclaimer at the end of the video. It says the offer is redeemable at any of its 188 locations for the next seven days. "The Mexico mug is non-negotiable. The cat's optional."

Meanwhile, Lanman said he's been inundated with requests from the news media, including an appearance on "Good Morning America" yesterday http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bids-car-soar-filmmakers-funny-ad-viral/story?id=51009562. "Carrie (his fiancee and the car's owner) has been out of town on business this week, and I have been doing press nonstop since Thursday, so we haven't had a time to even breathe, let alone figure out what we're going to do," he said.



Related Video:

CarMax to viral commercial guy: We'll buy the Accord  and the cat originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 10:00:00 EST.
When Ford (F) came out with the Raptor seven years ago, it seemed like a small passion project meant only for off-road and Baja-racing enthusiasts. Flash forward to today, and its a hot-selling, highly-desired truck for more than just off-roaders. Like many other auto reporters, Im a big fan of its capabilities as well.

But if youre looking for a non-full size pickup version of that bonkers truck, you dont really have any options. Toyota (TM) would argue the Tacoma TRD Pro would come close. Heck, there arent many full-size pickup rivals to the Raptor at this point either, although Rams Rebel TRX concept (FCAU) is something to keep an eye on.

Credit: Chevrolet

But back to the main point at hand. Chevrolet (GM) may be seeing an opportunityand thats why its taken its solid Colorado mid-size pickup, tweaked it and bolted on some very interesting off-road parts and created the Colorado ZR2. Is this the mini-Raptor weve been looking for (or at least until Ford releases its mid-size Ranger Raptor equivalent)?

The goods

Chevy takes a Colorado Z71 and gives it a wider track (3.5), a 2 lift over the standard model, strategically placed skid plates, and removes some of the body work to give it a more aggressive approach for tackling off-road obstacles. In addition to the body work, Chevy adds its Autotrac 4-wheel drive system, but this time with front and rear electronic-locking differentialswhich Chevy says is a class exclusive. The truck is shod with big 31-inch Goodyear Wrangler DuraTrac knobby tires.

Credit: Pras Subramanian

But what really gets enthusiasts ears perked up is the ZR2s suspension system. Chevys using Multimatics Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSV) dampers (Yes, its a mouthful). Normally seen on race cars and Chevys own Camaro Z28, the dampers here use spool valves to dynamically adjust firmness depending on the amount of force being applied to the valve. Basically on paved roads the shocks will be compliant and soft, but when the shocks come under a big load (like jagged rocks when driving off the beaten path) the shocks will tighten up. Chevy says this gives drivers the best of both worlds in terms of comfort and performance.

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Credit: Chevrolet

Behind the wheel

Taking in the ZR2, it is a bad-ass looking truck. Ive always liked the Colorado body, but its even better in ZR2 off-road form. The removal of the front bumper with a wider track and exposed skid-plate give the truck a mean look, and the huge knobby tires with 2-inch lift make the ZR2 look like it means business.

Driving around town, if you closed your eyes you wouldnt believe you were in a pick-up. The big knobby tires felt like normal radials on the pavement, and the DSSV damper system gave a compliant, comfortable ride. Taking the ZR2 on the highway, there was no real sound penalty from those big tires. This is a huge difference than driving Toyotas TRD Pro line, where on-road comfort and refinement is lacking somewhat.

Credit: Chevrolet

We took the ZR2 on some dirt-and-gravel roads in upstate New York, and the tires and suspension system gave great traction in both 2-wheel drive and 4-wheel drive modes. Unfortunately we were not able to test these tires and the DSSV system on a true off-road course.

Our ZR2 was outfitted with Chevys 3.6L V6 putting out 308 hp and 275 lb-ft of torque. We did not opt for the optional engine, a 2.8-liter inline-four Duramax turbo-diesel, outputting a healthy 369 lb-ft of torque.

The V-6 proved more than capable pushing around the 4,670-pound ZR2. Pickup was good, and the engine felt peppy off the line, delivering a 0-60mph time in the mid-six second range. The penalty you pay with the V-6 is fuel economy, coming in at an EPA estimated 16 city, 18 highway.

Credit: Chevrolet

The interior was very well-appointed for a pickup truck, with leather seating all around with power lumbar for driver and passenger and Chevys very responsive and easy to use MyLink touchscreen system. In fact, near the armrest is a wireless charging pad that worked flawlessly with my Samsung smartphone (and now those lucky enough to have the iPhone X). We had the crew cab which was nicely appointed, but would be a little tight transporting adult-size passengers.



We had the ZR2 crew cab with short box and that was fine for hauling some things around town. But I would opt for the longer box which adds more versatility (and the ability to transport mountain and road bikes without having to turn the wheels inward like we had to).

Credit: Pras Subramanian

Criticisms

A glaring omission for the ZR2 is high-tech safety features. The ZR2 (and Colorado for that matter) are not up-to-date on features like front-collision avoidance systems and adaptive or radar cruise control. These features are not new, but they are game-changers when compared to vehicles that have them. For instance Ford offers these features as options on the F-150, and Chevy only has forward collision alert as an option on the full-size Silverado.

As a general proposition I have a hard time recommending vehicles that dont at least offer the option for these features, in addition to something like lane-keep assist. But, given that this is a specialty type of vehicle, most of its buyers are not going to be totally dissuaded by the lack of these features.

Wrapping it up

The Colorado ZR2 is a great off-roader and all-around performer for those seeking an active lifestyleor just looking the part (sorry, we know its true). But  its not the mid-size Raptor many are looking for, and thats not a bad thing. It has many of its attributes, like genuine off-road capability and aggressive looks, minus the massive high-output engine and size. But our test truck came in at $43,560, around $11K cheaper than a supercrew Raptor. Thats nothing to sneeze at.

In short I would buy the ZR2 if I were looking for the best bang-for-your-buck off-road pickup. Now if Chevy would update some of those safety features, I would be signing the those papers right now.

Credit: Chevrolet



Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app popular with teens and young people, has been sold to Chinese social media giant Toutiao, according to an announcement made today.

The deal is undisclosed but sources tell TechCrunch that Bytedance, the company behind China's top news aggregator service Toutiao, will pay between $800 million and $1 billion to buy Musical.ly, which claims 60 million users most of whom are based in the U.S.

Three-year-old Musical.ly was previously valued at $500 million when it raised its most recent round of funding in 2016. The startup said it will continue to run as an independent business within Bytedance, taking advantage of the distribution and tech that its new parent offers.

Bytedance itself has been on a tear over the past two years thanks primarily to Toutiao, which claims 120 million monthly users. The firm is reported to be raising as much as $2 billion in new funding at a valuation of $20 billion, and it has expanded into other types of mobile content through acquisitions such as video app Flipagram.

Toutiao has become well known for its extensive use of artificial intelligence to help build a tailored newsfeed for its user base, and in an announcement today the companies said that this tech will be used to develop Musical.ly's reach in terms of users and creators in China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. These are regions where the company hasn't really made a mark to date, despite the fact that its founders are Chinese and its head office is in Shanghai, but Bytedance has a growing presence in them.

In that sense, there's plenty of synergy to the deal -- which gives insight into how keen Bytedance is to expand overseas, having already found huge success in the Chinese market.

At a time when investors have cooled on social media, Musical.ly will be viewed as a rare success story. Theres a commonly held view that its almost impossible to stand out amongst a crowded market which includes Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. In that way, Bytedance is similar since it has emerged to become a super company in China, where Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have traditionally dominated as the big three.

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In Musical.ly's case, it latched onto the tween demographic and quickly developed cult fanfare. From music videos to live streaming, the platform built a full-fledged social network comprised of four apps, with some users becoming stars.

And it's not just user-generated content. Viacom, NBCU and Hearst have been developing short-form interactive videos.

In the business community, Musical.lys success was initially under the radar. When we broke the story of its funding round 18 months ago, the startup name hardly rang a bell for most adults in Silicon Valley. The Shanghai-based company had both local and Silicon Valley investors. Greylock Partners, GGV Capital, DCM and Qiming all saw Musical.ly's promise.

Despite that promise, there is controversy. Musical.ly has defended the way that it works with its young user base -- with many not even in their teens -- after concerns about how it handles data and permissions.
BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States and China had a frank exchange of views on the disputed South China Sea during a visit to Beijing by U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said. China claims almost the entire strategic waterway through which about $3-trillion worth of goods pass every year, building and militarizing artificial islands. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have conflicting claims. The issue is likely to feature prominently at two regional summits starting this week, one in Vietnam and the other in the Philippines, which Trump and several leaders will attend. Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the Vietnam meeting. "We had a frank exchange here in China on maritime security issues and the South China Sea. The U.S. position remains unchanged," Tillerson told reporters. "We insist on upholding freedom of navigation, that claimants be consistent with international law and that claimants should stop construction and militarization of outposts in order to maximize prospects for successful diplomacy," he added. Both Xi and Trump expressed support for the protection of peace and stability in the South China Sea, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the leaders' talks. Both leaders also support the peaceful resolution and management of the dispute via talks and in accordance with "accepted international law", it added. "Both sides support the protection of freedom of navigation and overflight for all countries, in accordance with international law," it said.The United States has angered China with freedom of navigation patrols close to Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, which have been continued by the Trump administration. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in an apparent policy shift, said on Wednesday he planned to ask China to make clear its intentions in the South China Sea, during Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Vietnam. Since coming to office 16 months ago, the firebrand leader has been conciliatory to Beijing, despite a ruling by an international arbitration court favoring the Philippines in its territorial dispute with China. In the past, Duterte has repeatedly said he will raise the sea dispute at the proper time and avoided the issue when Manila hosted two regional meetings this year. (Reporting by Philip Wen and Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Beijing (AFP) - China on Friday said it will further open the country's financial markets to foreign firms, a key demand from the United States and Europe which have long complained about the strict limits on access to the giant economy.

The announcement came after Donald Trump's state visit to Beijing during which the US leader called for a more level playing field for American companies and measures to reduce a massive trade imbalance.

China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said foreign firms will be allowed to own as much as 51 percent of shares of tie-ups in securities, funds and futures industries, instead of the current 49 percent limit, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The limits will be phased out in three years.

Foreign ownership restrictions in Chinese banks and financial asset management firms will also be lifted, Zhu said, as he discussed the "consensus" reached during Trump's state visit, according to Xinhua.

Overseas companies are currently not allowed to have a controlling stake in firms in China.

Foreigners cannot hold more than a quarter of a China-based bank's capital. The limit has made it difficult for foreign banks to play any major role in the Chinese market.

The United States and the European Union have long complained about a lack of access in a host of industries.

Analysts said China also stood to benefit.

"Opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support Chinas future development," said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

"These restrictions, and many others yet to be addressed, have been hindering economic activity in China for far too long," he said.

Speaking to Bloomberg News, Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd in Hong Kong, said the move was "a milestone in Chinas progress of opening up its economy".

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Timing the announcement after Trump's visit shows that "China and the US are in a business and trade cooperation rather than confrontation," Hu said.

Trump railed against China's "very one-sided and unfair" trade relations with the US during his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But he said he blamed past US administrations, not China, "for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow".
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the GOP tax bill is "lose-lose" for the Republican Party. (Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  So far, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been very good at holding his caucus together. Most notably, Democrats stood as one against the GOPs attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The question is whether he can do it again on tax reform.

In August, Schumer wrote a letter to President Donald Trump and GOP leaders in the Senate about the Democratic conditions for working together on a bipartisan tax bill. In particular, he said they could not support tax reform that delivered tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent or added to the deficit.

The entire Democratic caucus joined Schumer on the letter, except for three senators  Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.), all moderate members up for re-election in 2018.

The White House has been courting these senators too, sensing that they might be open to a deal.

In an interview with HuffPost this week, Schumer said each member will vote as he or she likes, but hes warning them that going along with the GOP tax bill will not help them politically.

Every member will vote his or her conscience, but Im telling our members that this bill is not going to be a popular bill, he said. In fact, for the Republicans, its a lose-lose. They either lose the bill, and that creates some chaos here, or they lose because they passed a bill thats unpopular with the American people and can be used as a pretty strong weapon against them.

Schumer has been very helpful on this issue, Manchin spokesman Jonathan Kott said. He meets and speaks regularly with Manchin to point out the problems with the bill, but gives him the room to do what he thinks is best.

The tax plan that Senate Republicans unveiled on Thursday benefits corporations and the wealthy. It calls for cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.

The public seems to be opposed to it, by the polling data, Schumer said of the GOP framework. So I think our unity is staying strong, both on the basis of what we believe and on the basis that its not getting a great reception. Now, the Koch brothers and the others will spend millions on ads. But so far, that hasnt had much effect.

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Schumer has tried to work with Trump. The president notably sided with him and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in September on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and continue funding the government, over the objections of Republican leaders in Congress.

Schumer and Pelosi also thought they had a deal with Trump in September on extending protections for young undocumented immigrants, although Trump later backed off what they said he promised.

As a fellow boisterous New Yorker, Schumer is known to have a rapport with Trump that many other politicians in Washington dont. But it doesnt mean that theyre best friends. Trump often slams Schumer, and after an attack in Manhattan, the president essentially blamed the senator for the terrorists entry into the United States.

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

When he tweets  and he either praises me or calls me names  not only does it not affect me in terms of what actions I take ... it doesnt even bother me, Schumer said. Its Donald Trump. He tweets ridiculous things all the time.

Schumer said hes still willing to work with Trump  but only if it doesnt compromise the Democratic Partys values.

Im not going to obstruct him for its own sake, nor am I going to compromise for its own sake, he added. If we can keep our values and get something done by working with him, fine. So far, hes been so hard right its been impossible. If it changes, its welcome. But even when you cut a deal with him, he backs off the next day  like with the [undocumented immigrant] kids.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Sanaa (AFP) - Air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition left at least three civilians wounded in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa late Friday, witnesses said.

The strikes hit a residential area near the ministry of defence building, which had been targeted just before.

"I was sitting at home and heard the first strike hit the ministry of defence. Everyone was afraid. Minutes later, another strike hit my neighbour's house," resident Mohammed Aatif said.

"My entire house shook," said Aatif, who fled with his family from the neighbourhood.

He said the strike destroyed his neighbour's house, leaving an enormous crater, and damaged others.

Witnesses said the number of casualties may rise as wounded are pulled from the rubble.

The coalition has targeted the nearby defence ministry in the past, leaving it heavily damaged, but the fresh strikes come amid a ratcheting up of tensions between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, which backs the Huthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia and its allies shut down Yemen's borders earlier this week after intercepting a ballistic missile fired by the Huthis near Riyadh airport on Saturday.

The rebels have threatened additional attacks on Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner the United Arab Emirates in response to the blockade.

The United Nations said on Friday that the coalition is still blocking desperately needed UN aid deliveries to Yemen despite the re-opening of the Yemeni port of Aden and also a land border crossing.

This week, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock warned the Security Council that, unless the blockade was lifted, Yemen would face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims".

The world body has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million people in need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine.

More than 2,000 Yemenis have died in a cholera outbreak now affecting nearly one million people.

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Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in neighbouring Yemen in March 2015 with the stated aim of rolling back Huthi rebel gains and restoring the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

The Huthis continue to control the capital Sanaa and much of Yemen's north.

The conflict has left more than 8,650 people dead, including many civilians.
Twin Falls County

Thursday arraignments

Monte Clark Adamson, 48, homeless; grand theft, burglary, operating a vehicle without owners consent, $5,000 bond, public defender appointed, prelim. Nov. 17.

Jennifer Leigh Hohnhorst, 30, Twin Falls; battery, malicious injury to property, walk-in arraignment, private counsel, pretrial Jan. 3, 2018.

Brian K. Wilson, 40, Jackson, Louisiana; driving without privileges, failure to carry drivers license on person, false logbook, driving after being placed out of service, possession or use of alcohol, $1,500 bond, public defender appointed, pretrial Dec. 27.

Coal D. Dils, 22, Twin Falls; domestic battery in the presence of a child, released on own recognizance, public defender appointed, pretrial Dec. 27.

Fred Joseph Morton, Jr., 44, Twin Falls; no contact order violation, $7,500 bond, public defender appointed, pretrial Dec. 12.

Walter William Osborn, 33, Twin Falls; driving without privileges, failure to appear, $1,000 bond, public defender appointed, pretrial. Dec. 19.

Walter William Osborn, 33, Twin Falls; failure to surrender drivers license after suspended, released on own recognizance, public defender appointed, pretrial Dec. 19.

Jesse Lyn Heck, 30, Twin Falls; possession of a controlled substance  2 counts, destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, $100,000 bond, public defender appointed, prelim. Nov. 17.

Filimo Cortes, 25, Jerome; failure to provide proof of vehicle insurance  second offense, driving without privileges  3rd offense, $5,000 bond, public defender appointed, pretrial Dec. 5.
(Corrects headline, paragraph 1 of story from Nov 7 to clarify the bank's system, not SWIFT's, was hacked)

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A bank in Nepal is the latest victim in a string of cyber heists, though most of the stolen funds have been recovered, two officials involved in the investigation confirmed on Tuesday.

Hackers last month made about $4.4 million in fraudulent transfers from Kathmandu-based NIC Asia Bank to countries including Britain, China, Japan, Singapore and the United States when the bank was closed for annual festival holidays, according to Nepal media reports.

All but $580,000 of the funds were recovered after Nepal asked other nations to block release of the stolen money, Chinta Mani Shivakoti, deputy governor of the Central Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), told Reuters.

Brussels-based SWIFT said last month that security controls instituted after last year's $81 million theft from Bangladesh's central bank helped thwart some recent hacking attempts, but it warned that cyber criminals continue to target SWIFT customers.

SWIFT or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication is a co-operative owned by its user banks. It declined to comment on the NIC Asia Bank hack, saying it does not discuss specific users.

Representatives with NIC Asia Bank, one of dozens of private banks in Nepal, were not available for comment.

The chief of Nepal's Central Investigation Bureau, Pushkar Karki, confirmed to Reuters that his agency was investigating the theft.

KPMG is also involved in the investigation, according to Nepali media reports. KPMG representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The central bank intends to release guidelines on how to thwart such incidents after investigations are completed, according to Shivakoti.

"The incident showed there are some weaknesses with the IT department of the bank," Shivakoti said.

SWIFT said in a statement on Tuesday that it offers assistance to banks when it learns of potential fraud cases, then shares relevant information with other clients on an anonymous basis.

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"This preserves confidentiality, whilst assisting other SWIFT users to take appropriate measures to protect themselves," it said.

"We have no indication that our network and core messaging services have been compromised," SWIFT added.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma, additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore and Jim Finkle in Toronto; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Matthew Lewis)
Beirut (AFP) - Islamic State group fighters conducted a blistering counter-attack on Albu Kamal in eastern Syria Friday in a desperate bid to cling to the last urban bastion of their imploding "caliphate".

The jihadists punched back into the town they had lost a day earlier and swiftly retook several northern neighbourhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

"IS started counter-attacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Observatory, told AFP.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had retaken the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

Albu Kamal was the last significant town to have been under full IS control and lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling "caliphate" the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest," Abdel Rahman said. "IS is trying to defend its last bastion."

The jihadist organisation has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

According to Syria state TV, regime and auxiliary forces had retaken full control of Albu Kamal by Thursday.

The Observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.

- US-backed forces advance -

Losing the town, where IS leaders used to meet and were once considered untouchable, would cap a process which has seen the group relinquish any ambition as a land-holding force and return to the desert to fight a clandestine guerrilla war.

Many of the group's top leaders have been killed as Syrian and Iraqi forces with backing from Russia, Iran and a US-led coalition rolled back the territorial losses that saw the jihadists declare a "caliphate" roughly the size of Britain in 2014.

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But the whereabouts of the first among them, self-proclaimed "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains unclear. He has been reported killed or wounded many times but IS has never offered any confirmation.

In Deir Ezzor province, which used to be the heartland of their proto-state, the group's remaining fighters only control about 30 percent of territory, most of it desert.

On the other bank of the Euphrates, coming from the north, the Kurdish-led US-backed forces that retook the IS "capital" of Raqa last month were also advancing on IS positions.

According to the Observatory, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retook four villages from IS there on Friday.

Kurdish-led fighters and Syrian troops will eventually square off when the last IS holdouts are flushed out, heightening the risk of a clash between the rival forces backed by the US and Russia respectively.

- 'Repugnant' -

Observers have predicted the regime may seek to retake towns and cities wrested from IS by the SDF, such as the northern city of Raqa which the jihadists had used as their main Syrian hub.

The regime, with significant support from Hezbollah, Iran, Russia and various mostly Shiite militia groups from Iraq and even Afghanistan, has notched up victories in recent months.

It has reconquered many key areas that had once fallen to IS or rebel groups and now controls 52 percent of Syrian territory.

Non-IS groups also control much of the northern province of Idlib as well as small pockets elsewhere, including the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Ghouta area has been besieged for years and the humanitarian situation has deteriorated sharply there recently.

The UN on Friday demanded that the regime allow the urgent evacuation of 430 trapped patients there, nearly 30 of whom need immediate care to survive.

"The obstruction of access to adequate health care for an estimated 350,000 civilians who have been under siege for four years is a clear and repugnant violation of the right to health," it said in a statement.

Fewer countries explicitly demand President Bashar al-Assad step down than at the beginning of the six-year-old Syrian conflict.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria, where the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011 and then spiralled into a complex, multi-front war that drew in jihadists and armed forces from around the region and beyond.
Republican senators spent Thursday afternoon fielding reporters questions about whether they stand behind a man who is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Democratic senators, meanwhile, stepped back and watched the whirlwind consume them.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that four women have said Roy Moore, the GOPs nominee for senator in Alabamas special election, sexually pursued them when they were between the ages of 14 and 18 and he was in his 30s.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was one of the only GOP politicians to come out and say, unequivocally, that Moore needs to step aside. Most of his colleagues said that if the allegations are true, they would disavow Moore.

All four women in the Post story were on the record, with their names and photographs in the story. The senators did not say what additional proof they need.

Moore called The Washington Posts story fake news and intentional defamation.

Some state politicians and conservative pundits defended Moore. They gave him a pass by claiming that the interactions were consensual and that he didnt do anything but kiss the 14-year-old girl. (The Washington Post, by the way, reported that Moore did far more to Leigh Corfman than kiss her.)

Republicans now face some uncomfortable questions: Do they cut ties with Moore? What does the Republican National Committee do with its joint fundraising agreement with Moore? Do they back a write-in campaign for someone else? And does it all get awkward considering the president has also been accused of sexual assault by a number of women?

Democrats were more than happy Thursday to let Republicans deal with this mess on their own.

The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were conspicuously quiet. The campaign of Democrat Doug Jones, Moores opponent, put out nothing but a short statement that read: Roy Moore needs to answer these serious charges.

The Alabama special election, scheduled for Dec. 12, had already been attracting national attention. Moore was known for being the deeply conservative chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, where he ordered state probate judges to ignore the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling on marriage equality.

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Over the past few weeks, HuffPost talked to Democrats far from Alabama  in New York, Washington, D.C. and Alaska  who all held small-dollar fundraisers for Jones.

After Hillary Clinton lost, I told myself Id do anything I can to make sure the right candidates win, said Betsy Qualls, who is originally from Alabama but now lives in Alaska.

Kindred Motes, an Alabama native who now lives in New York City, said he was shocked when he heard that Moore, a man who had been twice removed from the bench for flouting the law, could be the states next senator.

Theres a real groundswell of support for progressive politics in Alabama. Its just not being covered, and its only happening largely in the major cities ... That struck us all as a place where we can have an impact. We cant be on the ground there, but it doesnt mean were any less Alabamian, Motes said.

Democrats acknowledge that even with the new Moore revelations, the race is tough for them in the conservative state. There is still a real chance that Moore will be the next senator.

There remains a significant amount of debate within the party about whether the national committees should get more involved, and whether such activity would help or hurt Jones. Party officials did not immediately jump in and announce a change of strategy on Thursday.

Democratic senators did, however, start to step up some of their fundraising for Jones. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) all sent out or tweeted solicitations for Jones after the scandal broke.

Moore, meanwhile, also sent out an email and used the report that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl to raise money from his supporters.

Four women say Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually pursued them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. (Photo: Tom Williams/Getty Images)

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Wednesday marked one year since his shock election win, but Democrats spoiled the anniversary by dealing him a resounding defeat in several high-profile state and mayoral elections.

Ousted from the White House and enduring opposition status in Congress since Hillary Clinton's humiliating loss on November 8, 2016, Democrats bounced back Tuesday night with their biggest election victories of the Trump era.

They won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia -- the latter the scene of a command performance by progressives up and down the ballot -- which analysts said could signal trouble for Trump's Republicans in next year's congressional mid-terms.

Democrats won mayoral races in New York and Boston, as expected, but also in cities like Manchester, New Hampshire; Fayetteville and Charlotte in battleground North Carolina; and Florida's St Petersburg.

An Indian-American became the first Sikh mayor of a New Jersey city, Hoboken, while Virginians elected their state's first openly transgender House of Delegates member.

Some of the results were expected, as in Virginia, which neighbors the capital Washington and has trended blue in recent years.

But the 8.5 percentage point victory margin for governor-elect Ralph Northam over his Trump-endorsed rival, Ed Gillespie, stunned analysts who did not expect so thorough a repudiation of Trump's combative politics.

"We're taking our country back from Donald Trump one election at a time," Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez said, adding that voters were "punishing Republicans for dividing our country."

The results could emerge as a test of the unpopular president's influence ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections and the 2020 presidential contest.

They were also victories the party had been craving, having failed to win any of the five high-profile special elections for House of Representatives seats earlier this year.

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Apart from a tweet criticizing his party's gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, Ed Gillespie, because he "did not embrace me or what I stand for," the president himself appeared unfazed by the results.

Instead, he tweeted his thanks to Americans who elected him one year ago, including the "deplorables" criticized by Clinton during their toxic campaign.

"Congratulations to all of the 'DEPLORABLES' and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!" Trump posted on Twitter from China, during his nearly two-week trip to Asia.

- 'Backlash to Trump' -

One salve for Republicans was their candidate John Curtis's victory in a Utah congressional race to replace the retired Jason Chaffetz.

Elsewhere, Democrats successfully mobilized to boost turnout in traditionally blue regions like populous northern Virginia, where Democratic candidates received upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

It was "a backlash to Trump and Trumpism, pure and simple," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Aware of Trump's toxicity -- his approval ratings are at historic lows -- Gillespie did not personally embrace or campaign with Trump. But he did mimic Trump tactics, releasing advertisements addressing culture-war issues like illegal immigration and the fate of Confederate Civil War monuments.

Corey Stewart, a rightwing Trump acolyte who narrowly lost the Republican primary to Gillespie, said the establishment Republican had failed to motivate Trump's core supporters.

"I think he made a mistake by not inviting the president to campaign for him," Stewart told AFP.

A Gillespie win would have served to validate Trump's aggressive style, and form a blueprint for how mainstream Republicans can fight for Trump issues without embracing the controversial man himself.

- Under pressure -

In South Korea, the president meanwhile trumpeted American successes on the anniversary of his election.

"The United States is going through something of a miracle," Trump told the South Korean National Assembly, citing the record-setting US stock market, declining unemployment, and the battle against Islamic State extremists.

But congressional Republicans have not succeeded in pushing through some key planks of Trump's agenda. They have failed to repeal and replace health care reforms known as Obamacare, and the prospects for the latest big-ticket item, tax reform, are cloudy in Congress.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Democratic victories have not changed his "reading" of the moment.

"If anything, this just puts more pressure on us to follow through," he said.

But some Republican lawmakers were interpreting Tuesday's thrashing as a warning.

"Last night was a referendum" on Trump, Republican congressman Scott Taylor of Virginia told CNN. "I don't think there was any way you could look at it a different way."
Danang (Vietnam) (AFP) - Asia-Pacific nations struggled to salvage the sprawling TPP trade deal Friday following America's rejection of the original pact, with Canada refuting reports an agreement in principle had been struck.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was initially a US-led initiative between 12 nations accounting for 40 percent of global GDP, but deliberately excluding Washington's regional rival China.

It was thrown into disarray when President Donald Trump abruptly pulled out of the deal at the start of the year, dismaying allies including Japan, Australia, Canada and Vietnam.

Trade ministers from the remaining members -- dubbed the TPP-11 -- are in Vietnam trying to save the pact on the sidelines of the annual APEC summit.

Reports in Japanese media late Thursday said an agreement in principle had been reached to press ahead with the TPP-11 without the US.

"We reached an agreement that has a high level of standard which also strikes a good balance," Japan's economic revitalisation minister Toshimitsu Motegi, who co-chaired the meetings in Danang, told reporters.

But claims of a breakthrough were later denied by Canada's trade minister Francois-Philippe Champagne.

"Despite reports, there is no agreement in principle on TPP," he said in a tweet.

A Japanese government official in Tokyo on Friday told AFP that Motegi's remarks meant the TPP-11 group had reached "a basic agreement at the ministerial level" which would then need to go to the leaders of each country before being signed off.

- 'Metrics changed' -

Japan, the world's third largest economy, is leading the charge to revive the TPP, keen to demonstrate that multilateral trade pacts can thrive without US support.

Other nations, including Canada, Malaysia and Vietnam, want tweaks of various points and are wrangling over whether some initial elements can be suspended to avoid the collapse of the pact.

Canada wants to keep the strong "gold standard" elements of the deal, including guarantees on upholding labour rights inside signatory countries.

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But economies such as Malaysia and Vietnam, with its massive state sector, are less inclined to concede ground on testy areas like labour rights and the environment now the carrot of access to American markets has been taken from the table.

Without the US, TPP-11 only represents 13.5 percent of the global economy but the remaining countries are scrambling to avoid the deal's collapse, especially given the increasingly protectionist winds sweeping through the United States and Europe.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Australian trade minister Steven Ciobo said Washington's withdrawal had "changed the metrics" for a number of the remaining TPP countries.

"That means there will be some aspects of it where we will agree to suspend the operation of certain parts of it, and that's been the basis upon which we've been able to get now, I hope, an agreement."

Trump's spectacular emergence has unpicked decades of US-led work towards more open global trade and lower tariffs.

The original TPP deal was previously described by the US as a "gold standard" for all free trade agreements because it went far beyond just cutting tariffs.

It included removing a slew of non-tariff measures and required members to comply with a high level of regulatory standards in areas like labour law, environmental protection, intellectual property and government procurement.

Washington's withdrawal has paved the way for China to portray itself as the new global leader for free trade.

But critics say Chinese-led initiatives are much weaker on labour and environmental standards.

burs-jta/apj/kaf
The US President speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vietnam: EPA

As the first day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit in Vietnam drew to a close, things were not looking too promising. Mr Putin was there. Mr Trump was absent. For all the Kremlins insistence that a formal meeting between the presidents was about to happen, the White House seemed to offer different thoughts.

The two leaders did eventually cross paths, exchanging handshakes and brief comments during the summits official dinner.

But all throughout Thursday, Kremlin officials had treated the second bilateral meeting of the presidents as a fait accompli. President Putins aide Yuri Ushakov said the only thing left undecided was the time. The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said they were ready for negotiations. Even the Americans initially seemed game. President Trump said that he saw no reasons why the meeting should not take place.

On Friday morning however, aboard Air Force One, the Presidents press secretary Sarah Sanders walked back the chances of a full, bilateral meeting.

The White House did not anticipate there would be a formal tete-a-tete, she said. There were scheduling conflicts on both sides, issues that the Russians had neglected to mention. An informal interaction wasnt ruled out: Theyre going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible, and likely.

Lavrov, never hostage to political correctness, summed up the Russian frustration. How was he to know what Mr Trumps pen-pushers thought about the possibility of a formal meeting? He replied angrily: Ask them yourselves.

The Kremlin tried to save face. There were conflicting signals from Washington, the presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Ria Novosti news agency: We dont quite understand whats happening, but are patiently working to an understanding.

Mr Peskovs remarks had, in fact, come at the end of weeks of intense preparation. There had been discussions at ministerial level. US ambassador Jon Huntsman, just a month into the Moscow job, had met with senior foreign ministry officials to decide on a common agenda.

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That task was a near-impossible one. Since the first and only face-to-face meeting between presidents in Hamburg, relations between the two countries have plummeted to historical lows  and policy disagreements have widened.

There is the matter of four investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections; the new American sanctions against military firms and oligarchs, due to come into effect in February; the tit-for-tat expulsions and diplomatic compound closures. And an information war that threatens to spiral out of control.

This month, the Kremlin-funded RT was forced to register as a foreign agent. An asymmetric mirror response against CNN, Radio Liberty, Twitter and Facebook is expected next week.

There was little illusion that progress would be made on the major sources of tension  the diplomatic expulsions, sanctions or the increasing disagreements on missile accords. These were off the immediate agenda.

The two thought this wasnt the right time or venue, but the problems are still there, Maxim Suchkov, non-resident expert of the Russian International Affairs Council, told The Independent.

The main items on the agenda were instead supposed to be Syria and North Korea.

Ending the disagreement on Syria has been in the common interests of both Moscow and Washington for a long time, said Mr Suchkov. While there were differences on the role of Iran and Bashar al-Assad, progress was possible on de-escalation and moving the peace process from Astana in Kazakhstan to the more neutral Geneva, he said.

Mr Trumps inability to commit to a meeting will do little to encourage Russian hopes of progress. The Kremlin is becoming resigned to the reality that the President is largely powerless to affect US-Russia relations.

They are now preparing themselves for living in the US sanctions mode for at least the coming decade, says Mr Suchkov. The question is whether the Europeans might ease the pressure sooner.

While Russian advisers understand the domestic pressures faced by President Trump, todays demonstrative indecision will not have played well in Moscow.

This was not so much a snub as evasion, says Mark Galeotti, senior researcher at the Institute of International Affairs Prague.

But even if it leaves Putin looking snubbed, far more serious is the extent to which is leaves Trump looking cowardly.
Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on chronic trade abuses on Friday, warning an audience of world leaders at a summit in Vietnam that he will always put America first.

The US president also resumed his tough talk on North Korea as he sought to rally Asia-Pacific nations into confronting the twisted fantasies of Pyongyangs young leader Kim Jong-un.

Mr Trump was speaking to a gathering of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Danang after arriving from a three-day visit to Beijing were he had softened his tone on trade and North Korea.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit at the Aryana Convention Center in Danang, Vietnam, Credit: AP

But in Vientnam Mr Trump said that America will not "be taken advantage of any longer" with unequal trade policies.

We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them, he said.

He also struck a defiant tone towards Pyongyang, saying the region's future "must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail.

Donald Trump's in Asia tour, in pictures

During his China trip he called on the North to make a deal, but also urged China and Russia to increase their efforts in reining in Pyongyangs nuclear weapons programme.

In Vietnam he reverted to the more direct language he used in South Korea earlier in his Asian tour when he spoke of the increasing threat to all nations from Pyongyangs military build-up.

Every single step the North Korea regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger, he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is seeking to pitch Beijing as the centre of a new globalist order, told the summit that globalisation is an "irreversible historical trend".

Confusion over Putin meeting

The APEC meeting is also being attended by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who was expected by some to meet with Mr Trump.

But mixed messages from Washington and Moscow continued on Friday on the potential talks.

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said as the US president arrived in Vietnam that a scheduling conflict meant the leaders would not be able to formally meet.

Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport Credit: Reuters

Her comments came a day after secretary of state Rex Tillerson said there was no reason for talks to take place when differences between Washington and Moscow exist over Syria and Ukraine.

The White House said it was still possible that Mr Trump could hold an unofficial meeting with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the APEC summit, or later when both men will be in the Philippines.

And the Kremlin said on Friday that Mr Putin will meet Mr Trump one way or another.

Mr Trumps presidency has been dogged by allegations that his election campaign colluded with Russia to help him get into the White House.

An investigation into the matter led by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, recently brought criminal charges against three former advisers to Mr Trump.

Chinese media upbeat over 'state visit plus'

The US president flew to Vietnam from China, where he made a three-day visit which saw him praising Mr Xi.

In one of his final Tweets from the Chinese capital he described his trip as being very productive and described Mr Xi as highly respected.

China deploys a soldier to watch Donald Trumps feet in case he fell on the stairs after talks with Xi Jinping pic.twitter.com/5aNOLw1YsA  Neil Connor (@neilaconnor) November 9, 2017

Chinese state media was upbeat on what was billed as a state visit plus as Mr Trump flew to Vietnam without his wife, who was stayed in Beijing to visit a zoo and the Great Wall.

The Global Times newspaper said Mr Trump was changing his views on China. He had softening his tone on trade and had gradually learned that Beijing is indeed making selfless contributions towards confronting Pyongyang, it said.

The China Daily said that while differences that had been pestering bilateral ties had not instantly disappeared, it was positive on the constructive approach to these issues the two leaders demonstrated.

After his visit to Vietnam, Mr Trump will on Saturday head to Manila for the East Asia Summit and a meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Mr Trump has also visited Japan during his five-nation 11 day tour of Asia.
Now that the boy wonder Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has accelerated his ascent to the throne through a series of wide-scale purges last weekend and reckless foreign-policy moves abroad, both of us are feeling nostalgic for the good old days when the Saudis were scared of their own shadow.

During decades of service at the State Department, we longed for the day when risk-averse Saudi leaders would take greater ownership in solving their domestic and regional security problems and reduce their dependence on the United States. We were frustrated by their inaction and caution. Even former Secretary of State James Baker  who courted the Saudis for obvious reasons during the Gulf War  exploded in frustration after the Saudis failed to deliver a promised public statement on the Arab-Israeli peace process: These guys could fuck up a two-car funeral.

But now the dog has finally caught up with the mail truck. The Saudis have become everything we wanted them to be  and by the looks of things, maybe a lot more than we bargained for. Under Mohammed bin Salman, Riyadh has morphed into an independent force striking out aggressively at home and adventurously abroad, dragging Washington with them. Heres why we have a serious case of buyers remorse  and why the Trump administration needs to hit the reset button with King Salman and his impetuous son.

In a string of pretty spectacular foreign-policy failures (see: Yemen, Qatar, and now Lebanon may not be far behind), Mohammed bin Salmans most notable success abroad may well be the wooing and capture of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Americans have long been infatuated with kings and the kingdom. But King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman seem to have set a new land speed record in convincing the Trump administration that they hold the keys to war, peace, and the transformation of the region.

It didnt take much convincing. To be sure, the Saudis had some natural advantages over other possible partners that put points on the board in the White House: seeming stability and strength, an authoritarian streak, tons of money, and a desire to flatter and please. But above all, the new bromance reflected a timely coincidence of strategic imperatives: Trump was eager to distance himself from his predecessors pro-Iranian inclinations and repair U.S. tensions with Saudi Arabia and Israel from the Obama years; the Saudis, meanwhile, were determined to exploit Trumps preternatural allergy to all things Barack Obama and to push Washington into a more aggressive posture against Iran.

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That Trumps first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia was unprecedented. Indeed, its stunning to consider that Trumps four immediate predecessors made their first foreign trips to either Canada or Mexico. The Middle East is usually a place where U.S. schemes and dreams for transforming this broken, angry, and dysfunctional region go to die. But the Saudis turned Trumps first foray outside the United States into a veritable love fest and string of hyperboles: He cut tremendous deals and expressed his pride in the new relationship and the like-minded goals the two nations share. The Saudis, having mesmerized and disarmed the president and official Washington with their glowing orb, were given a series of blank checks and a margin to maneuver in the region  without giving much in return.

To be sure, previous administrations dating back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt have adopted consistently pro-Saudi policies. After all, the Saudis have long been an important security partner and critical energy supplier. But this presidents willingness to fawn all over the Saudis, bless their domestic and foreign policy, and trust that these policies make sense for American interests is truly head-exploding. In fairness to the more levelheaded thinkers in the Trump administration, no U.S. president has ever encountered a House of Saud this ready to act in transformative ways. One would think that alone would be cause for some caution and distance. But not in Trumpland.

Instead, the president has ramped up support for the bloody, inhumane, and disastrous Saudi campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen; willfully and publicly taken the Saudi side in a largely failed campaign to pressure Qatar to align its policies with Riyadhs; and said nothing about Saudi Arabias human rights record or its export of an intolerant and extreme form of Islam abroad. Indeed, in response to Mohammed bin Salmans large-scale purges last week of well-known royals, government ministers, military and business leaders, and media figures, Trump publicly endorsed the campaign, indicating that Saudi Arabia knows exactly what its doing. That Kushner was in Saudi Arabia on an unannounced visit before the crackdown raises some suspicion that he was informed of what was coming and didnt object. In short, the president seems to have turned Saudi Arabia into a kind of fulcrum of Western civilization  a bulwark against Iran and a key force in the administrations yet-to-be-announced policies on the peace process, all without considering how Saudi policies support U.S. interests or the region at large.

Thats a big bet. Assuming Saudi Arabia survives this turmoil, Mohammed bin Salman could be king for 50 years. Clearly, Saudi Arabia needs to change. Weaning the country off hydrocarbons to a more diversified economy (the central piece of Mohammed bin Salmans massively ambitious Vision 2030 plan); moderating hardline Islam (as the crown prince has indicated he wants to do); and permitting women to drive (which the Saudis have announced they will do) are all positive headlines. At the same time, Mohammed bin Salman has made other moves that are much darker and worrisome. Saudi Arabia is already a police state. But the bid for what appears to be absolute personal power undermines the traditions of consensus-building in the royal family that have ensured continuity and stability; it has also disrupted a system that had distributed power in the military in a manner to maintain harmony, rather concentrate it, as Mohammed bin Salman has now done  which is certain to generate resentment and opposition during the actual succession or afterward.

Abroad, the Saudis are engaged in a cold war with an opportunistic Iran thats exploiting their missteps in Yemen and Qatar and exacerbating a dangerous Sunni-Shiite sectarianism in the region. The latest Saudi gambit  pressuring the Sunni Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign in an effort to expose an Iranian- and Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon  is perhaps too clever by half. What are the Saudis going to do, given their Shiite adversaries advantages in Syria and Lebanon, when the Lebanese find themselves plunged into domestic crisis or a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah?

The Obama administration made a crucial mistake in trying to buy Saudi acquiescence in the Iran nuclear deal by indulging the kingdoms misbegotten venture in Yemen. But with this one important and utterly regrettable decision, the former president had the right approach in maintaining the U.S. distance from Saudi Arabia and not allowing itself to get suckered into taking Riyadhs side in its dispute with Iran. As painful as it would be for President Trump, he needs to take a page out of the Obama playbook by leaning heavily on the king and his son to de-escalate this conflict and restore equilibrium to Americas relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran. Because make no mistake: Saudi independence is still illusory. Riyadh desperately wants us to back them  and bail them out when they get in over their heads with Iran. If Washington is not careful, the Saudis will sandbag America into standing up to Tehran while the Saudis hide behind its skirt.

Above all this sits Donald Trump, apparently oblivious to the choices hes making. Hes banked U.S. credibility, image, and policy on a young kid whose ambitions and drive seem to have outstripped his wisdom, experience, and judgment. Mohammed bin Salman is up on a tight wire, and to paraphrase the late, great songwriter Leon Russell, putting on a show for Trump to see. The president, without thinking any of this through, has got America and the future of the region up there with him. Lets hope hes not too blind to see and doesnt fall.
SHOSHONE  World War II veteran Hal Ross stood Thursday as a recording of the Armed Forces Medley played in the Shoshone school gym.

About 500 students, from elementary through high school, clapped and waved miniature American flags.

Ross, a Shoshone resident, served in the U.S. Army Air Forces. He was among about a dozen veterans and their family members recognized the Shoshone School Districts yearly Veterans Day assembly.

The national holiday is observed Nov. 11 and this year, it falls on Saturday.

For Shoshone schools, the yearly veterans event is an opportunity to honor those whove served, Superintendent Rob Waite told the crowd.

Outside, small American flags lined the grass leading to the gym. Members of Shoshones Boy Scout Troop No. 58 greeted visitors.

Shoshones sixth-grade choir and high school band performed patriotic songs, and the Mountain Home Air Force Base Honor Guard posted the colors. Veterans in the audience watched, wearing red boutonnieres.

Staff Sgt. Brent Edwards with the 124th Fighter Wing, Idaho Air National Guard, was the guest speaker. He told the crowd its important veterans dont feel forgotten.

This is one of my favorite times of the year, he said. I love that its one when the community engages with veterans.

When interacting with veterans, we cant help but be awed by the enormity of what we encounter, he said, later adding only about 1 percent of the population serves in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Edwards asked the veterans in attendance to stand and the audience applauded. Thank you for answering your call to duty, he said.

Edwards talked about his own experiences over the years serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, beginning with the U.S. Navy in 1991 and later in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Edwards told the audience he was lucky all his friends came home who served during the War on Terror. After pausing for a few moments, he was choked up when he spoke again: not necessarily the same way they left, but they all came home.

The veterans honored Thursday come from many different walks of life, Edwards told the crowd, but they all show traits such as courage, pride, determination, dedication and integrity, and serve a cause larger than oneself.

Whether they enlisted or were drafted, they left their homes to answer the nations call of duty, Edwards said, and to defend our freedoms.

And nothing, he said, can replace the hole created by fallen service members.

But even as we lose troops, Edwards said, more are stepping up to say, I am ready to serve.
Canadian rapper Drake is well-known for his viral dance moves, his role as Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation, and his love for Rihanna. However, what fans might not know is that Drizzy is a die-hard Harry Potter fan  so much so, in fact, that hes considering dropping $160,000 on a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the More Life rapper revealed that hes been pursuing a first edition of J.K. Rowlings first book in the series for the past four years and has recently found one on sale for $160,000.

While the price point might be staggering to some, Drake is considering treating himself when the occasion presents itself.

My birthdays coming up, he said. Maybe Ill buy it for myself as a treat.

Now that we know that Drakes a Harry Potter superfan, the only question that remains is what house he would be sorted into.
Catholic nuns participate in a protest in Manila on Nov. 5, 2017, calling for an end to killings in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs. (Photo: NOEL CELIS via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has been accused of ordering the killings of thousands of his citizens in his war on drugs. He has told human rights activists he will have them shot, too, if they protest. He has imprisoned his critics.

And in the coming days Duterte will get a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump as the U.S. president wraps up his current trip to Asia. The two leaders, according to the White House, have established a warm rapport.

Its incredibly troubling, said Joanne Lin, an Amnesty International official. If you look at Dutertes record, he has overseen this campaign of extrajudicial killings. The evidence is overwhelming.

Its evidence that Trumps own State Department cited in its annual human rights report released earlier this year, which found that Duterte targeted government officials, police, members of the military and judges, accusing them of being drug dealers.

Dutertes government, the report said has not revealed the source of the information backing up the drug-dealing accusations, and the accuracy and legitimacy of the lists has been questioned.

Some individuals named on the lists were subsequently killed in either police operations or suspected vigilante killings, the report said.

A senior administration official nevertheless said Trump was eager to meet with Duterte.

Theyve had exchanges of letters, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. I think theres a warm rapport there, and hes very much looking forward to his first in-person meeting with President Duterte.

Duterte is only the latest in a line of authoritarian leaders accused of human rights abuses with whom Trump has met and  more to the point  praised. The others:

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who according to human rights groups, imprisoned thousands of dissidents and sanctioned the killings of some 800 protesters in a single day after seizing power in a coup. Trump said Sisi had done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.

Russias President Vladimir Putin, who has remained in power nearly two decades as his political opponents and critics  including journalists  have been imprisoned or assassinated. Trump during his presidential campaign praised him as a better leader than then-President Barack Obama. Since taking office, Trump has continued to speak kindly of him, even as an ongoing investigation into Putins efforts to help Trump win the election have started to yield criminal charges.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has imprisoned thousands for alleged involvement in a failed coup attempt last year as he continues cracking down on dissent. A referendum Erdogan pushed earlier this year to increase his powers was nearly universally condemned around the world, but won a congratulatory phone call from Trump.

Chinas President Xi Jinpings regime routinely spies on its own citizens and jails dissidents. Xi recently engineered a second five-year term for himself as leader of the Communist party, and got his name enshrined in the countrys constitution. Trump in a recent statement congratulated him on his great political victory.

Saudi Arabias King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who late last week had arrested other princes and their allies, accusing them of corruption. Over the summer, they arrested clerics and other critics of their regime. Trumps son-in-law, top White House aide Jared Kushner, was reportedly involved in planning the recent purge, and Trump personally endorsed it. I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing, Trump said on Twitter.

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He keeps congratulating authoritarians for doing non-democratic things, said Ilan Goldenberg, a top official at the Pentagon and the State Department under Obama. You dont make congratulatory calls for purges. You make congratulatory calls to people who win democratic elections.

Trumps national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said Trump does bring up human rights concerns, just not in public remarks. Weve seen him do it quietly in every relationship, McMaster said. And so how much does it help to yell about these problems? It hasnt really delivered in recent history, anyway.

Lin, the Amnesty International official, said that publicly calling out human rights abusers has been something that U.S. presidents have been doing for decades. This president has shown little interest, to put it mildly, she said. Human rights and refugee protection are not top of mind for him at all.

Duterte on Wednesday bluntly answered Filipino reporters who asked how he would respond if Trump questioned his human rights record during their meeting.

Lay off. That is not your business, Duterte said he would tell Trump. That is my business. I take care of my country and I will nurture my country to health.

Lin said Trumps meeting with Duterte is a particularly galling because the Filipino president has been so open about his lack of interest in following social norms. Hes even said he would pardon police who are convicted of crimes, Lin said, but then laughed. Which sounds so ludicrous, except thats what our president has done.

Lin was referring to Trump ally and former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of contempt of court but was then pardoned by Trump. That willingness to override the rule of law, said Goldenberg, suggests that the core problem may be that Trump relates more with authoritarian rulers than he does with democratically elected ones.

Goldenberg pointed to a recent interview in which Trump complained that he is not permitted to direct the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate his political enemies. He added that Saudi King Salmans creation of an anti-corruption committee to justify his recent purge probably piqued Trumps interest.

You can imagine Trump reading that and thinking: That sounds like a good idea, Goldenberg said.  Why cant I do that?

He also said that the damage to Americas standing around the world from Trumps attitude will be considerable. When theres no difference between us and Russia and China in these democratic values, what do we have? he said. That is the one thing we have to offer. And when we lose that, what is our advantage?

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East Libyan forces expel Islamist militants from Benghazi A member of the Libyan National Army runs during clashes with Islamist militants in Khreibish district in Benghazi, Libya, Nov. 9, 2017. (Photo: Esam Omran Al-Fetor/Reuters)

Eastern Libyan forces on Thursday expelled Islamist fighters from one of their last strongholds in the countrys second-largest city of Benghazi, military officials said.

The battle for Benghazi between the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and an array of Islamist militants and other fighters has been part of a broader conflict since Libya slipped into turmoil following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Several Islamists and one soldier were killed when special forces moved into the Khreibish district, one of the remaining pockets of resistance after Haftar declared victory in the battle for in Benghazi in July. Ten soldiers were wounded.

Commander Wanis Bukhamada told Reuters on Thursday evening his special forces controlled almost the entire district after a day of heavy fighting.

Tonight will be the last night for Daesh in Khreibish, he said, using a derogatory name for Islamic State.

Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign in May 2014, slowly gaining the upper hand against Islamist militants and former rebels who fought Gaddafi in the 2011 uprising.

Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya. He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground. (Reuters)

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Brussels (AFP) - The European Union on Friday unveiled plans to make it easier to move troops and military equipment around the bloc, in a bid to boost defence in the face of the growing threat posed by Russia.

EU officials will look to streamline customs checks that are currently causing delays as well as reviewing infrastructure plans to make sure that roads, bridges and railways are able to carry heavy military equipment such as tanks.

Senior NATO commanders have warned that cumbersome border bureaucracy is hampering their ability to move resources quickly, which in turn reduces their capacity to provide a serious deterrent to potential aggression from Russia.

The need for military movement around Europe declined after the Cold War, but the Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 has once again brought the threat from the east back into sharp focus.

European Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc said it was "high time" that military needs were once again taken into account in transport planning.

"The swift movement of military personnel and equipment is hindered by physical, legal and regulatory barriers," Bulc said.

"This creates inefficiencies in public spending, delays, disruptions, and above all a greater vulnerability."

- Upgrading infrastructure in the east -

A joint statement from EU members highlighted recent military exercises where customs problems and infrastructure limitations -- bridges not being able to support the weight of military vehicles, for instance -- had led to "delays, disruptions higher costs and increased vulnerability".

After an initial study period, the European Commission will propose an action plan by March 2018 for member states' endorsement.

NATO this week announced plans for a new logistics hub to improve the way it moves resources around Europe, but it needs the EU's help to improve transport networks.

Part of the work will be to assess transport links across Europe, particularly in formerly communist countries in the east, where NATO had no access during the Cold War.

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"All the planning and visibility of infrastructure we had stops at the old internal German border," a NATO official said.

Once the Berlin Wall came down and eastern European countries joined the EU and NATO, there was seen to be no need to map the infrastructure and upgrade it for military use, the official explained.

Now a key priority for NATO is to ensure that equipment such as tanks can be moved quickly.

"Moving troops is very easy -- that's what Ryanair and EasyJet do every day by the thousands. What makes it difficult is the equipment, especially heavy equipment," the NATO official said.

A further complication is that many transport resources -- rail networks and ports in particular -- are now run by private businesses, making it harder to commandeer them for military use than when they were government-owned.
Flynn reportedly involved in alleged plan to abduct cleric Fethullah Gulen

Robert Mueller believed to have enough evidence to bring charges

The new allegation is that Flynn and his son engaged in a conspiracy to arrange the rendition of Fethullah Gulen to the Erdogan government. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Donald Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is under investigation for involvement in an alleged plot to kidnap a Turkish dissident cleric living in the US and fly him to an island prison in Turkey in return for $15m, it was reported on Friday.



The report in the Wall Street Journal is the latest of a string of allegations facing Flynn, a retired general and former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA).

Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian manipulation of the 2016 US election, has already indicted Trumps former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another senior fundraiser on charges including money laundering. A former foreign policy adviser has pleaded guilty to perjury.

Mueller is now reported to have gathered sufficient evidence to bring charges against Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, which would bring his investigation another leap closer to Trump.

The fact that no indictment has been made public may only increase concerns for Trumps legal team. Flynn has expressed interest in an immunity deal and Mueller, in his dealings with former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, has shown himself ready to negotiate.

The former national security advisers company, Flynn Intel Group, is allegedly under scrutiny for failing to register work it did for interests linked to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Flynn is in legal jeopardy for his statements to investigators about his contacts with representatives of the Turkish and Russian governments.

The new allegation, that Flynn and his son engaged in a conspiracy to arrange the rendition of Fethullah Gulen to the Erdogan government  which accuses the cleric of plotting an abortive coup in July 2016  could if confirmed result in even more serious charges.

In September, the Wall Street Journal reported a meeting about the plan, in which former CIA director James Woolsey is said to have participated. Fridays report describes a second meeting involving both Flynns at the 21 Club restaurant, a prohibition-era New York speakeasy patronised by Trump, in mid-December. According to people familiar with the investigation, it was at this encounter that the $15m payment was discussed.

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One source said Gulen would be seized and flown by private jet to the Turkish prison island of Imrali. It is not clear if any money changed hands or if any preparatory steps were taken.

The timing of the 21 Club meeting is significant. The White House has distanced itself from the men charged by Mueller  Papadopoulos, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates. But by mid-December Trump had named Flynn national security adviser and he was playing a central role in the transition.

That period is a grey area when it comes to paid work for foreign interests, but if the arrangement was carried through past inauguration in January, Flynn could face bribery charges on top of questions of whether the New York conversations represented a conspiracy to carry out a forced extra-judicial rendition of a legal US resident.

If the facts involving Flynn and his son are true, or even mostly true, it indicates an incredible propensity for outrageously illegal conduct, said Ryan Goodman, a New York law professor and former Pentagon counsel. Evidence that Flynn was prepared to act in such an unlawful way could help prove a case against him in other activities as well involving his ties to Russia during the campaign.

If Mueller has sufficient evidence that Flynn and his son were involved in this audacious plot to kidnap the cleric, the special counsel can use that to pressure the former Trump campaign associate to flip and tell the FBI everything he knows of relevance to the Russia investigation.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Robert Kelner, Stephen Anthony and Brian Smith, attorneys for Flynn, said that so far, out of respect for the various investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign, they had avoided responding to every rumor or allegation raised in the media.

But todays news cycle has brought allegations about General Flynn, ranging from kidnapping to bribery, that are so outrageous and prejudicial that we are making an exception to our usual rule: they are false, they said in a statement.

Barry Coburn, representing Flynns son, said he had no comment.

The Alliance for Shared Values, a group representing Gulen supporters in the US, said: The US justice system should be commended for not giving in to the Turkish governments campaign against Mr Gulen, no matter how nefarious a plan the Erdogan regime could concoct nor how much money it could offer people who might entertain such plans.

Flynn is one of the more intriguing figures at the centre of the Trump-Russia investigation. He came to prominence as an intelligence chief in Afghanistan, from where in 2010 he published an open critique of the way the war was fought. Instead of focusing exclusively on fighting the Taliban, Flynn and his co-authors argued, the US should be more sensitive to the general population.

However, by the time he appeared at Trumps side as an early supporter, he had become an outspoken Islamophobe.

Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL, he tweeted in February 2016. According to some accounts, it was his forced retirement from the DIA under the Obama administration in 2014, apparently as a result of his abrasive management style, that left him with an enduring grudge against Democrats. On Hillary Clinton, Flynn led chants of lock her up at campaign events and the Republican national convention.

Flynns attempt to build a business empire appears to have got him into deeper controversy. He appeared on the Russian state channel, RT, and attended an RT-sponsored dinner in Moscow, sitting alongside Vladimir Putin.

In August, the Flynn Intel Group signed a deal with a Dutch firm, Inovo, owned by Ekim Alptekin, chairman of the Turkish-American Business Council and a close associate of Erdogan, according to documents filed with the Department of Justice. Flynns firm was paid more than $530,000 to dig up information about Gulen and make a film about him, according to the documents. On election day, 8 November, Flynn published a commentary in The Hill, describing Gulen as a shady Islamic mullah and radical Islamist.

It was his Russian ties that caused his initial downfall, however. Flynn lasted only 24 days as national security adviser, being forced to resign after it emerged he misled officials over the extent and nature of his contacts with the former Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak.
A Los Angeles woman who was attacked Tuesday afternoon in a Los Angeles parking garage believes the attack was racially motivated.

Quiggle Ignacio, a model and registered nurse, said the incident began while she was eating in her car at Eagle Rock Plaza.

All of a sudden there was a lady that was pushing her shopping cart, grocery cart, and the baby was on the grocery cart, and she hit my car, Ignacio told KTLA TV.

At first, Ignacio ignored the tapping until the woman, who was wearing a Slay La Vie T-shirt, started yelling at her.

Ignacio said she got out of her car to confront the woman and a man who was with her.

Why are you yelling at me? I should be the one yelling at you because you hit my car, she remembers saying to them.

Ignacio said the man started yelling racist comments to her.

He said something about me being Asian, she told CBS Los Angeles. [He said, You should go back to China and youre chinky eyes, and youre a stupid Asian, you should leave this country.

Ignacio said she tried to take a photo of their license plate, but the couple accused her of yelling at them in front of their child. She later posted a Facebook video showing the woman approaching her in a menacing fashion and grabbing her camera.

The man pulled his wife off of Ignacio and the couple drove away. Ignacio then drove to a police station and filed a report. Paramedics also examined her for injuries.

Ignacio posted photos on Facebook showing bruises on her face that she said came from the attack.

The physical attack was painful, but the racism behind it was especially hurtful, she said.

I love being Filipino, I love being Asian and I share my values, but then when something like this happens it breaks your confidence, Ignacio told CBS Los Angeles.

Ignacio also posted a photo of her alleged attacker in hopes someone can identify her to the police.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

She says shes scared of retaliation, but is sharing her story in hopes it will help prevent future attacks.

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I wants people to be aware that it happens, and theres no reason to hurt anybody, she told CBS Los Angeles.

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
By Philip Wen BEIJING (Reuters) - As U.S. President Donald Trump left Beijing on Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, first lady Melania stayed behind to play tourist, viewing pandas at a zoo and visiting the Great Wall of China. At the Beijing Zoo, the 47-year-old former model fed a giant panda named Gu Gu and learned about his nutrition and training. She greeted a group of school children waving miniature Chinese and American flags, handing out stuffed toy eagles after watching the children sing a Chinese folk song at the panda enclosure. "Thank you very much," she said. Melania then signed a panda print, writing: "Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu! Melania Trump". Later in the afternoon, Melania walked along part of the Mutianyu section of the more than 20,000-km (12,400-mile) long Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where China frequently takes visiting heads of state and their spouses. As with previous first ladies, Melania has used her platform to champion public causes, such as the prevention of childhood bullying and combating the opioid epidemic in the United States. Playing a prominent supporting role on the president's multi-leg Asia visit, she won praise on Chinese social media, with comparisons to China's glamorous first lady, Peng Liyuan, and comments on her apparent ease in navigating the ancient cobblestones of the Forbidden City in super-high stilettos upon arrival in Beijing on Wednesday. Accompanied by Peng, Melania watched a cultural performance, painted pandas and participated in a cooking class at a primary school on Thursday. Many on China's Twitter-like Weibo applauded Melania's grace and sense of style, as well as her cultural sensitivity. In China, she wore mostly austere coats and dark gowns from Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen, in contrast with her magenta Delpozo outfit and electric-blue heels upon landing in South Korea days before. But most in China said they remained bigger fans of their own first lady, often affectionately referred to online as Peng Mama, which roughly translates as Mother Peng. "I still think Mama oozes more grace, while also exuding a motherly air!" one Weibo poster said. Chinese social media sites are policed more heavily than normal during important political events, with negative or sensitive matter swiftly blocked or removed by internet censors. As Trump departed, he said on Twitter his wife's next stop would be Alaska, where she would "greet our AMAZING troops". However, Trump's daughter and adviser Ivanka, who is very popular in China, did not accompany her father, to the disappointment of fans. (Reporting by Philip Wen; Additional reporting by Thomas Suen, Ryan Woo and Liangping Gao; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, one of historys greatest scientific minds, has died aged 76 after battling a rare form of motor neurone disease for 50 years.

Despite being wheelchair-bound, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser, Prof Hawking wrote a plethora of scientific papers that earned him comparisons with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

Diagnosed when he was 22, he was given just a few years to live. Yet against all odds Professor Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age.

Cambridge University paid tribute to him, describing him as an inspiration to millions and saying his work will leave an indelible legacy.

Professor Hawking was a unique individual who will be remembered with warmth and affection not only in Cambridge but all over the world.

His exceptional contributions to scientific knowledge and the popularisation of science and mathematics have left an indelible legacy.

In his later years, Hawking was particularly outspoken against the problems facing humanity.

Here are five of Hawkings most strident warnings for the future of mankind.

Hi-tech aliens

Hawking was a vocal opponent of the METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, which aims to send messages into space and contact intelligent aliens.

Professor Hawking believed this was a worrying idea, as any aliens hi-tech enough to get our message and travel here may well crush us without mercy.

He said in a 2010 documentary, If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didnt turn out well for the Native Americans.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldnt want to meet.

Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.

Mankinds insatiable appetite

Hawking said the world could turn into a sizzling ball of fire by the year 2600  due to climate change, demands for energy and a soaring population.

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Our only hope of survival, he warned, was to escape our planet into space, saying his Breakthrough Starshot project could be the first step on the way.

Speaking at an event in Beijing In November 2017 last year, he said he hoped that tiny spaceships propelled by beams of light could reach Alpha Centauri within his audiences lifetime.

Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years.

Trump and climate change

Professor Hawking was a vocal critic of Donald Trump (describing him as a demagogue), and in particular criticised Trumps stance on climate change.

In this regard, he goes further than many others in how he believes Trumps policies could leave us.

Hawking told the BBC in July last year, Trumps action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.

Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and its one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.

Replaced by robots

I doubt theyll be the perfections of the human form we see in the Blade Runner films.

Speaking at the Zeitgeist event in London last year, the physicist warned that machines would inevitably overtake human intelligence, and could, in the end, replace us altogether.

Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years, he said.

When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.

Prof Hawking had previously warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence, saying in 2014, The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.

Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldnt compete, and would be superseded.

Killed by our own caveman instincts

A major nuclear war would be the end of civilisation

Professor Hawking regularly warned against human aggression, describing it as a trait which worked for us during the early days of the human race, but was now a deadly liability in the age of nuclear weapons.

In an interview with The Independent in 2015, he said, The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.

A major nuclear war would be the end of civilisation, and maybe the end of the human race, he explained.

Hawking also said in 2016, We are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity.

We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it.
The Middle East remains transfixed by the fate of Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister - REUTERS

Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, warned Saudi Arabia and Iran yesterday not to use Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts amid fears that their power struggle would destabilise the small country and cause fresh chaos in the region.

One week after after Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, abruptly resigned during a trip to Saudi Arabia questions continued to mount over whether he was being effectively held prisoner in Riyadh.

The tensions over Mr Hariris fate and other issues prompted the United Nations secretary general to appeal for calm and warn that a fresh conflict in Lebanon would have devastating consequences for the Middle East.

The United States supports the stability of Lebanon and is opposed to any actions that could threaten that stability, Mr Tillerson said in a statement. The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country.

Without naming specific countries or groups, he said all regional players must respect the integrity and independence of the Lebanese government and military and called Mr Hariri a strong partner of the United States.

Emmanuel Macron spent two hours in Saudi Arabia meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's powerful crown prince

His statement came amid concerns that Mr Hariri had been forced to resign by Saudi Arabia as part of its efforts to counter Iranian influence in Lebanon.

It also contrasted with tweets from Donald Trump, who said he had great confidence in Saudi Arabia and the leadership of its aggressive young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Mr Hariri has remained in Saudi Arabia since resigning on Saturday, and while he has met with Western diplomats he has not done any interviews nor made contact with some of his closest aides.

Many Lebanese suspect he is under house arrest in and Lebanons president has said he will not accept his resignation until he returns to the country to deliver it in person. Even Mr Hariris own political party, the Future Movement, has indicated he is being held against his will.

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Emmanuel Macron, the French president, visited Riyadh briefly on Thursday and the French government gave mixed signals over whether it felt Mr Hariri was at liberty or not.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said he though the Lebanese politician was free of his movements but a spokesman later appeared to walk the comment back and called for him to be able to return to Lebanon.

Posters in solidarity with Mr Hariri have gone up in parts of Lebanon Credit: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Both the US and Germany said they had seen no evidence that Mr Hariri was being held captive.

The leader of Hizbollah, the Shia militant group which plays a major role in Lebanons politics, said Mr Hariri was a prisoner in Saudi Arabia and that his detention was an insult to all Lebanese.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, expressed fears that the tensions would lead to a fresh conflict in Lebanon, eleven years after fierce fighting between Israel and Hizbollah left thousands dead.

"It is essential that no new conflict erupt in the region, Mr Guterres said. "It would have devastating consequences."

Most analysts expect that neither Hizbollah nor Israel are seeking war and that if Saudi Arabia does lash out against Lebanon it is likely to be in the form of economic sanctions, like those it imposed on Qatar.
TWIN FALLS  A hate crime at the Islamic Center of Twin Falls and a shooting at a church in Texas have raised concerns here locally about the safety of places of worship in the community.

The Twin Falls Police Department says church leaders have been asking questions about what they can do to protect their members. In light of recent events, police are inviting local religious representatives to attend a Places of Worship Safety Forum from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday at City Council Chambers, 305 Third Ave. E.

Officer J.P. ODonnell said this is the first step police have made to begin a dialogue about safety in places of worship.

What we saw at the Islamic Center is obviously concerning to us, he said. That was obviously fresh in our minds.

Police discovered in late October that a 4-foot cross draped in bacon, pigs feet and a tongue had been left in the centers parking lot. Its still an active investigation, but police have not made arrests or released any updates on what they described as a hate crime. Muslims abstain from eating pork, under the rules of Islam.

Twin Falls only mosque has been vandalized and received threats in recent years.

Police also noted the Nov. 5 church shooting in Texas, when a gunman opened fire on worshipers, killing 26 people and wounding 20 others.

Places of worship have a unique challenge when it comes to security and safety, Police Chief Craig Kingsbury said in a statement. It is important for us to make sure that every church, temple, synagogue or mosque within our community, are safe and protected.

ODonnell said police also stepped up to assist schools after national school shootings in recent years.

Trends will change, he said. Obviously, we develop new policing tactics based on some of that. With these increases in what were seeing across the nation, we want to start a dialogue.

Police can help religious leaders learn what they should or should not do when faced with an act of violence, he said. At the forum, they will be taking questions from church representatives.

The Church has always been a place of hope, comfort, healing and sanctuary, police said in a statement released Friday. The realization that danger could lurk within our Churches is a frightful and upsetting prospect.

Leaders of any faith-based organization in Twin Falls are invited to attend the forum. They can RSVP by emailing ODonnell at jodonnell@tfid.org or calling the Community Outreach Unit at 208-735-3445.
General Michael Flynn - AFP

Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether US President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was involved in an alleged plan to seize a Muslim cleric and deliver him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn Credit: Carlos Barria

Under the plan, it is alleged Flynn, who was fired by Trump after just 24 days in the job, and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, were to receive up to $15 million for forcibly removing Fethullah Gulen from his U.S. home and delivering him to the Turkish government, people familiar with the investigation told the Journal.

US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg Credit: Reuters

The alleged plan emerged during Mueller's wider investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any collusion by the Trump campaign.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen of instigating a failed coup in July 2016 and wants him extradited to Turkey to face trial. Gulen has denied any role in the coup.

A spokesman for Mueller's team declined to comment on the report on Friday.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election Credit: AP

Flynn is a central figure in Mueller's investigation because of conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak last year and because he waited until March to retroactively register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for the work he did for a Turkish businessman.

Flynn and his son's lawyers have not responded to requests for comment but Flynn Jr. tweeted on Sunday: "The disappointment on your faces when I don't go to jail will be worth all your harassment."

The Journal reported that FBI agents asked at least four people about a December meeting in New York where Flynn and Turkish government representatives were allegedly discussing removing Gulen, according to people with knowledge of the FBI's inquiries.

The December meeting about Gulen was also reported Friday by NBC, which cited people familiar with the probe. The group also allegedly discussed how to set free a Turkish-Iranian gold trader, Reza Zarrab. Zarrab is in prison in the United States on federal charges that he helped Iran skirt U.S. sanctions, NBC said.

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A Reuters report on Oct. 26 said one of Flynn's business associates, former CIA Director James Woolsey, pitched a $10 million contract to two Turkish businessmen to help discredit Gulen while Woolsey was an adviser to Trumps election campaign.

Woolsey was a member of Flynn's firm, the Flynn Intel Group, according to a Justice Department filing by the firm and an archive of the company's website.

Mueller's team has also interviewed White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, the highest-level Trump aide known to have spoken with investigators, CNN reported on Thursday.
PARIS (Reuters) - France's foreign minister said on Friday he believed that former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri was not under house arrest in Saudi Arabia and did not have any particular constraints on his movements.

"As far as we know, yes. We think he is free of his movements and it's important he makes his own choices," Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

France's ambassador to Saudi met Hariri on Thursday before President Emmanuel Macron's unscheduled visit to Riyadh to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, diplomats said. It was unclear whether Macron had any contact with Hariri during his stopover in the Saudi capital.

Paris has close ties with Lebanon, a former colony, and with Hariri, who has a home in France after spending several years in the country. Macron said in Dubai on Thursday there had been informal contacts with Hariri, but no request to transfer him to France.

"Our concern is the stability of Lebanon and that a political solution can be put in place rapidly," he added.

Two top Lebanese government officials said on Thursday that Riyadh was holding Lebanon's Saad al-Hariri captive and a third told Reuters that the Saudi authorities had ordered Hariri to resign while he was in Riyadh last weekend, and put him under house arrest.

Le Drian is due in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 16 and is scheduled to also travel to Iran later in the month.

(Reporting by John Irish and Dominique Vidalon)
By John Irish and Marine Pennetier PARIS (Reuters) - With U.S. President Donald Trump tightly aligned with Saudi Arabia against Iran, France is positioning itself as a broker between the Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim rivals, but neutrality may leave it with little leverage. With tensions between Riyadh and Tehran rising sharply since Saad Hariri's resignation as Lebanon's prime minister, President Emmanuel Macron made an unscheduled stopover to meet Saudi's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday. The move, made ahead of a possible visit by Macron to Iran next year, is in line with the young president's foreign policy style of being engaged but non-committal, trying to mediate between all sides without unsettling anyone. "There is a stronger capacity for initiative than before," former foreign minister Alain Juppe told journalists on Friday. "It reminds me a little of (President Nicolas) Sarkozy leaving for Georgia in 2012. It's good that the president is getting his hands dirty. It's an initiative he has taken and may work." During a visit to Dubai on Thursday, Macron was carefully balanced, calling for a firm international stance over Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program while implicitly warning that Riyadh's approach toward its rival was excessive. That tightrope walking may help protect French business ties in Iran and buy time with the Saudis, but diplomats are concerned the 39-year-old president, new to international affairs, may ultimately leave France exposed. "We should be reducing our exposure to the region. We have a lot of hits to take without having pressure points to weigh on them," said a French diplomatic source. "I don't think it's in our interest to play a role in quarrels between powers." Under Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, who respectively aligned themselves with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, France nurtured new links with the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states and adopted a tough stance on Iran during nuclear negotiations. But during his election campaign, Macron promised a different approach. He openly criticized Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their perceived support of Islamist groups across the region, and since the nuclear deal brought an end to sanctions, France has revived old business and investment ties to Iran. Yet over the same period, Saudi's 32-year-old crown prince has shaken up the landscape. He has forged close ties with Trump, adopted an ever more confrontational line against Iran and, in the past week, dramatically uprooted his own nation's political structures. BALANCING ACT "France is trying to act as a balance between Iran and Saudi Arabia," said Dominique Moisi, special adviser in charge of international relations at the Paris-based Montaigne Institute. "At a time when the situation is worsening in the region, it is offering itself as an intermediary after Trump chose one camp over the other," he said, referring to Trump's decision to decertify the Iran nuclear deal. Macron has tried to be nuanced, offering something to everyone. He has vowed to stick to the nuclear deal with Iran, while talking up ties with Trump and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, he has threatened new sanctions against Tehran over its ballistic missile program and promised to address its growing hegemony in the region. Iran for one isn't buying it. "I don't think this policy works," said a senior Iranian official speaking on condition of anonymity. "If a country like France tries to appease, the effect on someone like Trump will be contrary and will simply embolden the administration." French officials insist Paris has a role to play in various international conflicts given its position as a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and its historical ties in the Middle East. They say that by remaining neutral, France will prove credible and consistent in the long-term. Since Macron took power he has offered to mediate in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, the Qatar crisis and even Venezuela, each time carefully trying to avoid taking sides. But it may not pay off. "France has understood full well that there is a leadership problem on the part of the Americans and it understands that it's potentially an opportunity to make a difference," said Jalel Harchaoui, a geopolitics researcher at Paris 8 University. "But so far it seems that Macron and his team have been very distracted, in a hurry to announce big initiatives but delivering very little." (Additional reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey, Sophie Louet, Yves Clarisse, Editing by William Maclean)
Washington (AFP) - US pressure to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal could push Tehran into deciding to build its own nuclear weapons, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in an interview published Thursday.

"If you want to stop any relation with Iran regarding nuclear activity, you will create a new North Korea," Macron told Time magazine.

"If you stop the 2015 agreement, what's your other option? To launch war? To attack Iran? I think it would be crazy in the region," he said.

Macron called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed in July 2015 between Iran and six powers, including France and the United States, "the best possible deal regarding Iran."

But US President Donald Trump has labelled the agreement too lenient on Iran and accuses the country of violating it, calling for a renegotiation.

If the US abrogates the JPCOA, Macron said, it will backfire.

"Because it's exactly what we experienced with North Korea. And suddenly you will wake up in ten to twelve years time without any control, but (Iran) having the nuclear weapon."

Macron said he wants Washington to join an effort to force Iran to stop supplying ballistic missiles to its allies in the region, pointing to the missile launched at Saudi Arabia last week by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

"So we should negotiate a new series of criteria and a new treaty with Iran to stop their ballistic activities in the region."

Macron also explained why Trump was not invited to the Paris climate summit in December.

"I made it very clear from the very beginning that there is no renegotiation of the Paris Agreement," the 2015 global pact to fight climate change agreed by president Barack Obama but rejected by Trump.

"Because he cannot renegotiate with more than one hundred eighty or 190 countries," Macron said.

"We are definitely making the reforms too slowly," Macron noted. "It's very important to deliver the message and to show the strong evidence of the fact that Paris Agreement is still active."

If Trump offers a new climate initiative that would go further than the existing one, Macron said, "I would be very happy."

"But I just say what is unacceptable is to deliver speeches without any deeds and any reality."
A cruise ship in the South Pacific - Wikipedia

A French passenger was thrown off a luxury cruise liner in the Indian Ocean for staging a "mutiny" after the captain cancelled two island stops and gave appalled customers 150 (133) to spend on board by way of recompense.

It was supposed to be a dream cruise around the "Vanilla islands" of Madagascar, Maurice, Reunion and the Seychelles on the Costa neoRiviera liner.

But Alain Jan, a 53-year old French chef who boarded the huge boat with his wife at the French islands of la Reunion on October 26, said it turned into a "floating prison".

Two days into the trip, the trouble started when the captain announced that three stop-offs around Madagascar were cancelled due to a plague epidemic on the island.

Madagascar is currently experiencing an outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague that the World Health Organisation has said is a serious risk to the wider Indian Ocean region. More than 1,000 people in the country are infected and more than 100 have died.

"We said OK, it's for health reasons and anyway there were two other excursions left in Nosy Be and Diego Suarez," he told Le Parisien.

A 22 year-old woman, Melle Marie Florencia, sitting on a bed at the health center Plague Triage and Treatment Center, in Toamasina, after she was diagnosed with plague. Credit: RIJASOLO/ AFP

But the next day, passengers learned that these other two stops were cancelled, and that boat would not be going to Mauritius either.

Tempers then flared when they were informed that by way of recompense, they would receive 150 to spend on board. "Things started heating up - 150 when a major part of the trip is cancelled and a drink on board costs 5," he said.

When Mr Jan failed to received an adequate response from the crew, he launched a petition. "That evening, we organised a protest in the restaurant. There were 60 of us banging our fists on the table to alert other cruise passengers to this con job," he said.

When the captain refused to change course, mutinous passengers staged a second protest in a theatre just as the boat was nearing the Seychelles.

Exasperated, the captain rang the local police chief who came on board.

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"He listened to both our version of events and I asked to speak to the French ambassador," said Mr Jan. "Then the policeman asked the captain if he wanted to disembark anyone and he pointed to me."

Mr Jan and his wife were escorted off the boat, but there was a silver lining to their eviction.

"I spent two nights in a hotel in the Seychelles with my wife, then were flown home paid for by Costa. That's how I was freed from the floating prison," he told Le Parisien.

Once back in his home island of Reunion, he went to meet the remaining passengers as they disembarked, many of whom, he alleged, complained of being "treated like cattle" and "ripped off".

He and others alleged that Costa had known of plague cases for months but deliberately hid the change of programmed from passengers beforehand.

Costa Cruises denies the claim. "The company made every effort to maintain the stop-offs on Madagascar, looking into all the alternatives," it said in a statement.

While it understood the "disappointment of passengers eager awaiting all the stops on the Costa neoRiviera's itinerary," it said that "security, health and wellbeing of passengers and crew are an absolute priority".

It added that health authorities on Mauritius had expressed "serious concern" about the situation in Madagascar, effectively demanding the liner be quarantined to ensure it had no sick passengers.

"Given the delays that would have created, and even longer ones if there were any suspect cases on board, and considering that passengers were already on board, the company was forced to restrict its trip to the Seychelles and Reunion," said the statement.
(Photo: HuffPost)

(Photo: Tom Williams via Getty Images)

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ALABAMA GOP SENATE CANDIDATE USED HIS SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS IN FUNDRAISING EMAIL Judge Roy Moore not only denied accusations of sexual misconduct with minors, but used the reports as fodder for a fundraising email. A number of Alabama election officials dismissed the reports, and one even used the Bible to justify his support of Moore. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also weighed in, saying the president believes that if the accusations are true, Moore would do the right thing and step aside. Heres what could happen for Moore on the Alabama ballot. [HuffPost] [Tweet | Share on Facebook]

COMEDIAN LOUIS C.K. ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT Five women detailed allegations against the comedian, which mirror the rumors that had swirled around him for years. His latest film release is now under review. [HuffPost]

ITS NOT JUST ALLEGATIONS AGAINST LOUIS C.K. Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, has been accused of sexual harassment by a former assistant and writer. Charlie Sheen denies he reportedly sexually assaulted the late child actor Corey Haim. Actor Ed Westwick says sexual assault accusations against him are provably untrue. A grad student levied claims of sexual harassment against a Princeton professor. Terry Crews has filed a police report against a Hollywood executive, claiming he was sexually assaulted. Another woman has come forward to say actor Jeremy Piven sexually assaulted her. Nicki Minajs brother has been convicted of predatory sexual assault on a minor. Restauranteur Eddie Huang spoke out about being sexually assaulted as a teen on a Baptist ski trip. And legendary swimmer Diana Nyad opened up about her sexual assault at 14. [HuffPost]

UN WARNS MILLIONS WILL DIE IN YEMEN Unless the Saudi-aid blockade is ended. [HuffPost]

MUELLER EXAMINES MICHAEL FLYNNS ROLE IN ALLEGED PLAN TO DELIVER CLERIC Under [the] alleged plan, ex-Trump adviser and his son were to be paid millions to forcibly remove Fethullah Gulen from U.S. and deliver him to Turkish custody. [WSJ | Paywall]

Story continues

PUERTO RICOS MOST VULNERABLE ARE STILL WAITING FOR HELP 7 WEEKS AFTER MARIA A look at how the undocumented have been left behind in relief efforts. And yesterday, the territory was plunged into darkness when a major transmission line failed. Controversial Montana company Whitefish Energy Holdings had worked on the line and declared it repaired in an Oct. 26 Twitter post. [HuffPost]

AFTER TEXAS SHOOTING, A MOTHER READS HER DAUGHTERS LAST WORDS Its unreal, she told HuffPost. No parent should have to bury their child. [HuffPost]

WHATS BREWING

TURNS OUT TRIPADVISORS NEW WARNING LABEL MAY NOT BE CLEARLY WARNING TRAVELERS The new badge lacks any keywords that would clearly warn travelers or indicate the nature of the claims. [HuffPost]

THIS FACEBOOK FOUNDER HAS SOME SERIOUS REGRETS OVER THE ADDICTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA THE SILICON VALLEY GIANT HAS CREATED God only knows what its doing to our childrens brains, Facebooks founding president Sean Parker said. [HuffPost]

WHAT ALL THOSE UPS TRUCKS HAVE BEEN PROMISING IS FINALLY HERE T-Swifts Reputation has dropped. Heres what critics are saying about the new album and all of its lines that diss Kanye and Kim Kardashian. [Billboard]

UBER WANTS TO MOVE TO THE SKIES Your commute could soon involve flying. [The Verge]

CONGRATS BIG LITTLE LIES FANS Looks like season 2 is happening after all. You can find us listening to the first seasons soundtrack and fangirling over Madeline Martha Mackenzies best one-liners until then. [Variety]

TAKE A LOOK AT THE PACKED OSCARS RACE FOR BEST ACTRESS These 16 women are neck-in-neck for that little gold statue. [HuffPost]

BEFORE YOU GO

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
In case you were wondering, it takes approximately 8,000 hours for six 5-7 year olds to bowl an entire game.

 here comes the son (@idtweetforever) November 7, 2017
Berlin (AFP) - A nurse jailed for life in Germany two years ago for murdering patients with lethal drugs is responsible for the deaths of more than 100 patients, investigators said Thursday.

Niels Hoegel, 41, was convicted in 2015 of two murders and four counts of attempted murder or causing bodily harm on intensive-care patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen.

But exhumations and analyses since then have uncovered evidence of scores of other victims, with police saying in August that Hoegel had murdered at least 90 other patients.

On Thursday, police and prosecutors confirmed an additional 16 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to at least 106 patients at the two hospitals where Hoegel worked between 1999 and 2005.

They said they expected to bring the new charges against Hoegel early next year.

Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He earlier testified that at times he acted out of "boredom", feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life and devastated when he failed.

The death toll "is unique in the history of the German republic," the chief police investigator in the case, Arne Schmidt, said in August, adding that Hoegel killed "without a discernible pattern" and preyed especially on those in critical condition.

Toxicology studies are continuing for five other cases, and exhumations of three former patients are planned in Turkey.
Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) (AFP) - A Zimbabwe court on Friday released on bail four people facing charges of undermining the authority of President Robert Mugabe after his powerful wife was jeered at a rally.

Three men and a woman were arrested after attending a ruling ZANU-PF party rally in the country's second city Bulawayo where Grace Mugabe was heckled while addressing the crowd on Saturday.

"There is no compelling reason for denying the accused their rights," said magistrate Franklin Mkhwananzi, ordering them back to court on November 24.

They were freed on $50 bail each and barred from attending a forthcoming presidential rally in Harare, whose date is yet to be announced.

According to The Herald newspaper, prosecutor Jerry Mutsindikwa had on Thursday told the court that "the quartet, with others allegedly sang the song 'into oyenzayo siyayizonda'" -- whose lyrics in Ndebele mean "we hate what you are doing" -- while Grace addressed the rally.

The incident angered Mugabe, 93, who addressed the rally shortly after his wife, accusing his deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa of organising and sponsoring the hecklers.

He vowed to fire Mnangagwa, which he did two days later, in a dramatic move that appeared to open the way for his wife to succeed him in office.

Grace Mugabe could be appointed as one of the country's two vice presidents at the party congress next month.

Mnangagwa who had been touted as an obvious successor to Mugabe, fled into exile this week. His whereabouts are unknown.

The arrest of the four ZANU-PF activists came as the Zimbabwe high court Thursday granted bail to Martha O'Donovan, a 25-year-old American journalist charged with charged with insulting Mugabe and attempting to subvert the regime on account of an alleged tweet that described the ageing leader as "selfish and sick".
TWIN FALLS  A tiny room inside a trailer is where much of the magic happens.

Its where Chobani global research and development team comes up with many of its ideas for the companys Flip products. Jars of colorful ingredients line the walls on shelves made of recycled wood.

Next year, the R&D team will move out of its trailers and into its bigger and better digs  but the employees will always hold a certain fondness for this room and its memories.

Its here where Hamdi Ulukaya sat down with the Times-News on Thursday to discuss his long-term vision for the company and Twin Falls.

Q: What does this new facility mean for the long-term goals of the plant here?

A: That means therell be other innovations going to happen here. Some of them are in the works already, in this place. Weve been working on some amazing big products, launches, with our innovation team. So that means in, three, four, five, 10 years when we look back, that the products we designed here are going to determine how many more plants we need to build.

Q: When you say big innovations, are you talking about products on the same level as the Flip cups?

A: Yeah, that type of products. And it goes left and right of yogurt, also.

If you walk (this plant), people will say The hallway doesnt have to be that large, whyd you do that? I say, Why I wanted people to be comfortable, I dont want them to be boxed in. Or (they say) You hid all those pipes, why did you do that? Theres no reason to hide those pipes. I say, No, I dont want people to look at it. I want it to be minimalistic and simple. (Theyll say) Oh theres not much color in here, why? Its very difficult to keep it clean. Ill say, Yes it will take extra time to clean it, but it wont hurt. When people are working it will be very calming when you walk in.

Theres this consciousness of design, this building. We call it the new way of manufacturing, where you put the people in the center, and you design it. And you put the product in the center, and you design it.

And thats what I like to see with new plants being built across this country. You go to these old factories and shake your head and say How the hell does someone work here for 18 hours? And how do you go home and spend time with your family after all work, physical, and then everything that comes at you.

Theres a new humane way, and I think this last project is going to represent that. Because you go to some technology companies in Silicon Valley or New York and see cafeterias. You see meeting rooms. You see theaters. You see fitness centers. You see all that stuff and its just very humane, very nice. Why cant we see those in places like this?

Q: The new facility has a lot of windows in its design. What kind of message does that send?

A: Openness. In the plant, we couldnt demonstrate that much because of the food safety, but if you walk down the hallway, I put windows. You can see through the walls and see that the machines are running.  We believe in openness. We believe in transparency.

The other part is, I dont want Chobani to be disconnected from this natural beauty. So I want that to be in our thoughts and our eyes and in our innovation and our community center.

That comes with challenges, also. Like, what do you do with the sun that comes in? So we found a way that the glass shades as lights get stronger. Its a very amazing technology that were investing in so that the glass shades, and that also preserves the lights. So the consumption of the lights becomes minimum.

Q: Theres no doubt that Chobanis profoundly changed the community. How has the community changed the company?

A: Its very much in our culture. Its an extremely welcoming culture, and I think what I appreciate here is this sense of freedom. And sense of entrepreneurship. People dont see it, but I saw it the first time I was here. Its the frontiers, right? You make things out of nothing. You turned high desert into a green valley. Thats innovation. Thats finding a solution.

 The community spirit is really strong here and that has affected us. Trusting each other, shaking hands and doing things, thats tough. Its easy to say, but its tough. Thats what happens here. And we had it in upstate New York, we had it in our way of doing things, but that has affected us. This West American touch was missing in Chobani. Even if you go to Australia, its there, too.

 We have a responsibility to remind ourselves who we are and what we are at the same time. We affect each other one way or another. I find this place amazing, and this place makes me more amazing.

Everything you need to make a positive change, make a successful enterprise and make your family and childrens lives better exists where you are. Its just, you really trust yourself in a deep way and then you make the first move. Thats what Im trying to share, because thats what I found in upstate New York.

People thought I was nuts when I came here for the first time. Its not a risk at all. The only risk is Will I be able to sell yogurt or not? Picking the place to invest, I nailed it. And I had it right from the beginning.

The business challenges  thats why Im proud of this team. It was extremely difficult to start this plant. And we didnt have endless resources, all our resources we put in here. We just figured it out, and thats what you get from here. You just figure things out.

Q: You talk about the communitys values matching Chobanis. But the community and the newspaper to some degree over the last year have found ourselves having to defend those values in a way we didnt have to before. Was that disappointing to you?

A: I find that different opinions  I welcome it. If you all think the same, there is no challenge. Somebody has to challenge somebody in a way. Thats how you perfect your ideas.

Did it have to go to that level? No. That was something unusual that we all saw. And Im proud of how the city and the community defended itself, (saying) This is not our community. This is not who we are.

And the letters and the messages that come from people is amazing  letters of support. So you have both. The vast majority you dont hear.

 Yes, we have gone through that kind of challenges, but I think its healthy. I really do.

The only one whos going to design the future of this county for their kids and their families are the people who live here. People who have been living here, who invested their kids and their families here and their values here. Its their choices.

We never, ever, in our communication wanted to be any other than part of the community, whatever it is. I make yogurt. I welcome whoever wants to come and work. I dont ask questions. And as long as were proud of making simple products for peoples families and kids, and adapt with our differences and similarities, we create this healthy community. Thats what it is. Theres no other statement that that.

At Chobani, we say we do two things: We make yogurt, and we sell yogurt. Everything else is distraction. And thats what we do. If somebody knocks on my door and wants to work, they are welcome.

Q: Why did you make the decision to bring R&D here to Twin Falls?

I didnt. Kai (Sacher) did. Kai is the head of our R&D innovation here, and it took him a while. Hes German, and hes cowboy in his heart.

 That was their decision, it was not mine. I was never going to push anyone to come here. I would hope for it. And that happened organically within our company.

Q: Do you see the R&D team expanding in this new building?

A: Yes, well be hiring more. But this is designed for the future. I think our pilot plant is one of the best pilot plants in the country. That will be expanding.  Then more people are going to join, and there are more product lines people are going to join, so the expertise is going to be widened.

The room space I think we have is big enough for now. Well see what we have after five years. Every time we build something, its always too small. Its always been that way.

Q: Chobani has been a catalyst for other companies to come into the area. What other companies or industries do you think would help build this community?

A: What we want is an innovation mindset to come. I welcome all the companies that came  but what we need is the startup people. And within that, I think whats going to happen is this place is going to be like a Silicon Valley of food innovation. It happens in different parts of the country. It happens in Colorado or Portland or Brooklyn or downtown San Francisco, where people cut a potato in a different way and they made something.  These entrepreneurs start making Idaho, especially Twin Falls, Magic Valley, as home. I think we have everything they need.

Thats why were going to support those innovators in here. We have a Chobani incubator in New York. This is our second class. We have companies that apply to us from all over the country. And we pick six to seven companies each class. We open up our doors. We give them seed money. We give them all the access and we help them to accelerate their startup.

And were going to start something like that up here, too. But this one is going to be limited to Idaho companies. So what we need to do is to encourage others to start. So you go to fairs and you go to places and you see somebody made an amazing salad dressing or an amazing finger food or an amazing different pickling or whatever. How do you take that idea and turn it into a viable business, not only for Idaho but for everywhere? Thats what Chobani was 10 years ago.

I think that would be a very big, rich, innovative food culture that will be really sustainable for a long time. And that will bring the type of expertise in here. And thatll create its own ecosystem. So we attract a lot of other companies to come.

That is not only us. Its the governor and city and us and the universities. We all have to create this ecosystem. And its a start. I think it will be really good. I see the evidence of it. I see whats happening in some cafes, some food offerings in the city, downtown. So this is how that happens.

Its what I see and what I hope. And I think it could happen. I really do. And then somebody here grows up, goes to high school and college and university or whatever (and says) Why do I have to go to other place? Twin Falls is cool enough.

Theres enough innovation happening here, theres enough opportunity here, why do you have to go anywhere? And then everybody else wants to come here.

Q: Whats your favorite yogurt?

A: Theres not a cup of yogurt that goes out of our company that I am not approving. From me to everybody else, we spend a lot of time on the product we make.

I love Smore Smores lately  the new Flip that came out. It became one of the best innovations of the year for the whole refrigerated aisle. People cannot get enough of it. I think we nailed that one. So Ive been eating that a lot.
If you're shopping for a new vehicle these days, there's a litany of acronyms, buzzwords, and technobabble to further complicate an already difficult decision. But if you're looking at a green powertrain, you have three basic choices to compare: hybrid, plug-in hybrid and "EV" or, electric vehicle.



So what are they and which one  if any  is right for you? Research your next new vehicle using Autoblog's Car Finder.





toyota prius





HYBRID

By now, most people are familiar with the concept of a hybrid car. Thank Toyota's Prius for that. At its most basic, a hybrid vehicle has two powertrains, one gasoline and one electric, which work together for maximum efficiency. At low speeds, the engine can shut off entirely, relying solely on the battery for propulsion. The battery is either charged as you drive by converting kinetic energy into potential energy via a complex regenerative braking system, or directly off of the gas motor. This is a very hands-off, behind-the-scenes system as all the driver has to is put in gas and drive as normal.

Hybrids come in all shapes and sizes and, according to the EPA, range in fuel economy from 58 mpg for the Hyundai Ioniq Blue all the way down to 13 mpg for the Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta.



Best For: Anyone who want to see their fuel consumption go down without many sacrifices. You can easily find a hybrid sedan, hatchback, crossover, SUV or even a pickup truck (if you can find one). Best of all, a hybrid requires no special equipment to be installed at home, or added work for the driver. Hybrids do cost more than traditionally-powered competitors, so make sure to compare projected fuel savings with how much extra a hybrid will cost  it may take a surprisingly long time to break even. The EPA provides a handy calculator for this very purpose.



Our Favorite Hybrids:

2017 Toyota Prius

2018 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid

2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid





pacifica hybrid

PLUG-IN HYBRID



Sometimes referred to as a PHEV, or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, this is a baby-step towards full electrification. Armed with a much larger battery pack than a hybrid, PHEVs can go between 12 (Mercedes-Benz GLE550e) and 97 (BMW i3 w/Range Extender) miles on electricity alone depending on the model and your driving style. Like a normal hybrid, the driver is largely unaware of which power source is currently in use, even as they switch over  either because the battery is drained, or the driving circumstances require more power. Once the battery is drained, they drive like a conventional hybrid (albeit with a smaller battery).



PHEV's, however, do require some effort on the part of the driver; as the name implies, for optimum performance and fuel economy, they need to have a full battery when you start driving to get maximum EV range, and that means you'll want to plug it in to recharge. And due to the relatively short range, they should be plugged in to special high-powered wall-chargers daily. More on that at the end of this article.



Best For: People with short commutes that can take advantage of the EV-only capabilities, who have access to a charger, but who might occasionally need to exceed the range of a traditional EV.



The real beauty of the PHEV is the flexibility. Depending on your commute, driving style and the PHEV chosen, it's possible you'll only visit the gas station when taking a longer trip. Take the Chevy Volt for example. With a fully-charged battery, the Volt can go 53 miles on a charge. That's enough for most Americans' commutes. With a fully-charged battery and a full tank of gas the Volt will go 420 miles. Think that's impressive? When all full of electrons and fuels, the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV can go 570 miles.



PHEV's are also recommended for people who enjoy a bit of gamification in their driving. Beating EPA estimates and hypermiling in PHEV is easy and, frankly, fun. And because of the brake regen, you don't even have to drive slowly to achieve this.



Our Favorite Plug-in Hybrids:

2018 Chevrolet Volt

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2018 Chrysler Pacifica PHEV





ioniq ev

ELECTRIC VEHICLES



EV's represent the final, most aggressive change to the way Americans tend to drive. As the name implies, these vehicles are fully electric. No gasoline at all. Even as a backup. New EVs on sale today have EPA-estimated ranges between 57 (Smart ForTwo ED) and 335 (Tesla Model S P100D) miles with most falling somewhere around 100 miles.



Driving an EV is different than driving a traditional car, or either of the types above. Electric powertrains can strongly accelerate from a complete stop, but when you let off the accelerator there's a strong decelerative effect as the EV harvests energy from your forward motion  a process called regeneration. With some EVs, you can drive in most situations without touching the brake pedal, using the accelerator and releasing it for strong regenerative "braking". It's bizarre at first, but a shocking amount of fun once you get used to it.



Best For: Early adopters who have access to a high-powered charger, a short commute, and a solid grasp of how far and how often they drive. These cars requires a level of thought and preparation most people aren't used to, and while it's easy to think that these are exclusively for urban use, with some care and a careful purchase, an EV could be a fine suburban family vehicle. Or, a second vehicle to complement a longer-range gas car or truck.



Again, we'll repeat that you need to know your habits, preferences and ecosystem before taking the leap to full electrification. Unlike a PHEV, if you run down the battery in a full EV, there's nothing to save you except a tow truck. Further, where you live can have a severe impact on the performance of an electric car. Highway driving, cold weather and grades can all negatively impact estimated EV range in a dramatic fashion. So can your driving habits. In a "normal" car, this means you hit the gas station sooner. In an EV, it means you can't make that side-trip to the beach without doing a little mental mileage math.



Our Favorite EVs:

2018 Chevy Bolt

2017 Tesla Model S

2017 Hyundai Ioniq Electric





ev charger





Special Equipment and Procedures



Chargers: During this article we mention charging a number of times and it's worth taking a moment to discuss that aspect of EV and PHEV life. While you can simply plug these cars into a standard household wall charger  known as a Level 1 or 120V charger  using the adapter that came with the car, it would take a frustrating amount of time. Figure approximately 4 miles of range per hour. That's 13.5 hours to get the 53 miles back on your Volt.



Level 2 chargers use the same 240V systems as your dryer and require professional installation. Depending on the model of charger, its max amperage (more = faster charger), your home circuitry and the vehicle, these generally offer around 20 miles of charge per hour. When mounted in your garage, it's an easy habit to just plug in the car each night and wake up to a fully-charged car.



Finally DC fast chargers are industrial-level applications you'll find at your local EV dealer or at public charging stations. There are three separate types of DC fast charger and knowing which your car has is important when looking for public fast charging. Think about the EV charging parking spots you may have seen in public garages, or the Tesla Supercharger stations.





tesla supercharger





The best choice for most people is a home charger. Your car is already dormant for hours at home, so you might as well take advantage of that downtime. However, not all situations allow this and you may have to make use of public chargers. There are several types of these, and several ways they are billed. Some, like Chargepoint, are installed at offices and shopping centers around the country and are generally billed by time-on-charger. There are others, often run by municipalities or private companies, which offer free charging. Just plug in and go about your business. Many EVs will inform you where public charging stations are in their onboard navigation systems if you need to top up en route.



However, when using any type of public charger, please be courteous and move your car when it's finished charging. Someone else is probably waiting. Finally, the dealer where you bought your EV may have a charger  usually a DC fast charger  available that you can use if it's convenient. Call and ask!



Related Video:



Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid and EV Buyer's Guide: Which one do you want? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 10 Nov 2017 16:01:00 EST.
By Fergus Jensen and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's military said on Friday it was prepared to take tough measures against rebels who have threatened to "destroy" the mining operations of Freeport-McMoRan Inc in the eastern province of Papua in their independence struggle.

Police say an armed separatist group linked to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) is preventing about 1,000 people in five villages from leaving an area near the giant Grasberg copper mine, operated by a unit of the Arizona-based company.

A state of emergency has been declared and at least 300 additional security forces have been deployed to the area after a string of shootings since Aug. 17 killed one police officer and wounded six.

The group, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), on Friday denied occupying villages near the mine.

Hendrik Wanmang, a representative of TPN-OPM, said none of its more than 2,000 fighters was stationed in the villages.

"We cannot mingle with the community," Wanmang said in a telephone interview. "That would endanger them."

Wanmang also denied police allegations his group had carried out rape and torture of civilians, saying villagers were "continuing to carry out activities as usual".

But he warned that Freeport employees and security personnel remained in the area at their own risk.

"We are at war against the National Police, Indonesian military and Freeport," he said.

"(TPN-OPM) will continue to fight until the root of this problem - Freeport - is removed," Wanmang said.

A Freeport Indonesia spokesman declined to comment.

Papua Police spokesman Suryadi Diaz said the situation in the villages near the town of Tembagapura was "conducive" and the community was functioning "as usual".

"They aren't hostage, but if you want to get to these villages you have to get past this armed criminal group," Diaz said, referring to the OPM.

Story continues

Police were taking "persuasive steps" to resolve the conflict through negotiations and dialogue with community, religious and tribal leaders, he said.

Authorities made conflicting statements about the situation.

Indonesian military chief Gatot Nurmayanto said the group had taken hostages in the villages and the army would take a "hard" approach if necessary.

Tough measures, including armed conflict, would be a last resort if negotiations with the group failed to resolve the issue, Papua military commander George Enaldus Supit said later, clarifying the statement.

Wanmang said his group was not interested in negotiating.

"If the government wants to send millions of national police and Indonesian military troops to protect the Freeport area, go ahead - they are just trying to protect the deception."

The Grasberg mine has been dogged by security concerns for decades, as pro-independence rebels have waged a low-level conflict in Papua. Between 2009 and 2015, shootings in the mine project area killed 20 people and wounded 59.

More recently, Freeport, the world's largest publicly listed copper producer, has been grappling with labour problems at Grasberg and a mine rights dispute with Indonesia.

The Freeport dispute is likely to overshadow efforts by President Joko Widodo's government to resolve conflict in Papua, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said.

"Any violence in the Freeport area can involve multiple actors with multiple interests," it said in a recent report. "Even if the OPM is blamed, Papuans will be asking who else was involved."

(Reporting by Fergus Jensen and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by John Chalmers and Nick Macfie)
The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of being on a "rampage," saying its arch-regional rival is in a permanent state of revolution.Relations between the two countries are at boiling point after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind a ballistic missile attack on Saturday. The missile, which was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, was intercepted in flight near Riyadh's airport.Speaking in Riyadh Thursday, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abel Al-Jubeir, said the incident was the latest in Iran's near 40-year record of terror."Iran is on a rampage and has been since the Khomeini revolution in 1979," said Al-Jubeir.Al-Jubeir said Iran had a track record of terrorism and assassinations that was unacceptable to many nations including Israel and the United States."The Iranians have to decide if they are a revolution or a nation state. So far they have decided they are a revolution, on a rampage trying to expand. And that is not acceptable," he added.The foreign minister also refused to confirm or deny that Saudi Arabia is working with Israel to tackle the Iranian-backed political and militant group Hezbollah."I can't comment on rumors," Al-Jubeir said."What I do know is that Iran is an outlaw state and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism, that Iran harbors terrorists and was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden since the 1990s," he said.Al-Jubeir claimed that al-Qaeda's "virtual board of directors" fled to Iran in 2002 and have been directing terror operations from the country ever since.The foreign minister was himself the subject of a failed assassination attempt by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but denied that his criticism of Tehran is in any way personal. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia has accused Iran of being on a "rampage," saying its arch-regional rival is in a permanent state of revolution. Relations between the two countries are at boiling point after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind a ballistic missile attack on Saturday. The missile, which was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, was intercepted in flight near Riyadh's airport. Speaking in Riyadh Thursday, the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abel Al-Jubeir, said the incident was the latest in Iran's near 40-year record of terror. "Iran is on a rampage and has been since the Khomeini revolution in 1979," said Al-Jubeir. Al-Jubeir said Iran had a track record of terrorism and assassinations that was unacceptable to many nations including Israel and the United States. "The Iranians have to decide if they are a revolution or a nation state. So far they have decided they are a revolution, on a rampage trying to expand. And that is not acceptable," he added. The foreign minister also refused to confirm or deny that Saudi Arabia is working with Israel to tackle the Iranian-backed political and militant group Hezbollah. "I can't comment on rumors," Al-Jubeir said. "What I do know is that Iran is an outlaw state and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism, that Iran harbors terrorists and was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden since the 1990s," he said. Al-Jubeir claimed that al-Qaeda's "virtual board of directors" fled to Iran in 2002 and have been directing terror operations from the country ever since. The foreign minister was himself the subject of a failed assassination attempt by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but denied that his criticism of Tehran is in any way personal.



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United Nations (United States) (AFP) - An Islamic State faction in Somalia has grown significantly over the past year, carrying out attacks in Puntland and receiving some funding from Syria and Iraq, a report by UN sanctions monitors said Friday.

The faction loyal to Sheikh Abdulqader Mumin was targeted by US drone strikes last week in the first US operation targeting IS in the Horn of Africa, US Africa Command said.

In the report, the UN monitoring group for Somalia said the IS faction, which was estimated in 2016 "to number not more than a few dozen, has grown significantly in strength" and may "consist of as many as 200 fighters."

Phone records from Mumin showed he was in contact with an IS operative in Yemen who acts as an intermediary with senior IS leaders in Iraq and Syria "though the exact nature of this contact is unclear," said the report.

Former members of the faction who defected in December said the Mumin group received orders as well as financing from Iraq and Syria, the report said.

The group captured the town of Qandala in Puntland's Bari region in October 2016, declaring it the seat of the Islamic Caliphate in Somalia before being pushed out two months later by Puntland forces backed by US military advisers.

In February, IS gunmen stormed a hotel in Bosaso, the economic capital of Puntland, and in May the faction carried out its first suicide attack at a police checkpoint near Bosaso, killing five people.

"The group showed signs of increasing tactical capabilities during its first attack target a hotel," said the UN monitors.

- Haven for foreign fighters -

The UN report raised concerns that the Bari region could become a potential haven for foreign IS fighters as the extremists are driven out of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The IS group in Somalia "presents more natural appeal to foreign terrorist fighters than Al-Shabaab," whose aim is to establish a state government by Islamic law, it added.

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Al-Shabaab, another Islamist militant group, is affiliated with IS's global rival Al-Qaeda.

The Bari region has attracted a limited number of foreign fighters including Sudanese national Abu Faris who is on the US terror list for recruiting foreign fighters for Al-Shabaab.

While the faction is expanding, its fighters appear to be poorly paid or not paid at all.

Unmarried fighters receive no salary, while married militants receive $50 per month plus $10-$20 per child, depending on the age.

The report estimated that the salary payments were between $3,000 and $9,000 per month, allowing IS leaders "to fund its insurgency on a limited budget".

UN monitors said the faction will likely face frequent defections from poorly paid fighters, a problem that also affects Al-Shabaab.
Beirut (AFP) - Islamic State group jihadists have retaken nearly half of Albu Kamal in eastern Syria in a counter-attack on what had been the last significant town under their full control, a monitor said Friday.

"IS started counter-attacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had recaptured the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

Albu Kamal lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling "caliphate" the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest," Abdel Rahman said. "IS is trying to defend its last bastion."

The jihadist organisation has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

Albu Kamal was the last town of note it controlled and losing it would cap the group's reversion to an underground guerrilla organisation with no urban base.

According to Syria state TV, regime and auxiliary forces had retake full control of it by Thursday.

The Observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.
Executives from JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock are scheduled to speak about the need to slash planet-warming emissions next week in Bonn, Germany, at the United Nations annual conference on climate change.

Yet the financial giants continue to fund at least three companies that drill for oil in the Amazon rainforest, including on tracts of land contested by indigenous tribes, a report released Thursday found.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, holds nearly $113 million in combined debt and equity investments in South American oil and gas giant GeoPark, Canadian firm Frontera Energy Corporation and Chinese-owned Andes Petroleum, according to a 16-page report by Amazon Watch, a California-based conservation nonprofit. BlackRock, the investment behemoth, owns $567 million in stocks and bonds in GeoPark, Frontera and the two parent companies of Andes Petroleum.

The investments highlight the gap between how many major corporations  including most big banks and financial firms  spend their money and the public positions they take on climate change. In recent years, corporate giants have pledged to convert their operations to 100 percent renewable energy, issue sustainability reports and broadcast lofty statements in support of action to curb global warming. Executives make annual pilgrimages to global summits such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the U.N.s 23rd Conference of the Parties, held this year in Germany.

Like so many big businesses, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock greenwash their activities rather than apply their resources to real solutions, Leila Salazar-Lopez, executive director of Amazon Watch, told HuffPost in a statement. Our report exposes their complicity in Amazon destruction, and we know savvy investors will respond accordingly, as weve seen in the massive divestment from fossil fuels and the financial institutions that bankroll them.

An oil waste pit in Ecuador's northern Amazon region. (Photo: Amazon Watch)

Environmental activists have increasingly set their crosshairs on major financial institutions. JPMorgan became the target of a new campaign by the well-funded Rainforest Action Network in September over the banks funding of tar sands oil projects. Bank of America faced similar scrutiny last year for backing a company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline.

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But the Amazon Watch report took specific aim at the companies as they seek to align themselves with the U.S. interests supporting action on climate change at the conference, called COP23. While President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and is sending delegates to the Germany meeting to advocate for increased fossil fuel use, another group, including California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, is slated to stump for reducing the use of the fuels responsible for producing planet-warming emissions. Among the latter group will be JPMorgan and BlackRock, as well as representatives from Bank of America, the Coca-Cola Company and candy maker Mars Inc.

Aside from the obvious environmental hazards of drilling for oil in the fragile and rapidly-depleting hub of biodiversity that is the Amazon rainforest, the report focused on tensions between the JPMorgan- and BlackRock-funded companies and indigenous groups.

GeoPark entered Peru in 2014, and took a majority stake last December in an oil block located in an area of the Amazon where the indigenous Kichwa and Achuar tribes have been fighting drilling for years. JPMorgan has invested $31,151,656 in the firm, while BlackRock owns a stake worth $6,263,139.

A block owned by Frontera in the Peruvian Amazon is infamous for its antiquated, leaky pipeline infrastructure and its legacy of dumping billions of gallons of toxic production waters and hundreds of oil spills have left lagoons with oil, contaminated animals, dead fish, cultural knowledge loss, mistreatment of men, women and children, according to the report. JPMorgans investment totaled $23,687,433. BlackRock invested just $18,606.

Andes Petroleum was created in the wake of a series of 2009 oil-for-loans deals between Ecuador and China, which now has a near monopoly on crude exports from the South American nation. The company, which operates exclusively in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has battled the Kichwa and Sapara tribes, who say blocks Andes Petroleum purchased in recent years overlap with their territory. The firm is a joint venture between the China National Petroleum Corporation  in which JPMorgan owns a $24,655,800 stake and BlackRock owns $6,637,000  and Sinopec, in which the firms have investments worth $33,462,670 and $553,991,110 respectively.

JPMorgan declined to comment, and BlackRock did not respond to a request for comment.

This post has been updated to note JPMorgan declined to comment.

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Joining the #climatemarch because #hawaii leads nation on climate and other states should act too #ActOnClimate pic.twitter.com/mBTZ5ioiK1  Chris Lee (@chrisleeforhi) April 29, 2017

About 1,000 people, including #UCC members and a UCC minister as a featured speaker, participated in the People's #ClimateMarch in Honolulu. pic.twitter.com/x3INdRUNUq  UCC Hawaii Justice (@UCCJustice808) April 29, 2017

BONUS: Amsterdam

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Conakry (AFP) - Guinean judges have completed an investigation into a massacre in which at least 157 opposition supporters were killed and 109 women raped by troops in a stadium in 2009, the justice ministry said in a statement Thursday.

In September 2009, a massive opposition protest in a stadium in Conakry against then junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara's rule ended in bloodshed when his security forces opened fire on the crowd.

In a joint statement, human rights organisations and victims of the massacre said the three investigating judges had notified them Monday of "the end of the judicial investigation".

The Ministry of Justice said that the investigating judges had forwarded the file "to the public prosecutor at the Court of First Instance of Dixinn for final settlement", according to a statement.

In their statement, the NGOs and a group representing victims requested the 14 defendants be put on trial.

Camara, a former army officer, seized power in 2008 after the death of Guinea's longtime dictator Lansana Conte. Despite initial support he rankled the population when he broke a pledge not to run for president.

After surviving an assassination attempt in 2009, Camara fled the country and now lives in exile in Burkina Faso, where he was indicted in July 2015 by Guinean magistrates for his alleged involvement in the massacre.

His former aide-de-camp, Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, known as Toumba Diakite, extradited from Senegal to Guinea in March 2017, is also one of the defendants.

President Alpha Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010, taking over a nation run by a succession of strongmen following independence from France.
Barack Obama returned to Chicago today, not to check on the progress on his presidential library being built in the city, but to report for jury duty.

The 44th President of the United States arrived at the Daley Center but was ultimately not selected for the jury, with Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans telling reporters he had been dismissed.

Another nominee, Angel Martinez, posted a Twitter video of the arrival of the former president, who stopped to shake hands and crack jokes while flanked by security.
Kevin Spacey is being erased from a movie that is just six weeks away from being released.

Read: TV News Anchor Accuses Kevin Spacey of Sexually Assaulting Her Son

Until this week, the Oscar winner was portraying legendary oil billionaire J. Paul Getty in, All the Money in the World, about the 1973 kidnapping of Gettys grandson.

But in the wake of allegations that Spacey has a history of predatory behavior, The Usual Suspects stars scenes will be reshot with 87-year-old Christopher Plummer taking over the role.

The announcement comes on the heels of Boston TV journalist Heather Unruh's public denunciation of the actor for allegedly molesting her 18-year-old son.

She claims Spacey plied the teenager with alcohol at a restaurant on Nantucket island in July 2016.

"He stuck his hand in his pants and grabbed his genitals, she said in a press conference Wednesday.

Unruh's charges are shocking America. She is a respected former anchorwoman.

Read: 8 'House of Cards' Employees Accuse Kevin Spacey of 'Predatory' Behavior: Report

TV's Dr. Oz says the sexual harassment scandal that erupted last month over movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's alleged misconduct has all but destroyed Spacey's career.

"It is a game changer for Hollywood and society because Hollywood is often the bellwether for society," Dr. Oz told Inside Edition.

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President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin have shaken hands at a summit in Vietnam, amid conflicting reports from the Kremlin and the White House over whether the pair would meet.

The two leaders were spotted on video greeting one another ahead of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit gala dinner in the coastal city of Danang.

Both sides previously expressed interest in a meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Da Nang, but an agreement on the details was not forthcoming. As Mr Trump was about to land on Friday, the White House announced no meeting would take place.

Mr Trumps presidency has been dogged by allegations that his election campaign colluded with Russia to help him get into the White House.

Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists earlier on Friday that although discussion was continuing between the two retinues, the leaders would be sure to speak.

Donald Trump shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they pose for a group photo ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit leaders gala dinner in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 10Credit: AFP

For now there is no clarity. Contradictory information has been coming from our American colleagues, Mr Peskov said. The meeting will happen on the sidelines one way or another.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told journalists on Friday that Mr Trump would not meet formally with his Russian counterpart, but left the door open for a more impromptu chat.

Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely, Ms Sanders said.

Mr Trump's relationship with Russia is under intense scrutiny in Washington, and special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation hit three former Trump advisors with charges related to Russia and Ukraine late last month.

No formal Trump Putin meeting @PressSec says. Only that they may "bump" into each other pic.twitter.com/mMKrSUURii

 Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 10, 2017

Last weekend, the president said he expected to meet with Mr Putin in Vietnam and wanted his help in raising pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.

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But secretary of state Rex Tillerson appeared to walk that back on Thursday, when he said the meeting was still under consideration.

Vladimir Putin arrives in Vietnam on Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images

Also on Thursday, Mr Putin said the United States was attempting to interfere in Russia's presidential election next year through accusations of doping in sport.

An aide to Mr Putin said on Thursday that he and Mr Trump could discuss Syria and North Korea at the forum. The two presidents met in July on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Paris (AFP) - Lebanon's Saad Hariri, who resigned as prime minister at the weekend, is "free to move around", French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday amid rumours he was being held against his will in Saudi Arabia.

"He went to Abu Dhabi the day before the President (Emmanuel) Macron's visit (on Wednesday) so we think he's free to move around," Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday demanded the return of Hariri from Saudi Arabia, where he announced his plans to step down in a shock decision on Saturday.

In his televised speech made from Saudi Arabia, Hariri said he was stepping down because of Iran's "grip" on Lebanon and threats to his life, but the comments led to immediate speculation about Saudi pressure.

Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Iranian-backed movement Hezbollah, suggested that Hariri, who holds Saudi nationality, was being held "hostage" in Riyadh.

Macron made a surprise overnight trip to Saudi Arabia on Thursday-Friday during a Middle East tour that saw him attend the inauguration of the new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

"The Lebanese situation is the most worrying subject of the moment," Le Drian added in his interview on Friday morning.

Hariri's announcement raised fears that Lebanon -- split into rival camps led by Hariri and Hezbollah -- could once again descend into violence.

Lebanon "was moving towards a new solution with a new constitution, elections to come. The departure of Prime Minister Hariri creates new uncertainties," Le Drian added.

Hariri's resignation came amid an intensifying proxy war between Saudi Arabia and regional arch rival Tehran who have long vied for influence in Lebanon.

The Sunni leader had been sharing power with the Shiite militant movement Hezbollah in hard-won national unity government, but the arrangement had come under increasing fire from Saudi Arabia.
Beirut (AFP) - Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of detaining prime minister Saad Hariri and of asking the Shiite movement's arch-foe Israel to launch strikes.

Hariri's sudden resignation on November 4 in a statement made from Riyadh took the Lebanese political class by surprise and has sparked international concern.

The United States warned against using the tiny country as a "venue for proxy conflicts" and the United Nations said it was "essential no new conflict erupt in the region".

France called for Hariri to have "all his freedom of movement" amid rumours he was being held against his will.

"The head of the Lebanese government is detained in Saudi Arabia, he is banned from returning to Lebanon until now," Nasrallah said in a televised address.

Hariri's situation was not completely clear but calls, including from his Lebanese political rivals, mounted for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the premier's freedom of movement.

The 47-year-old announced his resignation on November 4 in a surprise move that coincided with a sweeping purge of the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who also holds Saudi nationality, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.

In a statement issued on Friday after a meeting with a senior Saudi diplomat, Aoun insisted Hariri should return to Lebanon.

- US support -

"President Aoun met Saudi charge d'affaires Walid Bukhari and informed him that the circumstances in which Mr. Hariri's resignation took place were unacceptable," the statement said.

The president "called for the return to Lebanon of the head of the government".

Aoun, whose political ally Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Riyadh, "voiced his concern over what is being said" about Hariri's current status in Saudi Arabia and demanded a "clarification".

Story continues

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday described Hariri as "a strong partner" and warned against "any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country".

"The United States strongly supports the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Lebanon and of its political institutions" and opposes "any actions that could threaten that stability," he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country has close ties with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, made a surprise visit to Riyadh late Thursday after a trip to the United Arab Emirates.

On Friday, a spokesman for France's foreign ministry said: "We wish Mr. Saad Hariri to have all his freedom of movement and to be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon."

Earlier French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on French radio he thought Hariri was "free to move around", despite most of the Lebanese political class implying he was de facto under house arrest.

"He went to Abu Dhabi the day before President Macron's visit (on Wednesday) so we think he's free to move around," Le Drian said.

- Conflict warnings -

Nasrallah, whose party is the only organisation that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war and now has an arsenal that outstrips Lebanon's own armed forces, accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to incite conflict.

"The most dangerous thing is inciting Israel to strike Lebanon," he said. "I'm talking about information that Saudi Arabia has asked Israel to strike Lebanon."

Nasrallah, whose movement Hariri has repeatedly said should lay down its arms, also warned that his movement, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, was stronger than ever.

"We are stronger today, we warn them again misguided calculations, against any knee-jerk initiative," he said, adding however that his party saw any Israeli attack as being unlikely at this stage.

The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, also said: "It is essential that no new conflict erupt in the region."

"We are indeed very worried and we hope that we won't see an escalation in the region that would have tragic consequences," he said.

Lebanon's interior ministry said in a statement Friday that a Saudi national had been kidnapped in Lebanon in circumstances that remained unclear.

Saudi Arabia had urged all its citizens in Lebanon this week to leave the country but Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk told AFP that the kidnapping was "in no way related" to the Hariri crisis or politics.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is bringing Hamilton to Puerto Rico.

The Pulitzer-winning creator of the musical phenomenon announced from Puerto Rico Wednesday that, in January 2019, hell reprise his role as Founding Father Alexander Hamilton for a limited stage run.

Miranda, who was born in New York City, is of Puerto Rican descent and regularly visited his grandparents hometown of Vega Alta as a child. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island region, he forcefully denounced the Trump administration for what he deemed an insufficient federal response and championed relief efforts.

Bringing [Hamilton] to Puerto Rico is a dream that Ive had since we first opened at The Public Theater in 2015, Miranda said in a statement. When I last visited the island, a few weeks before Hurricane Maria, I had made a commitment to not only bring the show to Puerto Rico, but also return again to the title role. In the aftermath of Maria, we decided to expedite the announcement of the project to send a bold message that Puerto Rico will recover and be back in business, stronger than ever.

Mirandas turn as Hamilton formally began in January 2015, during the musicals off-Broadway run at the Public Theater, before transitioning to Broadway in July. He played the role on the Great White Way for approximately a year before being replaced by Javier Munoz. Miranda earned a Tony nomination for his performance, in addition to his wins for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.

In addition to touring productions, a production of Hamilton has opened in Chicago, and its set to premiere on Londons West End in December.

In 2019, Hamilton will run at the University of Puerto Ricos Teatro UPR from Jan. 8-27. Miranda made the announcement Wednesday with producer Jeffrey Seller from the Teatro UPRs stage. Built in 1939, the theater was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria, and will undergo restorations and repairs prior to Hamiltons 2019 bow.

This article originally appeared on EW.com
Riyadh (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Saudi Arabia late Thursday for talks with the kingdom's powerful crown prince on the rising tensions between Tehran and Riyadh.

Macron, on his debut visit to the Middle East, made the surprise announcement at a news conference in Dubai that he would meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

His arrival was confirmed to AFP by the French embassy in Riyadh.

Macron's talks with Prince Mohammed will cover Iran and Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a complete blockade in the wake of a missile attack last Saturday by Tehran-backed Huthi rebels.

"I've heard some very hard positions" taken by Saudi Arabia against Iran, said Macron, adding it was important to speak to all sides and that France had a role in making peace.

The visit comes at a time of increased friction between the Sunni kingdom and Shiite Iran, which are embroiled on opposite sides in Lebanon and Yemen.

The talks would also include developments in Lebanon, whose prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock announcement broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday.

Macron's visit comes days after Prince Mohammed launched what the Saudi government has dubbed a wide-ranging corruption crackdown, arresting dozens of members of the royal family as well as ministers and businessmen.
Riyadh (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron held talks late Thursday with Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince as tensions between Tehran and Riyadh soar over crises in Yemen and Lebanon.

Macron, on his debut visit to the Middle East, flew in from a tour of the United Arab Emirates for his first face-to-face talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently launched a massive anti-graft crackdown on the kingdom's elite.

The visit comes at a time of growing friction between the Sunni kingdom and Shiite Iran, which are pitted on opposite sides in Lebanon and Yemen.

"I've heard some very hard positions" taken by Saudi Arabia against Iran, Macron told a news conference in Dubai before his visit, adding it was important to speak to all sides and that France had a role in making peace.

In the wake of a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport on Saturday, which was claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, the kingdom has accused Tehran of "direct aggression".

Iran vehemently dismissed the charge that it supplied missiles to the Huthis and warned Saudi Arabia of its "might", prompting fresh acrimony between the regional heavyweights.

"The French president condemned the Huthi missile attack on Riyadh, stressing France's stand and solidarity with the Kingdom," the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.

The two leaders "also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and their efforts for security and stability in the region, including joint coordination in the fight against terrorism," it added.

On Iran, Macron has repeatedly said that he wanted to keep the landmark 2015 nuclear deal despite opposition from US President Donald Trump.

US pressure to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal could push Tehran into deciding to build its own nuclear weapons, Macron told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday.

- Power struggle -

Macron and Prince Mohammed also discussed developments in Lebanon, whose prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock announcement broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday, citing Iran's "grip" on his country and threats to his life.

Story continues

Lebanon, a former French colony, has become the latest front line of the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon "as soon as possible" and also called on them not to travel to the country, without specifying any threat.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday demanded the return of Hariri from Saudi Arabia, amid media reports that he was being held in the kingdom.

Macron's visit comes days after Prince Mohammed launched what the Saudi government has dubbed a wide-ranging corruption crackdown, arresting dozens of members of the royal family as well as ministers and businessmen.

Macron was earlier in the UAE capital for the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi -- the first museum to carry the famed brand outside France -- which he hailed as a "bridge between civilisations" and religions.

Macron said the UAE has closed a deal to buy two French-made Gowind navy corvettes, built for coastal surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

International rights group, including Human Rights Watch, have criticised Western nations for profiting from arms sales to the Saudi-led military coalition battling rebels in Yemen, in which the UAE is a key member.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a complete blockade on Yemen in the wake of the Huthi missile attack, as the UN warns that the Arab world's poorest country faces the risk of a mass famine.

burs-ac/iw
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Dozens of live pangolins were seized from suspected traffickers close to Malaysia's border with Thailand, officials said Wednesday, thwarting the latest attempt to smuggle the critically endangered creatures.

The pangolins, the world's most heavily trafficked mammals, were recovered on Tuesday in two separate raids in the northern Malaysian state of Kedah.

Despite concerted efforts to clamp down on trafficking, the illegal pangolin trade remains a major problem.

Pangolins -- also known as scaly anteaters -- fetch a high price on the black market as their meat is prized as a delicacy and their body parts as ingredients in traditional medicine in some areas of Asia and Africa.

In the first incident on Tuesday, a Malaysian man was caught with 85 pangolins in the town of Changlun near the border with Thailand, Kedah wildlife chief Muhammad Ali Che Aman told AFP.

Later, Malaysian officials stopped a Thai man at a roadblock near a crossing into Thailand and found 55 sacks, each containing a live pangolin, and bags full of scales, said local border agency chief Abdul Latif Abdul Rahman.

Officials did not give an estimate for the value of the seized pangolins and scales.

Covered in tough, overlapping scales, Pangolins are indigenous to parts of Asia and Africa, and eat ants using pink, sticky tongues almost as long as their bodies.
A Bangladeshi man convicted of raping an elderly nun in 2015 was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday at the culmination of a sexual assault case that has sent shockwaves through India.

A court in Kolkata found Nazrul Islam guilty of rape and attempted murder, the BBC reports. It also doled out 10-year jail sentences to five other men found guilty of robbing her convent, and a seven-year sentence to a sixth man who helped conceal the attackers.

In March 2015, thousands of Indians marched in Kolkata to protest the assault on the 71-year-old nun while six attackers burgled and vandalized her convent in the West Bengal city of Ranaghat, near the border with Bangladesh.

Judge Kumkum Singha told the packed court that the assault was a blot on West Bengals legacy where Mother Teresa worked for the poor.

According to the BBC, there have been multiple attacks on churches and Indias small christian community in recent years.

The brutal gang rape of a Delhi student in 2012 bought sexual violence in India to the fore, and led to a strengthening of some of the countrys laws. But campaigners there say sexual assault remains common.
The Washington Post has published a detailed account of allegations that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore initiated a sexual encounter and pursued a relationship with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32.

As politicians  and most Republicans  responded to the shocking story of underage sexual abuse, a problematic theme emerged. Each statement relied on the phrase "if proven true," or a variation of that.

That might sound logical on its face  the allegations against Moore, now 70, haven't been adjudicated in a court of law  but the phrase allows the commenting politician to have it both ways while relying on negative stereotypes about survivors of abuse. Sex abuse is objectively bad, "if proven true" seems to say, but let's not forget that these women could be lying.

Here's an idea that you'd think we might have learned after the flood of disturbing allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein  instead of relying on milquetoast statements that inherently blame victims, believe women.

SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about the cartoon villain who is Roy Moore

The Post's report also details the accounts of three additional women who allege inappropriate relationships initiated by the former judge when they were teenagers. The Post's reporters wrote that they talked to 30 different sources before publishing the accounts. A statement from the Moore campaign called the allegations completely false and a desperate political attack.

Few public figures are taking a hard line against Moore and his alleged predatory behavior  most are instead opting for the most non-committal of condemnations while saving themselves a politically advantageous out.

It's beyond pervasive  take a look at the tweets and statements that came in all day Thursday:

From PENCE's press sect. on Moore: "The Vice President found the allegations in the story disturbing and believes, if true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office."  Matthew Nussbaum (@MatthewNussbaum) November 10, 2017

JUST NOW: @lisamurkowski on WaPo Report on Roy Moore: Im horrified and if its true he should step down immediately.  Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) November 9, 2017

Sen. Toomey: All I can say is, if theres a shred of truth to it, then he needs to step aside.  Lissandra Villa (@LissandraVilla) November 9, 2017

Sen. Jeff Flake says "of course" he's concerned about the Roy Moore story in WaPo. Asked if Moore should withdraw, Flake said: "if these prove true, yes."  Emma Loop (@LoopEmma) November 9, 2017

STATEMENT ON ROY MOORE:



If the deeply disturbing allegations in the Washington Post are true, Senator Hatch believes that Judge Moore should step aside immediately.



Attributable to me (Matt Whitlock, Hatch Spokesman)  Matt Whitlock  (@mattdizwhitlock) November 9, 2017

If there is any truth at all to these horrific allegations, Roy Moore should immediately step aside as a Senate candidate.  Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) November 9, 2017

The allegations in the Washington Post story are deeply disturbing, and if proven true, Judge Moore should immediately step aside  Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) November 9, 2017

Statement from Sen. Cruz on Roy Moore: "These are serious and troubling allegations. If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations"  Abby Livingston (@TexasTribAbby) November 9, 2017

SEN. LEE, who endorsed Roy Moore, said he should step aside if allegations are true.  Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) November 9, 2017

JUST IN: Sen @SteveDaines , who endorsed Roy Moore: These are very serious allegations and if true he should step down  Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) November 9, 2017

Rob Portman on Roy Moore:



"I think if what we read is true, and people are on the record so I assume it is, then he should step aside."  Dylan Scott (@dylanlscott) November 9, 2017

WH director of legislative affairs Marc Short on @CNNSitRoom says if accusations against Roy Moore are proven to be true he should step aside - but says process needs to play out  Cassie Spodak (@CassieSpodak) November 9, 2017

Senate Leadership Fund statement pic.twitter.com/IEBwMPDiH3  Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) November 9, 2017

Some Democrats fell into the same problematic language:

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These sexual acts against underage girls by Roy Moore would upset God. Also, his alleged acts violate criminal law. If true, he needs to withdraw from the Senate race. https://t.co/LFm4ZNYeFn  Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 9, 2017

Todays allegations against Roy Moore are deeply troubling. If true, Moore should step aside from his campaign immediately. Alabama voters deserve a candidate they can trust and who represents decency.  Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) November 9, 2017

To Republican Sen. John McCain's credit, he went all in and called for Moore to end his campaign, no qualifying statements needed. Others followed suit, like Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada.

The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.  John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) November 9, 2017

Roy Moore always has been and always will be unqualified to serve. https://t.co/cI0Kx3jkyN  Dina Titus (@repdinatitus) November 9, 2017

The "if proven true" statements are bad, but other responses were, shockingly, far worse. Take this defense citing the Biblical story of Joseph and Mary to justify underage molestation.

Wow. This defense of Roy Moore from AL state Auditor Jim Ziegler:



"Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.https://t.co/IhaWiCEFmq  Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 9, 2017

The same politician, Alabama state auditor Jim Zeigler, also made this ridiculous statement defending Moore: "It's much ado about very little."

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Moore backer: "Even if you accept the Washington Posts report as being completely true, its much ado about very little. " #ALSEN #alpolitics  Brian Lyman (@lyman_brian) November 9, 2017

Moore too posted about the article and blamed the "Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs" without outright denying any of the allegations.

The Obama-Clinton Machines liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me Ive EVER faced!



We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Other terrible responses skirted around the issue by attacking the quality of the reporting and motivations of the Washington Post.

Alabama Sec. of State John Merrill questions timing and source of allegations against Moore https://t.co/F2ib9oKi5a pic.twitter.com/bbrueHVWmI  Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) November 9, 2017

After a long pause, Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow tells me he'd vote for Roy Moore even if Moore did commit a sex crime against a girl.



"I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for Doug," he says. "I'm not saying I support what he did."  Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

Still others went all in on the time-honored tradition of victim blaming.

Alabama Geneva County GOP chairman Riley Seibenhener, who called me back, says he doesn't believe the allegations are true, but if they're true he won't support him - but, at the same time, it's not "forcible rape."



"I know that 14-year-olds don't make good decisions," he adds.  Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 10, 2017

Breitbart and Drudge Report were unsurprisingly reluctant to report straightforwardly about the allegations against Moore. Breitbart relied on some, um, creative, defenses, such as nitpicking about the alleged victims' ages and Moore's marital status at the time (single). In an interview on MSNBC the ridiculous defenses came pouring in.

Breitbart editor says its totally cool if Roy Moore preyed on teen girls... because he was single when he did ithttps://t.co/DvPUuciKIU via @shareblue  Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) November 9, 2017

How it's playing on Drudge  pic.twitter.com/h1JdHnKWDL  Al Weaver (@alweaver22) November 9, 2017

Moore, who was twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court, doesn't look like he's going anywhere. A fundraising email sent shortly after the story published quoted the former judge as saying, I refuse to stand down." Further, the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of a minor is three years in the state of Alabama. It's been 38 years.

Moore's up for the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a special election in Alabama on Dec. 12.
Melania Trump kicked off her heels for a visit to the Great Wall of China!

The first lady paid a visit to the Great Wall of China on Friday in a long tan skirt, a Dolce & Gabbana black jacket that she draped over her shoulders and a pair of nude, pointed ballet flats. The 47-year-old received a private tour of the Mutianyu section of the long wall, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

"This is beautiful. This is amazing," she said according to a US official standing next to her.

Former FLOTUS Michelle Obama brought daughters Sash and Malia to the same section of the wall in 2014.

RELATED: See all of Melania's outfits in Asia:



Following her visit, Melania headed over to the Beijing Zoo where she spent time with a panda named Gu Gu and 20 young schoolchildren. The group of children sang to Melania in Mandarin and English and she gifted them all with plush bald eagles.

Her visit to the Beijing Zoo caps off her tour of Asia, where the first lady put on quite a stunning sartorial show in labels like Dior, Fendi and J. Mendel.

Her next stop? Alaska, where she will go "to greet our AMAZING troops," according to President Trump on Twitter.

Check out the slideshow above for Melania's outfits in Asia.

RELATED: See Melania's outfits as FLOTUS:


We have come to see this routine regularly. President Donald Trump travels to an autocratic regime with whom the United States has serious issues. Its leaders wine and dine him, outdoing previous hosts. More bands! More children waving flags! Trump is mesmerized by the spectacle and laps up the attention. Our issues and Trumps previous tough rhetoric disappear, wafting into the air like the balloons (no, doves, make it hundreds of doves, the most doves ever!) released in his honor. The author of The Art of the Deal is a sucker, a patsy, an easy mark.

This was vividly demonstrated in his China visit. The Post reports:

President Trump lavished praise on Chinese leader Xi Jinping here Thursday, touting great chemistry between them while refusing to criticize his counterpart for the trade imbalance that Trump railed against during his campaign.

Speaking at a joint appearance with Xi in front of business leaders, Trump said the U.S. trade relationship with China is a very one-sided and unfair one. But, he quickly added: I dont blame China. Who can blame a country that is able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.

During the presidential campaign, Trump accused China of raping the U.S. economy and threatened to label the country a currency manipulatoreven though economic analysts have said Beijing has not artificially inflated the renminbi for years. In his remarks here, Trump reiterated that the United States must change its policies, but he offered no details about actions his administration will pursue

He gushed in a tweet directed at the Chinese dictator: Thank you for such an incredible welcome ceremony. It was a truly memorable and impressive display!

The hapless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried gamely to ignore the boot-scraping by the president. He was, perhaps, jokingyes, that dry wit!when he blamed his own country. Obsequiousness? Tillerson saw nothing of the kind. (I didnt detect that at all, he insisted.)

It was as embarrassing a display as we have seen on the world stage in a decade or more. President Barack Obama was skewered for apologizing for the United States, for refusing to recognize American exceptionalism. Trump confesses (falsely) on Americas behalf, sounding timorous and needy.

Trump was alarmingly weak and passive in China. He continued to blame America first, something he has done on other overseas visits, and hasnt delivered any tangible wins for America on this visit, says Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. In fact, if you add up his domestic policies and tax proposals and combine it with his fawning approach to China on this trip, it seems that Trump is willing to throw American workers under the bus because of his deep ties to corrupt corporate cronyism and his odd affinity for authoritarian countries like China. This is not merely cringe-inducing but dangerous. Our allies and adversaries alike see the gap between his rhetoric and his actual policyand they also see the disarray and disorganization inside of his administration when it comes to national security, Katulis observes. He says that its incredible to see how difficult it is for Trump to face down a competitor in person. For all of his bluster about China, he found it very hard to defend America against China while Chinese officials were in the room. Could you imagine what would happen if he actually sat down with Kim Jong Un? Or if he actually got that meeting he wanted with Iran in September?

Trump is handicapped intellectually and emotionally. He is too ignorant to understand the implications of his words and gesturesand uninterested in educating himself further. And his well of neediness makes him a sitting duck for anyone who understands the art of flattery and personal manipulation. Faced with a vain, narcissistic, unserious U.S. president, foreign leaders understand that this is a unique time to pick the United States pockets clean.
Meryl Streep stopped by Vogue for a sit-down with Anna Wintour, and it was like stepping back into Miranda Priestlys office.

Streep appears on the December issue of Vogue, celebrating the fashion magazines 125th anniversary. The actress is readying for the premiere of The Post, out nationwide in January, in which she plays Katharine Graham, Washington Post publisher and Wintours late friend.

Obviously, youve played a lot of extraordinary women, Wintour said. What was the most challenging woman youve ever played?

Hmm. Oh! I should say ...  Streep replied, motioning at Wintour and seemingly referencing her role as Runway editor-in-chief Miranda, a character widely believed to be based on the Vogue queen, in 2006s The Devil Wears Prada.

No, no, were not going there, Meryl, Wintour interjected.

Streep has said she was interested in playing Miranda specifically because of what it means to be a powerful female leader.

The book was written about Anna Wintour from the point of view of someone who worked for her, Streep told IndieWire last year. Its a version of her, not necessarily accurate or whatever, a piece of fun fiction, chick lit. Embedded in it  is what the perceived deficits are of women in a leadership position. Chief among them is to expect women to be endlessly empathetic, a sense of employees discomfiture that she doesnt give a shit, all the things that they would not ask of a male boss.

Thats all.

Language in this story has been amended to clarify the release date of The Post.

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A Saudi-led blockade of desperately-needed aid supplies in Yemen has pushed the war-torn country to the brink of the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, the United Nations said this week, forecasting millions of casualties if the siege is not lifted.

Saudi Arabia announced Monday that it had decided to temporarily close all ports in Yemen, where 7 million people are at risk of starvation. Nearly 70 percent of the population relies on foreign assistance brought in via land, sea and air for survival.

Over the past two-and-a-half years, Yemen has been engulfed by a raging conflict that has spiraled into one of the worlds worst humanitarian crises. Its staggering deterioration has come amid an ongoing Saudi-led intervention there, under the direction of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Salman became the worlds youngest defense minister in January 2015 after his father  King Salman  claimed the Saudi throne. Two months later, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Gulf Arab states in launching a military campaign in support of embattled Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels, an Iranian-allied Shiite group that took control of large parts of the country in 2014. But the resulting conflict has had a devastating impact on millions of civilians.

The crown prince made international headlines this week after orchestrating a stunning anti-graft crackdown under the decree of his father. Hes arrested hundreds of people, including several Saudi princes and ministers, without formal charges. The purge has been viewed by many as an attempt by Salman to consolidate power.

Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have already killed thousands of men, women and children, with no end to the carnage in sight. Saudi Arabia admitted in December to using British-made cluster bombs  known to cause mass civilian casualties and banned by more than 100 countries. Human Rights Watch accused the coalition earlier this year of committing war crimes and carrying out indiscriminate attacks in Yemen. The Houthis and their allies have also come under criticism by rights groups, with HRW decrying their numerous laws-of-war violations.

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As The New York Times noted last year in an analysis of Salmans military role in the Yemen conflict:

Although all agreed that the kingdom had to respond when the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital and forced the government into exile, Prince bin Salman took the lead, launching the war in March 2015 without full coordination across the security services. The head of the National Guard, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, had not been informed and was out of the country when the first strikes were carried out, according to a senior National Guard officer.

The Saudi-led Yemen offensive began during the Obama administration, which provided the coalition with arms and logistics support. But the Trump administration has been an even more vocal backer of Saudi Arabias regional policies, particularly its hawkish posture against Iran and its allies.

U.S. President Donald Trump met with Salman at the White House in March of this year, and visited Saudi Arabia in May. During his time there, Trump announced a $110 billion dollar arms deal with the kingdom, said to be the largest in American history. (But according to an investigation by Washington-based Brookings Institution, it may never come to fruition.) Trump this week expressed apparent support for Salmans massive purge.

In May, Salman told state broadcaster Al-Arabiya that no one wants the war to go on. But the humanitarian impact of the Saudi-led military intervention have since intensified, with the international community now warning that its newly imposed aid blockade will bear catastrophic consequences in Yemen, including widespread starvation.

The humanitarian situation in Yemen is extremely fragile and any disruption in the pipeline of critical supplies such as food, fuel and medicines has the potential to bring millions of people closer to starvation and death, read a joint statement released by leading international organizations and NGOs on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired toward its capital from Yemen on Saturday. Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, which the coalition has framed as justification for its blockade.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), whos been a vocal critic of the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed offensive in Yemen, condemned the siege on Thursday.

Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia are unacceptable but do not justify collective punishment of an entire population, he said. If the United States continues to support the Saudi-led coalition as they enforce the blockade, we will be enabling starvation as a weapon of war.

Medical workers in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa told Al Jazeera on Thursday that hundreds of sick and elderly people will die within the next week if the siege continues. Unless Saudi Arabia eases its restrictions and allows food and medical supplies, I could end up losing all of my cancer patients, one doctor said. Even those suffering from diabetes will die.

Also on HuffPost

Beneficiary heads of households gather to receive food vouchers distributed monthly as a part of Mercy Corps food support program in Haymah Dakhliyah, Sanaa Governorate.

At one of its monthly food voucher distribution Mercy Corps team members explain the distribution process to beneficiary heads of households.

Beneficiary heads of households receive their food vouchers distributed monthly in Haymah Dakhliyah, Sanaa Governorate.

A family in Haymah Dakhliyah, Sanaa Governorate carries home their monthly food rations redeemed by voucher with a local market supplier.

Community members in Haymah Kharijiyah, Sanaa Governorate carry home their monthly ration of food.

A woman stands with her monthly ration of food items provided by Mercy Corps.

A father carries home his monthly ration of food items provided by Mercy Corps through its voucher system working with local food suppliers in Haymah Kharijiyah, Sanaa Governorate.

A woman stands with her monthly ration of food items provided by Mercy Corps.

Community members participate in Mercy Corps health hygiene and nutrition education sessions as part of Mercy Corps food support and resilience building programs in Haymah Kharijiyah, Sanaa Governorate.

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As the Republican Senate nominee faces pressure to leave the race, he denies the allegations in an interview and claims hes the victim of a conspiracy

Roy Moore speaks at a rally, in Fairhope, Alabama on 25 September 2017. Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

Beleaguered Republican Roy Moore claimed on Friday he did not know the woman who has made underage sex allegations against him, as he faced renewed calls to step down from a crucial Senate race.



As the GOP cut its funding for the Alabama Senate candidate  up for election in one months time  two senators who had previously announced their endorsement of him, Mike Lee of Utah and Steve Daines of Montana pulled their support.



Lee tweeted late Friday afternoon: Having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the US Senate.

Leigh Corfman told the Washington Post that Moore met her several times in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a local prosecutor aged 32. At one point he allegedly drove her to his home where he touched her over her underwear and guided her hand to touch him over his. They did not have sexual intercourse, according to the report.

As pressure grew on Friday for Moore to drop out of the Senate race, he sought to portray himself as the victim of a conspiracy. Speaking on Fox News host Sean Hannitys syndicated radio show, Moore said: I dont know Ms Corfman from anybody. I never talked to her, never had any contact with her. The allegations of sexual misconduct with her are completely false. I believe theyre politically motivated.

Three other women interviewed by the Washington Post said Moore, now 70, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s.

Moore told Hannity, a leading conservative broadcaster: With regard to the other girls, you understand this is 40 years ago and, after my return from the military, I dated a lot of young ladies.

The former state judge acknowledged that he remembers two of the women named in the report: Debbie Wesson Gibson, who says she was 17 at the time, and Gloria Thacker Deason, who was 18. But he said I dont remember and I dont recall specific dates when pressed on details.

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Moore said of Gibson: I know her but I dont remember going out on dates. I knew her as a friend.

Later he seemed to shift position again, saying: I dont remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother.

He denied serving Deason rose wine, saying that any date would have happened in a dry county. She said she believed she was underaged. As I recall, she was 19 or older. I never provided intoxicating liquor to a minor. I seem to remember her as a good girl.

Mitt Romney has joined other senior Republicans in calling for Roy Moore to drop out. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Moore also said he and his team are conducting an investigation into the allegations. This has waited over 40 years to bring a complaint four weeks out of an election. Its obvious to the casual observer somethings up.

Moores office also issued a fresh statement portraying himself as the true victim. It has been a tough 24 hours because my wife and I were blindsided by an article based on a lie supported by innuendo, he said.

I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct. As a father of a daughter and a grandfather of five granddaughters, I condemn the actions of any man who engages in sexual misconduct not just against minors but against any woman. I also believe that any person who has been abused should feel the liberty to come forward and seek protection.

The White House has responded cautiously to the allegations so far. Press secretary Sarah Sanders said Donald Trump believes a mere allegation, particularly one from many years ago, should not be allowed to destroy a persons life. But she also told reporters: The president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.



Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell has called on Moore to step aside in the Alabama Senate race if the allegations are true.

But other Republicans, including two of the partys past presidential nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney, have called on Moore to drop out. Romney, who is rumored to be considering a 2018 bid for the Senate, tweeted on Friday: Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

Two US senators who endorsed Moore in the primary, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian about whether they still did.

On Friday it emerged from a Federal Election Commission filing that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is ending its fundraising agreement with Moore and its chairman, Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, has described the allegations as deeply troubling.



But Moore remains defiant and insists he will not quit the race for the 12 December special election for attorney general Jeff Sessions former seat. His campaign denied the report as the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation and the Alabama Republican has long blazed a controversial path.

He has twice been removed as state supreme court chief justice for defying federal court orders, and Moore has long been known for incendiary statements including suggesting that homosexual conduct be criminalized.

At this point, Republicans have openly contemplating running incumbent Luther Strange, Moores opponent in the primary, as a write-in candidate, which could split the vote and help Moores Democratic opponent Doug Jones win. Alternatively, Republicans could simply let Moore get elected then expel him from the Senate.

He still has some vocal defenders. Steve Bannon, the former White House chief, condemned the Washington Post as part of the opposition party after it reported the allegations. The Axios website compiled a list of nine Alabama Republican officials who are standing by Moore. Jim Zeigler, the state auditor, told the Washington Examiner: Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. Theres just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Ed Henry, an Alabama state representative, was quoted by the Cullman Times, a daily newspaper in Cullman county, as saying: If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years. I think someone should prosecute and go after them.

Ben Jacobs contributed reporting
Mitt Romney called on Roy Moore to step aside from the Alabama Senate race Friday, becoming one of the only Republican politicians to say, unequivocally, that Moore should go in light of accusations that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that four women said Moore pursued them when he was in his 30s and they were between the ages of 14 and 18.

The most serious case involves Leigh Corfman, who was 14 when she met Moore, then a 32-year-old district attorney. At one point, she said, he drove her to his home in the woods and undressed her.

I wanted it over with  I wanted out, she said she remembered thinking. Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.

Moore has denied the allegations and his campaign called them fake news.

Former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney says Roy Moore should suspend his campaign for the Alabama Senate special election. (Photo: John Angelillo/Pool via Bloomberg)

The statement by Romney, his partys 2012 presidential nominee, is far stronger than what GOP lawmakers have said.

On Thursday, Republican senators largely agreed that The Washington Post story is disturbing, but they almost all added a caveat: Moore should go if the revelations are true.

If these allegations are true, there is no place for Roy Moore in the United States Senate, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said.

If it is true, I dont think his candidacy is sustainable, but we believe in a presumption of innocence until proven guilty and so I think its important for the facts to come out, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Thursday. Its not just an allegation, its a story. There has to be something more to it so Im interested in seeing what substantiation there is for the story.

Its not clear what else Republican senators want to see before they tell Moore to go. The four women in The Washington Post story are all on the record, with their names and photographs published.

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Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was one of the only senators to also say that Moore needs to step aside now.

The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.  John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) November 9, 2017

After Romneys tweet, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) also came out and said Moore should not represent Alabama in the Senate.

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I've long opposed Roy Moore & his divisive viewpoints. The actions described make him unfit for office. The GOP must not support him. He should step aside.  John Kasich (@JohnKasich) November 10, 2017

Meanwhile, in the state of Alabama, GOP officials have largely given Moore a pass.

Hes clean as a hounds tooth, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler said in an interview with The Washington Examiner.

The special election will take place on Dec. 12. Its too late to replace Moore on the ballot, although there has been talk of running someone as a write-in candidate.

UPDATE: 1:20 p.m.  The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of the Senate GOP, severed financial ties with Moore Friday. A joint fundraising committee that benefits Moore and various party organizations filed paperwork to remove the NRSC as one of the beneficiaries.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - A Myanmar court on Friday jailed for two months two journalists on assignment for Turkey's state broadcaster, along with their interpreter and driver, for violating an aircraft law by filming with a drone.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, were detained on Oct. 27 along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin.

The four had been working on a documentary for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, when they were detained for attempting to fly a drone near parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw.

None of the four is a Turkish national, but the case has further strained diplomatic ties after President Tayyip Erdogan accused Myanmar's military of carrying out "genocide" of Rohingya Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country.

Police initially investigated whether they had violated an import-export rule that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail, but the judge opted to introduce a fresh charge of contravening the 1934 Burma Aircraft Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three months.

Both the cameraman and reporter pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, and the judge sentenced all four to two months, according to a Reuters reporter at the hearing.

A fresh hearing will be held on Nov. 16 to decide if charges of violating the import-export rules are to be made.

"The detainees admitted that they committed the crime, hoping they would only be fined, so it shocked us when the judge sentenced them to two months," said defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw.

The lawyer said he would appeal for the sentence to be reduced to a fine.

Before Friday's proceedings began, Mok told reporters in the court they were sorry for any disrespect of Myanmar's laws, but complained that the legal process had lacked transparency.

"We have no idea what is going on, and we are not allowed to speak to our family," she said.

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"And the rules and procedures are not explained to us. We were asked to sign statements that are completely in Burmese that we cannot understand."

As he was brought to court, interpreter Aung Naing Soe told reporters the four had not been mistreated while in custody, though police had asked about who they had spoken to and trips he made to several of restive Myanmar regions, including Rakhine.

David Baulk, of the rights group Fortify Rights, called the judge's decision to accept the charges, deny bail and sentence the four defendants as "ridiculous as it is dangerous".

"Once again Myanmar's judicial system has failed to stand up to state security forces and their blatant abuses of power," Baulk, a specialist on Myanmar human rights for the group, told Reuters by email.

Myanmar says the military counter-insurgency launched in August was provoked by Rohingya militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine State, and has denied both Erdogan's accusation and a top UN official's description of the operation as a "classic case of ethnic cleansing".

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh since the military operation began.

(Reporting by Min Min in NAYPYITAW and Shoon Naing in YANGON; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez)
Netflix has announced that it will not be making a second stand-up special with comedian Louis CK.

For years, rumors have swirled that Louis CK engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with the women around him. Gawker led coverage of these rumors in 2015 (and even as early as 2012).

But this week, the New York Times reported that five women, many of whom went on the record, have accused Louis CK of sexual misconduct.

In response, Netflix has cut ties with CK, who admits that these stories are true.

Based on Louis CK's behavior, we are not making his second stand up special.  Netflix US (@netflix) November 10, 2017

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That said, other Louis CK content is still available on the Netflix service.

Beyond Netflix, Louis CK's upcoming film, I Love You, Daddy, which was set to be released on November 17, will no longer hit theaters, according to the NYT. The Times also reports that HBO has pulled Louis CK from its on-demand library and dropped him from the lineup of its comedy benefit broadcast "Night of Too Many Stars."

FX, the network behind the the series "Louie" in which Louis CK stars, said that "the matter is currently under review," according to the NYT.

As more allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct come to light across Hollywood and beyond, big players in the media world are now having to take sides. Netflix, for one, has drawn a line in the sand, cutting ties entirely with Kevin Spacey after allegations that he made a sexual advance toward actor Anthony Rapp when Rapp was just 14.

We've reached out to Netflix asking if they have any plans to remove other Louis CK content from the platform.
ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Police in Nigeria's southern Delta state said they killed one suspect and arrested two others accused of involvement in the kidnapping last month of four Britons. Three of the British hostages, who were taken by gunmen on Oct. 13, were released earlier this week after negotiations, but a fourth, Ian Squire was killed. Delta state police spokesman Andrew Aniamaka said officers arrested two suspects and killed a third after he opened fire, wounding two officers. Aniamaka said two other suspects who were arrested previously led police to the three men. Kidnapping for ransom is common in parts of Nigeria, including the Delta region that produces the bulk of the country's crude oil, but is mired in poverty and plagued by criminal and militant activity. (Reporting Anamesere Igboeroteonwu Writing by Libby George; Editing by Alison Williams)
North Koreas state media is trolling Donald Trump by only reporting the protests against him during his Asia trip.

Coverage of the US Presidents latest visit to Seoul described the rallies against him  yet apparently didnt include any official comments from his speech condemning North Korea.

Mr Trumps trip to Asia has seen him share yet more tough talk against North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons.

Tour  Donald Trump is on a tour of Asia (Pictures: Reuters)

Earlier this week in South Korea he called on countries to unite against Pyongyang.

He said: Every single step the North Korea regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger.

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He added: The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictators twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail.

But the Rodong Sinmun, North Koreas main newspaper, carried photos and reports of South Korean activists staging rallies against the President without referring to his any of his comments.
Man versus machine  its an all-too-familiar battle in science fiction movies. But some actually believe that a time will come when artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, altering human civilization in unfathomable ways.

Its called the technological singularity.

History has indicated that artificial intelligence has the capability of winning over human intelligence.

In 1997, world chess champion Garry Kasparov forfeited to IBMs Deep Blue supercomputer after 19 moves.

And who could forget IBMs other success in 2011, when its Watson computer beat two former Jeopardy! champions?

Futurist Ray Kurzweil made this prediction about AI in a Tech Insider interview with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson: By 2029, computers would have all of the intellectual and emotional capabilities of humans, so they would be spiritual machines.

Kurzweil believes that in the 2030s our brains will be able to wirelessly communicate directly to the cloud to speed up our knowledge exponentially.

Kurzweil went on to say in the interview, I think the scenario that is realistic is that computers are getting smaller and smaller. Well have nanorobots at the size of blood cells that have computers in them. Theyll go into the brain through the capillaries and communicate with our neurons  that will communicate wirelessly to the cloud.

Then there are those who believe AI poses a threat. Back in July, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told the National Governors Association that AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization and believes it should be regulated. World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has also issued warnings. He believes artificial intelligence has the potential to destroy human civilization through powerful autonomous weapons or new ways for the few to oppress the many.

On the other end of the spectrum, people like engineer Anthony Levandowski, who worked for Uber and Google and specialized in autonomous cars, believes artificial intelligence has godlike qualities and should be worshipped.

Only time will tell what remains to be seen. Will it be man versus machine, or man plus machine?
By Nick Carey

(Reuters) - Workers at a Chinese-owned auto glass plant in southwestern Ohio voted heavily against union representation, the United Auto Workers (UAW) said on Thursday, in a major blow for the union's strategy for organizing foreign-owned auto factories.

UAW's defeat comes after a stinging loss it suffered in the U.S. Deep South in August.

The vote, which began on Wednesday, involved roughly 1,500 workers at the Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co Ltd plant in Moraine, a Dayton suburb that was once home to a large, unionized General Motors Co assembly plant.

The union lost by a nearly two-to-one margin, with 868 votes against union representation and 444 votes for.

"Fuyao workers fighting for a voice in their workplace were unable to win against a barrage of anti-labor tactics and intimidation by management at the Ohio glass plant," the UAW said in a statement.

The UAW needed a win after losing a bitterly contested vote at a Nissan Motor Co Ltd plant in Mississippi in August, which extended a decades-long record of failure to organize a major automaker's plant in the U.S. South.

The vote also came amid an expanding U.S. Justice Department probe into alleged misuse of funds at UAW training centers funded by the Detroit automakers.

Fuyao, a Chinese automotive glass supplier whose global customers include General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Daimler AG and Toyota Motor Corp, opened the plant in Moraine in 2016 as part of a broader $1 billion expansion in the United States.

Though UAW membership has crept up since the end of the Great Recession, it is around half of what it was in 1998 and well below a peak of 1.5 million members in 1979. The Detroit automakers and their suppliers have slashed workforces at UAW-represented factories over the past 30 years as they have automated and lost sales to European and Asian rivals.

This year could be the first in which North American vehicle production by the unionized Detroit Three automakers falls to less than half of total vehicle output in the region, according to IHS Markit.

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(http://tmsnrt.rs/2znJWBW)

At Fuyao's Ohio factory, the UAW told workers it could help secure better safety and higher pay.

Rich Rankin, head of the UAW region covering Ohio and Indiana, said workers at the Fuyao plant start at $10 an hour, much less than the $22 an hour they can make at two other unionized automotive glass plants in his region.

He said he grew up hearing about U.S. companies that would go abroad and pay workers low wages in poor conditions.

"It's amazing to me that this is now happening to U.S. workers in America's manufacturing heartland," he said on Tuesday.

The battle over unionizing at what was once a union-represented GM plant in a state with nearly 50,000 active UAW members drew politicians on both sides.

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, wrote to Fuyao in October saying its success is "contingent on creating a safe and supportive working environment".

Meanwhile, 15 Ohio Republican state representatives wrote an open letter urging employees to reject "outside forces" trying to come into the Chinese supplier's Ohio factory.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in labor and the global economy, said while workers had real grievances at the plant, rules preventing unions from talking to workers inside factories played in Fuyao's favor.

"The employer in this case moved aggressively against the unionizing driver," he said. "In the current climate of fear among U.S. workers of job losses or plants moving elsewhere, that carried the day."

(Reporting by Nick Carey in Detroit; Editing by Joe White, Matthew Lewis and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Since 2008, Democrats nationwide have been hemorrhaging state legislature seats, and dressing their open wounds with tiny Hello Kitty bandaids.

It was bad.

After Trump's election, a group of former Clinton organizers decided to form a new startup, Flippable, dedicated to breaking Republican supermajorities and winning some of these states back. State politics isn't exactly romantic  think of how many of your former Assembly members you can name  and Democrats haven't had a successful track record in the area in a long time.

Almost a year later, Flippable appears to have started to, well, flip that trend. On Tuesday, the group said they won 16 out of 20 races on which they worked.

Is state politics becoming ... cool?

SEE ALSO: More than a dozen Democratic Socialists won last night in a wave of rose emojis

Mmm, probably not. But it's at least becoming more competitive. For this election, Flippable decided to create a model that would identify the most competitive districts based on their previous voting history and incumbency status. They identified 20 races they could potentially flip, and zeroed in on 6. That number, they say, was actually ambitious.

"It was the maximum number of seats that Democrats had managed to flip in a single cycle over the past 30 years," Flippable CEO and Co-founder Catherine Vaughan told Mashable in an email.

"What we saw last night was nothing short of incredible . . . As of writing, 16 of our original 20 candidates won  including every single one of our target five, who in some cases bested incumbents who hadnt seen a real challenger in decades. Additionally, five of these candidates outperformed Hillarys 2016 vote margins, a substantial feat given that lower turnout in off-year elections typically decreases Democratic margins."

Tomorrow, 100 million Americans have a state, city or district election. See if you're one of them at @flippable_org https://t.co/JcPhzSWvuw  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2017

There were dozens of group who helped organize for Tuesday's election  from the DLCC to massive new organizing operations like Indivisible, Swing Left and Run for Something  and it's impossible to neatly statistically quantify how much of an impact Flippable, or any one group, had. There were also other variables working in Democrats' favor, namely, a president with incredibly low approval ratings.

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Flippable's impact nonetheless appears to have been felt. In four of the five races Flippable targeted, they were top donor:

"Flippable raised more than $550,000 in grassroots contributions for our targeted candidates this yearover $200,000 of which went to our targeted state legislative candidates that won on Tuesday. For context, the average total cost of a state legislative race is $120,000. So were talking contribution sizes that can literally change the outcome of a race," Vaughan told Mashable.

State politics isn't sexy but it matters two major reasons. First, state governments have more power than most people think  they control everything from how schools get funded to how much in taxes you pay to whether or not you can smoke weed at your local jam band concert.

One seat flipped the WA state senate, the state government, and the entire West Coast blue. Washington is our 8th Dem trifecta! pic.twitter.com/7gQ7AwuVsv  Flippable (@flippable_org) November 8, 2017

Perhaps even more importantly, state governments get to draw legislative maps and otherwise determine who gets to vote. They control gerrymandering and, in the case of Wisconsin, openly suppress the vote with voter ID laws.

Progressives have a long way ahead before catching up with the current Republican state level of control. As of Tuesday, Democrats have just eight "trifectas," or states where they can control both legislative chambers and the governorship. Republicans, by contrast, have twenty-four.

It's still bad. But by zeroing in on competitive races and using social media to attract both in-state and out-of-state donors and volunteers, groups like Flippable (and Swing Left, and Indivisible, and others), hope they can take advantage of our passing political moment to make lasting change.

Tuesday showed them that it's possible.
When Airbnb acquired and subsequently shut down Tilt -- a platform that let people pool together to pay for items or events -- many (including former Tilt employees) were left wondering what could and would replace it.

PayPal has stepped into the fray in an attempt to provide its own answer. The payments giant has now launched Money Pools, a service that takes on the likes of GoFundMe and other group-based payment and funding platofrms, where people can create pages to let their contacts fundraise for a specific item or event, such as buying a group gift, a group trip, or housemates paying the rent.

PayPal is launching the service today in 16 countries -- Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. Anyone who has a PayPal account in these regions can create a Money Pool, or contribute to one. (Without a PayPal account, you can't use it.)

The service, PayPal says, is free when you use money from your PayPal wallet, or a debit card or a bank account linked to your PayPal account. Standard PayPal fees apply when you have to make a currency conversion or use a credit card (also linked to your PayPal account).

Once you create a page, Money Pools works not unlike other social funding sites like GoFundMe: you can personalise the page with pictures and how you want contributions to appear (public or anonymously); you can update the site's activity feed; and you can -- important for social-payments -- share a link to the campaign with a short URL.

Since being founded nearly twenty years ago, in 1998, PayPal has made a name for itself as an e-commerce payments behemoth, both by way of powering transactions made on eBay, its former owner; as well as for other electronic payment services beyond that such as point of sale services (via PayPal Here) and more, with the company today holding a market cap of over $88 billion.

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PayPal actually already had a mobile app -- nine years ago, in fact -- for family and friends to make payments to each other. But by and large, the company's move into social payments -- which tap into social graphs to spur transactions -- has been gradual.

PayPal's 2013 acquisition of Braintree (the e-commerce payments provider that competes with Stripe) gave it ownership the well-regarded peer-to-peer money transfer service Venmo, and lately PayPal seems to be taking more steps to give social payments a push. Recent developments have included letting people pay each other money through Facebook Messenger (launched last month), and the ability for retailers to accept Venmo-powered payments (also launched just weeks ago).

(PayPal's social network efforts have not always been smooth. Witness the issues that PayPal has had crowdfunding platforms in the past. Even today, GoFundMe -- the massively popular platform that lets people crowdfund for causes -- now only accepts PayPal via certified charities not individuals.)

There are a number of other services in the market today that let groups of users pool together to pay for things, but many of them seemed geared towards specific use cases.

For example, Splitwise focuses on letting groups share the payment of bills; and WeTravel is aimed at groups taking trips together. And Airbnb may be working on something in this space too: when it shut down Tilt, the startup said that its "focus will be to incorporate our social payments experience into their product ecosystem."

It's a crowded area of the market indeed -- a sign of the opportunity that PayPal now wants to tap for its next phase of growth.

A PayPal spokesperson added: Money Pools were created to provide the millions of people who already use PayPal P2P with a more personalized and organized way to share expenses with more than one family member or friend for things like travel, gifts, celebrations and even recurring expenses like rent and utilities. Unlike crowdfunding solutions, Money Pools are not intended to facilitate fundraising for activities such as product development and organizers agree not to offer perks, rewards, or other incentives in return for contributions made to a Money Pool.
rex

A tiny lion cub found frozen in Siberia is so perfectly preserved after 50,000 years that it has raised hopes that the animal could be cloned, according to the Siberian Times.

The tiny animal was preserved in permafrost, the reseachers say, and was unveiled in Yakutsk this week.

Cave lions are now extinct. The creature is thought to have died between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago, the researchers say.

Albert Protopopov of the Sakha Republic Academy of Sciences said, It is a perfectly preserved lion cub, all the limbs have survived. There are no traces of external injuries on the skin.

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Global warming has thawed ground in eastern Russia that is usually almost permanently frozen, leading to the discoveries of a number of frozen creatures.

Scientists are examining mammoths found frozen in the ice o look for genes which separate mammoths from elephants  such as the genes for a shaggy coat, in the hope the creatures can be cloned.

Protopopov says that the lion is not related to two previous cubs found frozen in the area, and is from a different litter.

He said, Everyone was amazed then and did not believe that such a thing is possible, and now, two years later, another cave lion has been found in the Abyiski district.

The cub was found on the river Tirehtakh, it is in a different locality, and it is obviously larger and older than Uyandinsk lions, so they are from different litter.
Danang (Vietnam) (AFP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

"When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there," said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

"At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?"

Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. Duterte denies the allegations.

The firebrand leader consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Duterte said last year he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a "son of a whore" for criticising the drug war.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example to police.

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His spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a "legitimate police action".

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he "maybe" stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in "hyperbole".

His latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.

mm/kma/qan/sls
Danang (Vietnam) (AFP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

"When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there," said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

"At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?"

Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes.

He at times denies inciting police or others to kill, but also consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Duterte said last year he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a "son of a whore" for criticising the drug war.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example for the police.

Story continues

His then spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a "legitimate police action".

- Killer, or killer jokes -

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he "maybe" stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

In an election campaign rally Duterte also said he was expelled from college for shooting a fellow student who was insulting him. The victim reportedly survived.

Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in "hyperbole".

His new spokesman, Harry Roque, indicated that may be the case with his stabbing-to-death claim.

"I think it was in jest. The Pres uses colourful language when w Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas," Roque said in a text message.

In Danang, Duterte also targeted the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has been a frequent critic of the drug war.

"This rapporteur," he said, after referring to Callamard by name. "I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me."

Duterte's latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.

Trump has praised Duterte's handling of the drug war, telling the Philippine leader in a telephone call in April that he was doing a "great job".

Human rights campaigners have said the summit will be a public relations coup for Duterte, with Trump and other leaders expected to ignore the drug war controversy.

"Duterte will enjoy the gift of tacit silence from East Asian leaders on his murderous drug war during the upcoming summit," Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine told AFP.

Adding to a sense of supreme confidence ahead of the event, Duterte on Thursday also proposed hosting a global summit on human rights in which all nations would be placed under the microscope.

"Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments," he said, specifically naming the United States, France and Russia.
Melania Trump walks on the Great Wall of China. (Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

Melania Trump is a former model, so whether shes sashaying down the tarmac in stilettos or dressing down a power suit with a strategic hand in her pocket, the first lady is always posing.

And her trip to the Great Wall of China on Friday, a stop on President Trumps five-country Asian tour, is her most stunning photo op yet.

In the images, Melania walks the Mutianyu portion of the estimated 13,000-mile wonder on the outskirts of Bejing, during a 30-minute private tour. Wearing a gray midi-skirt, Alaia belt, nude flats, and a black Dolce & Gabbana coat slung over her shoulders in the 40-degree chill, she pensively gazes over the landscape. Her hair is fastened into a low ponytail and shes sporting her signature black shades.

Melania Trump (Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

After signing a guest book and posing for photos with a scroll she was gifted, Melania reportedly said, This is beautiful. This is amazing, before whisking back down the mountain in a cable car.

First lady Melania Trump (Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)

Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha, 16, and Malia, 19, took the same trip in 2014. The former first lady hiked the Great Wall wearing a comfy-looking black outfit while Sasha wore a loose statement T-shirt and Malia a casual white top with black pants. After their walk, the three slid back down to the ground in toboggans.

Earlier in the day, Melania wore the same outfit, only with her hair down, to visit the Bejing Zoo, where she fed a panda bear named Gugu and posed for photos with children.

First lady Melania Trump poses for photos with children in front of a panda section as she visits Beijing Zoo in Beijing, China, Nov. 10, 2017. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)

Many on social media commented on her practical footwear and rustic chic style. However, according to Cris Pearlstein, stylist and founder of How Do You Fashion, the first ladys look is hardly surprising.

Melania has been in front of the camera her entire life  modeling is not just a job, its a large part of who she is, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Its possible that the photographers hired to travel with her have a background in fashion or at least understood how Melania moves.

Pearlstein adds, Her outfit is entirely appropriate for the Great Wall, but the jacket draped over her shoulders  a fading fashion trend  is a deliberate way of saying, I dont dress for function.

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Given the fascination with Melanias style and her slow-to-start anti-bullying campaign, she can still make an impact as the first lady. Part of Melanias image and legacy is her beauty, says Pearlstein. I wouldnt be surprised if she made the business of fashion her platform.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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Sydney (AFP) - Papua New Guinea authorities destroyed makeshift shelters and removed water stores in a shuttered Australia refugee camp Friday, just hours ahead of a deadline for the inmates to leave or be forced out, detainees said.

The Manus Island camp held asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat under Canberra's tough immigration policy, but was ruled unconstitutional by PNG's Supreme Court and closed on October 31.

Some 600 men barricaded themselves in the camp despite water and electricity being cut off, citing fears of a hostile reception from locals near three new transition centres set up for them.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee on Manus, tweeted Friday that shelters were torn down, while rubbish bins used to collect rainwater had been destroyed.

"Police and immigration destroyed our shelters. Inside the rooms is very hot without power for fans. We built these shelters to provide shade & cover from tropical sun & rain," he wrote.

He said workers on Thursday had also removed security fences around the centre.

Footage released Friday by Australian advocacy group GetUp showed the men enduring deteriorating conditions, with detainees sleeping on tables outside shipping containers to escape the heat, as well as blocked toilets and makeshift wells dug to store water.

"Death or serious illness is inevitable in coming days," GetUp human rights co-director Shen Narayanasamy, who visited the camp, said in a statement.

"These men are sick, thirsty and hungry. The conditions are appalling and it's obvious you wouldn't choose to stay here if you thought you could be safer elsewhere."

- Hundred 'refusing' to go -

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Friday called on the refugees to "comply with the lawful requests and requirements of the PNG authorities", and stressed they would not be taken to his country.

PNG police said Friday that "almost 60 refugees have voluntarily boarded" transport to their new locations".

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Police spokesman Superintendent Dominic Kakas added that he expected "all refugees will leave the centre" Friday.

But Boochani told AFP only a few people had left the centre with hundreds of others "still refusing" to go.

A notice at the camp Thursday warned that "force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily" by Saturday.

PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill added that "appropriate means" would be used to "apprehend individuals who are causing unnecessary anxiety and violence".

- 'Free the refugees' -

Canberra has been under pressure from refugee advocates and the United Nations to close the camp on Manus, and another on Nauru, amid concerns about their conditions and the impact of prolonged detention on mental and physical health.

But the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva Thursday slammed the closure of Manus "without adequate arrangements for long-term viable relocation solutions for all refugees and asylum-seekers transferred there".

The refugees remain barred from resettling in Australia even though Canberra has struggled to transfer them to third countries.

Late Friday hundreds of protestors in Sydney clashed with police as demonstrators tried to stop guests from entering a political fundraising event with former conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Rally-goers were calling on immigration minister Peter Dutton, who was also attending the fundraiser, to end offshore detention and bring refugees to Australia.

Armed with loud speakers, demonstrators chanted "Free, free the refugees", and "Abbott, Dutton, blood on your hands", while blocking the paths of Abbott's guests and shouting "Shame on you".

Riot police were forced to form a guard around dinner party attendees to get them through the crowd, with occasional scuffles breaking out between protestors.

Hundreds more people marched in the streets of Melbourne.
Warsaw (AFP) - Several dozen environmental activists on Thursday occupied the Warsaw headquarters of Poland's state forest management agency to protest against logging in the Bialowieza forest, a protected UNESCO site that includes Europe's last primeval woodland.

Critics say Poland's rightwing government is defying a European Court of Justice injunction to suspend logging in the forest, but the environmental ministry says it is obeying the order and felling trees only for public safety reasons.

"We're calling for the withdrawal of heavy machinery from the Bialowieza forest. We demand an end to the logging," said Adam Bohdan, one of the activists chained to a security gate inside the building.

"All of our activity -- peaceful marches, petitions, blockades at the scene -- had no effect. Forest management continues to fell trees despite the decision of the European judiciary. And so we opted for this ultimate form of protest," he told AFP.

Forest management spokeswoman Anna Malinowska described the protest organised by the "Oboz dla Puszczy" environmental coalition as "illegal".

Police said they would remove protesters by force if they did not leave the premises, to which activist Joanna Pawluskiewicz responded: "We'll block the building's entryway right up till the end, till the police remove us."

Bialowieza includes one of the largest surviving parts of the primeval forest that covered the European plain 10 thousand years ago.

The vast woodland, which straddles the border with Belarus, is home to unique plant and animal life, including 800 European bison, the continent's largest mammal.

The Polish government began logging in May last year, saying it was clearing dead trees to contain damage caused by a spruce bark beetle infestation, as well as to fight the risk of forest fires and preserve road traffic.

Scientists, ecologists and the European Union protested and activists now allege that it is being used as a cover for commercial logging.
Oh man, imagine having to be this guy.

On Tuesday, U.S. president Donald Trump stopped by military base Camp Humphreys for lunch, during his official visit to South Korea.

For some reason, they sat one single soldier between Trump and South Korean president, Moon Jae-in. So that guy sat awkwardly while Trump and Moon talked across him.

SEE ALSO: Trumps transgender military ban just got shut down

"Why me?"

Image: weibo

A video clip of the incident has been picked up on South Korean TV, highlighting the poor guy's stunned expression as he sat between the two world leaders, apparently too terrified to eat.

According to Stars and Stripes, Trump was joining the troops for Taco Tuesday, and had tacos, a burrito and curly fries for lunch.

Camp Humphreys is the U.S.'s largest overseas military base, a sprawling 3,454 acre facility with 500 buildings. It sits 60 miles from the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

U.S., SKorean soldiers waiting for Trump at Camp Humphreys. These guys will sit next to him at lunch. Todays menu is Mexican food. pic.twitter.com/777YtMTzA4  Kim Gamel (@kimgamel) November 7, 2017
CANOVANAS, Puerto Rico  Juan Medina-Dishmey took stock of everything his family of six had lost in the storm, sweat accumulating on his concerned brow as he studied the piles of damaged household appliances and personal belongings that lay on his driveway.

The house is uninhabitable right now, the 44-year-old told HuffPost in mid-October. He said that during Hurricane Maria, water rose up to four feet inside his home in Valle Hill, an impoverished community in the city of Canovanas in northeastern Puerto Rico.

We lost everything and still no one has helped us, he said.

Four weeks after HuffPost met with Medina-Dishmey  and seven weeks after Maria hammered Puerto Rico on Sept. 20  his family remains in a desperate situation. On Thursday, the Dominican-born father of four told HuffPost by phone that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had come to assess the damages to his home 12 days ago, but he has yet to hear back.

Juan Medina-Dishmey stands in front of his home in Valle Hill, Canovanas, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 14, 2017. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

Medina-Dishmey and his wife, Juana Ferrera, have a 19-year-old son and three daughters ages 17, 15 and 11. Their youngest has a cognitive disability due to microcephaly, which causes her to have epileptic seizures and difficulty with speech. The family is currently living with Medina-Dishmeys sister, and has just two small mattresses from their home to sleep on.

Without electricity, without mosquito nets, thats how were sleeping on the floor, Ferrera, 47, said.

The familys living arrangements, coupled with the lack of clean drinking water and power across much of the island, have Medina-Dishmey and Ferrera worried about their kids health. All three of their daughters have had colds; the youngest has been sick for at least four weeks, Ferrera said Thursday. The parents also fear their children could become infected with leptospirosis, a potentially deadly animal-borne bacterial disease.

Juan Medina-Dishmey and his wife, Juana Ferrera, cleared out damaged belongings from their home in Valle Hill, Canovanas, Puerto Rico. They told HuffPost they feared it may all be contaminated with the leptospirosis bacteria. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

The lack of sufficient food, water and safe living conditions for his family has Medina-Dishmey feeling disheartened. He said his children also feel sad when they see the damage to their home and say they want to move to the U.S. mainland.

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I havent even been able to work and Im waiting for an organization to give me some sort of help, he said. I try to act strong so my kids dont see me like that, but Im still depressed.

The family is one of thousands in Valle Hill and its two neighboring communities, Villa Hugo 1 and 2, that residents say lack basic resources, including shelter, in Marias aftermath. While several poor communities are still waiting for help, the plight of the Valle Hill area stands out, Angel Marcano, a community leader from Old San Juans La Perla district, told HuffPost.

Juana Ferrera sits on the porch of her home in Valle Hill, Canovanas, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

Were hearing from a lot of communities like this ... the government came once or the government hasnt come at all, Marcano said. Compared to other communities Ive been to, I saw a lot of need [in the Valle Hill area].

I saw families that are living under four sticks, as we say here in Puerto Rico, he added.

Jannette Lozada Sabastros, 52, Valle Hills community president, said she has not heard from the mayor of Canovanas, Lornna Soto, since Hurricane Irma hit Puerto Rico ahead of Maria in early September. At that time, 79 small bags of groceries were delivered, she said.

Lozada Sabastros suspects that aid has been slow to arrive due in part to discrimination against her community, where 40 percent of the areas residents are undocumented immigrants primarily from the Dominican Republic  an often vilified group.

Alai Reyes-Santos, an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of Oregon, has done extensive research on the marginalization of Dominicans in Puerto Rico, both documented and undocumented. She told HuffPost theres real discrimination and xenophobic violence against working-class Dominican migrants on the island, who are often viewed as uneducated or criminals.

[They] are very vulnerable because theres an assumption that they dont have rights or that theyre not protected by the state, she said.

Residents also point to a lack of transparency from local officials, which has led to little understanding of how resources are allocated at the federal level. The result: Residents are desperate for basic necessities  including shelter  with no known timetable for when help will arrive, if at all.

Multiple calls to the office of the mayor of Canovanas by HuffPost went unanswered.

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Many of the houses in Valle Hill and its neighboring communities, Villa Hugo 1 and 2, were destroyed by Hurricane Maria. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

FEMAS aid distribution pipeline

For its part, FEMA says they are delivering food and water intended for Canovanas to a regional distribution center.

FEMAs records show food and water have been delivered to Canovanas and its associated regional staging area, as requested, on a daily basis for the past month, spokesman Ron Roth told HuffPost.

Once supplies arrive in Puerto Rico, Roth said, the agency transfers them to the nine Regional Staging Areas (RSAs) across the island. The Puerto Rican National Guard manages and operates the RSAs and is in charge of delivering the supplies to local mayors or authorized officials. From there, local officials distribute the food, water and other aid at their discretion.

One of the RSAs is located in Canovanas and supplies aid to it and the municipalities of San Juan, Carolina, Trujillo Alto, Loiza and Rio Grande. As of Tuesday, the Canovanas RSA had received 1,422,812 bottles of water and 430,560 nonperishable meals, according to FEMA. As of Sunday, the RSA had also received 131 pallets of perishable food with an average of 330 meals per pallet.

If those resources were distributed evenly among the estimated 697,820 residents in all six municipalities, each person would have received approximately 2.04 bottles of water and 0.68 meals via FEMA since Maria hit.

Other groups, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, have pitched in, but food and water remain in short supply.

When HuffPost asked FEMA about the insufficient quantities of aid available at the Canovanas RSA, Roth said the agency is working with the government of Puerto Rico to assess communities needs.

The request of commodities and distribution is led by local officials as they identify the need according to their impacted population, he said in a statement. Then the request comes to FEMA to provide and distribute commodities, this is the process for all 78 municipalities.

He added that the Department of Defense has been providing two reverse osmosis water purification units that produce 3,000 gallons of potable water per hour.

(Photo: Alissa Scheller/HuffPost)

About a week after Maria, Puerto Ricos secretary of the Treasury and the National Guard brought 900 cases of water to be distributed among the 1,600 households in Valle Hill and Villa Hugo 1 and 2, according to Lozada Sabastros. But she said Thursday no one has been back since.

Its been almost a month since any water was brought here, she said. There are a lot of families here that have four-to-eight members, one case of water rationed out can last [only] one week or a week-and-a-half.

Whats more, Lozada Sabastros told HuffPost the 972 families in the communities remain in dire need of clothes, sheets, mattresses, food, medicine and even shelter.

Thus far, residents have survived on supplies from private entities like Samaritans Purse, an evangelical humanitarian aid organization that gave all three communities blue tarps to use as makeshift roofs or walls.

A woman stands in the middle of what used to be her home in Canovanas, Puerto Rico, on Oct. 14, 2017. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

We didnt expect so much damage

The wait for aid is particularly difficult for those without a roof over their head. Nearly every family home constructed with wood in Valle Hill and its neighboring communities was either flattened or ripped away by Marias winds, leaving dozens of residents with little more than cinder blocks to stand on.

Every corner of my community was affected, Lozada Sabastros told HuffPost. We knew it was going to affect us, but we didnt expect so much damage.

Danny Guerrero Herrera is one of the many residents who lost most of their home to the storm. He told HuffPost that Irma shook his house, which sits atop a small hill, but Maria ripped away his roof, several walls and destroyed nearly all his belongings.

When HuffPost visited him at his home in mid-October, the 43-year-old was using a donated tarp as a makeshift wall where his bathroom and bedroom used to be. When he pulled the tarp back, dozens of other damaged houses in Villa Hugo 1 came into view below.

The flimsy, temporary tarps were the only protection many residents had from the flash floods and rain that came after Maria until the Army Corps of Engineers arrived to install reinforced coverings on Oct. 28 as part of Operation Blue Roof, a program implemented on behalf of FEMA.

But Roth, who knows of the program, told HuffPost that even these reinforced tarps are an incomplete solution for many families because they can only be applied if at least 50 percent of a houses rafters are still standing.

Danny Guerrero Herrera in mid-October shows HuffPost what's behind the blue tarp a charitable organization gave him after Hurricane Maria's winds ripped away most of his home's roof and several walls in Canovanas, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

Guerrero Herrera stands in front of what's left of his home. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

In other words, the program doesnt address the housing crisis faced by many in the Valle Hill area. Theyre not going to put many up here, because the majority of houses here were completely destroyed, Lozada Sabastros said.

Guerrero Herrera and his wife have been staying at a friends house since their home was battered. In the interview last month, he said he was still waiting for FEMA to assess the damage and grant him financial assistance so he could tear down his home and rebuild it. But they havent come, he said with a sigh. Lets see what happens.

Contacted by phone on Thursday, Guerrero Herrera said he still had heard nothing from the agency.

Ive sensed discrimination

While some residents in the Valle Hill area hold out hope that FEMA will arrive with financial help to rebuild their lives, Lozada Sabastros said she knows of at least 400 residents in her community who wont see a cent because they are undocumented immigrants, mainly from the Dominican Republic.

I am realizing that because this is a community of foreigners  meaning there are a lot of people without documents  Ive sensed discrimination, she told HuffPost.

Lozada Sabastros said she is trying to get those families aid through private organizations so they at least have a place to sleep.

FEMA, responding to a question about aid that undocumented individuals are entitled to, pointed HuffPost to its webpage, which confirmed that undocumented residents affected by a major disaster may be eligible for non-monetary assistance  including legal help, medical care, shelter, food and water. Undocumented individuals are not eligible for cash assistance programs, though a FEMA spokesman told HuffPost households can apply for such relief as long as any family member has proper documentation, regardless of age.

A house flattened by Hurricane Maria in Villa Hugo 2, a community within the city of Canovanas, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

The marginalization of Dominicans in Puerto Rico would be nothing new, according to Reyes-Santos, who wrote Our Caribbean Kin: Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles. A Puerto Rican who has family members of Dominican descent, she said that undocumented Dominicans are more vulnerable and invisible than ever post-Maria.

I dont know much about Canovanas but I know enough about how nationalist politics play out in particular moments of fear, she said. In moments of fear, migrants become scapegoats.

She said Dominicans have been used as such in Puerto Rico since the 1980s, when the islands economic crisis began to take shape.

I could see people not helping Dominicans and using nationalism as a way to say, Well, we just need to help ourselves right now and Dominicans are not part of our community, they just need to go home, she said. In desperate times, sadly, all our biases and prejudices kick in.

Residents in the Puerto Rican community of Villa Hugo 2 told HuffPost in mid-October that many families drank from this well in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when little drinking water was available. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPostl)

What Im most worried about right now is health

Nearly 58 percent of Puerto Rico still is without power and more than 14 percent is without running water, according to government statistics. Doctors have told HuffPost these conditions make the island ripe for disease outbreaks.

The failure to bring sufficient drinking water and provide clean living conditions has left residents in Valle Hill and its neighboring communities exposed to potentially contaminated water sources or objects that could contribute to a host of health problems.

What Im most worried about right now is health, because they havent picked up the trash and at night theres a procession of rats, Lozada Sabastros said. Rats, among other animals, pose a threat to the communitys health since they are known to carry the bacteria that can infect humans with leptospirosis. The disease has killed at least four people in Marias aftermath.

Lozada Sabastros says that in Valle Hill alone, four others have died from the disease. When it comes to statistics, [the government] stayed quiet, but I know who died here from that, she said. I know because I went to every one of the funerals.

The official death toll from all causes related to Maria stands at 55.

Lozada Sabastros said Thursday she knows of about 200 people in Valle Hill suffering from different ailments, including scabies, gastritis and conjunctivitis. She is particularly concerned about the well-being of her communitys children.

The kids have some horrible colds, she said. Im scared for my kids and for the kids here because without toys or anything to entertain themselves with, they spend their time going through the trash.

Debris gathers on the streets in Canovanas, Puerto Rico on Oct. 14, 2017. (Photo: Carolina Moreno/HuffPost)

Hermes Ayala and Alejandra Rosa contributed to this report.

Also on HuffPost

Felipe Pimental Severino is also waiting for FEMA. He told HuffPost hes been waiting for monetary aid from FEMA before returning to live with his wife in Wisconsin but has heard nothing. Villa Hugo 2, Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Felipe Pimental Severino blocked a broken window with a piece. Villa Hugo 2, Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

A non-profit organization shows residents in Villa Hugo 2 how to use the donated filters they brought them. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Children play in front of a partially destroyed home in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Debris piles up. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Debris piles up in front of homes affected by Hurricane Maria. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

The walls and roof of a home were destroyed during the storm. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Debris sits on the road weeks after Hurricane Maria. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Danny Guerrero Herrera inside his home. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Debris sits on the road weeks after Hurricane Maria. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

A man talks to residents from the concrete foundation of a home. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

A home in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

A home in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Three displaced families turned a nearby bar into a shelter. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

A home in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Jesus Hidalgo stands in front of his sister-in-laws home in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

Stagnant water in Villa Hugo 2. Canovanas, Puerto Rico. October 14, 2017.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
San Juan and at least six other cities in Puerto Rico were plunged into darkness again Thursday morning when a major transmission line failed, authorities reported. Puerto Ricos federal emergency command center went dark when the power cut out.

The controversial Montana company Whitefish Energy Holdings had worked on the line before its $300 million contract was revoked late last month and had declared it repaired in an Oct. 26 Twitter post. Whitefish said in a statement to The Hill that the failure didnt have anything to do with the repairs Whitefish Energy performed. The FBI is reportedly investigation how Whitefish, a tiny company with connections to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, won the contract.

Only 43 percent of the islands power had been restored before Thursday. With the line failure, that dropped to just 18 percent. The power line runs from Cambalache to Manati near the north coast and services the northern half of the island, officials said.

About 25 percent of the power had been restored by Thursday night, and officials hoped 42 percent would be back by Friday, Ricardo Ramos Rodriguez, executive director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), told CNN. He didnt know the reason for Thursdays failure.

The lights just went out at the Puerto Rico federal emergency command center.  Frances Robles (@FrancesRobles) November 9, 2017

Justo Gonzalez, PREPAs director of generation, said on a Facebook video that returning power to hospitals, airports, and fire and police stations would be a priority.

The demoralizing setback occurred just days after some of the same regions of the island were beginning to get back on line more than six weeks after Hurricane Maria.

The power meltdown occurred as FEMA was making arrangements to transport Puerto Ricans displaced by the hurricane to hotels in Florida and New York as much of the island remains devastated. Its the first such plan of its kind by FEMA. Nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans are still living in shelters, but FEMA insists few of them seem interested in leaving the island, NPR reported.

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About 140,000 Puerto Ricans have already left on their own for Florida, according to Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

FEMA says theres not much interest in the offer to evacuate hurricane Maria survivors out of Puerto Rico to the mainland. Its part of TSA.

We havent met 1 person whos not interested. On tonights @CBSEveningNews, @RepDarrenSoto says I don't think they are really listening pic.twitter.com/qony4eNU5b  David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) November 10, 2017

Restoration of power and running water, delivery of food to hungry citizens, construction and repair of buildings, and the reopening of schools are severely lagging. Donald Trump has said he would score a 10 out of 10 for his response to the Puerto Rican devastation. We have provided so much, so fast, he said in mid-October, a month after Maria hit, when 80 percent of the island had no power and 30 percent had no running water.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz slammed the federal governments response.

We are dying here, and I cannot fathom the thought that the greatest nation in the world cannot figure out logistics for a small island of 100 miles by 35 miles, she said at a news conference in late September. Mayday! We are in trouble.

Trump responded in a tweet that she was nasty.

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The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
MOSCOW/BEIJING (Reuters) - Prospects for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. counterpart Donald Trump at this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit were unclear after the Kremlin said a meeting was definite before saying it was just a possibility. Putin and Trump, who had their first face-to-face meeting in July to discuss allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, are both planning to attend this week's summit in the Vietnamese city of Danang. The Kremlin, which wants to try to improve battered U.S.-Russia ties, says it has been trying to set up a meeting and Trump told Fox News before his Asia tour that he might meet Putin in Vietnam to talk about Syria, Ukraine and North Korea. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian news agencies on Thursday that such a meeting would happen on Friday, but Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, rowed back on that later on Thursday after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision on formal talks had yet been taken. Tillerson, on a visit to Beijing with Trump, also questioned whether the two leaders would have enough to talk about to justify such a meeting. "Theres never been an agreement, certainly not to a full bilat(eral)," said Tillerson, who said it would not be unusual however if the two men had a spontaneous "pull-aside meeting" chat if they bumped into each other. The question is whether weve got sufficient substance (for a more formal meeting) and were working with the Russians as you know on a number of difficult areas," said Tillerson. "Were in contact with them and the views that the two leaders are going to meet if theres something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting. Asked about Tillerson's comments, Peskov, Putin's spokesman, told reporters on a conference call that a possible meeting was still being discussed before predicting that the two men would cross paths "one way or another." Putin and Trump first got together at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed accusations of Russian interference in the U.S. election but agreed to focus on better relations rather than litigating the past. But ties have soured further since then. Trump in August grudgingly signed off on new sanctions against Russia, a move Moscow said ended hopes for better relations. Putin ordered Washington to cut its embassy and consular staff in Russia by more than half. Tensions have also flared over the conflict in Syria. (Reporting by Andrew Osborn and Polina Nikolskaya in Moscow and Matt Spetalnick, Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Heinrich/William Maclean)
By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) - The man accused of tackling U.S. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and breaking his ribs as he was mowing his lawn pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a misdemeanor assault charge, a court official said.

Rene Boucher, 59, waived the formal reading of the charge at a hearing in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Warren County Attorney Amy Milliken said by telephone.

Boucher, the Republican senator's neighbor, is charged with fourth-degree assault causing minor injury, for which he faces up to a year in jail if convicted. A pretrial hearing was set for Nov. 30.

Paul, 54, told police that Boucher came onto his property in a gated community near Bowling Green and tackled him from behind, the Bowling Green Daily News reported, citing an arrest warrant.

Paul said on Twitter on Wednesday that he suffered six broken ribs and that X-rays showed a pleural effusion, which is a buildup of fluid in the tissues that line the lungs and the chest.

The Kentucky State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating last Friday's incident, Milliken said.

Citing unnamed sources, Fox News reported on Thursday that Paul had been told federal charges were expected in the case. The senator's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on that possibility.

Matt Baker, Boucher's attorney, was not immediately available to comment.

Baker told Bowling Green television station WBKO that the incident was related to a property dispute and called the idea that Paul was "blindsided" an unfair characterization. Baker also told the TV station that politics was not a motivating factor in the dispute.

Media reports have said Boucher, also a physician like Paul, had a long-running dispute with the senator.

Milliken said Boucher's $7,500 bond requiring him to keep a distance of at least 1,000 feet (305 m) between himself and Paul remained in effect.

Earlier this week, U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Paul would return next week.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Tom Brown and Peter Cooney)
Mr Moore has been accused of making sexual advances on a 14-year-old when he was 32: Getty Images

Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused of sexually abusing a child nearly 40 years ago, once compared homosexuality to child abuse while serving on the Alabama Supreme Court.

Roy Moore, who is running in Alabamas special election, compared the effect of exposure to homosexuals to child abuse, denying a woman custody of her children because she was dating another woman, even though the childrens father had literally abused the children.

The effect of such a lifestyle upon children must not be ignored, and the lifestyle should never be tolerated, Mr Moore wrote in a 2002. The common law designates homosexuality as an inherent evil, and if a person openly engages in such a practice, that fact alone would render him or her an unfit parent.

Mr Moore has been accused of having pursued a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old when he was a 32-year-old district attorney nearly 40 years ago. The allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, charge that Mr Moore met the young girl at court and offered to watch her while her mother was in court.

Mr Moore then allegedly gave the girl his phone number, and then picked her up days later around the corner from her home. From there, Mr Moore is said to have taken her to his home in the woods, where he told her how pretty was, and then kissed her. In a later encounter, he allegedly took of his and her clothes, touched her breasts, and guided her hand to the outside of his underpants.

Mr Moores campaign has called the allegations baseless, and have described the reports as political attacks aimed at bringing down his candidacy.

A look at Mr Moores history beyond that 2002 ruling shows other troubling opinions related to child abuse. He once blamed murder and child abuse in America on the country having forgotten about god, for instance.
Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) (AFP) - Equatorial Guinea will vote in parliamentary elections on Sunday where the opposition, facing many hurdles but buoyed by rallies, is hoping for a breakthrough at the expense of the ruling party.

The election is widely expected to be dominated by the party of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader, who has ruled the tiny oil-rich nation for 37 years.

His Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) controls 99 percent of the seats in parliament, over which it has held sway since single-party rule was scrapped in 1991.

But opposition parties hope to make gains, even if they say they have no access to state media, which regularly broadcasts campaign ads by the PDGE and whose news broadcasts only cover meetings by the president's part.

Internet is widely censored in the country, opposition websites have been blocked since 2013, and Facebook has been blocked since the official start of the election campaign on October 27.

- Rising party? -

One party in particular, Citizens for Innovation (CI), has generated a buzz in Malabo, the capital. It has never taken part in elections but its rallies typically draw thousands of supporters.

"We will contest 97 percent of seats so if the elections are free, and with the popularity enjoyed by our party, we hope to win the elections," said party leader Gabriel Nse Obiang, a former army lieutenant who has returned to the country after 13 years' exile in Spain.

He was barred from contesting presidential elections in 2016 as he had not lived in the country for five consecutive years -- and was excluded from Sunday's ballot too after being sentenced to six months' jail for "serious insults" against the ruling party and banned from all political activity.

CI said some of its candidates were arrested and supporters injured in clashes with police on Sunday in Aconibe when police tried to prevent a campaign motorcade from attending a scheduled rally. Several police were hurt, it said.

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Equatorial Guinea has frequently come under fire from human rights groups for suppressing dissident voices and the media, as well as widespread corruption.

The president's son, Teodorin Obiang, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence in France last month for plundering tens of millions of dollars in public money to buy luxury homes and cars, a landmark ruling which he is set to appeal.

The former Spanish colony, which borders Cameroon and Gabon, is one of sub-Sahara's biggest oil producers but a large proportion of the 1.2 million population still lives in poverty.

- Weaker economy -

Opposition parties hope to take advantage of a weakening economy that has been impacted by falling oil prices.

"These elections (are) an opportunity for the people who suffer from misery, unemployment, poverty, disease and injustice because of the regime... to take their destiny into their own hands," said Andres Esono Ondo, secretary general of the Convergence for Social Democracy.

The ruling PDGE is confident of winning the election though and is promising to introduce free primary education if returned to power.

The party is "the most firmly established in the country through its dynamism and its capacity to take of public affairs," PDGE member Martin Ela Ondo told AFP.

Around 300,000 people are eligible to take part in the elections, which will choose 100 MPs and 75 senators as well as the mayors of Malebo, the country's political capital, and Bata, its economic hub.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Friday a Saudi citizen had been kidnapped in Lebanon, a country with which it is in a diplomatic crisis. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have advised their citizens against traveling to Lebanon and urged those already there to leave, as tensions rise in what is seen as a new front line in the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Top Lebanese government officials have said they believe Saudi Arabia is holding Saad al-Hariri who resigned as Lebanese prime minister from there last weekend. Riyadh says Hariri is a free man and he decided to resign because Iran-allied Hezbollah was calling the shots in his government. The Saudi embassy in Beirut announced the kidnap of one of its citizens, but gave no details of the person's identity of the circumstances of the abduction. "The embassy is in contact with the highest ranking Lebanese security authorities about securing the unconditional release of a kidnapped Saudi citizen as soon as possible," it said in a statement quoted by the Saudi state news agency SPA. Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk said on the Lebanese state news agency the safety of Saudi residents and visitors was a priority for the Lebanese authorities. He added that "security services are on high alert to prevent any attempt of exploiting the current political situation from anyone and for whatever reason." "Tampering with the security and stability of Lebanon is a red line." (Writing by Lisa Barrington and Reem Shamseddine; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia on Thursday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon "as soon as possible", days after Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation while visiting the kingdom.

A foreign ministry source, quoted by state news agency SPA, also called on Saudis not to travel to Lebanon, but without specifying any threat.

"Due to the situation in the Republic of Lebanon, the kingdom asks its nationals visiting or living in Lebanon to leave as soon as possible, and advises its citizens not to travel there," the source said.

On November 4, Hariri announced in a televised speech from Saudi Arabia that he was stepping down, citing Iran's "grip" on Lebanon and threats to his life.

The shock announcement raised fears that Lebanon -- split into rival camps led by Hariri and the Iranian-backed movement Hezbollah -- could once again descend into violence.

Hariri, who also holds Saudi nationality and whose wife and children live in the kingdom, has since met Saudi King Salman and travelled to the United Arab Emirates, according to official media in the Gulf states.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said he will await Hariri's return before taking any decision, while Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said Hariri's resignation had been "imposed" by Saudi Arabia.

The resignation coincided with the announcement in Saudi Arabia of an anti-corruption purge in which dozens of princes, ministers and businessmen have been rounded up.

Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, advised its citizens against travel to Lebanon a day after Hariri's announcement.
Dubai (AFP) - The Saudi-led coalition's easing of its blockade on famine-threatened Yemen is "a step in the right direction" but does not go far enough, the European Union and United Nations said.

The coalition shut down Yemen's borders on Monday in response to a missile attack by Huthi rebels that was intercepted near Riyadh airport.

On Wednesday, it reopened the southern port of Aden, controlled by coalition-backed government forces, and the Wadea crossing on the Saudi-Yemeni border was reopened the next day.

The EU's commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides, said Saturday that more steps were needed.

"Initial measures to resume operations in Aden port and to open Wadea border crossing are a step in the right direction," he said.

"The EU urges the coalition to ensure the immediate resumption of the UN's flights and activities in the ports of Hodeida and Saleef and the opening of land borders for humanitarian relief and basic commercial commodities," he said.

"The delivery of life-saving supplies is critical for the Yemeni population and must be facilitated by all parties to the conflict," Stylianides added.

On Friday, the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian aid, OCHA, said the coalition was still blocking desperately-needed UN aid deliveries to Yemen, despite the reopening of Aden and Wadea.

"Humanitarian movements into Yemen remain blocked," said OCHA spokesman Russell Geekie.

"The reopening of the port in Aden is not enough. We need to see the blockade of all the ports lifted, especially Hodeida, for both humanitarians and for commercial imports."

- 'Famine' -

UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council this week that unless the blockade is lifted, Yemen will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims".

Stylianides echoed Lowcock's concerns.

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Yemen "is suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than two-thirds of its population in need of humanitarian assistance," he said in a statement.

"The EU shares the concerns expressed by... Lowcock and calls for full and unrestrained access to be restored immediately, to avoid Yemen suffering the largest famine in decades," Stylianides said.

Geekie said no aid had gone into Aden yet and the reopening of the Wadea crossing did not affect UN operations.

The transport minister of Yemen's internationally recognised government, Murad al-Halimi, said two airports in Aden and the loyalist-held southern city of Seiyun would reopen from Sunday.

Yemeni media quoted him as saying the national carrier, Yemenia, would resume its flights to and from the two airports, to destinations including Amman and Cairo.

The sea port at Hodeida, which is in rebel-held territory, is key to UN aid efforts as it is closest to the majority of people in need.

The coalition accuses rebels of using aid shipments to smuggle in weapons.

Before the blockade, UN aid agencies were delivering food and medicine through Hodeida, Saleef and Aden ports.

"There can be no alternative for all these ports being fully functional and receiving commercial and humanitarian cargo," Geekie said.

The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million people in need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine.

More than 2,000 Yemenis have died in a cholera outbreak now affecting nearly one million people.

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in neighbouring Yemen in March 2015 to push back the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa, and restore the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

burs-gk/hkb/hc
Washington (AFP) - Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's aggressive power grab represents a huge gamble on the stability of his kingdom and its neighbors, but Donald Trump is not one to worry.

The Washington foreign policy establishment may be agog at the young leader's "anti-corruption" purge of potential foes within the Saudi elite, but the US government barely flinched.

No one is quite sure whether MBS' bold move will leave him as the uncontested leader of a more modern, open Saudi Arabia -- or open the door to chaos, rebellion or a regional war.

But Trump is bringing the United States along for the ride.

"I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing," Trump tweeted on Monday, after a round of high-profile arrests.

Dozens of prominent Saudis, among them a dozen royals including billionaire tycoon Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, were arrested over the weekend and may now face trial.

The arrests were the first order by an anti-graft commission headed by Prince Mohammed himself, and many outside observers saw it as a politicized move against rivals within the elite.

Trump, who has tangled publicly with Al-Waleed in the past, had no such doubts, declaring: "Some of those they are harshly treating have been 'milking' their country for years!"

MBS' move comes as he moves to accelerate his Vision 2030 project to modernize the conservative kingdom, but also as Riyadh takes a more aggressive stance in its wider region.

Saudi-led forces are waging a fierce war against Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen and Riyadh has led its allies in a boycott of Gulf emirate Qatar, to growing US frustration.

In the wake of an alleged Huthi missile attack against Riyadh airport, the kingdom has accused Iran of "direct aggression" and threatened an equally direct though unspecified response.

And Riyadh was deeply involved in Lebanese premier Saad Hariri's decision to resign his post and flee to the kingdom, precipitating a new political crisis in Beirut.

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Some might see this string of crises as headaches the already tumultuous Middle East could do without, but Washington is still standing four square behind its ally.

"We continue to encourage Saudi authorities to pursue the prosecution of people they believe to have been corrupt officials," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

"We expect them to do it in a fair and transparent manner."

- The hand of Iran -

And, pressed on whether Riyadh's aggressive stance towards Iran or its interference in Lebanon was a cause for concern, the spokeswoman instead pointed the finger at Tehran.

"I think we know exactly where the responsibility lies in the region for much of the destabilization," Nauert said.

"We've seen the activities of Iran in Yemen. We've seen the hand of Iran in Syria. We've seen the hand of Iran elsewhere."

Whereas former US president Barack Obama sought to "rebalance" US interests in the Middle East, hoping to straddle the Iran-Saudi divide, Trump has very publicly joined one camp.

His first foreign trip took in Riyadh and his son-in-law Jared Kushner has reportedly formed a close bond with 32-year-old MBS.

But, despite Obama's caution, past US presidents have always maintained close ties with an oil-rich kingdom in the name of regional stability. Is this now a mistake? Perhaps.

"I am very concerned about Trump's unconditional support for MBS," says Barbara Slavin, a journalist and Middle East scholar at the Washington policy institute The Atlantic Council.

For Slavin the feud with Qatar, war in Yemen and domestic crackdown are "extremely risky policies that may well backfire."

Warning of the risks of a backlash at home and war abroad, she told AFP: "In such a situation, it is better to have options, not to put all your diplomatic eggs in one basket."

- 'Risky move' -

And even observers with more sympathy for MBS' objectives, warn that the weeks and months to come will contain many risks for the young heir and his White House friends.

Lori Plotkin Boghardt, an expert in Gulf Arab politics and US-Saudi relations at The Washington Institute, says the need for an anti-corruption drive "should not be dismissed."

Nevertheless, she adds: "The scale and scope of the arrests... is unprecedented in recent Saudi history, especially of this type of elite elements. So this is a politically risky move."

MBS' power grab at home is mirrored in his "risky -- some would say brave, some would say rash -- policies in the region," such as the Qatar boycott and doubling down in Yemen.

"He's essentially attempting to wipe out opponents," Boghardt said.

Simon Henderson, another Washington Institute fellow who has worked as a consultant for Arab governments, is also concerned.

"The events are unprecedented and we don't know where they're going to end up and, frankly, I don't think the Saudis know where they're going to end up as well," he said.

Prince Mohammed, Henderson suspects, believes his power play will strengthen his own position and encourage foreign investment. "I think he may be wrong on both counts," he warns.
(BEIRUT)  Lebanons Future Movement party of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned from Saudi Arabia under mysterious circumstances five days ago, demanded on Thursday that he return from the kingdom immediately.

Riyadh, meanwhile, ordered all Saudi citizens out of Lebanon  its first concrete action against the Mediterranean country after days of leveling threats against Beirut. A brief statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency called on all Saudis living in or visiting Lebanon to depart immediately, and 

Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned earlier this week that his government would deal with Lebanon as a hostile state as long as the militant group Hezbollah was in the Lebanese government. He said Hezbollahs participation in government is an act of war against Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia sees Hezbollah as a proxy of Iran amid a spiraling rivalry between the two regional Sunni and Shiite heavyweights.

Hariri left Lebanon last week for a trip to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab region and shocked the country by announcing his resignation on Saturday. Even close associates in his party, the Saudi-aligned Future Movement, have been uncertain why he resigned or when he would return.

On Thursday, the party delivered its sharpest statement yet over his leave of absence.

The return of the Lebanese prime minister, the national leader, Saad Hariri, and the head of the Future Movement, is necessary to restore the dignity and respect to Lebanon at home and abroad, said a former premier, Fouad Saniora, in a statement read on TV. Saniora heads the partys bloc in parliament.

Hariri is known to have left the kingdom just once since announcing his resignation, on a brief trip to the United Arab Emirates, before returning to Riyadh.

His resignation remains shrouded in mystery. In his televised statement, he said Lebanon had been taken hostage by Hezbollah  even though he formed a coalition government with the group, which has a substantial representation in Parliament, less than one year ago.

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Hezbollahs leader and one of Lebanons most powerful figures, Hassan Nasrallah, has speculated openly that Hariri was being held against his will in the kingdom and even said that it appeared as if Saudi Arabia forced the resignation.

The Future Movement statement suggested the party was moving toward the same conclusion.

Hezbollah has called on Saudi Arabia to stay out of Lebanese affairs, saying Hariris resignation from Riyadh raised many questions. The groups parliamentary bloc said Saudi Arabia was mired in crisis after the failure of its two-and-a-half-year military intervention in Yemen, which has led to a military stalemate.

Hezbollah has been represented in Lebanons parliament since 1992. Its armed wing has an arsenal that rivals that of Lebanons army, and its fighters are aligned against Saudi-backed rebels in the civil war in neighboring Syria.
The New York Times

PHOENIX  Kari Lakes defeat in the governors race in Arizona has set off a high-stakes tug of war within the Republican Party, as Lakes right-wing allies pushed her to mount a Trump-style challenge to the results, while some establishment leaders  including a former Republican governor  urged her to concede her loss and move on. Lakes next move could prove a turning point for her party and the far-right faction of election deniers that propelled her rapid rise this year. Lake stands as the
Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore at the Capitol, Oct. 31, 2017. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

Republicans officials have had a range of responses since the Washington Post published a bombshell story Thursday afternoon quoting a woman alleging that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore had attempted sexual relations with her when she was 14 and he was 32.

The story also quoted three other women who said Moore hit on them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his 30s.

Moore has denied the allegations, calling them a political attack and using them in his fundraising. The special election against Democrat Doug Jones takes place on Dec. 12. Moore was the heavy favorite to win, but he has become politically toxic since the Post report.

Many Republican senators attempted to keep Moore at arms length even before the story broke, as the former judge has a long history of discriminatory positions, including that Rep. Keith Ellison shouldnt be allowed in Congress because hes Muslim; the Sept. 11 attacks were potentially a punishment from God; homosexual activity should be illegal; and former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

The responses to the Posts story about Moore have fallen into three distinct categories.

He should leave the race

Sen. John McCain of Arizona said shortly after the publication of the article that Moore should leave the race.

The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying, said McCain. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.

They were joined by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who both took to Twitter to denounce Moore.

Ive long opposed Roy Moore & his divisive viewpoints, wrote Kasich. The actions described make him unfit for office. The GOP must not support him. He should step aside.

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections, wrote Romney. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

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If true

The majority of Republican senators who have addressed the Moore controversy called the allegations disturbing and said he should leave the race if theyre true, although none specified what further proof would be needed. The Wall Street Journal spoke to three of the women quoted in the Post story and they all stood by their accounts.

If these allegations are true, Roy Moore should step aside for all the obvious reasons, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Very disturbing allegations.

He was echoed by Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore are deeply troubling, said Gardner. If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, one of a handful of senators to endorse Moore, concurred.

These are serious and troubling allegations, said Cruz. If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations.

The White House maintained the same position.

Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life, said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.

Last month Sanders stated that the White Houses position on over a dozen accusations of sexual harassment and assault against President Trump was that all the accusers were lying.

Rep. Peter King of New York took the opposite tack, saying it was Moore who needed to prove his innocence over the weekend or step down from the race.

I would say unless he can prove his innocence, said King during a Friday MSNBC interview, the burden is now on him within the next day or so, I believe he has to step down. He owes it to himself, he owes it to the state and he owes it to the U.S. Senate.

Redoubling support

At the opposite end of the spectrum from McCain, Kasich and Romney are a number of Republican party officials from the state of Alabama. State Auditor Jim Zeigler turned to scripture.

Zechariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist, Zeigler said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

The ages of Joseph and Mary are not mentioned in the Bible, and per scripture, God is the father of Jesus, not Joseph.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Bibb County, Ala., told the Toronto Star that he would support Moore even if he did commit a sex crime against a girl.

I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldnt want to vote for Doug, said Jerry Power. Im not saying I support what he did.

Alabama state Rep. Ed Henry said that he didnt believe the allegations, and that the women who spoke to the Post should be prosecuted.

If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years, said Henry. I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You cant be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Following President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States from the Paris Climate Accorda global pact to reduce carbon output and curb climate changeonly two other nations had not signed the treaty.

Now, the U.S. sits alone and isolated internationally on climate policy.

This week Syria, the final nation invited to join, announced its intention to sign the Paris climate agreement.

DON'T MISS: U.S. to pull out of Paris climate-change agreement under Trump

Nicaragua had been the only other holdout on the agreement, for very different reasonsthe country felt the current pact doesn't go far enoughbut it eventually signed the agreement earlier this year.

News of Syria's commitment to the Paris agreement came during ongoing negotiations in Bonn, Germany, where U.S. negotiators are present.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the White House said its intentions remain unchanged.

The White House, Washington, D.C. [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]

"As the president previously stated, the United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable for our country, the White House statement read.

The Paris agreement invites all members to cut carbon emissions voluntarily and does not mandate specifics, which makes each country's "terms" unique.

President Trump made the announcement earlier this year, when he claimed the climate agreement would harm the U.S. economy.

CHECK OUT: Climate change all manmade, say actual scientists: awkward for Trump science deniers

Syria's late arrival to the agreement stems from its ongoing civil war. Due to U.S. and European sanctions, Syria was only now able to send representatives to negotiate its signing of the climate accord.

The country did not produce specific plans to cut its carbon emissions, though it's a small producer of carbon dioxide in the overall global emission total. It pledged to do its part.

Meanwhile, France disinvited President Trump "for the time being" to a climate change summit scheduled for December 12, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

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Donald Trump

French President Emmanual Macron's office issued the statement, which personally singled out President Trumpthough it said the summit will welcome lower-level U.S. officials.

The French president's office said all guests have committed to carbon-cutting measures per the climate accord, which puts the U.S. "a bit of a special status for that summit."

Per the 2015 agreement, the U.S. cannot fully withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord until 2020.

American officials said they will continue to negotiate the deal's terms.

Thus far, the U.S. hasn't laid out specifics about what changes it would require to recommit to the global effort to reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions that are the main driver of climate change.

Global carbon dioxide emissions, 1850-2030 [CO2 Information Analysis Center, World Energy Outlook]

Last Friday, a broad team of climate scientists from 13 different federal agencies released the fourth National Climate Assessment.

It clearly, bluntly underscored the scientific consensus that humans have caused change in the global climate via two centuries of emissions from combusting fossil fuels that have led to unprecedented levels of atmospheric carbon.

That report stands in stark contrast to statements by numerous high-level members of the Trump Administration that climate change does not exist or that human activities are not to blame.



Green Car Reports respectfully reminds its readers that the scientific validity of climate change is not a topic for debate in our comments. We ask that any comments by climate-change denialists be flagged for moderation. Thank you in advance for helping us keep our comments on topic, civil, respectful, and fact-based.

_______________________________________

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Belgrade (AFP) - Serbia has summoned its ambassador to Kiev for consultations after Ukraine raised concerns over Serbian "mercenaries" fighting on the side of pro-Russian rebels in its conflict-torn east.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told reporters on Friday that there had been "some disturbances" to ties with Ukraine, after he held talks in Belgrade with the Serbian ambassador.

"I want to say clearly that Serbia respects Ukraine's (territorial) integrity," Dacic was quoted as saying by the N1 television channel.

The diplomat's recall came on Wednesday after Ukraine summoned its ambassador to Serbia for talks.

The consultations in Kiev focused on "the problem of Serbian mercenaries who fight... as part of the Russian terrorist troops," in the war-torn eastern region, a statement in English from Ukraine's foreign ministry earlier this week said.

It referred to "Serbia's obligations within international anti-terrorist legal instruments".

"Besides, Ukraine is seriously concerned about illegal contacts by representatives of Serbia with the occupied Crimea," the statement said.

"We hope that the Serbian side will fully commit itself to the principle of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders."

Dacic said that the Ukrainian ambassador would return to Belgrade on Sunday, after which Serbia would consider returning its ambassador to Kiev.

The conflict between Russia-backed fighters and Ukrainian troops in the former Soviet republic has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014, when pro-Russian forces occupied parts of eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed Crimea.

- 'Collateral victim' -

The Ukrainian security service told AFP that "more than 300 Serbs" have fought against Kiev troops in the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic alone since the beginning of the conflict, but did not give figures for the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

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But a Ukrainian defence ministry source said it thought these figures were inflated and that "less than 300 Serbs" were estimated to have fought in both self-proclaimed eastern republics.

The Serbian government did not respond to AFP's request for its own estimates of how many citizens had fought in Ukraine.

A foreign ministry statement from Belgrade on Wednesday said that Serbia had undertaken "a series of concrete moves" against citizens fighting abroad, including in Ukraine.

It referred to "Ukrainian mercenaries" involved in Croatian forces' crimes against Serbs during the 1990s Balkan conflict -- "which Ukraine, unlike Serbia, has never condemned".

Serbia "will not allow itself to become a collateral victim of international relations which have nothing to do with Serbia", said the statement.

Russia is often perceived as a big brother figure to Serbia, a fellow Slavic and predominantly Orthodox Christian nation.

Serbia refused to follow the decision of the European Union -- which it aspires to join -- in sanctioning Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

Neither Moscow nor Kiev recognise the sovereignty of Kosovo, a former Serbia province that unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Belgrade amended its criminal code in 2014 to allow jail terms of up to 10 years for citizens who recruit for or fight in foreign wars.

Dozens from Muslim-majority regions of Serbia also left in recent years to join jihad in Syria and Iraq.
San Antonio (AFP) - The pastor of the Texas church that was the scene of the United States' latest mass shooting wants to demolish the building to create a memorial for the victims, an official said Thursday.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy, whose 14-year-old daughter Annabelle was among those killed Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs told national church governing officials of his wishes earlier this week.

Resuming services in the same small rural church building would be an "emotional and physical impossibility," Robert Oldham of the Southern Baptist Convention told AFP.

"The church has not made a decision yet," he added. "The pastor was sort of projecting forward what he thinks may be of the best interest of the congregation."

Church officials were visiting the grieving pastor on Tuesday when he suggested a new church be built elsewhere, Oldham said.

Pomeroy was away traveling when Devin Kelley gunned down his congregation, killing 26, an official figure which included an unborn child, and wounding 20. Kelley later committed suicide, according to police.

"The church family has been devastated," Oldham said.

Southern Baptist churches nationwide have offered help and financial donations -- while Vice President Mike Pence visited Sutherland Springs Wednesday night, attending a prayer service.

"I'm here as vice president to ensure that the full resources of the United States are brought to bear," Pence said.

"The American people are with you."
Toulouse (France) (AFP) - A man "deliberately" rammed his car into a group of pedestrians, injuring three Chinese students one of them seriously, near the French city of Toulouse on Friday, authorities said, adding that the attack was not linked to terrorism.

The 28-year-old driver, who was arrested immediately afterwards in the city's Blagnac suburb, "purposefully hit three people" on a crosswalk, Toulouse prosecutor Pierre-Yves Couilleau said.

The suspect, a single man who lives with his mother in Blagnac, had previously suffered severe psychiatric problems and was released from a court-ordered hospital stay in December 2016, the prosecutor said.

"What matters in this case is the psychiatric profile of the person," he added.

"The individual arrested immediately after the event said he had been planning this act for a month," the prosecutor said later in a statement.

When asked about the possibility the man was motivated by terrorism, the prosecutor said the attack was "nothing of that order".

The driver has had about 10 previous convictions for non-terror related crimes, he said.

The investigation is to be handled by regular judicial police rather than Paris's anti-terror unit, he added.

The victims are Chinese exchange students at the ICD-Toulouse International Business School. A 23-year-old woman was the most seriously injured, and two men aged 22 and 23 were also hurt and one of them remains in hospital, the prosecutor said.

The woman's life is not in danger, police said.

The attack occurred in front of the Blagnac campus of the Institute for Social Research, an AFP journalist said.

On Friday night, France's Interior Minister Gerard Collomb praised the police's response, saying "the investigation will determine the nature of his act".

The attack came days after China asked France to "ensure the security" of its nationals, who have been regular victims of thieves.

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On November 2, a group of around 40 Chinese tourists were attacked with teargas and robbed outside a three-star hotel near Paris's Orly Airport.

On Friday a youth, 15 years old at the time of the attack, was sentenced in juvenile court to two years in prison for violently attacking and robbing a Chinese textile worker last year in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers. The 49-year-old man died five days of his injuries.

France has also been the target of a series of vehicle attacks by extremists inspired by the Islamic State group.

In July last year, a Tunisian man ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd in the southern city of Nice, killing 86 people.
Washington (AFP) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries Friday against using Lebanon for "proxy conflicts" following a crisis triggered by its prime minister's resignation.

Tillerson also called the premier, Saad Hariri, who announced his resignation last Saturday from Saudi Arabia, as a "strong partner" of the United States.

"The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country," Tillerson said in a statement.

Hariri's resignation came as a shock. He accused Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite movement that is part of his government but also close to Iran, of controlling Lebanon.

Many observers saw his stepping down as being ordered by Saudi Arabia, Iran's big rival in the region.

Earlier Friday, while traveling in Asia, Tillerson told reporters he had received assurances from the Saudis that Hariri himself had decided to resign.

Tillerson also said he had no indication that Hariri was being held against his will in the oil-rich kingdom.

- Concern over stability -

But he also expressed concern over what effect the resignation might have on the stability of the Lebanese government, which is composed of Christians and both Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Tillerson said this structure had been able to maintain some degree of calm and peace in Lebanon, and that if this balance of powers were disrupted, things might change.

"The United States strongly supports the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Lebanon and of its political institutions" and opposes "any actions that could threaten that stability," Tillerson's statement on Friday reads.

Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of detaining Hariri and of asking the Shiite movement's archfoe Israel to launch strikes on Lebanon.

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Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia.

In a message that seemed aimed mainly at Iran and Hezbollah, Tillerson's statement said: "There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state - which must be recognized as the sole authority for security in Lebanon."

- Saudi purge -

Washington has expressed support in recent days for King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although Tillerson said Friday that the latter's detention of more than 200 princes, ministers and businessmen in a crackdown on corruption "raises a few concerns" about how they will be dealt with down the road.

Tillerson said he believed the mass arrests ordered by a new anti-corruption commission headed by Prince Mohammed were "well intended."

As tensions rise between the Saudis and Iran over Lebanon but also Yemen, where the two big powers back opposing warring sides, Tillerson once again blamed Iran, calling it a destabilizing force. He added that he did not feel Saudi Arabia was a destabilizing force in force in the region.

Hariri's situation was not completely clear. But calls mounted, including from his Lebanese political rivals, for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the prime minister's freedom of movement.

Hariri's resignation coincided with a sweeping purge among the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who was born in Saudi Arabia, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.
Loblaw Companies Limited Founded: 1919

Executive Chairman: Galen G. Weston

Headquarters: Brampton, ON

No. of employees: 135,000 (2012)

Perks: Numerous communication and feedback tools such as Lets Talk sessions and the Ask Galen link. The Colleague Discount Program gives 10 per cent off certain products purchased in corporate stores. Loblaw Optical benefits, online WorkPerks program which see over 800 products and services discounted. Over $146 million has been granted to childrens charities since 1989.

Grading: A+ (Physical Workplace), A+ (Work Atmosphere & Communications), A (Financial Benefits & Compensation), A (Health & Family-Friendly Benefits), B- (Vacation & Personal Time-Off), A (Employee Engagement & Performance), A (Training & Skills Development, A+ (Community Involvement)

Choosing the right employer that both challenges and cares for its workers can be as difficult as finding the right person for the job. We all have our personal set of standards and so too do companies; finding a soft footing where both the employee and employer are happy isnt any easy task.

For nearly 20 years, Canadas Top 100 Employers Competition awards top companies in Canada that are leading their industries in offering exceptional workplaces for their employees. Companies submit a substantial package that includes a number of details on their health and financial benefits, training programs, family-friendly policies, time-off policies, and so on. An employer is eligible to enter the national competition as long as its head office or prominent place of operation is in Canada (size does not matter). This year over 90,000 employers were surveyed with approximately 7,500 of them asked to submit applications by Mediacorp, the nations largest publisher of employment periodicals.

Over the course of the summer we extract a number of the data points that are included in the application and input them into a proprietary database, says Kristina Leung, senior editor at Mediacorp. We then sort this large spreadsheet of data by industry, by region, by size of employees, all to ensure that we are comparing organizations that are similar to each other  banks to banks, hospitals to hospitals, for example.

Then comes the laser assessments, where Mediacorp editors evaluate and grade employers on eight factors: Physical Workplace, Workplace Atmosphere and Social, Health, Financial and Family Benefits, Vacation and Time-Off, Employee Communications, Performance Management, Training and Skills Development and Community Involvement. From there it becomes very clear to see what organizations are offering and where some of the gaps exist, says Leung. It allows companies that are really servicing their employees well (i.e. benefits) to stand out.

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Leung, who has been working on the annual project for nearly seven years, says that every year there is a little progression seen by organizations that want to offer better benefits to their employees. She points to maternity leave top-ups as one area that has seen improvement. Leung says theres not one recipe a company needs to employ in order to make the Top 100 list, but a mixture of ingredients.

For us its the whole package, its about which organizations are investing in their people, and that entails health plans, preparing employees for the long term, for family supporttheres a whole host of things and it really depends on what industries theyre in, says Leung.

We are seeing many organizations take advantage of the tools now available that enable employees to have flexibility and perhaps to have more work times that better suit them. Its about looking at when employees will be most productive and how companies will foster change.

Leung says communications, feedback and providing recognition are all central to the success and well-being of a organizations workforce, especially for organizations that have several sites across the country. Now that its easier to connect digitally, employers continue to embrace technology, which leads to interesting developments in their work catalogue and redefines what work means and how work actually gets done. Its these HR practices and perks that set organizations apart.

One of the Top 100 entries, Rogers Communications, is among the companies changing their physical environment, providing spaces for employees that arent necessarily in everyday (a.k.a. no assigned seating). Leung says this is an example of how employers are changing the physical side of work and what the workplace looks like now.

This year a total of 16 new names were added to the 2018 roster, including Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Alberta Health Services and ACL Services. As mentioned, size doesnt matter  MSF has just over 250 employees while Alberta Health Services employs nearly 46,000.

For the full list head here.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
In a roller-coaster speech that lurched from aspirational to hectoring and back again, U.S. president Donald Trump announced his Indo-Pacific Dream at the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam on Friday, saying that he would always put America First but inviting all nations present to join the U.S. in bilateral trade deals, while issuing a stern rebuke for China and multilateralism.

I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade, he told delegates gathered in the port city of Da Nang, decrying large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible. Trump, who had just arrived in Da Nang from Beijing, termed his vision: The Indo-Pacific Dream.

We will no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property, the 71-year-old told the audience in Vietnam, the fourth stop of his 12-day, five-nation Asian tour, in an apparent attack on China. We will confront the destructive practices of forcing business to surrender their technology to the state, and forcing them into join ventures in exchange for market access, we will address the massive subsidizing of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises that put private competitors out of business.

While Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, who arrived for the summit just minutes after Air Force One, by name during his speech, much his vitriol was directed at his erstwhile host. Trump had left the Chinese capital that morning after highly cordial stops in Japan and South Korea, where calculated flattery from his hosts elicited gushing responses. But, after taking the stage in Dan Nang, he ramped up his rhetoric, accusing China of product dumping, subsidized goods, currency manipulation and predatory industrial policy.

Trumps speech will be unsettling for APEC members and the wider region, which looks to Washington to go beyond trade and zero-sum diplomacy to counter the growing hegemonic appetites of Beijing.

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He made a strong indictment of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact. Just over half of APEC members signed up to TPP  which Trump withdrew from of on his first day in office, creating a power vacuum that analysts have termed a gift for Beijing. (Chinese President Xi Jinping recently spoke of his nation moving closer to center stage and pursuing great-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.)

China has stoked an arc of anxiety from Delhi to Tokyo and down to Canberra and everyone is worried about Chinas regional ambitions, says Prof. Jeffery Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Japan. The U.S. has ceded leadership by default.

Trump newly adopted realm of the Indo-Pacific appears an attempt to address this. He used the term 10 times during his APEC address, while Secretary for State Rex Tillerson rolled it out 15 times in a speech championing India last month. Its usually a military term and attempts to resurrect a tactic, jettisoned under the Obama administration, to coalesce the regions preeminent democracies  the U.S., Australia, Japan and India  into a bloc to counter China.

The principle is to use India as a very large democracy that kind of anchors the region with the U.S. on the other side of the Pacific, says Elizabeth Economy, a China expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.

However, the bloc as an entity has not met for a decade, and given that India is not even an APEC member, its a strange sermon to preach here.

Its also hardly a substitute for Trumps nixing of TPP or the fact that, one year into his term, the diplomatic corps remains threadbare. Key allies Australia and South Korea dont have U.S. ambassadors. Also worrying is Trumps transactional attitude: nations fear that America First means they maybe sold down the river whenever Trump sees a better deal.

There isnt a sense of a larger vision or even a short-term plan of how the status quo is going to be defended in the face of China, says Prof. Nick Bisley, an Asia expert at Australias La Trobe University. The contrast couldnt be more striking between Xi Jinping, who has a very strategic view about where its going and what it wants to achieve, he adds, noting that theres no doubt that Xis ambition is for China to become the predominate power globally.

On Friday, a senior Chinese finance official said that his government would ease foreign ownership obstacles in the finance and auto sectors and remove them in three to five years to assuage Trump. This is something Washington has been after for years, though the question is what quid pro quo Beijing has secured in return. Former U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus recently told CNN that Beijing may butter up Trump in order to secure a U.S. pledge not to interfere in Asian affairs. That would be a big problem, he said. The U.S. cannot fall for that.

The consequences of Chinas growing clout, and disdain for universal values like democracy, free speech and human rights, are already being laid bare. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen has lurched the country from quasi-democracy toward outright dictatorship, shutting down independent media and jailing leading opposition figures before general elections next July. This has the tacit backing of Beijing, which has entrusted the former Khmer Rouge battalion commander to protect its local interests.

Hun Sen is Chinas wunderkind, writes Carlyle Thayer, professor emeritus at the Australian Defence Force Academy. As a result of Beijings economic dominance and American withdrawal, adds Thayer, mainland Southeast Asia will be drawn more into Chinas orbit.

Washington used to punish such backsliding and it used to matter. But while former President Barack Obamas gave Thai general Prayuth Chan-Ocha the cold shoulder following his 2014 coup, imposing sanctions, Trump hosted him at the White House. Obama raised concerns about Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs, which has claimed more than 7,000 lives to date, earning a colorful rebuke from the former Davao Mayor. Trump praised Duterte for an unbelievable job on the drug problem in an April 29 phone call.

Its not just about bad optics. Myanmars democratic transition, while neither perfect nor complete, was galvanized by Obamas persistent coaxing and his unprecedented visits to the military-dominated Southeast Asian nation, as well as those of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Trumps APEC speech, one cant imagine he would go out on a limb for Myanmar  the worlds 74th economy with just $75.7 billion GDP  or anywhere else for that matter.

We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of any more, he said. I am always going to put America first in the same way I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.
Kirstjen Nielsen testifies to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on her nomination to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on November 8, 2017: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Donald Trumps pick to oversee American immigration enforcement said a promised wall would not need to cover the entire US-Mexico border and signalled leniency toward young unauthorised immigrants.

The President selected Kirstjen Nielsen to head the Department of Homeland Security, which would place her in charge of the agency that manages immigration enforcement  one of Mr Trump's signature policies. He has vowed to build a wall spanning the border.

But Ms Nielsen said such a wall would not need to stretch from sea to shining sea, echoing DHS chiefs and others  including her former boss, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly  who say geography and cost would make that idea unfeasible.

Border fencing already marks some sections of the border, but rugged physical terrain and private property rights would make a comprehensive physical wall difficult.

Ms Nielsen was tabbed to fill a vacancy atop DHS left by Mr Kellys departure, part of an Oval Office shakeup that saw former chief Reince Priebus forced out.

The Trump administration has trumpeted the building of wall prototypes as a sign of progress on one of the President's central campaign promises. But a price tag that could run into the tens of billions, according to some estimates, makes for a hefty political hurdle. Congress so far has shown little inclination to allocate the needed funds, and Mexico is not offering to pay despite Mr Trump's assurances it would.

Mr Trump has also moved to allow the dissolution of an Obama-era executive program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) which allows immigrants who arrived in the country illegally when they were young to avoid deportation and receive work permits. Asked about DACA, Ms Nielsen said Congress must reach a deal to extend the programme and suggested she would take a permissive approach if Congress fails.

We owe it to them to find a permanent solution, Ms Nielsen said in reference to the roughly 700,000 young immigrants who have secured DACA protection.

If the programme does expire, Ms Nielsen said, she would not direct Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target immigrants who were previously covered and would generally not allow ICE to access personal information people submitted in DACA applications.
By Steve Holland and Matthew Tostevin

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump set out a strong message on trade at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries in Vietnam on Friday, saying the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.

Trump said the United States was ready to make a bilateral deal with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but only on the basis of "mutual respect and mutual benefit".

"When the United States enters into a trading relationship with other countries or other peoples, we will from now on expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules," he said in the seaside resort of Danang.

"We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment," he said in a speech ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders.

Trump arrived in Vietnam from China on the fourth leg of a 12-day trip to Asia. Redressing the balance of trade between Asia and the United States is at the centre of Trump's "America First" policy he says will protect U.S. workers.

The difference between Trump's and China's approaches was made more stark by comments in a later speech from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said globalisation was an irreversible trend and voiced support for multilateral trade deals.

While China has by far the biggest trade surplus with the United States, Vietnam is also on the list of those surpluses the Trump administration seeks to reduce.

APEC, which has long championed free trade, has itself been convulsed by the changes under Trump.

Since Trump abandoned the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal early in his presidency, the remaining 11 members have struggled to build momentum to keep it alive.

Leaders of TPP countries are due to meet on Friday after talks among ministers ended in confusion on Thursday with Japan's economy minister saying that they "agree in principle" and his Canadian counterpart saying that was not true.

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Trump broke early with the "Pivot to Asia" of the Obama administration, worrying some traditional allies that he would allow China to extend its increasing dominance.

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Danang itself sits on the shore of the South China Sea, one of the region's biggest security headaches and where China's neighbours challenge its sweeping claim to most of the waterway as having no basis in law.

Trump said the region's future depended on upholding "freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes". He also mentioned "territorial expansion" among evils such as drugs, people smuggling and terrorism.

Vietnam has become one of the most vocal critics of China's claims in the South China Sea and its construction of artificial islands.

In a sign of possible competition with China's grand Belt and Road plan, Trump said he would push the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to fund infrastructure development and would reform U.S. development finance institutions.

Trump said that would "provide strong alternatives to state directed initiatives that come with many strings attached".

"Above all, we seek friendship and we dont dream of domination," he said.

Although he was addressing a meeting alongside the summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, Trump repeatedly referred to the Indo-Pacific region and mentioned the importance of India in his speech.

Danang has a special place in U.S.-Vietnamese history: it was where the first U.S. ground troops disembarked in 1965 in the escalation of a war that would last another decade before the communist victory.

Danang was close to some of the heaviest fighting and its air base was the route through which many Americans of Trump's generation were sent to the war.

Trump himself did not serve, receiving five deferments - one for bone spurs in his heel.

(Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Beijing (AFP) - American and Chinese officials proudly touted $250 billion of deals Thursday, signed during President Donald Trump's trip to Beijing, but analysts say the headline figures will not do much to rectify a very lopsided trade balance.

Trump's insurgent presidential campaign was built in large measure on lashing out at global trading relationships, particularly that with China, whose annual $350 billion deficit he said proved the US was being taken for a ride.

He pledged he would get a better deal, one where China bought more from the US in his drive to "Make America Great Again" and bring jobs back to the hollowed out industrial heartland that voted for him.

The agreements inked Thursday during Trump's first state visit to Beijing ranged from billions of dollars worth of Chinese soybean and aircraft imports to major projects like the development and export of liquified natural gas from Alaska.

But many were little more than nonbinding memorandums of understanding, which can take years to materialise, or can simply fall apart.

"It's old-style politics, where a leader comes in and you scoop a bunch of deals which were already under way, or you put out a big number to show the relationship is strong," said James McGregor, China chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide.

Even as his administration was trumpeting the quarter of a trillion dollar headline figure, Trump returned to his familiar refrain that trade relations were "very one-sided and unfair."

"I don't blame China," Trump said to awkward applause and nervous laughter from executives gathered for the signing ceremony at the cavernous Great Hall of the People.

"After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?" he added.

Instead, Trump pointed the finger at past US administrations "for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow".

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- 'Some friction' -

The Trump administration has aggressively pursued trade remedies in commercial relations with Beijing -- investigating Chinese trade practices on intellectual property and in aluminium and steel.

Speaking after talks with Xi, Trump said China had to "immediately" take greater action on market access, forced technology transfers and theft of intellectual property.

"We have to fix this because it just doesn't work for our great American companies, and it doesn't work for our great American workers," he said.

Xi admitted that "there has been some friction on bilateral trade".

But he told Trump that opening China's economy was the country's long-term strategy.

"We will not narrow or close our doors. We will open wider and wider," Xi said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Beijing that "quite frankly, in the grand scheme... the things that have been achieved so far are pretty small" when it came to trade negotiations.

- 'Miracle' or 'pretty small'? -

Analysts tend to agree with that assessment.

Even large deals will do little to shift the overall balance of trade, they say, unless the structural barriers preventing US businesses from competing fairly in China are changed.

Christopher Balding, economics professor at Peking University, said the agreements announced on Thursday were "standard operating procedure-type deals".

"We haven't seen any agreements on market access or market opening in either investment or trade. Those are really the bigger issues American companies are concerned about, rather than one-off deals," he told AFP.

One of the most substantive agreements was a gas deal between the state of Alaska, Alaska Gasline Development Corp, China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec), China Investment Corporation (CIC) and the Bank of China, involving a total investment of up to $43 billion.

Officials said the joint development agreement will create up to 12,000 American jobs and reduce the trade deficit between the United States and Asia by $10 billion annually.

In another deal, China agreed to buy 300 airplanes at some $37 billion from US aerospace giant Boeing, yet it remained unclear how many of the purchases would be new ones.

In September 2015, Boeing had already received a Chinese order for 300 aircraft valued at $38 billion.

Former US ambassador to China Max Baucus told Bloomberg Television that Xi's elaborate red carpet reception for Trump was a "classic Chinese" strategic move to prevent serious conversation.

"The more there is pomp and circumstance, the less there is time to talk," he said.
By James Oliphant WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic election victories in Virginia and New Jersey showed Republicans losing more ground in suburban areas, where President Donald Trump's unpopularity could cost them dearly in next year's congressional races. The results from Tuesday, particularly in Virginia, suggest that Trump's strategy of playing to a loyal but limited base has not enabled him to broaden support for his presidency or his party. Democrats were delighted, believing that control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate, now both controlled by Republicans, might be up for grabs in next year's elections. Some Republicans shared that view after their party's candidates did poorly among independent, college-educated, women, and minority voters in suburban areas. Unless we get our act together, we are going to lose heavily, Republican Senator John McCain said on Wednesday. Democrats would need to pick up 24 seats next year to retake control of the House. Should that happen, Trumps policy agenda would be effectively dead and the administration would come under greater scrutiny. The win by Democrat Phil Murphy in New Jersey's governor's race came as no surprise because of the unpopularity of outgoing Republican Governor Chris Christie. But Ralph Northams 9-point victory over Republican Ed Gillespie for governor in swing-state Virginia was larger than expected. Trump quickly tried to distance himself from Gillespie's poor showing, saying on Twitter that the Republican candidate "worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for." Still, Trump's leadership record appeared to motivate Democrats to vote in record numbers in Virginia, with exit polls showing that many came out simply to express their displeasure with the president. Trump is turning off more voters than hes bringing in, said Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist in Washington. His base is strong, but it isnt growing." During his first year in office, Trump has consistently played to a base of passionate supporters, many of them older white men who live in rural areas declining in population, and has shown little inclination to reach out to the majority of voters who disapprove of him. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster based in Virginia, said the party was on a risky track. "Republicans have traded fast-growing upscale suburban counties for slow-growing or declining rural areas. That is not a formula for long-term success. There also may be signs of slippage in Trump's political base. In Virginia, Gillespie campaigned hard on immigration and crime - two hot issues with the president's supporters - but did worse than expected in some rural and suburban areas that Trump easily won last year. In rural Dickenson County, considered to be the heart of Trump country in Virginia, Gillespies margin over Northam was almost 7 percentage points less than Trumps margin of victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton last year. Trump won the city of Virginia Beach in 2016 by 3 points, but Gillespie lost to Northam there by 5, a swing of eight points. 'SUBURBS OUT IN FULL FORCE' More critically, Gillespie was blown out by Northam in northern Virginias populous suburbs, where Trump also struggled in the presidential race. The suburbs came out in full force, said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist. They appear to be very motivated to try and deliver a message to Trump. In growing Loudoun County, outside of Washington, Democrat Barack Obama barely edged out Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. On Tuesday, Northam buried Gillespie there by almost 20 points. Im worried, Ari Fleischer, a former White House spokesman for Republican President George W. Bush, told Fox News on Wednesday. Democrats came out in huge numbers yesterday in the races and if they have that kind of enthusiasm going into 2018, its going to be very tough sailing for Republicans. Gillespie, a longtime Washington insider and lobbyist, tried to keep his distance from Trump personally even as he adopted some of his more combative campaign rhetoric. It was a strategy that failed and Mackowiak said the result reflected Trump's historically low approval rating. I dont think the White House was worried about that before, but now I think they have to be." The five-day Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll has Trump hovering around 35 percent approval nationally, with close to 60 percent of respondents disapproving of his performance in office. A person familiar with Trumps political operation dismissed the election results on Tuesday as having anything to do with the president, noting that both New Jersey and Virginia were won by Clinton in 2016. Andrew Surabian, an adviser to the pro-Trump political group Great America Alliance, said Gillespie lost because he was exactly the kind of establishment Republican that Trump voters have rejected. Ed Gillespies campaign went down in flames because he failed to fully embrace the president or his agenda, Surabian said, "and without a coherent message and an authentic messenger, Republican candidates will not be successful moving forward. (Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Ginger Gibson, Jeff Mason and John Whitesides; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Beijing (AFP) - US and Chinese companies signed nearly 20 deals worth a total $9 billion on Wednesday at the start of President Donald Trump's state visit to Beijing.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang oversaw a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People but they did not immediately give details about the 19 deals.

Wang said the agreements were merely a "warmup" before Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping oversee their own ceremony on Thursday involving bigger deals, including in exports of natural gas and soybeans.

Trump plans to use the three-day trip to press Xi on China's massive trade surplus with the United States, which slightly fell in October to $26.6 billion, according to official Chinese data released on Wednesday.

"Addressing the imbalance in China trade has been the central focus of collaborative discussions between President Trump and President Xi," Ross said.

"Achieving fair and reciprocal treatment for the companies is a shared objective," he said.

For his part, Wang said: Economic deals are "an important ballast for the overall bilateral relationship", adding he believed they would contribute to its "stabilisation".
Washington (AFP) - The injuries to US Senator Rand Paul during an assault by a neighbor are worse than earlier reported, with the Kentucky Republican saying Wednesday he suffered six broken ribs and has fluid in his lungs.

"I appreciate all of the support from everyone," Paul posted on Twitter about last Friday's violent altercation.

"A medical update: final report indicates six broken ribs & new X-ray shows a pleural effusion."

The injuries raise the prospect that Paul, who is recuperating in Kentucky, may be kept from Washington at a time when fellow Senate Republicans are eager to push a major tax overhaul through Congress.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that he expected Paul back in Washington as early as next week.

On Sunday Paul called the fracas an "unfortunate event," and his spokesperson earlier had said the senator was "fine."

Kentucky State Police said they arrived at Paul's home in Warren County on Friday afternoon in response to a report of an assault and arrested 59-year-old Rene Boucher.

The suspect's attorney Matt Baker issued a statement to WKU Public Radio saying the dispute was "trivial" and in no way politically motivated.

The New York Times, citing neighbors and Republican lawmakers familiar with the incident, reported that the assault stemmed from a landscaping dispute.

Paul had dismounted from a riding lawn mower when Boucher, a retired anesthesiologist who lives next door, ran up and tackled him, the newspaper said.

The senator was wearing sound-muting earmuffs and did not realize Boucher was approaching, the newspaper said, citing a Kentucky Republican and a friend.

Paul, 54, ran an unsuccessful bid last year to be the Republican presidential nominee.
New York (AFP) - A committee of Venezuelan creditors postponed until Monday a decision on whether state oil company PDVSA has officially defaulted on its debt payments.

The default declaration has come to be seen as almost inevitable as cash-strapped Venezuela's is struggling to service an estimated $150 billion in debt. The government of President Nicolas Maduro has called creditors to a meeting Monday to discuss restructuring the payments.

The so-called Determinations Committee, comprised of 15 financial firms, met in New York on Friday "to discuss whether a Failure to Pay Credit Event had occurred" with respect to PDVSA, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

"The DC agreed to reconvene on Monday, November 13, 2017, at 12 pm (New York time) to continue the discussion of whether there is adequate Publicly Available Information to answer the submitted question."

The Maduro government had said it would make a $1.2 billion payment on a PDVSA bond November 2, but the funds never reached creditors. As a result, a group of investors who hold financial instruments that act as default insurance asked for a committee ruling of default to allow them to cash in.

About 70 percent of Venezuelan bondholders are North American, according to government figures. The government also has a deadline Friday for another $81 million on another PDVSA bond.
Danang (Vietnam) (AFP) - To his annoyance, US war veteran Mark O'Connor forgot his 'Make America Great Again' cap for the 8,000-mile journey to Vietnam, where he hoped Friday to clasp the hand of his hero Donald Trump, undeterred by his draft dodge and mocking of fellow serviceman John McCain.

O'Connor, a 67-year-old former infantryman who fought in the Vietnam war, said he had one message for his president, who arrived in Danang Friday for an APEC leaders' meeting.

"Thank you for making America great again and taking our country back," O'Connor told AFP.

He said he was ready to brave the searing sun and heavy security along the beach where US marines first arrived more than 50 years ago to support the fight against communist-backed Viet Cong soldiers.

"If I get lucky I might be able to see Donald Trump," O'Connor said, after a long flight from South Dakota.

Sadly, he left his 'Make America Great Again' hat back home, but planned to don a red replacement on his mission to see the man whose politics have him captivated.

He expressed hope that Trump would pledge help to the victims of Agent Orange who still live with crippling disabilities after being sprayed with the toxic defoliant during the bloody and bitter war.

The US government is working with Vietnam to clean up dioxin left over from the war.

O'Connor frequently travels to Vietnam to provide bicycles to school children in remote communities, a far cry from his mission during the war.

"We used to kill these people," he said remorsefully.

Trump's own service record -- he deferred military service several times, including once reportedly for bone spurs -- doesn't bother Oconnor.

As for Trump's controversial comments about former vet John McCain, who he has said isn't a hero because he was captured during the war, O'Connor chalks them down to a personal grudge -- and Trump's penchant for off the cuff remarks.

"He's not politically correct, he says some things sometime that he should not," O'Connor said.
By Peter Helman

The Country Music Association Awards are being held in Nashville right now. But Sturgill Simpson has never had much love for the country music establishment, and instead of performing at the actual ceremony, hes been participating by busking outside the event and donating all the money he gets to the ACLU. Hes also been livestreaming the whole performance, and at one point, he gave a mock CMA acceptance speech. Nobody needs a machine gun, and thats comin from a guy who owns quite a few guns, he said. Gay people should have the right to be happy and live their life any way they want to and get married if they want to without fear of getting drug down the road behind a pickup truck. Black people are probably tired of getting shot in the streets and being enslaved by the industrial prison complex. Hegemony and fascism is alive and well in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you very much. Watch below.

Sturgill Simpson #CMAawards live stream starts in 5 minutes, yall! pic.twitter.com/tBoz8SGKU4  Adam Gold (@GoldAdam) November 9, 2017

God bless #sturgillsimpson. Go bless us all.

These signs are great! pic.twitter.com/f3eZGgX7bQ  Bridget Moss (@buckfever) November 9, 2017

This post Watch Sturgill Simpson Busk Outside The CMA Awards first appeared on Stereogum.
President Donald Trump used his visits this week to China and South Korea to continue his aggressive stance toward North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un over the countrys nuclear weapons program.

This is a very different administration than the United States has had in the past, Trump said to the North Korean government during a speech before the South Korean Assembly. Do not underestimate us. And do not try us.

Part of the justification for Trumps more bellicose rhetoric is the notion that North Koreas nuclear program represents a military threat not just to its neighbors like South Korea and Japan but to the United States itself. Just how legitimate are those claims?

To even begin to answer that, we need to think in terms of two separate issues: Whether North Korea can make a working nuclear warhead, and whether it can place that warhead on top of a missile capable of successfully reaching U.S. territory.

Despite what some analysts believe, others say there is no definitive, publicly available proof that North Korea has a missile with the range to strike the continental United States, a miniaturized nuclear warhead to mate with it, and the shielding technology to make sure the warhead survives the heat and pressure of reentry to the atmosphere, John Mecklin, the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, wrote in Reuters this September.

In assessing what North Koreas nuclear strike capabilities actually are, we are fundamentally limited by all we dont know, according to an analysis published in Mecklins publication this August. As such, skepticism is generally warranted when either North Korea or the United States make claims about the formers nuclear program.

Kim Il Sung Square and Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2015.

At this time, no one outside of North Korea has solid information about the characteristics of North Koreas nuclear weapons designsespecially about whether or not the weapons that have been tested are cumbersome laboratory devices or readily militarized designs that could be put into bombs or carried on ballistic missiles, a trio of physicists write in the Bulletin. This information is simply not available at this time.

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As the analysis explains, estimating the range of North Koreas missiles relies on studying their flightpaths  which typically achieve high vertical altitudes but dont travel very far horizontally  and extrapolating how far said missiles could reach if they had an almost entirely horizontal trajectory. Missile tests in July suggest North Korea has missiles that could reach as far as Anchorage, Alaska, or perhaps even Seattle, Washington.

That sounds scary, but theres a pretty big caveat, according to the analysis in the Bulletin: The missile could only ever get that far if North Korea stripped it of any actual working warhead. Adding even the small weight of a warhead would likely limit the range of such a missile so that it couldnt reach Alaska, let alone the lower 48.

In reality, the North Korean rocket fired twice last month  the Hwasong-14  is a sub-level ICBM that will not be able to deliver nuclear warheads to the continental United States, the physicists write. Our analysis shows that the current variant of the Hwasong-14 may not even be capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to Anchorage, Alaska, although such a possibility cannot be categorically ruled out. But even if North Korea is now capable of fabricating a relatively light-weight, miniaturized atomic bomb that can survive the extreme reentry environments of long-range rocket delivery, it will, with certainty, not be able to deliver such an atomic bomb to the lower 48 states of the United States with the rocket tested on July 3 and July 28.

That still leaves Hawaii and the American territory of Guam, which North Korea publicly threatened in August before backtracking. These Pacific islands are closer to North Korea than anywhere on North American continent, so it would require relatively smaller advances in the countrys strike capabilities to put them under real threat. Whether North Korea is already there, close to there, or not close at all remains, however, a matter of conjecture, as all the same technical questions surrounding its ICBM capabilities still apply here.

As for whether the verbal brinksmanship between Trump and Kim Jong Un makes actual war more likely is questionable  fiery rhetoric aside, Trumps approach doesnt actually differ that much from his predecessors, while North Korea has long argued its development of nuclear weapons is an act of self-defense against American aggression instead of a step toward a preemptive attack.

Photos via Getty Images / Getty Images, Getty Images / Tomohiro Ohsumi

Photos via Getty Images / Getty Images, Getty Images / Tomohiro Ohsumi

Written by Alasdair Wilkins

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Beijing (AFP) - As President Xi Jinping led his US counterpart Donald Trump around Beijing's Forbidden City on Wednesday, he made time to teach the American billionaire a bit of Chinese history.

Trump has been given the red carpet treatment on his three-day state visit, beginning with a tour of the ancient imperial palace where he sipped tea with Xi and showed the Chinese leader a video of his granddaughter singing in Mandarin.

Chinese media were quick to give the footage airtime, with the official Xinhua news agency broadcasting it on its Twitter account, though the platform is blocked in China.

The pomp and circumstance may be intended to allay some of Trump's fervour on sticky issues such as China's vast trade surplus with the US and continued relationship with its rogue neighbour, North Korea.

History was not expected to be on the list of talking points -- at least until Trump mentioned he had heard that Chinese history went back 5,000 years and Xi stepped in to tell him more, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

"We have 3,000 years with a written language," Xi said through a translator as they moseyed through the Forbidden City's immense cobblestoned courtyards.

"I guess the older culture, they say, is Egypt with 8,000," Trump retorted.

China is famously proud of its heritage, with schoolchildren learning early on that the country is one of the four great ancient civilisations.

"Egypt is a bit more ancient," Xi admitted. "But the only continuous civilisation to continue onwards is China."

"We people are the original people, black hair, yellow skin, inherited onwards," Xi laughed. "We call ourselves the descendants of the dragon."

"That's great," Trump said.

It is not the first history rundown Xi has given the real estate mogul.

During the leaders' first meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Xi gave him a quick lesson on past Sino-Korean relations, which Trump told the Wall Street Journal changed his thinking on the issue.

Xi disabused him of his earlier opinion that Beijing could easily dispatch the North Korean threat, he said, stating: "After listening for ten minutes, I realised its not so easy."

Though Trump generally does not take well to being lectured, he appears not to mind Xi's words of wisdom, repeatedly referring to the statesman as a "friend."
Houthi rebels, Saudi Arabia claims, fired an Iranian missile towards Riyadh on 4 November. Iran has denied supplying the weapons: STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

The ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels that targeted the Saudi Arabia capital was from Iran and bore Iranian markings, a top US Air Force official in the Middle East has said.

Lieutenant General Jeffrey L Harrigian, who oversees the Air Forces Central Command in Qatar, made the comments at a news conference in Dubai.

Mr Harrigian said authorities were investigating how the missile was smuggled into Yemen amid a Saudi-led coalition controlling the countrys airspace, ports, and borders.

After the strike near Riyadh on 4 November, Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them.

More detail was not given, though the ministry also mentioned it found similar evidence after a 22 July missile launch however a rebel spokesperson told Al Jazeera that it was a Burkan 2-H missile - a Scud-type missile with a range of more than 800km.

French President Emmanuel Macron also said this week that the missile was "obviously" Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement earlier in the week that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant.

Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Isis militants in Syria in retaliation for twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Mr Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile they believed was used most recently.

Iran has denied the allegations it provided missiles to the Houthi rebels and what the Saudi coalition called a "a clear act of aggression" on the part of Iran.

The 4 November attack prompted Saudi Arabia to close all ports, roads, and the air space in and out of Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition also sent a slew of missiles into the Yemeni capital of Sanaa several hours after the attack on the Riyadh airport.

The war in the region's poorest country began in 2014 when Houthi rebels took control of Sanaa and pushed south towards Aden.

Story continues

Saudi Arabia and its coalition, fearing that the rebels were being backed by its rival Iran, then launched a series of air strikes to restore control for the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Since the air strikes began, at least 10,000 people have died as a result and 40,000 have been wounded, Al Jazeera reported.

Yemen is also facing an unprecedented famine and Saudi blockades on ports have exacerbated the dire situation, according to UN officials.

UN head of humanitarian affairs Mark Lowcock said: "it will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year, where tens of thousands of people were affected. It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."

The World Health Organisation has also confirmed that the country is facing a massive cholera outbreak, particularly affecting children; nearly a million reported cases are expected by the end of the year.
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will upgrade its main airport at a cost of $153 million in an effort to attract more visitors, state media reported on Thursday, as authorities renamed the airport in honour of 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Harare International Airport will from Thursday be known as Robert Mugabe International Airport and is expected to undergo an upgrade so that it can handle 6.5 million passengers a year, more than double its current capacity. State-owned Herald newspaper reported that China Export and Import Bank will provide a $153 million loan that will, among other things, be used to expand the runway to allow multiple planes to land at the same time. Accepting the honour, Mugabe said renaming the airport was "a great gesture" to him and his family. In the last few months, Mugabe's vocal ruling ZANU-PF youth wing has been pushing the government to honour Mugabe by giving public institutions his name. The government has said from next year the veteran ruler's Feb. 21 birthday will be known as Robert Mugabe National Youth Day, a public holiday. On Aug 9. the cash-strapped government announced plans to build a $1 billion university named after Mugabe, a move that was cricitised by the opposition as a waste of resources. Mugabe is the only leader that Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 and despite his advanced age, he remains the most influential political figure in the country. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia and Gareth Jones)
Norma Ruth Garza, the bookkeeper charged with leading the nearly $1 million theft ring at Zirkle Fruit Company, attends a bail hearing Wednesday in Benton County Superior Court. Garza, 52, became emotional after looking at family members in the courtroom. (BOB BRAWDY/Tri-City Herald)
This is the story of two women, an Israeli and a Palestinian. They were both born here, they both love this conflict region, they are both avid supporters of peace and they have been best friends for the past 50 years.

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One of them is an unshakable Israeli symbol, Ruth Dayan, the widow of Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan. The other woman is Palestinian journalist, poet and activist Raymonda Tawil, whose daughter is the widow of Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat.

Ruth lives in Tel Aviv. Every inch of her apartment is covered with mementoes, pictures and different items. Raymonda lives in Malta with her daughter Suha and her granddaughter Zahwa Arafat.

Ruth Dayan. There were times, and not so long ago, when it would have been very easy to make peace (Photo: Dana Kopel)

These two impressive women last met about half a year ago in Ryamondas house. Almost every week, on Tuesday, they talk on Skype about their children, their grandchildren, literature, films and about the shattered hopes of peace.

I spoke to them in honor of the publication of the Hebrew version of Anthony Davids book An Improbable Friendship, which describes their long relationship and the stories of their lives. It was first published in English two years ago.

Their friendship began exactly 50 years ago. Ruth, who was already a very active public figure at the time, visited Nablus and asked to meet with a group of women to promote a dialogue and coexistence. She was approached by Raymonda, a 27-year-old leading young journalist.

She told me there was a group of 10 people stranded on Allenby Bridge and asked me to use my connections to help them cross to the other side. I agreed. Since then, our souls have been tied together.

We talk about everything, including about the current state of affairs. She is a vibrant, beautiful woman, full of life. There is something fascinating about her. Otherwise, it wouldnt have lasted so many years. I visited her in Malta twice, we also met in the United States, and I hope shell come to visit me in Israel one day, Dayan says.

I really want to visit and Ill try to come see her, 77-year-old Tawil says in a phone conversation from Malta conducted in a fascinating mixture of Hebrew, English and Arabic. Yes, Im aware of the fact that shes 100 years old and that time isnt on our side. But since Arafat died, I havent felt like coming over there.

Tawil, who was born in the northern city of Acre, says she knows Hebrew but doesnt really have anyone to speak the language to. With Ruth I actually speak English, which I consider my mother tongue, she says.

No longer a Zionist

Ruth Dayan sinks deep into her leather armchair. I rest all day, she says, frustrated. It drives me crazy. All my life I used to run around and was married to my job at Maskit (the legendary fashion house which Dayan founded and served as CEO of for decades). Today, I have to stay at home most of the day. My body is betraying me.

At the age of 100, its a bitter betrayal indeed, considering how clearheaded she is. She remembers every single detail she ever encountered, both from 90 years ago and from yesterday morning. She followed the recent Labor leadership elections very closely, and even hosted candidate Amir Peretz at her house, at her daughter Yaels request.

I told him Im not a Labor member, because I was actually one of the founders of Meretz, but he thought that a word from me is important, that my opinion still counts, Dayan says. Now she asks me a series of inquisitive questions about the new kid on the block, Avi Gabbay.

She has a lot to say about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I know him very well even without knowing him personally, and Im following him. He has no intention of making peace, and thats a shame.

I was really angry with him a while ago. We met at a ceremony in honor of former IDF commanders in the north, which I was invited to. He shook my hand and said, I didnt know Moshe fought in the north. I was shocked. Youre prime minister and you dont even know that? You should at least learn something about the ceremony before you attend it, she says, the anger evident in her eyes.

Whats all this money going into peoples pockets, some of whom are associated with the prime minister? Arent people ashamed anymore? she asks furiously, moving on to the submarine affair. And every day you hear about rape and murder and children being left in cars. Whats happening to us? In the past, we werent rich and there wasnt a lot of money, and I dont remember any tycoons, but we had something to live for.

She takes a deep breath and goes on. And what about this whole religionization issue? Theyve invented a new word for a very problematic existing situation. I see all the Haredim with their black clothes, and Im definitely concerned.

She has a very short temper. If you dont agree with her, she gets irritated and aggressive. A moment later, she calms down. Ive been like this since I was a little girl. At the age of eight, when I attended school in England, the teachers used to comment about my temper, and it hasnt changed, she says with uproarious laughter that lights up her grey eyes and wiggles her white hair.

Dayan and Tawil. If this isnt coexistence, what is?

Far away in Malta, the ceaseless storm called Ruth Dayan is greatly missed. I really love Ruth, Raymonda says. Shes very humane and educated. Every time I get angry at something happening in Israel, whether it has to do with Moshe Dayan or (Ariel) Sharon, I scream at her and she replies: Im not Moshe! Im not Sharon!

What makes Dayan lose her temper more than anything else is the lack of peace with the Palestinians.

Im very disappointed, she says. There were times, and not so long ago, when it would have been very easy to make peace. Do you think the Arabs want to get killed? And we Jews, do we want to die? I worked in Gaza for eight years with Maskit, employing 300 women there. If that isnt coexistence, what is? But here, everything that can be crushed is crushed. And I see the faces of the fallen soldiers before my eyes and I ask myself and you, whats the point? Who is this for? Is it so that Bibi can say that he won in Gaza?

And you dont even have a whiff of criticism against the other side? Are we the only ones to blame?

Theres always another side too. But were the strong ones, and were the ones who can do more. And the responsibility is on our shoulders.

She keeps firing in every direction, like only a 100-year-old person who has been part of Israels historyand who has nothing to losecan do: I was born in 1917. I saw everything here. I knew everyone. I believed in the Zionism that established this state. But no more. Im no longer a Zionist.

So as far as youre concerned, your grandchildren and great grandchildren can live wherever they want and not necessarily here, in the state you established?

Theres no more Zionism. The state is very small, and if we keep treating the Palestinians the way we do, were doomed. The world will become increasingly anti-Semitic, and we wont be here anymore.

As far as Im concerned, each person can live whether they want. People arent stupid. They see the direction the state is headed in, and hundreds leave every month. Personally, I wouldnt live anywhere else in the world. But Im 100 years old, so dont take me as an example.

Her friendship with Raymonda isnt the kind of story you hear every day. We met at a time when it wasnt conventional yet, and a friendship between a Palestinian woman and an Israeli woman wasnt considered normal, says Tawil, whose life story is unusual in itself.

I grew up in Israel, in Acre, and then in Jordan and in Nablus, and now I divide my life between Malta and Dubai, together with my daughter Suha and my granddaughter Zahwa, who is 21 and beautiful. Shes not only beautiful, by the way. Zahwa recently received her bachelors degree from a university in Malta.

When 27-year-old Suha converted from Christianity to Islam in 1990 and secretly married Yasser Arafat, who was 61 at the time, Raymonda didnt hide her discontent. But because she was only informed about the marriage after it happened, she was forced to stand by her daughters side. After Arafats death, she moved in with Suha to help her with her little girl.

Its true, I didnt like it, but it was her right and she did what she thought was best for her, she says.

Why dont Suha and her daughter come to Ramallah, where Arafats grave is located?

Thats too personal to answer, but well come when the occupation ends.

Suha Arafat and her daughetr Zahwa (Photo: AFP)

Do you see a solution for the situation that has been created?

One state is unrealistic. A Palestinian state within the 1947 borders is unrealistic too. We are left with a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, and thats what the world is demanding too.

But Arafat eventually didnt sign the agreement.

Ya habibti (my dear in Arabic), enough. Thats the joke Netanyahu keeps telling everyone. Arafat agreed to receive 22 percent of the historical Palestinian states land. If Bibi is unfamiliar with history, he should learn some.

It breaks my heart that (former Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin was murdered. If he has remained alive, there would have been a Palestinian state alongside Israel a long time ago, and so many lives would have been spared. Arent you tired of people getting killed? Hasnt enough blood been shed? Why dont you want to give us some land? Look, the Galilee is empty, the Negev is empty. The settlers should go there. And anyway, the refugees right to return to their land should be recognized.

To the land of the State of Israel?

Yes. Our right to return should be recognized. I may not want to return, but I should have the right to. I used to have an Israeli identity card, and it was revoked when I traveled to Jordan, when it was still considered an enemy state. I have fought for peace all my life, and it isnt coming.

Do you believe itll come one day?

Of course, and I hope it happens soon. But it wont come as long as Netanyahu is in power. I have been following Israeli politics, and I understand that (Isaac) Herzog is no longer the Labor Party leader. Its a shame, hes a good man. Tell me, is Ruth feeling okay?

Im not feeling very well, Dayan says. This is an annoying age.

No fear of death

Next to the armchair she sits in most hours of the day, lies an album with the number 100 in white digits on its blue cover. Her granddaughter, Amalia Dayan, prepared the beautiful album for a birthday party she threw for her three months ago. All her relatives and friends who are still alive were invited.

The walls of her apartment are covered with pictures and paintings starring her ex-husband, Moshe Dayan, the father of her three childrenformer politician Yael Dayan, sculptor Udi Dayan, and late actor and director Assi Dayan. There are also merit certificates hanging there, and even three honorary doctorate degrees. I didnt graduate from high school, but I have three PhDs, she laughs.

At the center of the wall hangs an aerial shot of Moshav Nahalal, the place she misses more than any other place on earth, the place she would like to return to and milk cows. She came there as a 17-year-old girl, to study in an agricultural school. Thats where she met and fell in love with Moshe Dayan, who arrived to tell the students about the moshav, and her life changed forever.

On the one hand, she informed us in advance that she did not want to answer any questions about Moshe, who she separated from when she was 53 years old. On the other hand, he seems to still be a key axis in her life. She mentions his name repeatedly, and she has a statue of his face in her living room, sculpted by her son Udi.

Moshe Dayan. I think he would have brought peace, because he was man of peace (Photo: Micha Kirshner)

I muster up courage and ask her if she still loves him, in spite of everything. She gazes at the ceiling, hesitates for a minute and then says: Not really. Only when I think about this country, I ask myself what he would have done. I think he would have brought peace, because he was a man of peace. He once wrote me a letter about it, which I read out at a Peace Now conference, she says, her eyes wandering elsewhere along with her thoughts.

She then tells me she was thinking about the time when Dayan lost his eye in World War II. He had terrible pains, both in his eye and in his nose, which was almost torn out. Our children, apart from Yula (Yael), who was two years old at the time, never actually saw their father with two eyes. The time we spent in a hospital in Paris, without knowing a single word in French, wasnt easy either.

I go on and ask why her name hasnt been linked to any other man since she left him. Heaven forbid! she shouts. I had one relationship and it was more than enough. I always worked. Work filled my entire world and I always had a lot of friends around me. I founded Maskit and I traveled across the entire world to promote Maskit.

Who do you miss?

Assi. I miss him so much. Its such a shame hes gone. But I have two other children, Yael and Udi, and 10 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

Are you afraid of dying?

No, I have no fear of death. Im not praying for death either, but just between the two of us, let me remind you that Im 100 years old and dying isnt something unreasonable. I hope I go to sleep and dont wake up. Without hospitals and without suffering.

And whats your secret for longevity with such a clear mind?

To think positive. And most importantly, genetics.
Normally, were allowed to discuss everything, even the salaries of senior judges and police officers. And if we want, we can even demand a pay raise for the prime minister.

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Theres no taboo. Everything can and should be on the table. Even a law granting the prime minister immunity from police investigations, in a slightly more reasonable version, is an appropriate subject for a public debate.

But these are not normal times. We are in the midst of a dangerous campaign against the heads of the law enforcement system. They are not immune to criticism. But in the past few months, something completely different has been happening. There is neither a relevant nor a serious discussion taking place here. There is a police investigation against the prime minister, and any attack on his investigators turns into part of the campaign.

Prime Minister Netanyahu with MK Amsalem. His fans arent helping him, theyre hurting him (Photo: MK Amsalem's Facebook page)

In the past, the criticismand its okay to criticizewas based on political persecution. The heads of the State Attorneys Office were said to hold one opinion, and the interrogees held an opposite opinion. But now, its an entirely different story. We have no idea what the political views of Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh or Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit are. All we know is that they dont belong to the old elites. They are the flesh and blood of the right-wing government. Their appointments were approved and encouraged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Not everything that could have been argued against former State Attorney Edna Arbel can be argued against Mandelblit, who used to be one of Netanyahu's associates, or Alsheikh, who used to be a settler. We are in a completely different situation.

But that isnt helping, because Likuds Knesset members, with all their initiatives and bills , arent interested in some kind of an improvement. They want to intimidate. They want to silence.

And no, this isnt a dispute between Right and Left. Thats the false impression theyre trying to create. Its a dispute between a camp of his Royal Highness King Bibis submissive slaves and all those who want a civilized country. On one end we have a handful from the Right. On the other end, we have the majority of the publicfrom the Left and from the Right.

But MK David Amsalem and his partner, Coalition Chairman David Bitan, have the power. Too much power. Their strike could be harmful.

Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, whose appointment was approved and encouraged by Netanyahu (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The salary change initiative is clearly an empty initiative, just like the initiative to bar the police from recommending indictments at the conclusion of an investigation. There wont be a salary change, and the decision on filing indictments is in the State Attorneys hands in any case. There will be absolutely no change in the situation of the senior interrogee, his royal highness.

But Amsalem and Bitan have only one goal: To incite and intimidate. They want to create a further rift. They want their public of submissive loyalists, even if its a minority within the Right, to use violent and intimidating language. Thats a dangerous gamble. Mandelblit and Alsheikh likely wont be scared. But these initiatives have the potential of a match in a place filled with gasoline fumes. Netanyahu is watching from the side and thinking: Blessed is the match.

Allow me to add a proper disclosure: In recent years, I have published blatant and profound criticism against judicial activism, the police and the State Attorneys Office. Its possible that of the 50 arguments raised by Netanyahu's supporters, two are correct. Maybe even three. But when the goal is not criticism for the sake of repair, but criticism for the sake of destruction, Amsalem and his ilk are silencing relevant criticism. Theres no need to supply them with weapons for the sake of destruction.

The public discourse needs a real discussion, on every issue, even on the salaries of senior police officers. But not now, not as part of the campaign for his royal highness. If there is an ounce of integrity left in Netanyahu, and I assume there is, he should shake off these fans of his. They arent helping him, theyre harming him.
For decades, Israel argued that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict wasnt the root of the Middle Easts problems and that the instability in the region was affected by religious and tribal conflicts, autocratic and theocratic regimes or atrocious poverty and water scarcity.

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As a former Foreign Ministry official, I can testify that no one listened to us or understood. Six years of an Arab winter, millions of refugees, ruined cities and one-third of the Arab League states looking completely different from the way they did a decade ago, made it clear to those who had claimed that solving the conflict with the Palestinians would cure the regions diseases that Israel isnt the problem.

In the coming weeks, the Trump administration is expected to launch a new initiative (possibly the same old thing under a different cloak), which includes normalization gestures from Arab states towards Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US special envoy Jason Greenblatts visits to Riyadh strengthen the expectation for Saudi gestures. If such gestures are offered, they will be part of a debate arising in Israel over the content of the initiative and the value of said gestures.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. At the age of 32, he is already leaving his mark on the kingdom (Photo: AFP)

Saudi Arabia is undergoing a quick process of change. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman may become the youngest Arab king, and at the age of 32 he is already leaving his mark on the kingdom. Since 2015, he has been the engine for deep changes in the countrys security, foreign, social and economic policy. Since he began his involvement, Saudi Arabia has been standing firmly and openly against Iran, its nuclear program and its subversive activity in the region, especially in Yemen, Riyadhs backyard, where Iran is helping the Houthi rebels.

Irans subversion isnt new. The innovations in the past few years were the nuclear effort, former US President Barack Obamas weakness and helplessness, and Mohammad bin Salmans meteoric rise. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia watched the American administrations willingness to strike a deal with Iran, which fails to put a complete lid on its nuclear option, with a lot of concern. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia are learning President Donald Trump, unlike his past version presidential hopeful Donald Trump, wont walk away from the agreement with Iran unless it is blatantly violated.

Even if they arent voicing it clearly, Israel and Saudi Arabia are also concerned about Washingtons tendency to continue the gradual process of retreating from the Middle East. The lack of success in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the declining dependencewhich was never criticalon regional oil sources, and the very small chance for diplomatic achievements as a result of US initiatives are discouraging American investments in the region.

Resigning Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri with Saudi King Salman. Lebanon is an integral part of the Iranian plan (Photo: AFP)

Israel and Saudi Arabia are concerned about dormant American involvement in Syria compared to Russia and Irans active presence. Furthermore, they suspect that Iran is developing a land corridor beyond the Mediterranean Sea, with the help of its alliesmostly Shiiteswho control part of this axis.

Lebanon is an integral part of the Iranian plan, and Hezbollah is an essential tool in its implementation. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariris resignation should be interpreted against this background. Preventing the creation of an Iranian corridor is a heavy strategic mission, which will be hard to accomplish without American involvement. That can explain the slight warmup in Saudi Arabias relations with Russia and the stronger Russian-Israeli dialogue on the Syrian issue.

The Iranian danger alone likely wont be enough to openly bring Saudi Arabia and Israel closer together. Mohammad bin Salman is working on fortifying his inheritance, and its unlikely that he wants to expose himself to Arab criticism, especially Iranian, over his betrayal of the Palestinian people. A positive Israeli response to the American initiative, once it is formed, might convince him to take the risk.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the UK last week to mark 100 years since Britains foreign secretary issued the Balfour Declaration, one of the most predictable aspects of the trip was the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyns silence in celebrating Britains commitment to the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

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As usual, since becoming leader of the Labour party, which has become rotten to the core with anti-Israel bias, Corbyn has made a series of statements on Israel which are notable for what they lack rather than what they contain.

Most recently, when talking about the Balfour Declaration, Corbyn highlighted the fact that the UK promised to help establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine while pledging that nothing would be done to prejudice the rights of its existing non-Jewish communities.

Reflecting on what had been achieved in 100 years, Corbyn stressed that the second part of Britains pledge has still not been fulfilled and Britains historic role means we have a special responsibility to the Palestinian people, who are still denied their basic rights.

As usual, what is clear about Corbyns word selection is the complete absence of any praise whatsoever. At most, he bitterly acknowledges that his country is responsible for a document that served as a prelude to the rise of Israel. Here is the original sin that marks Israels genesis.

Anyone who ever asks Corbyn whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, either in its current or expanded borders, will receive a laconic acknowledgement that Israel exists. To anyone who asks him whether the Balfour Declaration is something to be celebrated, he will simply acknowledge it, and deflect the question by listing Israels flaws and shifting focus to the plights and rights of the Palestinians.

Jeremy Corbyn (Photo: Reuters)

See, for example, what Corbyn had to say about the Balfour Declaration this year.

So let us mark the Balfour anniversary by recognizing Palestine as a step towards a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, increasing international pressure for an end to the 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, illegal settlement expansion and the blockade of Gaza.

Not a word about Israels grievances. Not a word about Palestinian terror. Not a word about the innovation that has been developed by Israel. Not a word about the rights afforded to minorities who are subjected to terrible persecution in other Arab countries, about the humanitarian contributions made by Israel around the world, about the medical leaps that have ultimately sprung forth from the Balfour Declaration. Not a word about Israels robust democracy. Not a word about the justice of the Balfour Declaration itself.

Corbyns hatred of Israel is so clear that it is remarkable there are any Jews left in Britain who believe he is anything but an enemy of the Jewish people. It is however, unsurprising, albeit lamentable, that Jewish politicians such as Fabian Hamilton whom he can cite as his Jewish friends still endorse him.

And he is an enemy of the Jewish people not because he openly welcomes anti-Semitism in his party. On the contrary, he publicly repudiates anti-Semitism and to the best of the authors knowledge, he is not on record saying anything overtly anti-Semitic, certainly not in its traditional form.

But he is an enemy of the Jewish people because although he claims, like his cronies George Galloway and Ken Livingstone, that Zionism and Jews should not be conflated, vehement opponents of Zionism treat it as an integral component of Judaism. And those people are indeed correct to do so. Zionism is a Jewish value and an expression of Jewish nationalism to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, as was articulated in the Balfour Declaration which Corbyn simply despises.

Whatever Corbyn and his Jewish friends say to the contrary, Zionism is an expression that flows directly from Judaism and most of Israels enemies know this perfectly well. To admit it publicly is simply not politically prudent and would leave them vulnerable to accusations of anti-Semitism. They are also fully cognisant of this.

Corbyn is an enemy of the British Jewish community because his rhetoric, which is only being softened on account of his goal to enter 10 Downing Street, stimulates an atmosphere in which people identifiable as Jews, not anyone else, are subject to attack.

Naturally, Corbyn will condemn such attacks, but it means nothing for the Jew walking to synagogue and being abused with racial slurs, for Jewish students being branded dirty Zionists and worse.

PM Netanyahu in London with PM Theresa May (Photo: EPA)

If Corbyn were elected prime minister, he would, without a shadow of a doubt, personally see to it that Britains historic pledge to assist Jews in creating their homeland in its rightful location is transformed into an episode of shame in the annals of British history. British Jews should be under no illusions that he would issue an official apology as he continues to wage his relentless smear campaign against Israel, as has been his wont throughout his long political life.

Jews of the UK, do not be fooled. A Corbyn premiership would have drastic consequences for Israel. If Israel is not a high priority for some of UK Jewry, that is regrettable but little can be done about it. If, however, Israel is important to enfranchised members of Anglo Jewry, then may they never vote for this rabid, unmasked enemy of Israel, who when asked whether Israel has the right to exist sourly responds: Israel exists.

This is a man who has repeatedly tried to extricate his way out of what he really meant when he said Hamas and Hezbollah were his friends. He was simply trying to get a dialogue going, so he claims. But there was no mention of Israeli friends.

So potent is his hatred for Israel that he fails to comprehend his fall from favour with so many British Jews when he proclaims that unfairly fusing ISIS and the UKs Muslim population is akin to unjustly likening Anglo Jews to Netanyahu. He is so laughably out of touch with the UK Jewish community and the importance they place on Israel that he struggles to understand their concerns by such odious comparisons or by even refusing to mention the word Israel at conference about Israel.

The right to vote freely is of course sacred in any democracy. But any Jew who votes for Corbyn in future, should he run, by doing so should never again be free of the feeling of well deserved guilt for the injustice he has brought on against the Jewish people and their one and only state.
- An NDC member has scoffed at the idea of Mahama leading the 2020 ticket for NDC

- He says the party has now been hijacked by the supporters of the former president

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A former consul general to Dubai and member of the National Democratic Congress, Daniel Osei, has said Former President Mahama will offer the party no new direction, YEN.com.gh has gathered.

H.E Daniel Osei (pictured left)

Source: Depositphotos

READ ALSO: 5 respected jobs in Ghana that pay very little salaries

According to him, the NDC has been hijacked by the ardent supporters of the former president and is currently under the sole leadership of Mahama.

In a report by Prime News Ghana, the NDC member was unimpressed by the partys Unity Walk held in Cape Coast last weekend.

He described it as disgraceful spectacle, which will further widen the already existing divisions in the party.

Look at all the headline stories coming out of the walk. Ask yourselves, was Mahama the only aspirant or party leader who attended the program? Why did they actively prevent others from speaking and the only choice they had was to leave prematurely to avoid a fight?. Will this conduct help unite the party? Mr. Osei asked.

He noted that the events leading up to the 2016 election by the NDC campaign organizers, hailed John Mahama as already victorious in the elections, yet Mahama was the cause of the worst margin of defeat the NDC ever experienced.

READ ALSO: Court summons Dr Adusei over JB Danquah-Adu's autopsy report

He called the outpour of support for the former president internal vigilantism; and the constant imposition of Mahama on party members as nonsensical which must be rejected by the party.

Daniel Oseis comments follow the petition signed by the 10 regional chairmen of the NDC, who are urging the former president to lead the ticket for the party to the 2020 elections.

John Dramani Mahama

The NDC regional heads, after a closed-door meeting released a document which showed they have all rallied their support behind the former president, whom they believe is the best candidate to lead them in the next election period.

John Mahama however, has remained silent on whether he has any interest in contesting in the NDC presidential primaries, even as new competitors have emerged to declare their interest in running for president.

READ ALSO: Mahama will be my running mate when I win the NDC primaries- Stephen Atubiga

YEN is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident? Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YENs official Facebook page

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Tension is brewing between Lebanon and Gulf states after Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain advised their citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those already there to leave as soon as possible.

The move comes as Saudi Arabia and Iran trade accusations over Yemen and Lebanon, whose Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation, evoking fears for his life amid a rise of Hezbollah, Irans ally in the Lebanese political scene.

The official Saudi Press Agency, citing an official Foreign Ministry source, said Thursday the kingdom was asking citizens who were visiting or residing in Lebanon to leave as soon as possible.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also warned their nationals against travel to Lebanon via their official news agencies later in the day.

Bahrain had urged its citizens to leave Lebanon on Sunday.

The downturn in Lebanese-Saudi ties in the wake of Hariris resignation and the recent travel warning augurs ill for Lebanese frail stability.

Analysts see tougher times ahead for the multi-religious country amid fears that it may return to the era of infighting reminiscent of the civil war that struck the country (1975-1990).

The escalation will certainly have a detrimental impact on Lebanese finances in light of the withdrawal of funds by Saudi and other Gulf banks and construction firms.

Saudi and Gulf retaliation on Lebanon, which they see succumbing to Hezbollahs grip, may affect the Lebanese diaspora which is likely to be asked to leave.

Calls for Lebanese citizens to leave the country were trending on Twitter, with a hashtag translating as the deportation of Lebanese is a national demand used 26,000 times by Thursday evening.

The Saudi minister for Gulf affairs has accused Lebanon of declaring war against the kingdom, and alleged that the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah was involved in firing a missile at Saudi Arabia from Yemen on Saturday.

Hezbollahs parliamentary bloc called on Saudi Arabia on Thursday to stop interfering in Lebanese affairs.

French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday paid an unscheduled trip to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on regional questions, in particular Yemen and Lebanon.

The visit took place at a time tension is brewing between Saudi Arabia and Iran, precisely over Yemen and Lebanon.
The Saudi interior ministry announced Thursday the wide crackdown has hit 208 people in the graft probe, which received the support of US President Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia launched a major clean-up operation right after the establishment of the anti-corruption commission supervised by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MbS).

Those arrested include 11 princes among whom iconic international investor Al-Waleed bin Talal and several other high profile businessmen and senior officials.

The men are accused of money laundering, bribery, extortion and taking advantage of public office for personal gain.

Seven people out of the 208 have been released without charges, the ministry pointed out.

Authorities also claimed that three years of investigation revealed that $100 had been lost through embezzlement and corruption.

The arrestees have seen their bank accounts frozen and authorities say that any asset in connection with the probe will be seized.

The unprecedented purge is viewed as power consolidation by the Crown Prince and a way to clear off critics and likely opposition to his grip over power.

President Trump this week lauded the move saying that he has confidence in King Salman and his son. He also accused the arrestees of milking the country.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson according to the State Department held a telephone conversation with Saudi foreign minister Abdel al-Jubeir urging Riyadh to ensure fairness and transparency in the prosecutions.

London-based Middle East Eye (MEE) citing royal sources debunked the 201 number suggested. The media says the number could reach 500.

MEE also indicated that some top figures reportedly sustained injuries as result of classic torture and beatings during their arrest or interrogation. Some have been admitted to hospital, the media claims.
Frances Naval Group will supply the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with two Gowind navy corvettes in a deal announced Thursday by French President Emmanuel Macron.

President Macron made the announcement at the end of his two-day trip, his first to the Gulf country where he also attended the inauguration of the Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum.

The two warship vessels will be used for costal surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

The vessels will be built by the French group in coordination with Emirati Abu Dhabi Ship Building Company (ADSB).

Two additional vessels will be supplied as part of the contract but no detail has been released.

Emirati authorities chose the French builder as the best bidder in a tender, which involved Italys Fincantieri.

The UAE are engaged in the Saudi-led international coalition fighting Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The rebels launched over last weekend a ballistic missile, which was intercepted near Riyadh international airport. Saudi Arabia blamed Iran and called the attack an act of war.

A leading Iranian media lauded the attack in a caption adding that the next target is Dubai. Teheran has suspended the media over the headline.
French President Emmanuel Macron, at a meeting with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Riyadh Thursday, condemned Irans support for Yemen Houthis who launched over the weekend a ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia.

Macron made an unplanned visit to Saudi Arabia following his visit in United Arab Emirates (UAE) where he attended the inauguration of the Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum.

The French leader decided to fly to Riyadh following three major events: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariris resignation; launch of ballistic missile by Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels into Saudi Arabia; and the anti-corruption purge, which took place in the kingdom over the weekend.

The Houthi-launched missile reached the Saudi capital before it was intercepted and destroyed near the citys international airport.

Saudi Arabia condemned the strike and blamed Iran for the action arguing that it amounts to an act of war.

Macron also condemned the attack saying that it reflects Irans missile capacity. He however made it clear that France still endorses the 2015 nuclear deal signed between Iran and world powers.

The missile, launched from Yemen and intercepted by Saudi Arabia, is obviously an Iranian missile, which shows precisely the strength of their program, Macron told journalists at a news conference held at a French school earlier in Dubai.

He did not touch on the anti-graft purge, which has seen over 200 people including princes and high profile businessmen and officials arrested on Saturday.

The crackdown followed the establishment of the anti-corruption commission supervised the Crown Prince MbS who also leads the countrys economic and structural reforms.

Riyadh following the Houthi attack closed off Yemens land, sea and air borders.
The Court of Cassation, the highest court in France, has acknowledged Friday (nov.10) the validity of two recordings, presented by Moroccos attorney as a proof of the involvement of French journalists Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet in the case of extortion and blackmail against Morocco.

The decision of the Court of Cassation has dismissed the two journalists appeal to reject the recordings on the grounds that they are illegal because they had been conducted with the indirect participation of the French investigators without the consent of the parties concerned, which undermined the principles of a fair trial and fairness of evidence.

The Court of Cassations ruling, delivered Friday at the end of a plenary hearing, considered that these two recordings had been made by an emissary of Rabat without the actual implication of the French investigators, allowing therefore to conclude to the loyalty of the proof.

The ruling is not subject to appeal and the case will now be referred again to the investigating judges.

Patrice Spinosi, the lawyer representing Morocco, described the ruling as a very great victory for the Kingdom. There is no longer any obstacle to the prosecution of the two journalists, a prosecution that will undoubtedly lead to their condemnation for their attempt to blackmail the king of Morocco, said the lawyer in a statement to the media.

Beyond this case, this decision enshrines the right of victims to obtain evidence from the moment justice does not, he added.

Catherine Graciet, 42, and Eric Laurent, 69, are charged with blackmail and extortion.

The case dates back to August 2015, when the two journalists tried to extort three million Euros from the King of Morocco, in return of abandoning the publication of a book supposed to contain embarrassing revelations for Rabat. They held negotiations to that end with Moroccos attorney, Hicham Naciri, at three separate meetings in Paris.

However, part of the negotiations were recorded and filmed, as Morocco had lodged a complaint against the blackmailers, which enabled to catch them red handed by the French police, which were monitoring the last meeting with the two journalists at a Paris restaurant.

When arrested, the two blackmailers were in possession of 40,000 each as a first payment and had signed a letter setting out details of the instalments to be paid in return for their commitment not to release their so-called damaging book.

The proofs against them are an absolute evidence of their misdemeanor and the Friday ruling by Frances Court of Cassation came to confirm this.
The government of Cameroon has issued international arrest warrants for 15 Anglophone separatists of the southern Cameroon.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, the self-proclaimed president of the Southern Cameroon and leader of the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF) is on the wanted list.

Tensions continue to run high in towns and cities in Cameroons northwest and south-western regions, a month after separatists in the two English-speaking regions, symbolically declared independence from the majority French-speaking areas.

English-speaking Cameroonians make up one-fifth of Cameroons population of 22 million. The separatists have long accused the central government led, by President Paul Biya, of discriminating against their community.

They blame the government for forcing them speak French in business and official affairs, despite English being their main and official language.

Protests continued through most of this year. Numerous demonstrators were jailed, and officials shut down the internet.

Earlier this week, the government said the separatists were behind a raid on a security checkpoint that killed two army officers.

Information minister Issa Tchiroma told AFP that the attackers who were armed also took away the guns of the slain officers. The government has declared a curfew in the main city, Bamenda.

President Paul Biya, in office since 1982, has made it clear that he does not support any split of the nation. He has condemned the violence and called for dialogue.
The truth of corporate journalism, and the great irony of its obsession with fake news, is that it is itself utterly fake. What could be more obviously fake than the idea that Truth can be sold by billionaire-owned media dependent on billionaire-owned advertisers for maximised profit?

The mainstream worldview is anything but  it is extreme, weird, a product of corporate conformity and deference to power. As Norman Mailer observed:

There is an odour to any Press Headquarters that is unmistakeable The unavoidable smell of flesh burning quietly and slowly in the service of a machine. (Mailer, The Time Of Our Time, Little Brown, 1998, p.457)

A prime example of mainstream extremism is the way the UKs illegal wars destroying whole countries are not an issue for corporate moralists. Physicians for Global Responsibility estimate that 1.3 million people have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. And yet it is simply understood that UK wars will not be a theme during general elections (See here and here). By contrast, other kinds of inappropriate behaviour are subject to intense scrutiny.

Consider the recent resignation of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and his replacement by Prime Minister Theresa Mays Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson. Fallon resigned after it was revealed that he had repeatedly touched the broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewers knee at a dinner in 2002.

Fallon was damaged further by revelations that he had lunged at journalist Jane Merrick:

This was not a farewell peck on the cheek, but a direct lunge at my lips.

The Commons leader Andrea Leadsom also disclosed that she had complained about lewd remarks Fallon had made to her.

Sexual harassment is a serious issue, despite the scoffing of some male commentators. In the Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens shamefully dismissed womens complaints as mere squawking.

But it is strange indeed that, while harassment is rightly deemed a resigning offence, other inappropriate behaviour leaves mainstream commentators completely unmoved.

Fallon voted for both the 2003 war that destroyed Iraq and the 2011 war that wrecked Libya. He voted for war on Syria. He voted for replacing the Trident nuclear missile system. Earlier this year, he even declared that Britain would be willing to launch a nuclear first strike.

After he was made Secretary of Defence in July 2014, Fallon oversaw the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia waging war on Yemen. Two years later, Campaign Against Arms Trade reported that UK sales to Saudi Arabia since the start of the war included 2.2 billion of aircraft, helicopters and drones, 1.1 billion of missiles, bombs and grenades, and nearly half a million pounds worth of tanks and other armoured vehicles. British sales of military equipment to the kingdom topped 1.1bn in the first half of this year alone.

In December 2016, Fallon admitted that internationally banned cluster munitions supplied by the UK had been used in Saudi Arabias bombing campaign. Six months earlier, Amnesty International had reported that British-made cluster bombs were being used in attacks on civilians that had claimed the lives of children. For none of these horrors did Fallon resign.

So what kind of conflict are these weapons fuelling? The Guardian reports this week:

Yemen is in the grip of the worlds worst cholera outbreak and 7 million people are already on the brink of famine.

In July, Reliefweb reported:

The scale of the food crisis in conflict-ridden Yemen is staggering with 17 million people  two thirds of the population  severely food insecure and seven million of these on the verge of famine.

Director-General of the UNs Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jose Graziano da Silva, has described Yemen as the UNs largest humanitarian crisis today, noting that conflict and violence have disrupted agriculture, with violence intensifying in areas most short of food. In December 2016, a study by UNICEF, the UN childrens agency, found that at least one child was dying in Yemen every 10 minutes. The agency found that, since 2014, there had been a 200 per cent increase in children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, with almost half a million affected. Nearly 2.2 million children were in need of urgent care.

This week, the Saudi-led coalition declared it would close Yemens borders to prevent an alleged flow of weapons from Iran, after it intercepted a missile attack by Houthi rebels near Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Johan Mooij, Yemen director of Care International, commented:

For the last two days, nothing has got in or out of the country. Fuel prices have gone up by 50% and there are queues at the gas stations. People fear no more fuel will come into Hodeidah port.

He added:

People depend on the humanitarian aid and part of the cholera issue [is] that they do not eat and are not strong enough to deal with unclean water.

There have been daily airstrikes in Sanaa, Mooij said, adding: People fear the situation is escalating.

On Monday, the UNs World Food Program said that, out of Yemens entire population of 28 million people, about 20 million, do not know where theyre going to get their next meal. These are Fallons millions, Mays millions, the mainstreams millions.

In the Independent, Mary Dejevsky made the only mention of Yemen in an article discussing Fallons resignation that we have seen in the national corporate press:

In the Middle East [on Fallons watch], the UK made great efforts to maintain its alliance with Saudi Arabia  and the arms sales that went with it  playing down the desperate plight of Yemen which was a by-product of this policy.

Mass death, Iraq and Libya destroyed, millions of lives torn apart, profiteering in the billions from the torture of an impoverished, famine-stricken nation  none of this was deemed worthy even of mention in considering the record of Fallon and his inappropriate behaviour.

As for his replacement, the Guardians Andrew Sparrow tweeted a link to his blog piece titled: 10 things you might not know about Gavin Williamson. Vital facts included news that the new Defence Secretary kept a pet tarantula called Cronus on his desk, likes hedgehogs, is only 41, and went to a comprehensive school.

Sparrow was adhering to the journalistic convention that parliamentary politics should be depicted as a light-hearted, Wodehousian farce. It is all a bit of a laugh  everybody means well. Despite Williamsons lethal new role, the word war was not mentioned.

Preoccupied with spiders and hedgehogs, Sparrow found no space to mention that Williamson almost always voted for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas. He voted for war in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. He voted against the Yemen motion put before the House of Commons in October 2016 that merely called on the Government to suspend its support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces in Yemen until it had been determined whether they had been responsible for war crimes. The motion was defeated by 283 votes to 193, telling us everything we need to know about the mainstreams much-loved myth that British policy is motivated by a responsibility to protect.

The BBCs political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted a link to the BBCs own comedy profile, which also discussed the tarantula and other nonsense, and made no mention of Williamsons record on war. We asked Kuenssberg:

Will you be asking him if he has any regrets on voting against the Yemen motion to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, given the vast civilian crisis?

We received no reply.

The extreme cognitive dissonance guiding mainstream moral outrage was again highlighted by the Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff, who tweeted:

Cant help thinking that now would be quite a good time for the first ever female defence secretary, really

We asked:

What difference would it make to the civilians dying under our bombs in Yemen and Syria? Isnt that the key issue on defence?

Hinsliff did not reply. But the answer, of course, is that it would make no difference at all.

DE
BTK project is restoration of ancient Silk Road: deputy PM of Azerbaijan

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project is the restoration of the ancient Silk Road, Azerbaijans Deputy Prime Minister Abid Sharifov said Nov. 1.He made the remarks in Baku at an event dedicated to the 94th anniversary of Turkeys independence.Sharifov noted that the BTK railway will make it easier for a number of countries to enter world markets and increase the volume of traffic between Europe and Asia.Touching upon Azerbaijani-Turkish relations, he said that the two countries have great potential for cooperation.Turkey always supports the Azerbaijani people in the main problem of our country, namely the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he noted.Currently, cooperation between Azerbaijan and Turkey is developing in all spheres. I want to note the sixth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Turkey High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, held yesterday in Baku. A number of important documents were signed during the meeting. It once again shows that Azerbaijani-Turkish relations have great potential, Sharifov added.The sixth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Turkey High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council was held on Oct. 31 with the participation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The News in Brief

Georgians in Abkhazia cancel harvest, claim pesticide withheld by regime



Georgian hazelnut farmer in Abkhazia canceled this years harvest after de facto authorities failed to hand out vital pesticide to battle a bug.



The bug has already ravaged farms in Western Georgia but the damage is even worse in the breakaway region Abkhazia where the economy in the Georgian-populated district Gali relies heavily on the hazelnut trade. The damage done here by the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is so extensive that most locals DFWatch talked to in Gali and surrounding villages decided not to harvest this year.



The reason for this is that it costs at least, 40 laris (USD 15) daily to hire one worker for collecting hazelnuts costs, while the wholesale price for 1 kg of raw nuts in Gali is less than 30 tetri (12 cents). Across the Enguri river, in territory under control of Georgian authorities, the price is higher, but transportation costs are discouraging for most locals, who after calculating potential costs and revenues have decided not to harvest this year.



Those who took the risk and harvested have later regretted their decision.



My husband died a few years ago. Now I live alone and am unable to collect nuts myself. I had to hire workers, a widow from the village, Zemo Bargebi, told DFWatch. Ethnic Georgians in Gali, especially elderly people, reluctantly talk to journalists without anonymity, after over two decades of constant harassment by Sokhumi authorities and various paramilitary gangs.



The neighbors advised giving up harvesting, but I decided to go ahead and, as a result, had to pay 450 lari (USD 173) for the laborers. But I didnt manage to sell enough. Only 1 or 2 out of 20 nuts are healthy, she said.



This year, the Georgian government has spent GEL 15 million (USD 5.87 million) to fight the bugs, but there are so far no tangible results in Gali. The National Food Agency claims that drugs against BMSB have been distributed in Gali, however the locals say they have received little of it.



The Georgian government vowed to assist, but in reality we have not received half of the drugs promised. We were told the Abkhaz [separatist authorities] keep it warehoused and did not distribute it to people. Perhaps they plan to sell it to earn money. Here everybody is looking to earn money. They should have distributed it by the end of summer, although it was not distributed and now its too late, a man from the village Nabakevi said.



All that have made lives of locals so hard they say that if it happens again next year, they may be forced to leave their homes and move across the river Enguri, to territory controlled by Georgian authorities, in order to make ends meet.



Here we live because we do not want to leave our homes. Those who work hard have always earned enough to survive. But in such circumstances, which is aggravated by the fact that its increasingly hard to cross the border, living here becomes unbearable and it urges us to leave our homes behind and seek employment in Georgian controlled territory, which is probably not so simple either, a man from the village of Tagiloni told DFWatch.



Most of the people in Gali make rely on hazelnut harvesting for their livelihood. We hope the situation will improve next year, otherwise we wont have any other way out, he said.



Over 80,000 people lived in the Gali district before the 1992-93 war, almost exclusively ethnic Georgians. Today, about one third of the population remains here and live mostly from agriculture. (dfwatch.net)







,b>Second round of mayoral elections to be held on November 12



The second round of mayoral elections will be held on November 12. The date has been announced by the Central Election Commission chairperson, Tamar Zhvania, at a Commission session.



The second round will be held in one self-governing city, Kutaisi, and five self-governing communities, namely Martvili, Borjomi, Ozurgeti, Khashuri and Kazbegi. None of the mayoral candidates managed to cross the 50% election barrier in these cities.



It is noteworthy that the United National Movement party has boycotted the second round, but according to the election legislation, the candidates of the UNM will still be present on ballot papers.



The self-government elections were held on October 21. (IPN)







Georgian Citizen Killed in Action in Ukraine



Georgian citizen Giorgi Saralidze, who participated in the ongoing war in the Donbass region on the Ukrainian side, was killed on October 31.



Giorgi Saralidze died in a battle against the Russian-backed forces near the Donetsk airport  a site of heavy fighting in 2014 and early 2015 that is still located on the front line.



According to the Ukrainian media, Saralidze joined the Ukrainian armed forces in 2014.



Saralidze was among the Georgian volunteers who joined the fight on the Ukrainian side since the war in the Donbass region started in the spring of 2014. The conflict is still continuing, frequently claiming casualties despite diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire. (civil.ge)




@alextdaugherty

Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo will receive the 2017 John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award, which honors Americans under the age of 40 who are changing their communities and the country with their commitment to public service.

The 37-year-old congressman will receive the award on Nov. 16 alongside May Boeve, the 33-year-old executive director of 350.org, a climate change advocacy group that organized the massive People's Climate March in 2014.

With his vision for a New Frontier, President Kennedy challenged young Americans to take on great challenges, solve complex problems and work for a better future said Jack Schlossberg, a member of the New Frontier Awards committee. May Boeve and Congressman Carlos Curbelo have each answered President Kennedys call to action in our time, taking on the greatest challenge facing the world today  climate change. They remind us that everyone, private citizens and elected officials alike, can make a difference.

The award's release said that Curbelo "earned a reputation for moderation and a willingness to work across party lines on difficult policy problems" and noted his leadership on the Climate Solutions Caucus, a body of 62 members evenly split between both parties that works to find policies that can address climate change. The caucus's Republicans banded together earlier this year to vote against a proposal that would have nixed a Defense Department report on the threats posed by climate change to military installations.

Past New Frontier award winners include New Jersey Democratic Sen. (and possible 2020 presidential candidate) Cory Booker and Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
@alextdaugherty

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Roy Moore should disqualify himself from running for an Alabama Senate seat if an on-the-record account by a woman who said that Moore had sexual contact with her when she was 14 is true.

The Washington Post reported that Moore had multiple relationships with underage women decades ago, including a relationship with a 14-year-old that began when the young girl's mother let Moore look after her outside a courthouse.

"Todays report in The Washington Post raises allegations against Mr. Moore that are deeply disturbing and, if true, disqualifying," Rubio said in a statement.

Moore, a fiery Republican former judge who has said that LGBT individuals are unfit to serve in Congress, is the Republican nominee for attorney general Jeff Sessions' former seat after winning a fierce GOP primary earlier this year. The election between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones is just over a month away, meaning Moore's name will still appear on the ballot even if the Alabama GOP revokes the party's endorsement.

Rubio never endorsed Moore after he won the Republican nomination, in contrast to some of his Senate Republican colleagues. His campaign had no plans to speak or raise money on Moore's behalf.

Disavowing Moore could lessen the GOP's advantage in the Senate, which currently stands at 52 Republicans and 48 senators who caucus with Democrats.

Many Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, called on Moore to step aside if the allegations are true.

Sen. John McCain did not include a qualification about proving truthfulness in his statement.

"The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying," McCain said. "He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of."

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said he could not comment on the sexual assault allegations against Moore because he hadn't read the story yet.
Sexual harassment complaints are now being accepted in the Florida Senate.

Senate President Joe Negron announced Thursday that a law firm has been chosen, a lead investigator has been named, and a phone number has been offered up to the unnamed accusers who for the last week have refrained from coming forward after alleging in Politico Florida that were victims of unwanted physical touching and inappropriate language by Sen. Jack Latvala.

Negron announced that Individuals may contact Gail Golman Holtzman, a principal in the Tampa office of Jackson Lewis P.C., who is handling the investigation, by calling her assistant, Nicole Villa, to schedule appointments beginning tomorrow at 813.512.3215.

"The Senate has zero tolerance for sexual harassment, sexual assault, or misconduct of any kind,'' Negron said in an email to senators. "I encourage anyone with any information regarding the anonymous allegations to contact Ms. Holtzman. Identifying information regarding anyone who has been the victim of sexual harassment will be held confidential as permitted by law."

Latvala's lawyer, Steve Andrews, said he was pleased the Senate "has chosen a reputable law firm" but he questioned whether witnesses, as well as complainants, would be held confidential.

"The promises to witnesses may be ephemeral because anybody who is a witness to a complaint may have to subject to cross examination, motive to lie, things like that,'' he said. "We have 14-15 sworn statements and I am going to encourage this law firm to interview these people who are on the record, under oath.''

Negron launch an investigation a day after the charges surfaced in the Politico Florida report alleging allegations from staff and lobbyists against Latvala. He assigned the task of finding someone to head the effort to Karen Chandler, coordinator of the Office of Legislative Services.

Chandler reviewed five law firms and selected Jackson Lewis, a national law firm that specializes in employment law and said Holtzman will serve as the lead attorney and primary contact in the investigation. The contract is expected to be finalized on Friday.

In a memo to Negron Thursday, Chandler left the impression that Holtzman will be in Tallahassee in person to conduct interviews. She said her investigation will begin Tuesday, Nov. 14, and "continue through the week and, if necessary through the weekend. If no appointments are scheduled for the weekend, she will depart Friday evening for Tampa and return to Tallahassee Sunday, November 19, and be available for additional appointments."

Chandler did not mention lobbyists but said that "Senate employees may contact Ms. Holtzman through her assistant, Nicole Villa, to schedule appointments beginning Friday." She said Holtzman "will be assisted by her associate, Matthew Klein; employees may request a preference for either person" and added that both will be "available for appointments outside of regular business hours."

In order for employees to feel comfortable participating in this process, supervisors should not require the use of any leave time nor should supervisors inquire as to the reason for an employees brief time out of the office.

In a Thursday memo to Negron, Chandler said OLS "sought initial guidance from law professors at state universities in identifying firms specializing in this field. Consideration was given to firms with sufficient and balanced resources to conduct an investigation of this nature in a time sensitive manner. Other criteria that were considered in order to ensure a fair and objective investigation were its independence from the Florida Legislature in regards to appropriation of state funds and governmental relations."

She said OLS also considered firms "that could accommodate the sensitive nature of the subject matter given that media reports stated that the victims were fearful of sharing their experiences."

Holtzman, who has more than 30 years experience practicing law, specializes in "federal and state labor and employment claims...including those alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation/whistleblower, wage/hour and breach of employment contract."

She is the immediate past chair of the ABA Labor and Employment Section. Jackson Lewis has more than 800 attorneys in major cities nationwide and focuses primarily on workplace law.

The Senate confirmed Thursday that it has received a sworn complaint from one individual alleging harassment, but has refused to name which senator it made the allegations against.
Pete Pettersen spent time Thursday morning role-playing a person returning to society after being incarcerated in prison.

His frustration at trying to get a job with a criminal record; obtain three forms of identification; pay for rent, food, restitution and transportation; attend parole hearings  and navigate the myriad other obstacles that recently returned citizens face with very little support  was evident.

That was one of the most stressful things Ive done in a long time, he said.

Pettersen was referring not to actually living as a recently freed prisoner, but to a re-entry simulation hosted by the Missoula Office of Probation and Parole, the Montana Department of Corrections and Partners for Reintegration, a coalition of agencies and individuals helping to fold returning citizens back into the fabric of society.

Along with two dozen other volunteers, Pettersen had to complete a long list of tasks within a certain period of time, or he ended up either in a homeless shelter or jail. By the end of the two-hour period, about half the participants ended up back in 'jail,' a corner of the room. Thats in line with Montanas recidivism rate for high-risk released prisoners. Statewide, the recidivism rate is about 34 percent.

The reality is, in this business, Ive seen a lot of people who want to just go back to jail, explained Katie Weston of the Montana Department of Corrections, one of the events organizers.

This is a training we put on for community members so that everyone can see the challenges that people returning to the community face," she said. "Ideally, what everybody should leave with is maybe the understanding that the expectations from the corrections staff and the community, everybody, might be a little high. We need to temper expectations.

Amy Chesebro, the program manager for the Missoula County Detention Facilitys jail diversion program, said the day is meant to show the public all the challenges associated with trying to build a life from scratch with so many obstacles and pressures.

You have to figure out what comes first, and thats one of the challenges, she said. You end up sort of on this rat race around town.

Participants are given, symbolically, very little cash or items to pawn for the event. They have to figure out how to make student loan payments, get food assistance and Social Security benefits, go to counseling and treatment and find shelter, clothing and food. All the different agencies are at different locations, so the day emphasized just how much Missoulas free bus system helps those without a lot of means. In a rural town, where one might have to pay to get to a city, it would be extraordinarily difficult.

Teresa Nygaard is the executive director of The Parenting Place in Missoula, a nonprofit organization that provides social work to those in prison and recently returned citizens to prevent child abuse and neglect. She and her staff took part in the days events, but Nygaard found herself in jail only halfway through the exercise.

It was the system, she said. I didnt have enough bus tickets and I didnt eat. Its a tough system. There are so many roadblocks to getting anywhere.

Nygaard, like many who took part, found it was easier to just sit down on the chairs in jail rather than argue with the staffers at the public assistance agencies about having the right forms of ID, or trying to pawn jewelry for enough cash to pay rent.

Its just easier in here, she said.

Nygaards sentiments go a long way towards explaining why 34 out of every 100 released prisoners in Montana end up back behind bars, costing taxpayers money, contributing to societal fractures and lost economic productivity.

Danielle Campbell, a social worker at The Parenting Place, also found herself in jail during the simulation event. She lost an ID, didnt eat for two weeks and couldnt pay for restitution and addiction treatment.

She said when shes giving classes to people at the Missoula Prerelease Center, she tries to tell them that they have to find time for self care so that they dont collapse under the stress of the situation.

But they always tell me they just dont have time for self care, Campbell said. Most of them have multiple jobs.

In fact, most of the participants found that the only way they avoided jail was by seeking help from the other ex-convicts, which meant asking for bus tickets or helping each other out. Weston spoke about the training exercise on Thursday, but her words easily translate to the experiences of returning citizens.

Its not easy, Weston said. People are always very surprised at how hard it was. Some people simply give up and go sit in the jail. Which is a reality. I think people are just surprised at how much theyre expected to do by Department of Corrections staff, by social services agencies. There needs to be better cooperation from all agencies to make it easier.

Weston said in some big cities, there are centralized headquarters for all the services. But in a place like Montana, the funding isnt available.

We need more community education, she said.
So many students at Willard Alternative High School came to apply for college Thursday morning that there were not enough computers, and students were sent to round up laptops.

This week, 143 Montana high schools have partnered with GEAR UP, a program from the Commissioner of Higher Education that allows seniors to apply to college in the state for free, waiving or deferring the application fees that can be a barrier for some students.

Thats up from the 84 schools in 2013 that offered time during the school day or at a dedicated after-school event to help students with applications. Last year, seniors at 139 schools submitted 3,811 applications.

Students of all socioeconomic backgrounds struggle to prioritize completion of college applications while balancing schoolwork, extracurricular activities, jobs and their social lives, GEAR UP Director Zach Hawkins said in a press statement. College Application Week helps by giving them time and support.

The commissioner's office coordinates with high schools, colleges, the Office of Public Instruction and others. Many schools throughout the region build upon the event with extra activities and presentations about education and career options after high school.

In Frenchtown, for instance, every teacher and staff member makes a poster to hang beside their door that says what college they attended. They're encouraged to spark conversations about their college experiences.

Students who can answer daily trivia questions about college are entered in drawings for prizes. Seniors are given flexibility to leave classes to complete applications or talk with career counselors. On Thursday, students and staff were asked to wear college gear or something that represents their future career path, counselor Beth Terzo said in an email.

This year we are broadening the focus of College Application Week to include any future planning  military, work, etc., she said. We are encouraging students to come in to complete job applications, work on resumes, and search for scholarships in addition to the college applications.

As one student turned on her laptop at Willard, she asked a question on the minds of many teens entering their final year of high school and considering college: I dont even know what I want to be. Should I be here?

Counselor Tri Pham encouraged students to consider their applications as giving them flexibility after graduation.

Theres nothing to be afraid of. Its super-easy, super-fast. Its a free application, he said. Its painless. Its there. Its an option.

Tyray Lavoie, 17, expects to take a year off to work after graduating next year so he can take the smallest student loan possible.

I want to be a coder, he said, adding that he was thankful for the chance to apply for free. Its really cool.

Career counselors from the University of Montana circled the room, helping some students apply to multiple campuses from Bitterroot College in Hamilton to Salish Kootenai College in Pablo.

Its probably a good idea for my future, said Francie Barber, 17, who graduates in June. Im going to work full time for a year, then Im going to SKC. Hopefully Ill get in to become a registered nurse.

Sylvianne Wright, 17, is unsure of exactly what shell do after graduating in June, but said her long-term goal is to become an architect who specializes in permaculture, designs that make it easier for residents to live sustainably.

Even if I end up not going to school in Montana, or not going for a year, its still a possibility, she said as she filled out an application to the University of Montana. If I get accepted now, I know its an option.
The project to set priorities at the University of Montana highlights a gap between UM President Sheila Stearns' stated commitment to transparency and the actual availability of information to the public.

Comments made by task force members also reveal the inclination of some UM officials and leaders  albeit not all  to shield information from the public.

Over the last few days, a UM task force made up of faculty, staff and students has taken votes on how to rank academic and administrative units at the university for future investment or disinvestment. UM produced reports that informed the votes, but the task force has made neither the reports nor the vote breakdowns available to the public.

Thursday at a news conference, President Stearns said those reports and vote counts will be available to anyone asking for the information. And one day earlier, Provost Beverly Edmond, who is leading the task force, also told the Missoulian her office would discuss the best way to provide the information.

Not everyone in Main Hall or on the task force was on board, though.

At the task force meeting Wednesday night, UM legal counsel Lucy France said if members of the public wanted to see the documents, they could file individual public information requests. That approach would subject reports easily accessible to students and faculty to an additional review process.

In an email Thursday, France responded to the Missoulian's question about why the public institution shouldn't make the information readily available to the wider public given its availability to people with UM IDs and passwords.

"It is not my place to make decisions for the task force. I was asked what was legal," France said in an email. "I answered that they could determine what and how they wanted to post information that was important to their process. Other information quite likely was public information and that we have a process for making public information requests and people could be directed through that process.

"I assured them that there was no legal requirement to make information instantaneously available."

Stearns said UM has probably never gone through such an extensive evaluation of both academic and administrative units. Initially, she said UM thought some information about the process should be proprietary, but it is figuring out a way to be transparent.

"Let us evolve. Let us evolve in the light of day, but let us evolve," Stearns said.

Some campus leaders have continued to push for openness. Also at the Wednesday meeting, task force member and faculty representative Paul Haber pressed for all materials to be posted online for public review.

Its a public institution. I think its the law actually. Thats called transparency, Haber said at the meeting.

But the lack of action by some UM officials to make information available to the public at times predates the prioritization process:

UM used to produce a "budget book" that outlined detailed financial information by department. It included faculty salaries. UM's operating budgets are available on the website of the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, but they do not include the same level of campus detail. Individual salaries no longer are readily available.

This summer, the Missoulian requested a list of faculty on the roster for the last school year and this school year, along with salaries. The Missoulian made the request because UM would not share the faculty members who accepted buyout offers, citing privacy. UM did provide the faculty lists from last year and this year. However, before doing so, Communications Director Paula Short alerted faculty to the "broad nature of the request," despite UM having routinely made faculty and salary information public in the past. Short also warned faculty: "You may be contacted regarding this public records request. Decisions about responding to inquiries are at your sole discretion."

Faculty members have long raised concerns about a lack of transparency from Main Hall.

UM sends public "news releases," but it broadcasts much information that is of public interest only to the "campus community," which it considers faculty, staff and students with UM email addresses. The Missoulian has repeatedly requested access to those broadcasts. Main Hall makes those communications available only at its discretion.

When UM first announced early retirement buyouts for faculty, the Missoulian asked UM how much money it aimed to save. A campus spokesperson said the amount was not known. The Missoulian followed up with the Commissioners Office the same day, and a spokesperson provided an estimate, roughly $4 million.

The priorities task force offers other examples of a disinclination to transparency.

The task force voted on how to rank programs, but it only started to announce the outcomes of votes after the Montana Kaimin, the student newspaper, forced the issue at a public meeting. UM legal counsel France initially told a Kaimin editor the votes would not be made public, although she reversed course at the same meeting.

The vote breakdowns are not yet available, although the president, provost, and deputy commissioner for communications Kevin McRae in the Commissioner's Office have said they will be made public.

***

When interim President Stearns took the helm at UM last December, she pledged the campus would be transparent to the public. Stearns has made herself available to media, and UM's human resources office and planning, budget and analysis office have responded to data requests from the Missoulian including complex ones in the current president's tenure and before.

UM has provided information about how general fund expenditures have been allocated by department.

UM has shared data about how enrollment has trended by program.

The Missoulian has received lists of faculty and compensation.

At the news conference Thursday, Stearns said she does consider taxpayers a part of the campus community, and she said internal and external communities play a role and have a voice at UM.

"We really need to live up to the value of transparency," Stearns said.

The president also said it's natural for different players to give "slightly divergent" responses about the priorities initiative, a process that is unrehearsed.

"Everyone is watching the production, the play, while you're still tripping on the dance steps," Stearns said.

UM is learning where to draw the line in the process between being open to the public and giving people on campus the freedom to candidly deliberate, she said. She also said the process will be repeated, and it also will be modified as UM continues to review its priorities.

Although UM is now planning to provide reports and vote breakdowns related to the priorities process, the campus doesn't always widely embrace transparency. At Wednesday night's meeting, task force member Scott Whittenburg was among those arguing against the release of information.

It has no value for people outside of the university community, said Whittenburg, vice president for research and creative scholarship.
Republicans in the Montana Legislature will walk into a special session next week with a new piece of leverage to avoid having to raise any taxes to make up for a $227 million hole in the state budget.

Friday morning Republicans announced they had enough signatures to expand the scope of a special session set to convene next week, opening it from a narrowly tailored call by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.

The wider agenda will include whats rapidly become a key piece of any deal for Republicans: accepting roughly $30 million from the company that runs a private prison in Shelby in exchange for extending the facility's contract, due to expire in 2019.

The expansion needs to be approved in the House and Senate, where Republicans hold the majority.

Since 1999, Montana has contracted with a company now called CoreCivic to run the prison in Shelby, which houses about 660 prisoners. Since the start of the contract, the state has paid $9.17 per prisoner per day into a fund that can be tapped at the end of the contract to go toward the cost of buying Crossroads Correctional Center from CoreCivic.

Democrats have criticized the approach as a sweetheart deal that would take advantage of the state when its vulnerable. They hold that criminal justice reforms passed in the last session will eventually reduce the number of beds the state needs to house prisoners, and private prisons are not the best place to rehabilitate offenders.

The Legislature does not have the ability to negotiate a new contract with CoreCivic or accept the money; that must be done through the governor's office.

But Republican Sen. Llew Jones, who is from Conrad and whose district includes Shelby, said lawmakers can choose to not take up any of the temporary tax increases, fund transfers or other ways to generate cash the governor had proposed be debated during the special session called for next week.

Montanas budget is unbalanced because revenue estimates adopted by lawmakers during the regular session, which ran from January to April, were far too high. That meant the state budget lawmakers drafted and passed assumed Montana would bring in much more in taxes than is now projected.

Revenues for the fiscal year that ended in June were $75 million lower than projected. Then came a historically expensive fire season, adding another $75 million to the tab.

When lower tax revenue from the current fiscal year is added in, Bullock's office says the governor must cut $227 million to bring the budget back into structural balance as required by law and set aside a mandated $143 million rainy day fund.

Instead of making up the full difference in cuts, Bullock proposed splitting the problem into thirds  $76 million from cuts he will make to state agencies, $75 million from temporary tax increases and $75 million from fund transfers and putting off payments to some state special revenue accounts such as a retirement program for judges that is over-funded.

Now that accepting $30 million from the company that runs the Shelby prison is on the table, Jones said Republicans can choose to not take up $30 million in Bullocks tax or other proposals, in effect forcing the governor to either accept the money from CoreCivic and extend their contract, or make further cuts to state agencies to make up the difference.

He can find the $30 million somewhere else or choose to get the $30 million from CoreCivic, Jones said.

In a Thursday-night call with women lawmakers to discuss the cuts, organized by the group Carol's List, House Minority Leader Jenny Eck, a Democrat from Helena, criticized any extension of the contract, saying, "I don't think it's right to take advantage of the state when we're in a crisis to get a sweetheart deal."

CoreCivic is "trying to take advantage of a budget crisis to basically bribe the state into taking our money back  and lock us into another 10-year contract. This corporation is trying to take advantage of the situation to basically force us to accept a contract that is probably not in our best interest and we wont have time to thoroughly vet," she said.

Sen. Mary McNally, D-Billings, said that I see this almost as blackmail. Theyre taking advantage of a difficult situation and I dont think its a good solution.

On the call, Rep. Marilyn Ryan, D-Missoula, called out Jones and Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, whose district extends to Shelby, without using their names.

The two moderate Republicans who we are going to have to work through to get this through this process are from the area where Shelby is. The two moderate Republicans, that is their district. They have a concern that  that contract continue.

Jones on Friday didnt shy away from Shelby being in his district.

Its absolutely in my district and I represent the folks that work there, just like I represent the ag folks in my district. I am their voice. I am their representative and I believe they serve the district well. They are good stewards of the community and I should speak their voice.

CoreCivic is the sixth-largest taxpayer in Toole County, with an annual tax bill of $444,000, according to the county treasurer.

Democratic Sen. Cynthia Wolken, of Missoula, said she doesn't want to see the state caught in a long-term contract right at the time it's trying to become more responsive to treating people who are incarcerated in the least-expensive setting, such as by providing treatment instead of jailing.

"We did a lot of modeling for the criminal justice reform bill package that shows we're on track, once policies are implemented, to bend the curve of our population growth."

Wolken, who led the criminal justice reform commission in the last interim, said things like a bill that will take low- and moderate-risk people out of jail while they await trial will relieve the need for beds at the state level by easing the burden locally.

A chemical and substance abuse treatment facility opening at the end of the year in Deer Lodge will offer 60 beds.

"The model in corrections right now is moving toward sorting prisoners by risk and need and treating people how they can best be treated and returned to communities if appropriate," Wolken said.

Republicans point out it's cheaper to house prisoners at Shelby  $82 per person per day versus $117.16 at the state prison in Deer Lodge in 2016, according to a Department of Corrections report.

Wolken, however, said that's not a fair comparison because the population in Deer Lodge has higher needs. That also means Deer Lodge is more heavily staffed.

"Shelby has the younger inmates that have less intense physical needs, and the Deer Lodge population has people that are sicker, have mental health needs, they have a geriatric treatment ability there. You cannot compare those accurately and say Shelby's a more efficient place."

Cook said the criticism of Shelby is a successful facility and criticism of the private prison model is misplaced.

These guys havent failed, Cook said. Its all hogwash. When you read that crap, ask yourself this: What other business is actually inspected by the competition? Cook is references inspections by the Department of Corrections, which also operates the state prison in Deer Lodge.

Cook said CoreCivic has tried to approach the governor's office over the last several years to discuss the contract but did not gain any traction. He compared the Legislature's possible actions next week to a corral the governor would work from.

I guess the best metaphor would be we have to build corral from which the only chute out of the corral is an extension of the contract, Cook said. Itll be old-school, brute-force political.  We need to make it so the best decision the governor could make would be to extend the prison contract.

He called criticism that the prison is in his district a very easy way to muddy the waters, saying hed support a deal even if it wasnt in his region.
A law enforcement official says a Montana man who spent almost two years as a fugitive after being indicted for illegal gun deals has been captured in Mexico and returned to the United States to face charges.

Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Rod Ostermiller said 37-year-old Eric Daniel Doyle of Kalispell was arraigned in federal court in Arizona on Thursday, following his capture a day earlier in the Mexican state of Sonora.

Ostermiller says Doyle was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2015.

He's accused of illegally exporting firearms, unlawful transfer of firearms to an out-of-state resident, dealing in firearms without a license and additional weapons charges.

It was unknown if the suspect has hired an attorney. Further details in the case were not immediately available.
The Montana Supreme Court Wednesday ruled the long-debated Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes water compact was constitutionally sound.

Negotiated over decades, the water compacts focus is to define the federally reserved water rights of the CSKT. In 2015, the Montana Legislature approved the compact, but that decision was legally challenged by the board that oversees irrigation on the Flathead Reservation.

In its lawsuit, the Flathead Joint Board of Control said the Legislatures decision to approve the compact was flawed because it granted new immunity from lawsuits and other damages to the state without the two-thirds vote thats required by the state constitution.

While a district court agreed in 2016 with the board that the Legislatures decision to grant a new immunity was unconstitutional without the two-thirds vote, it said that wasnt enough to require that the entire compact be scrapped.

The Board of Control appealed the district courts decision to the Montana Supreme Court.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the Montana Supreme Court found that the Legislature had not created any new immunity for the state or any other governmental entity and therefore the two-thirds vote did not apply.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Mike McGrath, the court reversed the district courts decision that suggested even a portion of the compact was unconstitutional.

Under the terms of the compact, the CSKT, state and federal government agreed the water rights of the CSKT would be settled though agreement rather than litigation. The compact seeks to secure to all residents of the Reservation, the quiet enjoyment of the use of waters of the Reservation and provide a unitary administration system for appropriation of water and water rights.

The compact wont go into effect until approved by the U.S. Congress and the Tribal Council.

CSKT spokesman Rob McDonald said the tribes were completely satisfied with the Montana Supreme Court decision.

This court ruling is a testament to the hard work of the parties in negotiating a fair and robust framework for water use on the Flathead Reservation and the State of Montana, McDonald said. We were very pleased that the court agreed with the majority of the Montana Legislature, the governor, the attorney general and CSKT leadership that the bipartisan water compact was indeed consistent with Montanas Constitution.

Not only did the court uphold the compact, it specifically recognized the expensive, protracted and uncertain litigation the compact avoids, McDonald said. Undoubtedly, the court recognized the significant concessions made by the tribes to achieve settlement. We look forward to working with Montana leaders, farmers, ranchers and other water users to obtain swift ratification by Congress.

A grassroots organization of farmers, ranchers and business people called Farmer and Ranchers of Montana that includes members in the Flathead basin also offered support for the decision.

The decision of the Montana Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of the compact speaks to the thorough and thoughtful construction of this critical agreement, said the groups spokesperson, Shelby DeMars. After more than a decade of negotiations, the resulting settlement will protect existing water rights, prevent years of costly litigation and invest in critical infrastructure in our state.

Demars said the decision respected the intent of the Legislature and ensured that Montanans, both on and off the reservation, will benefit from the compacts provisions.

Flathead Board of Control officials said they could not comment on the decision until the board has an opportunity to discuss the issue. The board meets Tuesday at its office in St. Ignatius. The court decision will be on the agenda.
If Democrat Sen. Jon Testers bipartisan bill gets through committee, Butte and area veterans might have less of a wait for a new veterans' home.

Tester and Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced legislation Thursday that would keep the Butte veterans' home proposal, languishing for nearly 10 years, from falling further behind on the Veterans Administration priority list.

Thats important, says state Sen. Jon Sesso, D-Butte. Because of the formula the VA uses to prioritize funding building projects, the proposed Southwest Montana Veterans Home has been leap-frogged on the priority list by other building projects for veterans in states with higher populations, like California.

Testers bill would end that. The only exception would be if another project is being proposed due to urgent safety concerns.

Mike Lawson, commander of the Southwest Montana United Veterans Council, said Tester's legislation is good news.

We have not gotten a fair shot, Lawson said Thursday.

Lawson and Sesso both point out that about 10 percent of Montanas population is comprised of military veterans. That breaks down to around 100,000 veterans.

But while Montana is only second in the nation with the highest number of veterans per capita, states with larger population densities trump Montana on the priority list.

There are over 23 million veterans spread all over, Sesso said.

Whats at stake is $10 million federal dollars to build a 60-bed facility on a 10-acre parcel near the Interstate 90 and Continental Drive interchange.

Don Harrington pledged the land before he died. But the lot, now held under a trust, has a 10-year sunset window.

The state has $5 million in the coffers waiting to be spent on the project. The effort got underway to build the estimated $15 million facility about seven years ago.

Lawson said an effort is in process to spend the states $5 million to build a two- or three-unit facility on the promised lot next spring.

Tester voted for an appropriations bill amendment this past summer that would have allotted the VA with the resources to immediately provide Montana with federal matching funds for the Southwest Montana Veterans Home.

That amendment failed on a party line vote.

"Montana is home to the second most veterans per capita than any state in the country, Tester said in a news release. Despite this urgent need, Butte continues to be unfairly passed over for a veterans home because of an arcane and outdated formula. Republicans and Democrats support my bill because it meets the need of rural veterans, provides a real solution for Butte, and upholds this countrys commitment to all who have served.

A second-term senator, Tester is up re-election in 2018.

Luke Jackson, a Tester spokesperson, said the bill now goes to committee. If it passes there, the House would have to draft and approve its own version before becoming law. Another option would be to attach the bill to larger legislation and it gets passed that way.

Either way, veterans like Lawson, who is also a commandant for the Marine Corps League Detachment 724, are aopeful that Tester's bill could bring change for Butte veterans.

"Its no surprise it's Tester the one leading the way; he's a wonderful veterans advocate," Lawson said.
Last week I had lunch with a friend who is a Vietnam combat veteran. Although we have known each other for several years, we had not talked at length about how our experiences there affected us.

I had joined the Navy as an alternative to being drafted and was witness to the secret war in Laos that in 1969 was denied by President Nixon and unknown to the American people. My friend had gone into the Army, idealistic that we were on the right side, and survived the experience both physically and mentally, but grew spiritually as he made a commitment to become a better person.

As we talked, he reflected on the challenges he long ago was told were for the greater good of America, and by extension the world, saying with an expansive upward glance, and we have come to this?

He was referring, of course, to the early propaganda peddled back then that intervention in Vietnam was for a just cause. In retrospect, our nations lengthy and extensive world conflict, AKA the War on Terror, makes the brutal Vietnam War seem somehow much smaller. We have indeed come a long way since Vietnam, and it has not been good for us, much less for our victims: victims of conflicts that have now destroyed five countries in the Middle East, most of which are poor and lack means to defend themselves.

As a freshman in college, I experienced the Cuban missile crisis not knowing which would be worse, a nuclear war or having to complete a major paper on time. We now know that this crisis was resolved by John F. Kennedys steady engagement with Nikita Khrushchev with a negotiated settlement  despite being prompted by everyone around him to use military force.

Fast forward to 2017, and it seems we have learned nothing. Donald Trump to the United Nations: "... we will totally destroy North Korea.

Mike Pence to the Minot, North Dakota, missile crew and later, by news, to the world:

We are entering a very dangerous time, and I have come here personally to tell you that you may receive a Launch Order in the near future. I want you to know that we have planned for all contingencies, but it is possible that things may escalate beyond what we believe will take place. If you receive a properly formatted launch order, you launch. Dont waste time trying to confirm the order, because it is not standard operating procedure for you to delay like that. If you get a launch order, carry it out.

Never mind that countless false starts during the Cold War could have led to nuclear annihilation, had cooler heads not prevailed on both sides. It is unsettling that President Trumps first instinct is to shout and hit, rather than listen. And we have come to this?

On this week of Veterans Day 2017, America is poised to create veterans of many more men and women who will take part in our wars; wars that Americans are largely responsible for, wars which rob us of our young people and our treasure, wars that make our target countries uninhabitable and impoverish their citizens, and wars that make us question who we are as a nation.

Please join me in honoring our veterans this week by resolving to help end these conflicts and elect leaders who will avoid future ones.

Please join Veterans for Peace together with the Women in Black to commemorate the World War I Armistice at 10:45 a.m. on Nov. 11 at the Vietnam War Memorial in Missoulas Rose Park.
One of health cares most corrosive myths is that nothing can be done about exorbitant costs. But there are alternatives, if they can make their way into the marketplace.

The health care policy arena has become a tug-of-war between ideologues and special interests, and offers few solutions. So far, neither group appears interested in addressing the deep overtreatment and pricing issues that drive the cost crisis.

With influence bought by the health care lobby, the health care marketplace is also largely controlled by large corporations  insurance companies, hospital systems, drug and device companies. These groups have devised mechanisms to make health care cost as much as possible, producing good-to-mediocre health outcomes at double the price paid in other industrialized countries. From this perspective, Americans now receive the lowest health care value in the world. Health cares unrelenting, breathtaking cost has become the biggest threat to our national economic stability.

There are ways to effectively manage care and cost, especially in the market. Decades of fee-for-service reimbursement, which pays for services independent of results, have so bloated nearly every part of our system that health cares excesses are bubbles waiting to burst. Theres reason to believe that this change is about to happen.

In many high cost niches of health care, there are innovative, evidence-driven companies that have rethought health care problems and developed entirely different solutions than conventional care. These firms deliver far better health outcomes at dramatically lower cost.

Consider, for example, a Florida-based musculoskeletal (MSK) management firm that now has Fortune 500 clients. Its processes allow its clinicians to intervene on 80 percent of MSK cases. After 100,000 patient encounters, independently reviewed data clearly show better pain reduction, range of motion and activities of daily living, in half the recovery time and half the cost of conventional orthopedics. Theyre so confident about their capabilities that theyll financially guarantee a 25 percent reduction in MSK costs. MSK disorders represent 20-25 percent of group health costs and 60 percent of occupational health costs, so a company that moves to this approach will see its total health care spend drop by 5-13 percent, an enormous sum.

We have found similar impacts available in management of cardiometabolic conditions, cancer, dialysis, imaging, drugs, claims reviews and many other areas.

Not surprisingly, most insurance companies havent been receptive to these approaches. In general, health plans make a percentage of total health care spend and so want it to be higher. Mechanisms that disrupt the status quo and drive down cost arent necessarily in their interests.

These programs are becoming readily available around the country. Larger employers  those with 100 or more employees  can choose programs that are most likely to fit their businesses, and watch their costs plummet. Soon, new health plans will emerge, bringing together these management modules under a single umbrella, and offering health plans with better results at lower cost.

This is coming. As it does, everything in American health care will begin to improve.

I am so excited to speak at the 2017 HealthCare Forum Conference on Nov. 16 at the Best Western Premier Helena Great Northern Hotel, hosted by the Montana Chamber of Commerce. I will give a keynote address at 2:45 p.m. called Speak Up! How Utilization Matters. There are other panels and speakers, including state legislators and Montana Insurance Commissioner Matt Rosendale.

To register, visit wwww.montanachamber.com/events/montana-healthcare-forum. I hope to see you in Helena!
Congratulatory huckleberries to the winners of the Nov. 7 municipal elections, and extra helpings of consolatory huckleberries to those whose campaigns were unsuccessful. Its not easy to run for election, especially in a local contest where candidates often have personal ties with the people whose votes they are trying to earn. That is, however, exactly what makes our local government races so important: the people we elect to these positions live with the results of their daily decisions, hear directly from their neighbors, and offer Missoulians their strongest opportunity to influence government. Judging by the number of votes collected by nearly every candidate and the relatively close margins in some contested races, the majority of candidates this year ran tough, serious campaigns that presented voters with clear options. They all deserve a round of applause.

A smattering of chokecherries to Missoulas low voter turnout. Local candidates did their part to try to get out the vote, but turnout for the mail ballot election was a dismal 43 percent. This was about on par with previous municipal elections, meaning that less than half of the 51,000 registered voters who could have voted in this weeks election actually bothered to exercise their right to do so. Thats an especially poor showing given the convenience of mail balloting  and in comparison to places like Yellowstone County, for example, where voter turnout topped 53 percent. Missoula can and should do better.

Two handfuls of huckleberries to Missoulas City-County Relationship Violence Services: one handful for the important work they do with survivors of sexual and domestic violence, and another for earning a $450,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The three-year grant, announced this week, will allow RVS to continue its critical partnerships with the First Step Resource Center at St. Patrick Hospital, the Missoula Police Department and the YWCA on education, prevention and direct support for local victims of violence. According to the latest annual report from the Missoula County Attorneys Office, more than 60 percent of the 175 violent crime cases processed through that office last year were felonies committed against a child, family member or domestic partner.

Chokecherry ashes to the fire that burned down the last lumber mill in Libby this past Sunday. The fire was reported in the early afternoon and gave 24 volunteer firefighters a battle for some 18 hours, but ultimately destroyed two main buildings. It was a heavy blow for SK Fingerjoint Inc. and its employees, and the loss of the last vestige of a once-thriving timber economy is being mourned throughout the entire Libby community.

Huckleberry steak sauce to U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, for paving the way for a $300 million deal between Chinese buyers and Montana ranchers. Daines arranged a meeting with Chinese officials in early September, and by mid-October Chinese eCommerce company JD.com had signed a deal with the Montana Stockgrowers Association for Montana ranchers to supply $200 million worth of beef; another $100 million will go to fund the construction of a new slaughterhouse, with a groundbreaking expected next spring once a location is determined. The agreement, announced this week, will last through 2020 and hopefully lead to even more international demand for Montana-sourced products.
Not guilty plea entered on felony stalking

A man who has been arrested several times for violating a restraining order pleaded not guilty Thursday to a felony stalking charge.

Benny Phillip Sandoval, 38, was returned to the county jail after entering his plea before District Judge Brad Newman. The judge set a Nov. 21 hearing to determine if the current $5,000 bond should be reduced.

Prosecutors say Sandoval sent numerous text messages to a woman and her mother from Aug. 1 to Oct. 12 threatening to harm them both. They also received messages that others had forwarded to them.

One said, in part, I am OK with it but I am gonna end up hurting her physically , according to the charging document.

Felony stalking in Montana carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and $50,000 fine.

STRANGULATION CHARGE

A 19-year-old man accused of grabbing a teen-age girl by the throat pleaded not guilty to a felony count of strangulation of a partner or family member and two other charges.

Tyler John Ossello also pleaded not guilty to felony burglary and misdemeanor partner or family member assault. He remains free on bond with his next hearing set Dec. 14.

Prosecutors say Ossello had been drinking and was in a vehicle with the teen girl on Aug. 23 when he accused her of snap chatting with another male. They had previously dated.

He grabbed her by the throat, two others in the car yelled at him to stop but the girl said her oxygen had been cut off for a while, prosecutors say.

Several days later, Ossello allegedly forced his way into a residence and tried to pick the lock to a bathroom door to get to the girl. A friend showed up and called police, according to the charges.

The strangulation charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and $50,000 fine, the burglary charge a possible 10 years and $50,000 fine. The misdemeanor charge is punishable by up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine.
Premier Industries proposed slag processing plant in Anaconda is expected to generate locally an annual tax revenue of $225 million, project spokesperson Rick Tabish told residents at a meeting Wednesday night.

But the audiences excitement for the project was mixed with caution, as some came armed with hard questions  and they were anxious for answers.

Since news of the facility broke in January 2016, Tabish, general contractor and public face for the project, has said that the facility should bring around 700 jobs to the town, population 9,000. The facility will turn Anaconda slag into a material used for fracking oil and natural gas.

The potential of a large-scale facility means a lot to the people of Anaconda, who for decades have wanted to see jobs return to a community that was once supported by a robust smelting-based economy.

Tabish told The Montana Standard in mid-October that he has a goal of opening the facility around April or March next year.

Bob Kelly, consultant and company spokesperson for Premier, has said previously that the facility will open with one or two furnaces, supporting a workforce of about 60. At full capacity, plans for the facility call for 60 furnaces supported by a workforce of 700, including safety personnel, truck drivers, furnace operators, management, and other positions, though a timeline for a fully functioning facility hasnt been set.

Considering this, its no surprise that residents came to Wednesday nights meeting wanting to know about jobs.

One person asked where Premier plans to acquire its workers.

This is awesome, the woman said. But one of the things Ive heard around town is that youre bringing in other people (and that) youre going to have company housing. Where are we going to get these employees? Are we assured that its going to be Anaconda, or are we bringing them up from other places?

Tabish assured the audience that Anaconda would be at the top of the list when it comes to recruiting employees. He said that Premier plans to hold career fairs and has been working with the Anaconda Job Service, which closed in September due to cuts in federal funding.

The buck starts in Anaconda, said Tabish, echoing an earlier statement he made last week during a tour of Premiers new pilot testing site in Butte. At that time, The Standard asked whether a general contractor would be hired to operate and staff the facility. Tabish said Premier would not be outsourcing operations to a contractor.

I made the pledge to Anaconda and I reinforced it numerous times, Tabish continued Wednesday. Were really, really pro-Anaconda for employees.

Premier, meanwhile, has already collected resumes from at least some Anaconda residents.

A July article in Anacondas local newspaper  which reported that Tabish and his company FX Solutions Inc. had begun site preparation on the facility  concluded with a call for resumes.

One resident who submitted a resume wanted to know when he would hear back.

I have kept everybodys resumes. Ive kept everybodys applications, said Victoria Buckendorf, controller at FX Solutions. We will have a job fair. You guys will be contacted and youll be the first people that we interview.

Residents also said they hoped the slag-processing facility would keep more young people in Anaconda, and others expressed support for the project.

I just want to say thank you for your enthusiasm about Anaconda, said one woman. Several attendees clapped.

But the room had its critics.

Residents who live along Mill Creek Highway said they were concerned about traffic and noise, while others asked questions about Premiers prospects for success. They wanted to know if the company has acquired any buyers and if it had contracts to supply them proppant.

Tabish said Premier at this juncture would not disclose potential buyers, citing company privacy. However, he added were not doing this for an exercise. We feel weve got a superior product that, as fast as we can make it, it will sell.

The quality of Premiers proppant is a message that Tabish has iterated before.

Last week, he said the he feels Premiers proppant is the best in the world, that it can withstand an optimal amount of pressure and has less friction and better flow, a quality that the industry calls conductivity.

Those qualities, he said, are backed up by Montana Tech researchers, who Premier has partnered with to test product quality and come with a formula for turning a piles of slag into proppant and pig iron. The pig iron alone, Tabish said by phone Thursday, would be enough to make the company profitable.

But according to one expert in the petroleum industry, the market for proppant is lukewarm at best.

Alan Olson, executive director of Montana Petroleum Association, said that the success of manufacturing and selling proppant in the oil industry boils down to what is the cost.

He said if oil was selling for $80 to $90 a barrel, then oil companies would start looking at it.

But, oil is hovering around $50 to $54 a barrel.

Olson anticipates oil prices to rise to $60 to $65 a barrel within the next few years.

Historically, frack sand is strip-mined and is easily accessible, he said. With fracking activity down, the cost of frack sand is cheap, he said.

Fracking jobs that used to cost $1.5 million during boom times, now cost around $600,000 to $700,000.

If theyve got a good product, theres most likely going to be a niche for it, Olson said. But its a tough market to get into.

Premiers proppant is premium, and will likely cost more than the cheaper frack sand version.

Tabish didnt seem phased by Olsons take on the industry. He reiterated his message: quality is what will sell the product.

Premier can sell its product for between $250 to $350 per ton during depressed markets, Tabish said, and the quality of Premiers proppant can get fracking companies better yields and more longevity out of their wells before having to re-frack them.

Conductivity is everything in this business, he said. And thats the sale right there.

-- Reporter Susan Dunlap contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON  Oh, Wilbur.

President Trump's billionaire commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, has a big problem: He is apparently not a billionaire.

Forbes magazine, keeper of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, reports that it dropped Ross from its list this year because of a "phantom $2 billion" that Ross claimed he had but apparently does not exist. Instead of the $3.7 billion Ross claimed he was worth (Forbes last year put it at $2.9 billion), his financial disclosures showed  gasp  less than $700 million in assets.

Most Americans, upon being told they were worth "only" $700 million, would say: Please don't throw me into that briar patch! But Ross was disgraced, and mad. He claimed to Forbes that he transferred $2 billion into trusts for his children and others but offered no proof, and this claim was contradicted by his own staff.

Forbes performed some forensics and concluded that Ross has been lying for years about his wealth. As for the missing $2 billion, Forbes reports:

"Forbes is confident it has found the answer: That money never existed. It seems clear that Ross lied to us, the latest in an apparent sequence of fibs, exaggerations, omissions, fabrications and whoppers that have been going on with Forbes since 2004. In addition to just padding his ego, Ross' machinations helped bolster his standing in a way that translated into business opportunities. And based on our interviews with 10 former employees at Ross' private equity firm, WL Ross & Co., who all confirmed parts of the same story line, his penchant for misleading extended to colleagues and investors, resulting in millions of dollars in fines, tens of millions refunded to backers and numerous lawsuits."

It was a beautiful business model: If he appeared to be richer than he was, more rich people gave him their money to invest. Rich people like rich people. But now, at a paltry $700 million, he's a nobody.

I empathize with Ross. Each year I tell People magazine that I should be featured in its Sexiest Man Alive issue. I explain that my biceps and pecs are much larger than they appear because I have transferred several inches into a trust for my children. But I never make the cover.

Ross has a problem I do not have, however. He is in Trump's Cabinet because he is a putative billionaire, and Trump respects only billionaires and generals. He fired Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price for hiring private jets on the taxpayer's dime, but there was suspicion that the real cause for his dismissal was his inability to afford his own private jet. He sacked Anthony Scaramucci after a profanity-laced tirade, but perhaps the real reason is he learned the Mooch was worth only about $50 million.

It probably won't help that news of Ross' missing $2 billion comes just after the discovery from leaked documents that he invested some of the precious millions he does have in a venture with people very close to Vladimir Putin.

Forbes' Dan Alexander reports that Ross has been conniving for 13 years to inflate his wealth in the Forbes tally, which was based on an error  counting all of his investors' money as his own. The listing reportedly serves as an attractant to Ross' third wife.

Starting to sound a bit familiar? Well, consider that Ross' former colleagues also told Forbes that Ross bends the truth. Yes, he has much in common with a certain orange person who Forbes dropped 92 spots on the Forbes 400 last month. Trump, at $3.1 billion, insists he is worth more but refuses to prove it.

The two truth-challenged men have been pals since at least 1990, when they worked out a deal for Trump's Taj Mahal casino, which was "careening toward bankruptcy," Forbes reports. Surely these two men, both skilled in illusion and deception, can together come up with a better explanation for what happened to Ross' $2 billion.

He bought 2 billion rolls of very good paper towels for Puerto Rico?

He used it to hire tutors for Donald Trump Jr.?

He paid for Omarosa Manigault's bridal party at the White House?

He donated it to all the veterans charities Trump promised to support?

He spent it at the bar at the Trump International in Washington?

Heck, Ross would even be better off claiming he lost all $2 billion on a failed business deal with Putin.

In Trump world, it is better to have been a billionaire and lost than never to have been a billionaire at all.
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MUSCATINE  The Muscatine Center for Social Action will offer free wellness screenings and advice Saturday.

For Scott Dahlke, a program director at the Center, wellness pop-ups like this remind people of the importance of healthcare.

"People don't always think about their health first," Dahlke said. "Especially the people that we serve here. They are worried about other things. Staying at work. Getting a paycheck. Those kinds of things. Where the body goes, the mind goes. Where mind goes, the body goes. So you've got to take care of it all."

In hopes of taking care of more, the Center will be offering a number of services to attendees. Professionals will be available on site to offer dental, vision, mental health, developmental (children years old and younger) screenings and checks on blood sugar and pressure checks. There will also be information regarding nutrition, health insurance, substance abuse and housing assistance programs.

"These folks may not get any health care whatsoever if we did not offer it," said Bonnie Nichols, another program director in charge of the event. "We're trying to reduce barriers for this coverage. It's on a Saturday, so hopefully people aren't working. And it's free."

Dahlke explained that this wellness fair should stand in contrast to some of the ones he's been to.

"Most of these health fairs that you go to, you are just getting brochures and swag," Dahlke said. "Although we'll have that stuff too, we'll also have professionals here to take care of things, to address things."

Both Dahlke and Nichols emphasized the importance of having a health professional at the fair.

"You can get access to things like blood pressure checks with the cuffs in the pharmacy," Dahlke said. "But to have a professional there, educating them on exactly what causes high blood pressure. To have someone right there that can connect patients to a primary care doctor, I think that is kind of unique."

"For those folks that don't have a primary care doctor, they will have access to health professionals here," Nichols said. "And they are going to try to connect them with health resources they need."

"Part of our mission is to provide basic healthcare," Nichols said. "Downstairs, we have our dental clinic, we have our vision clinic and so this is helping fulfill that mission."

Dahlke said this is a win for the City of Muscatine.

"Why not take advantage of a free health service?" Dahlke said. "We are trying to make the community healthier. We don't have the best health outcomes in Muscatine. Why not take a stab at it."

Patients are invited to come by for screening and advice on Saturday, November 11, between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at MCSA, 312 Iowa Ave, Muscatine, IA.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Americans seeking to visit Cuba must navigate a complicated maze of travel, commerce and financial restrictions unveiled Wednesday by the Trump administration, part of a new policy to further isolate the island's communist government.

Now off-limits to U.S. citizens are dozens of Cuban hotels, shops, tour companies and other businesses included on a lengthy American blacklist of entities that have links to Cuba's military, intelligence or security services. And most Americans will once again be required to travel as part of heavily regulated, organized tour groups run by U.S. companies, rather than voyaging to Cuba on their own.

The stricter rules mark a return to the tougher U.S. stance toward Cuba that existed before former President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro restored diplomatic relations in 2015. They come as President Donald Trump tries to show he's taking action to prevent U.S. dollars from helping prop up the Cuban government.

"These measures confirm there is a serious reversal in bilateral relations which has occurred as a result of the decisions taken by the government of President Donald Trump," said Josefina Vidal, the top Cuban diplomat for North America.

Still, the policy is only a partial rollback of Obama's changes. Cruise ship visits and direct commercial flights between the countries will still be permitted. Embassies in Washington and Havana stay open.

The rules are designed to steer U.S. economic activity away from Cuba's military, intelligence and security services, which dominate much of the economy through state-controlled corporations. The goal is to encourage financial support for Cuba's growing private sector, said senior Trump administration officials, who briefed reporters on a conference call on condition they not be quoted by name.

To that end, the Treasury Department said it is expanding and simplifying a license that allows some U.S. exports to Cuba despite the embargo. They include tools and equipment to build or renovate privately owned buildings.

"We have strengthened our Cuba policies to channel economic activity away from the Cuban military and to encourage the government to move toward greater political and economic freedom for the Cuban people," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

Trump announced his new policy in June during a speech in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, the cradle of Cuban-American resistance to Castro's government. The administration took several months to finalize the details of the new rules, which will take effect Thursday.

The new policy maintains several categories of travel to Cuba that are permitted despite the embargo, which carries on decades after the Cold War's end. Americans can still travel on educational and "people to people" trips as well as visits designed to support the Cuban people by patronizing privately owned small businesses that have popped up across the island in recent years.

But those traveling to support Cuba's people must have a daylong schedule of activities designed to expose them to Cubans and steer dollars toward citizens, such as renting rooms in private homes. Those on organized, "people to people" or educational visits must be accompanied by a representative of the U.S.-based group organizing the trip.

Vidal, the Cuban diplomat who was the public face of Cuba's opening with the United States during the Obama administration, said the policy would harm Cuba's economy, American citizens and U.S. businesses. The rules were also quickly denounced by travel groups and proponents of closer U.S. ties to the island.

"Cuba is still open for business," said Charel van Dam of the Cuba Travel Network. "It is still possible for people to travel, but I think these announcements will serve mainly as something to scare off people who want to visit."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a vocal advocate of improved U.S.-Cuban relations, noted the announcement came as Trump was in China pushing more U.S. business engagement with another communist-run country. "The hypocrisy of the White House ideologues is glaring," Leahy said.

The rules come amid deep strains in the U.S.-Cuba relationship stemming from invisible, unexplained attacks that have harmed more than two dozen U.S. government personnel in Havana since 2016. The attacks led the Trump administration to order most of its diplomats to leave Cuba in September and issue a sweeping travel warning urging Americans to stay away.

Officials insisted that the new, tougher rules had no connection to the attacks. The U.S. first complained to Cuba's government about the attacks in February, four months before Trump announced his broader policy intentions.

Some exceptions will accommodate Americans who already plan to visit Cuba. Those who booked "people to people" trips before Trump's June announcement will be exempt, along with Americans who organized education trips before the rules start on Thursday. Business deals already reached with entities on the prohibited list will be allowed to proceed.

It's unclear how aggressively the U.S. will police the new rules. Officials said they would use information obtained from several U.S. agencies to catch violators, who could be subject to penalties and criminal prosecution.

The blacklist bars business with the large military-run corporations that dominate the Cuban economy. These include GAESA and CIMEX, holding companies that control most retail business on the island; Gaviota, the largest tourism company; and Habaguanex, which runs Old Havana.

It also targets a new cargo port and special trade zone outside the city of Mariel that has been the focus of Cuba's efforts to draw foreign investment in manufacturing and distribution.

Blacklisted hotels include the Manzana Kempinski, which opened with great fanfare this year as Cuba's first to meet the international five-star standard.

The overall impact on American business with Cuba will likely be limited. Trade is sparse. Many American travelers already stay at hotels not on the no-go list, and the company that imports most American food products to Cuba is similarly unaffected.

Bringing home limited quantities of rum and Cuban cigars is still allowed, officials said.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Weissenstein in Havana contributed to this report.

___
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
Collaboration on education between China and Africa helps improve Africa's development and should be further enhanced, experts from both sides said during a Sino-African development cooperation session of the Beijing Forum 2017.

Scholars from China, the United States, Europe and Africa gathered in Beijing over the past weekend to discuss the emerging trend in Sino-African development cooperation. It's the African-themed part of the Beijing Forum 2017, the 14th of this international academic event co-sponsored by Peking University, the Beijing Commission of Education and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.

Nahzeem Oluwafemi Mimiko, professor of political science at the Nigerian University of Obafemi Awolowo, said the general framework of Sino-African collaboration revolves around reducing the acute infrastructure deficit on the continent, implying that further prioritization of higher education is called for, based on his study "Dimensions of Sino-African Cooperation in Higher Education and Its Impact on National Development".

"China's framework for effecting collaboration among government, university and industry provides an adaptable template for Nigeria in its sustained efforts at reforming its universities and establishing an orientation for innovation and entrepreneurship," said Mimiko.

He called for more educational cooperation between China and Africa, especially nonstate, person-to-person contacts and engagements, which he said "ordinarily constitute the main arena for exchange of the finer elements of culture".

President Xi Jinping announced in December 2015 in Johannesburg, South Africa, that China would roll out 10 major plans to boost cooperation with Africa between 2016 and 2018, with education and human resources development as a priority.

According to the China-Africa Cooperation Johannesburg Action Plan (2016-18), China will establish a number of regional vocational education centers and several capacity-building colleges for Africa, train 200,000 technicians for African countries and provide the continent with 40,000 training opportunities in China.

Meanwhile, China will offer African students 2,000 education opportunities with degrees or diplomas and 30,000 government scholarships, and each year it will invite 200 African scholars to visit China and 500 young Africans to study there, while also training 1,000 media professionals.

The plans have been in action. Top universities in China, including Peking University, Beijing Foreign Studies University and Renmin University of China have opened special classes for African students and scholars, offering full scholarships and organizing suitable courses.

As one of the projects open to Africans in China, the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development opened at Peking University in April last year. It provides degree education and nondegree executive training programs for midlevel to senior officials, as well as managers and researchers from government, academia, the media, NGOs and other organizations in developing countries.
Central Valley announced the appointment of William Robertson as chief financial officer (CFO).

Robertson succeeds David Templeton, who had previously announced his intent to retire after a seven-year career with the company.

Prior to joining Central Valley, Robertson held other executive positions, including CFO and treasurer of Orchard Supply Hardware.

"We are thrilled to welcome Bill Robertson to Central Valley," said Steve Patterson, president and CEO of Central Valley.

I am very excited to be joining Central Valley at such an important time in the companys history, said Robertson.

Robertson holds an MBA from the University of Southern Californias Marshall School of Business and an undergraduate degree in accounting from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona.
AMERICAN CANYON COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Worship at 10 a.m. Programs for children and youth during worship service. 2 Andrew Road, American Canyon.

ARBOR ALLIANCE:

Join us Sundays at 5 p.m. Why 5 p.m. worship? It is a good time for busy people and young families. Kids church and nursery available. 721 Trancas St., Napa. thearborchurch.org; 530-304-4704.

BEIT ABBA:

Messianic Jewish ministry of The Fathers House is held the first and third Friday of each month at 7 p.m. Child care provided for ages infant to 7 years old. 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. tfh.org/beitabba.

CARMELITE MONASTERY:

Mass times: Sunday, 9 a.m.; Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. (except for the first Saturday of the month, Mass will be at 11 a.m.). Morning of recollection every first Saturday of the month: Spiritual Talk, 9-10 a.m.; Confessions, 10-11 a.m.; Mass, 11 a.m. Bible study, on Tuesdays with Father Michael Buckley: Tuesdays, 8:30-9:30 a.m. following the 8 a.m. Mass (contact the office to confirm time and day at 944-2454, ext. 103). Confessions-English: Monday, Wednesday, Friday; 10 a.m.-noon, 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. Confessions-Spanish: Wednesday, 10 a.m.-noon, 3-5 p.m., 8-9 p.m. 944-2454; oakvillecarmelites.org.

CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING:

Services are 9 and 10:30 a.m. with Youth Program at 10:30 and Teen Group at 10. Rev. Jay Langs topic will be Walking a Path of Light. Please bring donations of small toiletries and snacks to go in bags teens are assembling for the homeless. Wednesdays, Open Meditation, 6:307 p.m. Nov. 10, Spiritual Cinema Night will feature Visions of a Humanity Ascending, a powerful message of hope from Barbara Marx Hubbard. Nov. 11, Mens Spirit Group 10 a.m. Nov. 18, Aging to Sage-ing Workshop 10 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. 1249 Coombs, 252-4847.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH:

Sunday service and Sunday school for youths up to age 20 at 10 a.m. The Wednesday evening service is at 7:30. Child care provided at all services. New hours for the Reading Room, located in our church building, open to the public weekdays except Wednesdays, 1-4 p.m. All current Christian Science literature, including the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the renowned Christian Science Monitor, are available to all to read or purchase; 2210 Second St., Napa; 255-5255; christiansciencenapa.com.

CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, NAPA  SECOND WARD:

Sacrament meeting is each Sunday at 10 a.m., followed by Sunday School at 11:15 and Priesthood and Relief Society at 12:10 p.m. Young mens and young womens programs are on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. Corner of Trower Avenue and Dry Creek Road, Napa. 224-6496.

COMMUNITY CHURCH OF LAKE BERRYESSA:

We are a non-denominational Christian church welcoming all to enjoy the eternal life changing power of Jesus Christ. A weekly food distribution and AA group is available. 6008 Steele Canyon Road at Moskowite Corners. 252-4488.

CONGREGATION BETH SHALOM:

Services on Friday, Nov. 10 will be led by Rabbi Niles Goldstein. Pre-Oneg at 5:45 p.m. will be followed by Shabbat Services. Nov. 12 from 12:30 to 2 p.m., Teens, come join a Rap with the Rabbi interaction. Pizza (of course) will be served. Monday, Nov. 13, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., Soul Sisters will review The Girl with the Blue Coat. Thursday, Nov. 16, 3-5 p.m., Anne Evans Literature Class. 1455 Elm Street cbsnapa.org. 253-7305.

CORNERSTONE MINISTRIES:

Sunday service is at 10:15 a.m. Spanish Church begins at 1:30 p.m. Sunday school and childcare are available at both services. Our midweek service is at 6:30 on Wednesday nights. There is childcare and childrens activities at this service. Middle school and high school study meets on Wednesday nights as well at 6:30 p.m. in the Youth Room. On Thursdays at 6:30 p.m., Freedom From Bondage meets in our Youth Room. 3305 Linda Vista Ave., Napa; 252-2909. cmnv.org.

COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH:

This week, we remain thankful for the blessings we hold as the Rev. Lynda Hyland Burris and Liturgist, Don MacInnes, examine Matthew 23:1-12. We remember through this text that we have but one Instructor. Rev. Burriss sermon is titled Get Ready! and the joyful Covenant Choir, led by Director, Mark Teeters, will sing, Feed My Lambs. Services at 10:30 a.m. Located at 1226 Salvador Avenue in north Napa where the fog rolls in low, there is plenty of parking, Sunday school for ages K-8, and hot coffee in the Fellowship Hall after every service. cpcnapa.org, facebook.com/cpnapa.

CREEKSIDE COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Weekly worship service is Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Services and attire are casual with a blend of fellowship, music and teaching. Child care and childrens church offered during service. 1050 Hagen Road, Napa. CreeksideChurchNapa.org; 255-7266.

CROSSWALK COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Join us for Sunday worship services at 9 a.m. (worship only, no music) or at 10 (worship and music). Childrens programs are available during the 10 service. Petes Bible Study is on Wednesday at 11 a.m., an opportunity to meet with Pastor Pete and discuss the teaching from Sunday. All invited to our Annual Thanksgiving Feast and Fundraiser at 6 p.m. RSVP at 226-1812, 2590 First Street, Napa. Crosswalks Mission Statement is to usher people into a growing, life-enhancing, world-improving relationship with God.

FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH:

Well study a different theme each Sunday. This Sunday, learn the importance of Christ Alone. Sunday services are at 8:45 and 10:30 a.m. 2659 First St., Napa. fccnapa.org.

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH:

Pastor Davids sermon will be Have You Forgotten Something? We will have a scripture reference of Luke 17:11-19. Our services begin at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. We sing hymns at the 9 service and at 10:30 we have praise music led by Florida Stringer. Fellowship times, with coffee and treats, are after worship at 10 and 11:30 a.m. Childcare for newborn to age 5 is available. Sunday School: Friendship Class, will meet at 10 a.m.; Childrens Class and Adults Class both meet at 10:30. 1333 Third St., 224-8693, fpcnapa.org.

GRACE CHURCH OF NAPA VALLEY:

Sunday services: Worship service at 9 a.m. and 10:40 a.m. Adult Sunday school classes at 9 a.m. Childrens service at 9 and 10:40 a.m. Nursery and preschool care available. Junior high ministry meets Tuesday, 7 p.m.; high school meets Wednesday at 7 p.m. at 3765 Solano Ave., Napa. 255-4033, GraceNapa.org.

HIGHLANDS CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP:

If youre a regular church attendee, never been or maybe its just been awhile, we invite you to come join us this Sunday and start the adventure with us at 10:30 a.m. Spanish speaking service on Sunday evenings at 6:30 and an Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets weekly on Monday and Wednesdays from 6-7 p.m. 970 Petrified Forest Road, Calistoga.

HILLSIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH:

We meet at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. at 100 Anderson Road, Napa. 255-3036; hccnapa.com.

HOLY FAMILY PARISH:

Holy Mass is celebrated at 9 a.m. on Sundays and in the traditional Tridentine Latin (Extraordinary) form of the Roman Rite, according to the 1962 Missal, at noon. Before Low Masses there is a recitation of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary at 11:30 a.m. Confession is available after every Low Mass. Holy Family Parish is a Catholic mission-parish of St. Joan of Arc in Yountville. 1241 Niebaum Lane, Rutherford. 944-2461.

HOLY GROUND CHRISTIAN CENTER:

Sunday worship begins at 10 a.m., and Bible study is Wednesday at 7 p.m. 3860 Broadway, Suite 111, American Canyon. 373-2015.

LIVING VINE CHURCH:

We meet every Sunday morning at 10. 3305 Linda Vista Avenue, Napa. 226-5551.

MEMORIAL CHAPEL AT VETERANS HOME OF CALIFORNIA, YOUNTVILLE:

Sunday worship service, 10:15 a.m. Coffee fellowship one hour before service. Bible study on Wednesday at 1 p.m., Fellowship Room, with refreshments served; prayer meetings Thursday at 1 p.m. The memorial chapel is on the Veterans Home at Yountville campus on California Drive, across from the administration building. 944-4840.

MONT LA SALLE CHAPEL:

Roman Catholic liturgical services are open to all in this chapel of the De la Salle Christian Brothers at 4401 Redwood Road, Napa. Sunday Mass is celebrated at 11 a.m.

NAPA COMMUNITY SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH:

Have you ever experienced an unexpected and happy surprise? A phone call, a gift, or a compliment from a stranger. These simple gestures have the ability to change our perspective. While Jesus was at a wedding in Cana the wine ran out. Jesus, in the first of his miracles, provided an abundance of new wine for the wedding. Join us for the worship service at 11 a.m. this Sabbath, Nov. 11 as Lead Pastor Nate Furness presents Abundance. napacomm.com, 1105 G Street, 252-2444.

NAPA METHODIST CHURCH:

We are a progressive and reconciling church, where everyone is welcome. Two Sunday morning services: a 9:30 a.m. Sanctuary service and an 11 a.m. modern-style Fusion Worship service held in the Asbury Room. Childrens Worship and Nursery are available during both services. Childrens Carol Choir meets between services from 10:30-11 a.m. sixth- to eighth-grade Sunday School meets at 11 a.m. Silent Meditation is Mondays at 5:30 p.m. in the Sanctuary. 625 Randolph St. 253-1411, napamethodist.org.

NAPA-SONOMA FRIENDS MEETING (QUAKERS):

Sunday worship at 10 a.m. Silent meeting in the custom of Friends. Meet at the VOICES Youth Center, 780 Lincoln Ave., Napa. Enter at parking lot on left side of building, using door at end of wheelchair ramp. Quaker signs will be posted on Sunday mornings. We welcome visiting friends or those who are new to Quaker practice. nvquaker@gmail.com; 253-1505.

NAPA VALLEY BAPTIST CHURCH:

Join us Sundays at 9:30 a.m. for Bible Study for all ages, 10:30 a.m. for worship service and a fun, interactive and energetic childrens program for preschool through fifth grade. Nursery provided for all Sunday services. 2303 Trower Ave., Napa. napavalleybaptist.org; 252-2100.

NAPA VALLEY BIBLE CHAPEL:

We start Sunday services by remembering the Lords death, burial and resurrection during a time of worship and thanksgiving at 9:30 a.m., followed by a fellowship and coffee time starting at 10:30 a.m. At 11 a.m., we enjoy a time of Bible teaching. On Wednesdays at 6 p.m., we meet for a brief Bible study and a time of prayer. A movie night/home Bible study is held in downtown Napa at 6 p.m. on Fridays. 1559 Second St., Napa. napavalleybiblechapel.com.

NAPA VALLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH:

This Sunday we study Romans 12:1 and 2 with the theme Living Reformed. God has good, pleasing, and perfect plans for his children. He wants us to be transformed people with renewed minds, living to honor and serve him. What is involved with that, especially as we still live in the world? Join us at 10 a.m. Sunday School also at 10 a.m., childcare provided. Open Forum immediately after the service. Call 337-4328. Napa Valley Community Church is a ministry of the Christian Reformed Church. www.napavalleychurch.org.

NAPA VALLEY LUTHERAN:

Sunday worship at 10 a.m. Fellowship time follows. All are welcome because all belong to God. The church is located at the corner of Jefferson and Elm, Napa. 226-8166, napavalleylutheran.org.

NAPA VALLEY UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS:

On Nov. 12 at 9:30 a.m.: Leaders: : Margaret Kelso and Alison Weber. A look at what enabled Universalism to thrive in the American Colonies? Is evangelizing good or bad? Is it better for churches to be independent or to have a central organization? 11 a.m.: Service of Ingathering Traditional service with Cindy Guentert-Baldo, Rev. Christian Schmidt and Sunday Service Assistant Norma Neil. We also welcome the Rev. Christian Schmidt as he arrives to serve as our minister for the rest of this church year. Infant care, child care, and religious education provided. 1625 Salvador Ave., Napa; nvuu.org; 226-9220.

NEW LIFE TABERNACLE:

Sunday school at 10 a.m., followed by worship service at 11 a.m. Sunday evening service the first Sunday of every month. Bible study on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. 2625 First St., Napa. 255-1062; NewLifeNapa.com.

ST. APOLLINARIS CATHOLIC CHURCH:

Join us each third Saturday at the crossroads of faith and culture. St. Apollinaris Catholic Church, 3700 Lassen St. Napa. 257-2555.

ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST:

St. John the Baptist Church holds daily masses in English at 7:30 a.m. and 12:05 p.m. Weekend masses are Saturday at 5 p.m. (English) and 7 p.m. (Spanish) and Sunday 8 a.m. (Spanish), 10 a.m. (English), noon (Spanish), and 5 p.m. (English). Wednesday evening mass at 7 (Spanish). Corner of Caymus and Yajome streets in downtown Napa.

ST. JOHNS LUTHERAN CHURCH:

Sunday at 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. Childrens Church during the 10:15 a.m. service. 3521 Linda Vista Ave., Napa. 255-0119; StJohnsLutheran.net.

ST. MARYS EPISCOPAL CHURCH:

Worship on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m. or Sundays at 8 a.m. or 10 a.m. (organ and choir). Childrens Chapel (Sunday school) is at 9:50 a.m. Sunday. Nursery care is provided during the 10 a.m. service. Coffee hour follows the worship services on Sunday. 1917 Third St., Napa. 255-0991; StMarysNapa.org.

ST. STEPHENS ANGLICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH:

Sundays at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., sing using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Refreshments and social time after the 10:30 service. Evensong and Bible Study Wednesdays at 6 p.m. 1250 Oakville Grade, Oakville. 944-8915; ststephensoakville.org.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS CHURCH:

Mass times are Saturday at 4 p.m. (English), Sunday at 8 a.m. (English), 11 a.m. (English) and 1:30 p.m. (Spanish). Daily mass is at 9 a.m., except on the first Friday, which is at noon and in English. 2725 Elm St., Napa. 255-2949; stthomasaquinasnapa.com.

SALVATION ARMY:

Join us for services Sundays at 10 a.m. 590 Franklin St., Napa. napasalarmy.org.

THE FATHERS HOUSE:

Service times are Saturday at 6 p.m., and Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m. Child care and Kids Church are available (ages infant through sixth grade). Youth ministry Encounter meets every Wednesday night at 7. Celebrate Recovery meets on Monday nights at 6:30. 2557 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa. tfh.org.

UNITY SPIRITUAL CENTER IN NAPA VALLEY:

Sunday, Nov. 12, 10 a.m. service. Unitys quest speaker this week is Rev. Bob Brach. His message is entitled, Dancing With Chaos ... and Gently! from the book Living Originally, which explores a special, temporary, practice to deal with our lives when our beliefs are challenged or disrupted. Our Sunday service music is selected and performed by Lon Eakes. 11:40 a.m. Sunday Forum. Historic Grange Hall, 3275 Hagan Road (1/2 mile east of the Silverado Trail), Napa. Parking next to the building. UnityinNapaValley.org. 255-6881.

YOUNTVILLE COMMUNITY CHURCH:

Sunday, Nov. 12 at 10 a.m. we will have a guest speaker Tom Oates. The main church building is under repairs and we are meeting at 1920 Finnell Road in Yountville while we are under construction. We will continue to have all of our Sunday school classes, services, and bible studies. Sunday School is at 9 a.m. for all ages. We have an Adult Bible class, Youth Group (fiftheight grades and high school students),and Childrens classes Jesus and Me, (Birth-Kindergarten) and first through fifth grades are offered. 944-2179.
IKEA announced this week that it is opening a customer fulfillment center in American Canyon, following last weeks story that Napa Logistics Park was leasing space to the home furnishings retailer.

The warehouse operation in American Canyon is one of two new centers that IKEA decided to establish in the United States, according to a company press release.

The other customer fulfillment center opened earlier this year in Baytown, Texas, located 30 miles east of Houston.

The American Canyon fulfillment center is expected to be operational in early 2018. It will represent the tenth IKEA location in California, which already has eight stores and a regional distribution center.

The fulfillment centers in American Canyon and Baytown will deliver items to online customers as well as those who purchase larger items at an IKEA store. Each warehouse will employ approximately 200 people, according to the announcement.

The American Canyon Eagle reported on Nov. 1 that Napa Logistics Park had signed a lease with IKEA, and was modifying its first building covering 646,000 square feet to meet the needs and specifications of the company, according to Community Development Director Brent Cooper.

IKEA spokespersons did not return calls seeking a comment for last weeks story.

Tuesdays announcement said the new fulfillment centers would complement its network of five regional distribution centers that support 45 IKEA stores in the U.S. There are currently more than 400 IKEA stores worldwide.

As we expand across the country and grow our online presence, we want to ensure we have sufficient warehouse capacity to support the efficient and timely delivery and shipment of products to our customers, said Lars Petersson, IKEAs U.S. president. Our goal is to increase accessibility to the IKEA product selection, and these two fulfillment centers will help us meet the home furnishing needs of many American customers.

On Oct. 26, Cooper informed the American Canyon Planning Commission that IKEA had submitted plans to the city for modifying both the interior and parking lot of Napa Logistics Parks first building, which has sat vacant since it was completed a year ago.

IKEA is working on improvement plans to occupy the interior of Building 1 at Napa Logistics Park, Cooper told the commissioners.

Theyre also going to make some changes outside to the parking lot because their needs are a little different than what was expected when the building was constructed, he added.

Cooper said he expects the parking lot modifications to start soon. Plans for the interior changes are still being considered by Planning Commission staff.

Its gone through two reviews so were close to finishing all the details, according to Cooper.
A Napa Superior Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by neighbors of a McCorkle Avenue housing project in St. Helena who claimed the city wrongly exempted the project from an extensive environmental review.

Judge J. Michael Byrne rejected claims by David and Vickie Bradshaw, suing on behalf of the McCorkle Eastside Neighborhood Group, that St. Helenas Planning Department had improperly declared the eight-unit housing project exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and that the Planning Commission and City Council had been denied the opportunity to challenge the exemption.

The Bradshaws said they intend to appeal the decision to the First District Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

If you stay with your tentative (ruling in favor of McGrath and the city), were going to be in the appellate court for two to three years, David Bradshaw told the judge during the hearing.

In the meantime, applicant Joe McGrath can continue working on the project. Hes also responsible for paying for the citys legal defense.

During public hearings on the project in late 2016 and early 2017, the Bradshaws and other neighbors raised various environmental concerns, including toxic contamination caused by a previous property owner whom neighbors described as a hoarder of old cars and junk.

The county required McGrath to haul away the contaminated soil before starting construction. At the time the project was under review, the cost of the clean-up was estimated at $100,000. Clean-up work costing less than $1 million may still be considered exempt from CEQA.

During public hearings, Planning Director Noah Housh and City Attorney Tom Brown said the project was exempt from CEQA under a provision that exempts infill housing projects. As a result, they said the Planning Commission and City Council should only consider the projects design review, not the broader environmental concerns raised by neighbors.

In his ruling, Byrne agreed that since the project qualified for a CEQA exemption and was considered a permitted use under the citys Municipal Code, staff and the council were correct in limiting their review to matters involving design review.

Byrne also ruled that it was too late for the Bradshaws to introduce new evidence suggesting that the cost of cleaning up the contaminated soil might be higher than previously anticipated.

Even after McGrath excavated 4,500 square feet of contaminated soil to a depth of two feet, samples of the remaining soil still showed elevated levels of chromium 6 and lead, according to an Oct. 30 letter from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is monitoring the clean-up.

The cost of the clean-up will still be well under $1 million, according to Amanda Monchamp, McGraths attorney.
Visit California will host the Grateful Table Benefit -- an outdoor event with seating for 1,000 near the Napa-Sonoma border -- on Tuesday, Nov. 21, with all proceeds going to fire recovery charities.

The ticketed event is open to the public. It will feature one long table seating 1,000 guests "celebrating the true spirit of Wine Country" with California wine and cuisine prepared by Food Network chef Tyler Florence.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved closing a portion of Duhig Road in Carneros for the table setup. The roadway would be closed from 2170 Duhig, which is the last home in Napa County, to the Napa/Sonoma county line from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

A portion of Ramal Road in Sonoma County will also be used for the event.

The dining benefit begins at 1 p.m.

The cost is $500 for a single ticket, $4,000 for a table of eight. A $250 Share the Love donation buys a seat for first responders or residents affected by the fires.

The event is intended to send out the message that wine country is ready to again host tourists following October's devastating fires. Organizers hope to raise $500,000 for fire relief.
The Napa County Library offers all sorts of events from financial planning workshops to craft activities for children, teens and adults. What they havent been providing enough of, though, is programs for Spanish speakers.

We feel like our patrons need more Spanish-speaking programs, said library assistant Edith Munoz, who works in the librarys circulation department. Forty percent of my days, I speak Spanish.

Munozs estimate is in line with the population of Napa County. As of July 1, 2016, 33.9 percent of Napa County residents identified as Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Although other library employees speak Spanish fluently, Munoz says that some patrons wait until they see her because they know she speaks Spanish.

Sometimes they come up and  ask about classes, sometimes they even tell us what they want, she said.

By having more programs in Spanish or in both Spanish and English, Spanish-speakers wont feel left out, she said.

To fulfill this need, the library has partnered with New Technology High School teacher Cecilia Guerreros Spanish speaker class.

I was looking for a way for my students to show what they are learning in class, and the library was looking for ways to bring more Spanish-language programming to the library, Guerrero said. Its a great opportunity.

Guerreros students, bilingual sophomores and juniors, spend their days learning about different Hispanic cultures. They do hands-on projects in class that can easily be restructured for a workshop at the library  projects like making sugar skulls or pinatas.

Earlier in the fall, the students participated in a tamale-making workshop. Last Saturday at the Napa County Librarys Main Branch in Napa, they led sugar skull making workshops. The students made sugar skulls, which patrons could then decorate with colorful icing in any way they liked.

Guerrero said that the sugar skull represents someone who has died. By decorating the skulls with happy, bright colors, she said, the deceased person is honored in a celebratory way instead of in sadness, especially on the Day of the Dead, traditionally celebrated Oct. 31 through Nov. 2.

Its important to bring cultural events like this for the community, said Efrain Zamora. Zamora said that most of his family is back in Mexico, so he tries to bring his 10-year-old son, Ayani, to any events that he can that will expose him to Mexican traditions.

Its a way for him to get our culture, Zamora said. I really appreciate that the library has all this.

Nef and Lupe Sanchez had similar feelings about bringing their son, Isael, 7, to the workshop.

Its part of his heritage, Nef Sanchez said. Its important because if you come from Mexico or you come from Latin America, you lose some of that culture.

Although many of the families who attended the event were also bilingual, some of them seemed to be more comfortable knowing that the students leading the workshop spoke Spanish, said 10th grader Ivan Gutierrez, 16.

One of the kids didnt really seem to talk that much until he heard one of us speaking Spanish, Gutierrez said. (Then) he started asking a lot more questions.

We are looking forward to adding more Spanish-language and bilingual programs, said Breanna Feliciano, Information Services supervisor at the library. The library is even open to suggestions, she said.

We would love to get feedback and suggestions from our patrons on what kind of programs they are interested in as well as items they would like to see added to our Spanish-language collection.

The next workshop is Pinata Making for all ages, planned for 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Community Meeting Room at the Napa Main Branch, 580 Coombs St.
Over the past several years, we've collected as many images as could be found of those who have died in mass shootings, for memorial photo gal
California Gov. Jerry Brown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shed some alligator tears last week over Republican plans to eliminate the federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes.

The proposal is part of a larger tax overhaul aimed at lowering corporate tax rates and repatriating many billions of dollars in corporate profits being held in other countries to avoid high U.S. taxes.

It is, Brown and Cuomo said in a joint electronic news conference, patently unfair to impose new tax burdens on residents of high-tax states such as California and New York by eliminating state and local tax (SALT) offsets.

Its a gross manipulation of our tax code, Brown said. Its a Hail Mary pass by the Republicans.

Cuomo went further, alleging that Republicans want to punish residents of Democratic-voting states. Its using a handful of states to finance the tax cuts for their states, he said.

Tax policy thus has become another item on the long list of conflicts between Democrat-dominated California and the Republican-dominated federal government.

The states 14 Republican congressional members initially supported the plan, and Brown sent them a letter imploring them to reject the proposal.

Getting rid of an individuals ability to deduct his or her California taxes is a horrible idea, Brown said in his letter, but it is made far worse when you preserveat the same timethe right of corporations to take those same deductions.

One GOP House member, Darrell Issa of San Diego County, replied in kind to Brown: I recognize the role of the state and local tax deduction to reduce the tax burden on many Californians, but lets be clear: It has only become of such importance as a direct result of the tremendous weight that your misguided policies have put on California taxpayers.

California collects nearly $300 billion a year in taxes, one of the nations highest tax burdens as a percentage of personal income. That burden has climbed sharply in recent years, thanks to voter approval of increased rates on high-income taxpayers that Brown advocated and surges in taxable sales and property values.

Californians claim roughly $100 billion of those taxes as deductions on their federal returns each year, thus saving them perhaps $20 billion. Even so, California still pumps about $400 billion into the federal treasury each year and receives nearly that much back in federal spending.

What is and is not taxed is an arbitrary political process at all levels of government. The interactive effects of tax policies, and their fairness, are largely in the eyes of their beholders.

On one hand, it could be said that the SALT deduction means Californias (and New Yorks) high taxes are being subsidized by taxpayers in other states.

On the other hand, since the feds still spend somewhat less in California than the state provides in federal taxes, one could say that Californians are already subsidizing federal payments in other states, and eliminating the deduction would increase that disparity.

Underlying the palaver about fairness are two political factors.

As Cuomo said and Issa implied, its entirely possible that Republicans see erasing the SALT deduction to punish high-taxing, Democratic-voting states such as California and New York.

But Democrats also fear that eliminating SALT deductibility would entice high-income taxpayers to change their official domiciles to low-tax states such as Texas, Florida and Nevada, thereby slashing state revenues. That would hit California especially hard because a relative handful of wealthy Californians provides more than a third of the states general fund revenue.

Later in the week, Brown, Cuomo, et al got a bit of relief when Republicans said they would retain deductibility for local property taxes up to $10,000. But the GOP plan is still a big threat because state income taxes are a much bigger chunk of the issue.
Some of the 25 surviving Republicans in the state Assembly  a politically endangered species in todays California  rebelled against their minority leader this summer because he went along with Democrats in authorizing a continuation of the states cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gases and fight climate change.

Those Assembly members were not alone: Earlier in the year, the board of directors of the state GOP voted 13-7 to ask Redlands Assemblyman Chad Mayes to resign as the party leader in the Legislatures lower house. His offense: Mayes wanted his party to reach out to non-Republicans now that GOP voter registration has fallen to third place in half a dozen legislative districts, behind Democrats and independents.

This represents a full-fledged party schism, with the Republican right wing led by former gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly and other hard-liners insisting on full-out support of President Trump and ideological purity on social issues like gun control and abortion.

The Democratic Party also has a divide. Democrats dominate voter registration as no political party ever has in California and hold every statewide elected office from governor to insurance commissioner.

While many Republicans feel some of their representatives are insufficiently conservative, a lot of Democrats believe their party is too wishy-washy, too deeply in bed with large corporate contributors and not as progressive as they would like.

So during party caucuses last winter, the left-wing  led by devotees of Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders  turned out in big numbers and sent hundreds of grass roots members as delegates to the springtime state party convention where the Democrats longtime Los Angeles County chief Eric Bauman was narrowly elected to succeed San Franciscos John Burton as state chair.

Richmond-based party organizer Kimberly Ellis lost that race by 57 votes out of almost 3,000 and immediately challenged the result. Party committees later affirmed Baumans election, but Ellis vowed a court challenge, claiming party committees were biased.

Theres also Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon of Paramount in Los Angeles County, who in early summer essentially killed a Senate-passed bill setting up a single-payer health care system for the state. His move so angered some liberals for whom that is a pet cause that they quickly made him the target of a recall effort.

And five Democratic Assembly members were targeted by full-page ads in local newspapers for being undecided for awhile on a bill to create a statewide immigration sanctuary policy.

All this is in many ways the result of the Democrats stranglehold on state government and voter preferences. Among Democrats, theres little sense of peril in challenging party leaders. Their voter registration numbers are so much larger than Republicans and their success among independents is so much greater than the GOPs that they have no worries about party splits somehow producing Republican victories.

In fact, the most dramatic races now shaping up for governor and other statewide offices pit Democrats against one another. For example, no Republican has yet indicated interest in opposing Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinsteins reelection or in getting into a race to replace her if she retires at 84. But other Democrats are in.

Nor do Republicans act as if they have much prospect, or even hope, to improve their position here during the Trump presidency. So Ronald Reagans 11th Commandment  Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican  is all but forgotten. The essence of many Republicans approach: If youre going to lose anyhow, you might as well be pure.

So far, few Democrats show signs of worry about their split, a leftover from last years bitter primary battle between Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

But some Republicans, including Mayes, want to improve their partys position. We can remain in denial and continue to lose elections, influence and relevance, he wrote in a recent essay. Or we canarticulate our principles in a way that resonates with a changing California.

The partys nominal top-ranking officeholder, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, added that Republicans must focus first and foremost on fixing California and regain (its) role as the party of freedom. None of these party schisms would exist if state Democrats were not so dominant. But one-party rule creates movements toward ideological purity in both parties, and no one can be sure where that might lead.
There are fewer Republicans in the California congressional delegation than there are players on the roster of the Los Angeles Lakers. One half of the state's 14 GOP House members represent districts that were carried by Hillary Clinton in last year's presidential campaign, which has Democrats salivating at the prospect of increasing their already considerable margin in our state's 55-member Capitol Hill delegation.

And as if life weren't already difficult enough for these embattled California Republicans, their national party leaders last week proposed a new tax plan that could make their prospects for reelection even worse. The proposal calls for large tax cuts, which are always popular with voters. But it also eliminates a number of lucrative deductions that have benefited California taxpayers for many years. Republicans must therefore try to balance their broader philosophical support for tax relief against the specific needs of their constituents.

Like their counterparts in other high-tax states such as New York and New Jersey, many Californians have long deducted state and local income taxes from their federal obligation. Housing costs tend to be higher in these states as well, and homeowners have also profited from the mortgage interest deduction. But the current GOP proposal either eliminates or sharply limits these write-offs.

Although these changes would primarily affect the especially prosperous and heavily Democratic Bay Area, traditional Southern California GOP bastions would take a sizable hit as well. Some voters already on the fence about the GOP may ask themselves why they remain loyal if they can't even count on Republicans for a tax break.

It seems that incumbent Republicans facing reelection fights in Orange and Ventura counties have been left hanging by their national party leadership, whose focus seems to be squarely on the needs of their colleagues in more conservative parts of the country. The leadership has opted to pay for cuts in deep red states by sticking it to Californian city slickers, beachcombers and other "coastal elites."

Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the last Republican presidential candidate to carry California in a general election, a period that has not coincidentally coincided with the GOP's gradual reformulation as an overwhelmingly Southern, exurban and rural party. (The Democrats' retrenchment has been just as extreme, as their retreat into urban cores and coastal areas has isolated them from the large expanse of so-called flyover country.) The GOP tax plan can only exacerbate this self-fulfilling geographic prophecy.

Republicans in New York and New Jersey have vocally protested the skewed nature of the tax proposal, even threatening to derail the entire package if some relief is not provided for their states. California Republicans have been more publicly circumspect, perhaps because House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is one of their own and they can deliver their message to him more discreetly. For now, quiet conversations with McCarthy can provide them with some protection from being forced to choose between standing with their party or their districts. But unless the national GOP is willing to cut California some slack, that decision can't be avoided much longer.

Let's not exaggerate. Many Republican voters here will see the overall size and scope of the tax package as enough to offset the specific downsides. The elimination of the alternative minimum tax, for instance, would mitigate losses for a good number of GOP supporters. And in a low-turnout midterm election, at least some California Republican incumbents will find other issues to help them achieve reelection.

Those who do survive, however, will do so in spite of their party's leaders. It seems that national Republicans, cognizant of broader ideological and demographic trends that will prevent California from turning competitive for the foreseeable future, have decided it's not even worth fighting to retain a foothold in the nation's largest state.
When he ran for president last year, Donald Trump said we didn't need any new laws restricting guns. Instead, we should simply enforce laws already on the books.

"We need to fix the system we have and make it work as intended," Trump's campaign website said. "What we don't need to do is expand a broken system."

This would be a good time for him to deliver on that campaign promise.

Devin P. Kelley, the gunman who killed 26 churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, should never have passed the standard federal background check administered by licensed gun dealers. In 2012, Kelley was convicted in a military court for assaulting his then-wife and fracturing the skull of her young child.

But the U.S. Air Force failed to enter Kelley's 2012 conviction into the federal database used for background checks -- so he was able to purchase three firearms from gun stores by claiming he knew of no reason that he should be disqualified.

It's not clear whether the Air Force has been reporting domestic violence misdemeanors to the FBI database at all. A Defense Department website says only one such case has been reported -- from all of the armed services.

If it turns out that the armed forces haven't been reporting most domestic violence convictions, that could include thousands of cases. And that lapse is symptomatic of a much broader problem with the background check system: The FBI database relies on a hodgepodge of other agencies for its information. It's only as reliable as the records they provide -- which means it often isn't reliable at all.

Kelley's case isn't the only time the system didn't work as intended.

In 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist from Columbia, S.C., was allowed to buy a .45-caliber handgun even though he had admitted to felony drug possession, a crime that should have disqualified him. The record of his conviction hadn't been submitted to the FBI by local police agencies. By the time the bureau discovered his conviction, more than 72 hours had passed, the deadline for denying a sale. Last December, Roof was convicted of killing nine people at a prayer service at a historically African American church in Charleston.

In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student at Virginia Tech, bought two handguns even though a local judge had ruled him to be mentally ill, yet another determination that should have disqualified him from owning a firearm. But Virginia authorities never submitted his court records to the FBI, so he passed two background checks. In April 2007, Cho killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on the Virginia Tech campus before killing himself.

The Virginia Tech shooting prompted Congress to pass a law encouraging states to report mental health data, and many states responded. That part of the system has improved. But the picture isn't as encouraging when it comes to domestic violence, the crime Kelley committed.

Federal law prohibits sales by firearm dealers to anyone convicted of a domestic violence charge or under a judicial restraining order for threatening a spouse, with some exceptions. Last year, the Government Accountability Office found that while most states reported domestic violence misdemeanors and protection orders to the FBI, their performance was uneven.

"Some states are not submitting records at all for technical reasons," said Elizabeth Avore of Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that promotes gun control. "Others are submitting records, but without enough detail." The GAO report didn't identify which states are falling short.

Instead of strengthening enforcement, though, the Trump administration has been rolling back regulations. In February, President Trump signed a bill prohibiting the Social Security Administration from reporting mentally impaired recipients to the FBI database, reversing an action by President Obama. According to Avore, the new law means as many as 443,000 mentally impaired Social Security clients can now pass background checks for gun purchases.

At the same time, the Justice Department issued a new guideline that could allow more people with outstanding arrest warrants to buy guns. The new rule says the FBI can block a gun purchase only if a fugitive has fled across a state line to avoid prosecution or to avoid giving testimony in a criminal case. (The previous rule covered all fugitives who crossed state lines.)

And Trump has proposed cutting the budget of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the main federal agency enforcing gun laws, by 14 percent over the next decade.

To put a serious dent in our epidemic of gun violence, we need new laws, beginning with expanded background checks to cover purchases from sellers who aren't licensed gun dealers. In many states, felons and others have an easy time buying guns, because "private" sales don't require background checks at all.

A Pew Research Center poll last year found that 83 percent of Americans favor such laws, including 75 percent of people who described themselves as Trump supporters.

But for those who say we should merely enforce the laws already on the books, the tragedy in Sutherland Springs should serve as an incentive to make the system work -- as candidate Trump proposed.
Patti Coyle and her intrepid actors have done it again! Their new play, direct from London, is a juicy mystery with plot twists that will thrill fans of Sherlock Holmes. The St. Helena High School drama group has succeeded in bringing to life the blockbuster success from Londons National Theatre, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.

There has been a murder and Christopher is out to solve the case. Wrinkles in this plot will pull at your heart and you will find yourself cheering for Christopher, an autistic high school kid who sees the world differently from his companions. His vision, and the actors vivid portrayal of the modern London will keep you at the edge of your seat! You will cheer for Christopher and shed a tear or two along the way the spectacular conclusion.

Coyles daring play succeeds in elevating the level of drama in the Napa Valley. Several British fans of the original are astounded that the kids have succeeded in reproducing the London experience right here in Napa. Once again, Coyle has shown what high school students can accomplish when given the reigns on this spectacular $15 million facility. Dont miss the dramatic event of the fall!

David DeSante

St. Helena

Editor's note: "The Curious Incident" opens at 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 10 and continues with three other performances through Sunday. For details and tickets, visit sthelenadrama.com.
October was dyslexia awareness month. Again. But what have we actually done for children with dyslexia?

Dyslexia screening is a hot topic among advocates, especially in California. The California Department of Education recently published new California Dyslexia Guidelines that will be used to assist teachers and parents to identify and assess pupils with dyslexia, and to plan, provide, evaluate, and improve educational services to pupils with dyslexia.

Yet, schools have had access to screening tools, such as the Shaywitz DyslexiaScreen and PAR Test, for years. Effective, research-based practices and neuroscience-based language and reading interventions have also been around for decades.

So, if everything necessary to provide learners with dyslexia with an appropriate education is available now and has been for decades, why are so many kids still being left behind?

First, lets look at what dyslexia is and what it isnt. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability in reading. Understood.org explains that kids with dyslexia have trouble reading accurately and fluently. They may also have trouble with reading comprehension, spelling and writing. Trouble decoding words  matching letters to sounds and then using that skill to read words accurately and fluently  is a sign of dyslexia, too.

Despite the straightforward signs, there are many misconceptions. One of the most common misconceptions is that dyslexia is a visually-based learning problem that causes confusion about letters and words. In reality, research shows that dyslexia is primarily an auditory disorder, with weaknesses appearing in phonological processing. This problem with perception of speech sounds, in turn, causes problems relating a speech sound to the written letter.

Another myth is that children with dyslexia will never learn to read well. However, research has proven that most struggling readers can learn to read well when given intensive instruction using evidence-based programs.

My 11-year-old son is dyslexic. Both his father and I also have a parent who is dyslexic. Born a generation apart on opposite sides of the country, both my mother and his father experienced demeaning treatment as a result of their inability to learn to read fluently in their early school years.

When my son was a first-grader in an East Bay school district, he too heard demeaning statements from a teacher who referred to him as lazy and took away recess and free time as punishment for not completing writing assignments. Other teachers said he just needed more time and suggested another year in the same grade.

But waiting doesnt help. It wastes precious time that could be spent on intervention. Overlooking disabilities like dyslexia creates systemic effects that are bad for the individual and society at large. In U.S. public schools, only 63 percent of students with disabilities graduate from high school, which is almost 20 percent lower than the average graduation rate for all students nationwide. The dropout rate of 16- to 24-year-olds with disabilities is more than twice as large as the rate for their peers without disabilities.

Pam and Pete Wright, authors of From Emotions to Advocacy, write extensively about advocacy strategies and skills, and the consequences of not supporting children with learning disabilities. On their website, Wrightslaw.com, they share striking statistics, e.g., 70 percent of children in the juvenile justice system have educational disabilities, and the vast majority have an emotional disturbance and/or specific learning disabilities.

Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to join fellow parent advocates from all over the country for Dyslexia Hill Days in Washington, D.C. We met with policymakers to describe the obstacles families of learners with dyslexia face accessing appropriate instruction. But again, when will that awareness turn into action? Why are so many students still being deprived of the chance to realize their full potential?

Yes, we know that schools are responsible for the costs of education services, and many struggle with funding. But being a dyslexic learner isnt something that goes away, and the costs become even higher for kids with inadequate skills and academic proficiencies. As adults, their needs are significant, contributing to state and federal spending on public assistance, social services, and incarceration.

We as parents, educators, and residents must insist that scientifically-validated programs be incorporated in our schools. We must reject apathy and the status quo that overlooks the connection between literacy, poverty, and the juvenile justice system. We must appreciate whats at stake  a childs present and future, and the future of our workforce and country.

Lets wait not for Dyslexia Awareness Month to roll around again next October. The time to act is now.
The city of St. Helena will host a community workshop on disaster preparedness at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, at the firehouse.

There will be a discussion of how to improve the community's emergency preparedness for the next natural disaster. The workshop will capture the community's suggestions and provide a debrief to residents with additional information related to the recent wildfires.
This past Friday, Nov. 3, Burgess Cellars celebrated 45 years of Napa Valley winemaking with more than 120 guests. The event, a first of its kind for the winery, included a tasting of library wines that spanned the last four decades. Included in the offering was the inaugural 1972 vintage from Tom Burgess and his crew.

Tom was one of the vintners instrumental in what I call the second Golden Age of Napa Valley winemaking, said Karen MacNeil, author of The Wine Bible and wine educator and consultant. The first was in the 1880s, but in the early 1970s there was a second wave.

Class of 1972

There are others who also think of the influx of new vintners in 1972 as a critical year for thrusting the Napa Valley into the world spotlight. As Paul Franson wrote in Decanter magazine in 2001, 1972 was the year California winemaking began in earnest The year when more important wineries were formed than during any other year in the 300 years of winemaking Two wineries founded in that year, Chateau Montelena and Stags Leap Wine Cellars, changed the course of California winemaking in Steven Spurriers famous Judgment of Paris tasting four years later. It also saw the birth of cult favorites Burgess Cellars, Diamond Creek and Silver Oak, as well as Carneros Creek, Clos du Val and Dry Creek Vineyards.

According to Fransons article, in 1966, Robert Mondavi had created the first new winery in California since the end of Prohibition in 1933 and was producing world-class wines, laying the groundwork for what was to come.

The power of predictions

Another driver of a new influx of vintners seemed linked to an influential article that was first published in Wines and Vines in September 1970 by John Knechel, a Bank of America economist, that proclaimed, Over the next 10 years, California vintners will enjoy a period of the strongest growth in wine markets ever recorded.

The economist predicted that consumption of wine would double from roughly 1 gallon per U.S. resident to 2 gallons by 1980. And he was right. According to the Wine Institute, in 1969, 1.17 gallons of wine were consumed per resident in the United States, whereas by 1980 that had grown to 2.11 gallons.

The popular press picked up on the headline, and even the Wall Street Journal wrote glowing pieces about the rosy future for Californias wine business. That was enough for some of even the most reticent investors to take the plunge.

From war to wine

After flying hundreds of sorties in the Vietnam War, Burgess left the Air Force to become a private pilot, transporting IBM executives and sensitive data around the world. A few years later, hed had enough of the daily grind of flying demanding clients, and he dreamed of going back to the land and becoming a vintner.

There were Germans making wine locally when my dad was growing up, and thats where he got his first interest in wine, said Steven Burgess, president and co-owner with his brother James of the winery. Later, when he was flying, hed often get a layover at Travis Air Force Base, and he started to come over to the Napa Valley. He often talked about visiting Beaulieu Vineyard winery, where he tasted wines from as far back as the 1930s. Those wines and those experiences helped him form his vision of what Burgess Cellars could become.

As a pilot with a pregnant wife, a winery was out of reach to Tom without help from his family.

My dad talked his father into investing in the winery, Burgess said. My grandfather would have likely never invested in a winery, but because of the B of A report and because this piece of property had a history of producing award-winning wines, he eventually agreed.

Tom purchased an old mountainside winery and vineyard in the eastern hills of St. Helena. The property had originally been planted with grapevines in the late 1800s by the Poncetta family and eventually found its way into the hands of Lee Stewart in 1943.

Deep roots

The Poncetta, Rossini and Pestoni families vineyards and wineries were clustered up on the mountainside above St. Helena, said Greg Pestoni, general manager at the Pestoni Family Estate Winery. They were all immigrants and stayed close, probably because they were all from Monte Carasso in Switzerland and spoke the same language.

After the Poncettas sold (probably sometime during Prohibition), the winery changed hands and eventually Lee bought it and started Souverain Winery, producing some award-winning wines, Burgess said. At some point Warren Winiarski and Grgich worked up here, too  both winemakers of the winning wines at the Paris tasting. Lee eventually sold the winery to a holding company and moved down to Rutherford before my dad purchased it.

Parts of the old winery remain on the site, having been added to over the years and now forming a complex of structures situated nearly 1,000 feet above the valleys floor. Sweeping views of the Napa Valley stretch from as far south as San Pablo Bay to Calistoga in the north for those visiting the winery. However, because of parking and permit restraints, the recent 45th celebration was held at the Long Meadow Ranchs Farmstead restaurant in St. Helena.

Burgess winemaking

Most of the wine shown that night had been made by Bill Sorenson, who was the winemaker for 41 vintages until handing the reins over to Kelly Woods in 2013.

It is a real honor to be making wines here at Burgess now, said Woods. The history and the quality of the vineyards allow for the best expression of this place. We are maintaining the hallmarks of this special winery by highlighting this property while looking for ways to advance elements where we can.

Beyond the library wines, wines opened that night included their current release, the 2013 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($60 a bottle and 6,000 cases made, which is half the total yearly production). This wine highlights its steep mountain vineyard with brambly black fruit, grippy tannins, sweet herbs, smoky oak and a long finish that includes flavors of blackberry pie a la mode.

The 2013 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($120 a bottle and 400 cases made) was more refined with dried blueberry, dark cherry, stony earth and savory roasted game flavors. The finish included hints of Chinese five spice and briny black olives.

As the reputation of Burgess wines would suggest, nearly all of the wines showed well and spoke to a sense of place. But it was the older vintages that were the showstoppers.

Burgess library tasting  four decades

The opportunity to taste Burgess right back to 1972 is a moment in history, MacNeil said. What Ive found is that every decade shown here tonight is indicative of what was happening in the Napa Valley at that time. In the 1970s, there was so much massive innovation. In the 1980s, a lot of winemakers were taking direction from UC Davis, and so theres a thread there. The 1990s was a decade of viticulture, and people were going back to the land, focusing more on vineyard than just winemaking. In the 2000s wines were heading to a bigger, bolder style.

Drinking a moment in time

So far, the 72 has been my favorite, MacNeil said. Its a transformative wine  you could just not believe that a wine could start with such beauty, rise up with a crescendo, and then just keep going and going and going. That wine has molecules from 1972  its like you are drinking that moment in time. It was absolutely, fantastically  to use a California word  awesome.

Sorenson had just finished college in Fresno and started at Burgess in July of 1972.

There was a hard frost early in the spring of 1972, followed by a very hot summer that seemed to stun the grapes, which caused ripening problems for most of the vineyards, Sorenson said. To top it off, the rains started early. Burgess pulled it off that year mostly because of the location. Being on the slopes above the valley floor, it avoided the worst of the frost. The cold air acted like a liquid and flowed downhill instead of settling in the vineyard. With the exposure that vineyard usually ripens earlier than the valley floor vineyards.

Writing about wine is often writing about history, people and place  and Burgess Cellars has all these elements in droves. But this event also highlighted something unique about the 2017 vintage. When I asked MacNeil why such an event was important after the recent devastating fires, she paused for a long time, shaking her head slowly.

Its an emotional night, she said. Because you feel at the same moment the pathos of all this destruction and yet the celebration of all this continuity in the wine. There are really no words to describe this feeling.
There is a new trend in fine dining and it is called social responsibility. Recently, I attended Taste Talks Los Angeles, a food and drink festival featuring talks, tastings, dinners and parties. As L.A.'s amazing chefs, restaurants and cultural figures came together, they engaged in great conversation, including the role social responsibility has in the hospitality industry.

According to the California Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing, California has more than 118,000 homeless people, accounting for 22 percent of the nations homeless population. Many across the state, from political groups to nonprofits to for-profits to individuals, are working to solve this moral crisis, and the hospitality industry plays an important role.

Chrysalis is a Los Angeles based nonprofit organization founded in 1984 to create a path to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals. They provide the resources and support to find and retain employment. To date, more than 58,000 men and women have been helped and, most importantly, 71 percent of people who find work through Chrysalis keep their jobs, officials said.

Restaurants are an ideal industry for employment opportunities for clients of Chrysalis and other organizations helping the homeless and low-income individuals. The restaurant industry includes many jobs such as washing dishes, polishing glasses and chopping food. These are tough jobs that most people do not like to do. While education and experience are not prerequisites, the pay is not good. It is also challenging to motivate and promote people in the restaurant industry, and, as a result, staff retention is a continuous challenge

Los Angeles-based chef Curtis Stone has been working with Chrysalis for five years after hearing a Chrysalis client speak at their Butterfly Ball about getting ready for the job. Stones first employee through Chrysalis was Darryl who started at Maude in Beverly Hills five years ago. Stone also hired Byron through Chrysalis in 2016 as he was opening his second restaurant Gwen LA.

Byron joined the team as a dishwasher and today has a managerial position and keys to the restaurant. Darryl is also still with the restaurant group and is a supervisor at Gwen LA and has keys as well.

Byron came from a small town in Texas. Raised in a cycle of drugs, he came to Los Angeles to be near his son and found himself homeless. Needing a job, he spoke to a man on the street who was sweeping the sidewalk who told him to check out Chrysalis. Byron completed the program at Chrysalis and began working at Gwen LA. What I have been exposed to, I could never have imagined. Curtis is not just a boss, he is also like a brother, Byron told the crowd at Taste Talks.

Byrons hard work has paid off, and he explained that if you start at the bottom and work your way up, you appreciate it. And you get a magnificent employee who knows all the details.

Stone echoed that when you offer people a chance [via Chrysalis], they are grateful. They are thankful for family meals and staff uniforms. Things we take for granted, they appreciate.

The benefits are two-sided. Chef Curtis Stone has provided employment for 40 people through Chrysalis over the past four years and in exchange he has a better staff retention rate with his Chrysalis employees than the non-Chrysalis employees.

He is not alone. A number of restaurants across Los Angeles are working with Chrysalis. Last year, 347 jobs were obtained in the food service industry by clients served at Chrysalis.
Constellation Brands, based in New York, owns numerous Napa Valley wineries  Mondavi, Franciscan, The Prisoner and many others  and is the second-largest wine and beer company in the United States with some 50 million cases of wine sold every year.

Recently, Constellation announced that it would pay $245 million for a minority stake in Canopy Growth Corp., a medicinal cannabis producer in Ontario, Canada, that trades as WEED on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

This is the first major alcohol company to dip its toe into the burgeoning cannabis market, and it signals a new direction for other wine companies to follow.

Why now?

Acquisitions have historically been a primary driver of Constellations growth strategy, as is often the case with large businesses. However, in recent years, there has been very little room to gain significant market share through the purchase of wineries: Most of the larger ones have already been purchased or are otherwise unattractive, and although wine consumption continues to increase, the rate has slowed in recent years. Craft beer and spirit consumption has also slowed.

So what is an alcohol company to do? Enter a completely new market, such as the cannabis market. Contrasted with the rate of wine consumption slowing, the expected pot market in North America is expected to grow from a current market of less than $10 billion to more than $50 billion in fewer than 10 years, according to Bloomberg. To put this in perspective, sales of domestic wine were just under $40 billion in 2017.

Why Canada?

Why did Constellation purchase a pot-growing company in Canada and not one in the United States? There are a few reasons, but primary in their rationale must have been Canadas expected plans to legalize recreational marijuana by July 2018.

This is in contrast to the United States, where cannabis is still considered at the federal level a Schedule 1 drug, possession of which can result in a prison term. However, its medically legal in more than 20 states, including the District of Columbia, with eight states already allowing recreational use and more expected in the future.

From a strict business-strategy standpoint, Constellations purchase of Canopy should have been predicted. Many alcohol companies were already noticing that beer sales were slowing in states where recreational pot was legal, with contagion to wine sales certainly a possibility.

The purchase will allow Constellation to get a leg up on all other businesses hoping to enter the market when pot does become legal in the United States, using the Canada market as a testing ground for how to best engage new and existing customers in what some people are now calling the relaxant marketplace. According to the company, the testing will include exploring pot-infused wines.

Will pot become legal throughout the United States?

Hold your horses, you might be thinking. Weed will never become legal at the federal level. Maybe, but according to a recent Gallop poll, whereas just over 10 percent of Americans favored legalizing marijuana in 1964, in 2016 that percentage had risen to 64 percent, including 51 percent of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34.

Damned if you do, damned if you dont

Sonoma County has been gearing up for increased permits to grow and sell pot for the last couple of years, whereas Napa County has taken what seems like a reluctant wait-and-see approach. One might imagine what it would be like if Napa were to put a ban on cannabis production and sales while its near neighbor maintains its open-door policy. If thats the case, then we will all witness an experiment with market forces.

For example, lets say weed becomes legal in the United States but is not allowed to be grown in the Napa Valley. Fine. Lets do some math. One acre of land can produce about 3 tons of high-end Cabernet Sauvignon grapes per year. So a grower sells her Napa Cabernet grapes at the 2016 average price of $6,943 per ton. She makes more than $20,000. Not bad. However if her friend over in Sonoma farmed a similar acre of pot, she could make at least 10 to 100 times that amount, according to estimates.

The terroir of weed

You might think because of supply and demand the price will not be so dramatically different between grapes and pot in the future because lots of places will grow weed. But living in wine country you know a little bit about the value of terroir. Without competition from Napa, would Sonoma or Mendocino become the new Napa for premium pot growing in California, keeping those prices high?

Once its legal to sell in the U.S., Constellation would be the first to sell pot-infused wines  maybe through its non-Napa-based brands, but who beyond our region knows the difference between Robert Mondavi Napa winery and heir Robert Mondavi Private Selection, which is a Central Coast brand?

Beyond the confusion in the marketplace, the difference in revenue streams will drive labor away from strict grape-only regions into those that grow weed. And if Napa holds the line on a grape-only policy, what will happen to its tourist base? With nearly 80 percent of young people favoring legalization, where will they tend to support? Will they consider a place that does not allow wide pot use as archaic and old-fashioned?

Ever try to smell the nuances of wine at a Grateful Dead concert?

There are plenty of hurdles: health warnings, how pot products will be distributed, will consumer sentiments fade? Nevertheless, we should expect a wide range of companies to begin dipping their toes into the marijuana market (and many jumping in completely), each attempting to navigate the tricky regulatory purgatory of what currently is a semi-legal business within the United States.

Companies that enter will be those that currently produce other intoxicants, such as wine, beer, spirits and tobacco, but will also include other sectors and plenty of investors  venture-capital firms, private-equity and mutual-fund managers  all looking to cash in on what is being called the Green Rush.

Of course, like all gambles, many of these first adopters will fail, while a few will become rich beyond their wildest dreams. I hope we can find balance and moderation as we head into a foggy future, where the smell of pot smoke will waft skunk-like from nearly every boardroom, if not from every winery.
The Emory community gathered on the Quadrangle on Wednesday morning to honor veterans and those currently serving in the U.S. military.

The annual Veteran's Day celebration  held Nov. 8 since the official holiday, Nov. 11, falls on Saturday this year  began with a solemn honor guard procession to the flagpole.

Jeff Rosensweig, Goizueta Business School associate professor of finance and founding faculty sponsor for the Emory Veterans Association, welcomed attendees and introduced the ceremony's first speaker: Emory President Claire E. Sterk.

As the flag waved against gray, threatening skies, Sterk noted that some people had asked her if the ceremony would still take place due to the weather. "This is about veterans," she responded. "Of course it is going to happen."

Luckily, drizzle held off until the end of the ceremony, which focused on the contributions veterans make to both Emory and the country.

"It's quite difficult to in words express the gratitude that we feel for you as members of our community, to really give credit to the sacrifices that all of you have made over the course of your life," Sterk said, addressing the veterans in attendance, as well as those currently serving in the military and ROTC students.

"For those of us who are civilians, it is not always easy to understand what it means to have taken the journey that all of you have taken," said Sterk, whose husband, Kirk Elifson, a research professor at Emorys Rollins School of Public Health, is a U.S. Army veteran.

She thanked veterans and their families for the sacrifices they have made in order to serve.

"For many of you, your time in the military also meant that you had to postpone personal goals because you wanted to participate in this larger mission," she said, adding that she hoped the veterans in the audience would "take a moment and just be really proud" of who they have become.

"You are leaders with a sense of purpose; you are thinkers with a sense of duty; you are men and women who know what it means to commit for the long haul, to postpone your personal goals for the common good," she said.

Sterk noted three key areas where Emory supports veterans:

Veterans' education benefits are available through all of the undergraduate and graduate schools that make up Emory University. Through the Yellow Ribbon Program, degree-granting institutions of higher learning in the U.S. voluntarily enter into an agreement with the Veterans Administration to fund tuition expenses that exceed the annual VA tuition and fees benefit. "This year alone, Emory contributed over $1.6 million in education support to veterans across our nine schools and colleges," Sterk noted, adding, "it's just the beginning."

The Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans provides pro bono legal services for veterans, assisting them and their families with the legal issues that they face, including claims for service-connected disability. "It's a place where people can go to deal with some of the many legal challenges that feel so unfair and so unnecessary," Sterk said.

The Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, part of the Warrior Care Network, focuses on the "invisible wounds of war," such as post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma, anxiety, and depression-related to past military service  "all of that without out-of-pocket costs for the veterans," Sterk noted.

"I want Emory to invest in you not only for what you have done, which is a lot, but for what you will do, what you will contribute to all of us for the future," she concluded.

A continuing commitment

The second speaker for Emory's Veterans Day commemoration was Michael Heekin, who served as a captain in the U.S. Army and as former chief operations officer of WedMD.

Taking the stage following Sterk, "I think I'm tempted to say 'what she said' and sit down," Heekin joked.

More seriously, "it is especially meaningful because of Emory's heartfelt and sincere commitment to veterans," he said. "And it is clear, not only from words but from actions, that Emory values veterans as contributors in a special way to the intellectual richness of the campus community."

Veterans' service is not over when they return to civilian life, Heekin noted.

"As you continue the transition to life after military service, I hope you will take with you a continuing commitment and readiness to defend our freedoms," he said. "As veterans, that is our responsibility and privilege."

Heekin said he is concerned that younger Americans do not have a deep understanding of the ideals on which the country was founded, "how humans with all their weaknesses and flaws risked everything to build something better than themselves."

He encouraged veterans to help in two ways: "First, join with others to push for the adoption of a rigorous civics education curriculum in our schools," and second, to "lead by example" through actions like encouraging the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights on the Fourth of July, Memorial Day and similar gatherings.

"So here we are, still on active duty, whether we like it or not," Heekin said. "Fall in."

Veterans Day at Emory is sponsored by the Emory Veterans Association, Employee Council and the Office of the President. After the ceremony, attendees enjoyed refreshments provided courtesy of Aftab Ansari, professor of pathology in the School of Medicine, who served as an officer in the Navy and is a Vietnam veteran.
Emory Colleges QEP holds Faculty Development Workshops every May, to help professors develop evidence-focused courses. Faculty may begin applying this month for the workshops. The deadline for applications will be in January. Visit the website for more information.

How do you know what you know?

For the third year in a row, Emory College first-year students are confronting that question in courses ranging from anthropology to religion and dance to physics. They arrive at the answers by learning how to carefully sort and weigh evidence in the evidence-focused first year seminars that are part of the universitys Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), The Nature of Evidence: How Do You Know?

Evidence is not a discipline-specific topic but rather a central focus of students undergraduate experience, says Tracy Scott, QEP director and a senior lecturer in sociology. Understanding evidence in a meaningful way, regardless of discipline, is a foundational aspect of your entire education at Emory."

Since it began three years ago, the QEP has seen an increase of classes every year, more faculty support and more students commenting on the real-world value of the courses.

Training faculty

Emory College requires students to complete a first-year seminar within their initial two semesters on campus. Part critical thinking and part disciplinary study, the QEP seminars focus on teaching students how to understand questions of evidence in the flurry of information coming at them.

Faculty who teach these courses receive professional development in the annual QEP Faculty Development Workshop. As part of the QEP effort, Emory College developed criteria to help faculty foreground issues of evidence and more explicitly teach about evidence as it pertains to their course content.

The QEP workshops use a series of faculty panels to highlight lessons learned from those who taught evidence-seminars in the previous year. Cross-disciplinary and concrete examples from the classroom foster lively discussions and new ways of conceptualizing the teaching of evidence.

The result: More than 65 different first-year seminars in two years, exploring everything from humanitarianism in Africa to the claims made in historical scientific writing.

By the five-year mark in 2020, Emory will have created more than 90 evidence-focused courses for the initiative, Scott says.

In addition to the committee of faculty and administrators who developed the criteria for the seminars, other committees work on related issues, such as the co-curricular work to fold discussion of evidence into the Pre-major Advising Connections at Emory Program (PACE) also required of first-year students.

Student involvement

One unique aspect of the QEP is an undergraduate advisory committee, a group of 10-12 students who provide input and feedback for the plan.

Scott credits the students with emphasizing the importance of evidence in being a good citizen and understanding other people and their viewpoints. Such real-world importance can further deepen the understanding for evidence in problem-solving and decision-making in classes.

I have a new appreciation for evidence in the work world because Ive seen how people respond to it, says Danielle Tanzman, a senior BBA major who used her board experience on a consumer marketing internship with Newell Brands.

You use evidence as much in music as medicine, because anything you study has to be backed up with substantial evidence, she adds. It was the same thing at my internship, where I had to back up any new idea I was presenting.

The ability to parse arguments and substantiate claims can help you be not just a good employee, but a good citizen, says junior biology major James Jordano.

After all, he says, evidence can be statistics in a science course or a book in a literature course. But it also comes from life in the 21st century, where streams of information flood social media daily.

Evidence is not something to be studied. It is an approach to looking at things, says Jordano, who believes his understanding of evidence will make him a better doctor someday. Evidence emphasizes your responsibility to know the full argument.

Anecdotally, then, students are understanding the need for the efforts of the QEP. The next step will be to further develop assessments that can capture results of the initiative, Scott says.

Broadly, there are four learning outcomes Emory expects from the focus on evidence:

1. Students who can distinguish the use of evidence in and between disciplines

2. Students who can identify and analyze evidence

3. Students who can evaluate the evidence

4. Students who can build arguments based on evidence and assess the arguments of others

In that way, the heart of the initiative is to view evidence-focused courses similarly to the writing requirement courses for students. Much as the structure and focus of writing spans all disciplines, the need to seek and interpret evidence is a central skill.

In your life, you will see a lot of information, Scott says. If its true, that information is knowledge. If its not, what is it? Our students are being confronted with that question every day.
Emory University Board of Trustees has elected business executive Robert C. Goddard III to serve as its new chair. Goddard succeeds John F. Morgan, who is retiring as chair after serving in the role since 2013.

Emory University Board of Trustees has elected business executive Robert C. Goddard III to serve as its new chair. The resolution passed at the full boards annual meeting, held at Emory on Nov. 10.

Goddard, who has served as a trustee since 2008 and as vice chair of the board since 2016, succeeds John F. Morgan, who is retiring as chair after serving in the role since 2013 and as an Emory trustee since 1996. Morgan will remain active with the board as an emeritus trustee.

Bob Goddard is a dynamic, thoughtful and creative leader who understands the breadth and depth of Emorys strengths and responsibilities as a leading research university, says Emory President Claire E. Sterk. His collaborative approach and his commitment to our faculty, students, patients and alumni make him a compelling leader of, and advocate for, Emory University in the coming decade.

Goddard is chairman and CEO of Goddard Investment Group, a privately held firm investing in commercial real estate through ownership, joint ventures and as a mezzanine lender, primarily in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Miami and Washington, D.C. He served as chairman of the former Post Properties Inc. until its sale in 2016 to Mid-America Apartments Communities (MAAC). Post Properties was a publically traded company and leading developer and operator of upscale multifamily communities throughout the United States. Prior to forming Goddard Investment Group in 2000, Goddard served as chairman and CEO of the NAI/Brannen Goddard Company, a privately-held commercial real estate firm headquartered in Atlanta.

One of the qualities that sets Emory apart is our commitment to working together to transform society on a local, national and international scale, says Goddard. I see that commitment across the university, from our colleges, graduate and professional schools, to our research and healthcare enterprises, each of which draws people from all over the world.

Goddard says he is honored to chair the 38-member Board of Trustees, but adds that what he enjoys most is being part a team, working with board members and President Sterk on strengthening Emorys future. Her strategic vision is really all our vision, he says.

At Emory, Goddard has served as a member of Emory Healthcares Board of Directors, where he chaired the patient quality committee, and served as campaign chair for Emory Healthcare. He also served on the board of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center; chaired the boards real estate, buildings and grounds committee; and served on the audit and compliance committee. He is a past member of Emorys Board of Visitors.

Goddard holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Mercer University and is a graduate of the Owners and Presidents Management Program at Harvard University.

Goddard is a trustee for the Pittuloch Foundation, which supports education and mental health services for children. He is also a member of Chief Executives Organization (CEO), Young Presidents Organization/World Presidents Organization (YPO-WPO), and the Society of International Business Fellows. He has been a member of the board of trustees of Mercer University and of Clark Atlanta University, and a board member of the Atlanta Ballet. He also has served as a member of the Metro Atlanta Quality Growth Initiative Task Force, a member of the Urban Land Institute, and honorary board member of Special Olympics of Georgia.
The robotics team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale continued its dominance at a national engineering competition, winning top honors in three out of four categories and winning the overall competition. The five-member student team, along with faculty adviser Bruce DeRuntz, professor of technology, competed at the Association of Technology, Management and Applied Engineerings robotics contest during its annual conference and competition, Nov. 1-3 in Cincinnati. The team took first place in the obstacle course, presentations and was the overall champion. Shown here, from left to right, are team members Nick Sjoberg, Nate Johnson, Ryan Guss, Paul Schumacher and Lincoln Kinley. Photo provided

Robotics team dominates for second-straight year

by Tim Crosby

CARBONDALE, Ill.  The robotics team at Southern Illinois University Carbondale continued its dominance at a national engineering competition, winning top honors in three out of four categories and winning the overall competition.

The five-member student team, along with faculty adviser Bruce DeRuntz, professor of technology, competed at the Association of Technology, Management and Applied Engineerings robotics contest during its annual conference and competition, Nov. 1-3 in Cincinnati. The five-member team took first place in the obstacle course, presentations and was the overall champion.

The performance followed the teams top marks at last years event in Orlando, Fla. During that competition, the team won nearly half of all the possible points available to all teams competing, dominating in the head-to-head obstacle course competition, as well as winning Best Electronic Control, Methodology, Best Fabrication/Innovation, Best Poster, Best Technical Presentation and Audience Favorite.

This years contest coincided with ATMAEs 50th anniversary, and DeRuntz said team members knew they had bring their best in order repeat as champions. Operating their custom-designed-and-built robot dubbed Winston, in honor of the recently retired and well-known bagel man in Carbondale, the students did just that.

We were the only team to receive a perfect score for both of the portions, although it was a very close competition, DeRuntz said.

Mastering the Competition

For the first portion of the obstacle course, the robot was tasked with retrieving five hacky sacks and bringing them back the starting box. One hacky sack was out in the open, one was in a 10-inch plastic pipe, one was under a 5-pound weight, one was on top of a 5-pound weight and one was inside a cardboard box.

The driver of the robot had to be switched between every obstacle, so all five members ended up driving the robot, DeRuntz said.

The second part required the robot to score with the bag. Two of the scores were made by a driver manipulating the robot to drop them in a corn-hole board. The other three, however, required the robot to autonomously drop the hacky sacks into a 4-inch-wide pipe cap after using onboard sensors to follow a 28-inch piece of metallic duct tape placed on the ground by a team member.

The SIU team bested eight other universities, including Eastern Illinois University, the University of Texas at Tyler, Iowa State University, Alcorn State University, East Carolina University, Ohio University, Ohio Northern University and Mississippi State University.

Planning for the Future

Lincoln Kinley, a member of the team and president of the SIU Robotics Club, said the students have big plans moving forward. They will send two teams to compete in the Midwestern Robotics Design Competition, as well as two teams to Robobrawl, a robot combat competition, both held in March at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The club also is preparing for the NASA Mining Competition in 2019 and are trying to raise funds to do so.

Besides that, we also have other projects in the pipeline, he said. We hope will help SIU Robotics become a nationally known robotics team.

About the Team

Nate Johnson of Abingdon held the position of engineering manager. A junior studying electrical engineering, he is planning a career in systems engineering. As engineering manager, Johnson was responsible for the overall design, which included creating a full computer-assisted design assembly and overseeing the fabrication of the robot. He also improved his TIG welding knowledge by learning the tips and tricks of aluminum welding to make a strong and robust chassis.

Nick Sjoberg of Huntley held the position of hardware manager. He is a senior in the electrical engineering technology program. His job was implementing the necessary electrical components needed for smooth operations. Sjoberg also used his machining skills to fabricate the complex pieces required for the custom chassis. Sjoberg also was a member of last years winning team.

Lincoln Kinley of Springfield held the position software manager. He is a junior studying electrical and computer engineering, and is the president of the SIU Robotics Club. He served as the main programmer of the robot, writing the necessary code to allow it to complete all the given objectives of the competition. Kinley also wired all of the electrical components. Kinley also was a member of last years winning team.

Ryan Guss of Sycamore was the teams engineering leaders. He is a junior studying electrical and computer engineering. He was in charge of testing and validation to ensure the robot was capable of completing the course. Guss also created a practicing system to optimize the teams obstacle maneuvering methods. He also is the Engineering Student Council representative for SIU Robotics. Guss also was a member of last years winning team.

Paul Schumacher of Teutopolis was the teams project manager. He is a senior in industrial management and applied engineering. He is interested in the areas of project management and leadership, and assuming this role has helped him gain relevant experience. As project manager, Schumachers major duties included developing a project plan, conducting weekly design meetings, keeping the team on schedule, and taking care of the logistics and finances involved with going to the competition.
Starkweather named Lincoln Academy student laureate

by Tim Crosby

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Kara Starkweather of Rochester is the 2017 Lincoln Academy of Illinois student laureate for Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

She will receive the Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award during the annual Student Laureate Convocation Nov. 11 in the Old State Capital in Springfield.

The Lincoln Academy of Illinois presents the award with a medallion, certificate of achievement and monetary award every year to one graduating senior from each of the states four-year colleges and universities. This marks the 43rd year for the awards.

I am incredibly grateful and honored to be selected, Starkweather said. I am surrounded by many high-achieving students and feel humbled to have been chosen to receive this award.

Starkweather is a senior studying physiology pre-medicine, with a minor in chemistry and psychology. The daughter of Debbie and Curt Starkweather, she plans to attend medical school after graduation.

While attending Glenwood High School in Chatham, she was an Illinois State Scholar, National Honor Society and Spanish Honor Society member, and her achievements there helped her garner a Chancellors Academic Scholarship, SIUs most prestigious award. She is also a member of the University Honors Program.

Dale B. Buck Hales, professor of physiology, said Starkweather started working in his laboratory as a freshman, where he began to notice her work ethic and talent.

She is a pleasure to work with and has what you would call quiet determination, Hales said. As she's matured in the lab she's taken on a significant leadership role among all the undergraduates.

Hales said SIU emphasizes giving undergraduates the opportunity to become involved in real research early in their academic careers.

Its one of the great things about SIU and it gives the students the opportunity to spend enough time in the lab that they can actually accomplish something and contribute to the project, Hales said. Kara's project is important to our ovarian cancer research.

Starkweather said her studies in pre-medicine, chemistry and psychology are giving her a well-rounded background her for a career in medicine. She also volunteers each week at Memorial Hospital of Carbondale.

I began volunteering at hospitals when I was just 14 years old, witnessing everything from the birth of a newborn to the final days of a persons life, she said. It has given me more inspiration and desire to become a physician and help those in need. Seeing people at critical times in their lives and being there as a hand to hold, an ear to listen to their stories, or a smile to help them through the day, has been an incredibly humbling and rewarding experience that I wish to continue throughout my life.

Another of Starkweathers efforts involves Timmy Global Health, which promotes health care equality locally and globally. The group organizes community outreach programs, blood drives, promotes health on campus and participates in other volunteer events. In addition, a group from the SIU chapter travels to Ecuador once a year to set up a medical clinic in a rural area with no access to health care.

For the past three years, Starkweather has also been an active member of the Saluki Science Ambassadors, currently serving as president. SSA focuses on encouraging incoming students to pursue majors within the College of Science.

My time at SIU has been an exciting and rewarding experience, she said. It has provided me with many opportunities to expand my education, serve my community, become a confident leader and make an impact on the lives of many. These skills will be valuable as I continue to serve my community and pursue a career as a physician.
SIU students, professional journalists to discuss crisis reporting

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, IL  Past and current students from the SIU School of Journalism and experts in the field of crisis reporting and multimedia journalism will present their work at a symposium Nov. 15 in the Communications Building at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

The School of Journalism and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, based in Washington, D.C., are sponsoring the free event.

The College of Mass Communication and Media Arts partnership with the center gives students the opportunity to report on global issues through reporting fellowships. MCMA has been part of the centers Campus Consortium since its launch in January 2009. There are now 37 consortium members.

Symposium Schedule

The symposium will begin with San Francisco-based independent journalist Jeanne Carstensen presenting Reporting on the Global Refugee Crisis.

Carstensens presentation, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Studio A, focuses on her work covering the refugee crisis in Greece in 2015 and 2016. Carstensen travelled across Aegean islands, Turkish and Macedonian borders and visited refugee camps.

At 2 p.m., Jordan Roth, the Pulitzer Centers multimedia coordinator, will present Visual Storytelling and Reaching New Audiences.

At 3 p.m., two former Pulitzer student fellows from SIU will present their international multimedia projects. Both afternoon presentations are in the Communications Building, Room 1032.

About the student presenters

Jessica Edmond, a graduate student in Mass Communication and Media Arts from Diehlstadt, Mo., investigated the cultural phenomena in Ghana of women bleaching their skin to gain a lighter complexion.

Steve Matzker, Murphysboro, a two-degree alumnus, worked on a series and documentary involving water rights on the Koshi River in Nepal while a student. Matzker recently earned his masters degree in professional media management with a specialization in digital documentary practices. He earned his bachelors degree in photojournalism.

Morgan Timms, a May 2017 photojournalism graduate from Brisbane, Australia. She traveled to western Australia to examine the cultural and historical factors causing high suicide rates of Aboriginal youth. She may be presenting by video.

A fourth student, Ryan Michalesko, a junior in journalism from Carbondale, will be in Puerto Rico working on his project  reporting on the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in September. He may also present by video.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 00:39:03|Editor: Lifang

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras delivers a speech during the second EU-Arab Summit in Athens, Greece, on Nov. 9, 2017. The second EU-Arab Summit taking place on Thursday and Friday in the Greek capital under the auspices of the Greek presidency is entitled "Towards a Stable Alliance" and aims to build more bridges of dialogue and collaboration between Europeans and the Arab world. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) --- European and Arab leaders on Thursday during a forum hosted in Athens called for closer cooperation between the two sides to face common challenges and promote growth and prosperity for all.

The second EU-Arab Summit taking place on Thursday and Friday in the Greek capital under the auspices of the Greek presidency is entitled "Towards a Stable Alliance" and aims to build more bridges of dialogue and collaboration between Europeans and the Arab world.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in his opening speech that for geopolitical and historical reasons, Greece is the best springboard for this bid to strengthen Europe's ties with the Arab world.

The Greek leader underlined his country's role as a pillar of stability and peace in the region and invited the Arab world to invest in Greece.

"Greece today is not only a geopolitically crucial country, but also a very attractive destination for investments. Greece creates important opportunities for shared economic growth, future cooperation in the wider region and holds a significant role as a pillar of peace and stability," he said.

Many of the major challenges Europe is currently facing can be addressed only through comprehensive policies and through the strengthening of relations with the Arab world, keynote speakers representing both sides stressed.

"We need to talk to each other because the interests of the European Union and the Arab world are closely intertwined. Many of us meet as neighbors. We are sharing the same challenges and opportunities on security, terrorism, irregular migration, climate change or economic development and trade," said Maros Sefcovic, European Commission Vice-President responsible for energy issues.

He noted that "the turbulence we see in many parts of the Arab world has repercussions in Europe as well."

"Our priority should be the enhancement of regional and multilateral mechanisms for stability and security, but also economic cooperation," Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said addressing the event, arguing that economic growth can create political conditions for stability in the broader Mediterranean region.

"We are meeting here at a significant conjuncture for the whole world...There are opportunities to be taken from times when instability starts creeping in. Protectionism seems to be raising its head again, borders are slowly being sealed both politically and economically," Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat noted, calling Europeans and Arabs to open up economic partnerships and cooperation in all fields.

"Constant communication and mutual understanding are crucial to maintaining the fruitful historical relationship the Arab world and Europe have actually enjoyed for thousands of years," Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy of the United Arab Emirates, said on his part.

"We can learn a lot from our forefathers who, contrary to what we hear from the news or learn from the media nowadays, they shared a genuine desire to build a united, global civilization that all of humanity could enjoy and benefit from," he stressed.

Egypt's Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil, as well as officials from Jordan, Qatar, Iraq, Algeria,the Arab League, businessmen and scholars, expressed willingness and confidence that through deepening cooperation, Europe and the Arab world will overcome all obstacles.
A Vietnamese policeman stands next to a sign near the venue of theAPEC summit in Danang, Vietnam November 9, 2017. (REUTERS/Jorge Silva)

NEW YORK, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is an "indispensable economic forum" for the Asia-Pacific, the world's powerhouse for economic growth amid rising protectionism in the West, said a renowned U.S. scholar.

"APEC does not get the credit that it deserves but it is an indispensable economic forum for the Asia-Pacific. Especially at a time when the ugly head of protectionism has reared itself," Sourabh Gupta, resident senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

APEC provides a "common umbrella" under which parties can "gather and move ahead on the basis of consensus" as rival trade liberalization initiatives are under discussion or re-negotiation in the Asia-Pacific and trans-Pacific region, he said.

"If a future Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) is to formally take shape, APEC is the platform where such liberalization discussions will be initiated," he said.

By encompassing all 21 APEC economies through trade liberalization, the FTAAP, once established, will become the world's largest free trade zone, covering 57 percent of the global economy and nearly half of world trade.

"Even if the momentum on FTAAP flags in the near-term due to the U.S.reluctance, APEC still can play a valuable role in setting high standards and best-practices in a number of new areas of cross-border commerce, such as digital trade," Gupta noted.

The vision to build FTAAP, proposed at the APEC meetings in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2006, was translated into reality at the 2014 APEC meetings in Beijing with the endorsement of a roadmap. The FTAAP was finally approved at the APEC meetings in Lima in 2016.

"This is what APEC excels at -- creating 'pathfinder' groups among its membership that draw up best practices in a number of cross-border and 'beyond-the-border' areas of commerce, such as the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules system, which are then endorsed by the full membership," he added.

A report from the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council has estimated that the FTAAP, when realized, will add 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars to the global economy.

The 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting will take place in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Nov. 10 and 11.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 02:09:33|Editor: yan

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JUBA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said on Thursday that it is willing to provide assistance when requested in solving the ongoing standoff between the government and the former Army (SPLA) Chief of General Staff Paul Malong.

UNMISS spokesperson Daniel Dickinson told Xinhua that the world body considers this standoff an internal matter for the South Sudanese, but UNMISS is ready to provide assistance if requested by both sides.

"UNMISS considers this an internal matter for the South Sudanese. The Mission is calling on all involved parties to resolve the situation peacefully.UNMISS is ready to provide assistance if requested by both sides," Dickinson, who did not disclose further details, said in Juba.

He added that the mission is calling on all involved parties to resolve the situation peacefully.

General Malong, who was sacked in May, is under house arrest after he disobeyed President Salva Kiir's order to withdraw about 30 of his bodyguards and retain three.

The general's home, which neighbors the State House, is guarded and patrolled by hundreds of soldiers mounting tanks on the pretext he may escape from his detention to fight the government.

Minister of information Michael Makuei on Tuesday said they were still giving room for further contacts and intervention to avoid military confrontation with the former army chief.

The United States Department of the Treasury indicted and effected asset freeze for the former army chief and other two senior ranking officers.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Kiir and his former deputy turned rebel chief Riek Machar led to split within the SPLA, leaving soldiers to fight alongside ethnic lines between the two major ethnic groups Dinka and Nuer, to which the two rivals belong respectively.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the conflict was weakened after outbreak of renewed fighting in July 2016 caused the SPLA-in opposition rebel leader Machar to flee the capital.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 03:45:12|Editor: yan

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LUSAKA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Zambia's human rights body has been elected as a member of the Steering Committee of the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI) as well as chairperson of the southern African region, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

Zambia's Human Rights Commission was elected during the 11th Biennial Conference currently underway in Kigali, Rwanda, which is discussing the role of human rights bodies in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

NANHRI is a continental body that brings together 44 national human rights institutions in Africa in order to strengthen their capacities and networking in promoting human rights in their respective countries.

Mweelwa Muleya, the spokesperson of the Human Rights Commission, said Zambia was elected during elections at the conference on Wednesday, November 8.

According to him, Zambia's election demonstrates the confidence the NANHRI has in it, adding that the election is an honor to the country as it also places a heavy national responsibility of providing leadership in building a sustainable culture of respect for human rights.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 04:45:35|Editor: yan

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By Burak Akinci

ANKARA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Elon Musk, founder of U.S. leading electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, met on Wednesday in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential complex.

Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the two sides discussed joint production of vehicles, sustainable energy, as well as the launch of Turkey's Turksat 5A and 5B satellites.

The meeting came as Erdogan recently announced a national project of producing first domestic automobiles.

Last week, Erdogan announced that a consortium of Anadolu Group, BMC, Kiraca Holding, Turkcell and Zorlu Holding would manufacture Turkey's first domestic car.

Harun Armagan, an official of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), also said on Twitter that the meeting was mainly about Turkish plan to build and commercialize an indigenous car.

Founded in 2003 and known for its specialization in electric cars, Tesla disrupted traditional auto industry by introducing high-tech and innovative products.

Ankara's plan includes an option for electric automobiles, which Musk can certainly help given his success of Tesla, said experts.

Producing a car with a national brand has been Turkey's long-habored dream since 1961, when a prototype named "Devrim" (Revolution) was built without putting to use.

For decades, Turks longed to build cars of its own brand, something that would boost the pride and the confidence of Turkish industry.

Turkey has been a significant producer and exporter of cars mainly targeting European market. The sizable automobile sector accounts for an important proportion of Turkey's economy.

Several international brands like Toyota, Fiat and Renault have plants in the industrialized north-western cities of Turkey with tens of thousands of employees.

But all cars made in Turkey, some 1.5 million last year, are either licensed products or based on western products. Around 75 percent of the products are finally exported.

Erdogan insisted that Turkey should have its own car brand to showcase the country's economic capacity and its global competitiveness, especially that Turkey has invested much to develop its technology in recent years.

The first production of a domestic car was slated for 2016 but funding difficulties and the reluctance from national automobile firms to get involved delayed the project.

"We do not want any more delays in this project and we will not tolerate any loss of time," said the Turkish president last week, adding that he will be the first buyer of the home-built vehicle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 05:25:49|Editor: yan

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LAGOS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Consulate in Lagos Thursday presented nine motorcycles to the police, with a pledge of continuous support to security agencies to ensure optimal performance.

The patrol motor bikes and nine air conditioners were presented by Chao Xiaoliang, the Chinese Consul General in Lagos at a ceremony attended by top police officers.

Chao said the Chinese government would support the initiatives and programs to guarantee the safety of the people.

He said the patrol bikes were procured to ensure police formations work optimally in their mandate of safeguarding lives, properties and to aid community surveillance.

The bikes were received by Ibrahim Adamu, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in Lagos, who said the patrol bikes would be put to optimal use by the police.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 05:25:51|Editor: yan

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RABAT, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Morocco has dismantled 10 terror cells since the beginning of 2017, Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit said on Thursday.

Speaking before a parliament session, Laftit noted that the number of busted cells is decreasing year by year. Security services have destroyed 15 cells in 2016 and 23 in 2015.

However, the minister insisted that Morocco remained a target for terrorists who are plotting to undermine Morocco's security and recruit new people.

A total of 1,699 Moroccans have joined terror groups abroad, including some 929 people who joined the Islamic State (IS) group, the minister revealed.

He noted that some 225 terrorists had been sent into jail.

Some 596 terrorists were killed, while 213 returned to the North African country, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 05:40:55|Editor: Yamei

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MADRID, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Spain's prosecutor has requested unconditional jail for four members of the Catalan Bureau of Chamber, local media reported on Thursday.

Former speaker of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell was questioned on Thursday along with other five members of the bureau over charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of funds.

The prosecutor requested unconditional jail for Forcadell, Anna Simo, Lluis Corominas and Lluis Guino, while Ramona Barrufet could avoid prison paying a bail of 50,000 euros (58,228 U.S. dollars) and Joan Josep Nuet would be set free with precautionary measures such as regular appearances.

The Catalan parliament unilaterally declared the independence of Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia on Oct. 27. The Spanish government in response applied the article 155 of the Spanish constitution intervening in the autonomous region and taking control of some of its bodies as well as calling fresh elections on Dec. 21.

All members questioned accepted the application of the article and explained that the vote for the independence at the parliament had no legal effect.

Meanwhile, eight former members of the regional government of Catalonia, Generalitat, are in prison after Spanish judge Carmen Lamela jailed them without bail after considering there was a risk of flight and destruction of evidence.

Former regional president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont is in Brussels with other four members of his government. Lamela issued a European arrest warrant for them.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 06:11:04|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- With more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps and untold numbers of Rohingyas in need of aid still in Myanmar, UN humanitarians pleaded to the Naypyidaw government on Thursday for access to northern Rakhine State.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that aid "access in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State remains extremely challenging, with the UN being granted almost no access by the government," chief UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

Although, he said, the international Red Cross movement (ICRC) was able to continue providing assistance in the area, "having reached tens of thousands of people with food and other services already."

"The needs remain high, with the Red Cross movement aiming to reach more than 180,000 people with assistance by the end of the year," he said. "Further humanitarian access and assistance is urgently needed."

Dujarric said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for "full and unfettered access for aid workers in Myanmar, including in Rakhine State, and we continue to encourage the government to implement this call to ensure that all those in need receive assistance."

The spokesman said that as a result of the overall limitations on access, "the United Nations has not been able to conduct an independent comprehensive needs assessment in northern Rakhine."

Last week, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported the number of Rohingyas -- an Indo-Aryan Muslim minority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar -- topped the 600,000 mark arriving at camps just over the border in the hills of Bangladesh.

On Aug. 25, a Rohingya militia allegedly attacked three police posts in the state and sparked the government's return of attacks against the local villages. The exchanges of fire have caused hundreds of thousands to flee into neighboring Bangladesh.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 06:51:19|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- A UN official on Thursday asked for more resources for war-torn Central African Republic (CAR) as a humanitarian plan is only partially funded.

The aid community has very limited capacities and is struggling to provide basic services, Najat Rochdi, deputy special representative for the UN mission in the CAR and UN Resident Coordinator in the country, told reporters.

The nearly 500-million-U.S. dollar Humanitarian Response Plan for 2017 for the country is only about 39 percent funded, she said.

"This is not the time to give up on the people of CAR," Rochdi said, noting unprecedented levels of hunger in the country. In addition to food shortages, the country also suffers from the lack of medicines and access to health care, she said.

The security situation continued to deteriorate since May 2017, relapsing into violence that could lead to peak levels not seen since 2014, some along ethnic lines, said Rochdi.

She warned that the high number of people displaced from their homes renders reconciliation between the predominantly Muslim and the predominantly Catholic communities, as well as rebuilding services and homes destroyed in the fighting, extremely difficult.

One out of four people in the CAR is either displaced or living as a refugee in another country, she noted.

The CAR has been in civil war since 2012, which is being fought along religious and ethnic lines.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 06:51:21|Editor: yan

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Thursday unveiled their own version of tax reform legislation, which would seek to delay the corporate tax cut for a year and curb other tax reductions.

The Senate Finance Committee, the tax-writing committee, on Thursday unveiled the details of the tax legislation to Republican senators during a closed-door meeting, according to multiple U.S. media reports.

The Senate measure would cut the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from the current 35 percent, starting from 2019, one year later than the House proposal released last week.

The Senate plan would also keep seven individual income tax brackets and eliminate all state and local tax deductions, while the House version would reduce the number of personal income tax brackets to four and allow taxpayers to deduct some property taxes.

The differences reflected Senate Republicans' greater efforts to satisfy the parameters set by the budget resolution approved by Congress, which would only allow the tax legislation to increase the federal deficit by 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars over 10 years.

The Senate Finance Committee plans to consider the tax legislation next week and send it to the Senate floor for a vote after Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee approved its tax bill on Thursday and would send it to the House floor for consideration as soon as next week.

"The House will pass its bill, the Senate will pass its bill and then we will get together and reconcile the differences, which is the legislative process. And that's how this process will continue," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Thursday.

It remains unknown whether the two chambers of Congress are able to bridge those differences. The Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders are under pressure to deliver a major legislative victory on tax reform before next year's congressional midterm elections, as they have failed to pass a bill to repeal and replace the controversial Obamacare earlier in the year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 07:01:24|Editor: Lifang

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TIRANA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The progress in the justice reform in Albania is a key element towards the country's consolidation of the rule of law, European Union (EU) Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said here on Thursday.

Hahn praised the progress Albania has made in the reform while giving a joint press conference with Albanian minister of foreign affairs Ditmir Bushati.

"Albania has marked an ongoing progress towards implementing key priorities in order to open EU accession negotiations," Hahn said at the joint press conference.

In the last recommendation issued by European Commission for Albania, the implementation of justice reform was set as the main condition for opening of negotiations with EU.

In this framework, Bushati said that Albania has started a vetting process which will vet around 800 judges and prosecutors of the Albanian justice system in order to have an independent and efficient justice system.

Bushati informed EU commissioner on concrete steps undertaken by Albanian government to fulfill all membership priorities and confirmed the drive to further progress.

These achievements constitute a solid foundation to open accession negotiations between Albania and European Union, Bushati underlined.
Wang Xiaochuan (3rd R), CEO of Sogou Inc. and Zhang Chaoyang (1st R), Board Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sohu.com rings the opening bell at New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/ Wang Ying)

NEW YORK, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Sogou Inc., a Chinese search engine company backed by Tencent and Sohu, rang the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opening bell on Thursday in celebration of its initial public offerings (IPO).

Sogou priced its IPO of 45,000,000 American depositary shares (ADSs) at 13 U.S. dollars per ADS, on the top of the pricing range of 11 dollars to 13 dollars given by the company, for a total IPO size of 585 million U.S. dollars, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their over-allotment option. Each ADS represents one Class A Ordinary Share.

Sogou has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 6,750,000 ADSs to cover over-allotments.

Shares of Sogou, trading under the ticker symbol "SOGO", started trading at 13 dollars per ADS on Thursday, and closed at 13.50 dollars apiece, rising 3.85 percent.

Sogou Search is the second largest search engine in China by mobile queries and Sogou is the fourth largest internet company in China based on Monthly Active Users (MAU) in September 2017, according to iResearch.

Proceeds from the IPO will be used for research and development, sales and marketing efforts, and general corporate purposes, Sogou said in a filing.

Traders work at New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/ Wang Ying)

Sogou's shareholders unveiled in the IPO filing are in highlights, as China's tech giant Tencent and internet company Sohu are the two largest shareholders.

According to the filing, after the IPO due to the additional voting power of the Class B Ordinary Shares that will be held by Sohu and Tencent, Sohu will hold approximately 33.4 percent of the total of Sogou's outstanding Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares and control approximately 44.0 percent of the total voting power of the combined total of Sogou's outstanding Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares.

Meanwhile, Tencent will have an indirect shareholding of approximately 38.7 percent of the total of Sogou's outstanding Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares and control approximately 52.3 percent of the total voting power of the combined total of Sogou's outstanding Class A and Class B Ordinary Shares.

Sohu and Tencent together will have the power to decide all matters that may be brought to a vote of Sogou's shareholders.

However, under a voting agreement, Sohu will continue to control the Board of Directors consisting of seven directors.

Within three years following the completion of this offering, four of the board directors will be appointed by Sohu, two will be appointed by Tencent, and the seventh will be Sogou's then chief executive officer.

Some analysts said that backing by Tencent and Sohu gives Sogou a unique competitive advantage to other companies, but others argued that over-reliance on those two companies may undermine their overall competitiveness.

Huge banners celebrating the listing of Sogou Inc. are seen outside the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the United States, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/ Wang Ying)

Under Sogou's business collaboration arrangements with Tencent, Sogou Search is the default search engine on various Tencent products that provide general search offerings, such as the Mobile QQ Browser, qq.com, and the PC Web directories daohang.qq.com and hao.qq.com.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2017, Sogou's revenue was 630.6 million U.S. dollars, up 29 percent from the same period a year ago, while its net income for the six months ended on Sept. 30, 2017 was 66.7 million U.S. dollars, up 47 percent from the year-ago period, according to the company's prospectus.

The number of IPOs in the U.S. capital markets has obviously increased this year. As of November 9, there have been 138 IPOs priced, an increase of 43.8 percent from the same date last year, while total proceeds raised were 32.8 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 95.1 percent from the same date last year, according to Renaissance Capital.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 07:11:26|Editor: Lifang

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HOUSTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- For the first time since Texas church shooting happened, the gunman's father spoke to the public on Thursday, saying his family was grieving and hurting.

In an interview with ABC, Michael Kelley said, "we are grieving, our family is grieving." "I don't want our lives, our grandchildren's lives, destroyed by this media circus."

Devin Kelley killed 26 people and wounded another 20 in a South Texas church in Sutherland Springs Sunday morning.

Kevin Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the U.S. Air Force for assaulting his wife and child, and was sentenced to 12 months' confinement after a 2012 court-martial.

He served in Logistics Readiness at the Holloman Air Force Base in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, U.S. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told media earlier.

Stefanek later confirmed the Air Force didn't report the shooter's domestic violence conviction to the FBI, leaving the door open for him to buy weapons and make the mass killing.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 08:56:38|Editor: Lifang

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ISLAMABAD, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The State Bank of Pakistan has said that the Overseas Pakistanis sent home remittances worth 6.44 billion U.S. dollars during first four months of the Financial Year 2018 (4MFY18).

The central bank said in a statement on Thursday that the remittances improved 2.27 percent for 4MFY18 as against 6.30 billion U.S. dollars reported during the same period of last year.

During the month of October this year, the Overseas Pakistanis' inflows surged by 27.87 percent to 1.65 billion U.S. dollars when compared with September 2017 and mounted by 5.99 percent as against October last year.

Pakistanis living and working in Saudi Arabia contributed the most with remittances worth 461.07 million U.S. dollars during October 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 09:21:44|Editor: Lifang

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HANOI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Typhoon Damrey has claimed 106 lives, left 25 people missing and injured 197 others in Vietnam's central and central highlands regions, the country's Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said on Friday morning.

Damrey also destroyed over 2,000 houses, damaged nearly 120,000 others, sank 1,231 cargo and fishing ships and boats, and killed more than 43,300 fowls and cattle.

Vietnamese forces are still searching for missing crew members after eight ships sank in Quy Nhon city, Binh Dinh province, as well as ready to cope with potential oil spills.

They are also on guard to deal with any natural disasters which may strike Da Nang which is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 09:31:46|Editor: Lifang

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SYDNEY, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers are rushing to study the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) as an annual coral spawning event occurs.

The spawning, whereby the coral that makes up the iconic reef simultaneously mate and give birth, offers scientists a narrow window to analyze the health of the reef.

The process is caused by warm water temperatures and the full moon. It usually only occurs once a year but experts are optimistic there could be another event in December.

Line Bay, a senior researcher at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS), said that the event was the most important day of the year for GBR researchers.

"Coral spawning is like Christmas for coral biologists," Bay told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

"Individual coral species tend to have a certain time when they will spawn, so we have our team ready to collect the spawn when it happens.

"Then we can actually separate the eggs and the sperm, and we can cross them and produce these new families of corals that we can then rear in the lab."

Samples collected will be taken to the AIMS National Sea Simulator, the world's largest and most advanced research aquarium, where scientists will work around the clock to observe them using only red lights.

"What it allows us to do is to change the conditions, to simulate any possible future conditions, so we can immediately and in real time and to a very high degree of accuracy, change temperature, salinity, pH," AIMS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Paul Hardisty said.

"We can add various contaminants to waters, we can simulate dredge plumes, we can simulate introductions of various chemicals and so on, and we can literally see how corals respond under these future scenarios."

Bay said that the current focus was on discovering why some species of coral are better at surviving in warm water than others.

She said that the findings could change the approach to managing coral populations for decades to come.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 09:41:50|Editor: Lifang

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MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Heads of state and government of the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathered here from Friday to Tuesday for their 31st summit and related meetings, under the theme "Partnering for Change, Engaging the World."

ASEAN, a regional bloc comprising 10 Southeast Asian nations, aims to promote intergovernmental cooperation and facilitate economic integration among its members.

It was originally established in August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The group has now expanded to include Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

ASEAN has a combined population of approximately 629 million people, accounting for 8.8 percent of the world's total. In 2016, the bloc's combined nominal GDP had grown to more than 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, the sixth largest economy in the world.

ASEAN is celebrating its 50 years' anniversary this year. Integration is gaining momentum in recent years as the regional bloc announced the establishment of the ASEAN Community on Dec. 31, 2015 at its 27th summit.

The ASEAN Community has three pillars: the Political-Security Community, the Economic Community and the Socio-Cultural Community.

At its 28th and 29th summits held in Vientiane in September 2016, the leaders adopted the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Work Plan III and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025, an integral part of the ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together, in a bid to advance the ASEAN community building process.

The 30th summit, held in April in Manila, pledged to strengthen ASEAN's integration process and make the regional body a global player.

The highest decision-making body of ASEAN is the summit meeting of the ASEAN heads of state and government. The ASEAN summit is convened every year. According to the ASEAN Charter, the chairmanship of ASEAN rotates annually among the member states. The Philippines is this year's chair.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 10:37:05|Editor: Lifang

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YEREVAN, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Armenia and Moldova have pledged to deepen all-round cooperation on both bilateral and multilateral levels, local media reported Thursday.

"We are not limited in our work both on bilateral and multilateral levels," Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told visiting Moldovan President Igor Dodon, according to the Armenian president's official website.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Moldova.

Sargsyan said Armenia is interested in close cooperation with Moldova in a variety of areas, especially in politics and economy. Bilateral trade increased by 33 percent over the past nine months and the two parties consider it necessary to further economic relations.

On multilateral level, considering Armenia's membership in the Eurasian Economic Union as well as its readiness to deepen relations with the European Union, Dodon said he is interested in Armenia's experience of working with the two blocs.

The Moldovan president expressed his gratitude for Armenia's support for Moldova in its efforts to become an observer in the Eurasian Economic Union that groups Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 10:52:09|Editor: Lifang

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against 10 current or former Venezuelan government officials, whom it said "are associated with undermining electoral processes, media censorship, or corruption in government-administered food programs in Venezuela."

NEW SANCTIONS

The sanctioned officials include Freddy Alirio Bernal Rosales, Venezuela's minister of urban agriculture, Ernesto Emilio Villegas Poljak, the newly appointed minister of culture and the former minister of communication and information, and Julian Isaias Rodriguez Diaz, ambassador to Italy.

As a result of the actions, all assets of these individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen, and U.S. persons will also be generally prohibited from dealing with them.

The sanctions followed the Venezuelan national elections on Oct. 15. The U.S. Treasury Department said in an announcement that the elections were marked by "numerous irregularities that strongly suggest fraud helped the ruling party unexpectedly win a majority of governorships."

"Despite calls for an independent audit of the election results, the Venezuelan government proceeded to swear in the winning candidates through an oath of office," said the department.

"Our message remains clear: the United States will not stand aside while the Maduro regime continues to destroy democratic order and prosperity in Venezuela," said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin in the announcement.

WASHINGTON-CARACAS RIFT

An oral war between Washington and Caracas kept escalating, as U.S. President Donald Trump in July threatened to "take strong and swift economic actions" against Venezuela's government if Venezuela went ahead to pursue the creation of a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) tasked to rewrite the constitution.

The United States in June already announced sanctions against 13 current and former Venezuelan government officials to pressure their President Nicolas Maduro into halting his plan to rewrite the constitution.

The sanctions came ahead of the planned ANC election, which the U.S. Treasury Department said "will have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution and may choose to dissolve Venezuelan state institutions."

In response, Venezuela rejected the U.S. sanctions.

"We emphatically reject the pretensions and intentions of the U.S. Treasury Department against eight people, among them citizens who have had the privilege of being elected by their own people to the ANC," said Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreazaon on Aug. 8.

MOUNTING TENSIONS

The Oct. 15 elections saw the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) snap up the vast majority of gubernatorial races, winning 18 of 23 states. The remaining five went to the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

The ANC later swore in the 18 loyalist governors who won their positions in regional elections, while five opposition governors refused to take part.

The elections came at a time of high tension in Venezuela, as anti-government protests organized by the MUD led to more than 90 deaths since early April. The MUD sees the establishment of the ANC as a power grab by Maduro. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:07:13|Editor: Lifang

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CANBERRA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Australia's second largest telecommunications company, Optus, has joined its biggest competitor in promising refunds for disappointed National Broadband Network (NBN) customers.

Optus announced on Thursday night that customers who signed up for the NBN, Australia's troubled national open-access data network, and did not receive the Internet speeds they were promised would be eligible for refunds.

It came a day after Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications company, announced it would refund 42,000 NBN customers who experienced slow Internet speeds.

The companies were put under pressure to offer refunds after an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) concluded that promised download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (mbps) "could not be achieved in real-world conditions."

The ACCC threatened every telecommunications company offering NBN services with legal action if they did not offer refunds.

Optus confirmed that the company was "working with the ACCC" to complete the refunds.

"Optus is taking action to provide appropriate remedies to those customers where it has been confirmed that the underlying NBN service cannot deliver the speed they signed up for," a company spokesperson told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

As Telstra did, Optus said that access issues for fibre to the node (FTTN) and fibre to the building (FTTB) were responsible for the slow speeds.

"This is an industry-wide issue," Optus chief executive, Allen Lew, told reporters on Thursday, predicting that every company offering NBN service would have to provide some level of refunds.

"We will make sure our customers get the service that they have purchased and if not we will look at providing the appropriate remedies for them on an individual and case-by-case basis."

TPG, another large telecommunications company, said it was considering the ACCC's stance and would enter discussions with the consumer watchdog "in the coming days."

Optus has more than 350,000 NBN customers compared to more than 800,000 with Telstra, according to the ACCC.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:07:14|Editor: Lifang

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SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's unification ministry said Friday that it will offer financial assistance to local companies suffering losses from their investment in the inter-Korean factory zone, which has been shut down after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear test last year.

It has also planned to compensate firms sustaining losses from investment in other inter-Korean economic cooperation projects, which would be the first such measure taken by the South Korean government.

The ministry said in a statement that the measure would be taken for the state to take responsibility for companies going through difficulties caused by the government's abrupt policy direction.

South Korea's government unilaterally decided in February last year to shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the DPRK's border town of Kaesong following Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test and long-range missile launch.

The government has provided 517.3 billion won (463 million U.S. dollars) in compensation to Kaesong companies, which estimated the losses reaching over 1.5 trillion won.

After conducting due diligence, the government estimated the losses at 786.1 billion won.

The government will offer additional 66 billion won to the Kaesong companies. The ministry said the fresh assistance will increase the total compensation to 583.3 billion won, or 74.2 percent of the losses it estimated.

The first financial assistance will be offered by the government to local companies suffering losses from investment in other inter-Korean cooperation project.

The compensation will be provided early next year after conducting due diligence.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:07:14|Editor: Lifang

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CARACAS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government on Thursday confirmed that it will be meeting with representatives of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) next week to continue dialogue towards political coexistence.

"We reaffirm what has already been asserted: dialogue continues on Nov. 15 in the Dominican Republic, and we'll be there," Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Rodriguez told the press.

"I confirm what was said by the head right-wing spokesman, Luis Florido," Rodriguez, who is also head of the government delegation to the talks, added.

Earlier on Thursday, Florido said the MUD was ready for "serious" talks with the progressive government of President Nicolas Maduro.

Rodriguez said that based on previous exchanges between the two sides in September in the Dominican Republic, "a joint document of agreements is being prepared as part of the framework of coexistence and peace that Venezuelans so desire and deserve."

Florido, an opposition deputy, had said "we are willing to assume a new process of serious negotiation," accompanied by representatives of the international community who have participated in the on-again, off-again talks from the start.

"Our people are suffering from hunger, that's why the political leadership must commit to providing solutions," added Florido.

Earlier this year, Venezuela witnessed a months-long political crisis as the MUD led street protests to try to stop Maduro's government from electing a National Constituent Assembly but failed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:17:16|Editor: Lifang

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LOS ANGELES, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- In response to a series of sexual misconduct scandals rocking Hollywood, the District Attorney in western U.S. County of Los Angeles Thursday announced the creation of a special task force to deal with the allegations.

According to the office's press release, District Attorney Jackie Lacey said she has established a task force composed of specially trained deputy district attorneys who are ready to evaluate these cases.

"I have assigned the group of veteran sex crimes prosecutors to work together to ensure a uniformed approach to the legal review and possible prosecution of any case that meets both the legal and factual standards for criminal prosecution," said the district attorney.

"To date, we have not received any cases from law enforcement for possible criminal filing," said Lacey, adding that communication is going on with the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills police departments.

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating at least two allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and one against "Gossip Girl" actor Ed Westwick. The Beverly Hills Police Department is also investigating Weinstein and Hollywood director James Toback.

Hollywood was startled after a bombshell story about Weinstein was exposed in early October, disclosing his 30-year pattern of sexual harassment and workplace intimidation against young female stars and employees. After Weinstein, Westwick, Toback, actor Kevin Spacey, film-maker Brett Ratner and Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman have swirled into the troubles among others.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:22:18|Editor: Lifang

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SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's economy will be in a recovery track thanks to continued export expansion and the effect from the implementation of supplementary budget, a government report said Friday.

The finance ministry said in a monthly economic assessment report, called Green Book, that exports and production continued a growth trend on the back of the global recovery.

It said private consumption, which had been sluggish, rebounded recently, forecasting that the economy would be in a recovery track due to the continued export growth and the implementation effect of the extra budget.

From August to October, the report said the recovery was not solid, but it changed the phrase into the economy to be in a recovery track.

It was attributable to robust economic growth in the third quarter. The country's real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 1.4 percent in the July-September quarter from three months earlier.

The GDP result boosted expectations for this year's economic growth to surpass 3 percent, the growth forecasts of both the government and the central bank.

Production in the mining and manufacturing industries kept rising for three months through September. Retail sales, which reflect private consumption, rebounded in September, after falling in the previous month.

Discount outlet sales increased 1.7 percent in October from a year earlier, with gasoline and diesel sales increasing 3.4 percent.

Exports, which account for about half of the economy, maintained an upward momentum for 12 months to October thanks to strong demand for major export items such as semiconductors, ships and oil products.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:27:19|Editor: Zhou Xin

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses the APEC CEO summit in Vietnam's Da Nang city Nov. 9, 2017. Rodrigo Duterte urged APEC members to turn the Asia-Pacific into a "comprehensively connected and integrated" region. (Xinhua/Li Peng)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to turn the Asia-Pacific into a "comprehensively connected and integrated" region.

"In 2015, we reiterated our belief that a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) should be pursued as a comprehensive free trade agreement built on ongoing regional undertakings," Duterte said at an APEC CEO summit in Vietnam's central Da Nang city on Thursday.

The Philippines, which is holding the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), hosted the 2015 APEC summit in Manila.

In his keynote speech, the Philippine president urged the 21 APEC economies to continue advocating stronger and deeper regional economic integration by facilitating liberalization of trade and investment.

"Diversity will always pull us in separate directions, but regional integration anchored on open and free trade will allow us to maximize the opportunities presented by global trends like cross-border flows and digital developments," he told the APEC CEO summit attended by some 2,000 senior officials, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

As part of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders' Week, the CEO summit is the largest annual event of the business community in Asia-Pacific, which culminates in the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Friday and Saturday.

Duterte said as the fulcrum of several integrated mechanisms such as ASEAN, APEC can be instrumental in promoting more inter- and intra-regional trade, investment and people-to-people connectivity between other economic blocs.

"Since ASEAN and APEC are regions of vast physical divide, a stable, interconnected and integrated infrastructure is necessarily the backbone of our progress," Duterte said.

Besides physical connectivity, the president also urged the APEC business community to continue to promote people-to-people connectivity as a critical growth and development strategy.

He proposed that the APEC members adopt an Inclusive Business Model that provides opportunities for those at the "bottom of the pyramid."

"To unleash the full potential of globalization, we must create an inclusive environment where everyone has the opportunity for growth."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:27:20|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The 2017 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week is currently underway in central Vietnam's city of Da Nang.

The theme "fostering new dynamism, creating a shared future," echoes the idea of "building a community with a shared future for humankind" championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will travel to the Vietnamese port city to attend the annual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Nov. 10-11.

Integrating Asia-Pacific and ensuring free trade within the region has been at the core of APEC's mission since its establishment in Canberra, Australia 28 years ago. Though oceans apart, the member economies have endeavored in the past decades to achieve economic integration for sustainable growth and prosperity in the region, which boasts the world's two biggest economies and takes up 60 percent of total global gross domestic product (GDP) and half of global trade.

However, the commitment is easier said than accomplished, especially in today's world where humanity is witnessing profound transformation and facing numerous challenges and risks. Against such backdrop, Xi announced China's proposition to build a community with a shared future for mankind and achieve shared and win-win development in a keynote speech at the UN Office at Geneva in January.

Such proposition could also enlighten and guide the development of the Asia-Pacific, as thoughts and words are turned into concrete actions benefiting regional countries.

BELT&ROAD INITIATIVE FOR INTER-CONNECTIVITY

The Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, well illustrates the philosophy and vision of a shared future for humankind. It aims to build trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa via overland and maritime routes, with a large part within the Asia-Pacific.

Experts say the initiative has been actively promoting the development of infrastructure through the APEC region, strengthening tangible connections among members so as to ensure further integration.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is a key program to increase connectivity within the region, and between the region and the rest of the world," said Jayant Menon, a lead economist from the Asian Development Bank. "Trade costs are directly related to the level of connectivity, and as these costs come down, integration is certain to rise."

Mey Kalyan, senior advisor to the Supreme National Economic Council of Cambodia, said the initiative links well with the Master Plan on Connectivity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which would create vast opportunities for regional cooperation and serve as engines for future development and prosperity.

Apart from linking trade and infrastructure construction, the Belt and Road Initiative has also increased people-to-people exchanges, said Oh Ei Sun, special adviser for International Affairs of Malaysia's Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute.

"With the United States rapidly retreating into protectionism and isolationism, we look forward to Chinese leadership in pushing forward the free trade agenda," he added.

"At the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May, President Xi and others have made clear that China was opening an invitation for others to find a pathway forward for the agenda for investing in connectivity," noted Peter Drysdale, head of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and East Asia Forum at the Australian National University.

Countries involved should press ahead with the agendas, such as infrastructure construction and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, to play "a mutually beneficial game," he said.

PROMOTING FREE TRADE AMONG APEC MEMBERS

The idea of a shared future for mankind also contains a commitment that China is making to globalization and multinationalism, which is essential for the trade among APEC members, and is in accordance with the common interest of humanity.

"The commitment to multilateralism seemed to have been lost in recent years in industrialized countries," Drysdale said, warning that if many of the countries don't assert the principle strongly, "the whole rationale upon which the East Asia and Asia Pacific economic prosperity is based will be under threat."

Experts say China's persistence in promoting multilateralism is worthy of praise. "China has been a major proponent of multilateral free trade," said Menon. "As the world's largest trading nation, it has everything to gain from preserving multilateralism."

The establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) proves China's determination in pushing forward an open and integrated economy within the APEC. The FTAAP was launched at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing with the endorsement of a roadmap. A collective strategic study was conducted subsequently and the result was approved at the APEC meetings in Lima, Peru in 2016.

The FTAAP would become the world's largest free trade zone and would serve as a comprehensive and effective institutional framework for regional integration," said Liu Chenyang, director of APEC study center in Tianjin-based Nankai University.

A report from the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council has estimated that the FTAAP, when realized, will add 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars to the global economy.

"FTAAP, as a long-range objective for market integration of the Asia-Pacific region, is bound to be welcomed by the majority of countries in the region," said Jin Jianmin, senior fellow at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.

As President Xi said at last year's APEC Summit in Lima "for any regional trade arrangement to gain broad support, it must be open, inclusive and beneficial to all."

He also told global leaders that the FTAAP is a "strategic initiative critical for long-term prosperity of the Asia-Pacific."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:37:23|Editor: Mengjie

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by Xinhua writers Gu Zhenqiu, Wen Xiqiang

SHEFFIELD, Britain, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- China is now the new engine of global economic growth, and the sound economic growth in China is conducive to the world at large, a German entrepreneur told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Frank-Jurgen Richter, founder and chairman of Horasis, an international consultant firm, said on the sidelines of a two-day forum held in Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire, earlier this week that "I think China is now, we can easily see, becoming the new engine of growth" in the world economy.

"I think the Chinese economy is doing very well," he said, voicing his full confidence in the future of China's economic development following the successful conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October.

Richter noted that the blueprint laid out at the just-concluded CPC national congress "is now very much about focusing on innovation, on the entrepreneurship, and the green economy," and "more focused on quality growth."

"Chinese companies now are taking the world lead, they are innovative, they are the vanguards, they are not longer just copying the technology about 10 to 15 years ago, which was very natural at that time," he said.

"But now they are at the front of the (world's advanced) technology. Just think about companies like Huawei," he said.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen in southern China, is the world's third biggest smartphone maker which continued to expand its presence in the high-end segment.

"It is the new China, and it is the reason that I am so bullish on China's economy," Richter said.

"In the past, the world economy was still dominated by the U.S., and partly by Europe, maybe by Japan, but all those old markets are rather weak," he said. "And even though Europe is recovering, the U.S. is recovering; the real leader is now with China."

"So China is doing well, and the whole world is doing well. And that's the reason I think we should all support the Chinese economy," he said, adding that "we should join hands" to boost the healthy economic progress in China and other parts of the world.

"Today's companies have to cooperate across industries, across national boundaries," he said. "Chinese companies are very open, are very global, and we see the rise of Chinese brands -- the global brand of Chinese origin."

Richter cited what he described as "very famous household brands" produced by Lenovo, Xiaomi, Hisense, Didi and Alibaba, saying: "It is like a new trend, Chinese brands are getting very famous."

On the back of technological prowess and good value, an increasing number of Chinese companies, including Huawei, Lenovo, Gree, Xiaomi and drone maker DJI-Innovation, have gained foothold in the international market, paving the way for a wave of global Chinese brands.

"I think the Chinese government is very pro-business," Richter said. "It is not a protectionist."

"I think it is also inviting foreign companies to come to China," he said.

The forum, known as the 2017 Horasis China Meeting, was organized by Richter's organization. Introduced by Horasis in 2005, the meeting has become one of the foremost global business gatherings on China.

Present at the forum were about 300 businessmen, scholars and government officials from such countries as China, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Mozambique and Haiti.

Richter, born in 1967, is a German entrepreneur and currently the chairman of Horasis. He has served in that role since he founded the organization in 2005.
Children swim to welcome the traditional whale-hunting boat in the waters of Lamalera in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara Province, Oct. 30, 2012. (Xinhua file/Jiang Fan)

WELLINGTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Japan's decision to continue whaling in the Southern Ocean is "out of step" with international opinion and defies scientific advice, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Thursday.

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research announced on Thursday that the Japanese whaling fleet had departed Japan for the Southern Ocean.

"While the world calls for greater protection of the ocean's ecosystems, Japan's whaling vessels will be heading to the Antarctic to hunt over 300 minke whales," Peters said in a statement.

New Zealand has long been opposed to whaling and has repeatedly urged Japan to end its whaling program, Peters said.

Japan's decision to conduct whaling in the Southern Ocean "flies in the face of the clear recommendations of the International Whaling Commission, its Scientific Committee and its expert panels," he said.

"Japan can achieve its stated research objectives without killing whales," the foreign minister said, adding that this is an outdated practice and needs to stop.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 11:52:25|Editor: Mengjie

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HAVANA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- New measures limiting U.S. travel and trade with Cuba that took effect Thursday have led to a new setback in bilateral relations since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January, a Cuban political analyst said Thursday.

The new regulations stiffen the sanctions imposed by Washington five decades ago as part of the trade embargo, which Cubans call a blockade, said Rafael Hernandez, an expert on Cuba-U.S. relations, in an interview with Xinhua.

"These measures intensify the blockade that was already a significant barrier for U.S. companies wanting to invest in Cuba," said Hernandez, adding that "they add to already existing complications."

Washington's measures bar U.S. companies from having commercial exchanges with 179 Cuban holdings and firms with links to armed forces, security or intelligence agencies.

The move, which aims to roll back the thaw in bilateral relations spearheaded by Trump's predecessor, has wide-ranging implications.

U.S. citizens, for example, will be prohibited from staying at any of 83 state-owned hotels operated by the Gaviota tourism group, which is part of the military's giant holding company, GAESA.

The ban places dozens of other businesses and some products, such as soft drinks and rum, beyond the reach of American consumers.

The Mariel Special Development Zone, the Cuban government's flagship project to attract foreign investment, is also affected by the regulations.

The Trump administration announced the rollback in Cuba policy in mid-June, but "we now know exactly which companies U.S. firms or citizens can't have any kind of commercial relationship with," said Hernandez.

"We now know the limits of that relationship and its real intentions," he added, saying the blacklist aims to both scale back barely renewed commercial ties between the two countries, and to "empower" Cuba's emerging private sector.

The measures also bar individual travel by U.S. citizens to the island under the 12 categories of "people-to-people" exchange the Obama administration established in 2016, as a way to get around the embargo, which prohibits Americans from freely traveling to Cuba as tourists. The Treasury Department additionally imposed conditions on educational and academic trips.

Earlier, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning in September, urging Americans not to visit Cuba due to alleged sonic attacks against U.S. diplomatic personnel there.

"The warning ... coupled with these regulations are very damaging to the Cuban economy. They are already considerably impairing group visits," said Hernandez.

"The inhibitory effect is not that we will revert to 2015, when there was no individual travel (allowed), but rather that the new regulations along with the travel warning may scare off Americans to come to Cuba," he added.

However, Washington allows trips to the Caribbean nation to "support civil society in Cuba," or "promote the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities."

Havana claims the initiative is politically motivated to subvert the government and promote regime change.

Last year, some 285,000 Americans visited Cuba and that number is expected to surpass 400,000 this year, according to official statistics.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 12:42:37|Editor: Mengjie

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HARBIN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese-made Y-12E aircraft was delivered to the Federated States of Micronesia, an island nation on the Western Pacific, on Friday.

The aircraft was manufactured by AVIC Harbin Aircraft Industry Group Co., Ltd.

"It will be used for cargo transport, rescue and medical services in Micronesia," said Liu Huinan, deputy chief engineer at the company.

The purchase order was obtained in 2013, he said.

Consisting of more than 600 islands, Micronesia has a stronger demand for air transportation.

The short-haul Y-12 series aircraft are used mainly for passenger and cargo transport, geological exploration, ocean monitoring and agriculture. The aircraft has obtained certification in more than ten countries including Russia, the United States and France.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 13:02:46|Editor: Lifang

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YANGON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Bilateral trade between Myanmar and China amounted to over 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in first half of present fiscal year 2017-2018, official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

In accordance with official figures from the Ministry of Commerce, the country's exports to neighboring China reached 2.46 billion U.S. dollars while its imports were 3 billion U.S. dollars.

The country usually trades with China via Muse, Lweje, Kanpikete, Chinshwehaw and Kengtung border points.

Bilateral trade between the two countries was 10.7 billion U.S. dollars in last FY 2016-2017.

The country's rice, peas, sesame seeds, corns, dried tea leaves, fishery products, rubber, minerals and animal products are mainly exported to China.

Meanwhile, machinery, plastic raw materials, consumer products and electronic devices are imported to the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 13:47:55|Editor: Liu

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TUNIS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- A forum that gathered about 1,500 international investors, entrepreneurs and project promoters was kicked off here Thursday, aiming to help the North African country attract more investment.

"Our strong message to foreign investors, through this event, is the fact that Tunisia will remain an attractive economic destination with high competitiveness capabilities," said Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed at the opening ceremony of the "Tunisia Investment 2017" Forum.

According to Chahed, Tunisia doubled its growth in one year from 1 percent in 2016 to almost 2.3 percent so far and the growth in 2018 is expected to reach 3 percent.

Foreign investments increased by 7 percent during the first 10 months of this year, he added.

Tunisian Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Zied Laadhari said certain industrial sectors have great potential for investment, highlighting manufacturing industries, automotive components, aeronautics, pharmaceutical industries, agro-industry, mechanical and electrical industries, and textile-clothing.

"We are betting on other sectors including tourism, renewable energy, information and communication technologies. In this context, Tunisia offers significant potential for investors especially in the private sector," Laadhari told Xinhua.

"Among the projects envisaged by the Tunisian government in the next five years: a highway that will connect the north with the west-center of Tunisia, inter-provincial express roads, modernization and reconstruction of the rail transport network," said Ridha Saidi, adviser to Chahed.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 13:57:59|Editor: Liu

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a three-day visit to the Philippines Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits next week.

"This visit will be Prime Minister Modi's first official visit to the Philippines and his fourth time participation in the annual ASEAN and East Asia summits," Indian External Affairs Ministry Secretary (East) Preeti Saran told the media Thursday evening.

During his stay in capital Manila, the Indian prime minister will hold bilateral talks with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who is also the current chair of the ASEAN. Modi will also meet some of the other world leaders on the sidelines of the summits.

Modi's schedule in Manila also includes a meeting with members of the Indian community at a reception to be hosted by the Indian ambassador to the Philippines. He will also undertake a tour of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 13:58:00|Editor: Liu

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SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Three U.S. aircraft carriers will enter waters off the Korean Peninsula one by one over the weekend to conduct joint maritime exercises with the South Korean Navy, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday citing Seoul's military.

An unnamed official with the South Korean military was quoted as saying three U.S. aircraft carriers will stage joint drills with the South Korean military from Saturday to Tuesday in the Korea theater of operations (KTO) off the country's east coast.

Yonhap said the three aircraft carriers will enter the KTO one by one as the strike groups sail with a certain distance from each other.

The KTO is a theater for military operations near the Korean Peninsula, which is designated by the commander of combined forces of South Korea and the United States.

The U.S. 7th Fleet which is part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said on its website Thursday that the USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt will commence a three-carrier exercise in international waters in the Western Pacific for four days from Saturday.

The strike groups planned to conduct air defense drills, sea surveillance, replenishments at sea, defensive air combat training, close-in coordinated maneuvers and other training, according to the Pacific Fleet.

From the South Korean side, two Aegis-equipped destroyers, one destroyer and four frigates will be mobilized for the joint exercises with the U.S. carriers, according to Yonhap.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 14:07:10|Editor: Yang Yi

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A blessing ceremony is held as part of the celebration of Yifan Festival at Fengwu Village in Mulao Autonomous County of Luocheng, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nov. 8, 2017. Local people of Mulao ethnic group gathered here during the festival of Yifan, celebrating harvest and praying for good fortune. The custom was listed as one of the national intangible cultural heritages in 2006. (Xinhua/Lu Bo'an)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 14:03:03|Editor: Liu

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Britain and India were in a tug-of-war on Thursday at UN headquarters in New York over whose candidate would return to the International Court of Justice.

After a whole day of work, the UN General Assembly and the Security Council were able to elect four judges for The Hague-based world court. The fifth vacancy was hotly contested by British jurist Christopher Greenwood and India's Dalveer Bhandari. Both were seeking re-election.

Under the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, a candidate has to obtain an absolute majority in both chambers to get elected -- 97 out of 193 votes in the General Assembly and eight out of 15 in the Security Council. Voting in the two chambers must be held concurrently.

After four rounds of voting at both chambers, Ronny Abraham of France, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia, Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade of Brazil, who were seeking re-election, were successful in their bids for another term of nine years.

Nawaf Salam of Lebanon, a new contender, also passed the threshold of required votes in both chambers.

The two chambers started proceedings for the election of a fifth judge. The new round of contention, however, turned out to be in a deadlock: Greenwood was favored by the Security Council with nine votes, but could not win majority in the General Assembly; Bhandari won absolute majority in the assembly with 115 votes, but got only six votes at the council.

Given the discrepancy, the two chambers decided to call it a day for now and would resume election on Monday.

The newly elected judges would begin their terms of office on Feb. 6, 2018.
Two boatmen look at the Chinese-built Kigamboni Bridge Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on April 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese ambassador Wang Ke on Thursday said that China will continue to strengthen cooperation with Tanzania and contribute to the East African nation's industrialization drive.

Wang said China's cooperation with the East African nation will become stronger and opener, bringing more opportunities for bilateral cooperation and the development of Tanzania.

"I believe that in the future, under the leadership of President Magufuli and the fifth phase government, with the common efforts of Tanzanian people, the 'Tanzanian Dream' of turning into an industrialized and middle income country will surely become true," she told her maiden news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

The envoy said Tanzania enjoyed many unique advantages like geographic location, rich natural and human resources, and the long traditional friendship with China.

She said: "Tanzania lies in the natural extension of 'Belt and Road' initiative in Africa, and is among the pilot countries for China-Africa capacity cooperation."

"As the new Chinese Ambassador, I will spare no efforts in fulfilling my mission... and strive to achieve more real results through cooperation..." said Wang.

She said Chinese companies have built a number of mega projects in Tanzania, including roads and bridges, creating 150,000 jobs.

"Their work have made remarkable contribution to the development of infrastructure, job creation and human resource training in Tanzania," said Wang.

The diplomat added that China has been the largest trading partner of Tanzania for many years with 350,000 Tanzanians engaging in jobs relevant to trade with China.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:18:25|Editor: Zhou Xin

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least seven militants from Taliban and Islamic State (IS) were killed and four others wounded after clash erupted between two rival groups in the eastern Nangarhar province on Thursday, a local official said Friday.

"Seven militants including four IS fighters and three Taliban insurgents were killed and four others including two Taliban fathers sustained injuries after clash erupted between the two rival groups in Tangi area of Khogayani district late on Thursday," Ataullah Khogiani told reporters.

Meantime, an army spokesman in the eastern region of Afghanistan, Shir Aqa Faqiri said that the fighting erupted on Thursday has claimed 11 lives from both Taliban and IS outfit and injured 14 others in Khogayani district of Nangarhar province.

Neither Taliban nor IS has made comment on the report.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:23:28|Editor: Zhou Xin

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CANBERRA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A vast majority of Australians do not know safe cooking temperatures for high-risk foods, a national survey has found.

The study, published by the Food Safety Information Council (FSIC) on Friday, found that 70 percent of people did not know the safe temperatures for hamburgers, sausages and poultry.

"Even worse, of those that reported they did know the correct temperature, most were wrong with 15 percent saying below the safe temperature of 75 degrees Celsius (C) and 9 percent stating it should be 100C or more, which would be a pretty burnt piece of food," Rachelle Williams, chair of the FSIC, said in a media release.

"Coupled with this lack of knowledge, is another of our surveys which found 75 percent of Australians surveyed reported that there wasn't a meat thermometer in their household and only 44 percent of those with a thermometer reported using is over the previous month.

The results of the survey were released to coincide with Food Safety Week which promotes safe cooking and preparation techniques.

"With an estimated 4.1 million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year, and escalating rates of Campylobacter and Salmonella infection in Australia, we are encouraging all Australians to pick up a food thermometer from their local homeware store and learn how to use it properly," Williams said.

"This will not only ensure safer food but you will also be able to cook the perfect steak."

Samonellosis is caused by Salmonella bacteria found in animals farmed for food such as cows and chickens. Its symptoms include vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhoea and fever and can last from four to seven days.

The safe temperature for poultry such as chicken, duck or turkey is 75C, the same temperature the FSIC recommends for all leftovers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:23:29|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ISTANBUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Friday detained 93 more suspected Islamic State (IS) militants in Istanbul and southern province of Adana, local media reported.

All the suspects are foreign nationals, with 82 of them captured during simultaneous operations launched in 14 places in Istanbul, the state-run Anadolu Agency said, noting 11 Syrians were apprehended in operations in Adana.

It said the detainees once fought for the IS in conflict zones and were planning to rejoin soon the militant group in Syria.

Turkey has cracked down harder on IS militants lately and seized many suspects across the country, as the group is being routed in Syria and Iraq.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:43:32|Editor: Zhou Xin

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- As the lethal smog continued to envelope the Indian capital for the fourth day in a row, Delhi Friday banned the entry of trucks and other heavy vehicles into the city to curb high pollution levels.

Delhi police said it has sealed all its land borders with neighboring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to stop heavy vehicles from entering the city.

"On all borders, we have deployed our traffic staff and local police. We are checking all vehicles and directing them to return from Delhi borders. We are in liaison with neighbouring states too," Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police D.K. Gupta told the media.

The Delhi police, however, made it clear there is no such entry ban on heavy vehicles carrying essential commodities to the national capital. "Vehicles with essential commodities are not being restricted by us," Gupta said.

Pollution levels are 30 times the World Health Organisation's recommended limit in some areas of the national capital. And Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has already likened the city to a "gas chamber".

The Delhi government on Thursday announced the return of the odd-even car rationing scheme in the wake of the worsening air quality in the city. Under the scheme, private cars with odd and even number plates will be allowed to ply on alternate days.

The scheme will come into effect Monday for a week and the Delhi government claims it will cut down vehicular pollution to half, one of the major sources of pollution. The scheme was trialled last year also, but its effect on pollution is still not clear.

Meanwhile, schools have been shut in the Indian capital, construction activities temporarily banned and car parking charges hiked four-fold to discourage residents from driving their cars and encourage them to use public transport.

Delhi witnesses high pollution levels every year in winter mainly due to farmers in the neighbouring northern state of Punjab and Haryana burning crop stubble to clear their fields.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:48:33|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China has specified the measures that will ease or lift foreign investment restrictions in its financial markets.

Foreign businesses will be allowed to own up to 51 percent of shares in joint ventures in securities, funds or futures, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told a press conference. The cap will be phased out over three years.

Restrictions on investment in Chinese banks and financial asset management companies will be removed, Zhu said, elaborating on the consensus reached by China and the United States at a meeting Thursday.

After three years, foreign investors will be allowed to own up to 51 percent of shares in joint ventures in life insurance and with the cap removed in five years.

Duty on automobiles will be reduced "at an appropriate pace," and restrictions on foreign investment in special and new energy vehicle manufacture will be eased in free trade zones before next June.

The same value added tax policy will be applied to domestic and imported distillers' dried grains, which means charges at customs will be removed.

The U.S. side was asked to ease controls on exports of high-tech products, fulfill its obligations under Article 15 of the Protocol on China's Accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), treat Chinese investors fairly in the U.S. market, push forward the license application process of China International Capital Corporation Limited in the United States and be prudent in trade remedy measures.

According to Article 15, WTO members should have stopped using the surrogate country approach on China on Dec. 11, 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:48:34|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- As China opens up its financial market to the world, global investors are increasingly adding Chinese stocks into their portfolio.

The total value of domestic stocks held by overseas entities hit 1.02 trillion yuan (about 154 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of September, up from 700 billion yuan at the end of January this year, central bank data showed.

Foreign investors mainly bought Chinese shares through the Shanghai-Hong Kong and Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect programs, which together saw foreign funds inflows of 326.3 billion yuan at the end of October.

Investor interest in the domestic A-share market was particularly strong recently, evidenced by a surge in daily inflows of "northbound fund," or money invested from Hong Kong into the Chinese mainland, which has averaged 1.6 billion yuan since mid-October, higher than 900 million yuan since the beginning of this year.

Financial stocks and those in the consumer products industry were among the favorite picks among many foreign investors. Those invested via the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) program mainly chose to bet on bluechips in these industries, such as Bank of Beijing and liquor maker Kweichow Moutai.

According to Gao Ting, an analyst with UBS, overseas investors tend to overweight Chinese consumer products stocks in their portfolio, and will likely increase their holdings after the inclusion of A-shares by global index provider MSCI.

Starting June next year, MSCI will include some China A-shares in its emerging markets index on a gradual basis.

Since the announcement of the decision in June, applications to open accounts through the stock connect programs have surged, with increasing number of active investors in the market, Nomura Securities noted.

The inclusion will bring about 15 billion to 20 billion U.S. dollars into the Chinese capital market next year, estimated Wang Hanfeng, an analyst with China International Capital Corporation.

The growing interest from overseas investors was also driven by confidence in China's economic fundamentals, analysts said.

China's economy continued steady expansion in the first three quarters, with growth at 6.9 percent year on year, above the government target of 6.5 percent for 2017.

"We are quite bullish on China's economy in the long run. While the GDP number may not be as strong, we see great investment potential in technological innovation, globalization and increased profitability of firms." said Shi Bin with UBS Asset Management.

"Once we find good investment targets, we'll hold our position for the long-term. We don't sell shares just because it went up 10 percent," Shi said.

China's stock market has been recovering steadily this year after market turmoil starting from the summer of 2015 once sent the major index below 3,000 points.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.14 percent higher Friday, at 3,432.67 points, the fifth straight day of rise.

As more favorable conditions have emerged, it is high time for China's capital market to open even wider, Wu Qing, chairman of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, recently told Xinhua.

The exchange has initiated a research program to study the possibility of a Shanghai-London stock connect, Wu said.

"We've been actively participating in international rule-making and international governance of stock exchanges under the mechanism of World Federation of Exchanges. Our work has gained international recognition," Wu said.
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-11-10 16:04:51|Editor: Jiaxin

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BEIJING, Nov.10 (Xinhuanet) -- "China is making an enormous progress in innovation agenda. We are proud to be part of that," said Ian Jacobs, President and Vice-chancellor of University of New South Wales, Australia (UNSW).

In a recent interview with Xinhuanet, Jacobs said Australia is actively participating in innovation programs of China.

In terms of high technology innovation, the UNSW and Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Torch Innovation Precinct in 2016, he said.

Jacobs added that thanks to the joint efforts, China and Australia could have a wonderful success in education partnership.

And this kind of partnership could be an example for other education partnerships all around the world, he believed.

There are a variety of ways of educational partnership, including government to government research, universities to business programs, and universities links, he said.

It is wonderful to have so many Chinese students in UNSW, he said, these students will generate cooperation opportunities for Australia and China, and further UNSW cooperation with more Chinese educational institutions, he concluded.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 15:58:39|Editor: Liangyu

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by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's vision for a "new era" shows China has developed a full consciousness of its role and responsibility as a major country in the world, say experts.

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in Beijing last month marked a crucial turning point, said Riccardo Sessa, a former Italian ambassador to China, at a conference in the Italian capital earlier this week.

The meeting represented the comprehensive consolidation of a major country in the world, he told the audience at the event, which was organized by the Chinese embassy and focused on China's future after the 19th CPC National Congress and China-Italy relations in the new era.

Romano Prodi, a former Italian prime minister and scholar, spoke highly of the vision laid out by Xi.

"After reading President Xi's speech, my first thought was: this is a congress of awareness and consolidation," he said.

China's ambassador to Italy, Li Ruiyu, stressed Beijing's commitment to improving the architecture of international relations, noting that China has launched the Belt and Road Initiative, founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and organized the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, comprises an overland Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and aims to revive and expand cooperation and exchanges along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes, which nurtured trade between Asia and the outside world in the past.

The ambassador also mentioned the G20 summit held in east China's Hangzhou city in 2016, and the 2017 summit of the BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- in southeast China's coastal city of Xiamen.

Marina Sereni, vice president of the Italian parliament's lower house, took note of the potential benefits from China's increased engagement with the world, including those for China-Italy relations.

"The future development of the country has been outlined in connection with the world outside, and in a very strategic way," she told the audience, adding that China has "proved to be very conscious of the great responsibility."

Although Italy and China are currently on different paths of development, with the former struggling to emerge from a severe economic crisis and the latter maintaining high levels of growth, they still share solid interests, said the senior lawmaker.

"Despite these differences, our countries are tied by some common challenges," she said. "Both countries, for example, need to address social inequalities and poverty, which for Italy might be the result of the crisis, and for China a consequence of its fast development."

She added that both countries are also committed to promoting an environmentally sustainable growth and need to provide political governance for technological innovation and transformation of production models.

Given that, she said, there is a "potentially" huge room for further bilateral cooperation.

"Why do I say potentially? Because if we seriously want to benefit from China's 'new era,' we have to improve our ability to enhance our own skills and excellences," she said.

"We need to clearly identify the areas where the complementarity with China lies, and lay out a strategic plan," she added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 16:13:46|Editor: Zhou Xin

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HAVANA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- On the streets of Havana Thursday Cubans talked about the recent set of measures announced by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration that crack down on travel and trade with the Caribbean island.

Headlines of Cuban media defined the scope of these regulations, as well as Havana's reaction to this evident setback in bilateral relations, which many locals think is the return to the worst times of the Cold War.

"It's really been a setback since President Trump came to power. We had advanced a lot with Obama and there were good projections, but since the beginning of this year practically everything has rolled back," Elier Gonzalez, a 33-year-old taxi driver, told Xinhua.

Like Gonzalez, many Cubans believe the new travel regulations will significantly reduce the flow of American visitors to the island, a figure that increased substantially in the last two years.

Washington's new regulations prohibit individual visits by U.S. citizens to the island under the 12 categories of "people-to-people" exchanges.

Also the Treasury Department imposed conditions on educational and academic trips, and in both cases they will have to be done under U.S. supervision.

"There was a lot of American tourism before Trump and now with these new regulations it will be reduced to the minimum. This hurts the Cuban state, but also private workers," said Lucia Vasallo, a handicraft vendor in Old Havana.

Although the new regulations seek to "empower" the Cuban private sector, many self-employed people here believe that in the long run they will be greatly affected by these rules.

"There is fear or ignorance about what is legal or not about traveling to Cuba because of the complexity of these measures and they will undoubtedly cause serious economic damage," Barbara Rodriguez, owner of a cafeteria in the western Havana neighborhood of Miramar, told Xinhua.

According to official data, some 285,000 Americans visited Cuba in 2016 and they will surpass 400,000 this year.

"I had several groups of Americans for this month and December and some of them have canceled their reservations. It's really frustrating and difficult for us," said Margot Ruiz, who rents her apartment to tourists in Havana.

The new regulations which came into effect Thursday prohibit U.S. companies from having commercial exchanges with 179 Cuban holdings and firms with links to armed forces, security or intelligence agencies.

Americans will be prohibited from staying at any of 83 state-owned hotels operated by the Gaviota tourism group, which is part of the military's giant holding company, GAESA.

Also, the ban places dozens of other businesses and some products, such as soft drinks and rum, beyond the reach of American consumers.

"It's really ridiculous that the U.S. government tells its citizens what soda or rum brand they can drink or not in Cuba. There's no way they can verify that," said Juan Valdes, a state worker.

This is coupled with a travel warning issued earlier in September by the U.S. State Department, urging Americans not to visit Cuba due to alleged sonic attacks against U.S. diplomatic personnel there.

Motivated largely by the thaw between the two countries in 2015, thousands of Cubans started their own private businesses. Today, there are over 21,000 rental houses and apartments throughout the country, as well as some 2,000 private restaurants.

"The only thing that remains is for Trump to end diplomatic relations with Cuba. Now we are worse than many years ago," said Valdes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 16:49:00|Editor: Zhou Xin

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NEW DELHI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- India's Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea seeking minority status for the country's majority Hindus in some of the states.

A bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, refused to admit the public interest litigation plea, saying the National Commission for Minorities is the right forum to take a call on the issue.

The apex court asked the petitioner -- India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who is also a lawyer -- to approach the minorities commission.

Upadhyay has sought minority status for the Hindus in states like Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur in the northeast and Indian-controlled Kashmir and Punjab in the north.

The petition claims that Hindus are minority in these states but their legitimate benefits are being siphoned of arbitrarily to the majority because of the non-identification of their status.

As of now, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains are notified as minority communities in India.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 16:49:03|Editor: Liangyu

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MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's upcoming official visit to the Philippines and attendance at the leaders' meetings for East Asia cooperation will give a strong boost to China's neighborhood diplomacy, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua said in a recently-published signed article.

Li will visit the Philippines and attend a series of high-level meetings from Nov. 12-16, including the 12th East Asia Summit, the 20th China-ASEAN (10+1) leaders' meeting, and the 20th ASEAN-China, Japan and South Korea (10+3) leaders' meeting.

The ambassador said that Li's trip is an important move of multilateral diplomacy undertaken by a Chinese leader after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and also the first visit to the Philippines by a Chinese premier in 10 years.

"It's of great significance and has drawn wide attention," Zhao said.

While attending the leader's meeting for East Asia cooperation, Li, together with the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will review the development achievements China and ASEAN countries have made and put forward the "China initiative" in fostering strategic mutual trust, boosting economy, trade and investment, and promoting people-to-people exchanges, according to the Chinese ambassador.

China and ASEAN, linked by waters and mountains, are good neighbors and good partners who collaborate closely for common development, Zhao said.

"In recent years, China-ASEAN relations have grown into the most dynamic and the richest in connotation in the relations between ASEAN and its dialogue partners," he added.

Noting that China and ASEAN will mark the 15th anniversary of their strategic partnership in 2018, Zhao called on both sides to take the opportunity to jointly work for higher-level strategic partnership and build closer China-ASEAN community of shared destiny.

As traditionally-friendly countries, China and the Philippines have achieved great progress in bilateral relations since the establishment of diplomatic ties 42 years ago, the ambassador said.

Starting from 2016, Sino-Philippine relationship has entered a new era, with high-level exchanges between the two countries getting more frequent, pragmatic cooperation going deeper and sounder, bilateral mechanisms on foreign affairs, trade, defense, agriculture and fisheries, science and technology being generated.

China and the Philippines have also established a bilateral consultation mechanism on the South China Sea issue and a joint coast guard committee on maritime cooperation, Zhao noted.

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative has been highly compatible with the Philippines' Ambisyon Natin 2040 and other construction plans, thus bilateral cooperation in infrastructure construction has borne many fruits, he said.

Currently China is the Philippines' No. 1 trade partner and source of imports, and the 4th destination of exports.

The ambassador said China firmly supports the Philippines' anti-drug efforts, fully backs its anti-terrorism operations in Marawi, and will spare no effort to help the reconstruction and improvement of the livelihood in the war-torn areas.

China and the Philippines have kept close contacts on regional and international affairs, and are both devoted to safeguarding regional peace, stability and development.

The Chinese side fully supports the Philippines in its role as ASEAN'S rotating presidency in 2017, and its effort to successfully hold a series of meetings on East Asia cooperation. It also helps to build the ASEAN community of shared destiny, and lifts the cooperative level in East Asia, said the Chinese ambassador.

The recently-concluded 19th CPC National Congress has offered new guidance and arrangements for the Chinese people to achieve their two centenary goals, namely building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the centenary of the CPC, which was established in 1921, and building a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by the middle of the 21st century in time for the centenary of the people's Republic of China, as well as for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the Chinese ambassador said.

"It also sets the advancing direction for China to push for a new type of international relations and a community of shared future for mankind, " he said.

Li's forthcoming visit to the Philippines will be a new interpretation of China's foreign principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, inclusiveness, as well as building friendship and partnership with neighboring countries, Zhao noted.

"It will injecting strong and positive energy to the high-level exchanges, strategic mutual trust and interest integration between China and the neighboring countries," he said.

"We believe that both China and the Philippines will seize the opportunity of Li's visit to work together so as to create a 'golden age' for ties between the two countries and contribute to peace, stability and lasting prosperity of the region."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 16:59:05|Editor: Zhou Xin

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RIYADH, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that he believed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is free to move around in Saudi Arabia.

"As for as we know, we believed he is free to move around in Saudi and he makes his own decisions," the minister told Europe 1 Radio.

Le Drian is in Riyadh with France's President Emmanuel Macron in an unscheduled visit to Saudi Arabia late Thursday.

Macron, who came from the United Arab Emirates, held talks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently launched a massive anti-corruption crackdown.

"The French president condemned the Houthi missile attack on Riyadh and stressed France's stand and solidarity with the Kingdom," the official Saudi Press Agency said.

It added that the two leaders also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and their efforts for security and stability in the region, including joint coordination efforts in the fight against terrorism.

Macron's visit came as tensions are rising between the Sunni kingdom and Shiite Iran over Lebanon and Yemen.

On Saturday, Lebanese prime minister Saad al-Hariri announced his resignation in Riyadh. He accused Iran, a major foe of Saudi Arabia, of interfering in Lebanese internal affairs through the militant group Hezbollah, and said his life is under danger.

But Hezbollah accused Saudi Arabia of forcing Hariri to resign and putting him under house arrest.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 16:59:05|Editor: Zhou Xin

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SEOUL, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Korean farmers on Friday expressed strong opposition to negotiations with the United States to revise the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), demanding the annulment of the trade deal.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release that it held a public hearing earlier in the day to collect public opinions on the negotiations to amend the KORUS FTA as part of the domestic process on trade pact.

The hearing, however, was stopped as farmers entered the hearing venue to protest against the revision negotiations, occupying rostrums and shouting for the annulment of the bilateral FTA.

They hurled eggs and shoes, as well as insults, toward government officials. The farmers tussled with security men, demanding the stop of the public hearing, according to local media reports.

Farmers held a separate press conference outside the venue, saying the KORUS FTA, which came into force in 2012, should be immediately scrapped.

The trade ministry said it planned to hold a meeting with farmers as early as possible to collect opinions from the farming industry.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed earlier in the week with visiting U.S. President Donald Trump to rapidly push the launch of negotiations to amend the bilateral free trade pact.

Trump said in Seoul Tuesday that the KORUS FTA was not very good for the United States, but he noted that the U.S. deficit in goods trade with South Korea can be reduced as Seoul would purchase the U.S. military equipment.

The U.S. leader told a press conference with President Moon that South Korea would buy billions of U.S. dollars of the U.S. weapons, some of which were already approved.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 17:09:10|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R, front), who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, arrives in Da Nang, Vietnam, Nov. 10, 2017, for the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and a state visit to the southeast Asian country. Xi was received by high-ranking Vietnamese government officials at the airport. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, arrived in this Vietnamese city on Friday for the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and a state visit to the southeast Asian country.

Xi delivered a speech at the APEC CEO Summit later this afternoon, and is attending a dialogue with representatives of the APEC Business Advisory Council, as well as an informal dialogue with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

On the sidelines of the APEC events, the Chinese president is scheduled to hold a series of bilateral meetings with leaders of other countries on Saturday.

In a written speech delivered upon arrival at the airport, Xi extended the sincere regards and best wishes to the brotherly Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Vietnamese government and people on behalf of the CPC, Chinese government and people.

Describing China and Vietnam as friendly neighbors connected by mountains and rivers, Xi said the two countries share similar political systems, development paths and an interrelated future.

He said China and Vietnam have witnessed an ever increasing cooperation and deepening relationship since the two countries forged diplomatic ties 67 years ago, which have brought tangible benefits to the two peoples and contributed a lot to the peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

"The consensus reached by leaders of our two parties and countries has been implemented step by step, and the China-Vietnam strategic cooperation is moving toward new breadth and depth," Xi said.

"The Chinese side highly values its relationship with Vietnam," Xi said, noting that he is looking forward to meeting with Vietnamese leaders and people of various sectors to have in-depth exchange of views on the relations between the two parties and countries, as well as on international and regional issues of mutual concern, thus consolidating the traditional friendship, planning for the future development and lifting the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation to a new height.

Xi was received by high-ranking Vietnamese government officials at the airport. Chief Executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who is in Da Nang for the APEC meeting, also went to the airport to greet Xi.

This year's APEC Economic Leaders' Week is held under the theme of "Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future."

In a signed article published in Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of the CPV, Xi wished Vietnam a great success hosting the APEC meeting, saying that China looks forward to a "highly productive meeting that contributes to the common development and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific."

The overseas trip is Xi's first after the 19th CPC National Congress. After attending the APEC meeting in Da Nang on Nov. 10-11, he will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos on Nov. 12-14.

The APEC is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to leverage the growing interdependence of the Asia-Pacific.

APEC currently has 21 member economies, namely, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, China's Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 17:19:18|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine and Australian navies began a 22-day joint maritime exercises in the waters off western Mindanao Island in southern Philippines, the Philippine armed forces said on Friday.

"The engagement involves a series of meeting procedures, planning and coordination for the conduct of the combined patrols in the western Mindanao. This is likewise in support to the anti-terrorism and piracy campaign of the government," said Rear Admiral Rene Medina, commander of Philippines Naval Forces Western Mindanao.

Two Royal Australian Navy Vessels -- Her Majesty Australian Ship (HMAS) Larraika and HMAS Maitland -- anchored in Zamboanga City pier.

Medina said four Philippine Navy vessels will also be used in the exercises that run from Nov. 10 to Dec. 1.

Aside from enhancing maritime cooperation, Medina said the joint activities are designed to secure the vast maritime domain of the Sulu Sea, where the exercises will be conducted.

"This will prove that the Philippine Navy does not work alone in protecting and maintaining the peace, order and stability in its area of responsibility," he said, adding that the Philippine Navy and the Royal Australian Navy have "a strong relationship when it comes to maritime patrol and security."

Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne announced last month that her country is readying a mobile military team to provide Philippine troops with urban warfare counterterrorism training.

Payne said this latest arrangement is part of the agreement between Canberra and Manila to enhance counterterrorism cooperation to prevent the IS militants from establishing a geographic foothold in the region.

She said Australian Defense Force (ADF) mobile training teams of approximately 80 will be posted to selected military bases in the Philippines to conduct urban warfare counterterrorism training "in the coming days".

The ADF will expand its assistance to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to strengthen its long-term ability to combat terrorist threats and prevent the spread of "Daesh" to the region. Daesh is another term use for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to conduct trilateral naval patrols in the waters bordering them, a military cooperation that is hoped to detect pro-Islamic State extremists in that region.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 17:44:27|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOGADISHU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Several Al-Shabaab terrorists were killed in airstrikes conducted on Thursday evening by the United States and Somali military forces in central region of the Horn of Africa nation.

The U.S. Africa Command (Africom) said the first military strikes occurred in the Bay Region of Somalia, about 160 km west of the capital of Mogadishu.

"In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Somalia against Al-Shabaab on Thursday at approximately 3 p.m. local Somalia time, killing several militants," Africom said in a statement issued on Thursday night.

It said Al-Shabaab has pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and is dedicated to providing safe haven for terrorist attacks throughout the world.

"Al-Shabaab has publicly committed to planning and conducting attacks against the United States and our partners in the region," said Africom said.

It said its U.S. forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect Americans and to disable terrorist threats. This includes partnering with AMISOM and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF); targeting terrorists, their training camps and safe havens throughout Somalia, the region and around the world.

The latest operation comes after Somalia and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces on Monday launched a massive security operation to flush out Al-Shabaab militants in Middle Shabelle region in southern region.

The pan African body plans to reduce its troops by 1,000 by December, followed by further cuts next year, an exercise expected to end by 2020 as part of its exit strategy.

However, AMISOM's exit is also pegged on the ability of the Somali National Security Forces, particularly the SNA to ably take over the security of the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:04:36|Editor: ZD

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd R) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st R) welcome U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) and his wife Melania Trump at the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City, in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 8, 2017. They had an informal afternoon tea in the Baoyun Building, also known as the Hall of Embodied Treasures, in the southwestern corner of the Forbidden City. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

Photo album: Xi-Trump meeting in Beijing

by Xinhua writers Zhu Lei, Zhou Xiaozheng, Qi Zijian

NEW YORK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- On his first state visit to China which wrapped up Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping drew a future roadmap for the development of bilateral ties, delivering a fresh sense of gain for the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

As everyone knows, stronger cooperation between China and the United States instead of tension and confrontation, benefits the world. The three-day visit also highlights how much can be achieved in bilateral relations when the two heads of state come together.

Trump's visit to Beijing marked the third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in seven months since Trump hosted Xi in Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida in April. They also met in Hamburg, Germany on the sidelines of the G20 summit in July.

The Beijing visit was a remarkable moment in the history of China-U.S. relations. President Xi called the visit "successful and historic" as the bilateral relations are "at a new historical starting point," while Trump said the two countries have a great relationship. The warm, candid words which pervaded the visit footnoted the trip's success.

The regional and international issues up for discussion rendered the Beijing visit the most focused stop in Trump's first Asia tour.

The two countries agreed to dedicate themselves to promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, support peace and stability in the South China Sea, and stand by Afghanistan's side in its efforts to rebuild the country.

On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, they agreed not to recognize the nuclear status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and promote a peaceful resolution of the issue through dialogue and negotiation.

The trip showcased positive interaction between the world's top two economies, and a healthy and stable growth of China-U.S. relations will help the two better coordinate on the world stage.

The visit also witnessed the signing by Chinese and U.S. companies of a lucrative package of trade and two-way investment deals worth 253.5 billion U.S. dollars.

The record-breaking package underscores not only the dividend of the two countries' multinationals doing business, but also the huge cross-border opportunities that the economic and trade integration will create in the era of globalization.

A deal signed by the Silk Road Fund and General Electric to jointly invest in power grids, new energy and oil and gas in countries and regions along the Belt and Road will boost manufacturing cooperation between Chinese and U.S. companies and bring change across various regions of the world.

The robust economic and trade cooperation once again demonstrates to the world China's commitment to opening up and reform. China will not close its door to the world; in fact, its door will only open wider.

There's no need for zero-sum competition. Through political wisdom and creativity, the two countries can forge a new type of relationship.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:19:41|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's top economic planner Friday released a guideline on deepening pricing reforms, with the aim to establish a more market-oriented, fair and transparent mechanism by 2020.

For the monopolized sectors, the government will gradually loosen its grip and allow producers "reasonable" room for profit, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Major monopolized industries include power transmission and distribution, natural gas pipelines and railway transport, in which the NDRC said it would conduct cost monitoring and supervision.

Jing Chunmei, researcher at China Center for International Economic Exchanges, hailed the move as a key breakthrough for the regulation of the monopolized sectors.

The guideline also specified pricing principles for public services such as medical treatment, green consumption, administrative fees and farm produce.

In recent years, the government has moved in gradual steps to advance pricing reforms in monopolized sectors to allow the market to play a bigger role.

According to a plan released in May, China encourages gas companies to split sales and pipeline businesses in a step by step manner to move towards market-based pricing.

A report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has pledged to speed up the reform of market-based pricing of factors of production, relax control over market access in the service sector, and improve market oversight mechanisms.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:44:49|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Pilots from the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force have carried out formation flight training with the country's latest J-20 stealth fighter and the Y-20 military transport aircraft, the air force announced.

Some pilots are able to fly several new models of fighter jets, including the J-20, J-16, and J-10C, Shen Jinke, spokesperson for the air force, said Friday at a ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of the PLA Air Force, which falls on Saturday.

The J-20, China's fourth-generation medium and long-range fighter jet, made its maiden flight in 2011 and was officially commissioned into military service in September this year.

To train pilots to fly the new jets, the air force has established aviation schools across the country and forged cooperation with prestigious universities like Tsinghua University, said Shen.

It has also sped up capacity building in anti-missile air defense, setting the precedent of shooting down an enemy plane with ground-to-air missiles and equipping the army with Chinese-developed HQ-9 anti-aircraft missiles, Shen said.

The air force has also expanded the reach of its activities from land to sea, moving towards development of a modern strategic force with whole-territory combat capabilities, he added.

In the past five years, China has advanced reform in national defense and the armed forces under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee, making historic steps in building a system of military strength.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:44:50|Editor: Liangyu

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TOKYO, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Kobe Steel Ltd. said Friday that an internal probe had revealed that pressure to meet delivery deadlines was in part behind the firm using falsified inspection data that has affected manufacturers worldwide.

According to an internal report released by the embattled steelmaker following the probe, the heavy pressure for factory floor staff to meet deadlines and production targets was reported as being partly responsible for the firm's widespread data scandal.

Kobe Steel CEO Hiroya Kawasaki said Friday that the company also had a closed door policy and intimated that delivery and production dates were overly prioritized by management staff.

"I deeply apologize to our customers, clients and shareholders for causing so much trouble," Kawasaki told a press briefing on the matter in Tokyo.

Earlier in the day, Kawasaki had to report to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry here the company's findings for the cause of its scandal, with an industry insider quoted as saying the firm's extended lack of profitability had added pressure on staff to hit targets.

The results of an internal probe in October revealed that products sold by Kobe Steel that had their inspection data fabricated were shipped to 525 companies.

Subsequently, Japan's quality control authorities revoked a certification for some copper products of a Kobe Steel subsidiary.

Most of the fabrications occurred within the company's aluminum and copper production operations.

The government here has tasked industrial standards-approved bodies to carry out inspections at Kobe Steel Ltd.'s plants in an effort to deal with the company's wide-reaching falsified inspection data scandal.

An external investigative committee will in due course compile a report on its findings. By the end of the year it will be determined whether Kawasaki and other executives who have been accused of turning a blind eye to the falsification practice will accept responsibility.

Kobe Steel had initially admitted to falsifying inspection data on products, including aluminum, copper, steel powder and special steel products.

It also came to light last month that the steel maker's own investigations had revealed routine instances of cover-ups and more incidents of data falsification.

Companies ranging from automakers and airplane manufacturers, to defense equipment and Shinkansen bullet train makers, have been affected by the scandal. Kobe Steel admitted that its products, with falsified data about their strength and durability, had been sold to around 200 companies globally. Since then the number of affected companies has grown exponentially as details of the scandal unfolded.

In Japan, major railway operators Central Japan Railway and West Japan Railway have stated that their Shinkansen bullet trains contained aluminum parts sourced from Kobe Steel that did not meet industry standards.

Along with domestic firms such as Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and major Japanese railway operators, the scandal has also affected overseas companies including General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Airbus and Boeing Co.

Kobe Steel was founded in 1905 and has been a bastion of Japan's manufacturing sector.

Serious aspersions have also been cast around the globe over Japan's once stellar reputation for precision manufacturing, industry experts have said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:49:51|Editor: Liangyu

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HANGZHOU, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Eight years after the first Singles' Day promotion, the Chinese shopping festival has become a global retail event.

Buyers and retailers are getting ready for this year's shopping extravaganza which falls on Saturday.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said over 15 million types of goods from 140,000 brands will be available through its Tmall shopping platform. The company said luxury brands, retail giants from the United States and Australia, and millions of Chinese retailers will join the promotion this year.

Stadium Goods, a New York City-based marketplace that sells footwear and other apparel, said it began preparations for the promotion one month in advance.

Its Singles' Day sales target is 2 million U.S. dollars, said John McPheters, founder of the company.

In 2016, Alibaba's Singles' Day sales totalled 120 billion yuan (about 18 billion U.S. dollars). A third of the sales come from global brands and retailers, the company said.

November 11 has been celebrated as Single's Day since the 1990s. The date was chosen because 11-11 resembles four "bare sticks," the Chinese term for bachelor. Alibaba introduced the Single's Day shopping event in 2009 and it has grown to become known as the Chinese version of the U.S.'s Black Friday sales.

Chinese buyers have started to add their chosen goods to shopping carts in the countdown to midnight when promotions begin. Overseas buyers are also participating in the world's biggest retail event.

According to figures from AliExpress, the company's outbound platform, it has 60 million active buyers in 220 countries and regions in 2017.

On a daily basis, over 20 million people use AliExpress to make purchases online. In Russia alone, there are about 22 million online buyers, the company said.

Russian buyer Anastasia Igumnova bought her smart-phone and kitchenware through AliExpress. "It is quite convenient to use the website. I bought a nail clipper, and was surprised that I did not have to pay postage fees," she said.

"E-commerce platforms have become an important way for trade on a global scale. An increasing number of buyers, not only in China, but also around the world, are making purchases online," said Shen Difan, general manager of AliExpress.

Another Chinese e-commerce giant, JD.com, has also offered discounts on postage fees for global buyers.

"On the Singles' Day, overseas consumers will be able to have their products delivered to their homes without paying shipping costs," said Yan Xiaobing, vice manager of JD group.

"Singles' Day is adding more and more overseas businesses, and it has become a huge opportunity for goods, capital and culture to be exchanged around the world," said Jin Xuejun, professor of economics at Zhejiang University.

"Chinese companies have improved payment and logistics networks to make online buying cheaper and more convenient. Buying and selling on a global scale is a boon for the global retail market and the world economy," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 18:59:56|Editor: Liangyu

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CAPE TOWN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South African parliamentarians on Friday raised concern over increased attacks on emergency medical service (EMS) personnel amid a new surge in crimes in the country.

Parliament's Select Committee on Social Services added its voice to the chorus of condemnation against the attacks.

Committee Chairperson Cathy Dlamini said parliamentarians noted with concern that criminals target EMS personnel while they are delivering lifesaving services to the people.

This came after criminals attacked an EMS ambulance transporting a patient to hospital earlier this week in Cape Town. As a result of the attack, the patient, an eight-year-old boy, died.

EMS personnel helped the child, who sustained serious head injuries when he was involved in a motor vehicle accident on Tuesday night, and rushed him to a nearby hospital when the ambulance was attacked. The crew was robbed at gun point and the ambulance was left immobile.

This attack has sparked condemnation across the country, hard hit by rampant crimes.

There has been a sharp rise in attacks on EMS personnel recently. In the Western Cape Province alone, there have been more than 30 attacks on EMS personnel this year, according to official statistics.

Parliamentarian are of the view that the increased attacks on EMS personnel "are unacceptable and has called for a comprehensive strategy on how to deal with these attacks," Dlamini said.

"The full might of the law must be applied to the thugs that continue to terrorize communities and EMS personnel," she said.

The community must also play a pivotal role in the fight against criminality, as the police cannot win the fight without the assistance of the community, she said.

Dlamini applauded the EMS personnel for continuing to offer their services despite the challenges.

South Africa has seen a rise in violent crimes in the 2016/2017 financial year, with murders and aggravated robberies up 1.8 percent and 6.4 percent respectively, Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said in late October.

The trio crimes of carjacking, and residential and non-residential robberies are also up again, Mbalula said.

Carjacking was at its highest in 10 years, rising by 14 percent, according to him.

During the 2016/2017 financial year, 2.1 million violent crimes were reported in the country, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 19:04:57|Editor: ZD

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DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday spoke highly of the "miraculous" achievements made by Asia-Pacific economies over the past decades, saying the region has emerged, and is still emerging.

"What the countries and economies represented here today have built in this part of the world is nothing short of miraculous,'" Trump said during his speech on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO summit in Vietnam's central city of Da Nang.

Trump also praised China's economic achievements, noting that the country has carried out market reforms in the past several decades, and experienced rapid economic growth as well as job booming.

Regarding the United States' role in the region, Trump said "we seek friendship, and we don't dream of domination."

He called on the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to direct efforts towards high quality infrastructure investment that promotes economic growth, saying "the United States will also do its part."

Trump said economic security is vital to national security, calling for efforts to confront grave threats to security, sovereignty and stability facing the world.

He said the United States offered a renewed partnership with the region, adding the core of the partnership is robust trade relationship based on "fairness and reciprocity."

The three-day APEC CEO summit, which concluded on Friday, gathered some 2,000 business representatives from around the world to discuss issues related to regional economic growth and integration.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 19:20:03|Editor: Liangyu

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Two scientific survey ships leave for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River from Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province on Nov. 10, 2017. China on Friday launched its first survey of endangered finless porpoises in five years, to monitor their living conditions in moves to better rehabilitate their habitat in the Yangtze River. (Xinhua/Xiong Qi)

WUHAN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday launched its first survey of endangered finless porpoises in five years, to monitor their living conditions in moves to better rehabilitate their habitat in the Yangtze River.

Two scientific survey ships left for the upper reaches of the river on Friday morning from Wuhan, a central Chinese city on the river, marking the beginning of the 40-day survey.

Consisting of researchers from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the survey covers water areas and major lakes along the river from the city of Yichang in central China's Hubei Province to the eastern city of Shanghai, the estuary of the river.

The survey will use sonar, and remote control drones to collect data on the porpoise population, according to Wang Ding, chief commander of the survey.

The previous survey in 2012 found the population of finless porpoises had fallen below a thousand. A similar survey in 2006 found the population of finless porpoises down to 1,800 from 3,000 at the turn of the 21st century.

"As the flagship species in the Yangtze, finless porpoises are the barometer of the river's ecological conditions," said Cao Wenxuan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The Ministry of Agriculture announced a Yangtze River Finless Porpoises Rescue Action Plan (2016-2025) at the end of 2016, calling for on-site protection, relocation protection and genetic protection of the porpoises.

"The declining trend of wild finless porpoises has not changed," said Cao. "Busy navigation and illegal fishing are to blame for the decrease."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 19:35:07|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping left Beijing Friday for the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Vietnam, drawing attention to possible new concepts and measures the world's second largest economy may bring to the Asia-Pacific.

China has successfully held two APEC summits -- one in Shanghai in 2001 and the other in Beijing in 2014. This year's summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, marks the first international multilateral conference Xi attends since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October.

During the congress, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era drew extensive attention, and "building a community with a shared future for mankind" was listed as one of 14 fundamental principles.

Calls from the international community for joint efforts to cope with challenges and enhance economic governance have been increasing as the world still suffers an economic quagmire and rising risks of protectionism and unilateralism.

Analysts believe China's commitment to building a community with a shared future for mankind is not restricted to diplomacy and security. Instead, it is first embodied in regional economic governance, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

Founded in 1989, APEC, one of the most influential mechanisms for boosting economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, represents the most economically dynamic region in the world.

Its 21 member economies account for approximately 40 percent of the world's population, 60 percent of world GDP and 48 percent of world trade.

"The APEC economies are in dire need of a boost in common development by 'fostering new dynamism, creating a shared future,' which is the theme of this year's summit," said Zhao Gancheng with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

"Cutting trade and investment barriers and promoting efficacy of bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements have been the missions of APEC since its founding," Zhao noted.

Earlier this month, China's Foreign Ministry said 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.

The expectations accord with the roadmap set at the Beijing APEC summit, during which APEC leaders adopted a blueprint to promote regional connectivity by 2025, and APEC members agreed to start a joint strategic study on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), marking the official launch of the FTAAP process.

According to Bai Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, the roadmap is being gradually implemented with increasing bilateral or multilateral free trade agreements signed afterwards.

Take China, for example, the number of its free trade test zones has grown from only one at the beginning of 2014 to 11 at present. These zones, which span from China's eastern and central regions to its west, have facilitated connectivity with the Asia-Pacific, according to Bai.

For Zhao, however, the Belt and Road Initiative, an inclusive cooperation platform to improve links among involved countries and regions across the globe, is very important and attractive for APEC member economies.

China has played a positive role in creating shared interests for regional economies along with its own development through proposals such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund.

The overseas investment from the Silk Road Fund has exceeded 6 billion U.S. dollars.

China has been promoting its global economic governance concept in recent years, calling for efforts to increase the representation and voice of emerging markets and developing countries, and to ensure that all countries have equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal rules to follow in international economic cooperation.

Analysts believe the Da Nang APEC meeting will witness that China continues to put its concept into action, which will further benefit the Asia-Pacific and the world.

"China will grow into a leader in economic globalization in the future, helping to develop the global economic governance system toward an all-win and equitable mechanism," Bai said.
A member of the 18th Chinese medical team in Rwanda examines a patient on Nov 1. Xinhua

The 18th Chinese medical team to visit Rwanda provided a week of free treatment beginning on Nov 1 in Kibungo town.

Hundreds of residents gathered early at the clinic in Kibungo, Eastern province, to seek help from the Chinese doctors. The medics - who came from the fields of orthopedics, internal medicine, surgery, stomatology, acupuncture, anesthesiology and maternity - provided consultation and treatment. They also donated medicine.

"I have been suffering from painful swollen legs for the past two years and have visited several healthcare centers in my area," says Jean d'Arc Mukandutiye, 47, who received a diagnosis, medicine and a recommendation for further medical checkups from the Chinese doctors.

"It's expensive to get a checkup and treatment in the hospital. I tried, but I couldn't afford it," the mother of seven says.

Patients reported health problems ranging from dental issues, malaria and hypertension to diabetes, arthritis and skin diseases.

Emmanuel Ndayambaje, 60, who has suffered severe headaches for the past six months, says the health centers he visited previously failed to diagnose the problem, but the Chinese doctors were able to explain the cause.

He expressed his gratitude for the free service, since it had been difficult for him to get help in the capital, Kigali, because of financial constraints.

Eugenie Imurinde, head of the Kibungo clinic, thanked the doctors for their work.

"Many patients, especially in rural areas, fail to get treatment even for minor problems because of a lack of money and sometimes the long distances involved," Imurinde says.

"When our clinic can't handle complicated health problems and refer these patients to hospitals, they may choose not to go because they don't have the money," she says.

Providing free treatment and convenience for Rwandans is one of the Chinese medical team's main assignments, according to team leader Lu Jun.

China began sending medical teams to Rwanda in 1982. Hundreds of Chinese medical professionals have worked in Rwanda since then.

Xinhua
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 20:20:22|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's tourism authorities said Friday that the 2018 China-U.S. dialogue on tourism will be held in Hangzhou next year.

The event will take place in the eastern China city in the latter half of 2018, according to China National Tourism Administration.

China and the United States have been taking turns to host the annual dialogue since the platform was launched in 2007, and it has become an important way for tourism regulators, associations and businesses to deepen communications.

In recent years, the two countries have stepped up tourism cooperation, supporting economic growth and facilitating exchanges between the countries.

In November 2014, the two countries extended visa validity for tourists from one to 10 years, and launched the China-U.S. Tourism Year in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 20:30:26|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- China's fiscal revenue rose 9.2 percent year on year to 15 trillion yuan (2.27 trillion U.S. dollars) during the January-October period.

The growth slightly retreated from the growth of 9.7 percent in the first three quarters, but was markedly above the 4.5-percent rate in 2016, according to the Ministry of Finance website.

In October alone, fiscal revenue was up 5.4 percent to 1.62 trillion yuan.

In the first ten months, fiscal spending rose 9.8 percent year on year to 16.3 trillion yuan. Expenditure on energy-saving projects rose 28 percent to 408 billion yuan.

Fiscal spending was down by 8 percent in October, which the ministry attributed to the faster spending in the earlier months of this year.

China promised a more proactive and effective fiscal policy in 2017, with the fiscal deficit set at 3 percent of GDP, or 2.4 trillion yuan, up 200 billion yuan from 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 20:35:29|Editor: ZD

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DAMASCUS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) clawed back over 40 percent of the city of al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold that has been recently captured by the Syrian government forces, a monitor group reported on Friday.

Following the Syrian army's declaration of capturing al-Bukamal in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria on Thursday, the IS militants unleashed a wide-scale counteroffensive on the city, capturing over 40 percent of it, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The terror-designated militants recaptured neighborhoods in the northern and northeastern as well as the northwestern parts of the city, the UK-based watchdog group said, adding the Syrian forces' control in the city shrunk to the southern, southwestern and the southeastern parts of the city.

Now, intense battles are raging between the IS militants and the Syrian government forces and allied troops in al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold in Syria near Iraq.

Being their last home in Syria explains why the IS militants are fighting back.

Additionally, the media wing of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which is fighting alongside the Syrian army in Deir al-Zour, said they had information that the leader of IS, Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, is hiding in the city, which could be another reason why the IS militants are feverishly trying to take hold of al-Bukamal.

On Thursday, the Syrian army declared capturing the city, saying in a statement that the liberation of al-Bukamal constitutes a "strategic achievement and a base for eradicating remnants of the terrorist organizations with its various names along the Syrian territories."

"The liberation of the city is of great importance since it represents an announcement of the fall of IS terrorist organization project in the region, in general, and a collapse of the illusions of its sponsors and supporters to divide Syria," the statement said.

The army also hailed what it described as "the continuous coordination" between the Syrian and Iraqi armies," saying it has played a big role in clearing large swathes of the border area and in preventing the infiltration of IS militants across the border.

Al-Bukamal is very important for IS due to its proximity to IS-held areas on the Iraqi side of the border, which have recently been stormed by the Iraqi army and allied troops.

Last month, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces captured the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

Also, the Syrian army captured the capital city of Deir al-Zour this month.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 20:35:30|Editor: ZD

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SOFIA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Bulgarian National Assembly on Friday approved Kiril Ananiev as Minister of Health, replacing Nickolay Petrov, the first reshuffle in the third cabinet of Boyko Borissov.

As many as 121 deputies backed Ananiev and 85 voted against his nomination in the 240-seat parliament.

Petrov resigned on Oct. 30, less than six months after taking office amid reports about alleged violations of procurement in the Military Medical Academy where he was chief from 2014 to 2017.

Ananiev, 62, has a degree and background in finance. He was Deputy Minister of Finance from 1998 to 2009 and from 2014 to 2017, and Caretaker Minister of Finance from the end of January to the beginning of May this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 21:01:05|Editor: Liangyu

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Chen Shichang, manager of a Taobao on-line retail store, promotes local agricultural products on the Internet in Chenjiabang Village of Changxing County, east China's Zhejiang Province, Nov. 10, 2017. Local villagers's life has been improved a lot by applying e-commerce platforms to the sales of agricultural products in recent years. (Xinhua/Xu Yu)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 21:30:41|Editor: ZD

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ISLAMABAD, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday visited troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Kashmir region, where Pakistani and Indian troops occasionally exchange fire, the military said.

Abbasi's first visit to the LoC comes at a time when escalation has been seen in recent months, which has caused casualties on both sides.

An army statement said the prime minister was briefed by the General Officer Commanding on the situation along the LoC, including India's "ceasefire violations targeting civilians."

"The prime minister condemned Indian unprofessional approach of targeting innocent civilians," a statement from the Pakistani army's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations said.

The statement quoted Abbasi as saying "Pakistan shall continue its political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris for their just struggle."

While interacting with families of those killed and injured due to the Indian shelling, Abbasi appreciated their" determination and resolve," the army said.

The prime minister announced to increase financial assistance to the families of those who lost lives or injured and approved funds to develop community protection bunkers to protect civilians.

Pakistan and India declared ceasefire in 2003 along the LoC, however, both accuse each other of violating the ceasefire.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 21:35:43|Editor: ZD

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Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis (L) and European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier attend a press conference at the end of sixth round of Negotiation on 'Brexit' talks at the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- With 504 days and 10 hours left before the March 29, 2019 deadline, Brexit passed its midway point on Friday.

But negotiators from the two sides of the English Channel tried in vain to bring the long-anticipated progress in their sixth round talks, giving rise to increasing fear of a no-deal scenario through Europe.

"Do not wait for us today, as we are, announcements or major decisions. The discussions of these last days are, in the moment we are, between two European Councils, a moment of deepening, of clarification, of technical work," European Union's (EU) chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters.

"Only sufficient progress, that is, sincere and real progress on the three key topics of this negotiation, will enable the second phase of our negotiation to begin," he reaffirmed, only managed to add "sincere and real" to avoid duplication with his previous speeches.

The three key issues are citizens' rights, a financial settlement and the Irish border, Barnier said.

Time is ticking, but the deadlock remains.

"This is a serious business. If we are to find a way forward it will require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides as I think Michel also stressed," said Britain's Brexit Secretary David Davis during the joint press conference with Barnier at the EU headquarters.

Like his counterpart, his vocabulary for "flexibility and pragmatism" also seemed dry, and merely managed to add "This is a serious business" into his reaffirmation, which didn't make him persuasive at all.

Kicked off in Brussels on Thursday, the two-day sixth round Brexit talks coincidently marked the halfway point for Brexit -- 505 days since the referendum and 505 days until Britain should formally leaves the EU, and was tasked to make preparation for the EU Winter Summit in December.

The long-awaited Brexit talks was launched on June 19, nearly one year after British people voted to leave the bloc by a narrow margin on June 23, 2016.

May sent a notification letter to the EU in late March, triggering a two-year countdown to Britain's withdrawal of the bloc after more than 44 years of membership.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 21:45:45|Editor: ZD

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JUBA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan said on Friday that it has extended the state of emergency in four restive states until next year in a bid to curb the recent spike in rival communities and clan-based violence amid ongoing disarmament.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told Xinhua on Friday that President Salva Kiir extended the State of emergency to three more months in the northern states of Wau, Tonj, Gogrial and Aweil experiencing community-based conflicts as the army (SPLA) conducts disarmament to rid the areas of illegal weapons.

"The President on Thursday extended state of emergency in four states. The reason is disarmament and conflicts between communities in these areas," Ateny said in Juba.

The state of emergency was initially declared in July in the war-torn country which covers president Kiir's home area of Gogrial where two rival ethnic Dinka clans of the Apuk and Gwok have continued to clash amid killings, cattle theft and displacements.

"In Gogrial the conflict is between the Agwok and Apuk clans and Wau is fighting between rival communities," Ateny disclosed.

Rival ethnic violence over local resources continues unabated and the presidential directive to create 28 more states from the previous 10 in 2015 seems to have further intensified intermittent violence among rival armed communities that usually involves child abductions and cattle raiding.

In May, the Dinka and Murle pastoral communities signed peace agreement following violence between the northeastern Jonglei and Pibor area near the Ethiopian border, also the UN reported over 25 people were killed and 27 wounded in the Western Gok state following rival clan clashes.

Despite ongoing disarmament efforts, South Sudan remains awash with small illegal guns in the hands of the public following long decades of civil war that won independence from Sudan in 2011.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Kiir and his former deputy turned rebel chief Riek Machar led to split within the SPLA, leaving soldiers to fight alongside ethnic lines between the two major ethnic groups Dinka and Nuer of which the two rivals belong respectively.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the conflict was weakened after outbreak of renewed fighting in July 2016 caused the SPLA-in opposition rebel leader Machar to flee the capital.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 21:50:47|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a grand ceremony to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

by Xinhua Writer Zhu Dongyang, Liu Chen

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The high-profile engagement between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump on Thursday has caught the spotlight globally. Experts said their meeting has borne remarkable fruit, and the forward-looking attitude of the two heads of state towards bilateral cooperation will bring benefits to the two countries, the Asia-Pacific and the world at large.

Trump and Xi "continue to build a personal relationship that's defined by deep respect for each other, a frank, open, and productive exchange," said Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State in his press briefing later on Thursday in Beijing.

SHARED GOALS ON KOREAN PENINSULA

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula weighs most in Trump's Asia visit, said the White House before Trump arrived in Beijing.

On Thursday's meeting, the presidents stressed that the two countries share the common goal of using dialogue and negotiation to solve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, and reiterated the commitment to promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia Pacific region.

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said although it remains to be seen whether the bonhomie between Trump and Xi will produce outcomes that the United States seeks, Trump apparently hopes "to build enough good will to produce positive outcomes down the road."

Michael O'Hanlon, senior analyst from the Brookings Institution, said there's still a long way to go before solving the nuclear issue, and the two countries will have an ongoing need to keep expectations modest about progress, and perhaps develop "a more realistic negotiating strategy."

Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Xinhua that one of the most remarkable results of the meeting is that "Trump did not take us to a new level of friction, as he might have done."

Although it remains too soon to weigh in on the impact of the Xi-Trump meeting, the fact that the two top leaders seem comfortable being frank with each other is "something important to managing all sorts of differences," Paal argued.

The two heads of state reaffirmed their commitments to dialogue and peaceful settlement of regional hotspot issues, ranging from the Korean Peninsula to the South China Sea, said Xu Liping, a senior research fellow with the National Institute of International Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

"Their vows to start dialogues on maritime environmental protection and on enhancement of exchanges between the two armies are forward-looking and quite constructive," said Xu.

"The rich consensus of Xi and Trump on regional security issues serves as a stabilizer to bilateral relations, and reassures the region and the world," said Ruan Zongze, executive vice president of the China Institute of International Studies. "A steady China-U.S. relation is indeed the best and most important bonus to the world."

COMMON ASPIRATIONS ON TRADE DEVELOPMENT

In another positive outcome of the two presidents' meeting in Beijing, Chinese and U.S. companies signed deals worth more than 250 billion U.S. dollars, which included purchases of Boeing aircrafts, Ford automobiles, U.S. soybeans and joint development of liquified natural gas in Alaska.

China and the United States are highly complementary rather than competitive, said Xi when meeting with business delegates from both countries, adding that frictions are unavoidable given the rapid growth of bilateral trade. He also reaffirmed China's commitment to opening up and reform, noting China will not close its door to the world: In fact, it will only become more open.

The deals, the value of which has reached "a historic high," would help reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries, said Xu Liping from the CASS. "The amount itself is an implication of the huge potential for economic and trade collaboration between the two nations."

Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, said the gathering of Xi and Trump demonstrated that they understand the importance of a cooperative and productive relationship -- even as significant disagreements remain on areas like trade.

Across all these areas, President Trump is expected to see continued progress and deal-making between the two nations, he added.

Ruan said the lucrative deals are predictable results as the two nations have engaged in cooperation.

"Only cooperation can lead to such huge successes," he noted. "Considering the remarkable complementarity of the two economies, I am fully confident of the economic and trade development of the two countries in the days to come."

However, O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution, said the Trump administration "has to keep his and America's expectations reasonable on the front" of the trade deficit.

"China has done remarkable things, it's a low-cost manufacturer, it deserves credit for its progress there. You're not going to eliminate the trade deficit in any way, shape or form," he explained.

BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL

William Jones, the Washington Bureau chief for Executive Intelligence Review news magazine, stressed the historical importance of the Xi-Trump meeting.

"It was of an absolutely strategic nature and the world will change as a result of it. It can only be compared to Nixon's trip to Beijing 45 years ago, but it is even more important," said Jones. "President Trump has clearly accepted China's new role in the world and is prepared to work with China on all the major issues facing the world."

"While Nixon's visit occurred in an atmosphere of 'geopolitics' and Cold War intrigues, we are now in a world which is increasingly moving towards that community of shared interests that President Xi has spoken so much about," Jones noted. "The U.S.-China relations are definitely on an upward trajectory."

To make that happen, Zhao Quansheng, professor of international relations at American University, suggested the two countries consider building a framework to strengthen bilateral ties over the next 50 years or longer.

The two countries could also lead the region towards creating an economic and trade cooperation agreement as well as a mechanism to settle Asia-Pacific issues, said Zhao. "That is a viable solution to minimize misjudgments and maximize trust and stability in the region."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:00:50|Editor: Liangyu

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PHNOM PENH, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on e-commerce cooperation here on Friday, with the aim of assisting Cambodia to develop its online business operations.

The deal was inked between Cambodian Commerce Ministry Secretary of State Kem Sithan and Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan in Phnom Penh.

"Under the MoU, China and Cambodia will step up e-commerce cooperation such as policy communication, business cooperation, capacity building, personnel training and joint research under the comprehensive strategic partnership, especially under the Belt and Road Initiative," Wang said.

China is currently Cambodia's largest trading partner and investor, he said, adding that the economies of the two countries are "highly complementary".

Trade volume between China and Cambodia was expected to hit 5 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, and the e-commerce cooperation was crucial to further increase the trade volume between the two countries in the future, he added.

E-commerce refers to the purchase of goods and services via online system, which would bring a lot of new business opportunities for young entrepreneurs in Cambodia and undoubtedly contribute to its national economic growth.

"China's assistance will be very helpful to the development of e-commerce in Cambodia," Kem Sithan said.

Cambodian Commerce Ministry Under-secretary of State Sok Sopheak said online business operations in Cambodia have grown rapidly in recent years thanks to the increasing numbers of internet users. However, the Southeast Asian nation has not yet had a law on e-commerce.

"The draft law is being reviewed by the legal experts of the Council of Ministers, and is expected to be sent to the National Assembly for approval next year," he said.

According to the figures of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, over 8 million of Cambodia's 15 million people have now access to the Internet, most of which get online via smart phones.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:05:53|Editor: Liangyu

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European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier speaks during a press conference with Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis (not seen) at the end of sixth round of Negotiation on 'Brexit' talks at the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- With 504 days and less than 10 hours left before the March 29, 2019 deadline, Brexit passed its midway point on Friday.

But negotiators from the two sides of the English Channel tried in vain to bring the long-anticipated progress in their sixth round talks, giving rise to increasing fear of a no-deal scenario through Europe.

TIME IS DRAINING, SO IS BARNIER AND DAVIS' VOCABULARY

"Do not wait for us today, as we are, announcements or major decisions. The discussions of these last days are, in the moment we are, between two European Councils, a moment of deepening, of clarification, of technical work," European Union's (EU) chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters.

"Only sufficient progress, that is, sincere and real progress on the three key topics of this negotiation, will enable the second phase of our negotiation to begin," he reaffirmed, only managed to add "sincere and real" to avoid duplication with his previous speeches.

The three key issues are citizens' rights, a financial settlement and the Irish border, according to Barnier.

Time is ticking, but the deadlock remains.

"This is a serious business. If we are to find a way forward it will require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides as I think Michel also stressed," said Britain's Brexit Secretary David Davis during the joint press conference with Barnier at the EU headquarters.

Like his counterpart, his vocabulary for "flexibility and pragmatism" also seemed dry, and merely managed to add "This is a serious business" into his reaffirmation, which didn't make him more persuasive.

Kicked off in Brussels on Thursday, the two-day sixth round Brexit talks coincidently marked the halfway point for Brexit -- 505 days since the referendum and 505 days until Britain should formally leaves the EU, and was tasked to make preparation for the EU Winter Summit in December.

PROGRESS IN MAJOR ISSUES BUT IN DRIBS AND DRABS

"On citizens' rights, we are making some progress; we need to work more on a number of points. The UK wants to put in place administrative procedures through which EU citizens can obtain 'settled status'. The EU needed reassurance on how such a system would work: it should be simple to use, and low cost. We also needed reassurance on how people, when rejected, can appeal effectively," said Barnier.

"There are a few areas where our citizens need to see further progress and movement from the European Union ...However, if it does fall out of scope, we will discuss this issue bilaterally with Member States," Davis warned.

On the Irish border, Davis said Britain recognize the need for specific solutions for the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, but made clear that "This cannot amount to creating a new border inside our United Kingdom", calling for more spirit of pragmatism, creativity and with a high degree of political sensitivity form both sides.

As to the financial settlement, Barnier said the two sides "must now work on the precise translation of the commitments made in her speech in Florence by the British Prime Minister", calling it as an imperative condition to achieve sufficient progress in December.

"On this subject, I repeat that it is only, as in any separation, to settle the account," he warned.

The long-awaited Brexit talks was launched on June 19, nearly one year after Britain voted to leave the bloc by a narrow margin on June 23, 2016.

May sent a notification letter to the EU in late March, triggering a two-year countdown to Britain's withdrawal of the bloc after more than 44 years of membership.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:05:54|Editor: Lu Hui

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TRIPOLI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of the recent clashes in the western Libya's Tripoli is 70, including members of the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement, a military official said on Friday.

"The result of the clashes in the area of Warshaffana during the past few days has reached 70 people, including 15 members of the Justice and Equality Movement that was fighting with the militants," Abdullah Al-Fak'hal, media official of Zintan's Military Council, told Xinhua.

"The clashes have completely stopped. Security directorates, in cooperation with the Joint Operations Chamber, are securing the area to pursue any wanted persons who fled during the clashes," Al-Fak'hal added.

"We have arrested dozens of criminals, including senior leaders who were planning to destabilize the security and stability of the capital Tripoli and neighboring cities, in cooperation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya formed by supporters of the former Gaddafi regime."

Forces of the Libyan UN-backed government on Wednesday took over the entire area of Warshaffana in western Libya, hours after taking control of the largest military camp in the area, according to a military source.

Warshaffana has witnessed military operations since last week by the forces of the UN-backed government to "eliminate crime in the area," a statement said.

The eastern-based army warned of the continued attacks by the government forces on army sites and headquarters in the area.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Monday expressed concerns about reports of bombing civilian neighborhoods in Warshaffana.

"UNSMIL is concerned about reports of indiscriminate shelling in residential areas of Warshaffana. The Mission reminds all parties of their legal obligations to ensure the protection of civilians." The mission said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:20:58|Editor: Liangyu

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MANILA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Philippine troops rescued on Friday four Vietnamese sailors taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf militants in February in southern Philippines.

Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay, the spokesman of the military's Western Mindanao Command, said four Vietnamese sailors were rescued and another Vietnamese hostage was found dead apparently due to illness.

Petinglay identified the rescued hostages all as crew members of the bulk carrier MV Giang Hai 5.

The military said the Vietnamese hostages were abducted by the Abu Sayyaf militants in Sulu province on February 25.

Petinglay said the rescue operation was launched shortly before 8:00 a.m. local time (0000 GMT) on Friday near the Kang Tipayan Islands in Languyan town.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:31:01|Editor: Yang Yi

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Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, speaks at a meeting on farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

BEIJING, Nov.10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang Friday stressed entrepreneurship and innovation as a key way to boost development in rural areas.

"Efforts must be made to create a good environment for entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas to attract more talent and inject new impetus to rural modernization," he said.

Wang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks at a meeting on farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation. Prior to the meeting, the vice premier visited a related expo and talked with farmer entrepreneurs to learn about new technology and businesses in rural areas.

"Technologies such as the internet, big data and artificial intelligence should be used more frequently in rural areas to boost innovation and upgrade the quality, efficiency and engine of rural development," he told the meeting.

Wang said more work should be done to nurture a new-type of farmers who are more knowledgable, skilled and innovative, and grow a new type of rural businesses.

He encouraged authorities to explore and share their successful local experiences.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:31:02|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Japanese engineer and researcher Takashi Mimura (L), Australian plant physiologist Graham Farquhar (C) and American musicologist Richard Taruskin (R) pose for photos during the Kyoto Prize awarding ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, on Nov. 10, 2017. Three scholars were awarded the Kyoto Prize at a ceremony in the Kyoto International Conference Center Friday in recognition of their great achievements in the fields of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts, respectively. (Xinhua/Hua Yi)

KYOTO, Japan, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Three scholars were awarded the Kyoto Prize at a ceremony in the Kyoto International Conference Center Friday in recognition of their great achievements in the fields of advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts, respectively.

As Japan's highest private award for global achievement, the Kyoto Prize has been presented annually since 1985 by Inamori Foundation, to encourage those who have contributed significantly to advanced technology, basic sciences, and arts and philosophy.

Japanese engineer and researcher Takashi Mimura was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for his "invention of the High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) and its development for the progress of information and communications technology," according to a press release by the Inamori Foundation.

The Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences was given to Australian plant physiologist Graham Farquhar, for his "development of process-based models of photosynthesis and their contributions to the science of global environmental changes."

Richard Taruskin, a musicologist from the United States, won the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, for transforming contemporary perspectives on music through historical research and essays "that defy conventional critical paradigms."

Each laureate was presented with a diploma, a medal and prize money of 50 million yen (about 440, 000 U.S. dollars) at the ceremony.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:31:04|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Kenya plans to adopt the World Health Organization (WHO) pneumonia guidelines in order to reduce child mortality.

Director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health Jackson Kioko told a health forum in Nairobi Friday that the guidelines require the use of amoxicillin dispersible tablets for treatment of pneumonia for children under the age of five instead of Benzyl penicillin which is administered through an injection which is very common in Kenya.

"The tablets will enable the country to enhance treatment of pneumonia because they can be orally administered by mothers at home," Kioko said on Friday during the Scientific Symposium on Pneumonia to commemorate World Pneumonia day which is celebrated annually on Nov. 12.

The day long conference focused on one of the thematic areas of controlling pneumonia which is early seeking of treatment and administration of appropriate recommended antibiotics.

Kioko said that by using amoxicillin dispersible tablets, patients will receive accurate doses.

"We want to eliminate cases where patients use less than the recommended dosages because it can result in reduced drug effectiveness as well as drug resistance," he said.

Pneumonia is respiratory infection that affects the lungs that can be caused by virus, bacteria or fungi.

According to the Ministry of Health, approximately 10,000 children under the age of five died of pneumonia, out of the total 30,000 child deaths annually. The other leading causes of childhood deaths include malaria and diarrhea.

State-owned Kenya Medical Supplies Authority has been mandated to provide the amoxicillin dispersible tablets to all public hospitals.

Kioko said the government will roll out a nationwide campaign to sensitize the public on the benefits of the tablets.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:36:07|Editor: yan

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MOMBASA, Kenya, Nov. 10 -- Kenyan authorities said on Friday that they have beefed up security ahead of next week's cultural festival in the coastal town of Lamu targeting to boost tourism sector that has been worse hit due to insecurity challenges.

Lamu County Commissioner Gilbert Kitiyo said security agents will provide armed escort for foreign and domestic tourists during the 17th Lamu Cultural festival to be held on Nov. 16.

Kitiyo said all private and public vehicles must be accompanied by police because of threats presented by al-Shabaab terrorists.

"As a precaution, we are advising visitors to move in a convoy under security escort. We have made arrangements to ensure the festival goes uninterrupted," he assured.

The government official also said security has been beefed up on the island and its environs.

He added that the Boni Enclave Campaign has greatly reduced terror threats by militants who target police and civilians and operate from Boni Forest.

Kitiyo said hotels on the island have received bookings for the event that highlights the Swahilis' rich culture and heritage. The festival takes place in the archipelago from Thursday until Sunday.

Sam Ikwaye, Coast Executive of the Kenya Association of Hotelkeepers and Caterers, said they are expecting more local and foreign tourists.

"The festival has always improved so we anticipate the numbers will increase despite the political uncertainty that as taken a major toll on hotels," said Ikwaye.

Lamu's tourism was hard hit by terrorism in 2014 when travel advisories were issued by major European source markets.

Tourism stakeholders have expressed concern that numbers will drop significantly this year because of the "wait and see" attitude to political affairs.

Last week, two Al-Shabaab terrorists were killed in battles with military troops in Lamu West.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:36:08|Editor: Yamei

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MADRID, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Former speaker of the Catalan regional parliament, Carme Forcadell, has paid her 150,000 euros (174,640 euros) bail after spending a night in prison, local media reported on Friday.

Forcadell, who was questioned on Thursday along with other five members of the Catalan parliament, was jailed after being unable to pay the amount on Thursday night.

She left the Alcala-Meco prison, in Madrid, a few hours after paying the bail.

According to local media, the amount of 150,000 euros was paid from a "solidarity box" of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a pro-independence organization who was gathering money to pay possible bails.

Forcadell was president of the association before entering in the Catalan parliament. She was accused of rebellion and the prosecutor had asked unconditional prison, but the judge decided that there was not risk of flight after Forcadell appeared in court every time she was requested.

The judge said Forcadell had played a major role in the process of separatism than other former members of the parliament board. She was former leader of the ANC and the speaker of the Catalan parliament afterwards, where the law of the referendum and the transitory law to establish a republic were passed.

She has delivered her passport, cannot leave the country and has to appear in court once a week and every time she is requested to.

Other former members of the board, Lluis Corominas, Lluis Guino, Anna Simo and Ramona Barrufet have a week to pay a 25,000-euro bail, while Joan Josep Nuet, who had voted against the independence, was set free without precautionary measures.

Eight former members of the deposed regional government of Catalonia are still in prison after the Spanish judge, Carmen Lamela, jailed them without bail, claiming that there was a risk of flight and destruction of evidence.

Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, leaders of two civil society organizations -- ANC and Omnium Cultural -- are also still in jail.

Former regional president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, is in Brussels with other four members of his government. Judge Lamela had issued a European arrest warrant for them.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:46:12|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- With extensive achievements and consensus reached Thursday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and visiting U.S. President Donald Trump, China-U.S. relations are "at a new historic starting point," according to experts.

The two leaders agreed on maintaining the "strategic leading role of head-of-state diplomacy" in developing bilateral relations, and having broad common interests and important responsibility for protecting world peace, stability and prosperity.

They also agreed to continue to have close contact through telephone conversations, letters and meetings, and exchange views on major issues of common concern in a timely manner.

"The significant political achievement of the Xi-Trump summit is that the two sides agreed that a better future would only be achieved through win-win cooperation, setting the tone for the future development of China-U.S. relations," said Cui Liru, former president of the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

"The common interests of China and the United States weigh much more than the differences, and the needs for cooperation far exceed those for competition," Cui said.

During Trump's visit, the two countries signed contracts and two-way investment agreements worth more than 250 billion U.S. dollars.

"China is gradually shifting from 'buy from America' to 'invest in America,'which is in line with both nations' interests," said Shou Huisheng with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a major Chinese think tank.

Shou said that though economic frictions existed, the two countries should stay rational to avoid problems and realize that cooperation could be extended globally.

"The fruitful contracts indicate that Sino-U.S. economic and trade relationship is not only the stabilizer for bilateral relations, but also the vital driver for global economy," said Diao Daming, associate professor with Renmin University of China, at a forum hosted by CCG Friday.

According to Jiang Shan from the CCG, the 19th national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) concluded in October signalled that China would speed up reform and opening up, while building a stable and balanced relationship with major powers.

Experts believe that China will offer a more open, transparent and standardized market for foreign-funded enterprises, including U.S. enterprises. In return, the United States should relax restrictions on high-tech products exports to China and treat Chinese investors equally.

"A stable and developing China-U.S. relationship not only benefits both peoples, but also meets the expectations of the international community," said China's Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang.

The two sides agreed to increase trust and defuse doubts on major and sensitive issues, reinforce exchanges and dialogues at various levels between the two militaries, and strengthen cooperation in combating cybercrime and protecting the Internet.

Xi said China and the United States should cooperate actively in the Asia-Pacific region so that more regional countries can work with them to jointly contribute to peace, stability and prosperity.

"This is a new thought for China and the United States to make concerted effort to address regional issues, which is beneficial to regional stability," said Wang Fan, vice president of China Foreign Affairs University.

In the meantime, communication and cooperation in cultural and educational sectors will also be boosted.

On Wednesday afternoon, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan invited Trump and his wife Melania Trump to the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City. They had a taste of Chinese culture over tea, dinner and Peking Opera.

Trump showed Xi and Peng a video of his granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poems.

Some commentators have suggested that Trump showing his granddaughter's love for the Chinese culture indicates that he is enriching his understanding of the Chinese culture.

The two countries agreed to promote exchanges among educational institutions and scholars, and enroll more students from each other. For example, China will provide 10,000 scholarships to students from the United States in four years.

"It shows the attraction of Chinese society and Chinese culture to the United States is increasing," said Xie Tao from the CCG.X In addition, China and the United States will enhance cooperation among art and culture institutions, with dialogue platforms for women from the two nations launched.

"People-to-people interaction will help us know each other well and will be bound to exert a positive influence on China-U.S. relations," said Zhou Qing'an, associate professor with Tsinghua University.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 22:46:13|Editor: yan

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WARSAW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi delegation has met with Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) representatives to discuss overhauls along with the modernization of T-72 tanks and armored personnel carriers as well as possible deliveries of personal equipment, Polish Press Agency reported Friday.

PGZ CEO Blazej Wojnicz said in a statement: "For a long time Iraq has been a receiver of Eastern block's arms systems as part of military assistance or in effect of purchases of used equipment. That is why PGZ is interested in overhauls and modernization of military equipment."

The talks also covered the revitalization of Iraq's production and repair capabilities that would give the country much greater independence in this field.

Poland had exported T-55 and T-72 tanks as well as WZT-2 armored recovery vehicles to Iraq. Also, Polish shipyards have delivered 773 type landing ships to Iraq. In past ten years or so, Polish arms makers supplied Iraq with rifles, mainly Tantal assault rifles and PM-98 Glauberyt submachine guns.

According to the PGZ, the Iraqi government has recently addressed questions regarding a number of modernization programs and the delivery of new equipment for the country's armed forces.

During a May meeting of NATO heads of state and government, it was agreed that Poland would be the leading country in a program aiming to restore the Iraqi army's ability to maintain and repair arms and military hardware.

A Polish training team has already visited Iraq to launch a pilot training program for Iraqi experts.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:06:23|Editor: yan

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LHASA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Four students in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region were granted doctorate degrees Friday, the first batch of doctorate degrees ever awarded by a Tibetan university.

The students majoring in Tibetan history, Tibetan language and literature, high-altitude medicine, attended the graduation ceremony at Tibet University Friday.

"As one of the first doctorate holders that were indigenously cultivated in Tibet, I appreciate very much the accomplishment of study under the government policy to protect and inherit ethnic culture," said Soinam Cering, 32, one of the graduates.

The university has been authorized to award doctorates since 2013.

Tibet has seven higher education institutions, with over 60 students currently pursuing doctorate degree.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:11:26|Editor: Yang Yi

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Guo Weimin (L), deputy director of the State Council Information Office of China, offers schoolbags to students at a primary school in Vientiane, Laos, on Nov. 10, 2017. A charity event was launched here on Friday with the supports of the State Council Information Office, the Chinese embassy and Lao Ministry of Education and Sports. (Xinhua/Zhang Jianhua)

VIENTIANE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A charity event was launched here on Friday with the supports of the State Council Information Office, the Chinese embassy and Lao Ministry of Education and Sports.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Honorary Chairman of Beijing MW Foundation Chen Shi said the event is an international support project for children to support countries in need of education development through the donation of books, stationery and school equipment.

Following the real situation in Laos, books, stationery, school equipment and solar-powered flashlights will be donated for children at five primary schools in Vientiane and Oudomxay province.

It is expected that more and more enterprises, organizations and individuals will join the foundation to contribute further to the charity mission, said Chen.

Earlier in October 2016, such kind of charity event was held in Cambodia where primary school children were supported with school bags, books, stationery and solar-powered flashlights.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:21:33|Editor: yan

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HONG KONG, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Legislative Council (LegCo) of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) passed a motion of thanks on Friday evening for the 2017 Policy Address of the HKSAR's Chief Executive.

This is the first time LegCo passed a motion of thanks for the chief executive's policy address since 2008.

Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung Kin-Chung said he was glad the motion was passed and thanked LegCo members for supporting it.

Cheung said the government will continue to strengthen communication and co-operation with the council in the implementation of the initiatives outlined in the policy address.

On Oct. 11, 2017, HKSAR's Chief Executive Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor delivered her maiden policy address, which covers different areas including diversified economy, education, manpower training, people's livelihood, livable city and governance. The LegCo members started to debate on these areas on Nov. 8.

Noting the three-day motion debate ran smoothly, Cheung said he hopes it marks the start of better collaboration between the administration and the legislature.

According to the LegCo, in no less than 14 days after the chief executive has delivered his or her Policy Address, the Chairman of LegCo's House Committee will move a motion at a council meeting to thank the chief executive for delivering his or her Policy Address.

During the debate on the motion of thanks, LegCo members will comment on the policy address and public officers will respond to these comments.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:26:35|Editor: yan

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BEIRUT, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon Wang Kejian stressed Friday the international community's support to the sovereignty, integrity and independence of Lebanon.

Wang made the remarks after meeting with the ambassadors of the International Support Group (ISG) for Lebanon and Lebanese President Michel Aoun at Baabda palace.

"We listened to President Aoun's presentation of the situation in Lebanon and to the assessment of the presidency and the Lebanese government," said Wang.

"We in turn asserted unanimously the international community's support to the sovereignty, integrity and independence of Lebanon and its political stability," he added.

He voiced hope that the issues in Lebanon could be quickly solved in a way that secures the stability and sovereignty of Lebanon.

"We hope that the international community will cooperate in achieving this in a very quick manner," he added.

Lebanon has been marred in a political turmoil since the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a grand ceremony to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

by Xinhua writers Zhu Lei, Zhou Xiaozheng, Qi Zijian

NEW YORK, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- On his first state visit to China which wrapped up Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping drew a future roadmap for the development of bilateral ties, delivering a fresh sense of gain for the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

As everyone knows, stronger cooperation between China and the United States instead of tension and confrontation, benefits the world. The three-day visit also highlights how much can be achieved in bilateral relations when the two heads of state come together.

Trump's visit to Beijing marked the third face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in seven months since Trump hosted Xi in Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida in April. They also met in Hamburg, Germany on the sidelines of the G20 summit in July.

The Beijing visit was a remarkable moment in the history of China-U.S. relations. President Xi called the visit "successful and historic" as the bilateral relations are "at a new historical starting point," while Trump said the two countries have a great relationship. The warm, candid words which pervaded the visit footnoted the trip's success.

The regional and international issues up for discussion rendered the Beijing visit the most focused stop in Trump's first Asia tour.

The two countries agreed to dedicate themselves to promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region, support peace and stability in the South China Sea, and stand by Afghanistan's side in its efforts to rebuild the country.

On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, they agreed not to recognize the nuclear status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and promote a peaceful resolution of the issue through dialogue and negotiation.

The trip showcased positive interaction between the world's top two economies, and a healthy and stable growth of China-U.S. relations will help the two better coordinate on the world stage.

The visit also witnessed the signing by Chinese and U.S. companies of a lucrative package of trade and two-way investment deals worth 253.5 billion U.S. dollars.

The record-breaking package underscores not only the dividend of the two countries' multinationals doing business, but also the huge cross-border opportunities that the economic and trade integration will create in the era of globalization.

A deal signed by the Silk Road Fund and General Electric to jointly invest in power grids, new energy and oil and gas in countries and regions along the Belt and Road will boost manufacturing cooperation between Chinese and U.S. companies and bring change across various regions of the world.

The robust economic and trade cooperation once again demonstrates to the world China's commitment to opening up and reform. China will not close its door to the world; in fact, its door will only open wider.

There's no need for zero-sum competition. Through political wisdom and creativity, the two countries can forge a new type of relationship.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:31:37|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Only off-line catering businesses with bricks-and-mortar restaurants and proper business licenses are allowed to offer on-line catering and ordering services, a new regulation said Friday.

Online catering and ordering services should be subject to the same rules as off-line restaurants, said the regulation issued by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA).

This regulation will put in question the business futures of online platforms that allow clients to order food from individuals cooking in their own kitchens.

"Once a catering service is found breaking laws and regulations, the administration will inform online order platforms, which then should suspend this business from their networks," the document said.

Order-taking platforms are required to develop a food safety control system, examine, register and publish operational permits and other key information of all catering services that join the networks.

Food delivery staff are asked to maintain personal hygiene, use clean and safe containers and prevent food contamination, while employers should provide proper training and tools, especially for foods that require special preservation such as refrigeration.

The regulation will take effect on Jan. 1 next year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:31:38|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese President Xi Jinping attends an informal dialogue between leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Da Nang, Vietnam, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for closer cooperation between the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).



With APEC being the most influential platform for economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and ASEAN being an organization of regional integration with greatest vitality and potential, the two mechanisms will enjoy a bright future for cooperation, Xi said at an informal dialogue between leaders from both sides, pointing out the shared notion and principles between the two mechanisms.

Xi proposed the two sides work together to advance regional economic integration.

He said both sides should make joint efforts to build an open economy in Asia and the Pacific as well as a framework of regional cooperation featuring equal consultation, common participation and all-win results with a view to a free-trade area of the Asia-Pacific.

Xi said China stands ready to work with ASEAN in pursuit of an early conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations, reiterating China's stance that ASEAN should play a core role in the negotiations.

APEC and ASEAN should work as twin engines, taking more effective measures in areas such as infrastructure, policy and regulations, and facilitation for travelling to build up a network of interconnectivity in a wider and deeper way, Xi said.

The Chinese leader also called for inclusive and sustainable development, proposing the APEC and ASEAN members align their development strategies with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

During the dialogue, Xi said China, as a strategic partner of ASEAN, firmly supports the construction of the ASEAN community and backs ASEAN's core role in regional cooperation.

China will push ahead with development alignment with ASEAN in an in-depth way and forge an upgraded strategic partnership between the two sides so as to build a closer China-ASEAN community of shared future, said the Chinese president.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:31:39|Editor: yan

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NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- India's top environmental court National Green Tribunal (NGT) Friday directed local government of Delhi to submit studies on its planned odd-even car rationing formula starting from next week.

"The odd-even formula can't be imposed like this. Nothing has been done from your end for the past one year," the top environmental court said while slamming the Delhi government.

The green panel questioned the logic of the Aam Aadmi Party (common man's party) government in putting the traffic restriction plan into action when reports by pollution control boards last year found that the levels of PM 10 and PM 2.5 were cumulatively higher during the implementation of such plan on two earlier occasions.

The court also questioned the justification of exempting two-wheelers and women drivers during the odd-even formula.

The local government in New Delhi Thursday announced it would roll out the "odd-even" formula from Monday to Friday.

The decision to impose the formula was made in wake of rising air pollution levels in the national capital.

Under the arrangement, private cars with odd registration numbers are allowed to run on odd dates while even-numbered cars would run on even dates.

Since Tuesday morning Delhi was covered with thick smog, following which health officials issued advisory to elderly and children to avoid venturing out.

All schools in Delhi, adjoining areas and Punjab were closed until Sunday in view of the pollution.

The entry of trucks except those carrying essentials has been banned into the national capital, construction work was also suspended.

The deadly smog leads to breathlessness and lung difficulties, and affects visibility.

Delhi is considered to be the most polluted city in the world. Last year the city's high court described the capital as "gas chamber".

Air pollution is a leading cause of premature deaths in India. Pollution in Delhi gets aggravated during winter months, as farmers burn agricultural waste to clear the cropland, deteriorating the already heavily-polluted air.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:41:41|Editor: yan

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By Zhang Dailei

LONDON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- When Nara, 3, was enrolled in the Kensington Wade English-Chinese dual language primary school in southwest London two months ago, the cute little girl from an Italian family spoke no Chinese at all. Now as one of the quick learners of her class, she can greet and count in Chinese and her grasp of Mandarin has even amazed her Chinese teachers.

"Children learn languages best when they immersed," said the school founder and chairman Hugo de Burgh, who has required the teachers not to speak English in the Chinese classroom.

"Learning Chinese improves career opportunities and we aim to give future generations the ability to operate successfully in a Chinese business and cultural context. It opens doors to the world," reads the school brochure.

FIRST ONE IN WESTERN EUROPE

As the very first of its kind in western Europe, the Kensington Wade prep school offers an immersive English and Chinese education for children between the ages of 3 and 11. Children of any language background are welcomed to the newly established school which opened in September.

There are currently 15 students, studying half the day in the English classroom and the other half day in the Chinese classroom. There isn't a word of English in the Chinese classroom as the books here are in Mandarin and laid out are traditional oriental fans, scrolls and artwork.

Sharon Zhuo, one of the three Chinese teachers in Kensington Wade, has been teaching Mandarin in Britain for over ten years. Before coming to Wade, she worked in a London secondary school.

"Many UK high school students also learn Chinese at school, two or three hours each week. I should say that is not enough and also a bit late for language learning. Learning Mandarin should be started as early as possible," she told Xinhua.

That was agreed by Professor Hugo de Burgh, the founder, who set up the China Media Center in London at the University of Westminster about 12 years ago and started learning Chinese at the same time.

"As somebody who has learnt Chinese and got a great many rewards from it, I'm very keen that young Europeans should learn Chinese at an early age then they will be better than I am," the specialist in Chinese media told Xinhua.

He named the school after Thomas Wade, the 19th-century British sinologist who produced an early Chinese textbook in English in 1867.

"That was in 2007 when I first thought of having a school," said Hugo. He mentioned the meeting in 2007 when the eminent journalist and former Director of the Center for Policy Studies, Tessa Keswick proposed the establishment of a bilingual school. She strongly believed that future generation of British opinion formers and decision makers should learn Chinese at an early age.

Tackling the challenges, including finding property in west London, with investment from private sectors and supports from UK education ministers, it took nearly ten years to make the prep school possible.

POTENTIAL

The newly opened Chinese-English prep school attracted the headmistress Joanna Wallace, who worked as head of the junior school of Putney High, one of London's high-performing private schools. She took with her a team to the new school.

"I couldn't resist the challenge of running such a brand new school. It's a new conception not only in Britain but also in the whole Europe. You don't get that opportunity much in your career," Wallace told Xinhua.

Charging 17,000 pounds per year, the school also attracts an "international group of parents", as she describes. Only three students are from Chinese families while the others are shepherded by parents from the U.S., Singapore, Russia, European mainland and Britain.

The parents keen to this school are business people who are either working with China or understand the importance of it, according to Wallace. "They want to equip their children with the Chinese language, as China is playing an increasingly important global role," she told Xinhua.

One mother, who has enrolled her three-year-old boy, explained her school choice as "intellectual, cultural, and future-proofing", as quoted by the Financial Times earlier.

Sharon Zhuo, the Chinese teacher, said parents in Britain used to want their children to learn French or Spanish to enjoy holidays and literature, but now she knows more and more parents want their children to learn Mandarin for a more competitive career outlook.

As the pupils grow older, the much praised Shanghai-method of teaching maths will be offered to Kensington Wade along with Chinese-influenced classes such as calligraphy and martial arts.

"We not only teach languages, but also want to marry the best of two leading education systems," said Hugo de Burgh.

CRAZE FOR MANDARIN

Provisions for the school's opening come amid renewed emphasis from the British government on the importance of teaching Chinese as a second language, in order to prepare future generations for the global market.

In 2015 the Britain's Department for Education launched a new 10-milllion-pound initiative to expand Mandarin teaching in state schools across the country. Hundreds of pupils are taking part in the program, which aims to make at least 5,000 young people fluent in Mandarin Chinese by the year 2020.

"Chinese is the emerging language because China is emerging as a political and economic power," said Antonella Sorace, a linguistics professor of the University of Edinburgh. "It's regarded as a good investment."

In London, there is already a Mandarin-English nursery, called Hatching Dragons, which accepts babies from as young as six months to five.

"Certainly there is a lot of interest now among middle-class parents and professional parents," Hugo de Bourgh told Xinhua. "Their children are learning Chinese because they do business with China and they see that China is doing business with everywhere in the world."

The founder said while there are over 200 Chinese-English "immersion" schools in the United States, Europe is far behind. He has prepared to face the challenges to get European people acclimatize to the idea. "I hope that once this school has been well established, we will establish schools in all the big cities of Europe."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-10 23:56:48|Editor: yan

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DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- In his first speech outside China after a historic Party congress, President Xi Jinping on Friday presented China's "new journey" toward a great modern socialist country, as well as the opportunities it creates for the world.

Xi described the "new journey" as one of deepening reform across the board and unleashing dynamism for development; moving with the times and exploring new model of development; toward greater integration with the world and an open economy of higher standards; toward a better life for the people; and toward a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind.

"In the next 15 years, China will have an even larger market and more comprehensive development," Xi said while delivering a keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Vietnam's central city of Da Nang.

He said that during that period, it is estimated that China will import 24 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods, attract 2 trillion dollars of inbound direct investment and make 2 trillion dollars of outbound investment.

In November next year, China will hold the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai, which will provide a new platform for expanding cooperation in China's market among all parties, Xi said.

"China will not slow its steps in opening up itself," Xi told the business leaders. "We will work together with other countries to create new drivers of common development through the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative."

He promised that all businesses registered in China will be treated as equals, and that China will grant more powers to pilot free trade zones to conduct reform, and explore the opening of free trade ports.

Xi noted that China will speed up institutional reform for ecological conservation, pursue green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and implement the strictest possible system for environmental protection.

"By 2035, there will be a fundamental improvement in the environment; the goal of building a Beautiful China will be basically attained," he said.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) successfully held its 19th National Congress last month. Xi, the helmsman of the world's second largest economy, was re-elected General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the First Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, which was held a day after the Party congress concluded.

Overall guidelines and program of action were set out at the historic congress for the future development of the Party and the country, drawing a blueprint for China's development between now and the middle of this century.

The plan of the CPC -- as outlined by Xi -- is to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020; basically realize socialist modernization by 2035; and develop China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of this century.

When addressing the APEC CEO Summit on Friday, Xi said as China works hard to pursue innovation and higher quality of growth, new forms of business will keep emerging, more innovations will be used, and development of various regions in China will become more balanced.

"All this will create a more powerful and extensive impact, present more opportunities of cooperation and enable more countries to board the express train of China' s development," Xi said.

Xi arrived in Da Nang on Friday to attend the annual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, scheduled for Nov. 10-11 with the theme of "Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future."

This year's meeting comes against the backdrop of an improving global economy and a rebound in global trade and investment, despite risks and uncertainties.

Sharing his observations about the global economy, Xi said the world is seeing profound changes in growth drivers, the model of global growth, economic globalization and the system of global economic governance.

He called on the 21 APEC members to continue to foster an open economy that benefits all, pursue innovation-driven development and create new drivers of growth, enhance connectivity and achieve interconnected development, and make economic development more inclusive and deliver its benefits to the people.

Xi defended the significance of economic globalization in his speech, saying that it has contributed greatly to global growth over the last few decades.

"Indeed, it has become an irreversible historical trend," he said.

But he also acknowledged that economic globalization faces new adjustments in both form and substance.

"In pursuing economic globalization, we should make it more open and inclusive, more balanced, more equitable and beneficial to all," he said.

He pointed out that the current headwinds confronting economic globalization is mostly generated by the lack of inclusiveness in development.

"Hard work is still needed if we are to bring the benefits of development to countries across the globe and people across our society, and thus turn our vision into reality," he said.

President Xi renewed his call for building a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), saying it is the long-cherished dream of the business community in the region and can provide an institutional underpinning for growing an open economy in the Asia-Pacific.

Meanwhile, he again highlighted the important role of the Belt and Road Initiative.

"This initiative is from China, but it belongs to the world. It is rooted in history, but it is oriented toward the future. It focuses on the Asian, European and African continents, but it is open to all partners," he said.

"I am confident that the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative will create a broader and more dynamic platform for Asia-Pacific cooperation," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:21:58|Editor: yan

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JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) closed lower on Friday, pulled down by the dual-listed shares which earn more in rand for their foreign earnings.

The industrial index, which also included big dual-listed shares, was 0.88 percent weaker.

The local unit tumbled as low as R14.3 to the U.S. dollar by 5:00 p.m. amid allegations that South African's President Jacob Zuma would announce state funding for free tertiary education.

The all share was lower 0.14 percent to 59,776.12 points and the blue-chip top 40 index dropped 0.17 percent to 53,424.93 points. The financial shares traded 0.08 percent higher.

Resources climbed 1.62 percent as a result of higher commodity prices, and a weaker local unit.

Richemont was also in focus after the luxury goods maker reported its year-end results. The share price dropped 2.46 percent to R125.08.

Sasol edged up 1.14 percent to R439.94, Anglo American 2.96 percent to R281.59 and BHP 1.24 percent to R271.

Assore gained 1.91 percent to R346.99 and African Rainbow Minerals 2.9 percent to R130.68.

Impala Platinum dropped 0.27 percent to R39.9, while Northam gained 3.11 percent to R53.1.

Among the banks on the JSE, FirstRand added 0.46 percent to R52.65, Standard 0.3 percent to R168.

Retailers lost with Truworths losing 0.63 percent to R55.3.

Telkom plunged 6.39 percent to R50 after the telecoms company earlier reported a 7.4 percent drop in first-half headline earnings per share.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:21:59|Editor: yan

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DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese and Russian presidents agreed here on Friday that the two countries will continue to strengthen cooperation in national defense, science, education, culture, tourism, and labor.

During their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week in Vietnam's central Da Nang city, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang and Russian President Vladimir Putin also agreed on releasing a joint statement on cooperation in ensuring international information security, Vietnam News Agency reported.

Quang suggested Russia to encourage more Vietnamese enterprises to invest in Russia's Far East region to benefit both countries.

He called on Russia to expand information-sharing with Vietnam, support Vietnam in education and training in fields such as cyber security, hi-tech crime prevention and control, and increase shipment of Vietnamese aquatic products to the Russian market.

For his part, Putin spoke highly of the active efforts Vietnam has made in hosting the APEC meetings, affirming that Vietnam is always one of the diplomatic priorities of Russia in the Asia-Pacific region.

He suggested Vietnam to create favorable conditions for Russian firms to join cooperation projects with their Vietnamese counterparts in infrastructure, railway, energy, fuel, automobile, and the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:37:04|Editor: yan

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by Relja Dusek

ZAGREB, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- In the center of the Istrian peninsula, there is a forest known for "black diamonds" that make this region the truffle capital of the world.

The unique fragrance of the "royal mushroom" was known to the Mesopotamian rulers 4,000 years ago. It was enjoyed by ancient Greeks and Roman emperors and today, truffles are still among the most highly-prized gourmet specialties.

Known to the French as the "black diamonds of gastronomy", Truffles grow under the ground in symbioses with tree roots, and are therefore very difficult to find. They are rare and grow only in a few locations in Europe, in some parts of Italy, France, Spain and Croatia.

Istria, a heart-shaped peninsula whose biggest portion is within Croatian territory, is home to white and black truffles.

In late autumn, at the top season of the white truffles, Istrian forests are full of trained dogs running, sniffing and searching for the rare mushroom. While truffle hunters try to catch them, especially when the dogs excitedly start to dig into the earth. It is a sign that they smell truffles, and it is the moment when the hunters take over the job with a dagger-shaped trowel until the truffles are dug out.

Ivica Kalcic has been a truffle hunter for almost 15 years. He has two English cocker spaniels that help him in the hunt. The older one is trained and always successfully in finding truffles. The younger one, this is just the first semester of school.

One day it should be as useful as the mother. "We always go in the hunt with dogs. One is sniffing and searching for truffles, while the other is here to learn the process," Kalcic told Xinhua.

In olden days, pigs and not dogs were used for truffle hunting. But this tradition is now dead since pigs like truffles so much that they usually eat them on the spot.

"Pigs are dangerous animals and it's hard to control them. When they start digging for a truffle, you have to react very quickly because a pig would destroy or eat truffle. And it is not easy to fight with a pig for a truffle. Once, my friend almost lost his finger," Kalcic said.

During truffle season, Kalcic takes visitors to the forest to demonstrate a truffle hunt. It is one of the most attractive tourist attractions in central Istria.

Visitors around the world come here to experience a truffle hunt and then taste these gourmet specialties. It is an organized and well-directed attraction where hunters hide truffles under the ground beforehand for the dogs. And in just 20 minutes, dogs bark and dig when they find a white truffle.

"The best time for the search is at night when the air is cleaner, so dogs can smell a truffle more easily. The downside is that dogs easily get lost in the dark," Kalcic said.

On Nov. 2, 1999, the biggest white truffle in the world was found in this forest. The lucky finder was Giancarlo Zigante. With the help of his German pointer Diana, he found a tuber weighing 1.31 kg in the Motovun forest near Livade.

It was, and still is, the biggest white truffle in the world, a mushroom that earned its spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

It was a breakthrough for Zigante whose name became a synonym for the Istrian truffle. Today, he runs a famous truffle restaurant in Livade and organizes Zigante Truffle Days, a 10-weekend long festival of truffles.

"People around the world come here in Livade to taste the best truffles. Istria is best known for white truffles. They are the most expensive truffles in the world. Unlike black truffles that can be dried, frozen and preserved, white truffles are special because they cannot be conserved. You have to eat them in a week," Morena Borovecki, marketing manager of the Restaurant Zigante and Zigante Truffle Days, told Xinhua.

The price, she said, varies from season to season. "It all depends on the offer. This season, the price of a white truffle can reach 5,000 euros (5,835 U.S. dollars) per kilo."

Nevertheless, the visitors of the festival don't ask for the price. Thousands of them come each year to enjoy this noble mushroom.

"The best way to consume truffles is to slice fresh truffles directly on the food. It could be a pasta, potatoes or eggs because these groceries are neutral and then you can feel better the taste and flavor of truffle," Borovocki explained.

Livade is not the only Istrian village that celebrates truffles. In October and November, there are exhibitions and fares throughout the peninsula. Istria even has "the city of truffles" named Buzet.

Beautiful nature and delicious food has transformed the inner part of the Istria region that is often described as "the new Tuscany".
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:47:09|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (L) shakes hands with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during their meeting on the sidelines of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10, 2017. "I am pleased to announce that Australia and Vietnam will enhance our bilateral relationship to the level of a strategic partnership," Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced here on Friday. (Xinhua/VNA)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- "I am pleased to announce that Australia and Vietnam will enhance our bilateral relationship to the level of a strategic partnership," Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced here on Friday.

The announcement was made after the bilateral meeting between Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc here on Friday on the sidelines of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week.

"The enhanced relationship will enable our countries to work more closely together on a range of issues, including defense, trade, investment, development, education, labor, tourism, law, finance, information and communication," the Australian embassy in Vietnam cited Turnbull as saying.

Australia and Vietnam will deepen bilateral trade and direct investment, and work together to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership into force as soon as possible, the Australian leader said, adding that by bringing the two economies closer, the two countries will drive economic growth and generate jobs.

"We also agreed to closer defense and security cooperation, including military visits, peace-keeping, aviation and maritime security and safety, counter-terrorism, special forces, war legacy issues," the Australian prime minister said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:52:12|Editor: yan

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CAPE TOWN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- South African President Jacob Zuma denied on Friday widespread allegations that he would remove Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa ahead of the African National Congress' (ANC's) elective conference next month.

Zuma was replying to a parliamentary question raised by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) about whether he intends to remove Ramaphosa as indicated by press reports.

"My office has already publicly refuted the reports that suggest that I am intending to remove Mr Cyril Ramaphosa as the Deputy President of the country," Zuma said without further elaboration.

It has been widely reported that Zuma would remove Ramaphosa to pave way for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former African Union Commission Chairwoman, to become the ANC President when the governing party holds its elective conference next month.

Ramaphosa's close confidant James Motlatsi reportedly said in October that Zuma would sack Ramaphosa, based on intelligence that the Deputy President is a spy of western capitalists.

But as the rumor emerged, Zuma's spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga dismissed the possibility that Ramaphosa would be sacked.

Following Ngqulunga's dismissal, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des Van Rooyen said Zuma is within his right to remove Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa himself also said that should Zuma decide to remove him from his post, he would accept it, as it was the president's prerogative to hire and fire members of his executive team.

All these remarks are seen as indications that Ramaphosa would be removed.

Zuma's denial on Friday was his first public response to the rumors.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:52:13|Editor: Yang Yi

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President of Tibet University Ji Jianzhou turns the tassel for Zhang Hui during a graduation ceremony in Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Nov. 10, 2017. Four PhD candidates researching Tibetan history, language or medicine became the first group of holders of doctorates awarded by a Tibetan university. (Xinhua/Chogo)

LHASA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Four students in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region were granted doctorate degrees Friday, the first batch of doctorate degrees ever awarded by a Tibetan university.

The students majoring in Tibetan history, Tibetan language and literature, high-altitude medicine, attended the graduation ceremony at Tibet University Friday.

Though a "Gexe Lharampa," a title similar to a doctorate in Tibetan Buddhism, was awarded as the highest academic degree to lamas in Tibetan Buddhism studies in Tibet, an academic doctorate in the modern education system was previously absent in the region.

"As one of the first doctorate holders that were indigenously cultivated in Tibet, I appreciate very much the accomplishment of study under the government policy to protect and inherit ethnic culture," said Soinam Cering, 32, one of the graduates.

STUDY AT DOORSTEP

Soinam Cering is the son of a farmer in the region's Xigaze area.

When he was young, he loved reading books left by his grandfather, who had received private tutoring and engaged in filing historic archives after the emancipation of Tibet.

Reading a lot of history books, Soinam Cering grew a strong interest in Tibetan history. After graduating from university, he worked in the Xigaze government before enrolling as a Mandarin-Tibetan translation major for a master's degree in Tibet University.

"I had never dreamed of becoming a doctor before 2014," he said, adding that the high cost of being away from home was a major reason he hesitated to apply for a doctor's degree in other cities.

Tibet University was authorized to award doctorates in 2013.

The next year, when Soinam Cering graduated for his master's degree, he was first place in the enrollment exam, becoming the first doctorate student of Cedain Zhaxi, head of the China Tibetology research institute of the university.

Over the past three years, Soinam Cering wrote more than 10 papers.

He was also awarded a scholarship for doctors three times in a row funded by the central and regional government.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 00:57:16|Editor: yan

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DAR ES SALAAM, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Friday fighting corruption was an uphill task that called for hard decisions.

Magufuli likened corruption to a social cancer that was very hard to treat.

"Fighting corruption is as hard as treating a chronic disease," Magufuli said in a news conference which was televised live by the national broadcaster Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation.

He said since he came to office in November 2015, one of his priorities was to fight corruption by establishing a special anti-corruption court dealing specifically with people implicated with corruption.

"This special court was created after parliament had approved a bill designed at establishing the court," said the Tanzanian leader.

At the same time, said Magufuli, he made sure that the country's anti-corruption watchdog, the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), was also reinforced to enable it to deal with the malpractice without fear or favor.

Magufuli mentioned a catalogue of measures that his 5th phase administration has taken in fighting corruption, including the restoration of discipline among public servants that has resulted in increased productivity in service delivery.

He added that his government also uncovered over 20,000 phantom workers and those with fake academic credentials, adding that all these were removed from government payroll.

He said over 190 million U.S. dollars were saved by the government after it had removed the phantom workers and unqualified personnel from the government payroll.

The introduction of cost cutting measures that saw reduced foreign trips for government officials and cutting down the budget for unnecessary meetings was also part of the fight against corruption, said Magufuli.

He said during the UN General Assembly held in New York in September he only dispatched a four-man delegation comprising the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation and three other officials, saving the taxpayers money.

"We could have spent a colossal amount of money if I went there with my advance party and stayed in a five-star hotel. But I decided not to send the Vice-President with her advance party or the Prime Minister," said Magufuli.

Magufuli said the money saved from these measures was directed to development projects and provision of social services.

For his part, President Museveni saluted President Magufuli for efforts he was undertaking in fighting corruption, saying that he has added a new dimension in the fight.

The Ugandan leader said President Magufuli was succeeding in the war on corruption because he was not entertaining bureaucratic methods in the course of fighting the social cancer.

"I salute President Magufuli because there has been visible impact inside Tanzania," he said.

During his visit to Uganda, President Magufuli and his host laid the second foundation stone for the construction of the 1,445-kilometre East African Crude Oil Pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to Tanga port in Tanzania.

The first foundation stone for the 3.55-billion-dollar project was laid by the two heads of state in Tanga region on Aug. 5 this year.
Audrey Azoulay, former French Minister of Culture, speaks during a press conference at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, France, on Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Friday approved the nomination of former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay to head the UN body in a four-year term.

The UN agency confirmed, at its 39th session of General Conference, Azoulay as new chief. She will replace the outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova.

Last month, the French female politician won the support of UNESCO executive board to be the 11th boss of the educational and cultural body.

"I think of UNESCO's mandate, which is strikingly modern. I think of all of you who are aware of the difficulties of the Organization but who know that it is irreplaceable, that it is essential, in facing current global challenges and who aspire to the unity and serenity necessary to let it exercise its mandate to best effect," Azoulay told the General Conference.

In a statement released by his office, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated "full confidence in Audrey Azoulay to give UNESCO the means to assume its essential tasks facing the challenges of our time: access for all to education, culture, science; preserving World Heritage and safeguarding our planet".

Azoulay, the second female director to head the UNESCO, will take office on Nov. 15.

The 45-year-old civil servant was communication and culture advisor of former president Francois Hollande between 2014 and 2016 before managing the Ministry of Culture under the Socialist government in February last year.

From April 2000 to July 2003, she worked at the organization running France's public television channels as a deputy head and then head before joining France's National Cinema Center (CNC).

At the international scene, Azoulay had helped forge an initiative to safeguard cultural heritage in conflict zones, announced in December 2016.

On March 24, 2017, she presented draft resolution 2347 on the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts to the UN Security Council. This resolution, put forward by France, Italy and UNESCO, was adopted unanimously.

Azoulay had a master's degree in management sciences from the Paris Dauphine University in 1994 and a master's degree in business administration from Britain's Lancaster University.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:07:19|Editor: yan

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MOGADISHU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The UN refugee agency said on Friday that some 108,498 refugees have returned to Somalia since voluntary repatriation exercise begun in December 2014.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its Repatriation Update for Somalia that some 73,943 refugees were from Kenya, 33,921 from Yemen (33,511 spontaneous and 418 assisted) and 626 from other countries of asylum (589 from Djibouti, 34 from Eretria, two from Tunisia, and one from Pakistan).

"Throughout the October several factors have impacted the repatriation - deteriorating humanitarian situation in Baidoa, security concerns on the border between Kenya and Somalia (Dhobley town) and newly imposed landing fees in Kismayo," said the UNHCR.

According to the UN refugee agency, due to these factors return movement to listed locations remained temporarily suspended.

An estimated 2 million Somalis have been displaced in one of the world's most protracted humanitarian crises that have now entered its third decade.

About 1.1 million people are internally displaced (IDPs) within Somalia and nearly 900,000 are refugees in the region.

Experts say continuing political and security stabilization progress in Somalia, along with growing pressures in hosting countries, makes this a critical moment to renew efforts to find durable solutions for Somali refugees.

The report says 1,104 Somalis returned home, 775 from Yemen (490 spontaneous and 285 assisted) and 329 from Kenya in October.

The UN agency has started with a village savings and loans program targeting 65 beneficiaries (59 returnees and six IDPs).

"UNHCR continue to provide assistance to Somali refugees who decided to voluntarily return home. In order to ensure sustainable reintegration of Somali refugee returnees, UNHCR provides the enhanced return package," it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:22:23|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- In his first speech outside China after a historic Party congress, President Xi Jinping on Friday presented China's "new journey" toward a great modern socialist country, as well as the opportunities it creates for the world.

Xi described the "new journey" as one of deepening reform across the board and unleashing dynamism for development; moving with the times and exploring new model of development; toward greater integration with the world and an open economy of higher standards; toward a better life for the people; and toward a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind.

"In the next 15 years, China will have an even larger market and more comprehensive development," Xi said while delivering a keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Vietnam's central city of Da Nang.

He said that during that period, it is estimated that China will import 24 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods, attract 2 trillion dollars of inbound direct investment and make 2 trillion dollars of outbound investment.

In November next year, China will hold the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai, which will provide a new platform for expanding cooperation in China's market among all parties, Xi said.

"China will not slow its steps in opening up itself," Xi told the business leaders. "We will work together with other countries to create new drivers of common development through the launching of the Belt and Road Initiative."

He promised that all businesses registered in China will be treated as equals, and that China will grant more powers to pilot free trade zones to conduct reform, and explore the opening of free trade ports.

Xi noted that China will speed up institutional reform for ecological conservation, pursue green, low-carbon and sustainable development, and implement the strictest possible system for environmental protection.

"By 2035, there will be a fundamental improvement in the environment; the goal of building a Beautiful China will be basically attained," he said.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) successfully held its 19th National Congress last month. Xi, the helmsman of the world's second largest economy, was re-elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the First Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, which was held a day after the Party congress concluded.

Overall guidelines and program of action were set out at the historic congress for the future development of the Party and the country, drawing a blueprint for China's development between now and the middle of this century.

The plan of the CPC -- as outlined by Xi -- is to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020; basically realize socialist modernization by 2035; and develop China into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of this century.

When addressing the APEC CEO Summit on Friday, Xi said as China works hard to pursue innovation and higher quality of growth, new forms of business will keep emerging, more innovations will be used, and development of various regions in China will become more balanced.

"All this will create a more powerful and extensive impact, present more opportunities of cooperation and enable more countries to board the express train of China's development," Xi said.

Xi arrived in Da Nang on Friday to attend the annual APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, scheduled for Nov. 10-11 with the theme of "Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future."

This year's meeting comes against the backdrop of an improving global economy and a rebound in global trade and investment, despite risks and uncertainties.

Sharing his observations about the global economy, Xi said the world is witnessing profound changes in growth drivers, the model of global growth, economic globalization and the system of global economic governance.

He called on the 21 APEC members to continue to foster an open economy that benefits all, pursue innovation-driven development and create new drivers of growth, enhance connectivity and achieve interconnected development, and make economic development more inclusive and deliver its benefits to the people.

Xi defended the significance of economic globalization in his speech, saying that it has contributed greatly to global growth over the last few decades.

"Indeed, it has become an irreversible historical trend," he said.

But he also acknowledged that economic globalization faces new adjustments in both form and substance.

"In pursuing economic globalization, we should make it more open and inclusive, more balanced, more equitable and beneficial to all," he said.

He pointed out that the current headwinds confronting economic globalization is mostly generated by the lack of inclusiveness in development.

"Hard work is still needed if we are to bring the benefits of development to countries across the globe and people across our society, and thus turn our vision into reality," he said.

President Xi renewed his call for building a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), saying it is the long-cherished dream of the business community in the region and can provide an institutional underpinning for growing an open economy in the Asia-Pacific.

Meanwhile, he again highlighted the important role of the Belt and Road Initiative.

"This initiative is from China, but it belongs to the world. It is rooted in history, but it is oriented toward the future. It focuses on the Asian, European and African continents, but it is open to all partners," he said.

"I am confident that the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative will create a broader and more dynamic platform for Asia-Pacific cooperation," he added.

SPEECH APPLAUDED

Following the APEC CEO summit, the Chinese president, along with other APEC leaders, held dialogue with representatives of the APEC Business Advisory Council, exchanging views on the new opportunities brought by the 19th CPC National Congress, the Belt and Road Initiative and other topics.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who listened to Xi's speech at the CEO summit, spoke highly of the address.

He told Xi in a brief meeting after the speech that Peru attaches great importance to the relationship with China and hope to reinforce mutually beneficial cooperation in fields of infrastructure, investment, energy and mineral resources.

Meanwhile, Xi's remarks on economic globalization were applauded by other participants.

"In general, China, an economic power, can make important contributions to the regional economy so that the Asia-Pacific becomes a major engine to drive global economy and trade liberalization as stated by Xi," said Nguyen Thien Chi, member of Executive Committee of Ho Chi Minh City's Vietnam-China Friendship Association.

"Many people in the region want to establish the FTAAP soon to benefit from open and free trade and investment," he said.

"President Xi said the word 'inclusive' for many many times, and I think it's a good thing," said Sami Kteily, executive chairman of PEB Steel Buildings Co. Ltd. from Canada. "Economic growth shouldn't be restricted to one country. The whole region must benefit from the economic growth."

"I believe in multilateralism myself. I think the globalization is happening. It is the natural development of businesses and economies around the world," said Michael W. Michalak, senior vice president and regional managing director of U.S.-ASEAN Business Council.

"I think if Xi can lead the way to make it more inclusive, more fair, more open-minded, then that will be wonderful," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:27:25|Editor: yan

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KAMPALA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ministry of health late on Thursday directed the striking doctors and medical interns in the country to resume work with immediate effect.

Health minister Jane Ruth Aceng, in a strongly worded statement read to reporters here, said the doctor's nationwide strike called by the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) is illegal, should cease henceforth and its perpetuators be treated as trespassers.

The minister said UMA is not a registered trade union that can't enjoy the rights, immunities and privileges provided under the labor act.

She also said the doctors never gave a formal 90-day notice and never followed the public service procedure in declaring industrial action.

"All medical workers who were misled to join the strike must resume duty with immediate effect," said Aceng.

"All health workers who adhere to this directive shall not be subjected to any disciplinary action and shall be provided adequate protection by government," she said.

She said the medical interns who will not adhere to the directive shall forfeit their internship and will be required to reapply for reconsideration.

The doctors and medical interns on Monday began a nationwide strike following the government failure to respond to their calls for a salary pay rise and better working conditions in public hospitals.

"The salary grievances and poor working condition by public health officials must have been channeled through the Public Service Negotiation and Consultation Council, not through the Uganda medical association," said Aceng.

The minister said that President Yoweri Museveni has directed the Resident District Commissioners (RDC) in all the districts across the country to record incidences of absenteeism of the medical workers in the respective health facilities starting Friday for disciplinary action.

"I have a circular from the President with me directing the RDCs to monitor all activities in health facilities in their districts," said Aceng.

The strike has paralyzed the health services provision in the East African country as doctors have stayed away from their respective duty stations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:37:31|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday demanded unfettered humanitarian access to Myanmar's northern Rakhine State.

"We insist on the need to make sure, not only that all violence against this population (of Rohingyas) stops, but also we need to insist on unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Rakhine State, including the northern part of this region," he told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York.

The UN chief also demanded the voluntary return of Rohingya refugees who have fled the Rakhine State into neighboring Bangladesh.

"We insist on the need to reassert the right of return -- safe and dignifying return, voluntary return -- for all the population that fled to Bangladesh and to the areas of origin -- not to be placed in camps, not having access to the places where they left."

Guterres emphasized the importance of addressing the root cause of the problem, which relies largely on the problems related to citizenship for the Rohingyas -- an Indo-Aryan Muslim minority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar -- and to the legal status of this population "that has been discriminated and that is stateless at the present moment."

More than 600,000 Rohingyas have fled their homes in Rakhine State since Aug. 25, when attacks by Rohingya rebels on police and security forces triggered retribution, and sought refuge in camps centered in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

"What has happened is an immense tragedy, and the levels of violence and the atrocities committed are something that we cannot be silent about," Guterres said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Thursday that aid access in northern Rakhine State remained extremely challenging, with the United Nations being granted almost no access by the Myanmar government.

The UN Security Council on Monday issued a presidential statement on Myanmar, the first such statement on the country in 10 years, demanding an end to the "excessive use of military force" in Rakhine State and the creation of conditions for the safe return of the refugees.

Myanmar's UN representative, Hau Do Suan, expressed serious concern over the statement, which he said would not help resolve the issue as it placed undue political pressure on Myanmar.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:42:34|Editor: yan

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ROME, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 17 people were arrested Friday in Italy during an anti-mafia operation across Sicily's regional capital Palermo, local media reported.

Coordinated by prosecutors of the local Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA), the operation targeted a Sicilian clan dominating over a major neighborhood of Palermo's historical center.

All of those arrested were variously charged with mafia association, attempted murder, extortion, robbery, illegal possession of weapons, and fictitious ownership of assets.

A ledger showing the accounts of the clan's illegal activities, and names of their victims, was seized during the raids, along with an unspecified number of commercial assets.

Prosecutors were able to uncover the core of their illegal activities thanks to wiretaps, and the depositions of two mobster-turned informants.

Friday's operation was part of a six-year-long wider probe, which had already brought other members of the same mafia family in prison for mafia-related crimes and extortion.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 01:52:36|Editor: yan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met here Friday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on further strengthening bilateral ties and cooperation on regional and international affairs.

The pair met on the sidelines of the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting held in Vietnam's Da Nang city.

Recalling his multiple meetings with Putin, Xi said their efforts in guiding a steady and long-term growth of China-Russia ties at a high level have achieved gratifying results.

Noting that China and Russia have firmly supported each other in safeguarding their core national interests, and further strengthened political mutual trust, Xi said the two countries are strategic partners that have truly placed trust in each other.

The Chinese president said the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has set a good example for a new type of international relations that highlights mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation.

Putin extended congratulations on the successful conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and pledged to always make the development of Russia-China partnership a priority of Russia.

Russia stands ready to enhance cooperation with China in regional and international affairs, carry out closer communication and coordination within multilateral frameworks such as the APEC, and push forward the construction of the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific, said Putin.

The two leaders also exchanged views on issues of common concern, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 02:12:41|Editor: yan

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BONN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese delegation to the ongoing UN climate talks here on Friday voiced concerns on behalf of developing countries, calling for focused discussions on pre-2020 actions.

"There has been heated debate on pre-2020 ambition in Bonn. Actually it is not a new issue, rather, an unfinished business," Chinese negotiator Chen Zhihua told a press briefing held by the delegation.

Focusing on technical issues, the first week of the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is drawing to an end.

"There are only two years to 2020 so we don't have the luxury of time, and we really need to accelerate domestic processes to ratify the Doha amendment so as to put it into effect as soon as possible," Chen said.

He added, as countries agreed in the Bali process that developed countries should enhance their ambition in terms of support to developing countries, "it is time to take stock of what they have done and where the gap is and how to close the gap."

The global fight against climate change, starting from 1992 with the inception of the UNFCCC, can be divided into pre-2020 phase which was guided by the Kyoto Protocol and years afterwards which will be directed by the Paris Agreement.

However, the Doha amendment, establishing the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020) and including quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments by several developed countries, have just been ratified by some countries.

Developing countries also called for a ceremony to celebrate the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol as this year marks the 20th anniversary of the historical event, according to Chen.

"We need to do something to memorize this very important historical moment, and action is the best way to commemorate the adoption," Chen said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 02:37:47|Editor: yan

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LONDON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Britain's most famous playwright William Shakespeare is being used to help spearhead a new drive to attract overseas tourists to the Midlands area of England.

The tourism agency Shakespeare's England has joined a three-year joint partnership with three other agencies to market Britain's second biggest city, Birmingham, and the surrounding areas to a global audience.

VisitBritain said Birmingham Airport, the West Midlands Growth Company and Marketing Peak District & Derbyshire, have also joined the partnership.

Together, the organisations will market Birmingham and the surrounding areas to a global audience and convert inspiration to visit into bookings, and promote direct flights to the area.

VisitBritain Commercial Director Carol Dray said: "Increasing regional connectivity not only makes it easier for visitors to see more of Britain, the West Midlands and the Peak District, it boosts economic growth, and helps keep us an attractive destination in this fiercely competitive global market."

Helen Peters, CEO of Shakespeare's England, told Xinhua how the famous bard is crucial to tourism to the area where one of the world's most famous writers was born and lived.

"The name of William Shakespeare is known around the world, so much so that when Birmingham was promoting its airport in China, it was labelled as 'Shakespeare's Airport'".

"Stratford-on-Avon where he was born and lived is a small market town with a population of just 27,000, yet the town attracts over 10 million visitors every year. There are few towns of that size that attract so many visitors from home and overseas, particularly as the town centre only covers one square mile."

"But within that square mile are some of the most important sites linked to Shakespeare."

Asked how Shakespeare would react to the knowledge that his birthplace was so important on the global stage, Peters told Xinhua: "Most artists would wish to leave some kind of legacy and Shakespeare's name lives on after 400 years. I am sure he would be delighted.

"Although he wrote his famous plays centuries ago, his story lines, covering love, loss, marriage, combats between families, are as relevant today. His work remerges as modern day stories, such as in the musical Guys and Dolls, which is essentially the story of Romeo and Juliet."

West Midlands Growth Company Director of Marketing and Communications Emma Gray said: "Birmingham and its surrounding areas have become increasingly popular tourist destinations, attracting some 1.5 million international visitors in 2015."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 02:47:49|Editor: Yamei

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Da Nang, Vietnam, Nov. 10, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met here Friday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on further strengthening bilateral ties and cooperation on regional and international affairs.

The pair met on the sidelines of the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting held in Vietnam's Da Nang city.

Recalling his multiple meetings with Putin, Xi said their efforts in guiding a steady and long-term growth of China-Russia ties at a high level have achieved gratifying results.

Noting that China and Russia have firmly supported each other in safeguarding their core national interests, and further strengthened political mutual trust, Xi said the two countries are strategic partners that have truly placed trust in each other.

The Chinese president said the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination has set a good example for a new type of international relations that highlights mutual respect, fairness, justice, and win-win cooperation.

Putin extended congratulations on the successful conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and pledged to always make the development of Russia-China partnership a priority of Russia.

Russia stands ready to enhance cooperation with China in regional and international affairs, carry out closer communication and coordination within multilateral frameworks such as the APEC, and push forward the construction of the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific, said Putin.

China is willing to join Russia in firmly boosting high-level development of bilateral ties so as to better promote their respective security and development, and safeguard regional and global peace and stability, Xi said.

He told Putin that as the socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era while Russia has also been walking in steady steps toward a stronger and wealthier country.

"At this crucial time for our respective development, China-Russia ties are also facing new development opportunities," he said, urging both sides to continue expanding mutual support and enhance all-round cooperation.

He also called on the two countries to advance the quantity and quality of bilateral trade at the same time, well implement major projects in such fields as energy, investment, high-tech, aviation and aerospace, as well as infrastructure, and push for concrete results from the alignment of the construction of the Belt and Road initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union.

On regional and international hotspot issues, Xi and Putin agreed that the two countries need to carry out closer communication and coordination within multilateral frameworks such as the APEC, the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, and push forward the building of the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia Pacific.

After Xi briefed him on the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Putin extended congratulations on the successful conclusion of the congress and Xi's re-election as the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, saying these important results proved that China's domestic and foreign policies under Xi's leadership have won broad support from the Chinese people.

Putin pledged to always make the development of Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination a priority of Russia.

Hailing Xi's successful visit to Russia this summer, Putin urged both sides to well implement the important consensus reached by him and Xi, conduct closer high-level and people-to-people exchanges, and deepen cooperation in economy and trade, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, aviation and aerospace.

The two leaders also conducted in-depth exchanges of views on issues of common concern, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 02:52:50|Editor: yan

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ROME, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The housing of displaced people in central Italy's quake-hit regions would reach some 80 percent by December, local media reported on Friday citing officials.

Some 1,100 prefabricated houses were so far provided to those who lost their homes in the affected regions of Umbria, Lazio, Marche and Abruzzo, which have been struck by a series of powerful earthquakes since last year.

"Our projection is to deliver another 100 temporary houses in the next few days, and reach the target of 3,000 between end of November and December," Ansa news agency quoted chief of Italy's Civil Protection agency Angelo Borrelli as saying. The official made his remarks during a video forum with Ansa on Friday.

The 3,000-house target would represent 80 percent of all the prefabs needed across the affected areas, according to authorities.

A much higher number of people were forced to leave their homes across the quake-hit regions. Yet, a majority of them was accommodated in hotels and other facilities along the coast, while another portion found hospitality by relatives, or preferred makeshift accommodations.

Even for Italy -- which national experts considered a country of"medium-high seismic hazard" -- the emergency caused by the recent quakes has been unprecedented.

A first quake carrying a magnitude 6.0 on the Richter scale struck on Aug. 24, 2016, killing some 300 people. It was the only event causing deaths last year. Two other major quakes of last hit in the same areas on Oct. 26 and Oct. 30, destroying thousands of buildings and much of the historical heritage.

The latest seismic disaster occurred on Jan. 18 this year: four temblors all above magnitude 5.0 took place in about four hours.

According to an analysis provided by the central government in summer, the quakes in 2016 affected 140 municipalities, and over 32,000 people, plus some 220 schools in 122 towns and at least 13,000 students.

Despite a huge apparatus deployed for reconstruction, delays have hampered the process, and authorities have acknowledged it.

The Civil Protection chief also admitted further gaps still needed to be filled. Some 2.3 million tons of rubble were yet to be removed in the quake-hit areas, according to Borrelli. "So far, we have estimated some 400 tons of debris have been cleared, which included all the rubble from public buildings in all the affected regions,"Ansa quoted him as reporting.

"The major problem now consists in removing debris of private buildings and private houses," Borrelli pointed out.

On Thursday, the Civil Protection agency reported that the country received a 1.2 billion euro (1.4 billion U.S. dollars) contribution from the European Union (EU) Solidarity Fund, which had been approved by the EU parliament in Sept.

Considering all of the seismic events, Italy estimated damages worth some 22 billion euros (25.6 billion U.S. dollars) overall.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 02:57:52|Editor: yan

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ADEN, Yemen, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 11 al-Qaida militants were killed Friday in fresh military operations launched by Yemeni forces supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the southeastern province of Shabwa, an official of the country's defense ministry told Xinhua.

"The anti-terror soldiers backed by UAE officers launched well-organized operations to clean some areas from terrorists and restore stability in Shabwa's village of Hawata. As a result, 11 terrorists were killed," the source said on condition of anonymity.

Leader of the local UAE-backed Yemeni troops in Shabwa Colonel Ali Buhar along with 10 of his soldiers were injured in the confrontations with the al-Qaida militants there, the source said.

A medical official said that all the injured soldiers were transferred via a UAE helicopter to receive treatment in neighboring province of Hadramout.

Other military officials based in Shabwa said that the armed forces also seized weapons and ammunition after raiding key al-Qaida-held hideouts in Hawta area.

The UAE air force also conducted several airstrikes to support and cover the ground forces during the operations that are still ongoing in Shabwa, according to the sources.

Elsewhere in Yemen, two militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group were killed on Friday in an airstrike launched by a U.S. drone.

Earlier this week, the IS claimed responsibility for a huge suicide bombing attack against Aden's security headquarters and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Aden.

The IS terrorist operation was against al-Qaida and continued about 10 hours and resulted in killing 47 Yemeni soldiers and injuring scores of others, including civilians.

The military campaigns launched by Yemeni armed forces and financed by the UAE forces operating in Yemen are still ongoing across the country's southern regions.

The UAE-backed Yemeni armed forces have pressed on to kick the al-Qaida militants out of the restive southern provinces.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 03:12:56|Editor: yan

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BEIRUT, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A high-level official of U.S. air forces affirmed Friday his country's support for a stable Lebanon.

Deputy Under-Secretary of the U.S. Air Force for International Affairs Heidi Grant made the remarks after meeting with commanders of Lebanese army and air forces, a statement by U.S. embassy said.

"The United States remains committed to a stable, secure, democratic and prosperous Lebanon," said the statement.

Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard announced a reimbursement of 42.9 million U.S. dollars for border operations conducted by the Lebanese army from 2015 to 2017, according to the statement.

On Nov. 8 and Nov. 10, the United States provided the Lebanese army with munitions worth over 24 million dollars.

The U.S. has been supporting the Lebanese Army, providing weapons, armor and munitions before the army's battle against the Islamic State (IS) group on the country's northeastern border.
Fire burns at the site of blasts in a military ammunition depot in Afyonkarahisar city, central Turkey, on Sept. 5, 2012. (Xinhua/Anatolia News Agency)

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Two military troops were killed and five others injured in an explosion at a military facility in the Trans-Baikal Region in southeastern Russia, the Russian investigative committee looking into the incident said Friday.

The blast occurred at the Tsugol firing range while the soldiers were clearing unexploded explosives, the committee said in a statement.

It has launched an investigation into the operation.

Later in the day, local media reported that the injured military personnel were out of danger.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 03:17:58|Editor: yan

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PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Three Chinese were injured Friday afternoon when a vehicle hit a crowd deliberately in the suburbs of Toulouse, south France, the head of the Chinese Consulate in Marseille told Xinhua citing a source from the local police in Toulouse.

The three injured, one male and two female, are all at their early 20s, said the consulate.

French news channel BFMTV reported earlier that a car "deliberately" rammed into a group of students in front a business school in Balgnac, near Toulouse, on Friday, injuring three students.

The report says the driver is a 28-year-old man, who was arrested on the site.

The man told police that he "deliberately" drove into the crowd and that he suffered from psychological disorders, according to the report.

The man was known for public offences, including drug trafficking, the report added.

In the wake of the incident, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb tweeted that "Support for injured young people in Blagnac ... It is the inquiry that will determine the nature of his act."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 03:17:59|Editor: yan

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SKOPJE, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- All political parties in Macedonia have demonstrated the will to put the country's interests first and work together in the country's best interest, member of European Parliament Ivo Vajgl, also Rapporteur for Macedonia, told reporters on Friday.

After two-day talks with representatives of Macedonia's political parties, Vajgl told a press conference together with Macedonia's Parliament Speaker Tala Xhaferri that all parliamentary political parties had agreed in principle to the "Jean Monnet" dialogue.

The "Jean Monnet" initiative represents an informal opening of a dialogue without media presence, in an attempt to find a common ground on certain issues. The key is to bring positions closer on topics related to the integration process.

As a result of the talks held so far with heads of political parties here, Vajgl voiced confidence that the last week of January 2018 was a possible date for the first meeting here.

Such meeting will serve to tackle the Parliament's Rules of Procedures, the Code of Ethics for MPs and the rule of law, Vajgl noted.

He further said the European Parliament would provide full support to the enlargement process and opening of EU accession talks for Macedonia.

On his part, Xhaferi told Vajgl that the parliament was prepared to follow and fully implement EU recommendations, as according to him, they benefited Macedonian institutions and citizens.

Xhaferri said he hoped the next European Commission progress report on Macedonia opened the door for the start of Union accession talks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 03:33:03|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The headquarter of the Deputy Interior Minister of the UN-backed Libyan government was attacked by rocked-propelled grenades on Friday, a security source told Xinhua.

The headquarter of Faraj Eg'em in the eastern city of Benghazi was attacked, leaving three security personnel killed and nine others injured, according to the source.

The place used to be the headquarter of former Anti-Terrorism Department in Benghazi, the source revealed.

"We do not know who is behind the attack, however, we expect that the shells have been fired from the last stronghold of terrorists in central Sidi Ekhrebish," said the source.

The attack comes less than a week after a car bomb hit the convoy of Eg'em in Benghazi, killing one security man and wounding four others.

Eg'em was appointed by the Government of the National Accord in August. The decision angered the eastern-based army commander General Khalifa Haftar, who issued a decision banning any official of the Government from exercising any official activity in the areas under the control of the army.

Despite signing a UN-sponsored peace agreement by the country's political rivals and the establishment of the Government of National Accord in 2015, Libya remains politically divided amid insecurity and chaos.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the headquarters of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency in Moscow, Russia, on June 8, 2016. (Xinhua/SPUTNIK)

MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The speaker of the State Duma, Russia's lower house, Friday asked the house committees to prepare a legislative response to the "U.S. pressure on Russian media."

"What the U.S. authorities are doing today is an infringement of the fundamental rights of citizens and freedom of speech," Vyacheslav Volodin said in a statement, reacting to Washington's demand that Russian State-funded TV station RT, also known as Russia Today, register in the United States as a foreign agent.

The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered the broadcaster's American division to register under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) before Nov.13.

FARA requires registration "if an agent disseminates informational materials, by mail or by any means or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, and intends the materials to be disseminated among two or more persons."

Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of RT, said in a statement that she regarded the requirement as contrary to law and the company intended to challenge it in court.

"This requirement is discriminatory, it contradicts the principles of democracy and freedom of speech, it does not give us equal competition with other foreign TV channels that work in America without being registered as foreign agents," she said.

Volodin said Russia could extend its own law on foreign agents to foreign media in response to Washington's "hostile" actions.

He said the Duma may consider a draft on Wednesday.

A draft normally has to be passed in three readings by the Duma, then get endorsed by the Federation Council, the upper house, before it can be signed into law by the president.

On Thursday, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the upper house's Commission on Information Policy and Interaction with Media, held a meeting to discuss the U.S. move and possible retaliatory steps, a Federation Council statement said.

It did not give details, but RIA Novosti, the state-operated domestic Russian-language news agency, said Pushkov named CNN, Voice of America and Radio Liberty with its Current Time TV channel as likely targets for retaliation.

"These are not media, but propaganda tools with 100 percent funding from the U.S. budget," Pushkov was quoted as saying.

Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Duma in charge of information policy, said on his Facebook account that the retaliatory measures might also be applied to foreign social media networks.

"Every media now has its own pages in social networks, which also publish their news, articles and videos. So, the law should provide that media, recognized by foreign agents, indicate the relevant information on these pages," Tolstoy said.

Last Thursday, Twitter announced it would drop advertising by RT and Sputnik-owned accounts on its network due to their alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election last year.

Sputnik is also a state news media including a website and radio broadcast service.

For months Washington has been accusing Moscow of interference and the latter has repeatedly denied the allegation. RT and Sputnik are among the organizations suspected of working on behalf of the Kremlin in its alleged support of then Republican Party candidate Donald Trump.
A picture shows weapons reportedly seized by Syrian government forces during a military operation against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists. (file pic)

DAMASCUS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) clawed back over 40 percent of the city of al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold that has been recently captured by the Syrian government forces, a monitor group reported on Friday.

Following the Syrian army's declaration of capturing al-Bukamal in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria on Thursday, the IS militants unleashed a wide-scale counteroffensive on the city, capturing over 40 percent of it, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The terror-designated militants recaptured neighborhoods in the northern and northeastern as well as the northwestern parts of the city, the UK-based watchdog group said, adding the Syrian forces' control in the city shrunk to the southern, southwestern and the southeastern parts of the city.

Now, intense battles are raging between the IS militants and the Syrian government forces and allied troops in al-Bukamal, the last IS stronghold in Syria near Iraq.

Being their last home in Syria explains why the IS militants are fighting back.

Additionally, the media wing of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which is fighting alongside the Syrian army in Deir al-Zour, said they had information that the leader of IS, Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, is hiding in the city, which could be another reason why the IS militants are feverishly trying to take hold of al-Bukamal.

On Thursday, the Syrian army declared capturing the city, saying in a statement that the liberation of al-Bukamal constitutes a "strategic achievement and a base for eradicating remnants of the terrorist organizations with its various names along the Syrian territories."

"The liberation of the city is of great importance since it represents an announcement of the fall of IS terrorist organization project in the region, in general, and a collapse of the illusions of its sponsors and supporters to divide Syria," the statement said.

The army also hailed what it described as "the continuous coordination" between the Syrian and Iraqi armies," saying it has played a big role in clearing large swathes of the border area and in preventing the infiltration of IS militants across the border.

Al-Bukamal is very important for IS due to its proximity to IS-held areas on the Iraqi side of the border, which have recently been stormed by the Iraqi army and allied troops.

Last month, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces captured the northern city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS.

Also, the Syrian army captured the capital city of Deir al-Zour this month.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 04:58:29|Editor: yan

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WARSAW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Poland has decided to join the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the field of defense within the EU. On Monday, around 20 other EU member states will sign the declaration, Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported Friday.

"We will be part of this project," a Polish diplomat who wanted to remain anonymous told PAP.

Ceremonial signing of the declaration at a Monday joint meeting of EU's foreign and defense ministers is the last formal step before PESCO's official launch during the EU's December summit.

PESCO is intended to lead to deeper military cooperation within the EU, project financing, development of military technology and strengthening of the EU's defense industry.

For a long time, Poland hesitated to join the project, pointing to possible duplication of NATO and EU efforts.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 05:08:34|Editor: Yamei

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BEIRUT, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Saudi national was kidnapped in the vicinity of the Keserwan locality of Adma in Lebanon, the National News Agency (NNA) reported on Friday.

Ali al-Bishrawi, 32 years old, was lured away from his residence on Thursday night and had been missing since then, according to NNA.

His wife, who is a Syrian national, filed earlier a missing person report, after she received an anonymous phone call demanding a ransom.

Authorities have launched investigations into the case.

The Saudi Embassy in Lebanon called for the release of the kidnapped citizen.

The embassy confirmed it had "contacted Lebanese security authorities at the highest level to assist to secure the release of the kidnapped citizen unconditionally and as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said that his country would not tolerate people who exploit the current political crisis to disrupt Lebanon's stability.

"The safety and security of Saudi citizens and all Arab and foreign nationals is a priority for Lebanese authorities," said the minister on Twitter.

The abduction came after tensions rose between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon following the sudden resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Saudi last week.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 05:08:35|Editor: yan

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HOUSTON, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Two people were injured Friday in an explosion, fire outside Whitehall Hotel in downtown Houston, Texas, the United States, local media reported.

Witnesses reported hearing an explosion followed by a fire at a building near the hotel in downtown Houston, said the report.

The incident occurred at about 1 p.m local time. Emergency crews responded around 1:30 p.m. to the incident site near the Whitehall Hotel.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 05:13:36|Editor: Yang Yi

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Photo taken on Nov. 10, 2017 shows the cargo train during a launching ceremony of the railway route in Kouvola, Finland. With more than 40 containers on it, the cargo train bound for Chinese inland city of Xi'an departed Kouvola, southeastern Finland, on Friday. It will take 17 days to run 9,000 km to cross the Eurasia continent, passing through countries including Russia and Kazakhstan, before reaching its final destination of the northwest China's Xi'an, one of the oldest cities in China. (Xinhua/Li Jizhi)

KOUVOLA, Finland, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- With more than 40 containers on it, the cargo train bound for Chinese inland city of Xi'an departed Kouvola, southeastern Finland, on Friday.

It will take 17 days to run 9,000 km to cross the Eurasia continent, passing through countries including Russia and Kazakhstan, before reaching its final destination of the northwest China's Xi'an, one of the oldest cities in China.

Compared with the normal sea freight, the cargo rail line can shorten the travel time by 30 days.

NEW TRADE CHANNEL

Goods packed in the containers are all made in Finland, ranging from machinery, timber, workwear to ship components, according to Jari Gronlund, chief operation officer of Unytrade company.

Founded just in this summer, Unytrade especially serves the newly opened route, said Gronlund, who believes the only railway route linking Scandinavia and China will open a new channel to bring more Nordic products to the nations along the route.

Olli-Pekka Hilmola, logistics professor at Lappeenranta University of Technology, told Finnish national broadcaster Yle that a regular train connection from Kouvola to China would be important to the Finnish economy.

According to Li Zhao, Assistant of General Manager of Xi'an International Inland Port Investment & Development Group, the goods will be further transported to various markets in China after arriving in Xi'an.

Being the main operator of the multinational project, the Group has outsourced the transportation in Finland to VR, the country's state-owned railway monopoly, and the other sections to the railway companies of Russia and Kazakhstan accordingly.

As planned, a total of five trains would run between Kouvola and Xi'an by the end of this year. At the same time, a train would depart Xi'an towards Kouvola every week.

Li said the running may start to pace up if the trade goes smoothly and hopefully a train of goods would be sent every day in the near future.

ENHANCED INTEGRATION

So far, hundreds of China-EU cargo trains have been running through the central Asia each year, but the new line diverted to Kouvola would serve as a new chapter for economic ties and cultural communication, said Murat Nurtleuov, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Finland.

He reminded the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China, which was later supported by dozens of countries especially in Asia and eastern Europe, saying now that Finland has been part of it, a new direction is found.

By launching the railway route, said Chinese ambassador to Finland Chen Li "we have achieved the communication among the four countries, which are China, Finland, Kazakhstan and Russia, the connectivity in facilities, the smooth flow of trade activities, the financial integration as well as the commonality among the people."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 05:23:39|Editor: Yamei

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BONN, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese delegation to the ongoing UN climate talks here on Friday voiced concerns on behalf of the developing countries, calling for focused discussions on pre-2020 actions.

PRE-2020 ACTIONS

"There has been heated debate on pre-2020 ambition in Bonn. Actually it is not a new issue, rather, an unfinished business," Chinese negotiator Chen Zhihua told a press briefing held by the delegation, calling for adding the issue on the conferences' agenda item.

Focusing on technical issues, the first week of the 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is drawing to an end.

"There are only two years to 2020 so we don't have the luxury of time, and we really need to accelerate domestic processes to ratify the Doha amendment so as to put it into effect as soon as possible," Chen said.

He added, as countries agreed in the Bali process that developed countries should enhance their ambition in terms of support to developing countries, "it is time to take stock of what they have done and where the gap is and how to close the gap."

"If we cannot fill the gaps for pre-2020, the gaps will ultimately transfer to the post-2020 period," said Chen.

Gu Zihua, another Chinese negotiator, added that China believed that pre-2020 is a "trust-building issue" for developing countries, and if pledges already been made cannot be fulfilled, their faith in future pledges will be dampened.

"We are not asking the developed countries to make unrealistic pledges, we are just asking them to fulfill promises already been made," Gu said, calling for a clear decision on the timeline of entry into full of the Doha amendment.

The global fight against climate change, starting from 1992 with the inception of the UNFCCC, can be divided into pre-2020 phase which was guided by the Kyoto Protocol and years afterwards which will be directed by the Paris Agreement.

However, the Doha amendment, establishing the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2020) and including quantified emission limitation or reduction commitments by several developed countries, have just been ratified by some countries.

Developing countries also called for a ceremony to celebrate the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol as this year marks the 20th anniversary of the historical event, according to Chen.

"We need to do something to memorize this very important historical moment, and action is the best way to commemorate the adoption," Chen said.

FINANCING CONCERN

Chen also mentioned financing as a concern of not only China but all developing countries, "because the gap is there".

"If the U.S. is going to make less contribution, the gap is going to get bigger," Chen said, answering a question about whether the U.S. withdraw have any implications on climate financing.

Gu Zihua made clear the stance that the obligation of financing is a collective one of the developed countries.

"So if one developed country withdraws, we hope that other developed countries enhance their contributions to fill that gap, and we also believe that local government, corporations and non-state actors in the U.S. can play a role to fill that gap," Gu said.

Gu pledged China would continue to make contributions on a voluntary basis and through south-south cooperation to help other developing countries to address climate change.

CHINA'S ROLE

China has played a proactive role in the first week's COP meeting, Gu said in an interview with Xinhua.

"We have been substantially engaged in the talks on each agenda, and contributed China's proposals," Gu said.

Moreover, China has been acted as a mediator of the developing countries to coordinate their stances and kept close consultations with the president on facilitative dialogue, according to Gu.

China also organized multiple side events at the China pavilion to introduce the country's best practices in climate protection and conduct exchanges with other countries or climate actors, Gu added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 06:03:52|Editor: yan

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RABAT, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A total of 8.85 million tourists visited Morocco between January and September 2017, up 8.9 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the statistics released by Tourism Ministry on Friday.

International tourist arrivals jumped up 13.2 percent, while Moroccans living abroad visiting their homeland rose 5.2 percent, the ministry pointed out.

Arrivals from the traditional European markets showed an increase of 13 percent in German tourists, and for emerging markets for Morocco, a 242-percent increase of Chinese tourists.

Morocco's main tourist destinations, Marrakesh and Agadir attracted 60 percent of overall tourists visiting the North African kingdom, up by 18 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Fez and Tangier showed the highest increase in tourist arrivals with a growth of 35 and 25, respectively.

By September 2017, tourism revenues reached nearly 5.4 billion U.S. dollars, a 4.6-percent increase year on year, the ministry said.

A total of 10.3 million tourists visited Morocco in 2016, up 1.5 percent from 2015. Morocco expects tourist arrivals to grow 6 percent in 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-11 06:13:54|Editor: yan

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GENEVA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A UN official on Friday warned that Yemen is currently facing the largest humanitarian and food crisis in the world.

Meritxell Relano, Representative for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Yemen, spoke via telephone from Amman of Jordan to a press briefing in Geneva that seven million people in Yemen don't know where their next meal will come from and their survival depended entirely on humanitarian assistance.

According to the UN official, the blockade on all land, air and sea traffic by preventing the movement of aid personnel and the delivery of vital assistance to children in desperate need had worsened what was already a catastrophic situation.

"It is essential that the port of Hudaydah be reopened as that is where most humanitarian supplies came into the country," Relano stressed.

She told reporters that Yemen is also facing the risks of running out of fuel, with current stocks would last only until the end of November.

"The blockade has led to panic buying of fuel and a price rise of 60 percent," she said.
Xu Sitao, chief economist at Deloitte China [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Deals signed between Chinese and US companies will be one of the major achievements of US President Donald Trump's visit to China, Xu Sitao, chief economist at Deloitte China, said.

"As a businessman-turned president, Trump has on many occasions talked about 'quick wins'. The numbers of large deals signed between Chinese and US companies have underscored such 'quick wins'," Xu told China Daily Website in a phone interview on Thursday.

Chinese and US companies sealed 19 agreements valued at about $9 billion on Wednesday covering areas such as energy, food and transport.

On Thursday, 15 cooperation documents worth more than $250 billion were signed at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Xu believes that deals signed between Chinese and US companies will not only benefit the enterprises but bring real good to people.

A deal struck in the medical sector, for instance, not only does good to the US company, but also means better access to quality medical services for the Chinese consumers, he said.

An earlier report from CNBC showed that among the business executives accompanying Trump's visit to China, a majority are in the energy and manufacturing sectors.

"The Chinese government strongly supports clean energy. The country is unlikely to repeat the old path of developed countries in energy development. Therefore, the potentials for cooperation between the two countries in clean energy are huge," said Xu.

The latest data from Bloomberg showed that during the first three quarters of the year, global investment in clean energy totaled $182.9 billion, up 2 percent year-on-year. Clean energy investment in China amounted to $68 billion, accounting for 37 percent globally and ranking first in the world for five consecutive years.

Xu has positive views about cooperation in the medical and pharmaceutical sector.

"China has unmet demand for quality medical and pharmaceutical services. This implies a huge market for US companies," he said.

Another area which holds great potential for cooperation is financial services, Xu said.

The government has made pledges to further open the financial market, which has sent positive policy signals to the international market.

"If China can make bigger strides in relaxing market access for financial services companies, it will get active response from the US and European nations," he said.

Talking about innovation, Xu said that the US' strengths in innovation are indispensable with its fully fledged capital market, free atmosphere for innovation, quality science and engineering education, and the mobility of the labor market.

Chinese businessmen share the same adventurous entrepreneurial spirit as their US counterparts, said Xu.

In terms of innovation, China has strengths in human resources and basic science and natural science education and boasts many unicorns on par with the US ones, he added.

There is room for China to further leverage the role of the capital market in allocating resources to stimulate innovation, Xu said.
He also urged the government to increase the ratio of policemen to the civilians they are meant to protect.

Ayokunle spoke with State House correspondents after leading CAN delegation to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday.

Details later
Reports say the police, on seeing the protesters break in to the barrier, began firing teargas at them.

Trouble started when the protesters broke into a barrier mounted by the police while they were marching to the Unity Fountain, Abuja to demand the release of their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky.

A protest march by members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) in Abuja, Friday, turned violent after the protesters replied the teargas shot at them by the police with stones.

Police officers using tear gas and water to chase members of Academics Forum of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria during a protest demanding the release of their leader, El- Zak Zaky at the entrance of National Human Rights Commission in Abuja. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan

Another report has it that the police also shot live bullets at the protesters.

No casualty has been reported yet so far.

It said, in retaliation, the protesters responded by throwing stones at the police personnel.

Details soon..
After meeting with members and leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) earlier, President Muhammadu Buhari is now holding a similar meeting with the leadership of the Muslim community.

After meeting with members and leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) earlier, President @MBuhari is now holding a similar meeting with the leadership of the Muslim community. #OneNigeria pic.twitter.com/brRY7ereSx  Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) November 10, 2017
The offer cost of MTN Group Limited expanded increases after Nigerian administrators decided that assertions of unlawful repatriation of nearly $14bn were unwarranted and the remote organization had not disregarded the law.

There were no proofs of collusion to contravene the foreign exchange laws, a Senate investigative committee said in its report released on Wednesday in Abuja. There was evidence of massive capital outflow but that alone is not conclusive that a crime has been committed, Bloomberg quoted the report as saying.

The shares rose as much as 0.5 per cent in Johannesburg, following a 2.3 per cent gain late Wednesday when the ruling was first reported. That values Africas biggest mobile-phone company by sales at 242 billion rand ($17bn).

Nigerias decision to drop the case indicates that relations between the government and the countrys mobile market company are on the mend following the settlement of a $1bn fine last year. MTN has agreed to list its local unit on the stock exchange in Lagos, and Chief Executive Officer Rob Shuter said last week the IPO was on track to conclude in about six months.

The penalty levied by the Nigerian Communications Commission was for missing a deadline to disconnect about five million subscribers in a security crackdown.

The legislators asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to take measures against Stanbic IBTC Nigeria Plc for improper documentations regarding capital repatriation and loan repayments, adding that steps should be taken to enforce foreign-exchange laws to deal with known deficiencies.

Dino Melaye, a senator, more than a year ago accused MTN of illegally repatriating $13.92bn over a decade starting in 2006, triggering the investigation.

MTN spokesman, Chris Maroleng, confirmed the case has been dropped. Stanbic IBTC is aware of the Senates statement and is awaiting formal communication from the relevant committee, the lender said in an emailed response.

Nigeria is MTNs biggest market, with more than 50 million customers. The shares traded 0.3 per cent higher at 128.21 rand as of 9:31am in Johannesburg.
National President of the Union, Michael Alogba Olukoya stated this in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi state capital after the National Executive Council meeting of the Union on Friday.

The Union in rejecting the competency test said that, not only did the test not pass the test and measurement standard, but also it was illegal and unconstitutional.

The Nigerian Union of Teachers totally condemn the decision by Kaduna State Government to sack over 21,000 teachers from its employment over purported incompetence based on an unstructured competency test. The Union strongly rejects in its entirety the purpose, intent, process and the outcome of the exercise and hereby call for the immediate cancellation of the results of the competency test

It is common knowledge that teaching is a profession regulated by a statutory and competent body (TRCN) which is saddled with the responsibility of administering test and the registration of Teachers. To do anything otherwise by the state government in this regard is an infringement on the profession and the extant laws of the land

Mr Olukoya expressed his disappointed at the undemocratic actions of the state governor, Nassir El Ruffai who it alleged have refused to heed the numerous calls by the Union and other organisations to soft pedal on the matter and toe the part of dialogue.

Teachers are democrats, Kaduna state government should respect the rule of law. They dont have to wake up from comfort of their room and administer question for teachers in the name of interviews, it is never done. Whatever we have to do, let it be in the rule of law, we should do things that are legal. Anybody could call dog bad name because you want to hang it. The government of Kaduna has made up their minds to embarrass the teachers, to disgrace the teachers.

There are rules that govern tense and measurements; measurement is a course

of its own in education. When you are not a professional you are administering questions for teachers that are professionals, it is never done. The test that is being administered by Kaduna state government has not passed tense and measurement questions, there are not standard

questions.

Let me say this without being the modest. Governor El Rufai is one of the people that are outspoken among the governors today. But when it comes to democratic traits, we are disappointed. We have written him even before now. Nigeria Labour Congress has written

him. There is no organization that has not written to Governor ElRufai but here you are. And we now begin to look at his antecedents. Even if you want to bring a change, it has to follow

procedure and what we are saying is that Governor Rufai has been written but he has not replied us.

The Union vowed to vehemently resist the planned mass sack of teachers of the Kaduna state government.

The Union wishes to reiterate its stand to mobilize any attempt to sack teachers based on any illegal process. We hereby, strongly advise Kaduna state Government to focus on organizing the necessary training and re-training of teachers through the relevant training facilities as it is incumbent upon the government to improve on the quality of teachers and school administration for enhanced productivity.

The Teachers also gave an ultimatum to states owing Teachers salaries to clear them before end of the year.

The Union totally condemn the inhuman treatment of teachers as is manifested in the unpaid arrears of salaries/pensions to teachers in Kogi, Benue and many other states ranging from 2-22 months, thus putting the teaming teachers in these states permanently in penury.

The Union has decided against the background of all these unhealthy and unacceptable developments that enough is enough. There is no more time for rhetorics. The time is now for teachers to take their destiny into their hands to salvage the deteriorating condition that they have been forced into.

The National Executive Council of the Union has therefore resolved that the governments of all the affected states owing salaries and pensions of teachers should offset such debts before the end of the year 2017, failing which the union will be left with no other option than to shut down schools in all the affected states .
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN.

CAN delegation was led by its President, Rev. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle.

In attendance were the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. Babagana Mongonu and some cabinet members.

Buharis Personal Assistant on New Media, Bashir Ahmad while confirming the meeting on his Twitter handle, said the president will also hold similar meeting with Muslim leaders.

President @MBuhari has just finished a closed-door meeting with members and leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). He will later hold a similar meeting with leaders of Muslims faithful at the State House, Ahmad wrote.

President @MBuhari has just finished a closed-door meeting with members and leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), he will later hold a similar meeting with leaders of Muslims faithful at the State House. pic.twitter.com/guphfcjdGp  Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) November 10, 2017
The prosecution in the case involving Shamsudeen, son of former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bala opened its case on Thursday with its witness disclosing how the defendant allegedly acquired N1.1billion property through phoney firms.

Led in evidence by the lead prosecuting lawyer, Ben Ikani, the first prosecution witness, Ishaya Dauda (an investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) gave details of how investigators unravelled the defendants hidden assets.

Dauda said the defendant allegedly paid a total of N1.1bn, with which he was said to have bought various properties in different parts of Abuja.

He said Shasudeen acquired the various houses in the names of different companies. He said investigators discovered the offences allegedly committed by Shamsudeen while investigating his father.

While the witness spoke, the ex-minister, Mohammed, who is also being tried before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Gudu, Abuja sat in court on Thursday to witness proceedings in his sons trial.

The ex-Minister is being tired on a six-count charge in which he was accused of receiving gratification and making false assets declaration of some of his properties.

In his evidence, Dauda told the court that besides the intelligence received on Mohammed, there was additional intelligence received about Shamsudeens activities, including how he (Shamsudeen) allegedly used the four companies to acquire the properties.

Dauda also told the court how the investigative team from the EFCC recovered N580,000 and $60,000 from Shamsudeens residence while executing a search warrant.

The witness said.I know the defendant.In the course of investigating a case assigned to me against the former FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, we received additional intelligence concerning purchases of properties by the defendant.

We received intelligence that the defendant acquired several properties within the FCT. We worked on the intelligence and we have names of the properties acquired through companies.

The companies are Diakin Telecommunications Ltd, Balbac Minning Nigeria Ltd, Intertrans Logistics Global Nigeria Ltd.

We extended our investigation to Corporate Affairs Commission. We confirmed that the companies were registered with the CAC.

We invited the lawyers that registered these companies by name Ishiaku Shuaibu, who confirmed that he registered those companies.

When we asked Shuaibu how he came about the companies, he informed us that one Abdulahi Sani, a staff with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) gave him the name.

Abdullahi Sani was invited to our office and was asked about the companies. He (Abdullahi Sani) also informed us that the defendant gave him the names of the companies to register.

Our investigation was extended to Abuja Investments Development Company, where theGeneral Manager, Dr. Musa Musa, and the company secretary, Salisu Abdusalam, were invited to our office.

Their statements were taken concerning the purchase of properties by the defendant using Diakin Telecommunications Ltd, Balbac Minning Nigeria Ltd, which they confirmed.

They said he brought cash to their office. He bought to properties from Abuja Development Investments Company. The properties are located in Apo Area of Abuja

Another property that was purchased by the defendant is at 7, Gana Street, Maitama, Abuja. He brought cash in company with a lady by name, Maimuna Aliyu Sanda.

Together, they took this cash to the developer, by name, Farouk Saleh. The cash was in dollars, they told me. But the worth of the property was N210m.

Another property was purchased at Sunrise Hill, Asokoro. The defendant made lodgment of N80m to the then Managing Director of the company. The MD, Sami Apougaoude, a Lebanese, now late.

Then the defendant contacted a company, K & K Construction Company, to build the said property.

He again made a cash lodgment of N100m to Sunrise Hill in error which was then transferred to K &K Construction Company into their Zenith Bank account.

He then made a cash lodgment of N110m to K& K directly. Again, he made a lodgment of N200m to K and K Construction Company.

All these lodgments were made in the name of the company Birtrus Agro Allied Limited. The last time he made lodgment to K & K Construction company was N296m, the witness said.

Dauda said after the payments, in respect of which K&K Construction Company issued receipts, Shamsudeen transferred all his interests to a company, Intratrans Global Limited.

The witness said the commission then executed a search warrant at Shamsudeens house at 1B, Embu Street, Wuse II, Abuja.

We recovered the sum of N580,000,0000 and $60,000 (USD). Both sums are with exhibit keeper of the commission, he said.

Dauda said the investigators later took Shamsudeen to EFCCs office in Abuja, where he made statements and also completed the commissions Asset Declaration Form.

Shamsudeens statements and the asset declaration form were tendered by the prosecution and were admitted by the court without objection from the defence lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN).

The prosecuting lawyer later objected to an application by Uche that the monies recovered from his clients house should be returned to him because they did not form part of the charge against him.

Ikani said the monies were related to the case and promised to tender them through the EFCCs Exhibit Keeper.

Trial judge, Justice Nnamdi Dingba adjourned to December 11 for the continuation of proceedings.

Shamsudeen and four companies on a 15-count charge bordering on money laundering and false declaration of assets to the tune of N1,105,719,005.

The companies being tried with the ex-ministers son are Bird Trust Argo Limited, Intertrans Global Logistics Limited, Diakin Telecommunications Limited and Bal-Vac Mining Nigeria Limited.
He spoke with State House journalists after leading CAN delegation to closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to him, workers are going through untold hardship and measures should be taken to ensure continued harmony in the country.

He also urged the government to look for ways to increase the number of policemen and women available to Nigerians.

The clergy also called on the Federal Government to take serious the issue of herdsmen/farmers clash in the country.
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King Mohammed VI is on a visit of friendship to the Gulf countries of the UAE and Qatar, which is seen by analysts as a mediation attempt to defuse tension on the backdrop of the rift between a Saudi-led quartet and Doha.

King Mohammed VI who maintains close ties with Gulf monarchs is undertaking a visit at a time of turmoil in the region.

He attended on Wednesday the Louvre Museum opening ceremony in Abu Dhabi, alongside the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Sheikh Mohamad Bin Zayed, and Governor of Dubai Mohamad Bin Rashed Al Makhtoum. Also present were French President, Emmanuel Macron, President of Afghanistan, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, and Bahrains Monarch Hamad Bin Issa Al Khalifa, whose country is part of the quartet that is boycotting Qatar.

The Kings upcoming visit to Qatar on November 12 brings to light Moroccan mediation in the dispute between Saudi-Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE on one side and Qatar on the other side.

The visit to the Gulf by the Monarch is the first since Morocco announced its willingness to offer its mediation in the Gulf crisis when it broke out last June.

Right after the outbreak of the crisis, Moroccos foreign ministry had issued a statement expressing the Kingdoms willingness to mediate in the crisis between the GCC member states.

If the parties wish so, Morocco is ready to offer its good offices conducive to a calm, franc and comprehensive dialog on the basis of non-interference in domestic affairs, the fight against religious extremism, clarity in positions and loyalty in commitments, the statement had said.

Since the outbreak of the crisis, King Mohammed VI maintained close and continuous contact with different parties, the statement had said.

Given the close personal ties of sincere brotherliness and mutual esteem between HM King Mohammed VI and his brothers Kings and Emirs of the Gulf, Morocco made sure not to indulge in public statements or hasty stands that would only widen the divide and deepen grievances, the statement added.

In this regards, Moroccos King called on all parties to show restraint and wisdom in order to defuse tension and overcome the crisis with a view to finding a lasting settlement to the causes that have led to the current situation in line with the spirit that has always characterized the GCC.

Morocco, which remains closely linked to Gulf countries in all fields despite geographic distance, is very concerned with this crisis although it is not directly involved in it, the statement said, noting that the North African Kingdom has adopted a constructive neutrality which does not confine it to a passive observation of a disturbing escalation between brotherly countries.

More than five months into the GCC crisis, several mediation attempts by Kuwait, Turkey and the US failed so far to push for a normalization of relations between Qatar and its neighbors.
Several Indonesian media outlets wrote that King Mohammed VI will make in December a historic visit to Bali, where he will attend the 10th Bali Democracy Forum (BDF).

The Jakarta Post reported that the King will deliver a key note address during the BDF, adding that the visit was confirmed by Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita to Deputy Foreign Minister AM Fachir during a recent meeting in Rabat.

Last October, Morocco and Indonesia signed three agreements to increase trade and promote cooperation between the two countries, on the sidelines of the Trade Expo Indonesia 2017 in Jakarta.

These agreements include two MoU signed between the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services of the Fez-Meknes Region and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Jakarta and Banten, with a view to boosting exchanges and exploring investment opportunities offered by the two countries.

A Morocco-Indonesia business council was also created with the aim of promoting trade and improving business relations.

Official diplomatic ties between the two countries were established in 1960. Yet, bilateral ties can be dated back to the fourteenth century, when a Moroccan traveler named Ibn Batuta visited the court of Samudra Pasai Sultanate in North Sumatra. A close modern-day relationship was cemented during the Asian-African Conference in 1955, at which Jakarta gave its full support to Moroccan independence.

Following the establishment of formal diplomatic ties in 1960, Indonesias first president, Sukarno, visited Moroccos capital, Rabat, in the same year. It was not all smooth sailing, however. In 1967, the Indonesian embassy in Rabat was closed due to the worsening political situation in Indonesia; it re-opened in 1985. A year later, the Moroccan government opened its embassy in Jakarta.

In 1990, Jakarta and Casablanca, Moroccos largest city, signed a sister city agreement. To demonstrate the strength of their relationship, a famous shopping avenue in Jakarta was named Jalan Casablanca. Meanwhile, in Rabat, an avenue was named after Sukarno, to commemorate his 1960 visit as a token of friendship. In 2014, West Sumatra province inked a sister province agreement with Fes-Boulemane region.

Trade between Jakarta and Rabat has grown in recent years. Morocco mainly exports phosphate, fertilizers, chemicals, iron, and steel rods. Meanwhile, Indonesia sends its coffee, glassware, spices, tea, palm oil, furniture, and garments to Morocco.
Egypts tourism revenues were hard hit by a travel ban on its popular winter sun destination of Sharm el-Sheikh, which continues to be maintained by the UK.

A charm offensive has been launched by Egyptian authorities to highlight the attractions of other Red Sea resorts since the UK banned its airlines to land in Sharm el-Sheikh in the wake of the crash of a Russian charter jet in the Sinai Desert in November 2015.

The British Government has refused to lift the ban on flights to despite recommendations from its own cross-party parliamentary group on Egypt that it should, despite the millions of pounds of security investment from Egyptian authorities, and despite an apparent understanding from the Department of Transport that it would be safe to lift the ban.

Egyptian tourism authorities continue to voice hope that the British government will lift the ban soon. Egypts tourism minister, Mohamed Yehia Rashed told Telegraph Travel that he would definitely address the British authorities to look into the decision because it is no longer valid. People are in Sharm, hundreds of thousands and millions, so its about time to revisit the decision.

Britons accounted for a large proportion of tourists to Egypt, especially to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Egypts tourism revenues jumped by 170 percent in the first seven months of 2017, reaching $3.5 billion.

The number of tourists visiting Egypt rose by 54 percent in the same seven-month period on an annual basis to reach 4.3 million.

That number is still well below the 14.7 million who visited Egypt in 2010, ahead of the 2011 uprising.

Egypt hopes the number of tourists will reach 8 million in the whole of 2017, up from 4.5 million last year.
French justice on Friday validated the two recordings between the Lawyer of the Moroccan King Mohammed VI and two French journalists, Eric Laurent and his colleague Catherine Graciet, as an admissible proof in the blackmail and extortion legal proceedings.

The Court of Cassation, the highest court in France to which the two journalists appealed, considered that the two recordings having been made by an emissary of Rabat without an actual involvement of the investigators, allow to conclude to the loyalty in establishing the proof. The Court has therefore dismissed the journalists, who requested the invalidation of these recordings as a proof.

Patrice Spinosi, lawyer of Morocco, told the media after the hearing that the Courts ruling is a very great victory for the Kingdom. There is no longer any obstacle to the prosecution and condemnation of the two journalists who wanted to blackmail the king of Morocco, he said.

Beyond the case of the Kingdom of Morocco, this decision enshrines the right of every victim to resort to any means of proof, including the recordings, without having the principle of loyalty of proof put into question the police investigations, he said.

The ruling of the Court of Cassation, rendered at a plenary session, is not subject to appeal. The case will be referred again to the investigating judges

The Investigation Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Reims had rejected last February the request tabled by the two journalists lawyers to cancel the recordings, where they were heard asking for money in return for the non-publication of a critical book on Morocco.

The two journalists had demanded, at a meeting with Moroccos attorney in a Paris restaurant, 3 million in order not to publish a book containing, as they claimed, very critical accounts on the North African nation and monarchy.

During the meeting that was monitored by the French police, the blackmailers received a first payment of 40,000 each and signed a letter setting out details of the instalments to be paid in return for their commitment not to release their so-called damaging book.

According to part of the recordings, the lawyer of King Mohammed VI, addressing French journalist Eric Laurent, asked: How much do you want to drop your book project on Morocco and monarchy?

I want three, replied bluntly Laurent.

Three what ?- three thousand ? asked the lawyer .

No, three million, said Laurent.

Three million dirhams? asked the lawyer

No, three million Euros, stressed adamantly Laurent.

The two journalists, confronted by the Paris police and prosecutors by the incriminating recordings with the Moroccan attorney, requested the cancellation of the recordings but they failed in their attempt to have an admissible proof dismissed, as declared Friday by the highest court in France.
They have the momentum. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

I was wrong! Thank God Almighty, I was wrong!

You probably felt the same thing I did last Tuesday night: a euphoric whiplash as deepening dread turned suddenly into a wave of intense relief in the off-year results from Virginia. Im still riding it. I hope you are too. Almost every surprise since last November has been a soul-crushing one. I feared yet another one. But Tuesday nights string of decisive victories by Democrats dispelled the gloom and was the first time since Trumps election that hope appeared a little more realistic than despair. So lets take a moment to soak it in.

But I do owe you an account of why and how I misjudged this one, and failed to see the glimmer of dawn on the horizon. I didnt predict anything. But I feared Northam might fall short  and what that would portend. Ill stick by much of my analysis. I dont think anyone suddenly believes that Ralph Northam, now governor-elect of Virginia, ran a great campaign. He didnt. Nor is anyone reevaluating him as a charismatic, inspirational figure. He is who he is  a regular, normal candidate, with a mushy message. The good news is that he won convincingly anyway.

How? My fear was that his positions on the cultural issues could hobble him, and further polarize the electorate. I was right but also wrong. The exit polls do indeed show an even deeper tribalism than 2016. Rural Republican districts became more solidly Republican, and Democratic urban and suburban districts more reliably Democratic. The margins of victory increased in both Republican and Democratic regions. The cultural issues absolutely had an impact  by polarizing the state still further. Where I was wrong was on turnout. The extraordinary Republican vote in rural areas in 2016 just couldnt replicate itself a year later, while the Democratic base was on fire. Trump woke up the GOP base in 2016; but he has roused the Democratic base just as powerfully in 2017. Were seeing the usual backlash against an incumbent president, but with special intensity.

Demographically, the only real shift outside of turnout was in white votes. Clinton won blacks and Hispanics by 88 and 65 percent, respectively. Northams compatible numbers were 87 and 67  barely distinguishable. But Clinton won only 35 percent of the white vote, while Northam won 42 percent. Part of this was the evaporation of third-party votes  curse you, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein! But a big part was turnout. There was a huge Democratic surge, particularly in North Virginia, where the voter margins for the Democrats soared over 2013.

Another huge factor: a big jump in the youth vote. The under-30s turnout in the Virginia governors race in 2009 was 17 percent; in 2013, it was 24 percent; this week it was 34 percent. And as young turnout surged, it became progressively more Democratic. In 2013, the under-30s split 4540 percent for the Democrats; in 2016, in the presidential race, it was 5436; last week it was 6930. The third-party vote among the young also collapsed: from 15 percent in 2013 to one percent last Tuesday. I draw a couple of inferences from this: Trumps extraordinary success among older voters in 2016 has produced a backlash among younger voters in 2017, who are far less complacent than they were last year and ever-more repulsed by Trumps racist reactionism. And the younger generation has learned one thing from 2016: Voting for your ideal candidate is less important than voting for the candidate that can effectively halt the advance of the far right. Better late than never, I suppose  and Charlottesville may have helped concentrate their minds.

Im less forgiving of myself on a more basic question. Partly because I was being dragged left and right, up and down, by Trumps daily offensiveness, and because I was spooked by the reactionary wave across the West, I lost sight of something pretty basic and unique to the U.S. Trump and the GOP are now deeply identified with throwing millions of people off health insurance; this issue was the main one in the Congress this past year; and this direct threat to the welfare of millions was easily the most important issue in the eyes of Virginia voters. Obamacare, in other words, is now a real asset for the Dems, and an anchor sinking the GOP. The record surge in new enrollments and the vote for Medicaid expansion in Maine confirm the popularity of the law and its central place in voters minds.

More to the point, if the Democrats focus on health care next year, and make it the center of their campaign, they can appeal to both moderates and lefties at once, without opening up Democratic divides on race, gender, and culture more generally. If the GOP passes a massive and deeply unpopular tax cut for the super-rich, this advantage will intensify. The basics still apply: Trump is historically unpopular (by miles); and the GOPs policies on health and taxation are widely despised. That should be enough to win at least one half of the Congress next year, especially with an improved ground game.

In other words, we remain in a deeply tribal polity, and its getting worse  but one tribe has now replaced the other in demographic momentum, enthusiasm, and policy edge. Immigration still matters  and the Dems better find a plausible answer to the sanctuary city question before too long. But the idea that 2016 was, in fact, one last death rattle of the older America, emboldened by a uniquely charismatic and populist figure, and opposed by a historically dreadful candidate, gains some traction. Both energy and time are on the Democrats side, as long as the cultural issues dividing the country do not overwhelm core concerns such as health care and economics. And as long as, in 2020, they can find a decent candidate.

Just one big caveat: We still have an emergency in the White House. We have a deranged president, with no understanding of the Constitution, prepared to do anything to save himself. The more he feels cornered, the more intense will be his venting and acting out. Hes currently fomenting a new war in the Middle East, at the behest of the Israelis and the Saudis. He can play the race card ever more dangerously every day. He can still provoke a constitutional crisis  and almost certainly will, when Mueller finally reports. The danger at the top remains, in other words, and may even get worse. More to the point, his support within his tribe is not collapsing; its intensifying. For every piece of good news, theres still plenty of evidence that his own core supporters remain passionately behind him. The power of the red minority does not look as if its waning; its just being more successfully countered. Its still dangerous and potent, just currently on its heels.

In other words, relief is fully justified. Complacency isnt.

The iPhone and the Soul

Another reason to love Pope Francis:

During a general audience at St. Peters Square in Vatican City on Wednesday morning, Francis chastised Catholics who use their phones during Mass. At some point, the priest during the Mass says, Lift up your hearts, the Pontiff said. He does not say, Lift up your cell phones to take pictures.  Please, he said, the Mass is not a show. Its a meeting with the passion and the resurrection of our Lord.

Yes! What the smartphone has done in a staggeringly short amount of time is not just destroy those moments of emptiness, silence, or boredom that nourish our souls and minds, it has also reduced everything to a show. For an entire generation, the whole idea of a moment that is valuable precisely because it is not shared or public has begun to disappear. It has become near impossible, for example, to observe nature these days, without recording it. All summer I watched beautiful sunsets on Cape Cod; and I saw countless people responding not by simple observation but by holding up their phones. Their response to beauty was immediately to place a barrier in front of it. It is as if we can fully experience nothing anymore, if we do not use it for dissemination. The idea of something worthy in and of itself is under threat. And so more of our lives becomes instrumentalized for others rather than experienced for ourselves, uniquely, in this moment, or shared exclusively with those physically around us at the time.

We are turning our lives into media, constantly recording for the imminent future rather than living in the present. There are even times  think of Facebook  when friendship itself becomes measured by the public number of your friends, rather than the quality of the actual friendships you have. Better to have hundreds of friends on Facebook, and be on your phone for hours on end, than nourish an actual friendship in person in the hours you used to have for living your actual life.

Its hard to express how contrary to spiritual life this truly is. Everything becomes usable. Nothing is sacred. We have all the burdens of loneliness; and none of the consolations of solitude. We live life constantly at one remove; because it appears safer there, because it can appease our pride and vanity, and because life itself is hard and risky. But it is in those risks every day, in those interactions that no wider audience sees and the thoughts that no internet hears, that we construct meaning in our life. Jesus was very clear about this: Those who appear in public to be holy often arent. And it is what we do when no one sees us that matters to God. An act of charity is drained of its value when others know of it. Remove all private moments, where we encounter God or nature or other people for their own sake, crowd them out with mediated and constant public performance, and you attenuate the very idea of integrity and the very possibility of faith.

The inventors of this technology knew this all along. Sean Parker blurted out the truth this past week:

The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them  was all about: How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?  And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And thats going to get you to contribute more content, and thats going to get you  more likes and comments. Its a social-validation feedback loop  exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because youre exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology.  The inventors, creators  its me, its Mark [Zuckerberg], its Kevin Systrom on Instagram, its all of these people  understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.

These men are billionaires because they have tapped into the inexhaustible capacity for humans to be distracted from what truly matters. The tech money men are robbing countless lives of meaning for the sake of money. Each day they devise new ways to entrap us. In the end, you begin to appreciate why this whole new dimension of human experience is called the web. They are the spiders; we are the flies.

The Disappearing Professor

Regular readers know Ive resisted the temptation to see the Mueller investigation as a deus ex machina that will somehow rid us of Trump. But I may again have been too pessimistic. The revelations we keep getting in the press and from the Mueller indictments all point to a web of lies designed surely to conceal something. George Papadopouloss original lies are now joined by more and more proof of Carter Pages deceptions and Jeff Sessionss convenient memory lapses. More striking to me was this weeks news about a key figure in the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Professor Joseph Mifsud, the Kremlin-affiliated academic who met with Papadopoulos in London, cannot now be found:

Last Thursday he disappeared from the private university in Rome where he teaches. Repeated attempts to reach him since have been unsuccessful, though he appears to have read some messages from CNN.

Hmm. Publicly, Mifsud has denied any knowledge of Clinton email dirt, and claimed he was merely a professor with lots of international contacts. He had contacts in Moscow, he has admitted, but has a clear conscience, he told the British press. And yet the Papadopoulos indictment indicates something else:

Mifsud took an interest in Papadopoulos after the latter joined the Trump campaign. Mifsud promised him dirt on Hillary Clinton compiled by the Russians, including thousands of emails. He also offered to serve as a go-between in Papadopouloss efforts to connect the Trump campaign with the Kremlin, even going so far as introducing Papadopoulos to a woman he identified as Putins niece.

The closer you look, in other words, the more likely it appears he was a Russian agent. John Schindler, a former NSA specialist in Russian espionage, wrote last week:

His past is shadowy, though its clear hes made many trips to Russia, leading some in London to ask who Mifsud is really working for, since his official biography makes little sense. Then we have the fact, revealed by the Washington Examiner, that Mifsud traveled to the United States in 2014, where he extolled his London Academy for Diplomacy, which has since closed and appears to have been a front for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service [SVR] that existed mostly on paper  To anyone versed in Russian spies and their ways, Mifsud was in America looking for potential SVR agents; this is called spotting and assessing in the espionage trade  Given his key role in the Papadopoulos case and the Trump campaigns outreach to Moscow, Joseph Mifsud is someone that the FBI and Team Mueller need to talk to. Lets hope they can track him down before the Russians do.

And now hes disappeared. Hes also from Malta, a key place where Russian money is laundered, and where a journalist looking into these financial shenanigans was just murdered by a car bomb. The Kremlin is also pumping out propaganda that Mifsud means nothing to them:

For the most popular talk-show on Russian television, Mifsuds activities are now the object of ridicule. On Sunday, the shows host, Dmitry Kiselev, said that Papadopoulos was introduced to the fictional Putin niece by a fly-by Maltese professor called Joseph Mifsud, a retired bottom-feeder diplomat.

Maybe he was being played by Moscow; or maybe he was Moscows agent. I suspect the latter. But all we know for sure is that he cannot now be found.

See you next Friday.
The first poll taken after the Washington Posts explosive allegations against Roy Moore shows him losing some support, but not a lot. Photo: Doug Jones for US Senate; Scott Olson/Getty Images

If you are wondering how Alabama voters are reacting to the explosive allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors against Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, we have the first empirical evidence via a one-day poll conducted yesterday by Opinion Savvy for Decision Desk HQ.

Eighty-two percent of the 515 likely voters responding to the poll said they had read, seen, or heard  news stories in the past 24 hours regarding Senate candidate Roy Moore, which allege that Moore engaged in a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl in 1979, when he was 32 years old. We should note thats a way of raising the issue that might have affected voter preferences even among the small number who had not heard the news.

Still, Moore held onto a tiny lead of 46.4 percent to 46.0 percent. A previous Opinion Savvy survey back at the end of September gave Moore a five-point lead, so the shift isnt particularly large. A one-vote Jones margin, of course, gives him a Senate seat, so one way of looking at this is that an already-vulnerable GOP candidate may have been dealt a deadly blow even if a big majority of Republican voters dont believe the Washington Post allegations or dont care if they are true.

Opinion Savvy also tested Jones versus Moore with Luther Strange as a write-in candidate. In this scenario Jones holds a 43.641.3 lead over Moore with Big Luther weighing in at 12.3 percent. The numbers suggest Strange wouldnt split the GOP vote as much as you might expect; some Strange voters appear to be taken away from Jones. Keep in mind that 58 percent of the respondents are self-identified Republicans, exactly double the percentage that are Democrats.

The poll does show Moore losing support disproportionately among self-identified Evangelicals (a majority of Alabama voters), leading Jones in that demographic 5837; he led by 6828 in September. That could be just noise in a poll with a small sample size, but if it indicates Evangelicals (Moores base) are reacting more strongly to the Post allegations than others, Moore is in bigger trouble than the overall numbers indicate.

The question this poll cannot really answer is the level of detail about the allegations against Moore that voters absorbed the day they were released  presumably not a lot of Alabamians read the Washington Post  and whether the sheer creepiness of Moores reported conduct came through. Its possible the story will marinate for a while before having its full impact, particularly if nothing happens to undermine the credibility of the accusers. And its also possible that after some initial discomfort, an awful lot of Alabama Republicans will find their way clear to voting for Moore anyway, particularly if he and his defenders continue to hang tough.
Still friends 4ever. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

On his way to Asia last weekend, President Trump told reporters that he planned to meet with his favorite autocrat, Vladimir Putin, specifically to seek out the Russians help with North Korea. The tete-a-tete was meant to take place in Vietnam, where both leaders donned peculiar shirts on Friday to attend the annual APEC trade summit.

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that no formal meeting had been planned between the two, citing scheduling conflicts. (Perhaps the Trump team set aside a block of time for the president to digest the news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into allegations that the presidents former national-security adviser plotted to kidnap a Turkish dissident? Who knows.)

In any case, Trump and Putin may still enjoy some quality time together beyond the handshake they shared on Friday morning. Sanders left open the possibility that the two would bump into each other and say hello, which, judging by past experience, may be code for have a long, private conversation that isnt disclosed until days later.
Roy Moore. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call

Leigh Corfman says that Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually abused her when she was 14 years old. She told the following story to the Washington Post, on six separate occasions, without ever changing a relevant detail:

In 1979, she was sitting with her mother on a wooden bench outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Alabama. A 32-year-old assistant district attorney approached them and introduced himself. Leighs mother was about to attend a child-custody hearing. The kindly lawyer offered to watch Leigh, so she wouldnt have to listen to her newly divorced parents fighting in court.

That lawyer was Moore. In this telling, he saw Leigh as a child who was too vulnerable to be left alone for the length of a custody hearing  and too emotionally fragile to sit through one. And yet, within days, he drove her to his house in the woods, gave her alcohol, and forced her to touch his penis.

Corfman went on to become a self-destructive teenager, her adolescence shadowed by drinking and drug abuse. By age 16, she had attempted suicide.

Roy Moore went on to become chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court  and a standard-bearer for American social conservatism, widely admired for his unwavering commitment to traditional sexual morality.

Two of Corfmans childhood friends told the Post that they remembered her mentioning a relationship with an older man during the relevant time period. Divorce records confirm that her mother attended a hearing at the Etowah County courthouse in February 1979. Three other women  who (by their account) do not know Corfman or each other  told the Post that Moore courted them when they were teenagers, and he was in his 30s. Their accounts were buttressed by friends and family who spoke with the paper.

After all this was reported Thursday, Senate Republicans issued a flurry of concerned statements  almost all of which declared Moore unfit for office if these allegations are true.

How, precisely, these lawmakers intended to determine the validity of the Corfmans story was unclear. After all, the statute of limitations in Alabama ensures that the allegations will never be assessed in a court of law. And even if that werent the case, the election is in one month.

Perhaps Republicans wanted to give their candidate a chance to address the allegations, before making a presumption as to his guilt or innocence. If Moore offered a compelling counter-narrative  one that wouldnt rely on assuming that all 30 people who spoke with the Post are lying through their teeth  then there might cause for withholding judgment.

But Moore did no such thing. In fact, he didnt even explicitly deny the allegations, instead taking to Twitter to condemn the liberal media as being in league with Satan:

The Obama-Clinton Machines liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me Ive EVER faced!



We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal  even inflict physical harm  if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me. (2/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values!



Our nation is at a crossroads right now  both spiritually and politically. (3/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Our children and grandchildrens futures are on the line.



So rest assured  I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight! (4/4) #ALSen pic.twitter.com/QfN0GM7EMh  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Meanwhile, many of Moores allies in Alabama suggested that the truth or falsity of the allegations was less important than their triviality. Alabamas state auditor argued that there was nothing wrong with picking up a 14-year-old girl outside her parents custody hearing, because (the Virgin) Mary was only a teenager when she married Joseph.

So, if Senate Republicans had some basis for doubting the allegations against Moore before the judge weighed in, they have none now. Few GOP officeholders have acknowledged this reality. But some former ones have.

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017

Its worth stepping back for a moment, and remembering that Roy Moore was unambiguously unfit for office even before Thursdays revelations. The man believes that his interpretation of the Bible supersedes Supreme Court rulings  and repeatedly used his power as an elected official to undermine the rule of law. He has argued that Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress; that there are Christian communities in Illinois that have been forcibly subjected to the rule of Sharia law; and that consensual sex between adult men should be prosecutable offense.

The GOPs refusal to disown Roy Moores candidacy was a scandal when this week started. Republicans were already asking Alabama voters to elect a lawless, delusionally bigoted theocrat to the Senate. Now, theyre asking them to elect one who is also probably a child molester  on the grounds that there is no documentary evidence of his predations, and, anyway, corporations really need a tax cut.
Mary was a teenager, too, so why is everyone persecuting poor Roy Moore for his attraction to very young women? Photo: BSIP/UIG via Getty Images

One of the stranger aspects of the sexual-predator scandal that has suddenly engulfed Judge Roy Moores U.S. Senate campaign involves the widely varying defenses his camp has offered.

The judge himself is, for the moment, in total outrage mode:

These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign, Moore said in a statement obtained by Breitbart News.

His campaign was a bit more elaborate:

Judge Roy Moore has endured the most outlandish attacks on any candidate in the modern political arena, but this story in todays Washington Post alleging sexual impropriety takes the cake. National liberal organizations know their chosen candidate Doug Jones is in a death spiral, and this is their last ditch Hail Mary.

You will notice both statements avoid addressing any specifics.

The same goes for a fundraising appeal the judge sent out today. It did, however, raise the stakes on the allegations, attributing it not just to the lying fake-news media and the baby-killing socialists of the Democratic Party, but to Ole Lucifer and his hellish minions.

The Obama-Clinton machines liberal media lapdogs have just launched the most vicious and nasty attacks against me Ive EVER faced.

I wont get into the details of their filthy and sleazy attacks.

I refuse to repeat their lies.

The forces of evil are on the march in this country.

We are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message.

Spiritual warfare is a conservative evangelical meme that enables Christian Right folk to equate earthly opponents with demonic supernatural forces. Its revealing that the judge and his campaign are Going There so quickly. It is very much a last resort.

But an even more interesting religious defense of the judge was offered by Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler, as reported by the Washington Examiner:

Hes clean as a hounds tooth, Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore.

Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist, Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

Seems national liberal organizations arent the only ones trying a Hail Mary.

When I was growing up as a Southern Baptist, the virgin birth of Jesus was one of the fundamentals taken as literal gospel truth. I dont know that Ziegler wants to go down the road of suggesting that the behavior Moore was accused of was conducted as part of the domestic life of the Holy Family. And there is the little problem that preying on underage girls runs afoul of the laws of Alabama even if Ziegler thinks the Bible condones it, though its true Moore has a habit of using the latter to defy the former.

A more lawyerly excuse was offered by Breitbart News Joel Pollack, suggesting three of the four allegations arent so bad:

Breitbart's @joelpollak on MSNBC: "The 16 year old and the 18 year old don't belong in that story."  Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 9, 2017

So I guess a prosecutor hitting on teenage girls  one of whom he first approached when she was a 14-year-old Santas helper at the mall  should be taken out of the equation.

The most honest response in defense of Moore was this one from a county GOP leader in Alabama:

After a long pause, Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow tells me he'd vote for Roy Moore even if Moore did commit a sex crime against a girl.



"I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for Doug," he says. "I'm not saying I support what he did."  Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

Charles Pierce is probably not the only observer who thinks Moore will at some point throw himself on the mercy of the good Christian people of his state:

[I]f Moore has the sand for it, he will follow this up with an explanation of how he had sinned, as all fallen humans do, but that Jesus has forgiven him and washed him in the blood of the Lamb, and now its time for him to bring his redeemed hindquarters to godless Washington to show the heathen the path to glory that hes been blessed to follow. That might work.

With each denial of culpability and each association of his accusers with Satan, Moore is making any later tearful confession of mere sinful human failing unlikely. And even if he manages to execute an about-face and to elicit expressions of forgiveness for his behavior, its doubtful Alabamans are going to want someone in the Senate who is as creepy as the Post story paints him as being when he was a grown-up prosecutor looking for love in exactly the wrong places.
Hannity, unsurprisingly, wound up attacking the Clintons and other media outlets.

After the Washington Post reported on Thursday that Roy Moore, the Republican candidate in Decembers special U.S. Senate election, molested a 14-year-old girl and dated three other underage girls, Vice-President Mike Pence and a number of Republican senators called for him to drop out of the race  if the allegations are true. They did not elaborate on what the women were supposed to do to prove that these events, which occurred decades ago, really took place. Apparently Senator John McCain considered corroborating statements from their friends and family sufficient, as he did not qualify his call for Moore to step down.

Moore adamantly denied the claims  without addressing the specifics  telling his supporters that he is the victim of a campaign to silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me.

The Obama-Clinton Machines liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me Ive EVER faced!



We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal  even inflict physical harm  if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me. (2/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values!



Our nation is at a crossroads right now  both spiritually and politically. (3/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Our children and grandchildrens futures are on the line.



So rest assured  I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight! (4/4) #ALSen pic.twitter.com/QfN0GM7EMh  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler echoed Moores religious themes, noting that Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

Other Moore defenders avoided dragging Jesus and his famously virginal teenage mother into the discussion. In a speech at a fundraising dinner in New Hampshire on Thursday night, Steve Bannon, President Trumps former chief strategist, called the accusations politics of self-destruction. He compared the report to the video of Trump bragging about sexual assault, painting both as orchestrated political attacks.

But its interesting, Bannon said. The BezosAmazonWashington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump, is the same BezosAmazonWashington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore. Now is that a coincidence? Thats what I mean when I [call the media the] opposition party, right? Its purely part of the apparatus of the Democratic Party. They dont make any bones about it. By the way, I dont mind it. Ill call them out every day.

Breitbart, the news outlet Bannon runs, began working to discredit the Washington Post report before it was even published. The article described the Posts forthcoming report, highlighted Moores denial, and noted that the paper endorsed Moores Democratic opponent, Doug Jones. The Post is owned by Nash Holdings LLC, a holding company for billionaire Amazon founder and open borders champion Jeffrey Bezos, Breitbart concluded.

That sentiment was reflected on Breitbarts homepage around midnight, which called out the Establishment efforts to drive Moore from the race.

Bolstering Breitbarts point about the GOP Establishment, National Review featured two pieces imploring fellow conservatives not to defend Moore. Jonah Goldberg wrote:

Now, if you honestly think all of the people talking to the Washington Post are lying and that the Post somehow got them all to make this up, you have got one of the biggest stories of the century.

If you can prove it, Roy Moore will end up owning the Post after his lawsuit. But the Post has offered an enormous amount of evidence. Moores defenders are simply shouting fake news! Soros! Narrative! and other inanities  because thats all theyve got.

And for what? To defend a man who was indefensible before the Post story.

But other right-leaning sites went with Breitbarts narrative, highlighting Moores claim that hes the victim of a vast, left-wing conspiracy:

Other sites like Hot Air, the Daily Caller, and the Blaze only published brief, straightforward posts noting the Moore news. Late on Thursday night, they had been pushed to the bottom of their homepages to make room for important Sandra Bullock casting news and the like.

On Fox News, Tucker Carlson took a similar approach. While he covered the Harvey Weinstein scandal extensively, he devoted only 46 seconds to the Moore allegations.

Hannity, on the other hand, discussed Moore extensively. First, he generated a controversy on his radio show when he appeared to call the candidates alleged behavior with a 14-year-old consensual. Hannity later apologized saying he misspoke and was not totally clear earlier today. He was referring to Moores romantic overtures to the older teenage girls, not the 14-year-old.

. @seanhannity was clearly caught up in cross-talk on his radio show. He was not referring to a 14-year-old girl, he was referring to what he said earlier. This happens a lot on radio. You can attack him on a million other issues but this attack is patently unfair. pic.twitter.com/bDa2XH16S7  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) November 10, 2017

Hannity started his Fox News show by carefully and accurately laying out the allegations and Moores response. Then he launched into a long diatribe attacking the rest of the media and former President Obama for always rushing to judgment. The segment wound up highlighting the sexual-misconduct allegations against liberal Hollywood figures and Bill Clinton.

Later in the program, Fox News legal analyst Mercedes Colwin claimed that women frequently make false sexual-harassment allegations in an attempt to make money. A lot of these women, its all about money, Colwin said. And they bank on the fact that these corporations have a reputation that they want to save. (No one on the program explicitly mentioned the many women who accused Roger Ailes and Bill OReilly of sexual harassment, some of whom received massive settlements from Fox News.)

Few and Far Between ... this is quite a segment. Watch pic.twitter.com/rN9PPZYBH5  Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 10, 2017

Hannity lamented that these false allegations make people doubt the real victims. This is where you thread the needle, because there are women that are victims of predators! he said. Yes, there are, there are, Colwin answered. But very few and far between.
Im still in the news? Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The already-tangled Russia saga acquired another knot on Thursday night. Reuters reported that Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the Steele Dossier, which links President Trump to Russia, also prepared a report connecting prominent Hillary Clinton campaign donors with Russian tax evasion.

Three sources told the news agency that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya presented the Clinton dirt to Donald Trump Jr. at the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting, which was also attended by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

In an email, Trump Jr. had told Veselnitskaya I love it when she broached the possibility of damaging information on Clinton.

Veselnitskaya reportedly gained access to the information in late December 2014 as part of her firms research into Bill Browder, an American-British financier who worked in Russia for many years. (Browder spearheaded the Putin-punishing Magnitsky Act, named after his lawyer, who was allegedly tortured and killed by Russian security services for exposing corruption at high levels of government.)

Browder was connected to the Ziff Brothers, wealthy American investors who made a sizable contribution to Clinton. The Fusion report alleged that the brothers had evaded Russian taxes, and that the donations were thus illegitimate. But even the Trump campaign team was underwhelmed by this thin premise, and decided not to try to move forward with it.

Fusion GPS was originally hired to dig up anti-Trump information by the conservative website Free Beacon; later, the Democratic National Committee funded the firm.
Show them your kissy face. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

When Donald Trump was in Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, his longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller turned down an offer to have five women sent to the now-presidents hotel room, Schiller told Congress this week.

Schiller, who was named head of security for the Trump Organization in 2004, immediately told the man making the offer, We dont do that type of stuff.

CNN says Schiller claimed, in an interview with the House Intelligence Committee, to take the offer as a joke. He said he relayed the offer to Trump as they made their way to the billionaires Moscow hotel room and Trump laughed it off. After accompanying Trump to the room, Schiller said he waited outside for a few minutes and then left, CNN reports.

Schiller told the House committee about the offer of women while discussing the salacious details contained in the infamous Steele dossier written about Trump during the campaign. The dossiers most eye-catching claim is that Russian officials have a video of Trump in an upscale Moscow hotel room watching prostitutes urinate on a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama once slept in.

Schiller reportedly told Congress that story behind the so-called pee tape is bullshit. But he also admitted that he couldnt be sure what happened after he left Trumps hotel door.
Kill or be killed. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Senate GOPs tax bill cannot pass the Senate. This statement is not a conjecture about political realities, just a report of a mathematical one.

For 11 months now, the challenge facing Republican tax writers has been clear: Find a way to radically reduce the tax burdens of corporations, owners of pass-through businesses, heirs to multimillion-dollar estates, and a critical mass of the middle class  without increasing the deficit ten years after such tax cuts go into effect.

That final, formidable obstacle derives from the rules of the Senate. The GOPs tax agenda is too conspicuously regressive to attract much  if any  Democratic support. But the party only has 51 seats in the Senate, which is nine too few to pass regular legislation over a Democratic filibuster. Thus, Republicans need to pass their tax cuts through budget reconciliation  a special process that allows bills to clear the Senate without facing a filibuster, so long as said bills dont increase the deficit one decade after passage. This requirement is named the Byrd rule, after the senator who established it.

The Republican Party has produced a lot of tax plans over the first year of the Trump presidency. But none have complied with the Byrd rule. And the bill that Mitch McConnells caucus unveiled Thursday was no exception.

This fundamental failure was obvious from the moment the text of the legislation was released. But it wasnt clear just how far Senate Republicans had fallen short, until Congresss Joint Committee on Taxation released their official score of the bill Thursday night.

Per JCT, the Senate GOP tax bill hikes deficits by $1.5 trillion, with costs exploding toward the end of the window. Not even close to Byrd-worthy. pic.twitter.com/TgHgFMGqzl  Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) November 10, 2017

To meet the conditions of budget reconciliation, the bill would have to produce no revenue losses, beginning in 2028. Thus, Republicans ostensibly hoped that the JCT would find their bill producing smaller and smaller deficits over time. Instead, the committee found that the GOP plan would produce its largest deficit  $216.7 billion  in 2027.

You cant erase $200 billion in annual deficits through budget gimmicks, alone. You cant do it through giving the existing bill a nip and tuck. Heck, you cant even do it by ripping out the heart of the GOP plan: Republicans could leave the current corporate tax rate at 35 percent, and their bill would still be too expensive to pass.

Whats more, the Senate legislation relies on the repeal of the state and local tax deduction for more than $1 trillion of its new revenues. But House Republicans have already signaled that they dont have the votes to repeal that benefit. So, in all probability, Mitch McConnell has far more than $200 billion a year to make up, if he wishes to pass Trumps tax plan into law.

All of which is to say, nothing resembling the presidents tax plan will ever comply with the Senates existing rules. It is not mathematically possible. This shouldnt be surprising: Republicans arent just trying to deliver massive tax-rate cuts without increasing the long-term deficit  theyre also committed to doing so without attaching any significant spending cuts, or eliminating the most popular (and expensive) tax deductions.

The GOP still might be able to pass a modest, temporary tax cut. But Paul Ryans dream of passing a giant, permanent reduction in Americas corporate tax rate is dead  unless the filibuster dies first.

Right now, the Senate bills primary problem is mathematical. But the roots of that math problem are political. While Senate Republicans need 60 votes to pass their plan under the upper chambers existing rules, they can change those rules with 51.

McConnell has repeatedly ruled out a formal abolition of the filibuster. But that rule can be informally eliminated through a variety of means. The Joint Committee on Taxation may say that the GOP bill adds to the deficit in 2028. But Senate Republicans dont need to let Congresss official umpire call balls and strikes. They can technically solicit a score from a maniacal supply-sider  one who will tell them that their bill actually pays for itself by producing 10 percent growth  and then declare the Trump plan Byrd-compliant. Or they could use the existing score, and then just overrule the parliamentarian when she declares the bill noncompliant. Or they could rewrite the Byrd rule, so that it only prohibits bills from adding to the deficit 40 years after theyre passed  and then, phase out all of their tax cuts in 2050 (which would make them about as permanent as any legislation in a democracy ever can be).

Any of these measures would, for all practical purposes, end the legislative filibuster. If the majority party can pass whatever it wants through budget reconciliation by adjusting the rules to suit their ambitions, then its game over. In the long run, this would probably be a positive development for our democracy. But the conservative movement has a long-term interest in preserving the status quo: A system where Democrats need 60 votes to enact new regulations or expand the welfare state, but Republicans need only 51 to cut spending, is a system that benefits the right. Considering how easy it is to imagine Democrats reclaiming power in the next few years  and how hard it is to see the party assembling 60 Senate votes  it would seem rather myopic for Republicans to go nuclear at this point in time.

Even if scrapping the filibuster made long-term strategic sense for the right, its far from clear McConnell would have the votes to kill it. John McCain is a die-hard institutionalist. Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have both suggested theyll oppose any tax plan that radically increases the deficit. And its pretty hard to see Susan Collins signing on to a plan to make the Senate more partisan and less deliberative. None of these senators have anything to lose by sticking to their guns. Collins is one of the most popular senators in the country; Flake and Corker will soon be leaving the Senate; McCain is (in all likelihood) not long for this Earth.

Nevertheless, it is technically within Senate Republicans power to gut the filibuster. And it is manifestly not within their power to pass the Trump tax cuts under existing Senate rules. So, the only relevant question about the Senate bills prospects, at this point, is whether McConnell has the votes for a procedural revolution in the upper chamber.

If he doesnt, Republicans might still enact some kind of tax cut. But it wont be anything like the one that theyve spent the last 11 months promising to pass.
Chinas President Xi Jinping and President Trump review Chinese honor guards during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

President Trump has managed to make it halfway through his 12-day Asia trip without generating any above-the-fold news coverage. While thats partly due to unforeseen headline-grabbing events  like the Democrats election sweep and the horrific Texas shooting  it didnt help that most of the trips activities took place while Americans slept. Also, the White House has avoided questions from the press. To get a clearer fix on whats actually happened during this important trip, lets break down the developments so far  and lets do it the way Trump might do on his Twitter feed: by winners and losers.

Winners

H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, and the National Security Council staff

Theyve avoided any major protocol breaches (for the most part), and managed to keep the president from going off-script or rewriting their security agenda on the fly.

Anyone who doesnt want a war with North Korea

Advocates of a conservative, muscular foreign policy have found much to be relieved about. Trumps speech to South Koreas National Assembly was well-received in Seoul and Washington, in no small part because it seemed to commit Washington to South Koreas defense without ratcheting tensions with the North any higher, or bringing the threat of a unilateral first strike on Pyongyang any closer. Those who hope the standoff with North Korea can be resolved via diplomacy were pleased that he seemed to leave the door open to negotiations, although no one is completely convinced that he means what he says.

China

An awestruck American president hefting a solid gold antique vase, or showing off his granddaughter practicing Chinese in an online video? Photo ops dont get much better than that. China dubbed Trumps trip a state visit plus, a term that hasnt been used for any foreign leader since the Communist Party took power in 1949. That means plenty of pomp and circumstance  including Xis personal tour of the Forbidden City, cheering schoolchildren, and a banquet in his honor  and supposedly more personal interaction between the foreign leaders.

China wants good photo ops to show the domestic audience that Xi is equal to Trump, and China is almost guaranteed to get that, Jeff Wasserstrom, a professor of modern Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine, told The Guardian.

The state visit functioned as another lap on Xis victory tour after the Communist Party Congress handed him unprecedented power last month, making him the first leader since Mao to get his name and ideology in the Chinese Constitution during his lifetime. (Imagine making The Art of the Deal the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. Or maybe dont.)

President Trumps failure to bring up specific trade or security concerns while in Beijing, and his extravagant praise for Chinas rulers, have sent the rest of the region into a mini-frenzy. An enormous gift to the Chinese, is how veteran Asia analyst Ian Bremmer describes regional leaders views of Trump.

Vietnamese textile makers

Insiders speculated whether Trump would go along with the custom of APEC leaders donning colorful traditional shirts from the host country for a family photo. Trump, very much to his credit, complied  and the Vietnamese served him well with a beautifully tailored silk shirt in a flattering color. Wonder who gets the distribution agreement on those?

Losers

America First advocates

The president waited until hed left China to let fly with the America First rhetoric U.S. audiences have come to know. It came, awkwardly, at a regional economic summit including all the leaders whod hoped to be bound in economic cooperation with the United States through the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal Trump canceled. Trump said the United States would no longer do deals with groups of countries but would negotiate bilateral trade deals with anyone. The clip will look great on Fox News and in political ads. In reality, however, the region is rejecting this approach as fast as it can.

American businesses and workers

As Trump was arriving, most of the rest of the TPP countries went ahead and finalized an agreement without the U.S. The Japanese government waited until Trump had left to reiterate its interest in moving ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, minus the U.S., rather than entering into a bilateral trade deal, as Trump prefers. Chinese officials and citizens nodded along happily when Trump said of the trade imbalance between China and the U.S.: I dont blame China. Who can blame a country that is able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.

Meanwhile, Americans scratched their heads about what had happened to Trumps frequent claims that he would be tough on China, on everything from currency manipulation to intellectual property to rule of law and workers rights. It remains to be seen whether South Korea and Japan act on Trumps not-too-subtle call for them to buy American weapons in exchange for the protection of the U.S. security umbrella  but what we know for sure is that military spending has a smaller trickle-down to the public than investment in other sectors.

And where are the senior economic officials on this trip? Trump is expected to lay out a comprehensive U.S. economic policy toward the region at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, this weekend. However, its China element was hard to understand, and its Japan and South Korea components seemed to come down to buy more weapons, and build more factories.

Human rights in Asia

Nobody really expected Trump to comment on the constricting space for public debate in China, or the odd fact that the head of South Koreas labor union federation is languishing in jail. Nor does anyone expect him to speak up about the brutalization of activists in Vietnam, or extrajudicial murders in the Philippines in the coming days. But those omissions make Trumps paean to the suffering of North Koreans harder to take seriously  though the horrors he described are all too real.

The State Department

The Kremlin spent the week playing coy on whether Putin would meet Trump before declining. As Trump made his way through Asia, back home the American Foreign Service Association, a union for U.S. foreign service personnel, released a letter criticizing the State Departments leadership, alleging there is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution  and to the global leadership that depends on us.

It notes that State has lost 60 percent of its career ambassadors, the highest-ranking diplomats, since January. Plus, the next entering class of Foreign Service officers is down from 366 in 2016 to around 100.

The Asia trip shows exactly why this collapse in State Department staffing is so detrimental to U.S. diplomacy. The White House and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are said to be at a stalemate over whether acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs Susan Thornton should be offered the position permanently. Former U.S. diplomat Victor Cha is rumored to be Trumps pick for U.S. ambassador to South Korea, but he still hasnt made an official announcement. A number of other positions on the Asia policy team remain vacant.

That will make it difficult, to say the least, to follow up on what progress the president might make during the trip on crucial issues like how to deal with Pyongyang, or use commercial diplomacy to promote U.S. products and workers.
Sorry, Bannon. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The shocking allegations that Roy Moore, the Republican candidate in next months U.S. Senate election in Alabama, molested a 14-year-old girl and dated other teenagers left President Trump with a difficult decision to make. Does he echo Moore and his former political strategist Steve Bannon in claiming that its all fake news concocted by the liberal media, working in cahoots with Democrats? Or does he side with Establishment Republican senators, and Vice-President Mike Pence, in calling for Moore to withdraw from the Senate race, while giving himself some wiggle room by stressing that we dont know for sure that the four womens allegations are true?

The White House had no comment on Thursday, as the president is in the middle of a 12-day Asia trip, and thus incapable of immediately responding to widely reported U.S. news events. But on Friday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders finally issued a statement as Air Force One made its way to Da Nang, Vietnam.

Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life, Sanders said. However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.

So, the president isnt ready to condemn Moore based on the mere allegation of four women and multiple friends and family members who backed up their stories. But if somehow they do find a way to prove their decades-old claims beyond a shadow of a doubt, Trump is confident that Moore will drop out of the race  though, hes already indicated that hell do no such thing.

It should be noted that Trumps stated positions often differ from those expressed by his press secretary. We wont know that hes truly lost faith in Moore until he starts deleting any mentions of him from his Twitter feed.
The blue check mark, Twitters symbol for verified accounts, has long been considered both a badge of legitimacy and a stupidly vain show of status. But no matter which camp you fall into, having a verified account signifies one thing: Twitter is acknowledging that it knows who you are and is vouching for you. On Wednesday, Twitter verified Jason Kessler, the man responsible for the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this year.

Looks like I FINALLY got verified by Twitter. I must be the only working class white advocate with that distinction. pic.twitter.com/IMXqtmhgvn  Jason Kessler (@TheMadDimension) November 7, 2017

On Thursday, the company announced that it would not be verifying anymore accounts until it reevaluates what it actually means to have a verified Twitter. A decision that likely stemmed from the blowback Twitter received for verifying Kessler.

Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance. We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it. We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon  Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 9, 2017

Twitter has always been clear that verification doesnt mean that Twitter, the company, endorses every account with a check mark. The final line on the platforms page about verification reads, A verified badge does not imply an endorsement by Twitter. But when Twitter announced a new process for users to submit their accounts for verification in 2016, it explained that the company was changing things up to help more people find great, high-quality accounts to follow. Which would make it seem, at least as far as Twitters own language is concerned, like the company is saying that the tweets from a man who once tweeted that Heather Heyer  the counterprotester killed in Charlottesville after a man intentionally drove his car into a crowd  was a fat disgusting Communist and that her death was payback are great and high-quality content. Sorry to all you folks who arent racist bigots and were hoping to get your account verified anytime soon. This could take a while for Twitter to figure out. The company hasnt done so hot with Nazis.
The Kajjansi junction off Kampala-Entebbe highway has changed so much.

From the mosquito-infested swampy place it used to be five years ago to now the crisscrossing infrastructure and a first-class expressway to the international airport. All this has contributed to changes in the fortunes of Uganda Clays Ltd, which sits metres away.

In the last one month, Uganda Clays Ltds share price at the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) has had the biggest gain  at least 57 per cent from around Shs 12 to Shs 29 per share early this week.

The share price rally, according to some shareholders and stockbrokers, is an indicator of the faith people are starting to have in the company after years of loss-making.

So, what is the source of this optimism?

The answer lies in the 2016 annual report published on October 19 on the company website. Board Chairman Martin Aliker said: The company performed well during the year [2016]. Revenues grew by eight per cent. The growth was largely driven through emphasis on the production and sale of fast-moving products and the continued emphasis on minimising production cost.

Beyond this, there were key indicators that showed Uganda Clays Limited was looking up: costs were minimal, production went up, and last year was the only period since 2011 that it operated without having to pay interest on loans.

It paid Shs 1.5bn in income tax and consolidated itself as market leader, producing 55 per cent of all baked clay building products in the country.

Andrew Muhimbise, a shareholder in Uganda Clays Limited, is elated: The bleeding has stopped as management is harvesting the frugal, clean and honest dividend of its actions in the past three and half years.

Oscar Emasu, a research analyst at Crested Capital, said: The current trend of events on the UCL counter, which resulted into a price rally may be a reflection of some level of confidence that investors placed on management efforts including a number of cost-cutting measures to return to profitability.

You should note for about five years, the company was in a loss-making position but following possible capital restructure, it began to post some profits, Emasu added.

The companys income went up from Shs 24.1bn in 2015 to Shs 26bn in 2016.



NSSF LOAN

Another source of optimism is that a huge loan that seemed to hang onto the companys balance sheet has been repaid.

The money was borrowed in 2010 but the firm could not make enough money to service it. The prospects for the Kamonkoli plant in Mbale have fallen below expectations. Geopolitics in the region also affected the company with the target markets of South Sudan, DR Congo failing to meet the suppliers expectations.

As at December 31, 2016, the NSSF loan and accrued interest stood at Shs 23.2bn. According to Aliker, on Uganda Clays request, NSSF board resolved to cap the interest accrual on the loan with effect from December 2015.

On the loan, he said: The company and NSSF have agreed in principle to convert the entire loan and interest into equity. The details of the transaction are being negotiated.

As a result of turning debt into equity, finance costs dropped from Shs 4.2bn (2015) to just Shs 121m (2016).

During the year under review, the company operated without any commercial loan, Aliker said.

On top of that, NSSF will start the construction of the Lubowa housing project. This is likely to give significant demand for the companys high-end products including max-pans and bricks.



UNRA BATTLE

Another bit that gives promise to the companys revenue boost is the battle with Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) in court over lost clay when its land was taken over to construct the Munyonyo Spur section of the Kampala-Entebbe expressway.

Aliker said: The Government of Uganda and Uganda National Roads Authority [UNRA] have compulsorily acquired some land at Kajjansi belonging to the company for the construction of the Kampala-Entebbe Express Way/ Munyonyo Spur. The construction is currently underway.

As a result of the expropriation of the land, the company has lost large amounts of clay. Uganda Clays filed a case in the High court, land division, for compensation for the surface value of the land and economic loss resulting from the loss of the clay.

He added: UNRA has paid partial compensation for the land and the company is still pursuing full compensation for the surface value of the land and for economic loss resulting from the loss of the clay. Verification and computation of the claim has taken some time because UNRA has sought technical advice from several government departments.

This case can go either way.



THE FUTURE

Even as things look up, the company bosses are aware of the inadequacies that could easily erase the initial gains.

Aliker said the company will need to replace old machinery, improve drying facilities for green products and complete the Kamonkoli plant.

There is also need to acquire more land with clay deposits in the Kajjansi area to guarantee production into the distant future.

All these will require substantial amounts of capital expenditure. Given the huge call on the capital resources of the company, the board and management will have to prioritize expenditure, he said.

For the managing director George Inholo, the future is hinged on the new strategic plan for 2017  2021. This, he said, will provide a blueprint for the growth and transformation of the business over the next five years.

Our priorities will continue to be meeting and exceeding customers expectations by delivering to them high-quality building products at competitive prices and providing acceptable returns to the shareholders, Inholo said.



amwesigwa@observer.ug
Acapella groups have been rising up in the past few years in Uganda.

The famous ones include; Sauti Ya Africa, Cape Brothers and Canaan Gents, among others.

This Sunday, Sauti Ya Africa will be hosting their fans to a music-filled evening at the Design Hub in Industrial Area.

Made up of friends, George Semaganda (baritone), Francis Mutesasira, Charles Awany (tenor) and Ben Katumba (bass), the group is mostly known for their works around inspiration and religious songs. They will be performing for the first time since they released their single Amaalo earlier this year.

What makes this particular show different is that since their past performances, the group has grown to include live band instrumentalists in their performances and recordings  an evolution that has taken them beyond the acapella tag.

The audience on Sunday will hear songs like Crying, How Do I, Mama as well as some of their best covers like Hallelujah and Ave Maria, among others.

The evening with Sauti Ya Africa is priced at Shs 20,000, and starts at 6pm.



kaggwandre@gmail.com
On Tuesday November 7, 2017, Democratic Party president general Norbert Mao made a sweeping presentation to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee.

Mao was part of a team of Uganda's opposition party leaders invited to give their views on the bill intended to remove age limits from the constitution. In his presentation, Mao related the Constitution to Jesus Christ [without mentioning His name] who was wrongly crucified over 2,000 years ago.

Below are excerpts of this presentation.

As I appear before you today, a sense of foreboding of a great loss consumes me. I only pray that my feeble utterances today give expression to what is uppermost in the minds of every citizen of our country.

There is a trial in parliament. The accused is the Constitution. The Constitution stands accused of standing in the way of one mans despotic ambitions.

The chief complainant is President Yoweri Museveni. The chief prosecutor is Hon Raphael Magyezi.

The chief judge is the Rt Hon Rebecca Kadaga, speaker of parliament. Leading the defense team is the leader of opposition in parliament, Winifred Kiiza, marching at the head of a small army representing multitudes out there who have hitherto suffered silently but have suddenly found their voice and have become increasingly loud and agitated.

Those are the people you see wearing red ribbons.

When we launched the campaign against the amendment of Article 102(b) and dubbed it Kogikwatako as a warning, the people responded by unequivocally telling their representatives in parliament Togikwatako.

This campaign unleashed an electrical current of popular resistance aimed at opposing the removal of the last constitutional safeguard against life presidencies.

A great purpose is unfolding among the people. The expression of this purpose may, at first, appear hostile but, in reality, it is revitalizing and renewing our resolve to rise above our past.

We are here as witnesses for the defense and to speak for the Constitution because the Constitution speaks for us. We do not deny the charges levied against our noble Constitution.

The Constitution stands guilty as charged because the intention of its framers was precisely what it is accused of  namely, to limit power, stand in the path of anyone with despotic ambitions and immunize our motherland against the epidemic of violent and unconstitutional changes of government.

In this great trial, your role as the legal committee is simply that of a tribunal of inquiry charged with making findings and recommendations.

This trial reminds me of another trial which took place over 2,000 years ago. The accused was not a document, but a man who preached love. A man who loved, fed, and healed multitudes.

The setting was very similar to this one. Men of money, power and great learning came to the conclusion that this accused person was a threat to their position and power.

They, indeed, found an accomplice among his close confidants who, for 30 pieces of silver, betrayed the accused and gave false testimony against him.

The pathos, dignity and sublimity of that trial is similar to this one. Your committee is similar to the tribunal of the chief priest which subjected the accused to questioning before sending him to the highest court of Pontius Pilate.

Even as I talk, the accused is being flogged all over the country in mock trials presided over by men and women appointed by the central executive committee of the National Resistance Movement (NRM).

These are the Scribes and Pharisees of our time paid to slander, defame and misrepresent the accused. They are the instigators of the accusations against our noble constitution.

From here, the accused will be hauled before Pontius Pilate  in this case the speaker. Pontius Pilate knew that the accused was innocent but lacked the courage, decency and conviction to make a just decision.

Our Pontius Pilate knows that even though the Constitution, particularly Article 102(b), offends an individual and perhaps the leaders of the ruling party, and in so doing, it is actually serving the highest aspirations of Ugandans  hope for a peaceful change of government.

But in Pontius Pilates court, the accused does not have the numbers to boldly plead his case. A spineless judge will most likely subject him to the ridicule of a mob that has been duped to believe in an illusion. The accused will be flogged, spat at and insulted.

Eventually, probably the judge, like Pontius Pilate, will abdicate her sacred duty to uphold justice and let the mob crucify the accused.

The accused will probably be crucified. In agony, he will look down from the cross and see that those baying for his blood are the same ones he loved, fed and healed.

In his last hour, the accused will cry out, not to Pontius Pilate, not to the Scribes and Pharisees, but to the people who are sovereign. With a final burst of energy, the accused will cry out People of Uganda, people of Uganda, why have you forsaken me?

Short-sighted people will see the Constitution crucified and think that is the end. In reality, that will be a new beginning. The Constitution will not die.

It will live on in the hearts of the people and, in time, resurrect to reclaim the victory of democracy over tyranny, the victory of freedom over oppression and the victory of the people over an individual despot.

I am assured of the ultimate triumph of the people but I have to tell you that this depends on you, our representatives, and how you conduct yourselves as you face the forces arrayed against you.

These forces are not only of coercion and inducements, but also of our version of Scribes and Pharisees whose main interest is to maintain the status quo in all its glory and decadence.

I call upon you to make the sacrifice of saying no to the lifting of the presidential age limit so that your children and your childrens children may reap the fruits of your sacrifice.

We all want to win, but winning must not debase you, tempt you to abandon principle or make you sacrifice the future for the sake of fleeting adulation.

I dont know whether those of us in this room will be there to witness that glorious day when change comes to Uganda. But I am sure that as a people, we will be there.

The coming of this day can only be delayed, but it cannot be stopped. Change is coming. I dedicate to you the song sang by Titan, chained and imprisoned, but still the champion of man in the Greek fable:



To suffer woes with Hope, things infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;

To defy Power which seems omnipotent:

To love, and bear, to hope till Hope creates

From its own wreck, the thing it contemplates;

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;

This like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, Great and joyous, beautiful and free;

This alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
Thirteen law graduates from Gulu and Cavendish universities have won a High court case in which they sued the Law Development Centre (LDC) and Law Council for stopping them from sitting pre-entry examinations for admission to the bar course.

The court awarded a total of Shs 260 million to the petitioners in compensation. In their applications, the students indicated that LDC said law programmes at Gulu and Cavendish were not accredited by the Law Council despite clearance from the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE).

In a 26-page ruling delivered by Judge Henrietta Wolayo of the civil division of the High court on October 26, the conduct of the Law Council was found to be arbitrary and irrational.

Alex Asiimwe Byaruhanga (R) from Gulu University with his lawyers of Rwaganika, Baku & Co. advocates in court

By preventing the applicants from sitting pre-entry exams in an arbitrary and irrational manner, Law Council is liable in damages for denying the applicants an opportunity to advance to the next stage in their legal career, Justice Wolayo ruled.

The students wanted court to compel LDC to admit them for the 2017/18 intake, or alternatively allow them to sit the examination.

However, Wolayo agreed with their lawyers that it would be illogical to order Law Council to give them special exams now since the bar course is already ongoing.

I will award a sum of Shs 20,000,000 to each applicant to be paid by the Attorney General and Law Council, she said.

A permanent injunction shall be issued restraining Law Council from preventing the applicants current and future graduates of Gulu and Cavendish universities who successfully complete their law degrees, to sit pre-entry.

Gulu Universitys Alex Asiimwe Byaruhanga said: What is important is not the money but joining LDC. I cant wait for the opportunity to join LDC next year as granted to us by the judge.

Wolayo said while the pre-entry examination is set by the Law Council under the Advocates Act (Legal notices 12 of 2010 and 17 of 2007), it does not mean that the councils committee on legal education and training can whimsically lock out qualified law graduates from sitting the exam.

Quoting Section 8(5) of the Advocates Act 2002, as amended, she noted that  persons eligible for admission to the bar course include a holder of a degree in law granted by a university in Uganda.

She added that since the Advocates Act makes no reference to an approved university or law programme, it does not have force of law to block students.

To the extent that rule 10 of legal notice 17 of 2007 acknowledges that persons with degrees from institutions under the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, 2006 (UOTIA) are eligible for admission to the bar course, the Law Council exceeded its authority under the law.

As a body tasked with the responsibility to maintain high standards of professionalism in the legal profession, the committee has a higher burden than anyone else to observe the rule of law, the judge said.

While the judge agreed that LDC was rightly sued, she, quickly, added that it had no hand in the impugned decision by Law Council. Gulu and Cavendish students had filed separate applications but on September 15, 2017, a consensus was reached by all parties and court to consolidate the applications because of their commonality.

Some of the students who sued LDC

The applicants from Gulu University are Alex Asiimwe Byaruhanga, Emmanuel Odit, Prossy Akello, Susan Anena, Sancha Magdalene Mugala, Andrew Ogwetta Otto and Samuel Odyek.

They were represented by Rwaganika, Baku & Co. Advocates. Cavendish University Uganda applicants represented by Lufunya Associated Advocates and Solicitors are Jackline Nabuuma, Rebecca Mweru Kabejja, Ronald Kitonsa, Julian Atube Akello, Elizabeth Phiona Achola and Cathy Jackie Mwosana.

According to Wolayo, the absence of a framework between Law Council and NCHE for the consultative process to accredit law programmes led to the dispute.

That said, the failure of NCHE and Law Council to implement their respective mandates in compliance with section 3(d) (ii) should not be visited on the applicants, she ruled.

She added that while the Law Council is mandated by law to participate in the accreditation process before a university is accredited to teach law, the issuance of a charter or license is the responsibility of the NCHE under the UOTIA.

Wolayo ordered NCHE and the Law Council to develop a framework within 90 days from the date of her ruling for consultations on the law curriculum for universities in accordance with section 3 (d) (ii) and 119 A of the UOTIA 2006.

Yesterday, NCHE legal officer, Fiona Kunihira said: The ruling has not yet been brought to my attention; so, I cannot make a comment on it.

Meanwhile, The Observer has learnt that the attorney general filed a notice of appeal at the civil division of the High court on October 30, 2017, challenging the ruling.

We, the 2nd respondent being dissatisfied with the decision in this matter, reads the notice signed by Ojiambo Bichachi for the solicitor general,  do intend to appeal against the whole decision and the orders therein. We thus do kindly request for a copy of typed proceedings and ruling in this matter.



nangonzi@observer.ug
The opposition in parliament yesterday advised that the age limit bill forms part of a long-awaited bill covering wider political reforms alongside proposals contained in a minority report adopted two years ago in the 9th parliament.

The minority report adopted in August 2015 was written by former Jinja East MP Paul Mwiru.

It called for major reforms ahead of the 2016 polls and a total overhaul of the Electoral Commission, reinstatement of presidential term limits and establishment of an independent electoral commission.

LoP Winnie Kiiza makes her submission as MPs Roland Mugume (C) and Joseph Ssewungu look on

While appearing before the legal and parliamentary affairs committee, which is processing the divisive bill, opposition MPs led by the Leader of Opposition Winnie Kiiza said the Constitution has always been amended to accommodate President Musevenis wishes.

Repealing Article 102(b) at the moment is very dangerous as it is being done for only one possible beneficiary, the current president and his political party, although both seem to be identical. Constitution amendments are never made for individuals or political parties, she said.

MPs Roland Mugume, William Nzoghu, Atkins Katusabe, Joseph Ssewungu and Kiiza drew attention to what Speaker Rebecca Kadaga said in September last year, during consideration of a motion by Nakifuma MP Kafeero Sekitoleko that sought to lift the retirement age of judges.

Kadaga said then that there was no urgency, and guided that government establishes a constitutional review commission to carry a comprehensive review of the countrys supreme law.

The proposals in [Raphael] Magyezis bill now before this committee should form part of information that will help the constitutional review commission to gather peoples views across the country. We in the opposition and parliament indeed would be very ready and supportive if the attorney general brought the amendments after the constitutional review commission, Kiiza said in the opposition statement to the committee.

The group warned against amending Article 102(b) of the constitution, which caps the age for presidential aspirants at between 35 and 75 years, on grounds that it recognises Ugandas struggle against tyranny, oppression and exploitation.

The constitution is not a statute which can be amended any time, anyhow, to fit the interests of a few individuals. It is considered to be a blind document that knows no face and voice nor height or size. Rather it is a mirror reflecting the national soul; the identification of ideals and aspirations of a nation, the articulation of the values bonding its people and disciplining its government, Kiiza said.

The group said they believe Uganda now has highly educated and capable citizens who can succeed Museveni.

The opposition said while the Magyezi bill is premised on the Supreme court decisions in the presidential election petition No. 1 of 2016: Amama Mbabazi vs Museveni, the Electoral Commission and Attorney General, it unfortunately misconstrued the ruling.

The ruling gave instructions to only the attorney general to take actions. This implies that this bill before parliament is premised on erroneous interpretation of the ruling. Hon Magyezi has no locus to bring his amendments basing on the instructions of court as they were never issued to him, Kiiza said.

The person responsible to bring these amendments is the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister (Kahinda Otafiire) assisted by the attorney general. The judgement is dated August 26, 2016 which means the attorney general [still] has more than nine months to bring all necessary amendments. There is no excuse whatsoever that the attorney general is in contempt of court after failing to comply with the judgment [which gave a two-year timeframe for compliance], Kiiza added.



namuloki16@gmail.com
Two days after unidentified gun-wielding men violently rearrested suspects in the broad daylight murder of Andrew Felix Kaweesi, a former assistant inspector general of police, the army finds itself sucked further into current tensions haunting security circles.

The suspects appear to have become the latest pawn in what looks like a turf war amidst inter-agency rivalry, even as their lawyers yesterday filed an application of habeas corpus in the High court, demanding their immediate release.

In the aftermath of their rearrest, army spokesman Brigadier Richard Karemire had said the military carried out the operation jointly with other unnamed security agencies.

But his position came under fresh scrutiny yesterday when the police refused to have anything to do with the operation that has been strongly condemned by rights activists and the Uganda Law Society.

Ahmed Ssenfuuka rearrested shortly after being released on bail



On Thursday morning, police spokesman Asan Kasingye told The Observer that since Karemire has acknowledged the armys involvement, every question should be directed to him.

You heard Karemire the other day saying that they have them, Kasingye said, Please go ahead and ask him where they put them [suspects].

In Kasingyes response, one could hear undertones of the unspoken tension between police and the army. That unease first came into public view following the surprise arrest of senior police officers by the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence two weeks ago.

There is an active and wide-ranging military investigation into suspected criminal and possibly treacherous activities of high-profile police personnel.

Karemire has defended the use of the shabbily-dressed individuals, saying that as long as they were security operatives, then the rearrest was legal.

Later, Karemire said the four suspects were deposited at the polices Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in Kireka, just outside Kampala, only for the police to deny this.

Attempts to reach Karemire for an explanation  in response to Kasingyes statements  were futile as his cell phone was switched off after he told The Observer to get back to him shortly.

The suspects lawyers yesterday filed a habeas corpus application through which a person reports an unlawful detention, and requests an order directing that they be produced in court.

Umaru Maganda, Ahmed Ssenfuka, Ibrahim Kisa, and Abdul Majidu Ojeger were granted bail on Tuesday by Nakawa court grade one magistrate, Noah Ssajjabi.

Their freedom was short-lived as unidentified men brandishing pistols snatched them as they headed home on boda bodas.

One of the armed men dressed in a dirty jacket pointed a gun at a wailing Senfuka who was half-naked after his clothes were torn off his body during the struggle. He was violently shoved into a car and driven to an unknown destination.

Ssajjabi had released seven of the suspects, reasoning that since their first appearance in court on April 21, the Director of Public Prosecutions has not committed them to the High court for trial.

Basing on Article 23 of the Constitution which says that a person who spends six months on remand, without being committed [for trial gets] a mandatory bail, the magistrate said.

However, under this article, court is given discretion to set bail terms. All sureties are to pay Shs 500 million and the suspects Shs 50 million, all non-cash.

Others released but not rearrested are Hassan Tusiime, Ibrahim Kisa, Asuman Mugoye, Abdul Hamid Magambo and Musa Ntende. The habeas corpus application filed by Wameli & Company Advocates says Ssenfuka and his colleagues are being held incommunicado.

The applicants have not been produced before any court and/or formally charged in any court and their continued detention is unlawful and unconstitutional, the lawyers contend.

It is supported by an affidavit sworn by Mutwalibi Muganda, brother to Umaru Muganda. Mutwalibis affidavit recounts the events of November 7. He says upon release of the suspects, unidentified men in plain-clothes, carrying small and big guns unlawfully rearrested them without any reason.

That police authorities have invariably indicated to me that the applicants are being held at several places including Kireka SIU and Nalufenya but my efforts to trace them at any of those stations have been and continue to be futile, Mutwalibi says.

The suspects were scheduled to reappear before the Nakawa court on November 23.

It is alleged that on March 17, 2017, at Kulambiro in Kampala, the accused shot and killed Kaweesi, together with his driver and bodyguard. They are charged with murder, terrorism and robbery of their victims guns.
State House health monitoring unit must disband, medics demand, as Museveni promises more pay



Striking doctors have said they can return to work as negotiations on their demands continue if three key conditions are met, and surprisingly the trio doesnt include the pay raise.

On the pay raise, the doctors say they are willing to hold off their agitation as urged by government officials until the salary review commission harmonises the pay structure for all civil servants.

The doctors first condition is that a State House anti-corruption operation directed against their fraternity must stop, the perennial problems facing interns must be sorted out, and various duty allowances paid.

But in a late night press conference yesterday, minister of Health Jane Ruth Acing ordered all medical doctors to report back to work immediately or get fired.

She said President Museveni has instructed Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) allover the country to record incidences of absenteeism of the medical workers for disciplinary action.

Under the first ground, President Museveni has been asked to disband his State House Health Monitoring Unit (HMU) , whose anti-corruption operations have made life miserable for health workers around the country.

Dr Ekwaru Obuku, president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA), told The Observer in an interview on Wednesday that health workers have been humiliated by HMU; the units work methods are draconian and yet it is not helping to improve the troubled sector.

Dr Ekwaru Obuku, president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA)

We told that to the president and he said I formed it, Obuku said of the State House meeting of October 31.

Until last year, HMU was led by Dr Diana Atwine, now permanent secretary, ministry of Health. The unit, which was formed to combat theft of drugs and other items in public health facilities, reports directly to the Office of the President.



OUTRAGED

In February, an outraged Uganda Medical Association condemned the arrest by HMU of four medical workers after a woman in Mityana died in labour. Similar arrests have happened in Luweero and Soroti, among others.

It is unpopular and feared to the extent that health workers run away and enter their houses to hide under the bed [when HMU visits]. It does not help, however disciplinarian it is, Obuku said.

[The unit] has been abused and used to witch-hunt health workersWe have not seen big corruption suspects being lumped up like that. If they want to fight corruption in the health sector, let them go for bigger health sector corruption in procurement; false pricing of anti-cancer medicines and what happens in delivery units, he added.

The president can review HMUs operations, he said. After all there is police, the auditor general, resident district commissioners, Directorate of Public Prosecutions, Uganda Medical Dental and Practitioners Council (UMDPU), and National Drug Authority, which can monitor public health service delivery.

Dr Obuku described the disbanding of the HMU as one of the irreducible demands if they are to go back to work. The doctors are on a countrywide strike since Monday in protest at the long-standing, but unmet, salary review promises. They plan to meet after 10 days to choose the next course of action if the government stays put.

Another condition is for the chaotic internship for medical students to be addressed: interns must be given appointment letters and their pay spelt out.

Obuku said interns should also be included in the public service structure. Medical students on internship have perennially been striking because their allowances take forever to come yet they do a lot of the work in referral hospitals.

The third demand is duty facilitation allowance, which includes; on-call allowance, overtime allowance, housing allowance, non-practice allowance, transport allowance, lunch allowance, medical risk allowance, and retention allowance. In total, the doctors are demanding Shs 88.9bn annually  to cater for 1,000 doctors.



TOTAL COLLAPSE?

Dr Obuku said as health workers, they would not pretend that all is well in the health sector. He said: Were talking about a total collapse of the health sector.

Kiruddu hospital in Kawempe, a facility which handles referrals to Mulago, has become a death trap of sorts, he said.

Now health workers are practising defensive medicine, he said. They come look at a pregnant woman and sign in the book, I saw her at this time and there was no blood, Dr Obuku said.

There is no money for drugs but they have money for fuel [for politicians]. Kiruddu has become a business hub for coffins. It has become a cemetery of sorts. People dying from avoidable ailments..., Obuku lamented.

Last year, he revealed, drug supplies ran out in the middle of the financial year and this year, nothing has come. This strike has been building up and reached fever pitch when we could not find drugs to work with, he added.



MEETING MUSEVENI

It would appear that the meeting with President Museveni at State House Entebbe on October 31, which was expected to persuade the doctors to abandon the strike, didnt achieve much.

They told the president they were seeking a new consensus  a sort of doctors for Ugandans and Ugandans for doctors, said Obuku.

The president then asked them to be loyal to the country but they retorted: how more loyal could they be?

A doctor goes to Gulu to treat Ebola and dies, they reportedly told the president, referring to the late Dr Matthew Lukwiya who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Gulus devastating outbreak of October 2000.

We are using torches, [ordinary] razor blades [in theatres]. The president agreed to some things and told us to stay the strike. We called an extraordinary assembly to give opportunity to the members to decide and they said we go on strike as we continue with negotiations, Obuku said.

He [the president] said he would arrest us, which I am sure he can do. He has all the powers to do so. He already went to the bush but its expensive; he could use that money to sort out our issues.

Currently, a doctor takes home an average of Shs 1.1 million per month. At Kampala Capital City Authority, a lower-level director earns Shs 17 million yet a senior consultant at National Referral Hospital Mulago earns just Shs 3.5 million.

The doctor-to-patient ratio in Uganda is among the worst in the world with 32,000 for every available doctor.

The Ugandan doctor is not valued by [his/her] government; thats why many are running to other African countries for greener pastures, Obuku told us. Leading countries taking Ugandan doctors are Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa. South Sudan is also taking more doctors from Uganda.

About 65 per cent of the countrys medical workers are working for NGOs, mostly in HIV-related projects, leaving public health care severely understaffed.

We are spending much more money in private health insurance schemes for State House, cabinet, statutory authorities, Obuku said.



RIGHT OF ASSOCIATION

By uniting under their UMA umbrella, Obuku said, health workers are exercising their constitutional right to associate in line with Article 29 of the Constitution.

He said the constitution also allows aggrieved government employees to withdraw their labour.

Government has to get a mechanism of engaging its employees. One of the ways is not to arrest them, he said.

Instead of responding to the issues raised when she addressed journalists on Wednesday, minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng instead dwelt on a claim that not all doctors were on strike.

But Obuku revealed that UMA brings together 712 medical doctors, 152 senior consultants, and 171 senior house officers. He said there are about 1,300 medical doctors in the country today, many of them working at the ministry of Health and others in local government service. These two categories rarely work on patients.

Everybody is on strike. We left skeleton staff and consultants to attend to emergencies  fulfilling the international recommended guidelines that emergencies must be attended to, he said.



STATE HOUSE RESPONSE

A letter dated November 6, 2017 from Molly Kamukama, the principal private secretary to the president, addressed to UMA, said Museveni had directed that UMA meets the salary review commission to give its input, and that there will be a phased approach in prioritising the doctors emoluments.

Salary enhancement should start with the lower cadres, so that nurses can take home a minimum package in the range of Shs 600,000  subject to the discussions and recommendations of the salary review commission, the president directed.

He also said the entry level salary for a medical officer, subject to discussions of salary review commission, could be Shs 5 million.

The more severe and specialised doctors should be paid the market equivalent; that is, what they would earn in the open market, the letter said.

The president didnt talk about the State House Health Monitoring Unit despite the fact that health workers had told him during their meeting on October 31 that they want it closed.

On intern doctors, the president said the modalities of internship need to be clearly addressed such as their remuneration and accommodation,

Atwine told parliaments committee on health yesterday: the government appreciates that the problem right now of public [health] workers pay is a big issue and is willing to remedy it.

She, however, didnt commit on the issue of interns and disbanding of HMU. Obuku had criticised the governments priorities.

We expect them to get money from the consolidated fund where they got money to pay additional 130 MPs that joined the House this term, he said.



amwesigwa@observer.ug
Government has ordered all striking medical workers to resume worker immediately or get sacked.

The minister of health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng says the current industrial action by the health workers is illegal since it has been organised by an association that is illegal.



The health workers under their umbrella Uganda Medical Workers Association (UMA) on Monday declared a nationwide industrial action following government's failure to honour their welfare and improve working conditions. They laid down their tools, only attending to patients with emergency cases and pregnant women.



Dr Aceng, while addressing reporters on Thursday night at the ministry of Health headquarters in Kampala, declared that UMA is not legally mandated to negotiate for welfare of medical workers. She ordered all medical workers to resume work with immediate effect.

Jane Ruth Aceng, minister of health

According to Aceng, President Yoweri Museveni had ordered that the Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) to immediately start supervising health centres and hospitals and take note of absentee health workers.

She noted that the action by medical workers to lay down their tools has paralysed health services in most government hospitals.



"All the health workers in Uganda and the general public are hereby directed that the strike by Uganda Medical Association is illegal. All medical workers who were misled to join the strike must resume their duty with immediate effect", she said.



"All medical workers who adhere will not be subject to any disciplinary action. All health workers who resume duty shall be provided adequate protection by the government. All the ringleaders must desist from interfering with the smooth provision of medical services in the country. I already have a circular from the Office of the President directing all the RDCs to monitor the health workers who have reported on duty", she added.



Aceng said while the health workers' demands are genuine, they must exercise their rights with restraint and patience in order to allow government handle their issues in a phased manner.



"The order to go back to work stems from the fact that their industrial work is illegal and they should go back to work. That should be very clear. As to the issues of their motivation, we have clearly stated that government is addressing. Weve not said, were not addressing the issue, we have said their request is genuine. Nobody has said it is not genuine, it is genuine but we have to exercise restraint and be patient as government is addressing all these demands", said Aceng.



Government has also ordered medical interns who, according to Dr Aceng, were misled to join what she called an illegal strike to resume duty immediately, failure of which defiant interns are to forfeit their internship and be subjected to re-application.



"All the interns who were misled to join the illegal strike must resume duty immediately. All the interns who will not adhere to this directive shall forfeit their internship and shall be required to reapply for consideration. They are in training and their training is not negotiable.

Every day of training that they miss, they will redo it. For those that are willing to go and complete their training they are free to go, for those that are not willing to go, they will forfeit their training and they will have to reapply again", warned the minister.



Dr Aceng says that there is already a court order of March 1, 2017 that restrains UMA officials including Charles Yiga, Dr Ekwaro Obuku and Eva Nangalo from interfering with any matter with the Uganda Medical Workers' Union, pending a court ruling.



She argues that the current strike led by Dr Ekwaro is in contempt of court.

"Dr Ekwaro Obuku mobilising the doctors to lay down their tools when they are under Medical Workers' Union tantamount to contempt of the court order."



Dr Aceng also states that UMA is not a registered trade union to enjoy the rights and privileges provided under the Labour Union Act.

She says UMA is a registered company whose mandate is not to interfere in the provision of services by the doctors at their work places as a trade union would, but to promote and maintain a high standard of professional ethics among members of the medical profession.



"Therefore, the involvement of UMA in influencing the public service activities by calling on doctors to strike is illegal and should cease henceforth and the perpetrators should be treated as trespassers," Aceng stated.



Government faults UMA for usurping the powers of the labour unions to initiate an 'illegal' strike without following laws that govern industrial action among civil servants in the public service. These are provided for in the Negotiating, Consultative and Disputes Settlement Machinery Act of 2008.



Wilson Owere, the chairman general of the National Organisation of Trade Union (NOTU), said that medical workers have been 'brainwashed' by Dr Obuku and Workers MP Dr Sam Lyomoki to believe their political stunts of promising them enhanced salaries.



Owere says the health workers are just excited about what they are being told and that the two people are positioning themselves politically to manipulate the already unsuspecting health workers. He says NOTU will not allow the two individuals to create tension in the country.



"The medical workers will get what is due to them and were going to do it in a very orderly way. As long as am still a leader of workers, I will not allow politics to mar the issue of workers. Politics must get out of the workers negotiations so that we be more focused so that doctors and nurses get what they want.

What I want to see now is government bridging the gap which is there. Those who are getting too much money because the lowest person is getting around Shs 170,000. Now what I want to see is government bridging that gap", Owere said.



Christopher Peter Werikhe, the NOTU general secretary when asked why the health workers had refused to heed to their calls not to participate in the strike, said the NOTU has been hijacked by Dr Lyomoki who has been pushing his selfish interests.



Werikhe argues that even the proposals made by UMA were stolen from NOTU's negotiations with government and blamed them for rushing to the media to publish them ahead of NOTU.
Despite last nights government order, the striking medical workers have vowed not to return to work until their grievances are addressed.



Yesterday night the health minister, Jane Ruth Aceng ordered all the striking medical workers to resume work immediately or else face the sack.



Aceng said President Museveni had ordered all Resident District Commissioners (RDC) to supervise health centres in their respective areas and make note of absentee doctors for further disciplinary action.

Defiant: The medical doctors have said they will maintain their industrial action

In response today, under their umbrella body, the Uganda Medical Association, the defiant doctors instead threatened to even withdraw the emergency medical services they are currently offering if government continues threatening them. Currently, the medical workers in government hospitals are only working on pregnant women and patients with emergency needs.



On Monday this week, the medical workers laid down their tools in protest against low pay and governments failure to provide equipment and medicines in health facilities.



Dr Ekwaru Obuku, president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA) said today that they are not cowed by the threats from government as that was expected anyway.



He said government is the mother and chief organiser of health strikes in the country by not providing enough resources in terms of medicines and equipment to the health sector.



Obuku said they are following the World Medical Association guidelines and will continue providing skeleton health workers to provide emergency medical services.



During industrial action actually patients die less or the number remains about the same, he said.



One thing I need to make very very clear is that the chief strikerthe chief organiser of all mother of strikes in the health sector is the government itselfIf you go to Kabale referral hospital and the hospital has six doctors instead of over 20. Who is organising that strike, isnt the government?, Obuku asked.

Defiant doctors maintain their strike, accuse govt of being the mother & chief organiser of health strikes in #Uganda by not providing resources for the health sector ? @bamulanzeki #DoctorsStrike pic.twitter.com/8zBueXevEp  The Observer (@observerug) November 10, 2017

In issuing out the orders to medical workers yesterday, Aceng said all medical interns who have been "misled" into joining the industrial action have no option but to return to work, else they will have to forfeit the missed days and will have to reapply again for internship. But UMA says participation in industrial action doesnt legally warrant any workers sacking.



The doctors maintained that interns cannot work without the supervision of the medical workers in the hospital. Lawyer Nicholas Opiyo said industrial action is a legal right protected under Article 40 of the 1995 Constitution.



Our interpretation is that anybody who attempts to punish, threaten or intimidate a doctor taking part in this industrial action is actually overthrowing the Constitution of Uganda [and] should be arrested for treason - possibly a citizens arrest by the doctors themselves. Were more than them and we dont want to start using needles and syringes to catch them, Obuku said.



Obuku said as medical workers they are ready for talks with government and that threatens are not what they are after but rather finding a lasting resolution to the issues raised.
This year, the nation was almost plunged into panic following reports that some exams for S4 candidates had leaked.

Thanks to the immediate intervention by Uganda National Examinations Board with the help of security agencies, the situation was normalised. All national exams are a security issue. Once exams are not protected or supervised, there is likely to be a national crisis.

This is because it takes time and resources to prepare learners for these final checks to qualify them for higher levels of academic achievement.

The truth is exam malpractice has actually been occurring over the years. These temptations seem to have been exacerbated by a new class of examiners commonly known as resourceful persons.

Because schools are aware that such persons are involved in setting national exams, colossal sums of money have been set aside to hire them to set trial exams, mark them and finally revise corrections with candidate students!

Because such a resource person does not want to lose a future opportunity or wants to avoid being called fake, they set real papers (the ones being prepared for that specific year) for these candidates.

Have you ever wondered why mock question papers of many so-called powerful schools are never seen in public with any student? Usually, when such exams are done, students are disarmed of question papers together with the teachers who invigilate.

This is because there is probably no difference between such papers and the final Uneb question papers!

I would like to recommend the following to avoid possibilities of having the Uneb image undermined through examination leakages:

 Change the format of setting exams from theories or objective questions to application questions that require critical thinking.

 Ban the new mentality of schools hiring resourceful persons. This has even made schools adamant in supporting their teachers to go for refresher courses because of this dependence syndrome.

 Security agencies such as Internal Security Organization (ISO) and Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) should be purposefully deployed ahead of time to access mock papers of suspected schools for correlation with Uneb papers.

 Establish Uneb exams whistle-blowers desk at every district with good rewards to these people once the information is verified.

Let us all be vigilant and report any form of Uneb examination leakage. Cheating undermines national security, the capability of our students and, above all, the integrity of schools. Desisting from exam malpractice is a good virtue for creating a civil society.



John Vianney Ahumuza,

Lecturer, UCU Mukono.

UPC and NRM have many similarities

In 1986, when President Museveni promised Ugandans fundamental changes, little did I know that he was referring to fundamental similarities with the Milton Obote regime.

They are as follows:

In 1966, Obote used force to get power just as President Museveni did in 1986.

The more Obote ruled, the more he wanted to continue, just like Museveni is now.

Dr Obote gagged the opposition like President Museveni is doing now using the infamous Public Order Management Act.

Dr Obote took himself to be the only bull in the UPC kraal just as President Museveni is doing in NRM. In Obotes case, the likes of Paul Muwanga, Chris Rwakasisi and Luwuliza Kirunda mistakenly believed that he was irreplaceable; the same thing is happening with Ndugu Ruhakana Rugunda, Evelyn Anite, Raphael Magyezi, etc.

The then first lady Miria never advised her husband; I wonder why the publically-active Janet is unable to advise her husband.

The notorious UPC youth wingers are being slowly replaced by the Kibooko squad or Boda Boda 2010 operatives. Going by these similarities, only time will tell whether the fate of NRM will be any different from that of UPC.



George William Kasule,

Bukandula, Ggomba.

Removal of age limit blocks youths

Todays media is awash with the removal of the presidential age limits. Article 102 (b) of the constitution is the centre of contention. Many African leaders do not respect their constitutions and keep amending them to their own benefit.

A countrys constitution is the sacred document which should not be changed to suit ones will.

Museveni bribed MPs in 2005 to remove term limits and now wants to do the same with age limits. Youths are being hoodwinked to support this wicked act. Leaders who do not want to leave power are self-centred, non-patriotic and money-hungry.

We have to look at the Raphael Magyezi bill as an impediment to youth propensity to lead this country. There are age limits in civil service and the judicial services to allow new entrants.

This same measure must apply for the presidency and it is the reason it was put in the constitution.

Removal of this limit is detrimental to good leadership. Members of parliament must not lose reason and succumb to the selfish motives of some leaders.



PS Mabuliro,

Entebbe.

Medical workers must respect oath to save life

Strikes within the public service have been ongoing for a long time and now medical workers have also joined the bandwagon. They all demand a pay rise as well as improved working conditions.

This is not the first time medical workers are striking; medical interns were on strike recently. We understand that on assumption of their duties, medical doctors swear an oath to always put lives of patients first and their personal needs after.

However, following what is happening in the country, doctors have gone against the oath they took, leading to loss of lives in various hospitals across the country.

This leaves me wondering whether some of the medical doctors are really passionate about their jobs.

With intention of harmonizing salary structures across the board, the president directed the ministry of Public Service to establish a Salary Review Commission and this commission is due to produce a report on its findings.

It is, therefore, advisable that the striking civil servants suspend their strikes and wait for the outcome of the report which is intended to address their concerns.



Natasha Mariam,

Kampala.

letters@observer.ug
Four suspects in the murder of former police spokesman Andrew Felix Kaweesi were on Wednesday rearrested shortly after they had been granted bail by Nakawa Chief Magistrates court, having been in detention for six months.

But the news is not in the rearrest; what is trending is the manner in which it was conducted. The brutality and bravado of the arresting team has left a sour taste in the mouth, to say the least.

The stand-out image is that of Ahmad Ssenfuka, one of the four suspects, whose dramatic arrest has been widely covered in the media and is likely to remain a reference point in future.

State agents in plain clothes are captured on camera cornering the suspect in a public place and brutally subduing him as he tried to resist. His shirt and trousers are torn to threads, exposing his nakedness. Meanwhile, a shabbily dressed man is brandishing a pistol.

All this happens as members of the public look on, in shock. Looking at the images, one would be forgiven to think that it is a scene from a movie.

Unfortunately, such is no longer an isolated incident. Rearresting suspects who have been freed by courts has become common. It has equally become common for state agents in plainclothes to carry out arrests or beat up protestors.

While the state has a duty to protect its citizens and may seek to rearrest an individual deemed dangerous or facing other charges, the manner in which this particular arrest was conducted is disconcerting.

Not even being linked to the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), as the army claims, justifies such cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Besides, security officers on official duty should have no problem appearing in uniform or identifying themselves.

Appearing in plainclothes, using civilian number plate vehicles and acting like gangsters is reminiscent of the dark days that President Museveni often says he liberated this country from.

This modus operandi must be condemned by all right-thinking members of society as a matter of principle because today its Ssenfuka, tomorrow its someone else.
Last week, I drove through New York city and across the Hudson river on my way to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Only days earlier, a man claiming allegiance to the terrorist and jihadist ISIS group drove down a bicycle lane along the Hudson river, mowing cyclists and pedestrians in a grisly act of terrorism.

It was yet another act of terrorism in what has become a new terror method: driving into other vehicles or, more devastatingly, into crowds of people.

As I crossed the Hudson river, I couldnt help but exercise my mind on the subject of contemporary terrorism. It has delivered shifting manifestations and permutations that shake our human sensibilities.

New York is not just the worlds most important financial centre, it is also an expanse city with dense traffic along its litany of roads and interchanges.

Both democratic governments, accountable to citizens, and autocratic regimes that terrorise the same people they are supposed to protect are in unison in vowing to defeat terrorism.

They dismiss terrorism as cowardly and those who commit terror as deranged. Yet it appears that with every passing year, the situation gets trickier as terrorism adapts to new forms and the authors of jihadist ideology innovate new repertoires for their agenda.

If the suicide bomber, willing to die so as to kill, made fighting terrorism a nightmare, the new method of driving trucks into crowds now makes defeating terrorism close to futile.

Even with its highly-sophisticated intelligence apparatus and enormous coercive power, the government of the United States of America can do little if not nothing to stop someone from driving a vehicle into human bodies to kill and maim. We live in terrifying times!

One deadly act is enough victory for the agenda of terrorism. Governments and state agencies around the world remain set up, often overreacting and inevitably playing into the hands of terror organizations.

Actions of governments like that of the USA have done exceedingly well in recruiting fighters for Al-Qaeda and now ISIS.

These two, along with their regional affiliates in Africa and Asia, are happy to cash in when the USA and its so-called allies, including our own government of Uganda, make defeating terrorism the frontal focus of foreign policy.

The singular determination to defeat terrorism, which primarily means investing in intelligence infrastructure and coercive arsenal, drives governments into measures that are seen by targeted groups and individuals as cultural assaults and religious infringements.

Worse still, for the USA, the focus on counterterrorism through primarily military measures has fuelled militarization around the world perhaps to a scale that parallels the Cold War era.

Yet militarism as the core strategy against terrorism has been perilous. From the military interventions in Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others, the trail of missteps and tragic outcomes has entailed unspeakable chaos and runaway terrorism where it didnt exist.

We need to step back and introspect. One thing is instructively apparent: it is meaningless to think terrorism can be denounced and defeated through the resources at the disposal of state agencies.

If we can figure out how we got to this frightening state of affairs, we may well find a way around. Todays runaway terrorism can, in part, be seen as a posterchild of state activities during the final decades of the last century.

Faced with opposition, whether in terms of an ideological nemesis or a regional competitor, states around the world resorted to terror tactics and building up networks that underwrote todays terrorism.

Closer home in Uganda today, the expedience of fighting opponents and dealing with threats to his power has led General Museveni to preside over the steady creation of criminal networks and the fragmentation among the police, security and intelligence agencies.

What is likely to emerge out of the current cocktail once the ruler exits is simply disheartening to imagine. But the same acts akin to terrorism on full display will be clothed anew under fully private actors.

Aside from the shift from state-sponsored terrorism that became privatized, the other foremost root of todays extreme ideology can be found in material deprivation.

Far from being a cultural or civilizational war/clash  as the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington appears to have so presciently predicted if one keeps it at the face value  todays terrorism feeds off dashed hopes and failed expectations.

The promise of modernity, of a good life and prosperity which instead has delivered misery and desperation to many has left innumerable young men and women around the world vulnerable to recruitment in jihadism.

From north Africa to the Middle East, Central and South Asia, the kleptocracy of the political elite and the greed of the business sector leave behind disenchanted populations that have nothing to lose if they joined an otherwise misleading jihadist agenda.

Those living at the margins in northern Nigeria and the Sahel region are more than happy to become fulltime foot soldiers enticed with a jaundiced ideology and a luring promise of eternal heavenly enjoyment of everything missed on earth.

Without constructing fair and just societies, purporting to fight terrorism is a decidedly dead end.



moses.khisa@gmail.com



The author is an assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University.
For many principals and teachers, last weeks calendar included the phrases Veterans Day assembly or Veterans Day project on at least one day of the four-day school week.

The Korean War Veterans of America visited Argyle Central School on Tuesday and Lake George on Thursday to talk about their war.

St. Marys/St. Alphonsus middle-schoolers in Glens Falls hosted members of the American Legion, who talked about the origin of the poppy as a symbol of Veterans Day and taught them about flag etiquette.

In Penny Skinners sixth-grade classroom at Corinth Middle School, students prepared holiday cards and letters for active-duty service members.

The project was done through the nonprofit Aarons Gifts From Home. This project was a hands-on way for students to experience civic participation.

Aarons Gifts From Home was started by a mother who lost her son in Afghanistan and now sends holiday care packages to deployed troops. The students cards will be included in the packages that will be sent out this holiday season.

In addition, the students sent letters to active members of the Navy, Air Force and Marines, thanking them for their service.

In Salem, Thursday was the schools seventh annual Take a Veteran to School Day assembly.

Veterans were treated to coffee and refreshments in the cafeteria before the assembly, then presented handmade poppies and escorted to the auditorium by seventh-graders.

Members of the Patriot Guard attended to honor the veterans. A chorus sang Will You Be Here This December? The featured guest speaker was Air Force Lt. Col. Sue Phillips Magaletta, a 1989 graduate of the school.

At Queensbury Elementary School, veterans visited students.

Teacher Patricia Thompson helped organize an event in which veterans who had relatives at the school came for a celebration that included student-made cards, as well as songs.

The cafeteria was packed for both sessions  one for kindergartners and first-graders and the other for second- and third-graders.

There were parents, grandparents and great-grandparents at the event.

Danielle Dattilio, a former captain in the Army, came for her nephew, Zander McWain.

It was really heartfelt, she said. It brought back a lot of memories.
QUEENSBURY  Michael Cirino received a happy surprise on Friday  a Purple Heart 48 years after he was injured in the Vietnam War.

Cirino, a resident at the Brookdale assisted living facility in Queensbury, was pinned with the Purple Heart and three other service medals during a brief ceremony on Friday.

Cirino, 71, injured in his leg by stepping on a land mine in Vietnam in January 1969. He worked as a radio-telegraph operatorm, or radio man for short, in the U.S. Army.

Radio men were a target for the enemy because they were the main communications link to the rest of the troops, according to Andy DePalo, director of veterans services for Washington County.

Their life expectancy on the battlefield was not long, he said.

Cirino was injured about four months into his tour.

It started as a hole this big and it ended up a little like that, he said, holding his fingers close and then about a foot apart.

Cirino was transferred stateside to Massachusetts. After leaving the service, Cirino lived in Hudson Falls and spent 44 years at General Electric working with film, before retiring in May 2012 at the age of 65.

However, the paperwork for Cirinos medals got lost in the shuffle. Cirinos brother, John Cirino of Queensbury, persisted to get the medals that his brother was due.

John was like a dog on this trail. He would not let it up, DePalo said.

DePalo, who is a retired sergeant major and comes from a family of veterans, said it is good to have the support of family.

He wanted to make sure his brother got what he deserved, he said.

I did what I had to do to help him out, said John Cirino.

DePalo said U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, assisted in obtaining these medals.

Cirino also received the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal and the Armed Forces Expedition Medal.

Michael Cirino said it was a nice surprise, on the day before Veterans Day, to receive these medals and to see family and friends who came to visit him for the ceremony.

He reflected on his time serving his country.

I still miss a lot of my friends, he said.
Editor:

Veterans Day is near, and as secretary of Hudson Falls American Legion Auxiliary Post 574 and all Post members, we wish to thank those who have published, contributed to or been present at veterans programs.

Summer season began with a rainy Memorial Day, but we paraded and held ceremonies at four sites (thanks to Ace Car Club for providing cars that day and another rainy day ceremony in Fort Ann). We thank everyone who attended the Vietnam Memorial program at SUNY Adirondack; the Glens Falls Symphony and Glens Falls City Band for magnificent programs honoring our Armed Forces; Legion Posts that sent their Color Guards, Riders, Sons of the Legion, Patriot Guard and Auxiliaries to parades and events, including the Vietnam Traveling Wall in Bolton; veterans who volunteer at veterans funerals locally and Saratoga National Cemetery; participants in the Gold Star Mothers Day Walk in remembrance of Sgt. Kristie Roberts and others gone before us.

We appreciate the Moreau Fund Band volunteers who sing in nursing homes and centers where veterans are recognized. Thanks to Granvilles Phil Hoyt, his family and veterans who participated in his Sixth Annual Operation Adopt A Soldier benefit concert. Kudos to Col. Samuel J. Hall, Ret., for arranging for several of us to be on the discussion panel at Crandall Library following the showing of scenes from the Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam. Special thanks to folks who buy poppies, raffles, attend Legion breakfasts, dinners, basket parties, pickers jams and bingo. These fundraisers support our veterans programs; Boys State, Girls State, oratorical contests and more. Thank a veteran and attend a Veterans Day ceremony! Lest we forget.

Anne DAngelico Murray, Gold Star Family Member, Legion Post 574, Hudson Falls
Editor:

The Russians took actions to influence last November's election. That is a fact. Today I saw this posted on Facebook: "If liberal politicians treat the people this poorly when we're armed to the teeth, just imagine what they'll do once they've taken away your guns." In basic training, I was warned to beware of rumors and propaganda. I don't know the source of this meme, but it looks exactly like the products of Russian trolls recently released. Leaving aside the not so subtle threat to liberal politicians, are there folks "sharing" this who can't recognize propaganda when they see it?

"What we're talking about is the beginning of cyber warfare. What we're talking about is a major foreign power with sophistication and ability to involve themselves in a presidential election and sow conflict and discontent all over this country."  Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

"The strategy is to take a crack in our society and turn it into a chasm."  Sen. Angus King.

They're both on Senate Intelligence and are investigating an adversary attacking us. Is it really necessary to help spread divisive material on the internet? I've struggled, but can't find a more appropriate term than the classic "useful idiot."

House Intelligence feels their time better served examining the sale of Uranium One to a company owned by Russians. Naturally, this conspiracy theory involves Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Lately, I've seen iterations that work in Robert Mueller. When nothing is found, we the people deserve a full report. The president should get one too, so he can move onto another flight of fancy.

Kevin Robbins, Fort Edward
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
MidAmerican Energy said Thursday a plan to scale back the federal wind production tax credit would remove the certainty the company has been counting on in its plans to expand wind power in Iowa.

The wind provision, included in the Republican tax plan in the U.S. House, would scale back the credit by limiting it to 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, down from 2.3 cents. The House Ways and Means Committee cleared the tax plan Thursday.

A Senate tax plan was scheduled to be released on Thursday, and some lawmakers on the Finance Committee have said it won't appear in that version, according to a report. But if the House provision were to prevail, it would put in jeopardy $50 billion in planned investments, according to the American Wind Energy Association, an industry group.

Wind advocates complain the House changes would also reverse a 2015 agreement in Congress to phase out the production tax credit over five years.

In a statement, MidAmerican said the agreement provided certainty for near term investments. "The House proposal removes that certainty, which MidAmerican Energy  and its customers  were counting on when it moved forward with plans to rebuild and repower more wind generation," the company said.

In 2016, MidAmerican announced plans to add 2,000 megawatts of wind generation in the state, a $3.6 billion project.

The House tax bill cuts corporate taxes from 35 percent to 20 percent, reduces the number of income tax brackets, increases the standard deduction and rids the tax code of a range of tax breaks, among other changes.

The provision affecting the wind industry, along with other renewable energy sources, would add about $12.3 billion to government revenues over 10 years. The provision would offset revenue losses in other parts of the tax plan.

A Congressional Budget Office report said this week the plan would add $1.7 trillion to the deficit over a 10-year period.

Republicans have argued the tax plan will lead to greater economic growth, but the study did not measure that potential impact.

Democrats have complained the plan is a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy.

The Senate tax plan, which was to be released on Thursday, was not expected to include the wind provision. Bloomberg reported this week that some Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee had taken a dim view of the idea.

On a conference call with Iowa reporters on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the committee, noted the agreement in Congress to phase out the tax credit, adding "these are things that shouldn't be messed with in a tax reform bill."
Moline aldermen will vote Tuesday on a development agreement with IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union for the construction of the credit union's new $26 million headquarters.

According to the city council's agenda, the city plans to sell the property at 2500 River Drive to IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union for $2.925 million. City documents show the payment includes upfront payment for certain public improvements, and Moline will provide a financial incentive in the form of TIF, or tax increment financing, rebates.

The credit union plans to redevelop the vacant land into an 80,000-square-foot office headquarters with a 300-space parking lot. Along with the building and parking lot will be landscaping, storm water utilities and public sidewalks along the right of way.

Credit union officials could not be reached for comment Friday. Both Ray Forsythe, the city's planning and development director, and Caitlin Russell of Russell Construction, which will build the project, said they had been asked to not discuss the project until Tuesday.

The proposed development will first be discussed at Renew Moline's Project Management Team, or PMT, meeting at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday followed by the Moline City Council meetings. All the meetings will be at Moline City Hall.

The property is located in an established TIF Redevelopment Project Area which is set to expire in 2036, the agreement said.

The citys total incentive payment will be paid from the net incremental real estate tax generated by the project. IH Mississippi Valley will receive a TIF incentive payment of up to $3.9 million, or 15 percent of the $26 million project. The credit union also will be rebated for eligible TIF expenses, including site work up to $525,000 for a total incentive package of $4.425 million.

Russell Construction first revealed plans in May for a then unnamed company to build a new corporate headquarters on the vacant site adjacent to Western Illinois University on Moline's riverfront.

The proposed plan by the Davenport-based construction firm called for a modern headquarters on the eight-acre parcel, which is currently owned by the city. At the time, Caitlin Russell, the company's project developer, told the PMT that "The tenant wants to keep quiet for now."

Russell said Friday that the firm has been asked to not discuss the project until Tuesday's meetings.

City documents indicate that IH Mississippi Valley plans to have 220 employees working at the headquarters when it opens with the potential for up to 300 employees in the next 10 years.

IH Mississippi Valley now has corporate offices at 2121 47th St., Moline.

According to the credit union's 2016 annual report, it has more than $1 billion in assets and 109,545 members across its 42-county service area. It operates 17 branches in eastern Iowa and western Illinois, including seven in the metropolitan Quad-Cities.

Russell said back in May that the tenant expected to break ground in the spring 2018 and the building would be completed in 2019.

Also at that time, Forsythe told the PMT board that Russell Construction was the only company to respond to the city's request for proposal for a new master developer for the site. Under the proposal, the corporate headquarters would occupy the remainder of the former industrial property, he said.

"We had a lot of people call," he said, adding that he suspected that since the state's financial situation has slowed growth of the Western Illinois campus, other developers may have turned away.

The headquarters would replace plans that the city's previous master developer, Three Corners Development, had for the property. The Orland Park, Illinois-based developed had plans for a $100 million mixed-use project, that included student housing, a grocery store and other retail.

Forsythe said previously that Three Corners and the city could not come to an agreement on a parking deck. "Moline already has three parking decks and the city council couldn't see taking on the responsibility of a fourth parking deck," he said.

Three Corners did build the Mills at Riverbend Commons, a student housing and retail development, that will be adjacent to the credit union headquarters. It still owns adjacent property where it has had plans to build additional housing.
Even veteran concert-goers likely won't be too familiar with music by a quartet set to perform next week at First Presbyterian Church, Davenport.

It's the Singularity Saxophone Quartet, which plays contemporary classical music. The quartet will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17, in the historic sanctuary of the church, 1702 Iowa St.

"This music is contemporary saxophone chamber music," Matt Bishop said. Bishop is a pianist and First Presbyterian's director of music. "A lot of the music has been written in the past several years so it's new and fresh."

Bishop met members of the quartet when he attended graduate school at Florida State University, Tallahassee. The four men, all playing the saxophone, also attended Florida State.

"I worked with them in the past and they are phenomenal musicians," Bishop said. The quartet plays well together, and he said one reason is because they are also friends off-stage.

"It is very inspiring to watch them do what they love to do; this is absolutely their passion," Bishop said.

The contemporary classical music is similar to the work of David Ludwig, whose compositions were played at the Quad-City Symphony's concert in early November.

This music will be an experience for the audience. "People are not used to hearing it," Bishop said. The quartet will challenge traditional definitions of classical music, and there is an experimental side to the work.

"All the music is played with passion and precision," he said.

When the group made its debut at Carnegie Hall in 2015, it was saluted by composers, including Ludwig, who described it as "At once sensitive, nuanced, brash and daring; all depending on the demands of the music," and by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Charles Wuorinen, who said it brought "a wonderful life and spirit to my work."

Both citations are on the group's website.

After graduating from Florida State, two members of Singularity moved to New York, while two have stayed in Florida.

They regularly perform with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra Chamber Series, at the Ethos New Music Society at the State University of New York in Fredonia, as guest artists and clinicians at Mercyhurst College, Erie, Penn., and are resident artists at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Boscawen, N.H.

Bishop, at First Presbyterian, said the church usually brings in guest artists every year and often they are part of the Quad-City Arts Visiting Artist Series.

But in this case, it was Bishop who invited the Singularity Saxophone Quartet to the Quad-Cities.

"My hope is to introduce them to a new audience, and to introduce people in the Quad-Cities to new music, and new music with a saxophone quartet," he said.
Police investigate robbery at Davenport motel

The Davenport Police Department is investigating an armed robbery that occurred Wednesday night at a Davenport motel.

Police were called around 9:38 p.m. to Super 8, 301 Jason Way Court, where a suspect displayed a gun and demanded money.

The suspect fled with unspecified items, according to police. No injuries were reported.

No other information, including a description of the suspect, was released Thursday.

Detectives are following up on the robbery.

 Times Staff

Man charged in Davenport shooting

A Davenport man already facing drug and gun charges has now been charged in a shooting that damaged a vehicle Monday.

Cameron Michael Smith, 24, appeared Wednesday in Scott County District Court via closed-circuit video on charges of intimidation with a dangerous weapon, a Class C felony, and possession of a firearm or offensive weapon by a felon.

Bond was set at $5,000 cash or surety. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 17.

Police were called about 10:19 to the 200 block of Pine Street for a report of shots fired. Smith was the driver of an unidentified vehicle and fired at least three shots at a passing vehicle, according to an arrest affidavit filed by Davenport police in support of the criminal complaint.

One of the bullets struck a vehicle parked in the area and police recovered three 9mm shell casings. The incident was captured on surveillance video, according to the affidavit.

Smith was convicted of intimidation with a dangerous weapon in Black Hawk County in 2012.

He was arrested Wednesday on two charges of possession with intent to deliver and one count each of possession of a firearm or offensive weapon by a felon, trafficking stolen weapons, and possession of a controlled substance, a serious misdemeanor.

At the time of his arrest, Smith was free on pretrial release on a charge of felon in possession of a firearm in connection with an incident in July.

 Tara Becker

Injured Buffalo police chief back home

Buffalo Police Chief Terry TJ Behning, who was seriously injured when a stolen garbage truck crashed into his squad car in late September, is back home.

The police department shared an update from Behning's wife, Heidi, on its Facebook page Thursday.

She wrote that the family is getting Behining settled in and "figuring out our new routine."

"We are anxiously awaiting therapy to start working with TJ so hes ready to go if we get the green light on the (November) 16th to use the left leg," Heidi Behning wrote. "Overall, TJ remains in good spirits and is sleeping much better here than at the hospital!"

She further wrote, We continue to receive so many nice messages from all of you. I read each and every one to TJ. They fuel him to keep pushing through. The most common comment people write us and say is that they cant believe how positive and upbeat we are. How could we not be with all of you behind us! We are truly in awe every day of the support from family, friends, and the community. You guys are unbelievable.

Behning was injured Sept. 25, when police say Logan Jeffery Shoemaker, 20, was driving a stolen garbage truck at a high speed in an effort to elude police, aimed the truck at Behning's squad car as he was attempting to deploy stop sticks at the intersection of Scott County Road Y40 and Iowa 22.

Behning has undergone several surgeries since the incident.

Shoemaker was charged with multiple offenses  including attempted murder  in connection with the alleged assault on Behning and other separate incidents.

He has a pretrial conference Nov. 17 and remained in the Scott County Jail Thursday.

 Times Staff

Moline man accused of impersonating officer

The husband of an assistant states attorney in Rock Island County has been arrested on allegations that he impersonated a police officer last month.

Jason Robinson, 46, of Moline, was arrested Oct. 13 and charged with false personation of a peace officer and disorderly conduct. Both charges are a Class 4 felony punishable by one to three years in prison.

Online court records show that he was released from the Rock Island County Jail on a notice to appear. He made his first appearance on the charges Oct. 16.

A preliminary hearing is slated for Nov. 21, according to online court records.

According to court documents, Robinson knowingly and falsely represented to a man that he was a police officer by displaying a badge, identifying himself as a police officer, and ordered him to pull his vehicle over.

He also told a 911 dispatcher that his vehicle had been struck, knowing at the time of said transmission that there was no reasonable ground for believing that the offense had been committed, according to court documents.

An incident report from the Rock Island Police Department shows that the incident happened around 8:25 a.m. Oct. 13 in the area of 31st Street and 18th Avenue.

Robinson is the husband of Rock Island County Assistant States Attorney Jennifer Gardner, who has been with the states attorneys office since 2013.

On Oct. 19, States John McGehee filed a motion to appoint a special prosecutor from the state appellate prosecutors office, citing a conflict of interest.

The motion was granted the same day, according to court records.

McGehee declined to comment Thursday on the allegations against Robinson.

A call to Robinsons attorney, Jonathan Ruud, was not returned.

 Tara Becker
The DeWitt bus drivers union that lost its recertification election last month even though none of its members voted against it has objected to the result.

The union is asking that the election be invalidated, claiming some votes weren't counted.

The Service Employees International Union, Local 199, representing drivers in the Central DeWitt Community School District, has filed an objection with the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board, which administered the election, along with hundreds of others in September and October.

The union's appeal claims that 11 of the 16 eligible voters will testify that they cast ballots in favor of the union, even though the unofficial tally only showed eight votes were cast. The public employee relations board reported last month that seven of those votes were cast in favor of keeping the union and one was voided.

The union lost the vote, however, because the collective bargaining law that the legislature passed in February requires that a union get a majority of the votes of those covered by its contract to be retained, not those who actually cast ballots. In this case, that meant nine votes in favor were needed.

Union officials complained that the rules were stacked against them and that no politician ever has to meet that standard.

The Central DeWitt case was striking because not a single vote was cast against the union.

"We don't know what happened. We just don't believe it was an accurate count," Jim Jacobson, the attorney who filed the objection on behalf of the union, said this week.

In addition to claiming that all the votes weren't counted, the union said the election may have been affected by a telephone outage that occurred within the two-week voting window.

Voters could cast ballots by phone or online between Oct. 10th and 24th. The employee relations board reported there was a phone outage on Oct. 20 that lasted 12 hours. The agency said that, overall, about 11 percent of votes were cast by phone.

Mike Cormack, chairman of the public employee relations board, said Thursday that the three-member panel will consider the appeal but a date for a hearing has not been set yet.

Cormack declined to comment on the objection other than to say, "we are a neutral state agency that has to be fair to all the parties involved. We will listen to all the arguments."

The objection was one of three that were filed across the state stemming from the elections in October. The others were in Sigourney and Centerville. All the other elections were certified last week.

The vast majority of union elections in September and October resulted in the unions being retained. In all, there were close to 500 elections over the two months.

The collective bargaining law, which significantly curtailed bargaining rights for public employee unions, requires that elections be held as contracts with local and state governments near their expiration date.

This year's elections involved about 35,000 voters. Next year, they will be even more widespread, with an estimated 55,000 to 60,000 voters, Cormack said.
The first reading of an ordinance to rezone a property intended as a faith-based boardinghouse for formerly incarcerated women may have passed by a 9-1 vote, but it has left members of the Davenport City Council asking questions.

Women in Spiritual Hope, or WISH, Ministries has petitioned to rezone a property on the 5200 block of Division Street to help women get back on their feet and offer a second chance at life.

"We are trying to get this house ready to house women, post incarceration, that have no where else to go," executive director and co-founder Lynn Johnson said during Wednesday's council meeting. "They will not be awarded from court systems."

The boardinghouse could have operated under the current R-4 zoning, Moderate Density Dwelling District, to some extent, but the petitioners were seeking rezoning to R-5M, Medium Density Dwelling District, in order to accommodate more potential clients.

The concept of the boardinghouse is for women coming out of incarceration for nonviolent crimes, such as drug use or prostitution, to apply to live at the home on a 1-year contract. They would be there voluntarily and not placed by any court system.

Johnson said there would be a check-in and check-out system and clients would not be allowed to leave without being accompanied by either a staff member or a friend, even to employment.

Visitors would not be allowed at the home, but various types of programs and services would be brought there for the benefit of clients. In total, the proposal would house one housemother and six clients.

Johnson, who co-founded the ministry less that two years ago, said she saw there was a need for this type of service based on her work in jails. While similar programs exist, she said there were a lack of ones that focus on women's issues.

"We have not done this outreach before," Johnson said. "It's based out of a jail ministry I do and a need that I've seen for the girls in the jail ministry out of Rock Island and Scott County. We based it from reading a book called 'Miss Brenda and the Loveladies,' where she did this exact home down in Arizona and is still working today."

The Lovelady Center Johnson was referring to is located in Birmingham, Alabama.

Sandra Folland, speaking on behalf of her mother, Shirley, who lives a few feet from the boundary line, raised a number of questions including the enforcement of the contract of potential tenants.

"Since this has nothing to do with law enforcement or anything, what does this contract mean?" Folland said. "You can't contain people. Only the law can contain people."

With Shirley Folland expressing concerns during the Plan and Zoning Commission hearings last month about safety, given that the boardinghouse is seeking to house convicts, Sandra also questioned the effectiveness of requiring only a 6-foot fence based upon the terrain.

"You'd almost have to have a 15-20 foot fence for those people to not be looking to my mom's house," Folland said.

Folland also noted that the area was seeing an increase in drug activity.

The Follands' comments caught the ear of Alderman Ray Ambrose, 4th Ward, who cast the lone dissenting vote.

"My concern is just like the neighbors'," Ambrose said. "I've watched for 12 years the 7th Judicial District's halfway house across from Central High School and they continue to have people walk away from that. Our police department is forced to go after them."

Johnson interrupted Ambrose to correct him that it was not a halfway house, but he continued speaking in favor of the neighborhood while thanking Johnson and the ministry for its efforts.

"The hardworking taxpayers pay their property taxes for almost 50 years and we have to be looking out for them first," Ambrose said.

In response to a general question of whether anyone would want this type of service in their neighborhood, Alderwoman Maria Dickmann, 2nd Ward, said she would love to have it to teach her daughter about the importance of second chances and investing in people.

The structure was originally built as a single family home before being converted into a duplex, but after seeing the property, 3rd Ward Alderman Marion Meginnis raised questions about the building's safety.

"I started to have questions not about the use, but about the conversion with bedrooms in a basement area that might not have egress out," Meginnis said. "If it became a rental, it would have be inspected and found safe for up to five adults. If it isn't a rental and goes to a different classification as a rooming house, is it subject to inspection?"

As alderman after alderman spoke, more and more questions arose, including about what type of licensing was needed.

"I think there's a lot of questions that need to be discussed and I'm very concerned if inspections were done," Alderman Mike Matson, 7th Ward, said.

City Attorney Tom Warner suggested that city staff report back to council at next week's committee-of-the-whole meeting on their inquiries.

While the council ultimately voted in favor of moving the process along, there are still two more readings of the ordinance, including four more weeks of discussion, before the rezoning could be approved.
A case of possible financial fraud committed against a patient at St. Anthony's Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rock Island is under investigation, Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee confirmed Thursday.

McGehee declined to provide any further details or say whether there was more than one defendant involved.

"At this point I don't want to make any comment," he said. "It's still under investigation by law enforcement; I know about it. At this point I have some ethical issues and cannot discuss it any further."

St. Anthony's recently was fined $2,200 by the Illinois Department of Public Health for failing to protect a resident from financial abuse by a staff member.

In its third quarter report, the IDPH states a female patient suffering from bipolar disorder was admitted in March 2015. In July 2015, the business office manager informed the resident her home would have to be sold. A property assessment in the resident's financial file lists the home with a fair market value of $82,769.

According to a real estate settlement agreement, the resident's home was sold April 19, 2016, for $10,000 after the business manager recommended it be sold to the husband of St. Anthony's director of social services.

The man was represented by an attorney and a realtor in the purchase agreement, but the female resident had no representation.

The husband of the social services director resold the home in April 2017 for $95,000. In an interview with IDPH officials, the resident said she received a cash payment of $2,000 for the house, not $10,000 as was recorded.

In the report, the co-business office manager stated, "I heard (the resident) was upset about the house being resold for so much money. (The resident) was crying that the house sold and (the resident) could not go back home."

Administrator Jeff Wollum said the business office manager and director of social services both were terminated by the previous administrator after the financial abuse was discovered. Wollum became administrator in September, after the incident occurred. He said he did not know the names of the employees involved.
Tuesday night was very big for Democrats as the party won the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey and scored a series of other victories from Maine to Washington State that suggests the forces opposed to President Donald Trump turned up in large numbers to send a message that they weren't happy with how he is doing the job.

Democrats -- and Governors-elect Ralph Northam (Virginia) and Phil Murphy (New Jersey) in particular -- were big winners.

But who were some of the less obvious winners -- and losers! -- on Tuesday? That's where I come in! Below are my picks for the best and the worst of the night that was.

WINNERS

* Ralph Northam: In both the Democratic primary earlier this year and again Tuesday night, Northam overperformed expectations. There were lots and lots of Northam doubters in Democratic circles -- he's too boring! He won't sell in northern Virginia! -- I talked to in the final 72 hours of the race. But Northam's country doctor routine worked its magic again. Northam may well be the most underrated politician of the year. And kudos to his campaign team -- led by manager Brad Komar -- for running a race that was both true to Northam's centrist roots and a winner.

* Terry McAuliffe: The outgoing Virginia governor is a popular presence in the state and Northam, generally speaking, ran on a message of continuing the McAuliffe legacy. It worked. And McAuliffe, because he's McAuliffe, was quick to take credit for it in an interview with CNN even before the results were known. If you don't think Tuesday's results in Virginia don't make it more likely McAuliffe runs for president in 2020, you don't know Terry.

* Doug Jones: If there was any question about whether national Democrats should fund Jones' special Senate election race later this year against Roy Moore in Alabama, Tuesday night's results probably took care of that. Given the activation of the Democratic base -- particularly non-white voters -- and Moore's divisiveness, Jones looks like less of a long shot today than he did Tuesday.

* Joe Biden: The former vice president was very active on the stump for 2017 Democratic candidates -- including Northam, Murphy and Jones in Alabama. During a visit to Virginia for Northam in mid-October, Biden told the crowd: "You have to win to ... give people hope we are not falling into this know-nothing pit." And, in the wake of the election results Tuesday night, Biden tweeted this: "A resounding defeat tonight for President Trump. Voters around the country rejected the ugly politics we have seen this past year. Instead, they chose candidates who unite and inspire us." Sounds a lot like a line from a Biden 2020 speech, no?

* Donna Brazile: If Northam had lost or Democrats more broadly would have underwhelmed at the ballot box on Tuesday, the story of Democratic division -- and Brazile's new book that lays much of it bare -- would be the only thing that people would be talking about. Now, there's a much better narrative for Democrats out there and the inconsistencies between Brazile's book and her recent public statements about the campaign are likely to recede into the background.

* NoVa suburbs: The winning formula for Democrats in Virginia is now shockingly simple: Run up the score -- bigly -- in northern Virginia. Northam beat Gillespie by 212,000 votes in Arlington (+52,000), Fairfax (+137,000) and Loudoun (+23,000). His statewide margin? Two-hundred and thirty-two thousand votes.

* Tom Perriello: The former congressman lost his primary challenge to Northam earlier this year. Rather than remain embittered and sitting out the rest of the race, Perriello signed out with an political organization -- Win Virginia -- that aimed to reduce Republicans' 66-34 edge in the state Assembly. Led by Perriello, Democrats did much more than that; a real possibility exists that they will hold 50 seats in the Assembly when all the votes are counted. That's a stunning achievement.

* Virginia Department of Elections: The vote count was amazingly fast. And the website allows you to search back to 1789 in its election results data. I mean, that rules.

LOSERS

* Donald Trump: The President tweeted shortly after Gillespie's loss insisting that if the GOP nominee had only hewed closer to him, the results might have been different. There's simply no empirical evidence in exit polling or the raw data that suggests that contention to be true. Half of the Virginia voters said Trump was a factor in their vote on Tuesday, with twice as many saying they wanted to send Trump a message of opposition as said they wanted to send him a message of support. In places like Loudoun and Chesterfield counties -- exurban and suburban, respectively -- Gillespie badly underperformed past GOP nominees. Adjusting for all variables, it's hard not to see how that difference is primarily attributable to Trump.

* "Trumpism without Trump": In the hours leading up to polls closing in Virginia, the idea -- floated by former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon -- that Gillespie would prove you could run and win on Trump's idea if you took Trump's personality out of the equation was rampant. Then Gillespie got trounced. What Tuesday night in Virginia showed is that most voters outside of the GOP base simply don't distinguish between support for Trump personally and support for Trump's agenda. It's all the same to them. And it's bad.

* Chris Christie: The election results in New Jersey were a sort of final nail in Christie's political coffin. Christie's lieutenant governor -- Kim Guadagno -- was swamped under by the historic unpopularity of Christie. Just 22% of New Jersey voters approved of how Christie has handled his job. Among those who strongly disapproved of Christie, Murphy won 81% of the vote. Guadagno tried to run away from Christie and his toxic legacy in the state but it didn't work. Christie now faces a political future filled with not-so-good options. He almost certainly can't run for office in New Jersey for a very long time to come and his close association with Trump has hurt him badly in the eyes of GOP establishment types. Christie's best hope is some sort of gig in the White House -- a real possibility given the staff carousel in the Trump administration.

* Paul LePage: The Maine governor repeatedly vetoed efforts by the state legislature to take federal Medicaid expansion dollars under Obamacare. On Tuesday, a ballot measure passed overwhelmingly that will allow 80,000 more Mainers to join Medicaid. LePage is term-limited out of office next year anyway but has repeatedly floated the idea of running for Senate or some other office. Tuesday's results throw a monkey wrench into those plans. LePage, as of Wednesday morning, was saying he would refuse to implement Medeicaid expansion even after Tuesday's vote. Which is odd.

* Bernie Sanders: The Vermont independent weighed into the Virginia Democratic primary for Perriello. After Perriello lost, Sanders disappeared. He didn't endorse Northam, who was more centrist-minded than Perriello (and Sanders). "Our Revolution," the political organization that grew out of Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, didn't get involved for Northam either. That's not a good look Wednesday morning, with Democrats celebrating their best election night since 2012.

* The Republican brand: In Virginia, just 30% of the electorate identified as Republicans. In New Jersey, it was just 29%. That gave self-identifying Democrats a double digit edge in each of those states -- suggesting that Republicans didn't turn out to vote or just didn't want to tell an exit pollster they identified with the Republican party. Either way, it's not good if you are a Republican strategist trying to figure out how to win in 2018.

* Barbara Comstock: Comstock has held the 10th district, which includes much of the affluent suburbs stretching west from Washington, DC since 2014. The size of the Northam victory in and around Comstock -- he carried her seat by 13 points -- has to make her one of Democrats' top targets heading into 2018. Comstock might want to rethink her decision to pass on a challenge to Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine next year.
Celebrating Christmas publicly is an expression of Christian faith and a long held seasonal tradition. In an often hostile and secular environment, reminding people of the birth of Christ opens the door for conversations about the origins of Christmas.

That has changed since the 1960s due to lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), atheists, and religious sects that feel offended by Jesus in the public square. Sometimes, its public officials who press the issue. When Jesus said to pick up your cross and follow me, he knew it would not be an easy road to travel.

In 2004, citizens of Racine, Wisconsin worked for 10 months to gain a permit to set up a nativity scene on Racines Monument Square. After months of rejection, the Common Council approved the permit when a list of 16 local churches supported the project.

What began as a four-by-four foot display has grown into a 40-foot nativity scene with two light pole banners. The first year, about 500 people from the area visited the display. Today, the number has grown to thousands. An annual budget of $2,500 supports this project.

One year, the nativity scene was destroyed by a wind storm. Children at a local Christian elementary school raided their piggy banks to raise $300 to help restore the display. The good people of Racine demonstrate perseverance in standing for Christian values and religious liberty.

Mike Steffen

Moline
Students from 17 Quad-City area high schools showed inventiveness and the power of youth to collect 424,845 pounds of food during the 2017 Student Hunger Drive.

That is 46,000 pounds more than was collected in 2016.

The Pleasant Valley High School team won three major awards during the Student Hunger Drive finals Thursday at River Bend Foodbank, Davenport. It was the wrapup pf the six-week event, which began in the Quad-Cities in 1986.

The Spartans won first place among the schools with the largest enrollment, won "most improved" in that division, and were named the Mission Challenge Award winners.

Haley Germain, a senior and team leader, said success came after a lot of work by members of the Spartan Assembly, and a feeling of teamwork that was evident throughout the high school.

A new event this year, "Spartan Survivor," was based on the television show, and teachers were the people who were kicked off the island. Teachers made alliances, as in the show, and that was a fun activity, Haley said.

Other successful events were a Trivia Night and "Dancing with the Studs," activity.

The Pleasant Valley students collected 77 percent more in 2017 than they had in 2016. The Mission Challenge Award also went to PV, as the school that best lived the mission of the Student Hunger Drive.

A recurring comment heard Thursday night was the high quality of the food collected in 2017. Ryan Longenecker, one of two student ambassadors for the Student Hunger Drive, said he was very happy with the type of food collected by his classmates at Bettendorf High School.

Student Hunger Drive executive director Liz Treiber saluted the students, saying, "I know you worked so hard on this in the community." She noted that the students seemed to get extra incentive from the disasters that have hit the United States, such as in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

River Bend Foodbank executive director Mike Miller joined in saluting the teens for the quality and amount of food collected.

For more than 30 years, Miller said, the spirit of giving through the Student Hunger Drive has been instilled in high school students. "That's a legacy for our community that's unique across the country," he said.
Nearly 300 veterans turned out Thursday for an event aimed at helping them get benefits such as health care and housing assistance.

The Veteran Stand Down event at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center attracted veterans from the Vietnam War era all the way up to those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

The numbers were up from last year, when 200 veterans came to the Stand Down event in Rapid City, according to Jamison Hild, outreach coordinator for the Black Hills VA.

Five Stand Down events are held each year in different locations around western South Dakota. They are open to anyone who served in the military, but the focus is to reach out to veterans who are homeless or at risk for homelessness.

"They've earned their benefits, and sometimes they're just not educated about what they are qualified for," Hild said.

A number of local agencies participated in Thursday's event, including the Hope Center, the Man Salon and Goodwill of the Great Plains.

With the need for veteran assistance clearly growing, Hild said the Stand Down events will continue next year.
A man who walked away from the Work Ethic Camp in McCook nearly a year ago was arrested in Chadron this week during a Chadron Police Department and Nebraska State Patrol SWAT team search of a home on West Niobrara Avenue.

Charles Canaday, 37, was found hiding in a home in the 500 block of that street Wednesday night after a Chadron Police Department investigation led officers to believe Canaday was holed up there. Canaday and Andrew Russell walked away from the Nebraska Department of Corrections Work Ethic Camp last December. Russell was recaptured almost immediately, but Canaday remained at large until this week.

The search of the home also turned up evidence of drug-related activity, and law enforcement obtained a second search warrant related to those materials. Several grams of suspected methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia and multiple firearms were seized under that warrant, and two other men, Del Canaday, 31, and Gage Canaday, 27, were arrested on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine and of being an accessory to a felony.

All three men were booked into the Dawes County Jail.

Charles Canaday was serving a term of six to 24 years at the Work Ethic Camp for convictions on burglary, theft and criminal mischief convictions in four separate counties, including Sheridan County.

In September 2016, before being sentenced to the McCook institution, Canaday had another run-in with Chadron Police when they attempted to arrest him for absconding from Nebraska parole supervision. During that incident, Canaday is alleged to have nearly hit a police officer with his pickup truck as he attempted to flee. He was eventually apprehended in South Dakota when his vehicle ran out of gas. After his escape from the Work Ethic Camp, Canaday was charged with two additional felony counts and one misdemeanor for his role in that encounter. Those charges included operation of a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony and no operators license.

In addition to the outstanding warrants in Dawes County from last year, Canaday was arrested on outstanding warrants related to his escape from the Work Ethic Camp and on a South Dakota warrant for unauthorized ingestion of a controlled substance.
Veterans' appreciation program

DEADWOOD | The Deadwood Mountain Grand Event Center will host a program in conjunction with Veterans Day Saturday.

At 11 a.m. the Deadwood Salute Program begins with a welcome by Carol Edwards. There will be a posting of the colors by VFW Post #5969; American Legion Post #31; Vietnam Veterans Association Chapter 1039 and Disabled American Veterans Northern Hills Chapter 11.

The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Boys and Girl Scouts of Deadwood. Keynote speaker is Orson Ward.

A complimentary meal will be served by the American Legion Auxiliary.

Following lunch there will be a social at the VFW Post #5969, next door to the Deadwood Mountain Grand.

A silent auction will be held in conjunction with the event. It begins at 11 a.m. and concludes at 2 p.m.

All donations and proceeds from the event will benefit the VFW Post #5969; American Legion Post #31; Vietnam Veterans Association Chapter 1039 and Disabled American Veterans Northern Hills Chapter 11

Center to honor those who served

SPEARFISH | The High Plains Western Heritage Center, 825 Heritage Drive, Spearfish, will also host their Veterans Day Event on Saturday, Nov. 11, 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

There will be a live concert by The Potter Family at 2 p.m. Suggested Donation: $10. Proceeds will be shared with the Spearfish Veterans Monument.

Kiwanis collecting items for vets

STURGIS | The annual Sturgis Golden K Kiwanis collection of new boxers, briefs, socks and T-shirts for Fort Meade veterans is in progress.

The veterans are in need of all sizes, but especially small and medium.

You will find collection boxes at the Sturgis Black Hills Federal Credit Union, Sturgis Area Chamber of Commerce, Shopko in Sturgis and Belle Fourche, First Interstate, Northern Hills Federal Credit Union, Campbell's, First National, and Wells Fargo through Nov. 10.

History at High Noon features Bob Davis

STURGIS | History at High Noon will meet at noon on Friday, Nov. 17, in the Program Room of the Sturgis Public Library. The program speaker will be Bob Davis. He will be sharing memories of his parents, Dale and Carol, and his grandparents, George and Gail. All four were active in Sturgis and the Meade County area.

This will be the last program presented in 2017. Organizers want to thank the wonderful and faithful audience.

The History at High Noon committee is now working on scheduling programs for 2018.
John Pedersen will serve as the interim superintendent for Meade School District.

The Meade District School Board met Thursday evening and selected Pedersen to fill the void left when current superintendent Don Kirkegaard steps into his new position as South Dakota's Secretary of Education.

Pedersen, who will begin his duties on Jan. 2, comes with a wealth of experience, 26 years as superintendent at Harrisburg, Chester, Beresford and Pierre. He served five years as Executive Director of School Administrators of South Dakota and recently served as interim superintendent for Custer and New Underwood.

Board president Courtney Mack said the district is pleased to have Pedersen on board to finish out the 2017-18 school year. His contract ends on June 29.

She said his experience and background will be a valuable asset to our district.

The Meade District School Board will discuss the search process for the superintendent position at the December school board meeting.
PIERRE | A bull owned by one rancher and another bull owned by another rancher in western South Dakota somehow wound up with the opposite owners.

Then the story turned stranger yet.

The bull belonging to Tom Costello, a rancher from the Buffalo area, was among cattle owned by Matt Sandal, a rancher from the Quinn area. Sandal had a third man take the cattle, including Costellos bull, to St. Onge Livestock for sale.

The state's brand inspector saw the bull didnt belong to Sandal and directed St. Onge Livestock to put a hold on the proceeds.

St. Onge Livestock then sold the bull and set the money aside. That was Oct. 6, according to the hold report.

Costello said he didnt learn until several weeks later that the bull bearing his ownership brand was sold without his knowledge or consent. He took the matter to the State Brand Board on Wednesday. He said he thought the bull among his cattle was his. Instead it belonged to Sandal.

Costello told the brand board the state attorney generals office should review South Dakotas hold law.

Among its provisions, the law specifically says that livestock lacking a sellers proof of ownership shall be held or sold.

The law goes on to say that if the livestock are sold, the selling agent is financially responsible for the proceeds and shall hold the proceeds for the owner or the states ownership inspection fund.

The law further says that if a state inspector finds livestock carrying a recorded brand that isnt the property of the consignor, and theres no ownership paper, the inspector may sell or hold the livestock.

In other words, the law gives the state inspector discretion about what to do.

If the inspector decides the livestock should be sold, then the selling agency is supposed to hold the proceeds for 60 days or until the consignor establishes evidence of ownership, according to the law. All livestock holds after sixty days shall be forwarded by the inspector to the board for review and final disposition, it says.

I think youre implementing the law wrong," Costello told the board Wednesday. The law is too ambiguous.

He sounded upset. The commercial-grade bull now needs to be replaced, he said, and its two or three years earlier than what he planned. He emphasized the bull carried his brand on its hide.

Nobody contacted anybody this had transpired, Costello said. I didnt have a chance to no-sale it. I didnt have a chance to do nothing.

Debbie Trapp, the state boards executive director, said its common for livestock markets to sell cattle that are under hold orders. Trapp said market managers otherwise face criticism if they wait and the market price is lower when the livestock sell.

They always just sell the livestock and hold the money, Trapp said.

Chairwoman Wanda Blair of Vale told Costello the five board members around the table dont have authority to change state law and they cant get the bull back.

Costello said he wanted an interpretation whether he was right. I dont think your policy is right, the way youre implementing it, he replied.

Sandal came and got his bull back from Costellos ranch, Costello said.

Sandal didnt attend the meeting. Silvia Christen, executive director for the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, did, however.

The association ran the ownership inspection program for the Brand Board until the board  at the direction of then-Gov. Mike Rounds  took over the management.

What amounted to a political divorce still stirs hard feelings within at least some members of the association. Christen spoke from her seat in the audience. She said the law was followed but the state inspector assigned to St. Onge Livestock that day made a poor judgment.

Blair in turn repeated her defense. There really isnt anything we can do today because cant change the law, Blair said.

The Sandal bull still had a breeders brand on it, Costello said. Costello called on the attorney general to look at the law. This is costing the producers every time, Costello said.

Blair wanted the matter done. The check has been sent, she told Costello.

I havent seen it yet, Costello replied as he left.

The board later went into executive session closed to the public. During the wait, the Journal asked Dan Bothwell, the states chief brand inspector, how much Costello could expect.

Bothwell said he didnt know for certain, but hed heard the amount was about $1,400.

After the meeting ended, the Journal asked the board members and their executive director how much Costello would be getting. They also didnt know.
What could be better than a cannon with two barrels? After all, there are double-barreled shotguns and twin-barrel derringers. This was what John Gilleland had in mind when he designed a cannon with two barrels.

Gilleland, a builder and part-time dentist, was a private in a home-guard unit composed of men too old to be in the regular Army. Based on his design, a two-barreled cannon was forged in Athens, Georgia, in 1862.

It featured three touchholes  one for each barrel and one for firing both barrels at the same time. The cannon balls were linked together by a 10-foot chain, the idea being that with the chain flying out along with the two balls, a wider path of destruction could be inflicted upon enemy infantry.

Building a two-barrel cannon is one challenge; making sure it worked is another. So in a field near Athens in April 1862, Gilleland set up his cannon. A crowed of curious onlookers assembled to see this newfangled secret weapon, which held out the promise of turning the tide of the war in favor of the South.

The first firing was pretty much a disaster. One ball left the muzzle before the other, causing them to adopt a somewhat erratic, circular course. According to witnesses, the two projectiles tore up about an acre of ground, slashed through a cornfield, and knocked down several small trees. Eventually, the chain broke, sending the balls flying in opposite directions.

A second test firing had much the same results as the first. On the third attempt, the chain broke almost immediately, permitting each ball to travel on its own course. One destroyed a chimney on a nearby cabin, and the other killed a cow, blissfully munching in a pasture. Several upright posts, which had been erected as a target, remained undamaged.

Though a casual observer might have decided the test was a complete failure, Gilleland felt otherwise, declaring the test firings an unqualified success.

The cannon was then sent to the Confederate arsenal in Augusta, Georgia, where it was extensively tested. Arsenal personnel determined that the cannon was not practical due to the variable powder burn rates of the two charges resulting in an unpredictable outcome. The cannon was returned to Athens and placed in front of the town hall to be used as a signal gun.

Enraged, Gilleland sent angry letters to the governor of Georgia and the Confederate government in Richmond, demanding that his cannon be reconsidered for service. Despite his protestations, the double-barreled cannon was never adopted by the Confederate Army. But that didnt mean it never saw action.

When a 3,000-strong Union army, led by Gen. George Stoneman, approached Athens in 1864, the cannon was fired to alert town folks. Armed men quickly assembled and soon began hauling two cannons and the two-barrel artillery piece up a ridge to face the union troops. The double-barreled cannon was loaded with two balls (no chain). A four-shell barrage was launched at the approaching troops; the Union forces quickly withdrew.

Sometime after the war, the cannon was sold and its whereabouts were lost. However, in the 1890s, the historical cannon was accidentally located at a junk shop. It was brought back to Athens where it was restored. There it remains today, resting in front of city hall. The twin-barreled cannon is pointing north, just in case 
Guwahati, November 10 : Assam police had arrested few more officials of Assam Civil Service (ACS), Assam Police Service (APS) in connection with the cash-for-job scam of Assam Public Service Commission (APSC).

On Friday, the Dibrugarh police had arrested three officials in connection with the scandal, taking the total number of arrests to 21.

Additional SP of Dibrugarh district Surajit Singh Panesar said that, police had arrested ACS officers Gitali Doley, Badarul Islam and Tax Superintendent Sunayana Aideu, who were declared successful in the 2013 APSC examination and appointed by the state government in 2015.

Among them Gitali and Sunayana were produced before the Special Court in Guwahati and the court sent duo to 14-day police custody.

Earlier, police arrested 18 ACS, APS and other allied service officers in connection with the scam.

On the other hand, the Dibrugarh police has issued arrest warrant against 4 more officials namely Rajarshi Sen Deka, Rakesh Gupta, Rumi Saikia and Nishamoni Deka, who are still absconding.

Meanwhile, Dibrugarh police said, apart from 25 officials more officials would likely to be arrested soon.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
President Bidya Devi Bhandari

Kathmandu, Nepal: Finally, the medical education ordinance has come into effect after President Bidya Devi Bhandari authenticated the bill on Friday.

As president Bhandari had been delaying to authenticate the bill, it was suspected that the bill would not be authenticated by the president due to the influence of the main opposition party CPN UML.

Though the President took time to authenticate the bill, finally it has come into effects to systemize the medical education sector in Nepal.

Senior orthopedic doctor Govinda KC had been staging hunger strike demanding improvement in the medical education sector.

But the bill brought at the parliament was not presented due to the obstruction from the main opposition party CPN UML.

The newly authenticated ordinance has incorporated the provisions that the recommendations was made by the Kedar Bhakta Mathema-led Task Force formed earlier to address Dr KC's demands.

As per the provisions, Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University, which had been giving affiliations on their own way, will not be able to issue affiliations to any new medical colleges.
For half a century, doctors from Tianjin have been helping the Republic of Congo with valuable healthcare, improving the country's level of service

Medical teams from Tianjin, the second-largest city in North China, have been providing services in the Republic of Congo for 50 years.

Today, the Sino-Congolese Friendship Hospital in Brazzaville is home to the 24th Chinese medical mission. Covering a floor space of more than 6,300 square meters, with 100 beds, it is the largest comprehensive hospital in Congo. It was constructed by China State Construction Engineering Corp and was put into service in March 2013.

Since 1967, Tianjin has sent medical missions to Congo, each operating in the country for two years. The Chinese medical missions have brought advanced technology and helped to improve the level of medical service of the country.

The current group arrived in August. It has 33 doctors and is divided into two teams: 23 work in the hospital in Brazzaville and 10 in Pointe Noire, the second-largest city in Congo.

The doctors, who range in age from 32 to 55, include physicians, surgeons, gynecologists, ophthalmologists, dentists, ENT doctors and anesthetists.

"For the past 50 years, China has been engaged in the medical cause of Congo," says Martine Beatrice Ponggui, head of the hospital. "This team adapts itself to the operation of the hospital quickly. We cooperate very well."

Upon a team's arrival, the hospital evaluates its needs and works out an action plan to help the team realize its goals, says Ponggui.

"Each medical mission has a two-year service term and, beginning this year, the term changes into one year, causing a problem in the continuity of work," says Wang Zhiyong, the team leader, who is also an anesthetist.

"To tackle the problem, after a short period of working with local doctors, we decided to recruit young local people who have received medical training in China and speak Chinese," Wang says.

For members of the team, the challenge is maintaining their own health during their stay.

Liu Yumei was the first to catch malaria. Liu was a French-language major. One year after she graduated from Anhui Normal University, she joined the medical team as an interpreter and traveled to Congo.

Less than a month after her arrival, she came down with a fever. For two days, the fever remained high. Tests revealed she had malaria.

"Although I am a quiet girl, I was not afraid of being sick, since I was with the medical team," says Liu. "But the illness occurred at such an unfortunate time - my father's birthday."

"Since I came to Congo, video chatting has been a convenient way to communicate with my family," Liu says. "Each time we talk, I wish to show my parents that I am well. But this time I was unable to conceal the situation from my father.

"I was so sad at the time and it made me cry," she says.

However, her colleagues cured her malaria within a week. Their care for her also drove away her timidity.

"The doctors say I must have been bitten by an active mosquito, because I became more active after I was cured," Liu says.

panzhongming@chinadaily.com.cn
A team led by Dr. Govinda KC holding discussion on certification of ordinance on Medical Education Bill with PM Sher Bahadur Deuba, at latteras residence at Baluwater, Kathmandu, on Thursday, November 09, 2017. Photo: RSS

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said that the President has no reason to stop certification of ordinance on the Medical Education Bill passed by the Cabinet.

During the meeting with Prof Dr Govinda KC and his team at his official residence at Baluwatar on Thursday, Prime Minister Deuba said that further information would be garnered about the status of the Bill passed by the cabinet.

Saying the Bill would be certified at any cost, PM Deuba urged Prof Dr KC to remain assured in this regard, according to PMs Press Coordinator Govinda Pariyar.

On the occasion, Prof Dr KC thanked the government for bringing the Medical Education Bill through ordinance and urged the PM to take initiative before the President for its certification soon.

He also requested Prime Minister Deuba to make public the letter sent by the Education Ministry to Nepal Medical Council urging it to grant affiliation to the Kathmandu National Medical College as well as report of the cheating scandal in the recently held MBBS exams immediately.

The PM telephoned Education Minister Gopalman Shrestha and directed him to bring the letter back from the Council, said Dr Avishekraj Singh, who had accompanied Dr KC in the meeting.RSS
Chief Election Commissioner Dr Ayodhee Prasad Yadav

KATHMANDU, Nov 10: Chief Election Commissioner Dr Ayodhee Prasad Yadav has urged the concerned government bodies to monitor the excessiv spending by thee parties and their candidates in the election campaigning. The election of the House of Representatives and Provincial parliament is being held soon.

During a discussion held among government officials, industrialists and businesspersons being focused on election preparation and election code of conduct at EC Friday, CEC Dr Yadav urged the officials from Nepal Rastra Bank, Department of Anti-Money Laundering, and Inland Revenue Department to monitor the excessive flow of money by the political parties and election candidates.

"It is reported that the election campaigning has been extravagant thereby flouting EC's ceiling. It's worrying how the extravagance can be checked. Where does the money come from? What's its source? It is taxable income or not? The government body must monitor it," CEC Dr Yadav wondered and underscored.

According to him, political parties could win people's favour with their thoughts and elections manifestos rather instead of the use of money.

Election Commissioner Narendra Dahal said the EC has banned the distribution of T-shirts imprinted with party flags and election symbols. Even the producers of such materials were told to stop printing.

Another Election Commissioner Sudhir Kumar Saha requested the industrialists to donate the candidates though bank.

On the occasion, representatives of the business and industry sectors demanded that the government could pay heed to tax cut to them for their donation to the election candidates. RSS
Kathmandu, Nepal: Former Home Minister and CPN Maoist Center leader Janardan Sharma faces severe safety threats at his own home districts.

Sharma, who is also the Minister without Portfolio and candidate for the election to the House of Representative from West Rukum, was attacked by two explosive bombs on Friday.

An unidentified group had hurled two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at the vehicle of Sharma at Goiri in West Rukum but none was hurt in the incident, the Rukum Police has said.

It is said that the unidentified group had hurled the bombs at the vehicle while Sharma was coming to Simli of Sani Bheri rural municipality from Chaurjahari municipality.

Following the incident, Nepal police has managed tight security for the safety of Sharma.

The incident is taken importantly as it is believed that the Netra Bikram Chanda led Maoist, the splinter faction of the CPN Maoist Center, would have involved in the attack.

The Party had been threatening to the CPN Maoist Centers leaders alleging them for betraying the people on the name of peoples movement.

Rukum was the district where the then CPN Maoist had launched its so-called peoples revolution.
KATHMANDU, Nov 10: President Bidya Devi Bhandari has decorated for former President Dr Ram Baran Yadav with the 'Jana Aandolan Swarna Padaka (gold medal), 2074' and honoured him on the occasion of the 103rd birth anniversary of the late Ganesh Man Singh, the commander of the Jana Aandolan or People's Movement.

Dr Yadav, the first President of Nepal, was honored and decorated by the Ganesh Man Singh and the People's Movement Martyrs Peace Foundation amidst a function here on Friday.

The former President has been honored in recognition of the contributions he made in various stages of the peace process, for playing the role of a campaigner fostering unity between the Himal, pahad and Tarai and also for shouldering the historic role of issuing the constitution of the federal republic of Nepal, according to the Foundation.

Addressing the function, President Bhandari appealed to all the people to take part in the impending House of Representatives and State Assembly elections as a political celebration, the same way they enthusiastically participated in the recently-concluded local level elections.

The President appreciated the commitment shown by the political parties in completing the elections to the various levels stipulated by the constitution in time and also expressed her happiness over the eagerness shown by the parties for healthy competition in the upcoming elections.

Head of the State Bhandari opined that all the elections would help maintain the political stability and maturity in the country while strengthening the political achievements made so far. She also expressed the confidence that this would play a role in steering the country ahead on the path of social and economic transformation.

"The late Ganesh Man Singh, who as a youth established his persona as a bold and strong leader, is known as an 'iron man' and an epitome of sacrifice in the Nepalis' psyche," the President said.

The role of the late Ganesh Man Singh was significant in initiating the partnership among the Democrats for a well-developed political change in Nepal in practical terms, she added.

"On this occasion when the birth anniversary of the late Ganesh Man Singh is being commemorated, it would be a true tribute to the late leader if we worked towards holding the elections to all levels as stipulated by the constitution in a free, fair and peaceful manner," the Head of the State asserted.

Former President Yadav stressed on the need of taking the country forward towards the path of economic prosperity through the full implementation of the federal democratic constitution of Nepal which is accepted by all.

Defence Minister and Foundation chairman, Bhimsen Das Pradhan said institutionalization of democracy itself was the true respect to the martyrs.

On the same occasion, President Bhandari garlanded the statue of the late Ganesh Man Singh at the Shanti Batika at Ratna Park. RSS
CPN Maoist Centre Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal

Kathmandu, Nepal: CPN, Maoist Centre, which has forged electoral alliance with the main opposition CPN UML on the name of forming leftist alliance, has taken action against leaders and cadres who filed their candidacies in the elections to the House of Representatives and State Assemblies.

With the decision to expel the revel candidates, the party has also decided to expel even to the supporters of the revel candidates. The Decision of the party has created great sensation in the local level as most of the cadres in the local level have stand against the party policy to forge electoral alliance with the UML.

As the Maoist Center and the UML have divided tickets on the basis of 39/61 ratio respectively, it is likely that the cadres would not support to the candidate of another party. The situation has indicated that the cadres of the CPN Maoist Center would support the candidates of the UML but the situation would not remain in the context of UML.

Following the party decision to expel the rebel candidates and their supporters, the Maoist Center has sent a letter to its respective committees.

However, the party committees in the local level are not in position to follow the directives of the party, thanks to the huge numbers of the rebel candidates and their supporters, states a leader preferring anonymity.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba

KATHMANDU, Nov 10: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said the upcoming parliamentary and provincial election is a struggle between the forces whether to retain democracy or to bring communism in the country.

Prime Minister Deuba said this while addressing a programme organized here today by the Ganeshman Singh Study Foundation to commemorate the 102nd birth anniversary of Ganeshman Singh  the supreme commander of the 1990's Peoples Movement.

"UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) are joining hands to uproot democracy and establish communism in an organized manner. In the upcoming elections, people should give mandate in favour of democracy against communism", he added.

Prime Minister Deuba, also the Nepali Congress President, urged the people to make NC the first party in the elections to the House of Representatives and State Assemblies.

"Freedom of speech, free expression and multiparty competition will be a far cry in the communist regime. Event there will be no existence of human rights", he noted.

He went on saying that his party had spearheaded the people's struggle against the Rana rule, Panchayat and despotic King Gyanendra in the past and would fight against any elements adopting anti-democratic character.

The country would take strides on the fronts of democratic consolidation, constitution implementation and economic prosperity if his party became number one in the upcoming elections, he further said.

Prime Minister Deuba said that all democrats should follow sacrifice, dedication and honesty Singh had shown in course of the establishment of democracy in the country.

On the occasion, NC leader Prakash Man Singh recalled Ganeshman Singh as a leader with honesty and principles who never practiced the politics of opportunity.

Ganesh Man had devoted his life to make the citizenry sovereign liberating them from the state of slave.

Leader Ganesh Man's son Prakash Man said that the historical people's movement of 2046 BS (1990) was undertaken under Ganesh Man's leadership and at the moment he had shown high sense of flexibility to bring communists to the multiparty competition.

Foundation Chairperson and former Minister Nabindra Raj Joshi said Ganesh Man Singh would eternally remain as an iron man in the Nepali political arena while recalling his unparalleled contributions to the establishment of democracy in Nepal. RSS
Golez: PLS LEAD THE WAY FOR ASEAN MR. PRESIDENT! The Philippines faces clear & present danger from China's artificial islands! https://t.co/2txR4YyNmQ

1. PRRD SAYS HE WILL SPEAK FOR ASEAN BUY RAISING WITH CHINA PRESIDENT XI THE ISSUE OF CHINA'S ARMS BUILDUP IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: "MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte has said he will "carry the voice of Asean" and raise with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping the arms buildup on the islands China occupies in the disputed South China Sea."

2. PHILIPPINES WIHTIN RANGE OF CHINESE WARPLANES AND MISSILES TO BE DEPLOYED IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: "This comes as a map released recently by a Washington-based think tank showed the Philippines within range of Chinese warplanes and missiles being deployed to the South China Sea."

"I am chair of Asean, and I have to carry the voice of Asean. I have to tell the truth that everybody is worried," Mr Duterte said at a news briefing on Thursday (Nov 9) on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in Danang, Vietnam.

3. PRRD SAYS ASEAN WORRIED ABOUT CHINA'S MILITARIZATION OF ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS: "He said he will tell Mr Xi when he meets him on Saturday (Nov 11) that "the whole of Asean is worried about how we should behave in the seas that are now militarised, afraid that there might be a mistake and there would be shooting."

4. PRRD ASKS: "For what purpose? I really don't know," said Mr Duterte."Those arms, they are not there for any other purpose. They are not decorations. They are there because China would need them. For what purpose? I really don't know," said Mr Duterte.

5. CHINESE FIGHTER PLANES AND MISSILES: "China already has Chengdu J-10 multirole fighters, YJ-62 anti-ship cruise missiles and HQ9 surface-to-air missiles stationed on Woody island in the Paracel chain of islands near Vietnam."

6. CHINESE AIRCRAFT AND MISSILES CAN REACH PALADIN, EVEN METRO MANILA: "The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (Amti) said these same aircraft and missiles, once deployed to the Spratlys archipelago, will reach Palawan province in western Philippines, and even metropolitan Manila."

China claims two-thirds of the South China Sea, a vital sea lane through which US$5 trillion (S$6.6 trillion) in ship-borne trade passes every year.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have their own claims that overlap with China's.

7. PER INTERNATIONAL ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL, CHINA CLAIMS IN SOUTH CHINA SEA HAVE NO BASIS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: "In 2016, an international tribunal ruled in a case filed by the Philippines that China's claims have no basis in international law. China refused to accept the ruling. It has instead fortified four of the six islands it occupies in the Spratlys with airstrips, hangars and shelters."

8. CHINESE AIR DEFENSE IDENTIFICATION ZONE IN SOUTH CHINA SEA: "Analysts have said China intends to establish an "air defence identification zone" over the South China Sea and punch deeper into the Pacific, nearer US military bases in Japan and Hawaii."

"Once assets are deployed to the Spratlys, it will make life much more difficult for the Philippines and everyone else who has traditionally operated in and around the Spratlys and the waters west of the Philippines," said Amti Director Greg Poling.

Relations with China sank to historic lows under former president Benigno Aquino, as Manila pursued an aggressive approach to push back against China's expansion in the South China Sea. Mr Aquino's government filed the case in The Hague challenging Beijing's claims.

Mr Duterte opted to set aside the ruling against China's claims, as he sought warmer ties with Beijing.

In turn, China has pledged billions worth of investments and backed Mr Duterte's counter-terrorism efforts and his controversial anti-crime drive.

Mr Duterte said he will tell Mr Xi that he intends to remain a friend to China "but I have to ask him questions reflecting the sentiments of Asean".

9. PRRD "SAID HE HAS SEEN SURVEILLANCE PHOTOS THAT SHOWED "ALMOST ALL THE ISLANDS (CHINA OCCUPIES) WERE MILITARISED ALREADY".

"That means those are arms that are poised to fly. So, it is not wrong for me to tell China, 'Look, you already place heavy artillery there. It (makes us) wary, worried because we are also using the passage," he said.

"That means those are arms that are poised to fly. So, it is not wrong for me to tell China, 'Look, you already place heavy artillery there. It (makes us) wary, worried because we are also using the passage," he said.




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Mathew Burciaga is a Santa Maria Times reporter who covers education, agriculture and public safety. Prior to joining the Times, Mathew ran a 114-year-old community newspaper in Wyoming. He owns more than 40 pairs of crazy socks from across the globe.
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 Making the case against International Megan's Law | Main | "Is It Time for Criminologists to Step Outside the Ivory Tower?" 

November 10, 2017

Nebraska moving forward with execution plans involving a new four-drug(?!) lethal injection protocol

The state of Nebraska has not had an execution in two decades, and the state's legislature actually abolished the death penalty back in 2015. But voters in 2016 brought the death penalty back, and this local article reports on recent work by the state's Attorney General to carry out the will of the people. And the article, headlined "State of Nebraska moves closer to executing Jose Sandoval by lethal injection, but legal challenges appear likely," explains why the novel execution method adopted in the state seems sure to engender litigation:

The State of Nebraska took a big step Thursday toward executing its first death-row inmate in 20 years, using an untried combination of lethal-injection drugs. Attorney General Doug Peterson said Thursday that he is prepared to request a death warrant for Jose Sandoval after at least 60 days, which is the minimum notice period for condemned inmates under the states execution protocol. The Nebraska Supreme Court issues death warrants if an inmate has no pending appeals. A check of state and federal court records Thursday showed that Sandovals last legal challenge was decided against him in 2011 and that he has no active appeals. Its unclear whether he currently has a lawyer or will contest the states plan to execute him. But experts say the new four-drug combination officials unveiled Thursday has never been used by another state in a lethal injection execution. Legal challenges over the drugs could further delay what would be the first time Nebraska has used lethal injection to carry out an execution. Twenty years ago, the state relied solely on the electric chair. Its yet another experimental protocol. Now the lawsuits begin, said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services notified Sandoval that it will inject four drugs in the following order: diazepam, fentanyl citrate, cisatracurium besylate and potassium chloride. Diazepam (brand names include Valium) is a benzodiazepine that is used to produce a calming effect. Fentanyl citrate is a general anesthetic that has been used since the 1960s. As an opioid, it also blocks pain, which has made it a popular a street drug linked to lethal overdoses. Cisatracurium besylate (brand name: Nimbex) relaxes or paralyzes muscles and is used along with a general anesthetic when intubating patients or doing surgery. The final drug, potassium chloride, is used to stop the inmates heart. It was the only drug that was also used in Nebraskas former three-drug combination. Dunham said the four drugs selected by Nebraska have not been used in combination by another death penalty state. The third drug, cisatracurium besylate, has not been used before in an execution, he added. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, said that in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court established a fairly high hurdle for those who would stop a lethal injection. In deciding a lethal injection dispute in Oklahoma, the court said that to prevent an execution, the drug must present a demonstrated risk of causing severe pain in the inmate and the risk must be substantial compared with known alternative drugs, Scheidegger said. The objection that a drug has never been used before is not valid by itself, he said. The announcement that Sandoval had been selected for execution was somewhat surprising, given that several other inmates have been on death row longer than he has. Sandoval was the ringleader of a 2002 botched bank robbery that left five people shot to death. He was later convicted of killing two men before the bank shootings. Vivian Tuttle, whose daughter, Evonne, was gunned down by Sandoval as she stood in line to cash a check, said she had been waiting for this day. He needs to be executed, and Nebraska has the drugs to do it now, Tuttle said Thursday.... State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the leading opponent of capital punishment in the state, said the new and untested protocol would inspire lengthy legal action. Theyre far from being at the point at which an execution can be carried out, Chambers said. I think the rough ride has just begun. The senator said he thought that Thursdays announcement was more a political and public relations move tied to Gov. Pete Ricketts bid to win a second term as governor. The Republican governor helped organize and fund a petition drive to reinstate capital punishment last year after the Legislature in 2015 overrode his veto to repeal the death penalty. Danielle Conrad, director of the ACLU of Nebraska, said she was horrified that the state plans to use Sandoval as a test subject for an unproven lethal drug combination. Her organization, she said, will closely evaluate the constitutional questions raised by the states plan. This rash decision will not fix the problems with Nebraskas broken death penalty and are a distraction from the real issues impacting Nebraskas Department of Corrections: an overcrowded, crisis-riddled system, she said in a press release.... Sandoval was considered the leader of four men who attempted to rob the Norfolk bank. He shot and killed three of the victims. He is one of 11 men on death row, which is at the Tecumseh State Prison.

November 10, 2017 at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Comments

Carfentanyl is not only lethal, it is a potent pain killer, 10,000 times as potent as morphine, 100 times as heroin. It could be used to operate on a rhinoceros in the zoo.

It is cheap, on the internet, from many Chinese suppliers. It can be ordered with a credit card or with bitcoin. It will arrive by mail. It is user friendly, and predictably effective. It shuts down the brain, including the breathing center, and other centers maintaining heart rate and blood pressure.

Prison industries may also produce it easily, but will never beat the cost of Chinese suppliers. Danielle Conrad of the ACLU can also relax, since it proven, and has a long track record. Its close relative, fentanyl, is FDA approved, and marketed as Duragesic.

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 10, 2017 11:47:23 AM

I have wondered why large opiate doses have not been suggested,somewhat along the lines of how some states do use barbiturates. I suspect a lot of it is that there is a puritan streak saying that it's not allowed to have any part of an execution - no matter how fleeting - actually pleasant for the condemned.

I do admit there are some secondary issues, for example opiates would need tight controls in order to ensure that none of the supply gets diverted into the general prison environment. But I still suspect that the first is the "real" reason.

Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Nov 10, 2017 9:52:54 PM

An ambulance EMS tech had to be Narcaned, nodding out driving a Narcaned patient to the hospital. His partner had to grab the wheel, pull the ambulance over, resuscitate the guy.

A drug dog, a heavy German shepherd, started nodding out, and had to be Narcaned, after sniffing a crime scene.

Would the diversion of carfentanyl into the general prison population be that bad a side effect of its adoption for the death penalty?

As an executioner, I would certainly be covered, wear gloves and a respirator.

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 11, 2017 10:58:50 AM

A complex, unpredictable death penalty drug administration has to have been devised by lawyers, under court supervision.

Result? The stupidest method of execution. The way of imbeciles.

Posted by: David Behar | Nov 13, 2017 2:21:36 AM

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The talks took place following a welcome ceremony for Chiles President Michelle Bachelet Jeria who is on a State visit to Vietnam from November 8-9.President Quang spoke highly of the Chilean Governments close coordination and active support for Vietnams hosting Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2017 as well as the organisation of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders Week in central Da Nang city.Vietnam attaches importance and wishes to deepen the comprehensive partnership with Chile, he stressed.President Bachelet extended her deep sympathy to Vietnamese leaders and people over great human and property losses caused by recent typhoon Damrey, downpours and floods in Vietnams central region.She noted that Chile considers Vietnam an important partner in Asia-Pacific, and congratulated the country on its contributions to APEC development through hosting APEC 2017.The two leaders commented on the fruitful comprehensive partnership over the past years across fields, ranging from politics to trade, which has grown from 30-40 percent annually since the Vietnam-Chile Free Trade Agreement took effect on January 1, 2014. In 2016, bilateral trade value reached US$ 1.1 billion, increasing more than two times over 2013. In the first nine months of this year, the figure was close to US$ 960 million, up 29 percent against the same period last year.President Quang used the occasion to thank the Chilean Government for supporting Vietnams candidacy to the UN Security Council for 2020-2021.Host and guest agreed to maintain the exchange of delegations at levels among sectors, localities and businesses, and such mechanisms as the bilateral free trade council and political consultation at the deputy foreign ministerial level.The two countries will also work to complete a legal framework for bilateral cooperation and create the best possible conditions for their businesses to access the respective markets.At the same time, they will establish trade and investment ties in agro-fishery production and processing, high-tech agriculture, mining, bio-technology and climate change response, while facilitating export and import of farm produce.They consented to step up collaboration in culture, science-technology, education-training, tourism and other spheres.Vietnam and Chile agreed to boost their collaboration at international organisations multilateral forums, especially the UN, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), APEC, negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC), along with promoting cooperation between ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance (AP) in an effective and pragmatic manner.Talking about regional and international issues of shared concern, the two Presidents noted their support for settling sovereignty and territorial disputes by peaceful measures on the basis of respect for international law, particularly the UN Charter and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as diplomatic and legal processes.President Bachelet invited President Quang to pay a State visit to Chile in the time ahead. The Vietnamese President accepted the invitation with pleasure.Following their talks, the two Presidents signed the Vietnam-Chile joint statement and witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation agreements, including a Governmental-level memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in caring children and adolescents who are Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims in Vietnam; an agreement on income activities for relatives of diplomats and employees of consulates, representative offices and international organisations; and a MoU on cooperation between the two countries academies of diplomacy.They then met with the press to inform outcomes of their talks.Also on November 9, President Quang hosted a banquet in Hanoi for President Bachelet and her entourage.

VNS
There were bombshell allegations in a Thursday report by the Washington Post that U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, when in his 30s, sought relationships with teen girls in Alabama.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, who represents Northwest Iowa, read reports that such establishment Republicans as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others said that if the allegations were true, Moore should step aside.

That apparently moved King, roughly six hours after the initial WaPo story to tweet out a link to a story about McConnell's stance, topping the tweet with his stance: "Judge Roy Moore told to withdraw by Senators who wont or cant help move Trump agenda."

Judge Roy Moore told to withdraw by Senators who wont or cant help move Trump agenda. https://t.co/CIu13mbsvo  Steve King (@SteveKingIA) November 10, 2017

The takeaway is that King, who represents the Iowa 4th congressional district, doesn't want Republicans to flee Moore's candidacy. King has apparently made no additional public comments about Moore as of Friday.

From the Associated Press: "Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore abruptly faced lurid allegations Thursday of sexual misconduct with minors decades ago  and an immediate backlash from party leaders who demanded he get out of the race if the accusations prove true.

"The instant fallout followed a Washington Post report in which an Alabama woman said Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14. Three other women interviewed by the Post said Moore, now 70, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s."

This reporting is of note because Moore in October won a Republican primary to become the party's nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama. Voters in that state will decide between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones in Dec. 12 special election. No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat since 1992.

In September, King had endorsed Moore. King's statement at the time included, "There is no stronger, more principled Constitutional Christian conservative than Judge Moore."

In shorthand for a lot of people, Moore is known as The 10 Commandments Judge -- the justice who erected a monument to the commandments outside the Alabama courthouse, refused to take it down, then was removed from his position in 2003 for his intransigence.

Moore considered running for president when Democrat Barack Obama was standing for re-election in 2012. Moore came to Sioux City in April 2011, when he spoke to 150 people during the same week he had formed an exploratory committee to seek the presidency.

The Moore stop six years ago was at a lecture series by then-Morningside College professor Sam Clovis. Of course, Clovis, who went on to be a top official in Donald Trump's presidential campaign, made considerable news last week.

Clovis has been questioned in connection to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged meddling by Russia in the 2016 campaign, according to media reports. Clovis testified before an October grand jury seated in Washington, D.C.

Clovis, was propelled into the middle of Mueller's high-stakes probe on Oct. 30 with the unsealing of court documents related a guilty pleading by George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos, who was secretly arrested in July for lying to the FYI and pleaded guilty last month to those charges, is cooperating with Mueller's investigation, according to the documents.

Among the court documents uncovered, Clovis in an August 2016 email urged Papadopoulos to "make the trip, if it is feasible."

The attorney for Clovis, Victoria Toensing, said Clovis never told Papadopoulos that "a principal foreign policy focus of the campaign was an improved U.S. relationship with Russia," because that was not Clovis' view of Trump's foreign policies priorities, Toensing said.
If Dunkirk wins this years Best Picture Oscar, itll be the 17th to deal with war.

Sure, some like Casablanca, have broader stories to tell , but the ranks are filled with films that use some kind of conflict as a backdrop. Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, From Here to Eternity and The Bridge Over the River Kwai are among that heady group.

Since 2000, however, only one war-related film has won Best Picture. Thats The Hurt Locker, a gritty drama that brought us the horrors of Iraq.

In reverse order, here are the six best war films since 2000:

6. Son of Saul

A prisoner in Auschwitz charged with burning bodies struggles to find one that happens to be his son. Directed by Nemes Laszlo, this offered a different kind of battle  one thats played on the heart and the mind.

5. Hacksaw Ridge

What if you dont like to fight but feel an obligation to enlist? Thats the true story Mel Gibson tells of Desmond Doss, the first man to win the Medal of Honor without firing a shot. Andrew Garfield was magnificent as the medic with might.

4. Flags of our Fathers

Clint Eastwood, no stranger to war films, raised a winner with this drama about the six men who lifted the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima.

3. The Pianist

While Schindlers List may be the most powerful war film made, this certainly gives viewers a harrowing look at life in the Warsaw ghetto in World War II. Adrien Brody made us feel every moment of his pain as a musician just struggling to survive.

2. The Hurt Locker

Kathyrn Bigelow took audiences into the heat of the Iraq War by showing what happens when a sergeant is dropped into an army bomb squad unfamiliar with his rebel ways. Jeremy Renner hit the radar with this film.

1. Lincoln

Steven Spielberg got one of those lifetime performances out of Daniel Day-Lewis as the president struggling with the Civil War and what it means to be free.
SIOUX CITY -- Serving Her Country: Women in the Military, a photo exhibit honoring women veterans, will open with a program at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Betty Strong Encounter Center in partnership with the Sioux City Journal.

Admission will be free; a reception will follow.

The exhibit and opening program by Journal columnist Tim Gallagher will culminate The Journals 20-part series, Serving Her Country: Women in the Military, produced by Journal newsroom staff.

Serving Her Country comprises portraits by Journal photographers Tim Hynds, Jim Lee and Justin Wan. Exhibit text is drawn from stories by Journal staff writers Alex Boisjolie, Dolly Butz, Mason Dockter, Tim Gallagher, Bret Hayworth, Earl Horlyk, Nick Hytrek, Ian Richardson and Ty Rushing.

Gallaghers illustrated program will explore stories and images in Serving Her Country and their impact on readers.

Thanks to The Journal website, readers also can hear the vets tell their stories: www.siouxcityjournal.com. The Encounter Center exhibit will run through early June. The closing program will be at 2 p.m. June 13.
WAYNE, Neb. -- The Wayne State College Language and Literature Department, the School of Arts and Humanities and the WSC Press will be hosting this falls Plains Writers Series at 1 p.m. Thursday.

The Plains Writers Series is hosted several times a year in an attempt to bring attention to the prose and poetry of local Great Plains writers through reading and interacting with area audiences. The authors will read their poems in the lounge on the second floor of the Humanities Building at Wayne State College.
Oh, my. Oh, my.

I remember hearing that phrase when I was very little. One of the great-grandmothers used to say it. Or maybe it was a neighbor. It could have been more than one person. All I know for sure is that its a phrase used when words simply escape and disappear. Something so unthinkable happens that the person responding cant find any words that accurately describe their surprise and shock.

Thats what I say to myself when I hear of yet another shooting. The horrific shooting in the Baptist Church in Southerland Springs, Texas, during church services last Sunday. I sadly shake my head and hear myself saying those very words over and over.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

The story slowly unfolds as the stories of those affected unfold. Real people with real lives who are loved by real people who are grieving unthinkable, unimaginable loss.

And I remember another time. Im a little girl who walks over to the National Guard Armory after school to practice the piano. My dad works there. At the end of the day, after many sour notes have been beaten out of the old upright piano, I sweep the drill floor for dad. Then we go outside. I help him gladly, knowing what to do because Ive done it so many times before.

I walk past the picture of Captain John Paul Jones in the hallway. The British asked him to surrender during the American Revolution. He answered, I have not yet begun to fight.

Next to him is Nathan Hale. His last words spoken on this earth were, I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. Then the British hanged him for spying.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

We walk past more old pictures. More brave words spoken during tough times. Outside, Dad lowers the flag, never allowing it to touch the ground. We solemnly, reverently, fold the symbol of our country using proper flag folding technique. I think of the people in the pictures who sacrificed so much for our freedom.

Dad takes the folded flag and puts it in a safe place indoors. All seems right with the world. Not perfect, but right. It was a time when we learned right from wrong. From our parents. From our Sunday School teachers. From the Bible.

The lessons of faith learned so long ago were learned in little rooms in a little church not unlike the one in Southerland Springs. With good people not unlike the ones who belong to that beautiful Texas church. Good people not unlike the ones who were murdered in Texas while they were in the middle of worshiping our Lord.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

Words escape me. I think of Lazarus. Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha. They were his home away from home. They were his beloved friends. Lazarus dies. The sisters are grief-stricken. Even though Jesus knows how this story will unfold, hes still moved to tears with compassion for their grief. He knows the end of the story, yet his love causes him to weep.

Jesus calls Lazarus by name to come forth. He calls him out of the dark tomb into the light. He does the same with us. He calls each one of us out of the darkness of this world into his beautiful light of truth, of forgiveness, of love, of eternal life.

Jesus tells others to remove Lazarus grave clothes. He does the same with us. Throw off all that hinders us in this life. Walk freely towards our Savior, Jesus Christ. Dont let anything or anyone get in the way.

Many years ago in a little Sunday School room in a humble church in a small town I learned that theres only one way to Heaven and thats through the one who died on the cross for my sins and for your sins, Jesus, the Son of God. He also died for the sins of those who do not believe in him. And for the sins of those who murder others.

No matter what unfolds in this life, that truth is still true.

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die (John 11:25).

Oh, my. Oh, my.

Kathy Yoder is a devotional writer. She may be reached at kathyyoder4@gmail.com.
In the early 1940s when a teenage boy deftly flung the newspaper to front porches in Twin Falls, Idaho, little did he know that in a few short years he would be part of the news. Nor did he know how words on a page would be a lifeline.

"Pearl Harbor happened smack in the middle of my senior year," Bob Bush of Richland, Washington, recalled in 2013 before his death slightly over a year later.

But at only 17 years old and with high school graduation ahead, the patriotic student knew he would have to wait to join the war effort. And like a typical teenage boy, his eyes were more focused on a pretty girl in his class rather than on the distant war.

"I had dated one of her girlfriends," the then-89-year-old reminisced. "But Aleene had first noticed me earlier because I delivered the newspaper to her parents' house."

In time, the two connected, passing notes in school as their romance blossomed.

"The study hall monitor caught it, and I had to get up in front of the class and read the note," Bob said in 2013, recalling with a shudder the embarrassment he felt. "It was a short note, like, 'Where are you going to meet after school, maybe at the ice cream parlor?' It wasn't 'I love you,' just innocent puppy love."

Little did the high school couple realize how note writing would prove to be a vital link during the difficult years of World War II.

"We wrote to each other every day," the Army veteran said about his bride of only six months before being deployed. "It took about two months for the mail to get there. Everything went by ship."

Life was harsh at the distant homing outpost in Assam province, India, where Bob led his three-man team in directing planes from missions over China back to the airstrip. Not only was there a high degree of isolation where he was stationed, but the daily meals were C-rations and everyday necessities were scarce or nonexistent -- even toilet paper.

To pick up mail and supplies, it meant a long trek from their tents through tea plantations to a docked U.S. ship. Aleene's letters always included writing paper, another item in very short supply.

What the young military man wrote to his wife on her stationery was always scrutinized.

"Where we were located was a secret," Bob said, reflecting on the danger of "loose lips." "If we tried to slip anything that was valid information, it was censored." Then he commented with a smile, "I wouldn't even put anything like 'sweet nothings' in the letter because the censor would see them."

Nevertheless, his love was understood and while he sacrificed a comfortable life to help defeat the Japanese, Aleene worked stateside to save her allotment of his Army check. On their first anniversary, a gold wedding band engraved with both of their initials arrived in the mail, the same initials they had signed on their high school love notes.

The couple's deep love rose above the stressful war years, staying constantly strong until they reunited at war's end. Their beautiful life together came to a close just short of 65 years of marriage when Aleene died in 2008.

"We were very close from the beginning," Bob said, reflecting on their years together, noting they knew each other four years before the wedding. "We shared everything in our married life, even had a joint retirement in 1987 from Hanford."

On lonely days, Bob would visit Aleene's grave where a picture of the two of them is on her headstone. And on quiet evenings, this man of deep faith would ponder one specific message they exchanged during the long war.

"While overseas, I had a very memorable dream about Aleene one night where she lovingly said my name," Bob remembered with reverence in his voice. "I immediately sent a letter to her to tell her about it and when it had happened -- a letter I knew wouldn't reach her for two months."

As the ship crossed the Pacific Ocean, Aleene had already penned a letter to her husband, the two notes crossing in the mail. When his wife's letter arrived, Bob read her words and was stunned.

Aleene had described a vivid dream in which Bob lovingly called her name.

The dates both dreams occurred? The same.

Perhaps true love always finds a way to stay in touch.
English toffee

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 1200 Douglas St., is taking orders for its English toffee. A 4-ounce box is $6 and an 8-ounce box is $12. Call the church office to place your order at 712-258-0141. Sales will continue until Dec. 19.

Bible study

Redeemer Lutheran Church invites the Sioux City community to a special Bible Study presentation from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. Sunday in the parish hall. Wayne and Debbie Sadler will present a "Storm Chasers" video of the October Woodbury tornadoes of 2013. The storm chasers were in their area of 1618 Lee Avenue in Correctionville, Iowa. The Sadlers will talk about how this experience has changed their lives. Coffee and sweet rolls will be served.

Craft fair

Immanuel Lutheran Church, 315 Hamilton Blvd., will host its Christmas Festival Craft Fair and Bake Sale from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday. There will be many vendors, craft items and baked items. Lunch items will be available. Free admission, handicapped accessible.

Thanksgiving

Dakota City United Methodist Church, 1523 Locust St., will host its Annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner from 5 to 7 p.m. Nov. 18. A free-will offering will be accepted. Everyone is welcome.
Small stones, about the size of landscape rocks and brightly painted with inspirational messages, have been cropping up around Sioux City lately.

They're hand-painted, and each one has a unique (and often intricate) design.

Who's been leaving these cute little things all over the place?

Some of it is the work of the Sioux City Rocks club, a Facebook group dedicated to painting small rocks, hiding them for people to find, and encouraging finders to post the rocks on Facebook before re-hiding (or keeping) them.

Husband-and-wife team Mitchell and Sammy Stevens Finnesgard began the rock club a year ago this month. They were inspired after Sammy's sister came to visit from Washington state and told them of a rock club there.

"I said, 'Oh I wish we had a club here, that would be fun, I want to leave rocks and have people find them,'" said Sammy, a nurse at Mercy Medical Center. "She's like, 'Why don't you start it? You can start it -- I think you can you do it!'"

So Sammy got got busy painting rocks, while her husband got to work on a Facebook page.

"I kind of laughed at them. I was like, 'Ah, painting rocks is kind of silly, not a big deal,'" said Mitchell, a Mercy Air Care helicopter pilot and Army veteran. "At one point I was like, 'Eh, whatever, I'll pick up paint and start painting' -- hadn't picked up a paintbrush for 15 years -- and I start painting and I'm like, 'Hey, this is kind of fun!'"

Now people regularly ask Mitchell if he would be willing to paint a special rock for them.

One of the rocks he showed off has a highly detailed image of snowmen crossing a crosswalk while cars idle at the stoplight. Another has a small camping scene and the words "Life is good" painted on it. He calls this his "mantra rock."

"He's very good," Sammy said.

Was Mitchell artistic in his youth?

"No, not at all, that's what's funny about it," he said as his wife laughed.

A small world of rocks

Sometimes, a rock is taken on quite an adventure once someone finds it.

"It's fun to watch because it'll pop up and then it'll disappear for a few days, then it'll pop back up somewhere else, then it'll disappear, and it'll pop up," Mitchell said.

Rock clubs have been cropping up all around the country. Mitchell's sister lives in Valdosta, Georgia, and is a member of the rock club there. Oddly enough, one day a rock from the Valdosta club made it all the way up to Sioux City and was left at the Milwaukee Wieiner House.

The rock's photo made it back to the Valdosta rock club's Facebook page, where Mitchell's sister saw it.

"So she sent me a screenshot of Valdosta's rock that was left in Sioux City," Mitchell said. "I was like, 'Whoa, it's a small world!'"

The rocks are usually hidden in high-traffic areas where people are likely to find them -- on sidewalks, in parks, downtown, in front of stores and the library, and once inside the Jackson Street Brewery (with permission).

"We left it on a table, and we went there like two weeks later and it was still there," Sammy said. "It did disappear eventually."

There is one part of town where Sioux City Rocks hasn't yet been very active yet -- but they're working on it.

"Not a lot has happened on the west side," Sammy said.

"We've been trying to venture over there a little bit more," Mitchell added.

A slow start

When the club first started, the rocks and their Facebook page didn't get too much attention -- it was winter, after all.

"Just this summer it started kind of exploding," Mitchell said.

Now the Sioux City Rocks Facebook page has about 2,800 followers, some of whom actively paint and hide their own rocks.

"A lot of really good artists," Sammy said.

But you don't have to be a pebble-Picasso to join in the fun.

"It doesn't matter what age you are, or what talent level you are," Mitchell said.

A lot of people post pictures of rocks and say they were inspired by the messages painted on them.

"They're just like, 'I found this rock at Mercy,' and they just got a diagnosis, and they found a rock and it just cheered up their day," he said. "It provides a little bit of light for somebody."

"One person said it really helps with her anxiety," Sammy said.

Earlier this month, the group had their first rock-painting gathering.

"I think only 13 people RSVP'd, but we had almost 50 people there," Sammy said. "It was just getting together and painting rocks."

Previously, all the rocks were painted by people on their own, and the participants didn't really know one another.

"It was nice to meet some people face-to-face, we've been doing this club online," Sammy said.

The activity has become so popular, Sioux City Rocks isn't even the only rock club in town -- there are also 712 ROCKS and Sioux City Joy Rocks.

Fortunately, there's a lot of rocks to go around, and plenty of places to hide them. So the competition probably won't get too intense.

Sioux City Rocks will have its next rock painting event on Dec, 2, at 1:30 p.m. at the Aalfs Library, 529 Pierce St.
SIOUX CITY | In honor of Veterans Day, members of the American Legion will hold a flag-raising ceremony 8:30 a.m. Friday at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery in downtown Sioux City.

A press release said the event is open to the public. Crew members from the USS Sioux City and city officials will be in attendance.

The restaurant is located at 501 Gordon Drive and the ceremony will be at the outdoor patio area near the flagpole. Perkins is well-known for its 20-foot-by-30-foot American flag that is flown outside all of their eateries across the country.

In addition to the flag raising, a press release said all veterans will receive a free breakfast on Veterans Day Saturday.
MAPLETON, Iowa | Vernis Phillips clocked-in on Main Street in Mapleton, sight-unseen, 66 years ago.

"I didn't know anyone in town," Phillips says.

The year was 1951. Phillips, a World War II veteran from Lake View, Iowa, had just completed two years of work for a watchmaker in nearby Sac City. When a traveling salesman stopped through Sac City, he suggested that Vernis, if he wanted to branch out on his own, take a look at Mapleton.

"The man said it was a good town for business," Vernis recalls.

The watchmaker/jeweler agrees. Mapleton has been a good place for Phillips Jewelry, a "mom-and-pop shop" that has kept folks here running on time for 66 years.

After wrapping up a different interview in Mapleton on Wednesday, I check the clock and find myself with a few extra minutes. I saunter into Phillips Jewelry to meet Vernis, who sits at his bench, surrounded by tools as tiny as a centipede's legs.

"I grew up in Lake View," Vernis says. "My dad was a machinist and my mother, a housewife. Dad had a heart attack and died when he was 58. It happened in 1944, my senior year in high school."

Vernis, who had worked on the railroad and in gravel pits during the summers of his youth, was drafted by the U.S. Army after high school, shortly after World War II ended. Months later, he was destined for Korea, about to step on a ship when orders for him and 16 fellow soldiers changed.

"I had my duffel bag on the ship already," he says. "But my orders were changed and I was sent to Texas, where I joined an outfit that worked on closing bases."

Then, while traveling with fellow soldiers from California to Texas, their train wrecked, killing nine, injuring 109. Vernis escaped injury. "Our car did not upset, although it went off the tracks," he says.

Vernis completed his tour, a veteran of World War II. He returned to Lake View and secured a job with a contractor. He was a bricklayer tender for one year before heading to the Kansas City School of Watchmaking, joining a pal from Lake View who was already enrolled.

"We did watchmaking and jewelry repair," he says of his two-year course of study, a regimen that preceded a one-year apprenticeship in Sac City that expanded into a full-time job one year later.

Vernis was at work in Sac City when the salesman suggested he look at Mapleton. Vernis did and set up shop in a building where Hoffman Insurance Agency stands now. There was one other jeweler in town at the time. For decades, there's just been Mr. Phillips.

"My first shop location had been a restaurant, but it had closed," he recalls. "I took roughly half the area of the building and a harness maker had the other half."

Vernis put up a sign in 1951 and placed ads in the newspaper, a lone proprietor hoping to make ends meet in a new community. He stayed at that site for three months, then moved west down Main Street, next door to where his shop has been since the mid-1960s, on the 400 block, in a building he purchased when he relocated.

Vernis's family suffered a tragedy when his wife, LaDonna, died in 1960, leaving him alone with their two young children. The family, though, expanded in June 1962, when Vernis and Marlene Carstens, who had come to Mapleton from Fremont, Nebraska, to teach high school home economics, exchanged marital vows. The couple would add a third child to their family and now boast of having five grandchildren.

Two of their children, Marlene says with a laugh, have clocked-out on their respective careers, beating their dad to retirement.

Marlene quit teaching after she and Vernis married. She raised their children, then joined him at Phillips Jewelry years ago. On this afternoon, she counts back a customer's change before reminding the patron to register for a free Thanksgiving turkey. As the clocks chime in unison at the top of the hour, Vernis tends to the exacting details of watchmaking at his space in the back.

"This watch takes a certain sized battery," he says, reciting the number 3-7-1 on the back. He opens a drawer, finds the right battery, one-third the size of a baby aspirin, then turns back to his work.

The watch-repair pro shrugs off my questions about retirement and, like a world-famous brand, keeps on ticking.

"I work because I enjoy it," he says. "I like the repair end of this and the joy of solving problems. My eyesight is good -- 20/20 in the left eye, 20/25 in the right -- and my hands are still steady."

And while he's not relishing the day when Father Time asks him to set down his tools, Vernis says he eagerly anticipates the clock striking 12 on Dec. 6, his 90th birthday. The people -- his gifts, you might say -- mean more than any number.

"For me, turning 90 will be special because the kids are coming back," he says.
SIOUX CITY | The Lyon County Sheriff said Friday the helicopter that crashed earlier in the week was from a Sioux Falls business and that the injuries to two people were not life-threatening.

Lyon County Sheriff Stewart Vander Stoep said the helicopter, piloted by Robert Krier, went down less than one mile southwest of West Lyon Community Schools outside Inwood, Iowa, after it struck an electrical wire Monday.

Vander Stoep said the pilot and another man had been searching the area for missing cattle, which were reported loose Monday.

Krier worked for Ride the Sky Helicopters and his passenger, Steve Ahrendt, were transported to Sioux Falls hospitals. The sheriff said Krier received head injuries and Ahrendt had broken ribs.

"They were not life-threatening injuries," Vander Stoep said.

Representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration are still investigating the incident to pinpoint a cause, including if any helicopter equipment malfunction took place.

Vander Stoep said helicopter crashes are rare in Lyon County. He estimated a prior crash was about 20 years ago, when Vander Stoep was a deputy for the sheriff's office.
ROCK VALLEY, Iowa | A Rock Valley man has been arrested on a first-degree murder charge, after police said Santos Rodriguez Jr. killed his grandfather and burned the home where the two men lived.

Luis Leuvanos, 84, was discovered dead in the home in the 1400 block of 15th Street in Rock Valley after emergency officials responded to a fire on Oct. 29. The home was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived at 2 a.m.

The Rock Valley Police Department, in consultation with the Sioux County Attorney, continued to research the case with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. The investigation found Luevenos received multiple stab wounds prior to the fire.

Police discovered Rodriguez traveled to Utah after the fire. After local law enforcement agents located in Utah, Rodriguez admitted stabbing his grandfather and intentionally setting the fire afterwards, Rock Valley Police Chief Monte Warburton said in a news release Friday.

Rodriguez is charged with first-degree murder, a class A felony, and first-degree arson, a class B felony. He is currently in custody in Utah, awaiting extradition back to Iowa with his bond set at $1 million.

Rock Valley is a Sioux County city of about 3,700.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from a police chase through Sioux City's west side.

Timothy Mercer, 22, waived his right to a preliminary hearing on Wednesday and filed a written plea of not guilty in Woodbury County District Court.

Formal charges have yet to be filed against Mercer. He was arrested Oct. 31 on charges of eluding, third-offense operating while intoxicated, assault on a police officer, driving while license barred and numerous traffic violations.

According to court documents, Mercer sped away from an officer who attempted to stop him near West Fourth Street and Hamilton Boulevard. Mercer led officers on a chase at speeds exceeding 90 mph onto Riverside Boulevard and through a residential neighborhood before police brought his pickup truck to a stop after he attempted to collide head-on with a police car.

According to court documents, tests showed Mercer had a blood-alcohol content of 0.114 percent, above Iowa's legal limit of 0.08 percent.
SIOUX CITY | Not quite two months since being sentenced to seven years in prison for shooting his three-year-old sister in the face with a BB gun, a Sioux City teenager has been released from custody and placed on probation.

Adrian White, 18, pleaded guilty Sept. 11 in Woodbury County District Court to single counts of assault causing serious injury and child endangerment and was sentenced to prison.

District Judge Steven Andreasen on Tuesday reconsidered Adrian White's sentence and suspended the remainder of White's prison term. White was placed on three years probation.

White shot his sister twice while playing with a BB gun May 17 at a home in the 400 block of West Third Street.

One BB fractured the girl's jaw and the other BB entered her eye and lodged next to her brain. One BB was surgically removed, but the one near her brain was left in place because doctors considered the surgery too risky, court documents said.
SHELDON, Iowa | Kathleen Osterman's parents, Jim and Marye McKenna, of Storm Lake, Iowa, were World War II veterans. Jim McKenna, of the U.S. Marine Corps, flew reconnaissance missions for the U.S. Navy at Guam; Marye was a U.S. Army nurse in San Francisco.

The couple farmed and raised eight children at Storm Lake and sent them all to St. Mary's High School in town.

Kathleen, the third child in the family, was at St. Joseph's School of Nursing in Sioux City when her parents' financial situation wobbled briefly, due to an agricultural calamity at the time.

"I enlisted in 1968 and, in 1969, the Army paid for my final year of education," Osterman said, alluding to her motivation. "I graduated and then owed the Army two years."

The Army got much more.

Osterman, then known as Kathleen McKenna, went through basic training in San Antonio, Texas. She then trained as an operating room nurse in Denver, Colorado, for 16 weeks. Following a short stint in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where she had to parachute from a plane before graduating, Osterman found herself flying to Vietnam, for a one-year tour of duty as an operating room nurse serving at Da Nang.

"It was a hot spot as the Navy was there," she remembered. "We had incoming rockets. I remember going into bunkers to wait it out."

Osterman stepped off the plane, dropped her gear and went to work. She assisted with an amputation on her first day.

"In all my training, I'd never seen an amputation done before," she said. "That was my first case in Vietnam."

The soldier survived, thanks in large part to the quick and dedicated duty of those serving him, all the way from the field to post-op.

"The enlisted ranks, the ranks of doctors and nurses, it was so incredible working with all of them," Osterman said.

The assortment of instruments, for example, to treat a soldier in surgery would cover what's called a Mayor tray at the hospital at Da Nang. The tray, according to Osterman, was about the size of a cookie sheet.

"You'd have the instruments on that tray that you needed to take the bullet from a soldier's head," she said. "We used to say that 'in the world' (which meant, civilian world), you'd have a huge assortment of tools."

Osterman and her fellow operating room nurses often worked seven days per week, 12 hours straight each day, early on in her tour of duty. And while the work pace slowed a bit in 1971, she wouldn't trade the frenetic pace for all the education in the world.

"I knew I'd learn more in that time than in years of practice in a civilian setting," she said.

Communication with her parents was sparse at the time. Osterman spoke with her mom and dad just once during her overseas service. The phone call took place when Osterman was on a break in Hong Kong in May 1971, eight months after she had landed in Vietnam.

"Mom used to write a couple of times per month," she said. "My dad wrote three or four times while I was in Vietnam. I also wrote letters home to them."

A brother, Michael McKenna, served in the Iowa Army National Guard at the time. He wasn't overseas, though.

"Our family was for the military," she continued, noting how she didn't have much of an idea U.S. public opinion was largely divided on the Vietnam War. Osterman said she was there to put her skills and training to work, to do what she could to save soldiers' lives and help them heal from their wounds.

"I was never scared while I was there," she said. "And when it came time for me to leave, I was sad, even though I had counted the days and crossed off each day in a calendar in my room."

Sad to leave? "You make relationships in wartime," she concluded. "You get really close while working with people who share that common cause. We had a great team caring and doing all they could for our soldiers.

"Yes, when my helicopter took off, I was sad," she said.

Osterman, though, had no desire to return. And, to this point, she hasn't revisited Vietnam.

She did, however, return to military service. After her honorable discharge in 1971, Osterman went to work as a nurse at Mercy Medical Center in Denver, Colorado. One year later, she entered the U.S. Army Reserves and stayed another 21 years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

Along the way, she earned a master's degree from the University of Notre Dame. She recruited nurses for Mercy Medical Center in Denver, then became a director of nurses at Sheridan Memorial Hospital in Sheridan, Wyoming, where she met her future husband, Bruce Osterman, a banker. The couple wed and had two children, Tim Osterman, now of Remsen, Iowa, and Meghan Owen, of Houston, Texas.

The Ostermans moved to Sibley, Iowa, in 1985. Kathleen Osterman served as the school nurse at Sibley-Ocheyedan for 23 years, a position that allowed her to segue from acute to more of a preventative role on the health-care spectrum.

"I loved being the school nurse," she said.

In 2009, she began teaching yoga at the Osceola Community Hospital in Sibley. She branched out and began teaching the discipline at the Lifelong Learning Center on the campus of Northwest Iowa Community College in 2010. Osterman, who turned 70 on Wednesday, educates anywhere from one person at a time to a dozen or so.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa  If running for office was easy, Fred Hubbell says, I might have done it a long time ago.

Now retired from leading Younkers retail stores and later the Equitable of Iowa life insurance company, as well as stints chairing the Iowa Power Fund and as interim director of the state economic development department, Hubbell, 66, is running for office for the first time.

Hes not running because being governor was on his bucket list.

Im not interested in the title, he said while in Cedar Rapids earlier this week. Im not interested in moving back into Terrace Hill, the governors residence that the fifth generation Iowans family gave to the state in 1971. Im interested in making Iowa a better place. Im just a vehicle to make the state a better place.

Hubbell, one of seven Democrats running for the partys 2018 gubernatorial nomination, believes state government is suffering from a lack of leadership on priorities such as education, health care and mental health. Theres also a lack of moral leadership, he said about the various lawsuits GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds and her predecessor, Terry Branstad, have been involved in and all the sexual harassment claims that are being ignored.

His lack of experience as an elected office is less important than the experience he gained leading business organizations and activities in the nonprofit sector, Hubbell said.

Ultimately, voters are looking for somebody who knows how to get things done and puts people first and will invest in people to grow our state, he said.

In those roles, he said hes learned the value and importance of listening to people talk about what is working in their communities, what could work better and if there are ways the state can help.

Hubbell differentiates himself from others in the Democratic primary in June, pointing out that its rare to find businessmen running for office that have as long of a progressive track record as my wife (Charlotte) and I do.

Were a little different than most progressives or most business people, he said. My campaign is a strong combination of both and I think thats amplified by not having been a politician.

In addition to Hubbell, the other Democrats running for governor are Ross Wilburn, Andy McGuire, Jon Neiderbach, John Norris, Sen. Nate Boulton and Cathy Glasson.
DES MOINES -- Six candidates looking to unseat Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2018 - four Democrats and two Republicans - agreed Thursday they would repeal privately managed Medicaid and replace it with a state-run system offering quality, reliable services and paying Iowa providers on time.

Democrats Andy McGuire, Cathy Glasson, Jon Neiderbach and John Norris shared the stage with Republicans Ron Corbett and Steven Ray at a Rebalancing Health Care in the Heartland forum co-hosted by the University of Iowa Health Science Colleges and the Iowa Rural Health Association.

All of the 2018 gubernatorial hopefuls in attendance questioned whether the switch to a privately managed $5 billion Medicaid system in April 2016 actually has saved money and now likely faces continued instability and uncertainty with one of the three managed care organizations exiting, forcing thousands of Iowans to switch company enrollments.

"I have never witnessed more imbalance in health care across the state," said Norris, who has served in a variety of roles in the state, federal and private sector.

"This privatization of Medicaid is a failure and the sooner they admit it and take this back into the successful government-run program it was before, the better off we're all going to be in this state," said Norris. "It's hard for anyone to admit failure, but the longer they deny it, the longer our most-vulnerable Iowans will suffer."

McGuire, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman who is a medical doctor, said she encounters a lot of Iowans while campaigning who "feel like they're not getting a fair shake" and see the current administration at the Statehouse as "putting profits ahead of people" by contracting Medicaid services with private insurance companies.

"What they're doing right now with Medicaid privatization isn't working," McGuire said. "I'm somebody who is a health care expert. I can help fix this."

Corbett, a former speaker of the Iowa House and now mayor of Cedar Rapids, said Iowa faces problems in the Medicaid and mental health areas because in both instances former Gov. Terry Branstad made "top-down decisions" without proper vetting or input from Iowans.

"It wasn't a bottom-up desire from the citizens of the state of Iowa or the providers of the state of Iowa - we want change, we need change," Corbett said of Medicaid privatization, "it was a top-down decision, and when the top-down decision was made, the people weren't even brought in as a part of the process."

Private companies aren't bad, Corbett said, they just have a different mission to turn a profit, which sometimes results in beneficiaries being denied services and providers being denied reimbursements.

He said he would support some services for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable Iowans returning to a fee-for-service basis and enlisting nonprofit Iowa entities to manage other Medicaid services rather than out-of-state companies.

"We have definitely got a health care crisis in this state and in this nation," said Glasson, a Coralville registered nurse and union organizer, who called for a "Medicare-for-all system" at the federal level, but, if need be, Iowa should step forward and establish a universal single-payer plan in the meantime.

"Real people are forced to make gut-wrenching decisions every single day about their care," Glasson said. "When it comes to saving people's lives, we can't just tinker around the edges. We have to stand up for bold, progressive ideas and solutions."

Neiderbach, a former Des Moines school board member who previously worked as a state government policy analyst, described himself as a "common-sense radical" who sees the need for deep reform "from the ground up" beyond just health insurance issues to address structural problems and improve outcomes while making quality health care accessible and affordable.

He also proposed having the state take over funding of the mental-health system, which ranks among the nation's worst, but Corbett advocated for maintaining low control while easing the burden on property taxpayers.

Ray, a Boone City Council member and former state public safety employee, expressed concerns that the state has shifted costs to local government entities and questioned whether privately managed Medicaid was providing the savings, control and accountability that were promised when the changeover was made.

"I think we're better off going back to have the state run it myself," he said.

Organizers of Thursday's event said all announced candidates for governor in 2018 were invited to the forum, including Reynolds, but neither the governor nor acting Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg could attend due to scheduling conflicts.
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska's attorney general has chosen Norfolk killer Jose Sandoval as the next condemned prisoner to die, after a 20-year hiatus in executions in this state.

No request to the Nebraska Supreme Court for an execution warrant has been made, but Corrections Director Scott Frakes served notice to Sandoval Thursday of the lethal injection drugs that would be administered to cause his death if an execution takes place.

State regulations require the prisons chief to notify condemned inmates 60 days prior to the attorney general requesting an execution warrant.

Attorney General Doug Peterson said he is prepared to request the Supreme Court issue Sandoval's execution warrant after at least 60 days have elapsed from the notice.

Corrections officials have chosen a new protocol for administering lethal injection drugs and have purchased diazepam, fentanyl citrate, cisatracuriam besylate and potassium chloride.

The drugs were purchased in the United States and received into the department's inventory Oct. 10, said Dawn-Renee Smith, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.

She would not name the company or suppliers from which they were purchased, or say whether the supplier was local or a compounding company. The Journal Star is pursuing the answers to those and other questions.

Nevada has a similar drug protocol, but uses three drugs: fentanyl, diazepam and cisatracurium. That protocol is in question after a judge said Wednesday she may cut a paralytic (cisatracurium) from the states previously untried lethal injection plan, after hearing that it could mask movements reflecting awareness and pain, according to The Associated Press.

The Nebraska department has tested its drugs for quality, according to a Corrections news release.

Sandoval, 38, is housed on death row at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution. He was convicted and sentenced to death 13 years ago for killing five people at the U.S. Bank branch in September 2002.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, said in spite of the notice he doubted an execution was going to be carried out any time soon.

He and others need to know where the drugs came from, and whether there was a private compounding company manufacturing them, he said.

Other issues that have to be resolved, he said, include whether or not this combination of drugs has been used anywhere else, even though that would not bind Nebraska; whether or not the combination of drugs would be effective in accomplishing an execution; and whether they were designed to be used to take someone's life.

The Associated Press reported in April that a German pharmaceutical company spokesman said potassium chloride the Nebraska Corrections Department had purchased in 2015 was not intended to be sold to a state corrections department. A distributor had tried unsuccessfully to get the department to return the drugs.

The fact that the department is withholding certain information, Chambers said, indicates it is not fully transparent and may feel there are weaknesses in what they are doing.

Chambers charged that the notice of intended execution drugs is timed to coincide with Gov. Pete Ricketts re-election campaign.

Ricketts responded saying: "Last year the people of Nebraska reaffirmed that the death penalty remains an important part of protecting public safety in our state."

Thursday's announcement is the next step to carrying out the sentences ordered by the court, he said.

ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said the organization was horrified" that the department planned to use Sandoval as a "test subject for an untested and experimental lethal injection cocktail."

"This rash decision will not fix the problems with Nebraskas broken death penalty and are a distraction from the real issues impacting Nebraskas Department of Corrections: an overcrowded, crisis-riddled system," she said.

America is a nation turning away from the death penalty, Conrad said, with more and more states seeing that ending capital punishment means improving public safety. Fiscal conservatives, faith leaders and public safety officials are increasingly leading efforts to replace the death penalty.

The ACLU will continue to discuss the states misguided plan with experts locally and nationally and evaluate the grave constitutional, legal and policy questions associated with this untested protocol, she said.

The attorney general said in a statement he agrees with the notice that was given to Sandoval.

"Sandoval planned the Sept. 26, 2002, Norfolk bank robbery when, in less than a minute, five innocent people were brutally shot and killed," Peterson said in a news release.

The dead included bank employees and customers. Sandoval personally killed three people, two more people were killed, and three more were in the midst of the gunfire that day. Sandovals crimes were captured on video.

The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld Sandovals convictions and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court then denied further review of the sentence. Sandoval never filed any challenges to the Supreme Court decisions, Peterson said.

The last execution in Nebraska was Robert Williams in December 1997. It was carried out with an electric chair.
Can the American taxpayers expect personal thank you notes from Rep. Steve King, Donald Trump, Jr. and their entourage for their recent hunting trip near Akron, Iowa?

I mean, who paid for this vacation - excuse me, this political maneuvering of Rep. King? I wonder how much it cost considering all the security involved, meals, hotel rooms, plane fares, etc.

Oh, I wonder if NRA lobbyists had anything to do with this trip? By the way, I am from a family of hunters and have no problem with hunting. - Richard Rosenbaum, North Sioux City, S.D.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The House's top Democrat investigating Russia's election meddling on Tuesday declared that in many ways President Donald Trump is "far more grave a threat" to American democracy than the Kremlin.

Rep. Adam Schiff cited a litany of actions by Trump, from appointing Cabinet officers with "direct conflicts of interest" and goals of dismantling their agencies to limiting Muslim immigration and discrediting federal judges.

As for the president's own possible jeopardy, Schiff said Trump is trying to disparage the credibility of special counsel Robert Mueller and the congressional panels that are investigating possible coordination between his campaign and Russia in the election that put him in the White House.

"So no matter what is produced, he can say it's a fake," the California congressman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I do feel our democracy is under threat," Schiff said. Trump's approach to governing, he said, "is a serious problem and in many respects far more grave a threat than anything coming from outside the country."

The interview came as Trump jetted across the global stage on his first official trip to Asia. But back in Washington, FBI and congressional probes continued to churn. Trump has insisted that the FBI investigation, including the federal indictments of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the guilty plea of former adviser George Papadopoulos, have nothing to do with him.

"It's disappointing, though hardly surprising, that Adam Schiff would make hysterical and demonstrably false comments about the president, and then claim to be objective in his oversight duties," said Raj Shah, White House principal deputy press secretary.

Schiff also had sharp words for Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet  Google's parent company  who he said were stonewalling investigators about sharing data that could possibly link the Trump campaign to Russian interference.

Among the questions Schiff said the social media companies could help resolve is whether Americans were surreptitiously targeted by the Russians in ways that were "sufficiently specific and overlapping" that they would have required input directly from the Trump campaign.

When the companies were asked for such information, Schiff said: "They were noncommittal, but we will continue to press them."

Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, also suggested that Russian contacts with Trump campaign aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page were part of a larger Russian effort to infiltrate the Trump campaign and that WikiLeaks served as a Russian proxy to leak damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton without involving Trump campaign aides directly.

Asked if his House panel was investigating the president personally, Schiff said it was not focused on specific people. But he also said the probe could focus on Trump himself.

"No one is off the table," Schiff said.

As House Democrats have pursued their focus on Trump and his campaign, House Republicans, urged on by Trump, have launched their own investigation of Clinton and her role when she was secretary of state in the sale of a uranium mine to Russia. Schiff accused House Speaker Paul Ryan of giving his "blessing" to a coordinated effort to handicap the Russia probe.

"I think the speaker, ultimately the buck stops with him. And whatever he is allowing, he is blessing. And in this case what he is blessing is an effort that I think was orchestrated by the White House and its external allies to distract from the Russia probe," Schiff said.

He also said it will be difficult to stave off efforts by the Russians  or others  to interfere with the next presidential election as long if the White House doesn't help get to the bottom of 2016 and Trump still denies there was interference to help him.

In the meantime, he said, the time for clarity about the 2016 election is now.

"We don't wait until there's a constitutional crisis. We need the White House to get the message now that there will be a dramatic pushback should he try to fire Bob Mueller," Schiff said. "I think we're all going to be held to account one day for what we did when our democracy was under threat."

___
The Sullivan brothers, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert, enlisted in the U.S. Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the condition they be allowed to serve together. They served together aboard the USS Juneau, and all went down with the ship after it was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.

The five brothers deaths are considered the greatest combat-related loss of life by one family at one time in U.S. military history. The Juneau and the Sullivans earned four battle stars for engagements in which they were involved.

While theres been a policy against military family members serving together as the Sullivans did, its never been formally enacted as a law.

According to the Department of Defense, the so-called Sullivan Rule, fully supported by the Sullivan family, was a good idea that never went anywhere.

Early in the 1950s, legislation was introduced to ensure that family members would not serve in the same area of combat operations, however, this legislation was never passed, according to a DOD memo.

However, an informal version of the Sullivan Rule went into effect Jan. 17, 1991, the day then-President George H.W. Bush officially designated the Persian Gulf area as a combat zone. Under that policy, siblings could request to serve in separate combat areas.

At the start of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Jim Sullivan, son of Albert, traveled to Washington, D.C., backing Congressional legislation  the Sullivan Act  that would prevent other families from enduring the same calamity his family experienced. The bill faced opposition from the Pentagon. It was never passed.
International Relations  November 10, 2017  Dick Nichols

Judge Carmen Lamela of Spains National High Court  direct descendant of the fascist Franco-era Court of Public Order  took the war of the Spanish state against the Catalan pro-independence government to a new level of judicial violence on November 2.

It was not enough that the two leaders of the Catalan mass pro-independence organizations the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Catalan cultural and language association Omnium Cultural, were already in jail. It was not enough that the Catalan government had been sacked on October 27 under article 155 of the Spanish constitution. Now the deposed ministers had to be humiliated.

Facing charges of rebellion (up to 30 years jail), sedition (up to 15 years jail) and misuse of public money, eight of the ministers were sent into preventive detention, supposedly to prevent them destroying evidence and fleeing the Spanish state.

The decision immediately provoked a new huge storm of protest across Catalonia. There were demonstrations outside town halls and the countrys parliament and a deafening evening cassolada (banging of pots and pans). A planned November 12 demonstration in Barcelona looks set to be oceanic.

The minority, but rapidly growing, Intersindical-CSC trade union confederation has already called a general strike in the coming days.

The judges action was immediately denounced by Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who is in Belgium with his remaining four ministers. It is expected they will soon be subject to a European arrest warrant, but it is far from certain that the Belgian legal system will return them to the Spanish state.

December 21 Poll

The detentions will also impact the debate within Catalonias pro-independence and pro-sovereignty parties over the snap December 21 elections. The new elections were called by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of his plan to marginalize the Catalan independence movement.

Rajoy announced his intervention under article 155 of the Spanish constitution on the same day the Catalan parliament officially declared an independent republic. In the aftermath, a war of position was almost universally expected: Rajoy and Co would move to behead the Catalan government, sack its senior executives, purge the Catalan police, public broadcasting and education systems, offer election bribes to parts of the population and then  and only then  risk regional elections.

No other strategy seemed possible in a country where unionism (constitutionalism to its supporters) had won less than 40 per cent of the vote at the September 2015 plebiscitary Catalan elections that put pro-independence forces into government. So it was a surprise for all sides when Rajoy moved with lightning speed  for the first time in his political life  to call Catalan elections for December 21.

Three main factors determined this decision to go early. Firstly, confidence that the considerable body of pro-Spanish voters who traditionally dont vote in Catalan elections could be mobilized by a hysterical campaign against secessionism. Secondly, hope that the pro-independence camp will split between those favouring a boycott of December 21 and those who support standing. The third and most pressing need was to end, once and for all, the international debate about the legitimacy of recent Spanish state actions (such as sacking an elected government).

The biggest risk with Rajoys move is that it could create unity among the often fractious pro-independence and pro-sovereignty forces. This could occur behind an election campaign to validate the Catalan Republic declared by parliament on October 27, or behind a broader campaign to oppose Madrids 155 coup and build support for a Catalan right to decide.

At the time of writing, the Spanish Peoples Party (PP) governments hope of provoking a split between pro-independence forces in favour of a boycott and those who will stand on December 21 looks to be failing. This seems especially so after Puigdemont announced at an October 31 Brussels media conference that the Catalan independence movement was not afraid of the ballot box.

The November 2 jailing of the ministers only makes a more united approach by forces deciding to stand more likely. The conservative nationalist Catalan European Democratic Party (PDECat) and the centre-left nationalist Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), partners in the outgoing Together for the Yes (JxSi) ruling coalition, had previously both announced they would meet Rajoy at the polls. Media reports suggest opinion within the anti-capitalist pro-independence Peoples Unity List (CUP) was also swinging that way.

Boycott?

The initial gut response of many pro-independence activists on hearing about Rajoys election announcement was to say the independence movement should boycott. This reaction did not just come from the CUP (whose MP Mireia Boya tweeted that it would be an ideal day for a community paella).

Members of PDECat and the ERC also condemned Rajoys elections as illegitimate. David Font, PDECat mayor of Gironella, said: Lets see if these elections Rajoy wants to have on December 21 he doesnt have to have in the streets, because the councils arent going to provide halls.

Joan Manuel Tresserras, close to the ERC and a former Catalan culture minister, told the daily Ara on October 30 that pro-independence forces should certainly not run on December 21.

He added: Another thing would be if it wouldnt be right to call the constituent elections [envisaged in the Catalan Law of Jurisdictional Transition] and, if necessary, even have them on the same day as those called by the Spanish government.

It is important that the government make a proposal and that this be discussed and agreed with the CUP and the other components of the pro-independence bloc. If The Commons [Catalunya en Comu, the left-wing party of Barcelona mayor Adu Colau that supports the right to decide but not necessarily independence] are there too, all the better.

Impact of Madrids Coup

However, these sorts of projections were quickly invalidated by the real state of play in Catalonia resulting from Madrids coup. That brought the Catalan independence advance, and all the future projections arising from the October 27 independence declaration, to a halt.

The declaration of the independent Catalan Republic was, without doubt, an inspiring and proud moment for hundreds of thousands of Catalans. It was the result of a decade of struggle culminating in the extraordinary David-over-Goliath achievement of holding the October 1 referendum under assault from 10,000 Spanish state police.

It was also something that older generations of militants thought they would never live to see. Now the Catalan Republic lives in the hearts and minds of millions, and the Catalan struggle exists as never before as a spectre haunting European, and even world, politics.

Yet, just one week after the Spanish state takeover, most of the institutional structures of the Catalan Republic have been demolished:

The Catalan police have been brought under the control of the Spanish interior ministry and their previous chief sacked;

Police protection was withdrawn from Puigdemont and his ministers;

All Catalan diplomatic missions have been terminated, with the exception of Brussels, where the Catalan representative to the European Union has been sacked;

All Catalan agencies associated with the transition to independence have been closed down;

The parliament has been suspended, a state of affairs accepted by speaker Carme Forcadell; and

Puigdemont, his ministers, Forcadell and the other members of the speakership panel who allowed debate and the vote on independence face charges of rebellion and sedition.

In this situation, calling for the Puigdemont government to implement the resolutions attached to the declaration of independence is not realistic. His cabinet is in no condition to make them operative.

The impossibility of building and defending the institutions of the fledgling Catalan Republic after the Rajoy coup has made taking part in the December 21 poll inevitable: the thought of what the PP and Citizens would do with Catalonias institutions if they got their hands on them ultimately makes a boycott unthinkable.

Resistance

However, the political force of the Puigdemont government has not vanished. The presidents October 31 Brussels media conference with five of his ministers, attended by 300 journalists, was proof of that.

Puigdemont appealed to the world about the basic questions at stake in the Catalan struggle: Do the Catalans have a right to self-determination? Is the Spanish constitution and legal system democratic? Was the October 1 referendum binding?

The goal of the conference was to appeal to the ordinary citizens of Europe over the heads of the European institutions that have lined up with the Rajoy government. This aimed at raising pressure for negotiations and dialogue, which several European leaders have talked about.

Puigdemont said he would accept the result of the December 21 election and challenged Rajoy to do the same. He also challenged the European Union and the international community to support Catalonias right to self-determination.

He denounced the legal action taken against his government for doing what it promised to do, and repeated the commitment of the government, pro-independence parties and mass movement to non-violent methods  even while calling on Catalans to resist Madrids assault on Catalonias institutions.

Puigdemont was also explaining to independence supporters in Catalonia thrown by the Madrid coup how the strategic position had changed, as well as putting the Spanish political and legal system on trial.

The beheading of the Catalan government in no way means popular resistance has ended, as the November 2 protests showed.

If the managers imposed from Madrid move against Catalonias firefighters, railway workers, teachers, health workers and other public servants, they will likely run into a wall of non-cooperation. They will face resistance organized through the most active trade union confederation and the Committees to Defend the Republic.

The countrys 750-plus pro-independence councils (out of a total of 947) will also continue to project the symbols of the Catalan Republic and organize what disobedience they deem possible in their liberated zones.

Approaches to December 21

This reality has led all pro-independence and pro-sovereignty forces in Catalonia  with the possible exception of the CUP that will decide its approach on November 12  to accept the need to stand in Rajoys illegitimate December 21 election.

Before November 2, it seemed unlikely this campaign would see a new edition of the JxSi alliance between PDECat and ERC. This was despite ANC and Omnium Cultural pressing for a single pro-independence ticket, potentially headed by Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the jailed leaders of these mass organizations.

The right nationalist PDECat has been the big loser from the independence process (and is now down to 10% in the latest polls compared to 31% for its once junior partner the ERC). The mood in PDECat has been one of wanting to recover conservative Catalan voters unnerved by the independence processs leftward shift.

Former business minister Santi Vila, who publicly opposed the October 27 independence declaration, has put himself forward as the leader of this moderate independentism. He will, however, be opposed by other PDECat leaders who remain loyal to Puigdemont and the independence process.

The ERC scheme for December 21 has been that of a republican front that excludes PDECat, while trying to attract unaffiliated independence activists and, in particular, Podemos Catalonia. Led by Albano Dante Fachin, Podemos Catalonia has fallen out with the Podemos leadership in the Spanish state over the latters refusal to ally with any pro-independence forces for December 21.

As for the campaign of Catalunya en Comu, it will be led by Xavier Domenech (presently leader of En Como Podem in the Spanish parliament). Its central theme will be defence of Catalonias institutions against Madrids intervention.

Podemos Catalonia, which is not part of Catalunya en Comu, has raised the possibility of a united campaign by all forces  pro-independence or not  that support a Catalan right to decide and oppose Rajoys planned destruction of Catalan autonomy.

However, Podemos Spanish-wide general secretary Pablo Iglesias publicly opposes an alliance with pro-independence forces. He judges it would destroy any chance of Catalonia en Comu winning support from working-class unionist voters  in Catalonia and across the Spanish state. Their vote would go to the PSC or even the new-right Citizens.

On October 29, the Podemos Spanish-state leadership instructed Podemos Catalonia to hold a membership poll with the question: Do you support Podemos standing in the December 21 elections in coalition with Catalunya en Comu and related political forces that do not approve either the declaration of independence or the application of article 155, with the word Podemos in the name of the coalition and on the voting paper?

The Iglesias leadership is almost certain to win this ballot  which Fachin is boycotting  but that result wont solve the challenge that the November 2 arrests have dramatized.

That challenge is how to maximise support for pro-independence and pro-sovereignty forces in the face of what is certain to be a brutal campaign aimed at scaring every last doubter about Catalan independence to vote for the unionist parties.

To stand a chance of defeating it, Catalunya en Comu will have to do more than just saying, as it has to date, neither 155 nor the unilateral declaration of independence. 

Dick Nichols is running a live blog on the Catalan struggle for independence.

Postscriptum

As a contribution to the debate on electoral strategy in Catalonia, I recommend the following comment by Borja de Rique, an eminent Catalan historian, which I have extracted from his article in Viento Sur Poner los pies en el suelo. My translation from the Spanish version published in Viento Sur on November 1, 2017. (Richard Fidler)

It is quite clear that we must participate in the elections of December 21 although they have been called by the government in Madrid. Not to participate would be an act of folly. We would run the risk that Ms. Arrimadas [leader of the Catalan Citizens party] would become president of the Generalitat [the Catalan government] and that this institution would then be converted into a type of provincial office subject to the directives of the Spanish government. In my opinion, we have to run in the elections defending anti-repression and pro-sovereignty approaches. Today the political dividing line is situated  as has been sufficiently clear since the Sunday demonstration  between those who support the application of article 155 and those who are opposed; between those who think it is fundamental to demand the democratic right of the Catalan people to decide their future and those who argue that the citizens of Catalonia do not have that right.

A few days ago I was defending the formation of a unitary candidacy, similar to Solidaritat Catalana, including persons from the political formations and the citizens organizations that for more than seven years have declared themselves in favour of the right to decide. Faced with the difficulties that this can involve, and taking into account the recent statements by the party leaders, I think that at a minimum it will be necessary to ask them to include the following three demands as common and priority elements of their programs. First, the release of those detained and the stay of proceedings in all of the criminal charges, fines and sanctions of a political character. Second, the demand for immediate repeal of the application of article 155 to the Generalitat. And finally, the demand for a binding referendum with guarantees concerning the future of Catalonia.

If it can be demonstrated with real votes that more than two thirds of the citizens of Catalonia wish to be consulted in a binding referendum, reject the application of 155 and demand amnesty, that will demonstrate to international opinion the intransigence and political blindness of the Rajoy government and favour the possibilities for mediation to attain a referendum.

It may also be necessary to think about a program for government with broad parliamentary support that after the electoral victory will rigorously ensure that this program is carried out. We have to be realistic: even after a hypothetical victory, we will face a long period of tensions with the government in Madrid and their international counterparts. Nor should we discount the need for a unitary Catalan strategy of intervention in Spanish politics to try to get Mariano Rajoy and the PP out of the government in Madrid and create a political scenario more favourable to negotiation.

Things being what they are, it is necessary to avoid the political confrontation being centered on the Catalan Republic, the proclamation of which was questionable. That is not the dilemma that must be put to citizens in the forthcoming elections. The pro-sovereignty movement must go on increasing its strength and not risk losing it. There are social sectors that until very recently were in an expectant position, with doubts about the process, but who were not hostile to it and who were angered by the police brutality of October 1. We must not lose that social layer, which may be electorally decisive at a time when the forces defending article 155 are mobilizing people who until recently were fairly passive and indifferent. I think that the political alternative to the unionist sectors should be clearly centered, combined with the aforementioned anti-repression demands, on the demand for a democratic consultation on the future of Catalonia that is fully guaranteed. 

This article first published on lifeonleft.blogspot.ca.
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.
Earth from Space: Viti Levu, Fiji. ESA

The Copernicus Sentinel-2B satellite takes us to the Republic of Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 September 2017. Part of Fijis largest island, Viti Levu, is pictured here, with coral reefs speckling the water.

Shaped by volcanic activity and earthquakes, the centre of the island is dominated by forests and a mountain range. The highest peak, Mount Tomanivi, reaches over 1320 m and is located on the central-right side of the image. While the area east of the mountain range receives heavy rainfall, the west side pictured here is in the rain shadow, meaning that the mountains block the rain clouds, leaving this area drier than the east.

In addition to the human population of some 600 000, one of the largest insect species also resides on Viti Levu: the giant Fijian long-horned beetle. The island is the only known home to the beetle, which grows up to about 15 cm long  excluding antennae and legs.

With more than 300 islands, the Fijian archipelagos low-lying coastal areas are at risk of sea-level rise  a devastating consequence of climate change. Satellites carry special instruments to measure sea-level rise  but not only. Different instruments can measure different climate variables, from greenhouse gases to melting glaciers, and offer a global view of the state of our planet.

The Republic of Fiji holds the presidency for this years COP 23 (Conference of the Parties) on climate, held this week and next at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change headquarters in Bonn, Germany.

In February 2016, Cyclone Winston struck Fiji, damaging tens of thousands of homes and buildings, leaving more than 130 000 in need of shelter. With the COP 23 Presidency, Fiji calls for everyone to come together to build partnerships for climate action between governments, civil society and the private sector  and to work together to improve the climate resilience of vulnerable nations and communities.

 Zoom in and download the full high-resolution image.
Looking under the antarctic ice sheet NASA

A new NASA study adds evidence that a geothermal heat source called a mantle plume lies deep below Antarcticas Marie Byrd Land, explaining some of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet.

Although the heat source isnt a new or increasing threat to the West Antarctic ice sheet, it may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed rapidly in an earlier era of rapid climate change, and why it is so unstable today.

The stability of an ice sheet is closely related to how much water lubricates it from below, allowing glaciers to slide more easily. Understanding the sources and future of the meltwater under West Antarctica is important for estimating the rate at which ice may be lost to the ocean in the future.

Antarcticas bedrock is laced with rivers and lakes, the largest of which is the size of Lake Erie. Many lakes fill and drain rapidly, forcing the ice surface thousands of feet above them to rise and fall by as much as 20 feet (6 meters). The motion allows scientists to estimate where and how much water must exist at the base.

Some 30 years ago, a scientist at the University of Colorado Denver suggested that heat from a mantle plume under Marie Byrd Land might explain regional volcanic activity and a topographic dome feature. Very recent seismic imaging has supported this concept. When Helene Seroussi of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, first heard the idea, however, I thought it was crazy, she said. I didnt see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it.

With few direct measurements existing from under the ice, Seroussi and Erik Ivins of JPL concluded the best way to study the mantle plume idea was by numerical modeling. They used the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM), a numerical depiction of the physics of ice sheets developed by scientists at JPL and the University of California, Irvine. Seroussi enhanced the ISSM to capture natural sources of heating and heat transport from freezing, melting and liquid water; friction; and other processes.

To assure the model was realistic, the scientists drew on observations of changes in the altitude of the ice sheet surface made by NASAs IceSat satellite and airborne Operation IceBridge campaign. These place a powerful constraint on allowable melt rates  the very thing we wanted to predict, Ivins said. Since the location and size of the possible mantle plume were unknown, they tested a full range of what was physically possible for multiple parameters, producing dozens of different simulations.

They found that the flux of energy from the mantle plume must be no more than 150 milliwatts per square meter. For comparison, in U.S. regions with no volcanic activity, the heat flux from Earths mantle is 40 to 60 milliwatts. Under Yellowstone National Park  a well-known geothermal hot spot  the heat from below is about 200 milliwatts per square meter averaged over the entire park, though individual geothermal features such as geysers are much hotter.

Seroussi and Ivins simulations using a heat flow higher than 150 milliwatts per square meter showed too much melting to be compatible with the space-based data, except in one location: an area inland of the Ross Sea known for intense flows of water. This region required a heat flow of at least 150-180 milliwatts per square meter to agree with the observations. However, seismic imaging has shown that mantle heat in this region may reach the ice sheet through a rift, that is, a fracture in Earths crust such as appears in Africas Great Rift Valley.

Mantle plumes are thought to be narrow streams of hot rock rising through Earths mantle and spreading out like a mushroom cap under the crust. The buoyancy of the material, some of it molten, causes the crust to bulge upward. The theory of mantle plumes was proposed in the 1970s to explain geothermal activity that occurs far from the boundary of a tectonic plate, such as Hawaii and Yellowstone.

The Marie Byrd Land mantle plume formed 50 to 110 million years ago, long before the West Antarctic ice sheet came into existence. At the end of the last ice age around 11,000 years ago, the ice sheet went through a period of rapid, sustained ice loss when changes in global weather patterns and rising sea levels pushed warm water closer to the ice sheet  just as is happening today. Seroussi and Ivins suggest the mantle plume could facilitate this kind of rapid loss.

Their paper, Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions, was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.
Theres no shortage of great coffee in Berlin. It seems as though when you walk down almost any street, you find cafes lined up within just a few feet of each otherfor miles on end. While this is convenient and favorable for most, it can be difficult to uncover true coffee visionaries in the sea of cafes in the city.

Rosa Wolf is one of the newest shops to open in Berlin. Founded summer 2017, it sits on Eberswalder Strae, just a few feet from the busy Schonhauser Allee in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. For Berlin, Rosa Wolf is a rare findpart curated magazine/bookshop, part specialty coffee shop. Berlin cafes shy away from experimentation and all cafes tend to offer the standard experiencecoffee, pastries, maybe a food menu. Rosa Wolf is more about the experience of coffee and reading. The book and coffee phenomenon has been covered here before, but most on our radar have been US-based. With the hopeful revival of print, its encouraging to see more places like this popping up.

Domenico Gutknecht came up with the idea to open up a space dedicated to coffee and print with his partner Joao Cidade through their shared love of magazines. Ive always loved magazines and Ive always loved coffee, Gutknecht says. First I had the plan to open a shop for magazines and books. I wanted to combine it with something else and immediately thought about a cafe. For me, it just makes sense to offer reading material together with drinks. Whenever I bought magazines or books, I headed to the next coffee place to read it there.

Rosa Wolfs reading selection is carefully curated. Just like the coffee, the print material is something thats chosen for a reason. The focus lies on the magazines, Gutknecht says. We try to get a wide selection of titles that are already known to magazine enthusiasts but combine them with new titles from all over the world that we feel passionate about and want people to see. The book selection complements the magazines: we offer beautiful titles with a focus on art, photography, architecture, design, and travel. As our shop is close to Mauerpark, which is very popular with tourists, we also stock some city guides and books about Berlin.

Visitors at Rosa Wolf will be delighted with both the coffee and print choices. The cafe serves beans from The Visit, located just a few miles away in Kreuzberg. The drinks are made on a La Marzocco Linea Classic and ground on a Mahlkonig. Like the print material and coffee at Rosa Wolf, the cups are also carefully selected. All drinks are served in Kaffeeform mugsa sustainable company reusing coffee grounds in a novel, beautiful way.

Kaffeeform collects coffee grounds from local coffee shops and turns them into mugs that look a bit like wood, smell like coffee, and are super light. We really love them! Gutknecht says.

Gutknecht and Cidade love coffee and the beauty of print. They want to share their passion with locals and curious visitors at Rosa Wolf, which is why they aim to attract more people to their shop with various events. It would certainly be nice to have some events at Rosa Wolf, like magazine and book launches, readings, exhibitions, etc. Were open to everything and cant wait to see how everything will turn out.

Tatiana Ernst (@TatianaErnst) is a Sprudge staff writer based in Los Angeles. Read more Tatiana Ernst on Sprudge.
A former chief executive officer of a major North American Standardbred racino has been fined $60,000 by a presiding gaming commission.

An article by The Citizens Voice explains that the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has approved the fine against Bobby Soper, the former CEO of Downs Racing LP, which operates Mohegan Sun Pocono.

The article states that the fine came after the board learned that Soper, who was CEO for seven years, failed to disclose particular business interests at the time. Two of those business interests conducted direct business with Mohegan Sun Pocono.

Soper has been quoted as saying that the failure to disclose was an unintentional, administrative, clerical mistake and that he has voluntarily agreed to pay the $60,000 fine for his failure in properly disclosing the business interests in question.

Soper currently operates a hospitality and gaming company in Florida.

(With files from The Citizens Voice)
Illinois horsepeople have banded together and issued a joint release to the state which pleads for Illinois officials to top up purse accounts that are diminished due to recapture.

Recapture allows purses to be depleted each year due to tracks being able to remove dollars from the purse accounts.

An excerpt from the statement reads, We are asking a judge to order the Illinois comptroller to pay to the Thoroughbred and Standardbred purse accounts all amounts that the Illinois Racing Board has certified for the tracks to take from those accounts.

The trio of horsemens associations also filed a lawsuit over the matter on November 1.

The contents of the release appear below.

Purse earnings support thousands of jobs throughout Illinois and sustain the horse racing industry. Horse owners, trainers, backstretch workers at the state's three tracks, breeders, veterinarians, blacksmiths, Thoroughbred jockeys and Standardbred drivers, and feed and hay suppliers across downstate all depend on purse dollars to earn their living.

But due to recapture, a law unique to horse racing in Illinois, purses are substantially depleted each year when tracks are allowed to remove dollars from the purse accounts. The same law permitting the tracks to collect those purse dollars, however, also requires the state to reimburse the purse accounts in amounts equal to the sums swept away by the tracks (in 2017 alone, tracks will take more than $11 million from purses). However, the state is not honouring its commitment to make the purse accounts whole.

For more than 14 years, Illinois lawmakers have failed to appropriate funds to reimburse the purse accounts as required by law. Illinois horsemen have filed a lawsuit to compel the state to rectify that. We are asking a judge to order the Illinois comptroller to pay to the Thoroughbred and Standardbred purse accounts all amounts that the Illinois Racing Board has certified for the tracks to take from those accounts.

The Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, the Illinois Harness Horsemen's Association, and the Illinois Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association are plaintiffs in the case, as is Mike Campbell, president of the ITHA, in his capacity as an owner.

Even as Illinois horse racing struggles to compete with other states using casino-style gaming to generate revenue to boost purse awards, this state's failure to replenish the purse accounts deepens our competitive disadvantage by reducing the size of purses. It is exacerbating the collapse of our industry and undermining the vital role our sport plays in promoting tourism and supporting local jobs at the tracks and across agribusiness.

Enforcing the law and requiring the state to replenish the purse accounts is the singular act that can quickly improve Illinois purses and stop the exodus of jobs from Illinois racing.
Bott Radio Network Celebrates 55 Years of Service

Contact: Sam Rinearson, Bott Radio Network (BRN), 913-642-7770

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Nov. 10, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- Bott Radio Network (BRN) --a pioneer in the development of Christian talk radio  marks 55 years of service this month as the nation's leader in quality Bible teaching, Christian news and information.

BRN started with one radio station in Kansas City in 1962, KCCV, Kansas City's Christian Voice. Today, BRN broadcasts its format of Quality Christian Talk Radio on 120 radio stations nationwide. BRN also is heard worldwide online at bottradionetwork.com , and with free apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, iHeart Radio, Amazon Echo, iTunes, TuneIn Radio, and more! Bott Radio Network also connects with listeners on Facebook and Twitter

It all began in 1962, when founder Dick Bott and his wife Sherley purchased a radio station in Kansas City with the dream of establishing a full-time Christian radio voice to serve families with "quality Christian programming, all day...every day."

Dick Bott's broadcasting career has its origins in his ninth-grade class in Minneapolis, when his teacher assigned the class to give a report on a profession. Dick Bott picked radio broadcasting. His broadcast career began in San Francisco in 1952, where he became the youngest general manager of any major market radio station. From there Dick and Sherley Bott went on to buy a radio station in Monterey, California in 1957. They began to think about starting a new station with a Christian format while working in Monterey. Both had grown up in Christian homes and wanted to establish an all-Christian radio station in a major metropolitan area. With their new purpose in mind, the Botts sold the Monterey station and began a search for a new station in a city with a population of one million or more people where they could realize their dream.

The Botts found what they wanted in Kansas City, and in 1962 they packed their belongings and moved to Kansas City with four children and a dog. Utilizing many key radio format concepts honed on the west coast, Bott Radio Network was born as "Kansas City's Christian Voice" on November 12, 1962.

Bott Radio Network began to grow with the acquisition of a second radio station, this time in Oklahoma City in 1975. Stations serving Fort Wayne, Indiana; St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; and Fresno/Modesto, California soon followed. Today with 120 stations across the nation and new media reaching around the world, BRN is a pioneer and leader in Quality Christian Talk Radio.

Bott Radio Network features award-winning Christian talk radio. Time magazine listed several of BRN's talk show hosts among the nation's 25 most influential evangelicals. A sample of the programming presented by BRN includes Insight For Living, hosted by Chuck Swindoll, Grace To You, hosted by John MacArthur, The Alternative, hosted by Dr. Tony Evans, Turning Point, hosted by Dr. David Jeremiah, Washington Watch, hosted by Tony Perkins, Living in the Light, hosted by Anne Graham Lotz, Pathway To Victory, hosted by Dr. Robert Jeffress and InTouch, hosted by Dr. Charles Stanley. BRN also features broadcasts by Greg Laurie, June Hunt, Alistair Begg, Jack Graham, Dr. Carol Swain and many other national Christian leaders. National program topics range from family and faith issues to live call-in shows about current events.

In 2008, Bott Radio Network's founder, Dr. Dick Bott, was inducted into the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Hall of Fame. The NRB is the world's largest association of Christian communicators, with over 1,400 member organizations. The Hall of Fame award is the highest honor the organization confers.

Also in 2008, Dick Bott was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carver Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. Carver, named after renowned African-American scientist George Washington Carver, was founded in 1942 to educate and prepare African American men and women to enter the ministry. Dr. Bott was only the eighth person in the 68-year history of Carver to receive an honorary doctorate.

In 2015, Dick Bott was honored to receive the Dred Scott Freedom Award for Religious Broadcasting, awarded by the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation and presented by Lynne Jackson, great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott.

Then in 2016, Dick Bott received the Richard M. DeVos Free Enterprise Award for Exceptional Leadership, awarded by the Council for National Policy and presented by CNP President Tony Perkins.

Dr. Dick Bott continues to serve as Founder and Chairman Emeritus of BRN's Board of Directors. He is also one of the longest serving board members of the National Religious Broadcasters association with headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Rich Bott (photo) grew up in Christian Radio. While working at BRN as a teenager, he learned to appreciate the programming concepts and the importance of 'Quality' Christian Talk Radio that has made BRN unique in its service to a growing audience.

After graduating college and earning his MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 1981, Rich joined Bott Radio Network full-time. As Executive Vice President, he guided the development of BRN's format and oversaw much of the network's growth from 3 stations in 1981 to its present size of 120 stations, plus satellite, internet and new media. In 2010, Rich Bott took on the new role of President/CEO. Then in 2016, Rich Bott was elected Chairman of the Board for BRN.

In addition to his service as Chairman/CEO of BRN, Rich Bott is the former Board Chairman of the National Religious Broadcasters and currently serves on the NRB Executive Committee. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Council for National Policy and on the Board of Directors of Far East Broadcasting Company. FEBC's mission is "Christ to the World by Radio and New Media."

Looking to the future, Rich Bott expressed his vision, "God has blessed the proclamation of His Word to the hearts of millions of people through Bott Radio Network over the past 55 years and we are excited about the future. It is thrilling to harness the power of radio together with new digital technologies to touch even more hearts and lives with the power of the Gospel message and the timeless Truth of God's Word which is the same yesterday, today and forever!"

Click here for our special 55th Anniversary broadcast.
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
I have been largely agnostic about Russiagate, in part because so much of the American coverage seems to be based on melodramatic claims that Russia undermined our democracy, a bizarrely self-congratulatory phrase that is everywhere. You would think this meant something really big. After all, the US is no slouch when it comes to meddling and even admits it now and then (like when Hillary Clinton said we should have rigged the Palestinian elections). So, what did the Russians do?

It seems the Russians spread unkind remarks about Hillary Clinton. Here you see the sick twisted minds of former KGB agents at work. This is America; what are the odds that anyone born in this country would have ever launched anything resembling a personal attack on any presidential candidate, let alone a universally respected and beloved figure like Clinton? Oh, but the genie is out of the bottle we will never get our democracy back. No more will our political campaigns be a sort of public meeting space where people have high-minded debates about the great issues of the day. Our innocence is lost forever, because of the dirty minds of Boris and Natasha.

It would not surprise me at this point if politicians actually started lying about themselves, or about their opponents and even the issues. And who knows? Private organizations funded by rich people might get into the act. They might try to influence policy with their donations. Other countries might even get into the act. We might have countries and organizations and even idiot billionaires paying experts to work in some Washington setting lets call it a think tankto spew propaganda and these experts might be cited in newspapers as though they were giving sound objective views based on facts.

I am afraid that thanks to Putin this is where we are heading. The America we knew, the one where sober consideration of reality as reported by our liberal papers led us to invade Iraq and plunge the Middle East into bloody chaos, may never be the same.

I guess it is possible this crap swayed a few votes, but if so we are talking about the butterfly effect. There must be countless things that swayed enough votes to change the results, including, as Floyd says, successful attempts to keep people from voting at all. The propaganda above seems incredibly crude. It might have worked, along with a million other things that didnt involve Russia at all. Add all those million things together and Trump wins. Take some random assortment out or add yet more crap and maybe Clinton wins. If the butterfly effect were literally true, Russian butterflies madly flapping their wings at Putins behest six months in advance might have caused it to rain in Clinton supporting precincts, depressing turnout. (Or maybe Ray Bradburys Cretaceous time travelers are responsible.)

I honestly dont understand how someone could look at that Esquire story and not see the absurdity. Is this what people mean when they say the Russians meddled? In fact, note the shift in the story to the claim that the Russians were just sowing chaos, because obviously some of the ads couldnt possibly be part of such a conspiracy. So much for the intelligence agency assessment that it was all about helping Trump.

Like all forms of pseudoscience, Russiagate is an endlessly flexible theory. Whatever truth there might be in any of the claims, the reporting resembles the material I read as a child in some of the less rational UFO literature, or, to use another analogy, the opportunistic and incoherent arguments put out by creationists.

As others have observed, if people really care about foreign influence why not look at the influence of countries and sympathetic billionaires who exert the sort of influence that is truly effective? The Podesta emails show that Haim Saban , a stupid Hollywood billionaire obsessed with Israel, had immense influence with the Clinton campaign. The Israel lobby rarely has to play it partisan, because both parties kowtow to its desires on Israel. That was what was so shocking about Netanyahus favoritism towards Romney in 2012. Israel defenders were upset not because of the influence, but because favoring one side might weaken their overall influence. Putin, if he is doing half the things attributed to him, could only dream of having this kind of power in our politics.

Russiagate is also about the propaganda the Russians spew out, in alleged contrast to the material churned out by the people who cant shut up about Russiagate. So lets look at a few examples. Lets look at how Russia Today (a grave threat according to the New York Times) and Russia Insider covered our bombing in Yemen vs how Rachel Maddow, great heroine of the Resistance, covered the same issue last fall.

By now it has become fairly mainstream to admit that the US has been directly assisting the Saudis in their brutal war on civilians in Yemen. It has been reported on occasion that Obama State Department lawyers were worried that we could be accused of war crimes. Well, if we were talking about Russian bombing in Aleppo last year there wouldnt be the slightest doubt that war crimes were taking place. But where do we see the contrasting American stance pointed out? When are American officials called out to explain it?

Here is a clip from Russia Insider (which I know little about but is presumably more Russian propaganda) where State dept spokesman John Kirby was asked last October by the Associated Press reporter Matt Lee to explain the difference between Russian bombing in Syria that kills civilians and Saudi bombing which does the same. Kirby explains that the Saudis investigate their own killing of civilians, implying that they have good intentions.

No one seriously believes the Saudis investigate themselves in good faith. Nor does this get the US off the hook for our assistance.

Here is a clip from Russia Today. Kirbys attempt to draw a distinction between Russian bombing in Aleppo and Saudi bombing in Yemen begins around minute 7:30.

And here is a clip from Rachel Maddow last October where she gives us one of her explanations of a foreign policy issue. She purports to explain in a nutshell the war in Yemen. This was just a few days after the Saudi bombing of a funeral in Sanaa which attracted worldwide condemnation because more than 100 civilians were killed. Maddow says nothing about this, she says nothing about any civilian bombing or about the children who are starving because of the war, leaves out the fact that we are complicit in mass slaughter.

What she does talk about is presumed Houthi missile attacks on ships, including an American one, immediately after the bombing of civilians. Her only interest is in explaining that Trump would be a dangerous person to have in the White House, a valid point, but she misleads her audience (as Adam Johnson first pointed out at FAIR ) by utterly ignoring American complicity in war crimes. One would get the impression that Americas only role was to patrol the seas off the coast of Yemen and respond to unprovoked attacks by crazy foreigners.

So on this issue, who is giving viewers a more accurate view of Yemen and our policy there? No doubt both Russia Insider and Russia Today are trying to make the US look bad and presumably, Kirby might be right in saying RT reporters dont go after the Russian government when it bombs civilians. But the notion that the Russian propaganda machine poses some uniquely dangerous threat to our civic culture is absurd on multiple levels even if you accept all the claims made so far about their actions last year. We are soaked and marinated in distortions, misleading summaries of issues and outright lies coming from our own press, politicians, and experts paid by think tanks often funded in part by various foreign governments, corporations and idiot billionaires.

If foreign influence matters, why doesnt our press have daily obsessive coverage of Israel and Saudi Arabia? Right now Congressional leaders have decided not to vote on the war in Yemen because it doesnt rise to the level of seriousness needed to invoke the war powers act. This is monstrous, but it is getting zero attention. I am not sure who is responsible. Mostly Republicans, yes, but Steny Hoyer was involved fighting against House Resolution 81.

Also, the Saudis are evidently trying to destabilize Lebanon and pick a fight with Iran. Daniel Larison at the American Conservative is almost alone in writing about this stuff while everyone obsesses about Russiagate.

The truth is that we dont talk about the Saudis and Israel precisely because their influence in DC is enormous.

On Yemen a serious press corps would have started questioning the US government on our role there from the very beginning and officials who made absurd excuses like Kirby in the clip above would be grilled over their double standards. Matt Lee asked a good question, but most Americans would not even be aware of what he was talking about. If our press genuinely performed its watchdog role Kirby would have quickly become a national joke and more importantly, citizens of our democracywould know our government was and still is helping to murder children in Yemen. (And btw, call your congressperson and tell him or her to support House Resolution 81 to put an end to American participation in these war crimes.)

No doubt Russia Today is a slanted news source, but whether the mainstream press in the US wants to admit it or not, it too is slanted and not in some minor little ways but in ways that are often drastically misleading. Only a propagandist would deny it.
The French nuclear safety institute IRSN suspects that the cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe measured in recent weeks is due to an nuclear accident in a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan in the last week of September.

The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site or center for radioactive medicine.

IRSN and several other nuclear safety institutes in Europe had measured in the last few weeks high levels of levels of ruthenium 106, a radioactive nuclide that is the product of splitting atoms in a nuclear reactor and which does not occur naturally.

The quantity of ruthenium 106 released was major, between 100 and 300 teraBecquerels. If such an accident had happened in France, emergency evacuation or sheltering of people in a radius of a few kilometers around the accident site would have been issued.

According to IRSN, the most plausible zone lay south of the Ural mountains, between the Urals and the Volga river  thus Russia or possibly Kazakhstan.

Detection of #Ruthenium 106 in France and in Europe in late September : Results of IRSNs investigations and updated information on the plausibility of the origin of the releasehttps://t.co/C5ztzDniiD pic.twitter.com/1cMDrSxobk  IRSN France (@IRSNFrance) November 9, 2017

Of course, Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory. Kazakh officials have not been contacted yet.

The nuclear accident didnt impact human health or the environment in Europe.

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It's Election season and our editor's mailbox is overflowing. Who do your neighbors support? Read about it here.
Working for any organization or company for 20 years or more is rare, which is why the Cowlitz County commissioners this week recognized 27 county employees who have done just that.

We dont get to say thank you enough, Commissioner Dennis Weber said at Tuesdays commissioner meeting. We have dedicated employees that deserve a lot more recognition than were able to give.

Not all employees could attend Tuesday meeting, but 15 who did were honored with commemorative shirts. This includes some prominent figures such as Superior Court Judge Stephen Warning, who has served 20 years, and Financial Management Director Claire Hauge, who has served 30 and plans to retire at the end of the year.

Both of these honorees, along with the 13 others who were present Tuesday morning, earned a small speech from their work colleague or boss.

Claire is completely dedicated to Cowlitz County, said Tracy Jackson, who works with Hauge in Financial Management. Every night, every weekend, this woman is working here. She will be missed.

I can tell you that in the Superior Court, there are mostly equals, then theres Judge Warning, fellow Superior Court Judge Gary Bashor said. He does a great job of leading us and keeps us out of trouble.

Two employees on the list have worked for Cowlitz County for 40 years: Environmental Health Technician Vicki Washington and Jimmy Hill, with roads administration.
Exactly 28 years ago, Jim Powers of Kelso stood on the Berlin Wall with a sledgehammer, cracking into the last symbol of communism in Eastern Europe.

Today is a special day for those us that served in the Berlin Brigade, Powers told Kelso High School students gathered for the annual Veterans Day assembly Thursday.

Nov. 9 , 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, ending communism as we know it in Europe. Still hasnt ended in other parts of the area. But most of the veterans here had the task of defending you guys, or the United States against that.

Powers was one of 48 local veterans who shared their stories at the schools annual event. Handmade banners in red, white and blue hung around the schools hallways with phrases such as, Thank you for your service and We dont know them all, but we owe them all.

Vets sat in folding metal chairs in the high school gymnasium surrounded by 1,500 students seated in blue bleachers. Students stood with hands on their hearts as the choir sung the national anthem and Hallelujah during the posting of the flags. Leadership students read poems before the microphone was passed to veterans.

Steve Johnson, who served in the U.S. Army, was the first to speak.

You, the youth of our country, need to understand, the world is a dangerous place. We feel safe here, I feel safe, my children feel safe, my grandchildren feel safe  but you someday may be called to defend that, Johnson told students. So be strong of character, strong of mind, strong of will. It takes those things to survive. I hope that we never have you serve in time of war, and that peace can prevail.

World War II veteran Floyd Miralles of Longview was one of at least two veterans in their nineties.

I joined the Navy exactly a year before Pearl Harbor, Miralles said. He was stationed in Hawaii, but left just a few days before the bombing.

Thats why Im able to be here today, Miralles said, choking back tears.

Miralles said it was humbling to attend the Kelso High ceremony.

Thank you for honoring us, he told students.

Hearing stories from vets in their 90s was poignant, said veteran Karin Seehafer of Olympia, whose son attends Kelso High. Seehafer wore a denim jacket dotted with patches from her time in the U.S. Navy during the Gulf War.

Its so great to hear other vets talk about their stories. It reminds me of all the sacrifices we have made, Seehafer said.

After several minutes of veterans speaking, the room darkened slightly and recorded violin music drifted in over the speakers. Choir students dressed in black and yellow robes walked out in the perimiter of the gynamism, lighting candles around the veterans. Four students walked out to the center of the gym holding the American flag as two other students read the names of all the Kelso High School students who died during military service.

Students sat somberly as each name was read aloud along with the a short description of how the service member died. There were 78 veterans on the list spanning 1918 to the late 1960s.

Many vets teared up hearing the names.

Its tough, said Steve West, who served in the U.S. Army. West said his best friend from Kelso High, Harvey Sanders, is on that list of names. Sanders died in the Vietnam War just three weeks after deployment, he said. West said he has 31 friends on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

Another Vietnam vet, Gary Nunamaker, read a list of somber statistics about that war.

The young ones paid the highest price, he said, noting the 39,996 service members who died under the age of 22.

While working as a Kelso High teacher in the early 1980s, Nunamaker and his class decided to research the names of all the Kelso High students who died during wars.

Each one of these kids has families devastated by their loss. When you hear these names Id like you to think about the sacrifices, he said.

And as the band played Taps to a quiet crowd, those sacrifices were certainly remembered.
Kelso School District Superintendent Glenn Gelbrich will retire at the end of the school year after four years as the districts top official.

Gelbrich told the Kelso School Board of his resignation in a letter dated Nov. 3. His resignation will be effective June 30.

It has been, and remains, a professional and personal privilege to serve as Kelsos School District superintendent, Gelbrich said in a press release.

The school board will begin an executive search for Gelbrichs replacement later this month, the district said.

Gelbrich started his career in public education as a teacher in Philomath, Ore., in 1978. He became a school administrator nine years later and worked in Oregon until accepting a position as superintendent in Juneau, Alaska, in 2009.

Gelbrich was hired as Kelsos superintendent in 2014. He presided over an eight-day teacher strike the following year, in which the district eventually agreed to give its nearly 300 teachers a pay bump and extra paid non-class days.

Hes also helped Kelso prepare for the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives districts more local control over how schools test and track student progress. The law replaces the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which had long been criticized for being heavy-handed, demoralizing and too top-down in imposing government mandates on schools.

Most recently, Gelbrich and Kelso Education Association President Bob Gustin successfully negotiated a new one-year contract that gives Kelso teachers a 2.3 percent salary increase. The contract was intended to serve as a bridge to 2018, when a new teacher salary schedule will take effect.

Gelbrich said hes looking forward to focusing on improving his health, traveling and serving as volunteer, but also acknowledged the district has a lot of work to complete between now and June.

The district will likely ask its residents to approve a $98.6 million school bond in February 2018. Teacher recruitment and retention will also be a challenge under the states new education funding plan.

Kelso School Board President Bob Lucas said the community is grateful for Gelbrichs service.

Glenn has been an incredibly effective superintendent for the Kelso School District. His decisions always focus on providing the best possible educational opportunities for every student, he said in a press release.

The board sincerely appreciates his dedication to our district; his leadership and passion will truly be missed.

The Daily News will have an in-depth interview with Gelbrich next week.
Despite double-digit premium increases, the Washington health-care exchange is reporting a big spike in web traffic compared to the first week of open enrollment last year.

More than 320,000 visitors have reviewed coverage options at Washington Healthplanfinder since Nov. 1, the exchange announced in a press release Thursday.

That represents a 24-percent increase in visits to the website  where people can find and compare health plans  over the same period in 2016.

Calls to the exchanges customer support center have also increased nearly 30 percent from last year, the exchange reported.

New applications have jumped by 53 percent, according to additional data released Thursday.

We are very pleased to see this level of interest so early in open enrollment, said Pam MacEwan, CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange. As with every new plan year, people need to review their health insurance options, and Washington Healthplanfinder is the most trusted place for Washingtonians to shop for and compare available plans. Many of our customers will qualify for tax credits that can lower the cost of coverage.

Nearly 2,100 Cowlitz County residents purchased individual health care plans on the exchange last year. Additionally, roughly 30,600 Cowlitz residents used the exchange to sign up for Apple Health, the states Medicaid program for low-income individuals.

Individuals and households earning between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for premium tax credits to offset the full cost of coverage on a sliding scale.

Monthly premiums and tax credits will vary based on age, total number of people covered, county of residence and annual household income.

This year, the income ceiling for a family of four to be eligible to receive tax credits is $98,400.

The price of the second-lowest-cost silver plan offered through the exchange is used to calculate the tax credits. Because the price of those plans has increased, the amount of tax credits available to eligible customers has increased as well.

Residents can locate a navigator or broker by using an all-new WAPlanfinder mobile app, clicking the customer support link on www.wahealthplanfinder.org or visiting one of the two enrollment centers located in Vancouver.
The public relations battle is already underway as Pacific Coast Fertilizer beats back against what it calls misinformation from opponents to its proposed $1 billion ammonia plant at Longviews Mint Farm Industrial Park.

After pitching the project a year ago, Pacific Coast officials have been quietly building the foundation for their project in the community for the last year before launching a formal environmental review with the city last month.

Wednesday marked the first time the public had the chance to weigh in on the project. Two open-house style scoping meetings were held in the afternoon and evening.

Pacific Coast would convert natural gas to anhydrous ammonia to produce 1,650 tons of liquid fertilizer daily. The fertilizer would be marketed to Northwest farmers  who currently pay a premium on anhydrous ammonia imported from the Canada and the Caribbean.

In an editorial board with The Daily News Tuesday, Pacific Coast officials said theyre already seeing some misinformation.

Safety, spills and the risk of explosion are among the top concerns cited by opponents. But explosions of anhydrous ammonia are extremely rare. Anhydrous ammonia is not the same as ammonium nitrate, the type of fertilizer used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings. Oregons largest fertilizer plant, the Dyno Nobel facility just north of St. Helens, Ore., has manufactured anhydrous ammonia for years without a serious incident.

A facility such as this is designed in such a way that the risk of any kind of fire explosion, leak or spill is really negligible, said Lee Raymond, project manager of Pacific Coast. This is a well-established technology. Theyve been building facilities like this for pretty much a century. So these methods are tried and tested. There are very few incidents that occur inside manufacturing facilities that involve ammonia.

Opponents point out that Pacific Coast Fertilizer is a new company. But Raymond said the companies backing the project  Texas-based Saturn Ferrostaal Chemicals LLC, Ferrostaal and Haldor Topsoe  have a long history of building and operating similar facilities.

Critics also have questioned whether the companys 80 to 100 employees will be from the local area. Pacific Coast officials said Tuesday they intend to hire as many local workers as possible. This week they met with representatives from Lower Columbia College about the possibility of creating a program to train local workers on skills needed for an ammonia plant, Raymond said.

The companys assurances wont sway some opponents though.

I think this is the biggest mistake. Its too close to residential areas, said Gloria Sanders of Longview, member of Landowners and Citizens for a Safe Community. Sanders wondered what would happen in the event of an earthquake or fire at the plant.

Joyce Riggins of Longview said she lives a block away from the project facility. She worried about the noise and vibrations from trucks serving the plant. Riggins and Sanders both said they attended the scoping meeting to hear how the company planned to market the project.

Other community members attended to show their support.

Mike Bridges, president of the Longview-Kelso Building Trades Council, noted that the complex project would employ up to 1,000 construction workers for three years in the community  much longer than the typical construction project.

I think this project is unique. Its something that theres a demand for in the state of Washington. Theres no rail impacts. It seems like its in a good location because its already zoned for industrial, Bridges added.

And because the project isnt on waterfront property, it wont have to obtain a shoreline permit or lease state aquatic lands.

It would use 50 million cubic feet of natural gas daily, tapping into an existing pipeline owned by Nippon Dynawave. At peak times during the summer and fall, about 60 trucks a day would leave the plant, although that number will drop significantly during the off season, the company said.

The 30-day scoping period closes Nov. 15. A draft EIS will be released in the spring.
CHICAGO  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment is down to 4.1 percent  about as near to full employment as it gets. And according to the Pew Research Center, the overall national poverty rate dipped to 12.7 percent last year, almost to its pre-Great Recession level.

But things are never as sunny as suggested by averaged, aggregated statistics.

In fact, Pew reports that the share of the population in severe poverty  defined by the Census Bureau as those with family or individual incomes below half of their poverty threshold  actually reached its highest point in at least 20 years.

Food pantries across the nation are feeling it.

Last week, I had a grandmother with eight people in her family in here. She had a small handful of change in her pocket and she told me that was all they had for the week, said Linda Fore, director of Heavens Bounty Food Ministry in southeastern Tennessee. You try to feed eight people with just the change in your hand and see what you think of the poverty level.

Feeding America network, the nations largest hunger-relief organization, notes on its website that, Many rural and farm communities  the very places where crops are grown to feed the world  face hunger. It seems impossible, but in lands of plenty, hunger pains can be the sharpest.

Feeding America calculates that 2.7 million rural households face hunger, and 86 percent of the counties with the highest rates of child food insecurity are rural. Plus, the South continues to have the nations highest rural family poverty rate.

We have quite a few people who, the food they get from us is all they get, Fore told me on a Sunday, one of the four days the pantry is open per week to anyone who can find a way to get there. We are located in whats considered a food desert; there isnt a grocery store within at least a 5-mile radius. I think the national average is 10 percent of people without a car, and I know our average is quite a bit higher than that. Plus, we are seeing two to four new families every day, because people are newly out of work. They say the economy is supposed to be recovering, but in the rural areas, you cant tell.

Not that food insecurity is limited to any region or type of community. According to the US Department of Agriculture, 41 million people face hunger in the U.S. today  including nearly 13 million children and more than five million seniors.

This is why, as we head into winter, its so vitally important to support your local food bank and pantry or even national organizations like Feeding America well in advance of the holidays.

You dont go to the grocery store the night before to buy your food for Thanksgiving, and its very hard for us to help our clients have a Thanksgiving dinner when the food comes in one or two days before, Fore said. And even if we got money [two days before Thanksgiving] to buy turkeys and extra potatoes, we wouldnt have time to get the food in, separated and ready to distribute in time to get the baskets into families hands.

Fore said shes been collecting frozen pies for Thanksgiving since August but is feeling grim about her ability to collect turkeys for the estimated 200 families who will be turning to Heavens Bounty for a Thanksgiving meal  because people dont think about their local food pantry until the last days before holidays.

No one has done a food drive for us, so I doubt Ill be able to have Thanksgiving baskets for families this year, but we could still give out non-perishables and other items if the donations start coming in  but theyd have to start coming in now, Fore said.

With two weeks left until our national day of eating, please make some room in your meal budget to donate food or cash.

Local is always best, but Heavens Bounty would welcome your donations at P.O. Box 1361, Collegedale, Tennessee 37315, and so would Feeding America at feedingamerica.org. This is one food splurge that will be kind to others and to your own waistline.
New China-backed line sees a flood of passengers as locals head for popular coastal city

Kenya's economy is starting to experience the benefits of its Chinese-backed modern rail infrastructure, with more locals flocking to the coastal city of Mombasa over the past five months, boosting domestic tourism.

The Madaraka Express has transported more than 420,000 passengers - an average of 2,750 per day at an occupation rate of 92 percent - between Nairobi and the port city, boosting bed occupancy in June and August to 80 percent. That is up from 50 percent in previous years, the government says.

James Macharia, cabinet secretary of transport, infrastructure, housing and urban development, says the new service will open up tourism destinations along the Mombasa-Nairobi route that were not previously accessible. Photos by Lucy Morangi / China Daily

It is expected that with the launch of a second train service, numbers will go even higher, giving a boost to the sector that has been struggling to prop up the number of domestic visitors compared with international arrivals. Kenya Railways, the agency regulating the sector, launched the inter-county train service on Nov 1.

According to James Macharia, the cabinet secretary for transportion, infrastructure, housing and urban development, the train will stop at seven stations: Athi River, Emali, Kibwezi, Mtito Andei, Voi, Miasenyi and Mariakani.

Those traveling from Nairobi to Athi River will pay less than $1, while those traveling to Mtito Andei will pay less than $4, compared with $5 for buses.

"Over time, we have introduced a number of initiatives that we hope have made your Madaraka experience better. We have introduced various ticket booking platforms, meaning you no longer have to physically visit the station to purchase your tickets. We expanded the window for booking," says Macharia.

He says the core aim of the railway is to lower transportation costs and make it affordable for Kenyans to travel for business and leisure. Macharia also says the government is rolling out freight service, which is expected to lower the cost of cargo transportation between Mombasa by up to 35 percent and Nairobi's container depot.

He adds that testing of the commercial cargo system is set to begin this month, with freight operations expected to start next year.

Paul Maringa, Kenya's principal secretary for transportation, says the introduction of the additional train will increase passenger numbers, enable more movement of locals and tourists, and further boost opportunities for businesspeople who need to travel within short periods.

He says the standard gauge railway has already begun to have an impact.

"The services are offering a solution to traffic congestion, the wear and tear experienced on our roads and will ultimately decongest the Mombasa-Nairobi road, which is synonymous with traffic snarl-ups," he says.

Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Liu Xianfa says the railway has facilitated the development of the East African country and the realization of Vision 2030, the country's development blueprint.

"It is endowed with the significant role of speeding up the industrialization process of Kenya and the region and promoting the integration of the Belt and Road Initiative with the development strategies of African countries," Liu says.

Li Quanhuai, vice-president and chairman of China Road and Bridge Corp, which operates the railway, says:

"The successful launch of the inter-county passenger train will not only provide more choices for passengers in terms of time and destinations, but also reinforce the population and commodities circulation along the railway as a key driver for the Kenyan economy."

lucymorangi@chinadaily.com.cn
Top lender State Bank of India eyes profitable overseas expansion

Reuters :

State Bank of India (SBI) will open more branches in Nepal and consider options to re-enter Vietnam under a three-year goal to grow its international operations to as much as 15 percent of total business, a senior executive said.

India's top lender, with assets of more than $500 billion, was catapulted into the league of the top 50 global banks this year after it merged five subsidiary banks with itself.

But mergers and acquisitions are expected to play only a tiny role as SBI seeks to ramp up growth in the overseas business, which now makes up about 11 percent of all operations. Instead, it will rely on organic growth and ensure profitability is not forsaken.

SBI, which is present in 35 countries but has more than half of its 206 offices in Asia, aims to increase the number of offices in neighbouring Nepal to 100 in the next one year from 88 currently to better tap a market it considers "under-penetrated" for banking, said Siddhartha Sengupta, a deputy managing director who leads the bank's international business.

The Indian government majority-owned bank is also looking at options to re-enter Vietnam, where it closed its office long ago, possibly through a partnership, Sengupta said, noting the Vietnamese economy, and trade between the Southeast Asian nation and India, were growing rapidly.

"We had an Asian focus. But we are trying to make that focus sharper," Sengupta said in an interview with Reuters.

"In terms of inorganic growth, whatever our aspirations are would be far smaller compared to what we have seen in the domestic market. We have a limited dollar balance sheet."

The Indian lender's overseas push comes at a time when rivals in China, Japan and Southeast Asia are expanding outside their home nations and have made far deeper inroads into Asia, often through M&As.

SBI's overseas growth plan also comes at a tricky time for India lenders who have been burdened with a record $146 billion in bad loans.

Sengupta said the overseas growth would be in a "risk-mitigated" fashion and not at the cost of profitability. The expansion may not lead to a substantial rise in the total number of international offices as SBI is also shutting unprofitable ones, he said.

Siddharth Purohit, an analyst with Mumbai's SMC Institutional Equities, said it was prudent for SBI to be choosy in growing its international exposure.

"Some other Indian banks have reduced their international exposure recently, one reason being their main clients, the Indian corporates, are also going slow on overseas acquisitions and the focus is on cutting debt at home."
US, Russia nearing agreement on resolving Syrian civil war

Photo shows a tank firing on militants positions on the Iraq-Syria border..

AP, Washington :

The United States and Russia are nearing an agreement on Syria for how they hope to resolve the Arab country's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated, officials said Thursday.

If clinched, the deal was expected to be announced by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vietnam on Friday, four U.S. officials said. The United States has been reluctant to schedule a formal meeting for the leaders unless they have a substantive agreement to announce.

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday that they won't hold a formal meeting due to scheduling conflicts on "both sides." Still, Sanders said it was possible Trump and Putin could have a less formal encounter while in Vietnam.

The potential understanding comes as an array of forces are near a final defeat of IS, the extremist group that once controlled vast stretches of both Iraq and Syria. Fighting the group is no longer top priority, shifting the focus back to Syria's intractable conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and rebels - and to concerns that foreign powers such as Iran will now dominate the country's future.

The U.S.-Russian agreement being discussed would focus on three elements, officials said: "deconfliction" between the U.S. and Russian militaries, reducing violence in the civil war and reinvigorating U.N.-led peace talks. The officials weren't authorized to discuss the deliberations and requested anonymity.

The U.S. and Russian militaries have maintained a "deconfliction" hotline for years to avoid unintended collisions and even potential confrontations as they each operate in Syria's crowded skies. A heavy air campaign by Russia has been credited with shoring up the position of Assad, a close ally of Moscow.

With IS nearing defeat, the U.S. and Russia are losing their common enemy in Syria and will remain in a proxy battle in which Russia backs Assad and the U.S. lends at least rhetorical support to armed opposition groups fighting the government. That has increased the need for close communication between the two powers about where their forces are operating at any given time, officials said.
Catalan parliament speaker detained pending bail

Former Speaker of Catalonia\'s sacked parliament Carme Forcadell A arrives at the Supreme Court in Madrid on Thursday to be questioned over her role in Catalonia\'s independence drive.

AFP, Madrid :

The speaker of Catalonia's sacked parliament was ordered detained Thursday over her region's controversial drive for independence from Spain, pending payment of a 150,000 euro bail, a court spokesman said.

Carme Forcadell and five other deputies appeared in front of Spain's highest tribunal on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds-which carry a maximum jail sentence of 30 years-for aiding the Catalan parliament's secession bid.

They are suspected of having followed a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official declaration on October 27, deepening Spain's most serious political crisis in decades.

That declaration was annulled Wednesday by Spain's Constitutional Court.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena ordered one Catalan lawmaker freed, but the four others apart from Forcadell must pay 25,000 euros within a week to avoid jail.

The Catalan crisis has prompted hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region and caused disquiet in a European Union still dealing with Britain's shock decision to leave the bloc.

On Wednesday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe and disrupting trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

Authorities said around 150,000 people were affected.

Encouraged by their figurehead Carles Puigdemont, Catalan leaders voted to declare unilateral independence from Spain after going ahead with a banned referendum on October 1.

Separatists said 90 percent of voters opted for independence, but critics counter that pro-unity supporters had boycotted a plebiscite that violated Spain's constitution.

In response, the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suspended Catalan autonomy dismissing its parliament and government, and organised new regional elections for December 21.
Islami Chhatra Sena formed a human chain in front of the Jatiya Press Club on Friday in protest against hitting religious sentiment in textbooks.
Teachers asked to enlighten psyche of learners

City Desk :

Terming the teachers as the torch-bearers of society, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman on Thursday said the teachers inspire the learners to imbibe them with moral values by enlightening their psyche.

The teachers, he said, use to guide the learners to make their marks in the global competition crossing the country's geographical boundary.

The minister said this on Thursday while speaking as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the international conference titled 'Changing Learning Changing Lives: celebration 10 years of EIA' at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center in the city.

Mostafizur Rahman said it is an imperative for all to know English to make the nation's position firm in the competitive world and to develop effective communication skill across the world.

Adequate opportunities are being created, the minister said, to further develop professional skill of the teachers.

He said the project 'English in Action' (EIA) is playing an effective role in helping both teachers and learners acquire efficiency in English language.

The minister urged teachers and students to utilize their experiences earned through the EIA project for strengthening the country's education system.

Deputy country head of DFID Jim Mc Alpine, Director of International Economic and Social Development John Shotton and Director of Open University UK international Office Methew Faster attended the function as special guests with Project Director Dr. Md. Alamgir Hossain in the chair.




Imposition of penalty

High Court Division :

(Special Original Jurisdiction)

Syed Refaat Ahmed J

Md Akram Hossain

Chowdhury J

Eastern Cement Industries Ltd ..........

...................................Petitioner

vs

Customs, Excise and VAT, Appellate

Tribunal, Dhaka and another.............

................ Respondents

Judgment

June 10th, 2012

Value Added Tax Act (XXII of 1991)

Sections 55 and 37

The process of determination that followed, thereafter, up to the appellate stage is, therefore, wholly confined to ascertaining the justification of imposition of penalty without the benefit, however, of prior substantive adjudgment or determination of any liability justifying the imposition of such penalty. .. .... (8)

PET Industries vs Customs, Exercise, 61 DLR 734; Abdul Motaleb vs Customs, 64 DLR 100 and Hotel Zakaria International (Pvt) Ltd. vs National Board of Revenue (NBR) 30 BLD (2010) 388

M Amin Uddin, with Munshi Moniruzzaman

Advocates-For the Petitioner.

Kashefa Hussain, AAG-For the Respondents.

Judgment

Syed Refaat Ahmed J : In this Application under Article 102(2) of the Constitution a Rule Nisi was issued calling upon the Respondents to show cause as to why the Order dated 22-11-2006 passed by the Respondent No.1 in Nothi No. CEVT/CASE (VAT)-89/2005 (Annexure 'H') affirming the Order dated 5-12-2004 passed by the Respondent No.2 under Order No. 220/Musak/Appeal/2004 (Annexure-'E') by which the Order dated 11-9-2003 passed by the Respondent No.4 under Order No. 16/Musak/ 2003 (Annexure-'C') was affirmed should not be declared to have been passed without lawful authority and is of no legal effect and/ or such other or further order or orders passed as to this Court may seem fit and proper.

2. The Petitioner, a VAT registered entity, is engaged in the business of manufacturing cement. On 17-5-2003 the Respondent No.4, Deputy Commissioner issued a notice alerting the Petitioner to the fact that concerned Customs, Excise and VAT functionaries upon an inspection of a truck transporting the Petitioner's manufactured products and scrutiny and inspection of the Petitioner's factory and relevant documents found therein detected a short adjustment of Taka 4,83,878 in the Petitioner's Current Account Register in apparent violation of both the VAT Act, 1991 ("the Act") the VAT Rules, 1991 ("the Rules"). Notably, the said notice is declaratory of an offence, ostensibly proven, of supply of goods on the basis of untrue statement in Chalan, which by reference to specific provisions of both the Act and the Rules were declared to be punishable under Section 37(2) (ka) (kha) of the Act. The Petitioner having replied to the said notice the Respondent No.4 proceeded, thereafter, to consider the said response arriving at a determination reflected in the Order dated 11-9-2003. The Petitioner was asked, thereby, to adjust the Current Account Register to the amount of Taka 4,83,878 and subjected to penalty of Taka 5,00,000 under Section 37(2) of the Act. That led the Petitioner, upon deposit of the requisite 10% of the above determined amount, to file an appeal before the Respondent No.2, commissioner of Customs (Appeal). The Respondent No.2, Commissioner having affirmed the earlier demand and imposition of penalty, the Petitioner upon deposit of the requisite 15% of the amount so demanded, lodged an appeal before the Respondent No.1, Appellate Tribunal. That appeal came to be dismissed on 22-11-2006 which the Petitioner now contends was an inadequate exercise of jurisdiction by the Appellate Tribunal in that it failed to consider certain fundamental issues of law that are at issue in this Writ Petition. This Court's attention has further been drawn to the fact that even while the Petitioner's appeal was awaiting disposal by the Respondent No.1, Tribunal, the Respondents curiously adjusted the demanded amount of Taka 4,83,878 in the Petitioner's Current Account Register as evident in an Order dated 4-5-2005.

3. The learned Advocate for the Petitioner Mr Munshi Moniruzzaman submits that in the facts and circumstances the core issue to the determined by this Court is the legally untenable process initiated by the Respondents upon issuance of the initial notice of 17-5-2003 in a manner wholly discordant with the scheme of the Act. In a nutshell, that scheme is one of imposition of any penalty only upon a prior determination of facts leading to a specific finding on any liability arising under the Act. The Act does not prescribe any mode of imposition of penalty without such prior determination and in this regard it is submitted that the Order of 17-5-2003 issued in ignorance of that fact is to be found to have been issued without lawful authority and to be no legal effect. In this regard it is submitted that provisions of Section 37 of the Act are designated solely for imposition of penalty for offences found to have been committed as specified in that very section itself. However, the fact of the commission of such offence necessarily requires a prior determination and ascertainment of liability through a participatory process as designated by Section 55 of the Act. It is submitted that such prior determination is the necessary prerequisite for conferring jurisdiction upon the Respondents to exercise authority under Section 37 for imposition of penally. Mr Moniruzzaman, accordingly, submits that in the facts and circumstances the fact of wilful evasion having not been ascertained or determined in pursuance of the prescribed procedure of participatory determination as designated under Section 55 of the Act, the very assumption of authority and jurisdiction under Section 37, therefore, constitutes the arrogation of authority not vested in the concerned Respondents under law. Consequentially, the Orders emanating from such wrongful assumption pf authority are also to be declared as without any legal sanction or consequence. By that rationale, Mr Moniruzzaman submits any imposition of penally under Section 37(2) ought to have been preceded in the scheme of the Act by a Section 55(3) determination and demand of which there is found no evidence on record.

4. It is against this backdrop, that this Court is now required to determine the legal sufficiency of the entire process commencing with the issuance of the Order dated 17-5-2003 leading to the ostensible final disposal on appeal of the matter by the Respondent No. l, Tribunal on 22-11-2006. Also arising for this Court's consideration is the very act of adjustment of the disputed demanded amount effected on 4-5-2005 even before the Respondent No.1, Tribunal had an opportunity to finally determine on the justifiability of the same.

5. No Affidavit-in-Opposition has been filed in this case on behalf of the Respondents.

6. It is noted at the outset that issues concerning the construction of the applicable provisions of the Act and the distinctive features, in particular, of Sections 55 and 37 of the Act arraised in this Application are ones which have been dealt with and decided upon by this very Court in a series of cases that have clearly laid down the sequence of action under the same. The preponderant judicial view in this regard is that it is an absolute requirement of the law that the provisions of Section 55 of the Act are to be complied with to the fullest extent even before any action under Section 37 of the Act can be contemplated. The judicial insistence on such sequential action is predicated upon a strict interpretation and application of these provisions of the Act as highlight the distinctive features of processes initiated under Sections 55-and 37. This Court has repeatedly insisted in that regard on the prior exhaustion of a process initiated under section 55 strictly in accordance with the prescriptions laid down in that section. This Court has previously underscored the functional distinction between the two sections and, therefore, their spheres of operation. This Court has, accordingly, emphasized upon the fundamental objective of the Section 55 provisions being to ensure a due realization upon determination of shortfall in payment and those in section 37 to identify specific offences and the sanctions that attach to the same. This Court in that regard has held that section 55 is to be accorded primacy for determination and realization of any amount having previously fallen due. The rationale for that conclusion is provided thus in PET Industries vs Customs, Exercise reported in 61 DLR (2009) 734 at paragraph 13 and 14 at page 736.

"If the entire provision of Section 55 is considered then it would be clear that Section 55 empowers the concerned VAT authority to take steps for realization of unpaid or less paid Vat or tax upon first issue of a notice asking to show cause and then, upon hearing, within 90 days to make a final demand in respect of any Vat or tax unpaid, evaded or less paid."

On the other hand, Section 37 of the said Act defines various offences and punishments for such offence. Before any final demand could be made under Section 55(3), none of the provisions of Section 37 could be resorted to. It is needless to say as the fiscal law demands strict interpretation so equally demands for strict application by an authority authorized to apply. The VAT Act is a comprehensive tax law. It has defined the tax to be paid as VAT on the specified sales and/or services. Similarly, it has laid down elaborate procedure for realization of the tax and punishment for any violation or omission. The concerned authority is therefore, duty bound to follow the procedure as laid down in the Act for each and every action. The Act does not empower any of the authorities created to become zealot to overpower and/or overawe any tax payer. Invoking and/or resorting to Section 37 while issuing a notice under Section 55(1) of the VAT Act therefore, could not be said to have been issued bonafide for the simple reason that at the time of issue of the notice, the authority concerned had not yet arrived at as to any evasion of VAT by the petitioner."

7. Significantly, the interpretation above makes it absolutely necessary for the invocation first of a Section 55 process entailing the act of final determination through a participatory exercise under Section 55(3) on the basis of a reply or objection submitted further to a Section 55(1) notice. The ratio in the PET Industries Case is found by this Court to be pervasive of the ratio decidendi in a series of other decisions, most notably, Abdul Motaleb vs Customs reported in 64 DLR (2012), 100 as well as in Hotel Zakaria International (Pvt) Ltd. vs National Board of Revenue (NBR) reported in 30 BLD (2010), 388. This Court has repeatedly emphasized on such exhaustion of the section 55 process in its entirety culminating in a final determination before the VAT Authority can proceed under Section 37. Such insistence is premised on the legal impossibility of any attempt at even raising the spectre of punishment under Section 37 of the Act before any decision could be arrived at finally and conclusively under Section 55(3) as to the true extent, if at all, of the shortfall of the payment of any tax or arrears in taxes and the extent and nature of the concomitant liability stemming from such circumstances.

8. The above construction of law applied to the facts and circumstances highlights the fact that the very initiation of the process of holding the Petitioner accountable under law and as initiated on 17-5-2003 was legally an unsound and untenable one. If at all, on that date the Respondents pertinently may have issued a show cause notice under section 55(1) specifying prima facie reasons for any demand but significantly giving the Petitioner an opportunity to explain its position in response. Upon a clear reading of that Order of 17-5-2003 it is evident to this Court that such stage of a prior substantive determination was wholly skipped in preference to requiring the Petitioner prematurely instead to defend itself against the threatened imposition of penalty under Section 37(2). The process of determination that followed, thereafter, up to the appellate stage is, therefore, wholly confined to ascertaining the justification of imposition of penalty without the benefit, however, of prior substantive adjudgment or determination of any liability justifying the imposition of such penalty.

9. It is in that context that this Court has considered the sufficiency of the Orders both of the Respondent No.2, Commissioner of Customs (Appeal) and of the Respondent No.1, Tribunal. There is noted in both instances a glaring failure to consider the proper application of the law in the facts. This Court finds that the Respondent No. I, Tribunal, in particular, as the ultimate forum sitting in final determination of facts and ascertaining the relevant law applicable to the same wholly ignored the fact that nothing short of a prior compliance of section 55 of the Act shall enable the VAT Authority to proceed to penalize under Section 37. In this regard, this Court holds that it was incumbent upon the Respondent No.1, Tribunal to appreciate that liability has to be fixed first under Section 55 before imposition of penalty under Section 37 and that the Petitioner's case was marked by the absence of such prior essential determination. It is found that had the Tribunal properly applied its judicial mind it would readily deduce that the Petitioner, if at all, could initially submit to a Section 55 process leading to final determination under Section 55(3) after proper and due opportunity given it to be heard. Upon a clear reading of the impugned appellate Order it is evident to this Court that the Tribunal failed to do so. The Tribunal instead found on a wilful attempt on the Petitioner's part Lo evade Lax liability and, thereby, affirmed the previous Order of the Respondent No.2, Commissioner. It is by reason of the above, this Court finds on the inadequacy of the Appellate Tribunal's determination process and, thereby, on the illegality and ineffectiveness of the determination of liability as well as the imposition of penalty as above noted. It follows that, the Tribunal's Order dated 22-11-2006 along with the earlier Orders of the Respondent No. 2, Commissioner (Appeal) dated 5-12-2004 and the Order of the Respondent No.4, Deputy Commissioner dated 11-9-2003 and the notice dated 17-5-2003 are all found to have been issued without any lawful authority and to be of no legal effect. All impugned Orders having, therefore, been so quashed by this Judgment and Order it is also directed that the Petitioner shall be entitled to a refund in entirety of all deposits made in fulfilment of the prerequisites for filing the appeals both before the Respondent No.2, Commissioner (Appeal) and the Respondent No.1 Customs, Excise and VAT Appellate Tribunal.

10. Furthermore, this Court having thus found against the validity of any purported determination of a case of wilful evasion against the Petitioner, the claim to the allegedly evaded VAT being Taka 4,83,878, which the Respondents have otherwise by their Order of 4-5-2005 seemingly peremptorily adjusted in the Petitioner's Current Account Register, is also found to be shorn of any legal basis. In such circumstances, such amount shall necessarily require a readjustment in the Petitioner's favour in a manner that an equivalent amount shall now have to be credited in the Petitioner's Current Account Register. The rationale here is one of restitutio in integrum, i.e., placing the aggrieved Petitioner in the situation as by law ought to have been allowed to operate and prevail to its benefit at the material time had no prejudice been sustained by the Petitioner by the wrongful action of the Respondents on 4-52005. The Petitioner by dint of this Order shall, thereby, be restored to its original and uninjured state and position as if the adjustment Order of 4-5-2005 had never been made.

11. Given these facts and circumstances and this Court's understanding that the entire process of initiation and determination of the Petitioner's liability commencing with the notice of 17-5-2003 and culminating in the impugned Appellate Order of 22-11-2006 has been in violation or in avoidance of the prescription of the relevant provisions of the law, this Court is, however, also of the view that there is nothing in the facts and circumstances to deter the Respondents to initiate a due and proper determination process under Section 55(1) of the Act. Should the Respondents find themselves in a position to so proceed as per the requirements in Section 55, they may so proceed as per the law subject, however, to making all the refunds and the readjustment as above directed forthwith and positively prior to the issuance of any notice under Section 55(1) to the Petitioner.

12. In light of the above, this Court finds merit in the Application and substance in the Rule issued and declares the impugned Order of the Appellate Tribunal, the earlier Orders of the Respondent Nos. 2 and 4 and the initial notice of 17-5-2003 to have been issued without lawful authority and to be of no legal effect.

13. In the result, the Rule is made absolute subject to the observations and specific directions made hereinabove.

14. There is no Order as to costs.

Let the Records as earlier called for be sent down to the Respondent No.1, Customs, Excise and VAT Appellate Tribunal forthwith.


Endemic feared from HIV-positive at Rohingya camps

DETECTION of one after another HIV-positive Rohingya patients in makeshift refugee camps has raised worries among health workers since it poised the danger to become an epidemic within and outside the camp. Needless to say the Bangladesh government has to bear the brunt of the cost for treatment of the ill-fated people who fled Myanmar's ethnic cleansing. There is a growing fear that the number of HIV infected patients will only grow with more arrival of refugees.

Health officials have so far detected 61 Rohingyas - both men and women with HIV infection and are providing free of cost treatment at Cox's Bazar Medical Hospital, as per report in a local daily. In their estimate over 5,000 such patients have already arrived in refugee camps from Rakhine State of Myanmar where the HIV prevalence rate is around 0.8 percent-one of the highest in the world. National AIDS/STD Programme officials fear that if the arrival of refugees continues the disease may spread outside camps through unsafe sexual relation, blood transfusion, sharing of syringes and such other mingling.

Prevalence of HIV positive is one of the lowest in Bangladesh. According to National AIDS/STD Programme officials a total of 3,922 Bangladeshi nationals constituting only 0.002 percent of the population have so far been found with HIV-positive and 799 death were reported.

Recent estimate show over 6,11,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh since August this year while their total number stands over one million. They have brought the deadliest health disease as big challenge for Bangladesh. Treating HIV patients is highly expensive and there is growing fear that it may quickly spread.

Myanmar is one of the 35 countries accounting for 90 per cent of new HIV infections globally. The number of adults and children living with HIV is 2,30,000. The military led government in that country always neglected the health issue. Some estimate suggest each screening of a patient costs around USD 15 and the daily cost of medicines is estimated at USD 2.5 per patient.

It is shocking that the Myanmar is pushing Rohingyas with more HIV patients into Bangladesh to overload our medical services and resources to bear their expenses. The biggest threat for us is how to contain the disease from becoming epidemic. We are becoming highly vulnerable to HIV infection carried out by Rohingyas while the world is just talking about humanitarian help instead of forcing Myanmar to end the crisis and take back Rohingyas with safety to their homes. Bangladesh doesn't need relief but want to be relieved from the burden of the refugees.

We not only fear of HIV disease, their presence is creating social tension and adding to local crimes. The international community must immediately intervene to end the crisis before it grows too big for Bangladesh to handle.
Trudeau meets with Suu Kyi

Myanmar\'s leader Aung San Suu Kyi greets Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Da Nang, Vietnam, where leaders have gathered for the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

CBC News :

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his special envjoy to Myanmar, Bob Rae, met with Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday, before the start of APEC trade talks in Da Nang, Vietnam.

The 45-minute meeting was arranged to discuss a possible way forward on the Rohingya refugee crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of Rohingya flee from Myanmar's Rakhine state into neighbouring Bangladesh in the face of violence at home. "Given Canada's commitment to the promotion of

pluralism and humanitarianism, Prime Minister Trudeau conveyed Canada's ongoing deep concern for the situation facing Rohingya refugees," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement. The meeting comes as Myanmar faces allegations of large-scale human rights abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority population in the predominately Buddhist nation. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate and an honorary Canada, has been criticized for not speaking out against the violence aimed at Rohingya Muslims in her country, which the UN calls ethnic cleansing. Trudeau spoke to Suu Kyi in September amid questions about her leadership at a time when many were accusing the country's military of carrying out ethnic cleansing against this long-persecuted group.

During that call, Trudeau "stressed the particular importance of the state counsellor as a moral and political leader," according to a readout. Last month, Trudeau announced the appointment of former Ontario premier Bob Rae as his special envoy to Myanmar.
No progress of police reports

Special Correspondent :

Police have reported no progress in tracing at least ten persons who mysteriously went missing in the recent past from different places of Dhaka city.

Among the disappeared are journalist Utpal Das, North South University teacher Dr Mubashar Hasan, Managing Director (MD) of RMM Group Aniruddha Kumar Roy, MD of ABN Group Syed Sadat Ahmed, Secretary General of Bangladesh Kalyan Party MM Aminur Rahman, President of Bangladesh Janata Party (BJP) Mithun Chowdhury, Canada's McGill University student Ishrak Ahmed and another student Arafat Rahman.

"Security and intelligence agencies are giving extreme importance to the issue and determined to discover the motives and whereabouts of the missing men," Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told The New Nation yesterday.

On Wednesday, he told reporters, "Many people do it willingly. Many people are going missing or hiding themselves to embarrass us. This is difficult for detectives to find out those who are hiding willingly. However, we'll trace them hopefully".

Utpal, 29, remains missing since October 10. His father Chitta Ranjan Das and the Editor of News Portal Purboposhchimbd.news filed two general diaries with Motijheel Police Station on October 12 and 13 respectively in connection with the incident.

"We have been carrying out an extensive search and trying to trace all possible contacts to find him," Officer-In-Charge (investigation)

of Motijheel Police Station Golam Rabbani told The New Nation yesterday.

ABN Group MD Syed Sadat Ahmed has allegedly been abducted from Banani in Dhaka, his family claims.

Sadat was forced out of his car and pushed into a microbus under the Banani overpass on August 22 in the afternoon, said his father Col (retd) Syed Shahabuddin Ahmed.

Police suspect Sadat's business rivals maybe behind the abduction, but yet to make any headway in the abduction case.

As per a statement of Kalyan Party, its Secretary General Aminur Rahman has been missing since August 27 after he left Naya Paltan around 10 pm for his home at Aminbazar in Savar on the outskirts of the capital.

Chairman of Bangladesh Kalyan Party Major General (Retd) Syed Muhammad Ibrahim urged the government to find out Aminur immediately.

BJP President Mithun Chowdhury went missing since October 27. He was last seen in front of Sutrapur's Lebu Market.

"Mithun was forced into a black microbus by a group of people who introduced themselves as law enforcers. They picked up him along with another BJP leader Ashiq Ghosh at about 12.10am on October 27 in front of the Lebu Market," Mithun's wife Sumona Chowdhury told The New Nation yesterday.

"I went to Sutrapur Police Station to lodge a missing diary, but the duty officer declined to accept the diary," she alleged.

Aniruddha Roy, the Honorary Consul General of Belarus, went missing from Gulshan in Dhaka on August 27. He was abducted around 4:30pm on the day, alleged his family members.

Five days before Aniruddha went missing, ABN Group MD Sadat was allegedly abducted from Banani in the capital.

Investigators suspect disappearances of Aniruddha, Aminur and Sadat are inter-connected and three were picked up in a similar manner. But still they are in dark about their whereabouts.

Ishrak Ahmed, 20, allegedly went missing from Dhaka's Dhanmondi area on August 26. He was last seen near Star Kabab at Dhanmondi around 8:30pm on the very day, according to police and family sources.

Victim's father Jamal Uddin Ahmed said that his son went out of their house around 5:30pm on that day to have snacks with his three friends, but he went traceless after 8:30pm. His cell phone was found switched off since then, he added.

Jamal filed a missing diary with Dhanmondi Police Station after Ishrak went missing.

Arafat Rahman, 24, who came to Dhaka from Nilphamari to visit his parents and later left for attending 'Tablig Jamaat' remain missing since October 7.

A general diary was filed on October 10 with the Mohammadpur Police Station after he went missing.

Investigators are yet to find clues behind the disappearances of the students.

In the latest case of mysterious disappearance, NSU Assistant Prof. Dr Mubashar Hasan went missing since November 7 and police are still in dark about his whereabouts.

"We have launched investigation into the incident, but we're yet to ascertain whether the teacher disappeared or was abducted," Officer-in-Charge of Khilgaon Police Station Moshiur Rahman told The New Nation yesterday.

Motahar Hossain, father of missing teacher Dr Mubashar Hasan, filed a general diary with Khilgaon Police Station in connection with the incident.
Tougher steps must to pressure on Myanmar

UNB, Dhaka :

Human Rights Watch on Thursday said the world leaders meeting for summits in Asia on November 10-14 should address Myanmar's Rohingya crisis.

"The Rohingya crisis is among the worst human rights catastrophes in Asia in years and demands concerted global action," said HRW Asia Director Brad Adams. He said, "World leaders shouldn't return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses and allow in independent observers and aid groups." Heads of government from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia and Mexico, will be meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Friday. Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will be meeting in Manila, Philippines, on November 12, along with associated Asean side-summits with the US, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, among others. Most of these leaders will then attend the annual East Asia Summit in Angeles, north of Manila, on November 13-14. Since August 25, the Myanmar military has carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State.



Security forces have committed massacres, rape, looting, and mass burnings of homes and property, causing the flight of more than 613,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh, said the global rights body.

The HRW, a New York-based human rights watchdog, has determined that the atrocities amount to crimes against humanity. The campaign has led several countries to suspend military engagement with Burma and reimpose targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on high-level military leaders. Tougher measures are needed to press Burma to end the abuses, acknowledge rampant rights violations, ensure the safety of the internally displaced, and give access to independent fact-finders, it said. The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo and targeted economic sanctions and travel bans on military officials implicated in atrocities, said the HRW. While the Security Council has not passed a resolution condemning the abuses, on November 6 it issued a Presidential Statement expressing concerns about the violence and calling on Burma to cooperate with UN bodies responsible for investigating the abuses. The Security Council should now take more meaningful action, but in the meantime concerned governments, especially those in Asia, can take coordinated bilateral or multilateral actions to impose targeted sanctions and travel bans, said the HRW.

Leaders at the Asia summits should jointly call on the Burmese government to allow access to northern Rakhine State by the UN fact-finding mission created by the Human Rights Council in 2016, as well as other UN human rights and humanitarian staff. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be attending parts of the Asean and related summits in the Philippines, and UN General Assembly members are currently debating a resolution on Burma to be adopted later this year. World leaders should not return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses. Leaders gathering in Asia should also be discussing the creation of judicial mechanismsto hold perpetrators of abuses in Burma accountable, including via the General Assembly and Human Rights Council. The Security Council should refer the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. "The International Criminal Court was created precisely to deal with crimes against humanity like those being committed in Burma," Adams said. "Members of the Security Council attending the Asia summits should be discussing referring the situation in Burma to The Hague."

The plight of displaced Rohingya should also be addressed at the Asia summits. Leaders should be clear that their governments will oppose plans for displaced Rohingya that do not meet core international standards prohibiting forced returns, or returns that would result in further abuses. The HRW also called for addressing the deteriorating human rights situations in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia.
Rohingyas to be driven out from rented houses

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

The Cox's Bazar district administration will launch a mobile court to drive out the Rohingya refugees from the rented houses.

"The mobile court will be launched against the Rohingya refugees from Sunday to oust them from the rented houses," Khaled Mahmud, additional district magistrate of Cox's Bazar, told The New Nation yesterday.

He said the Rohingyas will be evicted from the rented homes. Later, they will be sent to designated Rohingya makeshift camps and spontaneous settlements at Balukhali.

About 50,000 Rohingya refugees have reportedly been taken shelters at

rented homes in Cox's district (Cox's Bazar sadar, Ukhiya and Teknaf) taking the advantage of poor vigilance and monitoring by the law enforcement agencies.

Local said the well-off Rohingya families who fled to Bangladesh to escape the brutal violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, are mainly living in the rented homes.

They have been able to rent homes somehow managing the influential people of the locality, the locals added.

"We will find out Rohingya refugees who have taken shelters at rented homes," Md Abul Khair, Office-in-Charge of Ukhiya Police Station, told The New Nation yesterday.

On the other hand, Mainuddin Khan, Officer-in-Charge of Teknaf Police Station, told The New Nation, "We have information that around 5000-7000 Rohingyas have rented homes in Teknaf. We are taking steps to send them to camps."

"We are worried about our future as Rohingyas are rapidly adjusting themselves with local environment, customs, manner and lifestyle taking the advantage of language and facial similarities," Arif Hossain, a social workers in Cox's Bazar district told The New Nation yesterday.

Cox's Bazar, a district in the deep south of Bangladesh close to the Myanmar border with a population of over 2 million people.

Since August 25, about 800,000 Rohingya Muslims, most of them women and children, have fled to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district to escape violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

"The unprecedented exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into the district put an extensive pressure on local communities, infrastructure and resources. We're already afflicted by overpopulation and poverty. The influx of Rohingyas has further intensified the problems," Arif added.

He warns the situation will take a serious turn if the refugees stay for a longer time in absence of a quick solution over the crisis.

"We don't have enough land here to settle all these people. It will be a disaster if they have to stay for a long time," he added.


US will no longer tolerate trade abuses

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the final day of the APEC CEO Summit, part of the broader Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders\' summit, in Danang, Vietnam, November 10, 2017.

BBC Online :

President Donald Trump has said the US will no longer tolerate "chronic trade abuses", in a defiant address at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Vietnam.

He said he would always put US interests first and Apec nations should "abide by fair reciprocal trade".

In stark contrast, China's Xi Jinping said globalisation was irreversible and voiced support for multilateralism.

Mr Trump has visited China and Japan as part of his five-nation Asia tour. Apec brings together 21 economies from the Pacific region - the equivalent of about 60% of the world's GDP. Since taking office, President Trump has pursued his "America First" agenda and pulled the US out of the regional Trans-Pacific Partnership - a major trade deal with 12 Apec nations - arguing it would hurt US economic interests. In a speech in the Vietnamese port city of Da Nang on Friday, President Trump railed against the World Trade Organization, which sets global trade laws, and said it "cannot function properly" if all members do not respect the rules.

He complained about trade imbalances, saying the US had lowered market barriers and ended tariffs while other countries had not reciprocated. "Such practices hurt many people in our country," he said, adding that free trade had



cost millions of American jobs. But he did not lay the blame on Apec countries, and instead accused earlier US administrations of not acting earlier to reverse the trend. He said America would make bilateral agreements with "any Indo-Pacific partner here who abides by fair reciprocal trade", but only "on a basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit". Mr Trump has repeatedly referred to the region as "Indo-Pacific", a term used to define America's new geopolitical view of Asia. The US president had travelled to Da Nang from Beijing, where he had also discussed America's huge trade imbalance with China. There too, he said he did not blame the country for "taking advantage". This was a strong, confident speech by President Trump giving two starkly contrasting messages. He opened with glowing praise for the achievements of the Asia Pacific region. He listed most of the larger members of APEC, his flattery bringing applause from the audience, none louder than that which greeted his description of Vietnam's 2000-year struggle for statehood. He brushed over the Vietnam War.

Then came a list of America's grievances on trade. His reference to currency manipulation, and forcing companies to give up their intellectual property to get market access were clearly directed at China. Instead of multilateral arrangements, he offered new, bilateral agreements with countries prepared to give America a better deal. Mr Trump made no mention of the leadership the US has traditionally offered, in values, economic philosophy and military alliances. There was no mistaking the narrower role he sees for the US in the Asia Pacific region. Speaking minutes after his American counterpart, Chinese President Xi Jinping took to the podium to espouse his country's credentials as the new champion of world trade.

Globalisation, he said, was an "irreversible historical trend" but the philosophy behind free trade needed to be repurposed to be "more open, more balanced, more equitable and more beneficial to all".

In contrast to President Trump, the Chinese leader defended multilateral trade deals, which he said helped poorer nations to benefit. "We should support the multilateral trading regime and practise open regionalism to allow developing members to benefit more from international trade and investment."

The total trade relationship between the US and China was worth $648bn last year, but trade was heavily skewed in China's favour with the US amassing a nearly $310bn deficit.

Mr Trump has in the past accused China of stealing American jobs and threatened to label it a currency manipulator, though he has since rowed back on such rhetoric. During the US president's visit on Thursday, China announced it would further lower entry barriers in the banking, insurance, and finance sectors, and gradually reduce vehicle tariffs. Mr Xi promised "healthy" and "balanced" economic and trade relations.

Deals worth $250bn (190bn) were also announced, although it was unclear how much of that figure included past agreements or potential future deals. At the same time, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told journalists the deals were "pretty small" in terms of tackling the trade imbalance. Before the Beijing talks, Mr Trump in Tokyo lashed out at Japan, saying it "has been winning" on trade in recent decades.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will also be making a speech at the Apec summit. Japan had a $69bn (52.8bn) trade surplus with the US in 2016, according to the US Treasury department.

After attending the Apec summit, Mr Trump will pay a state visit to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi. Mr Trump will end his 12-day Asian tour in the Philippines on 13 November.
Macron makes surprise Saudi visit amid Lebanon crisis

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) and Emmanuel Macron met in Riyadh on Thursday.

BBC Online :

French President Emmanuel Macron has paid an unscheduled visit to Saudi Arabia amid an escalating crisis between the kingdom and Lebanon.

His trip comes days after Lebanese PM Saad Hariri resigned while in Riyadh, saying he feared for his life.

Foes Saudi Arabia and Iran have accused each other of fuelling instability in Lebanon and the wider region.

Mr Macron and Saudi officials also discussed the crisis in Yemen, where Riyadh is leading a war against rebels.

France has historical ties with Lebanon, as its former colonial power before it gained independence during World War Two. The French president was in the United Arab

Emirates on Thursday to open the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a spin-off of the famous Paris art museum. Ahead of his two-hour visit to Riyadh, Mr Macron said all Lebanese officials should live freely, "which means having a very demanding stance on those who could threaten any leader". No details of the alleged plot against Mr Hariri have been made public.

Uncertainty surrounds Mr Hariri's circumstances, amid rumours he was being held in Riyadh.

Mr Macron said on Thursday he had had informal contact with Mr Hariri, without giving details, while France's foreign minister said France believed Mr Hariri was able to move freely. Mr Hariri said in a TV broadcast on Saturday that he was stepping down because of the unspecified threat to his life.

In the video statement, Mr Hariri also attacked Hezbollah, which is politically and militarily powerful in Lebanon, and Iran. There are fears Lebanon could become embroiled in a wider regional confrontation between major Sunni power Saudi Arabia and Shia-dominated Iran.

Mr Macron is a keen supporter of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, which both the Saudis and the Trump administration have heavily criticised. Before going to Saudi Arabia, Mr Macron said that he had heard "very harsh opinions" on Iran from Saudi Arabia, which did not match his own view. "It is important to speak with everyone," he added. But an official communique from his office following the visit did not say Iran was among the matters discussed, French newspaper Le Monde reported.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Lebanon have soared since Mr Hariri announced his resignation.

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies told their citizens in Lebanon to leave the country immediately. It came after Riyadh accused Iran of "direct military aggression", saying it supplied a missile which it says was fired by Hezbollah at Riyadh from Yemen on Saturday. Iran has dismissed the Saudi allegations as "false and dangerous".
US Congress weighs sanctions on Myanmar military

VOA News :

Proposed sanctions against the Myanmar military should move quickly through the U.S. Congress due to strong bipartisan support, lawmakers told VOA.

The Burma Sanctions Bill in the House of Representatives and a companion bill in the Senate would apply economic pressure on military generals with the aim of ending the ongoing violence inflicted on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, also known as Burma. "This sends a very strong message to the Burmese military that we're not going to tolerate business as usual while they reap economic profits at the same time as they are perpetuating ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people," said Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the crisis last month,

Chairman Ed Royce called on Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to be more forceful in condemning the crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh. "Those responsible for these atrocities must face justice. She and the military generals must rise to this challenge," Royce said. "This is ethnic cleansing."

Engel said it is important for Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out about the crisis, "but we also have to take it in the context where her hands are tied because she's not able to do things because of the way the constitution was written." A spokesman for Myanmar's leader told the Reuters news service, "We need internal stability to improve the country's economy. Imposing international sanctions directly affects the people in travel and in business investments, and there are many bad consequences."

The House bill's Republican co-sponsor told VOA the sanctions are meant to give Aung San Suu Kyi more leverage with the military. "We would be able to work with her perhaps to relieve sanctions once in place if the military does reform itself and does certainly cease the hostilities and the atrocities that have occurred," said Representative Steve Chabot, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

If passed, the legislation would stop U.S. military cooperation with Myanmar in training and regional exercises, as well as reimposing bans on the country's lucrative gem trade that then-U.S. President Barack Obama lifted by executive order last year. If hostilities do stop, the bill also provides economic assistance to foster development in Myanmar and encourage the return of Rohingya. "The goal here is to get those who have been displaced and in general have gone to Bangladesh to allow them to return to Burma to return to their homes, although a lot of those homes have been burned to the ground by the military, so there's an awful lot of economic development that's going to be necessary," Chabot told VOA.



The Senate version of the sanctions bill is co-sponsored by Republican John McCain and Democrat Ben Cardin. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a longtime supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, dating back to her time under house arrest.

McConnell told reporters in September that he does not support a congressional resolution calling on Aung San Suu Kyi to be more forceful in condemning the crisis. "I think she's the greatest hope that we have to move Burma from where it has been, a military dictatorship, to where I hope it's going," McConnell said.

Even with time running short for Rohingya, the lobbyists who have mounted years of effort on their behalf are hopeful. "This is one issue where everybody across the political spectrum comes together in support of human rights in Burma," said Simon Billenness, executive director of the International Rohingya Campaign.

"We think that bodes very well for the progress of this bill and getting it to the president's desk."

Engel said he hopes to see the bills pass Congress by the end of this year.

"There's no reason why it shouldn't happen - what's happening with the Rohingya is documented; it's not as if we have a question about it; we know the military are the perpetrators of it and the United States cannot just do business as usual," he said.
Husband-3rd wife put on fresh remand

risingbd.com :

A Dhaka court placed Abdul Karim and his third wife Sharmin Mukta on a three-day fresh remand each in a case filed for killing a mother and her son in city's Kakrail area.

Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Amirul Haydar Chowdhury passed the order on Friday. Earlier, Ali Hossain, sub-inspector of

Ramna Police Station, and also the investigation officer of the case, produced the accused before the court seeking seven days fresh remand. On, November 3, the court placed Abdul Karim and his third wife on 6-day remand in a case over the killing. On November 1, Shamsun Nahar, 46 and her son Shawon, 19, were found dead in a flat of a multi-storey building in the city's Kakrail area. On information, police went to the spot and recovered their bloodstained bodies. Later, Ashraf Ali, brother of victim Shamsun Nahar, filed the case accusing Abdul Karim, Sharmin Akhter Mukta, her brother Al Amin alias Jonny, 33.
Iran-Saudi war of words causing new tension in the Middle East

Editorial Desk :

A 'war of words' between Saudi and Iranian leaders is escalating new tension in the Middle East following the resignation of Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Friday from Riyadh accusing a plot to kill him and destabilize his country.

Hariri -- a Sunni Muslim and treated as an ally of Saudi Arabia suddenly fled to Riyadh but Iran claimed he was forced to resign by Saudi authorities and holding him under house arrest.

Saad al-Hariri has earlier blamed Hezbollah -- a Shiite political movement in Lebanon with a powerful army operating within the Lebanese state, for attempting to 'hijack' Lebanon's political system.

In his words Iran is plotting from behind to help establish Shiite control over Lebanon's fragile political system where a



Sunni Prime Minister, a Christian President and Shiite Speaker of Parliament now run the country.

Hariri's father Rafiq Hariri, a former Prime Minister was similarly killed in a Beirut blast in 2005 and Saad Hariri claims he feared a similar attack before he fled.

The sudden development is adding new tension in the area at a time when the civil war in Syria is apparently closing to an end and Hezbollah, which fought along with Syrian regime army and Iranian Revolutionary Guards -- all are Shiite force -- is being blamed for flexing muscle to establish control over Lebanese complex political system.

People are already weary of war and its destruction in the region and they don't want to see the opening of any new confrontation. But the question is whether the leaders on all sides will give peace to the people.

Muslim leaders have become blind to fight themselves when the non-Muslims are killing poor Rohingyas and there is none to protect them..

In the Gulf region, Sunni Saudi Arabia wields considerable influence over Sunni population in Lebanon at a time when Sunni bastion of power in Syria and Iraq is already destroyed. Many believe a dangerous situation may be unfolding in Lebanon if it is not contained at this stage. Need to be mentioned that Lebanon witnessed a long factional civil war in the 1070s when people had suffered the worst.

As the blame and counter blame continues on the condition of Saad Hariri France President Emmanuel Macron is visiting Saudi Arabia on Friday to clear the confusion. Needless to say Lebanon was a France protectorate before it was partitioned from Syria and won independence in 1948

Meanwhile Iran's accusation that Saudi Arabia is interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs and it must keep away has further escalated the tension. Following the warning Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain have ordered their nationals in Lebanon on Thursday to return to their respective countries.

The Saudi monarchy is now busy with an unprecedented purge within the royal family and scores of princes and former ministers are under arrest and facing investigation on charges of corruption. It is facing critical time in all fronts.

Meanwhile, Saudi leaders have accused Iran of supplying a long-range missile to Yemen's Houti rebels who fired it over Riyadh last week only to be intercepted at last moment.

Saudi Crown Prince and de-facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman has accused Iran for the missile saying it is an 'act of war' against Saudi Arabia but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed the claim. Contrary to it, he has warned Saudi Arabia to be aware of the military might of the Islamic Republic. Iran is blaming USA and Israel for the new escalation.

The Middle East is through a tense situation again when people no more want any war and looking for stability and peace.




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.
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Linkedin Linawati Sidarto (The Jakarta Post) Amsterdam  Thu, November 9, 2017 09:48 1833 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a28105fd 4 Art & Culture Europalia,art-and-culture,exhibition,Iswanto-Hartono Free

Underneath Iswanto Hartonos solemnly beautiful exhibition in Amsterdam lies a powerful message of the colonial times for both Indonesia and the Netherlands.

Entering the grand, hushed hall of the 14th-century Oude Kerk (old church), visitors might easily overlook the statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen standing in the left corner beyond a wrought-iron door.



The head of the life-sized statue glows in a soft, luminous red, and only up close it becomes clear that it is set alight: the statue is made out of wax, and will burn throughout the eight-week solo exhibition by artist Iswanto Hartono, ending on Nov. 15.



I chose Coen because he is such an important, yet controversial, historical figure in colonial history, says Iswanto.



The exposition is part of Europalia, a biannual arts and cultural exhibition based in Brussels. Each time, one country is highlighted throughout the nine-month event, and Indonesia is its focus this time. Until now, Iswanto is the only artist exhibiting work for Europalia outside of Belgium



The Oude Kerk, Amsterdams oldest building, was specifically chosen by Europalia due to its strong ties with colonial history, Oude Kerk director and curator Jacqueline Grandjean explains.



The gothic building is now a museum and arts exhibition space, and still functions as a church on Sundays. Like many old churches, it is also the burial site of prominent citizens, including Jacob van Heemskerck, the Dutch captain whose ships first reached the spice islands of Banda in 1599.



The Dutch grip on Banda, with its much-sought-after nutmeg, was a milestone in the formation of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), a trading company which set the groundwork for Dutch colonial rule in the Indonesian archipelago.



The churchs chapel was built with VOC money, and many of the ships which sailed to the East Indies were blessed right here, Grandjean points out.



Grandjean set out to find an Indonesian artist for the exhibition, and Jakarta-based Iswanto was a logical choice.



History is often part of his art. He has such a thoughtful, non-judgemental look on it, says Grandjean, adding that his background as an architect was an advantage. It is not easy to set up art in an old, big church like the Oude Kerk. One needs to have a good understanding of space in order to make it work.

Monuments ( 2017 ) by Iswanto Hartono (Oude Kerk/Maarten Nauw)

While Iswanto and Grandjean toyed with different approaches, such as a giant curtain made of nutmeg hanging in the main hall, it resulted in four different displays that beg contemplation. In addition to Coens statue, there are six wax miniatures of colonial buildings such as the lighthouse in Lampung, Fort Belgica in Banda and the Amsterdam Gate that used to stand in the old town Kota area of Jakarta. In reality, some of the buildings are still standing, while others have disappeared.



Candles have always been used in spiritual worship, which fits in this space. It transmits light, and yet it will disappear, Iswanto said about using wax as a medium.



The monuments depicted were built for significant reasons, and some were later also torn down for other reasons. However, does it mean that they are forgotten once they are no longer physically there? Is that how we associate ourselves with history? In order to forget, we must remember first.



The statue of Coen, recognized as the founder of Batavia (now Jakarta), was perched on what is now Jakartas Lapangan Banteng for seven decades before being torn down in 1943, during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia.



In his own country, Coens statue in the middle of his hometown of Hoorn has sparked ongoing controversy between those who see him as a national hero and others who see him as the butcher of Banda. Under his command, the Dutch killed thousands of the Banda people accused of defying the Dutch monopoly on nutmeg trade.



Banda is featured in a separate room, where a glass case contains iPads with a short film combining images and animation that tell the history of Banda.



As one enters the room, faint local sounds  prayers from a mosque, people speaking the local dialect  can be heard in the background. I recorded that background track in Banda, Iswanto says.

Trophy ( 2017 ) by Iswanto Hartono (Oude Kerk/Maarten Nauw)

The most Dutch display is Iswantos silhouette interpretation of a carriage still used by the Dutch royal family for important occasions. On the side of the carriage, a gift from the city of Amsterdam to Queen Wilhelmina in 1898, is the painting Homage from the Colonies, showing the Dutch queen on a throne, surrounded by bowing subjects from its colonies, including Indonesians.



This carriage, I believe, belongs in a museum, and should no longer be used, Iswanto says. The continued use of the carriage has indeed been a subject of Dutch public debate in recent years.



Iswanto, born in 1972 in Purwerejo, Central Java, intertwined his family history onto a display of a table filled with heads of hunted animals from all corners of the world where the Dutch were present, including Indonesia, Formosa and parts of Africa.



Hunting, Iswanto says, is originally for gathering food, but it can also be seen as an act of conquering, with the heads as trophies. But hunting is also very personal for me, as my grandfather and my father used to hunt, Iswanto explained. On the wall are old family photos of his grandfathers hunting excursions in the early 20th century.



The exhibition was featured in Volkskrant and NRC, the two main dailies of the Netherlands, which is exceptional for a solo Indonesian artist. Volkskrantwrote that the exhibition was a poetic comment of Iswanto Hartono on the disappearing realization that the Netherlands and Indonesia have a shared past.



Historian Wim Manuhutu praised Iswantos work for sparking the question of the value of monuments and the stories behind them. And that one can, and should, look for the stories behind the standard explanations of those monuments.



It was so interesting to get the perspective of an Indonesian artist on our shared colonial history. Hes done it in such a way that viewers can form their own opinion instead of teaching us a lesson, said Floortje Doornik, an Amsterdam resident who came to the exhibition. The fact that its situated here, in an old church full of history, also lends to contemplation.



Grandjean points out, however, there were also critical voices. Some people were dismayed that such an exhibition was done in the Oude Kerk, which they saw as a symbol of Dutch glory.



In his opinion piece in the NRC daily, Iswanto wrote: Street names are changed, monuments are taken down and buildings are destroyed. But the VOCs true legacy  a corrupt system  was not destroyed by purging the monuments. As a matter of fact, the Soeharto era was synonymous [with] corruption.



__________________________



For further details, please log on to oudekerk.nl/en/programma/iswanto-hartono/
BLOOMINGTON  As the grain department manager for Evergreen FS, Steve Dennis has seen a lot of farmers sweat out the harvest season, wondering if they were going to get their crops in on time with high enough yields to make a profit.

This year, Dennis has talked to his share of nervous farmers, anxious to get the crops out of the fields but frustrated by a soggy fall.

We are a little bit behind because we got about a two- to two-and-a-half-week later start than normal, he said. It seemed like the crop matured rather slowly, probably because of a cooler-than-average August.

Central Illinois farmers arent the only ones behind. As a result, Gov. Bruce Rauner declared a statewide harvest emergency to assist farmers and grain handlers, allowing trucks hauling agricultural commodities on state routes (excluding interstates) to exceed their permitted gross vehicle weight limits by 10 percent.

Illinois is home to 72,000 farms on 26.7 million acres, and we are among the top three corn producers in the nation, Rauner said while visiting Stewart Farms in Yorkville on Sunday afternoon. Moving corn and other crops in a timely and efficient manner affects the bottom line of hardworking farmers. This declaration is an appropriate response to an urgent need.

The declaration issued Sunday is in effect for 45 days.

Local authorities also can waive the weight requirement on their roads.

The 2017 harvest is taking longer than usual, said Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr. Erratic weather is a contributing factor.

"Further, for the fourth straight year, farm income is expected to be near or below break-even. Permitting farmers and truck drivers to haul larger than usual loads of grain will speed the process in getting harvested crops from field to grain elevator to final destination.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 83 percent of Illinois corn was harvested, which was 11 percentage points behind the prior year and eight percentage points behind the five-year average. The Illinois soybean harvest was at 92 percent Sunday, two percentage points behind the prior year and the five-year average.

The harvests in the northwest, northeast and east regions are especially hard hit. Harvesters of a variety of crops made up ground toward the end of October, but early delays still are causing backups in the transportation chain.

This designation will certainly assist the farmers and the crops are actually turning in better yields than expected, and that in turn, creates a little bigger workload, Dennis said.

When you start a couple of weeks later, that pushes the tail end back," Dennis said. "One week in the early harvest is worth about three weeks at the end of harvest because of the wet, cool conditions you are likely to have.

Travis Barnes, who farms near Chenoa, said the designation will help farmers across the state, especially those with concerns about low yields.

Someone asked me yesterday why there was still so much corn still in the fields and I told them it was the same reason why there are still so many leaves left on the trees, he said. Mother Nature has had a real impact on the harvest season this year, even though it may not be noticeable to everyone.

"When you dont have extreme flooding or temperature changes, most people dont pay much attention. But, when your combine sits idle for a week, you notice those things.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. Bruce Rauner downplayed on Thursday the beating he took in the fall legislative session as evidence of an "ongoing and difficult" struggle for a better state.

With less than a year before he stands for re-election, lawmakers finished work Thursday after overturning more than a dozen gubernatorial vetoes.

The first-term Republican dismissed the notion that GOP lawmakers are abandoning him.

"The battle to get a better future for the people of Illinois is going to be ongoing and difficult," Rauner told reporters after a deployment ceremony for six Illinois National Guard members headed for Afghanistan.

"This is about what's best for the people of Illinois: Protecting our taxpayers, reducing our tax burden, growing more jobs, making our economy competitive. I vetoed some bills that were harmful to the people."

He claimed a key victory in his three-year-old agenda when the House failed to override his veto of a measure barring local governments from establishing "right-to-work" zones immune from labor-union influence.

And on Friday, the Senate failed to overturn him on a bill that would prohibit employers from asking an applicant's salary history, a practice advocates say hurts women who are traditionally underpaid.

But Rauner didn't fare as well when no one in the House and just three senators stood with him on separate override votes on an issue that became a political spat with Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza. It requires state agencies to report on the bills they've incurred monthly instead of once annually. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Rauner called it a "make-work" waste of money to generate instantaneously obsolete reports because of the speed with which government financing changes.

Mendoza also began using $6 billion in borrowed money Wednesday to pay down a mass of overdue bills wrought by a two-year budget stalemate. The first payment dropped the debt by $3.5 billion, to $13.2 billion.

But documents prepared to secure the loan showed that $2.8 billion in Rauner administration spending last year had not been authorized by the Legislature. She said Wednesday that the just-approved "debt-transparency act" would have helped taxpayers see the overspending sooner.

"Comptroller Mendoza criticizing an unbalanced budget that the Democrats passed and that she has worked on is like a bank robber calling the police and saying, 'We've got a problem,'" Rauner said. "This is a broken system."
DU QUOIN  Local food pantries agree that as the weather gets cold and the signs of holiday spirit emerge, they see a boost in two areas  the lines in their pantries get longer and their donations see a spike.

However, there is a tradeoff here. Jane Williams, president of the Murphysboro Food Pantry board, said they have a need the other 10 months of the year.

Money has got to be there all year long, Williams said. We cant tell people, 'We will feed you in November.'

She admitted there certainly is a strong need in November and December, but added that this does not diminish the need in the other months.

Jim Dimitroff, president of the Du Quoin Food Pantry, said there can be as much as a 25-percent increase in food pantry use this time of year, so the help is appreciated. However, he said he has seen an overall increase in need in recent months and years.

Megan Austin, director of the Murphysboro Food Pantry, said they saw an average of 100 more families come through their lines last month compared to historic data for the facility. On average, they serve about 3,400 to 3,500 people a month.

Whatever the cause, all agreed that the need is great in Southern Illinois, and though the uneven flow of donations makes things difficult sometimes  Austin said if the pantry runs low on food, they would have to cut back on how much each family receives as opposed to cutting back how many families they serve  they manage to get by on the goodness of peoples hearts.

There are a lot of generous people out there and we are thankful for them, Dimitroff said.

Williams said no matter when people give, she is always thankful.

Even if the donors only think about it in November and December, Ill take it, she said.

Steve McCray, vice president of the Du Quoin Food Pantry, said its not always easy making ends meet for the pantry.

Yes we go through rough times, he said, explaining that when things go wrong  a freezer goes out or the air conditioning needs to be replaced  they still somehow manage. The support always comes in.

Both the Du Quoin Food Pantry and the Murphysboro Food Pantry do their best to take the stigma away from needing to ask for help. In Du Quoin, patrons are given a certain allotment of points based on a variety of factors, including household size. With these points they are allowed to shop for goods the pantry has to offer  some things like bread do not count against their points. McCray said this allows people's personal tastes and needs to be most closely met, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all basket approach.

Williams said in Murphysboro she tries to give families the most value she can when preparing their boxes of food. She gave the example of a family of six  she said were someone to take the components of a box to a grocery store and replace them with the cheapest product equivalents, their total value would come to about $150.

In their work, all said one thing is absolutely paramount  check judgement at the door.

This is really not a position that you can grow to be callous in, Austin said.

Ive learned from work up here, do not judge people, McCray said. Youve not walked in their shoes. You have no idea what this lady or this guy is going through.

McCray and Williams said they take issue with the idea that their patron lists are full of scammers. Williams said while they do have the ability to ban people from using their services  this is done for things like selling food for other goods  they have done so very rarely. She said being poor and in-need is not an easy thing, spiritually and practically.

I feel like if they are willing to endure that to get whatever we have to share with them, they probably are in need, Williams said. They dont come, for the most, because they think they are going to get a T-bone steak. Williams said many have swallowed their pride and have exhausted all their other resources before coming there.

Williams said one never knows what a person's situation is. She provided the example of a woman who came in in a nice car and dressed well to ask for help. She approached Williams and said she had hit rock bottom. She had been having seizures and lost her job because she couldnt work.

I dont know what to do, Williams remembers her telling her, adding that she had never been to the food bank before.

McCray said he tries to correct misconceptions whenever he can. He remembered reading on social media a common complaint of someone with using a Link card  a card used to access government subsidy for designated food items  to buy cigarettes and other nonessentials.

I thought, What a lie, he said, and explained that he then posted the purchasable items list from the Department of Human Services.

McCray said the why is less important than the simple fact that people are hungry.

The need, its here, he said.

When it comes to how people give, Williams said anything is appreciated and different types of giving have different meaning. She said from adults, cash can be stretched the most by the pantry  she said because of USDA programs, which Murphysboro and Du Quoin both participate in, she can sometimes get a pound of food for just 50 cents. She said this means a $100 donation can bring in about 200 pounds of food.

However, she said canned food drives still have their place. She said if young children can have the experience of thinking about the hungry and seeing just how big an impact a group can have in helping the needy through a school food drive, then that has its own tremendous value.

She said she is never in any place to complain about a donation, whether its $5 cash or a package of mixed vegetables.

By gosh Im thankful for every can I get, she said.
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther, a German monk, initiated a split in Christianity that came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. After the Reformation, deep divisions between Protestants and Catholics contributed to wars, hostility and violence in Europe and America. For centuries, each side denounced the other and sought to convert its followers.

Then, in the early 1900s, ambitious Protestants in the U.S. attempted the unthinkable. Building on ideas circulating in Europe, they took charge of an effort to negotiate the reunion of Christianity. They failed, of course. Strange as it might now seem, their effort is nevertheless informative. Heres why.

How it started

By 1900, atheists and agnostics were becoming more prominent in the U.S. Anxious Protestant religious leaders started to argue in favor of a united Christianity to stop the spread of these ideas.

Noted theologian and fellow at Yale Newman Smyth complained at the time about religions lost authority in family, community and intellectual life. He declared, a Christianity divided in its own house against itself could not survive.

In response, in 1910, a very small but highly influential group comprising theologians including Smyth, as well as ministers of prestigious churches and noted business professionals, committed themselves to Christian unity.

For this group, unity meant more than cooperation or mutual understanding. It meant the actual reunion of Protestantism and Catholicism.

The influential WWI chaplain

Their most significant member was Charles Brent, an Episcopalian bishop.

In the early 1900s, Brent had been a missionary to the Philippines. While there, he became friends with John Pershing, the army officer overseeing much of the territory acquired by the U.S. This friendship would propel the bishop to greater prominence.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Pershing took command of U.S. forces in Europe. He persuaded Brent to organize and lead the newly established corps of army chaplains. As he built up the ranks of chaplains, Brent showed his own commitment to Christian unity. Though a Protestant, he made a Catholic priest his second in command and encouraged recruitment of Catholic chaplains.

When Brent returned to the United States in 1919, he was even more convinced that a divided Church was a fundamental disloyalty to Christ. He lent his name to publications and events to build support for the cause.

Failure to unite

Proponents of unity recognized the need to proceed slowly with this difficult task. Smyth, for example, insisted that they not rush to put forward particular plans or measures. Rather, the group should simply arrange meetings and conferences where Catholics and Protestants could discuss their differences. Smyth hoped that the sentiment for unity would emerge from dialogue.

But years of discussion brought no progress toward actual unity. The biggest obstacle was that, despite repeated invitations, Catholics took no part in the effort beyond sending unofficial observers to occasional meetings.

There were other issues as well. Protestants expected concessions from both sides. They also expected Catholics to limit the power of the papacy. One Protestant theologian, Charles Briggs, had anticipated that the Vatican would place a system of checks and balances on the pope. In exchange, Protestants said they might accept the papacy, abandoning a critique that dated back to the Reformation.

Catholics found such expectations to be absurd. They rejected any demand for changes to their church.

Global peace through Christian unity?

Despite these difficulties, motives beyond religion gave the movements leaders new inspiration in the 1920s. They thought Christian unity offered a path to global peace.

It was a time when Americas role in global affairs seemed uncertain. While American intervention had helped allies win the war, the U.S. had rejected the Treaty of Versailles, the agreement which ended the war. The U.S. also refused to join League of Nations, brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, formed to resolve international disputes. The possibility of another war loomed large.

To this group, Christian unity offered an alternative means to achieve peace. It was a way of preventing more bloodshed. In correspondence with a friend, Charles Brent worried that only new unity among the churches would prevent hideous waves of terror from striking people of the next generation.

Another supporter, peace activist Peter Ainslie, predicted that fights between Catholics and Protestants would continue to spark global conflicts. Only the union of Christian forces would bring an end to militarism and lead to global peace, he noted.

Not enough support

Statements like these highlight how some Americans connected religion to international politics after World War I. But they also reveal why the unity effort failed to win broad support.

The American people had as little interest in global Christian unity as they did in the League of Nations. After the turmoil of the war years, many wanted a focus on domestic issues. They had no wish to remake familiar institutions like the church. This became clear in the 1920 presidential campaign, when Warren Harding won a landslide victory after running an isolationist campaign. His slogan, Return to normalcy, signaled an end to the previous decades lofty efforts to transform the world.

Furthermore, most Protestants had as little enthusiasm for these efforts as Catholics. They argued that institutional reunion of Protestantism and Catholicism was not needed. Outlook, a nationally read Protestant periodical, for example, ran an editoral stating that both sides already agreed on the essential elements of Christianity and whatever differences remained were merely distinctive denominational peculiarities.

Living with differences

The effort for unity was not a complete failure, though. It helped advance unity through dialogue. Its greatest success was a 1927 conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. Organized largely by Americans and presided over by Charles Brent, the gathering prompted new dialogue among Protestants, both in the United States and in Europe.

In fact, the main unintended consequence of the unity campaign was that it caused people to realize that they did not want actual unity. It was possible, in other words, to accept the post-Reformation division of Christianity. The differences separating the Protestants and Catholics could be shrugged off as peculiariaties rather than intolerable divisions.
An Orangeburg lawmaker has been formally charged with assaulting another in a dispute over school consolidation.

Rep. Jerry N. Govan, D-Orangeburg, was charged Thursday with third-degree assault and battery, a misdemeanor. Hes accused of injuring Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg.

Govan is free on bond after turning himself in at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia.

A Richland County Sheriffs Department warrant says the dispute occurred on May 11 as Govan approached Cobb-Hunter in a back conference room of the S.C. Statehouse in Columbia.

The warrant says Govan yelled, Dont put words in my mouth!

At that point, Cobb-Hunter extended her arm out to keep Mr. Govan from getting any closer to her, the warrant said.

Thats when Govan allegedly grabbed Cobb-Hunter on her right wrist area then twisted it, which caused her to fall back.

The victim did have soreness and swelling to her right wrist area, the warrant states.

She received medical treatment from a nurse at the Statehouse.

In a prior interview, she noted that she kept an ice pack on her wrist for two days.

The two lawmakers had been discussing legislation that called for consolidating Orangeburg Countys three school districts into one.

On Thursday afternoon, Richland County Magistrate Stephanie D. Bess set Govans bond at $1,087 on his personal recognizance.

He waived his right to appear in court, but attorney Theresa N. Johns represented him at the bond hearing.

Johns said shes going to rely on the facts and the law while defending Govan.

This is not what the people of Orangeburg expect in their representatives, she said. We hope to reestablish their confidence in the system and representatives when this is over.

She said there was a mutual unwanted touching between Govan and Cobb-Hunter during the May 11 incident.

He really wanted to take the high road in this case, Johns said. Johns said Govan hasnt had the opportunity to tell his side of the story.

All of the facts will come out in trial, she said.

Cobb-Hunter did not appear at Govan's bond hearing.

After the hearing, Govan said he learned Tuesday that the Richland County Sheriffs Department had a warrant for his arrest.

He turned himself in to authorities on Thursday morning, accompanied by his wife and attorney.

Govan declined to provide specific details about the May 11 incident, but maintains that Cobb-Hunter initiated contact.

The fact of the matter is she forced an object directly in my face, he said.

He said he responded as any reasonable person would.

I did not file a complaint at that time because the event was immediately reported to the (House) Speaker, Govan said.

House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, had the incident investigated. On June 6, he sent a letter urging both lawmakers to keep future engagements civil and professional.

Lucas letter cited a lack of clear evidence about who initiated the physical contact, but noted the two made mutual physical contact with one another as a result of the confrontation.

If clearer evidence of who initiated the physical contact existed, I can assure you both that severe consequences would result, he said in the letter.

Cobb-Hunter took exception to Lucas letter.

In an interview shortly after, she said that after House security restrained Govan, he was still making an attempt to come after me.

She said Lucas took the easy way out by claiming both were at fault.

She also noted, I believe in this instance, previous acts of violence by Govan have gone unchecked.

In 2004, Govan got into a heated confrontation with then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison, which included contact and led to them being separated by staff. Govan was removed from the Judiciary Committee.

Cobb-Hunter hired attorney Reggie Lloyd to investigate the May 11 incident and get statements from witnesses.

Govan said that neither he nor his attorney were surprised at the charge.

Im obviously very disappointed, he said. Even though it has personal ramifications on my good name and character, more important are the citizens I represent who placed their faith and trust in me throughout the years.

He said certain parties werent satisfied with the outcome of the House investigation, so they shopped around until they found somebody willing to take it up.

I look forward to being exonerated based on what happened, he said.

Cobb-Hunter could not be reached Thursday.

Lucas told The (Columbia) State on Thursday that the House investigation into the incident was exhaustive.

He told The State he believes the Richland County Sheriffs Offices conclusion, is based upon altered testimony or a differing recollection of events than those available to me throughout the Houses investigation.

Given the inconsistencies that have arisen, he believes the issue should be handled by law enforcement.

If convicted, Govan faces a maximum fine of $500, 30 days in jail or both.

Govan is expected to appear in court again on Dec. 11 at 1 p.m.
I was speaking to a group of small business owners recently about the benefits of military service and hiring military veterans for their businesses. As I received their still very special, Thank You for Your Service, compliments following my talk, I realized that the public displays of gratitude for military service have their origins in the failure to honor, recognize and respect military veterans from the Vietnam War upon their return.

In so many ways, my generation of military veterans owes an incredible debt of gratitude and respect to the actions that the Vietnam War military veterans took to create a world-class military.

 Vietnam veterans fought as brothers in a war that divided the country: One of the truly unappreciated themes of the Vietnam War is the quality, professionalism and sacrifice of the U.S. military in Vietnam when the country was rife with racial, political and societal strife.

Daily in the Vietnam War, military personnel performed heroic acts, combat operations, logistical support, medical training, civilian support operations and the myriad of other tasks that a deployed military force needs to operate successfully. This extreme professionalism and sacrifice by service members for each other in an unpopular war is one of my greatest areas of gratitude to Vietnam veterans.

 Vietnam veterans gave the military an extreme focus on training. The best action that can be done for a military service member and a military force is difficult, challenging and realistic combat training. I was just joining the U.S. Army as the last generation of Vietnam War military veterans was in its final years of active service.

My military training was marked by back-crushing road marches, and being trained in how to render life-saving first aid, how to work with foreign military forces and how to train to instantly assume the role of a military leader when the current leader is injured.

These lessons all came from the truth that Vietnam War veterans experienced in their jungle battlefield. True to their service, they did not forget these lessons but ensured my generation learned them before entering combat.

 Vietnam veterans personally re-entered society with honor and vibrancy. Vietnam veterans were given so little when they returned home, but they gave so much back. They became business people, nurses, entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, doctors, inventors, politicians, government officials, teachers, parents and leading members in society. What is so remarkable is that as the country turned away from military service, they turned toward the country in terms of what more they could provide to make the country better. The lesson for my generation of military veterans is clear: We can and need to do more to create an even better United States.

 Vietnam veterans innovated a military force that was technologically superior. The military technology of the Vietnam War is scantly recognizable to todays military. The Global Positioning System, scopes on nearly all combat rifles, first-round accuracy on artillery systems, thermal sights on attack helicopters, armed drones, night vision devices and scores of other improvements create a well-armed, well-trained and well-led military. These innovations and improvements came from thousands of Vietnam veterans who recognized that U.S. military technology needed to improve quickly and drastically.

On Veterans Day, seek out, discover and listen to the stories of service and sacrifice of Vietnam Veterans. The thanks, respect, hiring programs and post-military treatment that the military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan receive today are due in large part to the sense of gratitude for military service that was missing for military veterans of Vietnam. The United States owes more thanks and gratitude to this great generation of military veterans.
South Carolina Secretary of State Mark Hammond made the announcement just days ahead of Saturdays Veterans Day observance: A settlement has been reached between 24 state agencies and VietNow National Headquarters Inc., an Illinois-based charitable organization. The pact will result in the dissolution of the organization  and that appears to be a very good thing.

In March 2017, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette alleged thousands of deceptive solicitation violations against VietNow for misrepresenting its charitable programs to donors. That investigation led to other state actions and the present negotiated resolution shutting down the charity.

In addition to appointing a receiver to dissolve VietNow, the settlement obtains injunctive relief against VietNows directors and officers and requires their cooperation in investigations of VietNows professional fundraisers. Upon dissolution, VietNows remaining funds will be distributed to two national and well-respected veterans charities, Fisher House Foundation and Operation Homefront.

The S.C. Secretary of States Office had previously named VietNow National Headquarters a Scrooge in 2003 and 2015, based on the organizations low percentage of total expenses devoted toward charitable programs. In its most recent financial statement for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, VietNow reported raising nearly $2 million nationwide. However, most of this cash was paid to fundraisers, with only 4 percent of its expenditures going toward charitable programs.

Hammond said, Organizations like VietNow that exploit the sacrifices of the men and women serving in the armed forces and donors patriotism are the lowest of the low.

But they are not rare.

Brian Mittendorf, Fisher College of Business distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Accounting & Management Information Systems at The Ohio State University, researches nonprofit organizations and teaches about their finances. He notes that 10 percent of the charities tagged as Americas Worst Charities by the Tampa Bay Times and the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2013 focused on veterans.

Many Americans honor those who have lost their lives in the line of duty by donating to charities that help military veterans, Mittendorf writes for theconversation.com It can, however, be daunting to choose from the more than 8,000 such groups operating nationwide.

It is important to know which organizations deserve support.

I have observed that while some veterans charities do squander donors dollars, others make the most of donations in meeting their mission, Mittendorf states. Fortunately, a little research goes a long way toward spotting the difference between a good cause and a lost cause.

He offers four key key tips:

1. Learn what exactly the charities do: Be wary of vague statements about a groups activities. While language indicating that a charity supports or honors veterans does not always signal a problem, it does mean you should seek more specific information. Many of the veterans charities that have faced criticism, such as Paralyzed Veterans of America and National Veterans Services Fund, have had vague mandates to educate the public about what veterans need.

2. Find out what share of the money raised for organizations actually supports them: Michigans attorney general determined that only 39 percent of funds raised by professional solicitors for charity in the state in 2016 actually supported those groups. The fundraising contractors kept the rest of the money. The picture is even more lopsided for veterans charities in the state, with only 23 percent of donations making it into their coffers. The track record in Michigan is no anomaly  New York, Massachusetts and other states have found similar patterns.

Professional solicitation is not inherently problematic  but outsourced fundraisers keeping most of the money raised for a charity is a real concern. The federal government does not track this information but most offices of state attorneys general maintain databases that indicate how the organizations raising funds in their states stack up.

3. Check out IRS 990 forms: Perusing IRS forms is the best way to discover how donor dollars are actually spent. Finding a charitys tax form is easy, even if groups dont post them on their own websites, thanks to databases like Propublicas Nonprofit Explorer and the Foundation Centers 990 Finder. If you do check out a 990 form, be sure to go to page 10. Thats where nonprofits classify their expenses, both by function and type. There, you can see where donated money primarily goes.

4. Inquire about donor privacy policies: When you make charitable donations, you give away both money and personal information. What charities do with your personal data is part of the picture and how they handle this information varies widely. If an organization doesnt state its privacy policy on its website, take the time to ask.

When it comes to vetting charities, a little work goes a long way. These four steps should help you find veterans charities with goals that match your own and that you can trust to make the most of the money you give away.
18 Chefs graduated with Advanced Level certificates from the Alvins Culinary Institute during a graduation ceremony held at the Kingstown Technical Institute Saturday 4th,November.





The students as well as family members, members of the Kingstown Technical Institute and Alvins Culinary Institute gathered outside the Kingstown Institute building for the graduation ceremony. The Advanced Level course involved practical and theoretical sessions.





The students smiled and displayed happiness as they were presented with Chef Jackets and certificates. But there was no one as proud as Annesa Caesar the Valedictorian, who hails from the North Leeward community of Spring Village.





Caesar during her valedictory speech said that when she first heard about the Culinary Art class, she became excited, since she has interest in cooking, and since joining, she has no regrets. "I must say that it was fun and educational, said Caesar concerning the course. She said she found inspiration from some of her colleagues, while others saw the course as a competition. "I must say thanks to Ali (Alvin Jackson) who was like a father, a counselor and a peace maker in this group. She also commended her fellow graduates, and concluded by telling them "You dont receive respect if you dont earn it.





Chef Alvin "Ali Jackson is the driving force behind the advance culinary course and also the tutor. He said that he started doing basic cooking classes at the YWCA, but the students from the basic class encouraged him to do an advance level course. "This year, I started the advance level, and this is the second batch of graduates, and there is a third batch already on the way, he said. The certificate that the students received upon graduation is certified by the Ministry of Education. "I am very proud, really really proud and very much impressed. The batch before this did well and this batch also did extremely well, and it shows that people are learning, and if I can impart some knowledge unto some, I am willing to teach as much as I can, said Jackson, who revealed that he has great plans for the future which will benefit the entire country. "We have plans to open a culinary college in St. Vincent.





Principal of the Technical Institute Bertillon Hamilton encouraged the graduates to aim higher and to achieve a Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) so that they can move within the region. "This is just the foundation, and I hope you can move on to higher qualification, declared Hamilton.

Featured speaker Negus Bynoe paid tribute to Jackson, noting that he has numerous qualifications, but he chooses to help persons develop their culinary skills. Bynoe told the graduates that they have the potential to reach as far as they want in the culinary arts. "I believe that your experience at this point is really just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that the potential is inside of you, you just have to reach in and tap into it, said Bynoe.

He encouraged Alvin to continue on his journey, telling the audience that Jackson is on the right path. He is thinking ahead, and I want to encourage him to continue to do that.

A number of students also paid tribute to Jackson as well as their colleagues. {KH)
Minister of Health, Wellness and the Environment, Luke Browne, said that among his tasks as the head of the health sector, was ensuring that the highest level of quality health care was administered to patients.





This was in response to Daniel Cummings, question to the minister to indicate the number of cases of persons dying at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) during this year.





He asked also for the minister to state whether the cases were being investigated, to provide the causes of the fatalities, and to indicate if the death of a pregnant woman was included in any of the investigations.

However, Browne, in beginning his response, took issue with the question, particularly the part where Cummings stated that "There has been this year numerous cases of persons dying at the MCMH in circumstances that are to say the least, bewildering.

"If anything, this question is bewildering and probably does not comply with the rules of this House, Browne sid.





The health minister said that the question was in violation of Standing Order 20 of the rules of the House.

"Moreover, there is of course no way of knowing what is or is not bewildering in the mind of the honourable member for West Kingstown, Browne continued.

"I wish the honourable member would concentrate his energy on asking sensible and intelligible questions in this Parliament and be less pre-occupied with playing politics, making cheap shots and seeking to plant wrongful perceptions in the mind of the public, Browne said.








Vincentians on a whole, but nationals in Pennsylvania in particular, are expressing elation over the historic hoisting of the national flag at Philadelphia City Hall last Friday .





"It was a magnificent feeling watching SVG [St. Vincent and the Grenadines] flag glistening in the wind on the northeast corner of one of the oldest municipal buildings in the USA, Philadelphia City Hall, and it will fly there for one week. Wonderful! exclaimed James Cordice, the Clare Valley-born former president of the Philadelphia-based St. Vincent and the Grenadines Organization of Pennsylvania (SVGOP), who was instrumental in getting the national flag to fly on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia in 2010.

"But this sight reminds me of 10/27/2010, when our flag was first installed on Ben Franklin Parkway, added Cordice, the architect of St. Vincent and the Grenadines participation in the prestigious Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, in a VINCENTIAN interview.





"Rohan Pierre, Ronaldo Pierre and myself were there, first on scene, he continued. "And this warm feeling of pride lingers in my heart. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Philadelphia for giving SVG this prominent gift.

Yvonne OGarro, the incumbent SVGOP president, who hails from Lower Middle Street, Kingstown, said "It was a spectacular sight and a momentous occasion on the hoisting of the Vincentian flag at Philadelphia City Hall.





"Mayor Jim Kenny was unable to attend, but declared Oct. 27 a celebration of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Independence Week in Philadelphia, said OGarro in a statement.

"A small group of Vincentians, decked out in their national colors, stood with their eyes fixed to the sky, as they watched with pride as the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was being hoisted.

"Ms. Claudine Mitchell sang the National Anthem with Vincy pride, and Sister John gave the invocation. It was truly a feeling of elation, she added.

"Ms. Miriam Enrique, Director of Office of Immigrant Affairs, said she was touched by the groups reaction as they watched their flag being hoisted.





Sheila Hess, representing Mayor Kenny, presented a proclamation to OGarro.

Stanley Straughter, former chairman of African and Caribbean Business Council of Greater Philadelphia, said "Ms. Yvonne OGarro has put St. Vincent and the Grenadines on the map.

"It was, indeed, a historical day for all Vincentians living in Philadelphia and the surroundings, OGarro said.
Employees of FLOW as well as curious onlookers, waited outside the Coreas building.

Workers at Telecommunications Company FLOW had to vacate the buildings headquarters on Halifax Street, after someone called in a bomb threat on Wednesday.





Police cordoned off the area between the St. Vincent Building and Loan and Coreas City Store on the southern side and the Ministry of Education to the north, as detectives went searching for a bomb. However, no bombs were found. Affected though, were many persons carrying out normal business and working activities in the area, who were disrupted. The flow of traffic was also interrupted, with traffic having to be diverted to McKies Hill.

Flow employees waited patiently to return to work, while the officers prevented persons from traversing the area.

Up to press time when THE VINCENTIAN contacted the police for information concerning the bomb threat, none was forthcoming. An employee at FLOW, however, told THE VINCENTIAN that someone had called to report that a bomb was placed inside the building. (KH)
An Employee shall be appointed to a position commensurate with his or her qualifications within reasonable time of the completion of his or her studies, provided that the Ministry of Education has approved such studies and the employee is qualified for promotion, in accordance with the Public Service Commission Regulations.





This is a quote from the Collective Bargaining Agreement of 2005 between the Teachers Union and the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which was highlighted in a Press Conference held on Monday by the St. Vincent Teachers Union, and was an integral part of their presentation.





With the announcement by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves in his recent Independence Speech, of the appointment of 100 Graduate Teachers, Industrial Relations Officer Otto Sam is of the opinion that this announcement was as a result of Union Pressure, calling on the Government to adhere to Article 26-2 and 27-3 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement of 2005.





Sam also stated that, while the appointment is partially pleasing, there are Graduate Teachers who have retired and were legally entitled to be appointed, that should also retroactively receive compensation based on the agreement, some from as far back as 2005.





The Union also announced a week of activities dubbed Teachers Solidarity Week "Defending Workers Rights: An Imperative," beginning on Sunday, November 12th with Church Service to be held at the Hope for Life Restoration Ministries in Arnos Vale. Other Activities include the Annual General Meeting to be held on Wednesday, November 15th at the Thomas Saunders Secondary Secondary School at 4pm, and a March and Rally on Friday, November 17th from the Peace Memorial Hall to the Bishops College Kingstown Hard Court.

The Union also announced plans afoot to implement a Health Insurance fund for its Members, costing approximately Five Dollars per Month.




Left:Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte emphasized that minors caught using or in possession of marijuana will be detained. Right:Pastor Lance Lewis, President of the National Evangelical Association of Belize.

An amended Misuse of Drugs Act, which decriminalized possession and use of small amounts of marijuana, is now law in Belize.





Governor General Sir Colville Young has assented to the Bill, following approval by legislators in the House of Assembly and the Senate late last month.





Now that the Bill has been signed into law, adults can have up to 10 grammes of marijuana in their possession and smoke it on their own premises or somebody elses private premises, once the owner gives permission.

However, it is still illegal to take the drug on school premises, and the amended legislation provides for monetary and non-recordable penalties for that. Minors caught with any quantity of the drug would also be subject to punishment.





"If you are a minor and you are in possession of marijuana, you will have to be detained. You have to be arrested, explained Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte.





"Its just that when you go to court, the court will say good, given this new piece of legislation, you young man or young lady we are going to put you through a counselling programme. In the coming weeks or days, the Minister of Police is going to set forth some regulations that would say what the appropriate counseling is, what is the appropriate guidance. Until then, the Juvenile Court will use whatever measures they use currently to punish minors who have committed offences.





While Prime Minister Dean Barrow had described the partial decriminalization as a landmark move, the National Evangelical Association of Belize (NEAB) has taken issue with the removal of penalties for the possession and private consumption.





"We feel that legalizing, even in a small amount, is a step in the wrong direction, as it will now allow more persons to be involved in this trade, lamented NEAB president Pastor Lance Lewis.

Vice president Pastor Scott Stirm further complained that the Government passed the law too quickly and ignored all views opposed to its passage.





"The National Evangelical Association of Belize presented to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, on May 20, 2016, letters, reports and the signatures of 225 national pastors and denominational overseers and leaders, expressing our strongest concern and objection to the initiative to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in Belize. That packet included scientific reports stating the scientific facts of research concerning damage to the brain from daily marijuana use, especially to teenagersIt seems to us that the alarming scientific and real life data has fallen on deaf ears. It seems that the influence of the decriminalizing of marijuana committee has overridden all other voices, he said.





However, Peyrefitte contended that "given what the church has been found guilty of in recent yearspriests and pastors have no moral authority to try and judge anybody out here who wants to smoke marijuana.

"The churches dont rail against cigarettes, they dont rail against alcohol, and theres nothing to prove that marijuana is any more dangerous than those two perfectly legal drugs, the Attorney General argued, also questioning the churchs motivation for its opposition to the law and charging that given their late intervention, they "just want to object for object sake. (Source Caribbean360.com)
Over 300 delegates from Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean, on Wednesday, November 8, began three days of intensive discussions on critical issues in the global banana industry, as the World Banana Forum opened its Third Global Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.





Delivering the opening address at the Conference, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Forum, Mr Renwick Rose, called for "new forms of engagements and exemplary relationships to be forged by the multiple players in the industry in order to avoid the negative situations of the past which had led to a virtual "race to the bottom.





He said that the so-called "banana wars of the past and intense competition between retailers, had hurt all involved in the industry, especially small producers. The path embarked upon by the Banana Forum of dialogue and collaboration for mutual benefit, is the only way forward, and the experience of the Forum is already demonstrating that.





One example of this collaboration is the production of an Occupational Health and Safety manual, a cooperative effort between member organisations of the Forum, with support of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The Manual, which covers recommendations on health and safety issues in the banana industry, is part of a pilot project in Ecuador and Cameroon. It was officially launched at the Opening Ceremony of the Conference by the Minister of Labour of Ecuador, Mr Raul Clemente Ledesma.





A special conference on "Gender Equity in the banana industry took place on Tuesday, and made a number of recommendations to improve the well-being of women in the banana industry. It was attended by WINFA Coordinator, Ms Kozel Peters-Fraser who described it as "very productive and educational.

A number of recommendations were made by the Womens Conference to the main Conference, covering such issues as making banana production attractive for women, the provision of child-care facilities, micro-financing, empowering women and fostering their participation in decision-making, as well as combating sexual harassment and gender-based violence.

Ms Peter-Fraser will address the Conference tomorrow as part of a Panel examining "A fairer distribution of value.
(L-R): Minister of Foreign Affairs Sir Louis Straker; Yoshinori Yakabe, Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Japan in Port of Spain, and Minister of Health Luke Browne.

The government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in particular the Ministry of Health, is the beneficiary of generous assistance from the Government and People of Japan.





The assistance came in the form of a grant of USD 90,000 under the grant assistance facility of the Grass-Roots Human Security Projects (GGP).





In fact, monies from the grant had already been used in the purchase of equipment.

During a ceremony held last week Tuesday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingstown, Minister of Health Luke Browne, in thanking the Government and People of Japan for their continuing goodwill, outlined how the money was apportioned.





According to Browne, US $34, 000 was used to purchase urology equipment,; US $12,000 for the purchase of equipment for the blood bank, and just over US $ 40,000 for a Bronchoscope.





Minister of Foreign Affairs Sir Louis Straker also addressed the ceremony, and assured that the various pieces of equipment will enhance the operation of the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH), in its delivery of proper healthcare for the citizens of this country.





Sir Louis also reminded the ceremony that " we have to observe that this country has been doing exceedingly well in its foreign affairs. Because its through our relationships that we have been able to source so much for the economic and social enhancement of our country.





Diana Martinez, Urologist at the MCMH, expressed her gratitude for the donation. She said the equipment will be very useful for their work and will bring benefits to the patients.

Meanwhile Yoshinori Yakabe, Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Japan in Port of Spain, Trinidad, explained that the Grant Assistance Contract was signed between his predecessor and Dr Charles Wood, Medical Director of the MC

MH.





"Indeed, it is our hope that the benefit from this grant will further enhance the quality of healthcare provided by the hospital, while improving patients care for the citizens of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said Yakabe, adding that his government "stands committed to the bilateral relations with SVG.

The Grass-Roots Human Security Projects (GGP) was established to assist NGOs and local public authorities in developing countries, in responding to various development needs in a prompt and complete manner. (KH)
The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC) wishes to congratulate all our students on the May/June 2017 CAPE sittings.





Some of our students performed extremely well and are ranked in the top ten in the region in this years results.

Ms. Abigail Scott was ranked No.2 for the CAPE Biology Unit 2, 3rd for Chemistry Unit 2, and 9th for Pure Mathematics Unit 2.

For Geography Unit 2, Ms. Thandi Myers and Mr. Daree Myers are ranked 4th and 6th respectively.

In Physical Education and Sport Unit 2, the SVGCC copped 4 of the top ten places. Ms. Cherice Roberts, Ms. Glenda Harry, Mr. Akinde Samuel and Ms. Shaniqua La Borde are all ranked 3rd, 4th 7th and 9th respectively.

We thank the students, parents and lecturers for their hard work in the academic year 2016-2017. Special mention must be made of the following lecturers whose students have achieved the above rankings in the mentioned subject areas: Mrs. Jo-Ann Marshall-Thompson-Biology Unit 2; Mrs. Veronica John-Luke-Chemistry Unit 2; Mr. Wayne Young - Pure Mathematics Unit 2; Mr. Allanson Cruickshank - Geography Unit 2, and Mr. Roxell John Physical Education and Sport.

Mr. John must be especially commended, as this is the first year that so many Vincentian students have been ranked in the top ten regionally for a single subject. Last year, only two Vincentian students made it into the CXC Merit lists: Abigail Scott was 5th in Unit 1 Chemistry, and Richard John was 1st for Integrated Mathematics and 6th for Computer Science Unit 2.

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College takes this opportunity to wish the students all the best in their future endeavours.

Nothing limits Excellence!





The complete lists can be found at http://www.cxc.org/merit-lists/
A five-member team from St. Vincent Electricity Services Limited (VINLEC) left the island on Sunday November 5th for the Commonwealth of Dominica to assist with the restoration of electricity.





Electricity supply in Dominica was severely disrupted following the passage of Hurricane Maria. Reports indicate that a large number of areas are still without power and require extensive work. The team, which is being led by Mr. Alston Scott (Line Supervisor - Maintenance), will work with staff from Dominica Electricity Services Limited (DOMLEC) and other regional utilities to rebuild the network and restore electricity.

The other members of the team are Mr. Mowai Latham - Lineman 2, Mr. Dwight Roberts - Lineman 2, Mr. Lamont Sterling - Lineman 3, and Mr. Stanley Laidlow - Lineman 3.





VINLEC is pleased to be able to contribute to the rebuilding of these Caribbean countries. The islands of Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands also received technical assistance from VINLEC after their systems were damaged by the passage of hurricanes.




By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan Fashion Week continues to amaze us every single time with the diversity of outfits on the runway and the ambiance given to show.

Another magnificent week of fashion kicks off in a luxury hotel Fairmont Baku, Flame Towers on November 7.

The first day of the fashion show was a great success. Three Azerbaijani designers, including Leya Couture, Aygun Talibova and GM Fashion Lab presented their gorgeous fashion collections, Trend Life reported.

With the support the Oriental Fashion Show Paris, fashion collections by Moroccan designers - Zineb Jundi, Manal Dinar and the collection of the Fashion House "Qadienne" were also demonstrated in Baku.

Oriental Fashion Show Paris aims at popularizing the designers of North Africa and the Middle East. The collections were presented with the assistance of the Moroccan Embassy in Azerbaijan.

Not only Moroccan traditional clothes, but also modern variations of the caftan were shown during the runway show.

Models in dresses from Moroccan designers looked like fairy princesses.

At the same time, fashion lovers enjoyed wonderful outfits from Kazakh brand SAMIDEL.

Famous brands Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger and Hackett London were presented by My Brands company, a partner of AFW SS 2018.

Notably, the official car of the Week - the Audi brand.

Azerbaijan Fashion Week aims to unite talented designers from Azerbaijan and foreign countries and create a platform to demonstrate their creations.

AFW showrooms are be available on November 8-10, from 15:00 to 21:00.

At the same time, Wedding Fair is also organized for brides as part of the event.

Azerbaijan Fashion Week is held twice a year in November and May. The event is organized by Fashion Consulting Group and supported by Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Media partners of the event are Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az.
























China has partnered with Oman in a project to complete the construction of Tanzania's Bagamoyo and special economic zone by 2022.

The project is backed financially by China Merchants Holdings (International), China's largest operator, and Oman's State General Reserve Fund. The Chinese company will handle much of the construction work.

The port, once completed, will be the largest in East Africa and will boost the country's economic investment. It will be able to handle megaships - container vessels carrying 8,000 20-foot equivalent units - after the first phase is completed, with room for expansion.

Bagamoyo port is 75 kilometers north of Dar Es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania. Chris Mabeya / For China Daily

The port will have new roads, railways and the economic zone

Hu Jianhua, managing director of CMHI, said in a statement that the company would run Bagamoyo as one of its overseas ports.

"We shall compensate the people whose land was taken for the development of various business programs before completing the project," he said.

Stella Manyanya, an engineer and Tanzanian deputy minister for trade, industries and investment, says the project for a modern port is being carried out through collaboration between China and the State General Reserve Fund of Oman. She says she is optimistic that more than 190 industries will be set up in the Bagamoyo area, including a manure processing business that will be set up by the government of Oman.

"Once the port becomes operational, it will attract more investors who will help the country to attain its industrial economy agenda," says Manyanya.

"The strategy we have is that, by 2020, the Bagamoyo port should start offering services and receiving big cargo vessels."

The port and its industrial zone are designed to address congestion at the old port and support Tanzania to become East Africa's leading shipping and logistics center. The port is about 75 kilometers from the capital, Dar es Salaam, and 10 km from the town of Bagamoyo.

When the economic zone is fully developed, it will attract about 700 industries to become a strategic investment zone in East Africa.

CMHI says that among the projects envisioned for the zone are industrial parks worth $120 million and a $70 million tourism park, as well as free port facilities ($90 million), a free trade zone ($70 million), science and technology parks ($50 million), an international business center ($70 million) and industrial buildings ($20 million).

It is expected that, by 2025, Tanzania will realize its industrial economy agenda, with the Bagamoyo port incorporating proper infrastructure, including roads and electricity. A gas pipeline will cross over the port.

Initially, China and Oman signed a three-way partnership in 2013 that would have seen Tanzania get an undisclosed shareholding in the project, but the government was unable to raise $28 million to compensate landowners who were to be displaced by the project.

With investors anxious about losing the envisioned business opportunities, the government is negotiating with the investment partners for them to fund the compensation. In turn, the government will forego an equity stake in the project and only benefit from taxes on the land and occupancy by the investors.

The China-Tanzania relationship has seen increased investment and trade in recent years.

Tanzania Investment Centre statistics show that, by the end of June last year, Chinese investment in Tanzania had reached $6.62 billion, with about 600 Chinese companies operating in the country.

The Chinese investments are in agriculture, tourism and information, communications and technology, creating around 150,000 jobs in direct employment and with a total of around 350,000 people engaged in trade between the two countries.

China has also provided a large amount in concessional loans to help Tanzania build key infrastructure projects, including the Mtwara-Dar natural gas pipeline.

Oman has had profitable relations with Tanzania, investing in various projects, including Bagamoyo.

For China Daily

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/10/2017 page28)
By Azernews





By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani pianist Shahin Novrasli gave a concert in Le Duc des Lombards jazz club in Paris.

Synthesizing traditional jazz rhythms with mugham, jazzmen conquered the hearts of the French jazz lovers. The pianist brilliantly performed folk music, jazz, as well as compositions by jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, Azertac reported.

Ambassador of Azerbaijan to France Rahman Mustafayev, employees of the embassy, as well as members of the Azerbaijani community in Paris and jazz lovers were all fascinated by great performance.

Shahin will once again delight the audience this time with the American jazz pianist and live legend of the post-pop jazz music genre Ahmad Jamal at the Paris Congress Hall of the Azerbaijani jazzman on November 14.

The hall is always open to the pianists who perform in all styles. Jamal appreciates and cooperates with the style of the Azerbaijani jazzman.

Novrasli arrived in Paris not only for the concert, but also for preparing his new album.

The Azerbaijani jazzman said that he worked with the producers of Jamal, and that the new album was the idea of the American jazz pianist.

He stressed that the new album will include Azerbaijan, America, classical music, as well as improvisations. The musician will stay in Paris for two months to prepare his new album.

Notably, Ahmad met with an Azerbaijani jazzman a few years ago at the Festival Jazz a Saint-Germain-des-Pres Paris. Since then, two musicians have been actively cooperate with each other.

Shahins rare talent emerged from Azerbaijans various compositional influences as well as its unusual and rich musical heritage. At only eleven years old, he performed with the local Symphony Orchestra at the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall.

Elegantly blending his classical knowledge, Azerbaijans traditional folk Mugham and his jazz influences, Shahin created his own unique and accomplished musical universe, among which he combines eastern and western cultures.

Acclaimed musician has performed on some of the most prestigious stages in the world, such as Londons Royal Festival Hall, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Black Sea Jazz Festival, Pragues Mezinarodni Piano Festival and numerous clubs and festivals throughout the United States.

With a solo project, a trio with Ari Hoenig and Nathan Peck, countless collaborations with notably Kenny Wheeler, Iain Ballamy and Tim Garland, to name a few, Shahin is today an icon for Azerbaijan Jazz and has received enthusiastic comments from worldwide critics and audiences.












By Trend





Iraqi National Security Service is checking upon the presence of Azerbaijani children in the Iraqi areas controlled by the Islamic State (ISIS, aka IS or Daesh), Charge de Affairs of Iraqi embassy in Azerbaijan Fadhil Al-Shuwaili told Trend on November 10.

The topic of bringing the Azerbaijani children from the areas that were controlled by Daesh terrorists in lraq and the approximate time for its processing, belongs to the Iraqi National Security Service, which is handling this file rationally, he said.

Al-Shuwaili noted that as soon as it finishes the necessary procedures regarding the presence of Azerbaijani children in these areas, things will be coordinated with Azerbaijan's embassy in Baghdad and Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry.

Unfortunately, at present I have no approximate number of the Azerbaijani children in lraq, he added.

Previously, two Azerbaijani children, two-year-old Khadija and four-year-old Abdulla, were found in the Syrian territories retaken from the IS. They were brought to Iraq by the security forces after these territories were freed.

Al-Shuwaili reminded that Iraqi authorities secured the return of Abdullah to his family in Azerbaijan in cooperation with Azerbaijan's embassy in Baghdad.

This coordination will continue between the two countries' authorities, he said.
By Trend





Over 37 percent of Irans crude oil and condensate exports were ?shipped to European refineries in October 2017, the countrys oil ministry said on November 7.

The report does not unveil the exact amount of oil exported to the European markets, however giants like Shell, Total, Eni, Saras, Repsol, MOL and Hellenic Petroleum are among Irans major European customers, said the ministry report.

Asian markets shared 63 percent of Irans overall oil exports in October. China was the main consumer of the Iranian oil with over 600,000 barrels per day (b/d), according to the report.

Irans average crude oil and condensate exports amounted to 2.65 million barrels per day (mb/d) in the first eight months of current year.

The Islamic Republic exported 2.15 mb/d of crude oil and 500,000 b/d of gas condensate in January-September 2017, according to the report.

Iran was exporting 2.5 mb/d of crude oil and gas condensate before sanctions were imposed in 2012, of which 18 percent was supplied to the EU.

After 2012, the EU cut Iran oil purchase and Asian countries had to decrease Iranian oil import gradually, which led to decreasing export of Iranian oil and gas condensate to 1.2 mb/d in 2015.

After elimination of sanctions in 2016, based on nuclear agreement, Iran resumed its oil exports.
Sonatrach, Algeria's state energy producer, has signed an agreement with Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), to set up a 2,000-sq-m oilfield equipment manufacturing facility in Arzew Industrial Zone aiming to strengthen Algerias position in the upstream oil and gas market to meet local demand.



The agreement was signed in the presence of the Minister of Energy, Mustapha Guitouni, at a ceremony hosted by Sonatrach in Algiers.



Sonatrach and BHGE will have 51 per cent and 49 per cent ownership respectively, in the new company.



The project draws on the extensive experience of BHGE in oilfield equipment manufacturing and leverages the companys global and local scale to provide production solutions from the facility, which is anticipated to be operational in December 2019.



Through an initial combined investment of $45 million, the new company will provide manufacturing, assembly, and maintenance for various types of oilfield equipment including wellheads, xmas trees, BOPs and valves, establishing a major base to fulfill Algerias increased domestic upstream requirements with the potential for future exports.



The facility will also add training capabilities and offer competency development programmes for more than 200 engineers during the first seven years.



In addition to reducing dependence on imports, the facility will boost economic competitiveness and strengthen the local supply chain by helping to create 200 local jobs in Orans Arzew area, a substantial number of indirect jobs serving the sector, and the development of qualified industrial SMEs.



Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, CEO of Sonatrach, said: The creation of this company is a breakthrough in our integration chain, with a view to better controlling costs and deadlines to ensure the transfer of know-how and technologies through the diversification of its portfolio of goods and services.



It will contribute to strengthening the national industrial fabric and the creation of a network of national subcontractors, certified to international norms and standards. It will also build on the relationship between Sonatrach and BHGE, and boost it to a partnership of excellence, he said.



Rami Qasem, CEO of BHGE Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and India, said: Through the delivery of high end oilfield products and services, our company reaffirms its focus on driving further productivity for our customers across the entire oil and gas value chain.



We are honoured to work with Sonatrach and play an important role in supporting the countrys ambition to be among the key upstream manufacturers in North Africa. The combined effort underscores our commitment to help fuel the economy by improving economic competitiveness, developing skilled talent and delivering the highest manufacturing standards with plans for future exports, he said.



The new company will not only revitalise Algerias local supply chain, but also position the country as a key manufacturer in industrial equipment, he added.



Building on over 40 years of presence, BHGE has been involved in several major development projects including its partnership with Sonatrach and Sonelgaz for the creation of Algesco, a major turbomachinery, maintenance and repair centre in Boufarik, serving Algerias upstream, midstream and downstream customers.



BHGE has also launched the first edition of the global Oil & Gas University" programme in the country, an initiative that has trained 25 young professionals in technical and leadership skills, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
UAEs Strata Manufacturing said that the company had committed to contracts amounting to Dh27.5 billion ($7.5 billion) until 2030, with large airplane manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus, according to a media report.



In a statement to the Emirates News Agency, Wam, Ismail Abdulla, CEO of Strata Manufacturing, said that the company which specialises in manufacturing airplane parts, had delivered more than 34,000 pieces of its products to the largest airplane manufacturers in the world since its establishment, affirming the companys capacity to translate to reality the slogan "Made with Pride in the UAE" at the international level.



He said that more than 2,000 airplanes around the world were using parts made in the UAE, which showed Stratas, as well as other national companies, contribution in achieving Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030.



Since its establishment in 2009, the company has gained the trust of the largest airplane manufacturers around the world owing to the universal quality of its products and its commitment to deadlines set by the airplane manufacturers.



He highlighted the fact that national companies formed 56 percent of the total suppliers of Strata, while 88 percent of the local suppliers of the company were the small and medium enterprises, which contributed in supporting Emirati entrepreneurs and capacities in the aviation industry.



Abdulla remarked that the company was moving forward to promote its competitiveness among the world airplane manufacturers through its keenness to expand its suppliers' database in the UAE.



The total facility space of the company has increased to reach 31,500 square metres coinciding with the surge in the production lines to reach 10 lines by the end of 2016, compared with the one production line in 2010. The increase came after the company signed supply contracts with major global aircraft manufacturers.



The CEO Strata said that the company was about to implement several research and development projects, in cooperation with its international partners and local universities, such as the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Khalifa University and the Petroleum Institute.



He underlined that the UAE nationals constituted 51 percent of the labour force in the company, which has more than 700 employees, with Emirati women also playing important roles in the company by occupying prominent positions at several levels. He added that Strata always sought to increase the rates of Emiratisation in all sectors according to its planned programmes and plans.



Strata Manufacturing is fully owned by the Mubadala Investment Company,
UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued a decree promoting Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba to the rank of Minister.



In the announcement, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa recognized Minister Al Otaiba's loyal service to his country and his nine-year leadership to build closer ties with United States.



Since becoming the UAE's Ambassador to the US in 2008, Minister Al Otaiba has enhanced the bilateral security relationship, increasing military, intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation. He has also worked closely with US government officials and business leaders to deepen the UAE-US economic and trade relationship.



He has also helped to develop closer social, educational and cultural ties via partnerships and exchanges with the Cleveland Clinic, New York University, Children's National Medical Center, Johns Hopkins and Smithsonian, among other US institutions.



Previous to his appointment as UAE Ambassador to the US, Minister Al Otaiba was instrumental in strengthening UAE's security and economic relations with other countries as Director of International Affairs for the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, His Highness General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In this role, Minister Al Otaiba served as one of UAE's principal security, anti-terrorism and defence liaisons to other governments, and was heavily involved in diplomatic efforts to improve regional security and defence cooperation.



Minister Al Otaiba will remain in his current role as the UAE's Ambassador to the US. He will continue to oversee strategic initiatives that enhance bilateral relations, including the UAE's significant commitment to philanthropic activities that benefit underserved communities across America, enhance education for children and improve healthcare research and treatment.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has partnered with Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) and Electricite de France (EDF) to develop the 800-MW third phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, as per the independent power producer (IPP) model.



Dewa signed another memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EDF for a consultancy contract for the pumped-storage hydroelectric power station at Hatta Dam.



Dewa is building a 250-MW pumped-storage hydroelectric power station in Hatta, which is the first of its kind in the GCC countries. It will make use of the water stored in the Hatta Dam, increasing the share of renewable energy.



The consultancy contract covers design, hydro-geological, environmental, geotechnical, and deep excavation studies. It also includes consultancy on deep-water tunnel designs, the dam and hydroelectric power station, the tender for material supply, supervision of construction work, site installation, on-site testing and commissioning.



Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park is the largest single-site solar park in the world, with a planned capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030, and a total investment of Dh50 billion ($3.6 billion). The solar park contributes to achieving the objectives of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to provide 75 per cent of Dubais total power output from clean energy sources by 2050.



The 800-MW third phase of the solar park, is being implemented by Shuaa Energy 2, which was established by Dewa with a 60 per cent stake in the company. Shuaa Energy 2 was launched in partnership with the Masdar-led consortium, and EDF, through its subsidiary EDF Energies Nouvelles, which owns the remaining 40 per cent of the company. The international consortium led by the renewable energy contractor GranSolar from Spain, is handling the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC). It includes Acciona from Spain and Ghella from Italy.



Dewa registered a Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of $2.99 cents per kilowatt hour (kW/h) for the third phase of the solar park, which will be operational in 2020. Upon its completion, the solar park will save approximately 6.5 million tonnes per annum in emissions. The third phase will be complete by 2020 in three stages over an area of 16 sq km. The first 200-MW stage is expected to be operational in the first half of 2018. The 300-MW second stage will be operational in 2019, and the third 300-MW stage will be completed in the first half of 2020.



The hydroelectric plant is part of the Hatta Comprehensive Development Plan, launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The project will contribute to the development of Hatta, and meet its developmental, social, economic, and environmental needs. It will also contribute to the achievement of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of Dewa.



Dewas initiatives within the Hatta Comprehensive Development Plan will involve Hatta residents in the projects that will be implemented and provide about 200 permanent jobs in the technical, administrative and operational fields, and over 300 jobs in the visitors centre, outreach and tourism facilities associated with the project, in addition to more than 2,000 jobs during project implementation, added Al Tayer.



The pumped-storage hydroelectric power station will make use of the existing water in the Hatta Dam, which can store up to 1,716 million gallons, and an upper reservoir that will be built in the mountain to store up to 880 million gallons. The upper reservoir will be 300 m above the dam level. During off-peak hours, turbines that use clean and cheap solar energy will pump water from the dam to the upper reservoir. During peak-load hours when production cost is high, turbines operated by the force of waterfall from the upper reservoir will generate electricity that will be connected to Dewas grid. The efficiency of power production will reach 90 per cent with response to demand for energy within 90 seconds.



On the proud occasion of the President of Frances visit to the United Arab Emirates, the MoU signing highlights the strength of our partnership with Dubai Electricity Water Authority and EDF Energies Nouvelles in developing Phase Three of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, chief executive officer of Masdar.



It also emphasises the critical value of public-private collaboration in advancing commercially viable renewable energy, here in the UAE and the wider region. Now under construction, the 800-MW expansion of the Dubai Solar Park will be a benchmark for the global renewables sector on completion, a showcase of UAE expertise, and the capabilities of our international partners, across all aspects of utility-scale renewable energy project development. At Masdar, we are eager to build on our collaboration with Dewa and EDF to pursue future opportunities in renewable energy and clean technologies locally and internationally, Al Ramahi added.



Jean-Bernard Levy, the EDF Groups CEO and chairman, said: We are proud to be supporting the energy transition in the UAE, in close collaboration with major local partners. Our involvement in innovative renewable projects such as Mohammed bin Rachid Al Maktoum Solar Park and Hatta hydropower plant demonstrate our know-how as global leader in low-carbon growth. Both projects are aligned with the two key objectives of the groups CAP 2030 strategy: achieving 50 GW of renewable energy capacity by year 2030 and growing our business in rapidly expanding markets such as the Middle East.  TradeArabia News Service
Twenty-seven of the worlds leading oil industry chief executives will gather, in Abu Dhabi, UAE on November 12, to discuss the new energy landscape and different models for growth at the second Abu Dhabi CEO Roundtable.



The senior executives, representing many of the worlds major oil, gas and petrochemical companies have been invited to the event Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State and Group CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). The roundtable will provide a high-level forum for dialogue on the evolving dynamics of energy industry.



Dr Al Jaber said: Structural changes in supply and demand are reshaping the energy landscape and pushing the industry to re-imagine what the energy company of the future will look like. As the industry adapts to shifting market dynamics, fresh approaches to investment and market strategy are needed to remain resilient and thrive in the decades to come.



The fast pace of innovation across multiple fields makes absorbing and applying the latest technology critical to our efficiency, profitability and competiveness. At ADNOC we are taking a proactive approach to modernizing across all our businesses to accelerate progress toward our 2030 strategic goals of a more profitable upstream, valuable downstream and economic, sustainable gas supply. The Abu Dhabi CEO Roundtable will provide a timely opportunity for an open discussion of the critical issues we all face.



The Abu Dhabi CEO Roundtable will take place on the eve of the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec) 2017, one of the worlds largest and most influential events for the global oil and gas industry.  TradeArabia News Service
Travelport, a leading travel commerce platform, has announced the signing of a new, extended agreement with IATI Travel, based in Turkey.



The new multi-year agreement sees Travelport as its preferred travel commerce platform, giving access to global travel provider content and industry leading technology to IATI worldwide. Travelport will support its operations while extending the geographical reach of the partnership to cover Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.



The companys high performance is powered by Travelport Universal API (uAPI) technology. This aggregates the most comprehensive content from multiple sources, including national and low-cost carriers, branded fares and ancillary services, as well as unique hotel properties, rail and car rental. This provides IATI with access to both unrivalled content and functionality through a single connection.



Levent Aydn, chairman of the board, IATI, said: We are impressed by Travelports customer-driven solution which provides highly efficient tools for our agents. We are pleased to have Travelport as our preferred technology partner and have great confidence in its extensive reach and expertise, so we can further focus on expanding our business across the globe.



Rabih Saab, president and managing director, Europe, Africa, Middle East and South Asia, Travelport added: We are delighted to support the fastest growing OTA in Turkey as it continues its global expansion. Our partnership with IATI has flourished since 2012 and we are looking to further power its success and expansion across new territories of Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. - TradeArabia News Service
RAK Hospitality Holding (RAKHH), an integrated asset owner and manager of leading hospitality investments, has appointed Ziad El Masri as managing director of two of its subsidiaries, Hakaya Collection and RAK Hospitality Logistics.



El Masri will lead the diverse commercial activities of Hakaya Collection and RAK Hospitality Logistics as well as execute their aggressive strategic plans for growth.



A Lebanese national and a seasoned professional, El Masri brings with him over two decades of pivotal experience in the realm of Food and Beverage (F&B) industry across the Mena region. He began his professional journey holding a variety of Management and Operational roles, covering a broad spectrum of responsibilities and received notable accolades during this time.



Prior to taking on his current position, El Masri was head of F&B operations at Meraas F&B, where he led the operations of both franchised and home-grown brands, including the opening of the first Last Exit food truck park destination. He also held key positions at the leading retail enterprise, Alshaya/Starbucks, where he managed seven different countries across Mena region during his 12 year-tenure. His track record for successful launches and establishment of new outlets will accelerate RAKHHs plans for further development in the Emirate.



Commenting on the appointment, RAKHHs chief executive officer Yannis Anagnostakis said: We are delighted to welcome Ziad to RAK Hospitality Holding. His wealth of knowledge and strong business leadership in the fields of F&B Operations, Catering and Franchising, combined with extensive regional experience and successful brand expansions will be invaluable. Ziad will be an outstanding addition to our team and help Hakaya Collection and RAK Hospitality Logistics achieve their objectives. - TradeArabia News Service


Boeing has completed the acquisition of Aurora Flight Sciences, a world-class innovator, developer and manufacturer of advanced aerospace platforms and autonomous systems.



Aurora will operate under Boeing Engineering, Test & Technology as a subsidiary called Aurora Flight Sciences, A Boeing Company. It will retain an independent operating model while benefiting from Boeing's resources and position as the leading provider of aerospace products and services.



Boeing first announced the agreement with Aurora on October 5, 2017 pending US government approval. Terms of the approved deal were not disclosed and do not affect Boeing's financial guidance.



Headquartered in the US city of Manassas, Aurora has more than 550 employees and operates in six locations including research and development centres in the US and Switzerland.  TradeArabia News Service
Veterans Day is Saturday, and with schools wanting to pay tribute, thank you ceremonies will span from Friday to Monday.

The formal Veterans Day ceremony is at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Tom Walsh Chapel at the Oregon Trail State Veterans Cemetery in Evansville. The event is sponsored annually by the Natrona County United Veterans Council.

Chris Walsh, a Marine Corps veteran, former police chief and Casper city councilman, will serve as master of ceremonies. Col. Stephen M. Kravitsky will speak. He was recently appointed the director of the Wyoming Veterans Commission after serving almost 32 years in the United States Air Force. At the time of his retirement, Kravitsky was commander of the 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

All are welcome to attend to thank the states veterans.

At 9 a.m. Saturday, the Casper College Veterans Club will hold a roll call in the foyer of the Casper College Student Union and University of Wyoming at Casper building on campus. The Veterans Day event was created to honor those who are currently serving, have served or have been lost. The event is part of an initiative by Eastern Kentucky University to make Veterans Day on every college campus a time for both reflection and appreciation. The event is free and open to everyone, both those who want to call names or those who just want to be at the event to show support.

At CY Middle School, veterans will be honored at a special program Friday morning. All veterans are welcome and should plan to arrive at the school, 2900 Cyclone Dr., by 8:45 a.m. Refreshments will be served and the program should last around 45 minutes.

The following Natrona County schools have Friday assemblies planned to honor veterans:

Natrona County High School, 8:20 to 8:45 a.m.

Southridge Elementary, 8:45 a.m.

Dean Morgan Junior High School, 1:35 p.m.

Evansville Elementary, (at Evansville Town Hall), 1:45 p.m.

On Monday from 1:15 to 3:30 p.m., Sagewood Elementary students will be creating thank you cards for veterans.

The Glenrock community is invited to attend a Veterans Day ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Monday in the Glenrock Middle School Auditorium, honoring Glenrock residents who have served in the military.

The Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) chapter and the American Legion and Auxiliary members of Jesse Martin #9 encourage all military veterans from the town to come and be recognized for their service to our country.

The Veterans Day ceremony includes the posting of the flags, guest speakers from the American Legion and Auxiliary, musical selections performed by the middle and high school choir and band, and the introduction of veterans by their branch of military service.

All are welcome to honor these heroes, the American veterans who have served our country to protect our freedoms.
A potential new agreement between Casper and Rocky Mountain Power that would increase the electrical companys franchise fee  and as a result bump up rates for consumers  gained another opponent at Casper City Councils Tuesday night meeting.

The agreement  which Council must vote in favor of approving a total of three times before it will become official  passed the first round of voting on Oct. 17, despite objections from Councilman Shawn Johnson and Councilwoman Amanda Huckabay.

The two council members voted no again during the second round Tuesday night, and this time Councilman Jesse Morgan concurred.

The primary justification for increasing the fee is to help the city balance its budget, meaning there will no longer be a reason for the increase once the budget is fixed, explained Morgan. The councilman said he is concerned that the increased fee would never be reduced after it was raised.

Like the current contract, which expires Dec. 31, the new agreement will grant Rocky Mountain Power an electric utility franchise in Casper that allows the company to have a general utility easement to locate its electrical facilities in public areas, such as streets and alleys. However, the new agreement will increase the electrical companys franchise fee from 5 to 7 percent of its gross revenues derived from within the corporate limits of the city.

The increased fee would annually bring in an estimated $800,000 to the city, City Manager Carter Napier previously told the Star-Tribune.

Napier has been tasked by City Council with reducing the roughly $4 million in reserves now being used in the budget. He proposed an amendment at councils Oct. 24 work session that he said will reduce most of the reserves being used in the budget without any layoffs.

The amendment, which has not yet been authorized by the Council, relies heavily on the assumption that the new agreement with Rocky Mountain Power will be approved. It also factors in an unexpected sales tax revenue bump of $680,000, as well as savings expected to result from a series of budget cuts that took effect in September.

If the city continues to spend money on its current path, it will be declared officially broke by December 2020, Napier warned the Council at the work session.

During the first vote on the agreement last month, the city manager told Council members that the fee hike would likely increase the average residential customers bill by about $1.50 a month.

Pointing out that this is about the cost of a cup of coffee, Councilman Bob Hopkins said he felt that was a reasonable amount, and most council members concurred.

All of us citizens are going to have to start paying a little more to keep the city running, said Mayor Kenyne Humphrey.

But stating that not every resident can afford a cup of coffee, Johnson quickly objected. Small fee increases eventually add up to significant amounts, said the councilman, who expressed concerned about burdening residents who are already financially struggling.

The citys economic challenges stem from low sales tax revenue and concerns over the certainty of state funding. City leaders are worried that the money they receive from the Wyoming Legislature is in jeopardy, as the state continues to take in less revenue due to weak energy prices.
A Rock Springs police detective shot a dog Wednesday evening while serving a search warrant.

When police arrived at the house on Evergreen Way, a resident opened the door and the dog darted out, according to a Rock Springs Police Department news release.

The pit bull bit one officer on the foot, before running at the plainclothes detective, police said.

The detective shot the dog and the animal died in the front yard.

The warrant, which was related to alleged computer crimes, was executed without further problems, police said.

Police are conducting an internal investigation into the shooting. No arrests have been made in relation to the incident.
University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols condemned the contents of Holocaust denial flyers that were posted around campus in recent days.

We must acknowledge that the First Amendment allows expression that is so reprehensible that it must be answered, she said in a statement Friday morning.

Holocaust denial is simply false, and part of a history of anti-Semitic behavior, the president said.

Outrageously incorrect information such as that contained in the fliers has been used for decades by those who hold anti-Semitic views to harass the Jewish community, Nichols said.

The flyers showed up in a number of buildings across campus and were removed, just as they were last year during Holocaust Remembrance Week at the university, a week sponsored by a student organization UW Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.

The timing of the flyers is no coincidence, Nichols said.

Remembrance week surrounds the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass, a country-wide ransacking of Jewish homes, businesses, cemeteries and synagogues that some refer to as the unofficial beginning of the Holocaust.

Holocaust survivor Estelle Nadel is speaking at the university Friday. The president encouraged students to attend.

Campus police are investigating the flyer incident. Though the contents of the flyers are protected speech, putting up handbills violates littering ordinances.

The college notified the Anti-Defamation League in Denver of the incident.

Nichols statement also praised the student body for its peaceful protest of a controversial guest speaker Thursday night, Dennis Prager, who gave a talk called Why Socialism Makes People Selfish.

Students had sought to cancel the event due to some of Pragers outspoken views on women, race and politics. When they were unsuccessful, they held a protest outside the event.

Both those students who supported and protested his visit to campus conducted themselves in the manner I expected, the president said, Showing respect for other perspectives while peacefully expressing their own views.
Flyers calling the Holocaust a hoax were recently posted in a number of buildings at the University of Wyoming, coinciding with the schools remembrance week for the estimated 6 million Jews who were systematically killed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s.

The incident has been reported to the Anti-Defamation League in Denver, but the school cant do much more than remove the flyers, said Chad Baldwin, a university spokesman.

The content of the handbills, while reprehensible, is in fact protected by the First Amendment, he said.

Littering, however, is not.

Posting handbills violates a city ordinance, so the campus police are investigating, Baldwin said.

The university plans to release a formal statement Friday.

The flyers showed up during last years remembrance week as well, Baldwin said, and similar incidents have been reported on other college campuses.

Thursday was the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass, a Nazi regime-organized night of widespread violence against Jews, their homes and businesses in Germany in 1938.

Holocaust survivor Estelle Nadel is speaking at the university Friday.

A call to the Laramie Jewish Community Center, which is hosting Nadels visit, was not returned by press time.

The flyers call the Holocaust a criminally fraudulent claim and direct readers to an outdated website peppered with adverbs like wizardly, claiming to be an organization of forensic historians.

The Anti-Defamation League is aware of the website and its founder, a single individual, said Sue Parker Gerson, associate regional director for the leagues mountain state region.

This is 2017, you can put anything up on the internet, she said. Somebody, somewhere is going to believe it. It seems that somebody in Laramie decided to put up flyers.

Though the content of the flyers may seem too ridiculous to take seriously, the intent is not, she said.

The league has noted a spike of anti-Semitic incidents in the last year, both in the Rocky Mountain region and nationally, she said.

Anti-Semitism is present, and one manifestation is Holocaust denial, saying that the murder of 6 million Jews, and 5 million others, didnt happen, she said. The way we deal with that is education to the contrary.

Holocaust denial attempts are repeatedly refuted by organizations like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C., which cites the proliferation of German records, photographs and videos as well as survivor, soldier and refugee testimony.

Dr. Stephanie Anderson, a political science professor at the University of Wyoming, said Holocaust denial was disheartening for academics and teachers.

Its been proven beyond a doubt, so it shows that we have to reinvent the wheel if you will, to reestablish things that have already been established.

After the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany was liberated by the Allies, locals from the nearby towns were forced to tour the camps and see the bodies of hundreds of people imprisoned there strewn about like waste. It was an attempt to destroy the possibility of denial, a role the U.S. has taken on ever since, the professor said.

That people deny that work, that effort that the U.S. has been at the forefront of documenting, is difficult, Anderson said.

The denial rhetoric, so close to Veterans Day, is an insult to the American soldiers who fought and died in that war, she added.

The difficult thing is that many of the eyewitnesses are dying, simply because of age, she said. All the more reason to record them and make sure that their testimony lives on.
Its been a tough few years for Laramie.

State budget cuts caused the city to keep at least 20 employee positions vacant, and the University of Wyoming lost several hundred positions through layoffs and attrition, according to Mayor Andrea Summerville.

Now the citys facing another economic blow: WyoTech, a vocational school that offers automotive and diesel technology programs, plans to close its doors.

They are a major employer and they bring a lot of students to town, said Summerville.

Zenith Education Group, a career education provider that owns the institute, released a statement Wednesday explaining that 21 of its campuses, including WyoTech, will cease enrollment. Current students will finish up their classes.

It has become evident to us that many of our campuses are located in areas that are geographically inconvenient for under-served students or not built to accommodate the programs that we want and need to offer, Zenith said in its statement. We intend to use those learnings in a more focused three-campus approach to enhance initiatives.

The campuses that will remain open are in Florida, Georgia and Texas.

Summerville said she was surprised by the announcement and will need more details about the closures timeline before she can fully discuss its potential impact or the citys next steps.

The school has approximately 65 employees and 360 students, according to a campus official.

The local business community, from restaurants to apartment complexes, will likely be affected by the closure if students and faculty move elsewhere, said JJ Harris, president and CEO of the Laramie Chamber Business Alliance.

However, Harris said he believes another company will be interested in purchasing the facility.

I would hope that the transition would be almost instantaneous, he said.

Stating that he was caught off guard by the announcement, Harris added the alliance will be holding two meetings next week to discuss the issue.

Laramie resident and retired teacher Jan Hanson said shell be sorry to see the center close. There arent enough schools that focus on vocational training, she said.

WyoTech students also frequently volunteer for community service activities, according to both Summerville and Hanson. By serving meals at soup kitchens and pitching in on community cleanup days, the students make the city a better place to live.

I think Laramie as a community is going to miss that, said Hanson.

Representatives for WyoTech could not be reached for comment by press time.

Zenith purchased WyoTech in 2015. The schools previous owner, Corinthian Colleges, sold WyoTech after being accused of altering grades and student attendance records, and falsifying job placement data.
Christ the King Episcopal Church, 2800 W. Ina Road, will host a holiday market 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18 and Sunday, Nov. 19.

Arts, crafts and treats will be available for purchase. Breakfast and lunch will also be served for a donation, with proceeds going to Interfaith Community Services, according to press materials.
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The leader of the Inayati Sufi Order will discuss teachings of world religions at Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Road, 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16.

Traditional Sufism is a form of Islamic mysticism, with the Inayati order taking a more universalist approach. The teacher Pir Zia Inayat-Khan will discuss his book "Mingled Waters: Sufism and the Mystical Unity of Religions," according to press materials.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Nov. 10 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.
As the nation comes together on Veterans Day to honor those who have served in the military, a group of Tucson veterans will pay tribute to their comrades while they give back to the community in creative and thoughtful ways.

Today, some of them will attend parades and ceremonies as they take pensive moments to think of fellow veterans and loved ones who fought in wars.

Later, they will go back to their workshops as members of the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association or the Desert Woodcrafters, where they will shape wood into canes for needy veterans or into wooden pens given to the recipients of Purple Heart medals.

Their hands work wood into boxes to hold colorful beads for seriously ill children. Some make wooden toys to give to children at Christmas, while others spend time making display cases to hold interment flags for veterans.

Meet veterans Mike Phillips, Paul Swane, George Lewis and Dan Williams, whose love for shaping or carving wood takes them to their shops for hours each week. It is there, in the midst of machines and sawdust, that they are content creating for others.

Phillips, 71, lovingly looked at a display case he made for the interment flag of his father, Bill, who died at age 89 in 2010. He served in the 3rd Armored Cavalry during World War IIs Battle of the Bulge. I learned patriotism from him, said Phillips, in a voice choked with emotion. My dad saw a lot of blood and friends who died. I am named after one of his friends, Phillips said.

He said his father was in a unit that liberated prison camps in Germany and did not talk much about the horror he witnessed, including piles of bodies and starving, injured prisoners.

Phillips, who served in the Armys 13th Armored Cavalry in Germany in the 1960s, said he is honored to make flag display cases. Veterans Day is one of the most important holidays that we observe, said Phillips, a retired auto-parts manager who learned to build custom furniture from his father. Years later, he taught himself how to turn wood on a lathe, using chisels to shape the wood.

It is magical to get a piece of wood on the lathe. It amazes me what colors you are going to find inside the wood as you work the piece, said Phillips, who also crafts Christmas ornaments, bowls and platters for family gifts.

Spending hours in the wood shop is pure enjoyment for Swane, 76, who joined the Army in 1964 and worked as a supply sergeant for the Army National Guard until 1969 in Sturgis, South Dakota. He later worked for a company selling childrens books and toys, climbing to sales management positions until his retirement, moving to SaddleBrooke north of Tucson 12 years ago.

Swane bought a lathe and became serious about shaping and turning wood before he researched and joined the woodcrafters and woodturners organizations. He said he is filled with satisfaction giving to others, a trait he learned from his father, who lived through the Depression.

Swane said he is proud of the mens accomplishments in helping with the associations projects. The local groups have crafted more than 16,000 wooden pens for troops overseas since 2002 and make about 200 pens yearly from purpleheart wood for Arizona veterans honored with the Purple Heart medal.

Tucson native Lewis said projects take him into his shop where he spends hours crafting with no outside interference. The 80-year-old joined the Navy Reserve in the 1950s and is now a retired Southern Pacific Railroad worker who finds peace making furniture for family and crafting pens, toys and boxes for the Beads of Courage program.

Lewis was among the artisans who recently gathered in midtown at Ken Towers shop. Tower, a retired Flowing Wells High School woodworking and shop teacher, found pleasure showing his waddling duck, penguin and playhouse furniture for children. He has mentored hundreds of students over 30 years and continues sharing his knowledge with fellow crafters.

One who is grateful for their talents is nurse Jean Gribbon, executive director of Beads of Courage, a charity headquartered at 3230 N. Dodge Blvd. She said she is grateful for the artists unique boxes for the organizations arts and medicine programs for children coping with cancer and other serious illnesses. Each bead symbolizes courage and marks milestones in a childs medical treatments.

The last three years we have worked with the American Association of Woodturners, said Gribbon, explaining that chapters across the country make the special boxes. Woodturning is a very old art form. Each piece is original, and they are just beautiful. Families and children love the boxes, which I look at as a sacred vessel. Some children receive up to 500 beads a year during their treatment journey.

The Tucson associations reached out to Gribbon, and since 2014 local craftsmen have created more than 300 boxes for the Beads of Courage program. We certainly do not receive enough boxes for every child to receive one, but numbers are increasing, said Gribbon.

Globally the organization serves 60,000 children a year, and it receives about 3,000 boxes annually.

Williams understands the needs of the children, and he turns to his woodcarving experience of 20 years to make finials for the lids of the Beads of Courage boxes. I use pure imagination to create and paint cartoon and childrens book characters, said Williams, 75, a native of Detroit who joined the Army in 1960 and served in the military police. He retired from General Motors and moved to SaddleBrooke in 2004.

I do it for the kids. I love to see their smiles, said the woodcarver, whose fascination with miniature carrousel horses started him on this crafting journey.
PHOENIX  The Arizona Houses top official says the chamber has the right to investigate charges of sexual harassment against Rep. Don Shooter  and discipline him if lawmakers find him guilty  although some of the alleged incidents predate Shooters House term.

Technically speaking, the (state) constitution doesnt require justification, just simply gives authority to us over the members of this chamber, House Speaker J.D. Mesnard said Friday. And he is presently a member of this chamber.

Mesnard did say, however, the fact that some of the allegations against Shooter date back to 2011 through 2016, when he was a state senator, certainly complicates things a little bit.

Attorney Paul Bender, who teaches constitutional law at Arizona State University, told Capitol Media Services that it may be an error to interpret the rules to allow the House to punish a lawmaker for conduct before he or she took office there.

The issue comes on the heels of Mesnard appointing seven staffers as an investigative team to look into charges leveled against Shooter by Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, and several others, including lobbyist Marilyn Rodriguez, who says Shooter touched her inappropriately.

First-term Reps. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, and Winona Benally, D-Window Rock, have filed complaints accusing Shooter of inappropriate behavior this year.

The most serious claims against Shooter, leveled by Ugenti-Rita, allegedly occurred while he was still in the Senate. These include comments about her breasts, showing up at her hotel room door with a six-pack of beer and saying he wanted to be with her while telling her he was a very powerful senator.

Senate President Steve Yarbrough said his chamber lost any jurisdiction over Shooter after he moved to the House at the beginning of this year. That would leave only the House with any ability to sanction him if its members find him guilty of disorderly behavior.

Mesnard, who on Friday suspended Shooter as chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the question of jurisdiction will be part of what the special panel and its investigators review.

Probably the next step would be the Ethics Committee and potentially the whole body, depending how far this goes, he said.

The Arizona Constitution says that each house may punish its members for disorderly behavior, and may, with the concurrence of two-thirds of its members, expel any member.

House GOP spokesman Matt Specht acknowledged that the provision does not define disorderly behavior.

House attorneys interpret disorderly behavior to mean any behavior detrimental to the business of the House, he told Capitol Media Services. He said that gives lawmakers the discretion to discipline members for disorderly behavior that affects the business of the House, regardless of when that behavior occurred.

Specht also noted that there is no statute of limitations within the constitutional provision.

Bender, however, said its not that simple.

There may be an argument that because of what he did (before becoming a House member) hes somehow disqualified from serving, he said. But I dont know what that argument would be.

Bender said the constitution and the rules appear to suggest that discipline short of removal on grounds of disorderly behavior can be accomplished by a simple majority vote. He said it would appear to be improper for just 31 members of the 60-member House to take action against a lawmaker for something that occurred in some cases years before he became a representative.

I dont think they can discipline him, he said.

Bender conceded, though, that the constitutional right of both the House and Senate to eject members may provide a virtual legal carte blanche. He said that would suggest that with 40 votes they could expel a lawmaker for no reason at all, as long as it was not done because of the persons race, gender or any other legally protected status.

Still, he said, an argument might be made that conduct that predates a lawmakers service cannot be grounds to take action against that person.

I dont think any of this is clear, Bender said.

Melissa Ho, Shooters legal counsel, had no comment on the subject.
Lounging on a tree branch and surrounded by bamboo, the first of two red pandas that will be on exhibit at the Reid Park Zoo made her appearance Thursday in front of a small crowd of donors.

The red panda, named Princess Lily, came from the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, Illinois, and will be joined in a few weeks by a male companion, zoo officials said.

The exhibit opens to the public Saturday and will run through the spring, before the red pandas move on to their final destination in Utah.

Since this is the first time red pandas have been in Arizona, zoo director Jason Jacobs anticipates that visitors will come from other parts of the state and drive up from Nogales to see the red pandas.

The community is so excited about having them, Jacobs said.

In June, Jacobs began talking to the Species Survival Plan, an organization that helps to ensure the survival of endangered species, to see if any red pandas needed a home for the winter.

Jacobs said that while he wasnt even sure it would be possible to get the one red panda he requested, at the end of August, the SSP reached out to see if the zoo could take in two.

While Princess Lily and her companion are in Tucson, the zoo will be raising awareness and funds to help keep red pandas in the wild, Jacobs said.

The zoo has already donated $7,500 to the Red Panda Network and teen volunteers have already raised another $1,000 by selling glow necklaces over three nights, Jacobs said.

Maybe guests will make a difference and make a donation, he said. Its always amazing to see the philanthropic hearts of people in Tucson.

The zoo worked closely with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to bring the red pandas here and the funding for the temporary exhibit was made possible by the Tucson Parks Foundation.

Seven-year-old Princess Lily arrived at the zoo earlier this week, and zoo spokeswoman Candis Martin said shes settling in quite well.

She came from a much quieter zoo where there were no lions, so she was a little nervous at first, Martin said.

Red pandas, which arent related to giant pandas, are native to forests in the foothills of the Himalayas and primarily eat bamboo, according to information provided by the zoo.

There are fewer than 10,000 left in the wild, and the major threat they face is habitat destruction from cattle grazing.

Red pandas average 3 feet in length and weigh about 11 pounds.

As donors snapped pictures and intently watched Princess Lily, she climbed down the tree and made a lap around the exhibit before returning to her branch.

She stretched her long body across it, her black legs dangling over the sides, as she turned her face back toward the crowd of smiling faces.
The anti-gun violence group headed by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is taking the Trump administration to court, alleging the administrations official talking points are coming from gun lobbyists.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence claimed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not turn over copies of communications between ATF officials and gun lobbyists made in the days after the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas.

The policy choices made by the Trump administration, as well as its public response to prominent instances of gun violence, mirrors closely, if not exactly, the views and communications strategies preferred and employed by the Washington gun lobby, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

It appears that the administration is coordinating with, or taking direction from, the Washington gun lobby in responding to mass shootings, the lawsuit continued. Plaintiff brings this action to determine whether, and to what extent, this apparent coordination has been accomplished through communications with officials at the ATF.

In its Oct. 10 records requests, which were made under the Freedom of Information Act, the law center requested ATF correspondence that included words such as NRA, rifle association, and websites and names associated with gun lobbyists, such as National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre.

The requests also covered communications that refer or relate to the development of the White House talking points on the Las Vegas mass shooting, as well as all communications and calendar invites related to Ronald Turk, the associate deputy director of the ATF.

A white paper circulated by Turk on Jan. 20 to other ATF officials suggested relaxing gun regulations involving silencers, sales at gun shows, armor-piercing ammunition, licensing for selling machine guns, and importing assault weapons, among others.

The law center claimed the white papers suggestions were heavily favored and pushed for by gun lobbyists. The law center requested copies of emails dealing with Turks memos, including all iterations and versions of the Turk Memo, as well as correspondence regarding carry reciprocity, gun silencers, bump stocks, and assault weapon exports.

The ATF acknowledged receiving the records requests, but did not provide any of the requested information, the lawsuit claimed. The law center is asking a federal judge to order the ATF to find and turn over the requested records.

Then-Congresswoman Giffords was seriously wounded in the Jan. 8, 2011, mass shooting on Tucsons northwest side that left six people dead and 13 wounded during a meet-and-greet event. Since then, she has become a nationwide activist against gun violence.

The ATF could not be reached for comment by press time Thursday.
A convicted felon killed his wife, stepson and then himself Wednesday inside a midtown home, Tucson police said.

A second stepson arrived at the house after the slayings and narrowly escaped being shot after fighting with his stepfather who tried to shoot him twice with two separate guns that both malfunctioned, said Sgt. Pete Dugan, a Tucson Police Department spokesman on Thursday.

The slayings occurred in a house in the 6000 block of East 20th Street, in a neighborhood west of South Wilmot Road and north of East 22nd Street.

Homicide detectives were able to piece together that Rusty Coblyn, 49, killed his wife, Willa Coblyn, 59, earlier Wednesday. She was found in a back bedroom with obvious signs of trauma, Dugan said. An autopsy will have to determine the wounds and cause of death, he said.

At about 3 p.m. Wednesday, Matthew Johnson, 26, came home and was shot multiple times by Rusty Coblyn in the living room. Then, just after 4 p.m., Matthew's twin brother arrived home and was confronted by his stepfather at gunpoint, said Dugan.

Detectives said it appears Rusty Coblyn attempted to shoot his second stepson, but the gun malfunctioned. He then forced the stepson to a back bedroom where he retrieved a second gun that also malfunctioned, Dugan said.

Both men fought and the stepson, who suffered cuts to his head and several abrasions, escaped from his home and ran to a neighboring house where he yelled for help, said Dugan.

Detectives believe a gunshot heard by officers who responded to the scene was from Rusty Coblyn taking his life.

The bodies were found after a robot with a camera was sent into the house, and Special Weapons and Tactics team members used a second camera to see inside the bedroom, Dugan said.

Shortly before 5 p.m., police received a 911 hangup call from a cellphone, and police responded to the area where the call originated. As officers were arriving, a second call from a resident in the 6000 block of East 20th Street reported a neighbor came to his house and said he found a family member dead in his home and needed help.

Officers went to the house of the second caller and spoke to him and his neighbor who asked for help. While talking to the men, officers heard a gunshot from the home of the neighbor.

The officers took cover, along with the men, and then the men were walked out of the area by the officers who then began evacuating nearby houses.

The SWAT team, the bomb squad and hostage negotiators were called in. After speaking through a loud speaker for about two hours trying to make contact with people inside the house, and not hearing anything, police obtained a search warrant for the house, and used the robot to enter the house.

The body of a man was found inside the front area of the home, and a second camera showed the bodies of a man and woman in another room.

SWAT members entered the home and confirmed the three were deceased.

Rusty Coblyn has a long criminal history, being sent to prison for criminal damage, auto theft and three aggravated assaults in crimes dating back to 1995, according to court and Arizona Department of Corrections records.

Records show he and Willa Coblyn were married in 2003.
What started as Harvey Weinstein being accused of sexual assault, harassment and rape has turned into a widespread calling out of some of Hollywood's most elite members.

From Weinstein to Matt Lauer and several others, here's a look at the latest headlines in the sexual misconduct scandal rocking Hollywood, the media and beyond.
Re: the Nov. 8 article McSally tells House colleagues shell run for Senate seat vacated by Flake.

My member of Congress seems to have calculated that a conservative Trump supporter has a better chance to win a statewide contest than one in Congressional District 2, where she has masqueraded as a moderate while voting 95 percent with President Trump. Rep. Martha McSally, playing the true conservative in order to attract the statewide Republican base, will have a difficult time convincing the relatively moderate Republicans of her present constituency that she is serving them, much less the rest of us.

I cant help thinking that the appeal to primary voters whose inclinations rightward have encouraged Kelli Ward to pursue her ambition may make McSally unelectable in a general election. And wouldnt it be ironic if McSallys habitual refusal to address hard questions proved less appealing to the Republican base than Wards willingness to say whatever comes to mind, sometimes even without thinking twice? Interesting times ahead.

Frank Bergen

Northeast side
Those of us living in Western democracies keep hearing it over and over again from our politicians: To compete economically, we must submit to mass immigration. Its long past time to dispel this destructive myth.

The mass immigration con is typically peddled for the same reason that you need an accountant to help do your taxes. By tying the issue to economics, politicians are trying to make it too complex for laypeople to know when theyre being scammed.

While theyre exploiting your human decency with their spiel about the greater economic good, these government pickpockets are reaching into your trousers (or into your bank account) for more cash. Hey, man, a gubmints gotta eat!

President Trump isnt buying it, though. I have yet to hear Trump proclaim that the recipe for American greatness is more immigration. So far, hes one of the few Western leaders to have taken any action, proposing to cut legal immigration by half in 10 years.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has also taken an anti-immigration stance, but her actions have yet to match her words.

French President Emmanuel Macron has talked up diversity in the past but seems to have been mugged by reality. Or maybe he just went for a walk in Paris one day. You cant stroll through the streets of this city without noticing that it has three major problems: chain-smokers, kids prone to public tantrums, and an immigration/integration disconnect.

In September, Macron announced that French immigration laws require a total revamping, and that failing to make sweeping changes to the system will only empower anti-immigration extremists.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus immigration minister, Ahmed Hussen, announced last week that Canada aims to welcome a million new immigrants by 2020, increasing the number of newcomers by up to 40,000 per year. His justification? Canadian companies and their labor needs.

Nice try. Weve been told for a long time that Western nations simply arent reproducing at an adequate labor-replacement rate, and therefore we have to import new workers. Apparently, overpopulated countries are the gold standard in social and economic excellence. Basic principles of population ecology help explain why so many millennials have chosen to invest in career and personal development rather than contribute to the further overpopulation of the planet. Did it ever occur to these governments that maybe people just like their space? Why do we all have to live on top of each other?

Id really like to know which companies are complaining that they cant find workers willing to accept jobs at a fair wage. Funny how we never get to see any such company representatives alongside government officials when they make announcements about boosting the number of imported workers. Youd think that both the government and the company would welcome the opportunity to sell the idea to citizens, and maybe the company would even get a few more resumes out of the free were hiring publicity.

If governments are anticipating future labor needs, have they not considered that were well into an era of increased automation? In fact, were often warned about the threats that artificial intelligence might pose toward mankind. Its not so much about robots becoming self-aware and evil, the way they do in science fiction movies, but more about their potential to wipe out entire swaths of the workforce.

Robots are already beginning to take over the jobs of supermarket cashiers, and they have a growing presence in the construction, retail, transportation, health care and manufacturing sectors. One of the candidates in this years French presidential elections, Benoit Hamon of the Socialist Party, proposed a universal basic income to help offset the eventuality that robots will be taking away livelihoods. Hamon also wanted to tax robot revenues, since he expected robots to reduce the workforce by at least 9 percent. (He still rejected immigration quotas, however.)

The idea that more immigration will increase economic productivity runs counter to the facts of technological advancement. Were seeing an untenable increase in both automation and immigration. What are all the new arrivals going to do as the labor market shrinks?

Governments are still encouraging 20th century immigration despite 21st century technology. If theyre worried about diversity  a term that so many Western politicians always have on the tip of their tongues  they should invest in the education of their own people to foster diversity of thought. But then again, a better-educated public might realize that the idea of economic prosperity through mass immigration is a total scam.
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Mumbai: In January 2014, Asif Dange, a Navi Mumbai-based resident and an engineer by profession was looking for suitable match for his elder sister.

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He gave her biodata to marriage bureaus, coordinators, agents and registered on few websites. However, things didnt work out well and felt that there was a need for a genuine and easy platform for parents to search for a match for their children.

We expected to see profiles based on the criteria set but coordinators/agents didnt bother to respond and were interested only in the registration fees. Same was for other matrimonial websites where we mostly found fake profiles and other users who were interested in dating, he says.

Asif is a 2007 electronics engineering graduate from Terna Engineering College and is presently Deputy Systems Manager at Hexaware Technologies.

After researching on a feasible way of putting his ideas in concrete form, Asif started a matrimony website, EasyNikah.in on October 24th, 2016, after spending money from his own earnings.

The idea behind starting EasyNikah.in is to assist people in finding a suitable match without any hassles or problems. This website is for Indian Muslims across the world to find a match, he says in a conversation with TwoCircles.net.

The website doesnt have any office and is operated from home by three more developers, Tauheed Ahmad, Muzammil Quadri and Fahad Kheratkar, who currently work as volunteers for the site.

EasyNikah.in is a totally free matrimony service without any charges during registrations, sending a proposal, contact details visibility or when a match is found and it does not have any pictures of bride or groom.

This has been done to keep the anti-social elements away and not let it convert into a dating site, he says.Users dont have access to contact details of anyone. If the proposal is accepted by another user, only then the details are visible. Besides, we have encouraged users to enter contact details of their family members and not themselves as we believe the talks of prospective proposals need to be discussed with family members and not just the boy and girl only.

The contact details of the users become visible only when a proposal from a user is accepted or proposal of a user gets accepted which gives the user the ultimate power of keeping his/her details hidden from other users. In a day a user can send 10 proposals to potential matches.

We have taken the confidentiality and privacy of the registered members to the next level by keeping the email id and contact details of the registered members private unless they accept the proposal from any suitable match, he said.

On the difference between EasyNikah.in and other matrimonial websites, Asif says that other websites are commercial and give more importance to generating revenue instead of taking it as their social responsibility. He feels that the model adopted by these websites isnt feasible for Muslims in particular. Commercial sites not just take one-time charge but have monthly, quarterly packs, while at EasyNikah.in we dont charge anytime. The Representatives of commercial sites call up parents regularly and ask them to take their packages. No one from our site ever calls up as we dont make money. Commercial sites charge the user for displaying profiles as a featured profile. EasyNikah.in shows all profiles based on their latest login which helps the user to feature themselves for free by frequently logging in.

When asked why the services have been kept free, he said: Had I kept it paid then it would have become a business model and the ones who are unable to afford the charges wont be able to take benefit from it.

The website doesnt advertise its services and has more than 6500 registrations till date, and more than 700 successful matches so far.

The users are happy and satisfied to use our services, as the profiles with us are genuine. We have around 3000+ monthly visitors on our website and over 700+ success stories so far. The rise in registrations of users is because it was recommended by our existing users, he added.

He intends to make easynikah.in the single largest Muslim matrimonial website for Indian Muslims staying in India and abroad and to assist them, he plans to raise a staff to handle the queries of users, address them and assist the ones who find it difficult to use services. We have added Google ads on our site which has started to give us some revenue (Rs 6000/- 2 months). Currently, we have monthly 3000+ users and based on regular visits and clicks on ads displayed we get the revenue. As the traffic increases, the revenue shall also increase thereby helping us to pay to the staff. If there is any shortfall in revenue generated, then I intend to pay it from my pocket along with few well-wishers who have shown their willingness in helping me out.
Gordon Brown that architect of New Labour praising Jeremy Corbyn to the rafters surely not? Yes, Brown speaking to Sky News spoke in glowing terms about the Labour leader.

Mr. Brown described Mr. Corbyn as a "phenomenon" and backed him over the scrappage of tuition fees and stopping the rolling out of Universal Credit. Mr. Brown said Mr. Corbyn had brought good changes to politics and was enthusiastic about Mr. Corbyn's performance at the general election.

Who would have thought that Gordon Brown would have sided with Jeremy Corbyn? Corbyn at the time during the height of New Labour power was a thorn in the side of both Brown and Blair.

It seems Mr. Brown is giving Mr. Corbyn credit where credit is due even though politically Brown and Corbyn are still miles apart.

Even Tony Blair hard as it must have been for him said Jeremy Corbyn was ready to step into No 10 should Theresa May fall.

Old Wounds

Brown spoke about his former colleague Tony Blair disagreeing with him on a quote from Blair's book 'My Journey'. In the book, Tony Blair said he was responsible for making the Bank of England independent. Mr. Brown refuted this and said Ed Balls had suggested the idea and he and Mr. Balls worked on this for weeks.

It shows that even after all this time Mr. Brown has different opinions to his former boss on this and other subjects.

Bono famously described Blair and Brown as the Lennon and McCartney of politics.

However, the tune coming from Mr. Brown was hardly a serenade to Blair and could open up old wounds between the two.

Browns thoughts on Theresa May

Mr. Brown said he understood why Theresa May put on a wooden appearance at the general election. He seemed to see similarities between himself then and Mrs. May now. Being brought up in the Church of Scotland or England makes one unemotional and it is instilled in you to just get on with the job in such an upbringing.

Gordon Brown's appearance when he called a general election seemed very wooden just like May in this year's general election.

Brown also criticised Mrs. May stating her government lacked direction over Brexit amongst other things.

The UK seems to have a plethora of ex-Prime Ministers who occasionally rise from the past and give an opinion.

The last two to do this was Tony Blair over Brexit and John Major over austerity and cuts.

David Cameron himself has popped up occasionally but has said nothing of real significance politically perhaps given time like his predecessors he will.
Priti Patel, the Conservative MP for Witham constituency in Essex and the International Development Secretary has resigned her ministerial role after a series of meetings with Israeli Officials was revealed. It has been reported that Priti Patel had met with the Israeli public security minister and had also met with an official from the Israeli foreign ministry a week later. The biggest controversy in this story came when it was revealed that Priti Patel visited an Israeli field hospital in the disputed region of Golan Heights in a non-official capacity.

The territory is not recognised by the U.K and is viewed as Israeli-occupied territory.

The second cabinet reshuffle in seven days

Priti Patel was expected to be either sacked or resign after Theresa May summoned her back to Downing Street, forcing her to cut short a ministerial visit to Kenya. Priti Patel was accused of a lack of transparency after not revealing the meetings to the foreign office, which were organised by Lord Polack, who is seen as a highly influential figure in the Conservative Friends of Israel group. It was also revealed that Ms Patel met with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu 12 times without informing the foreign office.

British politics have been in somewhat of a state of anarchy in recent weeks.

Theresa May was forced to sack the Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon after accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour. This forced May into a cabinet reshuffle and it now appears she is going to have to organise another one in the space of only seven days.

Conduct under microscope

Other ministers have had their own accusations of inappropriate conduct levelled at them; Damian Green, the former secretary of state is under investigation for claims that he kept pornography on his computer, and only a couple of days ago, Welsh government minister Carl Sargeant, who faced claims about his own "personal conduct" was found dead after apparently taking his own life.

Ms Patel is just another in a long line of ministers who have had their conduct in public life held up to the microscope. According to the Sun, Ms Patel said that her "actions fell below the high standards... .of transparency and openness." It seems to be open season on members of the political establishment, similarly reminiscent as to what has been taking place in Hollywood over recent weeks.

If the events of the last month or so have shown us, Ms Patel may be the latest casualty of this ever-increasing scrutiny on figures in public life, but if this trend continues, she certainly won't be the last.
The Indian Army has a strong connection with the British Indian Army that earlier served the East India Company and later the Crown. Indian army law is based on the original Articles of War, drafted during the days of the Raj in 1891. Later these formed the basis of the Indian Army Act 1950. As per the act, all officers and any crime carrying more than two years imprisonment are to be tried by a General Court Martial. A GCM was convened at HQs 33 Corps at Bengudubi in North Bengal to try a senior Brigadier for an extramarital affair with a Lt. Colonels wife.

The GCM was presided over by a Major General with 6 Brigadiers as members. The Army officer was commanding a regiment on the India-China border. The Brigadier pleaded guilty to the charge which accused him of "stealing the affections" of a fellow officers wife. He was also charged with an Act Prejudicial to Good Order and Discipline, as per the Army Act. This is reported by the Huffington Post.

Brigadier punished

The name of the Brigadier has been withheld from the media but the Times of India has reported that the Brigadier was awarded 10-year loss of seniority for pay and promotion. He was also " severely reprimanded" and for all practical purposes, his career in the Indian army is over. The Brigadier initially denied the allegations as did the wife of the Lt Colonel but the wife of the Brigadier who came to know of this extramarital affair wrote to the Army Chief, who set the ball rolling for disciplinary action.

The officer is lucky, as combatants in the army have been invariably dismissed or sentenced to five years RI for similar offences. The fact that he pleaded guilty saved him but his extramarital affair ended his innings with the army. The Indian army, like the British army, has zero tolerance for officers who have extramarital affairs with other officers wifes and are invariably charged with "stealing the affections of a fellow officers wife" a euphemism for extramarital affairs.

Future

The senior officer who was commanding an important formation has also been removed from command. The case would have died but for the active follow up by the Brigadiers wife, who presented Whatsapp messages exchanged between the Brigadier and the Lt Col's wife.

The sentence of the GCM will now be reviewed by the C-in- C and the COAS( Army Chief). Many are not happy at the leniency shown to the officer and it's a moot point that the COAS may not confirm the sentence and ask the GCM to review the punishment.
The idea of Universal Basic Income was put in the form of a referendum to the Swiss electorate who rejected it at the time. Now in Finland Sini Martinnen has been chosen like many other Finns to receive payment of 560.00 Euros (495) as a social experiment possibly to introduce the system if successful.

At the time she received a letter from the government to say she had been selected to receive it she was unemployed. She is well educated and was living on her savings in a well to do suburb of Helsinki. Since she has been receiving UBI (Universal Basic Income) she has found a job.

Even though she has a job now and has savings she will still receive the payment.

UBI will be paid to rich or poor or whether you are working or not. Martinnen has said being on UBI has given her more freedom and not so dependant on her savings or the money she receives from work.

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg endorse UBI

Founder of Space X Elon Musk, and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerburg, have endorsed the idea of UBI. Both these entrepreneurs run global technology companies and know the affect automation will have on jobs.

Automation is beginning to and will have a massive effect on jobs across the board especially those where technology is involved. According to Oxford University, half of all jobs in the US could be lost to automation.

The Bank of England has similar gloomy news for the British workforce that a third of jobs in the UK will be affected.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has expressed interest in the idea and this current government will have to as well at some stage. In fact, UBI is going to be trialled in the UK in Scotland, endorsed and funded apparently by the Scottish government.

In 2019 Fife Council will be running the experiment along with Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Ayrshire councils. Whatever you think of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP it seems they are not afraid to grasp the nettle over UBI. Just because UBI may be successful in those relatively small countries how will it play out in the rest of the world?

UBI: Utopia for all?

On face value paying everyone an allowance regardless of your financial or social standing sounds good in principle. But critics, while admitting something must be done to blunt the edge of automation for those unlucky enough to lose their jobs through it, have their doubts.

They see UBI and the perfect society it apparently paints as being naive at best. While they have the right to sound off about their doubts something must be done for those affected by automation and if not UBI, then what?

Certainly, UBI would end the welfare system as we know it and in theory, give people free lives. Where people would not have to worry about jobs and devote their lives to more pleasurable things in life. The proof as to whether all this works out will be as they say in the Pudding.
Donald Trump kicked off his morning on Wednesday with a routine bashing of the news media, putting special attention on a story reported by NBC News. While Fox News has been a mostly political safe space for the president, one host decided to give Trump a history lesson in defense of the rival network.

Fox News on Trump

For over two years, Donald Trump and the majority of the mainstream media have been at odds with each other. It started during Trump's campaign announcement when he addressed the issue of illegal immigration and referred to those coming into the country from Mexico as "murderers" and "rapists." The media quickly held Trump's feet to the fire, and they've done so ever since.

After defeating Hillary Clinton in November and being sworn into office in January, the former host of "The Apprentice" has only increased his criticism of the press. Trump makes a habit of bashing reporters and media outlets on Twitter, dismissing reports that reflect negatively on him as nothing more than "fake news." Trump continued his attack on the news media on Wednesday during a multi-tweet rant on Twitter, while targeting NBC News over a recent story about the president wanting to increase the United States' nuclear arsenal. After Trump threatened to take action against NBC News in regards to their journalistic license, the issue became a hot topic during a October 11 segment on Fox News.

On Thursday afternoon, Fox News host Shepard Smith ripped into Donald Trump over his recent treatment of NBC News and the media as a whole, while comparing him to disgraced former Republican President Richard Nixon. "This presidential tactic is not new in the Trump era," Smith said in regards to Trump's media attacks. "It dates back to the Richard Nixon administration," he continued, before describing the strategy as "working the refs."

Shepard Smith then compared how Donald Trump and Richard Nixon both handled the press by citing the former president's behavior during the time of the Watergate scandal.

Smith went on to quote Nixon's press secretary Ronald Ziegler who spoke about demonizing the media for their negative coverage, stating that they would pay for their reporting "sooner or later and one way or another." Not stopping there, Smith explained that "journalism ended (Nixon's) political career," while noting "The First Amendment stood firm and almost 50 years later, it does today."

Trump says it's 'disgusting' that the press 'is able to write whatever it wants' https://t.co/P0BshnvAmn pic.twitter.com/TuyNUXECTD  Business Insider (@businessinsider) October 11, 2017

Next up

As Donald Trump expands his criticism of the press, it appears that even some in the more conservative media are coming to the defense of their rivals. Despite the backlash against him, Trump doesn't' seem willing to change his tune anytime soon, even with his approval rating having dropped to just 35 percent.
As Donald Trump continues with his 12-day trip through Asia, the president announced in his latest tweet that First Lady Melania Trump will be staying behind in China as he heads to Vietnam. In response, those who oppose the president had a little fun at the expense of the first couple going their own way on the trip.

Trump trip split

The presidency of Donald Trump has been one that has widened the divide among the American people. It all started back in June of 2015 when the former host of "The Apprentice" created a media frenzy by announcing his plan to run for president on the floor of Trump Tower in New York City.

Despite this, Trump was able to ride his momentum to the Republican nomination last summer. Just a few months later and Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States following an upset win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Since then, the administration has faced backlash, including First Lady Melania Trump. While Melania has mostly remained out of the spotlight, she's come under fire for her plan to fight cyberbullying, with critics pointing out the hypocrisy due to her husband's propensity to tweet insults on social media. In addition, many have pointed out the questionable body language between the president and the first lady when both are seen together in public. As Trump left China to head of to Japan, he confirmed on Twitter that Melania would be staying behind in China with a tweet on November 9.

I am leaving China for #APEC2017 in Vietnam. @FLOTUS Melania is staying behind to see the zoo, and of course, the Great WALL of China before going to Alaska to greet our AMAZING troops.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2017

Taking to Twitter on Thursday night, Donald Trump gave an update about his foreign trip and announced that Melania Trump would be staying in China.

"I am leaving China for #APEC2017 in Vietnam. @FLOTUS Melania is staying behind to see the zoo, and of course, the Great WALL of China before going to Alaska to greet our AMAZING troops," Trump tweeted out. While the next stop on the trip is Vietnam, the president's critics wasted no time focusing on the first lady sticking around in China.

Twitter trolls

After Donald Trump sent out his tweet about heading off to Vietnam without Melania Trump, the president's opposition fired back. "Shes sick of you. Its OK, we are, too,' one tweet read.

"staying behind to see the zoo"



are you sure it's because of the zoo, Donald?



are you sure that's the reason she's staying behind? pic.twitter.com/dZyfvRjiOY  Lotte Rose Middleton (@LotteLDN) November 10, 2017

Cant blame her for staying behind....  iMo  (@_sheateher) November 10, 2017

Also who lets their boo go to the zoo alone? Worst guy ever.  beauryan (@beauryan) November 10, 2017

"You belong in a zoo," another tweet added, with a reply writing, "Also who lets their boo go to the zoo alone? Worst guy ever." "Cant blame her for staying behind...." yet another tweet read.

Shes sick of you. Its ok, we are, too.  Meemee Bayer (@MiimiBayer2) November 10, 2017

That was my first thought exactly too. Either she's going to meet up with HER sidepiece from New York, or she's just so irritated at all his BS she just can't even look at him anymore.  DaVinciOnEarth (@DaVinciOnEarth) November 10, 2017

Is this the Vietnam that you dodged or the Vietnam we know you caught.  mE-kAyLa (@Zentrickster) November 10, 2017

"Are you sure it's because of the zoo, Donald? Are you sure that's the reason she's staying behind?" one Twitter user wondered. "She sees the zoo every day being married to you, Donny," a social media user noted. "Is this the Vietnam that you dodged or the Vietnam we know you caught," additional post stated. The backlash continued as the opposition to Donald Trump and the White House showed no signs of slowing down.
Judge Jennifer Togliatti heard from condemned inmate Scott Raymond Dozier on Wednesday (Nov. 8). Dozier appeared in a Las Vegas, NV, courtroom, before the judge, via video conferencing from Ely State Prison where he awaits his execution by lethal injection scheduled for November 14.

Though the 46-year-old death row inmate has previously, repeatedly affirmed to Judge Togliatti that his stance on voluntary execution is unwavering, she presented Dozier with, yet, another opportunity to inform the court whether he has changed his mind, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

Dozier is on death row for killing Jeremiah Miller, 22, in Nevada and Jasen Green, 26, in Arizona. If his execution is carried through, he will be the first inmate put to death in the new $860,000 execution chamber at Ely State Prison. He would also be the first inmate executed in the state of Nevada in 11 years, the Los Angeles Times noted.

Condemned inmates mindset on dying by lethal injection, but not suffocation

The condemned inmate assured the judge once again that he isnt going to change his stance on being executed. He stated that his primary goal at this juncture is to get this done, the Times relayed. The exception Dozier takes with the states planned lethal injection protocol, however, relates to the use of the paralytic drug cisatracurium.

The drug is unproven and untested in executions.

Though Dozier voluntarily asked Judge Togliatti to sign his execution warrant in August, Doziers federal public defenders and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) object to him being used as a guinea pig with the risk that he could suffocate to death.

Paralytic drug could cause complications

The fear is that using the paralytic drug could have complications, such as rendering Dozier incapable of signaling of something goes wrong when the death cocktail is administered. The additional drugs used in the states proposed three-drug cocktail also include diazepam and fentanyl.

Judge Togliatti questioned the state whether there is an ample supply of diazepam and fentanyl on-hand to administer the lethal combination of drugs. Jordan Smith, the states Assistant Solicitor General assured that prison officials have an excess of twice the amounts necessary for exacting capital punishment on November 14.

Judge wants states ranking medical official to approve lethal injection protocol

The judge did not rule that the state can execute Dozier. According to the Times, the execution will not advance until Nevadas recently replaced Chief Medical Officer approves the lethal injection protocol. The states ranking medical official resigned after advising on the execution drugs to use and Nevada law mandates that the Chief Medical Officer oversee the execution, while not required to fulfill a hands-on role.

The potential for problems with the deadly combination of drugs surfaced when a medical expert told the court last week that the mixing a previously untested death drug cocktail with personnel who are not seasoned in administering the blend could lead to Dozier suffering.

A spokesman for the ACLU in Nevada, Wesley Juhl, expressed that the group finds it unsettling that cisatracurium has the capacity to obscure mistakes that may occur, the Times reported. According to Juhl, Doziers body would be incapable of reacting if the dosage levels of the diazepam and fentanyl are misjudged. As Doziers date with death approaches, the states Department of Corrections (DOC) staff has been practicing everything, so stated a spokesman for Nevadas DOC, Brooke Keast, the Times relayed.

Judge Togliatti has scheduled another hearing today, which is anticipated to be the last one respective of the paralytic drug and if it will be administered on November 14.
When a man asks a woman to marry him, he expects her to say, "Yes." However, that was not the response a Pennsylvania man received when he proposed to his Girlfriend. Christopher Tucker allegedly went into a rage when his teenage girlfriend said she wasn't going to marry him because she was still sleeping with other men.

The 34-year-old man was arrested and charged with killing his 19-year-old girlfriend, Tara Serino, for rejecting his marriage proposal. He was so upset that the murder was one of passion. He allegedly strangled her, snapped her neck, gouged out both her eyes and beat her with a hatchet until she was dead, according to NBC Philadelphia.

Serino's family had not seen Tara since October 30. So far, they have not spoken out about the tragedy.

Arrested

Tucker was arrested and charged with murder and criminal homicide. The police reported that the murder took place at Tucker's house in Berks County, Pennsylvania between last Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon. After seeing the woman's body, the police cited those things that Tucker had done to her. They summarized his action by saying he flew into "a fit of rage."

After she was dead, Tucker wrapped the teen's body in a rug and left it inside his house while he went to Illinois. He was arrested after he was caught trying to break into a farmer's property. Since his arrest, Tucker confessed to murdering his girlfriend.

His account of how he killed her was consistent with the condition of her body.

Other charges

Other than the murder and homicide charges, Tucker also faces charges of aggravated assault and possession of a weapon because a hatchet was used as an instrument of a crime. Tucker is being held in an Illinois jail. He will be extradited to Pennsylvania where he lives and committed the horrific crime.

It is not known whether the Pennsylvania man entered a plea or not or if he has legal representation.

The Allentown Morning Call reported that Tucker was already in trouble with the law. He had been arrested several days before the rejected proposal and murder. Even though it was a crime, it was minor in comparison to what he did to Tara.

He was arrested for driving drunk and speeding in Indiana County in Pennsylvania. The newspaper also stated that he was charged with traffic offenses and for possessing marijuana and another controlled substance. He posted bail and was released for those crimes.

What do you think about what Christopher Tucker did to Tara Serino? Most people think it was a very unusual reaction for being rejected.
Rene Boucher, Rand Paul's alleged attacker in last week's front lawn tackling incident, pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault charges on Thursday (Nov. 9). Earlier reports on the incident indicated that the dispute between the two physicians was over a disagreement pertaining to landscaping. Paul seemed to indicate that he had a different take on what happened and why; although he has not yet provided his side of the story to reporters or in court. Paul did not appear in court today and more likely will not appear until Boucher's trial begins.

ABC News confirmed this information.

Boucher's attorney's claims

Without admitting guilt for his client, Boucher's attorney stated that the dispute was over a "trivial" matter. The question arises as to how Boucher's attorney can acknowledge that the incident occurred and have his client plead "not guilty" at the same time. It is one of those fine points in the law that allows a defendant's attorney to confirm that an incident took place without admitting guilt for his/her client. In order for Boucher to be convicted of fourth-degree assault, prosecutors have to prove intent.

In order to prove intent, prosecutors have to prove that the attack was unprovoked and that Boucher intended to hurt Paul.

If Boucher's attorney is able to present any evidence that Paul said or did something to provoke the attack, then it will be very difficult to prove intent on Boucher's part or to prove that it was a random incident borne of ill intentions.

A hypothetical scenario

The fine point in the law is easier to understand with hypothetical examples.

If on one hand, Boucher did not like Paul's appearance or his body language, and simply decided to attack him because he "could not stand him," then it would be easier for prosecutors to prove his guilt. If on the other hand, Paul had been dumping his lawn cuttings in the street in front of Boucher's home and ignoring Boucher's requests that he dump them somewhere else, then it would be much harder for prosecutors to prove that the incident was unprovoked.

If prosecutors cannot prove that the incident was unprovoked, then it will be much harder for them to prove intent on Boucher's part. This is how Boucher, who once worked with Paul at the hospital, can plead "not guilty" even though his attorney acknowledges that the incident did, in fact, take place.

Postings on Twitter

Rand Paul took to Twitter to post an update on his medical condition following the incident. He revealed the fact that he sustained six broken ribs and a pleural effusion, which is an inflammation of the lungs that results in a build-up of fluid.

I appreciate all of the support from everyone. A medical update: final report indicates six broken ribs & new X-ray shows a pleural effusion  Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) November 8, 2017

Reactions from citizens on Twitter seemed to indicate that most observers believed that there was more to this story that has not been revealed thus far.

Mike Cernovich indicated that the attack was over something other than landscaping:

Domestic terrorism by the alt-leftshttps://t.co/e10hWcs8zI  Mike Cernovich  (@Cernovich) November 9, 2017

Paul Joseph Wilson directly stated that "something's being covered up here:"

Something's being covered up here. https://t.co/pwlQop9TJf  Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 9, 2017

Andrew Kaczynski stated that the mystery is "deepening" concerning the attack:

Mystery deepens surrounding Rand Paul injury https://t.co/hHWKh378xV  andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 9, 2017

Axios stated that the dispute "wasn't over landscaping:"

Rand Paul indicates that his assault wasn't over landscaping https://t.co/fp4xmTWq2L  Axios (@axios) November 9, 2017

Trump's power to launch nuclear war

Meanwhile, Senator Bob Corker has announced plans to hold a hearing on President Donald Trump's power to launch a nuclear war.

Corker is determined to find some avenue by which to require that Congress have a say in the decision-making process pertaining to launching nuclear attacks. The hearing is very timely considering that Trump and North Korea's despotic leader Kim Jong-un are actively engaged in a war of words and threats against each other.
On Thursday, a bombshell story was released detailing the sexual misconduct allegations against Republican senate candidate Roy Moore. In the hours after the story broke, Donald Trump finally decided to give his opinion.

Trump on Moore

Once it became clear that Donald Trump was going to become the new President of the United States, it didn't take long before his administration took shape. One spot that Trump filled was that of Attorney General, which is now run by former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions. With Sessions in the cabinet, his seat in the senate was left vacant and is scheduled to be put up for a vote on December 12.

Roy Moore is the Republican nominee and will face off against his Democratic challenger Doug Jones. While it appeared that Moore would go on to win the race in the red state of Alabama, that all came to a halt after an article in the Washington Post on Thursday. According to the Washington Post, Moore has been accused of allegedly attempting to engage in sexual misconduct with underage women as young as 14-years-old. The first name to be released was Leigh Corfman, who claims that Moore "initiated a sexual encounter" with her back in 1979 when he was 32, and she was just 14. In addition, three other women came forward to the paper and said that when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 years old, Moore attempted similar behavior when he was employed at the district attorney's office.

Also in the story, the accusers claim Moore gave them alcohol, despite the legal drinking age at the time being 19. As expected backlash came quick, with Donald Trump and the White House giving their thoughts, as reported by Reuters on November 10.

JUST IN: White House says Donald Trump would want Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to step aside if allegations against him are true pic.twitter.com/FnncXKEQRV  Reuters U.S. News (@ReutersUS) November 10, 2017

While addressing reporters on Air Force One on Friday morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on the record to speak for herself and Donald Trump.

According to Sanders, Trump "believes if allegations are true he (Roy Moore) will do the right thing and step aside."

The Latest: Trump believes Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore will step aside if sexual misconduct charges true. https://t.co/XboSvjotOK  The Associated Press (@AP) November 10, 2017

Despite this, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump appear to be giving themselves an out, while throwing Roy Moore a possible lifeline in the process.

"Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, destroy a person's life," Trump said, via Sanders.

More @PressSec: "the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation in this case one from many years ago to destroy a persons life" https://t.co/NYyXjQZal8  Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 10, 2017

Moore denies

As for Roy Moore , he has denied the allegations, instead blaming Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the "liberal media" for the story going public. "The Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I've EVER faced!" Moore posted.

The Obama-Clinton Machines liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me Ive EVER faced!



We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen  Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) November 9, 2017

Twitter reacts

As expected, critics of Donald Trump were quick to fire back at the president's remarks.

"Roy Moore and Donald Trump are the same monster under different delusions," one tweet read.

Roy Moore and Donald Trump are the same monster under different delusions. #AlSen  Aaron Sarka (@SarkaAaron) November 10, 2017

"Said the one predator to the other," another tweet stated. "Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump: Has 14 women accuse him of sexual harassment and becomes president. Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore: Hold my beer," one Twitter user wrote.

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump: Has 14 women accuse him of sexual harassment and becomes president.



Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore: Hold my beer.  Jack Stasney (@JackStasney) November 10, 2017

reminder that if you're still defending roy moore EVEN FUCKING DONALD TRUMP IS REFUSING TO FUCKING DEFEND HIM https://t.co/agfduCKxws  D I C K E A T E R (@Otterologist) November 10, 2017

If you "believe" the stories about the sexual misconduct of Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey, but refuse to believe the stories about Donald Trump and Roy Moore, you don't actually care about sexual assault victims. You're just a worthless political stooge.  Cranbaery Sauce (@JobModeSD) November 10, 2017

"Hannity had been the voice of (DT) for the past couple of years.

Now he defends Roy Moore, a p*dophile. Time to shut him down!!" yet another tweet stated. As the negative reaction continued, it didn't take long before the opposition to the president and GOP increased.
One of the many talking points used by Donald Trump during his time campaigning for president was his hard-line against china. While Trump talked tough from a distance, he appears to have had a change of heart.

Trump on China

When Donald Trump announced his campaign for president back in the summer of 2015, he made sure to hit a few talking points during his speech. While the most notable remarks focused on immigration reform and labeling illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murderers," it was also his criticism of China that made headlines.

The former host of "The Apprentice" accused China of manipulating their currency in an attempt to drive an increase in their economy at the expense of American jobs. Month by month during the election, Trump vowed to get tough on China, claiming previous leaders were too weak and allowed the rival nation to take advantage of American business and workers. Despite this, Trump's first 10 months in office haven't seen a change in policy, which became a question as the president left the United States last week to take part in a 12-day foreign trip to Asia. As seen on his Twitter account on November 9, Trump shifted course and decided to praise China for taking advantage of the United States and robbing the country of jobs and hurting the economy.

I dont blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2017

Taking to Twitter on Thursday night, Donald Trump decided to speak highly of China following his stop in the country and meeting President Xi Jinping.

"I dont blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions," Trump tweeted out. "How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue?" he continued, before admitting, "I would've done same!"

My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2017

"My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea," Donald Trump wrote in a follow-up tweet.

"He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people," Trump stated, while concluding, "It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!"

Twitter reacts

Within minutes of his praise of China and admitting that he would take advantage of other country's economies, Donald Trump was met with heavy backlash from critics. "Last year, you said China was "rap*ng" us. You never lose an opportunity to bash the United States," one tweet read, while stating, "The US isn't "losing" $100s of billions. That's not how a trade deficit works. But whatever...not like you'd actually use terminology accurately."

The US isn't "losing" $100s of billions. That's not how a trade deficit works. But whatever... not like you'd actually use terminology accurately.  Pe Resists (@4everNeverTrump) November 9, 2017

So youre taking Chinas side against Americas?  Lee Drake (@BLeeDrake) November 9, 2017

Ok so... you would have taken advantage of people who have no clue?  Erin (@iznir3) November 9, 2017

"And he admits he takes advantage of people who have no clue," another tweet noted.

"'Taking advantage of people that had no clue,' effectively your entire presidential campaign," one Twitter user added.

Youd take advantage of others just because you could get away with it? Thank you for your honesty and transparency.  Benjamin L Corey (@BenjaminLCorey) November 9, 2017

Oh please sweet lil baby Jesus. We can not take any more of the dotard. Praying  Juli Alldaffer (@VNSFRK) November 9, 2017

Question, did China move on us like a bitch? I want to make sure I have the analogy correct.  Tom Shafer (@TomShafShafer) November 9, 2017

"Oh please sweet lil baby Jesus. We can not take any more of the dotard. Praying," yet another tweet read. "Youd take advantage of others just because you could get away with it? Thank you for your honesty and transparency," a tweet noted. The negative reaction continued as Donald Trump continues to be a target of many Americans who are not happy with his administration.
Fans of "90 Day Fiance" know that Mohamed Jbali is still living in the United States even though Danielle wanted him to get deported. It never happened, though. Now Starcam is sharing that he is in trouble with immigration over some lost paperwork. So could this end up being enough to get him deported? Probably not, but everyone can hope that it works.

What is going on with Mohamed now?

Mohamed Jbali went to his Instagram page to share all of the details. He shared that he has been in the United States for three years now and that he has used the post office to mail something maybe 50 times.

He doesn't use insurance on his stuff and never has because he didn't feel the need. He did say that before when they told him they sent him his green card it was revealed that it was lost in the mail too.

Mohamed Jbali sent off paperwork for his green card. He is trying to get the ten-year green card so that he can stay in the United States. Since he got a divorce from Danielle and it wasn't an annulment there is no reason for him to get sent back. She was really hoping to get him deported and it doesn't seem like she is going to be able to pull it off. Danielle would be thrilled if this somehow messed up him staying here.

This time Mohamed actually used insurance and he even paid for overnight mail, but this was the time that his stuff got lost in the mail.

Now Mohamed is really worried since it was lost. He did open an investigation, so he will have to see what happens.

What does he have to do now?

Now, Mohamed has an investigation going and he just has to wait on that to finish. It seems like it just an investigation to try and find his paperwork though. Some people think that this might have been done on purpose and that he should get a lawyer.

It may end up coming to that if more of his mail is lost, but this one time could just be a mistake. The "90 Day Fiance" star is hoping he can get it all taken care of right away, though.

Mohamed recently shared that he is moving to Texas. He was hoping that he could get a fan or someone to help him get a truck because it was so expensive to rent one to move.

This is one way to get away from Danielle.

Do you think that there is any chance that Mohamed Jbali could end up getting deported? Do you think he should be sent back? Sound off in the comments below, and don't miss new episodes of "90 Day Fiance" when they air on TLC. Now that Danielle and Mohamed are over it doesn't look like he will be back on the show again.
"The Bachelor" star Nick Viall is returning to television. The former reality star, who has appeared on "The Bachelorette" twice, and went looking for love on "Bachelor in Paradise," did a stint as "The Bachelor," and later competed on "Dancing With The Stars," is returning to television after his recent split with fiance, Vanessa Grimaldi. According to reports, Nick will be returning to his network of choice, ABC, for a brand new role, and fans have never seen Viall on television like this before. It should be very interesting to see Nick in a new light.

Nick is returning to ABC

E! Online reports that Nick Viall won't be returning to reality TV this time around. In fact he has landed his very first scripted role. The former "Bachelor" star will be appearing on ABC family comedy series, "Speechless," which stars actress Minnie Driver. Nick can be seen in an upcoming episode in a guest starring role, but he won't be playing himself. Viall will reportedly being playing a character named Tyson, who is described as a very good looking B-movie actor, who is "a little too method." Tyson will befriend JJ on the set of one of his movies, and will later put on a very dramatic performance to help get JJ out of trouble with his parents, Maya (Minnie Driver) and Jimmy (John Ross Bowie).

Will Viall's new role leave fans 'speechless?'

Nick Viall's episode of "Speechless" is set to air sometime in November, and fans will get to see the former "Bachelor" on ABC one more time before he's dethroned by the upcoming "Bachelor," Arie Luyendyk Jr., whose season is set to premiere in January of 2018. That, along with the brand new series, "Bachelor Winter Games," which will feature fan favorite Peter Kraus, should have fans of the franchise fully satisfied for the upcoming months.

Nick and Vanessa's breakup leaves fans wondering if Viall will turn to reality TV to find love again

As many fans know, Nick and Vanessa's engagement didn't work out, and many fans wondered if Viall was finally done looking for love on reality TV. While it seems that Nick won't be back, he is one of the franchises most recognized faces, and anything can happen in the future.

Hopefully, the new "Bachelor," Arie Luyendyk Jr., will have better luck than the last two "Bachelor" stars before him. Currently, no major spoilers have been revealed about Arie's season, which has already started to film, with fans spotting Arie out on dates in places like Florida. They've even spotted ABC's new leading man kissing one of his contestants during a one on one date.
If you are on Facebook, then you probably know who Amiri King is and follow him. Recently he invited a disabled veteran into his home and to hang out with him for a day. Blasting News got the opportunity to interview Daniel Robinson about how this day went for him.

How did this all begin?

Here is how Daniel Robinson explained it. "My journey into meeting Amiri King started off as a post I made in a private Facebook group I am a part of. The post appears again on Amiri's page so I won't repeat it here again. When I made that post it was important that I didn't tag anyone in the post, as it wasn't made for attention.

It was made out of desperation to try and reach out and help someone that was struggling. The post was received very well, responses to post indicated that it had indeed helped them and I felt a lot better about helping them. Then the unthinkable happened. Amiri himself responded to my post and said it had touched him. He gave me his phone number, added me to his friends list and told me to come when I was ready, so I did. I set out for Kentucky, but I wanted to call to make sure he hadn't forgot and was expecting me. I was so nervous, and I was worried with the hour that I would wake him up. I was talking with a friend and she told me he would make me feel better about it and to just call. "This better be a damn emergency" said a freshly woken Amiri as he answered his phone.

"Oh s**t I woke you up" I said, immediately regretting my call. He said "no no its cool what's up man?". We had a conversation that put my mind at ease, he was extremely laid back and cool about the whole thing. He then told me before I got off the phone that he didn't want me staying somewhere sh**ty and to go book a room at the Holiday Inn Express and he would pay for it, and that he wasn't interested in hearing any arguments about it.

I could tell by his tone and the fact that he just woke up that he wasn't lying, I just said "OK."

How did the trip go?

I make the 14 hour drive to Kentucky, and I'm glossing this over but the drive sucked, especially with Crohns disease, I splatter painted gas station bathrooms from Oklahoma to Kentucky. I arrive and check in and call him again, we agreed to meet the following day and gave me his address, I asked if he wanted to meet somewhere public to make sure I wasn't a serial killer, he just scoffed and said "dude I'm not afraid of you" I smiled and let him go.

I got up the next day and headed over, I was still nervous but excited too. I knocked on the door after a few seconds later his fiance Sara opened up the door and greeted me. Amiri and I talked several times at length about the women in our lives and how much better they made them, and after speaking with Sara over my visit, I can see why Amiri is with her. She is a very warm and kind person. She invited me in and we chatted in the living room. She took concern with my Crohns and was offering me advice that she had learned from her other family members. Most importantly she doesn't put up with Amiri's s**t. She let's him do his thing and pretend that he's in charge while really holding it all together behind the scenes.

I didn't get to speak with her like I did Amiri, but I cannot overstate how awesome that woman is.

Then the man himself arrived, coming down the stairs, and I shook his hand and give him that half-hug shoulder bump thing guys do so it still shows love but doesn't make us lovers. The first thing he did was went to the fridge and gave me a Big Red from it, and taking one for himself. He took me downstairs and told me I could take as many pictures or videos as I wanted and do whatever I wanted with them. I was very nervous about taking pictures of his house or him. He's a social media personality and its always possible for someone to make something out of pictures that's not there, or for something to be presented in a way that he may not want.

So I ended up only taking 5 pictures the whole time I was with him. I will include them in this article. He showed me his movie theater, his gaming room, and his bar. He showed me a slot machine and has his own printed tickets and gave me one, I forgot to have him sign it. But I wasn't there for signatures or stuff, I just wanted to meet the man.

We decided to go to the mall and "paint the town red". We hopped in his jeep and headed towards the mall, his personality was electric. He rolled his window down and was yelling at different people, he yelled "hey get some work done" at the construction workers and my favorite was, after he turned a corner there was a man standing there with a lavender colored shirt on, and he leans out and yells "hey man your wife is gonna be pi**ed when she finds out you're wearing her shirt!".

The look at the guy's face was smiling at first, but once the roast set in his mouth went tight and narrow, he got burned and he knew it. We went into the mall and this man spoke to everyone, he didn't care what sex, nationality, or age. He bantered with a Hispanic man in Spanish, he made positive comments to the ladies mall walking, he told people that he liked their shirts. We saw a gentleman with a Korean War hat on and and went and talked to him for a good bit, he told us about how his entire family served in the armed forces. My memory sucks and I wish I could have remembered his name but it escapes me. We wished him well and went to get something to drink, he got a small sprite and gave the cashier a $20 bill and told him to pay for the ladies behind him and use it until it was gone.

He did stuff like that all day.

We said down and did some social media stuff and a live stream to that private group I made the original post in. Once the mall actually opened we started just walking around, chatting about our lives, our drives, motivations, ups, and downs. I won't go into too much detail as the conversations were sometimes personal and it's not my story to put out. But this man would say "look at those trees, see how beautiful the world is? There are people in the ground that would trade anything to breathe this fresh air, I'm just so grateful to be here". He found the beauty in just admiring the fact that he was alive, to see and bring the beauty in the world out. Every store we went into he commanded a certain presence.

He wore wealth on him and well... Had the presence of a king. Of course the sales people were all over themselves to help him out.

In my own life I try to practice being the "grey man" or the unnoticed person. As my military and police background make my mindset a more tactical one. Amiri and I couldn't be more different in that regard. He was bringing jokes, laughter, and smiles everywhere he went. Fans would stop and ask for selfies and he always was happy to do it, and talking with them about their lives. We went to eat at a grill and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We choose a booth, I asked him to sign a few profiles for friends, to which he happily did. I was able to have him video chat with some close friends and family.

He talked to my fiance for a bit and we talked more about the women in our lives. Here is a pro-tip from the man himself. He was explaining about all the e-mails he gets, saying that they all deserve to be read, that they poured themselves out and their voices all deserve to be heard. But he just doesn't realistically have enough time to read them all. If he opens your email and its 1873 paragraphs long he's not going to read it. If you send him an e-mail, make it short, direct, and to the point and make it short. That will give you your best chance of the man seeing and more importantly, possibly responding to your email. We had a couple drinks and some awesome pasta. He took care of the waiter and bar staff EXTREMELY well.

He said he loves making the wait staff cry. I then promptly went and threw my entire lunch up. He gave zero sh**s, and even had told me while we were driving if I started to feel sick he would drive over a divider and thru someone's yard to get me to a bathroom. He was extremely cool about my Crohns and it really put me at ease hanging out with him. This man's mind works about 100 miles an hour. He has some unique superstitions. If we were walking, if I walked and a pole came in between us, he would run around and not let a pole split us. These were all just indicators to me that this was a man, just like the rest of us. With fears, hopes, dreams, joys, love, and one of his greatest joys, was making other people happy.

Reaching out and helping people and helping people that are down on their luck help themselves.

He took me then to his jeweler's shop and bought my fiance and I a pair of watches, he said every man should own a nice watch. I don't own nice things, I own tactical and functional things. I am not a flashy person. But I'll admit the watch looks good, you were right Amiri. He told me some very profound things throughout the day. I know I'm kind of all over the place with my story, but like I said my memory sucks and I'm just sitting here winging it. He said that you should give and be charitable, that the lord can't fill a full vault, let some of it go and the lord will replace it. Wear your wealth if you want people to recognize it, don't be afraid to spend some of your money taking care of yourself.

You have to invest in yourself first, and then you can take care of others. He talked of his love for country, the military, and first responders. At this point it was time for his kids to get home from school and we parted ways. I am missing a lot of detail from my story. The story really doesn't do this man justice. Seeing his passion about what he does and how much he cares for others is awe inspiring.

He asked me to share my story about my experience on his page, and I was nervous. Like the story said, before that I had only told two people ever in my life that story and he wanted to me to share it with 2 million people. But he said if we can save one person it would be worth it, and he was right. I agreed and we posted it. I learned a lot from Amiri that day and I hope I get to hang out with him again sometime. People can say what they want about this man but I have seen his heart and is a force of good in this world. If we had more people like him this world would be a much brighter place. Thank you Amiri for coming out of your shell and treating me like a king for a day. I know it was hard for you to do, and it was for me too. You have a friend for life.

Daniel Robinson is a disabled veteran, who lives streams on Twitch as Cypher6. You can check him out and also check out his story on Amiri King's Facebook page.
The last thing Graham said to Jack on "The Young and the Restless" was that he would need good luck with his mother, Dina. This may have been a hint that Ms. Mergeron is dealing with a form of dementia because since Graham is no longer around, she seems to be displaying very odd behavior. One minute she is teetering and tottering around as if she is senile and the next she is sharp-tongued and hostile. In one scene she seems vulnerable and frightened and in another, she seems strong-willed and confident. Now Dina is making decisions that indicate she is becoming increasingly unstable and leaving behind a trail of damage.

Dina may be dealing with dementia

Over the past few months, spoiler alerts have hinted that Jack and Ashley's mother may have dementia, and this is why Graham was sticking so close. Several times when Ms. Mergeron woke up without her trusted companion close at hand she seemed disoriented. Now since having a mini-stroke, her behavior is swinging back and forth like a pendulum. When her children found her in Florida, Dina was laughing and drinking with two other women as if she did not have a care in the world. When she saw her son, however, she turned on him with venom and said that she hated him.

Jack and Ashley managed to get her back to Genoa City, where her behavior is increasingly unstable, and Ms.

Mergeron is now leaving a trail of damage everywhere she goes. Dina was rather spunky with Abby about her personal life, even asking if Zack was good between the sheets. This question obviously shocked her granddaughter and was a source of embarrassment. She later chastized Nikki and brought up the fact that she was a stripper who used to dance on poles.

Dina is displaying wreckless and dangerous behavior

Graham may have been a source of comfort for Ms. Mergeron, who helped keep her impulses in check, but now that he is out of the picture, she is all over the place. On Halloween, Jack told Traci that their mother was upstairs in bed when Dina actually had slipped out of the house, teetering and tottering as she walked, like a confused little old lady.

In those moments it was clear that she was in some state of emotional decline, and she was roaming the streets of Genoa City without anyone taking notice.

Dina walked to The Underground, where she set a picture of Brent Davis on fire, using flames from a jack-o'-lantern that Nick had left lit. As she was leaving, she knocked over a glass with an alcoholic beverage, which was the reason the club burned down. The next day, Gloria and Jack found that his mother had taken charge at Jabot, making decisions that were not within her authority. When confronted, Ms. Mergeron was confident and self-assured, even chastising her son for making poor business decisions.

This was such a contrast from the feeble looking woman on Halloween night.

Clearly, Dina is suffering from something that was in place before her stroke. If not properly diagnosed and treated, she will continue to wreak havoc in Genoa City, and disrupt the lives of those around her. Stay tuned to "The Young and the Restless" weekday afternoons on CBS at 12:30 PM.
German and Italian physicians have brought a seven-year-old German child back from the jaws of death. The child was suffering from Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa (JEB), a rare inherited Skin Disease that is normally fatal in the initial years of a victims life. The doctors covered the patients body with genetically engineered skin.

Infections had covered 60 percent of the body

It is a prime example of raw nerve, surgical stamina, and genetic engineering, reports Los Angeles Times. When the patient arrived at a Bochum burn unit, infections from blisters and sores covered most of his body and destroyed 60 percent of his skin.

He was suffering from excruciating pain, even after being injected with morphine round-the-clock.

Over a five-month period (fall and winter of 2015), the doctors harvested the few remaining healthy skin cells from the boys body. They invaded the cells using a virus and introduced a corrected version of the mutated gene. This particular gene had caused the deadly condition in his epidermis. The doctors built numerous square meters of new epidermis.

New skin helps child live a normal life

The doctors used sheets to culture the corrected cells. This was backed with naturally-occurring adhesive and plastic. Next, they wrapped the childs body in the New Skin. The newly-grown epidermis has helped the ailing kid have a normal life once again.

Hair has started pushing through the genetically engineered skin. He is also playing with other children, and getting normal cuts and bruises.

The cuts are also healing up normally without drugs or daily ointments. Details about this procedure and cutting-edge treatment have been published in the journal, "Nature." The report has brought hope to almost half a million children worldwide who suffer from this debilitating condition.

Child can now grow healthy skin cells continually

The therapy can help these children survive the first few years of their life. In some cases, normal skin function is also expected. The doctors covered roughly 80 percent of the childs body with the new skin grafts but If the procedure is started early, it would not require so much replacement and the chances of fatalities may go down.

Dr. Michele de Luca of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilias Center for Regenerative Medicine believes that the grafts used will stay forever, and will result in a totally stable condition. Holoclones, which are newly identified stem cells, will help the child in the continuous production of healthy cells.

According to dermatologist Prof. Angela Christiano of Columbia University in New York, the success of De Luca and his team has offered a transformative approach for treating young patients with JEB and similar deadly skin conditions.
Protests will be held today outside the Pakistani embassy in London in an attempt to remove the country from the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). After sentencing Nadeem James to death for a WhatsApp message, protestors believe that Pakistan should no longer be allowed on the UNHRC. The group behind this movement is known as the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB). Their mission is not only to remove Pakistan from the UNHRC, but to also abolish the blasphemy laws that have caused approximately 69 murders in Pakistan since 1990.

Addressing the UN

CEMB has released an open letter to both the UNHRC and the government of Pakistan. In their plea to the UNHRC, the letter points to numerous human right violations by the Pakistani government, which should cause the nation to lose its seat on the commission.

Blasphemy laws in Pakistan have wreaked havoc on many innocent peoples' lives. Christians, atheists, and even liberal Muslims have been subjected to public lynchings and incarcerations. Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan, has been waiting to be executed since 2010. While picking berries alongside several Muslim women, an argument ensued over the drinking water. The Muslim women did not want Bibi drinking from the same water.

Bibi was accused of insulting the Prophet Mohamed and sentenced to death by hanging.

In another case, four young men were sentenced to death by hanging for ripping down a religious poster. Mubashir Ahmad, Ehsan Ahmad, Gulam Ahmad, and Khalil Ahmad were in police custody when Khalil was shot and killed.

CEMB outlined numerous cases of blatant human rights violations in Pakistan and demanded that the commission take immediate action.

A letter to Pakistani authorities

CEMB also addressed another open letter to the government of Pakistan demanding that the country abolish blasphemy laws, stop the persecution of minorities, and bring justice to the murderers responsible for the deaths of so-called blasphemers. They have also called for the removal of Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui under claims that his bias prohibits him from giving those accused of blasphemy a fair trial.

Protests in London

It is unclear whether or not the UNHRC or Pakistani authorities will take any steps to prevent future human right violations in cases such as these. However, CEMB has organized a protest that is to be held today outside the Pakistani embassy in London. Beginning at 12:00 PM, the protest will be a moving one that will make its way over to the Iranian embassy as well. Protestors are encouraged to meet for sheesha afterwards. Both open letters to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the government of Pakistan will also be sent out today.
Alice Yu hosts a daily radio show called Chinese Spectrum. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

A radio presenter has won an award for her work preparing British Chinese youngsters for jobs in the media.

Alice Yu, who goes by the name DJ Alice, received the Asian Media Group's GG2 INSPIRE Award, which recognizes outstanding work in the community that has served to inspire young people.

The presenter hosts a daily radio show called Chinese Spectrum, which broadcasts music, current affairs and discussion about British-Chinese community issues in Mandarin and Cantonese.

"I never thought I would win an award like this," she told China Daily. "It gives me motivation to do more with the community and much more with the younger generation."

After arriving in Britain from Hong Kong as a student in the early 1980s, Alice started a Chinese community radio program in Manchester. She later joined the Spectrum Radio Network, which hosts several shows for ethnic minority communities in the UK.

Alice has volunteered for the British Chinese Project, which promotes Chinese issues in British politics. Eleven years ago she started the Chinese Youth Radio project, training young people from the British Chinese community in radio and presenting skills.

"We are underrepresented in media, in television, in politics," Alice said. "I feel the strong need to train second generation Chinese so they can have a platform and are able to voice their opinions more than their parents have."

Chinese people make up just 0.28 percent of the journalism workforce in the UK, despite accounting for 0.7 percent of the population, according to a study by Neil Thurman, a lecturer in communication at City University London.

Thurman said his research revealed a lack of diversity in British journalism.

The 2016 study found 94 percent of journalists are white, compared to 87 percent of the UK working population.

"British journalism is unrepresentative of the general population, and certainly the number of Asian journalists does not represent the number of Asians in the UK," Thurman told China Daily.

angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump speak to reporters at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. XU JINGXING / CHINA DAILY

Trump says meeting with Xi was 'absolutely terrific', as they discuss issues ranging from Korean Peninsula to bilateral trade

President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump struck an upbeat, cooperative tone on Thursday on many key bilateral and regional issues, including the Korean Peninsula and trade.

China continued its "state visit-plus" reception for the US leader on Thursday, with a lavish welcoming ceremony featuring special arrangements, including the performance of US military music and the participation of 10 US students in the welcoming party, which normally consists of Chinese students.

Traditional Chinese musical instruments were on display at the Great Hall of the People, and live broadcasts were arranged, a rare occurrence for a welcoming ceremony and talks.

A meeting between the two leaders and their top advisers exceeded the originally scheduled one hour. Trump said that "our meeting this morning in front of your representatives and our representatives was excellent".

Addressing the media, Xi said that he and Trump had achieved a new consensus, and their meetings had been constructive and yielded fruitful results.

Xi affirmed China's commitment to reform and opening-up, saying that China will increase common interests with other countries and boost coordination between major countries.

The two sides should resolve problems and contradictions in economic ties through jointly boosting the overall scale of Sino-US economic cooperation in a visionary and constructive way, Xi said.

Sino-US relations are "at a new historic starting point", and cooperation is "the only correct choice" for the two countries, Xi said in his opening remarks at the extended meeting.

China is willing to focus on cooperation and control disagreement with the US, to benefit the people of both sides as well as the whole world, he said.

Trump expressed gratitude for the warm reception from the Chinese president, saying that his meeting with Xi on Wednesday night was "absolutely terrific".

"There can be no more important subject than China-US relations," Trump said.

The US president also highlighted his personal friendship with Xi. It's the third face-to-face meeting between Xi and Trump following the first in April at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the second in Hamburg, Germany, during the G20 Summit in July.

"My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one  as we said, there is great chemistry," Trump said.

On bilateral trade, Trump said the US "really has to change its policies because they've gotten so far behind on trade with China, and frankly, with many other countries".

Trump said he believed that "there is a solution" to the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

Zheng Zeguang, vice-foreign minister, told reporters on Thursday that China will sharply ease market access in financial sectors including banking, security funds and insurance, and gradually cut taxes on imported cars, in line with its own timetable and road map.

The two sides agreed to continue to fully implement all of the UN Security Council resolutions on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, maintain pressure regarding the nuclear activities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and promote peaceful resolution of the issue through dialogue and negotiation, he said.

The two countries are dedicated to maintaining the global nonproliferation system and refuse to acknowledge the DPRK's status as a nuclear weapons-possessing nation, Zheng said.

The two presidents highlighted the importance of bilateral military ties, he said, adding that China welcomes US Secretary of Defense James Mattis to visit China in the first half of next year, and the US welcomes a Chinese high-level military delegation to visit the US.

During their talks, Xi elaborated China's principle and stance on the Taiwan question, and Trump reaffirmed that the US will continue to adhere to the one-China policy, Zheng said.

Contact the writers at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
President Xi Jinping holds a grand ceremony to welcome US President Donald Trump at the square outside the East Gate of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. XU JINGXING / CHINA DAILY

President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump witnessed the signing of 15 commercial documents worth of $253.5 billion on Thursday, which was seen as a strong signal of increased trade between the world's two largest economies.

The agreements and memorandums of understanding, signed at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, included energy deals and the purchase of US-produced chipsets and soybeans. Boeing and China Aviation Supplies Holding signed an agreement for 300 airplanes.

Companies from the two countries agreed to cooperate on a gas project in Alaska worth $43 billion and a shale gas demonstration project valued at $83.7 billion.

After witnessing the signing ceremony, Xi said that there is huge potential for China-US economic and trade cooperation. Saying that the Chinese and US economies are highly complementary, Xi added that China is willing to expand imports of energy products including liquefied natural gas, crude oil and refined oil from the US.

Xi called on the United States to increase exports of civil technologies to China. The Chinese government encourages domestic companies to invest in the US, and US companies are also welcome to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative, he said.

"China will not close its doors and will open even wider," Xi said, adding that foreign companies will find China's market "more open, more transparent and more orderly". The large population remains a bonus of China's economy and Chinese market potential is great, he said.

The three major US automakers  General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler  produced and sold over 5 million vehicles in China last year, more than their total sales in the rest of the world not including the US, Xi said. He said Chinese investment has created more than 140,000 jobs in the United States.

Saying it's natural for the two nations to have trade friction, Xi called on the two sides to properly handle issues using the principle of equality and mutual benefit.

China will firmly stick to reform and opening-up, deepen supply-side structural reform, and put forward practical measures to boost opening-up, Xi pledged.

The prospects for the Chinese economy are bright, Xi said. The country's economy has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality growth, he said.

Trump spoke highly of the contributions made by businesspeople to the economic cooperation between the two countries, saying that their discussions "provide a critical bridge" between the business communities of both sides.
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump are expected to meet in Vietnam on Friday, Russian news agencies reported Thursday, citing Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov.

The meeting, likely to be held on the sidelines of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, will be the presidents' second formal face-to-face conversation following the first one in July in Hamburg, Germany.

Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Trump at their highly possible meeting in Vietnam will discuss urgent issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

The possible Putin-Trump meeting will contribute to global peace, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said.
President Xi Jinping said Friday that his visit to Vietnam is expected to strengthen the traditional China-Vietnam friendship and map out the development for bilateral ties in the future.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks in a written statement on arrival at Da Nang airport in Vietnam.

Xi will attend the 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting held in Da Nang from Friday to Saturday. He will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Sunday to Tuesday after attending the APEC events.

Noting that China attaches great importance to relations with Vietnam, Xi said in the statement that he hoped to exchange views on issues of joint concern with General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Tran Dai Quang, and people from other sectors of Vietnam.

In the statement, Xi extended sincere greetings and best wishes to the brotherly Communist Party of Vietnam, Vietnamese government and Vietnamese people on behalf of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government and Chinese people.

China and Vietnam are close neighbors and both are socialist countries with similar political systems and development paths, Xi said, adding that the enhanced bilateral ties have brought practical benefits for people on both sides and contributed to global peace, stability and prosperity.

Both General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang have visited China this year, during which the leaders of China and Vietnam have held intensive talks and agreed to boost political mutual trust, Xi said, adding that consensuses between the two countries' leaders have been gradually implemented.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte look at a piece of art as they visit the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday.Ludovic Marin / Reuters

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - More than a decade in the making, the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened its doors on Wednesday, winning praise from visiting French President Emmanuel Macron as a "bridge between civilizations" and religions.

On his first official visit to the Middle East, Macron and his wife Brigitte were greeted at the museum by Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashed al-Maktoum.

Macron, who is also scheduled to hold talks with Emirati officials, toured the 12-gallery museum - the first to carry the famed Louvre brand outside France - shortly after touching down in Abu Dhabi, along with the heads of state of Morocco and Afghanistan.

The new museum was a "bridge between civilizations", he said at the opening. "Those who seek to say that Islam is the destruction of other religions are liars."

Macron said the museum and its artworks from Europe, Africa and Asia were proof that "our religions, our civilizations are linked".

The opening comes a decade after France and the United Arab Emirates agreed to a 30-year partnership initially reported to be worth $1.1 billion, including nearly half a billion dollars for the rights to the Louvre brand alone.

The museum is the first of three to open on Saadiyat Island, where the UAE plans to launch the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry, and Norman Foster's Zayed National Museum.

Some 5 percent of the museum, which will open to the public on Saturday, is dedicated to contemporary and modern art but the main focus is on world history and religions.

The museum expects to welcome around 5,000 visitors in the first few days, according to Mohammed al-Mubarak, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Culture and Tourism Authority.

"Because this is an international museum, we're expecting visitors from around the world," Mubarak said during a media tour ahead of Wednesday's inauguration ceremony.

"So a museum visitor from China will find something that speaks to her, to her history. A visitor from India will find the same."

Agence France-presse
President Xi Jinping holds a grand ceremony to welcome US President Donald Trump at the square outside the East Gate of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. XU JINGXING / CHINA DAILY

China watchers in the United States have spoken positively of President Donald Trump's trip to China this week.

During the Nov 8-10 trip, which was defined by the Chinese government as a "state visit-plus", Trump described, including in multiple tweets, his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping as "very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea."

In Beijing on Nov 8 and Nov 9, US and Chinese businesses signed deals worth some $253 billion, involving largely Chinese purchase of US products from planes to soybeans.

Jon Taylor, a China scholar and professor at the University of St Thomas.

Jon Taylor, a China scholar and professor at the University of St Thomas in Houston, Texas, said Trump's trip "went as well as could be expected".

"While obvious differences remain, the two leaders demonstrated a genuine respect for each other. That may be the biggest take going forward -- that they understand each other and their counterpart's positions -- on issues such as trade imbalances, the Korean Peninsula, and market access," he said.

Taylor said that he is encouraged by talk of mapping out a new blueprint to remain partners as opposed to being rivals, which reinforces the dialogue that was begun in April in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

"I think that President Xi summed it up best when he said that when working together China and the US can accomplish many great things of benefit to the entire world," he said.

Ted Carpenter, a senior fellow of defense and foreign policy studies at Cato Institute, said the visit turned out to be better than expected given the considerable apprehension leading up to the meeting between Trump and Xi.

Ted Carpenter, a senior fellow of defense and foreign policy studies at Cato Institute.

"Both leaders engaged in a gratifyingly cordial exchange of views," Carpenter said, adding that there also was definite progress about how to deal with the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"Although President Trump (like most American leaders) still seemed to believe that Beijing has more leverage over Pyongyang than actually is the case, he abandoned his insulting and confrontational rhetoric toward Kim Jong-un's regime and indicated a willingness to conduct meaningful negotiations," said Carpenter, adding that it is a stance that China has urged for years.

He observed that Trump also noticeably softened his statements and policy positions regarding trade issues with China. "His comment that he did not blame China for the habitual bilateral trade deficit was especially surprising and constructive, given his previous protectionist statements," Carpenter said.

While noting there was little substantive movement on other policy differences, including Taiwan and the South China Sea, Carpenter said those are complex issues that were not likely to be resolved in a short meeting.

"The important aspect was that those contentious matters were discussed in a cooperative, non-confrontational manner," he said. "All in all, it was a surprisingly friendly and modestly successful summit."
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HCM City authorities have committed to creating favourable conditions for the development of a Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)/Sensors industry. VNA/VNS Photo Phuong Vy

HCM CITY  HCM City authorities have committed to creating favourable conditions for the development of a Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)/Sensors industry.

The MEMS/Sensors industry has tremendous potential and development opportunities in HCM City. The city plans to co-operate with domestic and foreign businesses in the field of investment and technology transfer, especially in design, manufacturing, packaging, testing and commercialisation of MEMS/Sensor products, Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee, said at the first annual MEMS/Sensors Forum 2017, held in the city on Thursday.

Tom Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American, and founder and CEO of DunAn Sensing, noted that the MEMS market was large, not only in Viet Nam but all over the world.

Last year, there were 16 billion MEMS products and the industry is expected to reach turnover of US$20 billion by 2020, he said.

The MEMS/Sensors market is now driven by automotive applications, according to Nguyen, who has 30 years of experience in the field.

However, the market is expanding to new industries like smart homes, smart buildings, healthcare, office and factory management, and environment control.

Right now, the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming more common. It relies on big data and artificial intelligence (AI), which depends on trillions of sensors with MEMS content, he said. I can confirm that our present and future smart everything depends on MEMS sensors and products.

The MEMS industry can prosper in Viet Nam because of the low investment needed to start business.

MEMS technology doesnt depend on the latest expensive photolithography capability, which reduces the risk and extends the longevity of capital investments. Compared with the latest semiconductor fabrication facilities, which require several billions of dollars in initial investment, MEMS fabrication facilities need from $20 million to $150 million, depending on planned capacity, he said.

However, MEMS devices still face challenges. The industry needs to adapt its cost structure, especially for packaging; and needs a complete functional or module approach in order to help the integrator to use the MEMS device.

Standards need to be developed for MEMS sensor packaging and sensors with better performance, improved accuracy and stability for high-volume consumer markets, he said.

Viet Nam has a huge demand for sensors and systems for agriculture, automotive, industrial, petroleum, healthcare, appliances, buildings, and infrastructure, he said.

The local home appliance industry in recent years has grown at an annual average of 18 per cent, the highest in the region.

The Vietnamese automotive industry produces over 200,000 cars and the total number of smartphones accounts for over four million units in the country.

The creation of the MEMS industry in Viet Nam requires a firm commitment of resources by both Government and private entities, Nguyen said.

Besides funding a fabrication facility, it is necessary to jumpstart the entire ecosystem by creating specific academic programmes and collaborations with faculties, and facilitating the installation of MEMS design centres, application and solution developers, he added.

Dr Le Hoai Quoc, president of the Sai Gon High-Tech Park (SHTP), the forum chairman, said: We would like to inform the world about our high-quality human resources and the big demand for MEMS/sensors, and connect investors with potential projects and link researchers with investment funds. We also want to attract investors in manufacturing MEMS/sensor products; and create local supply chains.

The forum was held to enhance public awareness of the potential of MEMS/sensor technologies to solve many of the citys problems, including ineffective and costly medical care, excessive pollution, wasteful energy policies, flooding, traffic congestion and smart city.  VNS
A NANG  APEC ministers have adopted a number of practical initiatives on building a green economy and achieving food security through quality growth that will be presented to leaders of the 21 economies tomorrow in a Nang City.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, co-chair of the 29th APEC Ministerial Meeting (AMM), also told local and foreign media on Thursday afternoon that the meeting had approved an e-commerce facilitation framework within the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) bloc.

Three key documents that agreement was reached on at the 29th AMM are: APEC Strategy for Green, Sustainable and Innovative MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises); 2018-2020 Action Plan on Food Security and Climate Change; and an Action Programme on Rural-Urban Development to Strengthen Food Security and Quality Growth.

Additionally, we agreed on strategic documents for APEC co-operation, many of them formulated and approved this year, that carry practical co-operation content like narrowing the development gap; ensuring that member economies achieve inclusive social, financial and economic development; and opening up new development potentials for the region such as through accelerated development of quality human resources, Minh said.

He said education co-operation and enabling all strata of people, women and youth to contribute to economic development and benefit from free trade and growth, were also mentioned in the documents.

Following three working sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, the APEC ministers of foreign and economic affairs agreed that in the context of new technological and globalisation trends, the bloc needs to create new dynamisms to maintaining it as a driver of global growth and linkages.

The ministers emphasised the importance of structural reform to improve productivity, support MSMEs in accelerating growth and creating employment; promoting creativity, innovation, business and start-up spirits; providing labourers with new skills to adapt themselves in the digital age; and applying science and technology to ensure food security, agricultural and rural development, and respond to climate change, said Minh.

He said that to prepare itself for the fourth decade of development as well as the realisation of Bogor Goals, the ministers discussed and voiced the necessity to maintain discussions on new co-operation orientations for APEC after 2020.

Lima Declaration on FTAAP

Asked about the action plan for implementing the Lima Declaration on the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), co-chair of the 29th AMM, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, said APEC ministers had agreed to continue discussing the work plan on advancing the pact.

At numerous forums and co-operation frameworks throughout 2017, the member economies have formulated and determined fundamental content as well as priorities to be included in the work plan, he said.

However, the action plan has not been approved yet [at the 29th AMM], Anh said.

Mapping out a specific work plan to advance the Lima Declaration on FTAAP with common content and areas of interest is not simple as the 21 APEC member economies are located in four different continents with different socio-economic development levels, priorities and interests, he said.

Despite huge efforts, differences still exist in selecting concrete content, areas and programmes to be included in the action plan.

APEC ministers decided that they need more time to continue discussions in 2018 on the basis of consensus on priorities proposed by each member economy for the action plan.

The 21 APEC member economies group Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hongkong-China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United States and Viet Nam.

On Thursday, the leaders of Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Hongkong-China, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand and Peru arrived in a Nang to attend the most significant event of APEC 2017  the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting.

Other leaders will be expected to land in the central coastal city today, when a dialogue will be held between the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and the APEC economic leaders.

President welcomes foreign leaders to a Nang

President Tran ai Quang on Thursday received several foreign leaders in a Nang as they started arriving for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Summit.

Quang had brief bilateral meetings with his counterparts from the Philippines, Mexico and Peru: Rodrigo Duterte, Pena Nieto, and Pablo Kuczynski, respectively, on the side-lines of APEC.

He welcomed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Peter ONeill, and Myanmars State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi.

Quang also held talks with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) President Jin Liqun on the same day.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh, meanwhile, received his New Zealand counterpart Winston Peters on Thursday as he arrived in a Nang.

Minh also had bilateral meetings with Bruneis Second Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lim Jock Seng and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration of Papua New Guinea Rimbink Pato.  VNS
Foreign and economic ministers at the 29th APEC Ministerial Meeting pose for a photo at the TPP Ministerial Meeting, which opened in a Nang on Thursday. VNA/VNS Photo

A NANG  Talks to reach a deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) without the US are going strong, Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh said at the TPP Ministerial Meeting, which opened in a Nang on Thursday.

Negotiators achieved consensus on some controversial issues, enabling the involved parties to reach the final commitment package, Anh said at the two-day event, which took place on the sidelines of the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week.

The trade pact was officially inked on February 4, 2016 among 12 countries, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Viet Nam. TPP is a free trade agreement with many stipulations covering trade and non-trade issues.

However, after taking office in January 2017, US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw his country from the pact. The remaining TPP countries are working towards a new deal that can move forward without the US.

After the latest round of negotiations in Japan early this month, chief negotiators of the 11 TPP members expressed their hopes of making progress at the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week in a Nang.

At a press conference on APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week on November 2, Permanent Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son said that cooperation and regional linkage mechanisms within the framework of APEC, including TPP, must be characterised by voluntarism, mutual benefit and mutual respect.  VNS
A NANG  Preliminary agreement has been reached among ministers from 11 countries participating in the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during their meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

Speaking to Vietnam News Agency on Friday, Minister of Industry and Trade of Viet Nam Tran Tuan Anh said the TPP Ministerial Meeting in a Nang has initially consented to preliminary principles and contents of the TPP.

According to the minister, essentially, all contents have been put into the final commitment package.

However, there still exist some matters that need further clarification and agreement before the signing, Anh said.

Heads of negotiation groups from member countries will work together for final consensus and report to leaders before signing the document, he added.

The leaders will discuss general contents for TPP co-operation, including the TPP Ministerial Meeting report, which features contents of the commitment package, Anh said, referring to the meeting of leaders of the 11 TPP countries expected to take place the same day.

The free trade agreement with many stipulations covering trade and non-trade issues was officially inked on February 4, 2016, among 12 countries, namely the United States, Canada, Mexico and Peru, as well as Chile, New Zealand, Australia and Japan, along with Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Viet Nam.

However, the United States later withdrew from the pact. Following the latest negotiation early this month in Japan, heads of negotiation groups said they looked forward to progress and outcome of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders Week, which ends on Saturday.

Many expect TPP will become a model for regional and world trade development.  VNS
HCM CITY  The European Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam (EuroCham) officially launched its first publication of the EuroCham Greenbook in Viet Nam on Thursday in HCM City.

The first edition of EuroCham Greenbook in Viet Nam offers an overview of the business state of affairs related to renewable energy, water and waste treatment, smart cities and green buildings. It not only introduces business opportunities, but also raises issues regarding policies and recommendations, to improve the green business environment in Viet Nam.

In addition to the success stories of projects run by EuroCham member companies, European businesses as well as other foreign investors in Viet Nam, the EuroCham Greenbook also introduces prestigious experts in this field from across the country.

On this occasion, EuroCham also launched its first Greenbook website in Viet Nam, to support the provision of information, especially policy mechanisms and programmes to support the European and Vietnamese business communities in their investment and operation activities.

Speaking at the launch ceremony, EuroCham Vice Chairman, Tomaso Andreatta, said that Viet Nam now sees many domestic and foreign companies providing environmental improvement services and products and committed towards a socially responsible business. European businesses in particular are very interested in investing in clean energy in Viet Nam.

However, according to Andreatta, the administrative procedures related to investment licensing in the field of clean energy in Viet Nam are quite complex and not as simplified as the businesses expectations.

European businesses have encountered high investment risk because this is a time-consuming industry that requires more time than other sectors to recover capital, while the mechanism of investment incentives in Viet Nam is not strong enough to be a momentum for investors. For example, clean electricity price is low.

Faced with this situation, in the time to come, EuroCham will make many recommendations to the Vietnamese Government on necessary measures to promote the improvement of the investment environment in the field of clean energy, Andreatta said.

Particularly for HCM City to be able to become a smart city, experts said that the citys authorities need to minimise the damage caused by climate change and environmental pollution.

At the same time, the city should step up the programme of action to promote both internal and external resources and mobilise funds outside the local budget, to build a comprehensive and synchronous solution in infrastructure to meet development needs such as transport, environment, flood control, water treatment and water use.

The solution cannot be implemented individually but requires a certain roadmap and the agreement of the business and social communities.  VNS
A NANG  Recently-elected Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern called climate change the greatest challenge facing this generation and the Asia Pacific region, as she opened the final day of APEC CEO Summit 2017 on Friday in a Nang.

She said the region has the largest number of people vulnerable to climate change in the world.

We are already seeing the terrible effects of climate change in our region, Jacinda said.

She also highlighted Viet Nams recent floods as evidence that climate change is real and around us.

Here in Viet Nam, in the last two years, I understand that you have suffered terrible floods and drought. Even in recent days, saltwater intrusion is causing both a loss of life and damage to the economy, she said.

According to the Prime Minister, glaciers in New Zealand have lost nearly a quarter of ice since 1977, and last year was the warmest year on record in the country.

Jacinda said New Zealand is deeply concerned not just about what is happening to the economy, but also to the planet.

We are concerned about the state of our environment and how we use our natural resources. During our recent election, this was a source of concern that was shared with me frequently, she said.

No matter how small we are, we have a role to play, as we all do, she said.

Besides Jacinda, there were other speakers in the morning session who spoke on the role of governments and businesses in promoting resources and efficiency and sustainable economic growth.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese milk lady Thai Huong, president of TH True Milk, highlighted the food security issue as a solution to tackle resource inefficiency, with 800 millions of people suffering from poverty.

My company always puts the environment first while doing business, she said.

She said organic plantation and land use method are applied at TH True Milks plants to use the resource most effectively.

I want to share that science and technology can help promote the products quality, however, humans are most important in managing sustainable economic growth, Huong said.

TH True Milk, Viet Nams one of the largest private dairy groups, has invested in a US$1-billion dairy in a Moscow suburb in Russia.

Huong explained her decision to invest in Russia, saying its economy has a favourable policy for foreign investors.

Meanwhile, Rober S. Franklin, president of ExxonMobil Gas and Power, said the world needs to find solutions for new energy resources and make them available to the population.

On this planet, which has a billion people that have no access to electricity, that is a big challenge, Rober said.

He also said providing energy in a way that is affordable for consumers is also a challenge.

Having theoretical resources that are not affordable for consumers has negatively affected economies around the world, he said.

And I think it is the role of government to implement policies that ensure a fair and non-discriminatory economy, he said.

The Resource Efficiency and Sustainable Growth section was followed by another one entitled building connection and community in a technology-enabled world with Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull and Facebooks Chief Operation Officer, Sheryl Sandberg acting as panelists.

Another section on Friday morning focused on APECs Post-2020 vision had the hosts of APEC 2018 and 2020, Peter ONeill - Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea and Najib Razak - Prime Minister of Malaysia on the state.

The summits afternoon session heard keynote speeches from the US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.  VNS
A NANG  Twenty-six Indonesian companies are showcasing their products at a trade fair which opened its doors in the central city of a Nang on Thursday.

On display at 32 booths are cars and components, food stuffs and beverages, paper, fine arts and handicrafts, as well as fashion products.

In his speech at the fairs opening ceremony, Indonesian Ambassador to Viet Nam Ibnu Hadi said the event aimed to advertise Indonesias image and its quality products, deliver updated information about bilateral relations between Viet Nam and Indonesia in trade, investment and tourism while helping the two countries businesses seek new co-operation opportunities.

A dialogue between Vietnamese and Indonesian businesses is slated to be held on Saturday on the sidelines of the fair. Co-organised by the Indonesian Embassy and the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the forthcoming event is expected to attract about 100 businesses from two countries.

The fair runs until Sunday.

Bilateral economic co-operation between the two nations has experienced encouraging results over past years.

Two way trade reached US$5.6 billion in 2016 and $4.72 billion in the past nine months, up 23 per cent year-on-year. Of the total, Vietnamese exports $2.11 billion worth of goods to Indonesia while its imports from the market hit $2.61 billion.

Among Viet Nams exports to Indonesia included chemicals, paper and paper products, plastics materials, telephones and telephone components. Meanwhile, Viet Nam mainly imported automotive items and coal from Indonesia.

In terms of investment, Indonesian businesses have pumped $39 million into Viet Nam over the past 10 months. The latest addition has brought Indonesian investment in the country up to a total of $453.4 million, ranking 30th among 128 countries and territories investing in the country.

These figures, however, fail to match the potential of the two countries, trade experts said.

Viet Nam and Indonesia are working hard together to raise two-way trade to $10 billion next year.  VNS
President Tran ai Quang (middle) joins the dialogue between APEC leaders and ABAC business representatives.- VNA/VNS Photo

A NANG  The leaders of 21 APEC member economies will meet today to discuss ways to expedite efforts to achieve the Bogor Goals, connect supply chains, strengthen the multilateral trading system, promote regional trade agreements and move towards the realisation of a Free Trade Area of the Asia  Pacific (FTAAP).

In remarks made at the dialogue between APEC leaders and APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) yesterday, President Tran ai Quang stressed that it was time for APEC to find out new ways to sustain its role as a driver for economic growth and integration at the Asia-Pacific and global levels.

It is also time for us to build a new vision for APEC as the forum enters its fourth decade of development, he told APEC leaders and 63 ABAC representatives.

For that reason, APEC Economic Leaders are ready to dialogue with the business community. The recommendations and ideas presented by ABAC will provide an important basis for us to consider and make decisions on APECs future direction, the President said.

Earlier, ABAC 2017 Chair Hoang Van Dung presented a report to the APEC leaders, highlighting three core issues for discussion: deeper regional economic integration, facilitation of small and medium-sized enterprises; and application of digital technology.

Issues that have attracted the attention of the business community, particularly regional economic integration, connectivity, boosting trade and investment flows, MSMEs, inclusive growth, food security and APECs post-2020 vision, are also of great concern for APEC leaders, according to President Quang.

They are looking to work out appropriate solutions and practical actions.

Economic integration, connectivity, trade and investment liberalisation have been and will continue to be top priorities for APEC cooperation. All APEC member economies are committed to accelerating efforts towards the Bogor Goals, with greater focus on services, investment and measures to reduce non-tariff barriers.

At the same time, APEC needs to focus more on emerging issues like cross-border e-commerce and the roadmap to an Internet-based digital economy, he said.

A music performance at the national banquet.  VNA/VNS Photo

Quang said APEC leaders shared the business communitys view on the need to increase MSMEs participation in global markets, improve businesses access to finance and enhance womens economic empowerment.

The greater participation of businesses in general and women entrepreneurs in particular will inject new impetus to foster sustainable and inclusive growth. We are committed to developing effective policy and legal frameworks to create a better environment for the business community, he said.

Your recommendations on accelerating economic, financial and social inclusion, achieving food and energy security and promoting quality workforce for the digital age reflect the urgent issues to be addressed to ensure innovative, sustainable and inclusive growth, he added.

Following the plenary session, President Quang joined three group discussions with other APEC leaders and ABAC representatives to further clarify policies and solutions to strengthen co-operation between administration authorities and business community to ensure inclusive economic growth, promote MSMEs participation in global markets, and make positive contributions towards turning the bloc into an effective co-operation mechanism to accelerate sustainable growth and create jobs for people in the region.
HAI DUONG  Many households in Ninh Giang Township, in the northern province of Hai Duong, have said that their homes and drinking water are heavily polluted.

Local people said that they have suffered contaminated water since a frozen food processing company came into operation one year ago, Suc khoe & Moi Truong (Health & Environment) online newspaper reported.

Waste water from Huong Quynh ang Joint Stock Company, specialised in producing pork for export, is discharged into a section of a ditch and then to the Luoc River.

According to reporters and local residents, the red waste water, which looks like blood and has a strong odour, was poured into the river.

A resident in Hiep Luc Commune said that they have reported the incident to the local authorities many times but it has not been dealt with.

The local people here use the river water for daily life, so they have been very concerned about the pollution.

Many families nearby have to close their doors tightly when they eat dinner, due to the bad smell blowing through.

Meanwhile, Ha Minh Quang, head of the Natural Resources and Environment Division of Ninh Giang Township, said he had not received any official complaints from local residents.

ao Van Vien, director of Huong Quynh ang company, explained that the companys waste water system was broken and that the company was trying to deal with it.  VNS
HA NOI  A book about Donald Trumps US presidential election campaign translated into Vietnamese was released in Ha Noi on Wednesday

Publishers said it would help Vietnamese readers better understand the US President and his strategy.

Roger Stones book, Making of the President 2016: How Donald Trump Orchestrated a Revolution, is translated by Nguyen Thanh Chau.

Stone is a long-time Trumps retainer and confidant. He parses strategy and circumstances in the election that shocked the nation. The author delivers an in-depth examination of how Trumps campaign tapped into the national mood to deliver a stunning victory that almost no one saw coming.

A seminar was held together with the book launch to discuss President Trumps strategy, his influence on Asian countries and the relationship between Viet Nam and the US.

Among those attending the event were Bui The Giang, vice president of the Viet Nam-USA Society.

The event was one among several held to honour President Trumps official visit to Viet Nam.  VNS
PARIS  Flamboyant fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier is to tell the story of his colourful life in a racy new stage musical.

The French creator will premiere Fashion Freak Show at the mythic Folies Bergere theatre in Paris next October before taking it on an international tour.

"It is all going in  everything," said Gaultier, who has designed for pop icons from Madonna and Grace Jones to Kylie Minogue and Beyonce.

The all-singing and dancing show will be somewhere between a "cabaret review and a fashion spectacle", Gaultier said on Wednesday, featuring a cast of "crazy, brilliant, muscled, knickerless reprobates" with whom the designer has spent his life.

"There is beauty everywhere," declared the 64-year-old, famous his corset dresses and love of kilts. "I have always loved freaks and strange people, provocateurs and chance encounters where the boy from the street teases the duchess."

Gaultiers haute couture shows are the traditionally the cheekiest and most colourful on the Paris catwalk.

He began designing for his teddy bear when he was six in the Paris suburbs and worked alongside Pierre Cardin before becoming fashions enfant terrible in the 1980s.

His bubbly personality quickly made him a media darling, and he was the longtime presenter of the cult late-night British television series Eurotrash, which included such regular features as Naked Germans of the Week and suggestive sketches with his "special friends", Pipi and Popo, two giraffes made from toilet rolls.

Gaultier said he had "always dreamed of putting on my own cabaret revue since I was nine", when he first saw the feathers and the razzmatazz of the Folies Bergere on television.

He said his show will include hat-tips to several artists who inspired him, including Madonna, the Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar, Luc Besson, Minogue and the choreographer Angelin Preljocaj.  AFP
A NANG  Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Friday morning shared a banh mi breakfast with Australian-Vietnamese celebrity chef Luke Nguyen at a local street food restaurant, before beginning a busy day of meetings for the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

Prime Minister Turnbull said Vietnamese food is enjoyed every day by Australians, which is just one of the many positive contributions of the nearly 300,000 Vietnamese who call Australia home. But this is the first time Ive ever tried banh mi! I love the fresh flavours of Vietnamese food.

Turnbull also said it was fantastic to see Australian agricultural exports featured in such iconic Vietnamese dishes.

Viet Nam is Australias second largest export market for wheat and beef - wheat is predominantly used to make wheat noodles, and the majority of banh mi that Vietnamese enjoy everyday, he said.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull takes a selfie with local residents in a Nang.

Viet Nam also imports Australian malt and barley for its growing beer industry. In 2016, Viet Nam imported AU$446.2 million of wheat, AU$94.9 million of barley, and AU$37.5 million of beef and veal from Australia.

Australian-Vietnamese celebrity chef Luke Nguyen is pleased that Vietnamese people increasingly have the opportunity to enjoy Australias premium food and beverages. As the Taste of Australia Ambassador in Viet Nam, Im excited to work with the Australian Government to bring more high-quality Australian food and beverages, including our famed beef, wine, wheat and dairy, to Viet Nam, he said.  VNS
President Tran ai Quang (R) receives his Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet in Ha Noi on Thursday. VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang and his Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet discussed orientations and measures to enhance friendship and comprehensive co-operation between the two countries during their talks on Thursday.

Bachelet extended her deep sympathy to Vietnamese leaders and people over great human and property losses caused by the recent typhoon Damrey and floods in Viet Nams central region.

She noted that Chile considers Viet Nam an important partner in the Asia-Pacific, and congratulated the country on its contributions to APECs development through hosting APEC 2017.

The two leaders commented on the fruitful comprehensive partnership over the past years across several fields, ranging from politics to trade, which has grown from 30 to 40 per cent annually since the Viet Nam-Chile Free Trade Agreement took effect on January 1, 2014.

In 2016, the value of bilateral trade reached US$1.1 billion, more than doubling since 2013. In the first nine months of this year, the figure was close to $960 million, up by 29 per cent over the same period last year.

The leaders agreed to maintain the exchange of delegations from various sectors, localities and businesses, and such mechanisms as the bilateral free trade council and political consultation at the deputy foreign ministerial level.

The two countries will also work to complete a legal framework for bilateral co-operation and create the best possible conditions for their businesses to access the respective markets.

At the same time, they will establish trade and investment ties in agro-fishery production and processing, high-tech agriculture, mining, bio-technology and climate change response, while facilitating the export and import of farm products.

They agreed to step up collaboration in culture, science-technology, education-training, tourism and other spheres. Viet Nam and Chile agreed to boost their collaboration at multilateral forums, especially the UN, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), APEC, negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Co-operation (FEALAC), along with promoting co-operation between ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance (AP).

The two Presidents noted their support for settling sovereignty and territorial disputes by peaceful measures in respect of international law, particularly the UN Charter and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as diplomatic and legal processes.

Bachelet issued an invitation to Quang to pay a State visit to Chile in the future, which he accepted.

Following their talks, the two Presidents signed the Viet Nam-Chile joint statement and witnessed the signing of bilateral co-operation agreements, including a Governmental-level memorandum of understanding (MoU) on co-operation in caring children and adolescents who are Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims in Viet Nam; an agreement on income activities for relatives of diplomats and employees of consulates, representative offices and international organisations; and an MoU on co-operation between the two countries academies of diplomacy.

Vietnamese Party chief, Chile President meet up

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (R) receives Chilean president Michelle Bachelet on Thursday.  VNA/VNS Photo Tri Dung

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on Thursday welcomed Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, who lauded Viet Nams achievements and experience in national construction and development, as well as the countrys important role in the region and the world.

The Party chief expressed his delight at the growing economic, trade and investment co-operation between the two countries. He said he hopes that Viet Nam and Chile would work together to foster connectivity between the ASEAN Community and other organisations in South America of which Chile is a member.

He highlighted his wish to further strengthen friendship and partnership with the Socialist Party of Chile led by President Bachelet and other political parties of Chile, contributing to enhancing the traditional solidarity and friendship between Viet Nam and Chile.

On the same day, Bachelet also met Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, suggesting that both sides remove obstacles to increase the trade of agriculture products as well as promote co-operation in defence, security, peacekeeping, science and technology, while supporting each other at multilateral forums.

Phuc for his part pledged to direct ministries and sectors to effectively implement agreements reached between the two countries to bolster their trade and investment partnership, especially in processing, seafood and climate change response.

The PM asked the Chilean leader to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese farm produce, especially mango, lychee and longan, to access the Chilean market.

The Chilean president also held talks with the National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan before leaving for a Nang on Thursday evening to attend the APEC Summit.  VNS
HCM CITY  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday flew south to HCM City after spending the first day of his State visit in the capital Ha Noi.

He visited the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, striking a traditional Vietnamese gong to open the afternoon session before attending a roundtable with leaders of local businesses.

Trudeau later held a meeting with the leader of HCM City where he had visited 22 years ago as a young student.

He told the city Peoples Committee Chairman, Nguyen Thanh Phong, that he was impressed with the rapid growth of the city, especially in trade and investment sectors.

HCM City and Canada have a lot of potential to strengthen co-operation in trade and business to further contribute to the citys development, Trudeau said.

Phong, for his part, expressed a wish that HCM City and Canada could further strengthen their co-operation in several fields, including trade, urban management and education.

Students talk

On the same day, the Canadian PM spoke in front of students from Ton uc Thang University in HCM City, sharing with them his thoughts on the global role of the young generation.

During the event, the PM stressed the sound partnership between Canada and Viet Nam while expressing his hope for the further development of ties between the two countries.

He said he supports students who speak out and make efforts to enhance their education.

Trudeau urged them to think about the world today and in the future, and to face difficulties in life instead of avoiding them.

He talked about his travels across the globe, noting that he finds Vietnamese people hospitable and friendly.

Sharing his thoughts on the benefits of immigration, Trudeau said Canada has issued policies to protect the safety of its citizens and hoped the younger generation will think more positively about the matter.

He also highlighted a need to respect cultural diversity among nations and to balance economic benefits and environmental protection for sustainable growth.  VNS




by Dr Alan Bollard*

On Saturday, the leaders of the worlds largest and most dynamic trading corridor, hosted by Viet Nam President Tran ai Quang and joined by newcomers including United States President Donald Trump, will convene in the central Vietnamese port city of a Nang for their annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting.

Together, these 21 leaders will attempt to align their ideas for making trade between APEC economies work better in the common pursuit of growth and job creation back home, with enormous implications for their three billion constituents and the rebounding global economy.

For all the stakes, APEC has over the years lived up to its name as a cooperative forum for tough economic issues, enabled by its enduring focus on voluntary, non-legally binding policy prescriptions for easing trade bottlenecks like tariffs, administrative red tape at borders and mismatching standards that raise costs for businesses and consumers.

Approaches agreed to by consensus are in turn adopted as the vision for technical coordination among the diverse economies of APEC, which, in all, account for half of global trade and 60 per cent of the worlds GDP.

Beyond these sometimes unwieldy deliberations, high drama at the APEC table, as in Bali, Beijing, Manila and Lima most recently and in Ha Noi in 2006, includes what traditional attire the leaders will adorn in their family photo at the invitation of the host economy. The custom is a lighthearted display of cultural understanding and partnership. Only these are hardly routine days for trade in the Asia-Pacific or elsewhere.

So where do things stand? On the bright side, after three decades of proactive efforts by APEC member economies to improve their connectivity and trade-driven growth, we have seen upwards of a billion people lifted out of poverty in places like China, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Viet Nam, and into the ranks of the middle classthe biggest achievement for economics in the history of the world.

This breakthrough is translating into vast new market opportunities driven by surging demand for goods like cars, high-end cosmetics and meat, and, increasingly, services such as cleaner and more efficient energy, higher education, financial services, preventive healthcare, mobile apps, travel and tourism that reflect decidedly middle class lifestyles and tastes.

The potential to take advantage of these emerging growth drivers extends to workers, businesses and a new generation of digitally empowered entrepreneurs in advanced economies toowhether they are very large like Japan and the United States, relatively small like New Zealand and Singapore, or somewhere in between like Australia, Canada and Korea.

All told, these trends are today powering exports and a return to growth in the region, as reflected in the latest forecasts in APEC, and the global economy along with it. There is a flipside to all of this, however. For all the progress unfolding in the Asia-Pacific, challenges in the global and regional trading environment and to the institutions that support it put this momentum at risk

The swell of populist misgivings towards globalization in some areas, most profoundly manifested in the Brexit and subsequent events in developed economies over the last year, has brought genuine questions about the fairness of trade and who benefits from it into greater focus.

The potential composition, impact and desirability of new, bigger and more sweeping trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership are the subject of correspondingly heavy scrutiny by proponents and detractors.

The rules of trade as governed by the World Trade Organisation, intended to kept markets open and trade buoyant, are showing signs of fraying over dispute resolutions and modernization requirements.

The rapid pace of technological change has moreover raised concerns about automation replacing workers like those on assembly lines, at banks and airport check-in desks, and behind the wheel. And e-commerce and big data has fundamentally revised skills demand and the meaning of security in one fell swoop.

In an inextricably interconnected world, these challenges are not limited to any one economy or group of economies, developed or developing, big or small, market or non-market. They are challenges that all of us now face. But they are clearly proving hard for the trading landscape and the institutions around the world that underpin it to handle.

APECs leaders in a Nang, traditional clothing and all, are in a position to lead the way forward in dealing with these issues, helped by the flexibility and room for innovation, say, in digitally driven trade, startup promotion and even adjustment schemes and safety nets, made possible by the loose cooperation between them and their economies. Inroads in such areas would make a real difference.VNS

* Dr Alan Bollard is the Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat
A NANG  President Tran ai Quang had a meeting today with Brunei Sultan Hagi Hassanal Bolkiah who is in the central city of a Nang to attend the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

The leaders showed pleasure at sound development of bilateral relationship over the past 25 years.

The two sides have actively implemented commitments reached during President Tran ai Quangs visit to Brunei in August 2016 and the first meeting of the Viet Nam-Brunei Joint Committee in Ha Noi in February 2017, they noted.

They agreed to focus on speeding up cooperation in politics, defence-security, while giving priority to naval, agriculture, maritime, labour, education-training collaboration and people-to-people contact.

President Quang lauded close affiliation between the two sides in dealing with issues related to fishermen on the humanitarian and friendly spirit.

He lauded Bruneis support for Viet Nams hosting of the APEC Economic Leaders Week, while affirming that Viet Nam, is willing to cooperate with and assist Brunei in ensuring stable food security.

The President also expressed hope that Brunei will create favourable conditions for Vietnamese firms in joining oil and gas exploration projects and gas supply in Brunei.

The two sides should soon sign an agreement on setting up a hotline on fishing at sea between the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and ministries of Primary Resources and Tourism.

Sultan Hagi Hassanal Bolkiah said that he believes Viet Nam will successfully host the APEC Economic Leaders Week and achieve new attainments in national reform, construction and development.

Both sides concurred to work closely to foster solidarity and maintain the central role of the ASEAN in issues related to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.VNS
The International Research Center for Unit 731 Issues in Harbin Academy of Social Sciences revealed new evidence of Japan's germ war atrocities after one week of research in the US. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Recently, the International Research Center for Unit 731 Issues in Harbin Academy of Social Sciences revealed new evidence of Japan's germ war atrocities after one week of research in the US.

A four-member group in the center discovered more than 2,300 pages of files about the notorious Japanese biological and chemical warfare unit in the National Archives of the United States, the Library of Congress and the Hoover Institution, Stanford University in the end of September.

"The files, including a great deal of medical theses, laboratory reports and Japanese soldiers' recollections, have great significance in filling in the blanks in domestic germ war archives," Liu Rujia, one of the team members, told China Daily Friday. "They have both historical and academic value."

"There is a large number of historical documents in the US on germ warfare. The huge quantity of information and complex content can help strengthen the research," Liu said. "And in recent years, more experts on the subject have emerged in the country and provided some valued academic works."

The experts have taken pictures of the documents found and brought them to China. In the next step, they will do translations and further research, according to Liu.

Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin in 1935 as the nerve center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during World War II.

The unit conducted experiments on live human beings to test germ-releasing bombs and chemical bombs, among other atrocities.

Many civilians and prisoners of war from China, the Soviet Union, the Korean Peninsula and Mongolia perished at the hands of Japanese scientists. Some of them were children.

At least 3,000 people were used for human experimentation by Unit 731and more than 300,000 people across China were killed by Japan's biological weapons.
A NANG  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pledged to maintain the provision of official assistance development (ODA) and scholars for Viet Nam during a meeting with her Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, in a Nang City on Friday.

She spoke highly of Viet Nams role as the host of the APEC Year 2017, believing that the success of this APEC Economic Leaders Meeting will create a new driving force for and maintain the growth pace of the Asia-Pacific region.

She also appreciated Viet Nams hosting of a meeting of 11 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) leaders, affirming to coordinate closely with Viet Nam and other members to set forth an appropriate way for TPP in the time ahead.

PM Phuc thanked New Zealand for its aid worth 500,000 NZD (US$347,700) for storm-hit localities in Viet Nam.

Both host and guest agreed to intensify delegation exchanges and boost trade ties in order to raise two-way trade to $1.7 billion by 2020.

They also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of mutual concern, including the East Sea issue. They agreed that disputes need to be solved by peaceful means on the basis of respecting international law.

The New Zealand PM is in a Nang City to attend the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting, stated for November 10-11.VNS
A NANG  Viet Nam and Australia have agreed to soon upgrade their relationship to a strategic partnership on the basis of their enhanced comprehensive partnership and huge potential for cooperation.

The consensus was reached during the talks between  Viet Nams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull within the framework of the APEC Economic Leaders Week in the central city of a Nang on Friday.

The PMs assigned the foreign ministries of Viet Nam and Australia to continue working on the plan so that the two countries leaders can sign a document on the strategic partnership as soon as possible.

They expressed their delight at the two-way trade turnover which jumped from US$32.3 million in 1990 to $5.2 billion in 2016, making Australia  Viet Nams seventh largest trade partner.

The leaders also commented on strides made in cooperation in national defence-security, education-training, labour, tourism and people-to-people exchange.

PM Phuc called on Australia to expand its investment and business activities in such areas as manufacturing, energy, mining, infrastructure, high-tech and food processing, while creating the best possible conditions for Vietnamese investors in the country.

He used the occasion to appeal to Australia to continue its provision of official development assistance (ODA) and scholarships to Viet Nam.

Host and guest also compared notes on regional and international issues of shared concern, and agreed to continue the close coordination between the two countries at multi-lateral forums, especially those led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in order to promote dialogues and cooperation, and maintain peace, stability and order in the region in line with law.

Regarding the East Sea, they stressed the importance of protecting peace, stability, security, maritime and aviation safety and freedom in the region, settling disputes by peaceful measures in line with international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS), strictly implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and soon reaching a legally-binding Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

The same day, PM Phuc met with representatives of leading Australian businesses specialising in health care, production, manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, aviation and high-quality agricultural product processing. The Australian businesspeople are in a Nang City to attend the APEC CEO Summit 2017.

He applauded the role played by the firms in strengthening economic, trade and investment links between Viet Nam and Australia.

The Vietnamese Government creates optimal conditions for foreign businesses to operate in Viet Nam in accordance with local laws and global standards and regulations, the leader affirmed.

He said Vietnamese and Australian leaders are resolved to raise the bilateral trade value to US$10 billion in the time ahead, calling on Australian enterprises to seek more long-term investment opportunities in Viet Nam.

On the same day, President Tran ai Quang met with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a Nang City.

Viet Nam encourages Australian businesses to invest in infrastructure, high-tech agriculture, education and training, he said, calling for more help from Australia in dealing with post-war consequences, including bomb and mine clearance and search for Vietnamese soldiers missing in action.

PM Malcolm Turnbull stressed that Australia considers Viet Nam an important partner in its foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific.

On this occasion, the PM conveyed sympathies of the Australian Government and people to Vietnamese people affected by typhoon Damrey.

The two leaders agreed to deepen the bilateral relationship in an effective and pragmatic fashion, with attention paid to national defence and security, trade, education and people-to-people exchange.

They also looked into regional and international issues of shared concern, including the East Sea issue.

The Australian side affirmed its support for the stance of Viet Nam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on maintaining peace, stability, maritime safety and freedom in the region, and handling disputes by peaceful measures on the basis of respecting law.VNS
A NANG  President Tran ai Quang has reassured Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that Viet Nam always encourages Singaporean companies to invest in the country.

At a meeting on the sidelines of ongoing APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in central a Nang City on Friday, the two leaders shared their delight at the progress of the Viet Nam-Singapore Strategic Partnership, especially after President Quangs visit to Singapore in August 2016 and PM Lees trip to Viet Nam in March 2017.

They also agreed to coordinate closely in preparing celebrations for the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties.

PM Lee urged Viet Nam to back Singapore as the ASEAN Chair next year and create more favourable conditions for Singaporean enterprises and investors to do business effectively in Viet Nam.

The two leaders spoke highly of the strong development of people-to-people exchanges and cooperation in culture and education between Viet Nam and Singapore.

They also exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual concern and agreed to maintain ASEANs central role in addressing strategic issues relating to their security and interests and the region.  VNS
A NANG  President Tran ai Quang and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to work closely together to further develop the Viet Nam-Japan intensive strategic partnership in the future at their meeting in the central city of a Nang on Friday as part of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders Week.

PM Abe lauded Viet Nams initiatives and efforts as well as active role in organising the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

Showing deep sympathy over losses caused by Typhoon Damrey, Abe informed Quang on Japans supplies of 105 water filters to locals in flood-hit localities. He also pledged to continue providing ODA to Viet Nam, while assisting the country in high quality human resource development.

He also asked the Vietnamese side to back Japanese firms in joining transportation infrastructure and energy development projects.

President Quang thanked Japan for aiding storm-affected locals in the central region and expressed his delight at the growing intensive strategic partnership between the two countries with high political trust and regular high-level exchanges.

He highly valued Japans ODA, saying that Viet Nam hopes to increase trade with Japan, and Japan soon allows the import of Vietnamese fresh fruits and provides technical assistance for Viet Nam to enhance capacity in negotiating and implementing new-generation free trade agreements. He vowed to back Japanese investors.

The State leader suggested that the two sides expand partnership to health care, education and labour areas as well as law enforcement at sea, war aftermath overcoming, including the detoxification in Bien Hoa airport.

The two leaders agreed to maintain high-level meetings and existing dialogue mechanisms, while sharing viewpoints on regional and global issues of shared concern, including the nuclear matter in the Korean Peninsula and the East Sea, and cooperating in ASEAN, APEC and the United Nations activities.

The two sides support the settlement of disputes through peaceful measures in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, and respect for diplomatic and legal process.

Following the meeting, the two leaders witnessed the signing of some agreements between ministries, sectors and businesses of both sides with a total value of about US$5 billion.  VNS
A NANG  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc held a reception in the central city of a Nang on Friday for Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde, who has been in Viet Nam to attend the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week.

PM Phuc welcomed the IMF directors attendance and ideas to meetings of the week, and spoke highly of IMFs supervision, evaluation, and consultancy for Viet Nam in macro-economic aspects, technical assistance, and human resource training.

Viet Nam will continue its efforts to stabilise the macro-economy, improve the investment climate, build a constructive government to serve enterprises and people, better market economy institutions, restructure the economy and renovate the growth model, he said.

PM Phuc suggested IMF continue advising the Government of Viet Nam on running the macro-economy, completing financial-monetary tools and restructuring the finance-banking sector.

The government leader also called on IMF to increase its technical assistance in the fields of Viet Nams needs and enhance the capability of Vietnamese economic, finance and banking managers.

For her part, Lagarde said besides financial assistance, IFM is considering the possibility of providing more technical and training assistance for Viet Nam.

While affirming her support for the Vietnamese Governments priorities in reducing social inequality and enhancing climate change adaptation, she suggested Viet Nam improve labour productivity and competitiveness of the economy and promote women empowerment in economic development.  VNS
A NANG  President Tran ai Quang held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the central city of a Nang on Friday on the sidelines of the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Meeting.

President Quang thanked the Russian President for attending the 2017 APEC Economic Leaders Week in a Nang, saying that his presence contributes to the success of the event.

He recalled his impression at the warm welcome Russia provided for Viet Nams high-level delegation during its visit to the country in June 2017, and thanked the President, Government and people of Russia for their financial assistance to help Viet Nam overcome damage caused by typhoon Damrey.

Viet Nam gives priorities to strengthening the comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia, President Quang said, expressing his hope that the two sides will actively implement concrete measures to make the bilateral relations more stable, effective, benefiting the two nations people, and contributing to peace, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.

He suggested Russia facilitate Vietnamese enterprises to invest in the Far East region in accordance with the potentials and demands of the two sides.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke highly of the active efforts Viet Nam made in hosting the APEC Year, affirming that Viet Nam is always one of the diplomatic priorities of Russia in the Asia-Pacific region.

He suggested Viet Nam create favourable conditions for Russian firms to join cooperation projects in infrastructure, railways, energy, fuel, automobile, and use of nuclear for peaceful purposes.

President Putin called for improved cultural and people-to-people exchanges, including teaching and learning Russian language in Viet Nam.

President Quang called on Russia to increase the sharing of information and experience, provide support for Vietnam in education-training and equipment to ensure cyber security, hi-tech crime prevention and control, as well as facilitating shipment of Vietnamese aquatic products to the Russian market.

The two sides expressed their pleasure at delegation exchanges at all levels, particularly senior leaders, contributing to consolidating the mutual political trust.

They agreed that the Viet Nam-Eurasia Economic Union Free Trade Agreement (VN-EAEU FTA) has resulted in positive outcomes in trade exchanges between Viet Nam and Russia, and Viet Nam and the Eurasia Economic Union, and pledged to continue working closely together to implement effectively the agreement.

The two leaders also affirmed to continue strengthening cooperation in national defence-security, science-technology, education-training, culture, tourism, labour, and among localities.

During the meeting, the two sides agreed on releasing a joint statement on cooperation in ensuring international information security.  VNS
HA NOI  A new typhoon named Haikui is building in the East Sea (South China Sea) on Friday morning, as Viet Nam struggles to rebuild the country after the damages caused by devastating Typhoon Damrey.

Typhoon Haikui is expected to head west-northwest over the next 24 hours, with the strongest winds ranging between 75-90 km per hour, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

The centre also warned that the typhoon is likely to grow stronger over the next 48 hours.

Relief work on-going

As a new typhoon approaches the south, villages already hit by Typhoon Damrey at the weekend are in need of 31,700 tonnes of rice and moe than 100,000 litres of disinfectant. The deadliest storm to hit Viet Nam this year reportedly killed 91 people and left 23 others missing in the central and south-central regions.

The list of victims continues to rise five days after the storm struck, according to the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control.

The centre said torrential rains, strong winds and landslides triggered by the typhoon destroyed more than 120,000 houses, more than 25,000ha of crops, and blocked dozens of roads. It has also filled many reservoirs in the region.

The affected localities are mobilising all sources to help residents resume normal lives.

In the short term, the committee asked Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to approve 3,400 tonnes of rice to localities in Quang Tri, Thua Thien  Hue, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh inh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa and ak Lak.

It also suggested the State Bank of Viet Nam extend repayment periods for farmers in debt and allow them to borrow more to recover production.

New storm: The direction of a new tropical low-pressure system.  Photo nchmf.gov.vn

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh inh Dung on Thursday chaired an online meeting to direct localities to quickly remedy the damage.

Dung ordered the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to send a report of demands to the Government so that it could quickly approve and provide rice and other basic necessitiess.

Additionally, rescue forces were told to work harder in searching for missing people, he said.

Dung asked the Ministry of National Defence to dispatch more soldiers to the localities to help residents repair houses and roads.

He also asked the Ministry of Health to send chemicals to disinfect and prevent diseases.

The Ministry of Transport was required to draw money from its budget to fix landslides, including many sections of the Ho Chi Minh Road, he added.

By 12am on Thursday, sections of National Highway No 1 and the North-South Railway, damaged by landslides and inundation over the past few days, were re-opened.

The Viet Nam Fatherland Front on Thursday donated VN6.5 billion (US$286,000) to the affected localities.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien on Thursday visited Phu Yen Province to check on how the province is dealing with the consequences. Tien already agreed to supply one million pills of chloramine B and 500 litres of chemicals to disinfect and prevent disease in the province.  VNS
BINH THUAN  New technologies that work at the nanolevel could be used to produce nano materials for mass market products, Jean-Charles Guibert, chairman of MINATEC, one of the largest world-wide innovation campuses in micro-nano-bio technologies, said.

Guibert told Viet Nam News that it was important, however, to set up intellectual property protection in order to use nanomaterials in products.

Viet Nams laboratories have the skills, but they need more equipment to develop Vietnamese intellectual property. In addition, it is important to ask public researchers and professors to transfer their knowledge to industry, he added.

Speaking at an international workshop that began on November 9 in Binh Thuan Province, he said that a favourite way to transfer knowledge to industry is via the creation of startups as they can move inventions into innovation for the market.

This trend is supported by young researchers looking to develop their own company, Guibert said.

At MINATEC laboratories, materials are at the core of multiple applications fueled by innovative startup products, he said.

MINATEC campus teams have created more than 50 material-based companies, he said, adding that this supported the MINATEC business model, with strong income in terms of R&D contracts and licences. Today, 30 per cent of campus revenue is based on income from these startups.

MINATEC collaboration with the Institute for Nanotechnology (INT) at Viet Nam National University-HCM City began in the 90s. The first step was to deliver a device for INT equipment, and then we set up common programme and training in science, technology and technology transfer. The goal is to develop a culture of researchers aiming to create startups. For instance, next week I will be at Vietnam National University-HCM City to deliver a talk on startup creation, he said.

The three-day workshop features a broad scope of important issues in nanotechnology, ranging from nanofabrication techniques and nanomaterials. Applications of micro-nanotechnology are also being highlighted.

Nae-Eung Lee, a lecturer at Sunkyunkwan Universitys department of advanced materials science and engineering in South Korea, spoke about the essential requirements for developing nanosensors for smart and wearable electronics.

Sensors are critical components in many smart wearable systems that can be used for bio-medical diagnostics, prosthetics, prognostics, preventive medicine and rehabilitation medicine, according to Lee.

Integration of various sensor devices into mobile smartphones is now being investigated, which would enable the analysis of bio-markers from various body fluids, monitor physiological parameters, and detect hazardous gases around humans, he added.

For these purposes, the development of various sensors with high sensitivity, accuracy, durability and stability is required, he said.

Nguyen uc Hoa, vice chairman of Binh Thuan Province Peoples Committee, said that nanotechnology would help develop the economy in the fourth industrial revolution.

The International Workshop on Nanotechnology and Application, which ends on November 11, connects scientists, researchers, enterprises and investors, and strengthens co-operation in scientific research, training and nanotechnology, with the aim of making products that encourage sustainable growth, Hoa said.

The workshop was organised by the Institute for Nanotechnology at Viet Nam National University-HCM City in co-operation with the Peoples Committee of Binh Thuan Province and Commissariate a lEnergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives in France, supported by Viet Nams Ministry of Science and Technology and other organisations.

As a satellite activity of the workshop, a forum on business opportunities for the micro-nanotechnology industry in Viet Nam will be organised to provide a chance for scientists, researchers and the business community to exchange business opportunities in the industry.  VNS
The European Union (EU) on Wednesday issued a joint statement sending condolences to Viet Nam over losses caused by recent Typhoon Damrey. VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Thuy

BRUSSELS  The European Union (EU) on Wednesday issued a joint statement sending condolences to Viet Nam over losses caused by recent Typhoon Damrey.

The typhoon that has struck Viet Nam over the past days has taken many lives and caused considerable damage, adding to the toll of a number of storms in the past weeks. On behalf of the European Union, we express our heartfelt condolences to the victims, their families and loved ones, and to all those affected, said the joint statement by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides.

The statement also added that the EU is in touch with Vietnamese authorities and ready to help Viet Nam address consequences caused by the storm.

The blocs 24/7 Emergency Response Coordination Centre is monitoring developments and will send a team in the coming days to assess the damage and explore any assistance requested by the Vietnamese authorities.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday sent a letter of condolence to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and President Tran ai Quang over the devastating damage caused to Viet Nam by Typhoon Damrey.

Xi said in the letter that China is ready to support Viet Nam in the search and rescue efforts post-disaster.

Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi also sent condolences to his Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh.

Lao President Bounnhang Vorachith in a letter to President Quang expressed his sadness and concern on learning that Typhoon Damrey has caused tremendous damage to the Vietnamese people and their property.  VNS
HA NOI  All Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) toll stations across the country have to install a system for automatic collection of fees by 2019 to ensure transparency.

This was stated by Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The at a meeting held on Thursday afternoon in Ha Noi, Giao thong (Transport) online newspaper reported.

The said transparency was very important. If people felt information related to BOT projects was clear, they would stop questioning the model and showing disagreement.

Thus, transparency would be improved by publicising all information related to BOT projects in the future, including the total fees that a BOT toll station collected each day, he said.

The also said the National Assembly Standing Committee had already adopted a resolution that only allowed application of the BOT model on new roads, instead of both old and new roads like before.

This meant residents would have two options, and could decide whether or not they wanted to travel on the BOT road, he said.

New BOT projects would follow the resolution. Relevant agencies were told to re-check ongoing BOT projects, implement solutions for each project and send reports to the Government, he said.

It is estimated that the country currently has 88 BOT toll stations.  VNS
Each year, we observe Veterans Day on Nov. 11.

The tradition dates to a break in fighting during World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, or Nov. 11, 1918.

A year later, President Woodrow Wilson instituted Armistice Day, which would become our current observance of Veterans Day.

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the countrys service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the council of nations.

Over time, Veterans Day has encompassed reflection on the sacrifices that come with service to the U.S. Armed Forces.

Roughly 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, or 1.3 million, are active duty members of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. Another 1.1 million serve the National Guard and Reserves.

For many, this service is tied to personal and community religious beliefs and matters of faith.

The U.S. military strives to ensure all service members can select and practice their specific religious affiliation. It is one way we can honor the long hours, time away from family, physical demands, exposure to mortal danger and other sacrifices that accompany military service.

To that end, the Department of Defense now recognizes 216 different religious affiliations.

The changes reflect a growing desire among some who want to be clearer  and more transparent  about their religious beliefs. Such shifts in demographic reporting among military personnel mirror societal trends.

This includes expansion of military accommodations for a growing list of religions.

For example, the list of recognized groups added by the DoD this year run the gamut, from the Independent Baptist Bible Mission to Sikhs to Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends.

Responsibility for managing and accommodating religious diversity in the military falls under the purview of the Chaplain Corps.

While chaplains adhere to their individual faith traditions, they become conversant in a variety of other belief systems. The military standard is essentially to build chaplains religious literacy and understanding without compromising their own beliefs.

In navigating religious diversity, chaplains walk a fine line, writes Kim Philip Hansen in the book Military Chaplains and Religious Diversity. Chaplains are public employees in a country that separates church and state, where constitutional concerns frame everything they do.

Religious accommodations for soldiers often focus on religious services, faith-related food requirements and providing religious texts. Chaplains also ensure wounded soldiers and casualties are handled according to individual religious traditions. Some religious also require exceptions to military uniform policies.

Culturally, the military chaplaincy raises questions about who we are as Americans and about some of our most cherished values, Hansen explains. We think of ourselves as tolerant and inclusive people, committed to freedom and fairness. We dont just take note of religious diversity as a demographic fact; we embrace and celebrate it  in principle. Chaplains are tasked with translating this principle into practice in a very specific, institutional context  to take whats written in the constitution and in memoranda from the Pentagon and make it come alive on aircraft carriers, in war zones and in base chapels.
Legion to host

breakfast

PARKERSBURG  American Legion Post 285 will sponsor a breakfast buffet from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 19 in the Veterans Memorial Building. An incorrect date ran in the Nov. 8 issue.

Pancakes, sausage, bacon, toast, biscuits and gravy, omelets, fruit, scrambled eggs, juice and coffee are on the menu.

Cost is $8 for adults and $3 for children ages 11 and younger.

Grace church

to host concert

WATERLOO  In connection with Grace Reformed Churchs soup/chili supper, the Spirit of Grace praise band will present a one-hour concert of praise and worship at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The concert is free in the sanctuary. Donations may be given for the churchs benevolent fund, helping persons in need or crisis.

Festeburg will

sing at Trinity

WATERLOO  Trinity American Lutheran Church, 605 W. Fourth St., will host Festeburg, a mens group from Wartburg College at the 9 a.m. services Sunday.

Festeburg is an 11-member ensemble modeled after the group Cantus and an extension of Wartburgs Mens Choir, the Ritterchor. Festeburg is a student-led ensemble with auditions, music selection, rehearsals and performance scheduling done solely by the students.

Church marks

anniversary

WATERLOO  Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, 432 Newell St., will celebrate its 52nd anniversary at the 4 p.m. service Sunday.

Guest speaker will be the Rev. Brian Dale of St. Mark Baptist Church, along with guests the Rev. Clarence Williams and Hopewell Baptist Church members.

Exercise class

begins Monday

CEDAR FALLS  The fall session of the Body Recall exercise program is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Monday in the gym at Nazareth Lutheran Church, 7401 University Ave., and conclude Dec. 22.

The program includes more than 200 exercises with the goal of improving balance, flexibility, strength, circulation and coordination. The class is appropriate for men and women of any age.

Cost is $18 for the 18 sessions that meet Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Participants are welcome to come early to walk before class starts.

For more information, call Linnea Graen, instructor, at 266-6195, or the church, 266-7589.

AAUW to hold

book discussion

CEDAR FALLS  The AAUW Cedar Falls branch of Discover, Diversity will meet Monday at the Cedar Falls Public Library for a discussion of Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women written by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn.

The discussion leader will be Maureen White. All Cedar Valley residents are welcome to join the presentation. Visitors need not have read the book to attend and join the discussion.

The program is 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Diabetes support

group will meet

CEDAR FALLS  Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare will offer a free support group for all people with diabetes and their family members from 1 to 2 p.m. Thursday in the foundation conference room of Sartori Memorial Hospital.

Staff from the Nutrition and Diabetes Education Center lead the group.

Call 272-5856 for more information.

Holy Land

program set

WATERLOO  The Thunder in the Holy Land will start at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Waterloo Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 550 W. Airline Highway.

People can see the Thunder Team in their travels throughout the Holy Land every Wednesday.

The series is free to the public. For more information, call or text Paul Bernard at 464-0808.

Wine club event

set for Nov. 16

WATERLOO  The Ansborough Hy-Vee will offer a Wine Club event from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

A Hy-Vee chef will pair wine with appetizers. Register at the customer service counter or call 233-3266.

Blood drive at

Hudson school

HUDSON  An American Red Cross blood drive is set 1:30 to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday at Hudson High School.

Donors will help students with a scholarship.

Schedule an appointment at redcrossblood.org or (800) 733-2767.

MS group

plans party

WATERLOO  The Waterloo/Cedar Falls chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Support Group will host the annual holiday party at 5 p.m. Thursday at Perkins Restaurant on San Marnan Drive and Hammond Avenue.

A small gift exchange is optional.

RSVPs are required. For more information and to reserve a place, call Shirl at 504-9795.

Center offers





trip to LeMars

CEDAR FALLS  The Riverview Conference Center will host a bus trip to LeMars on Dec. 6.

It will leave at 7 a.m. and include a Christmas Around the World show at the Browns Century Theater, featuring the Brown family, and a stop at the Wells Blue Bunny Parlor & Museum.

Cost is $75 per person, which includes transportation, lunch buffet and show. Ice cream treats and supper is purchased on your own.

Registration and payment are due Nov. 20; call 268-0787.

Luther Christmas





tickets available

DECORAH  Luther College will present the 2017 production of Christmas at Luther from Nov. 30 through Dec. 3 in the Center for Faith and Life on the Luther campus.

The 2017 production, titled The Tree of Life My Soul Hath Seen, comes from the hymn Jesus Christ the Apple Tree. It ties back to a quote credited to Luther Colleges namesake Martin Luther, Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

The five Christmas at Luther performances are at 5:45 p.m. Nov. 30, 6:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 and 2:30 p.m. Dec. 3.

Tickets are $25-$35 and may be purchased online at tickets.luther.edu or by calling.
TOLEDO  The states case against a Tama man accused of killing his fiance in 2000 is now in the hands of a judge.

The bench trial for Tate Otis Purk ended Thursday in Tama County District Court. Purk, 51, had waived his right to a jury, so the evidence will be considered by Judge Ian Thornhill, who will issue a verdict at a later date.

Purk is charged with first-degree murder in the April 2000 disappearance of Cora Okonski. Her remains have never been located.

Testimony begins in retrial in Tama cold case disappearance (photos) TOLEDO  Cora Okonskis neighbor Monday took the stand for the second time as the retrial st

Prosecutors said Purk and Okonski had been arguing at his Tama home April 16, 2000, when he killed her with a choke slam. He allegedly hid her body in a bathroom closet until he was able to bury her in a remote location, authorities said.

Purk later reported her missing and told police she had left to buy cigarettes that night and never returned.

Purk was indicted for murder in 2016, and authorities said he gave his account of the killing to a cellmate while serving prison time for a federal drug offense in Leavenworth, Kan.

UPDATE: Murder suspect choked alleged victim, witness says at trial MARENGO  Cora Okonski was killed with a choke slam and buried in a wooded area in a hole 

The defense said there is no evidence to back the cellmates statements, and there were sightings of Okonski after April 16, 2000.

This is the second trial on the matter. In May, an Iowa County jury found Purk guilty of first-degree murder, but the conviction was overturned in August by Judge Mitchell Turner who ruled the jurys verdict was contrary to the evidence.

Purk is currently in the Anamosa State Penitentiary serving a sentence for second-degree theft.
WATERLOO  A federal grand jury has indicted a Waterloo man on weapons charges in connection with an argument outside a nightclub in June.

According to court records, Waterloo police saw Dazarris Shemeek Wilkerson holding this waistband while he argued with another man outside the Old Skool nightclub on Sumner Street on June 4, and he then handed something to a third man as police approached. The third man, Sunni Newell, was found to be carrying a .380-caliber Hi-Point pistol.

Wilkerson and Newell were arrested on state weapons charges in June in connection with the incident, and Newell has since pleaded guilty.

On Tuesday, a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids handed up an indictment charging Wilkerson with being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm. Court records allege Wilkerson is barred from possessing firearms because of a conviction for a 2010 incident where was possessed a shotgun while being a marijuana user.
DENVER  The Denver Public Library will host its 37th annual Dr. E.H. Stumme Art and Photography Show.

The public is welcome to attend a reception at the library from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

Watercolor and oil paintings, along with drawings, mixed media pieces and photography will be on display.

Artists and photographers from the Cedar Valley submit work to the annual show, which is named for Stumme, a longtime Denver physician who was instrumental in starting a public library in the community in 1960.

The show features professional and amateur artists and photographers, as well as local student work. Some of the pieces are for sale.

The art show will be open during regular library hours Monday through Thursday.

The public also can vote for the Peoples Choice award during the week of the show.

The library is at 100 Washington St.
DAVENPORT (AP)  Iowa business leaders are pushing to retain a tax credit they say has been essential in restoring key downtown buildings.

Henry Marquard, the director of government affairs for the Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, told the Quad-City Times the tax credit has provided more than $400 million to the downtown Davenport area.

Congress plans to end the program as part of larger tax changes. Legislators expect eliminating the credit will increase federal revenue by $9.3 billion from 2018 to 2027.

(The tax credit) has largely been the reason weve been able to do millions of dollars (worth) of renovation in the downtown, said Kyle Carter, executive director of the Downtown Davenport Partnership. This is a critically important program and one we want to see put back in.

There are more buildings in the area that could be renovated using the credits, said Davenport Alderman Marion Meginnis.

Area developers said eliminating the credits would slow growth in many cities.

Its crazy, developer Amy Gill said of the elimination. Studies back up the fact that these tax credits work. They provide jobs and renovate downtowns. How do you argue with that? Youre paying money out, but youre getting money back.

The tax credits helped Gills company, Restoration St. Louis, renovate the Hotel Blackhawk, the Forrest Block, the Renwick Building and City Square.

The chamber is sending letters to lawmakers urging them to keep the tax credit. The chamber is also asking its members to contact congressional offices to show their support for the credit, which was enacted in 1981.
URBANDALE  U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told Iowa farmers Friday to expect a bumpy ride as the Trump administration works to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement  but to look for good results in the end.

On his fourth trip to Iowa  the most to any state  Perdue met with veterans, farmers and agriculture officials at a breakfast forum.

Perdue said he wants to see Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey confirmed to a top USDA post as quickly as possible. But he added the administration wont meet with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz  who is delaying the confirmation in a dispute over the Renewable Fuel Standard.

NAFTA negotiations with Mexico and Canada got off to a rocky start and are slated to resume later this year. Attendees at the breakfast expressed concern states dependent on exports are worried about a financial train wreck if disputes dont get resolved.

Hang on and dont get overly anxious. I think well get there, was the USDA secretarys advice.

This not going to be a smooth negotiation. I think you already see that, Perdue told a crowd that included U.S. Rep. David Young, a Van Meter Republican. He said Trump is a tough negotiator who wants a more U.S.-friendly deal.

I think we will get to a good agreement for American farmers and producers. But again it may be bumpy in the meantime," he said.

Perdue called Northey an authentic farmer and an experienced leader whose expertise is needed. He expressed frustration with the Senate confirmation process.

Perdue said he expected Sam Clovis will continue to serve within the administration after the White House liaison with the USDA last week withdrew his nomination to be the agencys chief science officer.

I think Sam made a very selfless, courageous decision when he realized that his situation was being drug into the whole Russia deal, which has gone on way too long, Perdue said. I think he didnt want the president to be distracted in that way.

Court records this month revealed Clovis, an Iowan who served as a Trump campaign adviser, encouraged another campaign adviser to meet with Russian interests. That meeting never took place.
Hampton man

claims prize

CLIVE -- A Hampton man said he had a feeling to try a different scratch game last week and that decision ended up being in his favor as he won a big lottery prize.

Robert Whipple claimed the 50th of 72 prizes of $10,000 available in the Iowa Lotterys "$250,000 Riches" scratch game.

Whipple, 46, said he bought his winning ticket Oct. 27 after his shift at Git-N-Go, 319 Central Ave. E., in Hampton.

Public meetings

Tuesday at UIU



FAYETTE  Zachary Mannheimer, McClure Engineering Co. principal community planner, will provide cultural, economic and housing development recommendations for Fayette during a pair of public meetings Tuesday.

The first meeting is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. at Upper Iowa Universitys Student Center ballrooms and will be followed by a 6:30 p.m. meeting in Fayette Community Librarys ICN Room.

Mannheimer previously met with UIU students, Fayette City Council, Fayette community and Fayette Opera House Board members to develop unique ideas for community and economic growth.
On this Veterans Day lets come together to put to bed one of the last horrible myths still lingering in this country that there are no atheists in foxholes.

The notion there are no atheists in foxholes not only unfairly dismisses the sacrifices made by brave atheists and nonbelievers who have proudly answered our countrys call but it also suggests their sacrifices are somehow less than that of others.

As you attend Veterans Day events this year, it may be difficult to spot who the atheist veterans are. Rest assured, however, atheist veterans are out there  as are a growing number of active duty atheist soldiers  and as our country becomes less religious and more secular, future generations of our veterans will be predominantly nonreligious, if not specifically atheist.

And thats OK.

Atheist veterans are not seeking any special kind of treatment or recognition for this, just your respect in what you do and say, along with what you dont do and dont say at both Veterans Day events as well as in day-to-day discussions about the military. To those either organizing or helping out with Veterans Day events this year, consider the following to demonstrate to the atheist veteran their sacrifice is worth recognizing just as much as any other veterans:

Make the event as inviting and inclusive as possible by telling local religious leaders they can take part in the event as a member of the audience but not as a speaker. As an atheist I know firsthand how uncomfortable it can feel attending an event that feels more like a church service or revival than an event focused on celebrating others. Religion deserves no special place at events designed to recognize the service of veterans that defended a country with a secular government and secular military, regardless if this has been the recent tradition.

If religious leaders are to be invited to the event, please show atheist veterans your concern for their worldviews by inviting an atheist speaker or humanist celebrant. For what its worth, I would be more than happy to deliver remarks on behalf of the atheist community if any event organizer is interested.

Try your best to refrain from an overabundance of religious readings and songs, or as in the previous paragraph, try to include a wider collection of material so its not heavily influenced by one specific religion or worldview. I also would suggest organizers, if at all possible, keep prayers for the next church service. While some local religious leaders may decide to do it anyway, at least its not being done by event organizers, which reinforces the myth all veterans are religious and everything related to military has to have a touch of religion involved.

Keep the kneeling soldier at the Christian cross at home. While well intentioned, it makes the statement only the sacrifices of Christian soldiers are valued at the event.

Keep in mind statements like God bless our veterans, God bless the USA/Iowa or our veterans fought for God and country are divisive and immediately marginalize atheist veterans. Atheist veterans fought for your freedom of religion, but not so they can be thanked for their service by being asked to take part in your religious ritual. This is a celebration of their service, not church.

As our country becomes less religious and more secular, organizers of Veterans Day events are going to have to be cognizant of the ever-changing demographics of the military and the veterans it produces. Because of this attention to inclusivity, future Veterans Day celebrations will become even more welcoming, as soldiers with varied religious upbringings and worldviews will feel valued and welcomed.

Especially all of the atheists in foxholes.
Seventy-five years ago this month, the Soviet Red Army surrounded  and would soon destroy  a huge invading German army at Stalingrad on the Volga River. Nearly 300,000 of Germanys best soldiers would never return home. The epic 1942-43 battle for the city saw the complete annihilation of the attacking German 6th Army. It marked the turning point of World War II.

Before Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler regularly boasted on German radio as his victorious forces pressed their offensives worldwide. After Stalingrad, Hitler went quiet, brooding in his various bunkers for the rest of the war.

During the horrific Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted more than five months, Russian, American and British forces also went on the offensive against the Axis powers in the Caucasus, in Morocco and Algeria, and on the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific.

Yet just weeks before the Battle of Stalingrad began, the Allies had been near defeat. They had lost most of European Russia. Much of Western Europe was under Nazi control. Axis armies occupied large swaths of North Africa. The Japanese controlled most of the Pacific and Asia, from Manchuria to Wake Island.

Stalingrad was part of a renewed German effort in 1942 to drive southward toward the Caucasus Mountains, to capture the huge Soviet oil fields. The Germans might have pulled it off had Hitler not divided his forces and sent his best army northward to Stalingrad to cut the Volga River traffic and take Stalins eponymous frontier city.

By the time two Red Army pincers trapped the Germans at Stalingrad in November, Russia had already suffered some 6 million combat casualties during the first 16 months of Germanys invasion. By German calculations, Russia should have already submitted, just like all of the Third Reichs prior European enemies except Britain.

Instead, the Red Army drew the Germans deeper into the traditional quagmire of Russia until the 6th Army was low on supplies, freezing in the winter cold, and trapped more than 1,500 miles from Berlin. How did the Red Army not only survive but go on the offensive against the deadly invaders?

In part, it had no choice. Germany was intent on not just absorbing Russia, but wiping it out or enslaving millions of its citizens. In part, Britain and the United States under the Lend-Lease policy began sending huge amounts of material aid, providing everything from boots to locomotives. In part, Red Army soldiers were terrified of their own communist strongman, Josef Stalin.

Prior to the German invasion, Stalin was responsible for some 20 million Russian deaths through forced farm collectivization, planned famine, show trials and purges, and the murders of his own Red Army troops. More than 10,000 soldiers were likely executed at Stalingrad by their own officers.

But most important, no European invader  neither Sweden under Charles XII in the early 1700s nor France under Napoleon in the early 1800s  had ever successfully invaded and defeated Russia.

The country was too large, both geographically and demographically. Good weather was too brief between the spring floods and the bitter Russian winter. And Russians always fought heroically as defenders of their own soil, even if this wasnt always the case when they were fighting abroad as invaders.

Despite the horrors of Soviet Communism, the Allied winners of World War II owed a great deal to the Russian people. Russias male and female soldiers were most responsible for destroying Hitlers vast ground forces, having killed more than two-thirds of the German soldiers lost in the war.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million soldiers and civilians  about 60 times more than America lost in the war.

Due to memories of the Soviet Unions Cold War ruthlessness, and because of Vladimir Putins autocratic government, it is now fashionable to demonize Russia. Moscow sent troops into eastern Ukraine, absorbed Crimea and has sought to tamper with a U.S. presidential election.

But most Americans have forgotten key aspects of Russias 20th-century history, a tragedy of unspeakable human losses. Outside Kiev in late summer of 1941, more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were killed or captured by Germans in a single battle.

In one of the costliest sieges in history, at Sevastopol in July 1942, 100,000 Russians were killed or captured in a failed effort to save the port on the Black Sea.

We rightly see Putin as an aggressive autocrat. But millions of Russians view Ukraine and the Crimea as sacred, blood-soaked Russian ground.

After the collapse of the nightmarish Soviet Union, Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd city on the Volga. Today, few in the West know exactly what happened there 75 years ago this month.

This Veterans Day, we should also remember those heroic Russian soldiers. In bitter cold, and after losing hundreds of thousands of lives, they finally did the unbelievable: They halted the march of Nazi Germany.
WATERLOO  Vice Adm. Richard Brown, former Commander of the USS The Sullivans DDG68, will speak at the 75th anniversary Sullivan brothers commemoration on Nov. 18 at the Grout Museum Districts Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, 503 South St.

The event will honor the sacrifice of the brothers, George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert Sullivan, of Waterloo, who were killed during World War II when the USS Juneau was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the Solomon Islands on Nov. 13, 1942.

The 1 p.m. ceremony will also feature remarks by Kelly Sullivan, a Cedar Falls elementary school teacher and the granddaughter of Albert Sullivan, the youngest of the five brothers.

Recently acquired Sullivan Family memorabilia will be on display, and an updated Sullivan family documentary will be premiered in the Clair and Jean Parker Theatre at the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum immediately following the program.

The program is free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Museum admission will only be charged to those wishing to tour the exhibits. For more information, call 234 -6357.
WATERLOO  In the 75 years since Waterloos five Sullivan brothers died during World War II, honors, recognition and memorials to their sacrifice have been numerous and widespread.

Following is a non-comprehensive list of just some of the recognition the brothers have brought upon themselves, their family, community and state.

Each of the five Sullivan brothers were awarded the Purple Heart, a medal given military personnel killed or wounded in combat, along with other theater and service decorations. The Juneau and the Sullivans earned four battle stars for engagements in which they were involved.

Two Navy ships were named USS The Sullivans  a World War II era destroyer, DD-537, now decommissioned and docked at a Buffalo, N.Y., military park, and the present USS The Sullivans DDG-68, an Arleigh Burke-Class Aegis guided missile destroyer, still on active duty. The brothers mother, Alleta Sullivan, christened and sponsored the first ship; their granddaughter and grandniece, Kelly Sullivan, serves in the same capacity for the second vessel. Each ship is emblazoned with an Irish shamrock, a nod to the brothers heritage. A silver table service, paid for with funds raised by residents of Waterloo, including students from St. Marys Catholic School which the Sullivan brothers attended, was donated to the second USS The Sullivans during its 1997 commissioning in New York.

Sullivan Brothers Memorial Park, containing a five-sided memorial marker adorned with an Irish shamrock for the brothers and a mast-shaped flagpole, is located at East Fourth and Adams streets and also takes in the site of the Sullivan family home, identified by a large stone and historic marker. The part was dedicated in 1964, replacing the previously named park at Maxwell and Stratford avenues, now Galloway Park.

Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center, soon to be Waterloo Convention Center at Sullivan Brothers Plaza and originally ConWay Civic Center, was renamed for the brothers in 1988 largely as a result of efforts by Waterloo attorney and Navy veteran Ed Gallagher Jr. and retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. James D. Ramage, a Waterloo native of the Highland area in east Waterloo and former Courier paperboy who commanded the dive bomber squadron of the USS Enterprise during World War II. The entire block, including the convention center, is to be renamed Sullivan Brothers Plaza as part of a renovation of the convention center and adjacent hotel.

Sullivan Brothers Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1623 in Waterloo honors the brothers, as does Sullivan-Hartogh-Davis Post 730, which helps organize Cedar Valley Honor Flights of veterans to Washington D.C. The post also is named for two local soldiers killed in Vietnam, Dave Hartogh and Dave Davis.

The local organization of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish heritage group, is known as the Sullivan Brothers Division I chapter. In 2012, the Sullivan brothers were inducted into the organizations Irish American Hall of Fame, joining other individuals including composer George M. Cohan, former U.S. Speaker of the House Thomas P. Tip ONeill and President John F. Kennedy.

The Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum, an addition to the Grout Museum District, opened in November 2008 after more than three years of planning and fundraising. The $11.5 million museum honors all Iowa veterans and is a repository for hundreds of their video-recorded oral histories.

The Sullivan Brothers Outstanding Military Family award is given annually by the Grout Museum District to families who have had multiple members in the military who also have been active in community service.

The Sullivan Brothers Award of Valor for police officers and firefighters is offered by the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Stapleton Pier at Staten Island, N.Y., where the USS The Sullivans was commissioned in 1997, was renamed USS The Sullivans Pier.

The Sullivan brothers in part inspired the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan and Steven Spielberg paid tribute to them in accepting a Oscar for Best Director for that film. In one scene of the movie, U.S. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, played by actor Harve Presnell, is informed by officers that the fictitious Ryan brothers of Paton, Iowa, were divided up into different units after the Sullivan brothers went down on the Juneau.

In a May 21, 1987, memorial service for 37 sailors killed aboard the frigate USS Stark when an Iraqi jet fired missiles at it in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war, President Ronald Reagan said: And none of us who were alive then can forget the special burden of grief borne by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Sullivan of Waterloo, Iowa. They would remember forever the autumn afternoon they learned that their sons  George, Francis, Joseph, Madison, and Albert  the Five Sullivans as we knew them then, would not be coming home.

In 2001, five memorial markers for each of the Sullivan brothers were placed at Arlington National Cemetery. It was the result of efforts by U.S. Army veteran Harry Burtner of Maumers, N.C., who was inspired to petition Arlingtons superintendent to erect the markers after seeing a documentary on the brothers which was part of the Histories Mysteries television series on The History Channel.

The brothers surviving sister, Genevieve Sullivan Davidson, who died in 1975, had her wartime service in the Navy WAVES recorded at the Women in Service to America memorial, dedicated in 1997 and located at Arlingtons Memorial Gate, not far from the grave of President Kennedy. Many other local womens service is recorded there.

A Department of Defense Sullivans American Elementary School is located on the island of Okinawa, Japan, and The Sullivans School is located on Yokosuka Navy Base in Yokosuka, Japan.

A Sullivan Brothers memorial statue with a 2 1/2-ton base engraved with the brothers names, is topped by an Italian marble Roman Catholic statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. It was first erected on the grounds of St. Marys Catholic Church and school in 1956. According to an April 15, 1956, Courier article, the statue was imported from Italy and is made of rare Carrara marble.

It was purchased with funds contributed by Sullivans throughout the nation to honor the five brothers memory. The fund drive was started by Sullivans in Boston and spread from there. Contributions were solicited from school children around the country.

After St. Marys, the Sullivans home parish, closed as a worship site in 2003, the statue was restored and relocated to the Waterloo Knights of Columbus Council 700 grounds in 2010. Earlier this year, after the Council 700 building was put up for sale, the statue was relocated to an outdoor chapel on the grounds of Columbus High School, 3231 W. Ninth St.
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Power Star Pawan Kalyan is currently shooting his most eagerly awaited 25th movie in Trivikrams direction in Bulgaria. Pawan is keen on wrapping up the entire shoot by the 15th and then head to London to attend the Global Business Summit on November 17.

On this occasion, Pawan will receive the prestigious Indo European Business Forum (IEBF) Excellence Award for the year 2017. The award will be presented at the House of Lords, London. Pawan is chosen for the award for his noble efforts on the Uddanam kidney disease issue.

Articles that might interest you:
Jeremy Adelman in Aeon:

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?

More here.
MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA HIV DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT MARKET

Market research future published a cooked research report on Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market. The Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.3% and expected to reach US$ 2.07 billion by 2023

HIV prevalence in Africa, specifically in Southern region is very high as compared to North African region. Approximately 1 out of 4 is suffering from HIV. Southern and Eastern region of Africa has one of the highest prevalence rate of HIV, about 19 million people have HIV. While HIV prevalence is low in North Africa but the number of cases of HIV are increasing rapidly. There is no cure for HIV but drugs manufacturing companies are investing huge money in R&D to develop drugs for HIV. Over 3000 patients were died in sub Saharan Africa due to HIV in 2015. Following 10 countries from Africa consists of 80% of total HIV burden which are South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Sample Report Available at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2990 .

Key Players for Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market: Abbott Laboratories (US), Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH (Germany), Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (US), Cipla Inc. (India), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd (Switzerland), Gilead (US), GlaxoSmithKline plc. (UK), Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc.(US), ViiV Healthcare group of companies (UK), Merck & Co., Inc. (US).

Study objectives of Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 6 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market, To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth in this region, To analyze the Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market based on various factors  price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters Five Forces analysis etc. To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to two main geographies and their countries, To provide detailed analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective, To provide detailed analysis of the market for segments by diagnosis, by treatment, and its sub-segments. To provide overview of key players and their strategic profiling 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 Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market

Browse complete report at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/hiv-diagnosis-treatment-market-2990 .

Segments: Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market has been segmented on the basis of diagnosis which comprise ELISA Test, Saliva Tests, Viral Load Test, Western Blot, and Others. On the basis of treatment, market is segmented into Protease inhibitors (PIs), Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), Nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), Entry or fusion inhibitors, Integrase inhibitors, and others.



Regional Analysis of Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market: Considering the scenario of the Middle East and African HIV Diagnosis & Treatment market, Africa is believed to be the largest market for HIV Diagnosis & Treatment. Moreover, the Rest of Middle East and Africa is growing and it is the second largest market for Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment. On the other hand, UAE market is expected to grow at significant rate in the Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment during the forecasted period. Saudi Arabia is likely to have a limited but moderate growth in the market.

Ask Question to Expert at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/2990 .

The report for Middle East and Africa HIV Diagnosis & Treatment Market of Market Research Future comprises extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides detail information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regions.

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1 RESEARCH PROCESS

FIGURE 2 PORTERS FIVE FORCES MODEL

FIGURE 3 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA HIV DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT MARKET BY DIAGNOSIS

FIGURE 4 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA HIV DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT MARKET BY TREATMENT

FIGURE 5 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA HIV DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT MARKET BY REGION

FIGURE 6 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA HIV DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT MARKET BY REGION: COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS, 2015 (%)

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The Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has held his first bilateral meeting with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, in London today.





Above: UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, welcoming US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis in London.

Crown copyright



Both have just returned from NATO and counter-Daesh Ministerial meetings in Brussels, where the alliance agreed to adapt its command structure to better reflect the security environment, announcing the establishment of two new headquarters: an Atlantic Command and a Logistics Command.



NATO is the cornerstone of UK and US defence and both nations have been leading calls for NATO to adapt to future threats. The meeting in London focused on three themes: current threats, capability and shared prosperity.



Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: From fighting in the trenches of the Great War to countering Russian aggression and tackling Daesh today, the UK has been Americas closest partner for a century. Today our countries are cooperating on everything from operations and intelligence to innovation and this meeting is an opportunity to continue strengthening our special relationship.



Despite being close to defeat in Iraq and Syria, Daesh remains a concern for the UK and US and the British Defence Secretary reaffirmed his support to the US-led coalition. The pair also discussed the increasing assertiveness from the Kremlin, as the UK stands side by side with US and NATO allies, leading the enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup in Estonia and contributing soldiers to the US-led Battlegroup in Poland.



Amongst only six NATO countries meeting the commitment to spend at least 2% of GDP on defence, the UK and US are investing heavily in next generation technology, including the F-35 aircraft. US F-35s will fly from the HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier in 2021, demonstrating the close relationship between the two countries.



The defence trading relationship between the UK and US is worth 3 billion a year and as the UK looks beyond Brexit, both countries hope to strengthen that relationship too.


Leonardo signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Defence Technology Institute (DTI) of Thailand on 8th November, covering technology transfer and the establishment of helicopter maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO) capabilities in the country, should the AW101 aircraft be ordered for use by the Police, Army, Air Force and Navy.





The MoU was signed by Colonel Tawiwat Veeraklaew, Acting Director General of the Defence Technology Institute (DTI), and Brian McEachen, Head of Region - Asia & Oceania at Leonardo Helicopters Division, at the Defense & Security 2017 exhibition being held in Bangkok 6th to 9th November.



John Ponsonby, Managing Director of Leonardo Helicopters in the UK said It is a great honour to sign this MoU which has the potential to significantly expand our existing business with the Thai Armed Forces, to reinforce our partnership with the country and to help further develop Thailands helicopter MRO capabilities.



He added I would also like to thank the UK Government, in particular the Department for International Trade Defence and Security Organisation, for their help in facilitating this MoU and promoting the AW101, which is undoubtedly the best helicopter in its class and ideal for meeting the wide range of requirements of the Thai Armed Forces.



Leonardo has established itself as a strong partner in Thailand in the naval, land and air domains. The company has supplied air surveillance, naval and land radar systems, helicopters and maritime patrol radars.



In the civil market Leonardo has supported Thailand since the early 70s, particularly via the provision of air traffic control systems. A number of programmes have been implemented nation-wide in the last 10 years. These also include, among others, the air defence RAT31DL system as well as the KRONOS multifunctional, scalable, C-band, solid-state radar system. Further programmes also comprise the HALO acoustic weapon locating system and Thermal Sight System (TSS) for the Scorpion light tanks.



In the rotorcraft field, Leonardo currently has several helicopter types in service with the Thai Armed Forces including the AW139 with the Royal Thai Army and the Super Lynx 300 with the Royal Thai Navy.
The alliance of 14 parties of the opposition has announced several days of protest for next week following three days of public outcry which ended Thursday.

The tiny West African country since August 19 has been rocked by political protests calling for the reinstatement of 1992 constitution, with presidential term limit.

The current constitution modified in 2000 during the tenure of late President Gnassingbe Eyadema, makes the presidential tenure limitless allowing current leader Faure Gnassingbe to run as much as he can though in power since 2005, the year of the death of his father.

The opposition, regrouped under an alliance wants the return of the 1992 constitution with two-term limit, with immediate effect  meaning the departure of Faure at end his current tenure to end in 2020.

Thousands of Togolese heeded the call of the opposition for three-day protest which ended Thursday.

The protests were nationwide but authorities banned protests in the cities of Sokode and Bafilo in the north of the country known as strongholds of the new opposition leader Tikpi Atchadam from the Parti National Panafricain (PNP).

The opposition accused the regime of clamping down on protesters with strong military presence in these two cities.

Thursday, at the end of three-day protest, Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson, a key leader of the alliance hailed the mobilization across the country, with official reports saying 17 cities took part in the protests.

The interior minister, Yark Damehane also commended protests which took place in a peaceful manner.

Several people have died since August 19, the beginning of the demonstrations.

Thursday, reports emerged over an attack on a group of artists campaigning on the side of the opposition. The artists were reportedly attacked by a military jeep which fired at the groups vehicle in the northern suburb of capital Lome while galvanizing people to join the protest.

One artist was reportedly shot but only sustained injuries on his face.

Yark denied the reports arguing that his department was not informed any casualty.
Saudi authorities have questioned 208 people in an anti-corruption investigation and estimate at least $100 billion has been stolen through graft, a top official said as the inquiry expanded beyond the kingdoms borders.

Based on our investigations over the past three years, we estimate that at least $100 billion has been misused through systematic corruption and embezzlement over several decades, Attorney-General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb said in a statement.

Of the 208 people called in for questioning so far, seven have been released without charge, Sheikh Saud said, without naming them.

Dozens of princes, senior officials and prominent businessmen, including cabinet ministers and billionaires, have been detained in the inquiry, which was announced last weekend and appears at least partly aimed at strengthening the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The investigation has spread to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, as the UAE central bank has asked commercial banks and finance companies there to provide details of the accounts of 19 Saudis, commercial bankers told Reuters on Thursday.

Almost all of the 19, including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and former National Guard chief Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, are known to be have been detained.

The commercial bankers said UAE authorities had not explained why they wanted the information, but the bankers believe the authorities were acting at the behest of the Saudi government, which has said it aims to recover illicit funds.

UAE central bank officials were not available to comment, while Saudi officials, who have frozen over 1,700 domestic bank accounts as part of the crackdown, did not respond to requests for comment.

The UAE, particularly Dubai, is one of the main places where wealthy Saudis park their money abroad. In addition to bank accounts, they buy luxury apartments and villas in Dubai and invest in the emirates volatile stock market.
A member of the police force was killed and five injured after an explosion rocked Bolan area in Lashkargah City, Helmand province.

The casualties were confirmed by Zahirgul Muqbil, Commander of Border Police Battalion in Lashkargah, who also revealed that the explosives were placed in a Mazda truck.

The blast was reported to be a car bombing close to a police outpost in Lashkargah City, Provincial governors spokesman Omar Zwak told TOLOnews.

The incident comes in the wake of a series of deadly incidents that took place in Helmand province in the past few months.

Meanwhile, parts of the province have remained volatile due to presence of the Taliban.
At a time when the Modi government is speaking highly of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Om Prakash Dhurve, BJP Minister from Madhya Pradesh, has said that he is unaware about GST. He added that not only him but even chartered accountants, traders too are finding GST very complicated. According to him, if professionals themselves lack thorough knowledge about GST how can leaders understand it? Dhurve added that he will gain knowledge about GST after things get streamlined. GST which was introduced in July this year was touted as Indias biggest tax reform to replace various taxes and bring the entire nation under single tax. However, traders and opposition leaders have criticised the manner in which the legislation was hastily introduced by the government without carrying out proper homework.

Traders have already raised their concern about the compliance burden. Initially they had faced several obstacles while filing GST returns due to technical glitches. The system was unable to cope up with the massive data being uploaded on GSTN portal. Traders are also worried as they will be punished if chartered accountants commit any error while filing returns. Even voters from Modis constituency Varanasi are unhappy with GST and demonetisation. Opposition parties have said that the GST has affected Indias economic growth as many people have been rendered jobless. Even the common men have to bear the brunt of GST as various commodities and services have already become expensive.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Thane police has arrested three persons in connection with the alleged fraud worth over Rs 6 crore in a cooperative bank here, police said on Friday.

Based on a complaint by one of the senior officials of the bank regarding the fraud of Rs 6.92 crore at its branch in Lok Puram area here, the police arrested two of the banks employees and a customer on Thursday, a police official said.

In November last year, seven persons, including six employees of the cooperative bank, had been booked for allegedly defrauding customers and the bank.

An FIR in this regard was registered with the Chitalsar police and later the case transferred to the EOW for further probe, the official said.

According to the complaint, the accused allegedly tampered with the banks computer systems and receipts of depositors and diverted funds from their accounts to a particular account to facilitate benefit of cash credit (short-term loan) to its holder.

They also allegedly opened a number of new accounts without following regulations and diverted funds deposited in them to one particular account. The account holder, who got benefit from the cash credit, which was beyond his eligibility, failed to repay the loan, thus cheating the bank and its customers, police said.

The accused were booked under IPC sections pertaining to cheating, forgery, dishonest misappropriation of property, criminal breach of trust, falsification of accounts and also provisions of the IT Act, one of them related to hacking of computer system, police added.
US President Donald Trump will not hold a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam, the White House said on Friday.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the city of Danang and there had been mixed messages about whether a face-to-face was on the cards.

Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides, press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretarys comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trumps former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
US President Donald Trumps Asia visit is being looked at with lot of expectations and as a policy formulation for the future. The first few months of Donald Trumps presidency were marked by reversal of decisions of the previous administration. It also led to uncertainties and speculations about the course that US would take in world politics.

This 12-day visit to five countries  Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines  is the longest visit by any US President to Asia in the past 25 years. This may be an indication to setting a precedent in the time to come. Of the five countries, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam have close ties with the US while China is the rival. Philippines which was earlier a friend of US has now shifted its loyalty to China. So this visit seeks to strengthen the existing ties as well as negotiate with the rivals so as to ease the tensions in their relations.

Upon assuming the office, Trump pulled US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). There were also enough indications of US policy gaining inward orientation and being less willing to participate in world affairs especially those related to provision of security. This policy was particularly visible in the Asia Pacific region.

Uncertain US policies only led to China gaining ground easily in the Asia Pacific. Chinas expansion plan in the Asia Pacific and South China Sea was supported by the instability created in the region (by China) through North Korea. It poses direct threat to US allies Japan and South Korea. This situation has resulted in challenging the dominant position of the US in the Asia Pacific region.

Inward orientation of US foreign policy and concentration on domestic economic situation may not yield the desired results. Since US withdrawal directly implies gains for China, US would stand to lose much of its ground in coming years. US would benefit if it can formulate clear policies. Unwillingness on its part to participate directly in any region can be or should be balanced by forming alliances and delegating the responsibilities to the allies. This would lead to multilateral order in Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia and even in South Asia.

Trumps Asia visit might just be a start of unfolding a new US policy in the Asia Pacific. This visit is also important from Indias point of view. Past few months have seen India prominently feature in US diplomatic schedule. First Trump emphasized on Indias important role in South Asia. It was followed by two high profile visits to India in two months  Defence Secretary James Mattis visited India in September while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in October.

Trumps visit could be considered as a follow up of these developments. Recently US had countered Chinas One Belt One Road project by stating that there are many belts and many roads. Clearly US stand indicates a challenge to China from becoming a regional hegemon. However, the regional actors too need to step up and take responsibility in their own region. Any bid to control China must not result in the battlefield between China and the US.

The concept of many belts and many roads must be backed by quick action. India, along with countries like Japan, Vietnam and South Korea, need to come together and present an alternative to Chinas plan. For Asia, the coming days are full of diplomatic action with a number of forthcoming attractions. Trumps visit will be followed by East Asia Summit (EAS), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Summit and ASEAN Summit.

Clarity in US policies and consensus among the Asian regional actors would go a long way in responding to economic and strategic challenges. Opportunities that are available through all the forums must be utilised for the same.

(The author is an Independent Researcher based in Vadodara and can be reached at  niranjanmarjani@gmail.com)

Niranjan Marjani

(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
Many believe that the vast majority of this group caught it in the usual ways, by unsafe sex and/or sharing of illegal IV drug needles. Many of them were probably unwilling or unable to share the details of their sex and drug lives with inquiring researchers. But, without having proven that there really had been twenty thousand children a year getting a sexually-transmitted disease by unknown vectors, was it really a good idea to start giving all newborns a highly reactive vaccine?

The virus is transmitted like AIDS, by infected blood/body fluids to blood/mucus membrane contact. It is most commonly contracted by unsafe sex with a carrier or by shared use of needles used by illegal drug users. Medical personnel exposed to infected blood are at some increased risk, but it is not as great as is commonly believed. It is not spread by the sharing of eating utensils or drinking glasses, or sleeping in the same bed as an infected person. It may sometimes be transmitted by sharing toothbrushes or razors. Australia did a study which showed that it was not transmitted by children at school. (Burgess, MA and McIntosh, EDG, Hepatitis-B in urban schoolchildren  No evidence of horizontal transmission between high-risk and low-risk groups, Med J Australia, 5 Sept. 1993; 159: 315-319, quoted Wendy Lyall, Raising a vaccine-free child, p.178). Everett Koop went to a lot of trouble thirty years ago to persuade people not to fear casual contact with those infected with HIV or AIDS. But now the pharma operatives are drumming up terror at the idea that there MAY have been twenty thousand children a year getting hepatitis-B before 1991, but, since they had NO symptoms, no one ever noticed or diagnosed it. It was only when they grew up and were finally diagnosed with it that the moment they had contracted it was unsuccessfully sought.

Hepatitis B is a very dangerous disease when contracted in the first year. At that time, the only means of transmission, except in extremely unusual and almost unimaginable circumstances, is from contagion by an infected mother. It is usual to perform a blood test on a pregnant woman to learn whether her child is at risk, in which case it would probably be best to give the baby immunoglobulin and the vaccine when it was born. But instead it has become standard practice in the U.S. to give this dangerous vaccine to all newborns, even those born to healthy mothers, and very common to give the vaccine to the newborn without the permission or knowledge of the parents, making it harder to realize that the vaccine was the cause of the childs autism, diagnosed years later.

The chart at the bottom of the report clearly shows that the rate at which hep-B was diagnosed in children was less than one per 100,000 or fewer than 360 a year in a childhood population of 36 million in 1990. The text at the top of the report, however, states: Before 1982, an estimated 200,000--300,000 persons in the United States were infected annually with HBV, including approximately 20,000 children. The source for this large number was an article in Pediatrics in 2001. It uses the word estimated because this is a purely speculative figure, not based on the disease being diagnosed by blood tests carried out by physicians.

The topic had turned to the hepatitis-B vaccine, given to all newborns in the U.S. while they were still at the hospital, beginning in 1991 (at the beginning of the autism epidemic). I put up information I had found in Dr. Bob Sears The Vaccine Book, a link to a CDC report with a chart at the bottom showing the rate of hep-B diagnosis in children 1-9 from 1986, five years before the vaccine program began.

Professional vaccine operatives like Dorit Reiss have been hard at work for some time to exaggerate the dangers of the vaccine-preventable diseases, while simultaneously denying the damage that the vaccines for them often do. A case in point was found in the comments on this article on the Mother Jones website last week:

Dorit Reiss aggressively contends that it was and is a good idea. In her comments related to this topic on the Mother Jones article (a standard one meant to monger fear of usually mild diseases), she states: Before the Hepatitis B vaccine, over 16,000 children got (it) before the age of 10. (citation given from Pediatrics, 2001) About half contracted the virus while passing through the birth canal of a mother who was infected. The other half caught the disease from relatively casual contact like sharing toothbrushes with someone who is unknowingly infected (hence the term the silent epidemic). Since the hep B vaccine was introduced for routine use in infants, we have virtually eliminated this disease in children. When an infant gets Hep B, they have 90% chance of getting the chronic version, which can lead to liver disease or liver cancer; if its acquired between the ages of 1-5, there is 30-50% chance of that. (citation from CDC Pink Book)

Like most vaccine defenders, Reiss deploys large numbers of partial truths cloaked in frightening rhetoric. She, as well as the CDC reports, employs the word estimated several times in each paragraph, since there is no clinical basis for this figure. Since the rate of diagnosed hepatitis-B in babies and children has always been extremely low, and it continues to be the case that asymptomatic children are very rarely tested for the disease, it is impossible to say whether or not the vaccination campaign has reduced the speculated number of infected children from 20,000 a year to almost none. She notes that it can lead to liver disease or liver cancer, but is careful not to add that it does so in less than 1% of the total number of cases. And most of those who eventually progress to cirrhosis and liver cancer do so because their liver function has been impaired by alcohol or drug abuse. Recognizing that fact would dilute the impression of an invisible but deadly threat lurking around all children unless they get the vax, and so it is never mentioned unless someone else brings it up.

A standard medical textbook gives the facts, which are much less alarming than what Reiss presents: according to Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine (1994): "in cases of acute hepatitis B most patients do not require hospital care; 95 percent of patients have a favorable course and recover completely; case-fatality ratio is very low (approximately 0.1 percent). (1/10th of 1% or 1 out of 1,000); and 95% of those who recover completely from hepatitis B infection acquire life-long immunity.

Reiss also neglects to mention that it has been routine for several decades to test pregnant women for the presence of the virus, enabling those babies to receive the vaccine and immunoglobulin at birth. While sharing of toothbrushes or razors might transmit the virus to family members, it is not common practice anywhere for a parent, infected or not, to share his toothbrush with a child, and certainly not razor blades with dried blood on them. The virus is not common in First World countries, and in the vast majority of cases, the infected person is sick for a few weeks or months and then recovers completely, with usually permanent immunity: would the relatively small number of cases of infected parents sharing toothbrushes with children, or having blood to blood contact with them, during the usually short period of time they are infected, add up to sixteen or twenty thousand children a year getting asymptomatic hep-B? It is not likely, but no attempt has been made to determine the issue by large-scale scientific testing one way or the other. Official channels consider the universal use of the vaccine to be so safe, effective, and lucrative that there is no need to find out.

Reiss is also uninterested in seriously considering the safety of the vaccine. She admits to some relatively common adverse reactions, saying: Here is a discussion of the adverse events to the vaccine from the Pink Book link above: The most common adverse reaction following hep-B vaccine is pain at the site of injection, reported in 13-29% of adults and 3-9% of children. Mild systemic complaints such as fatigue, headache, and irritability, have been reported in 11-17% of adults and 0-20% of children. Fever up to 99.9 F has been reported in 11-17% of children. Serious systemic adverse reactions and allergic reactions are rarely reported following hep B vaccine. There is no evidence that administration of hep-B vaccine at or shortly after birth increases the number of febrile episodes, sepsis evaluations, or allergic or neurologic events in the newborn period. (CDC link)

It should be noted that Dorit and the CDC are careful to give figures so precise as to give the impression that they must be accurate. It is also interesting to note that the fatigue, headache, and irritability she admits that the vaccine may cause are all self-reported by the patient, and by their nature are not clinically verifiable events. But there are many other events the vaccine has been reported to cause by the tens of thousands, events like encephalitis and autism, seizure disorders, chronic digestive and sleep disorders, developmental delays, asthma, diabetes, learning disabilities, MS and other neuromotor dysfunctions, and death.

For example, Reiss said last week that Encephalitis is not a listed adverse reaction to the Hepatitis B vaccine, either. Vaccines do not cause autism or MS, studies show. They are very safe. In point of fact, encephalitis is listed as one of dozens of potential side effects on the package inserts of both Recombivax and Engerix:

Since these adverse reactions are more likely than irritability and a headache to give a parent pause when deciding whether to get and pay for the vaccine, she denies that they occur. She neglects to mention that the reason she and the CDC find no evidence that the vaccine causes allergic or neurologic events in the newborn period is because they simply dismiss the many thousands of such reports as being false.. The vaccine is safe, therefore it did not cause all these thousands of reported reactions. Case closed.

Except that the case is not closed for the many thousands damaged by the vaccine, with autism, cerebral palsy, MS, or death. France moved this vaccine from the mandatory schedule for schoolchildren to being recommended but optional after hundreds of lawsuits were brought by people who had developed MS shortly after receiving the vaccine. In the Mother Jones comments, I put up descriptions with case numbers of eight VAERS reports of babies killed by the Hep-B vaccine:



"Shills like to say that VAERS reports, administered by the FDA, are nearly all either invented or coincidental, but the reader is urged once more to research it himself. If you rely on what shills say, you may, like so many others, lose your child.:



160271 4 month old boy gets shot, gets diarrhea, goes into coma, and dies same evening.



49808 4 month old girl gets shot, develops bleeding disorder, encephalitis, and abnormal liver function. Dies three days later.



76188 6 month old girl gets shot, develops diarrhea and bleeding lesions, dies two days later.



49035 7 month old girl gets shot, develops cerebral hemorrhage, and dies four days later.



160183 9 month old baby gets Engerix-B and died 18 hours later.



180302 10 month old girl gets shot, gets bacterial infection, bronchiolitis, goes into coma, and dies day after shot.



74126 10 month old girl gets shot, it causes liver cancer, and she ultimately died of it.



173745 18 month old girl gets shot, later that evening found dead with profuse bleeding from mouth and nose. "

And Reiss replied: "Ms. Parker is misusing the VAERS data base. The VAERS data base is not verified; anyone can say anything in it. It is a passive reporting system; one doctor reported the influenza vaccine turned him into the incredible hulk and got a VAERS number. If you look at the examples above, they are good indications of no connection even on its face. A child get a shot - and gets liver cancer. Since the Hepatitis B vaccine only includes a single protein from the virus, not a virus, there is no way the shot gave her liver cancer. Drawing such a connection is misleading and inappropriate. But Ms. Parker does it, to scare parents away from vaccinating - even though she knows VAERS does not show causation, even though she should know this could not be caused by the vaccine."

So once again we see that reports of headache and irritability are accepted as true and minutely counted, while reports of deaths are dismissed as being born in the paranoid minds of parents distraught with grief over their child's death within a day of the hep-B vaccine, with symptoms identical to those of thousands of others. Anyone can access these reports to the FDA-sponsored VAERS, read the evidence, which often includes summaries of medical reports, and decide for himself whether he believes these were fraudulent or mistaken reports of vaccine damage.

Judy Converse, in her book When Your Doctor is Wrong: Hepatitis B Vaccine & Autism, reports on CDC doctor Harold Margolis testimony at the congressional safety hearing on the vaccine in 1999. Margolis testified (with figures greater than those from the CDCs own surveillance data) that the number of hepatitis-B cases in children under two declined from 266 cases in 1990, before universal vaccination of all newborns began, to 95 cases in 1997. But in the very span of years for which Margolis claims success for this vaccine, 73 deaths from adverse reaction were reported to the FDA for children under fourteen. The FDA also received over 2,400 adverse event reports for hepatitis-B vaccine in children in that same time frame, culminating in death, hospitalization, or prolonged disability. Add the reports for adults and the number swells to 27,000 serious reactions to the vaccine. With all camps in this debate in agreement that ten percent or fewer of adverse events ever get reported, this means that the vaccine may kill or disable thousands more than the disease itself. (172)

It is clear that a vaccine defense campaign motivated by financial interests is at work at this time to persuade parents to vaccinate by manipulating some facts and concealing others. In a different context, Randall L. Bytwerk in Bending Spines describes the construction of propaganda to serve official interests in Nazi Germany: (Potemkins) successors have surpassed his achievement, persuading whole nations of things that were not so. The media in totalitarian societies have catechetical functions. Their goal is to present people with convincing accounts of what they cannot know firsthand  the reality beyond their everyday lives. That which is presented must agree with the reigning worldview. (89) But since what is at stake here is childrens lives and health, it is imperative that parents look further than official propaganda and the reigning worldview before allowing their children to get the hepatitis-B or any other vaccine.

Cia Parker, J.D., Ph.D., whose daughter has autism from an encephalitic reaction to the hepatitis-B vaccine, given without permission at birth, works as a home-based translator while working to recover her daughter.
By Teresa Conrick



It was disturbing to read an article by Disability Scoop that described the results of an Autism Speaks survey about future autism research and focus. These specific statements were alarming:

 Many survey respondents specifically indicated that they oppose research on curing or preventing autism.

 the group moved to overhaul its mission statement opting to remove words like struggle, hardship and crisis as well as any reference to curing autism.

 The findings will help shape how Autism Speaks determines what types of studies to fund and the impact could be significant.

 Compared to a similar survey in 2012, Autism Speaks found that respondents this year are more interested in the experiences of those entering adulthood and less concerned about immune dysfunction and environmental factors.

REALLY?

I decided to go right to the Autism Speaks page and see for myself:
You have permission to edit this article.

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Saying she gave it all I had, Anne Campbell retired recently from the board of directors for Saratoga WarHorse, a nonprofit that provides mi
In Northern Iraq, Ethnic Minorities Are Key to Rebuilding After ISIS

Late last month, in an unexpected political maneuver after Iraqi Kurdish officials went ahead with their controversial referendum on independence, Iraq's central government restored its dominance over most of the so-called disputed territories in the north of the country. Even though they fall outside the jurisdiction of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, these areas had effectively been controlled by the KRG for the past three years, amid the chaos created by the self-proclaimed Islamic State and the retreat of Iraqi forces. Iraqi forces swept through the key, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, as well as Sinjar and much of the Nineveh Plain, north and east of Mosul, meeting little or no resistance from Kurdish fighters, known as the peshmerga. The Nineveh Plain and Sinjar, home to many of Iraq's minority communities, are officially part of Nineveh Governorate, whose capital is Mosul. As the Iraqi army continues its march across the Nineveh Plain, many observers are focused on what this dramatic shift in control could mean for the KRG and its relations with Baghdad. But what about other ethnic minorities in the most diverse region of Iraq?

Active within the Iraqi opposition for decades, these ethno-religious minorities Assyrians, Yazidis, Turkmen and othersanticipated a more significant role in the country's reconstruction after the American invasion in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. Many of them, however, were forced to confront not only violent persecution at the hands of extremist militias unleashed across Iraq during the U.S. occupation, but also a complex threat in the form of political marginalization. The three dominant communal actors in post-2003 Iraq, as enshrined in the power-sharing provisions of the Iraqi constitution and parliamentary allocations, were Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Other longstanding communities were deemed politically insignificant, and hence left out of the formula. But in the absence of a functioning and legitimate state security apparatus, and without their own sectarian militias to protect them, these minorities were easy targets for extremists. Majority-Christian neighborhoods such as Baghdad's Dora district were ethnically cleansed between 2006 and 2008. Before the war, Dora was home to more than 100,000 Assyriansan Aramaic-speaking, largely Christian people known also as Chaldeans or Syriacs, depending on denomination. By 2014, it had just 1,500 Assyrians . While these minorities suffered, the Kurdistan Regional Government continued to gain political strength, as well as financial resources through its unchecked oil exports. The KRG presented itself as the Other Iraq, prosperous and peaceful, with its sophisticated lobbying operation in Washington. Beyond Kirkuk, which had been disputed for decades, the empowered KRG sought to expand its jurisdiction into areas with high concentrations of minorities, particularly Yazidis and Assyrians. In the disputed territories, the KRG, pushed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, invested heavily in controlling the political affairs and destiny of these communities, seeking to bring their lands and oil resources under its influence by both soft and coercive means. The KRG's measures also included blocking the formation of local police forces, even though the Iraqi government had approved them in 2006. This proved to be devastating, since Kurdish peshmerga forces in 2014 withdrew from areas like Sinjar , as well as towns across the Nineveh Plain, in the face of advancing Islamic State militants who would inflict genocidal campaigns on Yazidis, Christians and other minorities. The Iraqi government stood idle , ignoring these communities just as its predecessors had for generations. The costs of continuing to ignore and disregard the interests of northern Iraq's minority communities shouldn't be underestimated. These communities serve as a crucial thread linking Mosul, a majority Sunni Arab city, with the heavily Kurdish provinces farther north, through trade, cultural and political connections, and most importantly multilingualism. The ancient city of Alqosh, north of Mosul, was once the Vatican of the Middle East, as the centuries-long seat of the Church of the East, also called the Nestorian Church, and the resting place of the biblical Prophet Nahum . The city was an important trading center with a vibrant bazaar, still functioning, where merchants from the mountainous northern region would trade from small cave-like khans with Mosulites, exchanging goods in a multilingual space. Decimated and displaced by the Islamic State, these communities are only now starting to rebuild. As the Iraqi army continues to reassert its control over Yazidi, Assyrian and other minority towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain, the central government's negotiations with the retreating KRG forces and politicians should be grounded in local interests. The patriotic rhetoric of Iraqi unity and pluralism recently articulated by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi should not forget these minorities. Including them in discussions about their areas is not only constitutional and just, but also serves the interests of Iraq. The steps taken by the central government will largely determine whether these communities elect to rebuild or to flee. Negotiations between the central government and leaders of minority communities will focus on two priorities: local security and administration. In the security vacuum created by the Islamic State, Assyrians and Yazidis began forming their own militias, recalling strategies from their days in the Iraqi opposition during the Saddam era. Tensions could be reduced through the inclusion, and ultimate assimilation, of these new local security forces, which currently enjoy central government recognition and are active today within the Nineveh Plain and Sinjar. This process should also entail sifting between forces such as the largely Assyrian Nineveh Plain Protection Units, which secured an internationally validated place in the Iraqi military's Nineveh Operations Command, as well as accreditation from Baghdad, and entities such as the Babylon Brigades, a Christian-led but mostly Shiite Arab militia active in Nineveh without local support and openly espousing a sectarian regional agenda . These measures would reassure locals and help to solidify central control. Last month, the Iraqi army began to implement this model in Sinjar, where local security was turned over to Yazidi security forces loyal to Baghdad after the Kurdish forces withdrew. A second, pivotal demand will likely relate to the Iraqi parliament's decision in early 2014before the Islamic State swept out of Syria and took Mosulthat agreed in principle to examine the precepts for the establishment of a Nineveh Plain Governorate, separate from Nineveh Governorate. Various models for such a process had been circulating since 2003, and gained particular momentum after the ratification of the Iraqi constitution in 2005. Local administration with access to a centrally allocated budget could be used for the purpose of rebuilding towns and villages. This would be unique, given that most financial resources flowing into the Nineveh Plain and Sinjar in the past decade have been politically motivated and coercive, intended to co-opt local groups. Investment in minority communities is crucial, as they constitute the elements of the pluralistic society connecting majority-Arab areas with majority-Kurdish ones in northern Iraqthe very thing the Islamic State was trying to destroy and that the Iraqi government, as well the KRG, should want to protect. With the tables recently turned between Irbil and Baghdad, Iraq's central government has a rare opportunity to do right by its minorities, moving away from a century-old clientelist system that excluded those with little political clout. Abadi has been praised for his cautious and calculated moves, and for his calls for Iraqi unity to include various segments of Iraq, particularly Kurdish communities. MinoritiesAssyrians, Yazidis and othershave a central role to play in maintaining the delicate balance of forces and interests in the region, if the government lets them.

Alda Benjamen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution's Cultural Rescue Initiative. She was a fellow at the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq. She recently completed her doctorate in modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Maryland, College Park, and holds a master's degree in Syriac studies from the University of Toronto.
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Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) wants to increase defense funding for US Africa Command. Here, Inhofe visits with troops at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti. DOD photo by monier, Djibouti. DOD photo by MSgt. Loren Bonser.

Congress needs to reorganize federal spending around the top priority of providing for the national defense, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. While the $700 billion defense policy bill Congress finished this week is designed to achieve that goal, Inhofe said, enacting the bill would require getting around the spending caps of the Budget Control Act. He said he is ready to support whatever mechanism it takes to do that.

While he said it would be difficult, Inhofe believes a way forward can be found.

The caps are put there by Congress and Congress can change what Congress puts there, Inhofe said. While he would prefer to make the adjustments within the budget  by shifting priorities from non-defense to defense programs, Inhofe admitted such a move was unlikely to gain broad support in Congress.

The Senate is more likely to extend the caps and raise the ceiling for spending across the board, he said. While there is opposition to such a move in both houses, Inhofe believes that, in the Senate, budget hawks would lose a vote on raising the caps, paving the way for appropriations to match the $700 billion defense bill authorization.

One place Inhofe would like to see the benefits of more defense spending is US Africa Command. When they set up AFRICOM, they didnt resource it, said Inhofe, who recently returned from my 156th African country visit. While the Oct. 4 deaths of four US Special Forces members in an ambush in Niger has drawn increased attention to the US military presence across the continent, Inhofe said he has long been an advocate for beefing up the command.

They dont have anything over there, Inhofe said. While the US has 6,000 troops in Africa, he said 4,000 of those are stationed in Djibouti, where missions are focused on a lot more than just Africa. Another 750 troops are Marines that are attached to the embassies, leaving just 1,300 people in an area the size of Africa to carry out all other US military missions.

As a result, AFRICOM often has to borrow troops from other commands to complete its missions, Inhofe said. The events in Niger may provide an opportunity to finally address the problem. Now after what has happened and people are more aware of it, were going to be in a position to maybe get that done, and well be working on that.
Isaac White Sr. teaches the students at White's Barber College how to cut hair the right way, every time. But he also teaches them much more inside the red brick building on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Mobile.

"You have to stay positive," he says. "If you listen to too much negativity, it's going to rub off on you. In here, it's more than just teaching. They need to turn around their life. I tell all my students to stay focused. You have to know more than how to cut hair to survive."

He's strictly against drinking and "shacking," or living together before marriage. "You'd be surprised how many students get married and invite me to the wedding," he says.

White sets a good example in the college he founded in 1960. Wearing a suit and tie every day, he unlocks the front door at 8 a.m. sharp, six days a week, and locks it back up at 9 p.m. These days, a student usually picks him up and takes him home, making sure he's safely inside before driving away.

"You can talk the talk, but you have to live the life," he says. "That's what keeps me going."

A reservoir of blessings

White, who will celebrate his 98th birthday this Sunday at Stone Street Baptist Church, lives alone in the house he shared with his late wife of more than 50 years, Carrie. He still talks to her, he says, at night, and she comforts him.

He also hears from God, in his dreams, he says - something he has in common with Jimmy Green, a graduate and instructor at the college who authored a book, "The Trials I Face to Receive God's Grace." White touches the book, which is sitting atop a pile of papers on the wooden desk in his office upstairs from the barber shop where his students get hands-on experience.

"For some reason, I got attached to him," White says of Green, who is soft-spoken like his mentor. For one thing, Green's mother encouraged him, telling him he could do better. White's own mother used to tell him that if he worked hard, and was honest, one day he would get what he wanted.

"Something about him was a little different," White says. "I needed someone to help me that I could depend on."

"You don't recognize what you've got until someone sees it in you," says Green, adding that White is like the grandfather he never had.

Like so many others who come through the barber college, Green hasn't always had it easy in life. "He gave me a safe environment so I could focus," he says. "I learn a lot from him."

Isaac White works six days a week from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (File photo by Sharon Steinmann)

White has just three rules for his students: come to school, follow instructions and be honest. He has invested in hundreds of students who walk through his doors. He offers them free training in his 1,500-hour program, as long as they complete the coursework and secure a job. Students pay just $25 a week to learn a trade.

But White insists he can't take any credit for all the students he's taken under his wing over the years. "I'm not doing nothing for no praise," he says. "My life is just like a conduit. God has a reservoir of blessings that go into each one of our hearts. Like water works, you can turn that faucet on. God's blessings are going to come out. The more you open that faucet, the more blessings come out."

'Almost home'

White, the son of sharecroppers in Mississippi, says he made a covenant with God as a child: "If you free my soul from the gates of hell, I'll serve you until I die," he says of his promise. "That's why he opened all these doors for me. He opened that faucet."

White remembers walking 12 miles to town as a child in Woodville, Miss., on bare feet to sell corn, butter and blackberries. "I sold everything I could get to help my parents," he says.

At 18, he was working at a sawmill when he signed up for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps. He started out working in a gravel pit, then became a truck driver and was transferred to Fort Benning, Ga. Of the $30 he earned each month, he sent $25 home to his parents, he says.

After his mother died, his two younger brothers came to work with him. He and his siblings came to Brookley Field in Mobile in 1942. On his first night in town, he met the woman he would marry. She was working at a boarding house in downtown Mobile. They were married for 15 years before she died.

His second wife was a professional photographer who had a studio in the lobby of the Theresa Hotel in New York City. "She was used to bellboys, and when she married me she thought she had another flunkie," he says. He actually went to a lawyer and tried to divorce her, but the lawyer helped him see that "that lady was a blessing to me."

"Sometimes you have to hold your tongue," he says. "You've got to open that heart, open that faucet and let the blessings come through."

Despite all the changes in Mobile since 1960, when he first established his barber college, his red brick building never seems to change much. He's proud of the fact he helped save the former Central High School across the street from becoming a housing project, after dreaming about it for months.

"God had a design for that school," he says. "If I hadn't saved that building, it would have been a housing project. I thank God he was able to use me for thousands coming through Bishop State College's Central Campus."

At his own school, White feels responsible for his students and their success. He has to be firm with them, even as he loves them. "God didn't put me here for them to make a mistake and I don't correct it," he says. "Now I understand why my mother would cry while she was whipping us."

His students and his fellow church members will honor his contributions to the community at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12, at the barber college's 57th graduation ceremony, which will also be a celebration of White's 98th birthday.

"I'm almost home now," says White. "I thank Him for putting these young people here who really need help. I'm just carrying out instructions, doing God's will. There's only one way to serve Him, through helping people. That's why he's got me here all these years, with no aches and pains.

"When the master calls me, I want him to say, 'Well done.'"
Cari Searcy and Kim McKeand became a family the day their son, Khaya, was born in 2005 - in their hearts and minds, if not in the state of Alabama. For the next 10 years, the Mobile couple would fight for Cari to be legally recognized as Khaya's second parent, which finally happened in 2015. She's now listed on his birth certificate as Khaya's "parent/father."

Along the way, the couple blazed a trail for other same-sex couples who wanted to have equal rights in their marriages, including parenthood. Their struggle is recounted in "Alabama Bound," a powerful documentary that will be among the 70 films featured at this weekend's annual, four-day Fairhope Film Festival.

Kim says that their friends jokingly call them "the Forrest Gump of the LGBT movement," because they never set out to be activists. She and Cari met in college in Texas and moved to Mobile in 2000. When they decided they wanted to be parents, Kim became pregnant with the help of a donor and had a healthy pregnancy in which she was "just glowing," as Cari says in home video footage included in the film.

But after Khaya was born, the couple learned he had a life-threatening hole in his heart. In February of 2006, he was in congestive heart failure. Before he could go home from the hospital, Kim was told, she would have to learn how to thread a long plastic tube through the nose of her tiny baby and into his stomach, as he cried. Kim says there was no way she could do it, so Cari volunteered to learn the procedure.

That's when one of the nurses asked for her legal paperwork - which she didn't have.

"He had my last name. I had taken care of him every day of his life," Cari says. And yet she wasn't allowed to learn to insert a feeding tube into her own baby.

Two days later, she says, she filed for second-parent adoption. Little did she know that a decade would go by before she would officially become Khaya's parent.

"That's what sparked the whole case, the realization that Khaya only had one legal parent," Cari says. "There were no protections for us. I couldn't make educational or medical decisions for him. How do you parent (without those rights)? This was never about marriage equality until the state made it that way."

In the film, after Mobile County Probate Court Judge Don Davis denies Cari's petition to adopt Khaya, the couple's lawyer tells them they could go to Florida and get it done - "or you could stay here and make history."

They chose to make history.

"This is no longer about us," Kim says in the film. "This is about the whole state. This is about every single gay person who has been denied rights throughout history."

'Alabama Bound'

After that initial denial in 2006, Cari, who works in video production, made a seven-minute video of their experiences and posted it on YouTube. "I wanted to start capturing our story my way," she says. "I needed people to get past the gay issue and see us as a family."

The video ended up winning Kim and Cari a dream wedding from the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau through its "Here Comes the Pride" contest, including their flights, hotel, photographer, theater tickets and more.

Later, when the "Alabama Bound" team contacted Cari about participating in their film, she gave them her footage. "It was easier to turn it over to someone we trusted to tell it for us," she says. "As we got to know them, they were a godsend."

Carolyn Sherer, the Birmingham-based co-producer and co-director of "Alabama Bound," says the film was inspired by "Living in Limbo: Lesbian Families in the Deep South," her exhibition of her photos that were shown at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. "People wanted stories, and there were a lot of stories to be told," she says.

She and Lara Embry followed 20 families as they began to work on the documentary. But then Lara, a clinical psychologist and writer who had also personally dealt with custody issues when she lived in Florida, reached out to Kim and Cari, who were still in legal limbo themselves. "Because of her personal experience, she brought them into the fold," Carolyn says. "The work they did provided the foundation."

Carolyn and Lara teamed up with producer Michele Forman, a "rock star of documentary films," says Carolyn. Michele, the co-founder and director of University of Alabama at Birmingham's media studies program, had worked with Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks and served as associate producer on Lee's Academy Award-nominated film, "4 Little Girls."

The board of directors of Living in Limbo, Inc. oversaw the project and provided financial support for the film. "It was a global community effort," Carolyn says.

The other couple featured in the film live in Birmingham and had been included in Carolyn's photo exhibition. The mother, "Kinley," had been denied custody of her young son, "Kyle-Bailey," because of her lesbian relationship with "Autumn." (Their names were changed for privacy.) When Kinley found out that her son's stepmother had physically abused him, she took him back to court again and again.

Like Kim and Cari, Kinley and Autumn are shown to be loving parents who play games with Kyle-Bailey, let him help cook dinner and communicate with him on walkie-talkies when he rides his bike with friends at their apartment complex.

"The film opens up conversations," says Kim. "You see what it's like for a gay family in the struggles for equality."

Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham - known as Alabama's first openly gay lawmaker - "provides the legal framework" in the film, Carolyn says. "She is someone who risks everything personally to protect people."

Outspoken yet friendly and approachable, Patricia is proud of her close relationship with other Alabama legislators, while being a passionate advocate for gay rights. "I sort of feel like I'm a missionary," she explains in the film. "This is my missionary work."

'It's about family rights'

The filmmakers were "really conscious about capturing the real story," Cari says. "They didn't want it sensationalized."

"We wanted to be sure it was authentic," says Carolyn. "I was really proud of the team. The team effort matured into something pretty spectacular."

Kim McKeand (left) and Cari Searcy (right), and their son, Khaya, talk to reporters at Mobile Government Plaza on the day Cari finally was able to officially adopt him in July of 2015. (Courtesy "Alabama Bound")

Cari says she feels that conservatives would feel comfortable watching the film. "When they see it's about family rights, not an in-your-face gay-rights battle, people get that. They say, 'Of course you should have parental rights.' (The film shows) that we're just a normal family."

"Alabama Bound" premiered on June 17 at Frameline 41: San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival. Since then, it won both juried and audience awards at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham in August. The 750-seat Lyric Theatre was filled to capacity, and the energy was "amazing," Carolyn says. The film also won the prize for best documentary at Shindig: A Southern Celebration of Queer Cinema in Chattanooga, Tenn., and the grand jury award at NewFest: The 29th Annual New York LGBT Film Festival. Though she can't give details yet, Carolyn says a distributor has expressed interest in "Alabama Bound," so it's likely to reach a wider audience in the near future.

After the screening in Birmingham, Kim and Cari felt like celebrities. "It's pretty intense that we get recognized," says Cari. "Especially in the gay community, it's so overwhelming to see how many people our story and the case have affected."

"We're still wrapping our heads around that a little," says Kim. "Our friends say we're like a modern-day Rosa Parks."

In the film, the audience sees their family doing "happy dances" when good things happen to them. Prior to their wedding in California, they dance Khaya around. At the time, he's a toddler with a bowl haircut and a diaper. Later, after the ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage at last, they do another happy dance, the three of them holding hands and spinning around in circles, with Cari lifting her lanky son up into her arms.

When they do happy dances these days, Khaya is the tallest member of the family. It's hard to believe that the fragile-looking baby with the thick scar in the middle of his chest after open heart surgery is now nearly 12 years old, with dreams of becoming a comedian one day.

"The most powerful thing about the film is seeing Khaya grow up in it," Cari says. "The case literally went on his whole life."

In the end, as everyone familiar with their story knows, and as Kim's Alabama license plate proclaims, love won.

"Alabama Bound" will be shown at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Fairhope Film Festival. It will be followed by a question-and-answer session from 2:30 to 3 p.m. For more information, visit www.fairhopefilmfestival.org.
Two Alabama sheriffs said they have not endorsed Roy Moore in the special election for the U.S. Senate, which conflicts with information from Moore's campaign.

On Wednesday, Moore's campaign listed 13 sheriffs from across the state who publicly endorsed the Republican candidate during a press conference in Montgomery. Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry and Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego said Thursday their names should not have been on the list. Gentry told Al.com he doesn't endorse candidates.

"That was inaccurate information that was put out," Gentry said. "I don't get involved with political races. I've never endorsed any candidate."

Gentry found out about the list on Thursday morning, before the Washington Post published a report accusing Moore of pursuing teen girls during the late 1970s.

Gentry's story correlates with what Samaniego told WSFA. Both men were contacted by Moore's campaign about the press conference, but they were not asked about endorsements.

Moore will face Democratic candidate Doug Jones for the senate seat on Dec. 12.
Birmingham homicide Det. Jeff Steele

Up to 50 rifle rounds peppered the southwest Birmingham home where young Miracle McNeal was fatally shot, some with such force that they entered the rear of the house, traveled all the way through and came to rest in the street out front.

No one knows for sure how long that barrage of gunfire lasted, but investigators can't help but think it was long enough for someone, anyone, to have heard something or seen something. Yet, said veteran homicide investigator Det. Jeff Steele, information has been slow to come in and that's beyond frustrating when trying to find justice for a victim, especially an innocent 15-year-old girl slain while she was in her own bed.

"I can't believe people don't come forward more often than they do,'' Steele said. "Homicide detectives don't solve these cases, witnesses do. I need someone to look into their conscience and if they know anything, saw anything, they need to call. They might not want to be a witness right off the bat, but they need to understand the process before they decide not to participate."

Miracle was in her bed inside her home at 330 12th Street S.W. Her phone was plugged up next to her. It was about 11: 45 p.m. when a gunman or gunmen fired off dozens of bullets into the house. At least one of those tunneled through Miracle's headboard.

Police and family believe the Midfield High School sophomore started running for her life when one of those bullets struck her. Initially it appeared she was shot in the head, but an autopsy showed the bullet hit the girl in the left scapula and traverse across her chest.

She made it out the door of her bedroom, and collapsed in the hallway. She was pronounced dead on the scene at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.

"I think the most striking thing to me was the amount of fire power put in the house,'' Steele said. "They were intending to kill someone, but I don't think Miracle was the target."

There were five other people in the house at the time of the shooting - three young children, Miracle's adopted grandmother and a male relative. The grandmother, Bobbie Towns, was in her bedroom with a 2-year-old boy. The other two children were in their beds upstairs. The male family member was in the bathroom, having just arrived home from work and the store.

Miracle was in the 10 grade and on the A Honor Roll. "She was outgoing, so even though she was just a sophomore, she was friends with everybody in every grade,'' said Keith Hearon, assistant principal. "She was always smiling, laughing and joking. She was a good kid."

Her mother died when she was just an infant and, after spending years in foster care, her older sister Latasha Johnson petitioned for, and received, permanent custody of Miracle. Johnson got to spend a moment with Miracle after the fatal shooting. "I just looked at her and said, 'I'm going to miss you so, so much,' and I am,'' Johnson said. She was good as gold."

The family plans to hold a vigil in her memory Saturday, and then Miracle's funeral will be held the following weekend.

The killing of Miracle - the 10th victim under the age of 19 to die this year countywide - outraged the community, as well as police and city leaders. Birmingham Councilwoman Sheila Tyson is offering a $500 reward for information leading police to the killer or killers. Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper called the unknown gunmen "evil cowards."

"This crime, like so many others, is senseless and there's no excuse to justify the harm we're causing our communities,'' he said. "This family deserves justice, so we can't just let the shooters walk away."

To do that, Steele said, the community must take a more active role. "The majority of the homicides we get, we know who did them but we don't always have witnesses who will come forward,'' he said. "The streets are talking, and the families get frustrated with us because we haven't arrested anyone but word on the street and Facebook posts aren't evidence."

Steele has been in law enforcement for about 27 years and has worked two different stints has a homicide investigator for a total of about 10 years. While there have been many years where the city's homicide numbers were much higher - 141 in 1991 - Steele said he's seen some disturbing changes. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, for example, many of the city's killing were fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic and drug turf wars.

"Now people will shoot you because you said something disrespectful to them on Facebook,'' he said. "They'll shoot you nowadays for nothing."

More people have to be willing to get involved to slow the violence. "If you start getting the community participating, more cases will get solved and bad people will get locked up,'' Steele said. "Nothing will change if we let them continue to shoot and kill and then sleep cozy in their bed at night."

"The more people who participate,'' he said, "the sooner their neighborhoods will be what they want them to be."

Anyone with information on Miracle's death, or any of the city's unsolved homicides, is asked to call Birmingham detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. Crime Stoppers offers a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction and tipsters can remain anonymous.
Decatur police said three people are in the hospital after being stabbed during an altercation on Thursday afternoon.

Spokeswoman Emily Long said officers got a call about a disturbance at Victory Fuels on West Moulton Street and 12th Avenue Northwest at 3:50 p.m. Police said they saw four individuals fighting when they arrived on the scene. Three were transported to the hospital with stab wounds. Their conditions are unknown.

Long said the investigation is ongoing. This post will be updated once more information is released.
Four Assyrians Detained By Kurdish Police Over Social Media Posts

Four Assyrian civilians were detained on Thursday by the Kurdish Asayish inside the town of Teleskof in the Nineveh Governorate of north Iraq. The four civilians were reportedly detained over their social media posts, which contained support for the Iraqi government. The apprehended civilians were identified as Lu'ayy Najib, Ghanim Yalda, Utheer Sami, and Qaysar Yaqoub. Two of the men have since been released by the Kurdish Asayish after they were interrogated for several hours.
A new Alabama Senate poll, conducted Thursday, said the race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones is tied.

Decision Desk HQ sponsored the poll that was conducted by Opinion Savvy.

The poll said Moore had 46.4 percent support and Jones had 46 percent support.

Click here to read AL.com's coverage of Roy Moore

The poll - the first to be released in the aftermath of sexual misconduct allegations made against Moore - perhaps indicates the impact of the story on the Senate race. A previous Opinion Savvy poll had Moore ahead by 5.7 points.

Most polls have reported that Moore held a 6 to 11 point lead. Other polls on the Senate race are expected to be released in the coming days.

Moore has denied the allegations.

The poll found that 82.2 percent of the people surveyed were aware of the allegations made against Moore that were reported around noon Thursday by The Washington Post.

The poll also said that 54 percent of the people aware of the Moore allegations said he should not withdraw from the race while 34.9 percent said that he should. And 11.1 percent said they were unsure.

The poll sampled 515 likely Senate voters via landline and cell phones and has a 4.3 percent margin for error.

The poll also found that "other" received 3.8 percent support and 3.7 percent were undecided.

The poll also asked participants if, given the chance, they would write in U.S. Sen. Luther Strange at the polls. Strange lost to Moore in the GOP runoff in September. Under those circumstances, Jones had 43.6 percent support, Moore 41.3 and Strange had 12.3 percent as write-in.

"We are not focused on polls," the Jones campaign said in a statement to AL.com. "Doug is working hard for every vote from the top of the state to the bottom. We are in Mobile today where we're expecting another great crowd, following well-attended campaign events this week in Alexander City, Montgomery, Pell City, Anniston, Muscle Shoals and Fyffe, where 400 people attended a (barbecue).

"We will be in Tuscaloosa on Saturday, where Doug will continue to talk about issues and meet as many people as possible. There is definitely an energy and momentum throughout the state."

The Moore campaign did not respond Friday to a request for comment.

Updated today, Nov. 10, 2017, at 1:34 p.m. new information throughout and the poll document.

Updated today, Nov. 10, 2017, at 4:57 p.m. with a comment from the Jones campaign.

Alabama Senate poll 11.10.17 by pgattis7719 on Scribd
A 44-year-old woman's body was found at her north Huntsville home Thursday evening, authorities said.

Mary Washington was found dead Thursday evening at her home on Sullivan Road, authorities say.

Mary Washington was pronounced dead at the scene on Sullivan Road, according to Madison County Deputy Coroner Tyler Berryhill.

"Due to the preliminary findings of the investigation and examination of the body, I have ordered an autopsy to be performed," Berryhill told AL.com. "At this time, we are not releasing any additional details until the autopsy has been completed."

Huntsville police spokesman Jonathan Ware said investigators have classified the case as a death investigation. He said police will release additional information later if the death is declared a homicide.

Police went to Washington's home after receiving a call about an unresponsive person, according to AL.com's news partner WHNT-19. Further details haven't been released.
Roy Moore, the embattled Republican Senate nominee, posted a series of statements on Twitter late Thursday afternoon, invoking the "Obama-Clinton Machine" in describing "the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I've EVER faced!"

He also vowed to "NEVER GIVE UP the fight!" in the last of the series of tweets.

Click here to read all of AL.com's coverage of Roy Moore.

Moore posted four tweets between 5:46-5:47 p.m. Thursday, the last of those posting an image of the 350-word press release his campaign issued early Thursday afternoon.

A few minutes later, at 5:54 p.m., he tweeted an image of his earlier statement denying the allegations.

The Washington Post on Thursday reported that four then-teenage girls said they had various encounters with Moore more than 30 years ago when he was working in Etowah County district attorney's office, including one 14-year-old girl who said Moore touched her over her bra and underpants and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

Moore has denied the allegations.

In Moore's first in the series of four tweets Thursday, he posted, "The Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I've EVER faced! We are are in the midst of a spiritual battle with those who want to silence our message. (1/4) #ALSen."

His Twitter comments were different from the press release earlier in the day, though still conveying the same message that he did nothing wrong.

Here is the text of the following three tweets.

The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal -- even inflict physical harm -- if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me. (2/4) #ALSen

I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values! Our nation is at a crossroads right now -- both spiritually and politically. (3/4) #ALSen

Our children and grandchildren's futures are on the line. So rest assured -- I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight! (4/4) #ALSen
One of the women who said Senate candidate Roy Moore pursued her while she was in high school worked for Hillary Clinton's campaign as a sign language interpreter, according to videos and documents posted online.

Deborah Wesson Gibson, owner of the interpreting company Signs of Excellence, provided services for Clinton during her 2016 campaign, as well as working with former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden during other events. Photos posted to her company's social media site show her providing sign language services for Sen. Patrick Murphy and Sen. Bill Nelson, both Florida Democrats.

Gibson's company has offices in Florida and Alabama, providing sign language interpretation to businesses, politicians, governments and more.

Gibson did not respond to texts or email messages seeking a comment. The voice mail box for her phone is full. She told AL.com yesterday she stood by her comments in the Washington Post interview.

In a 2016 interview with Florida's WLRN, Gibson outlined the challenges that come with providing interpretation at a political rally.

"One of the things that she (Hillary Clinton) does," Gibson said, "Is that she'll say, 'You know what? If standing up for equal pay is playing the woman's card, then DEAL ME IN!'"

"And you might normally interpret that say something like, 'Include me," says Gibson. "But because that's one of the things that she says, we literally sign, "Deal me in," like it was cards that you were dealing. We want to capture and hold that euphemism and let the deaf person have access to that as well. So they can be party of the frenzy".

Deborah Gibson with former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. Gibson said on Facebook she provided interpretation for an event involving the vice president in 2012. (Contributed photo/Facebook)

Photos showing Gibson with Clinton and Biden began circulating on social media shortly after the Moore piece was published. Clinton's campaign expenditures do not list payments to Gibson or Signs of Excellence, however, and neither she nor her company responded to questions if Gibson donated her services.

She is not listed as a donor to Jones, though she has shared one of his campaign fliers on Facebook.

Gibson told the Washington Post she was 17 in 1981 when Moore, then a 34-year-old assistant district attorney in Etowah County, spoke to her high school civics class and asked her on a date shortly after. Two other women said Moore pursued them when they were in their teens while another, Leigh Corfman, said she had a sexual encounter with Moore when she was 14 and he was 32.

Gibson told The Post she and Moore dated for two or three months but only shared kisses. She said her mother told her she'd be the "luckiest girl in the world" to date Moore.

"He was a hometown boy made good," Gibson said. "West Point and so forth."

Looking back, however, said said she's glad "nothing bad happened."

"As a mother of daughters, I realize that our age difference at that time made our dating inappropriate."

Moore denies claims

Moore has denied the claims, saying the allegations were manufactured by his Democratic opponents.

The Post said Corfman was a Republican who voted for Clinton's opponent Donald Trump in 2016. The political affiliation of the other two women isn't known but none are listed as having donated to or worked for Moore's Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, or his rivals in the Republican primary, the Post reported.

On Facebook, Gibson shared a flier for a campaign rally for Moore's opponent, Doug Jones and an October visit on his behalf by Biden. On Oct. 15, Gibson shared a story about Moore and his comments that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School occurred because Americans had "forgotten God's law."

"God is love, not divisive bigotry, racism, hate and intolerance of those different than us," she wrote under comments on the story.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge Greg Griffin has dismissed part of Spencer Collier's lawsuit against former Gov. Robert Bentley but will allow other claims to proceed.

In a ruling issued today, Griffin dismissed Collier's claims of wrongful termination, saying the governor has "absolute immunity" on claims about his decision to terminate an employee who serves at his pleasure.

But Griffin denied Bentley's motion to dismiss Collier's claims for defamation, invasion of privacy and conspiracy, saying the governor is not entitled to absolute immunity on those claims.

Bentley attorney John Neiman said the court rightly dismissed the wrongful termination claims but said he respectfully disagrees with the judge's ruling on the other claims. He said the decision is being reviewed to decide what to do next.

Kenneth Mendelsohn, Collier's attorney, said the judge's ruling was good news.

"Spencer and I are looking forward to the next step of being able to depose Robert Bentley," Mendelsohn said.

Griffin also denied motions to dismiss Collier's claims against Bentley's former advisor Rebekah Mason, former ALEA Secretary Stan Stabler and ALEA General Counsel Michael Robinson. Claims against those three defendants include invasion of privacy and conspiracy.

The lawsuit is related to the year-long scandal over Bentley's relationship with Mason, which eventually led to Bentley's resignation.

In March 2016, Collier publicly accused Bentley of having an affair with Mason after the governor fired him. Collier said he had warned the governor not to use state resources to facilitate an affair.

Collier claimed that Bentley fired him because he refused Bentley's order to lie to the attorney general's office about an investigation.

Bentley said Collier was fired because of alleged misspending at ALEA.

The attorney general's office investigated those allegations and found no wrongdoing by Collier or justification for an investigation.

Collier claims that Bentley and the other defendants sought to discredit him with a trumped-up investigation and allegations. The defendants have said evidence would rebut Collier's allegations if the case proceeds.

Mendelsohn said Collier suffered financially and professionally because of their actions. Collier, who is now the police chief in Selma, is seeking compensation for those losses.

Bentley resigned in April after an impeachment investigation by the House Judiciary Committee determined that Bentley misused state law enforcement, including Collier, to try to hide evidence of an alleged affair with Mason. He resigned on the day that impeachment hearings began and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor violations of the campaign finance law.

Also today, Judge Griffin continued a stay, or hold, on the claims against Mason while "criminal investigations" continue.

Mason has denied any wrongdoing.

This story was updated at 7:26 p.m. The claims against Mason, Stabler and Robinson were corrected.


Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey today described the allegations against former Chief Justice Roy Moore as "deeply disturbing," but said she is withholding judgment until all the facts are known.

"These allegations are deeply disturbing. I will hold judgment until we know the facts. The people of Alabama deserve to know the truth and will make their own decisions," a statement read.

Ivey on Wednesday said she would vote for Republican nominee Moore in the Dec. 12 Senate election but will not endorse him. That's in keeping with her standard practice of not endorsing candidates, according to a tweet from Alan Blinder, a New York Times reporter who covers Alabama and other southern states.

Ivey Press Secretary Daniel Sparkman declined to elaborate on Ivey's policy of not endorsing candidates.

Other Alabama officials are also speaking about the allegations.

"The allegations made against Roy Moore are very serious. If the allegations are true, then he does not need to be the Republican candidate for Senate," Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, who is running for the GOP nomination for governor, said in a press release.

Asked about the allegations earlier in the day, Battle told AL.com, "Any time you have a report like that, you are very concerned. You're concerned about the victims. And you're concerned to make sure it's true. I heard it two seconds ago. Any time that accusations come out, I think it's important for people to see what the truth is. You don't wash over things like that. You look at them and you look at them very seriously."

"I support the Republican candidate. That's what I've said I will do, support the Republican candidate. We don't condone anything. We don't condone actions. We support the Republican candidate and we're going to see where this all flies out. Lots of time and lots of more stories to come, I have a feeling, and more things to look at," Battle added.

State Auditor Jim Zeigler is sticking by his endorsement of Moore saying Moore had denied the allegations. "The Washington Post has had paid investigators in Alabama for the last month trying to dig up dirt on Roy Moore," Zeigler said. "The best they could come up with was something that happened 37 years ago that he denies."

"If there is merit to it and we lose the seat, we lose the seat. If there's not merit to it, yes. The odds are, there will be a lot of discussion. The typical feeding frenzy, our media has turned into the National Enquirer. Everything. All of it. Our whole political climate has turned into something silly," said State Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, who has endorsed Moore.

"Somebody came up and showed me a Huffington Post article, which is the only thing I've seen. The Huffington Post is not something I'm going to stake the future of the party or the nominee on,' said Sam Givhan, chair of the Madison County Republican Executive Committee and Senior Vice Chair of the Alabama GOP Steering Committee.

"Nonetheless, don't you find it curious that a national organization comes forward with this and not AL.com? I find it interesting this is coming out. This is highly suspicious to start with. Who knows whether it happened or not in this day of allegations. Look at the allegations we've seen in the media world here recently. I haven't even read the article yet," Givhan, a state senate candidate, added.

Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, one of the candidates Moore defeated for the Republican nomination and who later endorsed Moore, said he's sticking by that endorsement for now.

Pittman said when he read the Washington Post story he was reminded of the Duke University lacrosse players who were wrongly accused of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer in 2006. Pittman questioned the motives of the Moore's main accuser, who acknowledged in the story that her background might cast doubt on her credibility.

"This is 21st century politics and it's blood sport and I don't think there's anything people wouldn't do or say, especially when you're talking about a U.S. Senate seat," Pittman said.

Pittman said he expected more facts to come out.

"I'm going to continue to support the Roy Moore that went to West Point and served in Vietnam and has served his state and country and let the facts simmer and let's see ultimately what they are," Pittman said.

"This is not the first negative regarding Roy Moore. He's been removed from office on two occasions. This is just something else. But, again, our candidate, Doug Jones, is running on issues that will help the people in Alabama. He's not running on the downfalls of Roy Moore," Shelby County Democratic Party chairwoman Carole Marks said.

"Today's allegations against Roy Moore are deeply troubling. If true, Moore should step aside from his campaign immediately. Alabama voters deserve a candidate they can trust and who represents decency," Rep. Terri Sewell, the state's only Democrat in Congress, tweeted.

"If these allegations are true, there is no place for Roy Moore in the United States Senate," Sen. Richard Shelby, who backed Luther Strange in the primary but did not go on to endorse Moore in the general election, said in a statement.

AL.com reporters Mike Cason, Paul Gattis, Howard Koplowitz and John Sharp contributed to this report.
More Iraqis are coming out on the streets as violence has gone down in the capital following the defeat of ISIL group.

What comes to mind when you think of Baghdad? A year ago, the Iraqi capital was a scene of explosions, military checkpoints and armed men roaming the streets. Baghdad has suffered numerous attacks and security problems in the past several years.

I have been reporting from here extensively since 2011, and have witnessed the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), which captured huge swaths of the country three years later.

Putting aside the American occupation and invasion for a moment, the last few years have been incredibly violent for the city. However, I notice a marked difference as I arrive back on an assignment.

The citys endless checkpoints have gone down and the streets seem busier than ever.

The last attack in Baghdad was in May this year, when a huge car bomb ripped through the shopping district of Karrada, killing scores. It was immediately claimed by ISIL.

I visit a small cafe in Karrada that had been hit by suicide bombs in the past, to find out what Iraqis think of the current security situation.

Karrar, a car trader, and his friends sit out on the street smoking shisha and generally mocking each other. In between puffs on his shisha pipe, he tells me he feels confident Baghdad is changing.

The city feels safer, but its not just here. We are doing trade with people in Mosul, we are seeing the streets get busier. This is all to do with the fact that Iraq defeated ISIL, he says as his friends nod in agreement. But there are still issues. Theres still a lot of corruption and the rule of law needs to be firmer, but we feel confident things are changing for the better.

For Iraqi authorities, bringing an end to the almost daily wave of suicide bombings was one of the reasons they needed to defeat ISIL. The armed group now controls a few isolated villages on the Iraqi border with Jordan and is on the run after an intense campaign by Iraqi security forces, Shia-led militias, Kurdish Peshmerga and US-led coalition air strikes.

Its had an effect. Bahar Janabi is a retired engineer who has brought his family for a picnic at Al Zawhra Park. All around him, Iraqi families play on the swings and roundabouts, and the amusement park with its giant ferris wheels gets ready to open.

I have not been to this park in 15 years. Today is our first time here. I always felt trapped in my neighbourhood before, but now I am here and can breathe the air and see people enjoying themselves, he said.

I ask him why he thought today was a good time to come back to the park. With a good degree of pride, he says: The government united Iraqis in the fight against ISIL. We won. There feels like there is a new life in Baghdad.

The park buzzes with noise and laughter as I walk around and meet another family. Three generations of Ismails family surround her. Young girls and older women share a picnic blanket.

There are fewer explosions. Less sectarianism. It was high during the ISIL times, but people have realised that no good comes from sectarianism and now people are more accepting of each other. Look around you. We are Shia, Sunni and Christian here, she says, shielding her eyes from the sun.

The park is certainly full of Iraqis of all hues, but a police checkpoint at the entrance reminds that Baghdad still carries the scars of violence. To keep this fragile peace, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has a real challenge on his hands. He must build on the success of the anti-ISIL operation and also unite Iraq, reaching out, in particular, to the Sunni community which has long felt disenfranchised.

He also has to deal with Iraqis who joined ISIL. In Karrada I asked Karrar and his friends what should be done about Iraqi ISIL fighters. The prompt answer was: execution. Another one was: justice.

There is still a lot of anger towards ISIL here. Managing that will be key, and dealing with the root causes of the rise of ISIL even more important.

One of the reasons ISIL was able to take a hold in Iraq was because Sunni youth felt they were being ignored by the Shia-led government, under the then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Can Abadi change that? He certainly hopes so, but a bomb attack in the nearby city of Abu Ghraib on November 8 was a reminder that there is still a long way to go.

Follow Imran Khan on Twitter @Ajimran
Bartek doesnt have a problem and isnt sick. He has Aspergers and is on a mission to challenge stereotypes.

Warsaw, Poland  Warsaw-born Bartek Jakubowski never thought of himself as sick, which is why he becomes disgruntled whenever he reads articles referring to people with autism as seriously ill.

I am outraged when media outlets describe Aspergers as a disease, the 28-year-old man says.

It is not a sickness, he explains. Rather, it is a disorder, which manifests itself differently in every person.

Bartek was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old. At the age of 16, he found out that he suffers from Aspergers syndrome, part of a broader category of the autism spectrum disorder.

He is one of an estimated 30,000 Poles on the autism spectrum. This figure, according to the non-profit organisation, Synapsis, could be much higher, but no research in this area has been conducted domestically, and the estimate is based on studies from neighbouring countries.

Until last year, Bartek worked at a supported employment enterprise where, by his own admission, he never felt at home.

His life changed dramatically in January 2016, when he began working at Zycie jest fajne (Life is Cool), a Warsaw-based cafe employing people on the autism spectrum.

I feel like I dont work at a place that hires mentally ill people anymore. This is a normal job, he says, visibly content as he pulls out and arranges tables outside the cafe before it opens.

Because there is no special treatment at Life is Cool, Bartek is assigned a variety of tasks, ranging from getting the cafe ready for business, cleaning, serving customers and taking orders.

But his employment entails more than regular chores. As part of his job, he is also required to attend therapy and weekly check-ins with his coworkers, whom he prefers to call friends.

Here, he not only seems to have found a sense of belonging, but he was offered peer support that set him out on a very new trajectory.

Encouraged by his coworkers, who believe he would make a great journalist, and driven by his dislike for the portrayal of autism by the Polish media, Bartek shot a documentary film about his colleagues from Life is Cool.

In October 2016, his short, titled A like a human being, won the Grand Prix at the National Film Review for Persons on the Spectrum of Autism.

This young, bubbly man wants to challenge stereotypes about people from the spectrum of autism and show others the way they really are.

There is a stereotype of people with Aspergers, like me, that you cant really talk to them and that they dont really understand what you are saying to them, he explains.

I can refute that.

While he admits that leading a more or less normal life might come harder to him and his colleagues, Bartek is confident he will make the most of the opportunities hes been given.

I believe I will make it, he says, and adds: I am almost certain of it. And I prefer to have hope.

Filmmaker: Marta Kasztelan

Editor: Andrew Phillips

Executive Producer: Yasir Khan
Professor Mia Bloom and former child soldier Ishmael Beah discuss if ISILs cubs can be saved or will remain a danger.

Kasswara* joined ISIL when he was 14.

We were the cleaners group. Cleaning means slitting the throats of those who belong to the other side and are hiding, the teenager from Raqqa, Syria, said.

A guy from my area was decapitated by [ISIL] because of me. People had their hands chopped off because of me.

Since the start of the Syrian civil war, armed groups have been using child soldiers in combat. ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, is thought to have recruited around 2,000 children. They are called ashbal al khilafa, the lion cubs of the caliphate.









Kasswara, who is now 16, fled ISIL, also known as ISIS, after being sexually assaulted and is currently living in Greece. He tells his story in Witness: Lion cubs of ISIL.

Like Kasswara, a number of former cubs have fled to Europe where they live in anonymity. And with ISIL swiftly losing ground in Iraq and Syria, more child soldiers are bound to leave their ranks, raising concerns about whether they will pose a future danger.

Mia Bloom is a professor at Georgia State University who is writing a book on children in terrorist organisations.

Ishmael Beah fought as a teenager in the Sierra Leone civil war in the 1990s and is now an author and UNICEF advocate for children affected by war.

This is their take on what should happen with ISILs former child soldiers.

Mia Bloom: A lot depends on the ways in which the children became involved. Theres a whole range on the spectrum from luring to outright coercion.

Some children in orphanages and hospitals in Syria and Iraq were just taken. Some were handed over by the parents. Some joined ISIL as a way to ensure that their families would get to keep their house, and would get an allowance and food.

We know that ISIL used techniques to draw children in. They would have these events and give away free candy.

Or they would march the cubs down the street in brand new uniforms so that the other children would admire them and aspire to be like them. The organisation made membership of the cubs to be a rare and desirable thing.

The children of foreign fighters had a different sort of access. There were different schools for them whose language of instruction might be English or French.

Ishmael Beah: I was not forced to become a child soldier as some of the other kids were.

The circumstances pushed me to go to a base of the Sierra Leonean army to enlist. I had lost my family, my home and everything I knew as a child.

The military was the safest place to go, to be protected from what was going on in the country.

In the army, there was no choice but to fight. If you didnt kill, you would get killed. You had to fight for ammunition, you had to fight for food. Killing became like breathing. You didnt even think about it.

If you just sit around all day and nothing is happening in your life, the war is more likely to haunt you by Ishmael Beah

After more than two years, when I was nearly 16 years old, my lieutenant handed me over to UNICEF. At first, I wasnt happy at all. I had gotten accustomed to the war. The army had become my new family. Its all I knew and all I thought my life would be.

It took a while for that to change. I spent eight months at a re-integration centre. What made the difference is that the staff who worked at the centre looked at us just as children, not soldiers.

I was also given the opportunity to go to school and do something with myself. I discovered I had an intelligence that I could use for something else than war.

Eventually, I studied political science and did so many things I didnt think I was capable of doing. It fostered an environment where I could create new memories to compete with my trauma.

You can come from war, and you can recover, but if you just sit around all day and nothing is happening in your life, the war is more likely to haunt you.

The community was involved in our reintegration too. They had to learn to believe in us again. A former child soldier often creates the expectation that if you were once violent, youll always be violent.

Bloom: Theres always a risk of recidivism. This is true for adults and children. We did research in Pakistan into children who had been involved in the Taliban.

These children were brought to the educational level for their age. They were given vocational training so they could go on to have a job. And they were re-educated religiously because the Islam these kids had studied was completely corrupted.

There was also a lot of aftercare, where the communities embraced the children and brought them back in.

This approach was successful, and some of the children who had been involved with the Taliban became like normal children again. So there is a possibility of a happy ending.

Ostracisation might push them back over the edge by Mia Bloom

If members of the family were part of the Taliban, recidivism was much higher. This is where the ISIL situation becomes problematic, because in many cases the parents willingly gave the children over to the cubs.

This counts especially for the foreign fighters, so the ones who are going back to Germany or France.

These children also have a higher risk of relapsing because of the stigma attached to the group.

Even if your parents took you when you were four years old, even if you didnt necessarily sympathise with the group, back in a European city you will be perceived as a foreign element, and thats very dangerous. The ostracization might push them back over the edge.





Beah: One of the problems for us going back into our communities was that people knew we had been given opportunities that they didnt receive.

In the UNICEF centre, we had running water; most people didnt have running water. We had two meals a day; most people did not have that.

So a lot of people thought to themselves: If you fight in a war and you kill people, foreigners will come and give you all these opportunities.

At the re-integration centre, we were constantly being attacked by the community. People would throw stones at our building and come running into our compound to start a fight with sticks and stones.

It was clearly coming from a sense of injustice.

This is why I believe a holistic approach to healing society is necessary. The child that didnt fight was affected by the war too, so they should not be treated differently.

Bloom: Young ISIL fighters returning to Europe puts a huge onus on these countries. Keep in mind that many of these countries already have problems with their Muslim communities when it comes to giving them access to jobs, education and good healthcare.

Imagine how perverse it would be if people who didnt join ISIL dont have access to good programmes and returning fighters get all these resources thrown at them. Youre going to have a very absurd situation.

Beah: I joined the army when I was 13. As a child, you dont just go to the battlefield, pick up a gun and shoot another human being. You have to be brainwashed to some extent to believe that what you are doing has some merit.

When I was in the army, I really believed I was fighting the right fight. My family had been killed, and I was fighting to make sure that people wouldnt do this to other children. It appealed to some of us who had lost everything. We wanted someone to pay for what had happened to us.

Now, after the war, I see that this narrative was used by all the groups that would recruit children and I no longer believe in it. But in order to function as a child in that madness, I had to believe in something. I had to justify what I was doing in order to survive.

Bloom: For some children who have fought for ISIL, we could make the argument that theyre brainwashed, or theyre parroting what the adults say. But for the ones who were 16 or 17 when they joined, its much harder to convince me thats the case.

I make a distinction between the children who were exposed to violence and children who participated  the ones with blood on their hands. Its going to be a much more challenging experience to re-integrate them.

Theyre all children, and they all have to be treated as such. But we cannot be so blind as to assume that just because theyre a child, theyre innocent.

Beah: Until anybody can show me a war that children under 18 started all on their own, I dont think any former child soldiers should be prosecuted.

What I would tell the children coming out of ISIL is that its going to be very difficult. Theres a lot of stigma that they are going to have to deal with. They should make sure they have a strong support network to fall back on. Its not easy; its going to take some time, but it is possible.

* Not his real name
Amid the standard heavy military presence and the regimes ban of any associations and gatherings, Asmara experienced an unusual protest on October 31. As the widely shared video clips captured by mobile phones have shown, demonstrators in Eritreas capital city that day were met with gunshots and violence from government forces.

The Asmara regime rarely acknowledges such incidents unless they get out of control. Apparently realising its impossible to conceal what has been widely shared, Eritrean Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel instead chose to downplay the incident, tweeting Small demonstration by one school in Asmara dispersed without any casualty, hardly breaking news. On November 4, an opinion piece appeared on the official organs of the Ministry of Information claimed that the demonstrators were a group of teenagers chanting Allahu Akbar.

Citing an opposition leader based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, international media reported that at least 28 people had been killed in the attack in Asmara and more than 100 injured. Human Rights Watch stated, There is no clear evidence that anyone was killed at this protest.

So what really happened that day?

A school protest

As part of the continued centralisation of power and control, the Eritrean ministry of education recently sent an official letter to three schools in Asmara run by religious institutions. Stating that religious institutions should only do their spiritual duties and leave all public services to the state, the letter states that the schools run by the Coptic Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, and the Islamic school are officially transformed to the state schools as of the beginning of the academic year, and the schools should report directly to their respective school districts.

The letter also instructs the schools to comply with the state education system and follow similar guidelines. In the case of Al Diaa Islamic School, that holds about 3,000 students, the state education standard meant to ban the headscarf and halt religious education.

The order prompted a surge of disapproval from the respective schools.

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In response to the states attempt to nationalise the Al Diaa Islamic School, Hajji Musa Mohammednur, respected senior citizen and president of the board of the school, gave an impassioned speech at a parents and teachers meeting, openly saying that the state should refrain from such interference.

On October 22, the state security arrested Mohammednur. Parents and teachers who demanded his release were similarly taken into custody.

Tension rose and on October 31, a substantial number of parents, teachers and community members gathered at the school premises and headed to the Office of the President to demand the release of Mohammednur and others. The demonstrators reportedly were dispersed by the anti-mob Special Forces of Office of the President.

The aftermath

Shocked by the protest, President Isaias Afwerki and his security apparatus responding brutally not only to crackdown on the protest, but if possible to permanently discourage others from undertaking demonstrations in the future.

As an immediate precaution, one of the military zonal operations, the Rapid Action Force, has been deployed in Asmara. Locals have observed heavy artillery deployed on the outskirts of Asmara. A directive has been passed to watch certain neighbourhoods in Asmara and other cities in Eritrea that are considered likely to see such eruptions.

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A series of round-ups and arrests have been made in Asmara. As Radio Medrek an opposition radio station based in Germany  reported on November 4, hundreds of people have been arrested in connection with the demonstration. The report adds young students taken from secondary schools have been subjected to extreme physical torture in Asmaras infamous prison facilities. Most mosques in Asmara and other cities are observing unusual new faces.

With their youth population and relatively loose control, colleges have the biggest potential to spark such unrest, so as a result, their security has been doubled. Internet cafes, where the majority of Eritreans access the internet (which is intentionally kept at a very low speed), have been under continuous scrutiny.

Through its standard rumour mills, the regime is trying to paint the whole development as purely religion-driven and particularly linked to Islam. This is how they attempted to frame the January 2013 military mutiny. None of the two separate incidents have or had the slightest signs of fundamentalism or particular religious links.

The changing landscape

For years now, President Afwerki has been successfully crushing all forms of dissidence with his extensive military and security apparatuses. He has managed to either degrade and suppress his subordinates in order to scare them into loyalty, or pushed the rest into corrupt activities in order to wield the threat of potential blackmail.

The Asmara incident is triggering schizophrenic reactions from the state as well as ramped-up militarisation. This is an old story, having occurred in the past when the government has exploited any excuse to squeeze tight the vice of repression.

Yet, it also confirms that the power of the gun can only do so much to intimidate a population that has been pushed to the edge. The recent demonstration and similar earlier incidents also suggest that opposition has become decentralised, and that ordinary people are becoming emboldened in the face of armed repression.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
How has Tanzania been faring under the stewardship of one John Pombe Magufuli these past 24 months? The short answer is that we are still being our usual dependably peaceful quiet selves, stubbornly refusing to feed into the Africa is a Headcase narrative at some cost to ourselves.

If you take a look around the neighbourhood, you can imagine how we have learned to work this image in our favour. It keeps the donors and investors happy, and more importantly, it means nobody is trying to learn Kiswahili and actually listen in on our business. This year we can be thankful that Kenya  our beloved sibling and most annoying rival  is keeping it together as best it can, so far. They have held the international press busy and distracted, bless them.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, also considering a flirtation with voting, has never been a republic nor indeed meaningfully democratic, but were living in the hope that someday soon it could happen. They too, thankfully, have similarly kept the international press busy and distracted.

Notice that both countries are being led by sons of former presidents, a particular circumstance we have yet to experience in good old Tanzania and are doing our best to avoid. We like our presidents to be real men of the land, village-born boys raised on public schooling and scholarships, boys who grew up to be long-suffering civil servants moulded by our most dependable institution: the state.

I am just back from Mwanza, the largest city in the Lake Zone of Tanzania where President John Pombe Magufuli chose to celebrate his first biennial this November. It was interesting to hear local opinions about his visit as this part of the country is ancestral home for us both.

More so for President Magufuli who has never lost the heavy clunkiness of his Sukuma accent. His speeches are more interesting for it in our mellifluous honey-bell of a creole language, Kiswahili. In it, my president usually sounds overly-excited, furious and gauche. To be fair, he tends to have a little bit of all of that going on at any given moment.

On the main thoroughfare connecting Mwanza City to the airport, there is a bridge that President Magufuli formally opened during his stint in the city before moving on to remoter parts to impress villagers who dont have running water with the shine of his motorcade. This bridge he opened is, in fact, a pedestrian bridge, and the only one I have ever seen that puts on a light show at night. In many ways, this one little thing is indicative of President Magufulis leadership style so far. There is flash. There is bang. There is also a lot of underwhelm. I meana footbridge?

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It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nobody has more good intentions for Tanzania than President Magufuli. While his presidential candidacy was the result of a spectacular fall-out within the grand old party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution  CCM), during his campaign Magufuli the Unexpected made a massive impression on a voting populace left with few credible choices. As we Tanzanians like to swing the pendulum between laissez-faire and dirigiste styles of governance, his no-nonsense road-building efficiency came across well as an antidote to his predecessors extreme relaxedness.

True to his word, Magufuli has been reforming. He has fearlessly jailed magnates and big corrupt names, taxed the living daylights out of tax-evading industries, and scrubbed the port of Dar-es-Salaam to almost-clean, to name a few of his feats. The civil service is being exorcised of ghost workers and people with fake academic credentials. Roads are being built, and houses are being destroyed to make more room for even more roads to be built. Ministers and heads of public institutions are getting hired on a daily basis, and also fired on a daily basis if they do not meet his high expectations. There is less corruption of a certain kind. And there is more force being applied.

President Magufuli thinks that schoolgirls who get pregnant should be cut off from their right to education and that a free press is a threat to his democracy. Under Magufuli we have witnessed a level of harassment of the opposition that is unprecedented, culminating in an assassination attempton the vocal lawyer and constitutional rights defender Tundu Lissu that shook the nation right down to its bone marrow. The presence of state security organs in public has gone from comforting to menacing. There is a darkness creeping upon us.

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Our social contract is unwritten in Tanzania but it is there, and we abide by it. This has never been a one-man show, not since Tanzanias first President Julius Nyerere apologised to us for getting economics so horribly wrong when he retired in 1985, and we grappled on with the vision of a nation united.

We are not a peaceful country by default so much as by design, though no matter how many times I write this out loud, fellow Africans do not want to hear it. Apparently, complexity is boring.

As much as Magufuli is doing the best he can, he is also doing the worst he can. Never in my short life has the government of my beloved country been more conservative, more intolerant, more paranoid and economically illiterate and impervious to good advice, more saddled with gun-happy thugs. I want to say that this is new. Three retired presidents live in my city, and we have buried one: there is some insight that comes with this sort of thing. So yeah, this is new. And not unexpected.

John Pombe Magufuli has had an interesting two years in office. The first two years are always tough for everyone: the incumbent is finding his feet and getting drenched in the murky waters of head of statehood. Our republic has always been divided about our president, no matter who he is or was. Some of us love them, some of us dont, and all of this is done in Kiswahili where no outsider can get a look-in. This country really is a republic and if President Magufuli is going to make it through the obligatory ten-year term, two years in is far too early to be certain about anything. They only break at five, so I am afraid it is too soon to tell.

In the meantime, we are going to keep it steady, plough the fields and keep the elephants un-extinct and all of that. Check again in about another two years when the general elections are hotting up, there might be something to say then. In the meantime: Idhaa ya Kiswahili, people.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Residents despair as crops sink and houses fall in city just above sea level, as planners develop ways to solve crisis.

Beira, Mozambique  Albano Joze, stares blankly at a group of fishermen casting their nets in shallow waters on the coast of the Indian Ocean, near Beira, Mozambiques second largest city.

He kicks a lump of soil and shakes his head in frustration.

I have been living here for more than 10 years, but I have never seen this sea as violent as it is these years, says Joze, an informal trader in the city, which is just a few metres above average sea level.

One night I woke up to find all rooms in my house filled with water and most of my household property was destroyed.

Most settlements in Beira, which is on the Mozambique Channel, are poorly planned, and houses are badly built, leaving many at risk during floods.

Do you think our gods are angry? We hope this problem of floods will go away soon by Albano Joze, Beira resident

Daviz Simango, Beiras mayor since 2003 and an influential politician, has previously claimed that water-borne diseases such as malaria, and even in rare cases cholera, pose a serious threat.

Every year we are experiencing violent storms and floods which are making our lives difficult, Joze says with a weary sigh. We cant move away from the sea because our lives depend on it, one way or another.

He traverses the breadth and length of the coastal area in Beira selling an assortment of wares, mostly to fishermen.

Im not a fisherman but these fishermen are my customers, and I cant imagine leaving this place. How will I survive if I leave?

Do you think our gods are angry at us for whatever reasons? We hope this problem of floods will go away soon.

But the problem is not going away anytime soon.

According to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), Mozambique  with its coastal cities slowly being swallowed by the rising sea level  ranks third among African countries most exposed to multiple weather hazards.

Home to some 30 million people, the southern African country suffers from periodic cyclones, droughts, floods, and related epidemics.

Floods occur every two to three years, with higher levels of risk in the central and southern regions, says GFDRR. Climate change is likely to worsen current climate variability, leading to more intense droughts, unpredictable rains, floods and uncontrolled fires.

Data from the Mozambiques National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC) shows an increase in natural disasters in the country over the past 30 years.

Up to 60 percent of the population lives in coastal areas, meaning large numbers are exposed to the rising sea level and other climate change extremes.

Tropical cyclones build up over the Indian Ocean, sending in water that pummels coastal cities such as Beira and Maputo, Mozambiques largest city.

Beiras increasing population and poor infrastructure mean the city is vulnerable to flood damage; some residential areas lie below sea-level.

The 19th-century city was designed to host no more than 30,000 people, but today more than 500,000 people live in Beira. Most struggle in poverty.

New developments

Simango, Beiras mayor, says more than $100m is needed to make the city resilient to climate change.

But figures and plans do little to quell residents anger.

Beira should have been far more developed than it is today, says Rildo Rafael, who lives in the city.

Bento Saide, a smallholder farmer near Beira, says rising sea levels flood the land with salty water, rendering crops useless.

We dont have any idea what to do as the water is keeping on coming and destroying our crops, he says.

In an effort to save Beira, the city authority and private companies in 2014 drew up Masterplan Beira 2035, a climate-adaption initiative to be implemented over the next 18 years.

Peter Letitre is a project manager for the Netherlands-based company, Deltares, which helped draft the plan.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said there plan now involved several new developments, but failed to give any further details.

In 2015, he told Bulawayo24: We foresee that some informal settlements have to be relocated to new areas. This is a complex process for which cooperation of the inhabitants is very important.

Entrepreneurs and private companies were needed to build houses in new residential areas, he said, along with new roads, drainage infrastructure and hotels.

In other words, Beira waits for business people and companies [to support the implementation of the plan], he said.

Mayor Simango did not respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment but has previously told media that projects to improve drainage were under way.

In an effort to reduce risk, an old lagoon has also been converted into a retention area. And city extensions have been planned in higher areas with lower risk.

Yet some believe the measures may still not be enough.

If there is no proper planning, in 50 years, Beira will be destroyed, says resident Rafael.
State Department spokeswoman says US charge daffaires in Riyadh met Hariri but refuses to comment on the situation.

The United States has declined to comment on the status of Lebanons former prime minister who suddenly announced his resignation from the capital of Saudi Arabia last week and has yet to return to Beirut.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a press briefing on Thursday that Chris Henzel, the US charge daffaires in Riyadh, met Saad Hariri on Wednesday, but refused to comment on where the meeting took place or to elaborate on Hariris status.

[The talks] were sensitive, private, diplomatic conversations, Nauert said.

We have seen him. In terms of the conditions of him being held or the conversations between Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Hariri, I would have to refer you to the government of Saudi Arabia and also to Mr Hariris office.

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When asked by reporters whether the US has a comment regarding the resignation of Hariri, Nauert said it was an internal matter that we couldnt comment on.

Russia threat

Meanwhile, Russias ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, threatened on Thursday to refer Hariris case to the UN Security Council if the ambiguity continues.

The issue of Hariris return to the country concerns the sovereign rights of Lebanon, Zasypkin said in an interview with Lebanese channel LBC.

Lebanese officials have said Hariri is likely to be under either house arrest or in temporary detention in Riyadh.

His resignation came on the same day that dozens of Saudi princes, senior ministers, businessmen were arrested in a purge carried out by a new anti-corruption committee led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe-1 radio to our knowledge Hariri is not being held by Saudi authorities. Hariri is free in his movements, he said on Friday, adding it is up to him to make his choices.

Le Drians office wouldnt say where Frances information came from.

French President Emmanuel Macron discussed Lebanon, a former French colony, during a surprise visit on Thursday to Riyadh.
The United States will not be taken advantage of anymore, US president vows at the annual APEC summit in Vietnam.

US President Donald Trump vowed on Friday to put an end to trade abuses as he spoke at the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam.

Trump told the audience of Asia-Pacific leaders in the coastal city of Da Nang it was time to put America first, adding the US wont be taken advantage of anymore.

We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses, and we will not tolerate them. From this day forward, we will compete on a fair and equal basis, said Trump. I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.

The US president denounced the audacious theft of intellectual property and destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state. He pledged to work with individual countries in mutually beneficial economic relationships.

We seek friendship, and we dont dream of domination, he said.

The economies of APECs 21 nations  with some three billion people  represent about 60 percent of the global gross domestic product.

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Trump said he wants to deal with strong and prosperous nations in the region. I call it the Indo-Pacific dream. If its going to be realised, we must ensure that all play by the rules, which they do not right now.

China has the largest trade surplus with the United States and Trump didnt shy away from pointing the finger directly at Beijing during his speech.

President Xi Jinping  leader of the worlds largest communist country  said globalisation was an irreversible trend but added it must become more balanced and inclusive. In contrast to Trump, Xi touted the benefits of multilateral trade deals.

Should we steer economic globalisation, or should we dither and stall in the face of challenge? Should we jointly advance regional cooperation, or should we go our separate ways? Xi asked. Openness brings progress, while self-seclusion leaves one behind.

Xi added: We, the Asia Pacific economies, know this too well from our own development experience. We should put in place a regional cooperation framework that ensures consultation among equals with participation and shared benefits.

Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, told Al Jazeera the speeches by the leaders of the two most powerful economies differed significantly.





Trumps speech was all about the United States and its trade grievances, while Xis was more open and inclusive, focusing on the prosperity of the region and its future, she said.

The contrast was quite striking and quite stark, Elms said. I think its a real problem for the US because this speech was billed as the opportunity for Trump to outline the US vision under his leadership.

At the end of it, it wasnt clear exactly what the United States is going to do under him, except for bilaterals  come join us in our vision.

The APEC annual gathering sees dozens of world leaders congregate along with more than 2,000 corporate executives. The grouping was formed in 1989 and promotes economic liberalisation and free trade.
Trump joins world leaders gathered for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

US President Donald Trump has arrived in Vietnam after a state visit to Beijing, and his arrival has dominated the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

He has issued what appeared to be a sharp criticism of Chinas policies, although he did not specifically mention China.

Trump also vowed to correct US trade deficits, particularly in Asia.

Many feel that his America First platform is protectionist, in contrast to President Xi Jinpings speech that focused on Chinas globalisation and openness to the world.

Al Jazeeras Wayne Hay reports from Da Nang, Vietnam
Ordinary Vietnamese still believe in what the United States represents, despite the war and painful economic sanctions.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam  Dao Le Quynh Nhi still vividly recalls the festive mood she and her friends were able to soak up when they interacted with Barack Obama at a town hall meeting here, as part of his Vietnam trip last year.

I had high hopes that his visit, among other things, would result in a positive outcome for the TPP, she said, referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a mammoth US-led 12-nation trade deal that Donald Trump nixed right after taking office.

According to a Pew survey in 2015, 89 percent of Vietnamese believe the otherwise controversial trade deal would be good for their country.

As Trump touched down in Vietnam on Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and a state visit, Nhi said, however, she could not care less about his trip. A native of the central Vietnamese resort city of Da Nang, the host city of the APEC gathering, she was asked by many of her friends whether she would come back home for the chance of seeing the new US president in real life.

My answer is a resounding no, said Nhi, a 25-year-old office worker. I have no interest in Trump. He is not as inspirational and charismatic as Obama. Above all else, he killed the TPP.

But despite Trump, Nhi said the influence of American culture and values on Vietnamese millennials such as herself has remained as strong as ever. They have set an idealistic bar for a democracy and a civilised society that Vietnamese youth are yearning for.

In a country where young people between 10 to 24 years represent almost one-third of Vietnams total population of nearly 93 million, Nhi finds herself the embodiment of the findings of another Pew survey in June, which corroborated the unwavering favourability among Vietnamese towards the US  no matter who reigns over that country.

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According to the survey that spanned 37 nations, the image of the US has deteriorated sharply across the globe under the Trump presidency. It showed US favourability ratings in the rest of the world slumping to 49 percent from 64 percent at the end of Obamas eight years in the White House.

Against that backdrop, popularity ratings have only increased in Vietnam and Russia. In Vietnam in particular, 84 percent of the respondents said they now have a very or somewhat favourable view of the US, up from 76 percent in 2014.

Publics in the Asian-Pacific region are generally more positive toward American ideas and customs, according to a report released along with the survey.

Seven in 10 Vietnamese say the spread of such American attributes is a good thing. Sixty-nine percent of Vietnamese surveyed like American democratic ideas, the highest rate after South Korea (78 percent).

I dont speak for everyone, Nhi said. But I believe few Vietnamese would disagree with me that we are still very much in awe of the US as a country. Just around me, many Vietnamese parents keep sending their kids to study abroad, with the US remaining the most-sought destination.

Awash with Americano-philia

There is further damning evidence of the continued American Dream in Vietnam. The country has broken into the top 10 on several significant indexes that encapsulate peoples desire to live, study, and settle down in the US, despite the fact it is one of the poorest and most faraway countries on those rankings.

Vietnam sent nearly 31,000 students to the US, ranking 5th among countries with the most students at American educational institutions. Vietnamese investors arrive second after China in the race for green cards issued under the expensive EB-5 visa scheme, which offers foreign investors a fast path to a green card by investing at least $500,000 to finance a business employing at least 10 American workers. (To put things in perspective, Vietnams average annual income was about $2,200 last year.)

Most recently, Vietnam ranked among top 10 foreign buyers of residential properties in the US.

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Major Vietnamese megacities such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh are awash with Americano-philia. A get-together at Starbucks, a weekend treat for children at McDonalds, or an overnight queue just to get the latest iPhone version: all are considered emblems of chic Americanisation and a tech-savvy lifestyle here.

Outside observers have always grappled to decipher the lack of bitterness towards the US among Vietnamese, even when their country was in the throes of a brutal war that cost more than three million Vietnamese lives  and even when Vietnam bore the brunt of the US trade embargo that crippled the country until 1995.

But to Vietnamese millennials, the reason is not hard to fathom.

For people of my generation, Tran Thuc Huyen, a 24-year-old masters candidate in Washington, said, we were not born at the time when Americas economic stranglehold took its toll.

What weve seen is the US efforts to make war reparations here in Vietnam, like offering education scholarships as part of its soft-power diplomacy, said Huyen, who also attended the town hall meeting with Obama last year. Meanwhile, if you look further north, China is still a major threat to us, despite more than 1,000 years of occupation.

I feel bad for my countrymen

Many in Vietnam had hoped the TPP would play a crucial role as a cushion for Hanoi against its giant northern neighbour. It is in this context that Trumps immediate scrapping of the TPP did much to unnerve the Vietnamese leadership, who saw the agreement as more than a trade deal, but as a strategic anchor for the United States, said Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia expert at the National War College in Washington.

But still, Vietnam just cannot afford to alienate the American president, no matter how erratic his diplomacy is.

Last May, Vietnams Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc became the first Southeast Asian leader to pay an official visit to the White House, in a bid to gauge Trumps policies towards the flashpoint South China Sea, tensions over which have put Beijing on a never-ending collision course with Hanoi.

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Vietnam has proven to be highly pragmatic in fostering early engagements with the Trump administration, said Le Hong Hiep, a Vietnamese research fellow at the Iseas Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Vietnamese diplomats have also learned how to play along with Trumps transactional diplomacy.

Given his fixation on North Korea during his 12-day, five-nation Asia tour, analysts say they do not expect much to come out of the Vietnam visit but Trumps what are you going to do for us? agenda.

To ordinary Vietnamese, their anticipation, too, is realistic.

Ngo Van Gia, a well-known Vietnamese writer, said he would still plan on taking to the streets in Hanoi, hoping to catch a glimpse of Trump, just like he did last year when Obama was there.

But this time, I dont have any hope in Trump, said Gia, 59. Hes transactional and unreliable and so is his policy. I just want to see him out of curiosity.

Gia, who lived through the Vietnam War, said he feels sympathetic towards any Vietnamese who look forward to a visit by an American president  be it Bill Clinton, Obama or Trump  as a beacon of hope for a watershed change in their country.

I feel bad for my countrymen, myself included, Gia said. Thats just indicative of how desperate we are.

His stance reverberates with that of Nhi, the office worker, a rare occasion in which the young and old generations are on the same page when it comes to political issues in Vietnam.

Its just like a poor kid at the lower rank of the social ladder with few options, Nhi said. We, as a small country, have no choice but to constantly look for a major power for protection.

Dien Luong is a freelance journalist based in Vietnam. Follow him on Twitter: @DienLuong85
Ex-Afghan president says groups presence used as excuse to drop the largest non-nuclear bomb on district in Nangarhar.

Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, has accused the US of working with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in his country.

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeeras UpFront aired on Friday, Karzai said the US government had allowed ISIL, also known as ISIS, to flourish inside Afghanistan.

In my view under the full presence, surveillance, military, political, intelligence, Daesh [ISIL] has emerged, he said.

And for two years the Afghan people came, cried loud about their suffering, of violations. Nothing was done.





Karzai said the US administration of President Donald Trump used ISIL as an excuse to drop a massive bomb on Afghanistan in April 2017.

And the next day, Daesh takes the next district in Afghanistan, he said referring to the Arabic name of the armed group.

That proves to us that there is a hand in it and that hand can be no one else but them [the US] in Afghanistan.

GBU-43, the largest non-nuclear bomb, the US used in combat was dropped in the Achin district of Nangarhar province, close to the border with Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 36 ISIL fighters and destroying tunnel complex of the armed group.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the attack was designed to minimise the risk to Afghan and US forces conducting clearing operations in the area.

The explosive, also known as the mother of all bombs (MOAB), was equal to 11 tonnes of TNT with a blast radius of 1.6km.

Witnesses said they felt the ground shake after the explosion, while others described towering flames in the aftermath.

At that time, Karzai also condemned the attack as inhuman and most brutal misuse of Afghanistan as testing ground for new and dangerous weapons.

Potential war crimes

Karzai also said he welcomed a recent call by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed during his tenure in office.

Shes right to launch such an investigation, Karzai told UpFront host Mehdi Hasan, referring to ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensoudas request to launch an investigation in Afghanistan.





Karzai also acknowledged that there were human rights violations during his government, and possibly on his watch.

Definitely, there were violations by the Afghan security forces, by the US, and by others.

Karzai said he would help with any investigation, even into his own potential complicity.

I have been asking for this so that they come to Afghanistan and investigate as to what has happened in this country.

During the interview, Karzai was also asked to respond to claims by human rights groups that he was warned while in office that human-rights abuses were taking place.

They are wrong, he said. They didnt tell me. I told them.

I told the Western human rights bodies as to what was going on in Afghanistan. They were hiding it. The Western press was hiding it. I told them. I raised it.
France director of rights group says the new Louvre Abu Dhabi museum was accomplished at the cost of human suffering.

A human rights group has described the new Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum as being tainted with gross rights violations committed against migrant workers on the building site.

The immense project, which took 10 years to build to the tune of $1bn, was officially inaugurated by French President Emmanuel Macron. It will open to the public on Saturday.

Benedicte Jeannerod, the France director at Human Rights Watch(HRW), said that while many consider the museum to be a technical and aesthetic feat, the building holds a more unpleasant back story.

It has been accomplished at the cost of human suffering, in a country whose rulers appear to still widely despise human rights and suppress any critical voice, she said.

Worker rights abuse

Before the rights group was banned from entering the country in 2014, HRW published three reports on construction sites of Saadiyat Island, including one on the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The reports documented a range of human rights violations against migrant workers, who make up more than 90 percent of the United Arab Emirates private workforce.

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The most recent report, published in February 2015, shed light on unsafe working conditions leading to workplace accidents and deaths, passport confiscations, appalling living and housing conditions, extremely low wages, or sometimes non-payment of wages.

Moreover, these workers are held hostage to Kafala, the notorious sponsorship system that grants employers extreme powers over their employees. Workers have been arbitrarily deported for exercising their right to strike, and barred from re-entering the UAE.

While Jeannerod acknowledged that, because of international pressure, there have been positive legislative developments such as the reformation of the Kafala system and new workers rights rulings enacted, it remains difficult to measure progress.

It remains extremely difficult to assess the impact of these laws on migrant workers lives and on their working conditions, she said.

The crackdown on civil society is so severe that activists have been silenced and few workers dare to voice their concerns.

The new Louvre

The Emirati government has been busy transforming Saadiyat Island, which has an area of 27 square miles, into a new cultural hub. The island is already home to a campus for New York University, and, in addition to the Louvre, two other major international museums, including the Guggenheim.

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According to a deal made between France and the UAE in 2007, the Louvre in Paris agreed to attach its name to the new museum in Abu Dhabi for a reported $520m.

The new Louvre, which was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, has 600 artworks from around the world on permanent display, with a further 300 loaned from France. In addition to its 55 rooms and 23 permanent galleries, there is also a childrens museum and a research centre.

One of the exceptional features of the museums building is the latticed dome, which is made up of 7,850 aluminium stars and weighs more than 7,700 tonnes.

Entrance tickets are priced at $16.80 and have all sold out.
Almost 42 million homes in Indonesias coastal areas are under threat by rising sea levels.

Almost 42 million homes in the coastal regions of Indonesia are under threat by rising sea levels.

Water levels are rising at the rate of eight millimetres a year in many places.

Most of the affected rely on the sea for their livelihoods, so they cannot move away.

In Bahagia village (Happy village), half the population has had to move away, and the shrimp ponds where residents worked have been destroyed.

The people of Bahagia fear that unless the government intervenes to build a dam, the entire village will be washed away.

Al Jazeeras Step Vaessen reports from Bekasi, West Java.
Leaked cable shows Israel told diplomats to support Saudi Arabias war of words with Iran and Lebanese group Hezbollah.

Nazareth  Israel has instructed its overseas embassies to lobby their respective host countries in support of Saudi Arabia and its apparent efforts to destabilise Lebanon, a recently leaked diplomatic cable shows.

The cable appears to be the first formal confirmation of rumours that Israel and Saudi Arabia are colluding to stoke tensions in the region.

Sent by the Israeli foreign ministry and disclosed by Israels Channel 10 news this week, the cable demanded that diplomats stress Iran and Hezbollahs engagement in regional subversion.

That closely echoes accusations Riyadh levelled against Tehran and the Lebanese faction in recent days.

Some analysts have noted that diplomatic moves by Israel to intervene directly in a seemingly internal Arab matter are very rare.

Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Ehud Barak when he was Israeli prime minister, called the cable extremely presumptuous.

Do the Saudis really need Israel to put in a good word for them in capitals around the world? he told Al Jazeera.

But others believe Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who also heads the foreign ministry that issued the cable, may be looking to gain from an uptick in uncertainty in the region.

War of words

The cable comes as Saudi Arabia has dramatically escalated its rhetoric against Iran and Hezbollah.

On Thursday, the Saudi foreign ministry told its nationals to leave Lebanon immediately after it accused Hezbollah earlier in the week of declaring war on the Kingdom.

That followed the resignation of Saad Hariri as Lebanons prime minister.

A politician with close personal and business ties to Saudi Arabia, Hariri announced his departure while in Riyadh.

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He accused Iran of building a state within a state in Lebanon through Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia group which is represented in the parliament and has a strong military wing.

There are widespread suspicions that Riyadh ordered Hariri to step down as a way to destabilise Lebanon, whose complex and fragile political set-up has struggled to contain sharp sectarian divisions.

Saudi Arabia has also implicated Hezbollah in the launching of what it says was an Iranian-made rocket from Yemen that was intercepted over Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has been waging a war in Yemen against the Houthis, a Shia minority, and has accused Iran of fomenting and supporting the Houthis.

The cable

The leaked cable instructed Israeli diplomats to stress that the Hariri resignation shows how dangerous Iran and Hezbollah are for Lebanons security.

The diplomats were told to appeal to the highest officials in their host countries to press for Hezbollahs expulsion from the Lebanese government.

Hariris resignation proves wrong the argument that Hezbollah participation in the government stabilises Lebanon, the cable says.

It further called on Israeli diplomats to back Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen, emphasising that the missile directed at Riyadh required more pressure on Iran and Hezbollah.

Menachem Klein, a politics professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said it was likely that Netanyahu expected and wanted the cable to go public.

If you send a diplomatic cable and start lobbying every foreign capital, you have to expect that it wont remain private for long, he told Al Jazeera.

Netanyahus aim was to make clear to the Saudis that he can help. The message is, We have special relations with Western countries and we can help you advance your political goals against Iran and Hezbollah, which we share.'

Risking confrontation

But some say Israel risks being jostled by Saudi Arabia into an unnecessary and dangerous confrontation with Hezbollah, as the result of what Israeli commentator Amos Harel this week described as Riyadhs ambitious attempt to reach a new regional order.

In a column in Israeli daily Haaretz this week, Daniel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, argued that the Saudis were trying to move the battlefield from Syria to Lebanon after their failure to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

A six-year civil war there has dragged in a range of proxies.

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia have meddled in different ways in Syria during the war, with the barely concealed intention of weakening the Assad government and assisting rebel forces dominated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and al-Qaeda affiliates.

However, with Russian help, Assad has shored up his rule across much of the country in recent months, and the last major strongholds of the rebel groups have collapsed.

Neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia can afford to get more directly involved in Syria, given Russias involvement.

Shapiro warned Israel to be wary of Riyadhs efforts to push it prematurely into a confrontation with Hezbollah, which could rapidly escalate into a regional war.

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A diplomatic source with long experience in the Middle East said the cable might ultimately prove to be just such a misstep.

The Israelis will certainly be listened to because they have the best military intelligence in the region, said the source, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

Europe, in particular, is very concerned about the growing numbers of refugees coming their way from the region, many of them through Lebanon. Any information Israel provides about changes to the delicate balance of power in Lebanon, or the likelihood of a war, will ring alarm bells.

The source said Israel would be hoping to capitalise on these concerns by persuading European countries to toughen their stance towards Iran, especially in relation to the Iranian nuclear accord.

Signed between Iran and the P5+1 countries, the deal led to the loosening of Western diplomatic sanctions on the Iranian regime two years ago.

Both Israel and the Saudis want to see the nuclear deal collapse, but Israel is better placed than Riyadh to demonise Iran, said the source.

Lebanon vulnerable?

Analysts have suggested that renewed sectarian conflict in Lebanon  a possible outcome of Hariris resignation  could also leave it more vulnerable to Israeli aggression.

In September, in a sign that Israel may be preparing for a confrontation on its northern border, the Israeli army held its biggest military drill in 20 years, simulating an invasion of Lebanon.

Hezbollah, however, is widely assumed to be armed with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. So far, that has acted as a deterrent to a repeat of Israels bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

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Still, Israel and Saudi Arabia appear interested in cementing their alliance and shifting attention towards Lebanon  and away from Syria.

Israel has launched more than 100 air strikes on Syrian government and military targets in recent years, according to Reuters news agency estimates, largely on the grounds that it was preventing the transfer of weapons technology from Iran to Hezbollah.

A field hospital established by the Israeli army in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights has treated wounded Islamist fighters and returned them to Syria, the UN has documented.

The UN has also observed the Israeli army passing boxes to Islamist fighters that were widely assumed to contain weapons, Haaretz first reported in 2014.

Noam Sheizaf, an Israeli journalist, noted that Israel has become increasingly open about its attacks in Syria, however, taking responsibility for them to a degree not seen before.

The risk of escalation lies in the fact that everyone wants someone else to fight Iran for them. Israel wants the US to do it, while the Saudis want Israel to attack Iran or proxies like Hezbollah, he said.

Coalition-building

Sheizaf told Al Jazeera the cable appears to be part of Israeli efforts at coalition-building with Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf states.

Israel understands that the Saudis lost to Iran in Syria and Yemen, and now they need an ally with the military and diplomatic power that Israel can provide, he said.

Netanyahu indicated as much in recent comments when he said Israel was working very hard to establish an alliance with modern Sunni states to counter Iran.

Jeff Halper, an Israeli analyst, suggested that Israel had even grander ambitions.

As strange as this sounds, the cable shows how Israel is becoming the unlikely leader of the Sunni world, he told Al Jazeera.

Saudi Arabia has found it cant even defeat the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It needs the things Israel can offer  Israels military might, its legitimacy in Europe and the US, its influence in the US Congress. Israel has the kind of clout internationally the Saudis want but simply dont have.
Gunnery Sergeant Joseph Felix physically and verbally abused three Muslim men during military training, jury finds.

A former US Marine instructor who abused Muslim military recruits  including ordering them into an industrial clothes dryer and turning it on  will be sentenced to prison on Friday.

Gunnery Sergeant Joseph Felix, 34, was found guilty of maltreatment on Thursday after he physically and verbally abused three American Muslims training to become US Marines at a facility in Parris Island in South Carolina state.

Felix picked out Muslim recruits for special abuse because of their Muslim faith. He degraded their religion and put them in industrial appliances, Lieutenant-Colonel John Norman, the prosecutor, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.

Witnesses said they heard Felix use the terms terrorist and ISIS when addressing the Muslim men.

A $100m civil lawsuit has also been filed against the Marine Corps and the American government by the family of one Muslim man who fell 12 metres to his death.

Defence lawyers said it was a suicide, while the family of Raheel Siddiqui allege the abuse he suffered led to him jumping.

Felix was also convicted of violating general orders, drunk and disorderly conduct, and making false statements.

Recruits Ameer Bourmeche and Rekan Hawez testified they were ordered into an industrial clothes dryer.

Navy Lieutenant Commander Daniel Bridges, a defence lawyer, argued Felix did not know the three men were Muslim.

Twenty Marine instructors, officers, and staff members have been investigated over allegations they abused Muslim recruits since 2015 with 13 facing punishment, the Post reported.
Martha ODonovan leaves maximum security prison in embassy vehicle, a day after she was granted bail in subversion case.

An American woman charged with subversion in Zimbabwe over allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe on Twitter has been released from prison on bail.

Witnesses saw Martha ODonovan, 25, emerge from the Chikurubi maximum security prison outside the capital, Harare, on Friday and leave in a US embassy vehicle.

Her lawyers did not speak to the news media, but ODonovan will return to court on Wednesday.

Judge Clement Phiri of the High Court said on Thursday that there was a patent absence of facts in the states case against ODonovan, who was arrested last week on accusations she insulted Mugabe, 93, in a Twitter post.

ODonovan is accused of calling Mugabe a selfish and sick man in a tweet that included an image of him with a catheter.

ODonovan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted for subversion. She also faces a charge of undermining the authority of or insulting the president, which carries up to a year in prison.

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She has denied the charges as baseless and malicious.

Judge Phiris ruling, which was made in her absence on Thursday, granted ODonovan $1,000 bail on the grounds that the state failed to exhibit the contents of the alleged tweets calling on people to protest against the government.

Her lawyer, Obey Shava of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a legal nongovernmental organisation, told Al Jazeera he was pleased with the court order.

I am very happy that justice has been done, Im glad that my client has been vindicated because we have always argued that she was a perfect candidate for bail, he said outside the court on Thursday.

ODonovan has spent at least three days in Chikurubi prison, which has gained notoriety among locals for its squalid conditions and frequent food shortages.

Farai Munroe, a local comedian also known as Comrade Fatso and cofounder of Magamba TV, told Al Jazeera that he was very pleased with the courts ruling.

We are all very ecstatic with the bail ruling, everyone at Magamba and everyone that has supported the process, he said.

I think the judge showed the state lacked a strong case, lacked evidence and we are ecstatic that step one has been achieved in this struggle to free Martha and that is that she has got bail.

Political satire creator

ODonovan, employed as a programme associate of Magamba TV, an online channel that describes itself as Zimbabwes leading creator of political satire, was arrested and taken into custody last week over allegations she published a tweet that described Mugabe as a goblin.

Charges of attempting to overthrow a constitutionally elected government were later added to her docket and upheld by the courts.

According to David McGuire, the public affairs officer of the US embassy in Zimbabwe, representatives from the consular service have maintained direct and daily contact with ODonovan.

She is reportedly in good health.

McGuire said while he was unwilling to speculate on the overall outcome of the case, the US embassy was encouraged by the bail ruling and was hopeful of a positive result in the end.

The US embassy is watching [this case] very closely, and we will stand by the process every step of the way, we are very hopeful for a positive outcome, he said in a telephone interview.

ODonovans arrest marks the first internet abuse case since the creation of a cybersecurity ministry in a cabinet reshuffle last month.

The Mugabe government says the ministry is designed to monitor cybersecurity and detect possible threats and breaches of future laws governing social media use.

ODonovan is expected to report to the police on a bi-weekly basis and submit her travel documents to the clerk of court until the trial, which is set to continue later this month, is over.

Tendai Marima contributed to this report. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @i_amten
Shia groups head accuses Saudi Arabia of trying to stir sectarian tensions in Lebanon by forcing Hariris resignation.

The leader of Lebanons Hezbollah has declared that the countrys prime minister is currently detained in Saudi Arabia and that his forced resignation is unconstitutional because it was done under pressure.

Speaking in Beirut on Friday, Hassan Nasrallah said he was sure that Saad Hariri was forced to resign as part of what he called Saudi Arabias policy of stoking sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

Hariri, who announced his resignation last week in a televised address from Riyadh, has yet to return to Lebanon.

Nasrallah said Hariri is being prevented by Saudi officials from returning to Lebanon, which is why we deem the resignation of Hariri illegal and invalid.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Saudi Arabia called the prime minister on (an) urgent matter without his aide or advisers, and was forced to tender his resignation, and to read the resignation statement written by them, Nasrallah said, as he accused Riyadh of blunt, unprecedented interference.

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We declare that the prime minister of Lebanon has not resigned, he said. Saad Hariri is our political opponent, but he is also our prime minister.

Nasrallah also said Lebanon had enjoyed unprecedented stability over the past year, and appealed for unity throughout the country.

He said US President Donald Trump must have known of the plans to force Hariris resignation.

Hariri is part of a unity government that also includes rival political factions such as those supported by Hezbollah.

Al Jazeeras Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said that there is widespread belief that Hariri is being held against his will, adding that even his own party members have called for his return to Lebanon.

So a lot of questions of his whereabouts and the well-being of the prime minister, and a lot of fear that the situation could explode, she said.

No to proxy conflicts

In a statement on Friday issued following Nasrallahs televised address, Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, cautioned against using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts.

He urged all parties both within Lebanon and outside to respect the integrity and independence of Lebanons legitimate national institutions.

The United States supports the stability of Lebanon and is opposed to any actions that could threaten that stability.

Earlier, Heather Nauert, state department spokesperson, said a US diplomat met Saad Hariri in Riyadh but refused to comment on where the meeting took place or to elaborate on Hariris status.

[The talks] were sensitive, private, diplomatic conversations, Nauert said on Thursday.

We have seen him. In terms of the conditions of him being held or the conversations between Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister Hariri, I would have to refer you to the government of Saudi Arabia and also to Mr Hariris office.





Nauert said Hariris resignation was an internal matter that we couldnt comment on.

Separately, Russias ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, threatened on Thursday to refer Hariris case to the UN Security Council if the ambiguity continues.

The issue of Hariris return to the country concerns the sovereign rights of Lebanon, Zasypkin said in an interview with Lebanese channel LBC.

Lebanese officials have said Hariri is likely to be under either house arrest or in temporary detention in Riyadh.

His resignation on November 4 came on the same day that dozens of Saudi princes, senior ministers, businessmen were arrested in a purge carried out by a new anti-corruption committee led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Also on Friday, Frances foreign ministry said it wanted Hariri to be free of his movements and fully able to play an essential role in his country.

As the minister said, we wish that Saad al-Hariri has all his freedom of movement and be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon, French deputy foreign ministry spokesman Alexandre Georgini said, referring to an earlier statement by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Georgini said Frances ambassador to Saudi Arabia had also visited Hariri at his residence.
Residents of central Pennsylvania are vowing to continue the fight against a new natural gas pipeline despite setbacks in court.

Residents of central Pennsylvania are vowing to continue the fight against a new natural gas pipeline despite setbacks in court.

A group of citizens fighting the construction of the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline had a small victory when they won an order to halt construction, but that was short-lived.

The natural gas pipeline project is a $3bn investment, which will see over 300km of new pipeline laid.

President Donald Trump has voiced his support for such projects despite growing controversy over the industry, but the citizens will continue fighting back, with more complaints filed in court and more acts of civil disobedience planned.

Al Jazeeras Kristen Saloomey reports from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Human rights activists are demanding Australia immediately resolve worsening conditions at the Manus Island prison camp.

Human rights activists are demanding Australia immediately resolve worsening conditions at the Manus Island prison camp.

Protesters have taken to the streets of Melbourne to demand that the Australian government move hundreds of refugees from the Manus Island camp to mainland Australia.

They are joined in this demand by human rights activists who are also calling on world leaders to pressure the Australian government, which has refused the relocation so far.

They said the camps closure 10 days ago has left refugees without fresh water, food or power.

Al Jazeeras Paul Chaderjian reports.
The government of the southern Indian state of Karnataka on Friday celebrated the 268th birth anniversary of 18th-century ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore, amid protests from Hindu nationalist organisations.

The state government, led by the Congress party, says Tipu Sultan is a freedom fighter who fought against the British colonial rulers, but the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition party in Karnataka, calls him a tyrant and anti-Hindu bigot.

The BJP and its affiliate organisations staged state-wide protests against the honouring of the controversial ruler that started three years ago by the state government.

But why are there protests against a ruler who died more than 200 years ago?

Honouring Indias first freedom fighter & the Tiger of Mysore for his bravery & sacrifice in fighting the British. Karnataka salutes his patriotism, courage & military excellence. #TipuJayanti pic.twitter.com/0x3ymK8yKd  CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) November 10, 2017

Indians are not divided over Tipu Sultan. Its only people motivated by a certain ideology and politics who want to create divisions, said Mridula Mukherjee, who taught history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, referring to right-wing forces.

Here was a man who tried his best to try and resist Western conquest, she told Al Jazeera.

Demonisation of Muslim rulers

The BJP and its ideological parent, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), claim Tipu was a fanatic who destroyed temples and forcibly converted Hindus to Islam during his 17 years of reign.

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Historians say this is part of the larger campaign run by Hindu groups who paint Muslim rulers as barbarians, acting harshly against their Hindu subjects. Roads named after Muslim kings from the medieval era have had their names changed, and the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been accused of pushing for rewriting of history books, to suit the Hindu nationalist agenda.

The BJP government in the state of Uttar Pradesh last month removed the famous Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the modern world, from the tourism brochure. Later, a BJP leader dubbed it a blot on Indias culture.

There are historical accounts of Tipu funding many temples and monasteries, but those accounts are not highlighted, while his acts against the Hindu community are often exaggerated.

All rulers of the pre-modern era and even in the modern era, when they went for conquest of another people, there was inevitable cruelty and brutality, so Tipu was not unique. Tipu was not an Ashoka or a Buddha. He was just like any other medieval ruler, Mukherjee said.

Tipu against Hindu culture

Rakesh Sinha, an ideologue of the RSS, admits Tipu Sultan was an Indian ruler with both positive and negative traits, but says he is against celebrations and iconisation of the controversial ruler.

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The most important thing for a ruler is inclusive social philosophy  this was missing from Tipus governance. His mission was the religious conversion of Hindus.

Tipu Sultan stood against the idea of Indian civilisation, against Hindu civilisation and culture. We can have a seminar on Tipu but not anniversary celebrations. These celebrations are part of iconisation of Tipu. He doesnt inspire posterity.

#TipuJayanti trended all day as people from both sides of the divide came out on social media to express their views.

Not one of these pseudo nationalists who are hating #TipuSultan know proper history. One thing is clear. This business of hate is purely right wings forte. Everyday BJP invents hate for somebody, something, sells hate, makes profit of hate. #TipuJayanti #BJPHatredKiDukaan  Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) November 10, 2017

Mani Shankar Aiyar, senior leader of the Congress Party and former federal minister, said the present ruling establishment (BJP) wants to promote a very business-oriented nationalism in place of the idea of India of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first prime minister.

Nehrus idea of India, he said, essentially meant anyone living in India is an Indian and that we dont allow the sins of their fathers to visit their children.

Indians are not divided over Tipu Sultan. It's only people motivated by a certain ideology and politics who want to create divisions by Mridula Mukherjee, ex-professor JNU

Aiyer said that those who want a Hindu Raj (rule) in a secular India keep trying to find examples in Muslim rulers of India of wrongs that they may have done, and then exaggerating them.

Tipu, also known as Tiger of Mysore for his bravery, was killed while fighting British forces in his capital, Seringapatam, in 1799. He is also called Indias first freedom fighter  a point the Karnataka government has highlighted.

Tipu is also credited with modernisation of the army, roads and irrigation system, and historians point out attempts are being made to show Tipus multi-layered personality from a narrow sectarian prism.

The legacy of Tipu Sultan is that he showed how there was great capacity among the society in these parts, at the end of the 18th century, to innovate, to modernise, Mukherjee said.

Zeenat Saberin reported from New Delhi
At the APEC summit in Da Nang, Trump will promote the vaguely defined concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam  A new policy for Asia that President Donald Trump is expected to bill at a summit in Vietnam will do little to assuage mounting concerns about US commitment to a region increasingly weary of his capricious and erratic diplomacy, analysts say.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, starting on Friday, Trump will promote the vaguely defined concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. Japan first floated this idea, tailored to push the United States to coalesce three other maritime democracies  Japan, Australia, and India  to contain a rising China.

In the words of American officials, this sales pitch is aimed at demonstrating the Trump administrations commitment to the Indo-Pacific region. It also seeks to deflect criticism on Trumps fixation with North Korea during his 12-day, five-nation Asia tour.

But still, it remains a tough sell to many.





The idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific under the Trump administration is the antithesis of most everything Trump has promoted, said Dennis C McCornac, an economics professor at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore. The only support for an open region is the flow of military equipment to those who seem to support efforts to counter North Korea and China, McCornac said.

Trump trying to convince others that he supports a free and open Indo-Pacific would require the same type of snake oil sales job that Trump used with his so-called university, his wall that Mexico will pay for as well as his other campaign promises that turned out to be completely false.

While Indo-Pacific could be considered another catchphrase to supplant former US president Barack Obamas pivot to Asia, Trump has used his America first policy to take a sledgehammer to the legacy built by his predecessor in the region. Chief among his moves is withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a mammoth US-led trade deal whose 12 members make up nearly 40 percent of global GDP.

Trumps immediate scrapping of the TPP did much to cast a lot of doubt on whether the US was going to lead a norms-based order in the Asia Pacific, said Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asia analyst at the National War College in Washington.

As Trumps America first has galvanised him and his administration into scrapping trade agreements, eschewing diplomacy and antagonizing allies, the Indo-Pacific policy is nothing but basically his insistence on rewriting bilateral trade agreements, and eschewing multilateral agreements, Abuza said.

After what Trump has done to almost every major agreement concluded by President Obama or his predecessors, what country in their right mind would trust the United States to live up to its commitment?

Trump had even planned to skip the East Asia Summit, a key gathering of Southeast Asian leaders in the Philippines on November 13. He only made a last-minute change to attend it apparently at the request of other leaders.

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But still, his initial decision to skip it probably did lasting damage, analysts say.

Trump signalled that major international summits and regional institutions are not important, Abuza said.

Hes only now going because aides had to explain to him the importance of showing up and the signal that it would send if he didnt. But it does not disguise his own antipathy, he said.

So if its an attempt to make the US look more reliable to friends and allies, its a weak one especially following his scrapping of the TPP.

A survey in March by the Iseas Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore that polled government officials, business representatives, academics, and journalists in Southeast Asia found about 75 percent of the respondents saw China, not the US, as the most influential player now on the international stage and into the next decade. Two-thirds of respondents also viewed the US less favourably than four months ago, according to the survey.

This is the context in which the Trump administration is closer to retreating from a region that China is salivating at marching on with its expansionism stratagem, analysts say.

China has already stepped up its economic and strategic initiatives to fill the perceived vacuum left by the Trump administration in the region, said Le Hong Hiep, a research fellow at the Iseas Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Beijings initiatives  such as the $900bn One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank  have been sold quite well to most regional countries. Meanwhile, China has continued to bolster economic largesse to many Asian nations  most of them in Southeast Asia  capitalising on their uncertainty about the Trump administrations intent.

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China has been the primary beneficiary of the United States withdrawal from the international order and institutions that it has created and nurtured since the end of World War II, Abuza said. We have handed much to China at a time when it has the cash in the political and diplomatic interests in asserting itself.

But at the end of the day, analysts say, history has shown that very little in terms of policy has ever come out of APEC summits. While the leaders have tried to present a sense of unity among the member countries, it is often more remembered for the native shirts the leaders show in the group photo.

In the past, however, the leader of the US has always presented himself as being presidential and in command of the facts about Asia, McCornac said.

Trumps seems to have little concern for educating himself about this region, which will only serve to enhance the lack of confidence in the US commitment to this region, he said.

It is in this context that Asia appears increasingly determined to forge ahead without American leadership.

There is an expression which goes better the devil you know than the devil you dont,' McCornac said.

Trumps impulsive and sometimes seemingly irrational way of governing is the devil you dont  and China is the devil you know.

Dien Luong is a freelance journalist based in Vietnam. Follow him on Twitter: @DienLuong85
The US has joined the UN and more than 20 other aid groups in appealing to Saudi Arabia to end its blockade in Yemen.

The US has joined the UN and more than 20 other aid groups in appealing to Saudi Arabia to end its blockade on Yemen.

Humanitarian groups have warned that over 20 million people are in need of urgent help as food and fuel prices skyrocket in Yemen as the Saudi-led blockade tightens.

They say mass starvation, on an unprecedented scale, is potentially just weeks away unless aid is allowed into the country.

Al Jazeeras Hannah Hoexter reports.
Ten days after Australia withdrew support for its prison camp in Papua New Guinea, detainees refuse to leave.

Ten days ago, Australia officially withdrew support for the prison camp it has maintained on Papua New Guineas Manus Island since 2012.

The camp is located on the site of a former naval facility. For the last five years, Australia has maintained a policy of detaining refugees intercepted at sea there and at a similar camp on Nauru, rather than allowing them to reach Australian soil.

But after Australia withdrew its support for the camp, control is going back to the PNG government.

Citing safety concerns, however, the approximately 600 people living there have refused to leave, despite the rapidly deteriorating conditions.

The refugees have been left without fresh water, food or power. Human rights activists are demanding Australia immediately address the worsening conditions.

With the situation worsening by the day, the PNG government is demanding a solution while Australia is denying responsibility. So, what is to be done?

Presenter: Laura Kyle

Guests:

Abdul Aziz Adam  Sudanese refugee on Manus Island

Kate Schuetze  Amnesty International

Ian Cook  Senior Lecturer, Murdoch University
We ask Hamid Karzai about calls for an ICC Afghan war crimes investigation, and debate how to cover climate change.

In this weeks UpFront, we speak to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai about alleged war crimes, the continuing US military presence in the country and plans to send even more troops.

Also on the show, we debate the best way to spur people into action about climate change, and whether we should constantly highlight or give credence to possible doomsday scenarios.

Headliner: Hamid Karzai on the US, ISIL and war crimes

As US President Donald Trump plans to send more troops to fight in the 16-year-long war in Afghanistan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor now calls for investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country.

In this challenging interview, Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan, says he welcomes the ICC investigation of war crimes, including those committed under his watch between 2004 and 2014.

Shes right to launch such an investigation, says Karzai, referring to ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Karzai also acknowledged that there were human rights violations during his government, and possibly under his watch. Definitely, there were violations by the Afghan security forces, by the US, and by others, he says.

When asked if he would cooperate with an investigation into his own potential complicity, he said, Absolutely. Welcome. I have been asking for this so that they come to Afghanistan and investigate as to what has happened in this country.



In this weeks Headliner, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai discusses the US strategy in Afghanistan, the Taliban and alleged human rights violations that may have taken place under his watch.

Arena: Climate change  are we all doomed?

This month, the US released an exhaustive scientific report on climate change, citing humans as the dominant cause of global warming.

So, should we still be optimistic about humans ability to combat climate change? And should we be worried about the possible doomsday scenarios that have been presented in the media? Or are these scenarios counter-productive?

David Wallace-Wells, the author of a controversial article titled The Uninhabitable Earth which paints a pessimistic doomsday scenario for planet Earth, believes people are not as worried as they should be about the grave consequences of climate change:

I think when you look at the public as a whole, its just very, very clear to me, and honestly, I dont see a counter-argument, that the public is not alarmed enough about what is possible and not motivated enough by that alarm to take political action, says Wallace-Wells, who is also a deputy editor at New York Magazine.

For Andrew Freedman, senior science editor at Mashable, we need a more level approach:

Is climate change fatalism a bigger problem than climate complacency? asks Freedman, who is also a former Science Writer at Climate Central. I think theyre both big problems. Neither one of them is necessarily a solution. I would prefer, like, climate change realism here.

In this weeks Arena, David Wallace-Wells and Andrew Freedman debate how to cover climate change in a way that motivates the public to action.

Follow UpFront on Twitter @AJUpFront and Facebook.
Two more arrests have been made in the UF Housing and Resident Education scandal now totaling more than $470,000 in alleged credit card fraud.

Azfar Mian, UFs former senior housing director, and Stina Schoneck, the former housing finance director, were arrested Wednesday night after UF auditors accused the pair of embezzling nearly half a million dollars using a fraudulent Campus USA Credit Union account, according to a University Police sworn complaint.

Mian, 41, was originally arrested Sept. 18 and subsequently fired after he was accused by UF auditors of spending more than $180,000 in university funds, mostly through his UF-issued credit card, since January 2016, according to Alligator archives.

Five other Housing officials, including Schoneck, 38, who worked under Mians supervision were placed on leave and suspected to be involved.

UFs Office of Internal Audit, whod been investigating Mian since April, found in September that he fraudulently furnished his home, paid his electric bill and bought miscellaneous goods, like technology and meals, with UF funds.

On Monday, auditors met with police and described how Mian and Schoneck both opened a Credit Union account in February 2016 titled UF IRHA, for Inter-Residence Hall Association, according to the complaint. The pair were the only signatories on the account.

Mian and Schoneck would deposit legitimate UF Housing checks and transfer funds from Housing student organizations into their account. Either one, or both, would physically go to the location and make cash withdrawals, usually thousands of dollars at a time, according to the complaint.

In March, Mian made 19 cash withdrawals from the account; totaling $61,000. According to the complaint, the pair made cash withdrawals totaling $470,000 since the account was created in February 2016.

Schoneck was fired Thursday and three other Housing officials  Jennifer Andrews, Mians executive assistant; Dirk Smith, a warehouse and stores specialist; and Curtis Harris, a Housing employee  were terminated in October, UF spokesperson Janine Sikes wrote in an email.

One of the formerly suspected employees Kevin Morgan, a Housing Information and Technology worker, was cleared and returned to work Sept. 28, according to archives.

Sikes said the university is taken back by recent events.

I think its numbing, Sikes said. To have them betray your trust is pretty devastating.

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Both were arrested on a charge of grand theft. Schoneck was released from the Alachua County Jail at 6:40 p.m. She was bonded out for $100,000. Mian remains in jail in lieu of a $500,000 bond, as of press time.

Schoneck

Mian
Home Affairs Director-General Mkuseli Apleni will present a progress report on the application process for the new Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) and announce the extension of the period for permit-applicants to finalise their applications, in person, at VFS offices. The DG will reflect also on the projects challenges, including alleviating the congestion that ZEP applicants []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...










English News Op-ed: China-US ties should be propelled with far-sighted horizon

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 10 Novembre 2017



Xi and Trump have kept close communication for quite some time, interacting through meetings, or through telephone conversations and letters. Trumps visit is an extension of the strategic communications of the two heads of state and can chart the course of long-term development of bilateral ties.

By Zhong Sheng from Peoples Daily US President Donald Trump began his state visit to China on Wednesday, with the world expecting it to bring positive signals for the development of bilateral relations and hopes that China-US cooperation will contribute to world stability and prosperity.



This visit, responding to an invitation of Chinas President Xi Jinping, is Chinas first state visit to follow the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress. It comes as the international community watches to see what changes it will bring to China-US relations as we enter an historic juncture of development.



Xi made its clear in his 19th CPC National Congress report that China will stay on the peaceful development path, continue its mutually beneficial opening-up strategy, have a convergence of interests with more countries, and coordinate and cooperate more with major countries.



This can serve as Chinas guiding design for its relationships with the world, and express the basic developmental philosophy of China-US ties.



The principle is that a China that strives for rejuvenation and continues to cooperate will provide new opportunities for both the US itself and China-US ties, but Xi also said that China will help to build a framework for major country relations through stability and balanced development.



Chinas rise to power differs from that of other great powers in history in that its cooperation-oriented approach is a reflection of diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. In other words, on its journey, it will never be influenced by the old zero-sum mentality or merely seek a stable transition of power.



Instead, it will work to build a new model of major-country relationship with the US, one that is conflict-free, non-confrontational, mutually respectful, with win-win cooperation to safeguard world stability and prosperity.



With greater national strength, China has been able to improve its cooperation and coordination with the US so that the two countries can now accomplish a lot and crack a lot of hard nuts, as evidenced by their joint effort to deal with the financial crisis.



China and the US have also maintained close cooperation in hot regional issues and global challenges through bilateral and multilateral methods.



When it comes to the issue of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), China and the US have a common interest in de-nuclearizing the peninsula and maintaining stability there. Both need to continue to look for a proper solution by respecting each others interests and keeping in close communications.



China is strongly committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula, to maintaining peace and stability there, and to resolving the issue through dialogue and consultations.



China will also continue its supply-side structural reform, opening wider to the outside world, applying efficient trade and investment policies, and relax market access controls.



These measures will provide a broader space for mutually-beneficial economic and trade cooperation between China and other countries, including the US and both history and the present have shown that economic and trade relations between the two countries are mutually beneficial, and such cooperation has had an immense effect on the two countries and their peoples.



According to a National Committee on US-China Relations and Rhodium Group report, Chinese enterprises now employ more than 140,000 people in the USs Rust Belt across the state of Ohio and China-US economic and trade cooperation has created 2.6 million jobs in the US, either directly or indirectly.



Some US media have reported that many big enterprises were competing to be included in the presidents delegation before his visit to China. This no doubt indicates the demand and confidence for further economic and trade cooperation with the Chinese.



The average American, no matter what his or her line of work, from fishermen in Maine, to oil and gas workers from Texas, to farmers from the Midwest, can now be a stakeholder in China-US relations. And the well-being of the people from both countries is affected by the proper management of disputes and closer cooperation.



Xi and Trump have kept close communication for quite some time, interacting through meetings, or through telephone conversations and letters. Trumps visit is an extension of the strategic communications of the two heads of state and can chart the course of long-term development of bilateral ties.



When faced with new development opportunities in China-US relations, along with the international expectations for increased cooperation between the two countries, China and the US need to be far-sighted, and need to accommodate all interests and concerns, properly manage disputes and contradictions, push for joint cooperation, and realize win-win results.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > China sees prosperous development of offshore wind power generation China speeds up efforts to expand, renovate expressways 'First-store economy' leads consumption upgrade Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News The 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Danang: Together Towards Prosperity and Harmonious Development

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 10 Novembre 2017



We believe that establishing effective cooperation to support innovation is the most important task we face in this dynamic era. As such, Russia has put forward a number of specific initiatives. These include unifying digital economy and trade rules, harmonising national technical standards, coordinating strategies for forming high-tech markets, and creating a uniform conceptual framework for the digital space. We have also shared with our partners our experience in providing e-services to the public. In addition, we suggest starting consultations within APEC on international information security and protection of computer software.

By Vladimir Putin from People's Daily The 25th anniversary APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting will take place in Danang very soon, on November 10 and 11.

We greatly value the APEC forum for the ample opportunities it affords all participants to engage in discussions and coordinate positions on a variety of economic, social, environmental, and cultural issues. Our countries strive to cooperate based on the principles of consensus and voluntary participation, mutual respect and willingness to compromise, regardless of the political situation. This is what APECs unique spirit of partnership is all about.

As a major Eurasian power with vast Far Eastern territories that boast significant potential, Russia has a stake in the successful future of the Asia-Pacific region, and in promoting sustainable and comprehensive growth throughout its entire territory. We believe that effective economic integration based on the principles of openness, mutual benefit and the universal rules of the World Trade Organisation is the primary means of achieving this goal.

We support the idea of forming an Asia-Pacific free trade area. We believe this is in our practical interest and represents an opportunity to strengthen our positions in the rapidly growing APR markets. I want to note that over the past five years, the share of APEC economies in Russia's foreign trade has increased from 23 to 31 percent, and from 17 to 24 percent in exports. And we have no intention of stopping there.

Of course, the large-scale project to create the APEC free trade area should be carried out with due account of the experience gained from implementing key integration formats in the Asia-Pacific region and Eurasia, including the Eurasian Economic Union, in which Russia cooperates with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Our union has been developing dynamically, and we are eager to build relations with all countries and associations that are interested in doing so. Vietnam, the host of this years Forum, was the first state to sign a free trade agreement with the EAEU. As a result, our trade grew significantly and became more diversified. Talks on a trade and economic cooperation agreement with China concluded a short while ago. Talks with Singapore have begun, and we are working on the possibility of signing a free trade agreement with ASEAN.

On a related note, I would like to mention our idea to create the Greater Eurasian Partnership. We suggested forming it on the basis of the Eurasian Economic Union and Chinas Belt and Road initiative. To reiterate, this is a flexible modern project open to other participants.

Comprehensive development of infrastructure, including transport, telecommunications and energy, will serve as the basis for effective integration. Today Russia is actively modernising its sea and air ports in the Russian Far East, developing transcontinental rail routes, and building new gas and oil pipelines. We are committed to implementing bilateral and multilateral infrastructure projects which will link our economies and markets. Among other projects, I am referring to the Energy Super Ring that unites Russia, China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, and the Sakhalin-Hokkaido transport link.

We pay special attention to integrating Russias Siberian and Far Eastern territories into the network of APR economic ties. These efforts include a whole range of measures to enhance the investment appeal of our regions, and to integrate Russian enterprises into international production chains.

For Russia, the development of our Far East is a national priority for the 21st century. We are talking about creating territories of advanced economic growth in that region, pursuing large-scale development of natural resources, and supporting advanced high-tech industries, as well as investing in human capital, education and healthcare, and forming competitive research centres.

We hope that our foreign partners, primarily from APEC economies, will play an active role in implementing these programmes and projects. All the more so, as foreign participants of the annual Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok already had a chance to gain confidence in the prospects and feasibility of our plans.

We have an equally serious approach to involving small and medium-sized businesses in APEC economic integration processes, and supporting female entrepreneurship and start-up companies run by young entrepreneurs. Of course, we attach special importance to strengthening our cultural ties and expanding our contacts in the sphere of science and education. Looking ahead, we will focus on forming a common APR education space, one of whose centres could be the Far Eastern Federal University.

We believe that establishing effective cooperation to support innovation is the most important task we face in this dynamic era. As such, Russia has put forward a number of specific initiatives. These include unifying digital economy and trade rules, harmonising national technical standards, coordinating strategies for forming high-tech markets, and creating a uniform conceptual framework for the digital space. We have also shared with our partners our experience in providing e-services to the public. In addition, we suggest starting consultations within APEC on international information security and protection of computer software.

Preventing and providing relief following natural disasters and man-made accidents, epidemics and pandemics is another challenge that requires a joint response by all APR partners. Of course, we need to tackle food security issues together and think about how to meet the region's rapidly growing demand for high-quality and healthy food. Russia is one of the worlds leaders in exports of grain, vegetable oils, fish, and a number of other foods. We expect to become the leading supplier of ecologically clean food to our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region. To do so, we are taking measures to increase agricultural output and improve productivity.

We intend to engage in substantive discussions of all these topics during the upcoming summit in Danang. I am confident that, acting together, we will find acceptable solutions to the challenge of supporting the steady, balanced, and harmonious growth of our shared region, and securing its prosperity. Russia is ready for such a collaborative effort.



Dans la meme rubrique : < > China sees prosperous development of offshore wind power generation China speeds up efforts to expand, renovate expressways 'First-store economy' leads consumption upgrade Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)
The press conference that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and NY Governor Andrew Cuomo held after the ISIS-directed mass murder by "Diversity Scratch-Off" winner Sayfullo Saipov was a master class in inculcating a gullible urban herd to helplessness, passivity, insane misattribution of danger, and un-American government dependence in response to murderous jihad.

De Blasio and Cuomo essentially said to ISIS: We request the honor of your presence in our state. To prove the sincerity of our invitation, we promise to conceal your identity and lie for you within minutes of your slaughtering us in the street.

There's a Southern saying for hypocrites like Bill de Blasio: he's slimier than a bowl of boiled okra. The mayor began with a phony request to be allowed "to be frank" and, with a mask-like expression, stated the obvious: "It was an act of terror." He used the word "terror" once, and never said "Islamic," "ISIS," "terrorist," "terrorism," or "war," but he employed the vague, minimizing terms "tragedy" and "loss" for the rest of his remarks. Cue the firm resolve face: "We know that this action was intended to break our spirit." No, Billy, your words are intended to break our spirit; Saipov intended the glory of killing as many infidels as possible.

De Blasio continued, "But we also know New Yorkers are strong. New Yorkers are resilient. Our spirit will never be moved by an act of violence, an act meant to intimidate us." Remaining unmoved when religious fanatics are slaughtering you is not resilience; it is mental illness. His face reset again as he regurgitated the cynical cliche about worthless watchfulness, termed vigilance. "Be vigilant, Live by 'If you see something, say something.'" This is the snake oil of security measures, because vigilance without profiling equals conditioned helplessness.

Under de Blasio's direction, and the demands of the vile Linda Sarsour, the informed, skilled vigilance of the NYPD was stopped, and the responsibility to say something was diffused among diversity-addled shleppers terrified of being labeled Islamophobic. In 2014, de Blasio shut down the Demographics Unit, which secretly surveilled places suspected of fostering weaponized Islamism. By "be vigilant," de Blasio means that New Yorkers should live in helpless trepidation everywhere, all the time. And if they focus attention on the relevant demographic, young Islamic males, then they are bigots.

When historians label the Obama administration, they should call it the Great Treason. The Great Treason has been a comprehensive assault on the sovereignty and safety of the United States. As the years pass, the doctrines of this era of anti-Americanism become more insupportable, evil, and blatantly insane. A central tenet of the Great Treason de Blasio and Cuomo artfully promote is that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. ISIS, no  ISIL, maybe, because ISIL is the justified retaking of the Levant from the interloper Jews.

A subtext in the denial of Islamic terrorism is that fiends like Saipov are "home-grown" or "lone wolves." There is no such thing as American homegrown Islamic terrorism. Homegrown ISIS is like American homegrown kangaroos. Islamic terrorism and kangaroos always come from overseas, which is why merit-based immigration is essential to our national defense  and not to keep the kangaroos out.

Cuomo also never uses the word "Islamic." He said, "The new terrorist tactic which they've called for publicly are these lone wolves who commit an act of terror." Who are they? The lone wolf meme of the Great Treason serves two purposes. It gratifies "blame America first" because all evil starts here. It also serves border elimination, because if terrorism is homegrown, it doesn't matter who comes in or from where.

In his haste to minimize Saipov's evil, Cuomo said, "This is all very preliminary. It's only been a couple of hours, but at this point, there's no evidence to suggest a wider plot or a wider scheme, but the actions of one individual who meant to cause pain, and harm and probably death[.]" Probably death? This is not a sane description of the incident. Furthermore, aren't the facts that Saipov wrote a statement of allegiance to ISIS and wanted an ISIS flag in his cell even subtle hints of a wider scheme?

Cuomo seized on one of the benefits of terrorism: a reason to strengthen the power of the police state over law-abiding citizens. "We will be vigilant. More police everywhere. You'll see them in airports. You'll see them in tunnels. It is not because there's any evidence of any ongoing threat; it is just out of vigilance and caution."

Cuomo then articulated the fundamental principle of the Great Treason: there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. He said, "And the truth is New York is an international symbol of freedom and democracy. That's what we are and we are proud of it. That also makes us a target for those people who oppose those concepts." You see, Saipov was involved in a political protest against Jeffersonian democracy, not in Islamic terrorism. That's because, according to the likes of de Blasio and Cuomo, there is no affirmative ideology of Islamic terrorism from the Quran or a mosque or ISIS, or even the dreadful shadow that may pass over the human heart, blocking out Light.

Cuomo concluded, "We've lived with this before, we've felt the pain before, we feel the pain today, but we go forward together, and we go forward stronger than ever." He closed with "Don't let them change us or deter us in any manner, shape, or form."

In other words, change nothing; do nothing. The golden invitation to the next Saipov still stands, the tenets of the Great Treason go unchallenged, and while the streets are still crimson with the blood of innocents, we are magically stronger because we are so resilient.
Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore is the latest famous guy to be accused of sexual assault. The Washington Post reported that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl, at a time when Moore was 32 years old.

Is this a hit piece to derail his candidacy, or is he truly a bad guy? The story will play out over the next few days, making the answer clearer. What's suspicious is the timing.

With choreography on par with Olympic synchronized swimming or figure skating, members of the GOP establishment are dancing in unison. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers would be jealous.

Hours after the Washington Post piece went viral, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell joined the dance, calling for Moore to withdraw from the Alabama Senate race "if these allegations are true." No pause. No circumspection. No waiting until the facts are in before rushing to judgment.

It's reminiscent of President Obama immediately concluding that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" after the Henry Gates incident or jumping on the "hands up, don't shoot" bandwagon before the facts were known.

McConnell's dance partner, Senator John McCain, was quick to the microphone, not even considering whether the allegations against Roy Moore were true, saying, "The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of."

It is just like when senators also wanted Clarence Thomas to step aside based on disturbing allegations that could not be substantiated.

Senator McCain, judge, jury and executioner. He and McConnell are moving faster on this than they ever have on a piece of legislation. Too bad they couldn't move even half as quickly on tax cuts or Obamacare repeal.

Other senators piled on, echoing McConnell's view that Moore should step down if the allegations are true. NeverTrump National Review's David French jumped in as well, cautioning, "Conservatives, be careful. Don't dismiss the claims."

Such coordination and synchrony. It's almost as if this was planned ahead of time, with all the key players given advanced notice so they would have their statements ready to go within hours of the story breaking. It's been faster than the condemnation of Harvey Weinstein. Or Anthony Weiner.

What could be the motivation? Moore was not the nominee of choice of the GOP establishment. Instead, McConnell and the establishment favored his primary opponent, Senator Luther Strange. Voters felt otherwise, sending the establishment candidate packing.

That's what voters did to Representative Eric Cantor, too, a few years ago  and now, at least through polls, to Senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. These are the same voters who elected Donald Trump over establishment darlings Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

What good is Senator McConnell as majority leader if he can't keep his donors and lobbyists happy? What if he allows the voters to gain the upper hand over the NeverTrump crowd, who claim to know better than the voters?

It's bad enough that Trump was elected, and that he remains in office despite the going-nowhere Russian collusion hoax that was meant to cripple his presidency  a hoax John McCain interestingly played a part in facilitating.

McConnell clearly doesn't want Roy Moore in the Senate. Is it a stretch to believe that McConnell, or someone on his behalf, hired an opposition research firm to dig up dirt on Moore? Just as the GOP establishment hired Fusion GPS to look for scandal on then-candidate Donald Trump?

So what if it throws the Alabama Senate seat election into chaos? The GOP establishment would rather lose the seat to a Democrat than see it won by an anti-establishment candidate, even if of their own party. It's the same reason so many of them opposed Trump  and do to this day.

Some, like George H.W. Bush, actually, voted for Hillary Clinton instead. With such hatred toward Trump and what he represents, and his supporters and voters, it makes perfect sense that the Republican establishment would eagerly destroy Roy Moore before he could ever get to the U.S. Senate.

If Moore is guilty as charged, then he should slink off and disappear. But give the man his due, and don't pronounce him guilty based on a Washington Post story. After all, how many of their previous stories turned out to be false? Plenty.

But the speed and choreography of the responses from McConnell, McCain, and other NeverTrumps within hours of the story's release suggest that this was a planned and coordinated attack. Too bad the Senate can't approach legislation with the same alacrity and enthusiasm.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS, is a Denver-based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
For Special Counsel Robert Mueller's next headline, the target is former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The New York Post reports:

Special counsel Robert Mueller is probing an alleged plot by former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn to return a Muslim cleric living in the US to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, according to a report. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., were allegedly to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, sources with knowledge of discussions Flynn had with Turkish officials told the Wall Street Journal.

If the allegation is true  that Flynn actually plotted to sell a dissident down the river in exchange for a $15-million cash payment to his own bank account  it's obvious he should be indicted. What an amazingly venal and barbaric crime, if true. Of course, this is just leaks, not a court of law, and the facts may turn out to be different from the allegations in the shocking report.

All the same, it does raise questions about the broader picture and the mandate of the office of the special counsel.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was originally appointed to his office last May to uncover evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the U.S. election in 2016. Leftists alone were hired on his team, so it was obvious that only the Trump administration would be targeted, not any broader picture of collusion, whatever the party.

That said, he couldn't find any collusion, at least nothing he could bring charges on, and now his mandate has wandered to anything and everything bad any associate of Trump may have done. We had decades-old corrupt-appearing acts in the case of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was Mueller's first headline, and now we have Turkey collusion in the case of Michael Flynn as Mueller's second.

What Mueller is doing is what every special counsel and special prosecutor has done  let the investigation run like a rabbit until someone gets bagged. The bagging is what justifies the investigation. It was the same in the case of the Ken Starr investigation, which targeted Clinton corruption in the case of Whitewater but ended up getting Bill Clinton busted for the Lewinsky affair. While it's right that wrongdoing be busted, one wonders why it can't be done the normal way, through normal law enforcement channels, and why a special counsel's mandate can't be more precisely defined.

It also raises issues of fairness, given that no special counsel was appointed during the Obama administration even with scandals as diverse as the Fast and Furious gunrunning, the Benghazi talking points, the Benghazi bust of the filmmaker, the tarmac meeting between U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, the fake email addresses at the EPA, the Hillary Clinton unauthorized private server, the EPA destruction of the Animas river on Indian lands, the IRS targeting of political dissidents, the sale of 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia, and others. These weren't policy differences; these were self-serving bad acts that needed investigation.

As Donald Trump has said, it's a witch hunt. It's a quest to get someone indicted for anything he can be indicted for. It makes one wonder if all new presidential administrations should start out this way  get a special counsel to hose all the wrongdoing in everyone's long-ago, and then see how things go.

Because although it seems right to investigate and indict in the case of Flynn, it's not the government we asked for. The special counsel's office ought to be re-engineered.
A radioactive cloud termed "harmless" by French nuclear authorities that moved across Europe in late September and October likely originated in Russia or Kazakhstan.

The makeup of the cloud suggests that it was not from a nuclear power plant accident.

Independent:

The potential nuclear accident that launched the cloud most likely took place between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains in the last week of September, IRSN said. Ruthenium-106 particles were detected by several countries in concentrations not harmful to human health, according to the agency, but disappeared from France in mid-October. Jean-Marc Peres, IRSN's director, told Reuters: "Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory," adding that his team had not yet contacted Kazakh authorities. Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection said an accident at a nuclear power plant could be "ruled out" due to the type of particle detected. It said: "Ruthenium-106 is used as a radiation source in cancer therapy for the treatment of ocular tumours. Ruthenium can also occur during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel elements."

It would be a serious violation of international agreements if any country refused to report the release of any nuclear material into the atmosphere. That the nation responsible has remained silent suggests that the accident occurred at a military facility. It could also be a cover-up by the operators of the facility, who don't want the blame.

Whoever is at fault is acting irresponsibly. While the radioactive cloud is said to pose no immediate threat to human health, those in close proximity to the accident would have been evacuated:

The release of nuclear material was of a scale that, had it occurred in France, would have required the evacuation of or sheltering of people within "several kilometres" of the origin point, IRSN said.

So it wasn't "harmless" for those in the immediate vicinity of the accident. It raises the question: If the country at fault isn't telling the international community about the accident, did it inform local authorities and evacuate its own citizens to keep them safe?
Saudi Arabia became the third Gulf state in the last few days to recommend that its nationals leave Lebanon. Previously, Bahrain and Qatar issued similar cautions.

Three days ago, Saudi Arabia said Lebanon had "declared war" on the kingdom. The meaning of this statement was unclear, given that Lebanon and the Saudis do not share a border. But the Saudis say Hezb'allah, who is running Lebanon, has attacked Saudi interests. The Saudis may be referring to the forced resignation of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, who cited threats against his life by Hezb'allah.

Rumors are running wild in Saudi Arabia of a bloodless coup underway that would replace King Salman with his son, Mohammed bin-Salman. In recent days, the younger Salman has arrested more than 200 high-ranking government officials and clerics, ostensibly on charges of "corruption." But the arrests could very well be a prelude to a change at the top.

Zero Hedge reports that the media outlet Al-Arabiya tweeted of the imminent change of leadership but later deleted it. With little hard information, I guess we're just going to have to wait for events to develop.

Is war brewing between the Saudis (and perhaps other Gulf states) and Hezb'allah? It's possible but not likely. Any military force starting in Saudi Arabia that wishes to engage Lebanon would have to cross the entire width of Jordan's territory. The last thing the government of Jordan wants is to become embroiled in a Sunni-Shiite conflict between the Gulf states and Hezb'allah. Jordan is not likely to give permission.

The travel warning to Lebanon may be more related to Hezb'allah's nasty practice of seizing foreign nationals than any war scare. If the terrorists believe that the Saudis may go to war, seizing a couple of Saudi hostages would be expected.

The Saudis have an advanced air force that could attack Hezb'allah positions in Lebanon's Bekka Valley. That's where the terrorists' command and control headquarters are, as well as training facilities. The kingdom could certainly strike a blow at Hezb'allah, but to what end is unclear.

Crown Prince Salman is clearly in charge of foreign policy, regardless of whether he assumes the title of king. Whatever Saudi intentions are toward Hezb'allah and its Iranian patrons, it appears that the kingdom feels that a Hezb'allah coup in Lebanon would represent an existential threat to the regime.

For Lebanon's part, it is accusing Saudi Arabia of holding Prime Minister Hariri against his will. Some government sources have also claimed that the Saudis ordered Hariri to resign and are holding him under house arrest. Any of this is possible. The Saudis were reportedly unhappy with Hariri, who they believe had demonstrated too much flexibility in dealing with Hezb'allah and other pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon. But Hariri is close personal friends with the crown prince and many in the royal family. It's far more likely that Hariri is lying low as events play out across the Middle East.

Is Saudi Arabia ready to confront Iran and Hezb'allah? If King Salman abdicates in favor of the crown prince, you might expect big changes on the way. The Saudis see themselves at a crossroads domestically and in the region. The crown prince has shown he is dead serious about reform. It is he who is prosecuting the war against the Houthis and Iran in Yemen. It is he who has made small moves to loosen the grip of the fundamentalist Wahhabi clergy who dominate in Saudi Arabia. And it is he who is trying to bring Saudi Arabia into the 21st century.

Salman's biggest challenge is how to confront Iran without blowing up the Middle East. He may have opted to confront Hezb'allah, Iran's major proxy in the region, rather than Iran directly. Whether that will deter Iranian aggression in the region is unknown.
In December 2014, President Obama decided to change our approach toward Cuba. He set in motion the events that led to the opening of a U.S. embassy in Havana.

Like everything Obama, it was done unilaterally, by going around Congress on the embargo in place since the 1960s. To make a long story short, the U.S. embargo imposed certain guidelines to re-establish relations in Cuba. The Helms-Burton law made it even more specific after Cuba shot down U.S. citizens in 1996.

This week, President Trump used his pen to erase Obama's pen. This is CNBC:

Americans wanting to visit Cuba will have to go as part of organized tour groups run by U.S. companies. A representative of the sponsoring group must accompany the travelers. The Treasury Department is exempting trips booked before Trump announced his Cuba policy on June 16. The State Department is also publishing a list of dozens of hotels, shops and other businesses that it says are linked to Cuba's military. Americans are banned from doing business with them  making travel even more complicated.

Well done.

President Obama's idea was to flood the island with U.S. visitors and bet that such encounters would bring about change.

In theory, it may work. In Castro's Cuba, it didn't, because everything is owned by the state, or what is commonly known as Castro Inc.

If a U.S. tourist goes to Cuba, he stays in a state hotel, tours the island in a state bus, eats at a state restaurant, and all of this puts money in Castro Inc. rather than the Cuban economy.

In sum, tourism to Cuba has turned into a subsidy of the Castro regime and not much more.

Communism in Cuba destroyed the healthy pre-Castro economy that saw thousands of Cubans own businesses, such as hotels, restaurants, tour bus companies, and others.

My own family is an example of that. My father was a banker in a Cuban-owned bank. My uncles were successful professionals. We had several other small business-owners in our large family. There is no such thing in Cuba today  another reason why the economy cannot produce anything or sustain itself without somebody bailing out the regime.

So enforce the embargo. The law offers Cuba a path to having normal relations with the U.S.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
A brilliant and hard-hitting analysis and commentary that went deep into the subject of what's happening politically in this country in the wake of Tuesday's election results was offered by Tucker Carlson halfway into his Fox News program (8 P.M. E.T.) Wednesday evening.

The takeaway from the three major contests in Tuesday's state and local elections was variously interpreted, depending on the ideology of the analyst. It was either the beginning of the end for President Trump and the Republicans  a predictor of a coming "blue wave" Republican rout in 2018, according to Donna Brazile  or a potential anomaly that does not reflect the true mood of the larger anti-establishment electorate that resulted in President Trump's victory one year ago.

The fact is that the Democrats enjoyed significant built-in advantages in the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey and the New York City mayoral contest that pretty much assured their victories by overwhelming margins. In Carlson's opinion, the Dems were also aided in Virginia by stooping to an ominous new low point.



Tucker Carlson delivers his analysis, Fox News, Nov. 8, 2017.

Courtesy of Fox News, here is an internal transcript of Carlson's commentary. A video of the three-and-a-half-minute segment, titled "Dems embraced dark side of politics to win Virginia," can be watched here.

TUCKER CARLSON: Last night's elections were pretty awful for Republicans. Bill de Blasio, who is probably the least impressive mayor in the United States, easily won another term in New York City. Democrats took the New Jersey governor's mansion installing yet another Goldman Sachs alum in a position of political power. In Washington State, Democrats won the Senate and with it, total control of state government. But Republicans have their very worst night in Virginia. Ralph Northam beat former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie by almost nine points. That is three points more than Hillary Clinton's performance in Virginia last fall, it is almost seven points ahead of Governor Terry McAuliffe's win four years ago in Virginia. Yesterday morning, to put it in perspective, Republicans had two-thirds of Virginia's House of Delegates. Now, depending on how a few races shake out, Democrats could have a majority. It was a rout. How did it happen? Well, Donald Trump is unpopular in Virginia, and that's definitely part of the reason, but it's not the whole story. Democrats won after embracing the dark side of American politics, exploiting racial fears and deepening tribal divisions. In real life, Ed Gillespie was a pro-immigration moderate. By the end of the race, Democrats and their reliable allies in the press were dismissing him as a White supremacist. Northam's allies ran the single ugliest political ad in living memory. It charged that Republicans want to hunt down and murder nonwhite children. The ad didn't make a political argument, it didn't take a position on taxes, or crime, or the environment, or schools, or anything that might make the state or the country a better place. It's only purpose was to terrify and divide. This is the politics of racial hatred. Vote for me because the other guy wants to murder your kids. Our opponent isn't misguided, he's evil. There is no defending an ad like that, but Democrats did it anyway. In a normal party, someone with perceived moral authority would have stepped forward to denounce the ad. Barack Obama, maybe or Bill and Hillary Clinton, but all of them were silent, and allowed the race baiting to continue in Virginia, and it did. This is an ominous development in American politics, precisely because it worked so well. Democrats across the country inevitably will imitate what just happened in Virginia and they will probably win a bunch of races as a result. You would think they would care about the consequences of sowing racial division in an already racially divided country, but they care about winning more. Northam's victory tells you a lot about the Democrat strategy going forward. The party has all but stopped making rational arguments or even trying to win swing voters over to its positions. That is time-consuming, it requires compromise. It's much easier to change the composition of the voter base. More than 50 years after Ted Kennedy's immigration act, it's no longer even necessary for Democrats to win native-born, middle-class Americans who work in the private sector, so they stop trying. Virginia has transformed politically because it has been transformed demographically. For example, in 1970, one percent of that state was born outside the United States. Today that number is 12 percent. Twelve percent of Virginia is foreign-born. That has made all the difference. So, if you are wondering why the idea of national borders is suddenly so unpopular among Democratic officeholders, if you're wondering why the deadly plague of opiate addiction in Middle America causes barely a stir in Washington, now you know the answer. They are not their base anymore, they've replaced you.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran reporter and analyst of news on national politics, media, and popular culture. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.
The office of the president of the University of California was caught red-handed, rigging a state audit of its performance, and outrageously, President Janet Napolitano will keep her job. Instead, two fall guys who worked for her are taking the hit, "resigning" and "stepping down" (not fired) for this clear firing offense.

(For those who have never worked in a bureaucracy, rigging an audit is committing fraud on your employer. Any organization that retains such a fraudster is failing to exercise normal levels of prudence to prevent future fraud and would therefore be legally liable any offenses subsequently committed by the fraudster.)

Don't allow yourself to blinded by ivy when thinking about the gang that pulled off this caper. Napolitano works on the top floor of a Class A office building in downtown Oakland...



Photo credit.

...but eariler this year signed a lease on 130,000 square feet in a new, more stylish tower to be built now that U.C. is the anchor tenant.



Rendering courtesy of SKS.

All of this space  and the bureaucrats working in it  is overhead, in addition to the layers and layers of deans, outreach officers, and diversity bureaucrats on each and every campus.

When you are rigging the measurement of a bureaucratic organization of this size, it is a big deal.

The AP reports:

An executive who resigned from the University of California president's office wrote emails that directed UC campuses to reveal and sometimes change responses to a confidential state auditor's survey of the office, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A second executive who stepped down this week was the other executive's boss and was copied in on many of the emails, the newspaper reported Thursday. UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein told The Associated Press that Seth Grossman, chief of staff to UC President Janet Napolitano, and Bernie Jones, his deputy, "resigned to pursue other opportunities on the East Coast." Neither was forced out, Klein told the Chronicle.

Officially, nobody is being punished by losing a job. These job losses were "voluntary."

Even worse, the taxpayers of California, who own the university for which Janet Napolitano works, are being played for suckers. We are being asked to believe that the chief of staff and his deputy acted without any direction from their boss, keeping her in the dark while corrupting the very mechanism intended to measure her performance. Despite emails indicating communications on the subject.

The rigging was serious and caused an entire audit to be thrown out. That alone imposes a cost (government audits don't come cheap when you figure out the per diem cost of the bureaucrats!) that should rise to the level of felony fraud. Napolitano's pro forma apology is a classic example of bureaucratic evasion:

At a legislative hearing to review the audit findings, Napolitano acknowledged that she and her staff communicated with campus leaders about a survey meant to independently assess the value of her office's operations. "While we believe we did things appropriately, it is clear in retrospect that we could have handled this better," she said. "I am sorry that we did it this way, because it has created the wrong impression and detracted from the important fact that we accept the recommendations in the audit report."

As I wrote at the time, "she didn't just communicate  her people got advance copies of the responses to the auditors' questions and then demanded and got changes."

Auditor Elaine Howle has asserted that the UC Office of the President interfered with her work by reviewing surveys sent independently to campus leaders and requesting changes that reflected more positively on its operations before they were submitted. "In my 17 years as state auditor, we have never had a situation like this," she said Tuesday.

The case against Napolitano is clear. Emails "indicate that Napolitano was briefed on the reviews of campus survey responses." And common sense tells us that stooges of a politically prominent boss don't operate independently. Napolitano is a sufficiently skilled weasel that no direct orders can be found, in all likelihood. But she wouldn't even have had to sigh, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome audit?" for the message to be conveyed. If the culture of the Office of the President of the University of California had not permitted the idea of rigging an audit to be even discussed, then the it would not have happened. We are talking about a boss and her two subordinates at the top of a massive organization.

As a result, a $30-billion-a year taxpayer-owned institution is in the hands of a boss who has learned that she can escape accountability for misdeeds and let the buck stop with fall guys.

What could possibly go wrong?
In a concealed room beneath the New Sacristy of the San Lorenzo Basilica in Florence, Italy, the great Italian sculptor and architect Michelangelo once went into hiding. He was fifty five at that time.

Michelangelo had enjoyed the patronage of the Medici family, which lorded over Florence in the early 16th century, for much of his life. But relations turned sour when the Medici were thrown out of power and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved city which ousted the Medici in 1527. The republic, however, was short-lived. The Medici were restored to power in 1530, and at once the young Alessandro Medici, who became the first Duke of Florence, began baying for Michelangelos blood for betraying the family.

Michelangelo eventually fled the city for Rome, but for short period of time, he remained holed up in a secret chamber under the still unfinished Medici Chapels that he was designing to serve as the burial place of the Medici family. Michelangelo passed his time by doodling on the walls of his hiding room with a piece of charcoal. There is a self-portrait, a life-size figure of Christ rising from dead, and numerous other sketches experts believe are copies of figures the artist had painted earlier on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

"I hid in a tiny cell," Michelangelo wrote, "entombed like the dead Medici above, though hiding from a live one. To forget my fears, I fill the walls with drawings."

The room was discovered only in 1976 when Dal Poggetto, the then director of the Medici Chapels museum, was searching for a new way for tourists to exit, leading him and his team to discover a trapdoor hidden beneath a wardrobe. The room is located below the trapdoor and was once used to store coal. Poggetto believes Michelangelo hid there for about two months.

This room today is closed to the public to protect the artwork.

Photo credit: www.thehistoryblog.com

Photo credit: Nat Geo

Photo credit: Nat Geo

Photo credit: Nat Geo

Photo credit: Nat Geo

Sources: Wikipedia / Bbeyondtheyalladog / www.florentine-society.ru / Nat Geo
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If youve been to an Angelo State theatre production in the past two years, chances are Julia McDaniel had a hand in it.

Julia McDaniel A native of Seagraves, McDaniel originally came to ASU for the pre-dentistry program, but she never got her theatre hobby out of her system.

I took a couple of biology and chemistry classes, she explained, and I did well in them, but I didnt enjoy it. I was still involved in the productions on campus and was like, dentistry isnt what I want to do. Theatre is really what Im good at and what I enjoy doing.

A member of the ASU Honors Program and now a double major in theatre and psychology, McDaniel combines both majors while working on ASU productions.

Theatre is definitely my main focus, she said. Ive been doing theatre for a long time, but I had to take a couple of psychology classes for my degree plan, and I just really enjoyed it.

Im on the technical side (of theatre), McDaniel continued, I stage manage and do lighting design. I feel like the psychology stuff has helped me become a better stage manager because Im more understanding of where people are coming from and the different personalities that I meet and have to manage.

And all of her hard work has paid off. McDaniel spent this summer interning for New York Stage and Film in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. She was one of only 20 interns for the company chosen from schools throughout the U.S.

McDaniels Internship in Photos













Its their Powerhouse Theatre season, McDaniel said. The purpose of my internship was basically to help new writers workshop what theyve written. We had a lot of brand news plays, but we had a few that were still in the writing stage, so they did readings, and some were able to stage full productions.

My part in that was both in production management and general management, she continued. Basically, making sure everything gets done on time and everybody meets their budgets. There was a lot of tracking of receipts and budget. We also dealt with contracts with the actors and designers.

But it wasnt all busywork. McDaniel also got to see all of the shows that came through the company and meet several celebrities.

After every opening, wed have what is called a celebration, she said, which is basically a big party with all the interns, staff, actors, designers and directors. I got to talk to Uzo Aduba and Dascha Polanco from Orange is the New Black. It was really cool to meet all of these people and have a good time.

I felt like I got a more well-rounded experience at ASU, as opposed to a bigger school where I may not have the opportunities Ive had here. Julia McDaniel

Plus, with Poughkeepsie just a two-hour train ride from New York City, McDaniel was able to spend an afternoon in the Big Apple.

I got to go into the city once and see Avenue Q, which was amazing, she said. Then we ate outside of the public library in a little cafe, so that was cool.

Now back at ASU, McDaniel has her sights set on being the stage manager for ASUs upcoming holiday dinner theatre production, My Fair Lady, graduation in May 2018, and a bright future.

My end goal is to open a theatre company, she said. My right now goal is to work professionally as a stage manager for a few years, and then maybe go to grad school. I want to work my way up.

And while shes always known it, McDaniel is quick to acknowledge all the opportunities ASU has provided her, especially after interacting with the other interns over the summer.

I enjoyed working with other interns a lot, she said. It was really nice to make connections with people that I knew were going to continue on this career path. A lot of them were from large schools, like Yale and NYU, and others were from art schools. It was really cool to learn what theyre studying and compare that to what I learn here.

A couple of times it did make me think, Wow, why didnt I go there, she continued. But then they talked about it more, and I felt like I got a more well-rounded experience at ASU, as opposed to a bigger school where I may not have the opportunities Ive had here.
(ANSA) - Manila, November 10 - Two Filipino army commanders connived in the murder of Italian missionary Father Fausto Tentorio on Mindanao on October 17, 2011, state prosecutor Peter Ong says. Ong has cited a dozen suspects in the murder including government militia and the two commanders.

At the time of the murder, two civilians were accused. In December 2011 authorities in the Philippines arrested a man suspected of killing Tentorio in an ambush outside his parish church in the southern part of the country.

Jimmy Ato was in custody for allegedly gunning down Father Tentorio, 59, as he left the church in Arakan in the province of Cotabato in October, Justice Minister Leila de Lima said.

As police apprehended Ato, his brother and suspected accomplice Robert fired at federal agents and eluded arrest.

The brother is wanted for allegedly driving the getaway motorcycle in the killing of the priest, which de Lima told local press was possibly motivated by "local politics" in the restive region.

Ato was also wanted in a separate case of homicide and arson, the justice minister said.

Tentorio, who came from the northern Italian town of Lecco, had been a missionary in the Philippines for more than 30 years and was leaving church after morning mass to attend a clergy meeting in Kidapawan when he was shot.

"He worked in the area which is full of marginalised people, indigenous and Muslims. He was much loved," local bishop Romolo de la Cruz told ANSA.

"In 2003 he escaped an attempt on his life. For more than 30 years he did magnificent work there, he was loved by everyone".

Tentorio was the third priest from PIME to be murdered in Mindanao.

Father Tullio Favalli was killed by a paramilitary group in April 1985 in the same area of Kidapawan while Father Salvador Carzedda was gunned down in Zamboanga City in March 1992 by two men on a motorcycle.

Two other Italian priests, Luciano Benedetti and Giancarlo Bossi, were kidnapped in Mindanao and later released.

Tentorio, who was known as 'Father Pops', arrived in the Philippines in 1978 and was first assigned to Ayala, in the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, for two years.

He was assigned to the Diocese of Kidapawan in 1980 and was a mission administrator in the parish of Columbio in Sultan Kudarat, a parish that includes Muslims and indigenous people.


ROME - Nearly 400,000 children in Yemen are at risk of death from severe acute malnutrition, UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake has said. "The recent closure of all ports and airports is making an already catastrophic situation even worse," Lake said in a statement on Thursday.

"To potentially add tens of thousands more children to this toll - tens of thousands more personal catastrophes for children and grieving parents - is simply inhuman," he added.

"Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, called on all parties to the conflict to provide safe, rapid, unhindered humanitarian access to people in need, through all ports and airports, including Hudaydah port and Sana'a airport," Lake continued. "Children are not responsible for the conflict and carnage created by the adults. But they are the first victims. We must ask all the parties: What kind of Yemen do the ultimate victors expect to gain as they destroy it?".


Forcadell pays bail and leaves Madrid prison

(ANSAmed) - Rome, November 10 - The president of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell has left prison in Madrid after paying the 150,000 bail sum imposed by the supreme court of Thursday, El Pais reports. The other four members of the president's office are at liberty and have been given a week to pay bail of 125,000 euros.



(ANSAmed).




Italian hospital in Cairo gets a boost New operating theatres, outpatient clinic for excellence

(by Rodolfo Calo) (ANSAmed) - CAIRO, NOVEMBER 10 - The 300-bed Italian Umberto I hospital in Cairo is set to boost its services with new operating theatres, an outpatient clinic and more bed spaces.



The 1.8 million euro revamp will involve a radical overhaul of the four existing operating theatres and the creation of two more, according to Eugenio Benedetti Gaglio, great grandson of the hospital's founder Empedocle Gaglio and president of the Societa Italiana di Beneficenza (SIB) that owns it. The plans will be presented at the Egyptian embassy in Rome on January 30 as part of celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gaglio, who established the hospital in 1903. "The initiative is awaiting sponsorship," the Sicilian philanthropist and Knight Grand Cross said.



The hospital has already used the sponsorship formula several times in the past: in 2008 to purchase 16 post-operative recovery units; in 2011 to purchase a birth table and 12 incubators for newborn babies for the gynaecological unit; and in 2013 to purchase a new generation CT scanner, according to vice president Anna Maria Benedetti.



Four Rome Rotary Clubs were among the benefactors, she told ANSAmed. In Egypt charity initiatives of this nature have an extremely positive return in terms of reputation with ministerial authorities. Meanwhile, a new two-storey outpatient department is due to be completed by January to replace the old one, which will be used to create new bed space. The expansion comes as similar structures in other Middle Eastern cities such as Aleppo and Damascus but also in the stable Jordanian capital Amman have closed.



Umberto I funds itself through private patients, but it also performs a social function by offering discounts of up to 50% for the less well off. In addition, it provides treatment for approximately 80 destitute Italian families with dual nationality and to Italian tourists who are unable to meet the cost of emergency transporation to Italy. SIB always ensures leverage to facilitatereturnon investment, for example by putting down a deposit on the purchase of equipment in installments. (ANSAmed).




Netanyahu questioned for fifth time by police Israeli premier denies any wrongdoing

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 10 - Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu was questioned by police for the fifth time on Thursday evening in connection with two separate corruption probes. "We confirm that the prime minister was questioned for four hours at his residence in Jerusalem as part of the investigations being carried out by the anti-corruption unit," the police said in a statement. Netanyahu is suspected of accepting gifts and favours from wealthy businessmen allegedly in return for advancing their interests - allegations that he has always denied.



"There won't be anything because there wasn't anything," he wrote on Twitter after Thursday's questioning. (ANSAmed).




ISTANBUl - Turkish police on Friday carried out a new operation against ISIS cells in the country after arresting over 150 people on Thursday in the capital Ankara. Friday's raid led to the arrest in Istanbul of 82 alleged foreign fighters with experience in jihadi conflict zones. Investigators say the suspects intended to travel to Syria shortly. Also on Friday 11 alleged ISIS affiliates from Syria were arrested in a separate operation in Adana, southern Turkey.
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 10 - These are the main events scheduled for today in the Euro-Mediterranean area: RIYADH - Meeting of exiled Syrian opposition groups TUNIS - Cite des sciences, 'Campus Italia', first event to promote the Italian university system.



ROME - Rospigliosi palace, presentation of the Mediterranean market, an exhibit on Mediterranean food products. (ANSAmed).




GENEVA - US Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, will be in Paris on Friday for meetings with top French officials as part of consultations in view of the eighth round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva on November 28.

In this context, de Mistura and his assistants are contacting high-level regional, European, Russian and American officials.

De Mistura's deputy Ramzy completed talks in Riyadh on Thursday and the UN envoy is expected to meet a Russian delegation in Geneva at the start of next week. The intra-Syrian talks are aiming to find a negotiated political solution to the conflict in Syria under the auspices of the UN. The last round of talks ended on July 14 without making any progress of note.


MADRID - Tourism in southern Europe and the Mediterranean region rose by 12% between January and August compared to the same period last year. Destinations in the Middle East also showed a 5% rise in the fisrt eight months of 2017, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) based in Madrid. On a global level, 901 million international tourists were recorded between January and August, more than 56 million more than in 2016. On the basis of these figures, the UNWTO predicts that 2017 will be the eighth consecutive year of growth, showing a global average of 4.5-5%. The good performance of the Mediterranean area can be explained by sustainable growth and the recovery of tourist destinations such as Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia, which the WTO says will return to being competitive with Spain from 2018. The greatest increase in arrivals was recorded in Africa (9%) and in Europe (8%), followed by Asia and the Pacific (6%), the Middle East (5%) and America (3%). The Middle East and North Africa have registered a mixed performence since 2010 as a result of the Arab Spring and terrorist attacks against tourist destinations. However, Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey are returning to normal, with a positive impact on the main European source markets for tourists. In this sense, the negative effects of the elimination by UK travel group Thomas Cook of five flights to Sharm el Sheikh this winter and next summer and of the stabbing murder of two tourists on an Egyptian beach have been compensated by the recovery of 3.5 million tourists in Turkey and Egypt in July and August, the resumption of flights to these two countries and to Tunisia and the rise in bookings by German tour operators in Egypt. In Europe the tourism sector registered 8% growth in the first eight months of the year, with international arrivals rising by 12% in southern and Mediterranean Europe, by 7% in western europe, by 6% in northern Europe and by 4% in central and eastern Europe. Spending on international tourism rose by 19% in China, 12% in the Republic of Korea, 8% in the US and 7% in Spain. Spending in Germany, the UK, Australia, Italy and Hong Kong rose by 3-5% and in France by 1%.
If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both
Award-winning documentary filmmaker and fine-art photographer Miguel Gandert shows his work highlighting his mestizaje heritage, and the fusion and tension of the relationship between Spanish Colonial and Native Cultures of the Americas. Runs through 12/29.

Querer means to want, to desire, to be in a place, with its people. In folk terminology, querencia is such a place, the center space of desire, the root of belonging and yearning to belong, that vicinity where you first beheld the light. Querencia, in collective terms, is homeland. ~Enrique Lamadrid, Nuevo Mexico Profundo

Miguel Gandert tells stories. He tells stories of his homeland, New Mexico (and beyond), its people and the cultural practices that distinguish communities from each other while simultaneously revealing their kinship. You will have to form your own words, however. Ganderts stories are told through penetrating, black and white photos. A primary focus of his work is his own mestizaje heritage and the fusion and tension of the relationship between Spanish Colonial and Native Cultures of the Americas.

Miguel Gandert, a native of Espanola, NM, is an award-winning documentary and fine-art photographer and filmmaker. His photographs have been shown in galleries and museums throughout the world and are in numerous public collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Museum of American History and Art at the Smithsonian.

Querencia: Rituals of the Rio Arriba opens Friday, October 6 at the New Mexico Humanities Council, 4115 Silver Ave SE, Albuquerque. An artists reception will be 6:00 pm  8:00 pm with an artist's discussion at 7:00 pm. The exhibit closes December 29, 2017.
We are very proud to bring a C Series in airBaltics livery at this years Dubai Airshow, and to celebrate alongside airBaltic the recent launch of the new route between Riga and Abu Dhabi with a CS300 aircraft, said Fred Cromer, President, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. We are thrilled to see our CS300 aircraft exceeding performance targets and opening up new opportunities for our operators.



Bombardier also lands with a forecast of growth for airlines in the Middle East region over the next 20 years. During the Dubai Airshow, Bombardier will update customers and media alike on its forecast of 450 aircraft deliveries in the 60- to 150-seat category to Middle East operators.



Middle East airline capacity continues to grow despite decreasing yields due to emergence of low-cost carriers in the region. said Jean-Paul Boutibou, Vice President, Sales, Middle-East and Africa. Right-sizing of the fleet will lead to market penetration and profitability in an increasingly competitive Middle East airline market, which will create an equivalent demand for efficient aircraft such as the C Series aircraft.



Bombardier Commercial Aircrafts footprint has grown steadily in the Middle-East with about 15 operators and over 70 aircraft. The high-performing Q400 turboprop has notably enabled operators in the region to successfully improve intra-regional connectivity, and the new C Series family of aircraft is a great complement to the regions widebody fleets, and provides unique growth opportunities.



Bombardier will also emphasize its presence at the airshow with a display of Q400 aircraft in the colours of Falcon Aviation, as well as a super-midsize Challenger 650 jet and an ultra-long range Global 6000 business aircraft.
Shell Aviation now supplies jet fuel at the two largest airports in the country  Muscat (MCT) and Salalah (SLL).

We see significant potential in Salalah and we aim to support their growth by providing our extensive expertise in fuel supply said Anne Anderson, vice president Shell Aviation. We are pleased to add Salalah to our global network as we also mark 55 years of operations in Oman.

Salalah International Airport was expanded in 2015 to enable it to serve one million passengers per year as part of Omans strategy to further develop the area as a tourist destination. The airport has also been designed to allow for further expansion that could enable it to cater for up to six million passengers annually.

Salim Awadh Said Al Yafaey, general manager, Salalah International Airport, said: Shell Aviations operational and safety capabilities were decisive factors for us. Efficiency and supply security will be key in achieving our ambitious vision for the airport and Salalah. We believe Shell Aviation is the right choice to help us get there.
Many of the old buildings surrounding the canals have been renovated in recent years, turning them into elegant residences. That is the case with this project: To turn a large three-story house that needed to be refurbished after having been abandoned for several years into the home of a family who is passionate about travel.

Sander van Eyck explains that the family asked me to take care of the whole design  from the layout, furniture and lighting, to the customised design of the kitchen and bathroom, where HI-MACS plays a special key role.

Beyond the exceptional exterior surroundings, marked by the presence of Amsterdams iconic canals, there is also the interior with open spaces filled with light thanks to large windows and a firm commitment to the colour white. This uniformity of colour is only broken up by the dark wood floor and some notes of colour in the furniture.

The exotic and human touch comes from the decorative elements, which provide an opportunity to reflect the familys passion for travel. So, in this home you will find Versailles Baroque-style chandeliers alongside seashells in the bathrooms for a beachy feel. Or a mirror, whose spokes recall the sun that warms the African savannah, mixed with a reproduction of a scarlet ibis, a bird indigenous to South America, that is the undisputed star of the living room thanks to its bright orange colour.

Around the world through a living room

Spacious and bright, the homes living room breathes elegance with its white walls dotted with shelves and eccentric decorative objects. Fittingly for a family home, the central feature in the room is occupied by a round table that invites you to sit in one of the designer chairs surrounding it.

An elegant white countertop, the star of the kitchen

In the kitchen of this Dutch house, everything revolves around the subtle silhouette of the worktop, created using HI-MACS natural acrylic stone in the Alpine White finish. Its non-porous, completely smooth and seamless surface guarantees cleanliness and hygiene. Moreover, its durability and high resistance to heat have made it possible to integrate the hob into the structure.

The cabinet fronts also exhibit the characteristic smooth surface of HI-MACS, so all you can see is a delicate play between the lines indicating the presence of drawers and cupboards, all executed in the same material.

To add a splash of colour to the space, Sander van Eyck has created an unexpected contrast with a brass finish for the taps, which match the extractor hood. For that piece, the interior designer opted for solid brass worked by hand, attached to a Carrara marble wall, giving the room an additional touch of luxury.

HI-MACS, key for gaining space and light in the bathroom

The natural acrylic stones properties and the possibilities it provides by the ability to seamlessly join it were decisive for Sander van Eyck in tackling the challenge of creating a spacious, fully-equipped bathroom in an area of just 9.5 square meters. The interior designer used HI-MACS Alpine White to create two identical sinks with straight lines and a secret drawer that remains invisible until opened.

The sinks are positioned facing one another, leaving a large space in the middle of the room for the bath and huge window. Mirrors that stretch from the sinks to the ceiling contribute to visually lengthening and broadening the space.

The symmetry, natural light, and presence of white all succeed in creating the desired peaceful atmosphere the family was seeking.

The chandelier in golden tones provides a touch of luxury, its presence contrasting with the rest of the room which uses white as the common theme, simply combined with touches of black to leave a personal imprint.
In todays Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway transfer of The Bands Visit. Heres an excerpt.

* * *

The best musical of the year has made it to Broadway. After a successful but far too short off-Broadway run at the Atlantic Theater, The Bands Visit has moved uptown with all of its wondrous charm and warmth intact. Directed with supreme finesse by David Cromer and performed by the best cast imaginable, this small-scale show is fine enough to fill you with fresh hope for a genre that has lately been running on fumes.

Adapted for the stage by Itamar Moses and David Yazbek from Eran Kolirins 2007 Israeli film, The Bands Visit is the story of a fictional occurrence that was, as one of the characters readily admits, not very important. The eight members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, it seems, have traveled to Israel from Egypt in order to perform at an Arab cultural center located in the city of Petah Tikva. Such, at any rate, is their intention, but theyre sidetracked en route by a mispronounced consonant: Since there is no p sound in Arabic, most English-speaking Egyptians automatically replace that consonant with b. Slightly fractured English being the lingua franca of the modern-day Middle East, the musicians inadvertently find themselves in Bet Hatikva, a hopelessly provincial desert village whose cultural attractions consist of two restaurants, a roller rink, and a concrete park devoid of grass or trees.

In less knowing hands, this mishap might easily have been played for farce and nothing more. But while The Bands Visit gets plenty of well-deserved laughs in its opening scenes, Messrs. Moses and Yazbek are hunting bigger game. We soon discover that the members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra and the bored residents of Bet Hatikva who spend their days waiting for something to happen all have something in common: They long for their little lives to be enlarged by love.

Some of the rest you can guess for yourself, but part of what makes The Bands Visit so special is that it steers clear of the obvious.

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

The trailer for The Bands Visit:

The trailer for the original film version of The Bands Visit:
The second meeting of the Economic Advisory Council is underway, headed by Bibek Debroy.

Dr Shamika Ravi, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies Program at Brookings India and Brookings Institution Washington D.C. is attending the meeting of the EAC to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a part-time member. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi: Dr Shamika Ravi, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies Program at Brookings India and Brookings Institution Washington D.C. is attending the meeting of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a part-time member.

Reports of Dr Ravi's appointment to the panel have been doing rounds in the recent past. While an official announcement about her appointment is yet to be made and is expected shortly.

Meanwhile, the second meeting of the EAC to Prime Minister Modi is underway in the national capital under the chairmanship of Bibek Debroy.

In the first meeting of the council, ten issues were identified around which the Council Report would be structured in the coming month, developed by the Group through consultative processes involving ministries, states, experts, private sector players and other key stakeholders.

Addressing their first press conference post the formation of the council, Chairman Bibek Debroy highlighted that major priorities were identified for accelerating economic growth and employment over the next six months, with greater last mile connectivity.

Another key issue recognised was the need for effective tracking of key economic parameters through possible mechanisms for instituting an economy track monitor using lead indicators and triggers for action, based on informed assessment and analysis.

It was also agreed that specific issues papers would be brought out by members to address key concerns and linkages will be established with key national institutions.

The second meeting is also being attended by leading economists Dr. Surjit Bhalla, Dr. Rathin Roy, Dr. Ashima Goyal and Member Secretary Ratan P. Watal, who was also the former Finance Secretary and Principal Adviser to NITI Aayog.
The tech giant has picked up the series which will star the two actrsses, who will also executive produce it.

The collaboration between Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon on the web series was announced in June. (Photo: AP)

Los Angeles: Actors Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston will star in an untitled series that has been picked up by tech giant Apple.

Both Witherspoon and Aniston will co-executive produce the show which is based on an original concept by Michael Ellenberg and take an inspiration from Brian Stelter's book "Top Of The Morning", according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The show will be written by Jay Carson, who will also serve as the showrunner.

Witherspoon recently appeared in the 'Big Little Lies' and had guest starred in Aniston's famous show 'Friends' in 2004.
About the initial stage of her career, she says she met with "contempt and dismissiveness toward women of all kinds."

Uma Thurman has several films lined up for release in 2018. (Photo: AFP)

Washington D.C.: Hollywood veteran Uma Thurman has blasted Hollywood for the distress women have to go through for a great role in the cinema industry.

According to People Magazine, the 47-year-old actress admitted that she was frustrated, particularly during her early career, because she was trying to be decent and work hard but was met with "contempt and dismissiveness towards women of all kinds."

Thurman noted, "A great cinema role comes along a few times. Maybe for some people, more often. But not everybody."

However, the 'Kill Bill' star refused to talk about the accusations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, who produced seven of her movies.

"I'll discuss it when I want to discuss it," said Thurman.

Uma previously admitted she felt too "angry" to speak about the recent Hollywood scandal.

In an interview last month, Thurman noted, "I don't have a tidy soundbite for you, because I have learned, I am not a child and I have learned that when I've spoken in anger, I usually regret the way I express myself. So I've been waiting to feel less angry and when I'm ready, I'll say what I have to say."

Meanwhile, on the professional front, Thurman is busy in preparing for her upcoming play 'The Parisian Woman'.
The rapper's older brother, Jelani Maraj, after a three-week-trial, has also been convicted of endangering the welfare of the child.

Apart from Jelani Maraj, Nicky Minaj has another brother Micaiah Maraj. (Photo: Instagram)

Washington D.C.: Rapper Nicki Minaj's older brother, Jelani Maraj was convicted, on Thursday, of repeatedly raping his 11-year-old stepdaughter in their Long Island home.

According to People Magazine, after a three-week-trial, he has also been convicted of endangering the welfare of a child.

Maraj, who long denied the allegations, was tried in Nassau County, New York.

The 38-year-old was first arrested in connection with the case in early December 2015.

He faces 25 years life behind bars when he is sentenced next month.

His lawyer says he will appeal.
Cong said that BJP, RSS views differ from those of the state govt; they regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant for being biased against Hindus.

Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Karnataka take place annually as the Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday opposed the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said that the Congress-led government is worried about Tipu Sultan instead of the state's public.

"Karnataka government is not paying attention to the problem of the public, the poor, and the farmers, but they are really worried about Tipu Sultan. When will CM Siddaramaiah care about the village farmers," he said.

BJP spokesperson Zafar Islam said the Congress performs these kinds of stunts to appease people, but the BJP is not going to join them.

"Congress performs these kinds of stunts to appease people. They are doing the same in Karnataka but the custom will backfire at them, and they will have to pay its cost. Bharatiya Janata Party is against such appeasements," he said.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJP and the RSS views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus.

After witnessing major clash in 2015 in the state over the celebrations of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the Karnataka Government in 2016 decided to make the event an annual affair.
Some of the passengers were taken to Delhi by road while others were provided hotel stay. Rest were sent in another flight next morning.

Pilot of Air India Jaipur-Delhi flight refused to fly due to duty limitations prescribed by the DGCA. (Photo: File)

Jaipur: Forty passengers of a Jaipur-Delhi flight of Alliance Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, had a harrowing time after the pilot refused to fly,

saying his duty hours were over.

Officials said some of the passengers were taken to Delhi by road while others were provided hotel accommodation and the rest were sent in another flight on Thursday morning.

"The pilot's duty-time got over and therefore, he could not take the flight," said J S Balhara, director, Sanganer airport, Jaipur.

He said the pilot cannot exceed duty hours for safety reasons as per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) norms.

"The pilot and crew of a flight coming from Delhi was scheduled to take the flight (9I-644) from Jaipur to Delhi last night. But, the flight from Delhi was delayed and landed at Jaipur at 1:30 am," a staff at the Air India station office said.

The pilot refused to fly due to duty limitations prescribed by the DGCA, he said.

Some of the passengers were accommodated in hotels, some were taken to Delhi by road and others were sent in another flight on Thursday morning, he added.
Acclaimed yoga artist complains she has been subjected to death threats from her community for 3 years now.

On Wednesday, an incident of stone pelting took place at Rafia Naaz's house when the security guard went on a break; it stopped after police intervened, but resumed on Thursday morning. (Photo: ANI)

Ranchi: A Muslim Yoga teacher of Ranchi, Rafia Naaz, has been receiving death threats for teaching Yoga.

Naaz informed that threats started coming in the last three years after the first International Yoga day. It had stopped a few days ago, but began again on October 10.

"I have received threats. I never said a fatwa has been issued against me. There is a big difference," Naaz clarified.

On Wednesday, an incident of stone pelting at her house also took place when the security guard went on a break. The incident stopped after police intervention, but resumed on Thursday morning .

"The threat to my life is also because I'm a student leader. I work towards the safety of students and I actively participate in and work for the society. So there has always been a certain degree of threat to my life," Naaz said.

She further said that practising Yoga as a Muslim had never been an issue in her family as well as the neighbourhood.

"At home, I was never told that Yoga belongs to any particular religion or caste; and, the people who have threatened me, don't have enough knowledge about Islam," Naaz said.

A resident of Doranda in Ranchi, who has been performing yoga since the age of four, Naaz became popular in her community after sharing the stage with yoga guru Ramdev, and has won many accolades and awards in this field.

As soon as the death threats came to the attention of state police, she was provided with a security guard by Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kuldeep Dwivedi.
These meetings were suspended following large-scale ceasefire violation by Pak Ranger and heavy shelling which even targeted civilian areas.

Sources said that though junior level officials from both sides were having flag meetings.

New Delhi: In a crucial move aimed at easing tensions along the sensitive India-Pakistan border, the border guarding forces of the two countries, Border Security Force (BSF) and Pakistani Rangers, have agreed to resume Commandant-level meetings after a gap of almost year-and-a-half.

These meetings were suspended following large-scale ceasefire violation by Pak Ranger and heavy shelling which even targeted civilian areas.

Sources said that though junior level officials from both sides were having flag meetings.

It has now been decided to formalise the arrangements so that the senior field commandants from BSF and Pak Rangers could have urgent and timely meetings to thrash out complex security issues.

The decision was taken during the bi-annual talks between BSF chief K.K. Sharma and Major-General Muhammad Saeed, Director-General, Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) in the Capital on Friday.

The move will help reduce tension along the border as the sectoral commandants can immediately have a flag meeting in case of an eventuality, said a senior security official.

Both the forces were of the view that it was important to have communication and immediate sharing of information,added the security official.
Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the Asean-India and East Asia summits on November 14.

New Delhi: In a huge boost for the BJP-led NDA government, US President Donald Trump, during a speech in Vietnam, showered praise on Indias astounding economic growth and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he (PM Modi) has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together. The praise shows that the US now views India as a major reliable partner on the global stage to counter Chinas military and economic rise.

According to some reports, while praising India the US president attacked China, saying that Beijings trade practices have kicked Americans out of jobs. He also put out a warning that the US would not turn a blind eye to trade abuses. Ironically, his criticism comes right after his visit to China.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at Da Nang in Vietnam, President Trump was quoted by news agency reports from there as saying, Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class. And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed.

The US President also pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

Incidentally, Mr Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the Asean-India and East Asia summits on November 14. Mr Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia summit, a key meeting between Asean and eight of its partners. Mr Modi and President Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines in a bilateral meeting.

On the Asia-Pacific region which the US is now referring to increasingly as the Indo-Pacific region following growing strategic ties with India, President Trump was quoted as saying, We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time. The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future.

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has also led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a Japanese proposal on a Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India which is apparently being put together to counter Chinas rise.

China has reportedly reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a third partys interest.

In his address, Mr Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, and also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield. Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends, Mr Trump said.
The EC had told the Centre that it can initiate the process of granting voting rights to NRIs within three months of the amendment to law.

New Delhi: In a far-reaching decision that will impact 2.5 crore NRIs, and to some extent the outcome of the 2019 elections, the government has decided to give them right to vote in their motherland through proxy or an e-postal ballot system by amending the law.

The non-resident Indians (NRIs), at present, have no voting rights. Proxy voting rights will allow them to authorise a nominee in their constituency to cast the vote on their behalf. At present, only defence personnel are allowed to vote through a nominee or postal ballot.

The new provision is likely to include into the countrys voting exercise new electors numbering more than the population of Delhi (1.8 crore) or one-third of the population Gujarat (6.5 crore).

The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Friday that based on the Election Commissions suggestions a bill will be introduced in Parliament for paving the way for NRIs to cast their vote in elections through their nominees residing in their constituency in India.

Making voting possible for NRIs requires an amendment to the Representation of the People Act, which the government will table in the upcoming Winter Session, attorney general K.K. Venugopal said.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, was hearing separate petitions by NRI groups which have been pending for three years. In July, the apex court had asked the Centre to submit a plan on how it intends to let NRIs vote in elections, after which the Cabinet cleared a proposal on the matter, to be taken forward through an amendment.

According to the EC, under the e-ballot procedure the NRI wishing to vote will have to send an application either electronically or physically to the returning officer six months before the expiry of the term of the House for which the elections are scheduled to be held.

The Returning Officer (RO) may verify the particulars of the person and at the time of election and, on satisfaction, electronically send the postal ballot which the NRI elector can access through a password allotted to him.

The elector will need to download the postal ballot paper, cast the vote and post it back to the RO after getting the declaration attested, the EC said.

The EC had told the Centre that it can initiate the process of granting voting rights to NRIs within three months of the amendment to law.

Counsel for the Centre sought from the bench, which also included Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrchud, an adjournment for six months on the ground that the bill will be tabled in the Winter Session of Parliament. However, the bench deferred the hearing by 12 weeks.

The petitioners had submitted that crores of people would be entitled to cast their vote if NRIs were allowed to vote from overseas. It was argued that 114 countries, including 20 Asian countries, had adopted external voting.

The EC said that the e-postal ballot system has almost no risk of manipulation, rigging or violation of secrecy.

Initially, the system could be tried in one or two constituencies in elections to the legislative Assemblies, it said.

The system could later be scaled up to more Assembly elections and finally Parliamentary elections if found feasible, practicable and meeting the objectives of free and fair elections, the EC said.

The poll panel said that it examined several suggestions to enable NRIs to cast their vote and rejected the idea of allowing them to cast their votes at diplomatic missions abroad.

It said that Internet voting is also not a feasible option until appropriate technology/information technology applications are available and all other vulnerabilities are addressed.
Clashes also erupted also in the town of Anantnag after Friday congregational prayers at mosques and hospices.

Srinagar: Several parts of the Kashmir Valley witnessed clashes and stone-pelting incidents on Friday after the surging crowds resisted counterinsurgency operations launched by security forces. One such clash took place in Bangar Mohalla locality in northern district of Bandipore.

The police sources and witnesses said that the moment the security forces including the soldiers from the Armys 13 Rashtriya Rifles, the members of the J&K polices counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG ) and the CRPF jawans arrived in the area to conduct a cordon-and-search operation (CASO), after learning about the presence of militants there, the locals came out to hurl stones at them.

This was done in a deliberate attempt to help the militants to escape from the area, the officials said.

The security forces fired teargas canisters to disperse the mob, triggering clashes.

A similar incident was reported from Lassipora in southern Pulwama district. Later during the day, the security forces launched a CASO in Hanjibugh village in central district of Budgam where similar situations prevailed, said a report.

Clashes also erupted also in the town of Anantnag after Friday congregational prayers at mosques and hospices.

A mob hurled stones at the forces in Anantnags Janglat Mandi area, prompting the latter to burst teargas shells, said Jammu and Kashmir police sources.
David Lloyd speaks about his creative process in an exclusive interview.

Remember remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason, why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. These lines from V for Vendetta still resonate with most who have seen the movie or read the graphic novel. The man who created the character of V in this cult fiction work, and also added his flair to both DC and Marvel universes, David Lloyd speaks about his creative process in an exclusive interview. Excerpts:

How did the image of Guy Fawkes for V for Vendetta come about?

It was a brainstorm of mine to have our basic template of an urban guerrilla adopt the costume, appearance, and persona of a past revolutionary after wed both floundered in trying to find a look and more character detail to adorn our protagonist with. It was just an accident of creativity  a bright idea  that turned out to be the perfect answer to the problem we were trying to solve. We created a new image for a villain from English history.

What was your brief when you were illustrating for V for Vendetta?

V For Vendetta grew from a very simple initial brief that I was given by the editor of an independent British comics magazine called Warrior to come up with a series about a masked vigilante character. I was tasked with writing and drawing it all. But I asked Alan (Moore, writer) to join me on it because I recognised his obvious genius, which turned out to be a good idea.

How has your partnership with Alan been? Would you collaborate again?

I had a terrific time creating Vendetta with Alan, but that was a long time ago, when he was new to the business. He decided he wanted to work with lots of different artists after he worked with me, but I did work very happily with him once more on a charity project I helped run in the 90s. I think weve both moved on too far now to work with each other again.

Alan is a man of powerful words. What are some things you had to keep in mind when you partnered up with him?

Nothing of any kind. Alan is certainly a man of powerful words, but then Im a man of powerful images. It all worked out very well, I think.

You have illustrated for both DC and Marvel. How would you compare the two experiences?

When I worked for DC it was mainly on projects that were outside the generality of the mainstream product of US comics: i.e the superhero genre. The few times Ive worked on Marvel US properties, they were linked to superhero products of some kind, so there was less freedom in art style and content. The work I did for Marvels UK office in the 80s had a more variable personality, which was only intermittently subject to corporate rulings on the style of what it should produce for its readers. Ive had most artistic freedom at DC, and some degree of it at Marvel UK.

How has technology developed since you took to the drawing board?

A great deal in illustration and reproduction techniques, and in delivery options for comics. Artists can draw on graphics tablets directly for reproduction, and the colouring of comic art is free of the complexity of old, pre-computer technology methods. Regrettably, old and expensive reproduction, printing and distribution methods still dominate the industry, when fast and inexpensive reproduction and delivery options for comics are easily available of the kinds I use in my cyberspace comics magazine, Aces Weekly.

Of all the characters that you have illustrated, who would you say is your favourite and why?

V from V For Vendetta, because he means more to me personally than any other character Ive drawn, and I was partly responsible for his existence.

When you are depicting scenes of violence, how do you keep the balance between expressing enough and going overboard?

The whole intention is to produce a violent effect without resorting to a violent manner. Thats actually more effective. Theres something to be said for the saying less is more. Violence, if it is overdone, has the opposite effect  it becomes a spectacle for the eye rather than actually depicting something. But it also depends on the storyteller as well. If you watch Quentin Tarantinos films, the point there is to depict violence explicitly for the story hes telling.

What is your view on the Indian comic book scene?

I have come to India for several comic conventions and have met a number of great artists. The problem in India, which is similar to the problem in most other countries right now, is that the market is inundated with manga from Korea and Japan and Marvel and DC Comics from America. This is really unfair to the local talent, which should get more

exposure.

What are some of your most memorable collaborations?

One of them is the first writer I worked with  Steve Moore, who taught Alan how to write. I also thoroughly enjoyed working with Jamie Delano, with whom I worked using the Marvel method, wherein the writer gives the illustrator the bare bones of the story and he illustrates the entire book before the writer even starts writing it. Not many writers are willing to give up that kind of control!
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the move will encourage people to switch to public transport.

The odd-even car rationing scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from November 13 as part of a graded response plan to tackle the alarming level of pollution in the city. (Photo: PTI/Representational)

New Delhi: The Delhi government will allow free travel for commuters in all DTC and cluster buses during the odd-even scheme to encourage use of public transport, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said on Friday.

The odd-even car rationing scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from November 13 as part of a graded response plan to tackle the alarming level of pollution in the city.

"To encourage use of public transport during Odd-Even, Delhi govt to allow free travel for commuters in all DTC and Cluster buses from 13-17 November," Gahlot tweeted.

To encourage use of public transport during Odd- Even, Delhi govt to allow free travel for commuters in all DTC and Cluster buses from 13-17 November.  Kailash Gahlot (@kgahlot) November 10, 2017

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the move will encourage people to switch to public transport.

The Delhi Transport Corporation has a bus fleet of around 4,000 buses while there are over 1,600 cluster buses that form the backbone of the public transport along with Metro.

The Delhi Metro will also increase the frequency of trains to encourage people to use the public transport due to heightened pollution levels.

According to official data, DTC buses carry around 35 lakh passengers every day. However, since the AAP came to power, the DTC has not been able to purchase any new bus.
NGT also asked the government to give an undertaking that it will roll out odd-even only when the particulate matter levels are over 300.

The state government announced the implementation of the odd-even car rationing scheme for five days from November 13 as part of a graded response plan to tackle the alarming level of pollution in the city. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday rapped the AAP government for announcing odd-even scheme despite pollution control boards reporting that the car-rationing plan did not help improve air quality in Delhi.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had, on Thursday, announced that the odd-even scheme will be implemented for five days, starting November 13 to tackle the alarming level of air pollution in the national capital.

Read: Odd-even rule in Delhi from Nov 13 to 17; women drivers exempt

"Odd-even formula can't be imposed like this. Nothing has been done from your (Delhi govt) end since the past one year," the NGT said, citing reports from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) that it was ineffective.

The green bench told the AAP government that it will not allow the implementation of the odd-even scheme unless it was established that the plan was effective.

"SC never asked for imposition of this scheme. SC and NGT have suggested 100 measures to curb pollution but you always opted for odd-even. Delhi government will have to justify the implementation of this scheme," the NGT told the government.

NGT also asked the Delhi government to give an undertaking that it will roll out odd-even only when the particulate matter levels are over 300. It also questioned the government for implementing the scheme when the situation was improving.

"This will now cause inconvenience to people," it said.

The bench also questioned the government's decision to exempt two-wheelers and women drivers.

Directing the states to ensure that there is no crop burning, the NGT warned, "If any such incident is reported, a considerable amount of fine will be charged from salary of responsible officer".

The board also asked the government to impose Rs 1 lakh as fine on builders found violating directions, as construction work has been halted in view of smog and air pollution.

However, the law board allowed industries engaged in essential services to operate in Delhi-NCR on the condition that they would not pollute.

Pollution has reached to disastrous levels in Delhi, with smog enveloping the entire national capital. In view of the worsening environment, Delhi government ordered closure of all schools till Saturday.
104-min drama ends after govt gives written assurance.

Mumbai: There was high drama at Mantaralaya on Friday after Dyaneshwar Salve (28), a distressed farmer stood at the edge of the seventh floor parapet at Mantralaya Annexe building around 4 pm and threatened to commit suicide by jumping off.

Salve wanted to meet state agriculture minister Pandurang Phundkar for demands including a hike in minimum support price for soya bean, cotton and implementation of the Dr Swaminathan Committees recommendations for agrarian reforms.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered outside Mantralaya braving the October heat waiting for some resolution and Salve to change his mind. Additional commissioner of police (protection and security) R.N. Shinde, MoS (home) Ranjit Patil and state education minister Vinod Tawde led the rescue attempts by talking to Salve.

The distressed youth agreed to get off the parapet after Tawde gave him a written assurance that the government will look into his demands with empathy. The drama ended at 5.44 pm, even as fire brigade team and police officials spread out a safety net. Salve hails from Mhasalapur Khurd in Tulzapur, Osmanabad. Tawde assured that no legal action would be taken against him.

Fire brigade official spread safety net.

Salve came to Mantralaya around 3.30 pm and went to meet Mr Phundkar on sixth floor of Mantralaya without realising that Mr Phundakar was in Nagpur. An upset Salve went to the seventh floor and climbed on the parapet. The Mantralaya staff immediately informed the police. When the police tried to go near him, Salve broke a glass window and threatened to jump. He insisted on meeting chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. Finally, Mr Phundkar spoke to him on his cellphone, but the call got disconnected.

Mr Tawde said that he spoke to Salvi over tea and asked him to think of his old parents before taking any drastic step. We have told the police to release him and give his custody to his family. No legal action will be taken against him, Mr Tawde said.

The opposition however slammed the government for not paying attention to farmers pleas.

Opposition leader in Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said, The government tied to hide complaints of farmers. But farmers have now reached Mantralaya. The governments failure is exposed. Opposition leader in Council Dhananjay Munde said, Instead of spending so much money on marketing, the BJP government should concentrate on real issues of farmers.
Children from such families have lower levels of academic achievement than those from families with one father and one mother.

Furthermore, the deleterious effects of polygamy on women and children, documented by this organization, call for intervention by judicial institutions whose very purpose is to maintain equity among different members of society.

Shahzad Saqib was a married man who wanted to marry again. Not bothering to get permission from his wife Ayesha Bibi, he proceeded to marry another woman. When she found out, she did what many more first wives in Pakistan should do  she took her case to court. In court, her lawyers argued that the Family Laws Ordinance requires that the man obtain permission from his first wife prior to marrying the second. Saqib, for his part, made the argument that since it was his right to marry four wives, he should not have to obtain permission from anyone at all.

He was wrong. As the verdict showed, the Family Laws Ordinance requires that any man seeking permission to marry a second time must submit a written application to the chairman of the Arbitration Council. If no chairman has been appointed, the application, it has been pointed out, can be submitted to the council. If such an application is not submitted then the ordinance imposes fines and even imprisonment.

Few judges in Pakistan have enforced the provision. Some are amenable to the premise that since the permission to marry four women has been granted in Islam, all the conditions attached to the union can be ignored. The matter came up in a Supreme Court decision sometime ago. The judges in that case correctly pointed to the fact that the permission for polygamy is not a blanket grant but rather qualified by the idea of doing justice between all wives.

Under the provisions of the ordinance, the failure to obtain permission from the wife and the Arbitration Council can be brought to a courts attention by the aggrieved party. Under the ordinance any woman who knows that such permission either from her or the chairman of the Arbitration Council was not obtained can take the man to court. In the second case discussed here, a sentence of one months imprisonment was imposed on the man who had flouted the law. In the case of Shahzad Saqib, a jail term of six months has been imposed. The law permits judges to impose a prison sentence of up to one year.

The imposition of these sentences marks a commendable move forward in the effort to make family laws more equitable for Pakistani women and sets a good example for other Muslim countries to emulate. As organisations such as Sisters in Islam from Malaysia have been pointing out for many years, there is no blanket permission for polygamy in Islam or in the Quran.

Furthermore, the deleterious effects of polygamy on women and children, documented by this organization, call for intervention by judicial institutions whose very purpose is to maintain equity among different members of society. The evidence collected by the group reveals that both women and children living in polygamous households experience high amounts of emotional stress and upheaval leading to depression and other illnesses.

More recent research published in the Journal of Family Studies in 2015 found that children in polygamous families suffer more mental health issues than those in monogamous families. They are said to exhibit poor adjustment, aggressive and anti-social behaviour, communication disorders and poor self-concept. Some may have a predilection for drug abuse and alcoholism. Children from such families have lower levels of academic achievement than those from families with one father and one mother. Incidents of family violence, marital discord and ultimately divorce are also more likely in polygamous homes.

Going by the findings mentioned, it appears that polygamy creates far more problems than it solves. The problem in these cases is not the destitution faced by women, but rather a society that imagines having a male protector as the only way women can obtain safety and security in a society.

For all these reasons, the judicial enforcement of the imprisonment provisions of the Family Law Ordinance must be saluted and welcomed. Unless existing laws that underscore the requirement of punishment when permission is not obtained are enforced, the myths that polygamy is an unqualified right, that all men are judges who can issue unilateral decrees upon their wives, and that everyone benefits from polygamy, will never be displaced in the minds of the ignorant and self-absorbed. Legislation, enacted as it is by elected representatives, is the first step towards ensuring that Pakistani women are treated as the equals that they are under Pakistani law; actual enforcement of legislation is the second and equally crucial step. The case of Shahzad Saqib, who set out to marry again without obtaining permission from his first wife and without following the correct legal procedures, should be a cautionary tale for all men. What conscience seems to have been unable to stop, perhaps the fear of prison will.

By arrangement with Dawn
The success of the accord depended on unstinted political support by both the nations.

On November 5, 2017, I had the privilege of paying homage to the brave soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) at the IPKF memorial in Colombo. Built by the Sri Lankan government and maintained by their Navy, the memorial is a tribute to the brave men of the Indian armed forces who laid their lives in an operation that marked the first unilateral oversees deployment of the Indian military establishment. The names of 1,200 martyrs are etched on the walls of the memorial.

As I put out photographs of that truly moving moment on Twitter there were the usual derisive responses from bakhts, perverts and trolls questioning the basis of that operation in Sri Lanka. Perhaps, it is now time to revisit that forgotten war and the lessons it holds for Indias quest to become a great power.

It all began 30 years ago, on July 29, 1987, with the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord between the then Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi and the Sri Lankan government under the leadership of President J.R. Jayewardene. The Rajiv-Jayewardene Accord was expansive in its scope as it attempted to holistically address the three prickly disputes between India and Sri Lanka  strategic imperatives, people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka and Tamil minority rights in Sri Lanka. The success of the accord depended on unstinted political support by both the nations.

The Accord and the subsequent intervention got subverted when political leaders who were chary about its political ownership came to power in both the countries almost at the same time; Premadasa in Sri Lanka at the beginning of 1989 and V.P. Singh in India at the end of 1989. Their unfortunate political expediency has clouded the understanding of the positive aspects of the Accord. For, it was this Accord that enabled the Sri Lankan Tamils gain recognition for some of their demands in Sri Lankan politics and under the Sri Lankan Constitution.

India had historically affirmed its support for a unified Sri Lanka and opposition to the formation of an independent Tamil Eelam. Concurrently, India was sensitive to the Tamil quest for equitable rights in Sri Lanka. Even the Rajiv-Jayewardene Accord had its roots in Indias effort to give form and substance to it. The robust empathy of the people of Tamil Nadu for their brethren in Sri Lanka was a key influence in shaping Indias policy on this issue. Sri Lanka was compelled to factor Indian concerns into their strategic calculus as it executed its hard power strategy against the Tamil militant groups.

The Accord was distinctive as it delineated a new threshold with respect to Indias enunciation of military pow-er, never applied after Indias war with Pakistan in 1971 that created Bangladesh.

It was under this Accord that the IPKF was sent to Sri Lankas northern and eastern provinces, to guarantee and enforce the cessation of hostilities between the Tamil separatist groups and the government. However, the situation turned into a military confrontation between the IPKF and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which refused to disarm and join the political mainstream.

On October 11, 1987, the IPKF launched Operation Pawan to wrest control of Jaffna from the LTTE. Though the initial Heli-borne assault on the Jaffna University campus to capture LTTE leaders was a disaster, the Indian Army succeeded in wresting control of Jaffna after three weeks of intense fighting. The fighting undoubtedly was brutal; the LTTE was a determined foe and the Indian Army lost good men in that operation. The Indian Army had never experienced a war like this before. They were in an unfamiliar land against a recondite enemy that wore no uniforms, followed no Geneva Convention on ethics of war and yet carried lethal contemporary armaments and battled customarily from behind the cover of women and children.

What has, however, been deliberately overlooked in the tirade unleashed by some right-wing bigots, masquerading as commentators on strategic affairs, is the chicanery of the then Sri Lankan leadership that went to extraordinary lengths to undermine the IPKF and the Rajiv-Jayewardene Accord.

In January 1989, President Ranasinghe Premadasa got elected on a platform to throw the Indians out of Sri Lanka. He ascended to power in April 1989, giving the Indians an ultimatum to leave in three months. He even sanctioned a surreptitious covenant to resource the LTTE with weapons to fight the IPKF.

However, what was far more reprehensible than the conduct of Premadasa was the fact that the V.P. Singh-led Janata Dal government, supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left decided to withdraw the IPKF. They fig-leafed the decision in a legally-correct proposition that since the host nation wanted India to leave we had no business to stay. In reality, this was largely driven by the then foreign minister and later Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujrals obsession to get doctrines named after him.

The real seeds of that doctrine, however, germinated in the decision to withdraw the IPKF from Sri Lanka in December 1989. Both VP Singh and I.K. Gujaral were determined to establish that Rajiv Gandhi had erred in sending the IPKF to Sri Lanka and therefore, without caring for the consequences that it would have on Indias desire to establish a larger foot-print in the Indian Ocean region as well as the implications on the Indian Armys reputation that it could be checkmated by an irregular guerrilla force, they ordered a hasty and ill-prepared withdrawal. The repercussions of that decision haunt us even today, making India a risk-averse nation, unwilling to put boots on the ground even when its strategic interests are clearly in play.

Rajiv Gandhi took a correct strategic call in 1987. The nub of the intervention undertaken in the fading years of the Cold War was indisputably to keep Americans from gaining a foothold in Sri Lanka. By attempting to brush the IPKF and its role in Sri Lanka under the carpet for partisan political reasons, India does itself great disservice.
Celebrating the Diwali of the Gods in Varanasi
The company quietly announced its next generation chipset for flagship smartphones and the ultra-slim ISOCELL Slim 2X7 camera sensor.

2017 is almost over, which means we get to see new flagship smartphones from all the big names of the smartphone industry. The world of smartphone rumours suggests that Samsung will start the year pretty early with its Galaxy S9 flagship by the end of January and we already have a fair bit of idea about the chipset that will power the Galaxy S9.

Samsung has been selling its flagship models in two variants always  a Snapdragon variant (for select markets) and an Exynos variant for most of the market it operates in. While it is known that the Snapdragon 845 will debut with the Galaxy S9, Samsungs in-house chipset will also get a major upgrade. According to a press release, the chipset is called Exynos 9 Series 9810 and will be built on the second generation 10nm FinFET process. Samsung claims that the chipset will host third generation custom CPU cores, upgraded GPU, and gigabit LTE modem with industry-first 6CA support.

Along with the SoC, Samsung has also documented a camera sensor that we think could make it to the S9. The ISOCELL Slim 2X7 is a 24MP sensor with 0.9m pixels. It also comes Tetracell and remosaic technology to simulate bigger pixel performance, making it the obvious choice for Samsung to go for this sensor on its flagship if it has any intention of making the Galaxy S9 slimmer than before.

Samsung hasnt mentioned any hint of the Galaxy S9 anywhere in the press release but new processor and image sensor clearly hint towards their presence on the next Samsung Galaxy flagship. The Galaxy S9 is expected to be an improved version of the Galaxy S8, sporting the Infinity Display with even more narrow bezels and dual rear cameras. It is expected to come with Android Oreo out of the box.

(source)
Armed with a powerful assault rifle, Kelly opened fire on worshippers at a Sunday service inside a rural church.

Jessika Edwards, who worked with Kelley at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 to 2012, said the 26-year-old shooter had displayed a fascination with mass murders while he was enlisted in the Air Force. (Photo: AP/File)

Houston: Texas shooter Devin Kelley, who killed 26 people inside a church, bought animals from an advertisements website and had used dogs as "target practice", according to the gunman's former Air Force colleague.

Jessika Edwards, who worked with Kelley at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 to 2012, said the 26-year-old shooter had displayed a fascination with mass murders while he was enlisted in the Air Force.

"He would make jokes about wanting to kill somebody. And we would say, 'wait, that's not funny'," Edwards was quoted as saying by the CNN.

She said Kelley told her he was "using the dogs as target practice".

Edwards said Kelley had revealed to her that he had bought animals on Craigslist with the sole intention of killing them.

The morbid admission came in Facebook messages starting in 2014, she said, after the two reconnected in civilian life.

She said Kelley's obsession for killing was so pronounced that when he was disciplined for poor performance she told her bosses to "back off or he would shoot the place up".

"He was always getting into trouble. It was problem after problem," Edwards was quoted as saying in the report.

A law enforcement source close to the Texas shooting investigation confirmed to the channel that the FBI agents interviewed Edwards about her interactions with the gunman.

In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed and convicted for assaulting his wife and stepson. Edwards said those domestic problems boiled over on the job and he would come in depressed and unfocused.

"He threatened to kill himself one time if I didn't let him go see a chaplain," Edwards said, adding that as a staff sergeant she supervised Kelley.

Armed with a powerful assault rifle and wearing black a tactical-style gear, Kelly opened fire on worshippers at a Sunday service inside a rural church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing at least 26 people and injuring 20 others, once again triggering a heated national debate on the need for stricter gun control laws.
Xi hosted Trump at the imposing Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square.

Chinas President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony in Beijing on 9 November. (Photo: AP)

Beijing: Donald Trump showered Chinese leader Xi Jinping with praise during talks in Beijing Thursday, but prodded his host to work fast to help resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, warning "time is quickly running out".

Speaking on the second day of a trip to Beijing marked by pomp and pageantry, the US president also decried China's "one-sided and unfair" trade surplus with the United States but told Mr Xi "I don't blame China", as the two countries signed more than $250 billion in business deals.

Mr Xi hosted Trump at the imposing Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square, for the main event of the US President's five-nation tour of Asia.

While the two leaders exchanged pleasantries in keeping with their professed friendship  with Mr Trump calling Mr Xi a "very special man"  the former property magnate made clear that he expected China to do more to rein in North Korea.

"We must act fast. And hopefully China will act faster and more effectively on this problem than anyone," Mr Trump said.

"China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," the US leader said.
Pakistan has been refusing consular access to the convict and has also conveyed its decision to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday offered India a meeting between Indian national Kulbushan Jadhav  convicted in Pakistan on terror charges  and his wife on humanitarian grounds.

A foreign ministry statement said the Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, in Pakistan purely on humanitarian grounds.

A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, added the statement.

The statement said: Commander Kulbushan Jadhav alias, Hussain Mubarak Patel, a serving Commander of the Indian Navy, working with Indian Intelligence Agency RAW (Research and Anaysis Wing) was apprehended by Pakistan law enforcement agencies on March 3, 2016 after he illegally crossed over into Pakistan. He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilising and waging war against Pakistan.

Pakistan has been refusing consular access to Jadhav and has also conveyed its decision to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is hearing the case.

In a letter to the ICJ, Pakistan invited the United Nations courts attention towards Jadhavs "role in terrorism acts across Pakistan" that allegedly resulted in scores of deaths in the past.

New Delhi had twice sought consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav  sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for fomenting terrorism in Pakistan. Both the times, Pakistan rejected the requests. India later challenged Jadhavs conviction in the ICJ.

Pakistan has also challenged the jurisdiction of ICJ regarding conviction of Jadhav after the UN court observed that turning down the request for consular access was a denial of right.

Pakistan, last month, communicated to the ICJ its designation of Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, to be its Judge Ad-hoc in the Jadhav case.

Justice Jillani served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan from July 31, 2004 to December 11, 2013 and subsequently as the Chief Justice of Pakistan from December 11, 2013 until July 5, 2014.

The procedures of the ICJ allow a party to nominate a Judge Ad-hoc in circumstances where there is no Judge of the Court that has that partys nationality. Currently, there is no Judge of the Court that has Pakistani nationality, whereas Judge Dalveer Bhandari from India sits as a Judge of the Court. Those appointed as Judge Ad-hoc are treated as having the same authority on the court as any of the sitting Judges.

Jadhav has filed a mercy petition to army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, to spare his life on 'compassionate grounds'. Jadhav can still file another appeal to President Mamnoon Hussain if the army chief rejects his plea.

Pak-India tension has been running high since July 2016 after the killing of freedom fighter Burhan Wani. In September 2016, the tensions rose further as New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army in a single incident in 14 years. The strike killed 19 soldiers. Pakistan denied any link. Conviction of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav added to the tension.

Since partition in 1947, Pakistan and India have been involved in four wars  including one undeclared  and many border skirmishes and military stand-offs. Kashmir has been the main source of tension.
The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site.

Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory, IRSN director Jean-Marc Peres said. (Photo: AP/Representational)

Paris: A cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe in recent weeks indicates that an accident has happened in a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan in the last week of September, French nuclear safety institute IRSN said on Thursday.

The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine. There has been no impact on human health or the environment in Europe, the IRSN said.

IRSN, the technical arm of French nuclear regulator ASN, said in a statement it could not pinpoint the location of the release of radioactive material but that based on weather patterns, the most plausible zone lay south of the Ural mountains, between the Urals and the Volga river.

This could indicate Russia or possibly Kazakhstan, an IRSN official said.

Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory, IRSN director Jean-Marc Peres said. He added that the institute had not yet been in contact with Kazakh authorities.

A spokesperson for the Russian Emergencies Ministry said she could not immediately comment. It was not immediately possible to reach authorities in Kazakhstan or the Kazakh embassy in Moscow.

Peres said that in recent weeks IRSN and several other nuclear safety institutes in Europe had measured high levels of levels of ruthenium 106, a radioactive nuclide that is the product of splitting atoms in a nuclear reactor and which does not occur naturally.

IRSN estimates that the quantity of ruthenium 106 released was major, between 100 and 300 teraBecquerels, and that if an accident of this magnitude had happened in France it would have required the evacuation or sheltering of people in a radius of a few kilometers around the accident site.

The ruthenium 106 was probably released in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine, Peres said. Because of its short half-life of about a year, ruthenium 106 is used in nuclear medicine.

The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, as that would have led to contamination with other radionuclides too. It also ruled out the crash of a ruthenium-powered satellite as an IAEA investigation has concluded that no ruthenium-containing satellite has fallen back on earth during this period.

Measurement from European stations showed high levels of ruthenium 106 in the atmosphere of the majority of European countries, at the beginning of October, with a steady decrease from October 6 onwards.

The IRSN said that the concentrations of ruthenium 106 in the air that have been recorded in Europe were of no consequence for human health and the environment.

The institute also said that the probability of importation into France of foodstuffs, notably mushrooms, contaminated by ruthenium 106 near the site of the accident is extremely low.
The revelations date back to June 2005, when a female nurse witnessed Niels Hoegel trying to inject a patient at the Delmenhorst hospital.

Niels Hoegel, 41, was convicted in 2015 of two murders and four counts of attempted murder or causing bodily harm on intensive-care patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen. (Photo: AP)

Berlin (Germany): A German nurse who used lethal drugs on patients out of "boredom" is responsible for the deaths of 106 people, investigators said on Thursday, noting the toll could rise further as more bodies are studied.

Niels Hoegel, 41, was convicted in 2015 of two murders and four counts of attempted murder or causing bodily harm on intensive-care patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen.

But exhumations and analyses since have uncovered evidence of scores of other victims, with police saying in August that Hoegel had murdered more than 90 other patients.

On Thursday, police and prosecutors confirmed an additional 16 deaths, attributed to the nurse who worked at two hospitals between 1999 and 2005.

More deaths may still be uncovered with toxicology studies under way for five other cases, and exhumations of three former patients planned in Turkey.

Prosecutors said they expect to bring the new charges against Hoegel early in 2018.

He has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He earlier testified that at times he acted out of "boredom", feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life and also claimed to be devastated when he failed.

The death toll "is unique in the history of the German republic," the chief police investigator in the case, Arne Schmidt, said in August, adding that Hoegel killed "without a discernible pattern" and preyed especially on those in critical condition.

"The insights we were able to gain are terrifying, they surpass what we could have imagined," said Johann Kuehme, police chief in the city of Oldenburg, where the other hospital is located.

"He cannot remember every case, but in more than 30 he concretely remembered the patients and his behaviour," said prosecutor Daniela Schiereck-Bohlemann.

- Numbers may never be known -

The revelations date back to June 2005, when a female nurse witnessed Hoegel trying to inject a patient at the Delmenhorst hospital.

The patient survived and Hoegel was arrested and, in June 2008, sentenced to seven and a half years in jail for several cases of attempted murder.

Amid the media publicity, a woman then contacted police, voicing suspicion that her deceased mother had also fallen victim to the killer nurse.

The authorities exhumed several patients' bodies and detected traces of the drug in five of them, declaring it either the definitive or possible contributing cause.

Hoegel was jailed for life in 2015, but at the time it was clear he had murdered many more patients, with investigators admitting they may never know the true number as some remains had been cremated.

Several senior medical staff at Delmenhorst also face separate trials for having failed to act speedily over the high number of suspicious deaths when Hoegel was on duty.
The arrested man is believed to be Indian-origin Avtar Singh, who was arrested as he landed in Frankfurt from a flight from Delhi.

Shah, the owner of Armaan Brasserie which has since been renamed as Ayr India, was stabbed to death outside the eatery when a group of Pakistanis clashed with Indians, the Ayrshire Post had reported at the time. (Photo: File/Representational)

London: A 51-year-old man, believed to be of Indian-origin, has been arrested in Germany in connection with a murder following a restaurant war between Indian and Pakistani eateries in Scotland over 24 years ago.

Police Scotland said the man, who cannot be named at this stage, was arrested over the murder of Pakistani-origin Ansar Shah in the seaside town of Ayr in Ayrshire on October 4, 1993, and will now be returned to Scottish jurisdiction.

It is anticipated that proceedings to return the man to Scottish jurisdiction will take place in due course, a Police Scotland statement said.

The arrested man is believed to be of Indian-origin Avtar Singh, who was arrested as he landed in Frankfurt from a flight from Delhi.

Singh was a waiter of an Indian restaurant in Ayrshire at the time of the murder and had disappeared after the murder, which local media reports at the time described as a restaurant war between rival Indian and Pakistani restaurants over migrant staff employed by them.

Shah, the owner of Armaan Brasserie which has since been renamed as Ayr India, was stabbed to death outside the eatery when a group of Pakistanis clashed with Indians, the Ayrshire Post had reported at the time.

Two other men had been severely injured in the attack and treated in hospital.

A nationwide manhunt was launched for Singh, also known as Tony and Dari, who had worked as a waiter in the Jewel in the Crown restaurant in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.

The unsolved murder case was being re-examined by specialist cold case detectives in the UK since May this year.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Bell of Police Scotland Homicide Governance Review said, Police Scotland is committed to pursuing those persons who are allegedly responsible for the gravest of crimes.

Time and location is no barrier to the efforts and determination of our staff and partners to pursue justice for victims and their loved ones.

The arrest follows a joint operation coordinated from the Scottish Crime Campus, and led by Police Scotlands Homicide Governance and Review Team, involving participation with Police Scotlands International Assistance Unit, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Law Enforcement partners across Europe including Europol, French and German authorities, and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The arrested man could accept the terms of the arrest warrant and agree to being flown to Scotland or fight it through the German courts.
Mordaunt, 44, is a pro-Brexit Conservative party MP for Portsmouth North who has held a number of junior ministerial posts.

Mordaunt lists India among her countries of interest, having worked with the charity Diabetes UK in India. (Photo: AFP)

London: British Prime Minster Theresa May replaced Priti Patel with Penny Mordaunt as the UKs new international development minister Thursday, a day after the Indian-origin MP resigned over her unauthorised secret meetings with Israeli politicians while on a holiday in the Jewish country.

May was under pressure from Eurosceptic MPs to ensure that Patel is replaced by a pro-Brexit MP like her predecessor to maintain a balance within the UK Cabinet.

Mordaunt, 44, is a pro-Brexit Conservative party MP for Portsmouth North who has held a number of junior ministerial posts, including the post of disability minister in the department for work and pensions from where she has now been promoted.

Mordaunt lists India among her countries of interest, having worked with the charity Diabetes UK in India.

The quick Cabinet reshuffle had become necessary after 45-year-old Patel was forced to resign from her Cabinet post in charge of the Department for International Development (DfID) Wednesday after days of controversy surrounding a series of unauthorised meetings she had held with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated. I offer a fulsome apology to you and to the Government for what has happened and offer my resignation, Patel had said in her resignation letter addressed to May.

Her letter also alluded to her staunch Brexit views, as one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum on Britains membership of the European Union.

From the backbenches I will continue to take an active role...speak up for our country, our national interests and the great future that Britain has as a free, independent and sovereign nation, she noted.

In her reply, May said: As you know the UK and Israel are close allies, and it is right that we should work closely together. But that must be done formally, and through official channels.

That is why, when we met on Monday I was glad to accept your apology and welcomed your clarification about your trip to Israel over the summer. Now that further details have come to light it is right you have decided to resign, May said.

The reply ended a day of intense political drama as news channels tracked Patels flight back from Africa, where she had left for an official visit after her initial apology over undisclosed meetings while on holiday in Israel in August.

However, she was summoned back to Downing Street by May after it emerged that there were further meetings that had potentially breached ministerial protocol.

It is understood that Patel met Israels public security minister, Gilad Erdan, in the UK Parliament complex in early September and an Israeli foreign ministry official, Yuval Rotem, in New York later that month.

May was reportedly told about the unreported New York meeting during Patels initial apology conversation at Downing Street on Monday but only learned about the unreported meeting with Erdan after the talks.

Ministers are required to tell the UK Foreign Office when they are conducting official business overseas, but it had emerged that British diplomats in Israel were not informed about any of Patels meetings  which included a meeting with Netanyahu and other political figures as well as charity organisations.

Patels resignation marks the second high-profile Cabinet shake-up for May within a week, after Michael Fallon stepped down as defence secretary amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

With a Budget statement just days away and deadlocked Brexit talks resuming this week ahead of a make-or-break EU summit next month, Patels exit has only added to Mays leadership woes with many predicting her own exit from Downing Street by the end of this year.
The four had been working on a documentary for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, were detained on Oct. 27 along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin. (Photo: AP)

Naypyitaw(Myanmar): A Myanmar court jailed two journalists on assignment for Turkeys state broadcaster, along with their interpreter and driver, for two months on Friday for violating an aircraft law by filming with a drone.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, were detained on Oct. 27 along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin.

The four had been working on a documentary for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, when they were detained for attempting to fly a drone near parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw.

While none of the four detained is a Turkish national, the case has further strained diplomatic ties in the wake of President Tayyip Erdogan accusing Myanmars military of carrying out a genocide against the Buddhist-majority countrys Rohingya Muslim minority.

Police initially began investigations into whether they had violated an import-export rule that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail, but the judge in the case opted to introduce a fresh charge of contravening the 1934 Burma Aircraft Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three months.

Both the cameraman and reporter pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, and the judge sentenced all four to two months, according to a Reuters reporter at the hearing.

A fresh hearing will be held on Nov. 16 to determine whether charges will be laid for violating the import-export rules.

The detainees admitted that they committed the crime hoping they would only be fined, so it shocked us when the judge sentenced them to two months, said defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw.

The lawyer said he would appeal for a reduction in the sentence to a fine.

Before proceedings began on Friday, Mok told reporters in the court that they were sorry for any disrespect of the Myanmars laws, but complained that the legal process had lacked transparency.

We have no idea what is going on and we are not allowed to speak to our family, she said.

And the rules and procedures are not explained to us. We were asked to sign statements that are completely in Burmese that we cannot understand.

Interpreter Aung Naing Soe told reporters as he was brought to court the four had not been mistreated while in custody, though police had asked about who they had spoken to and about the trips he had made to several of Myanmars restive regions, including Rakhine.

Myanmar says the military counter-insurgency clearance operation launched in August was provoked by Rohingya militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine State, and has denied both Erdogans accusation and a top UN officials description of the operation as a classic case of ethnic cleansing.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh since the military operation began.
After the talks, Trump said terrorists are a threat to humanity and that he and Xi will stop radical Islamic terrorism.

Trump's remarks assume significance after he unveiled his new South Asia policy under which the US has warned Pakistan against providing safe harbour to terrorist organisations. (Photo:AP/File)

Beijing: China today said President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump have reached a consensus on fighting terrorism and upholding peace and stability in South Asia, amid America ramping up pressure on Pakistan to dismantle terror safe havens.

During their talks in Beijing, Xi and Trump discussed Afghanistan and said they were committed to working toward a peaceful future for the country.

"This morning, the two presidents talked and held joint press meeting. I am not aware of the details of the talks. What I know is that the two sides also discussed anti-terrorism issues and upholding peace and stability in South Asia," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing.

"They reached consensus in this respect," she said without elaborating or mentioning whether India's concerns over terrorism emanating from Pakistan figured in the talks.

To counter terrorism, China and the US as well as other countries share the common interests and the two countries stand ready to work with other parties for stronger antiterrorism cooperation, she said.

South Asia and Afghanistan figured prominently in today's talks as both the leaders mentioned it in their briefings.

After the talks, Trump said terrorists are a threat to humanity and that he and Xi will "stop radical Islamic terrorism."

"In order to create more secure future for all and protect our citizens from extremism and terrorism, President Xi and I also committed to working together for a peaceful future for Afghanistan," Trump said.

"Terrorists are a threat to all of humanity and we will stop radical Islamic terrorism," he said.

Trump's remarks assume significance after he unveiled his new South Asia policy under which the US has warned Pakistan against providing safe harbour to terrorist organisations.

Trump's South Asia policy giving importance to India and inviting New Delhi to play a bigger role in reconstruction of Afghanistan has also raised eyebrows in Beijing and Islamabad.
He will remind Saudi leaders that Lebanon "cannot withstand the wars of others on its soil". Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Kuwait alert fellow citizens to leave the Land of Cedars "as soon as possible".

Beirut (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai has decided - for the moment - not to postpone the first historic journey of a Christian leader to Saudi Arabia during which he will meet Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who has been in Riyadh for a week. Yesterday the Cardinal met with the head of state Michel Aoun in the Presidential Palace in Baabda; official sources, behind anonymity, report that "Rai's visit to Saudi Arabia remains on schedule" and the Cardinal will try to see Hariri "to ask him about the situation".

According to sources, the Maronite Patriarch will report to Saudi Arabia that " cannot withstand the wars of others on its soil or the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia". Among other issues, interreligious dialogue, the condemnation of terrorism and extremism, the situation of Lebanese people working in the country, about 300,000 according to ministerial data.

Yesterday, at the end of face to face with Aoun, Card. Rai left the palace without making any comment. According to the National News Agency, the talks focused on "the current situation and the latest developments"; the president re-launched the task of preserving "national unity" and safeguarding Lebanon "from regional conflicts".

The mission to Riyadh scheduled for November 13, should last one day and is increasingly taking on the contours of a political, rather than religious, mission. In the context of the visit, the Cardinal will read to the Saudi leaders a message from Lebanese President, then return to the Vatican, where he will stay for a week and meet Pope Francis.

Meanwhile, according to some well-informed sources, the Maronite Patriarch would have obtained permission to meet Hariri from the Saudis the "in principle". The trip to Riyadh was announced in the days preceding the sudden resignation of the premier in the context of a trip to Saudi Arabia, where he is still waiting for his return to Lebanon. The Saudi leaders deny that he is in a state of arrest; however, a strong tide is sweeping through the Wahhabite kingdom and the future of the former Lebanese premier appears uncertain.

From internal repression against (possible) opponents launched by hereditary prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs) culminating in the wave of recent arrests to open confrontation with Iran, Mbs has embarked on increasingly aggressive policies that are characterizing his mandate. Recently, the long Saudi hand has also reached Beirut - considered hostile to (allegedly) attacks by the Hezbollah Lebanese Shiite - and causing the resignation of Saad Hariri.

Meanwhile, the list of countries alerting their fellow citizens, urging them to leave "Lebanon" as soon as possible or avoid traveling for tourism or business, has grown. After Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (EAU) also launched the alert to confirm the growing tension in the region.
They are prevented from entering or leaving two small communities. About 700 Indonesian armed soldiers control the situation. The villages are near an important copper mine, the scene of recent shootings. The guerrillas try to interrupt the extraction operations. The government engaged in talks with local leaders to end the crisis.

Jayapura (AsiaNews / Agencies) - About 1,300 residents of two villages in the eastern province of Papua New Guinea are detained by some twenty Free Movement activists (OPM), armed group protagonist of a long-term insurgency for independence of region. This is what the Indonesian Security Forces say, as they try to put an end to the stalemate.

The villagers have been isolated for two days and cannot leave their small communities, but so far they have not suffered any damage. The authorities say that at present about 700 Indonesian armed military are controlling the situation. Victor Dean Macbon, head of the local police, said: "We have not yet forced our entry into the villages because we do not want people to be hurt."

The villages are located near an important mining estate owned by US firm Freeport-McMoRan's Copper & Gold (Fmcg). The copper mine has recently been the scene of a series of shootouts. At the end of October, one of them caused the death of a policeman.

Since the annexation to Indonesia in the 1960s, a low-profile insurrection has been underway in Papua. The Freeport mine is often a focal point in the struggle for independence, as it represents a large share of the region's resources. Jakarta has long held a close eye on the territory, with a heavy use of military and police.

Government officials today said they are in discussions with local and community religious leaders in an attempt to put an end to the clash. Suarez Diaz, a spokeswoman for the Papua Police, said the group was trying to stop operations at the nearby mine and asked the police not to intervene.
by Sumon Corraya

Mobashwer Hossain has been missing since 7 November. He teaches at North South University and has studied journalism. He has written critical pieces on Islamic extremism for Bangladeshi and foreign papers. Since August, 11 people have been missing.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  Mobashwer Hossain, assistant professor at Dhaka's North South University (NSU) is missing.

His family reported that he went missing on Tuesday evening (7 November) after attending a seminar on political Islam promoted by the government. His mobile phone has been switched off.

"We are concerned about his disappearance. It is not acceptable. The government must find him soon," said bishop Gervas Rozario, president of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Bangladesh, speaking to AsiaNews.

Hossain's father filed a missing person report at the Khilgaon police station in the capital. The professor studied journalism at Dhaka University, then completed his studies in London and Australia. His thesis focused on the effects of Islam on the politics of Bangladesh.

His family believes that the cause of his disappearance is linked to his research, especially since he has published several articles against extremism in Bangladeshi and foreign newspapers.

His last article appeared in September in an Indian paper in which he looked at how Islamic extremism spreads violence in Bangladesh.

The family is worried, noting that an unknown man recently came to their home and asked for the professor. After that, Mr Hossain installed security cameras outside his home.

The disappearance of the university professor is not the first case of its kind. Local sources note that at least 11 people have gone missing since August, including journalists and businessmen. Of these, only two have returned.

Prior to Hossains disappearance, the country was deeply concerned about the disappearance of Utpol Das, a Hindu journalist.

Hundreds of journalists gathered in protest in front of the Press Club on 31 October, but the journalist is still missing.
by Gianni Criveller

The Salesian priest died on November 6 in Hong Kong at 102 years of age. He lived for 48 years in a village of Coloane with a hundred lepers. He offered them care, dignity and Christian faith. A friend of Fr. Allegra and other missionaries, he inspired commitment to leprosy treatment in China. A life given to the Lord for the poor.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Father Gaetano Nicosia, a much loved Salesian missionary, died last November 6 in Hong Kong. He was 102 years old. In the late morning of that day, Fr. Gaetano, who was still lucid, asked a Little Sister of the Poor, with whom he was staying, to seek a priest for the anointment of the sick. He understood that his time had come. The confreres came to his bedside and Cardinal Joseph Zen celebrated Holy Mass, allowing Fr. Gaetano to receive his last Eucharist just before his death. He will be buried at St. Michaels cemetery in Macau on November 14, after funeral ceremonies in the cathedral.

A few years ago he was able to meet Pope Francis, brought in a wheelchair by his fellow Salesian, Card. Joseph Zen (see photo 1 and 2).

Nicosia was known as the angel of the lepers, and his story reads like a Gospel passage on altruism, goodness, and imitation of Christ. All who met him, even for a few moments, were struck by his goodness, joy and sincere enthusiasm.

In a remote corner of Coloane Island (Macau), there was a leper colony abandoned by everyone. The despair was such that some, among the hundreds of lepers present there, killed themselves. In August 1963, Fr. Gaetano Nicosia asked to be allowed to move right there, transforming the colony in a very short space of time. The houses were refurbished, drinking water and electricity supplied and medical care offered. A farm and workshop for various trades were also built. Work was paid. A village council was established to reach consensus on decisions. Father Gaetano lived with them, bringing dignity, well-being and health. And the Christian faith. "It was hell," said a leper, "it is now a heaven; Fr. Gaetano is our angel.

In 2012 and 2013, in view of a book and documentary film, I conducted a long interview with Fr. Gaetano. The following quotes refer to that interview. His story moved me, and for that I want to honour him with this tribute. He had first-hand experience of the dramas of the twentieth century. Gaetano Nicosia was born in San Giovanni La Punta (Catania) on April 3, 1915. He lost his father in war when he was three years old. "My mother was 27 and she never married again. She went to Mass every morning and she dedicated herself to her two little ones. His brother Salvatore died just a few months ago at the age of 105!

Gabriele Maria Allegra, the famous Franciscan, now blessed, who translated the Bible into Chinese was also born in San Giovanni La Punta. Gaetano and Gabriele Maria were childhood friends. They met each other again as missionaries in Hong Kong and Macao. Fraternal friends for a lifetime.

Fr. Nicosia arrived in Hong Kong in 1935: some of his novice companions, a few years later, laid down their lives in Chinese communist prisons. Gaetano's physical constitution was delicate and the novice master wanted to repatriate him. Gaetano entrusted himself to the superior, Carlo Braga of Valtellina: "I went to him in tears to stop my repatriation. He looked at me, listened to me, and trusted me." Braga, the "Don Bosco of China", whose cause for beatification is ongoing, was the father of generations of Salesians.

In 1939 Nicosia was destined for the orphanage of Macao. Those were years of war. Thousands of refugees arrived in Macau from China and Hong Kong. People died of hunger. "In our school we had 800 students. The governor granted us some of the rice that came from Thailand every Friday. And so we saved the children's lives. "

Nicosia was ordained to the priesthood in 1946 in the beautiful church of St. Joseph in Macau. He followed Bishop Michele Arduino of Shaozhou (now Shaoguan, Guangdong Province) to China. That Christian community dated back to Matteo Ricci, who lived there from 1589 to 1595.

Those were years of civil war, of disorder and of danger. Nicosia was expelled in 1950, after the rise to power of the communists. He was welcomed to Hong Kong's "bridge of freedom" by Ambrose Poletti of PIME, the "Gatekeeper to China".

After serving for 11 years at the Saint Louis school in Hong Kong, Nicosia was dissatisfied. He wanted a mission among the poorest, indeed with the lepers, as he had promised to Jesus as a boy. The superior wanted to send him to a leper colony in Colombia when the bishop of Macau asked the Salesians to do something for the Coloane leper colony.

It was a sign of Providence for Gaetano. For 48 years, from 1963 to 2011, he lived with lepers. In 1970, 40 people were discharged. Nicosia had found them a job, but people even avoided the relatives of the former lepers. And so, rejected by their own families, many returned to the village.

At the time of Nicosia's arrival only a dozen were Catholics. Nicosia brought them all to the faith, through the Salesian devotions proposed with enthusiasm and love. But above all with his life shared with them. "The City of Joy" of Coloane moved all those who visited it. Many important people, including Fr. Allegra, spent lengthy periods in the leprosy colony. The Jesuits Luis Ruiz and Lancelot Rodrigues, two famous Macau priests friends of lepers, inspired by Nicosia, began working in favour of lepers in China.

The architect Oseo Acconci built a beautiful church dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. The great sculptor Francesco Messina made a splendid bronze crucifix that still dominates the front of the sacred building. For his work, Nicosia received honours from the Macau government and the president of the Italian Republic.

In 2011, all inhabitants of the colony were declared cured and many returned to society as teachers, employees and professionals. The leper colony was closed and their "angel" at 96, retired to Hong Kong.

In 2015, in a memorable event, Angelo Paratico and Ciriaco Offedus documentary film Father Nicosia, the Angel of Lepers, was presented, to raise awareness of the life of this extraordinary man. It was then presented in Taranto and in several Italian cities. The previous year, at the PIME House in Hong Kong, with the presence of the Italian consul Alessandra Schiavo and Card. John Tong, Fr. Nicosia was celebrated with great affection by many friends. His moving speech, inspired by an extraordinary faith and sympathy, remains etched in the memory of those who were present as a unique and unforgettable event.

Photo 3: portrait of Fr. Nicosia, by Margot Errante
by Li Yuan

Government representatives say that the transition from underground to official bishop is the result of negotiations with the Vatican. The ceremony took place with the reading of the "Letter of Approval" by the Council of Bishops and the candidates patriotic pledge. Mgr Han Zhihai is a "smart steward". On 16 November 16, the ordination of another official bishop is scheduled to take place in Handan.

Lanzhou (AsiaNews)  Mgr Joseph Han Zhihai, recognised hitherto as bishop by the Holy See but not by the government, was officially installed as bishop of Lanzhou (Gansu). The ceremony took place in the citys Sacred Heart Cathedral.

The installation was presided by Mgr John Baptist Yang Xiaoting, bishop of Yanan, vice chair of the Council of Chinese Bishops who then turn the Mass over to Mgr Han Zhihai. Mgr Han Jide, bishop of Pingliang, and Fr Zhao Jianzhang, of Tianshui, Apostolic Administrator, co-celebrate the event.

All bishops present at the ceremony have Holy See approval. Fr Zhao, although he was appointed coadjutor bishop of Tianshui by the Vatican in 2011, has not been approved by the Chinese government.

The dioceses of Lanzhou, Pingliang and Tianshui are in Gansu, whilst the diocese of Yanan is in the neighbouring province of Shaanxi.

Some fifty priests from the local and neighbouring dioceses attended the ceremony (picture 1) as did 350 nuns and laypeople. Officials from the governments Religious Affairs Office and the Communist Partys United Front Department from each district of the diocese of Lanzhou were also present. Some security officials patrolled the church compound.

A Church source said that 12 of 38 priests in the diocese did not take part in the ceremony. Most priests came from neighbouring dioceses. Only two of the three female religious congregations sent some members.

A Catholic, who asked that his identity be protected, and who knows the situation in Lanzhou, told AsiaNews that the ceremony took place with the reading of the "letter of approval" of the Council of Bishops by a delegate of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) and the Council of Bishops, followed by the new bishops vow to be patriotic.

Earlier, Religious Affairs officials had demanded that priests and nuns attend the ceremony, noting that it was the outcome negotiated with the Vatican and for this reason they should not have to worry too much.

Bishop Han Zhihai was born in 1966. He became a priest in 1994 and was appointed vicar general of Bishop Yang Libai (aka Yang Libo). He had been secretly ordained as bishop in 2003 to succeed Bishop Yang who had died in 1998.

In 2003, he became famous for an open letter asking all bishops in China to put an end to the unnecessary split between official and underground communities [1]. The letter was read during a seminar on the Church in China held in Belgium.

Until now, Mgr Han had not been recognised by the government. In an interview with Vatican Insider in 2015, he had said it "was best not to ask for the governments recognition, but that the government was ready to give it in 2010.

According to Catholics who spoke to AsiaNews, things went differently. At least 10 years ago, Mgr Han had met with Anthony Liu Bainian, who headed the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association for years (dubbed Chinas black pope), revealing his desire to be recognised by the government. But Liu told him instead that he needed time to monitor Mgr Han. Since then the bishop kept himself away from other underground communities.

In fact, Mgr Han and the diocese of Lanzhou had long accepted the dual supervision (lianghui) of the CPCA and the Church Affairs Committee in the province, as shown in an official notice about reshuffling parish priests (picture 2). The notice was soon removed from the dioceses website and from another popular Catholic website in China.

In June 2016, Mgr Han was among 30 bishops who attended an educational class organised by the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) in Beijing (picture 3) in which the main speakers came from the government to stress the principles of an independent Church and independent episcopal appointments and ordinations.

Until now, the bishop has not yet joined the CPCA, but had allowed his two vicar generals to become members of both the CPCA and the provincial section of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

In 2010 and 2016, his priests participated in the eighth and ninth Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, the organisation that stands above the CPCA and the Council of Bishops. In June 2017, Sister Han, secretary to and relative of Mgr Han, attended the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the CPCA, and met Yu Zhengsheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

The Holy See does not recognise the Assembly of Chinese Catholic Representatives, nor the CPCA or the Council of Bishops, which back the principles of an independent Church.

However, in the past three years, perhaps to ensure the continuation of negotiations with China, the Vatican has softened its position, receiving criticism from various groups in the official and underground Church.

"I do not mean to scorn Bishop Han, one Catholic told AsiaNews, but to point out that his case is like a microcosm of what is happening in the Chinese Church today.

Looking at how his episcopal ministry developed, in a remote northeastern diocese, and his ability to look at the signs of the times, I can only say that he is an smart steward, he said.

"This also shows," he added, "that it is not easy to be a bishop in China today and explains why there are huge differences between underground bishops, with some who can travel wherever they want and others who are detained or held under house arrest."

The installation of Mgr Han is the first of two to be held this month, following the last round of China-Vatican talks last month. On 16 November, Mgr Joseph Sun Jigen will be installed in Handan (Hebei). He is recognised as a priest by the government, but was secretly ordained bishop in 2011.

[1] The letter was published in AsiaNews, n. 8, October 2003.
Francis, receiving participants in the Symposium on Perspectives for a world free of nuclear weapons, and for an integral disarmament, spoke of a scenario characterized by "an unstable climate of conflict" and a "non-stop" arms race. "Weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - In the current international scene, characterized by "an unstable climate of conflict", " the escalation of the arms race continues unabated" and the number of countries that possess or aspire to possess nuclear weapons is growing, Pope reiterated that not only is the mere possession of atomic weapons illegal but also that an "effective and inclusive progress" can realize the utopia of a world without nuclear arms.

Receiving the participants from the international symposium titled Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament, Pope Francis said that "the culture of the waste" should be rejected, it is necessary to "take care of people and peoples who suffer the most painful inequalities" which means ntegrating the individual and the social dimensions through the application of the principle of subsidiarity, encouraging the contribution of all, as individuals and as groups. Lastly, there is a need to promote human beings in the indissoluble unity of soul and body, of contemplation and action.. "

The participants of the meeting - 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners, UN and NATO leaders, diplomats, including Russia, the United States, South Korea, Iran, as well as top armament experts, founding members, organizations and civil society actively engaged in the theme and religious representatives - the Pope said, first of all, that " prospects for a world free from nuclear arms and for integral disarmament, the theme of your meeting, appear increasingly remote. Indeed, the escalation of the arms race continues unabated and the price of modernizing and developing weaponry, not only nuclear weapons, represents a considerable expense for nations. As a result, the real priorities facing our human family, such as the fight against poverty, the promotion of peace, the undertaking of educational, ecological and healthcare projects, and the development of human rights, are relegated to second place."

The mere possession of atomic weapons must also be condemned

"Vital sense of restlessness" then causes the thought of "catastrophic consequences" that could cause an "even accidental" detonation of a nuclear weapon. Therefore, "t the threat of their use, as well as their very possession, is to be firmly condemned. For they exist in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race. International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms. "

"Weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, create nothing but a false sense of security. They cannot constitute the basis for peaceful coexistence between members of the human family, which must rather be inspired by an ethics of solidarity."

In the world, however, "Suffice it to note that nuclear technologies are now spreading, also through digital communications, and that the instruments of international law have not prevented new states from joining those already in possession of nuclear weapons. The resulting scenarios are deeply disturbing if we consider the challenges of contemporary geopolitics, like terrorism or asymmetric warfare. "

"At the same time, a healthy realism continues to shine a light of hope on our unruly world. Recently, for example, in a historic vote at the United Nations, the majority of the members of the international community determined that nuclear weapons are not only immoral, but must also be considered an illegal means of warfare. This decision filled a significant juridical lacuna, inasmuch as chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-human mines and cluster bombs are all expressly prohibited by international conventions. Even more important is the fact that it was mainly the result of a humanitarian initiative sponsored by a significant alliance between civil society, states, international organizations, churches, academies and groups of experts. The document that you, distinguished recipients of the Nobel Prize, have consigned to me is a part of this, and I express my gratitude and appreciation for it."

Francis finally recalled that this year is the 50th anniversary of the Encyclical Populorum progressio of Paul VI. " That Encyclical, in developing the Christian concept of the person, set forth the notion of integral human development and proposed it as the new name of peace. In this memorable and still timely document, the Pope stated succinctly that development cannot be restricted to economic growth alone. To be authentic, it must be integral; it must foster the development of each man and of the whole man (No. 14). And the teaching of John XXIII remains ever valid. In pointing to the goal of an integral disarmament, he stated: Unless this process of disarmament be thoroughgoing and complete, and reach mens very souls, it is impossible to stop the arms race, or to reduce armaments, or  and this is the main thing  ultimately to abolish them entirely (Pacem in Terris, 11 April 1963).
by Santosh Digal

The country faces numerous social problems, from human trafficking to teen pregnancies. In this context, young people seek the guidance of the Church. Some programmes educate them in spirituality and their faith.

Manila (AsiaNews)  The Catholic Church accompanies and guides young people in the realisation of their hopes and aspirations, two catholic youth leaders told AsiaNews.

Young people in the Philippines face many social problems and challenges, such human trafficking, teen pregnancy, drug and substance abuse, poverty, crime, lack of employment, and family disintegration.

People aged 15 and 24 make up 19.17 per cent of the total population. One of the main problems they face is the high rate of teen pregnancy, especially among the poor.

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), two thirds of Filipinas who give birth before the age of 20 are part of the lower classes.

The growing incidence of pregnancies among teenagers has also resulted in a higher number of abortions.

According to the Population Institute of the University of the Philippines, more than 46 per cent of pregnant teenage women resort to abortion which is against Filipino law.

Even the emigration of ten million Filipinos (10 per cent of populations) comes with a social cost. Although their annual remittances exceed US$ 26 billion, they are forced to leave their children alone back home.

In this context, the new generation is anxiously looking for Church guidance in order to create for themselves a peaceful life for a better country.

Joshua Jean P. Jamolin, a 21-year-old Catholic, strongly believes that with faith in God and strong affiliation with the Church, the countrys youth can hope for a better, safer and more secure life for themselves and for the country.

The government, civil society groups, and Churches are to accompany and embrace youth to improve their education coupled with solid human and spiritual values," Jamolin said.

"We need to hope for the better today, he added. Our parents and Church authorities, besides the government, are doing their best to help us. It all depends on how we take and accept these programmes and take advantage of them".

One of these programmes is National Youth Day (NYD) which began on 6 November and ended today. The Episcopal Commission on Youth of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines organised it in the Archdiocese of Zamboanga, in the south of the country.

The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name (Luke 1:49) was the theme of NYD, which included spiritual activities, Marian devotion, dialogue with laypeople, youth, Church leaders and government officials to inspire and enrich youth.

Jamolin was one of the 3,000 students who attended the gathering, one of 24 from the diocese of Cubao (near Manila). I was inspired to share, learn and interact with youth from different parts of the country, he said.

For Roy Bryan Sigga, 21, another young man attending the NYD, the mission of the Church in the Philippines is to help young people live a dignified life and experience Christian joy.

Sigga said that his country is confronted with various social issues, which are being addressed by the government, whilst the Catholic Church is educating young people through spiritual programmes.


(Christian Vinces/Shutterstock.com) (Christian Vinces/Shutterstock.com)

Foreigners working in restaurants in Australia, often students and backpackers, are being warned that they should make sure they are being paid at least the minimum wage.It comes after a judge described the operators of a Gold Coast restaurant as having behaved in a 'heinous' way after paying overseas workers as little as $8 an hour and using false records to try to cover it up.Shigeo Ishiyama, who owns and operates the Samurais Paradise restaurant at Surfers Paradise and formerly operated the Japanese Curry House Kawaii restaurant nearby, was found to have underpaid nine workers a total of $59,080 over a period of just four months and has been fined $38,000 and his company fined 246,400.It resulted from an investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman which found that the workers, most of whom were in Australia with working holiday visas, were being underpaid as waiters and cooks.Inspectors found Ishiyama and his company had been paying employees flat rates of between $8 and $11 an hour for all hours worked and created false records to conceal the underpayments.Under the Restaurant Industry Award 2010 at the time, the employees were entitled to minimum hourly rates of up to $18.47 and penalty rates ranging from $26.03 to $46.18 for weekend and public holiday work. Other loadings and allowances were also underpaid.In his judgment, Judge Salvatore Vasta described the exploitation of the workers as 'certainly deliberate' and imposed near maximum penalties for the record keeping contraventions, describing them as very serious.Ishiyama's company has now paid the workers' wages in full and Judge Vasta has also ordered the company to back-pay the employees more than $8,000 in outstanding superannuation.Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James pointed out that any businesses found to be breaching record keeping laws run the risk of receiving even higher penalties in the future.'Using false records in attempt to get away with underpaying workers is an insidious practice. Without adequate records in can sometimes be difficult for Fair Work Inspectors to accurately calculate a worker's entitlements,' she said.She also pointed out that the Australian Parliament has also acknowledged the seriousness of falsifying records having recently passed legislation tripling the maximum penalties for this conduct.She is increasingly concerned about the number of employers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are underpaying workers from within their own ethnic communities.
Good morning to all.

I am in Australia with a one-year tourist visa with multiple entries of three months, which was obtained with an Argentine passport.

Before I was three months and had to leave the country, apply to an extension of my visa for three more months to continue legally in the country, which granted me.

In a couple of days this extension will be completed.

My question is this:

Once I leave Australia after 6 months of tourist, how long should I wait to apply for a new tourist visa?

Is there any time I must respect or can I do it immediately?

Because i listen that if you are in Australia for 6 or 9 months continue later to get a new Visitor Visa you need wait 12 month to applicate again for a new one, is true?
Joseph Luiz can be reached at 395-7368 or by email at jluiz@bakersfield.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @JLuiz_TBC.
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.
Courtesy of the artist is one of the most spectacular jazz groups of the era, and theyre coming through Albuquerque to perform at the Outpost Performance Space . The dynamic trio of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King have been called as badass as highbrow gets by Rolling Stone, so you know youre in for something good. Iverson is leaving the band at the end of 2017, so this is your final chance to see them perform with all their original members. Matinee show on Saturday, Nov 11 . Doors open at 12:30pm , and the performance 1 to 3pm . Tickets are $35 , $30 for members and $5 for students. (Robin Babb)

One of the most celebrated, thoughtful and prominent jazz acts of the last 20 years perform live on their final tour.

One of the most celebrated, thoughtful, and prominent jazz acts of the last twenty years, The Bad Plus originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota and now based in New York City came together at the end of the 20th century and has avoided easy categorization ever since. They have won critical acclaim and fans worldwide with their creativity, unique sound and flair for live performance. A group of passionate collaborators with no single leader, they have broken down the walls of jazz convention and created a unique and uncompromising body of work, the bulk of which has been original. The Bad Plus have also been widely recognized for their deconstruction of songs from the pop, rock, country, and classical music idioms which they return to for their 2017 album, Its Hard. The Bad Plus features bassist, Reid Anderson; drummer David King and pianist Ethan Iverson, who will be leaving the group after the final concert of this tour on New Years Eve at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Pianist, Orrin Evans, a longtime friend and musical colleague of the band, will become the new member of the trio. One of Outposts favorite bands over the years, we are honored that The Bad Plus is making Outpost a stop on their final tour with Iverson who, incidentally, will be performing at Outpost in the spring 2018 season  stay tuned!). By any standard, jazz or otherwise, it is moving, mighty music...bad to the bone, hot players with hard-rock hearts. (Rolling Stones review of The Bad Plus 2013 release, Made Possible).
Here's your Tampa area weather forecast for late Friday into Saturday morning and through the weekend.

Seasonable temperatures



Isolated shower



Breezy winds



The front came in and stalled as expected. Skies will be partly cloudy from now into Saturday morning.

The lows will be slightly cooler, but nothing drastic since the front has stopped. Lows will be in the upper 50s for Citrus and Hernando Counties, while in the low to mid 60s for most other areas.

Saturday will end up being a nice day, with the clouds breaking up to allow for partly sunny skies. High temperatures will be a little warmer, getting back into the low 80s.

Since the front has stalled there will be just enough moisture and lift to provide for a couple of isolated showers in the afternoon to evening. The rain chance will be small, however, at about 20 percent.

The best coverage will tend to be east of I-75 closer to the other side of the state.

Winds will be breezier for Saturday and then remain breezy into early next week.

Saturday night will be partly cloudy with lows in the 60s.

Sunday will wrap up the weekend on a similar note, with partly cloudy skies and a small chance of an afternoon shower. Highs will be in the low 80s.



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Unique and Stunning Lodgings of Pacific City, Oceanside, N. Oregon Coast

Published 11/10/2017 at 4:37 AM PDT - Updated 11/10/2017 at 4:38 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Pacific City, Oregon)  The ever-engaging Three Capes Route along the north Oregon coast cradles the slightly to very hidden havens of Pacific City, Tierra Del Mar and Oceanside, each a bonafide gem all their own. What's even more engaging in these mesmerizing beach burghs? Some of the lodgings. (Above: Hart's Camp).

Take a look at some very distinctive places to stay in these tiny hotspots: from the soaring upscale to the vibrant beauties filled with unexpected delights. (Find full lodging ideas for the area, including exclusive listings not found anywhere else at Pacific City, Oceanside, Netarts, Tierra Del Mar Lodging).





There's a lot more to the ultra-charming Sandlake Country Inn that meets the eye  and there's a lot of picturesque things that greet you initially. It's a certified green BnB that also comes with a small cottage by a babbling brook. History is on resplendent display here: parts of the building were actually constructed from part of a shipwreck over 100 years ago. One room has a Victorian, British quality, while another feels like a step back to the roaring twenties. The food is legendary here as well. 8505 Galloway Rd.Cloverdale, Oregon. www.sandlakecountryinn.com. 877-726-3525. 503-965-6745.





The famed Inn at Cape Kiwanda started the boom in Pacific City back in the '90s, and its presence today continues to break molds with upscale flair. Inside, the rooms often have beautiful whites and nice wood touches, with whimsical beach-themed art on the walls. There's a soft, dreamy quality to it in many instances. Units that come with jetted tubs looking out over the ocean and the kids' bunkbeds with a flat TV screen are also engaging details. 33105 Cape Kiwanda Dr. Pacific City, Oregon. 888-965-7001 www.InnAtCapeKiwanda.com

Up in Tierra Del Mar, you can feel gloriously lost in the woods with the sound of the beach quite close. Here, Idyllic Beach Houses is two vacation rentals in one, both where the primeval feel of the forest envelopes you. They both have a spectacular, even slightly unusual look to them that's captivating. Even better: the beach is a quick walk through those woods. Tierra Del Mar, Oregon (5 miles north of Pacific City). 503-662-5420. Details at www.IdyllicBeachHouse.com.





Right up on that celebrated sandy stretch of Pacific City and Cape Kiwanda sits the Cottages at Cape Kiwanda. Here, it's luxury all around, with vibrant wood finishes in many spots and an exterior of weathered wood that's uncompromisingly cajoling and cozy. Oceanfront balconies and jetted tubs that face the ocean are perfect in any coastal weather. You'll also find an Xbox 360 in the kids' rooms and exceptionally inviting fireplaces. 33000 Cape Kiwanda Drive, Pacific City, Oregon. 888-965-7001. www.kiwandacottages.com.





Open Nest Vacation Rentals has a wide variety of homes around Pacific City, with some hosting up to 12 people. Many have that glorious weathered wood that's so very Oregon coast. Gas or wood fireplaces can be found, they're great for company retreats or weddings, and there are some true architectural wonders and delights. One comes with shimmering white walls and a ceiling at interesting angles that's like a leveled-off A Frame, or there's the three-bedroom wow-inducer with daylight streaming through the soaring ceiling windows. 1-877-549-2632 or 503-965-5776. 3105 Cape Kiwanda Drive, Pacific City, Oregon. www.shorepinerentals.com.





Ever wanted that timeless American dream of staying in a vintage Airstream? But on the Oregon coast? Hart's Camp does just that, but with the interiors crammed with upscale amenities. Each unit comes with a manicured grassy space that has an outdoor shower covered in living plants. Off Brooten Road, Pacific City, Oregon. 503-965-5776. Hart's Camp Website here.

Through Oregon Beach Vacations, you can find some jaw-droppers in Oceanside. They have a few vacation rentals, including one that's practically sprawling, high up on the hill and with great views of Three Arch Rocks. Another boasts fascinating architecture that's paradoxically condensed yet still impressively large. Offices in Cannon Beach and Lincoln City. 1-800-723-2383. www.oregonbeachvacations.com.





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Texas DPS

A cash reward of up to $7,500 is being offered by the Texas Department of Public Safety for information leading to the capture of a most wanted fugitive.

Frankie Lee Bell, 29, is wanted for murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after allegedly shooting and killing two men in Bryan, Texas, during an aggravated robbery, according to DPS.
EDITORIAL

It's become an annual tradition at St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica School in Beaumont - donating toys to the Beaumont Enterprise Empty Stocking Fund. But this is not a typical donation, and neither is the charity that benefits from it.

The students and staff at St. Anthony collected more than 250 toys in 2016 for the effort, ranging from Hot Wheels cars to board games.

It's a charming part of this holiday season, one that many children will cherish long after they have grown up. And it fits right in with the spirit of the Empty Stocking Fund, the city's oldest charity run by its oldest business.

Donations pour in all kinds of way. Kids save coins all year. Grandparents give a dollar for each year of their grandchildren's lives. Parents bring their tykes to The Enterprise lobby to make a donation - just as their parents did with them when they were little. Organizations like the Knights of Columbus cook up holiday treats and donate the proceeds.

And on and on. The Empty Stocking Fund has a real community feel to it, a connection to the people of this region that we cherish and honor. We don't toot our horn much, but we've been doing this for 104 years, and we've raised more than $2.1 million to help needy families and children. This year, Christmas Bureau volunteers will use the donations to help more than 500 families, many of which were impacted by Tropical Storm Harvey.

To do that, we depend on the generosity of Southeast Texans. If you can make a donation, we will deeply appreciate it. Our target is $50,000 again. Contributions may be mailed to the Empty Stocking Fund, P.O. Box 3071, Beaumont, TX 77704.

Starting the Monday after Thanksgiving, volunteers from the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission's RSVP program will be in The Enterprise lobby at 380 Main St. every day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to accept hand-delivered donations.

With your help, we'll make sure that some kids don't wake up to a home without toys on Christmas morning. At this time of year, we can't think of anything more important.
Workers prepare the construction site for Bangladeshs first nuclear reactor, in Rooppur, Oct. 25, 2017.

Bangladeshs Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA) has authorized construction to begin this month on the nations first nuclear reactor, a long-delayed and Russian-supported plant that is expected to produce electricity by 2023.

The project, which was conceived in 1961 before Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) became an independent nation, is estimated to cost more than U.S. $13 billion (1 trillion taka). Bangladeshs first nuclear power plant is to be constructed in Rooppur in Northwestern Pabna district, about 160 km (100 miles) from Dhaka.

Bangladesh is set to enter into the nuclear age. This is a good news for the nation, Yafes Osman, the state minister for science and technology, told BenarNews.

Construction of a second reactor is scheduled to begin later and go online by 2024, potentially driving construction costs to $18 billion (1.5 trillion taka). The two reactors are expected to produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity per day, officials said.

Russia is to provide 90 percent of the funds through loans to be paid back by Bangladeshs government, which is responsible for the other 10 percent of the cost. Russias nuclear agency Rosatom has been overseeing the project featuring its latest technology.

On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will formally inaugurate construction of the structure to house the first reactor.

License hand-off

Earlier this month, BAERA chairman Naiyyum Choudhury presented the projects design and construction license to Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) Chairman Dilip Kumar Saha. Work to clear the site for the project has been completed.

Along with supplying electricity, the Rooppur project will help build national confidence in other major construction projects, Osman said.

Bangladesh will be joining the global nuclear club is a matter of time. Some formalities are yet to be finished  hopefully, these will be finished soon, he said.

But construction of a nuclear plant in a densely populated country is not without risks, Md Shafiqul Islam, a professor at Dhaka Universitys Department of Nuclear Engineering and Technology, told BenarNews.

No one can guarantee that there will be no accidents, he said, but pointed out that the plants sophisticated technology would reduce those risks.

Rosatom plans to recruit Indian experts because Bangladesh lacks the trained workers to run a nuclear plant. Since Hasinas India visit in April, Bangladesh has been hiring Indian consultants to set up the plant and to train Bangladesh scientists to operate it.

In addition, Rosatom expects to train 1,100 workers to operate the plant and more than 50 Bangladeshi students have been studying nuclear science and technology in Russia.
As thousands of Rohingya refugees struggle to get by on one meal a day at camps in southeastern Bangladesh, others are making money by illicitly selling off their food rations, officials acknowledged.

Rasheda Begum, a Rohingya woman who lives in the Jamtoli camp in Ukhia, a sub-district of Coxs Bazar, said she was selling surplus rations that her family of five received every fortnight to buy meat and vegetables even though Bangladesh authorities were cracking down on such sales.

We are just five of us in my family, including three kids. What will we do with such large quantities of rations? Rasheda, 27, told BenarNews.

Recently, she said she tried to sell seven liters (1.84 gallons) of cooking oil for nearly half the market price, while a next-door neighbor was selling 50 kilos (110 pounds) of rice for 25 taka (U.S. 30 cents) per kilogram.

Rohingya families, no matter their size, receive the same ration of rice, lentils and vegetable oil every two weeks from the World Food Program (WFP).

Meanwhile at the sprawling Kutupalong refugee camp, about 20 km (12.5 miles) away, Mohammad Javed, 18, said his 11-member family was struggling against hunger. At times, they eat barely one meal a day, he said.

The ration is not enough. But were managing somehow. We eat less so supplies can last us two weeks, he told BenarNews.

Mohammad Javed (right), a Rohingya refugee in Coxs Bazar, says his 11-member family barely gets by on one meal a day, Nov. 8, 2017. [Rohit Wadhwaney/BenarNews]



Flaw in distribution system

Officials conceded that the widespread sale of rations in the 15-odd refugee camps on Bangladeshs southeastern border stemmed from a flaw in the food distribution system.

Each Rohingya family gets the same amount of ration regardless of how many members it contains, Coxs Bazar Deputy Commissioner Ali Hossain told BenarNews. About 350 tons of food is distributed in Rohingya camps daily.

There may be something wrong with this system. But you need to understand that when the crisis unfolded in August, thousands of Rohingya poured into Bangladesh. We did not have enough time and resources to gather information on the number of members in each family, he said. So we calculated a rough average of members per family and started distributing relief.

A violent crackdown by security forces in Buddhist-majority Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslim community has driven more than 600,000 refugees across the border into Bangladesh since Aug. 25. The offensive followed coordinated attacks on Myanmar police and army posts that were blamed on Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents.

Tens of thousands of children at risk

Almost 40,000 Rohingya children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years living in the refugee camps suffer from acute malnutrition and urgently need life-saving measures, according to a survey conducted by the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC).

The IRC additionally expects malnutrition rates to be even higher as the humanitarian community comes to grips with the full scale of need, it said. IRC expects 200,000 more new arrivals in the coming weeks will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.

The World Food Program, which has distributed almost 9,540 metric tons (10,516 U.S. tons) of rice in the refugee camps since Aug. 25, said the ration distribution amount was based on an average family size of five.

We conduct fortnightly distributions of 25 kg rice, 4.5 kg lentils and two liters of vegetable oil per household, WFP spokeswoman Shelley Thakral told BenarNews.

She said the WFP was aware that some families were selling supplies distributed by her agency.

In a situation like this one, where refugees have lost everything and are struggling to meet all of their basic needs, it can sometimes happen that people choose to sell food rations in order to buy other urgent items, such as medicine or shelter supplies, Thakral said.

While this is not our intention, once the food has been given to the people for whom it was intended, it is their decision what to do with it.

Criminal offense

Bangladeshi authorities consider the sale and purchase of relief rations a criminal offense, Deputy Commissioner Hossain said.

The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) last month detained at least 25 Rohingya who were caught selling relief supplies, he said, adding they were released with a warning.

We are trying to convince them that the aid they are getting was dwindling with each passing day and in about two months they will not get any. So they should keep a reserve supply instead of selling it, Hossain said.

Earlier this week, the BGB arrested 10 Bangladeshis from the Kutupalong camp for attempting to purchase rations from refugees, he said.

They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 1 month to 6 months, he added.

But the arrests dont concern Abul Hossain, 48, a grocery store owner in Coxs Bazar town.

He said he regularly purchased rice, lentils, sugar and oil from Rohingya refugees because it was a highly profitable bargain.

I am not forcing them to sell their ration supply. Theyre selling it of their own free will. Theres no victim here, so how can it be a crime? he told BenarNews.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, center, poses for a photo as he leaves the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in Danang, Vietnam, Nov. 9, 2017.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he was willing to host a human rights world summit to defend his administration's bloody war on drugs, which has left thousands dead since he assumed power last year.

Facing international condemnation from rights bodies, the European Union and the United Nations, Duterte brought up the idea while attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vietnam.

We should have a summit only on human rights. But we should call all, Duterte said, according to an official transcript of a news conference after meeting the Filipino community in Vietnam on Thursday night.

So lets have a summit of how we can protect the human rights for all human race, Duterte said. Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments.

At least 3,800 alleged drug users and dealers have been killed since Duterte assumed power last year, according to the police.

But the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates said the actual count was at least 12,000, including many who were killed by unknown vigilantes who leave cardboard messages owning up to the murders.

The crackdown has not spared children, including three teenagers who were among about 100 suspects slain in a series of anti-drug raids in August.

Powerful leaders of the Catholic Church and other critics have condemned the killings.

A Christian evangelical group who had campaigned for Duterte last year also recently cut its ties with the president and called for greater accountability.

Duterte, during the meeting with Filipinos in Vietnam on Thursday, also claimed that, at age 16, he had killed a person.

It was not immediately clear whether the president was serious. He has often made outrageous claims that his spokesmen have had to walk back.

Duterte had variously said in the past that he had killed about three people and that he shot a person when he was a law student in San Beda University, a private college in Manila. But it was the first time Duterte claimed to having knifed someone to death when he was a boy.

In an invective-laced speech to the Filipino community earlier, Duterte spoke about his drugs war and blasted critics.

He also doubled down in delivering personal anecdotes, accentuated with gutter language, a strategy that has endeared the politician to ordinary Filipinos who were craving for change.

On Thursday, Duterte claimed that when he was 16, he had stabbed to death a man who just happened to stare at him, and that he was already in and out of jail.

I stabbed him because he stared at me, how more now that I am president? Duterte told the crowd, who wildly cheered.

Trying to recover from a potentially embarrassing official admission, the presidential palace said that Duterte was just fond of using "colorful language" when addressing Filipino audiences overseas.

Duterte also focused again on United Nations human rights rapporteur Agnes Callamard, whom he had earlier blocked from conducting an investigation into the killings.

He said he had told Callamard: I will slap you in the face if you investigate me.

Do not give me that shit! This rapporteur, I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me! Duterte said, emphasizing that he had dared the United Nations to file a case against him at the International Criminal Court, an international tribunal that sits in The Hague.

Duterte pointed out that Callamard had not commented on victims of violence in the Middle East, and asked, Why are you so fascinated with drugs?

Trump warned

In the news conference, Duterte also threatened to ban U.S. Reps. James McGovern (D-Mass.) and Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) from visiting Manila after the lawmakers asked Donald Trump to raise the issue of human rights during his bilateral meeting with the Philippine leader in Manila on Monday.

If you do not like me, I do not like you. We're even," Duterte said.

His spokesman, Harry Roque, said earlier that Manila could not dignify the American politicians own point of view, reiterating that Manilas adherence to rule of law and protection of human rights was firm as ever.

The government is investigating allegations of so-called extra-judicial killings, including homicide cases with drug-related motives. Ongoing investigations include the conduct of public congressional hearings, Roque said.

All these are undertaken precisely to ensure that due process and the rule of law prevails despite the Philippines significant drug problem, he said.
Philippine Navy commandos patrol the waters of Bongao in the remote southern Philippine island of Tawi-Tawi, the same province where soldiers rescued four Vietnamese hostages from Abu Sayyaf gunmen, Aug. 30, 2007.

Soldiers rescued four Vietnamese hostages from Abu Sayyaf bandits in the southern Philippines on Friday, but found a fifth one lifeless, some nine months after they were seized, the military said.

The dead hostage apparently succumbed to a lingering illness, military southern command spokeswoman Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay said.

The military launched the rescue while President Rodrigo Duterte was visiting Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.

Petinglay identified the rescued hostages as Buy Xuan Vien, Bui Trung Duc, Nguten Quang Huy, and Nguyin Huu Trong, and the dead as Hu Trung.

All were crew members of the cargo ship MV Giang Hai 5, which was boarded by Abu Sayyaf gunmen as it passed through waters off Sulu Island in the south last February.

The Vietnamese were among 17 crew members, including two who were also killed when they fought off the gunmen. Ten others were able to escape, officials said.

"Due to a lingering illness, Huu Trong succumbed to death during his captivity," Petinglay said, without elaborating.

The rescue operation was carried out in the early evening of Friday, near the island of Kang Tipayan in the remote island province of Tawi-Tawi, in the countrys far south, the military said.

In September, troops rescued two Indonesian hostages also held by Abu Sayyaf militants in the jungles of southern Jolo Island. Seven other foreigners are believed still in Abu Sayyaf hands in the south, according to the military.

The Abu Sayyaf, or Bearers of the Sword, is the most violent of several Muslim rebel factions in the southern Philippines. It is responsible for the worst attacks in the country, including a ferry bombing in Manila Bay that killed more than 100 people in 2004.

The gunmen beheaded an elderly German captive earlier this year after his government failed to fork over ransom, while two Canadians were also killed in the same manner last year.

Military regional chief Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez said ground units would push ahead with its anti-terror operations against the bandits to thwart their kidnapping ploys and rescue their victims.

Another Abu Sayyaf faction led by Isnilon Hapilon, the acknowledged leader of the Islamic State in the region, engaged government forces in a five-month battle that destroyed much of Marawi city, also in the south. The vicious firefights killed 930 militants, 165 soldiers and 47 civilians, officials said.

In August, naval counter-terrorism troops also rescued Do Trung Hieu, a Vietnamese sailor held hostage by Abu Sayyaf militants for nine months on Basilan island, about 1,500 km (875 miles) south of Manila.

On Wednesday, six soldiers were killed and four wounded when the military clashed with the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, in what is considered the single deadliest encounter for the army since security forces regained control of Marawi in October.

Duterte skipped a gala dinner in Vietnam after he was told of the militarys rescue operation.

He is supervising and coordinating (the) safe recovery of Vietnamese captives of the Abu Sayyaf group, Roque said in a short statement.

Felipe Villamor in Manila contributed to this report.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (left) is welcomed upon his arrival at the international airport ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang, Nov. 8, 2017.

The Philippines will not seek U.S. military assistance against China to contain its expansionist moves in the South China Sea, President Rodrigo Duterte said, describing Beijing as a friend.

In a talk with reporters in Vietnam, where he is attending an annual summit of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders, Duterte said Thursday that his country could not antagonize China even if the United States suggested it would help in the dispute.

No, I will not ask military help to wage war against China, Duterte said, when asked to comment if Manila would ask for Americas help during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Manila on Monday.

China is a friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed. You will not be able to force them out there except to go to war, Duterte said, according to transcripts of the exchange sent to reporters in Manila on Friday.

He said the Philippines was not ready for that.

In the fullness of Gods time, maybe well have an interesting arrangement there, the president said. But it would depend on the people of China, how far they would go. But we are asking for the minimum.

He said that he was willing to reason with China, which by now should realize that they have really militarized the area.

Duterte is this years chairman of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose leaders are to hold a summit in Manila next week after APEC.

Four ASEAN members  the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam  have overlapping claims to islands in the South China Sea, as well as Taiwan and China. The varying claims present a potential flashpoint of conflict, since trillions of dollars in global trade passes through the vital water way.

ASEAN leaders are expected to introduce the South China Sea item again in Manila next week, with China earlier agreeing to begin negotiations for a code of conduct governing actions in the disputed sea region.

But while all the claimants have agreed to maintain the status quo in the volatile region, China has continued to fortify islands it claims and built land features, according to defense officials.

On Wednesday, Manilas defense chief, Delfin Lorenzana, confirmed that China had also asked the Philippines to stop construction of a hut in a sandbar near the Philippine-occupied Pag-asa Island, also known as Thitu. Duterte immediately ordered the military to stop the building activity, Lorenzana had said.

On Friday, Duterte emphasized that agreeing to the code was very important.

Im not criticizing China. Im just telling them that it is high time for us to have that Code of Conduct of the Sea, Duterte said.

Duterte is to meet Trump on Monday at the presidential palace in Manila, a much anticipated meeting between a Philippine leader widely criticized for his drugs war and his equally outspoken U.S. counterpart who had praised his tough stance on crime.
Fishermen provide water to Rohingya on a boat drifting in Thai waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe, May 14, 2015.

Thai authorities should investigate the case of a 16-year-old Rohingya girl who died this month after spending more than three years in immigration detention facilities, Fortify Rights, a Swiss-based rights advocacy NGO, said Friday.

The girl, Zainab Bi Bi, died Nov. 2 at Hat Yai Hospital in Songkhla, a province along Thailands southern border with Malaysia. Zainab, who suffered from a blood-clotting disorder, fainted and bled from her nose and ears on Oct. 27 while being held at the Sadao Immigration Detention Center (IDC) before being transferred to a hospital, the NGO said.

Zainab Bi Bis death is a tragedy that should spur Thai authorities to take immediate action to end the indefinite detention of refugees and asylum seekers, Fortify Rights Executive Director Amy Smith said in a news release.

Instead of receiving the highest level of care and protection as a refugee child, Zainab Bi Bi died behind bars.

A police official said the girl could have suffered from a form of cancer.

Police Col. Sangkhom Tadso, the immigration chief in Songkhla province, told BenarNews that suspicious deaths warranted investigations.

Death by unnatural cause must be investigated by Hat Yai Police who are in charge in the region, he said. An autopsy is a common practice. No matter who died, investigators will do that.

Zainab Bi Bis doctor said she might have had leukemia, according to the police official.



This Rohingya person was sick and sent to the hospital, while her sister who also was detained, went with her along with a police officer, Sangkhom said.

After she felt better, she was transferred back to the detention center, but it turned out that she had a recurrent condition, he said. She was in a hospital for several days until she died.

Smiths group alleged that the government detained the girl in shelters and detention centers after she became a victim of human trafficking from Myanmar to Thailand in 2014. Zainab Bi Bi received treatment at the hospital for a blood disorder several times in the months leading up to her death.

Thailands far southern region is notorious as a route for the cross-border smuggling of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Two years ago, the discovery of jungle graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants on the Thai side of the frontier led to a government crackdown on human trafficking.

At the time, Thai authorities imposed a maritime blockade on boats smuggling people from Myanmar and Bangladesh. The move caused thousands of Rohingya people and Bangladeshi migrants to come ashore in neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, spurring a regional migration crisis.

16 detained

Fortify Rights said 16 Rohingya  seven women and nine men  are being held at the Sadao IDC, where the group documented inhumane conditions in 2016. Rohingya detainees said they were confined indoors 24 hours a day in overcrowded, unsanitary cells without access to adequate hygiene amenities, adequate food, exercise or appropriate medical treatment.

Additionally, at least three detainees, including a Pakistani asylum seeker, died this year at the Suan Phlu IDC in Bangkok, the group alleged.

Thailands immigration centers are notorious for failing to meet basic minimum standards, Smith said. Detention cells are not a safe or appropriate place for refugee children.

Zainab Bi Bis death should not go unnoticed. Thailand needs to immediately reverse its appalling treatment of refugees.
While the event happens deep in rural parts of Berkeley County, it is no less important. It started over two decades ago by a woman once paralyzed from a tumor on her spine. She later beat back the disability enough to walk and get back to work and life. Read moreAnnual Kids Day is back on in Berkeley County
Lillian Barnard, director for the Public-Sector at Microsoft SA, addressed an audience at the Visions of Africa stage on the last day of AfricaCom, which was held at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town (CTICC) from 7-9 November.

Lillian Barnard from Microsoft SA giving us some insight on digital transformation at AfricaCom.

Here, Barnard discussed the urgency of digital transformation, gave pointers on how companies can start to embark on their digital transformation journey and shares some of the benefits of doing it before your business gets left behind.

She started off her presentation by stating: Technology has actually changed the world since the invention of the wheel. Continuing on, Barnard said that technology is omni-present and that this is fundamentally shaping the way businesses think about innovation and how they think about growth in their own markets. So, when businesses and government fully capitalise on the power of technology, they can run more effective and efficient businesses as well as transparent and productive businesses.

There are three points that are fundamentally changing the way business works today:

Availability of volumes of data. Today companies have volumes of data available at their disposal. But the key here is that you have to make sure that you can get intelligent and actionable insights from the data. And that is the only time that this data will actually become powerful to you. The right of cloud computing. Cloud computing will put limitless compute power, limitless storage capabilities and capacity in the hands of any organisation of any size. It will allow them to innovate but it will also increase the amount of competition. If we look, for example, at machine learning and artificial intelligence  it will allow companies to actually scale and do so quickly. The explosion and ubiquity of mobile computers. The power of mobility affects all of us. It has increased productivity and it promotes collaboration. This whole notion of anywhere, anytime you have access to your data, means we no longer have to be office bound. What this is actually doing is, its changing the way customers think, what customers expect from us, as well as what they expect we should deliver.

The industry has gone through tremendous change and this is brought on by digital transformation and digital disruption. We often see that digital transformation coming from existing firms, whereas disruption comes from new entrance into the market. This means digital transformation is real and it's urgent.

Digital transformation is real

According to a Harvard Business Review study, leaders are actually recognising that their industries will be digitally disrupted. 80% of them say they recognise that it will happen to them. 86% says they recognise it as an opportunity instead of a threat. 47% declares that their business models will actually become obsolete in the next three years. 44% says that they have a fully formed digital transformation strategy. 40% says they are actually doing this because they want to give their customers a better customer experience.

... and real in Africa

Barnard says that at Microsoft they've commissioned an ITC study and the questions they're hoping to answer with this study is, "Are companies moving fast enough and are they transforming fast enough?" This is to make sure that they're actually keeping in pace with this whole mobile-first, cloud-first world that we now live in, which is characterised by disruptive innovation. She says Microsoft has found that typically companies that have decided to transform are:

able to engage their customers,

able to empower their employees by giving them productivity tools,

and able to optimise their operations as well as transform their products and services.

According to their research in South Africa 44% of companies say they have a digital transformation strategy and that they are going through the process. In Nigeria it is also 44% and in Kenya it is 39%. Companies that said that they are still evaluating their DT process is at 28% in South Africa, 30% in Nigeria and 38% in Kenya. Companies that are not transforming because of a lack of funding: 8% in South Africa, 26% in Nigeria, 23% in Kenya.

How do you go about developing a DT strategy?

Barnard shared some more points that came out of the study and gave tips on how companies can embark on their own internal digital strategies:

It must start from the top. It must be driven by the CEO.

You must start with the end in mind. You need to start envisioning your digital future. What does the outcomes look like for your business, your employees and your customers?

Your data matters. Make sure you can take actionable actions from the data that you're drawing from your systems.

Create a digital culture. Become a company where you don't know it all but you actually learn it all. Create an environment where people feel free to make mistakes and see those failures as an opportunity to learn.

Start now, start quickly, otherwise you're going to be left behind. Start with what you have and ensure that you have the right skills within your company as well as the right technology.

Four pillars of digital transformation strategies

Barnard ended off by also sharing four pillars of what the team at Microsoft believe digital strategies are hinging on:
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The Direct Marketing Association of South Africa's (DMASA) Assegai Awards might be all about the numbers, but the Awards are no game. With ROI a key measurement of a campaign, only those that deliver are rewarded, and despite a tough year, the industry accomplished that.

The Awards took place at The Empire in Johannesburg last night, and saw Ogilvys count at the end of evening totalling an astounding 25 awards, that included a Black Spear for its KFC Burritos campaign.

The agency also took one gold, nine silver, six bronze and eight leaders, and then went on to take a further four awards  a silver and bronze and two leaders  with Ogilvy & Mindshare as a media partner. But  as they say  theres more  with the agency winning another three golds and a silver with Geometry Global Cape Town for Slave Calendar.

Liquorice Advertising also had a good evening, with 11 awards in total (two gold, four silver, one bronze and four leaders). The agency was also one of three agencies that received the Zinthatu Award, which recognises agencies that consistently deliver good quality work.

And now for the big one! For Excellence over the Years at @AssegaiAwards, Liquorice wins the Zinthatu Award. Now that's some serious #UnicornsWinning. #Assegais2017 pic.twitter.com/Gx0Cv6NtJy  Liquorice (@LiquoriceOnline) November 9, 2017

M&C Saatchi Abel and TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris\Durban were the other recipients, M&M Saachi winning six and TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris\Durban taking home seven awards. M&C Saatchi won three golds, a silver and bronze as well as one leader and TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris\Durban one gold and a silver, three bronze and two leaders.

Awards focus on results and creativity

I love the Assegai Awards because they are results driven says Liquorice CEO Miles Murphy. Clients might question awards, but these awards focus on results and creativity and that is very valuable, especially in this climate.

For M&C Saatchi the awards are important because they show that the work works. The Assegai Awards are about business and creativity and showing that you understand the market, says Adam Weber, partner: executive creative director at M&C Saatchi.

Halo and its client Jacaranda, continued their success journey, with the More Music You Love campaign winning the Nkosi Award as well as the only other Black Spear of the evening. The agency also collected five golds for the campaign.

The Assegai Awards are based on results, and the numbers and results of this campaign were staggering. It is a great success for the client. The Awards reinforce the power of creativity in delivering results for clients, says MD of Halo, Dean Oelschig.

KFCs campaigns picked up many awards and digital designer at Ogilvy, Marina Le Roux, who has worked on KFC campaigns for almost two years, says winning campaigns are integrated campaigns, while Georgina Katz, digital creative, Gloo Digital Design says great work stems from great trust. KFC trusts us and that means a lot. They are also as creative as the agency and willing to experiment. They want to lead into the future.

The Awards tonight have motivated and inspired us, Le Roux adds. What has been particularly rewarding is how the Cape Town and Johannesburg teams have celebrated all the wins as one team.

A good idea still costs the same as a bad idea

Mortimer Harvey also enjoyed a good evening, winning one silver, a bronze and five leaders. We are very happy with our performance and the Awards are a source of recognition and pride for the people at the docks. They also set a standard for the guys going forward, says Andrew Ambrogioni, chief creative director.

He adds that the philosophy "while good not good enough" is even more pertinent today. We might be living in tough times, a good idea still costs the same as a bad idea, but a good idea generates measurable results. These Awards reward that.

The Assegai Awards have always been about ROI, says Warren Moss, DMASA chairperson. In the 17 or 18 years of the Award that has not changed. ROI is still the highest and most consistent weighing in the Awards. No other Awards does that and we are very proud of that.

Mindshare won four awards, two of which were gold, and they also won five awards with Ogilvy, for the Launch of KFC Soundbite. Demographica also took home four golds and Levergy one gold.

Roger Wilcos Andre Buxey, was named Direct Marketer of the Year, with Mikaila Rae Thurgood from Lesoba Difference was named Young Direct Marketer of the Year. The Newcomer of the Year award went to Cape Town-based Old Friends Young Talent (OFyt).
LONDON - Burberry shares tumbled on Thursday, as investors were spooked by the expected costs of a strategy overhaul and a below-expectations rise in profits at the British luxury fashion giant, analysts said.

Shares in the London-listed brand dived 10.5 percent to stand at 17.77 in afternoon deals.

Burberry said net profit surged 29 percent to 93 million ($121 million, 105 million euros) in the six months to September.

First-half revenue rose nine percent to 1.26 billion.

"Burberry posted a 24-percent jump in first-half pre-tax profits, but it still missed expectations," commented David Madden, analyst at CMC Markets UK.

"Traders were more interested in the company's plans "- which involves focusing more on the high end of the luxury goods market.

"The stores they are retaining will be revamped at a high cost -" and this is spooking traders," he added.

Analysts also said they were sceptical about the plans announced by Burberry's new chief executive, Marco Gobbetti, to take the group even more upmarket.

Gobbetti, who took over from emblematic former chief Christopher Bailey in July, unveiled a strategic overhaul to take the 161-year-old brand best known for its trademark handbags and trenchcoats even more into top-end of the luxury segment.

And the cost of revamping its stores would hit profits in the short term, he revealed.

"The firm has been performing fairly well (...) but it is the strategy update going forward from Gobbetti [that] has taken prominence over these and seen a notable swoon in the share price," said David Cheetham, analyst at XTB online traders.

City Index analyst Ken Odeluga said investors were concerned that the strategy would take time and would hit profitability.

"Burberry's strategy update makes sense as it will equip the group for the new world of luxury, but it is essentially a profit warning," Odeluga said.

Burberry also said it was assessing the potential risks surrounding Brexit, including higher customs duty should Britain's free trade agreements expire, and "uncertainty over the rights of EU nationals".
According to FAO's latest Food Outlook report, the cost of importing food is set to rise in 2017 to $1.413 trillion - a 6% increase from the previous year and the second highest tally on record - driven by increased demand for international demand for most foodstuffs as well as higher freight rates.

Siegfried Kopp via 123RF

Of particular concern is the economic and social implications of the double-digit increases in the food import bills for Least-Developed Countries (LDCs) and Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCS). "Higher bills do not necessarily translate into more food being bought by them as the cost of importing has greatly escalated," said FAO economist Adam Prakash.

The higher import costs come at a time when inventories are robust, harvest forecasts are strong and food commodity markets remain well supplied.

Food commodity outlook

The food commodity outlook, issued twice a year, takes a close look at the markets of key food categories, including cassava, the livestock and dairy sectors, fish, vegetable oils and the main cereal grains.

While production trends are broadly strong across the board, average prices in international transactions can mask more specific trends.

For example, while international wheat prices have been flat, US Hard Red Spring wheat, a popular high-quality variety with enough protein content to make noodles and pasta, was 40% higher in July 2017 than a year ago. Aromatic rice varieties have risen eight times faster than the FAO All Rice Index, which is up 4% on the year. Likewise, the FAO Butter Price Index has risen 41% so far in 2017, more than three times as much as the Dairy Price Index of which it is a component.

The livestock and dairy sectors are particularly dynamic. The meat import bill is set to reach an all-time high of $176bn this year, up 22% from 2016. World milk production is predicted to grow by 1.4%, led by a robust 4% expansion in India, even as more stringent environmental regulations and quality controls in China may lead to a contraction there.

World output of oilseeds oils - vegetable oils and animal fats are the largest items in the LIFDC import bills - is expected to increase slightly this year after last year's strong season. But global soybean production, despite a planting boom in the Northern Hemisphere, is set to decline as yields return to normal levels after last year's nearly optimal weather.

Opportunities loom for tropical fruits

Tropical fruits are, increasingly, stars in global trade, with export volumes of mango, pineapple, avocado and papayas on course to achieve a total combined value of $10bn this year, according to the Food Outlook.

Their popularity is promising for poverty relief and rural development as almost all production takes place in developing countries, usually through smallholder farmers with fewer than five hectares.

FAO estimates that total production of the four fruits could reach 92 million tonnes this year, compared to 69 million tonnes in 2008. Currently, 95% of that output is consumed locally, but rising incomes and changing consumer preferences will likely boost export volumes, especially if freer trade and better market access stimulate further technological gains in distribution.

Major producers of tropical fruits include India, home to around 40% of global mango production, Costa Rica, which supplies a large share of the world's pineapples, China and Brazil - and also Mexico, which is the largest exporter.

Africa may set record for cassava output

As well as providing detailed analyses of the production, trade and demand for major cereal and oilcrops, the Food Outlook updates trends for cassava, which has been one of the fastest-expanding staple crops at the global level and is the third most important source of calories in the tropics, after rice and maize.

Production in sub-Saharan Africa may reach a record high this year of 156 million tonnes, buoyed by various commercial expansion programmes aimed at curbing reliance on food imports in the region.

Still, global production of this root will likely contract slightly in 2017 - to 278 million tonnes - after two decades of uninterrupted growth, due to a combination of drought conditions, depressed prices and policy changes, FAO says.
The EnergyDrive truck, a custom-built vehicle, recently took to the Eastern Cape to teach learners about the benefits and uses of renewable energy technologies. It is expected to engage with thousands of high school learners located close to wind farms.

Cookhouse Wind Farm funded part of the roadshow and hosted a field trip for learners from Soqaqamba Secondary School, a local Cookhouse high school.

The container features attractive interactive demonstration models which assist with understanding a range of renewable technologies, raises awareness of renewable power resources as well as addressing the important issues associated with climate change, bringing home the impact of environmental concerns that plague our country and the rest of the world, explained Sizile Mabaso, chief community operations officer for Cookhouse Wind Farm.

Featuring a solar roof structure, biogas digester, photovoltaic panel display unit, as well as a solar hot water display unit, the EnergyDrive teaches learners about the benefits and uses of renewable energy technologies. By the time it wraps up its visits across the provinces and circles back to KwaZulu-Natal at the end of November, it will have engaged with over 2,500 high school learners across the country.

Accessing information and technology

The Eastern Cape is home to more wind farms than any other province, making it an ideal first destination on the EnergyDrives route and the mobility of this custom-built vehicle makes it ideal to reach high schools situated within wind farm beneficiary communities. These communities are often located in areas that are not easily accessible and learners do not easily have access to information about these technologies.

The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) partnered with the Durban University of Technology and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to make this national educational road trip with the EnergyDrive possible.

Following its visit in the Eastern Cape, the EnergyDrive will head to Cape Town, where the vehicle will be exhibited at the WindAc Africa student workshop and at SARETEC, demonstrating the use of renewable energy technologies and promoting skills development options in renewable power, before arriving at the Windaba conference. The mobile unit will then depart for visits along the West Coast, make its way to the Northern Cape before circling back to KwaZulu-Natal on 24 November.
As South African Revenue Service (SARS) commissioner Tom Moyane braces for an inquiry into the administration of the tax agency, further damaging revelations emerged on the investigation into its second-in-charge, Jonas Makwakwa.

Hogan Lovells has placed on record that it did not directly investigate the R1.3m in suspicious deposits into Makwakwa's account and that of his partner, Kelly-Ann Elskie, who is also a SARS employee.

Despite the company's "limited scope" for the investigation and its failure to directly probe the claims for which Makwakwa was suspended in 2016, he returned to work on 1 November.

SARS said he had been cleared of all charges after facing an internal disciplinary process.

The tax agency is under increasing pressure, with a R50bn deficit in revenue collection, which the Treasury said could be attributed to the "economic cycle", weakening tax morality and also "challenges facing tax administration". Makwakwa is SARS chief director for business and individual taxes, effectively its second in command, and as such should be above reproach.

In a statement on its website Hogan Lovells, which conducted the "independent investigation" announced by Moyane late in 2016, said its scope was "limited" to whether there was misconduct by the pair.

"It [the investigation] did not seek to directly investigate the financial transactions identified by the FIC [Financial Intelligence Centre].

"We understand that all criminal-related allegations arising from the FIC report were referred to the relevant authorities for investigation," said Hogan Lovells in the statement.

This implies that Makwakwa has yet to answer for the suspicious transactions.

It also contradicts information from sources inside SARS that Hogan Lovells had enlisted PwC to assist with the probe into the transactions.

Hogan Lovells also revealed in its statement that it recommended disciplinary action against Makwakwa for "nondisclosure of external interests" and also for "breaching his suspension conditions".

This is understood to be linked to Makwakwa's interference in a taxpayer matter while on suspension.

"A hearing was convened and chaired by an independent senior counsel, advocate Terry Motau SC. The findings ... acquitted Makwakwa of all charges," Hogan Lovells said.

The law firm did not respond to questions on Thursday.

SARS spokesman Sandile Memela said the tax agency did not want to engage on the matter through the media.

"As you are aware, [Parliament's] standing committee on finance has written to SARS with a specific request. SARS will engage [the standing committee on finance] on the matter soon. SARS cannot give comment on this matter but will provide more details when we present to parliamentary structures," Memela said.

Last week the finance committee urged SARS to release the Hogan Lovells report.

"Given the role SARS plays, it not only has to be, but be seen to be, above reproach, and perceptions of irregularities by its senior officials have to be effectively addressed," it said.

Committee chairman Yunus Carrim said on Thursday that if it was true that Hogan Lovells did not investigate the matter for which Makwakwa was suspended, the committee would have to consider this when SARS appeared before it on 28 Novembe.

He said the committee had written to SARS and the finance minister for a copy of the report and awaited their response.

DA MP Alf Lees, who is also on the committee, questioned Hogan Lovells, saying if it did not investigate the suspicious transactions directly, "what exactly did it investigate?". He also expressed concern that SARS and Moyane had not been "forthcoming" to the committee in the past.

Meanwhile, the Presidency said on Thursday that the details of the broader inquiry into SARS would be dealt with by President Jacob Zuma and Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba when the latter returned from an official trip abroad. Gigaba announced the inquiry on Monday, saying Zuma had agreed to it.

Source: Business Day
YANGON, Myanmar: A Myanmar court sentenced a foreign filming crew and their local colleagues to two months in prison Friday for flying a drone over parliament, their lawyer said.

Lau Hon Meng from Singapore, Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, Myanmar journalist Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin were arrested last month when shooting a documentary in the capital Naypyidaw.

The team was working for Turkish state broadcaster TRT, who said the crew wanted to film the parliament building after an interview with an MP.

"They were surprised when they heard their sentence," the group's lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told AFP after their one-day trial in the capital.

He said the defendants had confessed to flying the drone but were only expecting a fine.

The group faces up to three more years in jail for the import of "restricted or banned" goods without a proper license, their lawyer added, with a trial expected to take place on 16 November.

TRT claims the reporters informed Myanmar's Ministry of Information about their filming plans in advance.

In a statement after the arrests the Turkish broadcaster also said police had raided local reporter Aung Naing Soe's home and confiscated his computer and hard drive.

The incident comes amid tensions between Turkey and the Southeast Asian nation over Myanmar's treatment of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, who have fled the country in droves after an army crackdown in Rakhine state.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Myanmar of incubating "Buddhist terror" and carrying out a genocide against the Muslim group.

The verdict is also the latest sign of withering press freedoms which had started that had started to blossom in Myanmar after the end of junta rule in 2011.

The Committee to Protect Journalists earlier slammed the reporters' arrests as part of an "escalating clampdown on press freedom" in the fledgling democracy.

Source: AFP
Unibail-Rodamco CFO Jaap Tonckens will explore the latest REIT trends and investor sentiments in Western Europe at the SA REIT Conference 2018. The third biennial event takes place on Thursday, 15 March, at the Sandton Convention Centre.

Jaap Tonckens, CFO, Unibail-Rodamco

Unibail-Rodamco is one of the largest shopping centre owners in Europe, with a portfolio of 71 shopping centres in major European cities. It also has a portfolio of prime and efficient office buildings in Paris, as well as 10 major convention and exhibition centres in the Paris region. Its total portfolio is valued at 42.5bn, and it has a 8.1bn pipeline of developments across Europe.

Tonckens joined Unibail-Rodamco's management board as general counsel in 2009 and became chief investment officer a year later. He was promoted to chief financial officer in 2012 and continues to supervise the groups investments in his current position.

Before joining Unibail-Rodamco, he was an MD at Endurance Capital, a private equity firm in New York. Then he worked at Morgan Stanley & Co., first in London and then in New York, where he was an MD in the leverage and acquisition finance department. Before that, he worked at Shearman & Sterling in New York and Paris. Tonckens is a graduate of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and Emory University in Atlanta (USA).

The invitation by the South African REIT Association to participate in its March 2018 Conference is a great example of the international mindset of South African REITs and investors. I look forward to speaking with the participants and exchanging views on the structural changes facing retail REITs in Western Europe and current investor sentiment, says Tonckens.

For more information, go to www.sareit.com.
Kenya and South Africa have been named the projected continent leaders in luxury hotel growth - this according to Euromonitor International's Top 100 Cities Destination Ranking 2017 , recently released at WTM London.

The Lazizi Premiere by Hilton (Image courtesy of Jumia Travel)

The report, founded on research carried out in 100 countries, is based on international arrivals who spend 24 or more hours in a city; capturing insights into the travellers mindset, supporting factors and key drivers in the travel, accommodation preferences and individual interest in destination experience. In this light, South Africa is again projected as a key market entry point for investors and developers venturing into Airbnb rentals, as the sector is expected to see a 32% growth in 2017.

Building on key factor contributions

Noting that Johannesburg is the only sub-Saharan African city named in the top 100 City Destinations, Estelle Verdier, COO for Jumia Travel and the companys former managing director points to the need for Kenya and the East African region to build on key factors that contribute positively on the numbers. Opening up the skies to aviation industry players, showcasing our hotels and flights, as well as targeted destination marketing, are some of the key factors that players can explore.

A parallel report by United Nations World Travel Organization (UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2017) notes that despite the above-named challenges, Africa made a strong rebound in 2016, with an estimated increase of 8% in tourist numbers after a much weaker performance in the preceding two years.

Furthermore, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) observed a 10% increase, leading in the overall recovery. Kenya took up the lead position at 17%, and Tanzania at 16%, also boasting double-digit growth in 2016 rebounding from weaker figures in 2015. South Africa, seen as the regions lead destination enjoyed 13% growth in international arrivals.

A closer look at Kenya hospitality industry reveals a growing interest by international hotel chains such as Accor Hotels, Hilton brand, Carlson Rezidor and Acacia Premier, among others. According to a report by W-Hospitality Group, Kenya presently counts 19 upcoming hotels, with a total of 3,453 new rooms in the pipeline.
With the debut of Radisson Blu in Cameroon, the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group has entered its 30th African country, bringing its African portfolio to 83 hotels and over 17,500 room in operation and under development.

We are thrilled to be entering our 30th country in Africa and what better addition than Cameroon, the groups key market in Central Africa, said Andrew McLachlan, senior vice president, business development, Africa and Indian Ocean of Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. As the ideal showcase, the hotel will strongly support the demand for our Radisson Blu Hotel and Apartment product across the African region.

Radisson Blu Hotel & Apartments Douala, Cameroon (Image Supplied)

An iconic building in a city that plays a vital role in the Central African region

The Radisson Blu Hotel & Apartments Douala, Cameroon, scheduled to open in 2019, is located in the most sought-after business district of the economic capital of the country, Douala. Towering above many as one of the tallest buildings in the country, the hotel will ensure high visibility of the Radisson Blu brand in the country. The hotel is ideally positioned between the port and the main highway, National 3, allowing easy access across the city. It also offers unrivalled access into and out of Douala International Airport, situated less than 15 minutes away.

This hotel will be an iconic building in a city that plays a vital role in the Central African region. We are excited about the partnership with Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group and we believe this capacity offer will meet an unsatisfied and growing demand of upper upscale hospitality services, said Serge Yanic NANA, president and CEO of Financia Capital.

The 150-room Radisson Blu will offer a mix of standard bedrooms as well as studio, one and two-bedroom apartments. The hotel will feature an all-day dining restaurant, a lobby bar as well as a Destination Sky Bar and Restaurant. For fitness enthusiasts, the hotel will also house a gymnasium and a wellness spa for guests. The meeting and events area will consist of a stylish conference room and four meeting rooms.
Launched at the Futuroad Expo, Powerstar showcased on and off-road derivatives from its product ranges, as well as the new models.

"Since 2014 our focus has been to become a one-stop solution for transport owners active in mining and construction, where Powerstar has been most successful," says Bob Wang, CEO of Ever Star Industries in SA.

"Our leading brand still remains Powerstar with the V3 and VX ranges. Now we are expanding the offering by bringing in the light and medium truck range from Foton," says Wang.

The V3 2643 AMT 6x4 Cummins powered engine provides 430hp and the company expects it to be popular in the long-haul coal transport sector in which vehicles are required to operate efficiently on the open road while occasionally enduring the tougher conditions at loading and unloading areas. The V3 ET also offers a 460hp Weichai engine, combined with the optional AMT transmission.

"With the addition of the new FT range, FT 3 and FT 5, these trucks will offer our customers a more versatile and efficient solution, especially for the light and medium to occasional longhaul distribution applications, as well as the tipper and waste market," says Wang.

Says Rodney Selesnick, senior head of sales and marketing at the company: "The range is powered primarily by Cummins engines, feeding torque through ZF transmissions, and will be built at our Pietermaritzburg plant following the same exacting quality standards as for the current Powerstar range."

Among the other products showcased was the VX range, which can be specified as a heavy-duty tipper, water tanker or mixer chassis.

The VX models offer a Fastgear 12-speed manual gearbox and a Weichai Euro 2 turbocharged Intercooled engine with outputs ranging from 280hp and 1,160Nm to 350hp and 1,350Nm.
South African youth employment accelerator, Harambee and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have announced a partnership that will help fund Harambee's operations over the next three years.

USAID supports locally-owned, sustainable organisations, such as Harambee, to help countries build innovative economies and democratic societies. Over the past six years, Harambee has prepared and placed more than 40,000 first-time job seekers. With additional funding from USAID, Harambee will recruit, train and place an additional 45,000 youth into jobs, work experience or income generation opportunities.

Kevin Roberts, the Education Team Lead at USAID/Southern Africa said, We can be more effective when we collaborate with the expertise, resources and innovations of organisations across the public, private and non-profit sectors that are already applying ground-breaking solutions to development challenges. Harambees work readiness interventions align with our mission of promoting free, peaceful, and self-reliant societies.

With its proven model of employment as an essential component of ending extreme poverty, USAIDs funding will help Harambee extend their positive impact on society.

The USAID alliance seeks to contribute to scaling Harambees model further to achieve three objectives:

Reach an additional 300,000 unemployed youth and provide them with a work-seeker support package that will improve their employability

Provide a link to jobs and work placements for an additional 45,000 youth

Document and share knowledge from the model for broader systemic impact



Maryana Iskander, CEO of Harambee said, Gaining the support of USAID is an affirming moment for us; we know our work is having a beneficial effect on the South African youth employment landscape. Every economically disadvantaged young person who finds stable employment also finds dignity and independence, but theres more to it than that. Enabling people to move themselves into a better life impacts positively on their families and their communities.
MTN's $1bn fine in Nigeria contributed to a slashed corporate social investment budget for the MTN SA Foundation in the 2017 financial year.

"In 2016, MTN SA went through a rough patch affected by the global MTN business  a case in point is the Nigerian fine  which led to a grant allocation of 58% budget cuts for 2017," said foundation GM Kusile Mthunzi-Hairwadzi.

MTN was fined by Nigerian regulators after the firm missed a deadline to disconnect more than 5-million unregistered subscribers in that country.

MTN SA Foundations budget is dependent on the performance of MTN SA and is calculated at 1.5% of profit after tax.

Mthunzi-Hairwadzi said the foundation had continued to focus largely on providing information and communications technology connectivity to the special needs education sector, and on entrepreneurship and small business skills training. The foundation handed 18 multimedia centres to schools, universities and special needs schools in 2017, for students and pupils with disabilities, she said.

The facilities consist of 20-, 40- or 60-seater computer laboratories, printers, data projectors, interactive whiteboards, free connectivity and laptops. The special needs learning areas remained the most needy in terms of technology adoption, Mthunzi-Hairwadzi said.

Source: Business Day
One of the highlights of WGSN's Futures Cape Town was an inspirational talk by 24-year-old Trevor Stuurman - in effortless digitally savvy youth fashion, this Christmas Day baby is an entrepreneur, photographer and multimedia visual artist with a verified Instagram account and over 156,000 Twitter followers - here's why his fresh ideas resonate so deeply.

Stuurman was announced as best male influencer at the 2016 Youth Influencer Awards (YIA) and winner of the Elle Style Reporter search in association with BlackBerry in 2012, when he was just 19. As a result he has already worked with top fashion magazines and retail brands with an ever-growing following.

One minute hes snapping away at supermodels Kylie Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid, the next hes awestruck at being snapped himself, meeting British Vogues newly appointed editor-in-chief Edward Enninful.

Amazing Grace. Greatest honor meeting one of our own and the newly appointed @britishvogue editor in chief @edward_enninful. @thecoffeetographer thank you for capturing this monumental moment. #NYFW #StuurmanStyleDiary A post shared by Trevor (@trevor_stuurman) on Sep 13, 2017 at 11:58pm PDT

No two days are the same for Stuurman but 9 November 2017 was another big one  he presented his WGSN Futures Cape Town session that afternoon and went on to be announced as Best-Styled Male at the Feather Awards that evening.

Little wonder as it seems hes snapped in front of the camera just as often as he works the buttons from behind the lens.

Meanwhile back in Jozi... Just won the best styled male in South Africa according to the Feather Awards. Unfortunately I couldnt be present to personally accept the award as I am currently in Cape Town for the @wgsn Futures Summit but thank you for the honor and recognition. #StuurmanStyleDiary : @buka_andile A post shared by Trevor (@trevor_stuurman) on Nov 9, 2017 at 11:19am PST

Described by others as an African Renaissance man, Stuurman describes himself a global African with elaborate personal style, as his work is authentically from the continent yet has definite global relevance. He spoke at WGSN Futures Cape Town of the concept of home  also the title of his recent exhibition at Hazard Gallery  and explained just how his work explores home in terms of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. Stuurman himself spends more time away from home than at home, so what is home, really?

Home: Present, past and future

Stuurman says we have to be comfortable or at home with ourselves and each other. As he feels country borders are merely imaginary lines created to keep us apart, he loves physically crossing the border for fashion shoots across the continent.

Much of that work involves creating a space for black African bodies to be celebrated and not censored  yes censored even today. While Stuurman has a huge following on Instagram, a video he posted of the Himba tribe was removed from the platform and he was told he was lucky his account wasnt blocked as that specific content supposedly didnt conform  ironic as just last year Instagram, endorsed him for the way he portrays modern Africa.

Stuurman says this experience inspired him to build more on the work and creating a space for conversation where censorship doesnt feature. Looking to the past, Stuurman points out that black history has for the most part been written by The Other  its time to celebrate this. As his studies at Afda focused on visual communication, Stuurman also incorporates a sense of video and motion in his work, as life is always on the move.

Celebrating culture rather than censoring it

Thats where the Ndebele initiation rite slots in. Its a sacred ceremony held every four years and Stuurman wanted to unpack all that it entails, because all we see in the media is that so many boys died in the mountains so the ritual itself is feared rather than celebrated by broader society. Stuurman then juxtaposed how the male and female form is seen, as the bare-chested male body is seen as a symbol of hope while for females, the same would be hypersexualised  equality is important. This leads to the conversation on cultural appropriation.

Africa itself is the biggest ghost writer and even inspired Picasso. Stuurman says his current task underlying all his work is to change the narrative. He says, Africa has been having it and Africa is it. We have to properly appreciate our own culture before we enter the cultural appropriation debates.

Getting personal, he shared that while his surname is Stuurman, he confessed that no one in his family actually speaks Afrikaans well, they merely inherited the name from the apartheid era. Stuurman decided to take ownership of the name as part of his culture.

Stuurman has translated this into visual representation, through the love language of traditional beads. From the traditional bracelets to the more unusual fez hats and beaded bicycles hes designed, he believes that Africans are strong consumers of luxury. He also wants to change the perception that in Africa were all about crafts and not design. Just think of all the weaving and beading that goes on here. Think about how much emphasis is put on a swing tag from Europe  theres a big imbalance there. Thats why Stuurman says we need to restore African pride and identity.

Africa is not just about aesthetics, it is also about beliefs and sharing and bringing a vision to life.

Through this project, Stuurman explained that a bicycle is representative of the continent as Africans do so with their own energy, without any additional engine power  he didnt work alone on the piece, though.

As a result of the help and support he received, hes going back to those ingrained African values of the daily practice of being kind to each other and empowering and boosting others where you can so we can rise and grow together. The space is so saturated that few actually make it, said Stuurman, and theres huge importance in protecting and preserving culture.

Stuurman concluded that as Africans, our greatest wealth is not our minerals but in understanding who we are.

As Africans our greatest wealth is not to be found in our mineral wealth but in our selves. Our culture, our way of life. In our greatest understanding of self. My purpose is to share that with the world. Visit @hazard_gallery to see more... #trevorstuurmanHOME @kholisa A post shared by Trevor (@trevor_stuurman) on Aug 28, 2017 at 5:23am PDT

Such an influential, insightful and inspirational way of living life. Follow Stuurman on Twitter and Instagram for the latest updates.
Day two of AfricaCom saw more excellent keynote speakers, panel discussions, think tanks, big announcements, and thought-provoking presentations. It was also the day that the AfricaCom Awards winners were announced.

At the Connecting Africa stage, Eva Andren, vice president and head of managed services - market area Middle East & Africa Ericsson, talked about the power of connectivity in Africa. She shared more about Ericsson's journey in Africa an how the company is utilising the power of internet connectivity in making people's lives better.

Some examples included the use of technology and connectivity in fighting the Ebola virus where Ericsson supplied about 1000 phones to affected areas. These phones were programmed with applications to assist and guide health professionals on the ground.

Then there's also the impact of education. The company provides teachers in rural and underserved communities with suitcases containing various technology and equipment to assist them in educating people and even reach out to larger groups outside of the immediate community.

Andren says without education we will not beat poverty. She says Ericsson is especially focussed on educating females, as research has shown that it can reduce poverty by about 20%. It also trickles down to the children. If a female with a child can read, the child stands a much bigger chance to survive over the age of five. The power of technology is massive. Yaron Tchwella, senior vice president, sales and marketing at Global IP took to the stage with his presentation 'Revolutionising the way the internet is utilised in Africa'. He says Global IP's offering includes commitment to the region, capacity, coverage, and cost savings. Yaron Tchwella, senior vice president, sales and marketing at Global IP took to the stage with his presentation 'Revolutionising the way the internet is utilised in Africa'. He says Global IP's offering includes commitment to the region, capacity, coverage, and cost savings.

In the IoT Africa track, Phathizwe Malinga, executive director of SqwidNet shared thoughts on 'Keeping it real, asset-based view of IoT'. His presentation showed how IoT can support businesses and he elaborated on the idea of omni-channel applications to group certain assets together.

A panel discussion between Raj Wanniappa, CEO and founder of Future Horizon Technologies, Gavin McDougall, senior solution architect at Red Hat, and Ehizogie Binitie from Clearspace Labs touched saw each panel member identify and discuss their three major trends driving IoT innovation.

Some announcements on the day included Angola Cables expanding its operations in South Africa. It expects to establish a Point of Presence (PoP) in Cape Town before the end of the year.

Eutelsat Communications and Sigfox Foundation announced a partnership on the "Now Rhinos Speak" project for the protection of the endangered rhinoceros population.

Truecaller revealed it will be setting up headquarters in the region and hire key personals for its operations. It also launched its developer program with Truecaller SDK, its mobile identity product for digital startups and app developers, and announced that it will be doubling down on its monetisation initiative in South Africa.

A new Express Wi-Fi by Facebook partnership with Tizeti in Nigeria joins Surf in Kenya and Coollink in Nigeria - all aimed at enabling more communities to connect to the internet easily and for an affordable rate.

The day was ended off with the announcement of all the AfricaCom Awards winners.

Get all the #AfricaCom coverage in our special section, sponsored by Macrocomm.
First-time visitor to the world's largest Africa-focused technology event, Jassim Juma of New Link (a division of the Bahrain-based Hagbani Group), could not be more delighted with his participation at AfricaCom. Exploring the main exhibition hall on the first day of the event, which opened on 7 November 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa, Juma was in search of a service supplier to assist with a project that involves combining a technologically advanced control centre with a call centre service to serve their global clientele from the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The solution presented itself in the form of the Hongdian Corporation, an exhibitor at AfricaCom, whose pay-off line is Connecting Things, and precisely what Juma required. Hongdian is a leader in machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions. New Link, a business development consultancy, is requiring an array of what Hongdian can offer including the intelligent gathering and interpretation of big data, with which it can better service its clients and they in turn can pass onto their customers. In short, smarter connected products, a core offering that Hongdian supplies.

Negotiations between the parties took place throughout Tuesday and by late Wednesday, a co-operation agreement was struck and signed. The value of the contract is as yet to be determined, but it is believed to be substantial.

Attending AfricaCom has been an excellent investment for us, smiled Juma. We are looking forward to working with Hongdian. For us, it is not just about the product and the services or the cost that Hongdian can provide, but the trust and relationship we have managed to build, even in such a short time. I anticipate this will be a long-term agreement and we are looking forward to launching a prototype platform early 2018.

Tom Cuthell, Portfolio Director at KNect365, organiser of AfricaCom commented on the agreement saying: AfricaCom has always positioned itself as a place where business is done. This has been evident over the years with a number of excellent collaborations and partnerships that have been struck. We are very pleased for both parties and wish them well. We also look forward to seeing them both return to AfricaCom in 2018.

For more information please see: www.hagbani.com and www.en.hongdian.com.




Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com.
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JERUSALEM (PTI): India is looking to boost its special forces capabilities, including cross-border counter- terrorist operations, by participating for the first time in a major military drill with the air forces of Israel and eight other nations.



The 45-member Indian contingent, including 16 Garud commandos, led by Group Captain Maluk Singh, is also closely working with Israel's select special forces during the Blue Flag aerial training exercise with focus on learning what makes them excel at special operations.



"We would look to learn and share with them the procedures followed in mutual interoperability, counter- terrorist operations, method of inducting and training people and try and compare to see if a course correction is required at our end," an Indian officer leading the Garud commandos told PTI.



"The Israelis are more battle-hardened as they have more experience in cross border operations and we can learn from their experiences," the officer said.



In a rare move, while contingents of other participating nations in the massive "war drill" feature fighter aircraft, the Indian Air Force (IAF) decided to send C-130J Super Hercules aircraft along with Garud commandos who will be training for a week each with Israeli Air Force's elite units - Unit 5101 (more commonly referred to as the Shaldag Commando unit) and Unit 669 (Airborne Rescue And Evacuation Unit).



The Garud commandos started training with Unit 669 on Sunday and would be moving to the Palmachim Air Force base next week to train with the Shaldag Unit.



Unit 669 was initially mandated to extract and provide medical treatment to downed (and possibly injured) pilots beyond enemy lines. However, in later years the unit also participated in extraction of soldiers of other arms of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), especially Sayeret (Special Forces) fighters in operations beyond enemy lines.



Shaldag's declared mission is to deploy undetected into combat and hostile environments to conduct special reconnaissance, establish assault zones or airfields, while simultaneously conducting air traffic control and commando actions.



Its operators undergo the longest training phase of any unit in the IDF, lasting 22 months, and training has a heavy emphasis on navigation.



The mandated role of Garud Commando Force, whose motto - 'Defence by Offence' - matches closely with the task assigned to these two special units of the Israeli Air Force.



"They are very strong as far as special forces are concerned. This is one area we are definitely looking to learn from their experience," Maluk Singh told PTI.



The Blue Flag drill is a biannual exercise designed to strengthen Israel's military cooperation internationally.



This is the first time India is participating in the drill, along with the US, France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Poland. An unidentified eighth nation is also said to be participating in the military exercise as per local media.



Israel is among the top three to four arms suppliers to India with sales ranging from Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) to Aerostat and Green Pine radars, Barak anti-missile defence and several types of missiles and laser-guided bombs.



Lt Col Nadav, Commander of the 133rd Squadron (Knights of the Twin Tail), which operates 'Falcon' (F-15) fighter jets and is leading the exercise, described it as a "significant milestone in the relationship between the Israeli Air Force and international air forces".



"This exercise will allow us to continue cooperating with these forces in the future as well," he said.



Close to a 100 aircraft and more than a thousand support crew and pilots from the visiting air forces are taking part in the drill.



Israel also said "electronic warfare" will be used during the drills but no details were shared.



According to the Israeli army, the goal of the exercise is to both improve technical ability and to strengthen the "diplomatic cooperation between the countries".



The Blue Flag exercise was started in 2013 by Israel but its third edition has attracted huge attention given the massive participation.


China has taken what it called a major step toward opening up its financial industry, with a promise to ease limits on foreign ownership of banks and securities firms.

The announcement follows a visit to China by US president Donald Trump which was dominated by trade issues.

A Chinese cabinet official appeared to respond to mounting US and European complaints that Beijing hampers foreign activity in a variety of industries in violation of free trade commitments.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China, which has appealed to Beijing to ease market barriers, said it looked forward to seeing details of the latest changes.

The announcement followed a series of multibillion-dollar contract signings with American companies during Mr Trump's visit, in a tradition aimed at blunting criticism of Beijing's trade surpluses and market barriers.

China will lift its limit on foreign ownership of securities, fund management and futures companies from a minority stake of 49% to a majority stake of 51% and end restrictions after three years, the Chinese official, Zhu Guangyao, said at a news briefing.

He said a similar change would be made for life insurance companies and those would end in five years.

Regulators also will abolish restrictions that limit a single foreign investor's stake in a Chinese bank to 20% and cap total foreign ownership of any institution at 25%, Mr Zhu said.

"In other words, foreign owners can have full ownership of such companies" after three to five years, he said. "This opening up is decisive and the effect will be far-reaching."

Beijing will also gradually reduce tariffs on automotive imports, Mr Zhu added.

The announcement came hours after Mr Trump left Beijing to attend an Asia-Pacific economic meeting in Danang, Vietnam.

Asked about the timing of the changes announced on Friday, Mr Zhu cited Chinese president Xi Jinping's comments at the ruling Communist Party's twice-a-decade congress last month.

Mr Xi promised freer markets, but also emphasised that Beijing wants to build up state-owned companies that dominate finance, energy and other industries.

American, European and other foreign companies complain that despite official pledges to open China's economy, they are hampered by ownership limits and other restrictions in finance, health care and other promising industries.

William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said: "I look forward to seeing the details, as opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support China's future development.

"These restrictions, and many others yet to be addressed, have been hindering economic activity in China for far too long."

- AP
The ECB is prepared to delay and improve its new, stricter rules on bad bank loans after fierce criticism from the European Parliament and Italy, the ECBs top supervisor said yesterday.

Daniele Nouy defended the proposed new guidelines, which force banks to set aside more money for loans that sour, but said they would be improved by taking feedback into account.

The rules, which are being consulted upon until December 8, have been criticised as potentially damaging to the economy and encroaching on the European Parliaments prerogatives, raising the risk of an unprecedented conflict between the institutions.

When I see so many people saying something different, I can easily draw the conclusion that the drafting can be improved, for sure, and it will be improved. We will of course seriously take into account all the good legal advice that we are receiving. It can have consequences, Nouy told the parliament in Brussels.

She said the ECB could push back the entry into force of the guidelines from January 1 to examine all the feedback it receives in the consultation. I can propose that we give us a bit more time, she said during her hearing before the Parliaments economic committee.

The guidelines, published as an addendum last month, give banks seven years to provide for credit backed by collateral and two years for unsecured debt. The Italian head of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said last month they overstepped the ECBs bounds, a view upheld this week by the assemblys legal office and by the head of the economic committee.

In its current form, the addendum goes beyond these (ECB) prerogatives, which are clearly bank- specific, because it lays down general rules applicable to all banks, the committees chair Roberto Gualtieri said as he introduced Nouys hearing.

This could only be done through an appropriate amendment to legislation.

However, Nouy said the rules were necessary. Now is the right time for such an additional step, given that we currently have very favourable economic conditions in Europe, she said.

This addendum, once adopted, falls within the supervisory mandate and powers of the ECB. The big worry for Italy is the rules are also being applied to the eurozones near 900bn stock of existing bad loans, a quarter of which sit at Italian banks.

Reuters
INM shares shed 12% of their value after the media firm issued a profits warning involving the costs linked to the probe by the ODCE, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

The warning will mean INM will likely report pre-tax profits of 25m to 26m this year, compared with market expectations of over 30m, and down from the 41.8m earned in 2016, said analyst Rachel Fox at Goodbody. We currently forecast print advertising revenue declines of 12% and digital advertising revenue growth of 6%, both of which will now be revised downwards, Ms Fox said.
The owners of famous London restaurant The Ivy have been given the green light to open in Dublin.

It will be the first of the Ivy Collections restaurants to be located outside of the UK. The company has signed a 20-year lease  with no break clause  with developer Green Reit for No 1 Molesworth Street, which is currently under construction, on the corner with Dawson Street, as a mixed-use six-storey office and commercial building.
The Pacific Rim trade pact abandoned by Donald Trump remains in limbo, judging from differing reports on the status of Cabinet level talks on pushing ahead without the United States.

Japan's minister on reviving the economy, Toshimitsu Motegi, told reporters that a revised Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal was reached late on Thursday.

Meanwhile leaders from New Zealand and Australia said the discussions were continuing.

There is "still more work to do, but we're inching closer," said Australia's trade minister, Steve Ciobo.

The 11 remaining members of the TPP are trying to find a way forward without the US, the biggest economy and before Mr Trump took office one of its most assertive supporters.

The negotiations are being held in Danang, Vietnam, alongside meetings of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, where Mr Trump's markedly different stance from past US leaders was being felt even before his arrival on Friday in the coastal resort city.

While most Apec members say they remain committed to their multi-country approach in weaving their economies ever closer together, many acknowledge that open trade is a mixed bag: Not everyone benefits equally.

Mr Trump is seeking to renegotiate several major trade agreements, most notably the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to, he says, put "America First."

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told a business conference on the Apec sidelines that he believed Mr Trump was pushing back because America was the first victim of globalisation.

China's decision to open its markets to the world under leader Deng Xiaoping attracted US businesses eager to take advantage of the country's low-cost environment. "And that is why Trump is trying to roll it back and say America First," Mr Duterte said.

Trade and foreign ministers of 11 members of the TPP hope to agree in principle on a way forward without the US after Mr Trump pulled out earlier this year.

New Zealand Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker said the TPP talks being held at the ministerial level were more likely to progress if few changes are made to the original accord.

"The more the changes, the harder it may be to form a consensus," Mr Parker said in an interview on Thursday. "There is good will. There is a desire to make progress."

But Mr Parker said it was still uncertain if talks among the TPP leaders themselves, scheduled for later Friday, would be held as planned.

Japan likewise is eager to see the talks succeed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters before leaving Tokyo for Danang.

"We will do our utmost so that we can reach a basic agreement," Mr Abe said.

The US push-back on "free trade," evidenced in Mr Trump's "America First" policy, has raised eyebrows in the region after decades of US pressure on opening markets.

While APEC operates by consensus and customarily issues nonbinding statements, TPP commitments would eventually be ratified and enforced by its members.

"There is a new trend of protectionism that reflects new aspects of globalisation," Vietnamese trade minister Tran Tuan Anh said.

APEC's members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.

- AP
Gerry Adams has called for a British/Irish intergovernmental conference on Northern Ireland.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said Stormont budget legislation will be taken forward at Westminster on Monday after endless talks between Sinn Fein and the DUP failed to clinch an agreement.

She denied it was an indication of direct rule.

The two largest parties have been deadlocked for months over issues including an Irish Language Act and their leaders held conversations with Mrs May on Friday.

Sinn Fein president Mr Adams said: "We also told her that direct rule was not an option and that she must look to the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement for the establishment of an intergovernmental conference involving the Irish and British governments.

"In the absence of the institutions the two governments must implement those outstanding rights issues."

The Prime Minister's spokeswoman said she had explained how the UK Government will reluctantly be taking forward legislation for a Budget Bill on Monday, to ensure that in the absence of an executive, public services in Northern Ireland have the resources they need to operate.

She added: "The Prime Minister made clear this was absolutely not an indication of direct rule but it was necessary to enable the Northern Ireland civil service to allocate funds for key public services while talks between the parties continued.

"There was agreement on the importance of devolved government being returned to Northern Ireland for the benefit of all communities and the Prime Minister said that the UK Government would continue to work, alongside the Irish Government, with the parties in reaching a successful outcome."
Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, TD, will attend a Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the Cenotaph in Belfast, this Sunday where she will lay a laurel wreath, to remember those who died in the First World War.

The Minister will be joined by the British Minister for Defence, People and Veterans, Mr Tobias Ellwood MP, as well as the Lord Mayor of Belfast Nuala McAllister.

Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday commemorations will take place across the island of Ireland this weekend, including ceremonies in Belfast and Enniskillen in Northern Ireland and in St Patricks Cathedral and Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Speaking in advance of the ceremony, Minister Humphreys said she was honoured to commemorate all of those who died during World War I.

"This weekend we will remember in a special way the men and women from across the island of Ireland, who served and gave their lives during World War I.

"Although inspired by different motivations, they all shared the harsh uncertainties of war and the trauma of the battlefield as well as the enduring hope of a safe return to their loved ones. We remember too their families and the grief and hardship that they endured.

Minister Humphreys has also announced a funding allocation of 25,000 to support The Hill 70 Memorial Project - a significant commemorative Canadian World War I initiative.

The Minister also announced a funding allocation of 10,000 to support A Broken Tree, a celebration of the life and work of Lance Corporal Francis Ledwidge, the poet, Irish volunteer and soldier, who died in the Battle of Passchendaele on 31st July 1917.

This special seminar and concert have been curated by the renowned composer and member of Aosdana, Michael Holohan and take place in partnership with the National Library and the National Gallery on Saturday, 11th November. Admission to both events is free.

Reacting Michael Holohan said the concert is particularly significant for him.

"Michael McGlynn and I revisited Ledwidges work in the 1980s and 1990s, which generated significant momentum in reviving interest among composers in Ledwidge as a poet.
Aaron Hannon, from St Muredachs College, Ballina, Co Mayo was this afternoon named the overall winner of SciFest 2017.

His project EnableArm  a shaving device for people with limited hand dexterity and will go on to represent Ireland at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania next year.

Aaron was presented with the SciFest 2017 SFI Intel ISEF Award by Dr Ruth Freeman, Director of Strategy and Communications at SFI.

EnableArm was inspired by Aarons late grandfather who suffered from limited hand dexterity due to a stroke.

It is a fully functional device capable of shaving facial hair for people with limited use of their hands.

The device was created through technical research to develop the physical, electrical and software aspects. A mannequin head was used to test the device and an android app was designed to allow greater ease of use.

Sheila Porter, SciFest CEO, said: "This year is the ten-year anniversary of SciFest and it is wonderful to see the level of talent, enthusiasm and determination on display today.

"The aim of SciFest is to develop a love of STEM and of inquiry-based learning.

"Those values are very much evident here today, with students from around the country demonstrating the incredible work that they have put into their projects and experiments.

She added: "I wish to congratulate all the participants here today, as well as their teachers and their parents who have given them such wonderful support."

Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton said: "We live in a rapidly changing world and our education system must respond by equipping our young people with the skills and knowledge to thrive in such an environment.

"That is why I have placed such an emphasis on the teaching and learning of STEM in my role as Minister, as part of my overall ambition to make Irelands education and training service the best in Europe within a decade.

"Indeed, I will shortly launch a comprehensive STEM plan which will outline how my Department proposes to ignite a passion for the STEM subjects in all students.

"The STEM subjects are crucial for equipping our young people with creativity, adaptability, problem-solving and critical thinking skills which are so important for their future.

"SciFest is an excellent initiative that supports and enhances what we are trying to do at a government level and I am very impressed by the standard of projects displayed here today and the amount of work that students and of course, teachers and parents have put in to each and every one.

"I congratulate all the students, their families and mentors but in particular to Aaron on his winning entry."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is "an absolutely essential priority" to stop all violence against Burma's Rohingya Muslims, allow them to return to their homes, and grant them legal status.

The UN chief said the UN is also insisting on "unhindered humanitarian access" to all areas of northern Rakhine State, where more than 600,000 Rohingyas lived before fleeing to Bangladesh.

Mr Guterres is leaving for Europe and Asia, where he will attend a joint summit between the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which is certain to address the plight of the Rohingyas.

Burma's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has faced growing international condemnation over violence against the Rohingyas, is expected to attend the meeting in the Philippines from November 10-14.

Buddhist-majority Burma does not recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country.

It has denied them citizenship, leaving them stateless.

The latest violence began with a series of attacks August 25 by Rohingya insurgents. Burmese security forces responded with a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages that the UN and human rights groups have criticised as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Mr Guterres said: "What has happened is an immense tragedy, and the levels of violence and the atrocities committed are something that we cannot be silent about.

"We insist on the need to make sure not only that all violence against this population stops, but also ... we insist on the need to reassert the right of return."

The secretary-general said the Rohingya must be able to return voluntarily, in safety and dignity, to the areas they came from and not be placed in camps.

Mr Guterres said the root causes of the discrimination that has left the Rohingyas stateless, such as their legal status, must also be addressed.

He has previously urged Burma's government to give the Rohyingyas citizenship, or at least legal recognition, so they can move freely, get jobs and an education, and receive health care.

"We'll go on engaging in all possible domains for these objectives to be finally achieved," the secretary-general said.

Mr Guterres applauded a presidential statement which strongly condemned the violence against the Rohingyas and was approved unanimously by the Security Council on Monday, calling it "an important step forward".

The statement called on Burma's government to "ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine State" and take immediate steps to respect human rights.

It was the strongest council pronouncement on Burma in nearly 10 years, and reflected widespread international concern at the plight of the Rohingyas.

AP
Church of the Brethren Newsline

November 9, 2017

by Dennis Thompson

The Soybean Value Chain initiative is led by a steering committee of Ekklesiyar Yanuwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) with the goal to increase awareness of soybeans as a commercial crop and develop a soybean value chain that will provide sustainable economic benefits to farmers and farming communities.

The soybean project has been funded through the Global Food Initiative of the Church of the Brethren, and the Nigeria Crisis Response which is a joint effort with EYN. It is part of the rebuilding phase of the Nigeria Crisis Response.

Collaboration first began between the US Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) and the Church of the Brethren in 2016. The church sponsored a study tour for a joint Nigerian and Liberian delegation to spend time with me at the Soybean Innovation Labs SMART FARM in Ghana to discuss and learn about the power of the soybean value chain.

Church of the Brethren Global Food Initiative manager Jeffrey Boshart, who was born in Jos, Nigeria, spearheads this unique collaboration between the US Brethren, EYN, and SIL. He recently led a three-member US delegation to visit his EYN brothers and sisters. Accompanying Boshart was Pennsylvania Church of the Brethren pastor and dairy farmer Christian Elliot and me. The purpose of our visit was to interact with EYN leadership, EYN steering committee members, and participating farmers who were learning more about the scope of the soybean value chain.

The team made 20 visits to soybean production locations in the areas of Gombi, Kwarhi, Biu, Abuja, and Jos. The visits allowed ample observation of soybean field operations and interactions with individual farmers, farmer groups and the numerous EYN soybean value chain project support personnel who trained and worked with the farmers. The experience was beneficial in that it allowed observation of pilot project strategy effectiveness and program implementation effectiveness.

As a direct result of the 2017 EYN Soybean Value Chain pilot project, 100,000 farmers increased knowledge and awareness of the potential of soybeans as a commercial crop providing the soybean value chain can be further developed. Development will be necessary to assure the presence of sustained economic benefit to farmers, communities and supporting industries comprising the agricultural economy.

I was extremely impressed with the level of commitment and particularly of the level of personal implementation involvement that can be attributed to the seven highly talented individuals who comprise the EYN Soybean Value Chain steering committee. The results they have brought forth to-date (awareness and practical soybean production) are quite meaningful and their collective efforts most exemplary.

The next key piece of the puzzle is now underway. The steering committee is working toward the successful structuring of an effective and equitable marketing program that will inspire confidence in buyers and sellers alikeone that provides opportunity and assurance of economic benefit to all parties, whether directly or indirectly involved in the production and or utilization of soybeans.

The steering committee and I were elated to learn that the Church of the Brethren will provide project continuation funding to EYN for the 2018 year. I look forward to an opportunity for a return engagement to further interact with and support steering committee members as they consider program modifications that will further their work during 2018, and better serve farmers in the future.

 Dennis Thompson is a principal investigator for US Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Go to www.brethren.org/Newsline to subscribe to the Church of the Brethren Newsline free e-mail news service and receive church news every week.
Latest News On-time property sale settlements hit new heights Almost 90% finalised on first scheduled date, says PEXA

Regional hotspots record sharp falls in value, new data shows Value declines have become more geographically broad-based over the three months to October

A Melbourne man, Andrew Cameron, appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates' Court today charged with one count of the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud, following an ASIC investigation.ASIC alleges that Cameron conspired with others to defraud his employer, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia ( CBA ), by providing false documents and information in support of home loan applications. The charges are linked to the hundred-million dollar loan fraud conspiracy uncovered by ASIC's investigation into Myra Home Loans.ASIC alleges that the conspiracy involved approximately 121 loan applications and resulted in the CBA lending approximately $36,420,040.00.The maximum penalty for the offence is 15 years' imprisonment.Mr Cameron was not required to enter a plea and was bailed to appear before the Magistrates' Court at Melbourne on 2 February 2018.The matter is being prosecuted by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.A LinkedIn profile under the same name said that Cameron worked as a mobile lender for CBA.
Latest News On-time property sale settlements hit new heights Almost 90% finalised on first scheduled date, says PEXA

Regional hotspots record sharp falls in value, new data shows Value declines have become more geographically broad-based over the three months to October

The Victorian Labor government has fired a warning shot to property investors who leave their homes or apartments vacant for too long, saying they should sell or rent them or be penalised with a new incoming property tax.Premier Daniel Andrews made the statement while visiting the Melbourne suburb of Darebin where more than 50 properties are believed to be vacant.Overall, more than a thousand properties are vacant in the City of Yarra, 1,700 are empty in Moonee Valley, and over 2,500 are unused in the City of Melbourne.In a time when so many Victorians are trying to get into affordable housing, these homes shouldnt be sitting idle and unused, Andrews said.The governments vacant residential property tax (VRPT) will commence on 1 January next year and apply for properties which are vacant for more than six months during the calendar year.It will only be brought into effect within Melbournes 16 inner city councils where up to 20,000 properties sit empty. The VRPT will be applied annually at 1% of the propertys capital improved value and will be payable on a calendar year basis.Holiday homes, city units for work purposes and properties in deceased estates are exempt.We dont want this measure to raise a cent  we just want these empty houses filled with families, Andrews said.Were tackling housing affordability and making renting fair  because people deserve a good home, close to services, in an area they want to live.The tax was introduced earlier this year as part of the governments Homes for Victorians package.
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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Research News

Germs on smartphone? UB engineer receives grant for light-based disinfection system

By CORY NEALON

You dont see it, but there is bacteria all over your smartphone and tablet. Most of the time, it isnt a problem. But sometimes it is. 

Mobile devices are not only smart, they are dirty  often containing millions of invisible bacteria and microorganisms from our faces, ears, hands and elsewhere.

In everyday environments this bacteria is usually innocuous. However, in sensitive environments such as hospitals and food processing facilities, spreading diseases like the flu or norovirus via mobile devices can have serious health consequences.

To prevent this from happening, UB researcher Edward Furlani is working with two Western New York companies  CleanSlate UV (Buffalo) and Grantwood Technologies (Rochester)  to deliver faster, more effective and easier sanitization of mobile devices using ultraviolet light, which damages the DNA of microorganisms and renders them inactive.

Furlani has received a $75,000 grant from FuzeHub, an Albany-based, not-for-profit organization that assists small- to medium-sized manufacturing companies in New York by matching them with technical and business resources.

You dont see it, but there is bacteria all over your smartphone and tablet. Most of the time, it isnt a problem. But sometimes it is. And in certain environments, it can be a huge health problem, says Furlani, professor in the departments of Electrical Engineering, and Biological and Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The printer-sized CleanSlate UV device opens up like a car hood. Users place their device inside it. It then closes and uses ultraviolent light to sanitize the device, killing superbugs like MRSA and C. Difficile. The entire process takes 30 seconds.

The project leverages CleanSlate UVs disinfection technology, Grantwood Technologies optical design expertise and Furlanis expertise in photonics. The work is expected to generate 10 new advanced manufacturing jobs in Western New York.



CleanSlate UV is part of the START-UP NY economic development program, and was among the group of prize-winning companies at the 2015 43North business plan competition.



FuzeHub is a program of the Jeff Lawrence Manufacturing Innovation Fund. Lawrence, who passed away in 2015, was a top executive at the Center for Economic Growth, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) center in the Albany region, and a champion for New York manufacturing and entrepreneurial communities.

The Manufacturing Innovation Fund, consisting of $1 million annually for five years, supports a set of activities designed to spur technology development and commercialization across New York. FuzeHub is administering this fund as part of its role as the Empire State Development (ESD)-designated statewide MEP center.

One of the goals of the fund and the Manufacturing Innovation Grants is to spur economic development in the manufacturing sector, and were seeing that even these small investments in manufacturing projects are allowing companies to add jobs, strengthen their teams and contribute to their growth, says FuzeHub Executive Director Elena Garuc. These projects are a great example of how New Yorks innovation assets are supporting industry and contributing to economic growth in New York.
Campus News

Research universities focus of Critical Conversation

By SUE WUETCHER

AAU President Mary Sue Coleman, named by Time magazine in 2009 as one of the nations 10 best college presidents, will visit UB Nov. 15-16 as the featured speaker at this years Critical Conversations, the presidential series showcasing distinguished individuals at the forefront of their fields who are helping to shape understanding of vital issues facing the world today.

Coleman will deliver the keynote address on Why Research Universities Matter at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 15 in Baird Recital Hall, 250 Baird Hall, North Campus. A moderated Q&A will follow Colemans talk.

After the talk, a reception will take place outside 250 Baird.

While at UB, Coleman also will spend time meeting with students and faculty.

She will take part in two small group discussions. The first, on leadership, will take place from 1-2 p.m. Nov. 15 in the Blackstone LaunchPad at UB, 220 Student Union, North Campus.

The second meeting, on research, will be held from 10:30-11:30 a.m. Nov. 16 in 732 Clemens Hall, North Campus.

Coleman will conclude her visit to UB by joining a panel of UB faculty and students to discuss Higher Education in the 21st Century at 1 p.m. in the Buffalo Room, 10 Capen Hall, North Campus.

Faculty panelists include Venu Govindaraju, vice president for research and economic development, and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Cristanne Miller, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Edward H. Butler Professor of English and interim chair of the English department; and Krishna Rajan, Erich Bloch Endowed Chair in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation.

Also joining the panel will be Elizabeth Quaye, a pharmacology and toxicology major and participant in UBs WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) program.

The discussion will be moderated by Suzanne Rosenblith, dean of the Graduate School of Education.

All events are open to faculty, staff and students. Registration is suggested, but not required. Space is limited for the small group discussions. RSVP by Nov. 10.

Coleman has served as president of the Association of American Universities, which comprises 62 of the most distinguished research universities across the country  including UB  since 2016. She previously was president of the University of Michigan (2002-14) and the University of Iowa (1995-2002), as well as vice chancellor for research and graduate education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provost at the University of New Mexico and a biochemistry professor at the University of Kentucky, where she did research on the immune system and malignancies.

A member of the National Academy of Medicine and recipient of the American Council on Educations 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award, Coleman is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

She holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Grinnell College.

Coleman is the latest in a list of distinguished speakers in the Critical Conversations series. Other speakers were internationally acclaimed political scientist Theda Skocpol; Ed Lazowska, one of the worlds foremost scholars in the area of high-performance computing and communication systems; David Relman, a leader in research on the human microbiome; and John Borrazzo, a leader in maternal and child health.
Lee Child gives his such nondescript titles that you often need a mnemonic to remember what theyre about. The Midnight Line is another forgettable name, so what should we call it? I started out thinking of it as the one with the West Point ring: Thats a plot point unlike anything in Childs previous best-selling Jack Reacher books, and it turns up in Chapter 1, so its no spoiler. But by the time I closed the new novel, it was the one that breaks your heart.
Stepping up competition in the e-commerce space, is swiftly moving into its own consumer durable products and electronic devices as part of its private label initiative. The sprawling 230,000-sq ft manufacturing facility in the Selaqui industrial area outside Dehradun is a move in that direction. The facility is churning out LED television sets, manufactured under the MarQ brand owned by .
PSA-AVTEC Powertrain Pvt Ltd, a 50:50 joint-venture between French automobile major Groupe PSA, which makes Peugeot and Citroen cars, and CK Birla Group's power-train manufacturing firm AVTEC, has marked its inception with the ground breaking ceremony of its new plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu to focus on manufacturing and supply of power-trains.
In its pursuit of plan to enter the tea retailing business for the first time, McLeod Russel, the world's largest tea producer, will be acquiring an equal stake in Greendale India Ltd, one of the wholly-owned subsidiaries of Ltd (EIIL). Both McLeod Russel and EIIL belong to the Williamson Magor Group, controlled by the Khaitan family.

While EIIL had kept its focus on batteries and flashlights, its tea retail division, which owns a few brands, couldn't be used optimally, resulting in the under-utilisation of assets as well as the brand value of the packet tea. The battery major, hence, was on the lookout for a partner which can not only invest in reviving GIL by pumping in capital, but also take the brand forward.
Alok Industries, which has defaulted on more than Rs 20,000 of loans, may have finally found a suitor. Reliance Industries has expressed interest in buying a part of the company, Economic Times reported.
American taxi-hailing company Uber today lost an appeal against a ruling that its drivers should be given all employment rights like holiday pay, paid rest breaks and minimum wage.

Uber said it would appeal against the ruling, arguing its drivers were self-employed and were under no obligation to use its booking app.

The GMB workers' union, which had backed the case, said the ruling by the UK's Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) was a "landmark victory" for workers' rights in the so-called gig economy, a system of casual working which does not commit a business or a worker to set hours or rights.

"Uber must now face up to its responsibilities and give its workers the rights to which they are entitled. GMB urges the company not to waste everyone's time and money dragging their lost cause to the Supreme Court," said Maria Ludkin, the GMB's legal director.

Drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam had won an employment tribunal case last year demanding that they be classified as workers rather than self-employed. Uber had appealed against the decision, saying it could deprive drivers of the "personal flexibility they value".

"Today is a good day for workers, we made history," said Aslam after Fridays appeal tribunal ruling.

Tom Elvidge, Uber UK's acting general manager, said: "Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self- employed for decades, long before our app existed".

"The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal."



The taxi hailing company is also fighting to renew its licence to operate in London after it expired on September 30.

Transport for London (TfL) had denied permission for renewal amid safety concerns, with Uber filing an appeal against the decision last month and the service can remain up and running until the entire legal process is exhausted, which could mean potentially a year or more.
on Friday announced a $850 million investment for raising oil and gas production from its Rajasthan oilfields by about 100,000 barrels a day.

In a regulatory announcement, the company said its board of directors has approved brownfield growth projects.

The fields were previously operated by Cairn India, which has now merged with .

"The oil and gas business has commenced its next phase of growth, which will result in an additional production of 100,000 barrels of oil and oil equivalent gas per day (boepd). We expect to eventually ramp up to 275,000-300,000 boepd by FY2020," it said.

The company currently produces less than 160,000 boepd from Rajasthan.

Key to raising output, Vedanta said, would be replicating the success of output enhancement at Mangala oilfield, the biggest in Rajasthan block, in Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields.

Polymer injections were used in the enhanced oil recovery (EO) project at Mangala.

To recover tight oil and gas, the company said it will deploy "latest fracking technologies to recover oil and gas from tighter reservoir formations through execution of Raageshwari Deep Gas (RDG) and Aishwariya Barmer Hill (ABH)".

Also, infill wells around existing producers in Mangala and Cambay will be done to accelerate near-term production, it said, adding liquid handling capacity at Mangala Processing Terminal will be increased by over 30 per cent to handle incremental volumes.

"The total CapEx for these projects is $850 million," it added.
The is in talks with Pawan Hans, an aviation entity under the Centre, for aerially sprinkling water in the city to settle particulate matter, authorities on both sides said today.

Responding to a letter written by the city's Environment Minister Imran Hussain on possibility of such an exercise, Vanrajsinh H Dodia, the general manager (BD and marketing) of said the company has the "capacity" to take it up.

Chairman and Managing Director BP Sharma told PTI that the talks are at a "preliminary stage".

"They asked if we can do this and we said yes. But there are certain procedures they will have to follow," he said.

In its response, the company, which comes under the civil aviation ministry, said it has carried out similar exercises in the past for washing insulators of high tension lines and spraying over agricultural fields.

"Sprinkling water aerially through helicopter to settle particulat matters in shall require a comprehensive feasibility study and approvals from various authorities such as DGCA, AAI, defence, administration," Dodia wrote.

He also suggested a joint working group of the Delhi administration and be set up to work out the proposal, adding that proposed sprinkling will require specialised equipment to be attached with choppers.

The Pawan Hans Ltd (PHL) is a 51:49 joint venture between the civil aviation ministry and oil behemoth ONGC.

The profit-making aviation entity is currently under a divestment process as the has proposed to offload its entire 51 per cent holding in the company to private entities.

The idea of aerial sprinkling of water was first floated by the Green Tribunal in November last year.

"Why can't you use helicopters to create artificial rain to control dust pollution. Are they only meant to carry your officials?" a bench headed by NGT Chairperson justice Swatanter Kumar asked.
The visit by US Navy officials last week to INS Vikramaditya, an aircraft carrier built by Russia for the Indian Navy, has turned into an unexpectedly hot potato in Russia-India military ties.
In a significant order, the Madras High Court modified a single judge's order making singing of the song 'Vande Mataram' mandatory in schools across Tamil Nadu at least once a week, saying it was a policy matter which should be decided by the government.

A bench comprising Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice RMT Teekaa Raman gave the order on an appeal by the state Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB).

It modified the part of the July 25 judgement of the single judge making singing of 'Vande Mataram' compulsory in educational institutions, government and private offices and industrial units.

"We are of the view that since it is a policy decision to be taken by the state, in modification of the order of the learned single judge, we leave it to the discretion of the government to take decision in the matter," the two-judge bench said in a recent order.

Justice M V Muralidharan's bench had ordered that the song be sung on the premises of establishments identified by the court at least once a week, preferably on Monday or Friday.

He also said that the song can be recited in other government and private establishments at least once a month.

The order had come on a petition moved by K Veeramani, who failed to clear the written test for the assistant teacher as his answer that the song was originally written in Bengali was considered incorrect. As per the answer key, the correct answer was Sanskrit.

Holding that the song was first written in Bengali, the judge ordered that one additional mark be given to the petitioner.

As his marks would still fall below the cut off, the two-judge bench ordered the TRB to accommodate the petitioner whenever a vacancy arose in the SC category to which he belonged.

In its order, the two-judge bench noted the efforts made by the single judge, including seeking the assistance of a learned counsel from the bar, to arrive at the conclusion about the language in which the song was penned.

It said, the material collected would undoubtedly show that the song 'Vande Matharam' was originally written in the writer's native language Bengali and was later translated into Sanskrit.

The bench said it had no hestiation in concluding that both the answers-- Bengali and Sanskrit-- were correct, and directed TRB to award one mark to candidates who gave either of these answers.

The bench said it was well settled that courts should not ordinarily interfere in policy decisions unless there is clear violation of a constitutional provision or the statute.

"We find no such violation in the case at hand. We leave it open to the respondent--the Board to deal with the case of the petitioner, after awarding one mark, on merits and in accordance with law," the bench said.
India reveled earlier this month in the achievement of putting Khichdi on the world map with a Guinness World Record. While we have every reason to feel proud of this record, India hardly features on the world map of good gastronomy. Sandeep Goyal and Carol Goyal examine why the Michelin guide, the top-most accolade in the food business, is still not in India, and why Indian restaurants are still not perceived to have achieved global standards.



History was created at the India Gate lawns in New Delhi earlier this month as Indias most famous chef, Sanjeev Kapoor, supervised the cooking of 918 kilograms of khichdi in a bid for an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records at the World Food Fair. Yoga guru Swami Ramdev put a traditional tadka in the khichdi while Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Minister of State Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti stood by in attendance. The khichdi, made out of rice, moong dal, bajra, jowar and spices drawn from several parts of the country was cooked in a giant frying pan of 1,000 litres, measuring seven feet in diameter. The khichdi took more than an hour to steam slowly and finally be cooked. Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, recently decorated with a Padma Shri, was supported by a dozen other well-known chefs that included Imtiaz Qureshi (of Dum Pukht fame), Ranveer Brar, Kavneet Sahni, Saransh Goila, Sudhir Sibal, Rakesh Sethi, Akshay Nayyar and Satish Gowda in this record breaking feat.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard.
During the trial into Catalonias declaration of independence, a judge of the Supreme Court of Spain ruled that the ex-Speaker for the Parliament of Catalonia, Carme Forcadell, be held in custody until the bail of 150,000 is paid, reported RIA Novosti news agency of Russia.

November 10, 2017, 09:51 Catalonia parliament ex-speaker detained in Spain

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS: Four other Catalan lawmakers were granted bail of 25,000.

All are being investigated for alleged rebellion and sedition over Catalonias declaration of independence from Spain.

A fifth Catalan MP, who is also under investigation, was released under certain conditions without bail being imposed.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday adjourned the hearing in the bail plea of Pinto family till November 17, in connection with a Pradyuman murder case.

"The Punjab and Haryana High Court has advanced the final hearing in Pinto family's interim bail plea till November 17, changing the earlier date of December 5, following the Supreme Court's order," Sushil Tekriwal, an advocate of Pradyuman's family, told the media.

The Supreme Court had ordered the matter to be decided within 10 days.

"All procedures will be completed before the due date, and the matter will be completely disposed of on November 17," Tekriwal added.

On Sunday, the Supreme Court had granted interim bail to Pinto family, the owners of the Ryan International School, who have been accused in the murder of its student Pradyuman Thakur.

Pradyuman's body was found with his throat slit inside the toilet of the school on September 8.

On September 28, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had stayed the arrest of the Pinto family. They had moved the High Court seeking anticipatory bail in the matter.

In other developments in the investigation, the CBI on Wednesday arrested a senior student of the school in connection with the murder and gave a clean chit to the bus conductor, who was earlier arrested by the Gurugram Police on charges of murder and sexual assault.

Hearing in the bail plea of the arrested bus conductor, Ashok is scheduled to appear on November 16 in a session court.

"The CBI has stated that Ashok did not commit the murder and they are giving him a clean chit. The hearing on bail application will be done on November 16," Mohit Varma, Ashok's lawyer, told the reporters today.
Strengthening India's warm and friendly bilateral relations with Congo, External Affairs Minister (EAM) on Friday welcomed Congo Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu to India.

Swaraj and Okitundu discussed steps to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries, specifically in trade and investment, development efforts in Congo under a Line of Credit (LOC), capacity building and collaboration in regional and multilateral platforms.

Vice Prime Minister Okitundu is on a three-day visit to India, which will end on Saturday.

India was among the first countries to open a diplomatic mission in Kinshasa city in 1962.

Congo's President Joseph Kabila Kabange visited India to attend the First India-Africa Forum Summit in April 2008.
The Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday said the Odd-Even vehicle rationing scheme won't be allowed in the capital till its efficacy was known.

The green court issued the directive a day after the Delhi government announced it would bring back the Odd-Even plan from November 13 to 17 to combat air pollution in Delhi and NCR region.The NGT rapped the Delhi govt for announcing the despite reports from CPCB and DPCC that it was ineffective.



Also, NGT asked the Kejriwal govt to give an undertaking that it will roll out odd-even only when particulate matter levels are over 300.



The green court also exempted industries engaged in essential services operating in Delhi-NCR on condition that they would not pollute.

The tribunal said the government needed to satisfy the court that the Odd-Even car rationing scheme was productive. The NGT also asked the Kejriwal government why it had exempted two-wheelers and women-only vehicles from the .

The final decision to roll out the scheme is expected on Saturday.
The GST Council on Friday decided to keep only 50 items, mostly demerit, sin and luxury goods, in the top 28 per cent tax bracket, Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi said.
Consumers will be paying less for a wide range of items from shampoo to furniture from November 15 as the GST (goods and services tax) Council on Friday decided to cut the indirect tax from 28 per cent to 18 per cent on these and further down to 12 per cent on another two (wet grinders, and tanks and armoured vehicles), leaving only 50 items in the peak rate category.
Had to cut down on your monthly budget for cosmetics or postpone purchasing your much-desired watch? Not anymore. Prices of these items, along with chocolates, chewing gum, detergents, shampoos, and many other commonly consumed items, may come down soon, as taxes on them are being slashed significantly.
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Criticised for the increase in compliance burdens on assessees under the goods and services tax (GST), the Council on Friday extended the dates for filing of returns. It also deffered sending of the input and detailed input-output returns, till a committee headed by the Network (GSTN) chairman simplifies these.
Traders' body CAIT on Friday said the move to cut GST rates on over 200 items, saying the relief granted to businesses and consumers will be a game changer in simplifying the tax regime and encourage its wider adoption.

In a statement, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said "in the wake of current situation where traders are a depressed lot, such relief were much awaited".

"It is estimated that by reducing tax and likely increase in composition limit, the government will suffer a loss of about 34,000 crore rupees. If traders are taken in confidence and various procedures are eased, the trading community will ensure compensation of such losses by making all efforts to widen the tax net base," CAIT said.

Industry body Assocham said the decision of the GST Council would lead to a pick-up in consumer demand and significantly revive the business sentiment.

Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said, "The increase in the composition scheme threshold would make life much easier for the small business entities".

He added that the impact of these changes would be positively felt in the next few months.

As many as 178 items of daily use were shifted from top tax bracket of 28 per cent to 18 per cent, while a uniform 5 per cent tax was prescribed for all restaurants, both air- conditioned and non-AC, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

Currently, 12 per cent GST on food bill is levied in non-AC restaurants and 18 per cent GST for AC restaurants. All these got input tax credit, a facility to set off tax paid on inputs with final tax.

The traders' body, CAIT, further said these measures will mitigate practical difficulties for smooth execution and adoption of goods and services tax (GST) by small traders.

It said the move which will help the trading community tide over the initial teething problems that are being faced in the aftermath of the transition to the GST regime.

CAIT further said that there are issues with the non- performance of the GST portal which need to be taken up on immediate priority.

The all-powerful GST Council pruned the list of items in the top 28 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) slab to just 50 from current 228. So, only luxury and sins goods are now only in highest tax bracket and items of daily use are shifted to 18 per cent.

Chewing gum, chocolates, coffee, custard power, marble and granite, dental hygiene products, polishes and creams, sanitary ware, leather clothing, artificial fur, wigs, cookers, stoves, after-shave, deodorant, detergent and washing power, razors and blades, cutlery, storage water heater, batteries, goggles, wrist watches and mattress are among the products on which tax rate has been cut from 28 per cent to 18 per cent.

The top tax rate is now restricted to luxury and demerit goods like pan masala, aerated water and beverages, cigars and cigarettes, tobacco products, cement, paints, perfumes, ACs, dish washing machine, washing machine, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars and two-wheelers, aircrafts and yachts.
The countrys Index of Industrial Production rose 3.8 per cent in September, compared with the revised 4.5 per cent in August (a nine-month high) and 5.7 per cent in September last year.
Speaker of the Parliament of Artsakh Ashot Ghoulyan says the frequency of meetings with the partners of Armenias Parliament serve a base for completely ensuring the mutual partnership, reports Armenpress.

November 10, 2017, 12:54 Artsakh Parliament Speaker highly appreciates level of cooperation with Armenias Parliament

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS:In his remarks at the 12th session of interparliamentary commission on cooperation between the Parliaments of Armenia and Artsakh, Speaker Ghoulyan said in April-June, 2016, after the April war, almost all MPs of the Armenian Parliament visited Artsakh together with dozens of representatives of foreign parliaments.

The agenda of todays joint session has identified issues which need to be thoroughly discussed. One of them are the discussions on the topic of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict in international parliamentary platforms and in this context the works carried out by Armenias parliamentary delegations, he said.

The Artsakh Parliament Speaker stated that they highly appreciate the efforts of their Armenian partners to properly present the stances of Armenia and Artsakh in international parliamentary structures, to counter the Azerbaijani biased formulations and initiatives distorting the essence of the conflict.
The Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT ) Kanpur recently released the syllabus for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) advanced 2018. Candidates who have registered for the examination can access the complete syllabus from the official website jeeadv.ac.in .
US President will not hold a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam, the White House said today.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the city of Danang and there had been mixed messages about whether a face-to-face was on the cards.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

Yesterday Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretary's comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
US President set out a strong message on trade at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries in Vietnam on Friday, saying the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.
The UK will leave the European Union on March 29, 2019 at 11 pm (local time), British Prime Minister Theresa May announced today as she set out plans to enshrine in law the exact date and time for Britains exit from the economic bloc.

The prime minister said the EU Withdrawal Bill will be amended to formally commit to a date and time deadline before the amended version of the proposed legislation comes up for scrutiny by MPs in the House of Commons next week.

"Let no-one doubt our determination or question our resolve, is happening. It will be there in black and white on the front page of this historic piece of legislation: the United Kingdom will be leaving the EU on March 29, 2019 at 11 pm," she wrote in 'The Daily Telegraph' today.

The date marks the two-year cut off point after Britain invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to trigger the process of leaving the 28-member economic bloc on March 29 this year following a referendum in favour of in June 2016.

The EU Withdrawal Bill, which is intended to convert all existing EU laws into UK law to ensure there are no gaps in legislation on Brexit day, has already passed its second reading and now faces several attempts to amend it at the next part of its parliamentary journey the committee stage.

May has warned Eurosceptics, in her own Conservative party and the Opposition, that while the government would listen to MPs if they had ideas for improving the bill, it would not tolerate any attempts to delay or halt the process.

"We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union," she writes.

Her warning came as the former diplomat who had drafted Article 50 said that the Brexit process was reversible right up to the last minute.

Lord Kerr, a former UK ambassador to the EU, said suggestions by Brexiters in the UK Cabinet that Brexit was irreversible was misleading.

"At any stage we can change our minds if we want to, and if we did we know that our partners would actually be very pleased indeed, said Kerr, now a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords.

He noted: The Brexiters create the impression that is because of the way Article 50 is written that having sent in a letter on 29 March 2017 we must leave automatically on 29 March 2019 at the latest. That is not true.

"It is misleading to suggest that a decision that we are taking autonomously in this country about the timing of our departure, we are required to take by a provision of EU treaty law.

He also indicated that people had a right to change their mind over the decision.

As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view. And there's nothing in Article 50 to stop them, he said.

The debate comes as the UKs Brexit secretary, David Davis, and the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, prepare to meet in Brussels for the second day of the latest round of talks before a make-or-break summit of European leaders next month.

With weeks of political crisis surrounding senior members of her Cabinet, including resignations by Priti Patel as development minister and Michael Fallon as defence minister, Theresa May is under increasing pressure to be seen as tough on the Brexit process.

There have already been 300 amendments and 54 new clauses proposed for the crucial EU Withdrawal Bill and getting it through Parliament will not prove an easy task since the Conservatives lost their majority in the snap general election earlier this year.

(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.)
is feeling jilted. The last time he and US President Donald Trump met, in July at the G-20 summit, Trump couldnt seem to get enough of the Russian president. They met behind closed doors for more than two hours, without an official note-taker. It yielded a limited Syrian cease-fire.
The government will soon remove the Customs duty on ferro nickel, which is used by the stainless steel industry.
Mahindra Logistics (MLL) was trading at Rs 422 at 10:05 am, below its issue price of Rs 429 per share, after making quite debut on the bourses.
If you are living in areas of high pollution, you are more likely to have bone fractures from osteoporosis, according to a study.

The study was performed by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The researchers are the first to document high rates of hospital admissions for bone fractures in communities with elevated levels of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), a component of air pollution, with risk of bone fracture admissions greatest in low-income communities.

The findings, from a study of osteoporosis-related fracture hospital admissions among 9.2 million Medicare enrollees in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic between 2003-2010, suggest that even a small increase in PM2.5 concentrations would lead to an increase in bone fractures in older adults.

A concurrent analysis of eight years of follow-up among 692 middle-aged, low-income adults in the Boston Area Community Health/Bone Survey cohort found that participants living in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon, a component of air from automotive emissions, had lower levels of parathyroid hormone, a key calcium and bone-related hormone, and greater decreases in bone mineral density than those exposed to lower levels of these pollutants.

Osteoporosis, the most common reason for a broken bone among the elderly, is a disease in which bones become brittle and weak as the body loses more bone mass than it can rebuild.

Typically, no symptoms are present prior to a break, which often happens spontaneously or from something as harmless as a hug. In the year after an older adult has a bone fracture, risk for death increases by as much as 20 per cent, and only 40 per cent of those who had fractures regain their independence.

The researchers write that particulate matter, including PM2.5, is known to cause systemic oxidative damage and inflammation, which they suggest, could accelerate bone loss and increase risk of bone fractures in older individuals. Smoking, which contains several particulate matter components, has been consistently associated with bone damage.

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to cancer, and impaired cognition, and now osteoporosis," says Andrea Baccarelli, study's senior author.

"Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures."

In two studies published earlier this year, Baccarelli, a world leader in the science of epigenetics, reported that Vitamin B can diminish the effects of air pollution-induced cardiovascular disease, as well as epigenetic damage to DNA.

It is unclear if the benefits of Vitamin B extend to bone loss. Even so, he says, the best way to prevent air-pollution-related diseases is through policies to improve air quality.

The findings are published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting today with the delegation of Artsakhs parliament led by Speaker Ashot Ghulyan. The delegation arrived in Armenia to participate in the 12th session of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian and Artsakhi parliaments.

November 10, 2017, 14:20 President Sargsyan holds meeting with Artsakh Parliament delegation

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS:The President welcomed the delegation and highlighted the activities of the inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, the regular joint sessions of parliamentary standing committees, and stressed that no matter in what format the partnership is displayed, it is the best way to exchange information and unite efforts for solving common issues.

I am always filled with optimism with the fact that although the imposed war, although the tension at the line of contact, our brothers and sisters of Artsakh are filled with great faith for their future and are strengthening their statehood with this faith, increasing welfare, developing democracy.

And this convinces all of us that we are on the right path, that our will is irrevocable. On this path, the February 20 constitutional reforms referendum was certainly an important milestone, which once again reaffirmed that there is no discrepancy between the executive and legislative powers of Artsakh and the people, and this is a very important fact to resist challenges. I think no one has doubts that on the way of passing this path, not only is Armenia and all our citizens with you, but also all Armenians, and it will be so always, the President said.

The Speaker of Artsakhs Parliament thanked the Armenian President for the reception and mentioned that being regularly hosted by the President during the sessions is very important for the lawmakers, because these meetings are a good opportunity to discuss other issues of mutual interest as well.

Although we have chosen different administration models, we have many similarities in this process, because the path we passed proves this also, he said.
If you are living in areas of high pollution, you are more likely to have bone fractures from osteoporosis, according to a study.

The study was performed by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The researchers are the first to document high rates of hospital admissions for bone fractures in communities with elevated levels of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), a component of air pollution, with risk of bone fracture admissions greatest in low-income communities.

The findings, from a study of osteoporosis-related fracture hospital admissions among 9.2 million Medicare enrollees in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic between 2003-2010, suggest that even a small increase in PM2.5 concentrations would lead to an increase in bone fractures in older adults.

A concurrent analysis of eight years of follow-up among 692 middle-aged, low-income adults in the Boston Area Community Health/Bone Survey cohort found that participants living in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon, a component of air pollution from automotive emissions, had lower levels of parathyroid hormone, a key calcium and bone-related hormone, and greater decreases in bone mineral density than those exposed to lower levels of these pollutants.

Osteoporosis, the most common reason for a broken bone among the elderly, is a disease in which bones become brittle and weak as the body loses more bone mass than it can rebuild.

Typically, no symptoms are present prior to a break, which often happens spontaneously or from something as harmless as a hug. In the year after an older adult has a bone fracture, risk for death increases by as much as 20 percent, and only 40 percent of those who had fractures regain their independence.

The researchers write that particulate matter, including PM2.5, is known to cause systemic oxidative damage and inflammation, which they suggest, could accelerate bone loss and increase risk of bone fractures in older individuals. Smoking, which contains several particulate matter components, has been consistently associated with bone damage.

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to cancer, and impaired cognition, and now osteoporosis," says Andrea Baccarelli, study's senior author.

"Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures."

In two studies published earlier this year, Baccarelli, a world leader in the science of epigenetics, reported that Vitamin B can diminish the effects of air pollution-induced cardiovascular disease, as well as epigenetic damage to DNA.

It is unclear if the benefits of Vitamin B extend to bone loss. Even so, he says, the best way to prevent air-pollution-related diseases is through policies to improve air quality.

The findings are published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China and the United States have inked deals worth more than 250 billion U.S. dollars during President Donald Trump's maiden visit to Beijing.

The deals range from Boeing aircraft, Ford automobiles, U.S. soybeans and joint development of liquefied natural gas in Alaska, reported China's state-run news agency Xinhua.

The deals were signed at a ceremony attended by Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People.

Being the world's biggest developing economy and developed economy, China and the United States are highly complementary rather than competitive, President Xi said.

"We will continue to encourage Chinese companies to invest in the United States. We also welcome U.S. companies and financial institutions to participate in the 'Belt and Road Initiative'." President Xi added.

According to the reports, after the signing ceremony, China's commerce minister Zhong Shan praised the deals as "truly a miracle, not just in the history of US-China relations, but in the history of the whole world".

China is the United States' largest trading partner while the U.S. is China's second largest.

China holds a surplus in goods trade with the United States while the United States maintains service trade surplus with China, the reports said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday seized five Pakistan fishing boats and apprehended three fishermen from Bhuj in Gujarat.

The fishermen were apprehended from vertical channel of Harami Nala in Bhuj along the India-Pakistan border.

As per reports, a search operation for the same is underway.

Last month, the BSF had apprehended a fisherman of Pakistan origin and seized his boat along the India-Pakistan border of Gujarat's Kutch district.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that China and the United States should remain partners, not rivals, and together they can accomplish many great things for each other and the whole .

"Together, we have mapped out a blueprint for advancing China-U.S. relations. We both agree that China and the United States should remain partners, not rivals. We both agree that when we work together, we can accomplish many great things to the benefit of our two countries and the whole world," President XI said while hosting a dinner at the Great Hall of the People for visiting U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday.

"With perseverance, our two great nations will definitely make new contribution to creating a better future for mankind," he added.

Expressing gratitude for the warm welcome from President Xi, Trump said that this moment presents both nations with an incredible opportunity to advance peace and prosperity alongside other nations all around the .

"It is my hope that the proud spirits of the American and Chinese people will inspire our efforts to achieve a more just, secure, and peaceful world, a future worthy of the sacrifices of our ancestors, and the dreams of our children," President Trump said.

A video of Trump's granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poems was played before the dinner started, drawing warm applause..

At Trump's proposal, a video of his granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poems was played before the dinner started, drawing warm applause, Xinhua news agency reported.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that the entire Goods and Services Tax (GST) architecture and design was 'defective'.

The Congress' statement came close on the heels of the 23rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

While speaking to ANI, Congress leader Randeep Surjewala said, "A consistent pressure put by the Congress especially by vice-president Rahul Gandhi and also finance minister has finally worked on some items. A ruler, who is completely autocratic, finally has seen some reason to reduce the GST on certain items of daily use. But the problem is that the entire GST architecture and design is 'defective'."

"The Congress meant GST to be single, uncomplicated taxation. That's why we called it 'Genuine and Simple Tax'. But under Modi ji, it has become 'Gabbar Singh Tax'. If we go to see, Prime Minister Modi has only given temporary relief. When will be the day we all will live in peace? Why is electricity and petrol kept out of GST?" he said.

The GST Council, earlier in the day, decided to slash rates on more than 175 items, reducing taxes on these from the existing 28 per cent.

This is being considered as one of the biggest tax reductions since the new system kicked-in from July 1.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prince of Wales Charles Philip Arthur George, accompanied by Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles, on Thursday visited the British High Commissioner's residence in the national capital.

While addressing a gathering here, Charles said, "All the great religious traditions, the great wisdom of remaining indigenous communities represented in our family of nations, speak of the essential requirement to work in harmony with nature as our ultimate sustainer."

"As the world's largest democracy, India's role in all of this could not be more crucial nor her contribution to the commonwealth more essential. So many areas such as Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi's impressive and admirable focus on renewable energy, India offers a compelling example for others to follow. The can learn so much from India today as indeed it has done throughout history," Charles added.

Earlier in the day, Charles along with Camilla Parker Bowles paid tribute to the martyrs at Delhi's Amar Jawan Jyoti.

The Prince had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday and discussed a wide range of issues, including that of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which will take place in April 2018 in the United Kingdom.

The royal couple is on a two-day visit to India.

The visit is a 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.

India-U.K. trade is at USD 12.19 billion. India is also the third largest investor and the second largest international job creator in the U.K.

U.K. is the third largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000 - June 2017.

U.K. is the third largest inward investor in India, with a cumulative equity investment of USD 24.37 billion for the period April 2000 - June 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the wake of recent sexual misconduct claims made against the big names of Hollywood, Bollywood actress Vidya Balan has revealed that Bollywood can be really sexist too.

While being present at the launch of a business magazine, the 'Tumhari Sulu' star shared that the film industry can be really sexist and she did face a fair amount of sexism in the initial phase of her career.

When asked if she faced any kind of sexism in the industry, she said, "The film industry has been really nice to me. I'm quite head-strong. But I think it can really be sexist. In the initial phase of my career, I did face a fair amount of sexism. I used to be really angry about that."

"I was told he has been given dates, so you have to work around them, but I was never asked like that. The male actor would always get a bigger van, a bigger hotel. People would always say like, 'do you need to listen to story?" she said.

The actress shared that she has been very lucky to have step into the industry with a movie like 'Parineeta', as no one questioned the set of rules she set for herself.

"I was lucky I got into the business with a movie like 'Parineeta', no one questioned the rules I set for myself. I have been told that a female actor's life is not much, so you have to look younger. You got to look glamorous. I always told myself no, it is not like that," noted Balan.

When asked if she is a feminist, she explained, "I'm a feminist I am not anti-men. There is a huge difference between them. I believe I have the equal right to breathe, live and lead my life as a man does."

She also shared that her dream is to act for next 40 years as she enjoys the work she does.

She shared, "I want to keep acting for next 40 years. This is what I enjoy doing. Nothing has changed since I first decided to be an actor. I don't have specific goals, I just want to work."

The actor will be next seen in Suresh Triveni's 'Tumhari Sulu'.

The movie is about a competent woman who chances upon the opportunity of becoming an RJ and grabs it with both hands.

The flick is slated to release on November 17.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday said the filmmakers who tried to glorify barbaric Mughal rulers would not be spared, in the wake of the controversy surrounding Sanjay Leela Bhansali's magnum opus 'Padmavati'.

Speaking to ANI, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha said, "When a film is made with a hero (Alauddin Khilji) in that character, certain portions are sad and disappointing to watch. Because he is known to be the most uncouth ruler of the Delhi Sultanate till date. If any film tries to portray them in the positive light, it will certainly cause a huge discomfort to the emotions of the people. The filmmakers who present the barbaric rulers in a positive light will not be tolerated or spared."

"This country has experienced 800 years of Mughal rule which can only be described as barbaric and bloodiest in human history. This is also recorded by international historians, but historians in India have actually become distortions. The real evidence of discretion on temples or destruction of temples is recorded even today," he said.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court refused to entertain a plea seeking a stay on the release of 'Padmavati', saying the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was an independent body and the court should not intervene in their jurisdiction.

The film has been embroiled in a spate of controversies ever since its inception.

The period drama starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor has been facing protests from various communal groups, including Shree Rajput Karni Sena, for allegedly tampering historical facts.

The Karni Sena, which demolished the sets of the movie in Jaipur and thrashed Bhansali, had warned the director of dire consequences on showing distorted historical facts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rajasthan minister Rajendra Singh Rathore on Thursday weighed in on the ongoing controversy about Bollywood movie 'Padmavati' and said historical facts must not be toyed with as it can hurt people's sentiments.

"Historical facts must not be toyed with as it can hurt people's sentiments. He (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) should have abided by the decision taken by social activists and film directors a long time ago," the minister said.

The film has been embroiled in a spate of controversies ever since its inception. The period drama starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, and Shahid Kapoor has been facing protests from various communal groups, including Shree Rajput Karni Sena, for allegedly tampering historical facts.

The Karni Sena, which demolished the sets of the movie in Jaipur and also thrashed Bhansali, last month, again, warned the director that he would face consequences if the movie distorted historical facts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Bhutan on Friday held development cooperation talks as a part of bilateral mechanism to review the entire gamut of New Delhi's development partnership with Thimphu.

The sixth India-Bhutan Development Cooperation Talks were held in New Delhi.

The Indian delegation was led by Vijay Gokhale, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, and the Bhutanese delegation was led by Dasho Sonam Tshong, Foreign Secretary of Bhutan.

The two sides reviewed the implementation of projects funded by the Indian Government in the 11th Plan, which includes Project Tied Assistance and Small Development Projects.

India has committed assistance of Rs. 4,500 crore for the implementation of development projects during Bhutan's 11th Five Year Plan (2013 - 2018).

Over 675 projects, including 595 small development projects, have been under implementation in Bhutan during the XIth plan period within GOI's committed assistance of Rs 4,500 crore.

With Bhutan's 11th Five Year Plan (2013-2018) entering its final phase, the two sides noted with satisfaction the overall progress in the implementation of ongoing bilateral development projects in Bhutan.

The Bhutanese side conveyed the appreciation of the Royal Government of Bhutan for the invaluable support of India for their socio-economic development priorities, and for timely disbursements of funds for the ongoing projects.

The two sides also initiated discussions on Government of India's assistance to the 12th Five Year Plan (2018-2023) of the Royal Government of Bhutan.

India has been a privileged partner of Bhutan in its socio-economic development. Its commitment to continue its support to Bhutan in its development efforts was reiterated by the Indian side.

The two sides agreed to hold the next Development Cooperation Talks in 2018 in Thimphu on a mutually-agreed date.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russia hopes that the constructive atmosphere established at the meeting of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Geneva will be preserved, Russia's permanent representative to the OSCE said, according to News.am.

November 10, 2017, 15:09 Russia hopes meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs will be effective

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS:Alexander Lukashevich made a statement at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in response to the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

He labeled the Geneva meeting as a significant results of the mediation efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group during their active contacts in Baku, Yerevan and Nagorno-Karabakh.

It is important that, at the end of the summit, the parties agreed to intensify the negotiation process. We are confident that this will further enhance confidence between the parties and, as a result, will move towards a compromise on the key aspects of the settlement. We hope that the constructive atmosphere established at the meeting of the presidents in Geneva will be preserved at the talks. We count on the effectiveness of the meetings of the Co-Chairs with the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, planned by the end of the year, the diplomat said.

Lukashevich noted that Russia, in coordination with other co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, is ready to continue providing the parties with all the necessary assistance in developing a mutually acceptable consensus for the settlement of Karabakh conflict.

We expect that the forthcoming contacts of the co-chairs will give an additional impetus to the peaceful settlement of this long-standing conflict, he added.

Russian diplomat added peace and stability in the region is a necessary condition for the effectiveness of the mediation mission. In this regard, they highly appreciate the commitment of the parties to take additional measures to reduce tensions at the line of contact.

We are counting on an early agreement on the algorithm to expand the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the basis of a scheme that will qualitatively enhance the capacity to monitor the situation in the region. The completion of the joint mechanism for investigating armed incidents in the conflict zone would also be in line with the interests of stability on the contact line and the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. The implementation of these fundamental agreements would strengthen the positive atmosphere for the dialogue of the parties and further stimulate the negotiation process.
Consolidating India's warm and friendly bilateral relations with Congo, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj on Friday welcomed Congo Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu to India.

Both sides reviewed the current state of bilateral relations and discussed priority areas for future cooperation.

Swaraj and Okitundu discussed steps to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries, specifically in trade and investment, development efforts in Congo under a Line of Credit (LOC), capacity building and collaboration in regional and multilateral platforms.

They also expressed satisfaction over the close and friendly relations between the two countries.

Vice Prime Minister Okitundu handed over a letter from Congo's President Joseph Kabila Kabange inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Congo.

He also extended an invitation to EAM Swaraj for the visit to the Central African nation.

Vice PM Okitundu expressed appreciation for India's support for Congo's economic development.

The EAM conveyed India's continuing support for developmental partnership including Lines of Credit (LOC) and capacity building in Congo.

Vice PM Okitundu expressed desire for stepping up cooperation in areas such as mining, education and electoral processes.

Vice PM Okitundu thanked India for its contribution of troops to UN peace-keeping operations in Congo.

Okitundu's two-day visit to India culminated today.

Both sides agreed to explore holding the bilateral Joint Commission Meeting in early 2018.

India was among the first countries to open a diplomatic mission in Kinshasa city in 1962.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Strengthening India's warm and friendly bilateral relations with Congo, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj on Friday welcomed Congo Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu to India.

Swaraj and Okitundu discussed steps to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries, specifically in trade and investment, development efforts in Congo under a Line of Credit (LOC), capacity building and collaboration in regional and multilateral platforms.

Vice Prime Minister Okitundu is on a three-day visit to India, which will end on Saturday.

India was among the first countries to open a diplomatic mission in Kinshasa city in 1962.

Congo's President Joseph Kabila Kabange visited India to attend the First India-Africa Forum Summit in April 2008.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala Cabinet on Friday recommended to the Governor to have an ordinance for reducing the tenure of the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) members from three to two years passed.

The Travancore Devaswom Board is an autonomous body formed as per the Travancore Cochin Hindu Religious Institutions Act of 1950, and hence, the bill can be passed only by making amendments in the act.

According to sources, the cabinet's recommendation comes in the wake of TDB president Prayar Gopalakrishnan and board member Ajay Tharayail, both of whom were nominated by the previous Congress-led UDF Government in the state, completing two years in office tomorrow.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A member of the police force was killed and five injured after an explosion rocked Bolan area in Lashkargah City, Helmand province.

The casualties were confirmed by Zahirgul Muqbil, Commander of Border Police Battalion in Lashkargah, who also revealed that the explosives were placed in a Mazda truck.

The blast was reported to be a car bombing close to a police outpost in Lashkargah City, Provincial governor's spokesman Omar Zwak told TOLOnews.

The incident comes in the wake of a series of deadly incidents that took place in Helmand province in the past few months.

Meanwhile, parts of the province have remained volatile due to presence of the Taliban.

Further details are awaited.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mexican Ambassador to India Melba Pria on Friday expressed concern over the rising levels of air pollution, in the wake of the toxic smog enshrouding the capital region, and suggested ways to combat it.

Speaking to ANI, Pria said, "We (Mexico) changed all of our petrol. It has to be in much better quality. Every Vento in Mexico has a catalytic converter that was put in plants in India. No Vento here has a catalytic converter. Why do you allow that children are breathing this air?"

"We took out all heavy industries out of Mexico City and raised the standards for pollution creating industries. We gave them time, helped them with taxes, did all reforms that were needed but those industries were taken outside of every city in Mexico," she said.

Mexico's young and dynamic Ambassador to India draws special attention because she uses an autorickshaw as her official transport.

"I am affected like everybody else because all are breathing the same air. If you've to go out, you need to have purifier in your car. For someone like me, it's being grounded because I can't use my auto, my vehicle of choice," she added.

Pria, in one of her earlier interviews, had said that Mexico's measures to improve air quality were diverse and the city did not rely on one single programme to curb pollution and that India should also do the same.

Pollution in New Delhi has been hovering at alarming levels with air quality readings of tiny particulate matter PM 2.5 hitting over 796 on Friday, the most severe level on the government's scale. A reading of anything over 100 is considered unhealthy.

PM 2.5 is particulate matter about 30 times finer than a human hair. The particles can be inhaled deep into the lungs, causing heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and respiratory diseases.

Doctors have suggested people to wear N90 masks whenever they go out, as exposure to air pollution can lead to cancer and heart disease.
Rapper Nicki Minaj's older brother, Jelani Maraj was convicted, on Thursday, of repeatedly raping his 11-year-old stepdaughter in their Long Island home.

According to People Magazine, after a three-week-trial, he has also been convicted of endangering the welfare of a child.

Maraj, who long denied the allegations, was tried in Nassau County, New York.

The 38-year-old was first arrested in connection with the case in early December 2015.

He faces 25 years to life behind bars when he is sentenced next month.

His lawyer says he will appeal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sindhi political activist Shafi Muhammad Burfat, the chairman of the Jiyea Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSSM), on Wednesday accused Pakistan of suppressing political voices by banning all social media accounts of Sindhi and Baloch national independence movements.

"From banning the social media accounts related to JSMM and other organisations, it is apparent that the Pakistani state is afraid of political voices and the national narrative of the Sindhi and Baloch," Burfat said.

The Sindhi political activist emphasised that it is alarming as Pakistan is conspiring to carry out atrocities on the Sindh and Baloch people in the near future.

"We want to inform the entire that this ruthless ban on freedom of expression is just an alarm that this rogue theocratic Pakistani state is conspiring to repeat its infamous state torture, barbarism and brutality to genocide the righteous voices in Sindh and Balochistan in near future," he said.

Burfat appealed the intentional community to take an immediate action against Pakistan's bid to suppress the political voices of Sindhi and Baloch.

"Consider this move to be an open attack on the right to freedom of expression and thought of oppressed subjugated Sindhi, Baloch and Pahstun, we appeal international community to take an immediate notice of this shameless Pakistani effort to suppress the secular political voices of oppressed Sindhi and Baloch nations," Burfat said.

In October, the Pakistan government had approached Facebook to shut down the pages related to the Baloch freedom movement, terming them as anti-Pakistan.

"Pakistani authorities have also corresponded with Facebook authorities to remove the accounts and pages of the secular political movements that affront the state atrocities against oppressed nations chained within the forced and illegitimate federation of Pakistan," the Baloch leader said.

Burfat stated that Pakistan has banned the secular Sindhi and Baloch political organisations, so that it can facilitate religious extremism in the region and provide safe havens to Jihadi Terrorists.

"Pakistani state has imposed ban on secular Sindhi and Baloch political organizations to facilitate religious extremism in Sindh and Balochistan and provide safe havens to Jihadi Terrorists and now they have banned the secularist social media activism to depoliticise the entire secular societies," the Baloch leader said.

He mentioned that Sindhi and Baloch societies are being deliberately culturally engineered to embody radical divisions on the basis of communalism, religious fundamentalism, feudalist racism and ethnicism.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Pakistan Government has decided to arrange a meeting of Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, purely on humanitarian grounds.

The development was confirmed by the Pakistan Foreign Affairs Ministry.

A Note Verbale, a diplomatic note that is drafted in third person and is unsigned, with this regard has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Jadhav was arrested in Balochistan, Pakistan, over charges of alleged involvement in espionage and subversive activities for India's intelligence agency - the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

India, however, maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

On April 10, 2017, Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Field General Court Martial (FGCM) in Pakistan.

On May 18, 2017, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stayed the hanging, after India approached it against the death sentence.

India has appealed to the court to impose emergency measures for Jadhav's execution to be suspended until the legal battle in Hague concludes, while also accusing Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention by failing to provide him with consular access and for being in breach of international human rights law.

To this end, India's written response was submitted to registrar Philippe Couvreur of the ICJ. Pakistan will submit counter memorial on or before December 13, 2017.

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Following a directive by Delhi's Environment Minister Imran Hussain, the Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited on Friday has been assgined to settle down particulate matter (PM) in the capital region through aerial sprinkling in Delhi.

This measure has been taken up due to the rising levels of air pollution in Delhi and adjoining areas that has hit 70 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit.

The Ministry of Food and Supplies, Environment and Forest, Election in a letter, addressed the possibility of carrying out the exercise to sprinkle water aerially through helicopters to settle the PM in Delhi.

"Sprinkling of water aerially through helicopter to settle the particulate matter in Delhi shall require a comprehensive feasibility study and approvals from various authorities such as DGCA, AAI, Defence, Delhi Administration etc.," the letter further said, adding few suggestions on what needed to be done.

Setting up a Joint Working Group of Delhi Administration and Pawan Hans Team to work out proposal; development of the SOP for operation and carrying out the sprinkling water exercise over the city as Capital has areas of non flying zones; and a specialised equipment to be attached with helicopter to carry out the sprinkling water exercise - were the suggestions made in the letter.

The representatives of the company and that of the Delhi Government are likely to meet tomorrow to discuss the details in this regard.

With Delhi and the Capital Region (NCR) facing severe pollution for the third day on Thursday, the Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Centre and the governments of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana.
Azerbaijans non-constructive policy of violence hampers the peace efforts over Artsakh, blocking all the chances of a negotiated conflict settlement, a lawmaker from Artsakh said Friday, stated Tert.am.

November 10, 2017, 16:47 Azerbaijan lacks political will to respect peace efforts  Nagorno-Karabakh lawmaker

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS:Azerbaijans repeated violations of agreements are not something new to people in Artsakh. We have been eye-witnessing this for 25 years now. Azerbaijan does not have the political will to respect even the decisions reached at presidential-level negotiations. It is an unacceptable political position which we condemn, Arzik Mkhitaryan, Head of the Nagorno-Karabakh National Assemblys Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, told reporters in Yerevan.

As the latest example of the countrys failures, she cited the deadly border incidents preceding the Geneva presidential summit.

Asked whether the Artsakh authorities have any new proposal for Armenia (which represents the country in the peace talks), Mkhitaryan reiterated their disapproving position on being excluded from the process. Our top concern is to restore Artsakhs rights in this format to enable us to have our participation in determining our faith.

Azerbaijan is not obviously heading to political solutions; their posture rules out any possible peace effort. Perhaps those who believe that a war is the only [development] paving our way to negotiations are right, but my opinion is that there is a specific political culture to which Armenia and Azerbaijan must show commitment, she added.
Minister of State for Home Hansarj Ahir has said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working to resolve the issue of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Ahir said, "PoK is also India's part as it is mentioned in the Instrument of Accession signed by Jammu and Kashmir's last Maharaja Hari Singh. Since then, PoK is in control of Pakistan, and so, this issue still needs to be resolved. We, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have the guts to resolve this issue also. This is our will and considering it as the countrymen's first responsibility, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is working in this direction."

The Instrument of Accession is a legal document executed by Maharaja Hari Singh on 26 October 1947. By executing this document under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh agreed to accede to India.

He said the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru failed to complete Jammu and Kashmir's full accession with India.

"As a prime minister it was responsibility of Jawaharlal Nehru to resolve Kashmir issue (accession of Jammu and Kashmir with India) and princely states like Junagarh and Hyderabad were the responsibility of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Junagarh and Hyderabad acceded to India satisfactorily, but Kashmir couldn't as a result the issue of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is still unresolved," Ahir said.

The PoK is that part of Jammu and Kashmir which was invaded by Pakistan in 1947.

On February 22, 1994, the Indian Parliament passed a unanimous resolution that demanded "Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression; and resolves that all attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of India will be met resolutely.

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday said the smog in Delhi is not due to stubble burning in Punjab, but is being caused by industrial and vehicle pollution.

"The burning of stubble in Amritsar and Gurdaspur doesn't reach Delhi. There are other causes of huge smog in Delhi. This smog is not because of stubble burning but due to industrial and vehicle pollution," Punjab AAP MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira told ANI.

"Farmers in Punjab are dying or are committing suicide because of colossal debt. Why is the government not implementing the Green Tribunal order? The Government of India and the Punjab Government have been clearly directed to create a mechanism, give the farmers heavy tractors on rent. The government has done nothing in the last two years," he claimed.

On October 15, Khaira led a farmers' protest in Ludhiana and burnt paddy stubble.

He also opposed the Punjab Government's decision to book farmers allegedly involved in stubble burning.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking compensation for farmers for crop resident management, with a view to check stubble burning, one of the major contributors to the toxic smog currently hovering over northern India.

Pointing out that the current pollution crisis was largely triggered by the burning of paddy straw in the paddy-growing areas of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, Singh appealed to the prime minister to order a probe on priority and announce a plan for crop-related compensation at Rs. 100/- per quintal on wheat (above MSP), and later for paddy to incentivise farmers not to burn crop residue.

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The Rajasthan government on Friday ordered the doctors on strike to return to their duties by 7 p.m., asserting "strict actions" would be taken against those not adhering to it.

"The intention to put out the order is to regularise the public service. If that is violated then action would be taken according to law," Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told ANI.

He added that when services are staggered then the public has to face problems, which is why the decision was taken.

Earlier on November 6, all the practising doctors in Rajasthan decided to go on a mass leave, in support of their pending demands before the state government.

The mass leave was followed in accordance with the warning by the All India In-Service Doctors' Association (AIISDA) issued last month.

The All Rajasthan In-Service Doctors' Association (ARISDA) had said if the state government takes an oppressive action against the doctors, a mass medical strike would be called.

The 33 long-pending demands by the doctors of the state include the formation of a separate cadre for in-service doctors, Rs. 10,000 grade pay benefit for doctors, and running government health centres in a single shift, among others.

The state health minister, Kalicharan Saraf, has said the fulfillment of the demands may take time.

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In a bid to facilitate seamless banking for all sections of the society, the Reserve Bank of India directed all banks to implement doorstep banking facilities for differently-abled citizens and those above 70 years of age by December this year.

In an official notice to banks, the central bank citing Section 23 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 said "in view of the difficulties faced by senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently abled or infirm persons (having medically certified chronic illness or disability) including those who are visually impaired, banks are advised to make concerted effort to provide basic banking facilities, such as pick up of cash and instruments against receipt, delivery of cash against withdrawal from account, delivery of demand drafts, submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) documents and Life certificate at the premises/ residence of such customers."

Banks were also advised to provide a dedicated counter or a counter which provides priority to senior citizens and people who are differently-abled, including visually impaired persons.

"It has been observed that there are occasions when banks discourage or turn away senior citizens and differently-abled persons from availing banking facilities in branches. Notwithstanding the need to push digital transactions and use of ATMs, it is imperative to be sensitive to the requirements of senior citizens and differently abled persons," the RBI argued.

With regards to cheque books, the RBI stated that the banks must issue cheque books to customers, whenever a request is received; through a requisition slip which is part of the cheque book issued earlier, with a minimum of 25 cheque leaves every year, if requested, in savings bank account, free of charge. Further, it said banks must not insist on physical presence of any customer including senior citizens and differently abled persons for getting cheque books.

Upon providing a Life Certificate in any branch, including a non-home branch of the pension paying bank, the RBI stated that banks must ensure the same is updated/ uploaded promptly in CBS by the receiving branch itself, to avoid any delay in credit of pension. Further, the circular noted that a fully KYC-compliant account should automatically be converted into a 'Senior Citizen Account' based on the date of birth available in the bank's records.

"Banks are advised to implement these instructions by December 31, 2017 in letter and spirit and give due publicity in their bank branches and website," the central bank stated.

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The lawyer of the bus conductor, who was given a clean chit by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) early this week in Pradyuman murder case, accused the Gurugram police of laying a trap for the innocent.

Mohit Verma, lawyer of bus conductor Ashok, told ANI, "Police had planned everything, an innocent was trapped. Police had done injustice to Ashok."

"As soon as the closure report comes, we will file the bail plea for Ashok and once he is discharged, we will file a defamation case against the police and the school management," added Mehta.

On Thursday, the Gurugram police defended their investigation by saying that they handed over the case to the CBI at the initial stage and it was not concluded at that time.

On November 6, the murder mystery of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur took a new turn with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) giving a clean chit to Ashok and arresting a Class 11 student of Ryan International School.

The agency claimed before a Gurugram court that the student had confessed of committing the crime.

The victim's family demanded that the juvenile student be tried as an adult and be given a harsh punishment.

Pradyuman was found inside the toilet of the school with his throat slit on September 8.

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Three ministers of the Government of Canada will undertake a visit to India between November 13 and 17.

A High Commission of Canada release said that Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains; Minister of International Trade Francois-Philippe Champagne and Minister of Transport Marc Garneau will lead a trade, technology and innovation mission to India next week. They will be accompanied by a delegation of nearly 200 Canadian business representatives.

While in New Delhi, the ministers will participate in the Canada-India Technology Summit, held at the Lalit Hotel on November 14-15. They will also meet several Indian Ministers and leaders of business and industry.

In the context of the technology summit, there will be several significant business and innovation announcements involving top-tier Canadian companies.

In addition to Delhi, Minister Champagne will visit Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad while Minister Bains will visit Pune.

High Commissioner for Canada to India, Nadir Patel, said: "Canada-India bilateral relations are growing at a fast pace and India is a priority country for Canada. Canadian investment into India has increased by nearly $15 billion over the past three years, and the number of Canadian companies active in India stands at over 1000. The timing of this visit by three senior Canadian Ministers couldn't be better to further advance our business relationship and deepen Canada's engagement across India.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday opposed the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said that the Congress-led government is worried about Tipu Sultan instead of the state's public.

"Karnataka government is not paying attention to the problem of the public, the poor, and the farmers, but they are really worried about Tipu Sultan. When will CM Siddharamiyah cares about the village farmers," he said.

BJP spokesperson Zafar Islam said the Congress performs these kinds of stunts to appease people, but the BJP is not going to join them.

"Congress perform these kinds of stunts to appease people. They are doing the same in Karnataka but the custom will backfire on them, and they will have to pay its cost. Bharatiya Janata Party is against such appeasements," he said.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJP and the RSS views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus.

After witnessing major clash in 2015 in the state over the celebrations of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the Karnataka Government last year decided to make the event an annual affair.

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United States President Donald Trump has hailed his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as a "highly respected and powerful representative of his people" and called his meeting with him "very productive" on both trade and the subject of North Korea.

"My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!" Trump said in a tweet.

President Trump also accused his predecessors for the U.S.' annual trade deficit with China.

"I don't blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!" Trump tweeted.

Trump visited China as part of a nearly two-week tour through Asia and sought to convince president Xi to do more to reduce a trade deficit with China and rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump is scheduled to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vietnam and a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Philippines during the trip.

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Hollywood veteran Uma Thurman has blasted Hollywood for the distress women have to go through for a great role in the cinema industry.

According to People Magazine, the 47-year-old actress admitted that she was frustrated, particularly during her early career, because she was trying to be decent and work hard but was met with "contempt and dismissiveness toward women of all kinds."

Thurman noted, "A great cinema role comes along a few times. Maybe for some people, more often. But not everybody."

However, the 'Kill bill' star refused to talk about the accusations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, who produced seven of her movies.

"I'll discuss it when I want to discuss it," said Thurman.

Uma previously admitted she felt too "angry" to speak about the recent Hollywood scandal.

In an interview last month, Thurman noted, "I don't have a tidy soundbite for you, because I have learned, I am not a child and I have learned that when I've spoken in anger, I usually regret the way I express myself. So I've been waiting to feel less angry and when I'm ready, I'll say what I have to say."

Meanwhile, on the professional front, Thurman is busy in preparing for her upcoming play 'The Parisian Woman'.

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UNESCO member states on Friday confirmed the nomination of France's former culture minister Audrey Azoulay to head the cultural agency.

45-year-old Azoulay becomes UNESCO's second woman director general.

According to the reports, Azoulay succeeds Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, whose eight-year term was marred by financial woes.

Azoulay narrowly defeated Qatar's Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, also a former culture minister, in last month's politically-charged election, the report said.

The international standing of the Paris-based organisation has been mired by a lack of funding and disputes between member states.

Last month, the United States withdrew from the UNESCO, over what the country claimed, is the organisation's "continuing anti-Israel bias".

Walking the footsteps of the US, Israel had also pulled out of the United Nations' cultural and education agency.

The Israeli leader had called the US decision to exit UNESCO "brave and moral".

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The parliament of Armenia is doing a considerable job against the distortions and manipulations by Baku.

November 10, 2017, 17:19 Artsakh Parliament: Armenia counteracts to Azerbaijan distortions and manipulations

STEPANAKERT, NOVEMBER 10, ARTSAKHPRESS:Chairman of the Republic of Artsakh National Assembly, Ashot Ghulyan, who has arrived in capital city Yerevan as head of the visiting Artsakh parliamentary delegation, on Friday stated the aforesaid at the NA of Armenia, News.am reported.

He noted that parliamentary diplomacy plays a very big role, and their colleagues in Armenia make use of this diplomacy.

It should be taken into account that international political circles look at the conflict another way, Ghulyan added. The views have changed dramatically over the past one year, and parliamentary diplomacy should take that into account.
In a strongly worded message to the Asian leaders, United States President Donald Trump has brought his hard-line economic nationalism to the stage, stating that Washington will not be taken advantage of anymore.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, President Trump , "We are not going to be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first, the same way I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first."

He did not blame other countries for taking advantage of the United States, but rather he blamed previous presidents.

President Trump underscored, "I do not blame China, or any other country, of which there are many, for taking advantage of the United States on trade. If their representatives are able to get away with it, they are just doing their jobs."

"I wish previous administrations in my country saw what was happening and did something about it," he added.

According to the reports, as part of his trip to the region, he has already vowed to correct the huge trade imbalance with China and Japan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at the same APEC event shortly after President Trump, said economic globalisation had become an "irreversible historical trend."

"Against the backdrop of evolving global developments, economic globalisation also faces new adjustments both in form and substance," he said. "In pursuing economic globalization, we should make it more open, more inclusive, more balanced, more equitable and more beneficial to all," he added.

President Trump is currently on a tour of Asia that has taken him to Japan, South Korea and China so far.

The APEC summit, taking place in this year, is focused on regional trade, with particularly attention on the TPP, the reports said.

APEC brings together 21 economies from the Pacific region.

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In India, both the handloom weaver and the farmer come from the same background, both have many parallels or identical conditions that they face for their livelihood. The farmer gets empathy and benefits; the handloom weaver gets only sympathy with hardly anything to encourage his existence.

Unnati Silks, working extensively since 1980 in the field of Handloom and Handcrafted Textiles at the grass root level, is trying to draw attention of this Country towards the fact that when both farmers and weavers are from the same walk of life, then why burden just the weavers with the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted for 13.7 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) in 2013, about 50percent of the workforce. Very laudable and acknowledged since long as the prime contributor in a nation that traditionally for centuries has had agriculture as its main source of livelihood for the 85percent population residing in its villages.

The economic contribution of agriculture to India's GDP is however steadily declining with the country's broad-based economic growth, but still remains significant to India's socio-economic order.

Textile plays a major role in the Indian economy, as it contributes 14 percent to industrial production and 4 percent to GDP. There are about 45 million people plus engaged in this industry in some activity or the other, making it one of the largest sources of employment generation in the country, second only to the agriculture industry.

Having a tremendous potential for employment, Handloom contributes to one-fourth of the total textile production and quite significantly to the country's export earnings. But it is this sector of textiles that has always been talked about but nothing much has been done for it that could be considered as substantial or even satisfying.

Handlooms have always been acknowledged in India and universally as having extraordinary potential to fuel a continuous stream of new and interesting fare, year after year. Rich in possibilities from permutations and combinations applied to a whole host of factors like design, color, pattern, manner of incorporating, adornments and so many others, it unfailingly sustains the needed variety and diversity that answer's the expectant market's constant need for change and creativity.

Read this note on handlooms. This is the opening paragraph, in the official note on the Handloom sector, where the Office of the Development Commissioner (Handlooms), mentions:

The Handloom Sector is one of the largest unorganized economic activities after agriculture and constitutes an integral part of the rural and semi-rural livelihood. Handloom weaving constitutes one of the richest and most vibrant aspects of the Indian cultural heritage.

The sector has an advantage of being less capital intensive, minimal use of power, eco-friendly, flexibility of small production, openness to innovations and adaptability to market requirements. It is a natural productive asset and tradition at cottage level, which has sustained and grown by transfer of skill from one generation to other.

Handloom weaving is largely decentralized and the weavers are mainly from the vulnerable and weaker sections of the society, who weave for their household needs and also contribute to the production in the textile sector. The weavers of this industry are keeping alive the traditional craft of different States.

The level of artistry and intricacy achieved in the handloom fabrics is unparalleled and certain weaves/designs are still beyond the scope of modern machines. Handloom sector can meet every need ranging from the exquisite fabrics, which takes months to weave, to popular items of mass production for daily use'.

Both hit the nail on the head. Handloom is indeed a heritage art, a practiced craft that not only provides for the basic need for clothing but in addition makes it durable and interesting, besides making room for a whole lot of other included advantages. It is also one sector that has never received its due.

The farmer and the handloom weaver are majorly from rural backgrounds. One tills the soil, plants his seeds, irrigates when needed, harvests and sells his produce. The latter procures his raw materials, arranges his loom, weaves, adorns the fabric, completes his work and sells his products. Both have to toil, both have vagaries involved that disturb their lives and means of livelihood

Understanding the Eco System of Indian Farmers and Indian Weavers:

-Raw materials aren't cheap to the weaver

Anything that has to grow in soil needs water. The farmer gets his water needs fulfilled by the benevolence of the rain gods or irrigation done through artificially created channels built by the government. What he has to plant, additives, and so on that go in as inputs are subsidised or available at reasonable prices to aid him in his task.

The handloom weaver does not have the luxury of such heavy subsidies for his raw materials. He also does not have the kindly eye of the govt. or any agency to make things easy for him.

-MSP - Minimum Support Price only for the Farmers

The farmer has a certain minimum price to bank upon which have been set up for him since ages by government depts. or agencies.

The handloom weaver enjoys no such privilege, has to bank upon the goodwill of the trader to whom he sells his product or gives to get it sold and be satisfied with what he gets, which many a time is a pittance for his effort. There are times when the weaver has no customer and he is loaded with dead stock which fetches him next to nothing.

-Waiver of loans only for farmers

When things go bad for the farmer, there is always some agitation or govt. intervention to tackle his problem of loan repayment. This could lead to easy or relaxed terms, extension of time, and further waiver or write off as bad debt, if there is political climate and govt. approval.

The poor weaver never comes out of his misery simply because he has no godfather to work out any feasible solution for him nor intervene on his behalf to mitigate the conditions. The worth of his craft is acknowledged by one and all, his problems are his alone.

-It is tax-free for the farmer

The greatest advantage to the farmer is the 0percent tax levied on anything that is even remotely linked to agriculture. So he is able to command a price if it is good, at a lower price during slack seasons, and even helped out when there are natural calamities or crop damage due to any reason. But he is at least assured of some returns. With no levy of tax on the produce, you have very rich farmers too who have been able to amass wealth on this account.

Not so the handloom weaver who is taxed like any other. Since long the weaver has had to buy everything that goes into the fabric at a price. The input costs being high the finished product commands a selling price that he has to put up that ultimately may not fetch him even the basic price for his fabric.

-Electricity rates - nil to negligible for the farmer

The farming sector has for long been enjoying the advantage of free electricity or in some cases very low rates for the electric power supplied. This has led to misuse and theft of various kinds that have ultimately been compensated for by subsidies from the govt. or taxing other consumers of power supply higher, in the state. The electricity for them has never been grudged for irrigation purposes, but the misuse appalls even the most liberal in views.

Compare that to the case of the handloom weaver, who is also mostly rural-based finds his time of work restricted to the daylight hours because of electricity, has no free electricity, subsidy or any other 'perks' enjoyed by the farmer.

-Policies exist - lack of implementation for the weaver

The agricultural sector enjoys the benefit of all that has been instituted in its favour, by national sentiment, political will or govt. empathy. Policies, schemes, plans, benefits or any other items that favour the farming class get implemented without question.

The handloom sector, has long suffered on account of well-thought-out plans and policies, that could benefit the handloom weaver, that do not get implemented and remain merely as agenda on paper. The apathy of the govt., the lack of political support, the missing public fervour in its cause, all work against the handloom weaver and his like, making them pawns in the hands of destiny.

The farming sector was paying 0 percent tax and the recently introduced GST does not apply to their produce even today. Naturally, life for them continues as usual.

"For a sector that has a major chunk of its workforce as women, who are also not very literate, and till now which was exempted from tax is now subjected to 5percent GST on its raw materials. Already in the throes of a vice-like grip of conditions not allowing them to breathe properly, this latest loading of GST on the handloom sector threatens to snuff the life out of the humble weaver," said Devender Ladha, owner, founder and current CEO of Unnati Silks.

GST compliance is an additional burden, to a community that lacks the basic knowledge of procedures, because of the low literacy level and the traditional custom of simple sell and receive that would now, in addition, involve experts in urban areas to comply at regular intervals at a price, increasing their misery.

The number of handloom weavers is declining sharply because of the remuneration or returns not being commensurate to the effort but far lower.

The power loom and mill sector are more paying in terms of returns currently and therefore given more favours and relaxations compared to the handloom sector by the govt.

The younger generation finds it hard to adapt to the traditional skills passed down through generations and prefer shifting to other industries whose skills are easier & more paying.

Technical up gradation of handlooms has been slow and hence meeting the market demand through traditional practices seems unrealistic in the current scenario.

Increased constraints of credit availability have contributed largely to the dis-illusionment.

The bottom line of today's situation that shows different lines of treatment to two sons of the soil, the farmer and the handloom weaver, favouring the one and merely applauding the other, shows a pitiful state of affairs that would have shocked Gandhiji, the Father of the Nation, who in 1919 had put the agricultural farmer and the handloom weaver on the same footing.

He saw it as the former taking care of the food requirements, the latter the clothing needs. The handloom industry suffered on account of the ruling British not allowing the industry to come up because their own selfish ends would not have been met.

Weavers are in equally pitiable condition as farmers of this country. And both desperately require support of the government and the entire country now, more so than ever before.

"If only the handloom weaver got his due with some of the promises in policies met, and market encouragement and govt. empathy re-inforced with their support, Indian handloom - the heritage of a nation, the Pride of India, would see a far different story and redeem the country's glory in fashion to new heights," added Ladha.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and his United States counterpart Donald Trump have reiterated firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and working towards a solution through dialogue and negotiation.

"On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, we reiterated the firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the Peninsula and upholding international nonproliferation regime. The two sides will continue to fully and strictly implement U.N. Security Council resolutions. At the same time, the two sides commit to working toward a solution through dialogue and negotiation," said Present Xi in a joint statement with Trump after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

"And we are ready to discuss with relevant parties the pathway leading to enduring peace and stability in the Peninsula and the Northeast Asia. The two sides will maintain communication and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula issue," he added.

President said the two sides need to step up communication and cooperation on Asia Pacific affairs, foster common friends, build constructive interactions, and jointly maintain and promote peace and stability and prosperity in the region.

The two leaders also discussed the Middle East, Afghanistan, and other issues, and agreed to deepen cooperation on counterterrorism, nonproliferation, nuclear security, and stronger support to U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Trump urged all responsible nations to join together to stop arming and financing with the "murderous North Korean regime".

"All responsible nations must join together to stop arming and financing -- and even trading with -- the murderous North Korean regime. Together, we have in our power to finally liberate this region and the from this very serious nuclear menace. But it will require collective action, collective strength, and collective devotion to winning the peace," he said.

The two also committed to working toward a peaceful future for Afghanistan.

Asserting that terrorists are a threat to all of humanity, Trump said, "We will stop radical Islamic terrorism."

Trump had arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for a three-day state visit.

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Total Operating Income decline 5.26% to Rs 4190.00 crore

Net profit of Allahabad Bank rose 7.95% to Rs 70.20 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 65.03 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Total Operating Income declined 5.26% to Rs 4190.00 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 4422.46 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.4190.004422.4642.5758.79-274.18155.93-274.18155.9370.2065.03

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Of Rs 2.5 per share

Hinduja Global Solutions announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 8 November 2017, inter alia, have recommended the second interim dividend of Rs 2.5 per equity Share (i.e. 25%) , subject to the approval of the shareholders.

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From CARE

Eros International Media announced that CARE has assigned CARE A- for Long Term Bank facilities and CARE A2 for Short Term Bank Facilities.

Further, since the Company has not placed any Commercial Paper and Non-Convertible Debentures, the Company has voluntarily decided to withdraw the ratings assigned for the same.

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Sales rise 6.63% to Rs 571.11 crore

Net profit of Pfizer declined 12.02% to Rs 111.15 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 126.33 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Sales rose 6.63% to Rs 571.11 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 535.60 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.571.11535.6029.2817.03190.79115.33174.7799.24111.15126.33

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With a seven per cent year on year increase in 2017 in tourism from India, United Arab Emirates' capital Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a "stand-alone destination" buoyed by the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi on Saturday rpt Saturday.

"It is our biggest attraction right now. I see a huge connect with India on the cultural side because we will be exhibiting artefacts from India," Bejan Dinshaw, Country Manager, Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi said here on Friday.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is an art and civilization museum, located in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It is part of a thirty-year agreement between the city of Abu Dhabi and the French government.

Born out of an intergovernmental agreement signed on March 6, 2007, between the United Arab Emirates and France, the Louvre Abu Dhabi is the first universal museum in the Arab world.

It will open on November 11.

Dinshaw said the total number of Indian travellers in 2016 was 336,024 while total number of Indian travellers till September 2017 is 256,418. India is the second largest international source market for tourists into Abu Dhabi.

2018 will see the opening of the $1 billion Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi theme park on Yas Island.

"We have seen seven per cent year on year increase in 2017. Abu Dhabi is affordable luxury. It is completely safe to travel. We target MICE and leisure travelers. It is an ideal destinations for families, couples and business travellers as we have offerings for every segment," he added.

--IANS

sgh/ssp/vd

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When it comes to gender equality, Apple has a long way to go. According to the company's annual diversity report only about a third of its employees are women.

The Cupertino-based iPhone maker's annual "Inclusion & Diversity Report" said, as of July 2017, only 32 per cent of its workforce were women, which is the same level as it was in 2016.

The report is the first since Apple hired Denise Young Smith, former head of HR, as new Vice President to oversee the diversity as workplace, a report in CNET on Friday said.

Apple's top leadership too, showed little improvement in terms of hiring women.

"In the past year, the number of women in leadership roles rose one percentage point to 29 per cent. That was after staying flat at 28 per cent from 2014 to 2016," the report added.

When it comes to female representation in the company, Apple, however, said "it is steadily increasing".

"For example, 36 per cent of our employees under 30 are women. That's an increase of five percentage points since 2014," the company said.

Apple is still predominantly run by men who make up 71 per cent of the leaders at the company worldwide.

"White people make up 66 per cent of the leaders at Apple in the US. Only three per cent of Apple's leaders in the US are black, only seven per cent are Hispanic and just one per cent are multi-racial," TechCrunch reported.

When it came to underrepresented minorities, Apple reported a one percentage point increase to 23 per cent.

"From July 2016 to July 2017, half of our new hires in the US were from historically underrepresented groups in tech -- women, Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander," Apple said.

Apple has 130,000 employees worldwide and 83,000 in the US.

"Diversity is our future. Apple is a multi-generational company with employees from 18 to 85.

"As Apple continues to grow, we're highly encouraged that our employees under 30 reflect an increasing diversity," Apple said.

--IANS

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A three-day BJP meeting chaired by party chief Amit Shah to select candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections began at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's house on Friday.

The meeting will conclude on Sunday. The list of finalized names will be presented at the BJP parliamentary board meeting to be held on November 15 in Delhi.

Besides Rupani, the meeting that began in the evening is also being participated by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, BJP state president Jitu Vaghani, the Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and other senior party leaders. Shah will finalize a panel of list of candidates prepared at the state level.

Elections are less than a month away, and like all parties, the BJP too is planning full-fledged for it. The party, though unwilling to admit, faces an anti-incumbency in the state where it has been in power for more than two decades. Many agitations depicting issues of various communities have surfaced after the exit of then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the state .

Friday's meeting agenda is likely to focus on the candidatures of 89 state assembly constituencies, which comprises of 14 districts.

According to sources, the party might consider fielding Patidar candidates for eight of the south Gujarat constituencies and 24 constituencies of Saurashtra region. As has been in the past, the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been known to go for the no-repeat theory, where many sitting MLAs' names are likely to be chopped.

The finalization of candidates will be done by the national parliamentary board at a two-day meeting in Delhi scheduled on November 14 and 15. Considering the fact that the elections are going to be held in two phases, there is likelihood of three panels of the list being prepared at the state meeting.

The saffron party has to face many fronts other than the opposition Congress, like the Dalit community's ire, the recently evolved Karadia Rajput agitation against state president Jitu Vaghani, the Thakore community, which has been going against the saffron party. On top of that is the Patidar agitation, led by young turk Hardik Patel, who has pledged non-cooperation and opposition to the saffron party.

--IANS

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AUBURN  Brenda Wiemann is troubled by a number of insurance companies' tactics for attracting potential Medicare customers.

She's come across several advertisements for Medicare informational sessions and program advice that do not clearly show they are paid for by insurance companies. Wiemann, director of the Cayuga County Office of the Aging, said she's worried that people will attend these meetings or provide companies with their personal information and not realize they're releasing it to a specific insurance provider.

"This really bothers me that it's so misleading," she told legislators at a Health and Human Services Committee meeting Thursday night.

Wiemann passed around an online advertisement and a copy of a mail flier from two different insurance companies so county legislators could see what she meant.

The online advertisement displayed, "Attend a FREE Medicare Educational Meeting," followed by, "HURRY! Learn more about your Medicare options." But Wiemann said the only option attendees would learn about was what the company WellCare Health Plans would provide. WellCare advertised that it would be holding information sessions at the Holiday Inn in Auburn on several dates in November.

Wiemann also showed the committee a flier that had been mailed to a county resident asking for her name, date of birth, phone number, email address, spouse's name and date of birth, all information the company wrote it needs to see if she qualified for the Medicare Savings Program. It was not clear which insurance provider mailed the flier out, though a disclaimer in smaller type said, "Not affiliated with or endorsed by any state or federal government or Medicare program." Wiemann had the line circled.

Companies collect that information, Wiemann said, and relentlessly call individuals asking them to sign up for their services. What's also frustrating for Wiemann is the office provides Medicare assistance to county residents for free. For the first time in about a decade, Wiemann said there's been a slight decrease in the number of people requesting assistance, and she attributes part of that to these kinds of ads.

Legislator Patrick Mahunik suggested designating $500 to about $2,000 toward advertising for the office of the aging to help spread the word that it provides this assistance. Legislator Ben Vitale said he agreed it would be good to get the word out, but he cautioned that the county did not have the advertising funds insurance companies have.

Legislator Joe Bennett suggested that in the future, the office mail a flier with the county tax statements so a large population of county residents would get the information.

Wiemann said she would pursue those things, but in the meantime, she hopes residents will be cautious about the information they give out and the meetings they attend.

In other news:

 The county's department of Social Services is hoping to get new software that could make paperwork and interviews in the Child Protective Services unit less invasive and more efficient. Director of Community Services Ray Bizzari said a program created by Northwoods Consulting Partners would put all the office's records onto a database accessible via iPad. A caseworker could visit a home at either end of the county with the ability to pull up any and all paperwork needed.

The software also allows conversations to be recorded, which Child Protective Services Supervisor Greg Daly said not only ensures accuracy during a visit, but can make the situation less invasive and more supportive. Typically staff types or writes down their interviews.

Bizzari said he had the software in his department's original budget proposal, but Legislature Chairman Keith Batman cut it with an indication that should he be given more information, it could be added back in. Bizzari said 75 percent of the software is reimbursable with the county on the hook for 25 percent, or about $150,000 over three years.

Bennett said he couldn't believe the Legislature wouldn't support the software. Legislator Terry Baxter said it sounded like an invaluable tool for the department and for county residents working with Child Protective Services.

The 2018 budget will be examined again by the body on Thursday, Nov. 16.
Aiming to intensify the party's campaign in Left-ruled Tripura ahead of assembly polls early next year, a BJP parliamentary team will visit the state on Saturday to gather feedback on the prevailing situation, a BJP leader said here on Friday.

"A three-member parliamentary team of the BJP, led by Meenakshi Lekhi, would visit at least three districts of Tripura on Saturday and Sunday to study the law and order situation," state BJP President Biplab Kumar Deb told reporters.

The team would talk to a cross-section of people and BJP leaders and workers on various issues, including the killing of television journalist Shantanu Bhowmik, to gather feedback on the prevailing situation, he added.

"There is lawlessness in Tripura. CPI-M cadres are attacking BJP leaders and workers almost every day and police remain inactive on the directions of the government," Deb said, adding his party would raise the issue in Parliament's Winter Session."

He said the BJP wanted a CBI probe into the September 20 murder of Bhowmik but the government had set up a Special Investigation Team which he claimed was a 'B' team of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

The other members of the BJP Parliamentary teams are Prahlad Patel and Saroj Pandey.

Meanwhile, at least 10 CPI-M and BJP members were injured in a clash between the two parties at Bishalgarh in western Tripura's Sipahijala district on Thursday night.

"We have deployed adequate security forces in the trouble-torn areas. Both CPI-M and BJP members are also organising rallies on Friday," Sipahijala police chief Sudipta Das told IANS over phone.

"Police authorities likely to take action against a Tripura State Rifles jawan who was also involved in the political clash."

Of the ten injured, seven are admitted to hospital.

--IANS

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The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday approved an MoU between India and the Philippines in agriculture and related fields.

As per a release, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would improve bilateral cooperation in the field of agriculture and would be mutually beneficial to both countries.

"It will promote understanding of best agricultural practices in the two countries and will help in better productivity as well as improved global market access," it said.

"This MoU provides for cooperation in the fields of rice production and processing, multi-cropping system, dry land farming systems, bio-organic farming, solid and water conservation and management, soil fertility, sericulture, agro-forestry, livestock improvement."

The MoU provides for constitution of Joint Working Group composed of equal number of representatives, the release said.

"The Joint Working Group shall meet once every two years alternatively in the Philippines and India," it said.

--IANS

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The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday gave its approval to a proposal to strike an agreement with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China for transparency in tax matters.

According to an official statement, the Cabinet gave its nod to the proposal to enter into an agreement with China's HKSAR for avoidance of double taxation and prevention of evasion of taxes on income.

The statement said the agreement would stimulate flow of investment, technology and personnel from India to HKSAR and vice versa, prevent double taxation and facilitate exchange of information between the two contracting parties.

"It will improve transparency in tax matters and will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance," the statement added.

--IANS

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Catalan Parliament Speaker Carme Forcadell has been taken to a prison here after failing to post the bail set by the Spanish Supreme Court in a sedition case involving the region's secession bid.

Forcadell was transported to Alcala-Meco detention facility with a women's section on Thursday night, Efe news reported.

Judge Pablo Llarena set Forcadell's bail at $175,000.

The Catalan National Assembly has announced that it will tap its "solidarity fund" to cover Forcadell's bond, as well as the bail of 25,000 euros each for four other Catalan lawmakers who appeared before Llarena along with the Speaker.

Under the bail conditions, Forcadell will have to surrender her passport and regularly report in person to judicial authorities.

A sixth legislator was released without charge after demonstrating to the judge's satisfaction that he did not vote in favour of the October 27 Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

In the course of the hearing, Forcadell agreed to comply with the central government's application of Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, effectively suspending Catalonia's autonomy.

She also described the Catalan declaration of independence as "purely symbolic".

"Avoiding a parliamentary debate would have been a breach of the legality applicable to the Speaker's office within international law and relevant to the principles of a democratic state," Forcadell said in court.

She also said that as speaker, she could not control the "background" of parliamentary initiatives or prevent votes from happening.

The judge, however, found Forcadell's testimony unconvincing, writing in his order that she played a principal and "essential" part in the referendum and declaration of independence, suggesting that her vows to abide by Article 155 might be "dishonest."

--IANS

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday indicated that the country's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, may well continue as its Special Representative on border talks with India, saying it has not heard of any change so far.

According to reports, China is likely to appoint a new State Councillor and Special Representative in March. Yang, the incumbent, was re-elected to the Communist Party's powerful Central Committee last month.

This means he might be promoted and may be succeeded by China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

"I have not heard about any changes in the Special Representative on the boundary issue on the Chinese side," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said when asked about the likely change.

Yang will hold the 20th round of border talks with India's National Security Advisor, who is India's Special Representative on the border talks with China.

The next border talks are likely to be held in December in New Delhi.

Hua said this "mechanism is working very well and two sides will decide the date and time of this year's meeting in due course.

"As you know, both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made great efforts for many years to resolve this issue," Hua said.

The meeting will come after an over two-month military stand-off between India and China in the Sikkim section this year.

India and China, which fought a war in 1962, have a de-facto boundary of 3,488 km.

While China claims India's Arunachal Pradesh as its own, New Delhi lays claim to Aksai Chin that is held by Beijing.

--IANS

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Ahead of the next round of border talks with India, China on Friday said both sides have "made great efforts" in resolving their dragging boundary dispute and the "mechanism" of special representative talks was working "very well."

The 20th round of Sino-India boundary talks is to be held in New Delhi next month.

The boundary talks will be the first after an over two-month military stand-off between India and China in the Sikkim section that began in mid-June this year, and saw a slide in ties.

"As you know both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made great efforts for many years to resolve this issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said here.

China's State Councillor, the country's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and India's Security Advisor Ajit Doval will hold the talks under the Special Representatives mechanism which was set up to solve the border issue between the two countries.

The 19th border talks were held in April 2016.

"Special Representatives on boundaries from both sides have had 19 meetings to fully exchanges views and made positive progress. Now, this mechanism is working very well and the two sides will decide the date and time of this year's meeting in due course."

India and China have a de-facto boundary of 3,488 km.

While China claims India's Arunachal Pradesh as its own, New Delhi lays claim to Aksai Chin held by Beijing.
The BJP on Friday slammed Congress leader P. Chidambaram for claiming credit for the GST Council slamming tax rates, saying that the Congress was trying to take undue credit for the lowered GST rates which it said had been "worked out at the highest levels in the government".

"P. Chidambaram's series of tweets over GST dubiously claiming credit for lowering of rates for several goods in the highest tax bracket betray a sense of anxiety on the part of the Congress party that the modified GST norms are enhancing PM Narendra Modi's appeal among voters," BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said.

"The decision of lowering the GST rates have been worked out at the highest levels in the government at the instance of the Prime Minister who is monitoring GST's rollout continuously. The Congress party's finance ministers had no specific role in decisions made, as Chidambaram has fraudulently claimed today," he added.

Rao accused the Congress of "shamelessly" trying to take credit for the GST Council decisions of lowering the rates for many goods.

He said the step of lowering of GST on all types of restaurants to 5 per cent is a "huge relief compared to even the pre-GST era" and will "warm millions of hearts in urban India" and would expand the "fan base of the Prime Minister".

On Friday, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council slashed the tax rates on 177 goods.

Earlier in the day, Chidambaram had said that Congress finance ministers would "force changes" in the GST rates in the meeting.

"Government avoided debate and voting in Rajya Sabha on GST Bills. Now, they cannot avoid a debate in public domain or in the GST Council," Chidambaram tweeted.

"Thanks to Gujarat elections, government forced to heed advice of opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST," Chidambaram added.

--IANS

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A quick cameo of performances from India, Taiwan, Russia, Argentina, Egypt and the US will mark the gala opening of the 11th edition of the Delhi International Arts Festival (DIAF) at the magnificent Purana Qila here on Saturday.

Delhi International Arts Festival is one of its kind as it includes all genres of music, dance, theatre, puppetry, poetry, literature, visual arts, films and exhibitions -- from the most traditional to the most contemporary expressions of all these art forms. Several embassies, cultural centers, international cultural managers, other international festivals and artistes from all around the world are also part of the annual event. This time DIAF will host artistes from 26 Countries and from all over India.

Of the 25 plus venues of the Festival are huge heritage sites like the Purana Qila, Qutub Minar, Central Park, CSOI (Civil Services Officers Institute), IGNCA, Auditorium, Kamani Auditorium, India Habitat Centre and Bikaner House, among others.

"I believe that everyone should be touched by art. Art feeds the soul and reveals one's true identity. A little brush with art changes perceptions and moulds a human being into a sensitive, understanding, accepting person. In today's world, this is an urgent necessity" festival founder-director Prathibha Prahlad said in a statement.

One of the highlights of DIAF this year will be the celebration of silver jubilee of Asean-India Partnership at Qutub Minar at the losing ceremony, which will feature Artistic Border Guards Group from Vietnam, a Traditional Dance and Music Performance from Bangladesh, Sumatera Dance Troupe from Indonesia and Baihana Trio from Philippines.

In addition to all of these are exciting performances like "Balinese Wayang," a puppet dance from Indonesia and "Wayang Kulit Dalang," a shadow play from Malaysia and many other performances from the UK, Norway, Thailand, Portugal, France, Egypt, Argentina, Hungary and Ireland.

The artistes will also be visiting almost 18 schools during the day to address and harness young minds to the beauty of the arts.

The festival is organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Delhi government.

--IANS

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to maintain stable and robust connectivity in the region.

"In 2015, we reiterated our belief that a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) should be pursued as a comprehensive free trade agreement built on ongoing regional undertakings," Duterte said at an APEC CEO summit here on Thursday.

The Philippines, which is holding the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), hosted the 2015 APEC summit in Manila, reports Xinhua news agency.

In his keynote speech, the Philippine President urged the 21 APEC economies to continue advocating stronger and deeper regional economic integration by facilitating liberalisation of trade and investment.

"Diversity will always pull us in separate directions, but regional integration anchored on open and free trade will allow us to maximise the opportunities presented by global trends like cross-border flows and digital developments," he told the summit attended by some 2,000 senior officials, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

As part of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders' Week, the CEO summit is the largest annual event of the business community in the Asia-Pacific, which culminates in the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Friday and Saturday.

Duterte said as the fulcrum of several integrated mechanisms such as Asean, APEC can be instrumental in promoting more inter- and intra-regional trade, investment and people-to-people connectivity between other economic blocs.

"Since Asean and APEC are regions of vast physical divide, a stable, interconnected and integrated infrastructure is necessarily the backbone of our progress," Duterte said.

Besides physical connectivity, the President also urged the APEC business community to continue to promote people-to-people connectivity as a critical growth and development strategy.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

--IANS

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Key Indian equity indices traded lower during Friday's mid-afternoon session on the back of negative global cues, coupled with a weak rupee and heavy selling pressure in automobile, metal and oil and gas stocks.

Index heavyweights like Tata Motors, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports and Asian Paints, among others, traded in the red.

According to market observers, investors traded on a cautious note ahead of the GST Council's decision on tax rates.

Around 12.45 p.m., the wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) traded lower by 16.80 points, or 0.16 per cent, at 10,292.15 points.

The 30-scrip S&P BSE Sensex, which opened at 33,235.75 points, traded at 33,206.09 points -- down 44.84 points or 0.13 per cent -- from Thursday's close.

The Sensex has so far touched a high of 33,280.55 points and a low of 33,135.94 points during intra-day trade.

The BSE market breadth was slightly bearish -- 1,286 declines and 1,210 advances.

"The Indian rupee traded lower and headed for its biggest weekly drop in seven weeks. The shares of Larsen and Toubro, ONGC and State Bank of India rose, whereas shares of Tata Motors, Reliance and Asian Paints fell," Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, told IANS.

"The GST Council may consider reducing items in the 28 per cent tax slab and slash rates for daily use items, plastic products and hand-made furniture as it looks to provide relief to consumers," said Desai.

On Thursday, an upward rally in the S&P BSE consumer durables index and value buying led the benchmark indices to close on a flat-to-positive note .

The Nifty50 closed the day's trade at 10,308.95 points, higher by 5.80 points, or 0.06 per cent, while the BSE Sensex closed at 33,250.93 points -- up 32.12 points or 0.10 per cent.

--IANS

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Law enforcement agencies are urging the public to be on the lookout for a Utica sex offender who has removed his GPS ankle bracelet and stopped reporting to his parole officer.

Ronald Cook, 66, was last seen in the Rome area at around 3 p.m. Wednesday. He was wearing a bright yellow windbreaker, according to Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesman Thomas Mailey.

By removing his ankle bracelet and failing to report to his parole officer, Mailey said Cook is in violation of his "strict and intensive supervision."

Cook is a white man with gray hair and hazel eyes. He is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 240 pounds.

According to the Division of Criminal Justice Services, Cook is a Level 3 sex offender. He was convicted of first-degree rape in 1991. Records indicate he was sentenced to 150 months to 25 years in state prison. He was released from prison in 2012.

Mailey said Cook should be considered dangerous. If he is seen, the public is asked to alert law enforcement by calling 911.
Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat had not passed on the fertiliser subsidy provided by the UPA government to the farmers, the Congress on Friday accused his government at the Centre of resuming the subsidy with an eye on the state polls.

The party said the subsidy, which had been discontinued by the UPA government as it was being "pocketed" by the Gujarat State Fertiliser and Chemicals Ltd (GSFC), was restored by the Modi government in March this year to use as a "lollipop" in the Gujarat polls.

"Modi, who seeks to appropriate UPA's scheme of 'Direct Benefits Transfer' could not even transfer the subsidy to 55 lakh farmers of Gujarat. It speaks of the difference about his words and deeds," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media here.

"When the GSFC was caught pocketing the same, the UPA withdrew the earmarked amount (for 55 lakh farmers), so that a better method could be devised to transfer the said subsidy," Singhvi said.

He said the fertiliser subsidy was out of Modi's mind for three years after coming to power at the Centre in 2014.

"In the meantime, judicial procedures were also followed and GSFC was found guilty of pocketing an amount of Rs 986.56 crore meant as fertiliser subsidy for Gujarat's farmers," Singhvi said.

He said the amount of Rs 986.56 crore was reportedly used by the GSFC to show revenues of Rs 5,477 crore and a net profit of Rs 419.5 crore in 2016-17.

"Thus the turnaround story of a state PSU was artificially concocted by the BJP and Modi. The GSFC has not provided any data and justification to substantiate that subsidy paid by the government did not result in undue gains to the company," Singhvi said.

He said it was intriguing that instead of following legal procedures, the Modi government withdrew the case and an "out-of-court settlement" with the GSFC was reached in March this year and agreed to resume the subsidy from that month itself.

Singhvi said the Modi government was also actively considering paying the GSFC the subsidy it withheld from 2013 to 2017.

"In fact, a part of that outstanding amount -- Rs 170 crore -- was also released in March. Clearly, the Gujarat elections acted as a definite factor in resuming this subsidy," he said.

Singhvi further said the CAG report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly on March 31, 2016 "exposes the false myth of 'Vikas Model' and 'Brand Namo'".

"The CAG report is a telling irony of crony capitalism, malicious enrichment of private parties, writing off public money invested in questionable oil/gas reserves, besides deliberate bleeding of a state public sector undertaking by a Chief Minister who encouraged and institutionally supported plunder of state resources," he said.

Singhvi said the GSPC surrendered 45 gas blocks, i.e. 70.31 per cent of the 64 blocks owned by it, and the total loss to public exchequer from the surrender stood at Rs 2,992.72 crore, as per the CAG report.

"Out of these, loss on account of 11 overseas blocks that were surrendered is Rs 1,757.46 crore."

"Never before have the state resources been plundered in this reckless fashion and loss caused to public exchequer as brought by the CAG. Narendra Modi refuses to respond, leave apart placing the facts before the nation. Is this the reason for condoning corruption by other BJP honchos?" Singhvi said.

--IANS

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French luxury furniture brand Maison has launched its first store here.

Spread across 4000 sq ft, the brand will showcase a blend of classic, timeless, clean curves combined with straight lines with a contemporary twist, read a statement.

Elaborating on the launch, Aruna Tara, creative director at Maison, said: "We are extremely excited about the launch of the first Maison flagship store in India. With our in-depth knowledge of global home fashion trends, we have carefully curated a fine selection of transitional furniture and decor accessories that will add to the style quotient of trendy homes and up-market office spaces.

"I am confident that this premium collection will appeal to a large section of design-conscious consumers in India."

The flagship store in Mumbai showcases dining, living and bedroom concepts. The colour palate has been kept neutral ranging from pristine whites to soft tone greys with accents of mauve, indigo blue and olive green.

--IANS

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NASA on Friday released a stunning image of Jupiter's southern hemisphere taken by the agency's Juno spacecraft.

The colour-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the "String of Pearls," one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet, NASA said.

The image was taken on October 24, as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter.

At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 33,115 kilometres from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus 52.96 degrees.

Launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Juno arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops. 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.

--IANS

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Announcing the launch of Future Relics, an interactive installation that takes participants on a shared journey, connecting the past with the present whilst looking to the future, Google Arts and Culture unveiled its first lab experiment in India on Friday.

Part of the landmark "India and the World: A History in Nine Stories," exhibition that opened at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) on Friday, the Future Relics project blends ancient craft and modern technology to build relics for the future.

As visitors navigate the museum and come across the Future Relics installation, they will be asked to react to the question: "What object would you like archaeologists 1,000 years from now to remember our present day culture by?" Responding directly to India and the World's exploration of pots as story-telling objects, the Future Relics installation will invite audiences to pause and consider their own lives and stories within the context of the global histories presented by India and the World.

Speaking at the launch, Freya Murray, Programme Manager and Creative Lead, Google Cultural Institute Lab said: "Google Art and Culture brings cultural treasures of the world to the fingertips of art enthusiasts and culturally curious people. With our first-ever cultural lab experiment in India, we want to craft new bridges between technology and culture whilst giving audiences a new perspective of archeology in the digital age. We hope that visitors will enjoy interacting with Future Relics and becoming a part of a time capsule that will capture, as a growing landscape of pots, the most popular objects reflecting our lives today."

The contributions of visitors will provide future generations glimpses into the lives and stories of people who lived in the present day, just as the artefacts of the museum give a glimpse of those who lived and ruled in the first cities of India. From thousands of contributions, a collection of artifacts will be created digitally and at the end of the three-month-long exhibition, a special physical collection of 3D printed clay vases will be designed based on visitors' most popular contributions.

The Future Relics project was developed at the Google Cultural Institute Lab, which brings artists and engineers together to explore new ways to experience art and experiment with art and technology. The Lab is part of Google Arts and Culture, a new immersive way to experience art, history, culture and wonders of the world.

--IANS

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In a major revamp of the GST tax structure, the GST Council on Friday removed 178 items from the highest 28 per cent category while cutting the tax on all restaurants outside starred-hotels to 5 per cent but withdrawing input credit facility for them.

Only 50 products, including luxury and sin items, white goods, cement and paints, automobile, aeroplane and yacht parts have been retained in the top 28 per cent slab.

"The GST Council has decided to slash tax slabs of 178 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. It will be applicable from 15th of this month," Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while briefing media persons after the two-day meeting here.

West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra earlier told reporters that the loss on account of a hasty and ill-designed GST had resulted in the exchequer losing around Rs 60,000 crore for the Centre and Rs 30,000 crore for the states in just the first three months.

With the latest decisions, GST has been cut on a host of consumer items such as chocolates, chewing gum, shampoo, deodorant, shoe polish, detergents, nutrition drinks, marble and cosmetics.

Luxury goods such as washing machines and air conditioners have been retained at 28 per cent.

Among mass consumption items watches, blade, stove, mattresses have been reduced to 18 per cent from 28 per cent. Rate on pasta, jute and cotton hand bags has been cut to 12 per cent from 18 per cent.

"Thirteen items, which were earlier under 18 per cent, have been brought down to 12 per cent. Six goods have come down from the 18 per cent slab to five per cent, eight items have come down from 12 per cent to 5 per cent and six items from 5 per cent to zero tax," Jaitley said.

Eating out has become cheaper as all restaurants outside high-end hotels charging over Rs 7,500 per room will uniformly levy GST of 5 per cent. The facility input tax credit for restaurants is, however, being withdrawn as they had not passed on this benefit to consumers, Jaitley said.

Restaurants in hotels with rooms above Rs 7,500 per day would continue to pay 18 per cent GST with the benefit of input credit.

The GST Council also made changes in return filing procedures to reduce the compliance burden for the small taxpayers. It decided that filing GSTR 3B would continuing till March 31, 2018.

"All taxpayers will continue to file GSTR 3B. In case of small tax payer or nil tax payments, 3B will be simplified so that in two or three steps one can easily file their return," Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters.

"The Council also decided that for this fiscal only GSTR 1 will be filled and because we are running in a backlog -- where we will file return for July only by December 11," he said.

"For taxpayers above Rs 1.5 crore turnover and who have large number of invoices, we do not want to keep their returns pending for a quarter and instead they should file their invoices monthly," he added.

Adhia also said a committee has been set up to examine simplifying the returns pertaining to purchase details that fall under GSTR 2 and invoice matching under GSTR 3.

The Council also decided that penalty for late filing for a 'Nil' tax payer would now be at Rs 20 per day from the earlier Rs 200, and for others it was cut to Rs 50 per day.

The Council deferred a decision on bringing real estate under GST to its next meeting, for lack of time.

--IANS

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France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Friday said that he believed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is free to move around in Saudi Arabia.

"As far as we know, we believe he is free to move around in Saudi and he makes his own decisions," the minister said.

Le Drian was in Riyadh with France's President Emmanuel Macron on an unscheduled visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported.

Macron, who came from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), held talks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently launched a massive anti-corruption crackdown.

"The French President condemned the Houthi missile attack on Riyadh and stressed France's stand and solidarity with the Kingdom," the official Saudi Press Agency said.

It added that the two leaders also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and their efforts for security and stability in the region, including joint coordination efforts in the fight against terrorism.

Macron's visit came as tensions are rising between the Sunni kingdom and Shia Iran over Lebanon and Yemen.

Hariri announced his resignation last week in Riyadh. He accused Iran, a major foe of Saudi Arabia, of interfering in Lebanese internal affairs through the militant group Hezbollah, and said his "life is under danger".

But Hezbollah accused Saudi Arabia of forcing Hariri to resign and putting him under house arrest.

--IANS

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India's first Military Literature Festival (MLF) will be held here in December as a tribute to the armed forces, whose contributions to the nation remain etched in history as iconic events, Punjab Local Bodies and Tourism and Culture Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu said Friday.

The MLF will be held here from December 7 to 9.

Sidhu told media here that Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, himself a military historian and author, was pioneering this initiative, which is being jointly promoted by the Punjab government and the Chandigarh Administration with the objective of spreading awareness about the subject among people.

Top thinkers, authors, historians, curators and experts related to defence matters will participate in the event, he said.

"With Punjab standing tall in terms of Param Vir Chakras won by its men, the festival is an apt and glowing tribute to the grit, courage and fearless determination of the country's defence personnel," Sidhu said.

Punjab Chief Minister's Senior Advisor, Lt. Gen. T.S. Shergill (retd), said military literature had ancient roots, with the longest poem, the Mahabharata, being all about warfare.

He also spoke about the relevance of technology to military and literature, underlining the importance of promoting all aspects of the subject.

Scores of books on defence and strategic affairs, including the wars that India has fought, have been written in the past many decades.

--IANS

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An Indian-origin doctor who was arrested in East Midlands region of England for the circumcision of a three-month-old baby boy without his mother's approval has been released without charge.

Dr Balvinder Mehat, 61, was accused of circumcising the tot without religious reasons in July 2013. The boy underwent the procedure when his paternal grandmother took him for a surgery in Nottingham.

"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deemed that there would be no realistic prospect of conviction," Nottinghamshire Police said on Thursday, adding that they had "thoroughly investigated the incident", the BBC reported.

The boy's mother had complained to Nottinghamshire police after the incident but they deemed it not to be a criminal matter and the case was referred to the General Medical Council.

The case was reopened after the mother got help from an anti-circumcision group and a human rights lawyer.

Mehat from the Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham was arrested earlier this year in June and he told police that he believed the mother had consented.

Police also arrested the boy's father and paternal grandmother on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, but they were released without charge.

In a letter to the boy's mother outlining its decision, the CPS said had Mehat performed the operation knowing the mother did not consent, his actions may have amounted to an assault.

"He may have failed in his professional obligations to discuss the issue of consent with you, but that in itself is not sufficient for there to be a criminal prosecution," the letter stated.

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal said he is appealing the "flawed and irrational" decision.

The boy's mother said circumcision amounts to male genital mutilation and said her son, now aged four, has suffered recurring physical problems, including inflammation and water infections after the act.

"I will fight this until my last breath if I have to, it's the only way I can possibly look my son in his eyes," the boy's mother said.

Mehat is due to face a hearing before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service to assess his fitness to practice.

--IANS

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Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday said threat posters by the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit asking parents to keep youths away from functions of the army and other security forces were "irrelevant".

Threat posters by Hizbul Mujahideen were seen pasted at many places on Friday in south Kashmir Tral town that asked parents not to send their boys and girls to sports, cultural and other programmes sponsored by the army, police and other security forces.

State Director General of Police (DGP) S.P. Vaid said in summer capital Srinagar: "This is not the first time that such threat posters have appeared. These are irrelevant and have no impact."

--IANS

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Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday urged Chinese companies to invest in the state and make it a hi-tech manufacturing hub of India.

"Our new industrial policy (2014-19) is manufacturing centric. As our vision is make the state an innovative and hi-tech manufacturing hub, we will engage with China to make it a partner in building a strong and prosperous Karnataka," Siddaramaiah said at the sixth China-India Forum meeting here.

Asserting that the state had hi-technology and talented workforce, he said Karnataka was the place for overseas companies to come and invest in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

"Every international delegation makes Bengaluru its destination in India because the state was booming with economic activity," Siddaramaiah told the delegates from China.

Referring to the sister-state agreement Karnataka had signed with the provincial government of China's Sichuan, the Chief Minister called for exploring joint ventures in industry verticals such as defence, energy, infrastructure, agriculture and food processing.

"Though bilateral trade between the two Asian giants reached $70 billion in 2015, exports from India were $8.86 billion while imports from China were $61.54 billion. As the balance of trade is in favour of China, there is huge potential to bridge the gap by increasing exports from India to China," he said.

Chinese Minister Liu Jin Song, Hubei Province Governor Wang Xiadong, Chinese Consul General Zheng Xiyuan Jong and state Industries Minister R.V Deshpande were among the participants at the day-long meeting.

--IANS

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AUBURN  The names and faces of over 300 men and women from New York state were shown on a display, the military flags behind it pierced by sunlight, at Cayuga Community College Thursday.

The Fallen Stars Memorial, which acknowledges men and women from the state who were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was set up in the main hallway of the Auburn campus on Tuesday.

A star is also included for each person, along with rank, hometown and branch of service. Flags from every division in the armed forces are included, along with flags acknowledging the Sept. 11 attacks on both ends of the display. The mural, which was shown at the college's Fulton campus last year, is set up by the Herkimer County Hunger Coalition. The last day for the display on the Auburn campus will be Monday.

Emily Cameron, the assistant director of community education and workforce development for the college, said she has seen people go by the project and then stop to consider it.

"I can tell they're thinking about it and taking a moment to see what it's all about," Cameron said.

Jackie Darquea, assistant director of financial aid for the Auburn campus and a member of a veterans advisory group for the campus, said she believes seeing the faces and hometowns of the fallen soldiers  some of them the same ages as some of the students  is powerful. She said she believes it is critical to support veterans.

Theresa Rogalski, who also works in the Auburn campus's financial aid office, said she always notices the display when she walks by it.

"Every time I walk by this, it kind of stops me in my tracks," Rogalski said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will chair a meeting on Friday to discuss the implementation of the third phase of the odd-even traffic rule that will be enforced from November 13 to 17.

The meeting to be held at 2 p.m. will be attended by Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot, transport officials and the stakeholders of the programme, a government official said.

With the national capital facing an environmental emergency, the government on Thursday decided to bring back the traffic rationing scheme to combat pollution.

--IANS

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi on Friday was the worst polluted city in the country even as the entire focus of battling toxic air quality remained fixed on Delhi and NCR.

Varanasi beat Delhi and its suburbs with average Air Quality Index (AQI) of 491 at 4 p.m.

In the national capital and its adjoining regions, the average air quality was 468.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitors air quality in 48 districts across the country. On Friday, 12 areas had "severe" air quality of which six were from Uttar Pradesh.

According to CPCB's data, PM2.5 or particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 mm, the pollutant that has direct health impacts, was the major cause of air quality deterioration in Varanasi.

According to the officials of Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), the dust from construction works in Varanasi was the major cause of pollution.

"Varanasi has no polluting industry around, and it (pollution) is because most of its roads are dug up and drains are being constructed, so there is heavy civil construction going on. This is the reason of high bad AQI value," UPPCB's Varanasi Regional Officer Anil Kumar Singh told IANS.

Pointing out that dust pollution, along with sudden dip in temperature in the entire region, was the major cause of poor air quality in Varnasi, Singh said: "Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are all under control."

The UPPCB uses CPCB's monitoring stations in Varansi.

Following Varanasi, other polluted cities in India under CPCB's monitoring included Ghaziabad (485), Gurugram (480), Noida (470), Delhi (468), Bhiwadi (463), Lucknow (462), Kanpur (461), Patna (428), Faridabad (428), Muzaffarpur (409) and the Taj city Agra (404).

--IANS

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Rabat, Nov 10 (IANS/MAP) Morocco and Hungary on Friday signed several cooperation agreements on the sidelines of the 3rd session of the Joint Economic Commission.

The session was held under the co-presidency of Morocco's Secretary of State for Foreign Trade Rkia Derham and Hungarian Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy Levente Magyar.

The two countries signed an industrial cooperation agreement aimed at boosting cooperation in industry through the exchange of experiences, information, statistical data and publications.

The agreement is also aimed at strengthening the partnership between the institutions in charge of promoting small and medium-sized enterprises and developing cooperation between the Moroccan Office for Industrial and Commercial Property and its Hungarian counterpart.

A draft triennial programme for cultural cooperation aimed at strengthening cultural ties was also signed.

The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation between the Moroccan Normalization Institute and the National Accreditation Body of Hungary.

An agreement between Morocco's Institute of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine and the Hungarian National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre was also inked with a view to establishing cooperation in the fields of sustainable agriculture, climate change and agroforestry.

--IANS/MAP

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With Delhi's air quality severe since the last four days, the NGT on Friday rapped the governments of Delhi and neighbouring states, saying "you've earned Delhi the title of the worst capital in the world" and ordered them to ensure an end to stubble burning.

The National Green Tribunal also pointed out that despite its orders, neither have construction activities stopped in NCR, nor has water been sprinkled in Delhi.

The NGT had ordered that construction activities in Delhi-NCR, including that of Delhi Metro, should be stopped till further order.

"It has been brought to our notice that huge crop residue burning is going on in Karnal, Haryana... We direct all the pollution control boards and departments concerned of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to ensure that there is no stubble burning anymore," NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said here.

The unabated stubble burning, especially in Punjab and Haryana, estimated to be around 35 million tonnes, was banned by the tribunal in November 2015. It is a major cause of pollution in Delhi.

"Show us one farmer in Haryana that you have incentivised. We will seize the property of that farmer, who had been given support from the state government and still went ahead with burning the crop residue," Justice Kumar asked the Haryana government.

The bench, headed by Justice Kumar, was making observations to the case that included "odd-even vehicle rationing scheme" and "stubble burning" among other concerns related to air pollution situation here.

Slamming the governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, it said: "This is the most important matter in the world right now, you have earned Delhi the title of the worst capital in the world."

Pointing out that there is a lack of will, Justice Kumar said: "If incidents of crop burning are bought to notice and the department concerned failed to take appropriate actions, the Tribunal will be imposing fines and recovering them from the salaries of the officers concerned."

The Tribunal added: "Children are unable to breath, this is the biggest sin committed by this generation."

Taking on the Delhi government, the Tribunal asked: "Which colony have you picked for water sprinkling... Tell me one case of any builder that you have challaned since yesterday."

Observing that despite its directions, the government could not even fix a traffic signal, at Rao Tula Ram Marg in South Delhi, it said: "You can not even fix one red-light, how would you work on pollution situation here."

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will not hold a formal meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Friday.

Citing "scheduling conflicts on both sides", Sanders aboard the Air Force One, told reporters that no formal meeting will take place, but that an informal interaction between the two leaders was likely to happen, reports CNN.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," Sanders said.

"Now, they're going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible, and likely. But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one."

Sanders' statement contradicts what the Russian side had confirmed to the media on Thursday, CNN reported.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told state-run news agency Tass that Putin and Trump would meet on Friday, adding that the two sides had already agreed to the time and place.

While briefing reporters in China, though, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declined to say whether Putin and Trump would meet in Vietnam, telling reporters that officials were working to determine whether the two world leaders have sufficient areas of substance to discuss.

--IANS

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The death toll in the boiler explosion at NTPC's Unchahar power plant in Rae Bareli on November 1 rose to 43 on Friday, with one more injured succumbing at the Safdarjung hospital in Delhi, officials said.

Additional General Manager, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Ram Mukherjee, died of burn injuries at the hospital on Friday.

NTPC's Additional General Manager Prabhat Kumar Srivastava breathed his last at a Delhi hospital on Thursday while another AGM Sanjeev Kumar died earlier.

All these officials had been airlifted for treatment to New Delhi last week.

Seventeen injured persons, all contractual labourers, are being treated at various medical facilities in the state capital. The condition of eight injured is "very critical".

More than a dozen injured are being treated in various hospitals in Delhi, an official told IANS, adding the condition of seven is said to be critical.

A blast in the boiler at unit VI of the Unchahar power plant on November 1 caused huge devastation, killing many people and injuring over a hundred.

The plant has since been shut down and a probe is underway to ascertain the reasons behind the explosion. Prima facie, however, the incident seems to have been triggered by the clogging of the furnace pipe due to which the boiler exploded.

--IANS

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In an unusual order, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Friday annulled an order by the Justice J. Chelameswar-led bench for the setting up of a five-judge constitution bench to hear an alleged bribery case involving a retired Orissa High Court judge, saying the CJI is the "Master of Rolls" who can assign cases and direct composition of benches.

Issuing the order, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra cited a 1998 order of the apex court that held that the Chief Justice of a High Court will be the Master of Rolls and assign cases to different benches.

The Justice Misra-headed bench said any order contrary to the 1998 judgement would be inactive in law and shall not be binding.

Extending the same principle, the bench said Chief Justice of India is the "Master of Rolls" in the top court and any order passed by any bench assigning any matter to itself or directing the composition of benches won't be binding.

The order came a day after the two-judge bench led by Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice of India, ordered the setting up of a five-judge bench to hear on Monday a corruption case involving former Orissa High Court judge, I.M. Quddusi.

Quddusi, an Orissa High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, is alleged to have helped a private medical college to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.

The judge was arrested in September and is lodged in Tihar Jail here after CBI accused him of guiding the private medical college and assuring its management of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court.

A petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal on Thursday sought an investigation into the case by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team. The petition was taken up for hearing by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar.

Jaiswal's petition was filed even as a plea by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms seeking a similar probe in the case was already listed before the bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri.

The court said the two petitions will be heard by an appropriate bench after two weeks and there will be no more hearing in the case till then.

Earlier, the Court took exception to the manner in which a second petition was filed, and was heard by another bench.

Taking exception to the manner the second petition was filed and entertained by the bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar, the bench of Justice Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan asked advocate Prashant Bhushan as to what was the urgency.

Making it clear that they were not underestimating the seriousness of the matter, the court in its order said that let the appropriate order be passed to tag the petition by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms with the one by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, which was referred to a five-judges constitution bench on Thursday by the bench of Justice Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.

Pleading ignorance about the second petition that was filed by Kamini Jaiswal, Bhushan said that since the allegations were in respect of the matter heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, he should not have exercised his administrative and judicial authority.

Referring to the FIR filed by the CBI in the matter, Bhushan said, "Whole conspiracy was to bribe the bench hearing the (medical college) matter". At this, Justice Sikri said that whether the Chief Justice should have dealt with the matter or stayed away should have been left to him.

"The request that the Chief Justice should not deal with the matter should have been made to him. He should have decided," said Justice Sikri.

Expressing its displeasure, the court on Friday allowed the Supreme Court Bar Association to implead itself in the matter before the five-judges bench.

The matter relates to the CBI investigation into a Orissa High Court judge assuring a Lucknow-based medical college set up by a trust to get round the court order not to admit students for two academic years - 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.

--IANS

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Over two dozen delegations called on the Centre's special representative to start a sustained dialogue process in J&K, Dineshwar Sharma, here on Friday.

Prominent among those who interacted with Sharma were delegations from the Jammu Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Jammu Bar Association, representatives of West Pakistan refugees and others.

Talking to media after meeting Sharma, Rakesh Gupta, president of Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: "It has been the practice of the central government to try and appease the separatists and overlook the genuine demands of those upholding the integrity and sovereignty of the country.

"It is because of this appeasement policy that the nationalist forces get discouraged."

Sharma, who met Governor N.N. Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday, On Friday concluded his present five-day visit to the state.

He said he would return soon to continue his mission to hold a sustained dialogue process that includes different viewpoints in the state.

"Peace is the objective of this dialogue initiative and I am sure positive results will soon be there for everyone to see," he told reporters.

--IANS

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President Ram Nath Kovind is paying a two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh from Friday, during which he will attend an event on 15th century mystic poet-saint Kabir.

President Kovind, who is set to arrive in the afternoon, will reach the Lal Parade ground to address the Kabir Pragatotsava as chief guest.

Later, Kovind will pay tributes at the statue of Rani Jhalkaribai at Guru Tegh Bahadur Complex in the state capital.

The President will then go to the Raj Bhavan where Governor O.P. Kohli will host a dinner in his honour.

He flies to Raipur on Saturday from where he will go to the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) helipad at Amarkantak. He will then proceed to the Narmada temple to offer prayers. After the temple visit, the President will take part in IGNTU's second convocation ceremony.

Thereafter, he will proceed to New Delhi via Raipur.

This will be the President's first visit to Madhya Pradesh after assuming office.

--IANS

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Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the American embassy here to protest US President Donald Trump's upcoming visit to the Philippines.

The protestors, summoned by local Left-wing groups, held up a large banner saying "Ban Trump, Fight against the imperialist war and looting" in addition to displaying posters and shouting slogans against the US President, Efe news reported.

Trump, who is currently in Da Nang, in Vietnam, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, will arrive in Manila on Sunday to participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit and the East Asia Summit.

The Philippines is Trump's last stop in his five-nation tour through Asia which has taken him to Japan, South Korea and China.

Friday's protest saw minor scuffles between demonstrators and police officers, although no injuries were reported.

Protest organisers promised massive demonstrations in Manila from the day of Trump's arrival on Sunday until his departure on November 14.

They said they would be joined by more than 500 farmers and representatives of the Muslim community in the conflict-ridden island of Mindanao who have rejected alleged US military and economic interference in the region.

Philippines authorities, meanwhile, will deploy about 60,000 police officers and soldiers during the Asean summit.

--IANS

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A woman from Auburn was found dead in Illinois Sunday in what local police have called a hit-and-run.

Tricia Hoyt, 35, died from multiple injuries after being struck by a vehicle in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook sometime between 11 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday, police said.

Hoyt is an Auburn native who graduated from Auburn High School and attended Cayuga Community College. She was living in Orland Park, Illinois, and was a mother of two children, ages 6 and 8.

According to local media reports, Hoyt was in the Bolingbrook area for a gathering with friends Saturday night. She was walking along the road when she was struck. Police were notified of an unresponsive person by the side of the road, but when they arrived at the scene, Hoyt was already dead.

Thursday, 19-year-old Eduardo Avila Jr. was charged with failure to stop after having an accident involving personal injury or death, and failure to report the same. An arrest warrant with a bond of $500,000 has been issued by Bolingbrook police.
Claiming another major breakthrough in the recent killings of religious leaders in Punjab, the state police on Friday said it has arrested the main shooter involved in these crimes.

The shooter, identified as Hardeep Singh Shera, was arrested on Friday, Director General of Police (DGP) Suresh Arora said in Ludhiana.

The arrest is the fifth one in the terror module busted by the Punjab Police on November 7.

"Shera was arrested from a gym in Fatehgarh Sahib. The police have recovered five weapons from him," Arora said, adding that these weapons were used in the killing of Hindu and other religious leaders.

The Punjab Police is investigating the matter at various levels including questioning of terrorists, gangsters and criminals lodged in various prisons in Punjab.

The DGP said that the links of those arrested had been traced to handlers based in the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada.

"The role of Khalistani Liberation Force (KLF) in the conspiracy is also being investigated. Although it is too early to share details since the investigations are still at a preliminary stage, funding of the module from foreign sources has been confirmed," the DGP said.

The DGP said Shera was influenced by KLF militant Harminder Singh Mintoo when they met in Italy.

The police had on Tuesday claimed that it had busted a terror module and arrested four persons, including a gangster lodged in Nabha jail, to solve most cases of targeted killings in the border state since January 2016.

At least nine right-wing and other religious leaders have been killed in Punjab over the past two years, including the senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Brigadier Jagdish Gagneja (retd).

The three arrested suspects are Jimmy Singh of Jammu, who returned to India from the United Kingdom after spending many years there and was picked up a week ago from Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport; Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi, a British national apprehended in Jalandhar; and Dharmender alias Guggni, a gangster from Meharban in Ludhiana, who was supplying weapons to the killers, and is currently lodged in Nabha jail.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had said that a major conspiracy to fan communal disturbances and destabilise the state, hatched by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, and other countries, had been exposed with the arrests.

--IANS

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The Rajasthan government plans to set up a committee to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali's forthcoming controversial movie "Padmavati".

"Modalities in this direction will be worked out soon. The committee will watch the movie and will identify the scenes in the film that may hurt the sentiments of public," Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told IANS.

"What has to done after that... Do we have to talk to the filmmaker... It will only be decided after watching the film. Moreover, what we can do on our level will also be decided after the committee watches the film," Kataria said.

While the Rajasthan government may set up a committee, it is not immediately clear whether Bhansali will screen the movie for it as by law, only the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has the right to certify a movie.

"Padmavati", which attempts to tell the tale of the valour of Rajputs with the backdrop of the 1303 siege of Chittorgarh, is scheduled to release on December 1.

It is embroiled in controversy over the conjecture that it distorts history by showing a dream romance sequence between Rani Padmini and invader Alauddin Khilji -- a claim rubbished by Bhansali.

Still, organisations like Shri Rajput Karni Sena and Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha to go up in arms against the release of the movie, while BJP leaders have been making statements and appeals to stop its release.

"They are trying to defame Padmavati by distorting historical facts. It is not acceptable," an activist of Karni Sena said.

In the wake of the controversy, even film distributors in Rajasthan are wary of releasing the film in the state.

On his part, Bhansali has clarified that the movie, featuring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, has nothing which can hurt anyone's sentiments.

--IANS

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Devin Kelley, the gunman who killed 26 persons inside a church in Texas, had claimed that he bought animals for target practice, according to a former Air Force colleague.

Jessika Edwards, who worked with Kelley at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 to 2012, said Kelley told her that he was "using the dogs as target practice".

The morbid admission came in Facebook messages starting in 2014, Edwards told CNN.

Though Edwards was not sure if Kelley was telling the truth, the odd behaviour was enough for her to stop communicating with him.

Kelley was accused in 2014 of punching a dog in Colorado. He initially pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, but the case was dismissed after he paid fines.

Edwards said Kelley also displayed a fascination with mass murders while he was enlisted in the Air Force.

"He would make jokes about wanting to kill somebody... And we would say, 'wait, that's not funny'."

The obsession was so pronounced, Edwards said, that when Kelley was disciplined for poor performance she told her bosses to "back off or he would shoot the place up".

"He was always getting into trouble... It was problem after problem," Edwards said.

A law enforcement source confirmed to CNN that FBI agents interviewed Edwards about her interactions with the gunman.

In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed and convicted for assaulting his wife and stepson.

Edwards said those domestic problems boiled over in the job and Kelley would come in depressed and unfocused.

After the shooting massacre on November 5, the Air Force has been criticised for failing to notify federal law enforcement officials of Kelley's conviction.

Kelley was dressed in black and wearing a bullet-proof vest when he attacked the church in Sutherland Springs, a quiet town some 45 km southeast of San Antonio.

The victims ranged from under two-years-old to 77.

--IANS

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Security has been tightened across Karnataka on Friday to ensure peaceful celebration of the state-sponsored Tipu Sultan Jayanti in honour of the erstwhile Mysore ruler amid protests by the right-wing opposition.

Additional forces, including the paramilitary troopers have been deployed in Bengaluru, Kodagu, Mandya, Mysuru and Mangaluru across the southern region to prevent untoward incidents and disruption of normal life.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and various right-wing organisation are against the festival.

"Vigil has been stepped up across the state to maintain law and order and ensure peace for the Tipu festival. Processions and protest rallies against the Jayanti (fest) have been banned.

"Liquor sale also banned for the day," Additional Director General of Police Kamal Pant told reporters.

"About 200 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserved Police (KSRP), City Armed Police and City Armed Forces (CAR) and 6,000 Home Guards have been deployed in sensitive areas till Saturday morning," Pant said.

The ruling Congress began celebrating the birth anniversary of the 18th century Mysore ruler on November 10 since 2015 to honour him as a patriot and remember his yeoman service to the people in the region.

Eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali, Tipu (1750-1799) is also hailed as the "Tiger of Mysore" for fighting against the British East India Company to protect and enlarge his kingdom.

Tipu was killed in a battle with the British Army in 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatnam near Mysore, about 120km from Bengaluru.

Tipu's 267th birth anniversary is also being celebrated with special functions at his birth place in Devanahalli village on Bengaluru outskirts and in cities and towns that were part of his kingdom in the Deccan region.

In the state capital, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will inaugurate the event titled "Hazarath Tipu Sultan Jayanthi" at 6.30 p.m. at Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, in the presence of dignitaries and invitees.

To prevent a repeat of violent protests that claimed one life in 2015, the police imposed a ban order under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) at Madikeri town in Kodagu district, about 270km from here.

"The ban restricts assembling of more than five persons and maintain law and order in the specific area. We will impose the ban as a precautionary measure at other places if required to ensure peace," Pant said.

About 200 activists of the BJP, VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and Bajrang Dal were detained at Madikeri for defying the ban in the hill town.

--IANS

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US President Donald Trump arrived here on Friday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.

In his speech to regional leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference, Trump was heavy on history and full of praise for the countries representing the 21-member bloc, reports CNN.

"America stands as a proud member of the community of nations who make a home on the Pacific," he said, before describing US engagement in the region, from trade ships sent to China in the 1780s to economic partnerships with Thailand and other nations.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time."

He also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam War (1955-1975), in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends."

He flew in from Beijing earlier in the day after an official three-day visit to China which was the third leg of his five-nation Asia tour following stops in Japan and South Korea.

Echoing points he made in China, Trump took a harsh tone on trade, vowing "we are not going to allow the United States to be taken advantage of anymore", CNN reported.

"I am always going to put America first the same way I expect everyone in this room to put your countries first.

"I do not blame China or any other country for taking advantage of the United States on trade... They are just doing their job."

But, he added, "we are not going to allow the United States to be taken advantage of anymore".

Alhough his speech was dominated by trade policy, Trump did make references to the ongoing North Korea crisis.

He encouraged the international community to make sure "every single step the North Korean regime takes towards nuclear weapons is a step it takes in to greater danger".

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage by a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail."

The Summit will be attended by some 10,000 delegates, 2,000 chief executive officers of leading firms in APEC economies, and 3,000 reporters.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

After Vietnam, Trump will travel to the Philippines for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit.

--IANS

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Two Bahraini nationals and a 'qazi' (Islamic judge) were arrested on Friday for trafficking of girls in the guise of marriage, police said.

The arrested Bahraini nationals have been identified as Mohamed Mahmood Abdul Rehman Mahmood and his brother Yousuf Mahmood Abdul Rahman Mahmood Khairi.

The arrests were made during the continuing investigations into a huge racket involving aged Arab nationals marrying minor girls from poor families with the connivance of brokers and qazis.

According to police, Kulsum Begum had lodged a complaint with Bhavaninagar police station in the old city that Mohamed Mahmood Abdul Rehman Mahmood married her 29-year-old daughter on May 24.

After marriage, the Bahraini nationals took her daughter home as a maid servant and after fulfilling their sexual desire, they sent her back, said Deputy Commissioner of Police V. Satyanarayana

They were arrested following a tip-off that they were in Hyderabad again to marry another girl.

Police also arrested Qazi Askar Ali Rafai who had performed the marriage and owner of a flat who had given shelter to the Bahraini nationals.

In another case, police arrested five persons including two women brokers in connection with the marriage of a 64-year-old Omani national with a minor girl.

Salma Begum had lodged a complaint on Thursday that her 14-year-old daughter was married to Shaik Sagharoun Salim Abdullah of Oman in 2014.

Three women brokers lured the poor family into performing the marriage with the foreigner, who was in touch with two other brokers Naser Bin Mahmood and his brother Fathe Bin Mahmood. They struck the deal for Rs 1 lakh.

After the marriage, Abdullah spent a week with the girl in a lodge. He later returned to Oman and sent visa for the girl. She spent two years in Oman before returning in March this year on health grounds.

Police said as Abdullah was harassing the girl over phone to make her return to Oman, she went to Doha on maid servant's visa but was tortured by her employer.

Siddiq Ahmed, the qazi who performed the marriage, and a woman broker were absconding.

The police officer said south Zone Police has setup a special information system to collect the information about Arab nationals coming to Hyderabad for contract marriages.

In September, police had busted the racket with the arrest of 20 people including five Omani, three Qatari nations, five local brokers, three qazis and four lodge owners.

--IANS

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Two persons were killed and five security personnel injured on Friday in a suicide attack in Afghanistan's Helmand province, police said.

The attack occurred outside a police checkpoint at Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, a police official told Xinhua news agency.

"A terrorist riding an explosive-laden car was attempting to enter a police checkpoint but was identified by the police and detonated his device outside the post, killing himself and a policeman," he said.

--IANS

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Rome, Nov 9 (IANS/AKI) The Vatican will on Friday and Saturday host an international symposium on a nuclear-weapons-free world, against the backdrop of an escalating face-off between the US and North Korea, the Holy See announced.

Eleven Nobel Peace laureates, top UN and NATO officials, leading experts, heads of major foundations and civil society organisations as well as representatives of bishops conferences, Christian denominations and other faiths will attend the meet.

Entitled 'Prospects for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament', the meeting is the result of efforts made by Pope Francis against arms, particularly nuclear weapons, according to the Holy See.

Masako Wada, one of the last survivors of the Word War II Hiroshima's nuclear attack, will be present at the symposium.

--IANS/AKI

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A woman advocate has filed a complaint of rape and sexual harassment against a senior advocate and his son here, saying she was exploited on the pretext of marriage and abandoned after giving birth to a child.

Police said on Friday the woman, 29, had filed a complaint against the advocate and his son at a police station in Rohini on Wednesday.

"The victim stated in her complaint that she was in a live-in relationship with the advocate's son at his residence in Rohini. Meanwhile, the advocate also developed sexual relations with her on the pretext of getting her married to his son. His son too, had a physical relationship with her," a senior police officer, who did not want to be named, told IANS.

The police officer refused to reveal the identity of the accused lawyers, stating they are yet to finish their probe.

"The woman got pregnant and on October 3, 2017, gave birth to a child. She then expressed her desire to get married to his son, but both the accused turned down her proposal," the officer said.

"The victim then filed a complaint of rape and sexual harassment against both father and son. We are investigating the case and no arrests have been made so far in the case," he added.

--IANS

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Women with chronic alcohol abuse may be more at risk of developing deficits in stem cells in brain important for normal cognitive function, than males, finds a study.

Led by researchers from the University of Texas the study which could possibly pave way to combat chronic alcoholism, was conducted on mice.

It revealed that chronic alcohol abuse killed most neural stem cells as well as reduced the production and development of new nerve cells.

The brain region most susceptible to the effects of alcohol was one of two brain regions where new brain cells are created in adults.

"The discovery that the adult brain produces stem cells that create new nerve cells provides a new way of approaching the problem of alcohol-related changes in the brain," said Ping Wu, Professor at the varsity

Female mice showed more severe deficits.

There was more "severe" intoxication behaviour displayed in the females, more greatly reduced the pool of stem cells in the subventricular zone, the researchers said.

Further, the effects of repeated alcohol consumption differed across brain regions, causing severe brain damage and neurodegeneration.

For the study, detailed in the journal Stem Cell Reports, the team used a cutting-edge technique that allows them to tag brain stem cells and observe how they migrate and develop into specialised nerve cells over time to study the impact of long-term alcohol consumption on them.

Using this model, scientists expect to learn more about how alcohol interacts with brain stem cells, which will ultimately lead to a clearer understanding of how best to treat and cure alcoholism.

"However, before the new approaches can be developed, we need to understand how alcohol impacts the brain stem cells at different stages in their growth, in different brain regions and in the brains of both males and females," Wu added.

--IANS

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A question on the election ballot in New York will determine whether public officials can keep their pensions after being convicted of corruption.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Friday said his party will not allow the government to impose 'Gabbar Singh Tax' -- Gandhi's acronym for GST or Goods and Services Tax.

"We will not allow the BJP to impose a Gabbar Singh Tax on India," Gandhihe tweeted even as the GST Council's 23rd meeting was on.

The GST Council -- which also has state Finance Ministers including those from Congress-ruled states on board -- announced rate cuts on 177 goods on Friday.

"They cannot break the back of the small and medium businesses, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader gave a few suggestions to improve the GST regime.

"Correct the fundamental flaw in GST architecture to give India a Genuine Simple Tax, Don't waste India's time with lip service, Acknowledge your incompetence, shed your arrogance and listen to the people of India," he said in another tweet.

Earlier, Congress leader and former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said Congress state Finance Ministers would "force changes" in the GST rates.

"The government avoided debate and voting in Rajya Sabha on GST Bills. Now, they cannot avoid a debate in public domain or in the GST Council," Chidambaram tweeted.

"Thanks to Gujarat elections, government forced to heed advice of opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST."

--IANS

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The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday hinted that the country's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, will continue as its Special Representative on border talks with India as of now, saying it has not heard of any change.

According to media speculation, China is likely to appoint a new State Councillor and Special Representative in March. Yang, the incumbent, was re-elected to the Communist Party's powerful Central Committee last month.

This means he might be promoted and may be succeeded by China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

"I have not heard about any changes in the Special Representative on the boundary issue on the Chinese side," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said when asked about the likely change.

China's Parliament session will be held in March when there will be a bureaucratic reshuffle.

Yang will hold the 20th round of border talks with India's National Security Advisor, who is India's Special Representative on the border talks with China.

The next border talks are likely to be held in December in New Delhi.

Hua said this "mechanism is working very well and two sides will decide the date and time of this year's meeting in due course.

"As you know, both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made great efforts for many years to resolve this issue," Hua said.

The meeting will come after an over two-month military stand-off between India and China in the Sikkim section this year.

India and China, which fought a war in 1962, have a de-facto boundary of 3,488 km.

While China claims India's Arunachal Pradesh as its own, New Delhi lays claim to Aksai Chin that is held by Beijing.

(Gaurav Sharma is the Beijing-based correspondent of IANS. He can be reached at sharmagaurav71@gmail.com)

--IANS

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In the United States last week, voters rejected Republican candidates at the hustings  largely, according to polls, because of revulsion at  while pushing a rainbow coalition of Democratic candidates, many with unusual personal backgrounds, into office. This was, of course, exactly what was supposed to happen last year, but it took Trumps actual ascension to office to energise the coalition Hillary Clinton was trying to put together.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Thane police has arrested three persons in connection with the alleged fraud worth over Rs 6 crore in a cooperative bank here, police said today.

Based on a complaint by one of the senior officials of the bank regarding the fraud of Rs 6.92 crore at its branch in Lok Puram area here, the police arrested two of the bank's employees and a customer yesterday, a police official said.

In November last year, seven persons, including six employees of the cooperative bank, had been booked for allegedly defrauding customers and the bank.

An FIR in this regard was registered with the Chitalsar police and later the case transferred to the EOW for further probe, the official said.

According to the complaint, the accused allegedly tampered with the bank's computer systems and receipts of depositors and diverted funds from their accounts to a particular account to facilitate benefit of cash credit (short-term loan) to its holder.

They also allegedly opened a number of new accounts without following regulations and diverted funds deposited in them to one particular account. The account holder, who got benefit from the cash credit, which was beyond his eligibility, failed to repay the loan, thus cheating the bank and its customers, police said.

The accused were booked under IPC sections pertaining to cheating, forgery, dishonest misappropriation of property, criminal breach of trust, falsification of accounts and also provisions of the IT Act, one of them related to hacking of computer system, police added.

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The Border Security Force (BSF) has apprehended three Pakistani fishermen and seized five boats from the Harami Nala creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Gujarat's Kutch district.

A patrol party of the BSF's 79th battalion, deployed to guard the Indo-Pak border, apprehended the three fishermen yesterday from the "vertical area of the Harami Nala creek", a senior official said.

The men have been be handed over to the local police, the official said.

The incident comes at a time when a high-level delegation of Pakistani Rangers is in India for the bi-annual talks with the BSF.

Several fishing boats and Pakistani fishermen have been caught in the past while fishing in the Indian side of the creek area.

Given the sensitive nature of the area, even Indian fishermen are barred from fishing in the creek.

However, Pakistani fishermen often venture into Indian waters for a catch.

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Three suicide bombers who were plotting an attack on Shia congregation hall in Pakistan were today killed by paramilitary forces, police said.

The Sindh Rangers killed the three militants in Rohri. They were planning to attack the Bab-e-Karbala Imambargah, according to a statement issued by the paramilitary force.

"An exchange of fire took place when the suspicious men tried to escape," the statement said, adding that the three men were killed in the gunfire.

Initial investigations revealed that the "terrorists were associated with a banned outfit" and their target for the "terror attack" was the Bab-e-Karbala Imambargah. The process to ascertain their identities is underway.

The Chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain and the martyrs of Karbala is being observed throughout the country on Friday amid tight security.

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The third edition of Russian Film Days, an initiative to strengthen the Indo-Russian relationship through cinematic and cultural exchange, begin today with a special tribute to Raj Kapoor.

The film festival opened here at Siri Fort Auditorium with a theatrical performance dedicated to Raj Kapoor and his legendary film of the 1970 year, "Mera Naam Joker", which remains one of the most favourite Indian movies in Russia.

Speaking at the inauguration, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky said that he looks forward to seeing "Indo- Russian cooperation turn into co-production of films".

"Through this cooperation, we hope to develop audience for our film-makers in both the countries. We hope to turn this cooperation into co-production of films in future.

"If Russian and Indian film-makers start making films together, we can show the Hollywood what we are capable of," Medinsky said.

The Bollywood Dreamgirl, Hema Malini, who was recently honoured at the 4th Indian Film Festival of Russia (IFFR), also seconded the Russian minister's thoughts.

"While I worked on several of my films all over Russia I realised the love they have for Indian films. And there cannot be a better platform than cinema to strengthen the cultural ties between the two countries.

"If co-production of films between Indian and Russian film-makers come to realisation, we will try to subsidise them for the production," she said.

The festival opened with director Valery Todorovsky's dance drama The Bolshoi, that shows a young ballerina's struggle to perform at Bolshoi theatre.

"The screening of this film will bring Indian audience in touch with Russian classical ballet, an artform Indians are not quite familiar with," Todorovsky said.

During the festival over the course of three days, Delhi movie-goers will be able to watch 'The Bolshoi' at Siri Fort Auditorium, 'The Ghost of Sonora', 'Yana + Yanko', 'Kitchen: World chef battle', and 'Attraction' at DT Cinemas in Saket.

Nikolai Kudashev, Russian ambassador to India, also noted that cinema is the only medium through which a common language can be found in the Eurasia region.

"Through this festival we hope to send a message to the Indian audience that Russian language of cinema symbolises wisdom of the country and its people.

"And language of cinema goes beyond the language of people. This is what we need right now in the Eurasia region to find a common language among people," the ambassador said.

The festival will come to an end in Delhi on November 12 before moving to Mumbai.

It will conclude at International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Panaji from November 20.

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Researchers have identified nearly 500 tiny finger and toe bones belonging to primates - some half the size of a mouse - that lived about 45 million years ago in what is now China, offering evidence that early human ancestors came from Asia.

Representing nine different taxonomic families of primates and as many as 25 species, the specimens include numerous fossils attributed to Eosimias, the very first anthropoid known to date, and three fossils attributed to a new and much more advanced anthropoid.

The anthropoid lineage would later include monkeys, apes and humans.

"The fossils are extraordinarily small, but in terms of quantity this is the largest single assemblage of fossil primate finger and toe specimens ever recorded," said Dan Gebo, professor at Northern Illinois University in the US.

All of the finger and toe fossils imply tree-dwelling primates with grasping digits in both hands and feet.

Many of the smaller fossils are between 1 and 2 millimetres in length, and the animals would have ranged in full body size from 10 to 1,000 grammes.

"The new study provides further evidence that early anthropoids were minuscule creatures, the size of a mouse or smaller," Gebo said.

"It also adds to the evidence pointing towards Asia as the initial continent for primate evolution. While apes and fossil humans do come from Africa, their ancestors came from Asia," he said.

The newly described fossils were originally recovered from a commercial quarry near the village of Shanghuang in the southern Jiangsu Province of China, about 100 miles west of Shanghai.

Christopher Beard, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas in the US, said the limestone in the quarry is of Triassic age - from the very beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs some 220 million years ago.

Owing to a subsequent phase of erosion, the limestone developed large fissures containing fossil-rich sediments dating to the middle Eocene, after dinosaurs went extinct.

In the early 1990s, more than 10 tonnes of fossil-bearing matrix were collected from the fissures and shipped to the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the US.

There, the matrix was washed and screened, yielding fossil bones and teeth from ancient mammals, many of which remain to be identified.

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The Border Security Force (BSF) has apprehended five Pakistani fishermen and seized six boats from the Harami Nala creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Gujarat's Kutch district, an official said today.

A patrol party of the BSF's 79th battalion apprehended the fishermen when they were allegedly fishing inside Indian territory in the Harami Nala creek along the border, the official of Gujarat frontier of the paramilitary force said.

While three of them were apprehended yesterday, the other two were held by the BSF during a search operation in the creek this afternoon, he said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the apprehended fishermen belonged to villages in Sujawal district of Sindh province of Pakistan, he said.

Those who were caught yesterday were identified as Niyaz Hussain (28), Laung Ali (35) and Rajib Ali (32).

Given the sensitive nature of the area even Indian fishermen are barred from fishing in the creek. However, Pakistani fishermen from the coastal areas of Sindh often venture into the Indian waters for a catch.

Several fishing boats and Pakistani fishermen were caught in the past while fishing in the Indian side of the creek area.

In September, the BSF had apprehended five Pakistani fishermen and seized 21 boats from the same area.

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Turkish authorities detained 82 foreigners planning to go to Syria and suspected of links to IS in a string of anti-terror raids in Istanbul, state media reported today.

The suspects had previously been involved with Islamic State group extremists in "conflict zones", state-run agency Anadolu said without giving further detail.

They were detained during raids on 14 addresses and were planning to go to Syria "in the coming days", it added.

Elsewhere in the southern city of Adana, 11 alleged IS members of Syrian origin were detained, the agency said in the same report.

The detentions come a day after vast anti-IS raids in Ankara during which 173 people were detained over alleged terror links.

A total of 1,500 police officers took part in the raids after authorities issued arrest warrants for 245 suspects.

According to the interior ministry, around 450 suspects were detained accused of helping or being in contact with IS in October.

Turkey has suffered a series of terror attacks blamed on IS over the past two years, including one on a popular Istanbul nightclub celebrating New Year during which 39 people were killed by an IS gunman.

Uzbekistan-born Abdulgadir Masharipov previously confessed to the 2017 attack and will go on trial in Istanbul on December 11.

Turkey came under attack from IS from late 2015 onwards after Ankara allowed the US military to conduct air strikes on IS targets in Syria via Turkey's southern Incirlik air base from August 2015.

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The Supreme Court today refused to stay the proceedings in 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases before the Delhi High Court which has issued show cause notices to 11 persons asking why they should not be re-tried.

Eleven persons including former councillor Balwan Khokhar and ex-MLA Mahender Yadav have already been acquitted by a trial court in five cases and the High Court, after perusing case files, on its own took note and issued show cause notices to them.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud declined the plea of Yadav, saying it would not stay the proceedings before the high court.

The high court had on March 29 issued notices to these 11 persons who had faced trial for various offences during the riots on November 1 and 2, 1984 in the Delhi Cantonment area and were acquitted later.

Aggrieved by the decision, Yadav moved the apex court, saying the high court has no power to suo motu reopen trial in the cases in which he has been acquitted.

The high court had sought the response of those acquitted as to why it should not order reinvestigation and retrial against them as they had faced allegations of "horrifying crimes against humanity".

The high court had issued directions to "secure ends of justice" after perusing trial court records regarding the acquittal of the accused in five different cases relating to the killing of Sikhs during the riots which broke out a day after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The trial court records were placed before the high court by the CBI during the hearing of another 1984 riot case in which the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and punishment awarded to other convicts is under challenge by CBI, the riot victims and convicts.

The high court, in five separate verdicts, had expressed unhappiness over the failure of the prosecutors to assist the trial courts and said they had not ensured that truth is brought out and the guilty punished.

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BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya has said the "9/11" terrorist attack in the United States and demonetisation announced in India on "8/11" last year are important dates for the world.

He said this while addressing a rally organised in support of demonetisation last night at the Patnipura square here.

"8/11 and 9/11 -- both these dates are important for the world. The (Narendra) Modi government has initiated a major step to curb corruption by announcing demonetisation on 8/11 (November 8 last year) and America had resolved to end terrorism after the 9/11 (September 11, 2001) attacks," Vijayvargiya said.

He added that the decision to scrap high-value currency notes caused hardships to those who were in possession of black money, the corrupt people and those funding terrorists.

The BJP leader, who is also the party's West Bengal in- charge, claimed that post demonetisation, bribes were being accepted in the form of gold bricks, instead of cash, in the government establishments of that state.

"Two months ago, I came to know from a businessman in West Bengal that the mode of corruption had changed in that state after the note ban and bribes, in the government system, were now being given in the form of cadbury. He had also told me that cadbury meant a one-kg gold brick," he said.

"Now, the corrupt people in West Bengal are taking cadbury instead of cash. Modi will also find a way to deal with this practice as corruption harms the poor," he said.

The country had to decide whether it would support the prime minister or those who were against a historic decision like demonetisation, Vijayvargiya added.

BJP vice-president Shyam Jaju, who was also present at the event, pointed out that the Congress was agitating against the note ban across the country.

"This is not a fight between the BJP and the Congress, but one between patriots and traitors," he said.

Jaju claimed that demonetisation had enhanced the credibility of India in the world and boosted country's foreign investments.

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With the fall of the Islamic State group's last significant stronghold in Syria, Iranian and Russian-backed Syrian troops now turn to face off with their main rival, the US-backed forces holding large oil fields and strategic territory in the country's north and east.

The complicated map puts US and Iranian forces at close proximity, standing just across the Euphrates River from each other, amid multiple hotspots that could turn violent, particularly in the absence of a clear American policy.

There are already signs.

Iran threatened last week that Syrian troops will advance toward Raqqa, the former IS capital, which fell to the U.S.- backed Syrian Democratic Forces in October, raising the potential for a clash there. The Kurdish-led SDF also controls some of Syria's largest oil fields, in the oil-rich eastern Deir el-Zour province, an essential resource that the Syrian government also says it will take back.

The SDF also faces restlessness in an Arab-majority town it liberated last year, a possible sign of things to come in other areas that the Kurdish-dominated forces control in their self-rule area in northern Syria, now about 25 per cent of the country's territory.

The question now is whether the United States is willing to confront the troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian-backed militiamen.

The Kurds are seeking a clear American commitment to help them defend their gains. American officials have said little of their plans and objectives in Syria beyond general statements about continuing to deny IS safe havens and continuing to train and equip allies.

During a meeting this week with Ali Akbar Velayati, the adviser of Iran's supreme leader, Assad said his war was against terrorism and against plans to partition Syria, a direct reference to Kurdish aspirations for a recognized autonomous zone in the north. He repeated that his government plans to regain control of all of Syria.

Government victories "have foiled all partition plans and the goals of terrorism and the countries sponsoring it," Assad said.

Meanwhile, four US officials said yesterday the US and Russia are nearing an agreement on Syria for how they hope to resolve the Arab country's civil war once IS is defeated. If clinched, the deal could be announced by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after a meeting in Vietnam today, they said.

The United States has been reluctant to hold a formal meeting between the leaders unless they have a substantive agreement to announce. The officials weren't authorized to discuss the deliberations and requested anonymity.

With its collapse in Boukamal yesterday, the Islamic State group has no major territory left in Syria or Iraq. Its militants are believed to have pulled back into the desert, east and west of the Euphrates River. The group has a small presence near the capital, Damascus.

The Euphrates now stands as the dividing line between Syrian government troops and the SDF in much of Deir el-Zour province.

Government forces and their allies, including Iranian troops and fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, control the western bank. They hold the provincial capital and several small oil fields.

The Kurdish-led force, along with American troops advising them, is on the eastern bank. They hold two of Syria's largest oil fields, nearly a dozen smaller ones, one of the largest gas fields and large parts of the border with Iraq. They say they are determined to keep the government from crossing the river.

Iran's Velayati said the US presence aims to divide Syria. "They have not and will not succeed in Iraq and they will also not succeed in Syria," he said during a visit to Lebanon last weekend.

"We will soon see the Syrian government and popular forces in Syria east of the Euphrates and they will liberate the city of Raqqa."



The US coalition declined to comment on Velayati's remarks, saying "it would not be appropriate to comment on speculation or rumor by any third party."



Washington has been wary of Iran's increasing influence in the area and its attempts to establish a land corridor from Iran across Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. For weeks, the coalition said the SDF intended to push to Boukamal. Now it is not clear what the US will do.

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Vice President Venkaiah Naidu today said agriculture and farmers deserve special focus from the government and issues related to cultivators should be widely discussed in legislative bodies and the media.

The focus should be more on villages and agriculture, he said and suggested removal of restrictions over movement of farm produce in the country.

Naidu was speaking after the inauguration of 'Agrovision', a summit on the farm sector and its allied segments, at the Reshimbagh Ground here.

"I am a farmer myself and I am proud of it as farmers are providers of food to the country (andaata). The basic culture of India is agriculture and it is the responsibility of the government to look after the concerns of farmers," he said.

Issues related to the key sector should be discussed at various forums, the vice president said.

"The concerns of farmers, who was not organised, should be the main topic of discussion in Parliament, state legislatures, panchayats, research institutes and the media," he said.

Naidu emphasised on time-bound programmes for providing agriculture solutions in the form of cold storage, refrigerator van system, timely crop loans, godowns in rural areas, crop insurance and advice on farming techniques.

"These initiatives are very necessary so that the farmers do not move away from farming," the vice president said.

The government, the science and technology department, the NABARD and banks should come to the aid of farmers, who should be the top priority for the country, Naidu said.

Because farmers are not organised, there is a feeling in the rural areas that they are a neglected lot, he said.

"There is a need for increase inbudget for agriculture and irrigation to ensure development of farmers," Naidu said.

The vice president highlighted the need for regular electricity and better roads in rural areas.

He praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the pro- farmer initiatives taken by his government.

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The health ministry today directed all the central government-run hospitals to take measures to deal with the increasing number of patients in the wake of a severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who reviewed the situation today, also directed the hospitals to stock nebulizers and other related equipment in a good condition and be ready to meet any exigency.

The national capital remained in the throes of a pollution emergency. The thick smog has prompted the city government to declare a return of the odd-even scheme from November 13 (Monday).

"J P Nadda directed the officials and heads of all central government hospitals to keep a close watch on the situation," an official statement said.

At a meeting with Nadda, experts said the number of cases being reported with breathing troubles and respiratory diseases was varying every day.

The statement said the recent increase in the air pollution levels in Delhi-NCR and the surrounding areas had become "a cause of concern".

It added that the health ministry had continuously been monitoring the situation.

The ministry had also issued a health advisory earlier.

Additional secretary of the ministry Sanjeev Kumar had held a meeting with the representatives of all the central government hospitals, including Safdarjung Hospital, RML Hospital, LHMC and associated hospitals and AIIMS, New Delhi, yesterday.

According to the health experts, the higher air pollution levels may result in an increase in the burden of diseases -- from stroke, heart ailments, lung cancer and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.

In the short run, the higher air pollution levels might result in an increase in the severity of the symptoms of respiratory diseases, the experts said.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had yesterday recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 486, on a scale of 500, in the national capital.

The AQI of neighbouring Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon were also in the emergency category till yesterday.

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Exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of bone fractures by causing loss of mineral density, a major study has warned.

The study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal is the first to document high rates of hospital admissions for bone fractures in communities with elevated levels of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), a component of air pollution,



The risk of bone fracture admissions was greatest in low-income communities, researchers said.

"Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures," said Andrea Baccarelli from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in the US.

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to cancer, and impaired cognition, and now osteoporosis," said Baccarelli.

The study of osteoporosis-related fracture hospital admissions among 9.2 million people between 2003-2010, suggests that even a small increase in PM2.5 concentrations would lead to an increase in bone fractures in older adults.

Analysis of eight years of follow-up among 692 middle- aged, low-income adults found that participants living in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon, a component of air pollution from automotive emissions, had lower levels of parathyroid hormone and greater decreases in bone mineral density.

Parathyroid hormone is a key calcium and bone-related hormone.

Osteoporosis, the most common reason for a broken bone among the elderly, is a disease in which bones become brittle and weak as the body loses more bone mass than it can rebuild.

Particulate matter, including PM2.5, is known to cause systemic oxidative damage and inflammation, which researchers suggest, could accelerate bone loss and increase risk of bone fractures in older individuals.

Smoking, which contains several particulate matter components, has been consistently associated with bone damage, researchers said.

"Virtually air pollution can affect all parts of the body. It can affect our skin, nose, mouth face, lung, heart, liver, bones or even our brain," said Dr Sandeep Nayar, Senior Consultant & HOD, Respiratory Medicine, Allergy & Sleep Disorder, from BLK Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi.

"Though lung cancer is one of the dreaded complications of getting exposed to air pollution, specially dangerous gases like oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, but now studies have shown that it has become hazardous to other parts as well," Nayar said.

In studies published earlier this year, Baccarelli reported that Vitamin B can diminish the effects of air pollution-induced cardiovascular disease, as well as epigenetic damage to DNA.

It is unclear if the benefits of Vitamin B extend to bone loss. He said the best way to prevent air-pollution-related diseases is through policies to improve air quality.

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The Green Tribunal (NGT) today said it would examine at 2 PM today the Delhi government's decision to roll out odd-even car rationing scheme for five days starting from November 13.

The AAP government had yesterday announced introduction of the as part of a Graded Response Plan to tackle the alarming pollution situation in the capital.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the Delhi government to submit before it the details of the ambient air quality during the earlier implementation of the .

The Green panel directed the counsel appearing for the Delhi government to be ready with all the requisite data and show before it the reason for implementing the latest .

On April 21, last year, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had told NGT that there was no data to suggest that the odd-even scheme has led to a decline in vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR.

The pollution monitoring body had said that there was no data to indicate that car rationing scheme has any impact on decrease in vehicular pollution and the fluctuations in PM10 and PM2.5 is due to weather and change in wind patterns.

The capital is experiencing 'severe' air quality under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels have breached permissible standards by multiple times.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recorded 'severe' air quality, meaning that the intensity of pollution was extreme.
The All India Lawyers Union has condemned the Rajasthan government ordinance which seeks to protect judges, magistrates and public servants from being probed without prior sanction, saying it reflected the "authoritarian" attitude of the state government.

The lawyers' body demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Criminal Laws (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2017, terming it as "unconstitutional", "oppressive" and "undemocratic".

"It demonstrates the authoritarian approach of Rajasthan's BJP Government," the AILU's Delhi branch said in a statement.

Maintaining that the ordinance was "an attack on freedom of the press", it said the measure sought to bar the media from reporting on accusations till the sanction to proceed with the probe was obtained.

The ordinance was widely criticised by legal experts, media fraternity and the public at large.

"We appreciate the public opinion demonstrated against this action of the Rajasthan government and appeal to all lawyers, law teachers, students and all countrymen cherishing democratic values to raise their voice against this sort of attack on democracy and rule of law," advocate Som Dutta Sharma, General Secretary of AILU said in the statement.

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Anil Foods, leading manufacturer of vermicelli in South India, has roped in popular actor Vijay Sethupathi as its brand ambassador.

Anil Marketing company is the holding company of the popular brand Anil Semiya.

On being appointed as the brand ambassador, Sethupathi announced that a sum of Rs 49.20 lakh would be donated towards the education of the needy across Tamil Nadu, a press release quoting him said.

He said with Ariyalur being one of the most backward districts in education and infrastructure, a sum of Rs 5,000 would be donated to 774 Anganwadis in the district totalling Rs 38.70 lakh.

Another share would be donated to 10 schools for the visually-challenged, 11 schools for the hearing impaired schools in Tamil Nadu, the release said.

On the occasion, the company also introduced five different varieties of millet-based products in the market along with new logo and new product packaging.

"In a time where junk food is popular regardless of its adverse effects on health and wellbeing, Anil Foods has introduced varieties of healthy millet-based Semiya varieties to the market", Anil Foods managing director Kamal Hassan said in the release.

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Three unidentified armed men allegedly looted Rs 1.14 crore from a cash van near Jalandhar district today, a police official said.

The robbery took place near the Bhogpur area when the van was transporting cash meant for ATMs from a private bank, Bhogpur police station SHO SI Surjit Singh said.

He said the van had just left Jalandhar when the robbers intercepted it and held the two security guards at gunpoint.

They fled from the spot after looting the cash, the SHO said, adding that a case was registered and an investigation was underway.

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HIT: To a pair of dedicated volunteers.

They wouldn't want anyone making a big deal out of it, Jerry and Don Clark have been quietly taking care of the maintenance at St. Luke's United Church of Christ in Auburn for the past 27 years. Jerry and Bob are twins who both retired in 1990 and made the church the focal point of the newfound free time.

Though the Clark brothers will be turning 90 this month, they plan to keep on doing whatever they can to help their church. As Don's wife said, "It keeps them out of trouble."

MISS: To a pair of disturbing local police reports.

On Saturday, an out-of-town man who police said was highly intoxicated allegedly fired two shots at a pizza delivery driver in downtown Auburn. And the next day, police said that a landlord-tenant dispute led to a shotgun being fired in the vicinity of an occupied home in Owasco.

No one was injured in either incident, but both of the men believed to have fired their weapons have been charged with felonies.

The Citizen editorial board includes publisher Rob Forcey, executive editor Jeremy Boyer and managing editor Mike Dowd.
The arts and culture department of Rajasthan will look into the objections raised over the controversial period drama Padmavati, state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria said.

Rajput community leaders and various organisations have raised objection over the film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, alleging that the filmmaker had distorted historical facts regarding Rani Padmavati and demanded a ban on it.

Kataria said his department decided to refer the objections regarding with the film to the art and culture department.

"The art and culture department will look what the objections are and what can be done. The department will discuss and consult with expert and historians. If necessary, discussions with those who are opposing the film will also be done," the minister told PTI.

He said that the art and culture department will forward its report to the home department in next few days.

Rajput community leaders, the Karni Sena, BJP MLA and member of the erstwhile Jaipur royal family Diya Kumari opposed the film.

Meanwhile, Bajrang Dal today held a demonstration against the film demanding ban on its release in Rajasthan.

Hundreds of the members demonstrated outside the collectorate in Jaipur and handed over a representation, addressed to chief minister, to a district administration official demanding the ban.

"We are demanding a complete ban on the film which the filmmaker made with distorted facts. It is clear from promos that objectionable facts related to Rani Padmavati have been shown in the film," Ashok Singh, state coordinator of the Bajrang Dal, claimed.

He said that similar protests were also held at other district headquarters in the state.

Senior BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari held the state government responsible for the controversy, alleging that the tourism department in one of its tweets had called Rani Padmini Alaudin Khilji's beloved.

"Tourism department in its tweet (last year) called Rani Padmavati the beloved of Alaudin Khilji. This dishonor was brought to Rani Padmavati by the tourism department and the company which handles the publicity of the department," he alleged.

He alleged that the state government led by Vasundhra Raje had worked against the honour of the state and also removed a poem on Rani Laxmibai from school syllabus.

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A suspected criminal, drawing inspiration from popular Bollywood film 'Agneepath's' villain character, was arrested here along with his two accomplices when he had come to kill a businessman, police said today.

Yesterday, the police learnt that one Lokesh Chauhan alias Chunnu (21) and his associate Jai Singh (27) would be coming near Vardhaman Plaza, Matiala to meet their other associate Dharampal alias Pradeep (27), they added.

A trap was laid and when the police team surrounded the trio, Chauhan pointed a pistol at one of the constables, the police said.

Chauhan was overpowered and the trio were nabbed. Four illegal pistols and seven live rounds were seized from them, the police said.

During an interrogation, Chauhan revealed that he was arrested for the first in a motorcycle theft case and was lodged in Bhondsi jail for seven days in that case, Shibesh Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southwest), said.

While he was in the jail, he befriended many hardened criminals and thought of making a name for himself in the world of crime, Singh said.

He was arrested in a case of attempt to murder in Gurgaon and was in jail for over three months before being released on a bail over a month back, the official said.

Chauhan was given a contract of Rs five lakh for killing a man in Dwarka. He, along with his associates, had planned to kill him and was out to execute his plan when they were nabbed by the police staff yesterday, they said.

He is fond of Bollywood movies and draws an inspiration from popular Bollywood film 'Agneepath's' main villain character 'Vijay Deenanath Chauhan' played by Amitabh Bachchan, the DCP said.

"He wants to earn a lot of money and has a wish to try his luck in the Hindi cinema," he said.

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Former White House adviser Steve Bannon says he "strongly" believes that Republican President Donald Trump won New Hampshire and that voter irregularities were behind his loss in the state in the 2016 presidential election.

Bannon made the comments yesterday at a Manchester fundraiser for the conservative group 603 Alliance.

Democrat Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire and all four of the state's electoral votes.

Trump has cited New Hampshire as part of his unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. He created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May to investigate those claims.

Bannon says his claims are supported by state data that shows that only 15 percent of the 6,540 voters who used out- of-state driver's licenses have since acquired New Hampshire licenses.

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India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Based out of The Hague, the ICJ has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, Antnio Augusto Canado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-membered Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes have been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nation's ICJ election rules, the candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari, 70, was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

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The new envoy of Ghana has said bilateral trade between India and his country is expected to touch USD 5 billion in the next three years.

"Bilateral trade relations between India and Ghana are growing exponentially. We intend to expand our bilateral trade with India from USD 3 billion to USD 5 billion in the next three years," Ghana's new Ambassador to India Mike Aaron Oquaye Jnr told reporters here last night.

A high powered delegation from Ghana comprising the Speaker of Parliament of Ghana Aaron Mike Oquaye along with delegates from the One District One Factory, from the President's office, The Exim Bank of Ghana and Ghana Commercial Bank visited the city to seek business opportunities.

"We seek Indian investments into agri and food processing, palm oil, jute, cocoa processing, pharmaceutical and solar sectors. We will work towards expanding business, economic and bilateral trade between India and Ghana by promoting and stimulating the Mumbai business community to look towards Ghana," Oquaye said.

"We will work towards expanding business, economic and bilateral trade between India and Ghana by promoting and stimulating the Mumbai business community to look towards Ghana," the Ambassador added.

According to Oquaye, it is expected that by the end of 2017, about 51 districts across Ghana would rollout business enterprises under the One-District-One Factory initiative.

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Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has urged Union Communications Minister Manoj Sinha to bring Tulail village of Gurez valley of Northern Kashmir under cellular coverage.

In a communication to the Union Minister, the Chief Minister stressed upon the locational disadvantage of the area which is far away even from Gurez and generally remains cut- off for most of the year.

Mufti urged Sinha to direct BSNL and private cellular mobile companies to take measures to extend their services to Tulail.

During her recent visit to Gurez as part of her public outreach programme, a large number of people had met the Chief Minister and requested extension of mobile network to the area to ease their difficulties.

Meanwhile, in a separate communication to Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, the Chief Minister flagged the problems being faced by local producers and content providers of DD Kashir due to stoppage of commissioning of programmes and stringent conditions.

Mufti requested Irani to have the issue re-examined to ensure a level playing field for local artists and programme developers.

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The Cabinet today gave its nod for signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between India and the Philippines in the farm sector.

The MoU will improve bilateral cooperation in the field of agriculture and will be mutually benefit both countries, an official statement said.

The agreement provides for cooperation in rice production and processing, multi cropping system, dry-land farming systems, bio-organic farming, solid and water conservation and management, soil fertility, sericulture, agro forestry, livestock improvement, among others.

A joint working group will be set up to implement the identified area of work in both the countries. The group will meet once every two years alternatively in the Philippines and India, the statement said.

The bilateral cooperation will promote understanding of best agricultural practices in the two countries and help in achieving higher crop productivity as well as improved global market access, it added.

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The Cabinet today gave its green light to entering into an agreement between India and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China for avoidance of double taxation and prevention of tax evasion.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also approved the protocol amending the agreement between India and Kyrgyzstan for avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.

The agreement with Hong Kong will stimulate flow of investment, technology and personnel, prevent double taxation and provide for exchange of information between the two contracting parties, an official release said.

It will also improve transparency on tax matters and help curb tax evasion and avoidance.

About Kyrgyzstan, an another release said new clauses are being inserted into the existing DTAA on exchange of information.

"The Protocol further empowers India to use information received under the DTAA to be used for other law enforcement purposes on the supplying State authorising such use," it said.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet also gave its approval for signing a Joint Interpretative Declaration (JID) between India and Colombia on the existing Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments between the two countries signed in November 2009.

The JID will impart clarity to the interpretation of the existing agreement, said another release.

Joint Interpretative Declarations and Statements in general play an important supplementary role in strengthening the investment treaty regime, it added.

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The Cabinet today approved Rs 25,703 crore for development of an Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre at Dwarka here to put the national capital in the league of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore in the area of exhibition market, an official statement said.

The Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (ECC) and allied infrastructure will be developed in public private partnership (PPP) and non-PPP mode (including exhibition and convention spaces, arena, trunk-infrastructure, Metro/NHAI connectivity, hotels, office and retail spaces) by 2025.

"Phase-1 of the project comprising trunk infrastructure along with exhibition cum convention centre will be implemented and commissioned by December 2019," said the release issued after the Cabinet meeting.

Phase-1 will be implemented as non-PPP component.

Phase-2 of the project, comprising the remaining exhibition area, will be implemented by 2025. The components comprising hotels, retail space and offices will be implemented in PPP mode.

It is estimated that the proposed ECC facility, once fully operational, will infuse a demand for more than 100 major international and local exhibition events annually, the release said.

The number of persons visiting the exhibition facility annually (paying visitors) is estimated to be more than 10 million in the first phase (2019-20) and 23 million after completion of the second phase (2025).

Similarly, convention based delegate attendance is estimated to cross 1.5 million annually after successful completion of the second phase of the project.

"Project is estimated to generate over five lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities. The job creation will happen in core ECC facilities as well as in supporting ECC land uses like retail, office and hospitality," it added.

Giving further details, the release said the government will create a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the implementation and development of the project with 100 per cent equity from the government through the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

Government of India will provide budgetary support of Rs 2,037.39 crore to the SPV as equity over a period of three years to fund trunk infrastructure, a part of exhibition centre, foyer, convention centre, metro connectivity, NHAI road connectivity, among others.

Conferences and exhibitions are vital links to connect local manufacturers with global buyers and to serve as a platform for exchange of business ideas.

"India lacks an integrated world class facility which can meet the requirements of global exhibition-cum convention operators in terms of space, project facilities, transportation linkages at a large scale.

"Development of ECC Centre at Dwarka accompanied with supporting components, once fully operational is expected to bring New Delhi in the league of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore in the area of exhibition market," the release said.

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The Union Cabinet today approved setting up of 'National Testing Agency (NTA)' to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions, an official release said.

The NTA would initially conduct entrance tests that are currently organised by the CBSE, while other examinations will be taken up gradually, it added.

Currently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts 'National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET)' on behalf of the Medical Council Of India and Health Ministry and the 'National Eligibility Test (NET)' on behalf of the University Grants Commission (UGC), an official said.

"It (the move) will relieve the CBSE, the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) and other agencies from responsibility of conducting these entrance examinations, and also bring in high reliability, standardised difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence and problem-solving abilities of the students," the release said.

The entrance examinations will be conducted online at least twice a year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best, it added.

In order to serve the requirements of the rural students, it would locate the centres at sub-district/district level and as far as possible would undertake hands-on training exercise for the students, the release said.

The NTA will be given a one-time grant of Rs 25 crore from the government to start its operation in the first year and thereafter, it will be financially self-sustainable, it added.

It will be chaired by an educationist appointed by Human Resource Development Ministry.

The establishment of NTA, an autonomous organisation, will benefit about 40 lakh students appearing in various entrance examinations, the release said.

It will be established as a Society registered under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860.

In view of the need to have a specialised body in India like the most advanced countries, the finance minister in the Budget speech of 2017-18 had announced setting up of NTA to conduct all entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.

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In my youth I was on my high school rifle team, and as soon as I was legally old enough I got my pistol permit. I was never much of a hunter but I did enjoy range and target shooting. At the same time I've always thought that the NRA catch phrase "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

The reality is that people use guns to kill other people and to add insult to injury it happens here in America more than in any other developed nation on earth. I don't want to shock or upset any Rabid Gun Owners, the GOP or the NRA but they need to get a grip. The Second Amendment isn't cut in stone; it's part of the Constitution, which is a living document.

The 18th Amendment was a disaster and it was repealed, and the Patriot Act signed into law after 9/11 suspended all or part of the rights enumerated in the third through seventh amendments. In Port Arthur, Australia, in southeastern Tasmania, on April 28 and 29, 1996, 35 people were killed and 23 wounded by a man with an assault rifle. It took the Australian government 12 days to act. All military type weapons were banned, an effective buy-back program was enacted, a national registry for fast and accurate background checks was implemented and all firearms had to be registered. They have not had a mass killing since.

We don't have to touch the Second Amendment at all; all we needed to do is something similar to what the Australians have done. Before the advent of the assault rifle we all seemed to get along just fine with the rifles, shotguns and handguns that we took to the range and to the field. With the gun violence and carnage taking place in America today our senators and congress people are criminally negligent in their unwillingness to act. How many more people have to die, how many more Sandy Hooks have to happen?

Ernie DeCaro

Auburn
The speaker of Catalonia's sacked parliament was detained today over her region's controversial drive for independence from Spain.

Carme Forcadell was held by Spain's Supreme Court in Madrid pending bail of 150,000 euros, a court spokesman said.

Forcadell and five other deputies appeared in front of Spain's highest tribunal on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds -- which carry a maximum jail sentence of 30 years -- for aiding the Catalan parliament's secession bid.

They are suspected of having followed a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official declaration on October 27, deepening Spain's most serious political crisis in decades.

That declaration was annulled yesterday by Spain's Constitutional Court.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena ordered one Catalan lawmaker freed, but the four others apart from Forcadell must pay 25,000 euros within a week to avoid jail.

The Catalan crisis has prompted hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region and caused disquiet in a European Union still dealing with Britain's shock decision to leave the bloc.

Yesterday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe and disrupting trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

Authorities said around 150,000 people were affected.

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The speaker of Catalonia's sacked parliament was ordered detained over her region's controversial drive for independence from Spain, pending payment of a 150,000 euro bail, a court spokesman said.

Carme Forcadell and five other deputies appeared in front of Spain's highest tribunal on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds -- which carry a maximum jail sentence of 30 years -- for aiding the Catalan parliament's secession bid.

They are suspected of having followed a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official declaration on October 27, deepening Spain's most serious political crisis in decades.

That declaration was annulled Wednesday by Spain's Constitutional Court.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena ordered one Catalan lawmaker freed, but the four others apart from Forcadell must pay 25,000 euros within a week to avoid jail.

The Catalan crisis has prompted hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region and caused disquiet in a European Union still dealing with Britain's shock decision to leave the bloc.

On Wednesday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe and disrupting trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

Authorities said around 150,000 people were affected.

Encouraged by their figurehead Carles Puigdemont, Catalan leaders voted to declare unilateral independence from Spain after going ahead with a banned referendum on October 1.

Separatists said 90 percent of voters opted for independence, but critics counter that pro-unity supporters had boycotted a plebiscite that violated Spain's constitution.

In response, the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suspended Catalan autonomy dismissing its parliament and government, and organised new regional elections for December 21.

A judge in Madrid last week ordered that eight members of Puigdemont's sacked government be detained for their role in the secession drive.

Forcadell's spokesman told reporters that as Catalan parliamentary speaker she didn't "have the freedom to stop a vote" in the chamber on independence.

Outside the court yesterday a small group of protesters gathered, holding banners against independence.

There were also a handful of separatist supporters, facing opposition cries of "Jail for Puigdemont!"



Puigdemont and four former Catalan ministers are in self- imposed exile in Belgium and are due to appear before a judge next week after Madrid issued an EU-wide warrant for their extradition.

The 54-year-old deposed leader has ignored a summons to appear before a judge in Madrid, saying he wants guarantees he will receive a fair trial.

His presence in the European capital has raised some fears of stoking communal tensions in Belgium after Flemish separatists in the ruling coalition there spoke out in support of Catalan independence.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who was in Spain yesterday, said that the bloc was "against any form of separatism that weakens Europe".

Despite the crisis, the EU yesterday upgraded its growth forecast for Spain to a robust 3.1 per cent for this year, leading the eurozone's major economies.

EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici said that the Catalan independence drive had so far only had a slight impact on Spain's overall economy.

Puigdemont in a letter to the Catalan daily El Punt Avui yesterday called for "the liberation of political prisoners held by the Spanish state".

He tweeted that Forcadell had "to sleep in jail for having allowed a democratic debate".

However, Amnesty International said on Twitter that the jailed ministers could not be considered "political prisoners... as they are accused of acts that may constitute a criminal offence".

Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million people that accounts for a fifth of Spain's GDP, is deeply divided over independence.

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The Bombay High Court today granted interim protection from arrest to Pune-based real estate developer D S Kulkarni and his wife in an alleged cheating case.

Justice A S Gadkari passed the order while hearing the anticipatory bail pleas filed by D S Kulkarni, the owner of DSK Builders, and his wife Hemanti Kulkarni.

The couple approached the high court after a sessions court in Pune rejected their pleas for their anticipatory bail applications.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune police had lodged a case last month against the company and the couple for allegedly cheating around 1,350 depositors, who claimed that they did not get back their investments amounting to about Rs 50 crore.

The high court today said it would hear the pleas on November 17.

"Interim protection from arrest is granted till then," Justice Gadkari said.

After scores of complaints, the EOW had last week conducted searches at DSK's offices and residence and wrote to the banks to freeze the group's 70 accounts. They had also written to various agencies such as SEBI, ED and sub-registrar offices.

For the past several months, all these investors, largely pensioners, were queueing up at the DSK's office here.

As many as 170 depositors, who invested in the Fixed Deposit (FD) scheme of the DSK group, had approached the Pune Police a couple of months ago, demanding that a cheating case be registered against the firm.

According to police, a senior citizen, Jitendra Mulekar (65) had last month complained to the police claiming to have invested Rs 4,40,647 in the scheme. The investor alleged that he neither received the principal amount nor the interest since February 2017.

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China gave US President Donald Trump a parting gift as he left Beijing today, easing limits on foreign ownership in the financial sector that the United States and Europe have long criticised.

The announcement came after Trump capped his first state visit to Beijing by praising the "highly respected" President Xi Jinping as he took off for an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam.

During his visit, Trump had called for a more level playing field for American companies and measures to reduce China's USD 350 billion trade surplus with his country.

As the president left China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said foreign firms will be allowed to own as much as 51 per cent of shares of tie-ups in securities, funds and futures industries, instead of the current 49 per cent limit, according to the official Xinhua agency. The limits will be phased out in three years.

Foreign ownership restrictions in Chinese banks and financial asset management firms will also be lifted, Zhu said, as he discussed the "consensus" reached during Trump's state visit, according to Xinhua.

The US and European Union have long complained about a lack of market access in a host of industries, with foreign firms unable to take a controlling stake in Chinese firms.

In the tightly controlled banking sector overseas companies cannot hold more than 25 per cent of a lender's capital, making it difficult for them to play any major role in the local market.

"Opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support China's future development," said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

"These restrictions, and many others yet to be addressed, have been hindering economic activity in China for far too long."



But Andrew Polk, a founder of China consulting firm Trivium, said Beijing had merely delayed the move until its own financial institutions were so dominant that they would not be threatened.

"They are finally making good on something they've been meaning to do for a long time, so I still don't see that as real progress on key issues," Polk told AFP.

Zhu also said Beijing will reduce duties on auto imports "at an appropriate pace", while Vice Premier Wang Yang said foreign companies will no longer be forced to hand over technology secrets as a condition for entering the Chinese market.

And Wang repeated a pledge in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, that China will also "strengthen the protection of intellectual property, and strictly crack down illegal and criminal acts such as infringement and counterfeiting".

During his meetings with Xi yesterday, Trump had urged China to "immediately" take greater action on market access, forced technology transfers and theft of intellectual property.

Xi and Trump oversaw the signing of more than USD 250 billion in business deals yesterday, but analysts downplayed their impact on the trade imbalance, noting many of the agreements were nonbinding and could take years to bear fruit.

Trump showered his host with accolades during his visit.

"My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea," the US leader wrote on Twitter before leaving.

"He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!" he said, referring to Xi's wife.

Trump, who has softened his past criticism of China, again lambasted past US administrations for allowing the trade deficit to balloon over the years.

"How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!"



China was the showpiece of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia.

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Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra today cleared the air about the "purported" note of a registry which found mention in the yesterday's order of a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar on allocation of matters, saying it was he who had signed it.

"What purported? Yes, the note of the Registry was signed by me," the CJI said during a hearing before a five-judge constitution bench headed by him, which overturned the order of the two-judge bench headed by Justice Chelameswar.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner Kamini Jaiswal and NGO 'Campaign for Judicial Accountability' alleging bribes were being taken in the name of judges, said though the note had found mention in Justice Chelameswar's order, but the content was not uploaded on the website.

Later, the office of Prashant Bhushan also claimed that they had received a call from the apex court registry that a seven-judge bench was scheduled to hear the matter at 3 PM, but the bench strength was reduced to five.

During the hearing yesterday, an officer of the apex court registry was spotted in the courtroom by Justice Chelameswar who asked him about the purpose of his visit.

The registry official handed to the bench a photocopy of a note purportedly issued by the CJI's office which was taken on record by the bench as annexure of its order.

"At the same time, we are also duty bound to place the developments that when the hearing of the matter was in progress, the officer of the Registry placed a xerox copy of the proceedings purportedly issued by the Chief Justice of India, a copy of which is annexed to this order," the bench of Justice Chelameswar had noted.

The communication of the registry had referred to the practice of mentioning of cases for urgent hearing before a bench headed by the second senior most judge if the CJI is part of a constitution bench.

"When the CJI is in the constitution bench and any matter upon oral mentioning is directed to be listed on the same day before the appropriate bench, such matter be listed with an appropriate office report before the bench presided over by the CJI on the same day at 3 PM or at such time as may be indicated by the CJI or before such bench as directed by the CJI," the note of an Apex Court Registrar said.

It said that listing of matter has to be done by the CJI.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left for London this evening to participate in a programme to commemorate Sister Nivedita's 150th birth anniversary, state government officials said.

Banerjee will be unveiling the London Blue Plaque Scheme, run by the English Heritage, which links major historical figures and the buildings in which they lived or worked.

Recognising Sister Nivedita's contribution to social work, the English Heritage decided to install the Blue Plaque at her family home to commemorate her 150th birth anniversary.

The chief minister has been invited as the chief guest at the programme in Wimbledon on Sunday. She is likely to return on November 18.

Born Margaret E Noble, the Scottish-Irish social worker and disciple of Swami Vivekananda got the name 'Nivedita' or "the dedicated one" from the great monk himself.

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Ltd (CSL), the largest shipbuilding and repair facility in India, on Friday, reported an 8 per cent dip in net profit at Rs 100.21 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2017.

The state-run company had reported a net profit of Rs 109.02 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal, it said in a filing to the BSE.

Total income during the quarter rose to Rs 648.40 crore as against Rs 586.08 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Earnings per share (EPS) for Q2 FY18 stood at Rs 7.93.

Madhu S Nair, Chairman and Managing Director, Limited, said, " is well on course to meet its annual financial targets."



Cochin Shipyard was incorporated in 1972 as a fully owned Government of India company.

In the last four decades, the company has emerged as a forerunner in the Indian shipbuilding and ship repair industry, it said in a statement.

This yard can build and repair the largest vessels in India. It can build ships up to 110,000 DWT (deadweight) and repair ships up to 125,000 DWT.

The yard has delivered two of India's largest double hull Aframax tankers each of 95,000 DWT.

The statement said CSL has secured shipbuilding orders from internationally renowned from Europe and the Middle East and is building the country's first indigenous air defence ship.
The Congress today attacked the central government over the reported resumption of fertiliser subsidy to farmers in poll-bound Gujarat through a state body, terming it an "election lollipop".

Talking to reporters here, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi also demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi come clear on the "scam".

He said the UPA government had earmarked a specific amount of money as fertiliser subsidy for farmers of Gujarat. The money was "pocketed" by the Gujarat State Fertilisers and Chemical (GSFC) Limited, he alleged.

On learning about it, the UPA withdrew the money so that better steps could be taken to ensure transparency, Singhvi said.

The BJP government at the Centre "forgot" the issue, he added.

In the meantime, judicial procedure was followed and the state body was found guilty of pocketing Rs 986.56 crore, the Congress leader alleged.

"It is intriguing that instead of following legal procedures, the Modi government withdrew the case and made an out-of-court settlement with the GSFC in March and agreed to resume subsidy from that month itself," he claimed.

"Clearly, the Gujarat elections acted as a definite factor in resuming the subsidy... it has become another election lollipop," he told reporters.

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Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel today said a meeting of the Congress and Patel quota agitators was a "total failure" and the opposition party is just trying to drag the reservation issue till the Assembly polls to get votes of the Patidar community.

Nitin Patel claimed the meeting, between a Congress delegation led by Kapil Sibal and members of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti(PAAS) on Wednesday here, was an attempt to "deceive" the influential community and aimed at finding ways to help the opposition party in the next month's polls.

"Though it's been two days, neither the Congress nor the PAAS has said anything about the outcome of the meeting. It is very clear that the meeting was a total failure.

"We believe that whatever formula was offered by Sibal was just an attempt to drag the issue of reservation till the polls so that the Congress gets votes from the community," the senior BJP leader said.

Patel said any reservation over and above the existing 49 per cent limit is not possible to implement.

"Our sources have said the Congress might have offered 10 per cent additional quota beyond the existing 49 per cent. But, if you remember, the PAAS has always maintained that they want to be included in the 49 per cent quota, because anything above that cap is not possible due to a past Supreme Court order," he told reporters here.

Thirteen members of the Hardik Patel-led PAAS held talks with Sibal to know how the party plans to grant reservation to the Patidars if voted to power in the upcoming Assembly polls.

During the meeting, the Congress gave three options to the PAAS, spearheading the quota stir, on reservation.

The organisation members have said they would consult Hardik Patel, leaders of the community, and legal experts before taking a call on the issue.

According to Patel, any effort to create a separate backward class category for the Patidars by passing a Bill in the Assembly is bound to fall through.

"Just two days back, the Rajasthan High Court stayed additional quota given to the Gujjars by the government. Thus, if the Congress is promising to do the same here by passing a Bill and sending it to Parliament, then it will be nothing but an attempt to misguide the Patidars," said the BJP leader.

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The Bombay High Court today said the Central Railways (CR) and the BMC should soon come up with a solution for the construction of a foot overbridge (FoB) in Byculla here, saying the common man could not be expected to suffer.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by a city resident which said ever since the Hancock Bridge was demolished in November 2015, pedestrians and suburban rail commuters had no option but to cross the tracks between Sandhurst road and Byculla stations to reach either side.

The plea highlighted the rise in instances of deaths of pedestrians and rail passengers, who were forced to walk across the railway tracks at Sandhurst road in the absence of an alternate bridge.

A bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice MS Sonak said the CR and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) should come up with a solution soon.

The bench also summoned the railway chief engineer concerned on the next date of hearing, and said the officer must come prepared to inform the court of a plausible solution, a projected plan for an alternate or new FOB, rough estimates for the project etc.

The court had earlier directed the BMC to seek the help and expertise of the Army "by way of last resort" for the construction of the temporary structure.

On Wednesday, the corporation informed the court that consulting the Army for ideas was a "cumbersome process considering the requisite permissions to contact them" and it had also communicated to the Union government its need for such a sanction.

Earlier this year, following a site inspection and joint meeting between the railways and the BMC, the railways had submitted that it was not feasible to construct even a temporary FoB at the site because a water pipeline ran very close to the proposed site.

The BMC today told HC that while it was "ready to fund the construction of a new FoB and provide the land for the same, the railways was still reluctant to take up the construction work".

The high court, however, said, "The common man could not be expected to suffer and a solution must be arrived at, at the earliest.

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The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) today named Debjani Ghosh as its President-Designate, who will succeed R Chandrashekhar after completion of his tenure in March next year.

Ghosh, former managing director of Intel South Asia, will be the first woman President of Nasscom.

In a statement, the apex software body announced "the appointment of Debjani Ghosh, former MD, Intel South Asia, as the Nasscom President-Designate, succeeding R Chandrashekhar, President, Nasscom upon the completion of his term in March 2018".

Ghosh has been a member of Nasscom's Executive Council and a trustee of Nasscom Foundation.

"The industry is today at a very interesting inflection point and Nasscom has a key role to play in catalysing the next phase of growth of the sector. Under Debjani's leadership, Nasscom will further enhance its initiatives in innovation, disruptive technologies, skilling and new market access," Raman Roy, Chairman of Nasscom said.

Ghosh's appointment is a reflection of the importance of diversity and inclusion for the industry, he added.

Commenting on her appointment, Ghosh said, "...I firmly believe that Nasscom is much more strategically placed than any other forum to drive the IT agenda of the country".

The Indian IT and business process outsourcing industry has been one of the growth drivers for the economy and is today a USD 150 billion sector representing multiple sub- sectors.

But a number of issues which have cropped up lately, including stricter work visa regulations in key markets like the US and the UK, and an uncertain business environment, have deepened the worry lines in the industry.

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Delhi joined the growing chorus of opposition against the highest 28 per cent GST rate, saying a high rate would encourage black marketing.

The Congress-ruled states have been demanding rationalisation of GST rates to bring down the peak tax rate from current 28 per cent.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who is here to attend the crucial meeting of the GST Council, said lower tax rates should have been implemented from July 1, when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was rolled out.

"Tax rates should have been set lower from July 1itself and I have said that 28 per cent tax rate means you are encouraging black marketing," he said.

The Congress-ruled states of Punjab and Karnataka, and UT Puducherry have demanded complete overhaul of the GST rate structure and simplification of the procedures.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said the peak tax rate should be 18 per cent except for one or two demerit items, which could attract a higher 28 per cent tax.

"But most of the items were brought under the 28 per cent category (under GST) which the Congress is not agreeing to," he said.

Also, the tax return filing procedure in GST is cumbersome, he said.

Common use goods are being charged 28 per cent tax, he said, adding construction industry, toiletries are all charged the peak tax rate.

"Common man is affected. GST was brought to simplify procedures and to facilitate common people to purchase items" but that is not happening, he added.

Sisodia said limits imposed for availing of the composition scheme need to be widely discussed, with a separate structure for SMEs.

"I have always said bring real estate in GST because if you put 28 per cent on construction activities and then suddenly it goes into a black hole because there's no counting of where that is going," he said.

On returns filing, he said the Delhi government was in favour of quarterly filings instead of current mandate for three different forms being submitted every month.

"The current return filing system has created confusion among businesses."



Sisodia said petroleum products, alcohol and real estate should be brought under the GST as it is one nation, one tax and such items cannot be kept out of the regime.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, opposition Congress and its leaders have been targeting the government over difficulties faced by some businesses under the GST regime, with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi even calling it a 'Gabbar-Singh Tax'.

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal said his state wants rationalisation of tax rate, simplification of procedures and removing glitches in GST-Network.

The Congress, he said, was in favour of inclusion of petrol, diesel, natural gas, ATF and crude oil in the GST.

The five products along with alcohol have been kept out of GST for now.

Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the Congress had earlier asked that the GST rate should not be more than 18 per cent but the government went ahead with the five tax rate slabs of 0, 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.

The GST Council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is meeting here to consider pruning the list of items in the 28 per cent tax bracket.

Haryana Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu said the meetings cannot be related to any election because GST Council is represented by states and the Centre.

"The same spirit of unanimity should continue," he said.

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Denmark, which has historic links with nearby Tarangambadi, was keen on strengthening its cultural ties with India, a top official of Danish Cultural Institute said today.

Secretary General of the Denmark-based institute Michael Metz Morch, on a two-day visit to the coastal town, said Tarangambadi, an erstwhile Danish colony, was now serving as the primary cultural link between the two countries.

He was speaking to reporters after visiting various monuments of the Danish era such as the Dansborg Fort,the New Jerusalem Church, Asias oldest protestant church, the Danish Governor's Bungalow and the Maritime Museum at Tarangambadi.

Morch, who was accompanied by officials of Denmark Embassy in New Delhi, said the Danish Cultural Institute was working to create, strengthen and support cultural exchanges between his country and the rest of the world.

"We are keen on strengthening Denmark's cultural ties with India," he said adding the importance and uniqueness of the Danish era monuments at Tarangambadi should be propagated more among the masses across the globe.

Danish Cultural Institute is a self-governing institution enaged in fostering mutual understanding between people and cultures since 1940



Earlier, the Secretary General was briefed about the heritage restoration and cultural exchange projects undertaken at Tarangambadi by the 'Danish Tranquebar Association', a voluntary organisation in Denmark comprising group of prominent Danish citizens.

Curator of the Archeological Museum at Tarangambadi Baskar and Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation's Tourist Officer in Tiruvarur Madhavan were among the Tamil Nadu Government officials who accompanied Morch.

Tarangambadi become a Danish settlment nearly 400 years ago after traders from Denmark arrived there. They built the majestic 'Dansborg' Fort in 1620 AD, designing it on the splendid Viking architecture. The town was earlier known as 'Tranquebar'.

The fort, situated right at the sea-front, barely about 100 metres away from the waters, was renovated in 2002 by the Danish Tranquebar Association in association with the Archealogical Survey of India.

With all the Danish monuments and Ozone-rich clean beach, the coastal town is now fast emerging as one of the preferred destinations in the heritage tourism map, attracting tourists, including a large numbers of overseas travellers.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today held talks with her Congolese counterpart Leonard She Okitundu and discussed ways to strengthen bilateral ties with the African nation.

Okitundu also handed over a letter by his President Joseph Kabila Kabange addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Strengthening our warm & friendly bilateral relations, EAM @SushmaSwaraj welcoming the Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo Leonard She Okitundu to India. India was among the first countries to open a diplomatic mission in Kinshasa in 1962," Swaraj tweeted.

India has undertaken several developmental projects in Congo. The bilateral trade between the two sides was nearly USD 415 million in 2015-16, according to the Ministry of External Affairs.

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"Gossip Girl" actor Ed Westwick has denied second rape allegation, saying he is cooperating with the authorities to clear his name.

In a statement posted on social media Westwick, 30, said, "It is disheartening and sad to me that as a result of two unverified and provably untrue social media claims, there are some in this environment who could ever conclude I have had anything to do with such vile and horrific conduct," he wrote on Instagram and Twitter.

"I have absolutely not, and I am cooperating with the authorities so that they can clear my name as soon as possible."



Westwick, who also previously denied Cohen's account, is currently being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department after Cohen filed a sexual assault report Tuesday.

Wynn, whose stage name was Aurelie Marie Cao, alleged in a Facebook post that Westwick sexually assaulted her in July 2014 while she was visiting the actors rented home.

"I said no and he pushed me face down and (I) was powerless under his weight. I was wearing a one piece bathing suit that he ripped, I was in complete shock," he said.

Wynn said she told her then-boyfriend, former "Glee" actor Mark Salling, that she "got raped."



"When he found out by who he pretended not to know him, then blamed me for it and broke it off with me," she added.

Earlier, Cohen, who has played minor roles in several movies and TV series, had alleged that Westwick raped her while she was visiting the actor at his apartment with her then-boyfriend, whom she referred to as a producer who was friends with Westwick.

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Security forces today arrested eight naxals, seven of them allegedly involved in kidnapping of villagers in September this year, from Sukma district in Chhattisgarh, police said.

The rebels, all lower-rung cadres, were nabbed from the forest of Chintagufa police station limits when a joint team of security forces was out on a search operation, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Dantewada range) Sundarraj P told PTI.

Troops belonging to Special Task Force (STF), District Reserve Guard (DRG), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) and district force were involved in the operation, he added.

Of the arrested, Sodhi Budhra (24), Sodhi Vegur (38), Sodhi Hadma (24), Madvi Deva (25), Dirdo Pojja (23), Dirdo Pandu (19) and Madvi Kosa (36), were allegedly involved in the abduction of at least 10 villagers, including woman sarpanch of Chintagufa, Podiyam Muye, and the woman deputy sarpanch, between September 15-19 this year, the DIG said.

However, all the villagers, who were held hostage, were released on September 20, he added.

All the seven ultras were active as members of Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangthan (DAKMS)- a frontal wing of Maoists while another arrested ultra- Podiyam Somda (28) was a militia member, he said.

Cases of naxal-related incidents, including attacks on police party, attempt to murder and riots were also registered against the arrested ultras with Chintagufa police station, he said adding that their interrogation was on.

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A four-storeyed residential building in southeast Delhi's Jasola was demolished by civic authorities after it had "tilted dangerously", authorities said today.

The families were evacuated and after which it was brought down yesterday, South Delhi Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said.

Police authorities said that the SDMC was informed yesterday about the building after it had "tilting dangerously".

The mayor said the structure was brought down on the side of a nullah. Efforts are on to clear the drain of debris and restore normal flow.

Fire department officials said they were informed about the building yesterday and had sent a vehicle. The area was cordoned off.

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UNESCO member states today overwhelmingly approved the nomination of France's former culture minister Audrey Azoulay to head the embattled cultural agency.

They confirmed the nomination by the agency's board last month of Azoulay, 45, who becomes UNESCO's second woman director general.

"The unity you have shown in this vote is a good omen for the coming period, in which we need to stand shoulder to shoulder," Azoulay told the members after garnering 131 votes with only 19 opposed.

She said she had "great faith" in UNESCO, which "bears the genuine power to transform the world."



Azoulay said members were "clear-sighted as to the organisation's difficulties (but) know how irreplaceable and essential it is in the face of our world's challenges."



Azoulay, who was culture minister under former president Francois Hollande, succeeds Irina Bokova, who was UNESCO's first woman director and whose second term expires this month.

Azoulay narrowly defeated Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari of Qatar, also a former culture minister, in last month's politically charged election.

Al-Kawari failed to pick up support from other Gulf states which are part of a Saudi-led coalition blockading Qatar.

The campaign was also overshadowed by Washington's announcement that it planned to withdraw from the Paris-based body after years of tensions over decisions seen as critical of Israel.

In the face of the Arab divisions, France presented Azoulay, who is Jewish of Moroccan origin, as a consensus figure who could mend fences and soothe tensions with Israel.

She also faces the daunting job of reforming the agency struggling under the weight of a bureaucracy that has become unwieldy over the seven decades since it was founded.

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Hundreds of followers of Rampal created a din at a function attended by President Ram Nath Kovind here today, vociferously demanding the release of the self-styled godman, and a CBI probe into allegations against him.

In a bid to pacify them, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan asked Rampal's followers to submit a memorandum listing their demands.

They promptly handed over the memorandum to officials present there who gave it to Chouhan. The chief minister handed over the document to Kovind on the dais itself.

Chouhan remarked from the stage, "Everybody has the right to speak in a democracy."



As soon as the president came on stage for the 'Kabir Mahotsav', Rampal's followers, drawn from different parts of Madhya Pradesh, began noisily demanding the religious guru's release and CBI probe into the charges against him.

When Chouhan was speaking before the president, they made so much noise that the chief minister had to request them for calm.

Rajesh Nauriya (38), a disciple of the self-styled godman, said, "Rampal is an ardent follower of Kabir. Why he is being ill-treated?"



"A CBI probe should be conducted into the allegations against our guru and he should be set free," he said.

Bhopal Collector Sudam Khade said he does not know the details of the memorandum. "I only know they have demanded some CBI probe."



Asked how so many Rampal followers could enter the event venue, Lal Parade Ground, Khade told PTI they were all 'Kabir Panthis' (followers of the 15th century Indian mystic poet and saint).

It was only after Kovind accepted the memorandum peace could be restored.

On August 29, a court in Haryana acquitted Rampal, arrested in 2014, in two criminal cases. However, he continues to remain in jail since there are other cases pending against him.

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A major association of the Gorkhas today demanded that a national level movement has to be organised to achieve the demand for Gorkhaland, a separate state for the Gorkhas in Darjeeling hills.

The issue of separate state for Gorkhas is not only for the Gorkhas of Darjeeling but it is for the Gorkhas spread across the country, said National Spokesperson of Gorkhaland Sanyukta Sangharsh Samity (GSSS), Anjali Sharma Bhujel.

"We have to prove that the Gorkhas in every corner of India supports the Gorkhaland movement," she said adding that the issue of separate Gorkhaland state has to be unitedly taken up at the national level.

"The Government of India will not be able to ignore the national level movement, and therefore we need to knit a common thread and sent a strong message to the Centre and Government of West Bengal that Gorkhas will continue to protect their pride and rights," Bhujel said.

She was addressing a coordination meeting of the GSSS in which members of the Nagaland Gorkha Association took part.

"We will not remain silent unless and until we achieve the aspiration of the Gorkhas," she said.

Anjali said GSSS is planning a 'Sansad March' to let the voice of the Gorkhas be heard by the MPs during the winter session of the Parliament.

The GSSS had brought out a rally in New Delhi in July to reinforce their demand for a separate state and imposition of President's Rule in West Bengal when the Gorkhaland agitation was at its peak in Darjeeling hills.

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Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Our country will start a pilot program before the end of June, 2018 to loosen the restrictions on foreign firms investment ratio in special use and new energy vehicles businesses established in our free trade zones, according to a statement of the foreign ministry issued after the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping.

According to the existing rules, foreign automakers should set up joint ventures with local counterparts if they want to produce locally. The foreign companies can have up to 50 percent stake of the joint ventures in China. If the cap can be lifted, it would be landmark departure from the current policy.

Whats more, our government will cut vehicle tariffs on vehicles step by step. Currently, the imported vehicles to China will be levied 25 percent duty.

In October, Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla has reached an agreement with Shanghai to set up a wholly owned factory in the citys free-trade zone and that the automaker still needs to pay for 25 percent import tariff. Days later, the spokesman of the Commerce Department confirmed the American automakers discussion with Shanghai government.

The ease on the control will help the American electric car maker to expand its market share in the biggest auto market across the world. And also its factory in China will slash its manufacturing and transportation cost.

During U.S. President Donald Trumps three-day visit to China, companies on both sides announced many deals, approximately 250 billion dollars in value.
Kolkata today evening witnessed the creation of a green corridor for around 13-km stretch to facilitate the transplantation of kidneys and liver of a brain-dead female patient.

The 57-year-old patient was declared brain-dead yesterday at a private hospital in southern part of the city where she was admitted with a spontaneous subarachnoid, intracerebral and intraventricular hemorrhage.

Last evening, a team of Neurologists at the private hospital under the supervision of observers from the state health department, declared her brain-dead. Following this, a consent was taken from her family members for the donation of organs for life-saving transplantations, a senior official at the state health department said.

The additional director of state health services and nodal officer for the state organ transplant coordinated the entire process of declaration of brain death, counselling of relatives and appropriate dedication of organs to the different recipients as per the waiting lists, he added.

One of the two kidneys and the liver were dedicated to IPGMER/SSKM hospital while the other kidney and the heart were dedicated to the private hospital where she was admitted.

A surgical team from the private hospital and IPGMER carried out the organ retrievals before transporting one kidney and liver through the green corridor created by the Kolkata Police, the official said.

"One traffic Sergeant accompanied the vehicle which took the organs to the SSKM hospital this evening. It took only 13 minutes for the vehicle to reach the hospital," DC Traffic V Solomon Nesakumar told PTI.

It was learnt that a suitable recipient for the heart was identified, with a compatible 'O' negative blood group in Ranchi. Due to logistical difficulties, the recipient was not able to travel to Kolkata on time.

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Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar today said the state government is adopting best farm technologies, including micro-irrigation of Israel, so as to make the agriculture profitable.

A good combination of best practices of less land, less water and less cost can increase the productivity and make farming profitable, Khattar said.

He was addressing the farmers after inaugurating 'Integrated Bee-keeping Development Centre' set up under Indo-Israel project under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture at Ramnagar, here.

This project, being claimed as the country's first, has been set up on 25 acres of land at a cost of Rs 10.5 crore.

Describing Israeli farm technologies as best, the chief minister said that four Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence in the areas of vegetables, fruits and bee-keeping had already been established in the state and two another such centres of fruits and dairy sector were under process.

He urged the farmers to adopt best practices to make agriculture profitable.

There are 13 bee-breeders in these centre which would be increased to 32 by next year. The state government is providing subsidy of Rs 4 lakh per bee-breeder.

He also appreciated the initiatives of Agriculture and Farmer's Welfare Department for replicating world's best farm practices in Haryana for betterment of farming community.

"This will certainly help in realizing the vision of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi to double the income of farmers by year 2022," he added. Khattar also exhorted the farmers to diversify and also take up organic farming to earn more profit on less land and increase soil fertility. The chief minister honoured 28 farmers on this occasion.

He also invited Israeli Ambassador Daniel Carmon to participate in International Gita Mahotsav being observed in Kurukshetra fromNovember 25 to 30. Speaking on the occasion, Carmon said that the objective to set up this centre was to empower the farmers.

He said that Israel will hold a conference on agro-technologies in May 2018.

He invited the Chief Minister saying that "we hope Chief Minister to see you soon in Israel to reflect our emerging partnership and friendship".

"Our growing partnership will continue to grow as sweet as the honey produced in this bee-keeping centre," he added.

Haryana's agriculture minister O P Dhankar said that after this centre, state government would replicate the dairy technology of Israel at Hisar in Haryana.

A team of experts from Israel would visit Haryana in the month of December for this purpose, he said.

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HBO has decided that they will no longer be working with Louis C K, who was recently accused of sexual misconduct by five women in a New York Times expose.

" will no longer be participating in the 'Night of Too Many Stars America Unites' for Autism Programs. In addition, HBO is removing Louis C K's past project from its On Demand services," a spokesperson for the network told Us Weekly in a statement.

As previously reported, comedians Dana Min Goodman, Julia Wolov, Abby Schachner and a woman who spoke under the condition of anonymity told the publication that the producer masturbated in front of him.

C K joins Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Steven Seagal, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Piven and more males in Hollywood who have been accused of sexual harassment throughout the past month.

FX Networks has also issued a statement Us regarding the claims, "We are obviously very troubled by the allegations about Louis C.K. published in The New York Times today. The network has received no allegations of misconduct by related to any of our 5 shows produced tougher over the past 8 years.

"FX Networks and FCP take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace. That said, the matter is currently under review.
The Delhi High Court has asked the police to produce before it a juvenile accused of raping a five-year-old girl in 2013.

Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal issued the order after the court was informed the minor, who was granted bail in June by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) here, was not traceable now.

The court was told that the notice issued to him were not served on his address in Bihar. Taking note of which, the court asked the investigating officer to find the juvenile and produce before it.

The police, meanwhile, in its status report to the court said they have conducted an enquiry about the date of birth of the 'child in conflict with law' (CCL) and according to the school record it was April 26, 1998.

"He was admitted in the first standard of the school on April 8, 2005 and his name is in the admission register. The attendance register is also checked and found that he often used to attend class. After class one, there is no record of the CCL in the school," the police said.

The police response came in the backdrop of the court's notice issued to them and the two accused - Manoj Shah and the juvenile - while hearing a plea filed by the girl's mother against the transfer of the case to JJB on April 12.

The court posted the matter for November 30 for further hearing.

"The order declaring one of the accused a juvenile is bad in law and unsustainable on multiple grounds," the girl's mother said in her petition filed through advocate Prabhsahay Kaur.

She said the ossification test conducted in February 2014, according to which the age of the accused was 20-22 years, was completely ignored by the trial court.

Even if the benefit of one year was granted to the accused, he would still be a major. His age was not found to be borderline, leaving no scope of doubt on his juvenility, Kaur, who was assisted by advocate Shilpa Dewan, submitted.

The plea challenged the trial court's decision to transfer the case solely on the basis of a headmaster's statement, who claimed to be the in-charge of the school where the juvenile had studied, in the nature of a mere declaration.

The petition contended that the sessions judge failed to complete the trial of the case, registered in 2013, within a year as mandated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) but took three years to merely decide an application of juvenility of the accused.

Manoj, lodged in judicial custody, and the juvenile are accused of raping the girl and shoving off foreign objects in her private parts on April 15, 2013 in Gandhi Nagar area in East Delhi. The juvenile is facing trial before JJB.

The child was rescued 40 hours later on April 17, 2013.

The accused had fled after committing the crime, leaving the girl behind in Shah's room believing her to be dead. They were later arrested from Bihar.

The police said some foreign material - three pieces of a candle and one hair oil bottle - was taken out of the body of the victim and this was also proved by doctors during recording of their statements in the court.

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The Allahabad High Court today directed the Union Home Ministry to file a response within four weeks on a petition moved by BJP MLA Sangeet Singh Som seeking Z plus security cover.

A Lucknow bench of justices D K Upadhyay and Rajesh Singh Chauhan passed the order on the writ petition of Som.

According to his lawyer Mudit Agrawal, Z plus category security is required for Som due to the security threat to him from terrorists.

The court directed the Centre to file a counter affidavit within four weeks and further granted two weeks to the petitioner to file a rejoinder affidavit within next two weeks, fixing the matter after six weeks for hearing.

The BJP MLA from Sardhana was recently in for his controversial statement on Taj Mahal.

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The Madras High Court today directed the Tamil Nadu government to ensure that the differently-abled persons had an equal access to education and to include a topic on disabilities in the school curriculum from the next academic year.

One L Muruganandam had filed a PIL, seeking proper facilities and an easy access for the differently-abled in all the educational institutions, buildings and campuses in Tamil Nadu, besides automated motorised wheelchairs for them, among others.

He had also sought a direction to the state and central government authorities concerned in this regard.

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, said, "The state government shall ensure that the differently-abled have an equal access to education."



"Admission in an educational institution shall be ensured in respect of the differently-abled, not only to the special educational institutions for them but also to some educational institutions for general students, so that the differently- abled children can mingle with and be brought up along with the general students," the bench said.

It also observed that the state government should conduct awareness campaigns and sensitisation programmes for the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities in schools, colleges and professional institutions.

This should be done immediately in consultation with the chief commissioner or state commissioner for differently-abled persons, in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority and district legal services authorities, it said.

The bench further said the programmes and campaigns should promote tolerance, empathy and respect for the differently-abled.

It also directed that such orientation and sensitisation programmes be conducted for employers and administrators too.

Posting the matter for further hearing to December 4, the bench directed the state government to file a status report on the implementation of the order.

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Describing Delhi's air pollution as a "national problem", West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today expressed support for her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and said the Centre should discuss with neighbouring states to find a solution.

The national capital has been experiencing "severe" air quality under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels have breached the permissible standards by multiple times.

"Global warming is a problem. Delhi pollution a disaster. Instead of blaming each other, I suggest Centre sit with CMs of neighbouring states Punjab, Haryana Delhi - to solve problem. Only to accuse Delhi CM is not solution," Banerjee wrote on her Twitter handle.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recorded "severe" air quality in Delhi, implying that the intensity of pollution was extreme.

"It's a national problem and we need to find a solution," she said.

Dense smog continued to hang over Delhi and the National Capital Region for the fourth day today, leaving people gasping for breath during the morning hours.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a slew of directions to deal with the worsening air quality in Delhi and neighbouring states, banning construction and industrial activities and entry of trucks, even as it criticised the Delhi government and civic bodies over the situation.

The NGT ordered Punjab, UP and Haryana governments to spell out the steps have they taken to prevent crop burning in states adjacent to the national capital.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also sent out notices to the Centre and governments of the three states in view of the "life-threatening" pollution levels.

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Sanitaryware player HSIL today reported a 19.73 per cent decline in its net profit at Rs 23.50 crore for the September quarter.

The company had posted a net profit at Rs 28.54 crore during the same period previous fiscal, Hindustan Sanitaryware and Industry (HSIL), which sells products under the Hindware brand, said in a regulatory filing.

Besides, the company announced demerger of its consumer products distribution and marketing business into new entity Somany Home Innovation Ltd (SHIL).

It also demerged its furniture and home decor retail business into SHIL as also the distribution and marketing business relating to building product into another new entity Brilloca Ltd which is wholly-owned subsidiary of SHIL.

The undertakings being demerged are focused on servicing end-consumers in the market and are involved in branding, marketing, sales, distribution, trading, service etc, the company said.

"The scheme of demerger once implemented will significantly unlock the value of the respective businesses of HSIL and will support the long term growth," HSIL Ltd Vice Chairman and Managing Director Sandip Somany said.

HSIL stock closed 2.02 per cent up at Rs 477.05 on BSE.

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Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) has launched a doctoral programme in Entrepreneurship, leveraging its expertise in mentoring and incubating entrepreneurs and start-ups.

The PhD programme in Entrepreneurship aims at providing an impetus to the increasing need for scholarly research in entrepreneurship and to create a vibrant pool of faculty specialising in that domain, said Professor Rejie George Pallathitta, Chairperson, Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) at IIMB.

The FPM is IIMB's doctoral programme.

India is an emerging hub for entrepreneurship and over the years, entrepreneurship has had its share of ups and downs, with many sectors potentially facing uncertainties of the unknown, IIMB said.

Pegged as a significant initiative that would redefine India's business and job ecosystem, entrepreneurship demands extensive research to aid a better understanding of the different cultures that it has given rise too, with implications on business performance and sustenance of incomes, it said in a release here.

It said while there is a lot of discussion on how entrepreneurship is going to disrupt the future, there is a still a paucity of rigorous research on the subject.

Prof K Kumar, Chairperson, Academic Programmes at the NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) and senior faculty at IIMB said, there is also a strong movement the world over to incorporate entrepreneurship as part of the curriculum of general and mainstream education.

IIMB is the first management school in the country to offer an FPM with a specialisation in entrepreneurship, he said.

He said IIMB has deep academic expertise in entrepreneurship, faculty who are active researchers in the field of entrepreneurship, who bring state-of-the-art knowledge to impact the practice of entrepreneurship through its education and incubation programmes.

At IIMB, the doctoral programme takes typically five years to complete, the first two years being for coursework.

IIMB is in close proximity to some of the leading corporate houses in the country, ranging from information technology to consumer product companies, it noted.

Additionally, IIMB has established its own incubating centre NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL).

At present, NSRCEL incubates 18 start-ups - the largest number for an incubation centre in an academic institution, it said, adding, 100 plus ventures are supported by the centre and 15,000 plus entrepreneurs are engaged, with 4,500 plus jobs created so far.

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The commerce ministry today said that for the first time the RCEP summit is taking place at the Head of Government level in Manila on November 14 to offer guidance to negotiators.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega trade pact among 16 countries, which aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

"This is for the first time that RCEP Summit is taking place at the Head of Government level on 14th November 2017 in Manila to give guidance to the negotiators," the ministry said in a tweet.

So far, 20 rounds of negotiations have concluded since 2012.

India is aiming to achieve comparable ambition in all key pillars of RCEP negotiations and seek balanced outcomes, it added.

The 16-member bloc RCEP comprises 10 ASEAN members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Talks for the pact had started in Phnom Penh in November 2012. India already has implemented a free trade agreement with the ASEAN, Japan and South Korea.

The country is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand.

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The Flagstaff Arts Council will host the 17th annual 'It's Elemental' Exhibition at the Coconino Center for the Arts. This exhibition showcases works by Northern Arizona craftspeople, with one-of-a-kind pieces displaying various mediums. It's Elemental 2017 will be on display Nov. 14-Dec. 16, and features jewelry, ceramics, glasswork, wood, furniture, fabric, sculpture and more.

A public opening reception is set for Saturday, Nov. 11, 6-8 p.m. All attendees will be entered into a raffle to win a gift certificate for $160 towards artwork in the show.

Then, on Dec. 2 and 3, there will be an associated fine craft sale. The sale will be Saturday, Dec. 2, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 3, from noon-4, at the Coconino Center for the Arts. The fine craft sale will feature 20 local artists in a marketplace setting. Handmade art and fine craft on sale in the marketplace will include: jewelry, clothing, pottery, ornaments, glass work, unique gifts, scarves, hats, gloves, wood work, lamps, and more. During the sale there will be artist demonstrations, music and hot apple cider and cookies and a Christmas Tree with affordable ornaments made by local artists.

For more information, visit flagartscouncil.org. Coconino Center for the Arts is located at 2300 N. Fort Valley Road.

Go back in time at Murder Mystery Dinner Theater

Its Prohibition at Charlys Speakeasy at the Weatherford Hotel on Saturday, Nov. 11. The year is 1926 and Flagstaff is suffering the effects of the 18th Amendment. Or is it? Babbitt Riordan is hosting a party for his good friend Don Guido.

Mobsters and their molls are gathered to hear the biggest secret to hit the country since it went dry. But when a body hits the floor, Elliott Mess of the FBI shows up. Everyone is a suspect as accusations fly and the interrogations begin. Was it Gina Fettuccini with a stake of Asiago cheese through the heart? Or was it Vinnie Testosteroni with that violin case? Match wits with Elliott Mess as he searches for the killer. Everyone is a suspect  including you.

Canyon Moon will present the Murder Mystery Dinner Theater "SpeakEasy of Death" Saturday at 6 p.m. Tickets are $50. There is limited seating; for tickets call 779-1919 x 430. Murder Mystery Dinner includes the performance and a four-course meal complete with dessert. Drinks, taxes, and gratuity not included. This event is a benefit for Canyon Moon Theatre and Theatrikids.
The BSF "strongly" raised the issue of unprovoked firing, killing of civilians and usage of tunnels for cross-border crimes along the Indo-Pak border during a high-level meeting with their counterparts-- Pakistan Rangers -- that concluded here today.

The Rangers, led by their DG (Sindh) Maj Gen Muhammad Saeed, had arrived in India on November 8 as part of the bi- annual talks with the Border Security Force (BSF), which was led by its Director General K K Sharma.

The visiting delegation went back this afternoon.

"The Indian side firmly and strongly took up specific issues of concern including incidents of unprovoked cross- border firing, smuggling of narcotics, infiltration attempts, tunneling and defence construction activities," the BSF said in a statement.

A senior officer privy to the talks said the BSF also asked the Rangers to take steps and ensure that their land is not used by terrorists to infiltrate into India.

It specifically underlined the discovery of a number of tunnels along the International Border in the Jammu region that are used by the other side to facilitate cross-border smuggling and infiltration, the officer said.

While the Pakistani delegation raised the issue of targeted firing by the BSF, it was made clear that such an action is resorted to when unprovoked firing from the other side kills troops, civilians or leads to other damage.

The BSF statement said the talks, in presence of officials from the home ministry and anti-narcotics departments of the two countries, were held in a "constructive atmosphere" and the need for cooperation to maintain the sanctity of the borders was stressed upon.

"The issue of inadvertent crossing over by the border population and ways to facilitate their return on both the sides was also discussed," it said.

The BSF said it was agreed between the two sides that "utmost caution and care should be exercised in dealing with the civilians."



The officer said the two sides also stressed on the need to have an "increased frequency" of field commanders meeting along the Indo-Pak International Border (IB) and the requirement of timely exchange of information.

"The on-ground flag meetings between the junior commanders, commanding officers and other senior officers has been going on, but it was stressed to have them timely and quickly, especially when such meetings are essential to thrash out issues," the officer said.

The two sides also decided to ensure that the wild growth of the 'Sarkanda' (elephant grass) along the IB will be checked and it will be disposed off within the existing norms.

"The talks ended with both sides agreeing on constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders," the statement said.

The next round of these talks is scheduled to be held in Pakistan.

India's 3,323-km-long border with Pakistan runs through four states-- Jammu and Kashmir (1,225 km which includes 740 km of Line of Control), Rajasthan (1,037 km), Punjab (553 km) and Gujarat (508 km).

While the BSF guards the International Border (IB) independently, it works under the operational command of the army while working at the LOC.

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Income Tax sleuths today continued their raids for the second day in premises linked to jailed AIADMK leader V K Sasikala and her kin over suspected tax evasion during which eight persons were arrested for allegedly preventing the searches.

The searches, which began in 187 locations yesterday in multiple cities including at Tamil channel Jaya TV here and its associates, continued in "some premises" for the second day, said a senior official of the Income Tax department.

However, it has been concluded in other locations, the official said.

Some documents and cash have also been seized during the searches, the official told PTI.

Backed with inputs including those from Finance Ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit, the raids were being conducted following allegations covering various aspects.

This included suspicion of shell companies, dubious investments, suspicious fund flow and its transfers and fudging of accounts.

A report from Thanjavur, quoting police, said eight persons were arrested for allegedly preventing income tax officials from discharging their duty and entering into a wordy duel.

When staffers of a college near Thanjavur, which is reportedly linked to Sasikala's kin, went to the extent of "frisking the baggage" of tax officials, it led to heated exchanges between them, leading to their arrest, police said.

Yesterday, Dhinakaran, the deposed AIADMK deputy general secretary, condemned the searches as a "conspiracy" and criticised the Centre.

Jaya TV premises in Chennai and Dhinakaran's farm house were searched as part of 'Operation Clean Money,' under which premises belonging to ten Income Tax assessee groups were searched.

Of the 187 premises searched on Thursday, most of it were in Tamil Nadu, a handful in Hyderabad, three in New Delhi, and one in Bengaluru.

Dubbing the searches a "conspiracy", Dhinakaran alleged it was to oust him and his jailed aunt from politics.

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India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the ICJ as the UN could not decide between them after electing four out of five judges to the World Court.

The 193 members of the UN General Assembly and 15 of the Security Council will reconvene on Monday to decide between Bhandari, 70, and Greenwood, 62.

Based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Established in 1945, the role of the ICJ is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, Antnio Augusto Canado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nation's ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

The ICJ, on India's petition in May, stayed the execution of Indian national and former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on the charge of "spying".

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A 29-year-old Indian doctor has pleaded guilty to groping a minor girl who was sitting next to him on a New Jersey-bound United Airlines flight, according to officials.

Vijaykumar Krishnappa, a physician, was flying from Seattle on July 23 when he allegedly assaulted a 16-year-old girl sitting next to him.

Krishnappa appeared before a federal magistrate in Newark on Wednesday.

Krishnappa intentionally assaulted a girl who was unknown to him and seated next to him on the flight. Krishnappa admitted that while the victim was asleep, he intentionally touched her near her groin over her leggings without her consent, Acting US Attorney William E Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

Under terms of a plea agreement, the Indian national will be sentenced to between 30 and 90 days in prison in January.

The minor girl, who was travelling, was asleep on the flight, when a stranger's hand on her thigh awakened her.

Krishnappa, sitting next to her quickly removed his hand, according to a federal court complaint, and the teenager went back to sleep. Then, she woke up again and this time, the man was groping her, the complaint said.

She reported the incident to the airline crew and was allowed to move seats.

Once the flight from Seattle landed at Newark Liberty International Airport, the girl, from Washington state, called her parents. While she did, the accused left the airport, said Johnny McCray, an attorney for the girl's family.

The girl's family filed a complaint against United Airlines for neglecting to detain Krishnappa after the alleged assault, the report said.

The FBI was called to handle the investigation. It used the flight manifest to track down Krishnappa. The girl identified him from a photo array.

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Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi today hailed the Indian judiciary as the strongest and most transparent justice system in the world, and said the people have more confidence in it than any other Constitutional institution of the country.

Addressing the 18th International Conference of Chief Justices and Justices of the World here, the Union minister for minority affairs said every citizen, irrespective of his or her region, religion, caste and financial status is equal in the eyes of the Indian judiciary.

"The confidence of the public in the Indian judiciary has been more than any other constitutional institutions," he said.

It is the beauty and strength of the Indian judiciary that from time to time the voices of change and reform emerge from within, he said. "Due to all this, the judiciary of India is an example for the entire world."



The minister said terrorism and radicalism have become the biggest challenge for the entire world and judicial systems across the globe can play a major role in tackling these problems.

He hailed the Indian judiciary as independent, one of the strongest and most transparent justice systems in the world and said it was honestly fulfilling its responsibilities without any interference, pressure and discrimination.

Naqvi said that pendency of cases was a matter of concern and the Centre and the judiciary are working on it sincerely.

"The Central government is ready for all possible cooperation with the judiciary regarding the disposal of pending cases and other reforms. Our government has taken steps towards reforms in judicial system and more steps needed to be taken," he said.

About 200 chief justices and justices from nearly 60 countries participated in the conference.

Besides India, chief justices, justices and other legal luminaries from the USA, Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, Myanmar, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and other countries attended the conference.

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An Indian-origin doctor from the East Midlands region of England who was arrested for allegedly circumcising a baby boy without his mother's consent has been released without charge.

DrBalvinderMehat, a general practitioner (GP), was accused of carrying out a non-therapeutic circumcision or a procedure for religious rather than medical reasons on the three-month old baby four years ago.

"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deemed that there would be no realistic prospect of conviction, Nottinghamshire Police said, adding that they had thoroughly investigated the incident.

The babys paternal grandmother, believed to belong to the Muslim faith, had taken the baby to Mehats surgery in Nottingham for the procedure in July 2013.

The 61-year-old GP told the police when he was arrested back in June this year that he believed the mother had consented.

The police had also arrested the boy's father and paternal grandmother on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, but they were released without charge as well.

In a letter to the boys mother outlining its decision, the CPS said that had Mehat performed the operation knowing the mother did not consent, his actions may have amounted to an assault.

"He may have failed in his professional obligations to discuss the issue of consent with you. But that in itself is not sufficient for there to be a criminal prosecution," it noted.

The boy's parents are separated and the procedure took place when he was with his fathers family. Now aged four, the boy suffers from a number of recurrent problems, including inflammation and infections, as a result of the circumcision, according to his mother.

"I will fight this until my last breath if I have to, it's the only way I can possibly look my son in his eyes, she told the BBC.

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal is appealing the CPS decision and has written a letter, "outlining numerous defects in their decision-making process and evaluation of this case".

Circumcision is widely practised in both the Jewish and Muslim faiths around the world.

Guidelines from the British Medical Association state that both parents should give consent for any non-therapeutic or "ritual" circumcision of children.

If parents disagree, a doctor may only proceed with the permission of a UK court.

Children old enough to express their opinion should be consulted, and their wishes must be taken into account.

Mehat, based at Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham, has declined to comment due to patient confidentiality rules.

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Six members of an inter- state gang, who allegedly looted more than Rs one crore from around two-dozen ATMs, were today arrested in Punjab's Kapurthala district, police said.

Moreover, Rs 13 lakh cash, two cars and one motorcycle were also seized from the gang, who were nabbed from Sultanpur Lodhi city of the district on a tip-off, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sandeep Kumar Sharma said here.

The gang confessed to have committed 25 ATM robberies in Punjab, one in Ambala, Haryana, and another in Himachal Pradesh, and looted more than Rs one crore after breaking the machines with the help of tools, Sharma said.

The six arrested were identified as Charanjit Singh, Daljit Singh, Balwinder Singh, Suraj Singh, Jagat Narainand Manpreet Singh, the SSP added.

The arrest comes two months after the Kauputhala police busted athree-member inter-state gang, who allegedly looted more than Rs three crore from 55 ATMs.

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Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council chairman Haji Inayat Ali today accepted the resignation of Vikramaditya Singh from its membership.

Singh had resigned from the People's Democratic Party (PDP) as well as the Member of Legislative Council post on October 24 this year.

He had announced his resignation on October 22, saying it was not possible for him to continue with the party which "disregarded the demands and aspirations of the Jammu region".

PDP chief and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti accepted Singh's resignation from the PDP last week.

A notification issued by the Secretary Legislative Council further reads that the seat occupied by Singh has fallen vacant with effect from October 24, 2017.

Singh, the grandson of the last Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh, had joined the PDP in the presence of the late party president Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on August 2015.

He was a member of the State Legislative Council.

"I have sent my resignation to party president Mehbooba Mufti with a request to accept it immediately. I feel that it is neither morally nor ethically right for me to continue as a member of the PDP," Singh has told reporters then.

Singh, son of senior Congress leader Karan Singh, claimed, "I have publicly expressed my concerns for our state in general and Jammu in particular over the last several months but the party has rejected the issues.

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The Jammu and Kashmir Police will get bullet-proof vehicles and jackets for most of its jawans serving in insurgency-hit areas, in view of the recent terror attacks in the Valley, a senior official said today.

As many as 26 cops have been killed in the terror attacks in the Kashmir Valley this year, according to official police data.

"Lots of things are being procured to modernise the police force after recent attacks on policemen by terrorists, and the Ministry of Home Affairs was kind enough to take swift action and sanctioned bullet-proof vehicles for almost all the police stations and senior officers," Director General of Police (DGP) J-K, S P Vaid told PTI.

He said the bullet-proof jackets and headgears (patkas) are also under procurement and police modernisation is taking place.

"Around 150 bullet-proof vehicles are being procured and bullet-proof jackets and headgears (patkas) are being given to most of the jawans in insurgency-hit areas," the DGP said.

He said there is a lot of support from the state and the central government.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Jammu and Kashmir, he had announced Rs 500 crores for the modernisation of the Jammu and Kashmir Police under the prime minister development programme and that is under procurement.

Most of the top militant commanders, including Masood Azhar's nephew, Jaish-e-Mohammad Mehmood Bhai, Lashkar-e- Taiba's Abu Dujana and WaseemShah, and Burhan Wani's successor Sabzar AhmadBhat of Hizbul Mujahideen, were among 170 terrorists killed inencounters with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir this year.

The DGP said that roughly 170 militants have been killed this year only (in Kashmir) and this is the record of last ten years.

"Except four to five commanders, most of the commanders have been eliminated," he said.

On cops joining militancy, he said that two police personnel joining militancy has come to his notice.

"We are looking into the causes, there are various reasons. After all the police is also part of the same society and you can get influenced. You live in the same society, same villages. It is not a serious challenge," he added.

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PHOENIX -- Attorneys for the state House contend the chamber has the right to investigate charges of sexual harassment against Rep. Don Shooter -- and even discipline him if lawmakers find him guilty -- even though the Yuma Republican was not a representative at the time of the alleged incidents.

Matt Specht, spokesman for House GOP leadership, said the rules of the chamber specifically say that the House "may punish its members for disorderly behavior.'' And the Arizona Constitution even allows for a member to be expelled if two-thirds of his or her colleagues agree.

"Do you see anything in House rules suggesting that it is not broad enough to cover behavior that occurred before House membership?'' he asked.

But attorney Paul Bender, who teaches constitutional law at Arizona State University, told Capitol Media Services that it may be an error to interpret those rules to allow the House to punish someone for things that were done before a lawmaker took office.

The questions come as House Speaker J.D. Mesnard on Thursday appointed seven staffers to an investigative team to look into not only the charges leveled by Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, against Shooter. There is also a claim by lobbyist Marilyn Rodriguez that Shooter touched her inappropriately.

Separately, Reps. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, and Winona Benally, D-Window Rock, have filed complaints accusing Shooter of inappropriate behavior. And Majority Whip Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, said she, too, has been the victim of unwanted sexual comments, though not from Shooter.

The panel will also review claims by Shooter that Ugenti-Rita herself is guilty of unethical conduct, at least in part because she entered into a romantic relationship with a House staffer.

Mesnard chose two staff attorneys who are considered to be nonpartisan: Tim Fleming who is the attorney in charge of rules and Jim Drake, the chief clerk of the House; also present are the top lawyers for both parties in the House and additional partisan staffers, though the Republicans outnumber Democrats by one.

But that still leaves the question of what allegations can be investigated -- and what can be done if they find Shooter guilty of "disorderly behavior.''

The most serious allegations against Shooter, leveled by Ugenti-Rita, occurred while he was still in the state Senate. That includes comments about her breasts, showing up at her hotel room door with a six-pack of Coronas, and proclamations of wanting to be with her while telling her he was a "very powerful senator.''

Senate President Steve Yarbrough said his chamber lost any jurisdiction over Shooter after he moved from the Senate at the beginning of this year. That would leave only the House--where he now serves--with any ability to sanction him if they find him guilty.

The House rules come directly from the Arizona Constitution which says that "each house may punish its members for disorderly behavior, and may, with the concurrence of two-thirds of its members, expel any member.''

Specht acknowledged that the provision does not define "disorderly behavior.''

"House attorneys interpret 'disorderly behavior' to mean any behavior detrimental to the business of the House,'' he told Capitol Media Services. He said that gives lawmakers the discretion to discipline members "for disorderly behavior that affects the business of the House, regardless of when that behavior occurred.''

Specht also noted that there is no statute of limitations within the constitutional provision.

Bender, however, said it's not that simple.

"There may be an argument that because of what he did (before becoming a House member) he's somehow disqualified from serving,'' he said. "But I don't know what that argument would be.''

Where the situation gets murky, Bender said, is what punishment the House seeks to impose if there is a finding of guilt.

He said the constitution and the rules appear to suggest that discipline short of removal on grounds of "disorderly behavior'' can be accomplished by a simple majority vote. Bender said it would appear be improper for just 31 members of the 60-member House to take action against a lawmaker for something that occurred in some cases years before he became a representative.

"I don't think they can discipline him,'' he said.

Bender conceded, though, that the constitutional right of both the House and Senate to eject members may provide a virtual legal carte blanche. He said that would suggest that with 40 votes they could expel a lawmaker for no reason at all, as long as it was not done because of the person's race, gender or any other legally protected status.

Still, he said, an argument might be made that conduct predating a lawmakers service cannot be grounds to take action against that person.

"I don't think any of this is clear,'' Bender said.

Melissa Ho, Shooter's legal counsel, had no comment on the subject.
The Congress in Karnataka today rejected the BJP's charge that AICC general secretary and state-in-charge of party affairs K C Venugopal was involved in a sex scandal linked to the solar scam in Kerala.

Venugopal's name figured in the letter written by accused Saritha S Nair and it was part of the Justice G Sivarajan Commission report, tabled in the Kerala Assembly yesterday.

The report ahead of the Assembly polls in Karnataka early next year has embarrassed the state Congress, with its principal rival BJP raising the issue.

"Venugopal is facing serious charges. Such people should not come to the state. They should be recalled (by the party)," state BJP general secretary Arvind Limbavali said in Mangaluru.

Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara said Venugopal had denied the charge many times and that it was a four-and- half-year old case.

Noting that the report has also been questioned, he said "the accused, the lady (Saritha) has again raised this issue."



He said the woman had gone to courtdemanding a CBI probe, but the Kerala High Court had rejectedthe application, saying that the case is a political gimmick.

The Commission has indicted former chief minister Oommen Chandy along with his personal office staff in the multi-crore solar panel scam, holding they all had "assisted" Saritha in "cheating" customers.

Venugopal has described the charge as false and fabricated, while Chandy has maintained that he has not done anything wrong.

The "solar scam" had rocked the Chandy government before it lost power in May 2016 after reports surfaced in June 2013 that three of the chief minister's office staff were involved in alleged duping of several persons of crores of rupees by Saritha and her accomplice Biju Radhakrishnan by offering solar panel solutions.

The report also includes details of the controversial letter written by Saritha on July 19, 2013, in which she had levelled serious sexual and corruption charges against a dozen Congress leaders, including state and union ministers and two senior IPS officers.

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Representatives of several Kashmiri Pandit organisations today met Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre's special representative for Kashmir, and sought the setting up of an institutional mechanism for the welfare of the displaced community.

Sharma, who was appointed the Centre's point person on Jammu and Kashmir last month, began the second leg of his visit to the state and reached Jammu last evening to hold consultations with various groups and political parties.

He called on Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti last night and discussed ways to reach out to the stakeholders in the state, officials said.

"The displaced Kashmiri Pandits are the biggest stakeholders in their rehabilitation in Kashmir. Therefore, it is they who should have the maximum say in deciding modalities of return and the methodology," the KP representatives said in a joint memorandum submitted to Sharma.

The delegation was led by BJP legislator G L Raina and included leaders from All India Kashmiri Samaj, All India Kashmir Pandit Conference, Jammu and Kashmir National Front, Vichar Manch and Zeishtadevi Prabandik Committee.

"It is our demand that the government put in place (a mechanism) which regularly engages the community in dialogue to work out the agreed principles on return," the memorandum said.

"One way of achieving it is to have a welfare board on the lines of Gujjar Board or Pahari Board with representatives from different districts of the state and a chairman to look into the issues that concern the community," it said.

After meeting Sharma, Raina told reporters that delegation members also raised the issue of encroachment of properties of temples, shrines and cremation grounds.

He criticised the poor implementation of the prime minister's employment package for youths from the community.

The KP leadership have demanded a commission of inquiry into the targeted killings of members from the community in the Valley and their subsequent exodus, he said.

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The Kerala High Court today ordered the arrest of a woman IAS officer in connection with a contempt plea after she did not appear in the court as directed earlier.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Antony Dominic and Justice Dama Seshadri Naidu gave the direction to police after A Shanimol, Managing Director of Kerala Water Authority (KWA), failed to appear.

The bench also directed the police to produce her in the court on November 15.

The bench also rejected a plea by the officer seeking exemption from appearing in person.

The court gave the order while hearing a contempt of the court petition filed by a Chennai-based firm alleging that the officer failed to implement a single bench order directing increase of amount of a contract work of the KWA.

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Sri Lanka will impose strict vehicle emission standards from January which will hit import of three-wheelers from India.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera today said the government will adopt new standards from January which will ban the import of three-wheeler taxis, a popular mode of transport here.

Samaraweera said Sri Lanka will follow the Euro 4 emission standards.

"We are moving towards environmentally-friendly vehicles and we will insist on the new standards for all new imports into the country from the new year," Samaraweera told reporters.

The government last month said that in view of the high number of road mishaps blamed on three wheelers there was a demand to restrict their imports.

Samaraweera said there were 1.5 million three-wheeler taxis in the country and they were a large contributor to environmental pollution.

Finance ministry officials said three wheelers imported from India did not meet Euro 4 emission standards and will not be allowed into the country from January unless they reduced emission levels.

The emission requirement will also apply to several brands of motorcycles and small cars imported mainly from India and China.

Samaraweera's 2018 Budget unveiled yesterday stated that import duties of diesel powered three wheelers would be raised.

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Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah today accused Saudi Arabia of detaining prime minister Saad Hariri and of asking the Shiite movement's archfoe Israel to launch strikes.

"The head of the Lebanese government is detained in Saudi Arabia, he is banned from returning to Lebanon until now," Nasrallah said in a televised address, his first since Hariri resigned last week from the premiership in a statement made from Riyadh.

Hariri's situation was not completely clear but calls, including from his Lebanese political rivals, mounted for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the prime minister's freedom of movement.

The 47-year-old announced his resignation on November 4 in a surprise move that coincided with a sweeping purge in the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who was born in Saudi Arabia, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.

In a statement issued on Friday after a meeting with the Saudi envoy to Lebanon, Aoun insisted Hariri should return to Lebanon but did not elaborate on the premier's current situation in Riyadh.

"President Aoun met Saudi charge d'affaires Walid Bukhari and informed him that the circumstances in which Mr Hariri's resignation took place were unacceptable," the statement said.

The president "called for the return to Lebanon of the head of the government."



Aoun, whose political ally Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia, also "voiced his concern over what is being said" about Hariri's current status in Saudi Arabia and demanded a "clarification".

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country has close ties with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, visited Riyadh on Wednesday.

Macron's foreign minister said on French radio today he thought Hariri's freedom of movement was not impeded, despite most of the Lebanese political class implying he was de facto under house arrest.

"He went to Abu Dhabi the day before President Macron's visit (on Wednesday) so we think he's free to move around," Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

Nasrallah, whose party is the only organisation that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war and now has an arsenal that outstrips Lebanon's own armed forces, accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to incite conflict.

Nasrallah, whose movement Hariri has repeatedly said should lay down its arms, also warned that his movement, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, was stronger than ever.

"We are stronger today, we warn them again misguided calculations, against any knee-jerk initiative," he said, adding however that his party saw any Israeli attack as being unlikely at this stage.

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French President Emmanuel Macron has held talks with Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince as tensions between Tehran and Riyadh soar over crises in Yemen and Lebanon.

Macron, on his debut visit to the Middle East, flew in from a tour of the United Arab Emirates for his first face- to-face talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently launched a massive anti-graft crackdown on the kingdom's elite.

The visit comes at a time of growing friction between the Sunni kingdom and Shiite Iran, which are pitted on opposite sides in Lebanon and Yemen.

"I've heard some very hard positions" taken by Saudi Arabia against Iran, Macron told a conference in Dubai before his visit, adding it was important to speak to all sides and that France had a role in making peace.

In the wake of a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport on Saturday, which was claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, the kingdom has accused Tehran of "direct aggression".

Iran vehemently dismissed the charge that it supplied missiles to the Huthis and warned Saudi Arabia of its "might", prompting fresh acrimony between the regional heavyweights.

"The French president condemned the Huthi missile attack on Riyadh, stressing France's stand and solidarity with the Kingdom," the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.

The two leaders "also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and their efforts for security and stability in the region, including joint coordination in the fight against terrorism," it added.

On Iran, Macron has repeatedly said that he wanted to keep the landmark 2015 nuclear deal despite opposition from US President Donald Trump.

US pressure to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal could push Tehran into deciding to build its own nuclear weapons, Macron told Time magazine in an interview published yesterday.

Macron and Prince Mohammed also discussed developments in Lebanon, whose prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock announcement broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday, citing Iran's "grip" on his country and threats to his life.

Lebanon, a former French colony, has become the latest front line of the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia yesterday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon "as soon as possible" and also called on them not to travel to the country, without specifying any threat.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil yesterday demanded the return of Hariri from Saudi Arabia, amid media reports that he was being held in the kingdom.

Macron's visit comes days after Prince Mohammed launched what the Saudi government has dubbed a wide-ranging corruption crackdown, arresting dozens of members of the royal family as well as ministers and businessmen.

Macron was earlier in the UAE capital for the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi -- the first museum to carry the famed brand outside France -- which he hailed as a "bridge between civilisations" and religions.

Macron said the UAE has closed a deal to buy two French- made Gowind navy corvettes, built for coastal surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

International rights group, including Human Rights Watch, have criticised Western nations for profiting from arms sales to the Saudi-led military coalition battling rebels in Yemen, in which the UAE is a key member.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a complete blockade on Yemen in the wake of the Huthi missile attack, as the UN warns that the Arab world's poorest country faces the risk of a mass famine.

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today remembered those who had died because of what she said the "violent politics of the CPI(M)".

On 'Nandigram Divas' today, she charged the CPI(M) with unleashing 'barbaric attacks' on the people of Nandigram in East Midnapore district in 2007.

"Today is Nandigram Divas. The memories of the barbaric attacks unleashed by the CPI(M) in Nandigram are still fresh in my mind," Banerjee wrote on her Twitter handle.

Since 2012, the Trinamool Congress observes the day as "Nandigram Divas" every year.

"Today I remember those martyrs of Nandigram, Singur, Netai, Nanur, Keshpur and those who became victims of the violent politics of the CPI(M)," she tweeted.

In January 2007, farmers in Nandigram erupted in protest led by Banerjee's TMC, against a special economic zone (SEZ) proposed by the Left Front government.

Later that year, the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sent 2,500 policemen to "recapture" Nandigram to acquire farmland for a petrochemical hub.

As per official records, 14 farmers had died in the firing, but over 100 were declared "missing".

The Trinamool Congress also observes March 14, which witnessed the killing of 14 farmers at Nandigram, as 'Krishak Divas' each year.

The farmer-unrest in Nandigram followed by another one at Singur in Hooghly district that helped Banerjee topple the 34-year-old Left Front rule in the state.

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A mechanised boats fishermen's association today decided to continue their indefinite stir to press for various demands, including over alleged poor medical treatment of some colleagues lodged in Sri Lanka prisons.

N J Bose, Secretary of Tamil Nadu-puducherry mechanised boats fishermen's association said 89 fishermen lodged in prisons at Jaffna, Paruthithurai and Vavuniya had complained to their families of lack of proper medical treatment.

They said that instead of being taken to hospitals for treatment,prison authorities were themselves giving medicines and sought the help of the Government and association to rescue them, he said.

The fishermen also said government had not given them cyclone relief though they paid Rs 1,800 in instalments.

Every year the fishermen pay this amount as savings to the Fishermen Cooperative Credit Society. In the rainy season, Central and state governments each contribute Rs 2,700 to provide total relief of Rs 4,500 each to the fishermen.

The association also wanted withdrawal of the 12 per cent GST on dry fish and fishing nets and they be given diesel subsidy.

The fishermen have been on strike for the past three days and were to resume work today, but decided to continue their stir as the central and state governments were 'indifferent' to their demands.

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The Mechanised boat fishermen association members here today withdrew their three-day-old strike following talks with the state minister Manikandan.

The minister assured them that their cyclone relief funds will be distributed shortly and urged them to withdraw their indefinite strike, according to Tamil Nadu-Puducherry fishermen's association secretary N.J.Bose.

He said the minister also assured them about taking up other demands including release of the state fishermen from Sri Lankan prisons.

The fishermen were on strike for the past three days to press for various demands and protesting over issues, including alleged lack of proper medical treatment of some colleagues lodged in Sri Lanka prisons.

Bose said 89 fishermen lodged in prisons at Jaffna, Paruthithurai and Vavuniya had complained to their families of lack of proper medical treatment.

They alleged that instead of being taken to hospitals for treatment, prison authorities were themselves giving medicines and sought the help of the Government and association to rescue them, he said.

The fishermen also said government had not given them cyclone relief though they paid Rs 1,800 in instalments. Every year the fishermen pay this amount as savings to the Fishermen Cooperative Credit Society.

In the rainy season, Central and state governments each contribute Rs 2,700 to provide total relief of Rs 4,500 each to the fishermen.

The association also wanted withdrawal of the 12 per cent GST on dry fish and fishing nets and they be given diesel subsidy.

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US First Lady Melania Trump hiked the Great Wall and spent some time with a couple of China's most prominent diplomats in Beijing today: the pandas Meng'er and Gu Gu.

While President Donald Trump jetted off to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China, his wife stayed behind to see the Beijing Zoo's favourite tenants before heading to the Great Wall.

The former model was greeted by a group of schoolchildren who waved Chinese and American flags and led her to the panda enclosure.

They oohed and aahed as Meng'er crawled on to a platform and began munching bamboo. His name means "Cute No 2" in Mandarin.

Trump later "interacted privately" with Gu Gu behind- the-scenes, zoo director Li Xiaoguang told reporters.

Born in 1999, Gu Gu is a "good-looking panda with a robust memory," traits that serve him well as "goodwill ambassador of the zoo", Li said.

Gu Gu's name doesn't have a particular meaning, but the repetition of syllables is generally used in China to make names sound adorable.

Beijing has cultivated a global fascination with pandas as part of its diplomacy by sending the animals to overseas zoos where they have proven a wildly popular draw.

In 2015, former US first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan, chose the name for Bei Bei, a panda cub born at the National Zoo in Washington.

Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous southwestern China, have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss.

Trump later visited the Great Wall.

After a short cable car ride, she braved the cold weather to spend about half an hour hiking the refurbished Mutianyu section of the famous fortification.

An official told reporters she had said: "This is beautiful. This is amazing."



Donald Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall, despite it being a usual stop for US presidents.

China treated the Trumps to a lavish state visit with a private tour of the Forbidden City on Wednesday and a banquet dinner yesterday.

The president wrote on Twitter that his wife would later fly to Alaska to meet with US troops.

The US leader was in Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit and he will then head to the Philippines on Sunday for the final leg of his five-nation tour of Asia.

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Augustine Delgadillo, 93, sits in the living room of his Sunnyside home wearing a freshly pressed Army uniform. It is the same one he wore when he returned from World War II in October 1948 after service in both the European and Pacific theaters of war.

Delgadillo is wearing the uniform once again as he prepares to drive to Williams to talk to students at Williams High School about his experiences in the war.

He was an 18-year-old sophomore at Seligman High School when his draft notice came.

I was a country boy. The furthest place that I knew was Prescott. Seligman was my little world. Before I was drafted I had never been out of that tiny town with the exception of the rare trip to Prescott. Delgadillo said.

When asked about military service, Delgadillo said:

Anybody who wants to serve our country, it would be a good thing because in the military you learn to take orders, discipline, and do what you have to do. Our commander in chief is our commander and he can deploy us military people, regardless of our branch, to any part of the world that is having problems.

We went to Europe to save the people, not to conquer them -- we went to liberate and Im so proud that I served my country," Delgadillo added. "I love my country and I will always be thankful for what our countrys all about. We are a great nation.

In Delgadillos home office sits a framed letter from his brother Angel thanking him and their two brothers for their military service. As each of the four Delgadillo boys turned 18, they received draft notices to join the war.

I remember when brother Joe was drafted and then brother Juan to serve in WWII, then you were drafted as well," Angel wrote in the letter to his brother. "All three of my brothers were off to serve in the war. When I turned 18 years old, I too was drafted. I did not pass the physical due to my flat feet.

As he gathered his things to make the journey to the presentation in Williams, Delgadillo talked of his experiences in the war.

The war in Europe ended and we were then deployed to the Philippines," Delgadillo said. "One morning we woke up and heard they dropped the atomic bomb. We all wondered what the atomic bomb was. We heard that President Truman wanted to end the war to stop the loss of more life and the dropping of the bomb ended the war.

When I came home I didnt know what to do with myself. I really just wanted to go back into the service but I was engaged to be married to my wife and so we got married.

Delgadillo said that he wears his old Army uniform from time to time for special occasions. The last time he wore it was for a trip to Washington, D.C., to visit the World War II Memorial.

Before stepping out of his front door to speak to a new generation of high school students, Delgadillo made sure that the uniform he first wore as a high school sophomore three quarters of a century ago was parade ground ready. It was time to march once more.
A five-member team led by a senior home ministry official is on a two-day visit to the Jammu region to find a resolution to problems of the people living in the border areas, an official said today.

The move comes amid a five-day Kashmir visit of Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre's special representative for Jammu and Kashmir, to start a multi-layered dialogue process.

He has been meeting a cross section of people to resolve problems related to the Kashmir region.

Meanwhile, the team led by Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Home Ministry Rina Mitra today visited the Samba, RS Pura and Kathua areas of Jammu, the official said.

The team has three members from the Jammu and Kashmir government. One joint secretary-level officer in the home ministry is also part of it, the official said.

The members heard out the villagers in the areas. They demanded bunkers, schools and compensation for loss caused due to ceasefire violations by the Pakistan side, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union minister Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary has said that the performance of the Modi government should be judged only after its five-year term ends, amid strong criticism by opposition parties over demonetisation and GST.

The minister of state for coal and mines said that adequate time should be given to the central government to work and people should evaluate its performance after that.

"You have to give 12 hours to get curd from milk. If you check the milk every hour, curd will not form," he said at the Golden Jubilee celebration of Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) here yesterday.

His remarks came in the wake of strong criticism of the government by the opposition, which alleged that the BJP-led Union government has failed to bring "achhe din" as promised by the party during its 2014 general election campaign.

The opposition parties have also slammed the government for abruptly demonetising high-value currency in November last year and on Goods and Services Tax implementation this year.

The Union minister acknowledged that there could be some short-term hitches due to the two government decisions, but added that the moves will yield huge benefits in the long-run.

Signalling to the constraints of the previous coalition government, he said alliance partners did not allow the central government to be decisive in the past, but the BJP government has taken more than 800 decisions in its three years.

Chaudhary said India will emerge as a powerful country by 2024. All villages would have electricity by 2019, he added.

The minister urged the employees of public sector units to serve the country through their work and contribute to the profitability of the PSUs. He said HCL's plan to quadruple production was in sync with Modi's 'Make in India' initiative.

HCL CMD Santosh Sharma said the company was implementing mine expansion schemes to quadruple its production from 3.4 million tonnes to 12.4 million tonnes per annum in five years at an estimated capital expenditure of around USD 700 million.

This will help India to reduce copper import which stands at 90 per cent of the domestic consumption, he said.

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Former Union minister M Veerappa Moily today called for an immediate dialogue among the Centre, Delhi and the neighbouring state governments to discuss ways to improve the air quality in the national capital.

The senior Congress leader termed the alarming rise in air pollution as a fallout of "financial and administrative problem".

"It can be tackled if they put their mind on it, instead of getting into the blame game," the former Karnataka Chief Minister told PTI.

The accumulation of waste and its disposal by burning is the main reason for the poor air quality, Moily said adding that "lot of funds" need to be allocated to address the issue by giving it "highest priority".

"Mere rhetoric and sloganeering is not going to serve the purpose," he said.

The former Union Environment Minister said the main responsibility to address the issue lies with the Delhi government.

"They need to do it. The Centre is also part of it, (but) there is no eye-to-eye meeting between the central and the state government," he said.

"At least some hours the prime minister of the country should allot for (to address) such (a problem). In the capital where he is living, these problems are happening. Has he called for one meeting at his level?...Forget, even at the level of Environment Minister?, I don't think. I think this is the failure of governance on the part of the Government of India as also the state (Delhi) government".

He said farm residue burning (in north India) is one of the factors (contributing to poor air quality), but that's not the sole factor. It also needs to be tackled.

"War footing method should be adopted to dispose of the waste. Waste they burn within here (Delhi) also. And that has to be stopped forever. We have to pump in lot of money for that," Moily said.

"The state government has no funds; central government has to allocate immediate funds. And first there should be a proper dialogue between the Central government and state government, then inter-states dialogue, with Haryana in particular. They need to do it and address it immediately on war footing, (but) there is no sense of war footing (urgency on their part to address the issue)," he said.

In Delhi, pollutants touched calamitous levels as a thick grey smog hung low across the region over the past few days, prompting the authorities to declare schools shut till Sunday, halt construction activities and ban the entry of trucks into the city.

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High political drama was witnessed when veteran politician and central leader of the Mutthaida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Pakistan Farooq Sattar resigned from the party but withdrew his decision in a span of hours after deliberations and persuassions.

Sattar said he had decided to leave MQM Pakistan because the impression was given by his party's central committee members that he had "sold out" the rights of the Urdu-speaking Muhajirs when he went to meet Mustafa Kamal, who heads the rival Pakistan Sarzameen Party (PSP).

"I have been disheartened by the behaviour of the MQM Pakistan central committee members whom I consulted and later went to meet with the rival PSP on Wednesday to forge an electoral alliance.

"The idea was that the votes of the Urdu-speaking Muhajirs should not be split in the next elections. But today they gave the impression that I had sold out the cause of Muhajirs and went to the PSP myself," he said.

Sattar, who worked closely with Altaf Hussain since the student wing of the MQM was first launched and before it became a political force in Karachi, said he was leaving politics and stepping aside but would remain in Pakistan.

"I felt let down by my supporters and party workers who questioned my motives in the social media and by the party leaders because I only went to meet Kamal after consulting them," he said.

While Sattar was announcing his decision to step down from the party post and quit politics, the members of the central committee showed up at his residence and forced him to end his press conference and were heard imploring him not to leave the party.

In emotionally-charged scenes telecast live on TV channels, the party workers were seen in tears as they made emotional pleas that Sattar take back his decision, even as other senior leaders took away the microphone from him.

After several hours of deliberations with the party leaders behind closed doors in his house, Sattar emerged with his mother and wife to make a fresh announcement.

"I can not say no to my mother and she wants me to continue working for the Mohajir cause," Sattar said, adding that "So I am taking back my decision but I swear I did not do any drama."



The drama unfolded when PSP chief Kamal, during the joint press conference with Sattar on Wednesday evening, lashed out at MQM founder Hussain.

He also made it clear that his party would only form an alliance with the MQM Pakistan under a new symbol, manifesto and party for the 2018 elections. He also insisted that the new alliance would not use the word of Mutthaida or Muhajirs.

Sattar later said that he was "terribly disappointed" at the words used Kamal at Wednesday's press conference.

"I can not be part of any alliance or party which does not recognise the sacrifices of thousands of martyred Muhajirs or does not respect or understand the significance of the word Mutthaida," he said.

Later in the evening, the members of the MQM central committee held a press conference, saying that no alliance had been worked out with the PSP. Sattar was not present in the conference.

MQM is split into several rival groups since August 2016 when its founder and now exiled leader Hussain was banned from politics in Pakistan after being charged with making "anti- Pakistan hate speeches, instigating violence and having links with the Indian spy agency.

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Tyre manufacturer MRF on Friday reported a 22.15 per cent decline in standalone net profit at Rs 299.92 crore for the quarter ending September on account of lower income and higher expenses.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 385.29 crore during the same period previous fiscal, MRF Ltd said in a regulatory filing.

Total income during the quarter under review stood at Rs 3,660.22 crore as against Rs 3,736.70 crore in the July- September quarter of 2016-17.

Expenses during the quarter rose to Rs 3,219.30 crore compared to Rs 3,170.99 crore in the year-ago period.

The company's board declared an interim dividend of Rs 3 per equity share for the financial year ending March 2018.

MRF Ltd stock was trading 3.21 per cent up at Rs 67,068.05 on BSE.
'Bollywood Badshah' Shah Rukh Khan today quipped that his Bengali will need to improve in the next edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival.

Khan, who has been a regular at the film festival's inauguration for the past couple of years, was again a part of the 23rd KIFF launch event today.

"Now, I am attempting eight lines in Bengali, please bear with me," he told a capacity crowd at Netaji Indoor Stadium here.

"Ei film fesivaler bisesh anusthane uposthit thakte pere sammanito bodh krchhi (I am honoured to be present at this special event of the film festival)," King Khan said.

Thanking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for organising the show, Khan said, "Wonderful weather, wonderful city, looking lovely and Mamata didi looking lovelier. I am asking my wonderful friends to give me dhoti next time."



Describing cinema as a language which needs to be propagated and felt for spreading the message of love, togetherness and unity, the superstar added that films also convey the present reality as it happens around the world.

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Scores of farmers from the district today met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray here and discussed the issued faced by them, a farmer leader said.

"We discussed various problems faced by us, including the issue of land being taken by Maharashtra government for the Mumbai-Nagpur 'Samruddhi' Expressway," said Raju Desale, Working President of Kisan Sabha.

Thackeray said if the farmers are unable to maintain their "unity" the government will not consider their demands.

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Nepal today marked the 250th anniversary of its victory over the HE British Army during the Anglo-Gorkha war of 1768.

President Bidyadevi Bhandari unfurled Nepalese national flag at a special function organised by the Nepal Army on the occasion.

The Nepalese Gorkha battalion had defeated the army battalion led by British captain Kinlok during the Anglo- Gorkha war of 1768.

A British Army battalion was sent by the UK to help Jayprakash Malla, then ruler of Kathmandu, when Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah announced a war against then Malla ruler of Kathmandu as part of his national unification campaign.

"The Gorkha soldiers made Nepalese people proud by fighting against the British Army at that time," said Bhandari.

She also underlined the need for promoting Sindhuligadhi as an important tourist destination in the country. The historical remains of the area, including the demolished palace, needs to be renovated and preserved, she pointed out.

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The National Green Tribunal today directed the Delhi government and all public authorities to strictly implement its order banning construction activity in the wake of the alarming pollution levels in the capital.

It also asked the neighbouring states to strictly prevent stubble burning, saying there were reports of large-scale residue burning from some parts.

The green panel ordered that if any violation of its order was found at the construction sites by the inspecting teams in Delhi and the National Capital Region an environment compensation of Rs 1 lakh would be levied for each such fault.

However, following a plea by the AAP government, the green panel allowed the industries engaged in essential services to operate in the Delhi-NCR on the condition that they would not pollute or cause emission.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar specifically asked the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to take a clear note of this direction.

With regard to crop residue burning, the tribunal asked the neighbouring states to strictly ensure there is no stubble burning and incentives are provided to farmers to encourage them to desist from such acts.

"It has been brought to our notice that in Karnal, Haryana, there are huge crop burning incidents taking place.

"We direct the state of Haryana, Deputy Commissioner of Karnal and Deputy Commissioner of all districts of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab and their respective Pollution Control Boards to ensure that there should not be any crop residue burning in any State," the NGT said.

It said in case any such incident was brought to its notice and it is seen that the concerned departments have failed, the NGT will "impose exemplary cost that will be recovered from the salary of the concerned officials."



Regarding AAP government's plea to allow industries dealing with essential services, it said "it has been pointed out before us that some industries, which are non polluting, are providing essential goods like food items or medical facilities"



These units "may be permitted to operate subject to reasonable conditions", it said and directed that essential services like food and medical facilities could be allowed if the authorities find that their emissions are controlled and non-polluting.

The tribunal asked the officials to show which colony has been picked up for sprinkling of water and observed that treated water for Sewage Treatment Plants can be used for this purpose.

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The National Green Tribunal today directed the Delhi government to submit data or studies on the basis of which it has planned to introduce the odd-even car rationing scheme for five days from next week.

The green panel questioned the rationale of the AAP government in rolling out the scheme when reports by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) had found that the levels of PM10 and PM2.5 were cumulatively higher when the scheme was implemented twice earlier.

On April 21 last year, the CPCB had told NGT that there was no data to suggest that the odd-even scheme has led to a decline in vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR. Under the scheme, vehicles with odd and even numbers are allowed to ply on alternate days.

Directing the city government not to implement the scheme unless it established that it was not counter-productive, the NGT asked it to give an undertaking that it will roll out odd -even only when particulate matter (PM) 2.5 was over 300.

The prevailing level of PM2.5 in the capital was hovering around 433 microgrammes per cubic metre, while PM10 stood at around 617, as per latest CPCB data.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also directed the city government to submit the comparative ratio of the emission caused by diesel and petrol vehicles and asked it to clearly enumerate the contribution of small petrol cars in pollution.

It also questioned the justification of exempting two- wheelers and women drivers during the odd-even scheme despite knowing that two-wheelers caused 46 per cent pollution, as per an IIT Kanpur report.

Following a plea by the AAP government, the green panel however allowed the industries engaged in essential services to operate in the Delhi-NCR on the condition that they would not pollute and cause emmissions.

The hearing remained inconclusive and will continue tomorrow.

However, the NGT also noted that the Delhi government has been taking steps in the interest of environment and public health and these were laudible.

During the hearing, the Delhi government counsel told the bench that they were introducing the odd-even scheme in pursuance to the directions of the apex court-appointed EPCA.

But the tribunal rapped the city government over this submission and said the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) had issued several suggestions and the odd- even scheme was just one of them.

"The Supreme Court had never said that you implement the odd-even scheme. It was only one of the directions given by EPCA. You have not followed 99 directions and introduced the odd-even scheme and treating it as a picnic," the bench said.

The AAP government had yesterday announced introduction of the odd-even scheme as part of a Graded Response Plan to tackle the alarming pollution levels in the capital.

The city has been experiencing 'severe' air quality and has been reeling under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels breached permissible standards by multiple times.

With deadly smog blanketing Delhi and the neighbouring states, the NGT had yesterday banned construction and industrial activities and entry of trucks. The CPCB has recorded 'severe' air quality, meaning that the intensity of pollution was extreme.

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WASHINGTON (AP)  There was no violence in the midterm elections last week, and many election deniers lost and quietly conceded. Few listened when former President Donald Trump tried to stoke baseless allegations of electoral fraud. For a moment, at least, a familiar sense of normalcy fell over a nation on edge as the extremism that consumed U.S. politics for much of the last two years was replaced by democratic order. The post-election narrative has instead been focused on each partys electoral fate. Republicans are disappointed that a red wave did not materialize, while Democrats are bracing for the likelihood of a House Republican takeover. At least for now, the serious threats that loomed over democracy heading into Election Day have not materialized.

You voted:
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat today said there was no shortage of arms and ammunition to the forces and they are fully prepared to give befitting reply to enemies.

The army chief, who was here to attend the bicentenary celebrations of the 9 Gorkha Rifles at 39 Gorkha Training Centre, also assured the nation that the borders are fully secured.

"The Army is fully prepared to deal with our enemies and give them befitting reply," he told mediapersons.

"There is no shortage of arms and ammunition with the army and the need of the hour was to continuously upgrade to latest technology. And the Army was getting itselfequipped with the modern weapons," he added.

Gen Rawat arrived here with his family yesterday to attend the two-day bicentenary celebrations from November 9to 11.

An official press statement said that the Gen Rawat took part in the event also in the capacity of the president of the Gorkha Brigade.

A galaxy of senior officers, both servingand retired, and 500 veterans, many of whom came from far-flung areas in Nepal, attended the event along with their families.

Gen Rawat also laid wreath at the war memorial to pay homage to the martyrs of the regiment and released the First Day Cover to mark the occasion, the statement added.

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The Delhi government's decision to reintroduce the odd-even scheme is yet another "act of theatrics" by the AAP and would only add to people's woes, Union minister Vijay Goel alleged today.

A day after the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation announced that the car-rationing scheme would be in place from November 13-17, Goel said it was a "knee-jerk reaction".

The AAP government needs to involve all stakeholders such as scientists, environmentalists and experts, to chalk out a long-term plan to "restore Delhi's sanctity and make things stable and better again", he said at a press conference here.

"People are already suffering due to smog. And, now this additional burden. Besides, what was the city government doing all these past months? Did it not know that stubble-burning would affect the Delhi environment?



"They should have asked for a meeting with the Centre and tried to address the issue earlier," the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs said.

"Now, it's too little and too late to implement the odd- even scheme. Various reports had earlier said how the scheme had failed in curtailing the the air pollution level in the capital. The idea and its implementation has been a big failure," Goel claimed, saying "It should not be implemented."



Meanwhile, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot today said people can travel for free in all DTC and cluster buses during the odd-even scheme, seeking to encourage use of public transport.

Goel, a former Delhi BJP chief, also countered that, saying, "Kejriwal has now declared free travel in all DTC and cluster buses, the joke is they haven't added the number of buses as promised by them."



"This will only create a chaotic situation for the masses as we saw similar scenes in the last odd-even (scheme) when Metro stations witnessed tsunami of unmanageable public," he said.

"Delhi government's odd-even plan is yet another act of theatrics by the Aam Aadmi Party. If he's (Kejriwal) so concerned about people and environment, may be he should make bus travel in city free for good," he said in a sarcastic remark.

He also questioned the efficacy of the scheme, claiming, many people who have the purchasing capacity, tend to buy cars with both odd and even numbers.

"The AAP made the poor people as its vote-bank, but haven't done anything to help them in this situation. Kejriwal and his team should have at least distributed masks to the slum-dwellers," he said.

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Spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar today said that the Art of Living has taken a baby step to bring peace in the trouble-torn Kashmir valley and he was open to meeting Hurriyat leaders in the coming days.

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an event Paigam-e-Mohabbat (Message of Love) to bring together the families of martyrs and the former militants who gave up arms to lead a normal life.

"As mediators we would wish to meet Hurriyat leaders too. Presently, they are not part of this programme. We will certainly meet them. We are open to all. Our objectives are very clear. We want to bring peace and happiness. Along with it we want to see India as a strong nation. If anybody in any part of the country is suffering then it is a blot for the nation," said Ravishankar.

He, however, said that he would not get carried away by the divergent views.

The Art of Living founder said the initiative has reached a stage and his organisation wants to take it forward.

He said his volunteers have been working since 2001 to bring peace in Kashmir and thanked the reformed militants for reposing faith in his initiative.

The event saw a convergence of two different streams at Sri Sri Ravishankars Art of Living International Centre in Bengaluru.

On the one side were the families of martyrs and on the other were the reformed militants from Kashmir valley, who gave up violence.

Dr Priya Sankalp and Neha Tripathi, both from Ranchi represented the families of those who lost their lives while protecting the sovereignty of the nation while Munir Choudhary and Farooq Ahmed Dar from Kashmir have given up guns.

For Neha, who lost her husband commandant Pramod Kumar in 2016, the event was unexpected.

"I never thought that I will be meeting those who were responsible for killing my husband. But once I met them, all my anger gradually subsided. I wont say that my anger would completely evaporate unless there is a realisation among the Kashmiris that they are integral part of India."



Dar said he took up arms in 1990 when his family was violated. By 1996, he gave up violence. He said the government should look why there is violence for the past 70 years.

"Everybody says Kashmir is a problem but no one speaks about solution. Kashmir has a legacy of Rishis and spiritual seers. We are hopeful that the initiative of Sri Sri Guruji would be successful," said Dar.

Choudhary had a grouse that the government speaks only to the mainstream people and not the common man of Kashmir about what they want.

Representatives from over 200 affected families,including 60 women, travelled all the way from remote places in Kashmir to attend the program, according The Art of Living.

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Patidar quota stir leader Hardik Patel's key aide Alpesh Kathiria and three other members of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) were today detained here for allegedly trying to stop a BJP MLA from meeting voters of Varachha area during his door-to-door campaign today, police said.

However, the PAAS members were later released after their supporters gheraoed Varachha police station to protest against their detention.

Kathiria, Dharmik Malaviya and two others were detained for allegedly trying to block BJP MLA from Karanj seat, Janak Kachhadia, from meeting local voters of Varachha area during the saffron party's door-to-door campaign ahead of the Assembly polls in December.

On learning about their detention, PAAS members started gathering outside Varachha police station in large numbers. Amid slogans of 'Jay Sardar, Jay Patidar', they demanded immediate release of Kathiria and others.

To avoid any unwarranted situation in the Patidar-dominated area, which had seen some of the worst quota-related violence in 2015, para-military force was also deployed outside the station, police said.

An official of Varachha police station said, "We released Kathiria and three others today evening. The situation is now under control."



After being released, Kathiria alleged that PAAS members were detained without any provocation. He also announced to launch a drive to block BJP leaders from campaigning in the city.

"We were detained by the police at the behest of the ruling BJP. From tomorrow, PAAS is launching a drive asking people to put banners outside their societies, declaring that no BJP leader should come there for canvassing. PAAS will impose section 144 for BJP leaders across Surat. We are determined to root out BJP this time," he told reporters.

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Pakistan today said it will allow convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, months after India had requested Islamabad to grant a visa to his mother on humanitarian grounds.

"The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said in a statement.

"A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today, he said.

Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April on charges of espionage and terrorism. The International Court of Justice in May halted his execution on Indias appeal.

It is not clear what prompted Islamabad to allow Jhadavs wife to meet him in Pakistan, the Express Tribune reported.

There were speculation that the two countries discussed the issue in a recent meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj and the newly-appointed Pakistani High Commissioner to New Delhi Sohail Mahmood, the daily said.

India had requested for a Pakistani visa for Jadhav's mother, Avantika, who wanted to meet her son in Pakistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies.

Jadhav on June 22 filed a mercy petition before Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Pakistan claims to have arrested Jadhav from Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

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Six mainstream religious parties of Pakistan have decided to revive Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a decade after the political alliance was dissolved over differences.

The parties in the MMA represent all the four schools of thought Brelvi, Deobandi, Ahle Hadith and Shia.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Council of Action) would contest next elections under the old symbol (book) and manifesto.

The parties heads decided to contact other religious parties to convince them to join the alliance.

The six parties are Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulma-i- Islam-Fazal, Jamiat Ulma-i-Pakistan-Noorani, Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Samiual Haq and Islami Tehreek.

The leaders of these parties held a meeting yesterday at Jamaat-i-Islami headquarters in Lahore's Mansoora and announced that they have decided in principle to revive the MMA.

The leaders of the parties expressed hope that under the MMA platform they will perform well in the 2018 elections.

"We have decided to revive the MMA," Jamaat-i-Islami chief Senator Sirajul Haq said, adding that the decision was taken in the light of recommendations of the six-member committee tasked to formulate mechanism for the revival of the MMA.

Formed in 2002, the MMA, which was a political alliance consisting of ultraconservative, Islamist, religious, and far-right parties of Pakistan, ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from 2002 to 2007 before it became dormant after developing internal rifts on the issue of contesting general elections in 2008.

This week, Pakistans religious-cum-political parties belonging to Sunni sect have also formed a new alliance - Nizam-i-Mustafa Grand Alliance to contest 2018 general elections under its banner.

Former federal minister for religious affairs of PPP regime Hamid Saeed Kazmi has been elected its temporary head.

The Sunni alliance has been formed in the backdrop of two religious outfits Taheek Labaik Ya Rasul Allah and Jamat- ud-Dawahs Milli Muslim League that performed well in recently held by-poll in Lahores NA-120 where ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharifs wife Begum Kulsoom won the seat.

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Pakistan will construct community bunkers on the Line of Control (LoC) to protect civilians from firing by Indian troops, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said today.

Abbasi accompanied by Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa and PoK "Prime Minister" Raja Farooq Haider visited the Chirikot sector of the LoC, the Pakistan Army said in a statement.

While interacting with families of those killed and injured in the cross-border firing, Abbasi appreciated their determination and resolve.

He announced enhancement in financial assistance to the families of those killed or injured in the firing and approved funds to develop community protection bunkers for the safety of civilians, according to the statement.

During the visit, the prime minister was briefed by the general officer commanding the area and was informed of alleged ceasefire violations by Indian forces.

The prime minister condemned Indian unprofessional approach of targeting innocent civilians. He said Pakistan shall continue its political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris for their just struggle, the Army said.

The prime minister also interacted with troops and praised them, saying "no other army of the world is parallel to Pakistan Army."



"Restoration of peace against terrorism despite our commitment to perpetual threat from eastern border is a milestone achievement and together we shall take it towards enduring peace and stability, he said.

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Pakistan today said it will allow convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, months after India had requested Islamabad to grant a visa to his mother on humanitarian grounds.

"The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said in a statement.

"A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today, he said, adding that the meeting will take place on Pakistani soil.

In a rare move, Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April on charges of espionage and terrorism. The International Court of Justice in May halted his execution on India's appeal.

It is not clear what prompted Islamabad to allow Jadhavs wife to meet him in Pakistan, the Express Tribune reported.

There were speculation that the two countries discussed the issue in a recent meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj and the newly-appointed Pakistani High Commissioner to New Delhi Sohail Mahmood, the daily said.

India had requested for a Pakistani visa for Jadhav's mother, Avantika, who wanted to meet her son in Pakistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies.

Jadhav has filed an appeal with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to seek clemency, which is still pending.

Last month, the Pakistan Army had said it is close to a decision on the mercy petition of Jadhav.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested him from restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's sentencing had evoked a sharp reaction in India.

After India approached the ICJ, a 10-member bench on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.

The ICJ has asked Pakistan to submit its response or memorial by December 13 before the court could start further proceedings in the case.

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Pakistan has asked French medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to shut its operations in the country's restive northwest, leaving a "major gap" in healthcare for thousands of local people, the humanitarian organisation said.

The decision, which was not immediately confirmed by the government, comes as Pakistani officials are tightening controls on foreign aid organisations working in the country.

Azaad Alessandro Alocco, MSF's Country Representative in Pakistan, has said the organisation was "extremely disappointed" by the move.

A senior MSF source told AFP today that all 120 staff members will be withdrawn from the Bajaur tribal region, part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) by November 17.

"The closure will leave thousands of people in Bajaur... without vital healthcare, and comes just seven weeks after MSF was forced to close its project in Kurram (district), also in (FATA)," the MSF source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"MSF will now have no presence in the FATA, one of the areas of the country where the need for emergency, maternal and child healthcare is most acute," an MSF statement issued yesterday said.

Bajaur and Kurram are two of the seven semi-autonomous regions which make up FATA along the Afghan border, which served as sanctuaries of Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked militants for over a decade.

The tribal districts are among the poorest areas in Pakistan, and often complain of neglect by Islamabad.

They also remain a top target for militant groups, despite a dramatic increase in security across the country in recent years.

MSF released a statement yestersday saying it was told by Pakistani authorities that the no-objection certificate (NOC) required for carrying out medical activities in Bajaur will not be renewed.

It said authorities had given no reason for the decision.

MSF has been supporting services at a local hospital in Bajaur since 2013, providing medical care in the outpatient, emergency room, and mother and child health departments.

"Healthcare services are very limited in the area and most of our patients cannot afford to pay even for basic medical care", the MSF statement said.

"As the only major hospital providing free, quality healthcare in the area, the closure of MSF's activities will leave a major gap and have serious negative implications for the health of people living in Bajaur and the surrounding areas such as Mohmand Agency."



MSF has a long history in Pakistan, working with communities affected by natural disasters, conflicts and insufficient healthcare facilities for over 30 years.

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The Punjab Police have arrested the main accused in cases of targeted killings, including the sensational RSS leader Jagdish Gagneja murder case, taking the total number of suspects arrested to five.

The police have claimed to have traced the handlers of the suspects, who were part of a larger conspiracy designed and perpetrated by Pakistan's ISI, to the UK, Italy and Canada, Punjab Police DGP Suresh Arora told reporters today.

He said the role of the outfit Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) in the conspiracy was also being investigated.

The DGP said said though it was too early to share details as investigations were still at a preliminary stage, the funding of the module from foreign sources had been confirmed.

The DGP, accompanied by DGP (Intelligence) Dinkar Gupta and other senior officers, identified the arrested man as Hardeep Singh alias Shera, a sharpshooter, who hailed from Majri Kihnewali village, Amloh (Fategharh Sahib).

He worked allegedly in association with Ramandeep Singh alias Canadian of Meharban village (Ludhiana) to execute the murders and used a motorcycle in each case.

While Ramandeep was nabbed on Wednesday, Hardeep Singh alias Shera (22) was arrested from a gymasium in Fatehgarh Sahib town this morning, the DGP said.

The sharpshooter was involved in the killings of Gagneja,Ludhiana RSS leader Ravinder Gosain, Shiv Sena leader Durga Dass Gupta and a pastor Sultan Masih.

Shera used to leave the countryafter every killing. Six days after killing Gagneja IN Jalandhar he had left for Italy. His passport is now in police custody, Arora added.

The case, which had sparked an outrage, was handed over to the CBI later.

"Hardeep fled the country after some of the killings, making it difficult for the investigative agencies to connect him to the killings," the DGP said.

The three others, who were arrested earlier, were identified as Jimmy Singh, a resident of Jammu who recently returned to India after spending many years in the UK, Jagtar Singh Johal alias Jaggi, a UK national who recently got married, and Dharmender alias Guggni, a gangster from Ludhiana's Meharban who supplied weapons to the killers.

The police claimed to have solved the mystery behind the attacks on RSS Shakhas and the firing on Amit Arora, a Ludhiana based Hindu leader. Five incidents of targeted killings had taken place between April 2016 and February 2017.

The DGP said the conspiracy to target these leaders to create communal strife and destabilize the state was hatched by some militant operatives from foreign countries.

He said that they have vital clues about the identities of the operatives but disclosing it at the moment could hamper the ongoing investigations.

Three motorcycles and five weapons used in the killings were recovered, including a 9 mm pistol, 32 bore and 30 bore pistols, which were used to commit of most of the crimes.

The motorcycle used in Gagneja killing was thrown in Sirhind canal after the crime and it was recovered today following Hardip's arrest.

Gagneja, who was RSS Punjab Seh Sanghchalak (second-in- command), was shot at in Jalandhar last year in August and died on September 22 after spending 47 days in a hospital.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the conspiracy to trigger violence and mayhem in Punjab was hatched outside the Indian borders, the DGP said.

The modus operandi of the accused was to target RSS leaders and cause communal disharmony in Punjab, the DGP said.

Social media was used to contact and brainwash potential radicals and both the shooters, Hardeep and Ramandeep, were reportedly contacted on Facebook, he said.

They were told to find soft targets of the RSS cadre.

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The Pentagon must "demonstrate" to Pakistan the "consequences" of continued support to terrorists, US Congressional leaders have said as they came out in support of President Donald Trump's new South Asia policy.

Trump in August unveiled America's new policy for South Asia and Afghanistan, criticising Pakistan for providing safe havens to terrorists.

The bipartisan group of Congressional leaders, reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the 2018 National defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), also urged the Department of Defense to closely monitor US security assistance to Pakistan and ensure that the country does not use it to support terrorist groups.

The lawmakers, in a joint report of the Senate and House Armed Services committees released yesterday, asked the Pentagon to "demonstrate to Pakistan the consequences of continued support to terrorists".

Such a demand from lawmakers comes days after the Indian security forces recovered US-made rifle meant for Pakistan from terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir.

The US State Department refused to respond to a question on the recovery of equipment from terrorists.

"We refer you to the government of India regarding their investigation into this matter," a State Department spokesperson told PTI.

In another move, the House receded its amendment to remove the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from the certification requirements not eligible for a national security waiver.

The reconciled version of the NDAA-2018 now makes USD 350 million of USD 700 million available to Pakistan under coalition support fund (CSF) contingent upon certification from the Secretary of Defense that Pakistan is taking demonstrable steps against the Haqqani Network.

In the last two years, two successive US defense secretaries -- Ashton Carter and his successor Jim Mattis -- refused to give such a certification to Pakistan, in the absence of Islamabad taking demonstrable and satisfactory actions against the Haqqani network.

The lawmakers, however, noted that action on the part of the Government of Pakistan against the LeT, as well as other terrorist groups operating within the borders of Pakistan, remains a priority for the US, according to the voluminous conference report.

The conferees expressed concern about the persecution of groups seeking political or religious freedom in Pakistan, including the Balochi, Sindhi and Hazara ethnic groups, as well as Christians, Hindus and Ahmadiyya Muslims.

Consequently, the conferees believe that the Secretary of Defense should ensure that Pakistan is not using any assistance provided by the United States to persecute minority groups, the report said.
The Kerala Police has registered a case against an Air India Express pilot on the basis of a complaint from a female fligh attendant, who alleged that she was sexually harassed by him.

A case has been registered under section 354 A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code, a police official said, adding that they both belong to Kerala.

The woman told the 'Malayala Manorama' television channel that she had to face constant sexual advances from the pilot following which she resigned.

She filed a police complaint after an incident on September 18 during a flight when she was allegedly harassed again by the pilot, following which a case was registered.

The official said that the police were in the process of recording the statements of those who were on duty on September 18.

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Militants tonight attacked a police team in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district, the second such attack within 24 hours, a police official said here.

"Militants opened fire on police personnel near the Anantnag bus stand. The attackers were pushed back by the cops," the official said.

He said there was no loss of life in the incident and the area was cordoned off.

Earlier in the day, ultras fired at a police vehicle, which was on its way to Jammu from Srinagar, near Bonigam in Kulgam district, he said.

No one was injured in the attack.

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Pope Francis is warning that international relations can no longer be "held captive" by policies of fear and nuclear deterrence and is urging the world to instead endorse an admittedly utopian future free of atomic weapons.

Francis has addressed Nobel peace laureates, UN and NATO officials and diplomats from countries with the bomb during a Vatican conference aimed at galvanizing support for a global shift from the Cold War era policy of nuclear deterrence to one of disarmament.

Speaking in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, Francis acknowledged that current tensions might render efforts at ridding the world of nuclear weapons remote.

But he said reliance on such weapons "create nothing but a false sense of security," and that any use of them, even accidental, would be "catastrophic" for humanity and the environment.

He said: "International relations cannot be held captive to military force, mutual intimidation, and the parading of stockpiles of arms."



The head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons says a new UN treaty calling for the elimination of atomic weapons will have an effect even on the nuclear powers that refused to sign on.

Beatrice Fihn says previous treaties banning chemical and biological weapons were a crucial first step in making such arsenals illegal, and putting pressure on countries that had the weapons to disarm.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Vatican disarmament conference Friday, Fihn has told The Associated Press: "If international law says it's prohibited, it's going to make it a lot harder for them (nuclear weapons states) to justify their decisions to modernise and invest in new types of weapons."



Fihn's group won the Nobel this year for its instrumental role in galvanizing support for the UN treaty.

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President Ram Nath Kovind today called upon people to donate body organs and thus help better the lives of countless countrymen.

"I call upon the countrymen to donate organs based on love for humanity," he said, addressing the 'Sadguru Kabir Mahotsav' at the Lal Parade Ground here.

Kovind is on a two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh, his first to the state after assuming the country's top constitutional post in July.

"Many people suffering from diseases need organ transplant. Following the footsteps of Sant Kabir, who loved humanity, our countrymen can donate organs like liver, eye and promote this gesture," the president said.

"This can help in bettering countless lives," he added.

Late Nanaji Deshmukh, a renowned social worker, set an example for others by pledging to donate his body parts after death, he said.

Kovind said Madhya Pradesh has witnessed tremendous economic progress in the last decade and set an example for other states.

"Madhya Pradesh's GDP has swelled to Rs 5 lakh crore from Rs 1 lakh crore a decade ago. This is laudable as it (the economic growth) was based on inclusive and sensitive approach," he added.

The president said Kabir was not only a great spiritual leader but also a social reformer. The medieval-era mystic poet and saint fought against social evils prevailing at the time and made efforts to eradicate them.

Kovind said the path of equality and harmony shown by Kabir remains an inspiration for the society.

On the occasion, the president received the first copy of the book 'Madhya Pradesh Mein Kabir'.

Later, Kovind unveiled a statue of Jhalkaribai, a Dalit woman soldier and a prominent advisor to queen of Jhansi Laxmibai, at the GTB Complex here.

Jhalkaribai also played an important role in the first war of Independence of 1857.

Tomorrow, the president will address the second convocation of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University at Amarkantak in Anuppur district.

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Six of the doctors agitating in Kota, Bundi, Baran and Jhalawar districts over their various demands were arrested today under the Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act (RESMA).

The arrests came as the medical practitioners continued to protest despite the government warning action against them if they did not return to work by evening.

"Two doctors were arrested from Jhalawar, two from Bharatpur and one each from Tonk and Sawaimadhopur," ADG (Law and Order) NRK Reddy said.

Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf told reporters here: "We had issued them an ultimatum to return to work till 7 pm today."



He said the government will intensify action against the agitating doctors after 7 pm.

The minister held the leader of All Rajasthan State In Service Doctors Association Dr Ajay Chaudhary responsible for the strike.

"Dr Chaudhary seems to have some personal interest... he is trying to create hurdles in breaking the deadlock. He is being guided by someone," the minister alleged.

He said several rounds of talks were held with the agitating doctors, who proceeded on a mass casual leave in support of their 33-point demand on Monday, but "the talks failed due to their adamant attitude".

The protesters agreed to end the deadlock at a meeting last night but Chaudhary raised a demand related to resident doctors at the last moment, Saraf said.

"The matter was almost resolved but Chaudhary raised demand of resident doctors and insisted that it be met immediately. The demand of resident doctors was not in the agenda ... Therefore, it was not possible for us to meet the demand immediately and the meeting failed," he said.

The health minister said alternative arrangements have been made for patients in hospitals. Around 40 per cent of the in-service government doctors are agitating and the rest are on duty.

Normal services have been hit badly and doctors from the Army, BSF, Railways among others have been called in, he said.

A report from Kota said the alternative arrangements were of little help.

District hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres in rural areas wore a deserted look as a few patients reached there for treatment.

Two doctors in Bundi district today joined duty after counselling by the administration, officials said.

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BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari today held the state government responsible for a high court stay on the Rajasthan Backward Class Bill, claiming that it would have an adverse impact on upcoming vacancies.

The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday had stayed the Bill, passed in the assembly last month, to raise the reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) from 21 per cent to 26 per cent to grant a 5 per cent quota to Gujjar and other communities.

He also claimed that reservation would be a prominent issue in the next year Rajasthan assembly elections and alleged that the government had betrayed the people in the state.

The outspoken BJP MLA said that the development would have an adverse impact on upcoming vacancies and asked the state government to clarify its stand on the matter.

Tiwari, who has differences with chief minister Vasundhara Raje, said he will announce his next political strategy in a public meeting on November 12 in Sikar.

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Russian lawmakers raced today to draft measures requiring US media outlets and possibly social media networks to register as foreign agents, saying they could be adopted as early as next week.

The measures, which are being prepared ahead of Russia's presidential election in March, would be a huge blow to already tattered US-Russia ties.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, charged deputies with updating existing legislation after state-controlled Russia Today (RT) television was ordered by Washington to register as a "foreign agent" by Monday.

Volodin told Russian reporters the new measures, which would affect dozens of US organisations operating in Russia including CNN and Voice of America, could be adopted at first reading on Wednesday and at a third and final reading next Friday.

Washington has been fighting what it calls a barrage of "fake news" from Russian media, including RT and the Sputnik agency, which it says is aimed at interfering in US domestic politics.

"What the US authorities are doing today is an infringement on fundamental civil rights, on freedom of speech," Volodin said.

"The United States speaks beautifully about the freedom of speech when it comes to other countries but acts dogmatically itself."



His deputy Pyotr Tolstoy called for the mobilisation of all of the country's political forces, saying it was "an emergency situation."



Lawmakers said the measures targeting US media would be "reciprocal" and would set the same limitations that US authorities were seeking to impose on Russian media.

A senior lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party, Sergei Neverov, told reporters that the new measures could include social networks.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor, for its part, proposed blocking the websites of foreign media groups and nongovernmental organisations, without any need of a court order.

Roskomnadzor has repeatedly threatened to block Facebook and Twitter if they do not comply with a government demand to store the personal data of Russian nationals on Russia-based servers.

In 2012, Moscow adopted a law which requires NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents", a move critics said was part of a clampdown on civil society.

Lawmakers said the existing law would be amended to include media groups.

The head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, said the broadcaster was "suddenly" told by Washington it had until Monday to register as a "foreign agent" in the United States or face having its accounts frozen, among other measures.

She said RT would challenge the demand by the US Department of Justice in court.

Speaking on national television late Thursday, Simonyan said the demand would hinder the channel's work in the United States because it would have to publicise internal documents including their employees' addresses and salaries.

"It will very much complicate the possibility of interviewing people because we will have to report this too," she said. "There are a huge number of limitations."



She said the demands contradicted both democracy and freedom of speech.

"It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents," she was quoted as saying by RT.

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The Saudi-led coalition is still blocking desperately-needed UN aid deliveries to Yemen despite the re-opening of the port of Aden and of a land border crossing, a UN spokesman said today.

"Humanitarian movements into Yemen remain blocked," said Russell Geekie, spokesman for the UN office of humanitarian aid OCHA.

"The reopening of the port in Aden is not enough. We need to see the blockade of all the ports lifted, especially Hodeida, for both humanitarians and for commercial imports."



The coalition shut down Yemen's borders on Monday in response to a missile attack by Huthi rebels that was intercepted near the Riyadh airport.

UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council this week that unless the blockade is lifted, Yemen will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."



After an outcry from the United Nations, the coalition on Wednesday reopened Aden, which is controlled by pro-Saudi government forces, and yesterday opened the land crossing at Wadea on the Saudi-Yemen border.

But Geekie said no aid had gone into Aden yet and the reopening of the Wadea crossing did not impact UN operations.

The port at Hodeida, which is in rebel-held territory, is key to UN aid efforts as it is closest to the majority of people in need.

The coalition accuses rebels of using aid shipments to smuggle in weapons.

Before the blockade, UN aid agencies were delivering food and medicine through Hodeida, Saleef and Aden ports.

"There can be no alternative for all these ports being fully functional and receiving commercial and humanitarian cargo," said the spokesman.

The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million people in need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine.

More than 2,000 Yemenis have died in a cholera outbreak now affecting nearly one million people.

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The Supreme Court today stressed the need for involvement of the civil society for effective management of the laws for welfare of construction workers and asked the Centre to take assistance from NGOs concerned with their welfare.

A bench of Justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta was apprised by Secretary of Ministry of Labour and Employment, who appeared before it following an earlier order, that a national portal for the benefit of construction workers was being set up which could be used by NGOs for this purpose.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by NGO, National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour, alleging that the statutory cess levied on real estate firms for the welfare of construction workers was not being utilised properly as there was no mechanism to identify the beneficiaries for extending the benefits.

"The entire matter should be looked at in a positive and constructive manner by the Government so that the benefits can be passed on to the construction workers who are the real beneficiaries of the statute," the bench said.

M Sathiyavathy, Secretary with Ministry of Labour and Employment, told the court that she will call a meeting of the Monitoring Committee, comprising the labour secretaries of all states and union territories, within a month.

The bench also asked senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, counsel for the petitioner NGO and advocate Anitha Shenoy, counsel for National Legal Services Authority, to attend the Monitoring Committee meeting.

"We expect full cooperation from all the participants to ensure that justice is done to the construction workers," the bench said and posted the matter for further hearing on January 17 next year.

Sathiyavathy told the court that a Monitoring Committee was set up in 2015 for effective implementation of the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996.

The Secretary also said that the number of construction workers registered has increased to about 2.8 crore from the earlier 2.15 crore.

"The collection of cess under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 has increased from about Rs 25,477 crore to about Rs 37,482 crore," Sathiyavathy told the court.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had earlier in an affidavit told the court the funds meant for construction workers' welfare were being spent to buy laptops and washing machines.

Asserting that there should be no further exploitation of construction workers by the states or welfare boards, the top court observed that the CAG has revealed a "shocking state of affairs" with regard to the utilisation of the cess collected under the Act.

The court noted that laptops and washing machines were bought out of a whopping Rs 29,000 crore fund meant for the welfare of construction workers and less than ten per cent spent on the actual purpose.

Terming this as a "shocking" and "extremely distressing" state of affairs, the Supreme Court had said that the funds, collected by the government through a cess under the construction workers law, were being "frittered away" and diverted, instead of being spent on welfare of beneficiaries.

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A judge has found that the trial of former aides to then Premier McGuinty must proceed to a conclusion despite a request from the defense for the matter to be dismissed immediately. Judge Timothy Lipson said that some evidence exists that might lead to the conviction of David Livingston and his deputy Laura Miller in connection with the wiping of computer hard drives in 2011. The Crown contends this was done to hide evidence related to the cancellation of two gas plants notoriously done hours before the general election that year. At this stage, it is not the courts function to weigh the evidence, nor to test its quality or reliability, Lipson said. I am not entitled to make findings of fact, nor to engage in an assessment of the evidence with a view to determining the guilt or innocence of the defendants.

POPPY DOUGHNUT FUSS AT TIMS

Canadian Press reports that a Tim Hortons employee in Calgary took it on himself to create a Poppy Doughnut which has now, because of social media super sensitivities, got him in hot water. The head of the Calgary Poppy Fund says the poppy is a registered trademark and a symbol that many hold sacred. He says he would have preferred that the business reached out to his group ahead of Remembrance Day about partnering to raise funds for veterans.

SMOKER DIES AS CIGARETTE DETONATES BREATHING EQUIPMENT

A smoker has died in Oshawa when his lighted cigarette detonated his oxygen tank and breathing apparatus as he sat in his home Thursday morning. The improbable compulsion to smoke in his apparent condition with the odds-on chances of an explosion sooner or later make the mind swim. Durham Regional Police spokesperson Dave Selby says emergency crews were called to a home on Park Road South in Oshawa at 9:20 a.m. for a report of an explosion. An investigation revealed that a man breathing with the help of an oxygen tank and mask was also smoking.
The tussle within top judiciary on Friday came to the fore with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge Bench to set up a larger Bench for the hearing of a graft case asserting that the Chief Justice of India (CJI) was the master of the roster.

The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a Bench in which the authority of CJI Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a Bench of J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had on Thursday set up a five-judge Bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.

Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the Bench as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Misra.

However, the CJI on Friday set up a five-judge Bench headed by him and overturned Thursdays order, saying the CJI had the sole prerogative of setting up a Bench.

In fast-paced events, the Bench assembled at 3 pm on Friday and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a Bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter. There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a Bench of specific strength, it said.

Needless to emphasise that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as he is master of the court, the Bench said and annulled Thursdays decision.

Perturbed by Thursdays order, the CJI said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.

The hearing in the jampacked courtroom saw allegations flying thick and fast with Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, asking the CJI to recuse himself from hearing the matter as his name had allegedly figured in the CBIs FIR. The CJI retorted: We have been giving you indulgence and you cannot deny that, despite you levelling wild allegations against me. You can afford to lose your temper but we cannot.

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The Supreme Court today refused to entertain a plea seeking a stay on the release of Bollywood film 'Padmavati' starring Deepika Padukone in the lead role, saying the Censor Board was yet to certify the movie.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, at the outset, enquired whether the Censor Board has issued the certification to the movie or not.

"Has the film been placed before the Censor Board? Has the Censor Board certified the film," the bench, which also comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, asked from the counsel for petitioners.

On being intimated that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was yet to certify the movie, the bench said "this court should not exercise its writ jurisdiction in such a situation".

The top court said there were several guidelines for the CBFC to grant certification to a movie and, in addition, there was the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) to look into the grievances over a film.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Siddharajsinh Mahavirsinh Chudasama and 11 others against the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed 'Padmavati' which also stars Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor in the lead roles. The film is likely to hit theatres on December 1.

Besides seeking a stay on the release of the movie, the plea has also sought setting up of a committee of eminent historians to check the veracity of the script to prevent any inaccuracy in portrayal of Rani Padmavati.

It has pleaded that the film should not be allowed to be released till such time that the historical inaccuracies in it are corrected by the producer and the director.

The plea has said that the war saga was based on the historic battle of 13th century between Maharaja Ratan Singh and his army of Mewar and Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi.

Padmavati, the queen of Mewar and several Rajput women had sacrificed their lives by committing 'jauhar' (, the plea said, adding that the movie distorted some historical facts "hurting the sentiments of Kshatriya community". Jauhar used to be an age-old practice of mass self-immolation by women in parts of India to avoid capture or rape by foreign invaders.

"The trailers show Rani Padmavati doing a 'ghoomar' dance. The depiction of Rani Padmavati in the said dance sequence is contrary to how traditionally 'ghoomar' is performed...," the plea alleged.

It also said that Bhansali has not been "averse to generating controversy" in the shooting of a film to create interest in it.
The Supreme Court today refused to stay the release of Deepika Padukone starrer 'Padmavati' over which the Allahabad High Court also declined to entertain a plea seeking a ban of the Bollywood film.

The Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed period drama, which also starred Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, in lead roles is due to be released on December 1.

The court verdicts come as a big boost to Bhansali in the aftermath of a mob attack in Jaipur and a vandalism incident in Kolhapur during the shooting of the film.

An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra refused to entertain a plea seeking a stay of the release of the film after it enquired at the outset as to whether or not the Censor Board has issued the certification.

"Has the film been placed before the Censor Board? Has the Censor Board certified the film," the bench, which also comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, asked from the counsel for petitioners.

On being intimated that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was yet to certify the movie, the bench said, "this court should not exercise its writ jurisdiction in such situation".

The top court said that there were several guidelines for the CBFC in granting certification to a movie and moreover, there is Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) to look into grievances regarding a film.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Siddharajsinh Mahavirsinh Chudasama and 11 others against the film.

Besides seeking a stay on the release of the movie, the plea had also sought setting up of a committee of eminent historians to check the veracity of the script to prevent any inaccuracy in portrayal of Rani Padmavati.

It was also contended that the film be not allowed to be released till such time any historical inaccuracies in the movie are corrected by the producer and the director.

The plea noted that the war-saga was based on the 13th century historical battle between Maharaja Ratan Singh and his army of Mewar and Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi.

It claimed that the movie distorted certain historical facts "hurting the sentiments of Kshatriya community".

"The trailers show Rani Padmavati doing a 'ghoomar' dance," the plea said, alleging that "the depiction of Rani Padmavati in the said dance sequence is contrary to how traditionally 'ghoomar' is being performed...."



In Lucknow, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court asked a petitioner, seeking a ban on the movie "Padmavati" on the ground that it allegedly propagates the practice of 'Sati', to approach the Censor Board with his plea. Sati is a practice whereby a widow threw herself on to her husband's funeral pyre.

The bench comprising justices Vikram Nath and Abdul Moin yesterday refused to interfere in the matter.

The petitioner Kamta Prasad Singhal had pleaded that under the Sati (Prevention) Act, the practice was banned and even its propagation was banned and made punishable.

Citing the said provision, the petitioner claimed that the movie shows women committing sati and therefore, should be banned.

Declining to go into the merits of the matter, the bench said the petitioner has another forum where he could appeal for his grievance.

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The Supreme Court today rejected the bail plea of lawyer Rohit Tandon, who was arrested in connection with an alleged money laundering case post demonetisation.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud dismissed the bail plea of Tandon, who was arrested after a raid on his law firm in connection with a black money probe that had led to the alleged seizure of Rs 13.6 crore.

He was allegedly involved in illegal conversion of nearly Rs 60 crore demonetised currency.

Earlier during the hearing, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi seeking bail for Tandon, had said that the concept of bail is rule and jail is exception has been turned upside down in this case.

Rohatgi had argued that no case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was made out against Tandon.

He said Tandon was allegedly found with unaccounted cash but that is not an offence under PMLA as the Act deals with proceeds of crime.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta had vehemently opposed the bail plea and submitted that Tandon was converting the illegal cash and causing harm to the government of India which had cracked down on black money.

Tandon has sought regular bail on the ground that he needs to look after his ailing mother.

The apex court had on September 4 refused to extend the three-week interim bail granted by the Delhi High Court to the lawyer.

He was granted interim bail on August 10 by the High Court from where he had withdrawn his plea for regular bail.

Tandon had earlier moved a fresh bail application before the High Court which on May 5 had rejected his bail plea.

A trial court had earlier denied bail to Tandon on the ground that he was alleged to have been involved in a "white collar crime" with other accused in a "well-planned" manner.

The Enforcement Directorate had arrested him after a raid on his law firm in connection with a black money probe that had led to the alleged seizure of Rs 13.6 crore.

Besides him, some other accused were also arrested in connection with a separate Prevention of Money Laundering Act case.

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The Supreme Court today turned down a request of a lawyer to gag the media from reporting a high-voltage hearing, reflecting a tussle among its judges on the setting up of a bench to deal with a graft case allegedly involving judges.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra made it clear that freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press "shall be respected".

The issue cropped up during the charged hearing when a lawyer requested the court that the media should be directed not to report the matter since it would tarnish the image of the institution which is the highest court of the land.

"I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press," CJI Misra said.

"Prima facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression and press shall be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press," the CJI said.

The constitution bench, which assembled urgently at 3 PM, made it clear that the CJI was the "master of the court" and had the sole prerogative to allocate matters.

It overturned an order passed yesterday by a two-judge bench to constitute a five-judge bench to hear a matter of alleged bribes taken in the name of judges and said that neither a two-judge, nor a three-judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.

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Twenty students of a municipal school in the national capital, interacted with Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, during his visit to the country, the South Delhi Mayor said today.

"He (Prince Charles) was to visit an SDMC school in Lajpat Nagar-III, but owing to its closure in the wake of air pollution in the capital city, he couldn't.

"So, these students were taken to the British Council, where they met him during another programme yesterday," Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said.

Britain's Prince Charles had arrived in India on November 8 on a two-day visit to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), that will be held next year in the UK.

The prince was 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.

The mayor said that the school in Lajpat Nagar is being run in association with a UK-based NGO, ARK, under the school quality enhancement programme (SQEP).

"Children of these schools speak good English. SQEP is currently being implemented in 30 SDMC schools," she said.

The programme which was initiated by the South Delhi Municipal Corporations with the education alliance in 2015, now caters to over 6,000 children, the civic body said.

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The Madras High Court today directed the Institute of Road Transport (IRT) at Taramani to set up an independent committee to probe the allegations of sexual harassment against the dean of IRT Perundurai Medical College and Hospital in Erode district.

A staff nurse of the hospital had filed a petition alleging sexual harassment by the dean.

Justice S M Subramaniam directed the IRT director to appoint an independent committee under Section 4 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 to conduct "a fair and free inquiry in respect of the allegations set out by the petitioner."



The petitioner had sought a direction to the Director of IRT and the Director of Medical Education to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee as per the Act and hold an inquiry into the complaint.

According to the counsel of the nurse, who is a Dalit Christian, she joined the medical college in 1996.

The dean, against whom sexual harassment allegations have been made, joined as a ward doctor and used to behave indecently to her under the guise of visiting the patients.

She gave a complaint to the director and a copy of the complaint was sent to the Chief Minister's Cell which was received by the Director of Medical Education following which the police recorded her statement on November 4 last year when she was on duty.

The counsel said no action has been taken even after eight months and so the present petition was filed.

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A Japanese police probe into the attempted murder of an elderly bedridden woman has reportedly led to an unlikely suspect: a stray cat.

Mayuko Matsumoto's daughter found her bleeding profusely from about 20 cuts to her face on Monday at her home in a mountainous region of southern Japan.

Police launched an attempted murder investigation after seeing the wounds, some of them relatively severe, according to local broadcaster RKK.

"When we found her, blood covered everything above her chin. Her face was soaked in blood. I didn't know what had happened," Matsumoto's daughter told RKK.

Matsumoto, who is 82 years old and reportedly unable to speak, had to receive emergency care, Kyodo said.

Investigators found no sign of people entering or leaving the house at the time of the suspected attack, the private network NTV said.

They then realised that Matsumoto's wounds looked like cat scratches, it added.

Police turned their attention to the stray cats loitering around Matsumoto's house, and found traces of what may be human blood on one of them, the Nishinippon Shimbun newspaper said Friday.

"Police are analysing a blood sample taken from the claw of the cat which might have scratched the victim," national broadcaster NHK reported.

A police spokesman declined to directly comment on the case on Friday, but told AFP that investigators were not disputing the media reports.

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The four-member committee formed to conduct students' union elections in the state's varsities and colleges would meet here on November 15, Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said today, following protests in Rohtak demanding the polls at the earliest.

The minister said that the committee's report will be reviewed in the meeting.

The vice-chancellor of Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology (GJUST), Tankeshwar Kumar, is the chairman of the committee and vice-chancellors of the Maharshi Dayanand University and and the Indira Gandhi University, Bijender Kumar Punia and Madan Lal respectively are its member secretaries, he said.

On the protests at the Maharishi Dayanand University in Rohtak, Sharma urged students not to waste time.

The students ended their stir after the minister's assurance in the matter.

Recently, members of the Indian National Students Organisation (INSO), the students' wing of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), had locked the main gates of the Haryana Agricultural University and the GUST, demanding students' union elections in the state.

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The Uttar Pradesh police's "get well soon" campaign on social media, with the hashtag #GWSMarieAndJeremy, for a Swiss couple attacked by a mob in Fatehpur Sikri has garnered appreciation from the Swiss embassy, a top official said today.

Messages received on micro-blogging site Twitter with the hashtag were compiled into a 76-page booklet and presented to the Deputy Head of Mission, Swiss embassy, Tamara Mona, and MEA spokesperson Ravish Kumar in New Delhi. It was today released to the media by the UP Director General of Police Sulkhan Singh.

"After the attack on the couple, the state police not only swung into action and arrested the accused but also started a 'Get well soon' campaign, under which people were asked to use hashtag #GWSMarieAndJeremy to send their wishes to them," Rahul Srivastav, PRO to the UP DGP, told PTI here.

Both the Swiss embassy and the MEA have appreciated the gesture calling it one of the first such attempts by any force in the world, Srivastava said, adding that newspapers in Switzerland have published the same prominently.

The Swiss couple, who was attacked last month in Fatehpur Sikri, about 40 km from Agra, was offered a free two-night stay at a five-star hotel in New Delhi as a "token of concern" by Tourism Minister K J Alphons.

On October 22, Marie Droze and Quentin Jeremy Clerc, from Lausanne in Switzerland, were strolling near the railway station in Fatehpur Sikri -- a city founded by Mughal emperor Akbar in the 16th century and a major tourist attraction -- when they were chased and attacked with stones and sticks by a group of four youths.

They later told the media that bystanders made videos on their mobile phones as they lay on the ground bloodied and bruised.

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Torchbearer Beta (Beta Sigma Phi)

The Torchbearer Beta chapter of Beta Sigma Phi met for their second meeting in October at the country home of Pat Meyer.

The program for the evening was presented by Jessica (Brown) Zaborsky, the independent contract program coordinator for Mosaic at Home, a "life of possibilities for people with intellectual disabilities."

Zaborsky showed a poster-size picture of "Julie," a woman who lives a rewarding and meaningful life at our local home. She travels, has a job, is always eager to learn, worship and socialize. Having an excellent memory, Julie remembers everyone's birthday, both clients and caregivers. Mosaic serves individuals from the age of 17 years to 90.

Our local Beatrice Bargain Box store plays a part in the funding of items not provided by the government, as do family members and the community. Those living at Mosaic are in a family-setting with caregivers who provide love, support and guidance.

Next on the agenda, President Linda McCall presided over the business at hand. The Social Committee finalized the chapter's Christmas dinner plans as well as the Service Committee with holiday-giving.

The Beta Sigma Phi "Angel Program" was explained to the sorority. A sympathy card was received from Torchbearer Zeta chapter in memory of Edwyna Rohlfing, our sister. The book "The Stars Shine Thru" by Lyn Terry will be signed and presented to the Rohlfing family at holiday time from our international staff and our chapter.

Alnora Daubendiek received correspondence from international when her husband, Ed, passed away this fall. Guest for the evening was Brady, Alnora's granddaughter. A review of the book of Beta Sigma Phi was provided by Linda McCall on official badges.

The next gathering was held Nov. 9, with hostess Lyn Scheiding.

Torchbearer Zeta (Beta Sigma Phi)

In honor of the upcoming Veterans' Day celebration, Marsha Young outlined the origins of Veterans' Day at the first meeting of the month for members of Nebraska Torchbearer Zeta chapter of Beta Sigma Phi.

She said that World War I, known at the time as the Great War, officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 20, 1919 in the Palace of Versailles outside of Paris. Fighting had ceased seven months earlier when an armistice between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For this reason, Nov. 11, 1918 is originally regarded as the end of the war to end all wars.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. The original concept of the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings.

An act approved on May 13, 1938 made the 11th day of November each year a holiday  a day to be dedicated to the course of world peace and to be celebrated and known as Armistice Day. The 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans' service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word Armistice and inserting the word Veterans.

Veterans Day continues to be observed on Nov. 11, regardless of what day of the week it falls. This is a celebration to honor Americas veterans for their patriotism, love of country and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

After the program, Young handed out a 10-word scramble game to members. Members were to unscramble the words in 10 minutes. A prize was given to Zita Lomax for unscrambling the most words in that time frame. Members enjoyed the activity.

Plans were finalized for the Sorority Couples Thanksgiving Dinner on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at the home of Bob and Cheryl Sargent. Members were reminded of the food items they signed up to bring.

Correspondence was received from the Salvation Army asking for donations for the needy for the Thanksgiving holidays and a thank you note was read from Larry Shaw for the cards members sent to him.

Maggie Werner presented a Beta Sigma Phi word game. Members chose a word from an envelope that pertained to the sorority, and they were to explain to members the meaning of the word they chose. Members guessed the word as it pertained to Beta Sigma Phi.

Members were reminded of the next meeting and the Sorority Couples Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday, Nov. 14.
The United States and Russia are nearing an agreement on Syria for how they hope to resolve the Arab country's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated, officials said today.

If clinched, the deal could be announced by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after a meeting in Vietnam on Friday, four US officials said. The United States has been reluctant to hold a formal meeting between the leaders unless they have a substantive agreement to announce.

The potential understanding comes as an array of forces are near a final defeat of IS, the extremist group that once controlled vast stretches of both Iraq and Syria. Fighting the group is no longer top priority, shifting the focus back to Syria's intractable conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and rebels and to concerns that foreign powers such as Iran will now dominate the country's future.

The US-Russian agreement being discussed would focus on three elements, officials said: "deconfliction" between the US and Russian militaries, reducing violence in the civil war and reinvigorating UN-led peace talks. The officials weren't authorized to discuss the deliberations and requested anonymity.

The US and Russian militaries have maintained a "deconfliction" hotline for years to avoid unintended collisions and even potential confrontations as they each operate in Syria's crowded skies. A heavy air campaign by Russia has been credited with shoring up the position of Assad, a close ally of Moscow.

With IS nearing defeat, the US and Russia are losing their common enemy in Syria and will remain in a proxy battle in which Russia backs Assad and the US lends at least rhetorical support to armed opposition groups fighting the government. That has increased the need for close communication between the two powers about where their forces are operating at any given time, officials said.

The agreement also seeks to build on progress in establishing "de-escalation zones" in Syria that have calmed some parts of the country. In July, when Trump held his first meeting with Putin in Germany, the US and Russia announced a deal that included Jordan and established a cease-fire in southwest Syria. The United States has said that cease-fire has largely held and could be replicated elsewhere in the country.

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The Congress in Telangana today said the ruling TRS should not seek votes from minority Muslims if it failed to honour its promise of providing 12 per cent reservation to them.

The main opposition party said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao does not appear sincere in providing quota in jobs and education to the minority community.

"We are questioning the sincerity of KCR (Rao) on reservations. We have doubts on his intentions. You had promised 12 per cent reservation each to Muslims and tribals.

"You repeatedly talked about Mission Bhagiratha. You don't have the right to ask for the votes of these groups if you don't implement 12 per cent reservation," state Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters here.

Reddy was referring to the TRS statement it would not seek votes if it failed to implement the 'Mission Bhagiratha' (supplying piped water to every household) scheme by 2019.

Rao yesterday hoped the Centre would positively respond to his government's request to facilitate reservation for backward sections among Muslims as it needs to be included in the 9th Schedule of the Constitution (which provides a protective umbrella to laws placed in it).

Such a move is required as the percentage of quotas in the state would exceed the 50 per cent cap on reservations.

Meanwhile, state BJP president K Laxman said it is incorrect on the part of Rao to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported reservations for Muslims.

He said it is conflicting when Rao said Modi had responded positively to the request for facilitating the quota for backward sections among Muslims and that the ruling TRS would fight in Parliament to achieve the reservations.

Laxman took exception to Rao appreciating the late Nizam (erstwhile ruler of Hyderabad) as people had fought against the Nizam rule.

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A temple's priest was killed and a seer was seriously injured in Gaurapura village here allegedly after unidentified assailants attacked them with bricks, the police said today.

Vijay (50) was attacked by around six people when he was sleeping inside the temple last night. He died on the spot, SSP Vaibhav Krishna said.

The officer said that Lakkad Baba (55), who was also sleeping there, was seriously injured in the attack. He has been admitted to a hospital, the SSP said.

The body has been sent for post mortem and investigations are on, the officer added.

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Serbia this week summoned its ambassador in Kiev for consultations after Ukraine raised concerns over Serbian "mercenaries" fighting on the side of pro-Russian rebels in its conflict-torn east.

A foreign ministry statement stressed that Serbia "respects Ukraine's territorial integrity" and had undertaken "a series of concrete moves" against citizens fighting abroad, including in Ukraine.

The announcement on Wednesday followed a release from Kiev a day earlier after Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin held talks with his ambassador to Serbia.

The consultations in Kiev focused on "the problem of Serbian mercenaries who fight... as part of the Russian terrorist troops," in the war-torn eastern region, said a statement in English from Ukraine's foreign ministry.

It referred to "Serbia's obligations within international anti-terrorist legal instruments".

"Besides, Ukraine is seriously concerned about illegal contacts by representatives of Serbia with the occupied Crimea," the statement said.

"We hope that the Serbian side will fully commit itself to the principle of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders."



The conflict between Russia-backed fighters and Ukrainian troops in the former Soviet republic has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014, when pro-Russian forces occupied parts of eastern Ukraine and Russia annexed Crimea.

The Ukrainian security service told AFP that "more than 300 Serbs" have fought against Kiev troops in the self- proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic alone since the beginning of the conflict, but did not give figures for the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

But a Ukrainian defence ministry source said it thought these figures were inflated and that "less than 300 Serbs" were estimated to have fought in both self-proclaimed eastern republics.

The Serbian government did not respond to AFP's request for its own estimates of how many citizens had fought in Ukraine.

In Wednesday's statement, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic referred to "Ukrainian mercenaries" who took part in Croatian forces' crimes against Serbs during the 1990s Balkan conflict -- "which Ukraine, unlike Serbia, has never condemned".

Serbia "will not allow itself to become a collateral victim of international relations which have nothing to do with Serbia", said the statement.

Russia is often perceived as a big brother figure to Serbia, a fellow Slavic and Orthodox Christian nation.

Serbia refused to follow the decision of the European Union -- which it aspires to join -- in sanctioning Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

Neither Moscow nor Kiev recognise the sovereignty of Kosovo, a former Serbia province that unilaterally declared independence in 2008.

Belgrade in 2014 amended its criminal code to approve jail terms for citizens who fought in foreign wars. Dozens from Muslim-majority regions also left in recent years to join jihad in Syria and Iraq.

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Actor Terry Crews has fired talent agency William Morris Endeavor (WME), days after filing a complaint against one of its executive for allegedly groping him.

Just days after the about of Harvey Weinstein broke, the "Expendables" actor had claimed that a "high-level Hollywood executive" groped his "privates" at a party last year.

The alleged perpetrator has been identified as Adam Venit, head of WME's motion picture group, who now has gone on leave as the agency investigates the accusations, reported Variety.

Meanwhile, Crews has filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department, which is investigating the accusations.

On October 10, Terry Crews claimed on Twitter that a Hollywood executive had groped him.

"My wife and I were at a Hollywood function last year and a high level Hollywood executive came over to me and groped my privates.

"Jumping back I said What are you doing?! My wife saw everything and we looked at him like he was crazy. He just grinned like a jerk," Crews had said.

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A special court today gave 10 days to Tihar jail authorities to respond to controversial meat exporter Moin Akhtar Qureshi's claim that he was getting threats from alleged gangster Neeraj Bawana.

Qureshi and Bawana are lodged in the high-risk ward of the prison.

Special Judge Arun Bhardwaj had on Tuesday sought response from the jail authorities by November 10 after Qureshi moved an application in this regard.

Today, after the jail authorities sought more time, Bhardwaj directed them to respond by November 20.

"I have been shifted from the general ward to the high- risk ward where dreaded criminal, including those accused of rape and terrorism, are lodged ... where I received threat from Bawana through his associate who is also in the same jail," Qureshi had told the court.

He had alleged that his family members had also received threats.

Qureshi was recently chargesheeted by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. It is alleged that he had extorted Rs 7.5 crore from two businessmen, Pradeep Koneru and Satish Sana, using the names of former CBI directors and promising to help them in CBI cases against them.

The ED had alleged that Qureshi was involved in hawala transactions through Delhi-based hawala operators.

The meat exporter is also being probed by the Income-Tax department for alleged tax evasion.

Bawana, on the other hand, has been chargesheeted in various cases, including offences punishable under the provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act.

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Bringing the state under a thick security blanket, "Tipu Jayanti" celebrations were held amid protests across Karnataka today to mark the birth anniversary of the controversial 18th-century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom, Tipu Sultan.

With a sharply divided opinion over Tipu's legacy and rising political temperature, opposition BJP, several Hindu organisations and individuals opposed the Karnataka government celebrating Tipu Jayanti through statewide protests.

As over 54,000 police personnel and platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP), bolstered by the Rapid Action Force (RAF), kept a hawk-eyed vigil, functions were held at the district headquarters, where in-charge ministers and others hailed the legacy of Tipu.

There were reports of stones being hurled at a state transport bus and over 100 people, including local BJP MLA Appachu Ranjan, being detained in Kodagu district, where widespread protests and violence had marred the Tipu Jayanti celebrations two years ago, when a local VHP leader died and several others, including policemen, were injured.

Kodagu district observed a shutdown in response to a bandh called by the BJP and certain Hindutva outfits. Prohibitory orders are in place in the district till tomorrow morning.

Tipu was a ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysoreand considered an implacable enemy of the British East IndiaCompany.

He was killed in May, 1799 while defending his fortat Srirangapatna against the British forces.

But, Tipu Sultan is a sensitive issue in Kodagu district as Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe that thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.

Kodagu-based writer of historical books C P Beliappa had called the erstwhile ruler of Mysore a "treacherous tyrant".

However, the scale of such suppression is disputed by several historians, who see Tipu as a secular and modern ruler who took on the might of the British.

With a sharp polarisation over Tipu Jayanti celebrations, the Karnataka government had made massive security arrangements across the state, deploying over 54,000 police personnel, 20,000 home guards and 212 platoons of the KSRP.

The state security personnel were bolstered by the deployment of 15 platoons of the RAF acrossthe state.

In Bengaluru alone, 11,000 policemen were deployed, officials said.

Prohibitory orders have also been clamped at certain places in Belagavi and Chitradurga districts.

In Mangaluru, BJP district minority morcha president Franklin Monteiro, who tried to break the security cordon and barge into the premises where the celebrations were organised, was placed under arrest.

Tipu is seen in a negative light in the coastal Dakshina Kannada district, where the Christians believe he had unleashed atrocities and forced conversion to Islam on their community.

Even as BJP MLAs and MPs stayed away from the event, with some even writing to the respective district administrations not to mention their names in the invitations for it, party MLA from Vijayanagara constituency in Ballari district Anand Singh joined the celebrations.

Recently, Union minister Anantkumar Hegde had kicked up arow after he requested the Karnataka government not to includehis name in the list of invitees for the Tipu Jayanti event.

Tipu Jayanti has become so controversial that recent remarks made by President Ram Nath Kovind during his address to a joint session of the Karnataka legislature on the then Mysore ruler had sparked a war of words between the ruling Congress and opposition BJP in the state.

The president had hailed Tipu, saying he died a heroic death fighting the British.

The BJP sees Tipu as a "religious bigot" and a "brutal killer", while some Kannada outfits call him anti-Kannada, citing that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.

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Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin briefly shook hands at a gala dinner during an Asia- Pacific summit today after days of frenzied speculation on whether the two would meet.

It is still unclear whether the pair plan to hold substantive talks during their visit to Vietnam following days of mixed messages from the Kremlin and the White House.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials -- a charge Russia denies.

Trump had previously indicated that he hoped to hold talks with his Russian counterpart during his Vietnam visit, to pressure Moscow into supporting his moves to challenge North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the Vietnamese city of Danang.

At a gala dinner on Friday evening they shook hands and posed briefly for a photo with regional leaders dressed in loose-fitting shirts commissioned for the gathering by current APEC hosts Vietnam.

But there had previously been conflicting indications on whether a full face-to-face was on the cards.

Earlier in the day White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had ruled out a bilateral meeting, but the Kremlin suggested it would go ahead.

Pressed on the issue later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov swatted away the question.

"Why are you asking me? We are saying that we have heard President Trump's wish to meet President Putin, expressed by President Trump himself."



"I do not know what the rest of his penpushers are saying, I cannot answer that."



Both Moscow and Trump had previously suggested that talks were likely to take place.

On Sunday the Trump administration said "it's expected we'll meet with Putin" to discuss North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Trump's relationship with Moscow has haunted the first year of his presidency.

His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate are under house arrest on charges including conspiracy to launder money, linked to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations that the campaign colluded with Russia.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.

The two last met during a G20 summit earlier this year.

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US President Donald Trump today praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo- Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo- Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."



The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said.
US President Donald Trump today praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in the Vietnamese port city, Trump cited India as one of the countries in the Indo-Pacific region making strides.

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of over 1 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very, very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Earlier, a senior Trump administration official told reporters travelling with the President from China to Vietnam said that India is a major economy that has registered fast growth.

"Prime Minister Modi has been doing a lot in the way of pressing reforms to allow India to pull even more people out of poverty," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

India, the official said, is increasingly a partner of America in security terms as well, and it also happens to share many values in common with the United States.

"India and the United States are the world's first and second largest democracies, and both of us have an abiding interest in the maritime commons remaining open and trade continuing to flow freely," the official said.

"So it is no accident that we are viewing the region with a wider aperture to include India as one of the "bookends", as Secretary (of State, Rex) Tillerson calls it, of the region -- the United States being the other bookend," the official said, defending the use of term Indo-Pacific instead of Asia-Pacific for the region.

The Indo-Pacific is a term that, in a sense, widens the aperture for the region, the official said.

It talks about a region that encompasses everything from India to the West Coast of the US; all of the Asian countries in Northeast Asia; down in Oceania with Australia; the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand in the south; India to the west; the United States to the east; and, of course, Southeast Asia as the crossroads to all of that, the official said.

With a vibrant area, a young demographically, one should be envious of the demographics, said the official.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, where he is expected to meet Modi.

Meanwhile, in a veiled attack on China, Trump said the US would "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property."



"We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state, and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," the US president said.

American firms have long complained about China failing to honour intellectual property rights.

Trump had travelled to Danang from Beijing, where he had also discussed America's huge trade imbalance with China.

In the speech, Trump said he had spoken "openly and directly" with Chinese President Xi Jinping "about China's unfair trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produced with the US."



Trump's tone in Vietnam was strikingly different from the day before in Beijing, where the US president appeared to be friendlier toward the Communist giant as he sought Xi's help to reduce the massive trade deficit and to rein-in nuclear- armed North Korea.

The bilateral trade between the US and China was worth USD 648 billion last year, but trade was heavily skewed in China's favour with the US amassing a nearly USD 310 billion deficit.

Xi, speaking at the same APEC event shortly after the US President, did not respond to Trump's remarks, but said economic globalisation had become an "irreversible historical trend."



Trump also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo- Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."



The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over the proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tightrope

By Selina Tusitala Marsh



This books publication coincided with the authors appointment as New Zealand Poet Laureate. The variety and breadth of the poems illustrate the skills behind both the collection and the appointment.

Marshs poetry styles include free verse illustrating Philippe Petits high-wire walk between New Yorks Twin Towers:

if rain is

there or

not there

a cloudburst

would wash

away his life (Le Coup, p 26)



and a take-off of e e cummings:

bloodgirl lived in a sleepy how town

(with up all few bird words down)

bloodgirl scrubbed her skin with their bones

carbon, dirt, diamond, stone (Gafatele, p 28)

Eviction Notice 113 leaves the printed page almost entirely out of the poetry story, relying on rapid sounds alone:

a body a part her bodys become a body apart her bodys become a body a

part party party party party party party party party t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t (p 63)

Twenty pages of blackout poetry serve as a gloss to Albert Wendts novel Pouliuli. These poems, like the novel, address that blackness that invades the human spirit according to its own schedule. Its not an existential nothingness  rather, dark to the nth degree, a miltonic too-much-ness rather than nothingness. Blackout poetry  sometimes called redacted poetry  involves blacking out a page of text, leaving only a few scattered words to serve as a new poem. Such poems are often unsuccessful because they dont properly address the underlying text and seem irrelevant to it. Marshs poems, however, appear on pages of Wendts novel  an ingenious and successful way of using blackness to illustrate blackness.

Many of the poems address other people: Essential Oils for the Dying is a lament for Teresia Teaiwa, to whom the book is dedicated. Other poems centre on the authors attendance at 2016s Commonwealth Observance Day  gone to London to visit the Queen, where in an auxiliary poem Pussy Cat shows off:

My moana blue Mena

My Plantation House shawl

My paua orb

My Niu Ziland drawl

my siva Samoa hands

My Blood red lips

My Va philosophising (p 41)

So where is the tightrope taking us? It takes us over the Abyss, from Uncle Sivas squabbling dogs to the formality of Westminster Abbey to a windswept Hawaiian outcrop  not so much step by cautious step like Petit but with the speed of imagination and the balance of consideration.

Its a wide-ranging collection  interesting for both the varied styles and the varied scenery. Some of the poems make me wonder, why write them down at all? Paper is too thick, too durable for some ways of talking. But should we worry about where we will end up? Probably not. As the last blackout poem (p 99) puts it:

never

wound a

new

bird

Flaxflower Review by Mary Cresswell
The tussle within top judiciary today came to the fore with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster".

The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had yesterday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.

Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra.

However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned yesterday's order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters.

In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter.

"There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge, nor a three- judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.

"Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annuled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners.

"Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he belived in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution.

Perturbed by yesterday's order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.

Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), including its President R S Suri, vice-president Ajit Sinha, Secretary Gaurav Bhatia and several senior advocates including Ashok Bhan, Aman Sinha and others strongly countered the allegations levelled in the petitions and said strong action should be taken against any attempt to "browbeat" the judges.

"Getting orders by terrorism should not be tolerated by this court. Strong action needs to be taken against any such attempt," SCBA members said while requesting the bench to initiate contempt proceedings in the matter.

The hearing in the jampacked courtroom saw allegations flying thick and fast with Bhushan even raising his pitch while asking the CJI to recuse himself from hearing the matter as his name has allegedly figured in the CBI's FIR.

The CJI retorted by asking Bhushan, who was accompanied by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, one of the petitioners, to read the contents of the FIR and warned against losing his temper.

"We have been giving you indulgence and you cannot deny that, despite you levelling wild allegations against me. You can afford to lose your temper but we cannot", the CJI said.

Bhushan, who was representing an NGO 'Campaign for Judicial Accountability' and Jaiswal, seeking constitution of an SIT to probe the corruption case allegedly involving judges, said the CJI's name features in it.

"What FIR against me? It is nonsense. There is not a word in the FIR naming me. Read our orders first. I feel sorry. You are liable for contempt now," the CJI said.

Bhushan dared the bench to issue a contempt notice to him and said the hearing cannot be conducted in this manner without allowing him to speak.

The activist advocate was also rebuked by Justice Arun Mishra, who observed that FIR cannot be lodged against sitting judicial officer of lower courts, judges of the higher judiciary, the Vice President of India or the President of India because they have immunity.

He said the contents of the petition filed before it was per se contemptuous.

Bhushan left the court in a huff midway during the hearing, alleging that he was not being allowed to speak while the court has heard "all and sundry". He was seen apparently being pushed and jostled while he was leaving the courtroom.

The CJI also said he had set up the five-judge constitution bench as a two-judge bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, while hearing a separate plea with similar allegations of bribery earlier in the day, had said that the matter should be placed before the CJI for passing an appropriate order.

At the fag end of the hearing, one of the bar members requested the bench to pass an order gagging the media from reporting the case, claiming it would tarnish the image of the institution which is a "temple of justice".

The CJI refused to accept the oral submission, saying "I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

"Prime facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression should be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press," CJI Misra said.

The constitution bench also made it clear that the pleas regarding alleged bribes taken in the names of judges would be taken up by an appropriate bench after two weeks.

The CBI, in its FIR, has named several persons, including former Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, as accused in the alleged corruption case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two years after the deadliest terror attacks in modern French history, the only surviving suspect to take part in the carnage in Paris remains an enigma.

Captured after four months on the run following a massive international manhunt, Salah Abdeslam is now France's most closely guarded detainee.

But the 28-year-old petty criminal-turned-jihadist has not been the goldmine of information investigators have hoped for: he refuses to talk.

Abdeslam's role in the events leading up to November 13, 2015, when Islamic State jihadists armed with guns and bombs killed 130 people enjoying a Friday night out, has yet to be fully understood.

His suicide belt was found in the southern Paris suburbs several days after the bloodshed.

Did he change his mind about blowing himself up, as he told friends before he was finally arrested in Brussels? Or was the device defective?



Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin, is known to have played a key role in organising logistics for the attacks, renting cars and hideouts and helping several jihadists get into Europe via the migrant trail.

And the sprawling investigation has revealed links to the jihadists involved in the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016 -- four days after his arrest.

What is infuriating for investigators -- and for the families of victims seeking answers -- is Abdeslam's refusal to cooperate since French authorities charged him last year with terrorist murders.

His silence has even prompted his lawyers, Frank Berton of France and Sven Mary of Belgium, to abandon his defence.

Jailed in Europe's biggest prison at Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, Abdeslam is being held in solitary confinement and monitored around the clock in his cell.

In recent months the conditions of his detention have been slightly relaxed after signs that his mental health was deteriorating.

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet yesterday confirmed fears he could commit suicide -- something that the victims' families want to avoid, eager to see him stand trial.

"We are doing everything to make that impossible," Belloubet told LCI television, saying Abdeslam had now been granted a window and limited contact with others.

He has received letters in prison -- sometimes praising his actions -- and responded to some of them, including to a woman whom he reportedly told: "I'm not ashamed of who I am."



Abdeslam surprised many by offering to appear at a separate trial in Belgium for the attempted murder of police officers injured in a shootout at an apartment in the Brussels neighbourhood of Forest, three days before his capture.

He is believed to have fled during the shootout before finally being captured across the city in Molenbeek, where he once ran a bar with his brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers.

The Brussels trial is due to take place from December 18 -22, with a Paris appeals court expected to rule soon on whether to give the greenlight for Abdeslam's temporary transfer.

It remains to be seen whether he will break his silence at the trial, and some of the victims' lawyers fear he will use it as an opportunity to avoid being sent back to France.

"Why would this guy, who isn't talking to investigators in France, demand to be sent to trial in Belgium?" said Gerard Chemla, lawyer for some of the plaintiffs.

"We should ask ourselves 'is this is an attempt to escape from French authorities?'"



A date for Abdeslam's French trial -- expected to be one of the most closely watched in decades -- has not yet been set.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said today it is "an absolutely essential priority" to stop all violence against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, allow them to return to their homes, and grant them legal status.

The UN chief told reporters Friday that the UN is also insisting on "unhindered humanitarian access" to all areas of northern Rakhine State, where more than 600,000 Rohingyas lived before fleeing to Bangladesh.

Guterres is leaving Friday night for Europe and Asia, where he will attend a joint summit between the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which is certain to address the plight of the Rohingyas.

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has faced growing international condemnation over violence against the Rohingyas, is expected to attend the meeting in the Philippines from November 10-14.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar doesn't recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country. It has denied them citizenship, leaving them stateless.

The latest violence began with a series of attacks August 25 by Rohingya insurgents. Myanmar security forces responded with a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages that the U.N. and human rights groups have criticized as a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

"What has happened is an immense tragedy," Guterres said, "and the levels of violence and the atrocities committed are something that we cannot be silent about."



"We insist on the need to make sure not only that all violence against this population stops, but also ... we insist on the need to reassert the right of return," he said.

The secretary-general said the Rohingya must be able to return voluntarily, in safety and dignity, to the areas they came from and not be placed in camps.

Guterres said the root causes of the discrimination that has left the Rohingyas stateless, such as their legal status, must also be addressed.

He has previously urged Myanmar's government to give the Rohyingyas citizenship, or at least legal recognition, so they can move freely, get jobs and an education, and receive health care.

"We'll go on engaging in all possible domains for these objectives to be finally achieved," the secretary-general said.

Guterres applauded a presidential statement which strongly condemned the violence against the Rohingyas and was approved unanimously by the Security Council on Monday, calling it "an important step forward."



The statement called on Myanmar's government to "ensure no further excessive use of military force in Rakhine State" and take immediate steps to respect human rights.

It was the strongest council pronouncement on Myanmar in nearly 10 years, and reflected widespread international concern at the plight of the Rohingyas.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United Nations is set to host the first-ever talks on the use of autonomous weapons, but those hoping for a ban on the machines dubbed killer robots will be disappointed, the ambassador leading the discussions said today.

More than 100 artificial intelligence entrepreneurs led by Tesla's Elon Musk in August urged the UN to enforce a global ban on fully-automated weapons, echoing calls from activists who have warned the machines will put civilians at enormous risk.

A UN disarmament grouping known as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will on Monday hold five days of talks on the issue in Geneva.

But anything resembling a ban, or even a treaty, remains far off, said the Indian ambassador on disarmament, Amandeep Gill, who is chairing the meeting.

"It would be very easy to just legislate a ban but I think... rushing ahead in a very complex subject is not wise," he told reporters.

"We are just at the starting line."



He said the discussion, which will also include civil society and technology companies, will be partly focused on understanding the types of weapons in the pipeline.

Proponents of a ban, including the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots pressure group, insist that human beings must ultimately be responsible for the final decision to kill or destroy.

They argue that any weapons system that delegates the decision on an individual strike to an algorithm is by definition illegal, because computers cannot be held accountable under international humanitarian law.

Gill said there was agreement that "human beings have to remain responsible for decisions that involve life and death".

But, he added, there are varying opinions on the mechanics through which "human control" must govern deadly weapons.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is mandated to safeguard the laws of conflict, has not called for a ban, but has underscored the need to place limits on autonomous weapons.

"Our bottom line is that machines can't apply the law and you can't transfer responsibility for legal decisions to machines", Neil Davison of the ICRC's arms unit told AFP.

He highlighted the problematic nature of weapons that involve major variables in terms of the timing or location of an attack -- for example something that is deployed for multiple hours and programmed to strike whenever it detects an enemy target.

"Where you have a degree of unpredictability or uncertainty in what's going to happen when you activate this weapons system then you are going to start to have problems for legal compliance," he said.

Next week's UN meeting will also feature wide-ranging talks on artificial intelligence, triggering criticism that the CCW was drowning itself in discussions about new technologies instead of zeroing in on the urgent issue.

"There is a risk in going too broad at this moment," said Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, who is the coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

"The need is to focus on lethal autonomous weapons", she told AFP.

The open letter co-signed my Musk as well as Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of Google's DeepMind, warned that killer robots could become "weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways."



"Once this Pandora's box is opened, it will be hard to close," they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Iran manufactured the ballistic missile fired by Yemen's Shiite rebels toward the Saudi capital and remnants of it bore "Iranian markings," the top US Air Force official in the Mideast said today, backing the kingdom's earlier allegations.

The comments by Lt General Jeffrey L Harrigian, who oversees the Air Force's Central Command in Qatar, further internationalizes the yearslong conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

Saudi Arabia long has accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, though Tehran has just as long denied supplying them.

"There have been Iranian markings on those missiles," Harrigian told journalists at a conference in Dubai ahead of the Dubai Air Show. "To me, that connects the dots to Iran."



There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

Saudi Arabia says it shot down the missile November 4 near Riyadh's international airport, the deepest yet to reach into the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry later said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving "the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them."



It did not elaborate, though it also mentioned it found similar evidence after a July 22 missile launch. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly this week described the missile as "obviously" Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement Tuesday that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant.

Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Islamic State group militants in Syria over twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile they believed it was. He also didn't explain how Iran evaded the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition, which intensified after the missile targeting Riyadh.

"How they got it there is probably something that will continue to be investigated over time," the lieutenant general said. "What has been demonstrated and shown based on the findings of that missile is that it had Iranian markings on it. That in itself provides evidence of where it came from."



The Houthis have described using Burkan-2 or "Volcano" Scud variants in their recent attacks, including the one November 4. Those finless missiles are reminiscent of the Qiam, wrote Jeremy Binnie of Jane's Defense Weekly in a February analysis.

"The Burkan-2 is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran is helping Yemen's rebel forces to develop their ballistic missile capabilities," Binnie wrote.

Adding to that suspicion is the fact that Yemen's missile forces previously never had experience in disassembling and rebuilding the weapons, said Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy who previously worked in Yemen.

It is "not a stretch to believe that Tehran is supporting the Houthi missile program with technical advice and specialized components," Knights wrote in an analysis Thursday. "After all, the Houthis have rapidly fielded three major new missile systems in less than two years while under wartime conditions and international blockade.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US military announced today it had killed "several militants" in an airstrike against Al- Shabaab jihadists in Somalia.

The attack took place early today in the Bay region in the center of the country, about 100 miles west of Mogadishu.

The strike was carried out "in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia," the US Africa Command said in a statement.

"Al-Shabaab has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and is dedicated to providing safe haven for terrorist attacks throughout the world," it said.

Al-Shabaab was blamed for the October 14 truck bombing in Mogadishu that killed 358 people, and an attack on a hotel on October 29 that left 27 dead.

On Saturday the US mission to Somalia urged all non- essential staff to leave Mogadishu immediately following a specific threat against them.

That was one day after the US Africa Command launched drone strikes that targeted an Islamic State base in the country's northeast.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today disposed of contempt petitions filed against some states including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab for non-compliance of its earlier order to ensure high-security registration plates for all vehicles.

The apex court had in 2012 asked several states and Union Territories to ensure high security registration plates (HSRP) for all vehicles by June 15 that year or face contempt proceedings for non-compliance.

"The High Courts concerned would now ensure compliance of its 2012 verdict," a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.

It also ordered deletion of Union of India from the list of parties after Addition Solicitor General (ASG) Maninder Singh said the states have to implement the apex court order.

The court had earlier issued notice to five states -- Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh -- on a contempt plea alleging non-compliance of its 2012 order.

The apex court had in 2012 said that installation of HSRP was a statutory command which was not only in the interest of security, but also served a much larger public interest.

It had directed that all states to fully implement the HSRP scheme positively by April 30, 2012 for new vehicles and by June 15, 2015 for old vehicles.

The court had warned that no state will be allowed any further extension of time for implementation of this direction and failure to comply with its direction will lead to contempt proceedings against the "Secretary (Transport)/Commissioner, State Transport Authority and/or any other concerned person or authority under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

The court had passed the order on a PIL petition filed by All India Anti-Terrorist Front chairman M S Bitta seeking its direction to introduce tamper-proof number plates and licences for vehicles, contending that the present system was prone to misuse by anti-social elements.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vodafone India, the leader in the enterprises business in the telecom sector, is betting big on startups and SMEs to grow this vertical further that contributed 17 per cent of its revenue last fiscal year.

Already Vodafone serves around 6,000 large corporates with its enterprises business and the company said the revenue from this vertical has grown to almost 20 per cent now.

The company did not quantify the revenue from this vertical citing silent period ahead of its parent's earnings announcement next week, except saying it expects this vertical to grow much faster in revenue contribution.

The second-largest telco by subscribers and revenue, and is on course to be the largest after its merger with Idea Cellular which will be completed next year.

It also expects digital and content to drive its growth in the near future. "Convergence, digital transformation and content will be the key drivers for our business along with enterprises business," Vodafone India managing director and chief executive Sunil Sood told a select group of reporters here today.

He said startups and SMEs are playing a key role in fostering new ideas and enabling a digital India and that dynamic innovation needs strong technology support and trusted partners for sustainable growth.

"Our global experience as an enabler and our rich understanding and roots in this market, positions us to service the evolving needs of this market," Sood said and named the education startup Byjus as a key example of how Vodafone is helping the startups.

He said Vodafone's ready business proposition, which labelled as the "quick and dirty stuff" for an SME or a startup" is designed to provide a comprehensive suite of solutions empowering start-ups and SMEs to catalyse innovation and fast track growth.

Its enterprises business, mainly done through Vodafone Business Services, has contributed 12 per cent to its overall revenue in FY14, which rose to 14 per cent in FY15 and 15 per cent in FY15 and to 17 per cent last fiscal.

"In many ways telecom holds the key to the future. New technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, analytics and machine learning etc will all be dependent on the telecom connectivity. With over 1 billion users, India is already one of the most exciting markets to do business in," he added.

Vodafone India launched a new brand positioning on October 31 and is also speeding up its digitalisation initiatives by partnering with its customers as they go digital.

Stating that the merger with Idea is inching towards final approvals having already bagged approvals from the regulators like Sebi and CCI, exchanges, he said the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai will begin the hearing from the first week of December.

Following NCLT approval, the companies will have to get the permission from the Department of Telecommunications and then from the Registrar of Companies, all of which is expected to come in due course and complete the merger through 2018.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Keeping up his attack on the government over the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today said his party will not allow imposition of the "Gabbar Singh Tax" and asked the Centre to do some course correction shedding "arrogance".

Taking to Twitter, he also said that the government cannot break the back of small and medium size enterprises in the country, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs.

Gandhi's remarks come in the wake of the GST Council meeting held in Guwahati where it was decided that tax rate on a wide range of mass use items would be reduced.

"We will not allow BJP to impose a Gabbar Singh Tax on India. They cannot break the back of the small and medium businesses, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs. #GSTCouncilMeet," Gandhi tweeted.

He suggested the government to give the country a "genuine simple tax". The government, he said, should not "waste time" of the country by allegedly engaging in lip service.

"... acknowledge your incompetence, shed your arrogance and listen to the people of India," he said on the micro- blogging site.

Talking to reporters here, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi sought to find "flaws" in the GST, saying it cannot be a "one nation, one tax" if 40 per cent to 45 per cent of the goods or services are kept out of its ambit.

He questioned the timing of the GST Council meeting, which he said, took place ahead of the Gujarat assembly polls (scheduled to be held on December 9 and December 14).

Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, Singhvi said the Centre has been going about implementing the GST "without thinking first".

"The prime minister and his government first shoot, then they aim and then think, be it on the issues of demonetisation or GST. And that is exactly what is happening in case of GST," he added.

He alleged the "noble conception" of GST has been distorted. He accused the government of not addressing real concerns relating to the tax regime because of its "arrogance and rhetoric".

"The anomalies need proper application of mind (to be solved) and not arrogance," he said.

The GST Council decided to reduce tax rate on items ranging from chewing gums to detergents -- to 18 per cent from current 28 per cent.

The all-powerful council pruned the list of items attracting the top 28 per cent tax rate to just 50 from 227 previously.

In effect, the council cut rates on 177 goods.

The GST, implemented "from July 1, has five tax slabs of 0 per cent, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi may continue as its special representative on border talks with India, Chinese Foreign Ministry indicated today saying it has not heard of any change after he was elevated to a powerful body in the ruling Communist party.

China and India are expected to hold the 20th round of border talks in New Delhi next month.

The talks will be held between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who are the designated special representatives.

Yang who currently holds the rank of the State Councillor which is a few notches higher than that of the Foreign Minister, was elected to the powerful 25-member Politburo of the ruling Communist Party of China at its recent Congress.

He was expected to relinquish his current post after March next year. Foreign Minister Wang Yi is largely tipped to take over as the State Councillor.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying when asked about the status of Yang said he continues to be the Special Representative for the India-China boundary talks.

"I have not heard about any changes in the Special Representative on the Chinese side," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Julie Gordon

(Reuters) - A preliminary agreement with China for the development of a massive liquefied natural gas export project in Alaska will boost its profile, but does not ensure the $43 billion development will go ahead, analysts said on Thursday.

China's biggest state oil company Sinopec, one of its top banks and its sovereign wealth fund agreed early on Thursday to develop the Alaska LNG export terminal and an 800-mile (1,290 km) pipeline to deliver fuel to China.

It is one of dozens of projects racing to join a second wave of U.S. LNG projects set to come online in the middle of the next decade.

The announcement, made with fanfare as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China, lacked key details about binding offtake agreements or financing, analysts said. The parties involved have pledged to work out details over the next year.

"This is a typical announcement that comes out of these big summits," said Jason Feer, of energy consultancy Poten & Partners.

"You really can't build, or get financing for a big project, unless all those pieces are in place."

Alaska LNG, backed by the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC) with input from North Slope energy producers, envisions a lengthy pipeline from the North Slope to an export terminal in south-central Alaska.

With both China and the United States pushing the project, it will likely ensure Chinese LNG buyers seriously consider Alaska LNG when they look to sign new offtake deals, said Feer.

With planned output of some 20 million tonnes per year, Alaska LNG would need to sign numerous major offtake deals, likely with customers beyond just China, before it can secure financing for construction, analysts said.

Genscape analyst Jason Lord said the deal with Sinopec was far from secure, with any investment decision on the project still a long way off.

"This joint development agreement is really non-binding and allows Sinopec Group the ability to quietly back out down the road," said Lord in an email to . "There are still many steps before a final investment decision is reached."

The AGDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on criticism of the deal. But Alaskan Governor Bill Walker said earlier that the project will generate $8 billion to $10 billion in revenue each year, including $1 billion from gas sales.

"This is an agreement that will provide Alaska with an economic boom comparable to the development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s," Walker said in a statement.

The U.S. State Department said in a separate statement the project will create up to 12,000 jobs during construction and reduce the trade deficit between the United States and Asia.

Shipping distances from the Pacific Coast to Asia are far shorter than from the East, making western projects attractive to Chinese buyers, though construction costs are generally far higher.

Alaska is pursuing foreign investors for further energy development as it struggles to compete with lower-cost shale projects.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon in Vancouver; Editing by Tom Brown)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Private sector lender Axis Bank on Friday said it will raise equity and equity-linked capital of Rs 11,626 crore by selling shares and warrants to a group of marquee investors including Bain Capital and country's largest insurer and Axis Bank's promoter Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).

In a filing with stock exchanges Axis Bank said, "entities affiliated to Bain Capital propose to invest Rs 6,854 crore and LIC has proposed to invest Rs 1,583 crore. The bank proposes to raise Rs 9,063 crore through issuance of equity and the remaining Rs 2,563 crore through issue of warrants."

Axis Bank said its board had approved the sale of up to 172.63 million shares at 525 rupees each, and 45.36 million convertible warrants at 565 rupees each on a preferential basis. Axis Bank received approval for the capital raise from its Board of Directors on November 10, 2017.

Ahead of the news Axis shares had closed 0.8 percent higher at 544.80 rupees in a Mumbai market that gained 0.1 percent. The stock is up 21 percent so far in 2017, underperforming a 40 percent rise in the banking sector index and a 26 percent gain in the main market index.

The fundraising "will bolster the capital adequacy of the bank, thereby providing growth capital for the core business ... and its subsidiaries," the Mumbai-based lender said in a statement on Friday, after securing its board's approval for the deal.

The capital raising comes after the lender, India's third-biggest among private sector banks and seventh-biggest overall by assets, saw its bad loans surge in the second quarter to Sept.30 after a central bank audit.

While 21 state-run lenders account for bulk of India's record $146 billion soured loans, some of the private sector lenders have also seen defaults rising in the recent quarters.

Despite the rise in bad loans Axis Bank's capital adequacy ratio stood at 16.32 percent of assets at the end of September.

The bank will raise 90.63 billion rupees from the share sale and 25.63 billion rupees from the sale of warrants.

Affiliates of Bain Capital will invest 68.54 billion rupees in the bank, while LIC, which is owned by the Indian government and already owns a stake in Axis, will invest 15.83 billion rupees.

The bank will put the fund-raising plan to a shareholders' vote on Dec. 8, it said.

Axis Bank's investment banking arm Axis Capital advised it on the deal, while JP Morgan advised Bain Capital.

with Reuters inputs
Delhi's pollution has affected daily lives of its residents but the impact stretches far beyond the boundaries of the National Capital Region. The state's failure to curb the ever-looming smog over Delhi has attracted international attention.

An Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) report suggests that the crisis period in the national capital will deter tourists from making new travel plans in India. However, Assocham refused to quote any numbers regarding the loss in revenue since it is still too early to quantify.



Provisions like the Odd-Even scheme and sprinkling of water from above are likely to be implemented but their affect in the longer-run are still under question.

A survey by ASSOCHAM claims that the toxic smog not only encompasses Delhi NCR region but goes up to Ludhiana, Meerut, Panipat, Bhiwadi and Rohtak which will directly have an impact on tourism, transport, automobile and real estate.

November and December are the peak months for foreign travelers to visit India. The Golden Triangle --Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, is an all-time favorite tourist circuit and it's one of the worst affected areas. there'll be a direct impact on travel bookings.



The feedback from tour operators and hoteliers clearly point out a deep concern over the negative impact the pollution can cause to the economy, reveals the ASSOCHAM paper.

A few local travel agents have reported acute rise in requests of cancellations and postponement. According to Moses Rozario, founder of Agra by Bike a leading outdoor activity agency based out of Agra claims tourists have postponed their plans by two weeks to a month. "Bicycle tours have been replaced with cars and tourists are being provided with N95 masks, which is an embarrassment most travelers."

In the paper by the apex trade association of India, 350 tour operators reveal that international tourists are quite particular about their health and safety and with such negative developments Delhi is bound to drop off from the map of international tourists who will pick 'cleaner' South Asian destinations. Even domestic tourists are avoiding Delhi. In comparison, international tourists are more sensitive about green tourism.



Delhi being the National Capital Territory, receives 62% of foreign travelers and NRIs visiting India. The national capital has been getting the wrong kind of attention from international media.

CNN's story on the issue says "breathing in Delhi air equivalent to smoking 44 cigarettes a day" and Aljazeera reported, "schools close as smog chokes India's 'gas chamber' capital." Headlines like these are sure to leave tourists, planning to visit India, in a soup. The effect in entirety is still unclear but given the current situation, Delhi's ranking as tourist destination is likely to drop in the coming months.


US President Donald Trump on Friday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo- Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo- Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said.
HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company's initial public offer (IPO) was subscribed 4.89 times on the closing day of bidding on Thursday.

The Rs 8,695-crore IPO, received bids for 1,07,50,87,700 shares against the total issue size of 21,97,59,218 shares, according to NSE data till 1915 hrs. The category reserved for qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) was subscribed 16.60 times, non institutional investors 2.29 times and retail investors 91 per cent, merchant banking sources said.

The IPO received 11.37 lakh applications, they added. Till Wednesday, the IPO was subscribed 1.17 times.

HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company is a subsidiary of mortgage lender HDFC and raised Rs 2,322 crore from anchor investors, ahead of its initial public offer on November 7.

Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Norwegian fund Norges, Kuwait Investment, T Rowe Price, Fidelity, Blackrock and JP Morgan are among the anchor investors, according to a regulatory filing. The IPO comprises sale of 1,91,246,050 equity shares, amounting to 9.55 per cent stake, by HDFC Ltd and up to 1,08,581,768 scrips, or 5.42 per cent, holding by Standard Life Mauritius.

According to merchant banking sources, promoters are expected to get about Rs 7,500 crore from the stake dilution. The IPO which closes on November 9 can be subscribed at a price band of Rs 275-290 per equity share. The equity shares offered in the IPO are proposed to be listed on the BSE and the NSE.

HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh said: "The funds raised will be used by HDFC Ltd for its business purposes as the insurance arm has adequate capital needed for growth."

At present, HDFC owns 61.41 per cent stake in HDFC Standard Life and Standard Life has about 34.86 per cent stake, while the remaining is with employees and PremjiInvest. HDFC Standard Life was established as a joint venture between HDFC and Standard Life Aberdeen plc (global investment company), initially through its wholly owned subsidiary The Standard Life Assurance Company and now through its wholly owned subsidiary, Standard Life Mauritius.

The company has a pan-India presence, comprising 414 branches across India as of September 30, supported by a workforce of 16,544 full-time employees. The global coordinators and book running lead managers of the IPO are Morgan Stanley India Company, HDFC Bank, Credit Suisse Securities (India), CLSA India and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India).

The book running lead managers are Edelweiss Financial Services, Haitong Securities India, IDFC Bank, IIFL Holdings and UBS Securities India. The insurer's solvency ratio as at March 31, 2015, March 31, 2016, March 31, 2017 and June 30, 2017 was 196.1%, 198.4%, 191.6% and 197.5%, respectively.

IRDAI has prescribed a minimum 150% solvency ratio limit.The solvency ratio is derived out of the solvency margin (available solvency margin to required solvency margin) which denotes the amount by which the assets of the insurer exceed its liabilities. The insurer had a balance sheet with total net worth of Rs 4,150 crore.

The life insurer generated profit after tax of Rs 886.92 crore and delivered a return on equity of 25.6%, return on invested capital of 40.7% and operating return on embedded value of 21.7% during fiscal 2017. As at June 30, 2017, the firm had total assets under management (AUMs) of Rs 94,750 crore and Indian Embedded Value of Rs 13,220 crore.
Local search engine and listings company Just Dial's stock closed 9 per cent higher on Friday at Rs 500.30, after hitting an intra-day high of Rs 549.85 on the BSE. The spike resulted from a newspaper report that said Google was in take over talks. Just Dial, in a clarification to BSE, has denied any such development.

"As mentioned during our previous media, investor and analyst interactions, Just Dial, as part of its regular business, does meet various relevant corporates for exploring any business/strategic opportunities and tie-ups. However, we would like to clarify that as of now there is no proposal in respect of acquisition of business of Just Dial by Google and news published in Business Standard dated November 10, 2017, is factually incorrect," the company said.

While the report could be wrong, it makes sense for Google to buy a company with greater depth in local searches as well as transaction capability in India. The way Indians search for information online has undergone a paradigm shift with the mushrooming of smart phones and the app economy. While Google is the king of all of overall searches, Indian start-ups with great apps are nibbling away at Google. For instance, restaurants. A few years ago, Google could have been the defacto search engine to look up food joints. Now, it is Zomato, EazyDiner, and a host of other companies. In local home services, there are companies such as Housejoy that aggregates everyone from beauticians to plumbers. For buying products online, there are marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart. For airlines tickets, there is MakeMyTrip and Yatra. There is a BookMyShow for film and events ticketing. And if its hotels, you could fire up OYO's app. These companies are also end-to-end transactions platform, besides being a listings and discovery platform. Google should be worried.

Just Dial is a local search engine with fair depth in many verticals - the company provides deals; one can shop online, book flight and movie tickets, hotels, buses and cabs. One can order food as well. Just Dial today has a database of nearly 20 million listings. Its September quarter results underline a strong operational performance - it reported a 27 per cent rise in standalone net profit at Rs 37.5 crore over the year-ago period on revenues of Rs 194 crore.

Google could gain from the acquisition of a company that is operationally sound, profitable, and with depth in local listings.

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It is described on their website as a subgroup of a student club that is laser-focused on technology. Hack-USU is hosting the 3rd annual Hack-a-thon next Friday and Saturday, November 17th and 18th, at the Eccles Conference Center on the Utah State University campus. Haley Manning from the group was on KVNUs For the People program earlier this week.

One way I like to describe it (is) we have basically a code party with a career fair. We have about 300 students who will be coming to Utah State to work on a project and to compete, and to get free food, as well as mingle with professionals in their career. Its a great networking opportunity other than just working on a project for 36 hours straight, according to Manning.

The Hack-athon goes from 9 a.m. on that Friday to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Their website describes the event as one that does not involve breaking into someone elses data, but hacking in the sense of creating, innovating, and building something awesome with software or hardware, or creatively solving a problem.

One of the big categories we have this year, as well, is helping homelessness here in Utah, as we know thats been a bit of a problem lately. One thing that we have encouraged too is social work professionals to come in and help these students understand fully the problem that were trying to solve.

The public is invited to observe whats going on  they can even ask students what theyre working on. For those who would like to register themselves or a team of four, online sign-up is at <a href=http://HackUSUevents.org target=_blank>HackUSUevents.org</a> or see HACK USU on Facebook.
| BY Lynchy |

Powertank (the Content arm of Malaysian headquartered production company Directors Think Tank) and director Kelvin Theseira have recently shot the first of a six-part web series for Fiji Tourism and Fiji Airways via Bonsey Jaden Singapore.

The Great Fiji Challenge is a digital campaign from Tourism Fiji and Fiji Airways aimed at the Singaporean market. Bonsey Jaden and Directors Think Tank continued their strong partnership to bring it to life.

Part reality TV, part travelogue, the campaign centres around the exploits of three Singaporean influencers in Fiji, vying for direct flights to the island destination for their fans. But more than just a cultural crash course, the explorers had to do battle over sky, sea and sand as they peeled back layer after layer of surprising Fiji adventures.

In a week, the campaign notched up more than 50K views across the 6 episodes.

Pulling this campaign off was no easy task. It demanded the on-your-feet thinking of a reality TV production as well as the beautiful aesthetics of a tourism ad. I think Kelvin and Powertank managed to balance the two with much aplomb, says Adam Chan, Regional ECD at Bonsey Jaden.

There was only so much we could pre-plan  especially since the nature of the shoot was so different. But the small crew we had was nimble enough to roll with the surprises that popped up along the way, adds Alicia Hew, Creative Group Head at Bonsey Jaden.

Powertank director Kelvin Theseira says:We had a limited crew, time and money but the brief was huge. After the first day i was wondering what i got myself into and was counting the days till we finished the shoot. When that day finally came and we called wrap. i just wanted to do it all over again.

Credit list:

Client: Tourism Fiji

Singapore Marketing Manager: Donita Tuilevuka

Regional Manager Asia: Kathy Koyamaibole

Client: Fiji Airways

Global General Manager Marketing: Christina Templin

Agency: Bonsey Jaden Singapore

CEO: Daniel Posavac

Managing Director: Nic Robertson

Regional ECD: Adam Chan

Creative Group Head: Alicia Hew

Head of Art: Siok Yee

Copywriter: Alicia Hew, Audrey Lee

Art Director: Siok Yee, Gary Hoo, Ilisa Izhar, Yap Eva

Director of Strategy: Taryn Mook

Senior Strategic Planner: Irene Wikanta

Regional Digital PR Director: Elya Eusoff

Digital PR Manager: Vivienne Liam

Group Client Services Director: Yu Chin-Han

Chief Technology Officer: Praburaajan Selvarajan

Digital Account Manager: Peter Solomon

Community Manager: Adrian Loh

Social Media Manager: Brendon Lee

Digital Project Manager: Wei Zi

Senior UX/UI Designer: Mervin Ng

UX/UI Designer: Chuan Loh

Vietnam Operation Manager: Thi Nhan Quy

Web Developer: Phan Thi Toan, Nguyen Duc

Quality Assurance: Y Bdao, Phan Thi My

Production Co: Powertank

Film Director: Kelvin Theseira

Exec. Producer: Tek Nam

DOP: Julian Oh

2nd Unit Directors: Shahrul Nizam

Producer: Don Wong

Editor: Phoa Mui Kim/ Cheng See Wan

Post Production: Glassfin.
| BY Lynchy |

To bolster the skillset capability of Singaporeans across various stages of life, SkillsFuture Singapore has launched a campaign to drive greater awareness and understanding of SkillsFuture initiatives. Ogilvy & Mather Singapore created the campaign and the TVCs were launched this week on Mediacorp Channel 5 and Channel 8.

The campaigns concept, which underlines the fact that The Most Important Upgrade Should Be You, adopts a simple metaphor that conveys a powerful message  emphasizing how upgrading your professional skills is of equal, if not greater importance, than upgrading your everyday necessities. Resembling retail and lifestyle advertisements, the team took the unconventional approach of capturing the audiences attention by appealing to their consumer instincts via an engaging fashion retail-style look and feel.

Brenda Han, Managing Partner, Ogilvy & Mather Singapore, said, To motivate people to embark on their journey of lifelong learning, we drew a simple parallel to the items in their life that they upgrade frequently, rather than themselves. We want to influence those who have not taken steps to upgrade their professional skills and emphasize that the only way to stay relevant in todays competitive and ever-changing job market is to keep learning and growing your skills.

Patricia Woo, Director, Corporate and Marketing Communications, SkillsFuture Singapore, said, Investing in yourself is an important and lifelong process. We hope this campaign will prompt people to re-view their learning and career goals and realise that they need to upskill

and reskill to stay relevant and achieve their potential. There is a wide range of SkillsFuture programmes available for individuals regardless of the stage of their careers that will enable them to deepen their skills and grow themselves.

As part of the launch, a series of ads and TVCs will run across various channels including a dedicated campaign landing page and social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.

Credits:

Client: SkillsFuture Singapore

Project title: The most important upgrade should be you

Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Singapore

Executive Creative Director: Melvyn Lim

Account Management: Brenda Han, Ng Shin Yi, Sameer Rasheed

Creative Director: Uma Rudd Tan

Head of Art: Loo Yong Ping

TVC Production House: The Prosecution Film

Director: Warren Klass

Producers: Aundrea Bligh, Caroline Frances

Music and Sound Design: Song Zu Singapore

Print Production House: Shooting Gallery
"What we do know is that when we start talking about the possibility of doing better and having higher expectations it can be easy to think that that's not possible, but what we've seen elsewhere is it is possible and it takes everyone owning that aspiration and goal and together we really can realise the hopes and dreams and higher achievement that's possible."
In her time in New York, Williams has had the opportunity to be the principal dancer in a re-staging of renowned choreographer Bill T. Jones' Power/Full, as well as working with the Joffrey Ballet School on the Nutcracker for three of her four years at the school.
Those on the tour can glance down the ministerial wing and walk through Mural Hall, adorned with an series of paintings following the life of a river as it winds its way through the Australian landscape, but it is the opportunity to step foot into the Members and Guests dining room that is incredibly rare.
He had stories to tell about different portraits, how he turned down a part in Priscilla, joked about how his legs probably wouldn't have been able to pull off the thong dress, how Strictly Ballroom made it acceptable for men to dance again.
The latest report on the progress of the loose-fill asbestos buyback and demolition scheme, tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly, showed the acceptance rate of the first right of refusal had risen slightly to 12 per cent.
He said the territory valuation office would then give that report would then be independently review to see if there was a strong case to support the valuation, before a decision would be made and the taxpayer would be told of their rights to appeal the decision.
"So the compliance framework pacifies the inspectors and means WorkSafe' is only briefing the DPP on the big cases, and because they only get a handful of industrial cases, they don't have the experience of resources to prosecute them."
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.
If the rumors are correct, BMW will soon replace the M2 with an even more powerful version, dubbed the M2 Competition.



Unsurprisingly, the German automaker has yet to acknowledge the existence of such a car but our spy photographers have snapped it testing on multiple occasions. Weve also learnt that it will ditch the single-turbo 3.0-liter N55 six-cylinder of the regular M2 in favor of the twin-turbo S55 mill from the M3 and M4.

One thing were not so sure about is how the M2 Competition will look. This is where these life-like renderings come in.

Created by artist Monholo Oumar, the car pictured is distinguishable from the current M2 thanks to a new carbon fiber front splitter, side skirt fins, a trunklid lip spoiler, revised rear diffuser and carbon fiber tailpipes. Carbon can also be found on the roof and the wing mirrors.

We wont know how accurate these renderings are until the cars debut next year but if they are reasonably accurate, well be very pleased.

PHOTO GALLERY
Shortly after images of the long-awaited 2019 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 leaked online, the car manufacturer has released a teaser video previewing the model and confirming its November 12 debut.



The video, posted on Instagram, shows off a host of eye-popping new features of the track-focused Corvette. Among these components is an exposed section of carbon fiber on the hood, a front grille with similar shapes to the Camaro ZL1, a large carbon fiber rear wing, and a new set of quad tailpipes.

As we revealed a couple of days ago, the new Corvette ZR1 will make its public debut at the Dubai Motor Show before heading to the U.S. for a local launch at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

Beneath the skin, the 2019 ZR1 will feature a 6.2-liter LT5 V8 engine with an Eaton supercharger, not a twin-turbo setup as originally predicted. Power will sit at 750 hp and 680 lb-ft of torque. The new car will also accelerate to 60 mph (96 km/h) in under 3 seconds, record a sub-11-second quarter mile and lap Virginia International Raceway a full 2.5 seconds faster than the Z06.

VIDEO
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk unexpectedly met with controversial Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.



Neither Tesla nor the Turkish President have commented on what sparked the meeting, but Mashable reports talks may have been had about Teslas interest in Turkeys domestic automotive plans.

The official Twitter profile of Recep Tayyip Erdogan shared an image of Musk shaking hands with the president at the countrys Presidential Complex. It too did not provide context for the meeting.

As it stands, Tesla doesnt sell any of its vehicles in the country but in his quest for world domination, it seems probable Musk wants to change that.

In additional images of the meeting shared online, Musk and Erdogan were pictured alongside three scale models of SpaceX rockets.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the Presidential Complex. pic.twitter.com/9NQiuuQwmD

 Turkish Presidency (@trpresidency) November 8, 2017
Ford has signed a joint venture agreement with Chinese carmaker Zotye to form Zotye Ford Automobile, a company which will build electric vehicles specifically for China.



In a statement, Ford revealed that pending regulatory approval, the new joint venture will be responsible for designing, building, marketing and distributing EVs through China while leveraging a combined investment of approximately $756 million.

No timeline has been made public about when production of these EVs will commence but the joint venture will form an important part of Fords commitment to have at least 70 per cent of its vehicles sold in China offered with electrified powertrain options by 2025.

As part of the joint venture, Zotye Ford will build a dedicated product research and development center, a manufacturing plant in Zhejiang Province, and establish its own sales and services network.

We are delighted to have signed this joint venture agreement with Zotye to form our third joint venture automotive company in China, said Ford group vice president and president for Ford Asia Pacific, Peter Fleet said.

Subject to regulatory approval, Zotye Ford will introduce a new brand family of small all-electric vehicles. We will be exploring innovative vehicle connectivity and mobility service solutions for a new generation of young city-dwelling Chinese customers.

For those not familiar with Zotye, the company is perhaps best known in the west for its SR8, a clone of the Porsche Macan.

PHOTO GALLERY
If you live in China, for a mere RMB 56,800, which comes out to just $8,558 at the current exchange rates, you could get GMs latest SUV, the Wuling Hong Guang S3.



This makes it more affordable than the entry-level Ford Fiesta on our side of the pond, and it stays that way even in its range-topping guise, which can be had at RMB 81,800 ($12,325).

However, theres a major catch here, because the Wuling Hong Guang S3 is a China-only vehicle, made by the automotive giants local joint venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling, so dont expect to see it in Western markets, not now, not ever.

For what its worth, the Wuling Hong Guang S3 has an exterior design reminiscent of old Chevys and Daewoos, but it has been adorned with LED DRLs integrated on the sides of the front bumper, fog lamps, and a floating-style roofline.

Inside it gets a clean layout, with dual-tone leather trim depending on the selected grade, an 8-inch LCD screen, large electronic instrument display, and a quartz clock, for what the automaker describes as an added sense of luxury. It has a 2+2+3 seating layout, and all three rows of seats have their own air-conditioning vents and USB ports.

Based on the same platform as the Hong Guang MPV, the SUV also features a multi-link independent rear suspension, and some safety features such as ESC, hill-start hold control, cruise control, and others.

The engine family includes two members: naturally aspirated and turbocharged versions of a 1.5-liter unit.

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: CTV

The province has increased funding to help vulnerable women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The boost in operating funding will allow the WISH Drop-In Centre Society to continue to offer services that include health, educational, employment and harm-reduction support services, seven nights a week, to women involved in Vancouvers street-based sex trade.

The centre serves an average of 275-300 women daily, and demand is increasing.

While in the midst of a devastating opioid crisis, and while experiencing some of the worst homelessness weve seen in recent years, we are relieved to receive this additional funding, said Mebrat Beyene, executive director.

It has allowed us to keep the drop-in centre open seven nights a week, 18 hours a day, in order to continue to provide a safe haven for some of the most targeted and vulnerable women in the region.... We are saving lives together, with respect and dignity.

The province is providing WISH with about $153,000 in additional operating funds for 2017-18, and another $224,000 for 2018-19.
Photo: Colin Basran

Hot summers will be the new norm, thanks to human-influenced climate change.

Sweltering summers have become 70 times more likely over the past four decades, according to a study done by the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at the University of Victoria.

By 2050, almost every summer will be hotter than any experienced to date.

Were more than 95 per cent certain that human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary cause. The evidence is extremely strong, says climatologist Francis Zwiers.

The study found that even the hottest summers experienced since 1973, will be just typical summers within two decades.

Zwiers said these findings prove the need to undertake climate-change adaptation as well as reduce emission, since impacts like those considered in this study are emerging quickly.

Aggressive cooling strategies will be needed to manage more frequent extreme heat events in the summer.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Photo: Google Street View

Toxic.

That's how a new report describes the workplace culture at Nanaimo Regional Hospital.

Island Health hired the U.S.-based Vector Group to prepare the report. The company surveyed 473 workers on issues such as routine policy, procedures and attitudes at the hospital.

"From all indications Nanaimo Regional General Hospital is failing significantly in regard to managing people," the report says, adding the hospital is "maintaining an atmosphere of fear, bullying, intimidation, retaliation and censure that prevents people from raising questions, issues or concerns."

The report further states there is a feeling promotions and recruitment are based on nepotism. Advancement is about who you know, not what you know.

Many complaints within the hospital centre around the 2016 rollout of the iHealth system. A doctor was suspended for one day for protesting the new record keeping system.

A number of people surveyed said they have gone so far as to tell family and friends to go somewhere else if they get sick.

"In Vector Groups collective opinion the organizational culture is past the 'tipping point.' The simple act of continuing with daily operations exacerbates the toxicity of the culture," a summary reads. "This situation is not sustainable and will, in due course, lead to some form of self-destruction."

CTV has contacted Island Health for comment.

files from CTV Vancouver Island
Photo: Oliver Daily News

Emergency crews have been busy in the South Okanagan Thursday as snow continues to blanket the region.

A car left Highway 97 just south of Road 18 in Oliver around 10 a.m., crashing into an orchard.

Shortly afterward, a truck went down a 75 foot embankment at Saskatoon and Black Sage Road. Two people were taken to hospital with injuries. The RCMP is investigating.

The Oliver Fire Department responded to both crashes.

with files from Oliver Daily News
Photo: Contributed

Construction has yet to begin, but a new middle school in the Upper Mission has a name.

Canyon Falls was selected from a short-list of three names put forward following an online call for suggestions and a public open house.

Myra Canyon and Ki-Low-Na were the other two names under consideration.

"We're glad that the school has a new name as the project moves forward," said board of education chair Moyra Baxter.

"Canyon Falls Middle School is a name that received positive feedback from the community at the open house, so we're confident it will represent the residents of the area well."

The name was selected at Wednesday's board meeting.

"The school now has an identity we can literally build on," said SD23 Supt. Kevin Kaardal.

"We hope the name Canyon Falls Middle School will give the community a sense of pride in the school before it's even built, which will serve the learners from the area well as they look forward to attending a new school."

The most popular name during online submissions was Schooly McSchoolface.

Construction of the new school is expected to begin soon, with doors officially opening in September, 2019.
Researchers have pinpointed where in the rugged B.C. Interior a chunk of space rock landed more than two months ago.

A fireball lit up the sky over parts of Western Canada on the night of Sept. 4 and some witnesses reported hearing a loud boom.

The University of Calgary says an asteroid fragment a metre wide and weighing up to five tonnes crashed through the Earth's atmosphere that night.

Researchers put out a call to the public for videos to help them find where thousands of meteorites ranging from as small as a peppercorn to as large as 10 kilograms landed.

They narrowed it down to a 20-kilometre stretch from just east of Crawford Bay, on the shore of Kootenay Lake.

A visiting master's student from Italy made the first meteorite discovery last month on private property in Crawford Bay.

"At first I couldn't believe it. Ever since I was a child I got up with my father to see the night sky, and it was like a dream to hold a space rock in my hand," Fabio Ciceri said in a news release.
Photo: Castanet Staff Lt. Stefan Reid says more people need help this Christmas.

Vernon's Salvation Army has set an ambitious $500,000 goal for its Christmas kettle and mail-out letter campaign. It is also seeking volunteers for kettle shifts.

Over the past year we have seen an influx of people and the need is higher than it has ever been, said Lt. Stefan Reid, the House of Hope's executive director. Our foot traffic has increased substantially and we see more people each day coming for basic items such as bread and a hot cup of coffee.

Reid said the funds raised at Christmas help the Salvation Army throughout the year with different programs for women, children, and new this year, for men.

We are seeing our staff helping more and working with those who have mental health difficulties, addictions, referring people to housing and rehabilitation as well as their spiritual needs.

Christmas hampers won't be handed out this year. Instead, Save-on Foods gift cards will be handed out to those who pass the hamper interview.

The value of our hampers will not change and will reflect on the gift card. With this new approach, we are able to provide the dignity for people to shop at either Save-on-Foods locations and be able to choose their own food for their Christmas meal.

Hamper interview days this year: Nov. 28, 29 and 30

Hamper distribution days this year: Dec.18, 19 and 20

The Santa Toy Room returns to the House of Hope before Christmas where those with children and teens are able to pick gifts.

The Kettle campaign will run from Nov. 23-Dece. 23.

Shifts are 2 hours long during the hours of 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Monday to Saturday. All shifts this year will be inside. Go online to sign up.
Photo: Twitter

The people charged in a bizarre naked kidnapping that ended in a car crash may have unknowingly drunk some hallucinogenic tea over breakfast, says a relative.

RCMP have released few details about what happened Monday just before 10 a.m. in the community of Nisku, just south of Edmonton.

Three adults have been charged with kidnapping and resisting arrest. The matter was in court for the first time Thursday. No one was hurt, but the case has made headlines around the world.

The relative said he wants everyone to know the accused are not bad people. They just had some trippy tea.

"It's absolutely crazy," said the man, who cannot be named due to a court publication ban protecting the identity of youths involved in the case.

He told The Canadian Press that his two daughters, who are 13 and 15, and his ex-wife were having breakfast with two friends  a man and his wife. The man had recently travelled overseas and brought back some tea from India. The relative did not know the name of the tea.

That kicked off the "whole crazy spell," he said.

Mounties have said a man, woman and baby were forced against their will from a home in Leduc County into a BMW. Inside the car were five naked people. While the car was being driven, the abducted man, who was in the trunk, managed to escape. The woman and her baby then managed to get away.

The trio were picked up by a passerby, but his work truck was rammed from behind by the car.

When officers arrived, they pulled out the five naked people. The adults, who are 27, 30 and 35, were arrested, but the teens were not charged.

The relative said he laughed about the case when he heard it on the news, then was shocked to learn that his straight-laced daughters were involved.

"I was just like what the heck?"

He visited his youngest girl in hospital, who had been taken with some of the other suspects for treatment.

They don't remember what happened, the man said.

"Whatever potency that stuff had obviously is making it so it's just a big blur," he said, adding blood tests were also taken at the hospital.

"Nothing came back like illicit drugs, so they figure it may have been some type of herbal drug or something."
Photo: Contributed

Kelowna RCMP have arrested a male after a robbery at a local gas station.



Just after 9 p.m. Nov. 4, police were called to a robbery in progress on the 300 block of Harvey Avenue. An employee hid inside the store to call 911 and told dispatchers a man was demanding money and threatening to harm the cashier.

The male reportedly had his hand inside his coat pocket and said he was concealing a weapon. He took off with an undisclosed amount of money from the cash register.

Police were in the area when the call came in and found the suspect still inside the store. He was taken into custody without incident.

"The male suspect allegedly threw a handful of Canadian banknotes into the air upon seeing the officers enter the store," said Const. Lesley Smith.

"Upon searching the male, officers found a kitchen knife which was concealed in his jacket, and it was seized as evidence."

25-year-old Clayton Moote of Kelowna faces charges of robbery and uttering threats.
The Banks Crescent project keep chugging along even though almost a third of the electorate has signed a petition against it. Why? It sounds nice, age in place! Buy a condo, then when you need more help thered be care beds. Out of 424 condos, how many care space would there be? When would they be built?

We heard: It all depends on market conditions. About 59 care spaces was the last retort. When? No exact answer. These 424 condos would be in a gulch with red zone all around, built on land that is potentially unstable. The previous owner said that two landslides occurred there when irrigation pipes above the property leaked. With our changing, unpredictable climate what could happen if we get torrential rains? Much of that land is composed of glacial silt. A UBC geology paper declared that glacial silt is intrinsically collapsible.

Most of the people who are in favour of the Banks Development have not lived here for a long period. I have and Ive seen two catastrophic collapses in lower town in the early 1970s and 1990s. One killed the man who had fixed my radio the week before. Houses across the road were pushed off their foundation, some were wrecked. The road (Arkell) behind the sewer plant collapsed massively a while ago. We used to hike on the nice trail in Zimmermans Gulch but the surrounding banks collapsed and orchard trees fell into the abyss so you cant really hike there anymore. There was a cliff that collapsed south of Crescent Beach this summer and there are numerous sinkholes in our town, on Pentictons West Bench and on the Naramata bench-land. There have been some collapses along highway 97, one near Peachland not so long ago, one between Summerland and Penticton a while ago.

Monday, Oct. 23rd, the Council talked about liability regarding Banks Crescent, and couldnt seem to agree on who would be liable if there were a slippage. Would the geotechnical engineer be liable? He would not have enough insurance to cover a big mistake. Could the municipality be on the hook? Our CAO admitted that we Summerland residence would face charges. When you consider six-storey buildings potentially slipping, costs to us taxpayers could be enormous. I seem to remember that North Vancouver was socked with a big bill for a slippage in the past. Parts of Tuscan Terrace are apparently slipping according to a constructor I know who has inspected his friends home and heard from others there. The owners of those slipping residences have no recourse, no way to sue anyone. The builder is long gone. I was told that a geotechnical study was done of that land before Tuscan Terrace was built. Some other potential costs to us taxpayers were mentioned at Wednesdays meeting. Roads would have to be widened and strengthened to accommodate heavy equipment and extra traffic. Wed need different fire fighting equipment with ladders that could reach six storeys, also aerial equipment and firefighters trained to use this equipment. Wed need hydrants with enough pressure to reach above six storeys. The costs for fires were not mentioned at the past meeting. It makes much of the town angry that a developer can come and threaten the existence of BCs oldest Fish Hatchery. The location of the development is simply wrong.

Lark has not proven that it can supply water of the same consistent chemistry and temperature as Shaughnessy Spring, he suggested using one of Summerlands two existing water licenses to take water from the lake. But our lake water does not have the same chemistry or a consistent temperature. What would be the costs of supplying correct replacement water in perpetuity if the spring cant be used? Summerland might need that water license in the future. Banks Crescent does not fit the OCP because of its location far from our towns centre. I wouldnt want to be stuck there if I couldnt drive, hillside walking is steep.

Well, my cup of tea has been drained. Thanks for sharing by reading my written thoughts. Now what? Its not like British dramas. We havent solved the problem yet.

Marilyn Hansen
Photo: Contributed

A person's vehicle was shot at during an apparent case of road rage in Surrey Thursday morning.

At 10:25 a.m., Surrey RCMP received a call of a woman driving erratically who had shot another vehicle on the 19200 block of 72nd Avenue.

The woman drove off after the shooting.

The same woman was involved in a minor accident nearby, at the intersection of 200th Street and 72nd Avenue in Langley shortly afterwards.

Officers believe impairment was a factor in the crash and the occupants in the crashed vehicle were arrested.

Both vehicles have been seized for forensic analysis and a neighbourhood canvass for more witnesses or video surveillance will be conducted by police.

The investigation is just getting underway and as such no formal charges have been laid as of yet, said Cpl. Scotty Schumann.

Anyone with more information is asked to contact the Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502.
Photo: CTV Dozens of police cars bring John Davidson's body back to Abbotsford Thursday.

A long procession of police cars, with their lights flashing, brought the body of Const. John Davidson back to Abbotsford Thursday.

Davidson was shot and killed Monday in Abbotsford while responding to a report of a stolen car.

Thursday's drive, which saw first responders and civilians saluting the fallen officer along the route, brought Davidson's body from Vancouver General Hospital to a funeral home in Abbotsford.

Const. David Drummond travelled from Calgary to pay his respects.

He's a man that you looked up to," Drummond said. "Things that I learned from him when I rode along with him have stuck with me, and I've passed them on to the people I work with. So he's left his mark on me."

Davidson had been honoured multiple times in his career for his work getting impaired drivers off the road and won a provincial crime award for a presentation he taught in high schools about the dangers of ecstasy.

He recently took part in the nine-day Cops For Cancer Tour de Valley ride, raising money for childhood cancer research.

"He was so ecstatic to be involved," Abbotsford Police Chief Bob Rich said Tuesday."He was so thrilled that he could take part in this ride and contribute to these kids' lives. He was so thankful for the opportunity, and it sort of really brings home who I want you to understand John Davidson to be."

A GoFundMe page raised more than $90,000 in one day, as of Thursday night, for Davidson's family.

Davidson's funeral will be held on Nov. 19.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: CTV

Police are investigating a series of arson fires in the Victoria area, including the one at a food bank.

Four garbage bins were set on fire, one was set outside the Monterey Centre in Oak Bay, and another was started in shopping carts outside the Mustard Seed Food Bank.

"There were two grocery carts filled with debris, and it looked like those were lit on fire to go up the side of the wall," the food bank's Janine Boice told CTV. "We believe it was gasoline or another substance to start it."

The fire charred the exterior of the building and shocked clients showing up for a meal, Thursday.

"I was shocked. I came here yesterday morning to have a coffee," said Creighton Douglas. "It was very surprising to see that cross burnt like that, and it made me sad Only good comes out of this place."

Police say the fires were similar in nature and are under investigation.

 with files from CTV Vancouver Island
Photo: Twitter

White supremacist posters are raising eyebrows after being posted outside a Burnaby library.

These flyers have no place in Canadian cities where we celebrate diversity and acceptance, Avi Benlolo of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said Thursday.

The storm has arrived. Where will you seek shelter? say the posters promoting Stormfront, a self-described white nationalist community of racial realists and idealists."

They include a White Pride Worldwide logo.

"Its up to the community to be vigilant in countering attempts by such groups to recruit people to their brand of intolerance and increase their visibility," said Benlolo.

Similar posters have shown up in Vancouver, Victoria, Richmond and Abbotsford over the past year.

RCMP have been contacted about Wednesdays incident in Burnaby.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Abbotsford Police

Warren Banks was driving home on Halloween wearing his costume  a brown cultist robe  when he was pulled over by a police officer in Abbotsford, B.C.

It led to an encounter Banks remembers for how kind the officer was, made even more poignant this week when he learned the policeman, Const. John Davidson, had lost his life in the line of duty.

"It was just a really pleasant, friendly interaction and we got to the end and I just thought this guy is really exemplary," Banks said.

Davidson, who was 53, was killed Monday while responding to a suspected stolen vehicle call when shots were fired.

A 65-year-old Alberta man has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with his death.

Banks said Davidson made a positive impression on him from the moment they spoke after he was pulled over.

"The first thing I noticed was he addressed me by my name," Banks said, adding he was at a loss for why he had been stopped.

Davidson explained his plates were scanned and flagged for having expired car insurance, Banks said.

The officer could have handed him a $600 ticket and impounded the vehicle, but Banks said Davidson believed he didn't know his insurance expired and handed him a $100 ticket instead.

Banks still couldn't drive without renewing his policy. He started looking up the nearest broker on his cellphone when Davidson came back with his ticket.

"He said, 'I know one just three blocks down. Get in the car, I'll give you a ride.' "

Banks said he was surprised by the offer and wanted to express his gratitude.

"I was getting out of the car and I went to shake his hand and I said, 'Thank you very much for the ride and I just want to say it was really an honour and privilege to be arrested by you,' " he said.

Davidson laughed and said it wasn't an arrest, Banks recalled.

"I said, 'Yeah I know I'm not under arrest but ... I just wanted to let you know that I thought you did a great job.'"

When news of Davidson's death was released, Banks said he immediately recognized the officer who was kind, courteous and professional to him.
Photo: The Canadian Press Testing for the presence of illicit fentanyl.

British Columbia is going to test a new drug-checking service in Vancouver to determine if it will help cut the soaring number of overdose deaths in the province.

The study began last week in a partnership between the city and the BC Centre on Substance Use using a portable machine at two supervised consumption sites.

The machines are being used along with fentanyl test strips to look for contaminants in the drug supply.

The Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions is also expanding the use of fentanyl test strips in all supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites.

The death toll from illicit drug overdoses reached 1,103 for the first nine months of this year.

In 2016, 982 people fatally overdosed in British Columbia.

The opioid fentanyl was detected in about 83 per cent of the deaths, representing a 147 per cent increase over the same period last year, the coroner's service said this week. In most cases, the powerful painkiller was combined with other drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

"With dangerous drugs like fentanyl contaminating the majority of street drugs, giving people information on what's in the substances they are using can help them make informed decisions about whether or how much they consume  and could save lives," Addictions Minister Judy Darcy said in a statement on Friday.

"Our research into drug checking will help us answer key questions about how effective and reliable these technologies could be in reducing the devastating number of people dying across the province from overdoses."

Two other health authorities in the Fraser Valley and the Interior recently introduced fentanyl test strips at some of overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites.
Want to join the Okanagan's top news team?

Castanet has an opening for a news director at its Vernon office.

We're one of Western Canada's most successful online media platforms and have rapidly expanded over the past few years.

Based in Kelowna, we've added Vernon and Penticton offices, built a new media centre and recently added a radio station to our multimedia reach.

The successful candidate will run a small staff from our downtown Vernon office, edit, assign and report his or her own copy, as well as work closely with the rest of our staff throughout the Okanagan.

The job will include working in online, video and radio formats, and offers an exciting opportunity at a company on the forefront of media convergence.

You'll need a minimum of five years experience in journalism and be able to work in a fast-paced, ever-changing news environment, meeting the needs of a readership that is both local and spans across B.C. and beyond.

For more details and complete job posting, click here.

Email applications to [email protected].
Photo: Google Street View Merritt RCMP detachment.

An RCMP officer has been charged with assault, stemming from an incident at the Merritt police detachment in May.

The charge was filed against Sgt. Norm Flemming on Thursday.

While the nature of the incident is unclear, Dan McLaughlin with the BC Prosecution Service says it happened on May 15, 2017 inside the Merritt RCMP detachment.

Flemming is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Dec. 5.

The charge was approved by a Crown prosecutor who is not based in Merritt, and has no connection to the officer.
Photo: The Canadian Press Patrick Fox of Burnaby, B.C., shown in this undated handout image. - Patrick Fox

A British Columbia man convicted of criminally harassing his ex-wife through a revenge website has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

After time served is taken into account, Patrick Fox will spend nearly two years in prison and be on probation for three years after his release.

Fox was found guilty by a jury in June of criminally harassing his ex-wife Desiree Capuano through threatening emails and a website that maligned her as a white supremacist, drug addict and child abuser.

He was also found guilty of possessing firearms in a place he was not authorized to do so.

Fox was sentenced to three years for criminal harassment and 10 months for the firearms offence, to be served consecutively.

More coming.
Photo: Surrey RCMP Police are searching for 14-year-old Hailey McLelland, who was last seen on Oct. 13 in South Surrey.

Police in Surrey are asking for the public's help to find a 14-year-old girl.

Hailey McLelland was last seen on Oct. 13, when she was dropped off at school in South Surrey.

McLelland is described as five feet five inches tall and 108 pounds, with pink hair and blue eyes.

"It is not unusual for Hailey to be away from home for two to three weeks at a time. With the weather turning colder, family is concerned for Haileys well-being," a news release from Surrey RCMP reads.

Police said McLelland is regularly in the Whalley, Central City, Guildford and Fleetwood areas of Surrey, and noted it is "out of character" for her to go this long without contacting anyone.

Those with information about McLelland's whereabouts are asked to contact Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502, or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Photo: VPD Christopher Schafer

Police have arrested a high-risk sex offender who has been unlawfully at large since Oct. 26.

A Canada-wide warrant was issued for 40-year-old Christopher Schafer on Oct. 27, after he failed to return to a Vancouver residential correctional facility.

Vancouver police arrested Schafer Friday, and they've determined he has not committed additional crimes while he's been unaccounted for.

Schafer has a long criminal history that includes break-and-enter, sexual offences, uttering threats, robbery, and assaulting a peace officer.

This is the third time he has disappeared in a similar fashion in less than a year, including once while on a long-term supervision order in December 2016 and once last July.
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Recommending books is only part of the job for staffers at the Mount Prospect Public Library. They answer queries about the recent eclipse, how to find medical centers for hip replacement, and where to go for court-ordered community service.

And they welcome it. Were the default source for many questions, said Jo Robinson, assistant department head for research services. If people need help, were ready.

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The Mount Prospect Public Library has thrived serving the northwest suburban community of 54,000. A new building in 2004 opened space for expanded programs as well as public study and meeting rooms. The calendar is chock full of events, from Story Tots for 2- and 3-year-olds to a seminar on genealogy research. The library in 2009 opened a branch on the largely Hispanic south side of the village. Its important to fit your community, said Executive Director Marilyn Genther.

The library ranks No. 28 among small employers in the Tribunes list of Top Workplaces, as measured by Exton, Pa.-based consultancy Energage, formerly WorkplaceDynamics.

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With an operating budget of $9.1 million, the library serves more than 50,000 cardholders. It employs a staff of about 165; fewer than half have masters degrees in library science but employees are encouraged to aim high.

Robinson began as a part-time patron assistant in 2000, which she saw as a perfect second career following earlier jobs in journalism. It turned into so much more, she recalled. I was encouraged to look beyond my happiness. She completed her master of library science degree online in 2007 and was promoted to assistant department head, first for community information and referral and later adding research services. She was planning to retire this fall.

Robinson and other employees gain satisfaction from helping patrons, whether its researching a school assignment or a life problem. During the 2008 recession, village residents who were laid off from long-tenured positions came to the library for help in their job search.

Some werent computer-savvy and didnt know how to apply for jobs online, Robinson recalled. We became employment counselors and helped people get back on their feet.

Jamie Lopez, lead network technician, previously worked at a computer store in Crystal Lake and joined the library in 2013. He tends to the librarys servers, computer network and phone system and handles infrastructure upgrades. I like helping a staff member when they have an IT problem, he said. I explain, This is what happened, and this is what I did to fix it.

Lopez, who is bilingual, also helps patrons navigate the librarys computers, perhaps burn a CD or scan an article to email. I welcome the responsibility and the more they give me, the more I enjoy it, he said.

The South Branch does double duty as a community center and library, with books and publications in Spanish, Polish and the Indian language Gujarati. Patron assistant Allison Smith Hahn, who joined the library in 2012, seamlessly shifts from English to Spanish as she fields questions.

One rewarding moment came when a patron searching for a job working with senior citizens asked for help. We started to investigate and a woman overhearing our conversation stood up and said, Im in elder care. I stepped back and they made the connection.

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The library, Smith Hahn said, is a place where people can connect with neighbors and that can change their lives.

Its no surprise the library enjoys a loyal workforce. Among the staffers, 27 have tenures of 15 years, 35 have been at the library 10 years and 24 have passed the five-year mark.

The library offers partial reimbursement for staff members going to school for a bachelors or masters degree. And employees are encouraged to join any of more than two dozen committees, from a group that recommends additions to the collection to designating the employee winner of the monthly Pat on the Back award.

Chairing a committee is a good way to test your leadership skills, said Genther, who joined the library in 1986 as head of the adult services reference department and was named executive director in 1992. People stick around. They see the impact, that they can make a difference.

Judith Crown is a freelance writer.

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From the survey:

 There's a strong sense of teamwork and cooperation librarywide.

 The library is forward-looking, active, and has the best interests of the community at heart.

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"The Shots at Iron Mountain: A Story of Two Men  Tom Horn and Geronimo"

By Jiri Cernik

In "The Shots at Iron Mountain," Jiri Cernik revisits the oft-told story of Tom Horn, executed for murder in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1903. The trial and verdict continue to be controversial. Cernik tips his hand early: The novel is dedicated to all those who believed he was not guilty.

Cerniks portrayal of Horn as a transitional figure between the lawless days of the open range and the more settled 20th-century society is unsurprising, echoing legal historians such as John W. Davis, whose 2016 "The Trial of Tom Horn" reaches more or less the same conclusion. Cernik, unlike Davis, laments the loss of the romance of the Old West. In his view, Horn simply operates by a different code, leaving him vulnerable to the conspiratorial machinations of small landholders, politicians and would-be capitalists courting eastern development money.

An innovative feature is the pairing of the Horn trial story with Denver Post articles written by the primary point-of-view character, Rick Jackson. Jackson, a longtime Horn partisan, ghostwrites a first-person account of Horns previous adventures as an Army scout and confidante of Geronimo, based on jailhouse interviews he conducts while Horn awaits trial.

Though their narrative connection with the main story is thin, the excerpts reinforce the characterization of Horn as an honorable man operating in a world where violence is accepted and perhaps necessary. Horns rough edges arent denied, but they are smoothed over considerably. His reputation as a hired gun and tendency to brag about his exploits are explained away as the scout-turned-detectives own public relations hype.

Cernik doesnt take as much advantage of Jacksons point of view as he might; for example, Jackson shows little interest in competitively scooping the local journalists, even though he believes they are biased against Horn. Relying heavily on doubles and purloined testimony, Jacksons conclusions about how Horn was framed are implausibly elaborate on their face, but it is easy to see how the reporter, conflicted about the coming of a new era, could reach the conclusions he does.

Born in what was then Czechoslovakia, Cernik embodies the European fascination with the American West. In addition to fictional westerns, his previous books include histories of the West published in the Czech Republic. Despite his State Department credentials as a language instructor, Cernik seems not quite at home in his adopted tongue; the text is replete with anachronisms (Did turn-of-the-20th-century figures really call people weirdos?), article errors (he tends to use the before a proper noun, as in the Horn), and unnatural syntax. Skillful editing might have ameliorated the texts awkwardness, but this is not the case, as misspellings and typographic errors exacerbate the novels problems.

Acknowledging that his story is not an accurate historical narrative, Cernik is generally careful to distinguish known fact from narrative flourish and speculation. Horn admirers and others interested in the frontiers last days will find in "The Shots at Iron Mountain" a welcome defense of the range detectives reputation.
All votes in the CO-3 election won't be counted until the end of this week
A former Billings Clinic nurse is denying charges he took fentanyl intended for patients and replaced it with saline.

Donald Friedlich Mills III, pleaded not guilty to two counts in U.S. District Court on Tuesday. Mills is charged with tampering with consumer products and acquiring fentanyl by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery and deception. He was released on his own recognizance.

Mills was fired from Billings Clinic earlier this year after telling hospital administrators he took fentanyl intended for patients and replaced it with saline. Mills was confronted after a colleague noticed irregularities in the automated secure cabinet in which hospitals store controlled substances.

The colleague informed his supervisor, and the nurse was pulled in for an interview.

"Actually, he was very forthcoming," said Camilla Saberhagen, a doctor and the chief quality and patient safety officer at Billings Clinic.

Mills told administrators hed begun taking the fentanyl from hospital stores in November for his own neck and shoulder pain, according to a complaint filed with the Montana Board of Nursing.

The Montana Board of Nursing revoked Mills license on June 10, according to an online nurse license registry the state uses, www.nursys.com.

In the last decade and a half, Billings Clinic has dismissed two nurses for stealing narcotics, once in 2003 and again in 2010, according to Gazette archives.

In July 2010, Jennifer Asay lost her license after she was accused of stealing narcotics. A nurse supervisor reported Asay to the state nursing board in July 2009 after a secure narcotics container was tampered with on two occasions.

In April 2003, Jenny Laughery, also known as Jenny McCann or Jenny Williams, admitted she stole the painkillers Percocet, Dilaudid and Demerol. She also admitted to altering medication distribution sheets in an attempt to hide the thefts.

She was sentenced to probation in U.S. District Court.

Mills trial date is set for Jan. 8, 2018.

Tampering is punishable by 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. The drug charge is punishable by four years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
Marine veteran Johnny Allery becomes emotional recalling the hardship he experienced with his father influencing him to join the Marines during an event celebrating veterans at the Independence Hall in the Heights on Friday.

Nearly 50 people attended the event.

Independence Hall is operated by Volunteers of America and is a 20-bed men's transitional facility for veterans.

Allery spent three weeks at the facility and now works as a full-time employee working maintenance and ensuring successful transitions for the men that live there.
By Dezan Shira & Associates



Dezan Shira & Associates, the professional services firm, celebrates its 25th anniversary of doing business in China today, with celebratory events and a gala dinner being held in Shanghai. The firm, which began life on November 10, 1992 with the formation of a limited company in Hong Kong, and a small office in Shenzhen, was founded by Chris Devonshire-Ellis, now the Chairman of the practice, with the support of two Sichuan girls acting as interpreters and administrative staff. Later, and current equity partners, include Alberto Vettoretti, recently Vice Chair of the European Chamber of Commerce South China, Sabrina Zhang, and Adam Livermore.

Today, Dezan Shira & Associates, together with its Asian Alliance members in Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand, operate 28 regional offices throughout Asia and employ some 600 professional staff. Dezan Shira & Associates own offices includes 12 in mainland China, plus offices in Hong Kong, Delhi and Mumbai in India, Jakarta in Indonesia, Singapore, as well as Saigon and Hanoi in Vietnam.

Dezan Shira & Associates predates the development of Chinas legal and accounting industries, explains Devonshire-Ellis. He said, In 1992, all lawyers, accountants, and auditors in China worked directly for the government. Foreign professionals in the consulting services industry had to sit an examination to qualify as a Legally Responsible Person, or LRP, which in those days was the equivalent of being a lawyer in China. I sat my exam at the local government office in Shenzhen. I had studied Chinese law using translated English language materials sourced from material in the main public library in Hong Kong. There were no university courses in mainland Chinese law at that time and you had to make the most of whatever resources you could find. In 1999, we corrected that knowledge gap ourselves by launching China Briefing magazine, which has become a major resource in its own right.

The professions were liberalized in China in 1994, and the term Legally Responsible Person was then redefined as being the head of an enterprise, and the emphasis on having a legal examination changed to just being professionally competent, although LRP can still be held individually accountable if their company breaks the law. Lawyers and accountants in China who wished to enter private practice had to change their LRP to Chinese state qualifications; however, this was not an option available to foreigners, who were nonetheless allowed to keep the legal definition as distinct from todays more general LRP. Devonshire-Ellis comments, I am one of the very few original foreign LRP left still practicing in China under the pre-1994 qualifications system  there were never very many of us to begin with, and of those, most have now retired or moved on. Meanwhile, Chinas commercial laws have changed beyond all recognition since 1992. Its been a fascinating experience to be part of that.

The liberalization of the legal and accounting industries in China also had an unexpected, but positive, effect for consulting firms at the time. All the good quality lawyers and auditors, who were government employed, left the public sector to start their own practices, which meant that for about a decade the level of service provided by local government was highly fluid. That, coupled with the generous tax breaks given to foreign investors at the time, meant firms such as Dezan Shira & Associates, which specialized in assisting foreign companies enter China, were in high demand as we really knew what we were doing with the legal and tax issues, often times more than the local government departments did. Chris said, I once had to explain to a government official in Shijiazhuang the legal differences between an Equity Joint Venture and a Co-Operative Joint Venture [CJV]. He simply didnt know there were two different types, and he was responsible for the regional JV approvals process. We eventually got the first CJV ever done in that city by us teaching him Chinas CJV law.

There were other strange quirks in those early days as well. Representative Offices of foreign companies could only be established in special hotels, with a floors reserved for only commercial usage. Foreigners could not legally use RMB, and had to use Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) instead, a practice that was not fully phased out until 1995.

Technology was very different back then continues Devonshire-Ellis. He notes, When the Jianguo Hotel in Beijing got a fax machine for foreign guests, it was a city-wide business event. Some of the very first JV contracts in China were completed by faxing documents overseas from that machine in China, and back again with amendments. There were queues at all hours to use it.

Dezan Shira & Associates, however, has continued to specialize in servicing foreign investors rather than Chinese. Devonshire-Ellis said, The Chinese market is still developing in terms of accepting professional advisors, except for the high level of Chinese MNCs who are used to it and understand. Mid-market firms like ours are not in that space. Instead, we continue to service foreign investors, mostly at the middle market and SME range, with average investments of about USD1 million to USD10 million. They pay their bills, and we have very few receivables and negligible bad debt. Were happy with that space.

That space includes servicing over 10,000 foreign investors over the past 25 years, in total investments handled by the firm being in excess of US$20 billion.

Our main markets are the US, UK, Italy, Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, and Hong Kong , said Adam Livermore, a partner with the firm. He further noted, We have serviced clients from more than 90 countries worldwide.

Alberto Vettoretti, the firms managing partner, stated, Dezan Shira & Associates has a unique combination of Asian geographical spread, cross border practical experience and talent. These factors are what have allowed us to prosper over the years and develop a seamless, cross-country consulting practice advising FDIs in the region. We are one of the very few players able to provide a total Asia solution.

In terms of longer-term development strategy, Devonshire-Ellis has this to say: Asia is now where the majority of global wealth is now concentrated and it is going to stay that way. Dezan Shira & Associates will continue to focus and develop our practice into our existing markets, such as China and India, while also looking at other emerging Asian markets as they develop. Moving ahead, countries such as Russia, Indonesia, Vietnam are all performing well, while other economies such as Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh and Mongolia are all on our radar. West China too will also start to become more attractive as the Belt and Road initiative begins to push those regional economies forward. In terms of services, it is all about IT. We are heavily investing in IT driven services, such as HR and payroll, while also looking at developments in Blockchain technologies, for example. We see a role for professional firms in taking a small percentage, say 0.05 percent of goods value to be declared, and paid by us on behalf of clients when goods transit different customs unions. Rather than the client having to process the payment, our platform, building on Blockchain could interface directly with customs, and do that for them. Its just another method of helping clients pay their taxes, after all.

Sabrina Zhang, Dezan Shira & Associates China Tax Partner, said constant evolution is the key to long term business success. Zhang elaborates, Since I joined the firm, China has changed immeasurably. We have had to adapt just to keep pace of those changes. China and Asia are markets which never stand still. Dezan Shira & Associates is constantly changing and re-inventing who we provide services to, and what new services we need to provide as an on-going evolutionary process. It is both immensely challenging and rewarding.

The firm is also one of the very few to have broken the China mould and expanded into Asia. We felt we would miss opportunities by only staying in China, said Vettoretti. He commented further, We needed to follow our clients, many of whom were opening up elsewhere as the China plus One strategy started to emerge. Ten years ago, we started our India operations and now we are in Vietnam, Singapore and the main ASEAN nations. Now our clients can find total Asian solutions with just one firm.

Dezan Shira has certainly done that. Non-China revenues are increasing steadily, as have the numbers of Briefing publications provided by the firm, which extend beyond China to India, Indonesia, Russia, Vietnam, and even the Belt and Road Initiative with the new Silk Road Briefing publication, which was launched earlier this year. These resources are utilized by a lot of government bodies and multinational corporations who hire our staff to conduct cross-border and regional intelligence reports, says managing editor Adam Pitman. He continued, The main Asia Briefing portal will also be getting an overhaul in the next few weeks. These sites are popular internationally, with a substantial subscriber list and overall viewership. The symbiotic relationship between the Briefing titles and Dezan Shira & Associates is mutually beneficial: we generate marketing opportunities, while Dezan Shira & Associates receives first-rate regional research to pass onto clients.

Looking ahead, where does the firm see itself in the future? Devonshire-Ellis said, We are in the process of bringing in a whole new layer of young professionals who represent the next generation. Devonshire-Ellis elaborates, The required competency is changing, and IT is a major factor. The firm is going through a profound period of change with a lot of great young talent joining us. Asia is also changing, and new opportunities are opening up throughout the region, including with a new wave of capabilities to sell to China, and educating businesses how to do that, in addition to new trade routes opening up involving China, Russia, India and ASEAN. We are, and will be, expanding in all these spaces.

Any last words? The partners of the firm echo each other: Wed like to thank all our clients, staff past and present, and the many friends of the firm who have helped us along the way. 25 years is a long time and we couldnt have succeeded without a lot of hard work and effort put in by all. Its been a blast and we hope to continue to push on with our unique style and professional introduction to business in Asia.



About Us China Briefing is published by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. We produce material for foreign investors throughout Asia, including ASEAN, India, Indonesia, Russia, the Silk Road, and Vietnam. For editorial matters please contact us here, and for a complimentary subscription to our products, please click here. Dezan Shira & Associates is a full service practice in China, providing business intelligence, due diligence, legal, tax, IT, HR, payroll, and advisory services throughout the China and Asian region. For assistance with China business issues or investments into China, please contact us at china@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.

The Story of a China Practice

Released ten years ago, this popular and complimentary book describes the first 15 years of the development of Dezan Shira & Associates. Essential reading for all Foreign SMEs and Start Ups in China, the sequel will be published next year.

Dezan Shira & Associates
Over 100 delegates are expected to attend an International Film Conference in Kenya next week to seek ways of promoting and accelerating development of film industry.

The Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and Arts Hassan Wario said the conference will help create a platform for actors in the region to exchange ideas and network with others from different parts of the globe.

"The conference will help harness the potential of the creative arts in East Africa region," Wario said in a statement on Thursday.

The Nov. 15-17 meeting is a collaborative effort between the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB), the European Union (EU), the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the French Embassy in Kenya.

Wario noted that the convention will lead to better understanding of the opportunities available in the industry by promoting co-productions to further shared values.

"The wide range of participants will provide a rare opportunity for Kenyan film makers to exchange ideas with some of the best actors from the global arena," Wario added.

The theme of the convention is "Taking the audio visual and film industry in Eastern Africa to the next level."

Franch Ambassador to Kenya Antoine Sivan revealed that there is growing international interest in the potential of the cultural and creative industries to drive sustainable development.

"The industry contributes to economic growth with estimated revenue of 250 billion U.S. dollars a year besides creating 29.5 million jobs globally," he added.

Sivan observed that the industry is a potential and important contributor to social cohesion and nation building through the promotion of intercultural dialogue, understanding and collaboration.

Delegates are expected to come from France, United States of America, India, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi. Established film makers from Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood are also expected to attend.

Delegates from France will present the various government measures, laws and regulations that govern and oversee the audio-visual and film sector in France.
As the world is becoming increasingly interconnected, digitized and intelligent, companies and governments across the world are talking about smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data and virtual reality. Software lies at the core of this evolution.

Wang Yongkang, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xi'an Municipal Committee, coded a short program to kick start the first Global Programmers' Festival. [Photo/China.org.cn]

A major new initiative to boost cloud computing cooperation among nations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in the city of Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Nov. 9 during the ongoing Global Programmers' Festival.

Presented by local and international representatives from technology parks along the routes, the new program aims to broaden the scope of their cooperation in the field of digital technology and software.

Xi'an Mayor Shangguan Jiqing said in his opening address that the inland city that historically formed one end of the old Silk Road hoped the festival would showcase its software development and superior talent, and explore better ways to meet the software needs of countries along the Belt and Road.

Xi'an's ultimate vision is to build itself into a "Silicon Valley on the Silk Road" by integrating local innovation with global intelligence.

Henry Chen, Board Chairman & CEO of Chinasoft International Ltd., in his role as a representative of local software companies, explained to a China.org.cn reporter the reason why Xi'an was chosen to host such event.

"Xi'an will become China's third international city in 2020, following Beijing and Shanghai," he said. "As the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, under the Belt and Road Initiative, it is quickly becoming the software and IT hub of Western China and a gateway to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe."

According to Lyu Dongguo, director of Xi'an Software Park Development Center, the local government in Xi'an attaches great importance to attracting software talents and has developed a set of favorable policies to achieve this, so as to ensure speedy development of the park.

"We have published a set of policies and measures to attract global IT talents. Particularly, we are providing high quality education to their children so that they are free of worries and can stay longer," said Lye, who is also director of Xi'an Software Town Administration Office.

As one of the four industrial parks recognized as both a National Software Industrial Base and National Software Export Base in China, the Xi'an Software Park has attracted many domestic and international companies, including Huawei, ZTE, IBM, J&J, BYD and Emerson. A total of 38 of the top 100 software companies in China are based here.

The Global Programmers' Festival, with the theme of "Coding the Belt and Road, Coding the Future," encompasses four components: (1) a forum to share ideas on coding; (2) an exhibition of coding technologies; (3) a competitive event to show off coding skills; and (4) a celebration on Xi'an's City Wall to show off the spirit of programmers. The event has attracted more than 400 opinion leaders from the software industry, senior executives from leading technology companies, and scholars from universities and research institutes.

The Festival is hosted by the Xi'an People's Municipal Government and the China Information Technology Industry Federation with guidance from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and Shaanxi People's Provincial Government and support from the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center of Ministry of Science & Technology, and the Department of Trade in Services and Commercial Services of Ministry of Commerce.

The event is collectively undertaken by the Xi'an Hi-tech Industries Development Zone, Xi'an Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, Xi'an Municipal Industry and Information Committee, Xi'an Municipal Bureau of Commerce, and Xi'an Investment Promotion Committee. Xi'an Software Park and Chinasoft International are jointly executing the event.
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Fang Zhenghui, vice president of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), delivers a speech at a seminar held in Beijing, Nov. 7, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn]

A seminar organized by China International Publishing Group (CIPG) was held in Beijing before U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China, with experts examining the desired new direction for bilateral relations.

The seminar, with a theme of "New Era - A New Direction For China-U.S. Relations," explored topics related to the impact the Chinese and American presidents meeting would have on China-U.S. relations, as well as the wider Asia-Pacific region and even the world.

Fang Zhenghui, vice president of CIPG, delivered a speech in which he said Trump's visit marked realization of the "back and forth" interaction between the two heads of state, with a new cycle officially begun for China-U.S. relations.

Lyu Xiang, an expert focusing on American issues and world politics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that there had been a certain degree of "isolationism" in the U.S. from the countrys very foundation.

However, this "isolationism" didn't necessarily mean something totally negative. In some senses, this was even the reason why the U.S. could become so strong.

Yet, it could not be overlooked that the Trump administration currently had a tendency toward neo-isolationism, meaning reduction in its management of global affairs and clear doubts about the multilateral system. Realizing this would help China understand Trump's governing principles and measures more clearly, Lyu said.

Li Yong, director of the China-US-EU Research Center of China Association of International Trade, said the bilateral economic and trade relations were closely linked and that the two economies had formed a major foundation for advance of the world economy. China-U.S. relations, good or bad, would have a profound impact on the global economy.

Zhao Kejin, associate dean and professor at Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences, said that, at the recently concluded 19th CPC National Congress, Chinamade its judgment for a new era. At the same time, the world had also entered a new era in which China was proposing initiatives and plans to promote the building of a community of shared human destiny in the context of very complicated global issues.

Experts discuss the new direction for China-US relations at a seminar held in Beijing, Nov. 7, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn]

The economic and trade relations between China and the U.S. that had previously assumed the role of "ballast" were now frequently subject to frictions, and, "we must take precautions and propose solutions as soon as possible."

Jake Parker, vice president of the US China Business Council, said China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation had always been the most talked-about topic. China was pushing economic reform onto a higher speed track, hoping that the two countries would enjoy a fairer environment for business cooperation, instead of undermining the interests of the enterprises of either country.

The experts attending the seminar also agreed unanimously that the North Korean issue was the most important topic apart from economy and trade.

Huo Jianguo, vice chairman of China Society for WTO Studies, said in a speech later that cooperation among big powers was of crucial importance to global governance. Undeniably, there were still some conflicts and differences between China and the U.S., which would take a long time to resolve.

Strengthening communications was an effective way to solve the problem. In addition, the two countries should constantly seek more cooperation areas besides trade.
A 22-minute documentary on missing and murdered indigenous women could be the start of a larger, feature length project attempting to remember the lives of Native American women and girls that were cut short by violence.

Filmmakers and siblings Ivan and Ivy MacDonald screened their film, titled "When They Were Here," Thursday night at Montana State University Billings, to a crowd of roughly 130 people.

It was the third time the film has been shown to an audience. Ivan MacDonald said they are continuing to plan and raise support in order to hopefully turn the film into a feature length film.

The film concluded with a short presentation on the history of violence against indigenous women, after which the MacDonalds and three other panelists, two of whom were featured in the documentary, took questions from the crowd.

The film begins with the young daughters of Erin Birdinground playing with rocks alongside a river, a Bon Iver song playing in the background as the camera shifts angles to show Birdinground embracing her children beneath gray skies and leafless trees.

The documentary goes on to show interviews with family members of Native American women and girls who have gone missing or been killed in Montana.

The crimes committed against some of the film's subjects were brutal and tragic, but MacDonald said that's not what he wanted the movie to focus on.

He said his prompts to interviewees were minimal: tell us stories about your loved ones, but don't focus on the grisly details of what happened to them.

Ivan MacDonald said part of his hope in creating the film is to "decolonize" Native American women and tell their stories from an indigenous perspective using things like oral history and storytelling. The degradation, disrespect, abuse and murder of indigenous woman goes as far back as the arrival of Christopher Columbus in North America, he said, describing how its continuation has created generational trauma.

Panelists described how tribal laws, a lack of federal resources and a lack of compassion and respect for indigenous women reinforced by popular culture are among the reasons they continue to be victimized by crimes at a high rate.

The film began as part of a project for a class at the University of Montana. Ivan MacDonald said it was shot over the course of three weeks and edited in less than a week. Some of the people interviewed in the film are relatives of the MacDonalds.

"When we go to communities, it's almost hard not to have the stories come to us," MacDonald said.

Erin Birdinground, who helped produce and research for the film, said at times they struggled with the belief that some of the stories were not theirs to tell but simultaneously needed to be told and shared.

"These stories are so personal, we are kind of digging up some places that maybe some people wouldn't but it's important for these women. These stories need to be heard," Birdinground said. "These are family members who were cared for, who were loved, and their stories need to be told."

In one segment, Kenny Stillsmoking, a member of the Blackfeet tribe, recalled his memories about the disappearance of his young daughter Monica decades ago and the discovery of her body. Her killer has not been found, according to the documentary.

Stillsmoking said his family brought down medicine men from Canada to try and help them find the killer. They told him it was a man in the Polson-Arlee area, who dresses western, wears a big belt buckle and lives in a red house.

Stillsmoking eventually moved up to Arlee, but said he has never found the person who took his daughter's life.

"There's a lot of red houses and a lot of western people," he said.

Another woman interviewed in the film was Nicole Walksalong. She was in Billings in 2015 when she found out her mother had been murdered. It was later determined that she had been killed by a white supremacist.

Walksalong said she felt that reporting on her mother's death felt impersonal and seemed focused on her status as a housekeeper at the motel where she was killed. What was left out was how she raised her children to be successful and was a loving, kind person.

Her death was devastating to Walksalong, who said she struggled to explain it to her children.

"I didn't know how to explain what happened," she said. "All I tell my kids is she's an angel."
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Saudi Arabia on Thursday warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those who are in Lebanon to leave as soon as possible.

"Due to the situation in Lebanon, the kingdom calls on its citizens, visitors and residents to leave Lebanon as soon as possible," said a brief statement by Saudi Foreign Ministry.

On Saturday, Lebanese outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation in Riyadh. He accused Iran, a major foe of Saudi Arabia, of interfering in Lebanese internal affairs through the militant group Hezbollah, and said his life is in danger.

But Hezbollah accused Saudi Arabia of forcing Hariri to resign and putting him under house arrest.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said he would not consider Hariri's resignation until he returns to capital Beirut to make explanations.
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The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against 10 current or former Venezuelan government officials, whom it said "are associated with undermining electoral processes, media censorship, or corruption in government-administered food programs in Venezuela."

New sanctions

The sanctioned officials include Freddy Alirio Bernal Rosales, Venezuela's minister of urban agriculture, Ernesto Emilio Villegas Poljak, the newly appointed minister of culture and the former minister of communication and information, and Julian Isaias Rodriguez Diaz, ambassador to Italy.

As a result of the actions, all assets of these individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen, and U.S. persons will also be generally prohibited from dealing with them.

The sanctions followed the Venezuelan national elections on Oct. 15. The U.S. Treasury Department said in an announcement that the elections were marked by "numerous irregularities that strongly suggest fraud helped the ruling party unexpectedly win a majority of governorships."

"Despite calls for an independent audit of the election results, the Venezuelan government proceeded to swear in the winning candidates through an oath of office," said the department.

"Our message remains clear: the United States will not stand aside while the Maduro regime continues to destroy democratic order and prosperity in Venezuela," said Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin in the announcement.

Washington- Caracas rift

An oral war between Washington and Caracas kept escalating, as U.S. President Donald Trump in July threatened to "take strong and swift economic actions" against Venezuela's government if Venezuela went ahead to pursue the creation of a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) tasked to rewrite the constitution.

The United States in June already announced sanctions against 13 current and former Venezuelan government officials to pressure their President Nicolas Maduro into halting his plan to rewrite the constitution.

The sanctions came ahead of the planned ANC election, which the U.S. Treasury Department said "will have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution and may choose to dissolve Venezuelan state institutions."

In response, Venezuela rejected the U.S. sanctions.

"We emphatically reject the pretensions and intentions of the U.S. Treasury Department against eight people, among them citizens who have had the privilege of being elected by their own people to the ANC," said Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreazaon on Aug. 8.

Mounting tensions

The Oct. 15 elections saw the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) snap up the vast majority of gubernatorial races, winning 18 of 23 states. The remaining five went to the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

The ANC later swore in the 18 loyalist governors who won their positions in regional elections, while five opposition governors refused to take part.

The elections came at a time of high tension in Venezuela, as anti-government protests organized by the MUD led to more than 90 deaths since early April. The MUD sees the establishment of the ANC as a power grab by Maduro.
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Vietnamese scholars and experts have highly lauded Chinese President Xi Jinping's signed article titled "For a New Vista in China-Vietnam Friendship," published Thursday on mainstream Vietnamese media Nhan Dan.

The article was published ahead of Xi's state visit to Vietnam, where he will also attend the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang.

In the article, The Chinese president reviewed the China-Vietnam friendship "forged with blood" by the older generation of leaders and the two peoples and called on both sides to make greater efforts to promote bilateral ties.

"It is a nice surprise that before his visit, President Xi sent messages to Vietnamese public via such a friendly channel," noted Tran Viet Thai, deputy general director of the Institute for Foreign Strategic Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

"His words recalled unforgettable memories when we two peoples stood side by side as comrades, supporting each other in our fight for liberty and independence. That is really touching," Bui Tri Dung, editor at Vietnam's Investment newspaper told Xinhua.

Luu Bich Ho, former director of the Institute of Development Strategy under the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, also said that he was impressed by Xi's article.

President Xi expressed the hope that the two countries jointly create a new vista in China-Vietnam relations. "These words are remarkable," Ho noted to Xinhua on Thursday afternoon.

According to the expert, the vista is being driven by three factors. Firstly, Vietnam and China are both entering new periods of pursuing development, reform and innovation. Secondly, China and Vietnam are making great efforts to lift cooperation to a higher level which will bring more practical benefits for peoples of both sides. Thirdly, given changing global context, cooperation is crucial to ensure stability and development not only for Vietnam and China, but also for the region and the world.

Do Tien Sam, former director of the Institute of Chinese Studies under Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua that he strongly agreed with Xi's thoughts on deepening cooperation and foster new prospects for "our interconnected interests."

In his article, Xi said that the two sides need to enhance the complementarity of their development strategies and work for substantive progress in bilateral cooperation in key areas, including infrastructure, trade, industrial capacity, cross-border economic cooperation zones and agriculture.

"Xi's words stressed the need to bring more practical benefit to peoples," said Sam, noting that this is a long-awaited direction.

The article also stressed that two countries should strengthen coordination and create new highlights in multilateral cooperation.

Sam noted that Vietnam and China have huge potential to work together on this aspect as both countries are members of several multilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the United Nations, APEC, China-ASEAN cooperation frameworks and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism.

Like other experts, Sam is looking forward to the success of Xi's visit to Vietnam. "I hope that the visit will mark a milestone in Vietnam-China friendship, creating new momentum for pragmatic development of our bilateral relations," he told Xinhua.
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Fang Zhenghui, vice president of China International Publishing Group (CIPG), delivers a speech at a seminar held in Beijing, Nov. 7, 2017. [Photo/China.org.cn]

A seminar organized by China International Publishing Group (CIPG) was held in Beijing before U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China, with experts examining the desired new direction for bilateral relations.

The seminar, with a theme of "New Era - A New Direction For China-U.S. Relations," explored topics related to the impact the Chinese and American presidents meeting would have on China-U.S. relations, as well as the wider Asia-Pacific region and even the world.

Fang Zhenghui, vice president of CIPG, delivered a speech in which he said Trump's visit marked realization of the "back and forth" interaction between the two heads of state, with a new cycle officially begun for China-U.S. relations.

Lyu Xiang, an expert focusing on American issues and world politics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that there had been a certain degree of "isolationism" in the U.S. from the countrys very foundation.

However, this "isolationism" didn't necessarily mean something totally negative. In some senses, this was even the reason why the U.S. could become so strong.

Yet, it could not be overlooked that the Trump administration currently had a tendency toward neo-isolationism, meaning reduction in its management of global affairs and clear doubts about the multilateral system. Realizing this would help China understand Trump's governing principles and measures more clearly, Lyu said.

Li Yong, director of the China-US-EU Research Center of China Association of International Trade, said the bilateral economic and trade relations were closely linked and that the two economies had formed a major foundation for advance of the world economy. China-U.S. relations, good or bad, would have a profound impact on the global economy.

Zhao Kejin, associate dean and professor at Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences, said that, at the recently concluded 19th CPC National Congress, Chinamade its judgment for a new era. At the same time, the world hadalso entered a new era in which China was proposing initiatives and plans to promote the building of a community of shared human destiny in the context of very complicated global issues.

The economic and trade relations between China and the U.S. that had previously assumed the role of "ballast" were now frequently subject to frictions, and, "we must take precautions and propose solutions as soon as possible."

Jake Parker, vice president of the US China Business Council, said China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation had always been the most talked-about topic. China was pushing economic reform onto a higher speed track, hoping that the two countries would enjoy a fairer environment for business cooperation, instead of undermining the interests of the enterprises of either country.

The experts attending the seminar also agreed unanimously that the North Korean issue was the most important topic apart from economy and trade.

Huo Jianguo, vice chairman of China Society for WTO Studies, said in a speech later that cooperation among big powers was of crucial importance to global governance. Undeniably, there were still some conflicts and differences between China and the U.S., which would take a long time to resolve.

Strengthening communications was an effective way to solve the problem. In addition, the two countries should constantly seek more cooperation areas besides trade.
The head of the public defenders' office in Billings will leave the position by the end of the month to be closer to family.

Chad Glenn, who is the regional deputy public defender in Billings, said he will move but stay with the Office of the Public Defender.

"I'm staying with OPD, but I'm going to a different office," he said.

Glenn will handle conflict cases in Bozeman, he said. Those are cases that often involve multiple defendants and require another attorney to avoid conflicts in representation. Glenn has previously worked in Helena and Bozeman.

The regional Office of the Public Defender in Billings has 42 employees, including 26 attorneys. The agency has undergone many changes statewide, including budget cuts and a reform bill from the 2017 Montana Legislature.

Those changes included the dissolution of an advisory commission, putting power in the hands of administrators in Helena. Harry Freebourn, interim director at the state office, said that while the department looks to fill the top position in Billings, it also hopes to fill out administrative positions in the capital city.

Weve made a lot of changes," he said. "Were going to hire for some top jobs here in the next couple weeks.

The state directory shows that two of four administrator positions are vacant, not including the director position.

The Billings regional deputy public defender position has seen turnover in the last couple years. David A. Duke left in March 2016 over poor performance and an inappropriate romantic relationship. Another regional deputy took over on a temporary basis before Glenn was hired.

Freebourn said they are advertising for the open Billings position, and some names have already surfaced.
President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump attend the closing ceremony of the US-China Business Exchange in Beijing on Thursday. The two presidents delivered speeches at the event. WU ZHIYI/CHINA DAILY

China's oil major China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, Bank of China and CIC Capital Corp have agreed to help develop Alaska's liquefied natural gas sector by providing assistance to building a pipeline project.

The three State-owned companies signed a joint development agreement with Alaska Gasoline Development Corp and the State of Alaska on Thursday to jointly build an integrated LNG system including a long-distance gas pipeline connecting a gas treatment plant at the North Slope of Alaska with a liquefaction plant in Nikiski Bay in south-central Alaska. The system, rated at 20 million metric tons a year of production, would include other interconnecting facilities.

Sinopec said it will participate in later commercial discussions on the Alaska LNG project to contribute to China-US energy cooperation.

The agreement was signed on Thursday in Beijing during US President Donald Trump's state visit to China.

Xiao Lian, director of the Center for US Economic Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Sino-US energy cooperation will be a win-win for the world's two largest economies.

"It will create employment for the US while ensuring a long-term oil and gas supply for China, while having a significant role in global oil and gas stability," he said.

"With more players on the global oil and gas market, the sector will be no more monopolized by a few players, which plays a significant role in price stabilization and energy security."

While China is the world's largest oil and gas importer, the United States is expected to become one of the top oil and gas exporters with its increasing exploration of shale oil and shale gas, he said.

Li Li, an energy research director at ICIS China, a consulting company that provides energy market analysis, said the US is expected to become a major export hub of liquefied natural gas.

The US already has energy cooperation with South Korea and Japan, and it is believed the cooperation will soon extend to China, the biggest potential market for natural gas, she said.

Platts Analytics forecasts that China will surpass South Korea to become the world's second-largest LNG importer next year. While South Korean LNG demand is expected to remain under 40 million tons in 2018, Chinese LNG imports are expected to continue to grow aggressively, reaching nearly 50 million tons in 2018.
ADDIS ABABA - As Ethiopia strives to become the manufacturing hub of Africa, more and more Chinese companies are showing an interest in investing in the east African country.

The latest Chinese company that will soon establish a presence in Ethiopia is the Wuxi No. 1 Cotton Mill, which is part of the Guolian Development Group and one of the largest textile manufacturers in China, according to the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC).

The company has signed an investment agreement with the Ethiopian government to establish an integrated textile industry in Ethiopia's second largest city Dire Dawa, some 446 km east of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

According to the EIC, Chinese companies, with close to 379 projects that were either operational or under implementation in 2012-2017 period, are on top of Ethiopia's investment landscape, both in number and financial capital.

Among these companies, 279 were operational in Ethiopia with projects that worth over 13.16 billion Ethiopian birr (over $572 million) during the reported period, while the remaining 100 are under implementation.

In terms of employment creation, Chinese companies have created more than 28,300 jobs in various sectors in Ethiopia during the reported period, of which over 19,000 were created in Ethiopia's manufacturing as it is the leading sector in attracting companies from China.

In a statement sent to Xinhua on Thursday, the EIC indicated that the Wuxi No. 1 Cotton Mill and the Guolian Development Group will bring state-of-the art manufacturing technology, knowhow and excellence accumulated over a span of 100 years to Ethiopia.

Noting that the company currently has a weaving capacity of 26,000 tons of yarns and 30 million meters of gray fabrics yearly, the EIC expects Wuxi No. 1 Cotton Investment Company to play a big role in Ethiopia's ambition in putting its export industry in the map.

As part of the investment agreement, which was signed in Wuxi city in China on Nov 2 between the EIC and officials of the company, the Wuxi No. 1 Cotton Mill has agreed to invest in a large scale and integrated fabric mill and spinning plant in Dire Dawa, targeting the export market.

The Ethiopian government also envisages that high profile companies, such as Wuxi No.1 Cotton Mill which is said to be known for supplying leading global brands where 75 percent of its products are mainly exported to Europe, America, Japan, and Southeast Asia, will help push Ethiopia to be the leading player in Africa's apparel and textile manufacturing sector.

Abebe Abebayehu, Deputy Commissioner of the EIC, believes the arrival of such investors in the country will help Ethiopia realize its target.

"This investment would contribute immensely to our government's vision to build a sustainable, vertically integrated and export-oriented, apparel and textile manufacturing hub in Ethiopia. Indeed, our vision is to make Ethiopia the leading manufacturing hub in Africa," the statement quoted Abebayehu as saying.

According to the EIC, in addition to creating direct employment opportunities and boosting Ethiopia's foreign exchange reserves through exports, this investment is expected to create significant backward and forward linkages in the country's fast growing textile and garment industry.

In a bid to create better market opportunities for large scale cotton production in the country, the project plans to purchase raw materials such as cotton from local sources, it was noted.
BUCHAREST - Modernizing old infrastructure, balancing the energy mix and moving towards interconnectivity in the region are common goals of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries grouped in the "16+1" cooperation format, top officials said Thursday.

Representatives at the "16+1" ministerial conference on energy welcomed China's interest in CEE's energy sector and expressed the need to obtain financing, eventually from Chinese banks or by including energy projects into the Belt and Road Initiative.

"Energy isn't a national affair anymore, is a regional business. This is why we have to act together. With financial support of projects from China, we can change the future of energy in the region," said Serbian Minister of Energy Aleksandar Antic.

On its side, China is willing to learn more about the needs and to clarify the projects advanced by CEE partners, said Nur Bekri, vice chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, and director of the National Energy Administration.

"In this respect, there is need for studies, for establishing creative think tanks and for strengthening strategic cooperation," Nur added.

The region's countries resuscitated plans to enhance their nuclear power plants in the coming years, a strategic move which reflects the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and diversify production.

At the 16+1 Energy Fair held together with the conference, Romania's Nuclearelelctrica company stand was facing that of China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), a sign of the cooperation between the two partners in the 7.2 billion euro ($8.36 billion) nuclear project for construction of two new units at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania.

Renewable energy is high on the agenda of CEE countries, which are hoping to cooperate with Chinese companies in smaller projects.

Balkan countries are focusing on clean energy, as they need to recalibrate the energy balance. "Smart grids are a sector of interest into the 16+1 group and we are looking for investments into projects that address properly the issue of decarbonizing energy in the future. Clean energy is in the center of preoccupation of Slovenia," said Slovenia's Minister of Infrastructure Peter Gaspersic.

Albania is planning to develop solar and wind farms with Chinese know-how, said Deputy Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Dorina Cinari.

Croatia's commitment to reduce pollution and enhance the clean energy is looking for Chinese investments into geothermal energy projects, added Marijan Krpan, head of energy sector in the Ministry of Environment and Energy.

"We see a potential in cooperation with China's companies in the construction of solar and geothermal power plants," said Mile Vasic, the Bosnian ambassador to Romania.

Hydro power plants are the most efficient investments in clean energy, but is an expensive exercise, and should be attentively evaluated, Dorin Badea, president of Hidroelectrica, told Xinhua.

However, the modernization of coal plants is also high on the regional agenda. "We are partners with China Huadian Engineering for developing a thermoelectric project in Rovinari. We believe that the investment in new technologies will provide cleaner coal energy," Sorin Boza, board member of the Oltenia Energy Complex, said.

Serbia's minister of energy Antic said long-term energy projects are worth the effort. "I invite other countries to cooperate with China's companies because they are really good organizers and they deliver excellent results," he said.
A visitor views a Buccellati rock crystal jewelry product at an exhibition in Florence, Italy.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Buccellati, a Chinese-owned Italian jewellery and watch company, said on Thursday that it expects a tenfold rise in revenue over the next five years and by 20-fold in 10 years, on the back of its rapid expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, according to its largest shareholder.

Xu Jiangang, chairman and president of Gangtai Group, said in Shanghai on Thursday that Buccellati is planning to open 88 stores in the next three to five years to build a comprehensive global distribution network, out of which 18 will be in Chinese cities.

The Italian company opened its first outlet on the Chinese mainland in Shanghai's Plaza 66 on Thursday. Plaza 66 is Shanghai's luxury brand hub with stores of Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Bvlgari.

Gangtai is one of China's largest gold jewelry distributors with 22 gold mines of combined reserves with some 150 metric tons. The Shanghai-listed company posted revenue of 5.2 billion yuan ($783.5 million) for the first nine months of the year, with more than 60 percent coming from gold distribution.

It completed the acquisition of 85 percent of shares in Buccellati in August this year for 195.5 million euros ($226 million) from private equity firm Clessidra and the Buccellati family, which retain the remaining 15 percent share (7.5 percent each).

Buccellati is one of the most prestigious jewelers in Italy. The 98-year-old brand is widely known for its craftsmanship and design, and "one-of-a-kind" tailor-made services for high net worth customers and is among the top jewelry brands alongside Harry Winston and Graff, according to a luxury brand report from Forbes.

China became the world's second largest jewelry consumer market in 2015 just behind the US, according to data from the Gems& Jewelry Trade Association of China, or GAC.

Total sales of jewelry in China reached 520 billion yuan in 2016 and is expected to further grow in 2017 and 2018, the GAC report said.

A research note from Huatai Securities said that more jewelry consumers in China are now buying jewelry at higher prices and prefer spending more on a single piece of jewelry rather than purchase a lot at lower prices.

Before the acquisition, Buccellati's annual revenue was between 40 million euros and 50 million euros.

"We will invest heavily with an ambitious plan to expand Buccellati's distribution networks, including e-commerce platforms. We are confident that annual revenue will exceed 500 million euros in three to five years", the Gangtai Group chairman said.

When conditions are mature, the Buccellati business will be included in Gangtai's publicly listed unit, said Xu, adding that there is no concrete timetable for the same.
Business leaders from China are confident that the country's efforts to create a more open and free environment for businesses would boost economic prospects in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Chinese delegation to the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, which has more than 300 members from 176 enterprises, both State-owned and private, is the largest apart from the host delegation. Among these, 18 are global Fortune 500 companies and 24 are among the Top 500 in China.

"They are the representatives of the country's sound economic development," said Sun Xiao, a leader of the Chinese delegation and director of the department of cooperation and development at the China Chamber of International Commerce.

"It also indicates that they are actively participating in Asia-Pacific trade and economic cooperation and global economic governance," said Sun.

The APEC CEO Summit is usually held before the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, which is a business event of the highest level in the Asia-Pacific region. The summit provides business executives a platform to discuss important topics in global economic governance with leaders from APEC economies.

This year, the three-day APEC CEO Summit started on Nov 8 in the Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang, with a theme of "Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future". It includes sessions on "the future of globalization", "the future of work" and "connecting growth".

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump will address the summit and have further interactions with the business community on Friday.

"Chinese delegates are looking forward to President Xi's speech, his first to the business community after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China," Sun said.

"APEC probably is the best framework for the business community to get involved in global economic governance and for making global economic and trade rules," he said, adding that business executives will have a chance to gauge the leaders' attitude and perspectives on regional development, as well as submit policy suggestions to the APEC leaders through the advisory council scheme.

Chinese business leaders have submitted suggestions in sectors like green and low-carbon energy, infrastructure investment, and cross-border e-commerce.
China expected to account for 35% of global market by 2022, says report

Chinese companies are expected to dominate the global aircraft leasing market with a 35 percent market share by 2022, according to a new report.

British aviation data provider FlightGlobal said aircraft leasing is poised for rapid growth in China and domestic firms are expected to play a much bigger role in the global markets.

In 2008, Chinese capital accounted for just 5 percent of the aviation leasing market. This year, that share has risen to 28 percent, and it will reach 35 percent by 2022, it said.

During the past decade, the capital deployed by aircraft leasing companies rose 51 percent to $261 billion and out of this, nearly $71 billion came from Chinese enterprises.

The rapid rise of Chinese banks and lessors in the aircraft leasing sector has also been putting pressure on industry returns, FlightGlobal said.

ICBC Financial Leasing Co Ltd, China's largest aircraft leasing company by assets and the subsidiary of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said as of October this year, it has managed total capital of 300 billion yuan ($45 billion) and 555 aircraft, in addition to a large number of shipping assets and large-scale equipment.

"The strong demand for aircraft in the domestic market has laid a strong foundation for the aircraft leasing industry in China, with leasing increasingly being accepted by carriers. The domestic market will continue to grow rapidly," said Zhao Guicai, CEO of ICBC Leasing.

"The aircraft leasing business also gives Chinese commercial lenders adequate leverage in overseas markets. On the other hand, European and US banks are shrinking their aircraft leasing operations due to supervisory concerns."

Over the next two decades, Chinese carriers are expected to purchase 7,240 aircraft valued at $1.1 trillion, according to estimates from US aircraft maker Boeing Co. China's fleet size is expected to grow at a pace well in excess of the global average, and almost 20 percent of the new aircraft demand would come from Chinese carriers, Boeing said.

ICBC Leasing added that it plans to further expand its business in markets associated with the Belt and Road Initiative. Currently, it has operations in foreign markets such as India, Russia, Indonesia and some European countries.

Meanwhile, leading domestic aircraft leasing companies have become big customers of the home developed large passenger jet C919. ABC Financial Leasing Co Ltd has ordered 75 C919 aircraft, the largest number of orders. It is followed by CCB Financial Leasing Co Ltd and Ping An International Financial Leasing, with each of them ordering 50 jets, and ICBC Financial Leasing Co Ltd with 45.

"The successful operation of homemade aircraft needs the support from the industry, and leasing companies can help it to improve sales, develop overseas markets, and reduce the cost of airlines. The huge domestic market has provided demand for the C919, an aircraft with advanced design and quality," said ICBC Leasing's Zhao.

Lin Zhijie, an aviation industry analyst and columnist at Carnoc, a leading civil aviation website in China, said Chinese commercial lenders, flush with assets, have been focusing on the growth of their aircraft leasing units. Besides, favorable tax policies have also helped boost the growth of the aircraft leasing sector in China.

"In addition, domestic aircraft leasing companies have advantages in transaction prices and this has helped them to grow the market share rapidly in a few years. Still, they need to improve their professional capabilities like fleet management."
The US President Donald Trump pays his first state visit to China from Wednesday to Friday.

According to the CNBC, 29 CEOs and business leaders in corporate America are accompanying the president to seek business opportunities in China. And most of them are from energy and commodity sectors.

China has become the largest trading partner of US. In the past five years, China-US trade rose at an average annual growth rate of 7.6 percent. Last year, the trade volume between China and the US reached $524.3 billion.

Let's have a look at CEOs joining Trump in China.
Flyers calling the Holocaust a hoax were recently posted in a number buildings at the University of Wyoming, coinciding with the school's remembrance week for the estimated 6 million Jews who were systematically killed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s.

The incident has been reported to the Anti-Defamation League in Denver, but the school can't do much more than remove the flyers, said Chad Baldwin, a university spokesman.

The content of the handbills, while reprehensible, is in fact protected by the First Amendment, he said.

Littering, however, is not.

Posting handbills violates a city ordinance, so the campus police are investigating, Baldwin said.

Other academic campuses are also reporting a similar suite of handbills denying the Holocaust on their campuses, he said.

The flyers showed up last year during remembrance week as well, Baldwin said.

Thursday is the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass, a regime-organized night of widespread violence against Jews, their homes and businesses in Germany in 1938.

Holocaust survivor Estelle Nadel is speaking at the university Friday.

A call to the Laramie Jewish Community Center, which is hosting Nadels visit, was not returned by press time.

The flyers call the Holocaust a criminally fraudulent claim and direct readers to an outdated website peppered with adverbs like wizardly, claiming to be an organization of forensic historians.

The Anti-Defamation League is aware of the website and its founder, a single individual, said Sue Parker Gerson, associate regional director for the group's mountain state region.

"This is 2017, you can put anything up on the internet," she said. "Somebody, somewhere is going to believe it. It seems that somebody in Laramie decided to put up flyers."

Though the content of the flyers may seem too ridiculous to take seriously, the intent is not, she said.

The league has noted a spike of anti-Semitic incidents in the last year, both in the Rocky Mountain Region and nationally, she said.

"Anti-Semitism is present, and one manifestation is Holocaust denial, saying that the murder of 6 million Jews, and 5 million others, didnt happen," she said. "The way we deal with that is education to the contrary."

Holocaust denial attempts are repeatedly refuted by organizations like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C., which cites the proliferation of German records, photographs and videos as well as survivor, soldier and refugee testimony.

Dr. Stephanie Anderson, a political science professor at the University of Wyoming, said Holocaust denial was disheartening for academics and teachers.

Its been proven beyond a doubt, so it shows that we have to reinvent the wheel if you will, to reestablish things that have already been established.

After the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany was liberated by the Allies, locals from the nearby towns were forced to tour the camps and see the bodies of hundreds of people imprisoned there strewn about like waste. It was an attempt to destroy the possibility of denial, a role the U.S. has taken on ever since, the professor said.

That people deny that work, that effort that the U.S. has been at the forefront of documenting, is difficult, Anderson said.

The denial rhetoric, so close to Veterans Day, is an insult to the American soldiers who fought and died in that war, she added.

The difficult thing is that many of the eyewitnesses are dying, simply because of age, she said. All the more reason to record them and make sure that their testimony lives on.
BEIJING - China Aviation Suppliers Holding Company (CASC) Thursday signed an agreement with Boeing for 300 aircraft, valued at more than $37 billion at list prices.

The agreement was part of the US trade mission to China, according to Boeing.

It includes both orders and commitments for 300 Boeing single-aisle and twin-aisle aircraft, made up of planes from the 737, 787 and 777 families.

China has seen a surge in the civil aviation transportation market in recent years. The CASC has undertaken bulk purchases of Boeing aircraft to allow aviation transport companies to continuously expand their capacity and fleet structure, the CASC said in a press release.

The agreement is a result of an overall consideration of the country's air transport market and the production schedule of Chinese-produced passenger aircraft, said the CASC.

"China is a valued customer and key partner, and we are proud that Boeing airplanes will be a part of its fleet growth for years to come," said Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

"Boeing and China have a strong history of working together based on great mutual respect, and these orders build on that foundation," he said.

Boeing and China will continue to work on mutually beneficial ways to grow and support the aviation market, according to Boeing.

These efforts include industrial cooperation, the development of technologies to reduce the environmental impact and enhance sustainability of the aviation industry. Both sides will continue cooperation to support the safety, efficiency and capacity of China's air transport system.

In May, Boeing started construction of the first overseas production center for its most popular 737 family of aircraft in the East China port city of Zhoushan, including a completion center and delivery center.

According to Boeing's latest market outlook, China is expected to need 7,240 new aircraft over the next 20 years, valued at nearly $1.1 trillion. Of these, 5,420 would be single-aisle aircraft.
YANGON - Bilateral trade between Myanmar and China amounted to over $5.5 billion in first half of present fiscal year 2017-2018, official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Friday.

In accordance with official figures from the Ministry of Commerce, the country's exports to neighboring China reached $2.46 billion while its imports were $3 billion.

The country usually trades with China via Muse, Lweje, Kanpikete, Chinshwehaw and Kengtung border points.

Bilateral trade between the two countries was $10.7 billion in last FY 2016-2017.

The country's rice, peas, sesame seeds, corns, dried tea leaves, fishery products, rubber, minerals and animal products are mainly exported to China.

Meanwhile, machinery, plastic raw materials, consumer products and electronic devices are imported to the country.
SHEFFIELD - China is now the new engine of global economic growth, and the sound economic growth in China is conducive to the world at large, a German entrepreneur told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Frank-Jurgen Richter, founder and chairman of Horasis, an international consultant firm, said on the sidelines of a two-day forum held in Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire, earlier this week that "I think China is now, we can easily see, becoming the new engine of growth" in the world economy.

"I think the Chinese economy is doing very well," he said, voicing his full confidence in the future of China's economic development following the successful conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October.

Richter noted that the blueprint laid out at the just-concluded CPC national congress "is now very much about focusing on innovation, on the entrepreneurship, and the green economy," and "more focused on quality growth."

"Chinese companies now are taking the world lead, they are innovative, they are the vanguards, they are not longer just copying the technology about 10 to 15 years ago, which was very natural at that time," he said.

"But now they are at the front of the (world's advanced) technology. Just think about companies like Huawei," he said.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen in southern China, is the world's third biggest smartphone maker which continued to expand its presence in the high-end segment.

"It is the new China, and it is the reason that I am so bullish on China's economy," Richter said.

"In the past, the world economy was still dominated by the US, and partly by Europe, maybe by Japan, but all those old markets are rather weak," he said. "And even though Europe is recovering, the US is recovering; the real leader is now with China."

"So China is doing well, and the whole world is doing well. And that's the reason I think we should all support the Chinese economy," he said, adding that "we should join hands" to boost the healthy economic progress in China and other parts of the world.

"Today's companies have to cooperate across industries, across national boundaries," he said. "Chinese companies are very open, are very global, and we see the rise of Chinese brands -- the global brand of Chinese origin."

Richter cited what he described as "very famous household brands" produced by Lenovo, Xiaomi, Hisense, Didi and Alibaba, saying: "It is like a new trend, Chinese brands are getting very famous."

On the back of technological prowess and good value, an increasing number of Chinese companies, including Huawei, Lenovo, Gree, Xiaomi and drone maker DJI-Innovation, have gained foothold in the international market, paving the way for a wave of global Chinese brands.

"I think the Chinese government is very pro-business," Richter said. "It is not a protectionist."

"I think it is also inviting foreign companies to come to China," he said.

The forum, known as the 2017 Horasis China Meeting, was organized by Richter's organization. Introduced by Horasis in 2005, the meeting has become one of the foremost global business gatherings on China.

Present at the forum were about 300 businessmen, scholars and government officials from such countries as China, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Mozambique and Haiti.

Richter, born in 1967, is a German entrepreneur and currently the chairman of Horasis. He has served in that role since he founded the organization in 2005.
The first Global Programmers Festival is inaugurated in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province Nov 9. [Photo/cnwest.com]

The first Global Programmers Festival was inaugurated in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province Nov 9.

With a theme of "Coding the Future", the grand event also included scientific exhibitions and competitions to attract leaders in the software industry from home and abroad and representatives from renowned software companies and scientific research institutes.

A joint effort by the Xi'an municipal government and the China Information Technology Industry Federation (CITIF), the two-day event had over 10,000 people attending in person, and drew roughly 100,000 programmers via the internet.

Wang Yongkang, Xi'an municipal Party secretary, declared the opening of the ceremony by writing a program, paying tribute to programmers around the world. Zhang Yaqin, among the first generation of programmers in China, and 82-year-old Masako Wakamiya, the world's oldest programmer, also sent greetings to their counterparts.

A special Outstanding Programmer Award was given to 10 individuals in honor of their contributions to the country's software industry and social development. Xie Shaofeng, director of the Information and Software Services Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) also presented awards to a group of young people who distinguished themselves after fierce competition in a recent programming contest.

"The festival is held to give recognition, respect and support for coder groups, provide a wider development space for them and boost the country's software industry," Qu Weizhi, deputy president of the CITIF, noted in his speech.

At the ceremony, the MIIT and the Shaanxi provincial and Xian municipal governments joined hands by signing an agreement to build Xi'an into a software city.

A job fair was also organized as part of the festival in the Xi'an Hi-Tech Industries Development Zone, with nearly 1,000 jobs up for grabs from 71 name-brand companies led by Alibaba Cloud, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology and Qihoo 360 Technology.
Lei Jun, founder of smartphone maker Xiaomi, presents an updated version of the company's "concept smartphone" Mi Mix, the Mi Mix 2, in Beijing on Sept 11, 2017. The Mi Mix 2 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Qualcomm Inc on Thursday signed non-binding deals worth about $12 billion with three of China's largest smartphone vendors as the United States chip giant beefed up efforts to strengthen ties with Chinese players amid ongoing patent disputes with Apple Inc.

Under the memorandums of understanding, Xiaomi Corp, Oppo Electronics Corp and Vivo Mobile Communication Technology said they plan to buy smartphone components, mostly chips, worth at least $12 billion from Qualcomm over the next three years.

The deals are expected to give a boost to the San Diego-based company's financial performance, which was hit by its patent disputes with Apple in the latest quarter.

Steve Mollenkopf, CEO of Qualcomm, said in a statement: "We have been cooperating with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo for a long time. We will continue investing into China's semiconductor and mobile industry."

Qualcomm is the world's largest mobile chip maker, but recently it has been involved in a string of challenges. In the quarter ended in September, it posted an almost 90 percent slump in profit, as its ongoing patent battle with Apple hurt its licensing and chips business.

Qualcomm also faces mounting pressure from its rival Broadcom Ltd, which has recently proposed a purchase of Qualcomm for $105 billion.

James Yan, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said: "The deals can temporarily relieve Qualcomm's pressure and help boost investors' confidence."

According to Yan, most Chinese smartphone companies rely on Qualcomm for high-end chips. Deepening ties with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, which are all growing rapidly, will send positive signals to investors.

"But given the deals are non-binding, it remains to be seen how the partnerships will go on if Qualcomm loses in the patent war with Apple," Yan said.

Apple has continued to withhold patent licensing fees attributable to iPhone and iPad, after it sued Qualcomm for allegedly overcharging unnecessary licensing fees tied to critical smartphone intellectual properties.

Xiang Ligang, a telecom expert and CEO of industry website Cctime, said the deals are based on projections that Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo will maintain healthy growth in coming years.

"In addition to buying chips, the three companies are likely to work more closely with Qualcomm on research and development of new processors by a slate of efforts, such as giving immediate consumer feedback," Xiang said.

The Qualcomm deals are part of broader agreements signed during US President Donald Trump's first state visit to China, underscoring the strength of commercial partnerships between the world's two largest economies.

"The timing will also significantly boost Qualcomm's brand image," Xiang added.
Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd said on Wednesday that it would continue to make all-out efforts to reinforce the development of artificial intelligence-powered smart vehicles, which could eventually pave the way for its entry into the autonomous driving segment.

The company unveiled an AI-backed system that allows automakers to produce cars capable of calculating the best route, order meals and find parking lots with minimum human intervention at the ongoing Tencent Global Partner Conference.

Such new features will probably debut in the next lineups of a clutch of industry players, including GAC Group, BYD Co and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co, which will bank on Tencent's computing capabilities and vast resources from mapping, payment to social networks, said Zhang Tong, head of Tencent's AI Lab.

The announcement came amid speculations that Tencent has already developed its own autonomous driving system, which was reported by Bloomberg News earlier this week citing an insider.

Zhang declined to confirm the news on the sidelines of the conference. But in August, Chen Juhong, a vice-president of Tencent, said the firm would support the research for self-driving and facilitate the manufacturing of related products.

Tencent's ambition in intelligent driving is exemplified by its stakes in US electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc, as well as two EV startups Nio and Weltmeister, which are viewed as China's answers to Tesla.

Together with search engine Baidu Inc, Tencent is leading Weltmeister's latest 1 billion yuan ($151 million) funding, China Business Network reported on Thursday. Tencent declined to comment.

Such a development would pit it squarely against Baidu's billion-dollar investment in AI and auto driving research, as well as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, whose collaboration with SAIC Motor Co involves the adoption of its YunOS operating system across a select number of internet-connected cars.

Tencent is aggressively exploring the potential of AI by expanding its application scenarios with the aid of partners. It rolled out a plan to incubate 100 startups that can use its AI clout and other technological and commercial resources.
Wang Xiaochuan (behind gavel), CEO of Sogou Inc, and Zhang Chaoyang (center, in gray suit), chairman and CEO of Sohu.com, ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange along with other company employees on Nov 9, 2017.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Sogou, China's second-largest search engine, raised $585 million in an initial public offering in a bid to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its business.

The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SOGO, was priced at the top of its $11-$13 range for its 45 million American depositary shares (ADS).

Shares then moved higher on Thursday, closing at $13.50, up close to 4 percent.

"Today's IPO is a milestone for our company," said Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sogou. "It's a recognition of the team's efforts in the past and marks a new start for us to make more innovations on a bigger stage in the age of AI."

Sogou has granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 6.75 million ADS to cover overallotments. JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and CICC were among the top underwriters of the offering.

Wang said the company intends to use the proceeds to increase investment in AI development, improving cooperation with companies that could provide exclusive and original data sets as well as research and marketing. Wang also said he hopes the IPO will make it easier to collaborate with US tech companies.

The Beijing-based company is a unit of China's Sohu.com Inc, an internet service company that includes search and gaming platforms. Sohu.com will remain Sogou's controlling shareholder after the IPO.

"Under the lead of Xiaochuan, the (Sogou) team has been pushing forward for innovation in technologies and products and established competitive advantages to redefine the search by AI and big data," said Zhang Chaoyang, CEO of Sohu. "And Sogou has successfully developed its own user base in the past; its input method has 300 million daily active users already."

Sogou Search is the second-largest search engine in China by mobile queries, and Sogou is the fourth-largest internet company in China, based on monthly active users in September, according to iResearch.

The company, which competes with Baidu, reported net income of $66.7 million for the nine months ended Sept 30, compared with $45.4 million for the same period a year earlier.

Backed by Tencent Holdings, Sogou has benefited from being the default search engine on various Tencent products that provide general search offerings, such as the Mobile QQ Browser, qq.com, WeChat and the PC Web directories daohang.qq.com and hao.qq.com.

"The core products of Sogou are two very important channels in terms of human-machine interface  the search engine expresses information and the input method collects information," said Wang. "With the further advancement of AI development, I hope our products can help our users understand and interact with information better."

Zhang said the company is ready to do more to compete in an intense market and needs to expand its users and advertising bases.

Sogou is the second major Chinese tech stock to list this week after Tencent-owned China Literature debuted in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

Wang Xiaochuan (behind gavel), CEO of Sogou Inc, and Zhang Chaoyang (center, in gray suit), chairman and CEO of Sohu.com, ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange along with other company employees on Nov 9, 2017.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Sogou, China's second-largest search engine, got listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Nov 9, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Sogou, China's second-largest search engine, got listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Nov 9, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
iFlytek's AI-enabled robot sits the test of China's national medical licensing examination. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A robot has passed the written test of China's national medical licensing examination, an essential entrance exam for doctors, making it the first robot in the world to pass such an exam.

Its developer iFlytek Co Ltd, a leading Chinese artificial intelligence company, said on Thursday that the robot scored 456 points, 96 points higher than the required marks.

The artificial-intelligence-enabled robot can automatically capture and analyze patient information and make initial diagnosis. It will be used to assist doctors to improve efficiency in future treatments, iFlytek said.

This is part of broader efforts by China to accelerate the application of AI in healthcare, consumer electronics, and other industries.

Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFlytek, said, "We will officially launch the robot in March 2018. It is not meant to replace doctors. Instead, it is to promote better people-machine cooperation so as to boost efficiency."

The Hefei, Anhui province-based company is conducting a pilot project with the Anhui Provincial Hospital to see how the AI robot can assist doctors in real medical cases.

Unlike the United States tech company IBM's AI-enabled Watson system, which only focuses on the treatment of cancer and major diseases, iFlytek is stepping up push to explore how to use AI to both cure cancer and train general practitioners.

"General practitioners are in severe shortage in China's rural areas. We hope AI can help more people access quality medical resources."

iFlytek is a leading player in China's AI industry. Its AI-enabled user interface platform has accumulated 460,000 third-party developer teams in the past seven years.

On Wednesday, the company became a member of the AI alliance set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which aims to promote the research of basic sciences and the application of the cutting-edge technology.

In October, iFlytek said it will set up a 1.02 billion yuan ($150 million) fund to support software and hardware developers.

Hu Yu, executive president of iFlytek, said the fund will be used to finance startups that have core technologies but lack business know-how, or companies that excel in commercializing products but are unable to integrate AI into their devices.

"As a company born out of the University of Science and Technology of China, we have been focusing on voice recognition technologies for 18 years. We know what problems technology-oriented startups will face and how to help traditional companies upgrade themselves through AI," Hu said.

The company's efforts are in line with the central government's call to turn China into a country of innovators and to reach the frontiers of science and technology.

In July, China unveiled a national plan to build a 1 trillion yuan ($152.5 billion) AI core industry by 2030.
A temporary bookstore hosting book talks in the grounds of a historic Shanghai villa has become one of the city's latest attractions.

The store, housed in a futuristic wooden structure built in the courtyard of the renovated 19th-century Sinan Mansion, has 3,000 books of different genres over 30 square meters.

The project organizersShanghai Century Publishing Group, the Youye Group and the Shanghai Authors' Associationhave said they will invite famous authors to talk to readers.

The pop-up bookstore is part of a two-month event held at Sinan Mansion in Shanghai. HE QI/CHINA DAILY

"We want this place to become a bridge between writers and readers; to promote people's interest in reading by talking to their favorite writers face to face," said Feng Jie, a spokesman for the store.

Feng said every invited writer will stay inside the bookstore for a whole afternoon to read from their work and take questions from visitors.

Wang Naiyu, 66, who arrived at the bookstore early on Tuesday, said: "This is an novel project, and I really like it. I will wait for the author to come and listen to their reading suggestions."

Tian Yazhu, 19, came to the store with her mother and was eager to meet author Zhou Xiaofeng. She had bought Zhou's book, Like a Migratory Bird. "Choosing a book is always difficult for me, but listening to a famous writer's opinion solves the problem," she said.

The pop-up bookstore is part of Sinan Modern Age Season 2, a two-month event held at Sinan Mansion to recreate the old city through attractions such as vintage restaurants and costumed photo studios.

Organizers also want the store to act as a pilot project for Sinan Seowon, a concept bookstore they are planning for another historic mansion nearby.

According to Feng, Sinan Seowon will follow the style of the temporary store, with book talks by published authors and a cafe.

"Bookstores are not just for buying books, they are also places for learning and communicating," Feng said.
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More than 53 years ago, John Olsen was a 23-year-old sailor who participated in secret U.S. Navy testing of biological weapons. For many years he has had serious health problems that are very similar to those suffered by other sailors who served with him in the South Pacific while their tugboats were repeatedly sprayed with toxic agents.

Like thousands of U.S. military veterans whose duty involved work the Pentagon deems secret, Olsen, who lives in Billings, hasnt been able to get disability benefits because the records of what contributed to his disability are still secret all these years later.

A Gazette opinion on May 29 told Gazette readers about the outrageous delay in resolving Olsens disability claim and legislation cosponsored by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas. The Gary Deloney and John Olsen Toxic Exposure Declassification Act should have become law by now, but Congress hasnt yet acted. (Deloney was a U.S. Navy pilot who was exposed to Agent Orange while flying secret missions during the Vietnam War. He died in Kansas still waiting for records that would prove his eligibility for veterans disability benefits.)

Tester and Moran proposed that only records needed for veterans to prove their eligibility for benefits be declassified. The limited declassification for veterans disability benefits was included in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2018, but not in the House version.

This huge must-pass bill has been in House-Senate conference committee for weeks. Tester, Moran and Reps. Mike Thompson, D-California, and Walter B. Jones, R-North Carolina, wrote to the chairs and ranking members of the conference committee, urging their support for the amendment that would require the Secretary of Defense to declassify documents related to any known incident in which no fewer than 100 members of the Armed Forces were exposed to a toxic substance unless the documents would materially and immediately threaten the security of the United States.

That is a simple, straightforward solution to this long-ignored failure to care for U.S. veterans.

As the letter said: Service members who participated in these tests need their records to establish service-connected conditions to determine care and benefits with Veterans Affairs, and they cannot provide adequate documents because he Department of Defense has not fully disclosed them. In some instances, service members were not even told they were subject to these tests.

Back in Billings, Olsen relies on the VA for health care, but because he cant be certified for a service-connected disability, he is now being told he has to pay thousands of dollars in copayments to the VA.

This is an unconscionable demand, and Olsen is far from the only veteran being penalized.

Holding the government accountable to the promises we made to our veterans is fundamental to our Democracy, Tester told The Gazette this week. Brave men and women like John Olsen fought to protect our freedoms and they deserve the health care and benefits theyve earned. Doing right by our veterans isnt a partisan issue, it is a bipartisan responsibility.

Finally, on Thursday, Tester's office reported that the conference agreed to put the declassification provision into its bill. Now the full House and Senate should approve the legislation and send it to President Trump's desk.

On Veterans Day, members of Congress will be writing and voicing their thanks to veterans. Lawmakers should demonstrate their gratitude by removing this obstacle to the benefits veterans have earned. Pass the NDAA immediately with the declassification provision that will finally allow Olsen to get his veterans benefits.
Beijing is offering 17 government posts to highly qualified people overseas to improve the decision-making capacity and global perspective of the local government.

The jobs, which were offered recently, are part of the city's third round of overseas talent recruitment that targets both qualified foreigners and Chinese nationals who are living overseas.

The 17 positions include four in the municipal government and 13 divided among 10 of Beijing's district governments, according to a report on Thursday in Beijing Daily.

For detailed job information, applicants can visit bjrcgz.gov.cn, bjrbj.gov.cn, 8610hr.cn or juxian.com.

The first round of recruitment began in 2012. At that time, only seven high-level posts were available.

According to Beijing's regulation on government jobs for overseas talent, "high-level" refers to individuals who have earned a doctorate at a prestigious university outside China, and have held a high position at well-known institutions of higher learning, enterprises, financial institutions, law firms, international organizations, NGOs or governments.

Successful candidates will be eligible for a salary in line with international standards and will be included in the Beijing overseas talent gathering project. Participants in the project are eligible for favorable policies, including salary, Beijing household registration and social security benefits.

Ge Wei, marketing manager of Lockin China, a website that provides job information to Chinese students overseas, said workers in Chinese governments who were trained outside the country can help domestic enterprises develop overseas markets because they understand both China and the world.

"Many of them have studied at the world's top universities or worked in the top 500 companies, so they know the trends and direction of each field well. Their presence in government will drive progress in different fields," she said.

As many still lack clear expectations about working in government, only a small percentage of highly qualified foreigners or Chinese nationals will choose to do so. Therefore the program is bound to improve the situation, she said.

"The Lockin China survey shows that foreign enterprises would be the first choice for the majority of overseas students if they come back to China. The second-most-popular choice is State-owned enterprises," she said.

"People who choose to work for government are few and far between. I believe the move will promote understanding and draw more overseas talent to the government sector."
Many provinces and cities on the Chinese mainland are introducing favorable investment policies to help young people from Taiwan start their careers, especially in technology-intensive industries.

The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council has set up 53 cross-Straits youth employment and entrepreneurship bases in 12 provinces and cities across the country to support young people from Taiwan. The bases provide consultation and financial support.

Many local governments also offer preferential policies, including tax deductions, and some even invite successful entrepreneurs to give lectures and advice to new arrivals.

"A growing number of young people from Taiwan are choosing to work or start their careers on the mainland," said Li Quanlin, former vice-governor of Jiangsu province and one of the organizers of the recently convened 2017 Cross-Straits Entrepreneurs Zijin Mountain Summit.

"It has become a trend. The younger generation is the future of cross-Straits cooperation," Li said.

According to the official website of the government of Jiangsu, which attracts about 33 percent of Taiwan's total investment on the mainland, the province approved 351 investment projects from Taiwan between January and August.

So far, the province has attracted 26,000 such projects. In more than 6,000 of those, the investment exceeded $10 million.

"The mainland has a larger market and more opportunities," said Wang Tsun-huang, executive vice-president of the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Institute, which was established in Nanjing in July.

"Many young people from Taiwan have come to the mainland and do well in many areas, including the cultural and creative industries."

According to the provincial government, about 2,800 young people from Taiwan started businesses in Jiangsu in 2016.

Lou Qinjian, Party chief of Jiangsu, said the province will continue to offer preferential policies and establish more entrepreneurship bases to help people from Taiwan study, work and live on the mainland.

"We encourage universities and young people from Jiangsu and Taiwan to form effective communication systems," said Lou. "Through communication they can become good friends and good partners that grow together."

Wang Jianmin, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Taiwan Studies, said that businesspeople from Taiwan should focus on the so-called new economies - the digital, sharing and green sectors.

"They should not rely on cheap land and labor provided by the mainland to develop labor-intensive industries as they used to do," Wang said. "They need to adapt to new circumstances and innovate."
BEIJING -- The Central Military Commission (CMC) has ordered all units of the People's Liberation Army and armed police to "carefully study and implement the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC)."

"Studying and implementing the CPC congress spirit should be a primary political mission for the armed forces," the CMC said in an instruction made public Thursday.

"The armed forces should inform all servicemen and women, veterans and civilian staff of the Party congress spirit, officers in particular," the document said.

By the end of next year, officers at regiment-level and above should all receive education courses, and the CMC would conduct inspections "in appropriate time."

From now to June next year, the CMC will dispatch lecturers to major military command areas, while the headquarters of different forces will also send out lecturers to lower units.

Media and academic institutes attached to the military are also required to take an active part in the education campaigns.

Such efforts matter to the overall situation of the work of the Party and the country, the long-term development of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the fundamental interests of the general public, according to the CMC document.

It asked Party committees at all levels within the military and armed police to strengthen the organization and leadership in this regard with a "clear political attitude" and "strong political responsibility."

The CMC instruction requires "comprehensive and precise studying and understanding, scientific and prudent publicity, as well as concrete implementation."

"Party committees must strictly perform their duty in ideological work, allowing no channel for wrong ideas and messages to spread," the document said.

It urged the military and armed police forces to seek profound comprehension of the congress's theme, the historic status and rich connotations of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and the historic changes over the past five years.

It also required a "profound understanding of the change in the principal contradiction facing Chinese society, the CPC's mission in the new era, Xi Jinping's thinking on strengthening the military and major policies national defense modernization."

The armed forces should firmly regard Xi's miliary thought as the guideline in strengthening national defense and military, and safeguard the authority and unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core, said the document.
A woman undergoes plastic surgery to produce double eyelids at a hospital in Beijing.[Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

The number of plastic surgeries is rising as more young people look to change their appearance and prospects.

In the West, plastic surgery is usually the preserve of older people hoping to retain or regain a youthful appearance. In China, the reverse is true, with young women the most likely to go under the cosmetic surgeon's scalpel.

At age 29, Gan Yuqian (not her real name) has already had four operations to give her double eyelids. Her fourth surgery came after she visited a cosmetic clinic at the Beijing Hospital to consult a surgeon about changing the shape of her eyes, and spoke honestly about her three previous procedures.

In the past 10 years, the Beijing native had attended several private clinics to "improve" her features. Despite undergoing numerous procedures, she still felt her eye shape wasn't a good fit for her face so she recently paid her first visit to a public hospital in search of a solution.

Gan was one of 9 million Chinese women to change their appearance in 2015, according to a report by Zero2ipo Research, which showed that people in their 20s and early 30s are the biggest spenders on physical makeovers.

She has already spent 100,000 yuan ($15,000) on cosmetics operations. "Plastic surgery can help people, but it can also harm them," she said. "And it hurt me."

Gan first had surgery to produce double eyelids when she was age 19. "It looked pretty good at the time," she said. "I was always naturally beautiful, and boys thought I was pretty and wanted to marry me. But I was kind of lost and thought a better man was waiting for me in the future."

In 2009, having turned down a marriage proposal, she underwent further procedures to alter her appearance. After several shots of hyaluronic acid in her nose and jaw to make her features more aquiline, she looked like a Barbie doll and could barely display emotions.

"It actually ached a lot," she said.

Young beauty miracle

Many young Chinese have had multiple cosmetic surgeries and the number continues to grow, according to a report published in August by Soyoung, a cosmetic surgery social networking app with 20 million users, 92 percent of whom buy beauty products from it every three to six months.

"The industry in China is currently in its first peak development period," said Jin Xing, Soyoung's CEO. "So it's no surprise that a growing number of consumers regularly buy aesthetic medicine products."

The plastic surgery trend first appeared in the United States about 30 years ago. The phenomenon was chronicled by Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth which showed the influence of advertising and magazine photo shoots in the growing pressure on women to attempt to conform to unrealistic ideas of beauty. The rising financial and social status of women in the West also helped to accelerate the growth of the industry.

In China, the awakening of self-awareness has accelerated the consumption of aesthetic medicines, while the demands of work and the desire to attract a partner is playing an increasingly important role in prompting younger people to opt for cosmetic surgery.

Ma Zhiguo, a senior psychologist in Tianjin, recalled how surprised he was the first time a man who was not satisfied with his appearance, despite having several operations on his face, asked him for help. That was about 10 years ago.

According to Soyoung's estimates, the market for aesthetic medicine and surgery has risen by 42 percent so far this year, and its growth has provided consumers with greater choice and prompted them to undergo multiple procedures.

Jin, the CEO, is convinced that the value of China's cosmetic medicine market will rise to 2 to 3 trillion yuan within the next 10 years.

Three years ago, Xue Li (not her real name) visited a private clinic in Beijing to undergo a procedure to produce embedded double eyelids. While she was on the operating table, the doctor suggested that she should have the fat in her lower eyelids removed by filling in the lacrimal groove.

Although she felt pressurized, Xue agreed to the procedure. "I felt as though they were advertising while I was undergoing surgery," the 28-year-old said, adding that the original fee of 5,000 yuan eventually rose to 10,000 yuan.
BEIJING -- Journalists from across China have said they were inspired by Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks on journalism and would endeavor to spread China's voice.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, called on journalists to "strengthen their confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

He made the statement in a congratulatory letter to the All-China Journalists Association (ACJA) on its 80th anniversary Wednesday.

"We are lucky to work as journalists in the new era and we will strive to present new aspects in our work," said Zhang Tie, deputy director of the commentary department of the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the CPC.

In the letter, Xi said he expected journalists to "maintain a close connection with the people, record the events of the great times, tell China's stories well, spread China's voice, herald the message of victory and raise national morale, for the realization of the Two Centenary Goals and national rejuvenation."

"Xi has repeatedly emphasized that journalists should care for the people," said Hou Kaidi from China Central Television. "We need to focus on the stories of the ordinary people."

"In order to tell stories of the Chinese people, journalists from Chongqing Daily have spent three years reporting on more than 500 people, recording their love for the country and home as well as their endeavor to make a better life," said Jiang Chunyong, deputy editor in chief of the newspaper.

"We will continue to improve media convergence and reach Internet audience and young people through integrated media products," said Qian Tong, executive deputy director of Xinhua All-Media Service.
SHANGHAI -- The Chinese-produced large passenger jet, C919, will make its first long-distance flight on Friday, leaving Shanghai for Northwest China's Shaanxi province where it will undergo further testing.

The plane will take off in Pudong Airport in Shanghai and fly to Yanliang Testing Base in Xi'an, according to Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), the Shanghai-based manufacturer of the jet.

The company plans to produce six test planes, with the second expected to make its maiden flight at the end of this year.

The first C919 completed its maiden test flight in May and has now made a total of five test flights. It will remain at the Yanliang base to undergo more complicated testing in order to acquire its airworthiness certificates.

Cai Jun, captain of the maiden flight, said the aircraft will fly at a height of 7,800 meters and complete the 1,400-km journey in around three hours.

"We have prepared a detailed work plan to ensure the safety of the flight from Shanghai to Yanliang," he said.

COMAC has received orders for 730 C919 planes from 27 domestic and international clients.

With a standard range of 4,075 kilometers, the C919 jet is comparable to the updated Airbus 320 and Boeing's new generation 737 planes.
Hangzhou, the host city of 2016 G20 Summit, has witnessed strong growth in the MICE (meetings, incentive travels, conferences, conventions and exhibitions) industry since the summit took place.

A global promotion campaign for "Hangzhou, Inspiring New Connections" kicked of in Hangzhou in September, a year after the summit.

A total of 20 global conference purchasers and leading Chinese conference organizers attended the activity, which provided a platform for attendees to experience the full array of Hangzhou's MICE resources.

The campaign also organized several activities, such as tours to China National Silk Museum, cruises on West Lake and tea-picking in Longjing Village to highlight Hangzhou's tourism resources and culture.

To build up closer ties with potential overseas purchasers, the Hangzhou Tourism Commission organized an array of projects in Paris for the first time, as a supplementary activity to the campaign.

During the Paris activity, two pop-up venues - Hangzhou Reception Room and the Hangzhou Mobile Conference Room, were designed to deliver Hangzhou's message to welcome European-based conference organizers.

At the end of the campaign, a banquet and sharing session was held at Hangzhou International Expo Center, the main venue of the G20 summit.

At the scene, conference organizers from various countries had in-depth exchanges with top executives from Hangzhou local companies. A large number of the organizers expressed their intent to choose Hangzhou as the destination for one of their future events.

The commission has also launched a new round of promotions for the remainder of 2017, enabling domestic and foreign meeting organizers to discover the city's charms and see more possibilities for their events in the city.

Leveraging its growing popularity as the host city of 2016 G20 Summit, Hangzhou held the 2017 Conference and Incentive Travel Industry Fair, attracting a total of 122 professional buyers in MICE industry and 160 conference service providers.

Tourism is not new to Hangzhou, of course. In 2011, the World Tourism Organization invited domestic and foreign experts to Hangzhou and conducted a special survey there. After the investigation, they concluded that Hangzhou has the potential to become a top MICE destination in Asia Pacific region.

In recent years, Hangzhou has received a wide range of awards and gained worldwide fame. The city was awarded as one of the "Top 10 Glamorous Conference Destinations", and has been named "Annual best MICE city of China", "Annual best MICE destination", and "China's most creative international MICE destination".

According to a rank released by International Congress and Convention Association, Hangzhou has been ranked as the third place among the Chinese mainland cities on the rank of the global conference destination for five years from 2011 to 2015.

Moreover, the local government compiled Hangzhou incentive tourism brochures, a Hangzhou MICE Handbook, produced promotional video about Hangzhou's MICE industry and established domestic and overseas media promotion platforms including an official microblog and website, and participation in WeChat and LinkedIn.

As part of this initiative, the city government set up the Hangzhou International Meeting Bidding Service Center in June. The center will work together with local companies, organizations and convention ambassadors and provide bidding services for international association conferences and other meetings.

The establishment of the center is expected to strongly boost Hangzhou's MICE sector in its ability to win more conference bids, especially bids for international events.

Along with the development of the conference industry, the local government also makes an effort to cooperate with trade associations and institutions, to further develop the urban economy, improve the urban environment and generate more cross-border exchanges.
Relaxing restrictions on visitors will send trans-Pacific travel soaring

Tourism industry insiders are calling for easier Chinese access to the US, citing a surge in trans-Pacific leisure travel that has benefitted the United States' economy.

"If the US visa service were easier, particularly for people in second-or third-tier Chinese cities, the market would surely see huge growth," said Xiao Yinyuan, a director at online travel agency Ctrip.

US government figures show a rise in the number of Chinese visitors in each of the past 13 years, with a tenfold increase since 2005. Last year, mainlanders made almost 3 million trips to the US, up by 9 percent from 2015. They spent $33 billion in total.

Wang Huabei, a public relations officer at online travel service provider lvmama.com, attributed the growth to the US' 10-year visa for Chinese people, and an increase in direct flights between major cities of the two countries.

"On top of this, 2016 was China-US tourism year. Events staged by both sides have aroused interest in the US as a destination," he said.

Yet compared with Thailand, which received 8.7 million Chinese tourists last year, and Japan which welcomed 6.4 million, the US still seems wanting.

The long distance and flight time is certainly a factor, but Xiao said the difficulty of gaining a tourist visa is more important. "A US visa requires a face-to-face interview. There are very few US visa centers in China, and applicants may be rejected," he said.

Wang said the peak season for Chinese tourism in the US is between May and October. Popular routes include the "west line" of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, as well as the "east line" linking New York, Washington and Boston.

Xiao said six out of 10 tourists booking US trips through Ctrip are ages 19 to 45, with an average spend of 17,000 yuan ($2,560). "A notable trend is that young students are accounting for a bigger proportion of Chinese tourists to the US, with more heading there for summer camps or study tours," he added.
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BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping left Beijing on Friday for the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Vietnam.

After attending the APEC meeting in Da Nang, Xi will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos.

It is Xi's first overseas trip after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October.

Xi's entourage includes Ding Xuexiang, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee;Liu He, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs; and Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and State Councilor.
One of the greatest privileges of serving Montana in Washington, D.C., has been hearing the most admirable stories of Montanans who have fought for our nation all across the globe.

Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow served as an Army scout during WWII and fulfilled the requirements to become a war chief. Ben Steele served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was captured by the Japanese  he was a prisoner of war for 1,244 days during World War II. David Thatcher took part in the Doolittle Raid and was awarded the Silver Star. If youve ever seen the movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, youll have seen Robert Walker play the part of Corporal Thatcher.

This year I led a bill in the Senate to designate three VA facilities after these Montanans, to preserve their legacies and serve as a reminder of our nations heroes. We owe a debt of gratitude to men and women like Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, Ben Steele, David Thatcher and many others.

As the son of a U.S. Marine, I have long had an appreciation for those who serve our nation in uniform. My father enlisted in the 58th Rifle Company in Billings in 1957 and it was through him that I first learned of the sacrifice and courage displayed by those who serve in our armed services.

Theyre all around us every day and on this day, we honor them.

Steve Daines

U.S. Senator

Bozeman
An English teacher in Kunming has been told to apologize for a fine and reward system she imposed on her students and give back money she took, amounting to 50 yuan per wrong answer each teenager made in mid-term exams, reported the Beijing Youth Daily.

Zhao Sha, who worked at Kunming No 10 Middle School, posted an account online on Nov 7 detailing how the fines she levied had totaled 3,950 yuan ($596), the newspaper said.

In addition to the charge for wrong answers, students were required to pay 10 yuan for each point they fell short of a set target. The money taken was used to reward students who made progress and also pay for extracurricular activities.

Some pupils fared better than others. While 12 received rewards, the remaining 28 in the class were fined.

Parents told the newspaper their representative committee at the school had never discussed the scheme. A staff member said the school had not granted permission, and was now investigating.

Han Xiao, a lawyer from Beijing Kangda Law Firm, was quoted by the newspaper saying that there were no legal rights for teachers or schools to fine.

"Parents should have reported the matter promptly to avoid its impact on students' psychological health," Han said.
A senior police officer has pledged there will be no let up in an ongoing crackdown on criminal gangs in rural Guangdong province.

Qian Bo, deputy director of Guangdong Public Security Department's Criminal Investigation Bureau, was speaking to journalists eight weeks into Jufeng-39, the code name for a campaign that has already dealt a heavy blow to organized crime.

"Guangdong police have given top priority to the fight against criminal organizations, village tyrants and corruption at grassroots in 2017. We have no reason to relax our vigilance in the remaining weeks of the year," he said.

Since launching Jufeng-39, police have broken 130 underground gangs and detained 1,420 suspects involved in more than 460 criminal cases, Qian said.

A large number of guns, illegal knives and iron rods have been seized, along with the vehicles of perpetrators.

In Guangzhou, police detained 59 suspects in two raids on a major criminal organization headed by a local, surnamed Li, in Baiyun district's Luogang village.

The gang is suspected of offenses including loan fraud, trading by force, intentional injury, monopolizing local markets, and organizing secret societies. Police have seized properties belonging to the gang worth over 50 million yuan ($7.7 million).

Police in Shenzhen have detained 140 suspects in action against a gang they say is headed by two villagers, both surnamed Wang, in Baoan district. They seized knives and steel pipes, and froze a bank account holding more than 8 million yuan.

In the cities of Yangjiang and Qingyuan, suspects have also been detained and weapons seized.

"Criminal gangs have affected social stability and people's lives through monopolizing markets, opening secret casinos, defrauding villagers and organizing robberies," Qian said.

He reiterated police's zero-tolerance on gang-related crimes at township and village levels.
He Chunyu, 44, at Lingshan Township Middle School in Wangkui county, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In the past decade, He Chunyu has donated about 20,000 yuan (approximately $3,000) to more than 300 poor students in his school.

He, 44 and a Chinese teacher at Lingshan Township Middle School in northeast Heilongjiang's Wangkui county, raised the money by selling discarded plastic bottles, paper and other waste products he collected.

He was born to an impoverished rural family and completed his studies through financial assistance from relatives and villagers.

He decided to return to his hometown after graduation in 1998.

"When I learned some of my students would drop out of school because of poverty, I was quite uneasy," he said. "However, I had no better way to help them due to my low income at the time."




A photo with the theme "Do Not Throw the Peel" shows a tiny young man hiding in an orange peel.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Students from Dalian University of Technology recently created a series of pictures to raise awareness about environmental protection.

The pictures include images of tiny people nicknamed "yiren", which in Chinese means ant people, and garbage such as plastic bags, disposable chopsticks and chewing gum.

The students said the small action of littering may lead to catastrophe for small animals and have a negative impact on the environment. They are calling on more people to step forward and throw garbage into trash cans instead.
A matchmaking advertisement is seen on a bus in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan province, on Aug 8, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

A human resources website along with an online matchmaking platform released a report on single professionals' dating needs Thursday, showing "programmer" is the job which has the highest rate of singles in China.

The report was published online by Zhaopin.com, one of China's leading recruitment websites, and Zhenai.com, an online dating platform. It conducted an online sample survey and received a total of 12,102 effective samples.

According to the report, 27 percent of single professionals would leave the first-tier cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, for their hometowns due to staying single for a long time. And five percent are willing to give up love to stay in major cities.

The report indicated busier jobs can influence marriage and love status. The top three jobs having highest singles rates are technician, financial staff and sales positions, jobs with little leisure time in the public's eyes.

The data also showed almost 64 percent of professionals think their marriage and love status would matter when finding jobs.

What the interviewers were interested in hearing from interviewees most included their reasons for being single, when they would want to get married and basic information of their ideal matches, the survey said.
China should use big data to achieve a cost-effective and patient-centric healthcare system, according to analysis by the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group.

According to a study released on Wednesday, an efficient system that centers on patients is essential for the sustainability of healthcare in the country, given ballooning expenses caused by factors such as a rapidly aging population with increased incidence of chronic disease.

Total spending on healthcare in China will reach 6 trillion yuan ($904 billion) by 2020, three times the level in 2010, the report estimates. The efficiency of the sector is in general lower than developed countries such as the United States, it said.

The obstacles China faces include no unified information system to cover separate hospitals, and a lack of system integration between different types of medical institutions, the report said.

It said many hospitals fail to collect enough data on the effect of their treatment, making it difficult to gauge improvements in services.

"The government should encourage public hospitals, the major provider of medical services in China, to improve collection of data on patients, conduct evaluation of the effect of medical services, and facilitate data-sharing and transparency," it said.

"China can make fast progress in the area by employing the latest technologies such as digital platforms and big data."
An academic credit bank was officially launched in Beijing on Friday.

The platform, which covers all educational stages and targets people of different ages, could be used to take courses and tests for certain academic credits or certificates, said Yang Zhijian, president of the Open University of China, which led the construction of the credit bank under the guidance of the Ministry of Education.

"The credits and certificates accumulated could then be used to gain specific academic degrees or diplomas according to the requirements of different educational institutions," he said.

He added that the credit bank, which started construction from 2012, is also an open platform that all educational institutions, public or private, could use to deliver their courses.

"These institutions could set prices and requirements for their courses, and learners could decide which course they would like to enroll in, much like what consumers do on Taobao," Yang said.

According to Wang Jicheng, director of the education ministry's vocational and adult education department, the concept of an academic credit bank, which combines academic credits with the features of banks in the field of finance, was first conceived by people in South Korea in 1995.

"The purpose of building the credit bank in China is to cover people's education 'from birth to death', boosting lifelong learning and improving the literacy of people nationwide," he said.

Zhu Yongxin, vice-chairman of the Chinese Society of Education, said the credit bank is a new phenomenon in China, and both credit and quality are crucial to its future development.

"We should pay great attention to the quality of the courses and make sure that every credit issued to learners counts," he said. "Only in this way can the academic credit bank be widely recognized and accepted."
By He Wei in Shanghai | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-11-10 21:01

Some 38 billion messages were sent everyday via WeChat, according to a report published Thursday by Tencent Holdings, the owner of the popular messaging app.

That's up 25 percent over a year ago, furthering narrowing the gap with WhatsApp's daily volume of 55 billion messages.

Thanks to better internet connectivity and bandwidth, WeChat's 963 million users send 6.1 billion voice messages and make 205 million video and voice calls per day, the report said.

The all-in-one app, which includes payment features and a newsfeed, has also attracted 50 million active users between the ages of 55 and 70.

Its publishing function is the latest darling for brands, media outlets and bloggers, who together operated 3.5 million active "official accounts" that deliver a variety of information to subscribers.

WeChat was also used as a payment option in physical stores 2.8 times more often compared to a year ago, the company said without disclosing exact figures.
Su Xiangyi [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Though her bones can easily shatter, her spirit is strong as steel.

Su Xiangyi, 31, was abandoned as a baby girl when her biological parents discovered she had osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease.

Due to this disease, her bones have broken 16 times. This fragility has led some to call her "glass girl".

Su cannot walk, so she was unable to attend school. But she taught herself the entire curriculum from primary school to high school. She also finished an undergraduate study of English literature at home.

In 2009 she started writing and doing translation.

Unfortunately, both of her beloved foster parents died in 2011 and she had to live by herself.

In the past, her foster parents took good care of her daily needs, so she didn't know how to cook, shower or go out alone.

She overcame many physical challenges and quickly learned those essential life skills.

"I was very afraid at first when I started to live by myself," she said. "I often missed my foster parents and their love encourages me to continue."

In her spare time, she joined a charity group to help children with rare diseases. She visits children who also have her disease and gives them classes in the hospital. She also encourages them to learn as much knowledge as they can.

This year, Su even completed a five-day tour to Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

She created a very thorough plan for her trip and didn't hesitate to ask for help.

"I called the railway stations for special assistance and many people would help me when I was in need," she said.

"People with disabilities should go out more and let more people see us living such a fulfilled life."

She plans to visit more places in China and even foreign countries.

"I want to learn more about the world and see how beautiful the world is," she said.

Recently, she was named as one of the Top Ten People with Disabilities in her hometown of Wanzhou district in Southwest China's Chongqing.
Mimi Gates (third from left) and Fan Jinshi (fourth from left), former head of the Dunhuang Research Academy. Gates has worked closely with the academy for years. [Photo by Ding Xiaosheng/For China Daily]

The 74-year-old US art historian Mimi Gates has passionately participated in the conservation of the Dunhuang relics for years. Liu Xiangrui reports.

When Mimi Gates speaks about the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu province, she goes from the cultural and historical background of the caves to the vivid details of certain paintings there.

The 74-year-old US art historian has served as the chair of the Dunhuang Foundation in the United States since 2010 and has participated in the conservation of Dunhuang's relics for years.

Looking back, Gates says the decision to visit Asia when she was young instead of studying in Italy, as her parents wished, changed her life.

She found herself attracted to Asian culture, and decided to start with China.

So Gates studied Chinese language and history when she was a student at Stanford University. She later earned a master's degree in Oriental and Chinese Studies from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in Art History from Yale University.

"Chinese art was always close to my heart, and it was always my primary interest," says Gates.

She worked at the Yale University Art Gallery for years, first as a curator and later as its director. She became the head of the Seattle Art Museum in 1994, and she married William H. Gates Sr, the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, in 1996.

Mimi Gates paid her first visit to Dunhuang in 1995, as director of the Seattle museum, and "had a brief glimpse of the greatness of Dunhuang".

The Dunhuang grottoes are a 1,600-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site comprising about 500 caves and a large collection of Buddhist art, such as statues and murals.

She was invited to return in 2009 to present a paper on visitor experience at a conference there. Spending a few days there, Gates visited the caves whenever she had free time.

When Fan Jinshi, the then-head of the Dunhuang Research Academy, visited the US to raise funds for the protection of the site, Gates suggested setting up a foundation and accepted Fan's offer to help organize and chair the foundation.

"The idea was to encourage Americans to support Dunhuang, because it is such a spectacular site, and I think it is so important to humanity," says Gates.
I recently came across The Gazettes editorial from Sept. 9, 2017 (Picking on Immigrants). I must commend the editorial board for the courageous perspective on federal immigration enforcement. This kind of reporting accurately reflects what is going on in our community and across the country. Placing it on the opinion page demonstrates a necessary independence and call for accountability that is in keeping with a thriving democracy. I am deeply grateful for this call for a shared humanity that makes Billings more kind and less cruel. Immigration is an issue of faith and identity.

Audemio Orozco-Ramirezs mistreatment by law enforcement and his detention by federal immigration agents are a stain on our society that says it honors families and children. No one questions that Audemio is a hardworking father who wants the best for his children. His crime, as the editorial put it, is wanting the American Dream.

By detaining Audemio and breaking up his family, the government is casting his wife and children headlong into a nightmare. The federal government has promised as much for millions of other American families with undocumented family members. These are our friends and neighbors who must now live in fear. As a person of faith, I cannot accept that this is what God intends for our community or our country.

Bonnie Daniels

Billings
The English translation of Louis Cha's martial arts trilogy will be published in February. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Despite their popularity, only three of Jin Yong's martial arts novels have been translated into English. But fans will soon get more from the writer as his most popular trilogy, named after the first of the three books, Legends of the Condor Heroes, is scheduled to hit bookstores in February.

Jin Yong is the pen name of Louis Cha. And the author, who lives in Hong Kong, is one of the best-selling Chinese authors alive with over 300 million copies of his works sold in the Chinese-speaking world.

This latest translation project is the most ambitious with regard to Jin Yong's works.

The trilogy, written by Jin Yong in the 1950s and '60s, covers the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and features hundreds of characters.

The plot includes betrayal and allegiance among different martial arts schools, and the rise and fall of dynasties.

According to the publishing house, Maclehose Press, the translated work will come in 12 volumes, including Legends of the Condor Heroes; Divine Condor, Errant Knight; and Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre.

Anna Holmwood is the translator of volume one, A Hero Born.

Speaking of the project which she took up in 2012, Holmwood, a self-employed translator focusing on Chinese-English literary translations, says in an email interview: "It had to be Jin Yong then. It was the obvious place to start, not only because of the quality of his writing, but also because of his standing and reputation in Asia."

Holmwood, who was born to a British father and a Swedish mother, grew up in the United Kingdom and studied history at the University of Oxford.

Her love affair with China began in 2005, when she spent two months traveling around the country on a scholarship.

The trip aroused her curiosity about China, and she was determined to learn Chinese. "That was the only way to satisfy my curiosity about the country," she says.

Holmwood then chose modern Chinese studies as her MPhil major at Oxford, and went to Taiwan Normal University for a year of language training in 2009.
Drones deliver packages to Meizhou Island in Fujian ( chinadaily.com.cn ) Updated: 2017-11-09

Three drones carrying six boxes of passion fruit arrived in Meizhou Island on Oct 31 after flying across the sea from the Shanting town in Putian, Fujian province.

It is the first time that China has used drones to deliver packages over water and it took nine minutes to make the five-kilometer crossing.

The package was ordered by Zhou Lixia, a villager on Mezhou island, on Alibaba's rural shopping platform Rural Taobao, several days ago.

The drones, prepared for the Singles Day shopping festival by local rural Taobao and Cainiao Network runners, greatly shortened the transportation time and is expected to ease the problem of poor transportation connecting Meizhou island with the outside that bothers nearly 40,000 residents with massive online shopping requirements.
President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, and US President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, pose for a photo in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony during their visit to the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City, in Beijing on Wednesday. LAN HONGGUANG / XINHUA

From the Chinese and US first couples' meticulously arranged and memorable private visit to the Forbidden City to the $250 billion business deals announced on Thursday, Donald Trump's maiden trip to China as US president has indeed been a "state visit plus".

There was no reason for it not to be.

Although the differences that had been pestering bilateral ties have not instantly disappeared, the most important takeaway from their talks in Beijing has been the constructive approach to these issues the two leaders demonstrated.

Both expressed their willingness to work with, instead of against, the other in dealing with the differences between their two countries, in particular over trade and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear program.

Beijing and Washington have been working hard to find convergences on these two prominent issues, in particular, and will very likely work harder given the two leaders' agreement that cooperation between the two countries is the "only correct choice".

But these matters are complicated and they are unlikely to have come up with any quick fixes. Although both clearly believe the issues are solvable, with Trump saying they will work together to solve not only their mutual problems but also world "problems of great danger and security", and President Xi Jinping saying China is committed to working with the United States on issues of international concern, as well as controlling the differences between the two sides.

Such precious progress in trying to find common ground, along with the Chinese commitment to establish a constructive "new-type of relationship" with the US, as Xi again elaborated in his talks with Trump, will go a long way to anchoring the all-important, yet sometimes volatile, Sino-US relationship.

The concordant note struck by Xi and Trump showcased not only the personal rapport they have established, but also consolidated optimism about the prospects for bilateral ties, especially since Xi has previously emphasized the "leading role of head-of-state diplomacy", and Trump on Thursday touted the "chemistry" between himself and his host.

There is undoubtedly a lot of work left to do, as the US secretary of state pointed out. But the readiness of the two leaders to listen, as well as talk, was apparent in their public appearances, and offers hope that together, China and the US can do "tremendous things" to the benefit of both countries, even the world, as Trump suggested.

Certainly, China is willing since, as Xi said, the Pacific is big enough to accommodate both and although there are challenges the two nations need to face, these are limited, and there is boundless potential for growth.


The 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, to be held in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Friday and Saturday, has elicited much international attention. It is the first APEC meeting hosted by Vietnam, as well as the first to be attended by US President Donald Trump, as part of the longest trip to the Asia-Pacific taken by a US president since 1992. The world's eyes will be focused on Da Nang, especially on what transpires at what is usually described as one of the most significant annual summit meetings.

Regional integration and free trade have been high priority areas for quite some time. In fact, the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership has made considerable headway over the past few years and shown much promise. Unfortunately, it does not include any country from the Americas, which limits its potential to enhance trans-Pacific trade, although there is no reason why this could not be remedied in the future, say, by opening it up to "non-regional" members.

Then there is the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, APEC's grand project, whose feasibility study was submitted to the members at the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, in November last year. But still there is a long way to go before it is realized. Another is the "TPP 11", a variant of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, minus the United States. A fourth includes the four members of the Pacific Alliance (a Latin American integration scheme), that is, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, plus Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, whose joining the alliance as associate members is currently being negotiated.

As can be seen from the veritable smorgasbord of alternatives on free trade and regional integration in the Asia-Pacific region, neither is particularly easy to implement or all-encompassing in its reach. Yet that is no reason not to keep pushing for them or for not exploring their complementarities.

Beyond these mega-regional agreements, which seemed to be the wave of the future only a few years ago, but now face serious obstacles, we should keep in mind that the cause of free trade can also be propelled bilaterally, one FTA at the time, as it were.

That is exactly what Chile and China did when they signed their FTA way back in 2005, the first such agreement China inked with any single country. Bilateral trade has increased fourfold since then, reaching $31 billion last year, and is widely considered a great success.

Yet much has happened in these 12 years, and the FTA text has been upgraded to widen its focus from just trade in goods to also cover services which is fast moving closer to center stage (in fact, services already represent more than half of China's GDP). This upgrading was done in the course of four negotiating sessions this year, and a protocol dealing with such cutting-edge disciplines as e-commerce, government procurement and competition policy has been agreed on and will be signed in the presence of Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Da Nang during the APEC meeting, thus deepening and strengthening the FTA.

There is a lesson here for all those who want to see it. At a time when protectionism and isolationism have raised their ugly heads in a number of countries, China and one of its leading trade partners in Latin America are moving forward to further liberalize trade and open themselves up to trans-border commerce.

Starting in the 1990s, Chile has been at the forefront of developing what has come to be known as a "lateral" international trade policy, based on the pursuit of bilateral or "plurilateral" FTAs with as many economies as possible, and today it has the largest number of FTAs of any country (25 with some 64 countries). In the early 2000s, this was new terrain for China, but it has been catching up fast, as subsequent FTAs with New Zealand, Australia and the Republic of Korea show. However that may be, China and Chile both are considered to be among those that have made the most of globalization by opening up their economics and seizing the many opportunities offered by the global economy.

Yes, we must continue to push for inter-regional trans-Pacific agreements that facilitate and promote more trade and investment across the world's largest ocean, and APEC is a critical forum for this purpose. But we should not forget that free trade should be propelled on all frontsbilateral, "plurilateral" and multilateraland no instance is too small for that.

The author is the ambassador of Chile to China.
Coal is the main source of air pollution in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. So the construction of a "no coal area" has become the major task of the three regions.

The construction of a national "no coal area" in the region of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei was first advanced by the seventh meeting of the air pollution prevention and control working group in the three places and their surrounding areas in October last year.

Studies of Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning show that the pollutants due to the burning of coal for civil use in the winter account for more than 50 percent of the PM2.5 pollution in the three regions.

Beijing's coal consumption has reduced by about 10 million tons every year, and clean energy accounts for more than 80 percent of the city's overall energy consumption. It is also advancing a complete ban on the burning of coal in the six central urban districts by 2020. But in Hebei, about 80 percent of energy consumption still comes from coal burning, which requires great efforts to transform and upgrade the province's energy consumption.

Air pollution prevention and control in this region requires unified planning, standards, environmental protection inspections, supervision and law enforcement.
An employee works at a JD.com logistic centre in Langfang, Hebei province.[Photo/Agencies]

MANY EXPRESS DELIVERY companies have raised the wages for employees in a bid to recruit more workers to cope with the huge number of deliveries resulting from the Nov 11 online shopping sales. Hbnews.cn comments:

Facing a shortage of workers, most of the express delivery companies have raised the pay they offer to try and attract recruits. Yet this strategy has failed.

The express delivery companies have misunderstood the demands of their workers. Actually, express deliverymen and women earn quite a high wage compared with other physical laborers. Surveys show that they are unhappy with their job because of the "lack of recognition" and "bad job prospects".

The companies do not care about their workers, and all they want is for them to deliver as many goods as possible. Besides, many delivery companies do not provide ample training for their employees, and when the latter commit mistakes, they punish them harshly.

As a result, their workers feel no loyalty to their employers and resign at the busiest times.

The Singles Day shopping spree is only one of the occasions on which enterprises face a shortage of workers. Every year, when the Spring Festival holiday ends in February, manufacturing enterprises in eastern coastal provinces have a shortage of laborers, because the majority of their employees, who are from rural areas have their own land to tend to.

It is time these enterprises gave more consideration to their employees.


The outcomes of the successful 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China have prompted some international observers to suggest China will become expansionist and may seek to lead the world. But they should rest assured that China's diplomacy will never become radical or adventurous. Instead, it will continue upholding the values of peace, cooperation, fairness and justice, and the Chinese leadership will continue to serve the people and pursue development while maintaining national stability.

A country's diplomacy is the extension of its domestic politics. And China is keenly aware of the importance of its economic development as, in his report to the 19th Party Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping said China will not become a strong socialist country before 2050. Until then, China will continue to address the contradiction between people's desire to lead a better life and inadequate, unbalanced economic development.

Despite being the world's second-largest economy, China considers itself a developing country, and hence its diplomacy will be sober-minded and pragmatic. China still has a long way to go to become a developed country, and its diplomacy will remain that of a developing country. However, that will not prevent China from playing an active role in promoting globalization and economic development, or fighting climate change and other threats to humanity.

Besides, China will continue to further open up to the outside world, as indicated by the 19th Party Congress. China needs a peaceful external environment to continue to take measures to boost domestic demand. Rather than becoming more aggressive globally, it will try to strike the right balance between domestic and foreign policies.

Also, major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics will be characterized by greater strategic, systemic and holistic designs. Instead of making national policies based on hotspot issues, it will view hotspot issues and bilateral disputes against a bigger picture and framework of peaceful development.

In other words, it will promote world peace by dealing with key issues of global human development through multilayered, all-round diplomatic arrangements, from a long-term and institutionalized approach, which would ease and/or resolve regional disputes. A pattern of benign interactions between China and the rest of the world has already been established, and a close bond of common prosperity will grow with the passage of time. As such, China will leap forward while promoting fairer, more balanced development.

Moreover, major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics has two salient features. As Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, these features signify a new type of international relations aimed at building a community of shared future for humanity.

This new type of international relations is aimed at proving false the contention that a rising power is destined to clash with an established one, and that a strong country will necessarily bully smaller ones. China is determined to avoid zero-sum games and establish win-win cooperation with the international community. It will also try to blaze a trail different from those of traditional powers. And it will forsake such traditional practices as colonization, and building spheres of influence or traditional alliances, or basing its prosperity on other countries' poverty and security on others' insecurity.

The concept of building a global community of shared future was put forward by Xi after the 18th Party Congress, which received full endorsement at the 19th Party Congress. But that doesn't mean China will negate traditional diplomacy. Instead, it will extend and develop it.

With the guidelines of the 19th Party Congress, Chinese diplomacy will continue to contribute to global peace and development.

The author is vice-president of China Foreign Affairs University.

Source: chinausfocus.com


President Xi Jinping will attend the 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting at Da Nang, Vietnam on Nov 10 and 11, and pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Nov 12 to 14. High hopes have been placed on his first participation in a major multilateral meeting after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month where, Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized Beijing's determination to build a community of shared future for all humanity.

Since 1993 Chinese leaders have attended every Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, and sought to accelerate economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region with "Chinese proposals", including the Shanghai Accord adopted in 2001 and the Beijing Declaration issued at the 2014 APEC informal leaders' meeting.

A year after he proposed the Asia-Pacific community of shared destiny at Bali, Indonesia, in 2013, Xi talked about the "Asia-Pacific dream" at the APEC meeting in Beijing, shaped the "Beijing Agenda" for a Asia-Pacific free trade area with other leaders to pursue integration, innovation and interconnectivity.

The APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, last year saw Beijing offering more detailed plans to expedite negotiations on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which focuses on economic integration, improved connectivity, institutional reform and deepened partnership. At home, Beijing has helped establish a series of institutes such as the APEC E-commerce Business Alliance to draw the attention of other APEC economies to the advantages of China's development path.

APEC is not without its problems, though. Since its establishment in 1989, the multilateral body has advocated the principle of negotiation and independence, meaning no member is to be left behind no matter its level of its economic development. But like many other multilateral organizations, it compromises its efficiency at times by paying too much attention to making every member "comfortable".

In other words, certain revisions could be made in the way the forum functions. In particular, developed and developing APEC economies need to reach a consensus on global trade restrictions to which the latter are more often subject to.

The proposed FTAAP is still far from being realized as existing multilateral trade deals are not necessarily in harmony with bilateral free trade agreements. The absence of a uniform mechanism covering trade, finance and social governance means not all members have high expectations of an FTAAP and thus are less motivated to pitch in.

How to deal with political and security issues under the APEC framework is also an open question. Over the past few years more regional security issues such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea nuclear issue have appeared on the APEC agenda. Which risks politicizing (even dismantling) the grouping designed to enhance economic cooperation and playing up the differences between members for no good reason. Rather than touching upon non-economic issues, the APEC members should work closely to combat nontraditional security threats, from cross-border terrorism and financial crisis to natural disasters and epidemics.

Arguably the world's busiest region in terms of trade and economy, the Asia-Pacific is full of opportunities for inclusive growth, economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges. China, with its flagship cooperative arrangements such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, could well play a bigger role in building the FTAAP.

The author is a researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
US President Donald Trump clearly had a good time on Wednesday, the day he and his wife Melania Trump arrived in Beijing. In his tweets, he thanked China and its leaders for the "beautiful welcome" and "unforgettable afternoon and evening at the Forbidden City".

The same day, Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang and US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross witnessed the signing of business deals worth $9 billion.

The day happened to be the one-year anniversary of Trump winning a surprise victory in the 2016 election.

It is understandable that some long-standing issues between the two countries, such as US concern for market access and intellectual property and Chinese concern for excessive scrutiny of Chinese investment in the US and restriction of high-tech exports to China, won't be resolved during this visit.

Just look at how difficult it is for the Trump administration, or any US administration, to push for major domestic policy changes, whether it's healthcare or tax reform.

In fact, two identical bills introduced on Wednesday in the US Senate and House of Representatives to beef up the scrutiny of foreign investment, especially from China, if passed, would worsen the concern on the Chinese side.

And China's reform and opening-up in the past four decades is a process of gradual evolution. Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping described it as "crossing the river by feeling the stones", meaning it is generally going forward but might move sideward or even backward sometimes.

Looking back at China's great transformation in the past decades, however, no one would deny it has made remarkable progress on all frontseconomic, social and even political.

If you can adjust like this and take a historical view, you are more likely to show patience and understanding. After all, China is a country with one-fifth of the world's population but whose per capita GDP is only one-seventh of that of the US. Things don't change overnight because its leaders snap their fingers.

Time seems a different concept in the two countries. China is known for its long-term planning, such as its five-year plans and even a plan into 2049, the centennial of the People's Republic. Americans tend to seek immediate results. A US president will usually talk about his vision for the next four years.

Mutual understanding is important because it would encourage the two sides to spend more time in expanding practical win-win cooperation rather than being overly obsessed with issues that won't be solved in a short period of time, or even a longer period of time.

This is not to say that they should overlook the issues. Instead, they should try to manage and mitigate the challenges and not allow them to hold back the overall relationship.

In marking his one-year anniversary, Trump has pleasantly surprised many who a year ago were deeply worried about a trade war between the two countries given his harsh campaign rhetoric. Today, few are worried about this anymore despite the fact that trade frictions might increase as the two largest economies become more interdependent.

Trump has also surprised many for his relatively good handling of the US-China relations, including forging a close working and personal relationship with President Xi Jinping.

The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as described by Xi as the Chinese Dream and the "Make America Great Again" policy as promised by Trump will only become more attainable if the two countries work closely to expand their cooperation, instead of indulging in any wasteful zero-sum game.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA.
President Xi Jinping welcomes US President Donald Trump at a ceremony at the square near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Nov 9, 2017. [Photo by Xu Jingxing/China Daily]

US President Donald Trump arrived in China on a three-day state visit to meet with President Xi Jinping from Nov 8 to 10. The trip came soon after the 19th National Congress of Communist Part of China concluded.

On Thursday, 15 cooperation documents worth more than $250 billion were signed at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. And the deals signed between Chinese and US companies will be one of the major achievements of Trump's visit to China, which shows there is huge potential for worlds largest and second largest economies to cooperate.

China and the United States are highly interdependent on each other based on great common interests. Both countries have clear understandings of their strength and status, and will strive to avoid any major escalation. As Xi said, "we have a thousand reasons to make the Sino-US relations good, and there is no reason to ruin it. Therefore, this visit shows China and the US can be confident to maintain long-term, stable and healthy Sino-US relations.

First, Sino-US relations are very complicated with profound influence across the world; China must strategically plan for the relations under the framework of world politics, and build new international relations with the guidance of the diplomatic theory of great powers with Chinese characteristics. The 19th CPC National Congress exerts great influence on China and makes China more confident than before, China has the ability to shape the Sino-US relations by respecting each other's core interests and achieving win-win cooperation. More importantly by establishing personal bond, Trump can much better understand Chinas diplomacy and understand that Chinas rise will not necessarily undermine the US dream of Make America Great Again.

Second, there is no doubt that the two countries will have problems in future, just as the two may still differ on the approach to resolve the Korean Peninsula question despite their common goal of regional peace. But if China and the US are able to prejudge and make contingent plans, we could control the disparities and ultimately solve the problems.

Finally, China should continue to be a supporter of the current world order.By launching One Belt, One Road Initiative and taking a series of positive actions in multilateral arena, China can make contributions to global governance, which would benefit the world including the US.

The author is with Beijing Language and Culture University.
APEC leaders and the world would be watching what President Xi Jinping would bring to the meeting. There would be high expectation that the reinvigorated Xi would not be just another leader attending the meeting. In a way, the other APEC leaders would be looking to Xi to provide the leadership.

What would Xi do in Da Nang, Vietnam, after his well received speech as the new champion of globalization and free trade in Davos? The 2017 APEC theme proposed by Vietnam, the chairman and host, is quite similar to Xi's idea of a shared destiny in his speech at the UN in 2012. His call for a common destiny for all nations was a refreshing theme for the community of nations caught in the divisive politics of the US. It was an idea too ahead of its time then but gradually the world leaders are seeing the value and benefits of such an idea, a more peaceful world of economic growth and progress to benefit all nations and not pitting one side against another in a continuous and unending scenario of wars and conflicts.

The 2017 APEC theme is Creating new dynamism, fostering a shared future. How would Xi add weight and value to what the host has proposed to make this meeting a successful one for Vietnam and rest of the APEC?

Under the leadership of Xi, China has embarked on several initiatives towards fostering globalization, inter connectivity and free trade through the Belt and Road Initiative, AIIB and infrastructure development in Asia for economic growth and development. Would Xi be proposing to the APEC a redefined initiative that would enhance more liberalization of free trade and interconnectivity in the Asia-Pacific? Only a concrete proposal along these lines of thinking would make a real difference in such a high-level meeting. There must be a realistic and sustainable work plan that is useful for the APEC leaders to work on.

On the other hand, would Xi be offering the APEC a new plan to connect the Asia-Pacific countries? A China initiative of such a nature would take the wind out of the USs isolationist policies and would likely be welcomed by the APEC looking for direction and leadership in the region.

The APEC leaders would be arriving at Da Nang under a cloud of uncertainties created by the US. TPP is history though some of the signatories are trying to revive it without the US as a member. A TPP without the US market is quite meaningless, and without China makes its intent less attractive and even unpalatable politically.

China could be the silver lining to bring some cheers to the APEC if Xi could come up with a proposal that is beneficial and inclusive to all APEC members, including the US. This is a daunting task awaiting Xi in Vietnam.

The author is a political observer from Singapore.

The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and don't represent views of China Daily and China Daily website.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with US President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov 9, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with visiting US President Donald Trump Thursday, saying the two countries should further open up to each other and create a fair business environment for their companies.

Trump arrived in Beijing Wednesday afternoon for a three-day state visit to China, and held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping early Thursday.

Li said the talks were "fruitful," with important consensus reached on plans for bilateral cooperation.

"By maintaining high-level exchanges and close communication, the two countries will inject new impetus into their cooperation and push their relations to a new level," he said.

The Sino-US relations were moving forward steadily, the premier said, noting that a pattern of economic cooperation with deeply intertwined interests had been formed.

"The positive trend in the Chinese and US economies is good news for both countries and the rest of the world," Li said.

He told Trump that the two nations had huge potential for cooperation as China was the biggest developing country, with a vast market and rich human resources, while the United States was the biggest developed country, with advanced technology and experience.

"It is inevitable that there are differences and frictions, such as the trade deficit issue the US side is concerned about," Li said.
China's First Lady Peng Liyuan and US First Lady Melania Trump paint the eyes of panda figures in a calligraphy class during a visit to Banchang Elementary School in Beijing on Thursday. GREG BAKER/REUTERS

Visit to school highlights Xi's call for 'fair access to good education'

The first ladies of China and the United States, both famous for their talent and good taste in fashion, joined elementary school students to finish making a qipaocheongsamdress in Beijing on Thursday.

Accompanied by Peng Liyuan, the wife of President Xi Jinping, Melania Trump visited Banchang Elementary School in Dongcheng district in the morning.

At the gate, Peng and Trump waved to students who held the flags of the two countries. There was also a team of students dressed in red playing waist drums and dancing to welcome the distinguished guests in a warm and traditional way.

Peng told the US first lady that this school is an ordinary public school. It was established 70 years ago, has kept improving its level of teaching and has made notable progress in quality-oriented education, she said.

Unlike most schools chosen in visits by foreign leaders, which are famous for their elite education, Banchang Elementary School is rarely heard of among the public.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (L) and Senator Ron Wyden speak in reaction to the Republican tax plan at the US Capitol in Washington, US, Nov 9, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

WASHINGTON - Republicans in the US Senate on Thursday unveiled their own version of tax reform legislation, which would seek to delay the corporate tax cut for a year and curb other tax reductions.

The Senate Finance Committee, the tax-writing committee, on Thursday unveiled the details of the tax legislation to Republican senators during a closed-door meeting, according to multiple US media reports.

The Senate measure would cut the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from the current 35 percent, starting from 2019, one year later than the House proposal released last week.

The Senate plan would also keep seven individual income tax brackets and eliminate all state and local tax deductions, while the House version would reduce the number of personal income tax brackets to four and allow taxpayers to deduct some property taxes.

The differences reflected Senate Republicans' greater efforts to satisfy the parameters set by the budget resolution approved by Congress, which would only allow the tax legislation to increase the federal deficit by 1.5 trillion US dollars over 10 years.

The Senate Finance Committee plans to consider the tax legislation next week and send it to the Senate floor for a vote after Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee approved its tax bill on Thursday and would send it to the House floor for consideration as soon as next week.

"The House will pass its bill, the Senate will pass its bill and then we will get together and reconcile the differences, which is the legislative process. And that's how this process will continue," House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Thursday.

It remains unknown whether the two chambers of Congress are able to bridge those differences. The Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders are under pressure to deliver a major legislative victory on tax reform before next year's congressional midterm elections, as they have failed to pass a bill to repeal and replace the controversial Obamacare earlier in the year.
A man covers his face with a handkerchief as he walks in a park on a smoggy morning in New Delhi, India, Nov 9, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

NEW DELHI - The local government in New Delhi Thursday announced it would roll out "odd-even" formula of private cars in the capital city from next week, officials said.

The announcement was made by local transport minister Kailash Gahlot.

"Odd-even car rationing scheme will be enforced in Delhi for a five-day period from Monday," Gahlot said.

The decision to impose the formula was made in the wake of rising air pollution levels in the national capital.

Under the arrangement, private cars with odd registration numbers are allowed to run on odd dates while even-numbered cars would ply on even dates.

Last year the scheme was enforced twice, from Jan. to Jan. 15 and April 15 to April 30.

Since Tuesday morning, Delhi was covered with thick smog, following which health officials issued advisory to elderly and children to avoid venturing out.

All schools in Delhi, adjoining areas and Punjab were closed until Sunday in view of the pollution.

The entry of trucks except those carrying essentials has been banned in the national capital, besides work on civil construction sites was suspended.

The deadly smog chocks air causing breathlessness and lung difficulties, besides badly affecting the visibility.

Delhi is considered to be the most polluted city in the world. Last year the city's high court described the capital as "gas chamber".

Air pollution is a leading cause of premature death in India. Pollution in Delhi gets aggravated during winter months. Ahead of winters people burn agricultural waste to clear cropland, which contributes to the choking of already polluted air.
BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping left Beijing on Friday for the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting in Vietnam.

After attending the APEC meeting in Da Nang, Xi will pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos.

It is Xi's first overseas trip after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October.

Xi's entourage includes Ding Xuexiang, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee; Liu He, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs; and Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and State Councilor.
DA NANG, Vietnam -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for closer cooperation between the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

With APEC being the most influential platform for economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and ASEAN being an organization of regional integration with greatest vitality and potential, the two mechanisms will enjoy a bright future for cooperation, Xi said at an informal dialogue between leaders from both sides, pointing out the shared notion and principles between the two mechanisms.

Xi proposed the two sides work together to advance regional economic integration.

He said both sides should make joint efforts to build an open economy in Asia and the Pacific as well as a framework of regional cooperation featuring equal consultation, common participation and all-win results with a view to a free-trade area of the Asia-Pacific.

Xi said China stands ready to work with ASEAN in pursuit of an early conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations, reiterating China's stance that ASEAN should play a core role in the negotiations.

APEC and ASEAN should work as twin engines, taking more effective measures in areas such as infrastructure, policy and regulations, and facilitation for travelling to build up a network of interconnectivity in a wider and deeper way, Xi said.

The Chinese leader also called for inclusive and sustainable development, proposing the APEC and ASEAN members align their development strategies with the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

During the dialogue, Xi said China, as a strategic partner of ASEAN, firmly supports the construction of the ASEAN community and backs ASEAN's core role in regional cooperation.

China will push ahead with development alignment with ASEAN in an in-depth way and forge an upgraded strategic partnership between the two sides so as to build a closer China-ASEAN community of shared future, said the Chinese president.
Three Chinese students were reported to be injured in a car rampage after a driver ploughed into a group of people near the south-western French city of Toulouse. Two of the injured are said to be in serious condition.

French police said the driver had acted "deliberately" and was arrested immediately after the incident. Unconfirmed resources told media that the driver has suffered from major psychological problems.

The seriously injured students, reported to be aged 22 and 23, were hit on a pedestrian crossing outside IGS College. They have been said to be taken to hospital in Toulouse.
About 2,000 people turned out Saturday to welcome home the woman who put North Dakota "on the map."

In the crowd were young girls  and boys  who cheered when North Dakota's first Miss America made an appearance at her homecoming party at the Bismarck Event Center.

Little girls donned their own plastic foam crowns and held onto their own wishes that they, too, could one day make history.

"I just want all these young girls, whether you're in North Dakota, whether you're in a state in a rural area, to know that if you can dream and you can work hard, you can become it," said Cara Mund, 23.

Since being crowned Miss America in September, Mund has traveled across the United States, living out of two suitcases and changing locations every 48 hours. Saturday was her first "official" homecoming party, and prior to the event she made stops at Sanford Children's Hospital to visit with patients.

Those who attended the homecoming party said they wanted to be there to greet Miss America on her trip back to the place she calls home.

I think its a source of pride for North Dakota that we finally have a Miss America," said Heidi Allbee, who brought her two girls, 10 and 3. "And with having little girls, just showing them that they can achieve big things.

Mund kicked off her homecoming tour Nov. 3 in Williston. At a press conference Saturday morning, she said being crowned Miss America "was the one moment where my dreams came true.

While competing for the Miss America title, Mund said she knew she wanted to leave her mark.

"Going into finals, I had already done what Ive wanted to do, and that was to put North Dakota on the map," she said.

In her travels she's found there's a "lack of information" about North Dakota.

A lot of people are just shocked, she said, adding that she believes she broke a lot of stereotypes. One of the first things I told the judges, I said, do not underestimate me. Just because I come from a smaller state, maybe I didnt have as many girls at my state competition, doesnt mean I dont have those qualities of what it means to be a Miss America.

At Saturday's event, Mund was met with music from her old Century High School band and cheer squad. She was bestowed a key to the city of Bismarck and commended by North Dakota's congressional delegation.

"She demonstrates that you have to work hard, and that if you have a big goal that you want to achieve  I mean a really big goal, like being Miss America  you have to be willing to pay the price, and you have to be willing to stick with it, and she is an inspiration for each and everyone of us," said Sen. John Hoeven.

Mund told the crowd that despite adversities, including taking four tries until she won Miss North Dakota, and self-doubt during the Miss America competition, she was honored to represent North Dakota.

I also kept reminding myself its so much more than just myself, its the whole state of North Dakota," she said.
Xi calls for joint efforts with Vietnam to find durable maritime dispute solution

President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for China and Vietnam to work together to enhance mutual trust, deepen cooperation and expand communication to promote bilateral ties based on their friendship "forged with blood" by the older generation of the two peoples.

Meanwhile, the two countries need to "stay committed to seeking a fundamental and durable solution to their maritime issues acceptable to both sides through friendly consultation", he said.

The Chinese leader made the remarks in a signed article published in Nhan Dan, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

On Friday, Xi will attend the two-day 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang. Afterwards he will pay a state visit to the country.

The two sides need to fully and effectively implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, actively advance their consultation on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and jointly uphold peace and stability there, Xi wrote in the article.

China and the ASEAN countries signed the declaration in November 2002 and are now pressing ahead with consultations on a code of conduct for the waters.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the 19th National Congress of the CPC, which concluded last month, set out the overall plan and program of action for the Party and the future development of the country.

Vietnam is also promoting reforms and striving to be a modern and industrialized nation, so "we need, more than ever, to work with joint efforts in pursuit of dreams of national strength and prosperity", he wrote.

The two sides need to enhance the complementarities of their development strategies and work for substantive progress in bilateral cooperation in key areas such as infrastructure, trade, industrial capacity, cross-border economic cooperation zones and agriculture, Xi said.

Regarding his visit to Vietnam, Xi said he expected to have in-depth communications with the Vietnamese leaders and friends in various circles, jointly tap the two countries' potential for cooperation and deepen their special friendship in order to initiate new prospects for bilateral ties.

He also wished Vietnam great success hosting the upcoming APEC meeting, saying that China looks forward to a "highly productive meeting that contributes to common development and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific."

Xinhua contributed to the story.

mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/10/2017 page4)
President Xi Jinping's state visit to Vietnam, his first overseas trip after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, reflects the "special and close relations between the two ruling parties and the two nations", Vietnam's ambassador to China said.

"We are very glad that General Secretary Xi's first visit after the 19th CPC National Congress is to Vietnam," Ambassador Dang Minh Khoi told China Daily in an exclusive interview. "That reflects the great attention that China, the CPC, the Chinese people and General Secretary Xi himself attaches to the China-Vietnam relations."

Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, will also attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting during his visit to Vietnam, which starts on Friday.

Khoi said the relevant departments in Vietnam are working closely with China to ensure that Xi's visit is successful.

"The visit is of great and far-reaching significance. We expect it to contribute to various aspects of our inter-party and inter-nation relations and set the direction and raise a general target for our relations in the coming five years, or longer," Khoi said.

The ambassador said that the top priority of the visit is to exchange experiences, "as the regional and global situations keep changing, the two parties and nations are facing similar opportunities and challenges."

Khoi said one of the things that has impressed him most during his two years as Vietnam's ambassador to China is the frequent top-level visits between Beijing and Hanoi.

In 2015, the general secretaries of the two ruling parties paid mutual visits to each other, and Xi's visit comes after Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, visited China early this year. "That reflects the special relations between our two parties and two nations," Khoi said.

"The experience of developing inter-party and inter-nation relations with China proves that relations between the two ruling parties take the leading role in China-Vietnam relations, while meetings of the top leaders of the two parties are of critical importance."

Vietnam closely watched the 19th CPC National Congress, and there were 10 Vietnamese reporters in Beijing to cover it, Khoi said.

"We noticed that the congress supported Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which will have far-reaching impact on China's future development."

Hanoi also noticed the new development ideas China raised at the congress. "On development there were discussions about the sharing economy and the idea of a community of shared future for mankind," he said.

"Vietnam has all along believed that China's development brings great opportunities for Vietnam and the region. We'd like to talk with China about how to ride the opportunities."

After the congress, Trong sent a special envoy to Beijing to congratulate the Chinese side and learn about the content of the discussions.

"Sending special envoys to each other after important congresses of the ruling parties has become a tradition for the two parties," Khoi said.

"We can learn about the congress from the media. But by sending an envoy, we can learn more detailed content, which is important. Besides, for us Asians, a face-to-face talk is more amicable, and much better than a phone call."

lixiaokun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/10/2017 page4)
China has shown strong leadership on a whole range of plans, experts say

Leaders of 21 Pacific rim economies are set to renew their endeavors to advance regional integration and forge stronger partnership at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Chinese initiatives that emphasize the concepts of openness, cooperation and sharing in global economic governance are believed to steer APEC members toward achieving their development goals and expanding mutually beneficial cooperation.

The Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, a manifestation of China's steadfast pursuit for globalization, has been envisioned as a major instrument for ensuring an open economy in the Asia-Pacific amid worries over trade protectionism and lack of growth momentum.

Hailed as "a strategic initiative critical for the long-term prosperity of the Asia-Pacific" by President Xi Jinping in his keynote speech at an APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, last year, the FTAAP has been gaining steam especially after a collective study on the trade bloc was approved at the Lima meeting, the first substantial step toward its eventual realization.

"We need to stick to our agenda and take more effective actions to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness," Xi said.

By encompassing all 21 APEC economies through trade liberalization, the FTAAP, once established, will become the world's largest free trade zone, covering 57 percent of the global economy and nearly half of world trade.

"The FTAAP, being highly inclusive, can embrace economies at different levels of development and fully accommodate their development needs and comfortability, and once established, will deliver economic gains dwarfing any

We need to stick to our agenda ... to realize the FTAAP at an early date, thus bringing about an Asia-Pacific economy with greater openness."

Xi Jinping, Chinese president existing regional FTAs," Zhang Jun, director-general of the department of international economic affairs at the Foreign Ministry, has said.

Promoting the FTAAP on the basis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is a very ideal plan as the TPP is in an impasse and the RCEP also faces big challenges due to different levels of development in its member economies, said Wang Jiangyu, associate professor at Faculty of Law of National University of Singapore.

Connectivity

The RCEP is a free trade pact involving the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and six other countries - China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

China can carry out bilateral free trade negotiations with countries willing to open their markets within the RCEP framework and upgrade existing bilateral free trade deals to promote the formation of the RCEP, he said.

While all 21 members have demonstrated leadership in one way or another, China has shown strong leadership in APEC on a whole range of initiatives, said Alan Bollard, executive director of the Singapore-based APEC Secretariat.

The APEC Connectivity Blueprint 2015-2025, which promises tangible action on physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity, was adopted at the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing to bring the APEC region closer.

As a significant action plan for the Asia-Pacific's long-term development, the blueprint also reflects the common aspiration of APEC economies for improved connectivity.

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative has also contributed in this regard, said Wu Hongying, director of the Latin America office of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

With a focus on connectivity, the Belt and Road Initiative has been aligned with many regional and national development strategies and produced tangible results after being launched in 2013.

By May this year, China's overall investment in countries that support the initiative had surpassed $50 billion. Chinese companies had set up 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in over 20 countries, generating about $1.1 billion in tax revenue and 180,000 jobs.

Between 2014 and 2016, total trade volume between China and other countries involved in the plan exceeded $3 trillion.

"It is a very big project, which is different from a trade agreement so we see it as a whole series of infrastructure projects and economic connectivity. The economic connectivity part is much in line with the APEC's connectivity blueprint. It's interesting to see what it can produce," Bollard said.

Besides, China has played a positive role in creating shared interests for regional economies along with its own development through such proposals as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund.

The AIIB had provided $1.7 billion in loans to nine projects carried out in countries that support the initiative by May this year while the investment from the Silk Road Fund had amounted to $4 billion.

(China Daily 11/10/2017 page11)
High notes, warm welcomes and tasty dishes greet US president

President Xi Jinping holds a welcoming ceremony for visiting US President Donald Trump at the square outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. Wu Zhiyi / China Daily

Editor's note:

China continued its "state visit-plus" reception for US President Donald Trump on Thursday, with special arrangements at a number of official events in Beijing. China Daily brings you a detailed account of the events and exchanges between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart.

Bells chime for friendship

A special performance of chimes, known in Chinese as bianzhong, was arranged for US President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday.

Melodies greeted President Xi Jinping and Trump as they walked in the Great Hall of the People to the venue of their talks, following the welcoming ceremony outside the hall.

The ancient musical instruments, which first appeared around 3,000 years ago, were displayed at the Great Hall to display the rich traditions and long history of Chinese culture to the high-level US guests.

The artists performed music specially composed for the event by the president of China Conservatory of Music.

The bells of bianzhong, cast in bronze, are oval and of different sizes arranged to the order of the pitch. They are hung on a large wooden frame.

The bells are struck with a wooden mallet or a long stick to produce the tones.
DA NANG, Vietnam -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met here Friday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on further strengthening bilateral ties on the sidelines of the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.

Xi said the China-Russia ties are a good international model with mutual respect, equity and justice, win-win cooperation.
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
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Image: World Help

Last Sunday, as Christians in churches across the United States observed the annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP), dozens were gunned down in a sanctuary in small-town Texas.

For this years prayer observances on November 5 and November 12, the massacre in Sutherland Springs further draws Christians to unite as one body and grieve the violence that plagues churches across the globe.

On days like this, when the suffering comes close to home, its so important to remember that these victimsand those who suffer all around the world every day because of their faithare our brothers and sisters, wrote Brian Orme, of Open Doors USA. Not some nameless victims, but our family. And we need to stand together in unity.

Open Doors reported record levels of Christian persecution in its 2017 World Watch List, with North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Iraq ranking the worst.

In Africa, persecution surged in Mali, and Christian killings grew by 62 percent in Nigeria, where Boko Haram has earned the designation of the worlds deadliest terror group. The number of Christians killed for their faith has doubled in recent years, with more martyrs recorded in Nigeria than any other country. World Watch Monitor reported about 2,500 killed there in 2014, and the country topped the violence list again in 2016.

Just this week, nine believers were fatally shot by Fulani herdsmen in central Nigeria, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting Christians in farming communities.

Days before, gang members in the Niger Delta freed three kidnapped British missionaries after one hostage had died. David and Shirley Donovan, of the medical missions charity New Foundations, had been working in small villages in the region for 14 years.

This targeted violence, discrimination, and marginalization of Christians in northern Nigeria, if unchecked and halted, could lead to the extinction of the Christian faith and Christian communities in northern Nigeria, Christian leaders stated in a 2016 declaration. Christians in the northern region have for long been abandoned to their own fate by the Nigerian authorities.

During IDOP, Christians will also pray for believers in Iraq, where many of the remaining Christians fled ISIS to settle in areas where Kurds are now fighting for independence. Leaders are hopeful that a new strategy for the US to fund Christians on the ground directly (instead of through the United Nations) will improve the humanitarian situation and allow for more Iraqis to return.

This is an unprecedented time in Washington DC, where the persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria is really a hot topic, said Kristin Wright, director of advocacy for Open Doors, during a Facebook Live from outside the White House on Thursday. This is an area that has really captured the attention of the administration, so were really grateful.

IDOP estimates that 100 million Christians suffer daily persecution. Religious freedom advocates have debated whether American believers facing resistance to their faith should be included.

Last year, International Christian Concern put the United States in its religious freedom Hall of Shame for Christian attacks in the media and legal marginalization. Many Christians have acknowledged that the intensity of persecution is much worse abroad.

We believe that God uses the prayers of his people to strengthen and deliver suffering saints, said Godfrey Yogarajah, executive director of the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, which has put on the annual observance since 1996.  We are convinced that though sorrow is the present reality of those suffering for Christ, triumph is their ultimate reward.

Watchdog organizations monitoring Christian persecution, including Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs, and World Help partner to promote the prayer initiative by providing free resources for the thousands of churches that participate across more than 100 countries.

When we remember our persecuted familyand suffer a loss of our ownwe need to remind ourselves about the all-encompassing power of Jesus and his promise for the future, Orme wrote for Open Doors. One day, we know this  every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That includes every active shooter, every persecutor, every cruel dictator and warlord.
The Bible plays an important role in Americans armed forceseven for military personnel who arent particularly religious.

Some service members who dont typically read Scripture will still turn to it during difficult times in their military careers, according to research released this week by Barna Group and the American Bible Society.

Researchers found that 37 percent of non-Bible readers in the military read the Good Book when they are looking for comfort, 30 percent read it during a deployment, and 17 percent read it when they are separated from family.

Several ministries focus particularly on providing Bible resources to active duty personnel and their families, knowing they are prone to seek out spiritual support and direction.

They come from all walks of life, with the same problems we all face, most of them looking to fill a void, said Michael Kelly, a chaplain at Fort Jackson in South Carolina. It is at this moment that they reach out and we place a book in their hands: the New Testament, provided by Gideons.

The Gideons International, which has partnered with military chaplains to provide free Bibles since the start of World War II, distributes 1.7 million of its pocket-sized, digital-camo-printed service testaments a year.

The American Bible Societys armed service ministry reports that it has delivered 60 million Bible resources to the military over its history, including materials made especially for veterans facing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which are offered through Veterans Affairs (VA) medical chaplains.

Overall, two-thirds of military personnel believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life, according to Barna. Among regular Bible readers in the military, almost all believe the Bible should have more influence in American society.

Bibles also reach service members preparing to deploy through a partnership with Cru Military.

Today, many military families are separated because of deployments, causing unique relationship challenges that many civilians do not face, Cru says, describing its ministry to the military population. Men and women in the armed forces experience and have to learn to cope with the effects of war. Common challenges like leadership stress, peer pressure are felt with greater intensity.

In this unique context, military chaplains and fellow Christian service members lean on their faith and often try to share it as a source of comfort to others.

As of 2015, the top religious groups among military personnel were nondenominational Christians (26%) and nones (20%). The top affiliations for chaplains were Southern Baptist, Baptist, and Catholic.

The military lifestyle can be a very dark place filled with difficulty, trauma, loneliness, and intense personal growth. It is also a community of intense connection, support, and resilience, Corie Weathers, a licensed professional counselor and wife to an Army chaplain, told CT.

About 4 in 5 service members say they know faithful Christians serving alongside them in the military, according to Barna. A majority have a very positive perception of Christians, with 72 percent saying the believers they know reflect biblical ideals well.

As Christians, we must be real and transparent with the military community. Cliches and easy answers do not address the trauma of seeing your friend die in combat, said Weathers. Ultimately those questions of Is there really a God? or Is there more than this? come out of showing that we can be a safe presence for any family, regardless of their belief or unbelief.

Currently, active-duty military personnel make up less than half a percent of the US population, and veterans make up about 7 percent. Service members consider their military affiliation and American heritage the most significant markers of their identity; over half ranked them as very important, compared to 31 percent who said their religion was very important, Barna found.

A 2015 CT cover story explored how churches can minister to veterans weighed down by moral injury and other combat trauma, and CTs Onward, Christian Soldiers series described the unique tensions of being a believer in the armed forces.
POW/MIA Chair Dedicated in The United States Capitol for Veterans Day

83,000 Service Members are Still Missing in Action Since WWII -- 1,606 from the Vietnam War

Contact: Dr. Scott Magill, Veterans in Defense of Liberty, 417-556-8499; ViDoLAmerica.org

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., Nov. 10, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- 8 November 2017 passed with little notice by most. However, it was a red-letter day for our POW/MIA's and their families.

Freedom is never free, but it is the American Warrior and their families who paid the price. None paid a greater price than American prisoners of war and those missing in action. Every American Warrior who answered their country's call deserves to walk on American soil again, or to be buried within it. Above all, they deserve never to be forgotten by a grateful nation.

For several years Rolling Thunder, Inc. made every effort to secure a bill in Congress honoring the sacrifice of Americas POW/MIA's, specifically by placing an Empty Chair in our nation's Capitol Building, which belongs to "We the People." The Empty Chair would represent our missing Warriors, and acknowledge the obligation of our elected representatives to continue working on behalf of these American citizens whose service and sacrifices for our country must be considered ongoing until finally resolved. After years of frustration, Veterans in Defense of Liberty(ViDoL) set up a meeting in Washington, D.C. with Senator Roy Blunt (MO), a delegation veterans from ViDoL, and representation by Rolling Thunder Inc.

Senator Blunt concluded that historic meeting by stating, "Let me see what we can do." And do he did. Yesterday the Empty Chair was finally dedicated, "prominently located in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center." There it will remain on permanent display, stark testimony to the price of freedom paid by America's military heroes.

Regarding the role of Veterans in Defense of Liberty to make this a reality, Senator Blunt remarked yesterday, "This wouldn't have happened without your encouragement..."

Our Kudos to Senator Roy Blunt who assumed a leadership role in bringing this powerful national tribute to fruition, and taking a symbolic knee by assuring the dedication of this chair to honor our POW/MIA heroes.

We encourage all Americans to take a knee this Veterans Day week to thank God for our awesome military, and in remembrance of our POW/MIA heroes: You shall not be forgotten.

ViDoL is a national 501(c))4 committed to honoring our oath. We are a Brotherhood/Sisterhood of veterans committed to maintaining the integrity of our Republic upon correct moral and constitutional principles
The Defining Gesture: Modern Masters from the Eppler Family Collection

On 15 November Christies presents the first comprehensive collection of American Abstract Expressionism to come to market in half a decade  featuring masterworks by Franz Kline, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder and more

Upon learning that collectors Heinz and Ruthe Eppler had purchased Franz Klines seminal painting, Light Mechanic, in 1985, Edward B. Henning, Chief Curator of Modern Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, wrote to express his congratulations. You now have an excellent, representative collection of American Abstract Expressionist art, he said, calling that movement the most important art of the 20th century and the most important of all American art. Executed in 1960, Light Mechanic (above left) is a consummate work by the artist whose paintings have come to be regarded as the embodiment of Abstract Expressionism. At nearly eight feet high, it belongs to a group of monumental canvases Franz Kline (1910-62) painted between 1950 and the early 1960s. Deliberate imperfections, irregularities and imbalances in its composition give life to its architectural geometry; broad sweeps of black and white paint evoke the dynamism of New York City. In both physical size and artistic scope, Light Mechanic captures the raw energy that epitomised Abstract Expressionism.

On 15 November, Light Mechanic will be offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christies in New York alongside other key pieces from the Epplers private collection. Comprising works by many of the 20th centurys leading artists, this single-owner section, The Defining Gesture: Modern Masters from the Eppler Family Collection, includes standout works by Kline, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell and Arshile Gorky, among others. We have not seen a comprehensive collection of American Abstract Expressionism come to market since 2012, says Sara Friedlander, Head of Department, Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christies in New York. We are particularly excited about a collection formed so thoughtfully with an eye towards the revolutionary spirit of art in the 20th century.

As the Epplers began to collect art in the 1980s, they formed a close friendship with Edward B. Henning, who went to great lengths to commend the art-historical significance of the Abstract Expressionists. Of their purchase of Robert Motherwells Je taime No. III with Loaf of Bread, Henning noted, My feeling is that it is very important as well as being beautiful. He also praised their choice of a superb painting by William Baziotes. Drawing from African sculpture, cast-off industrial materials and totemic imagery, David Smith shared some symbology with his Abstract Expressionist colleagues. While Jackson Pollock and Adolph Gottlieb were experimenting with pictorial forms, Smith often commented that he was more akin to these painters than he was to traditional sculptors. Smith became the pre-eminent sculptor of Abstract Expressionism, transforming industrial materials into elegant elegies of balance and composition. Indicative of his mature style and inspired by a hugely productive stay in the Italian town of Voltri near Genoa in 1962, Voltron XXIV (above), which is offered from the collection, exhibits the artists interest in geometric abstraction on a large scale.



Other key acquisitions made by the Epplers include Willem de Koonings Composition I (1955), a pivotal work for the artist. Already heralded, along with Jackson Pollock, as one of the leaders of the Abstract Expressionist movement, de Kooning continued to push himself to innovate, transform and adapt his artistic practice. Composition I finds de Kooning in the process of navigating from his bold, frenetic Woman paintings to a style more closely resembling that of landscape. Fleshy pinks mix with supple blues and delicate yellows, resulting in a work that is at once wholly abstract yet curiously representational.

Distinguished by a kaleidoscopic array of enigmatic forms, Arshile Gorkys Composition I is one of his finest works on paper, having featured in nearly every major retrospective devoted to his oeuvre. Taking its cues from the natural world, the work illustrates the indefinable yet compelling imagery that Gorky developed during the summer of 1943 while living in rural Virginia with his wife and daughter. This watershed period witnessed a flourishing of breakthrough works  such as the present example  in which the artist unfurled a new pictorial language inspired by the natural world and infused with childhood memories of his Armenian birthplace.







In Calderoulette (1940-45), a standing mobile by Alexander Calder, an open water lily is positioned below a floating butterfly, a small buzzing insect, and a dragonfly. But as is often the case with Calders work, there is more to the piece than first meets the eye. Mimicking the design of a roulette wheel, each of the lily's open petals has been marked with a digit, inviting the viewer to guess which petal an insect will land on first. Encompassing many of the qualities that make Calders work so iconic, Calderoulette combines the magical suspension of the artists mobiles with the balance of his later stabiles.




The world is watching

After witnessing centuries of life in the courts of kings, what would Leonardos Salvator Mundi now make of our digital world? A film by the world-renowned portrait photographer Nadav Kander

More than 20,000 people from all walks of life have come to gaze at Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi. After centuries in the hands of royal and private owners, its return to the public consciousness has resulted in queues wrapping around Christies exhibition spaces in London, Hong Kong, San Francisco and now in New York. The experience of setting eyes on a work described as the Divine Mona Lisa  one of fewer than 20 paintings acknowledged as being from the Renaissance masters hand  is one that has moved people in many different ways, with those experiences being shared myriad times via social media. But what if the tables were turned and the Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) could share with us what he has seen these last few weeks? Having witnessed the most intimate details in the lives of successive French and English kings, what would the figure of Christ, depicted holding the well-being of the world in the palm of his left hand, now make of us?

More than 500 years on from when Leonardo created his resolutely human image of Christ, ours is an age defined by social media and the desire to snap and share
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Tony Buzbee, a personal injury lawyer who earned millions fighting oil companies, maritime operators and insurance companies, got to the courthouse fast with his latest case representing the family of a Katy man recently killed in a rig explosion near New Orleans.

So fast, that he sued the wrong companies.

But this is just one complication in a case that has become even more complicated over the past few days. Buzbee was fired by the widow of Tim Morrison, then sued a Morrison family friend for interfering in the case and went to court to force Morrison's family to pay his fee.

Morrison, 44, was killed Oct. 15 when an oil and gas storage rig on Lake Pontchartrain exploded. Buzbee in the lawsuit blamed two Houston companies, alleging that the subcontractors hired to clean pipes on the rig used cleaning materials that ignited and caused it to explode.

But one company named in the suit doesn't seem to exist. And the other, a Houston industrial cleaning company, has no connection to the rig or the rig's owner, Clovelly Oil Co. of New Orleans.

The case took an unexpected turn when Morrison's widow, Erika, fired Buzbee's law firm earlier this week. Buzbee shot back, suing a friend of Tim Morrison and three unnamed Louisiana lawyers for alleged tortious interference, saying in court records he stands to lose $10 million in legal fees the case would have "easily" generated. Then later this week, Buzbee's firm asked the court to force his clients - Erika Morrison and her two young children -to pay the money he has coming.

Jack Jamison, a Dallas accident lawyer who has represented the Morrisons for years, called the situation "absurd and grotesque."

"He is representing Mrs. Morrison while he is suing her," Jamison said.

Buzbee, who won millions of dollars for clients injured by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, said he couldn't sit idly by while Louisiana lawyers came to Houston to convince Erika Morrison to drop his firm. As for the wrongful death case - the original case that started this saga -Buzbee said he based it on information he received from officials he did not identify and that he believed to be correct.

Buzbee became a prominent trial lawyer by taking on huge cases and winning, and was once described by the New York Times as a "big, mean, ambitious, tenacious, fire-breathing Texas trial lawyer." In addition to the Deepwater Horizon case, in which he represented more than 12,000 individuals and business owners whose livelihoods were ruined by the oil spill, he also recovered millions for more than 150 employees hurt in the deadly 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 workers

Personal injury lawyers often rush to sign up clients and file lawsuits after massive industrial accidents, deadly plane crashes and automotive defect cases because the more clients they enlist, the greater the opportunity for big fees, typically one-third of whatever verdict or settlement they win. But in the rush to get to the courthouse first, facts can get mixed up.

Sometimes it's a mix-up of similar names, other times a matter of suing the wrong subsidiary of a corporation.

"It does happen," said Tom Carse, a personal injury lawyer in Dallas who has no connection to the Buzbee case.

Eight workers were on the Clovelly platform at the time of the explosion, including two Clovelly employees and five contract workers, according to a company statement. Morrison worked as a contract employee.

Buzbee sued two subcontractors hired to clean the pipes, Hydra Steam Generator of Houston and Clean Co Systems of Channelview. Hydra Steam Generator apparently doesn't exist, based on a search of corporate filings with the Texas secretary of state. And the other, Clean Co Systems of Channelview, did not have a contract with Clovelly - confirmed by Clovelly spokeswoman Virginia Miller - and did not employ Morrison.

Clean Co owner James Rooney said he was stunned to discover his company, which employs about 100, was named in the suit. What's worse, he said, is that the Lake Pontchartrain explosion is so high-profile in the energy industry that if word spread about his supposed involvement on the rig, it could hurt the reputation he has built over the past 24 years.

He said he told his lawyer to contact Buzbee immediately and get his and his company's names off the lawsuit.

"How could they get that wrong?" Rooney said.

Buzbee confirmed that Clean Co Systems was not involved and said he will remove the companyat some point from the lawsuit. As for Hydra Steam Generator, Buzbee said he can't find any record of a company by that name operating in Texas.

"It may be that Hydra Steam was a new entity, yet unincorporated, and run by only one individual," he said in an email. "We are trying to confirm that."

The case should never have been filed, said Jamison, the Dallas lawyer representing the Morrisons. Erika Morrison told Buzbee that she wanted to hold off on filing a lawsuit, but he did it anyway, Jamison said. Then Buzbee ignored her instructions to dismiss it, Jamison said.

Buzbee said in his lawsuit that he believed Erika Morrison was influenced by the family friend, Brad Cox of Dallas, and unnamed lawyers who wanted the case. Buzbee met her at his home Sunday and after about an hour, she hired him, according to the lawsuit.

Cox could not be reached for comment.

"We don't know what is going on, but clearly Mrs. Morrison is the victim of bad legal advice," Buzbee said. "Obviously, we don't want to do anything to harm Mrs. Morrison's case, but we aren't going to sit back while Louisiana lawyers come over to Texas and have our clients terminate our contract."
Two former executives at a Dutch oil and gas services company pleaded guilty to conspiracy for their roles in bribing foreign government officials in Brazil, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.

Anthony Mace and Robert Zubiate entered their pleas earlier this month in a case involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston.

Mace, 65, of the United Kingdom, admitted that prior to becoming CEO of Oil Services Co., other employees made an agreement to pay bribes to foreign officials, including to Brazil's state-controlled oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Angola's state-owned oil company, Sociedade Nacional de Combustiveis de Angola, E.P. (Sonangol) and Equatorial Guinea's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Guinea Ecuatorial (GEPetrol).

Mace was CEO of Oil Services between 2008 and 2011 and a former board member of its wholly-owned Houston subsidiary. He admitted he authorized the payments and deliberately avoided learning that the payments were bribes, according to his plea agreement.

He faces up to five years in prison. His lawyer would not comment.

Zubiate, 66, of California, was a former Texas and California-based sales and marketing executive at the Oil Services' subsidiary. He admitted that between 1996 and 2012, he and others used a third party sales agent to pay bribes to foreign officials at Petrobras in exchange for helping Oil Services Co. and its U.S. subsidiary with winning bids, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Houston which made the announcement.

Zubiate also admitted participating in a kickback scheme with the bribe-paying sales agent for Oil Services and its U.S. subsidiary, according to the U.S. Attorney's office. The plea agreement is not available in the federal court records.

Zubiate's lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.

RELATED: Q&A: Companies take steps to avoid greasing palms in oil search

Sentencing for Zubiate is scheduled for Jan. 31 and Mace will be sentenced Feb. 2.
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For 25 years, Houstonians have been waking up early on Thanksgiving Day and running a few miles for a great cause while the rest of us baste a turkey.

Some hosts are prepping desserts for our holiday feasts or whipping sweet potatoes, but thousands of other Houstonians are lacing up their running shoes on Nov. 23 and take part in the TXU Energy BakerRipley Turkey Trot in the Galleria-area.

RELATED: From the Turkey Trot to the parade, this is what Thanksgiving day looks like in Houston

Featuring competitive and noncompetitive 5K, 10K, wheelchair, and a kids run, the Turkey Trot brings nearly 20,000 a year out of the house and onto the streets of Houston.

Those who participate in the Trot help benefit BakerRipley, formerly Neighborhood Centers, which works to bring education, job training, and financial help to needy families and their children across the area.

Now Playing: Focusing on cooking the perfect Thanksgiving turkey can drive you crazy, which is why the FDA is here to help. They suggest a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees. The reason behind this is because salmonella cant withstand temperatures above 160 degrees after 30 seconds. The USDA also recommends not stuffing the turkey because the juices that may contain salmonella will soak into the stuffing. Now it's time to strategize Thanksgiving dinner! Video: Wibbitz

BakerRipley worked after Hurricane Harvey to run a massive shelter in the NRG Center for flood-ravaged Houstonians.

When runners sign up for the Trot, they have the option of sending along a donation.

RELATED: Houston bars open on Thanksgiving Day 2017

The 10K Trot starts at Richmond and Sage in the Galleria-area, while the 5K goes under Loop 610 and stretches to Weslayan.

No doubt, some of the runners might just stick around and wait for the Galleria stores to open later that day and get some early shopping done.

And hey, running ten miles on the morning of Thanksgiving Day gives you a free pass to eat a whole pecan pie by yourself with vanilla ice cream on the side.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.
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The East Montgomery County Scholarship Foundation held a fundraising gala on Nov. 2 at the East Montgomery County Improvement District headquarters in New Caney. Money raised from the gala helps the Foundation provide scholarships to graduating students in New Caney ISD, Splendora ISD, those who are in private schools or home schools, and those who received their GED.

This next summer, scholarships will be $1,600 per graduating student.

Splendora ISD Instructional Technology Coordinator Dale Martin introduced the guest speaker for the gala, Amanda Hill. He discussed some of her accomplishments during her high school years.

"She earned her Associates degree from Lone Star about three weeks before she got her high school diploma back when it was supposed to be impossible to be able to do these kinds of things," he said.

Hill is the valedictorian of the Splendora High School Class of 2004. A recipient of the scholarship, Hill continued her education at Baylor University.

Hill says her life provided many obstacles on her educational path as she came from a family of multi-generational poverty. She lived with her grandmother after her grandfather passed away and remembers the difficulty of getting by month to month.

"It was a really hard time and I was very embarrassed by that stark level of poverty," she said.

Hill, determined to improve herself, changed her life's trajectory by earning a college education despite the financial difficulties. She worked a number of minimum wage jobs to make ends meet and started mapping out a college plan.

"I figured out what you needed to do for an Associates degree and started working towards that," she said.

All of Hill's hard work paid off as she graduated Splendora High School with a high school diploma in one hand, an Associates degree in the other and $1,000 in the bank from the East Montgomery County scholarship.

College provided many opportunities for Hill who received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and International Studies in 2007. She decided she wanted to continue her education and go to law school, noting that much of her past inspired her to want to understand the law.

"Abuse was rampant in my family and should have been prosecuted," she said. "My grandparents should have been able to adopt me but they didn't know that process or how it worked. We should have had a lawyer to secure better benefits after my grandfather passed away."

This prompted Hill to want to go to law school.

"I wanted to be able to help people that grew up the same way I had," she said.

Hill attended night courses at the University of Houston Law Center while working at Splendora High School. She finished her legal education in 2011 when she earned her Juris Doctorate.

The next step for Hill was to become an Assistant District Attorney in the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office where she worked in misdemeanor and felony courts.

Many of Hill's accomplishments include securing a life sentence against a habitual felon and registered sex offender, working in the Juvenile Prosecutor Division and co-chairing the certification hearing of Don Collins for the 1998 burning and murder of Robert Middleton.

"This was a case from Splendora that I remember from when I was a child," said Hill. "Here I was all of these years later co-chairing the first case with legal issues that had ever been seen like this in the state of Texas."

Hill now works as her own boss as an attorney. She often works with children and has helped to make a difference for many involved in her cases.

Despite everything Hill has accomplished, she stresses the importance of the impact a choice can have on someone.

"The East Montgomery County scholarship helped secure my education from Baylor, which ultimately got me onto law school," said Hill. "Not only can I see the impact that my education has had in my career but my education has impacted my personal life beyond measure."

The seemingly small decision of awarding the scholarship to Hill has allowed her to break her family's multi-generational poverty cycle and has also given her children opportunities she never had in the past.

"Thank you for stepping in and changing my story all those years ago," she said. "Thank you for believing that I was worth your investment."
Charges filed against man for fatal crash

MICHIGAN  A man who was behind the wheel during a one-vehicle crash that left one dead has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide after authorities said he was driving under the influence at the time.

Jordan Lee Borland, 28, of Michigan, appeared in court Tuesday, for an April crash that killed passenger Kevin Lemma, 23, of Enderlin.

The men were in a 2012 Dodge Ram traveling south on North Dakota Highway 1 early April 13 when Borland failed to negotiate a curve and rolled about 8 miles south of Pekin in Nelson County in northeast North Dakota.

The North Dakota Highway Patrol was initially unsure who was driving the vehicle. Neither man was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. Lemma was pronounced dead at the scene. Borland was hospitalized with injuries.

State troopers believe Borland was under the influence of alcohol during the crash, according to charging documents filed Oct. 17.

If convicted, Borland faces up to 20 years in prison.

Woman charged with accomplice to murder

JAMESTOWN -- A Shakopee, Minn., woman, formerly of Warwick, is facing a charge of being an accomplice to murder, a Class AA felony.

Crystal Herman, 38, is in custody in the Stutsman County Correctional Center in Jamestown.

According to court documents filed in Southeast District Court, Herman is charged with assisting her husband, Billy Herman, to kidnap Amanda Engst, 36, on or about Oct. 13, 2015.

In the course of and in furtherance of the crimes or of immediate flight therefrom, the defendant and/or Billie Herman caused the death of Amanda Engst, reads the criminal complaint.

Crystal and Billy Herman were charged in a string of armed robberies in North Dakota and Minnesota in 2015. At the time of their apprehension, they were in possession of a car owned by Engst, who was listed as a missing person at the time.

Engsts body was recovered from the Sheyenne River in Eddy County in northeast North Dakota in February 2016. Her death was ruled a homicide in March.

The criminal complaint accuses Crystal Herman of opening a car door allowing her husband to strangle Engst, clearing the trunk of the vehicle to allow the transportation of Engst and holding a flashlight while Billy Herman beat Engst with a shovel.

Crystal Herman is scheduled to make an initial appearance before Judge James Hovey in Southeast District Court in New Rockford at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10.

-- Compiled from wire services
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This week, a restaurant is temporarily shut down after inspectors found a major roach infestation.

After inspectors saw roach activity by a sink, ice machine, under cooking equipment, on a reach-in cooler, and on utensils, inspectors ordered Yummy Chinese Restaurant (6121 Hillcroft Ste. R) to cease operations. The Health Department confirmed the closure was lifted on Nov. 2.

It wasn't the only restaurant this week where inspectors found evidence of a number of roaches. Scroll through the gallery above to see where the infestations were found.

Also, a Top 100 restaurant landed on the health inspector's list.

Now Playing: Restaurant industry insiders took to Reddit to share their distrust of swordfish, soups of the day, chicken breast, coffee and more seemingly innocuous food items. Video: Food & Wine

FOOD NEWS: Houston restaurants open on Thanksgiving Day 2017

Pepper Twins (1915 W. Gray Ste. A), which was named one of the best restaurants in Houston, received 39 demerits for a variety of infractions.

A second Pepper Twins, located on Kirby, received demerits for not keeping their vent hood filters clean.

DIGEST THIS: Southern Goods owner vows to reopen after fire

This is the third round of inspection reports in a month's time for Pepper Twins on Kirby.

The restaurant specializing in Chinese cuisine, appeared in last week's edition of Houston restaurant violations, and on the report the week of Oct. (11-18.)

Before you head out for your next meal, be sure to check out the slideshow above for the list of restaurants with violations (Oct.31- Nov. 7).

During health inspections, inspectors distribute violations that carry a weight between 1 and 25, increasing in severity. The term "demerit" is used by city health inspectors to describe the weighted value assigned to each violation. The Houston Chronicle obtained the results of routine health inspections throughout the city and tallied each restaurant's demerits for a comprehensive list of violations. To view inspection reports online or learn more about food inspections, visit the health department website.
A challenged Crosby High School's lone Senior Head Drum Major Darian Aulds stood tall in a line of 112 drum majors representing the top 35 high schools at the 2017 University Interscholastic League's State Marching Band Competition Wednesday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

As the only drum major to represent her school among the others who had two to five leaders, Aulds led the only military-style marching band to qualify for state at the 5A conference competition

"It's rare to find a military marching band," said Aulds, who plans to attend the University of Alabama to study to become an astronaut. "It's an honor to be able to represent those who don't get the chance."

Military style is one of the original styles for marching band. During the performances where most bands showcased a corp style with more rounded shapes and visual elements in their performances, Crosby stood out without props and a simple style focused on the movement and music of the 8-minute "Give Us This Day" show with spiritual hymns, Doxology and the Lord's Prayer.

To remain competitive, the back-to-back state qualifying, 91-member band has integrated some corp style with the music, percussion and a few turns. But they are determined to make a statement as more and more high schools make the transition to corp: military style is not dead.

"One of our mottos is tradition with a future," Aulds said. "We try to keep with it and keep the tradition going year after year. We are going to keep some part of the past alive."

In 2015, during the school's first state run in its history to qualify, Crosby placed 29th out of 31. This year they placed 26th out of 35.

"We are proud of what our kids have done to get this far," Associate Band Director Michael Lehew said.

This year was especially challenging for the band, which lost two weeks of practice during Hurricane Harvey that hit in late August, dumped more than 60 inches of rain and severe flooding. The storm prompted a shelter set up in the middle school and a united community response, including with the band members helping out.

But at least 12 members lost their own homes in the flood.

Among them was Junior Trumpet Player Joey Bush, whose family floated across to his aunt's house on plastic bins as water rose to a total of four feet in his house. Like so many who were displaced by the storm, he and his family are still living with his relatives.

"The night it happened was unlike anything I had ever experienced before," Bush said. "I had been through a hurricane before, but never a full flood. It was strange to see the band members and to come back to normalcy. It was certainly unexpected with the time lost in practice, it's just really unexpected to (make it to state) despite all the different experiences in the fall and for the band members to push through and end up here."

More than 125 eight-minute concerts were performed over three days by 10,000 student participants from about 253 Class 5A schools, 194 Class 3A schools, 139 Class 2A schools and 33 Class A schools. The alternating competition will invite 4A and 6A schools next year. A panel of five judges inspected each performance with three focused only on the music they hear and two focused on marching, looking at every aspect of movement on the field.

"I've been in it, and I've never seen them perform like this,"said Senior Rachel Boyette, who performed in the band at state in 2015 and returned as a spectator to cheer on her best friend Hailea Znidarsic at what she described as the band's best performance yet. "It was different from everybody else's and that's what made it special."

2017 UIL State Marching Band Competition Results:

1A Champion  Whiteface

2A Champion  Clarksville

3A Champion  Mineola

5A Champion  Cedar Park

For more information, visit www.crosbyisd.org.
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Leave it to Chip Gaines to make going bald seem awesome.

On Nov. 2, Gaines shared a photo to his Instagram acknowledging that many fans "hate [his] current hairstyle." Since they were traveling to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, he promised to cut it off if people donated to the facility.

"The more money we raise...the shorter my hair goes," the HGTV star wrote on Instagram. "That's a promise. And, who knows, maybe if you really exceed my expectations...I'll buzz it all off."

COUPLE GOALS: Chip Gaines did the sweetest thing for the debut of Joanna's new Target line

It looks like people held up their end of the bargain, because Joanna Gaines shared a photo of a newly bald Chip to her Instagram with the caption, "We are leaving Memphis changed. Kiddos of @stjude we go with your faces on our minds and your stories in our hearts. Thank you for letting us be a part of your home at Target House. We are cheering you on every step of the way."

We are leaving Memphis changed. Kiddos of @stjude we go with your faces on our minds and your stories in our hearts. Thank you for letting us be a part of your home at Target House. We are cheering you on every step of the way.  A post shared by Joanna Stevens Gaines (@joannagaines) on Nov 8, 2017 at 5:45pm PST

Fans of the Texas couple are loving Chip's new look, and his reason behind it.

One person said, "All the tears and all the feels. Thank you for bringing joy to these sweet babies and their families."

Now Playing: Wife Joanna Gaines Shared A Photo Of Her Husbands Newly Bald Head On Instagram Wednesday Video: People

Another person said, "You are the man, Chip!!"

Many other shared personal stories about children who battled cancer at St. Jude.

There is no word on how much was donated, but based on the new hair style, it must have "really exceeded" his expectations.

Take a look through the gallery above to see facts that will make you love the "Fixer Upper" couple even more.

Daniela Sternitzky-Di Napoli is a digital producer at Chron.com. You can read more of her stories here and follow her on twitter at @Dani_DiNapoli.




The Harris County District Attorney's Office has sent notices to lawyers in 10,000 closed criminal cases that evidence, which was kept in storage, may have been lost or destroyed between 2007 and 2016.

The bulk of the emails, which were sent Wednesday to lawyers for about 7,750 defendants, caused an uproar among defense attorneys but left Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman scratching his head.

"We've already been through this," Herman said Wednesday. "This all stems from a year and half ago. It's old news."

Precinct 4 was at the center of a massive debacle last year after defense attorneys learned their clients were being prosecuted without actual evidence to back up the charges. An investigation showed that large amounts of evidence in storage at Precinct 4 facilities had been destroyed and was not available for pending criminal cases.

A deputy trying to clean out the property room destroyed more than 20,000 pieces of evidence, forcing the District Attorney's Office, under former DA Devon Anderson, to dismiss nearly 150 pending criminal cases in August 2016.

More for you Over a thousand criminal cases likely comprised in Precinct 4...

After reviewing their files, the incoming DA Kim Ogg, made a decision to notify defendants in closed cases where property room records indicated the evidence had been destroyed.

"Upon learning that evidence may have been lost or destroyed while in the custody of law enforcement, it was our duty to conduct a thorough review, which included manually going through thousands of records to determine which cases may have been affected," according to a statement released Wednesday from the District Attorney's Office. "After the recent completion of that process, it was also our duty to notify all defendants and defense lawyers involved."

Since each of the 10,484 cases has been resolved, defense lawyers are scrambling to figure out what evidence may have been destroyed and when. If the evidence was destroyed before the case was resolved, it could be grounds for an appeal. If the case is being appealed, the destruction of evidence could hamper those proceedings.

"This is going to be a huge task for the defense bar to undertake," said attorney Paul Morgan, who was the first lawyer to discover evidence missing in a pending case. His court pleadings last year publicly revealed the debacle.

"I think we're going to be spending a lot of time to see the depth and severity of the Precinct 4 thing that happened last year," he said. "Let's see how deep the well is."
Houston ISD's Board of Education approved the district's 2018-2019 academic calendar Thursday night, opting to give students the entire week of Thanksgiving off and starting school on the fourth Monday of August.

Trustees voted 7-0, with two abstaining, to approve the calendar, which will also close schools for winter break from Dec. 24 through Jan. 4, and spring break from March 11 through 15.

Additionally, students would have one day off for a "Fall Holiday" on Sept. 10, 2018 and a "Spring Holiday" on April 19, 2019. The last day of school would be on May 31, after Memorial Day weekend.

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Among the Houston area's largest school districts, Houston ISD is typically the first to approve its academic calendar for the coming school year.

Last year, Fort Bend and Conroe ISDs approved their calendars for the coming school year in January, while Pasadena ISD and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD's Boards of Education approved those districts' schedules in February.

But school start dates across the Houston region are far from uniform, as more and more districts take advantage of a 2-year-old state designation that allows them to exempt themselves from some parts of the Texas Education Code.

Under a law passed in 2015, districts can earn District of Innovation status and skirt some regulations if they meet certain performance requirements. Lawmakers at the time said the designation would give districts some of the same freedoms enjoyed by open-enrollment charter schools. The flexibility offered by the status mainly covers operational requirements such as state reporting, hiring practices and the length of the school day. It offers no exemptions for curriculum or testing.

Of 31 school districts in the greater Houston metropolitan area, 25 are now considered Districts of Innovation, according to the TEA's website. Only six do not currently have the status, including Houston ISD, Cy-Fair ISD, Klein ISD, Goose Creek ISD, Lamar CISD and New Caney ISD.

That means the Houston area's two largest school districts will have to continue to start school on the fourth Monday of August, while 25 others could start earlier.

This year, 17 districts started their school years earlier than the fourth week of August, thanks to the District of Innovation program.

Moving the start date to earlier in the summer has seen mixed reactions from communities across the area. Those against earlier start dates say starting in mid-August sends students back to school, and often out to physical education, during the hottest days of the year, and deprives some the chance to go to summer camp or visit with families up north.

Others argue the later start date makes it much more difficult for high school students to finish out the first semester and take their first semester exams before winter break, and makes it almost impossible to get students out of school before the Memorial Day weekend.

Also discussed Thursday was the day Houston ISD canceled classes ahead of the Astros World Series Parade in Downtown Houston. At the time, Carranza said he decided to cancel school due to transportation and safety concerns, and so students could celebrate. Hundreds of teachers and bus drivers also alerted their supervisors they would not come into work the day of the parade.

The board voted 7-0, with two trustees absent, to approve paying teachers for that day.

Trustee Dianna Davila said she ran into a HISD teacher and Fort Bend ISD teacher the day before the parade and talked to them about their plans.

"You should have seen the Fort Bend ISD teacher's face and our Houston ISD's teacher's face," Davila said. "She was so excited to go to the parade, so thank you for allowing our students to go to that parade."

Trustee Anna Eastman said she wasn't thrilled about the decision to cancel school but didn't want teachers to lose out on pay.

"I hope we have a contingency plan for when we have an expected large teacher shortage in the future and won't have to call school off," Eastman said.
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The entrance of the United States into World War II after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion an industrial boom across Texas.

According to the Texas Historical Commission, before the war started in the European and Pacific theaters the state was sparsely populated. Most Texans lived in small towns and rural areas, and only 40 percent of residents even had a high school education.

MYSTERY SOLVED: The World War II story behind two giant, mysterious columns in Hitchcock

During the war nearly 1,500,000 military personnel came to the state for work and training. Even more people joined war-related industries, leaving behind farm work for urban centers where the industrial war effort was starved for manpower.

Male and female civilians found jobs in all manner of fields and the pain of the Great Depression (which hurt Texas intensely) was eased. Cities like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Corpus Christi saw population increases.

ALMOST OVER: 9 things to know about World War II's VE Day

An astonishing 142 major military installations dotted the state from naval bases on the coast to air fields in North Texas and out west.

Now Playing: On this day 75 years ago, the U.S. defeated Japan in the Battle of Midway. Video: PopularMechanics

Women were thrust in to the workplace to help support families and themselves with men off fighting Nazis and the Japanese. The notion of the independent Texas woman was born during this era.

Of course World War II in Texas wasn't all about military heroics and civilians pitching in. Sadly Crystal City was the site of the Crystal City Internment Camp which held people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent during the duration of the war. A great deal of these people were born on American soil, but still perceived as possible enemies, and were not at all Axis-related.

It officially closed in 1948. At its height of use it held 3,374 detainees within its boundaries, according to the Texas Historical Commission.

According to the THC, some 750,000 Texans served in uniform around the world. Twenty-two thousand Texans died for their country in combat.

When the war was over these brave Texans went back to work and helped shape the next 50 years of state prosperity. Many military members who served and trained in Texas decided to put down roots and the states population grew.

LOVE AND WAR: Foreign war brides made mark on U.S.

The higher education system was inundated with veterans taking advantage of benefits and Texas got smarter, in many ways.

One of the biggest wins to come from the war-effort was the increase in the petrochemical industry along the coast from Beaumont and down to Corpus Christi.

Once veterans returned home they were able to find lucrative jobs in the energy sector, setting off a chain of events that would make Houston a world power of sorts.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.
Few Houstonians venture into the city's 25-mile seaport, but a lot of their products and goods sure do.

In 2016 alone, 169.5 billion tons of cargo worth $112.8 billion were imported and exported through Houston's port, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
A San Antonio firefighter was suspended for 75 days without pay after he allegedly sent a sexually explicit photo of his former girlfriend to her new boyfriend while on duty.

The firefighter, David Ruiz, allegedly sent the photos, some of which were described as "intimate," to the new boyfriend the day before Valentine's Day, Feb. 13.
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In the wake of the Sutherland Springs shooting, A Drexel University professor has spoken out about what he believes are the real reasons mass shootings occur.

During an interview with Democracy Now! on Monday, George Ciccariello-Maher, a politics and global studies professor, brought up "whiteness" as being a possible cause for some of these mass shootings.

"You know, whiteness is never seen as a cause, in and of itself, of these kinds of massacres, of other forms of violence, despite the fact that whiteness is a structure of privilege and it's a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened, you know, lashes out," Ciccariello-Maher told Democracy Now!

READ MORE: Legislators call for changes to Texas gun laws in wake of Sutherland Springs massacre

Ciccariello-Maher also addressed what he claims is the double standard of the far-right's refusal "to talk about the real deep structures of white supremacy in our society, and again, not just the fringe, not just the Nazi movements, but what people are going through every day."

On Sunday, Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, unloaded 15 magazines, each with a 50-round capacity, into Sutherland Springs' First Baptist Church, killing 26 people and injuring 20 others.

The shooting was the worst in Texas history and occurred roughly a month after 58 people were shot and killed in Las Vegas.

Ciccariello-Maher was placed on administrative leave by Drexel in October after he made statements following the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

"It's the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid," Ciccariello-Maher tweeted on Oct. 2. "White people and men are told that they are entitled to everything. This is what happens when they don't get what they want."

A request for comment was placed with Ciccariello-Maher.

Fernando Alfonso III is a digital reporter at Chron.com. You can read more of his stories here and follow him on twitter at @fernalfonso. If you also like surreal GIFs and Polaroids, go here and here.


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.
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Mayor Sylvester Turner on Thursday ordered a "deep cleansing" of a pair of homeless encampments, calling the sites a "haven of criminal activity" and public health hazards just two days after a homeless man was shot nearby.

Turner announced the cleanup at a news conference next to an encampment near Midtown, beneath the Interstate 69 overpass at Caroline and Wheeler.

The encampment - a sprawling assemblage of tents and salvaged furniture that houses several dozen people - has become a trouble spot in the past few months, with a string of shootings, stabbings and other violence that has resulted in at least two homicides in the past month, according to police. A homeless man was shot to death in an adjacent parking lot late Tuesday.

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The camp also is filthy, Turner said, pointing out human waste he said was contaminating the ground and contributing to the spread of disease.

The city cleaned the site in early August, moving out furniture and dirty mattresses, human excrement and dead animals. Next week, Turner said, city workers will come in again to clean the place up.

A homeless encampment downtown along Chartres Street, near Minute Maid Park, also will get a thorough cleanup next week, the mayor said.

Both camps have been under scrutiny since last spring, when Turner tried to get rid of them with an anti-encampment ordinance. The ACLU of Texas filed an emergency motion to block the ordinance, and a federal judge in August issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the city from enforcing it.

The mayor testified in federal court in defense of the ordinance last week, telling U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt the measure is intended to provide "a gentle nudge" to encourage people in the camps to move into shelter beds and to discourage people from long-term camping on public property.

Turner said he hoped to get a ruling from Hoyt soon on whether the temporary injunction will be made permanent. In the meantime, he said the problem has gotten "exponentially worse." At the Midtown-area camp, he said, the tent count has ballooned from 40 to 102.

"I respect the ACLU immensely, but on this issue they are wrong," he said. "And they're not helping the people that they claim; they are hurting them. Quite frankly, the people they say they're trying to help - they're being murdered and stabbed and robbed."

Shere Dore,an advocate for the homeless who visits the encampment below U.S. 69 several times a week, was a primary witness in the ACLU's lawsuit against the city. Banning tents to break up the camp "would make that neighborhood happy, but it's like taking the homeless and playing chess with them," she said.

Next week's deep clean, meanwhile, will be just a temporary improvement, Turner acknowledged.

"Even after that's done, people immediately come right back," he said. "And so, it doesn't solve the problem. But within our parameters, we're attempting to minimize the issue."

Dr. David Persse, the city's director of Emergency Medical Services, joined Turner at the news conference to explain why the encampments pose a public health risk. The "huge amounts of urine and feces" deposited around the tents can spread Hepatitis A, he said.

"This is not something we're just talking about," Persse said, pointing to an outbreak of the disease in San Diego that has infected hundreds of people living in homeless camps there. "These conditions simply cannot be allowed to exist."

Earlier this year, Turner announced plans to create professionally staffed "low-level shelters" under highway overpasses or on private property in an effort to reduce panhandling and the spread of homeless encampments.

Those shelters, however, have not materialized. On Thursday, Turner dismissed the idea of using those fenced-in, covered spaces to solve the encampment problem.

"It costs to have low-level shelters," he said. "You have to provide services. That costs money."
AUSTIN -- Sandra Bullock will play former state Sen. Wendy Davis in a possible upcoming film called Let Her Speak, about Davis' 13-hour filibuster to block the vote of an anti-abortion bill during the final hours of a 2013 special session of the Texas Legislature.

Bullock is attached to the script as long as it lands a director she likes, according to Deadline Hollywood, and the film will be produced by Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch for Escape Artists, Jonathan Shukat for ShowKat Productions, and Bullock.
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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Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare Granturi - Finantari Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele
AKRON, Ohio -- Akron Soul Train will exhibit work by its 2017 fall fellows at Summit Artspace Saturday, Dec. 9.

The "Winter Soulstice" event will be held from 5-8 p.m. and will include original pieces by Stephen Tomasko, Jenniffer Omaitz, Michell Droll and Danny Volk.

The Akron Soul Train Fellowship Selection Committee selected the four fellows featured in the exhibition in summer 2017.

Three of the selected artists completed a month-long fellowship, while one part-time fellow worked on a project over the course of several months.

All works featured in the "Winter Soulstice" exhibition were created during each artist's fellowship.

The pieces include mixed media sculpture, landscape photography, abstract painting and socially engaged video.

The exhibition is free and open to the public to view from 6-8 p.m. Attendees can meet the artists during the event and enjoy hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.

VIP tickets are available for $100 and include specialty foods, unlimited drinks, a gift bag and a special VIP hour with live jazz music from 5-6 p.m.

"Winter Soulstice" will be held in the gallery on the second floor of Summit Artspace, located at 140 E. Market St. in downtown Akron.

VIP tickets can be purchased online at eventbrite.com/e/ast-winter-soulstice-vip-hour-tickets-39517158886.

Visit akronsoultrain.org for more information about Akron Soul Train.

The organization's 2018 fellowship applications will be released in spring of next year.

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CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio (AP) -- Cuyahoga Falls is testing a new program that involves slipping GPS trackers into various objects, such as purses and packages, and monitoring them for potential thieves.

The Akron Beacon Journal reports Cuyahoga Falls police officers will monitor the trackers nearby on a cellphone app. The app makes a noise when the tagged item is moved.

Democratic Mayor Don Walters says he was inspired by the program's success in other cities around the country. Walters says he and Police Chief Jack Davis hope awareness of the program will stop people from stealing in the first place.

Davis says the program does not qualify as entrapment since no one is specifically targeted and no one is encouraged to steal the items.

He says the devices will be used year-round.
Criminal mischief, Fry Road: Someone threw eggs at a house, planted campaign signs in the home's front yard and left a smashed pumpkin on the property at about 11:55 p.m. Oct. 28.

The signs contained the names Stemm and Colburn. Gregory Stemm was a City Council candidate and Tom Colburn was a mayoral candidate. The signs also read, "Drive like your kids live here."

Burglary, Sheldon Road: Two loaded handguns were reported stolen at about 4:15 p.m. Oct. 24 from a first-floor apartment in The Acadian, 21464 Sheldon.

The burglar kicked open the apartment's front door. The victim was not home at the time.

Less than a week later, on Oct. 30, a DeWalt-brand bag containing drills, two watches and an Eagle Scout award were stolen from the same apartment. In this case, the front door had been left unlocked.

Burglary, Burton Drive: A loaded Smith & Wesson 40-caliber semiautomatic handgun was stolen between 8 p.m. Aug. 30 and 1:15 a.m. Aug. 31 from a home.

The homeowner was at a neighbor's house at the time of the burglary. However, other people were still inside the victim's home. The burglar entered through an unlocked door.

Operating a vehicle under the influence-carrying a concealed weapon, Snow Road: A Sheffield Lake man, 39, was arrested at about 3 a.m. Oct. 31 after police caught him driving 63 mph on Hummel Road in a 25-mph zone.

Police pulled the man over on the Snow near the Interstate 480 exit ramp. He was drunk. Officers found a handgun, and ammunition next to it, in the car's glove compartment.

Grand theft vehicle, Brookpark Road: An unlocked 2017 Nissan Rogue was stolen between Oct. 27-30 from the parking lot of Airport Nissan of Cleveland, 13930 Brookpark.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, Smith Road: A Brooklyn man, 51, was arrested at about 2 a.m. Oct. 31 after police caught him driving drunk on Smith near Snow Road. Police stopped the man's car because he had squealed his tires, made an improper U-turn, veered off the road, driven over a tree lawn and almost hit a police cruiser.

Drug paraphernalia possession, Fry Road: A Brook Park woman, 23, was found unconscious on the kitchen floor of her home at about 3:45 p.m. Oct. 5.

Police believed the woman had overdosed. They found a paper bindle containing an unidentified brownish substance, two straws, one Trazadone pill, which treats depression, and two acetaminophen-Oxycodone pills in the house. The woman was taken to Southwest General Health Center in Middleburg Heights.

Sudden illness, Michael Drive: A Brook Park man, 24, overdosed on Percocet pills, a pain medication, at about midnight Oct. 27 in his home. The man's wife called police. He was taken to Southwest General.

Sudden illness, Smith Road: A Brook Park woman, 36, overdosed on Percocet pills at about 11:30 p.m. Oct. 30 in her home. A family member called police. The woman was taken to Southwest General.

To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - A bleeding Euclid woman ran to her neighbor's house after being attacked by her boyfriend.

A Bedford resident was worried her boyfriend was suicidal. A few months earlier, he had threatened to kill himself.

A young man in Lakewood overdosed on heroin twice within a span of a few weeks.

In each of these cases, someone punched in the numbers 9-1-1 on a telephone.

And in each of these situations, cases of domestic violence and mental health, such calls for help were deemed a "nuisance" by the city in which they took place. Those involved were fined or, in some cases, evicted.

In Cuyahoga County, more than 20 communities have what are known as criminal activity nuisance ordinances (CANOs). These laws penalize property owners for repeated requests for emergency or police response, even if those calls involve domestic violence or mental health issues.

After so many strikes, cities declare properties nuisances and assess fines unless the problem is remedied. In many cases, this means evicting the tenant responsible for the 911 calls.

Designed to give cities a legal route to manage what they consider problem properties or residents, the nuisance laws disproportionately affect renters, people of color, survivors of domestic violence and those experiencing mental health crises, a new study by Cleveland State University students and researchers finds.

"Faced with the threat of fines, eviction or other penalties, residents may avoid reaching out to police for assistance in times of crisis - an action which can carry grave consequences," the report reads.

The report, "What is a Nuisance: Criminal Activity Nuisance Ordinances in Ohio," analyzes the CANOs in four cities in Cuyahoga County - Bedford, Euclid, Lakewood and Parma - over a period of a few years. At the time of the study, all four had CANOs that included domestic violence; however, Euclid and Parma have since amended their ordinances.

Euclid City Council made the decision to change the ordinance, which initially was enacted to limit issues like public intoxication, barking dogs and loitering, after hearing a presentation made by CSU students involved in the report.

"The reason to remove domestic violence as a nuisance condition is that it could prevent a domestic violence victim from calling the police for fear that they may lose housing if their property is deemed a nuisance," said Kelley Sweeney, Euclid's law director.

Carrie Pleasants, executive director of the Housing Research & Advocacy Center, said nuisance ordinances raise concerns about race, domestic violence and renting.

"It's certainly a fair housing issue," Pleasants said. "Our biggest concern on its face is the domestic violence. They could end up being evicted for that, losing their housing. It's really adding insult to injury; you're re-victimizing the woman."

Incidences of domestic violence are three times more likely to occur when a woman is living in a rental home, and women of color and immigrant women experience a proportionately greater share of the abuse, Pleasants said.

In each of the cities studied by CSU, more than half of the nuisance letters sent involved renters. In Parma, that number was as high as 89 percent.

Mayfield Heights, which was not included in the report, established its CANO to "afford some control over rental properties by holding the landlord responsible for the actions of their tenants," Mayor Anthony DiCicco said.

Mayfield Hts City Council has just passed an amndmnt protecting domestic violence victims from the app of their nuisance law! #NotANuisance pic.twitter.com/D5whaf8Cws  Marissa Pappas (@MarissaPappas) March 14, 2017

"Keeping the domestic violence calls as one of the types of nuisance calls would create a barrier between the victim and police," DiCicco said. "Domestic violence is already under-reported, and this would give the abusers more power as they know there is no reason to stop."

That was exactly the case in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where the city tried to evict a woman for repeated instances of domestic violence in her home. Her abuser knew law enforcement had told her she had used up all of her "strikes" and could no longer call 911. He stabbed her in the neck, and she had to be airlifted to the hospital.

Similar cases happen in Cuyahoga County. Women are evicted for calling the cops on their abusers. Men are evicted for calling for help for overdoses and drug addiction. Group homes are fined when adults with disabilities are injured and need assistance.

In Lakewood, an average of 2.7 unique nuisance letters are sent per month, according to the report. In Bedford, 2.6. In Euclid, 1.9. In Parma, 1.6. Depending on the city, at least 20 percent of those letters involve domestic violence calls and at least 9 percent concern drug overdoses.

Just the facts
MEDINA, Ohio - Pamela Crombie and the rest of the staff at Jobs for Ohio's Graduates have been busy arranging furniture, setting up a classroom and deciding where to plug in the coffeepot and microwave oven in their new headquarters.

They plan to have everything in place in time for their grand opening celebration at 10 a.m. next Friday at the offices at 257 S. Court St., Suite 1, across the street from Castle Noel.

The public is invited to come check out the new space and learn about the services JOG provides.

The private, non-profit agency - which provides free education and job search support for young people ages 16 through 24 - recently moved out of its old location at 3711 Pearl Road.

"We're incredibly excited to be here on the square," said Crombie, who works for JOG as manager of Gov. John Kasich's Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program, now in its second year.

Tables such as this one in the new Jobs for Ohio's Graduates headquarters in Medina provide space for counselors to work one on one with 16- to 24-year-olds on jobs skills such as resume writing and interview techniques. (Ann Norman, special to cleveland.com)

JOG itself has served Medina County residents since 1987.

The agency moved to the square in order to be closer to Ohio Means Jobs, an adult employment agency that has relocated to Public Square.

"We collaborate heavily with Ohio Means Jobs, and we wanted to be within walking distance," Crombie said.

The new location is also more centrally located for the young people JOG serves, with many of them living within walking distance, she said.

"We're integrated more into Medina city, and we're already getting more walk-ins, because people see our sign in the window and want to know what we do," she said.

Crombie said the old office was a large, open, welcoming space.

"It was very inviting," she said.

But the new space, in an older building, is quirky and unique, with lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

"This is different, but kind of trendy-cool. It's kind of a mix of traditional and coffee shop," she said.

The dark woodwork and wooden ceilings set the mood, with areas for offices, one-on-one instruction and meetings, a small classroom, and an open space dotted with high-top tables and cozy seating areas.

That variety reflects the many services JOG offers: professionalism, work readiness, GED preparation and tutoring, resume development, mentoring and guidance, job postings, job fairs and subsidized work programs.

Some students are enrolled in services at their high schools, including Medina, Brunswick, Buckeye and Cloverleaf, as well as at the Medina County Career Center.

Students who are not attending high school can come to the JOG offices for guidance, tutoring and help in preparing for the workplace.

Crombie said 75 percent of the young people using JOG services do not attend high school.

"A lot have dropped out for a variety of reasons. They are working on their GED or getting back into their high school or a diploma program," she said.

"We focus on the whole young person: their diploma or GED, transitioning to work, family issues, socioeconomic issues," she said.

Most of the young people come to JOG without the soft skills they need to apply for a job, get hired, and keep that job, she said.

That means a lot of focus on workforce readiness, resume writing, interview skills, and even how to dress appropriately for interviews and the jobs or careers that interest them.

"We need to meet them where they're at, and really focus on these young people as a whole person," Crombie said.

JOG and its satellite programs - many funded by the state or other grants -serve about 150 young people each year. If you add in JOG outreach, workshops and walk-ins, that number grows to about 250, she said.

"We stay with them for a full year after they complete the program, so we can help them navigate the waters if life happens," Crombie said.

They also work to connect them with other agencies, such as Medina County Job and Family Services, First Impression and Feeding Medina County, to name a few.

"Everyone has this big heart and this mission to impact these kids' lives," Crombie said.

Ideally, Crombie wants to connect young people to one of the subsidized JOG programs. But if they aren't eligible, she finds a way to get them the services they need.

"We're not going to turn away any young person. We want them all to be successful," she said.

"My goal is to serve as many 16- to 24-year-olds as possible, which will really benefit our whole community because they'll be productive citizens and pass that knowledge down when they have their own families," she said.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio State University has charged 83 students with violating the student code of conduct for using a messaging app to share answers on graded assignments.

The undergraduate students in a principles of marketing course used a messaging app called GroupMe.

Their professor in the Fisher College of Business reported the students conduct to officials in April, according to a statement by the university.

"Any form of academic misconduct is unacceptable and the university takes all allegations seriously," the university statement said. "Students charged with academic misconduct violations may accept responsibility for the charges or request a hearing before COAM (Committee on Academic Misconduct) pursuant to the Code of Student Conduct. If found in violation, students receive sanctions based on the nature and severity of the violation in accordance with university standards and protocols. Sanctions for unauthorized collaboration range from warnings to dismissal and can also include grade penalties."

According to the Code of Student Conduct, students are prohibited from "Knowingly providing or using unauthorized assistance in the laboratory, on field work, in scholarship or on a course assignment."

GroupMe is a messaging app that lets users send direct messages and group messages from mobile devices without message limits.

GroupMe was used by students in a core marketing class for all specializations in the business school, according to the student newspaper The Lantern. The class is also a prerequisite class for two of the four core courses specific for marketing.

Students are welcome to use social-media tools like GroupMe to communicate, but they must remember that the code of student conduct applies when they are communicating online just as it applies in the classroom, the university said.

"The Code of Student Conduct applies to academic misconduct whether a student is on or off campus, in a classroom or online," the statement said. "The code applies during internships, study abroad and other academic experiences that occur outside of a classroom."

Students are welcome to use social media tools like GroupMe to communicate with classmates but must remember that the rules are the same for online and in-person interactions, the university said.

"For example, in most cases, sharing the due date for a homework assignment is perfectly acceptable but sharing the answers to a final exam is not." the statement said. "Students should not share anything online that is prohibited by the rules for the course."
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE  Members of the 23rd Bomb Squadron and B-52s at Minot Air Force Base were away fighting ISIS in the Middle East when their squadron's 100th anniversary took place in June.

So today the squadron will hold an observance at the base in honor of its 100th year. A static display, retreat ceremony, B-52 fly-by and a roll call of current and former "Bomber Barons" is planned, according to the base Public Affairs office.

Located at Minot AFB since the late 1960s, the 23rd Bomb Squadron has had various names and been assigned to various locations worldwide during its history.

Originally, the squadron came into being as the 18th Aero Squadron on June 16, 2017, at Camp Kelly, Texas. Besides Minot AFB, it had home bases in New York, England, France, California, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, Japan, Kansas, Idaho and Guam.

According to the Minot Daily News files:

The original unit was not a U.S. Air Force unit because there was no U.S. Air Force at the time. It was then called the Army Air Service, later becoming the Army Air Corps in 1926 and finally a separate Air Force in 1947.

Consisting of 11 officers, three flying cadets and 76 enlisted men under the command of a captain, the unit didn't have a very glorious mission. For its first six months it flew patrol flights in the forest sections of Southern California, checking on fire conditions.

When the squadron moved to Hawaii in the early 1920s, it started engaging in training missions consisting of formation flying, gunnery, high-altitude bombing and photo reconnaissance.

One of its most spectacular achievements was in 1935 when the squadron was given the job never attempted before by a bombardment group  to silence a volcano that was erupting in Hawaii.

The 23rd was handed this unique assignment when Mauna Loa was blowing its top and pouring lava down toward the city of Hilo. Volcanologists thought the city might be saved if bombs were dropped to divert the path of the molten lava stream. Carrying out its orders, the squadron dropped 20 600-pound bombs in front of the lava, making some rearrangement of the landscape and diverting the lava flow and saving the city of Hilo.

Commemorating that mission, the squadron's patch to this day depicts the bombing of Mauna Loa.

On Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the squadron, with its headquarters at Hickam Field in Hawaii, lost 23 men and sustained 21 injuries plus the loss of three aircraft, with another three seriously damaged.

The squadron quickly converted into wartime operations, participating in the Battle of Midway, a major turning point in the Pacific war.

At the end of the war, the squadron's mission was photo mapping the Philippines, Formosa and Southwest Pacific, which it accomplished from bases in Japan.

For a time the squadron lost its aircraft when it was redesignated a reconnaissance squadron but later was put back to its task of strategic bombing in the mid-1950s.

Minot AFB, one of the newest bases in the Air Force, became the 23rd's home in the late 1960s, where the squadron acquired the best and newest of the B-52 bombers, the "H" model.

For about 49 years the 23rd has remained at Minot AFB, longer than it stayed anywhere.

The 23rd, along with the 69th Bomb Squadron, are integral parts of Minot AFB's 5th Bomb Wing and the U.S. Air Force.

Recently personnel and bombers from the 23rd returned to the Minot base after spending several months this year in the Middle East. The unit was deployed to the Middle East supporting U.S. Central Command's Operation Inherent Resolve, a combined joint task force operation to eliminate ISIS terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

"They flew over 500 sorties," Col. Sloan Hollis, vice commander of the 5th Bomb Wing, told the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce's Military Affairs Committee members recently. "They dropped well over 4,000 bombs, several thousands of target engaged  did a lot of good work in the fight against ISIS (in) Iraq and Syria."

"(It was) one of the largest air campaigns that has gone on since Vietnam is what they said," he added.

That deployment was the first time in 12 years B-52s from Minot AFB were deployed to the Middle East for combat operations. Currently, members and B-52s from the base's 69th Bomb Squadron are in the Middle East.
GRAND FORKS  When Tommy Sullivan transferred to Grand Forks Air Force Base in 2012 from Edwards AFB in California, he bought a new .30-06 rifle in hopes of drawing a tag for North Dakotas regular deer gun season, which opens at noon Friday, Nov. 10.

Hes still hoping.

I havent even shot at a deer with it yet, said Sullivan, 31, a technical sergeant who lives near Thompson.

As deer gun licenses become more difficult to draw  a trend that coincided with loss of habitat and declining deer populations  more North Dakota hunters are taking up archery hunting.

Count Sullivan in that camp.

Unlike deer gun licenses, which Game and Fish allocates by lottery, archery hunters can buy a tag online to shoot either a buck or a doe.

Sullivan, an Alabama native, said he became a North Dakota resident to increase his odds of drawing a gun tag. But this year, he again finds himself among the 40,000-or-so hunters who applied for gun tags but didnt get drawn.

And so he hunts with a bow.

I love hunting out here, so it would just be cool to get a shot at trying to hunt with a rifle here, Sullivan said.

By the numbers

Game and Fish offered 54,500 deer gun licenses this year, up from 49,000 in 2016 but far below the mid-2000s, when more than 100,000 tags were available.

By comparison, theres no limit on the number of archery tags available statewide. Archery license sales have been on a steady climb since 2011 and are increasing at about 10 percent annually, said Jeb Williams, wildlife chief for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Bismarck.

Last year, a record 22,681 North Dakota residents bought archery tags, a number that doesnt include youth or nonresident archery licenses, department statistics show.

This years numbers are tracking toward another increase, Williams said.

We really saw the increase in archery licenses come starting right around 2012, when we made some of the really big cuts to deer gun licenses, Williams said. Since then, its really taken off, and so I think it is a symptom of a lot of folks not being able to get a deer gun license, and I just think its the increase in popularity of archery hunting in general.

Brad Olson, assistant store manager at the East Grand Forks, Minn., Cabelas, said hes seeing a similar trend with sales of archery equipment.

I cant tell you exact numbers, but I can tell you were definitely seeing an increase the last few years, Olson, 40, said. A lot of people are getting into it.

Hunters can get into a lower-end bow and a half-dozen arrows for $400 to $500, he said.

The big thing were hearing from customers is theyre not being able to hunt in North Dakota with a gun, Olson said.

Sullivan said he enjoys archery and has had some success, shooting a doe in 2014 and a buck two years ago. He says the adrenaline rush of getting a deer within feet of his stand is unlike anything hes ever experienced in hunting.

But still. ...

Its not that I ever disliked archery hunting, but it would be nice to get a shot at getting a rifle tag, he said.

Managing opportunity

North Dakotas deer hunting regulations allow hunters who apply for a gun or muzzleloader license to still buy an archery tag over the counter. Luck of the draw means some hunters can hunt with a bow and also draw gun or muzzleloader licenses.

In an effort to spread out the opportunity as deer gun licenses became less abundant, Game and Fish in late 2014 proposed limiting hunters to one tag  either archery, gun or muzzleloader.

Hunters couldnt have all three, Williams said. It still (would have) allowed somebody the opportunity to have that over-the-counter archery license even if they applied in the deer gun lottery and were turned down.

Game and Fish felt the proposal was a reasonable plan, Williams said, but the department eventually scrapped the idea after encountering stiff opposition both in public meetings and written comments.

There were a lot of people who liked the guarantee of the archery license, obviously, but they didnt want to give up the gun opportunity, essentially, Williams said. We had a lot of feedback saying they didnt feel we should change the system.

Stu Gullicks of Finley, says he took up bowhunting three years ago as another way to enjoy the outdoors and not because he couldnt draw a gun tag.

He has a buck tag in unit 2F1 near Finley for this years rifle season and shot his first archery deer this fall.

It was more that I never had the time, and I finally just decided now was the time to do it, Gullicks, 50, said, adding he likes the option of being able to buy an archery tag yet still have the opportunity to draw a gun license.

I would be fine with (just one tag), but its still nice to have the option of shooting both, he said.

Coping with success

Williams said the department may have to revisit its policy on archery tags if participation continues to grow and hunter success remains high. Last year, archery hunters shot 9,492 deer  8,686 whitetails and 806 mule deer  for a record archery harvest and a success rate of 43 percent.

Thats a higher success rate than hunters in many states enjoy with firearms. In neighboring Minnesota, for example, hunters last year had 32.4 percent success during the firearms deer season, according to the Department of Natural Resources.

Gone, it appears, are the days when bowhunters didnt have an impact on the deer harvest in North Dakota.

If we continue to see an increase in archery licenses and the success rate continues to stay high, you can no longer say the amount of harvest associated with archery doesnt mean anything because it is starting to mean something, Williams said. Were eventually going to have to look at the archery season and archery licenses just like we do with (gun and muzzleloader) and potentially look at restricting those number of licenses on a lottery basis.

North Dakotas regular deer season continues through Sunday, Nov. 26. Muzzleloader season opens Friday, Dec. 1 and closes Sunday, Dec. 17, and archery season continues through Sunday, Jan. 7.
JAMESTOWN -- Maintaining the stalemate of the Cold War put a lot of pressure on the young men who manned the Minuteman Missile installations during the height of the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years after World War II.

It was a situation where both sides of the Cold War had mutually assured destruction, said Warren Tobin, a former captain of the 321st Strategic Missile Wing. You cant really win a nuclear war. You need to be ready so that the other guy knows youre ready. It works both ways.

Tobin spent 14 years with the unit in a variety of capacities. He did one tour of duty, three years, as a missile operator working in the missile control centers that dot northeast North Dakota.

The three-year tour of duty was because of the stress, Tobin said. The optimal performance for a missile operator was just three or four years.

Officers who excelled as missile operators stayed in the unit in support and command positions. Others moved to other duties within the Air Force.

Standards were high for the young officers who wanted to man the missile silos.

Missile operators had to qualify physically and mentally. Officers who were color blind, for example, were not allowed into the program because of the color-coded controls.

And officers had to have a top secret clearance because they were the last link in the chain of command that could launch a nuclear attack.

If the conditions required it, and the national command authority wanted it, we could put bombs on a target halfway around the world in 30 minutes, Tobin said.

The daily tasks of the missile operator were routine. Training, maintenance and security took up most of the time on a shift.

There was always a routine, Tobin said. That was not influenced by what was going on in the world, but there were times when there were heightened tensions in the world when we were more aware of what we were doing.

Standards were high for the officers who served as missile operators. The top priority was to make sure the missile was ready to launch if needed. The daily tasks included communications with headquarters, routine maintenance like changing light bulbs and training to be prepared in case a launch was ordered.

We had very high standards of perfection in the performance of our task, Tobin said. You didnt want any bad days in the nuclear weapon business.

The first Minuteman missiles were built in 1962 and updated versions of the design are still in use.

We still have a nuclear deterrent, it just gets smaller all the time, he said. Previously there were nine missile wings now there are three.

But during the height of the Cold War, the missile system was part of the first line of defense for this country. Tobin characterised it as being at a frontier military outpost in the era of the Old West.

One of the Minuteman missile sites has been preserved for history.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota operates the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site near Cooperstown. The site preserves the Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility and the November-33 Launch Facility. The two sites are the last remnants of Tobins old unit, the 321st Missile Wing, remaining. The rest of the facilities of the 321st have been returned to farmland.

Tobin said he donated some of his items from the Cold War era to the displays at the historic site. He said it is one of the few places where people can see military history that is still part of the American national defense.

It is still important, he said. As long as we have a world where anyone has nuclear weapons, you have to have a way to discourage them.
FARGO  A photo of four white women in blackface, said to be students at North Dakota State University, is circulating online after it surfaced on Twitter on Thursday.

The photo was originally shared on Snapchat, then posted on Twitter by a black NDSU student, saying the four women in the photo also attend NDSU.

The black student said in a Twitter message that she was surprised when she first saw the photo, which a friend sent her. Yet she was also not surprised because stuff like that goes viral on the internet all the time and its just a matter of addressing the issue and educating people on why its problematic to do such a thing.

The white student who shared the photo on Snapchat and who also appears in the photo responded publicly to the black student on Twitter on Thursday.

It was not our intention for this photo to slander anyone in anyway. It was immature of us to write the caption we did. We were applying facemasks and completely disregarded the impact our words would make, the white student wrote.

When asked about the photo and how NDSU may respond, university spokeswoman Sadie Rudolph said in an email that the photo hasnt been brought forward to the University.

Last September a Snapchat photo of University of North Dakota students in blackface, with the caption Black lives matter, caught national attention.

UND investigated the two incidents, but President Mark Kennedy said the photos were not in violation of the UND Code of Student Life and though appalling are protected under free speech.
FARGO  The states first Honor Flight for American Indian veterans is getting ready to take off next spring to recognize an ethnic group that serves in the military more per capita than any other.

American Indians have served in every major military conflict  from the Revolutionary War to the more than 24,000 on active duty today  and the U.S. Department of Defense estimates there are 150,000 native veterans.

Sen. Richard Marcellais, D-Belcourt, and Bill Peterson were among the 42,000 natives to serve in the Vietnam War. They are now president and vice president, respectively, of the North Dakota Native American Veterans Honor Flight, which intends to take 20 to 30 veterans to Washington, D.C.

This is an opportunity for our veterans to visit what they fought for and show some dedication to our veterans so they can see this memorial, Marcellais said. A lot of our veterans probably never left North Dakota once they returned home.

Filmmaker Deb Wallwork, of Fergus Falls, Minn., documented the stories of 11 native Vietnam veterans in her 1987 film Warriors, recently featured at the Fargo Public Librarys Native American Festival and Education Series.

They came out of these small towns on the Plains and into the jungles of Vietnam, she said. Native people did very, very well in the military, but theres this mixed feeling about the history of native and white relationships. They were our adversaries to many of these wars, but we admired them so much for their prowess as warriors.

Wallwork said recognizing native veterans is important because they have an incredible record of service and were often stationed on the front lines.

They love this country, she said. This is their country, too.

In 2015, Marcellais and Peterson reached out to the national Honor Flight organization headquartered in Ohio, seeking approval for the Honor Flight theyre organizing. In November 2016, the countrys first-ever Honor Flight for American Indians took off from Reno, Nev.

The North Dakota Native American Veterans Honor Flight, now recognized by the North Dakota secretary of state as an official nonprofit organization, will also include on the trip to Washington non-natives who served in the military.

United Tribes of North Dakota, an association of the states five tribes, passed a resolution in February 2016 supporting the Honor Flight for native veterans.

With the majority of paperwork complete, the native veterans organizing the Honor Flight said all thats left to do is fundraise and accept applications to select 20 to 30 veterans to participate.

The Honor Flights goal is to raise $1,000 per veteran to cover costs for the trip to Washington, which is anticipated to be in May 2018.

Veterans interested in applying must be honorably discharged, Peterson said. To submit an application, contact Marcellais at (701) 477-8985 or rjm@utma.com.
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A North Dakota faculty group has issued an official letter of concern about a plan to cut the monthly in-person meetings of the university systems governing board.

Council of College Faculties President Debora Dragseth personally spoke out last month against the possibility of the State Board of Higher Education switching from its current meeting schedule to one that would see board members gathering in Bismarck on a quarterly basis. In a letter dated Tuesday, the CCF issued a collective statement expressing concerns that meeting only four times a year prevents an opportunity to strengthen the trust and understanding between the SBHE and the 11 institutions that make up our system.

SBHE Chair Don Morton said last month the shift to fewer in-person meetings could help the board be more efficient by simplifying travel needs. The board now often meets at a different North Dakota University System campus each month, a road schedule Morton described as excessive given the typical length of a meeting agenda.

The revised meeting plan will be introduced in the upcoming November meeting of the SBHE and still needs to be approved by board vote. Morton said the in-person gatherings would likely be supplemented by social events held the night prior to SBHE business, as well as digital meetings hosted on an as-needed basis. To fit the full amount of work into fewer in-person sessions, the SBHE would also bulk up the presence of its committees. That way, discussion at board meetings held in person could be moved onto a streamlined consent agenda.

The CCF letter called that strategy into question.

In a time of uncertainty, subcommittees that forward consent agendas, canceled meetings, and the end of campus interaction will only serve to distance the SBHE further from the mission of education, wrote the council, adding that there seems to have been a gradual falling away of interaction between the board and the NDUS institutions.

That council expressed concern that the reduced contact could create unnecessary obscurity and hurt accreditation efforts. As such, the CCF recommended the board adopt a 2018 schedule consisting of one annual retreat and between six and eight full-day, in-person meetings that continue to rotate in location through the NDUS institutions.

Morton responded to the council Thursday to thank it for its input and share details of the 2018 schedule he intends to submit for board consideration. Though he wrote that he supports keeping a monthly meeting schedule through digital means, Morton stood by the prospect of a quarterly set of in-person meetings to be held in Bismarck. As before, the chair cited time savings -- including those of attending campus presidents -- in reducing the travel schedule attached to in-person meetings.

What most people do not understand is the time that board members spend doing committee work, legislative work, public relations, individual preparation and public speaking, Morton wrote, adding that the board has worked hard to be transparent and accessible through its digital meeting broadcasts.
A state board voted to suspend a former West Fargo teachers license for five years Thursday, after allegations surfaced this year that she was partying with students and had alcohol in her classroom.

The North Dakota Education Standards and Practices Boards unanimous decision came after more than 40 minutes of discussion on the appropriate penalty for former Sheyenne High School teacher Elizabeth Dosters conduct. The board narrowly rejected a more lenient punishment that would have allowed Doster to reapply for her license after three years.

If were talking about alcoholism being an addiction and being a disease, how do we help a person who once was a very strong teacher recover and get the assistance they need? said board member Ben Johnson, the secondary assistant superintendent of Bismarck Public Schools.

The boards decision does require Doster to prove shes gone through chemical dependency treatment and is sober, as well as complete an ethics course. Doster, who was not present at the board meeting at the state Capitol, must bear all the costs of those requirements.

Board member Bob Toso, whos also a member of the school board in Jamestown, said he previously favored a permanent suspension. He said the board could reinstate the license within five years if Doster completed the other requirements.

As an ex-principal (and) parent, Ill be honest: I dont know if I want her in my classroom, Toso said. This teacher does not do the profession justice.

Assistant Attorney General Edward Erickson said the board had a strong case on the allegations that Doster had alcohol on school grounds -- a report sent to the board included pictures of beer cans found in her classroom -- but they stood on more shaky footing on the other claims.

Police were called to Dosters Fargo home in July by a girl who said Doster and three young males were drinking. Police issued a minor-in-possession citation to an 18-year-old male who had a blood-alcohol level of .235 percent. Doster denied giving minors alcohol that night.

Erickson noted that Cass County prosecutors declined to bring charges because of a lack of evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

A West Fargo school resource officer received a tip in mid-August from a student who said Doster had been giving alcohol to students and had engaged in oral sex with a student. But Erickson said the schools investigation indicated the latter claim was a rumor floating around without witnesses.

Those charges, I certainly think, have no merit, he said.

An investigation into Doster was opened in mid-August after school officials received a complaint from a student and parent who said she was "partying and driving around smoking dope with students," according to school district documents previously obtained. The West Fargo School Board accepted her resignation on Aug. 28.

Doster did not return a message Thursday. She has previously declined to comment on the allegations.
Burke/Triolo Productions/Thinkstock Billy Ray Cyruss re-recording of his classic track Some Gave All will be available to download for free on his website in honor of Veterans Day. You can also watch for Billy Ray Friday on World News Tonight with David Muir at 6:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

Shania Twain will release her Christmas-themed duet with Nick Jonas, Say All You Want for Christmas, on Friday. You can check out a preview of the tune on the country/pop superstars Instagram.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
I had a small world moment on my second day in Bismarck.

The story of my arrival ran in the Thursday Tribune last week and by Friday I had an email from a Bismarck resident who said, "I dont know if you remember me, but "

While it has been about eight years since we last saw one another, I remembered Patrick Kellar.

Back in 2008 I joined a media company based in Paducah, Ky., and Patrick was one of the companys publishers in Indiana.

My wife and I attended our first corporate event, held at a Florida resort, less than a month after joining the company. We arrived at that meeting having only met the corporate staff since I was located at the companys headquarters.

The first people to introduce themselves that evening were Patrick and Tina Kellar.

It can be a bit awkward when you are "the new guy" and I was thankful then that the Kellars were so welcoming.

I had no idea then that they were from Bismarck, N.D. But as I read the email last Friday I began to recall our first meeting and fondly recalled how welcoming and inclusive they were.

My response to the welcome email last week was, "Of course I remember you."

We have met many wonderful people at our various career stops but this is the first time we have been welcomed twice by the same folks.

Patrick and I met up this week and shared stories on the various twists and turns our careers have taken and how our paths have led us to intersect here and now.

It is a small world. Be kind to someone today.
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After analyzing the likes of 58,466 volunteers, the data crunchers at University of Cambridge Psychometrics Center and Microsoft Research Cambridge claim that Facebook poking can reveal your gender, politics, sexual orientation, where and what you worship, and, as mentioned, your intelligence. Enjoy LOTR and curly fries? You're a genius. A fan of the star of one of the most popular motorcycle companies in the world? Ahoy there, dipshit. The stats seem a bit arbitrary, and the researchers didn't provide much information beyond how they think if you listen to Lady Antebellum, you should probably be wearing a helmet (good thing you're probably a Harley enthusiast).

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The goal of all this, in case you haven't figured it out already, is to better figure out how to sell you shit. Thanks to your idle clicking, retailers will be privy to such useful nuggets of information as "users who liked the 'Hello Kitty' brand tended to be high on Openness and low on 'Conscientiousness,' 'Agreeableness,' and 'Emotional Stability.'" Awesome. The researchers do seem to be aware of the privacy concerns people might have about their activities, but they're hoping that "the trust and goodwill among parties interacting in the digital environment can be maintained by providing users with transparency and control over their information, leading to an individually controlled balance between the promises and perils of the Digital Age."

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We realize that's a lot of big words for those of you who enjoy such things as National Lampoon's European Vacation and "propagating the human species." Maybe ask one of your friends who likes watching The Godfather during thunderstorms to sound them out for you.
Barack Obama was dismissed from jury duty because, no duh, having the former freakin' president on the jury would be incredibly distracting. Can you imagine being the unlucky defendant to have an ex president on the jury? Here you've spent your whole life working at your craft at becoming a serial killer, only to have Obama waltz in and steal your thunder. Lawyers routinely dismiss "experts" from the jury, especially legal ones. It complicates the proceedings as they bring in outside knowledge to the courtroom. Obama is a former lawyer (and president) which would be incredibly frustrating for an attorney to deal with. How are you supposed to defend your client when Obama struts in and shows off drone footage he has on his phone of the defendant doing crimes?

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Even if Obama was able to contain his god-like powers and be a model jury member, who the hell is going to voice dissent against him during deliberation? He's the goddamn ex president. Nobody wants to be known as "that butthole jurist who made us all stay late because he was busy arguing with the former president."

For more check out What's Good OR BAD For You Now? (11/04/2017) and What Stupid Thing Is Trending Now? (11/04/2017).

Subscribe to our YouTube channel and check out Weird How Everyone President Donald Trump Knows Does Crimes - Some News, and watch other videos you won't see on the site!

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Managed services News

ConnectWise CEO: New Cloud, Remote Management Services Aim To Make ConnectWise The Center Of The MSP's Ecosystem

Joseph F. Kovar

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ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini on Thursday told an audience of over 3,000 MSPs and technology partners that despite how much he hates the word "ecosystem," his company is doing all it can to be at the center of partners' ecosystems.

Bellini, speaking at the IT Nation conference in Orlando, Fla., said an ecosystem must have a focus on customers and offer a wide choice of solutions and customer-focused services.

"It's about your services set, how you drive your services set, that is the whole glue that brings this together," he said. "We've put ourselves at the center of the ecosystem."

[Related: Cisco Teams With ConnectWise To Create A 'Managed Service In A Box' Solution For MSPs]

Bellini identified 14 different technologies that make up what he called the "technology canvas" that encompasses the areas where partners can invest in services opportunities. These include copy and print; digital security; physical security; IoT; audio and visual; collaboration; line of business applications; office applications; network infrastructure; on-site computing; cloud computing; application development; and business intelligence.

ConnectWise brings together the kinds of solutions that tie channel partners to those technologies, Bellini said. "It's our job to connect to as many of these as we can to meet your needs," he said.

In doing its job, ConnectWise unveiled a number of new managed services, including a new unified console that will bring management of Cisco, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud environments into a unified console.

The company also showed off Perspective, a new service that connects a field technician's smartphone camera to the ConnectWise Control console so that a solution provider's in-house support person can see exactly what the technician sees.

Craig Fulton, ConnectWise chief product officer, demonstrated Perspective by showing how the remote smartphone image in integrated into the service ticket without changing screens.

As part of the demonstration, Fulton showed that the remote smartphone could actually read the barcode of a remote device to automatically bring up information about that device into the service ticket.

In addition to incorporating remote video into the service ticket, Perspective can also be used to send junior technicians before being fully trained to remote sites to work closely with senior technicians at the central office, Fulton said.

"His vision fits with my vision of my own company," said David Stamm, CEO of Stamm Technologies, a Milwaukee-based MSP. "Clients do want more help with a wide range of services."

Stamm added: "You could do Facetime to remotely see what is happening in the field, but with Perspective, you see it in the ConnectWise screen. And that barcode reading is very important."

One of ConnectWise's core services, ConnectWise Automate, is being enhanced to allow support people to handle remote monitoring and management via the web, with all necessary information related to the support able to be managed in a single screen. The transition is scheduled to happen in 2018.

Fulton also demonstrated dynamic networking mapping as part of ConnectWise Automate. With dynamic network mapping, a map of a customer's network and devices can be generated at will so, replacing older mapping tools which produce network maps which could be obsolete in only five minutes as devices move, he said.

"We do network mapping manually now," Stamm said. "Yes, there are other tools. But since we've already moved to ConnectWise Automate, this new network mapping tool gives us a quick view from inside our service console."

"Having all the endpoint information in a single pane of glass will make it easier to see if there are other unknown issues when taking care of customer support issues," said Greg Zimmerle, owner and president of myIT.com, a Bedford, Texas-based MSP.

Bellini and Fulton also showed ConnectWise Unite, a new managed service offering that brings Cisco Spark, Meraki, Cisco Umbrella, and Stealthwatch Cloud offerings into a new console. This was first introduced earlier this month at the Cisco Partner Summit 2017.

Nirav Sheth, vice president of sales and systems engineering in Cisco's Global Partner Organization, took the stage to tell partners that his company was dedicated to bringing Cisco's enterprise-grade networking, security and other technologies to managed service providers of any size, and that ConnectWise Unite was a good place to start.

"We are unequivocally committed to this space," Sheth said. "We want to bring enterprise capabilities, marry it to consumer ease-of-use, and marry it to your capabilities."

Bellini and Fulton took the news one step further with the news that Amazon Web Services has also been added to ConnectWise Unite, and that Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure will also be added.

AWS integration into ConnectWise Unite has already started, and Google Cloud integration will happen next year, Bellini said. Microsoft Azure is currently integrated into the ConnectWise Cloud Console, but Cloud Console and ConnectWise Unite will be merged, bringing Cisco and the industry's three biggest cloud technologies into a single management console.

"We now use a glorified ticking system and portals," said Jim Brice, director of infrastructure services at MNJ Technologies, a Buffalo Grove, Ill.-based MSP. "But it's not a day-to-day part of our business because we lack what Unite brings. There's no way to use Cisco Umbrella or Meraki with ConnectWise currently. We need to go the Umbrella portal to get the information we need. So this looks cool."

"It's interesting to see the visualization of the entire ecosystem, and how it ties to CRM and billing," said Tim Barto, vice president of business development at IronEdge Group, a Houston-based MSP. "We want to see it all. And ConnectWise Unite is heading in the right direction."

Also new is the ConnectWise Developer Kit, a new set of tools that can automatically generate code to add other offerings to ConnectWise Unite. Bellini said the ConnectWise Developer Kit was used to bring Cisco into Unite and can be used by any of ConnectWise's vendor partners to make their offerings a part of Unite.

Channel partners can also use the ConnectWise Developer Kit to customize their offerings to work in the Unite console, Bellini said.
Networking News

New OEM Agreement Puts The Dell EMC Brand On Entire Aerohive Portfolio

Matt Brown

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Dell EMC and Aerohive Networks are attempting to streamline the sales and support process for partners with a new OEM agreement.

The agreement allows Dell EMC to sell Aerohive's full portfolio of Wi-Fi access points and HiveManager cloud management platform as Dell EMC-branded solutions and means Dell EMC channel partners looking to sell Aerohive can deal directly with a single vendor.

"Partners are buying from one party, getting support from one party," said Tom Burns, vice president and general manager of Dell EMC networking. "Partners can rely on Dell for delivery, execution, and support as they extend the portfolio."



[Related: Dell Technologies Reveals New Tier Thresholds That Some Partners Find 'Challenging']

Michael O'Brien, Aerohive vice president of global channels, called the partnership a "giant confirmation of our strategy and product offering," and said it would allow the company to compete more effectively against networking giants like Cisco and HP Aruba.

"We're fighting against some giants," O'Brien said, "but the largest IT vendor in the world looked at all the technology and asked what is the most aligned to their vision and strategy. We look at this as confirmation of our strategy, and that helps partners sell. They can point to this as confirmation in the marketplace and say these technologies are catching fire."

The validation that Dell EMC brings to Aerohive technology also puts partners in a position of strength, O'Brien said.

"When a VAR walks in and says I'm with Aerohive and I'm working with Dell and have the support of both vendors, that's a powerful message," O'Brien said. "Customers want to buy wired and wireless solutions from vendors where they have everything in common. Now you have integration with Dell switches. Customers don't want to piece-part all of this together.

Dell EMC has been reselling Aerohive products for about a year-and-a-half and has co-branded the Milpitas, Calif., company's HiveManager cloud management platform for the last year. Under those agreements, Dell EMC supports the unified access network market through its Dell EMC N-Series fixed-port, stackable Ethernet switches with Aerohive wireless access points. This architecture is administered via an integrated, Dell EMC-branded version of HiveManager NG that provides control and network service applications for the unified network.

Dell previously had a similar arrangement with Aruba Networks, but that relationship ended when Aruba was acquired by rival Hewlett-Packard in early 2015.

The new agreement allows Dell EMC and its partners to market a unified Wi-Fi and switching solution managed by Aerohive's cloud and carrying the Dell EMC brand. It includes collaborative sales, marketing, support, services and logistics capabilities. "We take the level one and level two calls now," Burns said. "It gives the customers a better experience as far as support. Dell will have inventory in our hub, and the support [partners] can sell through is all with Dell. So if you're an existing Dell partner, or one looking to take on a networking portfolio, it's one throat to choke."



Dell EMC for the better part of four years has fought a networking battle pitting its "open" approach against traditional networking giant Cisco Systems and arch competitor HPE.

Dell EMC's open solutions run on standard architecture and orchestration tools; optional SDN/NVO controllers; any networking operating system; open standard hardware and circuitry rather than traditional networking's proprietary architectures, tools, operating systems and circuits, Burns argues.

"This closes a hole, and it's a smart move for [Dell]," said Stephen Monteros, senior vice president at Sigmanet, an Ontario, Calif., solution provider that works with Dell EMC. "The benefit to the channel is vendor alignment around integrated go-to-market. Dell had a wireless hole since Aruba was acquired by HP."
Security News

Ixia Global Channel Chief Lori Cornmesser To Depart Amid Sales Reorganization Effort

Michael Novinson

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Lori Cornmesser, Ixia's first-ever worldwide channel chief, will leave the company at the end of 2017 due to the planned regionalization of the company's channel program.

Cornmesser said her departure comes as a result of new owner Keysight Technologies' approach of integrating channel and field sales in each operating region rather than supporting a global channel organization. The Santa Rosa, Calif.-based electronics manufacturer purchased Calabasas, Calif.-based Ixia in April for $1.6 billion.

"I feel very good about building the channel strategy, the program and the team at Ixia," Cornmesser said. "I am ready for my next step."

[RELATED: CRN Exclusive: Ixia Moves To 100 Percent Channel Model For Enterprise Sales]

Cornmesser joined Ixia in October 2013 at a time when the company had roughly 100 global channel partners, but lacked a formal partner program. Four years later, Ixia has more than 1,200 partners in its ecosystem, with the channel accounting for roughly 60 percent of the company's $485 million of annual sales.

"It's been a really good journey for me," Cornmesser said. "There's a lot to be proud of."

Because of the reorganization, Ixia's Director of North American Channels Kelly Miller will transition from reporting to Cornmesser to reporting to the company's vice president of North American sales. Miller has 10 people reporting to him, including six U.S.-based channel account managers.

The new structure will allow Ixia to leverage economies of scale and enable channel partners to work with both channel account managers and field sales resources in each region, according to Scott Jacobs, director of global channel strategy, marketing and operations. Work around the evolution and strategy of Ixia's channel program will shift from Cornmesser to Jacobs, he said.

Tighter alignment between Ixia's field and channel resources will make it easier for the company to executive a unified, cohesive strategy in a particular region, according to Jacobs. The increased alignment is particularly important given Ixia's February commitment to drive 100 percent of enterprise sales through channel partners, Jacobs said.

Solution providers should expect to see more joint engagements at the field level and a greater number of resources talking to the partner community, Miller said. Ixia has 550 North American channel partners and 28 employees in its channel organization, according to Cornmesser's 2017 CRN Channel Chiefs profile.

"We have a robust channel ecosystem," Jacobs said.

A strategic decision about Cornmesser's role was made in September and announced internally to the Ixia team in October and to the company's partner base in early November, Cornmesser said. Cornmesser said she agreed to stay with the company until the end of the year.

Going forward, Cornmesser said she would be interested in a channel or commercial leadership role with another security, cloud, networking, or virtualization vendor. Cornmesser said she is starting conversations about future employment opportunities.

"I have a lot of experience in this space," Cornmesser said.

Cornmesser brought great energy and lots of creativity to her interactions with channel partners, according to Terrence Boylan, founder and CEO of Warren, R.I.-based PacketLogix. She took the "unheard of" step of inviting channel partners to Ixia's inside sales events, Boylan said, and organized and presented at those events in a way that made them worthwhile for solution providers.

"She has a keen insight into the channel," Boylan told CRN. "She understands that, to make a channel effective, sometimes you have to do a lot of conversion."

Boylan believes the Ixia's new regional model could help the company get more mileage out of its channel partners, and said the company has some other talented people in its channel organization that could step up into more of a leadership role. Still, Boylan believes that Cornmesser's departure will be a loss for Ixia.

"She brought a lot to the table," Boylan said. "I think the Ixia executive team understood the value that she brought."
Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

With a number of major economic development projects underway around the city, the Bridgeport Regional Business Council is working to keep everyone up to date.

The council will host on Thursday a Bridgeport Economic Development Briefing with speakers on hand from three groups that have taken on large projects around the city, many of them highly visible for residents and passers-by. As they come to fruition, they are changing the face of the city, and have the potential to go even further.
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GREENWICH  When David Byers robbed the Citgo station in Cos Cob on the night of April 24, making off with $324 in cash from the night attendant, it appeared he was carrying a handgun.

Byers, 35, who pleaded guilty this week to five separate robberies in the region, was actually carry a television remote control that he had tucked into his waistband. When he pulled up his shirt, it appeared to be the grip of a handgun, according to the plea agreement he entered into this week with the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Byers, who will be sentenced in January and faces up to 20 years in jail, has been cooperating with authorities and struck a plea deal for leniency. He was accused of three robberies in Greenwich, and two on Long Island, N.Y.  as well as endangering the public through high-speed escapes from police .

It put everybody at risk, commented Greenwich police Lt. John Slusarz. The guilty plea this week, he said, was a very satisfying conclusion.

Greenwich police have been interviewing Byers, who was extradited back to Connecticut in August following his arrest in San Diego, his hometown. Byers, a part-time fitness model whose racy poses on book covers and social-media sites gained him notoriety, drove across the U.S. in stolen vehicles after his East Coast crime spree.

Town police have been networking with their counterparts in New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona, California and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, building an airtight case against Byers and establishing a timeline of his criminal activities.

The cooperation with different agencies has been phenomenal. Cooperation, exchange of information  across the board, across the country, top notch, said Lt. Slusarz, and local investigators had devoted dozens of hours to the case.

Much coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement, added a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney, Tom Carson.

When Byers robbed the Chase bank in Riverside for the second time, he went to the same teller. You know why Im here, he said, according to the court papers.

Byers was wearing a light blue bandanna during all the robberies. He told investigators he had come to the East Coast to connect with a woman living in central Greenwich, with whom he had a previous relationship.

According to federal legal papers, Byers used some guile  and luck  to evade capture.

After he was confronted by Greenwich police on April 28, having a drink at J House a block away from the Chase bank he had robbed twice, Byers took off in a Range Rover. He ditched that vehicle on I-95 and then escaped on foot. At a bar in Port Chester, N.Y., Byers obtained (another) Range Rover by pretending to be a valet.

He was lucky in the choice of vehicle he stole  the puncture resistant tires on that vehicle allowed him to run over a spike strip deployed by the Pennsylvania State Police near Harrisburg, Pa. He was able to continue driving for some distance despite the deflated tires, according to the plea agreement.

In Pennsylvania, he manged to steal a pick-up truck from a driveway, an unlocked vehicle that had the keys inside of it.

Byers also led Arizona State Police on a two-mile high-speed chase, before abandoning the vehicle and fleeing on foot.

The bank robber was eventually captured in San Diego on May 2.

Facing a raft of criminal charges, Byers took a plea deal and agreed to plead guilty on a federal robbery charge. He is also required to make restitution of $14,753.

Greenwich police recovered the clothing he wore during the local robberies from the Range Rover, as well as a small dog that Byers was traveling with. No weapons were recovered.

The robber will be sentenced in Hartford on Jan. 30, and he is being held in federal custody.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
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NEW HAVEN  On Jan. 5, 1943, a bomber formation of six B-17 Flying Fortresses plus six B-24 Liberators took off from an airfield in Papua New Guinea to attack Rabaul, the Japanese foothold in the South Pacific about 500 miles northeast, on the island of New Britain.

The lead aircraft was a B-17F called the San Antonio Rose, and aboard were two high-ranking observers, Maj. Jack W.

Bleasdale and Brig. Gen. Kenneth N. Walker, along with the Flying Fortress nine-man crew.

The San Antonio Rose was last seen heading into a cloud, pursued by Japanese fighters, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who on Friday announced that a bipartisan Senate coalition has introduced a resolution to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the loss of the San Antonio Rose on Jan. 5, 2018, and to pledge to continue the search for the lost aircraft.

Blumenthal, D-Conn., made the announcement in the rotunda of Yale Universitys Woolsey Hall, its interior walls inscribed with hundreds of names of Yale graduates who were killed in action from the Civil War to the present.

The crew of the San Antonio Rose must never be forgotten, he said. We must honor their memory through continuing this search to fulfill our nations promise to finally bring these heroes home.

Perilous mission

More Information Crew of the San Antonio Rose Pilot: Major Allen Lindberg Co-Pilot: Captain Benton H. Daniel Bombardier: 2nd Lt. Robert L. Hand Navigator 1st Lt. John W. Hanson Engineer Sgt Dennis T. Craig Radio Sgt Quentin W. Blakely Gunner Sgt Leslie A. Stewart Gunner Pvt Leland W. Stone Gunner Pfc William G. Fraser Observer Major Jack W. Bleasdale Observer Brigadier General Kenneth N. Walker See More Collapse

Blumenthal was accompanied by Douglas Walker, 84, who was 10 years old when his father  the highest-ranking American to go missing in action on a combat mission during World War II  led the Fifth Bomber Command.

Gen. Walker would frequently fly on missions so he could best understand what his airmen were up against, and he survived a number of scrapes. Bombers making the run to Rabaul were often hit with flack and attacked by fighter aircraft.

He was a charming, stylish guy and a man who was totally committed to his work, His son said. He was part of the group to write the Air War Plan prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.

Douglas Walker, of New Canaan, said its believed that his father was sitting in the co-pilots seat on the San Antonio Roses fateful flight.

He managed to bail out  one of two to bail out  and its believed that he was subsequently interrogated and later executed by the Japanese, Walker said. It was from that interrogation  and we have the translations  that the location of the aircraft might be determined.

Vance R. Tiede, an archaeology professor who searches for clues from the past through satellite surveys, said the technology to find the missing B-17 has advanced to the point where a search would likely succeed.

Youre dealing with triple-layer canopy rain forest, Tiede said. There are at least six other allied aircraft that went down in that general area, and its only in the last 10 or 15 years that weve been able to find an airframe hiding in the jungle like that.

Strategy of persistence

The San Antonio Rose was part of the 64th Bombardment Squadron; the six B-24 Liberators were from the 90th Bombardment Group.

Tiede said that the missing B-17 is likely in a 200-square-kilometer area on New Britain, a volcanic island that appears as a smile in charts of the South Pacific.

Rabaul, on the northeastern tip of the island, is where the Japanese had their massive army and navy South Pacific headquarters. The base was heavily defended by more than 360 anti-aircraft batteries and an estimated 97,000 Japanese soldiers and sailors were garrisoned there. They were supported by 2,000 to 3,000 slaves, Allied prisoners and prostitutes.

Rather than attempt to overrun such a huge enemy base, the strategy of the Allies  largely crafted by Walker  was to stage almost daily bombing runs to harass the Japanese and interrupt supply lines. By early 1945, this strategy was paying off; by that time soldiers there survived by growing vegetables and by commandeering food from the indigenous people.

We can never forget and never give up on the men and women who are missing in action, Blumenthal said. This resolution pledges that we will continue the search and recovery of this lost aircraft.

Blumenthal said that the resolution is totally bipartisan.

Im representing some 20 relatives of that B-17 crew who, along with me, have sought help with this effort to bring back the dead, Walker said. He was accompanied at the announcement by his wife, Susan Edmands.

General Walker was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The entire crew of the San Antonio Rose was officially declared dead on Dec. 12, 1945.

jburgeson@ctpost.com
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Each November, as Thanksgiving looms closer, America begins to pay more attention to an issue that is prevalent around the country year-round: hunger.

Between the years of 2016-18, an average of 12.4 percent of Connecticut households were food insecure, according to most recent data from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A little over four percent of those households were considered to be "very low food secure households."

These numbers have declined slightly since the period of 2013-15 when 13.1 percent of Connecticut households were food insecure, but a more troubling statistic is the increasing number of people who experience actual hunger in Connecticut.

Despite the fact that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has shown that there has been a drop in food insecurity across the country, the drop in Connecticut has been smaller, Paul Shipman, spokesperson for the Connecticut Food Bank, told Hearst in 2018.

Feeding America, which helps support the Connecticut Food Bank, as well as over 200 food banks across the country, releases an annual Food Insecurity Report breaking down hunger amongst the 50 states. The most recent report shows thatthe food insecurity rate in Connecticut in 2017 was 11.3.

According to the 2017 Feeding America report, Litchfield County experienced the least food insecurity with a rate of 9.3 percent, followed by Fairfield County at 9.4 percent, Tolland County at 9.6 percent and Middlesex County at 9.7 percent.

More News Stats: Hunger and poverty in Connecticut

New Haven County is in worse shape with a 12.1 percent food insecurity rate. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven supports local food banks and organizations battling hunger in the Greater New Haven area, which extends beyond just New Haven County to include parts of the Valley.

In 2016, the foundation published The Community Progress Report, which found that "14 percent of Greater New Haven, and nearly one in four New Haven residents, did not have enough money for food," Matthew Higbee, the Research and Communications Officer, Grantmaking and Strategy, told Hearst in 2017.

One issue that the Connecticut Food Bank has seen is the number of individuals who working more than one job, yet cannot afford to put food on the table.

"What has become more apparent is that the people who visit us are working. They are working one or more jobs but they still struggle to make ends meet," said Shipman in 2018.

Shipman attributed this to the rising cost of living in Connecticut.

"Hunger impacts every community," said Shipman. "People would be shocked to know that they may have neighbors who are struggling because of a sudden loss of a job or a health emergency."
On Thursday evening, members of the Australian fashion industry gathered in Sydney's Barangaroo for the prestigious Fashion Laureate Awards.

And in addition to the night's main accolade, a number of other popular designers were awarded across categories including Best Womenswear and Best Accessories Designer.

Here, FEMAIL takes a look at the winners and why their clothes are being worn by some of the most in-demand and high profile celebrities and influencers around the world.

The Australian fashion industry gathered for the Fashion Laureate Awards (pictured left are Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning of P.E Nation and right are Nicky and Simone Zimmermann)

DION LEE: AUSTRALIAN FASHION LAUREATE WINNER

Regarded by many as one of the most innovative talents in the fashion world, Dion Lee was thrilled to win such a prestigious award.

Hailing from Sydney, Dion Lee is known for his sharp cuts and chic tailored pieces with modern technical twists.

Since first launching in Australia, his sculptural clothes are now sold in 60 of the worlds most exclusive retailers including Net-A-Porter, Bergdorf Goodman, Selfridges and David Jones.

A number of celebrities have donned his signature minimalistic designs including Kendall Jenner, who recently stepped out in the label's $890 Paper Towel Pullover.

The designer is also a favourite of Montana Cox, Nadia Fairfax and Carmen Hamilton.

Regarded by many as one of the most innovative talents in the fashion world, Dion Lee was thrilled to win such a prestigious award (pictured is Kendall Jenner in the label's $890 Paper Towel Pullover)

Abbey Gelmi and Kate Waterhouse both wore Dion Lee dresses at Randwick for the races

Hailing from Sydney, Dion Lee is known for his sharp cuts and chic tailored pieces with modern technical twists

ZIMMERMANN: BEST AUSTRALIAN WOMENSWEAR

Known for their feminine frills, colourful prints and intricately made pieces, it's no surprise that Zimmermann took out the Best Womenswear award.

Founded by Sisters Nicky and Simone in 1991, the stunning label has wowed fashion-lovers with their beautiful ready to wear collections and playful swim designs at fashion weeks around the world.

The label has also been the recipient of multiple fashion awards including the Australian Fashion Laureate and Best Swim Designer - Prix de Marie Claire.

Celebrities who have rocked the brand include Paris Jackson, Miranda Kerr, the Duchess of Cambridge and Elle Macpherson.

Margot Robbie also stepped out in the label recently, opting for their stunning $2,950 Painted Heart Sun Dress which featured an intricate lace trim detail and sheer sleeves.

Known for their feminine frills, colourful prints and intricately made pieces, it's no surprise that Zimmermann took out the Best Womenswear award

Margot Robbie stepped out in the label recently, opting for their stunning $2,950 Painted Heart Sun Dress which featured an intricate lace trim detail and sheer sleeves

Jesinta Campbell often wears Zimmermann pieces and global superstar Gwen Stefani recently donned one of the brands signature dresses

DINOSAUR DESIGNS: BEST AUSTRALIAN ACCESSORIES

Crafted by hand in Australia, all homewares and pieces of jewellery sent out by Dinosaur Designs are a little different.

Created by couple Louise Olsen and Stephen Ormandy, Dinosaur Designs is all about resin.

'We love the contrast in textures that's created by adding elements of silver, brass and glass to each collection and we're always asking 'what's next?' as we get excited by the creative process and the journey it takes you on,' they said recently.

The jewellery in their latest collection, Atmosphere, is described as 'festive and fun' and features Boulder Bangles, Rock Cluster Pendants and Riverstone earrings.

A favourite in photoshoots and editorials across the world, the jewellery by Dinosaur Designs has been worn by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, who wore their Pebble Hoop Earrings in a music video, Brooke Testoni and Rachael Finch.

Crafted by hand in Australia, all homewares and pieces of jewellery sent out by Dinosaur Designs are a little different

The jewellery by Dinosaur Designs has been worn by the likes of Brooke Testoni and Rachael Finch

Jennifer Lopez wore their Pebble Hoop Earrings in a music video

P.E NATION: EMERGING TALENT AWARD

Established in Sydney by Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning in 2016, P.E Nation has gone from strength to strength.

Described as having a 'street-meets-sportswear' aesthetic, the label is all about activewear, retro-inspired streetwear, fun footwear and on-trend eyewear.

It was launched after the pair saw a gap in the market for 'multi-faceted activewear' and since, their pieces are some of the most easily identifiable on the market.

Worn by the likes of Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid and Kayla Itsines, the label is a hit with celebrities and is stocked on international shopping sites, Net-a-Porter and Selfridges.

'Like many women I'm time poor, so I like to wear clothes that will see me through the day, from meetings to workouts,' Pip told FEMAIL previously.

'Why shouldn't we have fashionable and functional clothes in the one garment?'

Established in Sydney by Pip Edwards (pictured) and Claire Tregoning in 2016, P.E Nation has gone from strength to strength

Pictured is model Melissa Whitelaw in a number of their designs

JAC+JACK: BEST AUSTRALIAN MENSWEAR

Started in 2004 by Jacqueline Hunt and Lisa Dempsey, Jac+Jak has grown into a brand known for its high-quality androgynous everyday clothing

The clean cut collections are known for their unstructured designs, sophisticated yet relaxed styles, natural yarns and neutral tones.

Fans of the label include Anna Feller, Jordan Turner and Chloe Hill.
A bottle of Aldi Shiraz has proven that wine lovers don't need to fork out a fortune to enjoy a high quality drop.

The $6.99 One Road Shiraz recently took out the top prize in the Great Australian Shiraz Challenge - an event described as the most 'prestigious' single class wine competition.

The One Road Shiraz is described as a 'medium bodied red' and is 'clean and fruit driven with no sign of wood'.

Aldi's $6.99 One Road Shiraz recently took out the top prize in the Great Australian Shiraz Challenge - an event described as the most 'prestigious' single class wine competition

The One Road Shiraz is described as a 'medium bodied red' and is 'clean and fruit driven with no sign of wood'

'The aromas of plum and spice continue on the palate, with ripe and powdery tannins to finish,' the description reads.

The humble red, which is sold at Aldi stores across Australia, beat more than 200 bottles of Shiraz to take out the gold, including a $375 2013 vintage by Bird in Hand.

Other wines that rated lower than the Aldi Shiraz included a $250 2014 bottle from Mount Pleasant Wines and a $200 2012 bottle from Wolf Blass Wines.

The humble red, which is sold at Aldi stores across Australia, beat more than 200 bottles of Shiraz to take out the gold, including a $375 2013 vintage by Bird in Hand

Other affordable wines that received gold 2015 Taylors Special Release Shiraz by Taylors Wines, $14.99 2016 White Label Shiraz by Alkoomi Wines, $15 2016 Thomas Goss Shiraz by Galvanized Wine Group, $15 2016 Red Knot Shiraz by Shingleback Wine, $15 2016 Sth Coast Shiraz by Shingleback Wine, $15 2016 Shingleback Haycutters Shiraz by Shingleback Wine, $18 Advertisement

This isn't the first time the wine has received an award, with the drop taking out double gold and the Best Value Shiraz of the Year award at the 2017 Melbourne International Wine Competition.

It was also awarded the Best Value Buy at the Winestate Annual Edition in 2016.

But Australian blogger, the Travelling Corkscrew, recently tried the wine to see what 'all the fuss was about' and wasn't overly impressed.

'I have consumed a lot of Shiraz recently, and to be honest, I wasnt wowed by this one. It was drinkable yes, and its definitely affordable at $7 but to be honest I wouldnt buy it,' she wrote.

'The nose evokes thoughts of chocolate covered liquorice, cherries and vanilla sugar. In the mouth its easy drinking with a medium to light body and plenty of fruitiness with Ribena nuances.

ALDI's Blackstone Paddock Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 was awarded Gold at the prestigious Royal Adelaide Wine Awards

'Its uncomplicated and Id suggest it as a very palate friendly tipple for those on a budget and/or starting out on drinking red wine due to its extremely light and fruity nature.'

In October, their Blackstone Paddock Margaret River Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 was awarded Gold in the Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 vintage class at the prestigious Royal Adelaide Wine Awards.

Only 2,000 wines are accepted into the competition each year, making it an exclusive contest.

The red wine is award winning without the hefty price tag as it costs less than $20, retailing for $17.99.

'A wine of elegance, class and structure with powerful plum, blackcurrant, truffles and smokey olive characters,' the website reads.

The $17.99 alcohol beat a $74.99 bottle, Brand's Laira One Seven One Cabernet Sauvignon, which took silver

The $17.99 alcohol beat a $74.99 bottle, Brand's Laira One Seven One Cabernet Sauvignon, which took silver, and was was one of only eight bottles awarded Gold.

Before this, ALDI's The Pond Cabernet Sauvignon, which retails for AUD $6.99, was awarded Top Gold at the Rutherglen Wine Show.

ALDI's buying director, Jason Bowyer, previously told Daily Mail Australia that the quality and value equation is the most important aspect.

Before this, ALDI's The Pond Cabernet Sauvignon, which retails for AUD $6.99, was awarded Top Gold at the Rutherglen Wine Show

'We pride ourselves on sourcing products of the highest quality, and these award wins are testament to the excellent calibre of the Australian suppliers we work with,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'It enables us to deliver to high standards that are in line with our customers' tastes, by bench marking product specifications against market leading wine brands.

'A $10 wine at ALDI should drink like a $20 - $25 wine from elsewhere, and we consistently deliver on this formula.'
A couple who held their same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom because there was no option to marry in Australia, were forced apart by tragedy then reunited in a touching way.

Lisa Harris and Hayley Angell originally met in Australia and later moved together to the UK. In 2014, the pair were engaged in Paris, and in 2015 they walked down the aisle.

While a wedding in Australia would have been preferable, Hayley said this wasn't an option at the time because of Australia's laws on same sex marriage.

'It was quite difficult knowing that my parents wouldn't be able to come to the wedding,' she told FEMAIL.

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Lisa Harris (pictured left) and Hayley Angell (pictured right) have been managing their relationship long-distance since Valentine's Day

The pair have been managing their relationship between their home in Glasgow and Australia after the tragic news Hayley's father's tongue cancer had become terminal.

The shocking news forced Lisa and Hayley to separate just after Valentine's Day, and not long after Hayley's dad died. Since then Hayley has been living in Australia, taking care of her mum who suffers Muscular Dystrophy.

'It has been difficult being here in Australia during the whole same-sex marriage debate as well as dealing with the emotional challenge of being away.

'Being dragged through the arguments and negativity of same-sex marriage has been hard to take.

'To have my marriage degraded or ranked as lesser while being separated has been difficult at times,' she said.

Though the couple resolved to stay together, distance was was taking it's toll, which prompted Lisa, a police officer, to write to British Airways BA Magic campaign and share their story.

Hayley lost her father to cancer shortly after she returned to Australia and has been supporting her mum Debbie (pictured centre) in Australia since

Working with Lisa, Debbie (Hayley's mum) and her boss Adam, the BA Magic team planned the surprise of a lifetime.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Hayley revealed she was beyond words after finding she would be travelling to London business class, with her mother, to see her wife, Lisa.

'It all happened so fast and was like a dream and a fairy tale. One day I was at a conference, the next I was in a British Airways business class seat on my way to London to be reunited with my wife!' said Hayley.

Hayley described the moment she found out she would be travelling to London to see Lisa as 'a dream come true'

'In hindsight there were a few things that were a little strange like mum wanted to buy a new pair of slippers and it's coming up to an Aussie summer.

The trip of a lifetime saw Hayley and her mum 'given the royal treatment' all the way to London, with flight attendants going above and beyond to make sure Debbie, whose movement is limited due to her condition, was as comfortable as possible.

'I just kept thinking "Who does this happen to?", Hayley said of the experience.

Hayley was surprised with the gift at a conference after Lisa wrote to the BA Magic campaign explaining their situation

'You hear these sorts of stories and you don't even imagine you will know the people let alone your the one in it.'

'The biggest thing was coming to terms with all of this was possibly happening to me.'

Lisa greeted Hayley and Debbie at the airport with their dog Hettie before the trio set about sightseeing in the capital.

Lisa greeted Hayley and Debbie at the airport with their dog Hettie

'I barely slept a wink the night before they arrived and Hettie and I were at the airport bright and early waiting for the flight. It was so wonderful to see them both appear through arrivals and we had the most amazing time seeing friends and family,' said Lisa.

The two week adventure saw Debbie and Hayley travel to Darbyshire for 9 days - Lisa's hometown and where the couple had married in 2015, and then on to London for five fun-filled days.

While the trio took in all the sights, Lisa had planned an extra special surprise for Hayley for her birthday which had been just before she traveled.

The two-week adventure included a trip to Darbyshire where Lisa and Debbie were married in 2015

The trio took in all the sights London had to offer, capturing new memories along the way

No trip to the British capital would be complete without a spot of high tea

'When we were living in London I had always wanted to see the show The Book of Mormon on the West End.

'We could never get tickets, and when they were available they were hundreds of pounds.

'My actual birthday present from Lisa was tickets to see the Book of Mormon which was genius and so brilliant.'

Lisa and Hayley made the most of their time together since tragedy forced them apart

Apart from being reunited with her wife Lisa, Hayley said the most special part of her trip was being able to share the adventure with her mum.

'She'd never been on a long-haul flight before and it would have been Dad's dream to take her on holiday like this.

'It has awakened so many possibilities within her. This is just the beginning of a new chapter and I know there are many adventures in store for her yet.'

Apart from being reunited with her wife Lisa, Hayley said the most special part of her trip was being able to share the adventure with her mum

Carolina Martinoli, British Airways' director of brand and customer experience, said: 'As soon as we read Lisa's email, we wanted to help. They've all had an incredibly tough time and it was in our gift to make a big difference.

'It looks like they've had an amazing trip to London and we were delighted to hear that it has opened up a world of travel for Debbie again and shortened the distance between Lisa and Hayley seeing each other next. It's lovely that we've been able to help them create some incredible memories and we wish them all the very best for the future.'

The airline has requested that other customers who have booked a trip with them to email their stories in, in the hope of making their trip a little bit more magical.

Hayley said the couple would most likely look to reuniting permanently in the United Kingdom next year.
Plenty of people need a little liquid encouragement to help them get through the holidays with their families  and one company is looking to make that Christmastime booze habit a bit more festive.

Santa's Flask, a product by Party Flasks, looks just like a red-and-white Christmas stocking that would be hung from the mantle during the holidays.

But instead of getting stuffed with candy, knick-knacks, and other small gifts, this particular stocking is meant to be filled with alcohol.

Ho ho ho, chug chug chug! The company Party Flask is selling a giant flask that looks like a Christmas stocking

Making family time easier: Called Santa's flask, it holds 2.25 liters of liquid

The flasks are on sale for $19.99 on Amazon and shaped like a traditional flask. But instead of a fur-trimmed opening at the top, there is a screw-off cap, so people can pour in their drinks of choice.

Each flask, which is made from soft BPA-free, FDA-approved plastic, holds 2.25 liters of liquid  which is about three bottles of wine, or three full 750ml bottles of hard liquor.

The company, though, recommends mixing drinks before a party and pouring the entire cocktail inside.

They also suggest carrying one around during SantaCon, the annual event in which people dress up in Santa suits and bar-hop.

Share with your elves: It can be filled with wine or mixed drinks and includes a hook so it can be hung from a mantle

Times for some reindeer games: The festive item sells for $19.99 on Amazon

Much needed: recent study found that 49% of respondents thought their families were more tolerable while drinking

Perfect accessory: The 'flasks' can also be carried around during SantaCon

Reviews for the novelty item are overwhelmingly positive.

'It's a conversation piece for sure and gets a lot of laughs,' wrote one.

Though the company also makes specialty flasks with American, Canadian, British, and Australian flags, the Santa one is in high-demand  no doubt to an increase in drinking during this time of year.

In fact, a recent study found that 49 per cent of respondents thought their families were more tolerable while drinking.
A boutique lingerie chain has come under fire for displaying bikini-clad women in its raunchy Christmas advertisements in shopping centres.

Australian label Honey Birdette, known for its racy collections and risque campaigns, recently launched the new wild office-party themed campaign.

The eye-popping ad features stunning models, who 'party the night away', dressed in an array of intricately designed pieces, including bodysuits and suspenders.

But shoppers were far from impressed, with some calling for the life-sized banners to be removed from store windows at shopping centres.

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Lingerie chain Honey Birdette has come under fire for displaying bikini-clad women in its raunchy Christmas advertisements in shopping centres

Nearly 20,000 people have signed the petition, calling for the label to pull the ads down from windows at shopping centres

Several others have weighed in on the controversial display, with many calling for the window banners to be taken down

Several others have weighed in on the controversial display, with many calling for the window banners to be taken down.

'I'd like to see the same ban in place at Macquarie Centre Ryde,' one said.

'It's absurd to claim empowerment when it's actually subjugation, or that the complaints of ordinary families shouldn't be upheld when in a family shopping centre. Do the right thing!'

Another posted: 'I'm dismayed each time I walk past and see the huge photos... and see primary and high school students and even preschoolers looking and... sigh.'

And another wrote on the company's Facebook page, saying 'You are a disgrace, the shopping centre imaging is not empowering.

'Why do parents need to explain to children in a shopping centre what you are promoting ...WESTFIELD get with the times.'

The ad shows the models dressed in an array of intricately designed pieces - from lace bodysuits and suspenders to ivory lace sets and black Shibari-inspired sets worth $300

Sydney mother Kat Israel said she had to steer cleared of the store at Macquarie Centre with her young children because it displays 'soft porn images'.

'People can buy what they like and that's fine but I think they shouldn't be allowed to have that sort of advertising there in a public space,' she told Fairfax Media.

Nearly 20,000 people have signed a petition within three days in an effort to stop the chain from 'using porn-style advertising in Westfield'.

Melbourne father of three Kenneth Thor, who set up the petition, said his 'heart sank' when he stumbled across the bright glossy shop front window of the store.

'This shop front featured near naked women clad only with sheer lingerie in all their raunchy glory,' he said.

'These images are not something that I wanted my young kids to see, so I hurried past hoping that my kids would not notice.'

The eye-popping ad features stunning models who 'party the night away' at an office party

The eye-popping ad features stunning models, who 'party the night away', dressed in lingerie

He said he was stunned when his four-year-old daughter asked him 'Look! Why is she not wearing any clothes?'

'Even worse, her shrieks caught the attention of my six-year-old son, who came running and together they stared and pointed at the porn-style images trying to make sense of them,' he said.

'I remember feeling sad. Sad that my kids had to see these types of images and be exposed to adult concepts so young.

'The posters depicting women in hyper-sexualised poses and various states of undress introduces concepts of pornography and sexuality to a hapless public, including little 4-year-old girls like my daughter.'

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, founder of Honey Birdette Eloise Monaghan said the 'sad' claims made against her label are 'ridiculous'.

'For 11 years we've been empowering women and we're going to keep doing what we do,' Ms Monaghan said.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, founder of Honey Birdette Eloise Monaghan said the 'sad' claims made against her label are 'ridiculous'

She said she believed her advertisement display was no different to those of swimsuit companies.

Ms Monaghan said she wonders why the complainants don't embrace what the company is trying to do instead of body shaming, adding people are likely to see more flesh at Bondi Beach.

'It's a positive message, we embrace all body types. There's been more happy tears cried on the shop floor of Honey Birdette than sad,' she continued.

'I don't care about the 20,000 people  we have 250,000 on our data base. We're in Los Angeles, we're in London, we don't have any issues there, these girls are fashion models and not in porn.'

A Macquarie Centre spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia said: 'All customer feedback is valuable to us and we always pass it on to individual retailers. We also encourage our customers to contact the retailers themselves.

'We've been in touch with Honey Birdette about its advertising following some customer feedback, and have encouraged these concerned customers to do the same.'

Shoppers were far from impressed, with some calling for the life-sized banners to be removed from store windows at shopping centres

And it's not the first time Honey Birdette defended a campaign after their 'Issy' ads were banned from stores after a flood of complaints.

The image, which showed two women in lacy black lingerie, was reviewed by the Australian Ad Standards Bureau as it was one of seven ads displayed on digital billboards in stores and therefore visible to children in shopping centres.

As a result it was found to be in breach of Section 2.4 of the Code which states that 'Advertising or Marketing Communications shall treat sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Westfields for comment.
Living in a palace with access to billions of pounds worth of jewels, most people would assume the Queens class status would go without question.

But despite her palatial living quarters, the Queen is distinctly lower middle-class, according to left-wing author Zadie Smith.

The author cited the 91-year-old monarchs morning routine - breakfast from a Tupperware container alongside a copy of the Racing Post - as an example of her lower class tendencies.

Despite her palatial living quarters, the Queen is distinctly lower middle-class, according to left-wing author Zadie Smith (pictured)

Writing in Vogue, she said: She appears, in our mental picture of her, as distinctly lower middle-class.

I think this is what accounts for her relative popularity, as compared to her clan - that touch of Mrs Windsor.

Describing the Queen as suburban, her prized corgis also took a bashing for their squat bodies and stubby legs.

The writer said greyhounds or King Charles spaniels would be a better fit for an upper-class woman.

Describing the Queen as suburban, her prized corgis also took a bashing for their squat bodies and stubby legs

And while her children and grandchildren are recognisable aristocratic types, the Queen has more of a common touch, the Man Booker Prize nominee said.

Her television preferences - reportedly EastEnders and the Bill - are also telling, according to the republican author.

She wrote: Did ever a monarch seem more likely to prefer a nice flowery pelmet curtain to a white wooden shutter?

Or a staycation (in front of the telly) to a glamorous Tuscan retreat or Caribbean break?

Of the Queens voice, the 42-year-old observed: The only thing I can compare it to is the kind of voice your mum puts on when someone important is on the phone.

Instead of the Queen of the hunt, Im pretty sure the Queen you have in your mind is the one who puts a fiver on the 3.15 at Goodwood.

Miss Smith, author of White Teeth, The Autograph Man and NW, also cited the Queens apparent like for cornflakes, most cakes, gin and Dubonnet as examples of her lower class lifestyle.

And speaking monarchs tendency to wear black court shoes with a buckle, a headscarf and a tweed skirt she said: To put it in lower-middle-class terms, she found what suited her and she stuck to it, a sentiment as familiar to British women up and down the nation as its aesthetic twin: I dont know a lot about art but I know what I like.

But despite questioning the purpose of the monarchy, the Cambridge-educated author admitted she was moved by scenes of the Queen supporting Grenfell Tower victims.

She wrote: Republican that I am, I was not unmoved to see the Queen appear at Grenfell.

In better times it might be easy to sneer, but when a technocratic, coolly calculated political figure shies away from the benighted people she claims to lead, you can see how even a purely symbolic figure will be warmly received.
The Duchess of York has been proud of her work as an ambassador for water charity the Aquiva Foundation

The Duchess of York has been proud of her work as an ambassador for water charity the Aquiva Foundation.

But now there are questions over the foundations future, perhaps her celebrity support may dry up.

Sarah Ferguson became an ambassador of the Aquiva Foundation after meeting its CEO, a German entrepreneur called Florian Bollen, at a charity event.

The Duchesss photo was displayed on the Aquiva Foundations website, which called her very engaged with the eco-charitys work bringing affordable drinking water to people in need.

The foundation even boasted that Prince Andrews ex-wife used her network of connections to spread the word about the water crises in developing countries.

However, the foundations website has recently been taken down, its contact email bounces back, and the charity is in hot water for failing to file its accounts on time.

Due to the delay, the Charity Commission is contacting the Aquiva Foundations trustees, as part of its commitment to uphold transparency.

The Commission served the Aquiva Foundation with a default notice earlier this year for failing to file its 2014 accounts. The documents were eventually submitted 524 days late.

In its most recent accounts available, for 2015, the Aquiva Foundation had income of just 250, compared to 52,300 the previous year.

When I called the charitys accountants to ask whether the Aquiva Foundation is still operational, one employee said: I cant give you any information. Bollen set up the charity in 2011.

He previously made a living building giant observation wheels, but two of the projects  the Great Berlin Wheel and the Beijing Great Wheel  were never built because of the financial crisis. He is now thought to be involved in the brewing industry.

Sarah Ferguson became an ambassador of the Aquiva Foundation after meeting its CEO, a German entrepreneur called Florian Bollen, at a charity event

A spokesman for the Charity Commission says: All charities are required to provide information about their income and expenditure each year in order to uphold transparency  a key driver of public trust in charities.

The Aquiva Foundation is late filing its accounts so we will be engaging with the trustees to ensure that they comply with their reporting requirements.

Sarah Fergusons spokesman was contacted for comment.

Boris Beckers boy is a doubles match for dad

When Boris Beckers second wife Lilly gave birth to their son seven years ago, the former Wimbledon ace was struck by his own similarity to little Amadeus  and joked: I really hope that will change and hell look more like his mother.

But as Dutch model Lilly proved this week by posting a picture of Boris as a child (right) next to one of Amadeus, his wish has not come true.

He has his chin, his eyes and nose, its very scary, Lilly, 41, has said of their likeness. He only has my ears  nothing else.

When Boris Beckers second wife Lilly gave birth to their son seven years ago, the former Wimbledon ace was struck by his own similarity to little Amadeus  and joked: I really hope that will change and hell look more like his mother. But as Dutch model Lilly proved this week by posting a picture of Boris as a child (right) next to one of Amadeus, his wish has not come true

Former Vogue cover girl Edie Campbell has opened up about abuse in the fashion industry, and claims men suffer more than women.

Abuse suffered by young men is more complex. Id assume it is more difficult for the victims to speak out, she says. The shame felt is probably greater as there is a stigma involved.

The abuse can be perceived as emasculating, and then there is the delicate subject of homophobia.

The global conversation about sexual abuse has been focused on female victims. The statistics add up. But when you zoom in on the fashion industry, Id assume the numbers are much more evenly split between male and female victims.

Within fashion, the discussion then becomes less about toxic masculinity and patriarchy, and more about abuse of power.

This summer Edie, 27, goddaughter of Conde Nast president Nicholas Coleridge, and sister Olympia threw a birthday bash dubbed the louchest party of the year.
Parents concerned with their children's cell phone and tablet use may now have technology at their fingertips to help them set digital limits.

According to research conducted by Google, 50 per cent of kids in Australia between the ages of two and 12 now have their own phone or tablet.

Though most families will want to take an active role in monitoring their child's internet use, enforcing boundaries can often be more difficult.

Research conducted by Google shows 50 per cent of 50% of kids in Australia between the ages of 2-12 now have their own phone or tablet

Family Link - a new app developed by Google allows parents to regulate a host of behaviours

The launch of Family Link - a new app developed by Google - will no doubt come as a digital godsend to many Australian parents faced with the challenges of managing their kids' online activity.

How parental controls can keep kids safe They can set screen time limits

Block in-app purchases

Block numbers and SMS

Allow or block websites

Restrict chat features

Allow parental monitoring

Block sexually explicit sites Source: esafety.gov.au Advertisement

The app, available on Android devices, helps parents or carers to regulate a host of behaviours including monitoring screen time, keeping an eye on the apps they use, as well as setting a bedtime.

'While no app can make apps or services that were designed for adults "child-safe," Family Link can help parents stay in the loop and set certain ground rules around how children use their devices,' Google said in a statement.

Esafety, the government's internet watchdog, said it was important parents to help kids use technology safely.

'Ultimately, the greatest help we can offer our children is to remain engaged in their online lives: being mindful of their interests, who theyre talking to online and what information theyre sharing,' a spokesperson from the organisation said via email.

Tools, such as Family Link, are easy for parents to set up on new factory reset Android devices. Those with Apple smartphones can also use a range of apps that offer similar functions.

Some of the newer options for Apple devices include Mobicip Parental Controls and Our Pact - both are available to download via itunes.

Cyberbullying and unsafe online behaviour has led to an increase in mental health issues, particularly among young people who use social media well below the age of 13

Police are also urging parents to take an active role in managing their children's online activity.

The Daily Telegraph reports ongoing problems with cyberbullying and unsafe online behaviour has led to an increase in mental health issues, particularly among young people who use social media well below the age of 13.

Police are also urging parents to take an active role in managing kids' online activity

'Society seems to think mobile phones are a requirement not a privilege, and many parents like to appease their children or be their friend rather than a parent unfortunately,' said Senior Constable Rob Paterson, Youth Liaison Officer at The Hills LAC.

'This can often be tied to no rules around phones or social media and no understanding by parents.'

Recommendations for staying safe online include parents having open discussions with their children about how to use electronic media safely.
Princess Dianas niece, Lady Kitty Spencer, is clearly enjoying her new modelling career.

She posed for a selfie in the mirror before a fashion shoot in Spain.

Wearing rollers  a la Corrie legend Hilda Ogden  and a white bathrobe, the 26-year-old daughter of Earl Spencer also sported a nude bodysuit.

Kitty, who recently split up with property tycoon Niccolo Barattieri, 45, couldnt contain her excitement. Cant wait to see the pictures! she wrote.

Princess Dianas niece, Lady Kitty Spencer, is clearly enjoying her new modelling career

Whoops! Lottie puts a lot on show

Kate Moss said she would never again wear those crotch-length mini dresses when she launched her own fashion line last year.

But her half-sister Lottie is more than happy to sport such provocative outfits.

Out in London this week, the 19-year-old Calvin Klein model braved the chilly weather to attend a fashion party in a pink negligee-style frock with a thigh-skimming hem and fitted bodice.

Unfortunately, she only realised while at the party that the thin material might not be enough to cover her derriere, so she held it down in a bid to preserve whats left of her modesty.

Kate Moss said she would never again wear those crotch-length mini dresses when she launched her own fashion line last year. But her half-sister Lottie is more than happy to sport such provocative outfits

Fired critic pours bile on publishing queen Brown

Tina Browns Vanity Fair diaries are out next week, but the publishing queen has come under extraordinary attack from a former theatre critic at The New Yorker, the magazine she edited in the Nineties.

Mimi Kramer, who was let go by Tina during that time, writes in a scathing blog posting: Brown fired more women staffers at The New Yorker than Elvis fires up engines in Viva Las Vegas... Brown did more to vulgarise and uglify American letters than any other single person in America.

According to Kramer, Brown accounts for why America boarded the Trump train: She helped create the cesspool that made it possible for someone like Donald Trump to become the President of the United States.

Comedian Jack Whitehalls father Michael, a former theatrical agent, is well house-trained by his actress wife, Hilary Gish. There are several things I do or dont do in our marriage  because after 30 years I know the alternatives wouldnt be worth it, admits Michael, 77. I have to clingfilm everything. I mustnt ask questions during soap operas. When we go out, I have to leave Radio 4 on for the dog. She says it needs the company.
She's the stunning Miss Universe Australia who will be up against 92 beauty contestants on the world stage.

And model Olivia Rogers, who hails from Adelaide, will be vying for the crown as she travels to Vegas on Friday for the Miss World pageant.

Appearing on The Morning Show, the 25-year-old speech pathologist was given a practice run on air before she embarks on her two-week trip.

Larry Emdur and his co-host Kylie Gillies decided to put Olivia to the test by quizzing her with questions that former contestants fielded while competing for the title.

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Olivia Rogers, who hails from Adelaide, will be vying for the crown at the Miss World pageant

One of the questions they asked was: 'If you won millions of dollars, what would you do with it?'.

'I think I'd probably start by paying off my university HECS debt because that's significant, and then...,' Olivia responded.

But Gillies interjected, saying: 'Oh no, I think we need to go charity first Olivia... We'll start that [question] again,' she said, as Edmur agreed, hinting: 'feed children'.

Prompting laughter from Olivia, she replied: 'I've got to feed the children. I'll divvy it out to all the charities that I care most about and the people who need it most.

'And then pay off my HECS.'

The young speech pathologist will be up against 92 beauty contestants on the world stage

The 25-year-old speech pathologist was quizzed by Larry Emdur and his co-host Kylie Gillies

The next question, Emdur asked: 'If you had to live your life over again, what part would you change?'

'If I was to live my life around, I think looking back, there's certainly things that have happened to me that I would've liked not to have happened,' Olivia said.

'But those things were out of my control. So I think, to live my life again, I wouldn't change anything.

'I think the challenges have made me more resilient and has made me the person I am today.'

Another question Emdur asked was: 'What is the relevance of a beauty pageant in society today?'

Olivia responded: 'The Miss Universe organisation as a whole is all about empowering women and encouraging them to be confident, their best self and step outside their comfort zone.

'For me, it's just being an amazing platform, and it enables me to be able to talk about things I'm passionate about and try and help others.'

The 25-year-old was given a practice run with some common pageant questions on air

Last month, the Miss Universe Australia unveiled her national costume inspired by 'Sydney Harbour during the Vivid light festival'

And the final question, Gillies asked: 'Jennifer Hawkins, Jesinta Campbell and Rachael Finch - they've all had success in the pageant, crown or no crown. What do you hope to achieve in the future?'

Olivia - who previously opened up about her battle with depression and anxiety - responded: 'I think continuing what I've started doing since winning, working with charities, using my voice to speak out about mental illness.

'And hopefully shake off some stigma around that - they're the things I'm most passionate about.'

Each of her response was met with a warm round of applause from the hosts.

Last month, the Miss Universe Australia unveiled her national costume inspired by 'Sydney Harbour during the Vivid light festival'.

The form-fitting bodice descended into a large Opera House-shaped mermaid skirt to bring the landmark to life and for a touch of drama, Olivia donned a large, tinsel-wrapped piece on her back that represented a fireworks display.

For a final surprise, the skirt's Opera House 'sails' comes complete with a glowing light to illustrate what the popular lights festival looks like.
A baby girl who was born prematurely at 25 weeks weighing a tiny 510 grams has defied the odds to celebrate her first birthday.

Little Billie Ava Stevens, from Brisbane, was given just a 30 to 40 per cent chance of survival after she was born on October 5 last year.

Her mother Brodie Soster was holidaying in New Zealand when she started to endure excruciating abdominal pain just two days into her trip.

She initially thought she was suffering a heartburn - but she ended up undergoing an emergency caesarean section after being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia - a potentially dangerous pregnancy complication caused by high blood pressure.

The baby girl spent the first 200 days of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit at a Christchurch hospital - until she was finally allowed home to Queensland.

And against all odds, the 35-year-old doting mother revealed the family recently hosted a birthday party for their baby girl, surrounded by loved ones.

Baby Billie Ava Stevens has defied the odds to celebrate her first birthday with her doting mother Brodie Soster (pictured together)

The girl was given just a 30 to 40 per cent chance of survival after she was born prematurely

'Celebrating her first birthday was amazing. It really was a celebration of her life in more ways than most would realise,' Ms Soster told Daily Mail Australia.

'If you told me a year ago we would be celebrating her first birthday I'm not sure I would believe you. We nearly lost her.

'Nearly losing your baby is not something any parent should endure. They were certainly our darkest days and there isn't a moment we don't think how lucky we really are.'

The young mother and her partner Scott only invited their immediate family members to join them on their daughter's special day.

'We didn't invite friends as Billie still has a weak immune system and we prefer not to expose her to too many people or children apart from her many cousins,' she said.

And for the first time after 391 days, little Billie has been able to breathe on her own without relying on her oxygen tank.

'Absolute relief and pride was what Scott and I felt once she was off the oxygen,' Ms Soster said.

'She had done it just like the doctors all said she eventually would.'

The family recently hosted a birthday party for their baby girl, filled with lots of presents

Against all odds, the 35-year-old and her partner Scott (right) recently hosted a birthday party for their baby daughter, surrounded by loved ones

After spending more than 190 days in hospital, Billie was finally allowed to fly home to Queensland after the brave youngster proved herself to be a fighter.

'The biggest challenge with Billie since being home has been her feeding,' she said.

'She was taking half of a bottle but now refuses any bottles which is why she's still tube fed. We are working with a speech therapist to get this sorted.'

Since being back in the comfort of their home, Ms Soster said the family have been keeping a close eye on her health.

'We don't take her to any crowded places like shopping centers or other kids parties. Family can't come near her when they are sick,' she said.

'I also haven't returned to work as she shouldn't be in daycare until at least two. If she gets sick, she will more than likely end up in hospital again as her lungs are still repairing themselves.

'We have been so lucky it didn't happen this horrible flu season but that's also from us being so vigilant.'

After spending more than 190 days in hospital, Billie was finally allowed to fly home to Queensland after the brave youngster proved herself to be a fighter

Since being back at their home, the family have been keeping a close eye on her health

Despite the difficulties in coping with the condition, Ms Soster said her daughter has never failed to make people adore her.

'Billie is going great. She is working on her eating skills so she can lose the feeding tube. She can sit unassisted and is working on crawling,' the mother said.

'It's pretty hard to put into words what we love about Billie the most. She is the most beautiful, resilient and stubborn person I know and we have the pleasure of calling her our daughter.

'And you wouldn't know what she has been through by looking at her. She's the most easy going and happy baby. Even when she is getting all of her teeth at once.'

Despite the difficulties in coping with the condition, Ms Soster said her daughter has never failed to make people adore her

The story comes more than a year after Ms Soster needed to deliver her baby immediately after she was diagnosed with a rare form of pre-eclampsia.

'I needed to deliver before it killed us both,' she previously told Nine News.

Ms Soster spent four days in hospital where she learned her baby daughter had not been growing for at least two weeks.

She was given a dose of steroids in an attempt to give Billie more time on the inside before she had to be delivered by an emergency C-section.

And after nearly 200 days in hospital, little Billie finally went home for the first time.

'We are very lucky. It could have easily been a different story,' Ms Soster told Daily Mail Australia.
She's scored herself one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, but Meghan Markle could have competition from three women battling it out to win a contract to work as her lookalike.

Or perhaps not.

The three Meghan lookalikes were unveiled on Lorraine on Friday morning, but viewers were underwhelmed by the contenders' supposed 'resemblance' to Prince Harry's girlfriend.

'Is this a joke?', asked one viewer on Twitter. While another chimed in: 'Apparently the only thing you need to be a Meghan Markle lookalike is a face.'

A third said their pet dog bore a closer resemblance to the actress than any of the front-runners in the search for a woman with the 'Markle sparkle'.

Lorraine viewers were left baffled by the show's search for a Meghan Markle lookalike, with many saying the women looked absolutely nothing like Prince Harry's girlfriend. (pictured: Emma Kaler, 19)

Ashleigh Ridding, 20, left, and Ria Ginley, 25, right were among the entrants. The winner will receive a 12-month contract with lookalike agency Susan Scott

Judges Lorraine Kelly, Royal Correspondent Camilla Tominey and Prince Harry lookalike, Henry Morley, whittled down the entrants to find three finalists they believe have that special 'Markle Sparkle'.

The winner, voted for by the public, will receive a 12-month contract with lookalike agency Susan Scott.

Emma Kaler, 19, is a performance artist who was entered by her boyfriend's grandmother. If she won, she says she'd love to use the platform to do more charity work and work with women's rights organisations.

'Is this a joke?', asked one user, while another even said that their pet dog looked more like the Suits star

Ashleigh Ridding, 20, is a trainee hairdresser, and is pictured with Prince Harry lookalike, Henry Morley

Emma Kaler, 19, is a performance artist who was entered by her boyfriend's grandmother. Ria Ginley, 25, is a full-time show jumper and thinks Meghan is an 'inspiration'

Ria Ginley, 25, is a full-time show jumper. Ria is a huge royalist and thinks Meghan is a great inspiration to other women, especially younger ladies.

Ria and her mum celebrated all morning upon learning she'd reached this stage of the competition.

Ashleigh Ridding, 20, is a trainee hairdresser. Ashleigh admires Meghan's humanitarian work.

She has been a princess before, dressing as Disney's Princess Jasmine for children's parties. Single Ashleigh admits she's keen to find her very own Prince Charming.
Lady Amelia Windsor proved winter dressing doesn't have to be dull as she stepped out for a cocktail party on Thursday night.

The society beauty looked fresh and feminine in a flirty floral dress for the event hosted by designer Bottega Veneta at Chiswick House, in west London.

The 22-year-old, who recently graduated from the University of Edinburgh, was on hand to celebrate the Italian fashion house's heritage at the stylish soiree.

Soft and feminine: Lady Amelia Windsor, 22, at the Bottega Veneta cocktail party last night

Glowing: The young royal looked radiant as she posed for photos outside the event

While her floaty blush pink dress would have been perfect for spring or summer, Lady Amelia made it look on-trend with a furry black coat and chunky pink heels.

In a show of support, Lady Amelia carried a Bottega Veneta Knot Clutch from the designer's upcoming resort 2018 collection.

The muted floral pattern updates the classic design for next season.

The young royal toughened up the romantic look with a number of chunky rings on her fingers.

She wore her long blonde hair in a side parting and kept it loose around her shoulders.

Flower power: Lady Amelia carried a Knot Clutch from the brand's Resort 2018 collection

Camera ready: Lady Amelia posed in front of a flower wall with food blogger Tess Ward

Outside the event, Lady Amelia, granddaughter of the Duke of Kent, posed in front of a flower wall with food blogger Tess Ward.

Tess, 27, looked elegant in a textured black suit and carried a black version of the same Bottega Veneta clutch.

She wore the jacket unbuttoned to reveal just a flash of a black structured bra top underneath.
A woman who was bullied because of her psoriasis and eczema revealed how she overcame low self-esteem to become a beauty queen.

Luissa Burton, 27, was branded a 'leper' and a 'lizard' by cruel classmates over the patches of dry skin caused by her eczema. She later developed psoriasis after suffering intense stress during her second year at the University of Nottingham.

Years of teasing left Miss Burton, from Worcester, feeling 'broken and dirty' over the way she looked. She described how strangers would sometimes stop to point and stare when they saw her skin, causing her to break down in tears on the street.

While Miss Burton still experiences flare-ups, she has overcame the crippling low self-esteem to follow her dream of becoming a model and has since competed in a string of beauty pageants around the world.

Beauty queen: Luissa Burton, 27, competing in the Miss Globe Beauty Pageant in Albania in 2012. She revealed how she overcame low self-esteem to realise her dreams of competing

Teased: Luissa branded a 'leper' and a 'lizard' by cruel classmates over the patches of dry skin caused by her eczema and she later developed psoriasis. Pictured, the patches on Luissa's legs

Leading by example: Luissa, pictured, now speaks about the importance of self-confidence

She said: 'It almost became a personal mission, to show people that I could be a successful model despite the condition.'

Luissa described the 'horrible' bullying she suffered at school, revealing how a lack of awareness about the condition led to her being isolated by her peers.

'Some of the parents told their kids that I had a tropical disease, and that if they sat next to me they would catch it too,' she said. 'I'd get patches all over my body, and people would call me names like "leper" and "lizard", which was horrific.

Bullied: Luissa, left aged 13 in 2003, was branded a 'leper' and 'lizard' by cruel classmates

'I just didn't want my skin to be there anymore, I just wanted to be rid of it. With the eczema, the flare-ups come and go, and when I was younger I found it really hard to come to terms with.'

However the schoolgirl discovered she had a love for performing from a young age and would 'always pose up for pictures and take part in plays at school'.

Glamorous: Luissa now travels the world for competitions. Pictured, in Albania in 2012

Luissa was scouted by a modelling agency while on a shopping trip aged 14 and started to take part in catwalks and pageants.

'It helped me to build up my confidence,' she said.

However she suffered a setback aged 19 when she developed psoriasis following a period of stress.

'It was absolutely all over my body, and every time that I started to get stressed out, it would come back,' she said.

'It was a vicious circle, because it would just make me more stressed, and that in turn would make the psoriasis worse.

'I wouldn't want to go out wearing dresses, skirts or tops with straps, I would always cover myself up because I didn't want to expose myself.

'Whenever I had psoriasis patches, I would notice people staring or pointing at me, I just felt like I stood out.'

On a trip to Thorpe Park in 2009 she was left in tears when she overheard a child shouting: 'What are those on that girl's legs,' as she pointed at the red patches on her skin.

Luissa, who is an ambassador for the British Skin Foundation and skin care company Dermalex, feared the condition would derail her flourishing career in front of the camera.

Candid: Luissa shared this photograph of her legs and arms, taken just last month

Picture perfect: Elegant Luissa flashes her mega watt smile for a photo shoot in 2012

She recalled: 'A photographer once recommended that my marks be airbrushed out, which made me feel like less of a person than my colleagues.'

With the support of her friends and family, Luissa continued to enter competitions. In 2012 she competed in a beauty pageant in Albania and was bolstered by the judges' positive comments.

Single Luissa has now represented England five times internationally and gives talks to aspiring models about overcoming skin imperfections.

Embracing her body: Luissa, pictured today, shared her story in the hope of helping others

She said: 'I often get messages from psoriasis sufferers, asking me for advice on what sort of treatments to go for and how to feel better about themselves.

'I love that people feel comfortable coming to me for advice, and I get a real buzz out of making them feel better about themselves.'

She added: 'My goal is to show people that negative comments should never deter you from going out and achieving your goals, and that you should feel comfortable about who you are.'
Azad Chaiwala set up SecondWife.com for married men who want a second wife

The man behind a website to help Muslim men find 'second wives' has insisted the service can 'empower' women.

Azad Chaiwala, from Sunderland, set up SecondWife.com, for the 'small section' of Muslims who are looking to have multiple wives.

Appearing on ITV's This Morning, Mr Chaiwala said his website would discourage women from being mistresses and instead 'empower' them by legitimising the relationship in a way that allows it to be regarded as more than just an affair.

Viewers were shocked by Azed's beliefs, saying he was using the website to justify cheating. One tweeted: 'He says it empowers women... I'd take it more like a slap in the face as the husband is saying "you're not enough for me anymore, you're only half of what I need".'

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Azad Chaiwala, set up SecondWife.com, to help Muslim men find more wives. He claims the website helps 'empower' women by legitimising the extra-marital relationship

Polygamy, where a person has more than one spouse, is illegal in the UK, carrying a possible prison sentence of up to seven years.

Such marriages are only recognised if they took place in countries where they are legal. However, there is no law to stop unregistered religious ceremonies taking place.

Mr Chaiwala said he set up the website because he had noticed Muslim men were looking for second wives but didn't know where to find one.

Currently, there are more than 25,000 British members using the site.

While the relationships aren't legally bound marriages, Azad says they're more honourable than taking a mistress and his website helps elevate these relationships.

Azad said: 'I felt there was a need for it, there were people who wanted to get in these relationships. The premise behind these relationships was more to sway people away from being mistresses or having mistresses, and get into more formalised relationships.

Eamonn Holmes read out the verse in the Quran that justifies men taking multiple wives

Viewers were shocked by Azad's comments, saying he was trying to justify cheating

'Even though the law doesn't recognise it as this point, here's an option for at least your family to recognise it at least your community recognises it.'

This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes quoted the verse in the Quran that justified polygamy, reading: 'Then marry women of your choice, two or three, or four.'

The quote appears on the website but Azad says only a small number of Muslim men practise this lifestyle.

Azad says that mistresses are treated badly by society but being a second wife means they are elevated and empowered.

He said: 'We live in a society where men are taking mistresses, men do have side relationships and venture off on their own and it effects relationships.

'Often women are left as the victims so I'm trying elevate the status of women, give them a bit more empowerment so they are not left as just mistresses.'

The website has 'hundreds of thousands of members' according to Azad, who says it is an honourable way to have multiple wives. There are more than 25,000 British members

Azad had an arranged marriage and only has one wife but claims his wife would be happy with him to take another.

He said: 'A lot of people mistake this has men having their cake and eating it, I'm saying it's responsible and burning the calories off the cake.'

Viewers were critical of Azad's beliefs, with many saying he was a cheater that was trying to justify his actions.

The controversial website has been criticised before, with critics calling it 'deeply dangerous'.

Yasmin Rehman, of the Centre for Secular Space who is a Muslim herself, said: 'I don't think he should be allowed to do it. I think he's flouting the law - anyone else would become subject to polygamy laws. It sits alongside websites like brides from abroad.

'I meet women who have been trafficked and prostituted. I'm fed up with this being accepted. There are Muslim women across the world fighting this, some at great risk to themselves.'
The Hadid sisters are already dominating the catwalks, but now there is yet another family member set to take the fashion world by storm.

You probably haven't heard of Gigi and Bella's Dutch-born cousin Joann van den Herik, 18, but she's just signed as a plus-size model with London-based 12+ UK Model Management.

Joann is the daughter of Yolanda Hadid's businessman brother Leo van den Herik, and seems particularly close to her cousin Bella, 21, who she's posted several Instagram snaps with, but bears quite a striking resemblance to Gigi.

The star-in-waiting, who is a UK size 12, has gained a following of more than 31,000 thanks to her honest posts about her struggle with body confidence.

She recently shared an image which shows her posing in underwear, admitting she posted it because she felt 'afraid' to, but decided not to crop out any perceived flaws.

'I wanted to show you guys that I'm imperfect too. I have fatrolls, I have stretch marks,' she said. 'It's so easy to look in the mirror and feel disgusted by the things you don't like, but I don't want to do that anymore.

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Gigi and Bella's Dutch-born cousin Joann van den Herik, 18, has just launched her own modelling career

Joann appears to be especially close to her cousin Bella, and recently posted a gushing tribute to her on her 21st birthday

Gigi at the launch of her Maybelline make-up range earlier this week (left). Aspiring model Joann bears more than a passing resemblance to her very famous cousin (right)

Family gathering: Yolanda's brother Leo (back row centre) with Anwar Hadid, Joann (right) and Gigi (front centre)

'I don't wanna hide my "ugly" side, I want to show it more often, because I've accepted it.'

Joann decided she wanted to be a model last year, when she was invited to do some test shots with her photographer friend Ryan Hall.

But in a YouTube video, she admitted it's taken a long time for her to feel confident enough to model, saying: I've been feeling bad about myself for a long time. This isn't how it's supposed to be.

'Girls and boys are not supposed to feel this way. You have to wear what you like, you have to eat what you want. If you love yourself it doesn't matter what other people think.

The rising star is an advocate for being body confident and encourages her followers to be comfortable in their own skin

Bella and Gigi's younger brother Anwar, 18, is also a model and has walked for Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger

Joann (left) with her famous cousin at an event for her Tommy Hilfiger collaboration in Berlin in September 2016

Gigi Hadid have two less well known but equally glamorous older sisters Alana (left) and Mariella (right). The girls were born to their father Mohamed Hadid before he married Gigi and Bella's mother Yolanda

She's the latest member of the family to embrace the world of fashion, alongside Bella and Gigi.

The girls' younger brother Anwar Hadid, 18, has also launched a modelling career and has walked for the likes of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.

Meanwhile, their older half-sister Alana, daughter of her father Mohamed Hadid, is a stylist and fashion designer for t-shirt brand Currentmoji.

Joann appears to share a warm relationship with her cousins and regularly celebrates their achievements, congratulating Gigi on her second Vogue cover on Instagram, saying: 'You never cease to amaze me.'

She also celebrated the release of Yolanda Hadid's biography and said she's been inspired by her aunt's fight against Lyme disease.

'I'm so proud of you Auntie and I look up to you every day,' she said.

The 18-year-old regularly pays tribute to her famous relatives, saying she's inspired by her aunt Yolanda Hadid's strength as she battles Lyme disease

Joann is the daughter of Leo van den Herik, the brother of Yolanda Hadid - pictured at a party in New York with her famous daughters

Yolanda shared this throwback image of herself and Joann's father Leo together on Instagram

She also attended the launch of Gigi's collection with Tommy Hilfiger in The Netherlands and has posed wearing a shirt from the range on social media.

The rising star recently celebrated her two year anniversary with boyfriend Robin Nieboer and loves to share loved up selfies of them together, but promoting body positivity is her top priority.

Recently she wrote: If you have a fatrolls and you want to wear a croptop just DO IT! Today, I'm posting a photo in my underwear because I too have fat and I don't care because I LOVE MY BODY!'

The aspiring star has been with her boyfriend Robin Nieboer for two years

The fresh-faced beauty has signed as a plus-size model with London-based 12+ UK Model Management

Joann seems particularly close to her cousin Bella, who she regularly posts Instagram snaps with
Ivanka Trump appears to have done a stylish U-turn overnight, stepping out in a weather-appropriate long, thick coat and knee-high boots on Friday morning, just 24 hours after facing the same bitter temperatures with bare arms.

The 36-year-old first daughter also looked as though her mood may have matched the slightly chilly day, and she failed to raise so much as a small smile for the waiting photographers while making her way to a waiting SUV.

Wrapping up warm against the cold 44-degree D.C. weather, Ivanka wore a long black double-breasted coat, which she paired with some funky $189 knee-high boots from her own fashion line that featured quirky jewel embellishments on the heel.

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Dark and stormy: Ivanka Trump stepped out of her home in an all-black ensemble on Friday morning, looking rather gloomy as she made her way to a waiting SUV

Caffeine boost: The 36-year-old first daughter was seen clutching a Starbucks coffee as she left the Washington, D.C. home she shares with her husband Jared Kushner and their children

Chic: Having left her home without a coat on Thursday, Ivanka opted to wrap up warm against the 44-degree weather in a long black coat and knee-high heeled boots

She topped off the rather dark and broody look with a statement smokey eye, and wore her hair in a sleek straight style, allowing her locks to blow around her face in the chilly wind as she left her home.

Ivanka's departure was followed by some aides who were carrying pieces of luggage out to an SUV, perhaps in preparation for today's trip to Biddeford, Maine, where she will push her father's tax reform policies.

The former businesswoman actually returned to the US from Japan last week, instead of joining President Donald Trump on his 12-day trip around Asia, in order to continue promoting the reform while he is away, which she did on Friday when she arrived in Biddeford, Maine, to take part in a forum on the subject alongside U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza.

Luckily, Ivanka appeared to have perked up by the time she arrived at the event, taking to the stage with a big smile on her face, wearing the same jeweled knee-high boots, but leaving her coat behind.

Instead, Ivanka showed off a chic grey plaid dress which fell just above the knee and was cinched in with a thick black leather belt.

And while the businesswoman holds down the fort at home, her husband Jared Kushner is by Trump's side as he continues his trip, along with several other members of his innermost circle, including Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Ivanka Trump employee Hope Hicks, 29, who now serves as the White House communications director.

By the time Ivanka hit the stage on Friday, however, Jared was on his way to Alaska with First Lady Melania Trump, where she is meeting with military families.

Smoking: Ivanka opted to rock much darker eye make-up than usual, failing to raise a smile as she left her home and headed to Maine, where she will be pushing her father's tax reform

Spicing things up! The former businesswoman adding a quirky edge to her ensemble in the form of her $189 bejeweled boots, which are from her own eponymous fashion line

Ready to go: Secret Service agents were seen securing the property before Ivanka left, and another man was seen arriving at the property with pieces of luggage

Checking it out: Dogs were also brought in to check the property and its surrounding areas

Jared's absence could account for Ivanka's slightly somber-looking mood on Friday morning - which was very different to the big smile she flashed at the cameras when she left her home on Thursday.

The first daughter's look was also a marked departure from the ensemble she wore just 24 hours earlier, when she braved the same cold fall temperatures with bare arms, choosing to carry her coat in the crook of her arm.

Although perhaps somewhat chilly, the move did allow Ivanka to better show off her quirky tasseled top on her way to work.

While she has in the past favored high-end designers such as Oscar De La Renta and Carolina Herrera, Ivanka, whose combined net worth with husband Jared Kushner is estimated to reach $740 million, opted for a much cheaper alternative today, in the shape of her $50 Zara top.

She paired the dark green shirt with matching cropped pants and black high-heeled mules, in which she walked barefoot, apparently not minding the incredibly chilly temperatures.

Never one to miss the chance to support her own eponymous fashion line, Ivanka carried her usual oversized black purse from the collection, in addition to her black coat, which she kept on the crook of her arm for much of the brief outing.

On the up: Ivanka looked much cheerier by the time she arrived in Maine, where she spoke at a tax reform forum

Making a point: The mother-of-three joined U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, left, and U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza on the stage at the event in Biddeford

All smiles! Ivanka looked much happier than she had earlier in the day, smiling and laughing throughout the event

Upbeat: While discussing her father's tax reform policies, Ivanka made plenty of enthusiastic expressions, clearly feeling very passionate about her speech

What lies beneath: She removed her long black coat and showed off a grey plaid dress underneath, but kept on her knee-high jeweled boots

Luckily, she only had a few feet to go until she could step inside her Secret Service SUV waiting for her outside of her home in the upscale neighborhood of Kalorama.

The first daughter traveled on a solo trip to Japan last week to discuss female entrepreneurship, and promptly came back to the US to advocate for her father's proposed tax reform.

The president and his entourage began their visit in Japan and South Korea and are currently in China. They will later visit Vietnam and the Philippines.

Jared has been pictured during several official functions, including a bilateral meeting held by President Trump and Chinese President Xi Kinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday.

The senior White House adviser was also seen the previous day sipping tea with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster before Presidents Trump and Xi arrived for a Chinese opera performance at the Forbidden City.

Not cold? Ivanka decided against wearing her coat despite the frigid temperatures on Thursday morning, to better show off her quirky tasseled top on her way to work

Doing her own thing: Despite the 47-degree weather, she opted to leave her arms bare

The simple life: Ivanka, whose combined net worth with husband Jared Kushner is estimated to reach $740 million, opted for a much cheaper alternative in the shape of her $50 Zara top

Meanwhile: On Wednesday, Ivanka once again stepped out carrying a coffee, looking very tired as she made her way into a waiting car

Also on Wednesday, Jared was featured in a photo posted to the president's Twitter account to mark the one-year anniversary of his election.

He can be seen in the pictured posing next to White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President Dan Scavino, senior advisor for policy Stephen Miller, President Trump himself, and Hope.

The group looks very cozy in the image; Jared can be seen with his arm casually resting on Hope's shoulder while Stephen has his arm around her waist, as they all smile happily for the cameras.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Ivanka was pictured looking rather tired as she left the home she shares with her husband and their three children.

The mother of three went for an all-black silhouette, with oversized black pants worn beneath a long black coat.

Her blond locks were tucked in a half updo, and Ivanka, who appeared slightly sleepy in the morning, carried an extra accessory, clutching a cup of morning coffee in her left hand.

She stepped out wearing light make-up and discrete pearl earrings, which matched the buttons of the black shirt she wore underneath her coat.

Visit: Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner is currently traveling with her father President Trump on his 12-day tour of Asia

Thumbs up! Jared put his arm on Hope Hicks' shoulder as they both posed for a picture, taken aboard Air Force One and posted on Wednesday to the president's official Twitter account in celebration of the one-year anniversary of his election win

While the first daughter hasn't tagged along on her father's official trip, her six-year-old daughter Arabella has certainly done her part to help the president win over President Xi and the people of China.

After arriving in Beijing on Wednesday, President Trump took out a tablet computer and proudly showed off a video of the girl singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poetry while meeting with Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

In the video, Arabella can be seen wearing a traditional silk embroidered Chinese dress while addressing the country's president and first lady as 'Grandpa Xi' and 'Grandma Peng', bowing in respect as she offers a greeting to the camera.

Arabella also played a starring role at the state dinner organised by Xi in Trump's honor at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday night. The full video, which Trump brought as a gift for Xi, was played on screens in the room, earning her a mention in her grandfather's toast.

'Our children so often remind us of our shared humanity and true dignity,' Trump said.

Family: President Trump on Wednesday showed Xi a video of Ivanka and Jared's daughter Arabella, six, singing in Mandarin and reciting ancient Chinese poetry

Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform, was filled with praise for Arabella's performance Thursday, though it was unclear how many comments related to Trump's visit had been censored.

'She's too cute!' users gushed. 'Let's hope that she marries into a Chinese family.'

Others made light of the fact that apparently no one can avoid the arduous task of memorizing ancient Chinese poetrynot even the US president's granddaughter.

It's not the first time Arabella has played a role in Sino-American diplomacy. When Xi visited Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida resort in April, Arabella recited for Xi the 'Three Character Classic', a time-honored text from the Song Dynasty that was also included in her latest clip.

Ivanka has said in interviews that her children have a Chinese nanny who teaches them Mandarin.

The mother frequently posts videos of Arabella speaking or singing in Chinese to her social media accounts, and she brought her daughter to a Lunar New Year event organised by the Chinese embassy in Washington.
This season's latest trend has us seeing spots - literally! Polka dots were all over the fall/winter 2018 shows including top designers Balenciaga, Loewe, and Jacquemus.

From clothing to accessories, stylish celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow, 45, Jourdan Dunn, 27, and Olivia Wilde, 33, have all stepped out recently rocking the classic print.

Here, FEMAIL rounds up the prettiest polka dot fashions on the market now.

POLKA DOT FASHIONS SEEN ON THE FALL/WINTER 2017 RUNWAYS Get spotted: Polka dot fashions were seen all over the fall/winter 2017 runways including the Balenciaga, (left) Loewe, (center) and Jacquemus (right) shows Advertisement

Spot on: Trendsetters Gwyneth Paltrow, 45, (left) and Jourdan Dunn, 27, (right) have both stepped out in spotted fashions recently

Trendsetters Gwyneth Paltrow and Jourdan Dunn have both stepped out in spotted fashions recently.

Gwyneth rocked a red and blush polka dot silk blouse from her Goop line as she attended the Variety's Power of Women conference.

While Jourdann sported dots from head-to-toe for a dinner celebrating the December issue of British Vogue. The model donned a sexy sheer black spotted dress and paired it with matching Jimmy Choo pumps.

Classic options: Olivia Wilde, 33, (left) and Selma Blair, 45, (right) both donned polka dot dresses for recent red carpet events

Olivia Wilde attended the 5th Annual Save The Children Illumination gala at The American Museum of Natural History in New York City recently in a multi-colored dress by Valentino.

The actress paired the pretty frock with glittery shoes, Irene Neuwirth jewels and a clutch by Edie Parker.

Meanwhile Selma Blair sported a Marc Jacobs dress that featured embellished polka dots to the PORTER Incredible Women Gala last week.

Trendsetters: Actress Garcelle Beauvais, 50, (left) and model Hailey Baldwin, 20, (right) are also fans of the classic print

Actress Garcelle Beauvais and model Hailey Baldwin are also fans of the classic print.

Garcelle stopped by the VIP Conversation for Women's Brain Health Initiative in a white pussy-bow blouse that featured oversized polka dots.

Taking a more subtle approach to the trend Hailey attended the TBS Drop the Mic and The Jokers Wild Premiere Party, in an Alessandra Rich blazer dress that cleverly incorporated micro-dots at the cuffs.

SHOP FEMAIL'S EDIT OF PRETTY POLKA DOT PIECES NOW
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.

Denim double-take

Who wore it better: Victoria's Secret models Gigi Hadid and Elsa Hosk both celebrated special occasions recently wearing the same Jean Atelier outfit

Victoria's Secret models Gigi Hadid and Elsa Hosk both celebrated special occasions recently wearing the same Jean Atelier outfit.

Gigi wore the Lace-Trimmed V-Cutout Compact Knit Bodysuit and Flip Straight Jeans by the French label to the Gigi Hadid x Maybelline New York International Launch Party. The 22-year-old accessorized her look with Giuseppe Zanotti lace-up boots.

Elsa was spotted this week on her birthday in New York City wearing the same '80s-inspired separates. A bouquet of roses and matching shoes added a pop of color to her look.

While the fold-over denim silhouette hasn't made it's way to mass market, it could be just a matter of time. If you have the means, check out the designer options below.

Left: Flip Straight in Sky by Jean Atelier, $475; fwrd.com. Right: Flip Straight Jeans by Jean Atelier, $525; barneys.com

Crazy for Cara

A site for sore eyes: Model, actress and novelist Cara Delevingne, 25, stars in high-end designer label, Jimmy Choo's Cruise 2018 film, advertising campaign and editorial shoot

High-end accessory label, Jimmy Choo, unveiled it's Cruise campaign this week and it stars model, actress and novelist Cara Delevingne.

The photographs taken by Tom Craig and styled by Rob Zangardi and Mariel Haenn, capture the 25-year-old getting ready for a night on the town.

With the New York skyline forming the backdrop, the Suicide Squad star showcases the brands latest product stories; Disco, I Want Choo and Borrowed from the Boys from the new collection, and looks absolutely incredible.

Let's hear it for Cara: The photographs taken by Tom Craig and styled by Rob Zangardi and Mariel Haenn, capture the 25-year-old getting ready for a night on the town

Madewell x No.6 limited-edition collab

Get it while you can: This week, Madewell launched it's collaboration with celebrity favorite No.6, both online and in store. Silk open-shoulder dress in vintage rose by Madewell X No. 6, $168; madewell.com

This week, lifestyle brand Madewell launched it's collaboration with cult classic No.6, both online and in store.

The limited-edition eight piece collection includes dresses and jumpsuits in effortless silhouettes featuring five archival No. 6 prints.

With versatility being of utmost importance, each garment can be worn in a formal setting or more casual with simple accessory tweaks.

'Our customers appreciate that our clothes are easy to wear and style,' says Karin Bereson of No.6. Prices range from $150$188. Get them while you can!

Left: Silk beacon dress in garden bouquet by Madewell x No.6, $150; madewell.com. Right: Silk isabella jumpsuit in etched floral by Madewell x No.6, $175; madewell.com

Timing is everything

Left: Greenwich Classic Gold by Washington Square Watches, $155; washingtonsquarewatches.com. Right: Waverly Classic Gold, $155

Left: Waverly Shiny Gold by Washington Square Watches, $155; washingtonsquarewatches.com. Right: Waverly Rose Gold by Washington Square Watches, $155

Classic Time watch company just launched 'Washington Square'  a cool 15-piece collection inspired by New York City's landmark square  with the brand's Managing Director, Marc Smouha.

Marc engineered the collection in the spirit of 'modern minimalism'. Characterized by lightweight slim cases set into superior quality American-made leather straps, the collection is inclusive of 3 styles across 5 remixed colorways.

'Our brand was built on the vision of Washington Square Park. A park that is rich in history and diversity and fueled by the spirit of New York City,' explains Marc. 'Whether a web designer, a musician, a banker, chef or we-worker, we made this watch for you- its your time.'

All watches are priced at $155 and for an additional $10 can be personalized with initials embossed on the strap.

A holiday treat that's music to our ears

Feeling festive: H&M announced this week that their 2017 Holiday campaign film will star rapper Nicki Minaj alongside Gray's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams and The Big Lebowski's John Turturro

H&M announced this week that their 2017 Holiday campaign film (out November 28) will star rapper Nicki Minaj alongside Gray's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams and The Big Lebowski's John Turturro.

Directed by Johan Renck, the film is a modern take on the classic fairytale, centered around a heroic little girl with a universal message of love.

'I love the film's over all empowering message. I love seeing this young girl become the champion that lives in all of us. There's always magic in the air during the Holidays,' says Nicki Minaj in a statement.

All you need it love: Directed by Johan Renck, the film is a modern take on the classic fairytale, centered around a heroic little girl with a universal message of love

Something for everyone: Festive fashion for the whole family seen in the film is available in H&M stores now

'Its exciting to see our festive designs come to life together with such inspirational talents,' said Pernilla Wohlfahrt, H&Ms Head of Design and Creative Director.

'They definitely added some extra magic to the film and we hope that our customers will love how the fashion is presented throughout the holiday season at H&M.'

A range of festive fashion for the whole family seen in the film is available online and in stores now.
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Hope Hicks has become somewhat of a style star while on tour with the president, but on Friday she favored comfort over fashion as she donned a baggy men's shirt on her way to Vietnam for their eighth day of travel.

Although the White House communications director has been turning it up in the style department for most of President Trump's five-country tour of Asia, the 29-year-old didn't look quiet as put together in her wrinkled collared shirt as she waited to board Air Force One at the Beijing Airport in China.

Hope paired the ill-fitting button-down with black trousers and black pumps, and at one point she had her long, highlighted hair pulled up in an uncharacteristic high ponytail.

Morning flight: Hope Hicks favored comfort over fashion on Friday she wore a baggy men's shirt at the Beijing Airport in China, while carrying an Ivanka Trump tote and a $1,400 Louis Vuitton holdall

Not her usual 'do! The 29-year-old White House communications director had her hair pulled up in a ponytail at one point after arriving at the airport in Vietnam, but still appeared to have added a pink lip to her look

Just one week before: The former model opted for a ladylike pink dress in Hawaii last Friday before President Trump started his five-country tour of Asia, looking much more glamorous in the form-flattering number

Kicking off the trip: Hope was one of the staffers who traveled to Hawaii with him to pay a solemn visit to to Pearl Harbor and its memorial to the USS Arizona. She is pictured on a boat heading to the USS Arizona Memorial

The former model had a large brown leather carryall in the crook of her arm, and she carried a Louis Vuitton duffel bag ahead of her flight with the president.

While waiting outside on the tarmac, Hope wore her sunglasses on the top of her head as the breeze blew through her hair, which she had pulled back down.

It's been a whirlwind week for Hope who started the tour by giving First Lady Melania Trump a run for her money in the fashion department.

Within a week, Hope went from donning a ladylike pink dress in Hawaii to donning a wrinkled men's shirt on her way to Vietnam.

Hope also put fashion on the back-burner on Thursday evening when she wore a simple, slightly baggy outfit to a state dinner in Beijing.

Simple: Hope, who has given Melania a run for her money in the style department over the past few days, appeared to take a step back in a baggy outfit on Thursday while attending a state dinner in Beijing

Wowing: Melania Trump once again stepped up her fashion game during the state dinner, donning an ornate Gucci fur trim dress with an ornate pattern inspired by traditional Chinese clothing while meeting with China's first lady, , Peng Liyuan

Staff: Hope wore a bright pink dress underneath a plain black blazer with rolled sleeves. She kept out of the spotlight and was only photographed from the waist up, while Melania made a spectacular entrance with Madame Peng

The White House staffer opted for a bright pink dress underneath a plain black blazer, which she wore with the sleeves rolled up.

Hope kept out of the spotlight and was only photographed from the waist up, while Melania made a spectacular entrance with China's first lady, Peng Liyuan.

Melania stepped up her style game in an ornate Gucci fur trim dress with an ornate pattern reminiscent of traditional Chinese clothing.

The 47-year-old first lady exuded confidence as she strode in five-inch, baby pink stilettos, which matched the fur lining of her sleeves, next to her Chinese counterpart.

While Melania was clearly in the spotlight during Thursday's state dinner, Hope has upstaged her on a couple of occasions during President Trump's trip around Asia.

The duo joined the president in South Korea on Wednesday to listen to his address at the National Assembly in Seoul.

Sartorial: The style war between Melania and Hope waged on as the duo joined the president in South Korea on Wednesday, with Hope sitting behind Melania and in front of Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Classic: Although Melania was front and center as her husband addressed the National Assembly in Seoul, Hope certainly gave her a run for her money, looking incredibly chic in a grey turtleneck sweater

Hope looked notably chic in a grey turtleneck sweater as she sat a few rows behind the mother of one, and just a few feet away from White House senior advisor Jared Kushner.

The White House communications director cut a simple but chic silhouette in her sweater with puff shoulders. She wore her signature blowout during the event, and was seen tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder as she fixed her earpiece to listen to the commander in chief.r.

Hope is a former Trump Organization employee. She worked inside Trump Tower and helped Ivanka Trump grow her fashion line, before President Trump hired her away when he decided to run for president.

The communications director modeled the same chic sweater in an image posted to the president's official Twitter account on Wednesday afternoon, which he shared in celebration of the one-year anniversary of his election win.

Career: The current White House communications director is a former Trump Organization employee, who has in the past worked inside the Trump Tower and helped Ivanka Trump grow her fashion line before President Trump hired her away

Thumbs up! Jared Kushner put his arm on Hope's shoulder as they both posed for a picture, taken aboard Air Force One and posted to the president's official Twitter account in celebration of the one-year anniversary of his election win

Hope and Jared both were featured in the picture taken aboard Air Force One, which sees several key members of Trump's inner circle  including White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller, senior advisor for policy, posing with their thumbs up while posing next to the president.

The group looks very cozy in the image; Jared can be seen with his arm casually resting on Hope's shoulder while Stephen has his arm around her waist, as they all smile happily for the cameras.

All three are traveling with President Trump during his 12-day tour of Asia, while his daughter Ivanka has remained at home in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, the ever-glamorous Melania faced some serious competition in the style stakes, once again courtesy of Hope.

Both women showed their support for President Trump while attending a state banquet in Tokyo; however, while the first lady chose a very traditional floor-length gown for the occasion, Hope spiced things up a bit, ensuring she stood out from the crowd in a chic tuxedo.

Official: Melania opted to wear a traditional floor-length gown as she attended a state banquet in Tokyo on Monday night, held to mark her husband's visit to Japan during the couple's 12-day trip around Asia

Aide: Although the first lady looked glamorous, she was upstaged in the style stakes by Hope, who wore a much more unique tuxedo for the affair

Lost in thought: The first lady looked pensive during the event, which happened on the first stop of their trip around Asia. Hope also appeared contemplative in the room filled with dignitaries

Natural: In contrast with her impeccable suit, Hope wore her hair down, bringing a relaxed touch to her glamorous outfit

Hope wore the tailored black suit with a traditional white tuxedo shirt, accessorizing the look with an oversized black bow tie worn at her neck at the event, which was hosted by Japenese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo to mark Trump's visit.

Hope wore her long hair down in a blowout and added a splash of color to her monochromatic look with a slick of bold pink lipstick, finishing off her make-up with a smokey eye.

In contrast to Hope's androgynous style option, Melania donned a bright red, floor-length gown with short sleeves on the occasion.

Ahead of President Trump's trip to Asia, Hope was one of the staffers who traveled to Hawaii with him to pay a solemn visit to to Pearl Harbor and its memorial to the USS Arizona.

Hope opted for a pale pink A-line dress that cinched her waist and flared out at her hips, and she accessorized the look with a pair of sunglasses to shield her eyes from the sun.

Although her hair was down, it was wore in lose, natural-looking waves instead of her standard blowout.
Melania Trump was all bundled up for her trip to Alaska, where she met with military families and children at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

The 47-year-old first lady looked cozy, yet chic as she stepped off the aircraft in Anchorage in a $2,690 Ralph Lauren down coat and headed to meet with children who participate in the Paws to Read program at the military base.

While Melania was in Alaska with her husband's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, President Trump traveled to Vietnam with White House Communications Director Hope Hicks.

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Feeling cozy: Melania Trump traveled to Alaska on Friday to meet with military families at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage

Chic: Melania still opted to wear a pair of heels despite the frosty weather, pairing them with a $2,690 Ralph Lauren coat

Encouraging: The 47-year-old first lady watched as a little boy read to dog as part of the base's Paws to Read program

Crafting: Melania also sat down at a children's size table with a group of kids who showed her how to make instruments using Popsicle sticks and paper

Keeping warm: Melania kept her pricey Ralph Lauren down coat on while inside

Strategic style: Melania wore her plaid, olive green coat open to show off her orange turtleneck sweater and cream skinny jeans as she arrived in anchorage

Plus one: Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner joined Melania in Alaska. The senior advisor enjoyed tea with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in Beijing earlier in the week

Busy: While Melania was in Alaska, President Trump met with Vietnamese president, Tran Dai Quang and his wife Nguyen Thi Hien at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit

Melania wore her plaid, olive green coat open as walked off the aircraft, showing off her orange turtleneck sweater and her cream skinny jeans.

The former model completed her look with a pair taupe suede boots featuring a series of buckles around the ankles and a chunky heel.

The first lady kept her coat on upon her arrival at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, where she had the opportunity to check out some of the military programs available to the children who live on the base.

Paws to Read is a program where children read out loud to pets as a way to enhance their reading skills and help build confidence.

During her visit, Melania was photographed leaning over her chair with her hands clasped together as she happily watched a little boy read to the dog lying next to him.

The friendly pooch was decked out in a military vest, and while the dog didn't appear to be too interested in the story, Melania was all ears.

Melania also sat down at a children's size table with a group of kids who showed her how to make instruments using Popsicle sticks and paper.

Wowing: Melania donned an ornate Gucci fur trim dress with an ornate pattern inspired by traditional Chinese clothing at a state dinner in Beijing on Thursday evening

Arrival: Melania walked in with her husband, President Trump and President Xi Jinping, for the state dinner held at Beijing's Great Hall of the People

Her visit to the base came was part of a refueling stop as she made her way back to Washington, D.C. after spending the past week traveling with her husband during his 12-day tour throughout Asia.

Melania's weather-appropriate outfit was a far cry from the ornate gown she wore during a state dinner in Beijin, China, the night before.

The first lady wowed in a Gucci fur trim dress with an ornate pattern reminiscent of traditional Chinese clothing.

She exuded plenty of confidence as she strode in five-inch, baby pink stilettos, which matched the fur lining of her sleeves, next to her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan.

The two first ladies walked in with their husbands, Presidents Trump and Xi, for the occasion held at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Melania might have gotten a bit of style inspiration from the actress Margot Robbie, who wore the same Gucci dress at the premiere of The Legend Of Tarzan in June last year.

Earlier on Thursday, the first lady also wowed in the style department in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, thought to have cost at least $3,975.

Careful: Melania lifted her dress slightly as she and President Trump made their way out after the state dinner in their honor

Visit: Earlier in the day, Melania also wowed in the style department in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, thought to have cost at least $3,975

Outing: Melania also donned the floor-length number while visiting a primary school with China's first lady, Peng Liyuan, on Thursday

She donned the floor-length number during a welcome ceremony also thrown at the Great Hall of the People, and while visiting a primary school with Madame Peng.

Melania happily took up a paintbrush and ink under the watchful eye of the young students at Banchang Primary School.

As well as greeting the young students and joining in with some of their lessons, the VIP guests were also treated to a special, cultural performance from students.

Both Melania and Madame Peng were photographed smiling and clapping after the show, surrounded by a group of beaming schoolchildren.

While Melania was clearly in the spotlight during Thursday's state dinner, 29-year-old Hope has upstaged her on a couple of occasions during President Trump's trip around Asia.

The duo joined the president in South Korea on Wednesday to listen to his address at the National Assembly in Seoul.

Hope looked notably chic in a grey turtleneck sweater as she sat a few rows behind the mother of one, and just a few feet away from the president's son-in-law Jared.

Sartorial: Melania and White House communications director Hope Hicks joined the president in South Korea on Wednesday, with Hope sitting behind Melania

First lady: Melania went for a classic look in an all-black outfit, with a black blazer cinched at the waist with a matching belt

Duo: Hope (left) cut a simple but chic silhouette in her grey turtleneck sweater with puff shoulders. Melania (right) was all smiles as she settled in for her husband's address

The White House communications director cut a simple but chic silhouette in her sweater with puff shoulders. She wore her signature blowout during the event, and was seen tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder as she fixed her earpiece to listen to the commander in chief.

Melania also went for a classic look in an all-black outfit featuring a black blazer cinched at the waist with a matching belt.

The first lady, who wore her hair in a blowout like Hope, was all smiles as she settled in ahead of her husband's address.

Hope is a former Trump Organization employee. She has in the past worked inside the Trump Tower and helped Ivanka grow her fashion line, before President Trump hired her away when he decided to run for president.

Hope and Jared are both featured in the picture taken aboard Air Force One, which sees several key members of Trump's inner circle - including White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President Dan Scavino and Stephen Miller, a senior advisor for policy, posing with their thumbs up while posing next to the president.

The group looks very cozy in the image; Jared can be seen with his arm casually resting on Hope's shoulder while Stephen has his arm around her waist, as they all smile happily for the cameras.

Official: Melania opted to wear a traditional floor-length gown as she attended a state banquet in Tokyo on Monday night, held to mark her husband's visit to Japan during his 12-day trip

Aide: Although the first lady looked glamorous, she was upstaged in the style stakes by Hope, who wore a much more unique tuxedo for the affair

All three were traveling with President Trump during first leg of his five-country tour of Asia, while his daughter Ivanka has remained at home in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, the ever-glamorous Melania faced some serious competition in the style stakes, once again courtesy of Hope.

Both women showed their support for President Trump while attending a state banquet in Tokyo; however, while the first lady chose a very traditional floor-length gown for the occasion, Hope spiced things up a bit, ensuring she stood out from the crowd in a chic tuxedo.

Hope wore the tailored black suit with a traditional white tuxedo shirt, accessorizing the look with an oversized black bow tie worn at her neck at the event, which was hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, to mark Trump's visit.

Hope wore her long hair down in a blowout and added a splash of color to her monochromatic look with a slick of bold pink lipstick, finishing off her make-up with a smokey eye.

In contrast to Hope's androgynous style option, Melania donned a bright red, floor-length gown with short sleeves on the occasion.

Morning flight: Hope wore a baggy men's shirt at the Beijing Airport in China, while carrying an Ivanka Trump tote and a $1,400 Louis Vuitton holdall

Not her usual 'do! The 29-year-old had her hair pulled up in a ponytail at one point after arriving at the airport in Vietnam, but still appeared to have added a pink lip to her look

She paired the glamorous number with a low hairdo and diamond earrings, and she also sported a smoky eye.

While Melania is making her way back to Washington, D.C., Hope was photographed at the Beijing Airport on Friday ahead of the president's trip to Vietnam.

Although the White House communications director has been turning it up in the style department for most of the tour, she didn't look quiet as put together in her wrinkled collared shirt as she waited to board Air Force One.

Hope paired the ill-fitting button-down with black trousers and black pumps, and at one point she had her long, highlighted hair pulled up in an uncharacteristic high ponytail.

The former model had a large brown leather carryall in the crook of her arm, and she carried a Louis Vuitton duffel bag ahead of her flight with the president.

While waiting outside on the tarmac, Hope wore her sunglasses on the top of her head as the breeze blew through her hair, which she had pulled back down.

It's been a whirlwind week for Hope who started the tour by giving First Lady Melania Trump a run for her money in the fashion department.

Within a week, Hope went from donning a ladylike pink dress in Hawaii to donning a wrinkled men's shirt on her way to Vietnam.
The world's first test tube baby has said she hopes families who undergo cutting-edge fertility treatments - such as 'three parent' babies - are not subject to the same harassment her family received after pioneering IVF.

Louise Brown's family was bombarded with hate mail after she was born.

In an interview with the Press Association, Ms Brown said she is still subject to 'cruel and ill-informed' comments online from time to time.

She added she hopes people who undergo today's pioneering fertility treatments - such as mitochondrial replacement therapy - do not suffer the same barrage of negativity.

In an interview with the Press Association, Louise Brown said she is still subject to 'cruel and ill-informed' comments online from time to time

On November 10 1977, exactly 40 years ago, Lesley Brown, who with husband John had been trying to conceive for nine years, fell pregnant after undergoing in-vitro fertilisation.

Nine months later, Louise was born - the first baby born following IVF.

Six million babies have been born thanks to the technique, pioneered by British scientist Robert Edwards and his obstetrician colleague Patrick Steptoe.

Ms Brown, a clerk at a freight company, said: 'People put cruel and ill-informed comments on the internet just about whenever there is a story about me. But I just ignore it.'

Asked whether she thought families who use the 'three-person baby' technique will get similar mail, she replied: 'I hope they don't.'

The world's first three-parent baby was born last year. Abrahim Hassan, whose Jordanian mother was treated by a US team in Mexico, was conceived from an egg containing DNA from his mother and father, and a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA from a third person - a female donor.

The aim was to prevent Abrahim inheriting defective mitochondria, rod-like batteries in cells, that could give him Leigh syndrome - a fatal nervous system disorder.

Earlier this year doctors at the Newcastle Fertility at Life clinic were awarded the first official licence to create a baby with three genetic parents.

Ms Brown's birth in July 1978 was exclusively revealed in the Daily Mail with the headline: 'And here she is The lovely Louise'

Six million babies have been born thanks to the technique, pioneered by British scientist Robert Edwards and his obstetrician colleague Patrick Steptoe

Ms Brown's sons Cameron, 10, and Aiden, four were conceived naturally. Aiden's middle names are Patrick Robert after Mr Steptoe and Mr Edwards.

The 39-year-old also hit out at rationing in the NHS.

'I am not an expert on IVF but I do believe it should be available to as many people as possible,' she said.

ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE IVF CLAMPDOWN The county that pioneered IVF 40 years ago is the latest victim of the clampdown on fertility treatment offered freely on the NHS. Health chiefs in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area stopped giving infertile women the service with immediate effect in September. The decision, which attracted huge backlash, is expected to save the clinical commissioning group (CCG) 700,000. It follows similar controversial decisions made by cash-strapped boards in Croydon and a part of Essex as they react to NHS budget cuts. Advertisement

'Earlier this year I attended an event in the European Parliament in Brussels, which looked at infertility in nine countries across the EU.

'It showed there is a huge difference in what treatment is available to you and how much it costs, depending on where you live.

'The same is true across the UK. Infertility affects one in six couples and my view is that you should get the same treatment wherever you live.'

Data released last week by the campaign group Fertility Fairness showed that the number of local health bodies offering the recommended three NHS-funded cycles of IVF has halved in the last five years and stands at 12 per cent.

Mrs Brown said her parents, who have both since died, 'just wanted to have a baby'.

'Like millions of other couples with fertility problems they were prepared to do pretty much anything to have a baby,' she added.

'They didn't really see themselves as pioneers at the time, but the older I get the more I appreciate what they went through to have me.'

On her work with the fertility community - including writing a book on her experience - she added: 'I'm always pleased to meet those involved in IVF, couples looking for treatment and of course the babies that have been born through IVF.

'Sometimes it is scary to think that my birth led to all this, but I try not to think about it too much. I have never known anything different.'
A breakthrough breast cancer drug is due to be provided routinely for the first time, after the NHS chief executive stepped in to broker a deal.

More than 1,300 women with advanced cancer are expected to get the Perjeta treatment on the NHS.

The treatment  for the aggressive HER2+ form of the disease  extends life for women dying with breast cancer by an average 56 months, 16 months more than the next best treatment.

A breakthrough breast cancer drug is due to be provided routinely for the first time, after the NHS chief executive stepped in to broker a deal

Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, yesterday announced he had negotiated a confidential commercial agreement with drugs giant Roche.

The deal paves the way for the drug to receive final approval from NICE process  expected to be finalised by the end of the month.

Perjeta was previously temporarily available on the Cancer Drugs Fund and had the highest clinical impact score of any drug in the scheme.

But, despite its accepted benefits, it was due to be scrapped by NICE and taken off the fund due to its massive cost  87,000 per patient for two years.

Roche and NICE have been locked in negotiations since 2013 over the drug  and had suspended talks because the company said it simply could not make it cheap enough to be classed as acceptable under the NICE rulebook.

Mr Stevens has tackled that problem by insisting NHS England should be able to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies offering innovative high value medicines. Announcing the deal at the FT Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference in London yesterday, he said: For companies who are willing to work with us, there are real gains for them, for the NHS and most importantly for patients able to get new and innovative drugs.

More than 1,300 women with advanced cancer are expected to get the Perjeta treatment on the NHS

The details of the deal were kept confidential, but is likely to have involved providing discounts to Roches other products, a kind of arrangement impossible for NICE itself to negotiate. Mr Stevens also announced a deal with drugs firm Merck to provide its multiple sclerosis drug Mavenclad.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said: This is exceptionally good news. The impact that this treatment has had, and will hopefully now continue to have on the NHS, for thousands of women living with incurable metastatic breast cancer and their loved ones cannot be underestimated.

Perjeta is an indispensable and life-changing drug, offering women with incurable breast cancer nearly 16 extra months to live compared to other treatments.

This step shows quite clearly that robust deal-making is possible and can achieve real value for money for the NHS and the taxpayer.

Liz Hims, 69, has been taking Perjeta for four years, having been invited to take part in a clinical trial after she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 2013.

The retired primary school headteacher from Hertfordshire said: It is fantastic news, really fantastic. I am as well as I have ever been  I swim, I cycle, I look after my grandchildren.

Twice a year we are able to fly to America to see our son and our grandchildren  I have a lovely life.

Every three weeks I go to hospital to have my treatment and I feel a little bit tired  but that is probably as much to do with driving around the M25 as the treatment.

Mrs Hims added: I have been very fortunate and this agreement will make such a difference to other peoples lives.
Women may soon be spared the ordeal of having to go so often for smear tests.

At the moment women in England are invited for cervical cancer screening 12 times between the ages of 25 and 64.

The frequency of the tests is thought to be contributing to falling uptake, with figures published earlier this week revealing a third of women neglect to take part in the screening programme.

At the moment women in England are invited for cervical cancer screening 12 times between the ages of 25 and 64

A new study published today suggests women might only need to be tested seven times in total, because new tests being rolled out across the NHS are more sensitive.

And in future, women who have received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine at school might only need to be screened three times in their life.

Experts on the UK National Screening Committee are currently reviewing the frequency at which women have to undergo the tests for cervical cancer.

At the moment women aged between 25 and 49 are invited for screening every three years, and when they are aged 50 to 64, every five years.

In future, women who have received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine at school might only need to be screened three times in their life

But the new study, by Queen Mary University of London and Cancer Research UK, suggests they could safely be tested less frequently thanks to new technology.

The paper, published in the International Journal of Cancer, said reducing the frequency of smear tests is made safer by the rollout of a new way of testing for HPV  the virus which causes 95 per cent of cases of cervical cancer  which means doctors can be more confident women are at low risk.

At the moment a smear test involves testing for abnormalities in the cells on the cervix. But the test is being changed to test first for the HPV virus, and then following up if the virus is present.

It is currently being rolled out across the NHS, and by December 2019 all women in England will be able to get it. The researchers calculated the more sensitive test would mean women could safely be tested just seven times - probably once every five years.

They also calculated the impact of the HPV vaccination programme, which has since 2008, has been offered to schoolgirls aged 11 to 13.

The eldest of those girls are now in their early 20s, close to the age for their first cervical screening invitation.

The new research shows these women can be effectively protected from cervical cancer with just three lifetime screens - at the ages of 30, 40 and 55.

Professor Peter Sasieni, lead author based at QMUL, said: The NHS should benefit from the investment that its made by introducing the vaccination programme.

These women are far less likely to develop cervical cancer so they dont need such stringent routine checking as those at a higher risk.

This decision would free up resources for where they are needed most. The change in the screening system is a unique opportunity to reassess how often women are invited for cervical screens during their lifetimes.

Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK added: This is great news for women.

The cervical screening programme is already very successful, and has led to a dramatic fall in deaths from the disease since its introduction.

Public Health England last night confirmed they were reviewing the frequency of the cervical cancer screening programme - and said they would take into account the new findings along with other similar peer-reviewed research.

Professor Anne Mackie, director of screening for Public Health England, said: The HPV vaccine is the most effective way for young girls to protect themselves against cervical cancer, the most common cancer in women under 35.

Around 3,000 cases are diagnosed every year in the UK and tragically it causes 900 deaths, almost all in older women who did not benefit from the HPV vaccination programme.

Testing for HPV first will be rolled out into the English cervical screening programme over the next two years and we are working with NHS colleagues to ensure an effective implementation.

The death of reality TV star Jade Goody with cervical cancer in 2009 triggered a spike in the number of women attending screening - but that effect has faltered in recent years.

Uptake of the cervical screening programme is now at its lowest level for 20 years, with more than 1.2million women aged 25 to 64 failing to turn up in 2016/17.

Just 72 per cent of invited women were tested last year, down from 75.7 per cent in 2011.

Robert Music, chief executive at Jos Cervical Cancer Trust, added: HPV primary testing has been shown to be a much more effective screening test and it is positive to see that it could lead to reductions in the number of screens women need to attend in their lifetime, especially in those who have been vaccinated.

However, we must continue to focus on increasing uptake of the vaccination and screening programmes to ensure more women are able to benefit from these advances.

Screening attendance is falling across the UK and in England is now at 20-year low.
A fitness fanatic was rushed to hospital after getting his penis stuck in a hole in a weight.

The unnamed patient was rushed to hospital, where doctors called in firefighters to free his purple and swollen genitals.

They spent three hours using specialist equipment to free him from the 2.5kg (5Ib 8oz) weight.

They used a grinder and vibrating saw to remove the device.

It is not known how exactly the man managed to get his penis stuck in the plate.

The pictures of the unfortunate mishap emerged after they were leaked online.

The weight lifter was rushed to hospital in Germany with his penis trapped in a weight

Photos leaked

The weightlifter went to a hospital in Worms, Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany, with the delicate problem.

The image of the man's genitals was supposed to be for official use only but it has ended up all over social media.

The hospital that treated the man has launched an investigation to find out how they were leaked.

Firefighers took three hours to remove the 2.5kg weight from the delicate area

THE RISKS OF GETTING YOUR PENIS STUCK IN SOMETHING A penis that gets trapped can become swollen because the flow of blood has been blocked. This can cause blood vessels to burst, causing discolouration of the skin. There is a danger that the cells and issue could die  called necrosis  due to lack of oxygentated blood flow. Worst case scenario, it may have to be amputated. Last year, this happened to a man who used a plastic bottle as a sex toy and got his penis stuck in it for four days. By the time he reached the hospital, his genitals had turned black and had started to decay. Advertisement

As well the as the picture of the man's painful-looking penis, another image shows the weight after being shattered to remove it from him.

The fire brigade, after freeing the man, shared an image of the broken disk, describing it as a 'curious training accident'.

A spokesman for the fire brigade said: 'How delicate some of our firefighters can be was shown when we called in support of the hospital.

'One person had a very sensitive body part wedged in the hole of a 2.5kg dumbbell disc.

'The dumbbell weight could be removed after three hours with the help of a grinder, a vibration saw and a hydraulic rescue device.'

Dumbells and barbells often come with plates or disks on varying weights, allowing the user to adjust the load.
A woman's aggressive bowel cancer was missed by doctors for a whole year because they thought she was too young to get it.

At 32, Cara Hoofe was so constantly exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open, but assumed this was due to her hectic lifestyle.

But when her condition worsened, and she began having stomach cramps and constipation, she sought advice from her GP.

He sent her away with iron tablets for anaemia, despite her family history of bowel cancer  her father was diagnosed in his 40s.

Cara, now 34, was shocked to discover she had advanced cancer, which meant she had to have a large part of her bowel removed. It had also spread to her liver, and part of that had to be cut away too.

Just like her doctor, the merchandising worker never expected she would get the disease at her age  most people diagnosed are over 60.

But she found out she had Lynch syndrome (LS), an inherited condition which brings a higher risk of developing bowel, ovarian and womb cancer. It doesn't cause any symptoms until the disease strikes.

At 32, Cara Hoofe was so constantly exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open, but assumed this was due to her hectic lifestyle

But when her condition worsened, and she began having stomach cramps and constipation, she sought advice from her GP (pictured in hospital after having surgery)

WHAT IS LYNCH SYNDROME? Lynch syndrome (LS) is a condition that can run in families. It is also known as hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC). It is caused by an alteration in a gene called a mismatch repair gene. Carriers do not have any symptoms. But people with the syndrome have an increased risk of developing bowel, womb and ovarian cancer. If your family has a history of developing these cancers when they are under 50 years old, it is possible they have the altered gene that causes LS. Bowel cancer that doesn't run in families usually develops in people over 50. But for people with LS, bowel cancer usually develops between the ages of 40 and 50 or younger. Being aware of your normal bowel habits is important, particularly if you have or think you may have LS. Be aware of: Blood on or in your stools (poo).

Diarrhoea, constipation or another change to your bowel habit that lasts longer than six weeks and has no obvious reason.

Unexplained weight loss.

Pain in the tummy or back passage.

A feeling of not having emptied your bowel properly after you go to the toilet. Source: Macmillan Advertisement

LS is the most common cause of hereditary bowel cancer. It means a carrier's lifetime risk of bowel cancer is 50 to 80 per cent. Women with the condition have 30 to 60 per cent risk of womb cancer and a 10 per cent risk of ovarian cancer.

And despite undergoing grueling treatment, Cara has an 80 per cent chance of the disease returning at some point in the future.

'It wasn't really something I thought about  although the possibility started nagging me, when I began to feel ill,' said Cara, from Maida Vale, west London.

She said: 'I was shocked to be diagnosed so young.

'I do think a lot of people thought I was too young for bowel cancer and that leads to delays in diagnosis.

'My GP had never seen it in anyone as young as me before. It's seen as an older person's disease.'

Year-long search for answers

Shortly after her milestone birthday, Cara began feeling permanently exhausted and run down.

For months, she attributed it to her busy lifestyle taking its toll, now she was no longer in her twenties.

'I'd been unusually tired for months but I just dismissed it as something that just happens when you turn 30,' she said.

'It makes me chuckle as if reaching 30 puts you on some slippery slope to the realms of being an OAP.

He sent her away with iron tablets for anaemia, despite her family history of bowel cancer  her father was diagnosed in his 40s (pictured with her mother Andrea)

'I hadn't dreaded it. It hadn't really crossed my mind, but when I started feeling sick, I thought it's probably because I am getting old.'

But in January 2015, she saw her GP after having stomach cramps and constipation.

'I knew there was a slight genetic link with bowel cancer, so it was somewhere at the back of my mind now I felt ill,' she said.

'I mentioned to my GP that my dad had bowel cancer, but I didn't have any of the major symptoms, like blood in my stools, so it wasn't the first thing we investigated.'

Noticing she looked anaemic, her GP prescribed her iron tablets  the start of a 10-month journey, ruling out problems like fibroids, before her cancer was discovered.

Cara said: 'Because I was so young, I think even the doctors thought it was unlikely I'd have bowel cancer.'

But, when the iron tablets failed to work, her GP had one of her stool samples tested  finding blood in it, not visible to the naked eye.

Cara was shocked to discover she had advanced cancer, which meant she had to have a large part of her bowel removed. It spread to her liver, and part of that had to be cut away too

After that, she was referred to Imperial Hospital London for a colonoscopy, where a telescopic camera is used to examine the lining of the bowel for abnormalities.

The same day the results revealed a tumour in the right side of her bowel. At that stage she didn't know it was cancerous.

A week later she found out it was malignant. It was stage three, which means it hadn't spread, and T4, which means it was locally advanced.

Cara said: 'When I reached the point where the doctor actually told me I had cancer, in January 2016, I think I already knew, because it felt like I was following the same path as my dad did before his diagnosis.

'I had started to prepare for that but it was still overwhelming when it happened.'

Cancer had spread

Around a month later, in February 2016, Cara began chemotherapy at Charing Cross Hospital in London.

Then, when she was four cycles into the six-cycle course, on her GP's advice, she was admitted to hospital, in extreme pain.

It is still unclear what was causing the pain  but doctors performed emergency surgery to remove a large section of her bowel. The tumour was removed at this point as well.

Just like her doctor, the merchandising worker never expected she would get the disease at her age  most people diagnosed are over 60 (pictured: her scar after surgery)

After a three-month recovery period, Cara was given more chemotherapy to remove the last few traces of cancer.

But, she was dealt more heartache when, as she neared the end of the treatment, further lesions were found on her liver  meaning she would need even more intensive chemotherapy.

Last month, she had four-hour surgery at Hammersmith Hospital to have part of her liver removed in a bid to prevent the cancer from spreading.

Although she faces more chemo, she hopes to be discharged from the oncologist next year.

Eggs frozen

Because chemotherapy can damage fertility, Cara had her eggs frozen ahead of the treatment.

However, she is re-thinking her plans to have children in the future, in case she passed on her faulty genes.

If someone with LS has children, they will have a 50 per cent risk of inheriting the altered gene.

She said: 'I wasn't in a place where I was thinking about children when I was diagnosed, but it was always my dream to have them one day.

'Now, I'm not sure if I would want to go ahead with that and risk my children picking up a faulty gene and having cancer.

'I know there are things that can be done to test if you have IVF, but it's a lot to have to go through.

'It's all quite overwhelming, as I'm thinking about treatment at the same time.'

She found out she had Lynch syndrome (LS), an inherited condition which brings a higher risk of developing bowel, ovarian and womb cancer (pictured with her friend Susannah Brooke)

Now she is raising money for charity Shine Cancer Support by walking the length of the Thames.

So far, she has completed around 70 miles, and will continue to walk the remaining 110 miles in stages.

She is also sharing her story to help raise awareness of Bowel Cancer UK's Never Too Young Campaign, which aims to give younger bowel cancer patients a voice, change clinical practice and stop the disease in people under 50.

At the moment, the NHS offers bowel screening to over 55s, although a recent study, conducted by a French team led by Dr David Karsenti, has advised this should be lowered to 45.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is not a psychological disorder as previously thought, researchers claim after finding evidence that the condition is caused by changes in brain chemistry.

Controversy has raged for nearly 30 years on whether the debilitating condition that causes pain, physical and mental fatigue and cognitive dysfunction was a genuine illness as critics speculated that it was all in the mind.

Now researchers have found changing levels in a brain molecule called miRNA in patients, which is responsible for turning protein production on and off, subsequently causing the tiring symptoms.

The findings lay the groundwork to better treat and understand the disorder that affects nearly three million Americans.

Chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War Illness are caused by changes in brain chemistry and are not psychological disorders as it was previously thought, a study from Georgetown University found

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME, affects between 836,000 and 2.5 million Americans most commonly in their 40s and 50s, according to a National Academy of Medicine report.

Researchers also conducted studies on patients with Gulf War Illness, which causes similar symptoms including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and joint pain.

Gulf War Illness developed in more than one-fourth of the 697,000 veterans deployed to the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War who were exposed to combinations of nerve agents, pesticides and other toxic chemicals that may have triggered the symptoms.

SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME The 1994 Center for Disease Control criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome: Moderate or severe, persistent and sustained fatigue lasting more than six months and causing impairment of daily activities

Moderate or severe complaints of at least four of eight ancillary criteria:

Short term memory or problems with concentration

Sore throat and sore lymph nodes

Sleep disturbances

New onset headaches that include migraines Advertisement

The disorders share commonalities, such as extreme physical and mental fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, joint pain, exhaustion after exercise, headaches and flu-like symptoms.

Some sufferers have been left so weak that they lose their job or become bed or wheelchair-bound. But with the cause unclear, skepticism has remained as to whether it is a physical illness or merely psychological.

The study conducted by Georgetown University Medical Center provides significant insights into brain chemistry of these disorders that can now be investigated.

Spinal taps before exercise showed miRNA levels were the same in all participants suffering from chronic fatigue, Gulf War Illness and a control group.

But chronic fatigue syndrome subjects who exercised had reduced levels of 12 different miRNAs, compared to those who did not exercise.

The tests also showed that sufferers of CFS and GWI experienced changes in miRNA levels 24 hours after riding a stationary bike for 25 minutes.

One GWI group developed jumps in heart rate when standing up that lasted for two to three days after exercise. Scans also revealed they had smaller brain stems in regions that control heart rate and did not activate their brains when doing a cognitive task.

Senior investigator Dr James Baraniuk said: 'This news will be well received by patients who suffer from these disorders who are misdiagnosed and instead may be treated for depression or other mental disorders.'

Chronic fatigue syndrome was thought to be psychological, often called 'yuppie flu' until a 2015 review of 9,000 articles over 64 years of research pointed to biological causes.

And though the exact causes of the disorders are unknown, Professor Baraniuk said miRNA levels in these disorders were different from the ones that are altered in depression, fibromyalgia, and Alzheimer's disease, further suggesting chronic fatigue syndrome and Gulf War Illness are distinct diseases.
Police in Madagascar are being forced to seize bodies of people who have died from the plague because their families are unwilling to part with them.

Aid workers describe the situation as 'terrible' as official figures reveal cases have spiraled by eight per cent in just a week with nearly 2,000 now infected.

And experts fear the 'worst outbreak in 50 years', which has claimed the lives of 143 people, could continue its rampage unless families hand over corpses of loved ones.

The outbreak, which is deemed to be at 'crisis' point, has prompted nine countries, some of which on mainland Africa, to brace themselves for potential outbreaks.

Charlotte Ndiaye, a World Health Organisation worker on the ground, made the bold claim in an interview with South Africa's Mail & Guardian.

She said: 'The problem you have now among communities in Madagascar is that most families dont want to give back the body.

'The police come to take the body. This is terrible. It is really terrible.'

And because there is a lack of an 'official' plague burial system, hundreds of families are confused about what they should do with the dead bodies, Ms Ndiaye warned.

More than 1,300 cases have now been reported in Madagascar, health chiefs have revealed, as nearby nations have been placed on high alert

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

Experts are concerned as the outbreak of plague in Madagascar this year is being fueled by a strain more lethal than the one which usually strikes the country.

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.

It is strikingly different to the traditional bubonic form that strikes the country each year. This year's outbreak has another six months to run, the WHO warns.

If officials suspect someone to have died from pneumonic plague, an officer armed with chemicals will be disposed to kill any bacteria on the corpse.

They are then placed in a sealed body bag and placed in a common grave - but the practice goes against the traditions of the Malagasy culture.

In the culture, there is an annual celebration to honour the dead - and an ancient ritual where relatives dig up the corpses of their loved ones.

Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the world-renowned University of East Anglia, was the first expert to predict it could reach mainland Africa.

He told MailOnline last week: 'The big anxiety is it could spread to mainland Africa, it's not probable, but certainly possible, that might then be difficult to control.

'If we don't 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.'

Professor Hunter's concerns echoed that of dozens of leading scientists, many of whom have predicted the 'truly unprecedented' outbreak will continue to spiral.

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

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: 'It's a crisis at the moment and we don't know how bad it's going to get.'

Their comments came after official figures released by the WHO showed last week cases of the plague had rocketed by 40 per cent.

Amid concerns the plague had reached crisis point, the World Bank decided to last week release an extra $5 million (3.8m) to control the rocketing cases.

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.

International agencies have so far sent more than one million doses of antibiotics to Madagascar. Nearly 20,000 respiratory masks have also been donated

Professor McFadden added: '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.

Last 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.

And aid workers warned the scale of the outbreak could be made worse by crowds who gathered for an annual celebration to honour the dead last Wednesday.

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. Families often gather 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 it's '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 it's 100 per cent likely that plague will arrive in the UK once more - it's just a question of 'when', not 'if'. 'And it's not an exaggeration to say that this is a real threat - a ticking time bomb that's 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 last week: '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.

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'. '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

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 Advertisement

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

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 reported that the finances and budget minister, 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.
Mystery: Timothy Brown, now 51, (pictured in 2012) is the Seattle-born man known as the 'Berlin patient'. He was declared HIV-free in 2007 after two bone marrow transplants at a hospital in Berlin

Researchers have come closer than ever to understanding how a man was cured of HIV almost 10 years ago.

Timothy Brown, the 51-year-old American man known as the 'Berlin patient', was declared HIV-free in 2007 after two bone marrow transplants at a hospital in Berlin.

He is one of just two people in history (and the first identified) to successfully beat the virus, and all attempts to replicate his procedure have ended in death.

However, a team at Oregon Health And Science University today published a paper on an ongoing study on a specific insular breed of monkey, which appears to be our strongest bet at replicating and understanding the mysterious case.

While the researchers say they believe completely curing HIV is unlikely to ever happen, they say Brown's bone marrow procedure, if refined, could help patients reach 'drug-free remission'.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online, Brown said he is 'very excited' about the study, which he has been following closely with regular updates from lead author Dr Jonah Sacha.

'I would love to know what cured me,' said Brown, who spends his year speaking at conferences, attending HIV presentations, and advocating for new research.

'From the moment I got cured, I had the option to hide my identity. But I wanted people to know, I don't want to be the only person who was cured.'

Brown, who is from Seattle but lived in Germany, was diagnosed with HIV in 1995.

In 2006, after more than a decade on standard anti-retroviral therapy to suppress his disease, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells.

His doctor at the Charite Hospital in Berlin said his best bet at survival was a bone marrow transplant, which replaces a sick person's immune system with stem cells from the bone marrow of a healthy person.

It is an incredibly delicate and risky procedure, since one's immune system is designed to defend their own body against foreign cells or pathogens.

There is a risk of death if it is not a strong enough match. Instead of seamlessly replacing one weakened immune system with the other, the transplant could trigger a battle between the two immune systems, killing the patient.

According to Be The Match, the chance of finding a perfect match is about 50/50, but even then there is a risk.

Finding a precise match for someone with HIV is even more complex, since their immune system is already compromised.

In Brown's case, he received a transplant from a person with a mutation of the CCR5 receptor, which has been linked to HIV immunity.

Despite the risks, Brown survived his first transplant, and stopped taking his HIV medication that day. He had another transplant in early 2008. On February 2008, he was declared HIV-free at the CROI Conference in Boston.

The only other person to have been cured of HIV remains anonymous. He was also in Berlin, and was declared HIV-free in 1998 after being prescribed an unconventional cocktail of HIV and cancer drugs.

Studies have since shown that the 1998 case appears to have largely been influenced by the patient's genes.

But Brown's case remains a mystery - and attempts to replicate his transplant have been disastrous.

Indeed, a report published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2014 described six attempts to treat HIV patients with a stem cell donation, but none lived longer than a year.

Consequently, researchers require an animal model to investigate.

Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University have successfully performed the transplant on Mauritian cynomolgus macaque monkeys, who are all very genetically similar

While bone marrow transplants have been shown to work in rhesus monkeys, a common species in scientific experiments, they are too genetically diverse to be a reliable model. In fact, many of the failed attempts at curing HIV in patients with bone marrow have been linked to some of the proteins found in rhesus monkeys' immune systems.

Instead, Oregonian researchers have turned to examining a specific group of monkeys descended from just five monkeys left on an island by Dutch spice traders five centuries ago.

Cynomolgus macaques, also known as crab-eating or long-tailed macaques, are prevalent across south-east Asia.

But in Mauritius, the Indian Ocean island off the coast of Madagascar, there is a population of them who descended from just five monkeys, left on the island in the early 1500s.

At the time, there were just four males and one female. As such, today's population is not very genetically-diverse, and the chance of finding a bone marrow match is high.

In a new report published early Friday morning, the researchers from the university's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute declared they successfully performed a stem cell transplant in two of these monkeys, who are healthy more than a year later.

The team, led by Dr Sacha, said the promising finding could take about a decade to develop into a functional treatment, but it also sheds light on how we could use stem-cell transplants for other diseases like leukemia and sickle cell anemia.
Questrions: Sir John Rose is still facing Serious Fraud Office enquiries

Former Rolls-Royce boss Sir John Rose is still facing Serious Fraud Office enquiries after his firm agreed to pay up to 671million to settle bribery and corruption claims.

Bulbous-nosed Sir John, 65, remains reasonably insouciant about the matter. Last I heard, he was embarking on an adventurous motorcycle trek with a member of his family across South America.

Corporate raider Carl Icahn is being investigated by US prosecutors over claims he tried to change environmental policy while an adviser to President Trump.

Bearded Icahn, 81, blamed for destroying airline TWA, is, by all accounts, a fairly vile specimen. Filmmaker Oliver Stone cites him as inspiration for Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglass delightful villain from his 1987 hit Wall Street.

After meeting, Icahn provided Stone with one of Gekkos catchphrases, advising him: If you want a friend, get a dog.

JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, 61, says he is grateful for better clarity on Britains Brexit strategy after meeting the Prime Minister on Wednesday.

At least someone left Downing Street with a smile on their face.

No sooner had Dimon departed, doomed international development secretary Priti Patel arrived for her rendezvous with the firing squad

Re Priti, the chances of one of her predecessors, Andrew Mitchell, regaining his old job were ruled a non-starter because he was neither a) female nor b) a Brexiteer.

But would not-as-nice-as-he-looks Mitchell, 61, left with estimated 2million legal fees following his failed legal action against The Sun, have wanted it?

On top of his 74,962 MPs salary, the former banker earns 90,000 from Investec and City accountants Ernst & Young for less than two weeks work a year.

Burberrys new chief, Marco Gobbetti, 57, rivals advertising mogul Sir Martin Sorrell as shortest male boss of a FTSE 100 firm.

Watching him deliver interim results yesterday, the Italian smoothie is certainly no higher than Sir Martins 5ft 5in. Im told their healthy egos are similarly matched.
I am an EU citizen and Hungarian national who worked in the UK from June 2007 until November 2015, with gaps as I was out of the country for some time periods during those years.

I then left the UK at the end of 2015 to do seasonal work in Switzerland, where I currently still work.

I understand there are gaps in my UK National Insurance record due to various reasons - working in the UK but only part-time, being abroad not working and not paying UK NI, working abroad. Is there any chance I might lose the NI contributions I already have as a result of Brexit?

Assuming I wont, I am planning to go back to work in the UK in order to make up at least the minimum of 10 years of NI contributions in order to qualify at least for the minimum UK state pension  but is it possible to pay NI voluntarily to fill those time gaps and how much would this cost?

I tried to request a National Insurance record online but failed as I do not have a British address and employer at the moment. T.G. via email

If you spent years working in the UK and paid NI but are Hungarian, where will you stand after Brexit on the state pension?

Jon Greer, head of retirement policy at Old Mutual Wealth replies: It sounds like youve had quite a varied working life and its great that you are thinking about the implications of this on your later life.

Youre right to take a look at your National Insurance records to see what the gaps are. Apart from the online services you can also phone HMRC or send them a written request. Details on alternative ways to contact them can be found on their website.

Youre also right that you need ten years of national insurance contributions to be entitled to the UK state pension. However, you may be able to make up the gaps in your contributions in a number of ways.

As part of the EU, the UK is currently part of a system to co-ordinate the social security entitlements for people moving within the European Economic Area (EEA), Gibraltar and Switzerland. So it may be possible to use the time you spent abroad to make up the missed years.

If you have worked in these countries then these may count towards your ten qualifying years. So for instance your time in Switzerland might count, as would your time in Hungary if you were contributing to the state pension in those countries.

For example, if you have eight qualifying years from the UK on your National Insurance record, but you worked in an EEA country for, say, twelve years and paid contributions to that countrys state pension, you would meet the minimum qualifying years to get the new State Pension because of the time you worked overseas.

But your UK new State Pension amount will only be based on the eight years of National Insurance contributions you made in the UK. For further information and to find out if your time abroad counts, youll need to contact the International Pension Centre.

In certain circumstances it is possible to make voluntary National Insurance Contributions, however, the rules are complicated. From the information youve provided it is not clear that you would be eligible to do so. To check you will need to contact the National Insurance Contributions and Employers Office of HM Revenue and Customs. Read more about top-ups in the box below.

The impact of Brexit on the state pension entitlement is still unknown. However it is understood that until the UK formally leaves the EU, the existing social security rules continue to apply and entitlements remain unchanged.

UK-EU DEAL ON PENSIONS UK and EU negotiators made early progress on whether NI contributions made by Britons while working abroad count towards state pensions, and vice versa. Read more here.

The situation once the UK is no longer part of Europe will depend on the outcome of negotiations.

However, in June the government said it intended to continue with its current system and would expect member states to follow suit. So while it looks promising that your current NI contributions will stay intact, nothing is certain.

Given your complicated working life, it would be wise to talk to a financial adviser. They can help you navigate the complexities of the different systems. An adviser can also discuss how much you may need to put aside apart from the state pension to ensure that you have proper provision for your later life.
BIG POINT, Miss. -- Jackson County sheriff deputies have arrested an Alabama man wanted for the robbery of a Quick Stop after he was extradited from Mobile on Wednesday, according to Sheriff Mike Ezell.

Justin Wayne Hudson, 36, of Chuncula, Ala., was arrested and charged with one count of robbery and is currently being held in the Jackson County Adult Detention Center.

According to Ezell, Hudson entered the Big Point Quick Stop on Aug. 15, Hudson walked into the store on Hwy. 613, stole money from the register, and fled the scene in a black Chevy Trailblazer.

Before his extradition to Jackson County, Hudson was sitting in the Mobile County jail since late August after being arrested by deputies there on unrelated charges.

Bond for Hudson has been set at $10,000.
The 18 billion shopping frenzy that takes place on Singles Day is the most obvious sign of the rapidly growing middle classes in China.

And because of the population numbers in Asia, the explosion of consumerism  on display today in Chinas version of Black Friday  is driving growth around the world.

The internet is powering much of this, with more than one billion Chinese now using mobile phone internet, and connected to social media through apps such as WeChat. This has more members than Facebook and WhatsApp.

The 18 billion shopping frenzy that takes place on Singles Day is the most obvious sign of the rapidly growing middle classes in China

So how can UK savers cash in on this, and what are the risks?

Dale Nicholls, portfolio manager of Fidelity China Special Situations, says: What sets China apart can be broken down into three main areas.

The new group of consumers who are driving Chinas transition, the home-grown companies that dominate digital commerce in the country and the unique and pioneering business models these companies are devising.

As well as mobile phones, growth areas in China at the moment are bike-sharing firms and live-streaming companies which put shows on the internet.

One of the best ways to incorporate China into a portfolio, according to Chris Stevenson, director at Barclays Smart Investor, is to invest in UK-based funds with partial or exclusive exposure to the Chinese market.

Exchange traded funds  which are essentially low-cost trackers  are a good option for those looking for a more passive investment, as they usually mirror the performance of a particular index, such as the SSE Composite Index, he adds.

Investors could look to funds by Lindsell Train UK Equity and Crux UK  which both place fashion brand Burberry, which does a quarter of its sales in China  in their top ten holdings.

Baillie Gifford Pacific Fund looks to exploit the period of change that Asia is facing

Chinese consumers are also big whisky lovers, with 40pc of all Diageos Asian sales attributed to the tipple. Liontrust Special Situations has Diageo as their third largest holding, while Threadneedle UK Extended Alpha has it in second place.

But Darius McDermott, managing director of online funds ratings company Fund Calibre, names Asia-specific funds with exposure in China as a good way to tap into the sectors growth.

As Chinas middle class expands, the potential for consumer spending growth is enormous.

As Chinas middle class expands, the potential for consumer spending growth is enormous Darius McDermott, managing director of online funds ratings company Fund Calibre

He recommends the Schroder Asian Alpha Plus fund, where 32pc is invested in China. The funds manager is a big believer in the Asia consumer trend and has Alibaba and Tencent in his top 10 holdings.

Tencent is an investment holding company with subsidiaries that can be thought of in a similar league to Facebook, Uber, Paypal and Just Eat all rolled into one.

He also points to the Baillie Gifford Pacific Fund, which looks to exploit the period of change that Asia is facing, by looking for opportunities afforded by this change and investing in companies disrupting the existing order. It has about 36pc in China.

Investing in China doesnt come without a warning, however. Many experts warn of a credit bubble that could be about to explode.

According to the International Monetary Funds most recent Global Financial Stability Report, the size, complexity, and pace of credit in Chinas financial system point to elevated risks to financial stability.

Will Hobbs, head of investment strategy for UK and Europe at Barclays, says: There remain concerns with the Chinese economy, particularly with the housing market, which is again showing signs of slowing. However, we still think that the authorities have the means to staunch these problems.
British taxpayers will back a 1.5billion loan to Saudi oil titan Aramco  as the Government tries to woo the company to float in London.

The City is fighting New York for the deal, which has an estimated value of 1.6trillion and would be the largest ever to go public.

Aramco is seeking to sell a 5 per cent stake to investors to raise cash for the Saudi Arabian government.

But the float has become controversial. In April, the Prime Minister Theresa May, along with London Stock Exchange boss Xavier Rolet, went to Saudi Arabia to discuss the deal.

The Government is helping Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco to borrow from banks to spend on investments

Then, a few months ago, City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it would water down listing rules to make Britain more attractive, prompting furious criticism from major investors. The changes came after the FCA met Saudi officials.

Now, the Government is helping the foreign state-owned company to borrow from banks. The Treasury's UK Export Finance group is to guarantee 1.5billion of bank lending for Aramco to spend on investments.

It means that if the company is unable to pay the cash back, UK taxpayers will refund creditors.

Officials stressed the money will have to be spent on projects involving British exports.

But critics said the deal was suspicious. Labour MP Wes Streeting, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, said: 'The irregular nature of this arrangement merits clear scrutiny, so I hope it's something the committee will look at in coming weeks.'

One source close to the Aramco listing reportedly said the bung was a 'desperate' attempt to secure the float for London.

Former top Treasury official Lord Macpherson blasted the plan on Twitter and said that the great free trading Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone would 'be turning in his grave'.

Treasury sources said guaranteeing foreigners' loans was normal practice, as a way of boosting UK exports.

However, the Aramco deal will be the second-largest done by UK Export Finance  beaten by a 1.7billion agreement with Oman last year, for BAE Systems fighter jets.

There are also no details about exactly what Aramco will spend the cash on. It yesterday agreed 3.4billion of deals with firms in Italy, Spain, China, Abu Dhabi and the US to boost fossil fuel production.

Trade Secretary Liam Fox ultimately signed off on the guarantee, which sources said would support procurement from British suppliers for two years.

Aramco has previously had 500million of guarantees from the UK. Winning its float will be seen as a coup for the City, a sign it can continue undamaged by Brexit.

Critics of the FCA's watering down of listings rules say that the current system underpins London's credibility and that the FCA's actions could cause serious harm.
Superdry sales jumped 25.2 per cent to 756.3m in the half year to October 28

A successful advertising push helped Superdry toast a surge in half-year sales.

The retailer said it won over customers after targeting millennials on social media. Its Varsity range and ethically sourced down jacket have proved hits.

Sales jumped 25.2 per cent to 756.3million in the half year to October 28  with retail sales up 12.8 per cent and wholesale revenues up 43.1 per cent.

Superdry benefited from the weak pound, which added around 12million in sales. Same-store sales were up 6.3 per cent.

It cut back on promotions and expects profits to meet full-year targets of 98million.

Euan Sutherland, chief executive, said: We have delivered another strong performance, further demonstrating the unique advantages and attractiveness of Superdry as a global digital brand.

Our focus is on executing against the clear growth opportunities we have identified. We have a clear brand positioning, a disruptive multi-channel approach and a growing culture of excellence.
Sir Chris Hohn claims LSE boss Xavier Rolet was forced to quit and gagged

One of the Citys top investors has demanded a shareholder vote to sack London Stock Exchange chairman Donald Brydon.

Sir Chris Hohn blames Brydon for the departure of the LSEs chief executive Xavier Rolet, who many investors credit with a major turnaround.

Rolet, 57, is to leave the exchange next year after a successor is found  but Hohn claims he has been forced to quit and gagged from speaking out.

Hohns business, The Childrens Investment Fund (TCI), owns a 5 per cent stake in the LSE and has called for a shareholder meeting to vote on whether Brydon should be sacked and Rolet should stay.

In a letter to Brydon last night, TCI said: Hiding behind confidentiality agreements denies shareholders the ability to review your actions and demonstrates bad corporate governance over which you are presiding.

Brydon now has 21 days to call a meeting. If he fails to act, TCI will arrange its own meeting.
The City's top official says a deal with Brussels must be made

BREXIT PLEA Catherine McGuinness, policy chairman of the City of London Corporation has called for Britain to cough up billions of pounds to Brussels for a Brexit trade deal, saying no deal would put finance firms 71.4billion annual tax contribution at risk.

TRUSTLY GROWS Payments firm Trustly has handled more than 8.9billion since it was set up in 2008, bosses said, with 41 per cent of that in the first ten months of this year.

ROBO CASH The sum of customers cash overseen by online wealth manager Scalable Capital has risen to 444million just 22 months after its launch. It is a robo-adviser, using a computer programme to determine how savers money is invested.

SALES DIP The number of new cars bought on finance tumbled to 144,143 in September  11 per cent down on the same period last year.

DEBT BOOST Debt collector Arrow Global swung to a 15.2million profit in the three months to September 30, up from a loss of 6.3million a year earlier, boosted by revenue growth of 41 per cent to 231.6million.

SAVINGS RISE Investment firm Janus Henderson raked in 534million from savers in the third quarter of 2017, after backers pulled out 6.1billion in the first six months of the year.

EAGLE SOARS Digital coupon creator Eagle Eye, which supplies retailers with coupons for shoppers to redeem vouchers, said sales jumped 36 per cent to 3.1million in the three months to September after contract wins with Google, Greene King and Scottish retailer M&Co.

COLA CLIMBS Soft drink bottler Coca-Cola HBC reported soaring third-quarter results after sales grew in emerging markets such as Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. Overall sales jumped 5 per cent.

WASTE PROFIT Waste business Renewi posted a 33 per cent rise in profit to 43.6million in its first-half results. Revenue rose 125 per cent to 782.9million.

ROLLS UPDATE Engineer Rolls-Royce has said its marine division is still struggling but it is achieving targets in it is civil aerospace division. It cut marine division jobs due to falling oil and gas prices.

CRUISE SLIDE Cruise ship ports operator Global Ports Holding reported a 1.2 per cent fall in profit to 45.7million over the nine months to the end of September. Cruise ship revenue fell 2.6 per cent to 67million.
CHRISTMAS SHOP Discount supermarket Lidl has opened a 55 million distribution centre in Exeter  creating 500 jobs in the process.

The hub will help see it through the Christmas period, where it expects to distribute 40,000 turkeys, 1.5m boxes of mince pies, 100,000 prosecco bottles, 150,000 bags of carrots and 100,000 packs of sprouts in the week leading up to Christmas Day.

BANK WARNING Scandal-hit bank Standard Chartered has still not convinced US authorities it has changed its ways, meaning the threat of prosecution will hang over it for another year.

Discount supermarket Lidl has opened a 55 million distribution centre in Exeter  creating 500 jobs in the process. The hub will help see it through the Christmas period

The lender was fined 250 million in America in 2012 for working with blacklisted businesses in Iran and other countries. It avoided prosecution by pledging to clean up its act by mid-2017  but yesterday this deferred prosecution agreement was extended to July next year.

CREDIT SLUMP Profits at credit checker Equifax fell to 73.3 million in the three months to September 30  down 27 per cent on a year earlier. The firm is reeling after criminals raided 15.2 million personal records of UK consumers, along with 143 million in the US.

APP FLOAT Dara Khosrowshahi, boss of Uber, said the taxi app firm is planning to go public by 2019.

TOASTING SUCCESS Craft beer firm Brew Dog is looking for sales managers and account managers to fuel expansion after revenue surged 93 per cent at the end of September.

METER FEES Struggling families will no longer face fees as high as 900 if they are forced to have an energy prepayment meter installed, said Ofgem. The most they can be charged is 150, said the watchdog.

EGYPT LOAN Washington-based International Monetary Fund is pumping 9.1 billion into Egypt as part of turnaround efforts following civil conflict and a military coup.
British companies were last night raking in millions from Singles Day  Chinas 18 billion online shopping extravaganza.

The event, which started out as an opportunity for Chinese singletons to buy themselves a gift, has spiralled into the worlds biggest shopping day of the year.

It is held today, November 11  or 11.11  because the 1 is meant to represent an individual not in a romantic relationship.

The Singles Day sales were kicked off by the actress Nicole Kidman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma in a Super Bowl style gala

Last night, as the bonanza started, online retailer Alibaba reported takings of 3.8 billion in less than 15 minutes.

The sales were kicked off by the actress Nicole Kidman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma in a Super Bowl style gala.

The 53-year-old is the 23rd richest person in the world and worth around 30 billion.

More than 130 UK brands are taking part including Burberry, Marks & Spencer, New Look and LK Bennett.

The total gross merchandise volume, a measure of sales, exceeded 10 billion yuan after three minutes and one second during the 2017 11:11 Global Shopping Festival gala in Shanghai

Topshop and Clarks were among the big winners last year when shoppers spent 13.5 billion  up from 11 billion in 2015.

Analysts at Citigroup believe the 24-hour event, which has been dominated by Alibaba-owned platform Tmall since it began in 2009, will rake in 18 billion this year.

That is more than is spent on Europes biggest shopping days  Black Friday and Cyber Monday  combined.

Mei Chen, head of international business development at Alibaba, said: There is huge demand from Chinese consumers for foreign goods, especially UK brands, which are associated with high quality, heritage and are at the forefront of fashion.

More than 130 UK brands are taking part in the Singles Day sales, including Topshop

New Look international managing director Sven Gaede said that as well as generating great sales for the business, Singles Day has broader benefits in building brand awareness and attracting customers.

A report by Royal Mail found that 55 per cent of online shoppers in China buy goods from the UK  spending an average of 104 a month on items from British retailers.

Royal Mail sells a range of British brands on the Tmall website including products from Waitrose and Marvel milk products by Premier Foods.

UK brands are really clicking with Chinas shoppers Nick Landon, managing director of Royal Mail Parcels

Its also banking on Zatchels, an accessories firm that sells British-made satchels, to be extremely popular.

Nick Landon, managing director of Royal Mail Parcels, said: UK brands are really clicking with Chinas shoppers.

Worldpay, the global payments company, said it expects British companies to cash in as the weak pound attracts an influx of Brexit bargain hunters.

However, there is some doubt about the scale of the Singles Day sales. The American watchdog SEC is investigating the accounting methods Alibaba uses for its Singles Day figures.

The nature of the probe isnt clear, but critics have claimed that merchants selling on Singles Day have inflated their sales figures.
Sir Chris Hohn claims LSE boss Xavier Rolet was forced to quit and gagged

The London Stock Exchange has agreed to hold a vote on sacking its chairman Donald Brydon amid a row with a leading investor.

Last month, LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet announced that he intends to step down next year once the company has found a replacement.

But hedge fund boss Sir Chris Hohn  whose business The Childrens Investment Fund has a 5 per cent stake in the exchange  wants Rolet to stay.

He blames Brydon for pushing Rolet out, and claims the chief executive has been forced to sign a gagging deal which prevents him from speaking his mind.

Using his rights as a shareholder, Hohn has now proposed that investors vote to dismiss Brydon and reinstate Rolet.

The LSE has bowed to his demand for a ballot, which will be held before the end of the year.

The business yesterday released a statement saying that it intends to publish details of a meeting as soon as reasonably practicable.

Rolet announced his departure after a failed attempt to sell the LSE to German rival Deutsche Boerse for 21 billion, which was blocked by European Union competition regulators.

LSE shares fell yesterday 0.3 per cent, or 13p, to 3720p.
TP Icap has won a battle with Brussels over a 13.2 million fine for rigging Libor rates

TP Icap has won a battle with Brussels over a 13.2 million fine for rigging Libor rates.

The broker was fined by the European Commission in 2015, for manipulating Japanese yen lending rates alongside several banks.

Icap denied any wrongdoing and challenged the ruling in the European courts, and judges found partially in its favour yesterday, meaning the fine is likely to be reduced.
As European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager probably possesses more clout than any watchdog in the world

Mention European Union Commissioners and we think of minor league provincial politicians settling down to another all-expenses paid lunch, putting in an early order for the chateaubriand as they eye up the uncorked claret like a long-limbed Victorias Secret model.

Denmarks former deputy prime minister Margrethe Vestager is cut from a markedly different cloth.

As European Commissioner for Competition, she probably possesses more clout than any watchdog in the world and my goodness, has she been happy to use it.

While most come to Brussels to schmooze and ride the EU gravy train steadily toward retirement, Vestager, 49 (pronounced Vest-ayer) has set about wielding her battle axe like a bloodthirsty Viking.

Since taking up her post in 2014, Apple, Google, McDonalds, Facebook and Amazon have all been clobbered over their cosy tax arrangements and underhand business tactics. In August 2016, she ordered Apple to pay 11 billion in back taxes to the Irish government.

Taking on corporate giants such as these takes guts, and graphite-haired Margrethe has plenty of those. Just ask Apples all-powerful boss Tim Cook. When he jetted over to argue his case with Vestager, the poor man hobbled out of their meeting like hed just received a fly-kick to the goolies.

Dubbed the ice queen by the Danish press, Vestagers frosty reputation is not entirely deserved. In person she is polite and welcoming with a slight mumsyish side, revealed by a fondness for baking cakes for her staff.

Shes witty too. When her spending plans were once criticised in Denmarks parliament for being too small by the leader of the opposition, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Vestager deadpanned: I am a bit cautious about trusting any judgement on size from men. Kerpow!

Her willingness to challenge multinationals is guided by a moral sense of fairness, shaped during her staunch upbringing in West Jutland where her parents were Lutheran pastors.

After graduating Vestager worked for the centre-Left Radikale Venstre, known as the Cafe latte party for its appeal to wishy-washy metropolitans.

After holding various civil service positions, Vestager was made Denmarks youngest-ever minister aged just 29, when she was put in charge of education

After holding various civil service positions, she was made the countrys youngest-ever minister aged just 29, when she was put in charge of education.

She rose to party leader in 2007, and, thanks to Denmarks habit for coalition governments, four years later found herself deputy prime minister after propping up the ruling social democrats.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt later returned the favour by nominating her for the EU job.

Vestagers mastery of negotiation and ability to navigate Denmarks fiendishly complicated political system made her the inspiration for the gritty Danish drama Borgen.

Vestager seen delivering a speech during the 2017 Web Summit in Lisbon on November 7

Like the shows protagonist, Margrethe juggles a successful political career with a busy family life. She has three children, one studying medicine, while the two youngest live with her and her maths teacher husband in Brussels.

She refuses to play the I dont know how she does it game but, suffice to say, her day-to-day life requires no small amount of scheduling acrobatics.

Washington views her suspiciously. Those big American multi-nationals arent used to being bossed around overseas.

But Vestager views any attempts to bully her as a badge of honour. When she restricted benefits payments during her time in government, a trade union sent her a model hand with an upturned middle digit.

The plaster cast  which she calls the f*** finger  has pride of place on her Brussels desk. With two years left of her five-year term, we can expect further fireworks. After that, who knows?

Friends say she eyes the International Monetary Fund position, up for grabs when Christine Lagardes second term finishes in 2021.

It would be nice to think she also has a shot at succeeding the dreadful Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the EU Commission when he departs in 2019.

The role traditionally goes to servile, acquiescent sorts. Hmm. On second thoughts, I think we can safely rule splendid Margrethe out of the running.
MOSS POINT, Miss. -- Moss Point Police are investigating a late night shooting that left a man and teen with gunshot wounds, according to Chief Calvin Hutchins.

At approximately 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, police responded to the area near Frederick St. and Hwy 63 for a report of a shooting. When police responded, they found a male sitting in front of a local business suffering from a gunshot wound to his side, according to police.

The male was identified as 21-year-old Donovan Kelly.

As the investigation continued, an officer discovered a 17-year-old black male victim standing at the corner of Cypress and Frederick suffering from a gunshot wound to his arm.

Police believe someone walked up to a car at the Frederick St. intersection, and in seconds, someone inside the car reportedly pulled out a gun and began shooting.

Both men were transported to Singing River Hospital for their injuries. Kelly was later airlifted and transported to USA trauma center in Mobile, Ala.

After conducting several interviews, police say one witness observed a late 1990 to early 2000 model Honda Accord, black in color occupied by black males firing shots from the vehicle.

The driver of the vehicle reportedly fled the scene traveling east on Frederick St. after the shooting occurred.

At this time, motive for the shooting is unclear and no arrests have been made. Detectives with Moss Point police have enlisted help from the South Mississippi Metro Task Force.

Police are asking anyone to contact the Moss Point Police Department at 228-475-1711 or Crime Stoppers at 877-787-5898 or visit the Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers website at mscoastcrimestoppers.com.
The dormant James Eadie brand has been relaunched by the great-great-grandson of the founder.

From humble beginnings as one of 14 children who left school at the age of 14 to work for a living, James Eadie went on to build a whisky empire which stemmed from a brewery in Burton-on-Trent, expanding to a chain of 300 pubs.

Proving the apple doesn't fall far from the family tree, Rupert Patrick has resurrected the label created in 1854 by his relative on his mother's side and sold to brewing giant Bass in 1933.

Rupert Patrick has revived the James Eadie whisky brand founded by his great-great grandfather more than 160 years ago

Now more than 160 years since its inception, Patrick, who has 25 years experience in the whisky business, hopes to take the brand to new heights and make his family proud - most of all, his mother.

'My mother, was tickled pink when I told her about the relaunch,' he said.

'She is an incredibly modest person and would never brag about her family history but this has enabled her to get excited about her heritage at the age of 85, which is lovely.'

The money required for the brand revival has been siphoned off the initial 3.5million Patrick raised two years ago to launch its parent business, an online whisky investment platform called Whisky Invest Direct - which he also heads.

Both firms are part of the Galmarley Group, which contributed around 2million to the tally. The rest was raised through crowdfunding.

It helped that Paul Tustain, the founder and chairman of BullionVault - a subsidiary of Galmarley, is a childhood friend of Patrick.

Patrick said: 'I'm very lucky. Paul recognised that I was the right man, given my experience in the whisky industry, and in the right place to launch Whisky Invest Direct.

The new iteration of revived the brand's best-selling Trade Mark "X" blend stays true to the original recipe - all bar three ingredients that can no longer be obtained

'It goes to show that all those relationships and friendships you have as a child can be useful later in life. Never close a door, and try not to make any enemies because you do not know who will be useful to you in the future.'

To get the ball rolling, Patrick, an ex-commercial director of international drinks company Diageo, bought 28 casks from some of his former employer's distilleries with the view of an initial limited production of 10,000 bottles.

The firm has since launched a range of single malt whiskies and, more recently, revived the brand's best-selling trade-marked X blend, which stays true to the original recipe with the exception of three ingredients - which can no longer be obtained - according to Patrick.

Only eight bottles of the original blend are in existence and are worth 'thousands of pounds' as a collector's item.

The new range currently retails between 36 and 55 and is only available through a handful of specialist suppliers, including Royal Mile Whiskies and Master of Malt - sales strategy that is expected to stay for the near future.

Challenges

To date, the biggest challenge in the brand resurrection process has been convincing whisky distilleries to ring-fence a selection of their malts to Patrick's heritage business rather than allocating the entire cache to its larger and bigger- spending rivals.

'Many didn't take the business seriously because it is small in size so I had to romanticise them. The whisky industry loves a good back story and I managed to convince the distilleries to supply what is essentially a tiny portion of their production by selling them the story of James Eadie.'

James Eadie's whisky empire stemmed from a brewery in Burton-on-Trent (whose staff are pictured here in the late 19th century) expanding to a chain of 300 pubs

Patrick is not out of the woods yet. He faces even more daunting hurdles once Britain officially tears up its membership to the EU.

The Scotch whisky industry creates around 5billion for the UK economy every year - 90 per cent of which comes from overseas sales. And one of the main concerns voiced by Scotch makers is the loss of an EU definition of whisky that protects sales from sub-standard products.

The protection will have to be defined in UK law to protect whisky exports once Britain exits the EU. What's more, Brexit could frustrate the shipping of Scottish whisky to members of the 27 EU county bloc.

However, Patrick is a 'glass half full' kind of person.

'Yes, there is a bit of uncertainty in the industry and yes we might have some paperwork problems and if we don't have a clear way forward in a year's time, there will be a few delays in shipping the products but we have real get up and go attitude.

'The demand for quality Scotch is growing and this will probably supersede the challenges Brexit may bring about.'

Family affair

So it is full steam ahead for the newly resurrected brand. Patrick says he has received the blessing from his relatives but admits feeling pressured by the success achieved by his great-great-grandfather.

As a father of three children himself - two daughters aged 20 and 23 as well as a 25- year-old son - does Patrick envisage his children taking over the family business in the future?

'Maybe,' he says. 'My son does not work in the whisky industry but he might do in the future. He is passionate about whisky and had gone to Scotland on a few occasions to visit distilleries.

'I wouldn't want him in the business for a while - he is young and can afford to have other experiences first but I would love to keep the business in the family.'
This is the vile tattoo of a paedophile who raped a 13-year-old girl pimped out by her own father in Australia's most egregious child abuse case.

This week former Perth master builder Alfred 'Freddy' Impicciatore, 47, was found guilty of four counts of sexually penetrating the teenager.

He was the last of the so-called 'Evil 8' paedophiles - who variously raped, drugged and filmed the schoolgirl - to face court over the vile sexual abuse.

Now it can be revealed Impicciatore, described as a 'chubby chihuahua owner' by his victim, posted online that he had a tattoo reading 'learn to love your inner monster'.

Last of the 'Evil 8': This week Alfred 'Freddy' Impicciatore, 47, was found guilty of four counts of raping a teenage girl who had been pimped out by her own father

'Learn to love your inner monster': Impicciatore uploaded a picture of a Where The Wild Things Are style tattoo to his 'my tatts' PInterest page prior to his arrest

Impicciatore uploaded a photo of the ink to his Pinterest folder, 'my tatts', at some point before his arrest in late 2015.

The folder contained pictures of other tattoos on his forearms, one of which was clearly visible during court appearances.

The page was wiped from the internet along with his other social media accounts after his initial arrest and can now be reported following the guilty verdict.

Impicciatore's victim was raped or indecently dealt with by six other men, including the evangelical Christian pastor David Volmer, after her father pimped her out online. A seventh man's case was later found to be unrelated to the girl.

The girl's father, who cannot be named as it would identify his daughter, has been jailed for 22 years.

In his decision, Judge Mark Herron said the father met Impicciatore on the messaging app Kik after the builder posted an ad looking for 'girls or women'.

Other tattoos in Impicciatore's 'my tatts' folder: The positive and negative signs on his forearms (bottom left) were visible during his court appearances

The former builder was a surprisingly active user of PInterest

Impicciatore admitted sexually penetrating the girl in a police interview where he was described by the judge as 'rattled'.

He said the girl's father raped her first.

In the police interview, he said he was 'spun out' after being told the girl was 13-years-old. He claimed the girl's father told him she was 17.

He said the father spoke to him about 'you know, doing it on a regular basis and being best mates'.

'It was really weird,' he said.

During the judge-alone trial, Impicciatore's lawyer John Hawkins argued his client's admissions during the police interview were unreliable.

Impicciatore was stressed and anxious, 'tired and cold' and wanted to end the interview quickly, the court was told.

But the judge found 'to an extent, his stress and anxiety were because... of (Impicciatore) knowing what he had done and having to face up to it...

'He was troubled by what he knew he had done and was wrestling with his conscience'.

His DNA evidence was also found on a torn condom wrapper in the father's bedroom, the court heard, and the judge found him guilty on all four counts.

'SPUN OUT': EXTRACT FROM HIS POLICE INTERVIEW Impicciatore, at court POLICE: Freddy, we're talking about a 13 year old kid. IMPICCIATORE: F***, you just spun me out. POLICE: I know. IMPICCIATORE: F***. POLICE: But I'm going to lay it on the line for you. IMPICCIATORE: Ah, god. POLICE: We're talking about a 13 year old kid that's getting prostituted out by her father. IMPICCIATORE: F***. POLICE: That's the bottom line here. Alright. So now --- IMPICCIATORE: Just f***ing (indistinct). POLICE: I'm going to give you a break. IMPICCIATORE: F***ing hell. POLICE: And just give you time to process that...We'll just have a little break. Advertisement

Impicciatore and a female friend fled to New South Wales when he was meant to appear for trial. Police released this picture of a red Nissan Pulsar

Where are you going? Impicciatore was found in Merriwa, New South Wales, with female friend Rachel Galvin (pictured)

Impicciatore had a troubled journey to the guilty verdict.

On May 22, he skipped the first day of his initial trial.

Police blasted out an alert seeking his whereabouts, claiming he fled Western Australia with female friend Rachel Galvin and had dyed his hair red.

He was found with Ms Galvin more than 3,700km away in the township of Merriwa, two hours' drive south of Tamworth, New South Wales.

'The only rational inference which can be drawn from it, that he fled from a consciousness of guilty, reinforces the findings I have already made,' Judge Herron said.

Impicciatore will be sentenced in March next year.

Asked about his client's tattoos, Impicciatore's defence lawyer told Daily Mail Australia he was unable to comment.

The girl is now in care and was said to be receiving treatment.
A man who told a Gold Coast service station employee that he had hidden a child in his bag has been arrested and charged with public nuisance.

Police will allege that the 44-year-old man walked into a BP service station on Frank Street at 10.30am on Thursday carrying a black bag, and began speaking with the attendant.

'He said that he had a child in a bag he was carrying and made threats towards the child,' police officers said.

But Queensland Police officer Mark Hogan confirmed to 9NEWS after the arrest that there was no child involved in the incident.

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The 44-year-old male allegedly told service station employees that he would 'harm the child'

A tattooed man who told a Gold Coast service station he had child in his bag has been arrested

The East Brisbane man then left with an unknown woman, and the employees called the police.

Police began searching for him after the service station staff raised the alarm, issuing an Amber Alert and authorising patrols of the area, but couldn't initially locate him.

But after a three-hour manhunt, police located the man outside the Australia Fair shopping mall in Southport and arrested him.

He was surrounded by at least three police officers and led away to a police car with his hands behind his back just after 2pm.

Police located the man outside the Australia Fair shopping mall in Southport and took him away

The man walked into a BP service station (pictured) on Frank Street at 10.30am on Thursday

He was questioned at Southport Police Station before being charged with public nuisance

He was not accompanied by the unknown woman at the time, nor was he carrying the bag. Police thanked the media and the public for their assistance.

The man was questioned at Southport Police Station, before being charged and released, according to news.com.au.

Police issued him with a 'notice to appear for public nuisance' and he is due to appear in the Southport Magistrates Court on the Gold Coast on Friday.
Enthusiastic shoppers in China are expected to spend a whopping $20 billion in just 24 hours as the country welcomes its annual online shopping festival tomorrow.

The figure is higher than the annual e-commerce sales of Brazil, said experts.

More than one billion packages are expected to be distributed across China during the Singles Day shopping festival on November 11 - nearly one for each Chinese or 15 for each Briton.

Delivery men sort boxes on the eve of 'Singles Day' shopping spree in Beijing on November 10

Enthusiastic shoppers in China are expected to spend a whopping $20 billion in just 24 hours

This means more than one billion packages are expected to be distributed across China

'Singles Day' has become the world's biggest shopping festival, eclipsing Black Friday

Experts said the immense buying power of the Chinese shoppers means the Singles Day is leaving the Cyber Monday and Black Friday in the dust.

Last year's Singles Day saw people splurging $17.8 billion in 24 hours - roughly $206,000 per second.

In comparison, Cyber Monday and Black Friday generated a combined sales of $6.79 billion worldwide in 2016, according to brand equity database BrandZ.

While the entire London Olympics cost $10.4 billion to host.

'The magnitude of China Singles Day, driven by the engagement and passion of millions of consumers, is off the scale,' said Doreen Wang, the Global Head of BrandZ.

There are a lot of boxes! Workers distribute express parcels at a logistics centre of China Post during Alibaba Group's Singles' Day global shopping festival on November 11, 2016

Last year's Singles Day saw people splurging $17.8 billion in 24 hours - roughly $206,000 per second. Delivery companies around the China had to work around the clock to send the orders

Employees of Tmall.com work at Alibaba Headquarters on November 11, 2013 in Hangzhou

Hylink, a Chinese digital agency, predicted that this year's Chinese buying bonanza would generate $20 billion in sales - despite a slow down in China's economic growth.

The company's report also pointed out that the figure is higher than the annual e-commerce spend of Brazil, one of the fastest-growing economies.

James Hebbert, Hylink's UK managing director, said the Chinese mainly buy fashion products, digital gadgets and electronic appliances during the day.

Mr Hebbert added that the Singles Day offers a huge opportunity for international brands to break into the Chinese market due to its digital nature.

He said among the 140,000 brands available on the Singles Day, 60,000 of them come from international companies.

To boost the work efficiency, Tmall, the world's largest online retailer, has started using cutting-edge robots in its warehouse which could sort parcels three times faster

Doreen Wang predicted the Singles Day to grow larger and more competitive as the Chinese authority is apparently backing it up.

Ms Wang said: 'After last year's Singles Day, the Minister of Commerce publicly promised State Council support for e-commerce innovation and online to offline integration so that the customer experience is seamless.

'China is also committed to leading the field of online finance as the country moves from cash to mobile payments.'
Thirteen suspected gangsters have been arrested following a coordinated Canadian-US takedown of organized crime which saw police secretly record a mafia induction ceremony.

Four US men were arraigned in New York on narcotics trafficking, loansharking and firearms charges yesterday, the same day Canadian agents arrested nine suspects.

Damiano Zummo, 44, Salvatore Russo, 45, Paul Semplice, 54 and Paul Ragusa, 46, allegedly belong or are associated with the Bonanno and Gambino crime families, two infamous mobs that have long dominated organized crime in New York.

As part of the investigation, agents secretly recorded a 2015 induction ceremony in Canada in which a defendant sponsored a confidential informant to become a full-fledged member of the Bonanno mob, prosecutors said.

Thirteen suspected gangsters have been arrested following a coordinated Canadian-US takedown of organized crime

Court papers seen by the New York Post report Zummo as saying to the unnamed man being initiated: 'The reason why were here is from this day forward, youre gonna be an official member of the Bonanno family.

'From this guy, this guy, this guy, everybody approved it, so from this day forward, youre a member of the Bonanno family. Congratulations.'

He later goes on to say: 'You only answer to the Bonanno family.'

Acting US attorney in Brooklyn, Bridget Rohde, called the recording 'an extraordinary achievement for law enforcement'.

She added that it dealt 'a significant blow' to the mafia.

The charges include accusations that Zummo and Russo sold more than two pounds of cocaine in a Manhattan gelato store. Zummo is also charged with laundering more than $250,000 in cash.

Semplice is accused of running a scheme that extended loans with interest as high as 54 per cent, generating thousands of dollars in profits a week.

While Ragusa is charged with being a felon in possession of nine firearms.

If convicted, Zummo, Ragusa and Russo risk life imprisonment. Semplice faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, prosecutors said.
The Texas church shooter once confessed he'd been buying dogs on Craigslist for 'target practice' and even bragged that he'd managed to purchase guns online while he was locked up inside a mental hospital.

Years before he walked into a small town church and opened fire, killing 26 and injuring 20, Devin Kelley, 26, obsession with guns and a morbid falsification with mass shooters, according to his former Air Force colleagues.

Jessika Edwards, who as a staff sergeant was Kelley's superior at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, said he would often 'make jokes about wanting to kill somebody' and once claimed that he'd been buying animals online to use as shooting practice targets.

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Devin Patrick Kelley (pictured left, and in a mugshot from a previous crime) walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, and opened fire on Sunday

Kelley served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010-2014. His superior Jessika Edwards said he would often 'make jokes about wanting to kill somebody' and once claimed that he'd been buying animals online to use as shooting practice targets

Kelley had recently posted a photo of an AR-15 style gun on his Facebook page with the caption: 'She's a bad b***h'

He made the 'jokes' so often that Edwards was terrified he would act on them in real life, she told CNN.

On one occasion when Kelley, who she said 'was always getting into trouble', was being disciplined she even told her bosses to 'back off or he would shoot the place up.'

She added that he was unstable, and had even threatened to kill himself on one occasion, if she didn't let him see a chaplain.

In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed for assaulting his wife and young stepson - the same year he was being treated at a mental health facility, the Air Force confirmed.

While in the mental hospital, Kelley reportedly bragged to other patients he had purchased multiple firearms in an online shopping spree just three days before he escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Services in New Mexico, in June 2012.

Mourning: Local residents embrace during a candlelight vigil for victims of the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas

Meredith Cooper, of San Antonio, Texas, and her 8-year-old daughter, Heather, visit a memorial of 26 metal crosses near First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Monday

Among the crowd of mourners on Wednesday was hero Stephen Willeford, who ran to the church with his own gun when he heard shots ring out

Kelley, then 21, was then caught trying to bring guns onto the Air Force Base, having made death threats against superior officers, according to the June 2012 report, which also mentioned the military charges.

The Airman, who was in the forces from 2010-2014, was being treated for depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at the time.

He was eventually sentenced to a year in confinement and released from the forces in 2014 with a bad conduct discharge - one step down from a dishonorable discharge.

Despite his issues while in the Air Force, Edwards said that she and Kelley had reconnected on Facebook in 2014 after he reached out to her for a job reference.

'I wanted to help him, and I really wanted him to succeed,' said Edwards, who had also left the military at that time.

But she said that their conversations took a sinister turn and Kelley even once praised Dylann Roof, the gunman who mowed down nine people during bible study at a South Carolina church.

Kelley killed 26 and injured 20 at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday before committing suicide

Hot pursuit: The route taken by Kelley after he was confronted by Willeford and subsequently chased by he and Langendorff

'He would say 'isn't it cool? Did you watch the news?'' Edwards said. 'He would say he wished he had the nerve to do it, but all he would be able to do is kill animals.'

Kelley was later fined for punching a dog in Colorado in 2014.

The breaking point for Edwards was when she said Kelley told her he was buying animals on Craiglist and 'using the dogs as target practice.'

She never reported him, writing the disturbing conversation off as Kelley 'being weird', but she decided to stop messaging him and block him on social media.

But before she cut off all communication, she had offered him a lifeline. She gave him her cell phone number and asked him to call her if he ever felt he was about to hurt himself or someone else.

Edwards says she never got that call. The next time she heard Kelley's name was when she got a text message from her friend in the wake of the shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday.

She said she burst into tears after hearing that Kelley was behind the worst mass shooting in Texan history - which claimed the lives of children, pregnant women and grandparents alike. He was eventually stopped by two brave citizens who engaged him and chased him down before he took his own life.

Court martial order: The Air Force's failure to enter his domestic charges into the federal database meant that he passed all his background checks and was able to buy four guns between 2014 and 2017

Kelley, 26, managed to purchase the Ruger AR-556 rifle in April 2016 from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store (file image) in San Antonio, according to a law enforcement official

'It's upsetting because you feel like we failed,' Edwards said. 'But in reality we did everything we possibly could do.'

However, the military has come under fire in the wake of the mass shooting after it emerged they did not enter Kelley's domestic abuse conviction in the federal database - which would have precluded him from buying a weapon.

Involuntary commitment to a mental institution would have been grounds to deny him a weapon provided that records of his confinement were submitted to the federal database used to conduct background checks on people who try to purchase guns.

Vice President Mike Pence, who attended a vigil in Sutherland springs, Texas after the shooting, said the gunman had lied on his background check application when buying the weapons, and cited Kelley's mental illness and bureaucratic failings within the Air Force for the tragedy.

'He lied on his application,' Pence explained, regarding why Kelley was able to buy the gun in the first place.

Vice President Mike Pence spoke to first responders and victims near the site of the shooting on Wednesday

'He had a history of mental illness and there were bureaucratic failures. We will find out why this information was not properly reported in 2012 and we are working with leaders in congress to ensure this never happens again.'

Pence said President Donald Trump had authorized a full complement of federal resources to the investigation, including 100 on-site FBI agents.

Authorities recovered a Ruger AR-556 rifle at the church and two handguns from the shooter's vehicle. All three weapons were purchased by Kelley, said Fred Milanowski, the agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Houston.

It's believed that Kelley may have been targeting his wife's mother on Sunday, since she is a member of the church.

Michelle Shields decided to skip church that day, so was not among the victims. But her mom attended church and was killed.
Westminster Council signed over the access to its network of cameras in January in a bid to save money

A London authority handed over control of 75 CCTV cameras to the Met Police in January but it has emerged they have never been switched on.

Westminster Council sold the access to its network of cameras to the force in a bid to save money.

However it has now been revealed the CCTV has not been used by police, despite shelling out 1.5million in tax payers' cash to purchase the system.

The 75 cameras cover key tourist hotspots such as Oxford Street, Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.

The areas have been described as 'prime targets' for a terror attack as the current threat level in the UK remains at severe.

The Metropolitan Police refused to explain why the 75 cameras were not being used.

However a spokesman told MailOnline the force would be installing 64 new CCTV cameras but would not say where they would be placed.

The force confirmed the new cameras will not be manned 24/7 but only on a 'needs' basis.

Ex-counter terror detective David Videcette, who investigated the 7/7 bombings, told The Sun newspaper he believed this was 'utterly ridiculous'.

He told the paper: 'Despite all the arguments and appeals for them to be switched back on, hearing that even now, victims of crime are unable to pursue allegations due to lack of CCTV, is utterly ridiculous and soul-destroying.

The 75 cameras are placed in tourist hotspots described as prime targest for terrorist attacks such as Oxford Street, Buckingham Palace and Number 10 Downing Street

'Oxford Street and Regent Street - two of the busiest shopping areas in the world  are prime targets for terror attacks.

'It's unthinkable that we don't have working, monitored CCTV systems in these areas.'

A spokesman for the Met Police said the City of Westminster is covered by many CCTV systems, including those run by Transport for London and private businesses.

He said: 'The police also have the ability to deploy temporary CCTV systems for specific operational needs.

'It is important it has a modern CCTV system for the reassurance of visitors, residents and businesses and to fight crime. That work is progressing apace and Westminster City Council has provided a grant to the Met that will pay for the cameras and installation.

He added: 'A total of 64 modern digital cameras will be installed and a review has determined the most effective locations to ensure optimum coverage.

'Locations for cameras have been carefully identified based on critical infrastructure, ie those buildings essential to the running of the borough, policing and management of demonstrations and those with the greatest risk of criminal offences.'

The spokesman said the new cameras would record 24 hours a day but added they would only be monitored 'as and when' the need arises.

This means CCTV would not be manned full-time.

The spokesman added there was 'no specific date' for when the new cameras would be built.

So far just 11 of the 64 have been fitted while 75 cameras remain unused.
Allies of Priti Patel (pictured leaving Downing Street after her resignation) believe the Foreign Office leaked details of her clandestine meetings in Israel to damage her

Allies of Priti Patel believe the Foreign Office leaked details of her clandestine meetings in Israel to damage her.

The former international development secretary was forced to resign following fresh revelations about her secret dealings with the Israeli government in August.

Miss Patel acknowledged she was wrong to hold a string of meetings with foreign politicians, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu without officials present.

But friends point out the Foreign Office learned of the meetings in late August but did not apparently pass on the information to Downing Street, which was blind-sided by media reports on the issue last week.

Miss Patel angered the Foreign Office on her return by suggesting the British aid budget could be used to fund humanitarian operations by the Israeli army in the disputed territory of the Golan Heights, which the UK does not recognise.

One friend suggested the department had taken revenge against her by leaking details of her itinerary.

Reports yesterday said she was livid about her sacking and was ready to go off like a shotgun.

And ministers were facing fresh questions last night over what they knew about Miss Patels dealings in Israel.

Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson wrote to Theresa May demanding answers  and claimed Miss Patel had met officials from the British consulate in Jerusalem, suggesting the Foreign Office was aware of her trip at the time

Labour yesterday tabled dozens of questions in Parliament in a bid to uncover exactly who knew what and when about the secret meetings.

Deputy leader Tom Watson wrote to Theresa May demanding answers  and claimed Miss Patel had met officials from the British consulate in Jerusalem, suggesting the Foreign Office was aware of her trip at the time.

A Foreign Office spokesman told the BBC Miss Patel had bumped into a Foreign Office official in Israel on August 24, but said she had not informed them of her itinerary.
Two Year 12 students were suspended from an elite Adelaide high school for what is believed to be a muck-up prank gone too far.

The students, who attended Prince Alfred College were suspended in their final week of school for 'antisocial' behaviour, The Adelaide Advertiser reported.

Details are not yet available as to what the boys did to deserve the suspension, but Principal Bradley Fenner told Daily Mail Australia their behaviour was 'unacceptable'.

'This year's Year 12 valedictory events were extremely positive overall and provided a wonderful send-off for our students,' he said.

'Whilst most of our boys were outstanding, unfortunately we had a couple who got it wrong.

Two Year 12 students have been suspended from Prince Alfred College (pictured) in their final week of schooling

'Two students were suspended following unacceptable behaviour on Monday, October 23.

'We have zero tolerance for anti-social behaviour.'

The incident has been labelled a 'misjudgement' by the school, who refused to comment further.

As many as 50 students from Sydney's elite Scots College were suspended after Year 12 students from the boy's school ran riot across the grounds and the local area.

Students skipped classes and gathered at a nearby park before causing havoc at the school, flipping furniture over and throwing watermelons, eggs and flour at buildings.

A day-long muck-up day celebration at Scots College in Sydney was cut short when police responded to reports of glass bottles being hurled at students in lower grades by forcing students to move on from the school (pictured, stock image)

The day-long muck-up celebration was reportedly cut short when police responded to reports of glass bottles being hurled at students in lower grades, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The students' behaviour, which included the overturning of a grandstand, has been called it 'anarchy' by nearby residents.

It is believed a golf cart was hijacked and eggs and watermelons were thrown at buildings before police confiscated alcohol and moved the crowd on.

Younger students locked themselves in classrooms and sought refuge in the staff-room, and a mother reported being abused by students outside the school, the publication reported.

'I came outside and saw them throwing beer bottles in the street. When one started pissing on the garage I told them to leave and they said "f*** off", then ran away,' she said.
Australian Islamic State fighters are believed to have been killed in the Middle East in the past week, according to Acting Prime Minister Julie Bishop.

Ms Bishop is in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, and received intelligence from the Five Eyes network that two Australians fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq are suspected to have been killed.

'ISIS will continue losing territory in its remaining positions in eastern Syria from the north and the south. This loss of territory is matched by loss of ISIS fighters,' she told the Daily Telegraph.

Acting Prime Minister Julie Bishop (centre) is in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit

Ms Bishop said sharing of intelligence with Middle Eastern countries was key to tracking extremists.

'The government estimates at least 68 and possibly as many as 87 Australians have been killed as a result of their involvement in the conflict in Syria and Iraq.'

She said as the conflict in the region continues some terrorists will seek to flee, and sharing information with other nations would allow Australia to keep an eye on them.

'Improved international co-operation and information sharing with countries like Turkey will prevent their movement.'

The Five Eyes intelligence network comprises Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

It is not known how old the Australians killed in the Middle East were, but many of those who travelled to the region to fight for ISIS were young men aged in the teens or 20s.
PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- Richard Spencer, now in his fourth month as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, got his first in-person look at Ingalls Shipbuilding Thursday as he and other officials toured the Pascagoula shipyard.

Spencer, who was sworn in as the 76th Secretary of the Navy in August, was joined on the tour by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo, Huntington Ingalls CEO Mike Petters and Ingalls president Brian Cuccias.

A native of Connecticut, Spencer joined the U.S. Marine Corps after college and served as an H-46 pilot until 1981, when he resigned from active duty to enter the private financial sector.

"Mike Petters and his team have done an amazing job of really bringing the art form of shipbuilding to a science," Spencer said. "If the U.S. Navy has a heart, I would say the shipyards are the blood pumping through that heart. It's on the shoulders of the U.S. Navy to make sure we keep these production lines hot and, therefore, efficient."

Ingalls, founded in 1938, began bidding on Navy work in the 1950s and in 1957 won a contract to build 12 nuclear powered submarines. In the decades since, the shipyard has produced in excess of 120 ships of various types for the Navy, with several more currently under construction.

Spencer's tour included visits to the amphibious assault ship Tripoli (LHA 7) and amphibious transport dock Portland (LPD 27).

"Ingalls is an amazing shipyard in the size, depth and talent that's here," Spencer said. "The workforce is one of the key elements that makes it a critical part of the Navy infrastructure."

Cuccias was appreciative of Spencer's visit.

""We appreciate Secretary Spencer taking the time to visit our shipyard and discussing the processes and skills our shipbuilders have in building quality ships for the Navy," Cuccias said. "Everything we do is in partnership with our Navy customer, and it is a pleasure to be able to highlight the efforts of our workforce to Navy leadership."

Palazzo, meanwhile, noted Ingalls will continue to be a key player as the Navy seeks to expand and modernize its fleet.

"I'm glad that we have a Secretary who joins me in acknowledging the men and women here at Ingalls are the greatest shipbuilders on earth," Palazzo said, "who build the greatest warships on earth, for the greatest military on earth."

Ingalls Shipbuilding and its sister shipyard in Newport News, Va., are the nation's largest military shipbuilding company. Ingalls Shipbuilding is Mississippi's largest private employer.
The right-wing group Patriot Blues has revealed that Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is their next target after their racially-charged verbal attack on Sam Dastyari.

Three men, including convicted stalker and Blues founder Neil Erikson and group member Ricky Turner verbally abused Mr Dastyari on Wednesday night, calling him a 'monkey'.

Erikson then told The Australian on Friday that the group will 'definitely be targeting the Greens...Probably Sarah Hanson-Young will be our next target; public enemy No 2.'

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is reportedly the next 'target' of the far-right Patriot Blues

Neil Erikson (left) founder of the Patriot Blues has verbally abused Senator Sam Dastyari (right)

'Probably Sarah Hanson-Young will be our next target,' Erikson told The Australian on Friday

'We are natural enemies; we will definitely try to expose them,' he said, two days after his rant against Senator Dastyari was caught on video.

While Senator Hanson-Young has yet to comment on the latest threat, Senator Dastyari said that he would discuss the incident with his family and is "keeping his options open" for legal action against Erikson.

In footage of the incident, the Patriot Blues founder said, 'Why don't you go back to Iran you terrorist?' during a lengthy confrontation with the Labor senator while he was having a beer at a Melbourne university bar.

Iranian-born senator Sam Dastyari was called a 'monkey' and a 'terrorist' at a Melbourne bar

Ricky Turner (second left) continued to ambush Senator Dastyari as he was having a wine

'This is Patriot Blue, mate. Why don't you go back to Iran, you terrorist?' one of the men asked

Three men, including convicted stalker Neil Erikson, verbally abused Mr Dastyari in a pub

Senator Dastyari blamed the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation for empowering 'the radical right'.

Senator Hanson dismissed these claims, saying that Dastyari was 'a big boy' who could 'stand up for himself'. She also accused the Iranian-born senator of using the incident to try and drum up publicity for his book.

Erikson is known to Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Kristen Hilton as one of the first people to be convicted of 'inciting serious contempt, revulsion and ridicule of Muslim people' under Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.

One Nation's Pauline Hanson dismissed the incident, saying Dastyari just wants publicity

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten (right) both condemned the racist tirade against Sam Dastyari by Erikson and his fellow Patriot Blues

The rant against Dastyari was slammed by politicians on both sides.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for 'zero tolerance for racist abuse like this' and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he was disgusted by the 'ugly' incident.

Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane told the Australian the incident was 'a sad demonstration of how far-right groups have been emboldened to engage in nasty abuse and harassment'.
Britain's departure date from the European Union is to be fixed in law to allay fears that Brexit could be hit by government backsliding.

David Davis said last night that he would accept Eurosceptic demands to include the departure date in the EU Withdrawal Bill, which returns to the Commons on Tuesday.

A Government amendment will fix the departure time as 11pm on March 29, 2019.

The time is one hour earlier than expected after government lawyers concluded the UK would leave at midnight Brussels time, which is an hour ahead of the UK.

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David Davis said last night that he would accept Eurosceptic demands to include the departure date in the EU Withdrawal Bill, which returns to the Commons on Tuesday

The Brexit Secretary, who will travel to Brussels today for the latest round of Brexit negotiations, said he had decided to act to avoid any confusion.

Our amendment makes it crystal clear that the UK is leaving the EU at 11pm on 29th March 2019, said Mr Davis.

Weve listened to members of the public and Parliament and have made this change to remove any confusion or concern about what exit day means.

Theresa May today warns MPs that they must not use the passage of the EU withdrawal bill through Parliament to attempt to slow down or stop Brexit.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister says: We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union.

The British people have been clear. Parliament itself voted for Article 50  and for this Bill at its Second Reading. We are leaving the European Union on 29th March 2019.

In the article, she states: Let no-one doubt our determination or question our resolve, Brexit is happening. It will be there in black and white on the front page of this historic piece of legislation. The EU Withdrawal Bill is the single most significant piece of legislation in this Parliament because it is fundamental to delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit.

She encourages MPs to come together and help to ensure the UK gets the best possible deal.

Theresa May today warns MPs that they must not use the passage of the EU withdrawal bill through Parliament to attempt to slow down or stop Brexit

Her warning challenges Tory rebels who have threatened to side with opposition parties to secure a legally-binding vote on the final Brexit deal. The move came amid reports that Mrs May is preparing to increase her offer to make a 20billion divorce payment to the EU in an attempt to make progress on trade talks next month.

The Financial Times claimed the PM had indicated to EU leaders she was willing to increase the offer considerably. Some diplomats believe the offer will have to be at least doubled. Government sources dismissed the claim as speculation last night, saying no decision on increasing the offer had been taken.

The EU has given the UK until the end of this month to provide a written pledge to cover part of the EUs spending commitments, which Brussels expects will take the bill to around 53billion.

UK ministers have previously said that they are unwilling to meet the demand until later in talks, with Mrs May having made an initial promise in her landmark Brexit speech in Florence.

Former diplomat Lord Kerr will today claim that the UK can unilaterally reverse Article 50  the legal mechanism for leaving the EU  at any stage during the exit process. Lord Kerr, a diehard Remainer who helped draft Article 50, will say: Theresa Mays letter was only a notification of the UKs intention to withdraw. Intentions can change.
Hugh Grant's custody shot after he was caught in a car with a prostitute by police in Los Angeles in 1995

Hugh Grant says he cannot comment on the Hollywood sex scandals  because he has murk in his past.

When asked about the revelations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by powerful men in cinema and theatre, the 57-year-old actor hesitated and said he felt unable to pontificate because of his own actions.

When it comes to sexual ethics I dont want to be the person to pontificate, he told Radio 4s Front Row on Wednesday evening. Theres murk in my past.

Grant, then 34 and dating Liz Hurley, hit the headlines when he was caught in a car with a prostitute by police in Los Angeles in 1995, the year after he had found worldwide fame in the romantic comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral.

He was arrested for indecent conduct with 23-year-old sex worker Divine Brown.

Grant subsequently pleaded no contest to the charges and was given two years probation. He was also ordered to pay 760 and complete an Aids education programme.

Asked on Front Row about the current scandal surrounding Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by a number of women and is facing several criminal investigations, Grant said: As a general rule, and this isnt a very daring thing to say, sexual harassment should have zero tolerance in whatever form, anywhere. In whatever country, in whatever business.

My hat goes off to those women who are brave enough to speak out at least on the Weinstein thing.

Grant, then 34, was caught with 23-year-old sex worker Divine Brown (right, her custody shot) when he was seeing actress Liz Hurley (left, the pair together in 1994)

Presenter Samira Ahmed told him: Youre honest and yet I feel theres a lot youve learnt not to say, to which Grant quipped: We live in a world of bear traps.

Grant, who stars in the Paddington 2 film which is out today, admitted last year to CBS that the 1995 incident was seedy behaviour but maintained it had not harmed his career because Hollywood only minds about money... As long as you make them money, they dont care what you get up to.

Grant stars as Phoenix Buchanan (pictured) in the Paddington 2 film which is out today

He won a Golden Globe and Bafta for his role in Four Weddings And A Funeral, and went on to make the hit films Notting Hill, Sense And Sensibility, About A Boy, Love Actually, the Bridget Jones movies and this years Florence Foster Jenkins.

Grant continued to date Miss Hurley, now 52, for 13 years until 2000. He has never married but has four children by two women.

He has a son and daughter with receptionist Tinglan Hong and two sons with Swedish TV producer Anna Eberstein.
A British mother jailed in Iran has been making birthday presents for her daughter from her cell as the three-year-old clings to the hope they will be reunited for Christmas.

Gabriella has been staying with her grandparents in Iran while her mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is incarcerated and fighting spy charges.

The 38-year-old from London, has been held since April last year after travelling to the country with her daughter on holiday.

Her three-year-old is brought to see her in prison twice a week where they are allowed to 'hug and play together'.

As her British husband Richard Ratcliffe described the toll on his wife and daughter, pressure is still growing on Boris Johnson to sort out the mess created by his recent gaffe and secure Mrs Zachary-Ratcliffe's freedom.

Gabriella, the three-year-old daughter of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is desperate to see her mother come home for Christmas after she was detained in Iran. Gabriella (pictured in Iran) sees her mother twice a week for short visiting sessions

Gabriella (pictured with her mother) has been staying with her grandparents in Iran while her mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is incarcerated and fighting spy charges

The Foreign Secretary was forced to clarify his comments when he incorrectly claimed Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran to 'teach journalists'.

They were seized upon by the Iranian state as evidence she was not there on holiday and used to raise the possibility of extending her sentence.

Her daughter Gabriella has been off her food since then and Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has at times being suicidal during her treatment, has been buoyed only by the support of other political prisoners with whom she shares her cell.

Mr Ratcliffe told MailOnline: 'I want to thank the six political prisoners that she shares a cell with. Without them I don't know how she'd have coped.

'They're Iranian women and also political prisoners who give her advice and support in a way that I can't as I can't really understand what she's going through.

'They make sure that she's busy, they ensure that her days are structured and that she doesn't just sit there watching TV, unless it's about her case. They get her teaching English once a week to keep her occupied.

'They all made Gabriella presents for her third birthday. So she calls them Mummy's friends. She wants them all to have a Christmas party together in the UK.'

Her family has been campaigning for her release since Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe (pictured with daughter Gabriella), who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in Tehran last year as she tried to return to London

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is pictured with her husband Richard who is desperate to see her back home with their three-year-old for Christmas

He added: 'Her grandmother takes Gabriella to the prison twice a week; they can hug and play together.'

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed the first visit from her daughter in January this year and the twice weekly visits began in April.

Her husband told The Sun: 'Nazanin has told Gabriella, 'Mummy and you will be going to see daddy in London for Christmas.'

'But then Gabriella will ask, 'Is it Christmas today? Is it Christmas tomorrow?' It's very difficult.'

There have been an increasing number of calls for Prime Minister Theresa May to sack Boris Johnson over his comments, which could increase her sentence.

The 38-year-old from London is pictured with her husband Richard and their now three-year-old daughter Gabriella

Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, branded the Iranian video 'sickening' and demanded Mr Johnson quit.

Fellow Labour MP Tulip Siddiq - who is Nazanin's MP in the constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn - said matters are now 'life and death'.

Former Tory minister Anna Soubry, meanwhile, said: 'His words were wholly inaccurate. If they are continuing to damage this woman's well-being and putting her in more peril of continuing unlawful incarceration, then the Foreign Secretary must step down immediately.'

And Lord Rickets, the onetime head of the diplomatic service, said it was 'not the first gaffe' made by Boris.

He added: 'Boris Johnson, for all his talents, has not succeeded in convincing people he's a serious heavyweight foreign secretary with real authority. That's a real problem,' he told the BBC.

Mr Ratcliffe (pictured) has said the Foreign Secretary must come to the 38-year-old's defence

Lord Rickets said the country needed a 'foreign secretary who projects authority and commands respect'.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always maintained she was on holiday when she was arrested and accused of 'espionage'.

But the row flared again this week when Iranian state TV reported  under a segment entitled 'confession'  that Mr Johnson's comments revealed 'the real plot' behind Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's trip.

On Wednesday, Mr Ratcliffe said the Foreign Secretary must come to the 38-year-old's defence.

He described the agony her continued absence was causing their daughter telling the Mirror: 'She knows that all the other children at nursery have a normal mummy and daddy and she hasn't.'

He said Gabriella, three, 'will kiss the picture of mummy and give mummy a cuddle' whenever she sees Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's photograph on a news article on a mobile phone.

Mr Ratcliffe said Iranian state TV, whose programmes are sanctioned by senior officials, had clearly 'latched on to' Mr Johnson's error to 'discredit' her.

The Channel 2 report said his suggestion that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was 'training journalists' when arrested had 'dealt a blow' to her claim of being on holiday.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been threatened with fresh charges of 'propaganda against the regime' that could see her five-year sentence doubled in the wake of the Foreign Secretary's remarks.

Mr Johnson admitted this week that his comments 'could have been clearer', and told MPs on Tuesday that the Government 'has no doubt she was on holiday'.

He said he had received assurances from Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif that his remarks would not be used against her.

But Mr Ratcliffe said the broadcast showed Mr Johnson's actions 'do not look sufficient' and more must be done.

Mr Johnson (pictured yesterday) has faced calls to resign over his error, in which he said Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was 'teaching people journalism' in the country

The family has been campaigning for her release since Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in Tehran last year as she tried to return to London with 18-month-old daughter Gabriella.

Mr Ratcliffe said: 'The Government has been dragging its heels and my concern is what we do from here. It is spiralling out of control.

'The state TV has latched on to this error and are using the Foreign Secretary's words to discredit Nazanin.

'The stakes are very high for us. I think it is important that the Foreign Secretary now stands up for Nazanin and visits her on his upcoming trip to Iran. If that means going to knock on the prison door then so be it.'

Mr Ratcliffe said he had not heard from the Foreign Office about an offer to meet with Mr Johnson or received any personal apology.

He hopes he will have a meeting on Mr Johnson's return from the US when he intends to ask the Foreign Secretary to take him to Iran.

Last night, her husband Richard (pictured) said the Foreign Secretary must come to the 38-year-old's defence

'I haven't been able to get an Iranian visa since, so I haven't seen Nazanin or Gabriella so I would like to be on that plane with him,' he said.

Mr Ratcliffe urged Mr Johnson to ensure a Farsi translation of his 'clarification' was issued to Iranian media and the website of Britain's embassy in Tehran.

He said his wife's parents, who live in Iran and care for the couple's daughter, now three, were left 'horrified' by the TV broadcast, adding that his wife would be 'traumatised' by it.

The broadcast said: 'The unintended admission of Boris Johnson  was a gaffe that the British Government could not find a cover for  It appears the statement was an antidote to all the statements of various media and UK authorities who had been claiming in the past year-and-a-half that Nazanin had come to Iran for humanitarian reasons.'

Asked about the case, Mr Johnson said: 'We have some difficult consular cases in Iran and we are working on all of them.'

In a poll carried out by The Times, it was revealed 44 per cent of readers think Mrs May should sack Mr Johnson over his comments.

Only 26 per cent think he should stay in his role, while 29 per cent said they were not sure.

On Question Time last night his cabinet colleague Justine Greening increased pressure on him saying: 'Boris clearly said something that simply wasn't correct.'

But she also claimed he has tried to clarify the issue and been assured that his comments were not what sparked the bid to increase Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's sentence.
Twitter users were outraged at the social media giant on Thursday because it gave verification status to one of the organizers of the far-right rally in Charlottesville this past August.

Jason Kessler, an alt-right blogger who was one of the organizers of the Unite the Right demonstration that resulted in the death of an anti-racist protester, received the coveted blue checkmark on Tuesday.

Looks like I FINALLY got verified by Twitter, Kessler tweeted on Tuesday.

I must be the only working class white advocate with that distinction.

After Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed after she was run over by a suspected neo-Nazi who plowed his car into a group of demonstrators during the August 12 rally, Kessler tweeted: Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time.

Jason Kessler, an alt-right blogger who was one of the organizers of the Unite the Right demonstration that resulted in the death of an anti-racist protester, received the coveted blue verification checkmark from Twitter on Tuesday

Looks like I FINALLY got verified by Twitter, Kessler tweeted on Tuesday. I must be the only working class white advocate with that distinction

Kessler deleted the tweet a day later after a significant backlash.

Twitters verification system is designed to distinguish certain accounts of individuals whose tweets are of public interest.

An account may be verified if it is determined to be an account of public interest, the company says on its web site.

Typically this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. But it later added: A verified badge does not imply an endorsement by Twitter.

Nonetheless, Twitter users were furious over the decision to reward Kessler with a blue badge because they believe it implies an endorsement of his far-right, white nationalist views.

Kessler was one of the organizers of the Unite the Right rallies during the weekend of August 11-12 in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is seen above on August 11 during the tiki torch march through the campus of the University of Virginia

Kessler is seen above being escorted away by police in Charlottesville on August 12

Heather Heyer, an anti-racist counter-protester in Charlottesville, was killed on August 12 when she and others were plowed into by a suspected neo-Nazi who was driving his car. Kessler tweeted that Heyer's death was 'payback time'

Kessler's views are considered far-right - perhaps even racist. After Democrats made gains in the Virginia elections this week, he tweeted that the state 'looks like a third world bazaar' because of the 'large swathes of the state [that] have no recognizable Americans'

This is disgusting, actor-comedian Michael Ian Black tweeted to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Verifying white supremacists reinforces the increasing belief that your site is a platform for hate speech.

I don't want to give up Twitter, but I may have to. Who do you value more, users like me or him?

'Oh look the nazi who organized the deadly demonstration in Charlottesville got verified by Twitter,' tweeted Alex Leo.

'Thanks Jack - cause we all wanted 280 [characters per tweet] and more nazis.'

Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, announced on Thursday that Twitter would halt all verification requests as it decides how to respond to the backlash

Earlier on Thursday, the company tried to explain its verification criteria, but angry Twitter users were not convinced. Some of them accused the company of providing a platform to racism and white supremacism

Rebecca Watson tweeted that the company was lying about its claim that verification was simply a means to confirm a user's identity rather than a sign of higher social status.

'I begged for verification for ages after needing to upload my ID three times to stop trolls who made fake Rebecca Watson accounts,' she tweeted.

'"Verify me so I can stop doing this". "No, you're not important enough".'

In response to the backlash, Twitter announced that it would suspend its verification system for the time being while it re-evaluates criteria.

The social media site has become sensitive to criticism that it provides a platform for hate speech.

Verification was meant to authenticate identity and voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance, the company said in a tweet on Thursday.

We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it.

We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon.

Dorsey acknowledged on Thursday that the system is broken.

We shouldve communicated faster on this (yesterday): our agents have been following our verification policy correctly, but we realized some time ago the system is broken and needs to be reconsidered, Dorsey tweeted on Thursday.

And we failed by not doing anything about it. Working now to fix faster.
A man has been charged with the murder of a six-month-old baby girl.

Police and ambulance staff urgently responded to reports of an injured child at a house on Chiltern Avenue in Brookdale, Perth about 8pm on Thursday, according to WA Today.

They found the baby and gave emergency first aid before she was rushed to hospital.

A man has been charged with the murder of a six-month-old baby girl in Perth

Police and ambulance staff urgently responded to reports of an injured child at a house on Chiltern Avenue (street view pictured) in Brookdale, Perth

She later died from her injuries, and a 35-year-old man has now been charged with murder.

A person at the scene told 6PR they saw police 'carry a very small body out of the home, under a blanket', while neighbours told the ABC a couple in their 30s lived at the house.

'I mean that is really sad I wouldn't think something like that would happen around here and they were very quiet people never really heard anything from them,' the neighbour said.

A forensics team is at the site and an investigation is being carried out.

The man charged with murder was refused bail and will appear at Perth Magistrates' Court on Friday.

A forensics team is at the site and an investigation is being carried out
Iain Duncan Smith has rubbished claims by EU leaders that instability around Theresa Mays leadership could see Brexit talks break down

Iain Duncan Smith yesterday rubbished claims by EU leaders that instability around Theresa Mays leadership could see Brexit talks break down - as he accused them of hypocrisy.

The former Tory leader pointed to political dramas across the continent and warned senior European figures that their attempts to interfere in UK politics were a bit rich.

His intervention came as it was claimed that EU leaders and diplomats had begun preparations for the British government to fall before the new year.

EU leaders are also reportedly ready to tell Mrs May that she will have to delay Brexit by up to two years, as a deal will become almost impossible if she does not have control of the cabinet.

But Mr Duncan Smith told the EU that it had no right to lecture senior politicians in the UK on political stability.

They are not wise on a number of things and least of all British politics, he said. The fact is, I think it is a bit rich of them to speak about this.

He added: The Dutch government, after months, have only just managed to find its own feet, Germany still doesnt have an official government.

The senior Conservative also alluded to chaos in Italy where elections will be held next year amid an ongoing banking crisis.

He also pointed at the political fallout in Spain following Catalonias controversial independence vote, highlighting arrests of separatist leaders who wanted to split the country apart.

Mr Duncan Smith, who led the Tories between 2001 and 2003, insisted that Mrs May was the right person to lead the party through Brexit negotiations.

Mr Duncan Smith also pointed at the political fallout in Spain following Catalonias controversial independence vote

The crises on the Continent Germany: Leader Angela Merkel has been in coalition talks since elections in September that saw her authority diminished and the far- Right win 13 per cent of the vote Poland and Hungary: The states have found themselves locked in an ongoing battle with Brussels after refusing to comply with rules on refugee relocation. Spain: Madrid has invoked previously unused constitutional powers to take control of Catalonia and jail its leaders after the region illegally declared its independence. Netherlands: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte only struck coalition deal in October after a record four months of negotiations. Italy: Crises in banking and migration have led to instability and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi quit last year after constitutional reforms were voted down by referendum. Advertisement

Hinting at the resignation of two Cabinet ministers in the last week and lingering splits on Brexit, however, he acknowledged that coming months would be a bit bumpy at times.

There are going to be twists and turns, there are going to be ups and downs, because thats the nature of a Government that doesnt have a majority, he said.

Theresa May is the one person that can still unite the Cabinet, unite the party, and make sure that whilst we are leaving the European Union, the party itself stays at ease with her domestic agenda.

He added: Theresa is somebody who, once she makes her decision, is very dogged at sticking to it.

The strongly-worded intervention came as the latest round of Brexit negotiations got under way yesterday amid an ongoing impasse.

While Theresa May has insisted that a deal is achievable before March 2019, EU officials have questioned whether she has the authority to take difficult positions.

Brussels has insisted that the UK must pay a controversial divorce bill, estimate to eventually cost around 53million, which could face opposition from Brexiteers.

Theresa May has insisted that a deal is achievable before March 2019, EU officials have questioned whether she has the authority to take difficult positions

One European leader told The Times earlier this week: There is the great difficulty of the leadership in Great Britain, which is more and more fragile.

Britain is very weak and the weakness of Theresa May makes negotiations very difficult.

At a European Council last month, EU leaders used a secretive discussion after Mrs May had left the room to raise concerns about the UKs political situation.

During the near hour-long discussion some leaders are understood to have said that Mrs May needed their backing to see Brexit through.

Potential plans to derail the Brexit process were outlined by a team of high-ranking economic experts to Angela Merkel earlier this week who recommended that the split is delayed up until 2020.

In the controversial assessment, the Council of Experts told the German leader that the two-year article 50 negotiating process should be extended as the current stalemate has made a deal unlikely.

They said the extension, which would likely see the UK remain under EU rules until 2020, would be sensible.

The group also warned that Germany should prepare for Brexit to be reversed.
A billionaire who gagged the Press after he was accused of rape was identified in the US yesterday (file image)

A billionaire who gagged the Press after he was accused of rape was identified in the US yesterday.

The entrepreneur launched an extraordinary legal claim in America, saying he was the victim of an orchestrated smear campaign which had falsely alleged he had paid money to settle a claim for sexual assault in London.

The mans lawyers issued a statement confirming he was arrested on suspicion of the sex attack, but the court injunction issued in Britain meant he still could not be named by the Press  despite effectively identifying himself.

Critics said the case highlighted the inadequacies of the British legal systems use of injunctions in the face of international online publishing.

The 43-year-old businessman was arrested on suspicion of rape in May this year after a 31-year-old woman said she had been attacked in the penthouse suite of an exclusive London hotel, The Ned.

A month later he went to the High Court and successfully argued for an injunction, banning the media in England and Wales from naming him as a rape suspect.

The banning order  which reportedly cost him 100,000 in lawyers fees - was made against The Sun newspaper but effectively meant no media outlet in this country could name him.

A few weeks later the City of London Police said the investigation had been dropped and the entrepreneur from San Francisco would face no further action.

But earlier this week, the man filed a legal claim in a court in California against a public relations firm in the US, saying the company had spread lies about him, including rumours he had paid money to settle a sexual assault claim in London.

The firm also claimed he was a Russian government agent and a friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin, he said, and that he had an incident with a prostitute in Europe.

The company, Definers Public Affairs, has denied the claims and said he was delusional.

The claims and counter-claims were widely reported in the US yesterday, and the mans identity was reported.

But the wide-ranging High Court injunction meant he still cannot be named in Britain  the latest in a series of such cases in which the wealthy and powerful have used injunctions to stop them being identified in this country.

Media law expert Geoffrey Robertson QC said the situation was absurd and called for the injunction to be lifted.

He told the Daily Telegraph: This injunction should not have been imposed in the first place because how the police handle sex complaints is a matter of public interest.

Now that it is a matter of international public interest, thanks to a court action brought publicly in the US by the man who quite absurdly must remain anonymous in England, the injunction should be discharged by the court at no cost to the newspaper, otherwise free speech becomes very expensive.
Animal activists on social media outraged over Mr Caboche's 'too lenient' ban

He was caught on camera hitting his mount She's Reneldasgirl at Port Lincoln

Dylan Caboche, 22, who punched the horse, blamed it on a 'little brain fade'

The apprentice has received death threats following his shocking actions

Jockey suspended for two weeks but is taking a longer break from the sport

The jockey suspended after punching a horse says he's taking a longer break from the sport because of the backlash and death threats he's received.

Dylan Caboche, 22, was caught on camera hitting his mount She's Reneldasgirl ahead of race two at Port Lincoln on Wednesday.

Thoroughbred Racing South Australia suspended Caboche for two weeks after an immediate inquiry, but animal activists reacted with outrage to the footage and slammed the penalty as too lenient.

Dylan Caboche (pictured) has received death threats following his brutal punch to a horse

Shocking picture of the moment Mr Caboche, 22, strikes the distressed horse before the race

'If this bloke thinks it's ever okay to punch a horse, he doesn't have the temperament to be a jockey,' said one commenter on social media.

Some people labelled it 'absolutely disgusting' and called for Mr Caboche to be banned from the sport for life.

The RSPCA also wants a tougher penalty and said Thoroughbred Racing SA had an opportunity to send a very clear message that such behaviour was unacceptable.

'Instead they have provided what really is a bit of a token two-week suspension which, in our mind, is just not anywhere near sufficient,' RSPCA chief executive Paul Stevenson told ABC radio.

But race stewards dismissed a life-long ban and said a two-week suspension is sufficient punishment for Mr Caboche's actions.

'There was an early guilty plea from the man in respect of the charge,' said Johan Petzer, Thoroughbred Racing South Australia chairman of stewards.

'He showed remorse and he has a clean record,' he added.

Race steward Johan Petzer (pictured) said Mr Caboche's two-week suspension was sufficient

The 22-year-old jockey said he thought banning him for life would be 'a little extreme'.

Footage of the incident shared on social media shows barrier attendants trying to get the fractious filly into the gates.

With the horse refusing to calm down, 22-year-old Mr Caboche dismounts the horse and punches her rib cage, which he described as a 'little brain fade'.

'I'm disappointed and gutted for myself at the same time,' Mr Caboche said.

'It doesn't look good for the industry and it obviously doesn't look good for myself.

'I'm disappointed and gutted for myself at the same time,' he told 7 News.
President Donald Trump let China off the hook Friday for the country's substantial trade deficit with the United States.

As he prepared to leave Beijing, Trump said he blames the 'incompetence' of his predecessors for the imbalance, affirming an eyebrow-raising remark he'd made the afternoon before that his secretary of state said was a 'little bit of tongue-in-cheek'.

'How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!' Trump tweeted.

He called his meetings with the Chinese on trade and North Korea 'productive' and complimented leader Xi Jinping as 'highly respected and powerful.'

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China

As he prepared to leave Beijing, Trump said he blames the 'incompetence' of his predecessors for the trade deficit

'How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!,' Trump tweeted

Yesterday, Trump made waves when he said he doesn't 'blame' China for 'one-sided' and 'unfair' trade.

In remarks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing before business representatives, Trump said: 'After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit.

'But, in actuality, I do blame past administrations for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow. We have to fix this because it just doesn't work for our great American companies, and it doesn't work for our great American workers,' Trump said.

'It is just not sustainable. I look forward to working toward that goal and to pursuing fair and lasting engagement.'

Trump leaves China above. He called his meetings with Chinese on trade and North Korea 'productive' and complimented leader Xi Jinping as 'highly respected and powerful'

U.S. President Donald Trump prior to boarding Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport

Trump left the First Lady in China where she went to visit the zoo and see the Great Wall of China

Trump tweeted about his meetings in China before he left for Vietnam

Trump shakes hand with China's President Xi Jinping at the end of a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters later in the day, during an off-camera White House briefing, that Trump was only half-serious about his praise for China's enterprising ways.

'There was a little bit of tongue-in-cheek in that characterization,' he said. 'But there was also a lot of truth to it.'

The chief U.S. diplomat said, 'I feel the same way about a number of actions that countries take - if the door is open, you're going to walk through it. And I think in this case the president was simply saying, look, previous administrations have kind of left this trade door open.'

The $300-$500 billion trade deficit came about 'because previous administrations, whether through benign neglect - which is my own characterization of it - or for whatever reasons, allowed this to happen, and allowed it to get so out of balance that now it's not an easy thing to rebalance,' Tillerson said.

Trump realizes 'it is not sustainable. We can't just continue on this path and this trajectory that we're on,' he added. 'We have to change - the word that we're using - we have to change the paradigm.'

The American president emerged from Thursday's talks convinced that China, which he once said was 'raping' the U.S. in the trade arena, would be a steady ally in the region and a reliable partner when it comes to addressing economic imbalances between the two countries in a dramatic shift from his earlier disparagements of Xi's government.

Trump took to Twitter to say that he was looking forward to building a stronger relationship with China

Trump said trade negotiations are off to a 'very, very good start' as the U.S. businesses signed $250 billion in non-binding agreements.

Boeing, General Electric and Qualcomm were among the big winners - assuming the deals hold up once Trump has concluded his presidential visit to China.

'The United States really has to change its policies because they've gotten so far behind on trade with China and frankly with many other countries,' Trump said after his first meeting on Thursday. 'But we'll make it fair and it'll be tremendous to both of us,' he asserted.

Tillerson said later, at the press briefing, that the best way to characterize the U.S. position is: 'While we appreciate the long hours and the effort our Chinese counterparts put into those trade discussions, quite frankly in the grand scheme of a $300-$500 billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small. '

President Donald Trump said Thursday in Beijing that he and President Xi Jinping agree that 'there's a solution' to conflict with North Korea

During his trip to China, Trump also discussed North Korea with President Xi Jinping and the duo agreed 'there's a solution' to conflict with them committing to resolving the crisis together.

'I do believe there's a solution to that, as you do,' he said of their stance on the rebellious regime after morning meetings with the Chinese government.

Trump said later, in a statement to the media on Thursday, that he and Xi 'agreed not to replicate failed approaches of the past, and there were many,' as they dealt with the 'very serious nuclear menace.'

'Perhaps now more than ever we have an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between our two countries and improve the lives of our citizens,' Trump stated.

'As long as we stand together, with others if necessary, against those who threaten our civilization, that threat will never happen. It doesn't even have a chance.'

Later in joint remarks with Trump, Xi said the two leaders had 'reiterated' their mutual 'firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the peninsula'

Trump and Xi met with U.S. and Chinese officials for two hours on Thursday morning.

In joint statements to reporters with Trump after the meetings had concluded, Xi said the two leaders had 'reiterated' their mutual 'firm commitment to achieving denuclearization of the peninsula.'

Xi stressed that the U.S. and China are 'two distinctive countries' with 'two sides or different views' while emphasizing that a 'healthy, stable and growing U.S.-China relationship' is in the benefit of both nations.

The Chinese leader said he expressed his country's desire to 'jointly maintain and promote peace and stability and peace and prosperity in the region' in his talk with Trump.

'We believe that China and the United States are countries where the important influence [is] in the Asia Pacific,' Xi said through a translator. 'As I said to the president, the Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States.'

President Donald Trump said Thursday in Beijing that he and President Xi Jinping agree that 'there's a solution' to conflict with North Korea

China's President Xi Jinping, second left, holds a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Thursday

Trump praised Xi for cutting off banking ties with Pyongyang in an economic choke-hold designed to bring despot Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table

Xi said in brief remarks after the initial meeting that he and Trump had 'reached many common understandings' in their discussions.

China, he said later, will 'fully and strictly implement UN Security Council resolutions' while continuing 'dialogue and negotiation'  a suggestion that Beijing's diplomats are still talking with Pyongyang behind the scenes.

In remarks to business leaders in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Trump said the 'North Korean nuclear menace' was his chief topic of discussion with Xi.

'The United States is committed to the complete and permanent denuclearization of North Korea,' he said.

Trump called on Xi and China 'to hopefully work on it very hard.'

Warm welcome: Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony, seen above, with China's President Xi Jinping

US President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, China's President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

Trump praised Xi for cutting off banking ties with Pyongyang in an economic choke-hold designed to bring despot Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table.

'We call on all nations to implement UN Security Council sanctions and resolutions, and to cease doing business with the North Korean regime,' he said in his press statement.

'All nations must come together to ensure that this rogue regime cannot threaten the world with its nuclear weapons.'

Trump said at another meeting later in the day that he expects the Chinese government to help the U.S. with North Korea 'a lot.'

'Together we have it in our power to finally liberate this region and the world from this very serious nuclear menace,' Trump said. The U.S. president stressed that the effort would take 'collective action.'
The first known 'Dreamer' who sued President Trump after he was deported earlier this year, was arrested again for illegally trying to enter the United States.

Juan Manuel Montes, 23, who since dropped the lawsuit, was detained late Monday near Calexico, California after agents were notified of his attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

When agents located Montes, he attempted to flee the area, leading the team on a brief chase.

'Our agents witnessed and arrested (Montes) making an illegal entry into the United States for the second time this year,' Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim said, according to NBC San Diego.

Juan Manuel Montes (pictured above) was arrested for the second time after he illegally tried to enter the United States

Montes was the first known 'Dreamer' who sued President Trump after he was deported earlier in February. However, the lawsuit has been dropped

He was detained late Monday near Calexico, California after Border Patrol agents were notified of his attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border

'Border Patrol Agents will always stop, detain, and arrest anyone making an illegal entry into the country irrespective of their immigration or citizenship status.'

After being sent to the Calexico Border Patrol Station for processing, Montes was booked to the Imperial County jail on charges of illegal reentry after removal.

The former recipient under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, lived in the Unites States for roughly 14 years of his life.

He was arrested back in February after he attempted to reenter the country following a visit with a friend.

U.S. Border Patrol officers monitor screens looking for people trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico illegally. Montes was arrested after agents found him trying to cross the border on surveillance

The U.S. Border Inspection Station in Calexico, California is shown. 'Border Patrol Agents will always stop, detain, and arrest anyone making an illegal entry into the country irrespective of their immigration or citizenship status,' said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, David S. Kim

According to his lawyers, Montes 'qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, in 2014 and renewed his status for two years in 2016, granting him protection through 2018,' the newspaper reported.

However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed Montes' DACA status was no longer valid.

Montes, who attended community college in the states prior to his leave, claimed he had been wrongfully deported in the February incident.

DHS disputed the recipient violated 'the conditions of his status by breaking continuous residency in the United States by leaving and then reentering the U.S. illegally.'

President Donald Trump, with first lady Melania Trump, answers questions while departing the White House September 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Trump spoke on reports from a meeting with Democratic leaders the day prior about a proposed deal on DACA

On Thursday, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Trump's decision to phase out the program will now be open for judicial review.

A federal appeals court directed the lower court to determine whether judges can review the decision to end the program in October.

U.S. District Judge, Nicholas Garaufis, found the government's 'argument that the decision to rescind the DACA program is unreviewable ... is unpersuasive.'

Garaufis also rejected claims by Department of Justice lawyers that the decision constitutes 'an exercise of enforcement discretion' that is immune from judicial review.

The DACA program has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas.

Immigrants and supporters gather near the Trump International Hotel & Tower Las Vegas for a 'We Rise for the Dream' rally to oppose U.S. President Donald Trump's order to end DACA on September 10, 2017
You do not have to be a cynic to know that utopias are just whopping big pies in the sky.

The one currently being hawked by our masters is the brave new world of the electric car, a place in which there are no noxious emissions from petrol and diesel engines, and where the air in city centres is as clean and as sweet as an exclusive Alpine resort.

This pure air, free of nasty carcinogens and toxic particles, will save the lives of many of the estimated 40,000 people in the UK alone who are killed by air pollution each year.

Like all utopias, it sounds seductive  so wonderful, in fact, that cities and even entire countries have pledged to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles within the next two decades.

Westminster Electric Car Juice Point where electric vehicles get their batteries charged

Last month, Oxford City Council announced it would start ridding itself of petrol and diesel vehicles from some streets by 2020, with a view to a total ban by 2035.

In France, President Emmanuel Macrons government, in a typical display of Gallic hubris, has declared an end to the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, which would be a veritable revolution according to their ecology minister. Holland is planning a similar move in just eight years time, and even India is considering a ban by 2035.

The British Government, meanwhile, has announced an aspiration for all new vehicles to be electric or ultra-low emission by 2040. Although this is somewhat less ambitious than other countries, ministers are still sending out a clear signal  its all go for the electric car.

But not so fast. Its time for a reality check about electric cars, and to realise that they can be every bit as polluting as their petrol and diesel forebears.

Research recently published by the Trancik Lab of the highly esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could wipe the smug expressions off thousands of electric car drivers faces.

The boffins at the Trancik Lab have shown that an electric Tesla Model S P100D saloon produces more carbon dioxide, at 226g per kilometre, than a petrol-driven run-around such as the Mitsubishi Mirage, which is responsible for just 192g/km.

Tesla Model S P100D saloon produces carbon dioxide at 226g per kilometre, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology

And unfortunately for Tesla drivers who would rev their engines in fury and declare the research an anomaly, the MIT finding backs up that of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, which last year declared: Larger electric vehicles can have higher life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions than smaller conventional vehicles.

So whats going on here? Surely electric vehicles are necessarily greener. Since they dont have exhaust pipes, what on earth can be causing the pollution?

Before we come to the answer, one salient point needs to be established  electric cars are indeed greener than petrol and diesel cars of the same size. If, for example, that Tesla saloon is compared with a large, petrol-driven BMW 750i saloon, its figure of 226g of CO2 compares well to the 385g that the BMW emits every kilometre.

Yet as we shall see, that is no reason for electric car drivers to polish their halos just yet.

First, there is the obvious point that the energy that charges the batteries of an electric car has to come from somewhere. Unless you have your own private power station that runs on renewable energy, the chances are that you will be using the National Grid to charge your car overnight.

And where does the National Grids electricity come from? According to the latest figures in the Digest of UK Energy Statistics, 51 per cent of it comes from power stations that burn fossil fuels, such as gas and coal. Nuclear power  much loathed by many greens  is responsible for 21 per cent of your cars power, while just under a quarter of the power comes from renewable sources.

The research found that at petrol-driven run-around such as the Mitsubishi Mirage, which is responsible for just 192g/km

So yes, while having an electric car certainly reduces roadside emissions, the increased demand required to charge electric vehicles means more fossil fuels being burned at power stations, which of course worldwide pump millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere.

Second, because under Government policy all electric cars are officially classified as zero emissions, many owners are under the impression that their cars can be big, and yet miraculously have no environmental consequences. Whereas, as we have seen, the research states categorically that large electric cars can be more polluting that small petrol ones.

Drivers are also after cars with a long range  the distance they can travel before having to be charged up again. The average electric vehicle today offers a range of around 150 miles, according to data provider EV Volumes. Tesla claims that its Model S can do up to 424 miles and other manufacturers are aiming to get their range up to around 400 miles by 2022.

But the point is that big cars with long ranges need batteries with lots of power, and the more power they use, the more pollution they cause. If electric car drivers are really as green as they think they are, then they should ensure their cars are smaller. As Nico Meilhan, a car analyst and energy expert, explained to the Financial Times: If we really cared about CO2, wed reduce car size and weight.

The third part of the problem lies in those batteries. Mining the huge amounts of nickel, cobalt and lithium used in their manufacture comes at an environmental cost. As Mr Meilhan says: If you switch from oil to cobalt and lithium, you have not addressed any problem. You have just switched your problem.

A 2009 study revealed that nickel was the eighth worst metal to mine and process in terms of global warming and pollution. Villagers who live next to the Cerro Matoso nickel mine in Colombia, for example, have reported higher rates of respiratory diseases and birth defects.

Producing lithium also has an environmental cost, as rocks need to be crushed, often in Australia, and then shipped to China to be processed. The lithium extracted from South American deserts results in one ton of carbon dioxide for every ton of lithium carbonate produced.

A large, petrol-driven BMW 750i saloon consumes 226g of CO2 which compares well to electric cars of the same size

And then of course there is the problem of what happens to the batteries when they reach the end of their lives. It is thought that 11 million tons of old lithium-ion batteries will be thrown away over the next 12 years, of which only 5 per cent will be recycled.

The fourth problem with electric cars is that their manufacture can often be just as environmentally damaging as producing petrol or diesel-driven cars. After all, the steel, glass, plastics and fabrics used are much of a muchness.

Very few electric cars are built with a proper sensitivity to the environment. One that does do well is the BMW i3, the seats of which are made from recycled bottles, and whose carbon fibre body is produced in a factory that runs purely on hydroelectricity.

The fifth and final part of the problem is the notion that, because electric cars do not have any exhaust, they truly are zero emissions when being driven.

Unfortunately, this is nonsense. Like all other cars, electric vehicles produce pollution from tyre and brake dust. According to a paper produced by the European Commission, a staggering half of all particulate matter in the air comes from these sources.

While governments dont currently pay much attention to particulate matter, it is in fact highly polluting, with strong links to cardiopulmonary toxicity, the Governments top adviser, Professor Frank Kelly, wrote recently in The Guardian.

Professor Kelly, who chairs the Committee On The Medical Effects Of Air Pollutants, also stated that the Governments plan to phase out petrol and diesel cars did not go far enough. Our cities need fewer cars, not just cleaner cars, he wrote.

The answer, then, appears to be obvious. If we really do want that utopia, then we should just get rid of cars, electric or otherwise, and get on our bikes.

Now that really is pie in the sky.
Philip Hammond is refusing to countenance growing Tory calls to loosen the purse strings in this months Budget, amid renewed tensions with Theresa May

Philip Hammond is refusing to countenance growing Tory calls to loosen the purse strings in this months Budget, amid renewed tensions with Theresa May.

The Chancellor is under pressure from Cabinet colleagues to release billions of pounds for everything from public sector pay to housebuilding in his November 22 Budget.

Former Tory minister Nick Boles yesterday urged Mr Hammond to ditch the governments austerity plans altogether and open the spending taps to provide a massive boost to public investment.

But Whitehall sources say the Chancellor has told Mrs May he will not compromise on his current target to eliminate the budget deficit left by the last Labour government by 2025.

Hes digging his heels in on this, a source said.

Downing Street is also said to be frustrated by Mr Hammonds reluctance to share his thinking ahead of the Budget.

And relations between the Chancellor and Mrs May are said to remain tense after she rebuked him last month for speaking out on Brexit.

The Spectator magazine yesterday claimed Mr Hammond astonishes even his own aides with his habit of talking down to her.

Cabinet ministers are queueing up to demand more money from Mr Hammond this month. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is seeking at least 1 billion to fund the first significant pay rises for nurses next year.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has tabled ambitious plans for a 50 billion housebuilding programme.

And Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson is seeking more money for defence, following warnings from the US this week that Britains reputation as a leading member of Nato is under threat.

But Mr Hammond is currently saying he will only release extra cash if it is accompanied by tax rises. Instead he is looking for cheap ways to make an impact, such as allowing more housebuilding on the Green Belt.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is seeking at least 1 billion to fund the first significant pay rises for nurses next year

Mr Boles, a close ally of David Cameron and George Osborne, yesterday warned the Tories would lose the next election unless they now ditch the austerity programme that has been in place since 2010.

The Government cant, after seven or eight years, say that the policy we had eight years ago is going to be the only policy we can offer to the British public for another eight years, he said.

We cant expect to be re-elected if we have no new story to tell and no new direction.

The age of austerity is over. We now need an age of investment Nick Boles

Our urgent problem in this economy is that wages arent growing. They are not growing because productivity isnt growing and productivity isnt growing because our rate of investment is too low, both in the public sector and the private sector. That needs to be a priority now.

The age of austerity is over. We now need an age of investment.

Mr Boles said austerity was the right policy when the annual deficit stood at 10 per cent of GDP, but it was absolutely fine for it to remain at its current level of around 2.6 per cent indefinitely.

He said Mr Hammond should keep his target of getting debt as a percentage of GDP on a downward trajectory, which could be achieved without eliminating the deficit by growing the size of the economy.

We should stop trying to cut (the deficit) any further, said Mr Boles. We should drop our surplus target because the urgent priority now is to get productivity up and to get real wages up.

The Taxpayers Alliance said Mr Boles was delusional if he thought Britain could continue borrowing at historically high levels indefinitely.

It is crucial that Philip Hammond ignores such irresponsible call, the organisation said.
Pig farmer Keith Cini was killed in 2014

An ice-addict who brutally beat a Sydney pig farmer to death with a pick handle in a violent home invasion has been jailed for at least 36 years.

Ryan David Evans, 29, was found guilty in May of a string of offences related to two home invasions including the murder of Keith Cini, 69, at his Badgerys Creek home in the early hours of May 30, 2014.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Robert Allan Hulme set a maximum term of 48 years describing the murder as a 'cowardly, violent and shameful attack'.

Formerly a showjumper who won a scholarship to study horse management, Evans developed a drug habit that saw him consume 2 grams of ice every day.

New South Wales Supreme Court sentenced Ryan David Evans, 29, to 36 years behind bars

Evans developed a drug habit that saw him consume 2 grams of ice every day, the court heard

'Drugs took over my life,' Evans told the NSW Supreme Court during his sentencing hearing. 'I hate myself for it. I'm ashamed of it.'

During his trial, the jury heard that Mr Cini was a former employer of Evans, and Evans broke into his home 'knowing that there would be between $10,000 and $20,000 locked in a safe', according to the Daily Telegraph.

Evan told his psychologist that he wanted to kill himself because he was so 'disgusted' with what he had done.

'I'm horrified,' he told his psychologist. All because I was a crack head. I see myself as the biggest piece of s... in the world. I was an enabler. No excuses. I hit no one but I didn't stop it.'

Evans father revealed that the tried to get his son help for his addiction, but he left the clinic

His father told the court that he was once admitted to a rehabilitation clinic, but checked himself out after only a fortnight. Evans has been estranged from his parents during the trial.

While Justice Robert Allan Hulme said he understood the offender was remorseful he also stressed he had taken part in two violent home invasions where, 'victims were met with quite unnecessary, gratuitous and brutal violence'.

'Drug abuse has been the underlying feature of the offences. There is no suggestion of the offender being predisposed to involvement in violent conduct when not abusing drugs,' Justice Hulme said.

Prior to his murder trial in May 2017, Evan pleaded guilty to to six charges against him, including the murder of Cini who he beat to death with a pick handle.

Mr Cini's partner Ms Boldi, who also was attacked, told the jury of the terrifying moment when she was forced to play dead to avoid being beaten to death by a masked intruder in their Badgerys Creek home.

In her victim impact statement, Ms Boldi's daughter Leanne Adam asked: 'How could someone lock the doors that night, go to sleep in their own home and be bashed to death for money?'

Prior to his murder trial in May 2017, Evan pleaded guilty to to six charges including murder

Keith Cini's daughter Leanne Adam after her father's killer was pronounced guilty in May 2017

Ms Boldi woke in the early hours of May 30, 2014 to see her husband Keith Cini being attacked by Evans in the hallway of their Badgerys Creek home in Sydney.

She described the terrifying moment she was forced to play dead in her own home to avoid being beaten to death. She said a person in black with their face covered came towards her so she quickly shut her bedroom door.

'I put my back to the door trying to hold the person out but I wasn't strong enough,' she told court during the hearing in May. 'I got hit on the head and then the person ... kept hitting me,'

Keith Cini's partner Ms Boldi explained how Evans forced his way into their home in 2014

Ms Boldi has described the terrifying moment she was forced to play dead in her own home

Evans also plead guilty to the assault of Brett Delamont, who suffered brain damage during a violent home invasion. Mr Delamont, whose partner Alana Bush and daughter were tied up during the assault, was reportedly known to Evans.

Mr Delamont suffered brain damage and has no recollection of the attack, but his wife testified to seeing him with a bloodied head as he lay convulsing beside her after she was woken by masked intruders in their bedroom.

Mr Delamont's partner Alana Bush, who also was attacked, told the jury of the terrifying moment when she was forced to play dead to avoid being beaten to death by a masked intruder in their Badgerys Creek home.
A Manus Island refugee allegedly punched a female doctor in the face and tried to strangle her with a plastic bag.

The 50-year-old refugee was arrested after he was accused of assaulting a senior doctor while he was being treated at a medical centre run by the Australian government in March, The Australian reported.

The clinic is operated by the International Health and Medical Services, and paid for by the government to help refugees on Manus Island.

A Manus Island refugee allegedly punched a female doctor in the face and tried to strangle her with a plastic bag (stock image)

The man pushed the female doctor into a room after he was discharged from the medical clinic, Papua New Guinea Police alleged.

The doctor tried to fend off the man before another medic came into the room to restrain the refugee.

According to an incident report from the International Health and Medical Services, the man tried to strangle the doctor with a plastic bag and punched her in the face, leaving a gash on her forehead.

The refugee, who was listed as stateless when he arrived at Manus Island, was arrested and charged by PNG Police over the matter, but it was later dismissed in court.

The Immigration Department would not comment on the matter.

'It would be inappropriate for the department to comment further given it is a matter for the government of PNG,' the department told The Australia.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the International Health and Medical Services and The Immigration Department for comment.
First Lady Melania Trump dropped off her husband's five-nation blitz of Asia to visit the Beijing Zoo on Friday morning. She's also making a trek to the Great Wall of China.

Children, who held Chinese and American flags, were waiting to greet her outside of the zoo's Panda House.

As they stood in the cold November weather, a male panda named 'Meng'er' was released into the pen behind them, becoming a sensation. His name translates to cute #2, an official said.

Meng'er hung around just long enough to join a group photo of the first lady and the children. He could be seen eating bamboo in the background of the official portrait.

The first lady personally interacted with a panda named Gu Gu behind the scenes before greeting the school children, an U.S. official said.

Scroll down for video

U.S. first lady Melania Trump poses for photos with children in front of a panda section as she visits Beijing Zoo

All smiles: Melani passed out stuffed eagles to the children and took a group photo with them before moving on

A group of school children holding Chinese and American flags were waiting to greet her outside. They showed Meng'er off to her

Melania Trump rewarded singing children with plush bald eagle toys. The youngsters were all smiles for the First Lady

She clapped and sang as a group of about a dozen flag-waving children sang to her in Mandarin and English

A set of children presented Meng'er to the first lady upon her approach outside the Panda House. She briefly stopped to talk to them and observe the panda eating his meal before she walked over to the next group of kids.

The first lady clapped and smiled as the flag-waving children sang to her in Mandarin and English. Mrs. Trump rewarded them with plush bald eagles.

She posed for a formal photo with the merry group of children before moving inside to the Panda House gift shop.

'Thank you very much,' she said told the children before she left.

Inside, she posed for another photo with a stuffed panda toy.

'Thank you very much,' she said again, turning to sign a panda print that said: 'Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu!'

Reporters did not get to see the first lady meet Gu Gu, another panda at the zoo. The interaction was described later in a readout.

FLOTUS passed out stuffed eagles to the children and took a group photo with them before moving on

Gather round: The chic First Lady flashed a smile as excited schoolchildren gathered round her to pose for photos

Hit with the kids: Children gathered around the First Lady waving Chinese and American flags

Melania listens to Chinese children singing a song during a visit to Beijing Zoo. She looked chic, draping a black coat on her shoulders

Melania posed for photos with a Panda soft toy after visiting the Panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo

Melania signed a poster saying 'thank you to the Beijing Zoo. Wonderful to meet Gu Gu'. Gu Gu is one of the pandas

Three giant panda bears are currently on loan to the national zoo in Washington, D.C., where Mrs. Trump now lives, per an agreement between the U.S. and China that extends through the end of 2020. They include Bei Bei, a panda cub born in 2015 and named by the previous first lady in consultation with her Chinese counterpart.

The tradition of panda giving between the United States and China dates back to 1972, after first lady Patricia Nixon mentioned her appreciation for giant pandas during a trip to Beijing with her husband, former President Richard Nixon.

Beijing Zoo director Li Xiaoguang met Melania at the zoo and gave her tour before she came outside to see the children.

He gave her a stuffed panda toy as a gift, a readout said.

The first lady fed Gu Gu, the 'star panda' of the zoo, it said, and received an explanation of his nutrition and training.

Born on Sept. 25, 1999 in Wolong, China, the readout described Gu Gu as a 'pretty male panda' and a 'goodwill ambassador of the zoo.' He arrived at the Beijing Zoo in 2004.

'Gu Gu is a good-looking panda with a robust memory. He is excellent in his behavior training and eager to show his skills to VIPs,' Li said.

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China

Trump left the First Lady in China where she went to visit the zoo and see the Great Wall of China

The president's wife is also making a quintessential tourist stop at the Great Wall (pictured)  one of the Seven Wonders of the World  before she leaves China

The president's wife will now make a quintessential stop at the Great Wall  one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World  before she leaves China.

President Trump shared his wife's big day plans on Twitter as he departed for Vietnam.

He said she would be traveling to Alaska after that 'to greet our AMAZING troops'.

The U.S. president has promised to build a massive wall along the United States' southern border to protect the country against drugs and terrorism.

He did not visit China's historic barrier - now believed to be more than 13,000 miles long - during his own visit to Beijing.

The US First Lady Melania Trump, in what's likely to be a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, stands alongside the wife of China's president in Beijing

Mrs Trump even tried her hand at painting as she joined in with a calligraphy class

Both women looked delighted to be in the company of the young students at Banchang Primary School, where they were treated to a cultural performance

On Thursday, Melania and Peng Liyuan, the first lady of China, enjoyed a visit to a Banchang Primary School in Beijing, where they received a calligraphy lesson.

Despite being dressed in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, thought to have cost at least $3,975, the first lady happily took up a paintbrush and ink under the watchful eye of the young students at the school.

Accompanied by Peng, Mrs. Trump watched a cultural performance and participated in a cooking class at a primary school on Thursday, too.

Both Melania and Madame Peng were photographed smiling and clapping after the show, surrounded by a gang of beaming schoolchildren.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan gave her US counterpart Melania Trump a tour of a primary school in Beijing on Thursday

Both women appeared to be in great spirits as they admired students handiwork at the school

A young schoolboy proudly shows off his efforts to the Chinese and US First Ladies in a calligraphy class

Melania, who teamed her Dolce dress with her trademark bouncy blow-out, shook hands with young students during the visit to the school

Many on China's Twitter-like Weibo applauded Melania's grace and sense of style, as well as her cultural sensitivity.

In China, she wore mostly austere coats and dark gowns from Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen, in contrast with her magenta Delpozo outfit and electric-blue heels upon landing in South Korea days before.

But most in China said they remained bigger fans of their own first lady, often affectionately referred to online as Peng Mama, which roughly translates as Mother Peng.

'I still think Mama oozes more grace, while also exuding a motherly air!' one Weibo poster said.

The first lady dazzled in a floor-length dress at an official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning.

The gown featured an intricate pink floral design on the black dress - a nod, perhaps - to her hosts' cultural heritage.

Lending a hand: Mrs Trump helps a young school girl who is adding decoration to a dress

The First Lady also watched over young students taking part in a cookery class at the school

The two women also looked in on an architecture class at the school on Thursday

Both women smiled and clapped along with the primary school students in Beijing after they were treated to a cultural performance by children in costume

Madame Peng wore a smart black coat and heels, while Melania went all out in floor-length Dolce & Gabbana

Melania Trump (left and right) donned a stunning Chinese-inspired gown as she met with President Xi Jinping and his wife Madame Peng Liyuana on day five of her and Donald's Asia tour

The First Lady stepped out in a custom floor-length Dolce and Gabbana dress for the official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday

The welcome ceremony overlooked Tiananmen Square. The grand event was broadcast live on state television, an almost unprecedented gesture for a visiting leader, which underlines the importance China has placed on the Trumps' first official visit.

Trumpets blared and a military band played the U.S. and Chinese national anthems as a ceremonial cannon fired shots in Tiananmen Square.

The first couple had previously met President Xi and Madame Peng during the Chinese president's visit to the U.S. in April when President Donald Trump invited them to a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Presidents Trump and Xi participated in several hours of official talks on Thursday and and delivered a joint press statement. A state dinner followed, where President Trump showed off a video of his six-year-old granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan and US First Lady Melania Trump attend a fashion class during a visit at Banchang Primary School in Beijing

Eager children raise their hands during an architecture class during Melania Trump's visit

Chinese President Xi Jinping and wife Madame Peng Liyuan rolled out the red carpet for Donald and Melania Trump on Thursday morning in an official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People

Melania stepped out in her Italian-made, Chinese-inspired dress for the welcome ceremony which was broadcast live on state television, an almost unprecedented for a visiting leader

It was a warm reunion for the political leaders who met during Xi and Peng's trip to the US where they were invited to Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort

Melania and Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday, the third country on the president's 12-day tour of Asia. They sped through Beijing to the Forbidden City, where they reunited with Xi and Peng over tea.

They led the Trumps to the Conservation Scientific Laboratory of the Forbidden City to participate in an artifact restoration.

The two first couples next watched a performance of Peking opera, a distinctively Chinese art form that combines music, mime, dance and acrobatics.

President Trump left South Korea on Wednesday after delivering a speech to the country's National Assembly. He's giving a speech at an economic summit in Vietnam on Friday.
A Florida father is being hailed as a hero after he bravely confronted a gang of teens who allegedly attempted to kidnap his daughter.

Amber Brackney, 17, was leaving the family home on Preservation Path, Crestview on Tuesday evening, when she found the end of her driveway blocked with barrels.

Suspecting foul play, the teen stayed in her car and was able to maneuver around the obstacles to escape down the street - without ever leaving her vehicle.

Amber's funeral director father Terry Brackney heard the commotion, grabbed his gun and ran outside to find a group of teens trying to force their way into his garage.

Cops believe the teens had 'concocted a plan to kidnap the teenage daughter' by trying to force her to leave her car to move the barrels, so they could grab her.

A Florida father is being hailed as a hero after he bravely confronted a gang of teens who were attempting to kidnap his daughter Amber Brackney (pictured)

After his daughter avoided the first alleged kidnap attempt, Terry Brackney, 51, ran outside with his gun and found Keilon Johnson, 19, (right) and three friends trying to break into his garage

Mr Brackney, 51, opened fire on the group who fled into the woods, according to Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.

He later discovered they had been unscrewing some of his security lights, possibly for a second kidnap attempt.

A neighbor, who witnessed a 'suspicious car' fleeing from the scene, called the cops who stopped the 2016 White Jeep Liberty on Highway 4 and made a felony traffic stop.

Inside they found Keilon Johnson, 19, Austin French, 17, 16-year old Tyree Johnson, and 15-year old Kamauri Horn, along with a knife, guns and a roll of tape.

This is the moment that the four teens were pulled over by the cops after a neighbor reported a suspicious vehicle fleeing the scene

Brackney, 17, had been leaving the family home (pictured) on Preservation Path, Crestview on Tuesday evening when she found the end of her driveway blocked with barrels

In a statement, Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office said: 'The goal was to first force her out of her car by blocking the road with barrels and garbage cans. (However their intended victim drove around the barrels and kept going.)

'They then planned to head to her house, confront and subdue her father - who they believed to be wealthy - and rob the home.'

All four defendants are now charged with attempted kidnapping and attempted home invasion robbery.

Johnson was booked into the Okaloosa County Jail while the others are being held at the Department of Juvenile Justice facility.

The home where the attempted abduction took place is valued $400,000 on Zillow.

But photos on Brackney's social media profiles show him redesigning the interior.

He runs the family-owned Brackney Funeral Service.

Thanks to Amber's quick thinking and her dad's bravery (pictured with her) they were able to foil the kidnapping attempt

Amber (above) was not hurt during the attempted kidnapping. All four defendants are now charged with attempted kidnapping and attempted home invasion robbery

The home where the attempted abduction took place (above) is valued $400,000 on Zillow. But photos on Brackney's social media profiles show him redesigning the interior
Assistant public defenders in Illinois filed a lawsuit against officials they claim have failed to act upon their sexual harassment claims.

Six female employees in Cook County alleged their boss, Amy Campanelli, and Sheriff Thomas Dart, ignored complaints which suggested they repeatedly witnessed detainees masturbate in front of them.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Northeastern District of Illinois, the women claim to be victims of 'heinous sexual misconduct, robbing many of their love of the job,' while others exposed to the harassment have quit altogether.

According to the Chicago Tribune, one of the 200-some woman estimated 'most, if not all' of the female attorneys and interns have been subjected.

Female public defenders in Cook County, Illinois alleged their boss, Amy Campanelli, (pictured) failed to act upon sexual harassment complaints

Sheriff Thomas Dart also allegedly ignored the women who claimed they repeatedly witnessed detainees masturbate in front of them

The suit alleges the 'serial masturbators' were offered pizza in reward for correcting the patterns of poor behavior.

However, a spokesperson at the Cook County Sheriff's Office denied the detainees had been offered any reward.

The women were also subject to 'verbal threats laden with explicit sexual violence, exposure of detainees' genitals, and physical attacks' over the course of two years, which they claim Campanelli and Dart were aware of.

Public defenders say they experienced the harassment in abuse in crowded lockups behind courtrooms at the Leighton Criminal Court Building as well as other well as other courthouses

One of the woman who previously pressed charges against a masturbating detainee said she was forced to work with the man on several occasions.

The suit read: 'On each such occasion, the detainee yelled profanities and threats, including that he was going to 'beat the s--- out of' her and 'motherf---ing kill' her.'

Others were groped by the 'legs' and 'buttocks.'

Campanelli sent a letter to Dart back in March, which outlinied the harassment and assault issues, and called for an 'immediate solution,' according to ABC News.

'Instead, Dart and Campanelli regularly rescinded measures that were effective in decreasing the harassment,' the court document said.

This includes 'cuffing detainees, requiring detainees to wear jumpsuits in lockup, and assigning a sheriff to monitor lockup areas.'

The employees further filed class-action lawsuits with the U.S. Department of Justice as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The charges are currently under investigation.

A spokesperson to a judge in the case could not be reached for further comment, as state Supreme Court bans judges from speaking on pending cases.
Cancer fraud Belle Gibson told the world she was curing her cancer with whole foods.

The 26-year-old spoke about her terminal illness at length, and released a book and an app off the idea that her condition could, and would be, cured with whole foods.

So invested in her own lie, she even managed to bring it up at the funeral of a woman who actually was diagnosed with cancer, and had been trying to cure herself with healthy eating.

Belle Gibson's (left) bizarre obsession with Jess Ainscough (right), a woman who was fighting her actual cancer through wellness, has been documented in a soon-to-be released book

Gibson crashed Ainscough's funeral in 2015, where she cried louder than everyone else, to the point it disturbed other guests

A book on the complex life and lies of Gibson, 'The Woman Who Fooled The World', reveals Belle cried by far the loudest at Jess Ainscough's funeral in 2015, before 'crashing' her wake.

'It was like she was making a point of being seen and heard. Like she was trying to prove that she was more devastated than everybody else who was there,' an attendee told the Fairfax journalists behind the book.

While Gibson and Jess were friendly on social media, they were not 'close friends' as she had told others, and their initial meeting left Jess less than impressed.

The 'Wellness Warrior', as she was known, reportedly told a friend soon after meeting the cancer-fraud: 'something was off about her'.

The wellness blogger told followers she was curing her terminal cancer by eating whole foods

Gibson crashed the private wake of Jess Ainscough, who she claimed to be 'close friends' with. At the wake, she cried on Jess' fiance's shoulder about her own 'illness'

After Jess' funeral, Gibson turned up to the private and intimate wake for the woman, and continued to cry hysterically, for Jess, but also for herself.

During the wake, she reportedly asked Jess' fiance Tallon Pamenter for a private chat, where she sobbed on his shoulder.

The book claims she told him 'her heart was breaking, that she was petrified of dying the way his partner had'.

The pair had never met before, though Mr Pamenter said he had seen Gibson's social media profiles.

Far from best friends, Jess (pictured) was reportedly left less than impressed from their first meeting, telling a friend: 'something was off about her'

In early 2015, Gibson's of a cancer diagnosis, and tales of charitable contributions were outed as fraudulent

'At the time, there was so much going on that, I guess, I was just feeling sorry for her, thinking, maybe she's kind of thinking the same could happen to her,' he told the book's authors.

In early 2015, Gibson's story was outed as fraudulent, despite her having received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a healthy eating book she wrote.

Penguin released Gibson's book in October 2014 but it was withdrawn from sale five months later.

Earlier this year, Gibson was found guilty of misleading consumers. She was handed a $410,000 fine by the Federal Court of Melbourne.

Judge Debbie Mortimer said Gibson may have actually been under a 'delusion' that she did have cancer.

The Woman Who Fooled the World will be released on Monday for $32.99
Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant said that her early days on the show made her feel incredibly body conscious

Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant said that her early days on the show made her feel incredibly body conscious.

Though she is comfortable in her own skin today, she said that was not always the case during an interview with The Cut.

The 30-year-old spoke about one instance that was particularly humiliating - a photo shoot during her early days on SNL with co-stars Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong.

During the photo shoot she said her colleagues had a plethora of gorgeous outfit options to choose from, but she was just left with a few frumpy dresses.

'The other girls had racks of clothes to choose from and were wearing these thousand-dollar dresses, and I had two sacks or like one matronly mother-of-the-bride dress,' Bryant explained.

'Those were the first times where I was like, "Something is different here and this isn't fair." This is a f***ed up situation,and it's purely because of my body.

'Not because I'm less funny, it's my body. It's the only reason that I'm treated differently right now. And it lit a f***ing fire in me.'

Bryant said a photo shoot during her early days on SNL with co-stars Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong was particularly humiliating because they had racks of gorgeous outfits to choose from but she just had a few frumpy dresses. She is pictured left during a sketch, and right with co-star Vanessa Bayer in September

Bryant, pictured second form the right during a sketch in November 2015, joined SNL in 2012, and has grown increasingly comfortable in her own skin during her time on the show

Bryant, who joined late-night comedy sketch show in 2012 and is known for her portrayal of White House Correspondent Sarah Huckabee Sanders in the most recent season, is currently working on her own fashion line with stylist Remy Pearce.

But she said she never thought she would become an advocate for positive body image.

'I didn't try to get on SNL to be a body-positivity activist, but apparently just being there make you one,' she said.

'It's this weird kind of thing, where you're like, "I guess I kind of am." It's literally just now what I came here to do.'

Bryant said she never thought she would become an advocate for positive body image, .but what's what she's become. She is pictured with Cecily Strong and Amy Adams during a December 2014 skit

Bryant is pictured center surrounded by some of her co-stars from SNL, including (left to right) Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day and Beck Bennett

However, she said she is glad she has a figure that people can identify with, and that it's important.

'It sounds so corny now, but representation does f***ing matter,' she said.

'And I remember how as a child I was obsessed with Rosie O'Donnell even though that wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, but I was like "Oh my god, someone who's a little bit like me on TV.'
A Sydney council has given self-appointed 'King of the Cross' John Ibrahim's secret tunnel under his eastern suburbs home the all clear after an investigation.

Waverley Council staff inspected the area under Ibrahim's George Street home in Dover Heights, according to a council spokeswoman.

'An inspection by council compliance staff revealed that there is a sub-floor area beneath the swimming pool and deck area that accommodates rainwater tanks,' she said.

'This area is shown on the approved plans. A doorway from this area provides egress to a public space which is allowable.'

The exit to a tunnel (pictured) seemingly coming out of the multi-million dollar clifftop mansion of John Ibrahim is hidden behind tangled vines, overhanging trees and up a steep and rocky incline

The door into the hidden passageway lies on public land, just metres from a popular boardwalk along the rugged coastline at Dover Heights, in Sydney's lavish eastern suburbs

Ibrahim (pictured), a nightclub owner in Sydney's Kings Cross, rose to fame after his portrayal in the 2010 TV series Underbelly: The Golden Mile

Waverley Council will not be taking any further action in relation to the tunnel, meaning Ibrahim is able to keep it.

At the time the council announced they would be investigating the tunnel they said they had never approved such a structure.

'Waverley Council has not received or approved a development application for a tunnel [from the home] in George Street, Dover Heights,' a council spokesperson said.

'This matter has only just been brought to council's attention and accordingly it is considering what action, if any, should be taken.

'If such a tunnel does exist and is contained exclusively on private land, the council may merely seek structural certification and an application for a building certificate.

'At this stage, no formal complaint has been received concerning the alleged tunnel.'

John Ibrahim's girlfriend Sarah Budge was recently charged with possessing a loaded handgun

The tunnel is believed to start inside the garage of Ibrahim's waterside mansion and run under the entirety of the clifftop building before exiting onto public land.

The exit lies just metres from a popular public boardwalk.

Up a steep and rocky incline and hidden behind overhanging vines, to the thousands trekking along the boardwalk daily the door would be almost impossible to spot.

But despite its discreet location it did not escape the eyes of police, who allegedly found it during a raid on the former nightclub baron's property on August 8.

Following the international operation targeting an alleged $810 million drug ring, the rumours of a tunnel leading out of the Kings Cross identity's home began to surface.

And after venturing off the beaten track to inspect the alleged 'secret tunnel', Daily Mail Australia discovered what appears to be the hidden exit to a passageway along Ibrahim's home.

While it's not clear what the former nightclub owner uses the tunnel for, monitoring the exit from above is a large CCTV camera.

The exit to the tunnel sits along the wall of Ibrahim's mansion, disguised behind trees and vines

While it's not clear what the former nightclub owner uses the tunnel for, monitoring the exit from above is a large CCTV camera (pictured)

Near the exit to the tunnel lay a pink Sheridan towel, a broken glass bowl and other rubbish

A pair of clover-leaf inspired novelty sunglasses also sat near the door, which appeared to have been used during recent weeks

Near the door lay a variety of items including a Sheridan towel, broken glass bowls and a pair of clover-leaf inspired novelty sunglasses.

Pictures taken during the raids show police lifting up heavy mats and peering down into what appears to be a hole alongside Ibrahim's pool.

An inside source confirmed to The Daily Telegraph the tunnel at the property was built in 2007 when Ibrahim installed a pool.

It was suggested the passageway doubles up as a quick way for guests to leave and gives access to the pool's filters.

In his autobiography Last King of the Cross, Ibrahim might have referred to a potential unknown exit route from his home which helps him to avoid attention.

'The police and the media are all over my s***, I have to use different ways to leave my house and make phone calls because the surveillance is constant,' an extract reads.

Police officers look down from the pool onto the alleged tunnel during raids on Ibrahim's property

A spokesman for the Australian Federal Police refused to comment.

Ibrahim, whose life in Kings Cross featured in the 2010 TV drama series Underbelly: The Golden Mile, wasn't charged during the raids across Sydney, The Netherlands and Dubai.

However his brothers Michael and Fadi were arrested in the United Arab Emirates and remain behind bars in a Dubai prison, awaiting extradition back home to Australia.

Ibrahim's son Daniel, 26, and girlfriend Sarah Budge, 27, were both arrested and charged in Sydney before later being released on bail.
A studio flat in one of Sydney's most expensive suburbs is going up for auction after its owner mysteriously disappeared ten years ago.

Siak Hong Law was midway through renovating the fifth-floor 32-square-meter space in Darlinghurst when he vanished.

More than 25 contracts have been handed out ahead of Saturday's auction, with buyers being quoted around $375,000.

The owner was midway through renovating the studio apartment (pictured) when he vanished

A unit in the Darlinghurst area usually fetches over $900,000.

The tiny apartment is being sold on behalf of the sheriff, to repay more than $200,000 worth of unpaid rates and levies.

It's thought the owner disappeared to Malaysia and property records show Mr Law bought the unit in November 1989 for just $75,000.

Many of the contracts have been handed to first time buyers and investors, who could expect $450 a week in rent.

James Natoli from Ray White Surry Hills told news.com.au: 'He just disappeared.

'I think he had a Malaysian background and took off back home. I spoke to one person in the building who knew of him, he was living in the building when they moved in 10 years ago, but they didn't know him personally. He's a mystery man,' Mr Natoli said.

Mr Natoli said the price guide for the studio was so low because the place was 'completely unlivable' in its semi-renovated state.

Buyers at the auction have been quoted $375,000 for the studio that has this view (pictured)

'It's pretty much like the person's started renovating 10 years ago and [left],' he said.

'There have been water leaks from the laundry directly above, a lot of leaks in the roof, cracks in the walls in the bathroom. It's only 32 square metres as well.'

The property listing warns buyers it is in a 'completely unrenovated condition and in need of some TLC'.

'From its top floor vantage point in the iconic Ballina art deco building, this light-filled studio apartment captures an elevated district outlook that sweeps around to the city skyline,' the listing reads.

'All the elements of entry level or investment success are here with bright interiors, an excellent lifestyle location and fantastic scope for a creative update or renovation to add tremendous value.

'It offers an exceptionally well positioned home ideal for renovators seeking an undercapitalised property that's within walking distance to the local cafe and wine bar scene, a choice of transport options and the CBD.'

Ray White said the price for the studio (pictured) is so low because it is 'completely unlivable'
The University of Melbourne is advertising a job for a Maths professor  but will only accept applications from women to 'correct a culture.'

The job advertisement encourages 'suitably qualified' women to apply.

Neil Mitchell blasted the ad as 'tokenism' and discrimination against men on 3AW on Friday.

But Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a gender and feminist politics lecturer at the university, told him it was about 'correcting a culture.'

The University of Melbourne is advertising a job for a Maths professor  but will only accept applications from women

When Mr Mitchell called it 'illogical,' she replied: 'The idea of deliberately going after women in a field where women are unrepresented is hugely important.

'If your definition of logic is changing a culture then steps towards that are completely logical.'

She added: 'Targeted recruiting happens in lots of industries for lots of different reasons to attract specific kinds of applicants.

'This isn't an anomaly in that regard.'

Dr Lauren Rosewarne (pictured), a gender and feminist politics lecturer at the university, said it was about 'correcting a culture'

Mr Mitchell cited figures that show just 28 per cent of Maths students in Melbourne last year were female - and less than a tenth of Maths professors are female.

'Perhaps women don't like Maths,' he said.

'Arguably there's lots of research that says women get dissuaded form continuing with Maths,' Dr Rosewarne replied.

'That could be for a lot of reasons. Is it that they don't have female lecturers who are inspiring them to go on into postgraduate study and then become the lecturers of next year?'

And when Mr Mitchell insisted it was 'tokentistic,' she replied: 'Not if you're trying to change the culture that has marginalised women in this field for years.

'I'm pro quotas for the same reason.

'You have to deliberately change a culture because it doesn't happen naturally.'
Legendary magazine editor Tina Brown has revealed how she found Donald Trump 'beguiling' and never suspected her disgraced business partner Harvey Weinstein during their interactions as she opened up about her decades in journalism.

Brown, who edited both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, shared her insight into the president, long before his political ambitions, in an interview with CBS' Sunday Morning.

The British born editor, 63, described the real estate mogul as someone who could switch on the charm when he needed to.

'Donald Trump always came on the line with a gag, and in a funny way it did win him the hearts of the press, I think,' Brown told Tony Dokoupil. 'I found him very beguiling actually. He had a kind of freshness and bravado that made me laugh.'

Legendary magazine editor Tina Brown (pictured) has revealed how she found Donald Trump 'beguiling' as she opened up about her decades in journalism

Brown found Donald Trump, with first wife Ivana Trump in 1980, charming at first but said as his appetite for fame grew, he 'got less and less entertaining'

But she said as his appetite for fame grew, he 'got less and less entertaining.'

'The desire for publicity made him so impossible to deal with,' Brown added, noting he went from beguiling to ballistic when he thought someone had crossed him.

'One of our best writers [at Vanity Fair] did a piece on him, and she noted in the piece that he had Hitler's speeches in his office. And he went absolutely ballistic.'

She claims that Trump later took revenge at a party by dumping wine down the back of the writer's dress.

When she wasn't rubbing shoulders with New York's rich and powerful for Vanity Fair or The New Yorker, Brown was hard at work on another magazine, Talk - founded by Brown, Ron Galotti and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax in 1999.

Weinstein has since been hit with dozens of accusations of sexual abuse and harrasment by 50 women, including stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd.

Brown also worked with business partner Harvey Weinstein (pictured with her in an undated photo) who has since been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 50 women

Brown said she never had any reason to suspect her business partner, adding that 'Harvey's taste was girls of 21 who were in high-heeled shoes from Hollywood' (Brown pictured with her husband journalist Harold Evans, center, and Weinstein, left)

But Brown said she never had any reason to suspect her business partner.

'It wasn't my business to pry into what he did after hours. I had no idea what was going on,' she said, adding that Weinstein never sexual harassed her personally.

'I think Harvey's taste was girls of 21 who were in high-heeled shoes from Hollywood. But you know, it's a very shocking and disturbing story.'

Brown became the editor of British society magazine Tatler when she was just 26 years old but it was when she was invited to take over the role of editor-in-chief of the newly relaunched Vanity Fair in 1984 that catapulted Brown into a household name in magazine journalism.

She moved to from the UK to New York, arriving in the middle of the 1980s, a time for excess which she said 'could not have been a juicier, more vivid world to be writing about.'

By the time she left the Vanity Fair in 1992, she'd increased circulation five fold and created some iconic covers, including the famous 1991 shot of a naked, pregnant Demi Moore (pictured is photographer Annie Leibovitz in front of her portrait of pregnant actress Demi Moore)

Brown became the editor of British society magazine Tatler when she was just 26 years old but it was when she was invited to take over the role of editor-in-chief of the newly relaunched Vanity Fair in 1984 that catapulted Brown into a household name in magazine journalism

By the time she left the Vanity Fair in 1992, she'd increased circulation five fold and created some iconic covers, including the famous 1991 shot of a naked, pregnant Demi Moore.

'I had just come out of my second pregnancy and I was feeling very rebellious about maternity clothes,' Brown told the Washington Post. 'So I said to Annie [Leibovitz], 'Let's photograph Demi and show her pregnant instead of doing the usual tricks and disguising it.'

'And Annie always goes one better. I went berserk when I saw it. This was a defining cover  a new, unbelievably fabulous sort of feminist statement that liberated women to show the glories of fertility without the modesty of it.'

Brown, who has two children with husband, journalist Harold Evans later became the editor of The New Yorker and penned the bestselling The Diana Chronicles. She also launched the successful The Daily Beast and Tina Brown Live Media.

But she has a special place in her heart for Vanity Fair which she credits with raising her game 'tremendously' adding it had 'exceeded my dreams.'

Browns new memoir, The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992 is out Tuesday and her interview with CBS Sunday Morning airs at 9am on WKMG-Channel 6.
A family on the New South Wales south coast were shocked to discover the reason for their engine troubles was a giant python.

In a video shared by Nine News, snake handler Morgan Carolan can be seen under the bonnet of a family car, after an NRMA call out turned into a reptile rescue mission.

Ms Carolan can be seen holding the snake before throwing away her sunglasses to get a better look at the reptile.

A family on the New South Wales south coast were shocked to discover the reason for their engine troubles was a giant python

Snake handler Morgan Carolan can be seen under the bonnet of a family car, after an NRMA call out turned into a reptile rescue mission

The owner of the car, Rebecca Pascall, had called the NRMA when she realised the vehicle would not start.

But once patrolman Steve Hedger arrived at the Sussex Inlet home, he realised the trouble was not just mechanical.

'I turned up to what I thought was an NRMA call, put my hand in underneath the bonnet, lifted it up and there it was right in front of my face,' Mr Hedger told Nine News.

Ms Carolan can be seen holding the snake before throwing away her sunglasses to get a better look at the reptile

'It actually reared up, because it mustn't have liked the look of me,' he said.

Ms Pascall filmed the removal as the handler continued to pull the giant snake from the car's engine.

The snake is finally revealed to be a 1.4 metre diamond python as Ms Carolan safely removed the reptile from the engine.

The snake is finally revealed to be a 1.4 metre diamond python as Ms Carolan safely removed the reptile from the engine

Ms Carolan can be heard saying the snake is 'quite cool' despite being trapped under the bonnet.

'He might've been warm when he got in there but right now he's pretty cold,' she said.

The snake was later released at a 'suitable location'.
A 10-year-old boy has been trapped under a tree at a school playground.

Emergency services were called to the scene and responded urgently to reports a child and a teacher has been injured at a school playground in Bendigo, Victoria on Friday afternoon, according to 9 News.

The boy and his 61-year-old carer were both injured when a branch fell at Kalianna School.

Emergency services were called to the scene and responded urgently to reports a child and a teacher has been injured at a school playground

The boy and his 61-year-old carer were both injured when a branch fell at Kalianna School

The conditions of the child and teacher are unknown.

Police, educators and arborists are investigating the incident.

The boy was airlifted to Melbourne with suspected pelvis injuries, according to the Bendigo Advertiser.

Paramedics and state emergency services freed the teacher and child just before 4pm.

Police, educators and arborists are investigating the incident

Paramedics and state emergency services freed the teacher and child just before 4pm
A huge huntsman spider has appeared on an Australian Federal Police patrol car dashboard before scaring some of Australia's toughest officers.

An image of the creepy crawly was posted to the national squad's Facebook page, with a caption: 'That's a big nope!!'

'Even the toughest cops quiver when one of these bad boys strolls across the dash of the patrol car....,' the social media channel explained.

The huge huntsman spider appeared on an Australian Federal Police patrol car

The post said the spider was affectionately named Jerry before being returned to his home outside of the police car.

One woman , whose profile claimed she was from Michigan, couldn't believe spiders were 'that big' in Australia.

'That's a baby,' the police Facebook representative replied. 'Ever seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Our spiders grow larger than Aragog.'

One user suggested keeping the spider as a pet citing: 'Aww. I mean, NSW police have their troop cat...

'You could have your troop spider! Just imagine the interrogations like pull out this bad boy you don't need to sit with hardened crims for long.'

The huntsman spider may appear intimidating to humans, but its venom is not dangerous

Huntsmen are often found hiding inside cars, behind the sun visor, but are also a fairly common sight inside houses

The police page responded that they already had 'Constable Peanut' who is 'much cooler'.

A man joked that the officers would need four pairs of handcuffs to arrest the spider.

'Or one big police issued boot,' the Australian Federal Police page said.

The post was liked more than 2,100 times and gained over 680 comments in just three hours since it was posted.
The White House said as President Donald Trump arrived in Vietnam on Friday that a highly anticipated meeting between the U.S. president and his Russian counterpart will not be on either leader's schedule.

'Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides,' Trump's press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One.

'There is no formal meeting or anything scheduled for them.'

'Now, theyre going to be in the same place,' she allowed. 'Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely.'

'But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, theres not one on the calendar and we dont anticipate that there will be one,' Sanders said.

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President Donald Trump will not meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while he's in Da Nang, Vietnam; Trump arrived Friday on Air Force One for the APEC business summit

Trump was expected to have a meeting with Putin (left, pictured in July), whom investigators in Washington suspect tried to monkey-wrench the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Among the meetings that will be on the president's schedule is his first-ever face-to-face with Philippine strongman president Rodrigo Duterte, who says he won't let Trump boss him around on human rights

Trump arried Friday in Da Nang ahead of a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit

Any Trump meeting with Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit would have become fodder for controversy as a special counsel in the United States is pressing ahead with a probe into whether Trump's campaign aides colluded with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Both the White House and the Kremlin have denied there was any such connection.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had said Wednesday that that one-on-one would 'likely' take place on the sidelines of the APEC event. Trump and Putin last met in Hamburg during the July G20 summit.

But in a briefing with reporters Thursday in Beijing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed the idea  saying no Trump-Putin meeting was ever firmed up.

'There's never been an agreement to  certainly not to a formal bilat,' Tillerson said, referring to a bilateral meeting between the two presidents.

But he allowed that 'it wouldnt be at all unusual if they ended up with some sort of "pull aside"'  provided there's 'something sufficiently substantive to talk about.'

Tillerson did say that Americans and Russians were still discussing an economic plan designed to put a stranglehold on North Korea, along with Moscow's continuing support of Bashar al-Assad's regime in war-torn Syria.

Tillerson said there are also 'significant conversations underway with Russia on the situation in Ukraine.'

And Russian meddling in the U.S. election 'stays on that list,' he added.

Massive majorities of Vietnamese like Donald Trump, according to recent polls, and crowds gathered to watch his motorcade speed past on Friday in Da Nang

Trump's armored limousine, dubbed 'The Beast,' goes with him wherever Air Force One flies, sent ahead in the belly of a duplicate Boeing 747

Trump said as he was leaving China for Vietnam that first lady Melania would stay behind to see giant pandas at the Beijing Zoo and visit the Great Wall

Da Nang is a seaside town in modern Vietnam where American forces landed in 1965, near the beginning of a protracted, bloody war

Trump's agenda does still include a speech to CEOs and his first person-to-person meeting with controversial Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte in particular has proved a tough customer, the Pacific Rim's answer to Trump's unapologetic gunslinger ethos.

He told reporters Wednesday in Manila before leaving for the APEC summit that he wouldn't let the American president boss him around on human rights topics when they meet.

'You want to ask a question, I'll give you an answer: Lay off,' he said he would tell Trump. 'That is not your business. That is my business. I take care of my country and I will nurture my country to health.'

Trump was briefly considered available for the Vietnam War draft in 1966 and 1968 (class '1-A') but spent most of his time on the Selective Service rolls in a student deferment ('2-S') or available only in a 'national emergency' ('1-Y') before ultimately being disqualified ('4-F')

More than 3,900 Filipinos have been killed in the past 16 months as armed suspects have resisted arrest in Duterte's war on drugs. Police blame the drug-runners, but Duterte's critics say his shock troops are conducting summary executions with no real oversight.

Duterte has openly instructed his police to kill any 'idiots' who violently resist arrest.

In May, Trump praised him during a phone call for doing an 'unbelievable job on the drug problem,' according to a leaked transcript.

Still, Duterte has openly refused to consider visiting the White House, saying in June that 'there will never be a time that I will go to America during my term, or even thereafter. I've seen America and it's lousy.'

The two men will meet briefly in Da Nang and follow up with longer bilateral talks next week in Manila.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting will be a more workmanlike diplomatic stop

Vietnamese honor guards will be tired from all the standing after greeting more than 20 foreign heads of state this week in Hanoi and Da Nang for two different multinational meetings

Owners of the 5-month old bar named after U.S. President Donald Trump, Nguyen Ha Anh Tuan, 32 - right, and Huynh Nhat Quang, 30 - left, pose for a portrait inside their Trump Bar on November 9, 2017 in Danang, Vietnam

Trump has a close relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, something that makes the Vietnamese nervous

After Vietnam, Trump will go to Manila in the Philippines  where a multitude of protesters are already piping up to object to his presence

Trump's arrival in Vietnam was 49 years in the making.

It was this country that Trump avoided visiting in 1968 when a doctor declared that he had a bone spur in his heel so he couldn't be drafted into the U.S. Army.

Now he's in Da Nang, just blocks from the beach where American servicemen stormed ashore in 1965  and near where the U.S. stored its supply of Agent Orange for years.

On the heels of pomp-laden swings through Japan, South Korea and China, Trump can expect a lower-key affair at the Vietnam APEC conference

In Beijing he was the guest of honor, a U.S. president continuing the tradition of Richard Nixon in keeping trade and diplomatic ties open with the world's largest communist nation.

In Da Nang, he will be first among equals but only one draw among 21 heads of state, and leaders of companies like FedEx, Airbnb and Facebook.

Trade will be on their minds, especially following Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership  a 12-nation deal that the president called 'awful' for American businesses as he ran for the White House.

The TPP's aim is to eliminate tariffs on agriculture and industrial imports and exports among countries as far-flung as Singapore and Canada. Vietnam is hoping to use the agreement to lessen the impact of China's gargantuan economy in the area.

Also covered are labor agreements, government subsidies for key industry sectors and a host of other complications.

Vietnam's economy is expanding by nearly 7 per cent per year, making it one of Asia's manufacturing stars.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who was wounded and tortured during the Vietnam War, has been openly critical of Trump for obtaining medical deferments so he could avoid being drafted into the military

The remaining 11 countries sought to ink a deal without the U.S. on Thursday, spurred on by heavy lobbying from Japan.

Canada and Mexico, both TPP countries, are treading carefully since they are simultaneously renegotiating the NAFTA agreement with Trump's trade team.

Damage from Typhoon Damrey is posing the threat of mass flooding in Da Nang; at least 106 people are dead and 25 more missing, and seven reservoirs are near their breaking points.

Releasing the waters could flood parts of Da Nang and nearby Hoi An, the hub for Vietnamese tailoring, during the extended weekend.

The coastal city, a seaside waystation between the metropolises of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, will host its largest-ever diplomatic event, but older residents still see Da Nang through a more sinister historic lens.

It was here that the U.S. Army stored its stockpiles of the deadly defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, dispersing it from crop-dusting planes to flush out North Vietnamese guerrillas from swaths of dense jungle.

Dangerous: The Vietnamese are paddling boats through the flooded streets of Hoi An  just a half-hour's drive from Da Nang  after a powerful typhoon rocked the country and killed more than 100 people

The chemical is now blamed for epidemic-levels of birth defects and cancers among large numbers of civilians in Vietnam, and the U.S. is still paying annually to decontaminate soil.

And in the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides medical treatment to Vietnam War veterans whose exposure to Agent Orange has led to diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and prostate and respiratory cancers.

The VA is currently considering whether to expand that list to include bladder cancer and hypothyroidism.

Small numbers of protesters risking arrest inside the Da Nang airport have seized on Trump's signature hairdo and complexion, hoisting signs calling him 'President Agent Orange.'

Trump never served in uniform during the Vietnam War, earning five deferments from the draft  including one medical exemption in 1968 on the basis of a bone spur in his heel.

Speaking to reporters in Iowa during the presidential primary season in 2015, he said he couldn't remember which foot was afflicted.

The cavalier brushoff has long stuck in the craw of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who was captured in Vietnam after crashing the plane he was piloting, and tortured for years by the North Vietnamese.

Da Nang is where the U.S. Army stored its stockpiles of the deadly defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, dispersing it from crop-dusting planes to flush out North Vietnamese guerrillas from swaths of dense jungle

'One aspect of the conflict, by the way, that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America,' McCain said last month.

'And the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur. That is wrong.'

Trump's arrival in Da Nang directly from Beijing has been noticed, and adds to Vietnam's longstanding animosity toward China that dates back nearly 2,200 years.

The Han Dynasty Chinese first colonized northern Vietnam in the second century BC, an occupation that continued for most of the next 1,000 years.

The Ming Dynasty later tried again to conquer Vietnam but couldn't maintain its grip for more than a few decades.

More recently, a 1979 months-long border war killed tens of thousands of people in both China and Vietnam in only a few months.

And as Beijing races to claim nearly all of the South China Sea as its own  complete with dredging to build up man-made militarized islands  Vietnam continues to cry foul over parts of the water generally recognized as part of its economic zone.

Underneath that region's seabed lie valuable oil reserves that China wants to keep for itself.

As much as Vietnam's leaders would like Trump's help shoving China back into its own territorial waters, they have consistently abided by what the nation knows as its 'three nos': no military alliances, no foreign country's bases on its soil, and no allowing any nation to use Vietnam in a ploy to undermine an ally.

APEC's members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam.

Trump will also attend a separate summit on Saturday in Hanoi, hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

ASEAN's 10 members include seven from APEC. They are: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
A family on holiday has escaped a dramatic crash in New South Wales that left their four-wheel-drive teetering over a 50 metre cliff.

Emergency services were called to Lindesay Creek in the state's north around 12:30pm Friday after the vehicle was spotted in a perilous position.

Two young girls, believed to be around 10 years old, were able to get free with the help of a passing motorist, while their parents were trapped in the car, the Northern Star reports.

A family of four has escaped a dramatic crash in New South Wales north on Friday, which left their green 4WD teetering over a 50 metre cliff

Woodenbong Rural Fire Service captain Greg Gulliver was one of the first on scene after returning from a family holiday and helped devise a plan to secure the car.

'The 4WD was precariously perched on the end of the embankment and it was wedged on a log which stopped them going over to the bottom which was a fair way down,' he said.

The vehicle was attached to the emergency services vehicles to stop it from slipping over the cliff, before it was winched back to safety.

The group are believed to have been saved by the trailer they had been towing with emergency services saying they were lucky to be alive.

'It's probably only the caravan and the guard rail which has stopped them plummeting right off the edge,' Paramedic Sam Tabone said.

All passengers escaped unharmed following the effort from NSW Fire and rescue, Police, SES and Ambulance and were able to continue on their way.
Comedian Kathy Griffin passed out Wednesday afternoon just minutes before her Dublin show was set to end.

Late in the roughly two-hour performance, Griffin, 57, began feeling woozy as she cracked a Mariah Carey joke, and leaned into the microphone to announce: 'Randy, I'm going down,' The New York Times reported of the event.

Griffin later posted a video message to social media to thank fans for attending her presentation as well as address the fainting incident.

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Kathy Griffin (shown during the Dublin show) was cracking a Mariah Carey joke when she leaned into the microphone and said: 'I'm going down'

Griffin posted a video message to social media, where she thanked fans for attending her presentation, and addressed the fainting incident

'Hey everybody, it's me, Kathy Griffin,' she said in the clip. 'I fainted at the end of my show ... I'm embarrassed, more than anything.

'I had one more story (and) five more minutes (left),' Griffin said, while adding, 'This one's for you, Wendy Williams!'

Griffin was referring to Williams' on-air fainting episode last Wednesday - which happened during a segment of 'The Wendy Williams Show.'

The daytime talk show host later revealed she felt as though she was standing 'in the middle of a campfire' amid the horrific incident.

Wendy Williams is pictured above arriving at the Wendy Williams studios in New York City just days after fainting on-air last Wednesday

Williams also denied rumors suggesting she suffered a stroke or heart attack.

She confirmed her heart rate and blood pressure were reported normal after a medical evaluation.

'I wasn't stroking out, and for people who thought that I was, trying to get this purple chair next, nope, I'm here for a long time,' Williams said in a later episode of her show.

Aside from her Williams' tribute, Griffin joked: 'I promise to be upright the entire show next time.'

While adding: 'The audience was fantastic. Thank you for being forgiving and understanding.'

The comedian is pictured in May 2017 at the Women's Choice Awards, Los Angeles, California. She is one of many celebs who have been in the dim spotlight in recent months

Attendee to the show, Ellen Coyle, shared details about the event to Twitter Wednesday afternoon

The longtime entertainer is just one of several celebs who have been at the center of controversy in recent months.

Weeks ago, Griffin publicly announced her decision to cut ties with celebrity attorney, Lisa Bloom, whom she hired in the summer after her infamous Donald Trump beheading photo shoot.

In a vague social media post, Griffin explained Bloom's legal services had cost her a fortune.

'Dear @LisaBloom, pls stop calling me. If you'd like to refund me the tens of thousands of $ I wasted on your services maybe I'll talk to you,' she wrote in the tweet.

Bloom later sent out a follow-up statement, which, in part, revealed she received 'death threats' amid her time working with the comedian.

'Kathy has now made a video about how women should stand together, and yet she's attacked me, a lifetime women's right attorney, and not the rest of her team, all of whom were men,' Bloom wrote.

'This is sad, but I still believe that Kathy Griffin is one of the funniest comics alive ... that she meant no ill will with the photo, and I wish her the best.'
Sean Astin has come forward to say he is standing by his friend Corey Feldman's claim about a pedophile ring in Hollywood

Goonies actor Sean Astin is standing by his co-star's claim that there is a Hollywood pedophile ring.

Astin, who co-starred in The Goonies with Corey Feldman in 1985, told Page Six on Thursday: 'Hopefully this doesn't play out as a personal tabloid story.'

He said that he hopes that Feldman's allegations helps spark a real conversation about sexual assault in Hollywood.

'The fact is, real people all over the country are starting to have a conversation and it can be very distracting if it distills down into some kind of typical story,' Astin explained.

Just last week, Feldman revealed the identities of two alleged child molesters he claims took advantage of him and other adolescent screen stars years ago.

He claimed that in Hollywood there is a pedophile ring of adults in the industry who he alleges preyed on him and other young actors and actresses.

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Feldman claims that he was taken advantage of at least two child molesters, starting as early as the 80's. He is pictured on Monday, after revealing that he filed a report with the LAPD about the men

Astin, who co-stared in The Goonies with Corey Feldman in 1985, said he is proud of his friend and hopes that Feldman's bravery will result in actual change

And on Thursday, Astin said that while he is proud of his friend, he does worry that the story won't make any real change in the industry.

'My only concern is [it] won't actually develop into the complex conversation that needs to happen,' he told the tabloid at the TBS Search Party premier at Public Hotel.

'And if it doesn't, and it becomes about quickly pointing fingers and making accusations and the obvious stuff, I think it will be a missed opportunity.'

Astin, who starred in the second season of Stranger Things, first addressed Feldman's allegations in a statement on Monday.

'Corey Feldman communicated to me at some point, what some of his experiences were,' he wrote in the statement.

'I remember aching for him... Victims of sexual assault are speaking. Their bravery and willingness to subject their lives to scrutiny, of the most painful kind, should be supported... it is time for abusers to be stopped.'

On Monday Feldman revealed he has filed a police report with the LAPD, identifying the men he claims sexually abused him as a child.

Astin, pictured far left on Tuesday and right with Feldman in the Goonies, first addressed his friend's claim about a pedophile ring on Monday in a statement, saying that Feldman had contacted him about his history with being sexually assaulted in the past

On Monday Feldman revealed he has filed a police report with the LAPD, identifying the men he claims sexually abused him as a child

Feldman said on The Dr Oz Show last Thursday that his former assistant Jon Grissom was the first to take advantage of him in the 1980s, adding that the man still posts photos of him online.

'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.'

Dr. Oz then revealed that Grissom, who is now living in Mexico, has a long history of criminal behavior.

'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,' said an attorney for the program in a video posted to Facebook.

Feldman also named former child talent manager and convicted sex offender Marty Weiss, who had revealed in the past.

Speaking out: Corey Feldman appeared on 'The Dr. Oz Show' last Thursday (above) to discuss the Hollywood pedophile ring he claims preyed on him and other young stars

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

The actor has told multiple media outlets last week that he reported members of a supposed Hollywood pedophile ring back in 1993 with the Santa Barbara Police Department.

That claim was disputed however by police and Dr. Oz confronted Feldman with this information.

'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,' said Dr. Oz.

Feldman then interrupts him to state: 'It's on the record.'

Dr Oz continued: 'And you named names. I listened to the recording and I did not hear you name names.'

Feldman responded 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 pleaded 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 was during this call that Feldman revealed Grissom is allegedly still posting photos of him and Haim on his social media accounts.

Dr. Oz also read 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,' stated Dr. Oz, reading from the official statement he was given by a spokesperson from the Santa Barbara Police Department.
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Sixteen months after groundbreaking transplant surgery gave a Wyoming man a new face after living a decade without one, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to him.

Sitting in a library at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of Andy Sandness, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well.

'That's why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin,' she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had belonged to her late husband, Calen 'Rudy' Ross.

The two came together last month in a meeting arranged by the Mayo Clinic, the same place where Sandness underwent a 56-hour surgery that was the clinic's first face transplant.

The medical journey came after tragedy hit both Sandess and the Ross family. Sandness put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face. Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota a decade later.

Having registered as an organ donor, Ross - and his wife's determination to carry on his legacy - gave Sandness hope of living a normal life with a new face.

Heartwarming moment: Lilly Ross, right, feels the beard of face transplant recipient Andy Sandness during their first meeting at the Mayo Clinic, October 27, in Rochester, Minnesota

Emotional: Sixteen months after surgery gave Sandness the face that once belonged to Calen 'Rudy' Ross, Sandness met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to him, who lived nearly a decade without one

For Ross, just meeting face transplant recipient Andy Sandness felt like a huge release - a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations from her husband

The grieving widow wipes a tear from her eye as she talks about her deceased husband, Calen 'Rudy' Ross

Sandness (left) put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face. Ross (right) shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota a decade later

With her toddler Leonard in tow, Ross strode toward Sandness, tears welling in her eyes as they tightly embraced.

Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life.

But her stress quickly melted away - without Calen's eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn't look like him, she told herself.

Instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband's gift, newly confident after ten years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes.

'It made me proud,' Ross said of the 32-year-old Sandness. 'The way Rudy saw himself ... he didn't see himself like that.'

Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, ten years and 500 miles apart.

It was two days before Christmas in 2006 when Sandness reached a breaking point. He'd been sad and drinking too much lately. That night after work while 'super, super depressed,' he grabbed a rifle from a closet.

He stared at it for a while, then put a round in the chamber. He positioned the barrel beneath his chin, took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

Instantly, he knew he'd made a terrible mistake. When the police arrived, an officer who was a friend cradled him in his arms as Sandness begged, 'Please, please don't let me die! I don't want to die!'

He was rushed from his home in eastern Wyoming, treated at two hospitals, then transferred to Mayo Clinic. He'd shot out all but two teeth. His mouth was shattered, his lips almost non-existent. He'd lost some vision in his left eye.

In 2016, 21-year-old Calen Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota. His wife, Lilly, was eight months pregnant at the time of his death

Ross already had agreed to donate her husband's lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients. Then LifeSource, a Midwestern nonprofit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic

Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple's child to one day understand what his father did to help others

Lilly (left with her son and right with Calen) was given photos of Sandness before and after the transplant. That's when she learned of uncanny similarities between the two men - not just their passion for the outdoors, but the way they stood in their hunting photos

Ross (right, with Lilly) and Sandness' ages, blood type, skin color and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Sandness' surgeon, Dr Samir Mardini, said the two men could have been cousins

When he woke, his mother was holding his hand. She'd always been a strong woman but that day, her face was a portrait of unfathomable pain. The bullet had obliterated his mouth, so he motioned for a pen and paper.

'I'm sorry,' he wrote.

'I love you,' she replied. 'It's OK.' But all Sandness could think about was how he'd hurt his family - and just wonder what was next.

A decade later, 21-year-old Calen Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota.

By then, Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries - surgeries to rebuild his face had left him a quarter-sized mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off.

Hope first came in 2012 when the Mayo Clinic started exploring a face transplant program and again in early 2016 when he was wait-listed for the procedure.

Sandness' surgeon, Dr Samir Mardini, and his team devoted more than 50 Saturdays over 3.5 years to rehearsing the surgery, using sets of cadaver heads to transplant the face of one to another.

They used 3D imaging and virtual surgery to plot out the bony cuts so the donor's face would fit perfectly on Sandness.

And in January 2016, Sandness' name was added to the waiting list of the United Network for Organ Sharing.

But just five months later, Mardini got a call: There might be a donor. He phoned Sandness, cautioning it was just a possibility.

Follow his suicide attempt, Sandness rushed from his home in eastern Wyoming, treated at two hospitals, then transferred to Mayo Clinic. He'd shot out all but two teeth. His mouth was shattered, his lips almost non-existent. He'd lost some vision in his left eye

In adjoining operating rooms, some 60 surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists and others had gathered for the face transplant surgery, which would be a 56-hour marathon

By the time of the surgery, Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries - surgeries to rebuild his face had left him a quarter-sized mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off. Sadness is pictured above shortly after his face transplant

Dr Samir Mardini shaves the face Sandness in July 2016, days after leading a team that performed the first face transplant surgery at the hospital

Ross already had agreed to donate her husband's lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients.

Then LifeSource, a Midwestern nonprofit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic.

Ross and Sandness' ages, blood type, skin color and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Mardini said the two men could have been cousins.

ANDY SANDNESS'S SURGERY TIMELINE Friday, June 10, 2016 10.16am  Rudy arrives at Mayo Clinic 11.53pm  Surgery starts on Rudy Saturday, June 11, 2016 12.30am: Surgery starts on Andy Nerves mapped on both Rudy and Andy Sunday, June 12, 2016 3.14am: Donated face arrives in Andys room 4.30am: Bones plated together 6.00am: Vessels reconnected 9.00am: More plates placed on the mandible (jaw bone) 12pm: Problem detected with vessels, fixed by early afternoon Evening: Nerves reconnected as well as other structures: salivary gland ducts, incisions made in mouth, skin put back and trimmed, eyelids reconnected to new nose Monday, June 13, 2016 9.02am: Andy leaves OR Advertisement

Ross consented, despite her hesitation about someday seeing her husband's face on a stranger.

Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple's child to one day understand what his father did to help others.

Lilly said she thought: 'He's a donor, and this is my call  we're going to do it.' Because if we could help countless people, why not? That's pretty much why I did it.

'I've been in contact with the liver recipient, I'm friends with the heart recipient on Facebook. There's one guy who got a kidney and a pancreas, we haven't heard anything from him yet; another lady got a kidney, I believe, and then we've not been in contact with the lung recipient. But I sent everybody letters around the same time, they all got pictures.'

She said: 'I knew what needed to be done and I just did what needed to be done'  adding that the process takes several days, as recipients are identified, and it's not an immediate process as often portrayed on medical television drama.

'The process is a long process, but it's worth it,' she says.

On a night in June 2016, Sandness was wheeled into surgery, accompanied by Mardini, who was showing him photos of his two small children. Over the years, the two say they've become as close as brothers.

In adjoining operating rooms, some 60 surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists and others had gathered for what would be a 56-hour marathon. The surgery that started shortly before midnight Friday was over early Monday morning.

It took about 24 hours to procure the donor's face, which involved taking bone, muscle, skin and nerves, and almost the same time to prepare Sandness.

His entire face was rebuilt below his eyes, taking an additional 32 hours. The medical team rotated, many taking four-hour breaks through the weekend.

One of the most intricate parts of the surgery was identifying facial nerve branches on both men and stimulating them with an electric current to determine their function.

That allowed doctors to make the correct transfers, so when Sandness thinks about smiling or closing his eyes, for example, those movements actually happen.

Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life. But her stress quickly melted away - without Calen's eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn't look like him, she told herself

Ross said that instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband's gift, newly confident after ten years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes

The medical team that worked with Sandness (pictured above with Ross) have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from

Lilly Ross, left, shows family photos of her and her husband, Calen Ross, to face transplant recipient Sandness

More than a year after the surgery, Sandness is finding a groove in everyday life while still treasuring the simple tasks he lost for ten years, such as chewing a piece of pizza.

He's been promoted in his work as an oilfield electrician and is expanding his world while still prizing the anonymity that comes with a normal face.

'I wouldn't go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities,' he said. 'And now I'm just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on - going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing.'

Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication.

Sandness says he was concerned both about the possibility of rejection and potential side effects of anti-rejection drugs, including skin cancer, infection, diabetes and weakening of the bones.

He's constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering.

'I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted,' Sandness told Ross.

Mardini and the rest of Sandness' medical team have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from.

'It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought,' Mardini said. 'He's enjoying these times, where he's missed out on ten years of his life.'

Sandness holds 17-month-old Leonard Ross, the son of the man he received a face transplant from, after meeting at the Mayo Clinic, on October 27

Leonard's mother, Lilly, and Sandness say they plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he'll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard's education

Andy Sandness, left, gets a hug from Dr. Samir Mardini at the Mayo Clinic on October 27. Over the years, the two say they've become as close as brothers

Last year, Ross wrote to Sandness and the five others who received her husband's organs.

She described Ross, her high school sweetheart, as a 'giving person' who loved hunting, trapping and being with his dog, Grit.

'I am filled with great joy knowing that he was able to give a little of himself to ensure a better quality of life for someone else,' she wrote.

Lilly was given photos of Sandness before and after the transplant. That's when she learned of uncanny similarities between the two men - not just their passion for the outdoors, but the way they stood in their hunting photos.

'It was amazing how good he looked and how well he's doing,' she previously said of Sandness. 'I'm excited for him that he's getting his life back.'

She also noticed one small detail - a small bare patch in the middle of his bearded chin, just as on her husband's face.

Ross and Sandness say they feel like family now. They plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he'll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard's education.

On the day of their meeting, the boy stared curiously at Sandness at first. But later, he walked over and waved to be picked up. Sandness happily obliged.

For Ross, just meeting Sandness felt like a huge release - a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations.

'Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure,' she said, her voice choking as it trailed off. 'Everything happened so fast.'
A toddler has been left in a critical condition after she was allegedly sexually assaulted in her own home.

The three-year-old was left in the company of a 25-year-old man on Thursday night when the attack reportedly happened.

It was the young girl's grandfather who found her when he returned to the South Brisbane District home, and rushed her to hospital, Nine News reports.

The three-year-old was left in the company of a 25-year-old man on Thursday night when the attack reportedly happened (stock image)

Hospital staff called the police who promptly attended the scene and commenced an investigation

Hospital staff called the police who promptly attended the scene and commenced an investigation.

The 25-year-old man has since been charged with nine offences including torture, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault, leaving a child under 12 unattended, two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, breach of a domestic violence order and drug offences.

The girl is still in a Brisbane hospital in a serious but stable condition.

The 25-year-old man has since been charged with nine offences relating to the attack
Nicola Sturgeon yesterday delivered a humiliating public slapdown to Alex Salmond by condemning his decision to launch a chat show on a Russian state-funded TV channel.

The First Minister revealed her predecessor had not consulted her over joining broadcaster RT  which has been described as a state-run propaganda machine.

In the first public sign of tension between them since she became First Minister three years ago, Miss Sturgeon said she would have advised him to seek another channel if she had known prior to the announcement.

Alex Salmond, pictured posing on the set of his new RT show. He has faced a storm of criticism for agreeing to take the 'Kremlin's rouble' for hosting the show on a broadcaster widely views as a Russian state propaganda channel

Several other senior figures in the SNP also condemned their former leader, while a Holyrood motion was published urging him to re-examine his decision, which gave undue legitimacy to the broadcaster.

The fact that Mr Salmond did not even consult Miss Sturgeon or her advisers before signing the deal suggests a major breakdown in relations.

But Mr Salmond insisted RT would allow him freedom of speech and would not make editorial decisions about the weekly show. The first episode of The Alex Salmond Show is due to be screened on Thursday.

Insiders in the SNP fear the partys reputation will be damaged by one of its highest-profile individuals linking up with a broadcaster funded by Vladimir Putins regime.

Scottish Tory leader went on Twitter to attack former SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond for taking up the controversial new job

Asked about the announcement in Jersey yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: I am absolutely sure Alexs new chat show will make for interesting watching. His choice of channel to air it on would not have been my choice.

Had I been asked, which I wasnt, I would have advised him to seek another channel to air the show on. But of course Alex is not currently an elected politician and he is free to make whatever decisions he wishes to make.

Pictured: Nicola Sturgeon

The final point Id make on this is that the Scottish Government, the SNP and indeed Alex Salmond have been frequent critics of the Russian government across a range of different areas and we will continue to be so where it is appropriate and we will do so without fear or favour.

Her comments suggest simmering anger at Mr Salmonds growing media career, which has provided embarrassment for Miss Sturgeon in the past.

RT hit back at the First Minister, with a spokesman saying: We are delighted to welcome the Alex Salmond Show to RT and hope that  contrary to appearances  the current First Minister isnt too upset that she wasnt asked.

The show is being produced by Slainte Media, a newly formed firm set up by Mr Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, who both lost their jobs as MPs in June.

Yesterday, it was also revealed RT is to register as a foreign agent in the US after an intelligence report accused it of being an arm of Russias state-run propaganda machine. A Holyrood motion, lodged by Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, states that intelligence services around the world regard RT as an agent of the Russian state and states that a principle role of RT is to give a favourable impression of Russia.

It says that First Ministers past and present should retain an informal ambassadorial status for Scotland and urges Mr Salmond to re-examine his decision, concluding that signing a contractual relationship of this type with RT gives the organisation undue legitimacy.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, pictured giving a speech on housing earlier this week, has also faced criticism for appearing on RT

Nationalist MP Martin Docherty, a former colleague of Mr Salmond, posted a link on social media to an article he wrote last year branding RT and Russias Sputnik news agency as tools of misinformation and vowing to never to appear on the channel.

Chris McEleny, who ran in last years contest to become deputy leader of the SNP and is leader of the partys council group in Inverclyde, also attacked Mr Salmonds decision on social media.

He said: I absolutely accept he will have complete editorial control over his show but the fact it is on RT gives credibility to RT. Lets be clear, RT exists to promote Russian propaganda, a country with a disgraceful human rights record, in essence a faux democracy thats actively trying to destabilise democratic processes in Western states.

An SNP spokesman distanced the party from Mr Salmonds decision, pointing out he is not currently an elected politician and as such is free to take on broadcasting and other opportunities of his own choosing.

Asked if SNP politicians would be allowed to appear on the show, he said: We consider every interview request on its merits if and when it comes in.

BBC Radio Four presenter Nick Robinson  who was accused of biased reporting by Mr Salmond in the 2014 referendum campaign  also condemned the decision.

He said: The question is not whether Alex Salmond is making Kremlin propaganda. It is whether hes lending his credibility and that of his guests to Kremlin propaganda.

Scottish Tory deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said: It beggars belief that a man who led Scotland for seven years should be reduced to a puppet of Russias deeply damaging propaganda unit.

Mr Salmond responded to some of the criticism on an RT news show, saying he had condemned Russian intervention in Syria on the channel in the past and his views were not altered.

He said: Ive found that this channel allows me to express my views without fear or favour. Therefore, a programme produced by Slainte Productions and broadcast on RT should be able to do that as well. Secondly, there is an underlying question about freedom of speech. Are all these other media outlets so worried that they wont allow things to be shown on RT?

He also told the BBC it would be a great idea if people watched the show, adding: If it turns out to be Kremlin propaganda then people can slate me, but why dont they watch the show first?
A body scanner that would supposedly allow people to make 3D-printed models of themselves was one of many scams that saw a Sydney man illegally pocket almost $6 million, authorities allege.

Daniel Albert, who was extradited from New Zealand this week, allegedly fleeced dozens of people in nine countries out of $5.6 million over four years, NSW police claim.

The elaborate schemes involved registered companies including some named First Aerial, Switched on Social and 3D selfie printer franchise Identical You.

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NSW Police allege Daniel Albert (pictured), who was extradited from New Zealand this week, allegedly fleeced dozens of people in nine countries out of $5.6 million over four years

Police allege the scams affected people in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Lebanon, Qatar, Singapore and South Africa.

The 51-year-old is alleged to have been involved in 35 counts of fraud, including gaining $620,000 from one man in 2012 over the franchise venture Glamour Nail.

An archived web page for the nail business indicates it would have offered small kiosks capable of painting more than 1000 designs onto fingernails.

Australia's corporate regulator de-registered a Woollahra company of the same name in 2015.

Albert appeared via video link in Central Local Court on Friday over the 35 charges of fraud, which were allegedly committed between 2012 and 2016

Albert appeared via video link in Central Local Court on Friday over the charges, which were allegedly committed between 2012 and 2016.

Lawyer Greg Goold told the court his client had 'voluntarily' handed himself to New Zealand police before his extradition from Auckland Thursday.

Court documents indicate a warrant was issued for his arrest in March when the charges were filed in a Sydney court.

Mr Goold didn't enter a plea in court on behalf of his client but later told reporters he expected Albert would plead not guilty.

'This may well be a civil dispute instead of a criminal dispute,' Mr Goold said.

'It depends on whether the products police say existed did exist.'

Of the alleged crimes, Albert is alleged to have gained $620,000 from one man in 2012 over the franchise venture Glamour Nail

Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis said outside court that Albert had made the schemes very 'believable' and that it resulted in people losing their 'life-savings'.

'We will be seeking compensation on behalf of the victims,' he told Nine News.

Albert was denied bail according to 7News and if found guilty he faces up to 10 years behind bars.

His assets - including a lavish $3million Woollahra home - have been frozen pending the trial.

An alleged accomplice - believed to be his 48-year-old partner Kelly Hannah - has also been charged with 35 counts of fraud.
David Cameron is said to have lobbied a top Chinese official over a planned 500million investment fund

David Cameron is lining up a job with a 500million investment fund after lobbying a top Chinese official, it emerged today.

The former Prime Minister met with Ma Kai, a vice-premier who heads Beijing's finance ministry, to discuss a 'UK-China Fund' while on a trip to the country in September.

The project, which is being set up by his friend and Tory Peer Lord Chadlington, is intended to foster business links.

Mr Cameron's office said today that he has applied to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments about taking a role.

Mr Cameron has warned about 'crony capitalism' and referred to lobbying as 'the next big scandal waiting to happen'.

A spokesman for Mr Cameron said the 'correct processes would be followed' before any role was agreed or announced.

'David Cameron is proud of the work he did as Prime Minister to boost the UK / China trade and investment relationship,' he said.

The former PM hailed a new 'golden age' for relations with China when he was in office, and memorably took President Xi Jinping to a pub during a state visit in 2015

'He has publicly supported the idea of a UK-China Fund to boost trade links and UK jobs, discussed the idea with government and travelled to China to gauge its potential.

How the fund is run by a pal who helped him seal 137k land deal Lord Chadlington (below), one of David Camerons partners in the China fund project, is a Tory peer and former public relations executive. He got to know Mr Cameron in 2000 when the future party leader applied to be the Tory candidate in Witney, where Lord Chadlington, pictured, chaired the constituency association. The 75-year-old, who founded PR firm Shandwick in 1974, later recalled: You do make your mind up in those first few seconds. He walked in front of the podium and spoke for five minutes in a very articulate and easy manner. In 2011 it emerged the two did a 137,000 land deal. Lord Chadlington bought a house over the road from the Prime Ministers Oxfordshire home so the Camerons could buy a chunk of its land later. The Tory donor paid 715,000 for the house in November 2010. The following July he sold the Camerons part of the land that came with the house. Advertisement

'Having already taken advice from ACOBA on the appropriate process, now that there is a real prospect of the Fund being established and of him potentially taking a role with the Fund, he has submitted an application to the Committee.

'This happened three weeks ago. He will, of course, abide by any guidance or ruling they give.'

The ex-PM was reportedly accompanied on the China trip by Lord Chadlington.

Ennobled in 1996, the peer was chairman of the Conservative association in Witney when Mr Cameron became the Tory candidate.

He also gave 10,000 to the ex-PM's successful leadership campaign in 2005.

The peer told The Times that he had been working on the proposed fund for three years but it was still 'very, very much in its early stages'.

The former PM hailed a new 'golden age' for relations with China when he was in office, and memorably took President Xi Jinping to a pub during a state visit in 2015.

Mr Cameron stood down as MP for Witney in the wake of the EU referendum last year.

Since then he has become president of the Alzheimer's Research Society, and taken on a role with the National Citizen Service project he championed in government.

He has also filled his time making lucrative corporate speeches, and is writing his memoirs, for which is reportedly being paid 800,000.

Mr Cameron recently took an advisory job American electronic payment company First Data Corporation.

But friends insist he is determined not to 'do a Tony Blair' and advise foreign governments.
A 13-year-old was rushed to hospital with head injuries after being hit by a ute on a busy highway north of Sydney.

Emergency crews, including a CareFlight helicopter, were called to the scene at Mount Colah on Pacific Highway near Lady Street Friday, Nine News reports.

The young male pedestrian was crossing the northbound lane of the busy highway when he was struck by the vehicle around 5pm.

A 13-year-old male pedestrian was rushed to hospital Friday after being struck by a ute

Paramedics treated the teenager on the scene and escorted him by road to hospital.

He is in a stable condition.

The accident caused major delays for drivers travelling north along Pacific Highway.
This is the incredible moment a hammer-wielding moped thief was fought off by a hero manager and customers in a London Tapas restaurant.

The attack was captured on CCTV as the thug, wearing a helmet, tried to steal a laptop off the counter at Bar Esteban in Park Road, Crouch End, north London.

Dramatic footage shows him storm in on Tuesday night and snatch manager Gessica Lastrucci's computer as she worked on it at the bar.

It is the latest example of an alarming new trend that sees moped-riding criminals rush into businesses and steal from staff and customers.

On October 17, a raid on the Bread and Bean Cafe in Archway, north London was recorded when a brazen thief rushed in and grabbed a laptop while a victim worked on it.

In the latest tapas restaurant robbery, the manager's laptop had a security cable attaching it to the counter and the manager Ms Lastrucci, was filmed grabbing the wire and pulling her device back towards her.

The stunned thief dropped his hammer in the scuffle and left but he returned seconds later looking for his weapon on the floor.

But customers saw him return and quickly grabbed bar stools which they confronted him with.

One man chased him out, pushing the metal stool legs at him which forced him to flee.

The intruder had an accomplice who was not seen on the video clip.

About 25 customers were in the restaurant during the attack.

Police have warned people in the capital to be vigilant and to protect their belongings at all times as mopeds are increasingly used as the vehicle of choice for criminals.

Islington police have promised to erect signs warning of moped crime in north London where moped gangs are particularly active.

More than 8,000 offences were carried out by criminals on mopeds in London last year. The figure is 16 times higher than it was five years ago.

The Metropolitan Police have employed new tactics in a bid to quell this new, mobile crime scourge.

Four specialist BMW scrambler bikes are used by the force to pursue moped riders down alleyways and where conventional police vehicles cannot easily access.

The brazen thief burst into the restaurant and grabbed a laptop while the manager was working on it in the venue in north London

He ran towards the door holding the computer while staff and customers looked on in shock

And Scotland Yard said it now uses DNA sprays on suspects, who cannot be chased for safety reasons, which can be picked up under UV light if they are arrested, and which can link suspects to moped crimes committed weeks earlier.

Mobile stinger devices are also being used to deflate tyres on public roads.

Met Commissioner Cressida Dick has urged communities to 'mobilise' and 'channel their outrage' against the moped thugs to make the streets safer.

Shocked Ms Lastrucci, 30, manager of Bar Esteban told the Ham & High: 'It all happened in seconds.

'I didn't understand what was going on at first.

'When the robber came back in I thought he was going to hurt me.'

She added: 'I'm so thankful to the customers.

'But we're not heroes.

'We've never had trouble like that.

But the computer was attached to the bar with a safety cable and the manager yanked it back

'I was in shock afterwards.'

The crook struck just minutes after trying to smash his way into David Astburys estate agents, just down the road from Bar Esteban.

Aaron Cox, from David Astburys, said they were also targeted on October 31 by the same gang.

Mr Cox said: 'They managed to smash their way into our place at around 1.30am and stole computers.

'And then they tried to do it again on Tuesday but couldn't get in because the door was locked.

'These attacks are horrible.

'We've only been here two weeks.

'For a business like ours where we do a lot in the community and we are self-funded it really hurts us.'

The thief returned and tried to raid the business again but customers grabbed stools and forced him out of the premises in Crouch End, London

Mr Cox said eight estate agents have been targeted in the last two weeks in Crouch End and Finsbury Park alone.

Cassius and Coco, next door to Bar Esteban, was also hit at 5.30pm on October 30.

Manager Ella Webb said a scooter pulled up and a man wearing a helmet with a black visor got off and charged into the shop.

She said: 'I think he had a hammer in his right hand.

'He said 'don't move at all'.

'And then he took my laptop and rummaged around and found my phone as well.

'Then he left and he and his friend drove off.'

Police are hunting the two moped invaders who struck Bar Esteban.

A Met Police spokesman said: 'Two suspects entered the premises in Park Road and grabbed a laptop from a table.

'The laptop was dropped at the scene and the suspects made off on mopeds.

'A hammer was recovered at the location.

'No arrests have been made.'
That camouflage coat finally has a face.

When President Donald Trump tried to visit Korea's demilitarized zone on Wednesday during his 12-day trip through Asia, a U.S. Army Ranger made headlines by lending White House press secretary Sarah Sanders his camouflage jacket on a chilly morning.

Now the Army has exclusively shared photos of the new face of American chivalry with DailyMail.com.

Meet Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bobby Zizelman, a helicopter test pilot who stepped in to warm Sanders up on the tarmac at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan.

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The new face of chivalry: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bobby Zizelman is the soldier who handed over his coat on Wednesday in Korea so President Donald Trump's spokeswoman didn't have to shiver on a frigid morning

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefed reporters at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan  while wearing the Army camouflage jacket  after a mission to take the president to the demilitarized zone was called off in mid-air

Zizelman is a maintenance test pilot who flies Chinook helicopters that were among the convoy headed to the DMZ with the Sikorsky chopper (pictured) that served as Marine One

Zizelman hails from Roanoke, Virginia and is stationed in Korea on a two-year deployment along with his wife and their two daughters.

They came to Yongsan just a month ago from Fort Riley, Kansas.

Katelyn Radack, a public affairs officer with the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, said Friday that Zizelman has been in the Army for 11 years, beginning as an '11B' infantryman in the 3rd Ranger Regiment and now serving as an aviator  a role he's had since 2011.

Lt. Colonel Junel Jeffrey, a spokeswoman for the 2nd Infantry Division, said Zizelman's job is to fly Chinook helicopters on maintenance test missions for the General Support Aviation Battalion, part of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment.

Zizelman, who was on-hand to certify the safety of the choppers scheduled to ferry Trump and his team to the Korean DMZ, stepped in on Wednesday when he saw the jacketless Sanders shivering in tarmac winds with temperatures in the 40s.

Zizelman, shown on the job, is an 11-year military veteran who started his career as an infantryman in a U.S. Army Ranger unit

Sanders told DailyMail.com that a soldier had loaned her his coat on Wednesday 'because I was freezing'

Sanders crossed her arms to conserve heat, sporting the camo gear over her dress and pearls

'One of our brave soldiers was nice enough to loan me his flight jacket,' Sanders told DailyMail.com, 'because I was freezing.'

The tough-girl Trump spokeswoman put the Army Combat Uniform coat on right over her dress and pearls.

Trump's unscheduled attempt to visit the Korean DMZ was foiled by dense fog that forced the helicopter convoy to turn around when they were just 5 minutes from the landing zone.

Military pilots couldn't see each other and decided to scrub the mission.

Sanders said the president was disappointed, even as he waited gamely for nearly an hour in his limousine for the weather to clear. Instead, she said ruefully, it got worse

All dressed up and nowhere to go: A U.S. Secret Service counter-assault team traveled by helicopter in the fog alongside Marine One in a failed attempt to visit Observation Post Ouellette along the DMZ

Sanders said Trump was 'frustrated' by the cancellation but had no choice other than cancelling his surprise DMZ visit

'He's actually pretty frustrated,' Sanders told reporters, admitting that the DMZ visit had been planned 'for a little while,' since before the president's Asia trip began and calling it 'something the president wanted to do.'

'This did not work out as planned,' she said later.

'The fog was not going to clear. It didnt look like it was going to clear for another hour or so and the president had his speech that he can't be late for, in large part because we have to depart on time as well for China,' she said.

South Korean president Moon Jae-in was expected to meet Trump there. But the fog was so thick that even if the leaders had made a joint appearance, they would have been staring into the DMZ's void without seeing anything.

Just last week in a pre-Asia trip briefing, a senior White House official downplayed the idea of Trump visiting the DMZ, saying it had become 'a little bit of a cliche' for commanders-in-chief.

The DMZ along the 38th parallel is 160 miles long but just 2.5 miles wide, with South Korean and North Korean forces lined up on either side; it sits just 35 miles from Seoul, where Trump spent part of Wednesday before flying to China

Every president but one since Ronald Reagan has made the trek. George H.W. Bush was the lone standout, but he visited the DMZ while he was vice president.

The White House took unusual steps to make sure news of the unplanned side-trip didn't leak, including a cryptic late-night message to reporters about an extra stop on Trump's itinerary  and Sanders declining to tell them verbally where they were going once they arrived for liftoff.

Instead, she held up a piece of note paper from the Grand Hyatt hotel  where the president and his senior staff slept Tuesday night  with the letters 'DMZ' on it, saying, 'This is where we're going.'

Sanders instructed journalists not to tell the outside world about the destination until they returned.

She said after the run-in with pea-soup fog to the north of Seoul that White House officials were holding out hope that the weather would clear. Instead, conditions worsened and they called it off.

'There wasn't enough visibility to land,' she explained. 'It would have been really dangerous, and our guys pulled back.'
A French ISIS member claims that he saw captured journalist John Cantlie alive in the regime's capital Raqqa earlier this year.

The British war correspondent was reported dead after operations to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul ended in the summer.

Iraqi media sources said the captive  taken almost five years ago on 22 November 2012  had perished but no body had been found.

Hope: British war correspondent John Cantlie, 47, pictured in an ISIS video, was reported dead earlier this year, but now a former ISIS fighter claims he is still alive

And now a former ISIS member has told French magazine Paris Match that he saw John  captured with American reporter James Foley, who was later beheaded by Brit fanatic Jihadi John - in the Syrian city of Raqqa  300 miles from Mosul.

He told the magazine in October that he saw him 'seven or eight months ago, in my prison, with an interpreter'.

The ISIS man claimed John, 47, was working for the regime, speaking to prisoners and asking them about their conditions in jail.

He said: 'He presented me with a pass on which I immediately recognised the green stamp of Baghdadi himself.

Taken: John Cantlie poses with a Free Syrian Army rebel in Aleppo, Syria, in 2012 shortly before he was kidnapped

'All ISIS authorities, emirs and soldiers are asked to facilitate the work of John Cantlie,' said the document.

'I welcomed him and he went to interrogate the prisoners: how were they there? What were their conditions of detention? What they ate, if they were well treated.

'Then he left. It is not official, but his companions in ISIS, say that he joined Daesh.'

Raqqa has now fallen to Syrian forces but many ISIS leaders have fled and could have taken captured John with them.

He was seen as a prize asset in their propaganda war and was forced to take part in a string of videos  filmed mainly in Mosul.

In the last film he featured in  released in July 2016  he was made to walk around Mosul acting as a news reporter and showing the damage airstrikes had done to the city.
This is the shocking footage which shows a taxi driver snorting what appears to be cocaine as he speeds along the motorway.

The video shows the man taking his eye off the wheel and hoovering the powder up his nose before passing another line of the drug to another male passenger who passes it onto another person in the vehicle.

One of the men in the back seat says: 'That's it, that's it, right up' as the driver snorted the drug before adding as it was passed to him: 'And now it's my turn.'

The 15-second video was published by Spanish newspaper El Mundo, who claim the footage was shot on the motorway from Madrid's international airport to the city centre.

Police have identified the driver and will question him within the next few days, the newspaper said.

The laminated tray the men used to snort the drug was identified as the permit taxi drivers require for their job.

Footage shows the taxi driver appearing to snort a white line while driving his vehicle

From the footage and conversation, it appears as if the passengers in the back seat is a friend of the driver.

It is unclear how the footage ended up on social media and with the police.

One taxi driver who commented on the video said: 'It looks like he's already been caught. Now let him pay for what he did.'

It comes after a police officer in the capital of Argentina was filmed snorting what appeared to be cocaine while on duty in his patrol car.

In December, the Buenos Aires police officer was still wearing his bullet proof vest when he took the line while messages came across his radio.

And in February, two female community police officers in Rosario, Argentina, were filmed celebrating the seizure of a cannabis plant.

One of the women was filmed holding up the huge plant, shouting: 'Who wants to smoke this?

'This is what we took off someone we stopped and searched. We asked him, 'Do you want to run off home and leave us with this or do you want us to take you into custody and he wisely decided to leave it with us and this is what we got.'

The pair were ordered to hand over their weapons and uniforms while an internal investigation began.

The taxi driver then passes it onto his friend in the passenger seat who then passes it to the person in the back seat
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First Lady Melania Trump admired China from a rare position on Friday as she walked an empty section of the Great Wall along the outskirts of Beijing during a personal tour.

Wearing a long, tan skirt, black jacket and ballet flats, the 47-year-old former model took a cable car up to her destination, where she was greeted at the wall by an official with the Mutianyu Great Wall Travel Service Co.

Mrs. Trump signed a guest book at the wall and accepted a scroll as a gift during the private tour.

She then climbed a flight of stairs and spent 30 minutes walking the Mutianyu section of the long wall - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

As she returned to her cable car, Mrs. Trump paused to look out over the expanse.

'This is beautiful. This is amazing,' she said according to a US official standing with her on the platform.

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First Lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing, on Friday after visiting the Beijing Zoo

After taking a cable car up to her destination, she was greeted at the wall by officials with the Mutianyu Great Wall Travel Service Co. Mrs Trump signed a guest book at the wall and was presented with a scroll as a gift

Meanwhile her husband boarded the plane to Vietnam without his wife, as she had more plans in China

China frequently takes visiting heads of state and their spouses to the wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, though President Donald Trump did not visit during his trip to the country

Mrs Trump's trip to the Great Wall comes after a visit to the Beijing Zoo where she interacted with a panda named Gu Gu behind the scenes before greeting a group of young school children

An official who was on the wall with Melania said that the First Lady found the wall incredible and said 'This is beautiful. This is amazing'

Wearing a long skirt, black jacket and ballet flats, the first lady climbed a flight of stairs and spent about 30 minutes walking along the 5,500mile-long wall, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The section of the wall Melania visited - the Mutianyu section, is in Huairou County, approximately 40 miles north east of central Beijing

Playing a prominent supporting role on the president's multi-leg Asia visit, she won praise on Chinese social media, with comparisons to China's glamorous first lady, Peng Liyuan

The Mutianyu section of the wall is connected with Jiankou in the west and Lianhuachi in the east. The area one of the best-preserved parts of the Great Wall

The Mutianyu section of the wall was built in the mid-sixth century, making it older than the Badaling section of the Great Wall. It was built mainly with grainite, at 22 to 27 feet high, and 13 to 16 feet wide

Perk of the job: Melania chats with a tour guide as she is treated to a private walkabout on the Great Wall of China; Former First Lady Michelle Obama brought daughters Sasha and Malia to the same section of the wall in 2014

China frequently takes visiting heads of state and their spouses to the wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site now believed to be more than 13,000 miles in length, although President Donald Trump did not visit during his trip to the country.

Former first lady Michelle Obama brought daughters Sasha and Malia to the same section of the wall in 2014.

Mrs. Trump's trip to the Great Wall followed a visit to the Beijing Zoo, where she interacted with a panda named Gu Gu behind the scenes before greeting a group of about 20 young school children.

The children, who held Chinese and American flags, were waiting for her outside of the zoo's Panda House.

As they stood in the cold November weather, a male panda named 'Meng'er' was released into the pen behind them. His name translates to cute #2, an official said.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump poses for photos with children in front of a panda section as she visits Beijing Zoo

All smiles: Melani passed out stuffed eagles to the children and took a group photo with them before moving on

A group of school children holding Chinese and American flags were waiting to greet her outside. They showed Meng'er off to her

Melania Trump rewarded singing children with plush bald eagle toys. The youngsters were all smiles for the First Lady

She clapped and sang as a group of about a dozen flag-waving children sang to her in Mandarin and English

One set of children presented the panda to the first lady when she approached.

She briefly stopped to talk to them and observe the giant panda, which is native to central China, eating bamboo before she walked over to the next group.

The first lady clapped and smiled as the flag-waving children sang to her in Mandarin and English. Mrs. Trump rewarded them with plush bald eagles.

She posed for a group photo with the children before moving inside to the Panda House gift shop.

'Thank you very much,' she said told the children before she left.

Inside, she posed for another photo with a stuffed panda toy.

'Thank you very much,' she said again, turning to sign a panda print that said: 'Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu!'

Reporters did not get to see the first lady meet Gu Gu, another panda at the zoo.

FLOTUS passed out stuffed eagles to the children and took a group photo with them before moving on

Gather round: The chic First Lady flashed a smile as excited schoolchildren gathered round her to pose for photos

Hit with the kids: Children gathered around the First Lady waving Chinese and American flags

Melania listens to Chinese children singing a song during a visit to Beijing Zoo. She looked chic, draping a black coat on her shoulders

Melania posed for photos with a Panda soft toy after visiting the Panda enclosure at the Beijing Zoo

Melania signed a poster saying 'thank you to the Beijing Zoo. Wonderful to meet Gu Gu'. Gu Gu is one of the pandas

Zoo director Li Xiaoguang met Melania at the zoo and gave her tour before she came outside to see the children.

He also offered her a stuffed panda toy as a gift, a readout said.

She fed Gu Gu, the 'star panda' of the zoo, and received an explanation of his nutrition and training.

Born on Sept. 25, 1999 in Wolong, China, the readout described him as a 'pretty male panda' and a 'goodwill ambassador of the zoo.' He arrived at the Beijing Zoo in 2004.

'Gu Gu is a good-looking panda with a robust memory. He is excellent in his behavior training and eager to show his skills to VIPs,' Li said.

President Trump shared his wife's big day plans on Twitter as he departed for Vietnam.

He said she would be traveling to Alaska after the Asia trip 'to greet our AMAZING troops.'

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China

The winds appeared brisk as he climbed the steps to enter the plane

Trump left the First Lady in China where she went to visit the zoo and see the Great Wall of China

After going to Vietnam, Trump is off to the Philippines

The president's wife is also making a quintessential tourist stop at the Great Wall (pictured)  one of the Seven Wonders of the World  before she leaves China

Three giant panda bears are currently on loan to the national zoo in Washington, D.C., where Mrs. Trump now lives, per an agreement between the U.S. and China that extends through the end of 2020. They include Bei Bei, a panda cub born in 2015 and named by the previous first lady in consultation with her Chinese counterpart.

The tradition of panda giving between the United States and China dates back to 1972, after first lady Patricia Nixon mentioned her appreciation for giant pandas during a trip to Beijing with her husband, former President Richard Nixon.

As with previous first ladies, Melania Trump has used her platform to champion public causes, such as the prevention of childhood bullying and combating the opioid epidemic in the United States, and strengthen people-to-people ties between the U.S. and its allies.

Playing a prominent supporting role on the president's multi-leg Asia visit, she won praise on Chinese social media, with comparisons to China's glamorous first lady, Peng Liyuan, and comments on her apparent ease in navigating the ancient cobblestones of the Forbidden City in super-high stilettos upon arrival in Beijing on Wednesday.

Melania and Peng Liyuan enjoyed a visit to a Banchang Primary School in Beijing on Thursday, where they received a calligraphy lesson.

Despite being dressed in a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, thought to have cost at least $3,975, the first lady happily took up a paintbrush and ink under the watchful eye of the young students at the school.

Accompanied by Peng, Mrs. Trump watched a cultural performance and participated in a cooking class at a primary school on Thursday, too.

The US First Lady Melania Trump, in what's likely to be a custom Dolce & Gabbana gown, stands alongside the wife of China's president in Beijing

Mrs Trump even tried her hand at painting as she joined in with a calligraphy class

Both women looked delighted to be in the company of the young students at Banchang Primary School, where they were treated to a cultural performance

Both Melania and Madame Peng were photographed smiling and clapping after the show, surrounded by a gang of beaming schoolchildren.

Many on China's Twitter-like Weibo applauded Melania's grace and sense of style, as well as her cultural sensitivity.

In China, she wore mostly austere coats and dark gowns from Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen, in contrast with her magenta Delpozo outfit and electric-blue heels upon landing in South Korea days before.

But most in China said they remained bigger fans of their own first lady, often affectionately referred to online as Peng Mama, which roughly translates as Mother Peng.

'I still think Mama oozes more grace, while also exuding a motherly air!' one Weibo poster said.

Chinese social media sites are policed more heavily than normal during important political events, with negative or sensitive matter swiftly blocked or removed by internet censors.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan gave her US counterpart Melania Trump a tour of a primary school in Beijing on Thursday

Both women appeared to be in great spirits as they admired students handiwork at the school

A young schoolboy proudly shows off his efforts to the Chinese and US First Ladies in a calligraphy class

Melania, who teamed her Dolce dress with her trademark bouncy blow-out, shook hands with young students during the visit to the school

Melania Trump dazzled in a floor-length dress at an official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning.

The gown featured an intricate pink floral design on the black dress - a nod, perhaps - to her hosts' cultural heritage.

The welcome ceremony overlooked Tiananmen Square. The grand event was broadcast live on state television, an almost unprecedented gesture for a visiting leader, which underlines the importance China has placed on the Trumps' first official visit.

Trumpets blared and a military band played the U.S. and Chinese national anthems as a ceremonial cannon fired shots in Tiananmen Square.

The first couple had previously met President Xi and Madame Peng during the Chinese president's visit to the U.S. in April when President Donald Trump invited them to a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Presidents Trump and Xi participated in several hours of official talks on Thursday and and delivered a joint press statement.

Lending a hand: Mrs Trump helps a young school girl who is adding decoration to a dress

The First Lady also watched over young students taking part in a cookery class at the school

The two women also looked in on an architecture class at the school on Thursday

Both women smiled and clapped along with the primary school students in Beijing after they were treated to a cultural performance by children in costume

Madame Peng wore a smart black coat and heels, while Melania went all out in floor-length Dolce & Gabbana

Melania Trump (left and right) donned a stunning Chinese-inspired gown as she met with President Xi Jinping and his wife Madame Peng Liyuana on day five of her and Donald's Asia tour

The First Lady stepped out in a custom floor-length Dolce and Gabbana dress for the official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday

A state dinner followed, where President Trump showed off a video of his six-year-old granddaughter Arabella Kushner singing in Mandarin.

Melania and Donald arrived in China on Wednesday, the third country on the president's 12 day-Asian tour. They sped through Beijing to the Forbidden City, where they reunited with China's Xi an Peng over tea.

They led the Trumps to the Conservation Scientific Laboratory of the Forbidden City to participate in an artifact restoration.

The two first couples next watched a performance of Peking opera, a distinctively Chinese art form that combines music, mime, dance and acrobatics.

President Trump left South Korea on Wednesday after delivering a speech to the country's National Assembly. He's giving a speech at an economic summit in Vietnam on Friday.

China's First Lady Peng Liyuan and US First Lady Melania Trump attend a fashion class during a visit at Banchang Primary School in Beijing

Eager children raise their hands during an architecture class during Melania Trump's visit

Chinese President Xi Jinping and wife Madame Peng Liyuan rolled out the red carpet for Donald and Melania Trump on Thursday morning in an official welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People

Melania stepped out in her Italian-made, Chinese-inspired dress for the welcome ceremony which was broadcast live on state television, an almost unprecedented for a visiting leader
The architect of Article 50 risks the wrath of Brexiteers today by insisting the process is reversible.

Lord Kerr, a former UK ambassador to the EU, insists that Theresa May's letter triggering withdrawal process is not the final word on the issue.

As fraught negotiations continue in Brussels, he said: 'We can change our minds at any stage of the process.'

The intervention will be seen as the latest concerted bid by Remainers to thwart plans to leave the EU.

Lord Kerr, the former ambassador to the EU pictured today in London, insists that Theresa May's letter triggering Article 50 and withdrawing from the EU is not the final word on the issue

The government previously argued that Article 50 could not be reversed, meaning that we will leave on March 29, 2019 regardless of whether any deal has been struck.

But lawyers have since suggested that the position is far less clear cut, and it could be possible for the UK to stop the mechanism unilaterally.

Theresa May today reiterated that Britain will be leaving the bloc in March 2019, and warned MPs against defying the result of the referendum.

Lord Kerr, who played a key role in drafting Article 50, used a speech in London to contradict the Government's view that the process is irreversible now that it has begun.

At an event hosted by the pro-EU Open Britain campaign the crossbench peer said 'we are not required to withdraw just because Mrs May sent her letter' to Brussels.

'The fact is that a political decision has been made, in this country, to maintain that there can be no going back.

'Actually, the country still has a free choice about whether to proceed. As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view.

'And there's nothing in Article 50 to stop them.

'I think the British people have the right to know this - they should not be misled.'

Brexit Secretary David Davis and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier met in Brussels on the second day of the latest round of talks.

The discussions are ramping up ahead of a crunch summit of European leaders next month - which will decide whether to start talks on future trade arrangements.

David Davis (pictured in Downing Street earlier this week) is heading for Brussels today for the latest round of Brexit negotiations

Theresa May has vowed that Britain will be leaving the EU in March 2019, sidestepping questions about whether Article 50 is reversible. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is holding talks with Mr Davis today

But the scale of the divorce bill is proving a major stumbling block to progress, with the UK offering around 20billion euros and the EU demanding up to 60billion euros.

Before his meeting with the Brexit Secretary, Mr Barnier said the moment was approaching for a 'real clarification' of Britain's position on issues like citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's financial settlement.

If the EU27 agree next month that sufficient progress has been made on these issues, they will give a green light for negotiations to move on to the questions of trade and transition to a new post-Brexit negotiation.

Speaking in Brussels today, Mr Barnier said Britain has a two-week deadline to concede on the divorce bill in time for trade talks to start this year.

EU chief negotiator Mr Barnier said the two sides were 'making some progress' - but delivered a stark threat to block discussions on trade unless the UK was willing to put more money in the pot within a fortnight.

Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary David Davis hinted at a shift in stance by saying the UK was willing to show 'flexibility'.

But he also furiously rejected suggestions from Brussels that Northern Ireland could stay in the single market after Brexit - effectively splitting the UK.
Rebecca Hewlett, pictured, set fire to Michael Wall's mattress then took prescriptions pills as the flames took hold

A jilted mother of one who torched her ex-boyfriend's flat then took a drug overdose as she watched it burning has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Rebecca Hewlett, 23, set fire to Michael Wall's mattress then took prescription pills as the flames took hold after the couple split up.

Neighbours raised the alarm after spotting smoke coming from the property in Monsall, Greater Manchester, and attempted to get in before calling the fire service.

Hewlett herself dialled 999 saying she had taken an overdose and needed an ambulance.

After arriving on the scene emergency services found two mattresses burning and other items under the bed on fire.

Mr Wall, 27, who was out at the time of the blaze returned to his flat to discover it had sustained 4,000 worth of damage.

Police inquiries revealed Hewlett, of nearby Sale, had been bailed just nine days before the blaze after vandalising Mr Wall's property causing 1,000 of damage.

She claimed she lit the fire last June because she 'felt helpless'. Mr Wall has since said he wants to rekindle their relationship.

At Manchester Crown Court, Hewlett sobbed and gestured a heart with her hands to her family in the public gallery as she led away to the cells after admitted arson.

The judge Mr Justice William Davies told her: 'Arson is very serious offence indeed. It can very quickly develop to something that is out of control, and of course you did not intend to harm anyone.

Hewlett claimed she lit the fire last June because she 'felt helpless'. Mr Wall has since said he wants to rekindle their relationship

'But you were putting others' lives at risk and you did not really care about that.

'People can die from smoke inhalation relatively quickly from fires that don't seem to be that serious at all but in fact they are.

'Mr Wall's flat was wrecked by the damage from the fire and he lost items of property.'

Hewlett was first held for criminal damage after she smashed various windows at the victim's apartment.

She was bailed on the condition that she stayed away from the flat but she turned up nine days later whilst Mr Wall was out for the evening.

Brian Berlyne, prosecuting, said: 'After receiving a call from a neighbour regarding the fire, the police received a call from Miss Hewlett.

'She said that she had taken an overdose, gave her location in the middle of Manchester and requested an ambulance.

'She added that she had set fire to a mattress and items of bedding at her ex-partners address around 20 minutes ago.

Hewlett was bailed on the condition that she stayed away from the flat but she turned up nine days later whilst Mr Wall was out for the evening

'The fire service attended and found damage to the flat, two mattresses burning and other items under the bed on fire.

'The defendant was not arrested immediately and she was taken to hospital.

'Damage caused to the property of Mr Wall was 4,000 as a result of the fire and 729 to the housing association for the damage to the flat.

'Mr Wall has since expressed that he may wish to resume his relationship with Hewlett when she is released from custody, and no longer supported the prosecution.'

Hewlett admitted that she had sat and watched the fire burn for a while before leaving and taking an overdose of medication that she had taken from Mr Wall's property.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Clare Ashcroft said her client had 'no desire' to get back in a relationship with Mr Wall after their on off relationship ended in disaster.

At Manchester Crown Court, pictured, Hewlett was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail (stock photo)

Ms Ashcroft added: 'She suffers from a emotional personality disorder which has only been diagnosed as part of the psychological report.

'She had been in a domestic violence relationship prior to being with Mr Wall, she was subjected to violence when she was pregnant and after the pregnancy. Essentially she was on the streets when she met the defendant and he took her in.

'She claims the relationship was very on and off and there was volatility. They both thought that they were helping each other but in reality that is not the case.

'On the day in question the defendant felt helpless and didn't know what to do, so thought to end her life because she had got herself in a terrible situation.

'On reflection she is insightful enough to acknowledge the relationship she had was ultimately destructive.

'If any good has come out of this situation it is that she now has the support of her family and familial ties back.

'Fortunately there was not a serious injury caused by her actions.'

Hewlett will serve half of her sentence in custody and the remaining half on license.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Duterte, 72, famous for his violent crackdown on illegal drugs in the Philippines and consistent abusive language, said he killed someone 'over just a look' aged 16.

He made the shocking confession while speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday.

Shocking: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, 72, said he stabbed someone to death 'over a look' when he was 16, while making a speech in the Vietnamese city of Danang

Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

'When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there,' said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

'At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?'

Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes.

He at times denies inciting police or others to kill, but also consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Fighting: Figures showing how nearly 4,000 people have been killed in Duterte's drug war

Duterte said last year he would be 'happy to slaughter' three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a 'son of a whore' for criticising the drug war.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example for the police.

His then spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a 'legitimate police action'.

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he 'maybe' stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

In an election campaign rally Duterte also said he was expelled from college for shooting a fellow student who was insulting him. The victim reportedly survived.

Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in 'hyperbole'.

His new spokesman, Harry Roque, indicated that may be the case with his stabbing-to-death claim.

'I think it was in jest. The Pres uses colourful language when w Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas,' Roque said in a text message.

In Danang, Duterte also targeted the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has been a frequent critic of the drug war.

'This rapporteur,' he said, after referring to Callamard by name. 'I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me.'

Duterte's latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.

Trump has praised Duterte's handling of the drug war, telling the Philippine leader in a telephone call in April that he was doing a 'great job'.

Human rights campaigners have said the summit will be a public relations coup for Duterte, with Trump and other leaders expected to ignore the drug war controversy.

'Duterte will enjoy the gift of tacit silence from East Asian leaders on his murderous drug war during the upcoming summit,' Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine told AFP.

Adding to a sense of supreme confidence ahead of the event, Duterte on Thursday also proposed hosting a global summit on human rights in which all nations would be placed under the microscope.

'Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments,' he said, specifically naming the United States, France and Russia.
Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has accused Saudi Arabia of detaining prime minister Saad Hariri and asking the movement's arch enemy Israel to launch strikes against it.

Hariri resigned as PM of Lebanon on Saturday, saying he feared assassination but many Lebanese felt Saudi Arabian officials forced him out to wreck his compromise government with Hezbollah.

The Shiite political party and militant group is backed by Iran and opposed to Saudi Arabia, with both countries locked in a power struggle in Lebanon through their allies.

The head of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah claims that Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri has been detained by Saudi Arabia

'The head of the Lebanese government is detained in Saudi Arabia, he is banned from returning to Lebanon until now,' Nasrallah said in a televised address, his first since Hariri resigned.

Nasrallah has accused Saudi Arabia of drafting Hariri's resignation letter and forcing him to read it on Saudi TV.

'It is clear that Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon and on Hezbollah in Lebanon,' he said.

Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon but added: 'I warn them against any miscalculation or any step to exploit the situation.'

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries against using Lebanon for 'proxy conflicts'.

The fate of Saad Hariri remain unclear, amid speculation he was forced into making his shock resignation by the Saudi Arabia and is being detained there

Tillerson also called the premier, Saad Hariri, a 'strong partner' of the United States.

'The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country,' said Tillerson.

The French Foreign Minister has dismissed rumours that the Lebanese Prime Minister is being detained against his will in Saudi Arabia.

Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a radio interview this morning that Saad Hariri is 'free to move around'.

'He went to Abu Dhabi [on Wednesday] the day before the President Macron's visit [to Saudi] so we think he's free to move around,' Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries against using Lebanon for 'proxy conflicts' and called Saad Hariri a 'strong partner' of America

Lebanese officials feared their Prime Minister was being detained against his will in Saudi Arabia.

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday demanded his return.

Al-Akhbar newspaper, which is close to Iranian-backed movement Hezbollah, suggested that Hariri, who holds Saudi nationality, was being held 'hostage' in Riyadh.

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation and insisted Hariri should return to Lebanon but did not elaborate on the premier's current situation in Riyadh.

Aoun, who is politically allied with Hezbollah, also 'voiced his concern over what is being said' about Hariri's current status in Saudi Arabia and demanded a 'clarification'.

French President Macron made a surprise overnight trip to Saudi Arabia on Thursday-Friday during a Middle East tour that saw him attend the inauguration of the new Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman receiving French President Emmanuel Macron in the capital Riyad

French President Emmanuel Macron made the visit to Saudi Arabia after the shock resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri

'The Lebanese situation is the most worrying subject of the moment,' Le Drian added in his interview on Friday morning.

Lebanon 'was moving towards a new solution with a new constitution, elections to come. The departure of Prime Minister Hariri creates new uncertainties,' Le Drian added.

Hariri's announcement raised fears that Lebanon - split into rival camps led by Hariri and Hezbollah - could once again descend into violence.

The Sunni leader had been sharing power with the Shiite militant movement Hezbollah in hard-won national unity government, but the arrangement had come under increasing fire from Saudi Arabia.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a power struggle for influence in Lebanon and France has close historical ties to the Middle Eastern country, which was once its colony.

Macron, on his debut visit to the Middle East, made the surprise announcement at a news conference in Dubai that he would meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

'It was decided to go on this visit to Riyadh to see the Crown Prince, first, it is in order to have a first meeting with him, but also to discuss regional questions, in particular Yemen and Lebanon, he said.

The French president is already in the Middle East with his wife Brigitte, pictured here on a visit to the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum

'I will also emphasize the importance of Lebanese stability and integrity.'

Officials in Lebanon are now reportedly planning to work with foreign states to secure the politician's return to the country.

'Lebanon is heading towards asking foreign and Arab states to put pressure on Saudi to release Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri,' said the official, who declined to be identified because the government had yet to declare the initiative.

The official said Hariri was still Lebanon's prime minister.

'Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with (foreign) states to return him to Beirut.'

Saad Hariri declared his surprise resignation on Saturday from Riyadh which fuelled beliefs he was coerced into standing down against his will. Here he is pictured Monday with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia and Hariri aides have denied reports that he is under house arrest, but he has put out no statements himself denying his movements are being restricted.

Saudi Arabia says the Iran-backed group Hezbollah had 'hijacked' the political system in Lebanon.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who has resigned from his post is seen at the governmental palace in Beirut, Lebanon

In his resignation speech, Hariri attacked Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife in Arab states and said he feared assassination.

Hariri made the surprise announcement in a pre-recorded message on a Saudi-owned TV station.

Saad Hariri declared his surprise resignation on Saturday from Riyadh which fuelled beliefs he was coerced into standing down against his will.

His resignation has thrust Lebanon back onto the front line of the Middle East's most biting rivalry, pitting a mostly Sunni bloc led by Saudi Arabia and including the UAE against Shiite Iran and its allies.

Last week, Saudi Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan predicted on Lebanon's MTV station that 'astonishing developments' were coming for Lebanon.

After Hariri's resignation, rumours spread in Lebanon that he was under house arrest in Saudi Arabia - especially after news broke over the weekend of arrests in the kingdom of dozens of Saudi princes, ministers and influential businessmen in a sweep purportedly over corruption.

Lebanon's former prime minister Saad Hariri (left) is pictured meeting with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan at the Al-Shati palace in Abu Dhabi this week

Al-Akhbar, a harsh critic of Saudi Arabia's policies, ran a full-page photo of Hariri on its front page with the words: 'The hostage.'

Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud shakes hands with former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri during their meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday

Speculation continued to swirl despite the official Saudi Press Agency carrying photos Monday showing Hariri meeting with Saudi King Salman.

Hariri tweeted that he was 'honored to visit' the king in his office - and some of his supporters tweeted back, telling him to take a selfie raising his left hand as a signal that he's OK.

Hariri, a dual Saudi-Lebanese citizen, has been facing financial difficulties recently as his business in Saudi Arabia suffers.

Earlier this year he closed his family's Oger construction firm that had made billions of dollars since his late father founded it in the 1970s.

Some experts on Lebanese politics are convinced Riyadh was behind the resignation.

Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said Hariri made 'many concessions' to his political rivals in order to become prime minister and would not have given up the position had it not been for Saudi pressure.

Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in Carnegie's Middle East Program, warned just last month that Saudi Arabia was seeking ways to compensate for the loss of Syria as a place where it could defy and bleed Iran.

'A renewed desire to reverse their regional fortunes could lead them to try regaining a foothold in Lebanon,' he wrote.

Saudi Arabia has denied any meddling.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh, on October 24, 2017

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who has resigned from his post, and his late father, Rafik al-Hariri, are seen on a poster in the mainly Sunni Beirut neighbourhood of Tariq al-Jadideh

The resignation throws Lebanon into potential turmoil, forcing the small nation to become a new front in the regional fight for supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

And this at a time when Iran and its allies are seen to have won the proxy war against Saudi-backed Sunni fighters in Syria.

Sunni-led Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been intensifying its confrontation with Shiite powerhouse Iran.

The two camps support rival sides in countries across the region, worsening conflicts in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

Lebanon has been on the verge of blowing up into full scale violence, and only compromise by Lebanese parties has stopped it doing so in a country still haunted by memories from its own 1975-1990 civil war.

The Saudi royal family arrests: Those detained in the anti-corruption purge include Prince Miteb, Prince Turki and Prince Alwaleed (circled in red)

Shiite Hezbollah dominates Lebanon, but it has sought not to provoke the Sunni community, which in turn has avoided crossing the guerrilla force.

The fear among some Lebanese now is that Saudi Arabia will upset that balance, trying to compensate for its losses in proxy wars elsewhere.

In Syria, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed fighters allied with President Bashar Assad's forces have recaptured large areas and are working to secure a much-prized land corridor stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia has been stuck in a fruitless war in Yemen against Iranian-backed Shiite rebels, and a Saudi bid to isolate Qatar has failed to achieve its goals.

Saudi fingerprints were seen all over Hariri's resignation on Saturday.

Unexpectedly, Hariri appeared on Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV in a recorded video from an undisclosed location, haltingly delivering a statement in which he accused Iran of meddling in Arab affairs and the Iran-backed Hezbollah of holding Lebanon hostage.

'Iran's arms in the region will be cut off,' he said, adding that he felt compelled to resign and that his life was endangered.

Saudi Arabia and Iran's cold war: How it's fought with proxies seeded across the Middle East The Islamic State's dream of a Middle East caliphate may be over, but Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shiite powerhouse Iran continue to worsen conflicts across the region as they battle to reign supreme. Here MailOnline looks at some of the key countries where their hands are wreaking havoc because of different political and religious opinions LEBANON The resignation of Lebanon's Saudi-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri has thrust Lebanon back onto the front line of the Middle East's most biting rivalry, pitting a mostly Sunni bloc led by Saudi Arabia and including the UAE against Shiite Iran and its allies. Hariri, a Sunni Muslim leader, had faced the seemingly impossible task of presiding over a government under the control of Iran-backed Hezbollah. The Shiite militant party is accused of killing his father, Rafik, in 2005 and in his resignation speech on Saturday he suggested he now fears for his own life. But he was known to tow the Saudi line and his shock resignation suggests Saudi Arabia may have a new plan of action for the country. The kingdom had long backed the Sunnis in Lebanon's multi-sectarian political system - and during the civil war - but on Monday it accused the tiny Arab country of declaring war against it because of aggression by Hezbollah. The statement comes as the civil war in neighbouring Syria, where Hezbollah had been ensuring President Bashar Assad's regime was not toppled by a pro-democracy movement, winds down. Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in Carnegie's Middle East Program, warned just last month that Saudi Arabia was seeking ways to compensate for the loss of Syria as a place where it could defy and bleed Iran. 'A renewed desire to reverse their regional fortunes could lead them to try regaining a foothold in Lebanon,' he wrote. Hezbollah is returning its energy to Lebanon and Saudi Arabia only wants a leader in the country if it can withstand Hezbollah's pressure. It's believed they did not see Hariri as the man for that job. SYRIA In Syria the civil war is not completely over but Iran and its allies are seen to have won the proxy war against Saudi-backed rebels. Hezbollah and other fighters allied with Assad's forces have recaptured large areas and are working to secure a much-prized land corridor stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Pro-government demonstrators hold posters depicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and placards, during a rally in Damascus, in 2012 A Syrian man carries a baby after removing him from the rubble of a destroyed building following a reported air strike in the then rebel-held part of Aleppo in 2016 By contrast, Saudi Arabia has been stuck in a fruitless war in Yemen against Iranian-backed Shiite rebels, and a Saudi bid to isolate Qatar has failed to achieve its goals. YEMEN Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, and his son Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), have this week made clear their intention to continue to fight against Iran in Yemen. Riyadh and Tehran have been trading fierce accusations over their involvement in the country, where they back opposing sides. In the latest flare-up Saudi Arabia said an intercepted missile attack on the country, allegedly by Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, 'may amount to an act of war'. People walk at the site of an air strike in the northwestern city of Saada, Yemen, on November 1 MBS said on Tuesday that Iran's decision to supply rockets to militias in Yemen constitutes a 'direct military aggression' against the kingdom. Tehran in turn accused Riyadh of committing war crimes in Yemen, raising tensions further. And Hezbollah and the Houthis, as Yemen's Shiite rebels are known, have denied any role by the Lebanese group in the war in the Arabian Peninsula country. ISRAEL The resignation of Lebanon's Hariri also has significant implications for Israel, Daniel Shapiro, President Obama's Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said in a column for Haaretz newspaper this week. 'It is plausible that the Saudis are trying to create the context for a different means of contesting Iran in Lebanon: an Israeli-Hezbollah war,' he wrote. Shapiro suggests Saudi may have pulled Hariri out of his office to leave Hezbollah 'with the blame and responsibility for... caring for Syrian refugees to mopping up Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates'. British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a meeting in 10 Downing St, London, Thursday, November 2 This could lead Hezbollah to confront Israel as means of securing support from its people in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia and Israel have become unlikely allies. Their common ground? Stopping nuclear Iran reigning supreme in the region. For Israel, partnering with Saudi-Arabia to quash Hezbollah would be considered key to helping them deal with an old enemy. QATAR Saudi Arabia's bid to isolate Qatar appears to have been fruitless. Instead of bringing the world's wealthiest nation back into its folds by forcing it into a diplomatic corner, Doha has forcefully rejected all Saudi demands. Most importantly, Qatar has refused to curtail relations with Iran, with whom it shares the world's largest reservoir of natural gas. Iran and Turkey have helped Qatar survive amid Saudi and its Gulf allies suffocating sanctions and thus Tehran has scored another goal in the cold war dominating the political landscape in the Middle East. NEW PROXY WARS ON THE HORIZON? With all the above perceived losses against Iran that Saudi Arabia has felt in Syria and Qatar, it is no wonder that Riyadh's patience over Hezbollah is running thin and Lebanon is in its sights. Advertisement

The resignation came exactly a year after Hariri formed a coalition government that included Hezbollah, shortly after Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and Hezbollah ally, was elected president.

That arrangement was the product of a rare understanding between Saudi Arabia and Iran for calm in Lebanon, ending a two-year period during which the presidency was vacant.

Saudi officials have vowed to crush Hezbollah and recently have been inciting Lebanese to rise against the Shiite militant group, asserting they should openly say whether they are with or against it. Saudi Arabia, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, says the group should not be part of a future Lebanese government.

For its part, the Hezbollah leader has been one of the kingdom's harshest critics and it is not uncommon for Hezbollah supporters to chant 'Death to Al Saud' in their rallies - a reference to the Saudi royal family.

At the very least, Hariri's resignation could mean another long period without a government for Lebanon, at a time when its economy is struggling under a ballooning public debt that has reached more than $75 billion - 140 percent of its gross domestic product, a debt-to-GDP ratio that is among the highest in the world.

According to Lebanon's power-sharing deal, the president should be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite.

But given Hariri's wide support among Sunnis, it may be difficult for any Sunni politician to assume the post of prime minister without alienating the Sunni community.

And it will be impossible to form a Cabinet without Hezbollah, since the militant group and its allies enjoy wide support among both Shiites and Christians.

Today it was revealed Hariri travelled to the UAE a day after Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war against it because of aggression by Iran's Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

Hariri left Riyadh early on Tuesday for Abu Dhabi to meet the United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the Hariri-owned Future TV and Saudi-owned al-Arabiya reported.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Tuesday that Iran's decision to supply rockets to militias in Yemen constitutes a 'direct military aggression' against the kingdom.

A rocket fired from Yemen intercepted on the outskirts of Riyadh hours after Hariri's resignation on Saturday.

On Monday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN the rocket 'was an Iranian missile launched by Hezbollah'.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he intends to put the United States on a path of uncompromising nationalism on trade, telling a 21-nation gathering of CEOs in Vietnam that he is 'not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore.'

'I am always going to put America first,' Trump said, 'the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.'

One of those nations represented at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit is China, where Trump spent Thursday making friendly overtures to President Xi Jinping in a bid for a rebalancing of a $347 billion trade deficit.

He flew directly from Beijing to the sweltering Vietnamese coastal city of Da Nang, changing his tune as Air Force One crossed time zones.

President Donald Trump said Friday in Vietnam that he is 'not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore' on trade, in a message targeted at Beijing without calling out China by name

'We must ensure that all play by the rules, which they do not right now,' Trump said of no nation in particular, although he left no doubt which country he was talking about

Trump has said at least three times in 24 hours that he doesn't blame Chinese President Xi Jinping for bending global trade to his country's advantage  but holds previous U.S. presidents responsible for letting it happen

Trump cautiously avoided pointing fingers at Xi by name, but condemned China-like 'chronic trade abuses' that ignore World Trade Organization rules and harm U.S. businesses and workers.

'We must ensure that all play by the rules, which they do not right now,' he said of no nation in particular.

'Those who do will be our closest economic partners. Those who do not can be certain that the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating, or economic aggression. Those days are over.'

Businessmen and women in the room nodded knowingly, recognizing a Mandarin pivot.

Going back to his days on the campaign trail, Trump has routinely accused the Chinese of dumping steel into U.S. markets, subsidizing goods to undercut international competition, intentionally devaluing their currency, stealing American companies' intellectual property and blocking their access to Chinese markets  all to gain unfair advantage.

'What country do you come from, sir?' Trump pointed to a man in the audience who chuckled when he criticized nations for erecting trade barriers in the face of American openness

Trump's stop in Da Nang, Vietnam is the fourth of six cities on his five-country Asia tour

The president spoke at the APEC summit, an annual gathering of Asia-Pacific business CEOs

The president said Friday that he 'spoke openly and directly with President Xi about China's unfair trade practices' this week, saying they resulted in 'enormous trade deficits' that are 'not acceptable.'

'We will no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property,' he added. 'We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access.'

'We will address the massive subsidizing of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises that put private competitors out of business all the time.'

But Trump repeated a forgiving allowance he made Thursday in Beijing, saying Friday that 'I do not blame China or any other country  of which there are many  for taking advantage of the United States on trade.'

'If their representatives are able to get away with it, they are just doing their jobs.'

'I wish previous administrations in my country saw what was happening and did something about it,' he said, returning to campaign mode. 'They did not, but I will.'

Trump tweeted this stemwinder  using Twitter's new 280 character format  as he left China on Friday morning, but warned hours later in Vietnam that he will be enforcing World Trade Organization standards moving forward

As Trump left Beijing for Da Nang on Friday morning, he tweeted that rather than blaming China, 'I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions.'

'How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!'

The blunt Trump on Friday also continued his nearly week-long verbal assault on North Korea, blasting the totalitarian state for developing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles to carry them.

'Earlier this week, I addressed the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea and urged every responsible nation to stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger,' he said Friday.

'The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail.'

Trump's scripted 32-minute speech was not without its hiccups.

China's President Xi Jinping made his own speech at the APEC gathering, appearing to send a message to Trump: 'Openness brings progress while self-seclusion leaves one behind'

As he complained that the U.S. has lowered trade barriers to other countries without seeing reciprocal treatment for its own goods and services, a member of the audience let out a chuckle and applauded.

'Funny,' Trump ad-libbed, indicating the interrupter.

'They must have been one of the beneficiaries. What country do you come from, sir?'

The man didn't reply.

Xi spoke hours after Trump delivered his address, saying that economic globalization 'has contributed significantly to global growth. Indeed, it has become an irreversible historical trend.'

Where Trump has focused on bilateral trade deals  agreements between two countries at a time  Xi emphasized a 'more open, more inclusive, more balanced, more equitable' global trade environment that would be 'more beneficial to all.'

'Openness brings progress while self-seclusion leaves one behind,' he said.
The child recovery expert who was jailed in Lebanon over the 60 Minutes kidnapping scandal claims the plan was sabotaged and the children's father was tipped off.

Adam Whittington was tasked with helping Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner snatch her children back from estranged husband Ali Elamine in Beirut in 2016.

The kidnapping, which was to be broadcast on the Channel Nine program, landed Mr Whittington, along with Tara Brown and the 60 Minutes crew, behind bars.

Mr Whittington, who was released after spending 104 days 'living with rats' in a Lebanon jail, said his new book will dispels myths about the 'botched' operation.

Adam Whittington, who was jailed in Lebanon over the 60 Minutes kidnapping scandal, claims the plan was sabotaged and the children's father was tipped off

Whittington was tasked with helping Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner (pictured with daughter Lahela) snatch her children back from estranged husband Ali Elamine in Beirut in 2016

'It wasn't botched whatsoever. There is factual evidence to show it was sabotaged, end of story,' Mr Whittington told The Courier-Mail.

'Somebody tipped Ali off, it came out of Ali's mouth the first night in the police station when I was detained, [he said] ''you got played by such and such''.'

While Ms Faulkner and the 60 Minutes team were released after Nine reportedly paid $500,000 to the children's Lebanese father, Mr Whittington remained behind bars.

After the TV crew was freed he said he spent six weeks in 'a dungeon', followed by a stint in an ISIS-controlled prison in Tripoli, the paper reported.

Ali Elamine is pictured with his six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son at the centre of the scandal

60 Minutes journalist Tara Brown and producer Stephen Rice arrive at Sydney International Airport following their release

Mr Whittington said he was also imprisoned in 'inhumane' immigration holding cells where 'the boss' would place each detainee on the floor individually.

'He puts you in the spooning position. You're like that spooning and somebody is in front and behind you. You can't sleep because you've got these guys next to you. You cannot physically roll on to your back because there is no room,' he said.

Following his release in July last year, Mr Whittington said he would tell his side of the story 'very soon'.

Ms Faulkner and 60 Minutes presenter Tara Brown are pictured being released from a Lebanese prison on April 20, 2016

'I am free but not home with my family,' he said in audio released by the Seven Network.

'The most important thing is to get home with my family especially my two boys who believe their dad is never coming home.

'The truth is coming very soon.'
This is the moment police force their way into an underground hideaway to discover part of the historic cocaine haul in an operation involving the arrest of three British men.

The three Brits were held following the 1.2 tonne coke find described as 'one of the largest drugs seizures ever on Spanish soil.'

Video shows police using shovels and a JCB digger to get into an underground safe house in the surfers' paradise of Zarautz near San Sebastian in the Basque Country.

White gold: A plain-clothes police officer uses a shovel to get the muck off the top of plastic crates containing part of the historic cocaine haul that led to the arrest of three British men

A JCB digger had to be brought in to help police using shovels and pickaxes so they could reach the cocaine, which had been wrapped in plastic, and placed inside several water tanks that had then been buried.

Just over half a tonne of the class-A drug was also seized as it was being off-loaded from a lorry driven by a Brit at a warehouse between the holiday resorts of Almunecar and Salobrena on the Costa Tropical south of Granada.

Two Spaniards were also arrested along with the three Brits, described as members of a 'criminal organisation dedicated to international drugs trafficking' which was based in the UK as well as Spain.

It was not immediately clear whether the two men arrested at the hideaway in northern Spain were British or Spanish.

Most of the cocaine was bound for the streets of the UK, where the average street price for a single gram is around 45.

Spanish police have not put an estimated value on the drugs seized, but as the 12 million tonnes of cocaine seized in Colombia this week was put at 275 million, the cocaine discovered in Spain would be worth more than 23 million.

Dig in: Police used JCB diggers and shovels to get to the plastic containers where hundreds of kilos of cocaine was wrapped up

Investigations: Police have arrested three British men and two Spaniards in connection with the discovery

Big haul: Several of these large plastic water tanks had been buried underground

Detectives said the cocaine was smuggled into the north of Spain before being driven south using lorries registered to a haulage firm used as a front for the drug smuggling operation - and then transported to the UK in smaller amounts.

The gang was so professional it had even put together a list of number-plates of undercover police cars in a bid to maximise the chances of escaping detection.

A spokesman for Spain's National Police, which held a press conference today in Madrid to announce the huge seizure, said: 'The gang that's being investigated was one of the most active in Europe and used professional lorry drivers who transported the drugs hidden among legal merchandise, taking advantage of the well-established road routes they used as part of their legitimate activity.'

Find: A police inspects some of the enormous amount of cocaine found underground

Police made the seizures after focusing on a British lorry driver working in Spain but bound for the UK who they said 'stepped up security' while they tailed him from city to city, using a car as a lead vehicle to tip him off about patrols ahead after picking up a legal cargo in the east coast city of Valencia and a second cargo in the northern city of Burgos.

The spokesman said: 'The person driving the lead vehicle, whose job it was to guide the lorry safely, led it to a remote property near San Sebastian.

'Taking secondary routes to avoid busier roads, both vehicles concluded their journey the other end of the country, in a warehouse between Almunecar and Salobrena in the province of Granada.

'Police arrested three of the suspects as the driver began to offload his cargo, discovering that inside the boxes being removed there were 483 packets of cocaine with 1,100 grams each in them, making a total of 531 kilos of the drug.'

In a subsequent search of the property in Zarautz the lorry had stopped at before heading south, two people described by the police as 'watchmen' were arrested and another 678 kilos of cocaine were seized in the underground hideaway.

Busted: The three Brits were arrested after police found the cocaine along with an 'underground' cannabis plantation in Zarautz, Basque Country (pictured)

As well as the class-A drug a marihuana plantation was found inside an abandoned house on the land.

A kilo of cocaine was found during a subsequent search in a third property in the nearby town of Orio.

During the searches officers say they also found 35 .22 gun cartridges, nearly 5,500 in cash, as well as a list of numberplates on undercover police cars.

In a press release issued today, in which Spanish National Police confirmed they had seized 1.2 tonnes of cocaine, they said: 'This is one of the biggest seizures ever on Spanish soil.

'Three of the five detainees are British and the other two are Spanish.

'They are suspected members of an organised gang that was based in the UK as well as in Spain.'

The ongoing operation is now being coordinated by an investigating judge based in the Costa del Sol resort of Marbella.

The police spokesman said: 'The investigation began in 2016. The modus operandi of this group consisted in introducing and storing large amounts of cocaine in the north of Spain which they then transported to the south of the country where the detainees had a business structure they used as a front to move the drugs.

'The drugs were sent to the UK in smaller amounts, with the remaining amount of cocaine distributed to other criminal organisations in Spain.'
Aleksandar Kovacic, pictured, was fined 10,000 by the High Court yesterday after being found in contempt of court for attempting to exaggerate his injuries following a 2010 road traffic collision

An aspiring social worker who feigned the extent of his injuries following a fatal car crash has been fined 10,000 by the High Court for contempt of court.

Aleksandar Kovacic, 43, had initially sued Aviva Insurance for 1 million having earlier rejected an offer of 350,000 after he was injured in a crash in 2010 which claimed the life of pensioner Norma Wroe, 68.

He was warned yesterday that he faces a three-month jail sentence if he fails to pay the fine within 12 months.

In his judgement, Mr Justice Spencer said Kovacic has two daughters aged eight and ten and he noted that his wife had been diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and was due to meet a consultant for her next appointment in December.

Mr Justice Spencer said: 'I have considered carefully your childrens article 8 rights under the European Convention and the extent to which an immediate custodial sentence for you would amount to an interference with their family life, as well as yours.

'I am satisfied that having regard to the seriousness of the conduct for which you have to be punished and the importance of deterring such conduct in the public interest, it would be proportionate to pass upon you a short sentence.'

Justice Spencer added: 'In all the circumstances I am just persuaded that it is not necessary for you to go to prison immediately. Instead I am prepared to suspend that sentence of three months for a period of 18 months, on condition that you commit no further contempt of court, and that you pay the fine I also impose which is a fine of 10,000.'

In earlier hearings, Kovacic claimed he had suffered life changing injuries after Mrs Wroe's car crossed the white line on the A422 near Newport Pagnel in March 2010.

He suffered fractures to both legs, his right arm, a rib and his back and spent two months in hospital.

He also underwent further surgery twice and developed infections in his wounds.

However, following his release from hospital, he continued to exaggerate the extent of his injuries and rejected a 350,000 offer from the company.

Mr Kovacic, from Bedford, Bedfordshire, sued Mrs Wroe's estate and her insurers, Aviva, for 900,000 in damages. Aviva admitted the crash was caused by Mrs Wroe's negligence.

In his claim, which was initially supported by clinical experts, Mr Kovacic said he could barely walk, was unable to work and was suffering depression.

But Aviva's suspicions were raised and he was placed under surveillance in 2013.

Footage shot by private investigators also showed him driving nearly 200 miles on a day out with his family, taking his children to school and climbing in and out of his car with ease.

He was also seen walking without a stick and carrying heavy items.

However, he did use his stick, and appeared to limp and get in and out of a taxi with difficulty, while attending an appointment with a Harley Street medical expert for the defence.

After viewing the videos, which were recorded on nine days over several weeks, Judge Neil Bidder said he was sure Mr Kovacic's description of his disabilities 'simply could not be believed'.

All of the experts who had backed Mr Kovacic's case changed their opinions in light of the footage.

Mr Kovacic was found to be in contempt of court by the High Court yesterday as a result of his attempts to exaggerate his injuries following a crash in March 2010

Aviva had offered to settle his claim for 350,000, but he insisted on fighting for more in court even after his lawyers withdrew from the case.

Mr Kovacic, who represented himself, told the High Court in London that the undercover footage was 'unrepresentative' and did not show him on his 'bad days'.

He insisted that he could not return to his job or achieve his ultimate career aim of training to be a social worker.

But Judge Bidder said the odds against him only having been filmed on his 'bad days' were 'huge'.

He told the court: 'I have concluded that Mr Kovacic can simply not be believed in relation to his condition and, except where his claim is supported by reliable other evidence, I am unable to accept his account.'

'I'm afraid that, having seen him give his evidence and having seen the DVDs, I am driven to the conclusion that he deliberately exaggerated his condition.'

The judge also said that he would have been able to keep his job, from which he was let go in 2012 after nearly two years on sick leave, had he not exaggerated his condition.

He added: 'I'm afraid to say that I find as a fact that, had he not been exaggerating his symptoms, but returned to work prior to March 2012, he would not have been dismissed by his employers.'

The judge found that Mr Kovacic was entitled to 97,525 damages from the date of his accident to when he substantially recovered, which was about the end of 2011.
Tony Abbott's sister Christine Forster has been left shocked after Manus Island protesters 'shredded' her jacket as she made her way into a Liberal fundraiser.

A crowd of thousands assembled outside Australian Technology Park at Eveleigh, near Redfern, on Friday afternoon ahead of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton's speech at the event.

Mr Dutton has been heavily criticised this week for refusing to evacuate refugees on Manus Island, despite their being no running water and inadequate food supplies.

Scroll down for video

Ripped right up the side! The crowd of protesters managed to wrangle Christine Forster out of her jacket

Christine Forster (pictured) can be seen trying to escape the stampede of protesters

Ms Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards said it took 30 to 40 police officers to prevent the growing crowd from completely overpowering them

Ms Forster can be seen trying to move away from the growing crowds

Just as police stepped in to move the pair away, a few protesters allegedly grabbed onto Ms Forster's jacket

Ms Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards said it took 30 to 40 police officers to prevent the growing crowd from completely overpowering them.

'They were spitting, they were snarling,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'I support peaceful political protests, that's fine. But don't assault people.'

Just as police stepped in to move the pair away, a few protesters allegedly grabbed onto Ms Forster's jacket.

According to Ms Forster the protesters were spitting and snarling at her

'I had about about three or four people grabbing onto me to try and stop me from getting in and in the course of that my jacket got shredded,' she said

Ms Forster was not pleased by the reception she received ahead of the Liberal fundraiser

A protester comes face to face with the Liberal senator at Redfern

Others had fruit thrown at them as they exited the building (pictured)

'I had about about three or four people grabbing onto me to try and stop me from getting in and in the course of that my jacket got shredded,' she said.

Earlier, disturbing footage from inside the Manus Island detention centre revealed the filthy conditions faced by the men who have refused to leave the camp.

Video obtained by activist GetUp group shows men sleeping outside on tables in an attempt to escape sweltering conditions inside cramped shipping containers.

It also shows how washing facilities aren't working, toilets are blocked due to a lack of running water, and the fact the men have dug for water and built wells using wheelie bins to stay hydrated.

Disturbing footage from inside the Manus Island detention centre has revealed the filthy conditions faced by the men who remain at the camp

Men have dug for water and built wells using wheelie bins to stay hydrated

Men have been forced to make wells out of wheelie bins to collect drinking water

It's been nine days since the Australian government cut off food, water, medical assistance and electricity to the refugees at the centre.

There are still 580 men living at the detention centre who are protesting against the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments who want to move them to facilities near the township of Lorengau.

Even after running out of food, medication and clean water, the men believe it is safer to stay at the old compound rather than risk being attacked by locals at the new facility.

GetUp's human rights co-director Shen Narayanasamy spent eight hours in the camp filming the video.

'Death or serious illness is inevitable in coming days. These men are sick, thirsty and hungry. The conditions are appalling and it's obvious you wouldn't choose to stay here if you thought you could be safer elsewhere,' Ms Narayanasamy said.

'There is a great threat of violence from the PNG army and the Manus Island community has made it very clear it doesn't want the men to move into accommodation closer to town.'

It's been nine days since the Australian government cut off the food, water, medical assistance and electricity to the refugees at the centre

Squalid conditions: footage from inside Manus Island show mould covered bathrooms

GetUp's human rights co-director Shen Narayanasamy spent eight hours in the camp filming the video (pictured)

Manus Island shame: Toilets are blocked due to a lack of running water

PNG authorities posted a warning notice on Thursday instructing the asylum seekers to leave immediately.

'If necessary, force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily for your own sake,' the memo says.

The UN's refugee agency says substantial parts of the alternative accommodation are not yet ready.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton insists those claims are wrong.

'The only difference in the new centre is that where we serve three meals a day at the (detention centre), we're asking people to prepare their own meals with food supplied and some think that that's not good enough for them,' he told 2GB.

Video obtained by activist GetUp group shows men sleeping outside on tables in an attempt to escape sweltering conditions inside cramped shipping containers
This is the dramatic moment police raided three travellers' sites and rescued five foreign 'slaves' and a Briton from squalid caravans.

Four Romanians and one Pole were taken to safety during the major operation in Northamptonshire.

A British national who police described as 'very vulnerable' was also rescued by officers.

Police arrested three men aged 33, 29 and 20, as well as a 23-year-old woman on suspicion of offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Detectives later arrested a 76-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman on suspicion of similar crimes.

Images captured during the dawn raids shows the tiny squalid caravans littered with rubbish

Detectives revealed the 'stark difference' between the 'palatial' living conditions of those who were arrested and those of the suspected slaves

Dramatic footage captured during the dawn raids shows officers combing through the tiny squalid caravans which are littered with rubbish.

Detectives revealed the 'stark difference' between the 'palatial' living conditions of those who were arrested and those of the suspected slaves.

One of the officers on the raid said: 'The primary function of this event today was to safeguard people, to safeguard the vulnerable.

'All the people that we've come across that we have safeguarded are vulnerable people.

'They're foreign nationals who do not speak any English or speak very little English.

'We have come across some English people here that are not normally connected to these sites.

'They're very vulnerable, however they're saying to us that they're quite happy to be there which I find it very difficult with the conditions they're living in.'

One of the officers on the raid said: 'The primary function of this event today was to safeguard people, to safeguard the vulnerable'

Police arrested three men aged 33, 29 and 20, as well as a 23-year-old woman on suspicion of offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015

The officer continued: 'These are people who are basically more or less living out in the open.

'Predominantly the victims are being used to work long hours with very little pay.'

Pre-dawn raids were carried out at Justin Park, near Greenfields in Braybrooke, and at Lower Ecton Lane in Northampton.

Four Romanians and one Pole were located at the Greenfields site and they were safeguarded by Northamptonshire Police working alongside the National Crime Agency.

The safeguarded men were all located at the Greenfields site. Officers there discovered three caravans at the location.

The arrested woman and the 33-year-old man were held at Justin Park while the other two men were taken into custody at Greenfields.

A 22-year-old man was also arrested at Justin Park on suspicion of burglary offences allegedly committed in Leicestershire. They are all currently being held in custody in Kettering.

In the third part of a rolling operation, officers later safeguarded a British national at the Lower Ecton Lane site.

They also arrested a 76-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman on suspicion of modern slavery offences.

Another man wanted on suspicion of modern slavery offences was also arrested following an ANPR hit elsewhere in the county. They are being held in custody in Northampton.

Det Chief Supt Kate Meynell, head of crime, public protection and intelligence, said it had been an extremely successful operation.

She said: 'Our primary aim today was to safeguard individuals who we strongly suspected were being used as modern day slaves and made to live in extremely poor conditions.

'Modern slavery takes many forms and in this case it is labour exploitation with victims made to work extremely long hours for minimal pay. They receive no training, pay no taxes or insurance and remain extremely vulnerable.

'With the support of colleagues from the National Crime Agency, who have great experience dealing with this emerging threat, we executed a fast-moving operation today which has protected those very vulnerable people from harm and resulted in the arrests of at least four people.

'Northamptonshire Police treats modern slavery extremely seriously and operations such as this send out a clear message to those involved in labour exploitation that we will find you.'

James Behan, from the NCA's Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit, said: 'Modern slavery is a priority across law enforcement, and our involvement in operations such as this have shown us that it affects all types of communities across every part of the UK.

'It can be difficult to spot because often the victims don't even know they are being exploited, but there will be people living and working where victims come into contact with everyone else's so-called normal lives.

'They may see something they feel is not quite right. That might be someone seeming afraid, vulnerable or being controlled, moved around or forced to work against their will. If they do, we need the public to speak to us.'
A Russian Hannibal Lecter who was put under house arrest for biting off a womans ears, nose and finger tips has gone missing.

And in a bizarre twist, the monster who also took chunks out of the womans back, is thought to have been kidnapped by journalists who want him to appear on a chat show.

Anatoliy Ezhkov was arrested earlier this week after inviting nurse Irina Gonchar, 41, to his hostel apartment in Kurgan, central Russia, for a romantic dinner.

Monster Anatoliy Ezhkov, dubbed a Russian 'Hannibal Lecter', left a dinner date horrifically disfigured after biting off her ears, nose and fingertips

But after plying her with alcohol, the 45-year-old attacked the bubbly brunette, beating her senseless before tying her up and sinking his teeth into her flesh.

He then tried strangling her but couldnt get a firm grip of her neck because of the amount of blood so proceeded to rip off her ears, nose and fingertips with his teeth as well as taking chunks out of her spine.

She was eventually rescued from the 4-hour-long horror ordeal after neighbours heard her screaming and called the police.

She was taken to hospital suffering from concussion, a rib fracture and severe wounds to the rest of her body.

Ezhkov was detained but later released on bail and put under house arrest after signing an agreement saying he wouldnt leave the property.

The 41-year-old nurse Irina Gonchar, pictured, was promised a romantic evening at a hostel in Kurgan, central Russia, after meeting her online.

Instead, Ezhkov, proceeded to rip off her ears, nose and fingertips with his teeth as well as taking chunks out of her spine during the ordeal which lasted four hours

Bit marks seen on the nurse's shoulder blade which was sustained in a four-hour attack

Now he has gone missing and local media is reporting he may have been kidnapped by journalists and taken to Moscow to appear on a chat show with the victims family.

According to news reports, journalists from one of the major Russian TV networks clashed with other reporters outside the hostel.

Police had to intervene to prevent them from bundling the cannibal into their car.

Anatoliy Ezhkov, 45, is thought to have been high on drugs then tried to strangle her. He has been released on bail

An injury to Irina Gonchar's right ear after being subjected to the horrifying attack by the man

The woman was eventually rescued after neighbours, hearing the woman's screams, called the police

Sources told news portal week.ru that the journalists wanted Ezhkov to appear on a chat show in the Russian capital called Male and Female.

Relatives of the nurse confirmed they had also been asked to take part.

A police spokesman said they were looking into the allegations.

Meanwhile they have warned locals to not approach the man who was last seen wearing beige shoes, a dark green jacket and dark blue trousers, but to contact them if they have any information.
Travel giants TUI are investigating a holidaymaker's claims she spent two weeks in India bite-free - only to be eaten alive on her flight home in a 'bug infested' plane seat.

Jane Nash returned from a fortnight away aboard a Boeing Dreamliner on November 5, but felt 'uncomfortable' in her seat throughout the ten-hour flight from Goa - and believes it was 'infested by bed bugs or biting gnats'.

The 59-year-old retired IT worker says she descended into 'hell' when she woke up later that evening to find herself covered in red bites over her legs, armpits and back.

After immediately complaining to the holiday company directly, the mother-of-two has slammed TUI, formerly known as Thomson, for their 'lack of cleanliness' aboard their aircraft and 'inadequate' customer services.

Jane Nash says she spent two weeks in India without being bitten before she was eaten alive on a 'bug-infested' flight home

Ms Nash claims she was left covered in painful bites (pictured) after the 10-hour flight from Goa on a Boeing Dreamliner on November 5

The 59-year-old retired IT worker says she descended into 'hell' when she woke up later that evening to find herself covered in red bites over her legs, armpits and back

Her allegations come barely a month after 38-year-old Heather Szilagyi claimed she and her daughter were 'bitten by bed bugs' on a British Airways Flight.

TUI confirmed they were thoroughly investigating Ms Nash's claims, including trying to establish the nature of the bites, but explained they have a 'robust cleaning and inspection programme'.

Ms Nash, who lives near Tring, Herts, said: 'It was just hellish. I did feel uncomfortable on the plane, but then again everybody feels uncomfortable on a plane.

'I just remember waking up at 3am the following morning and feeling itchy.

'I know that it must have been the seat because I felt fine during the two weeks I was on holiday.

'When we get back from holidays we often go down to the pub but this time my husband Tony went on his own.

'I just went to bed that night and I just remember feeling so itchy all over and those red spots had come up.

'I had jean shorts on and I think the bugs must have climbed up the backs of my legs - they must have been stealthy. It must have been that seat because I can't think of anything else that could have done it.

'I was drinking wine and perhaps the insects may have been attracted to the alcohol. I was fine for two weeks in the hotel and then after a ten-hour flight I get bites? It's just unbelievable.'

Ms Nash (pictured) believes her flight was 'infested by bed bugs or biting gnats' and has complained to travel giant TUI

Ms Nash woke up at 3am at her home near Tring, Herts, feeling itchy. She then found the dozens of red spots covering her body

Despite feeling fine after disembarking at Gatwick, Ms Nash only began feeling the alleged insect bites later that evening in bed

She said: 'I know that it must have been the seat because I felt fine during the two weeks I was on holiday'. Pictured: Goa, India

Despite feeling fine after disembarking at Gatwick, Ms Nash only began feeling the alleged insect bites later that evening in bed.

Ms Nash says she doesn't want any compensation from TUI, just the recognition that they'll check the planes and make sure they are properly cleaned.

She said: 'I really don't want any money. I just want them to check the aircraft. I think there are systemic problems with aircraft cleanliness.

'They should just be doing more regular checks. I want them to use a better complaint's service aswell.

'When I contacted TUI they just didn't seem to give a sh**. I got the standard automated "we'll reply in 28 days" response.

'All I'm thinking is that in the 28 days it's taking them to respond there's 28 days' worth of planes in the sky probably having the same problem.

'It's just unbelievable. I contacted them and it's a "computer says no" response. In my opinion you either do customer service or you don't.'

Ms Nash, pictured here with husband Tony, says she doesn't want any compensation from TUI, just the recognition that they'll check the planes and make sure they are properly cleaned

She has been heavily critical of TUI's response to her complaint and accused them of not giving a 's***'

A spokesperson for the holiday giant confirmed they were investigating the claims

Ms Nash's allegations come barely a month after 38-year-old Heather Szilagyi claimed she and her daughter Molly, seven, were 'bitten by bed bugs' on a British Airways Flight

Ms Nash said: 'I have to say I have no complaints about the staff on board the flight, and I had a lovely holiday. I just want to let people know about this.'

A TUI spokesperson said: 'We were very concerned to hear of the reports from Mrs Nash regarding her flight from Goa to London Gatwick. We have started a full and through investigation, which will include trying to determine the nature of these bites for which we will require supporting medical evidence.

'Since this was only reported to us a couple of days ago, the investigation is still underway and as such we wouldn't want to comment further at this stage. We are however disappointed not to have been granted an opportunity to complete our assessments and to be able to successfully resolve the situation directly with our customer. We are in contact with Mrs Nash.

'We'd like to reassure customers that we have a robust cleaning and inspection programme for all aircraft in our fleet and we adhere to IATA standards as well as following the World Health Organisation guidelines for aircraft interior cleaning.'
A Taiwanese businessman claimed he had caught a doughnut-shaped UFO on camera in south-west China.

Salesman John Chen said he took some picturesque shots of the famous Lake Dian after attending a trade show in Yunnan Province on November 1.

Later on, the 44-year-old and his sister-in-law were shocked to spot a mysterious ring-shaped object in sky when they were looking at one picture at home in Taipei.

Mr Chen, left, sends the pictures to Philip Mantle, a leading UFO expert, for analysis as the flying object has a ridged shape that looks like a doughnut (right).

The object in question has ridged sides and a hole in the middle, and is similar to the shape of a doughnut.

Mr Chen decided to find a UFO expert in a bid to find out what it could be.

Philip Mantle, who is said to be a leading British UFO researcher, told Mr Chen that he could not explain what the flying 'doughnut' was. Mr Mantle called the incident an 'open verdict'.

However, Mr Chen said: 'It just has to be a UFO. It's a strange doughnut shape in the sky.

'The strange thing is I didn't see it at the time. It was my wife's sister who spotted them. She said there was something in the pictures and I just thought she was joking.'

Businessman John Chen took a few pictures of Lake Dian in China the day he attended a trade show (left). Only when he returned to Taiwan, he was told that there was a UFO in it (right)

Other pictures of Lake Dian, however, did not show the strange looking object in the sky

Mr Chen then checked with his colleagues. They shared the photos that they had taken on the day, but his colleagues did not capture any strange object in the sky.

Upon receiving photos sent by Mr Chen, British UFO expert Philip Mantle doubted for the legitimacy of the images.

'What I can say is that the photographer in question here has always cooperated and seems to be genuinely puzzled by the images on his photos.

He did not see the alleged UFO at the time of taking the photos. Instead it was a relative that noticed them when he posted them on social media.'

Mantel concluded that there was no proof that the pictures were a hoax but the object could also be 'some air born debris that has been caught by the camera;

'More study needs to be done on these photos before any definite conclusion can be reached, so in the meantime it remains an open verdict,' he added.
A convict strapped porn magazines to his stomach before challenging his former trailer park neighbor to a knife fight, police said.

Donald Gaither, 49, allegedly donned the x-rated material in lieu of body armor before turning up at Troy Bagley's mobile home in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, armed with four blades.

Once there, he is said to have screamed 'come out and get some' through his former neighbor's window.

Donald Gaither pictured at Pontotoc County Justice Center with the pornographic magazines attached to his torso

Gaither is alleged to have brandished knives challenged his former neighbor to a fight

Gaither reportedly blamed Mr Bagley for getting him evicted from the Country Hills Trailer Park and had decided to fight him to settle the dispute.

But instead Mr Bagley called police who confronted the suspect, who is also said to have been swinging a large weight attached to a lanyard, at the scene.

Pontotoc County Sheriff John Christian told KXII: 'He appeared to be intoxicated somewhat, he did comply with the officer when he ordered him to the ground - at gunpoint - and he was holding knives in both hands whenever the deputy confronted him.'

After a short chase Gaither was arrested after which the officer found the pornographic magazines taped to his stomach.

Police found four knives on the suspect at the scene. He is also said to have been swinging a large weight on a lanyard

'The suspect told him that he had been in prison before and that was a way that they used to protect themselves in a fight,' Sheriff Christian said.

Gaither has previously served time in prison for aggravated assault and battery, robbery, possession of stolen property and extortion.

His arrest on Sunday saw him charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of an offensive weapon.
Taxi firm Uber has today lost an appeal against a ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers rather than self-employed.

Two drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, won an employment tribunal case last year after arguing that they were 'workers' and entitled to the minimum wage, sick pay and paid leave.

Uber challenged the ruling at the Employment Appeal Tribunal in central London, claiming 80% of its drivers would rather be classed as self-employed.

But the tribunal upheld its original decision that any driver who had the Uber app turned on was working for Uber London Ltd under a 'worker' contract.

Two drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, won an employment tribunal case last year after arguing that they were 'workers' and entitled to the minimum wage, sick pay and paid leave. They are both pictured outside the tribunal in London today, where they were successful

The American company will appeal the tribunal outcome and insists drivers have been self-employed 'long before our app existed'.

The GMB union said a ruling by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) was a 'landmark victory' for workers' rights, especially in the gig economy.

But the association representing self-employed workers called the decision 'astonishing'

The two drivers who originally brought the case welcomed the decision and called for more action to 'defend workers rights'.

Mr Aslam said: 'I have been campaigning against Uber since 2014 and although I always knew I was on the right side, it has always been a struggle that has brought enormous pressure on us.

'I am glad that the judge today confirmed what I and thousands of drivers have known all along: that Uber is not only exploiting drivers, but also acting unlawfully.'

Mr Farrar said: 'We have done everything we can, now it is time for the Mayor of London, Transport for London and the Transport Secretary to step up and use their leverage to defend worker rights rather than turn a blind eye to sweatshop conditions.'

Uber, which has more than 40,000 registered in London alone, insists its drivers enjoy good conditions and are happy to be classed as self-employed.

Uber will appeal the tribunal outcome and insists drivers have been self-employed 'long before our app existed'

Tom Elvidge, its UK acting general manager, said: 'Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed.

'The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive, and so we intend to appeal.

'The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

'Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. We've also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and we'll keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better.'

The case has implications for more than 100,000 people in Britain's gig economy, where people work job-to-job with little security and few employment rights.

Such employment has surged as smart phones and the Internet cut the link between jobs and the traditional workplace.

Many professionals value the independence granted by self-employment, which allows them to pick and choose when they work.

Mr Farrar and Mr Aslam, outside the Central London Employment Tribunal on July 21, welcomed today's ruling

Chris Bryce, chief executive of the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE) said: 'It is astonishing that the employment tribunal granted the two drivers worker status.

'A key element of being a worker is having to turn up for work even if you don't want to.

'This is clearly not the case with people who drive through Uber - they choose when and how long they work for by logging on or off the app.

'The Government needs to seriously consider introducing a statutory definition of self-employment.'

Maria Ludkin, the GMB's legal director, said: 'This landmark decision is a yet more vindication of GMB's campaign to ensure drivers are given the rights they are entitled to and that the public, drivers and passengers are kept safe.

'GMB urges the company not to waste everyone's time and money dragging their lost cause to the Supreme Court.'

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'Uber should throw in the towel and accept today's judgment. No company, however big or well-connected, is above the law. Uber must play by the rules and stop denying its drivers basic rights at work.'
A manhunt is underway for the driver of a grey BMW X5 who rammed two police cars at a McDonald's car park in Melbourne's southeast Friday morning.

Horrifying footage shows the vehicle's reckless escape from being boxed in by five other cars, hitting a female officer who was standing nearby in the process, Herald Sun reports.

The BMW reversed forcefully into a 4WD police car which had just pulled up at its rear, before charging forward and ploughing through the front of a second police car.

The incident unfolded around 12.40am in Carrum Downs after police spotted the vehicle in the McDonald's drive-through with mismatched plates.

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Police are hunting the driver of a grey BMW X5 (centre) who rammed two police vehicles and injured an officer in Melbourne's southeast shortly before 1am Friday morning

Two police cars closed in on the vehicle as officers attempted to speak with the driver.

The extensively damaged BMW, with licence plate AHO096, was last seen leaving the car park and travelling west along Ballarto Road, police said.

A female officer sustained minor injuries.

A male believed to have been a passenger in the BMW has been helping police with their investigation.

The driver could face automatic imprisonment and up to 20 years behind bars under the State's tough new legislation designed to protect emergency service officers.

The BMW reversed forcefully into a 4WD police car which had just pulled up at its rear, before charging forward and ploughing through the front of another (pictured front left)

'Offences like this will be covered by the new legislation and in time we hope that the sentences handed out for these types of offences provide an adequate deterrent for others who consider engaging in this type of dangerous behaviour,' Police Association of Victoria's Wayne Gatt said.

'We are just thankful that our officers managed to avoid serious injury.'

'They dont deserve to be targeted in such a reckless manner for simply doing their job to protect the community.'
Former Trump adviser Carter Page has urged that the 'extensive work' he's done in Russia has been 'entirely legal', according to court papers filed on Thursday.

Page discussed his work in Russia in filings related to his ongoing lawsuit against media giant Oath over stories of his alleged involvement with Russian election meddling and campaign collusion.

His comments come just days after the House Intelligence Committee released a transcript of his testimony in which he said he had no meetings with high officials in Russia.

Page, who was an unpaid Trump foreign policy advisor, acknowledged meeting Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during a trip to Moscow that he says he ran by then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in advance.

Carter Page discussed his work in Russia in filings related to his ongoing lawsuit against media giant Oath over stories of his alleged involvement with Russian election meddling

In the latest court documents, Page said that he and President Donald Trump have 'similar peace-seeking inclinations towards U.S. relations with the Russian Federation'.

He added that 'complete misunderstandings against Russia reflect the new McCarthyism which has burgeoned over the past year', according to the New York Daily News.

Page said that his work in Russia has been 'entirely legal', calling the investigation a 'Witch Hunt'.

He said: 'By way of further background, I have done extensive work in that country both as an officer in the U.S. Navy beginning as an Arms Control Action Officer in the Pentagon and continuing throughout much of my civilian life prior to the Witch Hunt, all of which has been entirely legal.'

During his testimony, Page at first didn't mention the contact with Dvorkovich when asked by Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff about 'anyone high up or in any official capacity' on the trip.

'No. Mostly scholars,' he replied in a in a now-released public transcript of his six-hour grilling before the House Intelligence Committee.

Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks to the media after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. He answered questions about his July 2016 trip to Moscow

'So you had no private meetings with any senior Russian officials?' Schiff asked, during an interview conducted behind closed doors where Page did not appear with a lawyer. 'No sir,' Page replied.

Then Schiff mentioned Dvorkovich, the deputy prime minister of the Russian federation.

'I did not meet with him. I greeted him briefly as he walked off the stage' at an event, Page said.

Page then allowed that Dvorkovich 'stopped by a dinner I went to in December with people from the university,' mentioning the New Economic School, but said he had 'absolutely not' had a private meeting with him during the July Moscow trip.

At that point, Schiff brought up a memo Page wrote to the Trump campaign offering what he said were his 'thoughts about some of my takeaways and experiences' from the Moscow visit.

That document, which Page acknowledges writing, specifically mentions Dvorkovich. 'Russian Deputy Prime Minister and NES board member Arkady Dvorkovich also spoke before the event,' Page wrote in July 2016.

'In a private conversation, Dvorkovich expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems,' he wrote other campaign members.

HIGH-LEVEL:Page met with at least one high-ranking official, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, on the trip

Asked about the memo, Page said: 'It was a general sentiment of, you know, hope for the future. That's all he expressed in that brief hello.'

He said the interaction with the Russian officials was 'closer to 5 to 10 seconds' in length.

'Two minutes ago, you said you had no private meeting with Arkadly. Is that correct?' Schiff followed up, asking about how this might relate to the 'private conversation' referenced in the email.

Page's response moved back in the direction of the official's public remarks: 'Similar to my description of benefitting greatly to listening to speeches from both candidates, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump, during the campaign, I listen closely,' he said.

Page wouldn't directly say the email was one of the documents he was withholding from the committee on Fifth Amendments grounds, but said it was something he would be 'happy to give you.'

'Well, we have the document,' Schiff noted.

Page informed several top members of Donald Trump's presidential campaign about his 2016 trip to Moscow  and got clearance from campaign chair Corey Lewandowski to go 'on your own,' he told the investigating committee.

New information about Page's July 2016 trip are revealed in the now-released public transcript of his six-hour grilling.

Page says Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told him: 'If you'd like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know, that's fine'

Page told panel members that he informed the Trump campaign of his pending trip, and got approval in advance from then-campaign chair Corey Lewandowski.

'If you'd like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know, that's fine,' he says Lewandowski told him.

He also informed current White House communications director Hope Hicks and J.D. Gordon.

Additionally, his writings at the time show he gave the campaign the chance to veto the trip  at a time when it was already under scrutiny for its Russia posture.

'Please let me know if you have any reservations or thoughts on how you'd prefer me to focus these remarks,' he wrote in an email committee member Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, read during the interview, CNN reported.

Page said he made it 'perfectly clear' that he was not representing Trump or the campaign on the trip.

Despite his unofficial capacity, Page offered to give the campaign a 'readout' of what went down.

'I'll send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here,' he offered, according to an email read by Rep. Adam Schiff, another California Democrat.

Page also pitched a potential Trump trip to Russia to two advisors, Gordon and Walid Phares, saying the 'honor' could go to Trump.

Like page, Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pitched a potential Trump trip to Moscow

'If he'd like to take my place (on a trip to Russia) and raise the temperature a little bit, of course I'd be more than happy to yield this honor to him,' Page offered, according to an email.

He met with at least one high-ranking official, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, on the trip.

In his opening statement, Page repeatedly went after what he called the 'dodgy dossier' developed by retired British intelligence officer Christopher Steele about Trump.

The interview was conducted in private, but the committee released a transcript Monday night.

At the top of the hearing, Rep. Mike Conaway asked Page, who appeared alone if he was currently being represented by counsel.

'Not for this matter,' he replied.

Page said a scholar invited him on the trip, saying he 'had mentioned it a few times' to advisor J.D. Gordon, and that it was a 'standing invitation.'

Asked why he sent around the note, he said he wanted to be 'careful,' because 'there was starting to be some allegations about or concerns about Russia in general.'

Page was unclear when asked at first about how Trump's campaign chair responded.

'So Corey said, if you have interest, you know if it's  I forget the exact terms, but, you know, if you have  I'll add that to the record. But essentially he said, we can  if you're not going to  you know, it has nothing,' Page said. Rep. Trey Gowdy said that was why he was asking.

Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, speaks with reporters following a day of questions from the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017

'Not, not  not  if  you know, if you'd like to go on your own, not affiliated with the campaign, you know that's fine,' Page says Lewandowski responded.

He told the panel he informed now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions about the trip. Sessions is already under fire for failing to reveal Russia contacts during his confirmation hearing testimony.

He was present during a foreign policy meeting when Trump foreign policy aide George Papadopoulos, who has pled guilty to lying to the FBI, now says he pitched the idea of a Trump Moscow trip.

Page at first said he didn't meet with senior Russian officials on the trip, before later adding he met 'briefly' with Dvorkovich on the trip and at a December 2016 dinner.

Asked if he had a private meeting, Page responded: 'We did - he stopped by a dinner I went to in December with people from the university.'

Page testified that he had never 'met' Trump or spoken to him directly, but also allowed he had 'been in a lot of meetings with him, and I've learned a lot from him.'

Page told Schiff he had invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to comply with a subpoena seeking documents.

But he also offered to provide specific emails that were requested  prompting Schiff to ask if Page if he believed he could invoke his rights 'selectively' and only hand over non-incriminating information.

In his testimony, Page at first said he had no private meetings with high-up Russian officials.

He said he had no 'private meeting' with the deputy prime minister. But he did mention a 'private conversation' where Dvorkovich 'expressed strong support for Mr. Trump.'
A morning radio show in Sweden was suddenly interrupted by ISIS propaganda after unknown assailants hijacked the ether on Friday morning.

Mix Megapol, which is one of Sweden's most popular commercial radio stations, had finished playing Ed Sheeran and Carly Rae Jepsen when it began broadcasting an ISIS recruitment song.

Thousands of listeners in southern Sweden were subjected to 'For the sake of Allah' - a song ISIS uses to recruit fighters - for up to 30 minutes.

'That was Ed Sheeran, and now.. ISIS!': Swedish radio was interrupted by 30 minutes non-stop repeat of an ISIS recruitment song on Friday morning

Mix Megapol have confirmed that their broadcast was hijacked by a pirate transmitter for around 30 minutes, beginning at 8.30am CET.

The song 'For the sake of Allah' is around three minutes long, and had been played on repeat until Mix Megapol could retake the air.

'This is of course very serious, particularly because they had been playing a song about ISIS recruitment,' a spokesperson told 24Malmo, who broke the news.

'We see this as a very serious incident, and have therefor reported it to the police'.

Recruiting: The song 'For the sake of Allah' has been used by ISIS to recruit foreign nationals to come and fight in Iraq and Syria

As the pirate hijacking only appeared locally in Malmo, Sweden's third largest city, the incident was not discovered until concerned listeners phoned the station.

It is not know if the pirate transmitter was operated by anyone affiliated with ISIS, or if the hijacking was intended as a prank.

Some 300 people have left Sweden to fight for ISIS, according to Swedish Security Service.

This puts Sweden in second place after Belgium for ISIS fighters per capita who have left their home countries for Iraq and Syria.
A former fashion designer to Cara and Poppy Delevingne was repeatedly beaten up by her controlling ex-boyfriend, a court heard.

Emily Evans-Schreiber, from London, was allegedly attacked by Robert Shandaloo on six occasions.

In one incident, he is accused of smashing a lampshade and a china bowl and damaged one of her carpets.

Emily Evans-Schreiber (pictured), from London, was allegedly attacked by Robert Shandaloo on six occasions

The pair were in a relationship between January and August this year and Ms Evans-Schreiber claims he stopped her from contacting her friends or using social media.

Shadanloo, a director of Bluestone Estates Mayfair, a property firm, has been charged with criminal damage, engaging in controlling behaviour in a relationship and six charges of assault.

He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court yesterday and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, according to the Evening Standard.

Shadanloo asked for the case to be sent to the crown court for a trial and said: 'I'm innocent.'

He was released on bail until a hearing at Isleworth Crown Court on December 7. As part of his bail conditions, he is not allowed to contact Ms Evans-Schreiber or any witnesses, or go to Fulham where she lives.

Ms Evans-Schreiber spent last year working as a private consultant to the Delevingnes.
Somali criminal Abdulrahman Mohammed will get 80,000 from the British taxpayer after a judge ruled he was unlawfully detained after authorities failed to deport him

A violent Somali criminal with 30 convictions to his name has won almost 80,000 compensation from the government after he was locked up for too long.

Abdulrahman Mohammed, 39, has been jailed more than a dozen times for crimes including affray, knife possession and multiple assaults and robberies.

But a judge has now ruled that the Home Office kept him in prison for 445 days too long whilst trying to deport him.

Despite describing him as 'a prolific and violent offender', Judge Edward Pepperall QC awarded him 78,500 in compensation.

In a description described as 'ironic understatement' in court, Mohammed's own lawyer had said 'he might not be considered an asset to society'

The judge said: 'I can well understand why the Home Secretary might wish to deport him.'

But Judge Pepperall ruled that Mohammed had been 'falsely imprisoned' and was 'entitled to justice in a civilised society'.

The European Court of Human Rights had ordered that he stay in Britain despite the government's attempts to deport him and it has now been ruled he was unlawfully detained while authorities worked out how to handle his case.

The three periods of unlawful detention are believed to have come after lawful prison terms, following which the Home Office kept him in while his deportation was considered.

The court heard Mohammed became a 'habitual and violent criminal' after coming to the UK

Mohammed suffered torture and 'unimaginable barbarity' when he was 13 and living with his family in Mogadishu, the court heard.

His uncle was shot dead and a girl was raped in front of him, before thugs sliced through his cheeks with bayonets in a bid to cut out his tongue.

He was then 'branded with a burning cattle prod' before his torturers told him, 'remember us by this'.

After he managed to flee Somalia, he spent two years in a refugee camp before finally making his way to Britain in 1996, aged 17.

The court heard he had been left with post traumatic stress by his youth in Somalia.

But after getting into Britain, he embarked upon a life as 'a habitual and violent criminal', the court heard.

Judge Edward Pepperall said he understood the Home Office wanted rid of Mohammed, but it had no reason to detain him

The judge listed a total of 30 convictions on his record between 1998 and 2013, for which he served 13 custodial sentences.

He later said in a statement: 'I was a young boy in a new country with freedoms and a culture unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I was drawn to so many things which were not good for me and I did not know how to stop or impose any limits on myself.'

After being refused asylum on entering Britain, he had been granted leave to remain - but only until August 2000.

In January 2008, the Home Secretary decided enough was enough and made a deportation order against him.

But lawyers took his case to the European Court of Human Rights and the UK was ordered not to remove him from the country 'until further notice'.

There was no prospect of deporting him, but he was kept in immigration detention for three periods between 2012 and 2016.

Labour's Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary when deportation proceedings began. Theresa May was in charge of the Home Office when Mohammed was unlawfully detained

Home Office lawyers accepted at a late stage in the case that he had been unlawfully detained for 445 days in total, the judge said.

Judge Pepparall said there was 'clear independent evidence' that Mohammed had been tortured and Government officials had not 'seriously engaged' with his rights.

'The Home Office's own policy required it to release Mr Mohammed unless there were exceptional circumstances justifying continued detention.

'As the Home Office now concedes, there weren't', the judge said.

He added: 'Mr Mohammed is prolific and violent offender. I can well understand why the Home Secretary might wish to deport him.

'She has not, however, been able to do so, largely because of the very real risk that deportation to Somalia would pose.'

It is believed Mohammed was kept in immigration detention centres (like that pictured) while his deportation was considered. File photo

The judge concluded: 'Some reading this judgment might well question why a foreign citizen who has so thoroughly abused the hospitality of this country by the commission of serious criminal offences is entitled to any compensation.

'But there are few principles more important in a civilised society than that no one should be deprived of their liberty without lawful authority.

'Justice should be done to all people.

'He is not the most wicked of men, but his presence in the UK is not conducive to public good. Nevertheless, in a civilised society, he is entitled to justice.

'Specifically, he is entitled not to be falsely imprisoned and... he is now entitled to the compensation that I have awarded.'
An artwork dedicated to a famous conscientious objector from the First World War has been removed over claims it is 'offensive' ahead of Remembrance Sunday.

The fresco that bears the words of pacifist Walter Ayles was erased from a subway in Bristol after a Tory councillor said it 'denigrated' those who fought in the Great War.

Those behind the artwork say its removal constitutes 'a clear act of censorship'.

Tory councillor Mark Weston, left, has demanded a memorial to conscientious objector and former Bristol MP Walter Ayles, right, who was jailed in 1916 for refusing to join the army

The memorial to the former Bristol MP has been branded as 'offensive' by a local councillor

Ayles was jailed for refusing to fight in the war but is now remembered by various panels around Bristol - the city where he later became an MP.

But one particular artwork has prompted controversy after Tory councillor Mark Weston branded it 'distasteful' and 'offensive' ahead of Remembrance Day.

The panel carries Ayles' description of the Great War as 'cold-blooded murder', and 'crimes against God and man to maintain the honour and glory of the British Empire'.

Mr Weston said he received a complaint from a resident last week who said the panel was 'distasteful', particularly with 'Remembrance Sunday coming up'.

He said: 'I think it's actually distasteful myself, too.

'Surely they must understand this is a sensitive time and I read the wording as a denigration of the men who did stand and fight and die.

'Surely they must see it as offensive?'

Bristol City Council ordered this panel's removal following Cllr Weston's complaint

Bristol City Council ordered the panel to be removed following Mr Weston's complaint.

But Richard Jones, vice-chair of the Bearpit Improvement Group, which co-ordinated the exhibition, demanded 'the immediate reinstatement of the board and an apology from those responsible for its summary removal'.

'The removal of the board is a clear act of censorship by Bristol City Council that has no place in an open and democratic society,' he said.

In his own words: Walter Ayles at his 1916 Court Martial 'I am a Christian and a Socialist. To me the sacredness that enshrines the life of God enshrines the life of her children. Therefore I cannot and will not kill. 'If I believed in the efficacy of slaughter to remedy evils, I would long ago have advocated the killing of those who, year after year, have been responsible for the sweated, the starved and the slummed. 'I know, however in my heart of hearts that slaughter being wrong, is no remedy.' Advertisement

'This exhibition sought to celebrate some of the untold stories of Bristol's past social campaigners and should be seen as stimulating debate and interest in Bristol's distinctive history.

'It is ironic that it was taken down during the same week that George Orwell's statue was unveiled at the BBC in London with the motto: 'If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'.'

Others speculated that the move could be politically motivated.

Dr Madge Dresser, who helped co-ordinate the exhibition and is a senior research fellow at the University of the West of England, said:

'I'm so angry about this, mainly for the artists involved.

'There were a few radical quotes from Walter Ayles, but this was about showing a different side of Bristol's history.

'Maybe the Conservatives don't like the celebration of quite a left-wing person.'

Walter Ayles became a Labour councillor for Bristol in 1910.

In 1916 he was imprisoned for two months for his refusal to fight in the First World War.

He served as a Labour MP for various constituencies - including Bristol North - for a total of 11 years between 1923 and 1953.

A Bristol City Council spokesperson said the authority was looking into the complaints and would respond in due course.
Angry villagers have hit out at BT's Openreach after a car crash left their high-speed fibre-optic broadband connections unreliable - and powered by batteries.

A vehicle smashed into a transformer in Streethouse, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire last month, damaging the power supply.

Since then it has been powered by batteries, meaning engineers from Openreach, BT's network arm, have to drive to the village every six hours to install a new ones.

And some of the village's 400 residents are furious that they are often left completely without an internet connection for hours due to the power problem.

Residents in the village of Streethouse, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, are furious after a car crash left their high-speed fibre-optic broadband unreliable and sometimes down for hours

Self-employed printer John Hollis, 37, described the situation as 'torture' and said his internet goes off every couple of hours

A vehicle smashed into the transformer last month and damaged the power supply. Since then it has been running on batteries that need to be replaced every six hours

Some of the village's 400 residents are furious that they are often left completely without an internet connection for hours due to the power problem

Dog trainer Michael Rudge said his internet is going off at least three times a day. He described the situation as 'ridiculous'

Many pay around 40 a month for a super fast internet service - but have been left with hours of no internet since the crash on the night of Friday October 13.

Lee Johnson, 29, says his broadband is disconnected more than four times a day while internet engineers replace batteries.

He said: 'The box got crashed into on October 13. We literally had no broadband in the whole village for a week after the crash, it affected everyone and my business was brought to a halt.

'They got it back up and running but they have to send out an engineer to change the batteries multiple times a day, it is ridiculous.

'We have been told it is a temporary fix but there has been nothing said about it being fixed for good and there has been no communication from Openreach who manage the box.

'It feels like we are living in the Stone Age.

Warehouse worker Lee Burnham, 33, said residents have been forced to buy data packages for their phones while the internet remains intermittent

Many pay around 40 a month for a super fast internet service - but have been left with hours of no internet since the crash on the night of Friday October 13

Resident Lee Johnson, 29, says his broadband is disconnected more than four times a day while internet engineers replace batteries

'I rely on the internet both at work and to use my mobile phone because of lack of signal and it has impacted me.

'At work I have had to stop recording shows and can't upload others when the internet turns off, it is so frustrating.

'Just last night it went down for three hours when my daughter was doing homework.

'You'd think it would be sorted by now.'

Self-employed printer John Hollis, 37, said: 'It's on and off all the time. It's been tortuous really.

'Sometimes I have to work from home, especially when the kids are off school and so on. But I can't log into work from home because the signal keeps dropping.

'It's intermittent all the time now. It goes on and off every couple of hours. I always see engineers there trying to fix it but it never seems to work.

'It's just been torture really. We all rely on the internet these days. The kids have been tearing the walls down because of it.'

Michael Rudge, 35, said: 'I just think it's ridiculous it has taken all this time and we're still looking at this battery as a solution.

'I need to use the internet frequently, but it keeps going down at least three times a day.'

Dog trainer Mr Rudge added: 'It's frustrating - you would have thought a month later we would have seen it fixed.'

The cabinet has not been reconnected to the mains since it was struck by a vehicle.

Another resident, Dan Pearson, 31, says Openreach - an arm of BT responsible for connecting most of Britain's homes to the internet - told him that the village is not a priority to be fixed.

Another resident, Dan Pearson, 31, says Openreach - an arm of BT responsible for connecting most of Britain's homes to the internet - told him that the village is not a priority to be fixed

Mr Pearson's partner recently launched a nursery business from home which requires constant internet access and says the situation could threaten her livelihood

Openreach apologised for the inconvenience and said restoring the mains power connection is an

'Openreach are paying their technicians a call-out fee every six hours to change the battery in the cabinet to get the system back up and running.

'The battery is supposed to be used to stop the phone's going off should there be a brief power cut. They wait until the battery goes flat before they call out the engineers so it can be down between half-an-hour and an hour-and-a-half each time.'

Mr Pearson's partner recently launched a nursery business from home which requires constant internet access so parents can monitor their children and says the situation could threaten her livelihood.

He suggested installing a street generator but was told that due to the location, the risk of theft or vandalism was too high.

And warehouse worker Lee Burnham said: 'It's just a massive inconvenience - I'm sick of coming home and the internet being on the blink.'

Openreach said: 'We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused by the temporary power solution. Restoring the mains power connection is absolutely a priority for us and we are working to secure the earliest possible date for it to be re-connected.'
A possessive boyfriend secretly kept the dead body of his girlfriend in his airing cupboard for 15 months after he falsely told her family she dumped him and used her phone and took her benefits to cover it up.

Andrew Reade, 43, wrapped the corpse of mother of three Victoria Cherry, 44, in a duvet and plastic sheet when she died in suspicious circumstances at his Bolton home in October 2015.

But her body wasn't found by police until January this year - 15 months after it was first concealed.

When quizzed by detectives Reade said the couple had been taking prescription drugs the night before and claimed: 'Vicky dying was the worst day of my f***ing life. Don't get me wrong I feel I have done something terrible I should do a lot of years in jail but I did not murder anybody.'

Ms Cherry suffered injuries consistent with being strangled and Reade was arrested on suspicion of murder but a cause of death could not be established and he was jailed for a lesser preventing a burial charge.

Andrew Reade, 43, wrapped the corpse of mother of three Victoria Cherry in a duvet and plastic sheet when she died in suspicious circumstances at his Manchester home in October 2015.

But her body wasn't found by police at his home in Bolton until January this year - 15 months after it was first concealed in an airing cupboard

Reade had lied to 44-year old Miss Cherry's mother and daughter and said she moved away to Blackpool before cashing in 1,000 of the dead woman's benefits.

He also sent messages to another relative purporting to be from Miss Cherry and when she was reported missing, he twice fobbed off police with lies when they asked him about her whereabouts.

Detectives uncovered the grisly truth last January when they raided Reade's home in Bolton, Greater Manchester and found Miss Cherry's remains after being tipped off she was already dead.

Reade was arrested on suspicion of murder but claimed he found Miss Cherry dead in bed next to her.

Last June he was jailed for four years and four months after he admitted preventing a lawful burial and perverting justice in what a judge branded a 'mission of deceit.'

On Thursday this week Reade was due to attend an inquest into Miss Cherry's death to answer questions from the victim's family about what happened to her - but he refused to leave his cell.

The Bolton hearing was told the pair met in 20914 and set up home together but he was said to be 'possessive' and Miss Cherry told relatives she was planning to leave him.

Her mother Janet told the Bolton hearing: 'The last time I saw Vicky was at her grandma's funeral and he was there with Andrew. They seemed to be very close but he appeared a bit possessive.

'She did say she was having some relationship problems but said she was excited because Andrew was taking her out. He was very possessive of her and at one point she said she was going to leave him and she was packing her bags. We were in contact by phone until September 2015 but she did seem happy the last time that I spoke to her.'

Reade was arrested on suspicion of murder but claimed he found Miss Cherry dead in bed next to her at home (pictured)

Miss Cherry's daughter Robyn said: 'She would text me multiple times a day and we would speak by phone twice a week. She sent me pictures of her and Andrew and she seemed happy and healthy. But the last message I received from her was on September 29.

'I messaged her a week later to see if she was okay and I got no reply. A week later I text and phoned again and I heard nothing so I tried a number I had for Andrew. On the October 30 I received a message he had separated from Vicky and she moved to Blackpool.

'He sent me a text message later that night asking me to ring him and I just thought he was going to have a whinge and moan so I didn't bother. On November 9 he texted me to tell me she was living at a hostel in Blackburn.

Cherry's possessive boyfriend told her family she had fled to Blackpool, claimed her benefits and used her phone to continue his ruse for 15 months

'I spoke to relatives who had also tried to contact her but they had not had any response. I had no further conversation with Andrew and she became treated as a missing person.'

Police got a search warrant to raid Reade's first floor flat when officers found out he told his local pharmacy Miss Cherry had died many months before.

When quizzed by officers Reade said the couple had been taking prescription drugs the night before and claimed: 'Vicky dying was the worst day of my f***ing life. Don't get me wrong I feel I have done something terrible I should do a lot of years in jail but I did not murder anybody.'

He added: : 'Me and Vicky fell asleep and I woke up to her lying over me and I could tell something wasn't right. I tried to wake her up but she was pale and cold. Why I didn't ring for help I don't know. I panicked. I just rolled her up into a duvet and put a plastic sheet round her and I put her in the boiler cupboard and I have left her there since.'

Home Office Pathologist, Dr Phillip Lumb said: 'Upon external examination her body was severely decomposed which made assessment very difficult but I could see some damage to her neck. Parts of her voice box were fractured and she had a fracture to the nose and left cheek as well as to the top of the skull which may have been weeks to months old.

'The injuries to the neck could have been caused by manual or ligature strangulation caused by pressure to the neck but because of the decomposition we cannot look for scratch of finger marks.'

Toxicology tests revealed traces of morphine, Diazepam, Methadone, Pregaballin and Ibroprofen in Miss Cherry's system. Det Ch Insp Terry Crompton from Greater Manchester Police told the hearing: Reade had been spoken to on two previous occasions and the first time he told police that she had left in September 2015 to live in Blackburn and that he had not seen her since.

'When he was visited a second time he gave contrary evidence that he had last seen her in November 2015 when the relationship had ended amicably and that she had gone to Blackburn to meet with her ex-boyfriend and that he had not heard from her since. Some justice has been done and we have a number of hypothesis - but none that we can act on.'

Recording an open conclusion, Coroner Alan Walsh said: 'There have been a number of deceptions from Reade and it is very dangerous to accept his evidence. We know that she had some fractures in the neck structure that could also cause death and other matters but her body was severely decomposed. None of these hypothesis attract significant evidence for me to reach a conclusion.'

In a statement Robyn told how in the days before she disappeared, her mother had been texting her saying how much she loved her and was proud of her.

She added: 'How can someone put us through 15 months of not knowing where she was, lying to us and hiding her body from us.

'It makes me angry, frustrated and upset. We can lay her to rest but this is still going to torture us. We will never know how she died and we will never recover from the images and thoughts of how she died. My mum might not have been perfect but she loved me and I loved her.'
CCTV footage has emerged showing a young toddler being tied onto a chair by three teachers at a nursery in east China.

This is the latest clip to be uploaded online after staff from the same school had been caught violently beating their pupils and force-feeding them wasabi.

Three staff from the Ctrip Nursery in Shanghai have been detained and the management apologised to over 60 furious parents yesterday.

Three teachers are trying to tie a toddler boy onto a chair by the wall in an east China nursery (left). The boy can be seen crying and struggling to get away (right)

Local news media, Beijing Time, posted the surveillance camera footage earlier today.

It shows a toddler boy being tied to a chair by three teachers in a classroom.

Another teacher was looking after the rest of the children when the boy cried and struggled to sit straight.

Web user 'YeZi_perryYeh', whose children was studying in Ctrip Nursery, wrote a post on Weibo claiming the footage has been taken down.

'There are parents who watched the footage seeing their children got their arms dislocated because they were not taking a nap after lunch,' said Mr Ye.

Other children watch as the boy is being tied onto the chair by the teachers in Ctrip Nursery

President of Ctrip apologises to the parents for the nursery staff's abusive behaviour

Ctrip Nursery has come under fire after previous viral footage showed pupils under two years old had been abused by the school's staff in class.

Different CCTV videos, filmed on November 1 and November 3, captured how the teachers hitting a little girl and feeding a group of pupils wasabi to keep them quiet. They had been circulating online in China.

The new clip is thought by many as further evidence to show the school's shocking educational methods.

One of the previous clips also showed a group of angry parents beating up one of teachers who had been caught on camera abusing her pupils.

The clip also shows the educator kneeling down on a stage on November 7 to apologise to the furious fathers and mothers.

The teacher apologises to parents for her wrongdoing at a meeting as she kneels and cries (left). However, the parents do not accept and run onto the stage and beat her up (right)

CCTV footage captures how the nursery teacher fed wasabi to a group of toddlers in Shanghai

In a latest effort to ease the situation, Sun Jie, president of Ctrip group, China's largest online travel agency, apologised to the parents in a meeting yesterday on November 9.

In an official statement, Ctrip also admitted that after they received complaints towards their teachers, they did not raised the issue to the public or other staff between November 3 to November 7.

The shocking abuse case, which occurred at an established nursery in Shanghai, has led to the sacking of the school's headmaster as well as a teacher, a carer and a cleaner.

Changning Police had detained three people, but they haven't released the identities of the trio.
A heavily pregnant women deliberately rammed her car into her ex-husband's car and four other vehicles after a heated row with her former partner.

The shocking rampage was caught on smartphone camera by an eyewitness in Moscow, Russia.

When confronted by police, the eight-month pregnant lady refused to tell police what had provoked the her erratic driving, only that she needed to let off some steam.

The woman can be seen reversing her black Infiniti vehicle, with pedestrians forced to jump over a fence to avoid being crushed.

Her vehicle then speeds forward, reportedly slamming into a Range Rover belonging to her former partner.

Not content with the destruction she has already caused, she then proceeds to hit another four men cars, causing substantial damage to them along with her own vehicle.

A heavily pregnant women deliberately rammed her car into her ex-husband's car and four other vehicles after a heated row with her former partner

Passersby tried to stop the woman but she was able to carry on as she had locked the doors of her car. It was only when police arrived on the scene that her rampage was brought to an end.

The woman, whose name has not been revealed, refused to go to hospital to be checked over after the crashes.

Netizen 'MLP Olya' commented: 'She's a hooligan, she got really angry but pregnancy is not an excuse. She could have run somebody over.'
School teacher Kate Ellison knew there was something seriously wrong with her after inexplicably dropping 15 kilograms in four months last year.

Living in London at the time, the 27-year-old sought answers from several doctors, but her symptoms were repeatedly put down to stress and anxiety, Nine News reports.

On her return to Australia, her fears were confirmed when specialists revealed she had been living with a 1.3 kilogram tumour on her liver.

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Kate Ellison (pictured) was told by UK doctors stress and anxiety was to blame for her inexplicable weight loss, but a 1.3kg tumour was found on her liver by Australian specialists

She was found to be affected by a rare neuroendocrine tumour (NET), which commonly go undetected for years due to difficulty involved in diagnosis

'They think I had this for up to 10 years before I was diagnosed,' Ms Ellison said.

She was found to be affected by a rare neuroendocrine tumour (NET), which commonly go undetected for years due to difficulty involved in diagnosis.

The malignant growths can begin anywhere in the body and symptoms often mimic those of other common conditions including irritable bowel syndrome and asthma.

'They can also be very difficult to find because these tumours can be very small,' Dr Grace Kong, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said.

Dr Grace Kong (pictured) said NETs are particularly difficult to find and are often very small

Ms Ellison is receiving treatment for the giant growth, but has her wedding to Jack, who she met while in the UK, to look forward to next year.

Support group, Unicorn Foundation, claims many GPs are unfamiliar with NET and therefore often wrongly diagnose patients' symptoms.

'If patients are coming to you on a regular basis, please just question what it could be,' spokeswoman Simone Leyden said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is probing an alleged plot for Michael Flynn and his son to kidnap a cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to the Turkish government for a $15 million fee.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan viewed cleric Fethullah Gulen as an enemy of the state and had been pressing the United States to extradite him.

The Journal reported that FBI agents have asked at least four individuals about a meeting in mid-December in which Flynn and a representative from the Turkish government discussed putting Gulen on a private jet and carting him off to the Turkish prison island of Imrali.

NBC News then reported that investigators are also looking into allegations of a quid pro quo that was discussed at that same meeting, with Flynn being paid to do Turkey's bidding, while serving as President Trump's national security advisor, a job he had already been offered.

Michael Flynn (right) and his son Michael G. Flynn (left) are reportedly being probed by Speical Counsel Robert Mueller over a kidnapping plan to snatch a cleric away from the U.S. and deliver him to the Turkish government

A political enemy to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cleric Fethullah Gulen (pictured) could have been whisked out of the country by Michael Flynn and his son, sources of the Wall Street Journal say

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing the plan to kidnap a cleric, put him on a private plane and fly him to a Turkish prison island - in which the two Flynn would be paid $15 million

The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, was considered a political enemy to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured)

Part of the plot was to put Fethullah Gulen on a private plane and fly him to the Turkish prison island of Imrali. Prison compounds can be seen at top right

An undated photos shows a high-security prison compound on the Turkish island of Imrali, where officials wanted cleric Fethullah Gulen flown

The meeting was held at New York City's '21' Club, just a few blocks from Trump Tower, where Flynn was working at the time as part of President-elect Trump's transition team.

The Wall Street Journal said its sources weren't on hand at the December meeting, but were familiar with the Mueller investigation, though didn't know how deep the special counsel was probing the kidnapping plot.

There is no indication the $15 million for the scheme changed hands.

NBC News reported that Mueller is also looking into whether Flynn and the Turks discussed, at the December meeting, how to free Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who is facing federal charges over helping the Iranians evade U.S. sanctions.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a top Trump surrogate, is a member of Zarrab's defense team.

NBC also noted the $15 million figure, though suggested it would be paid to Flynn if he could accomplish getting Zarrab freed and Gulen imprisoned back in Turkey.

The December meeting was a follow-up conversation to a discussion that happened in September between Flynn, Erdogans son-in-law and Turkeys foreign minister, a meeting attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey.

Woolsey told the Journal in March that he arrived at the meeting as participants discussed how to get Gulen out of the U.S. without going through the formal extradition process.

The Turkish officials talked of forcibly removing Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, from the United States. The Erdogan government has blamed Gulen for the failed July 2016 coup and said that he and his supporters represent a terrorist network.

Woolsey told the newspaper he found the topic 'startling,' the word the Journal used, as he believed such action may be illegal.

The former CIA head, who had served as a Trump campaign adviser on national security policy, said the talk was hypothetical, but the idea was a 'covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away,' he told the Journal.

Flynn disclosed the September meeting to the Justice Department in February as part of his Foreign Agent Registration Act filing.

A spokesman for Flynn, Price Floyd, told the paper in March that 'at no time did Gen. Flynn discuss any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or any other such activities.'

On the kidnapping story, lawyers for both Flynn and his son didn't comment. Neither did a spokesperson for Mueller.

Investigators are looking into what role the younger Flynn played in his father's dealings as he worked alongside him at their company Flynn Intel Group.

NBC News had reported on Sunday that federal investigators had enough evidence to charge Flynn and his son.

The grand jury is continuing to interview witnesses about Flynn's business activities over the next week, two people familiar with the investigation also told NBC News.

This investigation is another tentacle of Mueller's expansive probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election as the special counsel examines whether there was collusion between the Kremlin and any of President Trump's associates.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn had been one of Trump's foreign policy advisers during the campaign and briefly served as his White House national security advisor, though resigned in February  the first of many heads to roll in the Trump administration.

Flynn was caught lying to Vice President Mike Pence over conversations he had with Russian officials over sanction during the transition period.

He had initially denied sanctions had been discussed.

His son, Michael G. Flynn, had been doing work for the Trump transition team, but got booted when he tweeted about the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a made-up story about Hillary Clinton and her Campaign Chairman John Podesta running a child trafficking ring out of the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.

The younger Flynn tweeted Friday morning, not about the Wall Street Journal report, but about the brewing scandal in Alabama over Senate candidate Roy Moore sexually pursuing teenage girls as a bachelor in his 30s, with some of the allegations suggesting abuse

The junior Flynn tweeted Friday morning, not about the brewing kidnapping saga, but about Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused by a number of women, in a story in the Washington Post, of sexually pursuing them as teenagers  with some of the candidate's actions looking like sex abuse.

'Funny how I dont remember seeing #KevinSpaceyChildMolester #RoyMooreChildMolester,' wrote the younger Flynn, suggesting Moore was being given a harder time than actor Kevin Spacey, who is accused of sexually abusing minor men.

In recent weeks, Spacey has been fired from House of Cards and will be erased from Director Ridley Scott's 'All the Money in the World' film. So far, Moore remains in the Alabama Senate race.
Mark McLachlan (pictured) complained to Kepier School in Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland when he found a homework task in his stepdaughter's planner asking her to 'write a letter to her family about converting to Islam'

A stepfather who slammed his 12-year-old's school for making her write a letter about 'converting to Islam' has been called a 'racist bigot' and is terrified of violent repercussions.

Mark McLachlan, 43, complained to Kepier School in Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland when he found the homework task in his stepdaughter's planner.

He refused to let her finish the 'letter to my family about converting to Islam', claiming it was 'brainwashing' her about the religion and did not see what it would achieve.

But since posting about it on social media he says he has received a lot of abuse.

He told MailOnline: 'My wife and I are terrified of the repercussions.

'Any time anybody says anything negative about Islam they are torn to shreds.

'I've been called a racist and a bigot, but I'm just terrified for my children and for the way this country is going.

'In 50 years time I can see Britain becoming an Islamic state and my children and grandchildren are still going to be alive - I don't want them wearing a niqab.'

Mr McLachlan, who has been with the 12-year-old's mother for five years, said he was particularly outraged by the task because he thinks she is being given a 'false representation of Islam'.

Mark McLachlan, 43, found the homework task (pictured) in his stepdaughter's planner and refused to let her finish it

He added: 'She was told to google 'Why should I convert to Islam', but if she had researched both sides and googled 'Why shouldn't I convert to Islam' she wouldn't have been able to sleep.

'I've done it and the stuff that comes up is horrific.

'My stepdaughter is coming home talking about the Prophet Muhammad and halal meat saying Islam is the religion of peace.

'But if she watched the news and knew about all the atrocities Islam has caused all over the world, she would know it isn't the religion of peace at all.'

The stepfather, who also has a daughter, stressed he has 'nothing but respect' for the deputy head of Kepier School, who was 'completely understanding of his concerns.

He told MailOnline the teacher has agreed to hold a meeting to review the task and address his concerns.

Mr McLachlan has slammed the decision by the Kepier School (pictured) to ask pupils to pen the note. The principal replied: 'At Kepier we feel it is very important to introduce our learners to all faiths and cultures and we do this throughout the academic year'

Nicola Cooper, the school's principal, said: 'At Kepier we feel it is very important to introduce our learners to all faiths and cultures and we do this throughout the academic year.

'For example, next week we will be celebrating all faiths during National Inter Faith Week.

'We welcomed Mr McLachlan into school earlier this week and were happy to explain to him how we explore all faiths and cultures.

'Our Culture and Wellbeing programme of study is in line with the National Curriculum and we believe it provides the basis for a broad, balanced and engaging introduction to the areas typically taught in RE and PSHCE.'

Mr McLachlan replied: 'I know as part of the national curriculum they have to learn about all religions.

'I just don't see why they should ask a child to write a letter addressed to their family about converting to another religion. I really just don't see what the letter will gain.

'If they want children to learn about Islam, then go teach them all about it and its history.

'What I don't want is a school asking my stepdaughter to look into reasons for converting to another religion.

'Like every parent, it is our decision on how we raise them and once they are old enough to make decision, then it is there choice.'

Since posting about it on social media, Mr McLachlan (pictured) says he has been inundated with abuse

Mr McLachlan visited the school to raise his concerns and was told that this was part of the curriculum and was shown example exam questions for Islam, Christianity and Hinduism.

The homework came to light when Mr McLachlan was looking through the youngster's school planner and saw the teacher has written the task to be handed in on November 8.

He added: 'When I saw this assignment in the planner, written by the teacher, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

'I told her she will not be completing it and she is more worried about getting detention.

'We send our kids to school to get a good education and use what they have learnt to have a good career.

'I have no problem with them learning about religions but I feel they should not be asking 12-year-olds writing to their parents about why they are converting.

'I just found the task wholly inappropriate.'

Mr McLachlan took a picture of the assignment and posted it online, where it has been shared hundreds of times.

One user commented: 'Would they go to a Muslim school and ask them to write a letter to their parents about converting to Catholic? I doubt it!

'Children should not be made to write letters about converting to any religion for any reason.'

Another user said: 'Isn't part of RE to research, investigate and teach about all religions?

'I feel like this homework is just an exercise about converting to another religion. That's been blown way out of proportion.'

Mr McLachlan, who lives in Houghton-le-Spring, insisted he only complained because he is 'worried about the children of Britain'.

He said: 'I'm just worried about mine, yours and anyone else's children.

'They've eradicated anyone and anything that isn't Muslim in the Middle East, but they're taking over this country as well.

'I want my children to have an objective view of all religions.

'Education is about learning things not about brainwashing.'
An enraged woman in north China has knocked off a police officer on road by her Range Rover.

She was told to drive her Range Rover 4x4 away as it was illegally parked at the entrance of a hospital car park in Harbin.

The 34-year-old driver, dubbed as 'Range Rover Bitch' by web users, then hit on the policeman and shouted swear words.

Ms Wang, left, shouts at the policeman who asked her to drive away from a hospital entrance. She then knocks the officer down by her 4x4 and mocks his reaction on the floor (right)

Policeman Wang Siwen's bodycam footage captures the moment when he asks the white Range Rover driver, Ms Wang, to move away from the hospital entrance.

'F*** you! Who are you? Who are you?' Ms Wang yelled in the driver's seat.

She claimed that she had not violated any traffic rules and refused to drive away.

According to The Paper, Ms Wang parked her 4x4 at Heilongjiang Hospital entrance on Zhongshan road of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province on October 31.

Officer Wang was on duty to handle illegal parking issues in the area and had to tell Ms Wang to leave the premises.

Footage shows the 34-year-old driver lying on officer Wang and shouts at him in swear words

She is detained by police at Heilongjiang police bureau for obstructing officials

Ms Wang refused and knocked the policeman onto the ground and pounced on him.

Onlookers captured the embarrassing moment when Ms Wang lied on the officer's body and mocked his reaction.

She harassed the officer until policemen arrived and took her to the bureau.

Heilongjiang police detained Ms Wang on November 1 for obstructing any law enforcement officer in the discharge of his or her official powers or duties.
A Chinese restaurant near Newcastle has been fined almost $400,000 for underpaying 85 members of its staff.

Owners at the New Shanghai Charlestown reportedly tried to use false records to short change workers by $583,000 over the course of 16 months.

Judge Robert Bromwich declared the actions 'essentially criminal in nature' in court this week, ordering the restaurant to pay $128,000 in wages owed, The Australian reports.

Chinese restaurant New Shanghai in Charlestown, near Newcastle, has been fined almost $400,000 for underpaying 85 members of its staff (Pictured are workers at the restaurant, although it is unknown if they are those involved or affected)

The restaurant was also penalised a further $300,000, with the owner and two staff members hit with an additional $95,000 in fines between them.

The allegations originally came to light in May 2016 after a kitchen employee complained of long hours and small pay, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

After the claims were made the Fair Work Ombudsman investigated, with workers found to be paid below award rates and not paid penalties, overtime or superannuation.

Following the court's decision, a Fair Work Ombudsman spokesperson said the agency was pleased with the result.

Operators at the eatery (the outside pictured) were ordered to pay $128,000 in wages owed and fined a further $300,000, with the owner and two staff members hit with a further $95,000 in penalties, according to The Australian

'This operator based their business model on deliberate exploitation of their staff and then went to considerable lengths to try to cover their tracks,' they said.

'This behaviour deserves to be penalised and we welcome the courts decision.'

Meanwhile, Judge Bromwich called the actions of the restaurant 'serious and premeditated'.

The Charlestown Square restaurant is one of five eateries across New South Wales, with the chain recently opening a new store in Westfield Sydney.
A marine pilot who caused a 1million crash which left a 40ft gaping hole in the hull of the ship he was steering was 'disorientated' when he looked through the wrong window, a court heard.

Gehan Sirimanne, 63, caused considerable damage to the car transporter ship when he ploughed it into the Primula Seaways ferry - after ignoring several warnings, according to maritime officers.

Sirimanne had accidentally set the City of Rotterdam ship's route directly into the path of the oncoming ferry, Hull Crown Court heard.

He had looked through an off-axis window, which had caused him to suffer 'relative motion illusion'.

A marine pilot who caused a 1million crash which left a 40ft gaping hole in the hull of a ship he was steering off the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire was 'disorientated' when he looked through the wrong window, a court heard

Gehan Sirimanne (left), 63, was piloting a car transporter ship which ploughed into the Primula Seaways ferry. His captain, Ruslan Urumov (right), 64, believed the pilot's intention was to pass the oncoming ship, the court was told. However, he failed to query Sirimanne's actions until it was too late

Judge Jeremy Richardson, QC, said the weather was a factor in the December 2015 collision, adding, however, that the configuration and angles of the windows had played a key part.

Sirimanne, who was then working as a marine pilot for Associated British Ports, boarded the car carrier City of Rotterdam at Immingham Dock at 7pm.

He was due to navigate the Panama-registered ship along the River Humber to the mouth where full control was to be handed over to captain Ruslan Urumov, 64, to take the vessel to sea.

Humber Vessel Tracking Service (VTS) monitored the City of Rotterdam track which showed that she was straying into the north side of the shipping channel.

Her passage was also placed into the same track of vessels travelling west along the Humber, which included the Primula Seaways ship.

Despite alerts from VTS and the Primula Seaways captain, the City of Rotterdam continued its passage along the wrong side of the shipping lane.

A lack of communication between the transporter ship's captain and pilot led to the crash near Spurn Point off the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire, the judge also said.

No one was injured in the sea crash which occurred just metres from Spurn Point. Both vessels sustained major damage. Sirimanne and Urumov both pleaded guilty to misconduct by a pilot endangering a ship. Both received a four-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months

At the time of the crash, the ferry had been heading from Gothenburg, Sweden, while the car transporter, owned by Picer Marine SA, was heading for Newcastle.

Events before the crash were captured on a series of audio recordings.

Sirimanne, of Hull, East Yorkshire, believed he was travelling in the direction he was looking but was actually heading straight towards the Danish-registered ferry, owned by DFDS Seaways, AB.

Urumov believed the pilot's intention was to pass the oncoming ship, the court was told.

However, he failed to query Sirimanne's actions until it was too late.

No one was injured in the sea crash which occurred just metres from Spurn Point. Both vessels sustained major damage

Sirimanne and Urumov both pleaded guilty to misconduct by a pilot endangering a ship.

Both men received a four-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months.

Urumov was ordered to pay 750 in court costs due to the extremely low income he receives from his state pension in Bulgaria.

Sirimanne was ordered to pay 45,000 in court costs, which will be paid by his former employer Associated British Ports.

Michael Groark, a surveyor at Maritime and Coastguard's Hull office, said: 'This [crash] shows that the rules are there for a reason. It was a serious collision which could have resulted in serious injury.

'Both of these men ignored several alerts warning them they were on the wrong track and put not only themselves but others using the channel correctly, at risk.'
Senior Tories warned that patience is running out with Theresa May today after a nightmare week that saw two Cabinet ministers resign.

The Prime Minister faces alarm that her Downing Street operation is 'falling apart' amid a bewildering array of problems ranging from sex scandals to secret meetings.

But despite the deepening sense of chaos a poll suggests she has regained her lead over Jeremy Corbyn as voters' preferred PM.

The extraordinary finding comes after Mrs May sought to steady the ship by naming leading Brexiteer and former reality TV contestant Penny Mordaunt as the new International Development Secretary.

The move came in a minimalist reshuffle after Priti Patel followed Sir Michael Fallon out of the exit door.

But Mrs May's deputy Damian Green is still being investigated over sex harassment allegations, while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is facing demands to resign over loose comments that might double the jail term for a British mother in Iran.

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A YouGov poll for The Times shows Mrs May defying the deepening sense of chaos threatening to engulf the government and moving back ahead of Mr Corbyn on the key measure

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured tucking into egg and chips at a cafe in Country Durham with Labour MP Laura Pidcock, is still behind Theresa May in the polls despite her disastrous week

The Labour leader, pictured at the cafe today, has been touring the country trying to drum up support for his party in case Theresa May's government collapses and Britain heads back to the polls

The editor of Tory-supporting magazine the Spectator, Fraser Nelson, said today that the chances of her being ousted were rising.

'She is aiming for stagnation, a remit that's depressing enough itself,' he wrote. 'But if she can't even manage that, then her party will have no choice but to see if someone  anyone  could do better.'

A former minister has told MailOnline the PM had been on her 'final warning' for some time, while another MP said they believed opinion was 'hardening' against her and she might not survive far into next year.

Ms Mordaunt's appointment as International Development Secretary maintained the careful balance between Remainers and Brexiteers around the Cabinet table, and appears to have bought Mrs May some breathing room.

The PM also brought in new blood by elevating a member of the 2015 intake ofTory MPs to ministerial office for the first time.

Victoria Atkins becomes a Home Office minister, while Sarah Newton shifts to take 44-year-old Ms Mordaunt's old job.

But Mr Johnson's position deteriorated further yesterday after Iranian state TV claimed that he had 'confessed' she broke the law by spreading propaganda - potentially meaning a 10-year sentence.

A YouGov poll for the Times today found that 44 per cent of the public want him sacked, with just 26 per cent saying he should stay in post.

But incredibly the same research found that Mrs May's popularity had increased.

Asked who would make the best Prime Minister, 34 per cent said Mrs May - an increase of two points - while Mr Corbyn was down one on 31 per cent.

The poll was easily topped by 'don't know', which rated at 35 per cent.

Overall the Tories were on 40 per cent with Labour ahead on 43 per cent and Lib Dems on 6 per cent.

Education Secretary Justine Greening also bluntly said he had made comments that were 'simply not correct'.

Meanwhile, there have been warnings from friends of Miss Patel that she could 'go off like a shotgun' at Tory Remainers now she has been freed of ministerial constraints.

Mrs May, pictured leaving Downing Street today, faced a high-wire act with her second enforced reshuffle in a week

Penny Mordaunt walked up Downing Street today to have her promotion confirmed

Miss Patel was all smiles as she was driven away through the gates of Downing Street after drawing a line under her time as a minister

Mrs May has lost Sir Michael Fallon (pictured front row, third from left) from her Cabinet, while Priti Patel (pictured right of middle row) has now gone

New Cabinet minister Ms Mordaunt previously appeared on ITV's Splash! reality diving show

Miss Patel tweeted congratulations to her successor in the Cabinet tonight

EU leaders are said to be preparing for the fall of Mrs May's government within weeks after scandal and divisions threatened to erode its slender grip on power.

Having faced a major backlash from MPs over her decision to appoint close ally Gavin Williamson after Sir Michael resigned over sleaze allegations seven days ago, this time Mrs May bowed to demands from Brexiteers to maintain their representation in the Cabinet.

Miss Patel was a vocal supporter of leaving the EU, and Ms Mordaunt - who supported Mrs May's rival Andrea Leadsom in Tory leadership contest last year - was on the same side of the debate.

The Portsmouth North MP was a prominent campaigner in the referendum, notably clashing with David Cameron on live TV over whether Turkey was set to join the EU.

MAY'S CABINET: WHO IS A REMAINER AND WHO IS A BREXITEER? Remainers: Philip Hammond - ChancellorLiz Truss - Treasury Chief Secretary Amber Rudd -Home Secretary Jeremy Hunt  Health Secretary Justine Greening  Education Secretary Greg Clark - Business Secretary Sajid Javid - Local Government Secretary Alun Cairns - Welsh Secretary Jame Brokenshire - Northern Ireland Secretary David Mundell - Scottish Secretary Gavin Williamson  Defence Secretary Karen Bradley - Culture Secretary Damian Green - First Secretary of State David Gauke - Work and Pensions Secretary David Lidington - Justice Secretary Brexiteers: Boris Johnson - Foreign Secretary Andrea Leadsom - Leader of Commons Michael Gove - Environment Secretary David Davis - Brexit Secretary Liam Fox - International trade secretary Penny Mordaunt  Aid Secretary  Chris Grayling - Transport Secretary Advertisement

She also has a colourful back story, having served as a magician's assistant, trained as a Royal Navy reservist and topped the 2011 list of sexiest female MPs.

In 2014 she sparked controversy by appearing on the TV diving show 'Splash' - donating her payment to charity.

And the popular MP has smuggled in a bit of cheeky humour into the usually deadly serious Commons debates.

She admitted making a joke speech about animal welfare so she could say the word 'c**k' after a dare from her friends in the Navy.

Amid farcical scenes, Miss Patel was ordered to fly home to face the music on Wednesday night just 12 hours into a tour of Africa  and just two days after she was reprieved by Mrs May.

She quit in a short meeting with the PM in Downing Street - but in her resignation letter she issued a thinly veiled warning that she could challenge the Government from the backbenches over Brexit, as allies argued she had been treated harshly.

Miss Patel's departure follows Sir Michael Fallon's decision to quit as defence secretary last week, over accusations of misconduct against women.

The government was already being propped up on the slenderest of margins by the DUP, and question marks are still hanging over the futures of further frontbenchers in Boris Johnson and Damian Green.

Brussels is now braced for the PM being ousted by her party, or for another General Election bringing Jeremy Corbyn to Number 10.

But Ian Duncan Smith yesterday warned the EU against being smug over Britain's parlous politics.

'I think it is a bit rich of them to speak about this,' he said.

'When you look, the Dutch government after months only just managed to find its own feet; it hadn't formed a government.

'Germany still doesn't have an official government. You have chaos in Italy, elections coming up, real problems over the banks.

'And in Spain, pretty much arrests taking place on a daily basis of people who wanted to split the country apart. I think it's a bit rich of the EU to lecture (us).'

Miss Patel's downfall followed extraordinary revelations last week that she held a dozen secret meetings with senior Israelis, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a 'family holiday' in August.

In a major breach of protocol, Miss Patel took no officials with her to the meetings, at which no minutes were kept. Instead, she was accompanied by Tory peer Lord Polak, honorary president of the powerful lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel.

During 'clear the air' talks in No 10 on Monday, Miss Patel promised the Prime Minister she had revealed everything about her secret dealings with Israel.

But to the irritation of Downing Street, it emerged the following day that she had proposed diverting British aid money to fund the Israeli army's humanitarian activities in the Golan Heights  a disputed territory which Britain has not recognised since it was annexed by Israel 50 years ago.

However, Downing Street continued to say the PM had full confidence in Miss Patel as late as 4.30pm on Tuesday.

Mrs May's patience finally snapped that night when she learned that Miss Patel had held another undisclosed meeting with Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan in Parliament on September 7.

Miss Patel tweeted her thanks for 'support and kindness' today after her resignation

Mrs May acted to bring in new blood to the government, making Victoria Atkins (pictured left leaving No10 today) the first of the 2015 Tory intake to achieve ministerial office. Sarah Newton (right) was moved from the Home Office to replace Ms Mordaunt

Deputy PM Damian Green, who is under investigation by the Cabinet Office, posted a picture of himself being shown a lifeboat in Moray
A three-year-old girl was tortured, sexually abused and left fighting for her life after she was allegedly attacked by her mother's boyfriend.

The toddler was left in the company of a 25-year-old man on Thursday night when the sickening attack allegedly took place in Queensland's Capalaba.

The girl's mother rushed her to hospital with what are believed to be critical internal and external injuries to her head, arms and legs.

Hospital staff were so concerned by her condition they immediately called police, The Courier-Mail reported.

A three-year-old girl was tortured, sexually abused and left fighting for her life after she was allegedly attacked by her mother's boyfriend

Neighbours on the quiet street told the paper they were shocked to hear of the incident.

'She is a cute little muffin that didn't deserve this,' one said.

'The mother obviously cares for the little girl. She looked well cared for, well looked after, beautiful manners. A darling little girl.'

The 25-year-old man has since been charged with nine offences including torture, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault and leaving a child under 12 unattended.

He is also charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, breach of a domestic violence order and drug offences.

The girl is still in a Brisbane hospital in a serious condition.

The 25-year-old man has since been charged with nine offences relating to the attack
A student-run council at the University of Michigan has suspended all Greek life social events following allegations of sexual misconduct and hazing involving fraternity members.

The Interfraternity Council said in a statement forwarded by the Ann Arbor school that the suspension approved Thursday will allow council members to 'immediately begin the process of assessing our policies and practices' and develop 'a formal plan going forward.'

The statement didn't go into specifics, but The Michigan Daily student newspaper reports allegations outlined to the council include reports of sexual misconduct involving fraternity members, a half-dozen reports of hazing and more than three dozen people being taken to hospitals in recent weekends.

Drastic move: The Interfraternity Council at the University of Michigan has suspended all Greek life social events following allegations of sexual misconduct and hazing

Social activities that have already been paid for will be allowed to take place on the Ann Arbor campus, but 'sober monitors' will be in attendance

The newspaper reported some hazing allegations include people being put in 'alleged near-death situations' and fraternity members being drugged.

The Daily also made mention of an unauthorized 'Champagne and Shackles' event that was hosted last weekend, in which couples attending a party were handcuffed to one another until each pair finished a full bottle of champagne.

The Interfraternity Council is the local governing body for National Interfraternity Conference fraternity chapters at the school.

IFC Executive Vice President Alec Mayhan wrote in the statement banning all Greek life mixers, date parties and initiation activities on campus some members of the community have failed to live up to the Ann Arbor school's 'high standards' of conduct.

'We believe that social events are a privilege, and we, as a community, have not earned this privilege at this time,' he wrote.

Social activities that have already been paid for will be allowed to take place, but 'sober monitors' will be on hand to keep an eye on students.

According to a report from the University Office for Institutional Equity released in October 2016, 80 sexual assault cases were reported between July 2015 and June 2016.

The Interfraternity Council's decision concerning Greek life at University of Michigan comes just days after Florida State University announced the indefinite suspension of the school's 55 fraternities and sororities following the death of a freshman pledge.

Florida State University on Monday suspended 55 fraternities and sororities following the death of a freshman pledge

Earlier this year, Penn State suspended fraternities and sororities from holding social activities during the spring semester after the February hazing death of 19-year old Timothy Piazza.

Similarly, Louisiana State had a one-month suspension and continues to ban alcohol at Greek parties after the hazing death of 18-year old Maxwell Gruver in September.
Three men plotting to bring a special forces sub-machine gun to Bristol to settle a gangland dispute have been jailed for more than 30 years.

The three men, Kiaran Greenwood, 29, Raymond Ray, 31, and Simon Christopher, 42, were involved in a plot to transport a Sterling sub-machine gun from Bournemouth to Bristol.

Officers believe the gang wanted to bring the military specification weapon to Bristol to wipe out a rival gang in the eastern district of the city.

Kiaran Greenwood, left, and Raymond Ray, right, were jailed for 17 and 13 years respectively having been convicted of possession of a gun with intent to endanger life

The gang were attempting to transport a Sterling sub-machine gun, pictured, from Bournemouth to Bristol in April 2016 when it was intercepted by armed police officers

Avon and Somerset police, working on secret intelligence launched an undercover operation, Operation Talon, to intercept the weapon as it was being transported in a BMW.

According to police, Greenwood, was the 'patriarch' figure of a Bristol-based organised crime gang. He arranged for the weapon and ammunition to be transported from the south coast.

He has a long criminal history with convictions for manslaughter, actual bodily harm, robbery and affray. During one sentencing hearing in February 2010 in Bristol Crown Court, Greenwood was told by a judge: 'I conclude you represent a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by further specified offences in future.'

Greenwood was responding to several serious incidents in the Highfields area of Bristol around Christmas 2015 where a number of people were shot and stabbed.

The weapon, the type of which was used by British and Argentinian commandos on the Falklands Islands in 1982, was due to be delivered to Bristol on April 29, 2016.

Simon Christopher, pictured, was handed a five-year jail term having admitted possession of a prohibited weapon and ammunition at Bristol Crown Court

The gun, which can fire 550 rounds per minute, was hidden in a black spots bag.

A team of specialist firearms officers stopped the BMW on the London Road in Warmley, which is in south Gloucestershire between Bristol and Bath.

The three men were sentenced to a total of 35 years by Bristol Crown Court.

Greenwood, 29, of College Court, Bristol, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life. He was handed a 17-year jail term.

Raymond Ray, 31, of Porchester Road, Bournemouth was jailed for 13 years having been convicted on charges of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent.

The third member of the gang, Simon Christopher, 42, of Lydney Road, Bristol, was handed a five-year jail term having admitting possession of a prohibited weapon and ammunition.

At an earlier trial, four men were jailed for a total of 19 years having been caught trying to exchange firearms in Bristol in October 2016. Greenwood, who was on bail for the sub-machine gun charge, was also convicted of this offence.

Detective Chief Inspector James Riccio from Operation Talon said: 'This was a tremendous example of intelligence-led investigative policing at its best. I would like to thank the team of officers involved in this well-executed cross-border operation which demonstrated excellent teamwork involving specialist undercover firearms officers working in collaboration with officers in Dorset and also from the local policing area in Bristol.

'There is no doubt in my mind that those who have been convicted had every intention of using this dangerous firearm. It had the potential to maim or even kill others.

The gang also were found in possession of 9mm ammunition to fit the sub-machine gun

'There is no doubt in my mind, the sub machine gun seized was intended to be used and had this happened, which it could have had serious repercussions, with potential risk for innocent members of the community in the East Bristol area.

'We hope that our robust action  together with the courts decision today to put these people behind bars - should provide reassurance to those living in that community.

'We remain resolute, relentlessly seeking these serious career criminals and removing them from our streets. We also remain committed to locating and seizing illegal firearms in order to prevent their criminal use in and around the city.'
A coconut crab has been filmed methodically stalking, killing and eating a seabird in behaviour that has shocked scientists in a calculated attack that has been described as 'gruesome.'

The deadly crab climbed a tree and crept up on a sleeping sea bird in its nest on the remote Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.

It then plunged its powerful claw, which has the strength of a lion's jaw, into the bird, breaking it's wing and sending it crashing from the tree to the sand below.

The killer crustacean followed the injured, struggling bird and broke its other wing as the bird lunged about desperately and squawked in terror.

Once the bird was lying helpless on the ground, five other coconut crabs arrived and tore the bird apart.

Researcher Mark Laidre from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire in America, filmed the macabre sight which may shed new light on the behaviour of this species and he spoke to New Scientist about the incredible discovery.

'It was pretty gruesome,' Mr Laidre said.

Mr Laidre now plans a follow-up study to investigate whether this new form of hunting is widespread on the island

He wants to place cameras by the crabs' burrows to explore their predatory habits.

Coconut crabs are the largest land-dwelling invertebrate, weighing up to 4kg and stretching one-metre wide.

Mr Laidre's discovery shows for the first time that these enormous creatures can actively hunt large, back-boned animals, and suggests they might dominate their island ecosystems.

Nestled in the vastness of the Indian Ocean between East Africa and the southern tip of Asia, Chagos is ideal for studying coconut crabs.

It is protected by one of the largest marine reserves on Earth so its environment is pristine and it provides a home to many coconut crabs.

The deadly crab was filmed as it attacked a sea bird, breaking its wings to incapacitate it on the remote Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean

It then devoured the injured bird in scenes that have never been witnessed before and which have revealed new areas for scientific study

Researcher Mark Laidre from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire in America, filmed the macabre sight which may shed new light on the behaviour of this species

A researcher in Japan proved last year that the the coconut crab can pinch with a force of up to 3300 newtons, stronger than any other crustacean and comparable to a big predator's bite, like a lion's.

Shin-ichiro Oka at the Okinawa Churashima Foundation Research Center in Japan said: 'The claws of coconut crabs can generate a force 80 to 100 times the mass of their body.'

'The crab in the video seems to be about 2 kilograms, so it would be able to easily break the bird's bones.'

The Chagos islands include more than 60 tropical tropical islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of the Maldives.

The UK and the Maldives contest their sovereignty.

Officially under British control, the Chagos were home to a Creole-speaking people for more than 150 years until Britain evicted them between 1967 and 1973 to allow America to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands.

Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, and only by military and civilian contracted personnel.

A UN general assembly vote in June saw delegates support a Mauritian-backed resolution to seek an advisory opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) on the legal status of the Chagos Islands.

The evicted Chagos people are now taking a legal challenge in a bid to return to the islands and to win the right to fish in the protected marine reserve that now wraps around the archipelago.
The bride-to-be of Britain's most violent prisoner Charles Bronson claims he could be a free man in as little as four years.

Soap star Paula Williamson, who is due to marry Bronson - now known as Charles Salvador - at HMP Wakefield next week, said that a parole hearing this week went 'really well'.

Speaking on LBC radio this morning she said the parole hearing, which took place on Tuesday, had raised her hopes that she might be able start a family with Salvador in as little as four years.

The 37-year-old actress, who has appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street, said it was 'frustrating' that she wasn't allowed conjugal visits with her 64-year-old partner - whose real name is Michael Peterson - but said she was 'willing to wait'.

Paula Williamson, who is due to marry Charles Bronson next week, appeared on LBC radio this morning where she claimed he could be a free man in as little as four years

Ms Williamson also revealed that after marrying Bronson (pictured) she will jet off on a 'honeymoon' to Malta with friends

The 37-year-old actress, who has appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street, said it was 'frustrating' that she wasn't allowed conjugal visits with her 64-year-old partner

She said: 'He wants to be a father.

'We haven't had a physical relationship as conjugal visits aren't allowed in Britain - we would love it, but it won't happen.

'It's not ideal, you expect it (a physical relationship) when you get married, but I'm willing to wait.'

Speaking about how the parole hearing went this week, she said her hopes were raised that her husband-to-be could be out in four or five years.

She said: 'He could be out in four or five years not 10 years, that's what we spoke about at the parole hearing.

'The decision is not made yet, but the hearing went really well.'

Speaking about the ceremony due to take place art HMP Wakefield next week, Miss Williamson, who lives in Stoke-on-Trent, said that Salvador planned to surprise her with a song, like he did when he proposed singing 'My Way' earlier this year.

She said: 'He is going to sing another song, but I don't know what it will be as it's a surprise.

Ms Williamson (pictured) said a parole hearing on Tuesday had raised her hopes that she might be able start a family with Salvador in as little as four years

The rings they will exchange will have CPS engraved on them - standing for Charlie & Paula Salvador, but which is also the acronym for the Crown Prosecution Service

'He (Salvador) is very excited - it will be the first time he's worn zipped trousers in 20 years.

'He is wearing a wedding suit and I'll be in a white dress.'

She said that Salvador hadn't worn trousers with a zip in 20-odd years because of security risks - and said he normally just wore 'gym gear'.

The rings they will exchange will have CPS engraved on them - standing for Charlie & Paula Salvador, but which is also the acronym for the Crown Prosecution Service.

WHEN WILLIAMSON FIRST MET BRONSON Bronson is one of the country's most notorious prisoners and has spent the majority of the past four decades imprisoned for a series of violent crimes. In recent years he has turned his hand to art and changed his surname from Bronson to Salvador in tribute to the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali. He first struck up a relationship with Miss Williamson - who also had roles in Emmerdale and Hollyoaks - back in 2013 after they started writing to one another. Bronson has previously said he wants to have children with Miss Williamson, claiming he would be the 'best dad in the world'. He was first locked up for armed robbery in 1974, but during his time inside he has taken hostages in 10 prison sieges, attacked at least 20 prison officers and caused 500,000 in damage in rooftop protests. Advertisement

Miss Williamson also revealed that after the ceremony at 2pm next Tuesday she will head off to a local hotel with friends and family before jetting off to Malta on her 'honeymoon'.

She said: 'He (Charlie) told me to go on honeymoon without him, so I'm going to Malta with friends.'

Speaking previously, Miss Williamson said that Salvador was a 'changed man' and had not been violent in three years.

She said: 'He will not be in jail for the rest of his days - I will make sure personally he won't be in jail for the rest of his days.

'I won't give up. When I want something I always get it and I want him out and he's going to be out, end of.'

She added: 'Why would I be with a man who has been in jail for so long? I'm in love with the man. I'm not in love with the fact he's a prisoner. Behind every prisoner is a person.

'He's done some things he's not proud of but he can only blame himself, he blames no-one else.'

She said that Salvador had not been violent in the past three years and was instead concentrating on his artwork.

She added: 'We are not asking for him to be let out tomorrow, just get him off segregation where he is now and allow him to progress through the system towards his release.

'He has been a loose cannon in the past, however, in the past three years since he changed his name to Charles Salvador he has not committed a violent offence whatsoever.

'His artwork has saved him, it's his salvation as he's locked up for 22 hours a day.'

After passing a string of violence reductions courses in prison, Salvador - real name Michael Peterson - is now appealing against his life sentence.

Salvador was first locked up for armed robbery in 1974, but during his time inside he has taken hostages in 10 prison sieges, attacked at least 20 prison officers and caused 500,000 in damage in rooftop protests.

In 1999 he was given a life sentence after taking prison art teacher Phil Danielson hostage at HMP Hull after he criticised one of his drawings.

The parole board is set to make a decision on Salvador's future within the next two weeks.

The parole board is set to make a decision on Salvador's future within the next two weeks
Released from jail in September after inciting crime spree that shook Melbourne

The 18-year-old one of original Apex members and was a 'one-man crime wave'

A ringleader of Melbourne's notorious Apex gang has been thrown back behind bars following a violent home invasion just weeks after he was released from prison.

Police swooped to arrest the 18-year-old and his two alleged accomplices, aged 17 and 19, after what police allege was an aggravated home invasion in Geelong last week.

The 18-year-old, who was released from jail in September, incited a series of carjackings, home invasions and armed robberies across Melbourne last year, the Herald Sun reported.

A ringleader of Melbourne's notorious Apex gang has been thrown back behind bars following a violent home invasion just weeks after he was released from prison

Police swooped to arrest the 18-year-old and his two alleged accomplices, aged 17 and 19, after what police say was an aggravated home invasion in Geelong

The teenager was one of the original members of the gang and was a 'one-man crime wave,' a source told the publication.

The burglary was committed at a home in the suburb of Leopold at around 2am on November 2, Victoria Police said in a statement.

'The three men have each been charged with aggravated home invasion, (assault) with a firearm, reckless conduct endangering life, being a prohibited person using a firearm, intentionally causing injury, and theft of motor vehicle,' the statement read.

The 18-year-old appeared at Melbourne Magistrates' Court last week and is due to face Geelong Magistrates' Court in February.
Politicians facing sex harassment claims are being treated worse than terrorists as they are being kept in the dark about the allegations against them, John Bercow last night warned.

Commons speaker said the tragic death of Labour politician Carl Sargeant - who took his own life after being sacked over allegations - was 'predictable.

And he demanded that MPs who are suspended from their parties are told the details of the accusations against them as 'we believe in a fair trial'.

His blistering attack comes after Westminster has been rocked by a string of sex assault and harassment claims against politicians and party officials dating back years.

But some MPs have warned the scandal turning into a witch hunt and politicians are being treated as 'guilty until proven innocent'.

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, pictured in Parliament, last night warned that MPs facing sex harassment allegations are being treated worse than terrorists as they are not being told the allegations against them

In a speech to students at the Mile End Institute in east London last night, Mr Bercow said people are 'entitled' to know the accusations against them.

He said: 'It's analogous to the way we behave in relation to terrorists.

'We have certain standards and, I hope, insist on upholding our standards.

'The fact a terrorist or would-be dictator doesn't care about human rights and is willing to slaughter innocent people in pursuit of his or her prejudices, doesn't mean we should operate in the same way.

'We believe in a fair trial. We believe innocent until proven guilty. We believe in due process.

'OK, on a different scale, but the principle is we give people due process. We have an obligation behind it. It's absolutely unarguable.'

His comments came as Charlie Elphicke, MP for Dover, attacked Theresa May for taking the whip away from him while not telling him the allegations he faces.

Tory former Culture Secretary John Whittigdale today told BBC Radio 5 Live that it is 'unjust' that Mr Elphicke does not know the allegations against him.

He added: 'Everybody is entitled to justice and at the very least to know what they have been accused of.'

And Mr Bercow also echoed these views, saying: 'For God's sake that Member [of Parliament] is entitled to know of what he or she is accused and that member is entitled to learn when a judgment has been made about his situation, of that suspension first hand not first through the media.'

He was asked directly about the death of Mr Sargeant, the Welsh Assembly member and father-of-two was found at his home days after being sacked over groping claims.

The Commons Speaker said the tragic death highlighted the need to give information and support to those facing potentially career-ending claims.

He said: 'In terms of protection of the frailties of the accused, I think that's incredibly important in light of what has happened in Wales, but it was predictable.

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke yesterday said he has still not been told the details of the claims made against him - a week after he was suspended by the Tories and referred to police

'Even if people are suspected of wrongdoing, they may well need, and should be given help, understanding and support.

'For example it may be, I am not referring to any particular case, it may be that someone who is suspected of committing, or has committed an offence, or even something that is not an offence or is widely regarded as abuse.

'Such a person might have problems in his or her life and need support in tackling that, or living with it, or managing it.

'I think that is part of our responsibility.'

He warned that that the Westminster sex pest scandal 'could' be as damaging for trust in politicians as the expenses scandal.

All the main political parties have agreed to crack down on sex abuse and harassment and to draw up rules to give greater protection to those working for MPs.
Weeks after his arrival in Britain, Hasan Alkhabbaz groped six women as they made their way through a central London underpass

A Syrian refugee who carried out a series of sex attacks a month after he and his family were given special fast track asylum has been jailed for 16 months.

Weeks after his arrival in Britain, Hasan Alkhabbaz groped six women as they made their way through the Joe Strummer Subway in Paddington, central London.

The 22-year-old lurked in the underpass before pouncing on his terrified victims between 14 November last year and 3 March.

He admitted six charges of sexual assault at Southwark Crown Court last month and was today jailed for 16 months.

The court heard that he got a sexual thrill of seeing the horror in the faces of his victims as he attacked them.

Alkhabbaz and his relatives were all allowed to settle in the UK after claiming they had suffered terrible ordeals in the Middle East.

Alkhabbaz insisted he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he saw his sister die in a bomb attack.

But psychiatrists who examined Alkhabbaz found there was nothing wrong with him.

Alkhabbaz was handed a suspended sentence in May this year for a similar offence committed on 5 March while investigations into the earlier spree were ongoing.

He was arrested at Heathrow Airport on 8 September trying to board a flight to Egypt and on to Sudan.

Alkhabbaz had a Syrian passport issued just six days after his travel ban.

Sentencing him today, Judge Jeffery Pegden QC said: During the four months that you committed these six offences, you demonstrated predatory behaviour by continually targeting lone, vulnerable women and sexually assaulting them in underpasses in London.

These offences formed a pattern of offending and were committed when the women were alone and isolated.

They were committed in broad daylight and must have required a degree of planning, as you loitered in the vicinity of the underpasses waiting for a victim.

Moreover, there was an escalation in the aggression that you used in grabbing the womens bottoms or putting your hand underneath their clothing, between their legs and in their groin area, and grabbing their crotches.

The offences were clearly sexually motivated and I have no doubt you received sexual gratification from the womens reactions before you ran away.

Daniel Pawson-Pounds, prosecuting, said Alkhabbaz carried out the first attack on 14 November at 11.05am.

The 22-year-old lurked in the Joe Strummer Subway in Paddington, central London, before pouncing on his terrified victims between 14 November last year and 3 March (stock photo)

He told the court: A woman entered the subway, she had just left her boyfriends home address.

As she walks under she became aware a man walking towards her that man was the defendant. They passed each other but she became aware he had turned around and began to follow her.

Despite her suspicions she continued to walk through the underpass, as she began to climb the stairs to exit, the defendant approached her from behind and grabbed her bottom.

She screamed and turned to confront the defendant and he then ran back into the underpass towards a different exit.

The victim said she specifically doesnt use the subway anymore because she feels its unsafe and is now anxious in public spaces.

Mr Pawson-Pounds said the pervert struck again four days later at 11.50am, again in the Joe Strummer subway.

He said: The defendant walks towards her, passed her, turned around then begins to follow her.

Again, the victim was approached from behind this time the defendant placed his hands between her legs from behind touching her crotch with an open palm.

That victim said in a statement she feels very jumpy and avoids public places.

She was on her way to a job interview at the time and says not being able to attend has negatively affected her career progression.

Mr Pawson-Pounds added: The defendant was stopped by police in the Joe Strummer subway on 22 November.

His behaviour was such it attracted police officers attending. He said he did not speak English and could not provide an explanation for his presence there.

But on January 24 at 4.15pm he struck again underneath the A40 near Marylebone Road, grabbing a womans bottom and groin area.

He was at the Joe Strummer Subway on February 28 at 7.10pm, when he slid his woman under a womans skirt and groped her.

That victim said she still feels anxious and worries about being assaulted again.

Alkhabbaz groped his fifth victim just after 10am on March 1.

She said the assault completely demeaned her in every way, and she has struggled to complete university work.

The sixth attack happened just two days later at 7.15am.

The victim became aware of the defendant in the Joe Strummer Subway behind her, said the prosecutor.

She felt the defendants hand push up her coat move in between her legs from behind and touch her genital area with his fingers.

The victim said she felt alone and vulnerable after the assault and blames it for the breakdown of the relationship with her boyfriend.

Alkhabbaz was arrested on 7 March this year in connection with the assaults.

Mr Alkhabbaz and his family arrived in the UK in October last year fleeing the conflict in Syria, said his barrister Kenneth Newman.

They were fast-tracked into the UK.

Mr Alkhabbaz lost a sister in Syria due to bombing and I am told by Mr Alkhabbazs father they were under siege for a number of months.

Mr Newman said Alkhabbaz suffered from PTSD after fleeing war torn Syria for the UK under the United Nations Refugee Programme.

He said: He is the youngest of five children. He has a brother and sister in Egypt, one in Dubai.

'One sister who was a doctor was killed by a bomb to a building in Syria. He personally witnessed the bombing of the building in which his sister died.

His family were being subjected to ongoing bombing. Both Mr Alkhabbaz and his father describe to me seeing dead bodies of friends and colleagues and walking over dead bodies. Something that no-one should really have to see.

Alkhabbaz, of Fonthill Road, Islington, north London, admitted six counts of sexual assault.

He was jailed for 16 months and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order.
A wealthy antiques dealer accused of strangling his seven-year-old daughter has been formally charged with her murder.

Robert Peters, 55, allegedly attacked Sophia with a dressing gown cord at the 1million family home near Wimbledon, south-west London, last Friday morning.

It is understood Peters rang the police before they arrived at the property. The girl's Thai mother Kittiya Promsat is believed to have been out at the time.

Sophia was rushed to St George's Hospital in Tooting and placed on a life support machine but died the following day.

Robert Peters has been charged with the murder of his seven-year-old daughter Sophia (right)

Her father had initially been charged with attempted murder but was brought before Judge Mark Lucraft QC for a hearing at the Old Bailey this morning.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer told the court Peters had been charged with murder in the cells at the court shortly before the hearing began.

The balding defendant had a plaster on his head and wore a grey sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms in the dock. He spoke only to confirm his identity.

Judge Lucraft set a plea hearing for January 26 and a provisional trial at the Old Bailey on April 23. Peters was remanded in custody until the next court date.

The defendant runs an antiques firm with his brother in Kensington, west London, specialising in oriental ceramics and artworks.

No family members attended the short hearing.

The girl's mother, Kittiya Promsat (left), is thought to have been out of the home at the time
The father of a brain-damaged baby at the centre of a High Court life-support treatment dispute has been barred from visiting the hospital where the infant is being cared for, a judge has been told.

Lanre Hasstrup was banned from King's College Hospital in London following an incident a few days ago, Mr Justice MacDonald heard.

Detail emerged as Mr Justice MacDonald analysed the latest stage of a dispute over the treatment of Isaiah Hasstrup in a private hearing at the Family Division of the High Court on Friday.

Lanre Hasstrup, left, pictured with his partner Takesha Thomas, right, has been barred by staff from King's College Hospital in London where their infant son Isaiah is being treated

Isaiah, pictured, suffered serious brain damage due to possible oxygen deprivation which experts at King's College Hospital claim makes further intensive care treatment 'futile'

Specialists at King's College Hospital say giving further intensive care treatment to the seven-month-old is 'futile, burdensome and not in his best interests'.

Isaiah's mother, Takesha Thomas, and father want treatment to continue.

Mr Justice MacDonald is expected to make a ruling on Isaiah's future following a trial starting on January 15.

He has made an order barring staff caring for Isaiah, whose family home is in Peckham, south-east London, from being identified in media reports.

Isaiah's parents reject the medical evidence and insist the hospital should continue treating their son who was born on February 18 in King's College Hospital in London

Barrister Fiona Paterson, who is representing King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, told Mr Justice MacDonald that Isaiah was born at King's College Hospital on February 18 with a severe brain injury thought to have been caused by a deprivation of oxygen.

She said he is 'ventilator-dependent' and being cared for in a paediatric intensive care unit. Doctors do not think there are any 'further investigations or forms of treatment' which would benefit him.

She told the judge on Friday that relations between hospital bosses and Isaiah's parents were 'difficult'.

Mr Hasstrup had been banned as a result of an incident on Friday last week, she said.

Mr Justice MacDonald listed the case for a full hearing on January 15 but he urged the parents and the hospital to enter mediation to avoid the need for a full trial next year

Lawyers representing the hospital gave little detail of the 'incident'.

But Mr Hasstrup told the judge there had been 'no violence'.

He said he was considering taking legal action in a bid to overturn the ban.

He said: 'There was no violence. Police were simply called by the (hospital staff) for breach of the peace.

'I am not a saint but I am not a demon either, as is being portrayed.'

Mr Justice MacDonald said he wanted Isaiah's parents and hospital bosses to mediate in the hope of reaching agreement and avoiding the need for a trial.
It was found when someone cutting the grass smelled something strange

Her remains were discovered behind a church in Charlotte, North Carolina

Billie's body was found more than 300 miles from her home in September

Billie was last seen on a Virginia naval base which Brown was allowed to acess due to his Navy service

A homeless Navy veteran was charged Wednesday with kidnapping a young woman who was found dead days after going missing from her job on a Virginia naval base.

Eric Brian Brown, 45, was charged with kidnapping Ashanti Billie, 19.

She was reported missing on September 18 after she failed to show up for work at a fast-food restaurant on Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Virginia.

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Police said that they have charged Eric Brian Brown (pictured left), 45, with kidnapping Ashanti Billie, 19

Her remains were discovered behind a church in Charlotte, North Carolina (Pictured: East Stonewall AME Zion Church)

Her body was found Sept. 29 behind a church in Charlotte, North Carolina more than 300 miles away.

Authorities say a man cutting grass at East Stonewall AME Zion Church smelled something strange, which turned out to be 19-year-old's body.

Billie moved to Virginia to attend culinary arts classes at the Art Institute of Virginia Beach, NBC News reported, following her graduation from Henry Wise High School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 2016.

She was thought to be arriving at work at the Blimpie sandwich shop where she was employed as an assistant manager.

According to a criminal complaint, Brown worked as a day laborer and lived at buildings on and around the base.

As a retired petty officer, Brown had access to the base, court documents said.

Prosecutors said the 21-year Navy veteran visited the restaurant where Billie worked almost daily.

Billie's body was found more than 300 miles from her Virginia home in September

Surveillance video shows a man who resembles Brown driving Billie's car the day she went missing, according to court documents.

Her car was then spotted by neighbors on September 23 abandoned on a dead-end street in the Ocean View part of Norfolk.

The man throws an item into a trash can; construction workers later found Billie's cellphone there and turned it over to police in Norfolk.

Billie's body was found a few hundred yards from Brown's childhood home, documents indicate.

Brown was arrested on unrelated trespassing charges in October, prosecutors said, and investigators questioned him about Billie's disappearance.

Brown said he was on the base Sept. 17, when he said he blacked out and had no recollection of what he did for several days after that.

DNA recovered from Billie's body was consistent with Brown's DNA profile, prosecutors said.

Brown faces up to life in prison if convicted on the kidnapping charge. It could not be immediately determined if he has a lawyer.
The family of a British woman jailed in Egypt fear they will have to leave her alone in a 'hellhole' prison - as she is unlikely to be freed during a court appearance tomorrow.

Laura Plummer's relatives have been told the best outcome of her appearance before a judge in Hurghada is that he agrees to grant her bail.

But as the 33-year-old is a foreign national being held on such serious charges she would be considered a 'flight risk' and have her passport taken away by the Egyptian authorities.

It means she will be forced to remain in the Red Sea resort until the criminal investigation into her alleged drug smuggling is completed.

Police sources said the criminal investigation could last another month or even longer.

Anxious: The family of Laura Plummer, a British holidaymaker jailed in Egypt, fear they'll have to leave her alone in a 'hellhole' jail after she appears in court on Saturday. Pictured: Ms Plummer's mother Roberta (right), sister Jayne Sinclair (left) and brother Kirk at their hotel

Nightmare: Ms Plummer (pictured) was held after customs officers found almost three hundred painkillers in her suitcase when she entered the country. The pills were for her boyfriend hotel worker Omar Caboo after he requested them to help deal with a back problem

In custody: Since her incarceration Ms Plummer has received no visits from Mr Caboo (above with Ms Plummer) who has reportedly vanished from the resort of Hurghada and has had no contact with her family while she languished in jail

A family member told MailOnline they are desperate for her to be granted bail.

'All we want now is for her to get out of prison. We are confident that the police investigation will show she is innocent. That might take time, but at least she will be free.'

But the family source said they had accepted they will not be able to fly back with Ms Plummer when they leave Hurghada on Sunday.

'That was what we hoped for but we have been told it is very unlikely.'

Her lawyer told MailOnline the judge will either grant her bail or order her to be locked up a further 15 days so police can continue their investigation.

Lawyer Mohamed Osman said: 'Laura will not be free after the court case. She will either get bail or sent back to the prison for another 15 days.'

The shop worker from Hull has spent a month in a 'hell hole' detention centre since being arrested on October 9th.

She was held after customs officers found almost three hundred painkillers in her suitcase when she entered the country.

The pills she was carrying were for her boyfriend hotel worker Omar Caboo after he requested them to help deal with a back problem.

The powerful painkillers are banned in Egypt where they are sold on the black market as a heroin substitute.

Hopes dashed: Ms Plummer's family (pictured) has been told the best outcome in court is that she is grant bail, but that her passport will be confiscated, leaving her stranded in the resort

Home alone: A family member told MailOnline they were desperate for bail. But the family source said they had accepted Laura would not leave with them on Sunday. 'That was what we hoped for but we have been told it is very unlikely.' Pictured: Ms Plummer's mother and sister

Prison visit: The family paid Ms Plummer an emotional visit in prison on Thursday and await to hear the outcome of Saturday's court appearance

Legal fight: Ms Plummer's mother Roberta and sister Jayne are pictured on This Morning

Ordeal: The shop worker from Hull, East Yorkshire, (pictured) has been locked up and languishing in a prison in the Red Sea resort for allegedly smuggling painkillers into Egypt

Ms Plummer has protested her innocence and said she had no idea the drugs were on a banned list.

But she has been labelled an 'international drug smuggler' and detained in a cramped prison cell.

Caboo, 34, has fled from Hurghada to leave his girlfriend at the mercy of the Egyptian justice systems.

The couple went signed documents 18 months ago that allowed Ms Plummer to live with Omar during her twice-yearly visits.

He was already married but under Muslim law allowed to take a second wife. The documents meant they could stay in the same room together and not break any laws.

Police sources said Caboo would have known the drug Tramadol was illegal but failed to mention this to his girlfriend of four years.

She was caught with 290 pills and other painkillers after a customs search of her luggage at Hurghada International Airport.

All tourists arriving have to put their suitcases through a scanner before leaving the terminal and the strips of Tramadol were spotted lying on top of her clothes.

Court appearance: Ms Plummer will appear in court on Saturday where she hopes to be granted bail as she fights charges of drugs smuggling. Her family are in Egypt to support her

Ms Plummer brought the drugs for 'husband' Omar, who suffers from back problems. Her sister said the pair's marriage 'means nothing' and Omar is already married

Ordeal: Ms Plummer, left, could face 25 years in prison with no parole, life imprisonment or even the death penalty

Happier times: Ms Plummer (centre), pictured with her sisters Rachel Plummer and Jayne Synclair, is facing the death penalty in Egypt for carrying painkillers into the country

She has been held in a detention centre at a police station on the outskirts of the city since her arrest.

Her complaints about conditions she is being held in met with scorn from prison bosses who told MailOnline: 'This is not the Sheraton'  a reference to a five star hotel chain.

She is due to appear at the main criminal court in Hurghada on Saturday morning.

Her lawyer said he would be making an application for bail but there is no guarantee the judge will agree to the request.

'Laura is still under criminal investigation. The case is proceeding.'

Osman has been representing the family after an intervention by the British embassy in Cairo.

A previous lawyer who offered to help her took a 10,000 fee and vanished.

Osman, who has worked with the British Embassy on other cases, runs his own law firm called Egypt Advocates.

She will be brought to the court in a blue prison van and if other women are due to appear they will be shackled together.

Her mother Roberta, sister Jayne and brother Kirk, who flew out to Hurghada, plan to be at the court to support her.

Concern: The family members in Hurghada have been keeping a low profile and rarely leaving the five star seafront hotel where they are staying

Laura Plummer, left, is being held by Egyptian authorities after taking tramadol into the country

While being granted bail would be a huge step forward another lawyer familiar with drugs cases said the judge might consider the British holidaymaker a flight risk.

'Once this woman is out there is nothing stopping her applying to the embassy for another passport. It is unlikely given her high profile now from all the publicity but the judge might decide anyway.'

The three family members who flew out to Hurghada were able to spend over an hour with her during a prison visit on Thursday afternoon.

They took in three bags packed with food supplies but have not commented publically about her condition.

Sister Jayne has previously said Laura was suicidal while her mum said she was almost unrecognisable when she last visited her.

The family members in Hurghada have been keeping a low profile and rarely leaving the five star seafront hotel where they are staying.
Britain's greatest traitor has warned that the world is facing new nuclear apocalypse in his 95th birthday message.

George Blake, who fed information to the Kremlin while working as an MI6 agent in the 1950s, has lived in Russia since dramatically escaping from London's Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966.

Today the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service released a statement on his behalf and wished him a happy birthday for tomorrow.

George Blake (pictured in 2015), who fed information to the Kremlin while working as an MI6 agent, has lived in Russia since dramatically escaping from London's Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966

In the statement Blake said Russian spies must 'save the world in a situation when the danger of nuclear war and the resulting self-destruction of humankind again have been put on the agenda by irresponsible politicians.'

'It's a true battle between good and evil,' he added.

Blake also said that terrorism has 'left bloody traces in many corners of the world.'

SVR chief Sergei Naryshkin congratulated Blake on his birthday, saying Blake had been a role model for the agency's officers.

As a double agent, Blake passed some of the most coveted British secrets to the Soviet Union, including a Western plan to eavesdrop on Soviet communications from an underground tunnel into East Berlin.

A Polish defector exposed Blake as a spy for Russia in 1961. He was convicted on spying charges in Britain and sentenced to 42 years in prison. In October 1966, he made a dashing escape with help from several people he met while in custody.

Left: Blake in Britain as a 38-year-old. Right: Blake in Russia in the 1970s

Blake spent two months hiding at his assistant's place and was then driven across Europe to East Berlin inside a wooden box attached under a car.

Blake said in a 2012 interview with the Russian government daily newspaper that he adapted well to life in Russia and once joked at a meeting with Russian intelligence officers that he's like a 'foreign-made car that adapted well to Russian roads.'

Blake served five years of a 42-year sentence when he fled over the prison wall using a ladder made of knitting needles and rope.

He was smuggled to the East German border by two anti-nuclear campaigners hidden in a secret compartment built into a camper van.

His lives in a spacious dacha in woods and apart from failing eyesight appears largely in good health.

He is accused of sending Western agents to their deaths by betraying them to his Soviet paymasters.

1992: George Blake, a former British spy who doubled as a Soviet agent, gestures during a news conference in Moscow

In 2012 Blake was found in a pine forest 25 miles from Moscow, with his wife, Ida, 77, whom he married in 1969, their son, Misha, and his two children.

Blake who has the rank of Lt Col in the former KGB, remains a Russian hero and to mark his 85th birthday in 2007 was awarded the Order of Friendship medal by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Over the years he has also received the orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Patriotic War 1st Class, and the Order for Personal Courage.

In an interview in 2012 to mark his birthday, he told Rossikaya Gazeta: 'These are the happiest years of my life, and the most peaceful. When I worked in the West, I always had the risk of exposure hanging over me ... here I feel free.'

Blake (pictured aged 38 in Britain) spent two months hiding at his assistant's place and was then driven across Europe to East Berlin inside a wooden box attached under a car

Blake has never displayed any remorse for betraying his country. But unlike some of his fellow spies, who never really settled in the Soviet Union, he adapted easily to life behind the Iron Curtain.

Blake was a member of the Dutch resistance during the Second World War and eventually fled the Nazis, arriving in London in 1943. Soon he was working for MI6.

While posted to the British embassy in Seoul in 1950 he was captured by the North Korean forces, who 'turned' him before he was released three years later.

He was later posted to Berlin at the height of the Cold War, where he began to spy for the Soviet Union, betraying agents until his capture.
Gold Coast boy Tyrell Cobb told his uncle he'd been punched in the stomach by his mother's boyfriend in a conversation shortly before he died, a court has heard.

Heidi Strbak has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of criminal negligence over her four-year-old son's death on May 24, 2009.

But the 34-year-old is facing a contested sentencing hearing because prosecutors claim she was responsible for the blunt force trauma that caused the death.

Tyrell Cobb told his uncle, Danial Allan (pictured), he'd been punched in the stomach by his mother's boyfriend in a conversation shortly before he died, a court heard

Tyrell, 4, was found unconscious at a Gold Coast property and later died in hospital from internal bleeding and stomach injuries caused by blunt force trauma

Her brother Danial Allan testified in the Brisbane Supreme Court that his nephew claimed to him that he'd been punched in the stomach by Strbak's then-boyfriend Matthew Scown.

Mr Allan said he couldn't recall if Scown was in the home at the time of his conversation with the little boy, who didn't say when the alleged blow was dealt.

He later said he thought Scown may have been on the balcony when Mr Allan and his sister left the unit.

But the court heard Mr Allan didn't mention what the boy had said to him when he was alone with Strbak.

Matthew Scown (pictured), 34, was handed four years jail for the manslaughter of his stepson in October, but his sentence was immediately suspended after having served two years and eight months in custody

When asked by Justice Applegarth why he didn't think to report the allegation of abuse to the child's mother, Mr Allan replied: 'It didn't enter my mind'.

He also told the judge he didn't think to take the child with them to avoid leaving him alone in the property with Scown because Tyrell was already asleep.

Mr Allan's evidence came a day after emotions ran high following the testimony of Tyrell's biological father, Jason Cobb, which culminated in a glass door into the courtroom being damaged.

Scown was last month sentenced to four years' jail for manslaughter but walked from court, having already spent two years and eight months in custody.

Strbak's sentencing is expected to return to court next week.
An ally of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has reached back thousands of years to put forward a biblical defense of the Republican accused of touching girls as young as 14 decades ago.

Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler invoked teenage bridal practices of the ancient world and cited scripture about Mary and Joseph, the parents of Jesus.

'Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,' Zeigler told the Washington Examiner after the bombshell allegations broke.

'Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,' Zeigler said.

'There's just nothing immoral or illegal here,' Zeigler concluded. 'Maybe just a little bit unusual.'

Holy family of the lamb, 1507 (Raphael). 'Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,' said Jim Zeigler, an ally of Judge Roy Moore, who has been accused of dating and touching girls as young as 14 decades ago

Zeigler, who endorsed Moore, also blasted the Washington Post, saying it had 'paid investigators' trolling the state for information. The paper reported that it interviewed 30 women in its expose.

'First, Roy Moore denies the report,' Zeigler told AL.com. 'Secondly, it happened 37 years ago. Third, in each of the alleged incidents, the Washington Post says there was no sexual intercourse and he did not attempt sexual intercourse.'

'So even if you believe the Washington Post story, he stopped. But he denies the Washington Post report,' Zeigler added.

Some biblical analyses place the age of Mary at between 12 and 14 when she was visited by the angel Gabriel in advance of the birth of Jesus, based on Hebrew practices at the time.

On Thursday, the Post published a story quoting four women who say that Moore made sexual overtures at them and touched them when they were underage.

Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,' said Zeigler

Moore (seen above on September 25) is running to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions in the Senate. An ally defended him from a report that he dated girls as young as 14 decades ago by invoking the Bible

Moore, Republican nominee for Senate, speaks at an endorsement event on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Thirteen Alabama Sheriff's endorsed Moore

'I wanted it over with  I wanted out,' the woman, Leigh Corfman, told the Post as she recalled the experience. 'Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.'

According to her account, Moore, who was then a local prosecutor, met Coffman when she accompanied her mother to a custody hearing at the county courthouse in Gadsden, Alabama

She says Moore took an interest in her and got her phone number. Later, he called and picked her up at her home, taking the then-14 year old Coffman to his house in the woods.

'I remember the further I got from my house, the more nervous I got,' Corfman said. By her account, Moore kissed her on a first date. At a subsequent meeting, also at his home, he touched her over her bra and underwear, then removed his clothes and had her touch him over his 'tight white' underwear, according to the account in the Post.

Early pictures of the Holy family depict a youthful Mary. Holy Family with the arms of Barbara of Brandenburg, wife of Ludovico Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (Antonio Vivarini) (c. 1415-between 1476-84)

'If these allegations are true, he must step aside,' said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky immediately after the report was published

Moore called the allegations 'completely false' and vigorously denied them in a statement.

Coffman, who now works as a customer service rep at payday lender, was approached by the paper, which was following up leads on rumors of Moore having pursued relationships with young girls early in his career.

'I have prayed over this,' Corfman said. 'All I know is that I can't sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed.'

She said of Moore at the time: 'He was charming and smiley.' After both meetings, she says she asked Moore to take her home and he did.

When they first met, 'I was kind of giddy, excited, you know? An older guy, you know?' Corfman said.

'This was a new experience, and it was exciting and fun and scary,' Corfman recalled. 'It was just like this roller-coaster ride you've not been on.'

But she expressed clear discomfort about the physical interactions she says happened. 'I wasn't ready for that  I had never put my hand on a man's penis, much less an erect one,' Corfman said.

She thought: 'I don't want to do this' and 'I need to get out of here.'

'I felt responsible,' she says. 'I felt like I had done something bad. And it kind of set the course for me doing other things that were bad

The Holy Family (Doni Tondo), Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence Buonarroti, Michelangelo 1504 Florence

After the publication of the story Thursday, Senate leaders immediately called for Moore to step aside if the allegations prove too, though Moore has been defiant and disputes it.

'Like most Americans the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person's life,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One as it descended toward Da Nang, Vietnam.

'However,' she continued, 'the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside.'

'I refuse to stand down,' Moore said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for Moore to 'step aside' if stunning new allegations against him are true.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona went further, calling for him to 'immediately step aside.'

Former chief White House Steve Bannon, who backed Moore in his primary against Sen. Luther Strange, who had establishment backing, fired at the Post.

Steve Bannon (seen above in New Hampshire on Thursday) said revelations about alleged child molestation by Alabama Judge Roy Moore are an attempt by The Washington Post to derail his Senate candidacy - just as it tried to do to Donald Trump last year

'But it's interesting,' Bannon said during a speech in New Hampshire on Thursday.

'The Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump, is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore.'

'Now is that a coincidence? That's what I mean when I say opposition party, right?

'It's purely part of the apparatus of the Democratic Party. They don't make any bones about it.

'By the way, I don't mind it. I'll call them out every day.'

'Bezos' is a reference to Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of e-commerce giant Amazon.
Chinese scientists have claimed to be able to make more discoveries than their American counterpart in developing supersonic aircraft thanks to better equipment.

A secretive 5 million hypersonic wind tunnel, nicknamed 'Hyper Dragon', is helping the experts 'reveal many facts that Americans have not found out', one Chinese researcher said in a propaganda documentary.

The programme also revealed that Chinese scientists are developing a commercial plane that could connect Beijing and New York in just two hours.

China's state TV revealed a clip of the secretive JF12 hypersonic wind tunnel (pictured)

The device, in Beijing, can blow gusts of wind travelling as fast as 10 times the speed of sound

Shrouded in secrecy, the JF12 shockwave hypersonic wind tunnel was completed in May, 2012, but has rarely been captured by media.

China Central Television, the state broadcaster, showed a glimpse of the mysterious equipment in a documentary on October 8.

Built by Chinese Academy of Science with 46 million Yuan (5 million), the 2.5-metre-wide (8.2 feet), 265-metre-long (869 feet) tunnel is said to be able to blow gusts of wind as fast as 10 times the speed of sound.

The temperature of the gusts could reach a staggering 3,000 degrees Celsius.

Jiang Zonglin, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Science, called the 'unprecedented' wind tunnel an incubator of advanced aircraft.

Mr Jiang said because planes couldn't fly during a lab experiment, they would need a wind tunnel that could generate gusts as fast as the desired speed of the aircraft to simulate a flying environment.

In the case of JF12, it could simulate flying conditions between Mach 5 and Mach 9.

The footage also shows a triangle supersonic aircraft being tested in the advanced wind tunnel

A researcher said the tunnel can help them 'reveal facts that Americans have not found out'

Mr Jiang claimed that he and his team carry out one experiment every two days, and each experiment last 100 millisecond, which equals to one-tenth of a second.

The researchers pointed out that China is currently developing a supersonic commercial plane that could travel as quickly as five times the speed of sound.

This means the aircraft would be able to fly from Beijing to New York in two hours, compared to the current 14 hours.

The TV clip apparently also shows an arrowhead-shaped model inside the Beijing-based wind tunnel.

Its design looks like official Chinese mock-ups of the DF-ZF, China's 7,680mph hypersonic strike aircraft that could carry nuclear warheads past US missile defenses.

Chinese officials have confirmed several test flights of hypersonic glide vehicles since 2013, but have kept the details top secret.

This is likely the first time China has shown any test models linked to the project.

Another supersonic aircraft apparently being developed by China has been shown in the video

Chinese state media has revealed the country's first ever images of a model (pictured) of its hypersonic glide vehicle, a nuclear weapons expert has claimed. The secretive missile delivery craft, known as the DF-ZF, could travel at up to ten times the speed of sound

The hypersonic strike aircraft is getting ready to be launched into the 265-metre-long tunnel

In addition, The broadcast showed a weapon with a shape similar to the last stage of a ballistic missile, and computer generated images of a new triangular-framed glider.

Raymond Wang, an expert in stopping the international spread of nuclear weapons, from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, was one of the first to spot the DF-ZF model.

Writing on Twitter, he noted the programme's narrator didn't specifically refer to hypersonic boost-glide vehicles (HBGVs) or the DF-ZF at any point.

Raymond Wang, an expert in stopping the international spread of nuclear weapons from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California, was one of the first to spot the DF-ZF model

'China just showed its hypersonic-BGV in a vid on 08 Oct. Probably a test design model, but AFAIK [as far as I know] this is first pics of an actual object,' he wrote.

'Vid is about JF-12 hypersonic testing tunnel. Narrator never explicitly says its HBGV. Resembles mock-ups of WU-14.

'Not an expert, cannot tell if useful info. BUT WATCHING PROPAGANDA IS IMPORTANT.'

Mr Wang said the wind tunnel shown in the clip has sharper angles than any known models of the Chinese design.
Ohio State's Committee on Academic Misconduct charged 83 undergraduate students in violation of the school's code of student conduct for using a messaging app to cheat

83 students from the Ohio State have been accused of cheating on a business course using a group messaging app last school year.

Ohio State's Committee on Academic Misconduct charged the undergraduate students in violation of the school's code of student conduct, said the school in a statement.

The app in question is Groupme, a free messaging service that allows people to connect with both individuals and groups. It also allows for documents, calendars and images to be shared.

A professor first reported the allegations against the students in April.

The charges include 'unauthorized collaboration on graded assignments' for the students who were enrolled in the Fisher College of Business course.

Ohio State's Code of Student Conduct list that violations can range in punishment from a formal reprimanding to a suspension or dismissal from the university.

The app in question is Groupme, a free messaging service that allows people to connect with both individuals and groups. It also allows for documents, calendars and images to be shared

A professor first reported the allegations against the students in April. The charges include 'unauthorized collaboration on graded assignments' for the students who were enrolled in the Fisher College of Business course

Grade penalties can also be a possibility for the students in the course.

Students do have the option to accept the responsibility for the charge and to request a hearing before the Committee on Academic Misconduct.

Ohio State spokesman Ben Johnson said in an email to the Dispatch that said that the code applies on or off campus, in a classroom or online.

Ohio State's Code of Student Conduct list violations ranging in punishment from a formal reprimanding to a suspension or dismissal from the university. Grade penalties can also be a possibility for the students in the Fisher Business School course

'Students are welcome to use social media tools like GroupMe to communicate with classmates but must remember that the rules are the same for online and in-person interactions,' he added.

While it is permissible for students to share due dates for homework, sharing answers on a final exam is not acceptable according to Johnson.

'Students should not share anything online that is prohibited by the rules for the course,' he said.

Most of the students admitted to using the app to work with each other on homework.
Labour grandees Jack Straw and Clare Short have both called for the 0.7 per cent foreign aid target to be dropped - saying the pledge has backfired.

Mr Straw, who was Foreign and Home Secretary under Tony Blair, said too much of the cash goes towards meeting the bumper salaries of white middle class people.

While Ms Short, who was appointed Britain's first International Development Secretary in 1997, said the target has become 'destructive'.

Their outspoken intervention will pile further pressure on Theresa May to finally ditch the target and spend the cash on boosting services and investment in the UK instead.

Clare Short and Jack Straw have both called for the 0.7% foreign aid target to be scrapped saying that it has backfired (file pictures)

In the summer a watchdog warned that aid cash was being sent overseas in a desperate last-minute attempt to hit the target.

Speaking to Progress magazine, Mr Straw said: 'I don't think protected budgets are an aid to good government.

'Those departments don't have to argue their corner and they get sloppy. It leads to officials in Dfid searching for projects to spend money.

'An awful lot of money goes to spend on jobs for middle-class whites.'

Ms Short said she also has serious doubts about the target, warning that the money could be better spent in a different way.

She said: 'I am afraid that the department has lost capacity and that 0.7 has ended up being destructive.

'Money is useful if it is well spent, not in itself.'

Penny Morduant, pictured leaving No10 yesterday after being appointed the new International Development Secretary after Priti Patel was forced to resign after shock revelations she had held secret meetings with Israeli PM and other high ranking officials while on holiday

The former Cabinet minister said that while the target remains a 'good idea' it has gone wrong in practice.

She said:' The UK development community needs a serious debate about what has gone wrong and how to put it right.

'It would be great to keep 0.7 and refocus, but this may not be possible.'

The 0.7 per cent target was first introduced by New Labour in 2004, when Tony Blair announced the government would try to hit the mark by 2013.

But it was David Cameron who enshrined the pledge in law, meaning that while other budgets have been slashed and squeezed, Dfid has had billions to splash across the world.

Clare Short is welcomed by children of Kitgum in Uganda with a traditional dance in May 1999

The department has sparked controversy by spending money in tyrannical North Korea, handing out wads of money at cash machines in Pakistan, and for paying out some of the highest salaries in Whitehall.

As much as 300million is being lavished on a scheme in Pakistan that has been dogged by claims of corruption.

Britain is also forking out money to help the Chinese look after their elderly, while more than 100m of aid cash has been poured into shopping malls and retail chains around the world.

China's biggest bra retailer, a cinema chain in Nigeria, fast food restaurants in Vietnam have all benefited.

Pen-pushers at the Department for International Development have an average wage of more than 53,000 a year - nearly twice that of the average worker - figures uncovered last year reveal.
Perth Zoo has welcomed two baby Asian bear-cats to its menagerie, the first to be bred there in its 119-year history.

Also known as binturong, they belong to the civet family, and are capable of delaying their pregnancy after mating until they feel environmental conditions are favourable.

The twin kits, Jakarta and Enam, were welcomed last month to parents Rabu and Selasa who arrived in Australia from Singapore Zooless than 12 months ago.

Jakarta and Enam (pictured) made history as the first of their kind to be born at Perth Zoo

Zoo keeper Marty Boland says it's great first-time mother Selasa is feeling secure and content.

'She's even trusted us to handle her cubs to quickly weigh them,' Mr Boland said.

'They tip the scales just over one kilogram, a good weight for binturong infants.'

He said zoo visitors may smell the omnivores before they see them as they emit a distinctive popcorn-like odour, which predators can't stand, from glands under their tails.

Zoo keeper Marty Boland said teh births were a sign mother Selasa was feeling secure

The adorable creatures are normally found throughout south east Asia, in areas like Malaysia and Indonesia, but live in the Asian Rainforest precinct at Perth Zoo.

The species is listed as vulnerable due to habitat destruction and poaching for meat and fur.

The cubs will play a crucial role in the recovery of the species ravaged by habitat loss and poaching.
The sole survivor of the Queensland trawler tragedy which left six young fishermen dead has broken his silence in an emotional tribute to his late friends.

Ruben McDornan, 32, was one of seven men aboard cucumber trawler Dianne when it capsized in treacherous seas off the town of Seventeen Seventy last month.

The bodies of Adam Hoffman and Ben Leahy were found in the sunken boat five days after the desperate search began.

Four men, Adam Bidner, Chris Sammut, Eli Tonks and Zach Feeney, have not been found.

'This is the first time that I've felt like I can publicly speak about what had happened, and I can't even find the words,' Mr McDornan wrote on Facebook on Friday.

Ruben McDornan (second from right), the sole survivor of the Queensland trawler tragedy which claimed the lives of six young fishermen, has broken his silence in an emotional tribute to his late friends

Ruben McDornan, 32, was one of seven men aboard cucumber trawler Dianne when it capsized in treacherous seas off the town of Seventeen Seventy last month

'My heart has been broken. But like my great brothers have shown me your heart is just a muscle, and it needs to be torn and broken down to grow.'

The grieving fisherman sent his condolences to the victims' families and said 'thank you' wasn't enough to express his gratitude to those who supported him 'along this horrible journey'.

He went on to praise his wife Sammy and said he heard her 'nagging voice' telling him to fight for his life as he spent nearly 12 hours in the water after the boat sunk.

'My absolute rock, you are the reason I am here today, your nagging voice was always in my head yelling at me to keep going and not give up,' he said.

The bodies of Adam Hoffman (right) and Ben Leahy (left) were found in the sunken boat five days after the desperate search began

The body of Eli Tonks, pictured with his fiancee Ana, has not been found despite the desperate search

The sole survivor broke his silence in an emotional Facebook post on Friday morning

'I feel so lucky to have you and have what we share together, I feel a fire lit under me from my brothers and I can't wait to see where our life will take us.

'My heart might be broken at this time but it is big enough to hold all my brothers forever and always!'

Mr McDronan escaped the capsized vessel and desperately clung to the hull before it eventually sunk a few hours later.

Tragically he could hear his friends banging and screaming as they tried to get out, according to reports.

The grieving fisherman also sent his condolences to the victims' families. Pictured is Adam Bidner, whose body hasn't been found

Cucumber trawler Dianne (pictured) capsized off the town of Seventeen Seventy last month

Commercial fisherman Mal Priday and his wife Linda heard Mr McDornan's desperate cries for help as he entered his eighth hour treading water in horrendous seas.

'I'm not into hugging, but he gave me a hug I'll never forget,' Mr Priday told The New Daily.

Last Tuesday, hundreds of heartbroken mourners gathered to remember the six men at Munro Martin Parklands in Cairns.
The Welsh First Minister tonight caved in and agreed to an independent inquiry into his handling of sex allegations against Carl Sargeant.

Mr Sargeant is thought to have taken his own life after he was sacked from his ministerial role in Wales and suspended by the Labour Party following allegations of 'unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or groping'.

He was said to be desperate at not being unable to defend himself or know the allegations against him.

First Minister Carwyn Jones - who has refused to stand down over his treatment of Mr Sargeant over the allegations - tonight revealed a QC-led inquiry would be held.

It came just minutes after Mr Sargeant's family solicitor called for the independent investigation - echoed by at least two Welsh Labour MPs.

Politician Carl Sargeant is thought to have killed himself after being sacked over sexual harassment allegations. The Welsh First Minister tonight announced an independent inquiry

Just 24 hours earlier, the Labour First Minister rejected calls to resign over the apparent suicide of his former Chief Whip.

A spokesman for First Minister Carwyn Jones said this evening: 'He agrees that there should be an independent inquiry and it would be proper to ask a senior QC to lead that work.

'To ensure this happens separately from his office, the First Minister has asked the Permanent Secretary to begin preparatory work for this inquiry, and to make contact with the family to discuss the terms of reference and the identity of the QC.

'It is our understanding that such an inquiry should not take place before the outcome of a Coroner's Inquest  but we will take further advice on this matter.'

The Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones has defied calls to quit over the scandal

His comments suggested the inquiry wouldn't take place until after any inquest, which may take many months to be fully heard.

In response to the news, the family of Mr Sargeant have tonight issued a further statement.

A spokesman on behalf of the family said: In response to the statement made by the First Minister and to reiterate the familys original request  the inquiry must be established by a body that is fully independent of Welsh Government.

The Permanent Secretary reports directly to the First Minister and is therefore not independent.

We believe that a truly independent body must also be responsible for agreeing the terms of reference and appointing the chair and secretariat to the inquiry.

The family initially hit out at Mr Jones through an earlier statement this afternoon through their solicitor in Cardiff.

They said: 'The First Minister will also know, as an experienced lawyer, that to announce and commence a full independent review and inquiry does not hinder the Coroner's inquest and would run alongside the Coroner's inquest in any event.

'An independent inquiry will ask all the questions that need to be asked and have not been answered and will determine the reasons for the serious failings in following the correct procedures, practices and protocols and the reasons for the complete abdication of responsibility and duty of care that was owed to Carl.

'We believe that a full independent inquiry must be established immediately. Its terms of reference, the appointment of the chair and secretariat must be undertaken by a body which is fully independent of the Welsh Government and in consultation with the family.'

Carl Sargeant's family's full statement attacking First Minister Carl Sargeant's family lawyer giving the statement outside his offices in Cardiff today Carl Sargeant's grieving family had hit out at the Labour leader in Wales for stalling over an independent inquiry into his tragic suicide. In a statement today, his family said: 'It is deeply concerning that the First Minister should suggest in his address to the media, yesterday, the 9th of November 2017, that all of the answers that the family seek and are entitled to know should be dealt with in a Coroner's inquest. 'The First Minister is himself an experienced Barrister and will know that the Coroner's inquest can examine four questions only. 'The identity of the deceased, place of death, time of death and how the death was caused. 'The family believe they have the painful answers to each of those questions. 'What a Coroner's inquest cannot determine or appear to be determining is the civil or criminal liability, to apportion guilt or attribute blame, or to be seen to apportion guilt or to attribute blame. 'The First Minister will also know, as an experienced lawyer, that to announce and commence a full independent review and inquiry does not hinder the Coroner's inquest and would run alongside the Coroner's inquest in any event. 'He will know all of the procedural issues that arise and that one does not prevent the other from taking place. 'An independent inquiry will ask all the questions that need to be asked and have not been answered and will determine the reasons for the serious failings in following the correct procedures, practices and protocols and the reasons for the complete abdication of responsibility and duty of care that was owed to Carl. 'We believe that a full independent inquiry must be established immediately. Its terms of reference, the appointment of the chair and secretariat must be undertaken by a body which is fully independent of the Welsh Government and in consultation with the family.' Former Welsh Government minister Carl Sargeant, 48, (pictured with his wife Bernie, 48, and children Jack, 23, and Lucy, 25) is believed to have taken his own life at home in Connah's Quay, North Wales having begged to know what he was accused of Advertisement

Earlier today, Mr Sargeant's friends said that Labour's decision not to tell him the details of the sex allegations had 'broken him'.

Friend Daran Hill said last night: 'Messages were put out via the media and interviews were given that he didn't know they were about - additional details were put out into the public domain. It broke him'.

Flintshire Council deputy leader Bernie Attridge said he is 'distraught' Jones did not resign and told BBC Wales he would 'fight to the bitter end for justice for Carl'.

Welsh First Minister Mr Jones earlier called in the police after his house was hit with graffiti hours after he refused to resign over Carl Sargeant's death, it was revealed today.

Carl Sargeant (right) opens a business with First Minister Carwyn Jones (left) and Labour activist and tech entrepreneur Askar Sheibani (centre)

Officers have remained outside his home in Bridgend, near Cardiff, since the vandalism last night.

The nature of the graffiti is not known because it was cleaned away and Mr Jones' spokesman said he does not discuss security issues.

But the attack came after the Welsh Labour leader refused to resign over his handling of sex allegations against Mr Sargeant, who was found dead in Connah's Quay on Tuesday.

Mr Jones is facing growing calls to agree an independent investigation into his conduct, with Mr Sargeant's colleagues vowing 'not to rest until we get justice for Carl'.

Friend Daran Hill said last night that his friend was 'broken' by the end because of Labour's handling of his case

Sources yesterday said the Welsh First Minister had considered resigning  and was '50/50 to go at lunchtime'.

But following a crisis meeting with Labour assembly members, he decided to stay.

Hours later it appears that vandals targeted his home with graffiti.

A South Wales Police spokesman said: 'We have been made aware of an incident involving graffiti left at an address in Bridgend, on Thursday, November 9. Officers have visited the occupant of the address and enquiries are continuing'.

Carwyn Jones fighting for his political life last night as he defiantly refused to resign over his handling of sex allegations against one of his ministers.

He insisted he would not quit over his 'heartless' sacking of Carl Sargeant, who was found dead just days after being accused of misconduct.

In a public statement, he claimed he had acted 'by the book' and had 'no alternative' but to sack Mr Sargeant rather than simply suspend him.

Carwyn Jones now faces a no-confidence motion in the Welsh Assembly, which could see him forced out of office. Labour does not have a majority on the Welsh Assembly, with the Tories, Ukip, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats combined having 31 votes to Labour's 29.

And in a sign of his precarious position, Jeremy Corbyn pointedly refused to offer his support.

Carwyn Jones has police after his house in South Wales (pictured today) was sprayed with graffiti hours after he refused to resign over Carl Sargeant's death

Yesterday Mr Jones faced fresh claims over the 'toxic' atmosphere within Welsh Labour which had seen Mr Sargeant 'deliberately undermined'.

Former Welsh government minister Leighton Andrews alleged there was a culture of 'minor bullying, mind-games, power-games, favouritism' at the Assembly.

THE QUESTIONS JONES MUST ANSWER Why was Carl Sargeant not told the details of the claims against him?

Why were the family's concerns about the impact of the investigation on his mental health not responded t properly?

Why was he suspended before the allegations against him were investigated and proved?

Was there a toxic atmosphere in the Welsh Assembly government?

Was there a concerted campaign to undermine Mr Sargeant in the administration?

Did he receive a complaint in 2014 about a campaign to undermine Mr Sargeant? and if he did, what was done? Advertisement

And Mr Sargeant's close friend Bernie Attridge, 46, the deputy leader of Flintshire Council and a councillor in Mr Sargeant's home town, said he was 'appalled and shocked' that Mr Jones had not resigned. He pledged to fight for justice for his 'true friend.'

'I've got no confidence in the man [Mr Jones],' he said. 'I'm appalled and shocked that he hasn't done the decent thingbut our fight for justice continues. Rest assured it doesn't end here.

'I know the family need to grieve bu) I'm doing what I believe Carl would have done for me if I had been in this situation. We grew up as boys together, he was a true friend of mine and I know he would have done the same for me.'

Mr Jones also faced new questions about what he knew about the allegations against Mr Sargeant and when  and why the minister was apparently not told the nature of the allegations against him.

Chris Risley, the chairman of the town council in Connah's Quay, said: 'The Labour party suspended him [Mr Sargeant]  that's fair enough and would happen in any other business  but Carwyn took it upon himself to sack him.

'It was his own decision, not that of a panel, and if he was the managing director of a company and sacked somebody without a full investigation he would be expected to stand down.

'He should be answerable just like anybody else. He should fall on his own sword.'

Mr Sargeant's wife Bernie (pictured together) and his children have been left 'devastated'

His family previously said Mr Sargeant's distress at being unable to defend himself properly meant he was not afforded 'common courtesy, decency or natural justice'. He was unaware of the detailed nature of the allegations against him, they said.

FIRST MINISTER CARWYN JONES PREVIOUS STATEMENT First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones said: 'This is an awful situation for everyone. I want to talk about Carl and his family. 'We're all very shocked by what happened this week. There is great hurt, anger and bewilderment. 'Carl was my friend. In all the years that I knew him I never had a cross word with him. For 14 years we worked together. He was a great Chief Whip and a Minister who served his country with distinction. 'I cannot conceive of what Bernie and the family must be going through. 'There are a lot of inaccuracies in the press and many of you have questions to ask about what happened last week. 'Everybody is grieving and it is not appropriate for me to get into the precise detail. These are matters for the future - things that will need to be properly disclosed through what should be a Coroner's Inquest. 'As there will in all probability be an inquest, I and my team will of course be cooperating fully with any questions that are raised there. 'The family deserve to have their questions answered and if that isn't possible through the Inquest then I will endeavour to make that happen through other means. 'There is a legal process to go through and I am obviously acting within that. I welcome any scrutiny of my actions in the future and it is appropriate for that to be done independently. 'I quite properly did all that I could to make sure that everything was being done by the book. I had no alternative but to take the action that I did and I hope that people will understand that. 'Carl was a true force of nature  he drove through more legislation than any other Minister. Not just through force of argument, but through force of personality. 'Wales has lost a person of great warmth, ability and charisma. These are the darkest days any of us can remember in this institution  but they are darkest of all for the family, and we must respect their right to grieve in peace at this time.' Advertisement

Yesterday Mr Jones met Labour assembly members and then, in the afternoon, made a much-delayed public statement. He took took no questions from journalists.

The First Minister said 'these are the darkest days any of us can remember', but rejected calls for his resignation, adding: 'I quite properly did all that I could to make sure that everything was being done by the book.

'I had no alternative but to take the action that I did and I hope that people will understand that.'

Mr Jones went on: 'There is a legal process to go through and I am obviously acting within that. I welcome any scrutiny of my actions in the future and it is appropriate for that to be done independently.'

He said his team would cooperate fully with any questions raised in the inquest into Mr Sargeant's death which will be opened and adjourned at 1pm on Monday, in Ruthin, north Wales.

After he had given his statement, a spokesman for Ukip on the Welsh assembly said: 'Carwyn Jones has no authority to continue in the position of First Minister.

'The Labour party cannot credibly claim to have a social conscience if it treats its own 'family' members so heartlessly and unjustly.

'In the light of his refusal to step down, Ukip Wales is caling for a motion of no confidence in the First Minister.

'We call upon assembly members of the Labour Party, Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats to unite with us and support this motion.'

Yesterday Mr Jones faced new questions over when he was told about allegations against Mr Sargeant.

The first minister said on Monday that he had only heard of them last week. But sources told the BBC he had been told of one allegation 18 months ago.

Mr Andrews, a former minister in the Welsh assembly, said there was 'immense anger' in Wales at what had happened to Mr Sargeant.

He strongly criticised Mr Jones for commenting publicly on the allegations against Mr Sargeant after he had referred the matter to the Labour Party.

'That is not due process. I think it was a serious mistake,' he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

Mr Sargeant's last tweet was his personal statement in response to the allegations where he vowed to clear his name

He said that Mr Sargeant had suffered from the 'toxic culture' which had existed in the Welsh Government, and which Mr Jones had failed to tackle.

How former factory worker rose to the top of Welsh Labour Carl Sargeant had risen to the top tier of Welsh politics before allegations about his personal conduct led to him being sacked just days before he was found dead. A former process worker at a North Wales chemical plant, Mr Sargeant, 49, was elected to Cardiff Bay in 2003 as Labour AM for the Alyn and Deeside seat. Until his removal as cabinet secretary for communities and children, he had served in a series of ministerial roles in the Welsh government. In 2007 he was appointed chief whip of the Labour group before becoming minister for local government. Roles as minister for housing and regeneration and minister for natural resources followed before being named cabinet secretary for communities and children in May 2016. The devastation of his local community following the collapse of steelmaking at the Shotton plant in the 1980s, which saw thousands lose their jobs, had inspired a commitment to social justice. Mr Sargeant witnessed the impact of heavy drinking and domestic violence on families in the area, leading him to campaign extensively on the issue. A keen football fan, Mr Sargeant was president of FC Nomads of Connah's Quay, the town where he lived all his life and where he was found dead. He was married to Bernie and they had two children, Lucy and Jack. Advertisement

'It is quite clear that there was at times a toxic culture on the fifth floor  the ministerial floor  in the Welsh Government,' Mr Andrews said.

'Over a period of time  and the First Minister is aware of this  Carl Sargeant was subject to persistent personal undermining. We tried to get the First Minister to address it. It was not addressed.'

Mr Andrews said in a blog that there was a 'toxic' culture of 'minor bullying, mind-games, power-games, favouritism' and 'inconsistency of treatment to different ministers'.

'Friends in north Wales tell me those interviews fuelled Carl's despair,' he said.

Andrew RT Davies, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: 'Today's statement from the First Minister has left many unanswered questions and fails to provide the answers Carl's family deserve.

'A series of deeply alarming revelations have emerged in recent hours from a very senior former Labour minister, Leighton Andrews, which have cast a disturbing light on an endemic culture of bullying at the heart of Carwyn Jones' Welsh Labour Government.

'This whole tragic episode, compounded by the revelations by Leighton Andrews, has significantly undermined public confidence in the First Minister and the Labour Party and the actions taken over the last week must be fully and independently investigated at the earliest opportunity.'

Asked whether Mr Jones should step down yesterday, Mr Corbyn failed to offer any support  simply saying it would be wrong to speculate.

He said: 'His family is devastated. He was suspended last week. This tragedy happened a few days later.

'Clearly an inquest will follow. Inquiries will then follow. We will have to await the outcome of those. It would be wrong for any speculation by me or anybody else to take place on those circumstances.'

Mr Sargeant's family did not issue any statement. But Daran Hill, former chairman of Public Affairs Cymru, tweeted: 'Visited the Sargeants last night. The level of despair and anger was heart breaking.

'Something went badly, horrifically wrong that's beyond tick box exercises. Natural justice did not happen.'
A Marine Corps veteran who urinated on Taliban corpses six years ago had his conviction thrown out after a panel of military judges said a top general meddled with the case.

Staff Sgt Joseph Chamblin was one of four Marines who were filmed in full combat gear urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in footage that emerged in 2012.

He was demoted on rank and fined $500 after pleading guilty to dereliction of duty, failure to properly supervise junior Marines and posing for photos with battlefield casualties, among other charges.

On Wednesday, however, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction, ruling that there was apparent unlawful command influence in the case.

Staff Sgt Joseph Chamblin was one of four Marines who were filmed in full combat gear urinating on three dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in footage that emerged in 2012

The ruling cited now-retired Gen James F Amos and his senior staff members, saying they used their position of authority to influence legal proceedings.

Navy Cmdr. Marcus N. Fulton, who filed the ruling, said the court found Amos and Marine Corps lawyers working for him 'severely and systematically interfered' with the case, according to the Washington Post.

According to a 2012 affidavit, Amos appointed Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser to investigate the case and was required to stay away, according to the ruling.

But when Waldhauser wouldn't send the marines to a general court-martial, Amos told him he wanted the men involved to be 'crushed' and discharged, Waldhauser said in a sworn statement.

On Wednesday, however, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction, ruling that there was apparent unlawful command influence in the case

After the video garnered international attention on YouTube, senior military officials sternly condemned the behavior of the Marines involved. The video of the men was called a 'recruitment tool for the Taliban'

Fulton acknowledged that dismissing the case was a 'drastic remedy', yet necessary to 'foster public confidence in the  fairness of our system of justice'.

He noted that Amos's use of the word 'crushed' was an 'unusually flagrant example of unlawful command influence'.

Chamblin was in charge of a scout-sniper platoon in Afghanistan's Hemland province in July 2011 when the video was filmed.

It later emerged online in 2012 when TMZ posted it on its sight.

The Marines had killed three Taliban fighters, recovered their bodies and urinated on them before posing for photos.

In the video, one of the Marines looked down at the bodies and quipped, 'Have a good day, buddy'.

Chamblin was in charge of a scout-sniper platoon in Afghanistan's Hemland province in July 2011 when the video was filmed

The urination video surfaced amid a string of embarrassing episodes for US forces in Afghanistan

American troops were caught up in controversies over burning Muslim holy books, posing for photos with insurgents' bloodied remains and an alleged massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by a soldier.

After the video garnered international attention on YouTube, senior military officials sternly condemned the behavior of the Marines involved. The video of the men was called a 'recruitment tool for the Taliban'.

Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he feared that it could set back efforts to begin reconciliation talks with the Taliban.

Afghan officials were outraged by the images, with President Hamid Karzai branding the Marine's actions in the video as 'inhuman'.

Chamblin was one of nine Marines charged by the military as a result of the incident. He has since left the Marine Corps and written a book about his experiences

A year after the video emerged, Chamblin, a 15-year Marine Veteran, tried to explain why he and his troops urinated on the bodies.

The moment came after a furious gun battle between Chamblin and his fellow Marine snipers and the Taliban insurgents. A dozen of the enemy fighters were killed.

'It's not like it was a conscious thought or decision but someone was like, 'You know what, p*** on these guys.' And someone said, 'Yeah, p*** on them,'' he recalled.

Chamblin was one of nine Marines charged by the military as a result of the incident.

He has since left the Marine Corps and written a book about his experiences.

'Do I regret doing it? Hell no,' he told the TV station. And he's do it again, he said in 2013.

He rejected accusations from military brass and civilian leadership that his actions put more American troops at danger by inflaming religious tensions in Afghanistan.
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A 12-year-old boy leans towards the microphone in the witness stand, his face perfectly composed under his youthful 1980s haircut, his sweater and collared shirt neatly arranged. The courtroom and the entire town of Mansfield, Ohio are transfixed; this boy, Collier, is giving critical evidence in the murder trial of his mother, who was found dead, encased in concrete with a plastic bag over her head, under the basement floor of his fathers new home.

Collier awoke at about 3.15am on the night of the murder, he articulately tells the court. He heard a scream and a loud thump. He heard footsteps at his bedroom door and felt a force urging him, for his own safety, not to look up, to stay in his bed.

The person outside his bedroom on that night in 1989 was his father, physician John Boyle, he says. And Colliers testimony would be instrumental in sending Boyle to prison with a sentence of 20 years to life for aggravated murder and 18 months for abuse of a corpse.

It is with this courtroom scene that a new documentary, A Murder in Mansfield, begins; but this is only the start of Colliers story. He not only lost his mother but faced a series of setbacks and rejections, only to eventually find a loving adopted family and grow up to become a Los Angeles-based cinematographer.

And now, with another group of filmmakers, he is telling his story. A Murder in Mansfield has its world premiere this weekend at the DOC NYC film festival.

John Boyle was convicted in the 1989 murder of his wife; Noreen; a documentary premiering this weekend follows the journey of his son, Collier, who was the key witness in the trial - and confronts still-imprisoned Boyle nearly 30 years later for answers

Boyle and his infant son, Collier, walk down the beach in the early 1980s; Collier explains how their picture-perfect life was a sham and his womanizing father was cruel

Boyle and his wife, Noreen, were high school sweethearts who were married for more than 20 years before she filed for divorce in November 1989; he killed her the following month

Noreen Boyle was especially close with her son, Collier; he told the court that he heard an argument and a thump on the night Boyle is believed to have killed her. Her body was found under the basement of the new home her husband had purchased, where he planned to live with his mistress - who gave birth to his baby while Noreen was missing

Collier, now 39, lives in Los Angeles and works in film; he decided to make the documentary to help other people and to honor his mother with his story of resilience

The best way that I know to honor her memory was to move on and do the best I can in life, I think do something with this on my own terms  and make something thats really good, Collier, now 39, tells DailyMail.com. That is the best justice I can get my mother  if this helps one person.

The documentary is an incredible story of resilience, on the part of Collier, as well as an in-depth look at the crime and the search for truth and answers  which he never verbally gets from his father during a visit to the prison, though the convicted killers behavior may tell another story. Its a compelling re-telling of a murder which riveted Mansfield with its salacious details and the star witness child.

Colliers parents, Noreen and John, were high school sweethearts. Boyle had a successful medical practice and was highly popular with patients, and Noreen was always impeccably turned out. The family lived in a well-off part of town with Collier and their adopted daughter, Elizabeth, eight years younger than their son. They all seemed to have the picture-perfect life; good-looking and successful, always smiling.

But Boyle had a not-so-secret wandering eye, and, after more than 20 years of marriage, Noreen filed for divorce in November 1989, citing extreme mental cruelty and gross neglect. At the time, Boyles mistress was pregnant with his child, and he was planning to move in with her to a house in Erie, Pennsylvania. The realtor in that transaction gave damning evidence at his subsequent trial; Boyle had bizarrely asked her about the basement floor.

Following Noreens disappearance on New Years Eve 1989, Boyle insisted he had nothing to do with it. He first told Collier she had gone on a little vacation. But given the evidence his son told police about what he had heard  and a statement from 3-year-old Elizabeth that Daddy put Mommy on the floor and wrapped her up like a snowman  police obtained a search warrant for Boyles new home. They found Noreens body on January 25, 1990; shed been hit in the head, suffocated, and buried under the basement floor. In the meantime, Boyles mistress had given birth to a baby daughter.

The trial was a circus in small-town Mansfield; people lined up outside to get a seat, it was covered nightly on the local television station, and the newspaper published a special edition after he was convicted. As Boyle was sent to prison, Colliers life was in chaos.

For Collier, going through this with his mother and father, he also had a lot of rejection from both sides of his family, documentary director Barbara Kopple tells DailyMail.com. His fathers family probably felt that he betrayed them, and they didnt want to adopt him or have him live with them, and the mothers family probably had some trouble embracing a murderers son  in a way, a sense of further rejection.

One foster family chose to adopt Elizabeth but not Collier; he lived for a time with lead investigator Dave Messmore and his wife, but a judge ruled he couldnt stay with them. Eventually he went to the home of George and Susan Zeigler, who lovingly adopted him.

That turned out to be a good thing  but so much rejection for such a young man, Ms Kopple says. How Collier is, who has so much strength and is so open, its simply amazing to me.

Collier says: When you grow up in a small town like Mansfield, its a big deal  and my father had such a great rapport with patients, that you had half of them in disbelief.

The trial was a circus in small-town Mansfield; people lined up outside to get a seat, it was covered nightly on the local television station, and the newspaper published a special edition after was convicted

Collier provided huge amounts of material for the documentary, from family photos to letters, and the film includes everyone from his adoptive parents to his mother's best friend

Collier says the Zeiglers were incredibly supportive and he has always been open about the case and his experience with anyone who wanted to talk about it

Noreen Boyle is believed to have been murdered at this Mansfield home by her husband on New Year's Eve 1989, while both of her children were in the house

Boyle maintained his innocence for years but admitted involvement in his wife's killing when he was up for parole - which he was denied - in 2010; he implored his son to lobby on behalf of his release, which Collier did - 'wanting to be a good son and wanting desperately to move on'

So I would get people that would come up and approach me randomly at the Walmart  Im really open. I always talked about this with everyone growing up  like if somebody came up to me in the grocery store wanting to talk about it, I would talk about it. A.) I could tell them how I feel and show them who I really am, and B.) I could learn about them and see how this affected them.

The whole purpose of doing this project in the first place, Ive always been real into that, from a very empathetic way; I believe that I can relate to them. It also affected my community.

While everyone in Mansfield knew about the case and knew who Collier was, however, it was a completely different situation when he moved to Los Angeles.

People come from all walks of life, so you really dont know peoples stories, he says. I always got this thing that people would look at me and would go, this kid looks like he comes from a great family and has this great life story  you get labelled easily. Hes probably a silver spoon kid from a rich family.

I never found it difficult to share my story; some people didnt know. When I posted on Facebook the film was coming out and shared that, loads of peopled that Ive worked with professional for five or six years, they had no idea.

The documentary, however, offers a new and very personal glimpse into Colliers life, before and after the murder. It depicts his fathers cruelty in even further detail than Collier shared at the trial, when he told how his father used to throw things at him and make him call himself a fat boy; in the film, Noreens best friend reminds Collier how Boyle threw the family dog across the room and against the wall.

But one of the most shocking and sad aspects of the film is the excerpts of letters shared between father and son following Boyles imprisonment.

That was one of the more painful things about this project, Collier admits.

He wrote to Boyle, as Collier got older in his teens, saying that he loved and forgave him and hoped he would come to terms with the crime he had committed. But the response was vitriolic.

I shall make no further comment upon the mediocre grammar, his father wrote.

Your poisonous communication is more aptly the product of some nearby cesspool. You are imbued with hate. You unctuous brat! You shameful coward! You are truly evil. Therefore we no longer consider you a member of our family.

Collier says in the film: I wrote him again after that letter asking him again to admit his guilt. He returned it, wrote refused on the envelope, and we havent talked about it since.

He tells DailyMail.com: My adoptive parents would be a buffer; they would always open these letters before giving them to me or theyd sometimes sit and read them with me and explain, okay, you know what this is? This is manipulation, these things your father are saying.

Collier says his relationship with his father has always been 'surface;' his father refuses to admit on camera that he deliberately killed his wife

While the Boyle family looked picture-perfect from the outside, the marriage was unhappy, Boyle was cruel and Noreen's friend reminds Collier in the film how his father threw the family dog across the room

Collier's adopted sister, Elizabeth, was three years old at the time of the crime; she was taken in to another family, who changed her name, and the pair haven't spoken since; he contacted her for the documentary but she did not respond

Collier wrote to his father in prison saying that he forgave him, loved him and hoped he would come to terms with what he had done - only to receive a vicious and insulting response calling him 'evil' and an 'unctuous brat'

Director Barbara Kopple says Collier's father is manipulative but comes across as charming

Despite his father brutal words and the fractious relationship, however, the two did keep in touch; My relationship with my father has always been very surface, Collier says.

Before his fathers parole hearing in 2010, however, Boyle became very solicitous  asking Collier to intervene on his behalf. He sent samples of what he wanted his son to lobby for his release  stating You must be convincing, so do a great job.

He always made sure to tell me how proud he was of me and that he loved me, Collier says in the film.

Hes very charming and everything, but you can just feel that manipulation of, you know, what he wants Collier to do, director Kopple tells DailyMail.com. Hell be good to Collier when he wants something from him, and he wont when he doesnt need him.

Collier, wanting to be a good son and wanting desperately to move on, obliged and supported his fathers parole. But the board still denied it.

The prisoner also, incredibly, wrote to the parole board: I have committed a great wrong. I am personally accountable and personally responsible for the death of my wife Noreen, and her burial. He told Collier finally that the couple had gotten into an argument, he pushed Noreen and then blacked out, and when he woke up, she was dead.

This is the first time, to my knowledge, that my father admitted to being involved in any way, Collier says.

At the time, Collier didnt fully accept that, but he didnt push it  though the answer isnt good enough for him, and he is determined in the film to finally confront his father and demand answers and the full story. He admits, however, that his father is a sociopath and its very likely he wont get the information he wants.

Collier fully retraces his past in the documentary, returning to Mansfield and meeting with everyone from the Messmores and the Zeiglers to his former principal  and attempting to contact Elizabeth, now living under a different name, to whom he has not spoken since she was three years old. She never responds.

For the first time, he musters the courage to view the graphic crime scene photos taken after his mothers discovery. He lays bare his hopes and fears, and its an emotional journey  all leading up to the moment he visits the prison to truly press his father, in person, for the truth about his mothers death.

Boyle, predictably, is evasive; his stories dont ring true and every statements seems to lack sincerity. Collier leaves, unsatisfied. But he and Kopple agree that, when you see Boyle and his behavior, you know what the truth is.

Were not in a gotcha  that was not what we wanted, Collier tells DailyMail.com.

If it can help people and do some good, that is justice for my mother  not an admission of guilt from my father, not any of that. Thats superficial. To do some good, thats real justice.

Kpple adds: I just wanted to be able to tell a real story and really see who Collier was and see who his father was and get deeply under the surface of all of this  and it just went far beyond my wildest dreams of what this dramatic story is.

It was just such an amazing, beautiful, haunting, sad but also very joyous film to make because of who Collier is and  its about human resilience.
George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about efforts by Russia contacts to arrange a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, claims he did so out of loyalty to the president.

Trump had emphatically denied any contacts with Russians, and Papadopoulos wanted to avoid contradicting the president.

Papadopoulos met with investigators not long after Trump's denial. 'It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen,' the president had said in January.

Papadopoulos made the initial false claims out of loyalty to Trump, a source with direct knowledge of the investigation told ABC News.

President Donald Trump had emphatically denied any contacts with Russians, and George Papadopoulos wanted to avoid contradicting the president, according to a report

Papadopoulos now admits he wasn't truthful when he described a meeting in London with a professor who said he had met with government officials in Moscow and that the Russians had 'thousands of emails' on Trump rival Hillary Clinton.

Among other things, he told investigators that he learned information from him before joining the campaign, when in fact the overture happened around March 14, after he had been named as a Trump foreign policy advisor.

'In truth and in fact, the professor only took interest in defendant Papadopoulos because of his status with the Campaign,' according to court filings.

Special Robert Mueller's team of investigators is probing Russian interference in the presidential election.

Papadopoulos also told investigators the professor was 'a nothing' talking up his connections.

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

But Papadopoulos 'understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials (and had met with some of those officials in Moscow immediately prior to telling defendant Papadopoulos about the 'thousands of emails,' according to information that accompanied his guilty plea.

Papadopoulos 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. He repeatedly tried to use the professors contacts to try to arrange a meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post reported that the description of the professor matched Joseph Mifsud, the director of the London Academy of Diplomacy, who appeared in an email described to the paper.

Papadopoulos later described 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.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office announced a guilty plea filed secretly in October by former Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, who concealed information about his conversations with an overseas professor about Russia

'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.

'Through his false statements and omissions, defendant Papadopoulos impeded the FBI's ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the Campaign and the Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election,' according to court documents filed by prosecutors.
Armed police were today seen patrolling Manchesters Christmas markets for the first time to prevent potential terrorist attacks.

The tightened security measures will see them work alongside undercover plain clothes officers carrying guns who will mingle with the crowds.

Concrete bollards in pedestrianised areas are set to be erected across the country at festive events to prevent vehicles from driving into crowds of people - similar to the Berlin attack last year which killed 12 people.

Christmas markets elsewhere in Britain will also be given a 'ring of steel'.

Similar measures will be put in place for London's Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, which opens on Friday, November 17.

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Armed police were today seen patrolling Manchesters Christmas markets, for the first time, to prevent potential terrorist attacks

Millions of people are expected to visit the European-style festive markets in Manchester, now in their 19th consecutive year

The tightened security measures will see armed police work alongside undercover plain clothes officers carrying guns who will mingle with the crowds

Armed police and regular officers were also stationed in Birmingham, where measures have been taken to prevent a vehicle attack in the city centre

Millions are expected to visit the European-style festive markets in Manchester, now in their 19th consecutive year.

The main market will once more be based in Albert Square in front of Manchester town hall. It will stay open for an extra day, until December 21.

Barriers will also be put up at key locations in the city centre to help keep shoppers safe - including a thick wall surrounding the perimeter.

The heightened security comes after the Manchester Arena massacre, when Salman Abedi detonated a homemade nail bomb inside the foyer on May 22 as an Ariana Grande concert ended.

It killed 22 people, including an eight-year-old girl.

The security measures also reflect the current threat level to the UK from international terrorism, which is severe, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Police are stopping and searching cars in Birmingham in the hope of stopping any planned attack on the city's Christmas markets

The main Manchester market will once more be based in Albert Square (pictured) in front of the town hall - and will stay open for an extra day, until December 21

In previous years, armed response units in vehicles have been within the vicinity of Manchester's city centre during the Christmas markets, but for the first time the officers with guns will be visible and amongst shoppers.

It will mirror the way that armed officers are at the airport and were on the streets to give reassurance after the Arena attack.

Local authorities were also told to bolster their security presence following a number of deadly terrorist attacks in London and Manchester this year.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told the Daily Telegraph: 'The public may see additional protective security measures and barriers at events this year, in response to a number of vehicle-based terrorist attacks we have sadly seen both here in the UK and abroad.

A specialist firearms unit has joined forces with ordinary officers to disrupt any planned terror attacks in Birmingham city centre

Bollards were erected in Birmingham city centre in late October to stop attacks similar to the one in Berlin, which killed 12 people

The West was put on increased terror alert over the festive period following the Berlin lorry tragedy last December (pictured)

'There could also be increased security checks at some events and venues so we advise the public to arrive in plenty of time to allow for this.'

Concrete bollards were put in place on bridges across the British capital, after jihadists drove a van into pedestrians at London Bridge and Borough Market in June.

And Southampton City Council has already confirmed they will be putting up the vehicle obstructions for their market, which opens tomorrow.

Cllr Simon Blackburn, Chair of the LGA's Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: 'Councils take their responsibilities to protect their residents incredibly seriously, and this includes making sure that transport hubs are safe and that any security risks are mitigated.'

The West was put on increased terror alert over the festive period following the Berlin lorry tragedy last December.

The day after the attack, security was ramped up in major cities including, London, New York, Paris, Vienna and Dusseldorf, as fears grow of another atrocity.

Tanks were seen in the streets of Budapest, Hungary, and soldiers were pictured at the Christmas markets in Antwerp, Belgium.
The GOP's 2012 nominee for president, Mitt Romney, became the latest Republican to say Alabama Senate hopeful Roy Moore should get out.

'Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections,' Romney tweeted Friday morning. 'I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.'

Both Alabama and Washington, D.C., were rocked yesterday when the Washington Post put out a story documenting the stories of multiple women who were pursued by Moore, sexually, while they were in their teens.

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Former GOP nominee Mitt Romney leveled likely the harshest criticism at Roy Moore yet, calling him 'unfit for office' and suggesting he 'step aside'

Mitt Romney voiced his opinion in a tweet, sent out Friday morning, noting that he believed the woman's account in the Washington Post

Judge Roy Moore, a far-right candidate for U.S. Senate backed by Steve Bannon, is seeing his political future crumble away, as a number of women have come forward and alleged Moore preyed on them as teens

Leigh Corfman's account led the story, as she explained how as a 14-year-old a 32-year-old Moore, a district attorney at the time, asked for her telephone number outside an Etowah County, Alabama, courtroom, telling Corfman's mother he would look after the teen as her mother attended a child custody hearing.

Moore soon called on the underage girl, took her to his house and kissed her.

The second time they went, he took off his clothes and hers, touched her over her bra and panties and guided her to do the same to him.

The details were corroborated by Corfman's friends from that era, along with her mother who learned about the interactions with Moore more than a decade later.

Other women who had similar, underage, encounters with Moore also spoke out.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who had supported Moore's primary opponent, incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, in the special election's GOP primary said Thursday that if the allegations were true it was time for Moore to 'step aside.'

Also on Thursday, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said Moore needed to 'immediately step aside.'

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump 'believes if allegations are true [Moore] will do the right thing and step aside.'

A day later, and he still hasn't, while the calls for him to leave the race have become more intense.

'Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Roger Ailes, Roy MooreNo MOORE of this,' said Rep. Barbara Comstock in a statement Friday. 'I believed the stories from the victims of Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes and others because they were substantiated and consistent with the stories of how sexual predators operate.'

'To date Roy Moore has not provided any credible explanation or response to the detailed allegations,' the Virginia Republican continued. 'The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disturbing.'

She pointed to conservative magazine, the National Review, whose editorial board stated that Moore should drop out and said she agreed.

'Roy Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate,' she said.

Using a card from the Trump playbook, Moore has labeled the allegations fake news, even sending a fundraising plea out addressing them.

'The Obama-Clinton machine's liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I've EVER had,' Moore wrote in the email, asking for support from 'God-fearing Christians like you.'

By Friday afternoon he had doubled down, appearing on Sean Hannity's radio show to refute the allegations and denying them, too, in a statement.

'I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct,' he said in the statement, adding that he couldn't 'understand the mentality of using such a dangerous lie to try to personally destroy someone.'

'I strongly urge the Washington Post, and everyone involved, to tell the truth,' he also said.

On Hannity, Moore said, 'This is a completely manufactured story made to defraud this campaign.'

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, speaking to an audience in New Hampshire on Thursday, drew parallels between the Post's reporting on Moore and the paper's release in October of last year of the infamous Access Hollywood 'p****' tape, which practically derailed Trump's presidential campaign.

He spoke of the link in a conspiratorial way.

'But it's interesting, the Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump, is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore,' he said.

In last month's primary, Moore was the candidate backed by Bannon, who split from his ex-boss, the president, who had backed the McConnell-approved Strange.

Strange had been appointed by Alabama's governor to take the seat that was vacated by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

But Bannon wanted to see the more conservative Moore in the seat as he's started waging his war against GOP Senate incumbents, who Bannon blames for the president's inability to get any major legislation passed in the almost 10 months since Trump's swearing-in.

In a way, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie's loss Tuesday night, was a Bannon win, proving that a candidate can't only be halfway in when it comes to Trump.

Gillespie had used some of Trump's messaging to his advantage, though also kept the unpopular president a distance away.

He was creamed by his opponent, Democrat Ralph Northam.

However, come Thursday, now Bannon's meddling seems like a bad decision again, as Strange would have easily won in next month's general election, as Alabama is pretty solidly a red state.

Moore is set to compete against Democrat Doug Jones in a special election slated for December 12, 2017  just 32 days away.

Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill said on CNN yesterday that under Alabama law Moore's name can't be removed from the ballot, though the state GOP could ask Merrill to disqualify Moore.

Merrill suggested to CNN's Erin Burnett that the allegations leveled against Moore could indeed be disqualifying.
Johnny Depp's longtime friend and tattoo artist left a jarred fetus in a Greenwich Village safe deposit box for more than 15 years.

The pickled remains were only discovered when workers at LaGuardia Place bank found the jar in the abandoned box on Wednesday, during a move to new offices.

'It's an old antique medical specimen,' famed New York tattoo artist Jonathan Shaw told The New York Post.

Famed New York tattoo artist Jonathan Shaw (left) who carried out most of Johnny Depp's inkings, left a fetus in jar in a Greenwich Village safe deposit box for more than 15 years (Johnny Depp at the back along with Iggy Pop to the right)

'It's in a jar. The old-time carnies would call them pickled punks. Now everything's so f**king politically correct. You can't have anything.'

Shaw was contacted by police after the fetus was discovered. The artist told them he had bought it at a Manhattan flea market in the 1970s or 1980s.

He explained that he put the item in storage and forgot all about it, eventually moving to California.

Afterwards he said he had not seen the contents of the box for more than 15 years since moving to Beverly Hills.

Shaw said that despite knowing the bank was moving, he had told the manager to take whatever belongings he had in safe No. 625 and transfer them to his local branch.

'I guess they opened the box and they freaked out,' he said. 'I don't collect that kind of stuff anymore. I got rid of the shrunken heads.'

'It's in a jar. The old-time carnies would call them pickled punks. Now everything's so fking politically correct. You can't have anything'. Afterwards he said he had not seen the contents of the box for more than 15 years since moving to Beverly Hills

Discussing his most famous client, Shaw said he was once walking with Depp around the flea market when he was approached to buy a bag of human fingers.

Adding that he would often bump into Andy Warhol in the 1970s and early 1980s before his death.

No criminality is suspected but the New York City medical examiner will examine the jar's contents.
Priti Patel is in line for 17,000 in severance from the taxpayer after quitting over the secret payments row.

The former International Development Secretary is due the payout under generous government terms - even though she apologised and admitted her behaviour had fallen 'below standards'.

But Sir Michael Fallon, who resigned a week earlier over sleaze allegations, will not be getting his exit lump sum - as he is too old.

The details emerged after Mrs May sought to steady the ship by naming leading Brexiteer and former reality TV contestant Penny Mordaunt as Miss Patel's replacement.

In her resignation letter, Priti Patel said she was 'sorry' to have distracted from the government's work and for lacking transparency

Sir Michael Fallon, who resigned a week earlier over sleaze allegations, will not be getting his exit lump sum - as he turned 65 in May

However, Mrs May's deputy Damian Green is still being investigated over sex harassment allegations, while Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is facing demands to resign over loose comments that might double the jail term for a British mother in Iran.

Under the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991, ministers who leave office - for whatever reason - are entitled to severance equivalent to a quarter of their salaries.

For a Cabinet minister that is around 17,000.

The sum is automatically paid, although there is a three week waiting period until the money is handed over.

Sir Michael would have been entitled to the same amount after standing down as Defence Secretary, admitting that his behaviour towards women in the past had 'fallen short'.

He had previously apologised for putting his hand on the knee of a journalist 15 years ago, but was facing other allegations.

However, Sir Michael turned 65 in May - meaning that he is no longer eligible. The cut-off point is based on the age by which people are likely to be drawing pensions.

George Osborne and Michael Gove also pocketed payouts of around 17,000 each when they were sacked from the Cabinet last year  despite walking into lucrative jobs in the City and Fleet Street.

RULES ON PAYOFFS FOR MINISTERS Under the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991, ministers who leave office - for whatever reason - are entitled to severance equivalent to a quarter of their salaries. For a Cabinet minister that is around 17,000. The sum is automatically paid, although there is a three week waiting period until the money is handed over. Sir Michael would have been entitled to the same amount after standing down as Defence Secretary, admitting that his behaviour towards women in the past had 'fallen short'. However, Sir Michael turned 65 in May - meaning that he is no longer eligible. The cut-off point in the legislation is based on the age by which people are likely to be drawing pensions. Advertisement

The two men were handed severance payments when Theresa May ousted them from their jobs as Chancellor and Justice Secretary when she arrived in No10.

Mr Gove was brought back to Cabinet a year later as Environment Secretary.

Miss Patel was humiliatingly forced to resign from the PM's top team in a 30-minute face-to-face showdown after being ordered to return from an Africa tour.

Her fate was finally sealed after two further secret meetings with Israeli officials emerged on top of the 12 that had already been revealed.

She also reportedly visited an Israeli military field hospital in the Golan Heights, a disputed area that Britain does not recognise, and failed to declare it.

In her resignation letter, Miss Patel said she was 'sorry' to have distracted from the government's work and for lacking transparency.

'In recent days there have been a number of reports about my actions and I am sorry that these have served as a distraction from the work of the Department for International Development and of the Government as a whole,' she wrote.

'As you know form our discussions I accept that in meeting with organisations and politicians during a private holiday in Israel my actions fell below the high standards that are expected of a Secretary of State.

'While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, y actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated.

'I offer a fulsome apology to you and to your Government for what has happened and offer my resignation.'

Mrs May, pictured leaving Downing Street today, faced a high-wire act with her second enforced reshuffle in a week

Mrs May has lost Sir Michael Fallon (pictured front row, third from left) from her Cabinet, while Priti Patel (pictured right of middle row) has now gone

Amid the welter of problems, the editor of Tory-supporting magazine the Spectator, Fraser Nelson, said today that Mrs May's chances of being ousted were rising.

'She is aiming for stagnation, a remit that's depressing enough itself,' he wrote. 'But if she can't even manage that, then her party will have no choice but to see if someone  anyone  could do better.'

A former minister has told MailOnline the PM had been on her 'final warning' for some time, while another MP said they believed opinion was 'hardening' against her and she might not survive far into next year.

Ms Mordaunt's appointment as International Development Secretary maintained the careful balance between Remainers and Brexiteers around the Cabinet table, and appears to have bought Mrs May some breathing room.

The PM also brought in new blood by elevating a member of the 2015 intake ofTory MPs to ministerial office for the first time.
A former actress has come forward to accuse director Roman Polanksi of trying to rape her when he was high on LSD, and that he tried a second time as well.

Mallory Millet, 77, who starred in Tootsie under the stage name Mallory Jones, says she was 29 and a struggling actress when she was invited to a dinner with the director and her friends following his wife, pregnant actress Sharon Tate, being murdered by Charles Manson's followers.

When her friends originally invited her to dinner, Mallory says 'They asked if they could bring Roman Polanski because he was devastated over the loss of his wife and they thought I might be able to cheer him up.'

In her interview with The Sun, Mallory says the first incident happened at the Plaza Hotel in February of 1970 and her friends warned her the director, now 84, was on LSD when she arrived.

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Mallory Millet who acted under the stage name of Mallory Jones (left) claims Roman Polanksi (right in the year of the alleged incident) tried to rape her in 1970 while he was high on LSD

Mallory says she met the director a second time, and he apologized, yet she claims he tried to rape her again after his apology

'We went up to Roman's suite to have some after-dinner coffee and drinks but (friends) Michael and Minda left and I was suddenly left on my own with Roman.'

'When I had first arrived they told me that Roman was tripping on LSD and he had started behaving quite strangely - whereas I was very sober - so I thought it was time to leave anyway.'

'But as I tried to leave he wouldn't let me and he attempted to rape me very, very forcefully.'

'He would not take no for an answer and he tried to have forcible intercourse with me.'

Mallory said she had to 'wrestle' the now convicted child rapist who lives life away from the grips of American justice.

Mallory, pictured here with her husband Thomas Danaher, says that she would like to see Polanksi finally brought to justice

Mallory also says she believes that like Harvey Weinstein, Polanski should be removed from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

'Even though he is short he has very strong upper body strength, he has large arms and shoulders.'

'I was very thin and had no muscle structure at all so we ended up wrestling, I had to wrench myself away from him, get out the door and run for my life down the Plaza hall.'

'He was pursuing me and I was just pushing the elevator button praying: ''Dear God please let the elevator door open I don't want this man near me another second.''

She said despite the alleged encounter, Polanski met up with her again and apologized for his behavior.

'I ended up alone with him, he tried to put his arms around me and hold me down and I had to flee for a second time.'

One of the women claims Polanski, 84, molested her under the dinner table during a dinner party in Gstaad in 1976 while her parents were present. Polanski is pictured in the Swiss town last month. His alleged victim says it is a 'sanctuary' for well-known pedophiles

'He was extremely brutish. You could tell that people almost never say no to him.'

'When he first made his initial pass at me and I refused he just could not believe it - it was as if he was thinking ''I am the great Roman Polanski how would you dare say no to me.'' He was extremely arrogant.'

'When I tell people Roman Polanski tried to rape me twice it sounds crazy.'

'People ask me: 'Why did you give him a second chance are you an idiot?

'So I don't like telling that part of the story, I don't know why I ended up meeting him a second time - but it happened.'

Mallory says that although the alleged incidents happened twice, she never contacted authorities because she felt they wouldn't believe her.

She also felt that with sexual abuse and harassment so rampant in Hollywood - even if police did believe her, no one would care in the industry.

'I never told the police because how could I prove it? I was just a young unknown actress and he was a great director,' she said.

'And the man seems to slip out of people's clutches no matter what happens.'

She ultimately quit the business after the alleged incidents with Polanski and other powerful men in the industry.

'Even after everything he has done the man still gets standing ovations from the movie world - even in recent years.

'I just became extremely cynical about show business.'

'I ended up fleeing the whole industry because all I did was turn down producers trying to get me under their desks and give them b*** j**.'

'It is a cesspool in Hollywood - it's all sexual harassment - every minute of it.

'All my life I've been waiting for Polanski to be brought to justice.'

Mallory came forward through the website imetpolanski.com. Several such websites have popped up over the past two months for various powerful men who are being accused of similar alleged behavior for women to be able to come forward with their own stories.

'He should be removed from the Oscars academy, he should be vilified, he should be shunned.'

Harvey Weinstein was removed from the academy in October, but Polanski has since remained on.

'I don't care what age he is he needs to be punished,' Mallory adds.

'I'm very extreme about these things and I think rape - particularly of a young girl - is the same as murder and should be punished as such.'

The imetpolanski.com website has been set up by campaign group Real Women Real Stories, who have been encouraging women to come forward and share their stories of abuse by Polanski and other powerful men.

They aim to make a film about Polanski's victims in a bid to bring him to justice - to support the project visit their website.

Some of the alleged attacks happened in 1969, the same year in which Polanski married Sharon Tate. She was murdered by members of the Charles Manson family later that year. It is not known if her death preceded Polanski's alleged attacks on young girls

Mallory's claims bring the total number of Polanski accusers that have come forward to 11, after five more woman came forward earlier this week to accuse the director of molesting them when they were children.

They women described how the convicted child rapist sexually assaulted them in the late 1960s and 70s before he went on the run for the statutory rape of another underage girl.

Of the new accusers, two say they were attacked by him in 1969, the same year in which his first wife Sharon Tate was murdered by members of the Charles Manson family.

It is not clear whether the alleged attacks happened before or after her slaying. The other alleged attack happened in 1976 when the woman was 12.

Polanski remains on the run after fleeing the US following his 1977 attack on 13-year-old Samantha Geimer.

He has been pleading for years to have the 1978 arrest warrant thrown out so that he can return to America.

He fled to France days before he was due to go to court over the attack. At the time, Polanski had reached a deal with prosecutors which meant he would serve a shorter sentence.

ROMAN POLANSKI'S ACCUSERS Jane Doe # 1 - 1969, aged 10 Jane Doe # 2 - 1969, aged 16 Jane Doe #3 - 1972, aged 9 Renate Langer - 1972, aged 15 in Gstaad German actress Renate Langer in 1978 aged 21 German actress Renate Langer claimed on October 3 that she was attacked by him in Gstaad in 1972. Swiss police are investigating her accusation. She revealed how he attacked her in an interview with The New York Times, admitting that she was too afraid to tell her parents about it at the time. 'My mother would have had a heart attack. 'I felt ashamed and embarrassed and lost and solo.' Ranger spoke out this year after her parents' deaths. Police in Switzerland, which has no statute of limitations laws, are now investigating her claims. Mallory Millet - 1970, aged 29 in New York and a second time, unclear when The struggling actress was invited out to dinner with the director and her friends at the Plaza Hotel in New York. She was warned ahead of time the director was on LSD 'We went up to Roman's suite to have some after-dinner coffee and drinks but (friends) Michael and Minda left and I was suddenly left on my own with Roman.' 'When I had first arrived they told me that Roman was tripping on LSD and he had started behaving quite strangely - whereas I was very sober - so I thought it was time to leave anyway.' 'But as I tried to leave he wouldn't let me and he attempted to rape me very, very forcefully.' 'He would not take no for an answer and he tried to have forcible intercourse with me.' She said despite the alleged encounter, Polanski met up with her again and apologized for his behavior. 'I ended up alone with him, he tried to put his arms around me and hold me down and I had to flee for a second time.' Robin 'M' - 1973, aged 16 in California In August, a woman who identified herself only as Robin M. claimed at a press conference that she was attacked by Polanski when she was 16 in 1973. She said the incident happened in southern California but would not go into further detail. She is not suing him but offered to testify against him to stop his 1978 arrest warrant from being dropped. Robin M, another of his accusers, came forward in August to say Polanski molested her when she was 16 in 1973. She is pictured with her lawyer Gloria Allred holding up a picture of herself as a teenager At her press conference, Robin said she told one friend after the attack but did not confide in anyone else because she feared her father would kill Polanski and end up in jail. 'The day after it happened, I did tell one friend that Mr Polanski had done that to me,' she said, reading from a prepared statement. 'The reason, with this exception, that I kept it to myself is that I didn't want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life,' she said Marianne Barnard - 1975, aged 10 in Malibu Barnard, an artist, said her mother arranged her meeting with Polanski when she was 10 in order for her to have her photograph taken. 'At first I had the understanding I was just going to the beach with my mom. We were there for a little while by ourselves, and then he was there. Last month, Californian artist Marianne Barnard claimed he molested her when she was 10 in 1975. She is pictured as a child, right ''First, he was taking pictures of me in the bikini, then it was with the coat then he said take off the bikini top, which I was comfortable with as I was only 10 and I often ran around with no top on. 'But then he wanted me to take my bikini bottoms off - I started to feel very uncomfortable. 'Then at some point I realized my mom had gone. 'I don't know where she went and I didn't really register her leaving but she was no longer there ... Then he molested me Jane Doe #4 - 1976, aged 15 in Gstaad The unidentified woman said she was 15 when she was at a dinner party with Polanski, Jack Nicholson, his girlfriend Angelica Huston, and her parents who worked in the film industry. She told the website imetpolanski.com: 'I sat on my left side, put his hand on my leg. 'He then proceeded to touch my genitals and tried to squeeze and rub it with his hand, all that under the table in front of my father's face,' she said. Jane Doe # 5 - 1976, aged 12 Samantha Geimer - 1977, aged 13 in Hollywood Geimer is the most well-known of those who have accused Polanski of sexual assault. In 1977, he gave her Quaaludes before raping and sodomizing her at Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles. She was just 13 at the time. Polanski was arrested and was due to go to jail the following year after pleading guilty to a lesser charge but he fled the country at the last minute in fear that prosecutors had lied to him. Samantha Geimer (left in 2013) was raped by Polanski when she was 13 in 1977 (seen that year, right) but has since forgiven him. He fled the country to avoid being jailed for it in 1978 He has been on the run in France, where he is a citizen, and Switzerland ever since. Neither will extradited him to the US. Geimer has kept in touch with him and was awarded a $500,000 settlement from him. She has spoken openly of how she has forgiven him and pleaded for a Los Angeles judge to stop the warrant for his arrest which still stands.

Charlotte Lewis - 1983, aged 16 in Paris Charlotte Lewis, a British actress, also claims to have been assaulted by Polanski. She said he forced himself on her as she auditioned for a role in one of his films in Paris in 1983. By this time, Polanski was already on the run for having raped Geimer six years earlier. She reported her accusations to police in Los Angeles but not in Paris where the alleged attack took place. British actress Charlotte Lewis says Polanski attacked her in Paris when she was 16. They are pictured above in 1986, three years after the alleged assault, during the presentation of his film Pirates at the Cannes Film Festival In 2010, she said: 'Hollywood is giving the wrong message to pedophiles.' 'He sexually abused me and manipulated me in the worst way,' she claimed. 'He forced himself upon me. 'He took advantage of me and I have lived with the effects of his behavior ever since. He has scarred me.' The role was for Pirates, Polanski's film, and she was given the part. Lewis (above in 2010, when she revealed her accusations) said at the time that Hollywood gave pedophiles the 'wrong message' by allowing them continued success Advertisement

He got cold feet at the last minute and fled, convinced that he was being set up and that they would be tricked into a harsher prison term.

Geimer has long forgiven him for the attack and, earlier this year, she pleaded with authorities in Los Angeles to allow him back into the country. Courts in Switzerland and France have both refused to extradite him.

In Los Angeles, he is protected by California's now outdated statute of limitations which, until 2016, meant sex crimes had to be prosecuted within 10 years of them happening unless new evidence which could be tested with DNA technology emerged.

The law has since changed in rape cases but crimes which none of those allegedly committed by Polanski are recent enough to now be tried.

Polanski now lives in Paris with his 51-year-old wife Emmanuelle Seigner.
More than a dozen people are behind bars after a Texas grand jury indicted 22 alleged gang members on charges including sex trafficking, drug dealing and human smuggling.

Federal authorities revealed that 11 suspected members of the violent Southwest Cholos gang were arrested in Houston, Texas on Tuesday. Two others were already behind bars on related charges.

The FBI is seeking an additional nine suspected gang members who were charged, but are currently considered fugitives with outstanding warrants out for their arrests.

Juan Carlos Contreras-Cervantes (left) and William Alberto Lopez were among the 22 alleged gang members a Texas grand jury indicted on charges including sex and human trafficking

Melisa Bazan Dominguez (left) and Claudia Jackely Soriano-Hernandez allegedly belong to or are affiliated with the violent Southwest Cholos gang operating in and around Houston, Texas

Prosecutors said that the 22 alleged members or affiliates of the violent Southwest Cholos gang targeted undocumented immigrants and forced them into service at brothels in the Houston area and in Mexico.

The US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas revealed that among the 37-count indictment the gang members face are charges of conspiracy, sex trafficking, sex trafficking of a minor, transportation to engage in prostitution, transportation of illegal aliens, illegal dealing of firearms and aggravated identity theft.

In addition, they will face drug charges including possession with the intent to distribute heroin and methamphetamines.

The gang's primary hub of activity was said to be the Carriage Way Apartment Complex in southwest Houston, which prosecutors said operated as a brothel, in addition to functioning as the gang's base of operations for their drug and firearms trafficking.

According to the indictment, the gang members allegedly promised those looking to be smuggled into the US that they could pay off their coyote debts by working in restaurants. But, when they arrived in Houston, the illegal immigrants were forced into prostitution at brothels operated by the gang members.

The gang members would also tattoo their names and nicknames on the illegal immigrants as a way to 'identify them as their property and demonstrate control over them,' the Attorney's Office said.

Carriage Way Apartment Complex in southwest Houston was said to a the location of the gang members' brothel and the base of operations for their firearms and drug trafficking

Authorities are seeking assistance in locating suspected gang members Anadalit Duarte (left) and Paul Moreno-Reyna, who are believed to have fled from Houston to Mexico

When the forced prostitutes failed to make enough money or refused to work, the gang members threatened and carried out violence against the women and their families.

Authorities identified at least six victims of sex trafficking, including a 14 year old. When the 11 gang members were arrested on Tuesday, seven additional victims were found in the gang brothels.

The grand jury indictment also revealed that some of the gang members were allegedly involved in non-sex trafficking human smuggling.

At least nine illegal immigrants were said to have been smuggled into Houston through gang stash houses in South Texas' Rio Grande Valley. The immigrants, including two Chinese nationals, paid the gang members at least $40,000 to be smuggled into the US.

During Tuesday's arrests and raids, 16 additional illegal immigrants were found in the gang members' stash houses in the Houston area.

The alleged gang members arrested on Tuesday were named as Houston residents Giovani 'Whiteboy' Alecio, 26; Victor Javiel Gonzalez, 29; Maria Angelica 'Patty' Moreno-Reyna, 51; Gabriela 'Gabby' Gonzalez-Flores, 46, Eddie 'Monterrey' Torres, 38; Jose Luis 'Lucky' Moreno, 23; Gilberto Espinoza Garcia, 49; Hector 'Pantera' Reyna, 26 and Jimmy Mejia Chavez, 33; Donna, Texas' Grisel 'Cris' Salas, 34, and Jose Ruben Palomo-Martinez, 48, of Mission, Texas.

Those arrested on Tuesday appeared before US Magistrate Judge Nancy K. Johnson on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Houston Chronicle reported. The prosecution told the judge that they are risks and asked that they be held without bond, pending a hearing.

The FBI is seeking fugitive Walter Lopez, an alleged gang member wanted in connection with sex trafficking and other charges

The gang members already in custody on related charges were named as Erik Ivan 'Casa' Alvarez-Chavez, 39, and Denis Amaya 'Keiko' Calballero, 25, both of Houston. They are expected to make their appearances in federal court in the near future.

The FBI is seeking the public's assistance in helping them find the other nine alleged gang members who were indicted: Houston's Bianca Stephanie 'Troubles' Reyna, 20; Claudia Soriano-Hernandez, 26; Juan Carlos Contreras Cervantes, 25; Donna's Israel Juarez Sifuentes, 43, and Melissa 'Missy' Dominguez, 50; and Raul Moreno 'Coney' Reyna, 53; William Alberto Lopez, 27; Anadalit 'Paola' Duarte, 25, and Walter Lopez, 26, all originally from Houston but believed to have fled to Mexico.

The grand jury also indicted Soriano-Hernandez, Mejia-Chavez and Contreras-Cervantes for illegally re-entering the United States following deportation, and found Javiel Gonzalez is also charged as a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and faces up to 10 years imprisonment.

Alvarez-Chavez was alleged to have stolen the identity of a Salvadoran man in an effort to gain temporary protected status as a citizen of El Salvador.

If convicted of sex trafficking, the gang members will face a minimum of 15 years and to life imprisonment. The human smuggling charges carry a maximum of 20 years imprisonment.

Those charged with the drug trafficking will face up to life with a minimum of 10 years as possible punishment. And, those those convicted in the illegal trafficking of firearms face another five years imprisonment.
An engineer whose ex-girlfriend threw acid over him had reported her to police just three weeks earlier, a court has heard.

Mark Van Dongen, 29, was left with horrific scarring and paralysed from the neck down following the attack in Bristol in September 2015.

Prosecutors say the attack was deliberately carried out by his ex Berlinah Wallace, who is said to have shouted: 'If I can't have you, no one else can.'

The trial heard today that, earlier the same month, the victim made two 999 calls in which he alleged Wallace had harassed and attempted to blackmail him.

But a police officer told the court her tone had been pleading rather than harassing.

Mark van Dongen reported his ex Berlinah Wallace to police three weeks before she allegedly threw acid over him in an attack prosecutors say led to his suicide over a year later

He also claimed she had made silent calls to his new partner, of whom she was said to be jealous.

Mr van Dongen took his own life at a suicide clinic in his native Belgium after suffering 15 months of pain following the alleged attack. He had told his father that he had nothing left to live for and was in near-constant agony.

Wallace is on trial for murder at Bristol Crown Court after prosecutors alleged that the attack was the direct cause of Mr van Dongen's death. She denies the charge.

Jurors listened to the two 999 calls Mr van Dongen made to Avon and Somerset Police on September 2 on 2015.

In the first call, which was 16 minutes long, Mr Van Dongen told the operator: 'I split up with my girlfriend last week, the week before, and she keeps calling me and now she wants me to go there and I said no I am not going there. Now she's like blackmailing me and the like.'

Asked to explain the blackmail threat, Mr Van Dongen replies: 'Well she says like, she first kept on calling and crying and like hyperventilating and everything.

'Jealous' Wallace was making silent phone calls to his new girlfriend, Mr van Dongen told police

'When I left her to start off with she tried to kill herself, she took a handful of pills and she said like she would stab herself if I was going to leave her.

'Now she constantly keeps on calling me and now she just called me and she says like 'Oh you should come today' and I'm like 'I'm going to call the police', say that you downloaded child porn... she keeps screaming like.

'She's ruining my life. Can you do something about it because like she's bothering my girlfriend.

'I don't want no police here or nothing because she's causing problems, she's just causing so much problems.

'I just want somebody to go to my ex and have a word with her or like section or whatever.'

He said he was willing to attend a police station to make a statement.

Mr van Dongen pleaded with his police to stop his girlfriend harassing him before the 'attack'

The call handler asks: 'I'm just writing all of this down, so it's your ex-girlfriend and she won't leave you alone?'

Mr Van Dongen replies: 'No she won't, she won't and she's blackmailing me, she's threatening me.'

He says his new girlfriend, Violet Farquharson, had been receiving silent phone calls which he suspected was Wallace.

'My new girlfriend gets lots of phone calls from a private number and nobody's speaking and I bet it's her because my ex hacked my email account and she would have all the phone numbers - it must be her,' he says.

The victim's father yesterday told the jury of the months of agony he suffered between the alleged attack and his death

'Something needs to be done about it.'

The call ends unexpectedly and Mr Van Dongen rings back and speaks to a different operator and they confirm an officer will contact him to make an appointment to visit a police station to make a statement.

The following day, Mr Van Dongen attended Trinity Road police station in Bristol and spoke to Pc Katie Bettel.

The officer told jurors Mr Van Dongen told her that he had been receiving unwanted phone calls and text messages from Wallace and alleged she had been making silent calls to Miss Farquharson.

'I told him that I would make it very clear to Miss Wallace that it was unwanted contact and that if she continued to make contact that would be considered harassment,' she said.

'I also said that I would also warn her that we could investigate other calls and what the consequences would be.'

PC Bettel told the jury she looked through his phone but did not perceive the text messages she saw to be threatening but of a 'pleading nature'.

She said: 'I wouldn't have said that they were harassing.'

She later visited Wallace to warn her to stop contacting Mark, and told her how police could trace the source of silent phone calls.

She added: 'She was particularly quiet at the beginning.

'She just let me speak. I would normally expect someone to try and give they account but she was pretty much silent.'

Colin Evans, a work colleague of Mr Van Dongen, said he had showed him scratches on his back which he alleged Wallace had caused.

'He used to say that she was abusive and he pulled up his top and showed me the various scratch marks on his back and he reiterated 'She's crazy, look what she's done to me',' he said.

'I remember him saying that she threatened to kill him if he ever left her.'

Mr Evans said he had gone to Wallace's flat to collect a printer and documents because Mr Van Dongen was 'genuinely scared' of going there himself.

Wallace, of Bristol, denies charges of murder and applying a corrosive fluid. She claims she thought she was throwing a glass of water at Mr Van Dongen.
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One hundred rounds were fired in northern France this morning to mark the centenary of the end of the battle of Passchendaele.

Horse-drawn guns from as far away as Australia were specially assembled for the service in Fort de Seclin, Lille.

The weapons were manned by teams of volunteers from across the world dressed in Great War uniforms.

The ceremony was organised by John Slough, 70, whose grandfather Albert, a Royal Field Artillery soldier, was killed at Passchendaele.

The battle was fought from July 31 to November 10 1917 and is estimated to have claimed the lives of as many as 475,000 soldiers.

Mr Slough, a master gunmaker who specialises in restoring artillery, believes the sacrifice of artillery soldiers can be overlooked at Remembrance Sunday commemorations.

He said: 'Everyone was a hero there for sure - most people were going over the trenches and being shot and that's the impression you get of the battlefield.

'But there was an enormous amount of artillery gunners who took part so we thought they should be honoured.'

He added: 'I thought it was a good idea to get together as many guns as we could to fire a gun salute.'

One hundred rounds were fired in northern France this afternoon to mark the centenary of the end of the battle of Passchendaele

Some 16 artillery guns from the First World War were brought in for the remembrance service at Fort de Seclin, near Lille

The guns were manned by teams of volunteers from UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium and France

The Battle of Passchendaele was fought from July 31 to November 10 1917 and is estimated to have claimed the lives of as many as 475,000 soldiers

The ceremony was organised by John Slough, whose grandfather Albert, a Royal Field Artillery soldier, was killed at Passchendaele

Mr Slough organised the event to honour the efforts of artillery soldiers, who he feels can often be overlooked at Remembrance Sunday commemorations

By the end of the battle in 1917, the Allies had only advanced five miles from where they had started at least 240,000 British soldiers died in the offensive

Visitors watch the salute and honour those who died at the battle which took place over three months 100 years ago

Horse-drawn guns from as far away as Australia were specially assembled for the service

During the battle the area saw the heaviest rainfall in more than 30 years leaving soldiers drenched in mud

The Passchendaele Salute this morning took place under the patronage of Mrs Janice Charette, High Commissioner for Canada

A volunteer tends to a horse during the ceremony. As many as eight million horses are believed to have died during the First World War

Volunteers load artillery into a gun for the salute. Despite the massive losses from the start of the battle, the leader of the British Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Hague, refused to accept defeat and ordered more attacks

A volunteer dressed as a Great War soldier stands by a First World War truck used to carry artillery

Volunteers fire artillery during the salute. Among the Allied deaths were 36,000 Australians, 2,500 New Zealanders and 16,000 Canadians

Smoking artillery shells lie smoking by a soldier's feet during the ceremony to honour the gunners of Passchendaele

A gun fires during the salute. Many soldiers were left with chemical burns after the German army unleashed mustard gas

Soldiers hold flags during the ceremony. The Battle of Passchendaele became a symbol of muddy trench warfare and large numbers of casualties which defined the First World War

Volunteers dressed as Great War soldiers load up the guns amid a clouds of smoke. The battle became a symbol of muddy trench warfare and large numbers of casualties

Among the guns at the ceremony were nine 18pdrs; three 13pdrs; one 4.5 Howitzer, two French 75s and a 13pdr A/A gun on a Pierce Arrow 1917 lorry
This is the shocking moment a woman fiercely dragged a female driver out of a SUV on a busy road in south-east China.

The driver, said to be a mistress, was forced to pull up the vehicle in the middle of the road as the wife barged in angrily.

Onlookers gathered and called the police as the pair caused serious traffic on road.

Footage shows a scorned wife violently dragging her cheating husband's mistress by the hair (left). It's claimed that the mistress was driving her Lexus SUV in south-east China(right)

Mobile phone footage emerged online showing a short-haired woman violently pulling a female driver's hair out of the car.

It's claimed that the gold Lexus SUV belongs to the wife and she was shocked to see her cheating husband's mistress driving her vehicle on street.

The number plate suggested that the incident took place around Zhanjiang city of Guangdong Province.

Onlookers gathered and suggested the woman to call to local police for help (left). The wife got on her car and beat up the mistress inside (right)

Onlookers took out their mobile phones and filmed the brawl (left). The pair had caused traffic piling up behind (right)

The alleged mistress refused to get off the car, hence, the wife got on her vehicle and beat her in the car.

About 10 onlookers gathered and filmed the incident while some suggested to report to local police.

The row had caused traffic piling up behind as the SUV was seen stopping in the middle of a road.
Police in China have reportedly launched a manhunt to look for a suspect who abandoned an ill baby boy outside an orphanage yesterday.

CCTV footage captured how the man deserted the newborn child who was put in a plastic box before quickly fleeing the scene.

The baby has been taken to the hospital and is currently kept in an incubator.

A man in Huizhou, China, carries a plastic box out of his car and headed to an orphanage

He puts down the box, which has a newborn baby boy along with some clothing and toys

The man then quickly turns around and rushes back to his car before driving away

According to Pear Video, the suspect left the baby outside the orphanage on November 9 in Quanzhou, south-east China's Fujian Province. The orphanage remains unnamed.

In the surveillance footage, the man is seen carrying a plastic box out of his car.

He then put the transparent storage box outside a building before quickly running back to his black vehicle.

The baby was taken to the hospital after being found left inside the box, along with some clothing, toys and 1,000 yuan cash (114). No proof of identity was found.

A baby boy was found inside the box along with 1,000 yuan cash, but no proof of identity

The abandoned child has been taken to the hospital and is now kept in an incubator

A nurse said the baby had been given intravenous therapy as marks were seen on his tiny arms

He is being looked after in an incubator at the Hui'an County Hospital.

Li Xueqiong, the head nurse of the department of paediatrics, said the boy suffered from a low level of blood oxygen, which could lead to complications in body tissue and organs.

The nurse also suspected that the baby had been given intravenous therapy and had blood samples taken before being abandoned.

The local police are investigating the case. They have asked anyone who recognises the man and his car to contact them.
Britain's industrial sector has enjoyed its strongest run of growth for nearly 25 years, figures out today reveal.

The UK's trade abroad is also booming with sale of good and services abroad soaring by a staggering 13.6 per cent in the past year to 602 billion in September 2017.

The news is a major boost for Chancellor Philip Hammond ahead of his Budget, which he will unveil in just a fortnight's time.

The Chancellor is under growing pressure to find extra money to loosen the purse strings, with the Armed Forces, police, NHS and schools all calling for greater investment.

While Theresa May is said to want her Treasury chief to commit to going on a house building spree in a bid to win back young voters.

Figures released by the Office for National statistics today show that the UK production industry increase by 1.1 per cent in the three months from July to September this year.

Britain's production sector has enjoyed six months of growth in a row - meaning it has had its strongest run of performance in nearly 25 years, the Office for National Statistics said today

This is the sixth monthly rise on the trot -meaning Britain has enjoyed its longest manufacturing boom since 1994.

The ONS said the boom has mainly been driven by the manufacturing industry, which increased by 0.8 per cent over the quarter.

The boom in total production and manufacturing output smashed predictions - with both up 0.7 per cent in a month, far higher than the 0.3 per cent predicted.

Office for National Statistics senior statistician Kate Davies said: 'Manufacturing grew strongly with robust growth in cars and medical equipment.'

But while total production is up, the pictured is gloomier in the construction industry which suffered its second quarter of decline.

Output fell by 0.9 per cent in July-September, following a decrease of 0.5 per cent in April-June.

This is the industry's first back-to-back quarterly fall in output since 2012, with the decline driven by a fall in housing repair and maintenance.

Ms Davies added: 'However, construction dropped for the second quarter running, driven by falls in commercial work and housing repairs.

'The UK's trade balance with the rest of the world worsened, mainly due to large increases in imports of machinery, gold and fuel, partially offset by falling imports of aircraft.'

Chancellor Philip Hammond, pictured in March this year when he delivered the last spring Budget, received a boost from today's figures ahead of his Budget on November 22

Meanwhile, Britain trade figures are also rosy, meaning that the UK trade deficit shrunk by 11.7billion in the year to September 2017.

The UK attracted more foreign direct investment projects than ever before, with over 2,200 projects recorded.

This means more than 75,000 new jobs were created, and 32,600 safeguarded, amounting to over 2,000 jobs per week across the country.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox said: 'Today's statistics show there's increasing demand for UK goods and services across the world. More than one year on since the EU referendum, exports are increasing faster than imports and there is a narrowing of the trade deficit.

'As an international economic department, we continue to bang the drum for the UK as a great place to do business with an open liberal economy, world-class talent and business-friendly taxation'.
A dating site that encourages young women to hook up with older men in exchange for help with tuition fees has begun an advertising campaign at UK universities.

Five giant billboards are doing a tour of institutions in an aim to get 100,000 British students to sign up by the end of the year.

Cash-strapped young women are told a 'sugar daddy' will pamper and spoil them as well as help pay for their studies and provide them with some extra pocket money.

The huge billboards for RichMeetBeautiful, which appear to be poorly translated, show a couple cuddling alongside the caption: 'Romance, passion, fun & 0,- in study loan? Date a sugar daddy or sugar mama'.

The huge billboards for RichMeetBeautiful, which appear to be poorly translated, show a couple cuddling alongside the caption: 'Romance, passion, fun & 0,- in study loan? Date a sugar daddy or sugar mama'. Pictured: One of the billboards outside Regent's University in London

The Norwegian firm has already faced an angry response after a campaign in Paris, when the driver of one of its vehicles was arrested at the Sorbonne for promoting prostitution.

Among the universities the billboards will be targeting are Regents University, Kings College London, the London School of Economics and the City of London Law School.

On their website, the Norwegian company describes itself as a 'sugar daddy and sugar baby dating site' - but has been accused of encouraging prostitution and preying on the financial insecurity of students.

The site reads: 'Sugardaddies are wealthy, established gentlemen who may already have a wife and family, however, their busy lifestyle and years of marriage mean the spark and magic is all but gone.

'Sugarbabies should understand their Sugardaddy is not looking to replace his wife and children, but is looking for someone beautiful to pamper, spoil and share his downtime with.

'A Sugarbaby is a beautiful young lady who is worth her weight in gold. She seeks to please her Sugardaddy by being available for him, sweetening his spare time and sharing his luxury lifestyle.

'She seeks to learn from him and advance her knowledge about life, business, culture and more - while earning some pocket money to pay off her college tuition or debt.'

Students at Kings College London, one of 12 universities to be targeted, have lashed out at the dating site.

A second-year history student, who asked not be named, said: 'It's disgusting. It should be illegal for these perverts to pray on youngsters like this.

The site reads: 'Sugardaddies are wealthy, established gentlemen who may already have a wife and family, however, their busy lifestyle and years of marriage mean the spark and magic is all but gone'

'University is expensive, we all know that, and I'm in a massive amount of debt.

'But me and my friends would never turn to prostitution in order to reduce that, and these sorts of websites are tantamount to that - it's exploitative and wrong.'

The advertising campaign will target more than 12 universities over the next three months, and CEO Sigurd Vedal claims 75 per cent of of new signups are women, many of whom aged between 18 and 26.

In October of this year, when the billboards were displayed in Paris's Sarbonne University, they were seized by authorities.

The City of Paris's official Twitter account said it 'strongly condemned the shameful advertisement' and would 'work with police to make it disappear from our streets'.

The advertising campaign will target more than 12 universities over the next three months, and CEO Sigurd Vedal claims 75 per cent of of new signups are women, many of whom aged between 18 and 26

Vedal said: 'We are now in and on the streets with our new campaign, targeting students 18-26 years old in London.

'[The] UK is one of our top five priority markets to enter with mass marketing.

'Our research shows there is a large demand for Sugardating in [the] UK.

'For the next 3 months we will have five cars driving around to all major educational institutions.

'Since our launch we have seen a huge interest in our site, so with the new campaign we set the goals high - 20,000 new members in the next weeks, 100,000 new members by the end of 2017.'
A chemist at the centre of an incident in which seven police officers were rushed to hospital with gas poisoning, had been sacked from Oxford University for misconduct, it was revealed today.

The 34-year-old company director was eventually arrested after a team of police staged at 5.30am raid on his home but had to flee as they were overcome by fumes from a mystery hydrogen-based chemical.

Hamed Ahmadi Nejad was also taken to hospital suffering from the effects of breathing in the chemicals at his home in the middle of Oxford.

He was later discharged from hospital and taken to police cells where he was charged with offences of administering a poison with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm and one count of intimidation of a witness.

Officers were carrying out an arrest at 5.16am in Elizabeth Jennings Way, Oxford (pictured) when they became aware of a 'potential chemical hazard'

He made a brief appearance before Oxford Magistrates Court today where, despite making an application for bail, he was remanded in custody.

It was understood that Nejad owned his own IT company and was a sole director. He was listed as living at Elizabeth Jennings Way, Oxford - the same address that was at the centre of the major chemical incident yesterday.

Police, fire crews and paramedics raced to the block of flats before dawn after a call for help from the police officers who had staged the early morning raid to arrest Nejad. Ambulance crews took the seven injured officers to the John Radcliffe Hospital where at least two were detained overnight for observations.

Nejad was under investigation by detectives in Oxford after waging an alleged campaign against Oxford University where he was employed until his dismissal earlier this year, on the grounds of misconduct. It was understood that he had worked at Linacre College, which houses 450 graduates and at least 50 Fellows.

Oxford University sacked Nejad, whose home was at the centre of a gas poisoning that left seven police officers in hospital

Its website boasts that students are from 133 different countries and that it is 'academically rigorous' and 'environmentally aware in its ethos'.

Since being sacked, it was claimed Nejad had conducted a campaign against Oxford University and its staff, including sending Facebook messages and a picture of a dead rat. He was also believed to have leaflet-dropped the college as part of his campaign, by flying a drone above it and releasing the flyers.

During the all-day chemical incident at his home, before his arrest, residents in more than 60 surrounding homes and flats were evacuated and taken to nearby college buildings for safety. Roads were also sealed off and a major police cordon erected.

Nejad stood in the dock and was guarded by a police officer, for the 25-minute hearing. Wearing a grey jumper, he spoke only to confirm his name and did not enter any pleas to the charges.

The man arrested at the scene, a 34-year-old from Oxford, is in police custody on suspicion of harassment without injury

Objecting to him being granted bail Ben May, prosecuting, said: 'There are concerns with regards to interference with witness. The witnesses are entitled to be protected by law.

'During his arrest there was a release of poisonous or noxious substance and two officers are still in hospital.'

Richard Demczak, defending, said that Nejad should be granted bail until his trial.

'This has been blown out of proportion, its absolutely ludicrous.'

He said that the police knew about the hydrogen from when they visited his flat the last three times.

'The reason he had his hydrogen is because he is an entrepreneur, a chemist, physician,' he said.

'I would submit to you he should be released on bail.'

Presiding magistrate David Harding denied Nejad bail until his appearance at Oxford Crown Court on December 8.

Nejad, of Elizabeth Jennings Way, Oxford, was then taken down to the cells.

Seven police officers were rushed to hospital after they found the lab full of chemicals at a house in the raid yesterday that saw 60 residents evacuated.

Two officers were kept in hospital overnight and the local nursery has closed, warning 90 parents to keep their children away from the area.

A South Central Ambulance Service spokesman said paramedics were called to help at 5.25am by the police.

A hazardous area response team, two ambulances, an ambulance officer and a tactical commander were sent to the scene but no members of the public needed treatment

A forensic officer at the scene yesterday, where more than 60 residents were evacuated in Oxford

More than 60 residents are staying at St Hughs College in St Margarets Road where they may have to remain overnight.

Neighbours claim two similar operations were conducted in the same block of flats in June and July this year.

A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: 'Officers were conducting a routine arrest at a property in Elizabeth Jennings Way, Oxford this morning at 5.16am.

'They were made aware by the occupant of a potential chemical hazard and precautions were taken as a result.

'The property was evacuated but at this time there are no reports of any members of the public being injured.

'Seven officers were affected by the substance which caused some of them minor irritation and two are being kept in hospital overnight. The only people affected are the officers and arrested person.

Seven officers were affected by the substance which caused some of them minor irritation and two are being kept in hospital overnight, according to a police spokesman

'The property is safe. Officers are attending and continue with their search and investigation and it is hoped that residents will be allowed to return during the course of the day.

'The incident is not being treated as terrorism-related.

'The man arrested, a 34-year-old from Oxford, is in police custody on suspicion of harassment without injury.'

A police sergeant at the scene said: 'We have five officers with inhalation-type problems and two are still in hospital under observation. Hopefully it will be nothing serious but they are still being tested.

'Combined with fire and ambulance services we have about 15 members of emergency crews on the scene.

'We won't let anyone in until we are completely happy that it's safe. We are still doing tests and removing stuff from the property to make it safe, obviously to be disposed of.

'It's not an ideal situation at all I'm afraid.'
A fact-checking operation run by the Washington Post has determined President Donald Trump has made 1,318 false statements since he was inaugurated.

The astonishing total comes from the team of fact-checkers at an outlet Trump regularly derides as among the 'fake news' media that is out to get him.

'I covered Donald Trump 30 years ago when I was a business reporter in Manhattan and he was a real estate investor. His handling of the truth back then is exactly as it is now,' Glenn Kessler, who oversees the paper's team of fact-checkers told Poynter.org.

The Post is one of just three major teams of fact-checkers monitoring the president's statements. PolitiFact and FactCheck.Org are the others.

The Washington Post's Fact-checker database has determined President Donald Trump made 1,318 'false and misleading' claims over 263 days

There have been times when the media jumped the gun on Trump, given the long record of debunked claims. This appears to have happened when he dumped a box of fish food in a koi pond alongside Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

'One problem: Trump didn't just decide to dump his food on his own. Video shows he was following the lead of his host at the koi pond event, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,' Politifact noted.

But just in October, Trump racked up an impressive number of statements that were knocked down by the Post and deemed false.

One occurred when Trump tweeted: 'Senator Bob Corker 'begged' me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said 'NO' and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement.''

Corker and his chief of staff dispute this account. Corker's top aide says Trump asked him to reconsider his decision, and offered to endorse him.

On October 7, Trump claimed, 'We're the highest taxed nation in the world,' something he has repeated in the push for tax reform.

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. The president has tangled with the media throughout his term. The Washington Post fact-check site has found Trump made 1,318 'false and misleading' claims over 263 days

The Post's Fact Checker site has found 1,318 false and misleading claims, and Trump hasn't yet hit his first year in office

The U.S. scores in the bottom third when revenue is taken as a percentage of gross domestic product, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found.

Sometimes Trump just rounds up or exaggerates to earn a damning review. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, he said: 'They had 200 mile per hours winds. it just ripped the place apart.' The maximum sustained were 155 miles, according to the fact-checker site.

Others are harder to police. Trump said regarding recovery efforts: ''We did a great job. But we weren't fairly treated by the media because we did a great job.' Much of the island remains without power long after the hurricane hit, and locals had begun criticizing the administration's response.

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, to travel to Danang, Vietnam. Trump is on a five country trip through Asia traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines

All of the policing has not stopped Trump from repeating claims he may find advantageous.

'If it were up to me I would not have gone into Iraq. That was a big mistake. That was truly one of the big mistakes in the history of our country,' Trump said. His record of public statements is much less clear-cut, and at times he expressed reluctant support for the invasion.

The site also rated false a claim Trump made to have invented the term 'fake news' itself.

'The media is really, the word, one of the greatest of all terms I've come up with, is 'fake.' I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years but I've never noticed it,' Trump said.

But the site found: 'Fake news appears to have begun seeing general use at the end of the 19th century,' and digs up uses as far back as 1890.
A US journalist charged with subversion in Zimbabwe over allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe on Twitter has been pictured leaving prison after she was freed from the 'hell hole' on $1,000 bail.

Martha O'Donovan, 25, did not speak to reporters as she emerged from a prison in the capital, Harare, and left in a US Embassy vehicle. Her lawyers also did not make any statements.

Photos taken Friday show the journalist has been freed. She has however been told she can't leave the country after allegedly calling President Mugabe 'selfish and sick' on Twitter. The New Jersey native will return to court on Wednesday.

Martha O'Donavan, in black hood, the American woman charged with subversion over allegedly insulting President Robert Mugabe on Twitter, presents herself to prison officers at Chikurubi Maximum Prison on the outskirts of Harare, Friday

Martha O'Donavan, center in black hood, was freed on bail Friday and did not speak to reporters after her release

O'Donavan is accused of calling the 93 year old Mugabe a "sick man" in a tweet including an image of the president with a catheter. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Martha O'Donovan was charged with attempting to overthrow Mugabe as well as undermining or insulting the veteran leader, now 93.

Her arrest in a dawn raid at her apartment last week- just weeks after the government appointed a cybersecurity minister tasked with policing social media.

She was released Friday after a judge sided with the defense and accepted that the state had failed to justify the reason for remanding her in custody.

O'Donovan's lawyer Obey Shava, said outside the High Court in Harare: 'Ms Martha O'Donovan has been granted $1,000 bail (860 euros) and ordered to reside at a given address, surrender her passport... and report [to detectives] twice a week.'

O'Donovan was accused of being behind a tweet posted by anonymous Twitter user @matigary on October 11.

Martha O'Donovan is pictured being led into a truck to be taken to jail on Saturday after a court hearing in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she is charged with insulting and undermining President Robert Mugabe on Twitter

This is the post O'Donovan is accused of writing. It was shared under the Twitter handle @matigary on October 11 and includes a photograph which the user said appeared to show he was using a catheter

The tweet labeled Mugabe, 93, a 'selfish and sick' man and suggested he was relying on a catheter.

Police claimed they traced its IP address to her home and they said she is behind the entire account despite the fact that it was still active on Saturday even after she was thrown in jail.

'LOL they think she is me,' said one of the tweets. The person behind the account also joked that they had tried to turn themselves in but that the authorities wanted to keep O'Donovan behind bars because she is foreign.

O'Donovan is a producer for the political satire TV network Magamba and who has studied human rights across Africa for years.

She was held in at the notoriously grotty prisons Chikurubi.

Authorities in Zimbabwe said they traced the IP address of the October 11 post to O'Donovan's home and they believe she is behind the account.

A judge dismissed her lawyers' motion to throw out the arrest warrant on Saturday.

O'Donovan, a graduate of NYU, has been in Zimbabwe for the last year working for the local TV network Magamba and bar tending.

She went to Africa in 2013 to teach young local people how to become radio journalists as part of her NYU fellowship on human rights in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Magamba TV, which she now works as a producer for, describes itself the home of 'satirical comedy sensations'.

On Saturday, the account was still active as O'Donovan languished in jail. Its anonymous user is relentless in their criticism of Mugabe who they refer to as 'Goblin'

They jokingly claimed that they turned themselves in after O'Donovan's arrest but were turned away because they were 'after muzungu' - an African term for foreigners

As news of her arrest emerged on Friday, a #FreeMartha social media campaign calling for her release went viral.

The woman's family in her hometown of Martinsville, New Jersey, did not yet comment on her arrest at the time.

Her arrest warrant stated that on October 11, she, under the Twitter handle @matigary, tweeted: 'We are being led by a sick and selfish man'.

It was said she 'founded' Magamba - the network which she works for - and allege that she may be trying to 'overthrow' the government through her work for it.

Magamba was founded in 2007, when she was 15, by Comrade Fatso & Outspoken, two African men and hip hop artists.

Police say she also retweeted one of @matigary's tweets on the Magamba Twitter account which referred to Mugabe as a 'goblin'.

But on Saturday, as she sat in jail after handing over all of her electronics, @matigary was still active.

'LOL I am in and still tweeting,' the account posted, pretending to be her.

In another tweet, they said: 'I think I should sue Goblin for putting my name into disrepute.'

O'Donovan, 25, was remanded in custody after a brief hearing on Saturday morning. She is pictured being taken away from Harare Magistrates Court afterwards

O'Donovan is seen arriving at Harare Magistrates Court on Saturday morning to face the charges

Before she was remanded in custody on Saturday, O'Donovan posed for photographs with her lawyers and with others inside the court. They said she was in 'high spirits' despite the charges

Mugabe, 93, and his ZANU-PF party are notoriously anti-white and harsh on anyone who dares to criticize the government

O'Donovan's arrest is the first of its kind since Mugabe appointed a minister for cybersecurity last month.

It was a move which human rights activists criticized, claiming it infringed on free speech.

In a statement before her court appearance, she said: 'I deny the allegations leveled against me as baseless and malicious.'

O'Donovan, a graduate of New York University, previously referred to herself as a 'media activist.'

Earlier this year, she presented a talk at a republica digital culture conference on 'How Zimbabweans Rebel Online'.

She was previously involved with campaigning for the release of Pastor Evan Mawarire who was jailed last year on similar charges.

She traveled to Africa in 2013 to work for The Children's Radio Foundation where she said her job was to train local young people to become reporters.

It was part of her fellowship at NYU Gallatin which focused on human rights in African cities.

Martha, 25, is an NYU graduate and was raised in New Jersey

The 25-year-old has been living in Zimbabwe for at least a year and works on local TV station Magamba

Upon her return in 2014, she said during one speech: 'I think I came back with a lot more questions than answers.'

It is not clear when she returned to Africa but Magamba said she has been working for them in Zimbabwe for around a year.

O'Donovan's case highlights the growing concern for human rights in Zimbabwe where hundreds have been prosecuted for appearing to undermine or insult Mugabe.

'This arrest marks the start of a sinister new chapter in the Zimbabwean government's clampdown on freedom of speech, and the new battleground is social media,' said Amnesty International's deputy regional director, Muleya Mwananyanda.

The TV network that she works for tweeted on Saturday: 'It's not all about Martha, it's about every Zimbabwean. This is an attempt to silence our voice. Stifle freedom .

'Free Martha or arrest us all.'
The cadaver of Paul Morigi has been in storage at an undertakers in Sussex since his death in November last year

A multi-millionaire WWII veteran's body will be flown to America after his British widow agreed to drop her bid to 'lie beside him for all eternity' in a cemetery.

The cadaver of Paul Morigi has been in storage at an undertakers in Sussex since his death in November last year.

This is due to his a battle between his 'first and last love' Olive Murphy, from Eastbourne, and his US family who have different opinions about where Mr Morigi should be laid to rest.

Mr Morigi and Ms Murphy had a whirlwind wartime romance while he was a commanding officer on the USS Texas, stationed in the UK and playing an active role in the Normandy landings.

They were married between 1944 and 1948, before they divorced and he wed American, Muriel Morigi, the same year.

But 60 years later, Mr Morigi, by then a millionaire banker, returned to Ms Murphy when they were both in their 90s, remarrying her and moving to Eastbourne, after leaving the USA and his American family.

Following his death, his daughter Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong and his four grandchildren obtained an injunction just before Christmas last year, preventing his British widow from burying him in the UK.

His widow, Olive Murphy, from Eastbourne (left), and his US family (right) have been embroiled in a legal battle over where his body should be buried

Mrs Morigi-Armstrong and the grandchildren insisted that the dead man's body belonged in their family grave plot in Greenwich, Connecticut, which Mr Morigi and his American wife had bought together while they were still married with the intention 'that their entire family would be interred there.'

Judge Stuart Issacs QC, at London's High Court, was asked to decide where he would be finally laid to rest.

But, after anxious urgings from the judge, the families have now reached an agreement that will see Mr Morigi's body returned to America and buried with full military honours in the family plot.

During the court hearing, the American family made 'open offers' to Ms Murphy that, if she allowed her husband's body to be flown back to the USA, she could be laid to rest beside him in Connecticut at the end of her life.

Mr Morigi died 'a wealthy man...who did very well for himself' and bought himself a Maserati when in his 90s

Following his death, his daughter Karolyn Morigi-Armstrong and his four grandchildren obtained an injunction just before Christmas last year, preventing his British widow from burying him in the UK. Ms Murphy is pictured with his casket

She was alternatively offered a guarantee that his American ex-wife would 'not lie next to' Mr Morigi and that a plaque would be erected near the US grave 'commemorating' his relationship with Ms Murphy.

Joshua Swirsky, for Don Murphy, Olive's nephew and one of the executors of his estate, said: 'We have come to an agreement and he's going back to America.

'There has been a constructive discussion between the two families and both sides agreed that was the best thing to do in the the circumstances.

'It is a different settlement to the proposal which was discussed in open court by the judge, although some elements of that remain,' he said outside court.

Mr Swirsky said that the 'main issue' in the settlement negotiations had been Ms Murphy's concern that her late husband's body be kept intact and notsubjected to an intrusive post-mortem.

Don Murphy confirmed the settlement had been reached.

He added outside court that Ms Murphy's love for Paul was undimmed and that she visited his body at the funeral parlour on Valentine's Day this year, as well as purchasing a solid bronze casket for him to be buried in.

'Ms Murphy had wanted to visit Paul at the funeral parlour and take some flowers. She had purchased the solid bronze casket, as she wanted Paul to have the best!' he said.

The High Court hearing last week revealed that Mr Morigi, a former Morgan Stanley financier who died in Eastbourne aged 97, had two great loves in his life, one on each side of the pond.

Don Murphy confirmed the settlement had been reached

He was married to Muriel Morigi, 96, for 60 years, and they had two children.

His wartime marriage with Ms Murphy had been short-lived because Mrs Murphy refused to move back with him to the USA, over fears she would miss her family too much.

Mr Morigi died 'a wealthy man...who did very well for himself' and bought himself a Maserati when in his 90s, the court heard.

Following his death, the row about his burial blew up almost immediately, after Don Murphy made arrangements for him to be buried in a cemetery in Durrington on Sea, near Eastbourne, picked out by his British widow.

The subject was particularly emotional, because Mr Morigi's son - also named Paul - died in 2009, just before his father left the USA, and was buried in the family plot, in 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 executor of Mr Morigi's estate have been unable to agree what is to be done about the 'very sad' deadlock between the two families.

Now, however, the impasse has been broken, and Mr Morigi's body will be repatriated to the USA to lie beside his son.
A dismembered body has been found beneath a mobile home in South Carolina, and two people have been arrested.

Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said that the body of 51-year-old Gary James Stone was found in several containers under a home Thursday.

'Stone was discovered by authorities who came to his residence after complaints he was missing,' Fowler said to Fox Carolina.

'His body was discovered dismembered in several containers under the residence.'

Michelle Wilkins, 40, and Charles Jacob Bridges, 19, were charged with murder in the case

Gary James Stone, 51, was found cut into pieces under a mobile home, pictured

Sheriff Steve Mueller told local media that Stone's common-law wife, 40-year-old Dawn Michelle Wilkins and her son, 18-year-old Charles Jacob Bridges, have been charged with murder.

Mueller says Stone's mother asked deputies to check on him November 3.

The sheriff said Wilkins told deputies Stone was drinking and had left and had not heard from since.

Stone's family stated they had not heard from him and were worried about him.

An autopsy was been scheduled for Friday morning to help determine a cause of death

Deputies returned Wednesday and then got a tip Thursday that someone had been killed at the property.

After interviewing the tipster, Mueller said deputies got search warrants to search Stone's property on Thursday.

The body was found during a search of the land around the home.

Mueller said Bridges admitted to his involvement in the crime but Wilkins did not.

Both suspects are being held at the Cherokee County Jail and the case remains under investigation.

Court records do not list attorneys for either Wilkins or Bridges.
Pictured: Farhan Mian, leaving court this afternoon, has been found guilty of voyeurism

A severely disabled man with only the use of his tongue and right thumb who used hidden cameras to spy on his young female carers while they showered has been spared jail.

Farhan Mian, 32, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, asked a relative to install cameras in his home under the guise of being concerned about being the victim of theft.

However a court heard the bed-bound man wanted to spy on the three women for his own sexual gratification.

Mian was able to operate the three cameras in his White City flat in London using just his thumb. Using a computer in his bedroom, he could zoom in and rotate the devices.

Mian fought the case, but an Isleworth Crown Court jury unanimously found him guilty of six counts of voyeurism for the purpose of sexual gratification between 2011 and 2015.

'You were trusted by your carers, who do virtually everything for you and you filmed these three young woman, who were unaware of it in your flat,' Judge Giles Curtis-Raleigh told him.

'It is clear from their evidence they found this upsetting and that they were violated and betrayed by your selfish actions for your own sexual gratification.'

He was placed on a six-month community order, which includes a three-month curfew, prohibiting Mian to leave his flat between 10pm and 6am.

He was also made subject to a five-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order prohibiting him installing cameras in the bathroom and the carers' room.

'The sentence marks as best I can the court's view about these very unpleasant offences against young women who were doing their best for you,' added the judge.

Outside court Mian said: 'People are also vulnerable to their carers.'

Mian's lawyer claims one woman consented to the cameras and another was for security

Two cameras were pointed at the carers' bed in their private room and their shower, the third was in Mian's room and there was a fourth short-lived camera hidden in a Playboy Bunny's eye in their bedroom.

Mian claimed his nephew installed the cameras as a security measure after he was a victim of a theft and they were not for any gratification.

He often talked about sex and I didn't like that

He can only move his tongue and right thumb and is usually bed-bound, but can operate a computer to communicate and is transported to court in a wheelchair that also assists his breathing.

Police were called and found the recordings after another carer, who had only been there five days, found a secret camera on September 3, 2015.

He received a police warning in 2011, but continued filming his carers, who he is no longer able to pick as he likes, but in consultation with the local authority.

Prosecutor Mr. Tim Starkey told the jury three young women, from Poland and Latvia, were hired by Mian, who is funded by the NHS to arrange his own care.

A year earlier: Mian, pictured above, leaving court in 2016

The first carer was employed between 2010 and 2012. 'The camera is pointed towards her and follows her to the shower and zooms in.

'She was unaware she was being filmed and did not consent.'

Another seven recordings were found on Mian's computer, including her undressing, using the toilet and intimately shaving herself.

In June, 2011 she returned after a two-week break. 'She saw two Playboy Bunny's attached to her bed and one of the eyes was a camera.'

'She complained and Mr. Mian said words to the effect of: 'It's my property, I can do what I want.'

'She was upset and he offered to pay her three thousand pounds to keep quiet about the camera.'

The woman called the police, but she did not make a statement and there was no further action.

HOW MIAN OPERATED THE CAMERAS After the hidden devices were installed around his flat by a relative, Mian was able to operate the cameras using his thumb to work a computer panel in his bedroom where the monitor was fitted. Advertisement

The second woman worked for Mian between 2011 and 2016. 'He offered her cash to masturbate in front of him.

'He recorded her in his bedroom, where she undressed and had a sex toy and went to kiss him.

'She lay on his bed and stroked her vagina with her fingers, but did not consent to him recording her doing this.'

Police found recordings of the third woman, who was employed for fourteen months from January, 2015, sitting on her bed stripped to the waist.

'She said it must have been just after she had taken a shower and said Mr. Mian frequently spoke to her in a sexually inappropriate way.

'He bought her a bikini to wear when she showered him and bought her a short Ann Summers dress.

'He said his carers often gave him 'extras' which she took to believe as sexual favours.'

Mr. Starkey added: 'The cameras were installed specifically with the purpose to allow these acts of voyeurism to take place.

'He told the police he was a victim of theft and got his nephew to install the cameras.'

However, the jury were told some of the recordings were made before his claim a Bulgarian carer stole 300 from him in 2014.

The Polish carer, who was recorded by Mian sitting on her bed stripped to the waist, told the court: 'He often talked about sex and I didn't like that.

'He talked about his past relationships and what he did with the girls, showing me his sex toys and making sexual jokes.

'He told me that he had some sexual relationships with carers in the past.

'Some of the carers were also like his girlfriend and some of them did some extras for him.'

She told the court he was keen for her to assist him pleasuring himself. 'He was telling me that when he has a shower sometimes he pays extra if someone helps him with a hand.

'He said he'd buy me pyjamas and I said make sure they have long sleeves and trousers, but when they arrived he had ordered a top with straps and very short shorts.

'He said: 'I'll get you a swimming costume so you can wear it when you shower me.'

'I refused to wear it because it was two small pieces attached with string.'

Mian's lawyer Mr. Graham Smith told the court: 'He is the third-oldest male in the country with this condition and his life expectancy is poor.

'It's been a difficult and emotional experience for him, a salutary experience.

'Having reached the ripe old age of thirty-two he is inspirational to many that he continues to live independently.'
A city in India is using its police force to round up and imprison its homeless population as Ivanka Trump's expected visit to the south Asian country nears.

Authorities in Hyderabad have already rounded up an estimated 400 beggars and shipped them off to the Chanchalguda jail, according to The Indian Express.

The police intend to continue the crackdown, who plan to rid the city of its nearly 6,000 thousand homeless inhabitants over the course of several weeks.

Authorities in Hyderabad, India - located about 450 miles from Mumbai - have already corralled an estimated 400 beggars

The move is in anticipation for Ivanka Trump's upcoming visit on November 28 where she is scheduled to appear for a three-day summit

Police have also instituted a ban on begging set to take place in January, saying that they want to eschew the 'Slumdog Millionaire' image

Hyderabad, located in south-central India around 445 miles away from Mumbai, has also banned begging in the city for the first week of January.

The homeless are 'employing children and handicapped persons to seek alms at the main junctions of roads,' the ban order states. 'Such acts are causing annoyance and awkwardness.'

'Some beggars argued that we were taking their freedom to live anywhere they want but we told them it was for their own good because they are going to the rehab centre where they will be taken care of,' an official told the Express.

The crackdown is in preparation for the three-day Global Entrepreneurship Summit starting Nov. 28, where Ivanka is scheduled to lead the American delegation.

Officials in Hyderabad said that they want to put on their best face for the first daughter

The event's theme is 'Women First' and its tagline, 'Prosperity for All.'

Officials said that they want to put on their best face on for the first daughter's upcoming visit and eschew the 'Slumdog Millionaire' stereotype they feel the west paints the country in, according to ABC News.

Hyderabad is helping to shed that image, with officials touting its booming tech industry where some of the world's biggest firms like Google, Apple and Microsoft have setup their international headquarters.

The city's growth, however, has been lopsided, favoring an emerging middle class who have enjoyed the benefits of the 21st century economy, leaving traditional laborers behind as as automation and other advances continue to dominate the labor market.

'The preparations are happening in every corner of our city. But the prison capacity in Hyderabad is not enough to look after all these people,' George Rakesh Babu, founder of the homeless charity Good Samaritans in Hyderabad, told The Washington Post.

Chanchalguda jail has a maximum capacity of around 1,000, Rakesh Babu said.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit was announced earlier this year by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited President Donald Trump in June.
A British marine mammal charity is leading the fight to rescue bottle nosed dolphins kept as a tourist attraction in a subterranean swimming pool located under a hotel.

The stressed and lonely creatures under the Best Western Paradise Hotel Dilijian - not far from the Armenian capital of Yerevan - see little natural light or hear other creatures. They swim endless laps of the pool built originally to accommodate human guests and are offered up as a dubious form of 'therapy' to 'cure' sick children.

The Dolphinarium promises that children suffering from a range of illnesses - from autism to delayed development and even cancer - benefit from swimming with the creatures in their underground aquatic prison.

A pair of bottlenose dolphins held captive in a indoor swimming pool under the Best Western Paradise Hotel Dilijan Armenia to be used for dolphin therapy

The Dolphinarium promises swimming with dolphins can help with a variety of illnesses but experts say other animals can have the same effect

But 'dolphin assisted therapy' as it is termed has been widely debunked by global experts. 'Dolphins are not healers but smart sociable predators and they shouldn't be used to 'cure' the ill,' says Lori Marino, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

She has been studying dolphins and whales for 25 years and said: 'Thousands of families visit DAT facilities and end up gaining nothing that they could not have gained from interacting with a puppy'

'Hidden behind their smile, and therefore largely invisible to patients and vacationers, captive dolphins spend their lives under tremendous stress as they struggle to adapt to an environment that, physically, socially and psychologically, is drastically different from the wild.

'The results are devastating. Stress leads to immune system dysfunction. Often they die from gastric ulcers, infections and other stress and immune-related diseases, not helped by their sometimes being given laxatives and antidepressants that are delivered in their food.

Dolphins are not healers but smart sociable predators and they shouldn't be used to 'cure' the ill, said one expert

There is no scientific evidence for dolphin assisted therapy and at best it can have a placebo effect, say experts

'The worst of it, perhaps, is that there is absolutely no evidence for DAT's therapeutic effectiveness. At best, there might be short-term gains attributable to the feel-good effects of being in a novel environment and the placebo boost of having positive expectations.

'Nothing more. Any apparent improvement in children with autism, people with depression, and others is as much an illusion as the "smile" of the dolphin.'

The day the Mail visited the dolphins, estimated to be around four or five years old, were once again the star attraction for a group of visiting children who indeed were delighted by their permanent grins - not a 'smile' at all but a result of their jawbone development which gives the false appearance of endless happiness.

Dolphinariums of the sort under the hotel were permanently banned in the UK two decades ago thanks chiefly to the efforts of the Marine Connection charity concerned with all aspects of dolphin and whale welfare.

Director Margaux Dodds, who led that campaign to shut down the UK sites, was appalled when she saw the photos and videos of the dolphins - creatures that came from Russia under dubious circumstances.

A CITES certificate - Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora - that the Dolphinarium holds testifying to the provenance of the dolphins appears to be false.

The certificate says the dolphins came from the Morskaya Zvezda Dolphinarium in Sochi on Russia's Black Sea.

But Mrs. Dodd said; 'A close inspection of the CITES permit shows that CITES does not have its number, nor the security stamp on it.

Captive dolphins spend their lives under tremendous stress as they struggle to adapt to an environment that is drastically different from the wild

The filtration system of the pool would not be able to cope with the amounts of waste these dolphins will expel

'My concern, given that there is a zero capture quote from the Black Sea, would be that these dolphins were wild caught, taken into captivity briefly and then listed as captive source - this is not uncommon.

'Wherever they came from, a swimming pool built for humans is no place for them to be. The filtration unit of the pool alone would not be able to cope with the amounts of waste these dolphins will expel.

'These are wild sea mammals, not pets. There is no benefit to children or others derived from swimming with them. Captive dolphins live shorter lives and sadder lives. We will do everything in our power to free them.'

Dorothy Dowling, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Best Western, and David Kong CEO at the Best Western Head Office in Phoenix, Arizona, have yet to reply to her plea to shut it down. Neither has the management at the hotel responded.

In her letter to the hotel Mrs. Dodds wrote: 'Best Western is a recognised brand and, from the images on your website, it is obvious that your hotel is to a very high standard.

Guests who stayed at the hotel have angrily hit out at the keeping of dolphins in the swimming pool and called for a boycott

'It is therefore our view that it would be regressive for the hotel to establish such a facility and potentially could be detrimental to the image not only the Paradise Hotel but Best Western as a brand, given that the popularity of this type of attraction has almost certainly peaked and begun a global decline, and the negative publicity this would create could result in many visitors choosing to give their custom to a facility that does not support keeping dolphins in captivity.'

Guests who have visited the hotel seem to concur. Guest Marion Meier wrote last month on the hotel website; 'One star is one too much! Boycott this hotel!

'The dolphins living in your swimming pool are suffering! How can these traumatized sad animals be therapeutic useful for humans? this is charlatanry and money making business.. nothing else. So sad.'

And another guest, Jenni Huesch, wrote: 'Just One point - as you keep dolphins in a pool. This is cruel. I Think you want to earn a lot of Money with them. Where did you get them from ...'

Mrs. Dodds, whose charity's website - www.marineconnection.org  features details of the plight of the dolphinarium captives - added; 'It is very concerning that this hotel is offering 'therapy'.

'We have asked what scientific papers they plan to publish on the results of this therapy and what specialists they intend to use to conduct the 'treatment' - again no response.

'As such, they are trying to attract paying customers without being regulated by any governing body.'
He speaks: Louis C.K. has released a statement one day after five women came forward accusing him of sexual misconduct

Louis C.K. has broken his silence after he was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior by five women in a New York Times expose.

One day after those women came forward, C.K. confirmed that they were not in fact allegations in a lengthy statement.

'I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not,' said the 50-year-old comedian.

'These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d*** without asking first, which is also true.

'But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d*** isnt a question. Its a predicament for them.'

He went on to state: 'The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.I have been remorseful of my actions. And Ive tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now Im aware of the extent of the impact of my actions.

'I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.'

In September, he was asked about these long-rumored allegations by The New York Times and said: 'Im not going to answer to that stuff, because theyre rumors. If you actually participate in a rumor, you make it bigger and you make it real.'

When then pressed to respond, he stated: 'Theyre rumors, thats all that is.'

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Comedians Dana Min Goodman (right) and Julia Wolov (left) claims Louis C.K got naked and masturbated in front of them in a hotel room in Aspen, Colorado back in 2002

Abby Schachner (right) claims she could hear the comedian masturbating while they were on the phone in 2003, while Rebecca Corry (left) said he allegedly asked to masturbate in front of her in 2005

Speaking out: Busy Philipps did not mince words in expressing how she felt about C.K's response (above)

C.K. no longer wields the same power he writes of in this statement.

On Thursday, HBO announced that they will be cutting C.K. from their 'Night of Too Many Stars' special when the autism benefit airs on the network November 18.

And the day before that C.K's new film I Love You Daddy will not be arriving in theaters it was announced on Friday.

The Orchard, who purchased the distribution rights to the film for $5 million after its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival said in a statement: 'The Orchard will not be moving forward with the release of "I Love You, Daddy."'

One of the stars of the film, 20-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz, halted her press obligations for the picture even before this news when she became aware of the upcoming Times story, as did Charlie Day.

The 'It's Always Sunny' star told the Los Angeles Times: 'I do not condone sexual misconduct and, in light of the allegations, will not be promoting the movie further,' she told the Los Angeles Times.'

FX has also cut ties with C.K., saying: 'Today, FX Networks and FX Productions are ending our association with Louis C.K. We are canceling the overall deal between FX Productions and his production company, Pig Newton.

'He will no longer serve as executive producer or receive compensation on any of the four shows we were producing with him  Better Things, Baskets, One Mississippi and The Cops.'

Netflix will no longer stream the two stand-up specials they had planned to air later this year, stating: 'Louis's unprofessional and inappropriate behavior with female colleagues has led us to decide not to produce a second stand-up special, as had been planned.'

And Louis C.K. has been dropped by both his rep and his management compant, with 3 Arts management saying: 'We have terminated our relationship with Louis C.K. We are committed to ensuring a safe and secure environment for our staff, clients and the community at large.'

C.K. also writes in his statement that he is now on a journey of self discovery in the wake of this expose.

'There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with,' he writes.

LOUIS C.K. STATEMENT 'I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not. 'These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d*** without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d*** isnt a question. Its a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And Ive tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now Im aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position. 'I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didnt want to hear it. I didnt think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. 'There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with. 'I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work. 'The hardest regret to live with is what youve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. Id be remiss to exclude the hurt that Ive brought on people who I work with and have worked with whos professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You, Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. Ive brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much; The Orchard who took a chance on my movie, and every other entity that has bet on me through the years. Ive brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother. 'I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen. 'Thank you for reading.' Advertisement

'I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.'

He later adds in closing: 'I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.'

Busy Philipps responded to the news of the apology by tweeting: 'I haven't read the Louis CK statement because I don't really give a F*** what he has to say about this.'

Minnie Driver also chimed in, saying: 'You now what an apology looks like? " I'm incredibly sorry." Mansplaining your w***ing ways is not. #LouisCK'

This comes one day after comedians Dana Min Goodman, Abby Schachner, Julia Wolov, and Rebecca Corry publicly alleged that the Emmy-winning actor pleasured himself in front of them or over the phone at some point during the past 15 years.

A fifth woman detailed similar allegations to the Times as well but was not identified.

C.K. has refused to respond to the story despite the drastic impact it is having on his professional career.

'Can I ask you something?' I said, 'Yes,' she said. 'He asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me.'

Outraged, Corry said she reminded Louis C.K that he had a daughter and a pregnant wife. 'His face got red... and he told me he had issues,' Corry said.

Courteney Cox and David Arquette were the executive producers on the unnamed show at the time and confirmed the alleged C.K incident to the Times. They had talked about halting production but Corry said she wanted to press ahead.

Goodman and Wolov said they were invited up to Louis C.K's hotel room in Aspen, Colorado back in 2002 after they had performed at the US Comedy Arts Festival.

They claim he asked them if he could take his penis out as soon as they got into the room. The women both say they thought he was joking until he 'really did it.'

'He proceeded to take all of his clothes off, and get completely naked, and started masturbating,' they told the Times, as they recalled screaming and laughing in shock.

'We were paralyzed,' Goodman added.

The women said they quickly fled after he allegedly ejaculated on his stomach and that he yelled out: 'Which one is Dana and which one is Julia?'

They say they immediately told a few people what had happened, but could sense people distancing themselves.

'We could already feel the backlash,' Wolov said, adding they then started worrying about the repercussions on their careers.

C.K. is among the latest Hollywood figures to be accused of misconduct in a wave that began when dozens of sexual harassment allegations were reported last month against film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Known for his candid, warts-and-all personal humor, which often includes talk of bodily fluids and sex, C.K. grew up outside Boston.

C.K.is divorced and has two teenage daughters with his ex, painter Alix Bailey.

He performed stand-up sets in New York and eventually landed writing gigs on Conan O'Brien's Late Night and David Letterman's Late Show before becoming the head writer of The Dana Carvey Show from 1995-96 and

C.K. also contributed to the animated TV Funhouse vignettes on Saturday Night Live, was a writer on The Chris Rock Show and voiced patients on the Comedy Central's Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

And he also wrote and directed the film Pootie Tang with Rock, an infamous bomb that is now a cult classic.

Awarded: Louis C.K. with his Emmy Awards in 2012 (left) and 2014 (right) for his FX show

In a second-season episode of her series One Mississippi, Tig Notaro (above) had addressed the long-rumored allegations against C.K, who is listed as an exeuctive producer on the show

The episode (above) finds one of the show's female characters pitching an idea to her boss only to look over and discover that he is masturbating behind his desk

C.K. was an executive producer of comedian Tig Notaro's Amazon series, One Mississippi, until FX cut ties.

In a second-season episode of her series One Mississippi, Tig Notaro had addressed the long-rumored allegations against C.K, who is listed as an exeuctive producer on the show.

The episode finds one of the show's female characters, who works at a radio station, pitching an idea to her boss only to look over and discover that he is masturbating behind his desk.

The character then expresses a desire to leave but he urges her to stay, eventually ejaculating while sitting at his desk.

The female character then gets up and leaves and later discusses what happened with Notaro's character, who points out that she was assaulted.

He starred in a Netflix special earlier this year that was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Louis C.K. with his Peabody Award at the 2017 ceremony

His new film is incredibly similar to Woody Allen's 'Manhattan,' with both movies featuring a relationship between a teenage high school student and older man. He has previously cited Allen and Bill Cosby as two of his comedy idols.

John Malkovich, 63, plays a legendary film director who is rumored to have molested a young girl decades earlier. C.K plays a successful TV producer whose 17-year-old daughter, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, begins a relationship with Malkovich.

Allegations of questionable sexual behavior have long dogged C.K.

Roseanne Barr said in a 2016 interview with The Daily Beast that she was 'speaking up' about claims and stories she has heard from people over the years about incidents of abuse before naming one person in a bombshell of an allegation.

'It's Louis C.K., locking the door and masturbating in front of women comics and writers. I can't tell you - I've heard so many stories. Not just him, but a lot of them,' alleged Barr.

'And it's just par for the course. It's just sh** women have to put up with.'

Barr later said that she believed Louis C.K. is 'about to get busted.'

Louis C.K. addressed those allegations in an interview with New York after he landed the cover of the magazine's special issue on comedy back in 2016, with the interviewer asking how he responded to a Gawker story that detailed the same claims that Barr made in her interview.

The comedian managed to quickly change the subject after saying the story had no impact on him at the time.

'I don't care about that. That's nothing to me. That's not real.'

When pressed a bit later in the interview about his reluctance to comment on the story, he responded by saying: 'Well, you can't touch stuff like that. There's one more thing I want to say about this, and it's important: If you need your public profile to be all positive, you're sick in the head.'
This is the amazing moment a cuttlefish uses its colour-changing skin to hypnotise its prey on Blue Planet II.

Footage from Sunday's episode of the BBC natural history programme shows the broadclub cuttlefish - also known as sepia latimanus - in Indonesia, using its unique talents to hunt crabs.

'Its skin contains millions of pigment cells with which it can create ever-changing colours and patterns,' broadcaster David Attenborough explains in the documentary.

Footage from Sunday's episode of the BBC natural history programme shows the broadclub cuttlefish - also known as sepia latimanus - in Indonesia, using its unique talents to hunt crabs

'And that, apparently, hypnotises the crab.'

But the marine animal also has its own enemies to look out for.

'The cuttlefish may be clever, but a shark is bigger, and it eats cuttlefish,' Attenborough says.

It is then seen using its colour-changing skills to blend into its surroundings as a shark swims past.

Cuttlefish, like octopuses, are known mimics, and can change their colour, skin texture and posture to instantly blend in with their surroundings

WHAT ARE CUTTLEFISH? Cuttlefish are marine animals characterised by a prominent head, a soft body shell and a set of eight arms. They are cephalopods, closely related to octopuses and squid. They eat small fish and molluscs, and are commonly found in the Mediterranean, North and Baltic seas, although populations have been found as far south as South Africa. Known as the chameleons of the marine world, cuttlefish can change the colour and texture of their skin, even disguising themselves as floating seaweed to stalk their prey. Advertisement

Cuttlefish, like octopuses, are known mimics, and can change their colour, skin texture and posture to instantly blend in with their surroundings.

They are known to make complex movements with their arms to capture prey, as part of mating rituals and in mimicking their surroundings.

Previous research on the fish has shown that males can make half their bodies look like females to trick their rivals.

On one side of its body, it adopts female markings to deter potential rivals, while on the other, it displays brilliant masculine colours.

This enables it to covertly attract partners-to-be without fear of being chased off.

The behaviour was found in the male mourning cuttlefish, a species common off Australia's east coast.

It is meant to boost mating chances in a short-lived species where discerning females far outnumber fiercely competitive males.

Blue Planet II is broadcast on BBC One, 8pm Sunday.
The pastor of a New York state church has declared that his church is 'NOT a gun free zone.'

In the wake of November 5's deadly church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the Lighthouse Mexico Church of God in Oswego County, New York is inviting its congregants to bring their firearms to church services as a protective measure.

According to the church's pastor, Ronald Russell, congregants have been allowed to openly carry their guns since the 2015 shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, when white supremacist Dylann Roof opened fire and killed nine black churchgoers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Lighthouse Mexico Church of God in Oswego County, New York is inviting parishioners to bring their guns to services following the recent deadly church shooting in Texas

Pastor Ronald Russell said that allowing guns in his church is a matter of protecting his flock

'Times are changing,' Russell told Spectrum News, noting that it is church leadership that has advocated for the ability to bear arms during services, not necessarily the congregation.

'People say 'well, pastor, youre talking about killing some,' and I say 'well, if I dont protect my people, Im being complicit,' Russell said, adding that, 'A shooting here, thats not going to happen.'

Outside the Lighthouse Mexico Church of God, a sign now reads, 'We say it again, we are not a gun free zone' and the church's website prominently displays a scrolling message reiterating the message and also stating 'we protect our people!'

Spectrum News reported that the Pentecostal church offers parishioners lessons in self-defense and identifying suspicious behavior

The church's website now features a scrolling message reminding churchgoers that they are 'NOT a gun free zone - we protect our people!'

The church has also started offering lessons in self-defense and identifying suspicious behavior to its congregants

They are not the only church working to safeguard its congregants by offering tactical, self-defense lessons.

Buffalo, New York's True Bethel Baptist Church is having Buffalo police SWAT team instructors helping with active shooter training at the church.

On the morning of November 5, gunman Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire on churchgoers First Baptist Church and nearby residents in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 people. The incident became the deadliest shooting inside a house of worship in modern US history.
A 44-year-old Queens man plummeted to his death from his fourth-floor apartment after he was allegedly caught groping a six-year-old boy Thursday morning.

Police in New York City say Edgar Collaguazo was killed while trying to flee after the alleged victims parents called 911 at around midnight Thursday and locked him inside his room.

When officers responded to the scene at 35-15 9th Street in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, they found the suspected child molester lying unconscious and unresponsive outside the building.

Edgar Collaguazo, 44, was found mortally injured outside his 95th Street apartment building in Queens after allegedly molesting his tenants' six-year-old son

Collaguazo was transported to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead from his injuries.

The 44-year-old had been renting out a room in his apartment to a family. On Wednesday, Collaguazo's tenants hosted a birthday party for their son, who was turning six, and invited several children over, reported the New York Daily News.

While the adults were celebrating, Collaguazo reportedly invited the birthday boy, his 5-year-old female cousin and another boy to watch a movie in his room.

At around midnight, the girl's mother went to check on the kids and allegedly busted Collaguazo with his hand down the six-year-olds pants as he was sitting on the man's lap.

The girl who was present later claimed that Collaguazo also had kissed her on the mouth and told her to keep it a secret, according to the New York Post.

The male victims relatives began beating up Collaguazo, and then confined him to his room to await the arrival of police officers who were summoned by the boys mother.

Collaguazo, who was reportedly drunk, tried to escape through the window, but instead landed belly first onto a metal fence outside the apartment building before hitting the ground.

In an attempt to flee before police arrived, Collaguazo jumped out the window and landed belly first on this metal gate, then bounced off onto the ground

Security footage caught the sickening moment the man's body struck, then bounced off of, the metal gate, landing onto the pavement like a rag doll.

A witness likened the sound Collaguazos body made on impact to a pumpkin falling off a roof.

Collaguazo was married but estranged from his wife, and had a criminal history, which included five prior arrests on unspecified charges.

The mother of the six-year-old boy told the Daily News she had no idea that their landlord, who had been friendly with her son, had pedophilic tendencies.
Britain's newly appointed Defence Secretary today held talks with the US General Jim Mattis where the pair vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder in facing down North Korea.

Gavin Williamson - well known for owning a spider named Cronus - welcomed General 'Mad Dog' Mattis to London to discuss security.

The two defence chiefs both vowed that America and Britain will continue to work together to tackle the growing security threat posed by a resurgent Russia.

And they 'united in condemning North Korea's aggressive provocation' in the wake of a series of intercontinental ballistic missile tests launched by Kim Jong-un.

The bilateral was the first major meeting Mr Williamson has held with a foreign defence chief since he was dramatically promoted last week.

Mr Williamson, a former whip, took over the job after Sir Michael Fallon was forced to quit in the wake of sex harassment claims.

Newly appointed Defence Secretary Gavin Wiilliamson welcomed US Defence Secretary General James 'Mad Dog' Mattis to London to discuss security cooperation today

His appointment was hugely controversial with many Tory MPs braking ranks and tearing into his lack of experience for such a major appointment.

Speaking today, Gen Mattis welcomed Mr Williamson to his new job as he set out the close cooperation of the American and British forces.

In what they both called a volatile and dynamic security environment, Gen Mattis said they stand 'united in condemning North Korea's aggressive provocation' and violation of international law, as well as the threat from Russia.

'Together we send a message of transatlantic resolve,' he added.

'For many years Britain has galvanised the international community through the power of its moral voice, and today I look forward to strengthening that special relationship in defence of our way of life.'

He said Britain's Armed Forces as a 'national treasure', and one the US respects greatly.

The two defence chiefs, pictured at the MoD today, both vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder in facing down the growing threats of Russia and North Korea

Officials form the US and Britain held talks today to firm up our special relationship on security cooperation

And Gen Mattis thanked the UK for their efforts at the talks in Brussels to modernise Nato and an increased contribution to defeat Islamic State.

He said: 'The UK and the US maintain an unmatched, enduring relationship. It is not artificial or a historical artefact - it is in fact a pathway for the future.

'It identifies common values and democratic ideals which I look forward to reinforcing alongside you.'

Flanked by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Mr Williamson said the UK has been the United States 'closest partner for a century' - from fighting in the trenches of the First World War to tackling Islamic State.

'We face some major threats going forward, we have to be constantly vigilant to defeat the Daesh death cult. This year they have murdered citizens in New York, Manchester and London,' Mr Williamson said.

'We must continue to confront increased Russian aggression, and deal with the disruptive and dangerous behaviour of North Korea.

'We must never, ever flinch in the face of aggression.'

Highlighting how the UK is proud to be one of only six Nato countries hitting a 2% defence spending target, Mr Williamson also said they want to continue to build on the existing defence trading relationship - worth 3 billion a year.

'The United Kingdom and the United States, when we are united, quite simply, the world is a safer and better place, and let us make sure that unity continues going forward,' he added.
A woman's claim to have been sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein could mean the disgraced Hollywood producer facing a civil compensation claim in the UK.

The alleged victim, who works in the film industry, has chosen to remain anonymous, but is represented by London lawyer Jill Greenfield, who in 2006 259,000 in a civil rape case in which there were no witnesses and the attacker had died.

The woman claims Weinstein assaulted her in the UK and the US as British police investigate seven other women's accusations of sexual assault, some of which date back to the 1980s.

Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex but could face a civil case in the UK

Ms Greenfield, who is a partner at Fieldfisher, told the Guardian she has written to Weinstein about this latest allegation, which is alleged to have taken place after 2000.

'We have a sent a letter of claim to Harvey Weinsteins London and New York offices,' she said.

'I am waiting to hear from them but I have indicated that [if it is not settled] we will be pursuing a civil claim in relation to sexual assaults by Harvey Weinstein.

'This is very difficult for her and no doubt for many other victims. I would hope that the Weinstein corporation would want to meet and discuss without having to go too much further.

'He was a very powerful man but [his victims] now feel they have been given permission to talk about it.'

The woman is also expected to complain to the police. Weinstein denies any allegations of non-consensual sex.

If he faces civil action on the UK, the allegation will not have to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt as is the case in criminal courts.

Complainants need only prove a civil offence on the balance of probabilities.

Ms Greenfield says she hopes to speak to the media moguls lawyers about the case.

'I hope this will prove one way of taking [claims] forward. If we are not able to reach any resolution, I will be considering and expecting to issue [civil] proceedings in this case.'

Honouring her client's request to remain anonymous, she said it was important that people know about the allegations being made.

Harvey Weinstein could face a civil case in the UK after a woman alleged he assaulted her both in Britain and the US

'A lot of people have been too scared to talk about it,' she said.

'Whats so upsetting is that people have been carrying this around with them and didnt speak. Its a very difficult thing to carry around.'

Eleven years ago Ms Greenfield secured a 259,000 payment from the estate of millionaire Christopher Dawes, who lured Amanda Lawson to Alderney with the promise of a non-existent job before drugging and abusing her.

It was one of only a handful of rape cases to have been brought as a civil claim in English courts.

Following the civil win, Ms Greenfield advised other rape victims whose attackers had not faced criminal courts to consider civil proceedings.

'This sends a message to women everywhere who find themselves in this position that they should stand up for themselves and seek proper advice,' she said.

A US spokesperson for Weinstein told the Guardian: 'Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein.

'Mr Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.

'Mr Weinstein obviously cant speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.'
Newly released video footage has captured the shocking moment that a Chicago cop had to shoot a man dead at point-blank range after being pinned by his car.

Officer Jesse Oeinck is seen becoming trapped when 19-year-old Juan Flores reverses his SUV at speed, crushing the cop's leg against his cruiser.

The officer then fires shots through Flores' window, killing the teen, before he is able to free his now-broken leg, footage released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), shows.

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Cop Jesse Oeinck is seen left after getting his leg crushed by driver Juan Flores on September 10, and right firing into Flores' car. Flores died, and Oeinck was hospitalized with a broken leg

The incident began on September 10 after Flores called police to say that someone had stolen car keys from a party on the 900 block of North Kedvale.

Bodycam footage from another officer shows Flores complaining that friends of his girlfriend's father had taken his keys and jacket.

He claimed they then kicked him out of the party and that 'he's not gonna give me my keys until I apologize to his daughter.'

'I just want to look for my keys, thats it,' Flores told cops. 'I don't want no problem with him.'

Meanwhile, partygoers denied that anything had been taken, while the girlfriend's father claimed that Flores was drunk and shouldn't drive.

One of the other attendees then claimed to have found the keys in the ignition of Flores' vehicle; the teen grabbed then them off him and took off at speed.

Bodycam footage from another officer prior to the incident shows Flores (pictured), 19, saying his girlfriend's dad took his car keys; when they're found in Flores' SUV, he takes off

Flores was told he was too drunk to drive at the party. Oeinck spotted him and gave chase, getting out after Flores stopped. But then the teen reversed suddenly (pictured) into the cop

At that point Oeinck, approaching the disturbance in his cruiser, spots Flores driving erratically and gives chase through a suburban area.

It seems to end when Flores pulls suddenly into a driveway, but then the teen reverses as Oeinck walks around his car, slamming into the cop, who pulls out his pistol and shoots him.

Flores' car pulls forward and Oeinck staggers forward and collapses. He was taken to hospital with 'serious injuries' including a broken leg, police said, but later released.

Flores was pronounced dead on the scene; Oeinck was put on a 30-day leave pending an investigation, while a department head said that he acted within departmental guidelines.
The Senate campaign arm of the Republican Party  the National Republican Senatorial Committee  has cut financial ties with embattled Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, according to FEC documents first reported on by Politico.

In new filings from Friday, the NRSC is no longer listed as part of the joint fundraising committee for Moore, accused of pursuing and abusing underage women while a bachelor in his 30s.

Both the Republican National Committee and the Alabama Republican Party remained on the document as being affiliated with Moore, as the Senate hopeful continued to deny allegations on Sean Hannity's radio show and in a statement pushed out by his campaign.

'I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct,' he said in the statement, adding that he couldn't 'understand the mentality of using such a dangerous lie to try to personally destroy someone.'

'I strongly urge the Washington Post, and everyone involved, to tell the truth,' he also said, naming the paper that first broke the story.

On Hannity, Moore said, 'This is a completely manufactured story made to defraud this campaign.'

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Alabama Senate hopeful Roy Moore is no longer benefiting from funds raised by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, according to Federal Election Commission filings

Alabama and Washington, D.C., were rocked yesterday when the Washington Post put out a story documenting the stories of multiple women who were pursued by Moore, sexually, while they were in their teens.

Leigh Corfman's account led the story, as she explained how as a 14-year-old a 32-year-old Moore, a district attorney at the time, asked for her telephone number outside an Etowah County, Alabama, courtroom, telling Corfman's mother he would look after the teen as her mother attended a child custody hearing.

Moore soon called on the underage girl, took her to his house and kissed her.

The second time they went, he took off his clothes and hers, touched her over her bra and panties and guided her to do the same to him.

The details were corroborated by Corfman's friends from that era, along with her mother who learned about the interactions with Moore more than a decade later.

Other women who had similar, underage, encounters with Moore also spoke out.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who had supported Moore's primary opponent, incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, in the special election's GOP primary said Thursday that if the allegations were true it was time for Moore to 'step aside.'

Also on Thursday, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said Moore needed to 'immediately step aside.'

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump 'believes if allegations are true [Moore] will do the right thing and step aside.'

A day later, and he still hasn't.

On Friday, former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney skewered Moore on Twitter.

'Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections,' Romney wrote. 'I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.'

And Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Republican from Virginia who Democrats are aiming to pick off in next year's midterm elections, connected Moore with the other sex abusers who have been outed as of late.

'Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Roger Ailes, Roy MooreNo MOORE of this,' Comstock said Friday in a statement. 'I believed the stories from the victims of Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes and others because they were substantiated and consistent with the stories of how sexual predators operate.'

'To date Roy Moore has not provided any credible explanation or response to the detailed allegations,' the Virginia Republican continued. 'The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disturbing.'

She pointed to conservative magazine, the National Review, whose editorial board stated that Moore should drop out and said she agreed.

'Roy Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate,' she said.

Using a card from the Trump playbook, he's labeled the allegations fake news, even sending a fundraising plea out addressing them.

'The Obama-Clinton machine's liberal media lapdogs just launched the most vicious and nasty round of attacks against me I've EVER had,' Moore wrote in the email, asking for support from 'God-fearing Christians like you.'

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, speaking to an audience in New Hampshire on Thursday, drew parallels between the Post's reporting on Moore and the paper's release in October of last year of the infamous Access Hollywood 'p****' tape, which practically derailed Trump's presidential campaign.

He spoke of the link in a conspiratorial way.

'But it's interesting, the Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump, is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore,' he said.

MOORE'S STATEMENT FRIDAY ON THE ALLEGATIONS MADE BY WOMEN IN THE WASHINGTON POST Yesterday, I made a statement that the allegations described in a Washington Post article against me about sexual impropriety were false. It has been a tough 24 hours because my wife and I were blindsided by an article based on a lie supported by innuendo. It seems that in the political arena, to say that something is not true is simply not good enough. So let me be clear. I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct. As a father of a daughter and a grandfather of five granddaughters, I condemn the actions of any man who engages in sexual misconduct not just against minors but against any woman. I also believe that any person who has been abused should feel the liberty to come forward and seek protection. I know that a lot of people wonder why this story was written. Why would women say these things if they are not true? I cant fully answer that because as much as I have disagreed vehemently on political issues with many people over the years, I cannot understand the mentality of using such a dangerous lie to try to personally destroy someone. As a former Judge and administer of the law, I take the protection of our innocent as one of my most sacred callings. False allegations are gravely serious and will have a profound consequence on those who are truly harassed or molested. I strongly urge the Washington Post, and everyone involved, to tell the truth. That is all we can do, and I trust that the people of Alabama, who know my record after 40 years of public service, will vouch for my character and commitment to the rule of law." Advertisement

In last month's primary, Moore was the candidate backed by Bannon, who split from his ex-boss, the president, who had backed the McConnell-approved Strange.

Strange had been appointed by Alabama's governor to take the seat that was vacated by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

But Bannon wanted to see the more conservative Moore in the seat as he's started waging his war against GOP Senate incumbents, who Bannon blames for the president's inability to get any major legislation passed in the almost 10 months since Trump's swearing-in.

In a way, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie's loss Tuesday night, was a Bannon win, proving that a candidate can't only be halfway in when it comes to Trump.

Gillespie had used some of Trump's messaging to his advantage, though also kept the unpopular president a distance away.

He was creamed by his opponent, Democrat Ralph Northam.

However, come Thursday, now Bannon's meddling seems like a bad decision again, as Strange would have easily won in next month's general election, as Alabama is pretty solidly a red state.

Moore is set to compete against Democrat Doug Jones in a special election slated for December 12, 2017  just 32 days away.

Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill said on CNN yesterday that under Alabama law Moore's name can't be removed from the ballot, though the state GOP could ask Merrill to disqualify Moore.

Merrill suggested to CNN's Erin Burnett that the allegations leveled against Moore could indeed be disqualifying.
Chelsea Manning took the Big Apple by storm on Thursday as she celebrated her spot on the Out 100 at the magazine's fete celebrating their annual list.

The former military prisoner wore a midnight blue cocktail dress with a velvet bow and ruffled hem and sleeves for the big event, which she paired with creeper combat boots and fingerless gloves as well as a pair of black tights.

On the accessories front, Manning kept it simple with a silver watch and the hashtag necklace she has been wearing ever since her release from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

Manning, 29, finished off the look with a few pops of color courtesy of some red eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish and boot laces.

The finished look called to mind the character of Watts, portrayed by Mary Stuart Masterson in the 1987 film 'Some Kind of Wonderful.'

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Honoree: Chelsea Manning attended an event in New York City on Thursday night celebrating the annual Out 100 (above)

Leather and lace: She accepted her honor wearing a midnight blue cocktail dress with ruffles, fingerless gloves and creeper combat boots

Seeing red: She added some pops of color with a red lip, red nails, red eyeshadow and red boot laces

Making waves: The former military prisoner, 29, was named the Newsmaker of the Year (above on the cover of Out)

Manning was celebrated at the event as the Newsmaker of the Year, receiving her award alongside fellow honorees Janet Jackson and Jonathan Groff.

In an interview with the magazine, the cover girl promised to continue making waves even after her release from prison.

'Theres no way theyre going to shut me up,' said Manning of her detractors.

'The more they intimidate me, the louder I get.'

Manning went from relative obscurity to transgender icon and role model in the seven years since she was first charged with giving classified government materials to WikiLeaks.

It was her fight to receive hormone treatments while behind bars that earned her a new legion of supporters, with her successful struggle helping to create new precedents and increased access for other incarcerated members of her community.

It was announced in September of last year that the army had agreed to allow Chelsea to undergo gender transition surgery, six days after she started a hunger strike in protest of their refusal to allow her to have the operation.

'I am unendingly relieved that the military is finally doing the right thing. I applaud them for that. This is all that I wanted  for them to let me be me,' said Chelsea at the time.

She was the first transgender inmate to ever be approved for the surgery.

Chelsea successfully petitioned to have her name changed in 2014, and began hormone therapy in February of the next year.

It marked the first time the Army had allowed the therapy in prison, and they still required that Chelsea keep her hair cut short as per their standards.

Two months after she was approved for hormone therapy, Chelsea wrote about how happy she was in a letter to Amnesty International, which the group posted on their Facebook accounts.

TBT: The finished look (left) called to mind the character of Watts, portrayed by Mary Stuart Masterson in the 1987 film 'Some Kind of Wonderful' (right)

Soeaking out: In an interview with the magazine, the cover girl promised to continue making waves even after her release from prison

Loud and proud: 'Theres no way theyre going to shut me up,' said Manning of her detractors. 'The more they intimidate me, the louder I get'

'I finally began my prescribed regime of hormones to continue my overdue gender transition in February,' explained Chelsea, who used the letter to thank members of the group for their support.

'It's been such an amazing relief for my body and brain to finally come into alignment with each other. My stress and anxiety levels have tapered off quite considerably. Overall, things are beginning to move along nicely.'

She added that the she was 'staying strong' thanks to the support of Amnesty advocates.

Chelsea has been documenting her time back in the real world ever since she was released back in May on social media.

The young woman , who was named Bradley at birth, was convicted in 2013 on 20 of the 22 offenses with which she was charged, including six Espionage Act violations, theft and computer fraud.

She was acquitted of the most serious charge she was facing, aiding the enemy.

Free: manning was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison for her offenses, until Barack Obama commuted her sentence as one of his last acts in office.

Chelsea was then sentenced to 35 years in prison, but that was later commuted to seven years beginning with the date of her arrest by Obama just days before he left office.

In total, she released more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents via WikiLeaks.

She said she wanted to expose what she considered to be the US military's disregard of the effects of war on civilians and that she released information that she didn't believe would harm the United States.

Critics said the leaks laid bare some of the nation's most-sensitive secrets and endangered information sources, prompting the State Department to help some of those people move to protect their safety.

The Crescent, Oklahoma, native tweeted after being granted clemency that she plans to move to Maryland.

Chelsea previously lived with her aunt Debra in Potomac for a little over a year before she enlisted in 2007, at which time she attended some college, had a boyfriend and held down a handful of jobs.

She was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison for her offenses, until Barack Obama commuted her sentence as one of his last acts in office.
Clive Joy-Morancho attempted to use covert recordings in a bitter six-year divorce battle

An aircraft tycoon hired a private detective to plant a secret recording device in his eight-year-old sons school bag so he could spy on his ex-wife.

Clive Joy-Morancho, 59, tried to use the covert recordings in the bitter six-year battle to protect his 69million fortune from her.

Nichola Joy, 50, has now made a criminal complaint for breach of privacy, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison or a 40,000 fine.

She said: Its saddening and devastating. It breaks my heart. The children see what their father is doing to their mother, and they are suffering.

The pair, who have three children now aged seven, 10 and 12, split up in 2011 following a five-year marriage.

Ever since, they have been fighting an acrimonious divorce battle over the money he made leasing aircraft. British-born Mrs Joy is demanding a 27million share in assets including at least two London homes, a charter plane, a six-bedroom French chateau, a Caribbean villa and a land in a Swiss ski village.

Many of Mr Joy-Moranchos assets are tied up in an offshore trust  revealed in the Panama Papers leak  to which he claims he does not have access.

A judge ruled in 2015 that his 20million classic car collection, made up of 35 cars including a McLaren F1 and McLaren P1, is protected by the trust.

Mr Joy-Morancho has taken part in classic car races at the Goodwood circuit in West Sussex and at Spa in Belgium.

Nichola Joy said she was devastated and has made a criminal complaint for breach of privacy

Photographs show him driving cars including a Ferrari 250 LM worth up to 10.6million, a vintage Porsche 911 with the numberplate 911 Joy and a 1955 Jaguar D-type.

In June last year a judge in the Court of Appeal upheld a ruling to award Mrs Joy 120,000 per year in maintenance and 340,000 in legal fees.

Mr Joy-Morancho, who was born in Zimbabwe, has claimed he will suffer financial ruin if he is forced to meet his ex-wifes demands.

Mrs Joys lawyer, Ronald Sokol, said: Nikkis main concern is her three children. She is appalled at how their father uses them as a means of putting pressure on her.

He tried to use what he found in the recording device to discredit his wife, but the judge himself said it wasnt relevant. Hes tried to use it in French courts as well.

We have a letter from the detective saying that he did it and that Mr Joy-Morancho asked him to do it.

Mr Joy-Morancho, lives at Chateau de Tournefort, an hour north of Marseille, and his wife lives in the same area.

The recording device was planted in their sons school bag to ascertain what was happening within the household while the children were with their mother and it was in the bag for a total of 20 days.

Clive Joy-Morancho in a 1955 Jaguar D-type. He has taken part in classic car races in West Sussex and Belgium

Mrs Joy has reported her ex-husband to the public prosecutor in France for a breach of privacy, and the investigation is continuing.

It will determine whether he wilfully violated his ex-wifes privacy by intercepting, recording or transmitting words uttered in confidential or private circumstances.

English courts said the recordings were not relevant to the battle for assets and, because they were recorded covertly, a French court ruled they could not be used as evidence.

Mr Joy-Moranchos solicitor, Sofia Dionissiou-Moussaoui, admitted the device was planted but claimed it was done in desperation to protect the welfare of his children, who were being verbally abused by their mother.

Mrs Joy categorically denies she was abusive to her children.
Two bodies found in a forested park in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday have been identified as a missing 15-year-old girl and a 23-year-old man who was the subject of a sexual abuse investigation involving the girl.

Portland police said Friday that autopsies had confirmed the bodies were those of Annieka Vaughan, of Aloha, and Zachary Petersen, of Pasco, Washington.

The bodies were found Wednesday about 80 feet off a steep trail in Forest Park.

Two bodies found in a Portland,Oregon park on Wednesday have been identified as 15-year-old runaway Annieka Vaughan and a 23-year-old Zachary Petersen

Police say Petersen shot Vaughan before committing suicide. He had been under investigation for sexually assaulting her. Above, the area near where the bodies were found

The two had been missing since October 30. Vaughan was from Aloha, Oregon and Petersen was from Pasco, Washington

Authorities say evidence shows that Petersen shot Vaughan and then shot himself.

Vaughan ran away on October 30 and Petersen disappeared the same day after calling a crisis line.

He was believed to be armed and suicidal.

Petersen's white 1998 Ford F-250 truck was spotted Monday in a gravel lot in Forest Park near where their bodies were later discovered. Vaughan's backpack was inside.

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.

When the two first disappeared, authorities believed they may have been traveling to Seaside, Oregon or Sacramento, California.

At a Tuesday press conference, Annieka's father Rick said that his daughter was being manipulated by Petersen.

'My gut tells me there's some major manipulation and grooming going on,' he said. 'There's a lot beneath the surface that needs to be addressed and there's a lot of support that needs to happen.'
Among those caught in the unprecedented arrests this week of top princes, wealthy businessmen and senior officials was the scion of one of Saudi Arabia's most recognizable families: Bakr Binladin, the chairman of the kingdom's pre-eminent contractor - and Osama bin Laden's half-brother.

It was a stunning end to a decades-old alliance between the ruling Al Saud and Binladin families that saw the Saudi Binladin Group secure a near-monopoly on mega-expansion projects in Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, throughout the reigns of successive Saudi monarchs.

The government says 201 people have been taken into custody in the purge, which comes amid an anti-corruption probe it says uncovered at least $100 billion in graft and embezzlement.

Saudi critics and experts have called the arrests a bold and risky move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at consolidating power as he sidelines potential rivals, silences critics and dismantles alliances built with other branches of the royal family.

The 32-year-old crown prince, who is the son of King Salman and is popularly known by his initials MBS, is leading the anti-corruption investigation.

Among those caught in the unprecedented arrests this week of top princes, wealthy businessmen and senior officials, was the scion of one of Saudi Arabia's most recognizable families: Bakr Binladin, (shown above), Osama bin Laden's half-brother

Osama bin Laden is shown at a news conference in Khost, Afghanistan in 1998. The reported arrest on Nov. 4, 2017 of Bakr Binladin, Osama bin Laden's half brother, signals the end of the Al Saud-Binladin family alliance

Muslim pilgrims walk past the site of a crane collapse that killed over a hundred in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 15, 2015. The arrests speak to the larger demands being made on the business community to pay into the crown prince's economic vision in the era of low oil prices

He's also the force behind the so-called Vision 2030 plan, a blueprint for how to restructure the country and wean it from its dependence on oil revenue.

The arrests of Binladin and the others not only signal the end of old alliances, but also speak to the larger demands being made on the business community to pay into the crown prince's economic vision in an era of lower oil prices.

'This is the beginning of the rise of economic nationalism,' said Ayham Kamel, head of the Middle East and North Africa division of the Eurasia Group.

A centerpiece of that plan is NEOM, a $500 billion project that promises to be the world's most futuristic and technologically-advanced city, which was unveiled by the crown prince at a headline-grabbing global investment conference in Saudi Arabia last month.

But instead of receiving major pledges to the project by Saudi business leaders, MBS 'got deafening silence', Kamel said.

Since the 1950's, the Binladins have been the royal family's go-to contractor for some of its most sensitive projects, including construction of private palaces in the immediate boon years after oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.

As the royal family spent lavishly on trips abroad and new palaces at home, the Binladins became their creditors, as well as contractors.

Cranes rise at the site of an expansion to the Grand Mosque as Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 16, 2013. A decades-old alliance between the ruling Al Saud and the Binladin family secured the near-monopoly on major expansion work in the city

Muslim pilgrims walk outside the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 15, 2015. Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa division of the Eurasia Group said the purge is 'the beginning of the rise of economic nationalism'

Reliable and discreet, the Binladin Group would go on to build confidential defense projects in the kingdom, as well as landmark skyscrapers, universities, a military hospital, an airport, a financial district and much more.

Run as a private company by members of the large Binladin family, the firm is no stranger to political upheaval and changes in the kingdom.

In fact, part of its success has been in its ability to adapt to the whims of kings and princes.

'The Binladins were able to remain essential to the royal family despite very dramatic events within the royal family,' said Steve Coll, author of 'The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.'

The Binladins were also no strangers to controversy. They weathered the blow to the family name and reputation after the 9/11 attacks in New York masterminded by Osama bin Laden, a son of family patriarch Mohammed Binladin.

In 1931, the elder Binladin, a poor Yemeni migrant who had traveled north in the 1920s to the Red Sea port of Jiddah, founded the company that bears his name.

He married some two dozen women and fathered more than 50 children, including the future al-Qaida leader.

After the 9/11 attacks, the Binladins hired lawyers and public relations specialists in the U.S. to try to communicate their disdain for Osama bin Laden, and their willingness to cooperate with Washington, Coll said.

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers with the four-faced clocks stand over the holy Kaaba, as Muslims encircle it inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 13, 2016. Since the 1950's, the Binladins have been the go-to contractors for some of the most sensitive projects

In the 1990s, under pressure from the Saudi government, Bakr Binladin oversaw proceedings to strip his brother of all his shares in the family's company and wealth, a move that came as the kingdom stripped the al-Qaida leader of his nationality.

'Bakr achieved what he set out to do, which is he kept the company intact, he kept it legitimate in the international economy and went on to concentrate primarily on construction in the region, and in Saudi Arabia in particular,' Coll said.

The Binladin Group was crucial to Saudi rulers in 1979 when militants laid siege to Islam's holiest site in Mecca for 15 days.

The company, which had been working on expansion projects there, helped flush the rebels out of tunnels because they had the blueprints and maps, Coll said.

But while the Al Saud-Binladin alliance has been a pillar of how the royal family retained power over the years, the needs of the kingdom have changed, Kamel said.

'They helped the Al Saud family in their time of need, but the utility of that relationship has been exhausted,' he said. 'It is no longer attractive for Al Saud to retain that, nor can they afford to.'

In 2015, the Binladin Group suffered two major blows: the collapse of oil prices and the collapse of one of its cranes.

The crane disaster killed 111 hajj pilgrims on the pristine marble floors of the Grand Mosque housing the cube-shaped Kaaba.

The firm came under investigation, a travel ban was imposed on Bakr Binladin and the company remains embroiled in litigation to this day.

The collapse of oil prices delayed government payments to contractors, and by 2016, the Binladin Group was forced to cut tens of thousands of jobs.

Disgruntled workers complained they had not been paid in months and hundreds took to the streets of Mecca in rare protests, setting company buses alight.

At the time, the company was in the midst of the largest expansion in the history of the Grand Mosque, a project initiated by the late King Abdullah that included the construction of one of the world's tallest towers topped by a neon clock.

The firm was also involved in controversial construction projects ordered by the king that historians say wiped out key traces of Mecca's history dating back to the Prophet Muhammad.

In many ways, the Binladins were seen as part of the old guard- a part of the economy that was based on personal relationships and not transparent, Coll said.

As part of that system, the Binladin Group appeared to be doing well financially before the collapse of oil prices, though it does not disclose its figures.

Bakr Binladin is known to have private planes and real estate around the world.

It may have cost the Binladins heavily as the crown prince moves to take down old alliances and power bases.

'You could easily see them caught up in a story about corruption and privilege,' Coll said.
Parks, busy roads, building sites. The agreed location may be humdrum but, once Stephen Dure arrives, what follows is anything but. Adrenaline pumping, he scans for the man hes agreed to meet before making his approach.

There is never so much as a flicker of recognition on the other mans face. After all, at 6ft 3in and 16-and-a-half stone, 33-year-old Dure is always the polar opposite of the person he was expecting.

Its definitely addictive, says Dure of these illicit meetings. Its the buzz of when youve got the guy and know they will be spending however long in prison.

Robert Babey left was caught in a sting by paedophile hunter Stephen Dure

Dure is not a police officer but one of a growing army of paedophile hunters, who believe not enough is being done to combat the increasing number of paedophiles in the UK (there are said to be around 250,000 true paedophiles  adults attracted to pre-pubescent children under 12).

A scaffolder by trade, Dure spends up to 40 hours a week speaking to predators online with a view to arranging a sting and handing them over to the police.

Ill be hanging off the scaffold with a spanner in one hand and a phone in the other, sending messages to 58-year-old Robert who thinks hes speaking to 13-year-old Lucy and is suggesting all sorts of vile things, says Dure.

Each interaction follows the same pattern. Dure poses as different children  decoys  on various social media platforms, apps and dating sites. A man gets in touch, learns that the decoy is underage, initiates sexual conversation and within days, sometimes hours, suggests a meeting.

For Dures evidence to be permissible in court he cannot coerce the other person into an offence, which constitutes entrapment. Instead, he builds a profile and waits.

When they meet, the individual is confronted by Dure armed with a camera phone. He records the encounter while reeling off the incriminating messages Lucy has received.

He tips off police  either before or during his sting. They make an arrest for meeting a child following sexual grooming, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of ten years, and Dure uploads his video to his Facebook page, TRAP Community, for his 190,000 followers to view.

Stephen Dure is far from the only member of the public voluntarily working undercover in this way. Since Stinson Hunter appeared on Channel 4s Bafta-winning programme The Paedophile Hunter three years ago, revealing his tactics for nabbing sexual predators online by posing as children, similar groups have sprung up throughout the country. Dark Justice (Newcastle), Guardians Of The North (North East England), Danny Catcher (Wiltshire and the West Country) and The Internet Interceptors (Northern Ireland), are just a few of them.

While their methods of intelligence gathering are not illegal, the police cannot work with them formally and publicly discourage their activities.

Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick has spoken of significant concerns surrounding the groups. Not only could suspects destroy evidence after their identities are revealed online, they could go missing or even harm a child or somebody else if they felt cornered.

Regardless, the impact on the judicial system has been palpable. Figures obtained by the BBC show that, in 2014, 11 per cent of court cases for the crime of meeting a child following sexual grooming used evidence from hunters  20 out of 176 cases.

Last year, that had risen to 44 per cent  114 of 259 cases  and led to Britains top child protection officer, chief constable Simon Bailey, saying the police might have to work with paedophile hunters in the future.

Whats more, a court case brought against Dark Justice in April by two men whom they had snared ruled that they could continue posing as children online without regulation from authorities.

The most recent high-profile triumph for the hunters was school teacher Timothy Lloyd, 32, who pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child under 16 and awaits sentencing later this month.

Dure has seen his evidence used in three cases this year. The first person he nabbed, Robert Babey, 68, whom Dure caught by posing as a 14-year-old boy, was jailed for seven years after admitting multiple breaches of his sexual harm prevention order.

Another man arrived to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old boy with pornography and a chocolate cake.

Dure (pictured) is not a police officer but one of a growing army of paedophile hunters, who believe not enough is being done to combat the increasing number of paedophiles in the UK

Yet there is another  more troubling  side. David Baker, 43, a businessman from Hampshire, killed himself on October 7, days after Dure confronted him and posted a video of the sting online. Baker believed he was meeting a 14-year-old boy. He was arrested but released from police custody and died two days later.

Dure deleted the video and wrote on TRAPs Facebook page: Our hearts go out to his family. This is another reason why these people shouldnt be bailed as they are a risk to themselves as well as others.

So does he feel responsible? I dont feel any guilt at all. Its not my fault. My main concern was his family and my team.

People might say you are sort of to blame, but if the police had caught him and then he did that, would people blame the police? I dont catch innocent people. From the way I work I know they are guilty.

Other problems arise when hunter groups approach and film suspects at their home, where their families live  they can then be mistakenly blamed by association and hate-targeted online, or worse.

DI Steve Bell, from Clevelands Paedophile and Online Investigation Team, has heard of incidents where alleged paedophiles have driven off at speed from stings, almost knocking over members of the public in their attempts to escape.

These groups are not looking at safeguarding anyone involved in the situation, he says.

The evidence they supply can also be questionable. There is no continuity, explains Bell. If we talk on the internet [to a suspected paedophile] we provide continuity about how it is done and the exact conversation that was had. If youre working with a paedophile hunter they might provide screenshots of chats but how do we know nothing has been taken out or added in? That causes the courts a dilemma.

Last month, Silent Justice criticised police for refusing to arrest a 22-year-old man who had allegedly been grooming what he thought was a 12-year-old girl during a sting outside his home in Greater Manchester. A 90-minute stand-off followed as neighbours joined calls for the man to be arrested. He was escorted from the property by an officer. The groups video of the incident has been viewed over 200,000 times, in a disturbing trial by social media.

Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick has spoken of significant concerns surrounding the groups. Not only could suspects destroy evidence after their identities are revealed online, they could go missing or even harm a child or somebody else if they felt cornered

Another concern is the fact that in some cases victims parents are not going to the police but to these groups instead. Dure gets up to 500 such messages a week, many asking him to investigate ex-boyfriends, or from mothers who have seen their childs chat logs and are worried for their safety. I either dont reply or tell them to go to the police, he says.

And then there is the murky matter of motivation. Detractors argue Dure and his like are vigilante menaces seeking digital celebrity status. Some groups live-stream stings on Facebook, ostensibly to raise awareness and gain larger followings  a tactic Dure and others disagree with.

Sometimes it is genuine that these hunters want to do something about the number of paedophiles in this country, says Michael Berry, a consultant clinical forensic psychologist specialising in sex crimes and violence, but I worry that many others view them as a trophy. I also worry that those who do this for a long time might lose any sense of objectivity.

Dures dedication has earned him the nickname Batman without the cape among his fans, fame in his hometown of Southampton and appearances on the BBC. His sting videos garner thousands of likes, not to mention reverential comments, online. But he insists it has never been about being a crusader  caped or otherwise: Its a nice compliment but its not why I do this, he says.

When I was younger, I was a bit of a tearaway. But now I just want to do something good and leave a stamp on society for the better. I am a strong believer that if you do good things, good things will happen to you.

Dure is single and has a 15-year-old daughter who lives with her mother 120 miles away. He doesnt see her a lot and she is unaware of his new line of work. His father and mother, whom hes close to, thought hed gone mad at first. I was doing it for nothing. Now they are really proud of me. He adds: I know close friends who have been abused and have seen the impact it has.

I get angry when people try to argue against us and say leave it to the police. Well, the police arent doing enough.

After following the exploits of other hunters for months, in February he decided to start a group. He bought a 50 decoy phone and later recruited two friends to film the stings and scout the locations. Now there are four members of TRAP Community, and last week Dure launched an arm of his group in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, this summer, Home Secretary Amber Rudd issued a 20 million grant to extend an initiative where detectives infiltrate chat rooms and forums, much like the hunters. The funding was preceded by a year-long pilot, led by Norfolk Police, where 43 people were arrested and 19 charged. But those figures are dwarfed by groups such as Dark Justice  run by just two people  who claim 130 arrests and 61 convictions in less than three years.

Cain Watson, a 31-year-old taxi driver from Gateshead, splits his time between navigating the quickest routes through Newcastle and hunting paedophiles for Guardians Of The North.

Like Dure, he agrees theirs is a complex line of work but argues that the few who dont follow a strict code of ethics  eschewing violence and working to ensure convictions  risk ruining it for the many who do.

Guardians Of The North was established in April last year and is made up of seven women and three men, including Watson. They command a Facebook following of more than 65,000 and Watson estimates theyve caught 150 sexual predators in the past 16 months. They are also taking steps to having members checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

Watson describes a case of theirs that caused real children to come forward and make statements against an individual.

We want the public to know 100 per cent we are doing it for the kids, he says.

Watson, who was a victim of abuse himself, first heard about the group after they ambushed someone he went to school with.

Someone suggested being involved might bring me closure. I do feel much better about myself. As long as they are talking to us, who knows how many children are potentially being saved?

His first sting as a decoy earlier this year was his most memorable: The adrenaline was pumping. When you see them you immediately think of the videos and things theyve sent to what they think is a child. I have no doubt this guy I caught was talking to others online. [Catching him] was a level of satisfaction I had never experienced.

He says they and Dark Justice, which also operates around Newcastle, have worked hard to establish a good relationship with the police.

It has got to the point where there is a standard way of doing things. Most of the police officers on call have dealt with us before and know exactly how it works. On record, they have to tell us to stop doing what were doing. But weve seen officers out of uniform, and been contacted by officers from other forces and ex-police officers whove said its brilliant, carry on. They praise us unofficially.

Both Dure and Watson say they would work more closely with the police if that were an option, and foresee a change coming soon. According to Dure, things could come to a head before then.

One day a hunter will die doing this, he says. They know what we are up to now. Someone will come with a weapon.

Jim Gamble, former head of the child exploitation and online protection centre (CEOP), says: I understand why members of the public become so frustrated that they resort to doing this work themselves. There are far too few police, far too many offenders and the maths doesnt work out.

He calls for a nationwide police campaign to recruit volunteer special constables to be trained as digital detectives. Theyd be a citizen army working in police stations under their supervision.

Why couldnt the butcher, the baker, candlestick maker, librarian or Tesco supervisor volunteer?

If vetting and a psychological assessment demonstrates they have the right attitude and strength of character, why wouldnt we train them and support these public-minded citizens to engage in making everyone safer?
Outside, it was dark. Emily Hunt (pictured) could make out the familiar orange glint of street lights through the curtains. But whose curtains? Where was she?

Outside, it was dark. Emily Hunt could make out the familiar orange glint of street lights through the curtains. But whose curtains? Where was she?

Next to her on the bed was a man she didnt recognise, sitting fully clothed, with a TV remote in his hand, casually flipping through the channels. By now she realised she was in a hotel room. She also realised she was naked.

But how shed got there and what had happened to her was a complete blank, although she could probably hazard a guess.

A sordid, nightmarish scene. Waking up with a thumping head and a complete stranger  most would gather their clothes and dash off, sheepishly, into the night, vowing never to touch a drop again.

Only this wasnt like that at all. Emily is a 38-year-old highly intelligent divorcee with a seven-year-old daughter. Getting paralytic and picking up random strangers for sex is not something she does.

She hadnt been out partying that day. Shed enjoyed a very convivial lunch with her father, who was visiting from Ireland for a few days, at their favourite restaurant in London. Her last conscious memory was finishing her meal at around 5pm. It was now shortly after 10pm. What on earth had happened?

There was literally no memory there. Its like Id been picked up and dropped next to this guy on the bed, she says. I had never seen him in my life. I was very cold and felt weird  kind of fuzzy, but it wasnt a hangover.

Then I kind of realised in this light-bulb moment that I must have been drugged. I got really scared.

This week, Emily, who works in London, launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise 100,000 to bring her alleged rapist to justice in a private prosecution after the CPS refused to take up the case.

So far, she has made 20,000. Its a case that has made headlines across the world with water-cooler theorists debating everything from her morals to her judgment.

The parallels between the recent ITV drama Liar, in which a teacher tried to prove that she had been drugged and raped, were all too apparent.

Yet Emily, a business strategy consultant who has worked for IBM, remains unswayed. She is neither an hysteric nor a sexual ingenue, she insists. While freely admitting to the odd brief, ill-advised sexual encounter with men in the past, she says she would no more make a false allegation of rape than hack off her glorious, thick, red hair.

That terrible event two-and-a-half years ago was different, she says. And it is for that reason that she is resolute in her determination to bring him to court.

So what did happen that day in May 2015? Emily has made it her mission to find out as much as possible. Its a quest that has driven her to a mental breakdown. Shes also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and continues to see a psychiatrist to this day.

This week, Emily, who works in London, launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise 100,000 to bring her alleged rapist to justice in a private prosecution after the CPS refused to take up the case

Emily, whos originally from New York, had moved to London 12 years ago after falling in love with her former husband. The couple had divorced earlier in 2015.

Leaving their daughter with him, shed met her own father for lunch that Sunday at his favourite restaurant in Bethnal Green, a stones throw from her East London home.

My dad had been staying with me for the weekend. Sunday lunch at that restaurant is one of our traditions. They can last up to nine hours, but Dad was catching his flight home and I was supposed to be going on a date that evening with a guy whos a lawyer for a bank.

They ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio and sat down to eat. Emily chose steak so asked for a glass of red wine while her father finished the white. They ended the meal with a glass of grappa  an Italian brandy  each.

The bar was crowded as its a popular place on a Sunday, says Emily. The grappas sat on the bar for a while before the waiter brought them to our table.

Ive wondered if thats when the drink was spiked because my dad was late for his flight so left me to finish a third grappa we were sharing. He doesnt even remember how he got to the airport or boarding the plane.

Hed had to drop by Emilys house to pick up his bags, where her ex-husband was looking after their little girl, and he remarked how uncharacteristically drunk hed seemed.

My last memory is being in the restaurant alone, says Emily. The next thing I knew was waking up naked on a bed with a man. He was average looking. Literally that guy in the bar you dont notice.

Emily has since learnt that she was captured on CCTV that evening leaving a bar called Poison, less than a mile from the restaurant and the hotel, with her alleged rapist. The CCTV footage shows me swaying with my arms all over him, she says. At various points Im not able to hold myself up. Im falling over onto a bench.

Ive had moments before on big nights out when things get a bit fuzzy, but I always remember the embarrassing stuff.

But this time theres nothing in my memory, from being at the table in the restaurant to waking up next to this guy.

Emily, whos originally from New York, had moved to London 12 years ago after falling in love with her former husband. The couple had divorced earlier in 2015

Emily now knows her alleged rapist took her to the Town Hall Hotel in East London where he booked a 300-a-night room.

The CCTV footage in the hotel foyer shows her to be all over her companion. So much so that she knows its one of the reasons the CPS took the decision not to prosecute.

When I finally came to, I asked him where I was. He told me. Then he asked me if I knew what his name was. I was embarrassed. I hadnt quite figured out what was happening. I hadnt hit scared yet.

By then I was starting to piece it together. Thats when I thought I must have been drugged. Then I got scared.

Emily gathered her clothes and went to the bathroom where she called one of her closest friends.

I said: Theres something really wrong. I dont know who this guy is and I dont feel safe. My friend said that hed call the police. Ten minutes later her friend texted to tell Emily the police were on their way.

One of the rooms at the five-star Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green, East London, where mother-of-one Ms Hunt claims she was raped in May 2015

The guy tried to smooth everything over, says Emily. He said: Dont worry. Nothing happened. You just had a little too much to drink.

He didnt want me to go. I remember thinking: Ive got to smile sweetly and get out of here.

She took his phone number and surname to make him feel OK and managed to reach the door. As she shut it behind her, her phone rang. It was the police.

I ran down the stairs and fell into some police persons arms. I was, at that point, terrified and freaking out. They took me outside and I collapsed on the grass. I was hyperventilating. I couldnt catch my breath. I thought I was going to die.

The police called an ambulance and paramedics did a blood test that revealed her blood sugar levels were so low she was suffering from hypoglycemia. They fed her chocolate and took her to the Royal London Hospital.

I read afterwards that two causes of hypoglycemia can be alcohol poisoning and GHB (the date rape drug), but the police didnt give me a urine test until shortly before 2am and the fact my blood sugar levels were so low I had to be force-fed chocolate wasnt used by the CPS in its decision making.

Doctors, fearing Emily had suffered a heart attack, gave her a scan and two paracetamol. At 3am, following a second urine test, she was discharged from hospital and taken home.

Police decided not to arrange a forensic examination as they deemed her too drunk to consent to it, and an officer from the Sapphire rape and sexual assault unit arranged to come to see her the following day.

There were two of them. They sat in my front room and were horrible. Really horrible. They were saying Id had too much to drink and that these things happen. I was feeling utterly terrified. I kept saying I needed emotional support. I need to speak to someone. One of my friends came over and threw them out.

Miss Hunt also appeared on ITV's This Morning today, talking about what led up to the 'attack'

By 5pm, having heard nothing, she gave up. I went and showered. I was thinking: Hopefully hes telling the truth, nothing happened and everything will be fine. I had this sense of washing it all away.

The following morning, Emily was at the U.S. Embassy with her daughter and ex-husband renewing their daughters passport when she received a phone call from the police.

The policewoman said, in a totally cavalier way, that the guy had admitted to sex but said it was consensual. I was like: What? Youve just confirmed my worst fear. I need to be treated.

She said: I dont think youve got anything to worry about. We found used condoms in the room.

I began shouting at her. I was utterly freaked out. There I was standing in the U.S. Embassy with no privacy, being told by a stranger, who didnt seem to care at all, that Id been raped.

Emily went to Boots, bought herself the morning-after pill and called the hospital. They told her to come straight in and referred her to an HIV unit.

Can you imagine what its like to not know what happened to your own body and to have this horrible feeling that someone else knows? In fact, quite a few people knew, but I didnt have the information. It was just horrible.

Emily Hunt, 38, said she 'woke up naked and terrified on a hotel bed' after being attacked

Emily confesses it took her a long time to tell her dad what had happened to her that night.

The case was passed to the CPS. However, in July 2015 the toxicology tests revealed there was no trace of drugs in her system.

More confusingly, though, the report also stated her alcohol level at the time of the alleged rape would have been about twice the legal drink-drive limit, which was not high enough to proceed with a straightforward alcohol-related consent case.

It made no sense. How could I have appeared so drunk that the police said I was too intoxicated to give consent for a forensic medical examination but only have that much alcohol in my body?

If I hadnt been drugged and wasnt completely trashed why did I have no memory of five hours of my life?

At that point I started Googling GHB. I discovered that instead of remaining in the body for 12 hours, as the Metropolitan Police insist, it can be broken down in as little as six hours.

What was really heartbreaking was when I discovered a hair test would have shown traces of GBH until mid-June, but we didnt get the results of the toxicology report until the end of July.

Emily was on the bus commuting to work when she received what she says was a crassly insensitive email from the Mets specialist sexual offences unit informing her the case against her alleged rapist had been dropped. The email ended: Im sorry it is not the answer you wanted.

I felt the world closing in around me, says Emily. It never occurred to me they wouldnt prosecute. How could they not? I was on a bus in Central London when I opened the email.

I couldnt believe I lived in a world where what had happened to me wasnt prosecutable. Thats when I began to fall apart.

But she refused to let it drop. Last year, the Metropolitan Police finally furnished her with the details of her case after she filed for access to information. When she read its contents, she suffered a complete and total breakdown. So much so, she was admitted to hospital for eight days.

Prosecutors did not bring charges, after the woman claimed she was raped at the hotel (above)

Ms Hunt, of Hackney, claims she was drugged and raped at the 300-a-night hotel (pictured)

For, not only did Emily learn that the 35-year-old stranger shed woken up beside had been in possession of Viagra and LSD when he was arrested, but that he had filmed her naked on his phone for more than a minute while she was unconscious.

He told the police the video was for his own sordid gratification afterwards. Furthermore, he had not consumed a drop of alcohol.

I suppose there was always a part of me that thought: Maybe I did get completely trashed and cant remember. Perhaps we were both two drunk people making a bad decision.

So to read that hed had no alcohol whatsoever . . . She breathes deeply and shakes her head.

Worse was to come. A copy of the toxicology report also revealed that tests that hadnt found any suspicious drugs in her system, were based, she believes, upon wrong timings.

It was that which sent me over the edge, she says. According to the report, my last memory was at 7pm, but everything was a complete blank from between 4pm and 5pm when I finished lunch with my dad.

GHB takes between six to 12 hours for most people to break down. The police didnt take a urine sample from me until nearly 2am, so the wrong timeline made all the difference.

It meant, instead of it being impossible that Id been drugged, my body could have eliminated the GHB, particularly as I have a very fast metabolism.

Reading that report was like being punched in the stomach. I wasnt eating at all and couldnt cope with anything, she says.

Miss Hunt told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme today about her alleged ordeal

I knew this guy should be in jail but had thought if they didnt have the evidence to convict him Id have to come to terms with that. To actually discover they had so much evidence . . . She bites her lip.

In November last year, following a meeting with the CPS after a failed appeal, Emily resolved to fund a private prosecution.

Three weeks ago, she stood in front of 50 people at a public speaking event in London and waived her anonymity to share her story. The support was overwhelming.

She knows who her assailant is, and where he lives, but has been advised not to reveal it.

I went home and set up a Facebook page, she says. I wrote: Some of you know this story and some of you dont, but two-and-a-half years ago I was drugged and raped by a stranger. Its the beginning of the story, but watch this space. I tagged it #MeToo.

But do I believe her? Would I, sitting on a jury, and presented with all the evidence, consider this man not guilty?

After all, as Emily says: So, theyve got a man who has admitted he gets turned on by unconscious women, whos been found with Viagra, stone-cold sober, filming a woman who, for whatever reason, is so out of it shes unconscious on the bed and youre telling me theres not a reasonable chance a jury might find him guilty of rape?

I must admit, I think she has a point...

Visit Emily's fundraising page at gofundme.com/2xhxmwyk

An earlier version of this article said that Emily and her father had lunch at Bacaro, a Venetian restaurant in Bethnal Green, London. We would like to make clear that in fact the pair dined elsewhere and that the Bacaro restaurant located on Roman Road has no connection to the events reported.




Papua New Guinea officials claim refugees regularly travelled into town to have sex with underage girls and buy drugs over the last four years

Australian government officials have been informed of 161 offences committed by Manus Island refugees, including alleged sexual assault

Refugees detained on Manus Island have regularly travelled into town to allegedly have sex with underage girls and buy drugs, Australian government officials were told last month.

Police and community leaders in Papua New Guinea informed Australian officials of 161 offences involving residents at the centre, dated over the last four years.

The alleged offences include assault, sexual assault, aggressive behaviour, unlawful entry, property damage and contraband, The Australian reports.

Several children have been born from the alleged sexual assaults, the paper claims.

Australian government officials have been informed of 161 offences committed by Manus Island refugees, including luring underage girls for sex (pictured: Immigration Minister Peter Dutton)

Refugees and asylum seekers protesting inside the Manus Island immigration detention centre, which closed 10 days ago

The alleged offences include assault, sexual assault, aggressive behaviour, unlawful entry, property damage and contraband, The Australian reports

The publication reports that some of the detained on Manus Island, who receive $100 a fortnight, allegedly used items such as cigarettes and chocolates bought at the centre to lure underage girls to engage in sexual acts.

On Friday, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Melbourne radio 3AW around 190 men from the Manus Island detention centre would travel into the nearby village of Lorengau by bus each day.

Mr Dutton also confirmed some of these men had threatened the wives and children of locals with sexual abuse and rape.

'They'll go down, purchase goods from the markets, they stay at the beach, go to the beach, they sell things down there,' he said.

The men believe it is safer to stay at the old compound rather than risk being attacked by locals at the new facility

Refugees have been collecting water in bins at the detention centre after the Australian government shut off water and electricity supplies

'Obviously, if they're minded to buy drugs or sell drugs, then that's an activity that some are involved in as well.'

The allegations follow claims of another refugee who reportedly punched a female doctor in the face before trying to strangle her with a plastic bag.

The 50-year-old refugee was arrested after he was accused of assaulting a senior doctor while he was being treated at a medical centre run by the Australian government in March.

The clinic is operated by the International Health and Medical Services, and paid for by the government to help refugees on Manus Island.

Protests have erupted across Australia since the detention centre was closed, opposing the government's treatment of refugees

Protesters clash with police on the streets of Redfern in Sydney on Friday to oppose Australia's offshore detention system

According to an incident report from the International Health and Medical Services, the man tried to strangle the doctor with a plastic bag and punched her in the face, leaving a gash on her forehead.

The Australian government cut off food, water, medical assistance and electricity to the refugees at the Manus Island centre 10 days ago.

There are still 580 men living at the detention centre who are protesting against the Australian and Papua New Guinea governments who want to move them to facilities near the township of Lorengau.

The men believe it is safer to stay at the old compound rather than risk being attacked by locals at the new facility.
A British woman facing the death penalty for smuggling painkillers into Egypt said she had 'no idea' the drugs were illegal when she packed them before embarking on holiday.

Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested after entering the country with 300 Tramadol pills she said were for her Egyptian boyfriends injured back.

The drug, widely prescribed in Britain, is strictly controlled in Egypt and can only be brought in with government permission.

The shop assistant from Hull was taken into custody where she remains in a cramped police cell alongside 25 other women as she waits for her court hearing tomorrow.

Speaking today, Miss Plummer said the drugs were given to her by a colleague to help with her boyfriend's back problems.

'I didn't even look in bag,' she said. 'I can't tell you how stupid I feel.'

Nightmare: Ms Plummer (pictured) was held after customs officers found almost three hundred painkillers in her suitcase when she entered the country. The pills were for her boyfriend hotel worker Omar Caboo after he requested them to help deal with a back problem

In custody: Since her incarceration Ms Plummer has received no visits from Mr Caboo (above with Ms Plummer) who has reportedly vanished from the resort of Hurghada and has had no contact with her family while she languished in jail

Her family say they fear they will be forced to fly home without her after being told it is highly unlikely the 33-year-old will be released due to the severity of the alleged crime.

She told the BBC she was being held in a cell at a police station which was about the size of her bedroom in the UK but holding 25 other women.

Describing her spirits as at 'rock bottom', she told the media organisation she dreamt of coming home and sleeping in her own bed.

Miss Plummer added that she was struggling to breathe but her fellow prisoners were trying to console her though none speak English. The 33-year-old is due in court tomorrow.

Please help me get out of this hellhole. I dont know whats happening. Im scared. I had no idea that what I was doing was wrong. I thought I was doing a good deed

In a note from her cell, the sales assistant wrote previously: 'Please help me get out of this hellhole. I dont know whats happening. Im scared. I had no idea that what I was doing was wrong. I thought I was doing a good deed.'

A family member told MailOnline they are desperate for her to be granted bail.

'All we want now is for her to get out of prison. We are confident that the police investigation will show she is innocent. That might take time, but at least she will be free.'

But the family source said they had accepted they will not be able to fly back with Ms Plummer when they leave Hurghada on Sunday.

'That was what we hoped for but we have been told it is very unlikely.'

Her lawyer told MailOnline the judge will either grant her bail or order her to be locked up a further 15 days so police can continue their investigation.

Lawyer Mohamed Osman said: 'Laura will not be free after the court case. She will either get bail or sent back to the prison for another 15 days.'

Anxious: The family of Laura Plummer, a British holidaymaker jailed in Egypt, fear they'll have to leave her alone in a 'hellhole' jail after she appears in court on Saturday. Pictured: Ms Plummer's mother Roberta (right), sister Jayne Sinclair (left) and brother Kirk at their hotel

The shop worker from Hull has spent a month in a 'hell hole' detention centre since being arrested on October 9th.

She was held after customs officers found almost three hundred painkillers in her suitcase when she entered the country.

The pills she was carrying were for her boyfriend hotel worker Omar Caboo after he requested them to help deal with a back problem.

The powerful painkillers are banned in Egypt where they are sold on the black market as a heroin substitute.

Hopes dashed: Ms Plummer's family (pictured) has been told the best outcome in court is that she is grant bail, but that her passport will be confiscated, leaving her stranded in the resort

Home alone: A family member told MailOnline they were desperate for bail. But the family source said they had accepted Laura would not leave with them on Sunday. 'That was what we hoped for but we have been told it is very unlikely.' Pictured: Ms Plummer's mother and sister

Prison visit: The family paid Ms Plummer an emotional visit in prison on Thursday and await to hear the outcome of Saturday's court appearance

Legal fight: Ms Plummer's mother Roberta and sister Jayne are pictured on This Morning

Ordeal: The shop worker from Hull, East Yorkshire, (pictured) has been locked up and languishing in a prison in the Red Sea resort for allegedly smuggling painkillers into Egypt

Ms Plummer has protested her innocence and said she had no idea the drugs were on a banned list.

But she has been labelled an 'international drug smuggler' and detained in a cramped prison cell.

Caboo, 34, has fled from Hurghada to leave his girlfriend at the mercy of the Egyptian justice systems.

The couple went signed documents 18 months ago that allowed Ms Plummer to live with Omar during her twice-yearly visits.

He was already married but under Muslim law allowed to take a second wife. The documents meant they could stay in the same room together and not break any laws.

Police sources said Caboo would have known the drug Tramadol was illegal but failed to mention this to his girlfriend of four years.

She was caught with 290 pills and other painkillers after a customs search of her luggage at Hurghada International Airport.

All tourists arriving have to put their suitcases through a scanner before leaving the terminal and the strips of Tramadol were spotted lying on top of her clothes.

Court appearance: Ms Plummer will appear in court on Saturday where she hopes to be granted bail as she fights charges of drugs smuggling. Her family are in Egypt to support her

Ms Plummer brought the drugs for 'husband' Omar, who suffers from back problems. Her sister said the pair's marriage 'means nothing' and Omar is already married

Ordeal: Ms Plummer, left, could face 25 years in prison with no parole, life imprisonment or even the death penalty

Happier times: Ms Plummer (centre), pictured with her sisters Rachel Plummer and Jayne Synclair, is facing the death penalty in Egypt for carrying painkillers into the country

She has been held in a detention centre at a police station on the outskirts of the city since her arrest.

Her complaints about conditions she is being held in met with scorn from prison bosses who told MailOnline: 'This is not the Sheraton'  a reference to a five star hotel chain.

She is due to appear at the main criminal court in Hurghada on Saturday morning.

Her lawyer said he would be making an application for bail but there is no guarantee the judge will agree to the request.

'Laura is still under criminal investigation. The case is proceeding.'

Osman has been representing the family after an intervention by the British embassy in Cairo.

A previous lawyer who offered to help her took a 10,000 fee and vanished.

Osman, who has worked with the British Embassy on other cases, runs his own law firm called Egypt Advocates.

She will be brought to the court in a blue prison van and if other women are due to appear they will be shackled together.

Her mother Roberta, sister Jayne and brother Kirk, who flew out to Hurghada, plan to be at the court to support her.

Concern: The family members in Hurghada have been keeping a low profile and rarely leaving the five star seafront hotel where they are staying

Laura Plummer, left, is being held by Egyptian authorities after taking tramadol into the country

While being granted bail would be a huge step forward another lawyer familiar with drugs cases said the judge might consider the British holidaymaker a flight risk.

'Once this woman is out there is nothing stopping her applying to the embassy for another passport. It is unlikely given her high profile now from all the publicity but the judge might decide anyway.'

The three family members who flew out to Hurghada were able to spend over an hour with her during a prison visit on Thursday afternoon.

They took in three bags packed with food supplies but have not commented publically about her condition.

Sister Jayne has previously said Laura was suicidal while her mum said she was almost unrecognisable when she last visited her.

The family members in Hurghada have been keeping a low profile and rarely leaving the five star seafront hotel where they are staying.
The reality TV star is being held without bail in a Virginia Beach jail

Melissa Hancock, 25, is a regular guest on Little Women: Atlanta

Dill had was a designated driver for his wife who was celebrating her birthday

Dill, a Coast Guard veteran was killed when a driver traveling on the wrong side of the road collided head on with his vehicle

Daniel C. Dill, 29, was riding along Interstate 264 in Virginia around 2am

Daniel C. Dill, 29, was riding along Interstate 264 in Virginia around 2am last Saturday

A Coast Guard veteran who was traveling to pick up his girlfriend from a party was killed after a drunk driver riding on the wrong side of the highway collided with his vehicle.

Daniel C. Dill, 29, was riding along Interstate 264 in Virginia around 2am Saturday night when the incident occurred, NJ.com reported.

Natalie Dill, Daniel's wife, was celebrating her 27th birthday that evening with friends following a meal with her husband and members of her family.

A teetotaler, Daniel encouraged his wife to have a good time and offered to retrieve her and her friends later in the evening. She was not in the car at the time.

Melissa Hancock, a regular guest on Little Women: Atlanta, was driving her 2011 Cadillac when she allegedly hit Dill's car head-on in the eastbound lane, just west of the Birdneck Road exit, according to police.

Virginia state police say the model was arrested and charged with DUI/maiming and driving the wrong way.

Mugshot: Melissa Hancock, a regular guest on Little Women: Atlanta, was allegedly driving on the wrong side the highway when she killed Dill

Dill offered to be the designated driver for his wife, Natalie (pictured) who was celebrating her 27th birthday

Dill was rushed to Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital where he was later pronounced dead, according to Wavy.com.

Hancock is being held without bail in a Virginia Beach jail.

Following the incident, Dill's father, Christopher Dill Sr., remembered his son as a good man who enjoyed bringing happiness to others.

'He was clean cut, didn't smoke or drink. He wasn't ever in trouble. He was just laid-back, always happy and always looking to make everybody else happy,' Christopher Dill said.

Dill Kingsway Regional High School in 2006 and joined the Coast Guard in October of that year., according to NJ.com.

Dill's father said that he met his wife just a few years later, and decided to settle in Portsmouth, Virginia where they purchased a home.

'That was going to be their hometown,' his father said.

Hancock isn't a main cast member of the Lifetime series which revolves around the lives of several short-stature women in Atlanta and is itself a spinoff of Little Women: LA.

Little women: Hancock is a regular guest of the Lifetime series which revolves around the lives of several short-stature women in Atlanta

Charges filed: TMZ said Hancock is being held without bail in a Virginia Beach jail

Hancock is also a fashion model, having strolled the catwalk at New York Fashion Week in 2015.

That year marked the first time the show featured short stature models.

'Curvy women, six-foot-tall women, four-feet-tall women, we should all have the same opportunity to show what we got,' Hancock told ET in her backstage interview at the show.

Dill is set to be buried with full military honors this Saturday at 11am at the St. Paul's Catholic Church in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Britons have taken to social media to condemn racists who criticised Tesco for including a Muslim family in its Christmas advert.

The commercial - which was released on Sunday as part of the retailer's 'Everyone's Welcome' campaign - shows different families celebrating the festival as they dig into a turkey from the supermarket.

In one scene, a Muslim family greet each other with gifts as they prepare to celebrate the holiday.

The advert - which was released on Sunday as part of the retailer's 'Everyone's Welcome' campaign - features different families celebrating the festival as they dig into a Tesco turkey

But the clip has faced a backlash with some viewers claiming that Muslims should not celebrate Christmas in a shocking flood of racist online comments.

'Tesco have just put an advert out showing families celebrating and enjoying Christmas dinner. Why was a Muslim family included in this ad?' tweeted one viewer.

Another wrote: 'Your Christmas advert features Muslims, but they do not celebrate Christian celebrations, so why?'

Some have even gone as far as to call for a boycott of Tesco over the commercial.

But other social media users have hit back at the critical comments.

One wrote: 'Fantastic news! A whole load of ignorant idiots are boycotting Tesco because of their Christmas advert; means their stores won't be packed with racist idiots when I do my food shop...'

Another said: 'Shout out to Tesco for their Christmas advert showing how all of us can come together at Christmas. Shame on anyone who thinks otherwise #saynotoracism.'

One wrote: 'No doubt the people who claim Muslims won't integrate are now furious that Muslims might enjoy Christmas...'

And another said of those critical of the advert: 'It's gonna blow their minds when they discover most Brits don't even go to church for Christmas.'

In one scene, a Muslim family greet each other with gifts as they prepare to celebrate the holiday

Some Muslims have also hit back, with one man tweeting: 'People are annoyed because the Tesco Christmas advert features a Muslim family. What is it you think we do on 25th December?'

In a statement, Tesco said everyone should be able to celebrate the festive season.

'Everyone is welcome at Tesco this Christmas and we're proud to celebrate the many ways our customers come together over the festive season', a Tesco spokesperson said.

But that wasn't the only issue that some viewers had with the advert.

'@Tesco just seen your Xmas advert - you don't have a turkey for me, I'm vegetarian,' commented one woman.

But the one-minute clip has faced a backlash after viewers claimed that Muslims do not celebrate Christmas

Viewers also complained about the lack of vegetarian options featured in the advert

Another wrote: 'I can imagine there's gonna be a few complaints from veggies/vegans about the @Tesco 'Everybody's Welcome' Christmas advert!'

Others thought it was too early to be releasing a Christmas advert at all, let alone on Bonfire Night.

'You've gone too early with your Christmas advert,' said one viewer on Twitter. 'Guy Fawkes will be turning in his grave.'

Another commented: 'Oh my god @Tesco did I just see your actual Christmas advert? You know it's only the first week of November, yes?'
They party hard in the pubs and bars of Cardiff city centre, and when staff working for the Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones clocked off last Friday, they had a particular reason to celebrate.

Not only was another weekend about to begin, but the Labour heavyweights team of highly ambitious special advisers had just helped their smooth-talking boss to execute successfully what might previously have been a very awkward cabinet reshuffle.

For months, Jones, a wealthy former criminal barrister from the posh wing of his party, had been hoping to get rid of one of his long-serving ministers, Carl Sargeant, in order to (as they say in politics) make way for fresh talent.

Labour advisers including Matt Greenough (left), one of Carwyn Joness most senior aides, and Andrew Johnson (far right) last Friday

There had, however, been a big problem: while Sargeant, a 49-year-old former industrial worker who still lived on the North Wales council estate where he grew up, may not have been a particularly fashionable brand of politician, he remained hugely popular among the partys traditional grass roots.

In the incestuous world of Welsh politics, over which the Labour Party has historically exerted almost complete control, sacking Sargeant might therefore cause ructions.

Jones, an accomplished climber of greasy poles, would perhaps have been accused of class-based snobbery, not to mention betraying a long-standing colleague and friend. He might even have made a few enemies.

Earlier that week, however, events had conspired to offer a tidy solution to the First Ministers problems: amid continuing hysteria over the so-called Sexminster scandal, three women had come forward to accuse Sargeant of improper conduct.

Their claims were, as yet, unverified. Said to involve unwanted attention, touching or groping, they were also insufficiently serious to warrant either the alleged victims, or the Labour Party, contacting the police.

But in the febrile atmosphere of a social media witch hunt, and without conducting any proper investigation, Carwyn Jones nonetheless felt they gave him a mandate to sack his colleague.

First Minister Carwyn Jones (left) with Carl Sargeant (right). The allegations against Sargeant have the First Minister the mandate to sack him

He duly issued a statement on Friday afternoon saying that Sarge, as he was known to friends, had been removed from his job.

It was all very neat and tidy. And having presided over the ensuing reshuffle, senior staff in the First Ministers office adjourned to a local pub.

In a photo uploaded to Instagram that night by Andrew Johnson, one of Joness special advisers, four of their number can be seen grinning cheerily while drinking beer, wine and spirits on a table laden with empty glasses.

Importantly, on the left-hand side of the image sat Matt Greenough, one of Joness most senior aides.

Despite having absolutely no expertise or experience in conducting highly sensitive disciplinary investigations, or in investigating sexual harassment, this political fixer had been the person who conducted multiple interviews with Sargeants accusers.

But we digress. For fast forward a week, and that gleeful photograph (which has now been removed from Instagram by Johnson) looks very ill-advised indeed.

To blame is an appalling tragedy which has thrown Welsh politics into a state of utter disarray, leading to multiple calls from across the political spectrum for Jones to resign, and prompting widespread soul-searching about the lynch-mob culture that has infected British public life.

Sargeant took his own life after unspecified allegations of improper conduct were made against him

It occurred on Tuesday morning, when police were called to the modest home in Connahs Quay, North Wales, that Sargeant shared with his wife Bernie, the mother of his two grown-up children, Lucy and Jack.

There, they discovered that the veteran Assembly Member had taken his own life.

Sargeant had apparently felt humiliated and isolated by his sacking, which, in a perversion of natural justice, had occurred without him being given any details whatsoever of the allegations against him, or even being told the names of his accusers.

He had therefore been unable to defend himself.

As well as being sacked from the Welsh government, he had been suspended by his beloved Labour Party, which told him that a disciplinary officer in London had been appointed to conduct a lengthy investigation, but had also failed to shed any light on what he was supposed to have done wrong.

Adding to the Kafka-esque nature of proceedings, Sargeant had also suffered the indignity of watching Carwyn Jones give TV interviews on Monday in which the First Minister repeatedly argued that hed had no option but to sack Sargeant, since action is taken when we have somebody who is in a position where they could embarrass the party or bring the party into disrepute.

Sargeants lawyers had that afternoon written to the Labour Party describing those comments by Jones (who, as a former barrister, ought perhaps to know better) as clearly prejudicing what is allegedly an independent inquiry by your office.

The family also warned that the situation was having a serious effect on Sargeants mental state. Within 24 hours, he was dead.

The letter, which the family made public on Wednesday, lamented that despite repeated requests, Sargeant had still not been given any details of the claims made against him.

The former minister had apparently felt humiliated and isolated by his sacking which occurred without him being given any details of the allegations against him

Sensationally, it also raised concerns that staff working for Jones, including senior aide Matt Greenough  who was named in the letter  had sought to manipulate evidence in the case.

There appears to be a very real possibility that the evidence of the witnesses is being manipulated, it noted. Numerous conversations with the witnesses by various members of the First Ministers office at the very least must create uncertainties about the credibility of any evidence.

Carls wife Bernie, meanwhile, accused Labour of failing to afford him common courtesy, decency or natural justice. A fellow Assembly member said he had been thrown to the wolves, while a host of influential Labour figures called for Carwyn Jones to resign.

Amid mounting public anger, Jones gave a press conference on Thursday in which he insisted hed acted by the book, suggesting that hed had no alternative but to sack Sargeant.

However, critics soon pointed out that the opposite was true: his actions appeared to have been entirely at odds with accepted protocols governing public life.

Sargeant was a Minister of the Crown. He should therefore have been suspended  rather than sacked  while an impartial member of the Civil Service conducted a thorough inquiry to establish whether hed breached the Ministerial Codes requirement to behave in a principled way that upholds the highest standards of propriety.

Just such a process is under way in Westminster, where Sue Gray, director-general of the Civil Services Propriety and Ethics team, is looking into allegations against Damian Green, Theresa Mays First Secretary of State.

Yet in Cardiff, that didnt happen. Joness failure to follow this straightforward principle in dealing with Sargeant is now the subject of heated speculation among his colleagues. Some believe the First Minister guilty of straightforward incompetence; others wonder if he took a cynical decision to sack the late Assembly member for political reasons.

Jones wanted to carry out a Cabinet reshuffle in which he wanted to sack Mr Sargeant, one told the Western Mail newspaper. Referring [him] to the Civil Service for investigation would have raised the expectation that if he was cleared he would be free to return to government office. Dismissing him, however irregular, bypassed that problem.

Then there is scepticism about the allegations against Sargeant. Some wonder if the women who complained about him (there are believed to have been three of them) came forward because they felt emboldened by events in Westminster. But others again speculate that more sinister forces may have been in play.

One associate of the late Assembly Member told the Western Mail: It seems enormously coincidental that these allegations should have come to light right at the time when Carwyn Jones was announcing a reshuffle.

Sargeant was a Minister of the Crown and should therefore have been suspended, rather than sacked

The exact timing of when the allegations were made is therefore of huge importance. And this leads to a second area of growing scandal.

During his round of TV interviews on Monday, Jones repeatedly and vigorously insisted hed first heard of the harassment claims at the start of the week beginning on October 30, just a few days before Sargeant was sacked.

Asked whether hed been told of them before, he stated: No. They were drawn to my attention at the beginning of the week.

However, multiple news outlets claim that statement by Jones was untrue. They insist one of the accusers had originally approached the First Minister in 2016.

The Western Mail says: Such an allegation was made around 18 months ago, but was not regarded as credible. Jones is believed to have challenged Sargeant and accepted his response.

The BBC carried an article by its respected veteran Welsh political correspondent Vaughan Roderick, stating: Various sources of more than one party have told me that Jones had discussed allegations of misconduct with Sargeant once before, and had received an explanation of the incident.

The same sources also suggest that allegation was one of those that Carwyn Jones had asked the party to investigate as a result of the dismissal. If either report  which both dovetail with the Mails understanding of events  is accurate, it follows that Jones made a misleading public comment in the TV interviews he gave 24 hours before his former colleague took his own life. That would itself be a breach of the Ministers Code.

Sargeants family duly believe Jones now has very serious questions to answer. They suspect the First Minister, or someone in his office, realised that the hysteria in Westminster might provide a quick and easy excuse to get rid of Sarge. In that context, it would be unforgivable if Jones misled the public about the timing of what happened, but its hard to think of another explanation for what he said on TV.

Asked about the matter yesterday, and invited to clarify exactly when Jones first heard of the allegations against his minister, a spokesman would not comment, except to say that he was happy for the issue to be looked at by a future independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Carl Sargeants suicide.

Under mounting pressure, Jones last night instructed civil servants to appoint a QC to run such an inquiry, which will commence following a coroners inquest expected to begin on Monday.

A major part of the QCs brief will be to examine the First

Minsters actions and decisions in relation to the case. The spokesman vigorously denied that politics played any role in the decision to sack Sargeant, pointing out that Jones had been unafraid to dismiss a number of other ministers in the reshuffle.

He also stressed that when senior aides and special advisers were photographed in the pub last Friday, they were not celebrating the sacking of Sargeant or anyone else.

The family of Carl Sergeant believe Carwyn Jones has serious questions to answer about his death

Be that as it may, there is no shortage of senior Labour figures who believe there was an organised effort to remove Sargeant from office.

In interviews yesterday, Leighton Andrews, a former minister in Welsh Labour, spoke of a toxic culture of browbeating and harassment in the Welsh party, and accused Jones of presiding over minor bullying, mind games, power games, favouritism, inconsistency of treatment to different ministers, deliberate personal undermining on occasion.

Carl was unquestionably the target of some of this behaviour, he wrote. The relentless drip-drip of disinformation  and worse  had a strain on his and others mental health. The First Minister was made aware of this by several ministers, including myself. Nothing was done.

Bernie Attridge, deputy leader of Flintshire County Council and a Labour councillor in Sargeants local area of Connahs Quay, used Twitter to contact Carwyn Jones directly. I call on you to do the right thing and resign, he wrote. The way you have treated Carl is unforgivable. You make me sick.

While Jones hunkered down in Cardiff, holding crisis meetings, Daran Hill  a Welsh commentator who visited the family  said there was disbelief in Connahs Quay that the First Minister is explaining his side of events to Assembly Members without offering any explanation to the public or the devastated family.

He added: It is awful that Welsh Labour has not tweeted condolences to Carls family, that he has been removed from the partys website and that no tribute to him has been put up on it.

Awful, but perhaps inevitable. For such was the monstrous injustice surrounding Carl Sargeants sacking that anger about his death will only continue to grow.

TO CONTACT the Samaritans, call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
A California woman attempting to donate a shipment of extra breast milk to a milk bank had the FedEx package stolen off her front porch.

New mom Brooke Fong, of Sacramento, California, packed up a large donation of her frozen, extra breast milk and labeled it for delivery to the Mother's Milk Bank in nearby San Jose. She then left it outside her house to be picked up by FedEx.

The milk never reached its destination. Instead, it was stolen.

New mom Brooke Fong planned to donate 200 ounces of frozen, extra breast milk to a milk bank, but the FedEx cooler was stolen off her front porch in Sacramento, California

Fong said that she had been storing the extra milk since her son was born and planned to donate the milk, which would be screened and pasteurized before donated to hospitals

Fong hadn't thought that anybody would take the package  a cooler  because it 'very clearly says Human Milkperishable," ' she told CBS Sacramento and assumed it would be too 'weird' to steal.

The cooler had contained 200 ounces of breast milk  about 1.5 gallons  that she had been storing since her son was born, because he hadn't taken to bottle feeding and she didn't want to waste the milk, which is deemed 'liquid gold' for its nutritional and developmental value.

Breast milk is particularly important for premature babies in neonatal intensive care units, who need it to help develop their immune systems.

Mother's Milk Bank would have screened, pasteurized and then distributed Fong's donation to hospitals, which would use it to feed babies whose mother's are unable to provide breast milk of their own for whatever reason.

Fong said that she left the cooler on her front porch for FedEx to pick up, not thinking that anybody would bother to steal it because it was clearly marked 'human milk'

There is a thriving online market for breast milk, which is consumed by both infants and adults

Unbeknownst to Fong at the time, however, was the fact that there is a large, profitable online market for people looking to purchase breast milk, ranging from new mothers looking to feed their babies, to body-building adults seeking its high protein value and cancer patients who use it to ease the side effects of chemotherapy among other potential benefits.

The price of breast milk being sold online ranges from about $1 to $3 per ounce, according to Romper.

Health professionals warn that there are dangers associated with buying breast milk online, though.

'Theres risks of contamination or infection, and possibly not even being all human milk,' Cheryl Burstiner, a lactation nurse at Sutter Health, told CBS Sacramento.

Fong is already in the process of collecting and freezing her extra breast milk again and intends to make another donation, noting that the next time, she will drop the package off at a FedEx location.
A woman with three different prescription drugs in her system fled after driving into a 16-year-old boy in Melbourne and leaving him convulsing with a serious head injury.

Rachael Boomsma, 48, initially stopped at the Mount Martha accident scene, but panicked and drove away, leaving teenager Jarrah Smith unconscious.

On Friday she was jailed for nine months after pleading guilty to failing to stop at an accident.

Rachael Boomsma, 48, woman has been jailed after hitting a teen with her car while high

Jarrah Smith was left unconscious, convulsing, had a head injury and a hip fracture as well as suffering post-traumatic amnesia after spending 11 days in an induced coma

'You panicked and you've driven away without saying anything,' Judge John Carmody said during sentencing in the County Court of Victoria.

'You elected to drive off and leave your victim's welfare to others.'

Jarrah was walking along the road on August 10, 2016 when a friend, a learner driver, drove past with his parents.

The trio pulled over and called to Jarrah to see if he wanted a ride home.

The boy was reaching for his mobile phone when a green Toyota Landcruiser drove diagonally and hit him, throwing him into the air and onto the side of the road.

Boomsma's green Toyota Landcruiser (pictured) drove diagonally and hit Mr Smith, tossing him into the air before falling onto the roadside

On Friday Boomsma was jailed for nine months for failing to stop at an accident and she must also do a two-year community corrections order for dangerous driving

Boomsma, who suffers bipolar disorder, initially pulled over on the side of the road behind Jarrah's friend and his parents before driving off.

Jarrah was left convulsing and unconscious, suffering a head injury, hip fracture and post-traumatic amnesia.

After being rushed to hospital by helicopter, Jarrah spent 11 days in an induced coma.

Police found Boomsma later on the day of the accident, parked beside a school asleep in her car.

She was arrested and had a blood sample taken, which showed 'therapeutic levels' of sedative diazepam, bipolar medication quetiapine and depression/anxiety medication duloxetine in her system.

Judge John Carmody said during sentencing in the County Court of Victoria (pictured): 'You panicked and you've driven away without saying anything'

Judge Carmody said the drugs would have slowed Boomsma's reaction time, impaired her perception and affected her ability to focus on complex tasks such as driving.

Jarrah previously told the court he woke in hospital, not knowing where or who he was.

All of his childhood memories of family holidays had been 'erased' and his 'brain power' had been weakened.

In addition to a jail sentence, Boomsma must also undergo a two-year community corrections order for dangerous driving causing serious injury.
Bryan Cranston said on Friday he believes Kevin Spaceys career is over because of allegations he sexually assaulted over a dozen men

Bryan Cranston said on Friday he believes Kevin Spaceys career is over because of allegations he sexually assaulted over a dozen men.

Another accuser came forward on Friday to allege Spacey groped him, making him the 15th man to go public with assault allegations.

Cranston, the Breaking Bad star, says that while he thinks Spacey is a phenomenal actor, hes not a very good person.

His career now I think is over, Cranston told the BBC.

Earlier this week, it was learned that Spaceys scenes from an upcoming Ridley Scott film were removed just six weeks before it is due to be released.

Spacey, 58, who was initially tapped to portray billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in All The Money In The World, will have his characters scenes be re-shot  with 87-year-old Christopher Plummer assuming the role of Getty.

Netflix, which produced the hit show House of Cards starring Spacey, said it had cut ties with the actor.

Another accuser came forward on Friday to allege Spacey (seen above in Beverly Hills on October 27) groped him, making him the 15th man to go public with assault allegations

Cranston, The Breaking Bad star, says that while he thinks Spacey is a phenomenal actor, hes not a very good person. The two men are seen together in Los Angeles on October 1, 2016

Cranston was asked about the rash of sexual assault and harassment allegations that have been made in recent weeks against Hollywood A-listers, including film studio head Harvey Weinstein, writer James Toback, producer Brett Ratner, and actors Dustin Hoffman, Ed Westwick, Louis C.K., Jeremy Piven, Steven Seagal, and others.

There's a disorder among all those people who use their power, their place or their status in any industry to overpower someone and force someone to do something that they don't want to do, Cranston says.

It's beyond disgusting. It's almost animalistic.

Cranston, 61, is currently starring in the play Network, which is on a limited engagement run at the National Theater in London.

Spacey, 58, who was initially tapped to portray billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in All The Money In The World (above), will have his characters scenes be re-shot

He says that the abuse and harassment is normally aimed at the most vulnerable women and young men starting out in show business.

It's a form of bullying. It's a form of control. It's almost always [done to] young vulnerable men and women who are starting their career, he says.

That sort of experience goes unchecked until something like this happens.

Cranston believes that the spate of stories that have emerged in recent weeks will have an overall positive effect in the long-term.

That sort of experience goes unchecked until something like this happens, he said.

The pillars of what was are falling. Everything is being exposed.

Christopher Plummer, 87, will replace Spacey as Getty in the film

Women and men should not have to tolerate misbehavior just because of their youth and inexperience.

The silver lining is were not accepting behavior like that just because its the way its always been.

So far, 15 men have come forward to allege that Spacey either harassed, assaulted, or attempted to rape them, according to USA Today.

Five of the accusers said the alleged incidents took place when they were teenagers.

The latest man to come forward with assault allegations is Andy Holtzman.

Holtzman claims that in the summer of 1981, Spacey groped him in New York, USA Today reported.

On October 29, Star Trek: Discovery star Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed that Spacey made sexual advances toward him when the two were in Spaceys New York apartment in 1986, when he was just 14 years old.

Spacey said he didnt remember the specifics of the encounter, but that he nonetheless apologized to Rapp.

In the same statement, Spacey acknowledged that he was a homosexual  which drew sharp criticism from gay rights advocates who accused him of trying to deflect attention away from sexual assault allegations by coming out of the closet and of playing on common stereotypes that gays were naturally inclined toward pedophilia.

On October 29, actor Anthony Rapp (left) told BuzzFeed that Spacey made sexual advances toward him when the two were in Spaceys New York apartment in 1986, when he was just 14 years old. The day after Rapp went public, another actor, Robert Cavazos (right), wrote a Facebook post in which he accused Spacey of fondling him at the Old Vic theater in London

Documentary filmmaker Tony Montana also came forward with allegations that Spacey groped him

The day after Cavazos post, Daniel Beal (left) told The Sun that Spacey exposed himself to him in 2010, when he was a 19-year-old bartender in West Sussex .Harry Dreyfus (right), an actor and writer and the son of Richard Dreyfus, also alleged that Spacey groped his genitals

Kris Nixon, a 20-year-old bartender from Belfast, claims that in 2007, Spacey grabbed his crotch at a party in Spacey's apartment near the Old Vic in London

The day after Rapp went public, another actor, Robert Cavazos, wrote a Facebook post in which he accused Spacey of fondling him at the Old Vic theater in London.

The day after Cavazos post, Daniel Beal told The Sun that Spacey exposed himself to him in 2010, when he was a 19-year-old bartender in West Sussex.

Last week, Justin Dawes told BuzzFeed that in 1988, he and a friend were invited to Spaceys apartment, where the actor had pornography playing on the television.

Dawes was just 16 years old at the time.

Harry Dreyfus, an actor and writer and the son of Richard Dreyfus, also alleged that Spacey groped his genitals.

Similar accusations were made by documentary filmmaker Tony Montana.

London police are investigating claims made by an anonymous man who says that Spacey sexually assaulted him in 2008.

On Wednesday, Heather Unruh, a former Boston television news anchor, held a press conference alleging that Spacey groped her then-18-year-old son in a bar in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Unruh said her son filed a criminal complaint with police and that an investigation has been opened.
Gary Lineker has been photographed for the first time since it emerged he used an offshore firm to avoid paying stamp duty on his 2.2million Barbados holiday home.

The usually-trim television presenter cut a dishevelled figure when he stepped out in LA this afternoon and appeared to be suffering from a cold.

This is the first time the 56-year-old Match of the Day anchorman has been seen in public since it was revealed he sold his luxurious Caribbean property through his British Virgin Islands-based company Goalhanger Inc.

The move meant the canny face of Walkers wasn't required to pay the 1 per cent stamp duty levy which ordinary homeowners on the island have to shell out for.

Letting it hang: Gary Lineker, pictured in LA today, seen for the first time since the Paradise Papers leak

Under the weather? Lineker appeared to be nursing a cold when he was spotted in LA

The usually-immaculate presenter appeared dishevelled wearing an unflattering green t-shirt and a baggy, grey hoody

Stepping out in LA today, the father-of-four wore black jeans, an unflattering green t-shirt and a grey hoody.

The former striker appeared to have added a couple of extra pounds since he presented a special episode of Match of the Day in his underwear for charity last August.

It has been a challenging week for the star who was deemed a 'hypocrite' after tweeting about the Paradise Papers earlier this week.

Linker, 56, stated on Twitter on Monday that he would 'sleep very soundly' in the wake of the latest data leak, adding: 'I rather doubt I'll be mentioned as I happily pay my taxes.'

But after details emerged of him selling a home in Barbados via an offshore firm to avoid tax he was savaged by fans, who branded him a 'typical smug champagne socialist'.

The move meant the canny face of Walkers crisps wasn't required to pay the 1 per cent stamp duty levy which ordinary homeowners have to shell out for

The former striker appeared to have added a couple of extra pounds since he presented a special episode of Match of the Day in his underwear for charity last August

Pictured: Lineker appeared on Match of the Day last year in his shorts

Kev McGuinness said: 'Man of the people Gary Lineker defending the tax arrangements on the sale of a luxury Barbados home. He's clearly one of us #champagnesocialist.'

And Lee Cowap wrote: 'Please help my uncle, lives in Barbados. Has Parkinson's. No money in the economy there due to offshore companies.'

The Labour supporting former England and Spurs star used a British Virgin Islands firm to buy the 2.2million mansion, allowing him to avoid tax when he sold it.

Stamp duty is only payable in Barbados when a home is sold but if it is bought via an offshore company like Lineker chose to do, it is possible to avoid paying the levy altogether.

The BVI's property register - which has a list of firms set up in there that are also allowed to do business in Barbados - was among the millions of documents leaked to the international press earlier this week.

Lineker's representatives said there had been 'no tax irregularity'.

They said the sale had been declared to HMRC and all taxes due in the UK and abroad on the sale of the company had been paid in full.
A campaign is gathering pace tonight to award the George Cross to two policemen who tackled knife-wielding jihadists during theLondon Bridge terror attack.

Steve White, chairman of the Police Federation, led calls for PC Wayne Marques and PC Charlie Guenigault to be given the highest gallantry award available for their exceptional courage that saved many lives.

Senior police sources said the Prime Minister, who has vowed to clean up the honours system, should intervene to ensure the officers receive the George Cross.

Wayne Marques was armed only with a baton when he confronted the London Bridge attackers

The pair suffered horrific injuries when they confronted three terrorists wearing fake suicide vests who had murdered eight and injured 48 in June.

PC Marques, 38, was armed only with his baton when he confronted the attackers, who stabbed him repeatedly near London Bridge.

PC Charlie Guenigault was off duty at the time of the attack, but raced to confront the terrorists, who were armed with knives

The British Transport Police officer was temporarily blinded when he was wounded above his right eye and also suffered significant injuries to his head, left leg and left hand. But despite his wounds, he continued to fight  even with a knife sticking out of his leg.

Meanwhile, off-duty emergency response officer PC Guenigault, 25, of the Metropolitan Police, was drinking with friends when the terrorists smashed their van into a nearby restaurant.

Instead of fleeing, he ran towards the attackers to protect others as they lashed out with 12in kitchen knives. He received stab wounds to his head, leg, back and stomach, and had to undergo a three-hour operation to remove his spleen.

The jihadists were eventually shot dead by armed police. Mr White said: Charlie and Wayne deserve huge public recognition for the selfless bravery they demonstrated on that awful night. There can be no better illustration of the deep-rooted sense of duty held by those who swear to keep the Queens peace, regardless of whether they are on or off duty.

They ran towards danger, despite the odds they faced, and through their selfless acts of bravery, saved many lives while putting their own at risk and showed how the threat from terrorists will never win.

They deserve the highest recognition from a grateful nation. His demand was backed by retired Met chief superintendent Sidney MacKay, whose daughter WPC Nina MacKay was stabbed to death on duty 20 years ago.

Paying tribute to PCs Marques and Guenigault at a police function last month, he said: Their valiant and courageous efforts were totally selfless given the determination of the terrorists to maim and kill as many people as possible.

Both acted in the highest traditions of the police service to protect the public, overlooking the inherent risk that their own lives could be forfeited.

A terrorist wearing a fake suicide vest lies on the ground in London after being shot by police

They are deserving of the highest bravery award that the nation can provide.

The men, who are still recovering from their injuries, were guests at the recent annual dinner of the Association of Ex-CID Officers of the Metropolitan Police.

To a rousing ovation, former Met chief superintendent Sue Hill announced that the pair had won the Associations Bravest Officers of the Year award, saying: Your courage is humbling  we are proud of you.

She described the way PC Guenigault ran towards danger to help others as an act of incredible bravery.

And recalling PC Marquess bravery, she said: Even with a knife in his leg, he continued to fight [all three terrorists] with his baton. The attackers stood over him like a pack of wolves. We will never know how many lives Wayne saved that night through his selfless gallantry.
Having more girls in the classroom could help boost boys' results, a study has found.

It suggests that boys' performance in reading is significantly better in schools where the majority of pupils were female.

This may be because female pupils have higher concentration levels and motivation to perform well - and this attitude rubs off on boys.

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A new study suggests that boys' performance in reading is significantly better in schools where the majority of pupils were female (stock image)

WHAT DID THEY FIND? The study analysed the reading scores of more than 200,000 15-year-olds in mixed-sex schools around the world who took part in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. Researchers found that schools with more than 60 per cent girls, a large proportion of students with highly educated parents and a large proportion of college-educated teachers had higher scoring students on the reading test. Characteristics more commonly associated with female pupils were higher concentration levels and motivation to perform well. This may help to explain their positive influence in schools, the researchers suggest. Advertisement

The study analysed the reading scores of more than 200,000 15-year-olds in mixed-sex schools around the world who took part in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.

Researchers at Radboud University and Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that schools with more than 60 per cent girls, a large proportion of students with highly educated parents and a large proportion of college-educated teachers had higher scoring students on the reading test.

'Boys particularly seemed to be positively affected by a high proportion of female students in a school,' the study says.

Characteristics more commonly associated with female pupils were higher concentration levels and motivation to perform well.

This may help to explain their positive influence in schools, the researchers suggest.

The study did note that the proportion of highly educated teachers and the socio-economic make-up of schools did not benefit boys more than girls.

Lead author Dr Margriet van Hek, of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told the Press Association: 'We propose that girls find it easier to concentrate in class, but also that they are more motivated to read.

'Studies have shown that girls like reading more, are better readers and read more often in their spare time.

'Also, reading is considered a feminine activity, this makes girls more motivated and frequent readers', she said.

Researchers found this makes that in schools with more girls, both girls and boys are surrounded by students that lift up their reading performance.

The study analysed the reading scores of more than 200,000 15-year-olds in mixed-sex schools around the world who took part in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests (stock image)

'In short, girls make for a more stimulating learning environment', she said.

Instead of focusing on 'success' at school, we should be teaching them how to be better at being social, navigate relationships and be good citizens in a community, researchers in July found.

'We're training kids to do what computers do, which is spit back facts,' Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, and author of Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children.

'And computers are always going to be better than human beings at that.'

This way of thinking challenges our definition of what success in school, and out of school, means, they say.

Instead, we should focus on the 'six Cs' of parenting, says Professor Hirsh-Pasek and her co-author Roberta Golinkoff from the University of Delaware.

This is collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence  listed in order of importance.
A cloud of radioactive pollution over Europe in recent weeks indicates that an accident has happened in a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan in the last week of September, the French nuclear safety institute IRSN have said.

The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine.

IRSN, the technical arm of French nuclear regulator ASN, said in a statement it could not pinpoint the location of the release of radioactive material.

However, based on weather patterns, the most plausible zone lay south of the Ural mountains, between the Urals and the Volga river.

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The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, saying it was likely to be in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine. They believe it came from south of the Ural mountains, between the Urals and the Volga river

RUTHENIUM 106 Ruthenium is part of the platinum group of metals. It is a hard, silvery-white metal with a shiny surface. Its melting point is about 2,300 to 2,450C (4,200 to 4,400F) Its discovery is credited to Polish chemist Jedrzej Sniadecki, who announced the find in 1808. Chemists were unable to confirm Sniadecki's work and, as a result, the element was rediscovered twice more in later years. The primary uses of ruthenium are in alloys and as catalysts for industrial processes. Ruthenium-106 is an isotope, or variant with a different number of neutrons in its nucleus, used for radiation therapy to treat eye tumours. It is sometimes used as a source of energy, known as radioisotope thermoelectric generators, used to power satellites. Advertisement

This could indicate Russia or possibly Kazakhstan, an IRSN official said.

There has been no impact on human health or the environment in Europe, the IRSN said.

'Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory,' IRSN director Jean-Marc Peres told Reuters.

He added that the institute had not yet been in contact with Kazakh authorities.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry said she could not immediately comment.

It was not immediately possible to reach authorities in Kazakhstan or the Kazakh embassy in Moscow.

Mr Peres said that in recent weeks IRSN and several other nuclear safety institutes in Europe had measured high levels of levels of ruthenium 106, a radioactive nuclide that is the product of splitting atoms in a nuclear reactor and which does not occur naturally.

IRSN estimates that the quantity of ruthenium 106 released was major, between 100 and 300 teraBecquerels.

If an accident of this magnitude had happened in France it would have required the evacuation or sheltering of people in a radius of a few kilometres around the accident site.

The ruthenium 106 was probably released in a nuclear fuel treatment site or centre for radioactive medicine, Mr Peres said.

Because of its short half-life of about a year, ruthenium 106 is used in nuclear medicine.

Radioactive pollution over Europe in recent weeks indicates that an accident has happened in a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan in the last week of September (stock image)

RADIOACTIVE LEAK IN JANUARY This is not the first time that radioactive material has been detected in the air across Europe this year. Air quality stations across the continent detected traces of radioactive Iodine-131 in January. Iodine-131 can cause harm because it has a very short half life of just eight days, making it very radioactive. The pattern of movement of the particles suggested they may also have originated in Eastern Europe. Advertisement

The IRSN ruled out an accident in a nuclear reactor, as that would have led to contamination with other radionuclides too.

It also ruled out the crash of a ruthenium-powered satellite as an IAEA investigation has concluded that no ruthenium-containing satellite has fallen back on earth during this period.

Measurement from European stations showed high levels of ruthenium 106 in the atmosphere of the majority of European countries, at the beginning of October, with a steady decrease from 6 October onward.

Elevated levels were reported in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France.

The IRSN said that the concentrations of ruthenium 106 in the air that have been recorded in Europe were of no consequence for human health and the environment.

The institute also said the probability of importation into France of foodstuffs, notably mushrooms, contaminated by ruthenium 106 near the site of the accident is extremely low.

This is not the first time that radioactive material has been detected in the air across Europe this year.

Air quality stations across the continent detected traces of radioactive Iodine-131 in January.

Iodine-131 can cause harm because it has a very short half life of just eight days, making it very radioactive.

The pattern of movement of the particles suggested they may also have originated in Eastern Europe.
A survey of urban households has revealed how the layout of your home could be inviting unwanted insects and arachnids inside.

Experts found that a greater number of bug species live in high traffic, ground level, carpeted rooms with numerous doors and windows.

The study also showed tidiness plays little role in insect diversity, with human behaviour having minimal impact on the kind of bugs that were discovered.

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A survey of urban households has revealed how the layout of your home could be inviting unwanted insects and arachnids inside. Experts have revealed a number of ways you can keep unwelcome bugs at bay

HOW TO BUG-PROOF YOUR HOME 1 - Avoid carpets and opt for hard floors 2 - Try to live above ground level 3 - Avoid homes with numerous doors and windows 4 - Keep your home dry and avoid standing water 5 - Make sure you use the right kind of outdoor lights Advertisement

Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, North Carolina State University, and the Natural History Museum of Denmark are behind the find.

The team surveyed 50 urban homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, to see what it is about a house that can lead to an influx of bugs.

This revealed that as floor numbers increase, fewer types of insects thrive.

Larger rooms, especially on the ground floor, or even below ground, harboured more insect diversity.

More varied types of insects were also discovered in carpeted rooms versus those with bare floors.

Airier rooms with more windows and doors offering greater accessibility to the outdoors were also preferred habitats.

Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Michelle Trautwein, senior author of the study, said: 'We literally crawled around on our hands and knees and collected every bug we saw.

'It was surprising to me that we found that whether a house was clean or dirty, whether the residents used pesticides or not, didn't affect the diversity or the kinds of arthropods found in houses.'

The team also found that the type of bugs in your home also vary from room to room.

A greater number of bug species, including spiders (pictured) can be found in high-traffic, ground-level rooms with multiple windows and doors

As floor numbers increase, fewer types of insects thrive. More varied types of insects, like this carpet beetle, were also discovered in carpeted rooms versus those with bare floors

An analysis of core representative species, like booklice, fruit flies, and ladybug,s revealed how common areas like living rooms hosted more diverse insect life.

Bathrooms, kitchens, and bedrooms were less populated with these types of insects.

Basements also provided a unique habitat.

These dark, damp, and cavernous spaces lent to diverse communities of cave-dwelling insects.

While the idea of uninvited insect house guests may sound unappealing, the tiny critters may actually contribute to our health, the researchers say.

Dr Trautwein added:'If you have an infestation, for example, where there is really high abundance of say cockroaches or termites or something, that would not be good for inhabitants.

Experts recommend that you make sure your keep your home dry, to avoid attracting insects.

If your basement or other rooms are particularly damp, pesticide manufacturer Bayer Advanced recommends running a dehumidifier to help dry the air.

Dr Michelle Trautwein (centre) and her team surveyed 50 urban homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, to see what it is about a house that can lead to an influx of bugs

Standing pools of water also serve as both a breeding ground and drinking fountain for creepy crawlies.

Obvious candidates include sinks filled with dirty dishes and leaky taps, but leaky pipes beneath the sink or in the bathroom can also become problematic.

Outdoor lighting can also have a big effect on inviting insects to pay your property a visit.

According to research presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference last year, traditional incandescent bulbs are by far the worst option.

The least appealing lights to insects are warm coloured LED lights, that produce a yellow or orange hue, as opposed to cool blue or white light.

These type of lights perform better than commercially produced anti-insect lighting, according to ecologist Michael Justice, who has a PhD from the University of North Carolina.

Larger rooms, especially on the ground floor - or even below ground - harboured more insect diversity. Pictured is a paper wasp

THE IMPACT OF HUMAN LIFESTYLE ON THE PRESENCE OF BUGS For the messy among us, rest assured. The study findings revealed that tidiness does not play a significant role in insect diversity - except for the presence of cellar spiders. These delicate, long-legged critters of the family Pholcidae typically spotted in damp crawl spaces. While more cluttered areas hosted a greater number of these web-spinners, on the whole human behaviour played a minimal role in determining the composition of bug communities in the survey. The presence of cats or dogs, houseplants, pesticides, and dust bunnies revealed no significant impact. This suggests that our indoor communities are more strongly influenced by the environment outside the window than how tidily we live inside with Fido and Kitty. Advertisement

'It would be an overstatement to say that bugs in houses are a health benefit, but they do create a connection between our often sealed houses and the outdoors.

'The hygiene hypothesis suggests that some modern human ailments are associated with our lack of exposure to outdoor diversity- particularly microbial diversity.

'Bugs in houses may play a role in bringing outdoor microbial diversity indoors.'

The full findings were published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
Hyperloop systems could revolutionise transport around the world - but while the UK will get one, it could be a while before we see such a system in Britain.

One firm working on the technology is Virgin Hyperloop, which has previously said that it aims to have an 'operational system' ready by 2021.

But the UK's Department for Transport (DfT) says that this is unlikely to be the case.

Instead, the DfT claims that it is likely to be 'at least a couple of decades' before an operational Hyperloop system is ready, due to the 'scale of the technical challenges involved.'

They claim the 'topology of the UK, its dense population and intensive land use' may delay the roll-out of Hyperloop in Britain.

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While Virgin Hyperloop One has previously said that it aims to have an 'operational system' ready by 2021, the UK's Department for Transport (DfT) says that this is unlikely to be the case

WHAT IS HYPERLOOP? Hyperloop is a proposed method of travel that would transport people at roughly 670mph (1,000 kph) between distant locations. It was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, who at the time said it could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes a plane. It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. The tube is suspended off ground to protect against weather and quakes. Advertisement

Hyperloop is a proposed method of propelling passengers and freight in pods through low pressure tubes at speeds of up to 670mph (1,000 kph).

It was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, although he is no longer involved in the project.

The DfT has published a paper this week titled: 'Science Advisory Council Position Statement, Hyperloop, Moving Britain Ahead.'

The paper looks at the technical feasibility of a Hyperloop system (not specifically Hyperloop One), and how this technology could be utilised in Britain's future transport infrastructure.

The DfT describes the system as 'transformative' and claims that it could allow commuters to 'live anywhere within the country and easily commute great distances.'

Virgin Hyperloop One is developing a method of propelling passengers and freight in pods through low pressure tubes at speeds of up to 670mph (1,000 kph)

But the DfT isn't optimistic about Virgin Hyperloop One's ambitious timeline of having an operational system ready in just four years.

The paper says: 'The topology of the UK, its dense population and intensive land use may make Hyperloop construction more difficult and costly than in other locations.'

The DfT claims that finding a suitable route above ground could prove a challenge, and as a result, the system may need to be built underground.

The DfT claims that finding a suitable route above ground could prove a challenge, and as a result, the system may need to be built underground

But the paper adds that building underground 'would have a significant impact on capital costs and would make maintenance and emergency evacuation more difficult.'

Another issue raised in the paper is whether the radical nature of Hyperloop will raise some issues around passenger acceptance.

The paper adds: 'It will be critical for the success of the systems to demonstrate to passengers that Hyperloop systems will operate with the highest levels of safety and reliability.

Pictured is Richard Branson, who announced last month that his firm, Virgin, was investing in Hyperloop One

Another issue raised in the paper is whether the radical nature of Hyperloop will raise some issues around passenger acceptance

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'Similarly it will be important to ensure that passengers do not feel unduly confined within passenger pods and do not experience excessive or uncomfortable g-forces.'

As a result of these issues, the DfT suggests that it is likely to be 'at least a couple of decades' before an operational system is ready.

Hyperloop One and Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, are yet to respond to the paper.

Hyperloop One is in the early stages of making the technology commercially viable after completing a full-scale test in Las Vegas.

In the system, passengers and cargo will be loaded into a pod, and accelerated gradually via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube.

The pod quickly lifts above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag.

During its second phase of testing, Hyperloop was able to reach speeds of 192 miles/hour (310 kilometres/hour)  although it was only able to maintain this for 10.6 seconds.

Virgin Hyperloop has so far listed three main routes in plans to build in the UK.

A route from London to Edinburgh is expected to take 50 minutes, as will the route from Cardiff to Glasgow.

And the 'Northern Arc', which will travel from Liverpool to Glasgow via Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh, will take just 47 minutes.

As a result of these issues, the DfT suggests that it is likely to be 'at least a couple of decades' before an operational Hyperloop One system is ready

The technology is currently being tested at the DevLoop site, just outside Las Vegas.

Sir Richard said: 'The total 'DevLoop' tube length is 500 metres [1,600 ft] and the tube's diameter is 3.3 metres.

'The maximum length of propulsion segment used is 300 metres, with an advanced proprietary levitation system throughout the DevLoop Tube.'
A 4,000-year-old marriage contract found in Turkey contains the first known mention of infertility.

The agreement, carved onto a clay tablet, says that if the couple cannot produce a child within two years of marriage a female slave will be used as a surrogate.

The Assyrian contract was written in wedge-shaped cuneiform script, one of the earliest forms of writing.

It stipulates the hired slave, known as a hierodule, be freed after the birth of the first boy.

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A 4,000-year-old marriage contract found in Turkey contains the first known mention of infertility. The agreement, carved onto a clay tablet (pictured), says that if the couple cannot produce a child within two years of marriage a female slave will be used as a surrogate

HISTORY OF ASSYRIA The Assyrian Empire was a complex Mesopotamian civilisation dating back to the 25th century BC. Mesopotamia, an area of ancient Asia, was where people first gathered in large cities, created governments, and learned to write. Alongside other Mesopotamian groups like ancient Babylon and the Sumerian cities, the Assyrian Empire was one of the earliest civilisations in history. Turkey's Kultepe district, where the new tablet was found, was home to a settlement of the Old Assyrian Empire from the 21st to 18th centuries BC. Over 1,000 cuneiform tablets were found in the area in 1925, revealing a rich and complex cultural heritage. Much of our knowledge of early human societies comes from stone tablets such as these, leading some scholars to label Mesopotamia 'the place where history began'. Advertisement

'The female slave would be freed after giving birth to the first male baby, ensuring that the family is not left without a child,' lead researcher Professor Ahmet Berkz Turp, from Turkey's Harran University, said.

The tablet was found by archaeologists from a number of Turkish universities in the country's central Kayseri province.

It is now on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum as the earliest known mention of human infertility.

The results of the research have been published in the journal Gynecological Endocrinology.

The Assyrian Empire was a complex Mesopotamian civilisation dating back to the 25th century BC.

Mesopotamia, an area of ancient Asia, was where people first gathered in large cities, created governments, and learned to write.

Alongside other Mesopotamian groups like ancient Babylon and the Sumerian cities, the Assyrian Empire was one of the earliest civilisations in world history.

Turkey's Kultepe district, where the tablet was found, was once home to a settlement of the Old Assyrian Empire from the 21st to 18th centuries BC.

Over 1,000 cuneiform tablets were found in the area in 1925, revealing a rich and complex cultural heritage.

Much of our knowledge of early human societies comes from stone tablets such as these, leading some scholars to label Mesopotamia 'the place where history began'.

In 2013, a lost code used to keep records 200 years before the invention of the written word was found inside clay balls in Iran.

The tablet was found by archaeologists in Turkey's Kultepe district within its central Kayseri province

The balls were created about 5,500 years ago at a time when early cities were flourishing in Mesopotamia, and could have been used to record economic transactions.

The balls, also called envelopes, are hollow and contain different geometric shapes or tokens.

Lead researcher Professor Christopher Woods, from the University of Chicago, said the spheres represent the worlds very first data storage system.

These envelopes likely represent the earliest known - at least to our current knowledge - efforts to humans to permanently record data, he told MailOnline.

In 2013, a lost code used to keep records 200 years before the invention of the written word was found inside clay balls in Iran (pictured)
Astronomers have discovered a massive alien world circling a star located 22,000 light years away, at the centre of the Milky Way's bulge.

The object, dubbed OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, is 13 times the size of Jupiter and is so vast that experts are unsure whether it is even a planet.

Experts used Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope and the light-warping effects of gravity to uncover the mysterious celestial body.

Although it is orbiting its own star, researchers say 'Planet X' may in fact be a failed star, known as a brown dwarf.

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Astronomers have discovered a massive alien world circling a star located 22,000 light years away, at the centre of the Milky Way. The object is 13 times the size of Jupiter and is so vast, experts believe it may be a failed brown dwarf star (artist's impression)

BROWN DWARFS Brown dwarfs are thought to be the missing link between planets and stars, with masses up to 80 times that of Jupiter. But their centres are not hot or dense enough to generate energy through nuclear fusion the way stars do. OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb's mass puts it right at the deuterium burning limit, the conventional boundary between planets and brown dwarfs. Scientists have found that, for stars roughly the mass of our sun, less than one per cent have a brown dwarf orbiting within three AU. One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun. This phenomenon is called the 'brown dwarf desert.' OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb orbits its parent star approximately every three years at a distance of about two AU. The host is a yellow dwarf star, similar to our own Sun, that has 89 per cent of its mass. Advertisement

An international team of researchers, led by Yoon-Hyun Ryu of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in Daejon, South Korea, reported the find in a paper published on the online print repository Arxiv.org.

It was made using a technique known as microlensing, that facilitates the discovery of distant objects by using background stars as flashlights.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb was discovered in June 2016 by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) collaboration.

OGLE is a Polish astronomical project based at the University of Warsaw, which is searching the universe for dark matter and extrasolar planets.

It uses the five foot (1.3 metre) Warsaw telescope mounted at the Las Campanas observatory in Chile.

The team used readings taken from Nasa's Spitzer space telescope which has uncovered a number of microlensing events, to narrow their search.

Writing in the paper, its authors said: We report the discovery of OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, which is likely to be the first Spitzer microlensing planet in the galactic bulge/bar.

'It is precisely measured to be right at the edge of the brown dwarf desert.

This is somewhere between 13 and 14 Jupiter masses. OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb has about 13.4 Jupiter masses.

'Since the existence of the brown dwarf desert is the signature of different formation mechanisms for stars and planets, the extremely close proximity of OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb to this desert raises the question of whether it is truly a "planet".'

Brown dwarfs are thought to be the missing link between planets and stars, with masses up to 80 times that of Jupiter.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190 was discovered in June 2016 by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) collaboration. This image shows the light curve readings as indicated by the observatory in the top panel, which shows the full light curve

The team used readings taken from Nasa's Spitzer space telescope (artist's impression), which has uncovered a number of microlensing events, to narrow their search

But their centres are not hot or dense enough to generate energy through nuclear fusion the way stars do.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb's mass puts it right at the deuterium burning limit, the conventional boundary between planets and brown dwarfs.

Scientists have found that, for stars roughly the mass of our sun, less than one per cent have a brown dwarf orbiting within three AU.

One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun. This phenomenon is called the 'brown dwarf desert.'

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb orbits its parent star approximately every three years at a distance of about two AU.

WHAT IS MICROLENSING? Microlensing is a technique that facilitates the discovery of distant objects by using background stars as flashlights. When a star crosses precisely in front of a bright star in the background, the gravity of the foreground star focuses the light of the background star, making it appear brighter. A planet orbiting the foreground object may cause an additional blip in the star's brightness. This technique has found the most distant known exoplanets from Earth, and can detect low-mass planets that are substantially farther from their stars than Earth is from our sun. Advertisement

The host is a yellow dwarf star, similar to our own Sun, that has 89 per cent of its mass.

The newly discovered planet aids scientists in their quest to figure out the distribution of planets in our galaxy.

Astronomers still don't know whether there is a difference in the frequency of planets in the Milky Way's central bulge compared to its disk, the pancake-like region surrounding the bulge.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb is located in the disk, as are three planets previously detected through microlensing by Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope.
The idea of living underwater may evoke images of mermaids, but an expert has predicted that it could become a reality in the future.

Simon Evetts, a space operations expert, believes that scientists may be able to direct evolution to give people superhuman abilities.

Speaking at a conference this week, Mr Evetts claimed that with the right modifications, we could 'see an aspect of society moving into the oceans in the future.'

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The idea of living underwater may evoke images of mermaids, but an expert has predicted that it could become a reality in the future (artist's impression)

HOW LONG CAN HUMANS HOLD THEIR BREATHE? The average person can hold their breathe underwater for around two minutes, before they need oxygen. But the longest time someone has held their breath voluntarily is 24 min 3.45 secs. This was achieved by Aleix Segura Vendrell, in Barcelona, on 28 February 2016. Advertisement

Mr Evetts is director of space operations at Blue Abyss, the world's biggest deep sea and space research facility.

His research currently focuses on how astronauts' bodies can be adapted for journeys into space.

But he believes that this research could soon be extended to optimising humans on Earth.

Speaking at Web Summit in Lisbon this week, Mr Evetts said: 'Are we going to see an aspect of society moving into the oceans in future?

'And if they do so, what will they do to optimise themselves?

Simon Evetts said: 'Can we somehow work out how dolphins and seals hold their breath for so long and maybe ourselves do that?' (stock image)

'Can we somehow work out how dolphins and seals hold their breath for so long and maybe ourselves do that?

'Are we going to try and internalise those things and end up with large thoracic cavities because we've got internal gill sets?'

Mr Evetts isn't alone in his superhuman ambitions. Also speaking at the conference was Bryan Johnson, founder of Kernel, a start-up developing brain microchips

CURRENT USES FOR BRAIN CHIPS Kernel is currently working on prototypes of a brain implant device for medical use in humans. The firm has started to conduct tests with epilepsy patients in hospitals. Speaking to IEEE Spectrum, Dr Berger said: 'We're testing it in humans now, and getting good initial results. 'We're going to go forward with the goal of commercialising this prosthesis.' But before being developed for healthy people, the firm hopes that the device will be used to improve memory in people with degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's. Speaking to New Scientist, Mr Johnson said: 'The idea is that if you have loss of memory function, then you could build a prosthetic for the hippocampus that would help restore the circuitry, and restore memory. 'The first super-humans are those who have deficits to start with.' Advertisement

In response to these wacky suggestions, a member of the audience questioned whether these people of the future will be human at all.

Mr Evetts said: 'Whatever modifications we do and they will be profound it'll still be a human, albeit human 2.0.'

Mr Evetts isn't alone in his superhuman ambitions.

Also speaking at the conference was Bryan Johnson, founder of Kernel, a start-up developing brain microchips.

Mr Johnson said: 'I would expect in around 15-20 years we will have a sufficiently robust set of tools for the brain that we could pose any question we wanted.

'For example, could I have a perfect memory? Could I delete my memories? Could I increase my rate of learning, could I have brain to brain communication?

'Imagine a scenario where I say "I want to know what it's like to be a cowboy in the American west in the 1800s?" and someone creates that experience mentally.

'I'm able to take that and purchase that from that person and experience that.'
Scientists working on a project off the Algarve coast were in for a surprise when they caught a prehistoric shark this week.

The bizarre creature, known as a frilled shark, dates back around 80 million years, making it one of the oldest species still around today.

Little is known about the shark, which has a long, snake-like body, and circular arrangement of 300 teeth.

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Scientists working on a project off the Algarve coast were in for a surprise when they caught a prehistoric shark this week

FRILLED SHARKS Frilled sharks are members of some of the most ancient groups of sharks that are known for having extra gills, big mouths, eyes on the side of their heads and spineless back fins. They date back 80 million years, making them one of the few speicies of such antiquity still around today. Little is known about the shark, which has a long, snake-like body, and circular arrangement of 300 teeth. Advertisement

Scientists from the Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere caught the rare frilled shark while working a project to 'minimise unwanted catches in commercial fishing,' according to Sic Noticias TV.

The shark dates back 80 million years to the 'age of the dinosaurs' and is one of the oldest living species today.

The male fish measured 1.5 metres long, and was caught at a depth of 700 metres, according to the researchers.

It was captured at a depth of 2,300 ft off the resort of Portimao in Portugal.

The shark has a long snake-like body, although it is 'little known in terms of its biology or environment.'

The male fish measured 1.5 metres long, and was caught at a depth of 700 metres, according to the researchers

The male fish measured 1.5 metres long, and was caught at a depth of 700 metres, according to the researchers. It was captured at a depth of 2,300 ft off the resort of Portimao in Portugal

This is mostly due to the fact that it lives at depths that are rarely ventured to by humans.

Speaking to Sic Noticias, Professor Margarida Castro, a researcher form the University of the Algarve explained that the shark gets its name from the frilled arrangement of its 300 teeth, 'which allows it to trap squid, fish and other sharks in sudden lunges'.

The shark has a long snake-like body, although it is 'little known in terms of its biology or environment.' This is mostly due to the fact that it lives at depths that are rarely ventured to by humans

Frilled sharks are members of some of the most ancient groups of sharks that are known for having extra gills, big mouths, eyes on the side of their heads and spineless back fins.

This isn't the first time that a frilled shark has been caught.

Last December, a fisherman called Roman Fedortsov uploaded a picture to Twitter of a frilled shark he caught in Russia.
Driverless cars face a real risk of being hacked en masse when they are introduced to Britain, an expert has warned.

The connected nature of these vehicles could make them a target for hackers, according to evidence submitted to Parliament.

Matthew Channon, an insurance expert on driverless cars from Exeter University, has written to MPs to warn of the danger of road accidents.

The connected nature of these vehicles could make them a target for hackers, according to evidence submitted to Parliament (stock image)

Technology experts agree that connected and autonomous vehicles without drivers are at risk, following two high-profile US hacks of cars. There are concerns terrorists could fool the automated cars into detecting obstacles which are not there and remotely slam on their brakes.

In his evidence to Parliament on the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, Mr Channon wrote: A major issue that has not been introduced in the Bill is in relation to mass risk.

Particularly if more than one vehicle is hacked at the same time and damage is caused, there is a real risk of this happening and this is a real target due to the connected nature of these vehicles.

Driverless cars are hoped to prevent many road deaths  almost two-thirds of which are caused by driver error or failure to react, according to the RAC.

However experts say some car manufacturers are planning to create a network of family cars, principally for safety reasons.

Self-driving lorries are expected to be trialled on major roads next year, which will be wirelessly connected with the lead vehicle controlling braking and acceleration. A feasibility study, commissioned by the Department for Transport, included the risk of cyber-attack.

Mr Channon, who is writing a book called The Law and Driverless Cars, said: Because they will be sharing information, if you hack one, it will be possible to hack the others also. Having spoken to a number of technology experts to determine the insurance cost of hacking, I believe this is a potential issue.

Hackers could trick autonomous cars into detecting an object that was not there so that they would just stop. The concern is that if this happened on the fast lane of a motorway, it could cause a pile-up.

The motor insurance expert said the threat is not large, but raised concerns over terrorists accessing driverless cars, after attacks in which vehicles were used as weapons at Westminster and London Bridge.

He added: I am not saying this definitely is going to happen, but it is a risk and all eventualities should be addressed.

While mass hacking is seen as a doomsday scenario, technology experts have not ruled it out. In 2015 two US hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, claimed to have hijacked the braking system of a Toyota Prius.

Five years earlier, researchers at Washington University and the University of California San Diego performed a hack said to make it possible to disable the brakes of millions of cars and trucks using their dashboard computer.

Hugh Boyes, a cyber-security expert at the University of Warwick, said: Significant efforts are being made to tackle automotive cyber security but software and systems currently have a degree of fallibility which hackers could exploit.

Driverless cars are hoped to prevent many road deaths  almost two-thirds of which are caused by driver error or failure to react, according to the RAC

In theory, it has been demonstrated in the US that vehicles can be hacked. The industry has moved swiftly to try and reduce that risk but it would not be prudent to say it could never happen. Just look at hacks that have taken place with companies like Talk Talk and peoples financial data and offshore accounts.

Car manufacturers are already producing prototypes for level five fully automated cars, which will follow those allowing drivers to take over the controls.

Experts say they could in theory have their sensors hacked to make them detect obstacles which are not there. Their speed sensors could be hacked to make them accelerate suddenly, although experts it is thought to be most likely they would just slam on the brakes.

Safety-critical software updates, if people forget to carry them out, could also make cars more vulnerable to hacking.

Peter Vermaat, from the Transport Research Laboratory, said: Driverless cars are likely to be connected so they work like a swarm and can detect other vehicles so they do not collide.

People no longer need to get into a vehicle physically, they can hack into it. It seems likely that these vehicles will be connected using the internet, which we know can be hacked.

However the industry has been really kicked into action and this issue is very prominent.
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Most people want a hotel room with a view.

But, for holiday-makers planning a trip to rural Iceland, that needn't be a concern - especially if they're staying in one of the region's so-called bubble pods.

Located at the 5 Million Star Hotel, in Skalholt, near the river Hvita, each room plunges guests into the heart of nature where they can star-gaze without stepping foot outside.

Now that's cool! The 5 Million Star Hotel, in Iceland's Skalholt, offer guests the chance to stay in clear - yet private - pods

Completely clear spheres that are designed for maximum sight-seeing, each 'bubble' allows guests to observe their surroundings in the comfort of a climate-controlled environment.

And, for a lucky few, it provides unrivaled views of the Northern Lights.

Split into five classifications: Una, Asta, Thorunn, Valdis and Maria, the pods offer slight variations on amenities, but typically accommodate two people in a double bed.

Each bubble - located around an hour outside Reykjavik - links to a shared bathroom and kitchen, but guests need to bring their own soap and towels. Food is also not provided.

The structure is kept inflated by a slight over-pressure from a noiseless ventilation system. It permanently renews the air roughly five times per hour and, this way, prevents humidity.

The system has heating elements with a thermostat, so the bubble stays warm all winter.

Less is more: Each 'bubble' allows guests to observe their surroundings in the comfort of a climate-controlled environment

Popular: The venues have received widespread praise on TripAdvisor, where it boasts a 4.5 average over 23 reviews

Seasonal: Winter guests may see the Northern Lights, but summer offers the forest's birds, butterflies and green scenery

To maintain privacy, the company do not provide the exact address of the pods until after they have been booked and secured with a downpayment.

The price starts from ISK 28.900 (135) for each pod, per night.

Hotel founder Robert Robertsson said he was inspired to create the clear-walled rooms after speaking with travelers fed up of waiting in the cold to see the natural phenomenon.

Home comforts: Each individual bubble - located around an hour outside Reykjavik - links to a shared bathroom and kitchen

Retreat: Split into five classifications: Una, Asta, Thorunn, Valdis and Maria, the pods offer slight variations on amenities, but typically accommodate two people in a double bed

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the venues have received widespread praise on TripAdvisor, where it boasts a 4.5 average over 23 reviews.

One user, Jenny P, said: 'This is a great spot for a one night stay - it's quirky. Lovely to lie in bed watching the stars. The bubbles are nice and warm too. They have a well equipped shared kitchen and really clean shared bathrooms.'

Another, Gillian S, added: 'This is a must while in Iceland, once in a lifetime! We did not see the lights that night but awoke at 3:00am to 5 million stars!'.

No need for curtains: Totally transparent, privacy is maintained by ensuring no other 'rooms' ever overlook a guest's space

Not just a load of hot air! The structure is kept inflated by a slight over-pressure from a noiseless ventilation system, which renews and heats the air roughly five times per hour

A spokesman said: 'Let your childhood dream of sleeping in the nature become reality. Enjoy the aurora & stars in the winter and the midnight sun & nature in the summer.

'The bubble structure is kept inflated by a slight over-pressure from a noiseless ventilation system.

'It permanently renews the air inside two to seven times the volume per hour and this way it prevents humidity. The system has heating elements with thermostat so the bubble stays warm all winter.'
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They are considered by some to be architectural eyesores.

But, despite this, some of the UK's most famous housing estates have been lauded in an unlikely celebration of city-centre design, this week.

Newcastles infamous Byker Wall was crowned the ultimate site at the Academy of Urbanism's Great Neighbourhood Awards on Wednesday, beating off competition from Dublin's Smithfield and London's Golden Lane estates.

Iconic? Newcastles Byker Wall won big at the Academy of Urbanism's Great Neighbourhood Awards on Wednesday

The award is one of five given out each year by the organisation; a network of 'built environment' experts from across Europe.

Voted on by its members, the Academy judge against a number of social, economic and environmental factors, including good governance and commercial success.

Although London's Golden Lion and Dublin's Smithfield made the top three, they both tied joint-second.

Other estates which made the top 10 included: London's Greenwich Millennium Village, Bristol's Junction 3 and Glasgow's New Gorbals - all once known for their hardship.

Similarly, Birmingham's Park Central, Sheffield's Park Hill, Belfast's Falls Road, and Cambridge's Trumpington were also name-checked.

Timeline: Designed by Ralph Erskine, the once-controversial block started life in 1968 to replace Victorian-era slum housing, but the final sections were only completed in 1982

Success: The Grade II-listed block of 620 maisonettes was ultimately praised for both design and u-turning its ailing fortunes

But the Grade II-listed Byker Wall - a block of 620 maisonettes in Tyneside's Byker region - was ultimately praised for u-turning its ailing fortunes.

Designed by Ralph Erskine, the once-controversial block started life in 1968 to replace Victorian-era slum housing, but the final sections were only completed in 1982.

Built of largely cheap materials - including concrete, brick and timber - it was forced to undergo a two-year refurbishment programme in April 2014, costing 26 million.

Yorkshire entry: Sheffield's Park Hill was listed in the top 10, but failed to make the shortlisted top three buildings

Capital dwellings: The Golden Lane Estate, in London, was built after the devastation of the Blitz in the city's east side

Midlands: Park Central, Birmingham, was also highlighted as contender for the Academy of Urbanism awards

Ireland: Dublin's Smithfield was shortlisted for the top prize, but tied joint-second with London's Golden Lion estate

UK'S HOUSING ESTATES TOP 10: Byker, Newcastle Smithfield, Dublin Golden Lane Estate, London Greenwich Millennium Village, London Junction 3, Bristol New Gorbals, Glasgow Park Central, Birmingham Park Hill, Sheffield Falls Road, Belfast Trumpington, Cambridge Advertisement

This saw new roofs, doors and windows installed, while the estate was repainted in the original colours.

Since then, with the help of residents, it has gone on to incorporate green spaces, local businesses and even inclusion on UNESCO's list of outstanding twentieth century buildings.

Hill Haley, chief executive of the Byker Community Trust, who now manages the building, said: 'This is credit to everybody involved, especially the BCT staff, board and residents in helping to transform Byker over the last five years into a place where people aspire to live and work.

'Since July 2012, BCT has made significant improvements on the estate. To date, we have invested 20.5m worth of improvements with a further 21m committed by 2025.

'However, this is not just about investment in the bricks and mortar, Byker is a great neighbourhood where vibrant mixed communities exist and it is steeped in history, something which we are keen to preserve and celebrate.

'Its already becoming a popular place to live and now it has beaten off strong competition from other great neighbourhoods in Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham, Dublin and London.'

Not that this is the first accolade it has received.

Royal associations: Prince Philip pictured visiting the Byker Wall estate in Newcastle in 1974, where he's greeted by locals

Changes: Built of largely cheap materials - including concrete, brick and timber - it was forced to undergo a two-year refurbishment programme in April 2014, costing 26 million

In 2013, Bolam Coyne won the Royal Institute Chartered Surveyors award for Best North East Regeneration Project of the Year.

Meanwhile, in 2007, it was awarded a Grade II listed rating as an example of outstanding architecture.

Other winners at the Academy of Urbanism's awards were: Bilbao, Spain, which won the European City of the Year award, and Corby in Northamptonshire, which won the Great Town Award.

Hull's Humber Street Fruit Market picked-up the Great Street Award, while Londons Brunswick won the Great Place Award.
Nobody can undergo a personality transformation quite so dramatically  or quickly  as a soap character. This week we learn Corrie vicar Billy is harbouring dark secrets from his past.

Hes previously been so mild-mannered that, frankly, returning a library book late would be a struggle to believe. Earlier this year we witnessed Rovers barmaid Eva change from a sweet-but-dim homebody into the deranged girlfriend from hell who brought down Underworld.

EastEnders Abi, always the nicer of the Branning sisters, continues her metamorphosis from wholesome teenager into the unhinged lunatic trying to destroy her siblings life for no real reason. And lets not forget Vincent, who arrived in Albert Square as a gangster and police informant.

Bex (pictured right hugging Martin) has a jealous rage after seeing Sonia's (pictured left) relationship with Gethin gather pace in this week's Eastenders

He went from menacing villain to doting dad in the space of two years. The most dangerous life has been for him recently was teaching Kim to drive.

So far Emmerdale has avoided the personality transplant trap although theyre dangerously close to turning Robert into a half-decent human being now hes become a father.

EASTENDERS: THE KISS OF DEATH FOR GETHIN?

The Carters announce to their regulars that they are unable to afford the cost of the Vics renovations and have no choice but to hand the pub over to freeholders Grafton Hill. The outraged regulars vow to help Mick and Linda raise the money  the outcome Mick was hoping for. Why hasnt it occurred to Mick, if he actually started charging customers for drinks rather than giving them all on the ouse every night he might be able to increase takings?

Instead, Honey decides to raise money by hosting a safari-themed supper evening with Karen volunteering to make the dessert. So far weve only ever seen Karen and her brood eat toast and its no surprise when her culinary efforts are thought to be responsible for an outbreak of food poisoning.

Sonias relationship with Gethin gathers pace, which sends Bex into a jealous rage, forcing Gethin to tell Sonia about the illicit kiss he had with her daughter. How will Sonia react? Will it spell the end of Gethins teaching career? And its not long before Carmel, whos fast becoming the biggest busybody in Walford, puts her foot in it again when she lets slip the news of Bex and Gethin to a furious Martin.

CORONATION STREET: SILLY BILLY IS BUSTED

Adam (pictured left) arrives in the nick of time to stop Billy incriminating himself in this week's Coronation Street

Billys arrested on suspicion of being involved in an armed robbery 16 years ago. Luckily, thanks to Todd, hotshot solicitor Adam arrives in the nick of time to stop him incriminating himself. Like every soap solicitor, Adam is an expert on every aspect of the law from personal injury to serious crime. Will Billys unlikely bad-boy past stop him adopting Summer?

Phelan and Eileen return from their holiday to the news that Nicola is planning to move to Australia to get as far away as possible from her dad. Pat blames Anna for driving his daughter away and drops the bombshell that Gary is the father of Nicolas baby.

Robert  with his sexy new silver hairdo  is released from prison. Back at work at The Bistro it quickly becomes apparent he is not in good health. At least hes lucky enough to live on Coronation Street, where residents can get GP appointments at five minutes notice.

Moria (pictured left) continues to struggle with baby Isaac in this week's Emmerdale

And move aside Lord Sugar. Dev announces hes expanding his empire by adding the chippy to his business portfolio. Chesney agrees to manage both the chippy and the kebab shop leaving Sinead to care for Joseph.

At least Chesney remembers he has a child  Dev may have his twins but what about Amber, the daughter he never mentions? Perhaps shes living at the home for Weatherfields forgotten children, along with Michelles son Ryan.

EMMERDALE: MOIRA'S A HANDS-OFF MUM

Robert has lied to, cheated on or attempted to murder just about every member of the White family but that doesnt stop them giving him a stake in Home Farm. Now the proud father to Rebeccas son, can Robert turn over a new leaf and go more than a week without trying to poison, blackmail or run over someone?

Moira continues to struggle with baby Isaac and interrupts Adam and Victorias adoption meeting to insist they help her. How long until Moira suggests they adopt Isaac instead? The poor mite is a Dingle after all, its virtually a family tradition to be abandoned at birth and raised by someone else.
He was spotted on a bike ride with a mystery woman in Santa Monica, California, just the day before.

But on Thursday, Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the GQ Men Of The Year Awards with his long-time girlfriend Heather Milligan at Komische Oper in Berlin, Germany.

The 70-year-old actor and a his female counterpart looked all smiles while holding hands on the red carpet.

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The perfect pair: On Thursday, Arnold Schwarzenegger attended the GQ Men Of The Year Awards with his long-time girlfriend Heather Milligan at Komische Oper in Berlin, Germany

Arnold arrived to the event suited up in a black tuxedo teamed with shiny black oxfords.

Heather matched the former bodybuilder with a black gown that featured a thigh-high slit.

She paired her elegant ensemble with black opened-toed Christian Louboutin heels.

The Elite OrthoSport Physical Therapy founder wore her blonde locks in a half-up half-down hairstyle, with a soft glamorous make-up look.

Classy: The 70-year-old actor and a his female counterpart looked all smiles while holding hands on the red carpet

All smiles: Arnold arrived to the event suited up in a black tuxedo teamed with shiny black oxfords

Going hand in hand: Heather matched the former bodybuilder with a black gown that featured a thigh-high slit

The happy couple both looked dressed to the nines as they posed inside the Award venue in front of European race-cars.

Arnold also brought along his hunky actor son Partick, 24, who also was spotted on the red carpet.

The Terminator star is also dad to four other children; Katherine, Christina, Christopher, and Joseph.

Like father, like son! Arnold also brought along his hunky actor son Patrick, 24, who also was spotted on the red carpet

He's got a point: The Terminator star is also dad to four other children; Katherine, Christina, Christopher, and Joseph

Two thumbs up: Arnold shares son Patrick with American journalist Maria Shriver, along with three other children

Suited up: Maria filed for divorce from the Austrian-born actor after it was revealed in 2011 that Arnold had a love-child with the family's maid

Top honor: Patrick was on hand as his father was honored during the awards ceremony

Arnold shares son Patrick with American journalist Maria Shriver, along with three other children.

Maria filed for divorce from the Austrian-born actor after it was revealed in 2011 that Arnold had a love-child with the family's maid.

Since the couple broke-up, Arnold has been dating Heather even though the divorce has not been finalized.

Grinning: Arnold giving the cameras a thumbs up to show off his enthusiasm

For the fans: The actor made sure he greeted fans before heading insde

Eventful: Arnold was honored as Legend of The Century

Black-tie affair: Arnold looked sharp while walking the red carpet

Heather and Arnold's relationship seems to be going strong, despite his romantic bike ride on Wednesday without Heather insight.

The blonde and Arnold were reportedly heading to the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows together.

All of that seemed like no big deal to the former Apprentice host's girlfriend, as she kept by her chiseled beau's side at the GQ event.

Coupled up: Heather and Arnold's relationship seems to be going strong, despite his romantic bike ride on Wednesday without Heather insight

All together: All of that seemed like no big deal to the former Apprentice host's girlfriend, as she kept by her chiseled beau's side at the GQ event

Candid: Heather, Arnold, and Patrick share a laugh together

Posed: Arnold poses next to a classy looking Til Schweiger

Group photo: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Philipp Lahm and Patrick Schwarzenegger show off their chic evening looks

Warm welcoming: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Philipp Lahm take a quick photo before the awards begin

Inside the award ceremony, Arnold was named Legend of The Century.

The former California governor looked beaming with glee as he posed with his award- and even gave it a nice big kiss.

Arnold is working on a movie where he will play James Hook in Oleg Stepchenko's 18th century-set sequel Viy 2: Journey to China alongside Jackie Chan.

Award-winning: Inside the award ceremony, Arnold was named one of GQ's 2017 Man Of The Year

Pucker up: The former California governor looked beaming with glee as he posed with his award- and even gave it a nice big kiss

Tender moment: The Terminator star was honred as Legend Of The Century at the ceremony

Man of the year: Arnold is working on a movie where he will play James Hook in Oleg Stepchenko's 18th century-set sequel Viy 2: Journey to China alongside Jackie Chan

She's a mystery: The blonde and Arnold were reportedly heading to the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows together

The GQ event also drew German actress Gizem Emre.

Male model David Gandy also was in attendance.

American singer Gregory Porter also looked dapper at the ceremony

German actress: Gizem Emre looked lovely in a black and white outfit

Male model: David Gandy arrived in style at Komische Oper for the awards ceremony
John Hillerman, who played stuffed-shirt Higgins to Tom Selleck's freewheeling detective Thomas Magnum in the 1980s TV series Magnum, P.I. has died at the age of 84.

Hillerman, who had been in declining health, died Thursday at his home in Houston, Texas, his nephew Chris Tritico told media.

Hillerman's nephew remembered his uncle fondly, saying: 'He had an outstanding sense of humor and was one of the most well-read people I ever met. You couldnt play Scrabble with him.'

Farewell: John Hillerman, who played uptight Higgins in the 1980s TV series Magnum, P.I., passed away at the age of 84 Thursday. Above he's seen with Magnum PI costar Tom Selleck

The cause of death was not immediately known.

Besides playing manager of the Hawaiian estate that Magnum used as home base, Hillerman was known for his 1970s roles as arrogant radio show detective Simon Brimmer on the Ellery Queen series and the difficult boss on the sitcom One Day at a Time.

When Hillerman decided to retire about 17 years ago, the actor born in Denison, Texas, returned to his native state and was content leaving Hollywood behind, said his nephew.

Greener pastures: The Texas native, who was said to be in declinging health, passed away at his Houston home

Rest in Peace: Hillerman, who played manager of the Hawaiian estate that Magnum used as home base, died Thursday at his home in Houston, Texas, his nephew Chris Tritico told media

As for that quasi-British accent that Hillerman used on Magnum and elsewhere, his nephew said that was honed during several decades of playing varied roles on the New York stage before he turned to TV and movies.

Hillerman used something closer to his own voice in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, playing Howard Johnson, one of the comic Western's many Johnsons.

He appeared in a number of TV series, including Valerie, The Love Boat and The Betty White Show and in films including The Last Picture Show and High Plains Drifter.

Hillerman was known for his 1970s roles as radio show detective Simon Brimmer on the Ellery Queen series and his part on The Betty White Show, seen above with the starlet above in 1985

Man of many voices: Hillerman's nephew said that the actor honed his British accent during several decades on the New York stage, but the star used something closer to his own voice in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles

His last credits included 1996's A Very Brady Sequel and an early '90s appearance on Murder, She Wrote.

The role of Higgins was his favorite, Tritico said, explaining that the character was 'the reason' his uncle 'didn't take another big role is he refused to take a sitcom after Magnum.'

'He wanted to continue doing the serious work that he felt Magnum was,' said Hillerman's nephew.

Hillerman's survivors include a sister, Jo Ann Tritico, and seven nieces and nephews including Chris Tritico, a Houston attorney.

At his request no services will be held.
Silver fox Pierce Brosnan and his second wife Keely Shaye Smith caught a flight out of LAX Airport in Los Angeles together on Thursday in order to attend the Napa Valley Film Festival.

For once, the 64-year-old Irishman was supporting his 54-year-old ladylove, who has screenings of her and Teresa Tico's directorial debut, Kauai environmental doc Poisoning Paradise, this Friday and Sunday.

After 16 years of marriage, the former Bond still looked absolutely besotted with the black-clad filmmaker as they made their way through the bustling terminal.

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Headed to the Napa Valley Film Festival! Silver fox Pierce Brosnan and his second wife Keely Shaye Smith caught a flight out of LAX Airport in Los Angeles together on Thursday

Pierce flashed his Hollywood grin in a navy button-up and grey jeans while Keely opted for a chic LBD beneath a matching blazer and flats.

The two-time Golden Globe nominee first met Smith on a Mexican beach in 1994, and he recently gushed that she was 'an amazing and beautiful mother' on Instagram.

On Thursday, the Malibu-based couple both proudly shared snaps of their 16-year-old son Paris, a Next Model who landed the cover of the fall/winter edition of Vanity Teen magazine.

And the Brosnans' 20-year-old son Dylan busies himself as an IMG Model and frontman to the psychedelic rock band Raspberry Blonde.

Arm candy time! For once, the 64-year-old Irishman was supporting his 54-year-old ladylove, who has screenings of her and Teresa Tico's directorial debut, Kauai environmental doc Poisoning Paradise, this Friday and Sunday

So in love: After 16 years of marriage, the former Bond still looked absolutely besotted with the black-clad filmmaker as they made their way through the bustling terminal

Jet setters: Pierce flashed his Hollywood grin in a navy button-up and grey jeans while Keely opted for a chic LBD beneath a matching blazer and flats

Still going strong! The two-time Golden Globe nominee first met Smith on a Mexican beach in 1994, and he recently gushed that she was 'an amazing and beautiful mother' on Instagram

The Endangered Species Act activist lost both his first wife Cassandra Harris and daughter charlotte to ovarian cancer, but their sons Chris, 44; and Sean, 34; remain.

The Foreigner actor announced he'd wrapped Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in Croatia on November 1 with a behind-the-scenes selfie with castmates Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth.

'Oh it's a hoot! It's a joy, you know how much fun we had making that movie,' Pierce recently told Today.

'So we had the whole cast back. Meryl [Streep]'s back, Colin's back, Amanda [Seyfried]. We're known as the "legacy cast" and then underneath us we have the younger version of ourselves. So it's a prequel sequel without giving too much away.'

'Way to go Paris!' On Thursday, the Malibu-based couple proudly shared snaps of their 16 -year-old son Paris, who landed the cover of the fall/winter edition of Vanity Teen magazine

Talented family: And the Brosnans' 20-year-old son Dylan (M) busies himself as an IMG Model and frontman to the psychedelic rock band Raspberry Blonde

Holding hands: The Endangered Species Act activist lost both his first wife Cassandra Harris and daughter charlotte to ovarian cancer, but their sons Chris, 44; and Sean, 34; remain

Executive producer and ABBA member Benny Andersson passionately came to the defense of Brosnan's singing abilities as his character Sam Carmichael in the movie musical.

'I've just been to the UK to promote the album,' the 70-year-old Swede (born Goran) told the Independent on Thursday.

'And it's really annoyed me the way people say Pierce Brosnan can't sing. They think it's not possible for James Bond to sing. But he can, and he sings well.'

Oscar winner and legendary pop diva Cher - who's playing Donna's (Lily James) mother - tweeted October 23 that she hopes 'Benny will like' her rendition of his 1976 song Fernando.

Ol Parker's sequel to the 2008 musical comedy Mamma Mia! won't hit US theaters until July 20 and UK theaters on July 27.

'Love from Bill, Sam, and Harry!' The Foreigner actor announced he'd wrapped Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in Croatia on November 1 with a behind-the-scenes selfie with castmates Stellan Skarsgard (L) and Colin Firth (R)

'He sings well!' Executive producer and ABBA member Benny Andersson (2-R) came to the defense of Brosnan's singing abilities as his character Sam Carmichael in the movie musical
She's one of the world's highest paid television actresses.

And Kaley Cuoco took some time from her busy schedule to pamper herself in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon.

The 31-year-old actress looked comfortable as she dressed down in frayed jeans and a buttoned-up top for a quick manicure and pedicure.

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Fresh coat! Kaley Cuoco took some time from her busy schedule to pamper herself in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon

The Big Bang Theory starlet donned an interesting horse-themed long-sleeved shirt for her quick visit to a local nail salon.

She rolled the sleeves of her cream-colored top up to her elbows and tucked a portion of the blouse into her jeans to show off her trim waistline.

Cuoco's long, dark denim pants looked to be newly frayed with pieces of fabric dangling around her ankles.

New nails! The 31-year-old actress looked comfortable as she dressed down in frayed jeans and a buttoned-up top for a quick manicure and pedicure

She opted to air out her newly-painted toes and walked out of the salon in a pair of turquoise flip flops.

Kaley tied up her long blonde hair into a top bun and sported a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes.

The 8 Simple Rules actress carried a long black purse along her shoulder and car keys in her hand.

Adorable hair! She made sure to share an image to her Instagram account of her character from Penny Hofstadter, announcing an all new episode of The Big Bang Theory

She made sure to share an image to her Instagram account of her character from Penny Hofstadter, announcing an all new episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Cuoco captioned the sweet image, 'Tonight's all new episode @bigbangtheory_cbs contains lots of laughs and adorable hair ... @faye.woods bringing back the Penny-do!'

In September, Forbes announced that Kaley came in second place on their list for the world's highest paid television actress, just below Modern Family's Sofia Vergara.

Activist: Kaley lent her support to promote awareness against the stigma surrounding Pit Bulls at the annual Stand Up For Pits event at the Avalon Hollywood on Sunday

She reportedly ranked in $26million through her starring role on the CBS sitcom and various endorsement deals.

On Sunday, Kaley lent her support to promote awareness against the stigma surrounding Pit Bulls at the annual Stand Up For Pits event at the Avalon Hollywood.

She flaunted fab fall fashion at the red carpet event, wearing a long-sleeved, threaded gown with diagonal strips of sky blue and black on top; and horizontally at the bottom and the waistline.

Puppy love: She wore a long-sleeved, threaded gown with diagonal strips of sky blue and black on top; and horizontally at the bottom and the waistline
She enjoyed a sun-soaked getaway to Miami with a group of girlfriends earlier this week.

So it's no wonder Kimberley Garner was keen to show off her bronzed glow when she returned to the UK, offsetting her impeccable tan in a tiny golden minidress.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 27, showcased her enviably lithe physique in the sizzling backless number at the White Forest launch at Madison rooftop bar in London on Thursday night.

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Going for gold! Bronzed Kimberley Garner paraded her endless limbs in a TINY metallic backless minidress as she left a rooftop bash in London

Avert your eyes: Kimberley struggled to cover her cleavage as she made her way into the car

The blonde beauty ensured all eyes were on her gym-honed figure in the golden design, which featured a Nineties-inspired cowl neckline.

Flaunting her endless bronzed limbs, the garment also boasted a thigh-grazing hemline and thigh-splits to flash more skin.

Sticking to a metallic palette, Kimberley boosted her already statuesque frame with some dusky-pink barely there heels.

Letting her statement dress do all the talking, the swimwear designer kept her styling simple and wore her golden locks in a tousled middle parting.

Garner framed her eyes with lashings of mascara and plumped her pout with a slick of taupe lipstick.

Looking good: Kimberley Garner seemed keen to show off her bronzed glow when she returned to the UK from MIami, offsetting her impeccable tan in a tiny golden minidress

Glimmer glamour: The former Made In Chelsea star, 27, showcased her enviably lithe physique in the sizzling backless number at the White Forest launch at Madison rooftop bar in London on Thursday night

Legs for days: Flaunting her endless bronzed limbs, the garment also boasted a thigh-grazing hemline and thigh-splits to flash more skin

Chic: The blonde beauty ensured all eyes were on her gym-honed figure in the golden design, which featured a Nineties-inspired cowl neckline

Wrapping up against the November chill, she later shrugged on a chic khaki duster coat as she left the launch, which was sponsored by CIROC Vodka.

Kimberley changed up the pace somewhat for her night of festive frivolity - rocking a simple pair of white jeans and a tasseled jacket earlier in the day.

The blonde beauty was the epitome of wintry chic as she strolled around London with her beloved cocker spaniel Sasha on Thursday.

Completing her look with some aviator sunglasses, the model opted for comfort in her footwear and rocked casual white trainers.

Killer footwear: Sticking to a metallic palette, Kimberley boosted her already statuesque frame with some dusky-pink barely there heels

Letting her dress do all the talking: The swimwear designer kept her styling simple and wore her golden locks in a tousled middle parting

Glam: Garner framed her eyes with lashings of mascara and plumped her pout with a slick of taupe lipstick

Chic outerwear: Wrapping up against the November chill, she later shrugged on a chic khaki duster coat as she left the launch, which was sponsored by CIROC Vodka

It comes after Kimberley enjoyed a sun-soaked getaway in Florida earlier this week.

The former Made in Chelsea star was joined by a group of friends as she soaked up the sun outside Soho House on picturesque Miami Beach.

Catching the eye in a canary yellow two-piece, Kimberley showed off her lithe physique while making her way towards a waiting sun lounger.

What a view: The model looked incredfible as she posed in front of St Paul's Cathedral on Madison rooftop

Revealing too much? The blonde beauty flashed her white thong underneath her semi-sheer dress as she stepped out

Taking centre-stage: She looked utterly confident as she posed for the cameras

Shine on: The reality star's heels featured a quirky embellished heel

Speaking to MailOnline, the designer admitted she was mixing business with pleasure during her first trip to the Floridian city.

'I am over in Miami on a girls holiday,' she said. 'It's been really fun and the first time I have been to Miami.

'I will be staying a little longer over here for work on Kimberley London Swimwear, but London is definitely still home.'

Double trouble: Ever the social butterfly, she mingled alongside model Lilah Parsons

Double trouble: Professor Green beamed as he cosied up to his model girlfriend Fae Williams

The look of love: The rapper, 32, went for a casual look while Fae kept it chic in a fur jacket and skinny jeans

Baring all: Model Demi Rose, 22, showed off her eye-popping assets as she arrived at the Madison launch party

Posed: She showcased her effortless and natural beauty in an ensemble which bared her very toned figure

All in black: Demi strutted into the event in another one of her racy and dangerously low cut numbers

Looking good: The model turned heads as she arrived wearing a boob-baring black lace and sheer dress with a thigh-splitting cut

Kimberley has fully thrown herself into herself into swimwear design over recent years, designing several swimwear lines since leaving Made in Chelsea in 2012.

She previously revealed she has fully embraced the challenges that come with running a business, saying: 'I have some really cool new designs coming out over the next few months which I am excited about.

'They are still all made in London, which is really important to me.

'I love being a young female running a start up. Learning every section of what it take to run a company has been amazing and challenging but am really excited to see it grow and can't wait for next year's collections.'

Bit of all white: The blonde beauty was the epitome of wintry chic as she strolled around London with her beloved cocker spaniel Sasha earlier in the day
She was among the first victims to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harrassment.

And Ashley Judd was honored for her activism at the HOPE for Depression Research Foundation luncheon in New York City on Wednesday afternoon.

The 49-year-old actress detailed a somber history of sexual abuse after she received the HOPE award for Depression Advocacy.

Talk about it! Ashley Judd was honored for her activism at the HOPE for Depression Research Foundation luncheon in New York City on Wednesday afternoon

Ashley told the crowded room that she was 'a living example of why there is hope' despite years of abuse that began at an early age.

'I was sexually abused the first time I was in second grade. And Im a teller  Harvey knows that,' she told the audience.

'I went straight to some adults and said, 'This just happened, this guy molested me,' and the adults said, 'Oh, thats not what he meant, hes a nice old guy.''

Standing strong: The 49-year-old actress detailed a somber history of sexual abuse after she received the HOPE award for Depression Advocacy

Ashley has previously made no secret of her battle with depression and has used her voice for various causes.

'There was another sexual assault I experienced when I was wearing a green and gold cheerleading uniform, which is all I know, which means I was in the 7th or 8th grade,' she said.

'This guy is a registered sex offender in a county that is contiguous to where I live in Tennessee, but I have no conscious memory of that assault whatsoever.'

Ashley said a history of sexual abuse combined with what she calls 'criminal abandonment and criminal neglect' as a child contributed to her battle with depression.

Activist: Ashley has previously made no secret of her battle with depression and has used her voice for various causes

Gorgeous: Ashley was exquisitely dressed in a flowing bohemian chic dress with black heels as she opened up to the room

She described it as being 'down in a deep, dark well complete and total isolation.'

Ashley was exquisitely dressed in a flowing bohemian chic dress with black heels as she opened up to the room.

She wore her brunette tresses down in loose ringlets and had on lipstick and eye shadow to accentuate her lovely features.

The appearance comes after Ashley accused producer Harvey Weinstein of harassing her at the Peninsula Beverly Hills in 1996.

Leading ladies: Judd teamed up during the event with philanthropist and Hope For Depression Research Foundation creator Audrey Gruss

She was one of the first women to step forward against the producer, who has since been fired from his namesake company.

Judd teamed up during the event with philanthropist and Hope For Depression Research Foundation creator Audrey Gruss, who created the foundation in April 2006 in memory of her mother, Hope, who suffered from clinical depression.

Inside, Ashley looked to be autographing copies of her 2012 memoir, All That Is Bitter And Sweet: A Memoir.

Standing strong: She was one of the first women to step forward against the producer, who has since been fired from his namesake company

Author: Inside, Ashley looked to be autographing copies of her 2012 memoir, All That Is Bitter And Sweet: A Memoir
Business / Companies

by Staff reporter

DELTA Corporation Limited says the transaction for the acquisition of National Brewery Zambia (Natbrew) is expected to be completed by March next year as the beverages maker consolidates its position as a multi- beverages firm in the region.Delta said it would acquire a majority stake in Natbrew in order to boost its multi beverage strategy. Natbrew is the leading sorghum beer producer in Zambia whose products are marketed under the Chibuku brand.Delta chief executive Mr Pearson Gowero said that although the firm was not at liberty to disclose the finer details of the transaction, this would be concluded in the first quarter of 2018."That fits together in our long term strategy, of being a multi-beverage company," said Mr Gowero on the sidelines of the group's presentation of financial results for the half year to September 2017.Meanwhile, progress on concluding the bottler agreement with The Coca Cola Company (TCCC) is taking longer than anticipated although management is confident of retaining the franchise and maintain the business. Other countries such as Botswana, Zambia and Lesotho are also affected although no conclusion has been made yet."Progress has been slow, the transaction is partially completed. The issue is complex but in the mean time we continue to run our business," said Mr Gowero.In the half year to September 30, 2017, Delta's profit after tax rose 4 percent to $32 million compared to $30 million achieved in the same period last year on improved business from associate companies. Profit from associates increased by 355 percent to $1,6 million from $351,000 in the same period last year, driven by positive performance from both Afdis and Schweppes which recorded revenue and volume growth in the period.Group's total revenue for the period marginally increased by one percent to $250 million from $246 million in the same period last year driven by higher volume of lager beer. Figures from the beverages giant show that lager beer volumes increased by 11 percent to 676 hectolitres while gross sales increased by 9 percent to $119 million with volume mix in favour of value packs and brands.Sparkling beverages volumes remained flat while maheu increased by 19 percent on the prior comparable period. Sorghum beer volumes declined by 4 percent on the back of transactional challenges in the rural markets and the trading up to lager beers as well as disruptions experienced in the roll-out of the new 1,5 litre pack. Earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell four percent to $53 million, reflecting the contribution of value packs and brand in the mix. Delta declared a dividend of 2,25 cents per share.
Currently the streaming world is dominated by Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

But it seems Disney's streaming service, which is set to debut in 2019, is going to make waves as soon as it drops thanks to some huge content additions.

On an earnings call Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that several of the studio's most famous franchises will be getting the series treatment for the service, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Exciting! It seems Disney's streaming service, which is set to debut in 2019, is going to make waves as soon as it drops thanks to some huge content additions including a Star Wars series

A live-action Star Wars series will no doubt be the focus, while series based on the 2001 Pixar hit Monsters, Inc, and the Disney Channel's High School Musical will also be highly anticipated.

Star Wars has been explored in five animated animated shows over the years, and in three live-action TV specials, including the much maligned Star Wars: Holiday Special.

Of course High School Musical is known for launching the careers of Ashley Tisdale, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens.

Monsters, Inc. inspired the 2013 sequel Monsters University and the more recent short Party Central.

In charge: On an earnings call Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that several of the studio's most famous franchises will be getting the series treatment for the service

Classic: Disney Channel's High School Musical series will also be highly anticipated

Just getting started: Of course High School Musical is known for launching the careers of Ashley Tisdale, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens

Iger also said that original programming from other sources may be licensed for the streaming service, which is set to be cheaper than Netflix's current $11 a month cost.

It was a big week for Star Wars fans, as several new additions to the universe were announced.

The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson will be helming a new trilogy beyond the current series of films.

Successful franchise: Monsters, Inc. inspired the 2013 sequel Monsters University and the more recent short Party Central

Indeed, the new movies will be completely separate from the so-called Skywalker saga on which the current films are based.

'Johnson will introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored,' said Lucasfilm in an official announcement.

Johnson is set to write and direct the first movie in the new trilogy.
She is already the proud mom of a couple of adorable daughters.

And Jessica Alba is clearly excited about kiddo number three, if her smile was anything to go by on Thursday.

The 36-year-old was spotted beaming from ear to ear as she chatted on the phone en route to a business meeting in LA.

Baby talk: Jessica Alba is clearly excited about kiddo number three, if her smile was anything to go by on Thursday

The actress looked chic as always in a long brown fall coat and grey booties.

Her loose fitting beige dress was not quite loose-fitting enough to hide her burgeoning baby bump, which  she revealed just two weeks ago  contains her first son.

The unborn tot has two big sisters in Honor, nine, and Haven, six, whom Jessica shares with 38-year-old husband Cash Warren.

With two Hs in the family, many expect the boy's name to follow suit, although the parents have yet to agree on hat yet.

Style: The actress looked chic as always in a long brown fall coat and grey booties

Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last month, she explained: '[Cash] said, "We should name it Dick with a silent H". He thinks its, like, old school.'

Jessica also opened up about her pregnancy cravings, admitting she constantly wants Japanese food and desserts.

She added: 'I didn't think I was craving anything until I realized I'm craving Japanese food all the time.

'I actually dream about desserts, but Im trying not to gain so much weight with this baby so I just dream about them. I want all the shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom. That's my thing.'

Cash and Jessica met in 2004 on the set of Fantastic Four, and married four years later in Los Angeles in May 2008 - before welcoming Honor one month later.
Newly single Stephen Bear is set to make a triumphant return to E4's Celebs Go Dating.

He first met his ex-girlfriend Charlotte Crosby on the hit dating show, but hopes things will go better second time around.

The 27-year-old made a hit with ratings during the second series of Celebs Go Dating, but was sacked due to his behaviour and romance with Charlotte Crosby.

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Newly single: Stephen Bear, 27, is set to make a triumphant return to E4's Celebs Go Dating

You're Fired! The reality star made a hit with ratings during the second series of Celebs Go Dating, but was sacked due to his behaviour and romance with Charlotte Crosby

An insider told The Sun: 'Bear is really looking forward to joining the show once again, and has vowed to take it seriously this time.'

They added: 'Hes excited to meet some nice girls and hopefully find love.'

The controversial reality star was seen ditching girls on dates he was set with up by matchmakers Nadia and Eden.

Rude: Bear was seen ditching girls on dates he was set with up by match makers Nadia and Eden

Excuses excuses: The reality star ditched a date with by saying he left a chicken in the oven, on which he left on a note for a waiter to give to his date

His excuses consisted off 'left a chicken in the oven', on which he left on a note for the waiter to give to his date.

Other sensational moments on the show involved pretending to drum bongos on a girl's breasts and him asking girls for a threesome when they first meet.

With hopes to calm bear, Nadia and Eden resulted into calling Stephen's parents to discuss his unacceptable behaviour on dates, but this failed miserably.

His firing was also due to his forbidden romance with Charlotte Crosby, who appeared in series one of the dating show.

With hopes to calm the bear, Nadia and Eden resulted into calling Stephen's parents to discuss his bad behaviour with women on dates

Player: Sensational moments on the show involved Stephen Bear pretending to drum bongos on a girl's breasts and him asking girls for a threesome when they first meet

Ladies man: The firing from series two of Celebs Go Dating was due to his forbidden romance with geordie Charlotte Crosby, who appeared in series one of the dating show

The set of the extreme MTV reality show had been where romance blossomed for himself and his ex-girlfriend Charlotte.

But it seems Stephen Bear has now cut ties with Just Tattoo Of Us, as he has reportedly quit his presenting role on the show amid his bitter split with Charlotte, 27.

According to The Sun, sources claim the reality star, 27, chose to leave after being offered another job, but Bear's departure comes just days after swirling rumours he was set to be replaced on Just Tattoo Of Us by Charlotte's former Geordie Shore co-star Scotty T.

Moving on: Stephen Bear has now cut ties with Just Tattoo Of Us, as he has reportedly quit his presenting role on the show amid his bitter split with Charlotte, 27

They told the paper: 'Bear has been offered another gig and the dates clashed with Just Tattoo Of Us filming so he has decided to leave.

MTV tried their best to come up with a solution but it just wasn't possible... producers knew it was only a matter of time before he quit,' adding: 'There's no hard feelings.'

Following his win on Celebrity Big Brother in the summer of 2016, Bear had secured his first major presenting gig, alongside Charlotte, on the show that sees pairs design secret tattoos for one another that they then each have etched onto their bodies.

Replacement? Bear's departure comes just days after swirling rumours he was set to be replaced on Just Tattoo Of Us by Charlotte's former Geordie Shore co-star Scotty T

Awkward: Following the breakdown of his relationship with Charlotte, show bosses were left reportedly concerned that the presenting duo wouldn't be able to continue working together

The show went onto become a hit and is currently airing its second series, but following the breakdown of his relationship with Charlotte, show bosses were left reportedly concerned that the presenting duo wouldn't be able to continue working together.

So much so, that it had been rumoured Geordie Shore's Scotty T was in line to replace Bear and instead join Charlotte on the show for its future series.

An insider told The Sun that while MTV were 'desperate' to keep both Charlotte and Bear involved with Just Tattoo Of Us, they were considering separating the duo and having them present separate episodes alongside a co-presenter.

All change? So much so, that it had been rumoured Geordie Shore's Scotty T was in line to replace Bear and instead join Charlotte on the show for its future series

Scott had been hotly tipped to join Charlotte, with the source claiming: 'Charlotte and Bear just can't work together since they broke up. One minute they love each other - the next it's hate.

'Scotty T would be great for Charlotte to work with but it's not clear at the moment who Stephen's co-presenter would be.'

When contacted by MailOnline a representative for Bear declined to comment. MailOnline have also contacted a spokesperson for MTV.
The Murder Of Becky Watts: Police Tapes (ITV)

Rating:

Trump: An American Dream (C4)

Rating:

Televisions biggest lie is the delusion that its stars can do anything and everything. Politicians think they can dance, comedians imagine they are global explorers and scientists believe they are God.

Good Morning Britains presenter Susanna Reid might have had ambitions to be a serious journalist once, but for the past decade shes been an amateur hoofer and celebrity fluffer.

So it was an act of monumental arrogance and insensitivity to front a one-off documentary revealing the police investigation that caught two psychopathic killers, in The Murder Of Becky Watts: Police Tapes (ITV).

Susanna Reid with Becky's father Darren Galsworthy outside the home where his daughter was murdered. Christopher Stevens says it was insensitive for her to front a one-off documentary about two psychopathic killers

Susannas egotism spoiled what should have been a disturbing glimpse into the methods that detectives use to pry secrets out of their suspects in the interview room. It included long extracts from a series of interrogations, as 28-year-old Nathan Matthews cockily maintained that he and his depraved girlfriend Shauna Hoare, 21, knew nothing about his step-sisters disappearance.

The police were certain the sick pair had killed Becky, 16, at her Bristol home in 2015. They had found Matthewss fingerprints in her blood. But even the most hardened crime squad veterans were not prepared for the discovery of her body in a neighbours shed, dismembered and wrapped in polythene.

Susanna elbowed her way to the foreground of this appalling story, making sure the camera saw her studying footage from the interviews on a laptop while surrounded by heaps of bundled videos.

FATTY OF THE NIGHT More than half of UK mutts are overweight, but Staffie Rosie in Paul OGrady: For The Love of Dogs (ITV) weighed 8 st with a 38in waist. Even strongman Geoff Capes wouldnt fancy that on his lap. Advertisement

Her face was focused in a look of intense concentration as she stroked her chin. Susanna would have us believe she pored over all the hundreds of hours of tape. Somehow, I doubt it.

She also appeared to interview the lead detective, DI Richard Ocone. But he wasnt responding to her questions: he already knew what he wanted to say, and carefully laid out the facts, while Susanna nodded and looked serious.

In similar shows, such as Sir Trevor McDonalds masterly scrutiny of the U.S. mafia, the presenter has had a key role to play, winning the trust of family and witnesses, and persuading them to tell their stories on camera.

Beckys father, stepmother and grandmother talked movingly of how their lives had been destroyed. But Susanna seemed almost silent during those interviews. There was no sense that their testimony was being coaxed out through her expertise.

The great television lie surrounding Donald Trump is that hes a hapless incompetent, whose rise has been fuelled solely by inherited wealth.

Trump: An American Dream proved he has been scheming for ultimate power ever since building Trump Tower in Manhattan in the early Eighties

Trump: An American Dream (C4), the first of a four-part series, helped to dispel that delusion by showing how coldly Machiavellian the property magnate has been since the start of his career in the Seventies.

For all his narcissism, The Donald must welcome the fake news that he became President by accident, swept into the White House on a national wave of disgust at conventional politics.

In fact, as the archive footage in this documentary proved, he has been scheming for ultimate power ever since building Trump Tower in Manhattan in the early Eighties, with the help of a $100 million tax bonus.

Rona Barrett, the archetype of sycophantic American TV journalists, asked him in 1980, when he was 34, what he would do if his wealth vanished overnight.

Trump smiled like a pomaded hyena and suggested he would run for President  before laughing the remark off as facetious.

It was interesting to see how articulate he once was. Thats changed, bigly.
From her bizarre appearance at the Melbourne Cup to a cultural gaffe, Paris Jackson's visit to Australia has been marred by controversy.

And on Friday, the teenager launched into another fiery rant at the Australian media following her eyebrow-raising trip Down Under.

Taking to Instagram, upon what appeared to be her exit from the country, the 19-year-old said it 'breaks her heart' that her trip was ruined by the 'monstrous media.'

'Shredded to pieces': Paris Jackson launches into another fiery rant at the 'monstrous Australian media' over the coverage of her controversial trip Down Under

Alongside an image of the Great Barrier Reef, the daughter of late pop icon Michael Jackson, shared some choice words for her critics.

'It breaks my heart to have visited the most beautiful country I've ever seen and meet the kindest, most genuine people, and then be shredded to pieces by their monstrous media,' she began the caption.

Alongside an image of the Great Barrier Reef, the daughter of late pop icon Michael Jackson, shared some choice words for her critics

'Despite the nasty and cruel words, I still can't wait to come back.'

Paris also took to Twitter on Friday, where she insisted that she never meant to offend anyone.

'Especially a nation that I so deeply admire and appreciate. and i will always try to take accountability,' she wrote.

No offence: Paris also took to Twitter on Friday, where she insisted that she never meant to offend anyone

VIP: Paris was reportedly paid $100,000 and flown to Australia to attend the Melbourne Cup as a guest of Myer

Her statements come after the teen criticised the Herald Sun newspaper earlier in the week, after the publication branded her 'Wacko Jacko 2.0' following her controversial appearance at the Melbourne Cup.

She drew criticism after being pictured pressed-up against the windows of the Myer marquee, pulling bizarre facial expressions at onlookers.

Paris pressed her nose onto the glass and licked the surface in what appeared to be a defiant move.

Paris was reportedly paid $100,000 and flown to Australia to attend the Melbourne Cup as a guest of Myer.

Criticism: She drew criticism after being pictured pressed-up against the windows of the Myer marquee, pulling bizarre facial expressions at onlookers

''Cute. you guys are f**kin' cowards. bet you don't have the balls to call me that to my face @nuionline @JackieHeraldSun,' she said of the 'Wacko Jacko' line.

The model, who was an international guest at Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, posted a screen shot of the newspaper article a day later.

Paris captioned the post: 'i couldn't care less what they call me tbh but adding the "2.0" is their way of dragging my father into it and THAT i will not stand for.'

The brunette later followed suit with: 'again i couldn't care less that they call me, its the principle.'

Her statements come after the teen criticised the Herald Sun newspaper earlier in the week, after the publication branded her 'Wacko Jacko 2.0' following her controversial appearance at the Melbourne Cup

Making headline: Meanwhile, reports emerged that Paris also refused to wear a gown specially designed by fashion royalty Alex Perry on Melbourne Cup Day

Meanwhile, reports emerged that Paris also refused to wear a gown specially designed by fashion royalty Alex Perry on Melbourne Cup Day.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Paris was due to wear a red gown, but shocked racing carnival sponsor Myer and the designer when she decided to don another ensemble.

The publication also reported that the social media sensation wanted to wear cowboy boots in the Birdcage, but was advised that they weren't dressy enough for the carnival.

Instead, she matched her gypsy-inspired gown with a pair of ankle boots by designer Tony Bianco.

Paris' representative has since vehemently denied these claims however, telling Daily Mail Australia: 'This isn't true. Paris couldn't have refused to wear a custom-made Alex Perry design to the Melbourne Cup, as no such dress was ever made.'

'Paris did wear a piece from Alex's collection on the cover of Stellar Magazine,' they explained.

Meanwhile, Paris was also forced to apologise after posting a picture of herself patting a dingo to Instagram, alongside the caption: 'A dingo ate my baby'

Meanwhile, Paris was also forced to apologise after posting a picture of herself patting a dingo to Instagram, alongside the caption: 'A dingo ate my baby.'

The chilling phrase, 'A dingo ate my baby', was first screamed by Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton after her daughter Azaria was abducted from an Uluru campsite in 1980.

She once again took to Twitter on Friday, offering her 'sincerest apologies' for the cultural gaffe, stating: 'I had no clue it stemmed from such a tragic and horrific incident.'

Apology: Paris took to Twitter on Friday, writing: 'i was referencing a meme i had no clue it stemmed from such a tragic and horrific incident. my sincerest apologies, from the bottom of my '

Paris took to Twitter on Friday, writing: 'i was referencing a meme i had no clue it stemmed from such a tragic and horrific incident. my sincerest apologies, from the bottom of my .'

The 19-year-old continued: 'the last thing i want to do is offend anyone, especially a nation that i so deeply admire and appreciate. and i will always try to take accountability.

The line 'a dingo ate my baby' became world famous after it was acted out by Meryl Streep, who played Lindy in Evil Angels, a 1988 film based on the tragic event.
Carey Mulligan is going solo on stage, playing a go-getting mother of two. And shes terrified.

The Oscar-nominated, Bafta-winning actress will star in Matilda The Musical writer Dennis Kellys new drama, Girls & Boys, which Lyndsey Turner will direct at the Royal Court Theatre in London from February 8.

Carey, who herself has two children with husband Marcus Mumford, told me she was captivated by Kellys play about a woman (her character is referred to simply as Woman) who meets her future husband at an airport.

Carey Mulligan is going solo on stage, playing a go-getting mother of two. And shes terrified

They settle down, buy a house and juggle careers. They are an ordinary family, the 32-year-old said, as she spoke to me on the phone yesterday from Los Angeles. Then their world starts to unravel, and events take a disturbing turn.

Carey is on the West Coast to promote Mudbound: an extraordinary Depression-era film in which she gives a heartbreaking performance. The picture, which is released here next Friday, will open the annual film market in LA. Carey will also attend the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Governors awards in Beverly Hills tomorrow.

I was really daunted by the one-woman show aspect of it all. But as my agent, Tor Belfrage, said: If its not scary, its not worth doing"

She said shes excited to be returning to the Royal Court, where she played Nina in Ian Ricksons production of The Seagull a decade ago.

She saw Jez Butterworths Ferryman when it opened there in April, and said she had the urge to be up there on stage with the cast.

So when she was sent Boys & Girls I just couldnt walk away from it  as much as Im terrified.

I was really daunted by the one-woman show aspect of it all. But as my agent, Tor Belfrage, said: If its not scary, its not worth doing. 

Carey observed that while there are disturbing elements in the piece, its also witty and funny. She said she rarely reads scripts and laughs out loud, but she did with this one.

She added that despite the generic name, Woman is a fully rounded character; and the play captures a whole life.

Carey said she saw Fiona Shaw and Vanessa Redgrave act in one-woman pieces, and particularly remembers watching the late Pete Postlethwaite, when she was a teenager, in Scaramouche Jones.

He played a clown on the last night of his life; playing several characters as he looked back on his life, she recalled. When he came out on his own at the end, I looked for the other cast members because he made those characters feel so real.

Janie's all set to stray into Nigella territory

Janie Dee is heading into Nigella country  and there may be trouble brewing in the kitchen.

The Olivier Award-winning actress, who is currently appearing in Follies at the National Theatre, will lead a touring production of Torben Bettss new play, a tragi-comedy called Monogamy about a celebrity chef.

Janie Dee is heading into Nigella country  and there may be trouble brewing in the kitchen

Alastair Whatley will direct the work, which kicks off at the Festival Theatre in Malvern on May 5, before heading to the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford, the York Theatre Royal and the Park Theatre in North London, where it will have a five-week limited season from June 6.

Playwright Betts said his play is set in the perfect kitchen of a chef called Caroline Mortimer, who has made a success out of a Saturday morning cooking show.

She has perfect children  daughters and a son  and a perfect husband. The perfect life.

But Carolines free-range chickens are about to come home to roost.

Betts told me he began work on Monogamy before adapting a production of The Seagull for the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park, which starred Ms Dee. He then began to see similarities between Caroline and her son, Leo, in his new piece, and Arkadina and Konstantin in The Seagull. I thought: Crikey! Janie would be ideal for this, because she was so good in that.

His new play explores the mother and son relationship. Its very loving, but dysfunctional.
They've been engaged for almost three years.

And since it ain't broke, Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q ain't fixing it, as they were spotted blissful as ever on Thursday.

The happy couple were spotted talking their dog for a walk through Beverly Hills.

Happily unmarried! Dylan McDermott, 56, and fiancee Maggie Q, 38, took their dog for a walk in Beverly Hills on Thursday

Maggie, 38, showed off her toned tum in a black turtleneck crop top.

She paired it with black flats and a form-fitting pair of jeans, finishing the casual look with a pair of shades.

Her 56-year-old man looked sharp in black jeans, grey T-shirt and black blazer.

He also maintained the mustache he's grown to play the lead role of Captain Dave in the upcoming Fox comedy series L.A. to Vegas.

Fit: Maggie, 38, showed off her toned tum in a black turtleneck crop top

Style: She paired it with black flats and a form-fitting pair of jeans, finishing the casual look with a pair of shades

Cool: Her 56-year-old man looked sharp in black jeans, grey T-shirt and black blazer

Their rescue dog meanwhile rocked a red neckerchief.

It was in January of 2015 it emerged that the Stalker co-stars had gotten engaged.

The actor told Closer during the summer that they still do not know when they will tie the knot

'We havent set a date as of yet,' he said. 'We are just enjoying being engaged.'

Long run: It was in January of 2015 it emerged that the Stalker co-stars had gotten engaged

Handsome! Their rescue dog meanwhile rocked a red neckerchief

He does, however, know that she is the one he wants to spend his life with: 'When you know, you know!' he said.

'Shes an incredible person. I know her heart, so it was easy to say, "Yes, I want to be with this person."

McDermott was previously married to first wife Shiva Rose from 1995 to 2008; with whom he has two daughters, Colette, 21, and Charlotte, 11.

'There is always another chance in life,' he told the mag. 'That is whats so great about it! A lot of people get disheartened, and I can relate to that. But I tell my kids: You can always start again.'
Zizi Strallen and Jonny Labey will be taking some radical dance steps into the West End production of Baz Luhrmanns Strictly Ballroom.

The pair will star in the musical with Will Young, who plays a band leader.

The show is based on Luhrmanns 1992 movie, which was a surprise hit at the Cannes Film Festival.

Labey  a former EastEnders actor who won ITVs Dance, Dance, Dance  will play Scott Hastings, a young man who longs to invent new dance steps when he enters the fictional Pan-Pacific dance competition.

Zizi Strallen and Jonny Labey will be taking some radical dance steps into the West End production of Baz Luhrmanns Strictly Ballroom

The show is based on Luhrmanns 1992 movie, which was a surprise hit at the Cannes Film Festival

Pavlovic said Strallen and Labey embodied the Romeo and Juliet aspect of the show

Alas for him, the Ballroom Dancing Federation wants to stamp out his bold new moves.

Enter Fran, a shy cleaner who has moves of her own, but is too scared to use them  until Scott shows her how to shake it up.

Ms Strallen, currently appearing in the acclaimed Follies at the National Theatre, can dance up a storm (she comes from a long line of top-notch dancers), although for much of Strictly Ballroom shell have to pretend shes a newby on the dance floor.

She had wanted to do Strictly Ballroom when it first ran at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, but Cameron Mackintosh had already contracted her for a tour of Mary Poppins.

She stressed that its not all about the fancy footwork, either. Shes an actress, who happens to sing and dance  she recently did a workshop of a Greek play at the National Theatre; and played a straight acting role in The Herbal Bed for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Ms Strallen, currently appearing in the acclaimed Follies at the National Theatre, can dance up a storm (she comes from a long line of top-notch dancers), although for much of Strictly Ballroom shell have to pretend shes a newby on the dance floor

She had wanted to do Strictly Ballroom when it first ran at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, but Cameron Mackintosh had already contracted her for a tour of Mary Poppins

Strictly Ballroom producer Carmen Pavlovic told me she was knocked out by Strallens performance in Follies at the NT.

It also helped that the shows director and choreographer Drew McOnie had worked with Ms Strallen before, when he re-choreographed Chicago at the Leicester Curve four years ago.

Pavlovic said Strallen and Labey embodied the Romeo and Juliet aspect of the show. They feel very natural together, she said.

Strictly begins previews at the Piccadilly from March 16, with a company that includes Eve Polycarpou, Michelle Bishop, Gabriela Garcia, Richard Grieve, Gary Watson, Charlotte Gooch, Liam Marcellino and Ivan De Freitas (some of whom were in the out-of-town run at WYP).

Strictly begins previews at the Piccadilly from March 16, with a company that includes Eve Polycarpou, Michelle Bishop, Gabriela Garcia, Richard Grieve, Gary Watson, Charlotte Gooch, Liam Marcellino and Ivan De Freitas (some of whom were in the out-of-town run at WYP)

Jonny Labey and Zizi Strallen at 'Strictly Ballroom' cast announcement portraits at One Great George Street in London on November 7
She's the busty former Bachelor star who is not shy of flaunting her enviable physique online.

And Zilda Williams stripped down into a skimpy floral bikini this week, as she paraded her frame in a cheeky snap in the sand.

The 34-year-old proudly flaunted her peachy posterior, posing with her back turned to the camera during an outing at Queensland's Palm Beach on the Gold Coast.

Sun's out, buns out! The Bachelor's Zilda Williams flaunts her peachy sand-covered posterior in a skimpy g-string bikini at Queensland's Palm Beach on the Gold Coast this week

A dusting of white sand clung to her derriere, as the high-cut swimwear left little to the imagination.

Wearing aviator sunglasses, Zilda looked down towards the ground with a smile on her face.

Her busty E-cup breasts were also highlighted in the snap, with her assets spilling out of the sides of the triangle bikini.

Buyty beach babe! The triangle-cut swimsuit top also struggled to contain the former FHM model's E-cup breasts

Zilda captioned the saucy snap: 'Salty hair and a Sandy Bum.'

She had also posted a front-on snap from the day, hiking up her bikini bottoms to reveal a small love heart tattoo on her upper thigh.

Her dark locks were worn down and had become curly from contact with the salty water.

If you've got it, flaunt it! Making the most of the warmer weather, Zilda also showed off her ample curves during a recent trip to Sydney's iconic Icebergs pool in Bondi

Making the most of the warmer weather, Zilda also showed off her ample curves during a recent trip to Sydney's iconic Icebergs pool in Bondi.

The former FHM model left little to the imagination as she showcased her E-cup cleavage in a copper-coloured two piece.

The busty star was recently rumoured to join the cast of the upcoming Bachelor spin-off, Bachelor in Paradise.

However, she appears to have turned down the racy reality series after finding love with toy boy Keith Frazer, who is seven years her junior.

The genetically-blessed pair have been spotted partying all over Sydney and the Gold Coast, since meeting in a nightclub a few months ago.
Midnight Oil have announced their Great Circle tour will go ahead as planned after the band's guitarist and keyboardist, Jim Moginie, suffered a horrific hamstring injury following an onstage tumble on Thursday.

In a post to their Instagram page on Friday, the iconic Australian group told fans Jim will still be performing with the band - but will have to sit instead of stand.

'Midnight Oil are pleased to confirm that the scheduled performance on Saturday 11th of November at The Domain of ''The Great Circle 2017'' will proceed as planned,' the post read.

The Power and The Passion! Midnight Oil to continue Great Circle tour with full lineup despite guitarist Jim Moginie suffering debilitating hamstring injury

'Jim has a hamstring avulsion... he will need to remain seated throughout the show instead of standing for his guitar songs as would otherwise have been the case.'

It's good news for the band's Sydney fans, who recoiled in horror after hearing that the Oils may not even be able to play their hometown.

Midnight Oil has been on a steady high following the aforementioned tour, easily their most successful to date.

'He will need to remain seated': In a post to the band's Instagram, Midnight Oil confirmed that Jim will still perform live with the band, but will have to sit instead of stand

So lucky! It's good news for the band's Sydney fans, who recoiled in horror after hearing that the Oils may not even be able to play their hometown

The band revealed they have played 74 shows this year across 16 countries and 5 continents to an estimated half a million people in total, and have been receiving rave reviews for almost every performance.

Midnight Oil still have four shows left on the tour - two in Sydney, one in Melbourne, and one in Wollongong - which have already sold to over half capacity.

Earlier this week, the band had to cut their entire set short due to Jim tripping and falling with his guitar in hand while on stage.

Rushed to an ambulance after severely injuring his hamstring, front man Peter Garrett emerged from backstage and explained the situation to the crowd, before finishing their set early with an unplanned acoustic performance.

Reforming earlier this year, the band kicked off the tour in April with an ode to the 1980's, performing at the Coogee Bay Hotel's Selinas, a historic Sydney live music venue which has housed the likes of Nirvana, Foo Fighters and INXS.
Business / Companies

by Staff reporter

STATE-OWNED mobile telecommunication operator, NetOne, has extended its mobile money service campaign to Bulawayo with the launch of its OneMoney platform set for today.NetOne, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, has rebranded its OneWallet platform to OneMoney, which can be linked to any ZimSwitch linked debit card.NetOne acting chief executive officer (CEO) Mr Brian Mutandiro said they have adopted a model used by Kenya's Safaricom mobile money M-pesa and would do a pre-launch of the new product at Sekusile Shops in Nkulumane."To show you that we have indeed improved from OneWallet platform, we have put in place a great platform that we are now using. It is the same platform used by Safaricom for M-pesa. M-pesa is one of the success stories when it comes to mobile money. It is the same similar platform we are riding on," he said."We will be launching in Bulawayo on the 10th of November. On that particular day we are actually starting with an activity at Sekusile Shops in Nkulumane. We will have our pre-launch activities there starting from 11AM to 4PM. We are calling for people of Bulawayo to come as we will be telling people about OneMoney and also getting feedback from our customers."He told Business Chronicle that customers would see the value of this platform as they would offer lower transactions. In comparison with other mobile money service providers OneMoney charges as little as $0.05 per transaction, Telecash is $0.11 the same amount that Ecocash charges when transacting to registered numbers. Mr Mutandiro said before year end their target was to cover all the five zones in the region as they have done with Zone 1 (Harare).He also said their OneFusion product has helped increase subscribers by over 500 000. NetOne has launched six new products as it seeks to transform itself from being a mobile service provider to an all-round telecommunications outfit that offers voice, video, Internet, mobility, iptv and other applications. The products include Khuluma 24/7, OneRadio, One-Fi and OneCliq, OneCover and One Tech.
She's been on the the fence about who she's dating, and her sexuality.

And it looks like Kristen Stewart was also undecided on hair color on Thursday night as she debuted a new two-tone do.

The actress unveiled the new blonde / brunette mullet-of-sorts while promoting her directorial debut Come Swim, a short film, at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles.

Playing both sides! It looked like Kristen Stewart was undecided hair color on Thursday night as she debuted a new two-tone do

New do: The actress unveiled the new blonde / brunette mullet-of-sorts

The 27-year-old wore an equally an eye-catching outfit for her big night.

Kristen stepped out in high waist hot pink trousers, teamed with a white crop top that featured tiny holes at the neckline.

The A-lister kept her blemish-free skin glowing with subtle face make-up, but packing on the black eyeliner with a smokey cat-eye.

Kristen accessorized her look with a silver chain necklace and matching silver rings.

Big night: She was promoting her directorial debut Come Swim, a short film, at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles

Have more fun: It featured a blonde fringe, sides and back

Pretty in pink: Kristen stepped out in high waist hot pink trousers, teamed with a white crop top that featured tiny holes at the neckline

While the star has not appeared on the big screen this year, her next big film could make a huge splash, as a crime period drama about accused murderer Lizzie Borden.

Kristen will not play the infamous criminal in the film, but instead the character Bridget Sullivan.

The screen starlet as been spotted on set in recent months, though the film has not yet been given a release date.

Kristen's short film Come Swim was even an Oscar-qualifying short, which was showcased last year at the Sundance Film Festival and Cannes.

Stewart is one of the many females that Refinery29 has joined forces with to encourage industry women to claim the director's chair.

Decked out! Kristen accessorized her look with a silver chain necklace and matching silver rings

On the red carpet: The 27-year-old A-lister kept her blemish-free skin glowing with subtle face make-up, but packing on the black eyeliner with a smokey cat-eye

Although Kristen arrived to the premiere solo, she is currently dating Victoria's Secret Angel Stella Maxwell, 27.

Their relationship status was finally sealed with a kiss when they were spotted smooching in the back of a taxi in Milan, Italy, at the beginning of this year while Stella was working at the city's Fashion Week.

The Hollywood actress revealed that she keeps her relationships under wraps because she treasures them dearly after bad experiences in the past.

Kristen previously dated her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, 31, from 2008 until 2012.

At the event: Amy Emmerich came to show her support for Kristen

Who wore it better? The girls compared their outlandish haircuts
Her eyebrow-raising trip to Australia has come to a close.

And 19-year-old Paris Jackson was pictured looking under the weather as she waited in line at the departures gate at Sydney Airport on Friday, with her assistant seen checking the star's temperature.

Her quiet, quick exit didn't attract the same controversy as her well-documented trip Down Under.

Feeling down under: Paris Jackson's assistant checks her temperature as she departs Sydney airport after teen lashes out at the 'monstrous Australian media' over the coverage of her controversial trip

Sporting another of her signature boho fashion ensembles, Paris was seen standing with members of her management team.

The trio huddled next to a cordoned off check-in area, with the daughter of pop icon Michael Jackson looking perhaps a tad unwell.

With a downcast expression, she raised her hand to her forehead to check her temperature.

Boho beauty! Sporting another of her signature boho fashion ensembles

Her assistant placed his hand on the teen's forehead, subsequently wrapping a friendly arm around her waist to comfort her.

Her natural beauty and unique fashion sense was on display during the brief check-in.

Sporting reading glasses, Paris rocked a pair of red track pants, which she tucked into her comfy ugg boots.

Temperature check: Her assistant placed his hand on the teen's forehead, subsequently wrapping a friendly arm around her waist to comfort her

She kept it casual with a simple white branded t-shirt, while the chic boho print backpack slung over her shoulder further accentuated her edgy ensemble.

It comes after she took to Instagram to claim is 'breaks her heart' that her trip was ruined by the 'monstrous media.'

'Despite the nasty and cruel words, I still can't wait to come back.'

Natural beauty! Her natural beauty and unique fashion sense was on display during the brief check-in

Edgy! She kept it casual with a simple white branded T-shirt, while the chiq boho print backpack slung over her shoulder further accentuated her edgy ensemble

Paris also took to Twitter on Friday, where she insisted that she never meant to offend anyone during her controversial trip.

'Especially a nation that I so deeply admire and appreciate. and i will always try to take accountability,' she wrote.

Her statements come after the teen criticised the Herald Sun newspaper earlier in the week, after the publication branded her 'Wacko Jacko 2.0' following her controversial appearance at the Melbourne Cup.

Choice words: It comes after she took to Instagram to claim is 'breaks her heart' that her trip was ruined by the 'monstrous media'

Controversy: Her statements come after the teen criticised the Herald Sun newspaper earlier in the week, after the publication branded her 'Wacko Jacko 2.0' following her controversial appearance at the Melbourne Cup

Window worries: She drew criticism after being pictured pressed-up against the windows of the Myer marquee, pulling bizarre facial expressions at onlookers

She drew criticism after being pictured pressed-up against the windows of the Myer marquee, pulling bizarre facial expressions at onlookers.

Paris was also forced to apologise days later, after posting a picture of herself patting a dingo to Instagram, alongside the caption: 'A dingo ate my baby.'

The chilling phrase, 'A dingo ate my baby', was first screamed by Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton after her daughter Azaria was abducted from an Uluru campsite in 1980.

She once again took to Twitter on Friday, offering her 'sincerest apologies' for the cultural gaffe, stating: 'I had no clue it stemmed from such a tragic and horrific incident.'
She definitely wasn't bringing a plus one to this gig.

Sofia Richie joined her dad Lionel at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation's second Patron of the Artists Awards in Beverly Hills on Thursday night.

The 19-year-old looked gorgeous in a white double breasted coat dress, showcasing her pins in black pumps.

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Daddy daughter: Sofia Richie joined her dad Lionel at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation's second Patron of the Artists Awards in Beverly Hills on Thursday night

The 68-year-old singing legend meanwhile contrasted on all black, shoes, slacks and smart coat.

The soul supremo was being honored on the night with the inaugural Recording Artists Inspiration Award.

Besides his 100 million records sold, four Grammy Awards, Academy Award, Golden Globe , and the Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Richie was also being honored for his charity work with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, Unicef, and the Art of Elysium.

Lionel Richie is an American institution,' Foundation president JoBeth Williams said.

Legend: The soul supremo was being honored on the night with the inaugural Recording Artists Inspiration Award

Master: He has 100 million records sold, four Grammy Awards, Academy Award, Golden Globe, and the Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Good guy: Richie was also being honored for his charity work with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center, Unicef, and the Art of Elysium

'We all know his beautiful music for which hes been greatly honored, but even more than a legendary recording artist, Lionel is a man of tremendous compassion whos deeply committed to helping others. Were proud to recognize his invaluable charitable work.'

Lionel had a second date with him on the night; girlfriend Lisa Parigi, who looked magnificent in a plunging trailing red gown.

While Lionel and his teenage daughter looked to be on the best of terms as they arrived at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, there was undoubtedly an awkward conversation to be had regarding her new boyfriend Scott Disick, whom Lionel does not approve of.

Lovely: The 19-year-old looked gorgeous in a white double breasted coat dress, showcasing her pins in black pumps

Slick: The 68-year-old singing legend meanwhile contrasted on all black, shoes, slacks and smart coat

Bad boy: There was undoubtedly an awkward conversation to be had regarding her new boyfriend Scott Disick, whom Lionel does not approve of

Sofia and the 34-year-old father-of-three went public with their romance in late September after first being linked back in May, when they insisted they were just 'homies'.

'I'm scared to death, are you kidding me?' Lionel replied when asked about it last month. 'Have I been in shock?! I'm the dad, come on.'

Nevertheless, the most recent report in US Weekly claims the reality star is now 'in love' with the teenager.

Other half: Lionel had a second date with him on the night; girlfriend Lisa Parigi

Hot: She looked magnificent in a plunging trailing red gown
She has her own brand of lingerie called The Megan Fox Collection at Frederick's Of Hollywood.

And the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles star, 31, took to Instagram on Thursday to promote her line of intimates.

The mother-of-three looked in fine form as she posed for a mirror selfie.

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'At it again. Sneak peek, coming soon - just in time for festival season': Megan Fox promoted her lingerie line on Thursday

Megan sported a lacy white bodysuit in a white bedroom with a rustic wood beamed ceiling and chandelier.

The actress accessorized her skimpy ensemble with jewelry by Porter Lyons and Native Gem.

She captioned the post: 'At it again. Sneak peek, coming soon - just in time for festival season.'

It's hard to tell from Megan's lithe and lovely physique that she is the mother of three children with actor Brian Austin Green, 44.

They welcomed their youngest son, Journey River, just a year ago but there isn't an inch to pinch on Megan's body.

Defying the odds: It's hard to tell from Megan's lithe and lovely physique that she is the mother of three children with actor Brian Austin Green, 44

The couple also share Noah, four, and Bodhi, three.

Megan and Brian began dating in 2004 after they met on the set of Hope & Faith when he was 30 and she was 18. They tied the knot on June 24, 2010.

Meanwhile, on Friday night she and actor Dave Bautista appeared at an Xbox Live Session at the Microsoft Lounge in the Venice neigborhood of Los Angeles.

Both Megan and the 48-year-old Guardians Of The Galaxy star are confirmed gamers.

And they hit the battlefield to play the new entry in blockbuster franchise, Call Of Duty: WWII, which was released on Friday.

Megan will next be seen in the upcoming movie Zeroville, which is slated for release sometime in 2018. No word yet on the actual release date.
Following the most highly rated Bachelorette season in Australian history, Sophie Monk is in huge demand.

But on Friday, the 37-year-old proved she always has time for her fans, paying a visit to a brave teenager at the hospital.

The former actress took to Instagram to share a snap from her new friend Emily's bedside, writing in the caption: 'She's the strongest coolest chick I've met.'

'Coolest chick I've met': On Friday, in-demand Bachelorette star Sophie Monk proved she always has time for her fans, paying a visit to a brave teenager at the hospital

Sophie was seen huddled next to Emily's chair, as the teen's sister Lauren also joined in on the happy snap.

'Got to hang out with my favourite teenage and her adorable family,' the reality star began the caption.

'Give her a follow and some cuddles for me. She's the strongest coolest chick I've met.'

The reality star placed her arm on Emily's, with the trio looking in high spirits after a fun-filled afternoon.

How sweet! The former actress took to Instagram to share a snap from her new friend Emily's bedside, writing in the caption: 'She's the strongest coolest chick I've met'

Emily's room at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital is occasionally graced with celebrity visitors like Sophie.

Elsewhere on her Instagram, the teen is pictured posing for a selfie with Thor star Chris Hemsworth.

Sophie has been busy following The Bachelorette finale, which culminated in a relationship with pub baron Stu Laundy.

And after making a reported $300,000 to star in the Channel Ten dating show, multiple publications claiming she's now in talks to host Nine's Love Island.

Blessed with guests! Emily's room at Lady Cilento Children's Hospital is occasionally graced with celebrity visitors like Sophie (pictured with Chris Hemsworth)
Her mother has enjoyed a successful career in media for more than 35 years as a journalist, editor and TV presenter.

And it appears Lisa Wilkinson's daughter Billi FitzSimons is keen to follow in her mum's footsteps.

The 20-year-old university student has been busy building a portfolio of published work as she blogs for Mamamia.

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Following in her mothers footsteps? Lisa Wilkinson's daughter Billi FitzSimons (pictured) is now blogging for Mamamia covering d*** pics and Bumble in her latest post

Writing for the Australia's largest independent women's website since June, Billi has already authored 19 articles, to date.

Billi's latest article, titled 'So long, catfishing and d*ck pics: How Bumble is changing dating at uni for Aussie women' was published on Friday.

The aspiring journalist praises Bumble for being a 'feminist-driven app determined to change the dating culture for women' in the sponsored content.

One to add to the portfolio! Writing for the Australia's largest independent women's website since June, Billi has already authored 19 articles to date

Like mother, like daughter? The 20-year-old university student is just one year younger than what her mother was when she became the youngest ever editor of Dolly magazine at the age of 21

Showcasing her interviewing skills, she spoke to Sydney Bumble ambassador Ali Moore about the impact the app has had on the dating scene for women.

Billi remained professional in her prose and chose not to reveal her own experiences in the dating world, but admitted: 'As a 20-year-old young woman studying at university, meeting strangers via apps is now the way so many people of my generation are going about finding a partner.'

'The truth is, the whole 'swiping' thing  to people we've never met, many with a sexual frisson  goes against everything we were ever taught as young kids,' she added.

Pals? Billi has shared selfies with Mamamia founder Mia Freedman (pictured) in the past, appearing to have a good relationship with the journalist

'You are a leader and an inspiration for so many': , Billi and mother Lisa are known to be very close, with Billi often praising her mother for being an inspirational figure

Billi has shared selfies with Mamamia founder Mia Freedman in the past, appearing to have a good relationship with the journalist.

Meanwhile, Billi and mother Lisa are known to be very close, with Billi often praising her mother for being an inspirational figure.

When Lisa quit the Today show over a reported pay dispute last month, Billi wrote: 'Thank you, Mum, for paving the way for the next generation and every generation to come. You are a leader and an inspiration for so many tonight.'

Lisa became the youngest ever editor of Dolly magazine at the age of 21 - a year older than Billi is now.

Billi's father Peter FitzSimons is also a well-known media personality, working as a journalist, author and radio and television presenter.
Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst reunited Thursday night in LA to support an event for French designer brand Sonia Rykiel.

The director and the actress have worked together on three movies and remain good friends.

They beamed happily as they posed together for photos at the invitation-only evening.

Big pals: Director Sofia Coppola and actress Kirsten Dunst reunited Thursday night in LA at an event for French designer brand Sonia Rykiel. They have worked together on three movies

Kirsten, 35, wore a Sonia Rykiel black velvet patterned dress with a v-neck.

She added shiny black shoes and carried a shiny silver purse.

She wore her shoulder-length blonde hair in loose ringlets and splashed scarlet red color across her lips.

The Hollywood star played a leading role in Sofia's movies The Virgin Suicides in 1999, Marie Antionette in 2006 and this year's The Beguiled.

Stylish: Kirsten, 35, wore a black velvet patterned dress with a v-neck by Sonia Rykiel. She added shiny black shoes and carried a shiny silver purse

Pretty look: The Hollywood star wore her shoulder-length blonde hair in loose ringlets and splashed scarlet red color across her lips

Sofia, 46, wore a blue pinstripe shirt dress by Sonia Rykiel which she left unbuttoned at the collar.

She added black tights and heels.

The daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola added a statement necklace and was made-up with black mascara and red lipstick.

On trend: Sofia, 46, wore a Sonia Rykiel blue pinstripe shirt dress which she left unbuttoned at the collar. She added black tights and heels

Filmmaker: The daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola added a statement necklace and was made-up with black mascara and red lipstick
Catherine Zeta Jones and husband Michael Douglas have been together for 17 years.

And the Welsh beauty appeared close as can be to the Douglas family during Thursday night's Legacy of Vision Gala in Los Angeles.

Catherine, 48, looked lovely in blue as she arrived at the event with hubby Michael and his son Cameron, 38, later greeting father-in-law Kirk, 100, with a kiss on the lips.

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Right in the kisser! Catherine Zeta-Jones, 48, appeared super close to father-in-law Kirk Douglas, 100, as they duo greeted each other with a kiss on the lips at a Thursday event in LA

The raven-haired beauty looked ravishing in a blue silk number which dipped love to reveal her full chest.

She left her raven tresses long and flowing while dusting a bit of rust-colored shadow upon her eyelids and flashing an ivory smile.

Dangling diamond studs, peep-toe heels and a sizable ruby ring rounded out the Chicago starlet's look.

Inside the event, the Oscar winning actress wrapped her dad by marriage in a loving embracing, leaning in to smooch the centenarian.

Warm welcome! Inside the Legacy Of Vision Gala in LA, the mother-of-two wrapped her dad by marriage in a loving embracing, leaning in to smooch the centenarian

Tender moment: Catherine planted a sweet kiss on her father-in-law

Loving look: The actress looked up admiringly at Kirk

Fun party: The gala was a Douglas family affair

Screen legend: Kirk was a box office star in the 1950s and 1960s

Feeling blue: Catherine stunned in her shiny blue dress

Blue beauty: The raven-haired beauty looked ravishing in a blue silk number which dipped love to reveal her full chest

Great dates! The Welsh beauty arrived at the event with husband Michael and her stepson Cameron, 38

The Oscar winner was sure to greet mother-in-law Ann Douglas with a hug as well.

Husband Michael, 73, looked dapper in sharp navy suit with champagne-colored tie.

The May-December couple - who has 25 years between them - arrived at the event with Douglas's eldest son Cameron, 38.

Shining star! Dangling diamond studs, peep-toe heels and a sizable ruby ring rounded out the Chicago starlet's look

Cheers! Husband Michael, 73, looked dapper in sharp navy suit with champagne-colored tie

Husband and wife: Michael wrapped an arm around Catherine on the carpet

Family portrait: Cameron joined Michael and Catherine on the carpet

The family business! Actor Cameron is Michael's son with first wife Diandra Luker, a producer

Cameron, who is an actor like his father and granddad, is Michael's son with first wife Diandra Luker.

The New York native was stylish in a royal blue suit paired with pink, slide-on sneakers.

He matched his kicks with a pastel tie while slicking his brown-blonde locks back smoothly.

Catherine and husband Michael Douglas, 73, will be celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary on November 18.

Family affair: Catherine has gotten close to her father-in-law during her 17 years with hubby Michael

Going strong! Catherine and husband Michael Douglas, 73, will be celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary on November 18

Little ones: Catherine and Michael share two children, son Dylan, 17, and daughter Carys, 14

Timeless beauty: The brunette beauty looked simply stunning at the event

The couple, who have a 25 year age difference, share two children, son Dylan, 17, and daughter Carys, 14.

No one really knows what goes on in my four walls,' Zeta-Jones told Vanity Fair in September.

'My husband and I have been in the public eye for many, many, many years. So, when we go out, we put the Michael Douglas-Catherine Zeta-Jones armor on every now and again. We are a very, very, very close family; we share everything.'

Chit chat: During the dinner, Catherine caught up with her mother-in-law Anne Douglas

Private: In a Septermber chat with Vanity fair, Catherine said 'My husband and I have been in the public eye for many, many, many years. So, when we go out, we put the Michael Douglas-Catherine Zeta-Jones armor on'

Catherine's latest project, Cocaine Godmother, is currently in post-production.

The star plays Miami drug lord Griselda Blanco in the Lifetime movie, set for release in 2018.

Catherine was a stand-out in Feud: Betty & Joan, where she played old Hollywood beauty Olivia de Havilland, who also serves as the story's narrator.
She's been a fashion maven for decades, after rocketing to fame in hit flicks including Ghost.

And Demi Moore continued to turn heads decades on as she attended a glamorous Gucci holiday event in West Hollywood on Thursday.

The 54-year-old Striptease actress put on an understated display in a patterned duster coat which sported detailed floral embroidery, and was joined by daughters Rumer, 29, and Scout, 26, following her sartorial theme.

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Fashion icon: Demi Moore was once again turning heads as she attended a Gucci holiday event in West Hollywood on Thursday

Sartorially in sync! Daughter Rumer, 29, slipped into a flower embellished silk Gucci bomber and black pants

Following suit! Scout, 26, joined her sister and mum, donning the brand's flower embellished silk trousers

She continued her casual look in a powder purple blouse, teamed with a pair of baggy, high-waist jeans.

Lilac strappy heels decorated with jewels completed her high-fashion look, and her trademark raven locks were parted in the middle and fell down to her waist.

Pale rose lipstick, light blush and heavy eye-liner made sure the Hollywood legend was ready for her turn in front of the cameras.

She was joined by her stylish daughters, coordinating with their mother in stylish silk oriental-inspired ensembles by the brand of the night.

Keeping the chill out: The 54-year-old Striptease actress looked lovely in a long moss-colored coat which sported detailed floral embroidery

Time for a haircut? Her famous raven locks were parted in the middle and fell down all the way to her waist

Zipped way down: Rumer opted for a colorful floral jacket which she tucked into a long black skirt. She gave onlookers a glimpse of her bright red bra thanks to a plunging neckline

Low profile: Sibling Scout went with a slightly less eye-catching ensemble, donning a long black jacket over a pastel top and skirt combination

Funky outfits: Scout and Demi wore funky outfits to the Gucci party

Fan favorite: The daughter of Demi and Bruce Willis won her season of Dancing With The Stars

Sisters Rumer and Scout Willis, ages 29 and 26 respectively, also garnered some glances thanks to their sartorial choices.

Rumer opted for a colorful floral jacket which she tucked into a long black skirt. She gave onlookers a glimpse of her bright red bra thanks to a plunging neckline.

Sibling Scout went with a slightly less eye-catching ensemble, donning a long black jacket over a pastel top and skirt combination.

Loved: Rumer's bomber jacket was emblazoned with the word 'loved'

Turning heads: She made a stylish exit from the glamorous soiree

Chic: Erin, 35, decided to keep things simple with a red crimson long sleeve shirt on the top and black skinny jeans down below

Very wide neck: Sister Sara, 36, also kept things comparatively low-key with a white neck black and white plaid top and classic cut denim jeans

A whole host of other celebrities were on hand for the glamorous event as well.

Another sisterly group arrived next, in the form of Erin and Sara Foster, daughters of music magnate David Foster.

Erin, 35, decided to keep things simple with a red crimson long sleeve shirt on the top and black skinny jeans down below.

Leggy lady: Actress Busy Phillips, 38, went demure as well, with a black long sleeve number, albeit one that barely skimmed her thighs

Sister Sara, 36, also kept things comparatively low-key with a white neck black and white plaid top and classic cut denim jeans.

Actress Busy Phillips, 38, went demure as well, with a black long sleeve number, albeit one that barely skimmed her thighs.

Songstress Kelly Rowland, 36, donned an eye-catching leopard print coat, along with some jeans with shredded hems.
She has reunited with her husband after a spell in the arms of romeo comic David Spade

But Naya Rivera opted to go solo as she seized the limelight at the March Of Dimes: Imagine A World opening event in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The Glee stunner looked in fine form indeed as she flaunted her impressive physique at the thrilling event.

Going solo: Naya Rivera opted to attend the March Of Dimes: Imagine A World opening event in Los Angeles on Thursday on her own despite recently getting back with her husband

It is an exciting time for 30-year-old Naya, as she recently called off her divorce from husband Ryan Dorsey.

The couple were recently seen shopping together after deciding to give thing another go last month.

She previously said she was doing 'great' as she spent time with her spouse, who she wed in 2014, and their two-year-old son Josey.

In late March Naya she was spotted getting intimate with actor David Spade at the pool at the Halekulani hotel on Waikiki beach in Hawaii, however their relationship ended up going sour.

Bust on show: And she looked in fine form indeed in a peekaboo top

Loving it: She seemed to be revelling in the attention at the thrilling event

Second chance: She is back with her husband after a spell in the arms of romeo comic David Spade

Happy reunion: She seemed thrilled to be back with husband Ryan Dorsey last month

It is not the first time they have back together for went back to her then old boyfriend after she was dumped by her rapper fiance Big Sean in 2014

But she was not the only glamour girl attending the thrilling event.

For Mega Bitch Meltdown star Holly Hannula, 36, turned heads in an elegant black number as she cuddled up to her 48-year-old Childrens Hospital actor husband Rob Huebel.

AS if that was not enough star power for one event, Little Women favourite Terra Jole was also in attendance along with her husband Joe.

Body of evidence: And she underlined her glamour girl credentials in a eye-catching outfit

Stars of the show: Little Women star Terra Jole was there with husband Joe
Entertainment / Music

by Staff reporter

Youthful Durban duo Distruction Boyz will on Saturday get a chance to test their popularity in the City of Kings where their song Omunye has over the last couple of weeks emerged as the early frontrunner to become the Bulawayo go-to anthem during the party days of December.The gqom luminaries will perform at Club Connect on Saturday night.However, like their counter Zodwa Wabantu, the Durban duo is being trailed by controversy after it was reported earlier this week that their song had been banned on some SABC stations because of perceived vulgar content.Despite the group's management insisting that the song's lyrics were clean, some stations south of the Limpopo have reportedly removed it from their playlists."If a song is not the right fit for the station it will not be selected and the SABC has no part in this process. However, we have stated that if a song is inappropriate or vulgar we will not play it out of principle. Like other songs, a radio edit will then need to be submitted," said SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.In Bulawayo, where the group recently got a rousing reception at Club Connect and thanked fans by blowing out the speakers, they are likely to be welcomed with open arms."They've got the most popular song currently and something would be amiss if we didn't bring them. Omunye is certainly not banned at Club Connect and after what they did when they visited Bulawayo last time, I expect another heart-stopping gig," said Club Connect proprietor Biggie Chinoperekwei.
It's a workout regime that typically usually attracts women.

But on Wednesday, Bachelorette star James Trethewie was breaking down stereotypes at the launch of a new Pilates studio in Sydney.

The 31-year-old was all smiles at male-only Pilates class at Vive Active, in support of the Movember Foundation.

Pilates? More like bro-lates! Bachelorette star James Trethewie (pictured) was breaking down stereotypes at the launch of a new Pilates studio in Sydney on Wednesday

He looked ready to test his flexibility and muscle strength, dressing for the workout in green shorts and a dark grey T-shirt with the slogan 'real men do Pilates' emblazoned on his chest.

'Id seen pics of Pilates before and thought "how hard could it be?" Boy was I wrong!' James said.

'The team at Vive Active smashed us  Ive never heard a room full of men in that much pain before!'

Also at the event, which was designed to encourage more men to participate in reformer Pilate while raising money for Movember, was former Biggest Loser trainer and men's health advocate Steve 'Commando' Willis.

The 41-year-old fitness instructor looked keen to get into the workout, wearing shorts and a singlet top that showed off his bulging biceps.

In the studio, he can be seen lying back on a Pilates reformer machine with one leg in the air, while using dumbbells to work on his arms.

Men's health: Also at the event was former Biggest Loser trainer and men's health advocate Steve 'Commando' Willis (pictured)

Muscle definition: The 41-year-old fitness instructor looked keen to get into the workout, wearing shorts and a singlet top that showed off his bulging biceps

The buff trainer also used the machine to work on his pectorals and biceps, leaning back and stretching his arms out.

'It is as challenging as any strength workout and really worked those stabilising muscles that are often neglected,' the Commando said of the Pilates workout.

He looked slightly out of his comfort zone when the group used a black box to lie on, an exercise that looked to be focusing on stretching their torso.

Commando recently admitted to New Idea that he enforces his own formidable exercise regimen on his kids to instill a sense of self-discipline in them.

Working out: He looked a slightly out of his comfort zone when the group used a black box to lie on, an exercise that looked to be focusing on stretching their torso

Strict dad: Commando recently admitted to New Idea that he enforces his own formidable exercise regimen on his kids to instill a sense of self-discipline in them

'Having a framework and structure, we need to have that discipline, that respect for self and others,' he told the publication.

Meanwhile James, who was dumped by Sophie Monk, has shared his thoughts on becoming the next Bachelor following in the footsteps of Matty J.

In a recent interview with Mamamia, he said: 'If work were cool with it, if it all lined up, I'm single, and the timing was right, I'd definitely be open to it,' he said.
It was one of the most highly-anticipated album releases of the year.

But fans were disappointed on Friday afternoon after they were left in the dark following the worldwide release of Taylor Swift's latest album Reputation.

Australian 'Swifties' took to social media to vent their frustrations, saying they were unable to download the album after it was released at 3pm (AEDT).

Look what you made it do! Taylor Swift fans vent their frustrations on social media after her new album's release suffers a download glitch

Many reported the album being listed on iTunes as a pre-order product only, and that it will not be available to download until Sunday.

'My release date says the 12th which is Sunday? But when I preordered it, it said the 10th?! I'm so confused,' one helpless fan wrote, before adding the hashtag '#help'.

'#Reputation is at the top of the charts right now in Australia and the album isn't even available to download... frustrated but also impressed,' wrote another.

Another agitated 'Swifty' added: '#Reputation is number one in Australia and I still can't even listen to it.'

Meanwhile, another eager fan - who had already purchased the album - claimed they were still unable to listen it, even after the release date appeared to reset to November 10 on iTunes.

Disappointed: Australian 'Swifties' took to social media to vent their frustrations, saying they were unable to download the album after it was released at 3pm (AEDT)

'I'm so confused': Many reported the album being listed on iTunes as a pre-order product only, and that it will not be available to download until Sunday

'Frustrated but also impressed': Another fan took to social media to vent their frustration on Friday

'I know I've purchased... but please let me listen! Been waiting an hour since it went live ... #whatshappening #australia #letmelisten,' the person wrote.

But those who resorted to the tactics of yesteryear were not left disappointed.

Many opted to visit retailers to buy physical copies of the album, ensuring they were up-to-date with the rest of the globe.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Apple for comment.

'What's happening': Another eager fan - who had already purchased the album - claimed they were still unable to listen it, even after the release date appeared to reset to November 10 on iTunes

Old school tactics! Many opted to visit retailers to buy physical copies of the album, ensuring they were up-to-date with the rest of the globe
Terry Crews jumped with joy on Thursday at an industry event after filing a sexual assault report with police.

The 49-year-old actor was in good spirits upon arrival at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Patron of the Artists Awards in Beverly Hills, California.

Crews filed a police report Wednesday after saying he was sexually assaulted by a high-level Hollywood executive.

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Industry event: Terry Crews looked dapper Thursday while attending an industry event in Beverly Hills, California

Los Angeles police Officer Sal Ramirez confirmed that Crews had filed a report, though Ramirez would not give the subject of the report.

But Crews confirmed for a TMZ cameraman as he walked out of the LAPD Hollywood station that it was about the groping he described last month, and said he also plans a lawsuit.

Hollywood agent Adam Venit, the head of talent agency William Morris Endeavor's motion picture group, was later identified by Variety as the alleged groper.

The alleged incident took place at a star-studded event in 2016 placing it within the statue of limitations and the report could trigger a criminal investigation.

Getting air: The 49-year-old actor leaped in the air upon arrival at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Patron of the Artists Awards at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Venit is now on leave from William Morris Endeavor pending a company probe into the claims. Among those he represents are director Brett Ratner and actors Casey Affleck and Dustin Hoffman, all of whom have also been accused of sexual harassment or abuse.

Crews made the allegations on October 10, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that opened up a Pandora's Box of alleged Hollywood abuse.

He said he was at a Hollywood function last year with his wife Rebecca King-Crews when he was groped by the male executive.

Report filed: Crews filed a sexual assault report on Wednesday with the Los Angeles Police Department

Groping incident: The assault report was related to a groping incident that Crews described last month

Him too: The actor tweeted last month that the Harvey Weinstein scandal gave him PTSD because 'this kind of thing happened to ME'

'This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME,' Crews tweeted.

He recounted how he had been at 'a Hollywood function' in 2016 when 'a high-level Hollywood executive came over 2 me and groped my privates.'

Crews says that he jumped back and asked what the man was doing, but 'He just grinned like a jerk' at him and his wife.

Police report: Crews (right) has filed a police report claiming that a top Hollywood agent sexually assaulted him. Star agent Adam Venit, (left) the head of talent agency William Morris Endeavor's motion picture group, was later identified by Variety as the alleged groper

Venit wasn't identified in the tweets, but sources told Variety that Crews was planning to name him in recent days; Crews is managed by William Morris Endeavor (WME).

It's not clear whether the alleged groping was intended sexually, or as a deeply inappropriate prank.

Representatives for WME, Venit and Crews declined to comment to Variety.

TV star Terry Crews (seen left with wife Rebecca King Crews) said last month that he was wife his wife had a Hollywood event when an exec grabbed his crotch. The man is reportedly Adam Venit (right, with wife Trina)

Crews said he feared fighting back - despite being 6'3" and 240lbs - because he was worried he would be thrown into jail.

But even stronger was the fear that even telling anyone about it would result in the groper destroying his career.

'I decided not 2 take it further becuz I didnt want 2b ostracized par 4 the course when the predator has power n influence,' he wrote.

'I let it go. And I understand why many women who this happens to let it go.

'Whos going 2 believe you? (few) What r the repercussions?(many) Do u want 2 work again? (Yes) R you prepared 2b ostracized? (No)'.

Venit represents three people who have also recently been accused of sexual harassment or abuse: Hoffman, Ratner and Affleck.

Although he is physically imposing, Crews (seen in 2006) said he was worried about having his career crushed by his abuser. He has not confirmed whether Venit is the man in question

Dustin Hoffman was accused on Wednesday of groping and harassing a then-17-year-old actress on the set of a 1985 TV movie adaptation of Death of a Salesman.

'He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my a**, he talked about sex to me and in front of me,' Anna Graham Hunter told The Hollywood Reporter.

Upon being contacted for the story by the magazine, Hoffman responded: '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.'

Among those that Venit represents is Dustin Hoffman, who has now been accused of sexual harassment by two women in incidents from 1985 and 1991

A second claim emerged, when Wendy Riss Gatsiounis told Variety that in 1991, Hoffman had propositioned her under the pretense of wanting to adapt her play, 'A Darker Purpose.'

When she turned down his offer to let her 'explore' his body, she said, he and colleague Murray Schisgal, who wrote Hoffman's 1982 cross-dressing comedy Tootsie, dropped her play.

Hoffman declined to comment to Variety; Schisgal told Variety: 'Dustin Hoffman and I took many meetings with writers and playwrights over many years. I have no recollection of this meeting or of any of the behavior or actions described.'

Ratner, director of the critically mauled X-Men: The Last Stand also been accused of abuse, including rape, by alleged victims speaking to the LA Times on Wednesday.

Species star Natasha Henstridge said that he forced her to perform oral sex on him in the early 90s, when she was 19, while Olivia Munn said he masturbated at her on set in 2004. Four other women said he propositioned them.

Ratner 'categorically' denied the claims; his lawyer said: 'I have represented Mr Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment.

'Furthermore, no woman has ever requested or received any financial settlement from my client.'

Also represented by Venit are director Brett Ratner (left), who allegedly raped one woman and harassed others; and Casey Affleck, who is alleged to have harassed two women

On Friday, Melanie Kohler accused him on Facebook of raping her about 12 years ago when she was drunk.

Ratner is now suing her for defamation, saying the statement is 'entirely false, fabricated, and fictional', and asking for damages to be determined at trial.

Meanwhile, Golden Globe winner Casey Affleck has been accused of sexually harassing and pressuring two women while filming I'm Still Here with Joaquin Phoenix.

Both women sued, and he settled out of court with both for an undisclosed amount in 2010.

Others represented by Venit include Adam Sandler, for whom he worked out a multi-movie Netflix deal; Gal Gadot, for whom he negotiated the role of Wonder Woman, and director M Night Shymalan.

He is currently helping to put together Creed 2 for director Sylvester Stallone.
He's the Bachelorette hunk who will get a second shot at love on Bachelor in Paradise.

But on Friday, Apollo Jackson was getting ready to open for Jamaican-American artist Sean Kingston, best known for his hit song Beautiful Girls, on the Sunshine Coast.

The 24-year-old, whose real name is Jake Spence, took to Instagram to share a video of himself with his friend, DJ and producer Untold spruiking the upcoming gig at The Helm club.

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'It's going to get wild and weird... but that's what we do best!' Apollo Jackson was getting ready to open for Jamaican-American artist Sean Kingston, with his DJ pal Untold (right)

He looked very dapper in a tight-fitting black shirt with his dark, raven locks style in a trendy faux hawk.

In the caption the musician, whose own single Addiction will soon be released, wrote: 'Catch me with my main man Untold opening for Sean Kingston at The Helm Club at the beautiful Sunshine Coast tonight!!

'It's going to get wild, it's going to get weird... but that's what we do best,' he added.

Bringing Jamica to Brisbane: Sean Kingston, best known for his hit song Beautiful Girls, is set to perform at The Helm club on the Sunshine Coast on Friday

Death-defying stunt: This comes ahead of Apollo's Guinness World Record at the Comic Con and Gaming Expo in Brisbane on Saturday

The heartthrob, who is also a magician, will attempt to free himself from a regulation straitjacket while chained upside down, according to The Gold Coast Bulletin.

He will attempt to outdo the current title holder, Canadian illusionist Lucas Wilson who set the record in just 10.6 seconds, back in 2012.

More recently the hunky magician was confirmed in the cast of the first ever Bachelor In Paradise lineup, which may come as a surprise to fans who were eager for him to become the next Bachelor.

Record breaker? The heartthrob, who is also a magician, will attempt to free himself from a regulation straitjacket while chained upside down, according to The Gold Coast Bulletin

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph about his new role on Bachelor In Paradise, the professional magician said he is hoping to meet someone special after being dumped by Sophie Monk.

'My heart is still open and I'm going into this open-minded, and hoping to meet someone special,' Jackson said.

'From what I've seen of Tara, she seems like so much fun, and I can definitely see the two of us getting on,' he said.
They announced in July they are expecting their first child.

And Danny Jones and his pregnant wife Georgia certainly looked filled with excitement for their bundle of joy on Thursday evening as they hit the red carpet at the ITV Gala at the London Palladium, where he proudly showed off her bump.

The 31-year-old McFly rocker could not stop beaming as he hit the red carpet while holding on to his model wife's stomach as she perfectly displayed her neat bump in a skin-tight khaki gown while also braving staggering heels.

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Hold me close: Danny Jones and his pregnant wife Georgia certainly looked filled with excitement on Thursday evening as they hit the red carpet at the ITV Gala at the London Palladium, where he proudly showed off her bump

Danny and Georgia, who is seven and a half months pregnant, have been happily married since 2014 so it's no surprise the lovebirds are ready to start a family - news they delightedly revealed earlier this year.

At the time, the overjoyed guitarist and Voice judge told Hello! magazine: 'I think we're having a boy. I'm going to be a mess at the birth - when I find out if we have a son or a daughter, when I meet him or her.'

It is clear to see excitement is reaching fever pitch as he could not stop holding on to her bump - particularly on the red carpet where they were particularly giddy.

The blonde beauty was beaming on the red carpet as she showed off the fabled new mother glow by slicking her hair into a low ponytail.

Hold me close: The 31-year-old McFly rocker could not stop beaming as he hit the red carpet while holding on to his model wife's stomach as she perfectly displayed her neat bump in a skin-tight khaki gown while also braving staggering heels

Strutting her stuff: Danny and Georgia have been happily married since 2014 so it's no surprise the lovebirds are ready to start a family - news they delightedly revealed earlier this year

Looking slick: Looking sharp in a pinstripe tuxedo, Danny oozed edgy cool as he kept his white shirt deeply unbuttoned and his collar popped as he flew the flag for his role as a judge on The Voice which moved to ITV last year

Looking sharp in a pinstripe tuxedo, Danny oozed edgy cool as he kept his white shirt deeply unbuttoned and his collar popped as he flew the flag for his role as a judge on The Voice which moved to ITV last year.

The smitten couple have decided to keep the gender of their baby a 'big surprise' but the pop star has a feeling in his gut they are going to have a boy. They began 'casually trying' for a baby late last year as the married lovers decided it was time to start a family.

Danny added: 'At first we were shocked when it happened as we'd been casually trying but so many people have such a hard graft starting a family that we didn't expect it to happen so quickly.'

Georgia fell pregnant after just five months of trying when they were on holiday in Palm Springs in April. The Miss England beauty pageant, who is now three months pregnant, gushed about how 'emotional' as it is a dream come true for the pair.

Hold me on: Danny added: 'At first we were shocked when it happened as we'd been casually trying but so many people have such a hard graft starting a family that we didn't expect it to happen so quickly'

Danny is following suit after his bandmates Harry Judd and Tom Fletcher who are already dads. Tom and his wife Giovanna raise their two sons Buzz, three, and one-year-old Buddy together.

Danny and Georgia exchanged vows in a romantic ceremony in Georgia's hometown in Malton, North Yorkshire in 2014. They went onto enjoy a heavenly honeymoon at Naladhu Maldives and Per Aquum Niyama.

Describing the destination, the boybander wrote for MailOnline: 'If I were to die anywhere, I'd die there.'

He recently admitted he always has babies on the brain on a recent TV appearance on Lorraine. While host Lorraine Kelly questioned whether he and his model wife would be expecting anytime soon, he admitted: 'I'm always thinking about babies.'
She's used to wearing battle armour in Game Of Thrones as Brienne of Tarth and Storm Trooper garb as Captain Phasma in Star Wars.

And so Gwendoline Christie's get-up for her latest Vogue shoot was a refreshing change for the actress, 39.

And in her chat with the December issue of the British incarnation of the magazine - which is it's first issue since new editor Edward Enninful took over the famous tome - Gwendoline has admitted her relief with her androgynous casting when it comes to her sci-fi roles.

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Coming up roses! Gwendoline Christie springs up from a flower bush in a strapless red gown looking positively giddy as she features in critically-praised new-look British Vogue

'When I was taken to the top-secret wardrobe department to see my Captain Phasma costume  a shiny, full-body suit of armour  I was truly electrified,' Gwendoline told the publication of her Star Wars part.

'Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, had asked me if Id ever Googled female superheroes and proceeded to show me the results: a plethora of scantily clad, cartoon-like women, and not a whole lot else.

'The concept of a female character in a huge film like Star Wars, whose flesh we are denied from the outset, felt fresh and exciting. A suit of genderless armour for a female character shouldnt have felt new, but it did.'

On playing Brienne of Tarth she added: 'During my training, I had been told that if we were very lucky as actors, we would one day come across a character who spoke to us, where we felt a strong connection with our own self.

A refreshing change: She's used to wearing battle armour in Game Of Thrones as Brienne of Tarth [L] and Storm Trooper garb as Captain Phasma in Star Wars [R]

When I learned about the role of Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, I thought: Can this really exist in a mainstream television show?

'For me, Briennes inner vulnerability coupled with her physical and moral strength, culminating in triumph for a typically marginalised female character, was enormously appealing.

'As was the opportunity to portray a female character who possesses none of the classically beautiful attributes society worships in women; one who has an alternative, non-sexualised way of being as a female, where the pursuit of romantic love is not at her centre. She felt like a bolt of lightning.'

The actress is seen in a strapless gown, springing up from a large bush of flowers in her Vogue shoot.

Impressive: The cover for the December issue of British Vogue was unveiled yesterday and features British-Ghan model Adwoa Aboah and is the first to be edited by Edward Enninful

Tucked away in a somewhat odd location [what appeared to be an industrial alleyway] the porcelain-skin star looks giddy as she throws her arms into the air and smiles knowingly down the lens.

She wears her blonde locks in ringlets, held back by a headband, letting her pale complexion do the talking - offsetting things with a splash of rouge on her pout to match her elaborate dress.

The gown itself features a spiked detailing along the chest, adding an extra dash of drama to the head-turning look.

While the actress continues to star in Game Of Thrones, she will soon be seen in the next Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, which hits cinemas on December 15.

Taking the reigns: Naomi Campbell was seen in New York City, wearing Tom Browne, having been named Contributing Editor of British Vogue by Editor-in-Chief, Edward Enninful this year

Gwendoline is a firm-favourite of Vogue's - with her featuring during London Fashion Week in a chat about diversity.

The new editor interviewed her, alongside Amara Karan and Jasmine Saunders about what diversity means and whether being different an advantage.

The ladies talked to him about the individuals that inspired them, their advice to their younger selves and the lessons they would like to share with the next generation.

Fashion's elite have highly praised the new British Vogue editor's 'stunning' first cover - after Naomi Campbell was named Contributing Editor of British Vogue by Enninful this year.

'A new era': Cheryl has joined ranks with fashion's elite in praising new British Vogue editor Edward Enninful's 'stunning' first cover

Cheryl, 34, and her boyfriend Liam Payne, 24, dubbed the December issue starring catwalk queen Adwoa Aboah 'amazing' and the mark of a 'new era'.

They joined the likes of Victoria Beckham, Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid and Zendaya in praising Enninful's triumphant unveiling on Tuesday with gushing social media posts.

The highly-anticipated edition is the first under new editor Edward, who took over from Alexandra Shulman when she left the post in August after 25 years.

The striking Seventies-inspired cover, which was revealed tonight, features a close-up of Ghanaian-British model Adwoa in bright blue eye-shadow and a headscarf.

Impressed: Liam, who she shares six-month-old son Bear with, added: 'Amazing first edition of @britishvogue! Congratulations @edward_enninful'

Praise: The popstar, 34, and her boyfriend Liam Payne, 24, dubbed the December issue starring catwalk queen Adwoa Aboah 'amazing' and the mark of a 'new era'

It also features a list of names from the fashion industry and beyond, including supermodel Naomi Campbell, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and grime artist Skepta.

Cheryl shared a snap of the cover on Instagram and wrote: 'Sooo beautiful! @adwoaaboah!

'Congratulations @edward_enninful on your stunning first @britishvogue cover  #newera #vogue #EdwardEnninful.'

Liam, who she shares six-month-old son Bear with, added: 'Amazing first edition of @britishvogue! Congratulations @edward_enninful.'

Designer Victoria Beckham, 43, added: 'Thank you and congratulations @edward_enninful so proud to be a part of your first issue x VB.'

Gushing: Designer Victoria Beckham, 43, added: 'Thank you and congratulations @edward_enninful so proud to be a part of your first issue x VB'

Leading the praise: Victoria shared a clip of the images and campaigns in the edition - which features a piece on her and her designs

She shared a clip of the images and campaigns in the edition - which features a piece on her and her designs.

Leading the way for the supermodels was Naomi Campbell, who gushed: 'DIVINE AMAZING!! CONGRATULATIONS YES YES YES!!! #NEWVOGUE.'

Somali supermodel Iman Abdulmajid, 62, added: 'Let your reign begin! Congrats for #NewVogue.'

Leading the new generation of models, Bella Hadid, 21, penned a lengthy post in which she hailed the 'timeless radiant' cover and dubbed Edward a 'genius'.

Can't let the issue go! Bella Hadid clutched the glamorous cover in her hand as she stepped out in London

Prized possession: The 22-year-old, who celebrated her range with Maybelline on Tuesday night, seemed excited to delve into the magazine after a night of partying

'Let your reign begin': Stars like Game Of Thrones actress Gwendoline Christie and American star Zendaya showed their admiration

'This cover gives me chills. What a timeless, radiant cover my beautiful, incredible @adwoaaboah !!! Stunning and smart!!' she wrote.

'Congratulations to the genius @edward_enninful on a new era of @britishvogue what an energizing&inspiring start!!!! I can't stop staring! Completely in LOVE! Bless by #StevenMeisel #FramingThis #MASTERPIECE.'

Sudanese-Australian model Duckie Thot echoed her thoughts, writing: 'This cover is giving me the chills the way we all knew it would.

'ENNINFUL PEOPLE, KNOW THE NAME!! This is fashion, this is the New Vogue.'

Actress Zendaya, 21, agreed: 'A cover...took my breath away. Congratulations @edward_enninful what a way to start.'

Game Of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie was particularly impressed with the hotly-anticipated edition.

Excellence: Even the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan - who appears in the edition - praised the issue, declaring that it was diversity 'at its best'

'THIS IS SO AMAZING AND IM DELIGHTED TO BE INCLUDED!!!!!! Congratulations @BritishVogue #ADWOAABOAH #EDWARDENNINFUL !!!!' she wrote on Twitter.

Former Made In Chelsea star Millie mackintosh penned simply: 'loving this' while British model Poppy Delevingne wrote: 'SEN-F**KING-SATIONAL.

'Congratulations @edward_enninful on the #NewVogue @britishvogue with this insanely beautiful creature on the cover.'

Even the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan praised the edition, declaring that it was diversity 'at its best'.

'@edward_enninful showing Britain at its diverse and creative best,' he wrote on Instagram.

Taking the helm: The highly-anticipated edition is the first under Enninful, pictured last month, who took over from Alexandra Shulman when she left the post in August after 25 years

Respected: Alexandra Shulman edited British Vogue for 25 years before stepping down

'Proud to be included in his first issue of @britishvogue talking about my ambitions for Londoners and priorities for our city. And great to see Londoner @adwoaaboah on the amazing cover! #LondonIsOpen.'

Luxury footwear king Brian Attwood wrote: 'NOW This is what I am talking about!!! Congratulations @edward_enninful on your first issue of @britishvogue what a gorgeous cover!!!

'If this is any indication on what's to come.... Baby sign me up!!!! I love it.'

Edward Enninful himself said: 'The inspiring @adwoaaboah on the cover of my first edition of @Britishvogue.

Celebrating an institution: Shulman's final issue of the magazine was the iconic September issue and featured Kate Moss and up and coming models

Man of the hour: Kate Moss posed sultrily alongside Edward Enninful at a dinner held to celebrate the December issue

Looking good: Cover star Adwoa Aboah and Stella McCartney posed together in decedent black and white dresses

'The December 2017 issue is dedicated to Great Britain and the creatives who represent it at home and abroad. Welcome to the #NewVogue. Enjoy!'

Enninful was said to be planning a 'posh girl' exodus, with a view to diversify British Vogue.

Edward Enninful's fashionable rise to fame . Born in Ghana in 1973 before moving to Ladbroke Grove, London, with his seamstress mother, father and six siblings . Model scouted by Simon Foxton on a train age 16, becoming the youngest ever assistant on i-D magazine that year . Studied at Goldsmiths University alongside his modelling career . Landed a full-time job as fashion director of i-D aged 18 . Became contributing editor of Vogue Italia in 1998 . Spearheaded 'Black Issue' featuring only black models such as Jourdan Dunn and Naomi Campbell . Became American Vogue's contributing fashion editor in 2006 . Announced as fashion and style director of W Magazine in 2011 and boosted ad pages by 16 per cent in 2012 . Awarded an OBE in 2016 for his services to diversity in the fashion industry . Announced as the new editor of British Vogue on April 10 2017 Advertisement

The Ghanaian-born former stylist was announced as Shulman's replacement in April, after she chose to leave the magazine to pursue 'a different future'.

He is the first black, first male and first gay editor of the magazine, which has been running since 1916.

Adwoa Aboah, 25, poses in a striking retro-feel photograph for the magazine, which goes on sale this Friday.

The model stares into the camera lens wearing glittering eye shadow and red lisptick.

Adwoa, who is of Ghanian descent, wears her hair in a pink headscarf and dons huge silver earrings.

Next to Adwoa's picture is a list of British icons, from the worlds of fashion, politics, film, television, music and publishing.

When asked about Edward Enninful's decision to select her for the cover of Enninful's first issue, she said: 'My head's going this big.

'Being on this cover is the biggest thing that's happened in my career.

'There is this newfound love and space for activism within fashion.

'I never would have dreamt in a million years that I would have young girls coming up to me at Glastonbury or on the streets of LA, New York, London, and telling me how much GurlsTalk or seeing my picture in a magazine means to them, as a woman of colour.

'I love being a mixed-race woman in 2017. I feel part of something big. Theres this understanding that were all in it together'

Enninful's first cover looks very different to Shulman's last issue, which hit shelves in August.

The September issue was themed around Vogue's 'past, present and future', and featured models Nora Attal, Edie Campbell, Jean Campbell, Kate Moss and Stella Tennant.

See the full shoot in the December issue of British Vogue, on sale Friday.
She has had a successful year presenting hit show Love Island, before reportedly embarking on a romance with contestant Mike Thalassitis- something she later denied.

And Caroline Flack enjoyed a well-deserved night out on Thursday, attending the ITV gala at the London Palladium.

The ITV presenter, 38, cut a glamorous appearance in an LBD, before leaving with a male pal.

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Letting her hair down! Caroline Flack enjoyed a well-deserved night out on Thursday night, attending the ITV gala at the London Palladium

Cutting a glamorous appearance, Caroline slipped into a one-shouldered Grecian style dress, showing off her toned and tanned shoulders.

The thigh-skimming piece made the most of her shapely pins, elongated in a pair of pink suede block sandals.

Shielding herself against the wintry weather in a faux fur coat, she injected a splash of colour with a red Gucci bag.

She was flanked by a dapper male pal, dressed in a suave three piece suit as they left the star-studded event. MailOnline has contacted her representative for comment.

New companion: The ITV presenter, 38, cut a glamorous appearance in an LBD, before leaving with a male pal

Pals? Cutting a glamorous appearance, Caroline slipped into a one-shouldered Grecian style dress, showing off her toned and tanned shoulders

Turning heads! She was flanked by a dapper mystery man, dressed in a suave three piece suit as they left the star-studded event

Her exit came as she joined a plethora of glamour pusses taking to the red carpet in black cocktail dresses.

But Holly Willoughby proved she can nail red carpet glamour too, looking showstopping in a plunging tuxedo-style gown as she stormed the star-studded ITV Gala at the London Palladium on Thursday evening.

The presenter, 38, faced some stiff competition in the sartorial stakes from Coronation Street star Kym Marsh and TOWIE's Chloe Sims at the glittering bash.

Battle of the monochrome mavens: Holly Willoughby stunned in a plunging tuxedo-style gown as she joined Caroline Flack, Chloe Sims and Kym Marsh at the star-studded ITV Gala at the London Palladium on Thursday evening

Willoughby certainly took centre-stage in her sultry look, showcased her incredible cleavage in the daringly revealing gown, which featured a racy thigh-split.

Looking every inch the smouldering Bond girl, the 36-year-old This Morning presenter added height with a chic pair of black barely-there heels.

Styling her glossy golden tresses in polished waves that effortlessly framed her striking features, the mum-of-three channeled 1940s glamour with her high-octane glamorous styling.

Joining her was Caroline Flack, who put her ultra-bronzed limbs on display in the thigh-grazing minidress, which featured chic Grecian-style pleating detail.

Sizzling: Holly showcased her incredible cleavage in a plunging black tuxedo-style gown, which featured a racy thigh-split

Ready for her close-up: Styling her glossy golden tresses in polished waves that effortlessly framed her striking features, the mum-of-three channeled 1940s glamour with her high-octane styling

Killer footwear: Looking every inch the smouldering Bond girl, the 36-year-old This Morning presenter added height with a chic pair of black barely-there heels

Having a whale of a time! Holly erupted into hysterics as she greeted presenter Alison Hammond, who caught the eye in a vibrant blue floral gown

Come here, you! The pair beamed as they wrapped their arms around each other in a warm embrace

Sultry! The racy tailored design also featured a perilously plunging neckline that drew attention to Holly's bust

Commanding attention: Holly accessorised her sharply tailored dress with dazzling diamond drop earrings and a sparkling bangle

Cinching in her tiny waist thanks to the structured drape, the sexy LBD flashed a peek of her cleavage but maintained her modesty thanks to the one-shoulder neckline.

Injecting a dose of colour to the monochrome look, Flack boosted her height with a retro pair of dusky pink velvet platforms with a block heel.

Styling her glossy chestnut-hued tresses in polished waves, the brunette beauty framed her striking eyes with plenty of iridescent shimmer and plumped her pout with taupe lipstick.

Legs for days: Caroline looked chic in a one-shoulder minidress as she joined Emmerdale star Amy Walsh (C) at the bash

Looking good: Caroline put her ultra-bronzed limbs on display in the thigh-grazing minidress, which featured chic Grecian-style pleating detail

Taking centre-stage: Cinching in her tiny waist thanks to the structured drape, the sexy LBD flashed a peek of her cleavage but maintained her modesty thanks to the one-shoulder neckline

Preened to perfection: Styling her glossy chestnut-hued tresses in polished waves, the brunette beauty framed her striking eyes with plenty of iridescent shimmer and plumped her pout with taupe lipstick

Firm friends! Caroline giggles as she wrapped an arm around Love Island voiceover hunk Iain Stirling, who paired his checked suit with edgy trainers

All-in-one delight: Kym Marsh, 41, looked incredible in a slinky black jumpsuit with a chic Bardot neckline

Glamorous: The Coronation Street star completed her chic figure-hugging look with black barely there heels and a tasseled velvet clutch

Windows to the soul: The mother-of-four framed her hazel eyes with dramatic false lashes and iridescent metallic shimmer

Meanwhile the TOWIE girls ensured all eyes were on them as they attended the star-studded gala.

Commanding attention among her co-stars had been Chloe Sims, 35, who made for a VERY eye-popping display, as she showcased her more than ample bust while appearing to go braless underneath her statement red carpet gown.

Blonde beauty Chloe sizzled in her plunging design that sheathed her svelte hour-glass frame and made sure to emphasise the reality star's slender waist, along with her busty cleavage.

Taking the plunge! Chloe Sims, 35 made for a VERY eye-popping display as she showcased her more than ample bust at the gala

Stunning: Blonde beauty Chloe sizzled in her plunging design that sheathed her svelte hour-glass frame and made sure to emphasise the reality star's slender waist, along with her cleavage

Glamorous: She sported immaculate make-up look that saw her sport a smouldering smokey eye, bronzer swept cheeks and a slick of nude lipstick across her lips

Head-turner: The starlet's gown billowed out around her legs and left a long dramatic train that sprawled out behind Chloe as she made her way along the red carpet

The Price is right! Katie Price took centre-stage in a slinky black shirt-dress, injecting a quirk edge to her look thanks to some pale pink fur-trim heels

Katie has spoken: The mum-of-five flashed a sultry pout as she posed up a storm on the red carpet

Hard to miss: With a cinched waistline the striking outfit drew attention to her curvaceous figure, while its short detail ensured her bronzed legs were on full display

Choosing to ditch her lingerie underneath, Chloe left little to the imagination as she left her bust firmly on view, thanks to the sheer panel of her gown that left most of her chest exposed.

The starlet's gown billowed out around her legs and left a long dramatic train that sprawled out behind Chloe as she made her way along the red carpet to join her co-stars at the annual bash.

It also included statement gold chain detailing that fell down the back of the gown from the neck.

Think pink: Nicole Scherzinger flaunted her enviably svelte frame in a scarlet red pencil skirt teamed with a bubblegum pink scoop neck sweater

Stealing the show: The X Factor judge looked incredible in her colour-block ensemble, which she complemented with minimal make-up and a dramatic topknot

Growing bump: Sam Faiers, 26, flaunted her growing baby bump in a tight fitted gown as strutted her stuff on the red carpet of the ITV Gala on Thursday evening

Blonde beauty: With her tresses tied in an elegant updo, the blonde-locked beauty looked sensational as she stood on silver sandal heels

Flashy pair: The 26-year-old arrived arm-in-arm with longtime boyfriend Paul Knightley as the pair put on a glamorous display

The GC has arrived! Gemma Collins amped up the glamour with a plunging sequin gown with a racy thigh split and sexy sheer inserts

Excuse me a moment: The TOWIE star, 36, looked a tad unimpressed as she waited while an assistant adjusted the skirt of her floor-sweeping gown

No bad blood here! Gemma reunited with ex-beau Arg on the red carpet, proving things are still amicable between them despite him recently rejecting her

Back to square one? Despite insisting she was moving on from her old beau, Gemma seemed to be pretty chuffed by his affection

Still wanting that candy? Although it seemed there could be unfinished between the pair judging by their latest display

Causing a stir! Ex-flames James and Gemma Collins, 36 were seen putting on an amorous display at the ITV Gala - with the Essex boy leaning in to kiss his former girlfriend

Beaut: Gemma paired her glam attire with statement tasseled earrings and a dramatic berry red lip

Following suit had been Chloe's BFF Lauren Pope, who fans recently saw return to TOWIE as a full-time cast member following her departure from the ITVBe series two years ago, back in 2015.

Her return to the show had followed her short-lived romance with co-star Jon Clark, which despite starting out well came to a crashing end as the series wrapped.

Also appearing to get the busty memo had been Chloe Meadows and her best friend Courtney Green.

Gorgeous: TOWIE's leading ladies made sure to bring a touch of Essex glamour to the event, including returning star Lauren Pope

Gorgeous! Following suit had been Chloe's BFF Lauren Pope, who fans recently saw return to TOWIE as a full-time cast member following her departure from the ITVBe series two years ago

Near miss: She managed to narrowly avoid an awkward run-in with a glam Megan McKenna (above) amid their ongoing feud

Siren: Megan looked simply stunning in a monochrome gown that boasted a sleek skirt, complete with a dramatic train, and a sheer lace bodice

Going it alone: She was noticeably absent from the rest of the TOWIE cast, no doubt keen to keep Chloe at arms length, following their fallout

Drama: She accused Megan of 'burning bridges' before her exit and said: 'It's a cowardly thing to do because she should have seen the series out and tried to make amends, so she could leave on a more positive note'

Chloe slipped into a plunging purple mini dress that featured a sheer hem that saw high up on her thigh. It's low-cut design teased a look at her cleavage along with her black lingerie underneath and the blonde beauty added extra height to her ensemble in a pair of barely-there black heels.

She wore her locks down in a poker straight style and toted her evening's essentials in a complementing envelope clutch.

Courtney, meanwhile, favoured a tailored look, as she was clad in a nude pink blazer dress that came complete with a metallic belt around her waist. She favoured muted accessories to complement her outfit choice and wore her brunette locks in a perfectly blow-dried style that tumbled past her shoulders.

Sex kitten: Pixie Lott showcased her typically quirky style in a lace bustier tucked into tapered jacquard trousers, which she teamed with gold caged heels

Smouldering: The 26-year-old Mama Do hitmaker framed her eyes with smoky shadow and lashings of mascara and plumped her pout with a slick of nude lipstick

Living under her spotlight: Popstar Jennifer Hudson, 36, opted for a chic black gown with a sheer hem and chic inserts at the neckline

The Voice judges unite! Pixie mingled with McFly star Danny Jones, who she shares the Voice Kids judging panel with, and The Voice UK judges Jennifer and Olly Murs as well as host Emma Willis

Striking: Maya Jama showed off her incredible physique in a tight-fitted scarlet gown as she graced the red carpet

Looking good: Her glamorous displays have become something of a recurring theme

Hollywood glamour: Maya opted for Hollywood glamour as she wore rouge lipstick and added a pop of shimmer to eyes

Brunette beauty: The presenter - of Somali and Swedish heritage - slicked her locks in a low classic ponytail, giving room for her strikingly beautiful facial features

Meanwhile Amy Walsh, who is the younger sister of Girls Aloud star, stole the limelight in a scarlet Bardot minidress, which featured a romantic sweetheart neckline.

Channeling Old Hollywood glamour, the Emmerdale star, 30, styled her glossy blonde locks in polished waves and complimented her dress with a slick of pillarbox-red lipstick.

Holly Willoughby's evening seemed to get better after a day on This Morning that didn't go quite as smoothly, as her 'secret location' with Phillip Shofield, 55, was exposed mid-broadcast by the voice over man.

Siren: Glamour model Jessica Shears, 24, showcased her incredible curves in a skintight dove-grey gown, which she teamed with snake-print heeled sandals

Happy together: The former wrestler flashed a sultry pose as she cosied up to her Love Island beau Dom Lever, who she lives with and got recently engaged to

There they are! Series favourites Camilla Thurlow, 29, and her model boyfriend Jamie Jewitt, 27, looked as smitten as ever as they snuggled up on the red carpet

Ultra-glamour: Love Island winner Amber Davies, 21, flaunted her enviably svelte frame in a one-shoulder gown with a chic studded belt and thigh-split

Beating the blues: Fellow contestant Montana Brown, 22, flashed a peek of her decolletage in a showstopping strapless cobalt velvet gown with a perilously plunging thigh split

Turning heads: The reality star turned presenter looked incredible on the night, styling her dark tresses in tumbling waves and framing her eyes with dramatic winged liner

Lovely in lace: Olivia Attwood, 26, showcased her statuesque frame in a skintight ivory jumpsuit, flashing her bra thanks to the semi-sheer neckline

Cute couple: The Surrey native looked incredible as she cosied up to her Love Island boyfriend Chris Hughes, who sported an alarming printed suit

Are they a thing now? Love Island lothario Mike Thalassitis looked dapper in a double-breasted blazer as he arrived with his date for the night, co-star and glamour model Danielle Sellers

Cream of the crop: Chloe Crowhurst flashed a peek of her taut abs in an embellished cobalt crop top teamed with a matching thigh-split maxi skirt

Dressed in high-visibility vests and helmets, the popular presenting duo teased their location as they were broadcast on live TV.

They were pictured climbing 334 stairs, and then a further flight of stairs before they asked viewers to guess where they were.

But the surprise was awkwardly ruined by the voiceover man, who bellowed the show was 'live from Big Ben', as they cut to the break.

Going dotty! Rochelle Humes stunned in a semi-sheer black gown featuring decadent gold polka dots and a Victoriana-style ruffled bodice

Going strong: She was joined by her handsome husband of five years, Marvin, who she shares four-year-old daughter Alaia-Mai with

Revealing! Also appearing to get the busty memo had been Chloe Meadows, as she slipped into a plunging purple mini dress that featured a sheer hem that saw high up on her thigh

Stylish: Courtney Green, meanwhile, favoured a tailored look, as she was clad in a nude pink blazer dress that came complete with a metallic belt around her waist

Red carpet beauties! She and Chloe appeared to put the ongoing drama between their boyfriends, as seen on TOWIE, behind them, as they cuddled up together on the red carpet with Chloe Sims and Lauren

Full house: They joined a slew of show's stars including Bobby Norris, Dan Edgar, James Argent, Diags and Gatsby (L-R)

Budding Bobby: Bobby Norris certainly made a style statement in his tapered floral suit with studded patent brogues

And once back from the break, Holly couldn't hide her excitement as they filmed from behind the clock's face.

'Look where we are,' she gushed. 'We are coming to you live from the clock face of Big Ben. How incredible is that.'

Phil added: 'I can't believe where this show takes us,' as they witnessed the bells' chiming in preparation for Remembrance Sunday.

Suited and booted: Irish TV presenter Laura Whitmore, 32, looked chic in a navy tapered suit and towering platfor

Ruffling a few feathers: Lisa Snowdon stunned in a strapless tasseled gown which she teamed with gold barely there heels

Snow White: Hollyoaks babe Stephanie Waring, 36, made a glamorous arrival in a stunning white ball gown

Scarlet siren: Meanwhile Amy Walsh, who is the younger sister of Girls Aloud star, stole the limelight in a scarlet Bardot minidress, which featured a romantic sweetheart neckline

Double trouble: The 30-year-old star beamed as she cosied up to fellow Emmerdale star Michelle Hardwick at the bash

Dapper: Joining Holly Willoughby at the ITV gala was her This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield
She's famed for her unique style and effortless beauty.

And Kate Moss, 43, looked casual and natural as she braved the autumnal temperatures in London on Thursday morning in a baby blue coat and trendy large beige scarf.

The legendary supermodel shunned her rock 'n' roll lifestyle as she clutched a mug - but she did have her trademark cigarette still in hand as she made her way into her chauffeur driven Mercedes.

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Not so rock 'n' roll now! Supermodel Kate Moss sipped on a hot beverage and kept warm in a blue furry coat and a snug scarf as she headed out in London on Thursday

Despite the early morning crisp weather Kate's clear complexion looked luminous.

The catwalk queen's blonde hair looked soft and silky with loose strands escaping from her fashionable knot hairstyle.

The timeless beauty had clear nails and minimal jewellery except for THAT vintage style rock on her engagement finger, following rumours she is set to tie the knot a second time.

Coffee and cigarettes : Kate looked naturally beautiful with her blonde locks fashioned up in an elegant chignon

Kate has not been pictured with Nikolai for a while but has spoken in the past about how he and her daughter Lila Grace, 14, share the same taste in jewellery.

Speaking in an interview with the Telegraph Magazine back in July the model said: 'I can steal his jewellery; he doesnt steal mine.'

Her younger lover Nikolai is currently on a detox treatment in the America.

The style icon has been modeling for 30 years now and is still very much in demand as a top model in the industry.

The blonde beauty has been gracing global catwalks and city billboards every since she was discovered at New Yorks JFK airport when she was 14 by Sarah Doukas, founder of Storm Models management.

As the face of Calvin Klein underwear at the tender age of 17, Kate has been modelling ever since.
She's the Bachelorette beauty who was known for her talent of fire dancing.

And on Friday, Elora Murger showcased her eclectic and diverse taste in fashion with three outfit changes at the Maxim Hot 100 red carpet in Potts Point, Sydney.

The 28-year-old made a bold entrance at the Flamingo Lounge in a racy, high-cut black leotard with fish net stockings and a deep V-neck drew attention to her ample cleavage.

Can't make up her mind? Elora Murger showcased her eclectic and diverse taste in fashion with three outfit changes at the Maxim Hot 100 red carpet in Potts Point, Sydney

Her saucy look was part of her outfit for her fire dance performance at the event.

She dazzled guests with her sultry moves on the red carpet and posed for the cameras, showing off her curvy figure.

After impressing guests, the fitness trainer changed into her second ensemble for the evening, a slinky gold dress with cut outs on both sides of her waist and a belt.

The shimmery, full-length, halterneck gown brought out her glowy bronzed tan and matched the look with a pair of beige heels.

Fire dance look: She dazzled guests with her sultry moves on the red carpet and posed for the cameras, showing off her curvy figure

Elegant: After impressing guests, the fitness trainer changed into her second ensemble for the evening, a slinky gold dress with cut outs on both sides of her waist and a belt

She kept her luscious brunette ombre locks down for her golden look.

Elora clearly wanted to make sure the cameras got every angle of her in the frock and turned around to flaunt the bejewelled detailing on the back and her pert posterior.

While her stunning gold frock would have sufficed for the rest of the event's festivities, she clearly was not satisfied and changed a third time.

The Tahitian beauty returned to the red carpet to show off her final look for the evening, a white dress with light blue and purple tie dye print.

Shimmery: Elora clearly wanted to make sure the cameras got every angle of her in the frock and turned around to flaunt the bejewelled detailing on the back and her pert posterior

Third change: The Tahitian beauty returned to the red carpet to show off her final look for the evening, a white dress with light blue and purple tie dye print.

Her frock featured a cropped top that held her ample assets in place and a maxi skirt with a very long train and a thigh split.

In an effort to save time changing from one outfit to another, she styled her luscious hair in the exact same flowy style as the previous outfit and wore the same beige heels.

Elora recently revealed to Daily Mail Australia that she still hasn't spoken to Matty J since he dumped her on The Bachelor, but still keeps in touch with the winner Laura.

'Nope I haven't not at all. I have with Laura but not him,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'He looks happy so it's good to see what he is up to.'
The name Harvey Weinstein is now synonymous with unsavoury behaviour after the rape and sexual assault allegations made against the media mogul this year.

And speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Athena X Levendi weighed in with her thoughts on this type of behaviour Down Under.

The Real Housewives of Sydney star claimed she was too 'nerdy' to have personally experienced any sexual harassment during her time in the Australian TV industry but admitted any unwanted passes wouldn't be well-received.

'I'm a complete nerd': In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein (right) scandal, Real Housewives of Sydney star Athena X Levendi (left) said she doesn't give off the right 'vibes' to be hit on those type of men in the Australian TV industry

'I'm a complete nerd and I probably give off those vibes that 'oh she's a nerd, she won't say yes. No one's really made a pass at me yet,' Athena said.

'I'm sure if someone did, I'd probably just deck them.'

The reality star added that she found it upsetting when people who are behaving badly are protected by others.

'It's pretty sad that sh*tty people when they have power, other sh*tty people applaud them and everybody just stays quiet,' Athena, who rose to fame as a cast member of the feisty Foxtel show, said.

Reality stars! Athena shot to fame as a cast member of Real Housewives of Sydney

She also wasn't shy when it came to spilling her thoughts on her fellow Housewives, which included Victoria Rees, Lisa Oldfield, Krissy Marsh, Matty Samaei, Melissa Tkautz and Nicole O'Neil.

In season one of RHOS, Athena was part of a vicious feud with co-star Victoria and later reportedly threatened to 'f**king smash' her at the show's reunion.

Feisty feud: Athena (left) clashed with Victoria Rees (right) on the show and confessed the pair hadn't kept in close contact since filming wrapped.

And Athena told Daily Mail Australia that the pair hadn't kept in close contact since filming wrapped.

'You can't like someone if they keep calling you nasty and they keep trying to make out like you're a bad person and shutting you down and insulting you or embarrassing you,' she explained of their clashes.

Noting her 'nasty' portrayal on-screen, Athena also questioned whether she was as mean as she could sometimes appear.

'How can one person be the villain when there's four against one? I gave as good as I got because it's survival,' she said.

'I gave as good as I got because it's survival': Athena hit back at her portrayal as a 'villain'

While Athena got along relatively well with Lisa, she said that the brunette's post-sex selfie with her former politician husband David Oldfield was something she'd 'never do'.

'I think that Lisa loves to shock. I think that maybe she thought that that was something that she wanted to share with her fans and I think that David made her bring it down once she found out what she had just done,' Athena laughed.

'For me, I would probably never do something like that. It's just my Greek Orthodox upbringing and I just think some things just shouldn't be shared.'

Real Housewives of Sydney season one is released on DVD from November 15.
News / National

by Africanews

BOTSWANA president Ian Khama has announced plans to step down at the end of his term in April next year.Khama announced the decision in a State of the Nation address on Monday where he said he will leave the country in the hands of his deputy Mokgweetsi Masisi until the elections in 2019."Five months from now I shall be passing on the baton of leadership of this great country into the very capable hands of VP Mokgweetsi Masisi. While we will undoubtedly continue to confront significant challenges, when we place the interests of Botswana first we shall find the strength to overcome all obstacles," he said.Khama succeeded former president Festus Mogae in 2008 after serving as vice-president since 1998. He was elected for a full five-year term in 2009 and re-elected in 2014 for his final second term.The former military commander will also be replaced as the leader of the Botswana Democratic Party by his vice-president who was elected in July to lead the ruling party.
She's controversial model known for her daring and unconventional fashion choices.

But on Friday, Imogen Anthony opted for a busty yet relatively conservative look at the Maxim Hot 100 Party at the Flamingo Lounge in Sydney's Potts Point.

The 26-year-old led the red carpet arrivals in an all-black ensemble made of a corset top that hinted at her ample assets and a pair of pants that covered her pointy black heels.

Beauty in black! On Friday, model Imogen Anthony opted for a busty yet relatively conservative look at the Maxim Hot 100 Party at the Flamingo Lounge in Sydney's Potts Point

She teamed the look with a long shawl and completed the outfit with a hat, similar to that worn by the late slapstick comedian Charlie Chaplin.

For her makeup, the platinum blonde beauty went for dramatic eye look with lashings of mascara, bold cat eyeliner and red lipstick to accentuate her plump pout.

Once inside the event, the girlfriend of shock jock Kyle Sandilands appeared to be a little more at ease - even blowing a kiss to the camera.

A little more conservative: She teamed the look with a long shoal and completed the outfit with a hat, similar to that worn by the late slapstick comedian Charlie Chaplin

Hey there! Once inside the event, the girlfriend of shock jock Kyle Sandilands appeared to be a little more at ease even blowing a kiss to the camera
She revealed her husband James calls her a 'Chunky Monkey' if she gains weight.

Yet Ola Jordan proved there is nothing chunky about her as she went totally naked for a sizzling shot in her 2018 calendar shoot, in which she posed on her knees while protecting her modesty with her folded arms.

The 35-year-old former Strictly Come Dancing star looked incredible as she flaunted her dancer's physique in her nude shot which joins a host of sexy images taken from the calendar - which will undoubtedly prove to be a fan favourite.

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Cheeky! Ola Jordan proved there is nothing chunky about her as she went totally naked for a sizzling shot in her 2018 calendar shoot, in which she posed on her knees while protecting her modesty with her folded arms

Ola is well-versed in saucy snaps yet this may be her sexiest to date as she opted to go totally naked while posing on a beach in sunnier climes.

To keep her look fresh and stunning, she slicked her blonde locks back behind her ears to ensure her striking good looks were on full display.

While she was certainly clad in make-up, her expert glam squad seemed to have worked overtime to ensure she got the most natural look.

Ola has always been candid about showing off her body, as well as discussing her figure and her and James' sex life.

Loved-up: She revealed her husband James calls her a 'Chunky Monkey' if she gains weight

When it comes to keeping the spark alive James and Ola previously explained brutal honesty is the best policy - revealing the truth has provided their marriage with a solid foundation for success.

Speaking to new! magazine, the former Strictly professional explained the secret to her happy relationship was simple, saying: 'We're not afraid to say things to each other. We're honest.'

And the honesty that Ola and her husband abide by appears to have helped them no end - even with the prickly subject of weight.

Sizzling: Speaking to new! magazine, the former Strictly professional explained the secret to her happy relationship was simple, saying: 'We're not afraid to say things to each other. We're honest'

Following her exit from Strictly and a nasty accident on series two of The Jump, Ola was forced to rest and recuperate, but had to dismiss pregnancy rumours after piling on the pounds.

But following ten years on Strictly, putting her body firmly in the limelight, the dancer admitted she was used to the 'criticism' over her looks.

Speaking of the attention her fuller figure recevied, Ola explained: 'I had to tell people I wasn't pregnant, I was fat!'

Smouldering: Following her exit from Strictly and a nasty accident on series two of The Jump, Ola was forced to rest and recuperate, but had to dismiss pregnancy rumours after piling on the pounds

However she admitted although she's used to her weight and looks coming under scrutiny, she found it difficult to to deal with the scrutiny following her accident.

And James was no exception, as he explained he was the first to encourage his wife to lose weight before her last appearance on Strictly - with the outspoken dancer referring to Ola as a 'chunky monkey'.

However the pokes and prods about her extra pounds came from a good place, as Ola explained her husband knows she is always happier when she cuts a 'trimmer' figure.
She recently insisted she will never complain about her boobs and curves.

And Hayley Atwell flaunted exactly what she does not complain about when she appeared in the 2013 Black Mirror episode Be Right Back, in which her character has sex with a robot taking the form of her late boyfriend.

The 35-year-old actress showed off her sensational frame in the unearthed shots after making her professions about her body and her confidence.

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Sizzling: Hayley Atwell flaunted exactly what she does not complain about when she appeared in the 2013 Black Mirror episode Be Right Back, in which her character has sex with a robot taking the form of her late boyfriend

In the sci-fi series, written by Charlie Brooker, Hayley stars as brokenhearted Martha, a woman whose boyfriend Ash, played by the Harry Potter star, is killed in a car accident.

While mourning him, she discovers artificial intelligence which could allow her to communicate with him, which she is reluctant to use, yet eventually goes ahead.

In one particularly saucy scene, she strips down to her bra and is seen getting close to Ash, who is stoic and robotic despite looking just like her late partner.

Oozing confidence in the scene, Hayley said just days before: 'I know I've got curves and big boobs and I'm never, ever going to complain about that. It's simply that most other actresses are really, stupidly tiny.

Lost love: The 35-year-old actress showed off her sensational frame in the unearthed shots after making her professions about her body and her confidence

Robotic: While mourning him, she discovers artificial intelligence which could allow her to communicate with him, which she is reluctant to use, yet eventually goes ahead

Ahem: The star is seen to grow intimate with her ex-partner who is in fact a robot

'When I meet some of them, I can't believe it. Plus I love how expressive my body is. I've always been a big believer in what you don't see being much sexier than what you do.'

Hot on the heels of the Black Mirror throwback, Hayley was also seen in 2010 miniseries The Pillars Of The Earth, Hayley was seen romping passionately with Eddie Redmayne between the sheets.

Hayley's character Aliena throws her head back in ecstasy as Eddie's Jack makes love to her by candlelight in the historical series that originally aired seven years ago.

Doing the rounds: Hayley looked sensational in a blue jumpsuit as she appeared at BBC Radio 2 studios on Friday evening

Steamy: Hayley engages in X-RATED sex scene with Eddie Redmayne in throwback to 201O series

Raunchy: A re-emerged throwback to 2010 miniseries The Pillars Of The Earth has shown Hayley in a very steamy clinch

The miniseries - that is centred around the 1989 novel of the same name - was about on the construction of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge during a tumultuous period of English history known as The Anarchy in the 12th century.

Hayley recently revealed shocking details about her horrific time at the hands of school bullies, who made constant nasty comments about her weight, as well as admitting she was bodyshamed by an unnamed producer.

The actress told The Sun about her difficult time at school ahead of the premiere of her period drama Howard's End this weekend.

Hayley revealed that bullies used to call her 'Hayley Fatwell', but that she feels she's had the last laugh as her curvaceous figure is nothing to be ashamed of.

Saucy: Hayley is seen romping passionately with Eddie Redmayne in the raunchy clip

Lovers: It seems that the show often became X-Rated, going by the saucy stills of the actors in action

The screen starlet added that she combatted her peers nasty comments by being 'empathetic' towards them, though she still tries to avoid thinking about seeing them again.

Hayley added that she would try and see if her peers had any other issues as to why they were bullying her, and had thought over what she would say to one of the bullies should she encounter them again.

The star also made the shocking revelation that she was similarly mocked by an unnamed producer. She claimed he told her: 'You look like a fat pig on screen. Stop eating so much.'

Moving on: The screen starlet added that she combatted her peers nasty comments by being 'empathetic' towards them, though she still tries to avoid thinking about seeing them again

Hayley is set to star in the adaptation of the 1910 E.M. Forster novel, which documents 'The social and class divisions in early 20th century England through the intersection of three families - the wealthy Wilcoxes, the gentle and idealistic Schlegels and the lower-middle class Basts,' according to IMDB.

Other actors who will appear in the drama include Matthew Macfadyen, Joe Bannister and Tracey Ullman.

The classic novel has previously been adapted into a 1992 film, which won Emma Thompson an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Fabulous: The British screen star will next appear in the four-part adaptation of the E. M. Forster novel Howard's End, which will air this Sunday on BBC One
She revealed that her baby daughter is to go by the name Sunday - after welcoming her to the world last week.

And Ferne McCann, 27, looked the vision of happiness as she stepped out of her house for the first time since giving birth on Friday, taking the newborn out and about in her carrier.

Ferne - who shares her newborn with ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins, 25, who is currently on trial for his participation in an acid attack in a London club - showcased a natural glow as she left the house with the grin on her face.

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She's a natural: Ex-TOWIE star Ferne McCann looks glowing as she steps out with newborn daughter Sunday for the FIRST time in Essex

The reality star - who came third two years ago in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! - sported a light dusting of make-up and wore her brunette locks loosely around her shoulders.

She threw on a loose-fitting white top, that still managed to show off the TV personality's flat post-baby tummy, adding a black jacket over it with a furry hood.

She wore skinny black trousers and studded black boots with buckles along them.

Proud: Ferne, 27, looked the vision of happiness as she stepped out of her house for the first time on Friday, taking the newborn out and about in her carrier

New mum: She revealed that her baby daughter is to go by the name Sunday - after welcoming her to the world last week

(Sun)day out: Ferne casually carried Sunday in her baby seat out of the house, looking far from a tired and like a natural new mum

Pride and joy: Ferne - who shares her newborn with ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins, 25, who is currently on trial for his participation in an acid attack in a London club - showcased a natural glow as she left the house with the grin on her face

Out and about: The reality star - who came third two years ago in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! - sported a light dusting of make-up and wore her brunette locks loosely around her shoulders

Casual: She threw on a loose-fitting white top, that still managed to show off the TV personality's flat post-baby tummy

Ferne casually carried Sunday in her baby seat out of the house, looking far from a tired and like a natural new mum.

She unveiled the name of her bundle of joy on Instagram on Sunday.

'I thought today would be the perfect day to tell you all her name...meet Sunday,' the former TOWIE star captioned the sweep snap, which was met with a mixed response from her fans.

New arrival: Taking to Instagram last Thursday, the reality starlet revealed she had welcomed a daughter a week before her due date as she shared a first snap of the newborn

Looking good: Ferne looked happy and healthy as she left the house with Sunday

The perfect accessory: Ferne wore a gold medallion around her neck

She wrote: 'Welcome to the world my darling. Didnt expect to see you a week early. Im so in love & bursting with pride. Its a girl [sic]'

The lovely snap saw Ferne planting a kiss on her little girl's head as she got cosy on a chair.

With her hair tied up into a high ponytail and donning a plunging grey top and legging, Ferne proved to be in mummy mode as she doted over sweet Sunday.

While she appropriately announced her daughter's name on a Sunday, for further impact Ferne also had bunting with her name spelled out above her name.

Her name, inspired by the last day of the week, caused a strong mixed reaction on social media - with many praising it while others weren't too sure.

'Meet Sunday' Ferne unveiled the name of her baby girl after giving birth to her first child last week

Exes: The former TOWIE star, 27, shares the child with her ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins, who is currently on trial for his participation in an acid attack in a London club

'Beautiful name': The sweep snap was met with a mixed response from her fans. Many left praising comments under the snap

'I feel sorry for the baby': However, others expressed that they weren't too fond of the name

Baby love: On Thursday, Ferne revealed in an Instagram post that she has welcomed her first child. She shares her baby girl with ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins

Taking to Instagram on Thursday, the reality starlet revealed she had welcomed a daughter a week before her due date as she shared a first snap of the newborn.

She wrote: 'Welcome to the world my darling. Didnt expect to see you a week early. Im so in love & bursting with pride. Its a girl [sic].'

Ferne first confirmed she was pregnant with Arthur's child in April, two days after he was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the acid attack.

Arthur was arrested and charged with 14 counts of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and one count of throwing corrosive fluid on a person with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Bumping along: Ferne first confirmed she was pregnant with Arthur's child in April, two days after he was arrested on suspicion of carrying out the acid attack

He is currently standing trial alongside Andre Phoenix, 21, for the alleged acid attack where more than a dozen people were injured at the Mangle E8 nightclub in Dalston, east London, on April 17.

Arthur admits to throwing the acid but claims he had snatched the bottle out of another man's hand and threw it, believing he planned to spike someone else's drink.

He was arrested several days after the incident hiding in an unfurnished flat in Northamptonshire.

Arthur denies five counts of grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent and nine counts of actual bodily harm (ABH) against 14 people. Andre denies four counts of GBH and two counts of ABH.

Tough times: Arthur was arrested and charged with 14 counts of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and one count of throwing corrosive fluid on a person with intent to do grievous bodily harm

Ferne and Arthur dated over the summer of 2016 but split before rekindling their romance in March this year.

The reality star called an end to their relationship a month later after learning of the acid attack, but just days before had admitted she wanted to marry him and revealed that they had already been discussing their future wedding.

She previously revealed she was 'initially shocked' by her pregnancy, and was 'devastated' by the events that had unfolded with her former flame.

Shocked: Ferne previously revealed that she was 'initially shocked' by her pregnancy, and admitted she was 'devastated' by the events that had unfolded with her former flame but vowed to do the best for her baby

Congrats! Her former TOWIE co-star Gemma Collins rushed to send well wishes on social media

Happy days: Her I'm A Celeb jungle pal Vicky Pattison also gushed over the baby, penning: 'his is the best news I've had in AGES!! My beautiful friend @fernemccann has had her baby girl!! My darlin, I am beyond happy for you! So much love gorgeous! Can't wait to meet the princess!'

Speaking to OK! magazine, she divulged: 'Initially I was devastated. What I had planned and was getting excited about had disappeared in a matter of moments.

'It was so hard to deal with what happened, but then I realised it was not about me but about my child. Ill do my best for my baby.

Admitting it had been a harrowing time for her, Ferne explained that her hormones had added to her emotional state, as she said: 'There are times I feel emotional.

'Not in a negative way, like I'm feeling really sad, but my hormones are all over the place. But I never feel lonely as I have my baby.

'I thoroughly intend to bring up my baby as a single mum like many other women have done in the past. And I will do my best for this baby as a single mum.'

Independent: Ferne revealed that she does not want to be labelled a 'single mum' and explained that she was feeling stronger than ever in the lead up to the birth

She later told the publication that she does not want to be labelled a 'single mum', however, as she explained that she was feeling stronger than ever in the lead up to the birth.

Ferne declared: 'Im being strong because I have to think about my baby. The whole process of being pregnant has made me a much stronger person.

'They say what doesnt kill you makes you stronger and it really is true. I feel like Ive developed a new armour this year.

'I dont like the term single mum and I dont want to be addressed as that because I dont think you should be labelled. To me, Im going to be a mum like anyone else, but just in a different situation. It shouldnt define you.

Split: Ferne and Arthur dated over the summer of 2016 but split before rekindling their romance in March this year. The reality star called an end to their relationship after learning of the acid attack

'But yes, I have done this whole pregnancy on my own, but at the same time Im so not alone  Ive got such a great support network with my mum, sister and friends Ive not felt alone or been alone once during this pregnancy.

When Ferne announced her pregnancy, two days after Arthur was arrested, she explained she was going to do all she could to have a 'healthy and happy child'.

She told MailOnline: '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,' her statement read.

'Her thoughts are with the victims of the horrific attack on Easter Monday.'
Louis CK is one of a string of Hollywood stars who have recently been accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour towards women.

And in light of the claims, Offspring star Eddie Perfect has publicly slammed the star.

On Friday, the 39-year-old actor told The Project he was 'upset and angry' about the accusations and could no longer be a Louis CK fan.

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'I'm upset and angry': Speaking to The Project on Friday Eddie Perfect (pictured) slammed comedian Louis C.K. after sexual misconduct claims emerged earlier this week

'I, up until recently, was a huge Louis C.K fan, and I'm upset and angry about it, obviously,' Eddie said.

The actor said he fully supported the victims coming forward to share their stories of abuse.

'Powerful people who are abusing their power and assaulting and harassing women, their time has come and women are being listened to in a way that is really unprecedented, blaming victims less and less,' Eddie said.

'I thought he spoke the truth': Eddie confessed he used to be a huge fan but that had changed

Eddie hit out at Louis CK's alleged behaviour, saying treating women in that manner 'reduces a woman down to pure tool for gratification'.

He said that while he used to enjoy the comedian's work, he could no longer support the star in good faith.

'I thought he spoke the truth, but knowing what I know now, I cannot be on board with him now,' Eddie explained.

'I cannot be on board with him now': Eddie confessed he could no longer follow the comedian's work after hearing about the upsetting claims

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that Louis CK had been accused of sexual misconduct toward several women, including masturbating in front of them.

Comedians Dana Min Goodman, Abby Schachner, Julia Wolov, Rebecca Corry allege the Emmy-winning star of Louie either pleasured himself in front of them, asked to do it or did so over the phone.

A fifth woman detailed her allegations against C.K. to the paper but was not identified.
She appeared to dramatically reunite with estranged husband Amir Khan on Sunday evening, just days after the boxer enjoyed a night out with a Brazilian model.

And fueling the reconciliation rumours further, Faryal Makhdoom - who is pregnant with his child - stepped out wearing her wedding and engagement rings on Friday.

The 26-year-old model also looked noticeably different than usual, as she was seen wearing a traditional ensemble, covering up her growing baby bump.

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Reconciliation? Faryal Makhdoom covered her bump in a conservative ensemble as she stepped out WEARING her wedding ring... after hinting at reconciliation with estranged husband Amir Khan

The thought-to-be-estranged wife of British boxer Amir looked sleek in a silk top and scarf, with matching trousers and slippers.

She tied her raven tresses back into a high ponytail and wore demure make-up - a brush of eye shadow and a slick of lip gloss.

At the weekend, taking to Instagram, Faryal shared an image of herself alongside Amir, 30, and their three-year old daughter Lamaisah.

With no apparent reference to when the picture was taken, Faryal hinted at a brighter future after months of well-documented acrimony by adding the caption: Were going to be doing this all over again.

Back on? Fueling the reconciliation rumours further, Faryal - who is pregnant with Amir's child - stepped out wearing her wedding and engagement rings on Friday

Covering up: She tied her raven tresses back into a high ponytail and wore demure make-up - a brush of eye shadow and a slick of lip gloss

The update suggested a surprise reconciliation may well be on the cards following a bitter war of words, played out across social media in the months following their divorce announcement in August.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for further comment.

Faryal previously appeared to reflect on the end of her marriage by sharing a thought-provoking quote alongside a snap in a bridal gown, one day after pictures emerged him on a night out with another woman.

Reconciled? Faryal appeared to dramatically reunite with estranged husband Amir Khan on Sunday evening, just days after the boxer enjoyed a night out with a Brazilian model

Happy families: The pregnant model appeared to hint that the warring couple were ready to put divorce proceedings on hold

Making a statement? Faryal appeared to be reflecting on the end of her marriage to Amir Khan as she shared a thought-provoking quote alongside a snap in a bridal gown on Saturday

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, she posted: 'One day, you will find peace in the burning of the past.'

Quoting the popular internet writer R.M Drake, the message accompanied an elaborate picture of herself in traditional Pakistani wedding wear.

Modelling bridal wear, Faryal looked statuesque adorned in jewellery sat in front of an ornate bookshelf looking into the distance.

The post came a day after Amir, 30, was seen with Brazilian model, Bella Gusmao, outside a shisha bar in London, before they jumped into a cab together and headed off.

Amir, who has been out of the ring for nearly two years after suffering a heavy knockout, seemed in good spirits with the brunette stunner, who bore a striking resemblance to Faryal.

Expecting: She is having a second child with Amir

In happier times: New York-born Faryal and former unified light-welterweight world champion Amir, who married in 2013, share three-year-old daughter Lamaisah

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline earlier in the week, Faryal said 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.

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.

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'.

The businesswoman also apologised for all the 'infighting' between herself and Amir parents, which she revealed has had a 'terrible effect' on her marriage.

But soon afterwards Amir 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.

Stunning: Faryal's post came a day after Amir, 30, was seen with Brazilian model, Bella Gusmao (pictured) outside a shisha bar in London, before they jumped into a cab together

'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.'
She's often seen flaunting her enviable figure on The Only Way is Essex.

And Thursday night proved to be no exception for Yazmin Oukhellou, who shone in a gold and silver encrusted sleeved frock to attend the ITV Gala held at the London Palladium.

The reality star, 23, dazzled in the thigh-skimming design that flaunted her exotic tan and pins, but while she appeared in high spirits her co-star beau James Lock, 30, looked less enthusiastic about attending the star studded event.

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Gorgeous couple: Yazmin Oukhellou and boyfriend James Lock leave the ITV show afterparty at the London Palladium hand in hand on Thursday night looking

Yazmin and boyfriend James made for a stylish duo, as they were spotted leaving the ITV Gala's after-party - following the evening's festivities to celebrate the best of the network and its leading shows.

The pretty brunette dazzled in her show-stopping frock, that also teased a look at her cleavage thanks to its plunging neckline, and wore her long raven locks cascading over her slender shoulders.

She carried a tan coloured Chanel style handbag to match her platformed stilettos and the star finished off her glam look with lashes of mascara and black shiny nail polish.

Hand in hand: The reality stars both looked immaculate, with Yazmin in glamorous sequins and her handsome beau in a grey checked two piece finished with black leather shoes

James, meanwhile, donned a grey checked two piece suit with a black roll neck and matching loafers. The loved-up couple both looked toned and tanned and appeared to be wearing 'his and hers' gold Rolex watches.

It's not been an easy ride for the couple, as they found themselves embroiled in fiery confrontations with James' ex girlfriend Danielle Armstrong at the beginning of their romance.

And TOWIE fans recently saw the duo come face-to-face with Danielle in the series finale of the ITVBe reality show, with their exchange being much more civilized this time round.

Danielle had made a surprise comeback during a Halloween party and appeared to offer an olive branch to her ex-beau and his new flame. She said: 'When I arranged this, I knew I couldn't invite everyone and not you two.

Pearly whites: The brunette's smile sparkled, just like her glittery dress which offset her deep tan and plunging neckline in London on Thursday night

'It is weird obviously with you being my ex, but to not invite you would have felt to me like I was bothered. Then when I walked in and saw you leave, I just thought, 'I don't want it to be like that.'

Addressing Yaz directly, she then added: 'I just want us to get on. James and I were together a long time, he was a big part of my life and you make him so happy, so that makes me happy. I think you look great together.'

Yaz happily agreed with her, and the pair hugged - agreeing to put any awkwardness behind them.

However her ex Lockie was nowhere near as willing to make up, and instead told Danielle frostily: 'I didn't know it was your party.'

Pleased with herself: reality starlet was beaming in the back of the cab next to her handsome beau in London

Wanting to avoid drama, Danielle then joked: 'You probably wouldn't have come!' to which he replied awkwardly: 'Well... exactly', before dramatically walking off.

Danielle quit the show back back in 2016 after her three-year on/off relationship with James came to an end for the second time in August. She initially broke it off with her lover in the summer of 2015 - citing his unpredictable temper as the main reason for her decision.

Discussing her big TOWIE return following it airing, Danielle described her reunion with James as 'one of the most awkward experiences of her life', but insisted she now feels 'nothing' for her old love.

James and Yazming, meanwhile, now live together and are often hinting at a future engagement on the Essex based show.
They separated in 2016 before both filing for divorce this year.

And on Friday, former lovebirds Christina and Tarek El Moussa were spotted filming scenes for their hit home renovation show Flip Or Flop in Orange County, California.

Christina, who recently split with her boyfriend Doug Spedding, beamed while rocking leggings, a long sleeved top and sneakers.

Always professional: n Friday, former lovebirds Christina and Tarek El Moussa were spotted filming scenes for their hit home renovation show Flip Or Flop in Orange County, California

For the early morning filming, Christina and her ex husband were seen standing outside a house before testing out different paint colors.

Christina showed off her slim form in the skintight look, adding delicate Chanel earrings and a Louis Vuitton handbag.

The HGTV star styled her long blonde locks half up and half down, opting for a center part.

Christina kept her makeup to a minimum, with a touch of pink lipstick on her full pout and smoky eye makeup on her lids.

Stylish: Christina, who recently split with her boyfriend Doug Spedding, beamed while rocking leggings, a long sleeved top and sneakers

Quick break: They separated in May 2016 before both filing for divorce this year

In between filming, Tarek was spotted taking a break to vape.

He arrived via motorcycle to their suburban neighborhood in Orange County ahead of filming.

The father of two donned casual denim; he wore a light blue top before changing into a darker one.

Tarek was also seen awkwardly fixing his mic, after putting it through the back of his shirt.

The star adjusted the wire before heading back to set, finally mic'd up.

And action: For the early morning filming, Christina and her ex husband were seen standing outside a house before testing out different paint colors

Teamwork: Theywere seen choosing a paint color, with choices including blue and gray tones

Relaxing: In between filming, Tarek was spotted taking a break to vape

Cool guy: He arrived via motorcycle to their suburban neighborhood in Orange County

Prep time: Tarek was also seen awkwardly fixing his mic, after putting it through the back of his shirt

Interesting placement: The star adjusted the wire before heading back to set, finally mic'd up

The duo are working on season seven of Flip Or Flop; they have remained on good terms since the end of their marriage.

Christina and Tarek, who married in 2009, are parents to two children together: daughter Taylor, seven, and son Brayden, two.

They share custody of their two children; they separated last year and both filed for divorce earlier this year.

Christina was dating retired businessman Doug Spedding over the summer.

According to In Touch, they split after Doug allegedly cheated on her with an ex-girlfriend.

The magazine also claims that Doug 'checked into an in-patient rehab for addiction issues.'

Heading to set: Christina showed off her slim form in the skintight look, adding delicate Chanel earrings and a Louis Vuitton handbag; pictured with a crew member

Grinning ear to ear: The HGTV star styled her long blonde locks half up and half down, opting for a center part
Chloe Crowhurst has been charged with drink-driving after getting caught behind the wheel the day after a boozy Halloween bash.

The Love Island star failed a breathalyser test when police stopped her while leaving a Holiday Inn in Crawley, West Sussex, last Sunday after a night out.

The 22-year-old, who has offered her 'sincerest apologies' for any 'embarrassment' caused, was arrested and will appear in court on November 20.

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Arrest: Chloe Crowhurst has been charged with drink-driving after being caught behind the wheel one day after a boozy Halloween bash (pictured on November 9 at the ITV gala)

Chloe had been partying at the Shocktober showbiz party at Tulleys Farm in Crawley the night before, then carried on the night at Moko club - which stays open till 3am.

The next day, a worried onlooker called the police after seeing her leave the hotel, according to the Sun.

Police then stopped a car matching hers and gave her a breath test, which she failed.

Although Chloe seemed unbothered when she appeared at the ITV Gala in London last night, her friend claimed she feels bad about drink driving and is just relieved nothing catastrophic happened.

Oh dear: The Love Island star failed a breathalyser test when police stopped her last Sunday while leaving a Holiday Inn in Crawley, West Sussex, the morning after a night out. Pictured in July in London

Arrest: The 22-year-old, who has offered her 'sincerest apologies' for any 'embarrassment' caused, was arrested and will appear at the Magistrates' Court on November 20

The pal explained to The Sun: 'What she did was really stupid - she'd only had a few hours of sleep.

'She's lucky she was stopped just after she left the hotel otherwise something horrible could have happened.'

Chloe's manager has apologised for the reality starlet's 'error in judgement' in a statement to The Mirror.

Night out: Chloe had been partying at the Shocktober showbiz party at Tulleys Farm (pictured) in Crawley the night before, then carried on the night at Moko club - which stays open till 3am

Caught out: The next day, a worried onlooker called the police after seeing her leave the hotel, according to the Sun

'Chloe is fully aware that her public profile comes hand in hand with responsibility,' he said.

'At this stage does not want to comment beyond offering her sincerest apologies to her family, friends and supporters for any embarrassment she may have caused,' he said.

MailOnline has contacted Chloe's rep for further comment.

A police spokesperson said: 'At 12.20pm on Sunday 5 November, police received a report of a driver suspected to be under the influence of alcohol leaving the Holiday Inn in Haslett Avenue East, Crawley.

'Officers located and stopped a silver Ford Ka matching the description of the vehicle reported in Hawth Avenue, and the driver was required to undertake a roadside breath test, which she failed.

Remorseful: her friend claimed he feels bad about driving after a night of drinking and is just relieved nothing catastrophic happened

Not good: The pal explained: 'What she did was really stupid - she'd only had a few hours of sleep. She's lucky she was stopped just after she left the hotel otherwise something horrible could have happened'

'Chloe Crowhurst, 22, a TV employee, of Romford, Havering, was arrested and charged with driving with 50mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath in her system.

'She was released on unconditional bail and is due to appear before Crawley Magistrates' Court on November 20.'

The legal limit for driving in England is 35mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath.

Her run in with the law comes just a few weeks after it was rumoured that she'd rekindled her romance with Jon Clark following his split from Lauren Pope.

A source said recently: 'They were at a holiday park with Chloe's entire family, including her mum, and were being openly affectionate - they were going to the bar together and Jon was chatting to Chloe's family and being really friendly.'
Lucy Mecklenburgh has fuelled rumours she could enter the I'm A Celebrity jungle after joining boyfriend Ryan Thomas in Australia just days before the new series.

The TOWIE star shared a snap of herself relaxing on the same roof terrace as Coronation Street star Ryan - who is also hotly tipped to be heading to the jungle.

And eagle-eyed fans were quick to speculate that the couple might be tipped for the outback, with one follower writing 'Oh, I'm A Celeb is coming up... go figure!'

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Rumour has it: Lucy Mecklenburgh has fuelled rumours she could enter the I'm A Celebrity jungle after joining boyfriend Ryan Thomas in Australia just days before the new series

Lucy shared a shot of herself soaking up the rays on a lounger, which she captioned: 'Friday feeling #penthouse #melbourne #fridayvibes #travel #australia #penthousegoals.'

'So you and Ryan Thomas are in Oz, oh and I'm a celeb is coming up, go figure!' one fan wrote, while another speculated 'Jungle?'

Another defended Lucy, writing: 'She goes out with Ryan whos filming Neighbours so could just be out visiting him .'

Ryan posted a snap from the same spot, echoing his girlfriend's caption by writing 'Friday feeling'.

Hmm: The TOWIE star shared a snap of herself relaxing on the same roof terrace as Coronation Street star Ryan - who is also hotly tipped to be heading to the jungle

Looks familiar: Ryan posted a snap from the same spot, echoing his girlfriend's caption by writing 'Friday feeling'

Interesting: Lucy has flown out to visit Ryan, while he settles into his new role on the Australian soap, and has been documenting her stay in Melbourne on her own social media channels - but has noticeably chosen to keep her reunion with Ryan private

One follower penned: 'How you look when you know the jungle will be a holiday compared to the island. Thought he might be killing two birds with one stone.'

Ryan has been hotly tipped for the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here which is set to return to ITV on November 19. However, the lineup for the new series is yet to be confirmed.

Lucy has flown out to visit Ryan, while he settles into his new role on the Australian soap, and has been documenting her stay in Melbourne on her own social media channels - but has noticeably chosen to keep her reunion with Ryan private.

Speculation: Eagle-eyed fans were quick to speculate that the couple might be tipped for the outback, with one follower writing 'Oh, I'm A Celeb is coming up... go figure!

Exciting: Ryan has been hotly tipped for the new series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here which is set to return to ITV on November 19 - although the lineup for the new series is yet to be confirmed

What split? Ryan and Lucy have reunited in Melbourne, following his move to Australia to work on Neighbours, and he was seen proudly filming her dancing on Tuesday

She did, however, share snaps of her partying with Olympia Valance during the couple's recent get-together with friends.

His addition to the Neighbours cast was confirmed in October, with Lucy gushing that she was 'proud' of the star for landing his new role as Rafael Humphreys - described as a loner with dark secrets - two years after leaving Coronation Street.

Meanwhile the couple were rocked by claims that Lauren Goodger planned to enter the I'm A Celebrity jungle to flirt with Ryan.

Sources claimed she wanted to seek revenge on Lucy Mecklenburgh, who dated her ex-fiance Mark Wright six years ago.

However, Lauren has furiously denied reports she is planning to 'get her own back' on Lucy by 'flirting' with the online fitness guru's boyfriend Ryan on the new series ofI'm A Celebrity, branding the claims 'absolute rubbish'.

Awkward: Lauren Goodger, 31, has found herself at the centre of claims she is still holding a grudge when it comes to Mark Wright's past romance with Lucy Mecklenburgh and is planning to seek revenge on her former TOWIE co-star

Lucy had dated Mark back in 2011, following the breakdown of his relationship with Lauren, but their romance had been brief, as Mark later reunited with childhood sweetheart Lauren and popped the question.

Sources had claimed to Closer magazine that Lauren is still 'furious' over the short-lived romance, telling the publication: 'Lauren's never got over Lucy's 'affair', as she called it, with Mark and has held a grudge ever since.

'As soon as she saw Ryan was rumoured to join her in the jungle, she saw it as an opportunity to give Lucy a taste of her own medicine.'

They added: 'She's got no serious plans to steal Ryan, but she would like Lucy to realise how humiliating it felt for her when she was linked to Mark.'

However, when contacted by MailOnline, a representative for Lauren denied this is the case. They said: 'This is absolute rubbish and no truth in any of it!'

MailOnline have also contacted a representative for Lucy for comment.

'Absolute rubbish': But she has furiously denied reports she is planning to 'get her own back' on Lucy by 'flirting' with the online fitness guru's boyfriend Ryan Thomas on the new series of I'm A Celebrity

Rise to prominence: Lauren's relationship with ex-fiance Mark Wright saw her thrown into the spotlight seven years ago, with their engagement and subsequent split shortly after playing out for fans to see on The Only Way Is Essex

Lucy had previously dated Mark, who is now happily married to his actress wife Michelle Keegan, six years ago, following his brief split from Lauren.

Their romance had dominated the first series of TOWIE, where Lauren and Lucy were pitted against each other as love rivals and the latter was ultimately dumped by Mark at the end of the series.

Following his split with Lucy, Mark then rekindled his romance with Lauren and had proposed to his ex of 10 years in front of the cameras during series two of the ITVBe reality series.

Their engagement, however, was short-lived and the pair later went their separate ways, following claims Lauren had been 'unfaithful' to Mark.

Onscreen engagement: Mark had proposed to his ex of 10 years in front of the cameras during series two of the ITVBe reality series - their engagement, however, was short-lived and the pair later went their separate ways, following claims Lauren had been 'unfaithful' to Mark

Single again: Lauren went on to find love with her jailbird ex-beau Joey Morrison, but the pair split in September following 15 months of dating, while Joey was still in prison

Smitten: Mark is now happily married to his actress wife Michelle Keegan whom he married in May 2015

Lauren went on to find love with her jailbird ex-beau Joey Morrison, but the pair split in September following 15 months of dating, while Joey was still in prison.

Remaining on friendly terms, she admitted that the pair didn't 'fall out' and she holds nothing but respect for him now that their relationship has come to an end.

For over a year, Lauren had been forced to visit Joey in prison, as he has been in the midst of serving a 16 year violent drugs-related prison sentence. He was convicted of a string of offences, including possession of a firearm, kidnapping, blackmail and actual bodily harm, and is due for a 2018 release.

Lucy, meanwhile, is now dating actor Ryan, after romance blossomed for the pair while filming for Bear Grylls: Celebrity Island and in the midst of water shortages, extreme hunger and tropical storms.

Tangled history: Lucy had dated Mark back in 2011, following the breakdown of his relationship with Lauren, but their romance had been brief, as Mark later reunited with childhood sweetheart Lauren and popped the question

Loved-up: The brunette beauty is now dating actor Ryan, after romance blossomed for the pair while filming for Bear Grylls: Celebrity Island

Strength to strength? They continued their romance back on home soil and things appear to be serious between the pair, as Lucy has been introduced to Ryan's eight-year-old daughter Scarlet, whom he shares with Tina O'Brien

They continued their romance back on home soil and things appear to be serious between the pair, as Lucy has been introduced to Ryan's eight-year-old daughter Scarlet, whom he shares with Tina O'Brien.

Ryan is currently in Australia after landing himself a role on soap Neighbours. Lucy had gushed how 'proud' she was of her beau, following news of his new addition to the cast surfacing, but the couple found themselves facing speculation they had split recently.

Lucy appeared to make a cryptic dig at her beau by sharing a photo of a frog to her Instagram story and posting: 'I seem to attract frogs.'

While she never addressed the break up claims, Lucy appears to have since put the rumours to bed by tagging her beau in her social media activity since.

New chapter: Ryan is currently in Australia after landing himself a role on soap Neighbours and Lucy had gushed how 'proud' she was of her beau, following news of his new addition to the cast surfacing

Known for wanting to keep their relationship private, she has made sure not to discuss the swirling claims, but did admit it can be 'confusing' when her social media posts are taken out of context in an interview with MailOnline.

'I am used to it, you can never please anyone no matter what you post. It's very, very odd. I've learnt to deal with it,' she claimed.

'I've been in the public eye since I was 19, I'm 26 now. It's confusing sometimes, but you have to let it go ahead over your head.'
News / National

by Staff reporter

Gen. Li Zuocheng (1st R), chief of the Joint Staff Department under China's Central Military Commission, meets with Gen. Constantine Guveya Chiwenga (1st L) , commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, in Beijing on Nov 8, 2017. (mod.gov.cn/Li Xiaowei)

Gen. Li Zuocheng, member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, met with Gen. Constantine Guveya Chiwenga, commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces in Beijing on Wednesday.Li said China and Zimbabwe are all-weather friends, in recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe have held many meetings and reached important consensus on deepening the friendly and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Zimbabwe, charting the direction for future development of bilateral relations between the two countries.Li said the Chinese military is willing to make joint efforts with the Zimbabwe military to maintain high-level exchange of visits, deepen pragmatic cooperation in areas of personnel training, college education, as well as equipment and technology, continuously elevating the level of relations between the two militaries.Li also introduced the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to Chiwenga. He said the 19th CPC National Congress will also have a far-reaching impact on China's development of relations with world countries including Zimbabwe.Chiwenga congratulated the success of the 19th CPC National Congress. He said Zimbabwe is willing to deepen exchanges and cooperation in all fields with China to promote the rapid development of bilateral state and military relations between the two countries.Before their meeting, Li held a welcoming ceremony for Chiwenga and accompanied him to review the honor guard of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for a hospital to be built in Sengwe in Chiredzi South last month, Chiwengwa reiterated statements made by Army Generals before that the country can never be taken over by someone without liberation war credentials.The function was attended by several senior Army officers including Army Chief of Staff, General Trust Mugoba who made Zanu-PF slogans at the end of the proceedings."We will never allow sellouts or whites to take over this country," declared Chiwengwa.Zanu-PF is divided through the middle with two factions namely G40 believed to be led by the First Lady Grace Mugabe and Lacoste which is loyal to Vice President Mnangagwa fighting to take over power from the ageing President. G40 has few members who participated in the liberation struggle.General Chiwenga was recently accused by the First Lady of supporting Mnangagwa in the succession politics. Mugabe himself warned the Army last month to stop dabbling in politics and said such action was tantamount to a coup. He also announced that he was going to retire top Army generals before the end of this year and generals had tended to observe Mugabe's warning since then."Many lives were lost during the liberation struggle and that should give us more resolve on where we are coming from and where we are going as a country. We are facing many challenges as a people but we should not lose focus. The blood lost should not be in vain. We should continue to jealously guard our country and its sovereignty. We will never allow it to go into the hands of puppets or the whites," declared Chiwenga.Former United States congressman Mel Reynolds who is a two time convicted felon on Monday claimed that his sources in the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) advised him that President Robert Mugabe is threatening to arrest General Constantino Chiwenga.Chiwenga is the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and according to Reynolds he was fired by Mugabe but is refusing to go. This comes after former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was fired earlier on today over a number of allegations.Chiwenga is known to have openly supported Mnangagwa.The former congressman revealed this in a series of tweets, although the information is yet to be verified. Writing on microblogging site Twitter Reynolds said:According to his profile, Reynolds is also a U.S.Representative (Retired), an Army Officer, and a US Special Forces agent. Meanwhile, he has since deleted his first Tweet, However it read.Predisent Mugabe's declaration that the "politics shall lead the gun" will only be respected to a certain point beyond which is a "red line" which must never be crossed, Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga has said.Chiwenga told State media journalists on the eve of Defence Forces Day that the country's security apparatus would never allow Zimbabwe to descend into the kind of chaos that has been witnessed in the Middle East."If people are discussing, this is a democratic country. They will say whatever they want to say, they can talk, but there is a red line which can never be crossed. When one causes the country to be in turmoil, when you become an enemy of the State and an enemy of the people and we will tell you, no, you are overstepping, that is not the correct way," Chiwenga said.Mugabe (93) told a Zanu-PF women's league meeting recently that there were secret meetings at which the military was involved in what he claimed could be characterised as a coup plot."There are secret manoeuvres going on. The military has no right to be interfering with the political processes. Theirs is to support; they can give their own views within the Constitution and according, also, to the principle that politics shall always lead the gun  and not the gun leading politics. That would be a coup," Mugabe said then.Mugabe was forced to call-out Chiwenga as well as other securocrats following a public spat between the Defence Forces chief and Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo as Zanu-PF's bitter succession struggles threatened to boil over.There have been reports that Mugabe might be considering retiring Chiwenga.But Chiwenga said relations between the belligerent military and political leaders was good."The relations (with politicians) are very good. We are very clear where we think things or a person is not saying the correct thing, we will tell (them). Because it is our role to make sure that nobody causes conflict which can then confuse people and make people fail to understand what is going on. Peace, stability and tranquillity," Chiwenga said.Senior politicians in Zanu-PF are involved in a brutal scrap for Mugabe's throne with the former liberation movement split between two distinct groups. Front-runner Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa was allegedly poisoned and is reportedly battling for his life in a South African hospital.Mnangagwa has support from veterans of the liberation struggle and sections of the security establishment. Another leading contender is Mugabe's wife Grace, but the G40 faction has of late thrown another liberation war stalwart, Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi's name into the ring. Grace was charged with common assault in South Africa after bashing a woman she found in the company of her two sons.
She has an incredible physique which is the perfect advert for her swimwear range which she has modeled on her sun-drenched holidays and sizzling Instagram page.

But Kimberley Garner was uncharacteristically demure when she stepped out for lunch with a male pal and her pooch in Westbourne Grove, London on Friday.

Yet the former Made In Chelsea star, 27, didn't miss the opportunity to catalogue her sleek look with a series of selfies while she enjoyed lunch in the British capital.

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She knows how to Garner attention! Kimberley is uncharacteristically demure in leather jacket and jeans but doesn't miss opportunity for selfies in Westbourne Grove, London on Friday

Following her brief stint on Made In Chelsea from March 2012 until the November of the same year, it is no surprise the beauty is a natural poser behind the camera.

The reality star combed her fingers through her trademark golden tresses to ensure her hair was on point for her gorgeous snap.

Accentuating her delicate features, the stunner opted for light touches of make-up and a nude slick of lipstick to plump out her pout.

They go way back: Newly single Kimberley was in high spirits in the good company of her dapper childhood friend

Flying the flag for natural beauty: Accentuating her delicate features, the stunner opted for light touches of make-up and a nude slick of lipstick to plump out her pout

She's gorgeous: Following her brief stint on Made In Chelsea from March 2012 until the November of the same year, it is no surprise the beauty is a natural poser behind the camera

The style maven, who launched her own swimwear collection in 2013, showed off her artist's eye for casual glamour as she stepped out in sky-scraper heeled boots.

Going for edgy vibes, the blonde bombshell slipped on a chic biker jacket which she teamed with a checkered shirt and skintight straight-legged trousers.

Newly single Kimberley was in high spirits as she walked her adorable cocker spaniel Bear in the good company of her dapper childhood friend.

Still got it: The reality star combed her fingers through her trademark golden tresses to ensure her hair was on point for her gorgeous snap

Standing tall: The style maven, who launched her own swimwear collection in 2013, showed off her artist's eye for casual glamour as she stepped out in sky-scraper heeled boots

Charming company: Her male friend looked incredibly handsome in his two-piece navy suit teamed with an unbuttoned pink shirt

Delicious: The former Made In Chelsea star enjoyed an avocado-based salad while she lunched with her pal in the British capital

Her male friend, whom she has known since the age of 12, looked incredibly handsome in his two-piece navy suit teamed with an unbuttoned pink shirt.

Proving their shopping trip was a success, the hunk toted a daylesford bag which no doubt was brimming with organic goodies.

The stunning model is fresh from her autumnal girls' trip to Miami where she mixed business with pleasure.

Going for edgy vibes: The blonde bombshell slipped on a chic biker jacket which she teamed with a checkered shirt and skintight straight-legged trousers

Shop until you drop: Proving their shopping trip was a success, the hunk toted a daylesford bag which no doubt was brimming with organic goodies

Stepping out: The star brought her adorable cocker spaniel along for the day out, whom no doubt she missed while she was away on her girls' trip to Miami

'I am over in Miami on a girls holiday,' she told MailOnline. 'It's been really fun and the first time I have been to Miami. I will be staying a little longer over here for work on Kimberley London Swimwear, but London is definitely still home.'

Kimberley has fully thrown herself into herself into swimwear design sphere in recent years, designing several lines since leaving Made in Chelsea.

She explained to MailOnline: 'I have some really cool new designs coming out over the next few months which I am excited about. They are still all made in London, which is really important to me.

'I love being a young female running a start up. Learning every section of what it take to run a company has been amazing and challenging but am really excited to see it grow and can't wait for next year's collections.'

Close: The pair are old childhood friends who have been enjoying each other's charming company since the age of 12

Catch up! No doubt the pair had a lot to talk about following Kimberley's sun-soaked trip abroad in recent weeks
She's the former TOWIE star who is rumoured to be appearing on the British version of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

But ahead of her possible trip to the Australian jungle, Lucy Mecklenburgh was busy mingling with the local celebrities at Melbourne's Oak Day on Friday.

The 26-year-old reality TV star showed off her famous physique in a figure-hugging strapless red jumpsuit at the exclusive event.

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Down Under: Ahead of her possible trip to the Australian jungle for I'm A Celebrity, Lucy Mecklenburgh was busy mingling with the local celebrities at Melbourne 's Oak Day on Friday

Lucy was dressed in designer brand Zeynep Kartal for the race day celebrations.

Showcasing her bronzed decolletage, the ex-girlfriend of Extra host Mark Wright dazzled in a red jumpsuit.

The ensemble was cinched in at the waist and flared out into wide floor-length pants.

Glamorous: The 26-year-old reality TV star showed off her famous physique in a figure-hugging strapless red jumpsuit at the exclusive event

Fashionista: Lucy was dressed in designer brand Zeynep Kartal for the race day celebrations

Accessories: Getting on board with Australian race day fashion, Lucy added a bold headpiece

Getting on board with traditional Australian race day fashion, Lucy added a bold headpiece.

From UK brand Jane Taylor, the design had a white base and black feather detailing.

Keeping her remaining accessories simple, she added a black shoulder bag and a gold watch.

Effortless style: Keeping her remaining accessories simple, Lucy added a black shoulder bag and a gold watch

The look: The fashion designer's signature brunette locks were styled into loose waves for the daytime event

Glammed up: Sporting a fresh and luminous complexion, Lucy added a sweep of blush and a nude plump lip

The fashion designer's signature brunette locks were styled into loose waves for the daytime event.

Sporting a fresh and luminous complexion, Lucy added a sweep of blush and a nude plump lip.

Meanwhile, Lucy was joined by her friend Olympia Valance in the Emirates lounge.

Getting to know the Neighbours? Meanwhile, Lucy was joined by her friend Olympia Valance (left) in the Emirates lounge

Standing out: The Neighbours actress and half-sister of Holly Candy stunned in yellow

Also opting for a bold colour, the Neighbours actress and half-sister of Holly Candy stunned in yellow.

Wearing a Rebecca Vallance midi dress, the 24-year-old made a fashion statement while catching up with Lucy.

She complemented her friend with her $280 red headpiece from Ford Millinery.

Flaunting it: Wearing a Rebecca Vallance midi dress, the 24-year-old made a fashion statement

Friends: Olympia and Lucy will likely be seeing a lot more of each other, as Lucy's boyfriend Ryan Thomas - formerly of Coronation Street - will be joining the cast of Neighbours

Red on red: Olympia complemented Lucy with her $280 red headpiece from Ford Millinery

Bringing the drama, Olympia added a $107 statement clutch with beads reading 'BOSSY'.

Lucy's visit Down Under has fuelled rumours she will appear in the 17th series of UK's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

Meanwhile, Lucy's boyfriend Ryan Thomas, a former Coronation Street actor who will soon be appearing on Australian soap Neighbours, is also in Melbourne.

More than the races? Lucy's visit Down Under has fuelled rumours she will appear in the 17th series of UK's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

It is already being speculated Lucy and Ryan will appear on I'm A Celebrity.

'So you and Ryan Thomas are in Oz, oh and I'm a celeb is coming up, go figure!' one fan wrote on Twitter, while another speculated 'Jungle?'.

The UK version of the show has been filmed in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, since 2002.

The series returns to British broadcaster ITV on November 19.

Coming soon! The UK version of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! has been filmed in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, since 2002. It begins airing in Britain on November 19
Police were called to French Montana's birthday party on Friday after a fight broke out between two female guests.

The rapper celebrated turning 33 on Thursday with a party in Beverly Hills, which continued back at his Calabasas home early Friday morning.

According to TMZ, the shindig was interrupted when two women got into a brawl.

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Busted: Police were called to French Montana's birthday party on Friday after a fight broke out between two female guests

One of them was kicked out, who then called the police.

After officers arrived with paramedics, both women were evaluated, but neither needed treatment.

The pair were then ejected from the property; according to police they had no interaction with the homeowner.

Other guests at the party included The Weeknd, Cassie Ventura and TOWIE star Mark Wright.

Party: The rapper celebrated turning 33 on Thursday with a party in Beverly Hills, which continued back at his Calabasas home early Friday morning (pictured with Cassie Ventura)

Kicked out: The unknown women were ejected from the property; according to police they had no interaction with French

French  real name Karim Kharbouch  posted some social media snaps during the night; dressed in suave velvet blazer embellished with gold embroidery, he posed alongside beauty Cassie, who stunned in a silk unicorn-embellished plunging robe and fluffy sandals.

In another pic with The Weeknd  who fresh from his split from Selena Gomez  French paid tribute to deceased rapper Chinx.

Party time: The rapper appeared to have a blast surrounded by pals

'We make everyday like our last day #foreverchinx #freemaxb #bdaytable', he captioned it.

Meanwhile Cassie, 31, appeared to have attended the bash without media mogul and father-of-six P Diddy, 47, who she's been dating for ten years.

There was no sign of French's ex and close friend Khloe Kardashian, who is reportedly pregnant with current boyfriend Tristan Thompson, though the apparent lack of baby bump has some fans skeptical.
A grinning Jennifer Lopez sure had that Friday feeling as she strutted around New York, clad in an oversized fur coat.

And the reason wasn't hard to divine, with the outing coming after her latest release Amor Amor Amor topped the charts in Latin America.

Within hours of the Friday morning release the single hit the number one iTunes spot in both Spain and Puerto Rico, number two in Argentina and Ecuador, four in Chile and nine in Mexico.

She's number one! Jennifer Lopez struts around in an oversized fur, printed leggings and Timberland sneakers as Amor Amor Amor tops the charts in Spain and Puerto Rico

Friday feeling Her latest release is already a hit

The chart-topper came after J Lo returned to her roots with the latest track from her upcoming Spanish-language album Por Primera Vez.

In the video for the track - also released on Friday - the age-defying 48-year-old took over the New York subway, dancing the night away with Puerto Rican reggaeton star Wisin, who features heavily on the song.

Gracias! The song bagged the number one iTunes spot in both Spain and Puerto Rico, number two in Argentina and Ecuador, four in Chile and nine in Mexico

The track is the second single off the album, which she is working on with ex-husband Marc Anthony.

It is is the multi-talented star's second full-length Spanish album and her ninth studio album. She has also released two compilation albums.

Along with her new album, busy J Lo has been filming Second Act with Leah Remini, Vanessa Hudgens and Milo Ventimiglia all over the New Year area.

Work it! J Lo showed just how she keeps in such great shape as she writhed, gyrated and twerked with a backing troupe half her age in the video, released Friday
Bangladeshi police say they are searching for missing academic Mubashar Hasan, who has not been seen since Tuesday, but activists fear the worst amid a spate of such disappearances in recent months

A Bangladeshi professor internationally respected for his work on Islamic extremism has gone missing, police said Thursday, with activists fearing the worst amid a spate of disappearances in recent months.

Mubashar Hasan, an assistant professor of political science at Bangladesh's North South University (NSU), has not been seen since Tuesday afternoon, his family said.

"We are very concerned. We hope law enforcement agencies will find him and return him to us," his uncle Monzur Hossain told AFP.

Hossain said his nephew, a former journalist, had become increasingly concerned about his safety just before his disappearance.

Hasan had installed CCTV cameras around his home just last week after an unidentified man paid him a visit at home, his uncle said.

Police said Hasan's mobile phone was switched off early Tuesday evening after the prominent professor of political Islam attended a conference.

"We are trying our best to find him. There is no shortage of sincerity on our part," Anwar Hossain, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told AFP.

Rights groups in Bangladesh say Hasan disappearance is the ninth high-profile case since July, with opposition political figures, a businessman and journalists among others to vanish.

"He has done some research on Islamist extremism in Bangladesh. His disappearance could be linked to his work," prominent rights activist Nur Khan Liton told AFP.

Hasan joined NSU, Bangladesh's most prestigious private university, after completing a doctorate overseas on political Islam in Bangladesh.

His research on Islamic extremism in Bangladesh -- a Muslim-majority nation plagued by homegrown militancy -- has been published in respected journals and international media.

More than a dozen progressive academics, bloggers and rights activists have been murdered by militant groups in Bangladesh in recent years, most in brutal machete attacks.

Dozens of Islamist extremists have been killed and 200 suspects arrested in the government offensive against extremism since July last year, when militants killed 22 hostages, including 18 foreigners, at an upmarket cafe in Dhaka.

Opposition parties have accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government of arresting tens of thousands of their supporters and activists since 2014, when they boycotted a controversial general election amid concerns it would be rigged.

The government has also been accused of enforced disappearances and unofficial detention of critics and opponents in secret jails.
In exchange for controls to prevent Tehran from developing an atom bomb, the Iran nuclear deal's signatories agreed to gradually lift sanctions

The UN's nuclear watchdog director Yukiya Amano Thursday reaffirmed Tehran is complying with the 2015 nuclear deal in a meeting with US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, the agency said.

It was the second meeting between Haley and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief -- with the first taking place in August during Haley's visit to the agency's headquarters in Vienna, where she called for more controls on Iran.

Since that trip, President Trump in October de-certified the Iran deal, and warned Washington may yet walk away from "one of the worst" agreements in history, leaving its fate in the hands of Congress.

In exchange for controls to prevent Tehran from developing an atom bomb, the deal's signatories agreed to gradually lift sanctions.

In a statement, the IAEA said Haley and Amano "discussed the IAEA's verification and monitoring of Irans implementation of its nuclear-related commitments" under the agreement with six global powers -- the US, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

Amano also repeated his assessment that the agreement "represents a significant gain for nuclear verification," and that Iran's nuclear-related commitments "are being implemented."

The IAEA chief assured Haley the agency has "so far had access to all the locations it needed to visit" Iran, and will continue to work "in an impartial and factual manner."

Meanwhile, the US mission to the UN expressed Haley's appreciation for the UN watchdog's "expertise and professionalism."

Haley vowed the US would support the IAEA "in carrying out robust verification of nuclear-related activities in Iran" -- also stressing the importance of "full and transparent access for the IAEA" in Iran.

Amano is currently visiting the US, where he has spoken with members of Congress and will deliver a speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday.
Donald Trump was treated to a lavish welcome ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People

China gave US President Donald Trump a parting gift as he left Beijing Friday, easing limits on foreign ownership in the financial sector that the United States and Europe have long criticised.

The announcement came after Trump capped his first state visit to Beijing by praising the "highly respected" President Xi Jinping as he took off for an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam.

During his visit, Trump had called for a more level playing field for American companies and measures to reduce China's $350 billion trade surplus with his country.

As the president left China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said foreign firms will be allowed to own as much as 51 percent of shares of tie-ups in securities, funds and futures industries, instead of the current 49 percent limit, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The limits will be phased out in three years.

Foreign ownership restrictions in Chinese banks and financial asset management firms will also be lifted, Zhu said, as he discussed the "consensus" reached during Trump's state visit, according to Xinhua.

The US and European Union have long complained about a lack of market access in a host of industries, with foreign firms unable to take a controlling stake in Chinese firms.

In the tightly controlled banking sector overseas companies cannot hold more than 25 percent of a lender's capital, making it difficult for them to play any major role in the local market.

- 'Finally making good' -

"Opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support China's future development," said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

"These restrictions, and many others yet to be addressed, have been hindering economic activity in China for far too long."

But Andrew Polk, a founder of China consulting firm Trivium, said Beijing had merely delayed the move until its own financial institutions were so dominant that they would not be threatened.

Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were given a tour of the Forbidden City by China's Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan

"They are finally making good on something they've been meaning to do for a long time, so I still don't see that as real progress on key issues," Polk told AFP.

The EU Chamber of Commerce in China called the decision an "encouraging step" in the right direction, but nonetheless one that came at a late stage.

"It is difficult for foreign firms that have already built up strong positions in the industry to capitalise on these changes in the same way that domestic Chinese firms can," it said in a statement.

It added that it remained to be seen whether foreign entities would be asked for additional licensing or hit with other operational restrictions.

Zhu also said Beijing will reduce duties on auto imports "at an appropriate pace", while Vice Premier Wang Yang said foreign companies will no longer be forced to hand over technology secrets as a condition for entering the Chinese market.

And Wang repeated a pledge in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, that China will also "strengthen the protection of intellectual property, and strictly crack down illegal and criminal acts such as infringement and counterfeiting".

During his meetings with Xi on Thursday, Trump had urged China to "immediately" take greater action on market access, forced technology transfers and theft of intellectual property.

Xi and Trump oversaw the signing of more than $250 billion in business deals Thursday, but analysts downplayed their impact on the trade imbalance, noting many of the agreements were nonbinding and could take years to bear fruit.

- 'Highly respected' -

Trump showered his host with accolades during his visit, tweeting that the meetings between the pair were "very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea".

"(Xi) is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!" he said, referring to Xi's wife.

Trump, who has softened his past criticism of China, again lambasted past US administrations for allowing the trade deficit to balloon over the years.

"How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!"

China was the showpiece of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia.

On Friday he flew to Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum where he and Xi expressed diverging views on global trade.

The forum saw Trump doubling down on his "America First" rhetoric, while Xi sought to defend the "irreversible" tide of globalisation.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) welcomes French President Emmanuel Macron in the capital Riyadh, in a picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on November 9, 2017

French President Emmanuel Macron held talks late Thursday with Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince as tensions between Tehran and Riyadh soar over crises in Yemen and Lebanon.

Macron, on his debut visit to the Middle East, flew in from a tour of the United Arab Emirates for his first face-to-face talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who recently launched a massive anti-graft crackdown on the kingdom's elite.

The visit comes at a time of growing friction between the Sunni kingdom and Shiite Iran, which are pitted on opposite sides in Lebanon and Yemen.

"I've heard some very hard positions" taken by Saudi Arabia against Iran, Macron told a news conference in Dubai before his visit, adding it was important to speak to all sides and that France had a role in making peace.

In the wake of a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport on Saturday, which was claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, the kingdom has accused Tehran of "direct aggression".

Iran vehemently dismissed the charge that it supplied missiles to the Huthis and warned Saudi Arabia of its "might", prompting fresh acrimony between the regional heavyweights.

"The French president condemned the Huthi missile attack on Riyadh, stressing France's stand and solidarity with the Kingdom," the state-run Saudi Press Agency said.

The two leaders "also discussed the latest developments in the Middle East and their efforts for security and stability in the region, including joint coordination in the fight against terrorism," it added.

French President Emmanuel Macron gives a press conference in Dubai on November 9, 2017

On Iran, Macron has repeatedly said that he wanted to keep the landmark 2015 nuclear deal despite opposition from US President Donald Trump.

US pressure to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal could push Tehran into deciding to build its own nuclear weapons, Macron told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday.

- Power struggle -

Macron and Prince Mohammed also discussed developments in Lebanon, whose prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock announcement broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday, citing Iran's "grip" on his country and threats to his life.

Lebanon, a former French colony, has become the latest front line of the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon "as soon as possible" and also called on them not to travel to the country, without specifying any threat.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday demanded the return of Hariri from Saudi Arabia, amid media reports that he was being held in the kingdom.

Macron's visit comes days after Prince Mohammed launched what the Saudi government has dubbed a wide-ranging corruption crackdown, arresting dozens of members of the royal family as well as ministers and businessmen.

Macron was earlier in the UAE capital for the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi -- the first museum to carry the famed brand outside France -- which he hailed as a "bridge between civilisations" and religions.

Macron said the UAE has closed a deal to buy two French-made Gowind navy corvettes, built for coastal surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

International rights group, including Human Rights Watch, have criticised Western nations for profiting from arms sales to the Saudi-led military coalition battling rebels in Yemen, in which the UAE is a key member.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have imposed a complete blockade on Yemen in the wake of the Huthi missile attack, as the UN warns that the Arab world's poorest country faces the risk of a mass famine.

burs-ac/iw
A woman takes a photo of the Kingdom of Colors exhibition, an immersive visual experience from French filmmaker Thomas Blanchard and artist Oilhack in Washington DC

It all began by accident.

After hurting his wrist, artist Oilhack started mixing paints, oil and soap in a bowl, experiments that eventually morphed into brightly colored moving seascapes in a collaboration with fellow Frenchman Thomas Blanchard that Apple used to promote its iPhone X.

In their US debut, the pair, who form the WeAreColorful collaborative, are bringing an immersive experience -- filling the main gallery space at Artechouse, a Washington venue marrying art, science and technology, with 270-degree projections of their liquid mixtures.

Varying hues, ranging from deep blues to hot pink and sparkling gold, ripple across a surface, spill onto geometric shapes and drop dramatically on flowers like milk or heavy smoke to the beat of a dreamy electronic soundtrack from Leonardo Villiger.

The shapes seem huge in the projections, towering far above visitors, but Oilhack and Blanchard in fact worked on tiny surfaces sometimes no larger than two inches (five centimeters), shooting with powerful 100mm macro lenses.

Artist Thomas Blanchard (L) and Oilhack form the WeAreColorful collaborative, with their work chosen by Apple to promote its iPhone X

"What we film, you can hold it in the palm of your hand," Blanchard told AFP ahead of the show, which opens Friday.

"A lot of people thought we were filming in swimming pools and said, 'What's with all this waste?'"

Hours of mixing acrylic paint, glycerophtalic oil-based paint, liquid soap, bleach and canola oil were distilled into a 15-minute sequence.

The oil's reaction to the paint forms small beads that come undone in what the artists describe as "explosions."

- Lace-like explosions -

"It's very ephemeral," said Oilhack. "It opens up like lace... When the music picks up, that's when we show the explosions."

In one portion of the video, marbles and prisms dramatically shift very slowly while colors spew out onto them.

To create the effect, the artists used strings attached to stones to suspend small wooden shapes measuring just a few millimeters, then injected liquids into the space. The resulting projections are very soothing.

The shapes seem huge in the projections in the gallery, but Oilhack and Blanchard in fact worked on tiny surfaces sometimes no larger than two inches

"For a few minutes, we forget our problems," said Blanchard, who gave the rights to one of his videos to an Australian children's hospital, where staff said it calmed the sick children.

"It's therapeutic."

The artists hail from the city of Lyon, the French creative center that also served as homebase to Adrien M & Claire B (Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne), who created the interactive abstract landscapes for Artechouse's inaugural June-September show.

Artechouse co-founder Sandro Kereselidze calls technology a "fresh, new form of art."

"Is it performance? Is it fine art? It's like the Chinese curse, 'may you live in interesting times.'"

To take the psychedelic experience to another level, evening visitors can even virtually augment their drinks at the bar in the mezzanine

To take the psychedelic experience to another level, evening visitors can virtually augment their drinks at the bar in the mezzanine, which overlooks the projections and the guests experiencing them below, lounging on benches and comfy gray poufs.

Cocktails topped with an edible wafer stamped with a colorful swirl come alive with the venue's smartphone app, showing smoke or bubbles of color lifting out of the glass.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe sacked his vice president and may appoint his wife to the post

President Robert Mugabe has exerted almost total authority over Zimbabwean politics for decades -- but the sacking of his most senior long-time confidante could spark repercussions beyond his control.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was dismissed and humiliated on Monday after clashing with Mugabe's wife Grace, who is now in prime position to succeed her husband.

The removal of Mnangagwa, who has powerful military connections, has laid bare the rivalries inside Zimbabwe's political establishment as Mugabe, 93, shows increasing signs of old age.

"The situation reflects an enormous amount of unpredictability," said Piers Pigou of the International Crisis Group. "We are moving into unchartered territories."

"It appears Mugabe is prepared to surgically remove significant sections of the party's historical support base... to try to consolidate his own position and the future leadership."

Mnangagwa, 75, quickly fled into exile, but he vowed to return and launched a direct challenge to Mugabe by calling for members of the ruling ZANU-PF party to desert the president.

Grace Mugabe delivers a speech during a ZANU-PF event. She is now contending for a vice president post

Mugabe reacted by expelling him from the party, which will hold its annual congress next month when Grace -- a hugely divisive figure -- could be appointed as one of the country's two vice presidents.

- Party problems -

"The ball is in Mnagnagwa's court, but what are you going to do outside the party?" Pigou said.

"The biggest question is what kind of elevation do we see for Grace Mugabe."

The potential leadership role for Grace, who has many opponents within the party and government, could even threaten the future of ZANU-PF.

"This is the beginning of the end of ZANU-PF, it is a total destruction of Mugabe's legacy," independent analyst Dewa Mavhinga told AFP.

"If Grace ascends to the top, she will fall because she has created so many enemies. She has been reckless. ZANU could be destroyed from within."

Mnangagwa's next move is uncertain, but any path back to high office seems beset with obstacles.

"It will be very difficult for him reinvent himself as a democrat because he is cut from the same cloth as Mugabe," said Mavhinga.

This file photo taken on January 7, 2017 shows Emmerson Mnangagwa, sacked by President Robert Mugabe

Mnangagwa was instrumental in much past election violence, including the 2008 presidential runoff when opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out due to a wave of killings and beatings.

And as security minister in the 1980s, Mnangagwa played a leading role in the Gukurahundi massacres that claimed the lives of around 20,000 perceived dissidents in the southwest of the country.

- Street protests? -

Mnangagwa issued a defiant statement on Wednesday, telling Mugabe that ZANU-PF was "not personal property for you and your wife to do as you please".

The next flashpoint could be next week when Mnangagwa supporters plan to stage protests against Mugabe in Harare.

Zimbabwe's ruthless security forces have often violently broken up street demonstrations against the authoritarian president.

But some experts believe the turmoil may actually allow Mugabe -- the world's oldest national leader -- to strengthen the extraordinary hold on power he has maintained since 1980.

Workers put finishing touches on the new sign at Zimbabwe's main international airport in Harare renamed after President Robert Gabriel Mugabe on November 9

While the country's economy collapsed long ago, Mugabe's presence only seems to grow. On Thursday, Harare Airport was renamed Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in his honour.

The president's birthday was also recently declared a public holiday, while a $1-billion Robert Mugabe university is being planned.

"He has fired senior party officials for decades and has continued in a 'life-as-usual' mode," Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist from the University of Zimbabwe, told AFP.

"What should be worrisome this time is the protracted uncertainty."

The Singapore-based BMI risk consultancy noted that the risk of an immediate military coup after Mnangagwa's ousting had receded and predicted another victory for Mugabe in the 2018 elections.
News / National

by Staff reporter

The Zanu-PF politburo on Wednesday discussed the explosive statement issued by former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa in which he threatened to lead a popular revolt against President Robert Mugabe under a cloud of looming wave of new purges, says the paper.The meeting deliberated in detail the potential purges designed to prevent party heavyweights linked to Mugabe's ousted deputy from contesting in central committee elections and retaining top positions.Among the big names which could be affected by the removals are State Security minister Kembo Mohadi, Senator Tambudzani Mohadi, Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri, among others.
Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema is Africa's longest serving leader

Equatorial Guinea will vote in parliamentary elections on Sunday where the opposition, facing many hurdles but buoyed by rallies, is hoping for a breakthrough at the expense of the ruling party.

The election is widely expected to be dominated by the party of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader, who has ruled the tiny oil-rich nation for 37 years.

His Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) controls 99 percent of the seats in parliament, over which it has held sway since single-party rule was scrapped in 1991.

But opposition parties hope to make gains, even if they say they have no access to state media, which regularly broadcasts campaign ads by the PDGE and whose news broadcasts only cover meetings by the president's part.

Internet is widely censored in the country, opposition websites have been blocked since 2013, and Facebook has been blocked since the official start of the election campaign on October 27.

- Rising party? -

One party in particular, Citizens for Innovation (CI), has generated a buzz in Malabo, the capital. It has never taken part in elections but its rallies typically draw thousands of supporters.

"We will contest 97 percent of seats so if the elections are free, and with the popularity enjoyed by our party, we hope to win the elections," said party leader Gabriel Nse Obiang, a former army lieutenant who has returned to the country after 13 years' exile in Spain.

He was barred from contesting presidential elections in 2016 as he had not lived in the country for five consecutive years -- and was excluded from Sunday's ballot too after being sentenced to six months' jail for "serious insults" against the ruling party and banned from all political activity.

CI said some of its candidates were arrested and supporters injured in clashes with police on Sunday in Aconibe when police tried to prevent a campaign motorcade from attending a scheduled rally. Several police were hurt, it said.

Equatorial Guinea has frequently come under fire from human rights groups for suppressing dissident voices and the media, as well as widespread corruption.

The president's son, Teodorin Obiang, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence in France last month for plundering tens of millions of dollars in public money to buy luxury homes and cars, a landmark ruling which he is set to appeal.

The former Spanish colony, which borders Cameroon and Gabon, is one of sub-Sahara's biggest oil producers but a large proportion of the 1.2 million population still lives in poverty.

- Weaker economy -

Opposition parties hope to take advantage of a weakening economy that has been impacted by falling oil prices.

"These elections (are) an opportunity for the people who suffer from misery, unemployment, poverty, disease and injustice because of the regime... to take their destiny into their own hands," said Andres Esono Ondo, secretary general of the Convergence for Social Democracy.

The ruling PDGE is confident of winning the election though and is promising to introduce free primary education if returned to power.

The party is "the most firmly established in the country through its dynamism and its capacity to take of public affairs," PDGE member Martin Ela Ondo told AFP.

Around 300,000 people are eligible to take part in the elections, which will choose 100 MPs and 75 senators as well as the mayors of Malebo, the country's political capital, and Bata, its economic hub.
China's announcement to further open up its financial sector comes after President Donald Trump's state visit in which he called for a more level playing field in the huge economy for US firms

China on Friday said it will further open the country's financial markets to foreign firms, a key demand from the United States and Europe which have long complained about the strict limits on access to the giant economy.

The announcement came after Donald Trump's state visit to Beijing during which the US leader called for a more level playing field for American companies and measures to reduce a massive trade imbalance.

China's vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao said foreign firms will be allowed to own as much as 51 percent of shares of tie-ups in securities, funds and futures industries, instead of the current 49 percent limit, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The limits will be phased out in three years.

Foreign ownership restrictions in Chinese banks and financial asset management firms will also be lifted, Zhu said, as he discussed the "consensus" reached during Trump's state visit, according to Xinhua.

Overseas companies are currently not allowed to have a controlling stake in firms in China.

Foreigners cannot hold more than a quarter of a China-based bank's capital. The limit has made it difficult for foreign banks to play any major role in the Chinese market.

The United States and the European Union have long complained about a lack of access in a host of industries.

Analysts said China also stood to benefit.

"Opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support Chinas future development," said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

"These restrictions, and many others yet to be addressed, have been hindering economic activity in China for far too long," he said.

Speaking to Bloomberg News, Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities Ltd in Hong Kong, said the move was "a milestone in Chinas progress of opening up its economy".

Timing the announcement after Trump's visit shows that "China and the US are in a business and trade cooperation rather than confrontation," Hu said.

Trump railed against China's "very one-sided and unfair" trade relations with the US during his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But he said he blamed past US administrations, not China, "for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow".
Melania Trump presented stuffed toy eagles to children at the Beijing Zoo

US First Lady Melania Trump hiked the Great Wall and spent some time with a couple of China's most prominent diplomats in Beijing on Friday: the pandas Meng'er and Gu Gu.

While President Donald Trump jetted off to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China, his wife stayed behind to see the Beijing Zoo's favourite tenants before heading to the Great Wall.

The former model was greeted by a group of schoolchildren who waved Chinese and American flags and led her to the panda enclosure.

They oohed and aahed as Meng'er crawled on to a platform and began munching bamboo. His name means "Cute No. 2" in Mandarin.

Trump later "interacted privately" with Gu Gu behind-the-scenes, zoo director Li Xiaoguang told reporters.

Born in 1999, Gu Gu is a "good-looking panda with a robust memory," traits that serve him well as "goodwill ambassador of the zoo", Li said.

Pandas have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss

Gu Gu's name doesn't have a particular meaning, but the repetition of syllables is generally used in China to make names sound adorable.

Beijing has cultivated a global fascination with pandas as part of its diplomacy by sending the animals to overseas zoos where they have proven a wildly popular draw.

In 2015, former US first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan, chose the name for Bei Bei, a panda cub born at the National Zoo in Washington.

Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous southwestern China, have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss.

Trump later visited the Great Wall.

After a short cable car ride, she braved the cold weather to spend about half an hour hiking the refurbished Mutianyu section of the famous fortification.

An official told reporters she had said: "This is beautiful. This is amazing."

Donald Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall, despite it being a usual stop for US presidents.

China treated the Trumps to a lavish state visit with a private tour of the Forbidden City on Wednesday and a banquet dinner on Thursday.

The president wrote on Twitter that his wife would later fly to Alaska to meet with US troops.

The US leader was in Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit and he will then head to the Philippines on Sunday for the final leg of his five-nation tour of Asia.
Trump is trying to rally regional support to curb North Korea's nuclear weapons programme

US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Asia-Pacific region was being held hostage by the "twisted fantasies" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as he called on countries to stand united against Pyongyang.

Trump has embarked on a tour of Asia this week trying to rally regional support for curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, warning that time is running out over the crisis.

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The region, he added, must "stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

On Thursday, Trump was in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, where he called on China to "act fast" over North Korea.

Washington has also worked in recent months to convince allies across Asia to oppose Pyongyang, an issue that will remain prominent during his two-day trip to Vietnam, which is currently hosting a major regional summit.

The leaders of Japan, Russia, China and South Korea are also attending the APEC summit.

- 'Channels still open' -

At the same time, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington has "two or three channels" open with North Korea and was always ready to hear what Pyongyang wants to say.

Tillerson has consistently emphasised diplomacy in dealing with the North, while Trump has traded personal insults and threats of war with leader Kim Jong-Un.

At a speech in South Korea's parliament on Wednesday, Trump denounced the North's "cruel dictatorship" but appeared to moderate his bellicose tone somewhat when he offered Pyongyang a "path to a better future".

Tillerson reinforced that thrust on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.

"We have two or three channels in which we can with high confidence get messages to him and he can get messages back to us and we keep those open," he said of Kim.

"As part of our ongoing diplomatic effort we are always ready to hear what he has to say diplomatically", he said.

"Whatever he wants to say publicly, he can say publicly, and what we say to him diplomatically is not public either.

"Because I think eventually we're going to have one of those days where we're both going to say ok maybe it's a good time to have that first conversation", he added.

But North Korean media reiterated Friday that Pyongyang would not put its nuclear weapons up for negotiation, calling such suggestions a "foolish daydream" and Trump a "war maniac".

"We do not oppose dialogue but will never put the issue related to the supreme interests of the DPRK and security of its people on the bargaining table," said a signed commentary in the government newspaper Minju Joson.

"We are not interested in such dialogue and negotiations in the least."
Russia's state-controlled broadcaster RT says it will register as a foreign agent in the US but will also go to court to challenge the demand by the US Department of Justice

Russian lawmakers raced Friday to draft measures requiring US media outlets and possibly social media networks to register as foreign agents, saying they could be adopted as early as next week.

The measures, which are being prepared ahead of Russia's presidential election in March, would be a huge blow to already tattered US-Russia ties.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament, the State Duma, charged deputies with updating existing legislation after state-controlled Russia Today (RT) television was ordered by Washington to register as a "foreign agent" by Monday.

Volodin told Russian reporters the new measures, which would affect dozens of US news organisations operating in Russia including CNN and Voice of America, could be adopted at first reading on Wednesday and at a third and final reading next Friday.

Washington has been fighting what it calls a barrage of "fake news" from Russian media, including RT and the Sputnik news agency, which it says is aimed at interfering in US domestic politics.

"What the US authorities are doing today is an infringement on fundamental civil rights, on freedom of speech," Volodin said.

"The United States speaks beautifully about the freedom of speech when it comes to other countries but acts dogmatically itself."

His deputy Pyotr Tolstoy called for the mobilisation of all of the country's political forces, saying it was "an emergency situation."

Lawmakers said the measures targeting US media would be "reciprocal" and would set the same limitations that US authorities were seeking to impose on Russian media.

A senior lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party, Sergei Neverov, told reporters that the new measures could include social networks.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor, for its part, proposed blocking the websites of foreign media groups and nongovernmental organisations, without any need of a court order.

Roskomnadzor has repeatedly threatened to block Facebook and Twitter if they do not comply with a government demand to store the personal data of Russian nationals on Russia-based servers.

In 2012, Moscow adopted a law which requires NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents", a move critics said was part of a clampdown on civil society.

Lawmakers said the existing law would be amended to include media groups.

The head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, said the broadcaster was "suddenly" told by Washington it had until Monday to register as a "foreign agent" in the United States or face having its accounts frozen, among other measures.

She said RT would challenge the demand by the US Department of Justice in court.

- 'Huge number of limitations' -

Speaking on national television late Thursday, Simonyan said the demand would hinder the channel's work in the United States because it would have to publicise internal documents including their employees' addresses and salaries.

"It will very much complicate the possibility of interviewing people because we will have to report this too," she said. "There are a huge number of limitations."

She said the demands contradicted both democracy and freedom of speech.

"It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents," she was quoted as saying by RT.

Simonyan also denounced the US move in a caustic tweet.

"The US Department of Justice wheeled out a cannibalistic Monday deadline," she tweeted. "Can you feel the smell of freedom?"

Washington, which considers RT a propaganda arm for the Kremlin, in September told it to register its American operation under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is aimed at lobbyists and lawyers representing foreign political interests.

The same month Simonyan complained to President Vladimir Putin that RT and Sputnik had come under pressure in the United States.

"As soon as we see concrete steps limiting the activities of our media, there will be a retaliatory response," Putin said at the time.

RT has become a focus of the US investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The discovery last month of a house of horrors in the Tokyo suburbs with dismembered bodies of the victims has turned attention to social media. Suspect Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, had reportedly sought out people who posted messages on Twitter

Japan is considering tightening regulations on social media where vulnerable people share suicidal thoughts, the government said Friday in response to the grisly murders of nine young people reportedly contacted by their suspected killer through Twitter.

The discovery last month of a house of horrors in the Tokyo suburbs, with the dismembered bodies of the victims -- aged between 15 and 26 -- stashed in coolers and tool boxes, has shaken the country and turned attention to social media.

Suspect Takahiro Shiraishi, 27, had reportedly sought out people who posted messages on Twitter about killing themselves during a two-month murder spree.

"The suspect allegedly used an extremely dirty trick to lure victims and murder them, by exploiting their desire to kill themselves that were posted" online, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told ministers.

Another minister urged the government to look at ways of limiting access to such posts.

"We absolutely have to take steps to prevent this happening again," said Suga, who is the government's top spokesman, adding that authorities should also improve support for young people who posted these desperate messages online.

Suga later told reporters that the government would deliberate for a month before drafting fresh measures to tackle the sharing of self harm content online, without giving details.

The plans under consideration could include demanding internet firms filter out problematic content, public broadcaster NHK reported.

"Ninety percent of high school students have smartphones... there must be a new world emerging that we have not seen in the past," Communications Minister Seiko Noda told reporters after the meeting.

Three high school girls, including a 15-year-old, were among the victims, according to reports.

Japan has the highest suicide rate among the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations, with more than 20,000 people taking their own lives annually.

The overall suicide rate has been falling since it peaked in 2003.
In the Hamburg attack in July, the suspect walked into a supermarket and started attacking people with a knife he seized off the shelf

German prosecutors said Friday they have charged a 26-year-old Palestinian asylum seeker with murder after his deadly knife rampage at a Hamburg supermarket in July.

The accused, named as Ahmad A., killed one and wounded six in the July assault, and was arrested after passers-by overpowered him.

"The results of the investigation show that the accused sought out his victims indiscriminately, retaliating against people, who in his view represent perpetrators of injustice targeting Muslims," said prosecutors.

"It was important to him to kill as many German nationals of the Christian faith as possible. He wanted his actions to be viewed in the context of an Islamist attack, and understood as a contribution to jihad worldwide," they added.

Investigators, however, did not find any evidence to suggest that A. was a member of the Islamic State (IS) group, said the prosecution service, charging the man with murder, as well as six counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm.

He risks life in prison, although Germany often grants parole after 15 years.

The assault in the northern port city was the first Islamist attack in Germany since Tunisian Anis Amri drove a truck into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market on December 19, killing 12 and injuring 48.

Germany has been on high alert over the threat of a jihadist assault since Amri's rampage, for which IS claimed responsibility.

Like Amri, Ahmad A. was to have been deported after his asylum application was rejected by authorities, but the process was held up by a lack of identity documents.

The attacks have piled pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to allow in more than a million asylum seekers since 2015.

Railing against the migrants, the Islamophobic party AfD snatched over 90 seats in September's general elections -- the best showing for a far-right party in Germany since the end of World War II.
Trump met a cluster of American veterans in Danang

US war veteran Mark O'Connor raced across Danang on a motorbike on Friday hoping to come face-to-face with Donald Trump, a president who dodged the war-era draft but whose politics have won fast fans among some former soldiers for "making America great again".

After braving the searing sun, the 67-year-old's 8,000-mile journey from the US ended in disappointment as he was turned away by heavy security and failed to snatch a glimpse of Trump.

The president was meeting a cluster of other American vets in the Vietnamese coastal city on Friday.

"We tried, we did our best," said a crestfallen O'Connor, who lives in South Dakota but frequently visits Vietnam for charity work.

Sadly, he left his trademark red Trump campaign hat back home, but had planned to don a replacement on his mission to see the man whose politics have captivated him.

O'Connor had wanted to deliver a simple message to Trump in Danang, a former airbase where US marines first arrived more than 50 years ago to support the fight against communist-backed Viet Cong soldiers.

"Thank you for making America great again and taking our country back," he had wanted to say.

Trump, who famously avoided fighting in Vietnam by taking several deferments, arrived with a message of his own for former servicemen.

"Our veterans are a national treasure, and I thank them all for their service, sacrifice, and patriotism," he said, signing a proclamation to honour veterans of the Vietnam War.

He committed to repatriating the remains of 1,253 missing servicemen from Vietnam and found solid support among the clutch of men he met Friday.

"I just want to say what an honour and privilege it is to be with our president. I so admire what you're doing for our country," said one vet identified by the White House as Mr Hopper.

- Politically incorrect -

Trump had earlier remarked on the extraordinary turnaround in relations between Vietnam and the United States, from bitter foes to regional allies.

"This city was once home to an American military base in a country where many Americans and Vietnamese lost their lives in a very bloody war," he said at the APEC meeting in Danang.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends."

O'Connor had earlier expressed hope that Trump would pledge help to the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange who still live with crippling disabilities after being sprayed with the toxic defoliant during the bloody and bitter war.

The US government is working with Vietnam to clean up dioxin left over from the war.

O'Connor often travels to Vietnam to provide bicycles to school children in remote communities, a far cry from his mission during the war.

"We used to kill these people," he said remorsefully.

Trump's own service record doesn't bother O'Connor.

As for Trump's controversial comments about former vet John McCain, who he has said isn't a hero because he was captured during the war, O'Connor chalks them down to a personal grudge -- and Trump's penchant for off-the-cuff remarks.

"He's not politically correct, he says some things sometime that he should not," O'Connor said.
A Syrian government forces' tank fires rounds in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor during an operation against Islamic State group jihadists on November 2, 2017

Islamic State group jihadists have retaken nearly half of Albu Kamal in eastern Syria in a counter-attack on what had been the last significant town under their full control, a monitor said Friday.

"IS started counter-attacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had recaptured the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

Albu Kamal lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling "caliphate" the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest," Abdel Rahman said. "IS is trying to defend its last bastion."

The jihadist organisation has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

Albu Kamal was the last town of note it controlled and losing it would cap the group's reversion to an underground guerrilla organisation with no urban base.

According to Syria state TV, regime and auxiliary forces had retake full control of it by Thursday.

The Observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.
News / National

by Staff reporter

At least 17 MPs, who went to China on a shopping spree in 2014, are set to lose properties, after they failed to pay a local travel agent , Skycred (Private) Limited, a company that secured their flights to the Asian country.The Harare Magistrates' Court has since issued warrants of execution against the parliamentarians' properties, after orders were handed down in default.All the MPs, including former MDC legislator Ronia Bunjira who has since died, did not contest the court summons.The parliamentarians, who are set to lose properties are, Lilian Timveos (MDC), Tongesai Mudambo (Zanu-PF), Jenia Manyeruke (Zanu-PF), Lwazi Sibanda (MDC), Melania Mahiya (Zanu-PF), Paradzai Chakona (Zanu-PF), Sabina Mangwende (Zanu-PF), Mabel Nkatazo (Zanu-PF), Vincent Mawere (Zanu-PF), Nomathemba Ndlovu (MDC), Rorana Muchihwa, a former MDC MP, who has since been recalled by the party, Bacilia Majaya (MDC), Masango Matambanadzo (Zanu-PF), Innocent Pedzisai (Zanu-PF), Ezra Ruvai (Zanu-PF), Jeppy Jaboon (Zanu-PF), Ephraim Gwanongodza (Zanu-PF) and Bunjira (MDC), who has since passed on.The MPs owe various amounts of money emanating from their 2014 Chinese excursion.According to court papers, Jaboon, Ruvai, Pedzisai and Matambanadzo owe the biggest figure of $1 736 each, while the rest owe $868, except for Timveos and Mahiya who both owe $434.Sibanda owes $217."This is therefore, to authorise and require you for cause to be levied from property of the said defendant $1 767 together with costs of this execution and pay the said sum to the said applicant the sum of $1 767 plus 7, 5 percent per month from December 31, 2014 to January 31, 2016 and return as required by law what you have done by virtue hereof for which this shall be your warrant," reads part of a warrant of execution issued by the messenger of court.The amount on the writ includes the messenger of court's fees as well as other fees levied during the issuance of the court papers.Skycred, facilitated airfares for the MPs, who later missed their flights while in China, which required them to make further payments.The MPs, drawn from both Zanu-PF and MDC, according to reports, had organised the shopping trip to Beijing, China on their own without the involvement of Parliament administration.However, the company's efforts to recover the money hit a brick wall, which prompted it to file court summons against the defaulting MPs.The court summons culminated in the court orders, which gave greenlight for the MPs' properties to be attached.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says Saudi Arabia's mass purge of elite figures accused of corruption "raises a few concerns"

Saudi Arabia's mass purge of elite figures "raises a few concerns", US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday, reacting with caution to the crackdown on graft and also over tensions in Lebanon.

The unprecedented roundup has seen more than 200 princes, ministers and businessmen detained over what Riyadh alleges is $100 billion in embezzlement, but what is also widely viewed as a move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to consolidate power ahead of his accession to the throne.

The upheaval comes as Riyadh is locked in an intensifying proxy war with regional rival Tehran and enforces a crippling aid blockade of Yemen, which the United Nations has warned could trigger the world's worst famine in decades.

Tillerson, accompanying President Donald Trump on an Asian tour, said he believed the mass arrests ordered by a new anti-corruption commission headed by Prince Mohammed were "well intended".

But he cautioned that the lightning roundup "raises a few concerns until we see more clearly how these particular individuals are dealt with".

The top US diplomat's comments marked a step back from the fulsome support offered earlier this week by Trump, who said he had "great confidence" in what the crown prince and his father King Salman were doing.

Saudi authorities have frozen the bank accounts of those accused and warned that assets related to the alleged corruption cases would be seized as state property.

The crackdown comes as the young crown prince moves to accelerate his Vision 2030 programme to modernise the conservative kingdom, but also as Riyadh takes a more aggressive stance toward Iran.

- Saudi blockade, Yemen 'setback' -

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Friday that a Saudi-led blockade of Yemen was threatening to undo efforts to rein in a cholera epidemic already affecting nearly one million people in the war-ravaged country.

Almost 2,200 people have so far died from the waterborne disease, which has propagated rapidly due to deteriorating hygiene and sanitation conditions.

A malnourished Yemeni child receives treatment at a hospital in the port city of Hodeida on November 05, 2017

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib warned that the Saudi-led coalition's decision to seal off Yemen's borders threatened progress made in fighting the epidemic.

"We will suffer a major setback if we don't have full access to all affected areas," she told reporters in Geneva.

The coalition imposed a blockade on all aid deliveries to rebel-held territory in the wake of a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport one week ago by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

Iran vehemently denied a Saudi charge that it supplied missiles to the Huthis but said they were justified in responding after years of bombardment.

The UN Security Council demanded on Wednesday that the blockade be lifted but there was still no response from the coalition as aid deliveries were blocked for a fifth day on Friday.

- Warning of new coalition -

Lebanon has also become increasingly embroiled in the regional rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran, prompting Tillerson to step in on Friday and urge all parties not to use the country to settle their differences.

"The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country," Tillerson said.

A poster of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman adorns a highway in the mainly Sunni Lebanese port city of Tripoli where support runs deep for prime minister Saad Hariri who announced his shock resignation from Riyadh at the weekend

International concern over Lebanon also sparked a warning from the UN chief that a new regional conflict must be averted.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was "very worried" a conflict could break out in Lebanon and that he was engaged in intense contacts with all players to urge de-escalation.

"It is essential that no new conflict erupt in the region," Guterres told reporters. "It would have devastating consequences."

Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock move from the Saudi capital last week, citing Iran's "grip" on his country and threats to his life.

But the head of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of holding Hariri hostage against his will.

"The head of the Lebanese government is detained in Saudi Arabia, he is banned from returning to Lebanon until now," Nasrallah said in a televised address.

The Sunni leader had been sharing power with the Iran-backed Shiite militant movement Hezbollah in a hard-won national unity government.

But the arrangement had come under increasing fire from Saudi Arabia, where he holds dual citizenship.
The World Health Organization has said nearly 914,000 people in Yemen have been infected by cholera since the latest outbreak began in April

The World Health Organization warned Friday that a Saudi-led blockade of Yemen was threatening to undo efforts to rein in a cholera epidemic already affecting nearly one million people in the war-ravaged country.

Yemen, where a multinational conflict has caused a daunting humanitarian crises, has seen nearly 914,000 people infected by cholera since the latest outbreak began in April, according to WHO figures.

Nearly 2,200 people have so far died from the waterborne disease, which has propagated rapidly due to deteriorating hygiene and sanitation conditions.

The spread had slowed in recent weeks, but WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib warned the Saudi-led coalition's decision to seal off Yemen's borders this week threatened the progress made.

"We will suffer a major setback if we don't have full access to all affected areas," she told reporters in Geneva.

"Controlling the cholera outbreak is a very difficult challenge... Certainly closing borders and all access to the country will not help," she said.

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in neighbouring Yemen in March 2015 with the stated aim of rolling back gains by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels and restoring the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

The coalition has since the beginning enforced a de facto blockade on land crossings and air and sea ports, and the UN and other international humanitarian organisations are required to take permission for sporadic aid deliveries.

The blockade was tightened further on Monday, when the coalition said it was closing Yemen's borders and ports to aid agencies, after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind a rebel attack in which a missile was intercepted near Riyadh airport over the weekend.

The UN Security Council demanded Wednesday that the blockade be lifted, amid warnings of mass famine.

Chaib echoed that call, pointing out that cholera was "all over the country."

"We need to have unlimited access to all governorates of Yemen to be able to move, to be able to provide assistance to the health centres and hospitals."

The UN children's agency UNICEF also warned of dire health consequences if the blockade continues.

Maritxell Relano, head of UNICEF's operations in Yemen, pointed out that fuel was about to run out.

"The current stocks of fuel will only last until the end of November, and we need fuel to maintain the health centres open and the water system functioning," she told reporters in Geneva via conference call from Yemen.

"The operative water supply systems and the water treatment plants will stop if we don't have fuel, so the risk, the impact is unimaginable in terms of health (and) diseases," she cautioned.
General view of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Saudi capital Riyadh that is reported to have been converted into a makeshift prison after an unprecedented crackdown on the kingdom's coddled elite

Its chandelier-studded ballrooms hosted global business titans just weeks ago. Now Riyadh's palatial Ritz-Carlton is reported to have morphed into a makeshift prison after the kingdom's unprecedented crackdown on the coddled elite.

Saudi Arabias attorney general has vowed no special treatment for those detained in the purge, which includes princes, ministers and businessmen such as flamboyant billionaire tycoon Al-Waleed bin Talal.

But the five-star hotel spread over 52 acres (21 hectares), originally built to house guests of the royal family, is a far cry from a gritty prison cell -- it boasts of majestic suites and pastel-hued hallways awash with bronze statues and glittering chandeliers.

It has prompted light-hearted banter on social media, with jocular speculation on who would be added to the "Ritz guest list" as the crackdown expands, and some quipping "take us with you" to be incarcerated in the lavish hotel.

"Those people are as soft as butter and probably cannot survive a real prison," a Saudi man said on Twitter, referring to the elite detainees.

The attorney general has said some 201 people are being held for questioning over an estimated $100 billion in embezzlement and corruption, many of them subjected to detailed interrogations conducted in secret.

It is not clear if they are all being held at the Ritz-Carlton.

Police cars surround the palatial compound, with its imposing gates uncharacteristically clamped shut. Its website posted a message saying that the "hotels telephone lines are currently disconnected until further notice".

- Royal purge, royal privileges -

There's no official indication how long the group will remain under house arrest.

Last Sunday, the 492-room hotels online reservation page showed no availability until December. On Friday, it showed no availability until February 1, fuelling speculation that the "guest list" was expected to grow.

A Saudi businessman who had planned to host an event at the hotel this week was abruptly informed it had been cancelled.

The main gate of the luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Saudi capital Riyadh stands closed

"Due to unforeseen circumstances out of the Ritz-Carlton, the hotel had been ordered to accommodate a high-profile government delegation beginning November 4, 2017," he told AFP, quoting a message from the hotel management.

A brief and shaky video allegedly leaked from inside the hotel showed people sleeping on the ground covered in brightly coloured blankets, while armed guards lurked in the background.

The New York Times identified the place as the hotel's "Ballroom B", saying it appeared to be a makeshift barracks for the guards.

The arrests of jet-setting members of the royal family have sent a ripple of anxiety through the kingdom.

Saudi forces have grounded private jets at airports, possibly to prevent high-profile figures from leaving the country, an aviation source said, provoking fears of more arrests.

Just weeks ago, the hotel hosted a glittering investment summit -- dubbed "Davos in the desert" -- which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman used as a platform to pledge a "moderate" Saudi Arabia and to showcase his ambitious reform drive.

The crackdown has exposed the kingdom's once-untouchable elite to rare public scrutiny -- Saudis on social media have quipped that the Ritz-Carlton was not the worst place to be trapped.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, pictured in this October 26, 2017 file photo, says he has been talking with countries in the Middle East as well as nations with influence there in a bid to defuse the situation in Lebanon

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that a new conflict in Lebanon would have "devastating consequences" and said he was engaged in intense contacts with all players to urge de-escalation.

Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri resigned in a shock announcement broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday as a power struggle intensified between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which backs Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"It is essential that no new conflict erupt in the region," Guterres told reporters. "It would have devastating consequences."

"This is a matter of great concern to us. What we want is for peace to be preserved in Lebanon."

Guterres said he had been holding "very intense contacts" with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, other countries in the region as well as governments with influence in the Middle East.

"We are indeed very worried and we hope that we won't see an escalation in the region that would have tragic consequences," said Guterres.

The UN chief spoke to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Wednesday.

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement said in Beirut that Hariri was "detained" by Saudi Arabia and prevented from returning to Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon.
Workers at the Fuyao auto glass plant in Ohio voted against unionizing by a two-to-one margin, in another setback for the United Auto Workers Union, which failed in its efforts at Nissan and VW plants as well in recent years

The United Auto Workers has suffered another stinging defeat as workers overwhelmingly voted against unionizing at the Chinese-owned Fuyao car glass plant in Ohio.

UAW officials blamed what they called the company's aggressive anti-union tactics, and labor experts said it showed that companies have the advantage over efforts by workers to unionize.

Fuyao officials welcomed the decision to reject the union.

The company's founder had caused a stir in China last year by shifting part of his empire to the United States, citing high taxes and soaring labor costs at home.

Employees at the former UAW stronghold in the town of Moraine rejected the idea of unionizing by a two-to-one margin in an election late Thursday that was supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. The final tally showed the UAW lost by a vote of 868-444.

Union organizers went into the election with high hopes but instead suffered the latest in a series of defeats. And as in August, when the effort to organize workers at a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, failed, the union blamed the loss on what they described as a management campaign conducted within the plant.

"Fuyao Workers fighting for a voice in their workplace were unable to win against a barrage of anti-labor tactics and intimidation by management at the Ohio glass plant," the union said in a statement.

"It is disheartening to know that in 2017 there are companies willing to do so much to deny workers a voice and fair treatment," said UAW regional director Rich Rankin.

Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley said US labor law gives employers an advantage because they can use company resources to counter a union's appeal to workers.

Rankin said Fuyao workers had come to the union with complaints about unsafe workplace conditions, arbitrary policies and unfair and unequal treatment on the job.

In addition to the defeat in Ohio and at the Nissan plant in August, which the UAW also lost by a two-to-one margin, the union also narrowly lost in its effort to unionize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee in February 2014.

The UAW later won a vote among skilled trades employees at the VW plant. But the company challenged the results and the union has yet to reach a settlement to negotiate a contract with the German automaker.

Fuyao praised the decision of the Ohio workers to reject what an official called the UAW's "desperate attempt to prop up its revenue in the face of declining union membership worldwide."

"We are pleased that associates chose to maintain a direct relationship with our company and resist the union's attempt to intervene," Fuyao President Jeff Daochuan Liu said.

Fuyao acquired the former General Motors plant in 2014 and opened its first US manufacturing plants the following year as it began to expand its presence in the North American market.

The company's $600 million investment in Ohio came just after then White House candidate Donald Trump threatened to declare Beijing a currency manipulator and slap 45 percent punitive tariffs on Chinese imports to protect American jobs.

As president, Trump has considerably softened his tone on China, going so far as to praise Chinese business acumen, notably on his trip this week to Beijing.

Ironically, amid Trump's push to lower US corporate tax rates to attract investment and create jobs, Fuyao's 70-year-old founder, tycoon Cao Dewang, complained in December about the high taxes and soaring labor costs in China.

The businessman's decision to open a glass factory in Ohio -- a rare case of jobs being exported from China to the US -- triggered an outpouring of criticism on Chinese social media.

Founded in 1987, Fuyao is a major force in the auto parts market and produces 23 percent of the world's car windows. Its customers include most of the world's largest automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Toyota and Volkswagen.
An image grab taken from Hezbollah's al-Manar TV on November 10, 2017 shows Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah, giving a televised address from an undisclosed location in Lebanon

Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of detaining prime minister Saad Hariri and of asking the Shiite movement's arch-foe Israel to launch strikes.

Hariri's sudden resignation on November 4 in a statement made from Riyadh took the Lebanese political class by surprise and has sparked international concern.

The United States warned against using the tiny country as a "venue for proxy conflicts" and the United Nations said it was "essential no new conflict erupt in the region".

France called for Hariri to have "all his freedom of movement" amid rumours he was being held against his will.

"The head of the Lebanese government is detained in Saudi Arabia, he is banned from returning to Lebanon until now," Nasrallah said in a televised address.

Hariri's situation was not completely clear but calls, including from his Lebanese political rivals, mounted for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the premier's freedom of movement.

The 47-year-old announced his resignation on November 4 in a surprise move that coincided with a sweeping purge of the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who also holds Saudi nationality, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.

In a statement issued on Friday after a meeting with a senior Saudi diplomat, Aoun insisted Hariri should return to Lebanon.

- US support -

Posters of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned last week in a televised speech airing from the Saudi capital Riyadh, hang on Beirut's seaside corniche on November 10, 2017, with the caption "#We_are_all_Saad"

"President Aoun met Saudi charge d'affaires Walid Bukhari and informed him that the circumstances in which Mr. Hariri's resignation took place were unacceptable," the statement said.

The president "called for the return to Lebanon of the head of the government".

Aoun, whose political ally Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Riyadh, "voiced his concern over what is being said" about Hariri's current status in Saudi Arabia and demanded a "clarification".

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday described Hariri as "a strong partner" and warned against "any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country".

"The United States strongly supports the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Lebanon and of its political institutions" and opposes "any actions that could threaten that stability," he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country has close ties with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, made a surprise visit to Riyadh late Thursday after a trip to the United Arab Emirates.

On Friday, a spokesman for France's foreign ministry said: "We wish Mr. Saad Hariri to have all his freedom of movement and to be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon."

Earlier French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on French radio he thought Hariri was "free to move around", despite most of the Lebanese political class implying he was de facto under house arrest.

"He went to Abu Dhabi the day before President Macron's visit (on Wednesday) so we think he's free to move around," Le Drian said.

- Conflict warnings -

Nasrallah, whose party is the only organisation that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war and now has an arsenal that outstrips Lebanon's own armed forces, accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to incite conflict.

"The most dangerous thing is inciting Israel to strike Lebanon," he said. "I'm talking about information that Saudi Arabia has asked Israel to strike Lebanon."

Nasrallah, whose movement Hariri has repeatedly said should lay down its arms, also warned that his movement, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, was stronger than ever.

"We are stronger today, we warn them again misguided calculations, against any knee-jerk initiative," he said, adding however that his party saw any Israeli attack as being unlikely at this stage.

The UN chief, Antonio Guterres, also said: "It is essential that no new conflict erupt in the region."

"We are indeed very worried and we hope that we won't see an escalation in the region that would have tragic consequences," he said.

Lebanon's interior ministry said in a statement Friday that a Saudi national had been kidnapped in Lebanon in circumstances that remained unclear.

Saudi Arabia had urged all its citizens in Lebanon this week to leave the country but Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk told AFP that the kidnapping was "in no way related" to the Hariri crisis or politics.
Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, is under investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller over his contacts with Turkish officials

Investigators are probing whether former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn discussed expelling a Turkish dissident back to his country in exchange for millions of dollars, US media reported Friday.

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller is examining a meeting Flynn had with senior Turkish officials weeks after Donald Trump won the presidential race last year, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal reported.

The meeting allegedly discussed a secret payout of up to $15 million dollars if, once in office, Flynn would engineer the deportation to Turkey of Fethullah Gulen, a political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as help free Erdogan-linked Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab from prison.

NBC and the Journal both cited multiple people familiar with the probe by Mueller, who is leading the investigation into whether members of Trump's campaign colluded with Russian meddling in the election.

According to the sources, Mueller recently interviewed witnesses over the December 2016 meeting between the Turkish officials and Flynn at the swanky 21 Club in New York City.

"Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, were to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to people with knowledge of discussions Mr. Flynn had with Turkish representatives," the Journal said.

The Journal said it is not clear how far the proposal went and that there was no sign that any payments were made.

- 'Outrageous' -

Lawyers for Flynn labeled the allegations "outrageous" and "false".

According to the two reports, the discussions included details of how Gulen, a Muslim cleric who lives in Pennsylvania and has a large Turkish following, could be flown secretly by private jet to the isolated Turkish prison island of Imrali.

NBC reported that the Turkish officials also wanted Flynn to engineer the release of Zarrab, who was arrested in Miami in March 2016 on charges of helping Iran skirt US sanctions.

Zarrab is being held without bail and faces up to 30 years in prison if found guilty of sanctions violations and money laundering charges.

While his investigation is focused on Russian meddling, Mueller has a broad mandate and has honed in on Flynn's activities as Trump's lead national security advisor.

Those include frequent contacts with Russia's then-ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, and his alleged acceptance of payments before and after the election to lobby for Turkey.

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who was previously head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, became the White House national security advisor after Trump took office on January 20, 2017.

But he was forced to resign three weeks later over his Russia contacts.

In a statement late Friday, Flynn's lawyers, led by Robert Kelner of the Covington law firm, rejected the reports.

As a rule, they said, they do not comment on news reports involving their client.

"But today's news cycle has brought allegations about General Flynn, ranging from kidnapping to bribery, that are so outrageous and prejudicial that we are making an exception to our usual rule: they are false."
A poster of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who resigned last week in a televised speech airing from the Saudi capital Riyadh, hangs on the side of a roundabout in Tripoli, Lebanon with a caption above reading in Arabic: "God protect you"

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries Friday against using Lebanon for "proxy conflicts" following a crisis triggered by its prime minister's resignation.

Tillerson also called the premier, Saad Hariri, who announced his resignation last Saturday from Saudi Arabia, as a "strong partner" of the United States.

"The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country," Tillerson said in a statement.

Hariri's resignation came as a shock. He accused Hezbollah, the powerful Shiite movement that is part of his government but also close to Iran, of controlling Lebanon.

Many observers saw his stepping down as being ordered by Saudi Arabia, Iran's big rival in the region.

Earlier Friday, while traveling in Asia, Tillerson told reporters he had received assurances from the Saudis that Hariri himself had decided to resign.

Tillerson also said he had no indication that Hariri was being held against his will in the oil-rich kingdom.

- Concern over stability -

But he also expressed concern over what effect the resignation might have on the stability of the Lebanese government, which is composed of Christians and both Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Tillerson said this structure had been able to maintain some degree of calm and peace in Lebanon, and that if this balance of powers were disrupted, things might change.

"The United States strongly supports the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Lebanon and of its political institutions" and opposes "any actions that could threaten that stability," Tillerson's statement on Friday reads.

Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of detaining Hariri and of asking the Shiite movement's archfoe Israel to launch strikes on Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia.

In a message that seemed aimed mainly at Iran and Hezbollah, Tillerson's statement said: "There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state -- which must be recognized as the sole authority for security in Lebanon."

- Saudi purge -

Washington has expressed support in recent days for King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although Tillerson said Friday that the latter's detention of more than 200 princes, ministers and businessmen in a crackdown on corruption "raises a few concerns" about how they will be dealt with down the road.

Tillerson said he believed the mass arrests ordered by a new anti-corruption commission headed by Prince Mohammed were "well intended."

As tensions rise between the Saudis and Iran over Lebanon but also Yemen, where the two big powers back opposing warring sides, Tillerson once again blamed Iran, calling it a destabilizing force. He added that he did not feel Saudi Arabia was a destabilizing force in force in the region.

Hariri's situation was not completely clear. But calls mounted, including from his Lebanese political rivals, for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the prime minister's freedom of movement.

Hariri's resignation coincided with a sweeping purge among the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who was born in Saudi Arabia, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.
Tunisian special forces attend a ceremony in Gammarth, a suburb of Tunis, on November 24, 2016, paying tribute to 12 presidential security guards killed in a suicide blast a year earlier

Tunisia on Friday extended for another three months a state of emergency introduced two years ago following a series of deadly jihadist attacks in the North African country.

President Beji Caid Essebsi "decided to prolong the state of emergency across the whole country for three months from November 12", his office said in a statement.

The security measure has been in place since a November 2015 bombing on a presidential guard bus in the capital Tunis killed 12 security service members.

The Islamic State jihadist group claimed the attack, as well as bombings earlier in 2015 at the Bardo National Museum and at a beach resort that killed 59 foreign tourists and a Tunisian policeman.

Since its 2011 revolution, which sparked the Arab Spring, Tunisia's security forces have faced a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed the lives of more than 100 soldiers and police.

The government has repeatedly renewed the state of emergency despite pledges that it was looking to lift it following assurances that security has improved.

At the start of November, one policeman was killed and another wounded in a knife assault outside the parliament in Tunis that was blamed on an Islamist extremist.

The state of emergency hands sweeping powers to law enforcement agencies and in theory allows the authorities to ban strikes or public gatherings and take control of the media.
The militiamen are also suspected of staging attacks on Congolese troops

Eighteen suspected militiamen, including a provincial lawmaker, went on trial Friday in DR Congo's chaotic east for kidnapping and raping some 40 girls.

Frederic Batumike and 17 others face charges of "crimes against humanity through rape and murder ... and taking part in an insurrectional movement," Charles Cubaka Cicura, a lawyer representing the victims told AFP.

They are appearing before a military court in Bukavu.

The suspects are accused of being members of the Djeshi ya Yesu militia, or The Army of Jesus in Swahili, which was led by Batumike, said Colonel Roger Wavara.

Batumike was arrested in June last year along with 74 others and accused of "recruiting a witch doctor who advised the militiamen to rape very young girls and thereby gain supernatural protection."

Some 40 girls aged between eight months and 12 years were kidnapped and raped between May 2013 and 2016, Cicura said.

"At least two girls died following these assaults," he said.

Denis Mukwege, a global expert from Congo on treating gang rape victims, had denounced the wave of child kidnappings and rape during that period in the village of Kavumu, near Bukavu.

"How can someone kidnap a child at night and bring her in the bush to rape her?" Mukwege had told AFP in an interview in 2015.

"The condition of the babies who arrive to us like that at the hospital is dramatic. These are things that are completely new."

Armed groups vying for control of the region's vast mineral wealth often use mass rape to terrorise the local population.

Batumike is also suspected of ordering the murder of Congolese rights activist Evariste Kasali, who was killed on March 17 last year, and German national Walter Mueller, a plantation owner who was brutally killed in 2012.

Kinshasa authorities also accuse him of staging several attacks on the police and soldiers in the country's east.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said on Wednesday he was worried about stability in Zimbabwe following the axing of of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.Tsvangirai was talking to the SABC from Johannesburg where he is resting after treatment for his cancer."This is a dramatic experience for the country. It's one thing to dismiss the vice president but it's another when it affects the stability of the country. This is a security risk. Robert Mugabe is determined to keep power by whatever means."He said he was concerned that first lady Grace Mugabe could move into the vice president's position. "This is a dynasty arrangement. Mugabe has walked roughshod over everyoneIf the nation has to take the route for unconstitutional change, we may as well kiss the democratic project goodbye. I hope those who want unconstitutional change will be dissuaded from that."President Mugabe said on Wednesday the route to leadership was long and full of "pitfalls and death", as he accused his fired deputy and former protege of showing impatience in his bid to succeed him.Addressing supporters at the headquarters of his Zanu-PF party in Harare, 93-year-old Mugabe accused Emmerson Mnangagwa of consulting witchdoctors and prophets as part of a campaign to secure the presidency.Mnangagwa, who was sacked by Mugabe on Monday and expelled from the ruling Zanu-PF party on Wednesday, said he had fled Zimbabwe because of death threats and was safe."My sudden departure was caused by incessant threats on my person, life and family by those who have attempted before through various forms of elimination including poisoning," he said in a statement on Wednesday.The head of the influential war veterans association, Chris Mutsvangwa, said that Mnangagwa, 75, would travel to Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa "very soon".Mugabe said Mnangagwa, nicknamed "Crocodile", had made the same mistakes as Joice Mujuru, who was the president's deputy for 10 years until she was fired in 2014."You should not try to say because the journey is long, then I should take a short cut to arrive quickly. The road has lions. There are pitfalls. There is death, beware," he said."There is no short cut to being the leader of the people. Just as there was no short cut to our independence."ZANU-PF would move to discipline Mnangagwa's "co-conspirators", Mugabe added.Mnangagwa has not been seen in public since his dismissal from government but his ally Mutsvangwa said he was "safe and beyond the reach of the assassins".Mutsvangwa ruled out trying to remove Mugabe by force and said war veterans, who had publicly backed Mnangagwa and broke ranks with the president last year, would form a broad front with the opposition in elections next year."We don't want to abuse the military to resolve a political problem. We don't want them to become the arbiter of political power," Mutsvangwa said.He was critical of Mugabe's wife Grace, who looks set to become vice president after a special Zanu-PF congress in December. "This is a coup by marriage certificate .and it will be resisted," he said.
Sri Lankan men drive three-wheel taxis known as tuk-tuks in Colombo on November 10, 2017

Sri Lanka will adopt tougher vehicle emission standards early next year, the finance minister said Friday, a move that will effectively halt the import of tuk-tuks from neighbouring India.

From January, the South Asian country will follow the environmentally-friendly Euro 4 emissions standard as adopted by European nations, Mangala Samaraweera said.

The new norms will have a huge impact on the import of tuk tuks -- a favourite mode of transport in Sri Lanka, with 1.5 million already in the country.

Almost all come from India and are considered major polluters.

The government had said in October it planned to restrict imports of the ubiquitous three-wheel taxis in a bid to reduce road accidents and congestion.

The announcement also comes as Sri Lanka moves to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2040, replacing all state-owned vehicles with electric or hybrid models by 2025.

"We are moving towards environmentally-friendly vehicles and we will insist on the new standards for all new imports into the country from the new year," Samaraweera told reporters in Colombo.

He added that the government would slash import taxes on three-wheelers that are electric-powered to help owners replace the current gasoline fleet.

The government will also arrange cheap credit for electric taxis and buses.

Sri Lanka had around 6.8 million vehicles, most imported from Japan and India, on its roads at the end of 2016, including nearly 720,000 cars.

In the absence of public mass transit options, rickety three-wheelers are a popular transport option as well as a key source of employment for locals, with an increasing number of young men becoming tuk tuk drivers.
Burundian minister of Justice Aimee Laurentine Kanyana, pictured here in October 2017, said the country "rejects" the ICC's probe into alleged crimes committed after the country spiralled into political turmoil in 2015

Burundi on Friday slapped away any idea that it would help the International Criminal Court's probe into alleged crimes committed after the country spiralled into political turmoil in 2015.

"Burundi rejects this decision from the very outset," said Justice Minister Aimee Laurentine Kanyana, a day after the Hague-based court announced the investigation.

Burundi withdrew from the ICC on October 27 -- claiming it was biased against Africa -- "and was not notified of the ICC's decision to investigate Burundi before its effective departure," she said.

As a result, "it is not bound by this decision," the minister said in a statement read to the press in Bujumbura, the capital.

On Thursday, the ICC revealed that its judges had given the go-ahead for a full investigation into crimes allegedly committed in Burundi from April 26, 2015, to October 26, 2017, which is the day before the country's exit from the court.

The prosecutor can also widen the probe to acts committed both before and after those dates "if certain legal requirements are met", and even investigate other atrocities such as suspected "genocide or war crimes," under the decision.

The period this covers begins with Burundi's descent into unrest and bloodletting when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was running for a third term in office, winning July 2015 elections which were boycotted by the opposition.

According to estimates, "at least 1,200 people were allegedly killed, thousands illegally detained, thousands reportedly tortured and hundreds disappeared", the ICC judges said.

The decision to launch the probe was made on October 25, but was kept under seal to help victims and potential witnesses, according to the ICC.

The Burundian minister lashed the delay and the fact that the decision had been announced through the media.

"This confirms once more the politicisation of human rights and international justice, as well as the attempt to destabilise African countries," she said.

"In any case, Burundi will never begin cooperation with the ICC for implementing a decision that was taken in violation of the Rome Statute [the treaty that established the ICC] and the principles of international law."

Armel Niyongere, a member of an international group of lawyers for victims of crimes committed in Burundi, hailed the ICC's decision.

"The government of Burundi thought it had escaped international justice by withdrawing from the ICC," he said.

"This is a great victory for the Burundian people."

Pacifique Nininahazwe, who heads an exiled Burundian group called NDONDEZA, which is probing disappearances, said, "For the first time in the history of Burundi, there is a hope of judgement for massive and serious violations of human rights.

"But this is just a step, because the suffering of the people is continuing through bloody repression."

According to differing tolls provided by the United Nations or non-governmental organisations, the violence in Burundi has claimed between 500 and 2,000 lives, and more than 400,000 Burundians have fled abroad.
A Moroccan man reads the latest issue of Al-Massae daily newspaper in Arabic portraits of the two French investigative journalists who have been charged in Paris with trying to blackmail the king of Morocco out of two million euros ($2.2 million) in hush money

A French appeals court on Friday dealt a blow to two journalists accused of trying to blackmail the king of Morocco by ruling that secret recordings could be used as evidence against them.

Lawyers for French investigative journalists Eric Laurent and Catherine Graciet argued unsuccessfully that tapes of conversations between them and a Moroccan official were inadmissible.

"It's a very big victory," Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the king told AFP. "There is no longer any obstacle to going ahead to conviction."

Laurent, 69, and Graciet, 42, were charged with blackmail and extortion for demanding three million euros from Moroccan King Mohammed VI not to bring out a book purportedly containing damaging revelations about him.

They were arrested in Paris in August 2015 after a secretly recorded meeting with a Moroccan official at which they allegedly accepted payments of 40,000 euros ($47,000) each, a source close to the French investigation told AFP.

They were in possession of 80,000 euros in cash as they left the meeting, which occurred after the monarch had filed a case with Paris prosecutors.

The Moroccan government claims that the payment was the first instalment of a total of two million euros demanded by the authors in exchange for not publishing their book.

The journalists allegedly demanded three million euros initially, but reduced the figure after further negotiations. They deny the charges.

Laurent and Graciet published a highly critical book on Mohammed VI in 2012 titled "The Predator King" about his extensive business dealings which was banned in Morocco.

Their new book had been slated for publication in early 2016.

Laurent was previously recorded during two other meetings with the envoy, Hicham Naciri, a lawyer.

In an earlier preliminary hearing, the court judged the recordings were made with the "indirect participation" of French investigators "without the consent" of the two journalists, which it said contravened the principle of a fair trial.

But on Friday the court delivered its final ruling, saying police had played a "passive" role and could not be considered to have been "truly involved" in the bugging.

Investigating magistrates must now decide whether to send the case to trial or throw it out.
President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila (L) refused to step down on the expiry of his second and final term in December 2017

Britain's minister of state for Africa Rory Stewart met DR Congo authorities on Friday and said plans to hold long-deferred elections late next year were "achievable."

The DRC had weathered months of unrest and violence over the vote, which was delayed by President Joseph Kabila's refusal to step down on the expiry of his second and final term last December.

Under a compromise deal, the vote was scheduled to take place this year, but has since been pushed back until December 2018.

"I realise that the electoral process is fraught with challenges but it's at the same time a process which is not impossible to conduct. We believe that this is achievable," a French statement from Congo's national election commission quoted Stewart as saying.

Stewart met Kabila earlier in the day -- the first Western minister to do so after the Congolese announced that the election would be held on December 23 next year.

In a statement on Monday supporting the December 2018 timetable, the US State Department said the DRC had taken "a significant step toward realising its first peaceful, democratic transfer of power". The EU also followed suit.

But Washington also noted "the importance" of Kabila abiding by the constitution and pledges reached under a compromise agreement last year to step down following elections.

The 46-year-old has been president since 2001 after taking over from his assassinated father, Laurent.

Congolese prosecutors meanwhile Friday sought a three-year jail-term for rights activist Timothee Mbuya, who is accused of organising "an anarchic march" in the country's second-largest city Lubumbashi, and inciting "civil disobedience."

Mbuya was arrested on July 31 during the march calling for the government to quickly announce the new election date.
Tunisian activist Amina Sboui (R) poses with Tunisian director Nada Mezni Hafaiedh (L) outside a cinema on November 8, 2017, during the 28th edition of the Carthage Film Festival

A frank documentary about the lives of gay Tunisians received an enthusiastic welcome at a local film festival Friday despite homosexuality being a crime in the North African country.

"It's brilliant. If this film made it, then of course we can screen many others," said Sikander, a member of the audience who only gave his first name, as he left the theatre at the Carthage Film Festival.

The room of 500 seats was not big enough to fit all those who flocked to see "Upon the shadow", an intimate -- at times explicit -- portrait of a group of transvestite and gay friends speaking openly about their love lives, being rejected by their families and their fear of the police.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights have long been taboo in the conservative Muslim state, where sodomy is punishable by up to three years in prison.

The audience broke into applause during several of the film's sequences, though a dozen people stood up and left the theatre, embarrassed by scenes of naked transvestites or two men kissing.

"The message of tolerance is good, but showing naked men isn't acceptable, said Nada, 25, who chose not to give her surname.

Sandra, a young transgender woman who is the only character in the film not to have left the country, appeared proud to have told her story.

"I don't mind telling my story with my face uncovered" even if "I risk being insulted", she said.

When she started filming the documentary in Sidi Bousaid outside Tunis in 2016, director Nada Mezni Hafaiedh had not planned to show it in Tunisia.

But the Carthage Film Festival (JCC) selected the film and screened it in its entirity after it had been shown in Europe.

A founding principle "of the JCC is to express freedoms: showing films banned elsewhere or on complicated topics," festival organiser Nawres Roussi said.

Hafaiedh, the filmmaker, said she was "surprised there were so few complaints" after the screening.

"I would never have thought my film would be selected and that Tunisians would be able to see it, because I know that sadly in Tunisia being gay is an abomination," she said.

Bouhedid Belhadi, who heads the Shams rights association, said the LGBT community had "come out to show its pride publicly" in the film.

"I'm proud to see... the large number of people who wanted to see the film."
Yemeni men inspect the site of an air strike in the capital Sanaa, on November 5, 2017

The Saudi-led coalition carried out air strikes on the defence ministry in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa late Friday, witnesses and rebel media said, leaving at least three civilians wounded.

The Huthi rebel media outlet Al-Masirah reported two air strikes targeting the defence ministry. One of the strikes hit a residential area near the ministry, witnesses said.

"I was sitting at home and heard the first strike hit the ministry of defence. Everyone was afraid. Minutes later, another strike hit my neighbour's house," resident Mohammed Aatif said.

"My entire house shook," said Aatif, who fled with his family from the neighbourhood.

He said the strike destroyed his neighbour's house, leaving an enormous crater, and damaged others.

Witnesses said the number of casualties may rise as wounded are pulled from the rubble.

The coalition has targeted the defence ministry in the past, leaving it heavily damaged, but the fresh strikes come as tensions ratchet up between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, which backs the Huthi rebels.

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in neighbouring Yemen in March 2015 with the stated aim of rolling back Huthi rebel gains and restoring the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

The conflict has left more than 8,650 people dead, including many civilians, and the Huthis continue to control the capital Sanaa and much of Yemen's north.

The coalition shut down Yemen's borders earlier this week after Saudi forces on Saturday intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Huthis near the Riyadh airport.

The rebels have threatened additional attacks on Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner the United Arab Emirates in response to the blockade.

The United Nations said on Friday that the coalition is still blocking desperately needed UN aid deliveries to Yemen despite the re-opening of the Yemeni port of Aden and also a land border crossing.

This week, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock warned the Security Council that, unless the blockade was lifted, Yemen would face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims".

The world body has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million people in need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine.

More than 2,000 Yemenis have died in a cholera outbreak now affecting nearly one million people.
This picture shows a computer screen displaying the portrait of Somali-born cleric Abdulqadir Mumin, accused of heading the Islamic State group in East Africa

An Islamic State faction in Somalia has grown significantly over the past year, carrying out attacks in Puntland and receiving some funding from Syria and Iraq, a report by UN sanctions monitors said Friday.

The faction loyal to Sheikh Abdulqader Mumin was targeted by US drone strikes last week in the first US operation targeting IS in the Horn of Africa, US Africa Command said.

In the report, the UN monitoring group for Somalia said the IS faction, which was estimated in 2016 "to number not more than a few dozen, has grown significantly in strength" and may "consist of as many as 200 fighters."

Phone records from Mumin showed he was in contact with an IS operative in Yemen who acts as an intermediary with senior IS leaders in Iraq and Syria "though the exact nature of this contact is unclear," said the report.

Former members of the faction who defected in December said the Mumin group received orders as well as financing from Iraq and Syria, the report said.

The group captured the town of Qandala in Puntland's Bari region in October 2016, declaring it the seat of the Islamic Caliphate in Somalia before being pushed out two months later by Puntland forces backed by US military advisers.

In February, IS gunmen stormed a hotel in Bosaso, the economic capital of Puntland, and in May the faction carried out its first suicide attack at a police checkpoint near Bosaso, killing five people.

"The group showed signs of increasing tactical capabilities during its first attack target a hotel," said the UN monitors.

- Haven for foreign fighters -

The UN report raised concerns that the Bari region could become a potential haven for foreign IS fighters as the extremists are driven out of their strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The IS group in Somalia "presents more natural appeal to foreign terrorist fighters than Al-Shabaab," whose aim is to establish a state government by Islamic law, it added.

Al-Shabaab, another Islamist militant group, is affiliated with IS's global rival Al-Qaeda.

The Bari region has attracted a limited number of foreign fighters including Sudanese national Abu Faris who is on the US terror list for recruiting foreign fighters for Al-Shabaab.

While the faction is expanding, its fighters appear to be poorly paid or not paid at all.

Unmarried fighters receive no salary, while married militants receive $50 per month plus $10-$20 per child, depending on the age.

The report estimated that the salary payments were between $3,000 and $9,000 per month, allowing IS leaders "to fund its insurgency on a limited budget".

UN monitors said the faction will likely face frequent defections from poorly paid fighters, a problem that also affects Al-Shabaab.
WASHINGTON (AP) - For months, commentators and officials describing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia have used words such as "collusion" and "coordination" to summarize the complicated federal probe.

President Donald Trump himself has latched onto the terms, declaring on Twitter last week that there had been "NO COLLUSION" after criminal charges were unveiled against three of his ex-campaign aides.

But the words by themselves do little to explain how campaign officials might be prosecuted for contacts with Russian operatives, according to legal experts. That raises questions about which crimes Mueller's prosecutors will use to bring criminal cases stemming from what began as a FBI counterintelligence investigation 15 months ago.

In this Nov. 6, 2017 photo, Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, leaves the federal courthouse in Washington. Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, who were charged with violating federal money laundering, foreign lobbying and banking laws for behavior occurring as far back as 2012, have pleaded not guilty. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

"Conspiracy itself is not a crime: You've got to conspire to commit a crime," said Kate Stith, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Yale Law School. "The question is, what crimes are they looking at?"

____

WHAT CHARGES HAVE BEEN FILED?

That question was partially answered when a judge unsealed an indictment against onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, who were charged with violating federal money laundering, foreign lobbying and banking laws for behavior occurring as far back as 2012.

Both men have pleaded not guilty. The court documents make no mention of contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign.

Mueller had the authority to bring the case since his mission is to investigate any "links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump," plus any matters that arise from that inquiry, according to a May letter from the deputy attorney general.

But how Mueller's prosecutors will handle other Trump campaign aides who have had contact with Russians - an act that, by itself, doesn't necessarily constitute a crime - remains only partially answered.

George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy aide who according to court papers discussed with Russians Hillary Clinton's emails and the possibility of a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, was charged with lying to FBI agents about his contacts, not the contacts themselves.

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty and is cooperating with investigators.

"Talking to foreign officials is not by itself a crime. Investing in foreign ventures including Russian ventures is not a crime," said Joel Brenner, a former top lawyer at the NSA and DNI. "Mueller, in order to prove a conspiracy involving any such activities, would have to show that the activities were part of something criminal such as trading changes in public policy for commercial benefits."

____

WHAT ABOUT ELECTION MEDDLING?

Mueller's probe into connections between Trump's campaign and Russia comes against the backdrop of a much broader Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, more evidence of which was disclosed publicly last week.

The Associated Press reported that the Russian hacking effort that targeted Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman was part of a much broader hacking campaign; and congressional testimony by lawyers for social media companies revealed that millions of Americans viewed politically divisive ads pumped into their social media feeds by the Russians.

Counterintelligence officers investigating the case must determine whether any aspect of that influence effort was coordinated or facilitated via campaign officials, experts said.

Frank Montoya, a former top FBI counterintelligence agent, said Mueller investigators working simultaneously on criminal and counterintelligence probes are likely exchanging notes as they look for signs of a two-way conspiracy to break laws such as those statutes covering campaign finance, fraud, theft or financial dealings.

"Conspiracy is going to be a big part of the investigative lines because that's how you tie everybody together," he said.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A semi-official Iranian news agency says authorities have ordered a two-day ban on hard-line newspaper Kayhan after it ran a headline saying Dubai was the "next target" for Yemen's Houthi rebels.

ISNA reported Wednesday that Kayhan has been ordered not to publish on Saturday and Sunday, after it ignored a previous notice from the Tehran prosecutor.

Kayhan ran the headline after Yemen's Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile that was intercepted near the Saudi capital. Iran supports the Houthis but has denied Saudi and U.S. allegations that it has given them missiles and other weapons.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai, are close allies and have been battling the Houthis since March 2015.

Iran has a long history of shutting down local media over security charges.
MILFORD, Conn. (AP) - Police in Connecticut say a man who mixed up Tuesday with Sunday has been arrested after threatening a construction worker with a knife.

Milford Police say 48-year-old Myles Safyre came up to a construction worker on Tuesday, telling him to stop working because it was Sunday.

When the construction worker asked him to leave the work zone, police say Safyre pulled out a knife and demanded that he stop working.

Safyre was arrested on charges of threatening and breach of peace. Court records on Thursday said he was ordered held in custody.

His public defender did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
News / National

by Staff Reporter

The dramatic dismissal of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa from the presidium may have been prompted by President Mugabe's mounting health issues amid unconfirmed reports he has two months to live.President Mugabe on Monday fired his deputy and expelled him from his party as the battle to succeed him intensified with his wife Grace looking more likely the automatic choice for Vice President.A source within the President's inner circle last night revealed a Malaysian urologist has told the first family that the longstanding despote not live more than a month now due to the advance stage of his prostate cancer.This was also corroborated by sources by senior sources in President Mugabe's close security who said the move to sack VP Mnangagwa was prompted by President Mugabe's rapidly deteriorating health."The president's Malaysian urologist and Chinese doctors have informed the First Lady that the president is unlikely to live for more than a month due to mounting complications from his long standing prostate cancer," reads the details leaked."The cocktail of medications that have been administered to Mugabe over a long period of time and they are now having less and less effect and causing side effects of the cancer such as fluid retention and decreased lung capacity. This is believed to likley causes "organs failure" within weeks if not days.Mugabe has prostate cancer and was told by doctors in 2008 that the disease could rapidly turn for the worst, leaked US diplomatic cables reveals.Mr Mugabe's battle with the disease was revealed to James McGee, the former US Ambassador to Harare, by Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, during a private meeting in June 2008.It is believed that before his rally at Bulawayo's White City Stadium on Saturday, Mugabe's medical team were concerned that the dosage of medication required to put the president on his feet might prove fatal. On Sunday Mugabe failed to attend the Church star rally hosted by his wife and sources said doctors where attending him at home.Mugabe said to have urged his wife Grace to seize the moment and make the long-awaited strike against Mnangagwa before the VP had time to do the same to her and the children."The president is said to fear a situation in which he dies with Mnangagwa in a de facto position to take the presidency. He is believed to have advised the first lady to "kill" Mnangagwa "before he kills us". He also instructed the first lady that the head of the Defence Forces, Constantine Chiwenga, was "a long standing coward who will salute anybody who will win", so the key element was to "ensure that he salutes you first and not Mnangagwa" reads the details.At 93, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is the oldest head of state in the world. But he's not letting age slow him down. He is running again in next year's elections. But his wife, Grace, 52, is positioning herself to succeed him in the event of his death.Mugabe has run the country since it won independence from Great Britain in 1980. Before that, he led a long and bloody guerrilla war against the country's white settler regime."He is a very astute politician," says Andrew Meldrum, assistant Africa editor for the Associated Press. "He is a wily politician. He has out-maneuvered everybody within Zimbabwe, and around Africa, and even internationally."He has held onto power with a degree of ruthlessness. Enemies have been jailed or killed. Even allies aren't allowed to build up any power. Meldrum himself was jailed and expelled from the country after reporting on torture."There have been vice presidents, but it's a very perilous position to be in," says Meldrum. "So the vice presidents are either elbowed aside or a trapdoor opens and they disappear."The latest example is Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who fled into exile this week after being denounced by the Mugabes. Mnangagwa had been in the cabinet since independence, and was known for being extremely loyal. He says he now fears for his life.Grace Mugabe is more than 40 years younger than her husband. She was a receptionist when they met and began an affair. They had children together, before Mugabe's first wife died.In the last few years, Grace Mugabe has developed political ambitions, and started honing her political skills. She's taken over the Women's League of the ruling ZANU-PF party. She's held rallies across the country, but "she is not widely popular," according to Meldrum's analysis. "She was originally known as 'Gucci Grace' among some people for her shopping trips overseas.""She has taken on a more political role," he adds, "and she does distribute charity donations of clothes and food in rural areas. So she knows what needs to be done to gain popularity."Grace Mugabe has also weathered scandals, including separate assault charges in South Africa and Hong Kong. She was able to avoid prosecution by asserting diplomatic immunity.She has spoken openly of her ability to become vice president and succeed her husband, in the event of his death.When asked about creating a dynasty, she says, "Why not?"
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - The Latest on the court-martial of a Marine Corps drill instructor on charges including cruelty and maltreatment of recruits(all times local):

10:50 p.m.

A military jury has convicted a Marine Corps drill instructor of abusing young recruits and then lying about his actions to investigators.

FILE - In this Oct., 31, 2017 file photo, U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph A. Felix, his wife, and his lawyers exit a courtroom after testimony at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Closing arguments could begin soon for a former Felix, a Marine Corps drill instructor facing court-martial on charges including cruelty and maltreatment. Prosecutors have spent more than a week at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina laying out the case against Felix. They returned to court Wednesday, Nov. 8. (Rory Laverty /The Washington Post/via AP, File)

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, decided Thursday that Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix's punching, choking and kicking of recruits at the Marine Corps' Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp included a focus on three Muslim men.

The 34-year-old Iraq veteran could be sentenced to military prison, financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge.

Felix was accused of being a central figure in an abusive group of drill instructors at Parris Island uncovered after the March 2016 suicide of one of the Muslim-American recruits targeting.

An investigation led to charges against Felix, five other drill instructors and the training battalion's commanding officer. Eleven others faced lesser, administrative discipline.

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9:45 a.m.

A military jury is deliberating whether a Marine Corps drill instructor is guilty of beating, stomping and choking new recruits.

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, began discussions Thursday into whether Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix abused young Marine hopefuls and zeroed in on Muslim-Americans because of their heritage and religion. The 34-year-old Iraq veteran was charged after the Marines investigated why one of his Muslim trainees at the Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp committed suicide last year.

Investigators found unchecked abuse of recruits by junior drill instructors at the training depot. Felix and five other drill instructors and the training battalion's commanding officer were charged. Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Joshua Pena said 11 others faced lesser, administrative discipline.

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2:50 a.m.

A military jury begins deliberating whether a Marine Corps drill instructor accused of beating new recruits and targeting Muslim-Americans did his job despite accounts of aggression against young troops.

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, starts deliberating Thursday whether Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix is guilty of maltreating three Muslim recruits. A Pakistani-American recruit from Michigan committed suicide at the Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp last year after Felix barked at and slapped him.

Felix also is accused of obstruction of justice for telling recruits not to cooperate with investigators after the suicide. He's also charged with drunk and disorderly conduct, and making false official statements. He has pleaded not guilty.

Felix faces the possibility of time in a military prison, financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge.
SAO PAULO (AP) - A congressional committee has voted to make abortion illegal without exception in Brazil.

Brazilian law currently allows abortions in cases of rape, when the mother's life is at risk or in cases of anencephaly, a birth defect involving the brain. In practice, wealthy women tend to have access to safe abortions in private clinics, while the poor often rely on risky procedures. An academic survey partially funded by the Ministry of Health estimates that more than 400,000 women had an abortion in Brazil in 2015.

The measure approved late Wednesday states that the protections for life in the constitution begin at conception. It's championed by the Evangelical bloc in Congress.

It's attached to a constitutional amendment so it would need a super-majority in both houses of Congress to become law.
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Theresa May named a strong proponent of Brexit as Britain's new international development secretary on Thursday, replacing a Cabinet minister forced out over unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials.

Penny Mordaunt was promoted from the work and pensions department to the job overseeing Britain's foreign aid as secretary of state for international development, as May was forced to make the second change in days to her fractious Cabinet lineup.

Mordaunt's predecessor, Priti Patel, quit Wednesday after revelations she had held meetings with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without informing her colleagues or the prime minister.

Britain's newly appointed Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt poses for the media after leaving 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May has named a new international development secretary to replace a Cabinet minister forced out over unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials. Penny Mordaunt was promoted Thursday from the work and pensions department to the job overseeing Britain's foreign aid. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Patel was the second Cabinet member in a week to depart May's embattled government, which faces multiple crises that include divisions over Brexit and allegations of sexual misbehavior in politics. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon quit Nov. 1 after women made sexual harassment allegations against him.

May's choices for replacing Patel were restricted by her desire to maintain balance in her government between proponents and opponents of Britain's decision to leave the European Union.

Like Patel, Mordaunt campaigned for Britain to quit the bloc before last year's Brexit referendum.

Mordaunt, 44, is a former magician's assistant and communications professional who represents the port city of Portsmouth in the House of Commons and serves as a Royal Navy reservist.

Making changes in the government lineup is a fraught business for May. Her position as leader was undermined by the Conservatives' poor showing in a snap June election she called in a bid to strengthen her hand in the divorce talks with the EU.

Divisions within May's government about what sort of post-Brexit relationship the U.K. wants with the bloc are complicating the negotiations while the clock ticks down to Britain's scheduled March 2019 withdrawal from the EU.

British Conservative Party MP Penny Mordaunt walks into 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

British Conservative Party MP Penny Mordaunt walks into 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Britain's newly appointed Secretary of State for International Development Penny Mordaunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May has named a new international development secretary to replace a Cabinet minister forced out over unauthorized meetings with Israeli officials. Penny Mordaunt was promoted Thursday from the work and pensions department to the job overseeing Britain's foreign aid. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Fraternity members at a Louisiana university hazed a pledge and kept him awake for three days before he fell asleep at the wheel of a car that struck and killed another student, according to a pair of lawsuits.

University of Louisiana at Lafayette student Michael Gallagher Jr., whose car struck and killed 23-year-old Rustam Nizamutdinov last November, sued the Kappa Sigma fraternity and university officials last Friday. Nizamutdinov's mother, who lives in Uzbekistan, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the fraternity and some of its members in September.

Gallagher's suit claims university officials knew or should have known about a "persistent pattern of hazing" by Kappa Sigma chapter members before the deadly collision. It also accuses the fraternity of failing to properly supervise members or take adequate steps to prevent hazing.

"There is no way that (the university) would not have known what occurred or what was going on relative to hazing," said Barry Sallinger, the Gallagher family's attorney.

The suits come amid a broad review of hazing policies in the state's higher-education system after the recent death of a Louisiana State University student.

Gov. John Bel Edwards called for system presidents to review campus policies on hazing, alcohol and drugs after 18-year-old Maxwell Gruver died in an alleged hazing incident. After a meeting Thursday with university presidents at the governor's mansion, Edwards said the system has "robust" anti-hazing policies in place but can do more to prevent tragedies like Gruver's death.

"Obviously, those policies don't always translate into having those campuses be as safe as we want them to be for all of our students," he added. "We can never be satisfied that we've done our best."

Ten people were arrested last month on misdemeanor hazing charges in the Sept. 14 death of Gruver, an 18-year-old LSU freshman from Roswell, Georgia, who was trying to join the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. A coroner said the freshman's blood-alcohol content was more than six times the legal limit for driving when he died after a night of drinking at the fraternity's house.

Four LSU fraternities have been suspended or closed since Gruver's death.

Gallagher's suit says he was forced to be a designated driver for drunken Kappa Sigma chapter members and was badly sleep-deprived as he drove home early Nov. 6, 2016. His car drifted onto the shoulder of a road and struck Nizamutdinov, who was walking home to his apartment from a friend's house.

KATC-TC reports that toxicology reports showed no sign that Gallagher was impaired at the time of the crash.

Gallagher called his parents after the collision. They came to the scene and found their child in shock, unable to remember what happened, their suit says. Gallagher's parents also found Nizamutdinov's body lying nearby.

Sallinger, the family's attorney, said Gallagher pleaded no contest to a traffic offense - careless driving - and was ordered to pay a fine and perform community service.

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette said in a statement that it investigated the hazing allegations after Nizamutdinov's death and suspended the Kappa Sigma chapter in February. The fraternity's national leadership revoked the chapter's charter in July, the university said.

"The university supported the disciplinary action by the national organization," the university said. "Out of respect for the judicial process and the multiple parties involved in this tragedy, the university has no further comment."

James Henderson, president of the University of Louisiana System, said its Lafayette school responded "quickly and effectively" in suspending the fraternity.

"The lawsuit just brings to light the number of lives that are impacted when a tragedy like this occurs," he said.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - Two teenagers whose firing from a Kansas pizza restaurant prompted a national discussion on pay inequality should receive back pay and the corporation that owned the restaurant must implement policies to ensure it follows equal pay laws, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued last year on behalf of Jensen Walcott and Jake Reed, who were 17 when they applied to work at a Pizza Studio restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas. The Bonner Springs friends were hired for the same job but Jensen later discovered Reed was going to be paid 25 cents more per hour. When she complained, the manager said it was against company policy to discuss wages and withdrew the job offers.

The controversy drew the attention of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, and Reed and Walcott were invited to address the Democratic National Convention about pay inequality.

The pizza chain later dismissed the female manager and offered the teens their jobs back, with equal pay, but they had found other jobs.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered PS Holding LLC to pay Reed and Walcott $2,500 each in back pay and other compensation. The judge also ordered the Delaware-based company to implement new policies and conduct training to avoid violating the federal Equal Pay Act. The company also must collect, analyze and report data and complaints to the EEOC. PS Holding no longer owns the Kansas City restaurant but owns other Pizza Studio restaurants across the country.

A phone call to the Pizza Studio's corporate headquarters was not immediately returned Thursday.

The Equal Pay Act makes it illegal to pay men and woman unequally for the same job, and prohibits retaliation against an employee who complains.
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:

1. BOMBSHELL CLAIM UPENDS SENATE CAMPAIGN

GOP leaders bolt from candidate Roy Moore after the former Alabama judge is accused of having sexual contact decades ago with a girl of 14.

Catalonia parliament speaker Carme Forcadell is driven in a car outside of the Spain's Supreme Court in Madrid, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. A Spanish judge jailed Catalonia's top lawmaker Thursday in a rebellion probe stemming from an independence declaration, but set Carme Forcadell's bail at 150,000 euros ($175,000) and ordered her passport to be confiscated as the investigation continues. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

2. GOP LAWMAKERS GO SLOW ON TAX CUT

Senate Republicans reveal the details of their sweeping tax legislation, including a one-year delay in plans for a major corporate tax cut.

3. PROGRESS ON DIPLOMATIC FRONT

The U.S. and Russia near an agreement on how they hope to resolve Syria's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated.

4. ABROAD, TRUMP SETS ASIDE BLISTERING RHETORIC

In China, the president tries to flatter his hosts into establishing a more balanced trade relationship and doing more to blunt North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

5. WHO'S LATEST CELEB ENSNARED IN HARASSMENT SCANDAL

Comedian Louis C.K. is accused of sexual misconduct toward several women, including masturbating in front of them.

6. SCORES MORE SAUDIS DETAINED

Critics call the purge of top princes and businessmen a risky move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at consolidating power as he casts his eye toward the throne.

7. SEPARATIST LEGISLATOR BEHIND BARS

A Spanish judge jails Catalonia's top lawmaker as the government continues its drive to quash the region's independence movement.

8. HOW SPACE SAGA IS EXPANDING

The Walt Disney Co. announces that director Rian Johnson will craft a new trilogy for the "Star Wars" universe.

9. JOHN HILLERMAN DIES AT 84

The actor played stuffed-shirt Higgins to Tom Selleck's freewheeling detective Thomas Magnum in the 1980s TV series "Magnum, P.I."

10. WHICH KEY PLAYER DALLAS WILL BE WITHOUT

Ezekial Elliott, the Cowboys' star running back, is ordered by an appeals court to begin serving a six-game suspension for allegedly using force against his girlfriend.

FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2017 file photo, Louis C.K., co-creator/writer/executive producer, participates in the "Better Things" panel during the FX Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. The New York premiere of Louis C.K.'s controversial new film "I Love You, Daddy" has been canceled amid swirling controversy over the film and the comedian. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Former White House adviser Steve Bannon said Thursday he "strongly" believes Republican President Donald Trump won New Hampshire and that voter irregularities were behind his loss in the state in the 2016 presidential election.

"I believe strongly - and I'm prepared to put money where my mouth is - that we won the state of New Hampshire," Bannon told a cheering crowd of about 200 at a Manchester fundraiser for the conservative group 603 Alliance.

Democrat Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire and all four of the state's electoral votes.

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Trump has cited New Hampshire as part of his unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in 2016. He created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May to investigate those claims.

"The people of New Hampshire deserve to understand what happened on that day," Bannon said. "I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat, a Clinton supporter or a Trump supporter, you can't play games with that."

Bannon says his claims are supported by state data that shows that only 15 percent of the 6,540 voters who used out-of-state driver's licenses have since acquired New Hampshire licenses. But state law allows someone to be domiciled in New Hampshire for voting purposes and be a resident of another state for driver's licensing purposes - for example, students attending college in New Hampshire.

The data also was cited in September by Republican Kris Kobach, the vice chairman of the president's election integrity commission and Kansas secretary of state, as proof of fraud that likely led to Democratic U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan's victory over Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte last November. Democrats pounced on those comments, suggesting Kobach was misleading the public by using irrelevant data to rehash false claims.

Bannon spent much of his hourlong speech recounting Trump's election success and only made passing references to the big wins by Democrats in Tuesday's elections and to the controversy swirling around Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Bannon, who in the past has backed Moore, didn't directly comment on allegations first reported by The Washington Post against the Alabama candidate of sexual misconduct with minors going back decades. The allegations have prompted Republican party leaders to demand he get out of the race if the accusations prove true.

"The Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped that dime on Donald Trump, is the same Bezos-Amazon-Washington Post that dropped the dime this afternoon on Judge Roy Moore," Bannon said. "Now is that a coincidence? That's what I mean when I say opposition party."

As Bannon arrived at the Manchester event, he was greeted by more than 100 protesters who chanted, "no hate in the granite state" and held signs with slogans including, "Bannon go home." Many questioned why Republicans were paying as much as $750 to hear Bannon's message.

"I'm here basically to send a message to Steve Bannon and all the people who attended tonight from the 603 Alliance that there isn't any room for hate in the granite state," said protester David Meuse.

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Corey Lewandowski, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Protesters hold signs ahead of an event featuring Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Protesters hold signs ahead of an event featuring Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Protesters hold signs ahead of an event featuring Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks during an event in Manchester, N.H., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)
A Chinese opera performer is seen through a screen as President Donald Trump, accompanied by Chinese President Xi Jinping, watched an opera performance at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Trump is on a five country trip through Asia, traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

In other images from the Asia-Pacific region this week, Nguyen Thi Vui paddled her boat in the flooded streets of Hoi An, Vietnam. A powerful typhoon that rocked Vietnam killed dozens of people and caused extensive damage to the country's south-central region ahead of the APEC summit that will draw leaders from around the world.

Chinese figure skaters Sui Wenjing and Han Cong performed during an exhibition event at the Audi Cup of China ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2017 in Beijing.

In this Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, file photo, an opera performer is seen as President Donald Trump, accompanied by Chinese President Xi Jinping, tours opera performance at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Trump is on a five country trip through Asia, traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Horses entered the track before the start of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia.

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This gallery was curated by Associated Press photo editor Masayo Yoshida in Tokyo.

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In this Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, file photo, children wave U.S. and Chinese flags as President Donald Trump arrives at Beijing Airport, in Beijing, China. Trump is on a five country trip through Asia, traveling to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

In this Monday, Nov. 6, 2017, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump feeds carps with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before their working lunch at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Japan. (Toru Hanai/Pool Photo via AP, File)

In this Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his speech to U.S. military personnel upon his arrival at U.S. Yokota Air Base on the outskirts of Tokyo. President Trump arrived in Japan Sunday on a five-nation trip to Asia, his second extended foreign trip since taking office and his first to Asia. The trip will take him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and Philippines for summits of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, file photo, protesters from the "No Trump" Coalition Group, shout slogans during a candlelight rally protesting U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to the country in Seoul, South Korea. Hundreds of South Koreans took to the streets of Seoul on Tuesday for two separate demonstrations, one to show support for visiting President Donald Trump and the other to voice disapproval of the U.S. leader amid concerns over North Korea's nuclear threats. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

In this Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. President Trump told South Korea's National Assembly that he wants "peace through strength." The U.S. president addressed South Korean lawmakers on the second day of his visit. He noted that the U.S. is rebuilding its military and spending heavily on the newest and finest military equipment. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, Pool, File)

In this Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, police take photos using their cellphone of the unveiling of the summit logo during a ceremony for next week's ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines. ASEAN leaders and its Dialogue Partners such as the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Turkey, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the European Council and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres are attending the summit. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

In this Monday, Nov. 6, 2017, file photo, Nguyen Thi Vui paddles her boat in the flooded streets of Hoi An, Vietnam. A powerful typhoon that rocked Vietnam has killed dozens of people and caused extensive damage to the country's south-central region ahead of the APEC summit that will draw leaders from around the world, the government said Monday. (AP Photo/Hau Dinh, File)

In this Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, Chinese pairs Sui Wenjing and Han Cong perform during an exhibition event in the Audi Cup of China ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating 2017 at the Capital Gymnasium in Beijing, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, file photo, horses enter the track before the start of the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, Australia. (AP Photo/Andy Brownbill, File)

In this Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, file photo, a model presents "Heaven Gaia" creations by Chinese designer Xiong Ying during the China Fashion Week in Beijing. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

In this Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, file photo, Indian women prepare clay stoves to be sold to devotees arriving for the upcoming "Magh Mela" festival in Allahabad, India. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus are expected to take holy dips at the confluence of Ganges and Yamuna rivers during the astronomically auspicious period of over 45 days celebrated as Magh Mela, that begins later this month. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File)

In this Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, file photo, a man walks down the stairs in the Central, a business district of Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - An Australian minister on Friday predicted a conflict between Papua New Guinea police and hundreds of asylum seekers who have refused to leave a decommissioned immigration camp where many hold out hope of resettling in the United States.

The camp inside a Manus Island navy base was declared closed on Oct. 31 based on the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court's ruling last year that Australia's policy of housing asylum seekers there was unconstitutional. But the men who have stayed at the male-only camp fear for their safety in the alternative shelters available in the nearby town of Lorengau because of threats from local residents

Australian Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton said he was discussing with the Papua New Guinea authorities what steps would be taken if the asylum seekers stay on without power or running water.

"Our very strong preference is that people move of their own accord," Dutton told Melbourne Radio 3AW.

"We've got a group of core agitators, organizers, who will try and provide some sort of scene where there is a confrontation with police. They'll do that because they want that footage broadcast back here," Dutton added.

The Australian activist group GetUp! released video on Friday of the squalid conditions on Manus. Dutton accused the asylum seekers of "trashing the place."

Local authorities posted a notice at the camp on Thursday, saying: "You are ... instructed to vacate this compound immediately."

"If necessary, force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily for your own sake," the notice added.

Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani said the use of force was unacceptable.

"We are not doing anything wrong. We are only resisting peacefully," Boochani said. "We are asking again for freedom in a safe third country," he added.

Papua New Guinea police said buses and trucks had been brought to Manus on Friday to relocate the asylum seekers.

Manus Provincial Police Commander Chief Inspector David Yapu said police were mindful that the transfers would be conducted "smoothly and orderly without use of force."

Asylum seekers reported police and immigration officers had entered the camp on Friday and began emptying the tanks and turning over the water bins being used to collect the rain water that has sustained the inhabitants for the past 10 days.

"They said it's an Order from ABF," asylum seeker Walid Zazai tweeted, referring to the Australian Border Force. "Thank you Australia," Zazai added.

The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an application to restore basic services on Manus on human rights grounds.

Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Australia-based Refugee Action Coalition, called on Australia to "end the siege and restore food, water and services."

"Everyone in the tropics knows how precious water is and how quickly dehydration can become a serious medical issue. Denied water and with medical help sometimes delayed for hours, refugee lives are being put at risk," Rintoul said.

Dutton said more than 100 of the 606 men in the center on Oct. 31 had since left.

The United States has agreed to resettle up to 1,250 refugees that Australia keeps on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island nation of Nauru.

But so far only 54 have been accepted after a screening process that President Donald Trump describes as extreme vetting.

Australia will not settle any refugees who try to arrive by boat - a policy that the government says dissuades asylum seekers from attempting the dangerous ocean crossing from Indonesia. Australia has also prevented boats from reaching Australia since July 2014 by using the Australian navy to turn boats back.
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's trip to Asia (all times local):

12:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump is crossing paths - again - with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang, right, shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump at the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Danang, Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017. (Jorge Silva/Pool Photo via AP)

Trump and Putin chatted Saturday as they strolled to a brief photo op at the Intercontinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort in Danang, Vietnam. Chinese President Xi Jinping flanked Trump's other side. Trump stood in the second row for the photo.

Trump and Putin shook hands Saturday morning as leaders of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation opened their meetings.

That followed a Friday night handshake and small talk at the summit's welcome gala.

The White House says the two will not hold a formal meeting in Vietnam.

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10:20 a.m.

President Donald Trump is beginning a day full of meetings at an economic summit in Vietnam.

He arrived Saturday morning at a leaders retreat at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting being held in the coastal city of Danang.

Trump was expected to attend a series of larger meetings and private audiences with other world leaders. He was not expected to have a formal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though aides have said an informal encounter is possible.

Trump has pulled the United States out of the Pacific Rim trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He says he wants one-on-one agreements with other nations. On Saturday, the 11 remaining TPP nations announced they had reached a trade pact without the U.S.

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6:45 a.m.

President Donald Trump is in Danang, Vietnam, for a second day of meetings with Asian economic leaders.

Trump told attendees at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Friday that he won't let the United States be "taken advantage of anymore" on trade, adding he'll always "put America first."

Trump says the United States "can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses."

The president - who pulled the United States out of the Pacific Rim trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership - says the U.S. will no longer join "large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible."

After the APEC meetings Saturday, Trump will travel to the capital, Hanoi, for a state banquet.

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2:09 a.m.

It may be an offbeat photo, but it's no joke.

World leaders, including President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin, donned matching silk button-down shirts at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Friday in Vietnam. Since 1994, the summit included a "family photo" in local attire an annual display of cooperation among world leaders.

It was a departure for Trump, who's rarely photographed in anything but a suit and tie or a golf shirt.

President Barack Obama tried to end the custom when he hosted the summit in Hawaii in 2012, when leaders wore suits, but that proved temporary. Previous APEC shirts have included ponchos in Peru, colorful batik shirts in Malaysia, and overcoats called durumaki in Korea.

U.S. news organizations weren't given access to the event, unlike previous summits.

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9:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin have shaken hands at a summit in Vietnam.

The two leaders were spotted on video greeting one another ahead of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit gala dinner in the coastal city of Danang.

Trump and Putin were expected to hold a formal meeting on the sidelines of the summit. But as Trump was about to land on Friday, the White House announced no meeting would take place.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed scheduling conflicts.

But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said earlier this week that the pair would not meet unless they had something substantive to discuss.

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8:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump is attending a welcome event and gala dinner as part of a trade summit in Vietnam.

Trump arrived at a Danang hotel Friday evening for the events for world leaders and their spouses. The first lady had stayed in China and planned to return to Washington after touring the Great Wall.

Trump is attending annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam. It is one of several summits he is planning to attend during a five-country Asian tour. Formal talks are set to begin Saturday.

Earlier in the day Friday, Trump used a speech in Vietnam to denounce multilateral agreements embraced by the region and deliver what appeared to be a rebuke to China, railing against trade practices he says have put Americans out of work.

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4:10 p.m.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump toured China's famed Great Wall at Mutianyu, two hours north of Beijing city center.

She rode a cable car to a watchtower, signed a guestbook and strolled along a stretch of the wall for about half an hour with a small group of aides and security officers.

Mrs. Trump received a scroll as a gift and chatted with her Chinese hosts before she departed.

The first lady stayed in China as President Donald Trump flew to Danang, Vietnam, to participate in a regional economic and security conference.

She planned to return to Washington after touring the Great Wall. The president tweeted that his wife will first stop in Alaska "to greet our AMAZING troops."

Earlier Friday, she went to the Beijing zoo to check out the pandas.

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3:30 p.m.

Chinese President Xi Jinping says nations need to stay committed to economic openness or risk being "left behind."

Xi made the remarks in a speech to a business conference in Danang, Vietnam, Friday. He spoke shortly after President Donald Trump told the same group that "we are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore."

The Chinese president urged support for the "multilateral trading regime" and progress toward a free-trade zone in the Asia-Pacific, drawing loud applause. He said that "self-seclusion leaves one behind."

In his remarks, Trump reiterated his preference for country-to-country trade deals.

The leaders were speaking on the sidelines of the annual summit of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

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3 p.m.

President Donald Trump is signing a proclamation saluting the veterans of the Vietnam War.

Trump is in Danang, Vietnam, the site of an American air base that was used during the Vietnam War.

The president on Friday stood with seven veterans and praised their service. Some of the veterans spoke and praised Trump's support of the military. One began to cry as he talked about fallen veterans and Trump hugged him.

Trump is in the midst of a lengthy Asia trip and is in Danang to attend an international summit.

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2:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump is continuing his tough talk against North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Trump told an audience of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam that the region's future "must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail." He was referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump referenced his address in South Korea earlier this week when he called on countries to unite against North Korea. He said "every single step the North Korea regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger."

Trump also says civilized people must "come together" to drive out terrorists and extremists from our societies.

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2 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he won't let the United States be "taken advantage of anymore" on trade and add that he'll always "put America first."

Trump is speaking Friday to a gathering of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam. He says: "we can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them."

Trump says the U.S. will seek trade relationships that are rooted in the principles of fairness and reciprocity. He says the opposite has happened for "too long."

Trump says the United States has lowered market barriers but "other countries didn't open their markets to us."

He adds: "Simply put we have not been treated fairly by the World Trade Organization."

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1:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump says the whole world is being lifted by America's economic renewal.

Trump is telling a gathering of CEOs at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam that a "new optimism" has swept across the United States since his election.

He's reciting statistics about economic growth, low unemployment and stock market highs.

Trump says he's had the pleasure of sharing the "good news from America" everywhere he's been on his first official visit to Asia.

Says Trump: "The whole world is lifted by America's renewal."

___

This version corrects the 8:30 a.m. item to note that first lady Melania Trump did not travel to Vietnam with President Trump.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, left, and Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska, right, walk to attend the APEC Business Advisory Council dialogue in Danang, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at Danang International Airport in Danang, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

U.S. first lady Melania Trump walks along the Mutianyu Great Wall section in Beijing Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. Mrs. Trump toured China's famed Great Wall at Mutianyu, where she rode a cable car to a watchtower, signed a guestbook and strolled along a stretch of the wall for about half an hour with a small group of aides and security officers. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, embraces Vietnam War veteran Max Morgan of Santa Clarita, Calif. at event to sign a proclamation honoring veterans at the Hyatt Regency Danang Resort in Danang, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. Trump is in Vietnam to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit at the Aryana Convention Center in Danang, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
News / National

by Staff reporter

THE Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has assembled a special unit to investigate crimes allegedly committed by ousted vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa during his long tenure in office.The unit, led by Assistant Commissioner Crispen Charumbira, includes Superintendent Nyambo Viera (CID Law and Order), Chief Superintendent Nyaradzai Majachani (CID Property Section) and Chief Superintendent Ngena (Law and Order). The case, which they are investigating cases against Mnangagwa, span alleged obstruction of justice, corruption, attempted murder and murder.As of yesterday, sources said police had zeroed in on four cases of alleged murder in which Mnangagwa is implicated.Police will also open other cases against Mnangagwa in weeks ahead as his woes mount. Some of the specific cases include the alleged murder of a woman linked to the former vice-president, attempted murder of former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation news presenter Godfrey Majonga, looting of Zanu-PF companies and the Kwekwe goldfields deals and associated murders there.Police interviewed some witnesses in the cases yesterday as they intensified investigations.Police are also linking Mnangagwa to alleged illegal gold panning, cases of violence and murders in and around Kwekwe's volatile goldfields.As reported by the Zimbabwe Independent in September, the cases of violence and killings occurred in fights over the control of gold concessions and mines.Groups involved in the fights are allegedly controlled by Gokwe-Kana legislator Owen Ncube - popularly known as Mudha.The first case is the murder of Washington Dick who was killed allegedly by Likwa Ngwenya in November last year.The matter is in the courts. Another murder case was also reported (CR86/10/16 at Kwekwe Central Police Station and CID Kwekwe 01/11/16) involving Noel Jacha, who is said to have been working with the late Dick.There is also a case that occurred in the wee hours of January 14 when Elvis Moyo was murdered along Nhamo Street in Rutendo suburb, Kwekwe. His body was discovered by police officers on patrol.
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Sudan's president, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, is expected to visit Uganda on Sunday at the invitation of Uganda's government.

As a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC, Uganda has an obligation to arrest Omar al-Bashir. But Ugandan presidential spokesman Don Wanyama says al-Bashir, who is wanted over alleged atrocities in the Darfur region, is immune from arrest as a head of state.

The reason for al-Bashir's latest visit to Uganda is not immediately clear.

FILE - In this Thursday, May 12, 2016, file photo, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, center, arrives for the inauguration ceremony of Uganda's long-time president Yoweri Museveni in the capital Kampala, Uganda. Sudan's president, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, is expected to visit Uganda on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017 at the invitation of Uganda's government. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera, File)

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has led criticism of the ICC, calling it "useless" during his inauguration in May 2016, an event that al-Bashir attended.

Some African countries have urged a mass exit from the treaty that created the ICC, saying the court unfairly targets Africans.
EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) - Militants from an Islamic State affiliate ambushed a convoy of cement trucks late Thursday from an army factory in the central Sinai Peninsula, killing eight civilian employees and two soldiers, security officials said.

Lt. Col. Ibrahim Hussein Mohammed was killed in the nighttime attack near the town of Nakhl, the officials added. The militants, from the group formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, stole the men's weapons and burnt seven trucks.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. IS did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack.

Security forces have been battling militants in northern Sinai for years in an insurgency that picked up after the 2013 military ouster of an elected but divisive Islamist president.

Egypt is also facing a growing number of attacks by militants in its Western Desert, the latest of which killed 16 policemen according to an official tally issued by the Interior Ministry. Security officials, however, have told journalists that dozens more, including high-ranking counterterrorism officers, perished in the Oct. 20 attack some 135 kilometers (84 miles) southwest of the capital, Cairo.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says IS militants are making their way to his country via Libya after the defeat of the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

The regional turmoil has forced Egypt to build up its military in recent years according to the general-turned-president, who has spent more than $10 billion since 2014 on a wide array of weaponry, including French-made Rafale fighter jets and helicopter carriers, MiG-29 fighter jets and assault helicopters from Russia, and submarines from Germany.

Most of the attacks in Sinai take place in a contested northeastern corner of the peninsula near the Gaza Strip. But army and police raids deeper into the area's central mountains have sparked violence and militant attacks further south.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - His party suddenly and bitingly divided, Alabama Republican Roy Moore emphatically rejected increasing pressure to abandon his Senate bid on Friday as fears grew among GOP leaders that a once-safe Senate seat was in jeopardy just a month before a special election.

Moore, an outspoken Christian conservative and former state Supreme Court judge, attacked a Washington Post report that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and pursued three other teenagers decades earlier as "completely false and misleading."

In an interview with conservative radio host Sean Hannity, he did not wholly rule out dating teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 25, 2017, file photo, former Alabama Chief Justice and U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a rally, in Fairhope, Ala. According to a Washington Post story Nov. 9, an Alabama woman said Moore made inappropriate advances and had sexual contact with her when she was 14. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

Asked if that would have been usual for him, Moore said, "Not generally, no." He added: "I don't remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother." As for the encounter with 14-year-old Leigh Corfman, as described by Corfman in Thursday's Post article, he said, "It never happened."

The story has produced a wave of concern among anxious GOP officials in Washington but little more than a collective shrug from many Republicans in Alabama, which holds a special election on Dec. 12 to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"Humphrey Bogart started dating Lauren Bacall when she was a teenager," said state Auditor Jim Ziegler, referring to the then-19-year-old actress.

"I'll always vote for him," said 28-year-old Erica Richard, of Altoona, Alabama, adding that she wouldn't change her mind even if the allegations of sexual misconduct are proven true. "He's a good man. I love him and his family, and they are all good people."

Paul Reynolds, Alabama's Republican National Committeeman, called it "a firestorm designed to shipwreck a campaign in Alabama. I think it's sinister."

Despite such support, experienced Republican operatives believe the Alabama Senate seat, held by the GOP for the last 20 years, is now at risk.

They fear the controversy could exacerbate the party's broader Trump-era challenge in appealing to college-educated suburban voters - the same group that fueled a big Democratic victory in the Virginia governor's race this week.

Those familiar with recent polling of the Alabama race suggest it was always going to be close despite the state's strong Republican leanings - largely because of Moore's controversial past.

In the immediate aftermath of the Post report Thursday, a wave of national Republican leaders called for Moore to drop out of the race if the allegations are true. They included the White House, the head of the House Freedom Caucus Mark Meadows, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

It got worse Friday.

The Senate GOP's campaign arm formally ended its fundraising agreement with Moore.

The GOP's 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney condemned his colleagues' caveat - only if the allegations are true.

"Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman," he said of the Alabama woman who said Moore molested her when she was 14. "Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."

Facing a tough re-election, Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., likened Moore to Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, former Rep. Anthony Weiner and former Fox News executive Roger Ailes, all men accused of sexual misconduct.

"The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disgusting," Comstock wrote. "Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate."

Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Steve Daines, R-Mont., withdrew their endorsements.

Yet there is no sign Moore is going away quietly. And the Alabama secretary of state's office reported that it's too late to remove his name from the ballot.

The Republican Party's options, including the possibility of a write-in campaign, "are all being researched," said Steven Law, who leads the pro-Republican Senate Leadership Fund.

Those who think Moore should be replaced have little hope of that happening.

"I don't think anyone expects Roy Moore to drop out of this race," Law said. "I think he enjoys being an object of intense controversy. The fact that this has happened may make him even more committed."

Moore was twice removed from his state Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.

He also previously said homosexuality should be illegal, and last week he refused to back off comments that Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., should not be allowed to serve in Congress because he's a Muslim.

Virtually the entire Republican establishment - including President Donald Trump - opposed Moore's primary bid in September.

In Friday's radio interview, Moore cast the Post story as an effort by Democrats - "and maybe even establishment Republicans" - to undermine his campaign. He also mentioned an effort to investigate his accusers.

"We're also doing an investigation and we have some evidence of some collusion here, but we're not ready to put that to the public just yet," he said without elaboration.

The lawyer for Gloria Deason, one of the women cited in the Post story, issued a statement Friday saying Deason has no affiliation with either the Republican or the Democratic party, and has never contacted Moore's election opponent, Democrat Doug Jones.

The lawyer, Paula Cobia, said, "It is reprehensible that so many Alabama Republican officeholders and leaders of their party have rejected wholesale the magnitude of evidence reported in The Post."

Democrats, meanwhile, were quietly stepping up their mobilization efforts in Alabama, though being careful not to publicly ignite partisan backlash by attempting to capitalize on the troubling allegations.

Jones stood to capitalize in places where Moore had shown weakness in past statewide elections. Some Republicans conceded that Moore would likely suffer in the state's reliably, mainstream-Republican suburbs.

In Shelby and Baldwin counties - suburban Birmingham and Mobile - Moore ran more than a dozen percentage points behind Romney in his 2012 bid for the Alabama Supreme Court.

"It's a bad situation," said Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committeeman from neighboring Mississippi. "Do people find it believable? If they do, he will lose."

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Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Alan Fram in Washington, Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Brynn Anderson in Altoona contributed to this report.

Crystal Schilleci, 32, of Altoona, Ala., stands behind a grocery store counter in Mountain Top, Ala., on Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. Schilleci says, she thinks Roy Moore is a "wonderful person, he's been an outstanding member of our community for years, and always doing good thing for us, but I think when an allegation like that is made, I think it should be taken seriously no matter how old you are or how long it has been," says Schilleci. She says she didn't vote in the last election but will vote in December for Roy Moore unless the allegations are true. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
STOCKHOLM (AP) - A man faces 10 years in prison in Sweden where he is accused of coercing teenagers in Canada, Britain and the United States to perform sexual acts in front of webcams by threatening them or their families.

The 41-year-old defendant is accused of online sexual offenses against 27 children between 2015 and early 2017, and had threatened to post photos of them on porn sites or kill relatives unless they performed sexual acts as he watched in Sweden.

In Sweden, rape doesn't have to involve intercourse. It can be another act considered to be equally violating.

During the 20-day trial in Uppsala, some 70 kilometers (43.4 miles) north of Stockholm, prosecutor Annika Wennerstrom requested during the trial's last day Thursday that the unnamed man get 10 years in prison. The trial was held behind closed doors to protect the girls' identities.

The court said Friday that a verdict is due Nov. 30.

The Swedish case came to light when the defendant was being investigated for another alleged sex crime and police found at his home videos of foreign girls speaking English. Swedish investigators contacted counterparts in Canada, Britain and the United States who interviewed the girls.

Local newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning said he had earlier been convicted in similar cases and the prosecutor pointed out during the trial he had used the same method to pressure the girls under the age of 15 to perform sexual acts.

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Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this report.
LONDON (AP) - The Latest on the ongoing legal cases against Uber (all times local):

11:20 a.m.

The ride-hailing app Uber says it will appeal a U.K. decision that would in effect give drivers rights such as guaranteed minimum wage and holiday pay.

Tom Elvidge, the company's acting general manager in the U.K., says that taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, "long before our app existed."

He says in a statement that the drivers use Uber because they value the "freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal."

Lead claimants Yaseen Aslam and James Farrer were seeking minimum wage and paid holiday in line with U.K. employment law.

Based in San Francisco, California, Uber describes itself as a technology company that links self-employed drivers with people who need rides.

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11:00 a.m.

Britain's Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that drivers of the ride-hailing service Uber are entitled to basic protections such as a guaranteed minimum wage and paid time off.

Judge Jennifer Eady dismissed an appeal Friday from the company in a closely watched decision that is expected to have broad implications for those working in the so-called gig economy, where people work job-to-job with little security and few employment rights. Such employment, often for companies that use mobile phone apps to provide everything from food delivery to health care, has surged as the Internet cuts the link between jobs and the traditional workplace.

Lead claimants Yaseen Aslam and James Farrer were seeking minimum wage and paid holiday in line with U.K. employment law. Uber had argues its drivers are independent contractors who would lose the "personal flexibility they value" if the suit is successful.

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9:10 a.m.

Britain's employment appeals tribunal is set to rule on whether Uber drivers are employees of the ride-hailing service, in a decision with broad implications for the so-called gig economy.

Lead claimants Yaseen Aslam and James Farrer are seeking minimum wage and paid holidays in line with U.K. employment law. Uber says its drivers are independent contractors who would lose the "personal flexibility they value" if the suit is successful.

Uber appealed after a lower tribunal ruled in favor of the drivers. Friday's ruling will likely be appealed.

The case has implications for more than 100,000 people in Britain's gig economy, where people work job-to-job with little security and few employment rights. Such employment has surged as smart phones and the Internet cut the link between jobs and the traditional workplace.
CAIRO (AP) - Egyptian and international rights groups have filed a criminal complaint with Paris prosecutors over the sale of French surveillance technology to Egypt.

The filing, announced late Thursday by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, relates to the potential role that the technology could play in widespread oppression in Egypt.

The French company, Nexa Technologies, was formerly called Amesys.

This request for a criminal investigation involves complicity to torture and carry out enforced disappearances. It supplements an investigation already underway on the sale of surveillance technology to Libya when it was run by longtime dictator Moammer Gadhafi before his 2011 overthrow and killing.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has overseen a $10 billion military buildup in recent years, including French-made Rafale fighter jets and helicopter carriers.
A Mexican national living in Georgia has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for coercing a 12-year-old girl from North Carolina to send him nude photos of herself after taking over her Facebook account.

The US attorney's office in Atlanta says 32-year-old Gerardo Perez Uribe met the 12-year-old Cabarrus County girl on Facebook in the summer of 2014.

Perez Uribe first told the victim that he was 13 years old but later claimed to be 25 years old.

He asked the girl to send him nude images of herself, and she did. After receiving the images in August 2014, Perez Uribe hijacked the girls Facebook account, changed her password, and locked her out of the account, according to a press release from the office of US Attorney Byung Pak.

Perez Uribe was a legal permanent resident in the US. Prosecutors say he will be deported to his native country after serving his prison sentence.

Facebook sextortion: Prosecutors say Gerardo Perez Uribe, 32, met a 12-year-old North Carolina girl on Facebook in 2014 and coerced her into sending him nude pictures of herself

Perez Uribe then threatened to post the girls nude images on her Facebook page if she refused to send him more nude photos of herself.

The girl took Perez Uribes threat seriously and sent him four photographs of herself that met the federal definition of child pornography.

When the girl's parents learned of what happened, they contacted the Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office, which investigated the case and then turned it over to the FBI.

'"Sextortion" is a growing problem on social media sites,' Pak said in a statement. 'Our office along with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners encourage parents to help us target those who seek to prey on children by watching what your children are doing on the Internet, and who they are communicating with.

'Most children do not understand the dangers that may lurk on the Internet, and can easily fall victim to predators like Uribe.'

Perez Uribe, who lived in Rex, just south of Atlanta, pleaded guilty in August and was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
BERLIN (AP) - A party in talks on joining Germany's new government is backing off a call to phase out the eurozone's rescue fund.

The pro-business Free Democrats, along with the Greens, would join Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives in government if ongoing talks following Germany's September election succeed.

They have taken a tough stance toward eurozone strugglers, calling in their pre-election program for the lending capacity of the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund to be gradually reduced and for it to phased out in the long term.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel smiles as she arrives for talks about a potential coalition between her Christian Democrats, the Free Democratic party FDP and the Greens in Berlin Friday, Nov. 20, 2017. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)

The Free Democrats' leader, Christian Lindner, was quoted Friday as telling weekly Der Spiegel that a party which polled around 11 percent can't "dictate" the way ahead to all of Europe.

Lindner said that "if the ESM stays, it could become an instrument for more discipline."
BEIRUT (AP) - Dozens of citizens of Gulf Arab countries began leaving Lebanon on Friday after their governments ordered them out of the Mediterranean country, as the president called for the return of Lebanon's prime minister who mysteriously resigned from the Saudi capital last week.

The manner in which Saad Hariri resigned - was "unacceptable," a Lebanese official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

This was conveyed by Lebanese President Michel Aoun to the Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon, Walid al-Bukhari, at the presidential palace on Friday, the official said.

In this photo released by the Lebanese Government, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, left, meets with Walid al-Bukha, the Saudi charge d'affaires in Lebanon, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, east of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. A senior Lebanese official said Aoun has formally told al-Bukha, that the way Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned -- in a televised statement from Riyadh -- is "unacceptable" and requested his return to the country. (Dalati Nohra/Lebanese Government via AP)

Hariri shocked his country last Saturday when he announced in a televised statement from Saudi Arabia that he was resigning. The unexpected move has thrown the tiny nation in turmoil and led to rumors that he is being held in Saudi Arabia against his will.

President Aoun has refused to accept Hariri's resignation before he returns to the country and explains the circumstances of his decision to step down, which effectively shattered a year-old coalition government in Lebanon. Aoun met with foreign ambassadors, including al-Bukhari, on Friday to discuss the resignation and his next moves.

Meanwhile, a French official in President Emmanuel Macron's office said Hariri has told foreign ambassadors that he is not a prisoner in Saudi Arabia, where he has been holed up since the unusual resignation.

The French and U.S. ambassadors in Saudi Arabia met with Hariri, and Hariri "says he is not a prisoner, the (Saudi crown) prince says he is not a prisoner," said the official.

Macron paid a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday night and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks about the rising tensions between the kingdom and Lebanon, a former French protectorate.

The official said Hariri did not ask to see Macron during the visit and that French officials "don't have any specific signs" that the Lebanese prime minister's life is in danger. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to presidential policy.

Also Friday, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe-1 radio that "to our knowledge," Hariri is not being held. Le Drian noted Hariri's trip from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates and back earlier this week, adding that France thinks "he is free in his movements, and it is up to him to make his choices."

Hariri, who cited Iran's and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah's meddling in the region in his resignation speech, has not returned to Lebanon or made contact with Lebanese officials since then.

Saudi Arabia sees Hezbollah as an extension of Iran amid a spiraling rivalry between the two regional Sunni and Shiite heavyweights, and is demanding that a new Lebanese government be formed without Hezbollah members in it.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubair has protested what he said was Hezbollah "hijacking the Lebanese state."

On Thursday, Hariri's Future Movement party delivered its sharpest rebuke yet over Hariri's absence, demanding that he be returned home immediately - reflecting its belief that he is being held by the Saudis against his will.

Dozens of men, women and children from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain were seen leaving Lebanon on Friday morning through Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport, after Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates ordered their citizens to leave the country.

The move was the first concrete action against Lebanon after days of Saudi government officials leveling threats against Beirut.

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Corbet reported from Paris. Associated Press writer Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
RALIEGH, N.C. (AP) - The Latest on a Marine drill instructor accused of abusing recruits (all times local):

3:10 p.m.

A Marine Corps drill instructor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing young recruits, especially Muslims, one of whom killed himself.

FILE - In this Oct., 31, 2017 file photo, U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph A. Felix, his wife, and his lawyers exit a courtroom after testimony at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A Marine Corps jury on Friday, Nov. 10, is deciding whether Felix should be sentenced to military prison time for choking, punching and otherwise tormenting recruits, especially Muslims, one of whom eventually hurled himself to his death down a stairwell. The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, N.C., also could sentence Felix to financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge. (Rory Laverty /The Washington Post/via AP, File)

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on Friday also sentenced Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix to forfeiture of all pay, reduction of his rank to private and a dishonorable discharge.

The military jury convicted the 34-year-old Iraq veteran Thursday of maltreatment of recruits at the Marine Corps' Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp.

The jury of five sergeants and three officers determined that Felix punched, kicked and choked recruits, zeroing in on three Muslim military volunteers he insulted as "terrorist" for special mistreatment.

Felix was one of six drill instructors at Parris Island charged with abuse after the March 2016 suicide of one of those three Muslim recruits.

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7:35 a.m.

A Marine Corps jury is deciding the punishment facing a drill instructor convicted of abusing young recruits.

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on Friday is expected to sentence Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix. A military jury decided Thursday that the 34-year-old Iraq veteran was guilty of maltreatment of recruits at the Marine Corps' Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp. Felix could be sentenced to military prison, financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge.

The jury of five sergeants and three officers decided Felix punched, kicked and choked recruits, zeroing in on three Muslim-American military volunteers he insulted as "terrorist" for special mistreatment.

Felix was one of six drill instructors at Parris Island charged with abuse after the March 2016 suicide of one of the three Muslim-American recruits Felix targeted.

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3:30 a.m.

A Marine Corps drill instructor was convicted by a military jury of physically abusing young recruits, sometimes while drunk, and focusing his fury on three Muslim-American military volunteers.

The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, determined Thursday that Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix was guilty of hazing and maltreatment of recruits at the Marine Corps' Parris Island, South Carolina, boot camp.

The 34-year-old Iraq veteran could be sentenced to military prison, financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge. The jury will begin sentencing deliberations Friday.

Felix was accused in more than three dozen criminal counts of being a central figure in an abusive group of drill instructors at Parris Island that came to light after the March 2016 suicide of one of the Muslim-American recruits Felix targeted.
Opinion / Columnist

Conclusion

"I want to inform you that the election season beckons and l would urge you not to become referees and players in the same. Instead, I exhort you to remain steadfast in your dignified roles of impartial observers as has been already pronounced by His Excellency the President, Cde R.G. Mugabe," said Foreign Affairs Minister, Walter Mzembi."As with previous elections, the Zimbabwe government has always guaranteed a peaceful environment, before, during and after elections. It's zero tolerance to violence policy as we approach 2018 elections, is a matter of public record."This is total nonsense and Minister Walter Mzembi knows it!a) How can the Minister talk of "the Zimbabwe government has always guaranteed a peaceful (electoral) environment when that is the one thing it has failed to do. President Mugabe signed the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) following the blatant vote rigging as typified by the Zanu PF regime forcing ZEC to recount Tsvangirai's 73% vote in the March vote, according to President Mugabe's own inadvertent admission. After six weeks of cooking up the figure the vote was whittled down to 47%, enough to force the run-off.And typified by the wanton violence shown during the run-off. Zanu PF deployed war veterans, party youths, Army, CIO and Police personal to punish the people for having reject President Mugabe in the March vote."What was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot," boasted President Mugabe encouraging his harassment, beating, rape and cold blooded murder thugs were carrying out on his behalf and behest. Over 500 people were murdered in the three months of the run-off.Everyone, including SADC and the AU refused to accept the 2008 election results as a free, fair and credible electoral process hence the need of the GPA. In signing the agreement President Mugabe agreed to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging future elections.It is tragic that Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who were tasked to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU failed to get even one reform implemented. President Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office, a $ 4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and they kick the reforms into the prickly pear thicket!b) SADC leaders asked 2013 Zimbabwe elections to be postponed until reforms are implemented. "If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!" SADC leaders advised the MDC leaders in June 2013 at the Maputo Summit.Sadly, MDC leaders did not listen and contested the flawed elections. As expected, Zanu PF rigged the vote.Still with no reforms implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections, SADC leaders' advice to postpone elections until reforms are implemented is even more poignant given the last elections were rigged and Zimbabwe's worrisome economic and political situation.Zimbabwe's economic meltdown which has pushed unemployment to 90% plus, left most people with no clean running water, etc. 72.3% of the population is now living on US$ 1.00 or less a day. This has made Zimbabwe very unstable because the situation is not sustainable. The ruling party is imploding; President Mugabe has just fired his VP, nearly half his cabinet and a host of senior government and party officials will be sacked in the coming weeks, this is the second such mass sacking in as many years, as a result in the fight for who will succeed the old and frail Mugabe. The opposition cannot take over and govern because there is as much confusion in their camp as in Zanu PF.c) There is evidence already that Zanu PF is rigging next year's elections. The regime delayed the BVR registration exercise and now it is clear ZEC will not register 7 m new voter in the four months and, more significantly, will not produce a verified voters' roll for the elections."If opposition go into elections next year, they are going to lose; the elections are done!" To repeat SADC leaders' 2013 warning.SADC refused to accept Zimbabwe's 2008 election results because President Mugabe had blatantly rig the vote contrary to Minister Mzembi's claim the tyrant has always guaranteed free, fair and credible elections.The GNU has failed to get even one democratic reform implemented to stop the vote rigging and it is already clear that next year's elections are not going to be rigged. Zimbabwe is in serious danger of total economic and political collapse and a rigged election next year may well be the final push sending the country tumbling into the abyss.Pressure must be brought to bear on both Zanu PF and the opposition to implement the democratic reforms BEFORE the next elections. If the flawed elections go ahead, then SADC and the international community but refuse to accept the results of the sham elections.
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Prosecutors say a Mobile man received a sentence of life in prison for killing a 16-year-old girl as she sat with friends in the backseat of a car.

The Mobile County district attorney's office on Thursday announced the sentence for Jamarcus Mahone. Mahone was convicted of murder in the December 2014 shooting death of Raven Hamilton.

Al.com reports that Hamilton was sitting with friends in the car in a subdivision when Mahone shot into the car. Former Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree said at a bond hearing in 2014 that Mahone mistook the car for one driven by people with whom he'd had previous problems.
NEW YORK (AP) - J.C. Penney delivered some encouraging news: It reported a solid rise in sales at established stores Friday, reversing four straight quarters of declines. It also posted a smaller-than-expected loss for the third quarter, all news that sent its shares soaring.

The news stanched, at least for a moment, an extended selloff in company shares, which accelerated last month when the Plano, Texas-based chain warned that it would be forced to liquidate poor-selling merchandise. Shares, which have tumbled 67 percent this year, had touched an all-time low.

Initiatives to spiff up its clothing lines to fuel sales are "giving us confidence that our overall strategy and transformation is beginning to take hold," CEO Marvin Ellison said in a release Friday. He noted that by selling off unwanted merchandise, the company is entering the holiday season with less of a backlog so it can add fresh items to its floors.

FILE - This Monday, Aug. 19, 2013, file photo shows a J.C. Penney store in Pembroke Pines, Fla. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. reports earnings Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter, File)

Penney's performance was a bright spot in a mixed bag of results from department stores, which released their reports this week. Yet more challenges lie ahead with the critical holiday shopping season.

Macy's reported on Thursday that sales fell at established stores in the third quarter, marking the 12th straight quarter of declines, as it had a hard time pulling shoppers through its doors. Kohl's reported a drop in quarterly profit Thursday, though it saw rising sales in the quarter. Even Nordstrom, which announced results after the bell on Thursday, saw a key sales measure fall and trimmed its outlook.

Like many retailers, department stores have wrestled with weak sales as customers go online. Department stores, which are heavily dependent on clothing sales, are seeing more competition there as Amazon expands further into fashion and off-price chains like T.J. Maxx add more stores.

J.C. Penney, though, had extra challenges in restoring sales after a disastrous attempt to reinvent the company under former Apple executive Ron Johnson. The company has since brought back major appliances like dishwashers and has expanded its in-store Sephora beauty shops to be in 75 percent of its locations.

This holiday season, the company is creating toy shops in its stores and is opening an hour earlier than last year on Thanksgiving. The 2 p.m. opening is earlier than its rivals Kohl's and Macy's.

Ellison says the chain is trying to operate as a more "modern company" in a vastly changing landscape - and, in many cases, it's playing catch-up. Ellison acknowledged to analysts on a call Friday that J.C. Penney was behind in chasing the active and casual clothing trend, and is using analytics to understand shoppers' behavior. It's now expanding those merchandising areas in the store and is highlighting them in visible areas.

The company has also centralized its pricing strategy and last week eliminated the position of chief merchant, once a lofty role, as it says that it wants to have a less-hierarchal structure to move faster.

"Our merchandising structure was virtually the same structure that we had 20 years ago," Ellison said. "We're competing against e-commerce companies that don't have chief merchants, don't even have category merchants. They're just moving fast with data. "

J.C. Penney Co. reported a loss of $128 million, or 41 cents, for the quarter. That compares with a loss of $67 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier. Losses, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to 33 cents per share, or a dime better than analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research had expected.

Last month, the company had said it expected a per-share loss of between 40 and 45 cents for the quarter.

Revenue was $2.81 billion, also exceeding Wall Street forecasts for $2.76 billion. Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 1.7 percent.

J.C. Penny stuck to its forecast of per-share profits of between 2 and 8 cents for the year, way down from an earlier outlook of between 40 cents to 65 cents.

Shares rose nearly 13 percent, or 34 cents, to $3.09 in Friday trading. A year ago, they were at $8.36.

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Elements of the story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on JCP at https://www.zacks.com/ap/JCP
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The South Carolina House speaker is proposing six laws aimed at protecting consumers from the consequences of a failed project to build two nuclear reactors.

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. and the state-owned utility Santee Cooper have sought to insulate themselves from the hemorrhaging costs of their ill-fated joint venture at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, which they abandoned on July 31 after Westinghouse, the chief contractor, declared bankruptcy. The utilities had already spent more than $9 billion by then, collecting nearly $2 billion in interest from ratepayers along the way.

House Speaker Jay Lucas of Hartsville announced his proposals on Thursday, saying they would "gut existing laws" that allowed utilities to charge customers before the reactors were complete, and help avoid another expensive construction failure.

"The legislation introduced today lowers current rates and prevents consumers from paying a single penny more for the costly failed project," the Republican's statement said.

Lucas' legislation would cut SCE&G customer rates by 18 percent, the amount they're currently paying for the project. A typical residential customer would save about $27 per month. The hit to SCE&G would total about $37 million per month, or nearly $450 million per year.

Another proposal would allow refunds of what customers have already paid, if regulators conclude there had been "poor management" by SCE&G. Still another would prevent Santee Cooper from collecting money to reimburse itself the costs of ending the project.

Currently, Santee Cooper is not subject to Public Service Commission oversight. The proposed legislation would change that, and shake up its management structure as well, removing Santee Cooper's board of directors, the Public Service Commissioners and even the panel that that interviews prospective members of the regulatory panel. Their replacements would be required to pass rigorous qualifications.

Lucas also would give the Office of Regulatory staff, a state watchdog agency, more power.

Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said the utility is reviewing the proposals. SCE&G had no immediate comment, but previously dismissed such ideas as "radical and disruptive."

Incoming CEO Jimmy Addison of SCANA, SCE&G's parent company, said making the utility pay its share of the project would scare off investors and lenders, making it harder to finance day-to-day operations, including purchasing fuel, hiring contractors for repairs and paying employees. Already, SCANA stock has dropped 25 percent, reducing the company's market capitalization to $6.3 billion, since the project was abandoned.
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) - The Latest on the summit of 21 Pacific Rim economies in Vietnam (all times local):

6 p.m.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says more work needs to be done to reach a final agreement on a revised Pacific Rim trade pact.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chile's President Michelle Bachelet attend the APEC-ASEAN dialogue, on the sidelines of the APEC summit, in Danang, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (Jorge Silva/Pool Photo via AP)

Trade ministers of the 11 countries that remain in the free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out announced a basic accord on moving ahead on Saturday.

Canada had balked at an earlier proposal, and Trudeau said it would take time to finish talks on a trade deal to benefit all in the region.

He mentioned labor rights, environmental protection, gender issues and the auto trade as areas of concern.

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11:20 a.m.

The Vietnamese trade minister says 11 Pacific Rim countries have reached a "fundamental agreement" on continuing with a free trade pact after the U.S. abandoned it.

Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh told a news conference: "We have reached an agreement on a number of fundamental parts." He also says the ministers changed the name of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The 11 counties remaining in the trade pact rejected by President Donald Trump in January have been working to revise the deal to allow them to proceed without U.S. involvement.

But a basic deal was delayed by unspecified disagreements raised by Canada and possibly other countries that were worked out in talks that extended late into the night Friday.

Tran Tuan Anh says the trade ministers were able to suspend certain clauses to enable them to carry out the framework agreement while maintaining high standards on labor and other issues.

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10:30 a.m.

Trade ministers chairing meetings on the free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership in Danang, Vietnam, will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. local time (0400 GMT).

Japan and Vietnam have been chairing the talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum's annual summit.

Canada's Minister of International Commerce Francois-P Champagne said in a tweet Saturday: "After lots of work, big progress on the 'Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.'"

The 11 counties remaining in the trade pact rejected by President Donald Trump have been working to revise the deal to allow them to proceed without U.S. involvement.

But a basic deal was delayed by unspecified disagreements raised by Canada and possibly other countries that were worked out in talks that extended late into the night Friday.

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9:20 a.m.

Leaders from 11 Pacific Rim countries look unlikely to formally endorse a deal to proceed with the free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership despite overnight progress in bridging differences on some issues.

A statement issued in the early hours Saturday said an accord was reached on "core elements" of the 11-member pact.

The TPP leaders called off at the last minute a meeting to endorse a plan on Friday. Japan's economic minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, said scheduling difficulties made it difficult for the leaders to meet Saturday to formally approve an accord.

Canadian officials say their country was not alone in raising concerns over the proposed plan. They say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's absence from Friday's meeting was due to scheduling problems.

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7:20 a.m.

Trade ministers say they have reached a basic agreement on a Pacific Rim trade pact without the United States.

A statement issued in the early hours Saturday says an accord was reached on "core elements" of the 11-member Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal abandoned by President Donald Trump after he took office.

The compromise was delayed by last-minute disagreements that prevented TPP leaders from meeting to endorse a plan on Friday.

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7:45 p.m.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says talks on a Pacific Rim trade pact have stalled after Canada said it could not accept a proposed basic agreement on proceeding without the United States.

Abe made the comments Friday after meeting with his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, in Danang, Vietnam, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January. Leaders of the 11 countries remaining in the TPP had been due to meet and endorse a deal worked out in last-minute talks overnight.

There was no immediate word on Canada's stance. However, Trudeau said days earlier that Canada would not be rushed into an agreement.
LONDON (AP) - British magazine Grazia U.K. has apologized to Lupita Nyong'o after the actress accused it of altering her hair on its front cover "to fit a more Eurocentric notion" of beauty.

The Academy Award winner tweeted before-and-after images, saying the magazine "edited out and smoothed" her hair. She added the hashtag "dtmh (don't touch my hair)."

On Instagram, the Kenya-raised star of "12 Years a Slave" and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" said "there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style and texture."

FILE - In this Sunday, March 2, 2014 file photo, Lupita Nyong'o accepts the award for best actress in a supporting role for "12 Years a Slave" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. British magazine Grazia U.K. on Friday Nov. 10, 2017, has apologized to Lupita Nyong'o after the actress accused it of altering her hair on its front cover "to fit a more Eurocentric notion" of beauty. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP, File)

The magazine said Friday that it "apologized unreservedly to Lupita Nyong'o." It said it had not altered the images itself or asked the photographer to do so, and "is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages."
MADRID (AP) - A top Catalan lawmaker on Friday left a Madrid prison where she spent the night after posting the bail a Spanish judge imposed as part of a wide-ranging rebellion investigation stemming from Catalonia's declaration of independence.

Spain's Supreme Court said the judge who jailed and set bail Thursday for Catalonia Parliament speaker Carme Forcadell, freed her after the 150,000 euros ($175,000) bond was registered.

As conditions of Forcadell's release, the judge withdrew her passport and ordered her to stay in Spain, to check in at a court in Catalonia each week and to return before the Supreme Court if summoned.

Catalonia parliament speaker Carme Forcadell is driven in a car out of the Alcala-Meco prison in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. The Supreme Court ordered Friday the release from jail of Catalan parliament speaker Carme Forcadell. Forcadell and five other Catalan lawmakers were quizzed by the judge Thursday over the regional parliament's Oct. 27 vote to declare independence from Spain. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The lawmaker left the prison in a car without speaking to reporters.

"We're going back home," she tweeted later. "With an easy conscience for having acted correctly: to guarantee freedom of expression in (the Catalan) Parliament, headquarters of the national sovereignty."

Forcadell and five other Catalan lawmakers are being investigated for the actions that led to the regional Parliament's Oct. 27 vote to declare independence from Spain.

After questioning the lawmakers, magistrate Pablo Llarena jailed only Forcadell immediately. He ordered four to pay 25,000-euro ($29,000) bail in one week to remain out of custody and released another who opposed the declaration of Catalonia as a separate republic.

In his ruling, Llarena wrote that all "have expressed that either they renounce future political activity or, those who want to remain active, will do it renouncing any actions outside the constitutional framework."

Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said the lawmakers' commitment to the judge indicated that a "return of constitutional order (in Catalonia) is starting to become a reality."

Forcadell, long one of the leading figures of the Catalan independence movement, testified Thursday that the independence declaration was "symbolic," according to lawyers familiar with the proceedings.

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told Cope radio Friday that it "remains to be seen" if Forcadell will follow Spanish laws and court rulings preventing Catalan lawmakers from unilaterally seceding. If she doesn't, Dastis expects the judge to consider revoking Forcadell's bail.

Eight members of the now-defunct Catalan government remain jailed in a related rebellion case. Former regional president Carles Puigdemont and four other ex-cabinet members fled to Belgium where they are fighting extradition.

Two other grassroots secession group leaders have also been jailed in a parallel sedition probe. One of the two groups, the National Catalan Assembly that was formerly headed by Forcadell, said Friday it had paid her bail.

Spain's Constitutional Court warned that the Parliament's Oct. 27 vote declaring a new Catalan republic would be illegal. Most opposition lawmakers boycotted the session.

The Spanish government responded by seizing control of the wealthy northeastern region, the first time in the four decades since Gen. Francisco Franco's dictatorship ended that Madrid removed powers from any of the country's 17 regions.

Central authorities dismissed the Catalan regional president and his government, dissolved the parliament and called a new regional election for Dec. 21.

Catalonia, with 7.5 million people, represents a fifth of Spain's gross domestic product and polls show its people roughly evenly divided over independence. Puigdemont claimed a banned Oct. 1 secession referendum gave it a mandate to declare independence.

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This story has been corrected to show that spelling of the Spanish foreign minister's surname on second reference is Dastis, not Datis.

Catalonia parliament speaker Carme Forcadell, in the rear seat, is driven out of the Alcala-Meco prison in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. The Supreme Court ordered Friday the release from jail of Catalan parliament speaker Carme Forcadell. Forcadell and five other Catalan lawmakers were quizzed by the judge Thursday over the regional parliament's Oct. 27 vote to declare independence from Spain. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
President Donald Trump is making his first trip to Asia as leader of the United States. His 12-day tour includes stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Here is some of what he has had to say:

Nov. 10:

"We will no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property. We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access. We will address the massive subsidizing of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises that put private competitors out of business, all the time."

US President Donald Trump speaks on the final day of the APEC CEO Summit, part of the broader Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit, in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on Friday Nov. 10, 2017. World leaders and senior business figures are gathering in the Vietnamese city of Danang this week for the annual 21-member APEC summit. (Anthony Wallace, Pool via AP)

Without identifying China, a series of allegations the U.S. has lodged against the country, in a speech to CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

Nov. 9:

"I don't blame China. After all, who can blame a country who can take advantage of another country for the benefit of its own citizens? I give China great credit. But in actuality, I do blame our past administrations for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow."

In reference to China's large trade surplus with the United States, at a joint appearance in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Nov. 8:

"Do not underestimate us. And do not try us. ... The weapons you're acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face."

Addressing North Korea in a speech in Seoul to South Korea's National Assembly.

Nov. 7:

"It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world."

At a joint news conference in Seoul with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Nov. 6:

"The era of strategic patience was over. Some people say my rhetoric is very strong but look what has happened with very weak rhetoric in the last 25 years."

Regarding North Korea, at a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Japan.

Nov. 5:

"The relationship is really extraordinary. We like each other and our countries like each other. ... And I don't think we've ever been closer to Japan than we are right now."

Describing U.S.-Japan ties before a dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A Virginia businessman who defrauded his best friend's widow out of $3.2 million has been sentenced to seven years behind bars.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports 53-year-old Victor Dandridge III of Charlottesville was sentenced Thursday after he pleaded guilty in July to fraud charges.

Lynne Kinder of Richmond told the judge that Dandridge had betrayed her trust and stolen everything she had.

After her husband's 2005 death, Kinder says Dandridge offered to handle her finances and settle her late husband's estate for free. Instead of investing the money, though, he used it for his own purposes.

Dandridge says he was trying to rescue his failing businesses and believed he would be able to pay the money back.

Dandridge also admitted defrauding the Blue Ridge Bank and the Virginia Omicron Chapter House.
ROCHESTER, Minn. (AP) - Standing in a stately Mayo Clinic library, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of a stranger, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well.

"That's why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin," she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had been her husband's.

Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that had belonged to Calen "Rudy" Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's visage to a man who lived nearly a decade without one.

Lilly Ross, right, reacts as she talks with face transplant recipient Andy Sandness during their first meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life. But her stress quickly melted away _ without Calen's eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn't look like him, she told herself. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

The two came together last month in a meeting arranged by the Mayo Clinic, the same place where Sandness underwent a 56-hour surgery that was the clinic's first such transplant. With her toddler Leonard in tow, Ross strode toward Sandness, tears welling in her eyes as they tightly embraced.

Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life. But her stress quickly melted away - without Calen's eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn't look like him, she told herself.

Instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband's gift, newly confident after 10 years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes.

"It made me proud," Ross said of the 32-year-old Sandness. "The way Rudy saw himself ... he didn't see himself like that."

Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, 10 years and hundreds of miles apart.

Sandness put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face. Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota a decade later.

By then, Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries - surgeries to rebuild his face had left him a quarter-sized mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off.

Hope first came in 2012 when the Mayo Clinic started exploring a face transplant program and again in early 2016 when he was wait-listed for the procedure.

Ross already had agreed to donate her husband's lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients. Then LifeSource, a Midwestern nonprofit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic.

Ross and Sandness' ages, blood type, skin color and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Sandness' surgeon, Dr. Samir Mardini, said the two men could have been cousins.

Ross consented, despite her hesitation about someday seeing her husband's face on a stranger. Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple's child to one day understand what his father did to help others.

More than a year after a surgery that took a team of more than 60 medical professionals, Sandness is finding a groove in everyday life while still treasuring the simple tasks he lost for 10 years, such as chewing a piece of pizza.

He's been promoted in his work as an oilfield electrician and is expanding his world while still prizing the anonymity that comes with a normal face.

"I wouldn't go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities," he said. "And now I'm just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on - going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing."

Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication. He's constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering.

"I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted," Sandness told Ross.

Mardini and the rest of Sandness' medical team have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from.

"It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought," Mardini said. "He's enjoying these times, where he's missed out on 10 years of his life."

Ross and Sandness say they feel like family now. They plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he'll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard's education.

On the day of their meeting, the boy stared curiously at Sandness at first. But later, he walked over and waved to be picked up. Sandness happily obliged.

For Ross, just meeting Sandness felt like a huge release - a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations.

"Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure," she said, her voice choking as it trailed off. "Everything happened so fast."

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Lilly Ross, right, feels the beard of face transplant recipient Andy Sandness during their meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Sixteen months after surgery gave Sandness the face that once belonged to Calen "Rudy" Ross, Sandness met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to him, who lived nearly a decade without one. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross, left, hugs face transplant recipient Andy Sandness as they first meet in a library at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that once belonged to her husband, Calen "Rudy" Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to a man who lived nearly a decade without one. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross wipes a tear from her eye as she talks about her deceased husband, Calen "Rudy" Ross, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. For Ross, just meeting face transplant recipient Andy Sandness felt like a huge release _ a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations from her husband. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross, right, holds her 17-month-old son Leonard as she talks with face transplant recipient Andy Sandness, left, after their first meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Ross consented to the face transplant from her husband, despite her hesitation about someday seeing Rudy's face on a stranger. Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple's child to one day understand what his father did to help others. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross, left, shows family photos to face transplant recipient Andy Sandness after meeting at a library at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. The meeting was arranged by the hospital, where Sandness underwent a 56-hour surgery that was the clinic's first such transplant. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross, left, shows her family photos to Andy Sandness during their meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that once belonged to Ross' husband, Calen "Rudy" Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to a man who lived nearly a decade without one. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

This combination of photos provided by Andy Sandness and Lilly Ross shows Sandness, left, before his injuries in 2006 and Lilly's husband, Calen "Rudy" Ross. Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, 10 years and hundreds of miles apart. (Courtesy Andy Sandness, Lilly Ross via AP)

Face transplant recipient Andy Sandness speaks during an interview Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication. He's constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross speaks during an interview Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Andy Sandness the face that once belonged to Ross' husband Calen "Rudy" Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to a man who lived nearly a decade without one. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Andy Sandness, left, gets a hug from Dr. Samir Mardini at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Mardini led a 56-hour transplant surgery to give Sandness the face that once belonged to Calen "Rudy" Ross. Ross and Sandness' ages, blood type, skin color and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Mardini said the two men could have been cousins. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Lilly Ross, left, talks with Andy Sandness after meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that once belonged to Calen "Rudy" Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's face to a man who lived nearly a decade without one. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Face transplant recipient Andy Sandness holds 17-month-old Leonard Ross after meeting at the Mayo Clinic, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Rochester, Minn. Leonard's mother, Lilly, and Sandness say they plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he'll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard's education. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A federal judge has refused to give court-ordered permission for attorneys to question a neo-Nazi website publisher's relatives about the man's whereabouts.

A Muslim-American radio host's lawyers have searched for The Daily Stormer's publisher, Andrew Anglin, since they filed a libel lawsuit against him in August. They want to ask Anglin's father and brother if they know where he is living, so he can be served with a copy of the suit.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Preston Deavers denied that request Thursday, saying the "prejudice" to Anglin's relatives outweighs the need for such testimony.

SiriusXM Radio show host Dean Obeidallah's suit says Anglin falsely labeled him as the "mastermind" behind a deadly bombing at a concert in England.

Obeidallah's lawyers suspect Anglin is living in the Worthington, Ohio, area.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LIVINGSTON SAMUELS, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-10299 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before TJOFLAT, MARTIN and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Livingston Samuels appeals his convictions on one count of importation of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.  952(a), and one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C). Samuels argues that the District Court erred by denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal because there was no evidence that he had knowledge of the five kilograms of cocaine in his suitcase, which were found hidden inside souvenirs he brought back from Jamaica.

We review de novo the denial of a defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal on sufficiency-of-evidence grounds. United States v. Friske, 640 F.3d 1288, 1290 (11th Cir. 2011). We must view the facts and draw all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the government. United States v. Hansen, 262 F.3d 1217, 1236 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). A district court's denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal will be upheld if a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the evidence establishes the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Rodriguez, 218 F.3d 1243, 1244 (11th Cir. 2000) (per curiam). Accordingly, a defendant's conviction will be sustained as long as there is a reasonable basis for it in the record. United States v. Farley, 607 F.3d 1294, 1333 (11th Cir. 2010).

To sustain a conviction for possession with intent to distribute under 21 U.S.C.  841(a)(1), the government must prove that the defendant (1) knowingly (2) possessed a controlled substance (3) with intent to distribute it. United States v. Poole, 878 F.2d 1389, 1391 (11th Cir. 1989) (per curiam). To convict a defendant under 21 U.S.C.  952(a), the government must prove that the defendant knowingly imported a controlled substance. United States v. Vera, 701 F.2d 1349, 1357 (11th Cir. 1983). Both violations can be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence. Id. at 135758; United States v. Quilca-Carpio, 118 F.3d 719, 72122 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam).

Samuels disputes the jury's finding that he knew of the cocaine hidden in the souvenirs. Drawing primarily on the First Circuit case United States v. Ayala-Tapia, 520 F.3d 66 (1st Cir. 2008), he contends that although a substantial quantity of drugs is typically sufficient to support an inference of knowing possession, additional evidence must be produced in cases where drugs are found in a hidden compartmenthere, within the souvenirs. Samuels claims that because he had given a plausible account of what happened and there were no inconsistencies in his story, and because [t]he prosecutor's cross-examination of [him] had not given the jury a reason to believe he was lying, such additional evidence was not produced.

But Samuels mischaracterizes Ayala-Tapia. There, the court expressly noted that the case did not involve a hidden compartment. Id. at 6869. It instead involved four heavily wrapped, heroine-filled packages which the defendant claimed to believe were filled with coffee and flour. Id. at 67. And further, the Ayala-Tapia court never stated that additional evidence of knowledge would be required in hidden-compartment cases. It simply noted, As is common in drug courier prosecutions, there was no direct evidence of what Ayala knew; whether the jury could reasonably infer knowledge depends, as common sense would suggest, on the surrounding facts and circumstances. Id. at 68.

Regardless, this Court has held that direct evidence of a defendant's knowledge of possession is not necessary to support a convictionincluding in hidden-compartment cases. See Quilca-Carpio, 118 F.3d at 72122 (involving drugs stored in a hidden compartment in the defendant's luggage). The jury here could thus reasonably infer from the quantity of drugs seized$150,000 to $160,000 worth of cocainethat the provider was not likely to entrust such valuable cargo to Samuels without Samuels' knowledge. In addition to the quantity of drugs supporting an inference of knowledge, Samuels testified at trial. The jury was free to derive conclusions based on their perception of his credibility. Indeed, a statement by a defendant, if disbelieved by the jury, may be considered as substantive evidence of the defendant's guilt. United States v. Brown, 53 F.3d 312, 314 (11th Cir. 1995). The prosecution, moreover, raised a number of issues at trial that a reasonable jury could have interpreted to vitiate Samuels' credibility or provide circumstantial evidence of knowing possession.

In sum, the jury had enough evidence to reasonably conclude that Samuels knowingly imported and possessed cocaine with intent to distribute. The District Court properly denied Samuels' motion for a judgment of acquittal.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. The DEA concluded that Samuels possessed 5.083 kilograms of cocaine hydrochloride, a Schedule II controlled substance. According to the special agent assigned to investigate Samuels' case, the value of five kilograms of cocaine was between $150,000 and $160,000 in the county where the cocaine was intercepted.

. The prosecution, on the other hand, argues that Samuels' account is not as trustworthy as he believes. It raised the following issues, among others, at trial. Samuels told an investigating agent that he was in Jamaica to attend the funeral of his aunt, whom he identified as his father's sister. However, he was unable to correctly spell her name, and it was later revealed that the decedent was not related to Samuels. Samuels also claimed that at least one of the souvenirs was for his supervisor at Sky Chef, his place of employment, but he could not recall his supervisor's name. Further, Samuels spent $70 on the souvenirs and identified the souvenir vendor as an individual named Ross, but claimed that he did not know the individual's last name and that he and the individual had no means of contacting each other. Thus, by Samuels' account, a street vendor whom he did not know provided him with five kilograms of cocaine for $70 and the two had no ability to reconnect with one another.

. The Ayala-Tapia court followed this statement with a citation comparing a Ninth Circuit case stating that mere possession of a substantial quantity of drugs may be sufficient to infer knowledge with a Sixth Circuit case stating that additional evidence must be presented if the drugs were found in a hidden compartment. See 520 F.3d at 68. Perhaps this was the source of Samuels' mischaracterization of Ayala-Tapia.

. See supra note 2.

PER CURIAM:
A western Indiana woman has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the neglect death of her malnourished 8-month-old daughter, who weighed just 11 pounds when she died.

Makenzie Shultz, 23, was also ordered to spend four years on supervised probation following her release from prison.

The Lafayette woman was convicted in September on seven charges, including neglect resulting in death and failure to report a dead body.

Makenzie Shultz, 23, left, was convicted of seven charges related to her death and given 40 years in jail. Briley's father, Chad A. Giroux Jr., right, pleaded guilty to his charges in January and is serving a 34-year prison sentence

The baby, Briley Giroux, had been dead for 'many hours' before her father, Chad Giroux, took her to hospital

During their three hours of deliberation, jurors also convicted Shultz of false reporting, failure to report a dead body and obstruction of justice.

A coroner found that Briley Giroux was emaciated, dehydrated and malnourished, and had died several hours before she was taken to a hospital in November 2015.

A further investigation revealed that the infant had not seen a doctor in six months

The baby, who died from asphyxiation, had not been fed for several days before her death.

Court testimony indicated Briley slept in a closet where blankets and clothes were piled on top of her to muffle her cries.

Tippecanoe County Judge Randy Williams said during Shultz's Wednesday sentencing that although her baby was malnourished, police found unopened baby food items inside the home following her death.

'Briley, from everything we saw and heard, was never given a chance,' Williams said.

Briley's father, Chad A. Giroux Jr., took her lifeless body to a Lafayette hospital on November 16, 2015.

It was clear the baby had been dead for many hours, according to police.

He pleaded guilty to charges that include neglect of a dependent resulting in death and obstruction of justice.

Giroux was sentenced in March to 35 years in prison, but online court records show that he appealed his sentence in September.

After Briley's death, prosecutors said Shultz and Giroux took steps to conceal potential evidence, including several computer hard drives and bags of baby clothes and other items.
BURIRAM, Thailand (AP) - North Korea moved into second place in its Asian Cup qualifying group by beating Malaysia 4-1 on neutral turf in Thailand on Friday, finally starting a series that has been postponed three times.

The Asian Football Confederation intervened to ensure the match was played Thailand because of political tensions between North Korea and Malaysia.

Pak Kwang Ryong gave North Korea the lead 12th minute from the penalty spot, and Kim Yu Song made it 2-0 in the 42nd. Kim Yong Il scored in the 48th and Jong il Gwan made it 4-1 in the 59th.

Malaysia's Kunanlan Subramaniam, left, and North Korea's Jong IL Gwan battle for the ball during their Asian Cup qualifiers soccer match at Thunder Castle stadium in Buriram province, Thailand, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. North Korea beat Malaysia 4-1 . (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Muhammad Safawi Rasid pulled one back for Malaysia in the 67th.

"Of course, it's very stressing that three games were postponed and that we cannot play at home first match against Malaysia," North Korea head coach Jorn Anderson said. "But ... the situations are like that. We have two matches here. We have to do it. The first match we win. And we are very satisfied."

North Korea was designated as the host of the first game. Malaysia will have to regroup quickly as the designated host of the return match on Monday at the same venue.

"Look, North Korea was a correct winner, but the defeat was very heavy concerning what happened," Malaysia coach Manuel Martinho Vingado said.

The win gives North Korea five points in Group B, level with Hong Kong. Lebanon leads with 10 points, while Malaysia is last with one. The top two teams advance.
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) - The Latest on the Texas church shooting (all times local):

3:20 p.m.

Longtime congregants at the small-town Texas church where a gunman's rampage left more than two dozen dead say they were afraid of the attacker.

A woman visits a makeshift memorial along the highway for the victims of the church shooting at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Husband and wife Rod and Judy Green tell The Associated Press Friday that they are good friends with Devin Kelley's in-laws, and that Kelley had often exhibited troubling behavior.

Authorities have said Kelley's mother-in-law attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and she'd gotten threatening texts from him.

Rod Green says that at a Christmas dinner one year, Kelley had "bragged about being armed." The Greens also said they watched Kelley closely when he showed up wearing all black last month at a festival at the church.

Judy Green says Kelley was "completely distant and way out in thought."

Kelley died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after Sunday's massacre.

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12:40 p.m.

The sanctuary of the small-town Texas church where a gunman carried out a massacre will be turned into a temporary memorial for the more than two dozen victims.

The grounds steward of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs tells The Associated Press Friday that services will never take place there again and the building will eventually be demolished.

The gunman shot and killed 25 people at the church on Sunday. Authorities have put the official toll at 26, because one victim was pregnant.

Grounds steward Rod Green says the building will be scrubbed down and the church will place 26 chairs inside to commemorate the victims.

Green says the church plans to build a new structure on church property elsewhere. Green says regular services will be held Sunday at a community hall run by a local association.

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12:15 p.m.

More than 500 people have attended a private funeral on a San Antonio-area Air Force base for a husband and wife who were among the more than two dozen killed when a gunman opened fire at a small-town Texas church.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that the service for Scott and Karen Marshall was held Thursday afternoon at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph.

Randy Martin, spokesman for the 12th Flying Training Wing, says a traditional military funeral was held for the couple, who were killed Sunday at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. The service was closed to media and the public at their family's request.

Martin told the newspaper that Karen Marshall was promoted posthumously to senior master sergeant. She had been planning to retire from the military soon. Martin said Scott Marshall, already a military retiree, was a civilian employee at the base.

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12:05 p.m.

Medical officials say 11 people remain hospitalized with wounds from Texas church shooting that left more than two dozen dead remain hospitalized.

Conditions of the patients at two San Antonio hospitals range from good to critical. They were among those wounded when a gunman opened fire at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs last Sunday. The gunman died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased by bystanders and crashing his car.

Brooke Army Medical Center on Friday reported having seven patients from the church. The hospital says patients include five adults and two children.

University Health System had four patients, two of whom are children.

Officials at both hospitals declined to release more specific information on the wounded patients.

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10:05 a.m.

A weekly food pantry has resumed operations at a site next to the Texas church that less than a week ago endured the state's worst mass shooting.

The pantry's director, Lula White, was among the more than two dozen killed Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherlands Springs. White was also the 71-year-old grandmother of the gunman's wife.

On Friday, people crowded the small space, tearfully hugging and filling bags with donated bakery goods, groceries and used clothing. As 68-year-old Brandy Johnson walked in, she exclaimed she could "see Lu at the desk."

Husband and wife, Rod and Judy Green, have operated the pantry for 11 years. They were married at First Baptist but didn't attend the service that Devin Kelley brought to an untimely end with semi-automatic gunfire.

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12:04 a.m.

Some gave blood. Others stocked the food pantry.

Residents and neighbors of Sutherland Springs volunteered Thursday as a way help the tiny Texas community recover from the shooting at a Baptist church that left more than two dozen dead.

Twenty-year-old Karyssa Calbert of neighboring Floresville, who is six months pregnant, could not give blood but came to give moral support. She says people are doing what they can, "but honestly everyone feels so helpless."

The pastor of the First Baptist Church says that the church will be demolished. Members and visitors say the congregation should continue but not in the same building. One assistant to the congregation says she and others are trying to figure out a temporary solution to keep it going, perhaps in another building.

A woman visits a makeshift memorial along the highway for the victims of the church shooting at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Hand-written messages on crosses are part of a makeshift memorial for the victims of the church shooting at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church placed along the highway , Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Crosses for members of the Holcombe family are part of a makeshift memorial for the victims of the church shooting at Sutherland Springs Baptist Church placed along the highway , Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Crosses showing the names of shooting victims at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs Baptist Church are part of a makeshift memorial placed along the highway , Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Nov. 5, killing more than two dozen. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Crosses showing shooting victims names stand near the First Baptist Church on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen and injuring others. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Police say a 1-year-old child has been fatally shot in Tennessee.

According to local news media, Memphis police said in a statement that the child was shot Friday morning at an apartment complex in the city.

Police who responded to the shooting blocked streets around the city to get the child to the hospital, but the child was later pronounced dead.

Police have not released other details, including the circumstances around the shooting or the gender of the child.

The Commercial Appeals reports 13 juveniles have been killed in Memphis so far this year.
NEW YORK (AP) - Since The New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in October, multiple men in Hollywood and media have faced allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to rape. A look at some of the men accused:

- Producer Harvey Weinstein- Accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment or assault. Fired by The Weinstein Co. and expelled from various professional guilds. Under investigation by police departments in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. He denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.

- Actor Jeremy Piven - Accused by three women of sexual misconduct. He denies all allegations.

FILE - In this Nov. 25, 2013 file photo, producer Harvey Weinstein attends a screening of "Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom" in New York. More than 75 women have publicly accused Weinstein of inappropriate behavior ranging from requests for massages to intimidating sexual advances to rape. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File)

- Actor Kevin Spacey - Accused by at least 14 men of sexual misconduct or assault. London police reportedly investigating a sexual assault. Fired from 'House of Cards' and replaced in Ridley Scott's completed film 'All the Money in the World.' His former publicist has said he is seeking unspecified treatment.

- Filmmaker Brett Ratner - Accused by at least six women of sexual harassment. Playboy shelved projects with Ratner and Ratner stepped away from Warner Bros. related activities. He denies the allegations.

- Actor Steven Seagal - Accused by two women of rape. He denies the allegations.

- Comedian Louis C.K. - Accused by five women of sexual misconduct. Planned release of film "I Love You, Daddy" halted. Netflix special canceled. He says the allegations are true and has apologized.

- Actor Ed Westwick - Accused by two women of sexual assault. The BBC pulled an Agatha Christie adaptation from its television schedule and halted production on a second sitcom starring the "Gossip Girl' actor. Los Angeles police are investigating. He denies the allegations.

- Actor Dustin Hoffman - Accused by woman of sexual harassing when she was 17. He has apologized for his behavior.

- 'Mad Men' creator Matthew Weiner - Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.

- Actor Robert Knepper - Accused by one woman of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.

- Actor Jeffrey Tambor - One woman alleges sexual misconduct. He denies the allegation.

- Writer_director James Toback - Accused by hundreds of women of sexual harassment. Beverly Hills police investigating complaints. He has denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times.

- Producer Chris Savino- Accused of harassing up to 12 women. Fired from Nickelodeon. He has apologized for his behavior.

- Amazon executive Roy Price - Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He resigned from Amazon.

- Journalist Mark Halperin - Accused of harassing about 12 women while at ABC News. Book contract terminated. Fired from job at NBC News. He has denied some of the allegations.

- New Republic publisher Hamilton Fish- Multiple sexual harassment allegations. He has resigned from the magazine.

- New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier - Accused of sexually harassing numerous women. Removed from the masthead of The Atlantic magazine. He has apologized for his behavior.

- NPR news chief Michael Oreskes - Accused of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment by at least four women while at The New York Times, NPR and The Associated Press. He has been ousted from NPR.

- Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner - Accused by one man of sexual harassment. He says he did not intend to make the accuser uncomfortable.

- Billboard magazine executive Stephen Blackwell - Accused of sexual harassment by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.

- Artforum publisher Knight Landesman - Accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and sued by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.

- Webster Public Relations CEO Kirt Webster - Accused of sexual assault by one woman. Firm renamed and Webster is "taking time away'"

- Celebrity chef John Besh - Accused by 25 women of sexual harassment. He has stepped down from the company he founded.

FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2016 file photo, Louis C.K. arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif. The New York premiere of Louis C.K.'s controversial new film "I Love You, Daddy" has been canceled amid swirling controversy over the film and the comedian. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this March 25, 2015 file photo, Matthew Weiner arrives at The Black And Red Ball In Celebration Of The Final Seven Episodes Of "Mad Men" in Los Angeles. A former writer on "Mad Men" tells the website The Information that series creator Weiner harassed her at work. The allegation by Kater Gordon was reported Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, and denied in a statement released by Weiner's publicist. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2016 file photo, Ed Westwick arrives at the BAFTA Awards Season Tea Party at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. Police in Los Angeles say they are investigating a sexual assault report filed against the former "Gossip Girl" star Westwick days after an actress accused him of raping her. LAPD spokesman Michael Lopez tells The Associated Press that the report was filed Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, and the British actor is listed as a suspect. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Eds: Major scheduled events for the week of November 12-November 18. Note that many events are subject to change at the last minute.

The following economic reports will be issued in Washington (all times EDT), unless otherwise noted:

SUNDAY: No events of note.

MONDAY: Treasury releases federal budget for October, 2 p.m.

TUESDAY: Labor Department releases the Producer Price Index for October, 8:30 a.m.

The Home Depot Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

WEDNESDAY: Commerce Department releases retail sales data for October, 8:30 a.m.; Labor Department releases Consumer Price Index for October, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases business inventories for September, 10 a.m.; Treasury releases international money flows data for September, 4 p.m.

Target Corp. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

THURSDAY: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Federal Reserve releases industrial production for October, 9:15 a.m.; National Association of Home Builders releases housing market index for November, 10 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates, 10 a.m.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reports quarterly financial results before the market opens.

FRIDAY: Commerce Department releases housing starts for October, 8:30 a.m.

SATURDAY: No events of note.

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12

No events of note.

___

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13

President Donald Trump visits Vietnam and the Philippines, through Nov. 15.

Vice President Mike Pence headlines a fundraiser for Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court issues orders.

WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee meeting on the tax overhaul.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court on break until Nov. 27.

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at an oversight hearing of the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON - House Administration Committee hearing on sexual harassment in the congressional workplace

Committee on House Administration.

WASHINGTON - House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on environmental concerns from the 2017 hurricane season.

WASHINGTON - House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on the threat at the U.S.-Canada border.

WASHINGTON - House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Brexit.

WASHINGTON - Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on hurricane recovery efforts in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

WASHINGTON - Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on gene editing technology.

WASHINGTON - Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on the Asia-Pacific region.

BERLIN - Federal Statistical Office releases third-quarter growth figure for the German economy, Europe's biggest.

___

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the Republican Governors Conference in Austin, Texas

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Myanmar.

WASHINGTON - Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing on the attacks against U.S. diplomats in Cuba.

WASHINGTON - Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Department of Veterans Affairs and opioids.

___

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch speaks at the Federalist Society's lawyers convention.

___

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House counsel Donald McGahn speak at the Federalist Society's lawyers convention.

___

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18

No events of note.
Some Washington sex scandals of recent years:

-President Donald Trump: Late in last year's presidential campaign, a secretly recorded tape surfaced of a 2005 conversation in which Trump lewdly described abusive treatment of women. He said as a star, "You can do anything," adding, "Grab them by the p----. You can do anything." He was elected president a month later.

-Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.: Once viewed as a rising star in New York politics, the seven-term married lawmaker resigned from Congress in June 2011 after admitting he'd tweeted a photograph of himself in snug-fitting underpants to an undergraduate in Washington state. Weiner also said he'd had inappropriate online interactions with at least six other women. Weiner, now 53, was sentenced to 21 months in prison this past September after pleading guilty to obscenity charges involving lewd online communications with a 15-year-old girl in 2016. Weiner and his wife, former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, are getting a divorce.

-Rep. Eric Massa, R-N.Y.: Massa resigned in 2010 after less than two years in office following reports that the House Ethics Committee was examining allegations that he'd harassed a male aide. The Washington Post reported that Massa, who was married, had groped several male staffers over the previous year. After resigning, he denied the accusations but said he'd had tickle fights with aides in a house they shared.

-Sen. David Vitter, R-La.: In 2007, Vitter apologized for a "very serious sin" after his phone number appeared in a call list of a high-end Washington escort service run by the so-called D.C. Madam, Deborah Jean Palfrey. He won re-election to the Senate in a landslide in 2010, but lost a 2015 bid to become Louisiana governor. He served in the Senate until last January.

-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.: The six-term lawmaker immediately resigned from Congress in 2006 as reports emerged that he'd sent sexually explicit messages to at least one teenage male former page. Foley apologized for "letting down" his family and Florida voters.

-President Bill Clinton: The House voted in 1998 to impeach, or formally accuse, Clinton of perjury and obstruction of their investigation into Clinton's sexual encounters with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In February 1999, the Senate acquitted him. In 1998, Clinton agreed to an $850,000 settlement with Arkansas state worker Paula Jones, who'd accused Clinton of exposing himself and making indecent propositions when Clinton was governor. That settlement included no apology or admission of guilt.

-Rep. Robert Livingston, R-La.: On the verge of becoming House speaker in 1998, the married lawmaker abruptly announced he would resign from Congress after acknowledging that he'd had adulterous affairs. His revelation came amid reports that Hustler magazine had pursued tips that he'd had several affairs. Livingston shocked his colleagues by announcing his decision to the House as it debated the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. He left Congress in March 1999.

-Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore.: Less than a month after his 1992 re-election to a fifth Senate term, The Washington Post reported that 10 female ex-staffers alleged that Packwood had sexually harassed them. Packwood said he was "sincerely sorry" if his actions were unwelcome and said he would undergo alcohol counseling. More accusations surfaced and calls for his resignation grew. After the Senate Ethics Committee voted to recommend his expulsion and released 10,000 pages of evidence, Packwood resigned in 1995.

-Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va.: Robb said in 1991 that he'd been in a hotel room with a former Miss Virginia, Tai Collins, and that she'd given him a massage. Robb, married to one of President Lyndon Johnson's daughters, Lynda Bird, revealed the incident just before NBC News aired an interview with Collins. She claimed she'd had an affair with Robb while he was governor during the 1980s. Robb was re-elected to the Senate in 1994 and retired in 2001.

-Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.: After a 1989 report in The Washington Times, Frank acknowledged he'd hired a male prostitute in 1985 who lived with him and worked for him in his Washington apartment. Frank said he fired the man, Steve Gobie, when he discovered he was using Frank's apartment to run a prostitution service. The House voted overwhelmingly to reprimand Frank in 1990 after the House Ethics Committee said he'd fixed numerous parking tickets the man had received. Frank was re-elected to Congress 11 additional times and retired in 2013.

-Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo.: Hart was considered a front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination when in 1987 the Miami Herald published a report alleging that model Donna Rice had spent the night at the married Hart's Washington town house. The two denied an affair, but Hart ended his campaign shortly afterward.

-Rep. Gerry Studds, D-Mass.: The first openly gay member of Congress, Studds was censured by the House in 1983 for having an affair a decade earlier with a 17-year-old congressional page. Studds was re-elected to six more House terms.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Remarks from a juror excused in the middle of deliberations in Sen. Bob Menendez's bribery trial suggest the panel could wind up deadlocked or voting for acquittal, because many of them may believe the defense's central argument in the case.

Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby, who was excused from the jury Thursday due to a previous commitment, said she would have acquitted the Democratic senator and co-defendant Salomon Melgen on all counts. She also said most other jurors were favoring acquittal.

Prosecutors allege the senator and the wealthy Florida eye doctor engaged in a bribery scheme in which Menendez took official actions to benefit Melgen in exchange for luxury vacations and flights on Melgen's private jet.

Her comments appeared to indicate at least some, and possibly a majority, of the jury believe the defense's central argument: that Menendez's longtime friendship with Melgen explained the gifts.

"They are friends," Arroyo-Maultsby said. "If I was rich and if I had a lot of money and I want to take my friend somewhere, why can't I?"

The friendship theme ran throughout the defense's case in the nine-week trial, and it was condensed in Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell's closing argument when he used the words "friend," ''friends" or "friendship" more than 80 times.

In his rebuttal to jurors, federal prosecutor Peter Koski echoed the judge's instructions that gifts given "both out of friendship and a corrupt intent" can be considered bribes.

"The defense would like you to believe that friendship and bribery are mutually exclusive, that friendship and bribery cannot co-exist," he said. "Ladies and gentlemen, that is not the law."

Another of Arroyo-Maultsby's comments could also be significant, said former federal prosecutor Michael Weinstein, currently the head of white collar defense and investigations for the Cole Schotz law firm.

"The word I picked up on is that people think Menendez is being 'railroaded,'" he said. "If I'm the prosecution, that's difficult to hear. Then it presents a 'me vs. the government' scenario."

Deliberations resume Monday with an alternate taking Arroyo-Maultsby's place.

While her comments pierced the veil of secrecy shrouding all jury deliberations, they are unlikely to lead to a mistrial, Weinstein and other former federal prosecutors said. The judge likely will ask jurors individually on Monday if they saw the comments and whether they can still be impartial.

If her account was an accurate reflection of the dynamic inside the jury room, a deadlocked jury might be the best outcome prosecutors could hope for, said Dan Alonso, managing director at global compliance firm Exiger and a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.

An acquittal would reinforce the view that official bribery cases have become more difficult to prosecute, a trend traced to last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the bribery conviction of former Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. That ruling played a significant role in how the jury was instructed in the Menendez trial.

"The law doesn't change because a jury decides that on these facts, the government didn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt," Alonso said. "But in practical terms, it could signal to prosecutors that it's pretty tough to prove both the quid pro quo and the official acts in these cases."

Neither side commented on Arroyo-Maultsby's comments Friday.
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new regulations Friday that seek to crack down on employers keeping hourly workers "on call," available to be called in at a moment's notice.

The new labor rules would establish a 14-day advance notice standard for scheduling and require two hours' extra pay for last-minute assignments. If a shift is canceled by the employer within 72 hours of its start time, or if a worker is required to be on standby to be called in to work, the worker must be provided at least four hours of call-in pay.

The extra pay wouldn't apply if an employee volunteers to fill in for a co-worker who had been scheduled 14 days in advance.

The statewide regulations, set to take effect in January after a 45-day public comment period, supersede rules enacted by New York City this year ending on-call scheduling for retail workers in the city and requiring two weeks' scheduling notice for fast-food workers.

"Our union is delighted with what has been proposed," said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. "The regulations will go a long way in improving the lives of retail workers."

Heather Briccetti, president of the state Business Council, said the set of rules announced by the Democratic governor "represents another administrative and financial hurdle for New York employers that is not imposed in most other states."

But Ted Potrikus, president of the Retail Council of New York State, praised the plan that was developed after a series of public hearings that included input from business interests. He said the plan "creates a consistent and uniform policy on employee scheduling guidelines that will take effect across the entire state."

Last fall, a coalition of New York-based worker advocates launched a national campaign to press retailers and restaurant chains to end the scheduling practice, which makes it hard for workers to schedule child care or work a second job.

The Center for Popular Democracy said three in five American workers - about 75 million people - are paid hourly, with recent job growth mainly in low-wage jobs, often part-time and subject to last-minute scheduling practices.

Some national retailers have agreed in recent years to stop on-call scheduling following a multistate inquiry by eight state attorneys general, including New York's Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat.

In August, Oregon became the first state to crack down on on-call scheduling by mandating when workers get their schedules. Large employers will have to post schedules a week in advance starting in July. Similar bills had already been enacted in New York City, Seattle and San Francisco.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DEANGELO A. ROME, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-10910 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before MARCUS, WILSON, and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Appellant Deangelo Alquan Rome appeals his sentence after pleading guilty to three counts of possession of a firearm or ammunition, or both, by a convicted felon. He argues that the district court improperly considered unreliable hearsay evidence when determining his base offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines. Because the district court did not err in considering the hearsay evidence introduced at sentencing, we affirm Rome's sentence.

I.

In 2016, Rome was indicted on three counts of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon. The first count stemmed from an incident in which an officer found Rome in his car with marijuana, a nine-millimeter pistol, and ammunition. The second count arose after police responded to a shots fired call and investigators found, in the backyard of the shooting victim's house, a loaded magazine with Rome's fingerprint. The third count was premised on the fact that officers, responding to a call of armed individuals in the area, found a rifle with Rome's palm print and DNA evidence inside a vehicle and Rome hiding in the house where the vehicle was parked.

Rome pled guilty to all three counts, and the district court sentenced him according to its calculation of the Sentencing Guidelines. Relevant to the current appeal, the district court calculated Rome's base offense level after finding that the ammunition Rome possessed in the second count was connected to an offense of attempted first-degree murder under Sentencing Guideline  2X1.1's cross-reference to the separate offense with which the ammunition was connected.

The district court's decision to apply the cross reference for attempted first-degree murder relied, in part, on testimony from Officer Amber Bernard, who investigated the second count. Bernard testified that after the incident underlying Rome's second count, investigators found an extended magazine loaded with ammunition in the shooting victim's backyard, and the magazine had Rome's fingerprint on it. She also testified that the shooting victim, after seeing a photo array, identified Rome as the shooter; in a separate interview, the victim also told Bernard that Rome shot him from the backyard. The victim explained to Bernard that Rome may have shot him because they had a beef. In her testimony, Bernard theorized that Rome shot first from the backyard to drive the victim to the front door, where other shooters were waiting.

II.

Now, on appeal, Rome argues that the district court erred when it calculated his base offense level with a cross reference of attempted first-degree murder. He argues the only evidence that he had a premeditated intent to killan element of first-degree murderis hearsay evidence of the shooting victim's out-of-court statements introduced through Bernard's testimony. Rome asserts that this hearsay testimony is unreliable, and therefore reasons that the district court should not have relied on it to conclude that he had attempted first-degree murder.

We typically review for clear error the district court's findings of fact based on hearsay evidence admitted at a sentencing hearing. United States v. Query, 928 F.2d 383, 384-86 (11th Cir. 1991). But as Rome acknowledges, defense counsel did not object to the introduction of hearsay evidence at sentencing. Blue Br. 16. Therefore, the objection was waived, and this court reviews the district court's decision for plain error. See United States v. Parrish, 427 F.3d 1345, 1347 (11th Cir. 2005). To prevail under a plain error standard, [Appellant] must prove that (1) there is an error; (2) that is plain; and (3) that affects substantial rights. Id. at 1348. If a defendant establishes all three requirements, we may choose to exercise our discretion to correct a forfeited error, but only if the error serious affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Monroe, 353 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2003) (citation, internal quotation marks, and alterations omitted).

A district court does not commit an error in relying on hearsay evidence at sentencing as long as the evidence has sufficient indicia of reliability, the court makes explicit findings of fact as to credibility, and the defendant has an opportunity to rebut the evidence. United States v. Anderton, 136 F.3d 747, 751 (11th Cir. 1998). Here, no error occurred.

Bernard's testimony about the shooting victim's statements, and the shooting victim's statements themselves as reported by Bernard, were sufficiently reliable. In fact, Bernard simply repeated the victim's statements as transcribed in a recorded interview, which defense counsel introduced. Indeed, the district court made an explicit finding of fact noting this and finding Bernard's testimony credible. It stated Bernard's testimony was consistent with what's in the transcript that defense counsel read during sentencing.

As for the reliability of the victim's statements, they are supported by the fact that the victim was actually shot, the discovery of the ammunition magazine with Rome's fingerprint in the backyard and Rome's own admission that he had been in the backyard. In addition, the court made findings of fact and cited evidence that Rome and the other shooters traveled to the victim's residence, they traveled with loaded firearms, they positioned themselves strategically in order to carry out this homicide, and they planned an escape to support its finding that the attempted murder was premeditated. Considering the undisputed factual record here, it is difficult to reach any other conclusion than that Rome acted with premeditation.

Defense counsel also had an opportunity to rebut Bernard's testimony: she cross-examined Bernard. Anderton, 136 F.3d at 751. Thus, the district court did not commit erroreither plain or otherwisein relying on Bernard's hearsay testimony because her testimony had sufficient indicia of reliability, the court made explicit findings of facts as to the reliability of the testimony, and Rome had the opportunity to rebut the evidence.

III.

For these reasons, the district court did not plainly err in calculating Rome's base offense level using a cross reference to attempted first-degree murder under Sentencing Guideline  2X1.1. We therefore affirm the sentence of the district court.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. Rome argues that we should review the decision below de novo, citing United States v. Ghertler, 605 F.3d 1256 (11th Cir. 2010). But Ghertler considered the sufficiency of the district court's explanation for the sentence it imposed. Here, Rome does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the district court's explanation for its sentence, but rather the court's reliance on hearsay evidence underlying its explanation for its sentence.

PER CURIAM:
WASHINGTON (AP) - An Alabama state official is citing the Bible to defend the Republican U.S. Senate candidate accused of sexual advances on girls. State auditor Jim Ziegler says "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter," suggesting that Roy Moore acted in a divine tradition if he in fact made sexual advances toward a 14-year-old girl.

Theologians and pastors, among others, expressed revulsion that Mary and Joseph would be used to counter allegations of sexual misbehavior with a minor. They also said Ziegler got the facts wrong and ignored the cultural context of the time in which Jesus lived.

"If this is evangelicalism, I'm on the wrong team," the evangelical commentator Ed Stetzer wrote in Christianity Today. "But it is not. Christians don't use Joseph and Mary to explain child molesting accusations."

Roy Moore, Republican nominee for Senate, speaks at an endorsement event on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Thirteen Alabama Sheriff's endorsed Moore. (Albert Cesare/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)

Moore, a 70-year-old former state Supreme Court justice, flatly denied allegations of decades-old sexual advances on girls, published Thursday in a Washington Post story. The accounts by multiple women prompted Republican lawmakers to say he should end his candidacy for the Dec. 12 special election if the allegations are true. "I have never engaged in sexual misconduct," Moore said Friday.

But Ziegler was dismissive about the fuss. "There's just nothing immoral or illegal here," he told the Washington Examiner. "Maybe just a little bit unusual."

Rev. Jim Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America, tweeted Friday that "comparing the allegations against Roy Moore in any way to Joseph and Mary is disgusting." Martin said: "We have no idea about the exact ages of either the Virgin Mary or St. Joseph at the time of their betrothal or marriage."

The Bible does not state the ages of Joseph and Mary, agrees Margaret M. Mitchell, a professor of early Christian literature and the New Testament at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Under ancient norms and apparently under first century Roman and Jewish law, she said, it was apparently common for girls 12 and older to be betrothed, though practice varied by region, social class and more.

She said the earliest text to mention Mary's age is "The Infancy Gospel of James," which she describes as "a clearly legendary text that is trying to expand on the gospel accounts." That non-authoritative text placed Mary's age at 12 when she conceived and it cited supposed evidence of her enduring virginity to demonstrate she conceived Jesus without sexual intercourse.

Similarly, Mitchell said by email, "We have no idea how old the historical Joseph was, though a tradition that he was very old developed in the second century and beyond." The point of that, too, was to support the idea of the virgin birth - Joseph perhaps being too old to impregnate Mary.

Such theories were "fanciful expansions on the Gospel narratives," Mitchell said. But they add a "veneer of solemnity ... that may allow a modern Christian like Mr Z (Ziegler) to gloss over what it means for a 12 or 14 year old girl to be viewed as and used as a sexual vessel."

Martin, in tweets, said: "Joseph is often depicted in art as older than Mary, in fact, considerably older, so as to make him seem less 'sexualized,' and to emphasize Mary's virginity. But, in fact, both Mary and Joseph could have been the same age."

Leigh Corfman told the Post she was 14 when Moore first approached her and took her to his home twice, the second time touching her over her bra and panties and having her touch him over his underwear. The Post quoted three other women who said he pursued them when they were 16 to 18 and he was in his early 30s. He denies the women's reports and says he won't quit the race.

If the Bible is not clear on the subject, the law is: Alabama's legal age of consent then and now is 16 and adults cannot touch children sexually or entice them into a home for that purpose.

___

AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The family of a man killed in 1966 by the Ku Klux Klan received a private preview Friday of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum that is opening next month.

Vernon Dahmer (DAY'-mur) of Hattiesburg was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era.

His widow, 92-year-old Ellie Dahmer, toured the museum with four surviving children and several other relatives. It includes a gallery with photos and descriptions of how the Dahmer home was firebombed. Pieces of the family's burned pickup truck are also on display.

Ellie Dahmer, wife of Vernon Dahmer of Hattiesburg, who was killed in 1966 by the Ku Klux Klan, reacts as she recognized a subject in one of the exhibits in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum during a private preview Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Jackson, Miss. Dahmer was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

"I think Mississippi's come a long ways to even want to put something up to portray what really happened to people during the civil rights movement," Ellie Dahmer said. "We lived it. Some of them died with it. The rest of Mississippi needs to know about it."

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History - two entities under a single roof - are opening Dec. 9 for the state's bicentennial in downtown Jackson.

Daughter Bettie Dahmer, 62, said she hopes young people, particularly those from poor areas of Mississippi, will visit the museum to learn about the state's troubled history that includes lynching and other violence.

Vernon Dahmer was a farmer and shop owner and served as president of the Forrest County NAACP. His family's home was a haven for young civil rights workers who were challenging state-sponsored racial oppression, and he became a Klan target in January 1966 when he went on the radio and announced he would pay the poll tax for people who couldn't afford it.

Dennis Dahmer, then 11, was asleep in the family home when Klansmen set it ablaze on Jan. 10, 1966. He said his family owned several guns because they lived in the country and liked to hunt. Dennis Dahmer said as the fire raged, his father went from window to window shooting out at Klansmen who were waiting outside to attack the family.

"From what we read (in) the FBI files, these Klansmen - they had the house completely surrounded," Dennis Dahmer, now 64, said Friday at the museum. "They were waiting for us to run out there so they could kill us."

The family escaped from the back of the house. Vernon Dahmer's lungs were seared by the heat and he died of his injuries.

A jury in 1998 convicted one-time Klan leader Sam Bowers of murder and arson in Dahmer's killing. Bowers was sentenced to life and died in prison in 2006.

The civil rights museum also includes exhibits of other pivotal figures in the push for racial equality, including Medgar Evers, the Mississippi NAACP leader who was assassinated outside his Jackson home in 1963.

____

Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus .

Harold Dahmer, a son of Vernon Dahmer, of Hattiesburg, who was killed in 1966 by the Ku Klux Klan, smiles when he sees a photograph of his younger self taken when he viewed the remains of their firebombed house, at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum during a private preview of the museum Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Jackson, Miss. Dahmer was targeted because he encouraged fellow African-Americans to register to vote during the Jim Crow era. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - President Donald Trump said he would "drain the swamp" in Washington. Progressives are hoping to make good on that vow, leveraging anti-Trump feeling to limit corporate influence in statehouses around the country.

They point to what just happened in Virginia, where Democrats rode a backlash against the president to sweeping victories. The surprise winners in House races include some first-time politicians who vowed never to take contributions from the state's most powerful corporation.

Together with Gov.-elect Ralph Northam's win over the GOP's Ed Gillespie, a former corporate lobbyist and Washington insider, and key wins in other state legislatures, the victories have lifted Democratic hopes of even more success in next year's critical midterm elections.

Danica Roem, center, a Democrat who ran for Virginia's House of Delegates against GOP incumbent Robert Marshall, is greeted by supporters as she prepares to give her victory speech Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in Manassas, Va. Roem, a former journalist, is set to make history as the first openly transgender person elected and seated in a state legislature in the United States. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via AP)

Opposition to Trump has inspired a new breed of independent-minded Democratic candidates, said Carolyn Fiddler, a longtime Democratic operative focused on state legislatures who now works at the liberal blog Daily Kos.

"They are going to bring a very public-interest vision to governing, and they don't have the deep corporate ties that establishment politicians have," she said. "It's going to change the way business is done in some of these state capitals."

Virginia's CEOs, lobbyists, lawmakers and other powerbrokers are still scrambling to make sense of the election's implications. Democrats won at least 15 seats in the House, all but erasing a business-friendly Republican majority that almost everyone assumed was safe. Democrats may even flip the chamber, depending on the outcome of three races that remained too close to call on Friday.

The newly elected Democrats - 11 women among them - include the House's first openly trangender lawmaker, its first Latina members, and its first female Asian-American. Thirteen of them have taken a pledge to reject any donations from a regulated utility such as Dominion Energy, Virginia's most influential corporation and largest corporate political donor.

The company has cultivated deep relationships with leaders in both parties, securing bipartisan support for laws boosting its bottom line. But critics have long complained that lawmakers are too cozy with the company.

"I certainly intend to directly challenge their power over the General Assembly," said Lee Carter, an IT specialist, Marine veteran and member of the Democratic Socialists of America who won a surprise victory Tuesday. He said Dominion is one of several corporate interests that will "have to get used to a new way of doing things."

Dominion spokesman David Botkins said the company is "looking forward to getting to know the new members and working together" on energy issues.

Virginia's largely unregulated campaign finance system has fostered strong ties between lawmakers in both parties and the businesses they regulate. An examination by The Associated Press in 2016 found a handful of lawmakers, including senior members in both parties, rely almost entirely on business interests and their representatives for campaign contributions.

Virginia also doesn't prohibit lawmakers from spending from their campaign accounts for personal use, and many lawmakers rely on corporate donations to subsidize their official office budgets.

Northam has said he wants to limit corporate money in elections and ban personal use of campaign funds.

Carter defeated Jackson Miller, a GOP House leader whose list of top donors reads like a who's who of corporate influence, including Dominion, Realtor groups, bankers, hospitals and car dealers. Many of the other defeated Republicans got their campaign cash from similar sources.

Democratic state Sen. Chap Petersen, a fierce Dominion critic, sees a new era at the General Assembly.

"We have a new legislature that is reform minded, which is not beholden to the large corporate interests," he said.

Whether that vision gets dashed after the opening of January's session remains to be seen. Republicans still control the state Senate, and Democratic legislators have yet to resolve many of the tensions over corporate influence on their party that played out between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in last year's presidential race.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Dick Saslaw said the General Assembly will remain a place that supports industries of all kinds, regardless of the election outcome.

"That's not going to change, because we're a pro-business state," he said.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, right, shares a laugh with Gov.-elect, Ralph Northam, center, as Pam Northam, left, looks on during a news conference in the Governors mansion at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Kelly Convirs-Fowler greets her supporters as results come in Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017 in Virginia Beach, Va. In her first bid for political office, Democrat Convirs-Fowler defeated veteran Del. Ron Villanueva in the House of Delegates 21st District. Sweeping victories in Virginia and key gains in other state legislative elections this year have made Democrats optimistic about the potential for even bigger wins next year as they seek a greater voice ahead of the next round of political redistricting. (David B. Hollingsworth/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)
A judge had declared a mistrial in a case involving a leader of the Bandidos biker gang, after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked in the first trial stemming from the deadliest shootout between biker groups in US history.

Christopher 'Jake' Carrizal, the president of the Bandidos' Dallas chapter, breathed a sigh of relief and walked free from a Waco, Texas courtroom on Friday after 14 hours of jury deliberation.

Carrizal had testified that a rival biker club, the Cossacks, provoked the May 17, 2015, brawl and gunfight at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco that left nine bikers dead.

The mistrial leaves unclear the prospects faced by other defendants charged in the shootout.

Experts had been looking toward a verdict from the Carrizal trial as an indicator of how solid the government's cases against other leaders and dozens of members might be.

Christopher 'Jake' Carrizal, right, gets a hug following a mistrial, Friday in Waco, Texas

A sheriff's deputy is seen above shooting a gun in the parking lot of the restaurant while other bikers are told to get down on the pavement on May 17, 2015

Local police arrested 177 bikers after the mayhem, and more than 150 people were eventually charged.

No retrial for Carrizal was immediately scheduled. Calls to the prosecutor's office after State District Judge Matt Johnson declared the mistrial rang unanswered.

Carrizal was charged with directing the activities of a criminal street gang and two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity with the underlying offenses of murder and aggravated assault.

Testifying in his own behalf, Carrizal told the McLennan County jury that the Cossacks were behaving provocatively when Carrizal's group arrived at the restaurant for a meeting, and a brawl quickly erupted.

Carrizal said a Cossack was trying to punch him through his safety helmet with brass knuckles when he heard gunshots.

He said he tried to reach for the knife in his pocket but couldn't grasp it. As the fight continued and he was on the ground, he reached for a two-shot Derringer pistol in his back pocket and fired it at a Cossack.

Carrizal arrives at the McLennan County courthouse with an unidentified women Thursday

Carrizal (right) leaves the McLennan County court room with his mother Sonia following a mistrial on Friday. The Bandidos leader had been charged in the shootout that left nine dead

Footage from the May 17 shooting shows a member of one of the biker gangs running into the restaurant and firing his gun

Police arrived on the scene less than a minute after the violence erupted, and took away 12 long guns, 133 handguns and found 44 shell casings

When he couldn't reload, he took cover behind a light pole and yelled for his father, who also was part of the brawl.

He said he saw one member of his group lying dead and another bleeding from the head, so he crawled under a truck.

He finally saw two police officers helping his father, who was shot in the shoulder.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that in a note Thursday night, the jury foreman reported a juror identified as 'Mr. P' told the other jurors he had prior experience with the Cossacks and would not change his mind because of it.

That juror has ties to a McLennan County motorcycle shop, which he disclosed on his juror questionnaire in early October.

Biker gangs are a small but violent criminal force in the U.S., with some 44,000 members or associates of a handful of 'outlaw' gangs, according to a 2015 FBI report.

More than 170 people were arrested in the aftermath of the shootout, and 60 remain in jail. Above, 35 mugshots of those taken into custody

The Bandidos, founded in Texas, is among the largest of the criminal gangs, along with the Hells Angels and a couple of others.

The Cossacks were considered less violent until the Waco confrontation.

The start of any Waco trials was delayed by the enormous volume of evidence and several bikers' attempts to have their cases dismissed.

Carrizal's attorney, Casie Gotro, had complained before and during trial about delays in receiving evidence from prosecutors and law enforcement agencies that she was entitled to.

The issue prompted Gotro to object when the judge instructed the deadlocked jurors on Friday morning that another jury would hear the same evidence if he had to declare a mistrial.

She said the delays in the disclosure of evidence against her client created an 'absolute inability to use that evidence to prepare for trial.'

'I believe a second jury is going to hear a very different set of evidence,' Gotro said.
Saudi Arabia has ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon amid rising tensions between their two governments.

A brief statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency called on all Saudis living in or visiting Lebanon to depart, and warned against travel to the country.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri shocked his country on Saturday when he announced in a televised statement out of Saudi Arabia that he was resigning. He has not been seen in Lebanon since.

(Hussein Malla/AP/PA)

He said his country had been taken hostage by the militant group Hezbollah, a partner in his coalition government and a major foe of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia said it considers Hezbollahs participation in the Lebanese government an act of war against the kingdom.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said he will not consider the premiers resignation until the two meet in person.
First Lady Melania Trump has checked out the pandas at the Beijing zoo, before being serenaded in English and in Chinese by elementary school children.

Mrs Trump looked on with the students from the Shija elementary school as one panda chomped down on a late breakfast of bamboo shoots and leaves. She then presented the students with gifts of plush bald eagle toys.

Parts of the zoo in Beijings western fringe were shut down for the visit, but Wang Xumei, pushing her one-year-old granddaughter in a stroller, says she was not put off.

Shes very beautiful and were very happy to have her and the American president in Beijing, Ms Wang said, adding: Come back soon.

On Thursday evening the US President and First Lady were the guests of honour at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Mr Trump offered a toast to Chinese President Xi Jinping, touting bonds that will only grow stronger and stronger.

Melania Trump visited the panda enclosure at a zoo in Beijing (Ng Han Guan/AP)

He then introduced a video of his granddaughter Arabella, the daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, singing a traditional Chinese song in Mandarin.

The dinner capped off two days of pageantry and negotiations between Mr Xi and Mr Trump.

At the dinner, neither man made mention of thorny issues like trade and attempts to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Fertility experts are celebrating IVFs 40th anniversary.

But what is in vitro fertilisation? Here are some questions answered.

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is probably the best-known technique for helping people with fertility problems have a baby.

A midwife talking to a pregnant woman

During the process, an egg, or multiple eggs, are removed from a womans ovary and fertilised with sperm in a laboratory.

The fertilised egg is then returned to the womans womb to grow and develop.

It is most commonly used with couples who are having fertility problems.

Others who can use the technique include same-sex couples or single women.

NHS Choices estimates that around one in seven couples in the UK have trouble conceiving  around 3.5 million people in Britain.

Age is an important factor when it comes to getting pregnant, but everyone can help protect their fertility: https://t.co/IOqaK34Yje pic.twitter.com/epwkSAPRlu  NHS (@NHSuk) March 20, 2017

Fertility problems can affect either men or women. In one in four cases, it isnt possible to determine the cause.

In women, common causes of infertility include: ovulation problems, issues with fallopian tubes or a condition called endometriosis.

IVF success rates depend on how old the woman undergoing treatment is.

According to NHS Choices, in 2010 the percentage of IVF treatments that resulted in a live birth was; 32.2% for women under 35, 27.7% for women aged 35 to 37, 20.8% for women aged 38 to 39, 13.6% for women aged 40 to 42, 5% for women aged 43 to 44.

There are risks associated with IVF which include side effects from the medication, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, multiple births and ectopic pregnancies. Treatments can also take their toll on mental wellbeing.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that eligible patients should have access to three rounds of IVF funded through the NHS.

But just 12% of local health bodies offer this many cycles  others offer one or two cycles and some offer none at all.

Costs vary but they can be around 5,000 for one cycle.

We've updated our popular Getting started guide. You can download a copy at https://t.co/PmSFRY1BYY  HFEA (@HFEA) November 7, 2017

Estimates suggest that around six million babies have been born around the world using the technique. Data from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) show that between 1991 and 2015 more than 300,000 children have been born in the UK over the last quarter of a century thanks to IVF and donor insemination.

By the end of 2015, the number of cycles of in vitro fertilisation cycles carried out since 1991 stood at 1,034,601, according to the HFEA.
Gordon Brown has praised Jeremy Corbyn for the way he has articulated public anger while setting out his vision for a fairer society.

The former prime minister and Labour leader described Mr Corbyn as a phenomenon who had restored peoples faith in the partys principles.

Mr Brown said the challenge he now faced was to show he could produce a programme for government that was credible and therefore electable.

Jeremy is a phenomenon. He has cut through because he expresses peoples anger at what has happened  the discontent, he told the BBC Radio 4 programme.

Jeremy Corbyn has set out a vision for a fairer society, according to Gordon Brown (John Stillwell/PA)

When he attacks Universal Credit he is speaking for many people. When he says the health service is underfunded he is speaking for many.

What he is saying on these things is absolutely right.

Mr Brown acknowledged that during his time in office as chancellor and later prime minister, he and Mr Corbyn rarely saw eye-to-eye, with the current Labour leader voting against the government more than 500 times.

He pointed out, however, that Mr Corbyn had since adopted the New Labour slogan For the many, not the few, while his shadow chancellor John McDonnell had backed Mr Browns decision in office to make the Bank of England independent.

Gordon Brown good on Corbyn (a phenomenon, we're in a new world now) & on tackling tax avoidance. He remains a flawed but abundantly gifted politician. #r4today  Matthew Vizard (@MatthewVizard) November 10, 2017

Superb interview of Gordon Brown By BBC'S John Humphrys - Came across as very human & approachable which did not come across when he was PM, Understood the Corbyn/McDonnell bandwagon, but did not endorse it!  David Buik (@truemagic68) November 10, 2017

Jeremy has articulated a view of a fairer society, Mr Brown said.

You have got to convert this sense that you have restored peoples faith in your principles to a plan for the future that is credible and therefore electable and a programme that is popular

They are now with the responsibility  and I hope that they can discharge it  of showing that they can produce a programme that is costed and which is popular and which is both radical and progressive.

That is the challenge for any left-wing or progressive party.
Eighteen-year-old Sophie Ecclestone marked her Test debut with two wickets, but a patient half-century from Ellyse Perry helped Australia women close in on Englands first-innings total on day two at the North Sydney Oval.

Left-arm spinner Ecclestone removed Beth Mooney and Alex Blackwell to reduce the hosts to 61 for three in the inaugural day-night Ashes Test, but a 73-run stand between Perry, who made an unbeaten 70, and captain Rachel Haynes (33), helped them reach the close on 177 for five.

That left them 103 runs behind England, who were earlier dismissed for 280 after resuming on 235 for seven.

Sophie Ecclestone, centre, took two wickets on her Test debut against Australia (Chris Ison/PA)

STUMPS in Sydney: Australia finish day two on 177-5 and trail England by 103 runs.#WomensAshes pic.twitter.com/iVgIXb8O9m  England Cricket (@englandcricket) November 10, 2017

Australia lead the multi-format points-based series 4-2 and will retain the Ashes if they win in Sydney.

A strong start from the home side was ended by Laura Marsh, who had Nicole Bolton caught by Anya Shrubsole for 24.

Ecclestone then took centre stage, claiming her first victim with plenty of good fortune when Mooney (27) went after a short ball, but succeeded only in thumping it straight to Nat Sciver at midwicket.

Who's got two thumbs and the best darn hands in cricket?@Sarah_Taylor30's catch to remove Villani was an absolute peach. #WomensAshes https://t.co/G98hogGBCW pic.twitter.com/MXrhT2WQTy  England Cricket (@englandcricket) November 10, 2017

Her second arrived seven runs later and was all her own work, deceiving Blackwell (six) with a drifting delivery to trap her lbw.

A brilliant catch from Sarah Taylor removed Elyse Villani, the wicketkeeper showing remarkable reactions to hold an edge standing up to a Shrubsole delivery.

But Perry and Haynes then combined to take the match to England, pushing the pace under the lights as they took the score from 95 for four to 168 for five.

A fired-up Katherine Brunt brought the partnership to an end when, the very next ball after having Haynes escape when she edged between first and second slip, she trapped the Australian captain lbw.

The impressive Perry was still there at the end, though, ending the day on 70 from 173 balls, including 10 fours, to give the tourists plenty of food for thought heading into day three.

At the start of the day Englands bid to reach 300 fell short as they added 45 to their overnight total, Shrubsole the biggest contributor of the morning with 20.
The Brexit negotiations have made some progress but more work is needed on specific issues, the EUs chief negotiator has said.

Following the latest round of talks in Brussels, Michel Barnier said they still had to see sufficient progress on the arrangements for Britains withdrawal before they could move to the second phase of negotiations.

Press conference by @MichelBarnier the European Commission's Chief Negotiator, and David Davis, UK Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union #Brexit #Article50 https://t.co/CbqBJ6egEE  European Commission  (@EU_Commission) November 10, 2017

We are not asking the UK for concessions, nor are we planning to make any concessions ourselves, he told a joint news conference with Brexit Secretary David Davis.

Mr Barnier said the sixth round of talks had largely involved deepening discussions, clarification and technical work.

He said his top priority was to secure sufficient progress on the issues of citizens rights, the border with Ireland and Britains divorce bill by the time of the next EU summit in December.

Public opinion of government's Brexit negotiations.

Only sufficient progress  that is to say sincere and real progress  on the three main key issues of these negotiations will enable the triggering of the of second phase of our negotiation, he said.

Mr Barnier indicated that he would need further clarification from the UK on its positions within two weeks to be able to recommend to European leaders that sufficient progress has been made at Decembers summit.

Mr Davis said the negotiations had narrowed to a few outstanding  albeit important  issues.

Secretary of State David Davis speaking after the negotiations for a new partnership between the UK and the EU pic.twitter.com/s4olLPME0b  Department for Exiting the EU (@DExEUgov) November 10, 2017

He said: Now is the time for both sides to move together to seek solutions.

This is a serious business. If we are to find a way forward it will require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides.

This is now about moving into the political discussions that will enable both of us to move forward together.

We must now look ahead to moving our discussions on to our future relationship.

For this to happen, both parties need to build confidence in both the process and indeed in the shared outcome.

The UK was ready and willing to engage with Brussels as often and as quickly as needed ahead of the December 14-15 summit, he said.

But we need to see flexibility, imagination and willingness to make progress on both sides if these negotiations are to succeed and we are able to realise our new deep and special partnership.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. MEL M. MARIN, Appellant v. THE SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA No. 16-3044 Decided: November 08, 2017

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., GREENBERG and ROTH, Circuit Judges

OPINION*

Pro se appellant Mel Marin appeals from the District Court's order granting the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (the Secretary) and the Commonwealth Bureau of Elections' (the Bureau) motion to dismiss his First Amended Complaint filed under 42 U.S.C.  1983. We will affirm.

I.

Mel A. Marin is a frequent pro se litigator in this Court, and in other state and federal courts across the country. This action arises out of Marin's failed 2014 bid to become the Democratic Party nominee for Pennsylvania's Third Congressional District. In early 2014, Charles Rice, a county chairman, filed an action in the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court seeking to set aside Marin's nomination petition on the ground that many of his signatures were invalid. The Commonwealth Court agreed, and ordered then-Secretary Carol Aichele to set aside Marin's nomination petition. A week before the Commonwealth Court issued its order, however, Marin filed a notice of removal to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (M.D. Pa. No. 14-cv-00669). The district court there concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction, and sua sponte remanded the matter to the Commonwealth Court. The district court denied Marin's motion for reconsideration, and we later denied Marin's mandamus petition, observing that the district court's remand order is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise. In re Marin, 567 F. App'x 67, 67 (3d Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Marin also appealed the Commonwealth Court's order to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which granted Rice's application to dismiss, and the United States Supreme Court, which denied certiorari.

Marin initiated this action in 2015, filing a nine-count First Amended Complaint against the Secretary and the Bureau, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, in addition to damages, arising from his failed 2014 Congressional bid. He also alleged that he submitted a complaint to the Secretary in June 2015, claiming that various county election offices had refused to provide him with voter lists without charge. Marin alleged that the Secretary retaliated against him for filing the complaint by (1) denying Marin's 2016 Congressional fee-waiver-request, and (2) directing the Crawford County Elections Bureau to deny him voter lists.

The District Court, over Marin's objections, granted Defendants' motion to dismiss filed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). This timely appeal ensued.

II.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291. We review the District Court's dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) de novo and ask whether it has sufficient factual matter[,] accepted as true[,] to state a claim to relief that is plausible on [its] face. Fantone v. Latini, 780 F.3d 184, 193 (3d Cir. 2015) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). And we may affirm a result reached by the district court on different reasons, as long as the record supports the judgment. Guthrie v. Lady Jane Collieries, Inc., 722 F.2d 1141, 1145 n.1 (3d Cir. 1983).

Marin's claims against the Bureau are barred by the Eleventh Amendment, which has been interpreted to make states [and state agencies] generally immune from suit by private parties in federal court, with exceptions not relevant here. MCI Telecom. Corp. v. Bell Atl.-Pa., 271 F.3d 491, 503-04 (3d Cir. 2001). For the reasons that follow, Marin's individual-capacity claims against the Secretary, though not barred by the Eleventh Amendment, see Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 31 (1991), were properly dismissed by the District Court.

Marin argues that the District Court improperly dismissed his retaliation claim against the Secretary, citing Andreoli v. Gates, 482 F.3d 641, 650 (3d Cir. 2007), for the proposition that whether or not there was causation  is a jury question. A causal connection in a First Amendment retaliation claim can be shown by either (1) an unusually suggestive temporal proximity between the protected activity and the alleged retaliatory action, or (2) a pattern of antagonism coupled with timing to establish a causal link. Lauren W. v. DeFlaminis, 480 F.3d 259, 267 (3d Cir. 2007). The District Court properly determined that Marin's complaint lacked well-pleaded facts to show such a connection.

Marin alleged that the Secretary refused to waive his 2016 Congressional filing fee, and did so because Marin submitted a June 12, 2015, complaint about county election offices. But he has not alleged when, or how, the Secretary denied the fee waiver  the alleged retaliatory act. He has similarly failed to provide any degree of particularity with respect to his allegation that the Secretary directed the Crawford County Elections Bureau to not provide him voter lists. And he has not alleged a pattern of antagonism that might otherwise suggest a causal connection. In other words, he has pleaded facts that would permit the court to infer only the mere possibility of misconduct, but has not plausibly suggested  as he must do to survive Defendants' motion that he is entitled to relief. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)).

He additionally asked the District Court to enjoin the Secretary from (1) refusing to waive future Congressional candidate filing fees, and (2) refusing to provide him voter lists without charge. The District Court properly concluded that such requests were not ripe for adjudication because Marin's future candidacy for Congress is contingent [upon] future event that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all. Texas v. United States, 523 U.S. 296, 300 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Finally, Marin challenges the District Court's refusal to issue various declaratory judgments. He asked the District Court to declare that various portions of Pennsylvania's Election Code were unconstitutional, and the District Court properly denied these requests because he failed to state a plausible claim that any of the challenged statutes were constitutionally infirm. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; see also Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 788 (1983) (We have recognized that, as a practical matter, there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest  To achieve these necessary objectives, States have enacted comprehensive and sometimes complex election codes  Nevertheless, the state's important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions.) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Marin also sought two declaratory judgments related to the Commonwealth Court's 2014 order setting aside his nomination petition  one to void that order, on the ground that the Commonwealth Court lacked jurisdiction to enter the order after he filed a notice of removal to the district court, and the other to declare that the particular procedures employed by the Commonwealth Court in resolving the challenge to his petition denied him fundamental federal trial rights. Even putting aside Rooker-Feldman and preclusion problems that may arise from such requests, he has not stated a plausible claim to relief  due process or otherwise. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

As to his first request, the Commonwealth Court has exclusive jurisdiction over actions relating to elections  or [ ] election procedures, 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.  762(a)(4)(i)(C), and the district court properly determined that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to entertain his removal petition. See In re Marin, 567 F. App'x at 67. Second, procedural due process generally requires that the deprivation of a protected interest be preceded by notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case. Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 579 (1975) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). It is clear that the Commonwealth Court afforded him appropriate process in resolving the challenge to his petition  it permitted him to testify in support of his petition, and to cross-examine a handwriting expert who testified in support of Rice's objection. See id. at 579 (The fundamental requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard.). Ultimately, Marin conceded that he had completed the address and date lines for many of the signatures, and the Commonwealth Court found them invalid because he presented no credible testimony concerning the physical condition of the signers, i.e., that they were unable to complete the information in their own hand.

Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

FOOTNOTES

. See In re Petition of Mel M. Marin for the Democratic Nomination for Member of Cong. in the 3rd Cong. Dist., 174 MD 2014 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Apr. 14, 2014). The Commonwealth Court found that Marin failed to obtain the required 1,000 signatures for nomination because, among other reasons, Marin completed the address and date lines for many of the signatures.

. The district court found that the action involve[d] the application of Pennsylvania state election and evidentiary laws.

. Marin initially named a number of other defendants, including Rice, but later voluntarily dismissed them.

. We will address only the issues that Marin presented in his opening brief. Any issues not so presented are waived. See United States v. Pelullo, 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.).

. In Andreoli, 482 F.3d at 650, we affirmed the district court's award of summary judgment on a Title VII retaliation claim, concluding that the plaintiff failed to establish a causal connection, and that the timing, standing alone, was not sufficiently suggestive.

. Marin also sought damages against former-Secretary Aichele for complying with the Commonwealth Court's order to set aside his nomination petition. The District Court properly dismissed this claim because Aichele was neither named nor served in this action. Marin does not appear to contest this dismissal on appeal, and in any event, Aichele would be entitled to absolute immunity. See Valdez v. City & Cty. of Denver, 878 F.2d 1285, 1290 (10th Cir. 1989) (doctrine extends to action  taken under the direction of a state court judge).

. Marin is currently a resident of Ohio, and thus ineligible to run for Congress in Pennsylvania. See U.S. Const. art. I,  2, cl. 2.

. He challenged, at Count Four, a non-existent local residency requirement contained in 25 Pa. Const. Stat.  2937. At Count Three, he challenged 25 Pa. Cons. Stat.  2868 to the extent that it required nominators to print their name and address in their own hand, on the ground that it substantially burdens disabled voters. But the Commonwealth Court has recognized that federal law mandates that the rights of the disabled be preserved and facilitated in the electoral process, and has interpreted  2868 accordingly. See In rePetition to Set Aside Nomination of Fitzpatrick, 822 A.2d 867, 870 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2003) (declining to set aside signatures of elderly voters who used ditto for some of their personal information). At Count Two, he challenged 25 Pa. Cons. Stat.  2913(b) to the extent that it imposed a 21-day period for filing nomination papers, on the ground that it was impossible to collect 1,000 signatures in that period. But two consent decrees entered in federal court have effectively extended this period by 90 days. See Baldwin v.Cortes, 378 F. App'x 135, 137 (3d Cir. 2010) (explaining the deadline extension).

. He alleged, among other things that he was denied discovery, an opportunity to cross-examine Rice, and a jury trial.

. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine would bar any attempt to appeal the Commonwealth Court's judgment to a lower federal court. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus.Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005) (doctrine bars cases brought by state court losers complaining of injuries caused by a state court judgment rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting the district court review and rejection of those judgments). And preclusion doctrines would prevent relitigation of [any] matter that has been litigated and decided, and also litigation of a matter that never has been litigated, [but]  should have been advanced in an earlier suit. Migra v. Warren CitySch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 77 n.1 (1984).

PER CURIAM
Anthony Joshua took time out from his latest war of words with Tyson Fury by playing beach volleyball in Dubai.

The IBF, WBA and IBO champion, who told fellow heavyweight Fury to get fit on Thursday, looked happy and relaxed in the doubles game.

The British fighter captioned the post with Readying myself for @dubaifitnesschallenge.

Anthony Joshua seems to be agitating for another world title (Nick Potts/PA Wire)

Joshuas hopes of challenging for another world heavyweight title moved a step closer after his promoter Eddie Hearn insisted a bout with Deontay Wilder must get made in 2018.

It came as Joshua called out WBC champion Wilder, as well as WBO titlist Joseph Parker and British rival Fury, on social media.
Investigations into nine republicans who were part of a fugitive comfort letters scheme have been completed with no opportunities for progress.

On The Runs (OTRs) were those suspected but not convicted of paramilitary offences, including IRA suspects fleeing potential imprisonment for murders and other serious crimes during the Northern Ireland conflict.

The contentious peace process scheme, agreed between Sinn Fein and the last Labour government, saw letters sent to some republicans informing them they were not being sought by authorities in the UK.

Tony Blair began the peace process scheme which saw 95 letters of comfort issued by the government (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Police in Northern Ireland are carrying out a major review into the practice in a bid to secure new evidential leads.

So far, nine people who were considered as part of the OTRs scheme have been investigated and all linked inquiries completed, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The force said: The involvement of OTR nominal(s) in an incident has been examined and there are no opportunities to progress the investigation.

John Downey, from Co Donegal in the Republic of Ireland, is known to have mistakenly received a letter of assurance that he was not wanted for arrest.

He used it to escape prosecution for murdering four soldiers in the IRAs Hyde Park bombing of 1982.

That prompted a public outcry and a review of those involved in the scheme.

Lady Justice Hallett examined the OTRs scheme for the Government (Nick Ansell/PA)

Crimes linked to 36 OTRs who received official assurances have been assessed and forensic evidence examined as a priority.

The status of those involved had originally been changed from wanted to not wanted.

Suspects not being actively pursued due to a lack of sufficient evidence received a letter from the Government informing them.

Sinn Fein said the concession was necessary to restore confidence in the Governments commitment to deal with OTRs to ensure the success of arms decommissioning, a 2014 review by senior judge Lady Justice Hallett reported.

The Government has said it was a statement of fact carrying no future guarantees.

Northern Ireland Office (NIO) permanent secretary Sir Jonathan Stephens said: All the recommendations of Lady Justice Hallett have been implemented with the PSNI continuing their review of the OTR cases giving priority to the 36 individuals, and an additional four individuals identified by the PSNI as priority cases.

This review, and decisions on further lines of investigation, are operational matters for the PSNI, who regularly update the OTR Oversight Board on general progress.

A DUP spokesman said: OTRs were a corruption of justice designed by a Labour government in cahoots with Sinn Fein.

They should never have happened.
A lifeboat crew endured more than nine hours in rough seas after going to the aid of a stricken fishing boat.

Shetland Coastguard asked Thurso Lifeboat to assist the vessel which had six people on board.

The boats propeller had been damaged in rough seas north of Whiten Head, off the north coast of Scotland.

RNLI

A lifeboat was launched from Scrabster Harbour just after noon on Thursday and found the fishing vessel disabled and drifting in heavy seas.

An RNLI spokesman said: Weather conditions and the sea state were not good throughout the day, with gale force 8 westerly winds and a large swell, which at times saw the crew facing waves of up to 8-10 metres, as well as heavy squalls of hail, sleet and rain.

These weather conditions made for a long and difficult seven-hour tow back to Scrabster Harbour. During the return to harbour the tow parted on five occasions, both during daylight and darkness.

After being at sea for nine hours and 30 minutes the lifeboat took the casualty alongside at Scrabster Harbour, the crew then refuelled the lifeboat and made her ready for service again by 10.10pm.

The RNLI did not give any details about the casualty.
US Secretary of Defence General Jim Mattis has said America and Britain will stand shoulder to shoulder in facing down the increasing threat from North Korea and Russia.

Newly appointed Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was hosting his US counterpart in London for a bilateral meeting following two days of Nato defence ministers meetings in Brussels.

Congratulating him on his appointment, which came last week in the wake of sleaze allegations that led to the resignation of Mr Williamsons predecessor Sir Michael Fallon, Gen Mattis said it highlights the confidence Prime Minister Theresa May has placed in him.

DefSec hosts first meeting in UK with Secretary Mattis. Read more: https://t.co/702OldW7EI pic.twitter.com/gxAy3RlKkS  Ministry of Defence  (@DefenceHQ) November 10, 2017

In what they both called a volatile and dynamic security environment, Gen Mattis said they stand "united in condemning North Koreas aggressive provocation" and violation of international law, as well as the threat from Russia.

"Together we send a message of transatlantic resolve," he added.

"For many years Britain has galvanised the international community through the power of its moral voice, and today I look forward to strengthening that special relationship in defence of our way of life."

Gavin Williamson and James Mattis attend a bilateral meeting at the Ministry of Defence in London

Describing British armed forces as a "national treasure", and one the US respects greatly, Gen Mattis thanked the UK for their efforts at the talks in Brussels to modernise Nato and an increased contribution to defeat Islamic State.

"The UK and the US maintain an unmatched, enduring relationship. It is not artificial or a historical artefact  it is in fact a pathway for the future," he added.

"It identifies common values and democratic ideals which I look forward to reinforcing alongside you."

Flanked by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Mr Williamson said the UK has been the United States "closest partner for a century"  from fighting in the trenches of the First World War to tackling Islamic State.

Gavin Williamson

"We face some major threats going forward, we have to be constantly vigilant to defeat the Daesh death cult. This year they have murdered citizens in New York, Manchester and London," Mr Williamson said.

"We must continue to confront increased Russian aggression, and deal with the disruptive and dangerous behaviour of North Korea. We must never, ever flinch in the face of aggression."

Highlighting how the UK is proud to be one of only six Nato countries hitting a 2% defence spending target, Mr Williamson also said they want to continue to build on the existing defence trading relationship  worth 3 billion a year.

"The United Kingdom and the United States, when we are united, quite simply, the world is a safer and better place, and let us make sure that unity continues going forward," he added.
The islands of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have signed up to a joint commitment with the British and Irish governments to tackle tax evasion and abusive tax avoidance.

The commitment comes amid ongoing controversy over the use of complex tax arrangements by celebrities, wealthy businessmen and multinational corporations to minimise their liabilities, exposed in the so-called Paradise Papers.

The leak of millions of documents from Bermuda-based law firm Appleby has cast attention on tech giant Apples use of corporate entities in Jersey, as well as racing driver Lewis Hamiltons avoidance of millions in tax by using an Isle of Man scheme to rent a private jet to himself.

Speaking at the British-Irish Council in Jersey, the islands chief minister Ian Gorst stressed that none of the activities exposed in exhaustive analysis of the papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists amounted to illegal tax evasion.

All that the ICIJ have released, they themselves have said that there is nothing illegal, said Senator Gorst.

The word evasion has not been used at all, which would be a criminal offence if it had been taking place in any of our three jurisdictions.

Council members including Chief Minister of Jersey Ian Gorst, James Brokenshire and Leo Varadkar ahead of a meeting of the British Irish Council at the Hotel L'Horizon in Jersey

We joined with the UK Government in committing ourselves to ensure that our island and financial services community are not used for what we might call rogue operators and we continue to meet the very highest international standards and well work together to ensure that we continue to do that.

A communique agreed by Mr Gorst, Guernsey chief minister Gavin St Pier, Isle of Man chief minister Howard Quayle, Irish Taioseach Leo Varadkar, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, representing the UK Government, reaffirmed the administrations shared commitment to meeting international standards and to working with the international community to tackle tax evasion and abusive tax avoidance.

In light of recent media scrutiny, todays BIC Summit provided a timely opportunity for me to reinforce the Isle of Mans position as well-regulated, responsible and transparent international business centre https://t.co/C6Rqgs0aLk  Howard Quayle (@HowardQuayleMHK) November 10, 2017

It added: Members noted that this is also a global issue and requires a commitment from the whole international community to be effective.

Mr St Pier said: All the member administrations committed to continue to press for global standards, for that international level playing field where standards are objectively and consistently applied.

Ms Sturgeon said she believed that all the representatives present shared her belief in the need for proper tax transparency and the closure of loopholes.

We must have rules and regulations in place that properly promote tax transparency but also operate to close down any tax loopholes that people are using in order to unfairly minimise the tax that they pay, said the Scottish First Minister.

I very strongly believe that the approach to tax should not simply be that wealthy people concentrate on how little they can get away with paying. People should pay what they are fairly due to pay.

Ms Sturgeon described tax as our individual contribution to the collective good, adding: The tax we pay funds our public services, but it also funds the infrastructure and the support that businesses need to create wealth.

Thats the social purpose of tax and this is a good opportunity to remind everybody of that.

Absent from the summit was Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, and Mr Gorst said all those present offered their condolences to the family of former Welsh Assembly member Carl Sargeant, who took his own life earlier this week after being sacked from Mr Joness administration.

There was also no representation from Northern Ireland, due to the continuing deadlock over the formation of a power-sharing executive.
Gerry Adams has called for a British/Irish intergovernmental conference on Northern Ireland.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said Stormont budget legislation will be taken forward at Westminster on Monday after endless talks between Sinn Fein and the DUP failed to clinch an agreement.

She denied it was an indication of direct rule.

Gerry Adams

Sinn Fein leaders speak to British PM https://t.co/YNOBF27zSc. We told PM May that British govt bears greater responsibility failure. The provision of an Irish Language Act, Marriage Equality, a Bill of Rights & funding for legacy inquests r British government obligations.  Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) November 10, 2017

The two largest parties have been deadlocked for months over issues including an Irish Language Act and their leaders held conversations with Mrs May on Friday.

Sinn Fein president Mr Adams said: We also told her that direct rule was not an option and that she must look to the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement for the establishment of an intergovernmental conference involving the Irish and British governments.

In the absence of the institutions the two governments must implement those outstanding rights issues.

SofS @JBrokenshire delivered an Oral Statement to update @HouseofCommons on the current political situation in NI. https://t.co/sSuQdOpYuj  Northern Ireland Office (@NIOgov) November 2, 2017

The Prime Ministers spokeswoman said she had explained how the UK Government will reluctantly be taking forward legislation for a Budget Bill on Monday, to ensure that in the absence of an executive, public services in Northern Ireland have the resources they need to operate.

She added: The Prime Minister made clear this was absolutely not an indication of direct rule but it was necessary to enable the Northern Ireland civil service to allocate funds for key public services while talks between the parties continued.

There was agreement on the importance of devolved government being returned to Northern Ireland for the benefit of all communities and the Prime Minister said that the UK Government would continue to work, alongside the Irish Government, with the parties in reaching a successful outcome.
BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - ArcelorMittal, the world's largest producer of steel on Friday reported a better-than-expected core profit in the third quarter and said it was upbeat about 2018.

Core profit rose by 1.4 percent in the third quarter to $1.92 billion, above the $1.86 billion average expectation in a Reuters poll of 10 analysts.

"Operating conditions continue to improve, with key indicators including the ArcelorMittal weighted PMI implying a positive outlook for 2018," Chief Executive Lakshmi Mittal said in a statement, referring to the purchase manager index, an indicator of economic health, weighted according to the company's steel shipments.

The group repeated its forecast for global apparent steel consumption, which takes into account inventory levels, to increase by 2.5 to 3.0 percent in 2017 compared to last year.

The group said it shipped more steel in the quarter in all regions, except for Europe but even there the fall was less than the usual seasonal decline towards the end of the year.

Earlier this week, Austria's Voestalpine also said it was optimistic about the first half of 2018, citing a recovering car industry.

Because of the improved market conditions, ArcelorMittal said it would now invest $2.0 billion in working capital in 2017, compared with a previous forecast of $1.5 billion.

Nevertheless, ArcelorMittal said the market was still impacted by cheap imports from other regions such as China.

"While pleased with the progress that we are making, we operate in a competitive global environment which is characterized by overcapacity and high levels of imports," Mittal said.

China's overcapacity is larger than the combined annual steel output of Europe, the United States and Japan, although import duties have limited Chinese producers' capacity to export.

The utilisation rate at steel mill blast furnaces across China fell last week to the lowest level since at least 2012, data showed. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
SOFIA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- Prime Minister Boyko Borissov nominated deputy Finance Minister Kiril Ananiev for health minister. The previous health minister resigned following media allegations for nepotism last month. (Trud, 24 Chasa, Monitor, Standart)

-- The parliament approved on first reading the 2018 budget draft that will target a fiscal deficit of 1.0 percent of economic output and plans more funds for salaries for teachers, army and police officers. (Trud, Standart, 24 Chasa, Monitor)

-- Bulgaria's exports to European Union countries jumped by 11 percent by the end of August and over 15 percent to the rest of the world, statistics data showed. (24 Chasa, Monitor, Trud, Standart)
By Christoph Steitz

FRANKFURT, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Private equity owned wind turbine maker Senvion would consider taking part in ongoing industry consolidation, its chief financial officer said, as manufacturers come under increasing pressure to cut costs and prices.

Wind turbine manufacturers are having to cut costs to catch up with a rapid decline in turbine prices as the industry moves away from subsidy schemes towards auction-based systems where the lowest bidder wins.

"The wind industry is under tremendous change," Manav Sharma told Reuters on Friday after the group reported an 18-percent decline in third-quarter sales to 480 million euros ($558 million).

He said Senvion was closing plants and cutting costs to ease the pressure on profit margins and make its supply chain more efficient.

Wind turbine makers have started to merge up to build scale, and Sharma said that Senvion, which was listed last year, would not be opposed to consolidation.

"We are happy to look at consolidation opportunities if they make sense," Sharma said.

"We are owned by a financial investor, whose fundamental business it is to buy companies and sell them at a profit later," he added. "Some day they have to sell."

Private-equity firms Centerbridge and Rapid Partners together still hold 73.6 percent of Senvion.

Sharma cautioned that any consolidation should not solely be driven by synergies but also market access and technology.

Analysts at Macquarie said last week that Senvion is "well positioned if a large Asian turbine (maker) is interested in diversifying outside of their domestic markets".

Half of the world's top ten turbine makers are Chinese, including Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, Guodian United Power Technology, Mingyang, Envision and CSIC Chongqing Haizhuang Windpower Equipment, data from consultancy MAKE shows.

Senvion's third-quarter adjusted core earnings (EBITDA) fell by 31 percent to 41.4 million euros, giving it a margin of 8.6 percent, compared with its target of 8.0 to 8.5 percent for the full year. It stood at 7.9 percent after nine months.

The shares were down 2.7 percent by 1130 GMT.

Denmark's Vestas, the world's largest maker of wind turbines, saw its shares plunge on Thursday when it trimmed its profit outlook after warning that subsidy cuts in the U.S. market could hit profitability in the future.

($1 = 0.8599 euros) (Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

ABUJA, Nov 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For the past three weeks, Kolo Adamu has slept on the floor beside her daughter Naomi's hospital bed in northeast Nigeria, unable to afford the surgery she needs for a kidney condition.

Naomi, 27, was one of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014, and among the 82 girls freed by the jihadists in May, adding to 24 others who were released or found last year.

After months of counselling and medical care in the capital, Abuja, as part of a state rehabilitation programme, the government sponsored the girls to start a special catch-up course in September at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola.

Naomi and five of her Chibok classmates enrolled at the AUN are suffering due to injuries inflicted during their time in captivity - from shrapnel in their bodies to fractured bones - said Yakubu Nkeki of the Chibok parents' association.

Yet the government and the university are passing the buck on paying for their healthcare, according to the girls' parents - mostly farmers - who say they are unable to cover the costs.

"The school said that they are not responsible, that the government is supposed to take care of everything," Naomi's mother Adamu told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"At first, the hospital gave her drip and medicine, but for the past four days they haven't given her any because they said the medicine is finished," added Adamu, who said she feels helpless and cries every time her daughter screams in pain.

"The doctor has not shown up. I am confused."

A spokeswoman for the ministry of women's affairs said the school fees paid by the government include medical bills.

"The federal government has handed over the girls to their parents after paying their school fees and everything," said Suleiman Dantsoho. "The school should take care of her (Naomi)."

The AUN could not immediately be reached for comment.

"This is not the reality we arranged with President Buhari," said Nkeki, chairman of the Chibok parents' association.

"They said they will take care of our daughters ... make sure that they don't suffer again," he added.

"BURDEN"

The pain in Naomi's abdomen began in captivity, but a doctor kidnapped by Boko Haram treated her with medicine, she said.

Naomi was referred to a government hospital in Yola last month after a scan at the AUN's clinic revealed that she had a kidney condition, and the school's doctor recommended surgery.

"The pain is too much. Anything I eat, I vomit," Naomi said over the phone, her voice weak and barely audible.

Their three weeks together in hospital is the longest period Naomi and her mother have spent together since the abduction, which sparked an international outcry and a viral campaign on social media with the hashtag #bringbackourgirls.

But each day has been fraught with pain and tears.

Sometimes, the pain in her abdomen is so intense that Naomi rolls about on the floor or soaks herself in cold water.

"She told me that if she knew her health would be such a burden on me, she would have stayed back in the forest," said Adamu, who had to rely on donations to pay for the five-hour journey from Chibok to Yola. "That statement pained me so much."

Naomi worries about her mother, and tries to console her.

"If they will not pay my medical bill then they should allow me back in school, so that she can go back to Chibok," she said.

(Reporting By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. MALIK MACK, Appellant v. SUPERINTENDENT MAHANOY SCI; THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA; THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE COUNTY OF MONTGOMERY No. 16-2486 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before: JORDAN, HARDIMAN, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges.

OPINION*

Malik Mack, a Pennsylvania state prisoner, appeals the District Court order dismissing his petition for habeas corpus as procedurally defaulted. Mack contends that the default of his ineffective assistance of counsel claim is excused pursuant to Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1 (2012). We granted Mack's application for a certificate of appealability as to whether the District Court erred in concluding that he is procedurally barred from pursuing his claim that plea counsel was ineffective [because] [r]easonable jurists could debate whether Martinez  excuses the default of this claim, and whether the claim has merit. (App. at 21.) The government concedes that Martinez may excuse Mack's default. We too agree that Martinez applies and may excuse Mack's default, and we will therefore vacate the District Court's order dismissing Mack's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and remand to the District Court with instructions to conduct the analysis that Martinez requires.

I. BACKGROUND

Mack pleaded guilty in the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to one count of third-degree murder and one count of aggravated assault. The state court sentenced Mack to sixteen-and-one-half to thirty-five years of imprisonment. He did not file a direct appeal.

Later, Mack filed a pro se petition for collateral review under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.  9541, et seq., and the PCRA court appointed new counsel for him. Mack's PCRA counsel filed a no-merit letter pursuant to Commonwealth v. Finley, 550 A.2d 213 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1988) (en banc), seeking to withdraw from representing Mack. The court granted the withdrawal and issued a notice of its intent to dismiss Mack's PCRA petition without a hearing. Mack filed a pro se response but did not raise a claim that plea counsel had been ineffective. The court then dismissed Mack's PCRA petition without a hearing. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the dismissal, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied allowance of appeal.

Mack timely filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. At that point, he claimed that his [p]lea counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to adequately investigate medical and factual state-of-mind evidence; and failed to inform [Mack] that such evidence would be essential in properly determining guilt; this failure caused [Mack] to unintelligently, unknowingly and involuntarily plead guilty. (App. at 122.)

A Magistrate Judge issued a Report and Recommendation concluding that Mack's habeas claim was procedurally barred and that Mack could not avoid the bar by relying on Martinez. The Report and Recommendation reasoned that, after PCRA counsel was permitted to withdraw, petitioner could have preserved the instant claim by raising it in petitioner's response to the notice of intention to dismiss PCRA petition, which petitioner failed to do. [Martinez] does not excuse petitioner's failure to raise a claim on collateral appeal. (App. at 8-9.) The District Court adopted the Report and Recommendation in full and dismissed Mack's habeas petition.

Mack has appealed that dismissal, arguing that the District Court erred by concluding that Martinez was inapplicable and by not conducting the analysis called for by Martinez.

II. DISCUSSION 1

We normally cannot review a state prisoner's petition for habeas corpus when the prisoner's federal claim has been procedurally defaulted. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). A procedural default occurs when an independent and adequate state procedural rule bars state courts from considering the claim. Id. But we can excuse the default and review the claim if the prisoner can show cause and prejudice. Id.

Although cause typically cannot be established by showing ineffective assistance of counsel in state collateral proceedings, id. at 752, the Supreme Court announced a narrow exception to that rule in Martinez, 566 U.S. at 9. It said, a procedural default will not bar a federal habeas court from hearing a substantial claim of ineffective assistance at trial if, in [an] initial-review collateral proceeding, there was no counsel or counsel in that proceeding was ineffective. Id. at 17. The rule in Martinez will serve to establish cause when three conditions are met: (a) the default was caused by ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel or the absence of counsel (b) in the initial-review collateral proceeding  and (c) the underlying claim of trial counsel ineffectiveness is substantial, meaning the claim has some merit[.]  Cox v. Horn, 757 F.3d 113, 119 (3d Cir. 2014) (quoting Martinez, 566 U.S. at 14).

Importantly, our inquiry focuses on whether counsel, not the prisoner, raised the ineffective assistance of counsel claim at the initial-review collateral proceeding. See id. (explaining that Martinez may apply when ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel or absence of counsel caused the default). Indeed, we recently emphasized in Bey v. Superintendent Greene SCI that, under Pennsylvania law, raising a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is the responsibility of PCRA counsel. 856 F.3d 230, 243 (3d Cir. 2017). Because that responsibility rests with PCRA counsel, we have applied Martinez to excuse a procedural default when such counsel has failed to raise an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Id. at 243-44.

Here, neither the Magistrate Judge nor the District Court conducted the analysis that Martinez requires. The Report and Recommendation's reasoning that Martinez did not apply because Mack could have raised the issue in his pro se filing in the PCRA court  is inconsistent with Martinez itself.

In Martinez, a prisoner's appellate attorney filed a statement that the prisoner lacked any meritorious claim and the prisoner failed to respond with any claims he believed his counsel overlooked. 566 U.S. at 6, 18. Even though the prisoner failed to respond, the Supreme Court remanded the case to determine whether his collateral counsel was ineffective for conceding any claim of ineffective assistance at trial. Id. at 18. The facts here are similar to those in Martinez: Mack's PCRA counsel filed a no-merit letter and Mack failed to raise in his pro se response his claim of ineffective assistance of plea counsel. Even though Mack responded but failed to raise that claim, Martinez may still excuse the default if Mack's PCRA counsel was ineffective for filing a no-merit letter and not raising Mack's ineffective assistance claim regarding plea counsel. Thus, the District Court erred by not applying Martinez to determine whether the default may be excused.

Our decision in Bey was announced after the District Court dismissed Mack's habeas petition but provides further support for our decision. 856 F.3d at 237. We stated there that, in Pennsylvania, PCRA counsel has the responsibility to raise any claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Id. at 243. Because that responsibility rests with PCRA counsel, we applied Martinez to determine whether the default may be excused. Id. at 243-44. The District Court here failed to appreciate that PCRA counsel, not Mack, had the responsibility to raise the claim. Thus, it was error not to conduct the Martinez analysis.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the District Court's order dismissing Mack's petition for a writ of habeas corpus and remand with instructions for the Court to conduct the analysis that Martinez requires that is, to determine whether Mack can establish that (a) the default was caused by ineffective assistance of his PCRA counsel or the absence of counsel, (b) in an initial-review collateral proceeding, and (c) the underlying claim of plea counsel ineffectiveness is substantial. Cox, 757 F.3d at 119.

FOOTNOTES

. The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  2254. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 2253. We exercise plenary review over a district court's dismissal of a habeas petition when the district court did not grant an evidentiary hearing. Marshall v. Hendricks, 307 F.3d 36, 50 (3d Cir. 2002).

JORDAN, Circuit Judge.
By Tommy Wilkes and Simon Cameron-Moore

COX'S BAZAR/YANGON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - They came in boats, others on flimsy rafts, some even swam. Around 750 Rohingya Muslims made their escape from Myanmar on Friday to reach Bangladesh, where the greatest danger is malnutrition and disease in teeming refugee camps.

Over 613,000 Rohingya have already taken refuge in the camps since a Myanmar military clearance operation forced them to abandon their villages in northern Rakhine State.

Rohingya who have reached Bangladesh have recounted horror stories of rape and murder. A top U.N. official described the military's actions as "ethnic cleansing", though Myanmar denied that, saying its operation was needed for national security after Rohingya militants attacked 30 security posts on Aug. 25.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar's less than two-year-old administration, was in Vietnam on Friday, attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. She was expected to hold talks with several leaders on the sidelines of the gathering, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Having won the Nobel Peace Prize for defying the generals who ruled predominantly Buddhist Myanmar with an iron fist for nearly half a century, Suu Kyi's reputation as a stateswoman has suffered due to her failure to speak out more strongly over the Rohingya crisis.

Under a constitution written before the junta gave way, the civilian administration still has to share power with the generals, and has little say over defence and security issues.

Still, leaders at APEC, and two other regional summits to be hosted by the Philippines in the coming days, are expected to exert pressure on Suu Kyi to do more to stem the crisis.

And on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw, the Myanmar capital, with senators back in Washington pressing to impose sanctions targeting the military.

International Rescue Committee, the leading aid agency headquartered in New York and led by former British foreign minister David Miliband, reckoned that up to two-thirds of the 300,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar will join the exodus to Bangladesh in the coming months.

The IRC in a statement highlighted the extremely dangerous health conditions for Rohingya living in camps in the port city of Cox's Bazar.

A nutrition survey led by its partner Action Contre la Faim had found 40,000 Rohingya children faced malnutrition and required life-saving assistance.

It said 95 percent of the population was drinking contaminated water - and agencies had reported that two-thirds of Coxs Bazars water was contaminated with faeces.

"The conditions we are seeing in Coxs Bazaar create a perfect storm for a public health crisis on an unimaginable scale," said Cat Mahony, the IRCs emergency response director in Coxs Bazar.

"The situation will only deteriorate with more arrivals and a greater strain on already overstretched resources."

NO MONEY... BUILD A RAFT OR SWIM

Still, Rohingya too scared to stay in Myanmar were ready to risk their lives crossing the waters around the mouth of the Naf river to reach Bangladesh.

They were helped on Friday by another day of calm seas, though more than 200 have drowned attempting the crossing during the past two months.

Bangladesh officials said significant numbers were arriving on rafts they had built from bamboo, lashing plastic jerrycans to the poles for extra buoyancy. They said more Rohingya had swum across on Thursday.

A Reuters photographer saw up to ten rafts landing on the beaches of Teknaf, at the southern tip of Cox's Bazar, on Friday.

People reaching the shore have told Reuters that there are thousands living in desperate conditions on the strand of beach by the river's mouth at Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi, as they waited for a chance to cross over.

Dil Muhammad, 30, from Buthidaung, one of the Rakhine regions that bore the brunt of the military operation, finally made it across with his wife and three children after weeks of living on the sand because he could not afford to pay a boatman.

"I stayed in Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi for two months because I didn't have money to come," he told Reuters.

Dil Mohammed said his 18 month old daughter was suffering from diarrhoea and a fever. "I couldn't get to a doctor as we were stuck in that place."

And Sakhina Khatun, a woman of 35, said that three men who had been with her on the other side had been attacked by "Buddhists" when they went to search for bamboo to make a raft.

Border Guard Bangladesh officials counted 444 refugees coming ashore at Sabrang, near Teknaf, and 150 more arriving further along the coast.

Afruzul Haque Tutul, additional superintendent of police in Cox's Bazar said his officers had rescued 125 Rohingya from a wooden fishing boat stranded off Inani beach and bussed them to the camps.

(Additional reporting by Mohammad Ponir Hossain and Nurul Islam in COX'S BAZAR; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Toby Chopra)
By Emma Batha

LONDON, Nov 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Four-month-old Syrian baby Faris Ali froze to death in a tent in Turkey, five-year-old Afghan Sajida Ali's body washed ashore after a shipwreck, and tiny Samuel drowned with his mother as she tried to reach Spain after leaving home in Congo.

The three children are among thousands of victims listed by a German newspaper in an attempt to put a human face on the tragedy that has unfolded in the Mediterranean where thousands of refugees and migrants have died en route to Europe.

Der Tagesspiegel newspaper said it wanted to show the victims "as human beings, with an origin, a past, a life".

Not all those listed drowned in shipwrecks. Some were thrown overboard.

The document is headlined a "List of 33,293 registered asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, who died because of the restrictive policies of Fortress Europe".

Hundreds of thousands fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have tried to reach Europe in recent years.

Some European countries have built fences along their borders, as others have bickered over how to handle the crisis.

Compiled from media and U.N. sources, the list also includes many who died after reaching Europe.

Last January, two Iraqi men, Hardi Ghafour, 29, and Talat Abdulhamid, 36, froze to death in Bulgaria's mountainous border with Turkey after two days walking through snow.

Others have died in fires in refugee camps or been hit by lorries on motorways.

The document also lists scores of suicides; some have set fire to themselves, others have hanged themselves with sheets or jumped from buildings.

Several of those named died in racist attacks or other violence after thinking they had finally found safety.

Somali teenager Ahmed Hassan was murdered in a racist stabbing at a school in Sweden two years ago.

Many of the victims come from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and West Africa.

But hundreds of those who have died at sea are simply identified as "unknown". Only the details of their deaths are given.

The biggest single tragedy happened in May 2016 when 550 people drowned after two fishing boats sank off the Libyan coast.

The list compiled by Turkish-born artist Banu Cennetoglu dates back to 1993, but most deaths relate to the last six years.

(Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - South Sudan President Salva Kiir's government is using food as a weapon of war to target civilians by blocking life-saving aid in some areas, United Nations sanctions monitors told the Security Council in a confidential report seen by Reuters on Friday.

During 2016 and 2017, the U.N. monitors said a military campaign by government troops in the northwestern town of Wau and surrounding areas in Western Bahr el-Ghazal targeted civilians on ethnic grounds and displaced more than 100,000.

"The government has during much of 2017 deliberately prevented life-saving food assistance from reaching some citizens," the monitors wrote. "These actions amount to using food as a weapon of war with the intent to inflict suffering on civilians the government views as opponents to its agenda."

"The denial of aid had caused extreme food insecurity among large sections of the population, with malnutrition and death by starvation the documented outcome, in particular in the Greater Baggari area in Wau County," they said in the report submitted to the U.N. Security Council's South Sudan sanctions committee.

South Sudan's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.N. report.

South Sudan spiraled into civil war in late 2013, two years after gaining independence from Sudan, and a third of the 12 million population has fled their homes. The conflict was sparked by a feud between Kiir, a Dinka, and his former deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who is being held in South Africa.

The United Nations has warned that the violence in South Sudan was providing "fertile ground" for a genocide.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited the Juba late last month, where she told Kiir that the United States had lost trust in his government and risked losing Washington's support if he did not pursue peace.

'CATASTROPHIC'

The U.N. monitors reported that the government had regularly denied humanitarian aid access to certain parts of the population, in particular areas outside the town of Wau, which was visited by U.N. Security Council ambassadors in September last year.

"One of those areas, Greater Baggari, is noteworthy for the persistent and systematic nature of the government's access denials, and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions that have resulted," the independent U.N. monitors said.

In August, the government eased restrictions, allowing aid groups to distribute food and lifesaving assistance to more than 12,000 people in Greater Baggari. Villages had been looted and burned and crops destroyed, the U.N. monitors wrote.

One humanitarian assessment mission told the U.N. monitors that 164 young children and elderly had died from hunger and disease between January and September 2017.

The report by the U.N. monitors found that despite the catastrophic conditions across South Sudan, armed forces, groups and militias - particularly those affiliated with Kiir and Vice President Taban Deng Gai - continued to "actively impede both humanitarian and peacekeeping operations."

U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in South Sudan since 2011.

An East African bloc, IGAD, led two rounds of peace talks over two years, culminating in a brief power-sharing agreement signed by Kiir and Machar in 2015. But even as IGAD urges a new ceasefire, the warring parties are preparing for more fighting.

"The coming dry season in South Sudan will, absent a change in the current conflict dynamics, see further fighting and civilian suffering as the government continues to pursue military victory over political compromise," the U.N. monitors wrote. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)
The relief and development organisation, Americares, donated multipurpose first-aid boxes to be used by the field staff in the Kaluthara District, at the two workshops held in Kaluthara, at the request of the Disaster Preparedness and Response Division of the Health Ministry.



Several samples of the boxes were handed over to the director general of health services in Sri Lanka at the Health Ministry. The workshops were conducted by experts in the fields of emergency/disaster management and psychosocial/mental health.



In collaboration with the regional director of health services (RDHS) in Kaluthara, Americares recruited community support officers (CSO) to be deployed in six medical officer of health (MoH) areas. The CSOs fulfil the important task of visiting households in the flood-affected areas to identify and refer individuals and groups that require psychosocial support. To ensure the officers have the skills they need, Americares facilitated the workshops.



Americares Sri Lanka Team Leader Asanga Ranasinghe stated, We, at Americares, wish to equip the CSOs with the right knowledge and information. The workshop and training no doubt increased their confidence to carry out their current and future duties as CSOs, attached to MoH offices, in disaster-affected areas in the Kalutara District.



Dr. Novil Wijesekera conducted a training workshop themed Prelude to Humanitarian Practice to 15 Americares staff in Kalutara. The areas covered included sphere standards, psychological first aid (PFA) and basics of preparing for hazard, vulnerability and risk maps.



The subject matter was successfully delivered through interesting sessions and over the course of three days, relevant knowledge and certain skills were imparted. The feedback from the participants was also very favourable as they found the training methods to be both practical and relevant.

Samutthana, which is the Kings College of London Resource Centre for Trauma, Displacement and Mental Health, conducted a three-day training on mental healthcare training. The areas covered on the first two days included introduction to mental health, empathy, active listening, understanding trauma and trauma response (immediate and delayed). On the third day, the 15 participants discussed about gender-based violence and analysed actual cases from their field experience. At the request of the Health Ministry in Sri Lanka, Americares immediately mobilised in the aftermath of the floods in May this year. Americares launched an emergency response and an early recovery programme was launched in Matara and Kaluthara and began plans to renovate damaged health centres in the Bulathsinhala area.



In Matara, Americares also distributed 300 hygiene kits to children and adults at two safe locations serving as temporary shelters in Matara. Hygiene packs and water bottles were distributed in Matara.

In collaboration with the RDHS in Kaluthara, Americares recruited 14 CSOs to be deployed in six MoH areas. The CSOs fulfil the important task of visiting households in the flood-affected areas to identify and refer individuals and groups who require psychosocial support.



Ranasinghe stated, We, at Americares, wish to equip the CSOs with the right knowledge and information. The workshop and training no doubt increased their confidence to carry out their current and future duties as CSOs, attached to MoH offices, in disaster-affected areas in the Kalutara District.



In addition, Americares identified two maternal and child health (MCH) clinics in the Bulathsinhala area that were damaged.



Americares is a health-focused disaster relief and humanitarian aid development organisation providing immediate response to emergency medical needs and supporting long-term healthcare initiatives in the United States as well as abroad.



It responds to people affected by poverty or disaster with life-changing health programmes, medicine and medical supplies. Americares has been working in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the tsunami, since 2005 and completed many projects, including the construction of four-story ward complex at the Elpitiya Base Hospital and four-story ward complex at the Trincomalee District General Hospital.
Australian High Commissioner Bryce Hutchesson hosted a reception in Colombo recently to congratulate 30 Sri Lankans who have been offered Australia Awards scholarships to study at Australian universities in 2018.



The recipients will undertake masters degrees at Australias top universities in a range of fields including public policy, international trade and development, human resource management, engineering management, clinical psychology and international business.



Australia is a leading provider of tertiary education, demonstrated by the increasing numbers of students studying there. Currently there are 708,000 international students enrolled in Australian universities, up from 640,000 last year. This includes a growing number of Sri Lankan students, said Hutchesson.



Hutchesson reflected on the importance of education over the 70 years of the bilateral relationship, which has been celebrated this year.



The personal links between Australians and Sri Lankans are the bedrock of our warm relations and education has long been an important connector. Australia has awarded over 1,000 scholarships to Sri Lankans for study, dating back to the Colombo Plan in the early 1950s.



The recipients this year represent some of the rich diversity of Sri Lanka. There are awardees from the private, public and community sectors and from all across the country. Different ethnic and religious backgrounds are also represented.



In offering Australia Awards, we strive to be inclusive. We seek out individuals with great attitudes and commitment. We want scholars who reflect Sri Lankas diversity because we know that diversity brings new ideas, innovation and a wider outlook, said Hutchesson.



Foreign Affairs State Minister Vasantha Senanayake attended the event as the chief guest.

The Australian government offers Australia Awards scholarships to Sri Lankans on an annual basis.

The next round of Australia Awards Scholarships will be open for applications from February 1, 2018 until April 30, 2018.
Joint Opposition (JO) MP Bandula Gunawardene said the budget was sure to fail as in it the government was trying to increase foreign investments by relaxing laws for foreigners and imposing excessive taxes on the people.

This is a more liberal budget which would not offer any benefits to the people, he said.

He said the finance minister could not present a budget beyond the conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan negotiated by former finance minister Ravi Karunanayake.

According to the agreement it is the IMF which decides the expenditure of the country for the next three years. The finance minister cannot present a budget beyond the policy framework given by the IMF, he said. (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)
The Chinese naval training ship Qi Jiguang (Hull 83) arrived in Sri Lanka today on a four-day goodwill visit. Designed and built in China, Qi Jiguang Ship was commissioned in PLA Navy in February 2017, subordinate to Dalian Naval Academy. Her mission is to inherit glorious traditions, cultivate excellent servicemen and carry out military diplomacy. Pics by Pradeep Pathirana
Several international and local media movements had condemned the governments decision to ban the news portal Lanka e News (LeN) stating the action a threat to sustaining media freedom.

In a letter sent to President Maithripala Sirisena, the Young Journalists' Association (YJA) had raised concerns about the blockage of the news portal Lanka e News (LeN) due to its critical reporting.

YJA President Tharindu Uduwaragedara stated that during the time of the past regime LeN was once set on fire, restricting access and a court case was against three of its journalists.

Uduwaragedara said that to date justice had not been served with regards to these atrocities.

Therefore, he had requested the President to remove the ban on the LeN immediately and to appoint a committee to probe the incidents of suppression carried out against journalists in this country.

In another development in a tweet the Committee to Protect Journalists-Asia (CPJ Asia) had also condemned the action by the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC) to impose a ban on LeN. CPJ is concerned about reports that the news site Lanka E News has been blocked in Sri Lanka because of its critical reporting. This is a violation of press freedom and access to the website should be restored immediately, it said in its twitter account.

Meanwhile, tweeting over the matter the Free Media Movement (FMM) had urged the Government to stop practising informal censorship by obstructing technical access to Lanka E-news Website.

In a statement, the Ceylon Teachers Association (CTU) had strongly condemned the ban imposed on LeN and said it was clear that the action was a result of it criticising the government.

It also said banning the LeN was an anti-democratic act, therefore it urged the government to release the ban and confirm the right to information of the public. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
New Delhi, (The Hindu), NOV 10, 2017 - With the air quality in Delhi hitting hazardous levels over the past few days, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said it would meet on Friday to discuss the governments odd-even car rationing scheme for five days, starting from November 13.Rickshaw driver Sanjay can only afford a handkerchief to shield his face from the smog-filled streets of Delhi, even as many residents rush to buy protective masks to combat the toxic menace.



Better off inhabitants of the worlds most polluted capital are swarming sellers of face masks costing more than the  300 that Sanjay earns in a day and high-tech air purifiers that could easily cost his annual wage. Delhi authorities on Wednesday ordered all 6,000 schools to shut until Sunday after choking smog descended on the north of the country, while people with breathing difficulties have been told to stay indoors.



But doctors say that none of it will be enough to prevent deaths in the metropolis of 20 million people battling a pollution crisis for the second year.



Some streets have recorded pollution levels 40 times the World Health Organization recommended safe level since Monday, with still weather and the annual post-harvest burning of crop stubble in Punjab fuelling the crisis.



Rickshaw drivers, street vendors and tens of thousands of homeless families endure the full force of pollution that doctors warn can do irreparable damage to the heart, brain and lungs, especially in children.
Emirates has celebrated the milestone delivery of its 100th Airbus A380 aircraft at a special ceremony with Airbus at the manufacturers delivery centre in Hamburg.

Emirates Chairman and Chief Executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum officiated the ceremony. He was joined at the event by Emirates Airline President Sir Tim Clark, Airbus Chief Executive Officer Tom Enders, Rolls-Royce Director Customer and Services Dominic Horwood, UAE Ambassador to Germany Ali Al Ahmed and Senator for Economy, Transport and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Frank Horch.

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 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.

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.

Adding to the celebrations, Emirates unveiled a special tribute to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founding father of the United Arab Emirates, with bespoke livery for its 100th A380. The Emirates A380 programme creates and supports manufacturing jobs across the global aircraft manufacturing supply chain. Airbus estimates that Emirates A380 orders alone support 41,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in Europe, including some 14,500 in Germany alone. These are high-skilled jobs and impact a high-value supply chain, creating a significant multiplier effect in the countries where Airbus has aircraft production facilities. The estimated Europe-wide impact of Emirates A380 investment amounts to 3.4 billion in GDP in 2013/14. In Germany and France the GDP impact is 1.2 billion for each country.

In April 2015, Emirates signed an historic 8.7 billion deal with Rolls-Royce for Trent 900 engines and a long-term total care package. The engines will power 50 Airbus A380s, which began entering service in 2016. The deal, which is the largest ever for Rolls-Royce and one of the largest ever export orders for a UK-based company, was part of Emirates ongoing investment in the UK and Europe.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. AMADU BARRY, Appellant No. 16-2732 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before: AMBRO, KRAUSE, and SCIRICA, Circuit Judges

OPINION*

Amadu Barry appeals an order of the District Court revoking his supervised release and imposing a sentence of incarceration followed by a new term of supervised release. He claims that the District Court committed procedural error at sentencing when it failed to consider that, per the Sentencing Guidelines, supervised release ordinarily is inappropriate for non-citizen defendants like Barry who are likely to be removed from the United States after release from incarceration. See U.S.S.G.  5D1.1(c). We will affirm.

I.

Barry is a citizen of Liberia who, at all times relevant, was living in the United States as a lawful permanent resident. In January 2015, he pleaded guilty to two counts of a superseding indictment charging him with credit card fraud, one count charging him with attempted credit card fraud, and one count charging him with conspiracy, all in violation of federal law. The District Court imposed a sentence of time served, plus four concurrent, three-year terms of supervised release. Conditions of Barry's supervised release included that he refrain from committing new crimes and that he report to the probation officer in a manner and frequency directed by the court or probation officer. JA 3.

Around seven months into his terms of supervised release, Barry was arrested in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, by local law enforcement for possession of marijuana and on suspicion of using fraudulent credit cards. Soon after, Barry failed to report to his federal probation officer to discuss the new arrest. Consequently, the probation officer lodged a petition with the District Court charging Barry with two violations of his supervised release. It conducted a hearing, at the close of which it sustained both charges, revoked Barry's supervised release, and imposed a Guidelines-range sentence of 14 months of imprisonment, to be followed by a new, 20-month term of supervised release. Barry appealed.

II.3

Barry argues on appeal that it was procedurally unreasonable for the District Court to impose a new term of supervised release in light of U.S.S.G.  5D1.1(c). Appellant's Supp. Br. at 2. Section 5D1.1(c) provides that a court ordinarily should not impose a term of supervised release in a case in which supervised release is not required by statute and the defendant is a deportable alien who likely will be deported after imprisonment. The District Court did not address that presumption against supervised release, and Barry contends that the District Court thus contravened United States v. Azcona-Polanco, 865 F.3d 148 (3d Cir. 2017), which issued during the pendency of this appeal. There we held that a district court must explain and justify the imposition of supervised release on a deportable immigrant; while explicit citation of Section 5D1.1(c) is not required, the district court at a minimum must directly address the substance of that Guideline. Id. at 153 (citation omitted).

A determination that a district court committed procedural error at sentencinge.g., failing to adequately explain the chosen sentencetypically would result in a remand for resentencing. Azcona-Polanco, 865 F.3d at 152. But here the lone issue raised by Barry on appeal was not first presented to the District Court. As a result, he must run the gauntlet of plain error review. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); cf. United States v. Flores-Mejia, 759 F.3d 253, 255 (3d Cir. 2014) (en banc). The plain error test requires (1) an error; (2) that is clear or obvious' and (3) affected the defendant's substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means he or she must show a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.'  Azcona-Polanco, 865 F.3d at 151 (citation omitted). If that test is satisfied, we may correct the error if it seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id.

III.

We agree with Barry that he was made to serve a new term of supervised release without an adequate explanation by the District Court of its divergence from the Section 5D1.1(c) presumption. But even if that constituted clear or obvious error, cf. id. at 154, we will affirm because Barry has failed to show that the error affected his substantial rights.

The transcript of the revocation hearing reflects that, when it came time to fashion an appropriate sentence, the District Court was deeply concerned by Barry's apparent inability to follow the law and the concomitant danger he posed to the community. The District Court thus enumerated Barry's five prior adult convictions ranging from fraud, assault, retail theft and [unlawful] possession of access devices, and emphasized the need to protect the public from Barry's further crimes because he had no respect for the law, absolutely none. JA 40. Such concerns are properly considered by a district court in the sentencing calculus, generally, and in deciding whether to impose a term of supervised release, specifically. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(2)(C) and 3583(c).

As we recognized in Azcona-Polanco, Section 5D1.1(c) advises against supervised release for a deportable-immigrant defendant in the ordinary case because post-incarceration supervision will be unnecessary; that is, the defendant will be removed from the United States and, if he were to return without authorization, the need to afford adequate deterrence and protect the public ordinarily is served by a new prosecution. 865 F.3d at 152 (quoting U.S.S.G.  5D1.1(c), cmt. n.5). That said, the commentary also provides that a district court should nonetheless consider imposing a term of supervised release on a deportable immigrant if doing so will provide an added measure of deterrence and protection based on the facts and circumstances of a particular case. U.S.S.G.  5D1.1(c), cmt. n.5. Either way, the district court has discretion whether to follow Section 5D1.1(c). See United States v. Dominguez-Alvarado, 695 F.3d 324, 329 (5th Cir. 2012).

Here the record reflects that, when the District Court sentenced Barry, he was not in removal proceedings or otherwise in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). And no immigration detainer had been or was slated to be lodged such that the District Court could and should have predicted that Barry would be supervised by DHS immediately after serving his new term of incarceration. That is significant because Barry at times could be evasive. According to the probation officer, for example, multiple attempts to contact Barry after his arrest in Delaware County proved unsuccessful because his cellular phone is no longer active and his father and girlfriend stated by telephone that they do not know his whereabouts. JA 8; see also JA 40 (District Court: noting that Barry disappeared  [and] did not appear at court hearings after his release from incarceration). Given those facts, along with the District Court's stated desire to protect the public from Barry's recidivism and the Guideline commentary discussed above, we discern no reasonable probability that the District Court would have declined to impose a term of supervised release even had it engaged with the substance of Section 5D1.1(c).

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

FOOTNOTES

. In response, the District Court issued a bench warrant. When the U.S. Marshals arrested Barry pursuant to that warrant, they found in his possession prepaid visa cards with no names on them, cash, and drugs. JA 29.

. At the hearing, Barry admitted that he did not report to the probation officer as directed, and there was essentially unrebutted testimony that Barry was, at the time of the underlying arrest, in possession of drugs and stolen or counterfeit access devices. In addition, the probation officer testified that Barry had been prosecuted on similar charges in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and recently had failed to appear in court there on a suspected violation of state probation.

. The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C.  3231 and 3583(e). We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 18 U.S.C.  3742.

. Section 5D1.1.(c), which was neither discussed by the parties at sentencing nor considered at all by the District Court, applies to Barry given his immigration status, criminal history, and other information available in the Presentence Investigation Report. In Azcona-Polanco, we observed that, [i]n adopting Section 5D1.1(c), the Sentencing Commission noted that recent changes in our immigration law have made removal nearly an automatic result for a broad class of noncitizen offenders. 865 F.3d at 152 (citation omitted). Indeed, the Government advises that proceedings to remove Barry from the United States are underway.

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.
Says will keep controlling stake

Depositors and employees to become shareholders

Provides 10bn to BOC in the interim as capital buffers

Presenting the budget for 2018, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said he wants to see the two state lending giants Bank of Ceylon and Peoples Bank to raise debt and equity capital to beef up their capital requirements.



As the minimum capital requirements under the BASEL III is increasing, state lenders require fresh capital from their only shareholder, the National Treasury, to be in line with the new thresholds. However Samaraweera said any divestiture of shares of BoC and Peoples Bank will be made to retain the controlling stake with the government.

Further he said the banks must allocate shares to their depositors as well as employees in such an exercise.



In raising equity capital, the state will not relinquish the controlling ownership, but is willing to allow the divestitures, provided that the depositors and the employees are given the option of becoming shareholders, Samaraweera said.



Further, the government will also allow state lenders, which also include the National Savings Bank, to access international capital markets in raising new capital, as the government feels that these banks operate with enough previous experience and required maturity to do so.



The previous Rajapaksa regime used Bank of Ceylon, National Savings Banks and DFCC Bank as proxies to raise capital from international capital markets through the strengths of their balance sheets.



Both BoC and NSB have accessed the international capital markets successfully on the strength of their own balance sheets, signifying that our state banks are now mature enough to raise their own capital from the markets. It is in this context that we will allow the BoC and the PB to raise both debt and equity capital, Samaraweera remarked. Meanwhile, in view of higher capital requirements under the BASEL III rules, in the interim, the government will infuse Rs.10 billion into Bank of Ceylon in equal portions in 2017 and 2018.



Further, Rs.2.5 billion will be invested in the state-owned licensed specialized bank, the Pradeshiya Sanwardena Bank.
Budget proposals closely follow Vision 2025 plan

Promotes female, youth, SME empowerment

Incentives for entrepreneurship

Significant market liberalizations

Budget deficit projected at 4.6% of GDP

Revenue expected to increase to 16.3% of GDP

By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

Finance and Mass Media Minister Mangala Samaraweeras self-titled Designer Budget fitted slimly around the governments Vision 2025 plan to harness the potential of a maritime trading economy through talent development, empowerment, entrepreneurship and widespread market liberalization, tempered only by increased environmental protection.



Our battle to restore macroeconomic stability on a more sustainable footing needs continuous effort. In line with Vision 2025, we need to undertake bold reforms in factor markets in order to eliminate price distortions and restore property rights in accordance with market principles aiming at promoting faster and sustainable growth, he said.



Samaraweeras disciplined and visionary speech centred around the Blue-Green economy, referring to ocean and environmental protection respectively, but the reference to the lead parties in the unity government; blue for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and green for the United National Party was not lost, since the government has been calling for the Vision 2025 to be collectively accepted, beyond the past traditions of sabotaging party politics.



The budget deficit is expected to fall to 4.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2018, compared to a revised projection of 5.2 percent of GDP this year, continuing down the path of fiscal consolidation, with the budget implementation to be tracked by a newly established unit at the Finance & Mass Media Ministry.



The government is hoping to raise Rs. 2.32 trillion in revenue or 16.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2018, increasing from Rs. 1.99 trillion, or 15.4 percent of GDP figures projected in 2017.



The bulk of the Rs. 110 billion in new revenue proposals for 2018 came through three avenues.

One centred on increasing taxes on luxury vehicles and those running on fossil fuels, in order to encourage electric vehicle usage and to have only electric vehicles running in the country by 2040.

A new Debt Repayment Levy of Rs. 2 for every Rs. 1,000 transacted through banks will have to be borne by the banks for the next three years, in order to support the governments ability to repay bunching up debt starting in 2019.

Our complex labour laws and bureaucracy have unwittingly obstructed foreign enterprises from entering into the country, thereby, preventing the much needed competition for the local industries. Trade reforms are integral to national competitiveness. Let me say this, competition breeds success. It tests our limits andforces innovation



The third was the removal of exemptions of Value Added Tax on several imports and the imposition of a Nation Building Tax on liquor.



Despite the recent introduction of a new Inland Revenue Act and the expectation of direct tax collection increasing by 21.8 percent in 2018, the ratio of direct taxes to indirect taxes in the governments tax income recorded only a small growth in the right direction, with income taxes expected to bring in 18.4 percent of total tax income in 2018 compared to 17.6 percent this year.

A lower direct to indirect tax ratio indicates a more inequitable tax system.



Expenditure meanwhile, is expected to increase to Rs. 3 trillion, or 21.1 percent of GDP in 2018 from Rs. 2.68 trillion, or 20.6 percent of GDP in 2017.



A Government whose vision is to develop the country, should be not to give away a piece of fish and make people economically handicapped and entirely government dependent, but to give them a fishing rod and create a means of living in order to meet their expectations, Samaraweera said.

In keeping with this vision, the budget brought in key proposals to improve education and vocational training, investments in research and development, proposals further liberalizing the labour market, and a host of interest subsidies and financial incentives for the youth, women and small and medium-scale enterprises to become more entrepreneurial and orient themselves towards international trade.

Many investments were also envisioned to be partnerships with the private sector, given the governments lack of fiscal space.



In addition to opening up key sectors such as land and shipping to foreign investment, Samaraweera also proposed to remove 1,200 para-tariffscompared to 100 proposed in 2017as a part of further opening up the fairly closed Sri Lankan economy.

Our complex labour laws and bureaucracy have unwittingly obstructed foreign enterprises from entering into the country, thereby, preventing the much needed competition for the local industries. Trade reforms are integral to national competitiveness. Let me say this, competition breeds success. It tests our limits and forces innovation, he said.



Proposals were also made to introduce anti-trust laws to foster competition and address monopolies.

The minister proposed to improve the availability of information to businesses and facilitate smoother administrative processes through further digitalization of government services.



In short, the 2018 budget could be described as the biggest step the two-year old government has taken towards a knowledge-based, export-oriented social market economy it has touted since coming to power while continuing the fiscal consolidation process prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, although, implementation has ever been the weak point of every successive Sri Lankan government.
Vatican, (Daily Mail), 9 November 2017 - Pope Francis will host a nuclear summit at the Vatican tomorrow. Nobel Peace Prize winners alongside representatives from the UN, NATO, America and Russia will be in attendance.



The conference is the first major international gathering since 122 countries approved a new U.N. treaty in July calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Pontiff will use his own address and the presence of 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners in an attempt to convince NATO officials and delegates from nuclear countries that it is time to abandon the bomb.The Holy See has long opposed nuclear proliferation and supported disarmament efforts around the world. Vatican officials say the purpose of the conference is to send a clear message to both Washington and Pyongyang to tone down their excessive aggression.Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons which was instrumental in getting the treaty passed, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and will be among the delegates. NATOs Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller, is scheduled to speak.
SriLankan Airlines became the toast of the regions airline industry when it was chosen as the Leading International Airline at the second annual South Asian Travel Awards 2017, convincingly beating out other airlines from several countries, while SriLankans Business Class was named the Best in Class among all airline cabin classes in the region.



The awards were presented at a gala ceremony at Equator Village Resort in Addu City on Gan Island in the Maldives recently. Awards were presented in 50 categories covering the entire travel industry, including full-service airlines, low-cost airlines, hotels, various types of resorts, conference facilities, travel agencies, tour operators, adventure tourism, wellness centres, airports, travel technology providers, transport providers and even industry corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

SriLankan Chief Commercial Officer Siva Ramachandra said, We are delighted to add yet another prestigious award to our collection of global and regional accolades. It is creditable that our own customers had made their choice. SriLankan Airlines Head of Worldwide Sales Delivery Dimuthu Tennakoon said, These awards demonstrate the high all-round quality of SriLankan Airlines, from the choice of destinations that we provide our passengers, to our superb product and service both in the air and on the ground throughout our global route network.



SriLankan has won a host of accolades in recent times including Worlds Leading Airline Operating to the Indian Ocean Region at the World Travel Awards, Best Full Service Airline in Central and South Asia for the second consecutive year at the Future Travel Experience Asia Awards, Best International Airline  Asia at the Tamil Nadu Tourism Awards, Most Innovative Marketing Airline in China by Life Weekly magazine and Best Airline in South Asia at the Top Travel Awards, also in China.



Just weeks ago, SriLankan Airlines was honoured with a prestigious Four-Star Rating by the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) in the first-ever global airline industry rating programme based solely on feedback from passengers.



In the quest to be chosen as the Leading Airline in South Asia SriLankan Airlines overcame competition from Air India, Indian Airlines, Druk Air, Himalaya Airlines and Nepal Airlines, which were the other nominees. The Best in Class category featured competition among various First Class, Business Class and Economy Class products of nominees who included Air Asia, Air India and Jet Airways.
Many of us ignore the pain we feel in our jaw, striking it off as a toothache. we regard this as a trivial problem. But this trivial problem could worsen as you continue to ignoring it. This is how people develop periodontitis. Speaking to the Health Capsule Dr. Vipula Wickramasinghe, General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Dental Association and Regional Dental Surgeon of the Colombo District, explained that the most common reason for the loss or extraction of teeth is due to periodontitis.



Explaining what periodontitis is he said, You can simply say that it is an extension of gingivitis. However, gingivitis involves only the gingiva. Whereas periodontitis is a disease that involves the tooth, the gingiva, the alveolar bone, the tooth bearing bone, and the periodontal ligaments, which connect the bone and the tooth. The inflammation of these three tissues is called periodontitis.

He further said that according to the last oral survey, which are results from 2003 and the last available statistics, 27% of people over 60 years of age dont have a single tooth in their mouth. He explained that it is a very bad outcome and the last oral health survey was done in 2013, but the results are yet to be released.



Causes



Speaking of how periodontitis is caused Dr. Wickramasinghe said, If you dont treat gingivitis properly it leads to periodontitis. In gingivitis you have the inflammation of the gingiva. The plaque in the gingival pocket, with the calcium and the saliva it gets hardened, that makes calculus. When left untreated, bacteria in that calculus will inflame the bones and the periodontal ligaments. This is the same bacteria and the same scenario as gingivitis, but it is a more aggressive form of gingivitis.



Symptoms



He further explained that there are two types of symptoms. Those which are visible to the naked eye and those which are seen after examination. The symptoms that can be seen through the naked eye are the redness and the swelling of the gingiva. When you touch it there may be a discharge of pus. You may also have a lot of caluculii around the tooth and there will be slight or high mobility of the tooth, he continued.



After an examination you will see very deep pockets and there will be bleeding and discharge of pus. There will also be a very bad odour and a very high degree of mobility with regard to the tooth, said Dr. Wickramasinghe.



Risk factors



Speaking of the risk factors Dr. Wickramasinghe said, People who do not brush their teeth properly fall into the high risk group. In Sri Lanka the main reason for periodontitis is the fact that dental hygiene has not been maintained since childhood. Furthermore, people who are diabetic are much more prone to periodontitis and people who are immune compromised, people who take immune substitute drugs for example cancer patients and HIV patients. There are also people with poor nutrition. There are certain drugs, medication for other diseases which can bring

about periodontitis.



Prevention



He further stated that prevention is better than cure. People should be advised that if they have any sort of bleeding or any sort of plaque surrounding the tooth they have to consult a doctor. Untreated gingivitis can progress to periodontitis,said the doctor.



We must prevent people from getting gingivitis. Both the doctor and the patient play a part in this. Proper brushing and maintaining good dental health, seeking advice from the doctor on taking medicines and mouthwashes and manual cleaning and other type of treatment are essential. If you have done that you wont fall it. But there is a certain percentage of people in whom the gingivitis process takes place due to genetic reasons. One should mandatorily visit the dentist once in six months and this should be a regular part of ones life. It is more important to focus on the prevention of gingivitis rather than on treatment, he continued.



Treatment



Dr. Wickramasinghe explained that the treatment for periodontitis is a little more complicated than the one given for gingivitis. The proper oral hygiene instructions must be given to the people and then cleaning of the teeth, maintaining good oral hygiene, controlling diabetic level or other disease level are essential, advised the doctor.



There are some advanced treatment for periodontitis such as a bone graft or a gingival graft. But in Sri Lanka, the most common treatment that is done for adults is exfoliation or extraction of teeth. Due to mobility a lot of people lose their teeth because of periodontitis. It is very important that you maintain your oral hygiene from your childhood, otherwise at the later stages in your life you will develop periodontitis. The most common cause for the extraction or the loss of teeth in adults of over 50 years is due to periodontitis,



he concluded.
Reaffirming its commitment to empowering the countrys future business leaders, Unilever Sri Lanka welcomed 21 undergraduate students from some of the countrys top higher education institutions to the fourth batch of its annual Sparks student ambassador programme.



The Sparks programme offers undergraduate students the opportunity to act as a liaison between Unilever and their respective University. It recognizes the top young talent around the country who have the passion to Want More, Do More and Contribute More to become a great leader with a

positive impact.



Inviting university students from around the island to apply to the programme, Unilever Sri Lanka Human Resources and Corporate Relations Director Sumeet Verma said: Currently in its fourth year, the Unilever Sparks programme is yet another manifestation of our commitment to developing Sri Lankas future business leaders. In line with our core philosophy of doing well by doing good, we look forward to engaging top young minds from some of the countrys premier educational institutions and playing a role in shaping them into future leaders.



Offering invaluable real world exposure, it allows the student ambassadors to build relationships with seasoned industry professionals and like-minded students, thereby allowing them to expand their professional network even before they enter the workforce. The experience and guidance they gain through the programme helps develop their negotiation, stakeholder management and team working skills. Thus the Sparks programme gives a significant boost to the employability of the undergraduate students while giving them the opportunity to be fast tracked into a career at Unilever.



Commenting on his Sparks experience, Hashan Rahubaddha from the University of Moratuwa said: Being directly exposed to the working culture at Unilever through Sparks programme helped me to enhance my skills and competencies while expanding my network. Expressing similar sentiments, Sparks Student Ambassador Yasasi Bandaranayake from the University of Kelaniya noted: Being a student ambassador for Unilever was one of the greatest milestones I have achieved in my University Life. It was a distinctive and incomparable journey which redefined me.
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United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DUANE G. ROGERS, Defendant-Appellant. No. 16-3620 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

ORDER

The night before Duane Rogers was to stand trial in Colorado for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter, he fled to Mexico. There he joined a fraudulent scheme that marketed timeshare properties. Rogers, a disbarred attorney, was involved in the operation for roughly two months and helped to defraud 87 victims of over $300,000. Rogers was arrested and eventually convicted and sentenced in Colorado for his state sexual-assault crime. In the Northern District of Illinois, he then pleaded guilty to wire fraud, 18 U.S.C.  1343, for his participation in the Mexico scheme. Based on a guideline range of 51 to 63 months, the district judge sentenced Rogers to 47 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Rogers filed a notice of appeal, but his attorney has moved to withdraw his appearance because, he contends, this appeal is frivolous. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). We grant counsel's motion and dismiss this appeal.

Counsel's supporting brief is facially adequate, so we confine analysis to the issues discussed in the brief and in the defendant's response (if any) to it. United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014) (By facially adequate we mean that the brief appears to be a competent effort to determine whether the defendant has any grounds for appealing). We invited Rogers to comment on his counsel's motion to withdraw, but he has not responded. See CIR. R. 51(b).

Counsel reports that Rogers does not wish to withdraw his guilty plea. Therefore, counsel appropriately does not consider challenging the voluntariness of the plea or the adequacy of the plea colloquy. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 11; United States v. Knox, 287 F.3d 667, 67071 (7th Cir. 2002).

Next, counsel weighs whether to challenge Rogers's prison sentence but properly rejects this challenge as frivolous. There were increases to Rogers's base offense level for actual loss and substantial financial hardship, and any argument that these were erroneous is forfeited because Rogers did not object to them in the district court. Based on the record, there is no reason to believe that Rogers could show on appeal that the district court committed plain error. Furthermore, arguing that Rogers was entitled to a minor-participant reduction under U.S.S.G.  3B1.2 would be futile because he was not substantially less culpable than the average participant. United States v. Thi, 692 F.3d 571, 574 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting United States v. Leiskunas, 656 F.3d 732, 739 (7th Cir. 2011) (internal quotations omitted)). As the district court found, dozens of telemarketers were less involved than Rogers, who represented himself as a trusted escrow agent and made the timeshare business appear more legitimate by polishing up fake paperwork that was sent to cheat victims out of money.

Arguing that the government should have moved for a departure for substantial assistance, see U.S.S.G.  5K1.1, would also be frivolous, because although he attempted to cooperate, the government already had most of the information Rogers supplied. See United States v. Billings, 546 F.3d 472, 476 (7th Cir. 2008). It would not be worthwhile to argue that Rogers was improperly awarded one criminal-history point for a 2003 DUI in Colorado, for which he received 18 months of probation. The guideline makes no exception for states in which the blood-alcohol level required for a violation is unusually low. See U.S.S.G.  4A1.2, App. Note 5 (Convictions for driving while intoxicated or under the influence  are always counted, without regard to how the offense is classified.).

Counsel next suggests challenging the judge's decision to impose the federal sentence consecutive to Rogers's Colorado prison sentence. But district judges have discretion to run a federal term of imprisonment consecutively to or concurrently with an unrelated state term. 18 U.S.C.  3584; U.S.S.G.  5G1.3(c); United States v. Statham, 581 F.3d 548, 555 (7th Cir. 2009). Here, the judge reasoned that because the federal fraud was completely unrelated to the state sexual assault, it should be punished with a separate prison sentence. It would be frivolous to argue that this sound justification for consecutive sentences was an abuse of discretion.

Last, counsel considers whether imposing supervised release was unreasonable. Rogers argued that he would already be subject to onerous restrictions under Colorado's strict regime for paroled sex offenders, so federal supervised release would add unnecessary conditions. But the judge gave valid reasons for the sentence as a whole, including the use of federal supervised release as a tool to increase the ability to collect restitution for the benefit of the fraud victims. The judge did not need to provide a separate explanation for the supervised release term. United States v. Bloch, 825 F.3d 862, 870 (7th Cir. 2016). Regardless, the judge did address Rogers's argument, and imposing supervised release was well within her discretion.

Counsel's motion to withdraw is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit. Gillman Roddy LONG PetitionerAppellant v. UNITED STATES of America RespondentAppellee No. 16-2820 Decided: November 09, 2017

Before WOLLMAN, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges. Gillman Roddy Long, Pro se, Tucson, AZ, John R. Murphy, Rapid City, SD, for PetitionerAppellant. Sarah Boensch Collins, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Eric D. Kelderman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Kevin Koliner, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, Sioux Falls, SD, for RespondentAppellee.

Gillman Roddy Long asks us to find his trial counsel ineffective for failing to venture into uncharted territoryterritory that this court, and the Supreme Court, have still yet to traverse. We decline to do so, and we affirm the district court in denying his ineffective assistance of counsel claim filed under 28 U.S.C  2255.

I.

We previously saw the parties on direct appeal, United States v. Long, 721 F.3d 920 (8th Cir. 2013), and thus highlight only the facts salient to our decision here. In July 2009, Long was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, and after a jury trial, a judgment of conviction was entered in April 2012. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Long takes issue with trial counsel's decision not to object to a statement Long made to FBI Special Agent Sherry Rice. As we summarized on direct appeal, during an interview where Agent Rice specifically informed Long that he was not under arrest  and that he would be leaving at the end of the conversation, Long cut off Agent Rice's questioning about sexual contact with a minor by stating: I do not want to incriminate myself. I would like to stop talking.  Long, 721 F.3d at 921-22 (internal quotation marks omitted). Agent Rice testified about Long's statement on direct examination and was asked about it on cross examination and re-direct. The Government also used the statement during its closing arguments. Long's counsel did not object on any of these occasions.

When Long raised the admission of his statement on direct appeal, we held that it was not clear or obvious under current lawgiven that [w]e have yet to directly address the questionwhether it was an error for Long's pre-arrest, pre-Miranda statement to come in. Id. at 924-25 (internal quotation marks omitted). We deferred decision on Long's ineffective assistance of counsel claims in order for the district court to hold a hearing to fully develop the record. Id. at 926-27.

Long subsequently brought his ineffective assistance of counsel claims under  2255 before the district court. He alleged that trial counsel was ineffective because counsel failed to object to testimony concerning Long's statement to Agent Rice or to a remark the Government made during closing arguments about Long's decision not to testify. After holding a hearing that included testimony from Long's trial counsel, the district court dismissed both claims. Long now appeals from that ruling.

The sole question before us on appeal is whether Long's trial counsel violated Long's Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel by failing to object to the Government's use of his pre-arrest, pre-Miranda statement to Agent Rice.

II.

To prove that his trial counsel was ineffective, Long must show: (1) trial counsel's performance was so deficient as to fall below an objective standard of the customary skill and diligence displayed by a reasonably competent attorney, and (2) trial counsel's deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Armstrong v. Kemna, 534 F.3d 857, 863 (8th Cir. 2008) (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984)). On appeal, [w]e review the district court's factual findings for clear error and the legal question whether those findings amount to ineffective assistance de novo. Keys v. United States, 545 F.3d 644, 646 (8th Cir. 2008). We find that Long has failed to make a showing on the first prong, and therefore we do not consider the second prong of the Strickland test.

Long points to limited out-of-circuit authority that existed at the time of his trial suggesting that admission of his statement to Agent Rice was improper under the Fifth Amendment. See, e.g., Coppola v. Powell, 878 F.2d 1562, 1568 (1st Cir. 1989). From that he argues trial counsel was ineffective for not challenging the admission of his statement.

That authority, however, was not uniform. Compare id. (holding that [p]etitioner's constitutional rights were violated by the use of his [pre-arrest] statement in the prosecutor's case in chief), with United States v. Davenport, 929 F.2d 1169, 1174 (7th Cir. 1991) (Posner, J.) (holding that once [defendants] started [answering questions in non-custodial setting], any statement they madeincluding I won't tell youwas fair game for the Government to use at trial). More importantly, as we noted on Long's direct appeal, the issue was not addressed by this court or the Supreme Court. Long, 721 F.3d at 924, 925 n.2. Thus, [g]iven this split of authority at the time [Long] was tried, and the complete lack of Eighth Circuit or Supreme Court authority on the subject it must be said counsel's performance fell within the wide range of professionally competent assistance. Ragland v. United States, 756 F.3d 597, 601 (8th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted).

III.

We affirm the district court and find that Long's trial counsel was not ineffective when counsel did not challenge the admission of his pre-arrest, pre-Miranda statement to Agent Rice.

FOOTNOTES

. The Honorable Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota.

. Long only appeals the ineffective assistance of counsel claim in relation to the statement he made to Agent Rice.

. The question has remained unaddressed in this court and the Supreme Court.

. Long also raises the Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Okatan, 728 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2013), as support for his position. But, this decision came well after his trial, and [w]e do not evaluate counsel's performance using the clarity of hindsight, but in light of the facts and circumstances at the time of trial. Toledo v.United States, 581 F.3d 678, 681 (8th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.
The law firms of Berke Berke and Berke of Chattanooga and Murphy, Falcon and Murphy of Baltimore have filed three new lawsuits involving the tragic Woodmore Elementary bus wreck in which six children were killed and others injured.

They were filed against Durham School Services, National Express and driver Johnthony Walker.

One suit was filed by Joelyn Joubert in behalf of Bruce Shirley and Savannah Joubert, who were injured in the crash.

The suit says Bruce Shirley suffered a broken scapula, a head injury, and other physical and psychological injuries.

It says Savannah Joubert suffered physical and psychological injuries.

Bruce Shirley sued for $375,000 compensatory damages and $3.7 million punitive damages.

Savannah Joubert sued for $50,000 compensatory damages and $500,000 punitive damages as did the mother.

Another was filed by Turisia Robinson and Corey Fletcher, parents of Naszakor Fletcher.

The suit says Naszakor Fletcher suffered a traumatic brain injury and other physical and psychological injuries.

It asks $3,250,000 compensatory damages and $32.5 million punitive damages for the child as well as $975,000 compensatory damages and $9.75 million for the parents.

Sharonda Covington and Derek Stepp filed suit in behalf of Montana Stepp, who suffered a concussion, abdominal injuries and other physical and psychological injuries.

That complaint asks $975,000 compensatory damages and $9,750,000 punitive damages in behalf of the parents and $325,000 compensatory damages and $32.5 million punitive damages in behalf of the child..

Nov. 21 is the deadline for filing suits in the case.
The Senate on Thursday unanimously confirmed J. Douglas Overbey to serve as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

The Eastern District includes Chattanooga as well as Winchester, Knoxville and Greeneville.

Senator Bob Corker said, Doug Overbeys distinguished law career has spanned nearly four decades, and I am pleased he will be taking his expertise to the office of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District.

I am confident Doug will serve East Tennesseans with integrity as he has throughout his terms in the state legislature. I congratulate him on his confirmation and thank my colleagues for supporting his nomination.

Senator Lamar Alexandersaid, Ive known Doug for a long timeand I know that Tennessee will be well-served by a man of such good character. Doug is a lifelong East Tennessean and has dedicated his life to servicepracticing law for more than 37 years in East Tennessee and currently serving in the Tennessee General Assembly.

"I know Doug will be an excellent U.S. Attorney for East Tennessee, and I am glad the Senate confirmed his nomination.

Lt. Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) said, "I'd like to officially congratulate Doug Overbey on his confirmation as U.S. Attorney. As chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and as vice-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, he has shown true leadership on some of the most important issues we deal with as a legislature. His commitment to representing his constituents and producing quality legislation is unwavering.

"Having witnessed his knowledge of the law first hand, I am confident he will do an outstanding job. We will miss his talents and skills in the Senate but I take solace in the fact that East Tennessee has gained an outstanding new federal prosecutor."
Mark Kelly Hall will deliver a holiday-infused blend of Americana originals and favorites (and a parody song or two) at the Casual Pint in Hixson on Friday, Nov. 24. The music will start at 8:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Review for Mark Kelly Hall:

Mark Kelly Hall has played an impressive variety of venues, including the Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga, the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, a kindergarten in Minsk, a college in Honolulu, and a church in Cape Townbut not in the same week.

Hailing from the Chattanooga area and now based in Nashville, Hall addresses topics such as love, faith and the 70's. His songs reflect the spiritual heritage of the Bible-belt South, combined with a lifelong fascination with American pop culture, and seasoned by his experiences in places far away from his native Tennessee. His style recalls James Taylor and Jim Croce, and his presentation is flavored with congeniality, personal insight, and a touch of country blues.

For more information visit www.markkellyhall.com
On the eve of the day that honors their service to our country, veterans enrolled at UTC received a boost of support from Mike and Amy Walden of Walden Security.

The couple has made a bequest of $1 million to support the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program. Walden Security also has increased its lead gift to the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program to $250,000, providing substantial funding for the next five years.

Established in 2012, the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program offers free training, mentoring and management expertise for small businesses founded by the nations disabled and service distinguished veterans.

Mr. Walden, who served in the U.S. Navy, and Mrs. Walden founded Chattanooga-based Walden Security in 1990 and have built it into one of the nations most trusted and respected contract security companies, said officials. One of the 10 largest privately held security companies in the United States, Walden Security has more than 350 clients in 28 states. The company also maintains more than 50 satellite operations in secondary markets and employs more than 5,000 employees.

My service in the U.S. Navy changed my life for the better, Mr. Walden said. I learned skills that taught me how to succeed in life and business, and it gave me the chance to achieve the American dream. Amy and I want to give other veteran business entrepreneurs the same opportunity. As a country, we need opportunities like VEP. Weve supported this program for several years because we know it makes a difference in the lives of these veteran business entrepreneurs.

Hosted each year in July on the UTC campus, veterans receive a full week of entrepreneurship courses taught by College of Business faculty and guest experts. Veterans meet with community leaders, top military officials and attend a graduation ceremony and dinner.

The Veterans Entrepreneurship Program offers an accelerated learning program using online education and a classroom-style boot camp followed by comprehensive mentorship with successful Chattanooga business professionals.

After graduation, veterans receive 10 months of ongoing support from experienced entrepreneurs at the UTC College of Business and online peer networking. Participants receive specific feedback regarding their ventures and can contact professionals who can answer specific questions and offer extended, hands-on guidance.

While our military veterans served and protected our nation, they also acquired knowledge and skills including risk management, performance under pressure and leadership, said Dr. Robert Dooley, dean of the UTC College of Business. Our goal is to help veterans translate those skills to help them create businesses as a means to their own financial well-being. We are honored to provide the VEP to those that have done so much for this country.

The Veterans Entrepreneurship Program was created by Dr. Mike Morris and is based on a successful model at Oklahoma State University. The program is hosted by the College of Business in partnership with Oklahoma State, the University of Florida and the University of North Dakota. It is a direct response to the challenges faced by veterans suffering from physical or psychological disabilities.

Mike and Amy Walden have been long-time champions of this program and support it, not only financially, but by sharing their time, their entrepreneurial story and their expertise with our delegates each year, Dr. Dooley said. We are so appreciative of their generous gift that will ensure the long-term impact of this important program.



Over its six years, the Veterans Entrepreneurship Program has had a total of 95 graduates. Around 40 percent of the veterans who graduated from the VEP now own their own businesses, including several who operate in the Chattanooga area.

The program is provided free of charge to all participating veterans and includes travel expenses, lodging, meals and all course materials. The costs of the VEP are underwritten by sponsors, including Walden Security, and private donors, with operations and program development provided by the UTC College of Business.
Thirteen candidates who signed a pledge refusing to accept campaign cash from Virginia's two big utilities won seats in the House of Delegates Tuesday. Seven of those support prohibiting Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power from making political donations.

The pledge, signed by nearly 60 mostly Democratic House of Delegates candidates, made headlines earlier this year.

And in the traditionally business-friendly General Assembly, where no corporate concern has held more sway of late than Dominion, the state's largest utility, an influx of lawmakers who see the company's clout as excessive could augur a shift in debate on major issues during the legislative session next year.

"I just felt their influence might be too big," said Democratic Delegate-Elect Cheryl Turpin, an environmental science teacher in Virginia Beach who unseated incumbent Republican N.D. "Rocky" Holcomb III, of her decision to sign the pledge to refuse campaign contributions.

In a statement, Democrat Schuyler VanValkenburg, a government and history teacher who defeated Republican Eddie Whitlock for the Henrico County seat vacated by retiring GOP Del. Jimmie Massie, said the pledge was a "not anti-Dominion but rather a statement of good governance."

"Dominion is a state-regulated monopoly and as a first-time candidate, I wanted my constituents to know that I would be overseeing Dominion with their interests at heart," VanValkenburg said. "I will look at all future legislation and vote in accordance with the best interest of my constituents."

Several other candidates who signed the pledges could not be reached or declined interview requests.

The election, which saw Democrats make stunning gains in the House, came near the end of a year roiled by controversial Dominion's plans. Those include capping and closing its coal ash ponds, a much-opposed natural gas pipeline it wants to build across the state and transmission line projects in Prince William County and across the James River near Jamestown that have been fought tooth and nail.

And in September, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a 2015 law that froze the State Corporation Commission's ability to review utility electric rates and order refunds to customers, a decision that could allow Dominion, the top corporate donor to state campaigns, to reap a $1 billion windfall by 2022.

Sen. J. Chapman Petersen, D-Fairfax City, who had few allies during the past session when he attempted to repeal the rate freeze and unsuccessfully pushed a bill that would ban candidates from accepting donations from public service corporations like Dominion and Appalachian, sees the political winds changing.

"I look up on the hill and I see the U.S. Cavalry riding to my rescue," said Petersen, who intends to revive both bills in the coming session that begins in January. He added that he felt "vindicated" by the success of candidates who tossed conventional Virginia political wisdom to the wind and swore off the support of Dominion, whose muscular presence in campaign finance and lobbying might at the General Assembly are seen as matters of course.

"I think the people that go around touting how you can't cross Dominion and you can't get elected or re-elected, or our party caucus can't raise money without Dominion, that way of thinking is going the way of the Dodo bird," Petersen said.

Petersen noted that Gov.-elect Ralph Northam campaigned on banning corporate and business donations and imposing a $10,000 cap on all donors except party committees. Eliminating contributions from public service corporations, Petersen said, is a much lighter lift and less legally fraught.

"I think if we got a bill to his desk I think he'd sign it, period," Petersen said. "So that's my goal."

Josh Stanfield, executive director Activate Virginia, the political action committee that circulated the pledge to candidates, said no one expected the Democrats to win so many races, including coming within two seats of capturing the majority, with recounts still pending. Still, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the pledge didn't prove to be a liability, he said.

"This is popular," Stanfield said. "People are not stupid. For-profit entities do not give money to anyone without expecting something in return. ... When you have a candidate that says I'm not going to take that money because I want to represent your interests, how can that not be appealing?"

Stanfield says a cadre of 13 lawmakers who campaigned on limiting the influence of the utility in state government will make it harder for other Democrats to "sweep the issue under the rug" when it comes to campaign contributions.

"There is a traditional, pro-business coalition that has always ruled Virginia's legislature," he said. "They get insulted when you suggest there's something uncouth going on."

Asked how the election might affect the crucial issues that could come before the legislature, including the rate freeze, coal ash clean-up and others, Dominion spokesman David Botkins said the company is "looking forward to getting to know the new members and working together on keeping low, stable rates, ever more reliable service by investing in the grid and more clean energy."

"These are bipartisan priorities," Botkins said. "It's things like that Facebook and Microsoft considered when deciding to locate their job-creating data centers in Virginia."

Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst and former VCU dean, said the shift against Dominion recalls the 1970s crusade led by populist gubernatorial candidate Henry Howell against what he called the "Very Expensive Power Company," with an important distinction.

Then, ire at what was then called the Virginia Electric and Power Company was stirred up by the company's customer service and cost. This backlash, Holsworth noted, is more about controversial projects, such as the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and the "sense that Dominion has too much influence in state government."

"My sense is even with these elections, these remarkable elections last night, thats unlikely to be a majority position in the assembly," Holsworth said on Wednesday. "I think Dominion is unlikely to want this to become far more extensive."

Holsworth predicted Dominion, possessed of a "very sophisticated government relations operation," will be become more attentive to potential objections to its actions and "even more comprehensive in the education and information it tries to provide to lawmakers."

He noted, though, that many of the new lawmakers lacked the backing for the state Democratic Party and are likely to maintain the "grassroots orientation" that brought them into office.

"Certainly I think with more Democrats in the legislature, with more candidates who are successful through grassroots organization, there are going to be more bills proposed about changing Virginia's campaign finance law, but I'm not sure there's a critical mass to accomplish that," Holsworth said. "I think it's significant because what it represents is a populist wing of the Democratic Party that has probably gained more seats last night than at any time in the last 30 or 40 years."

Del. David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, the House minority leader, said Wednesday that "it's hard to predict" how a rate freeze repeal and a bill to end utility donations to candidates will play out during the next session.

"Depending on what happens with these vote totals we could have 17 new people who will have many different points of view on this," Toscano said. "I can tell you that there are a number of folks who are very concerned about the regulated utilities giving contributions to candidates and I think that bill's going to come up and I think there's going to be a lot of support for it and well just have to see how much support there is."

A handful of lawmakers from both parties have expressed support for rolling back the rate freeze, which was pitched in 2015 as necessary to protect consumers from potential price shocks that might be imposed by then-President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan to limit carbon emissions from power plants. The State Corporation Commission has said the 2015 law would not have shielded customers from any rate increases from the plan, which has stalled in federal courts and is being rolled back by President Donald Trump's administration.

"Now the Clean Power Plan doesn't exist anymore. So some of the rationale for that initial legislation may be out the window," Toscano said. "And I think that there will be a close examination about whether we should keep that in effect. But it will depend a lot on the people who are in the room at the time."

One of the lawmakers who stood with Petersen last year as he called on Gov. Terry McAuliffe to send down a bill do undo the rate freeze after his own was killed was Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke.

Rasoul, who has refused to take contributions from any special interest political committees, also supports a ban on contributions from public utilities. He called the 2015 rate freeze "the most corrupt utility law in America ever."

"People are not going to stand for that kind of legislation," he said. "We need to do better. And I'm hoping with our new gains in the House we can build some momentum behind that change."
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The Lantern at Morning Pointe Alzheimers Center of Excellence, Russell celebrated its grand opening on Thursday, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., with a formal program and ribbon cutting at 5:30 p.m. The freestanding memory care community is the 11th Morning Pointe location in Kentucky, located at 1063 Addington Dr., in Russell, KY, near Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital and adjacent to Morning Pointe of Russell personal care and Alzheimers memory care.

Responding to the increasing need of Alzheimers care in Kentucky, the Morning Pointe of Russell campus will now feature 38 additional specially designed apartments with programming geared toward residents with Alzheimers disease and other memory-related conditions.

With the growing number of individuals in need of Alzheimers and memory care services, Morning Pointe is expanding to provide seniors and their families with more options and choices that enrich the quality of life, said Greg A. Vital, president and CEO of Morning Pointe Senior Living. We are continuing Morning Pointes tradition of providing senior care for more than 20 years by expanding our services to 11 locations across the commonwealth of Kentucky.

The new memory care community is an expansion to Morning Pointes Alzheimers and dementia care services, including the Meaningful Day purposeful programming designed to promote independence, and SimpleC Companion, an intuitive, non-drug therapy using touch screen applications to promote improved engagement and memory.

Key features of the new memory care community include:

 Cuddle Therapy, specially crafted, lifelike dolls to bring a sense of calm and purpose to residents

 On-site physical, occupational and speech therapies

 Teepa Snow Activity Boxes

 Intergenerational and Music Matters programming

 Licensed clinical staff available 24 hours a day

 Individual care plans coordinated by licensed nurses and area healthcare providers

The addition of The Lantern complements the newly renovated 58 personal care apartments at Morning Pointe of Russell senior living community next door. The continuum-of-care campus features life enrichment programming, on-site physical, occupational and speech therapy, clinical nursing, multiple floor plan options, fine amenities, and nutritious, local, farm-fresh ingredients as part of Morning Pointes Farm to Table program.



Wanda Parker, senior executive director at Morning Pointe, says she has been looking forward to the expanded Alzheimers memory care services.

We couldnt be more proud to expand Morning Pointes services, as we continue to offer more choices for seniors and their families, Ms. Parker said. Our campus is positioned to address a variety of care needs for the 65+ population in Greenup County and surrounding areas, and having more options allows us to give better service.

Morning Pointe is the regions choice for senior living and Alzheimers memory care. In addition to the Russell campus, the senior healthcare services company operates 11 Kentucky communities in Danville, Frankfort, Lexington, Louisville and Richmond.
A report from the office of City Auditor Stan Sewell faults the city purchasing department in the handling of a contract for providing temporary staffing to city departments.

Despite a recommendation from the city staff to award the $1.8 million contract to both the longtime provider, Outsource Staffing, and a startup, Msi Workforce, the City Council on two occasions voted to stay with Outsource Staffing only.

Msi Workforce is headed by Marty and Donna Christian Lowe. Auditor Sewell said that firm was formed just eight months prior to submitting a bid, got a county business license on Jan. 15 and still does not have a city business license.

He said, "Prior to recommending an award to Msi, we would have expected the Purchasing Division to document an analysis in the procurement files including, but not limited to areas such as: ?

"Verification the company has a City Business License and is current.

"Financial Statement/condition analysis. Does the company have the capital and financial liquidity to provide a reasonable assurance they are capable of providing services in the short and long-term?

"Confirmation with current or previous clients of service delivery at a level comparable to that expected with the City. Does the company have a sufficient number of temporary employees currently hired and on staff to meet the needs of the City?

"Does the management staff of the company possess a sufficient level of demonstrated experience in the temporary staffing industry to provide a reasonable assurance they can recruit and manage a quality pool of temporary employees?"

Mr. Sewell noted that the City Council on Sept. 26 awarded the contract to Outsource Staffing despite a city staff recommendation that both firms get a share of the award.

He noted that prior to that vote that the city used a Request for Proposals, rather than the normal competitive bidding, leading to its dual recommendation.

Mr. Sewell said, "Per the States Municipal Purchasing Act, the default process for procurement is competitive bidding. TCA 12-3- 1207 allows for a competitive request for proposal process as an alternative to competitive bidding.

However, this code section appears to mandate some specific action and criteria prior to the process being utilized for a procurement:

"1. The City Council must make a determination that the use of competitive sealed bidding is either not practicable or not advantageous, prior to the use of the competitive request for proposal. We found no evidence indicating the City Council made such an advance determination and we found no evidence indicating City Council authorized the use of a competitive RFP prior to the process being utilized.

"2. The competitive RFP can only be utilized when one of the following two tests is passed: a. When there is more than one solution to a purchasing issue and the competitive sealed proposals will assist in choosing the best solution, or b. When there is no readily identifiable solution to a purchasing issue and the competitive sealed proposals will assist in identifying one or more solutions. The City has contracted for temporary employee services for many years. The competitive bidding process has historically been utilized to facilitate this procurement. The need (and solution) is specific and clear: Temporary staffing. It does not appear this procurement meets either of the above criteria."

Mr. Sewell said the city attorney's office recently "provided an opinion that appears to indicate it is within the purchasing agents authority to make the determination. The city attorney has indicated a need to do further research and noted other municipalities are using a process similar to Chattanooga."

The city auditor said, "The competitive RFP is a competitive process resulting in an award winner. The award shall be made to the responsible respondent whose proposal the governing body determines is the most advantageous to the municipality.2 [Emphasis added] Although City Council approved an award to a single vendor, recommendation from Administration was for an award to two vendors.

"In addition, we noted an item on the City Council agenda for October 17, 2017 to add a second vendor. TCA 12-3-1207 does not appear to allow awards to multiple vendors for the same procurement. Similarly, with regard to competitive bids, City Code Section 2-553 appears to limit awards to the bidder presenting the best value. [Emphasis added]

Mr. Sewell said, "We did not conduct a thorough review of MSIs background or experience as it is beyond the scope of this project. However, we would recommend a prudent review take place prior to the award of a contract by City Council." The Lowe couple has twice filed personal bankruptcies.

He said, "This procurement was initially processed as a competitive bid with the Purchasing Division recommending a contract award to two vendors and formally notifying the selected vendors. Subsequent to this recommendation and notification, but prior to presentation to the City Council, the Purchasing Division rejected all bids. There was no clear and logical documentation in the procurement file substantiating this decision.

"In addition, City Code Section 2-553 states The City Council may reject any and all bids submitted regardless of the amount involved. We did not note any similar language assigning this responsibility/authority to the purchasing agent. Therefore, it appears (but is not certain to us) the decision to reject all bids is intended to be placed in front of the City Council. If this is not the intent, the practice would serve to enhance transparency in the procurement process.

"With regard to competitive RFPs, TCA 12-3-1207 and City Code Section 2-554 state The purchasing agent shall place in the contract file a statement containing the basis on which the award was made. An evaluation committee was utilized resulting in the ranking of Outsource as the overall best proposal. However, there was no statement by the purchasing agent included in the file containing the basis of the award recommendation (a dual award to MSI and Outsource). After a complete review of both the competitive bid and the competitive RFP files, we remain unclear as to the basis of the award recommendations made by the Purchasing Agent."
The Whitfield County Sheriffs Office received a report on Thursday, of a sexual assault that had occurred at a residence on Wooten Drive.

The victim, an adult female, advised officers that she was spending the night with some family members at the residence and during the early morning hours she was assaulted. She stated she woke up when a relative at the residence was attempting to have sexual intercourse with her without her consent. Upon waking up she was able to stop the assault.

During the investigation detectives obtained evidence that corroborated the victims statement. The suspect was picked up and questioned by Investigators. During a search of a bag belonging to the suspect, a drug pipe with methamphetamine residue was discovered.

Jose Carmelo Mendoza-Gonzalez, 33, of 208 Wooten Drive, has been charged with criminal attempt to commit rape, aggravated sexual battery, possession of methamphetamine, and possession of tools for the commission of a crime. He is currently being held in the Whitfield County Jail without bond.
The Billion Capture+ smartphone will be supported by F1 Info Solutions, which is now owned by Flipkart. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: E-commerce major Flipkart has announced its foray into the hyper-competitive mobile phone market in India with the launch of its Billion Capture+ brand of smartphones.

Smartphone is one of the biggest categories for Flipkart, which is locked in a fierce battle with US-based Amazon for leadership in the booming Indian e-commerce market. Flipkart on Friday said two variants of its 'Made For India smartphone, priced at Rs 10,990 onwards will be available from November 15.

Billion -- launched earlier this year -- is one of the private labels owned by Flipkart under which it sells mixer grinders, irons, T-shirts, backpacks and cookware.

"The features in the Capture+ too have been derived from deep data-mining of millions of Flipkart customers' reviews," Sachin Bansal, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Flipkart, said in a statement.

Flipkart's smartphones will compete with devices from the stables of Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Micromax and others. Interestingly, Flipkart is an exclusive online partner for many mobile phone brands launched in the country.

India is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally. According to research firm IDC, sales grew by 3.7 per cent to 28 million units in April-June 2017 compared to the previous quarter.

Samsung continued to dominate the market with 24 per cent market share. Xiaomi followed in the tally with 17 per cent share, while Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo had 13 per cent, 8 per cent and 7 per cent share, respectively.

"Our extensive research of Indian smartphone buyers revealed major pain points of battery, camera, storage etc," Flipkart Category Head (Billion) Hrishikesh Thite said.

He added that Billion Capture+ was developed keeping those in mind and delivering it at a "compelling price point".

Billion Capture+ will feature 5.5-inch display. The two variants - 3GB RAM/32GB internal memory will be priced at Rs 10,999, while 4GB RAM/64GB internal memory will be available at Rs 12,999. The Billion Capture+ smartphone will be supported by F1 Info Solutions, which is now owned by Flipkart.
RasGas had in the contract promised to give 5 per cent stake to Petronet or its nominee in the liquefication plant in the Gulf nation.

New Delhi: Petronet LNG Ltd is eyeing a stake in the planned LNG expansion projects in Qatar as it looks to venture overseas to diversify its portfolio, its MD and CEO Prabhat Singh said.

Petronet, India's biggest LNG importer, wants to buy a stake that will give it a position on the board of the Qatari company, he said. It currently buys 7.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum from RasGas of Qatar under a 25-year contract.

RasGas had in the contract promised to give 5 per cent stake to Petronet or its nominee in the liquefication plant in the Gulf nation. But Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) which was assigned to pick up the equity hesitated in making the USD 135 million payment.

The stake is now worth USD 2 billion. Singh said Qatar has announced plans to produce 100 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually - equivalent to a third of current global supplies - in the next five to seven years, up from current 77 million tonnes.

"We sounded Qatar of our intention of acquiring a meaningful stake in any of the planned expansion projects," he said.

Petronet can take a stake in either of the planned projects of QatarGas or RasGas. Typically, each train or plant of LNG is a separate company and Petronet can pick a stake in that.

The stake would help Petronet, which is India's biggest LNG importer, better understand the business of converting natural gas extracted from under-sea fields are converted into liquid at sub-zero temperature, shipped and marketed world over.

Petronet operates a 15 million tonnes per annum terminal at Dahej in Gujarat for import of LNG and converting the liquid fuel back to its gaseous state before piping it to customers.

"Having operated Dahej terminal at over 100 per cent capacity without an accident or break, we are today possibly the best company in the world to operate an LNG import and regasification facility. But we don't have any expertise in the liquefication business," he said.

Singh said Petronet wants to acquire a stake that will guarantee it a board position. "We don't know what that stake would be but we are keen to be on board of the company," he said.

Petronet has also proposed the same to the consortium operating the Mozambique's Offshore Area 1 that plans to convert 60 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves into LNG.

"We can pick up stake in the initial two LNG trains of capacity 6 million tonnes per annum each that they plan to develop," he said.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned ONGC, holds 16 per cent stake in Mozambique offshore block Rovuma Area 1. Oil India Ltd has 4 per cent stake while a unit of Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) holds 10 per cent stake.

"I don't know why the option of taking a stake in Qatari company was not exercised but we now want to do that," he said.

The offer made to Petronet in lieu of LNG purchases was the same that RasGas had promised Korea's KoGas in an LNG supply deal.

Article 30.7 of the agreement with Petronet promised the stake at "no premium" but RasGas reneged on its commitment and demanded a premium from ONGC, which was nominated to take the stake. The talks broke down on the premium asked, sources said.

Qatargas is the largest LNG producing company in the world, with an annual production capacity of 42 million tonnes per annum. RasGas has a production capacity of about 37 million tonnes a year.
The GST Council at its 23rd meeting in Guwahati has slashed tax rates on 177 items in the top 28 per cent slab. (Photo: ANI)

Guwahati: The 23rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council saw 178 daily-use items in the highest 28 per cent slab being moved to lower tax slabs.

The meeting is being chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Assams capital Guwahati.

GST Council decides to keep only 50 items, mostly demerit, sin and luxury goods in top 28 per cent bracket, said Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and member of the Council, Sushil Modi.

According to Sushil Modi, a lower 18 per cent GST will be levied on chewing gums, chocolates, after shave, deodorant, washing power, detergent and marble.

Paints and cement have been retained in the 28 per cent tax bracket, he said.

Luxury goods like washing machines and air conditioners have been retained at 28 per cent.

According to PTI, this decision will have a revenue implication of Rs 20,000 crore annually. "There is consensus that slowly 28 per cent slab should be brought to 18 per cent. But it will take some time because it has a big revenue implication," said Modi.

A major tax overhaul of over 200 items in the top slab had been expected. After Fridays decision, only 50 of the 228 items shall remain in highest GST slab. The tax rates on the rest have been slashed.

Earlier in the day, Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had tweeted that he was hopeful of a "shower of changes in GST rates" in lieu of the council meeting. Panic-stricken government has no option but to concede demands for change," said Chidambaram on the social media website.

Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the head of the group of ministers whose recommendations are being deliberated upon, said, GST meeting will be path breaking, many crucial decisions in favor of traders, manufactures and consumers will be taken.
The RBI directed all banks to implement doorstep banking facilities for differently-abled citizens and those above 70 years of age by December this year. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: In a bid to facilitate seamless banking for all sections of the society, the Reserve Bank of India directed all banks to implement doorstep banking facilities for differently-abled citizens and those above 70 years of age by December this year.

In an official notice to banks, the central bank citing Section 23 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 said "in view of the difficulties faced by senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently abled or infirm persons (having medically certified chronic illness or disability) including those who are visually impaired, banks are advised to make concerted effort to provide basic banking facilities, such as pick up of cash and instruments against receipt, delivery of cash against withdrawal from account, delivery of demand drafts, submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) documents and Life certificate at the premises/ residence of such customers."

Banks were also advised to provide a dedicated counter or a counter which provides priority to senior citizens and people who are differently-abled, including visually impaired persons.

"It has been observed that there are occasions when banks discourage or turn away senior citizens and differently-abled persons from availing banking facilities in branches. Notwithstanding the need to push digital transactions and use of ATMs, it is imperative to be sensitive to the requirements of senior citizens and differently abled persons," the RBI argued.

With regards to cheque books, the RBI stated that the banks must issue cheque books to customers, whenever a request is received; through a requisition slip which is part of the cheque book issued earlier, with a minimum of 25 cheque leaves every year, if requested, in savings bank account, free of charge. Further, it said banks must not insist on physical presence of any customer including senior citizens and differently abled persons for getting cheque books.

Upon providing a Life Certificate in any branch, including a non-home branch of the pension paying bank, the RBI stated that banks must ensure the same is updated/ uploaded promptly in CBS by the receiving branch itself, to avoid any delay in credit of pension. Further, the circular noted that a fully KYC-compliant account should automatically be converted into a 'Senior Citizen Account' based on the date of birth available in the bank's records.

"Banks are advised to implement these instructions by December 31, 2017 in letter and spirit and give due publicity in their bank branches and website," the central bank stated.
The fifteenth annual Tri-Octaves Christmas Concert, featuring former Impressions member Willie Kitchens Jr., will be held on Dec. 1 at 6 p.m. and Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. at the at Christ United Methodist Church, 8645 East Brainerd Road.The Tri-Octaves: Willie Kitchens, Jr., Doug Richesin, and Michael Rodgers, bring together three different styles of music to blend their voices in soulful harmony. These Tennessee natives have been involved in music their whole lives.We cannot wait for this years Tri-Octaves Christmas concert, said Debbie Boggs, Development director of the Bethlehem Center.In past years they have mixed classic Christmas songs with Motown medleys and TV sitcom anthems. The Tri-Octaves are a talented and creative group and we cannot wait to see what they do this year.Proceeds taken from a love offering at the Tri-Octave Christmas concert will benefit children in Chattanooga through the Bethlehem Centers Read to Lead Academy.Seats are on a first come first serve basis. For more information contact Christ United Methodist Church at 423-892-9363 or the Bethlehem Center at 423-266-1384 ext. 6."Come out and enjoy the concert and know that your financial gift is making a difference, no matter the size, said Lindsey Gallaher, director of Missions at Christ United Methodist Church.
Turner International India has entered into a brand partnership with Gujarat-based Rajgreen Group to launch a Cartoon Network-branded amusement park 'Amaazia' in Surat. (Photo: Youtube Screengrab/Representational)

Mumbai: Media firm Turner International India has entered into a brand partnership with Gujarat-based Rajgreen Group to launch a Cartoon Network-branded amusement park 'Amaazia' in Surat.

"We are providing a brand association for not only the brand (Cartoon Network) but also the characters. We have licensed our brand and the Amaazia brand will have the Cartoon Network logo below that," Turner International South Asia managing director Siddharth Jain told PTI.

"We are looking at a million footfalls coming into the park in the first year," he said.

The project is owned and funded by the Rajgreen Group, whose chairman Sanjay Movaliya said, "The total investment for the theme park will be Rs 450 crore and we plan to break-even in six to seven years."

Turner currently has two Cartoon Network-branded amusement parks in Dubai and Pattaya and Jain said they have seen "phenomenal success" in both of them.

He said they would look to expand the theme parks to other cities in the country.

"We want to be successful with this one and we hope this is the start of the many. We will be looking at other cities. We are in conversation with a few people. Also, we have to be sure that geographically, we are not infringing on our partners' territory and catchment area. But we will always be looking for more projects," he said.

The Amaazia amusement park has been conceptualised and designed by the Sanderson Group, Australia.

The integrated theme park spread across 61,000 sq m will have 33 rides and is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2019. It will have some designated areas featuring themes with Cartoon Network characters, including Ben 10, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo and Adventure Time.

The theme park will have an additional 10 to 12 rides after three years, Movaliya said.

According to Turner India South Asia senior director Cartoon Network Enterprises, Anand Singh, the revenue from the theme park business in India last year was Rs 3,000 crore, growing at a healthy double digit.
Mumbai: People will remember 9 November 2007 not just for the much-hyped Diwali clash between Om Shanti Om and Saawariya, but also as the date where three stars Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor were born.

The films celebrated 10 years of its release on Thursday and both the teams were celebrating the occasion.

Sonam Kapoor shared pictures of some of her memorable works in her 10-year journey in the industry and even Farah Khan, the director of 'Om Shanti Om', went on a nostalgia node posting numerous pictures and sharing her memories of each of them.

The choreographer-turned-director also revealed some interesting trivia about the film in an interview with Pinkvilla.

Farah was pregnant with her triplets at the time and the producer and her friend Shah Rukh Khan ensured she was pampered enough.

"It was difficult, but Shah Rukh Khan had bought a big lazy boy couch for me and was insistent that I sit on it. I used to be lying on that and shouting on the mike," she told the entertainment portal.

SRK made all the right noises before the release by flaunting his six-pack abs for the first time, but Farah's pregnancy made it difficult for her during the shoot of the song Dard-E-Disco.

"During Dard-E-Disco, I had morning sickness so it was very funny because every time Shah Rukh would remove his shirt, I would throw up and he was like 'what is this' and I was like 'No No your body looks fab, but it is just that I have three bodies inside me so I was just non-stop puking'."

Farah cast a fresh face, Deepika Padukone, who was only a popular model and daughter of famous badminton star Prakash Padukone, before 'Om Shanti Om'.

About Deepika, Farah said, Deepika was absolutely raw and you don't really have to do much when Shah Rukh is the hero. He just took her, I mean I would, of course, sit with her and tell her what to do, but he would sit in the lunch break and motivate her. I would say Shah Rukh, I just have to say look down, look up, look left or right. He was lovely actually and very patient and a very generous actor. I mean even if his take was good, he would do it hundred more times till her take is fine."

Any scene the Bangalore girl found difficult? "There is one scene after Main Agar Kahoon song where they are walking on the empty set. I got a very special scene between the two, probably the only romantic scene between them. In that scene, he really helped Deepika out a lot. He was telling her that how you should pretend you are in love and all and she just broke down and told him that I was just 12 years old when Dilwale (DDLJ) released and I was like, 'did you have to tell him that right now when you were doing a romantic scene?'."

The film might just go down in history as one with maximum number of cameos or special appearances.

Asked about it, Farah said, "We had too many cameos in the movie. You know actually, half the film industry is in this, not only half, I think 3/4th is in the movie. Either, they are in the song or doing a cameo like Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan. It was lovely to make a movie about the film industry and have the film industry in it."

"I think that was the last of the films where we were like a big happy family and also let me tell you that they did not have managers or PRs then to make our lives difficult. I would just make one call and meet them and they would come on board. Of course, Shah Rukh Khan also had tremendous goodwill, but I think it will be really difficult for someone to do it today. Then I just met people and they sweetly agreed. Salman toh I did not have to meet, he was like 'tu mereko time bol main aa jaounga'."

The film turned out to be massive success and the song Deewangi Dewaangi deserves substantial credit for it.

From Salman Khan to Dharmendra, most of the stars made an appearance in it. However, Farah reveals that despite the grandeur of the song, it was difficult as well.

"It was lovely, I was having a party for six days. But you know, it is the most difficult song that I have done. It looks easy, but it took me almost a week to script it and who will come first and second and who should come in the final, at what point should we introduce a Dharamji or Mithun Da or a Kajol. All that took a lot of thought."

"The challenge was more regarding the logistic thing. When they see the song they shouldn't feel ki 'arey mera cut kia'. You know to give them that respect and equal screen space was a challenge."

However, Farah feels that such camaraderie between the film stars seems unlikely among the current bunch of actors.

"I think the younger generation is very cynical. I was telling someone that maybe they won't have great fights and great enmities, but there won't be great friendships either. I mean they are nice and all, but I don't think they share the camaraderie which we see in Om Shanti Om."

You can also relive some of the memories of the film by checking out these pictures Farah shared and what Shah Rukh and Deepika responded to it.

Cant believe its #10YearsOfOSO .. feels like yesterday.thank you 4 the lov it still gets.. @iamsrk @deepikapadukone going 2pakao ul 2day pic.twitter.com/EPRJBVVdel  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) November 9, 2017

The 1 that started it all! Thank u @iamsrk 4 taking off ur shirt n making millions happy!!#10YearsOfOSO pic.twitter.com/lZXAemAGlM  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) November 9, 2017

Like I have said before. Only for u and nobody else. As Tom Cruise said  U exploit me  https://t.co/ncMKqvYHM2  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 9, 2017

Im exploiting u for the World Shah.. im very selfless that way..  https://t.co/YNe0t0rt9K  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) November 9, 2017

The 1st photo shoot of @deepikapadukone .. the 1 where i knew shes my Shantipriya.. #10yrsofOSO.. pic credit-@avinashgowarikar pic.twitter.com/FMGvrEG5ge  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) November 9, 2017

N Dont forget ur unforgettable cameo in the drunken scene  https://t.co/vAOg9NbdiI  Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) November 9, 2017
Mumbai: Another publicist told the Times the comedian would not respond to their reporting. Schachner, who said she heard C.K. masturbating on the phone in 2003, declined comment to The AP and representatives for the other three named women did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Corry alleges the comedian, while she was working on TV pilot in 2005, asked if we could go to my dressing room so he could masturbate in front of me. She declined and he told me he had issues. The shows executive producers, Courteney Cox and David Arquette confirmed Corrys account to the Times. Cindy Guagenti, Arquettes representative, told The AP her client had nothing more to add.

In anticipation of the report, the New York premiere of Louis C.K.s new film I Love You, Daddy was canceled on Thursday night and C.K.s scheduled Friday appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert also has been scrapped. The small distribution company handling the release of I Love You Daddy said it is reviewing the situation and giving careful consideration to the timing and release of the film.

HBO announced Thursday that C.K. would no longer be participating in Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism Programs, set to air on the cable channel November 18. HBO also said it will remove C.K.s past projects from its video on demand services.

C.K. is among the latest Hollywood figures to be accused of misconduct in a wave that began when dozens of sexual harassment allegations were reported last month against film mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Known for his candid, warts-and-all personal humor, which often includes talk of bodily fluids and sex, C.K. grew up outside Boston. He performed stand-up sets in New York and eventually landed writing gigs on Conan OBriens Late Night and David Lettermans Late Show.
Bharathi Sagar was always fascinated by human behaviour - as an artist, she excelled in portraits, studying the nuances of emotion through her work. After years of this, however, she believed it was time for change.

"I gave up painting for a year," she recalls, shortly before her solo show, Intelligent Field, a series of mixed media paintings opens at Gallery Time and Space. Some years previously, however, at a show at the Birla Institute in Kolkata, she found herself attending the end of a workshop. "I liked the process they were teaching but there was only one person around - everybody else had packed up and left. She told me what materials were used, however." The process involved using lime juice and metal dust, one that she promised herself she would try. These plans lay forgotten until the start of her artistic crisis, when she began her experiments in earnest. Intelligent Field, a highly conceptual, philosophically-rooted show, is a product of this too.

"I have liberated my art from the parameters of the known, to the paradigms of the intangible," she writes in her artist's note. Her inspiration came from her husband, Surendra Kumar Sagar and his book, Intelligent Field, a culmination of his attempts to bridge the gap between science and art. "The idea had always fascinated him and one day, during a visit to the British Library, he found that it had been done before," she says. In 1955, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto called for a conference of scientists to contemplate the dangers of nuclear war. The conference was funded by Cyrus Eaton, an industrialist and philanthropist, who hosted the conference in his birth place, Pugwash, giving the conference its name. Surendra Sagar tracked down its members, only to find that the President, Professor Swaminathan, lived in Chennai. "That set the ball rolling," she says. The couple have immersed themselves in Oriental philosophy, poring over the Vedantas to better understand the idea of a collective consciousness.

The learnings from the Pugwash Conferences, feels Sagar, are more relevant now than ever before. "The geopolitical situation is precarious," she remarks. Dealing with a world poised on the brink of chaos became the essence of her show, which is an attempt to understand macro concerns at a micro level.

"It's a dangerous period, anything can happen at any time. But there is the promise of a better future," she says. Her works are infused with hope in the midst of this chaos, as are ideas of life, death and eternity.

What: Intelligent Field by Bharati Sagar

When: Nov. 11 to Nov. 17

Where: Gallery Time an Space, No 55, The Guild, 1st Floor, Lavelle Road
Eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and if your doctor has prescribed you medications for your blood pressure, be sure and take them consistently (Photo: AFP)

Extreme ups and downs in systolic blood pressure may be just as deadly as having consistently high BP, according to a study.

Researchers from Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in the US found that patients with systolic blood pressure numbers that varied by as much as 30 or 40 between doctor visits over an extended period of time were more likely to die than those with less extreme variances in their BP.

The systolic blood pressure reading (the upper number) indicates how much pressure blood is exerting against the artery walls when the heart beats.

According to the American Heart Association, a normal systolic blood pressure is less than 120. High blood pressure is categorised as above 140.

"Blood pressure is one of those numbers we encourage people to keep track of, as it is one indicator of your heart health," said Brian Clements from Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute.

"The takeaway from the study is, if you allow your blood pressure to be uncontrolled for any period of time, or notice big changes in your blood pressure between doctor visits, you increase your risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney or heart failure, or even death," said Clements, lead invesigator of the study.

The researchers examined visit-to-visit variability of systolic blood pressure in 10,903 patient records. The patients were required to have had seven blood pressure measurements between 2007 and 2011.

After the date of their seventh recorded systolic blood pressure measurement, the patients were followed for five years, with researchers looking at all causes of mortality.

"The call to action for patients as a result of this study is to do everything they can to control their blood pressure on a regular basis," said Clements.

"Eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and if your doctor has prescribed you medications for your blood pressure, be sure and take them consistently. Because any time your blood pressure is out of control, you are at higher risk of injury or death," he said.
Women age 60 or older had better overall quality of life scores and fewer complaints about memory problems and physical symptoms. (Photo: Pixabay)

Menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats have the biggest impact on quality of life for women in their early-to-mid-50s, a small U.S. study suggests.

Women age 60 or older had better overall quality of life scores and fewer complaints about memory problems and physical symptoms, researchers report in Maturitas, but they still had issues like sexual dysfunction, fatigue and mood swings.

This study emphasizes the need for clinicians to initiate conversations with women about sexual health and psychosocial changes associated with aging, said senior study author Dr. Carolyn Torkelson of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Women are living healthy, productive lives many years beyond menopause, thereby creating a demand for services that are unique to this population, Torkelson said by email.

Women go through menopause when they stop menstruating, which typically happens between ages 45 and 55. As the ovaries curb production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone in the years leading up to menopause and afterwards, women can experience symptoms ranging from vaginal dryness to mood swings, joint pain, memory trouble and insomnia.

For the study, researchers examined data from questionnaires completed by 932 women in Minnesota who were part of a larger trial examining whether green tea extract influences the odds of developing breast cancer.

Women in the study were about 60 years old on average. Most of them were white, and they were typically a healthy weight or just slightly overweight.

Overall, participants under age 55 reported more night sweats and hot flashes than their older counterparts.

These younger women in the study also reported increased severity of changes in sexual desire.

Older women, meanwhile, reported less severe symptoms for physical problems like fatigue, difficulty sleeping, weight gain and changes in appearance.

The study wasnt a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how menopause symptoms impact quality of life.

Beyond its small size and the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among the study participants, another drawback is that participants were typically healthier and better educated than the average U.S. woman.

While these limitations mean the results may not apply to a more diverse population of women, the findings still add to the evidence that menopause can impact quality of life, said Dr. Susan Davis, a researcher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who wasnt involved in the study.

It is well established that menopausal symptoms peak during the early postmenopausal years, Davis said by email.

Given the broad variety of ways that menopause and aging can impact womens daily lives, its essential for doctors to ask patients directly about symptoms that patients may not necessarily bring up like sexual dysfunction or bladder issues, said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, a researcher at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut, who wasnt involved in the study.

Most women do associate hot flashes with menopause, and some blame just about everything on menopause, like a 40-pound weight gain, which is highly unlikely to be a strictly menopausal issue, Minkin said by email.

Most surveys show that most women do not talk about vaginal dryness, which is a significant issue for most women, Minkin added. And unfortunately, associated with the vaginal dryness are bladder symptoms, like recurrent urinary tract infections, which neither the patient nor the provider often associate with menopause.
ISRO Chairman Dr A.S. Kiran Kumar (centre) and others at the 6th International Conference on Climate Change and Sustainable Water Resource Management-Innovative Geospatial Solutions in Bengaluru on Thursday. (Photo: DC)

Bengaluru: Although water covers 71 per cent of the earth, degradation of soil quality, irregular rainfall and the melting of glaciers could reduce the availability of water by 37 per cent by 2050, warned Dr AS Kiran Kumar, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) here on Thursday.

The scientist, who was dwelling on the effects of climate change on water, however, assured that the problem could be tackled with geospatial techniques. Addressing the 6th international conference on climate change and sustainable water resources management, he said India with its state-of-the-art satellite systems was providing satellite data to address the looming crisis of water resources.

Observing that climate change leading to high temperatures and larger variability in rainfall, were global concerns, Mr Kumar said Isro had begun mapping of wetlands, snow, glaciers, groundwater prospects, river systems, flood plains and identifying groundwater recharge locations to fight its effects.

Commenting on the precarious water situation in Karnataka where one had to go as deep as a 1000 feet to find water, Dr. Y.V.N. Krishna Murthy, director, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad, said the focus of the government was now on starting a second green revolution in the eastern part of the country.

Addressing the concerns of environmentalists on the linking of rivers, he agreed that precautions needed to be taken, but assured that it could be beneficial in the long run.
The body was found in their San Francisco apartment. Liams real name is Othman Al-Muttablaby.

Gay porn star Ali Liam, who had gone missing following the stabbing death of his boyfriend, Kieth Harris has been arrested and booked on a first-degree murder charge.

The body was found in their San Francisco apartment. Liams real name is Othman Al-Muttablaby.

According to the sheriffs department, Al-Muttalaby was booked at 8 pm. on Tuesday, November 7. Deputies made the arrest that day at 3:30 p.m. Hes currently in Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

Meanwhile, it turns out Al-Muttalaby is in the hospitals jail ward and has been treated for an injury, but police havent disclosed what type of injury it is or whether it was self-inflicted.

Its not clear how long he has been in the hospital. A source has confirmed to Str8UpGayPorn that he is being detained there on a 51/50 (involuntary psychiatric hold) while awaiting transfer to jail.

San Franciscos Bay Area Reporter spoke with a friend of Al-Muttalabys. Vivien Habeeb told them that shed heard from him the day he was arrested.

Keith Harris was found stabbed to death in his apartment on Thursday, November 2, as reported by the Bay Area Reporter. Ali is a gay porn performer who worked for sites Men.com and Pride Studios earlier this year, going by the name Ali Liam.
Pilot of Air India Jaipur-Delhi flight refused to fly due to duty limitations prescribed by the DGCA. (Photo: File)

Jaipur: Forty passengers of a Jaipur-Delhi flight of Alliance Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, had a harrowing time after the pilot refused to fly,

saying his duty hours were over.

Officials said some of the passengers were taken to Delhi by road while others were provided hotel accommodation and the rest were sent in another flight on Thursday morning.

"The pilot's duty-time got over and therefore, he could not take the flight," said J S Balhara, director, Sanganer airport, Jaipur.

He said the pilot cannot exceed duty hours for safety reasons as per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) norms.

"The pilot and crew of a flight coming from Delhi was scheduled to take the flight (9I-644) from Jaipur to Delhi last night. But, the flight from Delhi was delayed and landed at Jaipur at 1:30 am," a staff at the Air India station office said.

The pilot refused to fly due to duty limitations prescribed by the DGCA, he said.

Some of the passengers were accommodated in hotels, some were taken to Delhi by road and others were sent in another flight on Thursday morning, he added.
The incident occurred when the Chennai-Mumbai train arrived at Wadi junction around 3 pm on Wednesday and halted for the diesel engine to be attached to the bogies as the route from Wadi to Solapur in Maharashtra is not electrified. (Representational Image)

Mumbai: An electric train engine travelled for about 13 kms without loco pilot from Wadi station in the district before being brought to a halt by a staff member who chased it on a bike.

The staffer successfully caught up with the engine in a filmy style, and got on to it and stopped it.

The incident occurred when the Chennai-Mumbai train arrived at Wadi junction around 3 pm on Wednesday and halted for the diesel engine to be attached to the bogies as the route from Wadi to Solapur in Maharashtra is not electrified, railway officials said.

As a daily routine, the diesel engine was attached to the Mumbai train which left for Solapur on its onward journey from Wadi, the officials said. But in the meantime, due to a slip up, the electric engine started moving on its own after the loco pilot alighted from it.

As a stunned loco pilot looked on, the Wadi station authorities alerted the next few stations to clear the signals and tracks.

To prevent any possible mishap, trains coming from the opposite direction were also stopped, the officials said. As the electric engine ran, the railway staff gave a chase to it on a motorbike, managed to board it when it slowed down and stopped it near Nalwar but not before it had cruised for about 13 kms.

It was not exactly known how the electric engine began to move, the officials said, adding, an inquiry by a special team was underway.
tnAchieves, the partnering organization to Governor Haslams TN Promise, is still in need of 3,000 volunteer mentors throughout the state to provide assistance to the class of 2018 TN Promise candidates. In conjunction with the TN Promise scholarship, the mission of tnAchieves is to "increase higher education opportunities for Tennessee high school students by providing last-dollar scholarships with mentor guidance." In order to make this possible, tnAchieves pairs every student with a volunteer mentor who serves as both a resource and an advocate.



In order to qualify, mentors must be 21 years or older, must be subject to a background check and be willing to invest 10-15 hours annually by assisting 5-10 high school seniors with post-secondary success.



In Chattanooga States service area, tnAchieves still needs the following number of mentors:



Hamilton County: 49 mentors

Grundy County: 5 mentors

Marion County: 6 mentors

Rhea County: 8 mentors

Sequatchie County: 1 mentor



Those interested may apply to become a mentor on the tnAchieves website https://tnachieves.org/mentors/apply by Dec. 1.
Kodagu (Karnataka): In the wake of Tipu Jayanti, Section 144 has been imposed in Karnataka's Kodagu on Friday.

Authorities have also tightened security in the regard.

"Section 144 imposed in Kodagu ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebration, security tightened," the District Administration said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposed the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain said the Congress-led government is worried about Tipu Sultan instead of the state's public.

"Karnataka government is not paying attention to the problem of the public, the poor, and the farmers, but they are really worried about Tipu Sultan. When will CM Siddaramaiah cares about the village farmers," he said.

BJP spokesperson Zafar Islam said the Congress performs these kinds of stunts to appease people, but the BJP is not going to join them.

"Congress perform these kinds of stunts to appease people. They are doing the same in Karnataka but the custom will backfire on them, and they will have to pay its cost. Bharatiya Janata Party is against such appeasements," he said.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJP and the RSS views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus.

After witnessing major clash in 2015 in the state over the celebrations of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the Karnataka Government last year decided to make the event an annual affair.
Om Prakash Dhurve, BJP minister from Madhya Pradesh, was addressing a gathering at an event on the first anniversary of demonetisation. (Photo: ANI)

Umaria: In a shocking incident, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister from Madhya Pradesh said that he has not been able to understand the Goods and Services Tax (GST) yet.

While addressing a gathering at a BJP event on the first anniversary of demonetisation, party minister Om Prakash Dhurve said he is yet to understand GST.

His statement comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi exuded confidence over the GST that was rolled out in July 1.

"I am yet to understand GST so I won't speak about it. Even CAs and businessmen are facing problem in understanding it," said Dhurve.

The minister added: "Gradually people will understand and feel relaxed about the step that has been taken up by the government."

Meanwhile, the 23rd meeting of the GST council is scheduled to be held in Guwahati, Assam, later in the day.

The GST Council meeting, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is likely to witness deliberations on a number of topics, including extended liberalisation given to small traders, rate cuts on air-conditioned restaurants from 18 to 12 percent, and the issue of 'benami' properties.

Since the implementation of GST, the tax brackets have been changed for over 100 items.
The Global Entrepreneurs Summit, which will be held in the city from November 28, has come as a blessing in disguise for residents of Shamshabad-HICC-Falaknuma road which is getting a facelift. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: The Global Entrepreneurs Summit, which will be held in the city from November 28, has come as a blessing in disguise for residents of Shamshabad-HICC-Falaknuma road which is getting a facelift. The rest of the city roads are left untouched. Deccan Chronicle did a quick visit to the localities where the condition of roads is deplorable. Kapra, Radhika, A.S Raonagar, Neerdmet in the east zone, Golkonda Crossroads, RTC Crossroads, Narayanguda, opposite Mahaveer Hospital at Masab Tank, Krishna temple near Niloufer, Ek Minar Masjid at Nampally, BHEL R&D, and Balanagar have damaged roads, filled with ditches.

Ms Smithi Agarwal said, I live at Marredpally and requested the GHMC to repair the entire road which has been damaged. Mohammed Moqeed from Ashok Nagar said, We have water flowing onto the road at Ashok Viharnagar colony. We cant use a vehicle there. The civic body is putting thrust on roads, which will be used by VVIPs and other delegates who will flock to the city for the summit. Over 2,000 delegates are scheduled to stay in the city from November 28. Most of them will be staying in hotels at Madhapur and Falaknuma.

The area around the summit venue and hotels where the delegates are expected to stay are also being decked up. Smooth roads with planned greenery and painted pavements with tiles. This is the scene at Falaknuma which is being spruced up to roll out a red carpet welcome for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ms Ivanka Trump, daughter of the US President, for the summit. The new look enthrals road users on the busy Shamshabad, Aramgarh, Chandrayangutta and Falaknuma areas. However, it is completely a mess in the neighbourhood. The past two weeks were bad for us. The roads got damaged in the heavy rains and the authorities are least bothered to repair them, said Mr. Syed Mahmood Hussain, pointing out to the damaged road from Bibi Ka Chashma to Engine Bowli.

A kilometre away from the place, foul smell emanates from Sikander Hotel street at Fatimanagar, right behind the majestic Taj Falaknuma Hotel. The drains in the neighbourhood are overflowing for the last few days. The local corporator visited twice and assured us help. But nothing has happened so far, said a woman resident. The government is spending lakhs to improve the facilities on the main road for VVIPs who would travel in high-end cars. What about tax payers who have to suffer this miserable condition, noted Mr Haji Akram, a resident of Farooqnagar. At least some works should be taken up. Right in front of our eyes our money is spent to treat VVIPs, complai-ned Mr Mohammed Yawar, a transport agent.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday visited Jahangir Peer dargah at Kothur mandal in RR district to offer chaddar to fulfil his votive for the creation of Telangana state. Mr Rao said he had offered prayers at the dargah for Telangana statehood when he was Mahbubnagar MP and had returned to make offerings as thanksgiving. Mr Rao announced a grant of Rs 50 crore for the development of the dargah. After making the offerings, Mr Rao said it was his old promise to visit the dargah if statehood was achieved,

My wish was fulfilled in 2014 I have come here to offer the chaddar as thanksgiving, Mr Rao said. Following requests made by local leaders for sanctioning of funds for development of villages and thandas surrounding the dargah, the CM announced Rs 10 lakh for each village and Rs 5 lakh for each thanda that fall under Kothur mandal limits. Mr Rao also promised to construct guest houses near the dargah to accommodate visitors, besides developing the area as a tourist destination. The Assembly was adjourned early after ministers and TRS MLAs desired to accompany Mr Rao.
Mangaluru: While the Kambala season is set to take off in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts with the first buffalo race in Moodabidri on Saturday, theres much uncertainty about its future with the Supreme Court expected to hear a plea against it on November 13.

Animal rights activists are objecting to the traditional sport, claiming it tortures the buffaloes, whose anatomy is not made for racing. After staying the sport briefly in response to their concerns, the state government passed an ordinance amending the Prevention of Cruelty Act to allow Kambala and received the green signal from the President for its Prevention of Cruelty to Animal (Karnataka Amendment) Ordinance 2017" on July 3 this year.

But not giving up, the activists have approached the Supreme Court against the ordinance and it has issued notices to the state and Union governments, asking their representatives to appear before it on November 13.

"Activists have been arguing that the anatomy of the buffalo is not fit for running. This is a very strong argument which we need to fight, Kambala Academy president, Gunapal Kadamba told Deccan Chronicle.

"The only solution is to prove that the anatomy of the buffalo makes it fit to run. We consulted experts on this and have got a report in our favour. But the state government too should have a study done by an anatomist and veterinary experts to establish if the buffalo breeds used in Kambala are fit for racing. If these experts certify that the anatomy of the buffalo makes it fit to run, it will be easy to tackle the activists. Until the government does such a study there will always be the fear of Kambala being banned," he added.
Reddy on Friday alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was preparing the ground to wash his hands off the promise of giving 12 per cent reservation to Muslims. (Photo: File)

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Friday alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was preparing the ground to wash his hands off the promise of giving 12 per cent reservation to Muslims.

Speaking to mediapersons at Gandhi Bhavan, he said, if Rao was sincere, then he should have announced that the TRS would not seek votes from Muslims and STs if he failed to implement promised reservation for both the communities.

Reddy, while addressing an election meeting on April 19, 2014, said that Rao had promised to implement 12 per cent Muslim quota within four months after coming to power.

The TRS government has completed three years, five months and nine days in power but not a single poor muslim has benefited from his promise, he said.

The Muslim Reservation Bill was passed on April 16, 2017, and after six months and 25 days, Rao said he will would pressurise the Centre.

We seriously doubt his intentions on 12 per cent Muslim quota, Reddy added.

He also expressed doubts over KCR's claim that he spoke to Modi on the Muslim reservation issue. He said Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu, as the then the Union Minister, had openly stated that Modi was against Muslim reservation.

Similarly, Telangana BJP leaders have clearly stated that they were against Muslim reservation.

"Is PM Modi separate from BJP? Who should we trust on this? Should we trust KCR's claim that Modi was in favour of Muslim quota or should we believe BJP leaders?" he asked.

The TPCC President demanded Chief Minister to give a clear cut deadline for implementing the 12 per cent quota for Muslims.
Thiruvananthapuram: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the government to probe into charges against former chief minister Oommen Chandy, various politicians and police officials will start the probe only by next week. The SIT may form separate wings for probe into various issues.

According to sources, the team headed by North-zone DGP Rajesh Dewan will hold discussions with state police chief Loknath Behera and convene a meeting of the team members next week to decide further course of action.

Sources said that there was no chance of registering any case immediately. As many as 22 persons would have to face the probe as per the Gover-nment Order issued on Wednesday late night.

The SIT may constitute separate wings for probe into various issues. A team led by the Special Investigation Unit-I SP E.S. Bijumon could be entrusted with the corruption angles.

The allegations of sexual gratification is likely to be entrusted with Crime Branch DySP A. Shanavaz as the sexual allegation case against former Congress legislator A.P. Abdullakutty was already being probed by him. However, the case has been in cold storage for over two years as Saritha did not turn up to give statements to the police.

Another team will probe into the charges against the Special Investigation Team that probed the 33 cases pertaining to solar cheating.

Sources in the police said that it was an indeed a baffling job ahead for the investigation team. Even the Government Order is very vague. The SIT may initially analyse the documents available and then proceed with recording con woman Saritha S. Nairs statement afresh. Only then can it decide on registering cases as there were already allegations over contradictions in Sarithas earlier petitions and statements, especially with regard to the sexual charges.

Since Mr Dewan has hardly five months of service left, a decision needs to be taken on registering a case he was not interested in taking over. He had earlier informed his displeasure on being entrusted with the probe.

IG headquarters Dinendra Kashyap was nominated as the station house officer by the government. A formal notification in this regard will be issued. Crime Branch SP P.B. Rajeevan and DySP B. Radhakrishna Pillai are the other members of the team. The team would be expanded in due course.
Hyderabad: A soft-spoken, humble man who can be tough when at work  that is how colleagues and friends describe Mr M. Mahendar Reddy, new director-general of police in Telangana.

A native of Krishnapuram village in Khammam district, Mr Reddy completed his schooling at AP Residential School in Sarvail, Nalgonda district. He completed his Intermediate from a residential junior college in Nagarjunasagar and pursued a degree in engineering from the Regional Engineering College (REC), Warangal, where he was awarded a gold medal for his outstanding performance.

A keen learner, he always embraced technology and wanted to learn new things. He was a role model for all the students, and was extremely friendly, recalls Mr K.R.S Sharma who studied with Mr Reddy at the REC between 1980 and 1984.

Additional Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, Mr V.V. Srinivasa Rao will be incharge commissioner of police Hyderabad.

His friends say that Mr Reddy used to tell them about his childhood experiences, and how he used to joyfully assist his parents in the fields.

Mr Reddy has time and again acknowledged the contribution made by his teachers and friends in guiding, supporting and moulding him into what he is today. It began at the residential school which paved the way for me to become whatever I am today, he said.

The tough cop is a voracious reader on subjects such as management, policing and administration. His training visits and his understanding of policing and law enforcement in the western countries have helped him develop effective management techniques.

Speaking about his gentle nature, another friend who studied with him at the college in Nagarjunasagar said that Mr Reddy had promised his friends that his behaviour would not change after becoming a police officer, and he has lived up to his promise. His compassionate nature has brought to the forefront the concept of friendly policing, he says.

Outgoing DGP Mr Anurag Sharma had been appointed as the adviser to government on internal security.

Every year, Mr Reddy makes it a point to attend the alumni meet of his former school. His helping nature won him many friends in all fields and helped him maintain cordial relations with everyone. I remember the days when he stayed at a room in Nallakunta, alone, and prepared for the UPSC examination, recalled Dr K. Veera Nandi, the assistant director of animal husbandry and a schoolmate of Mr Reddy.

Mr Reddy joined Indian Police Service in 1986 and served in the districts of Karimnagar, Guntur, Adilabad, Nizamabad, Kurnool and Hyderabad city in various capacities.

He served as the deputy director of the SVP National Police Academy, Hyderabad, the commissioner of police of Cyberabad, inspector-general of intelligence, AP, chief of intelligence, AP, chief of Greyhounds and additional DGP of intelligence. Mr Reddy is confident that when he retires, he will leave behind a police force which will work in perfect sync with the public.
Aid to be hiked for temples with no income under Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam.

Hyderabad: Priests and staff working in temples across the state will get salaries through the treasuries department just as government employees do, from December 1.

Replying to questions raised by members in the Legislative Assembly during Question Hour on Friday, Endowments minister A. Indrakaran Reddy said the government had also increased salaries for priests from Rs 2,500 to Rs 6,000 per month.

The government has identified 4,805 temples to which it will extend financial assistance. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has given the highest priority to development of temples and welfare of priests, the minister said, and paying salaries through the treasuries department is a major milestone that no government in the country has achieved so far.

He said the practice of paying the salaries of priests and staff by temple committees was irregular and often delayed, so now they will receive their salaries in their bank accounts on the first of every month from the government.

The government will also enhance financial assistance to temples that have no income sources under the Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam scheme, the minister said.

Previous governments extended just Rs 2,500 to each temple per month, of which Rs 1,000 was given for the scheme and Rs 1,500 as salary of the priest. The TRS government has increased this to Rs 6,000, of which Rs 2,000 is for performing daily rituals to gods and Rs 4,000 towards salary of the priest. We have allocated Rs 34.60 crore for the scheme, Mr Reddy announced.

Previous governments assisted about Rs 1,805 temples and spent Rs 12.99 crore. The TRS government will assist 4,805 temples at a cost of Rs 34.60 crore.

The government has given Rs 10 lakh for construction of temples in dalit colonies without seeking any contribution from residents or others, Mr Reddy said.
Taking a strong note of his remarks on the logo of the Mission, the government issued a statement deploring that it showed serious insensitivity towards the Father of the Nation.

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday crossed swords with a top UN expert after the latters scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modis pet Swachh Bharat Mission which he described as lacking in a holistic human rights approach.

The government took strong exception to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation Leo Hellers reference to Mahatma Gandhis spectacles in the SBMs logo, and his rambling report containing inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases.

Tearing into Mr Modis favourite initiative, Mr Heller said, In the last two weeks I have visited rural and urban areas, slums and settlement camps where undocumented population is residing... And I have found that these initiatives lack a more human rights approach.

Taking a strong note of his remarks on the logo of the Mission, the government issued a statement deploring that it showed serious insensitivity towards the Father of the Nation.
The public is invited to join Southern Adventist University for a festive evening of food, fellowshipand music to kick off the Christmas season. Southerns annual Christmas Tree Lighting will be on Tuesday, Nov. 28, at 6:30 p.m. in front of Wright Hall, 4881 Taylor Circle in Collegedale.

The evening will begin with a welcome from President David Smith, followed by refreshments and performances be various music groups, including Southerns Jazz Ensemble, Collegedale Academy Band, the Southern Ringtones and more.

In case of inclement weather, the rain date will be Thursday, Nov. 30. For more information, call 423-236-2814.
New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will embark on his fourth visit to Gujarat on Saturday. Hitting the campaign trail in the BJP bastion of north Gujarat  Gandhinagar, Banaskantha and Sabarkantha, Gandhi is aiming to consolidate the grip of the Congress among the Patidars. Interestingly North Gujarat was the epicentre of the Patidar agitation. The Congress has already opened channels of negotiations with Patidars for their support.

Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who has been appointed as a special negotiator with the Patidars, has already held a meeting with leaders of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti to find ways of giving reservation to the Patidars.

Insiders privy to the meeting said that the Congress showed political commitment in fulfilling reservation for Patidars in educational institutions and government jobs.

Meanwhile the Congress on Friday began the process of shortlisting candidates for the Gujarat polls. Insiders claim that all Gujarat Congress MLAs who voted for the party during the Rajya Sabha polls, would be repeated.

Sources indicated that the Congress Central Election Committee on Friday cleared the names of 70 candidates for the first phase of Gujarat polls. The meeting was chaired by Ms Sonia Gandhi. The first list is only expected to be released sometime later next week.

The party is being very careful in candidate selection as it has to accommodate followers of Alpesh Thakor who recently joined the Congress. Apart from Thakor it is Patidar leader Hardik Patel and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani who will also have to be accommodated.

Since the Congress has already announced an alliance with the Sharad Yadav faction of the JD(U) they would also have to be given proper representation in the division of assembly segments.
The imposition of these sentences marks a commendable move forward in the effort to make family laws more equitable for Pakistani women and sets a good example for other Muslim countries to emulate. (Photo: Pixabay)

Shahzad Saqib was a married man who wanted to marry again. Not bothering to get permission from his wife Ayesha Bibi, he proceeded to marry another woman. When she found out, she did what many more first wives in Pakistan should do  she took her case to court. In court, her lawyers argued that the Family Laws Ordinance requires that the man obtain permission from his first wife prior to marrying the second. Saqib, for his part, made the argument that since it was his right to marry four wives, he should not have to obtain permission from anyone at all.

He was wrong. As the verdict showed, the Family Laws Ordinance requires that any man seeking permission to marry a second time must submit a written application to the chairman of the Arbitration Council. If no chairman has been appointed, the application, it has been pointed out, can be submitted to the council. If such an application is not submitted then the ordinance imposes fines and even imprisonment.

Few judges in Pakistan have enforced the provision. Some are amenable to the premise that since the permission to marry four women has been granted in Islam, all the conditions attached to the union can be ignored. The matter came up in a Supreme Court decision sometime ago. The judges in that case correctly pointed to the fact that the permission for polygamy is not a blanket grant but rather qualified by the idea of doing justice between all wives.

Under the provisions of the ordinance, the failure to obtain permission from the wife and the Arbitration Council can be brought to a courts attention by the aggrieved party. Under the ordinance any woman who knows that such permission either from her or the chairman of the Arbitration Council was not obtained can take the man to court. In the second case discussed here, a sentence of one months impr-isonment was imposed on the man who had flouted the law. In the case of Shahzad Saqib, a jail term of six months has been imposed. The law permits judges to impose a prison sentence of up to one year.

The imposition of these sentences marks a commendable move forward in the effort to make family laws more equitable for Pakistani women and sets a good example for other Muslim countries to emulate. As organisations such as Sisters in Islam from Malaysia have been pointing out for many years, there is no blanket permission for polygamy in Islam or in the Quran.

Furthermore, the deleterious effects of polygamy on women and children, documented by this organisation, call for intervention by judicial institutions. The evide-nce collected by the group reveals that both women and children living in polygamous households experience high amounts of emotional stress and upheaval leading to dep-ression and other illnesses.

More recent research published in the Journal of Family Studies in 2015 found that children in polygamous families suffer more mental health issues than those in monogamous families. They are said to exhibit poor adjustment, aggressive and anti-social behaviour, communication disorders and poor self-concept. Children from such families have lower levels of academic achievement than those from families with one father and one mother. Incidents of family violence, marital discord and ultimately divorce are also more likely in polygamous homes.

Going by the findings mentioned, it appears that polygamy creates far more problems than it solves. The problem in these cases is not the destitution faced by women, but rather a society that imagines having a male protector as the only way women can obtain safety and security in a society.

For all these reasons, the judicial enforcement of the imprisonment provisions of the Family Law Ordinance must be saluted and welcomed.

By arrangement with Dawn
On his current tour of East Asia and the Indo-Pacific nations, US President Donald Trump was rounding off its China leg on Thursday, heaping praise on President Xi Jinping in the expectation that the Chinese leader can help the US with two crucial matters: Getting North Korea to back off on carrying out its threat to use nukes against the US, and using Chinas influence with Islamabad to curb international terrorism, of which Pakistan remains the nerve centre.

It is true China has significant influence with both North Korea and Pakistan, but it is unlikely Beijing will move one inch to use its leverage for any country or in world interest unless it is benefited by these actions.

As for Pakistan, we can only be amused. The US approach simply cannot be taken seriously. America had compelling leverage over Pakistan for six decades, and Islamabad was still sheltering Osama bin Laden. Promoting Islamist terror outfits is in Pakistans inner memory as it was founded on the basis of its religious identity alone.

Pakistan deploys its terrorist assets against India, and this comforts China. Among the most lethal terrorist groups nurtured by Pakistans ISI is the Jaish-e-Mohammed, whose leader Masood Azhar is on the UN list of dangerous terrorists. More than once in the recent past, Beijing has scuttled moves by India, as well as joint efforts of leading European powers, India and the US, for international action against the J-e-M founder.

So long as Chinese interests are inextricably bound with Pakistans, Beijing cannot be a part of the solution on important matters like terrorism and peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
The conspiracy theorists claim that Mr Johnsons blunders are calculated to test Ms Mays tenacity and they serve as a demonstration of her inability to move against him.

Why ask which came first

The chicken or the egg?

Were you implying

They were in a race?

You claim that your action

Is only a reaction 

And you say it with

Such a straight face?

From Lala Lala Garam

Masala by Bachchoo

My infant grandson has picked up the term meltdown and applies it to describe his sobbing fits. Its a term I have recently used to describe the tottering governance, though possibly not government, of UKs (for the moment) Prime Minister Theresa May.

Her former colleague and previous Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has dubbed her the dead woman walking.

This is not simply because poor Ms May faces the fate of Julius Caesar with the Brutuses, Cassiuses, Cascas and Cinnas within and outside her Cabinet, lining up behind her, but because scandal, disobedience and defiance threaten to weaken her government and may topple it.

The most recent and significant blow to her control of her government was her inevitable sacking of minister for international development Priti Patel. She went on a purported holiday to Israel and is alleged to have had 12 meetings with Israeli ministers, including one with Benjamin Netanyahu without the sanction or the knowledge of 10 Downing Street. She is alleged to have visited a field hospital in the Golan Heights with Israeli officials, in breach of the official UK stance, which does not recognise the Heights as Israeli territory.

When interrogated by Ms Mays team, Ms Patel owned up to two of several clandestine meetings and apologised. It subsequently emerged that she had had meetings in London through August and September with Israeli officials without any of her ministerial team present.

Conspiracy theorists speculate that Ms Patel was and has been conducting her own private business but there have been no hints as to its nature. Ms May ordered Ms Patel back from Uganda on Wednesday. She was driven from the airport straight to 10 Downing Street and was summarily sacked. The sacking began two weeks ago with Michael Fallon, the defence minister who was accused of sexual misbehaviour by a lady parliamentary journalist. She said he repeatedly put his hands on her bare knee at a dinner a few years ago. Before other complaints of a more serious sexual nature, threatened by other Westminster women emerge, Mr Fallon has been induced to resign and apologise for what he admitted was unacceptable behaviour today, though it may have been acceptable or overlooked 10 years ago. Now there is an investigation into her closest ally and adviser Damian Green, for similar sexual misdemeanours.

And then last week the blundering foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, known for his undiplomatic comments, put a fat foot in his loud mouth again. A British citizen called Nazanin Ratcliffe took her infant daughter a year ago to Iran where Nazanins parents live. She was arrested in Iran and jailed for allegedly being an enemy of the Iranian government. Nazanin, her husband and her lawyers insist that this is a completely unfounded and ridiculous charge as she went on holiday to get her daughter to meet her parents. They appealed to the UK foreign office to secure her release.

The foreign secretary did intervene  and made it worse. He told a Westminster parliamentary committee that Nazanin had been in Iran to train journalists. The Iranian authorities seized on this top-level British ministerial statement as proof of her guilt and have threatened her with a five-year extension to her sentence in one of Irans notorious prisons.

Mr Johnson compounded his unfounded statement by saying on the radio that he had said what he did to demonstrate to the Iranians that training journalists was not a crime. The Iranian regime doesnt agree.

There have subsequently been calls for Mr Johnson to resign and he may well do, even before this column goes to print. He is no stranger to controversy and has made statements which contradict government policy which Ms May, unlike others in her party, didnt see as a sacking offence. She blithely said, Boris is Boris! This may sound as profound as her former statement on the occasion of assuming the prime ministership, which was Brexit means Brexit! Or it may simply be a variation on the proverbial boys will be boys even after I make them foreign secretary.

The conspiracy theorists claim that Mr Johnsons blunders are calculated to test Ms Mays tenacity and they serve as a demonstration of her inability to move against him. Conspiracy-wallas could go further and say Mr Johnson is baiting Ms May in an attempt to get sacked from the Cabinet in order to be free to form a faction of the party to launch his leadership bid. To do that from within the Cabinet would seem inordinately disloyal; from the back-benches it could be legitimate dissent and offer a serious alternative.

One may contend that ministers come and go and Prime Ministers can play them like skittles, knocking down and setting up other members of their party. For weak and wobbly May this is not a routine option.

The issue that has bedevilled her party for five to six decades now is the split in opinion over Europe. Her present Chancellor, Philip Hammond is very wary of the immediate consequences on the UK economy of Brexit and wants as long a transition period as he can convince his Cabinet colleagues and Parliament to sanction. Others in the Cabinet want a clean break as soon as possible and damn the consequences. Mr Hammonds other dilemma is Ms Mays bid to outbid Labour for the popular vote. She has made all sorts of statements on housing, on student loans, on welfare payments, etc, to win the mass of voters over.

Mr Hammond has to square the costs of these half-promises with the vaunted policy of the Tories to keep taxes low and to steadily and drastically reduce the national debt. How Houdini Hammond will escape from this trap is yet to be seen. If he cant, he may also be shown the door. Meltdown?
Forty years is a long time for covert intrigues and conspiracies to successfully hide the murky truths of the past. The AfPak region, dubbed as the most hostile and terror-infested region in the world, is a lasting legacy of the Cold War machinations that involved the United States, its client state Pakistan and the forever-restive Afghanistan  the three nations who are fighting their own creation which has outlived its Cold War era objectives. Operation Cyclone is the forgotten code name for the US CIA initiative to arm, train and finance the famed Afghan mujahideens against the then USSR and its proxy state in Kabul between 1979 and 1992. The invaluable funnelling of the US support to the landlocked mujahideens was through the infamous Pakistani ISI, by the likes of Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul (known as the father of the Taliban), under the overall beneficence of the Machiavellian Pakistani dictator, Gen. Zia-ul Haq.

The potent combination of circumstances and providential timing of Zia-ul Haqs own desperation to deflect attention from political parties and legitimise his own military regime, his natural proclivity towards hardline Islam and the multiple carrots offered by the US to undertake its dirty job in Afghanistan led Zia to incubate the latter date, nurseries of terror. This jointmanship in the early 1980s saw then US President Ronald Reagan host the mujahideens in the White House. The embarrassing roster of the feted Afghan warlords in the US included Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (Butcher of Kabul who was flown to the US by the CIA in 1985), Mohammad Yunus Khalis (who on meeting Reagan famously suggested him to convert to Islam) and unbelievably, Jalaluddin Haqqani (the creator of the dreaded Haqqani network). These conveniently patronised, though lawless zealots, were borne into strife and an existential struggle that saw religion as the sole inspiration and commonality among each other that bound, their otherwise irreconcilable differences like ethnic, tribal and sectarian divides.

Later, after wearing out the Red Army and achieving the tactical objective of the Cold War era, the US disowned the Afghan mujahideens and the vacuum was filled-in with the continuance of interference by the Pakistani ISI. The subsequent internecine bloodshed for the control of Kabul allowed Pakistan to pull strings and nurture the mutations of the current-day terror organisations like the Taliban, Haqqani network and Khorasan Shura.

Incredulously, time and circumstances have confabulated into both the US and Pakistan naively blaming each other for the trail of deadly destruction that persists at the hands of these lovechildren who were knowingly parented by both the CIA and the ISI. Today, US President Donald Trump says, We can no longer be silent about Pakistans safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond while the Pakistani foreign minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif embarrassingly shoots back, Dont blame us for Haqqanis or dont blame us for the Hafiz Saeeds. These were the people who were your darlings just 20-30 years back. They were being dined and wined in the White House and now you say go to hell Pakistanis because you are nurturing these people! Basically, the US does not want to publicly accept that it selfishly bolted-out when its own purpose was served in Afghanistan and the Pakistanis do not want to accept that they have selfish ambitions of strategic depth in Afghanistan.

Caught in the midst of these competing ambitions is the fledgling government of the Fulbright scholar and academician Ashraf Ghani (the only Afghan leader in the last 40 years who has no history of warlord-ism). He is forced to meander carefully and creatively as he hails the new US-Afghan policy of increased financial support, retention of military wherewithal and additional boots-on-ground, as a game changer, whilst, simultaneously signing a peace deal with the despised history-sheeter Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. But with his initial patience having worn out, Mr Ghani reserves his unequivocal condemnation for Islamabads patent duplicity when he laments, We cannot understand when Pakistan says it will not allow a group of terrorists to amend its Constitution, Army Act and prepares a National Action Plan against them. Simultaneously, Pakistan tolerates another group which attempts to undermine the government and bring horror, death and destruction to Afghanistan.

The new US-Afghan policy is posited on convincing the Taliban and their ilk about the futility of militarily taking on the Afghan government, along with its supporting contingents from the US and the other Nato countries. This US recommitment to enhance stakes in Afghanistan should bring some relief to Kabuls struggling campaign in the face of increased terror attacks, desertions, dipping morale among troops and ground reversals that are specially coming in from the latest transformations in the guise of an Afghan offshoot of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The terror denominations, groupings and alliances in the bloody history of Afghanistan have been most fickle, tactical and unscrupulous  basically the terror industry of today, irrespective of the nomenclatures, owes its genesis to the lovechildren of US-Pakistan affairs of the 1980s. While Zia-ul Haq institutionalised the religio-militancy approach, the civilian politicians like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (who invited Hekmatyar and Rabbani), his daughter

Benazir (whose interior minister Naseerullah Babar propped the Taliban phenomenon) and the Nawaz Sharif governments in recent times have been accused of selectively pandering to terror organisations.

The pernicious ideology that accompanies these regressive forces is increasingly consuming Pakistan, which still believes it can turn on and neutralise the forces inimical to Pakistan (for example, Tehreek-e-Taliban by conducting dedicated operations like Zarb-e-Azb) while still controlling the narrative in Afghanistan by supporting forces like the Haqqani network and Afghan Taliban. This running with the hare and hunting with the hound approach is dangerously spinning out of control for Pakistan. However, for Islamabad to call a spade a spade would entail opening up a can of worms, and worse, delegitimising the most powerful institutions in Pakistan (the Pakistani military which is a state within a state).
These schools will offer the App Development with Swift Curriculum, a full-year course designed by Apple engineers and educators to teach coding and app design to students of all levels and backgrounds.

Apple has announced the global expansion of its Everyone Can Code initiative to more than 20 colleges and universities outside of the US. These schools will now offer the App Development with Swift Curriculum, a full-year course designed by Apple engineers and educators to teach coding and app design to students of all levels and backgrounds.

Now hundreds of thousands of students from around the world can gain the opportunity to become proficient in the Swift programming language and build the fundamental skills they need to pursue careers in the booming app economy.

RMIT University, Australias largest higher education institution is one of the broadest international deployments of the App Development with Swift Curriculum to date. As part of its commitment to improving digital literacy, starting this month RMIT will offer the App Development with Swift curriculum through RMIT Online, and a new vocational course will be taught on campus.

RMIT will also offer scholarships for school teachers who want to learn coding, and a free summer school course at RMITs City campus will give secondary students the chance to learn the basics of coding.

RMIT joins more than 20 international universities who are also offering the curriculum to students this year, including Mercantec in Denmark, Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Unitec Institute of Technology in New Zealand and Plymouth University in the UK.

We launched the Everyone Can Code initiative less than a year ago with the ambitious goal of offering instruction in coding to as many people as possible, Tim Cook said.

App Store customers have now downloaded more than 180 billion apps and Apple has paid out over $70 billion to developers since the store launched in 2008, making it the most vibrant software marketplace in the world.

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Sonys flagship Xperia XZ Premium boots a 4K display, yet there is no support from Sony to take advantage of its full potential for VR gaming.

Sonys Playstation range of consoles have been bestselling gaming devices for past two decades. It is ironic that despite being the market leader in gaming, and having flagship Xperia XZ Premium with a 4K display, there is no support from Sony to take advantage of its full potential for VR gaming.

However, Sony has launched its completely redesigned PlayStation App for Android and iOS. The new app is available for download in the App Store and Google Play. Dont get your hopes high though, you cannot play mobile specific games on it, rather it is more of a companion app for your phone if you own the PS4 console.

The new PlayStation app has a more intuitive design meant to make it easier to stay connected to your PS4, friends, and your favorite games while on the go.

The first new feature is the addition of a couple of new tabs at the bottom of the screen to make it easier and faster to switch between viewing who's online, checking notifications, and follow the latest activities and posts from friends and the PlayStation community.

Secondly, the developers have added a new central PS button (easy to recognize), which enables users to access the various features of the app faster and easier. For example, simply tapping the PS button will give you instant access to the PS Store, as well as the upcoming events window.

Sony also announced the release of a brand new PS4 Second Screen mobile app (Android and iOS), which should allow users to navigate their PS4's menu, use the on-screen keyboard and view extra content in compatible games (i.e. maps, radars).

Sonys flagship Xperia XZ Premium boots a 4K display, yet there is no support from Sony to take advantage of its full potential for VR gaming.

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It can be seen as a desperate attempt to avoid a possible delisting.

Toshiba Corp, desperate for cash to avoid a possible delisting, is considering raising about 600 billion yen ($5.3 billion) by offering new shares in a third-party allotment, a person briefed on the matter said on Friday.

The Japanese conglomerate has received proposals from several domestic and overseas brokerages for plans to raise money through a public offering or third-party allotment, and is looking into the option of allocating shares mainly to overseas investors, the person said.

In early trade, shares of Toshiba fell as much as 8 percent on the capital injection plan, first reported by public broadcaster NHK. They were down 4.5 percent by mid-morning, underperforming the benchmark Nikkei averages 1 percent fall.

Strapped with liabilities arising from its bankrupt US nuclear unit, Toshiba agreed in September to sell its prized chip unit, Toshiba Memory, to a group led by Bain Capital for $18 billion. Earlier it had also sold its camera sensor business to Sony. It needs to beef up its balance sheet by the end of the fiscal year in end-March to avoid a possible delisting.

The source told Reuters that Toshiba wants to finalise the capital injection plan by year-end because it would need shareholder approval depending on the offering price and scope of share dilution. The person declined to be identified because the plan is not public.

In a statement, Toshiba repeated its stance that it was aiming to close the deal to sell its chip business by the end of March, saying in response to the NHK report that nothing specific had been decided regarding any funding plans.

Announcing half-year results a day earlier, Chief Financial Officer Masayoshi Hirata said Toshiba had launched a working group to consider various options to raise capital in case the deal did not close in time. He offered no specifics.

Toshiba reported robust second-quarter results with a 76 percent jump in operating profit driven almost entirely by a strong performance from its memory chip unit.

If Toshiba fails to close the sale in time, that could keep Toshiba in negative net worth for a second year in a row, putting pressure on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to delist it.

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The new South Asia strategy comprises of regionalisation, realigning of forces, reinforcing them and to reconciliation, the political goal, Mattis told reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Photo: AP/File)

Washington: As part of its new south Asia strategy, the United States wants to make sure that there are no terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said, asserting that there are ways for the US-led NATO member countries to hold Islamabad accountable for its fight against terrorism.

The new South Asia strategy comprises of regionalisation, realigning of forces, reinforcing them and to reconciliation, the political goal, he told reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

What we want to do is start with - from India to across the region - is to make certain that everyones working off the same sheet of music.

We want to make certain that no terrorist organisation can find a haven anywhere, and, with a border adjoining Afghanistan, that makes Pakistan a priority, Mattis said.

As such the United States is engaging with the Pakistanis, he added.

Were engaging a whole-of-government effort. Weve got international efforts going on. And one of the reasons we brought it up here was to make certain we were all aligned about where we stood on this, the US Defence Secretary said.

Referring to the discussions he had with other NATO member countries, Mattis said, It was remarkable alignment about us all working together to get Pakistan to do everything it can to cut the insurgents off, the terrorists off.

When asked what is different with the Pakistan policy this time, Mattis said there are ways that the US can reward Pakistan and ways that the international community can ensure they are held to account.

But our principle, going into this, is that we are going to work with Pakistan and make this work, so that theres no longer a threat coming across the border there, he said.

This is an international effort and not just an American- alone effort, he added.

So that in itself, that were aligned internationally, now, with what were doing, is probably the biggest change, he said.

At the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting, Mattis said he and his colleagues were orchestrating their fight against terror and the next steps from Afghanistan to the Middle East.

Over the two days, I shared with them President Donald Trumps South Asia strategy, which was very well received and firmly supported, he said.

Specifically to Afghanistan, the reconciliation remains the political goal of NATOs military campaign and our comprehensive approach, Mattis said, adding that the Reconciliation must be Afghan-led, with an open door to the Taliban if they choose to stop killing and live by the Afghan constitution.

This strategy, carried out by, with and through our Afghan partners and within the coalition framework ensures this regional campaign is politically, fiscally and militarily sustainable, he said.

There is no military campaign that does not have a political goal, he added.

Mattis said the NATO nations and coalition partners are in the process of finalising troop increases and additional support efforts.

Over two dozen nations have stated that they intend to raise the troop numbers that they have on the ground there now, including some very small nations, for whom this is the largest overseas deployment they have been engaged in.

We appreciate their commitment to stabilising the South Asia region, he said.
Paris: The Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened its doors on Wednesday, started life as a simple sketch on a restaurant napkin, says French architect Jean Nouvel.

It is a welcome triumph for Nouvel, who admits he is still smarting from a controversy surrounding the iconic Philharmonie de Paris.

He refused to attend the 2015 opening of the Paris building, which is now deemed a massive success, but he is much happier about the new cultural highlight in the United Arab Emirates.

That napkin sketch he drew in 2006 eventually became what has been hailed by the media as a masterpiece, the Louvre of the Sands.

The Abu Dhabi building, the first to the carry the famed Louvre brand outside of France, has echoes of the now-famous pyramid outside the Paris art museum.

When Tom Krens (former director of the Guggenheim Foundation in New York) spoke to me about the project my first idea was of a micro-climate, of a museum which would be a neighbourhood rather than a building, Nouvel said in an interview. When I had all the information, I let the images scroll in the dark. I summon them, explained the 72-year-old who was speaking at the offices of his associate Hala Warde, surrounded by test models of the Louvre Abu Dhabi's dome.

While finishing the Abu Dhabi project the in-demand Nouvel also had to keep an eye on the construction of the tower at the Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paolo, as well as several projects in China.

How does he juggle so many architectural balls at the same time? Well, theyre not all at the same stage.

Each one takes 10 years on average, youre always in the process of beginning to design one.

On top of that each building is a series of projects. The Abu Dhabi dome was a project all by itself.

The 2015 controversy over the Paris Philhar-monic hall has faded, but not completely, in Nouvels mind at least. After being criticised over the projects spiralling costs and delays  running two years late and at twice its original budget  Nouvel was thrown off the project, which now resembles an alien craft above the Parc de la Villette in eastern Paris. He refused to attend the buildings inauguration and the humiliation still rankles for Nouvel, who doesnt forgive or forget. Among his great regrets, was the planned Guggenheim Museum in Rio de Janeiro never saw the light of day. An architect must learn to live with his ghosts, says Nouvel.


Danang: US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Asia-Pacific region was being held hostage by the twisted fantasies of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as he called on countries to stand united against Pyongyang. Trump has embarked on a tour of Asia this week trying to rally regional support for curbing North Koreas nuclear weapons programme, warning that time is running out over the crisis.

The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictators twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail, he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The region, he added, must stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger. The US administration thinks Chinas economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

Trump praises Indias growth story, PM Modi at APEC Summit

US President Donald Trump on Friday praised India's astounding growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual APEC summit, Trump said that countries outside the grouping were also making great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific. He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted it was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion.

Trump defiant on trade, vows to enforce america first plan

President Donald Trump gave a spirited airing of his America First doctrine in a speech to Asia-Pacific leaders on Friday, vowing his country will no longer tolerate unfair trade, closed markets and intellectual property theft, as he seeks to rewrite rules of global commerce. In a speech that by turns lavished praise on Asia-Pacific nations and accused them of undercutting the world's largest economy, he said US interests had been ill-served by the architecture of global trade. US will not tolerate... chronic trade abuses he said as he took aim at the WTO.
More deaths may still be uncovered with toxicology studies under way for five other cases, and exhumations of three former patients planned in Turkey. (Photo: File/Representational)

Berlin: A German nurse who used lethal drugs on patients out of "boredom" is responsible for the deaths of 106 people, investigators said Thursday, noting the toll could rise further as more bodies are studied.

Niels Hoegel, 41, was convicted in 2015 of two murders and four counts of attempted murder or causing bodily harm on intensive-care patients at the Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen.

But exhumations and analyses since have uncovered evidence of scores of other victims, with police saying in August that Hoegel had murdered more than 90 other patients.

On Thursday, police and prosecutors confirmed an additional 16 deaths, attributed to the nurse who worked at two hospitals between 1999 and 2005.

More deaths may still be uncovered with toxicology studies under way for five other cases, and exhumations of three former patients planned in Turkey.

Prosecutors said they expect to bring the new charges against Hoegel early next year.

He has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He earlier testified that at times he acted out of "boredom", feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life and also claimed to be devastated when he failed.

The death toll "is unique in the history of the German republic," the chief police investigator in the case, Arne Schmidt, said in August, adding that Hoegel killed "without a discernible pattern" and preyed especially on those in critical condition.

"The insights we were able to gain are terrifying, they surpass what we could have imagined," said Johann Kuehme, police chief in the city of Oldenburg, where the other hospital is located.

"He cannot remember every case, but in more than 30 he concretely remembered the patients and his behaviour," said prosecutor Daniela Schiereck-Bohlemann.

Numbers may never be known

The revelations date back to June 2005, when a female nurse witnessed Hoegel trying to inject a patient at the Delmenhorst hospital.

The patient survived and Hoegel was arrested and, in June 2008, sentenced to seven and a half years in jail for several cases of attempted murder.

Amid the media publicity, a woman then contacted police, voicing suspicion that her deceased mother had also fallen victim to the killer nurse.

The authorities exhumed several patients' bodies and detected traces of the drug in five of them, declaring it either the definitive or possible contributing cause.

Hoegel was jailed for life in 2015, but at the time it was clear he had murdered many more patients, with investigators admitting they may never know the true number as some remains had been cremated.

Several senior medical staff at Delmenhorst also face separate trials for having failed to act speedily over the high number of suspicious deaths when Hoegel was on duty.
Mordaunt lists India among her countries of interest, having worked with the charity Diabetes UK in India. (Photo: AFP)

London: British Prime Minster Theresa May replaced Priti Patel with Penny Mordaunt as the UKs new international development minister Thursday, a day after the Indian-origin MP resigned over her unauthorised secret meetings with Israeli politicians while on a holiday in the Jewish country.

May was under pressure from Eurosceptic MPs to ensure that Patel is replaced by a pro-Brexit MP like her predecessor to maintain a balance within the UK Cabinet.

Mordaunt, 44, is a pro-Brexit Conservative party MP for Portsmouth North who has held a number of junior ministerial posts, including the post of disability minister in the department for work and pensions from where she has now been promoted.

Mordaunt lists India among her countries of interest, having worked with the charity Diabetes UK in India.

The quick Cabinet reshuffle had become necessary after 45-year-old Patel was forced to resign from her Cabinet post in charge of the Department for International Development (DfID) Wednesday after days of controversy surrounding a series of unauthorised meetings she had held with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated. I offer a fulsome apology to you and to the Government for what has happened and offer my resignation, Patel had said in her resignation letter addressed to May.

Her letter also alluded to her staunch Brexit views, as one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum on Britains membership of the European Union.

From the backbenches I will continue to take an active role...speak up for our country, our national interests and the great future that Britain has as a free, independent and sovereign nation, she noted.

In her reply, May said: As you know the UK and Israel are close allies, and it is right that we should work closely together. But that must be done formally, and through official channels.

That is why, when we met on Monday I was glad to accept your apology and welcomed your clarification about your trip to Israel over the summer. Now that further details have come to light it is right you have decided to resign, May said.

The reply ended a day of intense political drama as news channels tracked Patels flight back from Africa, where she had left for an official visit after her initial apology over undisclosed meetings while on holiday in Israel in August.

However, she was summoned back to Downing Street by May after it emerged that there were further meetings that had potentially breached ministerial protocol.

It is understood that Patel met Israels public security minister, Gilad Erdan, in the UK Parliament complex in early September and an Israeli foreign ministry official, Yuval Rotem, in New York later that month.

May was reportedly told about the unreported New York meeting during Patels initial apology conversation at Downing Street on Monday but only learned about the unreported meeting with Erdan after the talks.

Ministers are required to tell the UK Foreign Office when they are conducting official business overseas, but it had emerged that British diplomats in Israel were not informed about any of Patels meetings  which included a meeting with Netanyahu and other political figures as well as charity organisations.

Patels resignation marks the second high-profile Cabinet shake-up for May within a week, after Michael Fallon stepped down as defence secretary amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

With a Budget statement just days away and deadlocked Brexit talks resuming this week ahead of a make-or-break EU summit next month, Patels exit has only added to Mays leadership woes with many predicting her own exit from Downing Street by the end of this year.
Istanbul: Turkish authorities detained 82 foreigners planning to go to Syria and suspected of links to IS in a string of anti-terror raids in Istanbul, state media reported on Friday. The suspects had previously been involved with Islamic State group extremists in conflict zones, state-run news agency Anadolu said without giving further detail.

They were detained during raids on 14 addresses and were planning to go to Syria in the coming days, it added. Elsewhere in the southern city of Adana, 11 alleged IS members of Syrian origin were detained, the agency said in the same report. The detentions come a day after vast anti-IS raids in Ankara during which 173 people were detained over alleged terror links.

A total of 1,500 police officers took part in the raids after authorities issued arrest warrants for 245 suspects. According to the interior ministry, around 450 suspects were detained accused of helping or being in contact with IS in October. Turkey has suffered a series of terror attacks blamed on IS over the past two years, including one on a popular Istanbul nightclub celebrating New Year during which 39 people were killed by an IS gunman.
Princes, ministers and a billionaire business tycoon were among dozens of high-profile figures arrested or sacked at the weekend, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidates power. (Photo: AFP)

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia said Thursday 201 people are being held for questioning over an estimated $100 billion in embezzlement and corruption, after the biggest purge of the kingdom's elite in its modern history.

Princes, ministers and a billionaire business tycoon were among dozens of high-profile figures arrested or sacked at the weekend, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidates power.

The purge comes amid heightened regional tensions, with Saudi Arabia and Iran facing off over a missile attack from Yemen and a political crisis in Lebanon after prime minister Saad Hariri's shock resignation announced from Riyadh.

"A total of 208 individuals have been called in for questioning so far... Seven have been released without charge," the Saudi information ministry said in a statement, quoting attorney general Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb.

Authorities have frozen the bank accounts of the accused and warned that assets related to the alleged corruption cases would be seized as state property, as the government appears set to widen the crackdown.

"The potential scale of corrupt practices which have been uncovered is very large," the statement said.

"Based on our investigations over the past three years, we estimate that at least USD $100 billion has been misused through systematic corruption and embezzlement over several decades."

High-profile figures, including billionaire tycoon Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, were arrested or sacked in the crackdown - just after an anti-graft commission headed by the crown prince was established.

Read: Saudi Arabia seeks to reassure investors after corruption purge

Rising tensions

Prince Mohammed, the son of 81-year-old King Salman, is already seen as the country's de facto ruler controlling all the major levers of government.

With the purge, which analysts describe as a bold but risky power play, the crown prince has centralised power to a degree that is unprecedented in recent Saudi history.

The crackdown comes as he moves to accelerate his Vision 2030 programme to modernise the conservative kingdom, but also as Riyadh takes a more aggressive stance in its wider region.

In the wake of a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport on Saturday, which was claimed by Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, the kingdom has accused Tehran of "direct aggression".

Read: Saudi Arabia heralds new era of transparency, clarity

Iran vehemently dismissed the charge that it supplied missiles to the Huthis and warned Saudi Arabia of its "might", prompting fresh acrimony between the regional heavyweights.

The tensions appear to be playing out in Beirut, the latest front line of the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

On Saturday, Hariri cited Iran's "grip" on Lebanon and threats to his life when he announced his resignation in a televised speech from Riyadh, precipitating a new political crisis in Beirut.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday urged its citizens to leave Lebanon "as soon as possible" and also called on them not to travel to the country, without specifying any threat.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday demanded the return of Hariri from Saudi Arabia, amid media reports that he was being held in the kingdom.

The regional tensions could escalate the proxy conflict between Riyadh and Tehran, which back opposing sides in wars and power struggles from Yemen to Syria.
Pakistan claims Kulbhushan Jadhav was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist activities in the country. (Photo: Videograb)

Islamabad: Pakistan on Friday offered India a meeting between Indian national Kulbushan Jadhav  convicted in Pakistan on terror charges  and his wife on humanitarian grounds.

A foreign ministry statement said the Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, in Pakistan purely on humanitarian grounds.

A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, added the statement.

The statement said: Commander Kulbushan Jadhav alias, Hussain Mubarak Patel, a serving Commander of the Indian Navy, working with Indian Intelligence Agency RAW (Research and Anaysis Wing) and was apprehended by Pakistan law enforcement agencies on March 3, 2016 after he illegally crossed over into Pakistan. He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilising and waging war against Pakistan.

Pakistan has been refusing consular access to Jadhav and has also conveyed its decision to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is hearing the case.

In a letter to the ICJ, Pakistan invited the United Nations courts attention towards Jadhavs "role in terrorism acts across Pakistan" that allegedly resulted in scores of deaths in the past.

New Delhi had twice sought consular access to Kulbhushan Jadhav  sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for fomenting terrorism in Pakistan. Both the times, Pakistan rejected the requests. India later challenged Jadhavs conviction in the ICJ.

Pakistan has also challenged the jurisdiction of ICJ regarding conviction of Jadhav after the UN court observed that turning down the request for consular access was a denial of right.

Pakistan, last month, communicated to the ICJ its designation of Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, a former Chief Justice of Pakistan, to be its Judge Ad-hoc in the Jadhav case.

Justice Jillani served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan from July 31, 2004 to December 11, 2013 and subsequently as the Chief Justice of Pakistan from December 11, 2013 until July 5, 2014.

The procedures of the ICJ allow a party to nominate a Judge Ad-hoc in circumstances where there is no Judge of the Court that has that partys nationality. Currently, there is no Judge of the Court that has Pakistani nationality, whereas Judge Dalveer Bhandari from India sits as a Judge of the Court. Those appointed as Judge Ad-hoc are treated as having the same authority on the court as any of the sitting Judges.

Jadhav has filed a mercy petition to army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, to spare his life on 'compassionate grounds'. Jadhav can still file another appeal to President Mamnoon Hussain if the army chief rejects his plea.

Pak-India tension has been running high since July 2016 after the killing of freedom fighter Burhan Wani. In September 2016, the tensions rose further as New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army in a single incident in 14 years. The strike killed 19 soldiers. Pakistan denied any link. Conviction of Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav added to the tension.

Since partition in 1947, Pakistan and India have been involved in four wars  including one undeclared  and many border skirmishes and military stand-offs. Kashmir has been the main source of tension.
Trump's remarks assume significance after he unveiled his new South Asia policy under which the US has warned Pakistan against providing safe harbour to terrorist organisations. (Photo: AFP)

Beijing: China today said President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump have reached a consensus on fighting terrorism and upholding peace and stability in South Asia, amid America ramping up pressure on Pakistan to dismantle terror safe havens.

During their talks in Beijing, Xi and Trump discussed Afghanistan and said they were committed to working toward a peaceful future for the country.

"This morning, the two presidents talked and held joint press meeting. I am not aware of the details of the talks. What I know is that the two sides also discussed anti-terrorism issues and upholding peace and stability in South Asia," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing.

"They reached consensus in this respect," she said without elaborating or mentioning whether India's concerns over terrorism emanating from Pakistan figured in the talks.

To counter terrorism, China and the US as well as other countries share the common interests and the two countries stand ready to work with other parties for stronger antiterrorism cooperation, she said.

South Asia and Afghanistan figured prominently in today's talks as both the leaders mentioned it in their briefings.

After the talks, Trump said terrorists are a threat to humanity and that he and Xi will "stop radical Islamic terrorism."

"In order to create more secure future for all and protect our citizens from extremism and terrorism, President Xi and I also committed to working together for a peaceful future for Afghanistan," Trump said.

"Terrorists are a threat to all of humanity and we will stop radical Islamic terrorism," he said.

Trump's remarks assume significance after he unveiled his new South Asia policy under which the US has warned Pakistan against providing safe harbour to terrorist organisations.

Trump's South Asia policy giving importance to India and inviting New Delhi to play a bigger role in reconstruction of Afghanistan has also raised eyebrows in Beijing and Islamabad.
India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).



Based out of The Hague, the ICJ has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, AntAnio Augusto CanAado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nation's ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari, 70, was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.



Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

"When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there," said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

"At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?"

Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. Duterte denies the allegations.

The firebrand leader consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Duterte said last year he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example to police.

His spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a "legitimate police action".

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he "maybe" stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in "hyperbole".

His latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.
Danang (Vietnam), AFP: US President Donald Trump will not hold a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam, the White House said on Friday.



Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum in the city of Danang and there had been mixed messages about whether a face-to-face was on the cards.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

On Friday, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretary's comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
The gruesome murder of 7-year-old Pradyumn continues to haunt Gurgaon. Almost two months after Pradyumn was found dead with a slashed throat in a bloody bathroom of Ryan International School, and the police were nowhere near closing the case, despite clear evidence, CCTV footage and a confession from the bus driver. However, recently, a new development came to light: the actual murderer was not the one the police was claiming to be, but a boy from Class XI.



Now, the CBI is attempting to reconstruct the events leading to the crime by taking the accused to knife shops and his school to learn first-hand how he did what he did. The CBI is allowed to take custody of the boy from 10 AM to 6 PM, following which he is returned to an observation home in Delhi.



Meanwhile, the Gurgaon police are in hot water for "uncovering" the murder weapon and taking the bus conductor as a suspect in the murder. The real murder weapon has been recovered from the commode of one of the toilets in the washroom. The conductor, Ashok Kumar, has declared his intention to sue the police for defamation and torture, while his counsel says that Ashok was made a scapegoat to protect the real accused of the murder.



The boy allegedly killed Pradyumn because he wanted to postpone the exam and the parents-teacher meet, and since the day he slashed his junior's life away, spoke not a word of what he had done and did not show even a shred of remorse when the police brought him in for initial questioning right after the murder, but contradictions in his statements to the police and CBI led them to get suspicious and take him in.




US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Asia-Pacific region was being held hostage by the "twisted fantasies" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as he called on countries to stand united against Pyongyang.



Trump has embarked on a tour of Asia this week trying to rally regional support for curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, warning that time is running out over the crisis.

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The region, he added, must "stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

On Friday, Trump was in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, where he called on China to "act fast" over North Korea.

"China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," he said.

Washington has also worked in recent months to convince allies across Asia to oppose Pyongyang, an issue that will remain prominent during his two day trip to Vietnam, which is currently hosting a major regional summit.

Alongside Trump, the leaders of Japan, Russia, China and South Korea are also attending the APEC summit.
Bajrang Dal on Friday held a demonstration against the release of the upcoming Bollywood movie Padmavati and demanded a ban on it.



Dal members, hundreds in number, gathered outside the collectorate here and handed over representations addressed to the Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to an administration official demanding the ban on the movie.

"It is clear from the promos that the objectionable facts related to Rani Padmavati have been shown in the film," said Ashok Singh, state coordinator of the Bajrang Dal.

"We are demanding a complete ban on the film which the filmmaker made with distorted facts," Singh said.

"The government should not allow the movie release in the state. If the movie is released the government will be responsible for any loss or harm to cinema halls due to our protest," Singh said.

Similar protests were also held at other district headquarters in the state, he said.

Promos of the film are out, stoking the controversy over the Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh-Shahid Kapoor starrer, slated for release on December 1.

Dal, along with Shri Rajput Karni Sena, has been opposing the film fearing that the movie would depict a romantic relationship between Rani Padmavati (Padukone) and Allaudin Khilji (Singh).
Chinese restorers have selected 89 original fresco paintings, some centuries old, for what will be the largest fresco exhibition to be held in China.

The exhibition will run for three months at the Shanghai Museum starting from Nov. 30 and will be open to the public free of charge.

The fresco paintings dating back to the Northern Dynasties (386-581) and Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) were all recently restored by the Shanxi Museum.

Among the paintings is China's oldest Zodiac chart, the largest fresco painting depicting hunting, a Yuan Dynasty religious painting and the largest Taoist temple fresco.

The original works will be on display for the public for the first time, Chen Fenxia from Shanxi Museum told Xinhua on Thursday. They were all either cut from temple walls or unearthed from ancient tombs in north China's Shanxi Province.

The largest piece selected for the show is the hunting fresco dating back more than 1,500 years. It is 13.2 meters tall and 3.5 meters wide and was unearthed from the Jiuyuangang Tomb in Xinzhou.

The piece was a part of a 200 square meter colored mural found in the tomb, which depicts scenes of hunting animals such as tigers, bears, goats and deer during the Northern Dynasties.

Zhang Qing, a relic restorer at Yongle Palace, a Yuan Dynasty Taoist temple in Ruicheng County, said to restore fresco paintings they must cut the paintings along with peeling walls piece by piece and join them again after reinforcing each section and treating it for erosion.

She said the paintings are like picture books, with 286 supernatural beings, each wearing different costumes and adornments.

Restoring damaged murals is the best way to prevent them from being destroyed. After restoration they must be stored in temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms, said Chen.
HYDERABAD: A small-time Indian jeweller was kidnapped and murdered in Singapore by some people who befriended him on Facebook.



Vasudev Raj of Kushaiguda had gone to Singapore on October 27 saying he had an important business meeting. Two more persons joined him at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and they took a flight to Singapore.

The trip was the first and last for Vasudev. Family members said Vasudev was confined to a hotel room upon arrival. The family was warned with a WhatsApp messages in broken English from Vasudev's own phone. The abductors also sent semi-nude photos of Vasudev lying on the floor.

The family members said they pleaded with the kidnappers, possibly from Pakistan, not to harm Vasudev and inform them that they could not afford to pay the Rs 3-crore ransom. "Then forget. He is dead," the abductors replied. In another photo sent by the kidnappers, a knife was placed to Vasudev's neck.

Family members have rushed to Singapore.

A complaint has been lodged with the Singapore police, but no formal complaint was filed in Hyderabad. "It is only unofficial information we got from family members who said the Indian embassy in Singapore has called them," said Kushaiguda police inspector N Venkata Ramana.
Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Anand Singh inaugurated the Tipu Jayanti event in Hosapete on Friday.

"There has been a controversy over celebrating Tipu Jayanti, and BJP, the party I represent, is against Tipu Jayanti. But, for me the people of my constituency matter the most," Singh said.

He said that no political party should divide society on communal lines. "Humanity is greater than all religions."

Addressing a press meet at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Jagadish Shettar, said that BJP had been clearly opposing Tipu Jayanti celebrations. "But, some partymen have attended the event. We will consider it seriously and initiate stringent action against them.
India should establish forward bases to advise armies of neighbouring nations, build special forces and enhance joint maritime patrols with the US in the Indian Ocean to meet security challenges, a US-based think-tank has recommended after the Dokalam-crisis with China.



The South Asia Centre of Washington-based Atlantic Council, in its report 'The Sino-Indian Clash and the New Geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific' India should propose regular India-US-China talks at least on an annual basis, perhaps on the margins of the G20 or the East Asian Summit meetings aimed at minimising the risk of misperception or miscalculation.

The think-tank said while China and India have substantial economic ties and common interests, particularly as both are members of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) organisations and G20 nations, nonetheless, legal territorial issues will continue to spur Indian scepticism about Chinese intentions.

In a series of recommendations, the report authored by Bharath Gopalaswamy and Robert A Manning, says that there was a distinction between counterbalancing and containment.

India and China were locked in a 73-day stand-off in Dokalam, a tri-junction between the Sino-India and Bhutanese border near Sikkim, from June 16 this year after Indian Army personnel stopped the Chinese Army from building a road in the area.

The standoff ended on August 28 after both sides reached an understanding on a quick "disengagement" of border personnel.

Noting that in a dynamic Indo-Pacific security environment, Sino-Indian ties have grown more problematic, the report said that as a democracy and a committed market- oriented economy, India appears more focused than China on the rules-based global order, while trying to build a larger role and expand its voice and influence within it.

It recommended that India and the US should enhance joint maritime patrols in the Indian Ocean.

Both nations should seek to assert their presence in the international sea lanes where China is expanding its reach, it said noting that this would help the United States and India collectively balance the Chinese military ascent in the Indian Ocean.

Additionally, the United States and India must boost bilateral security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific.

India should also seek assistance from Japan and the United States in developing its indigenous shipbuilding capabilities and should consider permitting Australia to join the Malabar exercises to resurrect the initial Quadrilateral grouping, the report said.

India, it said, should improve its carrier aviation capacity, which will help maintain sea control in the Indian Ocean.

India's military structure is based on carrier battle groups, which gives it an advantage over the Chinese Navy, it said.

However, Chinas push for naval modernisation over the last decade has widened the gap in the capability of both militaries, and India needs to overcome its deficits by developing a long-term plan to enhance its naval capacity, it said.

"Specifically, the United States can play a major role in helping India modernise its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) fleet," the report said.

"India must seek to improve its space surveillance capacities. India already possesses a developed space program which it must utilise to serve practical military needs," said the Atlantic Council.

According to Atlantic Council, primarily, India should focus on replicating a national security architecture similar to that found in countries like the United States, Israel, and China.

India should seek to establish a body like the United States Office of the Federal Chief Information Security Officer.

"India should establish forward bases to advise the militaries of neighbouring countries. India could set up a brigade for each South Asian nation (other than Pakistan), which would take on the responsibility of training and advising the militaries of those countries," Atlantic Council said.

"India could also create a satellite campus of the National Defence Academy, or an entirely new academy, to train greater numbers of Bhutanese/ Nepali/ Bangladeshi/ Sri Lankan troops in India," it recommended.

Noting that the recent use of its special forces on Pakistani territory demonstrates Indias willingness to conduct asymmetrical warfare, the report said India should seek to centralise the command of all its special forces units, which are currently under the purview of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Research and Analysis Wing.
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar on Friday demanded the sacking of AICC general secretary K C Venugopal from holding charge of the party's affairs in Karnataka, following his alleged involvement in the Kerala's solar scam.

The Justice G Sivarajan Committee report tabled in the Kerala Assembly has named Venugopal with graphic details of his involvement in the sensational solar scam, and how he allegedly sexually abused the main accused.

"The report makes it amply clear that Venugopal was involved," Shettar told reporters. "How can the Congress run its affairs under someone who is an accused in a sex scandal? How can the Congress continue to have him as its in-charge? Venugopal has to assume moral responsibility and withdraw from the party's affairs," he said.

Venugopal, who represents Alappuzha in the Lok Sabha, was handed charge of the Karnataka Congress in May. Of late, Venugopal has been touring different parts of the state as part of the 'Mane Manege Congress' poll outreach.

When asked why the BJP was gunning for his sacking while his continuation could work in its advantage, Shettar said: "It's a different matter that his continuation as Congress in-charge of Karnataka will be politically advantageous for us. But it is our duty as the opposition party to point out his involvement in the scam."

Shettar also went for Bengaluru City Development Minister KJ George's jugular, warning the ruling Congress that the BJP would "fight for his sacking" in the upcoming winter session of the legislature. Last month, George was named in a first information report by the CBI, which is probing the death of police officer M K Ganapathy. "It's better if George is sacked before the winter session because we don't intend to stop our campaign against him," Shettar said.
State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Friday inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China-based firm Fiberhome to jointly start manufacturing telecom equipment and optical fiber cable in BSNL factories.



BSNL has seven telecom factories with around 1600 employees and elaborate infrastructure. Telecom factories are manufacturing several customer end equipment and testing tools for internal consumption of BSNL.

The MoU between the two companies is expected to bring telecom manufacturing technology and expertise to India. This will help India set up manufacturing base under 'Make in India' programme at a low cost, BSNL said in a statement.

"This agreement will help India to get high quality telecom equipment at reasonable cost and will also reduce deployment time. BSNL always stride hard to fulfil government dreams by adopting workable and practical programme like this," BSNL CMD Anupam Shrivastava said after signing the agreement.

Lee, President of Fiberhome, also expressed optimism that the joint venture comes at a time when demand for telecom equipment is increasing all over the world. He felt that BSNL-Fiberhome may export telecom equipment to Asia Pacific region shortly.

Fiberhome, which is the parent company of Fiberhome India Limited, has one of the largest telecom manufacturing base in China. It produces equipment at transport layer and access layer of telecom network.

Being one of the top leaders in telecom manufacturing in the world, the company has decided to heavily invest in India with BSNL, a press statement said.
Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should fire Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over Goods and Services Tax (GST) "mess" which he said was implemented by the minister "without applying his mind."



"This man (Jaitley) has created all the mess while bringing in GST, thereby inflicting one blow after another to the traders throughout the country," said Yashwant.

The former Union finance minister who served under Vajpayee regime was in the state capital to attend a symposium on 'Vanchit varg' (deprived section) organised by former Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary at AN Sinha Institute.

Speaking shortly after the GST Council decided to keep only 50 items in the top 28% bracket, Yashwant said, "Instead of tinkering with the GST, it will be better if the Centre sets up a committee under noted economist Vijay Kelkar to look into the various aspects of GST. But before that, I would urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack Arun Jaitley who has miserably failed as Finance Minister."

Later, talking to media, Yashwant said his son Jayant Sinha (Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation), whose name recently figured in the Paradise Papers, should be investigated "as long as Amit Shah's son Jay Shah is also investigated for allegations of benefiting from crony capitalism."

Jayant, a former venture capitalist, was named in the Paradise Papers for being one of the wealthy politicians having offshore investments. "I would appeal to the government to probe all those people mentioned in the Paradise Papers list. Complete the investigation within a stipulated time-frame, say 15 days or a month. But also conduct an independent assessment of Amit Shah's son," said the former minister.
The Punjab Police have traced the handlers of suspects arrested for the murder of RSS and Shiv Sena leaders to the UK, Italy and Canada.

The role of militant outfit Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF) is being investigated as part of a larger conspiracy designed and perpetrated by Pakistan's ISI, Punjab DGP Suresh Arora said on Friday.

The main assailant in the targeted killings, including that of RSS leader Brigadier Gagneja last year, was arrested on Friday, taking the total number of arrests to five.

Funding from foreign sources has been confirmed, a source said.

The conspiracy to target minority leaders to create communal strife and destabilise Punjab had been hatched by some militant operatives based in foreign countries, including Pakistan, the UK, Italy, Canada and some European countries, the DGP said.

The modus operandi of the accused was to select RSS leaders for causing communal disharmony in Punjab.

On Friday, Hardeep Singh was arrested from a Gymnasium in Fatehgarh Sahib. Hardeep had fled the country after the killings.

"He fled to Italy on August 12, 2016, after killing Brigadier Gagneja," the DGP said.

The probe into Brig Gagneja's murder, which sparked outrage, was handed over to the CBI. But the central agency could not trace the killers.

Jimmy Singh, who recently returned to India from the UK, was apprehended on November 1 from Delhi's IGI airport. Another accused, Jagtar Singh Johal, a UK national, got married last month and was apprehended in Jalandhar.

With these arrests, apart from the killing of seven leaders, the police have also unravelled the mystery behind the two attacks on RSS Shakhas and firing on Amit Arora, a Ludhiana based right-wing leader.
US President Donald Trump today praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.



Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo- Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo- Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said.
A United Nations special rapporteur's critical remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project Swachh Bharat Mission evoked a strong riposte from the government on Friday.



Heller, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, called upon the government to incorporate a human rights perspective in its national programmes on water and sanitation. He noted that India's emphasis on building toilets should not overshadow the focus on providing drinking water to all.



Heller's comments in a news conference in the morning evoked a sharp response from the government. The Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation came out with a press release by the evening, deploring his remarks and accusing him of being insensitive towards Mahatma Gandhi. It also accused him of making "sweeping judgements" which were "either factually incorrect, based on incomplete information, or which grossly misrepresent the drinking water and sanitation situation on the ground".



Heller was on an official visit to India from October 27 to November 10, at the invitation of the government. He met representatives of the central, state and local governments, as well as members of civil society organisations. He also visited Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata and Imphal, and talked to people about access to essential water and sanitation services.



"Everywhere I went, I saw the logo of the Clean India Mission - Gandhi's glasses. In its third year of implementation, now is a critical time to replace the lens of those glasses with the human rights lens," Heller said on Friday.



His comment did not go down well with the government. The Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), which oversees the implementation of the Swacch Bharat Mission in rural areas, deplored "the serious insensitivity" shown by the UN special rapporteur towards Mahatma Gandhi.



"The world knows that the Mahatma was the foremost proponent of human rights, including for sanitation, his unique and special focus. Gandhiji's glasses, the unique logo of the Swachh Bharat Mission, epitomise core human rights principles," the MDWS said in a press release.
Speculators in the garlic market may have suffered severe losses due to a fall in prices of the small-sized, but important agricultural commodity in recent months.

The wholesale price has generally dropped to a level of nine yuan (US$1.36) per kilogram this year, half what it was last year, according to Workers' Daily.

Meanwhile, the wholesale price of garlic transactions in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, has dived to 3.6 yuan per kilogram, dropping approximately 1.4 yuan since fresh stocks appeared in the market in July.

"I have tons of garlic stocked at home without being able to sell it," said Zhang Baoheng, a garlic wholesale dealer in suburban Beijing.

According to the China Jinxiang Garlic Index, a sampling gauge based on the sale and stock piles of garlic in Jinxiang, Shandong Province, the indicator plummeted from 594.64 in May to the present 170.53.

"I earned an awesomely amount last year, with 4,000 yuan per ton in net profit. However, I never expected the stockpile this year would lead to losses," Zhang admitted.

According to him, the country has four major garlic production areas, namely, Cangshan in Shandong Province, Qixian in Henan Province, Pizhou in Jiangsu Province and Jinxiang in Shandong Province.

The garlic is usually stored every July and sold from the end of October until the end of the following April, during which time returns from the initial investments should start to flow in.

Last year, the wholesale price of garlic stood at six to eight yuan per kilogram, enabling the farmers to secure an income of 4,000 to 6,000 yuan per mu (667 square meters). However, this year, the price fell to barely 2,000 yuan each mu on average while the costs, apart from labor, reached between 2,500 and 3,000 yuan, according to Wang Xiangqian, a local farmer in Qixian.

Behind the phenomenon, the falling price can be viewed as a result of huge excessive inventories caused by the frenetic speculation emerging in the farming sector.

During a round of price hikes between 2009 and 2010, the garlic price soared 100-fold, exceeding the level of meat and eggs. Last year, the wholesale price hit 11 yuan per kilogram, 22.9 percent higher than the price ceiling in 2010.

"Speculation cannot be excluded as one of the reasons causing the price hike of garlic," said Cui Xiaona, an analyst from an agricultural products consultancy.

"Hoarders, after persuading farmers to sell their garlic to them, would store the product and wait for the best time to clear their inventories and obtain fat profits," Cui explained.

However, because of the massive storage in recent years, the market just has too much garlic to be consumed even by a nation of 1.3 billion people, and that caused the price to plunge, said, Chen Liuming, manager of a garlic agency in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province.

The speculation in garlic or any other agricultural product, like, scallion and ginger, is no different from transactions in the stock market, said Wang Chen, a speculator in the agricultural sector.

"Some of my customers never own warehouses to do business. They'll decide when to purchase or sell based on price signals in the market, being able to net huge earnings while remaining at home," Wang said.

According to Wang, some hoarders may purchase thousands of tons of garlic, which can be preserved for about three years and expect to sell them at a crucial time of shortage.

"The threshold is low and the investors can do nothing but to hold on their money and wait for the agent's advice as to when to transact," Wang said.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has directed a total of 14 deemed-to-be universities including Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeswara University and Manipal Academy of Higher Education not to use the word "University," threatening with action in case of non-compliance of its directive.



The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, BLDE University, Vijaypur, and Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana are among the list of deemed-to-be-universities in Karnataka whom the commission has issued its directive in this regard.

The higher education regulator has also issued similar directive to 109 deemed-to-be-universities operating in different parts of the country.

This comes following a recent Supreme Court verdict. The apex court, while hearing a petition on deemed-to-be-universities offering correspondence course in engineering and technology, directed the government to restrain deemed-to-be-universities from using the word 'University' within one month from the date of judgement.

"The institutions are hereby directed to restrain from using the word 'University' with its name failing which necessary action would be initiated in accordance with the UGC (institutions deemed-to-be-universities) Regulations, 2016. Instead, the Institution may mention the word "Deemed to be University" within parenthesis," the UGC said in its directive.

For the deemed-to-be-universities which were notified by the central government with the word "University" with their names, the higher education regulator said they can send it a proposal for an alternative name without using the word 'University.'





"Such deemed-to-be-universities can also apply for an alternative name with the HRD Ministry," UGC Secretary P K Thakur said.

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay; Symbiosis International University, Pune: Homi Bhabha National Institute, Bombay; Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram; and Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu are among the deemed-to-be universities which have to comply with the UGC directive.
The space for political cartoons is shrinking, cartoonists fear.



Cartoonist G Bala was arrested on November 5 for a cartoon responding to the immolation of a child in front of a Tamil Nadu district office.



The cartoon depicts the police commissioner, collector and chief minister K Palaniswami standing around naked and watching the tragedy, their private parts covered with cash.



Bala received huge support on social media and from media colleagues in Chennai. He is now out on bail.



Bala says the cartoon expressed the rage he felt when a family committed suicide following harassment by a moneylender.



He is not alone in being targeted by politicians.



In 2011, when cartoonist Satish Acharya was working for Mid Day in Mumbai, he was asked by the Mumbai crime branch to delete a post they found obscene and derogatory.



Following the busting of a scam, he had depicted Sharad Pawar pole-dancing, with a red split skirt revealing Rs 12 crore written on his calf.



Media came out in support of Satish, and the police did not contact him again.



But in another incident in his hometown of Kundapur near Udupi, he was forced to remove a cartoon of Rahul Gandhi from a hoarding where he regularly displayed his work.



The cartoon contained the slogan Congress-mukt Bharat and irked municipal leaders.



Politicians often hire lackeys to criticise, abuse and threaten artists, and this happens across political lines. The very people who made cartoons go viral during the Anna Hazare protests against the UPA government are now threatening political cartoonists online, Satish told DH.



A few hours after he spoke to this reporter on Thursday, he took to Twitter to denounce Congress workers using his works critical of prime minister Narendra Modi as propaganda material.



"Dear @INCIndia it was unethical on your part to use my cartoons without taking permission & also erase my signature! @INCKarnataka,"



Other parties had used his works, but had retained his signature.



It is certainly a breach of my intellectual property rights. However, I am not keen on sending a legal notice to the Congress as it is a waste of my time," he said.



Another well-known cartoonist, P Mohammad (formely Prajavani), recounted how, two years ago, he was harassed by two members of the BJP (including Chakarvarthy Sulibele, who launched the Namo Brigade ahead of the 2014 elections). They disclosed his number on a Facebook post and asked their followers to attack him.



Fortunately, the matter didnt spin out of control, and he didnt have to change his phone number.



Cartoonists such as B G Gujjarappa (formerly Prajavani) and V G Narendra (formerly Kannada Prabha), said politicians were more offended than ever before.



They cited the works of K Shankar Pillai, regarded as the father of Indian political cartoons, to suggest the reaction to Bala was extreme.



Shankars Weekly often included cartoons depicting politicians in the nude.


China's cheque-book diplomacy with South Asia's smaller countries has scored another victory over India to become the largest investor in Sri Lanka, with investments of over $6 billion in the island nation. Earlier, Nepal was also a beneficiary of China's cheque-book diplomacy, used by Beijing to dilute India's influence in the small Himalayan state. Trade between China and Sri Lanka crossed $4 billion in 2015, up from about $1.1 billion in 2006. The trade volume is expected to grow further with plans for a free trade agreement between the two countries.



The balance of trade has gradually tilted in favour of China as against a climb-down with respect to India. Sri Lanka's central bank announced in June 2011 that China's national currency, the Yuan (Renminbi), would be allowed in international transactions. On the other hand, the Indian Rupee still does not enjoy the same privilege, despite the fact that India was Sri Lanka's largest trading partner and one of its largest donors and investors till recently.

Sri Lanka ranks China superior, compared to India, in terms of timely completion of projects, cost effectiveness and quality of infrastructure. China, unlike India, places no conditions in terms of "structural adjustments, policy reforms, competitive bidding, transparency attached to their loans" or even human rights; except that Beijing brings its own workforce to execute projects. Otherwise, a significant difference is that Beijing charges far higher rates of interest, compared to India, on loans disbursed to other countries.

In July 2017, Sri Lanka signed an agreement with China to lease its southern deep-sea port of Hambantota, which is situated along the main shipping route that connects Malacca Straits to the Gulf of Aden. It is a classic case of how China has created dependency in the name of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The first phase of the port was actually completed in 2010 at a cost of $360 million, which Colombo tries to project as "purely commercial". However, the port is strategically located as a transit halt which both Chinese mercantile marine traffic and the Chinese Peoples' Liberation Army Navy vessels could use in the future. As a strong foothold for the Chinese, Hambantota enables Beijing to dominate the Indian Ocean waters that extend from Australia in the east, Africa in the west and up to Antarctica in the south.

In the 21st century Maritime Silk Road, Sri Lanka is seen as "an important hub". China has time and again referred to the island state as the "splendid pearl of the Indian Ocean." Accordingly, China has been working on four broad areas of dependency: infrastructure, trade, defence and diplomatic support.

China's assistance in Sri Lanka's infrastructure development has attracted considerable attention from India and the West. Apart from Hambantota port, some important infrastructure projects that China has undertaken in Sri Lanka include the Katunayake-Colombo Expressway, the Norochcholai Coal Power Project, Maththala Airport, Colombo South Harbour Expansion Project, the 661-room Shangri La hotel and the Centre for Performing Arts in Colombo.

Sri Lanka remains grateful for China's liberal supply of arms and ammunition to Sri Lankan troops during 'Eelam War IV'. This earned China goodwill from Colombo and the Sinhalese people. Sri Lanka justified arms procurement from China on two counts: lack of an alternative source of supply and competitive prices. On the other hand, India was only able to provide "non-lethal weapons" due to domestic political implications, especially in Tamil Nadu. Though India remains a preferred destination for the training of Sri Lankan military officers, in the light of opposition from Tamil Nadu, the future of cooperation in this area remains uncertain. As a result, Colombo has been looking to Pakistan and China as alternatives for military training.

Sri Lanka also appreciates China's unstinted diplomatic support to Colombo against the call for international investigations on war crimes committed during 'Eelam War IV'. China has made it clear that it "resolutely opposes any move by any country to interfere in Sri Lanka's internal affairs under any excuse."

On the other hand, India's stand on the issue is seen as inconsistent. In May 2009, it joined China and Russia to defeat the UN resolution that was aimed at censuring Sri Lanka. However, in March 2012, not satisfied with Colombo's sincerity in carrying forward assurances on reconciliation with Tamil minorities, India voted in favour of the US-sponsored resolution. India maintained the same stand in 2013 as well. However, in 2014, India abstained from voting on a similar US-sponsored resolution.

Given these realities, Sri Lanka would obviously prefer China. Colombo considers Beijing a "time-tested friend". Such consideration is not just rhetoric. Lately, China has emerged as one of the major players in the island's economic development. Both countries upgraded their relations to 'strategic cooperative partnership' and a 'Plan of Action' was agreed upon during President Xi Jinping's visit to Sri Lanka in September 2014 to deepen the bilateral partnership. To that extent, China has successfully created dependency and convinced Sri Lanka that they together have a "shared destiny".

Colombo is now in a position to juggle India and China. India's interests and concerns are not on Sri Lanka's radars, although the island state tries its best to do a fine balancing act to keep the two Asian powers in good humour, while at the same time benefitting from both. Development projects are offered to both India and China from time to time. Beijing is preferred because it has "no strings attached", at least overtly, to any of the projects implemented or aided.

Sri Lanka is confident that China will never demand that Colombo should address the grievances of Sri Lankan minorities through a reasonable negotiated political settlement, nor place restrictions on the involvement of any other country in the island in any manner. India has to take these factors into consideration in its dealings with Sri Lanka on all four areas of China's interest, namely infrastructure, trade, defence and diplomatic support.

(The writer is Associate Professor, Department of International Studies and History, Christ University, Bengaluru)
Chief Minister Siddaramiah on Friday lambasted BJP leaders for their doublespeak on celebration of Tipus birth anniversary. He, however, promised to celebrate the event with grandeur next year.



Stating that the BJP leaders have stooped too low in opposing the celebration of the birthday of a patriot, secular and progressive king who fought four wars against the British, Siddaramiah said he wanted to celebrate the event with much fanfare in the Vidhana Soudha Banquet Hall.



Let BJP leaders cry hoarse and go on a Parivartana Yatre. People will make them realise that it is they (BJP leaders) who need the Parivartan, not the society. Next year, we will celebrate Tipu Jayanti with grandeur, he said.



Siddaramaiah pointed out that B S Yeddyurappa had taken part in the celebration of Tipu Jayanti earlier. As the founder of the KJP, he swore to Allah that he will never join the BJP. See how things have changed now, he said.



Taking a dig at the Leader of Opposition in Assembly Jagadish Shettar, Siddaramaiah said that during his time as chief minister Shettar had written a foreward praising Tipu Sultan in the book, Tipu Sultan: A Crusader for Change written by B Sheikh Ali.



Earlier, Maulana Sagir Ahmad Khan Saheb Rashadi of Ameer-e-Shariat-Karnataka urged the chief minister to rename Ballari Road, a national highway, as Tipu Sultan Road. Tipu was born in Devanahalli. In his memory, we request you to rename the road after him, he said.



Earlier, commotion marred the inauguration of Tipu Jayanti as the sloganeering crowd that had gathered outside the venue demanded that Chamarajapet MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan be brought on the stage.



A while later, Zameer Ahmed Khan arrived on the stage amid slogans and asked a few leaders of the community to pacify the crowd.



The programme then began with Kannada and Culture Minister Umashrees address condemning communalism. Tipu Jayanti will be celebrated again and again to send out the message of secularism, she said.




More than 90% of drinking water samples collected from houses in a cluster of villages in Ramnagaram district near Bengaluru are unfit for human consumption, according to a new study.

When researchers tested the source of water, they found that in 80% of cases the water sources were also contaminated. Moreover, the poor quality remains unchanged throughout the year, suggesting contamination of the groundwater.

The samples were screened for Escherichia coli (E.coil) bacteria that can trigger diarrhoea. Its presence also indicates faecal and sewage contamination.

Water was collected from eight villages in Byramangala panchayat area of Ramnagaram district. The samples were tested for microbial contamination as well as chemical impurities.

Only 7% of household drinking water samples complied with the WHO permissible limits, said the study published in the November 10 issue of the journal 'Current Science'.

The three-member team that conducted the study comprised researchers from Trans-Disciplinary University, Bengaluru and Manipal University.

While 20% of drinking water samples at source complied with the WHO standards for E.coli (no risk category), the percentage of samples complying with the household level was only 7%, indicating further contamination of water at the household level.

Around 58% of samples were found to be under low risk and 35% were under moderate risk category for diarrhoea, based on the E.coli count.

All of these villages are located within 5 km of Vrishabhavathi river, which is known to be contaminated with sewage and industrial wastes mainly from Bengaluru and Bidadi industrial areas.

Samples analysed

To check how the water quality varies with season, the scientists also analysed 45 drinking water samples collected from public taps from each of the eight villages in five different months between December 2014 and September 2015.

"Only 17.78% of samples at all five-time points complied with the WHO permissible limits, while 29% of the samples put people under high to very high risk for diarrhoea," the researchers reported.

Besides the E.coli, the samples were also screened for total dissolved solids, calcium, magnesium, alkalinity and hardness. The levels of all of these materials were beyond acceptable limits. The nitrate levels too were consistently high and beyond the WHO permissible levels.

"Alarming levels of microbial and chemical contamination of drinking water press

for appropriate remedial measures to reduce health threats, particularly among vulnerable population," the scientists said.
Scripps Health Nov. 7 unveiled a master plan that represents the largest building program in the health care systems 125-year history and triggers significant construction projects at its hospital campuses across San Diego County designed to serve the needs of the community for generations to come, according to a press release.

This is our vision to build the health care system of the future  starting today, said Chris Van Gorder, Scripps president and CEO. Our focus is on delivering the right care in the right setting that reflects the changing health care needs of the communities we serve across the San Diego region.

The master plan accounts for changing health-care trends. Flexible space designs will recognize the rapid evolution of technology so that the latest equipment and devices can be easily incorporated into patient rooms, operating rooms, laboratories and diagnostic centers, the press release said.

More care is being delivered on an outpatient basis at clinics and other medical facilities, so Scripps will design its acute care hospitals to care for the most seriously ill patients.

Plans include state-of-the-art private patient rooms. Floors will be designed following best practices. Nurses will be placed closer to patients and will have more direct access to equipment and supplies, increasing their efficiency and improving their ability to deliver the highest quality care possible. Facilities will be designed to promote patient healing and comfort and will make efficient use of natural resources.

The master plan projects will be financed by operating revenues, borrowing and philanthropy, according to the press release.

Community support always has been a significant part of Scripps history, dating back to our founders, Ellen Browning Scripps and Mother Mary Michael Cummings, Van Gorder said. We are thankful for that. We dont receive government funding for these projects. Its the generosity of grateful patients and others that has made us what we are today, and it will be that generosity that will shape us into who we become in the future.

Among the local building plans are the following:

Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas

Plans for Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas include the construction of a new 185,000-square-foot, three-story acute care building. Other campus projects include the construction of a new three-story, 68,000-square-foot medical office building, upgrades to the central energy plant and seismic retrofitting of several other buildings. Construction of the new acute care building is expected to begin in 2021 and conclude in 2024.

Scripps Memorial

Hospital La Jolla

Work at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla will include construction of a new seven-story, 401,000 square-foot hospital tower. The new tower will feature a womens health center, which will include labor and delivery, postpartum beds, a nursery, an obstetrical surgery area and a neonatal intensive care unit. Other projects on the campus include upgrades to the central energy plant. Construction of the new tower is expected to begin in 2021 and conclude in 2024.

The master plan also includes the construction of two Scripps MD Anderson outpatient cancer centers. One will be a new cancer center located at Scripps Mercy San Diego and the other will be an expansion of the Scripps Radiation Therapy Center in La Jolla. Work on the Scripps MD Anderson cancer center at Scripps Mercy will take place as part of that campus construction, while the timeline for the expansion work at the Scripps Radiation Therapy Center is yet to be determined.

In addition, Scripps will continue to focus on providing the right care in the right setting by increasing access to outpatient care conveniently located in neighborhoods where patients live and work. Primary and specialty care services will be offered through a planned 85,000-square-foot Scripps Clinic facility on Jefferson Street in Oceanside and a renovated Gateway 2 Building in Chula Vista.

More information can be found at www.scripps.org.

--Submitted press release
By Kara Fox and Livia Borghese

7 November 2017

(CNN)  Italian authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of death of 26 teenage girls whose bodies were recovered in the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday.

The girls, aged 14-18, are believed to have been migrants from Niger and Nigeria who had embarked on the treacherous route to Europe from Libya over the weekend.

Lorena Ciccotti, Salernos head of police, told CNN that autopsies would be carried out on Tuesday and that coroners would be investigating whether the girls had been tortured or sexually abused.

Their bodies were found close to a flimsy rubber dinghy that had all but sunk when rescuers arrived, Ciccotti said. Aid workers had described a grim scene: survivors hanging onto the remains of the vessel as the girls bodies floated nearby.Their rescue was one of four separate rescue operations carried out in the Mediterranean over the weekend. In total, 400 people were brought aboard the Spanish vessel Cantabria before disembarking at the Italian port town of Salerno.Among them were 90 women and 52 minors, including a week-old-baby, authorities said.Libya is a well-known jumping-off point for migrants seeking refuge on European shores. Many from sub-Saharan Africa, are fleeing war and persecution; others from impoverished nations in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia have made the treacherous journey in search of better economic opportunities.The North African country is a hotbed for human traffickers, whose network of smuggling operations have gone widely unchecked due to Libyas lack of effective central governance. [more]
China Aviation Suppliers Holding Company (CASC) Thursday signed an agreement with Boeing for 300 aircraft, valued at more than 37 billion U.S. dollars at list prices.

The agreement was part of the U.S. trade mission to China, according to Boeing.

It includes both orders and commitments for 300 Boeing single-aisle and twin-aisle aircraft, made up of planes from the 737, 787 and 777 families.

China has seen a surge in the civil aviation transportation market in recent years. The CASC has undertaken bulk purchases of Boeing aircraft to allow aviation transport companies to continuously expand their capacity and fleet structure, the CASC said in a press release.

The agreement is a result of an overall consideration of the country's air transport market and the production schedule of Chinese-produced passenger aircraft, said the CASC.

"China is a valued customer and key partner, and we are proud that Boeing airplanes will be a part of its fleet growth for years to come," said Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

"Boeing and China have a strong history of working together based on great mutual respect, and these orders build on that foundation," he said.

Boeing and China will continue to work on mutually beneficial ways to grow and support the aviation market, according to Boeing.

These efforts include industrial cooperation, the development of technologies to reduce the environmental impact and enhance sustainability of the aviation industry. Both sides will continue cooperation to support the safety, efficiency and capacity of China's air transport system.

In May, Boeing started construction of the first overseas production center for its most popular 737 family of aircraft in the east China port city of Zhoushan, including a completion center and delivery center.

According to Boeing's latest market outlook, China is expected to need 7,240 new aircraft over the next 20 years, valued at nearly 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars. Of these, 5,420 would be single-aisle aircraft.
Poor sleep in adults with type 2 diabetes has been linked to complications such as neuropathic pain, high blood sugar levels and fatigue, researchers say.

Scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing are now urging healthcare professionals to pay extra attention to people with type 2 diabetes, particularly women, in regards to their sleep patterns.

It is already well known how important sleep is to maintain good overall health, but in recent years there has been much focus on the link between poor quality sleep and type 2 diabetes.

This new study, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, involved 90 adults with type 2 diabetes and explored whether disturbed sleep has anything to do with certain diabetes-related conditions. The health and sleep data was collected between September 2013 and March 2014 using a variety of methods including a diabetes distress scale and a symptom checklist.

Elevated blood sugar levels, neuropathic pain, and fatigue were all related to sleep disturbance, even after researchers accounted for factors such as age, diabetes duration, depressive symptoms and distress.

Sleep disturbance was particularly heightened among females, which the researchers said is consistent with other literature on sleep and diabetes.

Senior author Dr Cynthia Fritschi said: Sleep disturbance in patients with diabetes is common and may negatively affect blood glucose. A thorough sleep assessment, especially in female adults, must include a symptom assessment. To do otherwise limits our ability to treat sleep disturbance effectively in this population.

According to the NHS, eight hours of sleep is usually enough for most people, although this can differ slightly for each individual. However, the health service stipulates good quality sleep is better than the amount of sleep someone may get per night.

If you are regularly experiencing interrupted sleep you could visit your doctor to evaluate whether something related to your diabetes or lifestyle could be causing your sleep disturbance.

Benedict Jephcote, Editor at Diabetes.co.uk, said: It is worth considering that there may be some reverse causality at work here as high blood sugar levels and neuropathy can each lead to added difficulties in getting good sleep. If you can address sleep problems and work towards controlling your blood sugar, you can address the problems from both sides.

A healthy lifestyle is the most comprehensive way to address the problems of type 2 diabetes. The Low Carb Program has been influential in helping people to control their blood sugar levels and improve their overall health and wellbeing. Join the program today for easy-to-follow guidance on truly healthy living.
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Journalists from across China have said they were inspired by Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks on journalism and would endeavor to spread China's voice.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, called on journalists to "strengthen their confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics."

He made the statement in a congratulatory letter to the All-China Journalists Association (ACJA) on its 80th anniversary Wednesday.

"We are lucky to work as journalists in the new era and we will strive to present new aspects in our work," said Zhang Tie, deputy director of the commentary department of the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the CPC.

In the letter, Xi said he expected journalists to "maintain a close connection with the people, record the events of the great times, tell China's stories well, spread China's voice, herald the message of victory and raise national morale, for the realization of the Two Centenary Goals and national rejuvenation."

"Xi has repeatedly emphasized that journalists should care for the people," said Hou Kaidi from China Central Television. "We need to focus on the stories of the ordinary people."

"In order to tell stories of the Chinese people, journalists from Chongqing Daily have spent three years reporting on more than 500 people, recording their love for the country and home as well as their endeavor to make a better life," said Jiang Chunyong, deputy editor in chief of the newspaper.

"We will continue to improve media convergence and reach Internet audience and young people through integrated media products," said Qian Tong, executive deputy director of Xinhua All-Media Service.
The Donegal Democrat has been informed of the following deaths:

- Sarah Callaghan, Coolcross, Clonmany

- Con Doherty, Manchester and Gaddyduff, Clonmany

- Bridie Kelly, Carndonagh

- Bridie McGee, Clonglash, Buncrana

- Anna McMurray, Grey Rock, Milford

- Natasha Rodgers, Glencar, Letterkenny/Claremorris, Mayo

- Stephen Caldwell, The Diamond, Raphoe/Dundalk

- Pat Heaney, Derrygrath, Gollan Hill, Fahan

Sarah Callaghan, Coolcross, Clonmany

The death has taken place at Donegal Hospice of Sarah Callaghan, Coolcross, Clonmany.

Removal at 12 noon on Thursday from the Eternal Light Chapel of Rest to her late residence.

Removal today, Friday, to St. Marys Church, Clonmany to arrive at 7pm for prayers and to repose overnight.

Funeral Mass on Saturday at 11am followed by burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery.

Con Doherty, Manchester and Gaddyduff, Clonmany

The death has taken place of Con Doherty, Manchester and formerly of Gaddyduff, Clonmany.

Reposing at St. Colmcilles Oratory, Cleagh, Clonmany, from 2pm today, Friday.

Removal on Saturday at 6pm to St. Marys Church, Clonmany.

Funeral Mass on Sunday at 11.30am, followed by burial in the new cemetery.

Bridie Kelly, Carndonagh

The death has taken place of Bridie Kelly, 9 Ard Bhried, Convent Road, Carndonagh.

Removal from her late residence at 10.30am today, Friday, to the Church of the Sacred Heart, Carndonagh for Requiem Mass at 11am.

House private please. Removal afterwards to Lakelands Crematorium, Cavan for cremation at 4pm.

Bridie McGee, Clonglash, Buncrana

The death has taken place of Bridie McGee, Clonglash, Buncrana.

Reposing at her residence.

Removal today, Friday morning, 10th November, at 10.15am to St. Mary's Church, Cockhill for 11am Requiem Mass. Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery.

Anna McMurray, Grey Rock, Milford

The death has taken place of Anna McMurray, Grey Rock, Milford.

Reposing at the residence of her daughter Brenda and Michael Gibbons, Grey Rock from 7pm Thursday evening, 9th November.

Requiem Mass on Saturday at 11am at St. Peters Church, Milford. Burial afterwards in Milford Cemetery. House private please.

Natasha Rodgers, 1 Windmill View, Glencar, Letterkenny/Claremorris, Mayo

The sudden death has taken place at Altnagelvin Hospital Derry of Natasha Rodgers, 1 Windmill View, Glencar, Letterkenny/Claremorris, Mayo.

Remains will be reposing at her mother's home at no. 1 Windmill View, Glencar, Letterkenny from 7pm Thursday evening.

Funeral from there on Saturday at 10.15am going to St. Eunan's Cathedral Letterkenny for 11am funeral Mass. Interment afterwards in Conwal Cemetery.

Family time please from 11pm to 10am and on the morning of the funeral. Family flowers only, donations in lieu if desired to the Irish Heart Foundation c/o any family member.

Stephen Caldwell, The Diamond, Raphoe/Dundalk

The death has taken place suddenly, at Letterkenny University Hospital, of Stephen Caldwell, The Diamond, Raphoe, and formerly of Cedarwood Park, Dundalk.

Reposing at Shevlin's Funeral Home, Barrack Street, Dundalk, from Thursday afternoon 2pm to 8pm. Private Cremation will take place on Friday.

Pat Heaney, Derrygrath, Gollan Hill, Fahan

The death has taken place at his residence of Pat Heaney, ' Derrygrath', Gollan Hill, Fahan.

His remains are reposing at his residence. Funeral on Friday morning leaving his home at 10.30am going to St. Mura's Church, Fahan for Requiem Mass at 11am.

Family flowers only please, donations in lieu to the Donegal Hospice c/o any family member or Murphy Funeral Directors. Family time please between 11pm to 10am and on the morning of the funeral.

If you wish to have a death notice included here, email us at editorial@donegaldemocrat.com. Please include a telephone number for verification.
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A plaque has been unveiled in Letterkenny to commemorate the only Donegal man who was awarded the Victoria Cross during the First World War.

James Duffy was born in Crolly in 1889 and moved to Letterkenny as a child. He was awarded the VC for his actions as a stretcher bearer during service in Palestine while serving with the 6th Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

While taking part in a British infantry offensive on Jerusalem in December 1917 he saved two wounded men by carrying them over his shoulder while under enemy fire. Another stretcher bearer lost his life in the incident which occurred at Kereina Peak.

James Duffy returned to Letterkenny after the war and lived in Drumany. He worked at Roddens Bar on the towns main street, the location of Dillons Hotel today.

The blue plaque, which was placed by the Ulster History Circle with financial support from the Ulster-Scots Agency, was unveiled by James Duffys daughter, Mrs. Nellie

ODonnell. It was unveiled on a building on Castle Street in the Cathedral Quarter, the offices of local barrister Peter Nolan, close to where he worked.

In words read by her daughter Evelyn Gallagher, Nellie ODonnell said it was a very proud day for the Duffy family.

My father was a very kind and humble man. He liked a spot of fishing on the river Swilly and enjoyed a wee whiskey in Rodden's bar, Letterkenny and later the Dry Arch Bar his home in Drumany.

Speaking at the unveiling of the plaque, Judith McCarthy, Curator of Donegal County Museum, said James Duffy, like many other Donegal soldiers, carried a pouch of Gartan clay with him during the war. The clay is said to have been blessed by Colmcille and possesses special powers including keeping the person carrying the clay safe on journeys.

At a reception at the Donegal County Museum, poet and writer Hillary Rolston read a poem about James Duffy which referred to the hostility he faced when he returned home.

But I came back and each 11th of November, I went to Derry to remember my fallen comrades of the Inniskilling Fusiliers. It was there I had no fear of being shunned or spat upon, like they did to me in my own town, to their eternal shame.
A man wanted by federal authorities for allegedly dealing heroin in the Florida Panhandle has been captured by local authorities.

According to a release from the Dothan Police Department, Kyle Fletcher Pate, 33, of Panama City, was arrested early Friday morning in Dothan.

Authorities indicate Pate fled the Panhandle two weeks ago after being indicted on federal charges for the distribution of heroin.

Police believe Pate initially fled to Atlanta before being spotted in a hotel parking lot early Friday morning in the 2800 block of Ross Clark Circle.

Pate was transported to the Dothan City Jail and is expected to be transferred to Bay County, Fla., by U.S. Marshals.

According to court documents, Pate was one of 15 people indicted by a federal grand jury in September for conspiracy to distribute heroin. Pate is also cited in another count in the same indictment for conspiracy to possess/distribute methamphetamine.
Balkan Peninsula [File photo]

European interest in China has been growing over the past few years. Today, China constitutes the second-biggest market for the EU, but this new focus is not only about trade and economics. It is also driven by research on how Sino-European relations could develop in the near future, and in particular what the implementation of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) means for the Old Continent.

The institutional framework is already in existence. In 2015, the European Commission welcomed China's participation in its 315-billion-euro Investment Plan for Europe. Significant opportunities have arisen since then. Last year, for instance, China became a shareholder in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) as its 67th member. Subsequently, the EBRD and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) agreed to deepen their cooperation. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the EBRD and the Silk Road Fund at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May 2017.

China is paying particular attention to the rollout of the BRI towards the Balkan Peninsula and in Central and Eastern Europe. The EBRD is simultaneously exploring further possibilities for collaboration. A report authored by economist Jens Bastian for the EBRD sheds new light on the Balkan Silk Road dimension of the BRI.

Bastian, a former professor at the University of Oxford and an appointee of the European Commission to the Task Force for Greece, offers useful insights about how Europe should see Chinese investment and lending for infrastructure projects in the Balkans. His report notes that, "Chinese investments in EU and non-EU member states create leverage for acquisitions and infrastructure innovation on an unprecedented scale." It is thus possible for the region to benefit from increased trade with China and diversify its sources of capital.

According to the study, the total trade volume between China and certain western Balkan economies reached 3.3 billion euros in 2015-16. Serbia accounts for almost half of that total trade volume. China's ranking as a trading partner in 2016 after the EU's 28 countries was as follows: second in Albania, third in Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and fourth in Macedonia and Serbia.

This gradual rebalancing of trade relations for countries in southeast Europe opens up opportunities for the EBRD. One illustration from Bastian's report is the purchase of four diesel and two electric trains by Macedonia from the Chinese CSR Corporation, which was financed by a loan of 50 million euros secured by the EBRD. He also highlights a project in Serbia with the China Railway Construction Corporation, and another on a hydro power plant turbine.

Undoubtedly, a project relationship between the EBRD and Chinese companies is emerging in the Balkans. For Bastian, the willingness of both sides to cooperate is evident. More importantly, the ongoing process can test the waters on issues such as "how EBRD procurement rules are adhered to by Chinese counterparties." For their part, Chinese companies could benefit from the EBRD's know-how and support for local economies, including the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Bastian's study has been published during a period in which the EU and the U.S. are closely monitoring the Belt and Road Initiative. There is a growing question inside the commission in Brussels and among national governments whether the acquisition of European companies by Chinese ones should be subject to increased vetting procedures. In his 2017 "State of the European Union" address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed a new EU framework for investment screening. He connoted China without mentioning it by name.

Joining the debate, Bastian believes that "it is more appropriate to consider China a complement to, rather than a substitute for, the Balkan countries European partners." Bastian argues that Chinese loans for infrastructure modernization in Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have provided these countries with a welcome source of project financing and diversification. This development can foster dialogue between the two sides in good faith. Differences between the partners do exist, but what matters more is to build on a common will to bridge them.

On the whole, Bastian draws on realism. He sees no homogenization of Chinese investments in the Balkans and refrains from anticipating whether spillover benefits for the region will be similar to those of Central and Eastern Europe. He discusses the added value of future infrastructure works such as the proposed construction of a high-speed railway connecting Belgrade with Budapest. But his report does not ignore the ongoing European Commission investigation on the flagship project linking Serbia with Hungary.

Perspectives for the future remain promising. China's footprint in southeast Europe will continue to grow in the coming years. This requires, as Bastian argues, that multilateral organizations such as the EBRD, the European Commission or the Regional Cooperation Council in Sarajevo harness collaboration with China.

George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm
Election returns were quickly rolling in Tuesday evening, strongly favoring Danica Roem, a Democrat, in her bid for Virginia state delegate. A victory would set her on a path to become the first openly transgender person in the country elected and seated in a state legislature.

Roem was feeling cautiously optimistic, but her training as a journalist had taught her to gather all of the facts first. Around 8 p.m., she believed it was way too early to declare she'd beaten her opponent, Robert G. Marshall, 73, a 13-term incumbent Republican who has called himself the state's "chief homophobe."

She was anxiously pacing around a restaurant in Prince William County, one of several stops before the "watch party" where she'd planned to connect with her campaign manager and supporters to see the results come in.

"I'm thinking 'Whoa the absentee ballots are out, I don't want to jinx it. There's only 19 of 20 precincts counted,' " she recalled.

All of a sudden, her phone rang. A voice on the other end said former Vice President Joe Biden wanted to talk with her. A few seconds later, she heard Biden's familiar voice.

Biden offered her a hearty 'Congratulations,' and just like that, the realization that she had won started to wash over her.

"When the former vice president of United States calls you, that's usually the point when you can go ahead and declare victory," said Roem.

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As they talked, she reminded him that the two had spoken in 2015 at Biden's son's funeral. Roem had driven to Wilmington to pay respects to Beau Biden, former Delaware attorney general, who died from brain cancer.

Roem waited in line for hours to offer condolences to the Bidens for their son, whom she admired in part for his support of a statewide transgender rights bill.

"I thanked him for raising someone with the character of Beau, who helped get transgender rights passed," Roem remembers telling Biden at the funeral.

She said Biden put his hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eye and said "We mean that. We mean that." Then he kissed her hand and hugged her.

"You turn to goo, your knees just buckle," Roem said. "He was there telling a transgender woman that her rights are worth protecting."

During the election night phone call, Biden told her that he, too, remembered the moment, she said.

Biden, who has called transgender rights the "civil rights issue of our time," supported Roem and four other Democrats running for the House of Delegates in November.

She invited him to Manassas during the call, telling him she'd love to show him around her hometown.

Then they hung up. They had talked for about three minutes.

"I paced around a minute. I looked at everyone and I'm trying to process this," Roem said. "I'm thinking 'What do I do? What do I do? My campaign manager is not with me.' "

She walked back into the main room of the restaurant, Grafton Street Restaurant & Pub, and looked at a group of her supporters. The room fell silent.

"I just got a call from Joe Biden and we won," she said loudly.

The restaurant blew up in cheers.

Roem walked into another room, and leaned against a wall.

"I was sobbing," she said. "I was overwhelmed and joyous. I just felt the need to slide down the wall."

So she did. And Washington Post photographer Jahi Chikwendiu was there to capture it.

He said the room was dark, and he was able to light his photo with the flash of a phone camera as a supporter also wanted to document the moment.

The photo went viral on Twitter, and Biden retweeted it, writing "You're going to make us all proud, Danica."
 Flash

Spain's prosecutor has requested unconditional jail for four members of the Catalan Bureau of Chamber, local media reported on Thursday.

Former speaker of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell was questioned on Thursday along with other five members of the bureau over charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of funds.

The prosecutor requested unconditional jail for Forcadell, Anna Simo, Lluis Corominas and Lluis Guino, while Ramona Barrufet could avoid prison paying a bail of 50,000 euros (US$58,228) and Joan Josep Nuet would be set free with precautionary measures such as regular appearances.

The Catalan parliament unilaterally declared the independence of Spain's northeastern region of Catalonia on Oct. 27. The Spanish government in response applied the article 155 of the Spanish constitution intervening in the autonomous region and taking control of some of its bodies as well as calling fresh elections on Dec. 21.

All members questioned accepted the application of the article and explained that the vote for the independence at the parliament had no legal effect.

Meanwhile, eight former members of the regional government of Catalonia, Generalitat, are in prison after Spanish judge Carmen Lamela jailed them without bail after considering there was a risk of flight and destruction of evidence.

Former regional president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont is in Brussels with other four members of his government. Lamela issued a European arrest warrant for them.
 Flash

Saudi Arabia announced on Thursday that seven people out of total 208 detained for corruption charges have been released, Al Arabiya local news reported.

The Attorney-General Sheikh Saud Al Moaajeb revealed the release in a statement to highlight the latest development related to the action initiated by the recently instituted High Commission against Corruption.

He confirmed that the investigations on the individuals who have been summoned are proceeding rapidly and updates will be provided. The seven detainees were released for lack of sufficient evidence against them.

The committee this week ordered the arrest of princes and top government officials after Saudi Arabia had announced on Thursday a new list of people suspected of corruption. The involved funds were frozen, and the arrest action also targeted managers and officials of government and judicial institutions.

Sheikh Saud said "the financial value of these decades-long (corruption) practices hits a very large amount of misappropriated and unutilized public funds, and the potential value of these may exceed US$100 billion, according to initial investigations."

Further evidence to prove the facts in these corruption cases will continue to be collected, he said, stressing "this action confirms the findings of our preliminary investigation over the past three years on the scale of these corrupt practices."
Evolving regulatory environment for CCPs  the perspective of a Central Bank

Speaking points by Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, Cumberland Lodge Financial Services Summit, Cumberland Lodge, Windsor, Great Park, 10 November 2017

Introduction

I am delighted to return to this years Summit.

I spoke last year about the systemic importance of central counterparties, and their importance, in particular for monetary policy transmission. I spoke about how the growth of these infrastructures means that the existing regulatory framework will need to be enhanced, to address the increasing risks posed by CCPs.

I also spoke of how the prospect of the UKs exit from the EU creates uncertainty regarding the future of the regulatory and supervisory framework for non-euro area CCPs that clear significant amounts of euro currency.

There have been very significant developments at EU level since I spoke about this topic last year.

The most notable development has been the Commissions proposal from June of this year to amend the EMIR framework for the supervision and regulation of EU and third country CCPs.

We strongly welcome the proposals to strengthen the role played by the central banks of issue of the EU in the regulatory framework, as the authorities responsible for the implementation of monetary policy. This strengthening is necessary in light of two major trends of the past few years.

First, since EMIR first entered into force there has been a continued growth of central clearing and resulting financial risk concentration in CCPs. This has significantly increased the potential disruptive effects that CCPs can have on the implementation of our monetary policy.

Second, the UK departure from the EU implies that a very large part of euro-denominated clearing activities across all asset classes may be performed from outside the EU in the future. While central clearing is undeniably a global industry, the range of euro-denominated asset cleared outside of its monetary zone is unparalleled for any other major currency around the world. This clearly points to the need to strengthen the EU regime for third country CCPs and to enhance in this context also the role of the relevant central banks of issue.

As distinct from the need to strengthen the role of the central banks of issue serving a monetary policy purpose, it is also fully justified to seek to strengthen the supervisory regime for CCPs Take the case of third country CCPs: until now, the EUs approach towards third country CCPs, including those that are of systemic importance, has been to rely entirely on the supervision carried out by home authorities. Deference to home authorities should continue to be the norm in those areas where rules are fully equivalent. However, there are certain areas in which EU rules provide more protection than those in other jurisdictions, and in these areas the Commission is right to suggest that reliance on home authorities may not be enough, and that more direct involvement by EU authorities is required. This is the same approach as currently followed by certain other major jurisdictions.

Where the approach proposed by the Commission may differ is that it also foresees that under extreme circumstances, certain systemically important third country CCPs might not be authorised to operate from outside the EU, and would be required to establish themselves within the Union if they wish to continue providing services to EU counterparties and markets. EU authorities acknowledge that such a decision would have important consequences on market structure. However, as I mentioned earlier, for no other major currency are so many systemic asset classes cleared outside of its own monetary area. The requirement, proposed by the Commission, for CCPs to be established within the EU would function as a last resort measure, to be triggered in the event EU authorities cannot control the risks to their mandates through other means. The ECB would be involved in the process in order to share its liquidity considerations as a monetary policy authority, but the final supervisory decision would be within the hands of the Commission and the Union legislators.

Another aspect where the proposals might differ somewhat from the approach taken in certain other major jurisdictions is the larger role given to central banks of issue. In this respect, it should be noted that a comparable role has been given to the US Federal Reserve in respect of systemically important financial market utilities, including CCPs. This is entirely justified: enhancing the role of central banks is absolutely essential considering just how critical CCPs have become for the smooth conduct of monetary policy.

Indeed, disturbances affecting a CCP can cause significant liquidity strains for banks. This can directly affect the central banks ability to implement monetary policy and can impact the smooth functioning of payment systems.

In addition, a crisis affecting a repo CCP can disrupt the functioning of the money market, thereby impairing the channels through which central banks conduct monetary policy operations.

Furthermore, disruptive changes to CCP risk management (e.g. sudden collateral haircuts) can generate asset price volatility and affect the central banks ability to implement monetary policy.

Finally, a potential decision to allocate liquidity for financial stability purposes outside the currency area would affect the monetary policy stance of the central bank inside the currency area.

This is the reason why, in the event of a severe crisis, emergency financial assistance by euro area national central banks is always subject to a non-objection procedure by the ECB to preserve its monetary policy objective.

This brief overview shows the significant impact the malfunctioning of a major CCP clearing significant amounts of euro could have on the conduct of monetary policy. At the same time, allow me to stress that the Commission proposal does not entail that central banks of issue would duplicate the work of supervisors. On the contrary, the role ascribed to them is a limited and targeted one, centred on the aspects of CCP risk management that are most essential for the fulfilment of their monetary policy mandates. This is also why third country CCPs and their home authorities need not be concerned about potential overlaps between EU supervisors and central banks: each will play a well-defined role in the regulatory framework, under their respective statutory responsibilities.

In order to play the greater role foreseen for central banks under the legislative proposal, the ECBs Governing Council unanimously adopted a recommendation to amend Article 22 of our Statute.

I would like to emphasize here that any potential regulatory actions of the ECB could only be taken within the limits ascribed to us by the Treaty  i.e. the implementation of monetary policy  and would be subject to stringent internal governance controls as well as full judicial review. The role that we would fulfil is not a supervisory one  this is the task conferred upon the national competent authorities and ESMA. Our involvement would be fully focused to the specific responsibilities with which we are tasked as a monetary authority.

Likewise, the Union legislators or the Commission could only adopt measures within the limits of their tasks under the Treaties, focusing on the field of CCP supervision, and their objectives of ensuring financial stability and achieving the harmonisation of the internal market. This would be essential to avoid overlapping or contradictory measures. After all, these objectives are distinct but complementary to the objective of price stability.

Further issues regarding FMIs arising from Brexit

The withdrawal of the UK from the EU will, needless to say, create legal uncertainty not only for CCPs but, also, for other financial market infrastructures, including payment and securities settlement systems processing euro-denominated transactions. These issues need to be carefully monitored and assessed, and solutions may need to be explored in order to ensure certainty and stability.

By way of example, the EUs Settlement Finality Directive provides that only payment, clearing and securities settlement systems governed by the law of an EU Member State may be designated by Member States, and only such designated systems may benefit from the finality protections under the SFD. Systems governed by the law of a third country are not eligible for designation under the SFD, and will not benefit from those protections. As a result, if EU participants in a third country system were to become insolvent, the courts could, based on their national insolvency laws, and depending on whether or not their national legislator has activated the option provided for in Recital 7 of the SFD, require the unwinding of transfer orders that they have entered into the third country system, thereby undermining the systems integrity and affecting other participants in that system. Regulatory accommodations may need to be made, to mitigate the adverse effects of the loss of SFD designation. However, it remains to be seen whether this will prove possible and, if so, what form these will assume.

Another example relates to issues arising with regard to the proposed moratorium tool under the BRRD. The recent proposal to amend the BRRD, empowers competent and resolution authorities to suspend certain payments and delivery obligations, if this would help facilitate recovery and resolution. Of course, the proposal ensures exemptions from the moratorium tool related to FMIs, including CCPs. It may be necessary to consider whether there is a need to exempt recognise third-country central securities depositories and third-country payment systems subject to a cooperative oversight arrangement involving at least one central bank in of the ESCB.

The rationale is that a suspension prohibiting a participant (e.g. a credit institution) from making any payments to an FMI will de facto cause that participant to no longer be able to meet its obligations as they fall due. For payment obligations to FMIs, this would place the participant in default. Without an exemption for this type of payment, the moratorium would actually have the potential to amplify systemic risk before the FMI safeguards kick in.

Conclusion

I have a few concluding remarks.

First, these various legislative initiatives are crucially important in the current context. Ensuring a successful outcome of these discussions in a timely manner should be a key priority for EU legislators.

Second, we strongly welcome the intention of the legislator to give central banks of issue a role in the regulatory framework for CCPs, commensurate with their responsibilities. As I have said, this is of crucial importance, considering the fundamental impact CCPs can have on monetary policy. At the same time, the involvement of the central bank in the regulatory framework should not put into question either its independence or its discretion to define the scope of its monetary policy. We are confident that the EU legislator will fully recognise this imperative.

Thank you for your attention.
(Photo: Marcelo Schneider/WCC)World Council of Churches General Secretary, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit greets Dr. Mohammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, general secretary of the Muslim World League who visited Geneva' s Ecumenical Center in Switzerland on Nov.9, 2017.

One of the most important tasks of the Muslim World League is the defeat of virtual extremist messages that are spreading hatred in the world, the Islamic organization's secretary general has said at a meeting with a top Christian leader.

Dr. Mohammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, general secretary of the Muslim World League visited the World Council of Churches in Geneva' s Ecumenical Center in Switzerland on Nov.9.

In his opening remarks, Al-Issa said: "Peace cannot be achieved without total justice, abstract justice can only lead to false peace," the WCC said in a statement.

He said, "Religious freedom is a human and logical necessity, a given if we understand the holy texts correctly."

The Muslim World League is an international non-governmental Islamic organization based in the Holy City of Makkah, or Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The Muslim leader said, "We have to combat extremists, the means and media used by them. Their objectives are purely material. We all have to be well informed, open to dialogue and new information, keep the truth and listen to all parties"

WCC general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit who welcomed Al-Issa to the Ecumenical Center said, "As religious leaders we have a special responsibility to elevate the sanctity of the life of all human beings created by the Holy God.

"As communities of faith we are called to show this as love to one another, in relations of respect and care to everybody."

Tveit noted, "We believe in one God that has created one humanity to live together with its diversity and differences.

"We are here to share our reflections and commitment to show together what we believe this means in practice.

"Together we should call for the care of the life of everybody created by God. Therefore, we must be accountable to those are searching for justice and peace in our use of our Holy texts.

'UNITY AND CO-EXISTENCE'

Al-Issa responded: "I am very satisfied to be present and learn more about the distinguished work of the World Council of Churches on peace, unity and co-existence. We seek to achieve the same humanitarian objectives within our religions."

He stressed, "We might differ, but we have to achieve love and humanity together. Religions have nothing to do with terrorism and violence. It is our responsibility to cleanse Islam from incorrect ideas."

Al-Issa added: "World religions are neutral, they have nothing to do with profits and individual ambitions. The ones who kidnap religions are the ones that create the problem."

The Muslim leader said, "We have to unite and co-operate, those in all different religions and denominations; first reconciliation among us, and then show this paradigm to the rest of the world.

"As soon as we transform ourselves, we will be able to present mindful and unbiased solutions to others as well.

"In order to make an impact we would need to work together - through interreligious dialogue - in a sustainable way, neutral, with no political slogans. We need to develop strategic plans together and then make an impact to the world."
(Photo: Reuters / Andrew Winning)The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (R) and atheist scholar Richard Dawkins pose for a photograph outside Clarendon House at Oxford University, before their debate in the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford, central England, February 23, 2012. The name of the debate is ?The Nature of Human Beings and the Question of their Ultimate Origin?

University of Oxford's Balliol College has banned Christian Union representatives from attending its freshers' fair over concerns at the "potential for harm" to them and it has stirred a backlash.

Balliol Christian Union was told the college's student body, known as the JCR (junior common room), wanted the freshers' fair to be a "secular space," the Oxford student newspaper Cherwell reports.

The JCR committee initially attempted to prevent any Christian Union representation, stating it "couldn't guarantee every major belief system" would be represented, which risked "alienating" new students.

Discussion between the Christian Union and the JCR Vice President Freddy Potts, followed.

The Christian Union was eventually told permission would be granted for a single multifaith, but on the condition that it had no representative of any society manning it.

The Cherwell reported that ban provoked a backlash within Balliol, with a JCR motion passed unanimously Oct. 8 accusing the JCR of "barring the participation of specific faith-based organizations."

The meeting described the step as "a violation of free speech [and] a violation of religious freedom."

The student body motion states: "the Balliol JCR should not make judgements regarding the legitimacy of faith groups or religious expression."

The motion prohibits the JCR from barring any official religious societies from participation in the Balliol freshers' fair in future.

The student newspaper reported that during the initial email exchange, JCR Vice President Freddy Potts, on behalf of the JCR Welfare Subcommittee, had justified the ban.

He told a Christian Union representative: "We recognize the wonderful advantages in having CU representatives at the Fresher's Fair, but are concerned that there is potential for harm to freshers who are already struggling to feel welcome in Oxford."

ALIENATING INCOMING STUDENTS

He had also said: "Our sole concern is that the presence of the CU alone may alienate incoming students.

"This sort of alienation or micro-aggression is regularly dismissed as not important enough to report, especially when there is little to no indication that other students or committee members may empathize, and inevitably leads to further harm of the already most vulnerable and marginalized groups."

Commenting on the ban Rev. Nigel Genders, the Church of England's chief education officer, was quoted as saying in The Guardian newspaper: "Freedom of religion and belief is a fundamental principle that underpins our country and its great institutions and universities.

"Christian Unions represent some of the largest student led organizations in many universities across the country and to exclude them in this way is to misunderstand the nature of debate and dialogue and at odds with the kind of society we are all seeking to promote."

The University and Colleges Christian Fellowship said Christian Unions provide a caring, supportive community to 20,000 students across the United Kingdom each year.

It said that last year, 40 unions were either nominated or awarded student union awards for their contribution to university life.

Rev. Richard Cunningham , director of the fellowship said, "We are however concerned that the current desire to provide safe spaces on campus does not infringe on the core liberties of freedom of speech and freedom of association which are surely foundational to the university experience and indeed to basic human flourishing."
(Photo: REUTERS / Tony Gentile)Pope Francis leads his weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican November 12, 2014.

Pope Francis reproach of the Catholic faithful for using their mobile phones during Mass went viral on the internet showing the pontiff the power of the social media he contends with.

Despite using social media himself with millions of followers on Twitter, Francis said on Nov. 8 that it He said it made him sad when many phones are held up.

He said even priests and bishops are taking photos, Catholic News Agency reported.

The Pope is not known to have used a mobile phone in public since his election and once asked young people to carry Bibles instead of phones, said the BBC.

He is, however, an avid user of social media and regularly allows himself to be snapped with pilgrims for selfies.

Pope Francis made his comments at his weekly audience in St Peter's Square in Rome, noting that Mass is a time for prayer and not a show.

"At a certain point the priest leading the ceremony says 'lift up our hearts'. He doesn't say 'lift up our mobile phones to take photographs' - it's a very ugly thing," said Francis.

"It's so sad when I'm celebrating mass here or inside the basilica and I see lots of phones held up - not just by the faithful, but also by priests and bishops! Please!"

It's a bad thing! And I tell you that it gives me so much sadness when I celebrate here in the Piazza or Basilica and I see so many raised cellphones, not just of the faithful, even of some priests and even bishops.

"But think: when you go to Mass, the Lord is there! And you're distracted. (But) it is the Lord!"

The following day the Pope was taking action on another social habit, one that is becoming increasingly taboo in the modern era, smoking tobacco.

SALE OF CIGARETTES BANNED

He banned the sale of cigarettes inside the Vatican State.

A statement released on Thursday by Greg Burke, Director of the Holy See Press Office, explained that the Holy See "cannot be cooperating with a practice that is clearly harming the health of people."

The Vatican cited World Health Organization statistics that smoking causes more than seven million deaths worldwide every year.

Burke said cigarettes will not be sold at the Vatican as of the beginning of next year.

Burke acknowledged that the sale of cigarettes has been a source of revenue for the Holy See, but he said "no profit can be legitimate if it is costing people their lives."

"Although the cigarettes sold to employees and pensioners in the Vatican at a reduced price are a source of revenue for the Holy See, no profit can be legitimate if it puts lives at risk" the statement said.

He added, however, that the sale of large cigars would continue for the time being because the smoke is not inhaled, Vatican Radio reported.




BIOMIN opens new China plant in Wuxi



In the presence of 500 guests from China and abroad, BIOMIN officially opened its new production facility on October 30 in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, west of Shanghai.





Since it was built in 2004, BIOMIN's other plant in China in Malu, Shanghai, has served its capacity it was built for well. Among other things, eFeedLink understands that the Wuxi site was selected for its favourable land acquisition terms and environmental safety standards.

BIOMIN would also soon be moving its China headquarters from Malu to Wuxi.

"It is the vision of the Erber Group, which BIOMIN is part of, to see safe and nutritious food being provided for a growing world population. We actively offer our products and services in more than 120 countries through our distributors and own affiliates. When we opened our Shanghai office in 2000, we only had two staff doing product registration. And looking back 12 years ago when we opened our first plant in China in Malu, Shanghai in 2004, our Wuxi plant today is a modern, state-of-the-art facility with the latest technology for quality management. We would continue to support the Chinese industry's endeavour to provide healthy and safe food," said Erich Erber, founder of Erber Group and BIOMIN during his opening speech.





During the opening ceremony, government representatives from both Austria and China (Xishan District, Wuxi) affirmed BIOMIN's commitment to the Chinese market. It was cited that "BIOMIN, in choosing to relocate its China headquarters to Wuxi, as it expands both in Asia and globally, is a positive affirmation of its trust in Wuxi's ETDZ (Economic and Technological Development Zone)", and similarly, "BIOMIN is a perfect example of a long-term investment in China and commitment to the Chinese market."

One point which was highlighted in Erich Erber's speech was that the Wuxi plant is equipped with the latest LCMS technology, operated by BIOMIN's sister company Romer Labs, primarily to be used for mycotoxin testing. Previously in the Malu plant, only HPLC and ELISA testing were available.

While the Wuxi plant currently produces only the Mycofix (mycotoxin management) and Biotronic (acidifiers) product lines, eFeedLink understands that BIOMIN has plans to expand its product range manufactured at the facility in the future, with meeting certification requirements as one of their key considerations.

Further on the Wuxi plant, Erich Erber hopes to replicate its model of success elsewhere in China. Erber sees Austrian-based ALPLA as a role model. The little-known company is a global market leader in bottling technology used by the world's largest consumer brands, and "they know everything about making the best factories for producing bottle caps", said Erber.

For Jan Vanbrabant, CEO and chairman of the Erber Group, BIOMIN's strategic focus in the Chinese market remains very clear. "We will not compete directly with local commodity producers. We will continue to stay true to ourselves, and keep investing in innovation so that we will continue to stay ahead in our market segments."
On Thursday, an official from the country's think tank said that it is not be possible to get the entire carbon trading market active this year as planned. However, it is possible that the program will begin in full swing in the first half of 2018.

According to Deputy Director General for the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute Wang Zhonying in a seminar he attended, the State Council said that "the market should launch in 2017-2018."

He further adds, "Probably there will be some moves by the end of this year, but I guess it won't be until early next year that there will be some real movements."

China is currently considered the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and as part of its commitment to adhere to the 2015 Paris climate change agreements, launched seven pilot regional trading schemes and a national trading market. However, the national program has met several complications due to unreliable data and regulatory complications.

The carbon trading market is scheduled to cover eight industrial sector; however, an anonymous researcher who spoke to Reuters said that it is possible only the electricity industry would be covered on the first half of the market.

"It is difficult to advance the scheme considering the data problem and disagreement between enterprises and authorities."
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A bill signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker in 2016 that allows deer hunters to wear blaze pink drew criticism by some hunting organizations after some supporters of the bill said pink clothing would help attract more female hunters.

It's not known if pink clothing will be the tipping point for non-hunters to hit the woods and fields of Wisconsin and then shoot and gut a deer. But a Dane County company is hoping its line of blaze pink products designed exclusively for women will attract existing hunters and those new to the sport

DSG Outerwear in Oregon has launched a line of blaze pink jackets, bibs, hats and gloves that can be purchased through the company's website, at Sheels sporting good stores in Appleton and Eau Claire and on the website of mega-outdoor retailer, Cabela's. And while Wisconsin, where deer hunting is a more than $1 billion industry, is a prime target for DSG, hunters in Minnesota, Virginia, Colorado and Louisiana are also potential customers after law changes in those states were approved.

"It was always another sport that I wanted to start a line in," said Wendy Gavinski, DSG's owner. "I just needed that push and this was kind of it."

Gavinski, 38, a former salesperson at U.S. Cellular and Shred-it, and with a degree in communications from UW-Whitewater, founded Divas SnowGear in 2010 to sell outerwear and accessories to women who ride snowmobiles. In 2014, she told the Wisconsin State Journal that annual revenues for the company topped $1 million after she and her husband, Travis, were asked to be part of Facebook's first 12-member SMB (small to medium businesses) Council.

Blaze pink presents another growth opportunity for DSG but Gavinski admits that it's been tough to get a handle on how much product to design and have manufactured since the laws that allow blaze pink in addition to blaze orange are relatively new. Waterproof, windproof , insulated and breathable jackets range in price from $90 to $150 with blze pink bibs priced at $129 on the DSG website.

"The women's side of hunting is growing a ton so we kind of just based it on our best own guess," Gavinski said. "Cabela's gave us their best guess but they didnt have any idea either. It was very difficult."
When reading Heyde Center for the Arts' upcoming play, "Last Lists from My Mad Mother," Debra Johnson had a moment of realization about her mother's life with dementia and Johnson's subsequent reversed role as caregiver.

The play focuses on a mother-daughter relationship in the midst of an Alzheimer's diagnosis.

"It's allowing me to understand better where Im at and that Im not alone, that Im not the only one thats in this situation, that there are no perfect answers, that there is no play-by-play," Johnson said, "but there's a shared kind of bond with those people going through it."

Instead of feeling angry for her mother not remembering, Johnson, executive director of the center and the Chippewa Valley Cultural Association, said she now finds the joy with the time spent with her mother.

"She may not remember it tomorrow but at the moment were doing it, shes enjoying it... enjoying life, and I can enjoy her," Johnson said.

"Last Lists from my Mad Mother" will run 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16 through Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Heyde Center, 3 S. High Street. The play, Johnson said, is part of the center's goal of using art as a way of addressing social issues.

The story follows the relationship of Dot and Ma as they navigate through Ma's diagnosis, life with the disease and inevitable end that comes with it, while Sis offers her own advice on the phone.

Friday and Saturday's performances will feature a cash bar and a catered dinner by Current Catering, with a buffet of roasted pork loin and chicken, wild rice pilaf, green salad, vegetable blend, rolls and a fudge brownie prior to the show.

Audiences can also participate in a discussion following the show with Sharlene Bellefeuille, outreach specialist with the Alzheimer's Association, Greater Wisconsin Chapter.

Play director Frank Bartella has been working on the production since the beginning of the year and formally with a cast since September. Bartella said he believes the story weaves together strong character progressions due to the production's small cast, while the show as a whole offers audiences grounds for discussing dementia.

"To me, all great stories have a moral or a meaning to them, so being able to then have a discussion afterwards really ties the whole thing together," Bartella said.

Bellefeuille, who has been with the Alzheimer's Association for 9 years, represents much of western Wisconsin, assisting patients and their families as they navigate through a memory-loss diagnosis.

Through the play, Bellefeuille said she is hopeful audiencesand any families afflicted by memory losswill foster a healthy perspective on what life with a memory-loss diagnosis is like.

"We have this picture of somebody with dementia. They look confused and theyre acting out," Bellefeuille said. "It allows us to see the disease process, and then how to communicate more effectively."

Bellefeuille added dementia can impact one in two or three people by the time they reach the age of 85, making it much more common.

On hand with her at the performances will be what Bellefeuille called her "arsenal of good information," including brochures and more information, but she also encouraged community members, families and organizations to reach out to the association's professional hotline at 1-800-272-3900.

The hotline, she said, can be used for more than just crisis situations and is there to answer questions and start a conversation about dementia and aging.

Reflecting now, Johnson said the situation she lives in is not one she would have ever expected, but it's one everyone should take time to understand.

"It's a human situation, its not just a dementia situation," Johnson said. "I never thought about having a parent with dementia. You just kind of go on thinking your parents are always going to be your parents. You start losing your parents well before they physically leave, but it's not the end-all.

"Theres still a wonderful person there."
Richard Harold Baughman of Chippewa Falls will turn 100 on Monday, Nov. 13, two days after Veterans Day, but hes received a birthday gift a week early.

Baughman, along with the 10 other veterans who live at Wissota Place Senior Living in Chippewa Falls, watched Tuesday morning as a flag was raised on the newly-erected flagpole at the residence. Three volleys were fired. A choir from Chippewa Falls Senior High School sang the National Anthem.

The ceremony was especially poignant for Baughman, a Bronze Star and Purple Heart veteran of World War II. The Rusk County native remembered his time in military clearly, but theres one date that keeps coming up: Christmas Eve of 1942, a year after the U.S. entered the war.

I ended up at (Louisiana training camp) Camp Claiborne on Christmas Eve, Baughman said. They were forming a new division, the 103rdthat was a very lonesome time for me.

Baughman had married his wife Arline in 1940, had built a homestead on 40 acres in Sheldon, Wis. with his father a year later. Several paintings of the Baughman family farm hang on his apartments walls at Wissota Place: a humble white one-story house stands in a quiet farm field, trees lining the horizon.

Baughman was drafted in 1942. After basic training in Louisiana, he headed to Camp Howze in Texas, where he stayed until 1944. On D-Day (June 6, 1944), a whole bunch of us were taken out and put on a train, he remembers.

After a brief stint loading ships in Boston Harbor, he boarded ships to Brazil, Scotland, England and finally landed in Normandy, France.

Baughman remembers four days of fighting in early October of 1944, during a large Allied attack on a German defensive line called the West Wall in northern France. We had a tough fightwe lost a lot of men, he said.

When Baughman and his division broke through the Germans defensive line, he remembers reaching a small town before being wounded in the knee. He was evacuated to a Normandy hospital until December, he said, then rejoined Allied forces to fight in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and January 1945. The battle is where American soldiers sustained the most casualties of any fight of the war. I got back to the front again, and (enemy forces) stopped their volleys, he remembers. Thats probably the reason Im still here. We cut the (German forces) off, so they couldnt get back to Germany. He remained unharmed during the battle.

The war in Europe ended in May 1945, but America still was fighting the Japanese in the Pacific Theater.

Baughman sustained another injury during training. After recuperating and returning to the field, he finally made his way back to the United States in September 1945, after the war ended.

Baughman lived at his Sheldon farm with his wife and six children for another 70 years, welcoming many grandchildren and great-grandchildren along the way. In 2016, Arline passed away, and Baughman moved to Wissota Place soon after.

Baughman will celebrate his 100th birthday on Monday. Hes kept dozens of letters, yellowed with age, from his superiors announcing the end of the war, as well as his medals.

Its hard, he said, referring to selling his family farm and moving to Chippewa Falls. But its wonderful here.
There is no bigger elephant in the New York Public Library than American veteran writer Gay Talese of the NY Times and Esquire.

The tension mounts in the annual Library Lions Gala as he goes on a tirade without regard for any possible public backlash. He calls out one specific actor in mind.

"So, O.K., it happened 10 years ago . . . Jesus, suck it up once in a while," said Talese.

That actor who is told to 'suck it up' is Anthony Rapp. Now 46 years old, Rapp has stepped out to claim sexual harassment when he was only 14 against the recently fired House of Cards actor Kevin Spacey. Eight other victims have now come forward after Rapp's initial allegations.

Talese Sides With Spacey

Talese has expressed that he wants to write about the embattled Spacey, feeling bad for the actor's destroyed Oscar award-winning career and "a lifetime of success and hard work" just because of a 10-minute mistake. The author goes on a litany that goes under the umbrella of the Bible's teachings such as "Judge lest ye be judged" or "He that is without sin among you, cast the first stone" type of sermon.

It seems that the writer has no knowledge of the other accusers and the public's outcry, stemming from such popular social media hashtags such as the #metoo movement. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein pretty much flicked the first domino. All the other accused abusers such as film director Brett Ratner and most recently Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick have all started falling down into a head-spinning domino effect. Nowadays, it gets tougher to keep up with news of who accuses who.

Spacey Kicked Out Of 'House'

In the meantime, Spacey has released statements that he will be seeking treatment and have taken a forced break from acting. Netflix has already pulled the rug out from underneath the actor's 'House' and clearly any support for him is non-existent. Until Talese opened his mouth making a bizarre point about the Dalai Lama, stating his conviction to media executives in the prestigious library gala event.

"You know something, all of us in this room at one time or another did something we're ashamed of." He asserts, "The Dalai Lama has done something he's ashamed of. The Dalai Lama should confess... put that in your magazine!"

However, this kind of viewpoint may be considered insensitive to victims of sexual abuse.

Domino Effect

Several movements have been popping up all over the web in support of victims. The current hunt for alleged sexual predators within the pillars of Hollywood pedophilia, led by former child star Corey Feldman, has gone to a fever pitch. Considering the damage done when Spacey 'came out' as an excuse for his bad sexual behavior, it seems Talese will not have any support. Under the heading of freedom of speech, the acclaimed and respected author is just simply expressing an opinion.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been split for over a year but according to a new report, they are still at war when it comes to their six children.

As their divorce continues to play out, Jolie and Pitt's kids, including 16-year-old Maddox, 13-year-old Pax, 12-year-old Zahara, 11-year-old Shiloh, and 9-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox, are said to be caught in the middle of their parents' drama, and when it comes to the holidays, they may not see their father at all.

On Nov. 8, LifeandStyle magazine said that Pitt was hoping to take some time out from filming Ad Astra in order to see his kids on Thanksgiving. However, that may be unlikely due to his alleged feud with Jolie, who is being accused of using the children as pawns in her battle against the actor.

"Brad knows he cant count on scheduled days with the kids, an insider said. [B]ecause Angie has changed the plans abruptly at the last minute multiple times.

Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt in September 2016. Since then, their children have only been seen with her. As some may have noticed, the children are often photographed out and about in Los Angeles and have even attended a few red carpet events in Toronto and New York City with the actress.

According to LifeandStyle's report, Jolie offered to welcome Pitt into her home so that he could spend private time with the kids. However, Pitt didn't think it was a good idea to go into his estranged spouse's home and instead began planning a celebration for the family at his own house. Then, a short time later, Jolie reportedly had her assistant call Pitt and let him know that the children would not be visiting him at home during the upcoming holiday.

Pitt feels Angie isnt ready to let go of her anger, the source continued. So, he "just wished her a happy Thanksgiving" and hung up.

There are two choices for Brad, explains the insider. Fight back and get angry every time she pulls a stunt, which would only impact the kids, or handle it like a mature adult. If that means he wont see the kids as much or at the holidays, he has made peace with it.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are reportedly at odds and heading for divorce due to his allegedly erratic behavior and frequent absences from their family's outings in Los Angeles.

According to a new report, Kardashian is done with her marriage and reportedly planning to file for divorce as she and the rapper await the upcoming birth of their third child.

"Kim will be filing for divorce from Kanye," an insider claimed to LifeandStyle magazine on Nov. 8. Its officially over. She is ready to move on with her life.

Kardashian and West began dating after her second divorce from Kris Humphries and in June 2013, they welcomed their first child, daughter North West, now four. Three years later, after tying the knot in Italy in May 2014, the couple welcomed their second child, son Saint West, who turns two next month.

As fans of the couple will recall, West reportedly had a mental breakdown while on stage in November of last year and while Kardashian reportedly did her best to cater to his needs for several months, she's reportedly been unsuccessful in making amends with him and bettering their marriage.

Kanye thinks hes being spied on, a source said. Kanye will go days without talking to her. Hes hot and hes cold. Even their sex life isnt what it used to be.

While Kardashian has tried a lot with West, according to the report, she's grown exhausted and even their new baby isn't enough to save their relationship and convince her to stay with the rapper.

[Kim] feels like shes tried everything. Shes tired and shes done with this marriage, the source alleged. Kanye makes it very difficult for her. She loves being a mother, but she wants it all, and Kanye cant give that to her.

Kim has a lot she still wants to accomplish, and she cant do that if she feels Kanye is dragging her down," the insider continued. "The last thing she wants is to become this rich, lonely, unhappy housewife, and thats where her life is headed.

To see more of Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and their family, tune into new episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians season 14 on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on the E! Network.
There is no questioning the persistence of Patrick Lee Crawford. Once the 46-year-old Holcombe man makes a decision, he sticks by it.

At least, thats the conclusion that can be drawn from a man facing 34 counts of felony bail jumping in Chippewa County Court. All of Crawfords bail jumping charges stem from his Aug. 20 charge of seventh offense driving while intoxicated in the town of Birch Creek.

Crawford, who is formerly of Augusta, was charged in September with nine counts of felony bail jumping for failing to submit to a daily preliminary breath test from Aug. 22 to Aug. 30. The breath tests were to be done at the Chippewa County Jail.

On Wednesday, 25 more felony bail jumping charges were filed in court against Crawford, all for failing to submit to a daily preliminary breath test. A criminal complaint said Crawford is not enrolled in the Intoxicated Driver Intervention Program (IDIP) nor Soberlink, a remote alcohol monitoring program.

Six counts of felony bail jumping filed against Crawford on Wednesday are from Sept. 30, Oct. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Another nine counts are from Oct. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18. The 10 counts are from Oct. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and Oct. 28.

Each count of felony bail jumping carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. If he was convicted of all 34 counts and receives the maximum sentence, Crawford would serve a 204-year prison sentence and be subject to a $340,000 fine.

However, judges seldom hand out maximum sentences.

Crawford is in trouble because of his Aug. 20 arrest in the town of Birch Creek for intoxicated driving seventh offense. A criminal complaint said he had a blood alcohol content of 0.318. Thats nearly four times Wisconsins standard of intoxicated for a first time drunk driver of 0.08.

A criminal complaint for the drunk driving charge said when an law enforcement officer stopped Crawford the defendant said: You got me. I am drunk.

After going through preliminary procedures, Crawford asked the officer: Do we need to go through the dance? I am drunk. Just arrest me now.
Ink in ancient manuscripts can shed lighton how life was in those times. Scientists from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the Autonomous University of Mexico and the ESRF have discovered copper in Egyptian papyri, ranging from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD, indicating that the ink originated from the soot in glass and metallurgy workshops and mines.

Horus was an Egyptian soldier stationed in the military camp of Pathyris, around 30 km south of Luxor, during the 1st century BC. During a civil war in 88 BC Pathyris was destroyed, but Horus private correspondence was preserved in a jar, albeit in pieces. Around 600km to the north, the ancient town of Tebtunis houses the only large scale institutional library known to have survived from ancient Egypt. The Tebtunis temple library contains papyri fragments from the first two centuries AD. The ink of these manuscripts could help scientists to piece together information about ancient times. Did they use the same formula in ink despite the different time and place? Could the ink help scientists match the fragments together in order to be able to read complete manuscripts? Could they even create a cartography of ink recipes?

With these questions, the international team of researchers came to the ESRFs ID21 beamline looking for answers. Thomas Christiansen, Egyptologist and corresponding author, explains that the chemistry of the black inks used in the ancient world has been only scantily studied so far, leaving gaps in our knowledge of one of the fundamental inventions in the history of civilization. This is why we came to the ESRF.

A piece of papyrus (left) and the X-ray fluorescence image of the same piece. In red, the concentration of copper.

In combination to laboratory techniques, they came to the ID21 beamline, at the European Synchrotron, Grenoble, to analyse the composition of the papyrus and the ink, from the millimetre to the micron scale with micro XRF and micro XANES. Despite their distance in time, space, and social context, the researchers were surprised to find that the black inks of Pathyris and Tebtunis revealed similar traits. Marine Cotte, in charge of ID21, explains that there is a strong presence of copper in all the samples that we see clearly in the micro XRF maps.

These results suggest that the source of the copper compounds found in the black inks and along the fibrous structure are by-products of metallurgy, glaze and glass production, which provided the raw material (soot) for refined carbon inks in the ancient Mediterranean.

The team when they came to ID21 at the ESRF, back in April 2016. On the right, the samples. Credits: C. Argoud.

Conservation efforts

The team had hoped to find elements in their experiment to show differences between ink formulae from the two locations at two times in history, but unfortunately none of the four inks studied are completely identical and the micro XANES analysis on copper showed variations even within a single letter. We dont know why there are so many variations of copper, says Christiansen, but it could be because papyrus used to be humidified to study it, and that made the copper change its chemical state, or just because the environment has made it evolve over the centuries.

The results will, however, help define future strategies of conservation. This is the first time that copper has been detected in black inks from such an early period. Further understanding the nature of the inks used in Ancient Egypt is important, since, on the basis of the results, we can develop new and better methods of conservation that will ensure the longevity of these unique and fragile papyri, concludes Thomas Christiansen.

Text by Montserrat Capellas Espuny

Reference:

Christiansen, T. et al, Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 15346 (2017). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-15652-7
A TITAN KRIOS cryo-electron microscope has been inaugurated at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, in Grenoble, France. The inauguration took place in the presence of Ada Yonath, chemistry Nobel Prize laureate in 2009, Francesco Sette, Director General of the ESRF and all the partners that jointly run the facility with the ESRF: the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS) and the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL). This cryo-electron microscope will provide Europe with a new, innovative and complementary facility for structural biology, serving a vibrant scientific community and addressing new biology and health challenges.

The importance of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) for biochemistry has been recently recognised through the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson. According to the Nobel Prize Committee this technique both simplifies and improves the imaging of biomolecules and has taken biochemistry into a new era. Chemistry laureate Ada Yonath, who received the Nobel in 2009 for determining the structure of the ribosome using X-ray crystallography, in particular at the ESRF, described this technique as the next step in the resolution revolution.

To capture life in atomic details

It is often said in structural biology that seeing is believing: It is only by knowing the atom-by-atom arrangement of a biomolecule that researchers can grasp how it works and identify therapeutic solutions.

The team in the control hutch of the new CRYO-EM platform. Credits: Stef Cande.

Thanks to cryo-EM, researchers can now freeze biomolecules mid-movement, and therefore portray them at atomic resolution. They can also visualise processes inside cells they have never previously seen or depict membrane proteins. Cryo-EM allows researchers to produce films that reveal how proteins interact with other molecules, which is decisive for both the basic understanding of lifes chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals. The technique of cryo-EM has opened up the molecular world of the cell to direct observation, with scientists using the technique to probe the structure of drug targets, as well as components within cells involved in sensing pain and human diseases.

A collaborative platform for Europe and beyond

The strength of this equipment lies in its synergy with synchrotron-based techniques and, in its collaborative nature. The cryo-EM platform will provide scientists with a support to users from all the partner institutes: ESRF, EMBL, ILL and IBS.

This platform will offer users in Europe and beyond a holistic approach to their research as it concentrates 350 scientists from three European Institutes and one French mixed research facility in structural biology (MX) on a same site. Along with state-of-the-art and highly automated MX beamlines, it will provide scientists with full services and a large combination of techniques from sample preparation, to data collection and their interpretation.

Eaazhisai Kandiah preparing an experiment. Credits: Stef Cande.

As underlined by Francesco Sette, DG of the ESRF We are proud to inaugurate this cryo-electron microscope. The ESRF has always helped lead the way in structural biology, with the commissioning of worlds first undulator-based beamlines for MX and MX-dedicated micro-focus beamline. With this collaborative cryo-EM platform, the ESRF, with its partners, will offer a unique hub for pioneering research in structural biology and a great tool for the understanding of life.

The cryo-EM platform, which started operating in November, is open to the international user community through a peer-review system that evaluates the scientific merit of proposals, as well as their technical feasibility. There are few cryo-EMs in Europe, and they are mostly used locally. The ESRF, as an international institute, is the ideal place to offer this service to the scientific community worldwide, explains Eaazhisai Kandiah, beamline scientist.

With the addition of this world-class cryo-EM, the ESRF offers the international structural biology community the possibility of coordinated access to cutting-edge methods and instrumentation. "The ESRF international scientific community can now use the information obtained both from diffraction experiments and from cryo-EM in a complementary fashion to better and more fully interpret action and function of complex bio-macromolecules. It will allow scientists to push the field of structural biology forward, to better understand the nature of health diseases, and to develop new drugs. underlines Christoph Muller-Dieckmann, beamline responsible.

The Cryo-EM platform will be run by 7 scientists, including 3 from the ESRF, 2 from EMBL and 2 from IBS.

"At EMBL, we're very excited at the opportunities this new facility will offer, and the more refined insight it will give us into detailed biological structures that are difficult to observe otherwise, like the components of viruses," said Iain Mattaj, Director General of EMBL. "We're happy to continue to develop this technology for biology, with an EMBL scientist as one of the platform's managing scientists.

The IBS, with its competitive program in electron microscopy, is proud to participate in this European effort to provide state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy technology to a large community of structural biologists in order to piece together the atomic details of macromolecular assemblies, the molecular machines of life, underlined Winfried Weissenhorn, Director of the IBS.

The arrival of cryo-EM on the EPN campus provides new, state-of-the-art infrastructure and a major boost for biology. The ILL, with its UK partner at Keele University, is excited to be part of this project, looking to further develop synergies between neutron techniques and the wider range of techniques on the EPN campus, explained Mark Johnson, Director of Research at ILL.
READING, England, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

/OFF HOLD OFF HOLD OFF HOLD -- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, PIV890504 The following release: "New Seasonal Prediction System SEAS5 Brings Better El Nino Forecasts" is now OFF HOLD. Distribution time: 10 Nov 2017 00:01 GMT

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) today launches its latest seasonal prediction system, SEAS5. The system brings a substantial improvement in forecast skill, especially for El Nino/La Nina events. Forecasts are also more detailed thanks to much greater horizontal resolution. An immediate application is the use of SEAS5 by the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) to create the first ever operational global long-range river-flow forecasting system. This could mean much earlier awareness of floods and droughts than has previously been possible.

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Seasonal forecasts help to give an idea of large-scale weather patterns up to seven months in advance at the moment. ECMWF's strategic goal is to extend this to a year by 2025. The forecasts can support decision-making for users ranging from governments and aid agencies to businesses, in areas such as water and energy management, health, agriculture and financial services.

ECMWF has been providing seasonal forecasts for 20 years. The forecasts are best known for successful predictions of El Nino and La Nina events. These periods of anomalous warming or cooling in the tropical eastern Pacific have a strong impact on the weather locally, but also influence global weather patterns. SEAS5 brings noticeable improvements in forecast skill for El Nino/La Nina and for the tropics more generally. Predictions of Arctic sea ice and near-surface temperature in the northern hemisphere are also improved, notably as a result of including an interactive sea-ice model in SEAS5.

Horizontal resolution has more than doubled both in the ocean model (from 1 degree to 0.25 degrees) and in the atmospheric model (from 80 km to 36 km), enabling much more detailed forecasts.

ECMWF project lead Tim Stockdale said: "SEAS5 uses a version of ECMWF's state-of-the-art Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and represents six years of model development. The resolution upgrade is a huge step forward, particularly in the accuracy of representing the global ocean. The influences of the land surface are also better represented. For the future, a major goal is to improve predictions for the stratosphere to make the maximum use of all sources of predictability."

SEAS5 represents an important step towards ECMWF's goal of seamless forecasting across all time ranges. The model and initialisation methods are almost identical to those used for ECMWF's medium- and extended-range ensemble forecasts (ENS). This greatly facilitates model development and maintenance.

ECMWF Member States and licensed users can access SEAS5 forecasts on the 5th day of each month. The forecasts are made available more widely on the ECMWF website (http://www.ecmwf.int) on the 10th of each month. The forecasts can also be accessed on the 10th of each month through the EU-funded, ECMWF-run Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (http://climate.copernicus.eu). C3S is developing a seasonal forecast service which also includes forecasts from other centres and multi-system forecasts.

The Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS) is co-developed by ECMWF and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS). The new seasonal GloFAS model, developed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Reading, takes long-range forecasts from SEAS5 and runs a hydrological model to simulate how the predicted conditions will impact river flow across the globe up to four months in advance.

Initial pre-implementation tests indicate that the new model has the potential to save lives by allowing authorities and aid agencies around the world to plan and prepare flood relief efforts earlier than ever before. Other potential uses include water resource management, agriculture and disaster risk reduction.

Project lead Rebecca Emerton, a flood forecasting PhD researcher at the University of Reading and visiting scientist at ECMWF, said: "This new model could be a game-changer in that it provides hydrologically relevant forecasts out to several months for the whole globe - something that has never been possible before. It has the potential to provide earlier indications of both floods and droughts, which could be invaluable for disaster risk reduction efforts around the world, helping vulnerable communities become more resilient to the threat of flooding."

The forecasts will be publicly available via the existing GLoFAS interface (http://www.globalfloods.eu).

Notes to editors

1) The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by 34 states. ECMWF is both a research institute and a 24/7 operational service, producing and disseminating numerical weather predictions to its Member and Co-operating States as well as licensed users. The organisation was established in 1975 and now employs around 350 staff from more than 30 countries. ECMWF is based in Reading, UK. 2) Copernicus is a European Union Programme aimed at developing European information services based on satellite Earth observation and in situ (non-space) data. The Programme is coordinated and managed by the European Commission. ECMWF operates two of the six Copernicus services on behalf of the EU: the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). ECMWF is also the computational centre for European flood awareness and forest fire information systems which are part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS). 3) The Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS), jointly developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and ECMWF, is independent of administrative and political boundaries. It couples state-of-the-art weather forecasts with a hydrological model and with its continental-scale setup it provides downstream countries with information on upstream river conditions as well as providing continental and global overviews.

Hilda Carr - Head of Communications +44-0118-949-9000 pressoffice@ecmwf.int

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Self-driving cars are still a decade away from widespread use, perhaps longer, two automotive engineers from San Antonios Southwest Research Institute said Thursday.

But when self-driving cars and trucks prove themselves as safe and efficient, use will rapidly become ubiquitous in the same way smart phones quickly replaced flip telephones, they said.

The comments from Ryan Lamm and Terry Alger came during a panel discussion before the four-day 2017 San Antonio Auto & Truck Show opened at the Convention Center downtown. More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the show that ends Sunday, inspecting more than 300 vehicles on display from about 70 area dealerships.

The Southwest Research Institute is helping develop technologies for self-driving vehicles for both the U.S. military and commercial carmakers, said Lamm, director of the applied sensing department of the institutes Intelligent Systems Division.

The U.S. military wants vehicles that can operate in harsh environments in platoons without human drivers who would be exposed to danger, Lamm said. The institute built an autonomous freightliner truck called Big Red with automated sensors, radar and vision systems, he told members of the Texas Auto Writers Association who are attending the auto show.

Research and development of regular self-driving cars and trucks will take years, said Lamm and Alger, director of spark-ignited engine research and development department at the institutes Powertrain Engineering Division.

They explained that there are five levels to get to fully autonomous vehicles. The car itself is level one. Level two is cruise control. Level three would begin automated driving, but drivers must be ready to take over whenever problems or emergency situations occur. Level four would allow self-driving all the time but only in limited areas, like parking lots. Level five is brain off everywhere, allowing passengers to read, watch movies or even sleep, they said.

As an industry, we are between levels two and three, Lamm said.

When there is one automonous car, there is not much advantage. Other drivers could hit the automated car, Alger explained, adding, It will be a decade before there are lots of autonomous cars, but then there will be a cascade where it happens quickly. He explained further that self-driving vehicles will be able to communicate with each other in networks pinpointing their destinations and where they will be at certain times to avoid collisions.

That would speed traffic and make vehicles more fuel efficient. The CO2 (carbon dioxide) benefit could be insane, Alger said.

But self-driving research and development will take years to perfect because it now is taking a back seat to other research aimed at reaching a government fuel efficiency goal of an average of 54.5 miles per gallon of gasoline for each carmakers fleet by 2025, Alger said.

Alger said costs would have to be affordable. It will take the right hardware and the right price, he said.

Lamm said challenges for self-driving cars include being able to stop before reaching washed-out, flood-damaged roads and avoiding ducks and ducklings crossing a road. He displayed a photo of red stop sign that, with certain placement of white and black tape, could be misinterpreted by a self-driving car as a sign for a 100 mph speed limit.

I dont think (autonomous cars) are coming as fast as we think it is coming, Lamm said.

The 49th annual San Antonio Auto and Truck Show hosted by the San Antonio Auto Dealers Association does not have any self-driving autos on display, but it does present the latest auto technologies, including electric cars and advanced integration with mobile telephones.

Fords electric-car, the Fusion, includes a cellphone app that will allow electric-car owners to see when their car is fully charged at a public charging spot so they can move it, allowing other electric cars to charge there. The 2018 Ford F-150 offers a pre-collision assistance system using camera and radar systems that can apply brakes to prevent collisions.

The 2018 Nissan Pathfinder has a rear-door alert that chirps when drivers leave the car without removing items that had been placed in the back seat before the drive. The alert was developed by two Nissan engineers who also are mothers who were concerned about the deaths of children left alone in cars. The alert is being tested before being added to other Nissan models.

Other highlights of the auto show include new sport utility models being added by luxury carmakers Jaguar and Maserati. Dodge is unveiling a blue special-edition Ram 1500 pickup for 2017, which goes on sale this month. It is the Rams final special edition planned by Ram.

Among the most expensive European luxury models  the Lotus, Bentley and Rolls Royce cars  a highlight is a special-order 2018 Aston Martin DB 11 that was made to celebrate British Queen Elizabeths 50-year jubilee anniversary. The queen and Prince Philip are known as Aston Martin enthusiasts, and they gave son Prince Charles one for his 21st birthday in 1969. The price of the special-order, handmade 2018 Aston Martin is $262,878.

On Thursday, the Green Car Journal magazine editors named the winners of its 2018 awards for environmentally friendly models. The Green Car commercial vehicle award went to the Ford Police Responder Hybrid. The magazines Green Truck award went to the Chevrolet Colorado. The 2018 Performance Green Car award went to Mazdas MX-5.

dhendricks@express-news.net

This article was updated to correct that the Chevrolet Colorado won this years Green Truck award.
An ambitious proposal to remake San Antonio's oldest public housing complex could result in the demolition of the decades-old structures.

Officials with the San Antonio Housing Authority are courting up to $30 million in federal grants to replace Alazan Courts, a 1,200-resident complex built in 1940 on the city's West Side. They're aiming for a blend of townhouses, apartments and walk-ups for residents of all income levels.
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SUTHERLAND SPRINGS  Stephen Willeford, shoeless but with a semi-automatic rifle, sprinted toward the First Baptist Church here and shot at the man who had just shot 46 worshipers.

He hit him twice. The bloodiest mass shooting in modern Texas history was nearing an end. Willeford, by maiming Devin P. Kelley outside the church Sunday, hastened his departure and then joined a highway chase until Kelley crashed his vehicle and shot himself dead.

From Vice President Mike Pence, who visited Sutherland Springs on Wednesday and presented him at public appearances, to the local folks who know Willeford, many reacted to his actions with one word: hero.

But Willeford, 55, has rejected the notion of his heroism, according to those hes spoken with. If anything, hes a victim, suffering the loss of 26 close friends. Twenty more were injured, many grievously.

The people of that church, theyre friends of mine, theyre family. And every time I heard a shot I knew that probably represented a life, Willeford told the 40/29 News of Arkansas, a Hearst Television affiliate.

That local station and the National Rifle Association are the only organizations to which Willeford has granted public interviews since the shooting. He did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the San Antonio Express-News and others.

That unwillingness to speak to the press and public at large doesnt come as a surprise to his friends. Willeford was never one for the limelight.

Hes just a quiet kind of guy, said Martha Buford, wife of the local River Oaks Church pastor, Paul Buford. Hed give you the shirt off his back.

But while most agree that Willeford probably prevented more deaths in the tragedy, there is no such consensus when it comes to the role of armed bystanders in shooting scenarios.

I know there are a lot of Americans that criticize what he (Willeford) did after the act, but theres no question that this guy (Kelley) was on a rampage, said Bain Serna, a former Sutherland Springs resident who lives in nearby Adkins.

Ed Scruggs, spokesman for Texas Gun Sense, a nonprofit that advocates for more gun control measures, lauded Willeford for being well-trained and for keeping his gun in a safe location.

This man was the type of gun owner you want to see, Scruggs said. Unfortunately not everyone does that. And so thats where a lot of the risk comes in.

More civilians taking up arms wont necessarily make the public safer and isnt an alternative to addressing guns on a policy level, he said.

Good Samaritans may have a role in this, but its not the answer, Scruggs said.

This was not the first tragedy Willeford has had to bear.

In 1993, Dilbert and Patricia Willeford, his mother and father, were killed in a motorcycle accident by a drunk driver. They werent even 60 years old.

I remember that so well, Beulah Wilson, a local historian, said. It was so sad.

Perhaps thats why Willeford kept his family so close and contributed to his community when he could.

Stephens the kind of person where, if you need him, hes there. But hes not going to be at every function or every thing, Wilson said.

He helped with the churchs annual toy run fundraiser, and also, as a commercial plumber, offered to use those skills for free in the community.

Because he was private, he was hard to get ahold of, said Tambria Read, chair of the Sutherland Springs Historical Museum. But if you leave a note at his door, he will come help with the plumbing at the ball park, or whatever it is you need.

He and his wife, Pam Willeford, an artist, homeschooled three children, all now grown. She made a drawing for a Sutherland Springs cookbook that was sold to raise money for the museum.

Willeford rides motorcycles, and belongs to the local group of Faith Riders, run by Rod Green, 71  but he and Pam didnt attend every event and every party. They werent out there to see and be seen.

Hes a gentle man. Just a sweet spirit, said Cathe Skrobarcek, who used to homeschool her children in the same group as the Willefords. Him and his wife both do the motorcycle thing, its cute.

Willefords quiet life has been thrust into the spotlight, at least for now. Sundays determined act of bravery  which many who know him described as instinctual and natural to him  has elevated him, made him a face of the tragedy, a Sutherland Springs icon, whether he wants it or not.

I wasnt surprised at all, said Skrobarcek about when she heard the news. Superman always got that tie and suit and glasses on, hes just a guy that tries to do his business and everything. But when hes called into action, he just goes.

Locals wonder if Sutherland Springs will always be remembered just for the shooting. But they find hope in thinking that maybe some of its good citizens will be remembered, too, as heroes.

It takes a brave man to do what that man done, said Jodi Gould, a San Antonio resident whose daughters best friend was killed at First Baptist Church. Hell probably be a legend.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFF
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The graduates stood in their caps and gowns, surrounded by family members with arms full of babies and balloons and flowers. They chattered excitedly and posed for pictures in anticipation of their recognition Thursday.

It was a scene that could have been pulled from any graduation ceremony, but this was different. The 13 graduates represented the second class to complete the Bexar County Early Intervention Program, which is offered through the childrens specialty court to parents of infants and toddlers who have been abused or neglected.

In finishing the program, the men and women proved they had overcome some of their worst demons and were ready to care for their children again  18 children in total, across 10 families.

Many graduates who shared their stories with the audience of families, advocates, caseworkers and public officials spoke about how addiction had ravaged their lives and fractured their families. Some had been victims of abuse themselves.

Lisa Newton, 43, said the program was exactly the intervention I needed.

These people were not my enemy. I had been my own enemy and I had created my own chaos, Newton said, referring to the caseworkers and staff who helped her through her struggles with alcoholism. These people were there to help me, to provide the tools for me to be successful, but it was up to me if I truly wanted to make a change for myself and my children.

During the ceremony, babies and toddlers babbled and cried during speeches by local officials, including District Attorney Nico LaHood and 225th state District Court Judge Peter Sakai, who runs the Childrens Court division and programs.

Obviously, people who do horrendous things to children need to be prosecuted and be held accountable, Sakai said. But as weve learned here today, there are many, many parents, although theyve perhaps made some bad choices, deserve a second chance.

LaHood challenged the graduates to not let society define them, referencing his own troubled past, which includes being arrested for dealing drugs. He said while anyone can become a parent, it takes a special person to be a mommy and daddy.

Youve been given not a chance: an opportunity, LaHood said.

Jessica Saldana, a 25-year-old mother of a 1-year-old girl, said that when she entered the program, all she cared about was getting her daughter back, regardless of her addiction. At the time, she didnt believe she had a problem yet could not imagine her life without drugs.

Saldana regained custody but then relapsed. At that point, she thought she had lost her daughter forever  her mother was already raising her older daughter because of her drug use.

But through the intervention program, she entered rehab and brought her baby along. She got clean.

I feel like I have this new life, Saldana said. I dont want to forget who I am, but I can change who I am.

Last year, the Hidalgo Foundation of Bexar County secured a $1 million gift from the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation, a fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, to create the Early Intervention Program and run it for three years.

It provides services such as parenting, mental health and child development classes to families after state Child Protective Services has stepped in to remove the children. The goal is to reunite the family. The program targeted parents of very young children, from infants to 3-year-olds.

Sakai said that since its inception, the program has received $1.5 million in grants from foundations and the state. The money also provides for basic things like diapers and cribs, he said.

We truly have been embraced by all parts of our community, Sakai said of the grants. And when parents commit and participate, great things happen.

Sakai said what makes Bexar County's program unique is its work with very young parents on the skills they need.

Hidalgo Foundation President Tracy Ann Wolff said before the event that she is proud of the work Sakai and his staff have done. She highlighted the San Antonio communitys financial support as crucial to helping children.

At the end of the ceremony, to a round of applause, the graduates hoisted their children on their arms and received their certificates. Outside the courtroom, they were greeted by a table laden with cupcakes.

Finally, their families were whole.

lcaruba@express-news.net | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba
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The last thing any member of the media ever would expect to see at the site of the Sutherland Springs shooting was even the slightest lighthearted moment.

And yet there it was, on several occasions, courtesy a friendly and frisky feline thats earned the nickname NewsCat.

Texas Public Radio reporter Joey Palacios posted on social media several snapshots of the affectionate cat, which has been seen roaming around the media tents and caution tapes as well as around the legs of reporters and law enforcement.

Spectrum News San Antonio video journalists Alese Underwood and John Salazar also have captured and shared pics of NewsCat, as well as shots of a bright orange and white cat one of their photographers called Scratches, which playfully pawed at Salazars pant leg while he was wrapping up a live shot and even hopped into the news truck for a video closeup posted on Salazars Facebook page.

And while neither cat would go on the record Thursday  NewsCat preferred rubs behind its ears, while Scratches last was seen darting off from two people walking by with dogs on leashes  various media members were more than happy to purr the cats praises for providing at least a brief respite from tragedy.

Definitely a moment of normalcy, said a CNN producer who did not want to be identified. And me not being a cat person, I wouldnt bend down and pet the cat, but I can still really appreciate that its cute and its here, and probably a lot of reporters and cameramen and producers and everyone on site knows about the cats. And they enjoy even if its 15 minutes of normalcy for us, being able to just laugh and appreciate the interaction.

Before scooping up NewsCat for a cuddle, KSAT-TV news reporter Garrett Brnger said the massacre at First Baptist Church probably was the worst thing most media members there ever would cover.

And the local furball brought a bit of a smile, Brnger said.

Underwood not only bestowed the name NewsCat, she also gave Scratches, along with another gray cat seen at a nearby home, the hashtags #FakeNewsCat and, of course, #CopyCats.

But they have made people smile, Underwood said.

Palacios, who first spotted the NewsCat phenomenon via Underwoods posts, likened the cats presence to that of a therapy dog.

Something to brighten your day, given the circumstances, Palacios said. I think animals take away a lot of stress, a lot of grief.

Paul Pierce could especially relate to the comparison.

Standing with his golden retriever therapy dog Duncan near a roadside row of white crosses erected for the victims, the Boston Childrens Hospital volunteer said he hadnt seen NewsCat or its pals up close but had seen plenty of instances where Duncan had provided a similar soothing presence.

I can speak on behalf of the dogs, said Pierce, who with Duncan has visited family and friends of the shooting victims. It diverts peoples attention. It takes them away from their grief, their sorrow, and puts it into another place of peace and comfort and joy.

rguzman@express-news.net
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The San Antonio Housing Authority will seek to build new housing on the West Side so Alazan Courts residents have the option of staying in their neighborhood as the agency pursues an ambitious transformation of the citys oldest public housing complex.

The intent is to minimize disruption for the 1,200 residents now living at Alazan Courts, located at 1011 S. Brazos Street near Lanier High School and Tafolla Middle School. SAHA wants to allow those tenants the choice of staying in the neighborhood or moving elsewhere if demolition plans for the old concrete apartments proceed.

The current proposal calls for tearing down Alazan Courts, which was built in 1940, and redeveloping the site with a mix of apartments, townhouses and walk-ups for tenants of all income levels.

SAHA also proposes major improvements to the neighborhood surrounding the complex  broadening employment opportunities, improving peoples health and education, making the area safer and expanding recreational amenities. These efforts will be focused in a target area bordered by Commerce Street to the north, Alazan Creek to the east, Laredo Street to the south and Trinity Street to the west.

The housing authority unveiled its plans Wednesday night for Alazan Courts residents gathered at the Guadalupe Theater.

SAHA will submit a grant application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development late next week, seeking up to $30 million in federal Choice Neighborhoods funds to help pay for the endeavor.

The Choice program, which is highly competitive, aims to transform impoverished neighborhoods into thriving communities where people of all income levels live.

If SAHA wins the grant next summer, the funds can be used to secure up to $200 million in investments from public and private interests to help accomplish the agencys goals, officials said.

We believe we have the best qualified team in the country to go after this grant, SAHA chief executive David Nisivoccia told the crowd.

San Antonio City Council signaled its support for SAHAs grant application Thursday when it unanimously approved a resolution backing the housing agencys quest. If SAHA wins the grant, city officials will work to identify $21 million in funds to help support the effort over a five-year period  an allocation that will require City Councils approval.

SAHA officials have stressed that no one will be displaced from public housing if the proposal goes forward. The new housing development that replaces Alazan Courts will continue to offer 501 public housing apartments for low-income residents just as the current property does now. It will also include housing for people of all income levels.

This is about creating a neighborhood where I make $10,000 a year and I live next door to someone who makes $50,000 a year ... This is about creating a neighborhood where it is indistinguishable who lives where, said Nando Micale, an urban planner and architect with LRK, a consultant on the project.

The locations of the new housing that would be built off site for Alazan Courts residents choosing to stay in the neighborhood during the demolition and construction hasnt been publicly disclosed. SAHA is now in active negotiations to purchase those properties, said Lorraine Robles, the agencys director of development services and neighborhood revitalization.

Apache Courts, a smaller public housing complex located nearby, isnt included in SAHAs demolition and rebuilding plans because that property is actually in better shape than Alazan Courts, Micale told the crowd.

When you compare Alazan to Apache, Apache has had more investment in it, Micale said. It doesnt negate some of the shortcomings of those houses. But as we look at what the pressing needs are ... Alazan is the most pressing. Its also the largest.

The needs of those living at Alazan Courts are great and extend beyond housing. About half of the propertys households participated in a survey SAHA recently conducted. The findings presented Wednesday showed 43 percent of respondents have no health insurance, while 47 percent are worried about their health. More than half of those who responded  53 percent  have no high school diploma or GED, while half of the children arent passing their state-required tests in school.

Less than half of responding households  43 percent  contained people who are employed. The median household income was $10,242 a year.

Ninety percent of the households at Alazan Courts are headed by women, while 23 percent are occupied by elderly or disabled residents. Children live in nearly three-quarters of the apartments on site. In total, more than 600 children live at Alazan Courts.

SAHAs proposal calls for case management services to be provided to all 1,200 residents now living at the public housing property. This will include helping them become stable; providing high school diploma and GED services, mentoring, tutoring and internships; boosting employment and self sufficiency; and improving their physical and mental health.

The massive undertaking will be similar to what SAHA did on San Antonios East Side, when the old Wheatley Courts public housing complex was demolished and new mixed-income housing was built in its place, spurring investments of millions of dollars by public and private interests into the long-neglected neighborhood. That was sparked by a previous Choice Neighborhoods grant of $29.7 million that SAHA won in 2012.
Chippewa Valley residents are encouraged to dust off their family heirlooms and antiques from their attics and basements and bring them to the Chippewa Falls Public Library for an antique appraisal event.

The library will host Wisconsin resident and antique appraiser Mark F. Moran from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13 at the library, 105 W. Central St., Chippewa Falls.

Moran will appraise fine art, ceramics, glassware, vintage photographs, advertising, assorted toys, metalware, clocks, costume jewelry and musical instruments.

Attendees will be limited to one item per person and must make an appointment.

Items that will not be appriased and are excluded from the event include all weapons  such as swords and knives  traps, coins and paper money, Nazi memorabilia, fine jewelry and Beanie Babies.

The author of dozens of antiques reference guides, Moran conducts community events involving appraisal of antiques, collectibles and decorative arts in throughout the Midwest.

Moran added to his tour of the Chippewa Valley by visiting the Menomonie Public Library Sunday, Nov. 12.

For more information or to make an appointment, call the Chippewa Falls Public Library reference desk at 715-723-1146 ext. 3.
Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales wasnt on the dais for the Thursday council meeting  but she had a pretty good reason for her absence.

Gonzales, whos married to Kevin Barton, gave birth Thursday morning to their third child  and first yet-to-be-named daughter. Born at 5:29 a.m. Thursday, the baby girl joins her two older brothers, Ian, 4, and Zachary, 2.
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Before the bullets cut through the church wall and sent shards of wood flying through the air, Julie Workman thought she heard firecrackers outside.

She realized what was happening was something much worse when, around 11:15 a.m., a nearby parishioner cried out, Im hit! Another bullet pierced the light fixture directly above Workman, sending pieces of glass crashing over her seat in the second pew of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

Minutes earlier, Workman had been hugging Brooke Ward, a 5-year-old girl who, like Workman, attended church regularly. She recalled how Ryland Ward, Brookes 5-year-old brother, had been sprinting around the church while members greeted each other, shaking hands with their neighbors and catching up.

Ryland was always running around, said Workman, 54. He gave me a look that he knew he had to sit down.

THE GUNMAN'S WIFE: Danielle Kelley speaks for first time about her husband, Devin Kelley, and the day of the massacre

By the time Devin Patrick Kelley walked through the front entrance of the church, Workman had already dialed 911 twice. Her first call, at 11:17, failed. She tried again a minute later and reached an operator. She remembers yelling, First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, active shooter!

The 911 operator asked Workman if the shooter was alone, and she said yes. The call dropped. Then Kelley entered.

Workman was sitting near the front of the church, opposite the entrance, with her adult sons Kris, 34, and Kyle, 25. She remembered how the bullets penetrated the church wall in a line, at the chest level of those sitting in the pews.

Workman dove under her pew. A nurse for 34 years, shed been trained to stay down and hide if anything like this happened. Shed also picked up pointers from her husband Kip Workman, a retired fire chief of the La Vernia volunteer fire department.

Kyle Workmans fiance Morgan Harris, 21, was shot twice in the calf. She sat in the sound booth to the left of the church entrance, a section Julie Workman estimated was about 2 feet off the ground, a height that might have saved her life.

Its hard to breathe in here, Harris heard Kelley say. He wore full tactical black attire, Workman said, with a Kevlar front, black pants, a black vest and a black mask. Even Kelleys helmet was black, Workman said.

After he stepped through the entrance, Kelley began spraying bullets over the right side of the pews, at times picking out individual people to shoot.

If he saw someone move or gasp or make a noise, hed shoot them, Workman said.

She recalled how methodically Kelley seemed to move from victim to victim, watching in horror as her friends were gunned down. Kelley killed Brooke Ward and critically injured Ryland Ward. He killed their mother Joann and sister Emily, and 23 others.

I watched several of my babies get their heads blown off, Workman said.

At one point, Kelley exited through the entrance to reload. Then he re-entered.

Oh, my God, here he comes again, Julie Workman thought.

Kelley worked his way up the aisle until he reached the first pew, crossing over to the left side, standing next to Workman as she hid under her pew.

When the gunman was standing arms reach away from me, I thought about reaching out to grab his foot to try to trip him, she said.

She made a quick calculation: If I pull his foot out from under him, Workman thought, he has to hit his head on the step of the nearby stage and get knocked out.

Otherwise, I have a man down, eye level, with a gun, Workman said. It was too many ifs. I couldnt guarantee I would knock him out.

Kris and Kyle hid near Workman. She recalled how Kelleys foot was at Kriss shoulder, about an inch away. Kelley stepped back and fired at Kris point blank, hitting him in the back. The bullet went through Kris abdomen and shattered a few vertebrae.

Kris Workman, a Rackspace employee, survived, but doctors said theres a 90 percent chance hes permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

One of Kelleys bullets grazed Julie Workmans left breast. Another scraped high up on her left calf. After she was shot, she looked down to see Kris laying on the ground. Kyle was nowhere to be seen.

Kyle later told her he ran down the aisle between the far left side of the pews and the wall, making a mad dash for the entrance. He stepped on David Colbath, who was shot but survived with extensive injuries. Kyle later apologized to Colbath.

Near the entrance, between the sound booth and the pews, Kyle dropped to an army crawl, then broke into a run. A bullet had grazed Kyles shoulder, Workman said, but he was mostly unharmed.

Lorenzo Flores, an employee at the Valero gas station across the street, said he saw someone running out of the church, assuming it might be the shooter. He locked the doors.

Kyle soon reached the gas station and began banging on the door begging to be let in. Flores, recognizing Kyle, let him into the gas station. He dropped to the floor and crawled, terrorized, until he slumped against the wall.

Ill never forget the look on his face, Flores said. He was glowing with fear.

After the bullets stopped and a hush fell over the town, Flores realized Joann Ward, who worked at Theresas Kitchen in the Valero, was at the church. Minutes before Flores arrived at work, Ward had left with her children, headed to services after her work shift.

She was like a daughter to us, said Flores.

At 11:28 a.m., Workman called 911 again. At that time, Kelley had sped off in his vehicle after a shootout with a man outside the church. The terror and carnage lasted no longer than 13 minutes, she said, including the roughly seven minutes Kelley spent firing inside the church.

Then, Workmans instincts from spending 34 years in operating rooms kicked into gear.

As the first responders sped toward First Baptist Church, Workman grabbed a handful of rags  10 to 12, she estimated  from her Ford Expedition in the parking lot. She fashioned them into tourniquets, then moved from person to person, checking to see who was still alive.

By the time a medical team arrived, Workman said she had applied about six tourniquets to various peoples extremities. Her friend Juan Gunny Macias, a former Marine, yelled at Workman to keep my wits about me and focus on bandaging the critically injured.

They teach you to move past those that you cant help and to move to the living, Workman said of her medical training. Thats what I kept my mind focused on. Otherwise I would have lost it.

What I saw was beyond anything I had to prepare for, she added.

Workman said shes thought about a lot of things since the shooting. Her emotions have bounced from hope to darkness. Shes felt sick to her stomach but also been uplifted by the outpouring of love for victims and injured people.

Shes thought about Therese Rodriguez, 66, a fellow breast cancer survivor who was killed Sunday.

Shes thought about Annabelle Pomeroy, the 14-year-old daughter of Pastor Frank Pomeroy, who died while her father was out of town for the day.

Workman remembers how she enjoyed hanging out with Annabelle at Thursday night midweek services. Annabelle had been learning sign language.

The gentlest heart Id ever known, Workman said. Always wanted to help people and be around people.

She remembered how Karla Holcombe, 58, a youth leader at First Baptist, always seemed to put the church first.

If you needed something done in the church, she would get it done, Workman said.

Four days after the attack on the small-town congregation, her son Kris remained in a lot of pain Thursday after his abdominal surgery, she said. Hes being treated at Brooke Army Medical Center, she said, with the possibility of being moved out of intensive care if he does well tonight.

Staff Writer Silvia Foster-Frau contributed to this story | jscherer@express-news.net | Twitter: @jaspscherer
After raising a family in the San Antonio area, Farida Brown moved to La Vernia about 20 years ago and found a community at the First Baptist Church, as so many others have.

It was the type of place where congregants had developed an unofficial seating chart and greeted each other by name each Sunday.

But that building will eventually be gone.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention it would be too painful to continue using First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs as a place of worship and he plans to demolish the building.

The group's spokesman, Sing Oldham, said Pomeroy expressed hope he could turn the site into a memorial for the 26 people who were killed last Sunday and build a new church on property the congregation owns.

The congregation had its start in 1926, according to Beulah Wilson, 88, who runs a town museum. People met in each others houses, before moving to a school house and then to a general store. The church was built and christened in 1949.

On Thursday, a crew was spraying the front of the church with a fresh coast of white paint. Shortly after, workers attached black tarp over a temporary chain link fence that has been placed around the building.

Brown was attending services on Sunday, as she's done for the past 10 years, when a man marched in with a rifle and shot nearly everyone inside. He killed 26 people and wounded 20 others.

When David Brown got word his 73-year-old mother was shot during church services, he didn't know what the protocol was.

"This is my first disaster of this sort that was so close to home," he said.

Doctors were amazed Farida Brown's blood vessels were not struck by one of the bullets and pieces of shrapnel that hit her. Shrapnel struck her left hip, under her kneecap and above her left knee, traveling up to the top of her femur, David Brown said.

The floors, all the pews and the walls are splattered with blood, David Brown said. The flooring is completely covered with blood.

I heard it was so bad that it was almost raining out of the church.

Rod Green, 71, an elder at the First Baptist Church, said he went to a yard sale Sunday morning instead of attending services. He learned about the tragedy over a series of phone calls.

Green recalled how, at the beginning of each service, everyone would stand up in the pews and greet each other. It was a chance to reconnect with each other, each week, Green said.

I shook every hand in that church, he said. Let them know that it's good to see them.

The church didn't have a seating chart, but after years together, everyone had settled into their particular spot. Green said Dennis Johnson, one of the victims, always sat in the row next to him, across the aisle.

He said he won't be able to stomach seeing empty seats without thinking of their former occupants.

I don't think it's going to be possible to get back in that building, Green said. I know myself and my wife Judy don't want to use that building.

There is precedent for demolishing the site of a massacre. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was bulldozed after 20 children, the majority of them in the first grade, and six adults were killed there 2012. Construction workers began to remove any trace of the elementary school almost a year after the massacre.

The home of the gunman, who killed his mother in the house before he went on the school rampage, also was demolished.

Brown was not sure if church leaders wanted to rebuild in the same spot or move somewhere else in town. He knows for sure his mom will never return, there's too many awful memories, too much loss.

Brown's GoFundMe page, where 100 percent of contributions will go to the church, has raised $1,050 so far.

Sandra Shaw, a town historian, agreed the church should be torn down.

We don't want any bullet holes in our pews, said Shaw, who went to the church as a child and got married there.

I don't even want to get close to it. It's too much pain. It has to be a fresh slate, she said.

A church service will be held in Sutherland Springs on Sunday, Brown said, although he wasn't sure where worshipers would meet. It will serve as a memorial service for those killed four days ago.

The church will continue its Christmas tradition of giving toys to poor children. Green said the church was planning its annual Faith Riders event the day before the shooting.

No reason that kids don't get their Christmas, just because of some deranged punk, Green said. We're not going to allow that. It's a giving church, and the people who passed were giving, and we're going to make sure that continues.

kbradshaw@express-news.net; jlawrence@express-news.net | Staff Researcher Misty Harris and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Farmers from Illinois and Nebraska started Farm Hats

By Diego Flammini

News Reporter

Farms.com

The online farming community is showcasing just how skilful its producers truly are.

Farmers from Illinois and Nebraska created the Facebook page Farm Hats in 2015 to highlight the fact that farming is more than just planting and harvesting.

A lot of farmers do their regular farming gig, Matt Boucher, a farmer from Dwight, IL, and partial creator of the page, told Kendall County Now today. But youve also got to be a welder, secretary, an accountant, an electrician, and have  that know-how just to make the farm work.

The page currently has about 10,000 members from across the world, including Central America, Europe and Africa.

The members share photos of their farms, ask questions and offer advice about all things agriculture.

Having access to various opinions allows everyone to learn from one another, Boucher said.

Farmers like to talk, he told Kendall County Now. We like to talk to other farmers about what we do and learn from that. Theres so much to learn from other farmers, as everybody does a job differently.

The Farm Hats members are also using their platform to raise money for agricultural education.

Farmers are being encouraged to send in photos for the 2018 Farm Hats Calendar. Proceeds from the calendar are donated to Ag in the Classroom, FFA and 4-H.

We would love to see (pictures) of you showing what makes you and your farm unique, Boucher wrote on the Facebook page on Nov. 6. (Farmer selfies) are encouraged, as well as scenery shots and more.
When he went to check on his sheep in the morning Mr Maisey noticed the locusts had started feeding on the edge of his paddock, but by the afternoon 40 metres of crop had gone.
The Grains Research Scholarships and the GRDC Post-Doctoral Fellowship are designed to build capacity in the grains research sector and are awarded on the academic excellence of the applicant, the relevance of their proposed research to GRDC priorities and evidence of industry contribution or involvement.
It was for this work at CLAAS that he was recognised as the States School-based Apprentice of the Year at the WA Training Awards in September, where his confidence, enthusiasm and passion was praised by the judges.
The debut novel of author R. L. Waterman, A Year in the Life of Jack Meadows, hit the shelves earlier this year. Now you can find out more about the person behind the words.

R L Waterman

My first short story was titled The Dragon Who Ate Mens Botems.

It took up three pages of my notebook, was riddled with mistakes and was written when I was in primary school. I loved reading and writing from a young age, and the fantasy genre captured my heart early and has been with me ever since.

I love to write, but it doesnt come easily.

Its 11am, Ive already put out some laundry, cleaned the kitchen and tidied my work space. An empty document awaits me when I return to my desk. I absolutely love to write; I love seeing my characters come to life as a story takes on a mind of its own and weaves in and around their lives, but there are days when creativity and I dont get on, and lifes distractions win.

I find inspiration in nature.

I was fortunate to grow up in Cornwall in the UK, a beautiful part of the world, and later to move to the outskirts of the New Forest in Hampshire. It is often in the great outdoors where I find my best ideas.

Or rather, my best ideas find me.

Im often asked where the idea for A Year in the Life of Jack Meadows came from. Honestly, I couldnt tell you. One day I picked up a notebook and wrote a chapter about a young man named Jack who looked at the world through very different eyes. That chapter didnt make the final cut, but it birthed an entire novel.

I made a fundamental error with my first book.

It doesnt fit into a nice neat genre. Every agent, every publisher, everyone in the industry told me I needed to write a book that fit a convenient mould, so it could be suitably promoted. Instead I wrote a novel which doesnt fit into any kind of category, and which has been enjoyed by men and women, young and old.

I dont have a background in creative writing.

In fact, I studied Computer Science at the University of Bristol.

Travel is one of my great passions.

During my university days I drove from London to Moscow. Ive visited South America, Africa and many countries in Europe. Theres something about seeing new places, new people and completely different cultures that really excites me.

Im moving to Uganda.

My husband and I are leaving the UK to work with a charity called Mission Aviation Fellowship. They take light aircraft, and use them to reach remote people groups who cant be contacted any other way, bringing medical aid, helping to set up schools, and working with local churches.

Moving out of a comfortable life terrifies me.

But it excites me in equal measure. Living in Uganda will present different challenges to life in England. Ill be immersed in a new culture, rather than passing it by on a short holiday. I will continue to write as I experience life overseas, but will also be involved in the work of MAF and other projects in Ugandas capital city, Kampala.

I once had the chance to handfeed a lion.

Im sure youve seen them, those competitions to win the experience of a lifetime. Id never won anything before but thought Id enter anyway. I didnt win the fabulous holiday, but I did win the opportunity to offer strips of meat to a hungry lioness. I dont think Ill be trying it with the wild lions in Africa somehow!

A Year in the Life of Jack Meadows is available for sale on Amazon - http://amzn.eu/fP3lczF. To follow R. L. Watermans journey to Uganda, visit her blog, www.dbwaterman.com, or find out more information at www.maf-uk.org/waterman.
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Michael B. Jordan will make his directorial debut on 'The Stars Beneath Our Feet'.

Michael B. Jordan

The 30-year-old actor is set to helm the forthcoming film, based on the David Barclay Moore novel of the same name, after Endeavor Content acquired the big screen rights to the project - and he can't wait to get started behind the camera.

Jordan told Deadline: "Directing has been an area I've wanted to explore for some time now.

"'The Stars Beneath Our Feet' tells a story that really spoke to me, and I'm looking forward to jumping behind the camera. I've had the opportunity to work with some very smart and talented directors and it inspired me to take on this new challenge."

Jordan will produce the motion picture, while Barclay Moore will act as executive producer and pen the script based on the book, which was published in September.

The novel tells the story an African American boy who attempts to steer himself safely through the projects in Harlem following his brother's death.

It looks set to be a busy 2018 for Jordan who was recently reported to have been cast in 'Bittersweet life', a remake of the 2005 Korean action thriller, in which he will portray a mobster.

The plot will explore the dark life of the gangster, who is ordered by his superiors to kill one of his lovers if they find out she has been unfaithful.

What's more, Jordan is set to appear in the HBO film 'Fahrenheit 451' alongside Michael Shannon.

He has also been cast in the highly-anticipated Marvel movie 'Black Panther', in which he will play Erik Killmonger, an expert fighter and nemesis of Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman).

The motion picture, slated for a February 2018 release, is expected to expand on the storyline that was first introduced in 'Captain America: Civil War' of how T'Challa becomes the Black Panther.
Shakira has been forced to postpone further dates of her 'El Dorado World Tour' after straining her vocal cords.

Shakira

The 'Hips Don't Lie' hitmaker was due start kick off the run in Koln, Germany on Wednesday night (08.11.17), but pulled out of the concert to avoid further damaging her voice.

The 40-year-old star was hoping to recover in time to perform in Paris on November 10, but on the advice of her doctor she has now cancelled the show, a second date in the French capital on Saturday (11.11.17), Antwerp on the Sunday (12.11.17) and Amsterdam on November 14.

Shakira - whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripol - has assured her fans that she is focusing all of her energy on getting better so she can give "100 per cent" when she is able to return to the stage.

In a heartfelt note to her 43.8 million followers posted on Instagram, she wrote: "To my fans and friends,

For the last few days I've been very focused on recovery strained vocal cords.

I really hoped to achieve this in time to be able to sing in Paris; however, and much to my chagrin, this hasn't been possible and my doctors have advised me to continue on my vocal rest for the time being.

I'm very sorry to inform you all that I won't be able to sing on the 10th and 11th in Paris, the 12th in Antwerp, or the 14th in Amsterdam, but we are working to confirm new dates.

At the moment I am focusing on full recovery to share with you all this show that I've so enjoyed preparing and of which I am very proud.

I'm anxious to get back on stage and be at 100 per cent for you all.

Again I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the support you've shown me these days and which has helped keep me afloat in what has been a difficult time.

God willing we will see each other soon for the kickoff of my tour.

Sending all my love and gratitude,

Shakira (sic)"

Shakira and her team are doing all they can to reschedule the cancelled shows.
Prince Charles called his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, "darling" at a public event.

Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall

The 68-year-old royal made the affectionate comment, admitting he and his "mehaboobaa" - which means "darling" in Urdu - while addressing guests at the British High Commission on the pair's visit of India.

Speaking to the audience in New Delhi about the importance of the Commonwealth and its diversity, he said: "I cannot tell you how delighted my mehaboobaa and I are to be back in India, a country that is so very special to us both.

"This diversity is to be celebrated and cherished not only because it is so central to our identities and our sense of belonging, but also, if I may say so, because it offers us the best hope of addressing the most pressing challenges of our time.

"A one-size-fits-all approach to globalisation simply cannot be the answer and will, I am convinced, lead us into a sterile, monocultural homogeneity that creates ever greater problems whilst simultaneously robbing us of the solutions to address them."

The latest engagement was Charles and Camilla's last stop on their recent visit of Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and India, before flying home on Thursday night (09.11.17) to be back in time for their Remembrance Day duties over the weekend.

Charles also showed a public display of affection in Singapore when he planted a rare kiss on his wife.

The royal couple both headed to their 11-day visit of Southeast Asia separately and marked their reunion with a sneaky smooch.
The Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) has sent a petition to the US Senate requesting preferential trade treatment for Cambodian garment and footwear exports. The US generalised system of preferences (GSP) scheme allows duty-free entry of certain non-sensitive items from 120 developing nations and excludes garment and footwear products.GMAC has hired a Washington-based law firm to help with its request, which if successful, would immensely help Cambodia in export growth, new investment and employment generation for thousands, a Cambodian news report quoted GMAC deputy secretary general Kaing Monika as saying.

The Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) has sent a petition to the US Senate requesting preferential trade treatment for Cambodian garment and footwear exports. The US generalised system of preferences (GSP) scheme allows duty-free entry of certain non-sensitive items from 120 developing nations and excludes garment and footwear products.#

GMACs petition follows the announcement that the United States will be reviewing its GSP programme by the year end and voting on the GSP Footwear Act of 2017, which would allow outdoor shoes and boots, as well as other footwear manufactured abroad, to be included in the programme.Footwear remains a sensitive industry in US trade policy, which prevents the inclusion of certain types of footwear in the GSP scheme. The amount of potential lost tariff revenue also limits the scope of footwear that can be included, said Monika.GMAC estimates about $180 million of Cambodias $245 million in 2016 footwear exports are in categories that would be eligible for GSP under the proposed GSP Footwear Act of 2017. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Indonesia is the worlds fifth-highest leather and footwear exporter after China, India, Vietnam and Brazil, Ngakan T Antara, head of the Agency for Industrial Research and Development, has said. As the country holds a mere 4.4 per cent of the global market share in the sector, manufacturers should improve quality, design and brand visibility, Antara said.He said this at the opening ceremony of the Leather, Leather Products, and Footwear Exhibition 2017 in Jakarta recently.

Indonesia is the world's fifth-highest leather and footwear exporter after China, India, Vietnam and Brazil, Ngakan T Antara, head of the Agency for Industrial Research and Development, has said. As the country holds a mere 4.4 per cent of the global market share in the sector, manufacturers should improve quality, design and brand visibility, Antara said.#

The quality and quantity of leather procured domestically also needs to improve and therefore, there is a need to attract investment in the downstream and upstream fields of the countrys footwear industry, Indonesian media reports quoted Antara as saying.He expects investment in this industry to reach $4.6 billion by 2017 end, which is about four times higher than last years figures. Only after Indonesian footwear brands become popular in the country, the companies should expand brand awareness across the world, he added. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Backed by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Consulate of Egypt in Sao Paulo, three Brazilian companies  textile maker Fiama, yarn maker Circulo and elastic band manufacturer Damenny  have been invited by the Egyptian Government to the November 11-12 textile industry expo Destination Africa in Cairo to assess Egyptian raw materials.The three enterprises will be involved in a textile industry purchasing project carried out by the government of Egypt, according to a news agency report.

Backed by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Consulate of Egypt in Sao Paulo, three Brazilian companies  textile maker Fiama, yarn maker Circulo and elastic band manufacturer Damenny  have been invited by the Egyptian Government to the November 11-12 textile industry expo Destination Africa in Cairo to assess Egyptian raw materials.#

The expo will feature 100 companies from 15 African countries and over 300 international buyers.About 1,300 tonnes of Egyptian cotton and yarn were imported to Brazil till September this year, with sales amounting to $6 million. In September, a Mercosur-Egypt free-trade agreement entered into force that covers cotton and textiles. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The first European roadshow of 14 textile machinery manufacturers, that took place on October 18, 2017 in Bogota, Colombia, and the following day in Medellin, ended on a successful note. The textile machinery companies showcased their latest technologies and various seminar sessions, that helped textile mills to upgrade to state-of-the-art operations.With more than 100 Colombian textile producers attending, it exceeded the expectations of the organisers, the Belgian (SYMATEX), French (UCMTF), Spanish (AMTEX), and Swedish (TMAS) textile machinery associations.

The first European roadshow of 14 textile machinery manufacturers, that took place on October 18, 2017 in Bogota, Colombia, and the following day in Medellin, ended on a successful note. The textile machinery companies showcased their latest technologies and various seminar sessions, that helped textile mills to upgrade to state-of-the-art operations.#

The organisers were particularly thankful to ALCOTEX (the Colombian Association of Textile Techniques and Professionals and of Dressmaking) and ANDI (the Colombian association of entrepreneurs) which helped organise and promote the events.The event format included a 15 minutes presentation by each machinery manufacturer. In parallel, a mini fair was held where they showed animated videos of their machinery running at clients sites and showcased textile samples produced on their equipment. They were available to develop business cases and personalised technological solutions.The four associations are very satisfied with this result and will continue to explore the format and collaborate among the European Textile Machinery Associations to showcase the latest technology to different markets.The machinery manufacturers who presented their knowhow and latest technologies include Bonas, Canmartex, Dollfus & Muller, Escarre, Gomplast, Icomatex, Industrial Sagarra, Iro, Laroche, N. Schlumberger, Petit Spare Parts, Picanol, Tacome, and Van De Wiele.Elias Junker, Laroche area sales manager said, Our strategy is to be our customers partners and not only machine suppliers, thats why we need to meet them at the highest possible level, face to face. This enables us to understand their needs and offer them the best possible technologies and machines with which they will be able to design new products, open new markets in a very productive, reliable, cost effective and sustainable way. This roadshow has been very effective. We met long-time customers and made new contacts. We will certainly meet again with the executives we have met, in international shows or on their own premises. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
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Jupai Holdings Limited

Exchange: NYSE: JP

Jupai Holdings Limited (Jupai), formerly Jupai Investment Group, is a leading third-party wealth management (WM) service provider to high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in China.

Investment Thesis

Substantial growth potential in China's expanding WM sector

China's private WM sector remains highly fragmented and severely under-served, compared to developed countries like the US and UK. Such premise allows substantial growth potential for the third-party wealth managers in China, evidenced by the more than eight fold of increase in the number of HNWIs over the past 10 years. Total investible assets held by HNWIs amounted to RMB 49 trillion in 2016, and are expected to reach RMB 58 trillion by the end of 2017. Consequently, the Company posted robust net revenue growth at a CAGR of 110% 2012-16, and continued to grow rapidly in 1H-2017 amidst an under-penetrated WM market.

Extensive network coverage ensures deeper client relationships

Jupai has strategically located its client centers in China's key markets - the Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta regions, homes to more than 80% of all HNWIs in China. The extensive client service team, comprised of 450 relationship managers and 1,160 advisors as of June 30, 2017, has enabled the Company to enjoy high client loyalty, forged by its client-centric business model and evidenced by a constant increase in repeat purchases to 56% in 2016.

Effective cost control and economies of scale ink strong financial metrics

Jupai posted strong financial results for 1H-2017, with net revenue increasing 72% YoY to RMB 805 million. Its operating margin doubled to 36.2% in the period, driven by ongoing cost reduction measures supported by its economies of scale. It also registered strong bottom-line growth, with net income and fully diluted earnings per ADS(each representing six ordinary share) tripled to RMB 203 million and RMB 6.02 respectively in 1H-2017.

Shares undervalued versus direct peers across valuation metrics

Jupai currently trades at 12.2x EV/EBITDA and 14.8x TTM PE ratio, compared to its closest direct competitor of 25.1x and 22.5x respectively, despite of the Company's net revenues growth of 110% CAGR 2012 - 2016, more than double that of its competitor, and net income CAGR growth of 65%, versus its peer of 43% for the same period. The Company remains significantly undervalued across almost all valuation metrics, leaving ample room for appreciation as shares revalued to the upside, justified by its strong growth profile.

I. Company Overview

Introduction

Founded in 2010, the Company is a leading third-party wealth management (WM) service provider, focused on distributing WM products and rendering wealth advisory as well as asset management services to high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in China. The company has diversified service offerings, comprising both third-party products and in-house asset management capabilities. Its product portfolio includes FI products, private equity/venture capital funds and public market products such as mutual/hedge funds, along with customized alternate investment vehicles, having served more than 10,200 clients in 2016 with an aggregate value of distributed WM products of around RMB 45 billion. The Company uniquely focus on conservative HNWIs with merely over USD 0.5 million of investable assets, and has either directly developed/managed, or helped to design around RMB 38 billion out of the total RMB 45 billion worth of products it served last year.

Jupai connects HNWIs and WM product providers and corporate borrowers. Jupai sourced third-party products from eight domestic and seven overseas product providers that it recommended to clients in 2016. The company derives most of its revenue from commissions on product distribution - it earns one-time commissions on product distribution and recurring service fees on some PE/VC products, public-market products, and some FI products. These offerings help Jupai's asset-light balance sheet, reducing the debt burden and providing full inherent value to its shareholders. The company's WM product advisory services are complemented by its asset management services for real-estate or related funds, other specialized fund products and funds of funds.

A client-centric business model, combined with high client loyalty, leads to repeat purchases. A survey of HNWIs reveals that "brand name and trust", together with the WM "team's expertise" are the two most important criteria for selecting a wealth manger, according to the 2017 China Private Wealth Report jointly issued by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company. This reflects the fact that HNWIs have become more mature in selecting wealth managers.

Exhibit 1 Jupai's business model

Source: Jupai's 2Q-2017 investor presentation

Operating through an extensive network

As of June 30 2017, Jupai operates through a robust network of 76 WM centers in 47 economically vibrant cities in China, compared to 79 WM centers in 43 cities in 2016; this slight decline is due to its ongoing strategic amalgamation of smaller centers. It strategically brings services closer to clients by maintaining a physical presence in key markets such as the Bohai Rim, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta regions, home to more than 80% of China's HNWIs. Around 50% of HNWIs are concentrated in five municipalities and provinces, namely Beijing, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong.

Exhibit 2 Jupai's strategic network targets reaching the maximum number of HNWIs

Source: Jupai's 2Q-2017 investor presentation

Strategic Partnership Alliances

1. Synergies from the E-House acquisition

The partnership with E-House provides a significant advantage over competitors since Jupai enjoys greater access to market information through collaboration with E-House's real-estate sales agency business and has full access to CRIC, a wholly owned subsidiary of E-House and China's largest real-estate data center. Direct contact with real-estate developers allows Jupai to distribute more attractive and differentiated self-developed WM products compared to its competitors and to reduce intermediate layers and associated expenses to maximize client benefit.

2. Partnerships with Julius Baer and Sina

Management views the investment by Julius Baer, a global leading private WM bank, as a strong endorsement in building Jupai's global brand awareness. The partnership further strengthens Jupai's brand and management, and is complementary to its existing product categories by adding more overseas financial products to its offerings, to better meet client demand for overseas asset allocation. In addition, Julius Baer's valuable experience in the WM sector further enhances the expertise of Jupai's financial advisors. Sina is a leading online media company in China, is another partner with Jupai. The association supports Jupai's brand recognition and increase product awareness among potential investors in China. Sina held a stake of around 11.21% and Julius Baer a stake of around 4.93% in Jupai as of June 30, 2017.

Product Mix

Jupai's product mix covers FI, PE, public-market, and other products such as insurance products and overseas investments. FI products as a percentage of all products were high, primarily due to Jupai following a conservative risk profile preferred by the majority of its HNWI clients. However, the subsidiary company, Juzhou Asset Management, founded by Jupai in 2013, enabled it to provide more diversified products, so the FI products distributed by Jupai as a % of the total transaction value had come down from around 99% in 2013 to 66% in 2016, while rebounded to 81% in 1H-2017, as in-house developed FI products continued growing.

a. Fixed income (FI) products

The products include investments in corporate bonds, including real estate-related bonds, or government bonds, either directly or through asset management plans by mutual fund or securities companies and collateralized FI products by trust companies and fund-of-funds products.

b. Private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) funds

These relate to direct investments in PE and VC funds sponsored by leading domestic or international asset management companies, and indirect investments in such funds via participation in asset management plans sponsored by mutual fund management companies or securities companies.

c. Public-market products

These products invest in publicly traded securities in China, primarily in securities of companies publicly traded in capital markets via vehicles such as privately raised funds investing in publicly traded stocks and bonds, sponsored by leading asset management companies in China.

d. Other products

These include insurance products and other investments that are alternative to traditional products. Jupai works with insurance companies and insurance brokerage firms both in China and overseas to introduce products such as whole life coverage and universal life coverage.

Jupai's tailor-made solutions meet clients' changing asset allocation needs

HNWIs tend to turn to moderate risk/return investments from high risk/return ones amid uncertain market conditions. Jupai's strategy has been to change its product mix as the macroeconomy and investor risk appetite and preferences change. PE/VC funds' share of products distributed was 0.2% in 2013; this increased to 26.2% in 2015 and dropped to 21.0% in 2016. The share of FI products was 99.5% in 2013; this dropped to 54.3% in 2015 and recovered to 66.0% in 2016.

Exhibit 3 History of Jupai's product mix (WM)

Source: Jupai's 2Q-2017 investor presentation

Increasing in-house product development

Jupai started to develop products in-house in 2013; this has enabled it to participate in managing investment in its self-developed products, and to increase recurring management fees from distributing these products. Jupai either directly developed and managed or helped to design approximately RMB 6.6 billion worth of the products it distributed in 2014, RMB 22.7 billion in 2015, and RMB 37.8 billion in 2016. However, the percentage of PE and VC fund products has increased significantly since 2014 due to their more attractive returns. Jupai plans to increase the percentage of self-developed products, to increase its recurring cash flow.

A one-stop shop

Jupai serves as a one-stop WM product aggregator. In addition to products developed and managed in-house, it also sources products from the third parties, including eight domestic and seven overseas product providers that it recommended to clients in 2016. The aggregate value of WM products distributed was RMB 13.3 billion in 2014, RMB 28.4 billion in 2015, and RMB 45.3 billion in 2016.

Growing recurring management fees versus one-time commissions

Jupai has two key broad service lines that generate revenue - one-time commissions and recurring fees. One-time commissions are calculated based on the value of products it distributes to clients, and recurring fees are from product providers that pay Jupai for raising funds. Jupai also charges major recurring fees for some PE and public-market products that it distributes. Recurring service fees on FI products amount to 0.2-1.5%, while recurring management service fees on FI products amounts to 0.2-2%. In 2013, Jupai started generating revenue from recurring management fees for providing asset management services. The share of net revenue from both recurring management fees and recurring service fees grew to 34% in 2016 from 3% in 2013. The share of revenue from one-time commissions dropped to 56% of net revenue in 2016 from 97% in 2013. Management believes this strategic swing towards increasing the share of recurring management and service fees would enhance visibility on future revenue growth

Exhibit 4 Net revenue by service line, 2012 to 1H-2017

Source: Jupai's 20F, 6K

FI products, for most of which Jupai has charged one-time commissions, have historically accounted for a larger share of its product mix. Jupai has rapidly increased distribution of PE and public-market products in recent years, for which it can charge recurring service fees. It has also started to charge recurring service and management fees on more FI products.

Exhibit 5 Types of products distributed, 2012 to 1H-2017

Source: Jupai's 20F, 6K

Growth Review

i) Revenue

Jupai's net revenue grew to USD 162.4 million in 2016 from USD 8.3 million in 2012 at a CAGR of 110% over the period. Revenue growth was robust in 1H-2017 as well, with net revenue increasing to USD 118.8 million from USD 71.4 million in 1H-2016 (+66.3% y/y). This was mainly due to an increase in one-time commissions to USD 68.6 million from USD 46.3 million during the period (+48.1% y/y) and an increase in recurring management fees to USD 23.8 million from USD 15.0 million (+58.5% y/y). Recurring service fees declined to USD 8.8 million in 1H-2017 from USD 10.1 million in 1H-2016 (-12.9% y/y). Management expects net revenue to grow by more than 30% y/y in 3Q-2017.

Exhibit 6 Net revenue and revenue growth, 2012 to 1H-2017

Source: Jupai's 20F, 6K

ii) Profitability

Jupai's net income attributable to ordinary shareholders grew to USD 29.9 million in 2016 from USD 4.0 million in 2012 at a CAGR of 65% over the period. It also posted strong net income growth in 1H-2017, with net income increasing to USD 30.0 million from USD 10.1 million in 1H-2016 (+196% y/y). Jupai's diluted EPS grew to USD 0.15 in 2016 from USD 0.04 in 2012, and the diluted EPS for 1H-2017 increased to USD 0.15 from USD 0.05 in 1H-2016, indicating a significant increase in profitability. Jupai has improved its cost structure over the past year, resulting in improved profitability margins. The gross margin increased to 63.2% in 1H-2017 from 57.7% in 2016, while the operating margin improved to 36.2% from 26.1% over the period due to better economies of scale and efficient cost management. Management expects further margin improvement.

Exhibit 7 Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders, 2012 to 1H-2017

Source: Jupai's 20F, 6K

iii) Customer base

Jupai's client-centric business model led to an increase in the number of its active clients to 10,218 in 2016 from 1,090 in 2012 at a CAGR of 75% over the period. Due to increased client loyalty boosted by its client-centric business model, repeat purchases have been rising steadily - the repeat purchase rate increased to 56% in 2016 from 21% in 2012.

Exhibit 8 Number of active customers Exhibit 9 Repeat purchase rate

Source: Jupai's 20F, 6K

Ownership Structure

The company's diversified and decentralized shareholder structure enables management's interests to be well aligned with those of ordinary shareholders.

Jupai's largest strategic shareholder is E-House, with a 35.27% stake, however, its senior management holds an 18.83% stake; other investors hold the remaining 27.61% stake. Jupai benefits from synergies with partners such as E-House and other strategic shareholders, including Sina Corporation, which holds 11.21% of the shares, and Swiss bank Julius Baer, which owns 4.93% of Jupai.

Jupai benefits from E-House's industry-specific expertise and knowledge for its product creation, while the partnership with Sina and Julius Baer helps raise its brand awareness and meet the increasing client demand for overseas investment allocations.

Exhibit 10 Jupai's ownership structure, 2Q-2017

Source: Jupai's 2Q-2017 investor presentation

II. Industry Overview

Wealth Management Industry Review

China's WM industry is still in its infancy - China's WM services sector is at an initial development stage, marked by low penetration, increasing complexity, highly fragmented, and robust growth. China's economic development in the past decade has led to a prosperous private wealth market, growing over five fold to RMB 165 trillion in 2016 at a 2006 - 2016 CAGR of around 20%. Moreover, the number of HNWIs in China has increased by more than eight times to 1.58 million in 2016 from mere 0.18 million in 2006, adding about 400 new HNWIs every day. The number of HNWIs with investible assets of more than RMB 10 million reached an all-time high in 2016, growing at an annual rate of 23% from 2014 to 2016, with investible assets of Chinese individuals reached RMB 165 trillion in 2016, growing at a CAGR of 21% from 2014 to 2016. The number of HNWIs and investible assets are expected to reach more than 1.87 million and RMB 188 trillion by 2017, respectively.

Exhibit 11 Total individual investible assets (RMB trillion), 2006 to 1H-2017

Source: "2017 China Private Wealth Report" by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company

Bank deposits being reallocated into WM sector - The deposit growth rate slowed to 9% in 2015 from an average of more than 15% 2010 - 2014. This slowdown presents potential opportunities to develop the WM sector through the reallocation of bank deposits.

WM market sophistication further strengthens local participants' positions - As competition gets intensified and HNWIs are becoming more experienced, wealth managers are shifting their focus to enhancing expertise and customized business models. Leading market participants have earned client recognition for product innovation, professional services, and brand name. Foreign banks have been foraying aggressively into China's domestic WM market, however due to strict government regulation on renminbi business and limited service network in China, foreign banks have had to adjust their strategies and reposition themselves; meanwhile market shares of local private banks have surged in the past decade and have been increasing their lead over foreign banks since 2009. Independent WM companies appeared to have also gained market share from the foreign banks.

Expanding product offering of alternative asset allocation and overseas diversification - New-age HNWIs have evolved in investment mindset, preferring to diversify their funds through products across regions, currencies and types. The percentage of Chinese HNWIs with overseas investments grew to 60% in 1H-2017 from 20% in 2011. China's private banks have been actively building a presence in overseas markets by setting up branches or partnering with foreign institutions, but their presence remains limited. The emergence of VC, PE, and other alternative investments in recent years has created additional channels attractive to HNWIs, and they are now able to make such investments via the third-party private wealth managers, boosting demand for new wealth firms. New HNWIs investment objectives shifted to conservative wealth preservation - With financial markets continuing to evolve, the need for new WM products has resulted in a new value system among HNWIs - from "wealth creation" to "wealth safeguarding". This new breed of HNWIs appears to be favoring FI products with short durations over volatile stock markets on the backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty in China. They have shifted their objectives to "preservation and inheritance of wealth" from "wealth creation", evidenced by the decrease in percentage of preference for high risk/return to merely 5% in 2017 from 20% in 2009.

Independent WM companies gaining market share - Pure play WM institutions have historically accounted for a lower share of HNWIs' domestic fund allocations, but have seen significant growth in recent years. Although the majority shares of HNWIs' assets are still held by joint-stock, state-owned or foreign banks, non-bank WM firms now account for a greater share of HNWIs' domestic assets, as the third-party WM firms are more flexible in offering a wider range of financial products and services than the private banks to attract HNWIs seeking high quality, differentiated services.

Exhibit 12 Trend of HNWIs' asset allocation in the domestic market, 2009 to 1H-2017

Source: "2017 China Private Wealth Report" by China Merchants Bank and Bain & Company

With China's WM institutions still in their infancy, growth potential is significant. Non-banking WM institutions like Jupai could therefore tap this opportunity to increase the scale and scope of their operations by capturing an increasing share of the domestic WM market.

III. Company Comparable Analysis

China's WM sector is at an early stage of development, with low market penetration and strong growth potential. It is highly fragmented, with thousands of WM service providers and no dominant market player. Jupai competes against the WM divisions of almost all the big commercial banks in China, as well as other independent asset managers.

Competitors

The following is a brief summary of Jupai's closest peers, against whom it is able to compete successfully by leveraging competitive advantages such as its cost-efficient tailor-made product offerings, customer-centric service model, synergies with E-House, extensive network in key locations, and significant first-mover advantage.

1. Noah Holdings Limited (Noah) - Jupai faces direct competition from Noah, a similar third-party wealth manager with a dominant market share in China's third-party WM space. Compared to Jupai, Noah offers highly diverse and complicated innovative products and services including factoring products, high-end investor education services, and offshore trust services which may well not be suitable for HNWIs with conservative appetite. Although Noah holds wider presence in majority HNWIs regions of Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Bohai Rim serving clients with 1,259 relationship managers across 205 branches in 76 cities in China, Jupai remains superior in terms of client service due to its proven service model run by 450 relationship managers and 1,160 business advisors. Noah's WM transaction value at USD 9.7 billion and AUM at USD 20.5 billion at end-2Q-2017 stands considerably higher than Jupai. Noah invested around 55% of AUM under PE products, while Jupai invested 56% of AUM under FI products more suited to its conservative client base.

2. CSC Financial operates in several segments and provides various investment banking and WM services. However, its product offerings appear to be lacking against those offered by Jupai, which provides customized WM and asset management products and services.

3. China Financial International Finance Group Ltd. operates in two core business areas - Agricultural and Integrated Financial Services. Its Agricultural business is well developed and in a mature stage. The Group has been actively developing its business blueprint in internet finance and money lending, to diversify its income streams and offset the cyclical nature of the Agricultural business. It is currently focusing on providing a comprehensive array of commercial and personal loan services in Hong Kong, such as basic and equity financing, cross-border financing, a peer-to-peer lending platform and mortgages.

Exhibit 13 Peer comparison of valuation multiples (by 11/09/2017)

Source: Bloomberg, Wind

IV. Financial Analysis (2Q-2017 earnings)

2Q-2017 versus 2Q-2016

Jupai's net revenue increased to USD 64.4 million in 2Q-2017 from USD 36.8 million in 2Q-2016 (+74.8% y/y) on an increased aggregate value of distributed WM products and increased values of AuM and other service fees. Jupai has benefited significantly from the cost-optimization program it initiated in 2016. Such cost-control measures were more pronounced in 2Q-2017, driving margins wider than in 2Q-2016. The gross profit margin improved to 62.9% from 59.5%, and the operating margin to 38.0% from 22.3%. The core efficiency ratio decreased to 62.4% from 77.7% during the period, representing higher cost effectiveness. Net income increased to USD 16.6 million in 2Q-2017 from USD 6.0 million in 2Q-2016 (+174.8% y/y), resulting in a net margin of 25.8% (versus 16.4% in 2Q-2016).

2Q-2017 versus 1Q-2017

Jupai's net revenue increased to USD 64.4 million in 2Q-2017 from USD 53.6 million in 1Q-2017 (+20.2% q/q) on increased one-time commissions, recurring management fees and other service fees.

Overall, Jupai continues to effectively control operating expenses, as evidenced by profit margins continuing to increase since 3Q-2016. Jupai initiated a cost-optimization program at the beginning of 2016, to widen margins. The operating margin improved to 38.0% in 2Q-2017 from 34.0% in 1Q-2017. However, it noted a slight increase in direct costs compared to 1Q-2017, primarily due to an increase in the number of WM advisors and client managers and their average compensation. This increase resulted in a 56bps decline in the gross profit margin to 62.9% in 2Q-2017. The core efficiency ratio decreased to 62.4% in 2Q-2017 from 67.0% in 1Q-2017, indicating higher cost productivity. Net income increased to USD 16.6 million in 2Q-2017 from USD 13.2 million in 1Q-2017 (+25.9% q/q), resulting in a net margin of 25.8% (versus 24.6% in 1Q-2017).

Exhibit 14 Jupai's margin performance

Source: Jupai's 2016, 2017 6K

V. Risks

Uncertain regulations

The Chinese government does not have a regulatory framework governing its financial services sector. The few financial services products in use, such as PE products, private securities investment funds and asset management plans managed by securities companies or mutual fund management companies are governed only by government rules and regulations. Any unfavorable regulation could affect Jupai's business operations and growth prospects.

Real-estate market investments

Jupai allocates a significant amount of investor funds to real estate and related markets, leveraging its partnership with E-House. Any decline in the real-estate sector could lead to a drop in value and return on investments, prompting investors to rapidly withdraw funds from the company, reducing revenue generated by its management services and resulting in a decline in the company's operating performance.

SOURCE: Stone Street Group LLC
SONGDO, SOUTH KOREA and RAVENSBURG, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 11/09/17 --

Additional footprint in Asia Pacific region

New office underlines company's commitment to its customers in South Korea

Vetter, one of the global leaders in prefilled drug-delivery systems, today announced the official opening of a new branch office in South Korea. The new office in Songdo is located within the biologics cluster which is often referred to as a 'sweet spot' by the industry as it houses numerous prominent biopharmaceutical companies and service providers.

Strengthening its global footprint in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region has been an ongoing goal for Vetter. The company established its APAC hub in Singapore in 2014, and subsequently formed a Japanese subsidiary by opening an office in Tokyo in 2015. Although the pharmaceutical service provider had already been active in the South Korean market for years, the establishment of its own local branch office underlines the company's commitment to the Asia Pacific market, particularly South Korea. With the new footprint, Vetter will be better positioned to support its existing South Korean business as well as that of new local and global customers, helping them to meet stringent development, manufacturing and packaging requirements of their injectable drugs.

"Today is yet another milestone for our company. This new office will allow us to directly serve both local and global companies with South Korean market interests," said Vetter Managing Director Peter Soelkner. "We are certain that our market presence and activities in this market will serve as an additional base and contribution for Vetter's future global organic growth."

Find the Vetter press kit, additional press releases, high-resolution pictures and more background information in our Download Center.

About Vetter

Headquartered in Ravensburg, Germany, Vetter is a global leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with production facilities in Germany and the United States. The company has long-term experience offering services ranging from early development support including clinical manufacturing, to commercial supply and various packaging solutions for vials, syringes and cartridges. Vetter's customers range from small and midsize to the world's top 20 pharmaceutical and biotech companies. As a leading solution provider, the CDMO recognizes its responsibility in supporting the needs of its customers in developing devices that contribute to increased patient safety, convenience, and enhanced compliance. Learn more about Vetter at www.vetter-pharma.com.

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Contact

Vetter Pharma International GmbH

Markus Kirchner

Corporate Spokesperson / Specialist External Communications

Eywiesenstrasse 5

88212 Ravensburg

Germany

Phone: +49 (0)751-3700-3729

E-mail: Email Contact




JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mutia Hanifah from Bogor, Indonesia, is studying BSc Applied Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China.

"When I was a child I saw a TV advertisement showing a chemical reaction where a liquid changed from yellow to red as if by magic," she said. "I was so impressed, and I thought if this is chemistry then I want to be a chemist some day."

Mutia attended a vocational high school in Bogor, a city in the West Java province of Indonesia, where she studied chemical analysis. She first visited China on an internship in Hunan province as part of her high school studies.

She originally planned to continue her studies in Indonesia but, "When I finished my internship, I decided to continue my higher education in China because I love the environment, the language and the weather," said Mutia.

Her enthusiasm to study in China led Mutia to discover both XJTLU and the Jiangsu Province Jasmine Scholarships. She was very excited when she realised that: "XJTLU offers a degree programme in chemistry that is taught in English. So it was perfect for me," she said.

While completing Year One Mutia decided to apply to become an international student ambassador. From welcoming visitors to XJTLU and conducting campus tours, to speaking to students at schools in China, to attending international recruitment fairs, she wants to share her own experiences to encourage others to study at XJTLU.

"Being a student ambassador is amazing because we engage with people from different cultural backgrounds and we can share and learn from each other," she said.



Reflecting on her experience of XJTLU, Mutia explained, "Studying at XJTLU has broadened my mindset and given me confidence. I have made friends from around China and the world. I really love that the teachers encourage us to consult with them one-on-one if we have any questions about our studies."

Start exploring your study options at XJTLU and have an exciting new adventure in China, by clicking here.

Founded in 2006, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University is the largest international joint venture university in China, a partnership between Xi'an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool. Our vision is to become a research-led international university in China and a Chinese university recognised internationally for its unique features.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/599732/Mutia_Hanifah.jpg
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Range Resources Corp. (RRC), a natural gas, NGL and oil producer, announced Thursday the appointment of Mark Scucchi as its Senior Vice President -Chief Financial Officer, effective May 16, 2008. He succeeds current CFO and Executive Vice President Roger Manny, who plans to retire on that day after the Company's 2018 Annual Stockholder Meeting. Scucchi is currently Vice President - Finance & Treasurer. He joined Range in 2008, with responsibilities including corporate finance, treasury, and planning. Prior to joining Range, he worked for JPMorgan Securities Inc., and also spent a number of years at Ernst & Young LLP, among others. Jeff Ventura, Chairman and CEO, said, 'Since joining Range in 2003, Roger has been an invaluable part of the senior management team..... In planning for succession, he has done a great job recruiting and developing strong, talented individuals and providing them the opportunity to show their strengths and distinct abilities.' 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.
Fujitsu Limited Public and Investor Relations Tel: +81-3-6252-2176 URL: www.fujitsu.com/global/news/contacts/

TOKYO, Nov 10, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu today announced that it has received an order for "The Supercomputer System" from the Institute of Fluid Science at Tohoku University.The Supercomputer System will consist of multiple computational systems using the latest Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY x86 servers, and is planned to deliver a peak theoretical performance in excess of 2.7 petaflops(1).The Supercomputer System will be deployed to the Advanced Fluid Information Research Center in the Institute of Fluid Science, Tohoku University in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, with plans to begin operations in fiscal 2018. Through deployment and operations of this system, Fujitsu will support the Tohoku University Institute of Fluid Science in the advancement of its research into the phenomena of fluids in a variety of fields, including biology, energy, aerospace and semiconductors.BackgroundThe Institute of Fluid Science at Tohoku University has contributed to the development of fluid science in a variety of fields, including clarifying the flow of blood through the body, and controlling plasma flow in semiconductor manufacturing, using a next-generation integrated research method that unites creative experimental research with supercomputer-based computational research.Now, the institute is upgrading and significantly improving the performance of its core equipment, The Supercomputer System, in order to further enhance its fluid science research in fields such as health, welfare and medicine, the environment and energy, aerospace and manufacturing.Fujitsu received the order for this system based on a proposal that combined software-based virtualization technology with a large-scale computational system that utilizes the technology Fujitsu has cultivated through HPC development.Details of the New SystemThe Supercomputer System is comprised of the core supercomputer which has three computation systems, including two shared-memory parallel computation systems, which can use large capacity memory space, and one distributed-memory parallel computation system, which can execute large-scale parallel programs. It also has a login server and application and remote graphics server, as well as software and a variety of subsystems for tasks such as visualization and storage. The three computation systems in the core supercomputer will consist of Fujitsu's latest PRIMERGY x86 servers, which are planned to deliver the distributed-memory parallel computation system's theoretical peak performance in excess of 2.7 petaflops. In addition, by employing a water cooling model, this system will also offer high energy efficiency.(1) PetaflopsQuadrillion floating point operations per second.About Fujitsu LtdFujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company, offering a full range of technology products, solutions, and services. Approximately 155,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.5 trillion yen (US$40 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017. For more information, please see http://www.fujitsu.com.* Please see this press release, with images, at:http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/Source: Fujitsu LtdContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/17 -- Dalradian Resources Inc. (TSX: DNA) (AIM: DALR) ("Dalradian" or the "Company") announces results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017, including closing cash and cash equivalents of $48.8 million(1).

Patrick F.N. Anderson, Dalradian's President and CEO, commented: "We expect to submit our planning application by the end of 2017. With the pending $78 million private placement and proceeds from warrant exercises, we are well-placed to move our high grade gold project through the permitting process while continuing technical work with the aim of increasing its value. In the first half of 2018 we expect to release both an updated resource and feasibility study."

Operational highlights as of November 9, 2017

-- Released the positive results from ore sorting testing, including a 54.6% grade increase and 35.8% decrease in waste material. Ongoing cost- benefit studies and site visits are being conducted prior to ore sorting being included in a feasibility study update -- Completed a sensitivity study on two major veins in the resource model where a new approach to modelling resulted in a 32% increase in estimated mineable ounces. Results from the study, along with additional drilling, will be used in an upcoming mineral resource update -- Released the results from 15 holes for a total of 6,324 metres of the 40,000-metre program, which included step-out drilling 400 metres from the mineral resource boundary and infill drilling to support the planned conversion of ounces from the inferred to indicated mineral resource category. Select results included: -- Step-out: 1.98 m of 32.54 g/t gold from the 106-16 vein in hole 17- CT-427 -- Step-out: 0.94 m of 30.89 g/t gold from the T17 vein in hole 17-CT- 428 -- Step-out: 1.03 m of 40.09 g/t gold from the Crow vein in hole 17-CT- 435 -- Infill: 1.21 m of 76.22 g/t gold from the No.1 vein in hole 17-CT- 415 -- Infill: 1.51 m of 41.04 g/t gold from the 106-16 vein in hole 17-CT- 424 -- During Q3 2017, regional exploration continued across the broader licence areas, with 77 prospecting samples, 138 stream sediment samples, 57 soil samples, and 640 deep overburden samples collected. During the first nine months of 2017, 204 prospecting samples, 259 stream sediment samples, 170 soil samples, and 1,687 deep overburden samples were collected.

Corporate and financial highlights of Q3 2017

-- Cash and cash equivalents were $48.8 million at September 30, 2017 compared with $35.7 million at December 31, 2016 -- Net loss of $1.9 million ($0.01 per share) for the three months ended September 30, 2017 compared with a net loss of $1.4 million ($0.01 per share) for the comparable period of 2016. For the nine months ending September 30, 2017, the Company had a net loss of $5.9 million ($0.02 per share) compared to a net loss of $4.8 million ($0.02 per share) in the same period of 2016. -- Expenditures on mineral property under development for the three months ended September 30, 2017 were $5.6 million compared with $4.8 million during the comparable period in 2016. During Q3 2017 permitting, drilling and underground development/surface works for infill drilling were the largest spending categories, as work focused on finalizing the planning (permitting) application (the "Planning Application") and infill drilling. In Q3 2016 much of the activity centred on the feasibility study announced in Q4 2016 and an underground exploration program (the "Underground Program") -- During the nine months ended September 30, 2017, expenditures on mineral property under development, net of receipt from processing of mineralized material, were $12.4 million compared with $19.6 million during the comparable period in 2016. Lower expenditures in 2017 were a result of less spending due to the completion of the Underground Program in late 2016 -- Warrants exercised up to the end of Q3, 2017 brought in total proceeds of $30.6 million. Subsequent to the end of Q3, 2017, the Company received additional proceeds of $19.2 million from warrant exercises with over 99.7% of the 50,312,500 warrants expiring on October 10, 2017 exercised -- As of November 9, 2017, Dalradian had 302,036,596 Common Shares issued and outstanding

(1) All amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted

Minco Royalty Transaction

During Q3, Dalradian concluded the buyback of the 2% net smelter return royalty on a portion of the Northern Ireland Properties (as defined in the Royalty Agreement) including the Curraghinalt gold deposit (the "Royalty") from Minco plc ("Minco"). On August 30, 2017, Dalradian and Minco completed the Royalty buy-back under Rule 2.5 of the Irish Takeover Panel Act, Takeover Rules 2013 (the "Royalty Transaction"). The Royalty Transaction was implemented as a share for share acquisition of Minco by Dalradian pursuant to a scheme of arrangement, under Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Companies Act 2014 of Ireland, including a demerger of Minco's subsidiary Buchans Resources Limited ("Buchans"), which held all of Minco's assets other than the Royalty so that on the completion of the Royalty Transaction the only asset held by Minco was the Royalty. The Royalty Transaction resulted in the issuance of a total of 15,489,942 Dalradian shares to Minco shareholders and Buchans.

The Royalty Transaction had a positive effect on the economics of the feasibility study ("FS")(2) contained in the Technical Report (as defined below) for an underground mine at the Curraghinalt Gold Project based on production of an average of 130,000 ounces per year at a gold price of US$1,250 per ounce:

-- After-tax net present value (at a 5% discount rate) increased to US$322 million (C$429 million) from US$301 million (C$402 million); -- After-tax internal rate of return increased to 25.5% from 24.4%; and -- All-in sustaining costs ("AISC", as defined by the World Gold Council) were reduced to US$653 per ounce from US$674 per ounce.

Private placement financing

On October 10, 2017, the Company announced a non-brokered private placement financing (the "Financing") with Orion Mine Finance Fund II LP ("Orion") and Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd ("Osisko") for gross proceeds of C$78.25 million (the "Private Placement"). Pursuant to the Financing, Orion will acquire 34,013,605 common shares of Dalradian (the "Common Shares") and Osisko will acquire 19,217,687 Common Shares, each at a price of C$1.47 per Common Share. The Financing is expected to close on or before November 30, 2017.

Outlook

As Dalradian works towards the submission of its Planning Application to permit the building of a mine at the Curraghinalt gold deposit, the Company continues its exploration efforts through drilling, engineering and geological studies. With the anticipated closing of the $78.25 million private placement financing and proceeds from warrants exercised, the Company is well-positioned to continue exploration and other work with the aim to increase the value of the project.

Dalradian expects to release an updated mineral resource statement in Q1 2018 based on the drilling completed in 2017. A revised feasibility study is also planned for the end of Q2 2018 which will incorporate the details of an expected updated mineral resource, revised modelling methodology and ore sorting technology. The Company also continues to explore its large land package with extensive sampling in streams and soils to create a good baseline of data for future work.

(2 ) The effect of the Royalty Transaction on project economics was recalculated by management based on the original Feasibility Study Technical Report

Supporting Documents

The Q3 2017 Financial Statements (not including notes) can be found below. The full Q3 2017 Management Discussion and Analysis and Financial Statements are available on www.dalradian.com and on www.sedar.com.

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) As at As at Sept. 30, 2017 Dec. 31, 2016 -------------------- -------------------- ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 48,763,293 $ 35,719,242 Amounts receivable 818,890 666,166 Prepaid expenses and other assets 505,927 506,785 -------------------- -------------------- 50,088,110 36,892,193 Non-Current assets: Restoration deposit 1,042,389 1,032,135 Property, plant and equipment 158,975,545 118,988,157 Exploration and evaluation assets (note 5) 4,291,611 3,943,077 -------------------- -------------------- 164,309,545 123,963,369 -------------------- -------------------- $ 214,397,655 $ 160,855,562 -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 6,086,353 $ 4,908,196 Provision for reclamation 351,036 347,844 -------------------- -------------------- 6,437,389 5,256,040 Non-Current liabilities: Provision for reclamation 685,356 679,124 -------------------- -------------------- Shareholders' equity: Share capital 259,357,808 195,974,511 Warrants 2,879,391 10,745,550 Contributed surplus 15,028,350 12,314,675 Accumulated deficit (69,990,639) (64,114,338) -------------------- -------------------- 207,274,910 154,920,398 -------------------- -------------------- $ 214,397,655 $ 160,855,562 -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- Condensed Consolidated Statements of Loss and Comprehensive Loss (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Three months Three months Nine months Nine months ended ended ended ended Sept. 30, Sept. 30, Sept. 30, Sept. 30, 2017 2016 2017 2016 ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Operating expenses: Salaries and related benefits $ 771,260 $ 579,902 $ 2,369,866 $ 1,679,710 Professional fees and consulting 165,745 235,137 660,081 930,559 Share-based payments 427,870 91,441 1,634,499 371,153 Investor relations and travel 187,254 310,807 614,231 717,307 Office, regulatory and general 242,328 157,591 671,747 488,199 Interest and bank charges 3,085 2,687 11,459 9,161 Amortization 1,152 1,152 3,455 3,454 Foreign exchange loss 182,726 69,468 133,520 734,564 ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ $ 1,981,420 $ 1,448,185 $ 6,098,858 $ 4,934,107 Interest income 103,862 33,179 222,557 121,328 ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Loss and comprehensive $ $ $ $ loss for the period (1,877,558) (1,415,006) (5,876,301) (4,812,779) ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Loss per share - basic and diluted $ (0.01) $ (0.01) $ (0.02) $ (0.02) ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ Condensed Consolidated Statement of Shareholders' Equity (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Nine months Nine months ended ended Sept. 30, 2017 Sept. 30, 2016 ------------------ ------------------ Share capital: Balance, beginning of period $ 195,974,511 $ 162,680,450 Common shares issued 25,558,404 121,500 Warrants exercised 36,961,967 30,729,039 Share-based payments exercised 862,926 1,308,572 ------------------ ------------------ Balance, end of period $ 259,357,808 $ 194,839,561 ------------------ ------------------ Warrants: Balance, beginning of period $ 10,745,550 $ 15,019,060 Warrants exercised (6,321,347) (4,211,829) Warrants expired (1,544,812) (43,783) ------------------ ------------------ Balance, end of period $ 2,879,391 $ 10,763,448 ------------------ ------------------ Contributed surplus: Balance, beginning of period $ 12,314,675 $ 12,533,961 Increase from share-based payments 1,865,290 445,071 Warrants expired 1,544,812 43,783 Share-based payments exercised (696,427) (703,572) ------------------ ------------------ Balance, end of period $ 15,028,350 $ 12,319,243 ------------------ ------------------ Accumulated deficit: Balance, beginning of period $ (64,114,338) $ (56,293,888) Loss and comprehensive loss for the period (5,876,301) (4,812,779) ------------------ ------------------ Balance, end of period $ (69,990,639) $ (61,106,667) ------------------ ------------------ Total shareholders' equity $ 207,274,910 $ 156,815,585 ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Nine months Nine months ended ended Sept. 30, 2017 Sept. 30, 2016 ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows from (used in) operating activities: Loss and comprehensive loss for the period $ (5,876,301) $ (4,812,779) Items not affecting cash: Unrealized foreign exchange loss (gain) on cash 70,852 1,052,978 Interest income (222,557) (121,328) Amortization 3,455 3,454 Share-based payments 1,634,499 371,153 Unrealized foreign exchange loss (gain) on restoration deposit (10,254) 205,700 Change in non-cash operating working capital: Amounts receivable 280,978 650,173 Prepaid expenses and other asset (113,723) 32,233 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities (16,914) 18,389 ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows used in operating activities $ (4,249,965) $ (2,600,027) ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows from financing activities: Exercise of warrants 30,227,220 26,517,210 Exercise of options 166,500 605,000 ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows from financing activities $ 30,393,720 $ 27,122,210 ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows from (used) in investing activities: Expenditures on exploration and evaluation assets $ (192,520) $ (21,497,178) Additions to property, plant and equipment (12,118,984) - Minco acquisition cost (919,351) (2,314,384) Interest received 202,003 127,967 ------------------ ------------------ Cash flows used in investing activities $ (13,028,852) $ (23,683,595) ------------------ ------------------ Net change in cash and cash equivalents 13,114,903 838,588 Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 35,719,242 43,322,899 Effect of exchange rate fluctuations on cash held (70,852) (1,052,978) ------------------ ------------------ Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 48,763,293 $ 43,108,509 ------------------ ------------------ ------------------ ------------------

About Dalradian Resources Inc.

Dalradian Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration and development company that is focused on advancing its high-grade Curraghinalt Gold Project located in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

For additional details on the Curraghinalt high-grade lode gold deposit ("Curraghinalt"), please refer to the Company's technical report titled "NI 43-101 Feasibility Study Technical Report on the Curraghinalt Gold Project Northern Ireland" (the "Technical Report"), dated January 25, 2017 and prepared by Garett Macdonald, P.Eng., Michael Makarenko, P.Eng., Indi Gopinathan, P.Eng. and Stacy Freudigmann, P.Eng., all of JDS Energy & Mining Inc., and Jean-Francois Couture, P.Geo., Bruce Murphy, P.Eng., Cam Scott, P.Eng., all of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc., and William Harding, C.Geol., of SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd., all of whom are independent Qualified Persons as defined by NI 43-101. The Technical Report is available on the Company's website and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains "forward looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the future financial or operating performance of the Company and its subsidiaries and its mineral project, the future price of metals, test work and confirming results from work performed to date, the estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves, the realization of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital, operating and exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, costs and timing of future exploration, requirements for additional capital, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, reclamation expenses, title disputes or claims, limitations of insurance coverage, the timing and possible outcome of pending regulatory matters and the realization of the expected production, economics and mine life of the Curraghinalt gold deposit. Often, but not always, forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words and phrases such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

Forward looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and are based on various assumptions such as the continued political stability in Northern Ireland, that permits required for Dalradian's operations will be obtained on a timely basis in order to permit Dalradian to proceed on schedule with its planned exploration and mine development, construction and production programs, that skilled personnel and contractors will be available as Dalradian's operations commence and continue to grow towards production and mining operations, that the price of gold will be at levels that render Dalradian's mineral project economic, that the Company will be able to continue raising the necessary capital to finance its operations and realize on mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates and current mine plans, that the assumptions contained in the Company's Technical Report dated January 25, 2017 are accurate and complete, that the results of the ESIA will be positive and that a permitting application for mine construction will be approved.

Forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Dalradian to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of current and future exploration activities; the actual results of reclamation activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; meeting various expected cost estimates; changes in project parameters and/or economic assessments as plans continue to be refined; future prices of metals; possible variations of mineral grade or recovery rates; the risk that actual costs may exceed estimated costs; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; political instability; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016 dated March 23, 2017 (the "AIF").

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements.

Contacts:

Marla Gale

Vice President Communications

+1 416 583 5600

investor@dalradian.com



Grant Thornton UK LLP (Nominated Adviser)

Philip Secrett / Richard Tonthat

+44 (0)20 7383 5100



Canaccord Genuity Limited (Broker)

Henry Fitzgerald-O'Connor / Martin Davison

+44 (0)20 7523 8000




Regulatory News:

A slight decline of 1% in rental income, Group share in the first nine months of 2017 (down 4% on a consolidated IFRS basis), resulting mainly from asset rotation and the Marseille real estate market

Rental income of ANF Immobilier, on a consolidated basis and according to IFRS, reached 36.8 million as of September 30, 2017. This represents a 4% decline compared to the first three quarters of 2016, mainly due to the asset rotation policy and a lackluster real estate market in Marseille. On a like-for-like basis, rental income amounted to 33.5 million (30.6 million Group share).

Rental income from the Retained Portfolio (portfolio excluding the real estate portfolio under binding reciprocal promise of sale with Primonial REIM, the latter being referred to as the "Sold Portfolio") now breaks down as 81% offices, 2% retail premises, 16% hotels and the remainder in other surfaces, mainly parking lots. Commercial rental income now accounts for 99% of total income.

Rental income from the Sold Portfolio represented 12.9 million under IFRS (and also in Group share). Restated for the latter, the pro forma rental income of ANF Immobilier (from the "Retained Portfolio"), amounted to 23.9 million under IFRS and 17.7 million Group share.

Changes in rental income at constant scope for the entire portfolio: 5% decline

1) Sold Portfolio:

a) In Marseille, rental income increased by +0.2 million. This trend results from an improvement in the occupancy rate of residential units in 2017 (+0.5 million, a positive balance of 54 unfurnished residential units rented in the first three quarters and a vacancy rate changing from 29% at the end of September 2016 to 16% at the end of September 2017 for furnished housing). This offsets the departure of retail brands located on Rue de la Republique due to the current excess supply of retail spaces.

b) In Lyon, rental income displayed significant growth with the impact of the Banque de France asset at +0.4 million.

2) Retained Portfolio:

a) In Marseille, a decline in rental income was recorded and resulted mainly from the departure of one tenant from an office building located in the Euromediterranee neighborhood (-1.2 million).

b) In Lyon, rental income declined by -1.2 million due to the impact of the move of the Adecco France Group from their former headquarters to their new Carre de Soie headquarters, owned and developed by ANF Immobilier. It should be noted that the building vacated by Adecco France holds a building permit obtained at the end of April 2017 for a large-scale restructuring project. In the future, more than 22,000 m of new offices, ideally located in immediate proximity to the Tete d'Or park, will be built.

c) In Bordeaux, rental income from office buildings situated in the Les Bassins-a-Flot district was stable.

Changes in rental income related to changes in scope for the entire portfolio: 1% increase

In Marseille, rental income decreased by -0.8 million due to the sale of an office building to the Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie at the end of 2016.

Likewise, rental income from hotel assets declined by -1.2 million due mainly to the sale of a MGallery hotel in Lyon and an Adagio hotel in Marseille during the same period (-1.6 million), sales which were partially offset by the delivery of two new hotels: Allar in Marseille and Bobigny in the Paris region (+0.4 million).

In Lyon, rental income rose significantly by 1.3 million. This growth was due to the delivery of the new headquarters of the Adecco France Group, more than 13,000 m located in the Carre de Soie district, which took place in September 2016 (+1.9 million) and was attenuated by mixed sales of retail lots and historical residential assets (-0.6 million).

In Bordeaux, rental income will be reinforced from the second half-year of 2018 by the Quai 8.2 transaction, an iconic and mainly commercial real estate 97 million development that is immediately adjacent to the high-speed rail terminal.

In Toulouse, in March 2017, the acquisition of the 16,150 m Centreda commercial property complex in close proximity to the Airbus headquarters, contributed to a +1.0 million increase in rental income.

Outlook

ANF Immobilier confirms its objective for 2017 of stable EPRA earnings, adjusted and Group share (after the restatement of impacts associated with the Sold Portfolio and the change of control), an objective consistent with its asset rotation program and the pace of its developments.

For Emmanuelle Baboulin, Chairman of the Executive Board of ANF Immobilier, "ANF Immobilier continues to grow and is now reaching a milestone with the sale of nearly its entire historical portfolio, which is planned for the 4th quarter. It chose to fully transform into a purely commercial real estate company specializing in regional city centers.

IFRS Rental income Q3 2017 Change Q3 2016 (Published data, millions of euros millions of euros IFRS in millions of euros) Offices 20.9 0% 20.9 Retail premises 5.9 -10% 6.5 Residential 5.3 10% 4.8 Hotels 3.8 -23% 4.9 Other (car parks) 0.9 -27% 1.2 TOTAL 36.8 -4% 38.3 Group Share 30.6 -1% 31.0 Sold Portfolio Rental income Q3 2017 Change Q3 2016 (Published data, millions of euros millions of euros IFRS in millions of euros) Offices 1.5 -3% 1.5 Retail premises 5.4 7% 5.1 Residential 5.2 10% 4.7 Hotels N/A Other (car parks) 0.8 -16% 1.0 TOTAL 12.9 5% 12.3 Group Share 12.9 5% 12.3 Retained Portfolio Rental income Q3 2017 Change Q3 2016 (Published data, millions of euros millions of euros IFRS in millions of euros) Offices 19.4 1% 19.3 Retail premises 0.5 -68% 1.5 Residential 0.1 -2% 0.1 Hotels 3.8 -23% 4.9 Other (car parks) 0.1 -69% 0.3 TOTAL 23.9 -8% 26.0 Group Share 17.7 -6% 18.7

About ANF Immobilier

ANF Immobilier (ISIN FR0000063091) is a listed real estate investment company that owns a diversified portfolio of French office, retail, hotel and residential properties worth 1 billion. It is undergoing a major transformation to concentrate on commercial real estate, create value and support the development of large, dynamic regional cities. It currently has assets in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille and Toulouse. Listed on Euronext Paris, ANF Immobilier is included in the EPRA real estate index.

http://www.anf-immobilier.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006833/en/

Contacts:

ANF Immobilier:

Laurent Milleron, +33 1 44 15 01 11

investorrelations@anf-immobilier.com

or

Media:

Renaud Large, +33 1 58 47 96 30

renaud.large@havas.com
Capita concludes full and final settlement with FCA regarding

Connaught Income Series 1 Fund

Capita plc ("Capita") announces today that it has agreed a full and final settlement with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regarding the Connaught Income Series 1 Fund ("The Fund"). Capita Financial Managers Limited ("CFM") was the Operator of the Fund until September 2009, when it was replaced by an unrelated company as Operator, following which CFM had no further involvement with the Fund. The Fund went into liquidation in 2012 and its liquidator brought a claim against both former Operators, which for its part, Capita settled in 2016 for a sum of 18.5m.

The FCA has been undertaking a formal review of the activities of both Operators and has announced today that it has concluded that CFM did not meet all of its regulatory requirements in the period April 2008 to September 2009. To ensure that investors receive appropriate redress and to bring this matter to a close enabling the smooth disposal of CFM, CFM and Capita have agreed a full and final settlement with the FCA. In reaching this settlement, the full cooperation which CFM has given to the FCA during the course of its investigation has been acknowledged.

CFM has agreed to up to a further 66 million being made available for the benefit of the Fund's investors, with Capita agreeing to fund this amount. The FCA considers that this payment will be sufficient to return the amount originally invested, taking into account any interest, distributions and other payments that have already been received, with the intention of placing investors as closely as possible back into the position they would have been in if they had never invested in the Fund. Capita is expecting to make redress payments to the Fund's investors via the FCA and their agents during the first quarter of 2018.

This settlement allows for the available funds to be directed towards the Fund's Investors. Given the circumstances, the FCA do not consider that it would be appropriate to require CFM to pay a financial penalty.

As the FCA had previously indicated to Capita that it was minded to seek a financial penalty against CFM, Capita had made provision for the full potential amount of the financial penalty and associated legal costs (37m). Based on the information available at that time it was not however possible to determine what the ultimate outcome of the FCA investigation would be.

Capita completed the disposal of its Asset Services businesses, including CFM, to the Link Group on 3 November 2017.

-Ends-

Notes:

The FCA has stated that it is appointing an agent to carry out the calculation and distribution of monies to investors. It is not necessary for investors to take any further action at this time. The FCA or its agent will contact each investor with an outstanding claim against the Fund with more details shortly. Capita is a leading UK provider of technology enabled customer and business process services and integrated professional support services. With 67,000 people at over 500 sites across the UK, Europe, India and South Africa, Capita uses its expertise, infrastructure and scale benefits to transform its clients' services, driving down costs and adding value. Capita is quoted on the London Stock Exchange (CPI.L). Further information on Capita can be found at: http://www.capita.com. LEI no. CMIGEWPLHL4M7ZV0IZ88.

This announcement contains inside information.

For further information:

Capita plc Tel: 020 7799 1525

Andrew Ripper, Head of Investor Relations

Fiona O'Nolan, Director, Corporate Communications

IRTeam@capita.co.uk

Media enquiries:

Powerscourt Tel: 020 7250 1446

Peter Ogden and Andy Jones

capita@powerscourt-group.com
HELSINKI (dpa-AFX) - Finland's industrial production growth moderated in September, after accelerating in the previous two months, figures from Statistics Finland showed Friday. Industrial production climbed a working-day-adjusted 4.7 percent year-over-year in September, slower than the 6.2 percent spike in the previous month. The measure has been rising since March. Among sectors, mining and quarrying output alone surged by 22.1 percent annually in September and manufacturing production grew by 4.3 percent. At the same time, output in the chemical industry registered a sharp decline of 11.1 percent. Month-on-month, industrial production rebounded 0.5 percent from August, when it edged down by 0.1 percent. Another report from the statistical office showed that manufacturing new orders rose 8.8 percent yearly in September, reversing a 5.2 percent decrease in the preceding month. 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.
Previously Announced Proposed Acquisition, SV Cryptolab, Launches Two Cloud-Mining Operations for Ethereum and Zcash

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2017 / 360 Blockchain Inc. ("360" or the "Company") (CNSX: CODE; FRA: C5B; OTC PINK: BKLLF) announces that its previously announced funding prospect has entered contracts to mine Ethereum and Zcash, two of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies.

"Of the many upsides to cryptocurrency's explosion in popularity are the opportunities to mine coins other than Bitcoin," said George Tsafalas, 360's President. "The business challenge is identifying the most lucrative contracts. SV CryptoLab has developed a solution."

Silicon Valley-based SV CryptoLab utilizes a proprietary evaluation algorithm to enter into the most economically attractive cloud-mining contracts. That company plans to enter into more mining contracts on a weekly basis. 360's due diligence on its proposed investment in SV CryptoLab is continuing.

SV CryptoLab provides an adaptable tech environment. During working hours, it's a cutting-edge facility that's part hacker and part social space that is open to the public where all are invited to attend weekly meetups and hackathons free of charge. On nights and weekends, the facility's significant hardware is dedicated to mining cryptocurrency, a computationally intensive process that sits at the heart of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The Company also advises that due to a clerical oversight, an additional 300,000 units ($18,000) were missed being issued to an arms-length subscriber on the Company's last private placement. Those shares and warrants have now been issued and the Company's filings at the CSE have been updated.

About 360 Blockchain Inc.

Our Mission : To empower blockchain technologies with capital and experience to create exponential value.

Company Description : 360 Blockchain Inc. has an all-around view to accelerate the development and application of revolutionary blockchain technologies by investing capital and expertise. We are founded on the belief that blockchain technology, essentially a distributed ledger which is transparent and incorruptible, has the potential to transform the way business is conducted, delivering security, cost savings and efficiency gains not seen before in our internet connected world. 360 Blockchain will be focused on identifying and empowering blockchain technologies applying to crypto-currencies, smart contracts, eSports, data management, the internet of things, equity trading, privacy applications and beyond.

For further information, please contact:

Joe Bleackley

Investor Relations

Telephone: 1 (778) 806-5150

E-mail: IR@360blockchaininc.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans," "expects," "is expected," "budget," "scheduled," "estimates," "forecasts," "predicts," "intends," "targets," "aims," "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may," "could," "should," "would," "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.

SOURCE: 360 Blockchain Inc.
UPPSALA, Sweden, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IAR Systems the future-proof supplier of software tools and services for embedded development, launches a new version of the functional safety edition of the complete development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbenchfor Renesas RX family of microcontrollers (MCUs). The new version integrates IAR Systems' add-on tools C-STATand C-RUNfor powerful static and runtime analysis. In addition, support for the Renesas RXv2 CPU core is now available.

Functional safety is one of the most important features in many embedded systems and companies must consider development tools as an integral part of the system certification. The proof of compliance for the tools increases cost and time of development. To solve this problem, IAR Systems provides a certified version of the complete compiler and debugger toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for RX.

The build chain of IAR Embedded Workbench for RX has been tested and approved according to the requirements on support tools put forth in the international umbrella standard for functional safety IEC 61508, as well as the standard for automotive safety-related systems ISO 26262. The latest version also adds certification according to IEC 62304, defining the life cycle requirements for medical device software. IAR Embedded Workbench for RX is certified by TUV SUD.

The added support for C-RUN and C-STAT enables complete code control through the entire development cycle. C-STAT performs static analysis that can detect defects, bugs, and security vulnerabilities as defined by CERT and the Common Weakness Enumeration, as well as help keeping code compliant to standards like MISRA C:2012/2004 and MISRA C++:2008. C-RUN performs runtime analysis by checking application execution directly within the development environment. It features arithmetic checks, advanced bounds checking, and heap checking. Thanks to the complete integration of the tools in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE, developers get up and running quickly with the analysis.

IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RX provides a complete IDE including the IAR C/C++ Compiler with Renesas RX ABI compliance, an assembler, a linker and the C-SPYDebugger. The latest certified version adds IDE enhancements and new tutorials for boosted user experience.

The certified version is delivered with a functional safety certificate, as well as a safety report from TUV SUD and a Safety Manual. With the certified tools, IAR Systems provides a Functional Safety Support and Update Agreement with guaranteed support for the sold version for the longevity of the contract. In addition to prioritized technical support, the agreement includes access to validated service packs and regular reports of known deviations and problems. More information is available at www.iar.com/safety.

Editor's Note: IAR Systems, IAR Embedded Workbench, IAR Connect, C-SPY, C-RUN, C-STAT, IAR Visual State, IAR KickStart Kit, I-jet, I-jet Trace, I-scope, IAR Academy, IAR, and the logotype of IAR Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by IAR Systems AB. All other products names are trademarks of their respective owners.

IAR Systems contacts

AnnaMaria Tahlen

Media Relations

IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: annamaria.tahlen@iar.com

Stefan Skarin

CEO

IAR Systems

Tel: +46-18-16-78-00

E-mail: stefan.skarin@iar.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/iar-systems/r/iar-systems-adds-static-and-runtime-analysis-to-functional-safety-tools-for-renesas-rx-mcus,c2387226

The following files are available for download:
BARCELONA, Spain, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Under the theme Empower Cities, Empower People, Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on smart cities will host on 2017 its biggest edition to date. From November 14 to 16, Fira de Barcelona's Gran Via venue will gather 700 cities worldwide as well as 675 exhibitors and 420 speakers, all of them record-breaking figures. The event will focus on strategies to empower metropolises and their citizens through active participation, critical reflection, awareness and access and control over important decisions and resources.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160513/367297LOGO )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/600044/SMARTCITY.jpg )

The event's director, Ugo Valenti, said that, "We believe that the role that citizens will play in the near futures will be crucial. Top-down governance approaches are gone for good and we need to shift the relation between city governments and residents taking it one step further. Never before in history has there been so much talent and creativity concentrated in so little space. "

On 2017, SCEWC will host 675 exhibitors, a 14% increase compared to 2016. Over 30,000m[2] of exhibition floor space, where top international companies from every industry within the smart urban ecosystem will showcase their latest solutions.

The event will also gather representatives from over 700 metropolises from around the globe. Among them, Atlanta, Berlin, Casablanca, Dubai, Grenoble, London, Lyon, Montevideo, Moscow, New York City, Puebla, Quebec, Taipei, Tel Aviv and Zheijhang. While the event will also host several country pavilions such as those of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Denmark, Dubai, Finland, Germany, Holland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden and USA.

SCEWC will showcase examples of projects currently being developed Worldwide that will reshape the way cities function and are managed. Dubai, for example, will showcase an Autonomous and electric Air Taxi service jointly developed with German company Volocopter. Spanish company FCC will also display an Aerial Robot for Sewer Inspection and within the Safe Cities field, SCEWC will show the world's tiniest panic button embedded in a ring.

A total of 420 international experts will share their insights about how the urban future should address its most pressing challenges. All of them will delve into the future of urban settlements through a conference program structured in 8 themes: Government, Safe cities, Economy, Sustainability, Circular, Society and Data Technology.
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.


BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The pound advanced against its major counterparts in the early European session on Friday, as British industrial production expanded for sixth straight month in September and the trade deficit narrowed from last month due to a rise in exports.



Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that industrial production climbed 0.7 percent month-on-month in September, faster than the 0.3 percent increase seen in August, which was revised up from 0.2 percent. It was forecast to rise by 0.3 percent



Manufacturing output also advanced 0.7 percent over the month, exceeding economists' expectations for a 0.3 percent gain.



Separate data from the same agency showed that the U.K.visible trade deficit fell to GBP 11.25 billion in September from GBP 12.35 billion in August. The expected level of shortfall was GBP 12.8 billion.



The total trade deficit dropped to GBP 2.75 billion in September from GBP 3.45 billion in the previous month. This was primarily due to increased exports of unspecified goods.



European stocks were subdued as U.S. tax reform worries and simmering Middle East tensions kept investors on the sidelines ahead of the weekend.



The currency showed mixed trading in the Asian session. While it fell against the yen and the greenback, it rose against the franc. Against the euro, it held steady.



The pound climbed to 0.8845 against the euro, after having fallen to 0.8874 at 2:15 am ET. The next possible resistance for the pound is seen around the 0.86 area.



The pound reversed from an early low of 1.3113 against the greenback, climbing to a 2-day high of 1.3167. If the pound rises further, 1.33 is possibly seen as its next resistance level.



The pound was trading in a positive territory versus the yen, trading at 149.12. Continuation of the pound's uptrend may see it challenging resistance around the 150.00 mark.



Data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that Japan's tertiary activity index decreased for the second straight month in September, and at a faster-than-expected rate.



The tertiary activity index dropped 0.2 percent month-over-month in September, following a 0.1 percent decrease in August. Economists had expected a 0.1 percent stable rate of fall for the month.



On the flip side, the pound was lower against the franc with the pair trading at 1.3059. This may be compared to a high of 1.3083 hit at 1:30 am ET. The pound is seen finding support around the 1.28 level.



Looking ahead, the University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index for November is set for release at 10:00 am ET.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Greta Van Susteren, the former CNN, Fox News and MSNBC host, is ready to unveil an apology app called Sorry, according to her Facebook post. The app is for users to accept or deny apologies. The app will be available for free on the App Store this November 14. Susteren wrote on Wednesday, 'It is an exciting project for me - mostly because it is a completely new field.' 'SNAPCHAT AND INSTAGRAM are about to get some competition!' Susteren said on the post. According to Susteren, her first app 'Sorry' would let people send apologies to one another. 'You will get to 'accept or reject' apologies from a friend (kept private between you and your friend) or 'accept or reject' apologies of public figures which we ALL get to see and vote to accept or reject,' she said. Susteren said her research has found that people apologize on social media more than 475,000 times a day. 'Just google the words 'sorry,' 'apologizes,' 'apology,' and see the celebrities out there and the corporations and even nations apologizing,' she noted. Susteren said she's been working on the app for more than a year. In her post, Susteren promised, in all caps, 'SO MANY MORE DETAILS AND FEATURES TO COME.' She said that she came up with the APP idea when left Fox in September 2016. Earlier this year, she hosted a program on MSNBC, but was stopped after about 6 months reportedly due to poor ratings. Recently, she has been been conducting interviews for Voice of America's VOA TV. Meanwhile, the app is already being mocked on social media, calling it unnecessary. 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.
DUBLIN, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Acrylic Acid: 2017 World Market Outlook and Forecast up to 2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The present report is an essential resource for a one looking for detailed information on the world acrylic acid market. The report covers data on global, regional and national markets including present and future trends for supply and demand, prices, and downstream industries.



In addition to the analytical part, the report provides a range of tables and figures which all together give a true insight into the national, regional and global markets for acrylic acid.



Report Scope:



The report covers global, regional and country markets of acrylic acid

It describes present situation, historical background and future forecast

Comprehensive data showing acrylic acid capacities, production, consumption, trade statistics, and prices in the recent years are provided (globally, regionally and by country)

The report indicates a wealth of information on acrylic acid manufacturers and distributors

Region market overview covers the following: production of acrylic acid in a region/country, consumption trends, price data, trade in the recent year and manufacturers

Acrylic acid market forecast for next five years, including market volumes and prices is also provided

Key Topics Covered:



1. INTRODUCTION: ACRYLIC ACID PROPERTIES AND USES



2. ACRYLIC ACID MANUFACTURING PROCESSES



3. ACRYLIC ACID WORLD MARKET



3.1. World acrylic acid capacity

- Capacity broken down by region

- Capacity divided by country

- Manufacturers and their capacity by plant



3.2. World acrylic acid production

- Global output dynamics

- Production by region

- Production by country



3.3. Acrylic acid consumption

- World consumption

- Consumption trends in Europe

- Consumption trends in Asia Pacific

- Consumption trends in North America



3.4. Acrylic acid global trade

- World trade dynamics

- Export and import flows in regions



3.5. Acrylic acid prices in the world market



4. ACRYLIC ACID REGIONAL MARKETS ANALYSIS



Each country section comprises the following parts:

- Total installed capacity in country

- Production in country

- Manufacturers in country

- Consumption of in country

- Suppliers in country

- Export and import in country

- Prices in country



4.1. Acrylic acid European market analysis

- Countries covered:

- Belgium

- Czech Republic

- France

- Germany

- Russia



4.2. Acrylic acid Asia Pacific market analysis

- Countries included:

- China

- Indonesia

- Japan

- Malaysia

- Singapore

- South Korea



4.3. Acrylic acid North American market analysis

Countries under consideration:

- USA



4.4. Acrylic acid Latin American market analysis

Countries overviewed:

- Mexico



4.5. Acrylic acid African market analysis

Countries examined:

- South Africa



5. ACRYLIC ACID MARKET PROSPECTS



5.1. Acrylic acid capacity and production forecast up to 2021

- Global production forecast

- On-going projects



5.2. Acrylic acid consumption forecast up to 2021

- World consumption forecast

- Forecast of consumption in Europe

- Consumption forecast in Asia Pacific

- Consumption forecast in North America



5.3. Acrylic acid market prices forecast up to 2021



6. KEY COMPANIES IN THE ACRYLIC ACID MARKET WORLDWIDE



7. ACRYLIC ACID FEEDSTOCK MARKET



8. ACRYLIC ACID END-USE SECTOR



8.1. Consumption by application

8.2. Downstream markets review and forecast



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/jfjs7n/acrylic_acid



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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Telecom Infra Project (TIP) brings together the world's leading telecom operators, infrastructure providers and system integrators

Turkcell (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL), announced that it has joined the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and participated in the TIP Summit 2017, held in Santa Clara, Calif., USA on November 8th and 9th.

Founded in February 2016 by Facebook, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Nokia and SK Telecom, TIP is an engineering-focused initiative driven by operators, suppliers, integrators, and startups to disaggregate the traditional network deployment approach. The community's collective aim is to collaborate on new technologies, examine new business approaches and spur new investments in the telecom space. Together with these leading companies, Turkcell plans to play a significant role in helping TIP achieve its goals. During the summit, Turkcell told the story of its transformation into a digital operator to its fellow telecom industry leaders.

Turkcell CEO Kaan Terzioglu stated that it is exciting to join TIP and continued, "We are delighted to become a member of TIP and look forward to collaborating with the other industry leaders in the initiative. The companies that come together at the TIP Summit 2017, including Turkcell, will work together to reimagine the traditional approach to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure. Joining this important global effort will also enable us to quickly bring new and innovative technologies to Turkey by contributing to the development of the next generation of open solutions for cost effective, efficient and flexible networks. As the world's first digital operator we believe our unique perspective can help TIP achieve its mission to rapidly expand network deployments needed to meet the world's ever-growing demand for connectivity. We believe that TIP will help close the digital divide and promote greater inclusion, and we call our regional and industry peers to join us in this important initiative."

TIP Executive Director Leland Lai commented, "The addition Turkcell to our growing list of top global operators is of another clear sign of TIP's growing momentum. We look forward to working with Turkcell and are excited that they can share the insights and lessons they learned from their digital transition with the TIP community."

More than 500 of the global telecom industry's top operators, suppliers, integrators and startups have joined the Telecom Infra Project since its founding in 2016. More information about TIP and its project groups is available at https://telecominfraproject.com/

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005313/en/

Contacts:

Turkcell Corporate Communications

Burak Mergen

burak.mergen@turkcell.com.tr
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BERLIN, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Global investment bank Lazard advises Germany's leading mobility start-up door2door in finance and M&A activities

Lazard, one of the world's leading investment banks, located in New York, is advising Berlin-based tech company door2door in all matters of finance and M&A.

"It's the next consequent step in door2door's company evolution. We are operating as a global software company for public transport technology", states Maxim Nohroudi, Co-founder and Managing Director of door2door. "Lazard is one of the most experienced investment banks in the world with excellent insights into our industry. They are highly qualified to assist our company's strategy for growth."

The mobility sector is experiencing fundamental changes. New players, new alliances, and new concepts are emerging. "We are starting to see tectonic shifts in the entire industry, in the value chains and in the underlying business models", explains Maxim Nohroudi. "Massive consolidation activities will follow as a logic consequence. However, we feel that door2door is perfectly positioned to take a strong lead in this transformation process."

door2door was recently recognized as a leading player impacting the mobility industry. Frost & Sullivan, a leading market research company based in Mountain View, California, analyzed all relevant players in the on-demand mobility market and came to the following conclusion:

"door2door's profound understanding of mobility market needs, its passion to introduce advanced transport solutions, and its capacity to manage Big Data and draw specific insights are the key drivers in its remarkable progression. With strategic business models and clear goals for the long term, door2door is expected to lead the way by redefining the future of the mobility market."

Nohroudi further announced next steps in the organizational development of the company: "Step by step, door2door is growing up as a startup and becoming a more mature technology company. We are about to enter a period of rapid growth and global expansion. This will lead to a highly professional advisory board and expand our executive team."

In September 2017, the city of Duisburg together with its public transport operator - the 'Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG (DVG) - has introduced myBUS, running on door2door's mobility platform. DVG is the first-ever public transport operator in the world to expand its services with on-demand rideshare and seamlessly integrate the services into its public transport network. Other cities are following soon.

About door2door

door2door is Germany's leading mobility startup. It provides cities and public transport companies with a technology platform, enabling them to run their own on-demand shuttle services as part of their public transport network. It employs 100 people from over 30 countries in Berlin, Germany and Porto Alegre, Brazil. door2door's strength to innovate the mobility industry has been recognized by Germany's Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, leading to a regular exchange and advisory on mobility and digital transformation topics. door2door is one of the latest members to join the World Economic Forum and has been awarded by Frost & Sullivan as 'European Entrepreneurial Company of the Year.'

https://www.door2door.io/

https://blog.door2door.io/

Printable material as well as other background information can be found here:

https://www.door2door.io/press.html



When interested in an interview or additional information is required please contact:

Lidia Fabian

Senior Communications Manager

lidia@door2door.io | Tel: +49-177-75-47-205


- End-to-end manufacturing solutions accelerate supply chain processes and reduce time of aircraft on ground

- New DuraFormProXFR1200 material delivers FAR 25.853 compliance, meeting the flame retardancy thresholds required by the Aerospace market

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 3D Systems (NYSE: DDD) announced today that it is showcasing its additive manufacturing expertise for the Aerospace and Defense industry, in conjunction with select customers, next week at the Dubai Airshow. As the inventor of 3D printing, the company offers industry-leading end-to-end manufacturing solutions designed for the Aerospace and Defense industry, which are comprised of the broadest portfolio of software, technology, materials, and services capabilities. These solutions help customers produce parts more quickly at significantly lighter weight while retaining tensile strength with lower total cost of operation (TCO) as compared to traditional manufacturing processes.

Dubai Airshow attendees will be able to see 3D production solutions developed with Aerospace customers at the 3D Systems booth, stand 1560.

3D Systems' Bryan Hodgson, advanced aerospace applications for 3D Systems, will be leading a keynote presentation at this year's event discussing the benefits of industrializing 3D printing for Aerospace. The keynote will be held at the air show's conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems on November 15 at 12:40pm local time.

SLS and New Flame Retardant Material for Interior Cabin Parts

3D Systems' new DuraForm ProX FR1200 nylon material delivers FAR 25.853 compliance, meeting the flame retardancy thresholds required by the Aerospace market for interior cabin parts. The material meets AITM Smoke Density and Toxicity Requirements, and its non-halogenated formulation has a favorable health profile. Parts produced with DuraForm ProX FR1200 possess excellent surface quality and a vibrant white color that cannot be attained with competitive materials making it ideal for post-processing and painting. Using this material in conjunction with 3D Systems' SLS additive technology enables very fast, tool-free, on-demand production that accelerates supply chains while reducing inventory and time of aircraft on ground (AOG).The material is currently being certified by a major international airline.

Investment Casting for Dramatically Reduced Time and Cost

3D Systems is the leader in technologies and services for 3D printed investment casting patterns. The combination of its SLA additive manufacturing platforms, QuickCast methodology, and materials delivers perfect surface finish with a lightweight, zero-ash burnout process. Customers, including Vaupell, use the Accura CastPro' Free material to produce antimony-free SLA casting patterns for Aerospace customers, delivering unprecedented speed and quality at a fraction of the cost of traditional methodologies. Andy Reeves, a Vaupell sales engineer for new business development, estimates that a specific 26-inch diameter part pattern can be produced with QuickCast on a 3D Systems ProX 800 SLA 3D printer in two to three days for approximately $6,000 to $15,000. A traditionally produced tool for the same part could take anywhere from several months to more than a year at a cost of $200,000 to $300,000.

Direct Metal Printing for Mission-Critical, Risk-Averse Applications

3D Systems partners closely with many Aerospace companies to research, design and certify metal additive parts for the industry. A major European satellite-based system manufacturer is one such partner that is aggressively researching the technology with an aim to transform satellite design with 3D printed metal parts. 3D Systems' Direct Metal Printing (DMP) is now qualified and fully available for titanium in this manufacturer's applications enabling parts to be significantly lighter and noticeably more compact, with equal or superior tensile strength to traditionally manufactured parts. Today, for certain products like the satellites, 80 percent of metal parts are produced using 3D printing, replacing traditionally manufactured parts.

"3D Systems has a long history in the Aerospace and Defense industry, and many successful collaborations with our customers," said Bryan Hodgson, advanced aerospace applications, 3D Systems. "At this event, we're very excited to be showcasing several that deliver productivity, repeatability, durability, and effective total cost of operation for our customers."

Software Accelerates Progression from Prototyping to Production

In addition to providing technology, materials and professional services, 3D Systems has a complete software portfolio to support the digital manufacturing workflow, from Digitize, Design & Simulation to Manufacture, Inspect and Manage. The company's comprehensive portfolio empowers customers with advanced engineering tools designed to work directly with CAD data and increase accuracy and precision in manufacturing. The company delivers industrial-strength software solutions to support the Aerospace manufacturing workflow, enabling lightweight part design, rapid production of obsolete parts, and preparation for additive and traditional manufacturing. Attendees to Dubai Airshow 2017 are invited to the 3D Systems booth to see how 3D Systems' industry-leading Geomagic Design X' and Geomagic Control X' can be used for 3D scanning applications, including reverse engineering and CAD-based inspection.

Ushering in the Next Generation of Additive Manufacturing Solutions

3D Systems' end-to-end solutions for Aerospace and Defense are part of the company's broad additive manufacturing portfolio that enables them to deliver unique solutions tailored to their customers' workflows. Earlier this week, the company announced several new offerings that significantly strengthen the company's portfolio lineup giving them the broadest set of additive manufacturing software, services, and technologies in the industry - enabling them to address the widest array of customer applications across industries.

The announcement included new production plastic and metal materials, expansion of its leading suite of workflow software, next generation of printing systems enabling customers to scale from prototyping to production using the same materials, and a new professional services capability leveraging the company's 30 years of additive manufacturing experience, advanced applications expertise and global footprint.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this release that are not statements of historical or current facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from historical results or from any future results or projections expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In many cases, forward looking statements can be identified by terms such as "believes," "belief," "expects," "may," "will," "estimates," "intends," "anticipates" or "plans" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are based upon management's beliefs, assumptions and current expectations and may include comments as to the company's beliefs and expectations as to future events and trends affecting its business and are necessarily subject to uncertainties, many of which are outside the control of the company. The factors described under the headings "Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other factors, could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected or predicted in forward-looking statements. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not, and should not be relied upon as a guarantee of future performance or results, nor will they necessarily prove to be accurate indications of the times at which such performance or results will be achieved. The forward-looking statements included are made only as the date of the statement. 3D Systems undertakes no obligation to update or review any forward-looking statements made by management or on its behalf, whether as a result of future developments, subsequent events or circumstances or otherwise.

About 3D Systems

3D Systems provides comprehensive 3D products and services, including 3D printers, print materials, on demand manufacturing services and digital design tools. Its ecosystem supports advanced applications from the product design shop to the factory floor to the operating room. 3D Systems' precision healthcare capabilities include simulation, Virtual Surgical Planning, and printing of medical and dentaldevices aswell as patient-specific surgical instruments. As the originator of 3D printing and a shaper of future 3D solutions, 3D Systems has spent its 30-year history enabling professionals and companies to optimize their designs, transform their workflows, bring innovative products to market and drive new business models.

More information on the company is available atwww.3dsystems.com.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/601550/SLS_3d_print_video_shroud_FR_1200_2_DUBAI_RELEASE.jpg
The 25th edition of the Hong Kong Optical Fair featured 800 exhibitors from 28 countries and regions and welcomed more than 16,000 buyers.

Fair's Brand Name Gallery housed 225 top international brands. A number of group pavilions were also established, enhancing internationality of the fair.





HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Department Christine Kam Tel: +852 2584-4514 Email: christine.kam@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, Nov 10, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The 25th edition of the HKTDC Hong Kong Optical Fair closed today. Organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and co-organised by the Hong Kong Optical Manufacturers Association, the three-day fair (8-10 November) attracted a record of more than 16,000 buyers from 103 countries and regions, up seven per cent over the previous year. The number of buyers from numerous emerging markets rose significantly, including the Chinese mainland, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Sizable growth in buyers was also recorded from mature markets, such as Singapore, Taiwan, France, the UK and Canada, the number of buyers from Hong Kong also grew.Benjamin Chau, Deputy Executive Director of the HKTDC, said the results highlight the Optical Fair's role as a major promotion and sourcing platform for the international eyewear industry. With a record-setting 800 exhibitors, the fair's growing number of buyers also showed that the worldwide eyewear industry is thriving, said Mr Chau. "The global demand for eyewear products continues to climb. For industry professionals, the international Optical Fair remains a major promotion and sourcing platform. The fair showcased a broad spectrum of products and many exhibitors displayed their new and high-end eyewear designs to cater to strong market demand. There was a vibrant trading atmosphere on the fairground."Improving Chinese mainland market, E-tailing to become a trendIndustry professionals and experts were invited to a series of seminars at the fair to examine the latest market trends and product styles. According to Euromonitor International, global eyewear sales will reach nearly HK$1 trillion this year, and retail sales of eyewear in the Chinese mainland rose about six per cent last year.Representatives from the renowned German research institute GfK spoke at a seminar saying that the Chinese mainland consumption market is booming and that retail sales of eyewear products are performing well. With a strong appetite for luxury brands, mainland consumers are seeking stylish brands. The speakers anticipated that e-tailing will be a main retail sales driver. "We foresee that by 2020, around 40 per cent of consumers in the United States, Europe, and the four BRIC regions will be digital consumers," said Gianni Cossar, Global Director Optics & Eyewear of GfK. Another highlight of the fair was the 15th Hong Kong Optometric Conference. Under the theme "Neuro Vision Rehabilitation," two sessions of the conference attracted over 1,000 attendees.High-end branded eyewear in demandThis year's Brand Name Gallery featured 225 top international brands and designer collections. Hong Kong exhibitor Kingvisions Ltd has been exhibiting at the fair for five consecutive years. Ivan Chan, the company's General Manager, said the company made more than 120 new contacts during the fair, including a major Hong Kong optical chain store, which wanted to become an exclusive agent for the Korean brand Fixxative and Hong Kong brand Percy Lau. Several retailers from the Chinese mainland, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand also placed onsite orders for more than 1,000 pieces.Buyer successfully found OEM suppliers to launch own brandFrench company, Light Optical, which operates six eyewear stores in France, selling branded frames, contact lenses and sunglasses, plans to launch its own brand next September. Visiting the fair for the first time, Benjamin Zeitoun, Director General of the company said he came to find OEM manufacturers and new ideas. He met exhibitors from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and France, and planned to buy about 15,000 pieces.With the rapid development of mobile technology, e-Badge was launched at this year's Optical Fair for the first time. Buyers could retrieve their e-Badges by downloading the "HKTDC Marketplace" mobile App and completing the visitor registration. With the help of the e-Badge, visitors can get exhibitors and fair information, which provides convenience and improves the all-rounded fair experience. It also helps the environment. The Optical Fair was held concurrently (9-11 November) with the HKTDC Hong Kong International Wine & Spirits Fair, to attract more global buyers to Hong Kong and generate more business opportunities for exhibitors.For more comments from exhibitors and buyers, please visit: http://bit.ly/2zw5nOIFair Website: hkopticalfair.hktdc.comPhoto download: http://bit.ly/2mdpZZiAbout HKTDCEstablished in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body dedicated to creating opportunities for Hong Kong's businesses. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China, Asia and the world. With 50 years of experience, the HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in international markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.- Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdc- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdc- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
NORTH ANDOVER, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/17 -- Semcasting, creators of the patented IP targeting technology Semcasting Smart Zones, that it qualified for the Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Semcasting's revenue grew 150 percent from 2013 to 2016 to secure its spot on the list for the third consecutive year.

The data-as-a-service company is committed to providing marketers across verticals proprietary data enabled audiences and deterministic attribution solutions. Attribution services account for about 16.5 percent of Semcasting's current revenue. Attribution has increased 1,981 percent since Semcasting first launched its Site Visitor Attribution (SVA) product in 2015. Semcasting's solution uses IP-based campaign matching to create a common ID that helps a marketer determine an exact match to advertising impressions that reached the target audience and ultimately led to purchases -- digital or physical.

"Marketing attribution is a hot button issue because there is more investment across screens that needs to be justified and advertisers now realize it is possible," said Ray Kingman, CEO and co-founder of Semcasting. "More clients are building attribution into the reporting at the start of their campaigns, and Semcasting leverages our offline roots and patented IP-targeting platform to deliver deterministic matching from impression to in-store purchase. Being responsive to clients' needs has allowed us to increase our footprint among key accounts, which ultimately earned us the right to be featured on the Technology Fast 500 list for the third time."

"The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers."

Semcasting was founded in 2009. In addition to the 150 percent revenue growth from 2013 to 2016, Semcasting has grown its staff by 161 percent with offices in North Andover, MA, New York City, Buffalo, NY, Orlando, FL and San Francisco, CA.

"Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this year's North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and a strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment," said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLP's emerging growth company practice. "Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this year's Fast 500 winners."

Semcasting was previously ranked as a Technology Fast 500 award winner for 2016 and 2015.

About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies -- both public and private -- in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America.

Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms.

About Semcasting

Semcasting is the next generation in Data Management Platforms, providing actionable intelligence for marketing services, CRM enhancement, and manufacturing logistics on any Internet-enabled device. Our Semcasting Smart Zones platform maps the demographic attributes of real consumers and businesses to their Internet delivery points in order to automate the creation of highly qualified and verified audiences. Semcasting matches customers, prospects, and Internet traffic to the locations and devices they prefer, enabling analytics and advertising to be targeted with nearly 100 percent reach and unrivaled accuracy. Semcasting is headquartered in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Semcasting, a data-as-a-service provider, created the next-generation Universal Data Exchange for advertising, marketing and CRM related digital targeting. Our patented Smart Zones IP Targeting platform onboards a wide-array of consumer, business, mobile and internet site traffic to both online and offline locations. Smart Zones uniquely links all cross-device activity for targeted advertising and attribution with nearly 100% reach and unrivaled accuracy. Semcasting is headquartered in North Andover, MA.

Media Contact

Lacy Gallagher

PR Director

Blast PR on behalf of Semcasting

Email Contact




SHENZHEN, China, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On November 9, Vivo, a leading young brand in the global mobile phone market, and one of Qualcomm's key partners, has signed a memorandum of understanding worth 4 billion U.S. dollars with Qualcomm. The signing of this memorandum of understanding signifies Vivo and Qualcomm's technical partnership and patent sharing, and will ensure Vivo's leading position in mobile-related technologies.

To cater to the needs of more than two hundred million users, Vivo is committed to providing innovative and cutting-edge technologies in mobile photography, gaming, smart power saving and many other aspects in collaboration with Qualcomm's optimized platforms.

With the advent of 5G, Vivo understands the importance of human-computer interaction and has planned a series of collaborative initiatives to accelerate the formulation of 5G standards. In terms of the 5G SoC (System on Chip), Vivo will also share its many years of consumer market experience with Qualcomm to provide consumers with a better and more customized user experience.

Vivo is also working with Qualcomm on research and development in the biometrics space. At MWC Shanghai this July, Vivo unveiled the Vivo Under Display fingerprint scanning solution based on Qualcomm fingerprint sensors and drew the industry's spotlight. Vivo will continue to work with Qualcomm on other core technologies, particularly 3D facial identification, palm prints, fingerprints, iris scanning and other biometric technologies, to improve the ease-of-use and security of mobile phone biometrics.

Ranking among the top five mobile phone brands in the world, Vivo continues to lead in technology application and consumer insights and aims to stay at the forefront of technology by working with global partners.

This month, Vivo announced expansion plans into the European and African markets in 2018 to increase market share and brand leadership. With this 4 billion U.S dollar memorandum of understanding, this partnership with Qualcomm will help to strengthen its leading position in the industry.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vivo-and-qualcomm-signed-a-memorandum-of-understanding-worth-4-billion-us-dollars-300553800.html


BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has made it clear that the US will no longer tolerate closed markets, intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices that have harmed American workers,.



Trump delivered a defiant address at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Vietnam Friday, which was characterized by his hard-line economic nationalism.



'We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore..I am always going to put America first, the same way I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first,' Trump told the Pacific Rim leaders.



He made his government's policy clear: The US would not seek multilateral free trade deals. Instead, it prefers mutually beneficial bilateral pacts.



'We will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade'.



Trump withdrew America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the landmark trade accord negotiated by the Obama administration, on his third day in office.



'The United States is prepared to work with each of the leaders in this room today to achieve mutually beneficial commerce that is in the interests of both your countries and mine,' according to Trump.



The US President offered APEC member nations a renewed partnership with America -- 'to work together to strengthen the bonds of friendship and commerce between all of the nations of the Indo-Pacific, and together, to promote our prosperity and security'.



He said the current trade imbalance is not acceptable to the United States. However, he did not put the blame on China or any other country for taking advantage of the United States on trade, but on previous US administrations.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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DUBLIN, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Polyethylene Low Density (LDPE): 2017 World Market Outlook and Forecast up to 2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The present report is an essential resource for a one looking for detailed information on the world polyethylene low density market. The report covers data on global, regional and national markets including present and future trends for supply and demand, prices, and downstream industries.



In addition to the analytical part, the report provides a range of tables and figures which all together give a true insight into the national, regional and global markets for polyethylene low density.



Report Scope:



The report covers global, regional and country markets of polyethylene low density

It describes present situation, historical background and future forecast

Comprehensive data showing polyethylene low density capacities, production, consumption, trade statistics, and prices in the recent years are provided (globally, regionally and by country)

The report indicates a wealth of information on polyethylene low density manufacturers and distributors

Region market overview covers the following: production of polyethylene low density in a region/country, consumption trends, price data, trade in the recent year and manufacturers

Polyethylene low density market forecast for next five years, including market volumes and prices is also provided

Key Topics Covered:



1. INTRODUCTION: POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY PROPERTIES AND USES



2. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY MANUFACTURING PROCESSES



3. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY WORLD MARKET



3.1. World polyethylene low density capacity

- Capacity broken down by region

- Capacity divided by country

- Manufacturers and their capacity by plant



3.2. World polyethylene low density production

- Global output dynamics

- Production by region

- Production by country



3.3. Polyethylene low density consumption

- World consumption

- Consumption trends in Europe

- Consumption trends in Asia Pacific

- Consumption trends in North America



3.4. Polyethylene low density global trade

- World trade dynamics

- Export and import flows in regions



3.5. Polyethylene low density prices in the world market



4. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY REGIONAL MARKETS ANALYSIS



Each country section comprises the following parts:

- Total installed capacity in country

- Production in country

- Manufacturers in country

- Consumption of in country

- Suppliers in country

- Export and import in country

- Prices in country



4.1. Polyethylene low density European market analysis

Countries covered:

- Austria

- Belarus

- Belgium

- Bulgaria

- Croatia

- Finland

- France

- Germany

- Hungary

- Italy

- Netherlands

- Norway

- Poland

- Portugal

- Romania

- Russia

- Serbia

- Slovakia

- Spain

- Sweden

- UK



4.2. Polyethylene low density Asia Pacific market analysis

Countries included:

- Australia

- China

- India

- Japan

- Malaysia

- Singapore

- South Korea

- Taiwan

- Thailand



4.3. Polyethylene low density North American market analysis

Countries under consideration:

- Canada

- USA



4.4. Polyethylene low density Latin American market analysis

Countries overviewed:

- Argentina

- Brazil

- Chile

- Colombia

- Mexico

- Venezuela



4.5. Polyethylene low density Africa & Middle East market analysis

Countries examined:

- Algeria

- Iran

- Iraq

- Israel

- Qatar

- Saudi Arabia

- South Africa

- Turkey



5. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY MARKET PROSPECTS



5.1. Polyethylene low density capacity and production forecast up to 2021

- Global production forecast

- On-going projects



5.2. Polyethylene low density consumption forecast up to 2021

- World consumption forecast

- Forecast of consumption in Europe

- Consumption forecast in Asia Pacific

- Consumption forecast in North America



5.3. Polyethylene low density market prices forecast up to 2021



6. KEY COMPANIES IN THE POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY MARKET WORLDWIDE



7. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY FEEDSTOCK MARKET



8. POLYETHYLENE LOW DENSITY END-USE SECTOR



8.1. Consumption by application

8.2. Downstream markets review and forecast



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/9djjf8/polyethylene_low



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Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 10, 2017) - Platinex Inc. (CSE: PTX) has entered into a Letter of Intent to acquire an interest in an edible brand in the State of Oregon, that holds the rights to a brand known in the Southern and Western Oregon regions. The Letter of Intent also includes acquiring an interest in a co-packaging company that is in the final stages of obtaining a Processor License from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission covering the manufacture of cannabis infused products.

InvestmentPitch Media has produced a "video news alert" which provides a brief overview of this news. If this link is not enabled, please visit www.InvestmentPitch.com and enter "Platinex" in the search box.





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The co-packing company, controlled by the same principals that own the brand company, will manufacture the products at the premises that are leased to the co-packing company, along with other companies that may utilize the facility upon obtaining requisite regulatory approvals. The terms of the investment are being finalized and it is intended that Platinex will advance funds in exchange for the royalty interest in the brand company. The transaction is subject to completing a due diligence review including receipt of the Processor Licence.

Jim Trusler, CEO, stated: "We are pleased to announce this important milestone in the development of our cannabis strategy. Partnering with entrepreneurs to empower creativity is the cornerstone of the strategy, which is exemplified by this deal. When providing capital to entrepreneurs we believe that it is important to carefully develop the incentives, which is why we structured an investment in a form of a royalty. We also believe that there is a significant market gap in the edibles manufacturing market in Oregon, thus making a co-packing business an attractive value proposition. We look forward to providing more updates of this exciting opportunity as we continue to proceed."

Platinex also announced a non-brokered private placement to raise up to $600,000 from the issuance of up to 12 million units priced at $0.05 per unit, with each unit consists of one share and one warrant, with each warrant exercisable at $0.15 for 24 months, subject to an acceleration clause.

The company plans to use the proceeds for other acquisitions in the cannabis space and for working capital.

Platinex also continues to focus its mining business efforts in assembling a very large property in the Shining Tree gold camp, located in northeastern Ontario approximately 100 kilometers north of Sudbury. This area has received little modern exploration compared to other gold camps in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt.

The shares are trading at $0.10, and with 81.8 million shares outstanding, the company is capitalized at $8.2 million.

For more information about the company, please visit the company's website www.platinex.com, contact James R. Trusler, CEO, at 416-565-5616 or by email at jtrusler@platinex.com.

About InvestmentPitch Media

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CONTACT:

InvestmentPitch Media

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bmorgan@investmentpitch.com
Technavio has announced the top five leading vendors in their recentglobal battery market in telecommunicationsreport from 2017-2021. This market research report also lists 22 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/20171110005359/en/

Technavio has published a new report on the global battery market in telecommunications from 2017-2021. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Competitive vendor landscape

Globally, many vendors are present in the global battery market in telecommunications and the market is almost in the developing stage (not completely developed). There is a competition for higher market share by several small and medium enterprises as well as large market players. The competition among existing players is likely to increase due to the introduction of increased investments and new technologies in the market. Local or regional vendors are dominating the market in many underdeveloped and developing countries. The need for energy-efficient technology is predicted to drive the growth of the market.

According to Thanikachalam Chandrasekaran, a lead analyst at Technavio for energy storage research, "One of the key factors driving the growth of the market is the rise of green telecom towers. In North America, particularly in the US, telecom tower and infrastructure operators are under tremendous pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. Thus, green telecom power systems are being used by manufacturers of telecom power systems to expand their product portfolio. Diesel generators are being predominantly used in the telecom sector. Therefore, diesel accounts for more than two-fifth of the total operating expenditure."

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Technaviomarket research analysts identify the following key vendors:

East Penn Manufacturing

East Penn Manufacturing offers lead-acid batteries, wires, cable products, and battery accessories. It operates through four subsidiaries: East Penn Canada, East Penn International, Ecoult, and MK Battery. The business segments of the company are classified into transportation, motive power, reserve power, and wire and cable. The company sells its products through its private labels, including distribution through major auto parts retailers across North America.

EnerSys

The company markets, manufactures, and distributes industrial batteries and related products such as outdoor cabinet enclosures, chargers, battery accessories, and power equipment. EnerSys offers customer-support and related after-market services for industrial batteries. They majorly manufacture lead-acid batteries. These products are used to provide backup power to critical applications, applications for computer and computer-controlled systems, telecommunications systems, and other specialty power applications.

Exide Technologies

Exide Technologies serves the complex stored energy needs of customers worldwide. They offer services and systems that enhance vehicle performance and fleet utilization and to aim to reduce the risk of temporary power supply interruptions. Through its transportation segment, Exide Technologies offers a full range of SLI and lead-acid batteries for a multitude of applications. These products are made to fit automotive, trucks, SUVs, marine fleets, heavy-duty commercial vehicles, RVs, and many other niche applications.

GS Yuasa

The company designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of batteries, power supply systems, lighting equipment, and other electrical equipment worldwide. GS Yuasa offers chargers, power tools, sensors and gas generators, battery analyzers, and membrane systems. The company's R&D division focuses on improving the operational efficiency of existing products and solutions.

Saft

Saft manufactures and markets non-rechargeable and rechargeable batteries. The company sells its products in Europe, North America, Asia/Oceania, MEA, and South America. Some of the company's subsidiaries are Saft Australia, Saft Batteries, Saft UK Ltd, Saft SAS, Alcad AB, and Saft Finance Sarl. The company caters to aviation, defense, marine, oil and gas, railways, space, and telecom industries. Saft is one of the major players in the primary battery market and offers primary lithium batteries.

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ORANGE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 11/10/17 -- Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC) Chair Fran Sdao today called on Congress to reject the Trump Administration's proposed tax overhaul, calling it "destructive for Orange County" and "cruel."

"Trump wants Orange County residents to foot the bill for massive corporate tax breaks, and it's a disgrace that Orange County Republicans in Congress won't stand up to him," said Sdao.

"It's up to Orange County residents to call Congress immediately and say 'no' to Trump's disastrous tax plan before it's too late," Sdao said.

Some OC residents could pay $10,000 or more in additional taxes each year if the Trump tax plan eliminates the "SALT" deduction for state and local taxes. Without the SALT deduction, Trump's tax plan could effectively double-tax residents of certain states, including California.

Trump's plan will make it harder for seniors to afford assisted living and nursing homes.

And just weeks after wildfires ravaged Orange County and many other parts of California, Trump's tax plan increases taxes on victims of wildfires and earthquakes.

Trump's tax plan eliminates deductions for medical bills, teacher out-of-pocket expenses, student loan interest payments, health savings accounts (HSAs), self-employed entrepreneurs, and many others.

Republican members of Congress are now attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act through Trump's tax plan, despite strong public support for ACA.

In addition, Trump's plan overturns the Johnson Amendment, opening the floodgates for religious groups and churches to engage in politics while preventing other non-profits from doing the same.

"Trump's tax plan is cruel," said Sdao. "Orange County Republican members of Congress are letting him get away with it. We the voters must call Congress now. We have to stop it before its too late."

Say No to Trump's Tax Plan: Call (202) 224-3121

The Democratic Party urges the public to pressure their Congressional representatives to reject Trump's disastrous tax plan.

Call the US Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to be connected to your representatives.

About The Democratic Party of Orange County

The Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC) is the official organization for Democrats in Orange County, the nation's sixth-largest county. The DPOC is the third largest Democratic county in California (behind Los Angeles and San Diego) with more than 520,000 registered Democrats. To get more involved or donate to the Democratic Party of Orange County to help stop President Trump's agenda, visit our website at www.orangecountydemocrats.com.

Media Contact:

Rachel Potucek

Communications Consultant

Democratic Party of Orange County

(562) 276-8514

rachel@ocdemocrats.org




VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2017 / Friday Night Inc. ("Friday Night") (CSE: TGIF) (FRA: 1QF) (OTC PINK: VPGDF) is pleased to announce through its subsidiary, the Alternative Medicine Association (AMA), it has executed an agreement to provide cultivation services to another Nevada licensed facility owned by Harvest Foundation.

That facility, now under AMA's management, is conveniently located adjacent to the Company's current cultivation facility.

"We have been preparing for this agreement which will now allow both companies to significantly advance their respective business plans in the area. It will effectively double the canopy space under our control and greatly increase the quantity of our extracts and oil production to supply a growing market," said Mark Zobrist, Manager of AMA.

Under the agreement, AMA will use its expertise to efficiently cultivate its own proprietary, high yield strains in the Harvest Foundation facility. This will provide additional pounds of flower and trim to AMA and will provide Harvest Foundation the most economical means of meeting market demand for its products. Management believes this agreement will effectively boost revenues and profits for each company.

Ben Horner, the Director of Operations at AMA, stated, "We are excited to work with the Harvest Foundation management to achieve the goal of consistent, high quality harvests from their licensed facility. We have already populated all of their grow rooms with beautiful, mature plants ready to enter the flower stage. We expect our first harvest to be in late December of this year."

About Friday Night Inc.

Friday Night Inc. is a Canadian public company which owns and controls cannabis and hemp-based assets in Las Vegas Nevada. The company owns 91% of Alternative Medicine Association, LC (AMA), a licensed medical and adult-use cannabis cultivation and production facility that produces its own line of unique cannabis-based products and manufactures other third-party brands. Infused MFG, also a 91% owned subsidiary, produces hemp-based, CBD products, thoughtfully crafted of high quality organic botanical ingredients. Friday Night Inc. is focused on strengthening and expanding these operations within and outside of the state. Visit http://fridaynightinc.com.

For further information, please contact:

Joe Bleackley, Corporate Communications

604-674-4756

Joe@FridayNightInc.com

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains forward-looking statements. The use of any of the words "anticipate," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "may," "will," "project," "should," "believe," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including, the inability of the Company to take advantage of the cultivation arrangement and various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents, which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. Friday Night 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 law or the Canadian Securities Exchange.

SOURCE: Friday Night Inc.
BRUSSELS, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

In this article ( http://www.europeanbusinessreview.eu/page.asp?pid=2255 ) published on the European Business Review on November 10, 2017, Martin Banks notes that the Eurasia Drilling Company (EDC), a large Russian onshore and offshore drilling company covering some 16% of the Russian market, has attracted the attention of several foreign investors to acquire its stakes.

The author argues that EDC is currently the target for two major suitors. The glittering prize for any eventual victor is easy to see: control of a big - and independent -player in the lucrative oil service market. The biggest offer so far has come from Schlumberger, a US company, which for the second time is trying to strike a deal to acquire 51% stakes of EDC. The deal has to be validated by the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), which has expressed concern.

The author reports indeed Russia's deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich's declarations stating that the approval of any Schlumberger deal would be delayed due to the "unpredictable situation" regarding western sanctions against Russia: the fear is that sanctions could force EDC to halt its operations soon after any deal.

The second offer to invest $150 million in Eurasia Drilling Company comes from a joint investment fund composed of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) and investors from the Middle East, among them Saudi Arabian Saudi Aramco.

However, this new application is also controversial: the big concern is that such a deal will change the energy landscape and significantly increase the foreign presence in Russia's domestic energy markets. Indeed, latest data reveals the full scale to which foreign investors have now got a foothold in the highly lucrative Russian energy market.

The author remarks that the Tyumen Association of Oil and Gas Industry estimates that the share of foreign players in the national oil and gas market in Russia has grown six-fold from 2002 to 2012 and now accounts for no less than 65 per cent of the entire market.

Subsequently, the author reminds that it is not the first time that Schlumberger, already controlling some 11 per cent of the Russian oil service market, has tried to seize effective control of EDC in September 2015.

A successful Schlumberger bid now would increase the American company's investment stake in Russia to some 29 per cent. Schlumberger was rebuffed on the two previous occasions for much the same reason: rising fears that Russia was fast becoming a "honeypot" for overseas energy investors.

The author argues the spectre of another foreign presence on the energy scene in Russia does not sit easily with the authorities in Russia, who point to the "America-first" mantra being peddled by President Trump in the United States. Since his election, President Trump has made no secret of the fact that he will pursue a robust protectionist trade agenda. The appointment as Secretary of State of Rex Tillerson, formerly chief executive of oil giant Exxon Mobil also denotes renewed relevance of the energy sector in the US and has added to the uncertainty about future American energy policy, not just in Russia but around the world.

The author reports the declaration of one leading Brussels-based energy expert to the publication: "The feeling is that what is good for the US, that is, protecting its own markets, is good for other countries too and that includes Russia. Such developments and especially the sudden and unexpected introduction into the equation of Saudi Arabia - a country previously absent in the Russian energy market sector - have raised real and perfectly understandable concern among the country's energy experts and authorities."

The author concludes that with serious question marks against both the two current bids, the future of EDC remains unclear: however, as the Russian authorities are particularly keen to avoid yielding control of one of the country's most prized energy assets, it will not be a surprise if another would-be suitor emerges.

Find the full article here: http://www.europeanbusinessreview.eu/page.asp?pid=2255
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A resolution requiring sexual harassment training for Senators, staff and interns was unanimously approved by the Senate on Thursday. The passage of the legislation comes amid the recent wave of sexual harassment claims that has spread from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., co-author of the measure, said making harassment training mandatory sends a clear message that harassment of any kind is not and will not be tolerated. 'Sexual and workplace harassment is a widespread problem that affects too many women and men in too many places, professions, and industries,' Klobuchar said. She added, 'Everyone deserves to feel safe and comfortable at work, and the passage of this official Senate policy is an important measure to ensure that's the case in these halls.' Under the resolution, sexual harassment training would need to be completed within 60 days and repeated no less than once each Congress. Each employing office in the Senate would also be required to submit a certification of completed training, which would be published on the public website of the Secretary of the Senate. On the other side of the Capitol, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has urged members and staff to step up their sexual harassment training and expressed support for a review by the House Administration Committee. The committee, which has jurisdiction over the day-to-day operations of the House, is scheduled to hold a hearing on House policies and training on November 14th. 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.
The Medicrea Group (Euronext Growth Paris: FR0004178572 ALMED), pioneering the convergence of healthcare IT and next-generation, outcome-centered device design and manufacturing with UNiD Adaptive Spine Intelligence ("ASI") technology, announces that on Wednesday, November 8th, 2017, Medicrea USA, Inc., filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against K2M Spine, Inc. and several other defendants. The case has been assigned to the Honorable Analisa Torres, District Judge.

The lawsuit addresses the unlawful acts that K2M and the other defendants have taken over the course of the past year.

Medicrea has revolutionized spinal surgery through our innovative UNID technology, the first and only patient-specific spinal rod approved for use in the United States.

We will aggressively pursue all available legal rights to protect our market-leading business.

About Medicrea (www.Medicrea.com

Through the lens of predictive medicine, Medicrea leads the design, integrated manufacture, and distribution of 30+ FDA approved spinal implant technologies that have been utilized in over 150,000 spinal surgeries to date. By leveraging its proprietary software analysis tools with big data and machine learning technologies and supported by an expansive collection of clinical and scientific data, Medicrea is well-placed to streamline the efficiency of spinal care, reduce procedural complications and limit time spent in the operating room.

Operating in a $10 billion marketplace, Medicrea is a Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) with 175 employees worldwide, which includes 50 who are based in the U.S. The Company has an ultra-modern manufacturing facility in Lyon, France housing the development and production of 3D-printed titanium patient-specific implants.

For further information, please visit: Medicrea.com.

Connect with Medicrea:

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE

Medicrea is listed on

EURONEXT Growth Paris

ISIN: FR 0004178572

Ticker: ALMED

LEI: 969500BR1CPTYMTJBA37

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005611/en/

Contacts:

Medicrea

Denys Sournac

Founder, Chairman and CEO

dsournac@Medicrea.com

or

Fabrice Kilfiger, Tel: +33 (0)4 72 01 87 87

Chief Financial Officer

fkilfiger@Medicrea.com
CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2017 / Emerald Bay Energy Inc. (TSX-V: EBY) (OTC PINK: EMBYF) (the "Company" or "Emerald Bay") today announced that completion operations have begun on the Kuhn 4 well at the Company's Wooden Horse play in South Texas. The Company was able to secure services ahead of the November 20th scheduled date and equipment is now being moved on location. Kuhn 4 will initially be completed in the Buda formation. The Buda completion operations will take approximately 4-5 days with the production testing phase to begin immediately thereafter as flow lines are in place to the Company's tank battery. The production testing phase will take approximately 2-4 weeks. Following the Buda formation testing, the Company will move up hole to begin testing the Austin Chalk formation. The Company will update results in the coming days and weeks.

About Emerald Bay

Emerald Bay Energy Inc. (EBY) is an energy company with oil producing properties in southwest Texas as well as non operated oil, natural gas, and electricity generation interests in Central Alberta, Canada. EBY is the operator of the Wooden Horse and Nash Creek Projects in Guadeloupe, Texas, where the Company currently now owns a 50.00% working interest in those projects. The Company also owns 75% of Production Resources Inc., a South Texas oil company.

To stay informed on Emerald Bay Energy, please join our Investor Group at https://www.8020connect.com/groups/emerald-bay-energy-inc for all upcoming news releases, articles, comments, and questions.

For further information, please contact:

Emerald Bay President, Shelby D. Beattie, by telephone at (403) 262-6000

Email: info@ebyinc.com

www.ebyinc.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements that may constitute "forward-looking" statements, usually containing the words "believe," "estimate," "project," "expect," "plan," "intend," "anticipates," "projects," "potential," or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts.

Information inferred from the interpretation of drilling results may also be deemed to be forward-looking statements, as it constitutes a prediction of what might be found to be present when and if a well is actually developed. BOE's may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A BOE conversion ratio of 6 Mcf: 1 Bbl is based on energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the wellhead. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of such information, which are considered reasonable by Emerald Bay at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect. Actual results achieved will vary from the information provided and the variations may be material. There is no representation by Emerald Bay that actual results achieved will be the same in whole or part as those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this document include statements regarding the Company's exploration, drilling and development plans, the Company's expectations regarding the timing and success of such programs. In particular, forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: pipeline acquisitions and leasing; pipeline permits, pipeline construction, production estimates, drilling operations, completion operations, funding and development goals. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance or achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, fluctuations in the prices of oil and gas, uncertainties inherent in estimating quantities of oil and gas reserves and projecting future rates of production and timing of development activities, competition, operating risks, acquisition risks, liquidity and capital requirements, the effects of governmental regulation, adverse changes in the market for the Company's oil and gas production, dependence upon third-party vendors, and other risks detailed in the Company's periodic report filings with the applicable securities regulators.

SOURCE: Emerald Bay Energy Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 10, 2017) - Alset Minerals Corp. (TSXV: ION) ("Alset" or "the Company") is pleased to report the staking and filing of mineral claims for nearly 1 million acres of prospective lithium-rich salars in the State of Coahuila, Mexico. Alset has a 100-per-cent interest in these properties and they are free of all royalties. The three project areas are located in the infrastructure rich region of La Laguna, and include Yaki 1 (98,307 hectares), Yaki 2 (266,422 hectares), and Yaki 3 (36,929 hectares). The new salars are hosted in a classic closed-basin, and formed through the evaporation of a series of paleo-lakes. Information on the location and geology of these new salars will be available on the Company's website shortly.

These new acquisitions complement the Company's other salars which are also 100-per-cent owned by Alset where strong chemistry and the potential for very good leaching characteristics exists.

Total prospective land package held 100-per-cent by Alset now exceeds one million acres.

Highlights of the New Salars

Size: the three salars cover a total of 401,658 hectares, the largest being 266,422 hectares;

Infrastructure: roads and power up to the salars;

Setting: salars hosted in an arid, closed-basin; areas under license have an overall north-south strike of some 150 kilometres and an east-west strike of approximately 125 kilometres;

Brines: history of commercial brine extraction from the Yaki-1 area (La Viesca Salar) by Sulfatos de Viesca;

Underexplored: region is underexplored in regard to lithium potential. Known data is limited to controlled surface sampling by Radius Gold Inc. (Radius Gold Ltd, News Release Dated:12 th September 2016), which returned up to 189 ppm lithium at La Viesca salar;

September 2016), which returned up to 189 ppm lithium at La Viesca salar; Hydrogeology: hydrogeological survey carried out at the Viesca salar by Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico;

Chemistry: historical geochemical analysis documented in peer-reviewed paper;

Opportunity: makes Alset a major player in lithium exploration;

President and Chief Executive Officer Allan Barry Laboucan said: "With the staking of these new areas we have built up an enviable portfolio of 100 per cent owned prospective lithium salars. Our land holdings now cover over 1 million acres, in two excellent infrastructure rich areas. Historical work and brine extraction by Sulfatos de Viesca from the Viesca salar was confined to the upper 100 metres, the possibility therefore exists that lithium-rich brines exist deeper in the salar. We are looking forward in the near future to an exploration program to identify and confirm lithium bearing brines in these new areas. We are also moving ahead with work to understand the chemistry and leaching characteristics of our Zacatecas salars, we hope in the near term to reach the pilot-plant testing stage as quickly as possible. Our long-term goal is to try to become one of the lowest cost producers of lithium, aided by our fertilizer chemicals as potential credits. Our exploration costs are low and we expect the same when we look toward the development of our lithium salars."

The areas covered by these claims are the Viesca salar (Yaki-1), the Mayran salar (Yaki-2) and the Los Remedios salar (Yaki-3); all of which formed in closed-basin conditions from the evaporation of the ancient, saline Viesca, Mayran and Los Remedios lakes. A hydrogeological survey was carried out on the Viesca salar under the auspices of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. The work is reported in the Journal of Hydrology, 284 (2003), pp 26-43. Water samples were collected from brine production wells, water production wells, and springs in 1998 and analyzed at MSD Environmental Services Limited, Toronto, Canada. Results and procedures of this work are detailed in the paper mentioned above. Samples were analyzed for multi-elements however this work did not include lithium. Groundwater flow cross-sectional modelling was carried out in combination with major ion and trace element chemistry.

The La Laguna Region is at the end of a large closed basin and is characterized by a lower, regional carbonate aquifer. This aquifer is overlain by salars in the low-lying regions that correspond to ancient lakes, and a granular aquifer in the higher portions of the basin. Data from boreholes drilled by Sulfatos de Viesca and modelling reported in the paper mentioned above indicate a maximum thickness of 350 metres for the Viesca salar, which is host to the brines previously extracted by Sulfatos de Viesca. Thickness of the underlying carbonate aquifer is unknown, although geological information from the area indicates that the carbonate aquifer is made up of two cretaceous formations both having an approximate thickness of approximately 500 metres.

(Cautionary note: The above information is taken from a publicly available source, and the Company has not independently verified the information referenced and as such should not be relied upon. The information is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on Alset's Viesca, Mayran and Los Remedios properties and is provided as background and context material for the reader. This information will be beneficial for the Company in developing the next phase of exploration work on the properties.)

Emily Hanson, PGeo, Vice-President of exploration for Alset Minerals Corp., is the qualified person responsible for this release and has prepared, supervised and approved the preparation of the scientific and technical disclosure contained within the release.

About Alset Minerals Corp. (TSXV: ION)

Alset Minerals Corp. is a TSX-V listed junior exploration company focused on exploring and development of a group of high-grade lithium and potassium projects in the Central Mexican Plateau. The Company is actively exploring in Mexico and has a growing portfolio of 100-per-cent owned mineralized lithium-SO4-potassium salars in the states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas, two prolific mining jurisdictions.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Alset Minerals Corp.,

"Allan Barry Laboucan"

Allan Barry Laboucan, President and CEO

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements."

Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Company's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections

For further information please contact

Corporate Communications

allan@alsetminerals.com

Telephone: 1-604-505-4753

www.alsetminerals.com


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Treasuries showed a notable move to the downside during trading on Friday after ending the previous session roughly flat.



Bond prices came under pressure in morning trading and remained firmly negative throughout the afternoon. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, climbed by 6.9 basis points to 2.40 percent.



The upward move by treasuries came as traders continued to digest the details of the Senate Republican version of tax reform legislation.



The Senate bill includes some significant differences from the House version, including a delay in the implementation of a cut in the corporate tax rate.



While the Senate version still reduces the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, the new rate would not take effect until 2019. The House bill would start the 20 percent rate next year.



A number of other differences related to issues such as deductions and the estate tax have raised some questions about the outlook for tax reform.



House Republicans could pass their version as early as next week, although it remains to be seen if GOP lawmakers can overcome the differences in the two bills to get legislation to the president's desk.



On the economic front, a report from the University of Michigan showed a bigger than expected pullback in consumer sentiment in the month of November.



The report said the preliminary reading on the consumer sentiment index for November came in at 97.8 compared to the final October reading of 100.7. Economists had expected the index to dip to 100.0.



The bigger than expected decrease by the consumer sentiment index came after it surged up to a thirteen-year high in October.



Next week's trading may be impacted by the latest economic data, with reports on producer and consumer prices, retail sales, industrial production, and housing starts likely to attract considerable attention.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Last year, on 8 November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the obsolescence of two high value paper currency, Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, constituting 86 percent of the total cash money in circulation, at a short notice of barely four hours with an objective to unearth and dispose black money and control corruption in the economy. While the measure has been widely disputed and criticised in terms of being able to achieve its stated objectives, the unintentional effects of the policy were felt across all sectors, especially the informal sectors including agriculture.

Over the last one year, a lot has been written and debated about the effects of demonetisation on agriculture. However, before assessing the impact of demonetisation on this particular sector, it is important to highlight that agriculture as a sector has been facing a distress situation over large parts in the last two decades, beginning somewhere in the middle of 2000s. While the reason for such distress in agriculture could be singularly directed towards the neglect of the sector by the policy regimes since the beginning of the 1990s, manifested in terms of reduced public investment in the sector, lowering import duties and reducing trade barriers and thus exposing the domestic farmers to the fluctuating prices of the global markets without providing adequate support, the consequences of such policies were manifested in several indicators.

The period since late nineties witnessed a secularly declining rate of growth of the sector with an average rate of growth of 1-2 percent over the period 2000-14, albeit with fluctuations, sometimes even registering negative rates of growth due to droughts. Several questions on the viability of cultivation have also been raised over the period.

The period has been marked with increased farmers indebtedness and a rapid increase in farmers suicides in large parts of the country, especially in states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and also in relatively agriculturally better off states such as in Punjab. The declining returns to agriculture were clearly linked to rising input costs and declining prices of agricultural commodities. Much of these are well documented in the scholarly works of economists, journalists and public policy experts working in these areas.

Last year, however, the monsoon were favourable after two consecutive drought years and a bumper crop and higher returns were expected in most parts of the country. The note-ban was announced at a time when the farmers had just harvested or were about to harvest with an expectation of returns that would also allow a better rabi season, compared with 2015-16. However, the ensuing cash crunch due to demonetisation led to certain breaks in the supply chains within the rural and agricultural markets resulting in overnight plummeting of the commodity prices.

Given the nature of the agricultural markets, a large part of the transactions are cash-based and thus the note-ban followed by a cash crunch came as a sudden jolt to the sector in terms of disrupting the regular transactions in the commodity and seeds markets. There were several reports of falling prices of potatoes, onions, tomatoes and many more in different parts of the country. First-hand reports were pouring in about farmers leaving their unsold harvest by the roadside, destroying their own harvests, or simply leaving the crop un-harvested due to severely declining prices.

According to many economists, the timing of the policy dealt a body blow to the traditional agro-commercial capital. Harish Damodaran, a noted columnist for Indian Express, highlighted that even though farm output for the last quarter of 2016-17 was 2.3 percent higher year-on-year, the fall in prices by 2 percent over the same period, resulted in the value of agricultural production rising just 0.3 percent. In sum, the expectations of making good returns took a beating as a result of demonetisation thus once again placing the farmers, traders as well as the landless agricultural labourers back into financial troubles despite a good harvest. These were also manifested in a series of farmers protests demanding for loan waivers, spread across several states, especially BJP-ruled states, in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and so on.

In this backdrop, in which the ill-effects of demonetisation are still being felt by the agricultural sector, relief to the farmers and agricultural labourers have become absolutely essential. Certain basic measures such as fulfilling governments promise of procurement prices at 50 percent higher than total cost, increasing direct procurement by the government, implementing MSPs as floor to the market prices and thus regulating the domestic prices to a certain extent would go a long way to help fight the declining prices of the agricultural commodities. It is also important to support the farmers in terms of ensuring access to institutional credit, both short term and long term, relieve the farmers of the burden of indebtedness with a holistic plan of loan waiver and not through the existing adhoc approach. It is also important to prioritise agriculture in the next Union Budget in order to provide greater allocations towards crop insurance, boosting irrigation facilities and higher allocation to Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

(Author works at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, New Delhi and can be reached at sona@cbgaindia.org; views are personal.)
Even after a year of demonetisation, not all banned currencies have returned home. There is a substantial amount of money that is floating in foreign countries like Nepal and Bhutan (read here), and also with currency exchanges operating outside India.

These entities are in possession of invalidated Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and are in a state of uncertainty. Data submitted to Parliamentary finance committee suggests that Rs 16,000 crore has not returned to the banking system. It is not clear what portion of this would be abroad. Who hold these currencies? There are two category of note holders -- individual NRIs and currency exchanges.

For individual NRIs, the grace period to return old notes expired on 30 June 2017 at five Reserve Bank offices at Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Nagpur. But, as far as the currency exchange houses are concerned, the RBI notification was silent, according to a response from Bank of Baroda to Firstpost in reply to a query on whether there was a mechanism for currency exchange houses to exchange their old, invalidated Indian currency notes. The RBI notification /FAQ is silent on currency exchange houses  depositing SBNs, said the response.

An email sent to the RBI early this week seeking its response remained unanswered until the time of writing this piece. A Firstpost story published on 8 November (read here) gives an example of one such currency exchange based in Dubai. It had written to Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, petitioning that it is stuck with a big amount (Rs 56 lakh) of old notes post the demonetisation on 8 November 2016. This amount was accumulated prior to the announcement, the company claims.

This could be only one among the many cases where currency exchange houses across countries are badly stuck with old Indian money. Since the rules werent clear for them to deposit this money, they continue to hold it. Interestingly, even after a year of demonetisation, both the RBI and the government are undecided as to how to deal with the demonetised currency floating in other countries, according to the ToI report cited above. This yet again proves the lack of careful planning on the part of the government as to how to execute the currency withdrawal programme.

Remember, nearly 99 percent of the demonetised currency has already come back to the banking system in the form of direct deposits, according to the RBIs last annual report. But, this excludes the money received at cooperative bank counters and floating in other countries. In December, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had told the Supreme Court that the government had expected only Rs 10-11 lakh crore to return to the system. It is highly unlikely that the government and the RBI opening fresh windows for those still holding old notes to deposit that money. Finance ministry had clearly ruled out this possibility in August this year (read here).

This puts the currency exchange houses abroad in a difficult situation. The government must address their concerns. Remember, it is the duty of the government and the monetary authority of a country to fulfill the promise given to the holder of currency notes that the value of the currency will be protected. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi unexpectedly announced the decision to demonetise the notes effective the midnight of 8 November 2016, many of the foreign entities were already holding these notes. These entities were not given adequate facilities to exchange this money unlike resident Indians and entities. Leaving these institutions in a continued state of uncertainty would not augur well for the government and the central bank. They should urgently work on ways to address the concerns of Indian currency holders abroad.
Exactly a year ago, when the government banned the high-value currency notes declaring that the move will curb the size of black economy in the country, many people hoped that short term pain would make way for long term gain as promised. In the days following 8 November, however, as several sectors of the economy and large sections of the population experienced hardships due to the note ban decision, many questions were raised. Reasoning and evidence by experts and commentators on either side of the debate have put forth a gamut of arguments; it appears that this debate is far from getting over.

While the critics point out inefficiencies and lambast the experiment on account of poor design and implementation, the supporters are trying to claim success with the use of different kinds of figures. The maze of counterpoints and data put on record from both sides, makes the question on effectiveness of the policy measure, more complex than what seems on the face of it. As the country marks the completion of one year of demonetisation, it is a good occasion to examine this.

Lets delve into the arguments of the government first. Citing tax compliance as a crucial measure to judge demonetisations success, political anchors justifying the decision are extolling the increase in level of voluntary tax compliance this year. The drive helped the government widen its tax base and effect improvements in the number of income returns filed. As a consequence of the move, it is shared that, direct tax revenues have grown by 13.5 percent, which is very close to the targeted 15.6 percent mentioned in the Budget speech earlier this year. But could it be a post hoc justification? Globally, digitised and cashless payments are seen to be important steps in favour of financial inclusion and access to cheap credit, both fundamental in the battle against poverty.

Post demonetisation, the sense of urgency to find alternatives to cash successfully pressed ahead digitisation. Administrative clearances that would have taken much longer were completed in no time and executed immediately. But the experiment that was conceived as a surgical strike against tax evaders and fake currency turned into an assault on the unorganised sector that was completely reliant on cash. Could all this have been done at a lesser cost with far fewer disruptions is a question that needs an answer.

The arguments of the other side point that the government was out of its depth on the subject. The move placed a lot of strain on all aspects of the economy. The result of the economy suddenly becoming cash-starved caused severe disruptions- a fall in consumption, reduction in demand, loss of job for many daily wagers due to lack of cash with firms for making payments. The informal sectors came to a halt and the rural economy collapsed. The revelation in RBIs annual report that almost 99 percent of the banned currency was legally returned to the banking system established that un-accounted-for money was successfully converted into other forms quickly. The thinking behind note ban was that people with black money would be scared to deposit it in bank accounts; this meant a windfall corresponding to un-returned currency for RBI, which in turn would have to pay the government an equivalent dividend.

The government says, though, that a significant portion of the cash entering the system could be black money. The exercise did lead to an audit trail of suspicious accounts, but these amounts are insignificant as compared to the reported size of black economy in the country. Scrutinising these accounts meticulously, and ensuring that the guilty are penalised is a mammoth task. Capacities of the income tax authorities (in terms of staff strength), administrative and judicial limitations in addition to the cumbersome and time consuming procedures do pose a huge challenge in this process. To fend off the claims of proponents of demonetisation, it is also being argued that an assessment of an anti-black money exercise is complete only if the state of corruption comes down.

If the government is serious in its intention to fight tax evasion, tougher curbs on commercial tax evasion involving massive players need to be prioritised. The war against black money calls for serious reforms to the corporate secrecy regime. For example, lowering the threshold for subsidiaries of MNCs located in India to report their data on a country-by-country basis to Indian tax authorities, and enacting the Beneficial Ownership of Companies Bill can be of considerable influence in this direction.

(Author works at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, New Delhi and can be reached at happy@cbgaindia.org; views are personal.)
Guwahati: Delhi joined the growing chorus of opposition against the highest 28 percent goods and services tax (GST) rate, saying a high rate would encourage black marketing. The Congress-ruled states have been demanding rationalisation of GST rates to bring down the peak tax rate from current 28 percent.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who is in Guwahati to attend the crucial meeting of the GST Council, said lower tax rates should have been implemented from 1 July, when the GST was rolled out.

Tax rates should have been set lower from 1 July itself and I have said that 28% tax rate means you are encouraging black marketing", he said.

The Congress-ruled states of Punjab and Karnataka, and union territory of Puducherry have demanded complete overhaul of the GST rate structure and simplification of the procedures.

Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy said the peak tax rate should be 18 percent except for one or two demerit items, which could attract a higher 28 percent tax.

But most of the items were brought under the 28 percent category (under GST) which the Congress is not agreeing to, he said. Also, the tax return filing procedure in GST is cumbersome, he said.

Common use goods are being charged 28 percent tax, he said adding construction industry, toiletries are all charged the peak tax rate. Common man is affected. GST was brought to simplify procedures and to facilitate common people to purchase items. But that is not happening", he added.

Sisodia said limits imposed for availing of the composition scheme need to be widely discussed, with a separate structure for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

I have always said bring real estate in GST because if you put 28 percent on construction activities and then suddenly it goes into a black hole because theres no counting of where that is going", he said.

On returns filing, he said the Delhi government was in favour of quarterly filings instead of current mandate for three different forms being submitted every month.

The current return filing system has created confusion among businesses. Sisodia said petroleum products, alcohol and real estate should be brought under the GST as it is one nation, one tax and such items cannot be kept out of the regime.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, Opposition Congress and its leaders have been targeting the government over difficulties faced by some businesses under the GST regime, with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi even calling it a Gabbar-Singh Tax.

Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal said his state wants rationalisation of tax rate, simplification of procedures and removing glitches in GST Network (GSTN). The Congress, he said, was in favour of inclusion of petrol, diesel, natural gas, ATF and crude oil in the GST. The five products along with alcohol have been kept out of GST for now.

Karnataka agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the Congress had earlier asked that the GST rate should not be more than 18 percent but the government went ahead with the five tax rate slabs of 0, 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent. The GST Council, headed by union finance minister Arun Jaitley, is meeting in Guwahati to consider pruning the list of items in the 28 percent tax bracket.

Haryana finance minister Captain Abhimanyu said the meetings cannot be related to any election because GST Council is represented by states and the Centre. The same spirit of unanimity should continue, he said.
In a major Goods and Services Tax (GST) rejig on Friday, the Centre shifted 178 items from the top bracket of 28 percent to 18 percent, and introduced changes in GST returns filing to ease the burden of taxpayers.

After the GST council meet in Guwahati, Arun Jaitley announced the cuts in tax slab for items ranging from chewing gum to chocolates. The new rates will be applicable from 15 November to provide relief to consumers amid the economic slowdown.

"As part of efforts to rationalise GST structure, the council has been reviewing rates from time to time. In the last three meetings, we have been systematically looking at 28 percent tax bracket and rationalising certain items out of that bracket into lesser categories, mostly 18 percent or even less," Jaitley said.

Jaitley mentioned that six items have been moved from 18 percent slab to 5 percent slab, eight shifted from 12 percent to five percent, and six items from 5 percent tax bracket to nil.

178 items removed from 28% slab to 18 % in GST. Only 50 demerit & luxury items now in 28% slab.  Sushil Kumar Modi (@SushilModi) November 10, 2017

Only luxury and sins goods like pan masala, aerated water and beverages, cigars and cigarettes, tobacco products, cement, paints, perfumes, ACs, dish washing machines, washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars and two-wheelers, aircraft and yacht are now in highest tax bracket. Also, tax on wet grinders and armoured vehicles was cut from 28 percent to 12 percent. Chewing gum, chocolates, coffee, custard powder, marble and granite, dental hygiene products, polishes and creams, sanitary ware, leather clothing, artificial fur, wigs, cookers, stoves, after-shave, deodorant, detergent and washing power, razors and blades, cutlery, storage water heaters, batteries, goggles, wrist watches and mattress are among the products which have been brought down 18 percent tax. GST tax slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent were decided, Jaitley said, going by the principle of fitting each item into a category most close to cumulative pre-GST taxes. "Optically, some items should not have been in 28 percent despite being in old regime," he said. Secondly, some items manufactured by small entities had excise exemption, he said. Rate cut to 5 percent for most restaurants A uniform 5 percent tax was prescribed by the council for all restaurants, both air-conditioned and non-AC. Jaitley said that the Input Tax Credit (ITC) benefit given to restaurants were meant to be passed on to the customers. However, since the Centre found that hotels were not doing so, it had to decide that restaurant industry will "not enjoy the benefit of ITC."

He stressed that no ITC benefit will be given to restaurants, except in starred hotels. "Outdoor catering will be at 18 percent with ITC," he said. Currently, 12 percent GST on food bill is levied in non-AC restaurants and 18 percent those with air-conditioning. Restaurants in starred-hotels that charge Rs 7,500 or more per day room tariff will be levied 18 percent GST but ITC is allowed for them. Simpler tax filing To ease compliance burden, the council relaxed the return filing criteria and also lowered the penalties for late filing. Finance and Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that all taxpayers need to only file GST-1 in the current year. He announced that GSTR-1, GSTR-3B needed to be filed but GSTR-2 & 3 need not be filed as of now.

Those with annual aggregate turnover of below Rs 1.5 crore, will have to file GST-1 on a quarterly basis. For July to September, the form should be filed by 31 December 2017. For October to December, GSTR-1 will have to be filed by 15 February 2018, while 30 April, 2018 will be the deadline for filing of the form for January to March 2018.

For filing of details in GSTR-1, the taxpayers would be divided into two categories based on annual turnover above and below Rs 1.5 crore. Those with a turnover over Rs 1.5 crore will need to file on a monthly basis. From July to October, the deadline is 31 December, while for the month of November 2017 to March 2018, the filing will be required to be done by 10th of corresponding first five months in 2018. Adhia said that the burden on people has become much less with the changes, and added that GSTR-3B will be made more interactive in nature. Jaitley said that the time period for filing GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 for July, 2017 to March, 2018 would be worked out by a committee of officers. The Centre announced that since many taxpayers were unable to file return in GSTR-3B, late fee would be waived in all cases for July to September 2017. The other important decision is regarding penalty on late filing. The overall tax collection in first 3 months of GST was around Rs 93,000-95,000 crore.

If there is a NIL report to be filed, then the fine for late filing will be reduced from Rs 200 per day to Rs 20 per day. And for other tax filers, the reduction will be from Rs 200 to Rs 50 per day."

'Transitional phase' Responding to a question on affecting the idea of GST by introducing tax rate cut, the finance minister said, "We are not killing the spirit (of GST). It is a transitional phase." When the word on the tax rate cut was out before Jaitley's press conference, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi suggested the BJP-led NDA to "acknowledge incompetence".

Some Suggestions 1. Correct the fundamental flaw in GST architecture to give India a Genuine Simple Tax. 2. Dont waste Indias time with lip service. 3. Acknowledge your incompetence, shed your arrogance and listen to the people of India.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) November 10, 2017

The recommendations made by the GST council are available in the public domain. Launched on 1 July, the GST weaved 29 states into a single market with one tax rate. While traders and small business complained of the increased compliance burden, voices of dissent rose on high tax rate on some common use goods. Praising the recommendations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Centre had considered the continuous feedback received on GST from stakeholders.

Jan Bhagidari is at the core of our working. All our decisions are people-inspired, people-friendly and people-centric. We are working tirelessly for Indias economic integration through GST.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2017

With inputs from PTI
From next year, it is possible that your flight is being managed either by an air traffic control tower on trucks or from a remote location, not from the airport premises. The Airports Authority of India is drawing up plans to test mobile ATC towers and those that operate remotely, in a bid to save costs and provide effective ATC services to small airports where operations are mushrooming.

So, instead of having ATC towers at Ahmedabad as well as all other small airports within Gujarat, the plan is to just have these services at Ahmedabad airport  and the ATCs present here will direct takeoffs and landings at other airports within the state either remotely or through towers which are mobile, mounted on trucks.

This is a fine idea, implemented in some other countries like Canada, Sweden etc but will it work for India? We are notorious for our unseemly runway incursions, from all manner of animals and humans collecting firewood from airport premises, besides other forms of encroachments.

This piece in India Today shows how a dog on the runway at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport of Mumbai lead a Jet Airways flight to abort take-off while four others were made to hover in the skies for more than 15 minutes last year. If we are unable to prevent animal and human incursions on runways when the ATC services are present at the airport, will we be able to manage landings and takeoffs at small airports with remote ATC operations without incidents?

This piece in Telegraph talks of passenger safety is being threatened across Madhya Pradeshs airports due to regular encounters with wild boars, jackals, panthers, nilgai, goats, stray dogs, sloth bears, wildcats etc on runways.

Of course there are plus points too of such a move towards remote ATC facilities. As this piece in Indian Express explains, the economics of such a move is compelling, though here again, problems with mobile signal and therefore connectivity issues will have to be sorted out. Or we could see ATC operations suddenly going blank (happens at larger airports with in-house ATC too) on power failures, signal issues. The AAI says it had budgeted for Rs 15 crore to test remote ATC facilities and has already issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) from interested parties for such a move. The first such tower is likely coming up at Ahmedabad by December next year.

As for mobile ATC towers, these are mounted on a vehicle high enough for performing the function  they can obviously be moved from one nearby airport to another unlike the fixed towering buildings which are currently built at each airport. AAI says a pilot for mobile towers will be conducted by February next year, with an approximate cost of Rs 82 crore. Mobile ATC towers provide air traffic control at any remote location though a 6-wheel drive, with elevated ATC Cabin fitted with radios, weather monitoring systems to meet operational requirements at small airports.

The ideas for mobile and remote ATC operations are being implemented when the ambitious regional connectivity plan under 'UDAAN' is already operational. Remember, India had close to 400 ghost airports before UDAAN was launched  airports from where not a single flight was being operated. Built over the years, these airports are situated in remote locations, in Indias hinterland and most of them were of little interest to airline due to thin traffic potential.

Now, with UDAAN which envisages a subsidy by the government for flight operations to breathe life into ghost airports, there is obviously a growing need to also provide crucial functions like the ATC operations at minimal cost to the government. Specially in states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh where multiple small airports exist within a short distance from each other.

Meanwhile, even as the AAI is busy trying to provide cost effective ATC services in states with multiple small airports, it has already sounded the clarion call for second airports to come up in Indias metros. Remember, our large metros which account for a bulk of the domestic and international air traffic have single airports, which are overflowing as traffic increases manifold. Each of the big metros needs at least one more airport.

Already the government has given site approval for a second airport at Jewar in Greater Noida to ease the load off the Delhi International Airport; the choked Mumbai airport should have a savior in the upcoming Navi Mumbai project in some years. Now, Chennai and Kolkata are next on this list, with the AAI in dialogue with respective state governments to kickstart the process. Both these airports are also bursting at the seams.

Another interesting development for frequent flyers would be the conversion of four airports  at Patna, Raipur, Ranchi and Guwahati  into 24x7 airports. This will mean extended time for flight operations and this should become possible by the summer schedule of 2018.
Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiquis recent apology for his memoir An Ordinary Life may not be enough to save him from legal trouble. After his ex Niharika Singh criticised him for exposing their bitter relationship, his 'first love' Sunita Rajwar has now gone one step further.

The TV personality, in a Facebook post, recently slammed Nawaz for giving wrong information about why they broke up and now, has sent him a legal notice. Zee News reports that Sunita has demanded a compensation of Rs 2 crore against an alleged attempt to destroy her image.

For the last 16 years, Sunita and Nawaz have not spoken to each other, she claims. I am taking legal action because the damage is already done and its irreversible," she says.

Sunita has also claimed Nawaz was using their relationship just as a publicity stunt. As per the notice, Sunita was wrongly portrayed as someone who drove Nawaz to think of committing suicide." It also claims that the part that she dumped him because he was not successful is a figment of his imagination.

The book has become a source of great mental agony as it even hampered her relationship with those who are close to her. She adds, The withdrawal of the memoir turned out to be another gimmick as the book is still in circulation.

Sunita claims she wants an unconditional apology from Nawaz. The notice has also been given to co-author Rituparna Chatterjee and the publishers of the book. It states that Sunita would like to use the money for charity purpose.

According to the notice, Siddiqui claims that Sunita left him because at that time he was not successful but it is merely a figment of the actors imagination.

The 43-year-old versatile actor took to Twitter in the wake of the controversy surrounding the book in which he detailed his relationships and flings with former Miss India Niharika Singh and Rajwar.

On 30 October, Siddiqui apologised for "hurting the sentiments" of women whose names were mentioned in the memoir without their consent and later decided to withdraw the book in the wake of the controversy.
The furore over Sanjay Leela Bhansali's period drama Padmavati refuses to die down. Despite repeated clarifications issued by him quelling rumours of any scene whatsoever between Alauddin Khilji, played by Ranveer Singh, and Rani Padmini, played by Deepika Padukone; which had various organisations up in arms against the shooting and release of the film, the director is still facing serious flak over accusations of distorting historical facts.

The latest to join the bandwagon is Haryana minister Anil Vij. As per TV reports, the BJP member has claimed that he will not let a film that 'distorts historical facts' release in the state.

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy has also alleged that Padmavati has sourced its funds from Dubai from parties who want to 'defame Hindu women.'

BJP member Arjun Gupta has also echoed a similar allegation. The Indian Express reports that in a letter written to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Gupta has demanded Bhansali be tried for treason.

I have written a letter to Home Minister that Sanjay Leela Bhansali be tried for treason & strict action be taken against him. If this is not done, he will continue making such films, said Arjun Gupta, who is also a member of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

I have written a letter to Home Minister that Sanjay Leela Bhansali be tried for treason & strict action be taken against him. If this is not done he will continue making such films: Arjun Gupta, CBFC #Padmavati pic.twitter.com/Iiw8WZHL7R  ANI (@ANI) November 9, 2017

Bhansali had clarified his stance through a video. This movie embroiled into so many controversies because of some rumour. Rumour is this, in the movie a dream scene has been filmed between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji. I have already rejected this claim and also given a written proof of this. Today again, I am reiterating through this video that in our movie there is no such scene between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji, which would hurt the sentiments of anyone, said Sanjay Leela Bhansali in the video.

Padmavati is based around the life of the 13th century Rajput princess Padmini of Chittaurgarh who chose self-immolation over capture by Alauddin Khlji. The film stars Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh and Aditi Rao Hyadri. It is co-produced by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Bhansali Productions. It is slated to release on 1 December.

(Also read  Padmavati: Is Bhansali's tryst with 'imagined reality' the reason behind apprehension around film?)
Tamil superstar Vijay's latest release Mersal has emerged as a total money spinner post its release during Diwali this year. It has already minted around Rs 220 crore since it hit the theatres becoming the highest grossing Tamil film this year, reports News18.

The film was in the midst of numerous controversies, ranging from depicting Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) initiatives like demonetisation, Goods and Services Tax (GST) in a bad light, the Central Board of Film Certification stalling its certification due to an awaited NOC from the Animal Welfare Board, doctors in Tamil Nadu boycotting the film as they claim Mersal portrays them negatively. But now that the dust has settled, Vijay's film has pierced through all the obstacles and conquered the box-office.

According to a report by India Today, out of the Rs 220 crore that Vijay's film has made so far, Rs 150 crore were from the domestic collection. The film has been appreciated by masses and classes alike and has received positive reviews from critics as well.

Within the country, Mersal has earned close to Rs 115 crore in Tamil Nadu and Rs 20 crore in Kerala, where it has already made a mark by registering itself as the biggest Tamil film. Hindustan Times reports that the Telugu version of the film, Adirindhi, is Vijay's biggest Telugu opener so far, even surpassing his 2012 Shankar-helmed Snehitudu, which earned Rs 10 crore during its whole run time.

India TV reports, Mersal has also emerged as the biggest grosser in Malaysia after Dilwale and Kabali, minting Rs 19 crore.

Mersal/ Adirindhi is directed by Atlee and stars Vijay in triple role opposite Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Nithya Menen.
Adhirindhi, the Telugu version of Mersal, which has been dragged into controversies, finally released in theatres but with two major cuts. The contentious words, demonetisation and GST, were muted.

According to the same report, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) office in Chennai censored the Telugu version. After a meeting with the officials, the producers decided to mute the dialogue as the CBFC demanded these scenes to be either muted or deleted.

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier raised objections to two scenes in Mersal, which took a dig at the partys policies at the Centre. In one of them, Vijays character claims that in Singapore, you will get free treatment while the country charges only 7 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST). But in India, people are charged 28% GST but still there is no free treatment.

Many people took to social media to criticise the decision to mute scenes in the film.

#Adhirindhi The longest mute ever in a film..  Mahesh Potharamaina (@Maheshcdrm) November 9, 2017

#Adhirindhi is a good one time watch.Lesser runtime would have been better.Songs are below avg apart from one song.Magician magics are some times hard to believe but well managed with story.GST dialogue mute makes climax look bleak.Overall good movie to watch for this weekend  PuvvalaVirat (@PuvvalaVirat) November 9, 2017

Adirindhi was initially expected to release on 27 October but received a major blow as the CBFC did not issue any certificate to the film.

While addressing the Mersal controversy in October, Thenandal Films issued a statement stating that they were willing to remove any views in the film that can create misunderstanding. The producers of the film had even met with senior BJP leaders and explained the contents of the scene.

Looking at it from their point of view, their opposition seems justified. If there are any views in the film that can create misunderstanding and these need to be removed, we are ready to do it, the producers said in the statement.

(Also read  Mersal becomes highest grossing Tamil film in Kerala: The curious case of Malayali love for Vijay's films)
Los Angeles: Los Angeles county District Attorney Jackie Lacey has announced the establishment of a special sexual assault task force in Hollywood as the number of accusations reported to the police this week has escalated, the media reported.

Lacey made the announcement on 9 November as local law enforcement agencies investigate allegations made against Hollywood heavyweights including producer Harvey Weinstein, director James Toback and actor Ed Westwick, reports The Los Angeles Times.

The District Attorney said she has assigned a group of veteran sex crimes prosecutors to work together to examine the cases and "ensure a uniformed approach to the legal review and possible prosecution of any case that meets both the legal and factual standards for criminal prosecution".

Legal experts said establishing the task force makde sense but continued to caution that such cases can be difficult to prove. Many of the alleged incidents occurred years ago, and detectives need to determine whether physical evidence or witness statements exist that can help build cases.

"It does speak to the culture of the city that this is a major criminal justice issue worthy of a task force. It is a good idea to have veteran, experienced prosecutors on these cases. But people shouldn't get their expectations up," said Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor.

Since allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein first surfaced in October, the number of sexual assault or lewd conduct reports against Hollywood figures has steadily escalated, reports The Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating allegations of rape and forced oral copulation in 2013 against Weinstein by an Italian model-actress as well as a lewd act in 2015.

Detectives are probing allegations against Toback, who has been accused by more than 200 women of sexual misconduct. Gossip Girl actor Westwick has allegedly raped two women in 2014. The Beverly Hills Police Department also has open investigations involving Weinstein and Toback. All three have publicly denied any wrongdoing.

District Attorney Lacey said the police were yet to forward any cases to prosecutors for review. "We are in communications with the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills police departments."
Tamil cinematographer Priyan passed away on 9 November in Chennai after suffering a cardiac arrest. The noted cinematographer was 53.

He had started off his career in the camera unit as an assistant of actor-producer K Balaji and had worked with director Balu Mahendra in several movies. Among his rich repertoire of work was the 1995 movie Thotta Chinungi, with which Priyan made his debut in cinematography. Prior to that, he had worked with ace National Award winning cinematographer Rajiv Menon.

Priyan was initially called Nagendran, however he changed his name after the movie Porkalam (1997). Velayudham, Thenali, Arul and Poojai were some of the other noted films in which Priyan worked. The ace cinematographer had also worked with stalwart directors such as Mani Ratnam and KS Ravikumar.

Another feather in Priyan's cap was having worked on 13 movies with legendary director Hari. He was about to start shooting for Saamy Square, a sequel to Saamy that starred actor Vikram, from November 19. This would have been his 14th film with director Hari," said Rahim Babu, Priyan's co-cameraman in Saamy Square, according to a report by The Hindu.

Priyan was also a part of the mega successful Velayudham and Singam. Having worked as a cinematographer for almost 30 movies, Priyan was respected and reputed in his craft.
New Delhi: The health ministry on directed all the central government-run hospitals to take measures to deal with the increasing number of patients in the wake of a severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Union health minister JP Nadda, who reviewed the situation, also directed the hospitals to stock nebulizers and other related equipment in a good condition and be ready to meet any exigency.

The national capital remained in the throes of a pollution emergency. The thick smog has prompted the city government to declare a return of the odd-even scheme from 13 November (Monday).

"JP Nadda directed the officials and heads of all central government hospitals to keep a close watch on the situation," an official statement said.

At a meeting with Nadda, experts said the number of cases being reported with breathing troubles and respiratory diseases was varying every day.

The statement said the recent increase in the air pollution levels in Delhi and NCR and the surrounding areas had become "a cause of concern".

It added that the health ministry had continuously been monitoring the situation. The ministry had also issued a health advisory earlier.

Additional secretary of the ministry Sanjeev Kumar had held a meeting with the representatives of all the central government hospitals, including Safdarjung Hospital, RML Hospital, LHMC and associated hospitals and AIIMS, New Delhi.

According to the health experts, the higher air pollution levels may result in an increase in the burden of diseases from stroke, heart ailments, lung cancer and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.

In the short run, the higher air pollution levels might result in an increase in the severity of the symptoms of respiratory diseases, the experts said.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had on Thursday recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 486, on a scale of 500, in the National Capital.

The AQI of neighbouring Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Noida, and Gurugram were also in the emergency category until Thursday.
One quick Google search on murders and rapes in the national capital will throw up a series of news reports featuring places like New Seemapuri, New Seelampur and Sultanpuri. These are all hubs of addiction. Why doesnt the government establish a structure to rescue and revive men and women before addiction becomes a habit and crime its accomplice? Vinay, a former Tihar Jail inmate who has worked closely on drug de-addiction in Jail No.3, said, I have met Jyoti Singhs rapists in jail and I can tell you that they had a history of addiction. One of them dropped out of school and got into drug abuse as early as age seven. Unless we understand that drug addicts can turn into a threat for anybody, it will become difficult for us to protect ourselves from them. We may not give them love or sympathy, but if they arent given attention, then we are all at risk, He further said, People think sexual offences arent committed for money, so theres no correlation with drugs, but thats untrue. Substance abuse induces dark thoughts, hyperactivity, restlessness and anxiety. Actions become unpredictable and an addict probably enjoys that feeling of doing unexpected things.

More than 80 percent of the nearly 16,000 convicts in Tihar are addicted to tobacco or ganja, smack or alcohol, said Vinay, who runs the Charitar Nirman Sewadar Trust, an NGO working on de-addiction and social reformation. He gave the example of a 60-something drug peddler he met in jail, who had once confessed to him that he was on his 40th term in jail and was a regular here since his teenage years when he first got exposed to gaanja. There is massive depression and insomnia in jails and the standard procedure of handing out sleeping pills isnt proving to be effective, Vinay spoke about the need for more counselors to talk people out of depression and give them a second chance at life. Prisoners are alone both in joy and in despair, he said. He said that drugs are the only known emotional release for those in jails.

The see-saw of drug abuse and crime starts swinging early. The New Delhi station was earlier home for Rohit and Irfan, both of whom worked there as chain snatchers and pickpocketers. The two now live in a rehab centre for children far away from the station and recall their days of petty theft. We used to commit several thefts for addiction, they said. Many homeless children come to the station in search of a livelihood, and end up trapped in drug abuse. Delhis big railway stations are home to more than 200 child addicts. They mostly pick bottles, aluminum foils and cardboards from trains and then spend the Rs 200-300 they make on drugs, Sanjay Gupta, director of Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action (CHETNA) told Firstpost.

CHETNA runs an informal recreation centre for children inside Nizamuddin Police Station in order to foster a friendly relations between the police and street children who are susceptible to drugs and crime. There are two reasons why many children living on railway stations spend their money on drugs. Firstly, they eat leftovers from the trains, so the extra money is still in their pockets at night. Secondly, if they leave that money in those pockets, theres a good chance that their peers might steal it while theyre asleep. So, it is safer for them to blow it up on substances like puncture and white fluid, added Sanjay.

The bond between drugs and crime is a strong one. The founder of the Navjyoti Foundation and now Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, Kiran Bedi spoke to Firstpost about a possible way to break it. We need to cut out supply lines. The supply lines are a breach in the system. What we need to work on is detection. By strengthening community policing and intelligence, we need to dry those taps through which drugs flow into society, the retired Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development, explained.

The need to strengthen intelligence collection to keep a check on any drug sale made anywhere is what Kiran Bedi considers the first crucial step to curbing the problem. The second step is to reform those already in the clasp of addiction. The rehabilitation homes should impart skills to channelise the energy of addicts in a constructive direction, and families should bring food for these addicts while theyre in those centres, she said.

Does Delhi have enough psychiatrists who are trained to re-orient potential criminals? Not really. The Delhi AIDS Control Society (DACS) made a presentation in March 2017 to the newly formed intersectoral committee set up for a comprehensive response for drug abuse prevention and drug de-addiction services in Delhi under the chairpersonship of the Chief Secretary, Delhi Government. The DACS said that there is a scarcity of psychiatrists and trained manpower. It suggested a plan to train more than 400 medical officers working in 260 Delhi government officer dispensaries and 150 specialists working in 32 Delhi government hospitals on a long-term basis at the Institute of Human Behaviour & Allied Sciences (IHBAS). The presentation also stressed the need to keep an eye on the sale and purchase of addictive medicines in pharmacies and asked medical stores to keep a limited stock of such drugs. It also stated that drug licenses of 20 shops had been cancelled last year.

The Narcotics Branch of the Delhi Police, which is also part of the intersectoral committee formed earlier this year, made a presentation to the committee in September 2017. The presentation shed light on the fact that under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the police has a limited role. And cognisance be taken only on the complaint of a Drug Inspector. Although recently, a provision under Section 36 A(c) has been introduced in this Act, the role of the police is still limited to spurious and adulterated drugs. The Delhi Police admitted to the committee that it doesnt have field data in drug demand. On the basis of general assessment and seizure, it has been able to place the demand in the following sequence: ganja, poppy head, opium, heroin, charas, pharmaceutical drugs and cocaine. The Delhi police further stated that until September 2017, as many as 239 cases were registered and 311 people had already been arrested.

The Delhi Zonal Unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau, also part of the intersectoral committee, brought it to the notice of the committee that stakeholders like the Police, Excise, Customs, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence have equal power as per The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and that they must be activated to multiply force on the war on drugs. It added that regular field-level coordination is necessary and parallelly, also shared that their unit was falling short of 11 intelligence officers and 10 sepoys. It also emphasised on the need to implement Section 64 of the NDPS Act, which states: Immunity from prosecution to addicts volunteering for treatment, provided that the said immunity from prosecution may be withdrawn if the addict does not undergo the complete treatment for de-addiction. Most addicts are defiant and in denial of their condition. If they accept that they need treatment, the state can save its resources and time.

Part 1 of the series
Danang: US president Donald Trump on Friday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

US President @realDonaldTrump spoke about India's growth and @NarendraModi's contribution at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. pic.twitter.com/grLdyq8fXf  Firstpost (@firstpost) November 10, 2017

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by president Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said.
Donald Trump has landed in Vietnam for the APEC Summit after completing the China leg of his 12-day tour of Asia. The signs that have emerged from the US president's maiden visit to China should leave India worried. The unpredictable Trump, as had been feared, has single-handedly upended US foreign policy trajectory.

Leading to and during Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent visit to India, the policy direction pointed towards a greater role for India as the fulcrum of a 'free and open Indo-Pacific region'. It also envisaged a security grouping (quad) of 'like-minded democracies' with India at the centre to push back against a China-centric regional order. The foundation of these verticals has been shaken.

In his CSIS speech during Diwali, Tillerson castigated China for its predatory economics, scant regard towards the rules-based order and failure to take into account sovereignty concerns in mega connectivity projects. He upheld India as the beacon of democratic values with whom the US is interested in stitching up a strategic partnership for "the next 100 years".

As professor Manpreet S Anand, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia in the Barack Obama administration wrote in Foreign Policy, "By recognising Indias role in a larger strategy to promote 'rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values, and free trade,' Tillerson put forward what the Trump administration has struggled to build until now  a coherent view on the values that underpin its foreign policy."

The term 'Indo-Pacific'  that the Trump administration has been using abundantly as opposed to the Obama-era 'Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean Region'  in itself spoke of the recognition of India's importance in ensuring a maritime free commons. A senior White House official told PTI during Trump's Japan visit that it is an acknowledgment of the "strong and growing ties with India. We talk about 'Indo-Pacific' in part because that phrase captures the importance of India's rise."

The Trump administration seemed to be showing strategic continuity and even taking forward the notion of previous administrations that democratic India is a natural counterweight to an autocratic China. Among the Indian policymaking and strategic circles, skeptical voices did warn against a visible swing but those were fading in the background in favour of an emerging consensus that a greater strategic and security partnership with the US is needed to balance China's assertive rise.

In one fell Trumpian swoop, the entire superstructure of an emerging affiliation and Indo-Pacific tilt that the US State Department and the national security establishment has been at pains to promote has been replaced, at least ostensibly, with a 'new type of power relation' with China. This was straight out of Xi Jinping's playbook.

Trump seemed to have walked into the trap laid by Xi who wants nothing more than the US to recognise China as an equal partner in a bipolar global order, and had made fanning of the Trumpian ego through a show of pomp and grandeur an obvious means to achieve that end.

This may not only further skewer the already precarious power imbalance in Asia, it may also have a deleterious effect on US-India bilateral ties. That is, of course, unless Trump's pivots swing wilder than a yo-yo.

Before Trump had landed in Beijing, some US analysts had predicted that while the US president may not take a confrontationist attitude in China, the US strategic ship is sailing firmly away from a 'G2 direction' and in the coming months, a decidedly hawkish approach will emerge. The expectation was that the US will eventually take an increasingly competitive stance towards China but Trump won't make it apparent while enjoying Xi's hospitality.

Ely Ratner, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on US-China relations, told Chinafile that "Trumps time in Asia will only amplify his Janus-faced approach to China. The China visit will be all smiles, bookended by pronouncements about a new strategy that implies a harder line toward Beijing. My bet is the tougher policy will clearly emerge and ultimately win out in the coming months, but well see little evidence of that while Trump is on the ground in China."

Quoting officials, Josh Rogin wrote in Washington Post that "Trump doesnt want any friction with Xi during his Beijing stop, so dont expect him to challenge Xi directly on human rights or North Korea. But in speeches in other countries, Trump will call out Chinas aggression in the South China Sea, its predatory trade practices, and Americas commitment to an open and free, rules-based order in the region."

It was expected that Trump may display friendliness towards Xi, but nobody foresaw a show of fealty instead. Trump's extraordinary 'pivot' started well before he had landed in Beijing. While getting ready to address the South Korean National Assembly, Trump indicated a willingness to meet Xi and congratulated the Chinese autocrat for his "great political victory".

My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2017

This, as some analysts have pointed out, was the biggest negation of the values of liberalism and democracy that the US has historically stood for and promoted because Trump's congratulatory tone will be taken as an endorsement of Xi's blatant power grab in an authoritarian political system. Trump has repeatedly revealed himself to be an admirer of autocrats and this approach was consistent with his behavior. While commenting on this aspect of Trump's character, The Economist scathingly observed: "Not only does he (Trump) admire dictators; he explicitly praises thuggishness, such as the mass murder of criminal suspects in the Philippines. He does so not out of diplomatic tact, but apparently out of conviction. This is new. Previous American presidents supported despots for reasons of cold-war realpolitik. (Hes a bastard, but hes our bastard, as Harry Truman is reputed to have said of an anti-communist tyrant in Nicaragua.) Mr Trumps attitude seems more like: Hes a bastard. Great! What we saw during the tour cemented the impression further. Trump was blown away at the feigned deference showed by Xi, who made few behavioral concessions even as Trump piled on the rhetoric. He praised Xi as a "special man" and even refused to blame China for the yawning trade deficit. He blamed predecessors instead for "allowing" China the space to open up such a deficit, and gave China "great credit" for exploiting the US. It apparently took Xi one serving of Chinese hospitality to turn Trump into a fawning fan from a withering critic. Even as Xi remained affable yet politely formal, Trump changed his Twitter header picture into one featuring the Chinese president and his wife and posted one sugary message after another.

Getting ready to make a major speech to the National Assembly here in South Korea, then will be headed to China where I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017

It is debatable whether Trump, despite his so-called deal-making abilities, managed to achieve much, given the fact that much of the $250 billion "deals" that were signed were memoranda of understanding (MoU) sans binding agreements. Xi didn't concede anything beyond promising to open up China's market and vowing to implement UN sanctions against North Korea. On both counts, China has spoken with forked tongues before.

On touching down in Vietnam, Trump against stressed on 'America First' trade policy at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. He told a roomful of APEC leaders in Da'Nang, Vietnam, "We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.

This seems more of an attempt to bully smaller nations on trade ties with the US instead of a pushback against China but even if it is a case of the latter, it does little to refute the impression that US president has conceded much more than he has gained in China. It also speaks of fatal inconsistencies in US foreign policy that will be confusing for allies and partners alike.
Its not every day that you see the National Commission for Women (NCW) at complete loggerheads with its state counterpart over the same issue, but intriguingly, thats exactly what seems to be happening in Kerala right now. The ongoing Hadiya case has now pitted the NCW and Kerala State Womens Commission (KSWC) directly and publicly against each other, and the weeks headlines show them trading insults about each others beliefs and political motivations.

Hadiya (nee Akhila) is a homeopathy student from Kottayam who converted to Islam in 2011, and in 2016, formally changed her name and married a 28-year-old man named Shafin Jahan. This marriage was annulled by the Kerala High Court in May 2017, because the court felt that 24-year-old Hadiya was at a "vulnerable age" and had been brainwashed and that the marriage itself was a "sham" designed to interfere with an earlier case Hadiyas father had filed, where he submitted that Islamic groups were trying to take his daughter out of the country. In a further unexpected twist in August, the Supreme Court ordered an NIA probe into the allegations of "love jihad". Through all this, Hadiya herself hasnt been allowed so far to tell her side of the story to the Supreme Court (shes now finally scheduled to appear later this month). Most worryingly, as per the high courts instructions, this adult woman continues to be held captive against her will in the "custody" of her parents at their residence in Kottayam.

The chairperson of the NCW, Rekha Sharma, visited Kerala on Monday on a three-day fact-finding mission about "forced conversions" in the state, and to check up on Hadiya at her parents house. On Tuesday, Sharma unequivocally said that shed found "forced conversions were taking place in Kerala", and later, that these conversions were being backed by foreign funding and are a "different form of human trafficking". She then impugned that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was "still not taking the issue seriously", and suggested that he "might have seen the Aamir Khan movie where he says 'all is well, and is under the impression that all is well in the state."

MC Josephine, the chairperson of the Kerala State Womens Commission, came out pretty strongly against Sharmas serious allegations and seriously bad PJs, saying that Sharmas remarks on false conversions were ill-informed and that the NCW wasnt really aware of the ground realities in Kerala. Josephine also added that the NCW had not even consulted with the KSWC before meeting Hadiya, and was using the situation to try and defame Keralas image.

In this increasingly absurd ping pong, Sharma immediately retorted that Josephines statements were politically motivated, not hers.

So whats really going on here? Why are the heads of two organisations working on womens issues publicly attacking each other about a matter youd assume theyd both easily agree on, given that an adult Indian womans right to freedom and liberty is at stake here?

The answer, as both ladies have suggested, is most likely politics.

Kerala, of course, currently presents a uniquely frustrating problem to the BJP-led Centre. Its one of the few states where the BJP has almost no legislative foothold. In the last state election, only one person won a seat on the BJPs ticket in Kerala, and that was Kummanam Rajasekaran (some locals quip he won because the people of Thiruvananthapuram felt sorry for making this well-loved guy feel bad when he lost the previous election). Over the last year, Kerala has been witness to a number of boring failed schemes by the BJP to boost its popularity there, like a love jihad helpline for Christian women. More recently on 30 August, the BJP had to hurriedly cancel a widely publicised yatra against Keralas supposed lawlessness because the dates coincided with the mob violence in BJP-ruled Haryana after the Dera Sacha Sauda verdict. Its clear that the BJP is happy to take any electoral issue it can grab in Kerala, and Hadiya seems an ideal case of fear mongering for it, womens rights be damned.

The NCWs remarks on the allegedly rampant forced religious conversions in Kerala begin to sound dubious when you look at the people Sharma actually met to reach this conclusion. Several groups have been involved in this issue over the last few months, including multiple womens groups, student activists and Muslim groups. According to news reports, Sharma only seems to have met Hadiya and her family, the families of other women who have converted to Islam against their parents wishes, the family of Nimisha alias Fathima who allegedly converted and joined Islamic State in Afghanistan in July 2016, and Kerala DGP Loknath Behera. Three days of meeting with the parents of women who are unhappy with their daughter religious choices, plus a cop, hardly seem like enough fact-finding to make an informed statement on such a complicated issue, let alone throw an allegation as serious as alternative forms of human trafficking.

Of course, it takes two to tango, and the KSWC hasnt exactly come out of this shining either. The NCWs entry into the Hadiya case comes in the context of the KSWCs own disappointing response in the first place. The state commission apparently declined to meet Hadiya despite being petitioned by various groups from across the political spectrum, and only seemed to take action after months of pressure and petitions from activists and womens groups. And in early October, the KSWC finally announced that it had compiled a report on the matter and sent it to the Supreme Court  but that because of the sensitive nature of its contents, the report would not be made public.

Meera Velayudhan, a professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, points out how indicative both the KSWCs delay in response and the response itself has been  even as it accuses the NCW of playing politics, its own failure to meaningfully address and engage with this crucial case hints at its own political constraints.

"The KSWC should have been transparent enough to address the representations of all the different sections that came with their concerns. They havent done that. Instead, its keeping silent and taking a strictly legalistic approach, saying that it has filed an SC report and that the report cant be made an open document," says Velayudhan. She points out that this is pretty different from how the Left usually approaches an issue, and that its interesting how no political groups or parties, even Left women groups, have taken firm, public stances or framed demands on this issue.

This hints at a deeper political and policy paralysis on both sides, considering the state governments wariness of allowing the Centre to any scope to interfere in Kerala in even the smallest way. Velayudhan also points out that right-wing forces have cleverly taken advantage of this very silence created by the KSWCs decision to keep their report private, which has muted a lot of the debate that would have otherwise ensued and allowed right-wing voices to be amplified.

Its hard not to feel that like the NCW, the state commission is caught in its own political web too  considering that the state government desperately wants to keep the Centre, and its instruments like the NCW, out of the states workings, and since the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) also maintains alliances across the spectrum of the political and social groups involved in this case, including the Popular Front of India (PFI), the messy politics of which might make it harder for them to take a clear, decisive stance though its own Womens Commission.

So it seems that this Womens Commission controversy is actually a clash between the BJP and the LDF. Or the RSS and the PFI. Or the Right wing and the Left wing. Or if you prefer, the state and Centre. Who knows anymore, and who cares? Because in the midst of all this back-and-forth between the womens commissions, the Kerala government, the Central government, the NIA and two sets of courts, Hadiya herself seems to have fallen through the cracks.

We all seem to have forgotten the only thing that matters, and the one thing that the two womens groups should agree on: that Hadiya converted and married out of her own free will, and is legally being held captive against her wishes. An Indian high court has annulled a grown womans marriage and placed her in the custody of her parents, completely eroding her most important fundamental rightsto freely practice faith, marry and live a free life.

Instead, this case has somehow become a political fight about forced religious conversion, terrorists, love jihad and IS, when actually its aboutonce againallowing an adult Indian women to practice her most basic legal rights.

The Ladies Finger (TLF) is a leading online womens magazine delivering fresh and witty perspectives on politics, culture, health, sex, work and everything in between.
From the streets of Hyderabad straight into central prison, albeit a rehabilitation centre which is operated by the jails department. That's the fate of beggars in the city, ordered to be off their favourite haunt of traffic junctions for two months. This is so that when Ivanka Trump and her entourage from the US come visiting for the Global Entrepreneur Summit at the end of November, there is no one knocking on the windscreen of the car to beg for alms.

For Hyderabad, this brings a sense of deja vu. In March 2000, when former US president Bill Clinton touched down in Hyderabad, the then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu had ordered a similar crackdown on beggars. While the exercise in the year 2000 was a cosmetic, temporary measure but in 2017, the effort is to ensure the beggars aren't back once the VIP has exited.

In the last three days, 198 beggars have so far been shifted to rehabilitation centres at Chanchalguda and Cherlapally jails. These were unused structures that have been spruced up to accommodate the beggars. A makeover is on offer here, which includes a haircut, wash, fresh clothes and facilities like a bed, fan and TV. The drive by the cops to nab the beggars had its effect as most of the able-bodied professional beggars ran away.

"Out of the 198 beggars who we brought to the Anand Ashram, 77 have gone home. A majority were in the age group of 30 to 45 and able-bodied so there was no reason for them to beg. We are warning those who are going away that if found begging again, they will be prosecuted," says VK Singh, DGP of Prisons in Telangana, coordinating the effort. The prisons department has also got their Aadhaar cards made to facilitate identification.

This week, Hyderabad Police commissioner Mahender Reddy issued orders prohibiting begging in the city for two months. The notification said: "Indecent and awkward acts of begging are causing a nuisance, annoyance, embarrassment and obstruction to vehicular traffic, pedestrians and public order, endangering safety. Children and handicapped persons are being employed to solicit or receive alms at main junctions."

A majority of the beggars were picked up from near places of worship, where the cops believe an organised begging mafia controls the operations. Madhavilata, in her 60s, says she has been outside the Saibaba temple for a year now, ever since she was discarded by her children. Some people were picked up by mistake. Like Pentaiah who claimed he had come from Suryapet district a few days for treatment at the hospital and when he was waiting outside the temple for free food, he was taken away by the police.

The police deny the drive is guided by Trump Junior's visit. They say it is a permanent effort to wean the beggars away from the practice while also going after the begging mafia that pushes the handicapped and children into the trade.

The problem is there is no record of the number of beggars in Hyderabad. Different surveys have thrown up varying numbers. From 1,500 to 5,000 to even 14,000. At a seminar in June 2016, NGOs estimated Hyderabad is home to 14,000 beggars and with each of them earning about Rs 300 in a day, the business turnover is over Rs 150 crore in a year.

"I would say there would be 500 real beggars. By real, I mean those who are destitute suffering from some disease and unable to work for a living," says Singh. The others are being given the option of undergoing skill development classes at the prison premises and working at the petrol bunks where the workforce is provided by the Telangana prison department.

Those who are classified as 'fake beggars' include those who had to leave their homes and fields in the districts due to poor irrigation facilities and crop failure. Social activists say when they are unable to find suitable work in the construction sector due to lack of skillsets, they turn to begging for a living.

Social activists working on removing beggars from Hyderabad say this cannot be a short-term measure simply because a foreign dignitary is visiting. "We call ourselves a smart city, what kind of a smart city is it when the begging mafia feeds intoxicants to infants for women to carry while they beg. It is a horrible sight," says G Ramaiah of the Federation of NGOs for a Beggar-free society.

The administration estimates that because of the crackdown, many beggars have moved out of Hyderabad into other cities like Vijayawada and Nagpur. They say they would need to ensure that they do not return after the ban period is over on 7 January.
Chennai/Thanjavur: Income Tax sleuths on Friday continued their raids for the second day in premises linked to jailed AIADMK leader VK Sasikala and her kin over suspected tax evasion during which eight persons were arrested for allegedly preventing the searches.

The searches, which began in 187 locations on Thursday in multiple cities including at Tamil channel Jaya TV and its associates, continued in "some premises" for the second day, said a senior official of the Income Tax department.

However, the searches concluded in other locations, the official said.

Some documents and cash have also been seized during the searches, the official told PTI.

Backed with inputs including those from finance ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit, the raids were being conducted following allegations covering various aspects.

This included suspicion of shell companies, dubious investments, suspicious fund flow and its transfers and fudging of accounts.

A Coimbatore report, quoting police sources, said searches continued for the second day at the house and offices of Arumugamsamy, a sand merchant in the city, and Sajeevan, who is supplying furniture across Coimbatore and Nilgiris districts.

Sajeevan had also supplied wood and other materials to the Kodanadu bungalow in Kotagiri belonging to late Jayalalithaa.

Declining to provide any details, they said the sleuths had completed their task at four locations and searches are continuing at three other places.

Meanwhile, I-T sleuths have reportedly taken account details from a Nationalised Bank at Kodanadu of a few hundred tea estate workers to check whether any large amount was deposited in their name in the last one year.

A report from Thanjavur, quoting police, said eight persons were arrested for allegedly preventing income tax officials from discharging their duty and entering into a wordy duel.

When staffers of a college near Thanjavur, which is reportedly linked to Sasikala's kin, went to the extent of "frisking the baggage" of tax officials, it led to heated exchanges between them, leading to their arrest, police said.

On Thursday, Dhinakaran, the deposed AIADMK deputy general secretary, condemned the searches as a "conspiracy" and criticised the Centre.

Jaya TV premises in Chennai and Dhinakaran's farm house were searched as part of 'Operation Clean Money,' under which premises belonging to ten Income Tax assessee groups were searched.

Of the 187 premises searched on Thursday, most of it were in Tamil Nadu, a handful in Hyderabad, three in New Delhi, and one in Bengaluru.

Dubbing the searches a "conspiracy", Dhinakaran alleged it was to oust him and his jailed aunt from politics.
United Nations: India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the ICJ as the UN could not decide between them after electing four out of five judges to the World Court.

The 193 members of the UN General Assembly and 15 of the Security Council will reconvene on Monday to decide between Bhandari, 70, and Greenwood, 62.

Based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term. Established in 1945, the role of the ICJ is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions.

Along with Justice Bhandari and Justice Greenwood, three others  Ronny Abraham of France, Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia  were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on 5 February, 2018. Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majorities in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received more votes (115) in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes. However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got nine votes against six votes for Bhandari. As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nation's ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other. That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held on Friday at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari was elected to the International Court of Justice in 27 April, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

The ICJ, on India's petition in May, stayed the execution of Indian national and former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on the charge of "spying".
Shahida Farooq clearly remembers the day her militant father was taken away by government forces. It was on 1 December, 1992, that Farooq Ahmad Khan, was trapped in a cordon with another local resident, Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, near their Bandipora residence. Lone was released two years later, but Khan's family still doesn't know his whereabouts. They don't even know if he is dead or alive.

In Kashmir, there are at least 1,000 youth who are reportedly missing since the last 28 years, ever since militancy started in 1989. While many were taken away by the government forces for helping militants or being among the active cadre, many were even taken away despite having no links with the militant.

Human rights groups have being fiercely protesting what they call "enforced disappearances" in Kashmir, and have also asked the government to set up an independent commission which will trace these men and punish those responsible for their "killings".

Though government forces, particularly the army and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), hold sweeping powers to detain and kill people, and even manage to escape trial in local courts, the families do get to know the cause of deaths.

Shahida though still doesn't know if her father "got a bruial as per Islamic practice". "All I want to know is where is my father. Who has devoured him?" she asks.

Last week, in a first of its kind admission, the state human rights commission (SHRC) revealed that the government had admitted there are many thousand "mass graves" all across Jammu and Kashmir, where the people buried are still unidentified. Such a list of mass graves was submitted to the commission after it took suo-moto notice of the issue. As human rights activists and families believe, this could end their searches for sons, brothers and fathers who have gone missing, and yield their bodies.

As years have passed and successive governments of NC-Congress and now PDP-BJP have chosen not to look into the issue, the SHRC has ordered that the mass graves which have been identified need to be dug up and DNA samples of the deceased be matched with the families to find out who are buried in such graves.

Such a directive is significant, as the SHRC has also asked the government to comply with the orders and file an action taken report in six months.

Additional secretary (Home department), Shabi Hussain Keen, said that they will implement the SHRC directions in the shortest possible time. He said that they will also look into the reasons why demands by families and activists to probe the issue of mass graves were delayed by so long.

These directives could also unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of another youth, Shabir Ahmad Dar, from Srinagar. Shabir, his sister Mehnaz Jan said, left for work to sell a bale of clothes in the rural pockets of Kashmir one Friday in 2005 and never returned. The family has lodged a police case, but there is no trace of the 25-year-old.

Human rights activist Mohammad Ahsan Untoo said there are more than 10,000 people who are missing and that it's "the responsibility of the government to tell their families what happened to them". "They have vanished. It is the responsibility of the government to unravel the truth and to give justice to families who are longing for that for years," he said.

SHRC chairman, Justice Bilal Nazki, in a recent order, held that there are 2,080 unmarked graves in two districts of Rajouri and Poonch, and the government must go for their DNA sampling.

It has also noted that there are other unmarked graves in Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara in north Kashmir, where it again directed that the bodies be identified through DNA sampling. In response to pleas urging setting up of an independent probe body, the commission has also directed that an "independent duly representative body having due credibility be constituted to look into the matter. But Untoo said that the matter has been pending since 2011 and the government had also tried to "brush it under the carpet" earlier.

Shahida said that the government has not approached the family for any DNA sampling and the earlier directive by the SHRC that her militant father be declared as "dead" and they be awarded compensation has not been followed through by the administration. "But we want to know where has my father gone. We know forces picked him up. I was young at that time, but we were thrown into an everlasting pall of gloom," she said.

Untoo said that after the SHRC's investigation, they have identified 2,800 unmarked graves in north Kashmir. "The government must involve international human rights organisations like Amnesty International or ICRC and dig up the graves before them for an impartial inquiry," he said.

Srinagar youth Shabir Ahmad Dar's sister Mehnaz Jan said that even as they approached the high court and got a case registered with the Rajbagh police station, that didn't yield anything. "Justice has always eluded us," she said.
Tipu Sultan was inherently anti-India, anti-Hindu and anti-Kannadiga  still Congress wont stop batting for him Any attempt to project him otherwise, based on obscure historical sources and Tipu Sultans 30 reverential letters to the then Shankaracharya of Sringeri, would be as erroneous as depicting Hitler as a pacifist just because the latter was a vegetarian and loved animals, especially dogs
Bengaluru: Bringing the state under a thick security blanket, "Tipu Jayanti" celebrations were held amid protests across Karnataka on Friday to mark the birth anniversary of the controversial 18th-century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom, Tipu Sultan.

With a sharply divided opinion over Tipu's legacy and rising political temperature, Opposition BJP, several Hindu organisation, and individuals opposed the Karnataka government celebrating Tipu Jayanti through statewide protests.

As over 54,000 police personnel and platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP), bolstered by the Rapid Action Force (RAF), kept a hawk-eyed vigil, functions were held at the district headquarters, where in-charge ministers and others hailed the legacy of Tipu.

There were reports of stones being hurled at a state transport bus and over 100 people, including local BJP MLA Appachu Ranjan, being detained in Kodagu district, where widespread protests and violence had marred the Tipu Jayanti celebrations two years ago, when a local VHP leader died and several others, including policemen, were injured.

Kodagu district observed a shutdown in response to a bandh called by the BJP and certain Hindutva outfits. Prohibitory orders are in place in the district until Saturday morning.

Tipu was a ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore and considered an implacable enemy of the British East India Company.

He was killed in May, 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces.

But, Tipu Sultan is a sensitive issue in Kodagu district as Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe that thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.

The Kodagu-based writer of historical books CP Beliappa had called the erstwhile ruler of Mysore a "treacherous tyrant".

However, the scale of such suppression is disputed by several historians, who see Tipu as a secular and modern ruler who took on the might of the British.

With a sharp polarisation over Tipu Jayanti celebrations, the Karnataka government had made massive security arrangements across the state, deploying over 54,000 police personnel, 20,000 home guards and 212 platoons of the KSRP.

The state security personnel were bolstered by the deployment of 15 platoons of the RAF across the state.

In Bengaluru alone, 11,000 policemen were deployed, officials said.

Prohibitory orders have also been clamped at certain places in Belagavi and Chitradurga districts.

In Mangaluru, BJP district minority morcha president Franklin Monteiro, who tried to break the security cordon and barge into the premises where the celebrations were organised, was placed under arrest.

Tipu is seen in a negative light in the coastal Dakshina Kannada district, where the Christians believe he had unleashed atrocities and forced conversion to Islam on their community.

Even as BJP MLAs and MPs stayed away from the event, with some even writing to the respective district administrations not to mention their names in the invitations for it, party MLA from Vijayanagara constituency in Ballari district Anand Singh joined the celebrations.

Recently, Union minister Anantkumar Hegde had kicked up a row after he requested the Karnataka government not to include his name in the list of invitees for the Tipu Jayanti event.

Tipu Jayanti has become so controversial that recent remarks made by President Ram Nath Kovind during his address to a joint session of the Karnataka legislature on the then Mysore ruler had sparked a war of words between the ruling Congress and opposition BJP in the state.

The president had hailed Tipu, saying he died a heroic death fighting the British.

The BJP sees Tipu as a "religious bigot" and a "brutal killer", while some Kannada outfits call him anti-Kannada, citing that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.
The controversy surrounding the celebration of Tipu Sultan Jayanti in Karnataka has raked up the old demand of autonomy for Codavas. NU Nachappa, the Codava National Council (CNC) president, told Firspost that "since this government is glorifying Tipu Sultan, who had massacred thousands of my tribesmen at Devatparamb, the government becomes the natural enemy of the Codavas".

"If the government persists on holding Tipu Jayanti, the CNC would ask it to give Kodagu a separate entity on the lines of a hill council or autonomous area," he said.

About 4,000 policemen have been deployed across Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and Udupi districts. Adequate security measures have been taken in Bengaluru as well, said city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar. He said the situation has remained peaceful in Bangalore but the police are keeping an eye on those who might want to create mischief.

In response to Tipu Jayanti Virodhi Samiti's call for a shutdown, shops, commercial complexes, banks, schools and colleges remained closed in Kodagu district. Government offices, however, worked with skeletal staff. Since autorickshaws, private buses and jeeps were off the road in both urban and rural pockets, life came to a standstill. Those who had arrived at Kodagu to enjoy the weekend had to stay put in homestays. Following indications of trouble from the protesters, the district administration enforced Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code, which prohibits a gathering of more than five people, among other things. Superintendent of Police P Rajendra Prasad said that 292 persons were taken into custody under the Karnataka Police Act. He said 112 arrests were made in Somwarpet, 102 in Madikeri, 48 in Kushalnagar and 30 in Virajpet.

Last year, a local Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) member and another youth were killed in the same district in the violence that erupted over celebrating Tipu's birth anniversary. Prohibitory orders were clamped and additional reinforcements were sent to the area to bring the situation under control.

Chief guests criticise event

The state government-led celebrations in Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada took a strange turn of events when the chief guests themselves unleashed a tirade against the government and Tipu Sultan.

At Virajpet in Kodagu, MLA KG Bopaiah of the BJP came down heavily on the Siddaramaiah government. At Madikeri, MLC Sunil Subramani and MLA Appacchu Ranjan of the BJP said that Tipu had massacred thousands of valiant Codava soldiers by deceit when he could not win over them with a fair warfare. Both of them courted arrest after the event. In Somawarpet taluk, protests were held under the leadership of taluk panchayat vice-president Abhimanyu Kumar.

In Mangaluru, none of the BJP party workers or leaders showed up for the celebrations. Sources said the partymen here stayed away from trouble owing to its Parivarthana Rally, which arrives here on Saturday. If things were to go out of hand, the district administration would have clamped Section 144, "causing the rally to fail". BJP MP Nalin Kumar Kateel told Firstpost that organisers must consider themselves lucky he did not show up, else they would have faced a big embarrassment.

In Udupi, officials were not able to spell out reasons behind the absence of district in-charge minister Pramod Madhwaraj. Former BJP MLA Raghupathi Bhat and BJP district unit president Mattar Rathnakar Hegde created a ruckus at the event and later courted arrest. More than 80 persons were arrested for "obstructing official programme", said district police chief Sanjiv Patil.

Not against Muslims, says BJP

Members of Bajrang Dal, VHP and BJP held protests outside the Zilla Panchayat office in Urva. They contended that Tipu Sultan had demolished many temples in his kingdom and tormented Hindus. They said the Congress government was trying to create an icon for Muslims in the state and the country.

BJP state general secretary CT Ravi said, "We will fight tooth and nail if the government tries to make a hero out of Tipu Sultan. The history knows him as a marauder and a Muslim fundamentalist. While we are not against Muslims or any other minorities, we strongly oppose Tipu Sultan as an icon of minorities. On the same platform, we are ready to back the government if they want to celebrate the anniversary for Shishunala Sharifa, the reformer saint, or former President APJ Abdul Kalam.

The former head of Mangaluru Universitys history department, Surendra Rao, took a more balanced view of the events. "History says that Tipu had fought three wars with the British. The first Anglo-Mysore war was fought by his father, Hyder Ali. The second war was begun by Ali but completed by Tipu. The third and the fourth Anglo-Mysore wars were entirely fought by Tipu. History also states that Tipu took a large number of people of the Hindu and Christian community captive, but the veracity of these numbers and the brutality is subject to verification," Rao said.

Bengaluru Police cautious

The Bengaluru Police too laid restrictive orders on all kinds of public processions and did not grant permission for protests planned by the opposition and certain members of the Kodagu community. City police commissioner informed that more than 13,000 policemen and Garud Commando Force were deployed across the city, and nearly 30 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and 20 platoons of the City Armed Reserve (CAR) were posted in "sensitive areas".

Besides, the state decided to move the official celebration to Friday evening, keeping in mind the namaz timings of the Muslim community. Sources revealed that the official celebration was arranged to be held in the Vidhana Soudha to ensure restricted entry and better security during the event. The event, to be held at 5.30 pm, is slated to be attended by the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

M Raghuram is a Mangaluru based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.


Jammu: Representatives of several Kashmiri Pandit organisations on Friday met Dineshwar Sharma, the Centre's special representative for Kashmir, and sought the setting up of an institutional mechanism for the welfare of the displaced community.

Sharma, who was appointed the Centre's point person on Jammu and Kashmir in October, began the second leg of his visit to the state and reached Jammu on Thursday evening to hold consultations with various groups and political parties.

He called on Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday night and discussed ways to reach out to the stakeholders in the state, officials said.

"The displaced Kashmiri Pandits are the biggest stakeholders in their rehabilitation in Kashmir. Therefore, it is they who should have the maximum say in deciding modalities of return and the methodology," the Kashmiri Pandit representatives said in a joint memorandum submitted to Sharma.

The delegation was led by BJP legislator GL Raina and included leaders from All India Kashmiri Samaj, All India Kashmir Pandit Conference, Jammu and Kashmir National Front, Vichar Manch and Zeishtadevi Prabandik Committee.

"It is our demand that the government put in place (a mechanism) which regularly engages the community in dialogue to work out the agreed principles on return," the memorandum said.

"One way of achieving it is to have a welfare board on the lines of Gujjar Board or Pahari Board with representatives from different districts of the state and a chairman to look into the issues that concern the community," it said.

After meeting Sharma, Raina told reporters that delegation members also raised the issue of encroachment of properties of temples, shrines and cremation grounds.

He criticised the poor implementation of the prime minister's employment package for youths from the community.

The Kashmiri Pandit leadership have demanded a commission of inquiry into the targeted killings of members from the community in the Valley and their subsequent exodus, he said.
Mumbai: High drama was witnessed at the Maharashtra government headquarters Mantralaya on Friday evening when a young farmer climbed onto the top floor's parapet and threatened to jump off if his demands were not met, officials said.

The farmer  later identified as Dnyaneshwar Salve from Osmanabad  who resorted to the "Sholay" style agitation demanded that Agriculture Minister Pandurang Fundkar or Minister of State for Agriculture Sadabhau Khot should be called to meet him.

Mumbai police, fire brigade and disaster management teams went into full preparedness in case he carried out his threats while some police officials attempted to negotiate with him and find out his grievances.

Eyewitnesses said that at one point, when security personnel approached him, Salve took a broken glass piece of a window pane and threatened to slit his throat before they retreated.

He threw a chit of paper demanding that the Maharashtra government implement the recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Report and demanding proper remunerative prices to farmers for their products.

Mumbai: Farmer, who came to meet Agriculture Minister, threatened to commit suicide by jumping from 6th floor of Mantralay building. He threw a chit w/his number to Police, who negotiated with him on call & later detained him. (earlier visuals) pic.twitter.com/BAnRyyeRgC  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

Though the two ministers Salve wanted to meet were not available, three other ministers, including Education Minister Vinod Tawde, rushed to the Mantralaya top seventh floor and assured that all his demands would be considered.

After nearly an hour of cajoling and persistence by the police, the youth finally relented and climbed back to safety and was immediately detained.

Thousands of office-goers bound for home crowded outside the Mantralaya precincts near Nariman Point to watch the unfolding drama which lasted nearly an hour.

While it was not immediately clear how Salve managed to hoodwink the tight security inside and outside the Mantralaya building to reach the parapet wall undetected, he was whisked away from the scene by police for interrogation.
Does Bt cotton cause impotency? This startling claim was made by Rajasthan's minister for agriculture, Prabhu Lal Saini, while talking to reporters on the sidelines of the global agritechnology meeting at Udaipur.

The minister, while trashing GM mustard technology, said the mere touch of Bt cotton caused impotency. He said the Bt gene was extracted from a soil bacterium found in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after atomic bombs were dropped on the two cities during the Second World War.

He overlooked the fact that a Japanese scientist had discovered the insecticidal properties of the Bt soil bacterium in 1901 and Bt formulations had been used in bio-pesticides since 1938.

Bt cotton is genetically-engineered to be toxic to bollworms, a deadly pest. It has been extensively grown in India since 2002 and covers about 90 percent of the cotton-growing area. Six institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research had told a parliamentary committee earlier this year that fish, chicken, goats, sheep and cows fed with cottonseed or its derivatives like oilcake had not come to any harm.

The minister, from the state which is the largest producer of mustard  with nearly 47 percent of the national output  is also dead set against the genetically-modified mustard hybrid, DMH-11, which the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the regulator, had recommended for cultivation, in May. However, environment minister Harsh Vardhan seems to have put a deep freeze on the decision which is now marked "Pending Further Review".

Saini asserted that he would make a determined effort to ensure that no trials of GM crops took place in the state. He said if one hurried with new technology one would have to repent at leisure, ignoring the fact that GM crops have been cultivated for two decades without reports of any harm to humans, animals or the environment.

When told that DMH-11 did not have any toxic gene and genetic modification technology was being used to produce more efficient hybrids in a plant which was self-pollinating, Saini said new technology usually began with promise but gradually the side-effects overwhelmed the benefits. Aspirin, he said, was prescribed as a blood-thinner for cardiac patients, but apparently that is no longer the case. The Green Revolution, he said, had "oppressed mother Earth" with chemicals and that's the reason why he was emphasising the use of organic farming.

Saini said Rajasthan's farmers were getting a yield of 30-32 quintals of mustard per hectare with existing seeds so there was no need to introduce GM mustard hybrids.

According to the agriculture ministry's statistics, the state's five-year average was 12.33 quintals per hectare, despite about 90 percent of the mustard crop being irrigated.

At the four-day meeting from 6 November, multimedia presentations and slogans on standees emphasised that Rajasthan wanted to advance with new thinking and new crops (nayi soch, nayi faslein).

Saini boasted about how, despite starting just a few years ago, the state had bested traditional olive-growing countries like Spain, Israel and Morocco in some quality parameters of its extra virgin oil. He pointed to the cultivation of dates and super-foods like moringa (drumstick), quinoa and chia seeds as examples of a progressive outlook.

But in a traditional oilseed like mustard, where it can make a big difference to a large number of farmers, no new thinking is allowed. Rajasthan seems to have decided that it will be choosy applying any new thinking to only select crops.
The killer smog returned to Delhi earlier this week, triggering near-zero visibility at several places and accidents on highways, and causing respiratory problems to Delhiites. While it has turned the national capital region into a chock-a-block a comparison of air quality data with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) shows that the financial capital of India and areas around it aren't as safe as thought to be especially when it comes to levels of air pollutants Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and PM 2.5 (particulate matter with size lesser than 2.5 micrometres), two of the six major pollutants that lead to the formation of smog.

Punjabi Bagh in Delhi featured the poorest AQI on Thursday at 999, followed by RK Puram with an AQI of 868. The levels of PM 2.5 was equally high at 751 and 602 respectively. The PM10 was also at hazardous level touching 999 in both the locations.

Following that the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday issued an advisory in view of the severe air pollution in Delhi, asking children and persons with breathing difficulty to not venture out in the open in the capital. Latest data show that the quality of air is not at its best levels in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region either.

A comparison of air quality data of the two regions, in fact, shows that some areas in the MMR feature extremely unhealthy levels of NO2 way higher than several of the areas in the national capital which reported very poor air quality index over the last week.

In all the 10 weather stations which reported air quality data, and were part of the study for this report, the levels were above the severe level (251-350) set according to an Air quality inedxing labelling system developed by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SFAR) at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. Punjabi Bagh, RK Puram, ITO, Mandir Marg, Anand Vihar, Dwarka, Siri Fort, Shadipur, Delhi Technological University (DTU) and Institute Of Human Behaviour And Allied Sciences (IHBAS) all recorded over 400 levels for PM 2.5.

In Mumbai, the levels for PM 2.5 were not as severe as reported in Delhi, but they touched "very poor" levels.

The PM 2.5 levels in Mazgaon, BKC, Borivli, Navi Mumbai, Andheri and Bandra stations were "very poor" in five of the nine stations, which reporterd air quality data. The levels were reported highest in Mazgaon and Navi Mumbai at 192 g per cubic metres and 192 g per cubic metres respectively.

When it comes to NO2, Navi Mumbai performed the worst touching 149 parts per billion. The Air Quality Index crossed the good + satisfactory levels in Dombivli and Bandra as well.

According to Environment Protection Agency, the smaller the size of particulate matter, the more damaging they are for your health.

High levels of NO2 is damaging for lungs. NO2 inflames the lining of the lungs, and it can reduce immunity to lung infections. This can cause problems such as wheezing, coughing, colds, flu and bronchitis.

Mumbai's proximity to the sea prevents formation of fog in the region (as well as smog), thus often goes unnoticed, but the PM2.5 levels are still very high and hence not as safe as we may thought it to be.
Beijing: The next round of Special Representatives talks between India and China over the boundary issue will be held in due course, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, who are currently the designated Special Representatives.

Both sides have so far held 19 rounds of talks.

"Both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made efforts for many years to resolve this issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a media briefing.

"In the previous meeting the Special Representatives had exchanged views and made positive progress. Now this mechanism is operating very well. Two sides will decide the date and time for this year's meeting in due course," she said.

The next round of Special Representatives talks would be the first dialogue between China and India over the boundary issue since the resolution of the 73-day Dokalam standoff in August.

Officials say the two sides achieved steady progress in managing the differences over the border through the border dialogue mechanism though differences remained over the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Hua hinted that the next round of the Russia, India and China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting will also be held soon.

"We highly value this mechanism. According to my information the three parties are in communication to this specific issue. We support India in holding this meeting," she said.

Earlier Chinese officials told PTI that the RIC meeting will be held in New Delhi in December and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will attend it.

Asked if Yang, who has now been elected to the powerful 25-member Politburo of the ruling Communist Party of China at its recent once-in-a-five-year Congress, will continue to be China's Special Representative, Hua said "I have not heard about any changes in the Special Representative on the Chinese side."

To a question whether there would a meeting between Indian and Chinese Prime Ministers at the East Asia Summit, to be held in the Philippines, she said, "so far I have no specific information to offer."

"Various parties can keep communication, if they would like to meet," she said.
New Delhi: With nearly 13 lakh private cars expected to keep off the road per day after the odd-even scheme kicks in from Monday, the government is looking to hire 500 buses to ensure smooth commute for the public.

The odd-even scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from 13 to 17 November. The scheme will be in place from 8 am to 8 pm and there will exemptions for women drivers and two-wheelers.

"We are working to hire 500 additional buses as directed by the transport minister. In view of short-time period, it is a tough task, but bus operators have promised to arrange buses for odd-even," said a senior official, who did not wish to be named.

The Delhi Transport Corporation has a bus fleet of around 4,000 buses while there are over 1,600 cluster buses that form the backbone of the public transport along with metro.

According to the official data, DTC buses carry around 35 lakh passengers every day. Since the AAP came to power, the DTC has not been able to purchase any new bus.

The number of registered vehicles in the national capital has crossed the 1 crore mark and of this, 31,72,842 are cars registered in the city.

The official said that as per rough estimates, about 13 lakh cars will go off the roads every day during the operation of the odd-even scheme.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has also promised to provide 100 small buses during the period.

The DMRC will run 3,335 trips as against 3,248 trips it ran during the second phase of odd-even drive during April 2016.

"Schools will be free to provide their buses voluntarily. However, there will be no compulsion," Gahlot said.

Private bus operators urged the government to close schools to help them arrange extra buses for the five days of the odd-even scheme starting 13 November.

The operators said they wanted to ensure the road-rationing measure against the alarming pollution in the city is a success, but also cited their problems.

"Almost 3,000 buses are hired by schools on a permanent basis. If schools are closed, these buses will be available for use during the odd-even days," Shyamlal Gola, spokesperson and general secretary of the STA Bus Operators Ekta Manch, said.

In view of the severe air pollution level in the city, the government has closed all schools till Sunday and a further decision will be taken after an assessment of air qaulity.

Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot today announced the rolling out of the road rationing scheme and told reporters that the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has been directed to hire 500 buses.

"We have been approached by DTC officials (for the additional buses). But we have certain problems that need to be addressed to enable us to provide the additional buses. Still, we are working to arrange the buses," Gola said.

The Ekta Manch has also demanded the government deploy the hired buses at depots close to the offices of operators, so that they do not have to run from one place to another, he said.

"We also wish for timely payment for hired buses so that the service can be provided smoothly without any interruptions."

Click here to follow LIVE updates on pollution in Delhi.
New Delhi: India and Pakistan on Thursday discussed border-related issues such as infiltration, ceasefire violations and attack on civilians in bi-annual talks between the Director Generals of border guarding forces of both the countries, said sources.

The three-day 44th DG-level meeting started in the morning between a delegation headed by Director General BSF KK Sharma and 19-member Pakistan Rangers delegation led by Major General Muhammad Saeed.

The talks have been kept low-key and the media has been kept out.

Ceasefire violation, attack on civilians especially targeting of schools at border, firing at BSF troopers, discovery of tunnels, smuggling, inadvertent crossing at border were the prime issues raised in the meeting, said the sources.

"They also discussed how to maintain cordial relations between the two border forces."

None of the BSF officials came on record to give any information abour the talks.

The talks between two forces is expected to keep the lines of communication open, in a bid to maintain peace and tranquillity at the international border, which Pakistan refers to as working boundary.
In a sudden move, Pakistan on Friday announced said that it will allow Indian national Kulbhudhan Jadhav to meet his wife on humanitarian grounds, according to several media reports.

Pakistan government to arrange a meeting of Kulbhushan Jadhav (Indian national arrested on espionage charges) with his wife, on 'humanitarian grounds'  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

Jadhav, 46, was arrested by Pakistan from the restive Balochistan province in 2016 and was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism.

The press release uploaded on Pakistan's foreign ministry website states that Jadhav has "confessed" in a Pakistani court "that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan".

Although, India acknowledged that Jadhav had served in the Indian Navy but denied any connection with the government.

India was trying to arrange a meeting of Jadhav with his family members since July and had also moved a visa application for his mother. Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj even wrote a "personal letter" to the advisor to the prime minister of Pakistan on national security and foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz asking for approval of visa application of Jadhavs mother so that she may travel to Pakistan.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

India had approached the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in May seeking a provisional stay to the execution of Jadhav which was granted. The court had fixed 13 June, 13 September and 13 December as dates for India to file its documents and for Pakistan to file counter-documents. The order was made after taking into account the views of the parties.

After Jadhav was awarded capital punishment by a Pakistani military court in April this year, India challenged the verdict in the top UN court, accusing Islamabad of violating the Vienna Convention by failing to provide Jadhav with consular access which it said was in breach of international human rights laws.

On 18 May, the ICJ ruled that Jadhav must not be put to death by Islamabad until the ICJ has had enough time to pass the final judgment in the case, and ordered a stay against the execution.

Pakistan had earlier said that Jadhav purportedly "confessed" to being a spy forRAW in a video release.

With inputs from agencies
A heavy explosion was reported at a police station in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Friday, killing one policeman and wounding five others, according to media reports.

#BREAKING - A heavy explosion reported in Bolan area in Lashkargah City, #Helmand province. Details to follow.  TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) November 10, 2017

#Helmand - Border Police Commander Zahirgul Muqbil says the explosion, in Lashkargah City, left one police force member dead and five others wounded.  TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) November 10, 2017

The blast occurred near the Bolan area in PD3 of Lashkargah city. The explosives were reportedly placed in a Mazda truck, TOLO news quoted Zahirgul Muqbil, commander of the Border Police Battalion in Lashkargah, as saying.

The blast resulted in causalities, leaving once policeman dead and injuring five others.

The country has reportedly seen an increase in terror attacks in recent weeks.

A week ago, gunmen stormed Shamshad TV, a Pashto language station in Kabul. killing at least one person and leaving two dozen wounded.

The assault was carried out by militants disguised as policemen, and the attack was later claimed by the Islamic State. After about three hours of fighting, Afghan special forces overpowered the attackers, who were armed with guns and grenades, and freed staff trapped inside the building.

In October, the Taliban had unleashed a series of attacks targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country's South, East and West, killing at least 74 people.

Military installations were also not spared: On 20 October, militants razed a base in the Chashmo area of Maiwand district in Kandahar, killing 43 Afghan soldiers, while a US soldier was also killed in Logar.

These repeated attacks promoted NATO to boost its training mission in Afghanistan by 3,000 troops. This will increase the number of troops from 13,000 to 16,000.

The Taliban vowed to turn Afghanistan into a "graveyard" for foreign forces after US president Donald Trump made an open-ended commitment earlier this year to keep American boots on the ground.
The Congress government in Karnataka celebrated the birth anniversary of Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan amid tight security across the state. The Siddaramaiah-led government made it an annual affair to celebrate Tipus birthday on 10 November since 2015, under the Department of Kannada and Culture.

Honouring Indias first freedom fighter & the Tiger of Mysore for his bravery & sacrifice in fighting the British. Karnataka salutes his patriotism, courage & military excellence. #TipuJayanti pic.twitter.com/0x3ymK8yKd  CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) November 10, 2017

The Karnataka Congress also tweeted:

     . India remembers 'Tiger of Mysore' Tipu Sultan who fought valiantly against the British. #TipuJayanti pic.twitter.com/4VSQSWjy5A  Karnataka Congress (@INCKarnataka) November 10, 2017

According to the BJP, a few right-wing groups and the members of Kodava community who oppose the celebrations, Tipu was a religious 'bigot' who had massacred many people and forced them to embrace Islam. The News Minute reported that the BJP has termed the Congress government's move of observing Tipu Jayanti as an act of Muslim appeasement. Its leaders have asked that they not be invited to the celebrations.

Bengaluru turns into a fortress

Bengaluru turned into a fortress on Friday ahead of the celebrations organised across Karnataka by the government. A large number of policemen were deployed in "sensitive areas", PTI reported. Police put a stop on processions in the city that were related to Tipu Jayanti, except for the one organised by the state government.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar was quoted as saying by PTI, "We are not giving permission to any procession, whether it is in favour of Tipu Jayanti or against it. The government itself is celebrating the event in various parts of the city for which we have made elaborate arrangements."

He said 30 Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) platoons and 25 armed platoons, besides policemen and officers of city police will be deployed. "There will be more than 11,000 policemen all over the city. Besides the regular police, we will deploy Home Guard personnel," Kumar further added.

He said there will be celebrations only at the places identified by the government, adding that the police would deal firmly with those who plan to create trouble. "We have not made any preventive arrests so far but if the situation rises, Section 144 (prohibitory order) may be imposed," Kumar said.

Protesters detained in Shimoga Gulbarga

The district administration in Kodagu imposed Section 144 in the area ahead of anniversary celebrations, reports said. Reports also said that stones were thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus, as part of the protests against celebrations in Madikeri. Three windowpanes of the bus were broken during the outrage.

Stones thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri, during protest against Tipu Jayanti celebrations  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

Five Karnataka districts are under prohibitory orders and these could be extended to other districts if needed, said the police, according to The Times of India. Further, 1,000 mischief-mongers have been taken into preventive custody in different parts of the state.

The anti-Tipu Jayanti committee had called for a bandh on Friday. Even the BJPs Nava Karnataka Parivarthana Yatre, led by former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, had been stopped from entering the district on Wednesday, and will be allowed only after the celebrations end. "Its not that they are not allowed, but police have said that they were unable to provide security on 8 November. Thats why they were asked to postpone the event till after 10 November, Richard Vincent Dsouza, Kodagu deputy commissioner district told The Mint.

Karnataka DCP Renuka Sukumar, ANI reported, said more that than 150 BJP workers protesting against Tipu Jayanti celebrations in Hubli were detained. However, celebrations continued outside Bengaluru's Tipu Sultan Palace on Tipu Jayanti where members of the Tipu Sultan United Front have assembled.

Karnataka: Members of Tipu Sultan United Front gather outside Bengaluru's Tipu Sultan Palace on #TipuJayanti pic.twitter.com/CyALKNpicG  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

A report in The Quint quoted ADGP of Karnataka Special Reserve Police Bhaskar Rao who said, "There is bus movement in Madikeri. Shops are open at some places. People are not supporting any untoward incidents. Everyone wants a peaceful conclusion to the celebrations."

Bhaskar Rao, ADGP, KSRP, said: "There is bus movement in Madikeri. Shops are open at some places. People are not supporting any untoward incidents. Everyone wants a peaceful conclusion to the celebrations." pic.twitter.com/S8SQe2fb8M  Arun Dev (@ArunDev1) November 10, 2017

Karnataka HC turns down petition seeking stay on celebrations

The Karnataka High Court on 7 October rejected an interim prayer seeking a stay on Tipu Jayanti celebrations and directed the Karnataka government to file objections to the petitioner's submissions on the matter in four weeks. The petitioner, KP Manjunath, sought a direction to restrain the celebrations in his home district of Kodagu, saying it would foment communal disharmony.

The order was passed by a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice HG Ramesh and Justice PS Dinesh Kumar after the petitioner failed to convince the court which had sought to know whether the expenses on Tipu Jayanti celebrations were being incurred by the state. The bench also directed the government to file objections to the petition in four weeks.

Manjunath, in his plea, contended that large-scale communal violence erupted during the Tipu Jayanti celebrations in 2015, when it was first organised by government. Manjunath made submissions pertaining to several historical material facts contending that Tipu Sultan had killed thousands of Kodavas (in Kodagu district) during his rule. He alleged that Tipu's rule in Kodagu resulted in conversion of Kodavas to Islam.

"Tipu was an invader and a dictator and glorifying such a person is a matter of shame," he argued.

The politics of it all

Since 2015 when the Congress government started celebrating Tipu Jayanti, the BJP has been opposed to the idea and they have criticised the celebrations claiming that Tipu was a 'terrorist' and that he persecuted Kodavas and Catholics in Mangaluru. The BJP have pitted Tipu against Onake Obavva, a legendary Dalit woman who died fighting his father, Hyder Ali, when he invaded the Chitradurga Fort, The News Minute reported.

The report claims that the BJP was not always opposed to these celebrations. Quoting a message from the former BJP chief minister of Karnataka Jagadish Shettar, which appeared in the book released by the Department of Kannada and Culture in 2012 titled Tipu Sultan  A Crusader for Change, the message said:

The modern history of Karnataka covering the period 1782-1799 is known for the significant role played by Tipu Sultan, popularly known as the tiger of the Mysore kingdom. His concept of nation State, his idea of State entrepreneurship, his advanced military skill, his zeal for reforms, etc. make him a unique leader far ahead of his age.

The report quoted legal advisor to the Karnataka government Brijesh Kalappa who claimed that BJP's stance protesting Tipu celebrations in the state is a "political gimmick". "Tipu Jayanti existed even before 2015. It was just not a state-sponsored celebration then. There are pictures of Jagadish Shettar, Yeddyurappa, R Ashok and other BJP leaders celebrating Tipu Jayanti. They are wearing Tipu-style turbans. They may claim that it was an Iftar party but these pictures were clicked before 2015 and they were at functions organised by the Muslim community. These were Tipu Jayanti functions," Kalappa is quoted as saying.

Analysts have said that this is BJP's attempt at consolidating Hindu votes in Karnataka, especially in the coastal areas of Kodagu and Tumkur  a plan which has been successfully winning elections for the saffron party in Gujarat since 2002 and helped a thumping victory for the party in Uttar Pradesh this year.

Writing for The Wire, editor-in-chief of The Tribune wrote, "Modi is an authentic salesman for the 'Hindu cause'. At the core of his appeal, since 2002, is a political persona that is unapologetically committed to securing the majority communitys interests. He does not suffer from any secular squeamishness."

BJP leaders in Karnataka, however, put the onus on the Congress government claiming that the celebrations were "a deliberate attempt to stoke communal tensions in the State". Senior BJP leader and MP Karandlaje called the celebrations, a blatant attempt at vote bank politics by the ruling Congress. The MP also claimed that a majority of district police officials had tried to convince the State government not to hold Tipu Jayanti functions in view of the law and order situation but the government was adamant.

BJP president Amit Shah too attacked the Siddaramaiah government for minority appeasement and underlined BJP's opposition to the annual celebration when he launched the campaign for the April-May 2018 elections in the state.

However, Ram Nath Kovind delivered a solid blow to the anti-Tipu stance of the saffron party when the president in October this year reignited the controversy around Tipu by deviating from the BJP's stance and said, "Tipu Sultan died a historic death fighting the British. He also pioneered the use of Mysore rockets in warfare." Kovind was addressing the Karnataka Assembly. Congress members thumped their desks in appreciation as the president mentioned Tipu's name, much to the embarrassment of the BJP members present in the Assembly.

Tipu Sulatn died historic death fighting British.He was also pioneer in use of Mysore rockets in warfare: Pres Kovind in #Karnataka Assembly pic.twitter.com/t4M5pTe06c  ANI (@ANI) October 25, 2017

Congratulations to Hon. President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind for a statesman like address to the Karnataka legislature. @rashtrapatibhvn  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) October 25, 2017

As per The Indian Express, "Opposing historical narratives have frequently been used as ammunition in political battles  a tendency that has quickened alongside calls for 'rewriting' Indian history in a 'nationalist' mould."

"The disagreement over Tipu is old and has been brought alive every few years by political provocation. In much of India, history is seen through an ethnic, communal, regional or religious lens. As both BJP and Congress push their political agendas aggressively as the election approaches, the controversy will likely be raked up repeatedly," the report added.

Who really was Tipu: Usurper or saviour?

Vote bank politicking has made a mess of a historical figure  this fact several historians agree with. Gita Aravamudan, writing for Firstpost argued, "So who really was Tipu? Freedom fighter? Social reformer? Secularist who donated largesse to religious institutions? Or was he a religious fanatic who forcibly converted thousands of Hindus and Christians into Islam?... Probably he should just be viewed as a ruler of his times who did what any other ruler would have done to consolidate and expand his kingdom."

Noted historian Irfan Habib on Friday said, "It is sad that politics has turned Tipu into a divisive historical figure. Like many other 18th Century rulers, he was not a democrat, did indulge in oppression but was not a communal bigot he is made out to be. Even celebrations of historical figures are politically motivated."
New Delhi/Kohima: Strange are the ways of the bureaucracy. A private firm that had spent about Rs 1,000 crore for laying 329 km of roads in Nagaland, with little visible results on the ground, will again be in the running when the project is re-tendered next month, with the cost having tripled to Rs 3,000 crore, according to officials.

The project  part of the central government's Special Accelerated Road Development Programme in North East (SARDP-NE)  was to be executed by the Nagaland PWD in 2010 at a cost of Rs 1,130.66 crore.

However, private company Gayatri Constructions, which was awarded the work, spent six times more than the estimated cost just for earthwork and almost ran through the original budget. This had led to a dispute between the authorities and the contractor, following which the latter abandoned the project.

The matter remained in various courts till last year, when the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to re-tender the project. The court also directed the ministry and the Nagaland government to ensure the project is completed within 42 months.

Where will these roads be constructed?

The stretches include the 35-km Longleng-Changtongya Road, the 100 km Tamlu-Merangkong road, 66-km Phek-Phutsero Road and the 128-km Zunheboto-Chakambama road. The fresh tenders will now be issued by the National Highways Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) 0u a three-year-old PSU under MoRTH.

As part of the re-tendering process, officials from the Nagaland government and the ministry recently held several deliberations and finalised the formalities, including a fresh Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the four roads, which will also ease connectivity between Nagaland and other northeastern states.

"We have got a fresh DPR made and are in a position to issue the tenders either by December 2017 or January 2018," a senior official said.

These roads will boost trade in state: Govt

Emphasising that the road projects can become lifelines in remote parts of Nagaland, the government says that the stretches will also boost trade in the state, helping it to be at par with Assam, which is doing better economically.

Sources in the ministry have said that after the tendering process, the government will monitor every phase of the work and will fine the contractors if the work is delayed.

"We do not want any type of dispute this time like what had happened earlier. There has been a huge loss to the exchequer as the project cost has risen from Rs 1,100 crore to Rs 3,000 crore. Strict measures will be taken against the contractors if the work is delayed or not performed as per the standards," the official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

Asked if the government would prevent Gayatri Constructions from participating in the tender due to its failure to execute the work given by the Nagaland PWD, the official said that they still had the right to participate in the tender as they were not debarred by the government.

"We cannot stop Gayatri Constructions from participating in the fresh tenders until they are officially debarred," the official said.

NHIDCL also has the mandate to execute several road projects in Nagaland, including NH-39 that connects Dimapur and Kohima -- considered Nagaland's main business route which is in a pathetic state during the monsoon.

The PSU, created in 2014, has recently been given the task of constructing over 4,000 km of roads in the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir. It was established after the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) and Public Works Departments of the states failed to carry out road construction in many remote parts in hilly terrain.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the murder of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur, has come to the conclusion that the Gurugram Police had not only framed school bus conductor Ashok Kumar but also planted the murder weapon, a knife, on him and declared the case as closed.

A report on The Times of India has said that the CBI's investigation has revealed that the knife actually belonged to the 16-year-old Class XI student who was later detained by the central agency and accused of Pradyuman's murder. The boy, as was reported on Thursday, has admitted his "involvement" in the death of seven-year-old Pradyuman.

"The knife was bought by the juvenile from a local shop and he brought it with him inside the school. This is the only knife that was recovered, and so the claim of the Gurugram Police that Ashok Kumar brought it inside the school and used it to kill the boy has no basis whatsoever," a CBI officer told The Times of India on condition of anonymity.

The report also said that the accused guided a CBI team to the shop. "He has confessed in front of his father, an independent witness and a welfare officer of the CBI. He said that he slit Pradyuman's throat within seconds and left the toilet. There was no resistance from Pradyuman whatsoever as he didn't get time to react," the officer said.

This theory is completely opposite to the one initially presented by the Gurugram Police, which had said Ashok Kumar had tried to sexually assault Pradyuman, and when the seven-year-old boy tried to resist, had his throat slit. It also said he had taken the knife from the school bus' toolkit. They had purportedly based their claim on CCTV footage, which had said he was seen leaving the school toilet at the same time that Pradyuman is said to have been killed.

Given that the CBI came to its conclusion based on the same CCTV available to the police is also intriguing. "We have come to the conclusion on the basis of CCTV, forensic evidence and scientific evidence. The student has been apprehended. He remains our prime suspect," the CBI spokesperson said.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea filed by a Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA challenging the linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar.

The apex court said there were several petitions challenging Aadhaar which were already pending before it and it cannot entertain thousands of pleas raising similar issue.

"Why should we entertain thousands of petitions on the same issue. These issues have already been raised in other petitions. We will permit you to raise this issues through impleadment application before the Constitution bench," a bench comprising Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.

The bench permitted TMC MLA Mahua Moitra to file an application for impleadment as a party in the pending matters which are scheduled to come up before a Constitution Bench in the last week of this month.

Advocate Zoheb Hossain, representing the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), told the bench that 27 petitions related to Aadhaar are already pending consideration before the apex court.

When Moitra's counsel requested the bench to hear the matter, Justice Sikri observed, "I think each and every aspect of Aadhaar has already been challenged in court." "Since so many petitions are pending consideration before the court, it may not be appropriate to entertain this PIL," the bench said.

The apex court on 3 November made it clear that banks and telecom service providers will have to indicate the last date of linking bank accounts and mobile numbers with Aadhaar in their communications with customers.

Currently, the last date to link Aadhaar with bank accounts is 31 December this year while for mobile numbers, it is 6 February, 2018.

However, the top court did not pass any interim order on the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act as well as linking of 12-digit unique biometric identification number with bank accounts and mobile numbers.

Earlier, the court had issued notice to the Centre on four separate pleas and tagged them with the main petition which would come up for final hearing before a constitution bench.

On 30 October, a bench headed by the CJI had said that a constitution bench would be constituted and Aadhaar-related matters would come up for hearing before it in November last.
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday met Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Leonard She Okitundu and discussed ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

They discussed issues of trade and investment, development efforts in DRC under Lines of Credit and capacity building and collaboration in regional and multilateral platforms, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

India is a major development aid partner of the central African nation and has extended several lines of credit, including over $350 million for hydro-electric power generation and transmission projects.

The DRC is a major beneficiary of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) and Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholarships.

Total trade between India and the DRC stood at $286.41 million, tilted heavily in India's favour. India's main exports include pharmaceutical products, vehicles, nuclear reactors, electrical machinery and equipment and cotton.

India has been increasing its engagement with Africa, including through a series of high-level visits in the last two years. New Delhi hosted the India Africa Forum Summit in October 2015 that drew all 54 African nations.

This year, India hosted the annual meeting of the African Development Bank.

Friday's meeting was Sushma Swaraj's fourth such engagement with African nations in two months. Earlier this month, she met her counterpart from Guinea and in October those from Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia.
Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday announced Urdu as the second official language of the state, said media reports.

#BREAKING | Language war heats up as Telangana CM Chandrashekar Rao makes Urdu the second official language of the state pic.twitter.com/MsfBR2pPoG  News18 (@CNNnews18) November 10, 2017

Speaking in the state legislative Assembly on Thursday, the chief minister said that it was a long pending demand to make Urdu second official language of Telangana. According to The New Indian Express, Rao told the Assembly that all the competitive examinations in the state will be conducted in Urdu too.

The report added the the state government will appoint Urdu officers in all the offices over the next 60 days to receive petitions from public and reply them in Urdu.

Rao, according to Telangana Today report, has also announced that 900 Urdu teachers would be recruited soon by forming a special District Selection Committee (DSC). The chief minister, the report added, said that Urdu would be given priority for its protection and promotion.

The government has also decided to appoint two Urdu officers in the chief ministers office and four in the General Administration Department.

The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), will also raise its proposal to hike reservations to backward sections among Muslims in Parliament and could also approach Supreme Court on the matter, Rao said on Thursday.

Speaking on welfare of minorities in the legislative Assembly, Rao said he has taken up the issue of reservation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, he said, responded positively to the request.

With inputs from PTI
10:34 (ist)

RECAP: Karnataka HC rejects plea for interim stay on Tipu Jayanti celebrations

The Karnataka High Court rejected an interim prayer seeking a stay on 'Tipu Jayanti' celebrations to be held across the state and directed the state government to file objections to the petitioner's submissions on the matter in four weeks.

The petitioner, KP Manjunath, sought a direction to restrain the celebrations in his home district of Kodagu, saying it would foment communal disharmony.

The order was passed by a bench comprising Acting Chief Justice HG Ramesh and Justice PS Dinesh Kumar after the petitioner failed to convince the court which had sought to know whether the expenses on Tipu Jayanti celebrations were being incurred by the state.
Two former union finance ministers P Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha decided to make headlines over GST even before current finance minister Arun Jaitley's announcement on the matter. Jaitley on Friday did away with some of irritants in new tax regime and simplified some of the procedures. The number of items in the highest tax bracket was reduced from 228 to 50.

The GST council meetings are structured in such a way that each of these meetings have turned into a mini-budget exercise. In the meeting held on Friday, tax on 178 items was substantially reduced, and tax at air-conditioned restaurants was reduced from 18 percent to 5 percent. The pulse of the people, too, changes according to the developments after every council meet. Now, only luxury and sin items remain in highest tax bracket.

The coincidence of Chidambaram and Sinha targeting Arun Jaitley at this time thus becomes even more interesting. The protagonists of the government would argue that PM Modi and FM Jaitley have been receptive to the popular pulse, and recognised problems that had crept while implementing the gigantic tax regime. Thats something critics and cynics would not like, particularly when the first phase of polling in Gujarat is less than one month away.

While Chidambaram didnt name Jaitley, Sinha named the incumbent finance minister and launched an attack on him. Though Sinha and Chidambaram belong to two different political streams, lately they have found a common meeting ground in finding faults against their successor in particular, and the Modi regime in general.

Their attack on Jaitley and the GST provisions, though made separately but timed together, comes at when the Modi government and the GST council is working hard to correct initial anomalies that had been there. The former finance ministers apparently want to cash in on angered sentiments among sections of the business and trading community over the way in which the new tax regime had been implemented.

Let us examine Sinha and Chidamabarams points separately and see how they stand to scrutiny.

Consider what Sinha as the head of the parliamentary standing committee on Finance in the previous Lok Sabha had said in June 2012 when the UPA was in power: "We are targeting the Monsoon Session (beginning July). I don't want the committee to take the blame and face allegations that we are standing in the way of progressive legislation reforms," Sinha told reporters after the first meeting of the panel on the legislation. "We can be working harder than we do. We will try to submit our report by the Monsoon Session of the Parliament.

Sinha has now turned into a bitter critic of the Modi government. While this is known, on Friday, he surprised everyone by demanding the removal of Arun Jaitley from the finance ministry portfolio. The former finance minister was not content only with seeking Jaitleys removal, but also wanted a new committee to be set up under the chairmanship of Vijay Kelkar to look into various debatable aspects of GST. The present finance minister did not apply his mind. Had it been the case, then there was no need to change the tax structure so frequently. It means the system is not working, he added.

Technically Sinha is still part of the ruling BJP and his son Jayant Sinha continues to be a union minister. But for all practical purposes, Sinha Senior has joined the ranks of the anti-Modi brigade and is willing to speak at any forum and side with any person who is against the Modi and the BJP. Last month, he attended Congress leader Manish Tiwaris `Tidings of Troubled Times and shared the dais with Arvind Kejriwal. Later, he agreed to speak at a Congress-sponsored forum in Gujarat, and on Friday, he attended a function organised by dissident JD(U) leader Uday Narayan Chaudhary, where he blasted the Modi government, Jaitley and Nitish Kumar.

By making an all out against the Modi, Sinha has perhaps crossed the thin line between being a critic and a cynic.

Now let us take Chidambarams contentions into consideration. In an article headlined as `A tryst with destination tax published in The Indian Express in June this year, he began by saying: Not many years ago, we made a tryst with destination tax, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but we hope substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when businesspersons and consumers spend a sleepless night, India will awake to a new tax regime. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in our economic history, when we step out from the old to the new, when a century ends, and when the tax payers of a nation, long oppressed, hope to find a new dawn.

Expect a shower of changes in GST rates from GST Council meeting today. Panic-stricken govt has no option but to concede demands for change.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 10, 2017

Thanks to Gujarat elections, Govt forced to heed advice of Opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST.  P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 10, 2017

The words panic-stricken government and thanks to Gujarat election are important here. It should be noted that under a democratic process, the government in India is popularly elected and the constitution of the GST council is such that it has finance ministers of all the states and the Centre, and is thus well and truly federal in nature. It was only fitting of the political leadership in the governments at the Centre and of the states that they responded to popular concerns about GST issues.

The Congress could well have taken the credit of the GST council removing 178 items from the highest tax category and could have gone to the Gujarat elections on a buoyant note. However, the party has passed on this massive talking point in the Gujarat elections to the BJP. The BJP would love to grab this opportunity and go to the electorate on a positive note.
Mumbai: Claiming that the overall atmosphere in poll-bound Gujarat was against the ruling BJP, NCP chief Sharad Pawar on Thursday said people had started "accepting" Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi which was reflected in the "huge" crowds at his rallies.

"A lot of fun was being made of Rahul Gandhi by those in power. But today, the reverse is happening. People are accepting him now and huge crowds can be seen at his rallies," Pawar told reporters in Mumbai.

Gandhi has been spearheading an aggressive campaign in prime minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat, where Assembly polls will be held next month.

The Congress has been out of power in the state for over two decades. The veteran politician said the overall atmosphere in Gujarat is against the BJP, but refused to hazard a guess on the poll outcome. "The overall atmosphere is against the BJP, but money power and government at the Centre can make anything possible. Hence, the political scenario there cannot be predicted before elections," he said.

Pawar said the NCP will contest a limited number of seats in Gujarat for which talks were on with the Congress. "We will team up with anybody who is against the BJP across the country," he said. Pawar, the wily Maratha politician, said it was not right for the Shiv Sena to attack the BJP-led governments. The Sena is a constituent of the ruling alliances led by the BJP both at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

Pawar had recently revealed that Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and party MP Sanjay Raut met him and "seemed not satisfied with the BJP government".

Responding to a query, Pawar said his advice was "routinely" sought about affairs of the state government, but not always implemented. Pawar alleged "bogus" cases were being lodged against farmers opposing chief minister Devendra Fadnavis' Samruddhi expressway project.

"Such cases have come up before me. If this continues, the NCP will hit the streets along with farmers," he said. On the protests held by opposition parties on the first anniversary of note ban on Wednesday, Pawar said people were "destroyed" by the exercise. The Maratha strongman said farmers committed suicide during the tenure of the UPA government, of which is was a part, as well, but such instances were dealt with seriously.

"I myself toured the state with (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh and and demanded Rs 70,000 crore loan waiver for farmers. Today the situation is different. Farmers are not getting the minimum support price (MSP) for their produce andare facing extreme difficulties," he said.
Nearly two years ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi  accompanied by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe  was about to board Air India One to visit Varanasi, he got a call from French president Francois Hollande.

Hollande wanted to inform Modi about the progress made at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Modi told Hollande he would call him back after reaching Varanasi.

Modi then called Hollande, heard the text of draft  which was later dubbed the Paris Agreement  and made suggestions and assured him of India's full cooperation. He also committed to go beyond the Paris Agreement.

There were no reasons to doubt Modis commitment to environmental protection given the fact that he also authored a book on the issue.

However, what appears to blow all this tall talks to smithereens is the pall of poisonous toxins in the misty haze which has surrounded Delhi this week.

It has become difficult to breathe, not only outdoors but even in homes and offices. Those suffering from allergies, asthma or other breathing problems have been facing the worst with the onset of winter.

The Delhi government has not only asked schools to remain shut, but also advised parents against sending children outdoors. Nothing could be a worse indictment of society as an executive order preventing children from going to school and playing.

In fact, the grey smog that has enveloped Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and parts of Western Uttar Pradesh is an index of callousness and criminality in the country's social and political order that is impermeable to the ordeal that people are going through.

The poisonous haze that surrounds Delhi is a phenomenon that occurs every year. Though the prime cause is attributed to the burning of residue of crops in Haryana and Punjab during October and November, the Union government and the governments of Delhi and the adjoining states always react in a knee-jerk manner. And every time this poisonous climate continues for nearly a fortnight, the impotent rage of the citizens peters out into "business as usual".

Modi assured citizens his government would not put up with the "chalta hai" approach of the past. He reassured citizens there would be discernible change. But the air pollution around NCR is nothing but a reaffirmation of age-old adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same. At political and social level, the leadership maintains an ostrich-like approach to a danger that crops up every year.

In this case though, the ruling BJP is to be held accountable more than other parties. Though Punjab is now ruled by the Congress, Haryana, which contributes a great deal of pollutants to creating this haze, is ruled by the BJP.

Similarly, Uttar Pradesh is also ruled by the BJP. The least the BJP could have done was to sensitise the governments and launch a campaign at social level to reduce the pollution level before the onset of the winter.

Perhaps these two states could have shown the way for Punjab and Delhi, whose governments reacted only when the crisis blew up in their faces. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Amarinder Singh have been using the issue to settle political scores while others such as Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar are simply pretending that wishing away the crisis is the best solution.

If one looks at how the administration has responded, it confirms the fear that the malaise of the past has taken a firm grip on governance.

Take, for instance, the manner in which the Uttar Pradesh government was found wanting in treating the mysterious vector-borne disease that killed thousands of children in Gorakhpur, the home district of Adityanath. Thought Adityanath in his role as Lok Sabha member from Gorakhpur had been raising this issue in Parliament every year, as chief minister, he failed miserably when it came to mobilising the government to nip the problem in the bud.

Obviously, the state bureaucracy has grown too thick-skinned and mired in corruption to listen to the cries of the common man.

Of course, there is ample evidence to prove that the three-and-a-half years of Modis regime have not succeeded in breaking the way the bureaucracy has been behaving in the country.

Though India won praise internationally for making a firm commitment to adhere to the Paris Accord, all these claims sound hollow if one only walks the streets of Delhi.
Gandhinagar/New Delhi: The Congress party's central election committee is likely to meet on Friday to finalise the list of candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections.

The meeting in New Delhi will be chaired by All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Sonia Gandhi, where top party leaders, including from the poll-bound state, are likely to attend.

The Congress will be fielding candidates in all the 89 constituencies of the first phase of elections, to be held on 9 December. Around 100 candidates which have been selected by the scrutiny panel are likely to be finalized for the first phase initially, according to sources.

The meeting will be attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel. Senior party leaders from Gujarat, like Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Bharatsinh Solanki and Gujarat in-charge for elections, Ashok Gehlot, have already reached Delhi for the meeting. Other senior leaders like Siddharth Patel, Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia are likely to attend.

The list of candidates will be finalised and the candidates will be instructed to start their preparations for the contest, but they won't be publicly declared till two or three days prior to the day of nomination, the sources said.

Earlier, just after the Rajya Sabha seat elections for Gujarat in August, the grand old party had announced that as a reward to loyal MLAs who did not give in to the massive allurements and temptations by the BJP, all the sitting MLAs will be given tickets to contest the assembly elections.

It will be interesting to see which candidates are likely to be given the chance as the party is also in talks with Hardik Patel, leader of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who has been agitating against the BJP government, demanding reservation status for his Patel community for about two-and-a half years.

Congress senior leader Kapil Sibal has assured the Patidar community a reservation status on a constitutional basis, if the party comes to power in Gujarat. The leaders had brief discussions late night on Wednesday and the talks are still in progress. Now the ball is in Hardik Patel's court as they will deliberate on the offer by the Congress and discuss it with his community's leaders and institutions.

The state elections are on the radar of national politics as it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also BJP national President Amit Shah. The BJP government is under heavy pressure to retain power under the anti-incumbency it has been facing in the form of agitations by various communities in recent times.

The Gujarat elections will be held in two phases on December 9 and 14 and the results will be declared on 18 December.
New Delhi: The Congress is likely to release its first list of candidates for the Gujarat Assembly polls next week, the party sources said on Friday.

The Congress' Central Election Committee (CEC), chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi, met in New Delhi earlier in the day.

The sources, however, were at variance on the number of candidates the first list will have.

According to a source, the party will come out with the list of 70 candidates for the phase one of the election.

Another source maintained that the list will have the names of 80 contenders.

The Congress is locked in a bitter battle with the ruling BJP in Gujarat, which has been under the saffron party's rule for over two decades.

Gujarat goes to poll in two phases on 9 December and 14 December. The election result will be declared on 18 December. It will be held in 182 Assembly constituencies.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that has ruled Gujarat for the past 22 years, is all set to extend its reign in the western state, suggests an opinion poll conducted by ABP News and Lokniti CSDS. A victory in December's Assembly election will give the saffron party a sixth straight term in office in Gujarat.

The poll suggested that while the party will clinch power with a simple majority, its victory will not be as emphatic as it was originally expected. The opinion poll gave the party between 113 and 121 seats in the 180-seat Gujarat Assembly, which is way off the 150-seat target set by national party president Amit Shah. The party had won 119 seats in the 2012 Assembly election.

The party's voteshare is also expected to drop marginally. It had won 47.9 percent of all votes cast in 2012, and this is likely to drop to 47 percent, the opinion poll said.

The principal Opposition party in Gujarat, the Congress, has been making significant ground in recent times, and with alliances and tie-ups with influential leaders like Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakore, it has looked like it could pose a significant challenge to the BJP's hopes of sixth victory. But the ABP News opinion poll gave the party just between 58 and 64 seats, which is a very marginal improvement on its 2012 performance, when the party managed 57 seats.

The Congress' voteshare, however, has increased significantly; the party had clinched 38 percent of votes in 2012, and is expected to get about 41 percent this time, the poll said.

Congress gains in Saurashtra

The Congress had invested significantly in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Saurashtra, which sends the highest number of legislators to the Gujarat Assembly, was always expected to be the critical battleground that may ultimately decide which way the war swings. And it appears that the party's efforts have borne fruit, with Congress tying with BJP for Saurashtra's votes, both parties expected to clinch 42 percent votes, according to the ABP News opinion poll.

But the BJP will retain its grip over south and central Gujarat, it said. In south Gujarat, the BJP is expected to clinch 51 percent of the votes polled, while Congress could get only 33 percent of votes.

Previous opinion polls

The findings of these opinion polls mirror those conducted by other agencies, which had also pointed at another BJP victory. An opinion poll by Times Now-VMR suggested a resounding victory for the saffron party. It spoke to a sample size of 6,000 respondents across different demographics in different parts of Gujarat, and gave BJP between 118 and 134 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly. Congress, it said, will get between 49 and 61 seats.

That was the second opinion poll in as many days to predict a victory for BJP. A day earlier, the India Today-Axis My India poll had also said BJP will win between 115 and 125 seats, while Congress will get only 57-65 seats. The findings of both surveys had projected an improved performance for BJP. The party had claimed 116 seats in the 2012 Assembly election, while Congress had claimed 60 seats. Even the more conservative poll, the India Today-Axis My India survey, would have the BJP cross that mark.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: Congress on Thursday rejected the Solar Judicial Commission probe report which indicted former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy and other Congress leaders and said they are ready to face any trial.

"We have always said that LDF came to power on completely false and baseless allegations. Chandy and all other leaders named therein are more than willing to face any trial. We have no hesitation," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

Stressing on Chandy's integrity and honesty, Surjewala said that he was "the only chief minister in India, who put a video camera in his chamber, so that entire Kerala could see what was happening in chief minister's chamber throughout the day".

He said that though Congress had lost the assembly polls, but "as far as integrity of Oomen Chandy and his government were concerned, his honesty and sincerity of purpose were concerned, no person in Kerala has ever doubted it".

"If anybody levels allegations, we welcome it..no problem. We will face a trial and we will prove that we are innocent," he added.

Surjewala however sought to know the reason for the delay in releasing the report.

Chandy on Thursday also said he does not rule out foul play in preparation of the solar judicial probe report in which he has been indicted. The 1,000 page report was tabled at a special session of the state assembly.

The allegations regarding the multi-crore solar energy investment fraud that rocked the then Chandy government in 2013 were led by Saritha Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan.

Among the others who have been found guilty include Chandy's former cabinet colleagues Aryadan Mohammed, Adoor Prakash, AP Anil Kumar and Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan.
In a freewheeling chat with Firstpost, former Congress member of Parliament Milind Deora spoke at length about Rahul Gandhi, demonetisation and his own political journey over the years.

Deora recalled that when demonetisation was announced, the Congress vice-president did not immediately oppose the move. "At the time, the party was saying that we should oppose the move. However, Rahul Gandhi said was that we should wait and he said that this could be a game-changing decision."

Deora said that it was only later that the party criticised the move for bad implementation.

"Our first reaction was that we supported it and we wanted to see it being implemented well. But when it was implemented so badly, we, as an Opposition party, had to raise the issue," he said. The Congress leader said that Mamata Banerjee and Arvind Kejriwal were the ones who criticised the note ban decision immediately after the announcement.

The former Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology further said, "We were able to put a lot of pressure on the government and our intervention helped the government make changes, sometimes on a daily basis."

"Demonetisation can be called anything but a reform. If it has been implemented in this manner, then the government has to be attacked. Otherwise, someone could do something despotic again," he remarked.

Deora said that many people who are knowledgeable about the economy are of the view that oil prices may go up in the future. "If oil prices start heading north again, there could be a serious problem in India. This will be in a context where there is a semi-recession because of demonetisation and GST," the Congress leader said.

Deora said that it's the party's view is that other methods should be employed to encourage people to use non-cash alternatives rather than cash. He recalled that former finance minister P Chidambaram, in his budget speech in 2016, had announced a transaction tax on cash transactions to disincentivise them.

He argued that in spite of demonetisation, habits of the people with regard to using cash have not changed.

'Modi was biggest opponent of GST earlier'

Deora also recalled that although many in the Congress had said that the party should oppose the passing of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Gandhi decided against doing so. Gandhi has said in the past that GST was a Congress initiative and that the BJP had not 'understood the spirit' behind the tax.

"Many leaders in the Congress at the time had said that the party should oppose the passing of the GST. They said that the BJP had held GST hostage when we were in power, and we should not allow it to pass. Narendra Modi, the biggest proponent of GST, was at the time its biggest opponent. However, Rahul Gandhi said it was important to own it and let it happen," he said.

The Congress leader remarked that the BJP 'has an event for every decision.'

"If there's a decision on digitisation, the focus is more on who is on the dais, rather than how the people will be benefited," Deora said.
Caste politics, like in every other state, play an important role in Gujarat too. And with elections for the 182-member Gujarat Assembly less than a month away  polling will be held over two phases in Gujarat, on 9 and 14 December  all parties are desperate to get the caste equation right.

This is why Hardik Patel, convener of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), will play a major role in the Gujarat polls.

The Patel community, which used to be a staunch supporter of the BJP, is up in arms against the state government over its demand for reservations. The main demand of PAAS has been inclusion of the caste in the OBC list. OBCs have been given 27 percent reservation in Gujarat.

The BJP has rejected the demand that Patels be included in the OBC list and has tried to pacify the community by offering reservation for the economically backward among the upper castes.

The community's population in the state is around 13 percent. OBCs, under which 146 castes are included, account for nearly 35 percent of the population.

With ties between Patels and BJP having soured, the saffron party is likely to focus on winning over the OBCs.

And this has come as a golden opportunity for the Congress, which is looking to join hands with Patel to win over the Patidar community.

But even here, the equations get tricky. Patel will only support Congress if the party can assure him that it will fulfil the community's demand for quotas after coming to power.

The Congress has reportedly given three options to PAAS regarding the latter's demand, even as the organisation's members said they would consult their leaders and legal experts before taking a decision.

But PAAS also said it had rejected Congress' offer for quota under the Economically Backward Class. "We have rejected the Congress' reservation offer under the Economically Backward Class as it is not constitutionally valid," PTI had quoted PAAS leader Dinesh Bambhania as saying.

Patel, who had earlier set a condition that he would support the Congress only if the party committed itself to allotting his community reservations in education and government jobs, was not present at the meeting.

He had set 7 November as the deadline for the Congress to make its stand clear on the issue.

There is a risk, of course, that if the agreement with Congress does not work out, Patel will be left alone in an election in which he urgently needs allies.

Another party, however, which could support Patel is Shiv Sena, which plans to contest between 50-60 seats in the Gujarat Assembly polls on its own, despite being an ally of BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra. Shiv Sena had even invited Patel for a meeting in Mumbai in February.

"The Congress is trying to keep Patel on its side. The party has, according to reports, even accepted five of the six demands of Patel. Let Patel take a decision," The Times of India quoted Shiv Sena spokesperson Anil Desai as saying.

Shiv Sena's decision to contest Gujarat elections may stem from the fact that a large number of people originating from north Maharashtra, where the party has a significant stronghold, are either living or working in different parts of south Gujarat and other areas.

And if the party wants to make any breakthrough in Narendra Modi's home state, it will need all the allies it can get.

With inputs from PTI
Reuters

Alphabet Incs Google unit told US election regulators in a letter seen by Reuters on 9 November that it strongly supports tightening rules on online political advertising as part of efforts to curtail foreign abuse and influence in elections.

Federal lawmakers have criticized Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc for not doing enough to identify and block Russian agents from buying ads on their services. US authorities say the ads were intended to influence voters during the 2016 presidential election.

US law permits foreign entities to advertise about certain issues if they disclose such spending, but it is unlawful for them to interfere in elections.

In September, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which sets campaign finance rules, voted to consider ensuring that those disclosure rules apply to online activity. It opened a public comment period that is set to expire on Monday.

In the letter, Google on 9 November offered its formal response to the FECs deliberation.

Now more than ever, we must work together to improve transparency, enhance disclosures and reduce foreign abuse and influence in US elections, the company wrote.

The stance marks an about-face from 2010 when Google sought an affirmative exemption from a requirement that an ad should state who purchased it. The commission did not reach a consensus on the exemption at the time.

Google now is calling on the commission to extend disclosure rules that apply to TV and print ads to the Web.

Google strongly supports the commissions proposal to proceed with a rulemaking so that the commission can provide the clarity that campaigns and other political advertisers need to determine what disclaimers they are required to include.

The company, which is the worlds top seller of online ads, also asked federal regulators and lawmakers to expand restrictions on foreign participation in elections to cover content distributed and advertised on the Internet.

Ratifying such provisions could give tech companies guidance on how to treat soft influence, or content from organizations such as RT, a Russian news outlet that has drawn concerns from lawmakers for peddling propaganda on Facebook and Googles YouTube service.

In its letter, Google also reiterated plans to offer the public a database of election ads purchased through its service. In addition, the company has said information about buyers would be more accessible.

Technology news website Recode first reported the Google letter.
IANS

NASA has released a stunning image of Jupiter's southern hemisphere taken by the agency's Juno spacecraft. The colour-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the "String of Pearls," one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet, NASA said.

The image was taken on 24 October, as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 33,115 kilometres from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus 52.96 degrees. Launched on 5 August, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Juno arrived in orbit around Jupiter on 4 July, 2016.

During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops. 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.
tech2 News Staff

Alphabet has delivered internet services to 100,000 people who have been hit by the Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. This internet service is a part of Alphabet Incs Project Loon, where it is providing internet services to people with the help of helium balloons at disaster-hit locations.

According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the more than forty percent of the locations in hurricane hit Puerto Rico have out of service communications.

The Verge said that the Project Loon is providing internet services to these people who have web access to AT&T communications and have 4G LTE-enabled handset.

Project Loon is meant to bring services to locations which are rural and remote, basically where there is no internet communication. It uses high altitude balloons which sail for around 20 kilometres. These balloons have solar-powered electronic devices and are superpressured, allowing them to last much longer.

These balloons are called HBAL199 and HBAL237. These fly 60,000 feet above the land. With the help of algorithms they can ascertain where internet is required. However the downside to this service is that since it is a solar powered electronic set, it can provide services only during daytime.

In a blog post Project Loon Head, Alastair Westgarth had said that it has partnered with the AT&T and Sprint network services, along with other government partners. Initially, 30 balloons were put up in the disaster hit areas. These were authorised by the Federal Communications Commission or FCC.

Hurricane Maria had affected 3.4 million people, with non-functioning electric and telecom towers. Companies like Sprint had set up a temporary cell sites in the affected areas so that people have access to communicate with their loved ones.

Facebook, Cisco and Tesla were other companies who had pledged to support the people during the crisis.
tech2 News Staff

Sean Parker, 38, the founder of now-banned Napster and one of the early investors in Facebook, has sounded an alarm bell regarding the addictive nature of Facebook. Parker, who now heads the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy, was speaking at an event organised by Axios in Philadelphia about accelerating cancer innovation.

Calling himself 'something of a conscientious objector' on social media, Parker said he was worried about what social networks are doing to children's brains.

"It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains," said Parker.

Parker spoke about the early days of Facebook where people expressed reservations against getting onto the social media network, citing valuing real-life interactions over virtual interactions. Parker was confident of eventually getting these people to get online. One of the building block decisions of these social media applications was, "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?", said Parker.

This led to the creation of the social-validation feedback loop which would give you little dopamine hits in the form of likes or comments. So as to get people spending more time on these social networks.

"It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology," said Parker, further adding that people like him, Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom (Instagram founder) understood this and exploited it to their benefit.
London: British prime minister Theresa May on Thursday promoted a junior minister to replace aid secretary Priti Patel, avoiding a major personnel shuffle and maintaining the delicate Brexit balance in her cabinet.

The Conservative leader named Penny Mordaunt, a minister in the welfare department and a strong supporter of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, as her new international development secretary.

On Wednesday evening, Patel became the second minister to quit within a week, after a row over unauthorised meetings she had during a holiday to Israel in August, including with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Patel is a prominent Brexit supporter, and some Conservative MPs had pressed for a replacement that would maintain the political  and gender  balance.

Mordaunt had initially been tipped to replace Michael Fallon as defence secretary when he quit on 1 November following allegations of sexual harassment, but that job went to one of May's close aides, Gavin Williamson. "The Queen has been pleased to approve the appointment of Penny Mordaunt MP as secretary of state for international development," a statement from Downing Street said.

Mordaunt, a 44-year-old Royal Navy reservist, is the MP for the English naval town of Portsmouth, and served as a junior defence minister before becoming minister for disabled people in 2016.

Elected in 2010 after a career in business and media, including as head of foreign press for George W Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, Mordaunt has cut a rather different path from many of her fellow MPs. She took part in a celebrity television diving show in 2014, giving her appearance fee to a local swimming pool. She also delivered a bizarre speech in the House of Commons in 2013 about Easter and poultry, reportedly a response to a bet by navy colleagues to use the word "cock" as many times as she could in parliament.

Prominent Brexit supporter and Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg had earlier called for a replacement for Patel who was enthusiastic about leaving the European Union. "As long as it's somebody who has accepted that Brexit is happening and will support it properly... I don't think there will be a problem," he told the BBC.

But leading pro-European lawmaker Chuka Umunna, of the opposition Labour party, tweeted: "This is the same minister who falsely claimed Turkey was about to join the EU (during the referendum). Words fail me."
Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the most influential economists of his generation and professor at Columbia Univesrsity has risen, yet again, in stirring defence of Narendra Modis shock move to demonetise the lions share of Indias Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last November which added up to 86% of the countrys currency in circulation at the time.

As the one year mark of demonetization is on us, Bhagwati, known for his sharp witticisms and searing putdowns, has been tearing into critics, casting those who rushed in to criticise demonetisation as foolish.

The mistake economists made is that they dont talk to the people! They just talk to each other and rush in, you know, Bhagwati, the doyen of trade theorists with a reputation for skewering his enemies, said at Columbia University in New York.

The poor man did not have those big notes( Rs 500 and Rs 1,000), he thinks you and I have it ! And they were perfectly happy, you know, screwing them - the 1 %and they (the poor) belong to the 30 %. The poor man was not complaining! They were saying Hamaare Pradhaan Mantrithey identify with the Prime Minister, Bhagwati said in his most recent remarks on Indias hot button topic at the University the last Saturday of October 2017.

Bhagwatis remarks came before and after an hour long talk by Jay Panda on Indias economic and political tipping points. Panda also waded into both demonetisation and GST territory, quoting examples from life in his constituency to say how wrong Modis critics are.

Often chuckling at his own jokes, and mixing layers of knowledge, Jagdish Bhagwati offered his views on Modi the politician and why any pushback (against men or their deeds) must be more than merely the result of beliefs or assumptions: Im the kind of liberal whos a person who believes one should not gang up against a person or an ethnicity or nationality just because thats the way you think it should be. You have to be absolutely open to persuasion and evidence and so on, Bhagwati said.

Bhagwati, who openly supported Modis candidacy for Indias top job in 2014, has known Modi from the time he was Gujarat chief minister and met him most recently a year ago when colleague Arvind Panagariya ( now back at Columbia ) was still Niti Aayog Vice Chairman with the rank of Cabinet Minister.

Link to Bhagwatis remarks - Im a liberal which means facts persuade me

Bhagwati has spoken on demonetisation on at least two different occasions in the last 30 days - after the Arun Jaitley talk at the School of International and Public Affairs ahead of the IMF autumn meetings this October and again at the Conference on the Indian Economy, both in Columbia University, New York.

Bhagwati's celebrated students include Prof Arvind Panagariya, the presiding officer of the Jaitley interaction, who until a few weeks back was Vice Chairman, Niti Aayog.

Firstpost was on location at both the meetings.

The most recent one - The Conference on the Indian Economy - a converge of highly rated economists from the finest institutions in the world of academia and policy put forth cutting edge academic research on demonetisation and GST alongwith many in-depth economic models focused on Indias growth trajectory.

While Indias Opposition parties continue slamming the move to demonetise, economists have moved on to understanding how the corrective phase is likely to pan out.

Vivek Dehejia and Pravin Krishna - Jagdish Bhagwatis co-authors of the Times of India edit page article cited in later paragraphs here also presented at the same conference. Dehejia and Krishna have now launched into ease of doing business indicators and GST effetcs respectively.

Starting from early September, as Indias politicians have begun to use Ivy League campuses more frequently to pitch their version of the India story and demonetisation has become a du jour question posed by a cross section of student, hacks and academics.

With the question Was demonetisation a democratic move? becoming routine on the India-via-Ivy League circuit, the chasm between Americas top two campuses on the East Coast is also split wide open - Celebrated right-wing professor Jagdish M Bhagwati and his ilk on one side versus bete noire Amartya Sen on the other. Earlier this year, Bhagwati also took on Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard, who advocated a slower pace of demonetisation over a seven year period of phasing out high denomination notes.

Speaking to Firstpost in mid-October, Bhagwati fired a fresh salvo against Nobel laureate Amartya Sen who teaches at Harvard.

Link: Our Facebook interview with Professor Bhagwati

The answer isit (demonetisation) was a democratic move. There were some people, may be I shouldn't say this, like Prof Sen rushed in to say it was undemocratic and.I was not a fool (to say what I did to support demonetisation) I meanand rush in and talk without consulting 10 other people. I mean, you make a fool of yourself (if you speak without speaking to public finance experts) like he did! "

"When a (bank) note says, 'I promise to pay the bearer hundred rupees,' and you take it to a bank, he (the teller) will give you another 100 rupee note. There's no obligation to give you gold or silver or something! So, you have to be rather stupid to be rushing in with comments like that, you know!, Bhagwati said.

Bhagwati has earlier granted an email interview to PTI criticising Sen for rushing in and trying to get even with him and Prime Minister Modi at one go, but had stopped short of calling Sen "stupid" and a fool.

In a March 30, 2017 op-ed in the Times of India, Bhagwati alongwith economists Pravin Krishna and Vivek Dehejia debunked those who oppose demonetisation on three broad parameters:

- That the drop in economic growth is not on the scale of a disaster.

- That demonetisation, because of its many spin offs both in terms of money that has come back and the increase in digital payments, could be expansionary rather than dampen growth.

- That demonetisation has not hurt the Modi government politically.

It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing. The same may be said of much of the commentary on demonetisation, they wrote, in conclusion.

Bhagwati's own defence of demonetisation has been vigorously quoted by its proponents.

Jagdish Bhagwati, who has written on every aspect of international trade with great success and whose not yet winning a Nobel has become a sort of cause celebre on the economists circuit, believes that Indias prime minister Narendra Modi is hitting all the right notes.
President Donald Trump praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping as highly respected on Friday as he left Beijing for Vietnam, ending a visit which Chinese media declared set a new blueprint for handling US-China relations and differences.

Trump pressed China to do more to rein in North Korea and said bilateral trade had been unfair to the United States, but lauded Xis pledge that China would be more open to foreign firms.

The two also oversaw the signing of about $250 billion in commercial deals, but there was little progress reported on US firms complaints about market access or US government probes into issues like intellectual property theft.

Shortly before flying off to Vietnam, where he will attend the APEC summit of Asia Pacific leaders, Trump tweeted: My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea.

He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan! Trump added, referring to Xis wife.

Trump reiterated comments from the previous day that he didnt blame China for the trade difficulties between the two countries.

I dont blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the US on trade leading up to a point where the US is losing $100s of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I wouldve done same!

China lavished attention on Trump and his wife Melania during their visit, with Xi personally chaperoning them on a tour of the Forbidden City, part of what the Chinese government referred to as a state visit plus.

There were no obvious gaffes, and Trump and Xi seemed to enjoy being in each others company.

At a banquet on Thursday in the Great Hall of the People, Trump and Xi dined on coconut chicken soup, spicy chicken, stewed beef with tomatoes and grouper fillets.

Trump came to China pledging to ask Xi to play a bigger role in reining in North Korea, whose repeated nuclear and missile tests have angered both Washington and Beijing.

Xi, at least in public, went no further than reiterating Chinas determination to achieve denuclearisation through talks.

Chinese state media on Friday said the tone and outcome of Trumps visit had been largely positive, saying Trump and Xi were setting a new blueprint for handling relations and managing their differences.

China has tried its utmost, even at the sacrifice of China-North Korean relations, influential tabloid The Global Times wrote in its editorial.

Trump has gradually learned that Beijing is indeed making selfless contributions to promoting the denuclearisation of the peninsula. He cant demand more.

China has repeatedly said it is committed to enforcing United Nations sanctions against North Korea, which does some 90 percent of its trade with China, but that more efforts need to be made to get everyone back to the negotiating table.

Although the differences that had been pestering bilateral ties have not instantly disappeared, the most important takeaway from their talks in Beijing has been the constructive approach to these issues the two leaders demonstrated, the official China Daily said in an editorial.

Both expressed their willingness to work with, instead of against, the other in dealing with the differences between their two countries, in particular over trade and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas nuclear programme, it added, using North Koreas formal name.

Su Xiaohui of the Foreign Ministry think-tank, the China Institute of International Studies, wrote in a front page commentary of the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Partys Peoples Daily that China-US cooperation was the only correct choice for both countries.

A new blueprint for China-US relations is gradually unfolding, Su wrote.
Danang: US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Asia-Pacific region was being held hostage by the "twisted fantasies" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as he called on countries to stand united against Pyongyang.

Trump has embarked on a tour of Asia this week trying to rally regional support for curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, warning that time is running out over the crisis.

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The region, he added, must "stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

On Thursday, Trump was in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, where he called on China to "act fast" over North Korea.

Washington has also worked in recent months to convince allies across Asia to oppose Pyongyang, an issue that will remain prominent during his two-day trip to Vietnam, which is currently hosting a major regional summit.

The leaders of Japan, Russia, China and South Korea are also attending the APEC summit.

Channels still open

At the same time, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington has "two or three channels" open with North Korea and was always ready to hear what Pyongyang wants to say.

Tillerson has consistently emphasised diplomacy in dealing with the North, while Trump has traded personal insults and threats of war with leader Kim Jong-Un.

At a speech in South Korea's parliament on Wednesday, Trump denounced the North's "cruel dictatorship" but appeared to moderate his bellicose tone somewhat when he offered Pyongyang a "path to a better future".

Tillerson reinforced that thrust on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.

"We have two or three channels in which we can with high confidence get messages to him and he can get messages back to us and we keep those open," he said of Kim.

"As part of our ongoing diplomatic effort we are always ready to hear what he has to say diplomatically", he said.

"Whatever he wants to say publicly, he can say publicly, and what we say to him diplomatically is not public either.

"Because I think eventually we're going to have one of those days where we're both going to say ok maybe it's a good time to have that first conversation", he added.

But North Korean media reiterated Friday that Pyongyang would not put its nuclear weapons up for negotiation, calling such suggestions a "foolish daydream" and Trump a "war maniac".

"We do not oppose dialogue but will never put the issue related to the supreme interests of the DPRK and security of its people on the bargaining table," said a signed commentary in the government newspaper Minju Joson.

"We are not interested in such dialogue and negotiations in the least."
Washington: President Donald Trump is more popular with likely voters than he is with the general public, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that underscores why Republican lawmakers have largely stuck with the polarizing president despite his plunging approval ratings.

The poll, released on Wednesday, shows he polls better among people who voted in the 2016 presidential election than with the overall US adult population  a group that includes both voters and non-voters. Only about 60 percent of the voting-age public took part in last years election.

In October, for example, 44 percent of 2016 voters said they approved of Trumps performance in office, compared with 37 percent of the general population. Among Republicans, 82 percent of voters approved of Trump in October, compared with 75 percent of all Republicans.

Some 85 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2016 said they would do so again, the poll found.

The findings suggest that Republican candidates in the 2018 congressional elections who shun the president risk alienating his followers, Republican strategists and political scientists said. At the same time, those who embrace him in the early primary races that choose party candidates risk losing moderate voters in the general election.

Its very difficult for any Republican candidate to distance themselves from Trump, said Michael McDonald, an expert on voter turnout at the University of Florida.

That dilemma played out in Virginia on Tuesday, when Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate in the governors race, was soundly beaten by his Democratic opponent. Gillespie had adopted some of Trumps hardline positions but had avoided campaigning with the unpopular president.

Gillespies loss sparked debate among Republicans on the way forward on Wednesday. Trump suggested in a tweet that the outcome could have been different had Gillespie fully embraced him, but critics pointed out that exit polls showed that a third of Virginian voters had turned out to signal displeasure with Trump, double the number who cast ballots to express support for the president.

Trump's Demographic:

Reuters/Ipsos was able to compare the opinions of voters with the general public by creating two separate surveys: a poll of voters and a poll of the public.

For the voter poll, Reuters/Ipsos reconnected with people who took its exit poll on 8 November, 2016, the day of the US presidential election. Those voters were sent additional questionnaires in May, July and October that asked if they approved or disapproved of the president.

The two polls diverged in October, however, with voters expressing stronger levels of approval than the general public.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English throughout the country. Some 1,206 of those 2016 voters took the survey between May 10-12, followed by 1,296 who took the July 11-12 survey and 1,195 who took the survey between Oct. 18-19.

Individual responses were weighted so they would reflect the latest population estimates, as well as the support their presidential pick received in the election. Each of the voter polls had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 percentage points for Republican voters.
US president Donald Trump in his new South Asia strategy has ruled out playing the role of a mediator between India and Pakistan. A top American diplomat however, said that the focus of the new strategy would be reducing tensions between the two neighbours.

This comes just months after US officials said that Trump himself may get involved in a peace process between the two South Asian neighbours.

This administration is concerned about the relationship between India and Pakistan and very much wants to see how we de-escalate any sort of conflict going forward And also wouldn't be surprised if the president participates as well, US Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley had said in April.

Even during his campaign in 2016, Trump had offered to mediate between India-Pakistan only if the two nations wanted.

Before assuming office, he reportedly called then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and said, I am ready and willing to play any role that you want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems, according to a transcript released by Sharifs office.

Trump has only managed to complicate the India-Pakistan nexus even further by first calling out Islamabad for harbouring terrorists and asking India to play a greater role in Afghanistan and later thanking Pakistan for its cooperation.

Starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for their cooperation on many fronts.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2017

While underlining his Afghanistan policy, Trump lambasted Pakistan for giving safe haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror. He also said that the next pillar of US strategy is to change the approach and how to deal with Pakistan.

We can no longer be silent about Pakistans safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond. Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor criminals and terrorists.

India rejoiced and welcomed the US stance when Trump said, (A) critical part of the South Asia strategy for America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India  the worlds largest democracy and a key security and economic partner of the United States.

He further asked New Delhi to help more in Kabul, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.

Trump has also said that India has a strong friend in the White House. "During my campaign, I pledged that if elected, India would have a true friend in the White House. And that is now exactly what you have  a true friend," The Sunday Guardian quoted the president as saying.

Whether or not Trump has another rethink on getting involved in the India-Pakistan equation remains to be seen.

With inputs from agencies
Washington: The National Archives on Thursday released more than 13,200 records  some hundreds of pages long  related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963.

It's the fourth release so far this year.

Most of the collection comprising about 5 million pages of records has been released to the public, but some documents have been withheld over the years to protect individuals, intelligence sources and methods and national security.

The latest documents are being released according to a law that President George HW Bush signed on 26 Octomber, 1992. That law required all records related to the assassination be released within 25 years, unless the president says doing so would harm intelligence, law enforcement, military operations or foreign relations.

Last month, on the 25-year deadline, President Donald Trump wrote in a memorandum that he had "no choice" but to agree to requests from some government agencies to continue withholding certain information.

Trump, however, directed agencies to again review each of their redactions during the next 180 days. He said agency heads needed to be extremely circumspect in recommending that information still needed to be withheld from the public.

Government agencies have until March to tell the National Archives why any part of their records should still be redacted. The records included in this latest public release have not yet been re-reviewed by the agencies as part of that process.
It was shocking news for the Indian community in Britain. The most influential British-Indian politician was ousted from the government in an unceremonious way. International Development Secretary Priti Patel was recalled from her Uganda trip and forced to submit her resignation for breaching the ministerial code of conduct.

What a fall! Just a few days back, she was sort of in the shoes of Prime Minister Theresa May to welcome guests at 10 Downing Street to celebrate Diwali. We thought  a Prime Minister in waiting. A proud moment for the 1.5 million Indian-origin British citizens. We are getting closer and closer to the epicentre of British power. Former prime minister David Cameron's prophecies will become a reality very soon. But that hope was shattered.

Patel, a former Indian diaspora champion and a Pravasi Bharatiya Puraskar awardee, became a victim of her own actions. Surprisingly nobody was there to mourn for her. Neither any party colleagues like MP Alok Sharma or the influential Conservative Friends of India.

Her departure won't affect India's influence in the power corridors, because the post-Brexit Britain needs India more than India needs Britain. Patel was hiding behind the Ministerial Code of Ethics when India was humiliated by pro-Pakistani Members of Parliament over the Kashmir issue.

She never supported repeated calls from Indian leaders to relax visa rules for Indian students. Patel even campaigned to tighten the visa rules for foreign chefs at curry houses. That caused the closure of hundreds of restaurants across the country.

She was silent when hundreds of immigrants were racially abused on the streets just after the EU referendum. Who cares about immigrants when they are not part of your constituency? With a majority of 27,000 plus votes, Patel was quite comfortable with her agenda.

She burned all her bridges to fulfil a personal agenda to reach 10 Downing Street. India was on the back burner whereas Israel and its powerful lobby with plenty of money at its disposal came on the agenda. Indians are top on the British rich list, but they will think twice to open their cheque book. Some of them are already in trouble over political donations for personal favours.

Without a Godfather or backing from any senior leaders, Patel's fate was sealed when the first report exposed her unscheduled meeting with Israeli leaders. The first justification from her was that it was a private holiday and some private meetings.

Later the picture was clear. A private summer holiday accompanied by an Israeli lobbyist and 12 meetings with Israeli ministers and top officials. Then came the shocking news. A private meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Poor May. She came to know about the meeting, when the Israeli prime minister arrived at No. 10 with an entourage for an official reception. That forced Patel to file an apology.

In the Commons, Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said that Downing Street regarded the matter "as closed" after Patel was reprimanded by the Prime Minister and reminded of her obligations under the ministerial code. But the report of her another unscheduled meeting with another Israeli minister triggered a major crisis. That put May in trouble.

Patel conducted two meetings in September without the presence of any government officials. One of the meetings was with Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan in Westminster on 7 September. Israelis got what they wanted, but Britain has no clue about what they discussed.

It is thought Lord Polak, honorary President of the Conservative Friends of Israel, was present at both the meetings. That sealed Patel's fate.

There are three lessons to learn from Patel's fall. Ambition is good, but over ambition is fatal. Second, if you want to succeed, you have to abide by the rules, especially the ministerial code of conduct. The last one is  if you want to go fast, go alone. But, if you want to go far, go together.

Patel paid the price for not being part of the community despite her ethnic surname or upbringing. The Brexit campaign was the finest example. When most of the Indian community and its leaders were campaigning and supporting Cameron to remain in the European Union (EU), she challenged the arguments by aligning with the right-wing media and right-wing politicians.

She was the poster girl of the "Leave" campaign and that undermined the credibility of her mentor Cameron.

Patel was a creation of Cameron. He was promoting her along with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi to woo the Indian and Pakistani voters. Both worked hard to promote the Cameron agenda to reach No. 10. The strategy clicked. When Sayeeda was honoured with a cabinet berth, Patel was assigned to a junior treasury post.

The immigrant voters in Britain are usually loyal to the Labour Party. But Cameron doubled the ethnic vote share within five years in the government. That helped him to retain power in 2015. He was expecting support from the entire A Team, including Patel and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in his EU Referendum campaign.

Despite differences, most of the Tory leadership, except jilted leaders like Michael Gove, were pitching for "Remain" in the EU. Patel was the first one to jump ship. There was speculation about Patel at Westminster. But she rejected every allegation calling them "mere speculations".

Just after the announcement of the Referendum date, Patel was among the first batch of Tories to reach the Leave Campaign headquarters to offer allegiance. Cameron was betrayed. He was planning to anoint Chancellor George Osborne to the prime post in 2020.

To maintain the gender balance and a move to snub Labour for not appointing Harriet Harman as Deputy Prime Minister to Gordon Brown, Patel was earmarked for a senior post  probably the deputy Prime Ministership. But she spoiled that opportunity by leaving the Cameron camp.

After losing the referendum, Cameron left 10 Downing Street to pave the way for May. Patel was promoted to the cabinet as International Development Secretary to handle the 12 billion pound UK aid budget. There are many allegations over the spending of the United Kingdom aid. Some part of it will end up in the coffers of corrupt politicians in Asia and Africa.

People were expecting that Patel will use her budget diligently. But she was offering a slice of that to the Israeli Army.

By visiting Golan Heights, she undermined the British stance of neutrality on the Arab-Israeli conflict during the centenary of the Balfour declaration. At just 45, a bright young Indian-origin politician has spoiled her opportunity to get into one of the most powerful positions in the world. What a shame.
Danang: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

"When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there," said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

"At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?"

Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 1,00,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. Duterte denies the allegations.

The firebrand leader consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Duterte said last year he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example to police.

His spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a "legitimate police action".

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he "maybe" stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in "hyperbole".

His latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.
Karbala (Iraq): Like millions of other Shiite pilgrims, Arkan al-Husseini travelled to Iraq's shrine city of Karbala for the Arbaeen commemoration Thursday of Imam Hussein's killing in battle -- but this time also to celebrate the Islamic State group's battlefield defeats.

"God has taken his revenge" against the Sunni extremist group, he said, after Iraqi security forces backed by mainly Shiite paramilitary units this year swept to victory after victory, leaving IS confined to a sliver of territory on the Syrian border.

The annual commemoration of Arbaeen marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the 7th-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid -- a formative event in Shiite Islam.

The expulsion of IS jihadists from Iraqi cities has added an extra dimension to this year's pilgrimage to Imam Hussein's shrine in Karbala, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad.

"Thanks to God, Imam Hussein has overcome the tyrants. We've crushed them with the force granted to us by God," said 68-year-old Husseini, his face framed by a white beard and black headband.

Imam Hussein's killing in 680 AD was part of a fierce dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Mohammed, which eventually developed into a bitter schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam.

"Today we have defeated the children of Yazid," said the pilgrim from northern Iraq as he made his way towards the golden-domed mausoleum of the imam killed in the Battle of Karbala.

Almost 20 million Shiites converge on Karbala each year for Arbaeen, many on foot and others on chartered buses, from across Iraq and abroad, especially neighbouring Iran.

"These millions of people in Karbala are proof of our victory" over the jihadists, said another pilgrim, Mahmud Mohammed, 62.

IS swept across swathes of Iraq in 2014 and has regularly targeted Shiite pilgrims in devastating bomb attacks.

But the jihadist group has seen its self-styled "caliphate" disintegrate on the battlefield this year, losing its key northern Iraqi bastion of Mosul in July.

'Victory of good over evil'

"Today, we are celebrating the victory of good over evil," said Mohammed, a member of Iraq's Shabak minority from near Mosul.

Abdel Hussein Farah, a resident of Karbala, said: "Now that we've finished with the IS people, we feel safe."

But just like all the other black-robed pilgrims, he had to cross five checkpoints to reach the mausoleum.

Tens of thousands of security personnel have been deployed, as in past years, around the perimeters of the sanctuary as well as on all roads leading to Karbala.

Tents flying different coloured flags have been erected along the routes for volunteers to hand out food and drinks to pilgrims, as Iraqis mix with visitors from Iran, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Pakistan and Lebanon.

Against a backdrop of religious chants, men and women weep and beat their chests in mourning, some of the younger men using swords that leave blood dripping down their robes.

Arbaeen, which means 40 in Arabic, also marks the return to Karbala of companions of Imam Hussein held prisoner in Damascus for 40 days, and who had been presented with his head as a trophy by the Caliph Yazid.

The mausoleum was built at the site of the head's burial.
Washington: The new South Asia strategy of the Trump administration focuses on reducing tension between India and Pakistan, a top American diplomat said Wednesday but ruled out any mediator role for the US between the two South Asian neighbours.

"The South Asia strategy also focuses on reducing tensions between Pakistan and India," Alice Wells, Acting Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, told lawmakersduring a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan held jointly by House Foreign Affairs Subcommittees for Middle East and North Africa, and Asia and Pacific.

"The United States does not seek a role as a mediator between India and Pakistan, but encourages both countries to restart dialogue at the earliest opportunity. An improved relationship between these two countries is critical to regional security and stability," Wells told the lawmakers.

The Trump administration, she said, is increasingly concerned about the threat to strategic stability in South Asia associated with the introduction of new nuclear capable ballistic or cruise missile systems in the region.

"In particular, the region and the world looks to both Pakistan and India to safeguard against a nuclear conflict in South Asia," she said.

"In this context, the United States remains concerned about Pakistan's growing fissile material stockpiles and its expanding and diversifying military nuclear and missile programmes," Wells said.

With India, she told lawmakers that the Trump administration values the role New Delhi can play in global security and stability as part of its shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We also want to work with India to counter terrorist threats. And we see significant economic and business opportunities in both countries that we intend to explore for the benefit of all of our citizens," she said.

The US welcomes the central role of India in the Indo- Pacific region and throughout the world, she said.

"Our two democracies have a shared commitment to uphold the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values, and free trade," she said.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also noted that the US views India as a partner for peace in Afghanistan and welcomes India's economic and development assistance efforts.
Media outlets across the world reporting on US president Donald Trump's visit to China appeared to broadly agree that the visit was marked by unusual warmth and bonhomie. Analyses from the around the world described Trump's approach deferential and warmer than his past stance.

Trump's fulsome praise of China was remarkable particularly because he had been a bitter critic of the country's policies in the past. A CNN report recalled that in a May 2016, he had said, "We can't continue to allow China to rape our country and that's what they're doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world."

The US president's present position is a dramatic climb down from that statement, as he now lauds China and says that he gives the country 'great credit.'

I dont blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2017

The New York Times reported that Trump during his meeting with Chinese president Xi projected an air of deference 'that was almost unheard of for a visiting American president. However, according to the article cited above, Trump was less amiable in private discussions and that he 'forcefully confronted Xi about the chronic trade imbalances between the two countries.' He is also said to have asked China to adopt a tougher stance towards North Korea and sought the suspension of oil shipments.

BBC remarked that Trump's praise of China was 'a marked contrast to his previous criticism' of the country, particularly on the contentious issues of North Korea and trade. The article noted that the US president in the past had accused China of stealing American jobs and had threatened to term it a currency manipulator.

Xinhua said that Donald Trump's trip to China was a 'significant opportunity for the two countries to strengthen their bilateral cooperation that could also help shape a better future for the whole world.' It also noted that China is now making the transition from a phase of high-paced growth to a stage of 'high-quality' development.

Pakistan's media, too, noted the unusual bonhomie between the two leaders. An editorial in the The Express Tribune said that Trump's response to Xi was 'oleaginous' and that the Chinese welcome of the US leader was marked by opulence. The editorial said that the visit was a 'masterclass in How To Be Nice To Big Boys In The Playground.'
The Mi Mix 2 sits a class apart in Xiaomis line up. Sure, there have been flagship grade phones like the Mi5 and Mi6 but the Mix is where we saw a degree of design innovation that was unprecedented. After years of being called out for aping Apples design ethos, Xiaomi finally had a device that wasnt just all of its own but was breaking ground. While the original was relegated to China, the second generation hardware is spearheading the companys entry into markets world over. Enter the Mi Mix 2. More refined, more powerful and yes, finally available in India.

Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 specifications

5.99-inch (2160  1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18:9 display with 1500:1 contrast ratio, DCI-P3 color gamut

2.45GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 64-bit 10nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 540 GPU

6GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB (UFS 2.1) storage

Android 7.1 (Nougat) with MIUI 9

Dual SIM (nano + nano)

12MP rear camera with Sony IMX386 sensor, 1.25m pixel size, f/2.0 aperture, dual-tone LED flash, 4-axis OIS, 4K video recording

5MP front-facing camera with facial recognition, 1080p video recording

Fingerprint sensor

Dimensions: 151.8x 75.5 7.7 mm; Weight: 185g

4G LTE, WiFi 802.11ac dual-band (22 MU-MIMO ), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, NFC, USB Type-C

3400mAh (typical) / 3300mAh (minimum) battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging

Design

The raison detre of the Mi Mix 2 is purely design, and what a good design it is. Of course compromises had to be made to get there but well talk about that in a bit. The moment you set your eyes on the phone, you know that this is something special. Yes, bezel-less or all screen design isnt quite as alien as it was a year ago but what the company has managed with the Mi Mix 2 is certainly one of the best implementations around.

First things first, this phone has no forehead. There is no notch, no cutaway, nothing that obstructs your view of the screen. The 5.99 inch IPS panel is expansive and offers an immersive view because of the lack of distractions along three sides. Compared to the original Mi Mix, the newer model employs a smaller 18:9 panel which makes it a whole lot easier to grip. Also gone is the piezoelectric earpiece that worked better in theory than in practice. This time around, Xiaomi has routed a small regular speaker and this is certainly for the better. The proximity sensor, on the other hand, continues to be ultrasonic based unlike infrared as on most smartphones. This plays a big role in ensuring that there is no forehead above the screen. Technologically, weve not yet reached a point where we can hide away all the sensors that adorn the front of our devices. On that note, the Mi Mix 2 does have a lip along the bottom edge. Much smaller than the one on the original Mix, the front camera module continues to be placed along the bottom edge. A necessary compromise, the position can result in some awkward selfies and the camera app helpfully requests you to flip the phone over. This is however not true for a whole lot of 3rd party apps and it can result in some less than appealing shots. A notification LED can also be spotted here.

The right-hand side is where youll find the volume rocker and power button. Unlike most Xiaomi devices, the Mix 2 does not have an iR blaster at the top. Its a convenient feature to have and were going to miss it but then again, most of the competition has skipped out on these for quite a few generations now. What is much worse is the lack of a headphone jack. Yes, Xiaomi too has jumped on to the Type C audio bandwagon and were not very happy with this. The phone does come bundled in with a Type C to 3.5mm converter but this is far from ideal.

The back of the Mi Mix 2 is absolutely gorgeous and a perfect accompaniment to the stunning front. The central aluminum frame is bound by the curved ceramic back which proved to be fairly scratch resistant. Two concentric circles representing the camera module and fingerprint scanner sit towards the top of the device. The only scar, so to speak, on the otherwise pristine shell is the dual LED flash which isnt quite symmetric with the rest of the design. Youll also observe the tagline, Mix designed by Xiaomi emblazoned in 24K gold. It is quite obvious that Xiaomi is very proud of what theyve achieved here.

The Mi Mix 2 with its 6-inch edge less display is physically a bit smaller than the OnePlus 5 and its 5.5-inch screen. The longer panel also makes it easier to hold in the hand. The ergonomics are sound, the build quality is excellent and the design is one of the best weve laid our eyes on. The phone is on the heavier side, weighing in at 185 grams, but it is well-balanced with just a slight skew towards the lower chin. From a hardware design perspective, theres little we can complain about. Yes, the headphone jack is missed and to a degree, the iR blaster as well but this is simply indicative of the direction that the industry is heading in.

Software

The Mi Mix 2 runs MIUI like practically every Xiaomi device. The ROM continues to cherry pick features across the board and adopts a UI that is decidedly iOS like in nature. Suffice it to say that youll either love it or hate.

The lock screen is a clean affair with a camera shortcut along the bottom edge. You can also have the phone cycle through fresh wallpapers. Swiping up reveals the home screen where all the apps are laid out iOS style. To their credit, Xiaomi allows for a whole lot of customization possibilities in MIUI. From themes to customizable wallpapers and transition effects, theres a lot of things you can do to personalize your experience without dropping into a whole new launcher.

Beyond that, this is the standard MIUI that youve come to get used to. We are still waiting for the MIUI 9 update on our review unit which is supposed to bring features like split screen mode and actionable notifications. Xiaomi is quite slow when it comes to core Android updates and Oreo is nowhere in sight for the Mix 2 but it will be getting quite a few features from the latest release of Android so you wont be missing out on much.

Some of the MIUI specific features are quite nifty and an improvement over the stock Android experience that many OEMs are heading towards now. We particularly like the Dual Apps feature that lets you have multiple versions of any app installed on the device. Since this is a dual SIM phone, it means that you can have two Whatsapp numbers simultaneously on one device. The phone also lets you maintain a separate profile altogether on your device in case you are passing on your phone to friends or family. Completely distinct from the primary profile, it lets you maintain your privacy while allowing the second user to access all functions of the handset. Theres also the usual security-related functions like app lock, storage monitoring and the find my phone feature tied in with the Mi Account. Not really needed due to the narrower aspect ratio, you still have the Quick Ball feature available that lets you configure apps and actions within an easily accessible pop up that floats on the screen.

Performance

Like its contemporaries, the Mi Mix 2 is powered by a Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 6GB of RAM. Predictably, the phone flies through anything you throw at it. Day to day performance is satisfactory, so is gaming. Theres nothing extraordinary to report here but at this point, it simply means that the phone is fast, fluid and devoid of any deal-breaking issues. We tested out a wide variety of games and they all ran well without any frame rate issues or stutters. The thermal management is very impressive too since we never really felt the hardware heat up to an uncomfortable degree despite extended heavy use. The 128GB storage onboard is of the UFS 2.1 variety which also helps keep things speedy all around.

Display

Arguably the most important part of a phone, the display is what enables UI navigation, media consumption, image taking and basically anything you do on your phone. On a bezel-less device this is all the more important since everything else essentially fades away. Getting this right is critical for a smartphone *looks at the Pixel 2XL* and the Mi Mix 2 delivers.

Its not a 2K panel nor is it an AMOLED screen but it sure is a high-quality LCD panel. Xiaomi has stuck to Full HD panels even on its large screen devices like the Mi Max but the Mix 2 takes it a small step ahead to compensate for the extra vertical height. The end result is a screen that looks sharp in day-to-day use though it wont be that great for mobile VR use when pitched against the quad HD toting competition. We observed color rendition to be great when set to normal mode though you do get a boosted mode for increased saturation. The panel adheres to the DCI P3 standard. Since this is an LCD panel, there is no blue shift and we observed minimal color shift even at extreme angles. Black levels leave something to be desired but that comes with the territory, LCD panels just cant match the inky blacks offered by OLED screens. The screen on the Mix 2 goes bright enough for use even in the harshest of sunlight.

Camera

Cameras on Xiaomis phones have always proven to be hit or miss. While the company has been making strides on this front, the 12MP module on the Mix 2 still barely keeps pace with the competition. Competing with the Honor 9i, OnePlus 5, Nokia 8, LG G6 and more, the camera on the Mi Mix 2 isnt quite as impressive.

We observed significant noise suppression artifacts even in well-lit conditions. The white balance veers towards natural looking images which we certainly appreciate though some users might be disappointed by the relatively dull-looking shots.

The HDR mode doesnt too good a job since we still observed blown out highlights in quite a few shots. With the Pixel Camera app installed this is less of an issue which makes us believe that Xiaomis software tuning might be at fault here. Low light shots are noticeably worse than the likes of the OnePlus 5. There is significant noise and splotchy digital artifacts are visible on zooming in.

Overall, the images are not quite the best but they look good enough on the display. Pixel peeping and viewing them on a large display is when things go south. Additionally, the lack of a secondary telephoto camera puts the phone at a disadvantage when compared with the OnePlus 5.

Connectivity

The Mi Mix 2 is a dual SIM device with wide support for 43 LTE bands which should cover most networks around the world. This is one of the few Xiaomi devices that can be used worldwide without any network issues and it makes sense that the company is entering Europe with the Mix 2 as its lead device. The device also supports WiFi 802.11ac dual-band (22 MU-MIMO ), Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou and NFC which covers most of the options that users would be looking for. Theres also USB Type C of course. As we mentioned earlier, theres no iR blaster or headphone jack onboard. The latter in particular is a big miss and as far as weve been able to test out, theres no DAC onboard either so you wont be able to use a cheap analog Type C to 3.5mm converter. While Xiaomi includes a dongle in the package, if you were planning to keep one attached to every pair of headphone that you might have, the costs could quickly add up.

A 3400 mAh non-removable battery keeps everything powered up. Xiaomis battery optimisation ensure that the phone lasts a full day and more. With multiple SIM cards, multiple email accounts configured, music streaming, intermittent camera use and phone calls too, the phone easily lasted a full day. With a somewhat lighter workload, we can easily see the battery lasting a day and a half or more.

Conclusion

As Xiaomi marches ahead towards dominating smartphone sales in India, it cant just count on the Redmi series to be its cash cow. Capturing the midrange and premium smartphone market with larger margins is the bigger play here. In spite of the me-too route, Xiaomi is smartly launching devices that have a gimmick to offer. The Mi A1 comes with stock Android, the Mi Mix 2 ships with almost no bezels. By differentiating themselves from the competition, the company hopes to offer a unique proposition.

The Mix 2 on its own is a well thought out smartphone with one of the best designs in the industry. The feature set more than keeps up with the competition but we felt that the camera couldve done with some more work and a headphone jack would certainly be appreciated. Other niggles like the awkwardly placed front facing camera are simply a physical limitation, heck even the iPhone X had to cut a notch into the screen to place the suite of cameras. Priced at Rs. 35,999, the Mi Mix 2 has been positioned aggressively and is a fantastic option for someone who values design and isnt overly demanding of their smartphone camera.
Bharti Airtel today has announced the launch of Indias first Telecom Infra Project (TIP) Community Lab, a global initiative founded by Facebook, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Nokia and SK Telecom to create a new approach to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure.

Airtel in order to demonstrate its commitment to TIPs efforts is converting a part of its engineering center for Network Excellence which is its lab for validation and demonstration of new technologies and solutions located in Manesar (Gurgaon) into a TIP Community Lab. This fully equipped facility will be used by TIP project group members to create innovative solutions for telecom networks.

TIP is an engineering-focused initiative which is founded in 2016 and is driven by operators, suppliers, integrators, and startups to disaggregate the traditional network deployment approach.The collective aim of the TIP community is to collaborate on new technologies, examine new business approaches and spur new investments into the telecom space.

Commenting on the launch, Abhay Savargaonkar, Director  Networks (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said:

Having been at the forefront of Indias telecom revolution, Airtel is excited to extend its network innovation facilities to the growing TIP Community Lab program. We look forward to collaborating with other TIP members in creating innovative network infrastructure solutions for the future, and quickly and cost-effectively expand the reach of our networks to serve customers with exciting and disruptive solutions.

Axel Clauberg, TIP Chairman, and Vice President, Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom AG said:
Ride-sharing app Uber now has a clear target date for its IPO, with plans to go public in 2019, the companys new CEO said.

Dara Khosrowshahi, who has been at the helm since August after Ubers founder Travis Kalanick stepped down in June amid turmoil over the companys culture, said Thursday that both Kalanick and the whole board agree that its time to go public.

The numbers support it, Khosrowshahi said during the New York Times Dealbook conference Thursday. "We have all of the disadvantages of being a public company, as far as the spotlight on us, without any of the advantages, he added.

The move is a change of tune for Kalanick, who last year told reporters during the NOAH Berlin conference that the company is going to IPO as late as humanly possible.

Itll be one day before my employees and significant others come to my office with pitchforks and torches. We will IPO the day before that. Do you get it?" Kalanick said in June of 2016.

Khosrowshahi added that while its ride-hailing service is still unprofitable, the math is working in certain geographies, and the company is simply subsidizing other investments.

Additionally, he said that plans to go public wont affect its potential mega deal with Softbank. The company has been in talks with the Japanese investment bank to invest as much as $10 billion for a 22% stake in the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

[Softbank has no] particular interest in going public, Khosrowshahi said.
Former Verizon (NYSE:VZ) Wireless CEO Denny Strigl on Thursday told FOX Business Neil Cavuto that AT&Ts (NYSE:T) proposed acquisition of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) will most likely receive approval from the U.S. government, allowing the deal to move forward.

I think the deal goes through Neil, yeah. My guess is there will be some limitations, some restrictions, some side agreements that are reached. Its unconceivable to me that the deal doesnt go through, Strigl said on FOX Business Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly informed AT&T that it would block the $85 billion takeover of Time Warner unless it sells off DirecTV or CNN, a network frequently criticized by President Trump.

Strigl, who has worked on over 100 acquisitions with the DOJ, said he doesnt believe that the sale of CNN as a condition of approving the deal is coming from the president.

There must be something that really concerns them and their career people at the DOJ, he said.

Ticker Security Last Change Change % T AT&T INC. 18.94 -0.07 -0.37% TWX n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. VZ VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC. 37.87 +0.18 +0.47% CMCSA COMCAST CORP. 34.12 -0.17 -0.48% GE GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. 85.67 -1.48 -1.70%

AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement that the telecommunications giant has no intention of selling CNN.

Until now, we've never commented on our discussions with the DOJ, Stephenson said on Wednesday. "But given DOJ's statement this afternoon, it's important to set the record straight. Throughout this process, I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so."

Strigl said the AT&T-Time Warner deal and the acquisition of NBCUniversal by Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) are closely related because of the conditions attached by the DOJ.

[Comcast] agreedthat the content that flows through Comcast would be treated in the same way as competitors of NBCUniversal, he said.

Comcast acquired full ownership of NBCUniversal in 2013, when it bought out General Electric (NYSE:GE) for $16.7 billion.
A long list of U.S. companies announced $250 billion worth of business deals in China, coinciding with President Donald Trumps visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

One of the highlights was Boeing (NYSE:BA), which reached a $37 billion agreement to sell 300 planes to China. It was unclear if the deal was part of a prior announcement from Boeing that it would sell hundreds of jets to undisclosed buyers.

General Electric (NYSE:GE) scored three deals in China valued at a combined $3.5 billion. Chip maker Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) said it reached three non-binding transactions to sell $12 billion in semiconductors to Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo over the next three years. Ford (NYSE:F) and its Chinese partner, Anhui Zotye Automobile, agreed to invest $756 million in a joint venture to build electric cars. The joint venture was initially revealed in August.

Some of the pacts announced on Thursday were in the works for some time. Other deals are preliminary, and they could change before they are finalized.

Heres a look at some of the top deals with China:

Boeing

The aerospace giant will sell 260 737s and 40 787s and 777s to China Aviation Supplies Holding Co. in a deal worth $37 billion.

General Electric

The conglomerate reached three deals with Chinese companies. Combined, the deals are worth $3.5 billion.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs and China Investment Corp. plan to create an industrial cooperation fund, which will target $5 billion in commitments to invest in U.S. companies that operate in China or can develop business ties with the country. The fund is expected to support companies in the manufacturing, healthcare, consumer and industrial sectors.

West Virginia

China Energy Investment Corporation Limited plans to invest $83.7 billion in shale gas and chemical manufacturing projects in West Virginia, according to the states commerce department.

Alaskan liquefied natural gas

Sinopec, a Chinese state-run oil producer, will help develop Alaskas liquefied natural gas sector. Alaska Gasline Development Corp. signed a $43 billion deal with Sinopec, Bank of China and China Investment Corp. The move will create up to 12,000 jobs during the projects construction phase.

Soybeans

The American soybean industry obtained letters of intent from Chinese importers that plan to purchase $5 billion worth of soybeans through 2018.

JD.Com

JD.com (NASDAQ:JD), a Chinese e-commerce company, plans to buy U.S. agriculture and food products for $2 billion over the next three years. The deal includes $1.2 billion in Montana beef and Smithfield Foods pork.

Bell Helicopter

Textrons (NYSE:TXT) Bell Helicopter will sell an addition 50 Bell 505 helicopters to Reignwood International, which will serve as the aircrafts exclusive reseller in China.

Honeywell

Oriental Energy agreed to use Honeywell (NYSE:HON) for projects to convert propane into propylene. Spring Airlines has partnered with Honeywell to use the companys cockpit technologies and auxiliary power units in aircraft.

Dow Chemical

Dow (NYSE:DOW) and Mobike, a bike-sharing company in Shanghai, signed a memorandum of understanding to create lighter-weight bikes.

Caterpillar

Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) and China Energy Investment Corp. reached a five-year strategic agreement for mining equipment sales and rentals, product support and technology.
Two North Texas men have been sentenced to federal prison over what prosecutors call a more than $6 million diamond investment scheme.

Craig Allen Otteson of McKinney was sentenced Thursday to 10 years behind bars. A federal judge in Dallas sentenced Jay Bruce Heimburger of Dallas to eight years in prison.

Otteson and Heimburger in July pleaded guilty to mail fraud. Each must also repay $4.7 million.

Investigators say more than 70 investors were scammed out of $6.4 million linked to buying and reselling diamonds on the international market. The scheme, going back to 2011, also involved fraudulently secured cash and property.

A third man, Christopher Arnold Jiongo of Houston, has also pleaded guilty to wire fraud and awaits sentencing.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski says her legislation to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling would generate $2 billion in royalties over the next decade  with half the money going to her home state.

But environmental groups and other critics call those projections wildly optimistic, noting that recent sales on Alaska's North Slope have fallen short of projected revenue.

Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will hold a hearing on the bill next week. The measure calls for at least two major lease sales over the next decade in areas encompassing at least 400,000 acres each in the refuge's coastal plain. Surface development would be limited to 2,000 acres.

The 19.6-million acre refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of the most pristine areas of the United States and is home to polar bears, caribou, migratory birds and other wildlife.

The wildlife refuge has been the focus of a political fight for more than three decades. President Bill Clinton vetoed a GOP plan to allow drilling in the refuge in 1995, and Democrats led by Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state defeated a similar GOP plan in 2005.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans are pushing to revive the drilling plan as a way to help pay for proposed tax cuts promised by President Donald Trump. The GOP-approved budget includes $1 billion in revenue from drilling leases over 10 years.

The bill requires at least a 16.67 percent royalty rate evenly split between the federal government and Alaska.

Murkowski said the bill represents "a tremendous opportunity for both Alaska and our country" and will "put us on a path toward greater prosperity by creating jobs, keeping energy affordable for families and businesses, generating new wealth and strengthening our security."

Not only will the bill reduce the federal deficit by $1 billion over ten years, it will save even more over decades to come as drilling expands, Murkowski said.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group, says the drilling legislation is likely to generate about $100 million for U.S. taxpayers  one-tenth the amount Murkowski and the Congressional Budget Office predict.

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said Murkowski's bill would "hand over the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Big Oil to generate fantasy revenues to justify tax cuts for the wealthiest."

Because of high exploration costs in the remote Arctic, analysts say oil prices must be at least $70 a barrel to justify drilling. A benchmark for crude oil is about $57 a barrel.

Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, which opposes ANWR drilling, called the GOP revenue projections "pure fantasy," adding: "This is a dry hole in the budget."

The drilling bill is supported by most congressional Republicans, including Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan and the state's sole House member, Don Young. Independent Gov. Bill Walker also backs the bill.
Federal inspectors have repeatedly ordered a southeast Iowa fur farm to improve the grim living conditions for ferrets, foxes, raccoons and skunks it sells to government laboratories and pet stores.

Many of the animals have been forced to live in sweltering heat or maggot-infested filth, sometimes with decomposing carcasses in their cages, officials found over the last two years.

So far no charges or enforcement action has been taken against the Ruby Fur Farm near New Sharon, 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines. However, animal rights groups are calling for rescue of the animals, revocation of the farm's federal license and fines for neglect.

U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors documented the most recent problems when they returned to the farm seven times between December and August after finding suffering animals.

A building housing 290 raccoons reached 100 degrees in July, with many of the animals panting and drooling and 26 in "severe heat distress," according to a July 21 inspection report.

Reports from 2015 show injured or sick raccoons as well as skunks and ferrets that didn't receive veterinary treatment. In one cage a skunk was found living with its dead cage-mate.

A December 2016 report noted: "One dead, decomposing, headless juvenile ferret was found incorporated into the fecal material buildup on the wire floor in the corner of the cage," which also housed a live adult and six juvenile ferrets.

Federal contracts show that even as USDA inspectors were writing up the reports about the farm's treatment of raccoons, the agency was signing contracts to buy animals from the company for research. It spent nearly $30,000 in June and December of 2015 and in July 2016.

The business since 2007 received more than $67,000 from USDA contracts to provide skunks, raccoons, and foxes. USDA has expansive research enterprises with divisions that focus on food safety, animal health and food production improvements. One of the contracts indicates raccoons were obtained by a USDA lab in Colorado focusing on wildlife diseases, and another noted young foxes would be used as "research models."

The farm is licensed to Randy Ruby as a registered federal dealer by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and it holds state permits as an animal dealer and a pet shop.

Ruby declined to discuss the reports with The Associated Press when reached by telephone. He referred calls to The Cavalry Group, a Missouri-based animal business advocacy organization to which he is a member.

Its president, Mindy Patterson, said some of the USDA inspectors' claims are exaggerated and when there has been an issue Ruby has addressed them immediately.

"What we witnessed up close and personal this summer was Randy Ruby's farm being targeted and harassed with hyper-aggressive inspections," she said. "We have time-tested agriculture practices to ensure the health and safety of both people and animals that are being redefined as inhumane treatment of animals by these groups who have nothing but an emotion-based agenda."

The farm's website says it has been in business for more than 65 years and raises "our animals with tender, loving care, and we can ship them anywhere in the world."

Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an Ohio-based nonprofit that monitors U.S. research and animal holding facilities, has called for the termination of the fur farm's federal animal dealer's license and rescue of the animals.

In an Oct. 16 letter to Robert Gibbens, a veterinarian and the USDA's director of Animal Welfare Operations based in Colorado, Budkie asked the agency to fine Ruby Fur Farm. He said inspection reports clearly demonstrate "a total disregard for the health and well-being of these animals."

USDA spokesman R. Andre Bell confirmed the agency has discussed the farm with an animal rights group but declined to say whether it was considering enforcement action or terminating the license. He also declined to discuss whether USDA's purchased of animals from the fur farm had any impact on its enforcement of animal welfare regulations.

The Iowa Department of Agriculture, which has issued state permits for the farm to operate as a pet shop and registered federal dealer, has no enforcement action pending, said spokesman Dustin Vande Hoef. The agency can revoke the permits if it were to find standard of care issues but it has received no complaints, he said.

Any animal neglect charges must come from a law enforcement officer under Iowa law.

Mahaska County Sheriff Russ VanRenterghem said he accompanied a USDA inspection team to the fur farm three or four times in July.

"I don't see any violations," he said, describing the farm's owners as "very reputable, very good people."

Iowa is ranked the second worst in the nation for animal welfare behind Kentucky, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund's annual rankings released in January.

Iowa enforcement is weak because with a few exceptions animal neglect is not considered a felony, and laws defining adequate shelter conditions are unclear, the group said.

"In general if I was picking a state to be an animal in, Iowa would be very far down my list," said David Rosengard, a staff attorney for the group's criminal justice program. "I could be neglected. I could be starved. I could be abandoned and the person who did that wouldn't face the sort of repercussions they would have to deal with in a lot of other states."

___

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What happened

Shares of Franco-Nevada (NYSE: FNV) rose 6% on the Toronto Stock Exchange -- more than 2.5% on the NYSE -- last month according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The royalty and streaming company reported no news, which would explain the stock's movement. Instead, investors were likely responding to the development of projects in the company's portfolio.

So what

With the largest, most-diversified portfolio among royalty and streaming companies, Franco-Nevada's success isn't solely correlated to the success of any one project. As numerous mining companies reported quarterly earnings last month, though, Franco-Nevada's investors celebrated the development of several projects in the company's portfolio. Operated by First Quantum, the Cobre Panama project, for example, reached 63% completion during the third quarter. Cobre Panama -- of which Franco-Nevada has gold and silver streams -- remains on track to be commissioned in 2018 and to continue a ramp-up in production through 2019. Franco-Nevada identifies Cobre Panama as one of the world's largest copper-gold-silver porphyry deposits currently being constructed -- and one of its most recent cornerstone investments.

Investors also celebrated news from Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY) that the development of Cerro Moro, another important project in Franco-Nevada's portfolio, remains on schedule and budget. Yamana expects Cerro Moro to contribute about 80,000 gold ounces as production begins in early 2018 and ramps up through the rest of the fiscal year. Franco-Nevada has a 2% royalty on the Argentine mine, which Yamana forecasts to produce 130,000 gold ounces and 9.9 million ounces in fiscal 2019.

Franco-Nevada also received encouraging news from Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) regarding Musselwhite, located in Canada. An mineral-producing mine, Musselwhite contributed $5.1 million to Franco-Nevada's revenue in fiscal 2016. But the company sees a more lustrous future for the project. Approving the Materials Handling project, Goldcorp is in the process of updating Musselwhite's infrastructure. According to Goldcorp, when the Materials Handling project is complete, Musselwhite is expected to see a 20% increase in production and an approximate 10% reduction in operating costs. The improved profitability comes to the delight of Franco-Nevada, which has a 5% profits-interest royalty on Musselwhite. In its third-quarter earnings report, Goldcorp acknowledged that completion of the Materials Handling project "remains on budget and on schedule and is expected in the first quarter of 2019."

Now what

Skyrocketing more than 735% over the past 10 years, Franco-Nevada has offered investors one of the best opportunities for investing in precious metals. And with a well-diversified portfolio -- one with 47 mineral-producing assets, 40 assets in advanced development, and 173 assets in the exploration phase -- the company will continue to offer investors a compelling opportunity. To ensure that it remains one, though, investors will have to confirm that the projects in its pipeline, as evident in October, continue to be successfully executed.

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Ivanka Trump said Friday a tax bill that has faced heavy criticism from Democrats is a key to the president's goals of growing the economy and helping the middle class.

The tax plan is about "supporting American families," President Donald Trump's eldest daughter and adviser said during an event Friday in Maine.

"The stated goal is twofold: enable our businesses to be competitive and thrive and to provide meaningful tax relief to middle income families," she said.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza attended the event, which was a question-and-answer forum at Volk Packaging Corp. in Biddeford that mostly attracted Republican officials, business owners and conservative activists.

Collins said changes to the tax system are necessary to keep businesses investing in the U.S. She and the president are both Republicans, but the two have frequently disagreed on issues such as health care. Collins will likely play an important role in Republican attempts to overhaul taxes.

Ivanka Trump said Republicans' tax reform package would benefit working families and has stumped for it at other events in recent weeks.

Democrats have pushed back against the tax plan, in part because it would eliminate deductions claimed by many taxpayers. The Senate version would repeal deductions of state and local taxes.

Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett said working people would not fare well under the GOP plan.

"The Republican tax plan overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and corporations  not Maine's middle-class families as Republicans like to claim," he said.
Crude was down slightly on Friday as expectations OPEC and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by U.S. drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow.

U.S. energy companies added nine oil drilling rigs in the week to Nov. 10, the second increase in three weeks, bringing the total count up to 738, General Electric Cos Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report. [RIG/U]

Brent futures fell 38 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $63.55 a barrel by 1:12 p.m. EST (1813 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 45 cents at $56.72 per barrel.

Earlier in the week, Brent rose to $64.65, its highest since June 2015, and WTI rose to $57.92, its highest since July 2015.

Both contracts were on track to rise about 2 percent this week, which would put them both up for a fifth week in a row.

Traders said higher prices in recent weeks were the result of efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to tighten the market by cutting output, as well as strong demand and rising political tensions.

There are also expectations in the market that OPECs next meeting on Nov. 30 will agree to extend cuts beyond the current expiry date in March 2018.

Market participants expect OPEC to extend the production cuts beyond March 2018 and stocks to decline further, analysts at Commerzbank said, noting, however, that the higher price level should lead to a further rise in U.S. shale oil production.

U.S. production was forecast to rise to 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 and a record 10.0 million bpd in 2018 from 8.9 million bpd in 2016, according to federal energy projections this week. Output peaked at 9.6 million bpd in 1970. [EIA/M]

Goldman Sachs also warned of greater price volatility ahead, citing rising tensions in the Middle East, especially between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran, along with soaring U.S. oil production.

Hezbollahs leader said Saudi Arabia had declared war on Lebanon and his Iran-backed group, accusing Riyadh of detaining Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign as Lebanons prime minister to destabilise the country.

The political situation in Saudi Arabia remains sufficiently volatile to spike crude values by at least 50 cents at any given time as was the case (Thursday), Jim Ritterbusch, president of Chicago-based energy advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates, said in a report, noting he did not expect Fridays oil rig count to exert much price impact.

Another factor supporting prices was strong demand in southeast Asia, where the number of tankers holding oil in storage around Singapore and Malaysia has halved since June.
A member of an armed separatist group in Indonesia's Papua region has disputed police claims that it's holding villagers hostage during a standoff with security forces.

The remote region's long-simmering insurgency has flared in the past month, with one paramilitary police officer killed and six others wounded in attacks by the National Liberation Army of West Papua. The two sides are also waging a PR war, with police calling the group an armed criminal gang and accusing it of attacks on civilians.

Hendrik Wanmang, who described himself as a commander of the armed group that goes by the Indonesian acronym TNP, said in an interview Friday that Banti and Kimbeli villagers can't go to an area the separatists define as a battlefield with security forces because it's unsafe. But otherwise villagers are free to go to their farms and move about as they please, he said.

Police on Thursday said a group of about 100 including 25 gunmen were occupying the two villages and preventing 1,300 people from leaving. Several hundred of the people are migrant workers from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

"It's not true, it's only the provocation of Indonesian military and police with the aim of damaging our image," Wanmang told The Associated Press. "People there are safe, both natives and non-natives are free to do activities as usual."

Wanmang was one of two commanders who signed an Oct. 21 statement warning of unspecified retribution against security forces for alleged brutality against indigenous Papuans.

The letter declared an area near the U.S.-owned Grasberg gold and copper mine as a battlefield.

The mine owned by Phoenix, Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. is a source of tension in the region due to environmental damage and indigenous Papuans' resentment at profits from local resources being sent abroad.

A low-level insurgency for independence has simmered in Papua since it was transferred from Dutch to Indonesian rule in 1963. The region, which makes up the western half of the island of New Guinea, was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 following a U.N.-sponsored ballot of tribal leaders that has since been dismissed as a sham.

Indonesia maintains a heavy security presence in the region and restricts foreign journalists from freely reporting there.

Wanmang said police descriptions of TNP as an armed criminal group and accusations of crimes against civilians were a tactic to discredit the Papuan independence movement.

"We are not a new group, we are not a criminal group," he said. "We are separatist group who fought for Papua from generation to generation demanding the sovereignty of the people of Papua, demanding Papuan independence, separate from Indonesia."

Security minister Wiranto, who goes by one name, has asked security officials to peacefully persuade the separatists to leave.

Military commander Gatot Nurmantyo said in a statement Friday that the villagers are "hostages" and the military is conducting surveillance of their villages. With police, it hopes to negotiate a solution but is readying other measures.

"We are also preparing ways that are hard and must be done very thoroughly," he said. "Currently we are working closely with police and setting up a joint team in handling the problem."
Egyptian and international rights groups have filed a criminal complaint with Paris prosecutors over the sale of French surveillance technology to Egypt.

The filing, announced late Thursday by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, relates to the potential role that the technology could play in widespread oppression in Egypt.

The French company, Nexa Technologies, was formerly called Amesys.

This request for a criminal investigation involves complicity to torture and carry out enforced disappearances. It supplements an investigation already underway on the sale of surveillance technology to Libya when it was run by longtime dictator Moammer Gadhafi before his 2011 overthrow and killing.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has overseen a $10 billion military buildup in recent years, including French-made Rafale fighter jets and helicopter carriers.
The Massachusetts Senate approved a wide-ranging health care reform bill late Thursday that includes a call for the state to study how much a single-payer insurance system would cost.

Final passage came on a 33-6 vote shortly before midnight after two days of debate and dozens of amendments. All six Republicans in the Democratic-controlled chamber voted against the final bill, which faces an uncertain road ahead.

The legislation seeks to lessen the wide price disparities between large hospitals, like those in Boston, and smaller community hospitals around the state. The smaller providers have long complained that they are paid significantly less for the same or similar services offered to patients as the bigger facilities.

Following objections from Partners HealthCare, the state's largest provider, the Senate modified a provision that originally sought to penalize the state's three biggest hospitals if they failed to hit benchmarks for controlling spending.

The bill also seeks to address rising drug costs by requiring pharmaceutical companies to submit pricing data to the state's Center for Health Information and Analysis. And it would require hospitals to formulate strategies for reducing the number of patients who are readmitted for care within 30 days of their original discharge.

The Senate voted 35-3 to adopt an amendment proposed by Sen. Julian Cyr, a freshman Democrat from Truro, calling for a study of what it would cost Massachusetts to implement a government single-payer health care system, along the lines of what Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders advocated for on the federal level during his 2016 presidential campaign.

If the annual cost estimate was lower than the overall cost of the current market-based system, the state would then be directed to begin laying groundwork for a single-payer plan.

Lora Pellegrini, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans  a group that represents insurers  praised elements of the Senate bill in a statement Friday but warned that discussions about single-payer "distract from efforts to focus on cost control and ignore the fact that Massachusetts has almost 100 percent universal coverage today."

Another of the bill's provisions allows licensing of dental therapists, who wouldn't be dentists but could perform some common procedures such as fillings and tooth extractions in community settings.

The bill now moves to the House, where Democratic leaders have indicated plans to write their own reform bill, and one that may be narrower in scope than the Senate.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who supports some of the Senate's initiatives, has been critical of senators for not pursuing many of the cost-saving measures he proposed for MassHealth, the state's Medicaid system.

"My big concern about the Senate health care bill is it doesn't save the state any money," Baker told reporters Thursday.

Senate Ways and Means Chairman Karen Spilka has estimated the Senate bill would trim annual MassHealth spending by $114 million, while reducing overall health care costs from $475 million to $525 million by 2020.

Health Care for All, a group that advocates for affordable universal care, praised the Senate approach.

"This comprehensive bill takes bold action to reduce health costs, protect consumers in health insurance plans, advance oral health, and improve the quality of our care," said Amy Rosenthal, the group's executive director, in a statement prior to final passage.

___

Associated Press writer Steve LeBlanc contributed to this report.
That decision did not automatically apply to the app's 50,000 drivers in Britain but was seen as likely to prompt more claims.

It could benefit workers at thousands of companies including firms in the "gig economy", where individuals work for multiple employers without a fixed contract, such as courier Deliveroo.

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, which backed the two drivers, said these companies were "choosing to deprive workers of their rights".

"Todays victory is further proof, as if any more was needed, that the law is clear and these companies are simply choosing to deprive workers of their rights," said Jason Moyer-Lee, the IWGB's general secretary.

Uber says its drivers enjoy the flexibility of their work and are self-employed, entitling them in British law to only basic entitlements such as health and safety.

The firm argued in September that its drivers operate in the same way as minicabs, or private hire vehicles, which sprung up in Britain more than 50 years ago.

On Friday it confirmed it would appeal against the latest decision. A spokesman said the company had 14 days to submit its application and decide whether to apply to take the case to the Supreme Court, Britain's top judicial body.

"Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control," said Uber UKs Acting General Manager Tom Elvidge in a statement. "The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive."

Yaseen Aslam, one of the drivers involved in the case, said they would continue their fight to ensure workers' rights were respected.

"I am glad that the judge today confirmed what I and thousands of drivers have known all along: that Uber is not only exploiting drivers, but also acting unlawfully," he said.

Uber, which is valued at around $70 billion with backers including Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, will be back in court on Dec. 11 to appeal a decision by London's transport regulator to strip the app of its licence.

Transport for London shocked Uber in September by deeming it unfit to run a taxi service and refusing to renew its licence, citing the firm's approach to reporting serious criminal offences and background checks on drivers. (Reporting by Michael Holden and Costas Pitas; editing by Stephen Addison)
Since The New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in October, multiple men in entertainment, media and politics in the U.S. and beyond have faced allegations ranging from inappropriate behavior to forced sexual misconduct to rape.

To be sure, prominent men have faced sexual misconduct claims before. But the accusations against Weinstein have opened a floodgate, sparked an international conversation and put new pressure on companies, industries, and political leaders to respond. President Donald Trump has condemned some of the accused, been more muted about others, and found himself again being asked about sexual harassment and misconduct allegations leveled against him during last year's presidential campaign. The Republican says they're fake.

The #Metoo moment is also prompting re-examination of past sexual misconduct claims against powerful men, including Democratic former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He was impeached and then acquitted of perjury and obstruction of lawmakers' investigation into his sexual encounters with a White House intern, and he settled a sexual harassment lawsuit stemming from his time as Arkansas governor.

A look at some of the men accused since the Weinstein accusations emerged:

Entertainment:

 Producer Harvey Weinstein Accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment or sexual assaults, including rape. Fired by The Weinstein Co. and expelled from various professional guilds. Under investigation by police departments in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex, but he has apologized for causing "a lot of pain" with "the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past."

 Celebrity chef John Besh  Accused by 25 women of sexual harassment. He has stepped down from the company he founded.

 Comedian Louis C.K.  Accused by five women of sexual misconduct. Planned release of film "I Love You, Daddy" halted. Netflix special canceled. He says the allegations are true and has apologized.

 Cinefamily executives Hadrian Belove and Shadie Elnashai  Accused of sexual misconduct. Movie theater shut down in the wake of allegations due to crippling debt.

 Actor Richard Dreyfuss  One woman alleges sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.

 Director-producer Gary Goddard  Accused by one man of sexually molesting him when the man was 12. He denies the allegation.

Casting employee Andy Henry  Admitted to urging women to take off their clothes during coaching sessions in 2008 while working on the "CSI" series. He was fired by his current employer.

 Actor Dustin Hoffman  Accused by woman of sexual harassing when she was 17. He has apologized for his behavior.

 Actor Robert Knepper  Accused by one woman of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.

 Showrunner Andrew Kreisberg  Accused by 19 women of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. The "Supergirl" and "Arrow" showrunner has been suspended by Warner Bros. Television Group. He told Variety he has made comments on women's appearances and clothes "but they were not sexualized."

 Actor Jeremy Piven  Accused by three women of sexual misconduct. He denies all allegations.

 Filmmaker Brett Ratner  Accused by at least six women of sexual harassment. Playboy shelved projects with Ratner and Ratner stepped away from Warner Bros. related activities. He denies the allegations.

 Comedy festival organizer Gilbert Rozon  Accused by at least nine women of sexually harassing or sexually assaulting them. Rozon stepped down as president of Montreal's renowned "Just for Laughs" festival and apologized "to all those I have offended during my life."

 Producer Chris Savino  Accused of harassing up to 12 women. Fired from Nickelodeon. He has apologized for his behavior.

 Actor Steven Seagal  Accused by two women of rape. He denies the allegations.

 Actor Tom Sizemore  Accused of groping an 11-year-old actress in 2003. Utah prosecutors declined to file charges, citing witness and evidence problems. He denies the allegation.

 Actor Kevin Spacey  Accused by at least 24 men of sexual misconduct or assault. London police reportedly investigating a sexual assault. Fired from "House of Cards" and replaced in Ridley Scott's completed film "All the Money in the World." Massachusetts prosecutors are investigating one allegation. His former publicist has said he is seeking unspecified treatment.

 Actor Jeffrey Tambor  Two women  an actress on his show "Transparent" and his assistant  allege sexual misconduct. He denies the allegation, saying in a statement that he has "never been a predator  ever."

 Actor George Takei  One man alleges sexual assault. He denies the allegation.

 Writer-director James Toback  Accused by hundreds of women of sexual harassment. Beverly Hills police investigating complaints. He has denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times.

 "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner  Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.

 Actor Ed Westwick  Accused by two women of sexual assault. The BBC pulled an Agatha Christie adaptation from its television schedule and halted production on a second sitcom starring the former "Gossip Girl' actor. Los Angeles police are investigating. He denies the allegations.

___

Media, publishing and business:

 Billboard magazine executive Stephen Blackwell  Accused of sexual harassment by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.

 Penguin Random House art director Giuseppe Castellano  Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. Penguin Random House is investigating. Castellano has not commented.

 New Republic publisher Hamilton Fish Multiple sexual harassment allegations. He has resigned from the magazine.

 Journalist Mark Halperin  Accused of harassing about 12 women while at ABC News. Book contract terminated. Fired from job at NBC News. He has denied some of the allegations.

 Artforum publisher Knight Landesman  Accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and sued by one woman. He has resigned from the magazine.

 NPR news chief Michael Oreskes  Accused of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment by at least four women while at The New York Times, NPR and The Associated Press. He has been ousted from NPR.

 Amazon executive Roy Price  Accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He resigned from Amazon.

 Webster Public Relations CEO Kirt Webster  Accused of sexual assault by one woman. Firm renamed and Webster is "taking time away."

 Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner  Accused by one man of sexual harassment. He says he did not intend to make the accuser uncomfortable.

 New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier  Accused of sexually harassing numerous women. Removed from the masthead of The Atlantic magazine. He has apologized for his behavior.

 NBC News booker Matt Zimmerman  Accused of inappropriate conduct by multiple women at the network. He was fired from NBC.

___

Politics:

 U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)  Accused of forcibly kissing a woman while rehearsing for a 2006 USO tour; Franken also was photographed with his hands over her breasts as she slept. Franken has apologized, while maintaining that he remembered the rehearsal differently. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for an ethics investigation of Franken.

 U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R.-Ala.) Accused of sexually assaulting two women decades ago when they were teenagers; about a half-dozen other women have accused Moore of inappropriate conduct. The former state Supreme Court chief justice denies the allegations. He has rebuffed pressure from national Republican leaders to step aside; the state GOP is standing by him.

 Former President George H.W. Bush  Accused of patting seven women below the waist while posing for photos with them in recent years, well after he left office. The 93-year-old Republican has issued repeated apologies through a spokesman "to anyone he has offended," with the spokesman noting that the former president uses a wheelchair and that his arm sinks below people's waists when they take photos with him.

 Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel  Accused of sexually inappropriate comments and behavior toward a number of women, Bittel resigned. Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned after a report that he had an extramarital affair with a lobbyist, and Republican state Sen. Jack Latvala is being investigated by the Senate over allegations of harassment and groping. Latvala has denied the allegations.

 Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover  Stepped down as speaker this month after news surfaced that the Republican had settled a sexual harassment claim from a GOP caucus staffer. Hoover denied the harassment allegation but said he sent consensual yet inappropriate text messages. He remains in the Legislature.

 British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon  Accused of inappropriate advances on two women, the Conservative resigned. Sexual harassment and assault allegations have also emerged against a number of other U.K. political figures. Labour Party legislator Carl Sargeant is believed to have taken his own life after harassment allegations cost him his post as the Welsh government's Cabinet secretary for communities and children. He had asked for an independent inquiry to clear his name.

___

Sports:

 International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady  Accused by two women of rape and by two others of inappropriate conduct. Gilady denied the rape accusations, said he didn't recall one of the other allegations, but acknowledged a claim he'd propositioned a woman during a job interview 25 years ago was "mainly correct." He stepped down as president of an Israeli broadcasting company he founded. The IOC has said it is looking into the allegations.

 Former South African soccer association president Danny Jordaan  Accused by former member of parliament Jennifer Ferguson of raping her in 1993. Jordaan denies the accusation.
With 29 states (plus the District of Columbia) that have legalized marijuana in some form, the U.S. is seeing an explosion of pot-related companies. In 2016, there were between 21,000 and 33,000 cannabis businesses in the U.S. Yet many of these businesses have a hard time just making ends meet, let alone making a profit. That's because marijuana companies operate under a tax handicap that most other businesses don't.

Meet IRS section 280E

Section 280E was introduced to the tax code in 1982, during the hottest part of the war on drugs. Congress had discovered a tax court case in which a drug trafficker was allowed to deduct a number of expenses for his various illegal businesses. Legislators were so offended by this case that they passed Section 280E, a provision ruling that illegal businesses cannot deduct any business expenses other than cost of goods sold (meaning expenses related directly to creating the business' product).

Why is this a problem for marijuana companies? Because technically, pot is still a federally banned Class I controlled substance. And that means marijuana dispensaries are subject to Section 280E, resulting in enormously higher taxes for these businesses.

Why Section 280E is such a problem

Most businesses can deduct just about anything and everything related to the business. Anything from office supplies to worker salaries, from commercial leases to bank fees can be deducted from income before calculating the tax bill. These deductions make a huge difference in how much taxable income businesses have  and therefore how much they end up paying in taxes.

For example, consider the matter of employee compensation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that business expenses for employee compensation averaged $35.28 per hour in June 2017. Imagine a business with 100 full-time employees. Assuming that each employee worked 2,000 hours per year, that business would have paid a little over $7 million in employee compensation over the course of the year. While most businesses can fully deduct that salary expense, marijuana businesses cannot. And that's just one of the numerous deductions limited by Section 280E.

Is there a way around Section 280E?

Faced with such an enormous financial handicap, marijuana businesses have gotten quite clever about finding ways to finesse this bit of the tax code. For example, many marijuana dispensaries establish a second business in the same building that houses the dispensary. The second business provides a related but legal service, such as drug counseling. The dispensary will keep all of its COGS-related expenses under the umbrella of the dispensary business, while funneling all its other expenses through the counseling business.

This approach has met with mixed results on a legal level. In one 2007 tax case, the tax court largely upheld the dual-business approach used by Californians Helping to Alleviate Medical Problems (CHAMP), allocating most of its expenses to the caregiving business and allowing CHAMP to deduct those expenses. However, a similar tax court case in 2015 ended badly for a marijuana dispensary, because the court believed that the second business was strictly a legal fiction created to get around Section 280E. In other words, the core concept behind this two-business workaround has passed muster, but marijuana companies need to be extremely careful about how they implement it.

What does this mean for investors?

As long as marijuana is considered a controlled substance on the federal level, U.S.-based marijuana businesses are operating under a serious handicap. It would be safest to hold off on investing in such companies as long as the current situation stands. After all, Section 280E isn't the only hurdle that marijuana companies face -- although it could be the most problematic.

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The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Republican tax reform bill on Thursday sending it to the rules committee next and moving the GOP closer to a legislative victory and overhauling the American tax system.

This is a big win for the people who are just sick of the status quo and all the special loopholes and all the high tax rates and our jobs still leaving the country and from that standpoint Im really pleased for the American people, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said on Thursday during an interview on FOX Business Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Senate leaders are confident the newly unfurled Senate Finance Committee tax reform plan is will be the countrys long awaited change.

America is ready for tax reform again, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said during a press conference. To get growing again, like we know this code will do, to get new jobs and opportunities, significant tax relief [is needed] for the middle class.

Brady vowed that small business will be able to receive its tax breaks immediately after the bill is signed.

The amendment today, the final one I offered, actually creates new low tax rate for those small mainstream businesses of up to $75,000, thats that mainstream deli or donut shop, Brady said.

Brady said the committees 24-16 vote to pass the tax reform bill is a game changer for the American people.

The winner is the American people. People actually being able to file their taxes using a postcard style system and our local businesses no longer saddle with the highest taxes almost in the world able to compete and win anywhere in the world, including on Main Street, he said.
A watered-down version of the Republican tax reform plan unfurled by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday afternoon made several significant changes to an earlier plan released by House Republicans, but Senate leaders and White House officials remained stoic that the bill would still provide a long-awaited tax system overhaul.

Its apparent that this country is lagging behind a lot of other countries, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said during a press conference. And our foreign economics are a disaster in comparison to what they can be. Were about to change that.

The Senates plan comes on the heels of a similar one proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee last Thursday.

Key differences include a year-long delay in reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% -- an amendment bitterly opposed by some Republicans. The House also sought to simplify the number of tax income brackets from seven to four, but the Senate kept seven brackets, fiddling just slightly with some of the rates.

Another major change was the Senates refusal to acquiesce to pressure from left-leaning states including New York, California and New Jersey to not eliminate the controversial state and local tax deductions (SALT), which largely favor high-income states. Following threats from Republican representatives in those states that they would not support the bill if it included major changes to SALT, the House negotiated allowing up to a $10,000 deduction on property taxes.

Though President Donald Trump reportedly favors the Houses plan, political pressure to pass some type of overhaul is mounting amid significant Democratic victories in Tuesdays elections ahead of the looming 2018 midterms.

Hopes that House and Senate Republicans could present a united front on tax reform to avoid a failure similar to their inability to overhaul the Affordable Care Act were seemingly squashed with the presentation of this plan. Differences between the plans could ultimately sideline the legislation, though leaders have remained adamant that it could be passed as soon as Christmas.

America is ready for tax reform again, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said. To get growing again, like we know this code will do, to get new jobs and opportunities, significant tax relief [is needed] for the middle class.
Senate Republicans will release their version of a tax cut bill on Thursday, which proposes keeping seven brackets on the individual side and postponing the U.S. corporate tax cut by one year.

Individual provisions

Under the Senates plan the individual tax brackets would fall at 10%, 12%, 22.5%, 25%, 32.5%, 35% and 38.5%, according to Senate Finance Committee senior staff members. The bottom rate is untouched from the current law, while the top rate is down one percentage point from 39.6%. The top rate would apply to those with incomes in excess of $500,000.

The House plan proposes collapsing the system into just 4 brackets: 12%, 25%, 35% and 39.6%.

While the House plan proposed phasing out the estate tax, known as the death tax, over the course of 6 years, the Senates would keep the tax in place, but double the current exemption.

Additionally, senior staff members said it would completely eliminate state and local tax (SALT) deductions, a sore point among lawmakers from high-tax states. House Republicans had proposed maintaining state and local property tax deductions up to $10,000.

On the individual side, the bill would also double the standard deduction, leave retirement plans untouched, preserve the deduction for medical expenses, expand the child tax credit to $1,600 and maintain the mortgage interest deduction cap of $1 million.

Corporate provisions

The Senate tax plan calls for one-year delay in the 15 percentage point cut to the corporate tax rate. The business tax reduction is one of the most expensive parts of the plan and postponing its implementation will save the government more than $100 million. As specified in the fiscal year 2018 budget, lawmakers have $1.5 trillion allotted for tax reform. The Congressional Budget Office said this week that the House plan would cost the government $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years.

The Senate plan would also expand a 17% deduction for pass-through entities. Like the House plan, it would also call for full and immediate expensing of new equipment. Further, the plan would allow businesses to deduct interest on loans.
Now that a third woman has come forward with allegations of sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by actor Jeremy Piven, the star has taken to social media to give a lengthy response denying the allegations.

As more and more powerful people in Hollywood see accusations of sexual harassment and assault brought against them, Jeremy Piven took steps to affirm his innocence, taking to Twitter on Thursday night to clear the air as best he can.

Let me begin by saying that the accusations against me are absolutely false and completely fabricated. I would never force myself on a woman. Period, the star wrote on Twitter. I have offered to take a polygraph to support my innocence. I keep asking myself, How does one prove something didnt happen?

The former Entourage star then explained his frustration about wanting to believe victims who come forward with these kinds of stories while being subject to, what he calls, false accusations. He concluded his public statement with a warning about the current climate in Hollywood with regards to accusations.

We seem to be entering dark timesallegations are being printed as facts and lives are being put in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence. I hope we can give people the benefit of a doubt before we rush to judgement.

Continuing to tear each other down and destroy careers based on mere allegations is not productive on any level. I hope we can use this moment to begin a constructive dialogue on these issues, which are real and need to be addressed.

As previously reported, Piven was accused of groping and forcing himself on actress Ariana Bellamar, who tweeted accusations directly at the star last week. Since then, Piven has denied completely any and all allegations of sexual assault to the press. However, Thursdays tweet marks his first real public comment on the accusations.
A woman who was featured on "Little Women: Atlanta" was charged for allegedly driving under the influence in a fatal car crash that left a Coast Guardsman dead.

Melissa Hancock, 25, was driving in the wrong direction in Virginia Beach, Va., when she hit Daniel Dill's car on Saturday around 2 a.m., police told the Virginian-Pilot.

The 29-year-old Coast Guardsman was taken to the hospital and treated for a major spinal cord injury, brain swelling, broken bones and internal injuries.

He died Sunday after his family made the decision to withdraw care.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, Hancock told police she had two to four mixed drinks one hour before driving home.

Hancock's blood alcohol level was 0.112 two hours after the crash. She was granted a $15,000 bond during a court hearing on Tuesday and was ordered to wear a GPS device which also tracks alcohol use, according to the Virginia-Pilot.

She was charged with DUI maiming but police may upgrade the charge to DUI manslaughter.
British magazine Grazia U.K. has apologized to Lupita Nyong'o after the actress accused it of altering her hair on its front cover "to fit a more Eurocentric notion" of beauty.

The Academy Award winner tweeted before-and-after images, saying the magazine "edited out and smoothed" her hair. She added the hashtag "dtmh (don't touch my hair)."

On Instagram, the Kenya-raised star of "12 Years a Slave" and "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" said "there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style and texture."

The magazine said Friday that it "apologized unreservedly to Lupita Nyong'o." It said it had not altered the images itself or asked the photographer to do so, and "is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages."


The mainstream media freaked out over a fake story about President Trump overfeeding fish in Japan and criticized him for not taking questions during a press conference in China, but several of Trumps achievements from his Asia trip were underreported. In other words, the anti-Trump media are, as usual, picking and choosing what to focus on based on their usual narrative.

We've seen everything from the feeding frenzy around the false koi story where video was actually edited to make the president look like an unpolished rube to sanctimonious criticism around the president not taking questions while with the Chinese president when his predecessor also didn't take questions as well during his first trip there, The Hill media columnist Joe Concha told Fox News.

Trump delivered a powerful speech Friday before a summit of Asian leaders in Vietnam, but CNN decided not to bother airing the late-night speech. The increasingly liberal CNN didnt even mention the speech on air until a brief update in the 3 a.m. ET hour, while Fox News and MSNBC had reporters on the ground and covered the speech live.

In the speech that CNN viewers never saw, Trump reiterated his America First message, saying he will not let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. A slew of high-profile Twitter users, who apparently dont watch CNN, simply saw the presidents speech as an opportunity to mock Trump for not fighting in the Vietnam War.

In addition, numerous U.S. companies announced $250 billion worth of deals in China, coinciding with Trumps visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. To wit: Boeing reached a $37 billion agreement to sell 300 planes to China; General Electric picked up three deals in China valued at a combined $3.5 billion; and Qualcomm reached three nonbinding deals to sell $12 billion in semiconductors to Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo over the next three years. None of the job-creating deals received the attention they deserved from mainstream media.

The average American is probably more familiar with a report that Trump was offered women being sent to his room in Russia during the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant. ABC and CBS each spent significant time covering the nonstory -- but predictably muted the fact that Trump didnt take the offer seriously.

Lost in all of this is the $250 billion dollar trade deal can actually impact our economy that gets relatively buried because it lacks sizzle and character assessments."  Joe Concha

Lost in all of this is the $250 billion dollar trade deal can actually impact our economy that gets relatively buried because it lacks sizzle and character assessments, Concha said.

The Associated Press even tried to undermine the impact of the announced deals, saying they are more about the art of diplomacy than the art of the deal  a dig at the title of one of Trumps books -- while painting the $250 billion agreements as ceremonial and mostly about symbolism.

Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor echoed Concha and said the mainstream media is spinning a successful foreign policy trip into a disaster because that's how they want it perceived.

They are manufacturing controversy, Gainor told Fox News. First we had the bogus koi fish story where Trump dumped the fish food into the pond doing exactly as Prime Minister Abe had done. Yet media tried to hype it as awful. Now we have journalists complaining Trump didn't take questions in China when Obama didn't either.
In September 2010, I was at the top of my field, working as an Army explosive ordnance disposal expert in Afghanistan. And then a bomb exploded beneath me.

When I awoke days later in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, I had to grapple with the realization that my legs, along with my usefulness on the battlefield, were likely gone. I would never be an asset to a mission again. If anything, I would be a detriment.

This Veterans Day, however, I now know that I was one of the lucky ones. My injuries were visible  plain for all to see. I was the beneficiary of endless support from doctors, people in our community and veterans organizations that helped me through recovery and helped me to realize I was still only limited by my own drive, grit and determination.

When people see my two legs are missing, they know immediately the assistance I need  help down a step, a cane, or a friendly shoulder to lean on. The kindness of everyone  even complete strangers  brings me feelings of immense gratitude.

Rarely a week goes by that I dont get a call from a veteran who is struggling with suicidal thoughts. As a society, and especially as a military family, we must do more to support these men and women who return home with the injuries we cannot see.

But many scars of our nations wounded warriors are not visible. The recurring memories of an intense moment of combat, the damp feeling of a friends blood soaking your own uniform, and the sound of a brothers last gasp of air will stay with me and my fellow warriors all our lives.

For many, these memories will be a part of a haunting labeled to most as post-traumatic stress. Far too often, my peers are haunted in silence without the same support of a grateful nation encouraging them through their struggle.

Rarely a week goes by that I dont get a call from a veteran who is struggling with suicidal thoughts. As a society, and especially as a military family, we must do more to support these men and women who return home with the injuries we cannot see.

Im now a member of Congress from Florida, waging a different kind of battle: to give Americas military veterans the help they have earned for defending our country.

One way we can support these men and women is by passing a bill that I introduced earlier this year called the Oath of Exit. Working with those who have experienced the weight of post-traumatic stress firsthand, I and others wrote the Oath of Exit to be a strong step forward in doing all we can to prevent even one more veteran from harming himself or herself.

The Oath of Exit creates a voluntary pledge for members of the armed forces to ask their brothers and sisters in arms for help  and to provide help when called upon.

That help is badly needed. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an average of 20 veterans commit suicide every day and a veterans risk of suicide is 21 percent higher compared to an adult who has not served in the armed forces.

Coupled with increased awareness and resources to help these veterans, the Oath of Exit will provide an even stronger culture of support within our military family to combat these awful trends.

The Trump administration and Congress have already made supporting veterans a top priority. Just this week, the House passed more than a dozen bills to support veterans and improve the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But there is much more work that needs to be done. The Oath of Exit passed the House earlier this year as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act, but wasnt included in the Senate version of the bill. We need another strong push to get the Oath of Exit across the finish line.

This should not be a partisan issue. On deployments around the world and at military bases in our own country, there are no Democrats or Republicans  only American patriots, proudly wearing the uniform of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines or Coast Guard.

Our military culture is one where the most important commitments are consistently spoken. The Soldiers Creed, Ranger Creed, Special Forces Creed, Warrior Ethos, Army Values and Pledge of Allegiance are all examples of statements we put into heartfelt words.

These are the pledges that are important for us to uphold, so we repeat them nearly each day. This is because honor is more than just a word to members of the military and veterans. When we commit to something, we follow through.

This Veterans Day, my request of all my fellow Americans  beyond celebrating the amazing patriots who have defended America in an unbroken line since 1775  is to remember that not all injuries of war look the same. Many dont look like anything.

Take a moment to thank the veterans in your life this Veterans Day, but more importantly, speak with them, really connect with them and let them know youve got their six.
Todays members of the United States military are tomorrows veterans. For the people now serving in our nations armed forces, who put their lives on the line to protect us at home, the very least we can do is support them and their families.

Military families sacrifice a lot, right alongside the service members they love. Being apart on holidays, birthdays and other special occasions is just the tip of the iceberg.

Im not a veteran, so I can only imagine that peace of mind rarely comes to those whose loved ones live and serve overseas, particularly those who put themselves in harms way.

We have a duty to military families, plain and simple. Not only to respect them, although thats without a doubt part of it, but also to stand with them, to offer a hand when they cant catch a break and lend our voices when theirs arent heard.

This is the new normal we should create together. This is the type of country we should want to live in. Because no matter your stance on war, we should all get behind the people who serve.

So, this Veterans Day, how can you begin repaying our debt? You can donate your resources (time, money, expertise) to the countless organizations that work for our people in uniform. If youre not sure where to start, here are a few to keep in mind:

One nonprofit thats making it easier to support military families is DonorsChoose.org. The organization assists students and teachers across the U.S. by helping to provide the tools and experiences they need for a great education.

You can now go onto the website and donate to schools in areas where high percentages of students come from military families. This means you can assist members of the military by helping their kids receive the quality education that every child deserves, but doesnt always get.

One group of students in a military community in South Carolina recently had their dreams of possessing their own technology center realized when all four of their projects were funded. With 16 new Chromebooks, these preschool through second graders now have the opportunity to thrive in a global environment that is dependent upon the knowledge and use of technology, as their teacher, a former military member, has always hoped. This new education, she believes, will encourage curiosity and reveal to them the joy of learning.

If you give to DonorsChoose.org, Ill match $1 for every $1 you donate so that more military children like those in this vets classroom can explore their interests and realize their potential.

In addition to military families, we need to remember and support our veterans.

At every stage in a vets post-service life, we (the civilians) should be allies, and we have the chance to do so in all sorts of areas of interest. If youre passionate about technology, consider giving to Vets in Tech, an organization that offers reintegration services by connecting veterans with the nations tech network, resources, and programs.

Or maybe youre invested in gender diversity and inclusion. Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of Americas campaign She Who Borne the Battle is all about bringing full recognition to and improving services for the women who have served this country.

Or, interested in making a global impact? Check out Blue Star Families, which has 35 global communities and chapters that reach 1.5 million military families per year and works to better understand and provide solutions to the challenges that military families are currently facing around the world.

Or perhaps youre drawn to promoting physical and mental well-being. The Bob Woodruff Foundation facilitates holistic recovery among wounded American vets, navigating the 46,000 nonprofits that serve veterans to invest in high-impact programs that ensure sustainable success in rehabilitation, education and employment, and quality of life.

Whatever you choose, find a way to show military families and veterans that the people of this country stand with them. Otherwise, we dont deserve their service.
Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in The Resurgent.

Up front, here is what I think Roy Moore should do. If he continues to deny the allegations, he should hold a press conference and tell people he wants to clear his name. In the interests of helping the President and avoiding a Democrat, he will continue to campaign for the office and then, if elected, resign so that the Governor can appoint his replacement so that he might focus on clearing his name. He can call this move the Corzine gambit.

Now heres a post to make everyone mad. I really dont blame Roy Moores voters for sticking with him and I know they are going to come under withering attacks for standing by their man. They dont deserve it. Clearly a lot of people would prefer to avoid dealing with how we got to this point of moral decay among conservatives who used to really believe character counted.

Well, just this past Sunday a militant atheist shot up a church in Texas, killing about half the congregation. One of those killed was still in the womb, but the baby gets counted as a person to boost the arguments for gun control, otherwise the baby would just be a fetus.

And many on the left on social media attacked the congregants of the church. Some said they got what they deserved. Meanwhile, the media ran with stories of chainsaws attached to machine guns distorting all the basic facts out of willful ignorance.

A week before, a Muslim ran over a bunch of people in New York while Democrats were patting themselves on the back for showing Trump voters running over muslim kids on television.

A few weeks before that, a CBS lawyer lost her job for mocking the dead in Las Vegas that they deserved what they got after a mass shooting, the motive behind which is still unknown.

While all of this is going on, a cake baker is headed to the Supreme Court because he had the audacity to bake a cake for a gay wedding, but he would not do all the decorations the gay couple wanted. So the baker got compared to a Nazi. He will join a florist at the Court who is being put out of business because despite having gay clients, she wont provide flowers for gay weddings.

People are being harassed for refusing to cheer on men with mental illness who think they are women and the left thinks people in Alabama should have to let men use the ladies bathroom. The left is openly counting the days before churches can have their tax exempt status revoked for not embracing gay marriage. Christian private schools will be the first targets. The media on a near weekly basis runs stories that paint culturally conservative voters in a negative light, often distorting basic facts for the sake of narrative.

So youll have to excuse Trump voters and Moore voters for thinking the left in this country with a complicit media is out to get them.

Along comes a story about Roy Moore, a happily married man, that involves facts from 30 to 40 years ago and many of the same people whove spent a long time covering for people like Harvey Weinstein and are still covering for Hollywood pedophiles are piling on the man. The GOP, who hates cultural conservatives anyway, was quick to pile on.

I dont blame the Roy Moore voters for thinking people are out to get them because people really are out to get them.

Moore is a fighter for these people. He purports to share their values. And all the people his voters hate happen to hate Roy Moore. They talk about innocence until proven guilty, but theyre ready to run Moore out of town. I dont blame Moores voters, but I do have to blame those who are trying to defend Moore and dismiss the accusations or attack the women coming forward. Conservatism keeps being degraded by a bunch of people who talk Jesus and behave like Satan.

Yall, I think the facts of the case as presented by the Washington Post are pretty damning. If I were a voter in Alabama, I would probably have to sit it out. But there are a lot of voters who are really damn tired of the culture war and they just want to be left alone. But the left wont leave them alone. Theyre coming for their churches tax exempt status. They are coming to force them to either get on board the secular progressive agenda or go into hiding. They are coming for their kids and their guns as well.

So now you are telling them they are really awful, bad people if they stick with Roy Moore instead of allowing into office a man who will side with the people who are out to get them?

I suspect theyll take your aspersions and hate. They already think you hate them. And because the other side will accept nothing less than the destruction of their way of life, even if they want to walk away from Roy Moore they cant. Because the other side is bent on their destruction and they think, rightly, that Roy Moore is the only one standing with them.

So we have the luxury of turning our nose up at it. And we can say character counts. But they believe character and morals count too and while they might find Moores actions reprehensible, they know the other side wont be happy until their kids are brainwashed into thinking boys can be girls, a babys brains can be harvested with taxpayer subsides, and guns should be made extinct.

You really want to make them choose? You helped cause an existential crisis where they have every good reason to believe their way of life and their values are at stake and you want them to surrender? I cant blame them for refusing even if I disagree. If youre demanding the other side surrender in the culture war, dont be surprised when theyre willing to stand with people theyd never otherwise consider in the name of protecting themselves and their families.
Well, it turns out man-spreading is not the most pressing threat facing the New York City subway system after all.

And neither are the trains that break down in the under belly of the city leaving passengers stranded for hours with a continuously playing pan flute ensemble.

Click here for a free subscription to Todds newsletter  a must-read for Conservatives!

Nor is the most pressing issue the muggers or perverts manhandling women or homeless people urinating on seats or giant rats prowling subway stations.

No, ladies and gentlemen  the greatest threat facing the Big Apples subway system is train conductors using the words ladies and gentlemen.

The New York Post reports the Metropolitan Transit Authority has ordered all subway personnel to refrain from addressing riders as ladies and gentlemen.

Instead, staffers have been told they must use gender neutral words like riders, passengers, and everyone according to a memorandum obtained exclusively by the Post.

Please dont use any greeting other than these, the memo reads.

Subway workers say political correctness has derailed the nations largest subway system.

They are trying to be politically correct, one worker told the Post. They are acknowledging that they have some transgender riders. They dont want to offend anyone.

An MTA spokesperson told the Post that gender issues were a consideration for the move.

I suspect it was a preemptive strike by the MTA to avoid some sort of legal action taken by the LGBTQI and the letter A community.

Heaven help the poor cis-gender train conductor who inadvertently mis-genders a gender-fluid passenger.

Gender fluidity, by the way, is the latest fad in the sex and gender revolution. Followers ascribe to a belief that theres really no such thing as male or female.

For example, you could be a male passenger on the B Train at 34th Street-Herald Square, but you could identify as a female passenger by the time you reach Rockefeller Center.

I know, its all very confusing, ladies and gentlemen (my apologies).

Lord only knows what the next stop is going to be on this gender-bender train ride into gender inclusivity. I wonder if theyd be okay if the conductors just hollered out, You people?
Last Saturday night, Callista and I had the great privilege of attending the Marine Corps Ball in Rome, Italy. The event commemorated the 242nd birthday of the United States Marine Corps, and we were lucky to have arrived in Rome in time to attend.

Former Private First Class Harold Blunk was the guest speaker. In May 1968, during the Vietnam War, he played a major role in the brutal battle for Foxtrot Ridge. This melee was part of the larger battle for Khe Sanh (one of the largest set piece battles with the North Vietnamese Army in the entire war).

Private Blunks role was powerfully captured in the citation written for the Silver Star he was awarded for the indisputable valor and bravery he exhibited in the face of combat:

"In spite of the withering enemy fire, he continued to call in fire missions, adjust the fire around the perimeter, and coordinate the adjustments with the forward observer in the company command post. Throughout the hours of darkness, he and his fellow Marines repelled numerous enemy attacks on their position. Private First Class Blunk's leadership and courage in the face of overwhelming odds rallied his fellow Marines and was decisive in their holding the Crow's Nest. With ammunition running critically low, he and another Marine left their besieged perimeter on more than one occasion to collect enemy weapons and ammunition to continue their fight against the enemy."

Now, 49 years later, Harold Blunk is a successful businessman and active citizen, who is delighted to visit Marine celebrations and remind younger Marines of the bond of courage and sacrifice which binds them all together.

With Veterans Day approaching, I couldn't help but think of Harold and other veterans I have known and who have helped shape my life. Here are a few:

One of the most decent men I ever worked with was the late Republican leader Bob Michel. In the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest in 1944, he was in a foxhole when a German sniper killed the man next to him. He always wondered why he had been spared...

My stepfather, Bob Gingrich, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He spent 27 years in the Army and felt he was serving a cause larger than himself. Much of my devotion to and passion for public service grew from the example he set and his attitude and habits.

Callista had four uncles who served in World War II. Three served in Europe and made it home. Uncle Louie served in the Pacific and was killed in the last months of the war. He is buried on Luzon.

One of the most decent men I ever worked with was the late Republican leader Bob Michel. He landed in Normandy and fought his way across France. In the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest in 1944, he was in a foxhole when a German sniper killed the man next to him. He always wondered why he had been spared, and felt God wanted him to devote his life to serving others.

One of the most amazing men I have worked with is former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. Severely wounded in Italy in the last months of World War II, he spent more than three years in rehabilitation hospitals. Bob then forced himself to get well enough to earn a law degree, run for office, and serve 27 years in Congress. He eventually became Senate Majority Leader and a Republican Presidential nominee. Today, at 94 years old, Bob Dole still goes to work every day.

Our freedom, prosperity, and safety depend on the bravery and loyalty of veterans like these and the monumental sacrifices they make for our country. We are infinitely grateful for their service, as well as for the support and countless sacrifices made by their families, who often spend long periods, periods of intense worrying, without their loved ones.

This Veterans Day is a good time to remind ourselves how much we owe the brave men and women who make great sacrifices to defend America and our freedoms.

To all of our veterans and those who continue to serve our country, thank you for your dedication and service. May God continue to bless and protect you, and these United States of America.
A couple of years ago, while appearing on CNN with Van Jones, former Obama Administration Special Adviser for Green Energy, he shared something personal.

In a moment of transparency, the Yale-educated lawyer said that the public smearing he received during his tenure as the Green Energy Czar felt like someone ripped off [his] face and put it on someone elses body. He said he didnt recognize the person they were describing in press accounts.

Conservatives had little to no sympathy for him or others, but recent events have hopefully shed a different light on the matter.

Confirmation hearings are becoming something of a blood sport when the nominees are people who adhere to orthodox Christian views on abortion and matters of sexual identity.

First, there was Russell Vought, President Trumps nominee for Deputy Director of Office of Management and Budget. Sen. Bernie Sanders questioned his Christian faith and belief in the centrality of Jesus Christ for salvation, suggesting basically that his belief makes him unfit for office. Then there was the Dogma lives loudly within you remark to Judge Amy Coney Barrett by Sen. Diane Feinstein denigrating the Notre Dame Law Professor and mother of sevens Catholic faith. The senators outrage was based on an article that basically said the opposite of what was charged.

What is happening? Not since the JFK days has there been such hostility to faith. Sadly, back then it was from Protestants, but this is a new, equally insidious version from the left.

The final awakening on this issue came to Concerned Women for America due to Washington rumors of my imminent appointment to the office of Ambassador-At-Large for the Office of Global Womens Issues. This is a position that was created by Secretary Hillary Clinton to assist with the advancement of womens equality and the empowerment of women and girls around the world.

The ensuing outrage from the left was eye-opening. At the mere hint of the idea that a pro-life, conservative woman could be in the running opened up a flood of hostile and, in many cases, false or misleading articles written by leftist media.

Suddenly, the idea of fake news took on new meaning. Left-of-center reporters mostly relied on an opposition research dossier which quotes formerly-affiliated employees from CWA  much of which was dated years before my tenure  accepted without checking false statements by abortion activists, or, worse yet, isolated quotes out of context, much like in the case of Judge Barrett.

Just to name a few:

They claim we oppose birth control, when in truth CWA, and I personally, like the majority of Evangelical women, draw a bright line between birth control and abortion. We have never taken a position against it, but we do support the rights of conscience of women like the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Left, however, wishes to force everyone, even nuns who take a vow of celibacy and poverty, to fund abortion and abortion-inducing drugs. Their lack of tolerance for women of faith is shocking.

They claim that we never support rape-and-incest exceptions; this is one in which they twisted a theological piece that I wrote for the Christian Post. The truth is that every child is innocent. I value every child and her mother and addressed in that piece that abortion harms the woman as well as her child. I believe women deserve better, and as the church, we must offer them better options.

As the survivor of an assault and attempted rape, I know that this issue is deeply painful and complicated, and suffering women deserve our help and grace.

I believe that abortion is the most cynical answer to the plight of women, but the left sees it as the first and best response.

The story of women who regret their abortions is prevalent. Pro-life Americans offer love and hope to women every day in pregnancy help centers, through adoption and through material help. Regardless, in the very piece they criticized, I end by saying, Regardless of her choice, we must pray for her!

As a practical matter, every federal legislative effort and most state bills endorsed by CWA contain rape and incest exceptions. I also addressed this in my book, if people had bothered to look.

  I should add however that I have and do support legislation that contains a rape-incest exception if it is essential to protect the vast majority of babies. Public policy is downstream of public opinion, and we still have work to do. (Feisty and Feminine, 89)

They falsely claim we support the criminalization of homosexuality or transgenderism, when in truth, I have never believed it and said the opposite specifically in my book. We can disagree on matters of policy for our military or our schools, but we are called to love our neighbor, and that includes our LGBTQ neighbors.

Condemning unkindness is not a religious or political stance; it is a human one, and our message transcends those divisions. This means that we condemn liberal attacks against Christian and conservative views; but it also means that we must take a stand against nastiness toward gay people or any group for that matter. We absolutely must condemn countries operating under sharia law where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death. In Nigeria in early 2015, fourteen men were dragged from their beds and attacked by men with clubs and iron bars who said they wanted to cleanse their neighborhood of gay people. And who could forget the video of ISIS pushing a gay man off of a roof to his death in Mosul, Iraq? We have to speak out against these kinds of atrocities, and against governments that condone them. Violence of any kind has no place among those who seek peace, and as followers of Christ, it is our duty to stand up against this kind of injustice. We need to condemn violence abroad as well as here in the United States. But even short of violence, we need to consider whether we do whats right when people say something unkind about gay or transgender people and those who dont share our opinions or lifestyles. Because heres the problem: people practicing these lifestyles cant hear our words of love and hope when we are allowing other people to define us. (From my book "Feisty & Feminine," Page 70)

They claim that CWA and I oppose the Violence Against Women Act when in truth we have criticized its efficacy. We suggested that there needs to be better oversight ending the waste and fraud by grantees and instead that the federal offer block grants to the states in order to address what even supporters admit is too broad to be effective. (From my book "Feisty & Feminine," Page 44)

The left is fine with spending $400 million per year on programs that arent doing enough to protect women. Just because the bill is named well doesnt mean it is stopping domestic violence. Again, women deserve better.

They claim that I do not support anti-bullying efforts against children who identify as LGBTQ. That is 100 percent false.

In the piece that sparked the hatred, I said, I despise children being bullied for being gay just as much as for being obese or for being from another country or simply being different or for whatever reason. How about we teach our kids, Be ye kind one to another.

In my book, I went further. While I absolutely support an end to any and all forms of bullying, I can't help but notice how ironic it is that conservative Christian kids in our school system are bullied for their own beliefs. What are our schools doing to protect them? ("Feisty & Feminine," 56)

And just to be clear (despite this being the height of silliness), I dont hate "Frozen."

Interestingly, reporters conveniently left out all of my lifelong work caring for the least of these on issues like fighting sex trafficking and fighting for cleaning up the horrible backlog of testing for rape kits ("Feisty & Feminine," Page 46-48).

I also worked with others to successfully pass into law the Second Chance Act (Public Law 110-199), which tears down barriers for prisoners reentering society. As a member of Right on Crime, I am working for restorative justice reform, including the use of drug and youth courts and access to mental health care.

But lets be honest, it does not matter what I say or what I believe. The left must twist my words, because at the end of the day, a pro-life woman with an orthodox Christian worldview is unacceptable to them.

It is becoming a common theme in confirmation hearings. Both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of demagoguery as Van Jones suggested, and it needs to stop.

Now, to address the rumor of an appointment to the Trump administration: The honest answer is that there is great appeal to the idea of working for President Trump and the opportunity to work on behalf of women around the globe.

It is my hope that under President Trump the Office of Global Womens Issues will stand for the rights of women to seek fulfillment of their basic needs, to feed and clothe themselves and their children, to fully participate in society, and to be defended against human rights abuses such as violence, killing, discrimination, and false imprisonment. As full participants in society, women should have the agency to pursue education and economic livelihood and to vote or run for office.

There is clearly work to be done. American conservatives often view the world through the lens of our own experience, forgetting that there are millions of women and girls around the world denied basic human rights and treated by their government or culture as literally second class citizens facing discrimination at every turn.

I would be honored to serve my nation and President Trump; however, I do not feel God is leading me to leave Concerned Women for America at this time. We have important work to do and are in a season of amazing growth. Most importantly, I have about 18 months left before my last child goes off to college.

In Washington, ones family is often used as an excuse, but I can assure I am sincere. My husband and I, like most parents, have subjugated our own desires in many ways to do our best to parent.

I do not believe that it would be right for me or for him to travel the world during this season of our lives. Others may be able to do so with aplomb, but we cannot.

There may be a time at which President Trump or some other president will call upon me to serve my country within his or her administration at a later season.

The left can relax for now, but who knows about another day? But know this, if it is ever Gods will for me to serve, nothing they can do or say will stop it.
In an earlier far more innocent era, my mother told me you will be judged by the friends you keep. For many Americans, this was axiomatic. However, in this cynical era, you are often judged by who you know or who knows you. In some sense, this is a Kafkaesque arrangement where judgments and the assignment of guilt are made without knowledge or forethought.

Take, for example, the stories emanating from revelations of the Paradise Papers. This massive trove of 13.4 million records was founded 100 years ago and operates in various points around the globe managing the assets of very wealthy people. Reflecting millions of loans, financial transactions and e-mails, the data reveal how wealthy individuals manage their portfolios.

Recently a German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung, unraveled the connections indicating how the wealthy sometimes avoid taxes and make business deals.

Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, was caught in the web of these revelations. Despite divesting himself of most business interests when he joined the Trump cabinet, he kept a shipping company, Navigator Holdings, through a chain of companies in the Cayman Islands. Discussing Ross Paradise Papers file Jon Swaine of the Guardian noted that Navigator is a company operated by Russian President Vladimir Putins son-in-law an allegation that put Ross in the journalistic crosshairs.

The very mention of a transaction in which Russia is included is now branded collusion.

Navigator is paid $20 million a year to ship gas out of Russia for a Russian company named Sibur and Sibur is co-owned by Kirill Shamalov, Putins son-in-law. Commenting on this matter, Ross said there is nothing whatsoever improper about Navigator having a relationship with Sibur. He continued, The fact that it happens to be called a Russian company does not mean that theres any evil in it. That is true on several levels.

This is a third party transaction in which the investor through a holding company joined a deal worth at least $200 a year. Mr. Ross probably knew very little about the transaction and, my guess is, he was unaware of any Russian involvement.

Moreover, the deal does not violate any laws, nor is there any suspicion that is the case. It would appear as if this is a witch hunt in which any reference to Russia is a form of collusion. Clearly this falls into the category of false news. But it has even darker implications.

The very mention of a transaction in which Russia is included is now branded collusion. You might even describe this phenomenon as contemporary McCarthyism, albeit McCarthy made allegations about those who joined the Communist Party as opposed to present claims that have a gossamer thin relationship to Russian officials.

My guess is these claims arent going anywhere, certainly not into the hands of Mr. Mueller, the Special Counsel. But these violations of privacy and reputation should not be overlooked. It is precisely the frivolous investigations of this kind that discourage good people from government service.

The Paradise Papers are certainly not the Pumpkin Papers and, in time, their salacious stories will be replaced. Unfortunately, it will leave in its wake a number of unsubstantiated claims and reputations that have been unfairly besmirched.
Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore lashed out Thursday at what he called "the Obama-Clinton machine's liberal media lapdogs" after The Washington Post reported on a woman's claims that the former judge and staunch social conservative initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14.

In a series of tweets Thursday evening, Moore claimed "The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal  even inflict physical harm  if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives."

Amid calls for hime to drop out of the race, Moore added, "Our nation is at a crossroads right now  both spiritually and politically. Our children and grandchildrens futures are on the line. So rest assured  I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!"

The Post story centered on allegations made by Leigh Corfman, now 53. She told the newspaper that Moore, then an assistant district attorney, first approached her in 1979 outside a courtroom in Alabama where she was sitting with her mother. On another occasion, she said Moore, then 32, took her to his home in the woods and kissed her.

During a subsequent visit, Corfman reportedly claimed he took off her shirt and pants; touched her over her bra and underwear; and guided her hand to his underwear. She said the two did not have sexual intercourse, and that she ended up getting dressed and asking Moore to take her home, according to the Post.

I wanted it over with  I wanted out, she told the Post, apparently recalling her train of thought at the time. Moore did take her home, she said.

The report caused immediate problems for Moore with his own party as he heads into the Dec. 12 election against Democrat Doug Jones. Several GOP senators called on him to step aside if the allegations are true  and at least one senator, Arizonas John McCain, said he should drop out regardless.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who backed Moores rival Luther Strange in the GOP primary, said in a statement: "If these allegations are true, he must step aside."

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., head of the Senate GOP campaign arm, called the allegations deeply troubling and said: If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election.

Jones' campaign told multiple news outlets: Roy Moore needs to answer these serious charges.

But Moores campaign issued a statement saying the report is baseless and false.

National liberal organizations know their chosen candidate Doug Jones is in a death spiral, and this is their last ditch Hail Mary, Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said. Judge Roy Moore is winning with a double-digit lead. So it is no surprise, with just over four weeks remaining, in a race for the U.S. Senate with national implications, that the Democratic Party and the countrys most liberal newspaper would come up with a fabrication of this kind.

This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation, he said.

The Post noted that the legal age of consent in the state is 16, and sexual contact by anyone 19 or older with anyone between 12 and 16 years old is considered second-degree sexual abuse.

The statute of limitations, though, has long since passed.

The Post interviewed three other women who were teenagers at the time who claimed Moore pursued them when he was in his 30s, though he did not force them into any type of sexual relationship.

I have prayed over this, Corfman told the Post as to why she came forward, All I know is that I cant sit back and let this continue, let him continue without the mask being removed.

Alabama's Republican governor, Kay Ivey, responded: These allegations are deeply disturbing. I will hold judgment until we know the facts. The people of Alabama deserve to know the truth and will make their own decisions.

Fox News' David Lewkowict contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump wrapped up his two-day visit to China by tweeting that he did not blame Beijing's leaders for its unbalanced trade relationship with the United States.

In a series of tweets as he departed China early Friday, Trump said he and China's Xi Jinping had "very productive" meetings on "both trade and the subject of North Korea."

The president wrote that "the incompetence of past [administrations] for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions.

"How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue?" Trump went on. "I would've done same!"

Trump's Twitter posts echoed remarks Thursday, in which he said China "must immediately address the unfair trade practices" that drive a "shockingly" large trade deficit, along with barriers to market access, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.

"But I don't blame China," he said. "After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?"

To applause, Trump said, "I give China great credit."

Reacting from afar, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said Trump's comments "make the United States look weak and as if we are bowing to China's whim. ... Instead of giving China credit for stealing American jobs, the president should be holding China accountable." Menendez, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is on trial for bribery.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered a blunt assessment of China's trade surplus with the United States, which in October widened by 12.2 percent from a year earlier to $26.6 billion. The total surplus with the United States for the first 10 months of the year was $223 billion.

"I think the best way to characterize it is that while we appreciate the long hours and the effort that our Chinese counterparts have put into those trade discussions, quite frankly in the grand scheme of a $300- to $500-billion trade deficit, the things that have been achieved are pretty small," Tillerson told reporters in Beijing.

Tillerson also acknowledged there were differences in "tactics and the timing and how far to go with pressure" on North Korea. But he insisted that the two countries shared common objectives.

"There is no disagreement on North Korea," he said.

The comments by Trump and his top diplomat came after lengthy meetings with Xi. The day included announcements that the U.S. and China had signed agreements valued at more than $250 billion for products including U.S.-made jet engines, auto parts, liquefied natural gas and beef.

Such contract signings, a fixture of foreign leaders' visits to Beijing, are intended to defuse complaints about China's trade policies.

Xi promised a more open business environment for foreign companies in China and said his country was committed to further opening its economy to outside investment.

"China will not close its doors" and will open them "even wider," he said, pledging that foreign companies in China, including American ones, would find the market "more open, more transparent and more orderly."

It is unclear how far China will go to fulfill its pledges. Previous U.S. administrations have hailed market-opening promises only to be left disappointed.

Before arriving in China, Trump had delivered a stern message to Beijing, using an address in South Korea to call on China, North Korea's biggest trade partner, to do more to confront and isolate the North.

Trump on Thursday appeared far more conciliatory, thanking China for its efforts and saying he'd been encouraged by his conversations.

"China can fix this problem easily. And quickly. And I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," Trump said. "If he works on it hard it will happen."

Trump also was feted at a state dinner that featured a video montage of the president's visit, as well as footage of his granddaughter, Arabella, the daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, singing a traditional Chinese song in Mandarin.

On Friday, Trump was scheduled to stop in Da Nang, Vietnam, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference  the first of multiple summits he'll attend on his first trip to Asia as president.

He may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the conference. Tillerson said Thursday the two sides were still discussing whether they had "sufficient substance" to talk about in such a meeting.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is no longer listed as part of a joint fundraising agreement with Alabama Senate nominee Roy Moore, as the candidate battles allegations he sought romantic relationships with teenage females as an adult.

Paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday shows the NRSC is not part of the fundraising committee with the Moore campaign -- though it was listed last month alongside the Alabama Republican Party and the Republican National Committee.

The news about the fundraising agreement was first reported by Politico.

Neither the NRSC nor the Moore campaign immediately returned a request for comment from Fox News on Friday. It's unclear whether the change in status in the FEC report is related to the new allegations.

ROY MOORE TURMOIL PROMPTS TALK OF LUTHER STRANGE WRITE-IN CAMPAIGN IN SENATE RACE

Top Senate Republicans, including the head of the NRSC, have called on Moore, 70, to step aside if the allegations are true.

Moore adamantly denies them, calling the accusations false and the story a desperate political attack.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Moore, the former chief justice of Alabamas Supreme Court and an ardent social conservative, pursued relationships with four teenage women dating back to the 1970s when he was in his early thirties and single.

One woman told the paper she was 14 when the 32-year-old Moore asked her out and made sexual advances.

Fox News Jason Donner and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into an alleged plan involving former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and a possible deal with Turkey, Fox News confirms  after a report that a proposal was floated to pay him and his son millions to deliver a controversial cleric to the Turkish government.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the alleged plan being investigated would have paid Flynn and his son Michael Flynn Jr. up to $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government.

The Journal cited people with knowledge of the FBIs inquiries saying the bureau is asking individuals about a December meeting in New York City with Flynn and Turkish government representatives where Gulens removal was discussed.

Lawyers for Flynn said in a statement that the allegations were "outrageous and prejudicial" before concluding, "they are false."

"Out of respect for the process of the various investigations regarding the 2016 campaign, we have intentionally avoided responding to every rumor or allegation raised in the media," Robert Kelner, Stephen Anthony and Brian Smith wrote. "But today's news cycle has brought allegations about General Flynn, ranging from kidnapping to bribery, that are so outrageous and prejudicial that we are making an exception to our usual rule."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long sought for the U.S. to extradite Gulen, who resides in the United States. The Journal reported that the alleged discussions involved possibly moving Gulen to a Turkish prison island.

The investigation is part of Muellers expansive probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with Trump associates. The probe has resulted so far in the indictment of Trumps former campaign manager Paul Manafort, relating to his work for the government in Ukraine.

Sources told the Journal its not clear whether the Gulen plan resulted in any money changing hands.

Flynn used to lobby for Turkish interests. He left the Trump White House after misleading Vice President Pence on his contacts with the Russian ambassador. His Turkey and Russia ties are now the subject of various investigations.

Asked about the New York meeting in question, a White House spokesman told the Journal: We dont have any evidence that such a meeting took place. And if it did it take place it happened not withstanding the transition.

Fox News Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
If the Republicans were already under pressure to put points on the board, the Democratic wins on Tuesday have turned tax reform into the Super Bowl.

By their own admission, they need a major piece of legislation to take to the voters in 2018, whether the election results in Virginia and New Jersey are being overblown or not.

And yet they are struggling. Tax reform is a noble goal but an ugly process, with too much money at stake and too many vested interests fighting over each deduction. And President Trump's goal of getting this done by Christmas may prove exceedingly difficult.

By the way, his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, didnt help matters by telling CNBCs John Harwood, "We see the whole trickle-down through the economy, and that's good for the economy." He may be unaware that "trickle-down economics" is the pejorative label that Democrats slapped on Ronald Reagans approach to taxes.

The core of the political argument is whether or not the middle class is getting a tax cut, as the administration contends. The New York Times, in its own analysis, says no: "Nearly half of all middle-class families would pay more in taxes in 2026 than they would under current rules if the proposed House tax bill became law, and about one-third would pay more in 2018."

If the projects by the Times and other groups are right, it will be easier for critics to brand the effort as mainly helping the wealthy.

Senate Republicans complicated matters yesterday by pushing ahead with a plan that differs from the House, since they would have to be reconciled as the clock keeps ticking. The Ways and Means panel passed the House bill yesterday.

The senators would break with Trump by delaying his top priority, slashing corporate tax rates, from next year until 2019. The reason is simpleto save $100 billionbecause if the impact on the deficit is too large, the Senate loses special rules allowing the bill to be passed with 51 votes.

In other changes, the Senate Republicans would keep the popular mortgage tax break capped at $1 million, while the House side would cut that in half. But the Senate would be less generous in eliminating the ability to deduct state and local taxes, while the GOP congressmen would just cut it back.

Bottom line: This is all about winners and losers. Voters who get to deduct the most in state and local taxes tend to live in such blue states as New York and California. Voters who could use another half-million in mortgage deductions tend to be richer. Corporate leaders who tend to support Republicans would be most upset about the delay in cutting their companies tax rate from 35 to 20 percent.

No one needs to remind the Republicans that they fell short on Tuesday and havent passed a major bill this year. They badly want a win. But tiptoeing through the tax-reform minefield was never going to be easy.
Many national Republican leaders pulled their support for Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate, in the wake of allegations claiming he had inappropriate sexual contact with teenage girls.

The Washington Post reported that four women accused Moore of initiating sexual contact with them in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he was an assistant district attorney in his early 30s. One of the women, Leigh Corfman, told the newspaper that Moore had sexual contact with her when she was 14. The age of consent in Alabama is 16.

Several additional women have since come forward to accuse Moore of sexually inappropriate behavior.

Moore denied the allegations, saying in a statement obtained by Fox News that the allegations are "based on a lie supported by innuendo."

"It seems that in the political arena, to say that something is not true is simply not good enough. So let me be clear. I have never provided alcohol to minors, and I have never engaged in sexual misconduct," he said.

Multiple Republican lawmakers called on Moore to step aside from the Dec. 12 special election. However, President Trump offered his endorsement for the embattled politician, and the Republican National Committee began supporting Moore after having previously cut its fundraising ties to him.

The White House

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president had no plans for an in-person appearance on Moore's behalf.

In addition, the president previously signed off on a decision by the Republican National Committee to cut off support for Moore's campaign.

But publicly, Trump unleashed his criticism on Democratic candidate Doug Jones instead of Moore.

The last thing we need in Alabama and the U.S. Senate is a Schumer/Pelosi puppet who is weak on crime, weak on the border, bad for our military and our great vets, bad for our 2nd Amendment, and wants to [raise] taxes to the sky. Jones would be a disaster, Trump tweeted on Nov. 26.

And just over one week before the election, Trump said he needed Moores vote in the Senate when it comes to certain issues, such as immigration, gun rights and judicial appointments.

Trump also encouraged his Twitter followers to vote for Moore on the morning of the election as he contended that Moore "will always vote with us."

Vice President Mike Pence found the allegations in the story disturbing and believes, if true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office, his press secretary, Alyssa Farah, has told reporters.

Sen. Mitch McConnell

While speaking to reporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he believes the women quoted in the Washington Post story. He urged Moore to step aside in light of the allegations.

Previously, McConnell said Moore should step aside if "these allegations are true."

Sen. Cory Gardner

Cory Gardner, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, said he believes the women who have alleged Moore's misconduct. In a statement, he encouraged the Senate to "vote to expel" Moore should he win the election next month.

"He does not meet the ethical and moral requirements of the United States Senate," Gardner, R-Colo., said.

Sen. Mike Lee

A former backer of Moore, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, pulled his endorsement from Moore after the allegations came to light.

"Having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the US Senate," Lee said in a tweet.

He had also requested that Moore's campaign no longer use his image.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Im horrified and if its true, he should step down immediately, Murkowski told reporters.

She reportedly also urged Sen. Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill Jeff Sessions seat when he was tapped to become attorney general, to launch a write-in campaign. The deadline to take Moore off the ballot has passed.

Sen. Mike Rounds

If they are true, then he should seriously think about stepping aside," Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said.

Sen. John Cornyn

I find it deeply distrusting and troubling. Its up to the governor and the folks of Alabama to make that decision as far as what the next steps are," Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. He later withdrew his endorsement of Moore.

Sen. Tim Scott

If theyre accurate, he absolutely should [step aside]," Tim Scott, of South Carolina, said.

Sen. Susan Collins

In a tweet, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called for Moore to "withdraw from the Senate race in Alabama."

Collins wrote that she listened to Moore deny the allegations in a recent radio interview, but "did not find his denials to be convincing."

Collins' most recent statement comes after she previously tweeted: "If there is any truth at all to these horrific allegations, Roy Moore should immediately step aside as Senate candidate."



Sen. Steve Daines

"I am pulling my endorsement and support for Roy Moore for U.S. Senate," said Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.

Sen. John McCain

"The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of," Arizona Sen. John McCain said.

Sen. Richard Shelby

Its a devastating nasty story, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby told reporters. If its true, I dont believe thered be a place for him in the U.S. Senate.

He said that he did not vote for Moore when he sent in his absentee ballot but voted instead for a "distinguished Republican write-in."

Sen. Jeff Flake

Like other Republicans, Flake called on Moore to step aside from the election.

"Just to be clear. If the choice is between Roy Moore and a Democrat, I would run to the polling place to vote for the Democrat," Flake tweeted.

Hes said that Republicans to support Roy Moore over Doug Jones is political tribalism at its worst.

Flake also tweeted a photo of a check made out to Jones for $100 with "Country over Party" written in the memo line.

Sen. Luther Strange

Alabama Sen. Luther Strange, who lost the special election primary to Roy Moore, called the allegations disturbing.

It is too late to take Moore off the ballot, but Strange has been encouraged to launch a write-in campaign.

Sen. Rob Portman

I think if what we read is true, and people are on the record so I assume it is, then he should step aside, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman said.

Sen. Ben Sasse

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called the Washington Posts story "heartbreaking."

Sasse also slammed the Republican National Committee for providing funds to Moores race.

This is a bad decision and very sad day. I believe the women  and the RNC previously did too. Whats changed? Or is the party just indifferent? Sasse said on Twitter. This sends a terrible message to victims its not that the party wont believe you if you come forward. It might. But just doesnt care.

The senator than warned that if the National Republican Senatorial Committee decided to contribute to Moore, he would no longer be a donor to or fund-raiser for it.

Sen. Ted Cruz

"These are serious and troubling allegations," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who previously endorsed Moore, said in a statement. "If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations."

Sen. Bill Cassidy

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., officially withdrew his support from the candidate.

"Based on the allegations against Roy Moore, his response and what is known, I withdraw support," he said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch

"I stand with the Majority Leader on this. These are serious and disturbing accusations, and while the decision is now in the hands of the people of Alabama, I believe Luther Strange is an excellent alternative," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, tweeted.

But a week before the election, Hatch said Trump didnt have another choice but to endorse Moore, Bloomberg reported. He also said that many of the things he allegedly did are decades ago. So its hard to  thats a decision that has to be made by the people in that state.

If they make that decision, who are we to question them? Hatch said.

Sen. Pat Toomey

We'll probably never know for sure exactly what happened," Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"But  I think the accusations have more credibility than the denial. I think it would be best if Roy would just step aside.

Sen. Lindsey Graham

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham took to Twitter to say Moore should step aside in the Alabama Senate race.

"In light of the most recent allegations and the cumulative effect of others, I believe [Moore] would be doing himself, the state, the GOP, and the country a service by stepping aside," Graham said. "If he continues this will not end well for Mr. Moore."

He has also bemoaned Trumps attempt to throw a lifeline to Moore.

Rep. Paul Ryan

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said if the allegations are true, they would disqualify Moore from the special election.

These allegations are disqualifying if true. Anyone who would do this to a child has no place in public office, let alone the United States Senate, Ryan said in a statement.

Rep. Peter King

"I would say unless he can prove his innocence, the burden is now on him within the next day or so, I believe he has to step down. He owes it to himself, he owes it to the state and and he owes it to the U.S. Senate," New York Rep. Peter King said after the allegations came out.

Rep. Lee Zeldin

In a tweet, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., called for that "creepy Roy Moore dude" to step aside from the campaign.

"It's about that time for that creepy Roy Moore dude to exit stage left. He should step aside & let someone take his spot on the ballot who doesn't prey upon young teenage girls as a grown man," he said.

Gov. John Kasich

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on Twitter that hes long opposed Moore and called on him to step aside from the race as well.

Ive long opposed Roy Moore [and] his divisive viewpoints. The actions described make him unfit for office. The GOP must not support him. He should step aside, Kasich said.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, slammed Moore on Twitter.

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman, the former governor said. Her account is too serous to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

"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," Romney said in another tweet on Dec. 4.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush

Former Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Moore should step down in light of the allegations.

"This is not a question of innocence or guilt like in a criminal proceeding; this is a question of whats right and whats wrong. Acknowledging that youre dating teenagers when youre 32 years old as assistant state attorney is wrong. Its just plain wrong," he told CNBC, adding that he agreed with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said earlier Monday that Moore should "step aside."

"We need to stand for basic principles, and decency has to be one of those," Bush added. "In the really poisonous political environment we have right now, one of the rules I think has to apply is that when you attack somebody on the other party, and the other team for doing something wrong, when it happens on your team, you have an obligation I think to speak out as well."

Ivanka Trump

The president's daughter had some harsh words for Moore.



"There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children. I've yet to see a valid explanation, and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts," Ivanka Trump told the Associated Press.

Condoleezza Rice

While she didnt name Moore, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice  who is from Alabama  encouraged voters to take a stand for our core principles and for what is right.

These critical times require us to come together to reject bigotry, sexism and intolerance, Rice said in a statement to AL.com.

"It is imperative for Americans to remain focused on our priorities and not give way to side shows and antics. I know that Alabamans need an independent voice in Washington. But we must also insist that our representatives are dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Outgoing GOP Sen. Luther Strange is being urged to mount a write-in campaign in Alabamas Senate special election next month amid the fallout over a bombshell report that Republican nominee Roy Moore pursued romantic relationships with teenagers as an adult.

Among those encouraging Strange to consider a write-in campaign is Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who famously won as a write-in candidate in 2010 after being defeated in the Republican primary. A spokeswoman for Murkowski told Fox News the Alaska senator thinks Moore should step aside if the allegations are true and Strange should seek the seat as a write-in.

Strange, who was appointed to Alabamas Senate seat when then-Sen. Jeff Sessions vacated it to become attorney general, was defeated by Moore in a bruising run-off in September. He was seen talking with Senate Majority Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor after the story broke Thursday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday, McConnell, R-Ky., did not respond to questions about whether he would support Strange as a write-in candidate.

TRUMP: MOORE WILL 'STEP ASIDE' IF ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE

The Washington Post reported that Moore, the former chief justice of Alabamas Supreme Court and an ardent social conservative, pursued relationships with four teenage women dating back to the 1970s when he was in his early thirties and single. One woman told the paper she was 14 when the 32-year-old Moore asked her out and made sexual advances.

Moore, 70, says the accusations are false and calls the story a desperate political attack.

Moore also lashed out via Twitter at what he called "the Obama-Clinton machine's liberal media lapdogs," saying: "The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal  even inflict physical harm  if they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives."

Top Senate Republicans including McConnell, who backed Strange during the primary, have said Moore should step aside if the allegations are true.

A spokesman for Strange did not return a request for comment about the possibility of a write-in campaign.

Under Alabamas sore loser law, Stranges name could not appear on the general election ballot. But he could run as a write-in.

According to Alabamas secretary of states office, there are no existing stipulations that prohibit a write-in candidate from being elected despite having unsuccessfully run for a partys nomination, which would normally apply due to Alabamas sore loser law.

In Alabama, Republicans expressed skepticism Thursday that Strange could defeat Moore and Democratic nominee Doug Jones as a write-in candidate.

If he ran a write-in, it would elect Doug Jones for sure, an Alabama operative with ties to the states congressional delegation told Fox News.

Another Alabama political operative doubted the Washington Post report would take down Moore, noting how the socially conservative state still overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race after the Access Hollywood video surfaced of him using vulgar and sexual language in the past.

A well-known elected GOP officeholder in Alabama also poured cold water on the write-in speculation. I think it would be a huge mistake for Luther to mount a write-in campaign. He lost the nomination for a reason and that hasnt changed. Write-in campaigns succeed only under the best of circumstances and Luther is far too damaged to meet that test, the source said.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which poured millions into this summers primary in Alabama on behalf of Strange, has not commented on the prospect of Strange as a write-in candidate. But they have called for Moores removal.

"If theres even a shred of evidence to these accusations, Gov. Ivey and the Alabama Republican Party need to do everything in their power to remove Judge Moore from the ballot, Senate Leadership Fund President and CEO Steven Law said. There is no place in our party for sexual predators."

In a statement Thursday evening, Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said she needed to learn more about the accusations before commenting further.

These allegations are deeply disturbing, she said. I will hold judgment until we know the facts. The people of Alabama deserve to know the truth and will make their own decisions.

Fox News Jason Donner contributed to this report.
President Trump on Friday delivered what appeared to be a sharp rebuke to China's trade policy, saying he is always going to put America first, and promised that the U.S. would no longer turn a blind eye to trade abuses.

From this day forward we will compete on a fair and equal basis, Trump told a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam. We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore.

Trump did not mention China by name during the fiery speech, but appeared to change his tone from the day earlier, when he said, How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue?" Trump went on. "I would've done same!"

One of the cornerstones of Trumps approach to trade has been his opposition to multi-lateral trade agreements. That includes the far-reaching Pacific Rim trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump pulled the U.S. out of as one of his first acts as president. The TPP was meant to be the foundation for forging a free-trade zone akin to the EU in the Asia-Pacific.

Leaders of the 11 remaining TPP members, representing roughly 13.5 percent of the global economy, were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit to seek an agreement in principle that would not require U.S. involvement.

But the prospects of that deal appeared in doubt Friday, as a meeting of the leaders of 11 countries still involved in the pact was delayed. There was no word on whether they had given up reaching agreement in Danang or were still working toward an agreement on how to move forward without U.S. involvement.

Meanwhile, a 16-member region-wide pact called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is also under negotiation. It encompasses China and India but also does not include the U.S.

In the speech, Trump said he had spoken openly and directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit about about Chinas unfair trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produced with the United States.

Trump said Chinas trade surplus, which stood at $223 billion for the first 10 months of the year, was unacceptable, and repeated his language from Thursday when he said he did not blame China or any other country for taking advantage of the United States on trade.

Trump tweeted early Friday, The United States has been reminded time and again in recent years that economic security is not merely RELATED to national security - economic security IS national security. It is vital to our national strength.

Trump also continued to talk tough against North Korea and its development of nuclear and ballistic missiles weapons, as he has throughout the trip.

The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictators twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail, he said.

Trump referenced his address earlier this week in South Korea when he called on countries to unite against North Korea. He said every single step the North Korea regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger.

APEC is the first of several summits Trump is scheduled to attend on his first official visit to Asia. It will be a change in pace the president, who has spent much of the week basking in elaborate welcome ceremonies and banquets, and meeting with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China.

His schedule for Friday includes an official welcome event for world lead leaders attending the summit and their spouses, along with a gala dinner and cultural performance, before formal talks begin on Saturday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Melbourne University RMIT has teamed up with Apple to offer an Australian-first course giving students the chance to build apps and learn to code in the tech giants Swift programming language.

As technology seeps into all aspects of our lives, its increasingly clear that young workers who have an understanding of how to design and build software applications will have a huge advantage in the modern workplace.

And partnerships with tech giants like Apple could help shape the future curriculums of educational institutions.

On a recent trip to France, Apple CEO Tim Cook said learning to code is more important than learning to speak English. In fact, the big languages of coding and computer programming will soon be the most commonly understood in the world.

Apples vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, was in Melbourne today to announce the new partnership.

From the beginning we wanted to make the practice of coding just like we do our products: simple, intuitive, engaging and empowering, she told news.com.au.

Apples Swift coding language became available about three years ago. The company says it designed Swift to be an approachable and intuitive coding language for beginners while also allowing professionals to build sophisticated programs.

Earlier this year the tech giant released a platform called Everyone Can Code which includes free learning experiences and online guides for students and teachers to help bring coding into the classroom.

THE MULTI BILLION DOLLAR APP ECONOMY

Since its inception in 2008, Apple has paid out more than $US70 billion to developers from its App Store, and RMIT vice chancellor Martin Bean wants to give more Aussie students a slice of that pie.

Using its own version of Apples App Development with Swift curriculum, RMIT Online will begin offering a coding course on November 20 (you can enrol from today and the first batch of students will receive a 60 per cent discount) while a new vocational education short course will be taught on campus from February 2018.

The app development course will also be integrated into RMITs tertiary curriculum for students enrolled in IT or computer science.

These are the sort of skills Australians need for the jobs of the future and were delighted to work with Apple as the first university in Australia to deliver tailored, industry-focused courses using Swift curriculum, Mr Bean said.

Students who undertake the course will be required to build an app that will then appear in Apples App Store.

Because the course is outcome driven ... its like the best assessment in the world, Mr Bean told news.com.au. Because youre not having to pass a test, youre building an app that has to work and people have to like it.

He sees it as a contemporary way for the university to teach coding and attract students to learn a much needed skill set.

The so-called app economy is responsible for an estimated 113,000 jobs in Australia at the moment  a number expected to grow immensely in the next decade. Its projected that by 2020, Australian industry will need more than 80,000 specialist tech workers.

Melbourne developer Jason Fabbri who co-founded the app Roamni, a platform which crowd sources audio tours for cities around the world, said building the app with Swift ensured it was future proof for Apples App Store. The company has worked on the app for the past two years and hopes to launch by the end of the year.

The move is a smart play by Apple  the more people they can lure to learn their coding language, the stronger its App Store will be.

Of course we want a vibrant App Store, Ms Jackson said. Apple is nothing without the App Store and the App Store is nothing without developers.

Sometimes dubbed the most powerful women at Apple she reports directly to Tim Cook on an array of matters, which might sound daunting until you learn she used to do the same for then US president Barack Obama when she was head of the US Environmental Protection Agency from 2009 to 2013.

We believe coding is an essential skill that people of all ages and backgrounds should have the opportunity to learn, so that they have the ability to create something that can change the world, she said.

RMIT also worked with leaders of Australias burgeoning tech industry to help shape its new iOS App Development with Swift online program. The course was co-created and endorsed by major industry partners, including Tigerspike, jtribe and Bilue, who represented key drivers of growth in the app economy, the university said.

AUSTRALIA PLAYING CATCH UP

A report commissioned by NBN Co. last year claimed that one in two jobs in Australia will require programming and IT skills within 15 years.

Many in the Australian tech industry argue there is a severe shortage of Australians skilled up for jobs in the sector and more needs to be done in training and early education  something the Turnbull government sought to partly address in its 2015 Innovation Statement.

For about the past three years, coding in every Australian school has been an official policy of the Australian Labor Party. The Queensland state government has introduced coding into its mandatory curriculum this year but because there is no standardised coding classes at a national level, parents who can afford to are sending their kids to holiday programs put on by companies like Code Camp.

But Australia risks falling further behind the rest of the world in this vital area, experts warn. Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Estonia and England have all mandated coding and programming classes in school with kids as young as five learning to code and create their own computer games.

Meanwhile US-led initiatives such as Code.org and the Hour of Code, backed by organisations like Microsoft and Google champion the need for young students around the world to have the opportunity to learn coding.

The industry has been crying out for more digitally-skilled workers for years and RMIT is proud to work with Apple to meet the demand in this booming area and create life-changing educational opportunities for people from all walks of life, said Helen Souness, CEO of RMIT Online.

As part of its commitment to boosting digital literacy in Australia, RMIT will also offer 100 scholarships for school teachers to upskill and help demystify coding by completing the RMIT Online program.

The university will also offer a free summer coding school for Victorian-based students at RMITs City campus to give secondary students the chance to learn the basics of coding in Swift.

We are proud to work with RMIT and many other schools around the world that share in our vision to help students learn the skills they need to create something that could change the world, Apple boss Tim Cook said in a statement.



The reporter traveled to Melbourne as a guest of Apple.

This story originally appeared in news.com.au.
A man who was beaten and dragged on a tarmac in Delhi, India, three weeks ago has received an apology from IndiGo Airways.

The passenger in question, Rajiv Katiyal, was seen in a viral video taken on October 15 being manhandled, beaten, and dragged along the tarmac at Indira Gandhi International Airport by ground staff.

According to India's Conde Nast Traveller, which obtained a copy of a letter from November 8 that details the altercation, Katiyal got into an argument with the staff after being told to stay clear of a truck next to the aircraft. Due to the noise on the tarmac, it seems Katiyal misunderstood the staff, thought they were being rude, and used some expletives in response.

When ground staff refused to let Katiyal board the shuttle bus to the terminal, a physical fight broke out.

The altercation was recorded by cargo staff employee Montu Kalra, according to Traveller. Contrary to some reports that Kalra was a whistleblower, IndiGo Airways told the magazine that Kalra was an instigator of the fight, telling his junior staff to prevent Katiyal from boarding the bus.

Montu Kalra was a cargo employee. He had no reason to approach the passenger area. He had no reason to prevent the customer from boarding the bus. He had no reason to instruct the other colleagues, said Aditya Ghosh, President & Wholetime Director of IndiGo.

Ghosh apologized in a statement, as reported by The Times of India: I acknowledge the unpleasant experience our passenger went through, while engaging with our staff at Delhi airport. My personal apologies as this does not reflect our culture. I had personally spoken to the passenger and asked for an apology. At IndiGo, dignity of our passengers and staff is of utmost importance. Any act that compromises the dignity of either is of a serious concern to us. Under the code of conduct violation, this incident was investigated and stern action was taken against the staff. Once again my personal and sincere apologies to the affected passenger.
A French man was kicked off a cruise in late October after reportedly trying to stage a protest over the ships canceled itinerary.

The Telegraph, who referred to the mans actions as a mutiny, reports that 53-year-old Alain Jan and his wife boarded a Costa cruise bound for the Vanilla Islands of the Indian Ocean on Oct. 26. After two days of travel, however, the captain announced that three scheduled stops in Madagascar had been canceled due to an outbreak of the bubonic and pneumonic plague on the island nation.

"We said OK, it's for health reasons, Jan told Le Parisen, reasoning that there were other stops planned for other cities in Madagascar, as well as a stop in Mauritius.

VIRGIN VOYAGES TO LAUNCH ADULTS-ONLY CRUISE EXPERIENCE IN 2020

The next day, those stops were canceled as well. But as a consolation, passengers were told theyd be credited with 150 euro, or around $175, to spend aboard the ship.

Angered by the news  and reasoning that even a beverage aboard the ship could cost upwards of $5  Jan rallied his fellow passengers in a protest at one of the ships restaurants. "There were 60 of us banging our fists on the table to alert other cruise passengers to this con job," said Jan, who reasoned that the cruise liner must have known that they couldnt stop in Madagascar or Mauritius before the trip started, but deliberately failed to notify passengers before the voyage.

The passengers staged another protest later that evening, forcing the captain to call the authorities in the Seychelles. According to Jan, a police chief boarded the ship, listened to both mens version of events, and ultimately escorted Jan and his wife off the cruise liner at the captains request.

VENICE SAYS CRUISE SHIPS NO LONGER WELCOME NEAR CITY CENTER

Jan, however, finally got the stop-off he was hoping for.

"I spent two nights in a hotel in the Seychelles with my wife, then were flown home paid for by Costa. That's how I was freed from the floating prison," Jan told Le Parisien.

He further claims that upon returning home  Jan lives on the island of Reunion  he met with other passengers from the cruise, who agreed that they were treated like cattle and ripped off, the Telegraph reports.

Meanwhile, Costa Cruises maintains that they made every effort to keep to their schedule, but were unable to do so due to health concerns, according to a statement obtained by the Telegraph. The company added that authorities on Mauritius were the ones who insisted that passengers stay quarantined on the ship.

"Given the delays that would have created, and even longer ones if there were any suspect cases on board, and considering that passengers were already on board, the company was forced to restrict its trip to the Seychelles and Reunion," said the statement.

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Italys transport minister announced this week that Venice will ban all cruise ships from entering the city center. The announcement comes after years of anti-tourism protests and petitions.

However, this doesnt mean that cruise ship passengers wont be able to see the city any more. Theyll just have to get to it a bit differently.

All ships weighing more than 55,000 tons will no longer have access to Venices Giudecca Canal, which cuts through the city next to the historic St. Marks Square, Mayor Luigi Brugnaro announced. The large ships will instead have to dock at Marghera, an industrial port northwest of the historic city center.

The government hopes to implement the new route within four years.

Brugnaro said the decision was extremely positive as it found a way to balance environmental concerns with the jobs created by the cruise industry, which we cannot afford to lose, according to The Local.

In an unofficial referendum last month, 99 percent of Venetians said that large cruise ships should be banned entirely from the lagoon, The Telegraph reported.

Last year, Venetian authorities said that they were considering placing a daily cap on the amount of tourists who can enter the city, but government policies have so far shown a preference to rerouting tourists, rather than limiting them.

Earlier this year, the city banned new hotels in the historic center and limited the number of restaurants that could sell pizza by the slice, kebab or other fast food. The government is also promoting attractions in lesser-visited parts of town, implementing a locals first policy on water taxis and installing people-counters at the most popular tourist attractions.
After four days of investigation, authorities have given the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs back to the people. Since Sundays shooting in Texas, the blocks surrounding the church have been closed, and caution tape and state troopers have been keeping people away 24 hours a day.

There is still blood on the ceiling and bullet holes in some of the Bibles, according to a law enforcement officer.

Thursday afternoon, state troopers removed the caution tape and took down their mobile investigation unit. This allowed anyone to walk up next to the fence surrounding the church.

At first look, workers could be seen covering bullet holes in the siding that are still visible from the street, and repainting the exterior. They also cleaned the interior where 26 people, including a one year old and unborn baby were murdered last Sunday by a shooter.

The Southern Baptist Convention tells Fox News that Pastor Frank Pomeroy has expressed his desire to tear the church down. However, the Southern Baptist Convention said the pastor and his congregation would have the final say. Authorities have described the church as riddled with bullet holes and the pastors wife, Sherri, said its damaged beyond repair. But today, workers were making significant repairs.

The Pomeroys 14-year-old daughter Annabelle was killed in the massacre. Pastor Pomeroy told Fox News that he forgives the shooter.

To be quite honest Im more angry with the systems around than I am with the shooter, said Pomeroy. I have a feeling that maybe theres systems around his life that allowed him to get to where he was.

The residents of Sutherland Springs and the surrounding area have worked extraordinarily hard this week to keep praying and keep their faith. There have been multiple vigils where hundreds have prayed together.

He was used by a dark power to accomplish something that was beyond him, said Pomeroy. We need to stay strong to try to reach those others that may be in that same position before they are used by that dark power and can be used by God.

There will be a church service Sunday morning at 11 a.m. at the Sutherland Springs Community Center. The services throughout the week, including one attended by Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, have helped people stay positive.

Keep looking up. No matter how hard it is or how good it is  just keep looking up, said Pomeroy.
COLUMBUS  A report from the state auditor's office concluded that former Platte County adult pretrial diversion coordinator Traci Nelsen failed to deposit more than $56,000 in program fees to the county treasurer during a three-year period.

The figure was included in the 2016-17 annual audit report released this week by the state office.

Nelsen, 43, has been charged with two counts of theft and one count of tampering with physical evidence and is awaiting a Feb. 5 jury trial in Platte County District Court.

According to the auditors report, a total of 425 cases were referred to the pretrial diversion program during a three-year period ending last summer, with fees totaling $26,710 for 246 of those cases not deposited with the county treasurers office.

In 50 of the 246 cases, only partial payment records could be located, but court documents show the participants successfully completed the program. In 142 of the cases, no payment records were found, but the participants completed the program.

It is reasonable to believe the participants in those cases paid all program fees, which would account for an additional roughly $29,000 in missing funds, according to a summary in the audit report.

The remaining 37 cases, the report concluded, are for participants who are still in the diversion program or whose cases related only to restitution, with records not indicating diversion money was received by the program.

The adult diversion programs minimum fee is $160 per case, which includes the $40 application fee and $30 monthly charge for four months.

The audit included a detailed review of payment records discovered on Nelsen's tablet and flash drive and documents that were located in a locked file cabinet, as well as program participant and victim interviews conducted by the county attorney's office.

The review identified multiple fraudulent and questionable transactions, according to the audit report.

In total, Nelsen is accused of diverting more than $56,000 in program fees to personal use.

The Monroe woman faces theft charges stemming from the missing funds. The tampering charge alleges she destroyed physical evidence of the thefts sometime in August as an official inquiry was about to get underway.

The theft charges are Class 2A felonies, each punishable by up to 20 years imprisonment. The tampering with physical evidence charge is a Class IV felony with a penalty of up to two years in prison, 12 months of post-release supervision and a $10,000 fine.

Nelsen, who left her position with Platte County in late August, was previously convicted of similar criminal charges in 2003 in Kansas.

The Monroe woman voluntarily surrendered her license to practice law in Kansas after being convicted of theft and false reporting, both misdemeanor offenses. When Nelsen was disbarred by the Kansas Supreme Court in June 2003, she was facing a formal complaint filed against her by the states disciplinary administrators office.

Nelsen was hired as the Platte County victims assistance coordinator in 2009 and named coordinator of the newly created adult diversion program in April 2014.
A 21-year-old escort allegedly told police she shot a man twice in the back of the head and left him for dead because he performed a sex act wrong. The victim wasnt found for three days.

After he was found by police, he was taken to the hospital and unable to speak, but he communicated with hand signals.

The 21-year-old is also accused of robbing the victim.

According to court documents:

Police received a call on Oct. 24 from the victims employer. The 36-year-old victim worked from home, and the employer was concerned he hadnt logged in for work in the morning.

Police went to the victims location and found the door unlocked. Inside, police found the victim sitting against a wall in the master bedroom. The victim was unresponsive, but awake. The fire department was called and crews determined the victim had been shot twice in the head.

The victim was taken to Providence Medical Centers Intensive Care Unit.

Police obtained a search warrant to the victims house and determined credit cards and a handgun were missing from the home. However, there wasnt any sign of forced entry. Police reviewed security footage from the victims home that showed a young woman coming to the home five different times between Oct. 7 and Oct. 21.

Police identified the woman as Marissa E. Wallen, and said it was clear from the footage that Wallen and the victim were having sexual relations.

Security footage from Oct. 21 showed the last time Wallen entered the home. She walked in and left a short time later. A check on the victims credit cards showed 82 charges totaling more than $10,000 was made between Oct. 22 and Nov. 5. Video footage showed Wallen using the victims credit cards at Macys and other locations.

Wallen was arrested. She ultimately admitted to police she was an escort and had been hired to have sex with the victim.

She told police she shot the victim twice in the back of the head for performing a sex act wrong. Wallen allegedly displayed little remorse.

Wallen was clearly proud of her life as an escort and even asked us to call one of her clients so that he could post her bail, court documents allege.

Read more from Fox 13 Seattle.
A Wisconsin couple who returned home drunk allegedly stripped down and tried to seduce one of their teen babysitters, officials said.

Crystal and Justin Robinson, of Wind Lake, were arrested on charges that include exposing intimate parts, child enticement and reckless endangering safety, according to a release Thursday from the Rancine County Sheriffs Office.

Authorities said that they received a call from a concerned mother Sunday, saying her two juvenile daughters were babysitting for the couple.

The woman told dispatchers that her daughters said the couple came back drunk, was smoking pot and walking around undressed.

Officers responded to the home where teens told them that Justin Robinson had laid down on top of one of them while naked.

The sitters also claimed they saw Crystal Robinson nude and that she offered them marijuana, according to authorities.

CLICK MORE FROM THE NEW YORK POST.
A 23-year-old Ohio substitute teacher was arrested for allegedly having sex with at least two high school students, police said.

Madeline Marx was physically removed by police from Fairmont High School, where she was a substitute teacher for two years, Fox 45 reported.

According to court documents obtained by Dayton Daily News, Marx is accused of having oral sex with a 17-year-old male student in July and sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old male student in September. Neither of the incidents happened on school property.

Marx admitted to police that she also sent several nude photos to one of the students over social media.

The teacher was charged Thursday with two counts of sexual battery and is being held at Montgomery county jail.
Dozens of Cornell University faculty members pledged their support for the Drexel University professor who was placed on leave after claiming white victimization was to blame for the Las Vegas killing spree.

Seventy professors signed a letter on Wednesday protesting the universitys decision to take disciplinary action against George Ciccariello-Maher, saying it infringes upon academic freedoms, reported The Cornell Daily Sun.

Drexels failure to protect this freedom sets a dangerous precedent for scholars and students everywhere, Alexander Livingston, a government professor at Cornell, told the paper in an email.

Ciccariello-Maher was put on leave for tweets he made on Oct. 2 blaming the Las Vegas massacre on Trumpism and white victimization.

The professor reaffirmed his stance on mass shootings during an interview with Democracy Now! earlier this week, suggesting whiteness is to blame for the Texas shooting massacre at a church on Sunday.

Whiteness is never seen as a cause, in and of itself, of these kinds of massacres, Ciccariello-Maher told the news outlet on Monday, adding, despite the fact that whiteness is a structure of privilege and its a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened, you know, lashes out.

Ciccariello-Maher, who now only teaches online classes, said the public needs to be asking questions such as: What makes white men so prone to this kind of behavior?

In the letter, Cornell states Ciccariello-Mahers comments were made outside campus grounds, and should not influence his employment at Drexel, reported The Sun.

Academic freedom quite clearly, and absolutely correctly, extends to extramural political speech, Cornell Prof. David Bateman told the paper. There is no ambiguity there, and so the argument that he should be held liable without a due process hearing for views expressed as a citizen are simply mistaken.

The petition was also signed by the American Association of University Professors, the paper reported.

Following the massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Ciccariello-Maher retweeted the controversial tweet he sent out after the Las Vegas shooting: A White Man.

This professor has a history of contentious tweets. In 2016, he tweeted: all I want for Christmas is white genocide.

When asked for comment, Ciccariello-Maher told Fox News: I dont talk to mercenaries.

Fox News' Caleb Parke contributed to this report.
The Air Forces pilot shortage continues to get worse  the armed services branch is now about 2,000 below its target number.

"Almost 2,000 pilots short of a force that has 20,000 pilots, so that's one in 10 that we're short," Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters during a Pentagon briefing Thursday.

Wilson didnt say what kind of pilots were needed, but said "increasing the readiness of the force so that we win any fight, anytime are our top priorities, Military.com reported. Last summer, the Air Force said it was 1,500 pilots short.

Wilson added that the service is currently too small "for all the missions that we're being asked to carry out.

"Surge has become the new normal in the U.S. Air Force  and you can do that maybe for about a year, two years, maybe three or four years," she said, according to Military.com. "Less than 1 percent of Americans serve in uniform... and they are carrying a very heavy burden."

The Air Force has flown 14,000 sorties in the past three months alone. It is handling missions in the Middle East and Europe, a pressure campaign against North Korea and hurricane relief efforts, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said, according to CNBC.

To help retain pilots, the Air Force this year has announced salary increases and bonus programs, up to $455,000 over 13 years for select fighter pilots.

The Air Force has been losing pilots to commercial aviation companies, who offer better pay and more stable schedules, Military.com reported.
Prosecutors say a Mobile man received a sentence of life in prison for killing a 16-year-old girl as she sat with friends in the backseat of a car.

The Mobile County district attorney's office on Thursday announced the sentence for Jamarcus Mahone. Mahone was convicted of murder in the December 2014 shooting death of Raven Hamilton.

Al.com reports that Hamilton was sitting with friends in the car in a subdivision when Mahone shot into the car. Former Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree said at a bond hearing in 2014 that Mahone mistook the car for one driven by people with whom he'd had previous problems.
A man convicted of attempting to join ISIS was granted supervised release from a Minnesota halfway house Thursday -- fewer than three years since he tried boarding a jet to meet up with the Islamic terror group in Syria.

Abdullah Yusuf, 21, has been held at the federal halfway house since November 2016.

Yusuf was among nine men who were arrested in a sweeping FBI probe of ISIS recruitment in Minnesota in 2014 and 2015. Hes one of the few Americans to be allowed back into society after trying to join the terror group, the Star Tribune reported.

Were just very glad to meet again our son, Yusufs father, Sadiik Yusuf told reporters after the Thursday hearing. We will be ready to help him.

FLASHBACK: THE LURE OF ISIS: FEDS CATCHING MORE AMERICANS TRYING TO AID TERROR GROUPS

Yusuf, who cooperated with federal authorities during the investigation, was sentenced last year to time served after spending nearly two years in detention. He then stayed at the halfway house until Thursday's release.

As part of his sentence, Yusuf will remain under intense federal supervision for 20 years. Additionally, he's barred from using social media or accessing materials related to extremism.

His Internet use will be monitored and his movements will be tracked by GPS for at least a year, officials said.

Eric Hermes, Yusufs probation officer, praised his client during the hearing, saying he had become a role model for other residents.

He continues to set goals for himself as he moves forward, Hermes told the court.

Yusuf, soon after turning 18, was arrested on May 28, 2014 when he tried to board a plane from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to Istanbul, Turkey. The FBI was tipped off by passport officials and six months later he was charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terror group.

ISIS VIDEO PURPORTEDLY SHOWS AMERICAN BOY, 10, VOWING TO 'DEFEAT' TRUMP

His friend, Abdi Nur, was able to avoid FBI detection and boarded a plane out of the country the day after Yusufs arrest. Nur is believed to have died after joining ISIS.

Abdirizak Warsame, the only other Minnesotan to cooperate with authorities in the investigation, is scheduled to be released from an Illinois federal prison in March 2018. Four others, who pleaded guilty, received 10-year prison terms last year while three others, who fought the federal charges, lost at trial and could remain behind bars for 35 years.

The Star Tribune reported when Yusufs parents left the courtroom on Thursday, they embraced the same FBI agents who arrested their son. They said they believe the agents saved Yusufs life by arresting him before he left the country.
A man in a Colorado courtroom may have learned a valuable lesson on Wednesday: When you take off your hat in court, make sure a packet of cocaine doesnt fall out in front of the judge.

Thats what happened to Juan Jose Vidrio Bibriesca, 43, police say. He was standing with two other defendants at an Eagle County court for violating his bond on a drug charge when he removed his hat and held it behind his back.

However, the unthinkable happened: A small square of folded paper fell out and landed on the floor, the Vail Daily reported.

UNDERCOVER VIDEO SHOWS WORKER KICKING COWS AT DAIRY FARM

A police officer in the gallery watched it unfold and another officer suggested they review surveillance footage to confirm who dropped the packet.

When they saw that it fell out of Bibriescas hat, he was immediately escorted to jail, the newspaper reported.

Bibriesca, who was born in Mexico and is reportedly in the country illegally, now faces charges of narcotics possession and bond violation, which are both felonies.
Craig Grossi knew the risks.

A Marine deployed to a remote part of Afghanistan, Grossi was well aware that he shouldnt befriend the short-legged, white-furred, innately well-behaved dog. For safety reasons, Marines are warned against buddying up to animals; if caught, the pup could be put down.

Grossi knew the rules. But still, he approached the canine  an unusual loner without a pack  with a stick of beef jerky in his hand. And the dogs tail wagged.

It was 2010 and Grossi was in the midst of his eight-year stint with the Marine Corps, doing intelligence work in Afghanistan. His new friend, dubbed Fred, became a fast and obedient recruit. He didnt bark during patrols  except once to alert his troop of danger  silently endured a secret helicopter ride and cozied up to the men in his unit.

Grossi likes to say that that the pair saved each other  and thats certainly evident. While risking his life to serve his country, Grossi also took professional risks to protect Fred from the war in the Middle Eastern country, arranging to have him sent to his family in the U.S. while he finished his tour.

And for Grossi, while naturally a happy person, the effects of war and career struggles took a toll.

Thats where Fred came in. Coming home to him every day and his stubborn positivity, Grossi told Fox News, adding thats the motto hes taken. Its not a naive, just smile through whatever youve got going on, kind of approach; its the opposite. Its recognizing that there are circumstances in your life that are within your control and ones that arent. Its allowing yourself to focus only on the things you can control.

Our adventures and our life and our commitment to stubborn positivity is just beginning.

The peculiarity of Fred was also evident in how he came to meet the four-legged Afghan. Most dogs in these situations tend to gravitate to where there is people and food, Grossi said. But Fred didnt come to them; Grossis unit landed on him in Sangin, he said.

He hadnt had any real positive human interaction. He was hot and hungry and covered in bugs, Grossi said. But still, Fred was friendly.

Now, Fred is bug-free and enjoying the fresh air, cold weather and green foliage of Maine. Hes also the star of his own Instagram account with more than 43,000 followers.

Grossi turned his unique relationship with Fred into a book.

Craig & Fred: A Marine, A Stray Dog, and How They Rescued Each Other, recently published by HarperCollins, flips back and forth between the harrowing experiences in Afghanistan and their cross-country travels in 2015.

Finding the motivation was really about giving myself the permission to write. For me and for other veterans, its something we have to overcome in terms of drawing attention to ourselves or doing anything that we might perceive as selfish or self-indulgent, Grossi said.

Its something that I owe to the men and women that I served with and the awesome people that have come into my life. I owe it to them to share this story, he added. The story is bigger than me and its bigger than Fred.

So whats next for the duo?

The book is just the start, Grossi said. The two are still exploring, still finding ways to challenge one another.

Our adventures and our life and our commitment to stubborn positivity is just beginning.
A Marine Corps drill instructor was convicted by a military jury Thursday of physically abusing young recruits -- sometimes while intoxicated -- and focusing his rage on three Muslim-American military volunteers.

Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, 34, was found guilty of hazing and maltreatment of recruits at the Marine Corps Parris Island, S.C., boot camp, an eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, N.C., determined.

The Iraq veteran was slated to be sentenced Friday and could face time in a military prison, as well as financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge. The Washington Post reported Felix would appeal if he received more than a year in prison or is given an other-than-honorable discharge from the military.

"[Felix was] drunk on power -- and sometimes Fireball whiskey."  Lt. Col. John Norman

Charged with more than three dozen criminal counts, Felix was accused of being a central figure in an abusive group of drill instructors at Parris Island, a scandal that came to light after the March 2016 suicide of one of the three Muslim-American recruits he targeted.

A MARINE AND HIS DOGS UNCONVENTIONAL JOURNEY FROM AFGHANISTAN TO STUBBORN POSITIVITY

In March 2016, Raheel Siddiqui, 20, a Pakistani-American from Taylor, Mich., committed suicide by jumping off a stairwell after Felix yelled at him and slapped him, prosecutors said. Siddiquis family filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit last month against the Marine Corps.

Lance Cpl. Shane McDevitt, one of Siddiquis fellow recruits in his platoon, testified Felix called the Pakistani-American a "terrorist" some 10 times.

Two other Muslim recruits said Felix once pressured them into an industrial clothes dryer and turned it on.

Trainee Lance Cpl. Ameer Bourmeche testified Felix forced him into a clothes dryer and turned it on as Felix demanded he renounce his Islamic faith. Bourmeche testified he twice affirmed his creed and twice Felix and another drill instructor sent him for a bruising, scorching tumble inside the dryer. After a third spin, Bourmeche said he feared for his life and renounced his faith. The drill instructors then let him out, he said.

Lt. Col. John Norman, the prosecutor, said Felix picked out Muslim recruits for special abuse because of their Muslim faith. He degraded their religion and put them in industrial appliances.

Norman claimed Felix was drunk on power, and sometimes Fireball whiskey, he told the jury.

He wasnt making Marines  he was breaking Marines, Norman said.

Other charges against Felix stemmed from a series of disturbing acts involving more than a dozen recruits. They included commanding recruits to choke each other, ordering them to drink chocolate milk and then training them until they vomited and punching recruits in the face or kicking them to the ground.

A hazing investigation led to charges against Felix, five other drill instructors and the training battalion's commanding officer. Eleven others faced lesser, administrative discipline. Felix also was convicted of lying to investigators.

MARINE, 23, FATALLY STABBED IN HAWAII WAS BELOVED MEMBER OF UNIT

Felix had pleaded not guilty and did not testify during his trial.

Felix also was convicted of drunk and disorderly conduct and making false official statements.

Felix was permanently removed from his duties as a drill instructor after the investigation began, Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Joshua Pena said.

Felix's chief defense attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Bridges, said Wednesday the dozens of prosecution witnesses gave contradictory accounts the government unfairly fashioned into a case against the brawny drill instructor who allegedly called all recruits "terrorist." Young men told investigators fanciful stories including one in which Felix grabbed a recruit by the throat and lifted him off the ground with one arm, Bridges said.

Felix has served in the Marines since 2002 and is married with four children, The Washington Post reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Marine Corps drill instructor has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars after being convicted of tormenting and abusing young recruits, especially Muslim-Americans, including one who later killed himself.

A military jury also ordered Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, a 34-year-old Iraq veteran, to forfeit all pay, be demoted to private and given a dishonorable discharge.

Friday's sentencing at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, came after Felix begged for forgiveness before the eight-member jury, which a day earlier convicted him of abusing more than a dozen trainees at the Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.

Felix was convicted of dozens of criminal violations as the jury on Thursday found he taunted three Muslim recruits as "terrorists" or "ISIS" and ordered two of them to climb into an industrial clothes dryer, spinning one of them around in the scorching machine until he renounced his faith.

Defense attorney Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Bridges declined a request to comment on the conviction and sentencing.

Felix was a central figure among a group of abusive drill instructors at Parris Island, the jury was told. After the March 2016 suicide at the base, a hazing investigation led to charges against Felix, five other drill instructors and the training battalion's commanding officer. Eleven others faced lesser discipline.

Abusive drill instructors have long been stock characters in books and movies such as "Full Metal Jacket," a 1987 film set during the Vietnam War. Yet the Felix trial shows that the Marines have since drawn clearer lines between what instructors can and cannot do, said Michael Hanzel, a former Navy attorney who attended the proceedings at Camp Lejeune.

"This generation now, there's things that I think that we're much more focused on ... in this trial, it's calling people names based on their religion and targeting people based on their religion," said Hanzel, now a private attorney specializing in military law. "I don't think anyone would say that was acceptable ever, but it probably was not prosecuted in the past the way it would be now."

The charges against Felix included commanding recruits to choke each other; ordering them to drink chocolate milk and then training them until they vomited; and punching recruits in the face or kicking them to the ground.

"He wasn't making Marines. He was breaking Marines," prosecutor Lt. Col. John Norman told the jury on Wednesday. He called Felix a bully who heaped special abuse on three Muslim recruits because of their faith.

One of them, Raheel Siddiqui, a 20-year-old Pakistani-American from Taylor, Michigan, hurled himself to his death after what the jury decided was mistreatment by Felix that included slapping Siddiqui and calling him a terrorist. Siddiqui's family sued the Marine Corps last month for $100 million.

The government did not charge Felix with any crime directly related to Siddiqui's death. The judge, Lt. Col. Michael Libretto, did not allow testimony about whether Felix's actions were responsible for the recruit's suicide.

Felix also was convicted of ordering Lance Cpl. Ameer Bourmeche into a dryer, which then was turned on as Felix demanded, "Are you still Muslim?" Bourmeche testified that he twice affirmed his faith and Felix and another drill instructor twice sent him for a bruising, scorching tumble inside the machine.

After a third spin, Bourmeche said, he feared for his life and renounced his religion. The drill instructors then let him out, he said.

Felix also was found guilty of ordering Bourmeche to simulate chopping off the head of a fellow Marine while reciting "God is great" in Arabic.

The jury decided Felix also ordered Rekan Hawez, a native of Iraqi Kurdistan, to climb into the dryer. The machine was never turned on.

Felix was also convicted of rousing nearly two dozen recruits from their sleep, ordering them to lie on the floor, and then walking on them along with two other drill instructors.

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Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio
A man was reportedly arraigned Friday and charged with murder in the killing of a 16-year-old Long Island teen that authorities believe was carried out by the vicious MS-13 gang.

David Sosa-Guevara appeared in Hempstead court for the arraignment and sources told Newsday the murder charge was connected to the death of Angel Soler, whose body was found in the Roosevelt-Baldwin area Oct. 19.

Sosa-Guevara, who was arrested in Maryland, pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail, the sources said.

Police said Soler was last seen July 21 leaving his Roosevelt home on his bike in the late afternoon. That was the same day he was murdered, court records showed.

WHAT IS MS-13, THE VIOLENT GANG TRUMP VOWED TO TARGET?

Federal and local officials believe MS-13, whose members have been blamed for more than 20 killings on Long Island, were behind Solers death.

The arrest came in the wake of police identifying on Tuesday the remains of two other men who sources told Newsday were MS-13 victims. Their remains and Solers were found in a span of nine days.

Kerin Pineda, 20, was found near the Merrick-Freeport border on Oct. 24, and Javier Castillo, 16, was found in Freeport on Oct. 27, the FBI said.

The remains of Julio Cesar Gonzales-Espantzay, 19, were also found in Massapequa Preserve in March in another suspected MS-13 killing, Newsday reported.

The FBI and local law enforcement officials have been combing parks and nature preserves in Nassau County over the past weeks looking for victims, and evidence of MS-13 gatherings.

Suyapa Soler, Angels mother, told Newsday she brought her son to Long Island four years ago to protect him from gang violence in Honduras.
An Oklahoma woman who married her biological mother in 2016 after they reunited and allegedly hit it off pleaded guilty to incest Tuesday.

Misty Spann, 26, of Duncan, Okla., pleaded guilty in Stephens County District Court and under the deal was sentenced to 10 years of probation.

Her mother, Patricia Ann Spann, 44, has pleaded not guilty to incest. Her court date was slated for January. She could face 10 years in prison if found guilty, Tulsa World reported.

Prosecutors said Patricia Spann also married one of her sons in 2008. The marriage was annulled in 2010 due to incest, The Associated Press reported.

The mother said she thought the marriage to Misty was legal because she had lost custody of her daughter and two sons years ago and is not listed on their birth certificates.

OKLAHOMA CITY TO RENAME SCHOOLS NAMED AFTER CONFEDERATE GENERALS

Patricia allegedly told authorities she was reunited with Misty in 2014 after losing custody and the two hit it off, Tulsa World reported.

KOCO 5 reported Patricias marriages to her children were all ploys to manipulate state laws.

Misty and Patricia told me they got married to basically defraud the state in order to receive more benefits under health care. That sort of thing, Detective Justin Smith told KOCO 5.

CHARTER PLANE CARRYING OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER DAMAGED IN MID-AIR COLLISION

Smith said the mother-daughter-duo was attempting to adopt a child and believed their marriage would shorten the process.

Authorities reportedly learned of the marriage in February 2016 and opened an investigation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Five years before Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire on a Baptist church in Texas, killing more than two dozen people, the former Air Force airman faced a military jury after pleading guilty to choking his then-wife and cracking her son's skull. His sentence: 12 months confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

Kelly's light punishment from the panel of officers and enlisted service members wasn't unusual, despite the severity of his crime. Unlike their civilian counterparts, military judges and juries don't use sentencing guidelines. The result is often widely disparate sentences for the same or similar offenses.

Service members who sit on military juries typically lack any legal experience, yet are expected to determine adequate punishments for defendants based on wide parameters set by the judge. They may be told, for example, that their options range from no punishment at all to multiple years of confinement and anything in between.

"They have no idea what they're doing," said retired Col. Don Christensen, who served as the Air Force's chief prosecutor from 2010 to 2014 and also presided over 100 trials as a military judge. "So you have these head-scratchers." Christensen is president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group.

Questions and answers about key aspects of Kelley's court-martial and the military justice system:

___

Q: CAN PRETRIAL DEALS CUT PRISON TIME?

Yes. Christensen said the maximum prison sentence Kelley could have received was 30 months because of a pretrial agreement between him, his attorney and the Air Force general who oversaw his case.

Both the military and civilian court systems make use of plea deals before cases go to trial. Defendants are betting that by pleading guilty, they'll get a lesser sentence than they would from a judge or jury. But military judges are not allowed to review the sentencing portion of a pretrial agreement before issuing their own sentence. And the defendant always gets the lesser punishment of the two.

In civilian courts, by contrast, the judge is privy to any pretrial agreement and has the final say. A judge could decide the agreed-upon sentence is too lenient and decide to impose a tougher one.

The difference between a pretrial agreement sentence and a military judge's ruling can be dramatic. Army Staff Sgt. Casey West was sentenced in May by a judge to 56 years in prison for multiple counts of rape and sexual abuse of a child. But he won't be behind bars for nearly that long, because a pretrial agreement capped his confinement at 15 years.

West will do even less time if he is eventually paroled. In the military justice system, convicted service members can be released from prison after serving one-third of their terms. Parole was eliminated for federal civilian defendants convicted of crimes after 1987.

___

Q: DID THE JURY KNOW ABOUT KELLEY'S TROUBLED BACKGROUND?

No. When the military jury at Holloman Air Force Base sentenced Kelley in November 2012, they only knew he'd admitted to assaulting his wife and striking her child in the head.

They weren't aware he'd also hit the child on the body, and on multiple occasions pointed a loaded and unloaded firearm at his wife, according to Kelley's court-martial order. Kelley had pleaded not guilty to these other "specifications"  military parlance for an alleged criminal act  and they were withdrawn after he was arraigned.

The jury also likely didn't know Kelley was caught trying to bring guns onto Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico when he was stationed there, according to an El Paso, Texas, police report from June 2012. Or that he made death threats against superior officers, which also is mentioned in the police report.

All of this information and much more would have been available to federal civilian judges in the form of presentencing reports that they receive before deciding on a punishment.

___

Q: IS THERE MORE TO KNOW ABOUT KELLEY'S COURT-MARTIAL?

Yes. The Air Force has so far released only a handful of pages from Kelley's trial record. The service is planning to release more.

Typically, however, transparency in connection with military trial records is minimal. While all of the services make brief courts-martial results public, documents from the proceedings, such as the charges, courtroom transcripts and pretrial agreements, are available only through the federal open records law, the Freedom of Information Act. That's a potentially time-consuming process and there are no assurances the requested documents will be released.

Conversely, records from most federal court cases are available online through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, known as PACER. PACER was established in 1988. Congress last year directed the Pentagon to create a comparable repository by 2020.

"What baffles me is why this is treated like putting a man on the moon," Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School and is a practicing attorney, said of the military's failure to keep pace. "It's really one of the great mysteries to me."

___

Contact Richard Lardner on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rplardner
South Korean naval vessels will join the U.S. in a rare military drill that will feature three U.S. aircraft carriers in the western Pacific later this week.

The USS Ronald Reagan, based in Japan; the USS Theodore Roosevelt, based in San Diego; and the USS Nimitz, based at Naval Base Kitsap at Bremerton, Washington, are all participating in the exercise from Saturday through next Tuesday.

Seven South Korean Naval vessels will partake in the joint drill. The countries will practice air operations, air artillery strikes and aircraft carrier escorts, Reuters reported.

South Koreas military announced its participation on Friday. The drill is an effort to show North Korea the countrys military strength and capability to respond as the nuclear threat continues to loom in Pyongyang, reported the news outlet.

Units assigned to the strike force will conduct coordinated operations in international waters to demonstrate the U.S. Navys unique capability to operate multiple carrier strike groups as a coordinated strike force effort.

The three aircraft carriers are expected to link up in the Sea of Japan later this week off the Korean Peninsula, a U.S. defense official tells Fox News.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
A top official in El Salvador is warning Uber that the ride-hailing app is operating outside the law and must cease operations, six months after launching in the country.

Transportation Vice Minister Nelson Garcia says Salvadoran law does not provide for that kind of private transportation and new legislation would have to be passed for it to be allowed.

Garcia said Thursday that Uber drivers may have their cars seized, face fines or have their licenses and plates revoked if they don't comply.

No Uber representative in El Salvador could be located, and there was no immediate response to an email sent to an address for media inquiries at its U.S. headquarters.

Uber launched in El Salvador in May, generating jobs for its drivers but also angering licensed cabbies.
A nurse who is already serving a life sentence for two murders may have killed more than 100 patients over several years at two hospitals in northwestern Germany, prosecutors said Thursday.

Investigators have completed toxicological examinations on patients who died during Niels Hoegel's time as a nurse in hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, prosecutors and police in Oldenburg said. They found a further 16 cases in which he is suspected.

In late August, they said they had determined that he might have killed at least another 84 patients beyond the ones for whose murder he is already serving time. At the time, they said that they were awaiting toxicology results on another 41 fatalities, which have now been concluded.

Prosecutors reiterated in a statement that they expect to file additional charges against Hoegel early next year. Additional convictions could affect Hoegel's possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany.

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a hospital in Delmenhorst and was sentenced to life in prison.

During his trial, Hoegel had said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Hoegel worked at the Oldenburg hospital from 1999 to 2002 and in Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.

Prosecutors said he is now suspected in 38 cases in Oldenburg and 62 in Delmenhorst, but that in five of those cases further examinations are needed. It isn't clear when those will be concluded.

As part of a wider investigation involving both hospitals, police and prosecutors reviewed more than 500 patient files and hundreds more hospital records. They also exhumed 134 bodies from 67 cemeteries, and questioned Hoegel six times.

Police have said if local health officials hadn't hesitated in alerting authorities, Hoegel could have been stopped earlier.

Authorities are already pursuing criminal cases against former staff at the two medical facilities.
Ahead of Ivanka Trumps visit to Hyderabad later this month for an entrepreneurship summit, the Indian city is trying to clean up its image by rounding up about 6,000 beggars and sending them to either shelters or rehab.

Police in Hyderabad made the announcement earlier this week, when they also outlawed begging until early January and threatened to fine or jail anyone who defies the order. Hyderabad Police Commissioner M. Mahendar Reddy said that the begging was becoming a nuisance and causing a danger to both drivers and pedestrians.

Such acts are causing annoyance and awkwardness by exposing in an indecent manner to divert the attention of the vehicular traffic as well as pedestrians and public, in general, to induce them to give alms, the citys police force said in a notice. These acts are dangerous to the safety of the vehicular traffic and public in general.

City officials also said they want the presidents daughter and other dignitaries visiting the city for the summit to get the best picture of Hyderabad in case they decide to do some sightseeing. So far, police have already rounded up 400 beggars and sent them to a rehabilitation center at Chanchalguda Central Jail in Hyderabad.

Trump, who is a top White House adviser, will represent the U.S. at the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit and is expected to speak alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

President Trump tweeted about his daughters trip in August. The U.S. and India are co-hosting the summit, which is called Women First, Prosperity for All.

The Indian government and Prime Minister Modi are great partners, and we thank the city of Hyderabad, whose robust startup ecosystem, top notch talent, and supportive government policies have made it one of the worlds leading startup capitals, MaryKay Carlson, charge daffaires at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, said in a statement to Newsweek. We are thrilled to be partnering together on GES 2017!

This is not the first time that Hyderabad has taken beggars off its street. In 2000, officials also removed homeless people from the streets for a visit from then-President Bill Clinton.

India is not the only country to take measures to keep the homeless off city streets during major evets.

A nonprofit, Colorado for the Homeless, gave people living on the street movie tickets when Denver hosted the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and, ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games, a private Brazilian security firm was tasked with removing beggars from tourist areas and taking them to police stations in Rio de Janeiro.
British prosecutors admitted they deleted crucial emails relating to the case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Assange, 46, has been holed up in Ecuadors embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition for rape allegations against him that were filed in Sweden. The country dropped the case and investigation into Assange in May. Assange remained at the embassy, fearing he would be extradited to the U.S. after leaking the Chelsea Manning documents in 2010.

PHILIPPINES PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE: I STABBED SOMEONE TO DEATH, OBAMA IS SO BLACK AND ARROGANT

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) admitted deleting the important emails between the prosecutors and its Swedish counterparts in 2014, The Guardian reported. The emails were deleted after a CPS lawyer retired.

The news of the deleted emails comes before next weeks tribunal hearing in London.

The lawyer who deleted the emails reportedly asked his Swedish counterparts not to interview Assange in 2010 or 2011. It was not clear why the lawyer advised the Swedes not to visit Assange in London. The Guardian noted the visits could have prevented the embassys standoff.

PARADISE PAPERS EXPLAINED: OFFSHORE ASSETS OF APPLE, QUEEN ELIZABETH II, OTHERS EXPOSED IN HISTORICAL DATA LEAK

It is incredible to me these records about an ongoing and high-profile case have been destroyed. I think they have something to hide, Stefania Maurizi, an Italian journalist who discovered the emails were deleted, told The Guardian. She said she would be seeking more information about the documents through Freedom of Information requests.

Maurizi also was going to CPS on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the case.
Outspoken Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte added to his legendary list of outrageous claims Thursday when he bragged about stabbing a person to death when he was 16 years old -- and Duterte raised even more eyebrows when he reportedly later called former President Barack Obama "so black and arrogant."

In a defiant speech hitting back at critics of his deadly drug crackdown, Duterte said he would go into jails and have rumbles here, rumbles there.

At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing, Duterte said during a summit in the Vietnamese city of Danang, according to the BBC. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president.

A spokesman for Duterte said the remarks had been made in jest.

Duterte also hit Obama, slamming his former U.S. counterpart for criticizing the Philippines drug war.

These white people, those from [the European Union], the ignorant Americans, pretending to be, this Obama, Duterte said, according to The Philippine Star. You are so black and arrogant. [He] reprimanded me. Why you reprimand me? Im the president of a country.

4 ARRESTED IN ZIMBABWE, ACCUSED OF BOOING MUGABE'S WIFE

Duterte, 72, is known for his often incendiary and obscene language during speeches promoting the country's crackdown on rampant drug use and trafficking.

Since Duterte took office 16 months ago, police said more than 3,960 people have been killed in the war on drugs. Another 2,290 people have been murdered in drug-related crimes, the government said.

Last year, Duterte said he would be happy to slaughter millions of drug addicts and that he even fatally shot criminals while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao to set an example for police.

Thursday was not even the first time he has mentioned stabbing and killing someone while a teenager. In 2015, he told the Philippines edition of Esquire magazine that during a tumultuous fight in the beach when he was 17, maybe I stabbed somebody to death.

Its unclear if he was referring to the same incident in Thursdays speech.
UKs Cambridge University physical sciences professor came under fire this week from mental health campaigners and students after he suggested undergraduates will have to work hard and abstain from drinking to pass the course.

Eugene Terentjev draw the fury of students and mental health activists after sending out an email last week to first-year natural sciences undergraduates at Cambridge, telling them the course will be difficult and thus they should refrain from drinking and other social activities if they wish to succeed, according to an email leaked to student-run publication Varsity.

Physical sciences is a VERY hard subject, which will require ALL of your attention and your FULL brain capacity (and for a large fraction of you, even that will not be quite enough), Terentjev wrote to the students.

You can ONLY do well (ie achieve your potential, which rightly or wrongly several people here assumed you have) if you are completely focused, and learn to enjoy the course. People who just TAKE the course, but enjoy their social life, can easily survive in many subjects  but not in this one.

Remember that you are NOT at any other uni, where students do drink a lot and do have what they regard as a good time".  Professor Eugene Terentjev

He added: Remember that you are NOT at any other uni, where students do drink a lot and do have what they regard as a good time  and you are NOT on a course, as some Cambridge courses sadly are, where such a behaviour pattern is possible or acceptable.

The professors comments caused an uproar among activists and students, who called his email extremely damaging and neither appropriate nor acceptable, with one other university vice-chancellor accusing Terentjev of frightening impressionable undergraduates, the London Times reported.

A mental health campaign at the university, Student Minds Cambridge, said the message sent by the professor could be extremely damaging to the mental well-being of the students concerned, and potentially others as well, the Times reported.

Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, said the professor message scaremongers the students rather than helping them to learn to live a balanced lifestyle. Frightening impressionable undergraduates into believing that work alone is all-important is irresponsible, unkind and wrong-headed, he told the newspaper.

The universitys student union welfare officer, Micha Frazer-Carroll, also criticized the content of the email, claiming it criticized the very premise of having a social life, or any sort of life, outside of study.

The university believes that all first-year students in all disciplines, having undergone the thorough admissions process that Cambridge requires, have the capacity to succeed academically, a spokesperson for the University told the Times.
South Sudan's army is steadily capturing more rebel-held territory, even as peace talks try to find a resolution to the country's nearly four-year-old civil war.

As the army gains ground, complaints are growing that both sides are committing atrocities against civilians.

The Associated Press recently spoke with eight rebel soldiers who had been on the front lines in a rebel-held area and all recounted similar events: government forces gang-raping women, burning houses with people inside and killing children.

Inconclusive peace talks were held in the capital, Juba in October. The negotiations are scheduled to resume in December and by that time opposition forces probably will have lost more territory, experts say.

In the last six months, despite President Salva Kiir's declaration of a unilateral cease-fire, government troops have captured large swaths of land previously held by rebel forces. What was once the opposition heartland, Upper Nile state, is now mostly under government control.

South Sudan's civil war has killed tens of thousands and forced more than two million people to flee the country, creating the largest displacement of civilians in Africa since the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Refugees, and some of the more than 200,000 people sheltering in United Nations-run camps across South Sudan, have recounted targeted killings and rapes by government troops.

In the Equatoria region, Amnesty International found many accounts of civilians being killed with "reckless abandon" by government forces and allied militia, according to a report issued in July.

South Sudan's army has denied the allegations, saying the opposition is spreading "negative propaganda" in order to portray them as "butchers."

"This is what you'd expect from your opponent," said acting army spokesman Col. Santo Domic Chol. "We don't kill women and children and we don't want to kill everybody in South Sudan."

The government's purpose is to promote peace and have everyone, including the opposition, join in national reconciliation, Chol said.

The South Sudan government's campaign is pushing the rebels further into the bush rather than "convincing them to give up arms," said Alan Boswell, conflict analyst for Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based group focusing on armed violence. "The government hopes to dictate victory on its own terms rather than being forced into a political settlement with its opponents."

With the dry season approaching and fighting expected to increase, rights groups are urging both sides to stop the attacks, including violence against civilians, said Jehanne Henry senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"Since the start of the conflict we have been documenting horrific attacks on civilians and it's high time government puts an end to these crimes and holds those responsible to account," Henry said.

Justin Nyuol, chairman of South Sudan's Human Rights Commission, agreed.

"While it's true some government forces have committed atrocities, opposition fighters have committed atrocities as well, including in Equatoria or other areas where they control, Nyuol said.

"There is an element of brutality and it's being carried out by all the parties to the conflict. ... When the war gets more intense the level of brutality goes up."
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Sri Lanka's government is facing increasing pressure to answer for alleged human rights violations following a recent war crimes lawsuit and allegations from over 50 men who said they were raped, branded or tortured as recently as this year.

Their comments come nearly a decade after Sri Lanka's civil war ended and days ahead of a review of the Indian Ocean nation by the U.N.'s top human rights body.

Doctors, psychologists, lawmakers and rights groups have appealed to the United Nations to investigate new allegations published by The Associated Press on Wednesday. The AP reviewed 32 medical and psychological evaluations and interviewed 20 men who said they were accused of trying to revive a rebel group on the losing side of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war.
Tunisia's president has decided to extend the state of emergency in the country for three more months.

President Beji Caid Essebsi's office said Friday the decision takes effect on Sunday in the North African nation.

The state of emergency has been in place since November 2015. It gives more power to police, especially to ban strikes and gatherings.

The decision comes after a police commander was stabbed to death by a suspected Islamic extremist near Tunisia's Parliament in Tunis earlier this month.

Tunisia suffered major extremist attacks in 2015, including at the famed Bardo Museum in the capital, where 22 people were killed. In addition, an attack on a beach hotel near Sousse killed 38 people and one on a bus carrying presidential guards in Tunis left 12 dead.
A U.S. Air Force general is warning that a major annual military exercise with Gulf Arab countries is at risk over the ongoing diplomatic crisis engulfing Qatar.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian said American officials are still looking at options over the annual Eagle Resolve exercise.

The exercise, held since 1999, sees countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council send forces alongside Americans to simulate working as a multinational force in battle. This year's Eagle Resolve exercise, held in Kuwait in March, involved 1,000 U.S. troops.

Harrigian, the top official at U.S. Air Force Central Command in Qatar, told journalists in Dubai on Friday that already a leadership course was cancelled over the crisis.

The Associated Press in October first reported exercises were at risk over the monthslong dispute.
When the clock turns 4 Tuesday afternoon at the Cooper Branch of the Rappahannock Regional Library in Colonial Beach, a unique event will begin to unfold.

Its a meet-and-greet of sorts where the subjects profiled in a newly published book about the Potomac River town will be on hand to sign copies and talk about the lore that binds them. Its happening because nationally known romance author Sherryl Woodswho draws inspiration for many of the characters in her Chesapeake Shores and other books from years of visiting and living at Colonial Beachhas shifted gears to pen a different kind of book.

Its called A Small Town Love Story: Colonial Beach, Virginia, and its a compendium of the towns history, memories, personal experiences, written with a collective fondness for the town that makes clear its a place where people still take care of each other.

Woods, who is donating the proceeds from the book to the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, grew up in Arlington. But, as she says in the books foreword, from the age of 4 she was thrilled to spend summers in a Colonial Beach cottage, where a wraparound porch gave her a vista on the riverfront world.

Woods, who now splits time between Colonial Beach and Florida, said fond childhood memories of the Westmoreland County townsnagging cherry snow cones on the boardwalk or drives around The Point where the Potomac River meets Monroe Baymade her want to save the fond stories others have for their town.

Inspired by librarian Kitty Norris to capture that sort of oral history, the effort eventually morphed into a book. Woods interviewed dozens of Beach residents to capture stories that range from the wild times of The Oyster Wars to tales of the towns tourism heyday.

To get a feel for all this, Woods and Norris helped arrange a time for me to talk to four of the folks whose stories are shared in the book: Jessie Hall, Ellie Caruthers, Diana Pearson and Rocky Denson.

Ill start with Caruthers, a 90-year-old Beach resident whos a compendium of town history. She and her husband owned Docs Motor Court, and she acted as manager until it closed a few years ago. While her husband worked at Dahlgren, she spent decades getting to know customers whod come back to the same rooms on the same week each year.

One of those regulars was a baker from Washington named Julius, who came back each year with his family. One year, his wife called just before the week when theyd always visit, asking if there was any way to get their regular room. Julius, it turned out, was very ill, but wanted to come one last time to the spot where he and his family had enjoyed so many wonderful memories.

When the couple arrived, Caruthers said she could see he wasnt well at all, though he found the energy to talk to her for a good while about other guests and the memories he cherished. When he tired, she left to let him rest, but Carutherswho worked as a nurse in the off seasonwas quickly called back because the baker was failing.

He died a short time later in his room at the motor court. His family said he had accomplished his mission: ending his days in a place where hed enjoyed so many good times.

Rocky Denson, whose family has been in the grocery and seafood business for several generations, shared a story of his father, Bernard Denson, who enlisted in the Navy during World War II but was able to get home from Norfolk on weekends to work in the grocery store.

A friend in town, Bill Cooper, took Densons advice and enlisted where and how he had. But instead of getting to serve in Norfolk, he ended up on a ship overseas.

Denson noted that one day, his father was shuttling some sailors on a small craft across the Elizabeth River when he heard someone screaming his name. He turned to see Cooper, his friend from Colonial Beach, cursing him six ways from Sunday at the advice on how to serve close to home.

Jessie Hall shared great, nostalgic memories of days when casinos, a dance hall and a roller-skating rink did banner business, while Diana Pearson recounted a lifetime of giving back to the town with the Chamber of Commerce.

Hall, also one of the towns best historians, recalled an incident hard to understand today: when a customer in her fathers boardwalk shooting gallery shot him in the shoulder with one of the live .22 rifles used there.

Norris, who helped Woods set up and conduct the interviews for the book, said there will be refreshments, door prizes, and copies of the book for sale. The event, at the librarys Cooper Branch, runs from 4 to 6 p.m.
WHILE THERE is much to debate regarding President Trumps newly unveiled tax plan, and the partisans have already staked out their usual positions, there is one component that has a decidedly local flavor: elimination of the state and local tax exemptions.

On the surface, this may seem like a horrible idea. For most people who itemize deductions, the ability to write off both real estate taxes and the hated car tax is the silver lining to an otherwise dark cloud.

But this little known exemption is actually a huge giveaway that tilts the tax code in favor of the wealthy in high-tax states like New York, California and Illinois at the expense of taxpayers in low-tax states like Virginia.

Lets first examine who utilizes the state and local exemption. In 2016, the Tax Foundation reported that only 30 percent of total taxpayers itemized deductions in 2013, with 68 percent utilizing the standard deduction.

That same study showed that only 6 percent of taxpayers with an income under $25,000 itemize, while 93 percent of taxpayers with an income over $200,000 itemize their deductions.

So itemized deductions disproportionately favor upper-income earners while most lower- and middle-income earners are stuck using standard deductions which are capped at a much lower rate.

For 2016 the standard deduction for an individual was only $6,300; and $12,600 for a married couple filing jointly.

To put this in perspective, residents of Manhattan wrote off an average of $25,000 on their federal income tax returns just utilizing the state and local tax exemptions.

It is estimated that the state and local exemption will reduce federal revenues by $97 billion for 2017. Of that total lost revenue, half will benefit just six states: New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Texas and Pennsylvania.

The most galling aspect of the state and local tax exemption is that taxpayers who live in fiscally responsible states/localities with low property tax rates are actually paying a higher effective tax rate than wealthy taxpayers in high-tax states.

Because Virginia and her localities are fiscally conservative and well-managed, Virginia taxpayers have to pay more in federal income taxes than the residents of mismanaged and irresponsible states.

In exchange for eliminating the state and local tax deduction, the GOP plan proposes increasing the standard deduction.

The standard deduction is taken by approximately 70 percent of taxpayers -almost exclusively at the lower and middle end of the income range. The firefighter, nurse, and schoolteacher in your community are most likely taking standard deductions.

A married school teacher could see the standard deduction increase from $12,600 to $25,200. This change in the tax code could result in thousands of dollars in saving for most middle- to low-income American families.

In short, the married school teacher in Virginia is subsidizing the tax bill for the wealthy real estate investor in New York and the software executive in California.

Even if the couple itemized, they would not get to write off as much as someone with a comparable salary in Illinois because their property tax rates are higher. This means the Virginia teacher is paying a higher rate and therefore more in federal income tax than the Illinois teacher.

A bipartisan coalition of legislators in these high-tax states recently joined together in an effort to protect this giveaway. We in Virginia need our representatives to band together and fight to end this unfair tax policy.

As the representatives in high-tax states line up to protect this giveaway, I urge Senators Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and the entire Virginia congressional delegation to fight for us.

Please place our interests over party loyalty. This is an issue of good tax policy, common sense, and most importantly, fairness.
THE GOOD NEWS is that the Virginia Retirement Systems total unfunded liabilities, which include pensions and other post-employment benefits promised to retired state and local government employees, are $3.8 billion less than they were last year, VRS Director Patricia Bishop told the state Senate Finance Committee last month.

VRS trustees celebrated the news by awarding $6.75 million in incentive pay to their investment team, which is already well-compensated.

According to data obtained by the Richmond TimesDispatch under the Freedom of Information Act, Ronald Schmitz, chief investment officer of VRS, is the highest paid employee in Virginia, pulling in $957,715 in total compensation. Four other VRS employees are paid over a half-million dollars each.

The bad news is that as of June 30, the VRS was still $20.7 billion in the red. More than half of the deficitapproximately $12 billionis in the states teacher pension plan, which 146,000 educators depend upon to finance their retirements.

Of course, things could be worse. According to Bloomberg, state pension funding gaps actually worsened in 43 states last yeareven during the second-longest bull market in U.S. history.

Although Virginia was ranked No. 28 among the 50 states for funding its state pension obligations at 75 percent, at least VRS gained a little ground. In contrast, New Jersey, Kentucky and Illinois have only about a third of the money needed to pay state and local government employees their future retirement benefits instead of IOUs.

However, things could also be better. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, South Dakotas funding ratiodefined as the gap between liabilities for promised benefits and available funds over timeis 104 percent, and New Yorks is 98 percent. North Carolina, Virginias neighbor to the south, has a 95 percent funding ratio, which is much healthier than the commonwealths.

VRSthe 20th largest pension fund, public or private, in the U.S.points out that its portfolio earned a robust 12.1 percent return in fiscal year 2017, and that it ended the year with a record $74 billion in assets. Thats great, but those high returns could easily go south during another recession.

And it doesnt change the fact that VRS still has no way to pay for a quarter of the retirement benefits that have been promised to its 687,000 participants. Or that Virginia also has $5.2 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care, according to Pew.

During its last session, the General Assembly passed a bill, which was signed by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, requiring VRS to adopt stress testing and reporting policies that improve transparency and include projections of benefit levels, pension costs, liabilities and debt reduction under various economic and investment scenarios over the next 25 years.

In its mandated 2017 Stress Test report, VRS reported that major pension reforms enacted since 2010including the introduction of a defined benefit/defined contribution hybrid plan that only impacts employees hired on or after Jan. 1, 2014will have the greatest impact over time in reducing the systems unfunded liabilities.

Thats a start, but $20.7 billion is a very large hole to fill. And while highly-paid VRS executives probably dont have to worry about their future, Virginia taxpayers do.

A recent Hoover Institution study by Joshua Rauh titled Hidden Debt, Hidden Deficits found that state governments collectively reported $1.387 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities, but the true liability owed to workers based on their current service and salaries is $3.846 trillion. These calculations reflect the fact that accrued pension promises are a form of government debt with strong rights that are enforceable in court.

That means taxpayers in Virginia are on the hook for the entire $20.7 billion shortfall.

The Hoover study also found that the commonwealth would have to double its contributions to VRS just to prevent an increase in its unfunded liabilities, crowding out spending on other priorities such as transportation, education and health care.

This is the inevitable result after decades of promising state employees overly generous retirement packages, but failing to set aside enough money to pay for them.
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Construction on the new Pennsylvania State Police Carlisle headquarters in South Middleton Township is off to a running start, township supervisors said on Thursday, while a dilapidated home and garage on Front Street could be on the way out.

Tim Duerr, South Middletowns director of community development, said that developers of the new headquarters have released a stormwater management agreement for the 4.73-acre lot on Dunwoody Drive just off Alexander Spring Road. SP Carlisle Associates LLC of Dillsburg is developing the building. The state police will lease the building.

This assures that they will do what they have to do to manage stormwater on the property and to do it on a long (term) basis, Supervisor Tom Faley said.

Faley said construction on the site started around two weeks ago with land clearing. The next step will be laying a building foundation.

Were 100 percent behind their efforts. Anything we can do for this, we will do, Faley said.

Progress also is being made regarding a dilapidated garage at 309 Front St., which appears to be on the verge of structural collapse. This comes after municipal officials have tried to contact the property owner for several months without success.

In December 2016, the township condemned the garage, which is behind a house that has remained vacant for several years. In May 2016, the township began sending citation letters to the property owner but never received a response.

As a result, officials now are taking steps to demolish the structures because they are considered dangerous under state second-class township regulations. Township staff has determined that the garage and house both meet the legal criteria of blight, so the matter has been forwarded to the Cumberland County Blighted Property Review Committee. Any demolition costs would be forwarded to the owner as a property lien.

Weve tried multiple times to contact the owner, now the county will try, township manager Cory Adams said.

Green Light-Go grants

Also on Thursday, South Middleton officials announced that the township was awarded Green Light-Go grants from the state Department of Transportation. Three grants totaling $134,629.82 were given to the township on an 80/20 basis, meaning that South Middleton is required to contribute 20 percent of the cost of its requested projects while the state pays 80 percent.

A grant for $13,680 was awarded for traffic signal timing on Walnut Bottom Road, while a second grant for $62,574.06 was awarded for emergency pre-emption devices for traffic signals on Walnut Bottom Road. A third grant for $44,695.76 was awarded for emergency pre-emption devices for traffic signals on York Road.

Emergency pre-emption devices allow police, fire and ambulance personnel in the community to drive through a steady green light as they pass these traffic signals. Red signals will be transmitted to opposing traffic at these times.

Adams credited former township engineer Brian ONeill for obtaining the grants.
ABC/Andrea McCallinThe next episode of the PBS series Landmarks Live in Concert, hosted by Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, features Foo Fighters performing at the historic Acropolis in Athens, Greece. In a preview for the special, Smith and Foos frontman Dave Grohl talk about their influences.

Grohl begins by talking about his childhood love for "'70s AM radio," which Smith agrees "ruled." "That's got such a big place in my heart," Grohl says. "10CC, Andrew Gold, Gerry Rafferty." You can watch the clip now via PBS.com.

The Foo Fighters' episode of Landmarks Live in Concert premieres this Friday, November 10. You can also catch Foos live yourself, as the band currently is touring North America in support of its new album, Concrete and Gold.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Each legislative session thousands of bills and amendments are introduced in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Only a fraction become law, and an even smaller portion receive wide media coverage.

These bills impact the lives of people living in Pennsylvania every day.

Each week The Sentinel will highlight one bill that has not received widespread attention.

About the bill

In October, a gunman opened fire on an unsuspecting crowd in Las Vegas. He killed more than 50 people, including a Midstate resident, and injured hundreds more. On Nov. 5, a gunman entered a church in a small town in Texas and killed nearly 30 people, including several children.

In both cases, the subsequent conversations about gun control in part revolved around access to firearms by people with mental health issues.

Current law bars anyone who has been adjudicated mentally ill from owning or possessing firearms.

However, according to state Rep. Michael OBrien, D-Philadelphia, this ban on firearm possession only applies to people who were deemed mentally ill by the court and committed to in-patient treatment.

OBrien has introduced a bill that would expand the conditions in which a person would be barred from owning or possessing firearms.

Under current law, individuals who have been involuntarily committed for mental health treatment are ineligible to possess a firearm, OBrien wrote in a co-sponsorship letter. However, if a person has been ordered to undergo mental health treatment on an outpatient basis, he or she is still eligible to possess a firearm.

House Bill 22 would expand the list of people who are not allowed to own or possess firearms to include people who have been ordered to undergo involuntary mental health treatment on an outpatient basis.

I believe that, regardless of whether mental health treatment is in-patient or out-patient, if an individual is committed for treatment or ordered to receive outpatient treatment, he or she should be prohibited from possessing a firearm until the court determines that the individual is no longer a danger to himself or other people, OBrien wrote in a co-sponsorship letter. The intent of my bill is to prevent or limit harm to family members, the general public, and law enforcement officers, as well as preventing mentally ill individuals from causing serious bodily harm to themselves.

Under current Pennsylvania law, a person who has been deemed not to possess firearms may petition the court to restore their rights.

OBriens bill was introduced in January, prior to the most recent mass shootings.
Farming continues to have a problem with its public image, with numerous organisations putting the industry down for its environmental and animal welfare record.

Recent examples include the Viva! campaign against modern dairy production and Friends of the Earths campaigning against glyphosate.

But farmers are fighting back and are increasingly turning to social media to set the record straight.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are the most prevalent social networking sites, with LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and Whatsapp also popular among different demographics.

The rise in popularity of these digital platforms means they have large audiences with whom farmers can have direct conversations.

See also: How farmers are fighting sheep worrying with social media

Glyphosate campaign

One example of this in action was the NFUs campaign, which used social media to explain the facts behind the controversial weedkiller.

Farmers were encouraged to use the hashtag #glyphosateisvital to disseminate photos, videos, infographics and written statements about the safety and usefulness of the product on their farms, in an attempt to avoid the imposition of an EU-wide ban.

It is important for the industry to have that voice, otherwise mistruths can spread, says Simon Haley of social media consultancy Social Jungle. If theres a vacuum and lack of information on a subject, then others will step in and tailor the facts to their agenda.

Strategic approach

Having a good social media strategy is essential. The average social media user in the UK will spend nearly two-and-a-half hours a day online, which is a lot of time wasted if you are not clear on how or why to engage.

It might be for research; it might be to give your opinion on a particular subject; it might be to connect to others or it might be to share links to articles or other information. But whatever your purpose, make sure you have one,says Mr Haley.

The digital sphere is a great way of showing the reality of farming, especially on topics such as fly-tipping, sheep worrying or sky lanterns.

The reality needs to be shown. But make sure you know what type of social media followers you have [age, demographic, location, sector] and then use the platforms to its strengths.

Most platforms are more than 10 years old, so they are quite intuitive. Find the right balance between adding value to your personal brand and influencing the attitude of your followers, and this is the path to social media success.

8 top tips for social media success

Research where you ideal audience/customer is and chose the platform(s) where you can be sure your message is being heard and valued Make sure your profile has personality. Post whenever you have something valuable and meaningful to share and the mood takes you Really engaging posts, using photos and video, will deliver more value than constant mediocre content. Quality beats quantity every time Variety pays. Recycle ideas, refresh their delivery, post at different times of day to capture more of your audience Research other social networks and brand profiles. Instagram, Flipboard and Pinterest are great sources of inspiration for content Avoid self-promotion. You are not a broadcast tool  you must engage and be sociable. Having an opinion is fine, but engagement is a two-way street Use words such as how, what and why on social networking sites to encourage participation. Use polls to find out what your audience really thinks Listen to the conversations of your audience. People need to know, like and trust you before they will properly engage. Take time to like and share relevant content produced by others

Simon Haley is co-owner of Social Jungle, a social media consultancy and training company specialising in the food, farming and rural business sectors.

Case study: The tweeting shepherdess Yorkshire hill farmer Amanda Owen is using Twitter to bring to life the harsh realities of farming in the Dales Her YorkshireShepherdess account (@AmandaOwen8) is one of the most popular farming biographies on Twitter and it has attracted more than 37,500 followers. She and husband Clive have nine children and together they farm more than 700 Swaledale sheep and 20 Beef Shorthorn across 810ha at Ravenseat Farm, near Keld, Richmond. Mrs Owen describes herself as a farmer, mother, teamaker and writer, in no particular order. She is commonly known in the Twittersphere as the tweeting shepherdess. Despite her busy lifestyle, she somehow finds time to post dozens of spectacular photos on Twitter to document all aspects of the farming year and the challenges they face on one of the most isolated farms in England. Mrs Owen launched her Twitter account in 2012 and since then she has posted more than 21,000 tweets. Her fantastic photos of life on a hill farm regularly gain thousands of retweets and favourites. I came to Twitter very much accidentally, but soon realised there was genuine interest in what goes on behind the scenes, she says. Putting a face to family farming, showing the human aspect of the industry and maybe helping people to translate what they can see out of the car window is what I aim to do. Social media is a great way to educate people and also a fantastic way to learn yourself, about your consumers.

Case study: Using Instagram in mid-Wales Instagram is a photo-based social media platform that has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity over the past five years, with about 500 million people using it on a daily basis. It is especially popular with younger age groups  about 70% of Farmers Weeklys Instagram followers are aged between 18 and 34. Welsh farmer Tom Parry, who is 23 years old, farms sheep, beef cattle and pullets in the Brecon Beacons and started using Instagram about three years ago. He says this platform has the potential to do the most to promote British farming because photos are shared publicly and the use of hashtags to find photos with a common theme means users dont have to follow others to discover and engage with their posts. Its really easy to do  you just take photos on your phone as you go about your day. Its reaching a wider audience than Facebook, and perhaps even Twitter, because of the hashtags like #UKagriculture and #welshfarming, whereas Facebook and Twitter you tend to follow similar people to yourself. Mr Parry also thinks photo sharing is a great way to promote the best of British agriculture, as its more visual than a 140-character tweet, although it does revolve around good-looking images. That can paint a rather glamorous picture of farming, but the public are engaging with it. I would always rather look at photos than a load of peoples statuses about their lives. Mr Parry has people who follow him from all over the world because his photos get them interested in UK farming. He has even sold a ram lamb to a farmer in north Wales who saw his Instagram posts and got in touch. As with all social media platforms, posts are open to the anti-farming lobby, but Mr Parry says the overwhelming reception from people is positive. Instagram: @Thomasparry19

Case study: Facebook lambing videos an internet hit A series of live lambing videos have turned family farmers from Barnsley into an internet sensation. Roger Nicholson and sons David and Robert had a fan base of more than 5,000 people tuning into their Facebook Live lambing coverage at Cannon Hall Farm in January and February. The Nicholsons, who were shortlisted for the Farmers Weekly 2017 Diversification Farmer of the Year award, have adopted Facebook Live to promote a general understanding of farming to the public, as well as their farm shop and farm park  one of the biggest adventure playgrounds in the North. Their live broadcasts educate viewers about life on the farm  for example, when 300 ewes were due to lamb in February. They have also captured a live lamb birth, a lamb that was successfully fostered onto a new mum that lost her baby, and triplets less than a week old being bottle-fed by Roger. In June, more than 2.3 million people viewed content on Cannon Hall Farms Facebook page and there were 490,157 engagements  clicks, likes, shares and comments  posted. The numbers surpassed Chester Zoo. Their Facebook page (@CannonHallFarm) has more than 101,000 likes. The Nicholsons are also very active on Twitter and Instagram, having gained more than 28,600 and 6,150 followers respectively.
The Lynx UK Trust has accused the National Sheep Association (NSA) of creating hysteria and scaremongering over claims an escaped lynx killed eight sheep in Mid Wales.

Paul ODonoghue, chief scientific adviser at the trust, said there was no conclusive evidence a lynx was responsible for the deaths.

Farmer Owen Jenkins told Farmers Weekly he was convinced that the lynx, named Lilleth, which escaped from Borth Wildlife Animal Kingdom, near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, had attacked his sheep flock.

See also: The law on shooting dogs  critical facts farmers must know

Mr Jenkins said eight of his sheep died after they were attacked on his farm 10 days ago. One of the dead sheep died after suffering bite marks in its neck. The other seven, including a Suffolk lamb, appeared to have died from shock.

He said he saw Lilleth stalking him and a zoo worker after they had gone to the field to check Mr Jenkinss sheep. The lynx is still at large.

A post-mortem examination carried out by Welsh government vets on one of the sheep confirmed it had died from bites to the top of the neck with associated haemorrhaging. But it was not possible to confirm whether these bite marks were caused by a dog or a cat.

Unsuitable habitat

Dr ODonoghue said It was highly unlikely a lynx would be responsible for killing eight sheep in one clinical attack on one day.

Lilleth is a captive-raised animal that has never hunted, never seen a roe deer and finds herself in a completely unsuitable habitat. Her behaviour bears no relation to that of a wild lynx.

Lilleth would be surviving on her fat reserve and by eating small mammals, such as rabbits, he said. But this lynx needs to be caught and placed in a suitable enclosure where she can enjoy as natural a life as possible.

Much more plausible scenarios are either a dog attack, or that the sheep had died from some other cause, which is extremely common in the UK, said Dr ODonoghue.

Official figures on sheep mortality from the National Animal Disease Information Service (Nadis) claim between two and six million sheep die every year from malnutrition, disease and exposure. Sadly, the sight of a trailer full of dead sheep in winter is a not uncommon site.

Rewilding application

The Lynx UK Trust has submitted the first ever licence for a release of zoo-bred Eurasian lynx in the UK  in Kielder Forest, Northumberland  and is in regular dialogue with the relevant government agencies.

Dr ODonoghue said releasing lynx into the English countryside will generate tens of millions of pounds for rural economies through sustainable eco-tourism.

This has been proven in the Harz Mountains in Germany, where it is estimated that lynx tourism generates 12.8m/year from eco-tourism.

For young people in rural communities, lynx could offer the chance of a sustainable job in their local area, he added.

But the NSA is concerned rewilding lynx will result in hundreds of sheep deaths. The Lynx Trust UK has proposed an insurance scheme to compensate any sheep farmer for losses owing to any lynx attacks.
Lowland livestock farmers are among those who face the biggest challenges as the UK leaves the European Union, the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) warns.

Newly elected CLA president Tim Breitmeyer issued the warning as he prepares to take over at the helm of the organisation this week.

He will serve as CLA leader in the run-up to Brexit in March 2019 and during the months immediately afterwards.

Speaking to Farmers Weekly, Mr Breitmeyer says: All farmers face challenges but it is the farmer in the middle I am most concerned about. The lowland livestock farmer in the Midlands and the west of this country, I believe, faces the biggest challenges.

See also: CLA launches vision for land management contract post Brexit

Lowland family farms frequently lack the economies of scale achieved by larger arable units.

And while Defra secretary Michael Gove has acknowledged that upland farmers need government support, he has made no specific pledge for producers at the foot of the hill.

Mr Breitmeyer says: It is not only about the assets they may or may not hold and the land that they have. But they are the ones who are most disadvantaged with engagement with the food chain. I think they are for a whole host of reasons the ones who need the greatest assistance.

Lowland support

Support for lowland farmers should include skills training, suggests Mr Breitmeyer. Bigger farms are able to pay to get the necessary skills and consultancy advice to improve their businesses. But smaller family farms are not always able to do so.

Brexit needs a change of mindset, says Mr Breitmeyer. To a certain extent, lowland farms need to help themselves.

But he adds: We have to find a way of helping farm businesses with that kind of information  whether it be benchmarking, risk management training or something else.

The CLA will give all farmers affected every assistance it can by devising deliverable policy proposals. Some might say it is not for me. That is a personal choice. We have to deliver the possibility for their business to succeed going forward.

This could include grants to help make farm businesses more efficient and productive, initiatives to encourage knowledge transfer and investment in research and development.

Land management contract

The CLA also wants the government to introduce a post-Brexit land management contract for farmers.

A major CLA policy proposal, the land management contract is an ambitious vision to reform the system of farm support after the UK leaves the EU  replacing direct payments with a new policy framework that rewards farmers for managing land for the benefit of the whole of society.

The CLA argues that such a policy will encourage a new wave of public and private investment in agriculture. Farmers will be able to select from a range of measures  from improvements in soil quality to enhanced animal welfare and planting trees  and be rewarded for them.

Farmers will be rewarded on the basis of what they contribute, rather than the amount of land they own, says Mr Breitmeyer. It is important to remember food production is at the heart of agriculture but all the signals are that the government doesnt like direct payments.

We cant ignore the fact that Brexit means farming is going to change.
A Pinch of Salt: The election is over, I think, so what now?
Philomath resident and Air Force veteran John Morford visited each of the schools in that town on Thursday to attend their Veterans Day ceremonies.

He was touched when the high school played a video of several students talking about family members who had served in the armed forces.

It shows that theyre talking with their family members about their service, Morford said.

I just want them to be more aware of what veterans are as well as the opportunities that could help mold their lives, he added.

Morford, a member of American Legion Post No. 21 in Corvallis, loaned service flags to the middle and high schools for their assemblies.

Mark Matthey, an infantry officer in the United States Army who works with the ROTC program at Oregon State University, addressed the high school students. Matthey, who was deployed to Iraq from 2008 to 2011, recognized the World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans in attendance.

I separate these veterans from the rest of us, Matthey said. These are men and women who went through far greater turbulence and trials than we do in our current Army. This is a generation of Americans that have done a lot of good for our country. Whenever you get the chance to meet a World War II, Korean War or Vietnam era veteran, take time, pick their brain. The knowledge and experience that they have is absolutely valuable to the current young generation that were all a part of.

Matthey asked the crowd why veterans should be recognized.

Because they protect our country, one student responded.

Exactly, Matthey said.

We have freedoms in the U.S. that are unheard of across the world, he said.  The reason we have those is because veterans have served and fought and won wars overseas so that we can be safe here in the United States.

Matthey urged the students to serve their communities. He said he has chosen to serve in the Army, but knows it isnt the right career choice for everyone.

But serving your community, your country, is the life for everybody, he said.

Matthey offered some possibilities: a teacher, police officer, medic, firefighter, government official or a doctor.

All of these are lives of service, he said.

Philomath senior Sarah Buddingh organized the Veterans Day assembly. She told the student body to enjoy the three-day weekend and to recognize and appreciate the reason you have one.

At the middle school, U.S. Army and Vietnam era veteran Dick Gerding shared stories from his service  some funny and some sobering.

Gerding told the students that just over 50 years ago, on Nov. 3, 1967, he was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Division in Vietnam. He was a platoon leader to a 40-man platoon, which fought in the Battle of ak To. After that battle, he spent three weeks in the hospital, Gerding said.

War is a horrible thing that I pray none of you have to experience, he said.

After returning to his unit, Gerding and his platoon went on a combat assault. They were in formation when Gerding realized the men in front of him had veered off-course and the men behind him werent following.

Its about that time I heard a growl, and I looked up, and there was a tiger in the rocks eating on, it looked like a pig maybe, that it had killed, he said.

Gerding quickly returned to his platoon.

Im embarrassed to tell you that that was probably the most scared I ever was in Vietnam, he said, drawing laughs from the audience. If there was any question about how scared I was, I peed my pants.

Gerding told the students he was honored by their patriotism. The school band and choir had performed several patriotic songs.

We are so grateful to have such fine young men and women as yourselves becoming the future of our country, he said.

Shelly Brown, vice chair of the Philomath school board, said she hoped the assembly would help students appreciate what military personnel do for the country.

Brown, whose son is serving in the Army National Guard, said she was surprised by statistics Gerding offered on how many veterans are living in Philomath. According to Gerding, there are fewer than 20 World War II veterans, about 30 Korean War veterans, approximately 150 Vietnam War veterans and about 250 post-Vietnam War veterans in the Philomath area.
Corvallis police arrested two teenagers Wednesday for allegedly breaking into several apartments at an off-campus student housing complex, according to an officers report.

Kade Reed Pascal, 18, and Dean Haiga Offner, 19, face felony burglary charges.

Police responded about 9 a.m. to The Union, 2750 NW Harrison Boulevard. A resident reported he had discovered a man in the common area of his apartment stealing Xbox games, according to police.

Officers reviewed security footage at the apartment complex and reportedly identified Pascal and Offner entering six different apartments, police said. Officers determined Pascal lived at the complex and obtained a search warrant for his apartment. There, they allegedly found stolen property, including a bike, wireless speakers, a skateboard, bottles of alcohol, household decorations and more, according to police.

Pascal was also allegedly in possession of prescription drugs that did not belong to him, police said.

Police arrested both men and took them to the Benton County Jail. Pascal faces six counts of first-degree burglary and two counts of possession of a controlled substance. Offner faces three counts of first-degree burglary.

According to police, Pascal had been arrested on Monday for menacing, a misdemeanor, after allegedly pointing a BB gun at a man in the parking lot of Fred Meyer on Northwest Kings Boulevard. He was booked into the jail and released Tuesday.
If youre tired of the dysfunction in Washington  the backbiting, the questioning of motives, the failure to agree on much of anything, the one-upmanship, the allegations about a stolen presidential election, Russian collusion, the posturing and boorish behavior, how about focusing on something that is working and benefits a growing number of people?

Consider a company called Teladoc, which provides access to a doctor through a computer screen, telephone, or mobile app. The waiting time, a company official tells me, is between eight and 10 minutes. That beats any doctors office I have ever been in, even with an appointment. The company claims a 95 percent satisfaction rate with 92 percent of issues resolved after the first visit.

Heres how it works. Say your child wakes up in the middle of the night with a fever, or some other health issue. You go to your computer, phone or mobile app and describe the symptoms to the doctor, who then prescribes treatment. It can be in the form of a prescription or, if the symptoms seem more serious, the doctor will recommend a specialist, or a trip to the hospital. The doctor has previously been provided your familys medical history through the app.

Teladoc services are offered through a subscribing companys insurance plan. The company currently serves 10,000 clients and 20 million members, according to a company spokeswoman. All physicians are board certified and licensed in their respective states. They are available any hour of the day or night and every day of the year. Is your doctor that accessible? Unless you live with one, probably not.

The cost? A low $40 to $45 per session.

Jason Gorevic, Teladocs CEO, tells me: Consumers of health care are looking for a better way. Regardless of the political environment, there is a growing demand for a better way to provide medical services to individuals.

Gorevic says Teladoc is especially helpful to people living in rural areas where a doctor is not close by, or unavailable.

Reporting on this growing and popular trend in telemedicine, health care writer Bruce Japsen wrote in Forbes magazine: Health plans see a way for patients to get high-quality care from a physician and the potential to avoid a more expensive trip to a hospital emergency room. Teladoc executives also say they are seeing growth opportunities in mental health, dermatology and smoking cessation programs.

Japsen adds that the field of virtual medicine is growing about 10 percent per year with projections it will soon reach 26.9 million, which seems likely given the current spurt.

Gorevic sees increasing interest from health plans that contract with state Medicaid programs for poor Americans, as well as Medicare Advantage plans that provide benefits to seniors. This could save time and money by reducing trips to emergency rooms for less serious ailments.

Lets review: A health plan that bypasses government bureaucracy; rapid access to a doctor who knows a familys medical history; prompt treatment, or quick referral; low cost  whats not to like?

It is another example of how the private sector, when it is allowed to innovate and flourish, outshines the federal government almost every time.

Virtual medicine, led by companies like Teladoc, is not the wave of the future, but of the present.

If youre unhappy with increasingly expensive, impersonal and slow access to medical care  and some liberal politicians are already pushing for single-payer, which would likely make waiting times longer and lower the quality of treatment  you might feel a lot better, while saving money and time, by going virtual.
       :   MLA ,        41 
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.
World Climate Conference : Cop23 world globe is open to the public

Bonn The Climate Planet - a 20-meter replica of the earth - stands between the two conference areas in the amphitheater in the Rheinaue. It is open for the public to visit and provides information on the topic of climate change.

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"There is no plan B, because there is no planet B," said former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon at the World Climate Change Conference Cop22 in Marakesh last year. Just how much the earth is threatened by climate change can be clearly seen and experienced in the 20-meter-high, walk-in replica of a world globe at the Cop23 World Climate Conference in Bonn. The Climate Planet, accessible to all residents - even without accreditation - is the official name of the globe between the Bonn and Bula Zones in the amphitheater in the Rheinaue.

Marianne and Horst Strecker came to Bonn especially because of the Climate Planet. "We thought, when such a big event takes place in Germany and it is so close to us, we should not miss it. In this way, we can at least experience a bit of the Cop in person," says the retired couple, describing themselves as environmentally conscious. "We have not been eating meat for years and grow our vegetables ourselves. Of course without chemicals," says the 69-year-old.

Climate Planet to visit 24 European cities

The Climate Planet was developed by Global Citizen and first exhibited in Aarhus, the European Capital of Culture 2017. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the city of Bonn present the Climate Planet in cooperation with The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), Engagement Global and Global Citizen. Over the next three years, the Climate Planet will be on display in 24 European cities.

Through a long tent, visitors reach the entrance to Climate Planet where their bags are controlled. Besides the retired couple, there are also students from local high schools who have come to check out the exhibition. Asked how they liked it, one student replies, Super. And not as boring as our geography lessons.

BMZ has set up its own school program in cooperation with GIZ, the Danish non-governmental organization Global Citizenship and the City of Bonn. "It is unfortunately completely booked up," says Petra Gohr-Guder of the agency Engagement Global. According to Gohr-Guder, around 5,000 school students from Bonn and the region will have visited the exhibition by the end of the conference, and they will have seen the special show on climate change.

Go to Fiji with virtual reality glasses

The film about the current state of the earth and the historical development of the climate, is shown on a four-meter globe with a 360 screen. There is also a covered outdoor area with an interactive exhibition. It provides information on the concrete effects of climate change on people's lives and shows examples of how development and climate policy can helper counter these effects.

Simon Straub, who studies political science and is a trainee at GIZ, equips visitors with virtual reality glasses. One can see a film about the island nation of Fiji, which has taken over the presidency of the Cop23 and whose population is extremely affected by climate change. Through the glasses you are virtually there when a resident shows his home which has been destroyed by storm and flooding. He reports that his entire village had to be relocated, because the sea level is steadily rising and the South Pacific is swallowing more and more land. The flooding salt water makes agriculture more difficult.

And suddenly you think you are actually standing on the boat of the Fijian fisherman. "You wavered quite a bit there," says Simon Straub, laughing as he removes the glasses from one virtual reality visitor.

In the afternoons and on weekends, the film screenings are available to all those interested free of charge and without having to sign up. The exhibition is open all day. Further information on the Internet at www.climateplanet.de
Lada Priora Kombi: Familienauto fur wenig Geld

Foto: Hersteller

Viel Platz fur wenig Geld bietet der neue Lada Priora Kombi, der nun fur 9 990 Euro zu den deutschen Handlern rollt.

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Viel Platz fur wenig Geld bietet der neue Lada Priora Kombi, der nun fur 9 990 Euro zu den deutschen Handlern rollt. Der 4,34 Meter lange Lademeister kann bis zu 1 370 Liter Gepack an Bord nehmen. Die Zuladung betragt 415 Kilogramm. Angetrieben wird der Kombi von einem 1,6-Liter-Ottomotor mit 72 kW/98 PS und einem Drehmomentmaximum von 145 Nm bei 4 000 U/min.

Der Motor erfullt die Abgasnorm Euro 4. Die Serienausstattung ist zwar nicht gerade uppig, doch bei einem Familienfahrzeug unter 10 000 Euro kann man kaum mehr erwarten. Erst recht nicht modernes Design - der Priora kommt ziemlich altbacken daher - oder fortschrittliche Technik.

Im Preis inbegriffen sind Extras wie elektrische Fensterheber, Zentralverriegelung, Leichtmetallfelgen, Metallic-Lackierung und eine Dachreling. Auch ABS ist an Bord, was bei dem russischen Hersteller bislang nicht immer selbstverstandlich war. Das Elektronische Stabilitatsprogramm (ESP) ist jedoch auch nicht gegen Aufpreis zu haben, dafur aber Komfort-Features wie zum Beispiel eine Klimaanlage oder eine Standheizung.

Foto: Hersteller zuruck

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Protecting the worlds oceans  an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy

The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs.
Boy Scouts will be hitting the pavement Saturday morning to deliver Scouting for Food bags to local residents. Bags will be dropped off starting at 9 a.m. within the city limits of each town. Pick up will be on the following Saturday, Nov. 18.

Donated items should be nonperishable foods including boxed or canned goods. Coordinator of Scouting for Food in Fredericktown Amy Smith reminds people to check expiration dates.

We tell the kids not to go into yards where the fences are closed in case they have dogs so we tie the bags to the fence or somewhere close, Assistant Scout Master in St. Francois County Della Ward said. They are blue bags that say 'Scouting for Food' on them.

Smith said that local streets may have a little more hustle and bustle than usual so watch for kids.

The little guys will have adult leaders with them, Smith said. Scouts range in age from first grade and up.

I feel the kids know what it is like for fellow members of the community, Smith said. They see the need and what they can do to help.

Scouting is building leaders for our community, Ward said. They learn many skills and this teaches them to give of yourself to help. That is what keeps a community going.

This is the Boy Scouts of Americas 33rd annual Scouting for Food event and the Greater St. Louis Area Council will deliver approximately 1.3 million bags on Saturday according to Director of Marketing and Communications Christine Rasure.

The people in our community is what makes Scouting for Food a Success, Scout Executive/CEO of the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America Ronald Green. The collection has become an important source of food for many food pantries in our area.

This is a nationwide operation. Every troop in every town participates, Smith said. If we miss anyone or youd like to donate and live outside of the city you can donate at the Scout Hut at 403 West Marvin in Fredericktown.

Ward added that many local churches will have donation boxes set up as well.

MERS Goodwill is a sponsor of this years campaign and donations can be taken to any Goodwill store location Nov. 19-25.

Ward said that each unit decides where the donations will be taken.

They work well to make sure each food pantry gets included, Ward said.

For more information contact Amy Smith in Fredericktown at 573-330-0030 or Della Ward in St. Francois County at 573-934-0475.
kacylee at 10-11-2017 07:40 PM (5 years ago) (f)

Popular evangelist Reinhard Bonnke who is in Nigeria for his widely anticipated Farewell Crusade, has warned the public not to give offerings.

Popular evangelist Reinhard Bonnke who is in Nigeria for his widely anticipated Farewell Crusade, has warned the public not to give offerings.

Pastor Reinhard Bonnke, the German Pentecostal evangelist, has warned members of the public and, especially,



We are here to bless you; we have brought you gifts of salvation and deliverance; we are here to give and not to take anything from you.



Anyone who asks you to give offering for this crusade is a thief and should be reported immediately, the sponsors of the crusade, Christ for All Nations, warns [email protected] on Thursday at the crusade ground.



This is coming on the heels of suspicion that certain unscrupulous persons might want to malign the credibility of the preacher by seizing the opportunity offered by the huge crowd at Bonnkes crusade to raise money for personal use.



Observers opine that Bonnkes decision is a radical departure from what critics see as normal practice by some open-air preachers who urge crusade



A respondent, 50-year-old Mr. Ifeanyi Duru, said Bonnkes decision to not raise offerings at his crusades is an attestation to his sincerity in only being concerned about the salvation of souls.



Duru recalled that as a student in the University of Benin in the mid 1980s, a popular preacher from the region (name withheld) had to contend with the activities of people he described as rogues who tried to raise unofficial offerings from the crowd.



The preacher, who is now late, had decided to collect offering during his open-air crusades, but some unscrupulous persons tried to outsmart him, Duru said.



He added that the popular preacher beat the thieves to their game by having different colours of offering bags for each night of the week-long crusade.



The colours to be used were announced just a few seconds to the commencement of each offering collection; and because the rogues had no prior idea, they were defeated in their purpose, Duru said.



He, however, commended Bonnkes caring heart for refusing to succumb to what he called the temptation to exploit the crowd, who he said would have given generously if asked. Pastor Reinhard Bonnke, the German Pentecostal evangelist, has warned members of the public and, especially, [email protected] at his ongoing Farewell Crusade holding in Lagos, that he does not collect offerings during his crusades, Punch Metro reports.This is coming on the heels of suspicion that certain unscrupulous persons might want to malign the credibility of the preacher by seizing the opportunity offered by the huge crowd at Bonnkes crusade to raise money for personal use.Observers opine that Bonnkes decision is a radical departure from what critics see as normal practice by some open-air preachers who urge crusade [email protected] to donate money for offering and other projects.A respondent, 50-year-old Mr. Ifeanyi Duru, said Bonnkes decision to not raise offerings at his crusades is an attestation to his sincerity in only being concerned about the salvation of souls.Duru recalled that as a student in the University of Benin in the mid 1980s, a popular preacher from the region (name withheld) had to contend with the activities of people he described as rogues who tried to raise unofficial offerings from the crowd.Duru said.He added that the popular preacher beat the thieves to their game by having different colours of offering bags for each night of the week-long crusade.Duru said.He, however, commended Bonnkes caring heart for refusing to succumb to what he called the temptation to exploit the crowd, who he said would have given generously if asked.

Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 10-11-2017 07:40 PM (5 years ago) | Addicted Hero
A detailed plan to spur future economic growth in the Parkland was released to the public Thursday morning at a special meeting of the St. Francois County Commission, as well as at three commission meetings held simultaneously in Ste. Genevieve, Madison and Iron counties.

Introducing the Stronger Economies Together (SET) Parkland REDI Economic Plan to those gathered at the St. Francois County Courthouse Annex was Commissioner Patrick Mullins.

Whats so special about this? he asked. All four counties  Iron, Madison, Ste. Genevieve and St. Francois  are all meeting today. On July 24, 2012, I attended my very first multi-county site selection committee meeting and it was held at the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission in Perryville.

The multi-county committee is a sub-committee of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission (SEMO RPC). Its made up of county commissioners and business leaders from the four counties. The group was formed back in 2006 by the late Jim Henson and IDA (St. Francois County Industrial Development Authority) President Al Sullivan.

Since then, a lot of positive accomplishments have come to fruition. On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015, a steering committee met. On Nov. 12, 2015, a kick-off meeting took place. Many four-hour meetings transpired and on Sept. 6, 2017, Drew Christian with the SEMO RPC sent out an email to all the members that the Parkland REDI Economic Plan was approved.

According to Mullins, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has given the Parkland REDI initiatives plan for stimulating economic growth in the region its top rating of High Quality.

This rating opens the door to benefits for the entire region when applying for grants with the USDA, such as bonus points on applications and access to special funds, as well as additional legitimacy when working with other agencies, Mullins said. The plan includes specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely actions targeted at improving the economic health of the region.

Most recently, the Parkland REDI was selected to participate in the Stronger Economies Together (SET) initiative from the USDA. According to the USDA, the purpose of SET is to strengthen the capacity of communities and counties in rural America to work together in developing and implementing an economic development blueprint that strategically builds on the current and emerging economic strengths of their region.

Following Mullins introduction, Sullivan was invited to offer his thoughts on the economic plan.

In 2011, this four-county committee contracted with McCallum Sweeney Consulting of North Carolina, a global leader in site consulting for multi-national corporations such as Nissan, Boeing and Procter & Gamble. They came in and they did a study which identified multiple sites in the region for potential industrial development.

They identified the top site as being somewhere in the neighborhood of the Highway 32/I-55 junction. We then asked the representatives from Ste. Genevieve County to approach those land owners and try to obtain an option on that property so we would have it and be able to deliver it if we had someone interested.

None of the good people up in that area wanted to option their property. They were happy with how it was and they wanted to pass it on to their children. The second source identified was the Orchard property near Bonne Terre. We did obtain an option on that land which we still hold for economic development.

Sullivan said other areas of potential economic interest were identified in all four counties and cooperation between the political entities has been a key to its success.

Since the Parkland REDI was formed in 2008, there have been 13 different presiding commissioners elected among the four counties and every one of them, regardless of political party, has renewed his countys commitment to the coalition without hesitation, he said. Iron County has said, Well, we think were the smallest county in there, but we feel theres a lot to be gained by us being a part of it.

I will tell you that today, if a major industry were to come to this area, Iron County will probably receive it at the [former ASARCO] Glover site. We have worked with the Doe Run Company as they have cleaned up that site and theres a 100,000-square-foot building and 4,000 acres they control with rail and both Black River and Ameren serve that, along with a large water reserve.

The economic plan sets three goals to bring economic growth to the four-county region:

 Industrial Attraction. By diversifying and growing the number of employers in the region, this goal will help increase employment in the region, thereby directly benefiting those that are unemployed or under-employed. This increase in employment will also indirectly benefit the entire region by stimulating economic activity throughout the area.

 Workforce Development and Outreach. Development of the workforce will lead to numerous benefits for the local economy. By providing well defined job training programs that fit the needs of local employers, participants will have a greater chance of employment locally, leading to higher wages and household income, a better quality of life and decreased unemployment.

 Business Retention and Expansion. BRE programs, focused on keeping and growing existing businesses, are one of the least expensive methods of economic development possible while still generating positive results. This makes BRE very cost effective and allows the region to take a multi-pronged approach to economic development.

Drew Christian of SEMO RPC, stressed that the key to the economic plan is that it doesnt just set out goals without offering a way to meet them.

This plan includes key measures and strategies to track its progress, he said. I think this has the potential of bringing significant economic progress to this region as all four counties work together for its success.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Mullins noted that progress is already being made in bringing industry to the area.

Folks, on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017, [Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher] and I traveled to the Missouri Partnership, along with [SEMO RPC Executive Director] Chauncy Buchheit and [IDA Vice President] Kevin Cook. We went over a proposal using pieces of this data in trying to bring a company to St. Francois County and an adjoining county.

We spent the day discussing the possible project and answering questions. On Wednesday, Nov. 1, we commissioners sent a letter with our three signatures on county letterhead to this company  they requested it  overnight because they were going to present it to their board. Thanks to the members of the IDA and Al Sullivan and [Iron County Presiding Commissioner] Jim Scaggs.

Al went out to these jurisdictions and talked to them  hes been talking to the company, also. Jim Scaggs actually started this project several years ago. So, if this company does come into St. Francois County  and this project comes to fruition using this data  this is going to be huge. It would be around a $52 million plant, 30 to 40 good paying jobs, three shifts and a possible fourth shift.
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At its annual Appreciation Luncheon, The Community Foundation of the Dan River Region honored the 10-year anniversary of the Danville Pittsylvania County Veterans Memorial, and its many donors this year.

The Community Foundation filled the Institutes conference center Thursday with donors, current and former board members, and veterans for its annual luncheon.

The 7-foot-tall, 158-foot-wide memorial was placed in Dan Daniel Park in November 2007, thanks to collaboration with the city of Danville and the memorial committee. The foundation has sold more than 6,400 engraved bricks to date to pay for the memorial and its continued upkeep. The bricks are still for sale  the names of veterans, along with their ranks and service dates, are sandblasted into bricks installed into the memorials circular walkway.

Together we are all proving what a difference we can make if we all give back to the community we call home, Executive Director Debra Dodson said. All of us have joined together to give back to a stronger, lasting region.

The Community Foundation is an independent public charity that raises money for local charities, educational and other groups in the area stretching from Danville to Chatham to South Boston to Caswell County. It was founded in 1996.

The Community Foundation took in more than $1.7 million from hundreds of donors in the last year. The foundation awarded more than $1.3 million in grants last year to 186 different organizations, from $2,500 to purchase digital radiology equipment for Caswell Family Medical, $30,000 to support the Danville-Pittsylvania Cancer Associations Patient Aid services, and $20,000 to the Northern Pittsylvania County Food Center to purchase food to feed 250 families each month.

It also awarded $154,000 in scholarships to 82 students throughout the region last year.

Another of the highlights of the last year for Dodson was the four $3,000 summer reading grants given to local libraries.

Gunn Memorial Librarian Rhonda Griffin said the grants made a huge impact on the Caswell County Libraries this year.

Libraries are often childrens first introduction to literacy and technology, Griffin said. We try to make a difference in childrens lives by keeping them interested in reading, keeping them coming to the libraries, checking out books.

The Gunn Memorial Library used its $3,000 to implement several projects, working with the school system to get at-risk kids in the summer school program to come to the library by incentivizing summer reading and offering science and technology programming for the kids.

Griffin said that many of the kids  and staff  had never used a 3D printer before, and because of the grant, were able to learn a lot more about them, and take home a handmade project.

Since the end of the fiscal year on June 30, the foundation has helped start six new funds  the Agency Emergency Fund, the North Main Baptist Scholarship Fund, the Community Impact Fund, the Wayne and Nancy Oakes Fund, the Lawrence R. Dabbs Scholarship and the Laurie S. Moran Rotary Fund.

In this season of Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for our more than 4,000 donors that have built a thriving Community Foundation for our region, Dodson said.
Country

Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Canada Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cuba, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Dominican Republic Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Haiti, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Jamaica Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Mexico, United Mexican States Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu US Virgin Islands Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 10, 2017) - Dalradian Resources Inc. (TSX:DNA) (AIM:DALR) ("Dalradian" or the "Company") announces results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017, including closing cash and cash equivalents of $48.8 million1.

Patrick F.N. Anderson, Dalradian's President and CEO, commented: "We expect to submit our planning application by the end of 2017. With the pending $78 million private placement and proceeds from warrant exercises, we are well-placed to move our high grade gold project through the permitting process while continuing technical work with the aim of increasing its value. In the first half of 2018 we expect to release both an updated resource and feasibility study."

Operational highlights as of November 9, 2017

Released the positive results from ore sorting testing, including a 54.6% grade increase and 35.8% decrease in waste material. Ongoing cost-benefit studies and site visits are being conducted prior to ore sorting being included in a feasibility study update

Completed a sensitivity study on two major veins in the resource model where a new approach to modelling resulted in a 32% increase in estimated mineable ounces. Results from the study, along with additional drilling, will be used in an upcoming mineral resource update

Released the results from 15 holes for a total of 6,324 metres of the 40,000-metre program, which included step-out drilling 400 metres from the mineral resource boundary and infill drilling to support the planned conversion of ounces from the inferred to indicated mineral resource category. Select results included: Step-out: 1.98 m of 32.54 g/t gold from the 106-16 vein in hole 17-CT-427 Step-out: 0.94 m of 30.89 g/t gold from the T17 vein in hole 17-CT-428 Step-out: 1.03 m of 40.09 g/t gold from the Crow vein in hole 17-CT-435 Infill: 1.21 m of 76.22 g/t gold from the No.1 vein in hole 17-CT-415 Infill: 1.51 m of 41.04 g/t gold from the 106-16 vein in hole 17-CT-424



During Q3 2017, regional exploration continued across the broader licence areas, with 77 prospecting samples, 138 stream sediment samples, 57 soil samples, and 640 deep overburden samples collected. During the first nine months of 2017, 204 prospecting samples, 259 stream sediment samples, 170 soil samples, and 1,687 deep overburden samples were collected.

Corporate and financial highlights of Q3 2017

Cash and cash equivalents were $48.8 million at September 30, 2017 compared with $35.7 million at December 31, 2016

Net loss of $1.9 million ($0.01 per share) for the three months ended September 30, 2017 compared with a net loss of $1.4 million ($0.01 per share) for the comparable period of 2016. For the nine months ending September 30, 2017, the Company had a net loss of $5.9 million ($0.02 per share) compared to a net loss of $4.8 million ($0.02 per share) in the same period of 2016.

Expenditures on mineral property under development for the three months ended September 30, 2017 were $5.6 million compared with $4.8 million during the comparable period in 2016. During Q3 2017 permitting, drilling and underground development/surface works for infill drilling were the largest spending categories, as work focused on finalizing the planning (permitting) application (the "Planning Application") and infill drilling. In Q3 2016 much of the activity centred on the feasibility study announced in Q4 2016 and an underground exploration program (the "Underground Program")

During the nine months ended September 30, 2017, expenditures on mineral property under development, net of receipt from processing of mineralized material, were $12.4 million compared with $19.6 million during the comparable period in 2016. Lower expenditures in 2017 were a result of less spending due to the completion of the Underground Program in late 2016

Warrants exercised up to the end of Q3, 2017 brought in total proceeds of $30.6 million. Subsequent to the end of Q3, 2017, the Company received additional proceeds of $19.2 million from warrant exercises with over 99.7% of the 50,312,500 warrants expiring on October 10, 2017 exercised

As of November 9, 2017, Dalradian had 302,036,596 Common Shares issued and outstanding

1 All amounts are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted

Minco Royalty Transaction

During Q3, Dalradian concluded the buyback of the 2% net smelter return royalty on a portion of the Northern Ireland Properties (as defined in the Royalty Agreement) including the Curraghinalt gold deposit (the "Royalty") from Minco Plc ("Minco"). On August 30, 2017, Dalradian and Minco completed the Royalty buy-back under Rule 2.5 of the Irish Takeover Panel Act, Takeover Rules 2013 (the "Royalty Transaction"). The Royalty Transaction was implemented as a share for share acquisition of Minco by Dalradian pursuant to a scheme of arrangement, under Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Companies Act 2014 of Ireland, including a demerger of Minco's subsidiary Buchans Resources Limited ("Buchans"), which held all of Minco's assets other than the Royalty so that on the completion of the Royalty Transaction the only asset held by Minco was the Royalty. The Royalty Transaction resulted in the issuance of a total of 15,489,942 Dalradian shares to Minco shareholders and Buchans.

The Royalty Transaction had a positive effect on the economics of the feasibility study ("FS")2 contained in the Technical Report (as defined below) for an underground mine at the Curraghinalt Gold Project based on production of an average of 130,000 ounces per year at a gold price of US$1,250 per ounce:

After-tax net present value (at a 5% discount rate) increased to US$322 million (C$429 million) from

US$301 million (C$402 million);

US$301 million (C$402 million); After-tax internal rate of return increased to 25.5% from 24.4%; and

All-in sustaining costs ("AISC", as defined by the World Gold Council) were reduced to US$653 per ounce from US$674 per ounce.

Private placement financing

On October 10, 2017, the Company announced a non-brokered private placement financing (the "Financing") with Orion Mine Finance Fund II LP ("Orion") and Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. ("Osisko") for gross proceeds of C$78.25 million (the "Private Placement"). Pursuant to the Financing, Orion will acquire 34,013,605 common shares of Dalradian (the "Common Shares") and Osisko will acquire 19,217,687 Common Shares, each at a price of C$1.47 per Common Share. The Financing is expected to close on or before November 30, 2017.

Outlook

As Dalradian works towards the submission of its Planning Application to permit the building of a mine at the Curraghinalt gold deposit, the Company continues its exploration efforts through drilling, engineering and geological studies. With the anticipated closing of the $78.25 million private placement financing and proceeds from warrants exercised, the Company is well-positioned to continue exploration and other work with the aim to increase the value of the project.

Dalradian expects to release an updated mineral resource statement in Q1 2018 based on the drilling completed in 2017. A revised feasibility study is also planned for the end of Q2 2018 which will incorporate the details of an expected updated mineral resource, revised modelling methodology and ore sorting technology. The Company also continues to explore its large land package with extensive sampling in streams and soils to create a good baseline of data for future work.

2 The effect of the Royalty Transaction on project economics was recalculated by management based on the original Feasibility Study Technical Report

Supporting Documents

The Q3 2017 Financial Statements (not including notes) can be found below. The full Q3 2017 Management Discussion and Analysis and Financial Statements are available on www.dalradian.com and on www.sedar.com.

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) As at

Sept. 30, 2017 As at

Dec. 31, 2016 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 48,763,293 $ 35,719,242 Amounts receivable 818,890 666,166 Prepaid expenses and other assets 505,927 506,785 50,088,110 36,892,193 Non-Current assets: Restoration deposit 1,042,389 1,032,135 Property, plant and equipment 158,975,545 118,988,157 Exploration and evaluation assets (note 5) 4,291,611 3,943,077 164,309,545 123,963,369 $ 214,397,655 $ 160,855,562 LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 6,086,353 $ 4,908,196 Provision for reclamation 351,036 347,844 6,437,389 5,256,040 Non-Current liabilities: Provision for reclamation 685,356 679,124 Shareholders' equity: Share capital 259,357,808 195,974,511 Warrants 2,879,391 10,745,550 Contributed surplus 15,028,350 12,314,675 Accumulated deficit (69,990,639) (64,114,338) 207,274,910 154,920,398 $ 214,397,655 $ 160,855,562

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Loss and Comprehensive Loss (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Three months ended

Sept. 30, 2017 Three months ended

Sept. 30, 2016 Nine months ended

Sept. 30, 2017 Nine months ended

Sept. 30, 2016 Operating expenses: Salaries and related benefits $ 771,260 $ 579,902 $ 2,369,866 $ 1,679,710 Professional fees and consulting 165,745 235,137 660,081 930,559 Share-based payments 427,870 91,441 1,634,499 371,153 Investor relations and travel 187,254 310,807 614,231 717,307 Office, regulatory and general 242,328 157,591 671,747 488,199 Interest and bank charges 3,085 2,687 11,459 9,161 Amortization 1,152 1,152 3,455 3,454 Foreign exchange loss 182,726 69,468 133,520 734,564 $ 1,981,420 $ 1,448,185 $ 6,098,858 $ 4,934,107 Interest income 103,862 33,179 222,557 121,328 Loss and comprehensive loss for the period $ (1,877,558) $ (1,415,006) $ (5,876,301) $ (4,812,779) Loss per share - basic and diluted $ (0.01) $ (0.01) $ (0.02) $ (0.02)

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Shareholders' Equity (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Nine months

ended

Sept. 30, 2017 Nine months

ended

Sept. 30, 2016 Share capital: Balance, beginning of period $ 195,974,511 $ 162,680,450 Common shares issued 25,558,404 121,500 Warrants exercised 36,961,967 30,729,039 Share-based payments exercised 862,926 1,308,572 Balance, end of period $ 259,357,808 $ 194,839,561 Warrants: Balance, beginning of period $ 10,745,550 $ 15,019,060 Warrants exercised (6,321,347) (4,211,829) Warrants expired (1,544,812) (43,783) Balance, end of period $ 2,879,391 $ 10,763,448 Contributed surplus: Balance, beginning of period $ 12,314,675 $ 12,533,961 Increase from share-based payments 1,865,290 445,071 Warrants expired 1,544,812 43,783 Share-based payments exercised (696,427) (703,572) Balance, end of period $ 15,028,350 $ 12,319,243 Accumulated deficit: Balance, beginning of period $ (64,114,338) $ (56,293,888) Loss and comprehensive loss for the period (5,876,301) (4,812,779) Balance, end of period $ (69,990,639) $ (61,106,667) Total shareholders' equity $ 207,274,910 $ 156,815,585

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (Expressed in Canadian dollars) (Unaudited) Nine months

ended

Sept. 30, 2017 Nine months

ended

Sept. 30, 2016 Cash flows from (used in) operating activities: Loss and comprehensive loss for the period $ (5,876,301) $ (4,812,779) Items not affecting cash: Unrealized foreign exchange loss (gain) on cash 70,852 1,052,978 Interest income (222,557) (121,328) Amortization 3,455 3,454 Share-based payments 1,634,499 371,153 Unrealized foreign exchange loss (gain) on restoration deposit (10,254) 205,700 Change in non-cash operating working capital: Amounts receivable 280,978 650,173 Prepaid expenses and other asset (113,723) 32,233 Accounts payable and accrued liabilities (16,914) 18,389 Cash flows used in operating activities $ (4,249,965) $ (2,600,027) Cash flows from financing activities: Exercise of warrants 30,227,220 26,517,210 Exercise of options 166,500 605,000 Cash flows from financing activities $ 30,393,720 $ 27,122,210 Cash flows from (used) in investing activities: Expenditures on exploration and evaluation assets $ (192,520) $ (21,497,178) Additions to property, plant and equipment (12,118,984) - Minco acquisition cost (919,351) (2,314,384) Interest received 202,003 127,967 Cash flows used in investing activities $ (13,028,852) $ (23,683,595) Net change in cash and cash equivalents 13,114,903 838,588 Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 35,719,242 43,322,899 Effect of exchange rate fluctuations on cash held (70,852) (1,052,978) Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 48,763,293 $ 43,108,509

About Dalradian Resources Inc.

Dalradian Resources Inc. is a mineral exploration and development company that is focused on advancing its high-grade Curraghinalt Gold Project located in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

For additional details on the Curraghinalt high-grade lode gold deposit ("Curraghinalt"), please refer to the Company's technical report titled "NI 43-101 Feasibility Study Technical Report on the Curraghinalt Gold Project Northern Ireland" (the "Technical Report"), dated January 25, 2017 and prepared by Garett Macdonald, P.Eng., Michael Makarenko, P.Eng., Indi Gopinathan, P.Eng. and Stacy Freudigmann, P.Eng., all of JDS Energy & Mining Inc., and Jean-Francois Couture, P.Geo., Bruce Murphy, P.Eng., Cam Scott, P.Eng., all of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc., and William Harding, C.Geol., of SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd., all of whom are independent Qualified Persons as defined by NI 43-101. The Technical Report is available on the Company's website and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains "forward looking information" which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the future financial or operating performance of the Company and its subsidiaries and its mineral project, the future price of metals, test work and confirming results from work performed to date, the estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves, the realization of mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital, operating and exploration expenditures, costs and timing of the development of new deposits, costs and timing of future exploration, requirements for additional capital, government regulation of mining operations, environmental risks, reclamation expenses, title disputes or claims, limitations of insurance coverage, the timing and possible outcome of pending regulatory matters and the realization of the expected production, economics and mine life of the Curraghinalt gold deposit. Often, but not always, forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words and phrases such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved.

Forward looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and are based on various assumptions such as the continued political stability in Northern Ireland, that permits required for Dalradian's operations will be obtained on a timely basis in order to permit Dalradian to proceed on schedule with its planned exploration and mine development, construction and production programs, that skilled personnel and contractors will be available as Dalradian's operations commence and continue to grow towards production and mining operations, that the price of gold will be at levels that render Dalradian's mineral project economic, that the Company will be able to continue raising the necessary capital to finance its operations and realize on mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates and current mine plans, that the assumptions contained in the Company's Technical Report dated January 25, 2017 are accurate and complete, that the results of the ESIA will be positive and that a permitting application for mine construction will be approved.

Forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Dalradian to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; the actual results of current and future exploration activities; the actual results of reclamation activities; conclusions of economic evaluations; meeting various expected cost estimates; changes in project parameters and/or economic assessments as plans continue to be refined; future prices of metals; possible variations of mineral grade or recovery rates; the risk that actual costs may exceed estimated costs; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; political instability; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016 dated March 23, 2017 (the "AIF").

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results, except as may be required by applicable securities laws. There can be no assurance that forward looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements.
Economic Summary Pre-Tax NPV 7.5% $176.9M Pre-Tax IRR 25.1% Post-Tax NPV 7.5% $135.8M Post-Tax IRR 21.3% Corporate Tax Rate 34% Initial Capital Costs $186.7M Life of Mine (LOM) 12.5 years LOM Average Co Sulphate Price (contained Co) $26.65/lb LOM Gross Revenue $1.129B LOM Total Net After Tax Cash Flow $331.4M LOM Average Net Cash Cobalt Production Cost $5.05/lb Pre-Tax Initial Capital Payback 2.9 years LOM Cobalt Production (lbs) 31,767,000 LOM Copper Production (lbs) 42,819,000 LOM Gold Production (oz) 39,241 (Note: All monetary values used in this news release are in Q3 2017 US dollars)

VANCOUVER, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - eCobalt Solutions Inc. (ECS-TSX) ("eCobalt" or the "Company") is announcing the SEDAR filing of a Feasibility Study Technical Report ("FS") of the Company's Idaho Cobalt Project ("ICP"), the only environmentally permitted, primary cobalt project located in the United States (see company news release dated September 27, 2017). The economic model uses a 34% corporate tax rate and a 7.5% discount rate, resulting in an after-tax NPV of $135.8M and an IRR of 21.3% using an average base case price of $26.65/lb for contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate.

The ICP is 100% owned by the Company's wholly owned subsidiary, Formation Capital Corporation, U.S. The FS was prepared by Micon International ("MI") in conjunction with SNC Lavalin ("SNC") both of Toronto, Canada. The FS is based on an underground mine with a target production rate of 800 short tons per day ("tpd") and a weighted average annual production of 2.4M lbs of cobalt, 3.3M lbs of copper and 3,000 oz of gold over a 12.5 year mine life with an estimated pre-production period of 24 months utilizing a 0.25% cobalt cut-off grade. The FS outlines the production and processing feasibility of ICP as an underground mine and mill, developing the Company's Ram deposit, located within the Idaho Cobalt Belt outside the town of Salmon, Idaho and the Cobalt Production Facility ("CPF"), a hydrometallurgical refining operation to be located on a railhead in Blackfoot, Idaho. The ICP would be a vertically integrated project designed to produce cobalt chemicals for the rechargeable batteries market in addition to by-products of copper concentrate, copper sulphate, magnesium sulphate and gold. The feasibility recommends the ICP progress through detailed engineering, procurement and construction phases.

Mr. Paul Farquharson, President and C.E.O. of the Company stated: "The filing of our Feasibility Study FS signifies a significant milestone in the development of the ICP. With a Technical Report on file, the Company can now disclose additional details of the project to potential financiers and their due diligence teams to assist in the advancement of the Project through financing and ultimately, construction and production. To that end, our management team has been aggressively pursuing the marketing of the project to potential financiers in North America and abroad. Additionally, potential offtakers have toured the project and as previously announced, pre-construction activities are underway in preparation for project construction and mine development with the intent of recommencing construction in the summer of 2018 contingent upon successful project financing. The near-term aspect of high grade primary cobalt produced in the United States is the essence of the ICP's main competitive strengths."

Feasibility Study Description

As previously described, the FS is based on an underground mine with a target production rate of 800 short tons per day ("tpd") and a life of mine production of 31.8M lbs of cobalt, 42.8M lbs of copper and 39,241 oz of gold. The project has over 12.5 year mine life with weighted average annual production of 2.4M lbs of cobalt, 3.3M lbs of copper and 3,000 oz of gold and an estimated pre-production period of 24 months utilizing a 0.25% cobalt cut-off grade. The economic model uses a 34% corporate tax rate and a 7.5% discount rate, resulting in an after tax NPV of $135.8M and an IRR of 21.3% using an average base case price of $26.65/lb for contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate.

The Company completed a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on March 10, 2015 utilizing the Company's September 14, 2007 (revised May 19, 2008) feasibility study as a basis. The PEA included the completed environmental permitting process and construction at the mine and mill that was completed from 2011 to 2013 and subsequently placed on care and maintenance in May 2013. The FS utilizes an updated resource, mine model and mine schedule with a feasibility study level of design for the CPF to produce cobalt sulphate. A combined cobalt/copper/gold concentrate is to be produced from the mine and mill and processed at the CPF through hydrometallurgical processing of cobalt and copper bearing sulphides to produce cobalt sulphate heptahydrate which is used in the production of cathodes for rechargeable batteries.

Marketable by-products include copper concentrate, copper sulphate, magnesium sulphate and gold. Gold will be recovered through a gold carbon in leach circuit producing gold-loaded carbon which will be refined at a contract facility to produce dore. The stripped carbon will be returned to the CPF for reuse.

The ICP is 100% owned by eCobalt and there is no underlying royalty on the property. The FS has been compiled in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 guidelines. Readers are strongly encouraged to review the final National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report in its entirety.

Mineral Resource and Reserves

MI updated the estimate of cobalt, copper, and gold resources in a three-dimensional resource wire frame and block model to be used for mine planning, design, and scheduling as part of the FS. MI utilized the previously estimated resources for the Ram deposit (completed by Mine Development Associates for the PEA) supported by their own geostatistical model and reserve criteria. The resulting model moved some PEA level Measured resources into the Indicated category and adjusted grades within the resource categories. Cobalt, copper, and gold reported resources in the FS model are shown in the table below. The stated resource is reported at a cobalt cut-off grade of 0.20% cobalt. There is approximately 34% dilution forecasted in the stope designs with additional dilution applied, by mining method and stope conditions, for over-break. The copper and gold resources and reserves are those resources and reserves carried within the stope blocks which attain the cobalt cut-off grade. No metal value is given to the copper or gold in determining the cobalt resource cut-off. No metal recoveries are applied, as this is an in-situ resource.

Ram Deposit Mineral Resources at 0.2% Co Cut-off

Category Resource

(Tons) Co

(%) Co

(lbs) Au

(opt) Au

(ounces) Cu

(%) Cu

(lbs) Measured 1,725,000 0.54 18,589,700 0.014 24,300 0.76 26,324,900 Indicated 1,711,000 0.64 21,988,000 0.017 29,900 0.71 24,110,600 M+I 3,436,000 0.59 40,577,700 0.016 54,200 0.73 50,435,500 Inferred 1,543,000 0.51 15,593,800 0.012 18,700 0.68 21,032,200

Ram Deposit Mineral Reserves at 0.25% Co Cut-off

Category Resource

(Tons) Co

(%) Co

(lbs) Au

(opt) Au

(ounces) Cu

(%) Cu

(lbs) Proven 1,987,209 0.43 17,107,067 0.013 25,276 0.69 27,383,521 Probable 1,674,685 0.52 17,409,858 0.017 28,010 0.67 22,372,024 Total

Reserve 3,661,894 0.47 34,516,925 0.016 53,286 0.68 49,755,545

Economic Highlights

The FS economic model uses a 34% corporate tax rate and a 7.5% discount rate, resulting in an after tax NPV of $135.8M and an IRR of 21.3% using an average price of $26.65/lb of contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate. Gross revenue during the life of mine is estimated to consist of 75% cobalt sulphate, 15% copper sulphate, 5% magnesium sulphate, 4% gold and 1% copper concentrate. A pro forma cash flow was developed using conventional methodology utilizing the base case discount rate, before and after-tax determination of project economics, annual cash flows discounted on an end of year basis with costs estimated in Q3-2017 US dollars.

LOM Cobalt Sulphate and By-Product Revenue

By Year through LOM the following chart demonstrates the projected Sales Revenue by Product

LOM Cobalt Sulphate and By-Product Revenue

The total LOM capital and reclamation cost is estimated at $288.1M, including $186.7M for initial capital, $5.8M for long term water treatment bond collateral, and $95.6M in sustaining capital and mine development capital during production over the LOM, reclamation and closure cost. Prior to the deferral of the ICP to care and maintenance status in May 2013 due to depressed market conditions; the Company spent $65.3M on the ICP for earthworks, engineering, and milling equipment including the crushing, ball mill, flotation and filtration circuits, pumps, grizzlies, hoppers, conveyors, etc. These are sunk costs and not included in the remaining initial capital costs.

Project sensitivities were evaluated against standard potential variances in the cobalt price, discount rate, capital expenditures, and operating costs. Results of the sensitivity analysis are presented in the following tables and charts.

Cobalt Sulphate Price Forecasted Sensitivity:

Co Sulphate Price: $19.50 $22.50 $25.50 $26.65* $28.50 $31.50 $34.50 After-Tax IRR 10.4% 15.1% 19.5% 21.3% 23.6% 27.4% 31.1% After-Tax NPV @ 7.5% $27.8M $73.7M $118.4M $135.8M $162.4M $204.0M $245.8M



*Base case

The table above shows that $1.00/lb change in the price of cobalt will lead to a $14.4M change in after tax NPV and 1.3% change in after tax IRR.

Discount Rate Forecasted Sensitivity:

Discount Rate: 5.5% 6.5% 7.5%* 8.5% 9.5% After-Tax NPV using Base Case Prices $174.0M $154.0M $135.8M $119.3M $104.3M



*Base case

The following table and chart depicts the gross and net cash flow for the project LOM and by year respectively.

Life-of-Mine Cash Flow Summary

Item LOM total

($ 000) $/t milled $/lb Cobalt Cobalt Sales 846,837 231.26 26.66 Selling Costs 2,117 0.58 0.07 Mining 196,692 53.71 6.19 Mill/Concentrator 52,494 14.34 1.65 Transport 5,199 1.42 0.16 Cobalt Production Facility (CPF) 149,121 40.72 4.69 G&A 37,309 10.19 1.17 Total Operating Costs 442,932 120.96 13.94 By-product credits (282,510) (77.15) (8.89) Net Operating Costs 160,422 43.81 5.05 EBITDA 686,415 187.45 21.61 Capital Costs 288,146 78.69 9.07 Net cash flow before tax 398,269 108.76 12.54 Tax 66,814 18.25 2.10 Net cash flow after tax 331,454 90.51 10.43

Summary of Annual Forecasted Cash Flow

Sensitivity of Estimated After-Tax NPV to Prices (all products), CAPEX and OPEX

Cobalt Market- Growing Demand and Supply Deficit Forecasted (CRU)

The Company commissioned a marketing study with CRU Consulting of London, United Kingdom, to provide data and forecast on cobalt and by-product markets and specifically cobalt sulphate used in rechargeable batteries applications and the ICP's position within the battery supply chain. The following cobalt marketing information is referenced from the Market Study for the Idaho Cobalt Project September 2017 Report authored by CRU Consulting.

Cobalt consumption has remained strong over the past six years because of stable demand in alloys, established chemical markets and rapid uptake in lithium ion batteries. CRU expects global refined cobalt demand to approach 166,210 tonnes by 2026 (2016 - 96,000 tonnes). Demand is forecast to grow at 6% CAGR in the mid-term spurred on by growing demand for lithium ion batteries. Demand is then expected to increase at CAGR 4.1% in the long-term (2021-2026) as the EV sector matures and the metals sector continues to grow robustly.

Cobalt mine supply is consolidated in a small number of countries and dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country's share of global supply is forecast to reach 67% in 2021 despite considerable risks to political stability, infrastructure development and energy supply. Cobalt chemicals supply is dominated by China, the largest importer of cobalt concentrates and hydrometallurgical intermediates. Being located in the United States, the ICP with access to its own mined feedstock, sustainable operating practices following ethical principles is an advantageous position in the current market environment. The ICP has the opportunity to become the reliable and transparent source of cobalt sulphate supply to the domestic market and export markets outside DRC.

Cobalt sulphate demand is rising strongly and is likely to outperform demand for other cobalt chemicals and demand in metallurgical applications in the future. Tightness in both the metallurgical and non-metallurgical sectors will lead to increasing competition for both mined and refined supply helping support prices at or above current levels over the next ten years. Most of this deficit will be felt in the non-metallurgical market, where supply and demand is expected to increase at CAGR 7.0 % and CAGR 7.9 % respectively. This means additional chemical refining capacity will need to be created in the mid-term. Delays in capacity increases could occur as a function of political instability, energy disruption or as a function of falling copper and nickel prices. The global supply of refined chemicals is becoming increasingly prone to mine supply bottlenecks, a major upside risk to cobalt chemical prices.

Based on CRU's long term real price forecast, the FS uses a weighted average price of $26.65/lb for contained cobalt in cobalt sulphate, which has an average premium of $1.47/lb above 99.3% cobalt price forecast.

Current Activities

Pre-construction activities continue at the ICP Mine and Mill site. These activities include the installation of the main substation and extension of power lines to the portal bench, the concentrator pad, and the water retention ponds and control wells. Mobilization of the crushers to the mill site for early spring resumption of waste pad construction has been completed.

Project Opportunities

There are significant opportunities that could improve the economics of the ICP. Including those opportunities typical to all mining projects, such as changes in metal prices, exchange rates, etc., there are additional opportunities that exist. The mineral resource has not been fully delineated and there is an excellent opportunity to expand this resource. As a result, the Company initiated a targeted drilling program, in consultation with MI. The first drill hole completed has successfully intercepted additional mineralized material within a deeper Indicated zone to the South of the deposit. Pending the receipt of assays, the results of this drill hole have the potential to immediately increase the indicated mineral resource. In addition, over a dozen potential targets have been identified in the immediate area within the claim block of the ICP. Four of these have been drill tested with several intercepts exceeding the current cut-off grade. There is also potential to add additional resources from the nearby Black Pine property owned by the Company which potentially could provide additional feed for the ICP mill.

There is an opportunity for the mine to process higher grade material for short durations through the optimization of the mine plan and sequence production to capitalize on market conditions. Opportunities for CPF capital and operating cost improvements exist through optimization studies during detailed design. There is potential to increase overall recoveries and obtain better shipping and handling terms through formal negotiations in the future and to incorporate offtake and/or streaming agreements on some or all of the products to be produced.

FS Risks

The most significant potential internal risks associated with the ICP are uncontrolled dilution, lower metal recoveries than those projected, operating and capital cost escalations, unforeseen schedule delays, and the ability to raise sufficient financing to execute the project. The central external project risks are product prices and markets. These risks are common to most mining projects, many of which can be mitigated with adequate engineering, planning and pro-active management.

Conclusions

MI and SNC have concluded that the FS contains adequate detail and information to support the positive FS outcome shown for the ICP. Standard industry practices, equipment and design methods were used in the FS. MI and SNC further concluded that the ICP contains a viable cobalt and base metal resource that can be successfully mined by underground methods and recovered to concentrate with conventional milling processes. Using the assumptions contained in the FS; in the professional opinions of MI and SNC, the project economics merit consideration by eCobalt to proceed to the project financing and execution stage. To date the Qualified Persons, in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, are not aware of any fatal flaws for the ICP. The advancement of the ICP towards production is contingent upon financing.

Moving Forward

The positive results of the FS have given Management and the Board of Directors a clear mandate to move the ICP towards project financing and development. Management has conducted project marketing discussions with potential finance and off-take partners who have executed non-disclosure agreements with the Company and begun due diligence reviews and testing of product samples.

Independent of the FS, Management's is evaluating a variety of opportunities for the ICP in cooperation with the FS engineers and in response to offtake discussions.

Preparation of the ICP mine and mill site for construction activities, expected to commence in earnest next year with successful mine financing in place, continues with access road upgrades, existing facilities maintenance, preparation of temporary power for construction, and approved water discharge line maintenance. At the CPF located in Blackfoot, ID, the existing pre-purchased building has been transported to the site.

Concurrent with the above activities, Management also plans on pursuing the numerous opportunities for project enhancement.

The Qualified Persons as defined by National Instrument 43-101 responsible for the FS and this news release are listed below:

Qualified Person Organization Overall Responsibilities Chris Jacobs CEng MIMMM Micon International Limited Project Economics and Cost Estimates. Charley Murahwi P.Geo.

FAusIMM Micon International Limited Geology and Mineral Resource Estimates Barnard Foo P.Eng. Micon International Limited Mining and Reserve Estimates Richard Gowans P.Eng. Micon International Limited Metallurgy and Process Design David Makepeace M.Eng. P.Eng. Micon International Limited Environmental Engineering E.R. (Rick) Honsinger, P.Geo. eCobalt Solutions Inc. Review and approval of the

contents of this news release

About eCobalt Solutions Inc. (www.ecobalt.com)

eCobalt Solutions is a well-established Toronto Stock Exchange listed company committed to providing ethically produced, environmentally sound, battery grade cobalt salts, essential for the rapidly growing rechargeable battery and renewable energy sectors, made safely, responsibly, and transparently in the United States.

eCobalt Solutions Inc.

"J. Paul Farquharson"

J. Paul Farquharson

President & CEO

Cautionary Statement on Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Statements in this news release pertaining to expected financings, filings, uses of proceeds or project completion dates are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Such projections are and will inevitably always be dependent on assumptions about future mineral prices and development costs which will be subject to fluctuation due to global and local economic and industry conditions. Further information regarding risks and uncertainties which may cause results to differ from those contained in forward-looking statements is included in filings by the Company with securities regulatory authorities and is available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company 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. 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. Although the Company has disclosed that the Idaho Cobalt Project remains the sole, near term, environmentally permitted, primary cobalt deposit in the United States and offers a unique potential for North American consumers to secure an ethically sourced, environmentally sound supply of battery grade cobalt chemicals, there is no guarantee that the Company will attain commercial production of such cobalt chemicals for use in the rechargeable battery sector. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The statements contained in this news release in regard to eCobalt Solutions Inc. that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including eCobalt Inc.'s beliefs, expectations, hopes or intentions regarding the future. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and are based on information available to eCobalt Solutions Inc. as of such date. It is important to note that actual outcome and the actual results could differ from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties such as technological, legislative, corporate, commodity price and marketplace changes.

SOURCE eCobalt Solutions Inc.
TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2017 - Kerr Mines Inc. ("Kerr" or the "Company") (TSX: KER, OTCQB: KERMF, FRA: 7AZ1) announces that it intends to complete a proposed private placement offering of approximately 16,666,667 common shares of the Company ("Shares") at a price of $0.30 per Share for gross proceeds of $5 million (the "Offering"). The Company will use the net proceeds from the Offering to finance its ongoing exploration program at its flagship Copperstone Mine in Arizona

"This financing represents another positive milestone in advancing Copperstone's development," stated Claudio Ciavarella Kerr's Chief Executive Officer. "With the recent success of the first phase of our exploration program we continue to remain focused on moving the project towards the successful completion of our updated resource and pre-feasibility Study in Q1 of 2018 and subsequent production decision."

The pricing of this financing is offered at a 7% discount to the 30 day volume weighted market closing price of $0.32 per share.

The Offering is scheduled to close on or about November 30, 2017 and the Company may complete the total Offering in one or more tranches. The Offering has been conditionally approved by the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") but remains subject to final approval from the TSX.

The Common Shares issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a four month hold period in accordance with applicable securities laws.

About Kerr Mines Inc.

Kerr Mines is a North American gold development and exploration company currently advancing the fully permitted past-producing Copperstone Mine project. Copperstone is a high-grade gold project located along the Walker Lane mineral belt in mining-friendly Arizona. The project demonstrates significant upside exploration potential within a 12,000 acre land package which includes a production history of over 500,000 ounces of gold. The Company's current focus is on maximizing Copperstone's potential by defining and expanding current resources and strengthening the mine's economics leading to a production decision.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements, including current expectations on the timing of the commencement of production and the rate of production, if commenced. These forward-looking statements entail various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations, are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks, and actual results may differ materially from those contained in such statements. These uncertainties and risks include, but are not limited to, the strength of the Canadian economy; the price of gold; operational, funding, and liquidity risks; the degree to which mineral resource estimates are reflective of actual mineral resources; and the degree to which factors which would make a mineral deposit commercially viable are present; the risks and hazards associated with underground operations. Risks and uncertainties about Kerr Mines' business are more fully discussed in the Company's disclosure materials, including its annual information form and MD&A, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and available at www.sedar.com and readers are urged to read these materials. Kerr Mines assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from such statements unless required by law.

Neither TSX nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release and no stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.







Contact



Kerr Mines Inc.

Claudio Ciavarella, Chief Executive Officer

+1 (416) 855-9305

e: cciavarella@kerrmines.com


MONTREAL, QC--(Marketwired - November 10, 2017) - Falco Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: FPC) ("Falco" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement to purchase its mining fleet for the Horne 5 Project located in Rouyn-Noranda, QuAbec, Canada. The Company selected Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, Val d'Or, QuAbec, ("Sandvik") as its supplier of choice for the mining fleet.

Luc Lessard, President and Chief Executive Officer commented, "The purchase of the mining fleet brings the Horne 5 Project one step closer to production. Through this agreement, we were able to secure favourable pricing and terms and have managed to further derisk the Horne 5 Project. Sandvik will be providing a complete automation solution that will increase efficiencies during production operations. Its experience, leading-edge technology and proven track record having supplied underground mining projects throughout the world will further enhance the execution of the Horne 5 Project."

From the development phase to the production phase, the Sandvik equipment fleet will incorporate 34 units including LHD's, trucks and drills. The mining fleet will include the following, five 21 ton scoops, five 17 ton scoops, four 50 ton mine trucks, two additional 50 ton mine trucks for Phase 3, four 2 booms automated jumbos, five bolters, 5 automated production drills, two cable bolters and two wet shotcrete sprayers.

The agreement also includes the supply, start-up and installation of Sandvik's AutoMine  Loading system. A single loader automation system, which will enable Falco to operate multiple loaders in separate production areas from an individual operator station. The system provides the functionality for the operation and supervision of a semiautomated or fully automated loader. The semi-automated production cycle consists of automated tramming and dumping and teleremote operated bucket loading. An automatic bucket filling assistant will also be included giving the system operator the option to either fill the bucket teleremotely or automatically. The AutoMine  Loading system includes a Access Control System, an operator station and the MineLAN Communication Network.

The total value of the new equipment fleet and AutoMine is approximately C$60 million. No deposits are required until the initial equipment order is made. Delivery of the fleet is scheduled to start in 2020. The Sandvik equipment fleet can be submitted to Credit Development Agencies.

About Falco

Falco Resources Ltd. is one of the largest mineral claim holders in the Province of QuAbec, with extensive land holdings in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. Falco owns about 67,000 hectares of land in the Rouyn-Noranda mining camp, which represents approximately 70% of the entire camp and includes 13 former gold and base metal mine sites. Falco's principal asset is the Horne 5 Project located in the former Horne mine that was operated by Noranda from 1927 to 1976 and produced 11.6 million ounces of gold and 2.5 billion pounds of copper. Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. is the largest shareholder of the Company and currently owns 13.2% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company. The Company has 180,620,244 shares issued and outstanding.

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.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "plans", "expects', "estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include the reliability of the historical data referenced in this press release and those risks set out in Falco's public documents, including in each management discussion and analysis, filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although Falco believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, Falco disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Vancouver, November 10, 2017 - Gitennes Exploration Inc. (the "Company") (TSX V - GIT) announces a private placement (the "Private Placement") of up to 10,500,000 units for gross proceeds of up to $1,320,000 (consisting of up to $780,000 in gross proceeds for a non-flow through portion and up to $540,000 in gross proceeds for a flow through portion) and the closing of the first tranche of the Private Placement.

Private Placement

The Private Placement consists of a non-brokered offering of up to 10,500,000 units, consisting of up to 6,500,000 non-flow through units (each, a "NFT Unit") at the price of $0.12 per NFT Unit, each NFT Unit consisting of one common share and one non-transferable warrant, each whole warrant entitling the holder to purchase one common share for $0.25 per share for a period of two years, and up to 4,000,000 flow through units (each, a "FT Unit"), each FT Unit consisting of one flow through common share and one non-transferable, non-flow through warrant, each whole warrant entitling the holder to purchase one non-flow through common share for $0.27 per share for a period of two years.

Completion of the Private Placement is subject to the acceptance for filing thereof by the TSX Venture Exchange. In Canada, all securities issued in the Private Placement have a hold period of four months and one day from the date of issuance. Finder's fees are payable on a portion of the Private Placement consisting of a cash commission equal to 6% of the gross proceeds raised by the finder and finder's warrants entitling the finder to purchase that number of common shares equal to 6% of the aggregate number of units issued to investors introduced by the Finder.

Closing of the First Tranche

The Company also announces the closing of a first tranche of the Private Placement consisting of 3,866,666 NFT Units for aggregate gross proceeds of $464,000.

In connection with the closing of the first tranche, the Company paid aggregate finder's fees consisting of $2,400 in cash and 20,000 non-transferrable finder's warrants, each whole finder's warrant entitling the holder to purchase one common share for $0.25 per share for a period of two years.

The Company will use the net proceeds from the Private Placement to fund exploration on its Canadian properties and for general corporate purposes.

About Gitennes Exploration Inc.

Gitennes is in the business of exploring for and advancing mineral deposits. The Company currently has two gold exploration properties in British Columbia, Hixon and Snowbird, and a 1% Net Smelter Returns royalty on the 18 million ounce Urumalqui Silver Project in Peru.

For further information on the Company, readers are referred to the Company's website at www.gitennes.com and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Gitennes Exploration Inc.

Ken Booth

President

For further information, please contact:

Ken Booth

Phone: 604-682-7970

Email: info@gitennes.com

Neither the TSX V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain statements that constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of the Company. All statements in this news release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations and orientations regarding the future. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "schedules", estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Such forward-looking statements include, among others, statements as to the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors including the Company's use of funds raised in the Private Placement; lack of investor interest in the Private Placement, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays in obtaining governmental and regulatory approvals (including acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange, required for the Private Placement), permits or financing; the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations; potential defects in title to the Company's properties; fluctuations in the prices of commodities and precious metals; operating hazards and risks; environmental issues and liabilities; and competition and other risks and uncertainties of the mining industry. Although the Company believes that the beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this news release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that those beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Readers should consider all of the information set forth herein and should review the Company's periodic reports filed from time-to-time with Canadian securities regulators. These reports and the Company's filings are available at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein.

Copyright (c) 2017 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.


LM17-146: 10.97% zinc, 0.27% lead, 1.31% copper, 28.1 g/t silver, 1.7 g/t gold over 2.9 m.

Geological Structural Study & NI 43-101 Resource Update Initiated at Lemarchant

Third Drill Rig Added to South Tally Pond Project

CZN-TSX

CZICF-OTCQB



VANCOUVER, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Canadian Zinc Corporation (TSX: CZN; OTCQB: CZICF) is pleased to report further positive results from its ongoing diamond drill exploration program on the Lemarchant zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit, located on the 100%-owned South Tally Pond project in central Newfoundland.

Lemarchant Main Zone Extension Drill Results

The 2017 Lemarchant summer drill program focused on further testing and defining the up-dip mineralization discovered during the 2017 winter drill program at the Lemarchant Main Zone.

Drillholes LM17-145 and 146 totaling 496 metres targeted additional up- and down-dip extensions to the Lemarchant Main Zone mineralization.

LM17-146 intersected 11% zinc over 2.9 metres, up-dip of LM11-66 and extended the massive sulphide horizon by 25 metres in this area.

LM17-145 intersected stringer base metal mineralization (footwall) down-dip of LM11-43, where the mineralization appears to be have been displaced by local faulting related to the Lemarchant thrust fault.

To date in 2017, the Main Zone has been tested with 32 drillholes and 3 extension drillholes totaling almost 7,500 metres. The 2017 drilling program has successfully extended the Lemarchant deposit up-dip by up to 80 metres over a 200-metre strike length at vertical depths between 120 to 170 metres below surface.

"The 2017 drill program at Lemarchant has intersected significant extensions of very good grade base and precious metal massive sulphide mineralization, both up-dip and to the immediate south of the currently defined Lemarchant deposit," stated Mike Vande Guchte, VP Exploration Newfoundland for Canadian Zinc. "The Lemarchant deposit is a sizeable volcanogenic massive sulphide system that remains open for expansion and we look forward to updating the previous Lemarchant resource estimate with the new results."

Lemarchant Northwest Zone Extension Drill Results

Four drillholes (1,460 metres) testing for extensions to the Lemarchant Northwest Zone, located 250 metres northwest of the Main Zone, were completed.

Drillholes LM17-147 and 148 targeted a southern extension to the Northwest Zone. LM17-147 intersected massive sulphide and mineralized barite over 5.2 metres below an interpreted east-west fault zone. LM17-148 targeted the same mineralized horizon 35 metres to the north and intersected a mafic intrusion.

Drillholes LM17-149 and 150 targeted a northern extension to the Northwest Zone mineralization. LM17-150 intersected a stringer base metal mineralization over 21.4 metres with semi-massive sulphides intersected over the first 6.1 metres and a 15.3 metre intercept of similar grade below. The footwall zone stringer mineralization is located immediately below a mafic intrusion.

Assay results for the recently complete drillholes testing the Lemarchant Main Zone and the Northwest Zone are summarized below:

Drill Hole Section From

(m) To (m) Length (m) Zone Zn (%) Pb (%) Cu (%) Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) Main Zone LM17-145 102+50N 183.0 200.2 17.2 FW 2.17 0.28 0.19 10.60 0.08 LM17-146 102+00N 201.4 204.3 2.9 MZ 10.97 0.27 1.31 28.09 1.73



204.3 210.1 5.8 FW 0.90 0.12 0.34 6.36 0.24 Northwest Zone LM17-147 104+75N 196.0 201.2 5.2 MZ 3.36 0.96 0.39 113.7 1.60 LM17-148 104+75N







No Significant Results LM17-149 106+75N







No Significant Results LM17-150 106+75N 316.8 338.2 21.4 FW 3.05 1.78 0.35 14.6 0.51

* All intervals are core length; true thickness is estimated to be near core length; FW = Footwall, MZ = Mineralized

Zone

Geological Structural Study and NI 43-101 Resource Update

Mercator Geological Services Limited, of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has been engaged to complete a geological structural study of the Lemarchant deposit. The structural study will examine specific drill core and bedrock features that will be applied to the geological model with the objective of identifying potential offset areas of known mineralization and potential new adjacent areas of mineralization. The structural model will also assist in the preparation of an updated National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 Geological Resource Estimate of the Lemarchant deposit that will be completed after the end of this drilling program.

Lemarchant North Target Drill Results

Five drillholes, LM17-151 to LM17-155 (1,363 metres) were completed on the North target area, a new area previously undrilled, located 300 to 500 metres north of the Lemarchant deposit. The five drillholes targeted near surface, conductive zones modelled from the ground electromagnetic ("EM") geophysical surveys completed in 2016.

Drilling intersected up to 2-metre thick, pyrite and/or pyrrhotite-rich mudstone horizons similar to those seen near surface at the Lemarchant deposit. The iron-rich mudstones are typically located at the mafic-felsic volcanic transition; however, no significant base mineralization was intersected in these drillholes. Whole rock geochemical samples are pending and may provide further vectoring information to mineralization in this area.

Three Drills Completing Fall Drilling Program

Three high priority base metal prospects located in the Lemarchant area, including Lost Pond (drilling underway), Spencers Pond and Lake Ambrose West, are scheduled for drill testing.

At the Lost Pond prospect, located 10 km north of Lemarchant, the planned drilling (1,500 metres) is following up on three drillholes completed in 2011, where 4.0% copper mineralization was intersected over 0.5 metre in drillhole BL11-01. The copper mineralization occurs at the mafic-felsic volcanic contact within geochemically similar mudstones to that which overly the Lemarchant deposit. Drilling at Lost Pond was initiated on October 14, 2017.

At the Spencers Pond prospect, located approximately 2 km southwest of the Lemarchant deposit, initial drill testing (1,500 metres) of the newly defined EM targets is planned. In this area, a single, historic drillhole intersected massive sulphide (pyrite) over 0.5 metres associated with geochemically similar mudstones to that which overly the Lemarchant deposit.

At the Lake Ambrose West prospect, located approximately 6 km northeast of the Lemarchant deposit, the planned drilling (700 metres) is aimed at priority airborne EM conductors (2011 survey) and coincident ground horizontal loop EM conductors (completed by Noranda) that have not been drill tested.

Drilling at the Boomerang-Domino massive sulphide deposit on the Tulks South property was initiated in early October. Up to 5,000 metres of drilling is planned for the area, specifically targeting the Zinc Zone located immediately along strike (southwest) of the Boomerang-Domino deposit; drilling an untested area up-dip of the Boomerang-Domino deposit; and further testing of the high-grade Hurricane prospect located along strike (northeast) of the Boomerang-Domino deposit.

A third drill rig has been added to the fall program to begin initial testing at the Lake Ambrose West target and then continue testing for extensions to the Lemarchant Northwest zone mineralization at the Lemarchant deposit.

About Canadian Zinc

Canadian Zinc is a TSX-listed exploration and development company trading under the symbol "CZN". The Company's key project is the 100%-owned Prairie Creek Project, a fully permitted, advanced-stage zinc-lead-silver property, located in the Northwest Territories.

The Company also owns an extensive land package in central Newfoundland that it is exploring for zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold deposits including the South Tally Pond project, which hosts the Lemarchant deposit with the an Indicated Resource of 1.24 million tonnes averaging 5.38% Zn, 1.19% Pb, 0.58% Cu, 59.17 g/t Ag and 1.01 g/t Au; and an Inferred Resource of 1.34 million tonnes at an average grade of 3.70% Zn, 0.86% Pb, 0.41% Cu, 50.41 g/t Ag and 1.00 g/t Au, established in 2012.

The Company's exploration strategy in central Newfoundland is to continue to build on its existing polymetallic resource base with the aim of developing either a stand-alone mine, similar to the past-producing base metal mines at Buchans and Duck Pond, or a number of smaller deposits that could be developed simultaneously and processed in a central milling facility.

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Drillhole intervals are core length with true thickness estimated to be 85-100% of core length. Samples were sawn from NQ-sized core with half core sections sealed in plastic bags and transported by Canadian Zinc personnel to Eastern Analytical Labs in Springdale, Newfoundland. Samples were analyzed for Cu, Pb, Zn, Ag and Au at Eastern Analytical Labs from the sawn NQ-sized half core sections. Data quality is monitored through the insertion of control samples consisting of one prepared base and precious metal standard and one blank sample for every 20 samples of drill core. All control samples conformed to the accepted contained grades of base and precious metals. Select samples pulps were shipped to ALS Minerals in North Vancouver, BC for 33-element ICP analysis for further check assays of significant base and precious metal bearing samples. Historical results were obtained from published reports and news releases available in the public domain.

Michael J. Vande Guchte, P.Geo., VP Exploration NL for Canadian Zinc Corp. is responsible for the Newfoundland exploration programs, and is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and has reviewed and has approved the contents of this news release.

Cautionary Statement  Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain forward-looking information, including, among other things, the expected completion of acquisitions and the advancement of mineral properties. This forward looking information includes, or may be based upon, estimates, forecasts, and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, the completion of transactions, the issue of permits, the size and quality of mineral resources, future trends for the company, progress in development of mineral properties, future production and sales volumes, capital costs, mine production costs, demand and market outlook for metals, future metal prices and treatment and refining charges, the outcome of legal proceedings, the timing of exploration, development and mining activities, acquisition of shares in other companies and the financial results of the company. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Inferred mineral resources are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that mineral resources will be converted into mineral reserves.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") permits U.S. mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. We use certain terms in this press release, such as "measured," "indicated," and "inferred" "resources," which the SEC guidelines prohibit U.S. registered companies from including in their filings with the SEC.

SOURCE Canadian Zinc Corp.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TriMetals Mining Inc. (TSX:TMI) (OTCQX:TMIAF), (the Company), reports the release of its unaudited consolidated financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and the related managements discussion and analysis of financial position and results of operations (MD&A). In this press release, all amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise indicated.



As at September 30, 2017, the Company had net working capital of $1.5 million including cash and cash equivalents of $1.6 million.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2017, the Company reported a net loss of $2,634,815 ($0.02 per share) compared to a net loss of $16,574,559 ($0.12 per share) reported for the nine months ended September 30, 2016. During the three months ended September 30, 2017, the Company reported a net loss of $3,038,046 ($0.02 per share) compared to net earnings of $5,407,440 ($0.04 per share) reported in the third quarter of 2016.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2017, the TSX closing price of the Class B shares (a liability in the financial statements) decreased from Cdn. $0.24 per Class B share at December 31, 2016 to Cdn. $0.235 per Class B share at September 30, 2017 resulting in a non-cash loss of $1,111,790 (2016 - $14,714,347) and significantly contributing to the Companys net loss of the periods.

General and administrative expenses decreased from $1,522,225 for the nine months ended September 30, 2016 to $1,468,783 for the nine months ended September 30, 2017.

Total exploration spending for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 increased to $2,386,306 from $1,318,484 incurred during the nine months ended September 30, 2016.

The exploration spending for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 included $2,081,725 incurred at Gold Springs which included $243,357 in water lease payments and associated legal fees, net of water sublease receipts, $334,375 in drilling costs, as well as costs associated with the updated resource estimate, geochemistry, supervision, and ongoing environmental studies for permitting.

At Escalones, the Company incurred costs of $304,581 which mainly included land payments and supervision.

The comparative 2016 nine-month costs included $1,194,694 incurred at Gold Springs which included costs associated with analysis of exploration data, ongoing metallurgical testing and environmental studies for permitting. At Escalones, the Company incurred costs of $123,790 which mainly included land payments and supervision.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2017, the Company received $75,000 (2016 - $75,000) in repayments of drilling advances under the terms of its drill contract at Escalones.

Outlook

The priorities of the Company are to (i) continue with the exploration program at Gold Springs with the intention of expanding the mineral resource and moving the project closer to production; (ii) consider other alternatives to monetize the value of the Escalones copper-gold porphyry project in Chile; (iii) continue with the international arbitration against Bolivia to recover full compensation based on the fair market value for the Malku Khota project; and (iv) diligently continue managing the Companys cash resources.

About TriMetals Mining Inc.

TriMetals Mining Inc. is a growth focused mineral exploration company creating value through the exploration and development of the near surface, Gold Springs gold-silver project in mining friendly Nevada and Utah in the U.S.A. and by demonstrating the value of the Escalones copper-gold porphyry project, near El Teniente in Chile.

The Companys approach to business combines the teams track record of discovery and advancement of large projects, key operational and process expertise, and a focus on community relations and sustainable development. Management has extensive experience in the global exploration and mining industry.

The Companys common shares and Class B shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols TMI and TMI.B and the common shares and Class B shares also trade on the OTCQX market under the symbol TMIAF and TMIBF. Note that the Class B shares have no interest in the properties or assets of the Company. The Class B shares are only entitled collectively to 85% of the net cash, if any, (after deducting all costs, taxes and expenses and the third-party funder's portion thereof) received by TMI from award or settlement in relation to the Companys subsidiary South American Silver Limiteds arbitration proceeding against Bolivia for the expropriation of the Malku Khota project in 2012. Additional information related to TriMetals Mining Inc. is available at www.trimetalsmining.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain statements contained herein constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements look into the future and provide an opinion as to the effect of certain events and trends on the business. Forward-looking statements may include words such as seek, continue, creating, and similar expressions. These forward- looking statements are based on current expectations and entail various risks and uncertainties. Actual results may materially differ from expectations, if known and unknown risks or uncertainties affect our business, or if our estimates or assumptions prove inaccurate. Factors that could cause results or events to differ materially from current expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to, the outcome of the international arbitration process, including the timing and the quantum of damages to be obtained, managements expectation with regard to the final amount of costs, fees and other expenses and commitments payable in connection with the arbitration, and any inability or delay in the collection of the value of any award or settlement; and risks of the mineral exploration industry which may affect the advancement of the Gold Springs or Escalones projects, including possible variations in mineral resources or grade, recovery rates, metal prices, availability of sufficient financing to fund further required work in a timely manner and on acceptable terms, availability of equipment and qualified personnel, failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; and other risks more fully described in the Company's Annual Information Form filed and publicly available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The assumptions made in developing the forward-looking statements include: the ability of the Company to realize value from its investments in Bolivia; the arbitration proceeding in a customary manner and in accordance with Procedural Order No. 1 (as amended in April and June 2015 and in January 2016) and the third party funder honoring its contractual commitments, the accuracy of current resource estimates and the interpretation of drill, metallurgical testing and other exploration results; the continuing support for mining by local governments in Nevada, Utah and Chile, the availability of equipment and qualified personnel to advance the Gold Springs project; and the execution of the Company's existing plans and further exploration and development programs for the Gold Springs Project, which may change due to changes in the views of the Company or if new information arises which makes it prudent to change such plans or programs.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this news release. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements in this news release describe the Companys expectations as of November 10, 2017.

NEWS RELEASE: 17-16

TriMetals Mining Inc. Contact:
Dorothy McAuliffe has spent most of her time as the first lady of Virginia trying to make sure low-income children are fed before and during the school day.We cannot have 13 million hungry children in the United States of America, she says. It doesnt need to be that way. We have enough food to feed ourselves and the world.In 2014, her husband, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, put her in charge of working with state agencies, the legislature, nonprofits and businesses to tackle child hunger. It's clear to anti-hunger advocates that he made the right decision: The number of public schools in Virginia now offering universal free breakfast and lunch has increased 297 percent in three years.That's partially due to a change in federal law but also because of Mrs. McAuliffe's outreach. She organized a summit with school administrators and wrote a letter to school superintendents asking them to expand summer meals programming.Then she took her show on the road.With her success in Virginia, McAuliffe led a First Spouses' Initiative around the issue for the National Governors Association (NGA). In February, she spearheaded an NGA panel discussion on child hunger with 40 governors and their spouses. In June, Virginia hosted a two-day "learning lab" where 10 governors sent their staff to learn from researchers, anti-hunger advocates and program specialists on reducing child hunger.Research shows eating breakfast is associated with improved academic performance, such as better math scores and higher grades. Last year in the United States, more than 21 million children from low-income families received free or reduced-price lunch through a federal school nutrition program. But barely half took advantage of a similar program for school breakfast. And fewer than one in five participated in the summer meals programs.Bus schedules or parents' work schedules often prevent students from arriving early enough to take advantage of breakfast in the cafeteria. Schools can offer other options, such as packaged breakfast on the bus or breakfast delivered to the classroom, but school officials sometimes balk at making those changes, says Claire Mansfield, the director of No Kid Hungry Virginia, a chapter of the national nonprofit Share Our Strength."Principals, especially in high-poverty schools, have competing priorities and tight budgets," she says.Offering alternative breakfast options can mean one-time start-up costs for breakfast delivery carts or new trash cans. That's where the first ladies come in. Thanks to them, lawmakers in states like Virginia and Nevada have set aside several million dollars in grant money to pay for start-up equipment, such as ovens, refrigerators and carts.Gov. McAuliffe, a Democrat, has butted heads with Republican leadership in the legislature on a range of issues -- from gun control to expanding Medicaid -- but they found common ground on school meals. The legislature approved the governors request for more than $2.5 million to help schools expand access to nutrition programs.This is a bipartisan issue, says Mansfield. At the end of the day, were trying to feed hungry kids, and that doesnt know any political party.If schools can afford the initial start-up costs, they can then tap into millions in federal dollars because Congress fully funds the school meals programs without requiring a state or local match. (The federal funding, however, only pays for the meals, not start-up or any other associated costs.) In Virginia, for example, a $1.7 million investment to help schools sign up children for school breakfast brought in $18 million in additional federal reimbursements.Collectively, states missed out on $836 million in federal funding in the 2015-2016 school yearbecause so few of their eligible students make use of subsidized school breakfast, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a national anti-hunger advocacy group.In Virginia, the McAuliffes have seen measurable gains. In the last three years, school breakfast participation rose from 53 percent to 61 percent, summer meals participation rose from 13 percent to 15 percent, and afterschool meals participation rose from 1 percent to 8 percent.The participation growth in Virginia resembles trends across the country, according to annual reports from FRAC. In the 2015-2016 school year, for every 100 students receiving subsidized lunch, 56 received subsidized breakfast. That's up from 51.9 in the 2012-2013 school year.In 2010, Congress enabled schools and school districts to provide free meals to all students if 40 percent of their families are already on another federal program for low-income households, such as food stamps or welfare. Although the law passed in 2010, the so-called Community Eligibility Provision rolled out in phases and only became available to all states in 2014.That change is driving the increased participation in school meals programs, but without the outreach and funding push from the Dorothy McAuliffes of the world, some districts might never take advantage of it.
A Growing Market

Using Cyber Insurance

As the threat from hackers and cybercriminals intensifies, a growing number of states are buying cyber insurance to protect themselves  and taxpayers.Its expensive. Its a big budget item for us. But its absolutely worth it, said Michael Hussey, Utahs chief information officer. Youre seeing breaches now that cost companies and states millions and millions of dollars.More than a dozen states now have cyber insurance policies, which cover losses and expenses if a computer network is hacked. Insurers typically pick up the cost of investigating and restoring data, notifying those whose information may have been compromised, and providing legal and public relations services and credit monitoring.Hussey said Utah first bought a policy in 2015, three years after a data breach of a Department of Health server exposed 780,000 residents personal information to hackers. The state wound up spending millions of dollars to deal with the aftermath, including paying for credit monitoring and legal fees and conducting a security assessment of all state servers.Utah now pays $230,000 a year for $10 million in cyber coverage and has a $1 million deductible. The policy covers every agency in the executive branch.So far, the state hasnt had any big data breaches that would require filing a claim, but that doesnt mean it wont happen in the future, Hussey said.We check what were supposed to be checking, he said. But with cyber, if one little thing is overlooked or you have bad luck and leave something undone, youd hate to be left holding the bag to cover that.In the wake of massive data breaches like those involving Yahoo last year and Anthem the year before, many businesses have scrambled to buy cyber insurance. Last year, insurers wrote $1.35 billion in premiums, a 35 percent jump from 2015, according to Fitch Ratings.States have been following in their footsteps. In a survey of state CIOs this year, 38 percent reported having some type of cyber insurance, compared to 20 percent in 2015.Even some small cities, such as Cody, Wyoming, have purchased cyber coverage this year.Hackers and cybercriminals in recent years have taken aim at state and local government networks, which contain information such as Social Security, bank account and credit card numbers on millions of people and businesses. And online activists have hijacked government computer systems, defaced websites, and hacked into data or email and released it online.In 2016, state information technology officers ranked cybersecurity as their top priority for the third year in a row.James Lynch, chief actuary for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry trade group, said selling cyber insurance to states is especially challenging.What states do is so diffuse and sprawling, and they deal with so many types of people and circumstances that its difficult for an insurance company to fully get a grasp on what those risks are and underwrite them all, he said.It can be equally challenging for those purchasing cyber insurance, he added.When you buy an auto policy, you have a pretty good idea whats in it. The terminology is highly standardized. Its been vetted through the courts, Lynch said. You dont have that in cyber because the product is so new. The actual things being covered also vary greatly from policy to policy.And government agencies sometimes dont understand the risks or what kind of coverage theyll need, cyber experts say.Some states and local governments dont even know where their data is or what theyve got, said Dan Lohrmann, chief security officer for Security Mentor, a national security training firm that works with states. So when you start having to give the insurer a list of how many servers you have and what systems are included, it gets pretty complicated.Lohrmann said many state IT security officials initially were wary of cyber insurance, figuring theyd rather spend their limited resources on prevention. But many now take a different view, he said, because they realize that having the insurance will ensure that they are keeping their security programs up to snuff. Insurers wont sell states policies unless they meet certain standards, including regularly training staff, encrypting sensitive data and updating servers.In Georgia, Chief Technology Officer Steve Nichols said he was skeptical about cyber insurance at first, but when he saw how many giant companies had breaches and the financial impact, he changed his mind.In July, Georgia bought comprehensive cyber insurance, which covers about a hundred state agencies, he said.Nichols said he thinks Georgia has the largest amount of cyber coverage of any state  $100 million. It pays a $1.8 million-a-year premium and has a $250,000 deductible per incident.The state relied on a broker to guide it through the very confusing and complicated process and put together a deal with a consortium of insurers, he said.Montana was the first state to get cyber insurance, in 2011, said Lynne Pizzini, chief IT security officer. And its glad it did.Three years later, hackers gained access to a server that contained Department of Public Health and Human Services data, including clients names and Social Security numbers and some health information. The state mailed letters about the incident to more than a million people who could have been affected.Pizzini said the insurance company helped with the mailings, set up a call center, and provided forensic investigation, legal and communications assistance, and credit monitoring.We used all of the services in our insurance policy, she said. It would have cost us a ton more than the premium we pay.The state has a $2 million policy, which covers all agencies, including the university system, she said. It pays an $88,200 annual premium and has a $100,000 deductible per incident and a 10 percent copayment for credit monitoring.But Pizzini and IT officials in other states caution that having cyber insurance shouldnt make states complacent and view it as a substitute for a comprehensive security program. While the coverage can be a big help after the fact, they say, states need to invest in security, keep their technology updated, and be prepared for hackers and cybercriminals.Its like brushing your teeth, Georgias Nichols said. You need to do it every day.
A two-pronged approach

"No positive headlines"

Coastal Texas officials whose counties and cities bore the brunt of Hurricane Harveys deadly blow this summer unleashed a barrage of complaints about recovery efforts at a Texas House subcommittee hearing in Corpus Christi on Wednesday.The mayors and county leaders voiced frustration  and one shared a vivid account of suicidal thoughts  stemming from what they described as a woefully inadequate federal response to the storms vast destruction.With winter coming, they told stories about residents still living in tents and hotels more than two months after the storm battered southeast Texas. Their criticisms were largely focused on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is in charge of initial recovery efforts.They rank high on promises and way low on promises kept, Port Aransas Mayor Charles Bujan said.FEMA officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.The local leaders also told the Texas House Appropriations Subcommittee on Disaster Impact and Recovery that the state has not funded all communities relief efforts in an equitable way, an apparent reference to $50 million Gov. Greg Abbott gave Houston after a public dispute with Mayor Sylvester Turner.And although the storm impacted communities across a wide swath of the state differently, they said one immediate need stands above the rest: securing more temporary housing for residents who will spend years recovering.You cant rebuild a community unless your citizens have a place to live, and our citizens dont have a place to live, said Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal.Their comments come on the heels of housing advocates and experts expressing worries that state leaders push for up to $121 billion in federal recovery money is focused more on public works projects like flood control than on individual assistance like rebuilding Texans flooded houses.More than 886,000 Texas households applied for some sort of disaster aid after Harvey swept through a large swath of the state. As of last week, more than 51,000 southeast Texans were still displaced and living in hotel rooms, according to FEMA data, and at least 26,000 are handling temporary housing on their own, which could include living in damaged homes, staying with loved ones or paying for short-term housing needs out of pocket.The state says more than 7,000 families still need government-subsidized temporary housing such as apartments or trailers while their homes are rebuilt. Mayors and county officials on Wednesday issued several criticisms about the bureaucracy residents must contend with as they seek immediate disaster aid.These people have gone through four steps and still dont get any help, said San Patricio County Judge Terry Simpson.He also said that residents will begin the process with one FEMA worker only to have another one give them different instructions or explanations about aid qualifications or requirements weeks later.The system is broken, he said. The system doesnt work the way it was planned to work.Bujan said more than 100 residents in Port Aransas lost their homes and only five families have been approved for temporary trailers.Those five trailers have never arrived, he said. Theyre not there. I don't know where theyre at.The hearing also featured state and local education officials detailing the high cost of displaced students and damaged school buildings. City, county and school officials also told lawmakers they expect to also face extreme budget woes once the value of damaged properties are reappraised and tax revenues plummet.Fulton Mayor Jimmy Kendrick drew a spattering of applause after he testified that the stress from trying to recover with inadequate federal response keeps him from sleeping some nights. He said frustrated residents have focused some of their ire on him, lobbing unfounded accusations about him on social media.Theres been times Ive sat there and thought about putting a gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger, he said.Abbott split long-term recovery into two initiatives, each overseen by a different state entity vying for limited federal funds. A commission headed by Texas A&M University Chancellor John Sharp is focusing on securing money for infrastructure projects. The Texas General Land Office is spearheading efforts to find temporary housing for displaced Texans and also plans to oversee billions in federal dollars that will help them rebuild or renovate their homes.But the land office is also seeking money for infrastructure projects  and doesnt want the federal Housing and Urban Development department to limit how much long-term disaster relief money can be spent on public works projects versus housing recovery."The key to this is not thinking of it simply as rebuilding, but rebuilding to prevent damage from future storms and thus make Texas more resilient," said Brittany Eck, a land office spokeswoman.Land Commissioner George P. Bush said at Wednesdays hearing that helping Texans is of primary importance. But he also said recovery money should be used to protect economic development and the private energy industry from the next disaster.We cant lose sight of long-term resiliency, he said.Abbotts two-pronged approachis similar to the state's playbook after Hurricanes Ike and Dolly. But housing advocates complained about how the state handled those funds, and HUD eventually forced Texas to rework its plans for the money and required more spending on housing for lower income residents.Nearly 10 years after those storms, more than $500 million in disaster relief funds remains unspent. About $297 million of that is earmarked for housing.Local officials on Wednesday also complained that FEMA says privacy laws prevent the agency from sharing why individual residents are declined assistance or asked to provide more information."We can't exactly share the criteria by which applicants are being declined, Bush said.As his agency begins steering those approved for short-term assistance toward five different federal programs, Bush said he has lobbied for a moratorium on home foreclosures in impacted counties.He also suggested that his offices hands are tied on some matters by an extensive, voluminous agreement with FEMA to oversee short-term housing programs.People are going to be frustrated, Bush said. There are going to be no positive headlines as it relates to temporary housing."
Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap has filed a federal lawsuit against President Trump's voter fraud commission in an effort to obtain information and correspondence about the commission's work.Dunlap, one of four Democrats on the 11-member Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, more than three weeks after requesting the information. Despite the fact that he is a member of the commission, Dunlap says he has been kept in the dark about what it is doing.The suit alleges that the commission's chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, and vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, are in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which prohibits the body from excluding commissioners from deliberations and information. The Executive Office of the President is also a named defendant, as the office is staffing the commission and maintaining its records."Since the Sept. 12 meeting, I have received no correspondence from the commission other than to acknowledge receipt of my information request" of October 17, Dunlap said in a prepared statement. "Clearly, there is information about this commission being created and discussed, but I have no access to that information and it has not been provided upon request."Dunlap said his goal in filing the lawsuit is to bring the commission into compliance with federal law, which would allow him to fulfill his role on the commission and participate in providing a report to the president. He told the Press Herald he decided to send his Oct. 17 records request after learning from a reporter that a commission staffer had been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. Dunlap said he hadn't even been aware that the staffer, Ronald Williams II, had been hired."I was like: I need to know what's happening, what we're working on," he said in an interview Thursday. "So I sent the letter and heard nothing for about 10 days, and then they acknowledged the letter and said they have to review my request with counsel! And I sent a couple more emails and said, 'I just want to know what we're doing. I'm not trying to get the nuclear codes or anything.'""It's time to press this point," he added. "If we are going to be a commission, we need to act as commission."The commission's executive director, Andrew Kossack, did not respond to a request for comment.Election experts said the situation is highly unusual."I can't recall a single instance of a presidential advisory commission being sued by one of its members," said David Becker, former director of the elections program at the Pew Charitable Trusts and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington, D.C. "What he is basically saying is, 'Please keep me and the rest of the commissioners in the loop.' It's a very modest request from a very well respected secretary of state who I know has been trying to work very constructively with this commission and has received criticism for even participating."Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a public interest nonprofit that has sued the commission for allegedly violating federal public records law, said Dunlap's suit is "virtually unprecedented" and underscores "the chaotic and dysfunctional nature" of the body."That its own members are in the dark on the way that the Commission operates and deliberates makes clear that this Commission is no more than a tool to advance this administration's voter suppression agenda," Clarke said via email. "As we continue our ongoing litigation against the administration, we look forward to watching Secretary Dunlap's suit which will most certainly expose additional evidence of the Commission's unlawfulness."The president of Common Cause, the government accountablity nonprofit, said in a statement Thursday that Dunlap's lawsuit "removes a shred of legitimacy the Pence-Kobach Commission has tried to cling" since its inception."This commission has been a sham from the moment it was created and a waste of tax dollars, said president Karen Hobert Flynn. "It is disgraceful that a presidential commission was ever assembled to try to justify laws that strip Americans of the right to vote without cause and solely for political ends. The commission should be shut down immediately."A second Democratic member of the commission, New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner, told the Press Herald Thursday that he also has not received any communications from the commission since the Sept. 12 meeting that he himself had hosted in Manchester, New Hampshire."I don't know anything more than Matt," Gardner said from his office in Concord. "That might be because of these law suits they are dealing with, and I'm putting the best light on this that I can."Gardner said he has even been unable to provide the voter registration lists the commission had requested because the commission staff has not responded to his inquiries about how and where to securely file them electronically."I'm still hopeful," Gardner said. "I will be really disappointed if we don't get a chance to get the facts and information that will lead us to whatever conclusions we could make."The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that all commissioners receive equal information about the commission's work, Dunlap said, but he has not been privy to any discussions related to meeting materials, witness invitations, goals or outreach.At its meetings, Kobach and Pence have made it clear that the commission -- set up by Trump to probe his evidence-free claims that millions of illegal voters had cost him the popular vote in 2016 -- will focus almost entirely on voter fraud, a problem numerous studies and probes by administrations of both parties have shown is extremely rare, and will not address the systematic intrusion of state election infrastructure by Russia, a problem about which Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent, has been especially vocal.A 2011 voter fraud probe in Maine by Republican Secretary of State Charlie Summers found just one instance of fraud. Nationally, numerous voter fraud investigations have concluded the problem is vanishingly small, with one study by Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt finding just 31 credible allegations of identity fraud in all primary, general, special and municipal elections between 2000 and 2014, despite over a billion votes being cast.Dunlap has said he joined the commission with an open mind and will act as a whistleblower if it engages in partisan shenanigans, but he has become much more critical of the body's approach over the past month, saying many of his colleagues appear to define "voter fraud" to include legitimate voting by people they don't want to see vote, such as college students.
The Utah Supreme Court has reversed a ruling by the Utah Court of Appeals, which last year found that a law making it a second-degree felony to cause death or serious injury while driving with a measurable amount of drugs in ones system was unconstitutional.The January 2016 ruling by the Court of Appeals faulted the states measurable amount law  which does not require proof of impairment  because the punishment is harsher than for the third-degree felony crimes of DUI with serious injury, and automobile homicide, where drivers are deemed to be incapacitated. ... there does not appear to be any rational basis for punishing individuals who have any measurable amount of controlled substance in their bodies more harshly than individuals who have an incapacitating amount of the substance in their bodies, according to the appeals court decision.
The Senate Vs. the House on Tax Reform

Election 2017 Brings New Government Spending Debates

Oklahomas Budget Battle Continues

Senate Republicans unveiled a draft of their tax plan on Thursday, and it contains both pluses and minuses for state and local governments.The good news: The Senates plan likely wont eliminate private activity bonds, as has been proposed by House Republicans. The bonds are often used by development agencies, are tax-exempt, and are issued on behalf of a government for a project built and paid for by a private developer. Low-income housing advocates, development finance agencies and infrastructure associations have come out in defense of the financing mechanism, arguing that its elimination would significantly stymie development projects.The bad news: The legislation totally eliminates the ability of people to deduct state and local taxes from their declared federal income. The House version , however, allows homeowners to still deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes.The Senates version of tax reform contains a few other key differences from the House, such as delaying implementation of the corporate tax rate cut by one year. The Senate finance committee is constrained by a rule that bans lawmakers from increasing the deficit by any more than $1.5 trillion over the next decade.Assuming both bills pass their respective chambers, Republican leaders from the House and Senate will hammer out a compromise bill with input from the White House. If the state and local deduction is indeed eliminated, it will almost certainly be a sticking point for Democrats and some moderate Republicans. After striking out on health-care legislation earlier this year, Republicans badly need a win.But as weve seen with the Affordable Care Act, when one party rams through major legislation, it creates uncertainty -- and that's not great for the economy. With bipartisanship you get the certainty and predictability you need for long-term innovation and growth, said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon this week at a Tax Policy Center event in Washington, D.C. Without that, as soon as other side takes over, theyre going to set out and make some changes.Tuesdays election saw a wave of victories for progressive causes and candidates, signaling a shift in several states' upcoming government spending debates next year.One of those shifts will center around Medicaid expansion. In Maine, voters approved a ballot measure to expand it under the Affordable Care Act. Calling it "ruinous" for the state's budget, though, Gov. Paul LePage has already said he won't carry out an expansion unless it's fully funded by the legislature.In Virginia, Democrats made huge gains in the state House. Long dominated by Republicans, the state legislature blocked outgoing Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffes repeated attempts to expand Medicaid. With the pickups and a new incoming Democratic governor, many are hopeful itll happen in 2018.Another shift is in New Jersey, where the Democratic legislature repeatedly battled with outgoing Republican Gov. Chris Christie over budget issues such as pension funding and taxes. With Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Murphy , the state is returning to one-party rule that, many hope, will lead to fixes for the state's ailing pension system.And in big cities across the country, progressive candidates claimed victories . Notably, the incoming mayor of Charlotte, N.C., campaigned on progressive issues that include a $15 minimum wage.Unfortunately, agreement onto spend the money on is only half the battle. Politicians still have to figure outthat money will come from. And in todays constrained revenue climate, even one-party ruling rule doesn't keep long fights on such issues from happening.In New Jersey, Murphy faces a particularly tough road. During his campaign he called for increasing funding for the state's pension plans. While that would certainly be good, the state hasnt paid as much as 60 percent of what it was supposed to over the past 20 years. In fact, Christies budgeted pension payment this year -- half of whats required -- is the highest since 2008.The states pension plans are collectively 31 percent funded. Every year the state skipped on part or all of its payment, the worse things got. Getting New Jersey out of this situation, according to an S&P Global Ratings report this week, could take years and multiple gubernatorial administrations.Oklahomas protracted budget battle slogged along this week with little progress.Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill pushed by the House and passed by the Senate that withdraws $23 million from the states already dwindling rainy day fund to help fund the states Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. But that still leaves a nearly $200 million deficit that lawmakers cant agree on how to plug.The state Senate overwhelmingly supports raising revenue, but the House doesn't. This week, it once again failed to pass a Senate bill that would hike taxes on tobacco, alcohol, fuel and energy production.The states shortfall was caused when lawmakers earlier this year attempted to get around the states tax-raising restrictions by approving a $1.50-a-pack "smoking cessation fee" in the waning days of the regular session in May. Just three months later, the state Supreme Court struck down that fee as an illegally passed tax.In many ways, this fight isnt just about this years budget deficit, which represents just 4 percent of spending. As Moodys Investors Service points out, the nearly six week-long impasse underscores the economic and institutional weaknesses that have led to a persistent structural budget imbalance since 2015.In that time, the state has cut spending by 5.3 percent. Lawmakers, however, have been unable to agree on any major revenue-raising measure to plug the rest of the annual deficits. So they have repeatedly resorted to one-time fixes. Even if they sort it out this year, they face an estimated $500 million budget gap next year. The legislatures inability to pass a comprehensive and permanent solution, warns Moodys, weighs on Oklahomas credit quality.The situation resembles that of Kansas' repeated budget deficits after the legislature passed tax cuts in 2012 without cutting other spending. Lawmakers overrode Gov. Sam Brownbacks veto and reinstated some of the tax cuts earlier this year.
Description

GIS - 10 November, 2017: Mauritius is a not tax haven, says the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit and Minister of Finance and Economic Development.

In a statement on the Paradise Papers issued on 9 November 2017 in the wake of unfounded allegations levelled against the Mauritius jurisdiction by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth said that Mauritius has been falsely described as a tax haven and a place which promotes an environment of secrecy.

Nothing can be further from the truth. According to the OECD criteria, Mauritius is not a tax haven. Our jurisdiction has always adopted sound regulatory practices and complied with international standards on transparency and exchange of information, he said.

In June 2015, Mauritius adhered to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, and currently has an exchange information mechanism with 127 jurisdictions, the Prime Minister recalled.

He further stated: We have committed to exchange information on an automatic basis under the Common Reporting Standard as from 2018, as an early adopter, and are already exchanging information on an automatic basis under the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act.

According to the statement, the overall rating of Compliant given to Mauritius by the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in 2017, is proof of the transparency and robustness of our exchange of information system.

The Prime Minister adds that Mauritius, as a founding member of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti Money Laundering Group, has also been at the forefront in the fight against money laundering and other forms of financial crime.

Mauritius strongly disagrees with the statement that it is rising at the expense of Africa. It is regrettable that in an attempt to surf on the wave of sensationalism and to toy with emotions, the authors have not realised that Mauritius is itself an African country, and proud to be, the Prime Minister said. He further added that, as member of the African Union, SADC and COMESA, Mauritius is contributing to the sustained economic development of the continent and prosperity of all Africans.

Mauritius has over the years created a business enabling environment that is competitive, transparent and respectful of international standards. The World Bank, in its latest report on Ease of Doing Business, recognises our efforts to improve our investment climate and has upgraded our ranking from 49th to 25th globally. Mauritius has also established itself as a credible platform for cross-border investments into the African continent, said the Prime Minister.
Description

GIS  10 November, 2017: The 2017 Africa Round Table on insolvency reform hosted by International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency & Bankruptcy Professionals (INSOL International) and World Bank Group kicked off yesterday at Sugar Beach Resort, Mauritius, in presence of the Attorney General, Minister of Justice, Human Rights and Institutional Reforms, Mr Maneesh Gobin, and other personalities.

The theme chosen for this years two-day workshop is Plugging the implementation Gap. Some 150 participants coming from 28 different jurisdictions are attending the workshop, which aims at providing the ideal platform for disseminating ideas and eventually the formulation of policy directives regarding insolvency.

In his address, the Attorney General highlighted that Mauritius is a meaningful choice for holding this workshop given the countrys historically sound legal system, which aligns with the worlds most forward-looking jurisdictions. The agenda for these two days, he pointed out, reflects the necessity for all African countries to align, where necessary, their legislations with international best practices.

He underscored that one of the major features of the Insolvency Act, which provides a comprehensive legal framework for corporate insolvency as well as the individual bankruptcy, is that it merges both corporate and individual insolvency in a stand-alone statute. Mauritius, he added, has taken positive steps to provide for a dedicated commercial court to deal with commercial litigation diligently and effectively.

The Attorney General also underlined that in todays global economy, many insolvencies will have a global reach as the assets of companies are spread across various jurisdictions  a topic of particular relevance to Mauritius, which is a recognised financial centre. This is why cross-border insolvency, which is not yet in force in Mauritius, will be a significant topic on the workshops agenda, he added.

INSOL International

INSOL International is a world-wide federation of national associations for accountants and lawyers who specialise in turnaround and insolvency. There are currently over 40 member associations world-wide with over 10,000 professionals participating as members of INSOL International.
One of Chicagos most prominent civic tech groups, Chi Hack Night , has invited candidates in the Illinois gubernatorial race to sign a pledge to support open data in the event that they win, subsequently posting a checklist of who has done so on its Website

The group issued the invitation in early October via Twitter , and so far, two of the 10 candidates in the race have signed, with two others indicating they will soon. Derek Eder, lead organizer of Chi Hack Night, said the invitation is part of an ongoing effort to improve open data practices at all levels of government in the state  practices that are in much need of improvement.

We have over the years become a bigger part of the political and tech communities here in Chicago, and weve done things to push for more transparency here at the local level, Eder said. Last year, we decided to push more for open data at other government levels.

Eder praised Chicagos city government for making strides in the area and beginning to release new data sets on a regular basis. Chi Hack Night, which boasts a membership of thousands of designers, researchers, data journalists, activists and developers, initially focused on improving open data practices for Cook County, within which Chicago is located. To do so, they invited candidates in the 2016 states attorney race to sign an open data pledge similar to the one posited at those running for governor. The eventual winner, Kim Foxx, signed and has made good, creating a new chief data officer position within her office and releasing data sets that were previously unavailable to the public.

Currently, Illinois has an open data portal and some open data legislation , both of which Eder described as wanting and often ignored. On the existing site, many state agencies  including the board of elections, the commerce commission, the department of corrections, the office of the governor and the state board of education, among others  have not released any data sets. And releases from other state departments are scant. The Illinois State Police, for example, have three data sets on the portal, one of which is a list of the addresses and phone numbers of its offices throughout the state, while the two others are 10-year histories related to firearm ownership, last updated in 2011.

As a point of comparison, nearby Ohio has extensive open data on its government website , including an interactive budget tool that provides financial info at a near-granular level, detailing annual reports on the states rainy day fund, as well as exact payments to specific suppliers and subsidies. Indiana also has a comprehensive digital information portal , one with an accessible design that makes it easy to find the most popular sets.

The pledge that Chi Hack Night is inviting candidates to sign is largely symbolic and doesnt legally require the eventual victor to do anything. The idea, Eder said, is to get the states leadership committed to open data while also spreading public awareness.

The benefits of enhancing open data at the state level are potentially wide-spanning. For technologists like Eder and the more than 100 others who regularly attend Chi Hack Nights weekly meetup, it opens far more possibilities for them to develop projects that benefit communities.

We see the open data that governments release as a raw resource, and the more of it there is, the more possibilities there are, Eder said. There are a lot of data sets that the state has that are really hard to get.

There are also benefits for the general public and civil servants. Improved open data means government that is more transparent and accountable. It also means that state agencies would have a centralized resource to find information that is presented in a clear manner.

Illinois is a largely troubled state, one that recently concluded a two-year stretch wherein the legislature failed to agree with the governor on a budget. Concerns about whether Illinois will be able to afford government pensions have been ongoing for even longer. Illinois faces the nations worst budget deficit, and there have been recent reports of billions in unpaid bills. This is all to say that Illinois is, indeed, a state sorely in need of better governance.

This is an issue some folks might think is kind of a pet issue, or, given all the other things going on in Illinois, theyre wondering why were spending time on this, but I think this is a system-changing pledge, Eder said. It has the potential of having real system-wide change, change for the better. Ive seen it happen in Chicago and Cook County, and I want to see it happen for the state of Illinois too.

The two candidates who have officially signed are 37-year-old Chicago Alderman Ameya Pawar, and State Sen. Daniel Biss, a former mathematics professor. Pawar has since announced that he is leaving the race The two other candidates whove said they will sign soon are Chris Kennedy and Alex Paterakis. The remaining six candidates have not said whether they would either way. Emails to the campaign of Gov. Bruce Rauner were not immediately returned for this story, nor were those to J.B. Pritzker, arguably Rauners most prominent challenger.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  Back in 2012, Chicago was the first city in the country to hire a chief data officer, so perhaps it was fitting that its current CDO, Tom Schenk, was basically everywhere on day two of the Summit on Data-Smart Government at Harvard University, an event that drew packed rooms of people interested in the work now being done by municipal chief data officers.

Schenk gave a presentation on day one of the event , detailing how his city used predictive analytics to fight food poisoning in restaurants . He also sat on the marquee panel the next morning with chief data officers from Boston, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, before giving a brief presentation about how visitors to the Windy City benefit from predictive analytics without even realizing it. Oh, and then after a lunch of Fenway Park-style burgers and bratwurst, Schenk joined three more panels that afternoon, all of which were filled with local government data officers from places that ranged from Edmonton, Canada, to New Orleans.

As should now be clear, Chicagos CDO is no longer alone. More than 20 municipal governments in the United States now have CDOs, and more join the list each year. This event was actually hosted in part by the Civic Analytics Network (CAN), a group of CDOs from major American cities, who came together for a day and a half of closed collaborative discussions before the public-facing panels. A prevailing theme throughout the second day was that municipal chief data officers and the work they do is rapidly evolving, doing so in a way that is of increasing interest to folks outside of city halls.

For the first time ever, technologists are now expected to talk to the public, Schenk said. My God, what have we done tactically to get to this point?

So, while its kind of funny to imagine Schenk  a tall guy who another CDO called the Jack Donaghy of civic data on Twitter, comparing him to Alec Baldwins impeccably-besuited character on giving his many presentations to empty rooms, alone, all indications are that chief data officers will become increasingly prominent appointees within city governments. The reason this all matters, of course, is that it has the potential to help cities create changes that improve quality of life for residents.

Stephen Goldsmith, the director of the Innovations in American Government program at Harvards Kennedy School of Government (andcolumnist), said in his opening remarks that data and analytics work has potential to reform the way government is conducted for the first time since Tammany Hall nearly 100 years ago, taking it to a far more efficient place where it is driven by results.

I really believe this is the best time to change government in the last century, Goldsmith said. The tools that are there are just unimaginable.

Making Data Useful

The marquee panel of the event featured Goldsmith moderating a discussion among CDOs from Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Cincinatti describing the various ways that theyve made data useful.

For Boston, this meant using open data to create a set of tools that residents can use to make 311 simpler or to easily find information about a property before they commit to renting it. Goldsmith pointed out how these evolved uses marked a stark improvement over three years ago, when for most governments open data meant releasing datasets so people could download them.

We needed to present [data] in a way thats far more accessible to people who dont consider themselves data people, said Andrew Therriault, Bostons chief data officer.

Sari Ladin-Sienne, interim chief data officer for Los Angeles, went on to discuss her citys innovative open data platform GeoHub , an ambitious map-based portal that has facilitated better communication across city departments while also spurring community engagement. Indeed, Geohub is a vast and impressive repository for city data, with information presented through many channels. Ladin-Sienne described it as a citywide ecosystem for problem solving.

Another interesting segment during this panel was Therriault discussing the use of librarians to help further data goals, librarians who for more than 100 years have been the municipal governments frontline when it comes to directing citizens to information. Thoughts about fostering engagement and outreach in the community, as well as internally within government, were also prominent parts of the discussions on day two.

Lightning Talks

A round of lightning talks included Louisville, Ky., Chief Data Officer Michael Schnuerle, who discussed the value of holding internal hackathons; Washington, D.C., Chief Data Officer Barney Krucoff, who described the concepts of open data and public data as two sides of the same coin that should be treated as such; and Kim Hicks, a data scientist with DataSF in San Francisco , who talked about using data and analytics to bolster retention rates for a public program aimed at improving nutrition for women, infants and children.

A second round of lightning talks later in the day included presentations from CDO Eric Roche of Kansas City, Mo., who talked about the rise of government chatbots ; and Jacqueline Lu, director of data analytics at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, who spoke about the value in deploying volunteers to map street trees.

Engaging with Departments

The second major panel of the day was Engaging with Departments, which saw Goldsmith moderating a talk between the data leadership of New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, and San Diego. The overarching theme here was how to get the many public agencies that make up city government to cooperate with open data efforts, viewing them as a tool to help rather than a hassle that creates more work.

Oliver Wise, director of the New Orleans Office of Performance and Accountability, described creating a culture that turned departments into truffle pigs that instead of sniffing out truffles, searched for use cases for open data. To do this, he said one key was to convey what open data does in a way that is useful yet generic, so disparate departments can understand it at a basic level.

San Diego CDO Maksim Pecherskiy said that his department essentially functions as a consultancy, one that busy public servants can ignore because theres no threat of being billed. To bridge gaps, he said it was key for technologists to invest time creating useful relationships with end-users of the products they work to build.

Joy Bonaguro, CDO of San Francisco, had a different sort of problem than her cohort, because many of the departments in her city grasp the vast potential of analytics and data, but they dont always understand what sort of issues fit. She said she has worked to establish clear guidelines, always doing so by ending firm emails with a smiley.
New York City is partnering with the nonprofit crowdfunding platform Kiva.org on a city-led program to help women entrepreneurs start businesses.

The program, dubbed WE Fund: Crowd, lets women apply for crowdfunded loans of up to $10,000, to which the city will contribute the first 10 percent of the request. In a press release announcing the program, city officials said the initiative is designed to reach a minimum of 500 businesses over three years. The release also detailed a gender entrepreneurship gap that currently exists in the city, citing that as many as 70 percent of women entrepreneurs in New York City say access to capital is a major challenge, and half of women entrepreneurs there seek less than $10,000 when starting their business plans.

Leveling the playing field for women entrepreneurs will help grow and diversify our economy, and strengthen our families and neighborhoods, said Mayor Bill de Blasio in the release. With Kiva, we will help launch small businesses that might otherwise never get off the ground.

Loans from the city in support of this program will be confirmed once a project reaches all of its funding goal. The contribution from the municipal government will be capped at $1,000 per campaign, and the terms of these loans include no-interest repayments for up to 42 months. This marks the first time that Kiva, which was founded in 2005, has partnered with a government-supported initiative of this nature, aimed at getting seed money to women entrepreneurs.

Illinois announces move to new data management platform

Illinois announced it will move to a new open data management platform that officials hope will be more functional and straightforward for users, while also saving the state government $1.2 million over five years.

This new open data portal will be built with Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), an open source system used by more than 140 organizations, including the U.S. federal government, which has deployed it for data.gov . In a press release announcing this transition, state officials also said that there are plans to deliver other enhancements, such as a tool to track how often various types of data are being requested. Officials at the state level also plan to coordinate demonstrations for interested local governments.

The press release announcing this move also emphasized that open data supports Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauners commitment to require transparency within state and local government, noting that Rauner issued a related executive order essentially requiring that information about state hires be put online. Rauner, who is currently running for re-election in 2018, is yet to sign a pledge committing his office to a comprehensive statewide open data policy that adheres to updated governmental best practices, despite being challenged to do so by the states largest and most prominent civic tech group, Chi Hack Night . The Illinois Legislature passed a bill related to data access in 2014 , but Chi Hack Nights leadership has described this existing legislation as lacking and easily ignored.

Civic tech group creates new source for California elections data

The California Civic Data Coalition , a group aimed at developing open sourced software to make its namesake states public data easier to access and analyze, revamped its campaign finance data download page to include daily publication of info that was previously unavailable to the public in an easy-to-use format.

The new data, the group says, makes it easier for reporters, researchers and other interested parties to follow the money in California politics. Newly available files catalog every candidate for office and ballot, which members of the coalition described in a launch announcement as previously found in the jumbled, dirty and difficult government database tracking money in state politics.

The original source for this info is Cal-Access , the state governments system for tracking the money that political campaigns raise and spend on elections. Coalition members say they found all the new info online and simply streamlined it and made it coherent. A student developer with the coalition, Sahil Chinoy , expanded on earlier work done in 2015 by another group and trained a computer script to navigate Cal-Access and parse out the essential data.

The coalition notes that state officials have publicly described Cal-Access as a mess, and a quick look at both sites  Cal-Access and the coalitions California campaign finance data download page  it is right away evident that the coalitions design is more direct and easier to use. More details about how this was done and how it can possibly be replicated elsewhere are available via the coalition

USDA invests $16 million in South Dakotas rural broadband infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Agricultures Rural Development Office in South Dakota announced that the federal agency will invest $16 million in an infrastructure project aimed at bringing broadband to rural corners of the state, something that has long been a challenge for state governments to do by themselves.

The money was awarded to James Valley Cooperative Telephone Company , a private company based in Groton, S.D. With this funding, the company will install more than 200 miles of fiber-optic cable in the state, powering a network that will bring faster Internet speeds to more than 2,600 establishments. The announcement is part of a larger allocation that will see $207 million in grants and loans from the USDA distributed nationwide to projects aimed at bringing broadband to other rural communities.

Other grant monies will be awarded in West Virginia, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, the hope being that broadband becomes available to 71,000 new residents and businesses in 74 counties throughout those states, as well as in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Utah. The awards are all being financed through the USDAs Telecommunications Program.
(TNS) - A bleeding Euclid woman ran to her neighbor's house after being attacked by her boyfriend.A Bedford resident was worried her boyfriend was suicidal. A few months earlier, he had threatened to kill himself.A young man in Lakewood overdosed on heroin twice within a span of a few weeks.In each of these cases, someone punched in the numbers 9-1-1 on a telephone.And in each of these situations, cases of domestic violence and mental health, such calls for help were deemed a "nuisance" by the city in which they took place. Those involved were fined or, in some cases, evicted.In Cuyahoga County, 23 communities have what are known as criminal activity nuisance ordinances (CANOs). These laws penalize property owners for repeated requests for emergency or police response, even if those calls involve domestic violence or mental health issues.After so many strikes, cities declare properties nuisances and assess fines unless the problem is remedied. In many cases, this means evicting the tenant responsible for the 911 calls.Designed to give cities a legal route to manage what they consider problem properties or residents, the nuisance laws disproportionately affect renters, people of color, survivors of domestic violence and those experiencing mental health crises, a new study by Cleveland State University students and researchers finds."Faced with the threat of fines, eviction or other penalties, residents may avoid reaching out to police for assistance in times of crisis - an action which can carry grave consequences," the report reads.The report, "What is a Nuisance: Criminal Activity Nuisance Ordinances in Ohio," analyzes the CANOs in four cities in Cuyahoga County - Bedford, Euclid, Lakewood and Parma - over a period of a few years. At the time of the study, all four had CANOs that included domestic violence; however, Euclid and Parma have since amended their ordinances.Euclid City Council made the decision to change the ordinance, which initially was enacted to limit issues like public intoxication, barking dogs and loitering, after hearing a presentation made by CSU students involved in the report."The reason to remove domestic violence as a nuisance condition is that it could prevent a domestic violence victim from calling the police for fear that they may lose housing if their property is deemed a nuisance," said Kelley Sweeney, Euclid's law director.Carrie Pleasants, executive director of the Housing Research & Advocacy Center, said nuisance ordinances raise concerns about race, domestic violence and renting."It's certainly a fair housing issue," Pleasants said. "Our biggest concern on its face is the domestic violence. They could end up being evicted for that, losing their housing. It's really adding insult to injury; you're re-victimizing the woman."Incidences of domestic violence are three times more likely to occur when a woman is living in a rental home, and women of color and immigrant women experience a proportionately greater share of the abuse, Pleasants said.In each of the cities studied by CSU, more than half of the nuisance letters sent involved renters. In Parma, that number was as high as 89 percent.Mayfield Heights, which was not included in the report, established its CANO to "afford some control over rental properties by holding the landlord responsible for the actions of their tenants," Mayor Anthony DiCicco said."Keeping the domestic violence calls as one of the types of nuisance calls would create a barrier between the victim and police," DiCicco said. "Domestic violence is already under-reported, and this would give the abusers more power as they know there is no reason to stop."That was exactly the case in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where the city tried to evict a woman for repeated instances of domestic violence in her home. Her abuser knew law enforcement had told her she had used up all of her "strikes" and could no longer call 911. He stabbed her in the neck, and she had to be airlifted to the hospital.Similar cases happen in Cuyahoga County. Women are evicted for calling the cops on their abusers. Men are evicted for calling for help for overdoses and drug addiction. Group homes are fined when adults with disabilities are injured and need assistance.In Lakewood, an average of 2.7 unique nuisance letters are sent per month, according to the report. In Bedford, 2.6. In Euclid, 1.9. In Parma, 1.6. Depending on the city, at least 20 percent of those letters involve domestic violence calls and at least 9 percent concern drug overdoses.2017 The Plain Dealer, ClevelandVisit The Plain Dealer, Cleveland at www.cleveland.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS) - With horror, the mother realized the thunderous bangs near her house were gunfire. She grabbed her three children and two firearms, and hid in the bathroom, shaking and scared."The only sense of protection that I felt like I had were those guns in my house," said Lagena Garcia, 31.The mass shooting at First Baptist Church that killed 26 people and wounded 20 others has not made the residents of this rural area east of San Antonio reconsider their belief in guns. It has only reinforced the sense that the answer to America's mass shooting problem is not gun control. It's more guns -- more guns in the hands of good people who can stop the bad guy.After all, they say, the shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, was stopped by a neighbor of the church, Stephen Willeford, who confronted him with a rifle. Without Willeford's armed response, there's no telling how many more would've died."We all understand a gun did not kill my sister," said Jimmy Stevens, 58, the brother of Peggy Warden, who died in First Baptist. "It was a sick person who did that. The man from across the street shot this man with the exact kind of gun [the gunman] was using."Locals here widely shared comments by President Donald Trump praising Willeford's actions and saying new gun laws are not the answer. Had there been more restrictions in place, Trump said, "There would've been no difference three days ago, and you might not have had that very brave" Good Samaritan. "Instead of having 26 dead, you would've had hundreds more dead," the president said.In today's rage-filled political culture, each side of the gun control debate shouts over the other. Politicians on the right who call for looser gun laws in the wake of shootings are often met with ridicule and disbelief by those on the left.But ask just about anyone in the South Texas area around Sutherland Springs how they feel after Sunday's shooting, and it's clear that the elected officials advocating for more gun rights are reflecting what their constituents want. In this community and others like it, people aren't in the habit of relying on police to protect them, they say. They've grown up shooting, and understand the importance of gun safety and self-defense, they add.Bobbie Jo Talley, 38, who works in hospitality in neighboring Floresville, said she doesn't want herself or her kids to become unarmed victims of a madman. She's taught her children how to shoot. Their guns help them protect themselves, she said, and if the government implements stricter background checks, that's only going to hurt law-abiding citizens, she believes. The criminals will always break the law, she said."If they want them bad enough, they're going to get them," Talley said. "There's always a way to get something you're not supposed to have."Advocates of stricter gun regulation argue that America's seemingly bottomless appetite for guns and its legal ability to obtain more and more powerful weapons have left the nation alone among developed countries as a place where mass murder occurs on a staggering scale all but unknown in the rest of the world.Many residents of Sutherland Springs dismiss that argument. People here accept guns as a way to protect themselves and their families.There is no question that Texas' loose gun laws evolved in response to the sentiments of its people. In 1991, many Texans felt defenseless after a shooter massacred 23 at a Luby's in Killeen. Suzanna Hupp watched both her parents die that day, after having left her gun in the car. She ran for state office on a platform of expanding the right to carry a concealed handgun. She won election and took her advocacy to the floor of the state legislature.A large number of Sutherland Springs residents have a firearm in their home, car or both. Many say they want to be ready to shoot a coyote or a hog, if needed.It's hard to quantify gun ownership in Texas, where you don't need a license to carry a long gun such as a rifle or shotgun, anywhere, or a handgun in your home or car. But many people still obtain licenses to carry handguns -- usually concealed -- in most other public places. Getting a license is a quick process of a one-day class, a marksmanship test and a written exam.In Wilson County, which includes Sutherland Springs, 9 percent of residents have a license to carry a handgun -- a rate that's nearly double that of the state of Texas.And that number is likely to rise after the church shooting.Fred Ohnesorge, owner of Acme Gun & Gear in Floresville, said he's seen an uptick in interest in concealed carry in the past few days. Usually, around two people a day enter the store to inquire about his handgun license class. But this week, at least 15 people have entered each day, he said.On Thursday, one of the people attending the licensing class was an associate pastor at First Baptist in Sutherland Springs, Ohnesorge said.The class instructor warns the students of the long-lasting impact of using their firearms as self-defense, Ohnesorge said."You could be 100 percent in the right, but your life could change forever," Ohnesorge said, adding that not everyone is mentally fit to make that "ultimate decision." Hesitating in a shoot-out situation can cost you your life, he said.It's a grim reality, residents said, but people will likely start bringing their guns to church in droves now."A lot more people are gonna want to get licenses," said Matthew Hernandez, 16, a Floresville High student who used to attend First Baptist. "It's sad to say you have to take a gun to church in order for you and your family to feel safe, but it could happen anywhere."Still, not everyone here opposes tighter gun restrictions. Aloys Manka, 68, who lives near First Baptist, said he wanted more in-depth background checks and didn't like the loosening of regulations."Everybody and anybody can buy a gun if they want to," he said. "They should've never passed those laws."Erica Meche, 39, a rodeo rider in Sutherland Springs, doesn't own any guns. But she smiled as she explained what she'd do to anyone who threatened her."I'll just rope 'em and drag 'em," she said. "Rope 'em and hang 'em."2017 The Dallas Morning NewsVisit The Dallas Morning News at www.dallasnews.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, L
(TNS) - Three area municipalities are considering merging to create a regional emergency management agency, officials said.New Brighton, Pulaski Township and Daugherty Township in Pennsylvania are looking to adopt an ordinance to establish the regional agency to cover their municipalities.According to New Brighton Borough Manager Thomas Albanese, municipalities across the state must appoint an emergency management coordinator, a volunteer position which requires some training, for disaster and emergency response.The three municipalities are looking to share this resource, as they have with many other things including the police department and the school district."We have a long history of sharing resources," Albanese said.If each municipality adopts the ordinance, they plan to have one emergency management coordinator for the area and likely some deputy coordinators to assist. The language of the ordinance will allow other municipalities to potentially join as well, Albanese said.Daugherty Township passed the ordinance Nov. 8. Township Secretary Eric Bock said the ordinance will help the municipalities save some money. Having deputy coordinators will also provide multiple coordinators to assist in covering each area, he said.Pulaski Township Secretary Mable Henn said she expects the township will do the same at a Monday night meeting."We're anxious to see it done," she said, and agreed that the ordinance makes sense for smaller communities.New Brighton will consider action Thursday night.2017 the Beaver County Times (Beaver, Pa.)Visit the Beaver County Times (Beaver, Pa.) at www.timesonline.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS)  SANDWICH, Mass.  When Sandwich resident Chris Kluckhuhn decided to fly down to Puerto Rico to help with disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, he never expected to find what he witnessed."It was one of the most uplifting and amazing experiences of my life," said the 43-year-old Coast Guard veteran, who runs a technology firm  Avwatch Inc.  that helps re-establish vital communications systems in the wake of disasters.Kluckhuhn and a couple of his colleagues flew down to the city of Humacao on Oct. 18 after a private individual, whom Kluckhuhn declined to identify, offered to fund the trip.It was several weeks after the major Category 5 hurricane, regarded as the strongest to hit the island nation in more than 80 years, tore through the Caribbean, leaving many without power and water and scores dead."It was an extremely difficult decision to go," Kluckhuhn said. "We didn't know the people who were asking us to go, and they didn't know anything about the logistics, and what we could expect when we got (there)."Kluckhuhn was a helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard. Recalling a failed rescue mission during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which he attempted with his personal aircraft, Kluckhuhn said he was inspired to start his own emergency response company to help people in distressing circumstances.The firm, which he founded in 2008, provides humanitarian relief by setting up so-called "mobile ad hoc networks" to help reconnect critical emergency infrastructure, including hospitals, military and government centers.After some back and forth, and with many safety and logistical concerns, Kluckhuhn and a team of three others committed to journeying to the devastated region. The crew included Craig O'Hearn, of Manomet, Marcus Tooker, who grew up in Barnstable, and Ryan Kowalske, of Ohio. They filled seven bags with dried food, ready-made meals and cases of water.The difficulty was they only had the name of a single Puerto Rican resident, Christine Enid Nieves Rodriguez, who runs a community center in Mariana that helps feed struggling Puerto Ricans. The center feeds some 350 people every day."Went down there borderline blind," said Tooker, Avwatch's vice president. "I called no fewer than 70 places to find a place to sleep. I couldn't find anything."The team secured an Airbnb in Yabucoa, a town close to where the storm first came ashore, between the rubble of homes. Using his four-seat aircraft  a modified Cessna 182  Kluckhuhn and his crew flew to different parts of the island, locating existing Wi-Fi connections in order to spread them across distances wirelessly. The process is referred to as "signal hopping."Within 24 hours of arriving, the team found Rodriguez at La Loma and extended an internet connection from Humacao up to her location. The gesture allowed families to connect with loved ones."Seeing someone connect with their family for the first time in a month using the capability we delivered is heartwarming," Kluckhuhn said. "There was genuine relief and happiness that is hard to quantify."What he saw throughout the course of his stay was inspiring, he said."One of the first people I met was a pediatrician from California serving meals to people," he said. "Everywhere you looked, you saw neighbors helping neighbors. There were just numerous examples of people living in very difficult, long-term circumstances, but still figuring out how to share what they've had with others who didn't have anything."Kluckhuhn and members of his crew were not the only emergency responders who sprung to action with ties to the Cape and Islands. Provincetown police Officer Simon Saliba flew down in early October to help enforce curfews and other security tasks. As of Tuesday, Saliba completed his mission, according to a Provincetown Police Department Facebook post.The crew returned Friday, having logged some 12,500 miles  roughly 108 hours  of flight time while on the island.
(TNS) -- MADISON, Wis.  Police body camera footage would be kept from the public in many cases, under a bill the state Assembly is debating Thursday.Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) said Assembly Bill 351 will protect the rights of victims, witnesses and ordinary citizens who encounter the police."We've been giving up a lot of privacy with the technology that's out there, especially since 9/11. We feel like we're kind of treading on thin ice as it relates to the Fourth Amendment," said Kremer, referring to the constitutional provision protecting people from unreasonable searches.But critics said the bill will too often keep the public in the dark, preventing people from getting a clear view of crime in their communities and how the officers are responding to it."This is a bad bill that if passed will deny access to videos the public is paying for, based on category and not common sense, Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, wrote in an email to the group's supporters last week. It will even keep police from releasing video that backs up their accounts. It does nothing to respect or protect the public's right to see these videos, undercutting the whole reason for their existence."Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) said she believed the state should set clear rules at a time when police departments are increasingly equipping their officers with body cameras.But Kremer's bill goes too far, she said."It's going to make it harder for the public to get body camera footage that they're paying for," she said.The bill would not require departments to use body cameras, but sets policies they must abide by if they do.Under the bill, most footage would be kept from the public. Footage would be available under the states open records law if it was taken in a public place and involved a death, physical harm, an arrest or a search.If death, physical harm, arrests or searches occurred in a place where someone would ordinarily expect privacy, the footage could be released only if all victims and witnesses agreed to that in writing. The owner of the property where the police encounter occurred would also have to sign off on its public release.Police departments would have to keep footage for at least 120 days and if used in a prosecution would have to be retained until the final disposition of the case.Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters the public shouldnt have access to victims who are in their homes or who have just been traumatized by a sexual assault or other crime.I think there are just certain things that you should have the ability to say, That should not be open to anybody whos curious, he said.If passed Thursday, the bill would go to the Senate, which like the Assembly is controlled by Republicans.The Assembly is voting on dozens of other bills Thursday, its last session day for 2017. Both houses of the Legislature will return in January for their spring session.Marsy's Law. On an 81-10 vote, the Assembly followed the lead of the Senate and passed Senate Joint Resolution 53 to begin the long process of amending the state constitution to give crime victims more rights.Both houses will need to take up the measure again in 2019 or 2020. If approved again then, the issue would then go to voters in a referendum for final approval.The measure, known as Marsy's Law, passed the Senate 29-4 on Tuesday.The measure would give victims new rights and elevate ones they already have from state law to the constitution. By putting the protections in the constitution, victims will fare better when their rights conflict with those of defendants, backers of the measure said."We've gotten to the point where some of the victims are left behind," said Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville), one of the bill's chief sponsors.Under the proposal, victims could refuse to be interviewed by defense attorneys. Critics argued that would conflict with the rights of defendants to confront their accusers and receive a fair trial.Lead pipes. Senate Bill 48 would help homeowners and water utilities replace lead pipes, an issue made infamous by the recent lead poisoning of children in Flint, Mich.The measure would allow utilities to use money from ratepayers to give grants and loans to homeowners to help pay for replacing more than 170,000 lead service lines to their houses.The Senate unanimously passed the measure last week but Assembly leaders said they planned to make changes to it that would limit the maximum size of a grant to half the cost of replacing a line. That amendment would also require water utilities to offer the same discounts to all of its customers.Because it is making changes, the bill will have to go back to the Senate before it can be sent to GOP Gov. Scott Walker.
In what feels a bit like a Hollywood-style plot twist, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved a plan to release lab-grown mosquitoes in 20 states with the goal of reducing the population of disease-carrying mosquitoes. MosquitoMate , a biotech company based in Kentucky, is developing mosquito assassins in what it calls the Adam project. As part of this project, MosquitoMate has developed lab-grown male Asian Tiger mosquitoes (since only the females bite) that carry mosquito insecticide. When released into the wild, these male mosquitoes mate with female Asian Tiger mosquitoes, but the eggs do not hatch, thereby reducing the number of mosquitoes that are likely to carry a disease.MosquitoMate has performed field trials using the ZAP technology in Kentucky, California, and New York, said Corey Brelsfoard, the Adam projects team leader. MosquitoMate has also performed field trials using similar technology targeting the Yellow Fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in California and Florida.
Red Bull may already know what engine it will use in 2019.

Earlier in 2017, Max Verstappen was highly critical of the energy drink team and especially its struggling engine supplier Renault.

But although Red Bull will still have Renault power next year, the Dutchman has signed on for the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons.

It seems as though the team knows what power it will have beyond next year.

"We're pretty clear about what we're doing," top Red Bull official Dr Helmut Marko told Germany's Sky.

Among Red Bull's potential options for the future are Aston Martin, Honda and Porsche.

And Verstappen, who won in Mexico two weeks ago, also sounds upbeat about the future.

"Let's put it this way," he said in Brazil.

"For me the most important thing is the car. Any driver can win if he has a very powerful engine, and we don't have that, but we still win races."

(GMM)
Pascal Wehrlein has admitted Williams is his last hope of staying on the F1 grid for 2018.

The German does not deny reports that the Swiss team Sauber has decided to oust him after the Abu Dhabi finale.

"I think my sporting performance now has no effect," Wehrlein, 23, said.

"The races here and in Abu Dhabi will not be decisive. We will not score points and everyone knows that," he added.

"I would say that Williams is my only option for 2018," France's Auto Hebdo quotes him as saying in Brazil.

"I was told pretty early on that there would probably be no room at Sauber next year.

"And if I miss next season, then returning to formula one after that would be very difficult," Wehrlein added.

Wehrlein admitted that financial backing is a problem, amid Toto Wolff's recent claim that Mercedes cannot support a driver forever.

"If you do not have any sponsors, it's not possible to organise a cockpit today on your own. It doesn't work," he said.

"If my family could pay five to ten million it would be different, but they cannot."

(GMM)
Fernando Alonso is not denying speculation he is on a fast track to next year's Le Mans.

Reports this week suggested the continuing McLaren driver visited Le Mans team Toyota's Cologne headquarters for a seat fitting.

The latest rumour is that Alonso will test the LMP1 car in Bahrain next week.

"I also read the news but I have no comment.

"I am often in places between one grand prix and the next, we will see," Spanish reports quote the 36-year-old as saying in Brazil.

When asked specifically if he is testing the Toyota next week, Alonso answered: "I have nothing to comment on that for now.

"Next week I will be home and we'll see if I can rest and recover a bit after a few of these races in different time zones," he said.

As for speculation of a 2018 assault on Le Mans, Alonso answered: "There is no pressure on me to do that race next year. I am at an age where I can still compete at Le Mans for many years."

(GMM)
The hydrogen for the trains will be provided by the Linde Group. The companies also signed a 30-year maintenance agreement. The Coradia iLint can cover up to 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) with one tank fill, and can reach a maximum speed of up to 140 km/h (87 mph).

Alstom will build 14 Coradia iLint fuel-cell trains ( earlier post ) for the Local Transport Authority of Lower Saxony (Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen, LNVG). The trains, which will convey travellers between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervorde and Buxtehude from December 2021, will replace the diesel multiple units of the transport authority Elbe-Weser-Verkehrsbetriebe (evb) and will reduce the pollutant emission in daily service to zero.









A Coradia iLint prototype will begin pilot operation in the evb network in spring 2018 together with a second vehicle.

In Wolfsburg, Transport Minister Lies handed over the official notice of funding to the two LNVG chiefs Hans-Joachim Menn and Klaus Hoffmeister. LNVG will purchase the Coradia iLint trains for its own vehicle pool and will then rent them to a railway operator. The fuel cell trains are going to be maintained by Alstom in the evb depot in Bremervorde, which will be extended for this purpose.

From now on there will be a real alternative to diesel trains in non-electrified rail transport. Hydrogen and fuel cells are an ideal combination for climate protection as well as for the energy and transport revolution. They allow the storage of energy and emission-free travelling on rail. We fund innovative technologies and make a sustainable contribution to the energy revolution in the transport sector. I am pleased that Alstom will build the trains in Lower Saxony, thus further strengthening their production site in Salzgitter. Transport Minister Olaf Lies

Emission-free, energy-efficient and cost-effective  trainsets with fuel cell drive are an environmentally friendly alternative to diesel locomotives. To strengthen the industrial site of Lower Saxony, we want to fund LNVGs project by investing around 8.4 million euros. The funds are to be provided from the National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology (NIP 2). Enak Ferlemann, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI)

The Linde Group will erect and operate the first hydrogen filling station for trains in Bremervorde. The necessary investment costs will be estimated at around 10 million (US$11.6 million) funded by the Federal Government. LNVG will rent the premises for the filling station from evb and will make it available to Linde AG, which will also be responsible for the operation and construction permit. The on-site production of hydrogen by electrolysis and by means of wind energy will be planned in a later phase of the project.
The California Energy Commission has issued a  Revised Notice of Proposed Awards  that recommends five additional hydrogen fueling stations previously recommended for funding by Energy Commission staff. The newly awarded stations are:

Beverly Hills (FirstElement Fuel)

Studio City (FirstElement Fuel)

San Jose (Shell)

Redwood City (FirstElement Fuel)

Mission Hills (FirstElement Fuel)

The Energy Commissions commissioners must approve the awards at an upcoming meeting before they are considered awarded. With this addition, California has a total of 66 retail hydrogen stations open, in development, and proposed.
As part of the agreement, the two ships, built with a next-generation green cruising ship design, will be fueled through Shells LNG Bunker Barge (LBB)part of Shells strategic plan to develop a global LNG bunkering network. The ocean-going LBB, which is designed to support growing cruise line demand for LNG as a marine fuel and which will have the capacity to carry 4,000 m 3 of LNG fuel, will be the first of its kind in the US and will allow these ships to refuel with LNG at ports along the southern US East Coast.

Carnival Cruise Line, a unit of Carnival Corporation & plc, signed an agreement with Shell NA LNG, LLC (Shell) to be its supplier of marine liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power North Americas first fully LNG-powered cruise ships. Under this framework agreement, Shell will supply Carnival Cruise Line with fuel for its two new LNG-powered ships expected to launch in 2020 and 2022 and to be homeported in North America.

The two new Carnival Cruise Line vessels will be fully powered by LNG both while in port and at seaan industry first and an environmental breakthrough that will improve air quality with cleaner emissions and produce the most efficient ships in company history. The 180,000-ton ships will be the largest ships in Carnival Cruise Lines fleet with an approximate passenger capacity of 5,200 based on double occupancy.

This agreement builds on the partnership established between Carnival Corporations AIDA Cruises brand and Shell in April of 2016 to supply its AIDAprima ship with LNG to power the vessel while docked. AIDAprima is the first cruise ship in the world to use LNG while in port, leading to a major reduction in emissions.

The partnership was extended in fall 2016 when Carnival Corporation signed an agreement with Shell to supply LNG for the first of its next-generation LNG ships from its European AIDA Cruises and Costa Cruises brands. These two ships will be the worlds first fully LNG-powered cruise ships when they enter service in 2018 and 2019.

Additionally, the agreement furthers the realization of Carnival Corporations LNG efforts that began in 2015 with AIDAsol becoming the first cruise ship in the world to be supplied with power by an LNG hybrid barge, which also saw major benefits while in port.

In total, Carnival Corporation has agreements in place with leading German and Finnish shipbuilders Meyer Werft and Meyer Turku to build seven LNG-powered cruise ships across four of its 10 global cruise brands with delivery dates between 2018 and 2022two for AIDA Cruises with expected delivery dates in 2018 and 2021, two for Costa Cruises with expected delivery dates in 2019 and 2021, one for P&O Cruises UK with an expected delivery date in 2020 and two for Carnival Cruise Line with expected delivery dates in 2020 and 2022.

As part of the framework agreement, Carnival Corporation and Shell have the opportunity to partner together on supplying marine LNG fuel to future LNG-powered vessels or additional itineraries. The overarching agreement enables each Carnival Corporation brand to negotiate individual LNG supply contracts with Shell as new LNG-powered cruise ships begin to launch in coming years.
Under PACE!, all of the companys European passenger carlines will be electrifiedoffering a pure battery electric propulsion or plug-in hybrid version alongside efficient internal combustion enginesby 2024. By 2020, Opel/Vauxhall will have four electrified carlines on the market, including the Grandland X PHEV and the next-generation Corsa as a fully electric vehicle.

The sale of Opel Automobile GmbH with its brands Opel and Vauxhall by General Motors to Groupe PSA was finalized at the beginning of August. The Opel/Vauxhall management team set to work on a plan for the future, now announced as its PACE! strategic plan.

At the Frankfurt show in September, Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller unveiled the compact SUV Grandland X, and said that the vehicle will also be the first Opel to be offered as a plug-in hybrid. (The Grandland X will also be available with a diesel and 8-speed automatic.)

All PACE! initiatives are to contribute to the goals of generating a positive operational free cash flow as well as a recurring operating margin for the auto division of 2% in a first phase by 2020 and of 6% by 2026.

Combining strengths will unleash annual synergies on Groupe PSA level of 1.1 billion (US$1.3 billion) by 2020 and 1.7 billion (US$2 billion) by 2026. All actions will contribute to a lower financial break-even point for Opel/Vauxhall of 800,000 vehicles, creating a profitable business model whatever the headwinds may be.

Under PACE!, the company intends to enhance its competitiveness by 2020 by reducing costs by 700 (US$814) per car. Efficiency of marketing expenses will be improved by more than 10%. Overall efficiencies will be increased by reducing complexity across all functions with a ratio G&A/revenue moving from 5.6% to 4.7% and an objective to bring the company towards industry benchmark in terms of wage cost/revenue ratio.

Optimizing R&D and CapEx at 7-8% of automotive revenue, manufacturing and administration processes by 2020 and releasing working capital of 1.2 billion (US$1.4 billion) by 2022 will also contribute to seizing synergies.

Improved competitiveness of the manufacturing plants will lead to new vehicle allocations that will provide a better utilization rate for the next decade. The two Groupe PSA platforms CMP and EMP2 will be localized in all Opel/Vauxhall plants. To start with, an EMP2-based SUV is planned for Eisenach in 2019; and an EMP2-based D-segment vehicle is coming to Russelsheim. The allocation of new powertrains in Opel/Vauxhall manufacturing sites will accompany the shift from GM to Groupe PSA engines and transmissions.

All new Opel/Vauxhall vehicles will be engineered in Russelsheim, which will be transformed into a global competence center for the whole Groupe PSA. Areas of expertise include fuel cells, certain automated driving technologies and driver assistance developments.

Altogether, the number of platforms Opel/Vauxhall uses for its passenger cars will be reduced from currently 9 to 2 by 2024. Furthermore, the powertrain families will be downselected from 10 currently to 4.

Opel/Vauxhall will switch to efficient and flexible Groupe PSA vehicle architectures faster than originally expected. From 2024 onwards, all Opel/Vauxhall passenger car models will be based on joint Groupe PSA architectures. Next to come are the Combo in 2018 and the next generation of the bestselling Corsa in 2019. This course will be steadily continued with one major launch per year.

Counting every body style, Opel/Vauxhall will launch 9 new models by 2020. This line-up will enable to increase the pricing power of Opel/Vauxhall brands and reduce the gap against benchmark by four points.

Furthermore, Opel will enter more than 20 new export markets by 2022. Beyond that, Opel will explore global midterm overseas profitable export opportunities.

To foster growth in the financially attractive light commercial vehicle (LCV) business, Opel/Vauxhall will launch new models and enter new markets with the clear goal to increase its LCV sales by 25% by 2020 against 2017.
Rolls-Royce signed a Memorandum of Understanding with state-owned Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) to conduct a technical feasibility study for the construction of a Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) in Jordan, highlighting the growing international interest in small modular nuclear technology.

With demand for global energy set to rise due to new technologies such as electric cars and increasing requirements for water desalination and district cooling, international interest in Rolls-Royce small modular reactor technology is growing. It represents an important British export opportunity. Harry Holt, President  Nuclear, Rolls-Royce

SMRs offer unique opportunities to address many of the challenges confronting Jordan, in particular water scarcity and small grid size, through the introduction of nuclear in the country as part of the energy mix. Dr. Khaled Toukan, Chairman JAEC

The two organizations will now work together to define the technical, safety, economic and financial requirements for constructing a Rolls-Royce SMR power station in Jordan for electricity generation and water desalination. The outcome of the feasibility study will be used to inform an investment decision by JAEC to move forward to project delivery phase.

Rolls-Royce is leading a consortium of British companies to design a small modular reactor power station to deliver low-cost, low-carbon energy to help the UK meet its carbon commitments. The Rolls-Royce-led UK SMR could produce reliable energy for as low as 60 (US$79) per megawatt hourcompetitive against wind and solarand through its innovative approach to modular construction, can avoid the complexities, delays and overspends often associated with large infrastructure projects.
Updated at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 9

WENTWORTH  A new charge accuses Eden businessman Mickey Snow of luring a mentally disabled teenage girl to his house house for sex.

The Rockingham County District Attorney's office announced Monday that a grand jury presented a new indictment against Snow and filed four superseding indictments to make clerical changes to previous charges.

The grand jury issued a new charge of advancing the prostitution of a minor that alleges Snow directed the victim to his house at 318 Bearslide Court in Eden for sex.

The News & Record does not identify the victims of sex crimes.

Snow, 76, is one of four men accused of participating in a prostitution ring in Eden involving two teenage girls whose mother arranged for them to have sex with older men for between $5 and $20. The mother, Teresa Vanover, said in court when pleading guilty to charges connected to the case that she used the money to support a drug habit and pay for her husband's medical bills.

Snow is the only person who has not pleaded guilty in the case.

Snow gained international attention in 2015 when he led investigators on a manhunt crisscrossing the globe until being arrested by the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok.

Eden police charged Snow with six counts of promoting the prostitution of a minor, six counts of statutory rape, six counts of patronizing a prostitute who is mentally disabled, four counts of patronizing a prostitute and four counts of second-degree forcible sexual offense.

On Monday, grand jurors split two of the statutory rape offenses into two counts of statutory rape of a person who is 13, 14 or 15 years old and two counts of statutory sex offense with a person who is 13, 14 or 15.

Under the revised charges, authorities allege that Snow had vaginal intercourse and performed sexual acts on the minor and gave a more exact timeframe to when the offenses occurred.

Snow is out of jail on $15 million bail. He is scheduled for trial on Feb. 19.

WENTWORTH  Mickey Snow, a prominent Eden businessman, faces a new charge Monday for his alleged connection in an Eden prostitution ring.

Snow, 77, of 318 Bearslide Court in Eden, is now charged with advancing the prostitution of a minor.

He is one of four men accused of paying Teresa Vanover between $5-$20 to commit sexual acts on her mentally disabled teenage daughters.

The Rockingham County District Attorney's office announced the new charge in a news release but provided few details.

Since 2015, Snow has been charged with 26 offenses: six counts of promoting the prostitution of a minor, six counts of statutory rape, six counts of patronizing a prostitute who is mentally disabled, four counts of patronizing a prostitute and four counts of second-degree forcible sexual offense.

In addition to the new charge, the district attorney's office stated that the grand jury filed four superceding indictments that kept the charges the same, but required a clerical change or additional information.

The district attorney's office did not clarify which charges changed.

Snow gained international attention in 2015 when crisscrossing the world before being arrested in Bangkok and extradited back to Eden.

Snow is out of jail on a $15 million bail, which was reduced on Sept. 1 from the $25 million bail Snow paid in 2015.

He is expected to go to trial on February 19.
Donald Trump: Weve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.

Bob Woodward: How long would that take?

Trump: I think I could do it fairly quickly, because of the fact the numbers 

Woodward: Whats fairly quickly?

Trump: Well, I would say over a period of eight years.

 Trump interview with The Washington Post, April 2016.

The national debt now is more than $20 trillion, and President Trump has endorsed a House of Representatives tax-cut bill that is projected to added $1.5 trillion to it over a decade.

On top of promising to eliminate the national debt, candidate Trump also pledged to significantly increase military spending, strengthen immigration enforcement, build a wall along the entire border with Mexico, leave Social Security and Medicare funding untouched and provide the biggest tax cut ever.

The most expendable item on the GOP list is debt-reduction. Former Republican deficit hawks, who object to debt when Democrats are in the White House, also have adopted other priorities in the Trump era. Their goal now, like his, is more simple and purely political: to get a legislative win. Having failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, they desperately want to enact one key part of their agenda before years end.

The president, who said in February, Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, may learn the same stunning truth about taxes. Not only do large tax cuts make balancing budgets more complicated, they set off battles among champions of various breaks and deductions.

This bill lost some Blue State Republicans from the start by capping deductions for state and local income taxes. Home builders and real-estate groups oppose restrictions on mortgage-interest deductions. The National Federation of Independent Business complains it doesnt do enough to help small companies.

Then there are the familiar charges from Democrats: that wealthy Americans and large corporations would benefit the most. True, but the bill isnt quite as slanted in their direction as it could have been.

The income-tax rate for top earners would remain at 39.6 percent. But people making $500,000 to $1 million a year would get a cut. Eliminating the estate tax and alternative minimum tax also would help wealthy Americans  maybe Trump himself. He still refuses to release his tax returns, so its impossible to know how he would benefit.

The corporate income tax would drop from 35 percent to 20 percent, but many corporations already pay less than 20 percent. Still, this change is expected to cost the treasury $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Individuals would receive a higher standard deduction, but theyd lose personal exemptions, and the bottom tax rate would go up from 10 percent to 12 percent. Altogether, anticipated individual income-tax cuts of $3.3 trillion would be offset by $3 trillion in additional individual income taxes, hardly an impressive net gain for the American people.

The hope is that corporations would create more jobs and raise workers pay with their tax windfalls. Yet, corporate America already is doing well, so additional hiring and pay raises could be less than expected. If past tax cuts offer a clue, the economic impact would be positive but modest, while costs would be passed to future taxpayers through a higher national debt.

The Senate, meanwhile, unveiled its own proposal Thursday. It shows more concern about deficit spending by delaying for a year the corporate tax cut and fully repealing state and local tax deductions.

What Republicans in the House and Senate know very well is that the people they represent cant possibly digest all the proposed changes by the time the measure comes up for votes. Their message is: Trust us.

We can trust that the nations debt will grow, not decrease, because of this bill  but for whose benefit is a lot less clear. Thats one reason for the rush.
Banker Phares is writing a series of columns of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act. He is a John and Karen Mast Professor at SFA, director of Financial Planning Programs in the Department of Economics and Finance and board certified in estate planning and probate law. He teaches risk management and insurance, a part of which is devoted to the health care act.
The OG Joes (left), and Zarcos Joes Pizza of the Village. Photo: Rob Young/CC/flickr; Google

Joes Pizza, the citys preeminent slice shop, isnt happy one of its former employees is running a knockoff chain over in Brooklyn that could definitely fool even some seasoned New Yorkers. Victor Zarco spent 17 years at Pino Joe Pozzuolis famous pizzeria, but departed in 2004 to open a Park Slope pie shop  which he uncreatively called Joes Pizza, but with an of the Village tacked on the end.

Apparently, for over a decade, the two have coexisted peacefully. But TMZ says that last month Zarco replaced the signs on both of his storefronts. Instead of blocky sans-serif font and an Italian flag (shown above), he did a white one with a red, angled Joes and PIZZA in all-caps, very similar to a certain pizzeria on Carmine Street in the Village.

Zarco may consider the ripoff halfway an homage, but the attempts to come off as part of the OG Joes are pretty blatant. My name is Victor Zarco, but you can call me Joe is how his bio starts on the restaurants website. It catalogues his glory years with Joes  how he mopped floors, delivered pies, played an extra in Spider-Man 2 when it filmed there, took pics with Sarah Jessica Parker, and rose up to bec[o]me the pizza man. By 2004, he says hed saved enough money to open his own spot. Since Joe had become such an important name in my vocabulary, he writes, I decided to call my business Joes Pizza of the Village.

Joes legal team is making sure copyright infringement is also in Zarcos vocabulary, now that his competing restaurants have facades nearly identical to his former employers. The lawsuit is demanding damages, and that Zarco remove his new signage immediately.
Dont call it a comeback. Photo: Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine

The rumors are true: Anthony Mangieris famed Una Pizza Napoletana will land in New York in the spring of 2018  a collaboration with Contra and Wildairs Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske. Mangieri opened Una in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, in 1996, moved the restaurant to the East Village in 2004, and then in 2009, relocated it once again to San Francisco. Hes often credited with popularizing Neapolitan-style pies Stateside.

Mangieri will close the San Francisco operation to make the pizza himself on the Lower East Side, at 175 Orchard Street. He had been thinking about moving back to the East Coast to be closer to family when he met Stone and von Hauske. Stone was already a fan. I introduced myself a long time ago, but I dont think he remembers, Stone says. I love his pizza, and we just meshed. Hes very straightforward, and hes a nice guy who doesnt have ulterior motives. Its hard to find in this industry.

Mangieri will focus solely on pizza, and the Wildair team will make snacks and desserts that complement the pies. There will also be natural wine, of course, but dont expect anything too fussy. There will be no gas oven with whole-wheat flour, Stone promises. Were keeping the purity of the idea.
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BS Filter said: Hillary lied for and protected a serial sexual predator her entire marriage. She did it to keep and maintain political power. It was more important to protect Bill and trash his victims to keep that political position than do the right thing. Yet, she maintains that she is a "champion" of women's rights. The hypocrisy is mind blowing. Click to expand...

Hillary Clinton was MARRIED to the man. Marriage? You've heard of that holy covenant--between a man and a woman? Sacred. Till death. Loyalty. Let no man put asunder. Dearly beloved?? Solemn oath? Blessed by God??Apparently, that means nothing to Donald J Trump and yet you voted for him.The sins of Bill Clinton ARE BILL CLINTON's. There is NO GUILT by association here. Bill did it. Hillary was married to the man and apparently loves the sap.Go figure--for whatever reason, she kept the marriage intact and that makes her trash??AND BTW, Hillary Clinton IS a champion of women's rights and has been for decades....long before she was First Lady of Arkansas or First Lady in Washington. Hillary has consistently and passionately advocated for gender equality and family-friendly policies. It was Hillary who first proclaimed: Women's rights are human rights.In her time as Secretary of State, she appointed the first-ever Ambassador-at-Large for Global Womens Issues at the State Department; oversaw the creation of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security; and introduced the Global Health Initiative (GHI), investing $63 billion to help partner countries provide robust maternal and infant health services.Clinton was voted most admired woman IN THE WORLD 20 times. So no matter what you think, the rest of the world seems to think Clinton deserves at least a tiny bit of respect.
When its time to spend some quality time with your kids, there is only so much Cocomelon that one man can take. You have to get out of the house and get some fresh air or some socialization for your...
Published on 2017/11/10 | Source

Added episode 9 captures for the Korean drama "Avengers' Social Club" (2017)

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Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/10/11

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KWV repositions itself towards independents and the on-trade

By Barnaby Eales

South African wine and spirits giant, KWV, has embarked on a new transition towards selling premium wines in Britain.

KWV, which has been revamped by its new owners  UK investment group Vasari, still predominantly makes big volume wines for supermarkets - this year it has secured new UK listings at The Co-op and Morrisons for instance, but over the past year it has been re-positioning itself in the UK towards the independent retailers and in the on-trade with wines priced between 7 and 15.

There is a new focus; a repositioning in the UK market. In the past the focus was on volumes, but not at sustainable prices, said Wim Truter, who was appointed as head winemaker at KWV in September, 2016.

We are adding more identity and personality to each wine: were picking earlier and looking for purity of expression, Truter said, adding KWV was not just making cheap wines and sticking a label on it.

Truter, who was a on a visit to Britain this week, said KWVs owner Vivian Imerman, who concluded the acquisition of KWV from the HIC-controlled Niveus Holdings in October 2016, had given him freedom to develop KWVs wines.

Imerman - known as the Man from Del Monte, who made millions from the sale of Scotch whisky company Whyte & Mackay in 2014, has worked with KWVs new chairman Pedro Lotra to ramp up KWVs sales team.

In addition, KWV strengthened its positioning towards the premium end of the UK market with the appointment of North South Wines as its UK distributor in February 2016.

KWVs repositioning in the UK follows the overall fall in the Rand currency and general increase in quality of wines which have helped lift South African wine exports to the UK.

Co-op now stocks its Walker Bay Grenache Blanc at 9, and new to the UK is KWVs premium 14.95 Mentors Grenache Blanc 2015, a wine which is part of the revamped Mentors range aimed at the on-trade and independent retailers.

South Africa has been best known for its production of Chenin Blanc and Pinotage, but KWV is now increasingly focusing on single varietal wines, notably Grenache Blanc and Petit Verdot, giving itself room to distinguish itself from its own large-volume production of Sauvignon Blanc.

KWV controls two-thirds of Grenache Blanc production in South Africa and next year its increasing plantings of the Spanish grape variety with five new hectares in Swartland.

With its refreshing notes of apple, blossom and toasted almonds, the Mentors Grenache Blanc 2015 wine could easily be confused with a Riesling; it has been acidified, Truter admitted, but to a far less extent than KWVs Sauvignon Blanc wines.

Grenache Blanc, Petit Verdot and Shiraz are varieties known for coping well in hot climates. We are focused on freshness, longevity and acidity, he said.

A strengthened focus on these single varieties comes amidst two consecutive dry years in the Cape, with South African producers now grappling with drought.

When people are faced with having no drinking water, wine becomes a secondary matter; we have reduced irrigation to 40% of vines, he said.

Once a co-operative, which held a monopoly of production under the apartheid regime, KWV retains long-term agreements with 54 growers in South Africa.

It said its decision not to produce any white wines in 2016 highlighted its focus on quality production.

With the use of micro-vinification, micro-cellars and fine-tuning of integrated oak selection and the experimentation on small parcels, including the production of sulphur-free wines in smaller batches, Truter said he hoped the results of his endeavours will be applied to the production of bigger volume wines.

The round, supple and soft tannins of KWVs reds from the Mentors range, its Classic collection range and its Walker Bay Shiraz, which will be stocked this year in Morrisons at 8.50, show a drinkability achieved through the management of extraction and fermentations said Truter.

Meanwhile, regarding KWV's zero -sulphur Earths Essence wines, which are fermented and matured using indigenous wood and honey bush plants, Truter said, he is now turning around tannins extract from the wood to ensure the stronger anti-oxidant has less of an impact on the aromatic profile of wines.

He was also looking to make wine in amphoras acquired from Italy, he said.
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: Tim Atkin stirred up debate at the end of last week about spiralling vineyard prices in Burgundy and how the younger generations of vignerons face being priced out of their familys land.

Conviviality also released its first like for like results since acquiring Bibendum PLB last year, providing insight into how the giant is faring following its massive re-structure.

Also on the agenda was a change of direction for Jacobs Creek and how this years harvest shortfalls could lead the global wine industry into a major shortage in 2018.



Movers and shakers: New MWs and roles at Les Grands Chais de France (GCF) and Bacardi formed some of the notable movements in the trade this week.



Analysis and Insights: Extreme weather has wreaked havoc on the winemaking world this year  everything from devastating fires in California and Galicia to terrible frost and hailstorms driving down yields in Europe.

In our feature on climate change, we looked at the global impact of an increasingly CO2-laden planet and how it could shape the future of wine production.

We also threw Franciacorta into the limelight, looking at how a newly fizzed marketing drive is aiming to push this traditional method Lombardian sparkler in the UK.



People and Opinion: Stories are a vital link between the producer and consumer.

As weve seen in the US and Spain recently, wine is made on the front line in the battle against nature, often having to struggle against the toughest odds to get made.

So why arent these kinds of stories being told, asks Guy Woodward in his monthly column.










Behind the scenes: Varietal clones at one of Argentinas biggest producers

By Jo Gilbert

Harpers caught up with pioneering winemaker Santiago Mayorga at Cadus  the premium arm of Nieto Senetiner, one of Argentinas largest producers  who revealed his experimentation with Malbec clones for the first time.

Rarely are the scientific components of the winemaking process laid out for all to see  or in glass to taste.

There is the must or juice in the winery, but putting the process of scientific exploration and tasting different steps along the way is unusual, espcially outside of the winery itself.

But thats exactly what happened at a special tasting at Londons Gaucho this week, where Santiago Mayorga, experimental winemaker at Cadus  the premium branch of Nieto Senetiner  revealed what is cooking inside what he describes kitchen at the moment.

If Mayorga is the chef, then the particular dish we were treated to was a tasting of Malbec clones  all of which have been planted in the same Mendoza vineyard while observing as many possible empirical controls as possible.

The purpose for this, apart from gaining a better understanding of the grape and which strains are best suited in Cadus vineyards, is to try and solve some of the problems Malbec has with flowering and yields.

The exploration is also part of an objective which began with the hiring of Mayorga in 2013 - and has since been spearheaded by him - to elevate Cadus from a producer of quality wines to a producer of next level wines, with innovation and experimentation at their heart.

The clones themselves came from Argentinian agency the National Agricultural Technology Institute (INTA), and around ten have been planted at a single site in the Tupungato appellation in the north of Mendozas Uco Valley.

There is no guarantee that any of these will make it into bottle, although Mayorga is toying with the idea of making a barrel of two of the clones as single varietals to take things to the next stage.

Still, he says, its a great way to show the world the innovation that is taking place in the winery kitchen and is also a great way to investigate.

He said: INAT started to experiment by developing clones. What were trying to do is to understand their aromatic profiles. The amazing thing is that even though the region, the yeast and the terroir is the same, all of them [the clones] behave differently. The market is still not talking about place and terroir. It is talking about Malbec however, so its nice to show the different potential.

The best of the bunch  no pun intended  showed real promise in solving some of the issues with fruit and had a wonderful violet flavour.

The next best was more astringent but still had a punchy, up front fruitiness.







Ahead of the curve

Fascinating for the wine geeks around the table, but bringing these wines to market in a way that engages or even makes to consumers throws up problems.

It is very difficult to market this as its too scientific, Roberto Meli, export manager at Cadus, said.

To market Clone 18 from so and so vineyard, the wine will have to be really expensive because its only going to be for people who are more into wine. For now its about getting the right profile according to the terroir.

However, experimentation is integral to the winerys future and to cement its reputation as a producer that is committed to innovation.

At the moment, the Appellation wines launched as Mayorgas own project when he joined in 2013, have successfully found a niche with Boutinot in the UK between approximately 15 and 20.

However, Meli believes that Cadus and Argentina in general is now ready to attempt a higher price bracket by way of further investigation in the vineyard and winery (or lab, or kitchen).

According to Meli, Argentinas rapid wine evolution began in the late eighties with influences from Europe having knock-on effects.

Out of South America, Argentina is the most influenced by Europe, he said. During the 1980s, the level of domestic consumption was 88 litres per person per year. Now, its more like the UK and France: 33 litres. Beer came along and also soda, like Coca-Cola. Also work patterns changed to be more European, which also led to a drop in the consumption in the 1990s.

The change catalysed the shift from Argentina as inward facing, to an outfacing wine producing country.

Next came the drive in quality in order to compete in competitive foreign markets, which in turn led to the establishment of regions such as the Uco Valley as prime winemaking spots.

In the early 90s no one was planting there, says Meli. But then investment and the introduction of dripping irrigation made it possible to plant in different valleys where it wasnt possible before. If you ask anyone in the Uco Valley they will say they started making wine there in 1995.

Investment in quality techniques and also a favourable exchange rate attracting international buyers meant that by 2003, Argentina had become a large export market.

It has been a learning process says Meli.

There is an opportunity now to develop high-end wines, but then you start to compete with upper Burgundy and Bordeaux. Then again, weve started from scratch. In 2003, 15 to 20 was a dream, now its a reality.

Now, innovation is critical to order to keep ahead of the competition at the high end as is communicating the concept to the consumer.







Weathering the storm

Mayorga and Cadus also have shifting weather patterns to contend with.

Argentina is just now coming out of the stormy El Nino period which placed much stress on vineyards in 2015 and 2016, and are now about to enter a string of hotter years with La Nina.

Mayorga is planning ahead to preserve the balance as the climate shifts.

My ideal style is purity, he says. The integration of alcohol needs to be harmonic, the winemaking needs to be preservative of aroma, intensity and mouth feel without over-extraction.

To maintain that style in warmer years, he plans to harvest earlier in order to preserve the elegance and to irrigate so as not to lose yields.

In terms of oak: bigger volumes and less new oak, including some second and third use.

I love oak, but I love good, integrated oak, says Mayorga. It mustnt be invasive.

Between 2005 and 2013, Malbecs were really concentrated, with upfront fruit, flavours of rich prunes and velvety tannins, adds Meli.

Then, when El Nino hit in 2013 at the beginning of Mayorgas tenure, came Rain, rain, rain. When you have rain, you lose control. You pick when you can, not when you want.

As the desert-like conditions of La Nina prepare to return, picking early will play a key role in keeping things fresh and away from the big fruity wines of old.

In Uco Valley, winemakers also have the added benefit of a continental climate, with the altitude and position of the Andes helping to bring in cool evening climates which will help to maintain concentration.

Cadus has demonstrated its kudos as an example of what new Argentina needs to do to keep up momentum.

It isnt resting on its laurels, is outward facing, while also ambitious and hungry to see what it can achieve in the vineyard  and also the kitchen of course.





Top photo: Santiago Mayorga winemaker at Cadus






On 2 November, groups of Vietnamese men, women, and children will gather for memorial services across the world to honor the death of a man largely forgotten in American historical memory. Once this man was a household name, frequently featured on the front pages of our nations newspapers and spoken from the mouths of reporters on the nightly news.



That man is Ngo Dinh Diem, president of the Republic of Vietnam (better known as South Vietnam) from 1955 to 1963, his rule and life cruelly ended in a military coup tacitly supported by the U.S. government. A recent book on Diems life, The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, by military historian Geoffrey Shaw clarifies why Americans would do well to mourn the tragic loss of a man many deemed to be Vietnams best chance of defeating communism.



...



Members of the John F. Kennedy administration, finding Diem an intractable force increasingly hostile to U.S. interests, gave the green-light to leaders in the south Vietnamese military to remove Diem from power. A coup initiated on 1 November, 1963 drove the brothers into hiding. By the next day, their hideout in a Catholic Church discovered, they were both dead, murdered in the back of a military truck.



Although many of the details above are true, Shaws work shows that the overall theme  Diem the troublesome, dictatorial politician  is far from accurate.



Diem, the Ideal Vietnamese Leader



Shaws biography of Diem paints a far different picture of Americas Mandarin. For starters, Diem was a deeply religious man, whose Catholic faith was central to every decision in his life. Often attracted to the religious life, Diem had to be constantly pushed to embrace his natural skills as an administrator and politician.



Diem had a reputation both as an ascetic scholar and a capable bureaucratic, one who seemed to perfectly fit the role of the ideal Vietnamese Confucian leader. Indeed, as Shaw shows, Ho Chi Minh admired Diems austerity, and likely sought to emulate it. Even at the height of his power, Diem lived meagerly, and was known to constantly give money away to any in need. He was known to rise early every day to attend Mass, and worked brutal 16-hour days.



Nor was he a distant, removed politician unfamiliar with the people he governed. According to many first-hand accounts, Diem seemed most alive when tramping through the Vietnamese countryside meeting with peasants, hearing their stories, and seeking to improve their lives. Nor is Diem the anti-Buddhist a fair caricature. Diems government poured large sums of money into supporting the preservation or revival of Buddhist buildings and organizations.



The Buddhist protesters who so famously undermined Diems regime in the months leading up to his ouster were in fact a minority within the south, incited by Buddhist extremist leaders very likely supported by the communists. Rather than a reflection of the teetering authority of the government, the Buddhist crisis was more likely a propaganda effort to obstruct what so many contemporary accounts and historical documents suggest: Diem and his brother were incrementally winning on both the political and military fronts.



A Biased Media, an Ambivalent Government



So how have we come to have such a skewed perception of Diem and his reign as president of South Vietnam? According to Shaw, two sources share the majority of the blame: an American press heavily biased against Diem, and a circle of senior government officials  led by Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman  hell-bent on replacing him.



Correspondents from such publications as The New York Times and Washington Post, contrary to their portrayal by Burns and Novicks television series, were often junior reporters in search of the next sexy story to burnish their credentials. Many spent most of their time in Saigon and other major cities, inevitably drawn into the circles of rumor and intrigue that represented only a segment of Vietnamese society. This created a skewed perception of Vietnamese popular opinion, which was particularly troublesome given that Diems efforts were focused largely on protecting and improving the lot of poor South Vietnamese farmers, who made up a majority of the population.



Throughout the Kennedy administration, the press corps published article after article condemning just about everything Diem did, while urging his removal. The medias presentation of events on the ground were far more negative than those military assessments offered, or those of U.S. Ambassador Frederick Nolting, who supported Diems regime. The medias hatchet job was so over-the-top that U.S. officials on a number of occasions complained directly to the editors of the New York Times and Washington Post.



...
How a For-Profit Hawaii Publication Made the Switch to Nonprofit

We spoke with the editor of the Honolulu Civil Beat about their transition.

by Marc Cohen, Washington City Paper, November 10, 2017 (excerpt)

Honolulu Civil Beat operated for six years under a for-profit model before transitioning into a nonprofit organization . Civil Beat was [Omidyars] first foray into the news business, says Epler. They were convinced that they were able to find a business model that would make investigative journalism financially viable.

That business model centered on subscriptions at $19.99 a month. We got a few hundred subscribers, but nothing really earth shattering, Epler says.

After a few years, the Civil Beat found that their for-profit model wasnt bringing in the type of funds they were hoping for. Weve always been much more of a mission-operated operation as opposed to a retail-based paper, Epler says, emphasizing that as a for-profit publication, they didnt sell advertisements.

Becoming a nonprofit underscores our mission to educate and engage the community on important issues, Epler wrote in an editorial announcing the Civil Beats transition to a nonprofit. Weve always followed a mission strategy, as opposed to the retail strategy used by most other news operations in Hawaii. Weve never sold advertising. In fact, as weve grown over the past six years, it has become obvious that our particular role in the current media landscape is to offer solutions-oriented, explanatory and investigative journalism. No other media outlet in Hawaii gives public policy issues the attention that we do.

As the Civil Beat team waited for the IRS to approve their nonprofit status, they found a fiscal sponsor in the Institute for Nonprofit News, a coalition of more than 100 nonprofit newsrooms across the country. Their paywall came down and all of their subscribers immediately became founding members.

Epler, who started working at the Civil Beat in 2011 and became editor in 2012, says they hired a really great director of philanthropy to launch the fundraising arm of the Civil Beat, and in their first year exceeded all expectations, all projections for revenue.

Of course, it helped that Omidyar continued to stay on with the publication as its publisher and serves on its board of directors (and still contributes to it financially).

Today, the Civil Beat has an annual budget of roughly $3 million and a staff of about 22 to 24 people. That tally includes both business and reporting staff. Their funding comes from a combination of member donations, various grants, and the charitable foundations of big institutions, like banks and developers, which Epler says helps to fund a lot of stories..

read  Washington City Paper
President Donald Trump believes in American power. Specifically, he believes that Americas great strength gives him leverage to persuade or compel others to behave as he thinks they should.

Donald Trump hopes to leverage American power when he meets with foreign leaders on his trip through Asia this month. While threats and ultimatums may win him support at home, strong-arming other countries often produces a response opposite to the one hoped for.

True, the United States possesses immense power. But turning that power into diplomatic leverage is not as easy as Trump apparently assumes. Until the president learns how to leverage U.S. power, his diplomatic initiatives are likely to produce frustration and failure.



During his presidential campaign, Trump assured voters that he would force Mexico to pay for the border wall he wants to build. He would compel Iran to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement, which enjoyed broad international support. He would force North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. He would get China to stop its unfair trade practices. He would insist that U.S. allies pick up more of the common defense burden and spend more on military commitments.

Prior to departing on his visit through Asia in November, administration officials outlined a trip agenda that reflected the presidents belief in the leverage offered by American power. In Japan, he would insist that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe abandon his long-standing commitment to an 11-nation trade accord and work instead toward a bilateral U.S.-Japan trade agreement. In South Korea, he would force President Moon Jae-in to reopen the five-year-old U.S.-South Korean trade agreement and grant the United States more favorable terms. He would also walk Moon back from the South Koreans inclination to engage diplomatically with North Korea.

Yet, Trumps confidence in American power is nowhere more apparent than in his thinking about China.

During last years presidential campaign, he declared that the United States had tremendous power over China. Without us, he boasted, China would be in serious trouble. President Barak Obama, Trump charged, had refused to apply [the] leverage on China necessary to rein in North Korea. We have the leverage. We have the power over China  and we can get them to do what they have to do with North Korea.

Trumps visits to Japan, South Korea and China will give him an opportunity to put his beliefs to the test. But not everyone is as confident about Americas ability to strong-arm other countries.

Make no mistake about it: It is better to possess power than to be without it. But to use power as leverage requires a subtlety and a dexterity Trump has so far not displayed.

Threats, demands, and public ultimatums may win votes at home, but they do not usually persuade other nations to take actions counter to their own interests, perceived or real. Indeed, threatening another country, particularly in public, often produces the exact opposite response from that hoped for.

National pride and a sense of honor are important in foreign policy. All countries want to be treated with respect and dignity. Less powerful countries in particular are alive to the danger of being humiliated. Since the United States  for all the challenges it faces  is still the worlds most powerful nation, Trumps Washington must be especially aware of the need to avoid coming across as an arrogant bully.

Paradoxically, leverage is generally most effective when the target country barely recognizes it is being leveraged.

Throughout history, powerful nations have discovered that having a huge advantage in traditional measures of power does not automatically provide leverage or guarantee diplomatic success. Otherwise, how does one explain the Castro brothers having managed to remain a thorn in Americas side for more than half a century?

As he travels around Asia this month, Trump would do well to contemplate the paradox: Soothing language and a willingness to offer face-saving concessions are as important as threats and coercion in exerting, and achieving, leverage.

Robert M. Hathaway is a public policy fellow and director emeritus of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. He served as director of the Wilson Center's Asia Program for 16 years and, earlier in his career, for 12 years on the professional staff of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he specialized in U.S. foreign policy toward Asia. His new book The Leverage Paradox: Pakistan and the United States (Wilson Center Asia Program) will appear in November 2017.
in China, during the President's trip. He certainly was shown a lot of respect and that is very good for our nation. One great thing about our first family is the ease they have in all kinds of situations, from visiting devastated areas to the most formal occasions. When they and the President of China were walking along the street with all the children laughing and waving, Trump stopped and talked to some...or tried to and he could also stride with China's leader, along the route to review the troops.



The President and family are gracious hosts to others and respectful guests when abroad. It is quite a combination...as our President is also very straight forward in his speeches expressing the policies of his administration. Honesty is the message he is taking to the nation's on this visit.
Finance Finland (FFI) on Wednesday reported that insurance companies will begin to ask telecommunications operators to lock smartphones for which a reimbursement has been granted.

Finnish insurance companies are set to step up their efforts to combat a phenomenon known within the industry as the iPhone spike, a surge in insurance claims related to old versions of the smartphone coinciding with the release of a new iPhone.

Smartphones can be locked by means of the international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) number.

Risto Karhunen, the director of security and crime prevention at FFI, tells that the majority of smartphone-related insurance claims are naturally genuine. Some of the claimants, however, continue to use or re-sell their smartphone after being reimbursed by their insurance policy provider.

Not everyone is unfortunately worthy of our trust. People use groundless insurance payments to renew their phones, and the ones paying for the fun are other insurance holders, he says in a press release from FFI.

The Apple iPhone X hit the shelves in Finland in November, prompting insurance companies to prepare for yet another spike in smartphone-related claims.

Karhunen says the phenomenon is known also in other countries. The Telegraph, for example, has reported that iPhone-related insurance claims typically spike by 50 per cent during the month in which a new model hit the shelves, with fraudulent claims accounting for roughly 40 per cent of the claims.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Justin Sullivan  AFP/Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
[The sum] does rise easily to hundreds of millions of euros, he gauged in an interview with Uusi Suomi on Thursday.

Finnish businesses may be paying hundreds of millions of euros in unnecessary tariffs due to their failure to fully utilise the trade agreements negotiated by the European Union, estimates Kai Mykkanen (NCP), the Minister of International Trade and Development.

The utilisation of trade agreements by our strong sectors, especially the technology and engineering sector, has for some reason been unacceptably low. It means that both the businesses and us will have to take a look in the mirror.

The European Commission examined the utilisation of trade agreements in a recent study. Finnish businesses, the study found, utilise the trade agreements at a rate of 80 per cent, roughly as regularly as the average business in the European Union. The utilisation rate, however, was higher for businesses not only in Denmark, Estonia and Sweden but also in Greece.

Mykkanen highlights that a particularly disappointing example of the issue is the trade agreement between the EU and South Korea.

In general, 80 per cent is a reasonably good level, but unfortunately if you examine the significant trade agreement with South Korea, youll see that much fewer than half of the engineering companies exporting to South Korea have taken advantage of the reduced tariffs. I dont think thats a good enough result.

The tariffs for technology industry products are around 1020 per cent, but theyd drop to zero with the trade agreement, he says.

Mykkanen reminds that the businesses are not the only ones to blame. Finnish authorities, he admits, similarly have room for improvement in terms of informing businesses of the agreements and streamlining customs procedures. Businesses taking advantage of the agreements are often required to provide evidence of the origin of the products and services being exported, a task that can be cumbersome in an era when products are assembled from components manufactured all around the world.

As were presumably among the leading information technology countries, we have to seriously consider making these procedures as straightforward as possible, stresses Mykkanen.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Markku Ulander  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
CHILDREN at Rupert House School in Henley will plant crosses to remember soldiers from the town who died during the First World War.

Pupils from years four, five and six at the school in Bell Street have each chosen a soldier from the book Bringing Them Home, which was written by amateur historian Mike Willoughby, from Woodcote, to commemorate the fallen.

The details of each soldier, including their home address, family and age when they died, will be written on the crosses which will be planted in the schools Remembrance flowerbed today (Friday). Each cross will also have a poppy.

Teacher Sarah Williams said: We wanted remembrance to be about the real people who gave so much for our freedom.

Mr Willoughby visited the school on Monday to talk about the lives of soldiers during the conflict.

He dressed as a British Tommy and showed the children his collection of equipment and artefacts, including a replica rifle and helmet.

Mr Willoughby founded the Lest We Forget project in 2013 in order to honour hundreds of previously forgotten servicemen who died during the First World War with new memorial plaques.

The campaign has also rededicated the unmarked graves of fallen Henley soldiers and successfully campaigned for the towns new hospital to be renamed Townlands Memorial Hospital.
FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA
A collection of 2,713 wax cylinders containing native voices more than 115 years old are being heard for the first time. According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), beginning in 1901, California Native language speakers stories and songs were being recorded onto the surface of wax cylinders (think vinyl records). More than 100 hours of assorted languages spoken by indigenous California Native Americans who lived in the state are stored in this collection of wax cylinders. In all, California has more than 90 indigenous languages associated with 21 different language families, making the state linguistically more diverse than any area of its size in the western hemisphere. Over the years, patches of mold covered the surface of the wax cylinders, making the use of standard audio mechanical playback devices and needle styluss ineffective. There was a concern any playback device or stylus which came into physical contact with the wax cylinders, would further deteriorate their surface. May 20, 2015, the NSF awarded Abstract No. 1500779 for Linguistic and ethnographic sound recordings from early 20-century California: Optical scanning, digitization, and access. This grant was awarded to the University of California-Berkeley (UC), which had begun a project named Documenting Endangered Languages. May 31, 2018, is the scheduled completion date for digitizing and archiving the audio contained on the wax cylinders. Thus far, this NSF grant has awarded $200,000. The restoration and digitalization of the wax cylinders were urgently needed, as the analog speech patterns contained within the indentations/grooves on the wax, had become practically unrecognizable. New technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was used at UC to create non-intrusive digital transfers of the audio information contained in the wax cylinders. Optical laser light was used to see through the mold and capture the audio pattern indentations on the wax surface. The indentations were then digitally scanned and stored as files on a computer. No equipment or devices came into direct physical contact with the wax cylinder during the process. The optically-obtained high-resolution image of the wax cylinder was then fashioned into a three-dimensional (3D) image using a special computer software program. The software program used algorithmic processes on the 3D image of the wax cylinder. The program then mathematically calculated the movements of how a needles stylus would be following the indentations of the spinning 3D wax cylinder. Finally, a software algorithm then comparatively extracted and authentically recreated what the audio signal would actually sound like. Faithful audio reproduction was also retrievable using this technique from damaged or broken wax cylinders. I learned the audio quality using the above optical scanning and computer software technology, is superior to what would have been heard on a newly-recorded wax cylinder in the early 1900s. By means of improved optical technology and program software modeling methods, investigators at UC have digitally recorded audio of the stories and songs by people in 78 indigenous languages which would otherwise have remained unheard; and thus lost forever. The treasure-trove of the voices recovered from these wax cylinders is today being heard by the descendants of the indigenous people of California who recorded them. These sound recordings from early 20th century California are a gift of language and culture from the past to the present. The newly-archived digital recordings will remain available for future generations learning, scholarly research, and general appreciation for the rich history they bring to the present. Speaking of recordings, Thomas Edison invented the speech recorder/cylinder phonograph in 1877. Tin foil, instead of wax, was used as the recording surface for holding the sound vibration indentations of spoken words and music. The tin foil he used was limited in the number of playbacks (using a hand-crank to rotate the cylinder), which could be heard before the foils indentations wore out. The tin foil was later replaced with wax-coated cylinders, which could be repeatedly played, and was able to hold several minutes of audio. The indigenous Native Californian wax cylinder collection is kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology on the UC campus in Berkeley, CA. Its website is http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu. The National Science Foundations YouTube channel shows highlights used for obtaining the voices from the wax cylinders and digitally archiving them. I encourage my readers to view this informative video at http://bit.ly/2ydwmx6. Follow my personal social commentary on Twitter at @bitsandbytes, and visit my Bits & Bytes online blog page at https://bitscolumn.blogspot.com.
ABINGDON, Va.A Coeburn doctor has surrendered his medical license and pleaded guilty to federal charges, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office and Virginia Attorney Generals Office.

Gurcharan Singh Kanwal, 78, of Wise, Virginia, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of health care fraud and one count of distributing Ritalin and hydrocodone. As part of his plea agreement, Kanwal has also agreed to surrender his medical license. In addition, he has agreed to pay $472,500 in restitution to the Virginia Medicaid program, the U.S. Attorneys Office said in a news release.

The doctor prescribed Ritalin and hydrocodone to an undercover investigator without a legit-imate medical purpose, the release states. Kanwal also fraudulently billed Virginia Medicaid for services provided to the investigator, which were not medically necessary or not actually re-ceived.

In April, local, state and federal authorities could be seen at his clinic on Center Street in Coeburn. A U.S. Attorneys Office spokesman confirmed Thursday law enforcement was searching the clinic in connection with the drug charges.

Wise County Commonwealth's Attorney Chuck Slemp, whose office assisted in the investigation, said, "The substance abuse crisis in Southwest Virginia has reached epidemic proportions."

"To combat this problem, we are working at every level of law enforcement," Slemp said. "I was honored to serve along side our state, local, and federal partners in the investigation of this case and these crimes. I will continue to work tireless to limit the supply of illegally prescribed medications in our community and I want to thank all the agencies that participated in this effort.
Dominion Energy will donate $45,000 to three community colleges in Southwest Virginia to provide education opportunities for military veterans, the power and energy company said Thursday.

Mountain Empire Community College, Southwest Virginia Community College and Virginia Highlands Community College will each receive $15,000 for education and workforce training programs focused on veterans. The gifts are being made through the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation, the companys philanthropic arm, the company said in a news release.

Helping to provide educational opportunities for our veterans is not only an investment in the future, its a recognition of the dedicated service performed by our brave men and women in uniform, said Hunter A. Applewhite, the foundations president. Stepping away from military duties and into civilian life can be a challenging transition, and Dominion Energy is honored to be a part of the effort to prepare veterans for this exciting next step.

The colleges chosen for the grants offer a variety of educational and career training initiatives for current and former military service members preparing for entry into the civilian workforce.

The reward for Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap will be used to help with tuition, scholarships and other services to support veterans in their education and career goals, the release states. The colleges chapter of Student Veterans of America provides peer support and mentoring for veterans and their families.

Southwest Virginia Community Colleges reward will be used to help launch a Veterans Training Initiative, the release states. The Cedar Bluff schools program is designed to help veterans overcome obstacles to reentering the workforce by providing tuition assistance and access to supportive services with the goal of completing their education.

The reward for Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon will be used to assist the colleges Veterans Support Initiative. Recognized as a gold level military-friendly college, the Virginia Highlands provides educational and career skills training opportunities for veterans transitioning back to civilian employment.

Dominion Energy, which is seeking to expand in Southwest Virginia, said it is active in the recruitment and support of veterans in its workforce, as well as in the community. The release states that the company is a founding partner in the national Troops to Energy Jobs program, which helps military members find rewarding careers in the energy industry.

The company said one in five new hires at Dominion is a veteran.
ABINGDON, Va.  A correctional officer at Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon, who agreed to smuggle contraband items into the facility, was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court in Abingdon, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday.

Justin Andrew Brown, 23, of Lebanon, Virginia, was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison and six months house arrest, followed by three years of supervised release, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was forfeited $6,500. Brown previously pleaded guilty to one count of accepting a bribe as a public official, and one count of conspiring to accept a bribe as a public official.

Robert Lewis Jones, 25, also previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to accept a bribe as a public official. Jones will be sentenced on Nov. 29.

According to evidence presented at a previous hearing by Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Lee, Brown was a correctional officer at Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon. In the summer of 2015, an inmate approached Brown about smuggling contraband, specifically tobacco, controlled substances and nude pictures into the jail. Following numerous discussions with the inmate, Brown agreed to smuggle controlled substances, tobacco and nude pictures into Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in exchange for $10,000 in United States currency. Law enforcement agents became aware of Browns plan in March of 2016. With the assistance of a cooperating witness, law enforcement arranged for a meeting between Brown and the cooperating witness at which Brown believed he would be receiving $10,000 in United States currency and various contraband items that he was to smuggle into the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail. Brown offered Jones $2,000 to watch his back during the meeting.

The meeting between Brown, Jones, and the cooperating witness occurred on March 22, 2016, at a restaurant in Abingdon. At the meeting, Jones and Brown took possession of the contraband items and a quantity of United States currency and Brown agreed to smuggle the contraband items into the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail facility. Shortly thereafter, law enforcement arrested both Brown and Jones.
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A crowd of thousands will line the streets Saturday morning from the Linn County Sheriffs Office to downtown Albany to watch the largest Veterans Day parade west of the Mississippi.

The 66th annual parade starts at 11 a.m., and this year honors women veterans as its grand marshals. Midweek rain showers are forecast to disappear and the temperature is expected to be around 56 degrees.

Leading the parade, which will feature hundreds of floats, will be grand marshal Elaine Abraham, who served as a seaman first class in the U.S. Navy during World War II. She was stationed at five bases during her service, including Tillamook and Seattle.

Patty Louisiana of the Veterans Commemorative Association, which organizes the parade and associated events, said all Rosie the Riveters will be honored as well.

We are delighted to have our Rosie the Riveters join us this year, Louisiana said. These women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during World War II as widespread enlistment of men into military service left gaping holes in the industrial labor force. Saturday, we will honor our Rosies along with women veterans for their extraordinary efforts put forth during WWII.

Other grand marshal honorees are:

 U.S. Navy Lt. Ida Stemple served at the naval hospital in San Diego, assisting injured servicemen returning home from Korea.

"My duties were to meet the hospital ships when they docked and help our boys once they arrived home, Stemple told members of the veterans committee.

She has participated in past parades, Louisiana said. But this year we wish to have her assist in representing all women who served during the Korean War."

Stemple recently returned from Washington, D.C., where she was honored to be on the Southern Oregon Honor Flight.

 Distinguished Veteran Margaret (Margo) Coleman served in the U.S. Air Force from 1952-55 during the Korean War.

 Kaitlyn Oare served in the Oregon Army National Guard from 2007 to 2015. Her duties included driving mine resistant ambush protected vehicles in Iraq while protecting convoys of private contractors as they moved from base to base.
Tomorrow is Veterans Day, which means that downtown Albany will, once again, witness a grand spectacle.

There's no other way to describe the city's annual parade to honor veterans: The extravaganza will feature more than 100 entries and thousands of spectators will line downtown's streets to take it all in. Bands will play. Candy will be thrown. Politicians will march, smile and wave.

The weather, always chancy in the mid-valley at this time of year, should cooperate: Forecasters say any rain likely will taper off before the start of the parade, and the event is expected to proceed under cloudy skies, with temperatures in the 50s  all told, about the best we can expect from November.

This year's event appropriately focuses on the contributions made by female veterans; the grand marshals in Saturday's parade are women.

The raw numbers support the decision to shine the spotlight on female veterans: About 350,000 women served in the military during World War II, another 100,000 served in Korea and more than 11,000 during the Vietnam War. Today, more than 200,000 women serve in all branches of the military, including 74,000 in the Army, 53,000 in the Navy, 62,000 in the Air Force and 14,000 in the Marine Corps. Recognizing the contributions of these female veterans is a nice touch, if a little overdue, for this year's parade.

This year's grand marshals include Elaine Abraham, who served during World War II; Ida Stemple, who served in the naval hospital in San Diego, assisting injured service men returning home from Korea; Margaret (Margo) Coleman, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1952 to 1955 during the Korean War; and Kaitlyn Oare, who served in the Oregon Army National Guard from 2007 to 2015.

In addition, all Rosie the Riveters  the women who flocked by the millions into the workforce to fill the holes left by men who enlisted in the military during World War II  will be honored. Those women may not be veterans per se, but their contributions were essential to victory.

Albany's Veterans Day parade is billed as the third largest such parade in the nation and the largest west of the Mississippi River, and we don't doubt it. But communities across the United States will gather on Saturday for similar (if shorter) parades and other events to honor the contributions veterans have made.

Every one of those events will reach its end: The last band will play its final note of the day and the last float will pass by the last batch of cheering spectators. Workers will sweep up any unclaimed candy (there might not be much of that) and other assorted debris.

But our commitment to veterans does not end with the parade.

Linn County residents, thankfully, recognize that. The evidence is all around us: Consider, for example that this county reached into its own pockets to help pay for the construction of a new veterans retirement home in Lebanon. Today, that facility  the Edward C. Allworth Veterans' Home  is a smashing success, a model for other veterans' facilities.

Today, we also have an increasing sense of the issues that our veterans are grappling with, whether it be physical ailments or struggles with mental illness. We have a better sense of the price some of our veterans paid during their service. Some of those debts we never will be able to repay; in those cases, it is our duty to remember.

Tomorrow's parade, as gala and wonderful as it is, will only last a couple of hours. But the promises we made to our veterans, the men and women who set their lives aside to serve their county, need to last for a lifetime. (mm)
To find trees in the desert, we often have to go up in the mountains. I grew up in the Midwest, so every once in awhile I get a yearning to ...
A body of an American solider lying peacefully in the snow in a battlefield in Belgium. A Jewish boy in Brooklyn orphaned twice by World War II. And the world-renown photographer who connected the two. This is their story.

Samuel Tannenbaum was born on July 10, 1942, in Washington, D.C. to Henry and Bertha Fiedel Tannenbaum. Less than two years later, Henry was drafted into the United States Army, Bertha and Sam moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to be closer to their families. After training in Fort Meade, Maryland, Henry was assigned to the 331st Infantry regiment, 883rd division and was shipped to England. His rifle platoon subsequently fought in battles in France and Luxembourg, which garnered Henry several medals.

Between Dec. 16, 1944, and Jan. 25, 1945, on the border of Belgium and Luxembourg, Allied and German troops were engaged in what would later be known as The Battle of the Bulge, one of World War II's deadliest fights. On Jan. 11, Tannenbaum and his division were ambushed by German soldiers. Only one person-Platoon Sergeant Harry Shoemaker-survived.

When Shoemaker escaped back to regimental headquarters, he told the sentry, Corporal Tony Vaccaro, the details of the massacre. Vacarro and Shoemaker returned to the site the next morning. The two stared at the horrible carnage. If the soldiers had survived, the Germans had murdered the wounded and had stripped the corpses of their watches and other valuables. Then the Germans had rolled their tanks over the dead and dying, crushing them into grotesque, mangled shapes.

Only one figure looked peaceful and untouched by death. The prone body of a lone soldier lay face down, his boots, backpack, helmet and rifle showing through the white snow that blanketed him. Vacarro pulled out his Argus C vintage camera and captured the scene. Afterwards, Vaccaro and Shoemaker cleared away the snow to discover the dead soldier was their army friend, Private Henry Tannenbaum.

Henry Tannenbaum was buried in Henri-Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium with plans to bring his body home. Bertha Tannenbaum, his widow, falsely believed that the transfer would adversely affect her four-year-old son Sam's war-orphan benefits. Henry's family fought Bertha's decision and won. Henry's remains were returned to New York in 1946. The disagreement caused the widow's estrangement from the Tannenbaums, isolation from her family and her growing mental deterioration. In her mind, Bertha believed that Henry was still alive and working secretly for the FBI. Sam's childhood was filled with his mother's shouting at the ghost of her husband, several psychotic episodes, and even an attempt to kill her son and then commit suicide.

"The bullet that killed my father also destroyed my mother's mind and ended my childhood," said Sam.

With "my father dead and my mother crazy," Samuel was forced at a young age to raise himself. He took care of household chores, did the shopping, and, through conniving, even paid the bills. When he was 13, he arranged for his own bar mitzvah, fortuitously connecting with his father's family through a Hebrew school classmate. Upon graduating high school, he moved into his own apartment and, supporting himself with a war-orphan scholarship and odd jobs, graduated from Brooklyn College.

While Sam was in college, Bertha was evicted from her apartment and was committed to a state mental institution. The eviction resulted in the destruction of the family's belonging, including all artifacts of Sam's family's history. Outside of his name and the date of his death, Sam knew nothing about his father. Sam married (Bertha didn't come; she thought it was another FBI plot), had a daughter named Lisa, and divorced. Bertha met and fell in love with Sam's fiancee, Rachel, promising her that Henry would return in time for the wedding.

Meanwhile, with the help of the extended family, Sam was putting together pieces of his father's past. Henry was regarded as intelligent with a great sense of humor. He had graduated from the same grade school, high school, and college as his son. Henry worked for the Office of Price Administration and taught Sunday school at a local synagogue. Henry had an inherited bleeding disorder, which probably caused the private's quick and peaceful death in Belgium on that bitter cold January day and was passed on to his son.

In 1986, three years after his mother died, Sam invited his father's family to Lisa's bat mitzvah. His first cousin, Henry's niece, gave Sam a victory mail correspondence that identified Private Henry Tannenbaum's regiment. Sam now had the tool he needed to further research his father's military history.

In 1995, he and his wife, Rachel, journeyed to Seattle to attend the first meeting of the American World War II Orphan Network, (AWON), an organization composed of the Gold Star children and others classified by the Veterans Administration as War Orphans.

At a second AWON meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1996, Sam met several people from Luxembourg who came for the express purpose to meet and thank the children of their liberators. Sam invited several to his home. One of the guests, Renee Sclhoesser, a journalist, published the Tannenbaum story in a series of articles in a Luxembourg newspaper. Another attendee, Jim Schiltz, was also impressed with Sam's search and offered to help. When he returned to Luxembourg, Schiltz found a book of photographs of World War Two and specifically, of the 331 Regiment in Luxembourg taken by the sentry Tony Vacarro.

The picture taken on battlefield in Ottre was not the only one Tony Vaccaro had taken. Michaelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro had carried his Argus C with him when he, along with thousands of other Allied soldiers, stormed the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. Tony-at first surreptitiously and then with his superiors' approval-went on to take thousands of pictures of Allied campaigns in Normandy and Germany.

After the war, Tony stayed in Europe through 1949 to document post-war life in Europe. When he returned to the States, Tony became a photojournalist for Life and Look magazines, photographing famous figures including John F. Kennedy, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Sophia Loren. Throughout his career, "White Death: Photo Requiem for a Dead Soldier, Private Henry I. Tannenbaum" had circled the world through multiple exhibits and books and had become the iconic image of the Battle of the Bulge.

Schiltz also found out that Tony was alive and living in New York City. In 1997, the orphan and the photographer met for the first time. Tony gave Sam a professional print of the photograph. Tony's greatest joy besides meeting Sam and his family was taking a picture of Henry's grave in Mount Hebron Cemetery, New York City. For Tony, that picture brought him closure after more than 50 years.

In 2002, Sam and Rachel Tannenbaum and Tony Vaccaro flew to Europe as guests of the grateful citizens of Luxembourg and Belgium. The Tannenbaums met with the countries' war orphans. They visited the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery where Henry was originally buried. In Ottre, Belgium, Sam and Tony placed a wreath at the AWON monument, dedicated to "PVT Henry Irving Tannenbaum and other members of the 83rd Infantry Division." For Sam, it was a "trip of a lifetime."

Fifty-seven years after Tony first shot "White Death," Sam Tannenbaum and Tony Vaccaro visited a beautiful tree-filled spot in Ottre, Belgium. The former battlefield is now a Christmas tree farm called Salm Sapin in French. And in German? Tannenbaum means Christmas tree.

Sam's home in Kissimmee, Florida, is filled with artifacts from his family's history-pictures, books, his father's medals, and a replica of the bracelet Henry was wearing before it was stolen by the German soldiers.

"I may not have had the opportunity to tell my parents that I love them," said Sam. "Through telling their story, I believe I am honoring them. And that, is, after all, what the Fifth Commandment tells us to do."

Marilyn Shapiro lives in Kissimmee. She writes regularly for the Jewish World in Schenectady, and published her book "There Goes My Heart," which is available on Amazon. You may also follow her on her blog, theregoesmyheart.me.
Written by Paul Kaplan, Pelican Publishing Company, $24.95

Beyond the stereotype of elderly Jews visiting sunny beaches and stopping in at New York-style delis lies a rich history and Jewish cultural tradition. The area is populated by Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardic Jews with roots in Spain or Turkey, and those from Cuba and other Latin American countries. It's this cultural mingling that makes the Jewish way of life in South Florida so unique.

"I realized there was a huge desire for these cultural guides," says author Paul Kaplan. "I did not want to write a conventional travel book that simply listed places for readers to go. I wanted to tell the little-known stories behind key venues like restaurants and delis with decades of history, historic synagogues, neighborhoods, and community centers."

In his research, Kaplan conducted many primary interviews with curators, tour guides, historians, shop owners, and rabbis to give the book more texture.

"I learned about unique venues I had never heard of. For example, the Holocaust Documentation Center in Fort Lauderdale showcases the tanks used to liberate concentration camps. Or Palm Beach's Cafe Cinematique, which screen films and promotes discussions on a variety of fascinating topics. I was interested to learn about a library at Florida Atlantic University that is reimagining old music with a modern beat and performing them."

Kaplan also wanted to tell the little-known history of how Jews immigrated to South Florida. Now one of the nation's largest Jewish communities, it all began with some of the region's first pioneers and "snowbirds" migrating from the north. An integral part of this story is the Cuban-Jewish experience in the region's history. A diverse group of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, Kaplan was surprised to learn that many in the first wave of Cubans to reach Florida felt unwelcomed from the larger Jewish community. "I think South Florida receives many vacationers," says Kaplan "But many (including myself) don't realize that there are some fascinating stories to uncover."

More than simply a travel guide, Jewish South Florida approaches each profiled location as an opportunity to bring to light the culture of the Jews that have made South Florida their home.

Paul Kaplan earned a BA in ethics, politics, and economics from Yale College and an MBA from Yale School of Management. He enjoys traveling, having visited six continents. Kaplan's fascination with travel and the history of places led him to pursue writing as an avenue through which to share cultural experiences and universal themes. His published works include business, travel and social history, and biographies.

Available now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and select bookstores nationwide.
Rob Reiner on the set of his new film, the biopic "LBJ."

(JTA)-By his own admission, Rob Reiner was not the right person to direct "LBJ," a film biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States.

"I had a lot of trepidation," he said in a telephone interview with JTA.

In addition to a successful career as an actor, Reiner is one of the most bankable directors plying the trade today. His films run the gamut from lighthearted fare like "This is Spinal Tap," "The Princess Bride" and "When Harry Met Sally," to serious drama such as "A Few Good Men" and "Misery."

But "LBJ," which opens Friday, was different because he had a personal connection to the subject.

"I was of draft age during the Vietnam War, and I looked at Johnson as the enemy," said Reiner, 70. "I thought he could send me to my death."

But he revised his views of the former president-both as a man and a potential movie subject-when he read Joey Hartstone's well-researched script. Reiner said additional research, especially Doris Kearns Goodwin's illuminating "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream" and Robert Caro's multi-volume Johnson bios, clinched the deal.

Reiner discovered a man far more nuanced than he had imagined. Yes, Johnson expanded and prolonged the Vietnam War. But he also delivered on John F. Kennedy's legacy and bullied a recalcitrant Congress dominated by Dixiecrats to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, increase funding for education, and create Medicare, Medicaid and Head Start.

"It was like there were two presidents-one for the Vietnam War and the other with great domestic programs," the actor-director said. "If it wasn't for Vietnam, he'd have gone down as one of the greatest presidents of all time. I wanted to make a film that would reveal who this guy was."

It wasn't just the dichotomy of Johnson's politics that Reiner wanted to capture, but the contradictions of his personality, which informed his career.

"What surprised me was his insecurity," Reiner said. "He had this recurring nightmare where he dreamed he was paralyzed."

Johnson also had a complicated relationship with his mother in which "at times he felt unloved. I thought that was interesting," Reiner said.

Also interesting was Reiner's choice for the actor to play the lead: Woody Harrelson, best known as the slow-witted Woody on "Cheers" and for drawling comic roles in "White Men Can't Jump" and "Zombieland."

"When people heard about the film, they'd ask me who I'd cast for the lead, and when I told them Woody Harrelson, they'd say 'get out of here,'" he recalled. "I'd say, 'wait until you see what he does.'"

The prosthetics change Harrelson into a close approximation of LBJ, but it is Harrelson's subtle yet powerful performance that is transformative.

"I told him don't try to imitate Lyndon," Reiner said. "Just give me his essence and that relaxed [Woody]."

The film delves into a trove of compelling anecdotal info with which most non-political science majors (and majors who may have gotten D's) are likely unfamiliar. For instance, JFK (played here very competently by Jeffrey Donovan of "Burn Notice") took Lyndon as his running mate at the suggestion of his father and over the objections of brother Robert (played by Michael Stahl-David).

"LBJ" is infused, in part, with the director's personal experiences as a political activist. Nearly two decades ago, he spearheaded a successful effort to raise cigarette taxes in California and use the money to fund early childhood development programs. Subsequently, Reiner was appointed chair of the commission to oversee the project, a post he held for seven years.

Around that time, he briefly considered running for office. Reiner asked his wife and three children for their opinions and the results were-how to put this?-discouraging.

"I only polled 40 percent in my own family," he recalled. "If I couldn't carry my own family, I didn't think I should run."

Nevertheless, Reiner has remained politically active in liberal causes, most recently as a founder of the Committee to Investigate Russia, which he calls "a nonpartisan [organization] that puts the spotlight on what the Russians were able to do, particularly in the last election."

Reiner is not a fan of the current administration, to put it mildly. As he describes it, "without changing a single frame," his film changed between the time it was first screened, when Obama was president, to its release this week with Trump in the White House-meaning a film about a troubled presidency transformed into one about how best to govern.

And, yes, his activism "absolutely" has hurt his career, Reiner said.

Even in liberal Hollywood, Reiner's outspokenness has earned him ridicule-not unlike the incessant ribbing he took on "All in the Family" playing the liberal Mike "Meathead" Stivic opposite his arch-conservative father-in-law Archie Bunker.

"There's no question that people have turned away from me," he said. "You should see what some people call me on Twitter. But I have to live on this planet and be who I am."

And who he is, of course, is the scion of Carl Reiner and the late Estelle Reiner from the Bronx, New York. Dad, of course, is the author/producer/actor/director of such hits as TV's "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and the films "Oh God!," "Where's Poppa?" and a string of Steve Martin comedies. Mom famously ordered whatever Meg Ryan was having in the legendary "When Harry Met Sally" scene filmed at New York's Katz's Deli.

"My grandmother spoke Yiddish in the house, and my mother and father spoke a little Yiddish, too," said Reiner, who was a bar mitzvah. "They decided to bring a teacher in to teach me Yiddish, too. I learned a little, but he also taught the history of the Jews and it was like having a little shul at home.

"It was home shuling," he quipped.

Reiner's sister-in-law is a rabbi, "and we'll have Passover," he said. "My wife's mother lost her entire family in the Holocaust and my aunt-my father's brother's wife-did also, something we always think about.

"Yes, all this is reflected in my work. It's my sensibility. I'm a Jew. I was raised a Jew. I value honesty and integrity and knowledge and education and all those values I was raised with."

Of course, Reiner was raised with another "Jewish value" as well: comedy.

"Jews are funny," he said. "And there's a reason we're funny. You have Cossacks. You have Hitler. You have a lot of things weighing down on you. You have to have a sense of humor or you can't survive."
I'm starting this column with some shout-outs...

As many of you already know, I was in Florida Hospital-South, for 10 days due to my needing surgery for a heart valve. I am okay now (I hope) and I want to mention the following registered nurses who went "above and beyond" the call of duty to care for me. (I am very grateful.)

For my pre-surgery I was on the sixth floor of the magnificent (like a hotel) Ginsburg Tower, built through donations from our own ALAN GINSBURG.

There one of my nurses, DOREEN DEGAN, treated me like I was a family member. She was so kind and caring (probably realizing how scared I was) and super-friendly.

After my surgery I was placed in the VCICU (a cardiac unit) for post-ops. There I was attended to by MARIBEL CASTRO, another wonderful nurse who kept me calm and well cared for.

After awhile, I was sent back to the Ginsburg Tower's eighth floor and was treated (and loved) by nurses MELISSA THOMPSON and JACQUELINE SOSA. What wonderful care I received! (And I will miss them.)

But, although I will miss them (and they say they will miss me), I hope to remain healthy and strong and never have to return to a hospital under those circumstances again!

Oy Vay...more anti-Semitism incidents...

I read this recently in the World Jewish Congress Digest (WJC) and pass it along to you:

"The United Kingdom saw a record number of anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2017, according to a British watchdog group.

In its report, the Community Security Trust cited a 30 percent rise in incidents over the same period last year, with more than 100 incidents monthly, continuing 'an unprecedented pattern of monthly totals higher than 100 incidents for every month since April 2016.' There were 767 incidents between January and June.

Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush said that the new statistics should 'be of deep concern to all Jews, particularly as there have been no specific events to provoke the upsurge. Although the UK is overwhelmingly a safe home for the Jewish community and has been for years, the government, police and other authorities must read the warning signals and take whatever action is needed to secure the continued safety of the community.'

The most common incident was verbal abuse, followed by anti-Semitic assaults, of which there were 80. Nearly three-quarters of the incidents were recorded in Greater London and Greater Manchester, the two largest Jewish communities in the UK."

A great honor...

Former U.S. Secretary of State General COLIN L. POWELL accepted the WJC prestigious Theodor Herzl Award at a gala dinner on Nov. 8 in New York City. The event brought together hundreds of distinguished guests and international Jewish leaders.

More about fabulous nurses...

OLGA GILBURD is the author of "Happiness the Jewish Way." She draws on the Jewish heritage for the lessons in happiness skills that she presents in her book, in talks, and workshops. Olga lived in Russia and Ukraine before coming to the United States at 19. She holds a bachelor's degree in nursing and a master's degree in public service.

Olga climbed the corporate ladder from a receptionist to a director of compliance in a healthcare organization before she became an author and inspirational speaker. She was awarded 2014-2015 COJECO BluePrint Fellowship for improving the Jewish community. Olga now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband and two daughters.

(Yeah Brooklyn!)

A reminder...

A history of Jewish life in Orlando will be presented at the Kehillah Exhibit on Nov. 12th from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Orange County Regional History Center, located at 65 E. Central Blvd., Orlando. RSVP is necessary for free admission. Email names of those attending to kehillahcfl@gmail.com or call 407-298-4650.

(Don't miss it!)

One for the road...

Sadie and Rose were sitting under hair dryers at the hairdresser having a chat.

Sadie says, "So nu, Rose, how's that daughter of yours?"

General Colin Powell

Rose replies, "She's OK thanks. She married a fantastic man. He's got such a good job in the City that she gave up her secretary's job. She stays at home but never needs to cook, because he always takes her out, or clean the house, because he got her a maid, or worry about my 2 lovely grandchildren, because he got her a live-in nanny."

Sadie then asks, "And how's your son?"

Rose replies, "His life is awful. He married a bitch from hell. She never cooks anything and makes him take her out to dinner every night. God forbid she should vacuum a carpet, so she made him get her a maid. He has to work like a dog because she refuses to get a job and she never takes care of my grandson because she made him get her a nanny."

(My daughter's-in-law are wonderful... not like that at all.)
Jewish Pavilion volunteers made sure that senior residents of assisted-living facilities were not forgotten during Sukkot. Shown here (top) is Emily Glickstein with residents during a pet visit at Oakmonte Village in Lake Mary; Nancy Price brings a shofar to Serenades by Sonata; and Atria Park of Lake Forest in Sanford built a sukkah, which they do every year.
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Fifty years since the Six-Day War, 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 150 years since Mark Twain first visited Palestine.

This has been a year of big Israel-related anniversaries. To the Jewish state's most diehard Christian supporters, the barrage of milestones is not mere coincidence but rather a harbinger of prophecies being fulfilled.

Every half century, many Christian Zionists believe, history makes a concerted push toward its endpoint: the return of the Messiah to Jerusalem. According to this pattern, something momentous should happen to Israel before the end of 2017.

"Reading Israel's modern history, there seems to be something unusual in 50-year cycles," said David Parsons, the vice president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. "It means we should expect something incredible to happen this year to further propel Jerusalem and Israel into its prophetic destiny."

Christian Zionists, most of whom are part of the world's 700 million-strong evangelical community, view themselves as the Jews' partners in God's plan. Like many Orthodox Jews, they believe that after a world war, the Messiah will take the throne of a Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem and lead the world to peace and prosperity.

As Christians, they of course expect the Messiah to be Jesus, whereas Jews are still looking for their redeemer. But Christian Zionists like to joke, "Let's bring the Messiah, and then maybe somebody can ask him whether this is his first or second visit."

When Israel captured eastern Jerusalem and its holy sites from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, some Christians saw proof that the messianic era was nigh. They began scouring history for signs they may have missed.

Many such signs were identified, from "blood moons" to stock market crashes. What most inspired Christian Zionists were the half-century cycles that seemed to lead up to the Six-Day War. The proponents of this theory-including Jonathan Cahn, who discussed it in "The Harbinger," his best-selling Christian novel from 2012-tied it to the biblical "jubilee year," which involves the reversion of land to its original owners.

So what happened 50 years before 1967?

In 1917, the British defeated the Ottoman Empire and took control of Palestine. On Nov. 2, they issued the Balfour Declaration pledging to support the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in the territory. Zionists eventually drove the British out of Palestine and, in 1948, founded the State of Israel.

A half century earlier, in 1867, two visitors to Ottoman Palestine separately contributed to the narrative that Palestine had gone to pot since the Jews left. British archaeologist Charles Warren conducted the first major excavations of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and found what he thought were relics of the biblical city of King David. And the American writer Twain visited the Holy Land and recorded his observations in a hugely popular travel memoir titled "The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress."

Twain capped many pages of unflattering observations with this line: "Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince."

Looking back even further, Christian Zionists singled out 1517, the year the Ottomans conquered Jerusalem. It is also when Martin Luther is said to have posted his protest manifesto against the Catholic Church, launching the Protestant Reformation.

Although Christian Zionists are apologetic about Luther's anti-Semitism, they believe that by popularizing individual Bible study as the means of relating to God, he made it possible for Christians to see the falsehood of replacement theology. According to this doctrine, which was long a core tenant of the Catholic Church and remains influential, God took the title of the chosen people from the Jews and gave it to the Christians.

Christian Zionists have had decades to speculate about what historic change would happen in 2017, a half century after the Six-Day War. At a conference for Christian Zionists in Jerusalem on Thursday titled "Balfour to Nikki Haley: A Century of Christian Zionist Diplomacy," a popular guess among the 100 or so evangelical and Jewish participants was that President Donald Trump would fulfill his campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. But with a only two months left in the year, time is running out.

Bob O'Dell, an American speaker at the conference and the co-founder of Root Source, a platform that allows Israeli Jews to teach Bible online to Christians, argued that the big event of 2017 may already be happening in the hearts of his fellow evangelicals. He said he has seen a surge interest in the community's interest in Israel.

"Everyone has a theory, but my view is that what's happening at this jubilee is a growing realization that Christians are leading the nations in their support of Israel," he said. "I think this is going to be the most important change of them all."

Donna Jollay, the director of Christian relations for Israel 365, a fast-growing Jewish-run media company that targets evangelicals with biblically themed news and content, listed dozens of signs that Christians were shepherding Israel toward the messianic era, along with relevant Bible passages.

She pointed to Trump's Jewish grandchildren, America's withdrawal from UNESCO over alleged anti-Israel bias (U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is a convert to Christianity) and growing Christian investment in the Jewish state. Evangelicals from the United States alone bring about $500 million a year into Israeli tourism and charity, and support its current right-wing government.

"It's pretty much everything," she said.

American Jews, especially the majority who are non-Orthodox and politically liberal, have traditionally been wary of evangelical support for Israel. But Josh Reinstein, the founder of the 19-member Christian Allies Caucus, which seeks to promote Christian advocacy on behalf of Israel, said he has also seen a growing willingness among Jews to accept Christian help.

"We've seen the results," he said, citing the anti-BDS laws in the United States and increased cooperation between Israel and African and Asian countries. "We know these are people who stand with Israel based on faith, and they'll stick around in the long run, regardless of political or economic considerations."
Recognizing it is easier to influence those who are more prone to be natural supporters of the Jewish state than it is to sway journalists who cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a perceived anti-Israel bias, the Israeli government this week offered Christian media professionals a crash course in Israel advocacy and diplomacy.

More than 130 journalists from 30 countries converged in Jerusalem for Israels inaugural Christian Media Summit, which was sponsored by the Government Press Office and spearheaded by Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Zeev Elkin.

Christian journalists, many of whom are ideological supporters of Israel, collectively influence billions of potential Israel supporters around the world. Key focuses of the conference included promoting Israel and Jerusalem as a model of religious tolerance and coexistence, as well as countering the inherent biases the Jewish state often faces in international legal forums such as the United Nations and in mainstream media.

Brian Schrauger, a veteran Christian journalist reporting from Israel for the USA Radio Network and JerusalemJournal.net, said Israel is doing something very, very smart. Its catering to a group of journalists that dont often get attention, and its educating them. And these are by-and-large friendly journalists that generally support Israel.

The journalists that are here have a larger consumer base of readers and viewers that are larger than ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN combined in the U.S. So there is a huge, huge market here, Shrauger told JNS.org.

David Parsons, vice president and senior international spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said Christian media has a vast constituency, not just in the U.S. but around the world.

According to Parsons, Israels government has recognized the value of engaging with Christian media directly to show them how to report the story better; what are the sources, what are the resources to use.

Its very effective, and very importantand making sure the battle of truth is being won, Parsons told JNS.org.

Israel as a beacon of religious tolerance

The conference was well-attended by Israeli politicians and thought-leaders, with addresses by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.

Netanyahu stressed the difficulties that Christians face as persecuted minorities in neighboring countries across the Middle East.

Israel is the one country in a vast region where Christians not only survive, they thrive, Netanyahu stated, noting Israel has no better friends around the world than Christian communities.

Elkin said Jerusalem is the ideal place to host this summit, as a model for tolerance and dialogue.

The importance of hosting the most influential members of the international Christian media in Jerusalem is paramount, he said. As Christianity has its roots in Judaism, these journalists have the unique opportunity to understand that the spurious charges claiming that Jerusalem has no contextual historical attachment to Israel are utterly absurd.

Correcting anti-Israel media bias

Parsons said the age of objective and unbiased media coverage is a thing of the past, with most journalists choosing sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict before they file their content.

I think there is just dishonesty at a very human level, where you have reporters trying to assert that they are objective, and impartial, when in fact, they are not, he said.

We are talking about people who are taking a position of advocacy journalism for social justice issues. That is the way many journalists approach this conflict: that you should always root for the oppressed, and you always view the Palestinians as oppressed, added Parsons, who noted this approach leads many journalists to even justify Palestinians use of violence against Israel, who they believe is the oppressor.

Palestinian incitement

A major component of the conference was geared towards explaining how mainstream media have been impacted by Palestinian propaganda that includes decades of incitement against Israel by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Itamar Marcus, founder of Palestinian Media Watcha group that monitors Arabic-language messaging within Palestinian television, print media and school textbooksgave a lengthy presentation detailing anti-Semitic broadcasts by PA-run networks during the last six months.

Palestinian media and schoolbooks are broadcasting messages of hatred, Marcus told JNS.org.

Veteran Palestinian affairs journalist and field producer Khaled Abu Toameh seconded Marcuss message when addressing summit attendees, asserting that there hasnt been any attempt by the Palestinian Authority to prepare the Palestinian people for peace with Israelto the contrary. Ironically, Palestinian incitement intensified after the signing of the Oslo Accords.

There is no peace process, Abu Toameh said.

Abu Toameh advised the Christian journalists to be careful about who they select to help them produce their news content. If the person you hire to help you produce your piece is an activist for the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), that will severely affect the report, he said, adding there is more than one way of telling the story.

Conference attendee Schrauger said, Its been an amazing conference. Israel has brought in its best voices to explain the narrative that exists here in the Middle East. Its a narrative that the rest of world is not hearing.

Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett expressed his appreciation that so many Christian journalists accepted the Israeli governments invitation to participate in the first-of-its-kind summit.

I want to thank you for being our friends, he said, because sometimes we feel alone out there.
An historic gathering took place on Tuesday, Oct. 17, as the Jewish Chamber of Commerce teamed up with the Muslim-American Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida to present a panel discussion on the subject, "Forced to be Free: The Failure of Democratization in the Middle East."

"At this panel discussion, the topics discussed included the thoughts from our panelists regarding why democracy has struggled to take hold in the Middle East, the causes of and the results of the Arab Spring uprisings, and the roles played by religion and technology in the Middle East," said Michael Brodsky, panel discussion moderator and member of the Jewish Chamber Board of Directors.

Panel discussion members, Professor Eytan Gilboa, Ramin Asgard, and Ido Sivan-Sevilla, who established a cyber-security unit for Israel's Prime Minister Office.

This lunch and learn featured Professor Eytan Gilboa, the founding chairman and academic director of the Israel Public Diplomacy Forum; Ramin Asgard, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who served as primary foreign policy adviser to Generals David Petraeus and James Mattis; and Ido Sivan-Sevilla, who established a cyber-security unit for Israel's Prime Minister Office.

According to Bobby Davidowitz, president of the Jewish Chamber of Commerce, "Khalid Muneer, president of the Muslim-American Chamber, said to me that 'we are business chambers, not religious chambers.' It made me think about how powerful doing business together can be. When you do business with someone, it seems like all the differences fall away. When you focus on the common goal of doing good business, you don't see religion, you see the person. That is a powerful concept I'm honored to be a part of."

For more information about the Jewish Chamber of Commerce, visit http://jewish-chamber.com or follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/JewishChamberOfCommerce.
Lake Brantley's Club L'Chaim, with Chabad Altamonte Springs present the second event of an ongoing series about Standing up against hate on Monday, Nov. 13 at Lake Brantley High School, 991 Sand Lake Road, Altamonte Springs.

The keynote speaker will be 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Dr. Jacob Eisenbach. He is the subject of the book "Where You Go, I Go," written by Karen McCartney, about his life surviving the Third Reich as a teenager. He is now an educational speaker with a mission to end genocide.

Despite his horrifying experiences at the hands of the Nazis, his message is one of hope.

"No matter how dark the clouds may be, there will always be a day when the sun will break through. Which means, never lose hope for a better tomorrow... That hope has been my guide," he said in an interview with the National Resilience Institute last July.

The event will be held in the Cindy Berry Auditorium at 6 p.m., and is free for students and employees of SCPS, $10 for all others.

Seminole County Public Schools also sponsors this event.
WASHINGTON (JTA)-On May 2, Israel's Independence Day, Texas state Rep. Phil King stood smiling as Gov. Greg Abbott signed King's bill banning the state from doing business with boycotters of Israel.

"Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies, and we will not tolerate such actions against an important ally," Abbott said of the bill that overwhelmingly passed the Legislature.

Less than six months later, King had to explain why his signature pro-Israel policy was not an anti-Texas policy.

City officials in Dickinson, a suburb of Houston hard hit by Hurricane Harvey, required any applicant for relief grants to verify that he or she "(1) does not boycott Israel; and (2) will not boycott Israel during the term of this Agreement." The American Civil Liberties Union took notice and loudly objected. Observers noted the queasy-making optics of a pro-Israel policy standing in the way of hurricane relief.

King, a Republican whose district includes Fort Worth, immediately started making calls to track down the Dickinson officials who drafted the contract.

"It's a complete misunderstanding of the statute," he said in an interview after what had been for him a surprisingly busy Friday, after the ACLU's objections made news. The office of Larry Taylor, a Republican who sponsored the law in the state Senate and whose district includes Dickinson, also was fielding questions about the law on Friday.

If Dickinson is indeed misunderstanding the law, the case nevertheless brought to the fore misgivings about the measures passed in more than 20 states targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement aimed at Israel. Critics say they may impinge on free speech rights and create a backlash by making it seem the government is using the law to suppress one side in a political debate.

A federal law prohibiting compliance with or support of a boycott of Israel is facing stumbling blocks.

Opponents of the laws say the Dickinson case, and one in Kansas, where a teacher trainer who supports a boycott of Israel is refusing to sign a state contract that includes an anti-boycott clause, prove their point.

"In addition to being mystifying-what do home repairs in Texas have to do with a country more than 7,000 miles away?-this requirement is clearly unconstitutional," Brian Hauss, an ACLU staff attorney wrote in a blog post.

The ACLU, which says it takes no position on boycotts per se, is leading a campaign to stem the tide of anti-BDS laws.

"The First Amendment protects the right of Americans to participate in political boycotts, a right explicitly recognized by the Supreme Court in a case that concerned an NAACP-organized boycott to protest white supremacy in Port Gibson, Mississippi," Hauss wrote.

Defenders and sponsors of the law say that like many laws, the anti-BDS statutes are undergoing birth pains.

"These are new laws, they've been passed in the last couple of years and not everyone is going to immediately understand what they're supposed to do," Eugene Kontorovich, a legal scholar who helped draft many of the laws, said in an interview.

The Israel Project, among an array of national groups that advocated for the laws, said it was reaching out to officials on a case-by-case basis to make sure the laws are understood.

"We've been in touch with legislators when issues have come up, we've spoken with attorneys and legislators in various states," said Jacob Millner, the Midwest director for The Israel Project.

The controversies over Dickinson and the Kansas case come at a critical time for a congressional bill that would extend 1970s laws targeting the Arab League boycott to those who comply with boycotts initiated by international organizations like the European Union or United Nations. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which has support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also would expand the prohibited boycotts to those that target only settlement goods. Violators who do participate in boycotts face fines and, in some cases, imprisonment.

AIPAC wants broad bipartisan backing for the bill, but only 14 of the Democratic caucus's 48 members are co-sponsoring the legislation. Notably, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York-who in the past has assiduously courted the pro-Israel community-dropped her co-sponsorship after representations from the ACLU and pro-Palestinian activists.

Sen. Ben. Cardin, D-Md., the lead Democratic sponsor of the bill, said the law is sound, but he is open to some revisions to make it clearer that it does not undercut free speech.

Dickinson City Management assistant Bryan Milward told JTA on Friday that the city was applying the law correctly.

"Because our application also functions as a contract, it was included in there," he said.

King said that was simply not the case.

"My understanding of what Dickinson is doing is they have private funds being distributed for a grant program for individuals," he said in the interview. "The law has nothing to do with private funds, it has nothing to do with individuals."

A reading of the law bears out King's bafflement: It refers only to for-profit "companies" as the targeted boycotters, and goes to lengths to define "company" as not applying to an individual. It also lists six specific government "entities" that are required not to do business with the targeted companies: five retirement systems and the school fund. Dickinson's grant program, with funds raised from private individuals, would not qualify. A survey of other hurricane-afflicted local authorities in Texas by Electonic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian news site, found no other such requirement.

Laws have unintended consequences and even when misapplied can backfire on their drafters' intent, said Rachel Lerner, the senior vice president for community relations at J Street. The liberal Jewish Mideast lobby opposes BDS, but sees the anti-BDS laws as infringing on free speech. Pro-Israel groups should stick to advocacy to counter BDS and avoid legislative bids to stop the boycotts, says J Street.

"You're pursuing a strategy that's out of your control how it's implemented," Lerner said. "It's like using a cudgel for an issue; it's the wrong tool. It's not good for the Jews or Israel that people think that they can't have a roof over their head if they boycott Israel."

The New Israel Fund, another liberal group, said in a release that the Texas case proved the anti-BDS laws were "just plain wrong."

The Jewish Federations of North America will feature a session at its General Assembly in Los Angeles next month on how to pass such laws. The session, featuring three lawmakers who put forward such bills, is still very much on, said Ethan Felson, the director of the JFNA-affiliated Israel Action Network

"These laws are necessary, they're effective and they need to be enforced appropriately," he said in an interview. "These are laws that take a stand against discrimination, as drafted they do not infringe on individuals' liberties." (Also still on at the G.A.: a session on how best to assist Houston, post-Harvey.)

The case in Kansas may be stickier to defend: The state's law does include "individuals" who boycott Israel as targets.

"The state shall not enter into a contract with an individual or company to acquire or dispose of services, supplies, information technology or construction unless such individual or company submits a written certification that such individual or company is not currently engaged in a boycott of Israel," the measure says.

The law led the state Department of Education to send to Esther Koontz, who had completed a course on training math teachers, a form titled "Certification Individual or Company Not Currently Engaged in a Boycott of Israel." Koontz, inspired by her Mennonite church, was boycotting Israel and would not sign the document. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on her behalf in a federal court.

Kontorovich said that in the Kansas case, it was Koontz and the ACLU who were misconstruing the statute: Koontz would still have the right to boycott Israel as an individual as long as she did not boycott it as a contractor-an unlikely scenario, he said, for someone who trains Kansas math teachers in how to improve their teaching skills.

"She's a consumer boycotter, she's trying to bootstrap that onto the commercial boycott" banned by the law in order to make a federal case, he said. "Her personal and her business relationship cannot be conflated."

Hauss of the ACLU, who is representing Koontz, said the Kansas Education Department was enforcing exactly what the Kansas law, enacted this summer, prescribes.

"It seems to me that they're enforcing the statute as written," he said. "These laws are meant to do precisely the thing the Supreme Court has said is prohibited, which is to suppress the right to boycott."

Also seizing on the Kansas and Texas cases to illustrate the pitfalls of the laws is Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that supports BDS. Its government affairs liaison, Rabbi Joseph Berman, calls the federal bill and the Kansas law "an anti-democratic attempt to silence a nonviolent movement for equality for Palestinians and a just peace for everyone in the region."

Peggy Shapiro, the Midwest director of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel group that has advocated for the laws, said that opponents were cherrypicking cases in order to make the laws look bad.

"The fact that people want to generalize one or two outliers, their intention is not to expose the errors but to undermine the ability to prevent discrimination against Israel," she said.

It has yet to be seen whether Dickinson and Kansas are anomalies, or whether there are other controversies in the offing. In its survey of Texas towns, Electronic Intifada found that Galveston, Austin and San Antonio extend the ban to include companies bidding to make uniforms and organize programming for 4-year-olds.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the director of T'ruah, a rabbinical human rights advocacy group, said the laws were likely to continue to backfire. She said the focus of pro-Israel advocacy should be on Israel's government and its practices.

"The way to increase support for Israel is not to shut down dissent but make Israel a place we can be more proud of, and central to that is ending the occupation and making Israel a more democratic state," she said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (r) and Federica Mogherini, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, at a meeting on the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal Sept. 22, 2016, in New York.

Iran is unlikely to halt its drive toward nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's recent refusal to recertify the Islamic Republic's compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, experts say.

Trump's move empowers Congress to decide whether to reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal between Iran and world powers. The Iranian leadership has made aggressive statements in response to the announcement of America's new and tougher approach, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps saying Thursday it would accelerate its ballistic missile program despite increased U.S. pressure, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, meanwhile, Wednesday called Trump and other senior U.S. officials "mentally retarded" due to their "repeated miscalculations and defeats," Iran's Fars News Agency reported.

"Iran just keeps threatening to do what it's already been doing-continuing its path to nuclear weapons," Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told JNS.org. "The most it changes is the pace of progress and that's precisely the problem with the JCPOA (the nuclear deal's formal name): it doesn't stop Iran."

Raz Zimmt-an Iran expert at two Israeli think tanks, INSS and the Forum for Regional Thinking-echoed this sentiment, saying, "Under no circumstances would Iran change the [nuclear] deal."

How will the nuclear deal unfold?

Zimmt told JNS.org he foresees three possible scenarios playing out regarding the Iran deal.

The first option is that the status quo continues, with no new sanctions enacted by the U.S. or the European Union (EU). Iran would continue building its economic ties with Europe, explained Zimmt, but with more difficulties due to the threat of possible new U.S. sanctions hanging over business deals, potentially scaring away EU businesses.

The second scenario would involve the U.S. unilaterally reimposing sanctions. The Europeans would oppose this, and most businesses on the continent would not want to risk their connections to the U.S. over Iran policy, said Zimmt.

"If this were to happen, the Iranians might completely withdraw from the deal, or at least take some actions in violation of the deal," he said.

The third possibility would be a total collapse of the nuclear deal.

The most likely scenario, Zimmt said, is the second option-which would mean the U.S. unilaterally imposes sanctions, but Iran would continue to do some business with the EU and therefore would not want to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

The North Korean model

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, hinted Oct. 16 that the Trump administration's negative attitude about the nuclear deal could encourage Iran to mimic North Korea's approach-using the cover of negotiations to develop nuclear weapons capability.

"The U.S. president showed by his remarks again that the U.S. government is not trustworthy and the U.S. behavior towards the nuclear deal persuades views of countries like North Korea," Boroujerdi said during a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Yousef Bayazid in Tehran, the Fars News Agency reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has argued that by threatening to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal or seeking to alter the accord, the Trump administration would discourage other countries such as North Korea from reaching long-term agreements with the U.S.

Yet Landau said, "The argument that North Korea would not want to negotiate with the U.S. now that they see America wavering on Iran is completely bogus."

"North Korea has not wanted to negotiate on its nuclear program for almost 10 years now, and let's not forget how former President [Barack] Obama waited eight years for them to come to the table," she said.

According to Landau, the U.S. is signaling it does not intend to leave the deal for now, but rather, it wants to strengthen the agreement and restore American deterrence vis-a-vis Iran.

Zimmt commented, "The most dangerous path Iran could take if put under more pressure would be to follow the North Korean model," adding Iran could "seek to renegotiate after it achieved nuclear weapons [capability]."

The immediate threat to Israel

While top Israeli leaders have long argued Iran's nuclear program is the most dangerous threat Israel faces, what constitutes arguably a more immediate concern is Tehran's encroachment on the Jewish state's northern border. Through proxies such as the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which together with Iran is supporting President Bashar al-Assad's regime in the Syrian Civil War, Iran is striving to establish a land corridor from Tehran to Beirut, reaching Israel's doorstep.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu this week that Israel "will not allow" an Iranian military buildup in Syria.
The United Nations has earmarked some $1.3 billion to fund Palestinian legal campaigns against Israel and to support the creation of an independent Palestinian state, in what experts are calling an unprecedented act singling out the Jewish state at the world body.

A document that was recently signed between the UN and the Palestinians outlines a strategic programming framework in the disputed territories from 2018-2022, and states that the UN will work to advise the Palestinian Authority on how to exploit international accountability mechanisms in order to hold Israel accountable for alleged violations of international law. The document is set to come into effect Jan. 1, 2018.

The document makes no references to Palestinian violations of international law and human rights, nor does it specify that the $1.3 billion in funding should be applied to humanitarian assistance. Rather, the UN document states that the money should be used for developing programs that support Palestines path to independence.

The funding of this unprecedented and prejudicial aggression against a member state by the UN is clear evidence that the international bodys goal and solution is for a single Palestinian state to replace Israel, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Tel Aviv-based civil rights organization Shurat HaDinIsrael Law Center, told JNS.org.

Its a new form of anti-Semitic aggression and terror by other means, and it plainly violates the U.N.s own charter, she said.

Sixteen UN agencies appear as signatories in the document, including the OHCHR human rights office, the UNESCO cultural body and the UNRWA refugee agency. In signing the document, the agencies pledged to hold Israel accountable for its alleged violations and to document the purported abuses while simultaneously strengthening Palestinian groups ability to advocate effectively for rights to be respected.

In the document, the UN also pledged to monitor the impact of Israeli violations as well as how purported Israeli breaches of international law hinder the development of Palestine.

There is no other example or precedent of the UN funding, training and advising one side of a conflict to pursue legal advocacy against another side, said Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based UN Watch, a group whose stated mission is to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own charter.

For some reason, however, when it comes to Israel, the UN development agencies cross the bright red line from humanitarian assistance to political advocacy, he said.

Although the amount of funding allocated by the UN towards overtly anti-Israel initiatives is unprecedented, Shurat Hadins Darshan-Leitner said the world bodys singling out of Israel and misuse of funds were no big surprise.

The UN is misappropriating, once again, its donors funds and directing them into projects that help the PLO target and attack the Jewish state, instead of for humanitarian causes, said Darshan-Leitner.

After all, its the U.N.s raison detre at this point, she added. We have seen a massive increase in these baseless lawfare suits being filed without any merit in the American federal courts in the past few years. The unilateral encouragement of these frivolous harassment suits against Israelis and Jewish individuals, which are obviously being funded and fanned on by foreign bodies, is a new Palestinian strategy to try to bedevil and deter support for Israel.

Darshan-Leitner underscored that the UN does not care one iota about justice for the so-called victims its pretending to assist, and that it uses Palestinian initiatives as a vehicle for turning Israel into an international pariah.

Its policies like this that display so clearly why the United States was moved to quit UNESCO, and is considering resigning [from] and defunding other UN agencies, she said.

Prof. Avi Bell, a member of the faculty of law at Israels Bar-Ilan University and a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum think tank, voiced similar sentiments, telling JNS.org that the U.N.s newly revealed strategic document highlights the degree to which many organs of the United Nations are actively involved in diplomatic, legal and financial warfare against the state of Israel.

We often fail to appreciate the degree to which the U.N, supports, or even directs, anti-Israel propaganda and political activity, said Bell. This kind of activity obviously violates the UN Charter by infringing upon Israeli sovereignty and denying Israel the right of sovereign equality.

Bell added that these actions undermine international institutions by subordinating their legal roles to a political agenda [and] corrupting them in the name of anti-Zionist ideology....Unfortunately, the U.N.s decades-long war on Israel is nowhere near ending.
Why a pro-Israel group moved its benefit to Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort

(JTA)An Israel advocacy group has relocated a charity event to President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to thank him for his support of Israel.

The Truth About Israel moved its Feb. 25 benefit from a nearby resort after several charities canceled planned galas at Mar-a-Lago, The Associated Press reported.

American Friends of Magen David Adom was among the nine groups that canceled in August.

Steven Alembik, who is organizing the Truth About Israel event, told AP that he moved his benefit because the other groups canceled.

The president has Israels back like no other president since the days of Ronald Reagan, Alembik said. He supports Israel, we support him. Its that simple.

He told AP that he sold out all 700 tickets for the event at a cost of $750 each.

Some of the groups that canceled their events cited Trumps response to the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the reason for canceling. In other cases, groups said the venue was detracting from the message of their events.

Founded by Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Truth About Israel among other things produces short videos defending Israeli policies and countering incitement.

Israeli leaders send messages of support in wake of Texas church shooting that killed at least 26

JERUSALEM (JTA)Israeli leaders sent messages of support to the United States in the wake of a Texas church shooting that left at least 26 people dead.

Horrified by the savagery in Texas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that his office also tweeted. Our hearts are with the victims, their families and the American people.

President Reuven Rivlin, on an official visit to Spain, also tweeted his concern.

Terrible news coming out of #Texas. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims and their families, he wrote.

A gunman opened fire Sunday morning at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a small town east of San Antonio. The congregation had just begun its service at 11 a.m. when the gunfire began.

The gunman has been identified to several media outlets by unnamed sources as Devin Kelley, 26, from near San Antonio, according to reports. Kelley reportedly served in the Air Force, but was court-martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child, and received a dishonorable discharge in 2014 for bad conduct.

Kelley carried out the shooting with a military-style rifle and was wearing black tactical gear and a ballistic vest. He first shot at the church from outside, and then entered the small, white building and continued to shoot.

He was later found dead in his car some miles from the church. It is not clear if he killed himself or died of a gunshot wound from a pursuer. No motive has been established for the attack, which was carried out about 30 miles from Kelleys home.

The victims ranged in age from 5 to 72. At least 20 others were wounded. The service was being broadcast on YouTube.

President Donald Trump, on an official visit to Japan, tweeted: May God be w/ the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI & law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan

He later made a statement in which he addressed what he called an act of evil.

Americans do what we do best: we pull together. We join hands We lock arms and through the tears and the sadness, we stand strong, he said.

Ivanka Trump also addressed the attack in a tweet: God bless the people of Sutherland Springs, TX. Our countrys hearts are breaking for the victims & their families. We love & are with you!

Horrified by the savagery in Texas. Our hearts are with the victims, their families and the American people.

 PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) November 5, 2017

Terrible news coming out of #Texas. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the victims and their families.

 Reuven Rivlin (@PresidentRuvi) November 5, 2017

May God be w/ the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI & law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan.

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2017

...Americans do what we do best: we pull together. We join hands. We lock arms and through the tears and the sadness, we stand strong pic.twitter.com/qkCPgtKGkA

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2017

God bless the people of Sutherland Springs, TX Our countrys hearts are breaking for the victims & their families. We love & are with you!

 Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 5, 2017

Reform Jewish camp destroyed by California wildfires has summer 2018 home

(JTA)The Union for Reform Judaisms Camp Newman, which was mostly destroyed by last months Northern California forest fires, will have a temporary home for the 2018 summer camp season.

The URJ announced Friday that the camp will be housed at the facilities of California State Universitys Maritime Academy, or Cal Maritime, located on the waterfront in Vallejo, a short drive from both Santa Rosa and San Francisco.

What the wildfire has shown us is how strong and resilient we are as a community. Almost immediately, everyone rallied around us, Rabbi Erin Mason, director of URJ Camp Newman, said in a statement. The result was that in just a short amount of time, we found a beautiful site for Camp Newmans Summer 2018.

The camp, which currently serves about 1,400 children, has been operating for the last 70 years. The camp moved to its current site 480-acre site in 1997 and dedicated a $4 million building last year.

Camp was not in session when the fires hit. Everyone living on the camp site, as well as the Torah scrolls, were removed and rescued before the camp was destroyed.

Most of the buildings on the camps property were destroyed by the fire, but an entrance gate, prayer books and prayer shawls survived the flames, along with an iconic wooden Star of David on a hillside that overlooks the camp.

At least 41 people were killed as the result of 15 major wildfires across California. Over 217,000 acres and 5,700 structures were destroyed.

Nikki Haley: Unless UN rights council reforms, US is out

WASHINGTON (JTA)The United States is ready to pull out of the UN Human Rights Council unless it institutes reforms, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told an Israeli-American audience.

The Human Rights Council will either adopt these reforms or the United States will leave, Haley said Saturday to applause at the annual Washington conference of the Israeli American Council.

Haley said U.S. proposed reforms include removing Item 7, which requires a report on Israeli actions in the West Bank each time the panel convenes. She said the United States also wanted structural changes that would keep major human rights abusers from joining the council; she noted the Democratic Republic of Congos recent ascension to the panel.

Haley said the U.S. delegation was endeavoring to keep unpublished a list the UN Human Rights Council is compiling of companies doing business with West Bank settlements. Israel and the United States see the list as a blacklist of boycotters.

She described one of the Obama administrations last actsallowing through a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlementsas a betrayal of Israel.

At the time of the resolution last December, Haley was the governor of South Carolina and said she swore that if she were confirmed as ambassador, she would always stand by Israel.

As long as I was U.S. ambassador, such an act of betrayal would never happen again, she said, again earning loud applause.

She noted that the Trump administration also has differences with Israel over its settlement policy, but said it was counterproductive to have those arguments in public.

Friends can have disagreements and still be friends, she said.

New Dutch play about Anne Frank doesnt mention Jews or Nazis

AMSTERDAM (JTA)A play that ignores Anne Franks Jewish identity and features an unfounded assault allegation against a Jew who hid with her is generating controversy in the Netherlands.

The play, which is slated to premiere Saturday in the Netherlands, is set in modern times and mentions neither the Nazis nor why they murdered Anne Frank, the teenage diarist who wrote her famous journal while hiding in German-occupied Amsterdam during the Holocaust.

A dress rehearsal last week attended by several critics included an invented assault by Fritz Pfeffer against Margot Frank, Anne Franks sister. Pfeffer was a real-life Jewish dentist who was in hiding with Frank and her family and died in the Holocaust. It has never been alleged that he assaulted Frank or anyone else.

Esther Voet, the editor in chief of the Dutch-Jewish weekly NIW and a former leader of the CIDI watchdog on anti-Semitism, condemned the play as an unscrupulous falsification of history in a scathing op-ed published Friday.

Apparently, that pesky historical context, the one about the persecution of the Jews, that had to be done away with already, she wrote of the play, which was produced by Arjen Stuurman and directed by Ilja Pfeijffer. It is titled Achter het Huis, a phrase that means behind the house, and echoes the Dutch-language name that Frank gave the secret annex where she hid.

Voet also protested how Pfeijffer pressed his fat thumb on Pfeffer and made him guilty of an act of violence. Presto: Drama! She also wrote that it was abjectly tasteless.

The play is the latest expression of abuse of Anne Franks memory, wrote Voet, citing other such abuses, including claims that Frank was a lesbian and her likening to Palestinians.

Asked last week about his addition of the assault, Pfeijffer told the Volkskrant: The diary itself contains no drama, adding: What actually happens in the secret annex, seen through the eyes of a 13-year-old, is a bit lean for a theater show.

David Barnouw, author of the 2012 book The Anne Frank Phenomenon and a former researcher at the Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, told JTA over the weekend that he did not like the play because it was over the top after seeing a dress rehearsal earlier this week. But he added that he does not agree with some of the weightier charges made by Voet.

I disagree with her on some points, said Barnouw, adding that he was not opposed to artists taking far-reaching license with historical truth. The audience needs to decide whether this is acceptable, and no one else.

In the dress rehearsal, the people in hiding speak of the Jews only as our people and of the Germans as the enemy, he said.

The Volkskrant reported last week that Pfeijffer is facing a lawsuit for copyright infringement by the Anne Frank Fonds, the Switzerland-based organization set up by the late Otto Frank, Anne Franks father and sole survivor from her nuclear family, who entrusted the organization with the rights to her diary. But a spokesman for the Anne Frank Fonds told JTA his organization cannot confirm this.

Whereas third parties may sue the producers of Achter het Huis, the spokesman said in reference to relatives of Pfeffer, no legal action has been initiated by the Anne Frank Fonds, which is monitoring the situation.

Pfeijffer, who is also a poet, has a history of making controversial statements, including about Jews.

Last year, he called Leon de Winter, a well-known Dutch-Jewish novelist and playwright who wrote for the Anne Frank Fonds a 2014 theater play about Anne Frank, a militant Jew.

That charge came in a column by Pfeijffer about Winters decision to leave his former publisher over its hiring of a Belgian author, Dyab Abou Jahjah. Abou Jahjah supports Hezbollah, has called for violence against Israelis and spoke of his feeling of victory following the 9/11 attacks. Abou Jahjah also called Antwerp, which has a large community of Orthodox Jews, the international capital of the Zionist lobby, according to NRC.

Abou Jahjah speaks out for oppressed Palestinians and that makes him an anti-Semite for de Winter, Pfeijffer wrote. He identified Abou Jahjah as a founder of the Arab European League. The now-defunct Muslim rights group a decade ago posted on its website a caricature of Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler and another caricature suggesting the Holocaust never happened, which a judge ordered removed.

In 2015, Pfeijffer published a poem in the voice of a Palestinian man who lost his home and whose daughter was mutilated by Jews who trampled on our holy land with boots that can do no wrong because they are of Jews, because of what went on before.

Connecticut Chabad wins 10-year legal fight to open Chabad House

(JTA)Chabad-Lubavitch can convert a historic Victorian home in Litchfield, Connecticut into a Chabad House, a federal court ruled in a lawsuit that was launched 10 years ago.

Chabad can build a modified version of its original plan from 2007, Judge Janet Hall of U.S. District Court in New Haven ruled last week. Hall ordered the Litchfield Boroughs Historic District Commission to approve the revised plan.

In 2007, the commission rejected the Chabad House, saying it was too large and out of character for the historic district. The turndown spurred a federal lawsuit against the commission claiming religious discrimination.

As part of the modification, the judge ruled that Chabad must eliminate a planned second-floor apartment for the Chabad House rabbi, Joseph Eisenbach, and his family, which includes 12 children. She said that not living in the Chabad House would not infringe on the groups religious rights.

Eisenbach said in a statement that Chabad had faced serious religious bias during the decade-long legal battle, according to the local newspaper, The Register Citizen.

On the one hand there is great joy that after a 10-year struggle we can move forward with our synagogue, the rabbi said. At the same time, I sadly witnessed the most serious religious bias from a very small percent of the Litchfield Community which destroyed 10 years of great blessings of a Synagogue. Thankfully, they dont represent the overwhelming majority of the great citizens of our town.

The building will serve as a synagogue and religious education center. It will have a kosher kitchen and office space, as well as a mikvah. A swimming pool will be used for a summer camp.

Sheldon Adelson in praising his pro-Israel group takes a shot at AIPAC

WASHINGTON (JTA)Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and major Jewish philanthropist, said he was the principal funder of the Israeli American Council because its support for Israel was unequivocal compared to other American Jewish groups.

Adelson, speaking Sunday evening at the IACs annual meeting, was explaining why he has backed the organization since its 2007 inceptionas it happens, the year he broke with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee over its backing for the George W. Bush administrations Annapolis peace push.

I said to myself, Self, this could be an unequivocal support organization for Israel, he said. Therell be no political correctness, therell be no questions about whether we can keep the White House door open to us.

That was an apparent reference to AIPACs policy of maintaining access to the White House, whatever tensions there might otherwise be between an administration and the pro-Israel community.

Adelson reviled the Obama presidency, fighting the administration at every turn over over government spending, Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal. AIPAC had a relationship with President Barack Obama that was at times tense and other times mutually supportive. It vigorously opposed Obamas Iran policy, but encouraged his efforts to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, as long as Israels government was on board.

Adelson said he was encouraged to see a crowd of 2,500 at the IAC conference and took an explicit shot at AIPAC.

It reminds me of the days of when AIPAC started to grow, he said. It grew from less than 2,500 people, smaller than that. This group, the IAC, wont even question whether or not we should support Israel.

Marshall Wittmann, the spokesman for AIPAC, which now attracts upwards of 15,000 activists to its annual conferences, said in response, We wish the IAC success in its efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Tens of thousands of Israelis attend rally marking Yitzhak Rabins murder

JERUSALEM (JTA)An estimated 85,000 rallied in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to mark the 22nd anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The rally Saturday night was controversial for stressing national unity over peace. The rally, organized by two centrist organizations: the Darkenu movement and Commanders for Israels Security, was held under the slogan We are one people, and did not include national politicians on its list of speakers.

Banners and flags of the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties flew throughout the crowd, as did the banners of the anti-settlement group Peace Now and the Palestinian human rights group BTselem.

Oded Revivi, mayor of the West Bank settlement of Efrat, was booed by the some in the crowd before he started to speak. Several lawmakers from right-wing parties attended the rally, apparently for the first time.

Former IDF General Amnon Reshef, the head of Commanders for Israels security, in his speech at the rally called for separation from the Palestinians into two states in order to keep Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot to death by Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Jew and right-wing extremist, on Nov. 4, 1995, as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. The annual rally is held in the Tel Aviv square where he was shot, which has been renamed after the late prime minister.

Rally organizers were criticized for neglecting to call Rabins death a murder or mention peace in promotional materials.

Record $53.8 million raised for Israeli soldiers at Beverly Hills gala

(JTA)The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces raised $53.8 million at a Beverly Hills galaa record, according to organizersto help Israeli soldiers in need.

Some 1,200 people were in attendance at the annual event on Thursday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, raising funds for services such as academic scholarships to combat veterans; financial assistance; support for Lone Soldiers throughout their service; aid for wounded veterans and the families of fallen soldiers; weeks of rest and recuperation for army units; as well as educational, cultural and recreational facilities.

Billionaire Haim Saban, a national board member of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and a major supporter, and his wife, Cheryl, chaired the event.

Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle and its executive chairman gave $16.6 millionthe largest single gift in FIDF history. His donation will support the construction of well-being facilities on a new training campus for coed infantry units.

For 2,000 years, we were a stateless people, but now, we have a country we can call our own, Ellison said. Through all of the perilous times since Israels founding, we have called on the brave men and women of the IDF to defend our home. In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank FIDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.

Israeli actress and model Moran Atias emceed the event, which featured special performances by Seal, The Tenors, David Foster & Friends and Gene Simmons of KISS fame. Celebrity guests included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Katharine McPhee, Paul Reubens and Melissa Rivers, as well as Miss Israel 2013, Yityish Titi Aynaw.
In his keynote survey of the descent of American democracy in the Trump era, at the recent Zionism 3.0 conference in Palo Alto, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg dwelled for some time on the proliferation of fake news, which he attributed, in large part, to the thousands of portals of entry of informationbe it true or falseinto the public consciousness. Not surprisingly, he gave much higher marks for accuracy and objectivity to the old media, which while not perfect, does a pretty good job of bringing pertinent and accurate information to the public.

Now, the Atlantic is an often-stimulating magazine, with much worth reading. But, as in his one-sided depiction of the sources of threat to Americas democratic culture, Goldberg is far too easy on his colleagues in the traditional media, whose selection of what to present is often highly partisan in nature.

That may seem an odd claim this week, when the left-leaning Washington Post revealed that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign commissioned the notorious and discredited Trump dossier from Fusion GPS, a firm that itself has worked as an unregistered agent of Russia. The dossier was produced by Christopher Steele, an ex-British intelligence official, largely based on (dis)information supplied by Russian contacts.

Yet, the Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream media are ignoring an equally explosive story. The latter concerns not just the relationship of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to Russia, but also actions taken by the FBI and Justice Department that had the effect, if not necessarily the intent, of protecting the Obama administrations narrative of a Russian reset. And it implicates former FBI director and current special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

Understanding the new story requires first a review of an older one: the saga of how Rosatom, Russias state atomic energy corporation, obtained ownership of 20 percent of Americas uranium reserves, through the good offices of the Clintons. That saga has already been chronicled in Peter Schweizers Clinton Cash and corroborated by the New York Times. It begins in 2005 when Bill Clinton traveled to Kazakhstan and convinced its dictator to grant uranium mining rights to the company of Canadian billionaire Frank Giustra. The latter expressed his appreciation with a $10,000,000 gift to the Clinton Foundation.

Unfortunately for share prices of Giustras company, Vladimir Putin wanted the same uranium and was even more persuasive than Bill Clinton: Kazakhstans dictator rescinded Giustras rights and arrested the official who had signed the deal with him.

Fortunately for Giustra, however, Hillary Clinton was by then secretary of state. On a trip to Moscow, she arranged for Rosatom to purchase 17 percent of Giustras company, Uranium One, and thereby resolved the issue of the Kazakhstan uranium rights. Putin, however, subsequently decided he wanted Rosatom to purchase control of Uranium One, and with it 20 percent of Americas uranium reserves. To do so, however, required approval of the 18-person Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency body of the U.S. government, (CFIUS), on which Secretary of State Clinton was the highest-ranking member and which included Attorney-General Eric Holder.

CFIUS approval came in October 2010. Principals to the Rosatom deal, according to Newsweek, ponied up approximately $145 million to the Clinton Foundation or affiliates. Those donations, it is safe to assume, were not meant to further the Foundations eleemosynary endeavors. Only 6 percent of Clinton Foundation donations reached Foundation beneficiaries: The remaining 94 percent went to cover high-end travel, high-visibility conferences, and the large salaries of Bill Clinton and the Clintons large staff of permanent retainers. For those who wanted to line the Clintons pockets more directly, there were always huge speaking fees, such as the $500,000 paid to Bill Clinton by the state-connected Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital in June 2010, while the Rosatom purchase was still pending.

Heres where the new story, broken by The Hill two weeks ago, comes in. CFIUS approval to transfer to a Russian state company 20 percent of Americas uranium, the essential element for Americas nuclear arsenal and the fuel for the nuclear plants that provide one fifth of the nations energy needs, could have only come at a time that Russia was not perceived as an adversary.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the FBI and Department of Justice (DoJ) were complicit in preserving the Obama-era myth of a reset with Russia. As revealed by The Hill, the FBI was fully awarelong prior to the CFIUS approval of the Uranium One dealthat Russia was not quite the partner for world stability that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were making it out to be.

Starting in 2009, Vadim Mikiren, the CEO of a Maryland-based subsidiary of Rosatom, was engaged in a racketeering, extortion, and money-laundering operation with numerous American firms in the uranium industry. His activities were designed to line his pockets and those of senior officials in Moscow, as well as to render American firms vulnerable by enmeshing them in illegal activity.

The FBI had a highly reliable informer close to Mikiren, in the form of an American lobbyist he had hired. That lobbyist provided the FBI with emails, recorded conversations, and information about the Russian efforts to curry favor with the Clintons to the tune of millions of dollars. By early 2010, in the estimation of Andrew McCarthy, former lead federal, prosecutor in the First World Trade bombing case, the FBI and Justice Department had amassed a strong case against Mikiren. Yet Attorney-General Eric Holder voted for the Rosatom purchase.

Not until 2014, long after memories of the Rosatom sale had grown cold, would the Justice Department file criminal charges against Mikiren, and even then with minimal fanfare. Mikiren was allowed to plea bargain to a minimal crime of conspiracy to commit money-laundering (which carries a sentence of 0-5 years), as opposed to being charged with money-laundering itself, each count of which carries 20 years. McCarthy points out that the plea bargain violated DoJs own prosecutorial guidelines. The papers filed in federal court in support of the plea bargain mentioned only a few of Mikirens crimes, and none before the consummation of the Rosatom sale.

The head of the FBI during most of its lengthy delay in prosecuting Mikiren was none other than Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. And the two senior attorneys who signed off on the plea bargain were Andrew Weissman, then chief of the DoJ Criminal Fraud Division and today one of Muellers chief assistants, and Rod Rosenstein, then U.S. Attorney for Maryland and today deputy attorney-general. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special prosecutor.

Nor were Mikirens criminal activities, as documented in The Hill, the only thing uncovered by the FBI that could have scuttled the Rosatom sale. The day before Bill Clinton was scheduled to deliver his $500,000 speech in Moscow, the FBI arrested ten Soviet operatives living on the East Coast under false identities. FBI counter-intelligence head Frank Figliuzzi explained the timing of the arrests: the spy ring was getting too close to a sitting cabinet memberi.e., Clinton. Russian spy Lidiya Guryeva, who was living in the US under the alias Cynthia Murphy, had already burrowed into the inner circle of a close Clinton supporter.

Though Operation Ghost Stories was one of the biggest intelligence busts in U.S. history, the FBI gave it none of the expected bells and whistles celebration. And over the slow news July 4 weekend, Secretary of State Clinton hastily arranged a spy exchange of the 10 highly-trained and young Soviet operatives for three spies held by Russia and one political prisoner.

The mainstream media, apart from the conservative National Review and the Wall Street Journal, have almost entirely ignored The Hills expose. In the three days after it was published, it garnered no mention on any of the major broadcast networks, despite the likelihood of a congressional investigation. As a consequence, the exposes implications for former FBI director and current Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller have gone unexplored.

We now know that the FBI under Muellers leadership consistently downplayed its own investigations that would have seriously dented President Obamas reset narrative with Russia and almost certainly killed approval of the sale of 20 percent of American uranium to Rosatom. The FBI failed to act despite the testimony of a credible informant that the Clintons were being groomed by the Russians to the tune of millions. And the FBIs information on Mikirens criminal actions may not have been forwarded to the CFIUS, a panel on which Muellers boss, Attorney-General Eric Holder, sat.

The propriety of Mueller serving as special prosecutor has been further called into question in recent days. The appointment of a special prosecutor was largely set in motion by Muellers successor at the FBI and close friend, James Comey. Comey has admitted that he leaked an internal memo he himself prepared through a law professor friend with the intention of triggering a call for the appointment of a special prosecutor. And he succeeded.

Comeys own involvement with the Trump dossier looks worse by the day, as the evidence mounts that the FBI relied on the discredited dossier and even offered to pay Christopher Steele to carry on with his research.

Comey was either unaware or for some reason chose to ignore the documents dubious provenanceopposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and produced by a firm that had done previous work for the Russian regime, which was based on information being fed the author by his Kremlin contacts. Mueller should not be investigating the behavior of his close friend and the bureau he headed until 2013.

After Godlbergs speech, I sidled over and mentioned that his portrayal of Donald Trump as an imminent threat to American democracy would have been more compelling had he mentioned that his opponent very likely betrayed national interests in the pursuit of Russian money. (Indeed she likely set up her own private server to avoid investigations into the actions of the Clinton Foundation when she was secretary of state.)

He replied something to the effect, Oh, everyone knows Hillary is a crook, as if that were somehow a justification for neither writing nor speaking about it.

Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post and Israeli director of Am Echad.
Every year, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration passes by quietly in Israel with hardly any notice. Only this year it is being noted and celebrated because it is the 100th anniversary.

However this is not true of the Palestinian Authority. Ever since Palestinian Media Watch has been monitoring the PA, the date of the Balfour Declaration was among the most important days on the PA calendar. Each year, PA schools would have special sessions discussing Balfour. In 2011, for example, the PA organized a letter writing campaign from schoolchildren to the Queen of England to mark the 94th anniversary of the cursed Balfour promise.

Why is it that Israelis, who are the direct beneficiaries of the Balfour Declaration, have been ignoring it, while for Palestinians it is so important?

For Israelis the Balfour Declaration was just one step in a series of significant events that had started decades before Balfour and continued after him, all contributing to the Jewish peoples return to the Land of Israel. The first wave of immigrants started in 1882, 35 years before Balfours declaration and the first Zionist Congress was in 1897. Israelis today see the return to their land as something so normal and inevitable that no single event except for the declaration of statehood itself is regularly celebrated.

But why does the PA focus on Balfour? They should be mourning the first Aliyah in 1882 or the first Zionist Congress in 1897, more than the Balfour Declaration, which was Britains response to an already active Zionist movement.

For the PA, the Balfour Declaration is a necessary component of the Palestinian narrative. The two foundations of Palestinian ideology, both fictitious, are that a Palestinian nation existed for thousands of years and that there never had been a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel. But this left one problem. The PA needed to explain to its people why millions of Jews had immigrated from Europe and all over the world, if they had no connection to the land.

The PAs answer is colonialism and Balfour is the proof.

According to the PAs adjusted narrative Balfour and Britains support were not one step in the growing Zionist movement, but were the beginning of all Jewish history in the land. And Jews were chosen by Britain only because the Jews were so evil that Europe was looking for a way to be rid of them. A documentary that has been broadcast five times on PA and Fatah TV since 2013 explains: Faced with the Jews schemes, Europe could not bear their character traits, monopolies, corruption... The European nations felt that they had suffered a tragedy by providing refuge for the Jews. Later the Jews obtained the Balfour Declaration, and Europe saw it as an ideal solution to get rid of them.

The PA Ambassador to France Salman Al-Harfi recently echoed this: The [Balfour] Promise stemmed from the desire to solve what was called the Jewish problem in Europe... so that Europe would be rid of the problem of its Jews.

Defining Israel as a European colony is a fundamental and essential component of PA myth building and has been part of the PA narrative since the early years of the PA. Already in 1998, the official PA daily presented Hitler and Balfour as trying to achieve the same goals: The difference between Hitler and Balfour was simple: the former [Hitler] did not have colonies to send the Jews so he destroyed them, whereas Balfour... [turned] Palestine into his colony and sent the Jews. Balfour is Hitler with colonies, while Hitler is Balfour without colonies. They both wanted to get rid of the Jews... Zionism was crucial to the defense of the Wests interests in the region, [by] ridding Europe of the burden of its Jews.

Already in school, Palestinian children are taught to see Jews in Israel as a foreign colonial implant who Europeans wanted to be rid of. In a lesson titled Colonialism and Zionism in a PA schoolbook just published in August 2017, children learn: Zionism is defined as a colonialist political movement... the Balfour Promise issued by Britain was a type of solution to get rid of the Jews by allocating to them the land of Palestine.

The PA goes even further in its script writing. Not only did Balfour create Jewish nationalism in the land, but he even brought about the Jewish religious connection to the land: There is no documentation that the Jews made the Western Wall a place of worship at any time, except after the Balfour Promise, claimed official PA TV, in March this year. This message comes from the top. Mahmoud Al-Habbash (Mahmoud Abbas personal adviser on Religious Affairs) made clear... that no person besides Muslims ever used it [Western Wall] as a place of worship, throughout all of history, until the ominous Balfour Declaration in 1917.

The PA needs the Balfour Declaration in 2017 as much as the Zionist movement needed it in 1917. For Zionism in 1917 it meant international recognition of Jews historic right as an indigenous people to return to their homeland. For the PA in 2017, it is used to deny the Jews historic right as an indigenous people in their land.

An ancient Palestinian history is fabricated by the PA to fill the vacuum created by the erasure of actual Jewish history in the land. The Balfour Declaration is the document the Palestinians wave to their people to brandish this myth.

In honor of the hundredth anniversary of this important document, the PA decided to make the Balfour Declaration and denial of Israels right to exist its primary messaging this year. Mahmoud Abbas is taking the lead with public statements such as: It must be emphasized that the historical injustice that was caused to our people, and which continues to accumulate, began in fact with the ominous Balfour Promise. Therefore, we call on the government of Britain to bear its historical and moral responsibility and not mark and celebrate the 100th anniversary of this invalid promise. Instead, it must submit an apology to our Palestinian people... The PA Foreign Minister Al-Malki said that Mahmoud Abbas intends to submit a lawsuit... if Britain insists on celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ominous Balfour Promise.

Fatah has called it Balfour crime of the century and the most inhuman terrorist crime... creating a Zionist illegal state Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi went so far as to declare that the Balfour declaration was the most horrible crime in the history of mankind.

The PA has transformed the Balfour Declaration from recognition of Jewish history in the land, into the starting point of Jewish history in the land. Without Balfour the PA has no hook upon which to anchor its warped reality. Had there been no Balfour Declaration, the PA would have had to invent it.

Itamar Marcus is the director of Palestinian Media Watch (www.palwatch.org).
It was a minor news story when it broke in the summer of 2016. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas announced he was suing Great Britain over the Balfour Declaration, issued on Nov. 2, 1917. But as we prepare to observe the centennial of the document this week, its important to understand that although his lawsuit was a stunt, Abbas was serious. More than that, the symbolism of his protest tells us more about what is preventing peace between Israel and the Palestinians than any of the usual explanations about settlements, borders, the status of Jerusalem or criticisms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As Elliot Jager, author of a new and timely book on the topic,The Balfour Declaration: 67 Words, 100 Years of Conflict, from Gefen Publishing House, has written, Abbass decision to focus on Balfour wasnt a joke.

Ten decades after British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour publicly expressed his governments sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations and its support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, the Palestinian Arabs are still unreconciled to the fact that this goal was realized with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. To Abbas and his Fatah party as well as their Hamas rivals, Balfour is the original sin of the Middle East that explains all the suffering of their people in the last century. More than that, it is, as Jagera former Jerusalem Post editor and authorwrites, the key to understanding why negotiations between Israel and the PA have remained stalemated in the more than two decades since the Oslo Accords.

The 1993 Oslo Accords notwithstanding, the PLO covenantwith its denunciation of the Balfour Declarationhas never been legally amended, and for good reason. The problem Palestinian Arabs have with Israel is its existencenot settlements, occupied territory or the security barrier, writes Jager.

Abbas has consistently made the point that the Palestinians wont recognize or accept Israel as a Jewish state. That would acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish national home and doing so would basically end the conflict.

That means the conflict remains, as Jager notes, an all or nothing (zero sum) clash.

Jagers addition to the list of volumes on the declarations origin provides an easy-to-understand guide for general readers. The British decision was based, in part, on genuine sympathy for the aspirations of a homeless people whose ties to the land was part of the bible that the English loved as well as Zionist diplomacy. But it was also the product of a mistaken belieffueled by anti-Semitic mythsthat the Jews had the power to aid the Allied war effort at a moment when the outcome of World War I was in doubt.

In truth, the Jews had no such power. It was Balfour that allowed them back onto the stage of world history and, following the Allied victory that brought Palestine under British control, gave them the opportunity to begin building a state in their ancient homeland and rectify the injustices of the past two millennia.

Yet it is not so much the events of 1917 as what followed that we need to understand.

Subsequent British governments not only whittled down the size of the Jewish home, but also betrayed their promise by limiting the rights of the Jews in order to appease the Arab and Muslim world. That led to a series of proposals for further dividing the land, but the Arabs refused every such offer, including the United Nations partition plan of 1947 that called for the creation of both a Jewish and an Arab state. Sharing even part of the country was unthinkable. To the Arabs, the return of the Jews was an injustice because it would mean that even a tiny sliver of the region they considered Muslim might be under the sovereignty of a dhimmia despised minority. That same spirit is why the Palestinians are still unreconciled to the consequences of Balfours promise. As Jager writes, continued Arab rejection of the Balfour Declaration one hundred years on makes any compromise leading to a genuine conflict resolution impossible.

Just as the Palestinians remain in denial about the impossibility of their dream of eventually eradicating Israel, it is just as important that they come to terms with the Jews 1917 diplomatic triumph and understand why the Jews also have a right to be there. Until that happens, they will remain doomed to live in a limbo in which they can neither reverse the verdict of history nor find a way to live in peace alongside those who benefited from Balfours historic promise.

Jonathan S. Tobin is opinion editor of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
The Trump administrations decision to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) late in 2018 is one shot across the U.N.s bow. Notoriously hospitable to dictatorships, hostile to Israel and mismanaged as well, UNESCO deserves the warning.

But what does the U.S. do about UN member countries consistently voting against it and against Israel without even a national policy excuse for doing so? Not enough, yet.

The countries in question are not adversaries like Russia or Iran, which pursue policies inimical to American interests. Rather, they are either beneficiaries of U.S. aid or states whose own concerns would seem to parallel those of this country, or at least not oppose them.

For example, according to the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI), in 2016 a half-dozen countries ranking as major beneficiaries of U.S. tourism and assistance, and lacking a policy pretext to do so, nevertheless voted overwhelmingly in opposition to the U.S. on 67 roll call resolutions in the UN General Assembly. They were the Caribbean states of St. Lucia, siding against the U.S. 70.3 percent of the time; Belize, 69.8 percent; Dominican Republic, 68.7; Bahamas, 68.2; Jamaica, 67.7; and Barbados, 67.2 percent in opposition.

On 18 anti-Israel UN resolutions last year opposed by the U.S.Israel being Americas major Middle East ally and only democratic government among regional pro-U.S. statesall the above tourist destinations nevertheless voted unanimously in favor except Jamaica. It backed 17 of the anti-Israel measures, abstaining on one.

Five African countries that receive major U.S. foreign assistance compiled a similar record. AJIRI noted that Kenya, which in fiscal 2017 gladly accepted $649 million of Uncle Sams aid money, voted against Washington on 2016s 67 UN General Assembly roll call resolutions 76.3 percent of the time. Zambia, which received $436 million, opposed the U.S. 75.9 percent of the time.

Not far behind were Mozambique, a recipient of $420 million in American foreign aid, voting against the U.S. position at a rate of 75.4 percent; Tanzania, $611 million, 75 percent; and Ethiopia, $385 million, 71.7 percent.

On those 18 specifically anti-Israel resolutions, all but Ethiopia were unanimously in favorthat is, consistently opposing American Middle East policy. Ethiopia voted yes 16 times but abstained twice. Like the six Caribbean countries, none of the five African states displayed the courage to vote no even once.

There have been hints of a break in the U.N.s anti-Israel lockstep policy. The world bodys new secretary-general, former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, sounds like a believer in George Orwells observation that sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

In April, Guterres vowed to fight anti-Semitism and called the denial of Israels right to exist a modern form of anti-Jewish hatred. As secretary-general of the United Nations, I can say that the state of Israel needs to be treated as any other state, with exactly the same rules, he said.

If so, then the UN has a long way to go. Last years 18 General Assembly condemnations of Israel, despite the opposition of the U.S., compared with six measures criticizing any of the organizations 192 other members.

In February, Guterres contradicted a noxious piece of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel revisionism adopted late last year by UNESCO. The organization had declared Jerusalems Temple Mount an Islamic-only shrine. The secretary-general said it was completely clear that the Temple the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple. Further, he said no one can deny the fact that Jerusalem is sacred to the three monotheistic religionsJudaism, Christianity and Islam.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), led by President Mahmoud Abbass Fatah movement and in charge of the West Bank, demanded an apology. Persisting in its denial of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land, the PA claimed GuterresS statement violated all legal, diplomatic and humanitarian customs.

Reforming the UN secretariats sclerotic, chronically anti-U.S. bureaucracy will be hard enough for Guterres. Getting a fairer shake in the General Assembly for the U.S. and Israel must begin in Washington.

A good start would be spotlighting countrieslike those highlighted abovethat benefit from the U.S. and Israel but routinely vote against them. This is work for the White House, State Department and members of Congress. Countries at fault should get friendly reminders: If you enjoy profitable relationships with the U.S. and with Israel, benefiting from bilateral economic, technological, military and cultural ties, you ought to align UN voting patterns with your own national interests. Failure to do so should warrant a cost, like that facing UNESCO.

Eric Rozenman is communications consultant for the Washington, D.C.-based Jewish Policy Center.
While Americans have been tearing down statues that honor people who dont deserve to be honored, Palestinian Arabs are doing exactly the opposite. A statue honoring Saddam Hussein, the notorious dictator, terror sponsor and mass murderer, was unveiled last week in the Palestinian Authority (PA) city of Qalqilya.

Technically, the statue was sponsored by the Arab Liberation Front (ALF), not the municipality of Qalqilya or the PA itself. But the PAs district governor for the Qalqilya District, Rafi Rawajba, attended the unveiling ceremony. Rawajba is a representative of the Fatah movement, which PA President Mahmoud Abbas chairs.

You can see from the photos distributed by The Associated Press that the statue is 20 feet tall, with lights so everyone can see it at night, too. And its situated smack in the middle of a major street. If the mayor or Abbas didnt want there, it would be gone in five minutes.

In fact, the ALF has erected statues of Saddam in several other PA-controlled cities, too, and Abbas has not ordered them taken down, either. Thats because he was always one of Saddams biggest fans. Abbas could have written the Arabic inscription on the statue himself: Allah is great, long live the nation, Palestine and Iraq, the Lord of the eras martyrs Saddam Hussein.

Just two weeks ago, the official Facebook page of Abbass Fatah included Saddam alongside photos of other Arab heroes in a college with the slogan, From the sea of the blood of the Martyrs, we will create the State of Palestine. On the 10th anniversary of Saddams death, last December, the Fatah Facebook page featured a memorial poster hailing Saddam as a martyr (shahid).

Theres even an entire Martyr Saddam Hussein Square, in Ramallah, the PAs capital city. I wonder if Abbas salutes it on his way to work.

The ALF is a small Palestinian terrorist group that was established in 1969 with Iraqi financial sponsorship. Remember those infamous $25,000 checks that Saddam sent to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers? The ALF was in charge of distributing the funds.

But the ALFs record goes beyond handing out rewards to terrorists. It was responsible, for example, for a bombing on Jerusalems Ben Yehuda Street in September 1979, in which one person was killed and 58 were maimed. According to the Israeli police, the bomb was set to detonate at a time when it would cause maximum civilian casualties, just as hundreds of customers were leaving the shops along the mail which close at 7 p.m. and other crowds were lining up for the first show at one of the many movie houses in the vicinity.

Since the whole premise of the 1993 Oslo Accords was that the Palestinian leadership now rejects terrorism, you would think that Yasser Arafat and his then-number two man, Abbas, would have expelled terrorist groups such as the ALF (and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of the Palestine) from the PLO.

No such luck. To this day, the ALF is a member in good standing of Abbass PLO. The ALF operates openly and freely in PA territory. It has never been expelled, disarmed or outlawed.

Nearly 300 American soldiers died fighting Saddam in the Gulf War in 1990. Another 4,497 gave their lives fighting Saddam in the Iraq War of 2003 and its aftermath. The creation of statues and public squares in PA territory honoring Saddam is a direct slap in the face to the U.S. and its fallen soldiers.

Abbas and the PA received $357 million from the U.S. last year. Abbas seems to assume that the aid will continue to flow, even if he allows anti-American terrorists such as the ALF to be part of the PLO, and even if statues of Americas enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, are erected in PA cities.

To judge by the non-reaction of the Trump administration to the newest Saddam statue, it appears that Abbass assumption may well be correct.

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
For the Palestinians, the year zero is not 1948, when the state of Israel came into being, but 1917, when Great Britain issued, in the November of that year, the Balfour Declarationexpressing support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

So central is the Balfour Declaration to Palestinian political identity that the Zionist invasion is officially deemed to have begun in 1917not in 1882, when the first trickle of Jewish pioneers from Russia began arriving, nor in 1897, when the Zionist movement held its first congress in Basel, nor in the late 1920s, when thousands of German Jews fleeing the rise of Nazism chose to go to Palestine.

The year 1917 is the critical date because that is when, as an anti-Zionist might say, the Zionist hand slipped effortlessly into the British imperial glove. It is a neat, simple historical proposition upon which the entire Palestinian version of events rests: an empire came to our land and gave it to foreigners, we were dispossessed, and for five generations now, we have continued to resist. Moreover, it is given official sanction in the Palestine National Covenant of 1968, in which article 6 defines Jews who were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion as Palestiniansan invasion that is dated as 1917 in the covenants notes.

As the Balfour Declarations centenary approaches on Nov. 2, this theme is much in evidence. There is now a dedicated Balfour Apology Campaign in the U.K., seeking both British government contrition and British taxpayer-funded reparations for the supposed handing of Palestine, in the words of one British Mandate-era Arab organization, into the claws of the Jews. In an interview with Ian Black of The Guardian, the prominent Palestinian academic Hanan Ashrawi positioned all of this as classic orientalist scheming, chiding Balfour for his so patronizing, so racist indifference to the Arab population of Palestine. Here, again, we see the broader discursive pattern: white settlers, visible to and cherished by their colonial masters, black natives, demeaned and ignored by the very same.

Ashrawi is not entirely wrong, insofar as Balfour did not pay much heed to Arab objections. Walter Laqueur, in his indispensable History of Zionism, quotes Balfour as saying that whatever ones view of Zionism, its ultimate goal was of far profounder import than the desires of 700,000 Arabs. Neither did Balfour apparently think much of the ability of Palestines Arabs to overcome the maximalism of their leaders, writing in 1919 thatas Laqueur puts ithe did not think Zionism would hurt the Arabs, but that of course they would never say they wanted it.

Nor were they ever prepared to make peace with it. That is one reason why the elation that greeted the Balfour Declaration among Jews gradually faded over the next decade, as the Zionist halutzim (pioneers) realized that, when it came securing Jewish communities from Arab violence and winning British consent for further Jewish immigration, it was little more than a piece of paper. Balfour did not prevent serial outbreaks of violence and terror against Palestines Jews during the 1920s and 1930s. And when Britain decided to restrict, on the eve of the Holocaust, Jewish immigration to Palestine to just 75,000 individuals over five yearsout of almost 10 million Jews in Europethe 1939 White Paper outlining the new restrictions reasoned that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country.

You can even say that Britain ended up disowning the Balfour Declaration, going so far as to abstain during the Nov. 29, 1947 United Nations voteon the 30th anniversary of the declarationthat legitimized the creation of a sovereign Jewish state. That none of this evidence moves those who advocate for British reparations to the Palestinians is largely explained by their overall take on the situation: the oppressed, with whom history ultimately sides, remain the indigenous Palestinians, and the oppressors, whose day of reckoning always beckons, are the British imperialists and their willing Jewish settler dupes.

Perhaps the best way to understand the Balfour Declaration is to take it literally. What the British helped the Jews to create in Palestine during the mandate period fits with what one imagines a national home might look like; and its certainly not an independent state with sovereign control over its borders and its immigration policy. Indeed, while its borders were open, that national home may have felt like a state, as it saved Jewish lives and crystallized into a cohesive Jewish national society. But when these were abruptly closed, sending thousands of Jews back to their deaths in Europe, the national home was just one more British colony. Irrespective of the ongoing Palestinian circus, thats something for Jews to mull over as we reflect on our place in the world 100 years after Balfour.

Ben Cohen writes a weekly column for JNS.org on Jewish affairs and Middle Eastern politics. His writings have been published in Commentary, the New York Post, Haaretz, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
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A paedophile who once appeared on Dragon's Den as a contestant will spend years longer in prison after judges ruled his original sentence was 'unduly lenient'.

Richard Hazell, 49, of Hoddesdon, abused four young girls and when his business and home were searched police found thousands of indecent images of children.

The married man, who has a child of his own, was convicted of four sexual assaults and nine indecent images of children crimes and was jailed for four years and nine months at St Albans Crown Court in June.

After a review at the Court of Appeal yesterday (November 9), his sentence was increased to seven years and three months.

Appeal judge Lady Justice Halley said: "The judge failed to reflect the seriousness of the overall offending."

Hazell was accused of preying on pre-teen girls, indecently touching them by fondling their genitals and bottoms and having an interest in indecent images of children.

During the trial in June the prosecution read out a search made on Hazell's computer on August 30 last year, which said 'can you be found guilty for downloading child porn if the files are deleted on your computer'.

Images found during a police search included two pictures taken of two young girls on a beach in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on October 24, 2015, where he was on holiday with his wife and six-year-old daughter.

These images had been cropped to zoom into one of the girl's vagina, which was visible as she wore no underwear.

Another image shows Hazell's face superimposed onto a naked man's body holding the hand of a young girl with no clothes on.

Hazell claimed the image was made as a practical joke by someone he knows after a group of friends went on holiday in Jamaica in April last year and found out they were staying next to a nudist beach.

The case went to the Court of Appeal after a referral by attorney general Jeremy Wright QC, on the basis that the sentence was too soft.

While increasing his sentence Lady Justice Hallet said: "The sexual assaults themselves may not have been at the more serious end of the scale, but they had a severe impact upon the victims.

"In our view, the judge should have given greater recognition to that fact.

"Furthermore, some of the indecent images were of the worst kind. These, it should be remembered, are real children being subjected to rape.

"We have reached the conclusion that the sentence is unduly lenient and we must increase it."

Children who have suffered from sexual assaults can call Childline on 0800 1111 for support and advice.
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The all-star cast of a new major BBC TV drama filmed a dramatic scene in Hertford this afternoon.

A Very English Scandal, which boasts Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw as the leads, has been shooting scenes in the town since Monday (November 6).

The majority of the filming for the three-part drama, set to air on BBC One in 2018, took place on Fore Street, with some scenes shot on Castle Street and inside the Corn Exchange.

The scene being shot this afternoon (November 9) on Old Cross, behind the McMullens Brewery, involved Whishaw and Blake Harrison, who played Neil in The Inbetweeners.

In the scene Harrison and Whishaws characters angrily storm to a car before slamming the doors shut, yelling in raised voices.

Out of all the scenes filmed in Hertford this week, todays appears to be the most dramatic with Fore Street and Castle Street filming being far less heated.

In the drama Grant is playing Jeremey Thorpe, the former Liberal Party leader, who was accused of attempting to kill his ex-love Normal Scott, played by Whishaw.

Thorpe famously stood trial in 1979 and was acquitted.

Hertford has been used as a stand in for Barnstaple in Devon, with shop fronts given a 1970s make-over.

The filming has resulted in several road closures across the town this week, and producer Dan Winch thanked residents for their co-operation.

He said: Seeking out the right location for a period drama can be tricky, but we have been so lucky to find ourselves here in Hertford.

(Image: Alison Jenkins)

"We are incredibly grateful to everyone in the town for helping us make filming possible.

"The warm welcome and co-operation from residents and businesses has been terrific. We would like to offer our sincerest thanks."

A Very English Scandal is from former Doctor Who show-runner Russell T Davies and is based on a book by the same name published in 2016.
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Hertfordshire Police are looking for new volunteers to join the teams of inspectors who visit their cells and custody suites.

The volunteer inspectors would be able to visit the facilities in Hatfield and Stevenage at any time of the day or night to speak to detainees and make sure theyre being looked after.

All police forces in the UK are required by law to run a custody visiting scheme, to reassure the public that they are protecting the welfare of detainees.

There are currently 52 volunteer inspectors in Hertfordshire, all of whom are trained to introduce themselves to people in custody, who are often in a state of vulnerability and confusion.

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd, who is responsible for the operation of the scheme, said: Independent Custody Visitors (ICV) perform a vital role in helping to hold the constabulary to account and to make sure vulnerable people are looked after properly.

Im proud of the work of our custody officers, who work in sometimes very challenging situations and whenever Ive visited our suites Ive seen highly professional officers performing their duties.

ICVs make sure were getting it right and Im pleased were able to increase our number of visitors.

Chief Superintendent Nathan Briant, the head of Criminal Justice and Custody at Hertfordshire Constabulary, added: ICVs are an important link between the police and the public  they broker a relationship which we cant always do.

Custody visits are not just about scrutiny  detainees may welcome an independent face for a chat.

Applications will be open until the end of December.

To find out more visit www.hertscommissioner.org/independent-custody-visiting-hertfordshire
Coming on the heels of a self-evaluation retreat, the focus of this meeting will be on the branchs continuing efforts to better serve the citizens of Hickory. The meeting is open to the public.
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As assembly polls inch closer in Gujarat, political leaders of all parties have streamed in for a high-octane campaign. But a far more fierce fight is being waged on social media as political parties try to outpace each other in the race to grab eyeballs.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress are running sophisticated centrally coordinated campaigns, but other entities such as Patidars have also tasted great success mixing local flavour with a dash of humour.

VIKAS HAS GONE MAD

The background is reminiscent of a famous televised quiz show with the lure of a prize money of Rs 7 crore beyond the final hurdle.

Question: What is the one thing that you can hear but cannot see?

Answer: Vikas (development)

This viral WhatsApp message in Gujarati wasnt churned out by the well-oiled machinery of a major political party but by a group of young Patidar men in the cramped Bapunagar neighbourhood of Ahmedabad.

Their leader and creator of the successful social media campaign Vikas Gando Thayo Che (development has gone mad) is 20-year-old Sagar Savaliya, an engineering student who says he plunged into politics after the death of his friend and neighbour Swetang Patel in alleged police violence two years ago.

We lost Swetang. My house was ransacked after the August 25 Patidar rally demanding OBC reservation benefits. Since then I have never missed a chance to take a dig at the BJP, he says.

Savaliya is close to Patidar leader Hardik Patel whose Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti is actively fanning the campaign that has spread like wildfire over WhatsApp and Facebook, hurting the ruling BJP that is looking to win its sixth straight assembly election this December. Other viral Vikas memes include a heart-shaped pothole with the caption: Vikas has fallen in love, and posters put up near a rutted road that read: Be careful, there is too much development ahead.

One of the memes doing the rounds on social media shows a pothole in the shape of a heart accompanied with a caption, Vikas has fallen in love. (WhatsApp)

The Congress, which is looking to wrest power from the BJP after 22 years, was quick in sensing the popular mood. Party vice president Rahul Gandhi peppered his speeches in Saurashtra, central and south Gujarat with Vikas Gando Thayo Che references last month.

The BJP, a veteran at the social media game, has hit back with several concerted campaigns of its own that the party claims has racked up big numbers. But as the poll dates inch closer, one thing is certain: The election is being as fiercely fought on WhatsApp and Facebook as it is on the streets.

Social media analysts say the importance of the assembly election has pushed all parties to mount increasingly acerbic attacks on each other.

Social media has become a very important element in the overall campaigning. Three years back, Delhi showed the way, and this year it is in Gujarat, said Naresh Gupta, co-founder of advertisement agency Bang in the Middle. Gujarat is where the social media was used extensively by BJP in Lok Sabha elections, this time around both parties are fighting this tooth and nail.

But he warned that the trend could also backfire.There is a good chance that voters will get tired of it. The only way this conversation will reduce is when voters go beyond rhetoric and rumors, he told Hindustan Times.

THE CONGRESS PUSH

The runaway success of Vikas Gando Thayo Che made the opposition party realise that humour and local language messaging would work.

For the first time, we are using humour in our online engagement, said Rohan Gupta, 38, who handles the Congress partys social media campaign running out of a mall in Ahmedabad.

Gupta heads a team of 40 troops  comprising video editors, graphic designers and content writers  who work in three shifts.

The Congress war room in Ahmedabad. (Gujarat Congress IT cell.)

The party tasted recent success after Gandhis coinage of the term Gabbar Singh Tax to describe the teething troubles of the Goods and Services Tax went viral.

A Congress functionary who did not wish to be named said a local leader travelling with Gandhi in a bus had lamented that GST chopped the hands of traders, just like the fictional robber Gabbar Singh did in the 1975 Bollywood blockbuster Sholay. Gandhi immediately asked his team members to note down the metaphor.

The partys social media campaign is trifurcated  anti-BJP, anti-Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pro-Congress.

But there are no personal attacks against Modi, only on issues and the promises he made but never fulfilled, Gupta quickly added.

The war rooms content is disseminated to 2,000 volunteers, 50 in each district with six people monitoring 50 television channels.

There are 30,000 WhatsApp groups and 28 Twitter handles that keep 25 people busy round-the-clock.

The team also has what it calls surrogates  fake Facebook and Twitter accounts.

First time, we have answered them (BJP) in their own language. Certainly, they were taken in for a surprise, Gupta said.

The team has uploaded 200 videos in Gujarati, Hindi and English so far. One such video  Ek Tha Modi  got two million page views, claimed a team member.

Similarly, slogans such as Mara Hara Chetri Gaya (We have been duped), Dhanyavad Mota Saheb (Thank you Modiji), Aaya Pacha Chetrva (They have come back to fool us), Jo Jo Pacha Chetri Na Ja (Beware, dont let them fool you again) have been created.

All these phrases are spontaneous. We havent planned anything but kept the focus on positive campaign, Gupta explained.

Another war room -- set up at the party headquarters at Ellisbridge in the city  is tasked with providing talking points to state and central leaders apart from profiling all 182 assembly constituencies.

THE BJP FIGHT

Sitting in the quiet digital operation centre at the BJP headquarters on Ashoka Road in Delhi, the partys information technology chief Amit Malviya,40, flips through websites on his MacBook.

His eyes glow occasionally. A video campaign on Gujarat posted on the BJPs Facebook page on November 1 got 1.3 million views in less than six hours. By November 6, the number had grown to seven million.

Social media doesnt work in isolation. It is manifestation of many things, said Malviya. Any campaign will attract such traffic, only when it is in sync with peoples sentiment.

The groundwork was laid six months ago. Malviya and his team travelled across Gujarat to connect with workers and volunteers. Training sessions  on what, how and when of social media communication  were conducted at the grassroots level.

Today, the party boasts of an army of more than 15,000 workers and 10,000 volunteers linked to the BJPs digital war room in Delhi and Ahmedabad. Most of the work  such as shooting, editing, posting  is done by a team in Ahmedabad. A separate team of about 25-odd people in Delhis office monitors implementation.

BJPs social media drive kicked off with party chief Amit Shahs town hall programme, targeting youth between 18 and 30, on September 10. The event was telecast at 200 locations. Then, the BJP launched a campaign  Hu Chu Vikas, Hu Chu Gujarat (I am development, I am Gujarat). The positive campaign was driven by the belief that Gujaratis will spurn any negative campaign about the state.

Legislators and other elected representatives have been asked to make the best out of WhatsApp groups to push the BJPs social media campaign. Any legislator is generally part of 300-400 WhatsApp groups. That is a strength that we are using to push our campaign, Malviya said.

(With inputs from Geetika Rustagi in New Delhi)
A Dalit woman has accused a businessman and his two employees of gang raping her at an abandoned factory in Manglia, near Indore, on October 30.

The revelation on Thursday evening  because the woman feared being ostracised by her community  comes close on the heels of the gang rape of a UPSC aspirant in Bhopal on November 2.

The woman, a daily wager, had worked for Mahesh Gole alias Manoj, the businessman, earlier, and had gotten into his car at Teen Imli Square that night when returning from Palsud village where she had gone to visit her sister.

Instead of taking her to her home in Vijay Nagar area, Gole, his driver Salim Khan and another employee Santosh Gole drover her around the city before taking her to the abandoned factory in Manglia and raping her.

They again forced her into the car and drove around and finally dropped her at Mhow bypass road at around 1.30 am. Before leaving, they threatened to kill her if she told about the incident to anyone.

The woman managed to reach her home and told her husband about the incident.

Shipra police station in-charge Meena Karnawat said that initially the woman was reluctant to lodge a report due to fear of being ostracised, but her extended family and friends convinced her and they lodged a report on Thursday evening.

A case has been registered under sections of rape and the SC/ST Act. Shipra police have recovered some of her clothes from the abandoned factory.

Sources said all three accused have been arrested, but the police have not confirmed it.
If it is Eid, it is almost a cert that a Salman Khan film is releasing. The actor books Eid weekends much in advance and 2018 is no exception. Next year, Eid will see the release of Race 3, which will most probably see Salman playing a character with shades of grey for the first time in his career. What else is new? Well, the fact that another film will be releasing on the same day and it stars none other than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Salman and Aishwarya dated in the past and also made for one of the most popular onscreen couples.

Aishwaryas Fanney Khan, which also stars Anil Kapoor and Rajkummar Rao, has confirmed its release date. Trade analyst Taran Adarsh tweeted, Its official... #FanneyKhan confirmed for Eid 2018... Stars Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Rajkummar Rao.

A Mid-Day report quoted a source as saying, It will be an exciting clash, since Aishwarya and Salmans relationship continues to hold the audiences attention, even years after it went kaput. While Salman boasts of tremendous box-office pull, Ash and Anil too have a huge fan following and will draw the audience to the theatres.

According to the report, Aishwarya and Anil were onboard with the decision to release the film on Eid despite the clash with Race 3. The team is sure of Fanney Khan and wants a festive release to bolster its chances.

The source adds that producers of Fanney Khan consulted with Aishwarya and Anil Kapoor before zeroing in on the release date, and the two were more than happy to have a festive release. Arjun N Kapoor, Prernaa Arora, Bhushan Kumar and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra met Aishwarya and Anil, who were happy to have a festival release. The team is aware of Race 3 also releasing on Eid, but they are confident of their film.

Producers Arjun N Kapoor, Prernaa Arora and Bhushan Kumar released a joint statement saying, We have locked the release date of Fanney Khan on Eid 2018 (June 15). We decided on Eid because the lead character Fanney Khan, played by Anil Kapoor, is a Muslim character and theres no better day than Eid (to release it).
As the demand for a ban on Padmavati gets shriller, the makers came out with a new poster of the film, this time focussing on Shahid Kapoors Maharawal Ratan Singh. The actor plays the king of Chittor in the film and husband to Deepika Padukones Padmavati.

It appears to be a painting and the actor is looking glorious in his royal robes. He is dressed in a lavender silk antariya with detailing. He is sporting some jewellery and silk juttis. Earlier, when the first look of Shahid was revealed, he was described as, Maharawal Ratan Singh -- the epitome of courage, strength and respect. He stands for Rajput pride while Deepikas character was described as goddess queen.

The film also stars Ranveer Singh as Sultan Alauddin Khilji.

Meanwhile, the Sanjay Leela Bhansalis film is mired in controversies as various fringe organisations and political parties have objected to his movie, claiming it distorts history. Despite the director clarifying twice that his film does not have scene or sequence that would hurt any sentiments, several petitions have been filed across the country, seeking a ban on Padmavatis release. The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition asking for a ban on the films release claiming it hurts Rajput pride. Earlier Allahabad High Court had rejected a plea to ban the film as it propagates the practice of Sati. Both the courts said the Central Board of Film Certification, which is yet to certify the film, will take a call on the film.

Earlier, a bandh was called in Chittorgarh to protest films release.

Padmavati is slated to hit theatres on December 1.

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The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea seeking ban on the release of director Sanjay Leela Bhansalis upcoming film, Padmavati. The court has trusted Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to consider all aspects before granting a certificate to the Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh film.

The plea was filed by Siddharajsinh M Chudasama and 11 others. The group also demanded that a committee of historians be set up to check the film and if its a factual representation of history and the story of Rani Padmavati.

The Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the CBFC has enough guidelines in place already to grant certificates for films.

Earlier, the Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition seeking a ban on Padmavati for allegedly propogating the practice of Sati. A division bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Abdul Moin on Thursday said the petitioner has another forum, CBFC, where he could appeal for his grievance.

However, the films problems do not end here. Rajasthan government is planning to set up a committee to watch the film before letting it release.

Modalities in this direction will be worked out soon. The committee will watch the movie and will identify the scenes in the film that may hurt the sentiments of public, Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria told IANS.

What has to done after that... Do we have to talk to the filmmaker... It will only be decided after watching the film. Moreover, what we can do on our level will also be decided after the committee watches the film, Kataria said.

The film has been embroiled in controversies ever since it was announced that Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh will play Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji. Organisations like the Shri Rajput Karni Sena and Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha are under the impression that the film will show a romantic relationship between the two characters.

The films director and actors have clarified on several occasions that the film features no such scenes, not even a dream sequence, but the protestors are still threatening theatre owners with violence if the film should release. On Wednesday, Bhansali had issued a video clarifying that the film will not hurt Rani Padmavatis image or Rajput pride in anyway but to no avail.

The film also stars Shahid Kapoor as Maha Rawal Ratan Singh and is scheduled for a December 1 release.

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Actor Parvathy, who is a prominent name in the Tamil and Malayalam film industries, is all set to make her Hindi film debut with Irrfan in the upcoming romantic comedy, Qarib Qarib Singlle. Ever since she made her debut with the Malayalam flick, Out Of Syllabus (2006), she hasnt looked back. Recipient of many awards, the actor who enjoys a unique fan base  reveals her journey hasnt been easy, as she, too, had to face sexual harassment a la Hollywood, where a number of actors have come out and confessed to being exploited by powerful people like Harvey Weinstein.

Yes, I have met such people, and have experienced it (sexual harassment), too. Its not shocking, and that makes it worse. Statistics show that 90 per cent of women you will speak to, in any industry, have been harassed in some way. [There has been] not just sexual, but mental harassment, too. Being used that way, being threatened to make you go out of workI have gone through the entire spectrum in the last 11 years. But I have figured how to change that narrative, now, she says.

However, Parvathy quickly points out that sexual misconduct goes beyond the workplace. When it happens in your own family, youre told Chhodh de, uss bare mein baat nahin karni hai (Lets not talk about that). Women say Its okay, next time we will be careful.

When a film like Highway (2014) comes, people discuss it, and what Alias (Bhatt, the lead actor in the film) character says that something like this indeed happens even within your own family, your relatives are more worried about what the society will say, and lets hush ourselves. Since this is what we are told when we are children, when it happens at the workplace, our first thought is not to tell it to anybody. Its more uncomfortable being violated than speaking about it. Also, even women assault men, [its] not just one way, explains the 29-year-old.

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The 23rd edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), Indias second oldest film festival, rolls back into the eastern metropolis on Friday, welcoming world cinema, attracting the finest of talents and embracing fresh cinematic experiments.

Beginning with a star-studded inaugural on Friday, the gala event, hosted by the West Bengal government, will screen an assemblage of 143 films spanning 53 countries under 16 different categories till November 17.

Stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan will be present at the inaugural ceremony. Tamil film icon Kamal Haasan and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt are also slated to attend the ceremony, to be presided over by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Britain will be the focus country this year in commemoration of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017 with as many as 13 of its films part of the week-long celebration.

Headlining the British highlight in a retrospective are six films of acclaimed English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. Welcome to Sarajevo, Trishna, The Claim are part of the film fest roster.

Lady Macbeth, Adult Life Skills and Sea Sorrow are slotted in the contemporary British films while the classics is dominated by David Leans Lawrence of Arabia and Alfred Hitchcocks The Lady Vanishes among others.

Icons of Indian cinema Tom Alter, Om Puri and Ramananda Sengupta will be remembered through rich tributes.

Three films will be showcased in memory of cinematographer Sengupta (Headmaster) and actors Tom Alter (Shatranj Ke Khiladi) and Om Puri (Sadgati).

Promising the best of world cinema, the organisers have brought Iranian film maker Mostafa Taghizadehs Yellow (2017) and French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godards The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company.

Yellow opens the festival.

The screening of The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company is significant as this will be the films first Indian screening. The 1986 film, made for television, was restored and released in October this year in France.

A special tribute section has been devoted to 10 well-known filmmakers such as award-winning Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu (Clair Obscur), French auteurs Arnaud Desplechin (Ismaels Ghosts starring Marion Cotillard) and Claire Denis (Juliette Binoche headlined Bright Sunshine In) as also South Korean director and Cannes veteran Hong Sang-soo (The Day After).

Stressing on innovation, this year the fest introduces Indian languages competition category as also Unheard India: Rare Indian Languages section featuring eight films in as many languages (Monpa, Konkani, Kodava, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Khasi and Chakma). The list includes Manju Borahs Songs of the Horned Owl (Bodo) and Ahsan Majids Sonam, the first feature made in Monpa dialect of the Indo-Tibetan branch of languages.

To give a fillip to the Bengali film industry, the festival will host the premiere of three Bengali films including acclaimed playwright and West Bengal IT Minister Bratya Basu-starrer Baranda.

A package of 12 National Award-winning films (Bisorjon, Dashakriya and others) has been pegged as must-watch by the organisers.

A contemporary Moroccan cinema package encapsulating six films including The 5th String -- which won special mention of the jury honour at the National Film Festival of Morocco, Tangier, 2011 -- is also in the programme.

Six films of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, one of Thailands most celebrated working directors will be screened. Three Thailand National Film Association Awards winner Fun Bar Karaoke is among them.

As for the competitive section, the womens directors competition has been replaced with Innovation in Moving Images with a prize money of Rs 51 lakh for the best film and Rs 21 lakh for the best director.

On schedule are no less than 14 films including German-Austrian venture Uncle Vanya, Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Sayeeds Death of A Poet, and Argentinian outing A Sort of A Family.

In a toast to cinematic technique, an exposition of original equipment used by the Lumiere brothers, auteur Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak has been planned. The Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture will be given by Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London.

A total of 93 foreign language films will be showcased through the festival and 50 from India.

The films would be screened across 12 venues in the city.

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Even as the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking a stay on the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmavati, BJP member Arjun Gupta has urged in a letter addressed to Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Gupta, who is the general secretary of the Uttar Bharatiya Morcha, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said something disgusting is being done in the pursuit of earning money and for boosting ones career.

Ranveer Singh plays Alauddin Khilji in Padmavati.

Referring to Bhansali, Gupta said that he has tried to malign Rani Padmavatis sacrifice through Padmavati. The whole country, not just the Rajput community, is standing against it. He needs to be severely punished by being tried for treason for his attempt to distort history, so that in future any filmmaker is wary of these kind of projects.

Gupta has also appealed that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to not certify this film. I am fully confident that my letter will taken into consideration, and a sedition case is run (registered) against Bhansali, Gupta added.

Padmavati is slated to release on December 1, and there is brouhaha over the film as various factions have been targeting the filmmaker for distortion of history in the movie, touted as a historical drama.

Bhansali has repeatedly clarified that the film has no such scene between Rani Padmavati and invader Alauddin Khilji which can hurt sentiments.

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Hundreds of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines, which were used for the first time at all polling stations in the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, malfunctioned across the hill state on Thursday holding polling for hours at several places.

Election Commission officials said 347 machines developed a technical snag at 218 polling booths during the mock poll and they failed to function at 129 stations when the actual voting began at 8am.

The poll watchdog installed 11,115 VVPAT machines at 7,525 polling stations across all the 68 constituencies in the hill state. A printer is attached under the VVPAT to the balloting unit and kept in the voting compartment. The paper slip remains visible on VVPAT for seven seconds through a transparent window.

The paper slip bears the name and symbol of the candidate along with a recording of the vote in the control unit. And in case of any dispute, the slip can be counted to verify the result being shown on the electronic voting machine.

Chief electoral officer of the state Pushpendra Rajput admitted that the machines developed a glitch at some places but said they were rectified.

The commission had launched a statewide drive ahead of the elections to disseminate information on the use of VVPAT machines but the polling staff at some centres faced difficulty in operating them.

Polling could not begin at Deleg polling station in Bilaspur district till 12pm. Voters faced a similar problem in Kaza, the subdivisional headquarters of the remote Spiti valley in Lahaul and Spiti district.

The machine developed a snag at 11am. It took an hour for technicians to fix the problem. The machine again stopped functioning at 4pm leading to another delay in polling, Tenzin, a voter, told the Hindustan Times over the phone.

Similar issued were reported from Kangra, Mandi, Shimla, and Sirmaur districts of the hill state.

The state with five million voters recorded a turnout of 74% where the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are locked in a tight battle. As many as 337 candidates are in the fray for 68 assembly seats, the results of which would be declared on December 18.

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Dina Wadia was among the ones that got away. I wont pretend to know the daughter of Pakistans founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, but eight years ago as the legal wrangling over Jinnah House in Mumbai took another labyrinthine lunge, I reached out to the then 90-year-old for an interview. She was then a fellow Manhattanite, and picked up her landline. She was adamant about refusing an interview  not just because her property claim was sub judice, but also she just did not speak to the media. At least not on the record, for after the preliminary refusal, she was willing to converse courteously for a fair while. At the end of the call, I left my number with her in case she decided to speak out but never heard back. Despite my request being nixed, the impression that lasts is one of genteel charm limned with civility.

I had a similar experience last year, and again the subject was an elderly lady, in this case, Sylvia Nanavati, who was at the centre of the sensational Nanavati trial of the 1950s, the tabloid treasure trove of its times. In this case, she was a fellow Toronto-area resident, and she too was polite in steadfastly refusing to revisit that lurid past. Once again, as with Wadia, the manner in which she turned down my entreaty made it seem more like an act of kindness.

Both ladies were obviously products of an age that far preceded our current era of instant and shrill communication and commentary. That interaction can be pleasant even if its over a point of difference appears to have turned into an historical artefact as communication has broken down into 140 (or now 280) characters of disagreeability.

The ruling tsar of Twitter in that sense is certainly American President Donald Trump, a man who wields words as gently as his North Korean counterpart brandishes his missiles. One year since he was elected to occupy the Oval Office, he is leaving a lasting legacy of taking tact and grace out of the vocabulary of governance, as if the art of making a deal cannot be articulated without snide asides. Indian interlocutors will be well aware of this of vicious circling back, as with his critical remarks while withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement or announcing a South Asia policy. Working with Washington means watching his words since he appears loath to do so himself.

In attempting to emulate the US as a global power, official Chinese media and spokespersons also seem to be aping it in being obnoxious, as the recent Doklam standoff showed.

Thats part of a pattern of Twitterised trash talk that is the parlance of this decade. It has given fresh meaning to the phrase digital divide. Retorts are delivered with spin and snark rather than substance.

Just as Wadia passed away last week, the art of courteous conversation too seems to be on life support.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on American affairs

The views expressed are personal

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I grew up in Manhattan and lived in the heart of New York City through my 20s. I would go regularly for long runs through the island to the Hudson River. What was once a quasi-industrial line of warehouses and docks has been spruced up recently into a congenial waterfront park. With the lazy river on one side, Id jog south past the stumps of old wooden piers towards the skyscrapers of New Yorks financial district. Id take a break by the water and watch ferries cross back and forth to New Jersey as I caught my breath.

It was along this same path that a man drove his rented truck mercilessly over cyclists on 31 October. The Uzbek driver, who was a legal resident of the United States, copied similar ISIS-aligned attacks on civilians. This was the most significant Islamist terrorist incident in New York since 2001.

Typically in a city as embedded in the world as it is part of the United States, the victims in New York came mostly from other countries. Of the eight people killed, two were American, one was Belgian, and five were from Argentina. (Outside of New York, no place has been as affected by this attack as the Argentinian city of Rosario, the hometown of all five slain Argentines. It is observing several days of mourning.)

There is no sense to be made out of their killings. One grief-stricken person described his friends death to the Argentine press as a death without meaning.

That absence of meaning is central to most terrorist attacks. The arbitrariness of the atrocity implicates everyone, giving rise to that common refrain after every terrorist incident, It could have been me. I was miles away in Brooklyn when the attack happened, but I found myself immediately feeling it personally, remembering my thousands of footsteps on that same asphalt, seeing through my own eyes  not through the lenses of photographers or CCTV cameras  the corner of West and Chambers Streets where the attacker careened to a stop.

And yet it wasnt me. I wasnt there. Though wounded, my city remains basically the same place today as it was before. The attack was brutal, but it was stopped fairly swiftly. City authorities didnt cancel the annual Halloween parade scheduled just a few hours later. On local TV, journalists got sound-bites about perseverance and resilience from people dressed up as chickens, super-heroes, emoji icons, and even from a man wearing an ensemble costume of Vladimir Putin riding Donald Trump. All these creatures spoke in unison: the terrorists wont stop us from living our lives.

The ordinariness of our lives and their urban rhythms seem somehow ennobled by a terrorist attack. Righteous hashtags proliferate on social media. Boring intersections and bland plazas suddenly become charged with greater significance. We are made to feel that there is heroism in just carrying on.

This is all part of the increasingly familiar, globalised script of responses to terrorist attacks. Its how you make sense of the nonsensical, how you salvage virtue from the malice of this violence.

But as forced as that tendency does feel to me, it is far superior to its obverse.

As soon as the attack happened, the American president rushed to Twitter to inveigh against Muslims and to push his anti-immigrant agenda. Trump grotesquely forces meaning upon the meaningless violence of terrorists. He latches on to every excuse to advocate his thinly-veiled racist desire to reduce immigration (including Indian immigration) to the United States. He pledged to step up Americas extreme vetting program in the wake of the attack. Never mind that nothing in the attackers background could have predicted his actions. Never mind that he was raised in what was apparently a secular, middle class family in Tashkent and only became radicalised years after immigrating to the United States.

Cities like New York and London and Mumbai are inevitable targets for extremists. They defy zealots and purists. They are diverse, complicated, and contradictory. Whenever I would sit by the Hudson and watch the boats on the river, I would think of the centuries of people from all over the world who came in and out of New York to make this city their own.

By its ethos, New York is fundamentally opposed to the puritanism of the jihadi. But New York also cannot countenance the bigotry of those like Trump who would see the city turn in on itself. As impossible as it is to rescue meaning from the barbarism of terrorism, it is even more essential to resist attempts to impose meaning from the outside, to resist enlarging the crime by lending it an existential horror that it desires but does not deserve.

Kanishk Tharoor is the author of Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories.

The views expressed are personal

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Wildlife personnel with the help of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) began an intensive combing drive in Pithoragarh near the India-Nepal border on Friday, after a leopardess carcass without its head, claws and skin was found in Almora.

Officials suspect the involvement of an international gang for which they will seek help of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) to crack the case. Similarly, an eight-member team will hold a parallel investigation at the department level.

We believe that an international gang is behind this incident. To prevent smuggling of the animals body parts, we started combing areas along the India-Nepal border, said IP Singh, conservator of forest, North Kumaon.

The carcass was found near Kafli Khanyadi village in Bhanoli area on Thursday evening. What drew the attention of forest officials was the neatly skinned carcass with the head and claws removed skillfully.

Preliminary investigation revealed the spotted cat died of liver damage. There was an injury mark leading to suspicion that the leopardess was shot down, but this was ruled out by forest officers and veterinarians

Forest officials suspect that the leopardess was trapped by using a poisoned bait. Involvement of locals is not ruled out as the officials interrogated a few suspects in the village.

The SSB was briefed about the poaching and the forest staff is closely working with SSB personnel. The forest staff has alerted its intelligence network to look out for evidence and tip-offs to crack the case.

The poaching happened near a village which is beyond the boundary of forest. We will study all aspects of the case, divisional forest officer (civil soyam,Almora) RC Sharma said.

Incidentally, leopard attacks have gone up in Almora, which shares boundary with Pithoragarh, in the past few months.

Forest officers blame the increasing population of spotted cats for the spike in man-leopard conflicts. Of the roughly 340 leopard deaths this year, nearly 80 has been reported in Uttarakhand alone, as per statistics of Delhi based Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).

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The Uttarakhand unit of Congress on Friday alleged that the BJP government was working with a political vendetta on mind, a day after brakes were put on a health insurance scheme launched by the erstwhile Harish Rawat government.

The Mukhyamantri Swasthya Beema Yojana (MSBY) -- the Chief Ministers Health Insurance Scheme  offers cashless health cover of up to 1.75 lakh to families of non-government employees not falling under tax-paying brackets.

On Thursday, the state government stalled the MSBY citing non-extension of services of a private insurance company working for the scheme. Instructions were issued to all hospitals to stop providing services through the MSBY cards.

The opposition party alleged that the scheme was on the BJP governments radar as it had been launched during the tenure of its government.

Notably, more than 12 lakh families across the state are enrolled in the scheme.

The first phase of the MSBY was launched by former chief minister Rawat in April 2015, which provided base cover of 50,000 for general medical treatment to families at all government hospitals and some empanelled private hospitals.

The Congress government launched its second phase in August last year, extending the schemes cover from 50,000 to 1.75 lakh by adding tertiary care cover amounting to 1.25 lakh per family per year for treatment of critical ailments like heart and kidney diseases.

A total of 12,06 general ailments and 459 critical ailments were covered in the scheme.

Alleging that the BJP government was playing vendetta politics on a scheme that was launched by the Congress government, the former chief minister said he was shocked to learn that patients were no longer receiving benefits of the MSBY.

If we had introduced a cover of 1.75 lakh, this (BJP) government should have taken it up to 2.50 lakh, but instead, it has failed to even keep the scheme going, Rawat told HT on Friday.

Calling the move counterproductive, he said: If the scheme has been affected due to non-extension of services, it (government) should have done the groundwork in advance so that patients are not forced to suffer.

Rawat also alleged that the BJP government had tampered with other schemes (launched by the Congress government) like the food security scheme and kanya dhan yojana among others.

Darshan Singh Rawat, media coordinator of chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, however, rejected the allegations of the move being politically motivated.

It (discontinuation of MSBY) has nothing to do with politics the services of the insurance company have been discontinued and the government is working to bring another (private firm) on board by following the due (tender) process, he told HT.

Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat holds the health portfolio.

Dr Archana Srivastava, director general (medical health and family welfare), said the scheme had not been stopped, but only temporarily stalled as the contract with the private company had come to an end.

We are working on the strategy and are hopeful that well be able to bring this (MSBY) back on track very soon, she told HT.

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Uttarakhand became the fifth state of the country Friday to introduce teleradiology services for relaying clinical test images to medical experts elsewhere for interpretation and diagnosis.

Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat attended the launch of the service at the Pauri district hospital in Garhwal region. Of the total 35 hospitals to be covered by the project, the facility will be available at 12 state-run hospitals as of now. Work is on to begin services at the remaining 23 hospitals.

Prior to the hill state, teleradiology was launched for government hospitals in Haryana, Assam, Meghalaya and Andhra Pradesh.

Launched under the public-private partnership mode, teleradiology services will involve transmission of radiological test images of X-ray, ultrasound, MRI and CT scans from one location to another for seeking

expert consultation from radiologists and physicians at the other end.

This scheme will boost health services in the state, especially in remote, hill places and will help in gaining timely diagnosis and treatment of patients, Rawat said. Now patients in remote areas will be able to save time and expense. Doctors will also get assistance as experts will be able to study the scans and suggest the line of treatment.

Poor standard network technologies such as the internet, telephone lines and mobile connectivity, especially in higher reaches of the state, will pose its own set of challenges to the project. We are working to improve digital connectivity in the hills (in this regard), the chief minister said.

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The Uttarakhand Board of School Education (UBSE) may be holding exams as per Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) pattern for class 9-12. But, neither its teachers are trained in the marking system nor students understand how to attempt questions.

Thats one key reason why the passing percentage of the state board is between 65%-75%, say sources.

Though a little late, yet the board has taken a step forward in this direction. After awakening from deep sleep, the board has prepared sample papers and distributed to district officers for training teachers.

The sample papers include single line, double line and word limit answers.

RK Kunwar, director of school education, told Hindustan Times, The exercise is to train teachers on marking system and also for students.

The classic paper of CBSE is divided into sections. For example, the question paper of mathematics generally has four sections of about 29 questions. Starting from section A which carries one mark each to section B which carries 2 marks and section C carry 4 marks each and D carries 6 marks each.

According to teachers, the students used to spend time writing lengthy answers which are for less marks as compared to the answers that carry more marks.

There was lack of answer writing training to students who used to spend most of their times explaining answers with less marks. As a result, most of the students either used to quit answering detailed questions or didnt have enough time to explain them, a government teacher said requesting anonymity.

Even teachers werent trained in marking. Teachers also need some practice to do proper marking, Kunwar added.

One key feature added to the sample papers is multiple choice questions. Officers claim that such questions would help students in gearing up for competitive examinations.

Board students should be well versed with the competitive examination pattern as well. Multiple choice questions will bring in that aspect too, Kunwar said.

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A 24-year-old law student was allegedly shot dead by a motorcycle-borne attacker when he was out for a stroll at night in north Delhis Hardev Nagar near Burari on Thursday.

The victim, Ashish Bhardwaj, was with two friends when the biker stopped them and asked them what they were doing in the area late in the night.

An argument ensued and a scuffle broke out between them, during which the biker allegedly took out his gun and shot Bhardwaj on his neck. He died on the spot and the biker fled, said police.

Bhardwaj, who hailed from West Champaran district in Bihar, was a final-year student at a private university in Gurgaon. He lived with his brother Rajnish Bhardwaj in a rented flat in Hardev Nagar.

Rajnish is a postgraduate student from Delhi University. Their father, Ved Prakash, is an advocate in Bettiah, Bihar.

Jatin Narwal, deputy commissioner of police (north), said the crime was reported to the police control room at 11.45pm on Thursday.

A case of murder was registered at the Burari police station. We have got some clues about the attacker. He has been identified. We are conducting raids to nab him, said Narwal.

During the investigation, Narwal said, it was learnt that Bhardwaj was out for a stroll with his friends Himanshu and Anoop. A man carrying a double-barrel gun on his shoulder interrupted them on a Splendour motorcycle, he said. The biker asked the three what they were doing outside in the neighbourhood late at night.

When the three asked him to mind his business, the biker started abusing them. This started an altercation in which the biker threatened to shoot them, added Narwal.

A scuffle broke out between them during which the three dragged him down from the motorcycle. When they tried to snatch the gun, the biker fired a bullet that hit Bhardwajs neck and he collapsed, said Narwal, adding that after the shooting, the biker fled on his motorcycle.

Bhardwajs friends rushed him to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him dead. His brother and other family members were informed about his death, police said.
At least five students of Jawaharlal Nehru University have been fined between Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000 for cooking food (biryani) in front of the Administrative Building, as per an order issued by chief proctor Kaushal Kumar Sharma.

A proctorial inquiry was initiated into the matter after some students cooked food outside the Administrative Building while others waited inside for an appointment with the Vice-Chancellor on June 27.

The office order issued on Wednesday said that the students had been found guilty of indiscipline and were imposed a fine of Rs 6,000. The order issued to students said they had been fined for being involved in cooking food (biryani)... and eating it thereafter along with other students . They have been given 10 days to pay the fine.

The order said that students have been fined under any other act which may be considered by the Vice-Chancellor or any other competent authority to be an act of violation of discipline and conduct.

Former JNUSU general secretary Satarupa Chakraborty was also fined Rs 10,000 for, having food (biryani) prepared by some students, and also for leading the protest demonstration inside V-C office. For the second charge, she has been found guilty under a category that includes all acts of violence, coercion... which disrupts the normal academic and administrative functioning of the university or any other act which incites or leads to violence. Earlier, protests within 100 metres of the Administrative Building were banned by the JNU administration and Delhi High Court.

The then JNUSU president Mohit Pandey said the incident took place when union representatives had gone to the V-C office seeking an appointment. We were waiting inside since afternoon. Meanwhile, students waiting outside cooked food as no one knew when we would get the appointment. We got the appointment late in the night, he said.

The chief proctor refused to comment and directed HT to the Registrar. The Registrar said he was out of town and the V-C did not respond to calls and text messages seeking his response.

Amir Malik, one of the students who has been fined, said the students decided to cook food as all the dhabas in campus close at 11pm. The V-C is targeting students who oppose him. There is no specific charge against us except that it says the V-C can consider any act to be in violation of rules. Since when is cooking indiscipline? he said.

Chakraborty said the administration was using this to target students. JNUs proctor office finds cooking, eating biryani, and waiting for the V-C for an appointment an act of indiscipline, she said.

Another student Chepal Sherpa said he only visited the spot for a couple of minutes to visit his friend and that he was not a part of the protest.

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Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal on Friday gave his nod for the governments odd-even scheme, with a rider.

Baijal approved the car-rationing scheme on condition that it was okayed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) too.

On Thursday, soon after chief minister Arvind Kejriwal decided to bring back the odd-even scheme, the file was sent to Baijal for his approval. He returned the file the next day saying, Approved, subject to the NGT order, if any, sources said.

Earlier in the day, the NGT termed the Delhi governments odd-even road rationing plan a farce, and said the scheme cannot be implemented from next week without its permission.

However, despite the uncertainty, the government held a series of meetings to ensure proper arrangements for the drive. Transport minister Kailash Gahlot, who is at the helm of the drive, chaired back-to-back meetings.

Free bus rides

The minister announced that the government will allow free travel for commuters in all Delhi Transport Corporation and cluster buses from November 13-17. Also, 50% of the seats in all DTC buses will be reserved for women during the drive.

The free bus ride will cost the government around Rs 15 crore for five days. DTC and DIMTS wont have to bear the loss as the amount will be reimbursed to them, an official said.

The corporation has arranged 500 private buses, under Paryavaran Bus Seva, and each of them will have marshals for passenger safety. Sufficient number of traffic supervisory staff and timekeepers will be deputed to help the commuters. DTC helpline No.41400400 & 1800118181 will be functional round the clock during odd-even scheme for any kind of help, said DTC spokesperson Aradhna.

Cab aggregators

Cab aggregators Ola and Uber met Gahlot on Friday and maintained that they would suspend dynamic pricing during the five days.

While Uber had already announced the move on Thursday and also offered cheaper cab rides to and from metro stations, Ola jumped into the fray on Friday.

Civil defence volunteers

Another meeting with district magistrates was convened by Gahlot where he directed them to give challaning powers to kanungos or lower ranked revenue officers.

Around 5,000 volunteers will be deployed and the divisional commissioners have been asked to set up control centres.

Aerial water sprinkling

Delhi environment minister Imran Hussain on Friday said the government has approached helicopter service operator, Pawan Hans Limited, for aerial water sprinkling to curb pollution in the city.

Delhi government is in talks with Pawan Hans for aerial sprinkling of water over the city to bring down particulate matter, the minister tweeted.

Pawan Hans, in a letter to Sharvan Bagaria  secretary to Delhi environment minister  sought time from the minister saying the exercise will require comprehensive feasibility study and approvals from DGCA, AAI, defence and Delhi administration.

The company is set to meet the minister and other environment department officials on Saturday.

The company also suggested setting up a Joint Working Group of Delhi administration and Pawan Hans team to work out the proposal. It also said that a SOP (standard operating procedure) should be developed for carrying out the exercise over the city as the national capital has areas of no-flying zones.

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The National Green Tribunal on Friday termed the Delhi governments odd-even road rationing plan a farce, and said the scheme cannot be implemented from next week without its permission.

The tribunal is likely to decide on the matter in its next hearing at 11am on Saturday.

Arvind Kejriwal-led government announced on Thursday that the scheme, which allows private cars with odd and even registration numbers to ply only on alternate days, would be rolled out from November 13 to 17 in view of the rising pollution in Delhi. However, experts questioned the timing of the move, given that the air quality may improve by then, and pointed out that two earlier editions in 2016 had failed to alleviate pollution levels.

Odd-even wont be implemented without a green signal from us. We are not stopping it yet. Hearing on Saturday, the tribunal directed.

It is a farce. The publicity you gave to odd-even 2, did you give to destination buses too? it asked the Delhi government, referring to the non-stop buses launched earlier this year in a bid to encourage car owners to travel by public transport.

A bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar asked the Delhi government to provide details of the ambient air quality during the earlier implementation of the odd-even scheme. It also directed the governments counsel to be ready with all the requisite data and reasons for implementing another edition of the same.

Give us figures on how much cars contribute to the total air pollution of the city... also give us figures on how much one diesel-run heavy vehicle pollutes when compared to petrol cars. What is the contribution of small petrol cars in Delhis pollution, the court asked the government.

On April 21 last year, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had told the NGT that there was no data to suggest that the odd-even scheme caused a decline in vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR. Most fluctuations in PM10 and PM2.5 happen due to changes in weather and wind patterns, it added.

Also, what is the justification for exempting two-wheelers from odd-even? These are a serious contributor to Delhis emissions, accounting for 46% of the total air pollution, the NGT said.

The air quality in the national capital has deteriorated to severe levels, and a blanket of thick haze enveloped the region as pollution levels breached permissible standards by multiple times.

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The father of a six-year-old boy, whose body was found in a tank in south Delhis Vasant Kunj branch of Ryan International School last year, said on Friday that only a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe can expose the botch-ups by Delhi Police in his sons case.

The comment by Ramhat Meena, father of 6-year-old Divyansh Kakora, came after the CBI arrested a Class 11 student for the murder of an 8-year-old boy in Ryan International School, Bhondsi, turning the case on its head and seemingly demolishing Gurgaon Polices investigation.

A bus conductor was initially arrested on charges of murder and sexual assault of Class 2 student Pradhyumn Thakur, who was found with his throat slit outside a school toilet on September 8.

CBIs findings show that the police probe had several lapses in the Gurgaon case. Perhaps connivance may also come up later. This has been the core of our argument against Delhi Police from the start. Yet, investigators here simply registered a case of death by negligence, Meena said. Had my sons case been handled by the CBI as well, the truth would have come out much earlier, and there would have been no botch up in Divyanshs case.

Divyansh Kakora was found dead in Ryan International School, Vasant Kunj, on January 30, 2016, and police filed a chargesheet against five individuals, including the school principal and his class teacher, in May last year.

The police investigation had concluded that Divyanshs death was the result of an accidental drowning that could have been prevented had the school staff been more alert.

Meena and his lawyer Aditya Agarwal said besides the fact that both the deaths happened in different branches of the same school, there were other parallels that could be drawn in the two cases.

We had asked police to probe the role of two students and submitted a written follow-up complaint after talking to his friends. However, police never even bothered to look into the possibility, said Agarwal.

Like the Haryana government, the Delhi government too had recommended a CBI probe after the SDMs inquiry concluded that the death was mysterious. But none of these facts made it into the police chargesheet, nor was the probe transferred, he added.

Meena is hopeful that the Delhi High Court will rule favourably when his petition for a murder probe by the CBI  in which he challenged the Delhi Police findings  comes up for hearing on December 7.

Meena moved the HC last year and the court told him that it will consider his plea again if he wasnt satisfied with the police probe.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Ishwar Singh refused to comment on the matter, saying the case was still under trial and they would wait for the court to take further decision.
About 45 firms participated in cluster two of IIM Ahmedabads summer placement process for the PGP class of 2019 on Wednesday. These included government enterprises and companies dealing with consumer goods, general management and leadership, advisory consulting, and consumer services.

Consumer goods and services included regulars such as AB InBev, Airtel, HUL, Mondelez, P&G, Reckitt Benckiser, Star TV, and Wipro, among others. AB InBev made nine offers, Airtel and HUL made eight offers each, while P&G and Star TV made seven offers each. The general management and leadership cohort saw a large number of offers. The RPG Group made 14 offers whereas the Aditya Birla Group made 10 offers.

Firms like Amazon and Flipkart in the Retail B2B space. Amazon extended 12 offers and Flipkart made eight. The Government of Telangana, which hired for the industry and commerce and ITE&C departments, made five offers.

The third cluster will be held on November 12.
The process for entry-level admissions to private schools for the 2018-19 session will begin on November 30.

The decision was taken during a meeting between UT director, school education, Rupinderjit Singh Brar and principals of various private schools at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 19, on Wednesday.

Agreeing to a common admission schedule, the school heads decided to upload all relevant information, including fee, on their school website.

Common admission schedule All schools will put the details on their websites by Nov 30 Display of information: Nov 30 Submission of forms: Dec 12 List of eligible candidates: Jan 16 Selection of students: Jan 31 Fee collection: Feb 12

To avoid any ambiguity during admissions to economical weaker section (EWS) students under the Right to Education, the UT education department also constituted a committee, comprising principals of 10 schools.

They include principals of Sacred Heart Convent School, Sector 26; St Johns High School, Sector 26; Saint Annes Convent School, Sector 32; Carmel Convent School, Sector 9; Delhi Public School, Sector 40; and Chitkara International School, Sector 25.

A committee comprising of ten school principals will oversee the EWS admissions

Heated arguments

Meanwhile, the meeting witnessed heated arguments between Brar and HS Mamik, president of the Independent Schools Association. Mamik reportedly told the education department that he was ready to give up the minority status of his school  Vivek High School, Sector 38  provided the government gave funds for 25% reservation to EWS students.

As of now, schools are provided 10% relief as per the land allotment scheme.

The DSE told him that it wouldnt be possible as the school was already using the government land and could get only 10% relief. The association members plan to meet the education secretary to discuss the matter.
Two years after countries signed a landmark climate agreement in Paris, the world remains far off course from preventing drastic global warming in the decades ahead. On Monday, the latest round of post-Paris international climate talks began in Bonn, Germany, to discuss how to step up efforts.

Under the Paris deal, each country put forward a proposal to curtail its greenhouse-gas emissions between now and 2030. But no major industrialized country is on track to fulfil its pledge, according to data from the Climate Action Tracker. Not the European Union. Not Canada. Not Japan. And not the United States, which under President Donald Trump is still planning to leave the Paris agreement by 2020.

Worse, even if governments do take further steps to meet their individual pledges, the world will still be on pace to warm well in excess of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold that world leaders vowed to avoid in Paris because they deemed it unacceptably risky.

One year after the Paris Agreement entered into force, we still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future, said Erik Solheim, head of the UN Environment Program.

Even before Trumps election, the goal set by former President Barack Obama of slashing US emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 would have been difficult to hit. While emissions from the US power sector are falling rapidly  as hundreds of coal-fired plants are retired in favour of cleaner natural gas, wind and solar  other sectors, like transportation and heavy industry, have proved harder to clean up.

Native people from Fiji sit between delegates during the opening of the COP 23 Fiji UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn. (AP Photo)

Trump, for his part, has disavowed his predecessors pledge and is dismantling Obama-era regulations designed to push down emissions further, such as the Clean Power Plan. And while states like New York and California are still pursuing their own policies on renewable energy and electric vehicles, they may not prove sufficient to close the gap.

For now, analysts think the United States will fall well short of its Paris pledge. That, in turn, could make it harder for future administrations to pursue the deeper emissions cuts by mid-century needed to help keep the world below 2 degrees of global warming.

Climate Action Tracker provides a rough estimate of the cuts each country will need to make to avoid 2 degrees Celsius of warming, with wealthier nations expected to do more. How to divide the burden remains a major debate within climate talks.

The EU may fall slightly short of its promise to cut emissions 40% by 2030, compared with 1990 levels. While European officials have created a continent-wide cap-and-trade system to curb emissions from electricity and heavy industry, that regulation leaves out sectors like transportation and agriculture.

Progress among individual European countries has been mixed: Over the past two years, Britain has been rapidly phasing out coal power, aided by a national carbon tax and cheap natural gas. But Germany is expected to miss its near-term emissions goals, as recent rapid growth in renewables has been partly offset by the closure of nuclear power plants.

Outside experts say that China crafted a Paris pledge that was relatively easy to meet: Overall emissions would peak around 2030 and the country would get 20% of its energy from non-fossil sources.

Several recent studies suggest that Chinas emissions could peak years ahead of schedule as the countrys once-insatiable demand for energy slows (although other analysts have questioned the accuracy of Chinas emissions reporting). The central government has already cancelled plans for 100 coal plants and is investing heavily in cleaner sources like solar, wind and nuclear. The country also plans to sell millions of electric vehicles in the years ahead.

Demonstrators take part in a so-called Climate March in Bonn, western Germany. . (AFP Photo)

Yet keeping the world below 2 degrees of warming would likely require Chinas coal emissions not just to flatten but to fall sharply by 2030.

Because India is still relatively poor, with 240 million of its citizens lacking access to electricity, the nation has long argued that wealthier countries should take the lead on cutting emissions.

As such, Indias pledge was less restrictive than pledges from Europe and the United States. The country vowed to install more clean energy and improve its carbon intensity  the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of gross domestic product  while still allowing total emissions to rise between now and 2030. Indias per capita emissions would likely remain below those of China or the United States.

Some recent studies have suggested that India can achieve those modest goals, as the falling cost of renewables and shifting market conditions have allowed the country to scale back its plans for new coal plants after 2022. A recent report from the UN Environment Program argued that India had ample room to strengthen its emission pledges  as would likely be necessary to help keep the world below 2 degrees of warming. But the Indian government has asked for aid from wealthier countries to do so.

What happens next in climate talks?

Negotiators are meeting in Bonn this month to discuss guidelines for making national pledges and policies more transparent, so outsiders can gauge individual countries progress (or lack thereof) more precisely.

In 2018, climate negotiators plan to embark on a major effort to assess the worlds progress on climate change and measure it against the 2 degree goal. Countries can then revise their individual climate pledges accordingly  and do so every five years thereafter.

Participants are seen in silhouette as they look at a screen showing a world map with climate anomalies during the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris. (Reuters File Photo)

Right now, many of the Paris pledges remain fairly opaque, and most nations have been vague on what specific policies they will implement to meet them. There is no official mechanism for quantifying progress. As a result, groups like Climate Action Tracker have had to make rough estimates as to whether nations are on pace to meet their pledges  and how much further each country will need to go for the world to stay below 2 degrees of global warming.

Increasing the transparency of pledges would make it easier for countries to pressure each other to do more, which is how the Paris Agreement was designed, said David Victor, a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.

Countries could come back and say, Heres what has worked, what didnt, what our progress is and what other countries can learn, Victor said. We know from other areas of international cooperation that that dynamic actually works pretty well.
The bus conductor who was arrested on charges of murder and sexual assault of eight-year-old Pradyumn Thakur at Gurgaons Ryan International School said on Friday he will file a case against Haryana Police and the school management for torturing and defaming him.

Mohit Verma, the Rohtak-based counsel for Ashok Kumar, said his client was made a scapegoat in the case to protect the real culprit.

His comments came a day after a Class 11 student of the same school was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly murdering the second grader, in a sensational twist to the case that shook the country and raised questions over safety of students inside schools.

Pradyumn was found with his throat slit outside a school toilet on September 8.

We are waiting for the CBI to file its closure report after which we will file cases against the police and school management for large-scale defamation of Ashok Kumar, Verma said.

The lawyer said Kumar was drugged and tortured by police to confess to a crime he never committed in front of the media.

Police clearly botched up the probe. The CBI did not find any motive he could have had in murdering Pradyumn, while they established the motive of the arrested Class 11 boy behind the crime, he said.

Verma said the central agency reached this conclusion after looking at footage from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera that was rejected by Haryana Police calling it unclear.

Police had planted everything. They framed an innocent man. Who pressurised police to do (that) is a matter of investigation, but whatever happened to Ashok amounts to torture, he added.

The CBI said it has not found evidence of murder against Kumar but he has not been exonerated yet. The agency also did not find any evidence of sexual assault, a CBI spokesperson said on Wednesday.

The bar council of Sohna in Gurgaon jointly passed a resolution refusing to fight Kumars case after he was initially accused of Pradyumns murder after which his family hired Verma.

The 16-year-old student detained by the CBI in connection with Pradyumns murder confessed to his crime in front of his father and an independent witness, the agency told a juvenile court.

The court has sent the juvenile to three-day CBI custody.
An undue haste, coupled with the urgency to pin the blame on one man, bus conductor Ashok Kumar, led to major gaffes in the probe conducted by the Gurgaon Police into the killing of an 8-year-old boy inside Ryan International School, Bhondsi.

The police obtained CCTV footage but did not cast their doubts on all the persons visible in the footage.

Instead, they pinned the blame on Kumar merely on circumstantial evidence without forensic proof and arrested him based on confessions made by the suspect in front of the media and in custody. The police had rested its case on weak grounds, said experts close to the investigation.

Another major gap in the investigation was the failure of the police to get judicial confession and the forces reliance on what the accused had admitted in public or in custody.

The confession on which police was relying is not admissible in a court of law. The police should have expanded its investigation and rounded up all the suspects, including the juvenile, said a legal expert.

Advocate Rajiv Kaushik, who practices in Gurgaon, stated that since this case was based on circumstantial evidence, it was essential for the police and the SIT to establish a strong motive for the murder, which did not happen in the case.

The motive of murder, as claimed by the Gurgaon police and even CBI, is very weak and it will not be enough to convict the accused, he added.

Legal experts said that though bus conductor Kumars arrest was hasty and wrong, no one will compensate the man even if the CBI gives him a clean chit.

The motive is not the only ingredient for proving a heinous crime. A court needs more evidence to convict a person. How did police judge the motive, preparation and subsequent conduct of Ashok Kumar and also the juvenile suspect in four hours also needs questioning, said advocate Rajiv Kaushik.

Apart from that the police also needed to establish the sequence of events leading to the murder, find out how the weapon reached the spot, and what led to contamination of the scene, say experts.

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You probably never heard of Brook Park, Ohio unless you live in the Cleveland area. It's a Cleveland suburb with less than 20,000 people. Or maybe you remember it from last year because the mayor, Tom Coyne-- who was in office from 1982 through 2001 and again from 2013 'til... well Tuesday-- left the Democratic Party to pledge his allegiance to Senor Trumpanzee during the election campaign. He was defeated in his reelection bid this week, running as a Trumpist, by former Brook Park council president Michael Gammella, a United Auto Works rep.





A few weeks ago Trumpanzee, Jr.-- plagued by revelations about his collusion with the Kremlin -- cancelled a fundraiser for Coyne. Results from the 4-man race:

 Michael Gammella: 42.92%

 Thomas Coyne: 37.59%

 Tom Colburn: 10.09%

 Jan Powers: 9.41%

Coyne has told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer that "What's happening is the Republican Party is getting transformed like the old Reagan Democrats, and that's who I represent." And that accounted for almost 38% of the vote-- but without an electoral college, that's not enough to elect anyone to anything.













Getting rid of Coyne wasn't that tough. Getting rid of Rod Blum in Iowa will be a lot tougher. His congressional district in Iowa was once safely blue. In 2015 the PVI was D+5. Obama won it against McCain 58-40% and against Romney 56-42%. But Hillary and her establishment status quo message was as wrong as anything for the district. Among the 20 counties in IA-01, the most votes come out of Linn and Black Hawk, both of which were won by Bernie in the caucuses. When the General Election rolled around, the district flipped from blue to red, Trump beating Hillary 48.7% to 45.2%. To make matters worse, the DCCC put up a wealthy conservative Republican, Monica Vernon, pretending to be a Democrat and Blum crushed her 206,903 (53.7%) to 177,403 (46.1%). There are 160,513 registered Democrats, 142,879 registered Republicans and 187,783 voters who refused to pick between the two corrupt parties.





This cycle, there are 4 candidates so far, Abby Finkenauer (the EMILY's List recruit), Thomas Heckroth, Courtney Rowe and George Ramsey. Now look at the brand new polling from PPP below. Voters aren't that familiar with the Democratic candidates polled-- Heckroth and Finkenauer-- but either looks like they could be a serious contender against Blum, who IA-01 voters are ready to jettison... along with Trump.
The Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyongo has accused Grazia magazine of editing her hair on the front cover of its latest edition to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like.

Nyongo posted an image of the Grazia front page on social media alongside what appears to be the original image. While the cover of Grazia shows Nyongo with short and smooth hair, the original image shows that some of her hair has been removed.

Disappointed that Grazia UK edited out and smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like, Nyongo said on Twitter .

Disappointed that @GraziaUK edited out & smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like. #dtmh pic.twitter.com/10UUScS7Xo  Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) November 10, 2017

In a longer post on Instagram, she added: As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too.

Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfils me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are. I am disappointed that Grazia UK invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like.

Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black womens complexion, hair style and texture.

Nyongo starred in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and 12 Years A Slave, for which she won the best supporting actress Oscar in 2014. She was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents and grew up in Kenya.

A post shared by Grazia UK (@graziauk) on Nov 10, 2017 at 5:06am PST

Her comments come a month after Solange Knowles criticised the London Evening Standard for apparently digitally altering an image of her for the cover of its weekly magazine.

The Evening Standard Magazine removed a braided crown from Knowless head in its cover image. Knowles subsequently published the original image including the braids on Instagram with the caption dtmh, an abbreviation of Dont Touch My Hair, the name of a song on her latest album . Nyongo also put dtmh at the end of her social media posts.

dtmh @eveningstandardmagazine A post shared by Solange (@saintrecords) on Oct 19, 2017 at 9:25am PDT

The Standard apologised for altering Knowless hair, saying it was a matter of great regret. It added: The decision to amend the photograph was taken for layout purposes, but plainly we made the wrong call and we have offered our unreserved apologies to Solange.

Grazia has been approached for a comment.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
The Border Security Force (BSF) has apprehended five Pakistani fishermen and seized six boats from the Harami Nala creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Gujarats Kutch district, an official said on Friday.

A patrol party of the BSFs 79th battalion apprehended the fishermen when they were allegedly fishing inside Indian territory in the Harami Nala creek along the border, the official of Gujarat frontier of the paramilitary force said.

While three of them were apprehended Thursday, the other two were held by the BSF during a search operation in the creek this afternoon, he said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the apprehended fishermen belonged to villages in Sujawal district of Sindh province of Pakistan, he said.

Those who were caught Thursday were identified as Niyaz Hussain, 28, Laung Ali, 35, and Rajib Ali, 32.

Given the sensitive nature of the area even Indian fishermen are barred from fishing in the creek. However, Pakistani fishermen from the coastal areas of Sindh often venture into the Indian waters for a catch.

Several fishing boats and Pakistani fishermen were caught in the past while fishing in the Indian side of the creek area.

In September, the BSF had apprehended five Pakistani fishermen and seized 21 boats from the same area.
At least 65 people fell ill were after taking meal during shradh (a post-death ritual) in Bihars Supaul district on Thursday night.

The people complained of stomachache, vomiting and giddiness soon after eating the food at the house of Jai Narayan Yadav at Kupaha village in Raghopur police station area of Supaul district, 250 km northeast of Patna.

They were treated at Raghopur primary health centre (PHC) and are reported to be out of danger.

Supaul civil surgeon Dr Ghan Shyam Jha told HT that 60 people were discharged after treatment while five had been admitted at Raghopur PHC. All are out of danger, he said.

It is a case of suspected food poisoning, Jha said. The people fell sick after consuming rasgulla.

Yadav, who was performing the shradh rituals for his mother who passed away recently, said he had bought all food items from the local market.
The Centres special representative for Kashmir, Dineshwar Sharma on Friday indicated his keenness to engage separatists in talks, saying that all Indian citizens living in Jammu and Kashmir are stakeholders.

Responding to media queries, the former Intelligence Bureau chief said that his first visit was a good experience.

When asked whether he considered Hurriyat Conference a stakeholder in the state, he said, All Indian citizens living in Jammu and Kashmir are stakeholders.

His comments assume significance as the separatists rejected talks and refused to meet Sharma during his stay in Srinagar.

When asked whether he was hopeful of meeting Hurriyat during his next visit, he said, Let us see. I am going to visit Jammu and Kashmir again and again. It was my first visit and it was very fruitful.

He, however, didnt respond on why Hurriyat, which doesnt believe in the Indian constitution, was considered important.

On the last leg of his five-day visit to the state, Sharma met over 30 delegations from the civil society, including political parties like Panthers Party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and independent MLA from Udhampur, Pawan Gupta met Sharma at the government convention centre in Jammu.

He refused to share details of his meeting with governor N N Vohra and chief minister Mehbooba Mufti here on Thursday evening, saying, Discussions with them cant be divulged in the media.

On Thursday, Sharma had informed Vohra about his talks with various individuals and groups in the Valley.

The governor had told Sharma that notwithstanding any initial reservations in some groups, he must sustain the dialogue and hear one and all, particularly elements of the society who apparently held contrary convictions.

He said that he was appointed by the Centre as special representative for sustained dialogue with the stakeholders aimed at restoration of peace in the state.

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association expressed regrets over the Centres approach towards the nationalist people of the state.

In Kashmir, the representative decided to visit the residences of the people and in Jammu, those who were invited to meet were not even properly acknowledged and addressed. If the purpose of the current initiative taken by the Government of India is to reopen the settled issue of Jammu and Kashmir, then, please dont expect us to be part of the said initiative, said advocate BS Slathia, president of the association.

The association also stated that Article 35A and Article 370 were against the very spirit of the preamble of the Indian constitution and the preamble of Jammu and Kashmir constitution, and a total negation of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution.

The association also demanded the declaration of state holiday on September 23  the birth anniversary of last Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh.

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A jailer in eastern Assams Dibrugarh district has been suspended for letting leaders from the opposition Congress party click photographs with RTI activist turned peasant leader Akhil Gogoi, who is in prison on charges of sedition, earlier this month.

A statement issued by R Sarma, the state inspector general of prisons, on Thursday evening said Arup Kumar Patangia, the jailor of Dibrugarhs central jail was suspended for letting visitors click photos with Gogoi on November 1.

The Dibrugarh deputy commissioner permitted Congress MLAs Debabrata Saikia and Rupjyoti Kurmi to meet Gogoi in jail. Sakia is the leader of the opposition in the 126-member Assamassembly.

The MLAs spent about 45 minutes with Gogoi, who was arrested under National Security Act on September 13, visited the inner premises of the jail and also clicked photographs of themselves along with the prisoner.

Jail being an out-of-bounds area where unauthorised entry of any persons is banned by Rule 26 of the Assam Jail Manual, the question of clicking of a photograph inside the jail by any such person does not arise, Sarma said.

This, he pointed out, is a grave lapse on the part of the jail authorities.

Patangia was placed on suspension since November 6 on the basis of a report submitted by the Dibrugarh deputy commissioner.

Action is also being taken against Bikash Bijoy Das, superintendent of the jail, the inspector general of prisons said.

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For a group of ingenious criminals from Western Uttar Pradesh it was a gold rush triggered by the craze for the glittering yellow metal among women in south India.

The group adopted fly-and-rob modus operandi to target women wearing heavy jewellery in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, police said.

They used to fly to these cities and return home with the booty by train.

Ultimately, the proverbial long arm of the law caught up with them and the Bengaluru police on Thursday busted the gang, arresting the allegedly notorious chain snatchers Jai Prakash, Nitin Kumar, Jitendra Kumar, Kapil Kumar, Nand Kishore, all in the age group of 20-30 years.

The Bengaluru police recovered 20 gold chains worth Rs 20 lakh from their possession.

Talking to HT over phone, additional commissioner of police (Bengaluru) Seemant Kumar Singh said the accused told police during interrogation that they initially used to rob chains of women in the cities of west UP, Haryana and Delhi.

But they soon became frustrated as the chains that they snatched were either artificial or of low quality, he said.

It was then that they heard from an acquaintance settled in Bengaluru about the craze for gold ornaments among women in south India.

Losing no time, the gang members visited Bengaluru in September and conducted a recce in busy market areas and localities of the city.

Their eyes lit up as they saw women moving freely on the streets with heavy gold ornaments. They decided to change their location from north to south India.

The gang needed a motorcycle to flee after accomplishing their job. Rather than obtaining a bike in Bengaluru, they got two gang members to drive their old, customised motorcycle from Shamli in UP to the Karnataka capital, covering 2,252 kilometres.

Posing as textile merchants, they took a room on rent in the city. Within two months, the gang robbed 30 women in Thilaknagar, JP Nagar, Kengeri, Jayanagar, RMC Yard, KS Layout, MICO Layout, Jhanaabharathi and Subramanyapura areas of the city.

The sudden spurt in chain snatching alarmed the Bengaluru police.

The police increased patrol and started scanning CCTV footages from cameras installed on roads, markets, the airport and railway stations. Chain snatching is considered a serious crime in Bengaluru, the additional commissioner of police said.

The CCTV footage helped us in zeroing on the gang, he added.

The footage showed the gang members coming out of the Bengaluru airport, robbing women on the streets of the city and going to the railway station to board trains for UP or Delhi.

On Thursday, the gang robbed women at various spots in Bengaluru on way to the railway station. Before they could board a train to UP, the police arrested them.

During interrogation, the gang members told the police that they had robbed ornaments of several women in Chennai and Hyderabad as well. They used to stay in a city for four to five days, rob women of their jewellery before returning to UP. Details of their crimes in Chennai and Hyderabad were not available.

Singh said, Bengaluru police have constituted teams that will visit UP, Delhi and Haryana to probe the case and nab the remaining members of the gang.
Crop burning is over, officials of Punjab and Haryana said on Friday when top bureaucrats of several states and the Union government held an emergency meeting to discuss ways to reduce the blanket of toxic pollution that has enveloped much of north India.

The meeting, chaired by environment ministrys secretary, was attended by the chief secretaries of Haryana and Delhi, the principal secretary of Uttar Pradesh department of environment, the chairman of Punjabs state Pollution Control Board and the secretary of Rajasthans department of environment.

Burning of paddy residue by farmers in Punjab and Haryana is regarded as the source of the thick haze, an annual occurrence during this time of the year. But this year, the haze was particularly bad, prompting doctors to urge people to stay indoors.

Paddy is a summer crop and most fields in the region have to be cleared of their residue  stubble  before sowing for winter crops begins in second week of November.

With the no new stubble burning and the Indian Meteorological Department forecasting rainfall in northwestern India next week, air quality is expected to improve significantly.

On top of the agenda of Fridays meeting were ways to improve compliance with the Graded Response Action Plan notified this January to tackle alarming levels of air pollution in Delhi-NCR. Officials identified effective implementation of bans on diesel generator sets, brick kilns, and other polluting industries, as well as on the entry of unauthorised trucks into the capital and methods to contain dust.

Environment minister Harsh Vardhan dismissed allegations on Friday that the Centre was not doing enough to tackle the problem. He noted that a surgical strike against air pollution would not be effective.

We already know what we have to do, it is only a question of implementation, CK Mishra, secretary, environment ministry, told HT.

Strict enforcement of fines on defaulters was also discussed.

State governments were asked to set up monitoring groups that will ensure compliance. The possibility of setting up Flying Squads that can reach possible violation sites quickly was discussed.

The ministry on Thursday set up a high-level 7-member committee, to look into short and long term solutions to the air pollution problem that grips the Indo-Gangetic belt almost every winter.

The committee is expected to meet every 10 days during the peak pollution period and at least once every month after that.

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Demonetisation has brought about a significant shift in saving habits among Indians, with many parking a higher share of their disposable income in bank deposits and market instruments, the government has said.

A finance ministry note submitted to a parliamentary panel said gross financial savings in terms of deposits, shares, debentures, insurance funds and pension funds increased by 48% in 2016-17, while assets parked in mutual funds grew by 45% between July 2016 and July 2017.

The demonetisation drive led to a significant change in saving habits and formalisation of the assets market. More funds came into the organised financial markets, whereas households would earlier park much of their savings in unproductive physical assets, the note stated.

This shift in savings pattern is significant because India has always fluctuated between high and low domestic savings. The country had already seen its share of equities and mutual funds double from 5.29% to 11.04% in fiscal year 2016  indicating more consistency in monetary deposits as far as productive financial assets were concerned.

The gross financial saving in term of deposits, shares and debentures, insurance funds, and provident and pension funds increased from 9% to 13.3% of the GNDI (Gross National Disposable Income) in 2016-17  a hike of about 48%. The assets under management by mutual funds were Rs 13.8 lakh crore at the end of July 2017, which is a substantial increase of 45%, the note said.

The high collection of insurance premium also indicates that people rushed to pay them with old currency notes after Prime Minister Narendra Modis announcement. The cumulative collections from November 2016 to January 2017 increased by 46% over the same period of the previous year. It stabilised at 18% from November 2016 to June 2017, the note said.

The government also stated that demonetisation effectively eliminated Rs 6 lakh crore of potential black money from the economy, a claim rejected by the Opposition. Referring to the rate of growth of specified bank notes (of 500 and 1000 denominations), the government argued that they would have amounted to about Rs 18 lakh crore by now. The estimated worth of high value notes, as of September 2017, was approximately Rs 12 lakh crore. Therefore, the amount of high value notes has been effectively (brought) down by Rs 6 lakh crore, said the note.

Several Opposition members questioned economic affairs secretary Subhash Garg and financial services secretary Anjali Chhib Duggal on the merits of demonetisation on Thursday. They wanted to know the costs incurred through the demonetisation initiative, and why banks were not giving enough credit despite sitting on piles of money.

A BJP member reportedly admitted that many beedi workers in his constituency were unemployed and starving due to demonetisation.

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A colossal business empire, worth an estimated Rs 2,100 crore and spread over 800 acres, has come to a virtual standstill. Its manufacturing plants  for aloe vera products, bottled water, car batteries, confectionery, oil-seed expellers, and atta (flour)  are shut down. The nearby newspaper office, resort, shopping mall, cinema, petrol pump, restaurant, and hotel are all closed. The streets, too, are empty.

When Hindustan Times visited late last month, there was a lot of gloom and quiet in Sirsa, Haryana at the headquarters of the Dera Sacha Sauda. It started on August 25 when a CBI court convicted the groups leader, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, of raping two disciples.

The announcement was greeted with fury: more than 45 persons were reported killed and more than 300 injured in riots across north India. This passionate anger was followed by rapid desertion. Interviews with both followers of Dera and officials of agencies investigating the group confirmed that it is in dire straits.

There are some signs of life though. The groups much smaller, old base has remained active. Last weekend, the main headquarters was opened to celebrate the birth anniversary of Deras founder, Shah Mastana Balochistani. Sirsa police officials estimated that 4,000 people attended.

In general, however, recent months have seen the headquarters empty and the sects finances come under serious threat. Neither are there buyers anymore nor anyone to pitch in with monetary contributions, said Mangat Singh, a Dera follower from Sirsa. Dharampal, who runs a shop that sells Dera products outside the groups headquarters, was one of the few premis (disciples) seen around last month.

I worked at a Dera manufacturing unit, he said. Since it is shut down now, I look after this shop for couple of hours in the morning and the evening. Not so long ago, Dera brand shops were full of followers of the sect; when HT visited, most stores, including Dharampals, were empty.

No one to take a decision

For those that remain at Sirsa, there is a lack of direction and a struggle to maintain business as usual.

With Ram Rahim in prison and a number of his close aides on the run, Dera lacks a leader. According to the Sirsa police, Vipassana Insan, the chairperson, was unwell for a few weeks. Jasmeet Insaan, Ram Rahims son, is reportedly not interested in taking over.

There was no one to take a decision or run the place though Vipassana is back in action since Sunday, said a senior Haryana police official familiar with Dera. The post-verdict violence has done them a lot of damage. A number of cases have been registered against Dera managers. It seems everyone is playing safe right now.

Hindustan Times was unable to reach any official representatives of Dera for comment, since many appear to be avoiding contact with the press and it is unclear who is currently authorised to speak on behalf of the group.

According to a Haryana intelligence official, the number of people inside the compound has dwindled from 10,000 to only around 800. There are no followers and there is no one to give directions, said one of the remaining sewadars (volunteers). There is hardly anything for us to do. It is a strange situation.

The compounds hospital, colleges and schools are struggling to function. The intelligence official said that all these institutions are seeing a low turnout, of either students or patients, and have sought the permission of the Punjab and Haryana high court to operate their bank accounts in order to meet day-to-day expenses. These accounts are the subject of both Deras hopes and a grave threat against it. The Punjab and Haryana high court is attempting to quantify the damage caused by the riots and considering whether to hold Dera liable.

Meanwhile, on September 27, the high court directed the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department to investigate the personal accounts of Ram Rahim and his associates for possible money laundering.

Before its too late

Deras businesses have been closing, its followers have dwindled, and its savings are in doubt, but one important source of hope remains: politicians.

When the Haryana state assembly met last month, it made a point of paying homage to the Dera followers who were killed in the violence. The sympathetic representatives were from a wide range of political parties, including the BJP, the Congress, and the Indian National Lok Dal. Dera has been an important vote bank for parties for at least a decade.

The Congress received its support in the assembly polls of Punjab, in 2007, and Haryana, in 2009. Then, in Haryana in 2014, it was the BJP that received Deras support. In Punjab in 2012 and 2017, it was the Shiromani Akali Dal.

The diverse array of politicians who have depended on the group is the only indication of its strength. And now, its only hope.

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There was high drama in the Supreme Court for the second consecutive day on Friday, with the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra constituting a special five-judge bench to hear a case casting aspersions on the judiciary and, at the same time, annulling an order passed by a two-judge bench of the apex court on Thursday, listing the case for hearing by a Constitution Bench of the five-senior most judges of the court, minus the Chief Justice himself.

The drama wasnt restricted to the scrapping of the day-old order, though. It also included criticism of that order, an exchange between the chief justice and lawyer Prashant Bhushan  with the latter asking the former to recuse himself from the case and the former refusing to do so, and a demand by a group of lawyers for a contempt petition against Bhushan for casting aspersions on the Chief Justice.

At the heart of the controversy that is roiling the countrys top court, and forcing judges and lawyers to take sides, is a case filed by the Prasad Education Trust seeking relief from a government order barring it from admitting students to its medical college in 2017-18 and 2018-19. The trust sought relief from the Supreme Court and the Allahabad high court. On September 18, a bench of the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice denied it relief for 2017-18 and asked the Medical Council of India to reassess the college regarding its admission of students for 2018-19.

Around the same time, the Central Bureau of Investigation filed a case against Justice (retired) IM Quddusi and a certain Bhavna Pandey under the anti-corruption law. The two were accused of assuring the college representative of getting favourable orders from the top court.

On Wednesday, a Public Interest Litigation by activist group Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms, asking for the CBI investigation to be handed over to a court monitored Special Investigation Team came up before a bench headed by Judge Jasti Chelameswar. He listed it for hearing on Friday.

On Thursday, a similar petition filed by Kamini Jaiswal was brought before him again, and after expressing his concern over the seriousness of the issue, Justice Chelameswar listed it for hearing by a Constitution Bench. He also acceded to a request by the petitioners lawyer that the Chief Justice not be part of the bench because he had heard the Prasad Education Trust case previously.

On Friday, the CJAR petition was heard by a bench headed by Justice AK Sikri, who referred it to the Chief Justice for listing and to resolve the issue of a similar petition already having been referred to a Constitution Bench by Justice Chelameswar. The Chief Justice constituted a special five-judge bench which heard the case the same afternoon and, setting aside the order of Justice Chelameswar, said that only the Chief Justice could decide on the constitution of benches. There cannot be a command or order directing Chief Justice of India to constitute a particular kind of a bench.

Justice Arun Mishra, part of the special bench, took pot shots at Justice Chelameswars order and asked: Can a 2 judge bench refer a matter to particular 5-judge bench? Are other judges incompetent and are you doubting everybodys integrity in this court.

Interestingly, when the bench led by Justice Chelameshwar heard the matter on Thursday, he received a note from the Chief Justices office, the contents of which are not known.

At the Friday afternoon hearing by the special bench headed by the Chief Justice, charges flew thick and fast.

When Prashant Bhushan, the lawyer for CJAR, asked the Chief Justice to recuse himself, the latter wanted to know what the charges against him were. He added that he could not be held accountable for what XYZ talks about me somewhere.

Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association led by its president RS Suri supported the Chief Justice and sought institution of contempt proceedings against Bhushan, who according to them had made frivolous charges against not just the CJI but also the Supreme court.

Bhushan left the court midway and said the court can pass any orders its wants.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave  who argued the matter for Jaiswal on Thursday  said: What happened today reflects ultimate fall of this great institution . It has destroyed its credibility on its own.

The special bench, he said, was unconstitutional and violated all cannons of norms and decency. The CJI could not have presided over the bench.

Let us hope and pray that other judges including those in collegium will take lead and show the nation the good face of this great court, Dave added.
The government has decided to give proxy voting rights to over 25 million non-resident Indians (NRIs) spread across the world, attorney general KK Venugopal told the Supreme Court on Friday.

An amendment (has to) be made in the relevant central law (the Representation of People Act), and the government intends to introduce a bill in the winter session of Parliament for the purpose, Venugopal informed an apex court bench.

The top court has given the government 12 weeks to carry out the exercise.

The court was hearing separate petitions filed by VP Shamsheer, a UAE-based doctor, and Nagender Chindam, chairman of Pravasi Bharat in London, on the issue of according voting rights to NRIs. These petitions have been pending for three years now.

The Election Commission of India had already recommended that the government take necessary steps to amend the law for NRI voters. It had prepared a report titled Exploring Feasibility of Alternative Options for Voting by Overseas Electors and presented it to the court in October 2014.
Delhi joined the growing chorus of opposition on Friday against the highest 28% GST rate, saying a high rate would encourage black marketing.

Congress-ruled states have been demanding rationalisation of GST rates to bring down the peak tax rate from the current 28%.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who is in Guwahati to attend the crucial meeting of the GST Council, said lower tax rates should have been implemented from July 1, when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was rolled out.

Tax rates should have been set lower from July 1 itself and I have said that 28% tax rate means you are encouraging black marketing, he said.

Read: Live updates of the meeting

The Congress-ruled states of Punjab and Karnataka, and the Union territory of Puducherry have demanded complete overhaul of the GST rate structure and simplification of the procedures.

Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy said the peak tax rate should be 18% except for one or two demerit items, which could attract a higher 28%.

But most of the items were brought under the 28% category (under GST) which the Congress is not agreeing to, he said.

Also, the tax return filing procedure in GST is cumbersome, he said.

Common use goods are being charged 28% tax, he said, adding construction industry, toiletries are all charged the peak tax rate.

Common man is affected. GST was brought to simplify procedures and to facilitate common people to purchase items but that is not happening, he added.

Sisodia said limits imposed for availing of the composition scheme need to be widely discussed, with a separate structure for SMEs.

I have always said bring real estate in GST because if you put 28% on construction activities and then suddenly it goes into a black hole because theres no counting of where that is going, he said.

On returns filing, he said the Delhi government was in favour of quarterly filings instead of current mandate for three different forms being submitted every month.

The current return filing system has created confusion among businesses.

Sisodia said petroleum products, alcohol and real estate should be brought under the GST as it is one nation, one tax and such items cannot be kept out of the regime.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, opposition Congress and its leaders have been targeting the government over difficulties faced by some businesses under the GST regime, with party vice president Rahul Gandhi even calling it a Gabbar-Singh Tax.

Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal said his state wants rationalisation of tax rate, simplification of procedures and removing glitches in GST Network.

The Congress, he said, was in favour of inclusion of petrol, diesel, natural gas, ATF and crude oil in the GST.

The five products along with alcohol have been kept out of GST for now.

Karnataka agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the Congress had earlier asked that the GST rate should not be more than 18% but the government went ahead with the five tax rate slabs of 0, 5, 12, 18 and 28%.

The GST Council, headed by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, is meeting in Guwahati to consider pruning the list of items in the 28% tax bracket.

Haryana finance minister Capt Abhimanyu said the meetings cannot be related to any election because GST Council is represented by states and the Centre. The same spirit of unanimity should continue, he said.
The BSF strongly raised the issue of unprovoked firing, killing of civilians and usage of tunnels for cross-border crimes along the Indo-Pak border during a high-level meeting with their counterparts-- Pakistan Rangers -- that concluded here on Tuesday.

The Rangers, led by their DG (Sindh) Maj Gen Muhammad Saeed, had arrived in India on November 8 as part of the bi- annual talks with the Border Security Force (BSF), which was led by its director general K K Sharma.

The visiting delegation went back this afternoon.

The Indian side firmly and strongly took up specific issues of concern including incidents of unprovoked cross- border firing, smuggling of narcotics, infiltration attempts, tunneling and defence construction activities, the BSF said in a statement.

A senior officer privy to the talks said the BSF also asked the Rangers to take steps and ensure that their land is not used by terrorists to infiltrate into India.

It specifically underlined the discovery of a number of tunnels along the International Border in the Jammu region that are used by the other side to facilitate cross-border smuggling and infiltration, the officer said.

While the Pakistani delegation raised the issue of targeted firing by the BSF, it was made clear that such an action is resorted to when unprovoked firing from the other side kills troops, civilians or leads to other damage.

The BSF statement said the talks, in presence of officials from the home ministry and anti-narcotics departments of the two countries, were held in a constructive atmosphere and the need for cooperation to maintain the sanctity of the borders was stressed upon.

The issue of inadvertent crossing over by the border population and ways to facilitate their return on both the sides was also discussed, it said.

The BSF said it was agreed between the two sides that utmost caution and care should be exercised in dealing with the civilians.

The officer said the two sides also stressed on the need to have an increased frequency of field commanders meeting along the Indo-Pak International Border (IB) and the requirement of timely exchange of information.

The on-ground flag meetings between the junior commanders, commanding officers and other senior officers has been going on, but it was stressed to have them timely and quickly, especially when such meetings are essential to thrash out issues, the officer said.

The two sides also decided to ensure that the wild growth of the Sarkanda (elephant grass) along the IB will be checked and it will be disposed off within the existing norms.

The talks ended with both sides agreeing on constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders, the statement said.

The next round of these talks is scheduled to be held in Pakistan.

Indias 3,323-km-long border with Pakistan runs through four states-- Jammu and Kashmir (1,225 km which includes 740 km of Line of Control), Rajasthan (1,037 km), Punjab (553 km) and Gujarat (508 km).

While the BSF guards the International Border (IB) independently, it works under the operational command of the army while working at the LOC.
The Income Tax department called in sleuths from neighbouring states on Friday as it intensified a crackdown on friends and family members of jailed AIADMK leader VK Sasikala over possible tax evasion and money laundering.

The raids, launched early on Thursday, continued for the second consecutive day across three states at residential and business premises of close relatives and business associates Sasikala, serving a jail term for corruption.

The sleuths were also looking at financial trails and shell companies allegedly operated by those under the I-T scanner.

While raids at about 40 places were over, they were continuing in more than 140 other places.

At least 1,800 sleuths were engaged in the raids with some of them called in from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Sources said the IT sleuths have seized incriminating documents from the premises of those people being searched, including Sasikalas husband M Natarajan in Thanjavur and Siva Kumar, the doctor of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

The IT sleuths are also likely to open bank lockers of some of the people.

On Thursday, sleuths raided the residence of Sasikalas nephew TTV Dinakaran. Sasikala and Dinakaran lead a faction of the ruling AIADMK.

Among the business places where the raids are continuing include the Kodanad Tea Estate belonging to Jayalalithaa.

Also being searched are the offices of the Jaya TV, a propaganda machine set up by AIADMKs matriarch Jayalalithaa in the late 90s. It is now owned by Sasikala and is looked after by her relatives in her absence.

IT sleuths allowed employees of Jaya TV to enter office. Only few employees in the HR department were being questioned, sources said.

The offices of party mouthpiece Namadhu MGR is also being searched for the second day.

Dinakarans close aide and MLA Nanzil Sampath has claimed that the raids were an attempt by chief minister E Palanisami and his deputy, O Panneerselvam  who lead the other faction that is in power -- to take over Jaya TV and Namadhu MGR.

Business premises searached include Jazz Cinemas, Midas Distilleries, Sharada Paper and Boards, Senthil Group of Companies and Nilgiri Furniture in Coimbatore, sources said.

Mannargudi town, from where Sasikala and her clan hail, too is witnessing raids for the second day.

Meanwhile, the opposition in Tamil Nadu questioned the raids.

DMK working president MK Stalin wondered as to what happened to a series of previous IT raids at the residence of health minister C Vijayabhaskar, former chief secretary P Rama Mohan Rao. There has been no outcome of the raids, Stalin said.

The BJP, on the other hand, justified the raids saying that these were based on proof and were part of Central governments fight against black money.

BJP state unit chief Tamilisai Soundarrajan said that opposition was trying to politicise the raids as if the party was doing this to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu.

The raids are happening because of proof that they are operating shell companies, she asserted.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila to chart the future course of ties and increase the economic co-operation between the two countries, officials in South Block said. The meeting is a clear indication that both countries want to put Doklam  the face-off between India and China on the Doklam plateau  behind them, the officials added, asking not to be identified.

The timing for the meeting is still being worked out, the officials said. Prime Minister Modi reaches Manila on November 12 and returns on November 14; he is scheduled to meet US president Donald Trump on November 13.

With the 19th National Congress of Communist Party of China over last month, the diplomatic message from Beijing, after President Xi Jinping was elected for the second term, is that India is an important neighbour and should be accorded priority; New Delhi also wants to move ahead and bring bilateral ties back on track, the officials said.

That both sides have decided to bury Doklam is evident from the series of bilateral engagements after the Modi-Li meeting. The officials said that the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India-China Border Affairs will meet in Beijing later this month with the objective of setting up of a hotline between the headquarters of the Indian Army and the Chinese PLA . The hotline will ensure that local commanders on the border do not indulge in any unilateral action.

The dates for a trilateral Russia-India-China Ministerial dialogue in New Delhi have been fixed for December 11 with focus on stabilization of Afghanistan and deepening of trilateral cooperation. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will meet Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to ensure that three biggest Asian powers are on the same page on big global issues like terrorism, trade, West Asia and Afghanistan, the officials said.

Chinese diplomatic sources based in New Delhi say that Prime Minister Modi has a strong vision for ties with Beijing dating back to his days as Gujarat chief minister. According to them, India should have more engagement with China on the Belt Road Initiative (BRI), bilateral trade, and development of industrial parks in India. They added that the Chinese opposition to the UN resolution calling for the designation of Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed emir Masood Azhar as a global terrorist is an on-going chapter, hinting that Beijings position may not be final.

Finally, the annual Special Representative Dialogue on border resolution between the two countries is expected to take place in New Delhi after the trilateral ministerial meeting with State Councillor Yang Jiechi meeting National Security Advisor Ajit Doval for the 20th round of talks to maintain peace and tranquility on the border.

The officials said that Doklam will not be discussed at the Special Representative Dialogue. Indications are that both sides have decided against any unilateral action on the 3,488 kilometer border and are all for strengthening the confidence building mechanism between the two biggest armies of the world.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad on Friday hinted that his younger son Tejashwi Prasad Yadav would be his successor and the chief ministerial candidate of the party in the next assembly elections in Bihar, an idea he later retracted.

As his statement triggered dissent in the party, Prasad clarified that he had not projected anybody as CMs candidate.

Earlier, in an interview to a regional TV channel, the former chief minister said that Tejashwi was the youth face of the RJD and had the ability to become the face of the party.

We are promoting the youth and they should take up the leadership. Tejashwi is an acceptable youth leader of the party and should take key positions. Is there anybody else claiming for the CMs post in the party? he asked.

Prasads comments come three days after RJDs state president Ram Chandra Purbe declared that Tejashwi would be the chief ministerial face of the party.

After joining politics in 2014, Tejashwi has been seen as heir apparent of Prasad and his appointment as deputy chief minister in the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance (GA) government after 2015 assembly elections had validated the perception that the RJD chief was keen on projecting his younger son as number two in the party.

After Nitish Kumar walked out of the GA and formed government with the BJP in July this year, Tejashwi took over as leader of the opposition in the Bihar assembly.

Kumar torpedoed his alliance with the RJD and the Congress after Prasad ruled out resignation of Tejashwi as deputy chief minister in the wake of the CBI filing an FIR against him as an accused in a land-for-hotels case.

That Tejashwi is going to be the successor of Lalu is a foregone conclusion, said a senior leader of the party, seeking anonymity.

However, Prasads bid to bat for his younger son as his successor brought to fore the dissidence in the party with senior leaders Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Abdul Bari Siddiqui saying that the issue of chief ministerial candidate would be decided by people of the state.

It is the people of the state who will decide the next chief minister. Has Prasad declared that Tejashwi will be the CMs face? Only a few leaders are talking about it and it is their personal opinion, Siddiqui said.

The former ministers attempt to downplay Tejashwis projection as CM face is attributed to Siddiquis own ambition as a probable CM face in the party. The former minister has held key positions in the party, including the post of leader of the opposition after 2006.

Raghuvansh, considered one of the veterans of the party, too said the issue of who would be the next CM face of the party was premature as elections were still far away.

Besides, it is the people who will decide the next chief minister, he said.

Prasad later clarified that he had not announced anybodys name as the chief ministerial candidate. Elections were far away and there was no fight for the CMs post among party leaders, he said.

The climbdown by Prasad is seen as an attempt to stem the dissidence over the issue of Tejashwis projection for the top post and keep the flock together.

Is there any fight over CMs post? The name will be decided by people of the state. These are all baseless issues and we do not need to discuss it at this time when our main objective is to fight the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prasad said.

============================================

BLURB

Prasads comments come three days after RJDs state president Ram Chandra Purbe declared that Tejashwi would be the chief ministerial face of the party.

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Militants attacked a police vehicle on Friday on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway at Qazigund, police said. No one was injured in the attack.

The ultras fired at the police vehicle near Bonigam in Kulgam district, a police official said. The vehicle was on its way to Jammu from Srinagar.

Security forces cordoned off the area to track down assailants.

Suspicious movement near police lines in Pulwama: Police

Meanwhile, police personnel posted on guard duty at a police establishment in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir fired a few rounds in the air after noticing suspicious movement near their camp early on Friday.

The sentry noticed some suspicious movement near the district police lines at Awantipora in Pulwama at around 3.40am and fired few probing shots in air, a police official said.

He said there was no injury caused by the firing incident.

Militants had targeted the district police lines in Pulwama town in August this year, killing eight security personnel. Three militants were also killed in retaliatory action.
Three more gazetted officers, including the relative of a Union minister, surrendered in the Assam cash-for-jobs scam on Friday, taking the number of arrested officers to 21 even as four others have been declared absconders.

The Sarbananda Sonowal-led coalition government had on Monday night begun its crackdown against the 2013 batch officers of Assam Civil Service (ACS) and Assam Police Service who had allegedly bribed Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) officials to get their jobs.

Altogether, 25 officers were found to have bribed former APSC chairman Rakesh Kumar Paul and others in the commission to be selected for the jobs through doctored answer-scripts. Paul was arrested in November last year.

Three civil service officers, including two women, were arrested after they surrendered today (Friday), Assams director general of police Mukesh Sahay said.

Investigating officers said the two women are relatives of junior railway minister Rajen Gohain and former state minister Sumitra Patir of Congress.

Among the absconders is the son of former Assam minister Nilamoni Sen Deka, also of Congress.

Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal said people had voted for BJP and its allies because of our resolve to root out corruption.

He also hinted at initiating action against 18 IAS and IPS officers of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre facing charges ranging from attempted murder to forgery and fiscal indiscipline.

The police in eastern Assams Dibrugarh district had exposed the cash-for-jobs scam in the APSC after catching Nabakanta Patir, an assistant engineer, red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh from a dentist.

The assistant engineer had approached the dentist promising her a job through APSC for the demanded amount, which he said would be shared with many in the commission. She tipped off the police leading to his arrest.

Nabakanta Patirs confession led to the arrest of an APSC members personal security officer. Interrogation revealed the two were working as conduits in the sale of jobs.

APSC chief Paul and five others in the commission were arrested in November and December last year. Three officers found to have bought their jobs were dismissed from their jobs in May.

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Several Muslim clerics in Jharkhand have opposed the BJP governments proposal to make singing of the national anthem mandatory in madrasas, terming it as violation of the basic principles of the Islamic learning centres.

State education minister Neera Yadav on Thursday announced the government will issue a notification mandating the singing of Jana Gana Mana in every school and madrasa. The notification is likely to be issued on November 15, Jharkhands statehood day.

BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh has already made it compulsory for singing the national anthem and flag hoisting in madrasas, a move criticised by Muslim groups as a forced show of patriotism and nationalism.

Jharkhands Islamic scholars said madrasas follow their own routine for years, which include singing of Maksud Tarana (madarsa song) every morning.

We do not have a problem with our students singing the national anthem on important days like August 15 and January 26, but making it mandatory to sing the national anthem every day is unfair and violated our basic principle..., said maulana Azghar Misbahi, who runs the Jamia Faizanul Quran Madarsa in Ranchis Bariatu.

He said that every madrasa had its own Maksud Tarana which is sung in praise of the founder and highlights the dignity and integrity of the institution.

Maulana Rizwan Ahmed Quazmi, who runs the Maulana Islamia Madarsa in Upper Bazar locality of Ranchi, said the mandate was an imposition on the madrasas and violated many rules.

However, Shahid Akhter, former chairperson of the Jharkhand Minority Commission called the national anthem mandate a welcome move.

Singing the national anthem should be a matter of pride for us. This mandate is for the better future of the country, where nation would be the top most priority for everyone, said Akhter, who is also the national convener of Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the minority wing of the RSS.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court mandated playing of the national anthem mandate at cinema halls, reigniting a debate in the country over nationalism especially after some people were assaulted for not standing up when it was played.

Last year, a teacher in a Kolkata madrasa was assaulted for teaching his students how to sing the national anthem.

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Pakistan on Friday offered to arrange a meeting between Kubhushan Jadhav, an Indian national sentenced to death by a military court for alleged involvement in espionage, and his wife on humanitarian grounds.

The Foreign Office said in a brief statement that a note verbale with the formal offer of a meeting had been sent to the Indian high commission in Islamabad. The meeting would be arranged in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds, the statement said without giving further details.

There was no immediate response from the external affairs ministry.

Officials in Islamabad privately said the meeting could take place next month. The Pakistani reported that it was not clear what had prompted Islamabad to make the offer.

The Pakistan government has so far not responded to a request made in April by Jadhavs mother, Avantika Jadhav, to meet her son. There has also been no response to her petition to the Pakistan government to grant clemency to her son.

The Foreign Office statement referred to Jadhav as a serving naval commander who used the alias Hussain Mubarak Patel and worked with India RAW spy agency. It said he was apprehended by law enforcement agencies on March 3 after he illegally crossed over into Pakistan.

The statement further claimed Jadhav had confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities.

India has denied that Jadhav is a serving navy personnel and also rejected Pakistans claim that he was working for RAW and involved in spying. New Delhi said Jadhav was kidnapped from the Iranian port of Chabahar. It has also said that if Islamabad goes ahead with Jadhavs execution, it will be regarded as a case of premeditated murder.

Jadhavs execution was stayed after India took the matter to the International Court of Justice, which said he should not be executed till it gives a final ruling in the case.

The Pakistan Army said last month it is close to a decision on the mercy petition submitted by Jadhav. The army chief had earlier confirmed Jadhavs death sentence after a court martial found him guilty of all charges.
A single bench of the high court in Jabalpur has quashed the production warrant issued in gangster Abu Salems name by Bhopal district court in connection with a double murder case in which he was allegedly involved.

Salems advocate Alok Baghrecha said Justice Vivek Agrawal ruled that Salem cannot be tried for any other case apart from the nine mentioned in the extradition treaty between India and Portugal, under which he was brought to India.

The murder case in Bhopal in which Salem has been made an accused had not been included in the list of cases at the time of Salems extradition. However, the prosecution argued that since one of the nine cases for which Salem was being tried in India included a murder case, it followed that he could be tried in all murder cases. Salem, convicted in 1993 Mumbai blast case, has two cases pending in MP.
The administration of Pakistans Punjab has weighed into the issue of crop burning, urging the chief minister of Indian Punjab to ban the practice that is behind a pollution crisis affecting large parts of both countries.

Much of north India and adjoining districts of Pakistan have been enveloped by a thick haze for more than a week. The haze is toxic and medical experts have urged people to limit their exposure to outdoors, an unprecedented crisis that also saw fatal road accidents and flight and train delays due to lack of visibility.

We have imposed a ban on stubble burning in Punjab (Pakistan) & hope @capt_amarinder takes similar measures. Some of our medium/long term action plan to combat SMOG are: https://punjab.gov.pk/node/2648 Environmental hazards threaten our people and habitat. Let us act fast to counter it, said the Wednesday evening tweet from @GovtofPunjab, the verified twitter account of the Pakistan state, tagging Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh.

The post quoted a tweet from Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who too has urged action from Singhs state and neighbouring Haryana.

We have imposed a ban on stubble burning in Punjab (Pakistan) & hope @capt_amarinder takes similar measures. Some of our medium/long term action plan to combat SMOG are: https://t.co/xmA4fP3lz8

Environmental hazards threaten our people and habitat. Let us act fast to counter it. https://t.co/QMEnhH89ZS  Govt Of The Punjab (@GovtOfPunjab) November 8, 2017

Amarinder Singh has maintained that his state cannot handle the 200 million ton of paddy straw generated by farmers, who burn the remnants before sowing new crops in November.

A day after the tweets, Kejriwal wrote to the chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana requesting a meeting to find the solution to the crop burning.

But Amarinder rejected the meeting saying that only the Union government can find a solution by giving financial help to farmers to handle the residue.
After days of targeting each other over the problem of paddy stubble burning by farmers, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi and the Congress-run Punjab government on Friday turned to blaming the Centre for not taking the lead in resolving the ecological crisis looming over the national capital.

The Centre hit back by releasing statistics that show that the ministry of agriculture had allocated Rs 97.5 crore to Punjab for 2016-17 and 2017-18 to deal with the problem of straw burning and the funds remained unutilised.

Ministry data showed that Haryana had utilised Rs 39 crore of the Rs 45 crore allocated to it this year (there was no allocation in 2016-17) and Rajasthan utilised a third of its Rs 9 crore. Uttar Pradesh was allocated Rs 56.01 crore over two years and has used up nearly 90% of the funds.

There is 20 million tonne of paddy straw in Punjab. What will farmers do? Where will they store it? Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh told HT over phone.

Singh has demanded about Rs 2,000 crore from the Centre for the management of the harvest residue and preventing farmers from burning it and causing pollution.

Farmers have their genuine concerns, the Centre has to step in and play an active role in coordinating between the states, Delhi minister Gopal Rai said on Friday, nearly echoing Singhs concerns.

On Thursday, a war of tweets had broken out between Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart. The AAP is the principal opposition party in Punjab and has supported farmers burning residual stubble left after harvesting paddy.

Stubble burning is illegal and the Punjab government has penalised nearly 2,400 farmers for it, though reluctantly. Farmers are an important political constituency for all parties and in the midst of an agrarian crisis.

The Punjab chief minister insisted that the Centre must call a meeting of all affected states and seek suggestions from them. He sought a compensatory allowance of Rs 100 per quintal of paddy as incentive for farmers to manage the crop residue scientifically.

Experts concur with the view that the Centre needs to chip in to prevent stubble burning. The farmer needs to be supported, not punished, said agriculture expert Devinder Sharma. Blaming the three sides for politicking over it and not addressing the problem by planning for it through the year, he said, This happens every year at this time. When the winds blow away the smoke, they will stop talking about it.

A single agency under the Centre should be made responsible for implementing all decisions, Rai said.
In the wake of Tipu Jayanti, section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) that prohibits assembly of more than four people was imposed in Karnatakas Kodagu on Friday, official said.

Authorities have also beefed up security in the regard.

Section 144 imposed in Kodagu ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebration, security tightened, the district administration said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had on Thursday opposed the Karnataka governments decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJPs and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sanghs (RSS) views are completely different from those of the state government and regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus.

After a major clash in 2015 in the state over the Tipu Jayanti celebrations, the Karnataka government last year decided to make the event an annual affair.
Unidentified people pelted stones at a state-run bus in Karnatakas Kodagu and BJP workers staged demonstrations to protest the annual celebrations of the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, a powerful former ruler of Mysore who evokes extreme sentiments in the state.

The ruling Congress has been celebrating the day as Tipu Jayanti since 2015 and describe the monarch as a freedom fighter who died battling the British in 1799. Right-wing Hindu groups, the BJP and Sangh Parivar, consider Tipu Sutan a bigot and tyrant who killed Hindus and Christians during his expansion into the region.

On Friday, chief minister Siddaramaiah called Tipu Sultan the first freedom fighter of the country.

Honouring Indias first freedom fighter & the Tiger of Mysore for his bravery & sacrifice in fighting the British. Karnataka salutes his patriotism, courage & military excellence. #TipuJayanti, he tweeted.

Honouring Indias first freedom fighter & the Tiger of Mysore for his bravery & sacrifice in fighting the British. Karnataka salutes his patriotism, courage & military excellence. #TipuJayanti pic.twitter.com/0x3ymK8yKd  CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) November 10, 2017

Officials said more than a 100 BJP workers were taken into custody when they staged a protest in Madikeri in Kodagu district, where Tipu Sultan had allegedly killed thousands of locals known as Kodavas during his rule. The district had seen largescale violence in 2015.

KS Sundar Raj, a senior police official of Madikeri confirmed an incident of stone-pelting on a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus.

Protesters threw stones and damaged a bus of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation in Madikeri during a protest against the Tipu Jayanti celebrations. (ANI Twitter)

Section 144 has been imposed in the district for 48 hours and they were not permitted to protest, Raj said.

Appachu Ranjan, the local MLA, and sunil Subramani, the local MLC, who were part of the protest, were also taken into custody, he added.

However, the BJP faced major embarrassment after one of its MLAs was seen at an event commemorating the ruler. Anand Singh, MLA from Ballari, was seen participating in an event celebrating Tipu Jayanti in the town. Repeated attempts to contact Singh through phone calls and messages went unanswered.

BJP leader and former chief minister Jagadish Shettar said the party would take strict action against those who had gone against the partys stand.

Addressing mediapersons, Shettar said the BJP opposed the event as it was divisive. Because it divided society and creates communal tension, we are opposing it, he said. Shettar said the Congress was only celebrating Tipu Jayanti as part of its vote-bank politics.

Regarding Singh, Shettar said: Some MLAs participated in the event and this will be taken very seriously by the party. The partys stand is very clear and strict action will be taken.



The celebrations were held amid tight security after police commissioner TS Suneel Kumar announced that 11,000 police personnel, including 30 Karnataka State Reserve Police platoons, would be deployed.

Either for or against, we will not permit any processions in the city, he said.

On Thursday, the Karnataka high court HAD rejected a petition seeking a stay on the celebrations.

In the lead up to the event this year, BJP parliamentarian Shobha Karandlaje and Union Minister Anathkumar Hegde had asked the state government to not include their names in invites.

However, the BJP was left red faced after President Ramnath Kovind praised Tipu in a speech in Bengaluru.

Tipu Sultan died a heroic death fighting the British. He was also a pioneer in the development and use of Mysore rockets in warfare. This technology was later adopted by Europeans, Kovind said last month.

Tipu Sultan, killed in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war in 1799, is credited with developing an indigenous rocket known as Mysorean rocket, a prototype of the British Congreve rockets.

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Security cover was strengthened across Bengaluru on the occassion of the contested Tipu Jayanti on Friday, the birth anniversary of the 18th century ruler of the Mysore Kingdom.

Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of Mysore, evokes intense admiration and hate in equal measure. He is hailed as a freedom fighter for fighting the British, but his critics  the BJP and the Sangh Parivar  say he killed Hindus and Christians for during his expansion into the region in the late 1700s.

The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government started celebrating Tipu Jayanti two years ago, which has been opoosed by the BJP. The event has been held under tight security after violence erupted in Kodagu district in 2015.

From Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah to Union minister of state Ananth Kumar Hegde, heres a look at the Congress-BJP war of words on Tipu Jayanti:

Ananth Kumar Hegde, Union minister of state for skill development

Hegde was at the forefront of the chorus of voices against Tipu Jayanti. His October 20 letter to the Karnataka chief ministers Secretariat and Uttara Kannada DC, asking them not to include his name on the list of invitees for the Tipu Jayanti celebrations started the war of words.

Hegde tweeted out the letter, calling Tipu a brutal killer and a mass rapist.

Conveyed #KarnatakaGovt NOT to invite me to shameful event of glorifying a person known as brutal killer, wretched fanatic & mass rapist. pic.twitter.com/CEGjegponl  Anantkumar Hegde (@AnantkumarH) October 20, 2017

Siddaramiah, Karnataka chief minister

The Karnataka CM reacted sharply to Hegdes letter, saying he was trying to politicise the issue. As part of the government, he shouldnt have written it, Siddaramaiah told ANI. It is being made into a political issue. There were four wars against British and Tipu fought them all, he added.

Siddaramiah also took on BJP president Amit Shah, responding to his comments on Twitter.

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

Ramnath Kovind, President

President Ramnath Kovind was also dragged into the controversy when he praised Tipu Sultan for his fight against British invaders at a public event in Bengaluru.

Speaking at a joint session of the legislature during the Vidhana Soudhas diamond jubilee celebrations in Bengaluru, Kovind said: Tipu Sultan died a heroic death fighting the British. He was also a pioneer in the development and use of Mysore rockets in warfare. This technology was later adopted by Europeans.

Reacting to the presidents statement, BJP leader R Ashoka blamed the ruling Congress government for Kovinds speech. The state government gave the speech to the President, he said.

Amit Shah, BJP President

At a November 2 rally in Bengaluru, BJP president Amit Shah jumped into the Tipu Jayanti debate, calling the event an example of Congress vote bank politics.

On November 1, Karnataka formation day, chief minister Siddaramaiah had a lacklustre programme with nothing to show that he cares for the state . He is now much more focused on November 10 when Tipu Jayanti is being celebrated. A celebration that is indicative of his vote bank politics, said Shah.

By celebrating Tipu Jayanti and indulging in vote bank politics the Congress government is not looking for the welfare of the people, said Shah.

Shahnawaz Hussain, BJP leader

The BJP leader accused the Karnataka government of being more worried about Tipu Jayanti than its own farmers.

Karnataka government is not paying attention to the problem of the public, the poor, and the farmers, but they are really worried about Tipu Sultan. When will CM Siddharamiah cares about the village farmers, Hussain said.

Shehzad Poonawala, Maharashtra Congress secretary

The Congress leader tweeted that no amount of propaganda by BJP-RSS can diminish Tipu Sultans contribution, calling him the tigerof Mysore.

Try as they might, no amount of propaganda by BJP RSS can diminish the contribution of Tipu Sultan (only because he is a Muslim) - Tiger of Mysore & India's bravest freedom fighter (Prez Kovind acknowledges his role too) - My piece in Inquilab on occasion of Tipu Jayanti pic.twitter.com/SjBOltohpM  Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) November 10, 2017
Thirty-six-year-old Kale Jaipal sowed cotton seeds in nine acres of land in July this year, hoping to raise bumper crop and clear all his debts from previous years.

But, that dream was short-lived as the crop failed despite repeated sowing and huge investments. He ended his life last week at his village  Turpuguduem in Yadadri Bhongir district of Telangana.

For the second successive year, he suffered huge losses. The cotton crop failed him again and he feared he might not be able to pay even for the agriculture labourers, leave alone friends and relatives from whom he had taken seven acres of land on lease, Jaipals brother Kale Balraj told Hindustan Times.

In the last 10 days, at least a dozen farmers have reportedly committed suicide in cotton growing regions of Telangana, and there have been protests against the governments failure to procure the raw cotton that is not fetching good price in the open market.

The cotton season starts in June and July and ends in September/October, also the period in which farmer suicides are reported from the state. In 1998, the first BT Cotton season, over 100 farmer suicides were reported from the region then part of Andhra Pradesh.

In the present cases, the reasons cited by the victims families for the suicides were failure of crops due to spurious Bt cotton seeds, poor yield of cotton, damage of crops due to unseasonal rains in October and lack of remunerative price to whatever little quantity of cotton the farmers could raise, on the pretext of high percentage of humidity.

We had to sow cotton seed three times but twice, there was only vegetative growth but no flowering. Only the third time, we could get some yield. For nine acres, the yield was 20 quintals, as against normal yield of 60-70 quintals. What is worse, heavy rains in October damaged even this little yield causing a lot of humidity, said Jaipals mother Teresamma.

Seed dealers, however, deny indulging in any malpractices.

We sell only certified and branded Bt cotton seeds approved by the authorities, S Pentaiah, proprietor of Chaitanya Seeds and Fertilisers at Choutuppal in Yadadri Bhongir district. There is a possibility that some batches of seeds may turn out to be of poor quality. Farmers also buy seeds from unregistered dealers for lesser price and suffer losses.

According to the agriculture department estimates, farmers had raised cotton in over 49 lakh acres this year, compared to around 30 lakh acres last year, since farmers were attracted by the price of Rs 5,500 the crop fetched for each quintal.

In the normal conditions, an acre of crop yields around 7-9 quintals of cotton but this year the production has been one-fourth. The overall expenditure incurred by farmers including wages of labourers and cost of transporting produce to the market is around Rs 12,000 per acre.

On an average, there should be a profit of at least Rs 25,000 per acre for the farmer in ideal conditions, said Bandi Krishnamurthy, another cotton farmer, whose brother B Chandramouli committed suicide five years ago due to crop failure. This year, it was not even 1-2 quintals per acre and that, too, of poor quality cotton.

Such was the state that in several villages, farmers were forced to destroy and set fire to their crops as there was no yield even after two or three sowings.

What is the point in keeping the crop when there is no yield even after spending Rs 2 lakh? asked Kandala Mahender Reddy of Valigonda in Yadadri Bhongir district, who cut down his four-acre crop.

Farmers have accused the government of not preventing sale of spurious seeds.

We bought Bt cotton seeds from Gajwel in Siddipet district, besides Jangaon and Alair markets. The seeds were sold in attractive packets and we were told the yield would be higher than last year. It was only at the vegetative growth stage did we realise that we were cheated, Krishnamurthy said.

According to Telangana Rythu Sangham state vice-president Nunna Nageswara Rao, the Central government has fixed minimum support price of Rs 4,320 and the state government should give an additional bonus of at least Rs 1,000 to help distressed farmers.

However, traders in the market yards are offering just Rs 2,300 to a maximum of Rs 3,500 depending on the quality of cotton, moisture content which should not exceed 12 per cent and colour, he alleged.

The high moisture content  this time around 18%  adversely impact process of turning cotton into fabric.

Minister for Agriculture Pocharam Srinivas Reddy said the government had already taken steps to buy cotton at a higher rate than the MSP in several centres.

We have also requested the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to procure cotton even with 15 per cent humidity. We have also written to the Centre to make public sector insurance companies implement weather-based crop insurance scheme for cotton by taking farmer as a unit, he said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modis pet Swachh Bharat mission came in for sharp criticism on Friday from a top United Nations expert who said it lacked a holistic human rights approach.

Leo Heller, the United Nation Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, presented a preliminary report of his visit to India at a press conference where he insisted that the Centres emphasis on building toilets should not overshadow the focus on providing drinking water to all.

In the last two weeks I have visited rural and urban areas, slums and settlement camps where undocumented population is residing... and I have found that these initiatives lack a more human rights approach, he said.

A press release by the office of the high commissioner, United Nations Human Rights, on the issue drew strong criticism from the government. The release was distributed at the press conference.

Everywhere I went, I saw the logo of the Clean India Mission - (Mahatma) Gandhis glasses. In its third year of implementation, now is a critical time to replace the lens of those glasses with the human rights lens, Heller was quoted in the release as having told the media.

Taking strong note of his remarks on the logo of the Clean India Mission, the government issued a statement saying it showed serious insensitivity towards the Father of our Nation.

The statement said the world knows that the Mahatma was the foremost proponent of human rights.

Instead of taking the human rights approach to sanitation in a holistic way, a piecemeal approach is there, Heller told the press conference, and urged the government at all levels to impart a human rights perspective to its national programmes on safe drinking water and sanitation.

On Friday, Heller concluded his fortnight-long visit to the country during which he met several government officials and visited New Delhi, Kolkata, Imphal, Lucknow and Mumbai where he also visited a few slums.

The expert, charged by the UN Humans Rights Council, to monitor, report and advise on the realisation of the human rights to water and sanitation worldwide, said he also found that in certain areas people belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes faced discrimination in accessing toilets.

Eliminating open defecation is not just about building latrines, Heller said.

Heller said he had a mixed perception about the mission which was a unique initiative of India and launched by the Prime Minister himself.

On my last day in India, the website of Clean India Mission showed 53 million toilets built in the last years, in rural areas only, (besides in urban areas). I need to recognise that it is very impressive, he said.

He also brought up the issue of the human rights of manual scavengers.

The governments emphasis on building toilets should not involuntarily contribute to violating the fundamental rights of others, such as those specific caste groups enagaged in manual scavenging, or those who are marginalised such as ethnic minorities living in remote rural areas, he said.

The government dismissed his preliminary findings as a rambling report and said it contained inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases.

The report has been produced after only a two-week visit with fleeting trips to a few states and including some anecdotal reference, the government said, asserting its highest commitment to human rights in general and water supply and sanitation in particular.

The UN expert, who visited India at the invitation of the government will submit a full report on his findings with recommendations at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2018.

Heller was also critical of the certification mechanism being followed while declaring a particular area open- defecation free (ODF).

The certification procedure is not very straightforward. According to responsible ministries, the protocol to certify an ODF area is not the same for rural and urban areas. I also learned that in some places, ODF certified areas are not de facto open defecation free, he said.

Heller said the information, education and communication (IEC) mechanism used for the mission lacked proper methodology. He said just a few workshops and events were not enough for effective implementation of the mission and that sustained efforts needed to be made.

Just dedicating funds is not enough. It is good the government has earmarked dedicated funds for the mission, but proper implementation through IEC is needed, he added.

The UN expert also said both sanitation and provision of safe drinking water should be accorded equal priority.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday to replace Union finance minister Arun Jaitley over issues with the Goods and Services Tax (GST), saying no amount of tinkering with tax rates will set things right.

With full responsibility, I urge the PM to bring in a new FM (finance minister) and also constitute a committee, headed by Vijay Kelkar, to recommend fundamental changes in the GST, Sinha, once a Union finance minister, said.

This isnt the first time Sinha has criticised the top leadership of his own party over the governments economic policies. In late September, he wrote a newspaper opinion calling last years note ban an unmitigated economic disaster and the implementation of the GST a badly conceived and poorly implemented havoc.

Those comments drew a sharp rebuttal from Jaitley, who took a jab at an 80-year-old man looking for re-employment. Jaitley did not name anyone but his reference was largely understood to be to Sinha.

I may be 80, but I have presented all my seven Budget speeches standing up unlike Jaitley. All I am saying is that he did not apply his mind, blinded as he was with the obsession to achieve a revenue neutral rate to avoid any fall in tax collection, he said.

Demanding Jaitley be sacked, Sinha said: GST in the present form has become kabad (junk). Everyday changes in tax rates are not going set the faulty rate structure right. A complete overhaul is necessary. Even petrol and diesel should be brought under its ambit for the benefit of people.

Sinha also repeated his attack on the note ban. One year is a long time. It has failed in its objective of flushing 4-5 lakh crore of black money from the system. Almost 99% of the currency is back in the banks and some currency in Nepal and district co-operative banks are still to be counted, he said.

The former finance minister said 20 lakh jobs had been lost due to the scrapping of the high-value notes.

The government is taking recourse to false claims on note ban to celebrate its success. A raid raj is underway to bolster the governments claim on tackling black money, he said, adding, incidents of halt in stone pelting instances happened in 2010 and 1931 too. Did it happen due to note ban then?

Sinha made these comments after his keynote address at a function organised by the Vanchit Varg Morcha in Patna to discuss Economic, Social and Employment of Deprived Section: Present Status.

The BJP leader called for a new commission to look into status of the implementation of quotas for SC, ST and OBCs and for ways to remove road blocks, including dealing with the 50% cap on reservations imposed by Supreme Court.

He also criticised the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Only lip service is going to do no good. If you mean it, have a resolution passed by state Assembly and send it to the Centre, Sinha said, ostensibly referring to Kumars support for quotas to be extended to the private sector.

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The outrage over the film Padmavati continues to grow, with women from the Rajput community joining protests on Friday. They alleged that by distorting history the film is maligning the queen Padminis image and its an insult to all Hindu women, who take pride in the sacrifice made by the legendary queen of Chittor.

Addressing a press conference, a group of Rajput women banded under the Kshatrani Sankalp, expressed anger over alleged distortion of facts in the film and warned they would oppose its release.

Rajput women at a press conference to announce their protest against controversial film Padmavati in Jaipur on Friday. (Prabhakar Sharma/HT )

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansalis film Padmavati is being opposed by the Rajput community in Rajasthan. The Karni Sena, the former royal families and even politicians have joined issue on the alleged misrepresentation of facts in the film.

The women said suggestion of a romantic relationship between Queen Padmini and Alauddin Khilji would not be tolerated. Bhansali has denied the allegation.

Queen Padmini had performed jauhar along with 16,000 women. If needed, 32,000 Rajput women will come out on the streets to oppose the films release if it depicts the queen in a bad light, said Manisha Singh, convenor of the Kshatrani Sankalp.

If a film was made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi that distorted facts, would its release be allowed? she asked.

She said that the Rajput Sabha would give a memorandum to chief minister Vasundhara Raje so that the film is pre-screened to a committee and any scenes found objectionable be deleted.

The queen is shown performing the ghoomar dance in indecent clothes, which is a faulty portrayal of Rajputs. A Rajput queen would never perform before an audience nor bare her midriff, said another member Poonam Khangarot said.

Dr Suman Shekhawat said bollywood directors have often taken liberties with Rajput history. Films like Jodha Akbar, Prem Rog, Zubeida all had objectionable content.
ELKO  Before Thanksgiving, several Elko County children will have something extra to be thankful for when they are adopted on Nov. 21 as part of National Adoption Day.

On that day, Elko District Judges Nancy Porter and Al Kacin will preside over several adoptions of children under 18 years old, ranging from step-parent and foster parent adoptions to private agency adoptions.

A two-hour lunch in the County Commissioners room sponsored by Newmont Mining Corp. for the families is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and includes a speech by Family Court Master Andrew Mierins. Families who took part in last years adoption day are also invited to the lunch.

Each child will also receive an antique teddy bear donated by Public Guardian Kathy Jones, Porter said.

National Adoption Day and Month encourages adoption of foster children, Porter said, adding there are about 110,000 foster children available for adoption throughout the country.

Since 2014, Elko County has recognized National Adoption Day, which is officially the third Saturday in November, which is also National Adoption Month. This year, the event comes after the official National Adoption Day on Nov. 18 and is the fifth time the county has conducted the event, Porter said.

The event also raises awareness for the need for more foster families, Porter said.

We are desperately in need in qualified foster parents, said Veronica Hagen, adoption worker with the Department of Child and Family Services, explaining that more foster families are needed for child placement by the DCFS and not necessarily adoption.

The amount of adoptions and foster families willing to adopt have increased in Elko County, Porter said.

Currently in Elko County, there is only one teen in foster care available for adoption, said Hagen.

The adoption day event is organized by the Community Improvement Council, a committee that tries to improve court processes and conditions for families whose children are in foster care, Porter explained.

The long-term benefits for foster children adopted into a safe family environment are backed up by statistics, said Kriston Hill, public defender.

Statistically, children that are adopted excel and do much better than those who are in foster care, Hill said.

Hagen said she notices changes in foster children before the adoption process is completed, adding that DCFS provides services to help the family acclimate to each others personalities and struggles.

We do see families come back with success stories, Hagen said. We see them interacting and [being] happy, normal children, [which is] awesome to see from the sad kids we saw before.

Another aspect of adoption is how it helps couples who cannot have children, Porter said.

Teri Lockie, of Premier Adoption Agency, a private agency, works with birth parents and adoptive parents, and sees how an adoption is emotional for everyone involved.

Porter said she looks forward to the day because the tone of the courtroom changes into a celebration.

Its the best thing that happens in the courtroom, Porter said. I feel good all day.

The CIC includes Veronica Hagen, DCFS adoption worker; Kriston Hill, public defender; Teri Lockie, Premier Adoption Agency; Alana McKinney, Northeastern Nevada CASA; Andrew Mierins, family court master; Curtis Moore, Elko County District Attorney; District Judge Nancy Porter; Michelle Rodriguez, attorney; and Jennifer Spencer, child advocacy attorney.

For those interested in becoming a foster parent or adopting a foster child, call DCFS at 753-1300. For private adoptions, contact Teri Lockie at 340-0667.

Additional information about Elko County's participation in Adoption Day was added to the article.
The Rajput community leaders have rejected filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansalis contention that the movie Padmavati upholds the honour of Rajputs and does not depict anything that may hurt sentiments.

In a video published on YouTube on Wednesday, Bhansali had stated that the film starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor does not have a dream sequence between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji.

However, Rajput Sabha president Giriraj Singh Lotawara, on Friday, said that they didnt have faith in Bhansali and would not allow the film to release unless it was cleared by a panel of experts.

We dont trust Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Apart from the Khilji episode, there are other distortions in the film. The Ghoomar (traditional folk dance of Rajasthan) is not performed in the way it has been shown in the film and the queens never take part in the dance. We want an expert committee comprising historians and other intellectuals to clear the film first, Lotawara told HT.

When asked if he would agree to Bhansalis offer to watch the film before it is released he said, I dont want to watch the film as it is full of distortions.

The Rajput Karni Sena, which had demolished the sets of the movie in Jaipur and reportedly hit Bhansali, has also warned the director to show the movie with historically correct facts. Later, a set of the film in Kolhapur was vandalised and set on fire.

In September, someone from Bhansalis team had called and told us to see the film. We asked them to show it to historians but they have not complied. We will not allow distorted facts to be shown in the film, Karni Sena president Lokendra Singh Kalvi said.

The official Twitter handle of Padmavati shared the Bhansalis video on Wednesday.

In the video link, Bhansali said: Ive made this film Padmavati with a lot of sincerity, responsibility and hard work. I have always been inspired by Rani Padmavatis story and this film salutes her valour and sacrifice. But because of some rumours, this film has become a subject of controversy.

The rumours claim that the film has a dream sequence between Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji but its something that I have already denied, even in writing. Now through this video, I am reiterating that in our film, Rani Padmavati and Alauddin Khilji have no such scene together which hurts anyones sentiments, he added.

We have made this film with a lot of responsibility and have kept the pride and honour of the Rajputs in mind.

Padmavati, which is set to release on December 1, has still not been submitted to the CBFC for certification.

BJP MLA and former Jaipur royal family member Diya Kumari has also lent her voice to the campaign against Padmavati, saying the films release would not be allowed if it took liberties with history.

Meanwhile, members of the Rajput community have also taken to social media to register their opposition to the film. On Facebook, many have inscribed their profile picture with the phrase I oppose.

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The education department on Friday suspended the principal, who was accused of caste-based discrimination in a school in Barmer.

District education officer Shankarlal Khorwal, while confirming the report, said that the allegations were found to be true after which the principal (Raichandram Choudhary) of the government upper primary school in Puniyon Ki Dhani, some 100km off Barmer, was suspended.

A group of students had alleged that the principal did not allow them to sit for their mid-day meals with the upper caste children or drink water from the same tank. About 24 students also told the police that their plates were kept separate from those of upper caste children.

Khorwal said that on Thursday he got the probe report from the Dhorimanna block education officer, Laxman Solanki, after which on Friday he issued the suspension order. The accused principal had been put on compulsory wait after the issue came to light.

On Tuesday, around 24, out of 144 students of the school, had lodged a complaint with the local police under the Scheduled Caste and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for alleged caste-based discrimination.

Deputy superintendent of police Ramniwas Sunda said that they have registered an FIR and will start the investigation on Saturday.

Solanki said that during the investigation he had recorded the statement of the victims and other students who belong to the upper caste and other villagers. He claimed that the upper cases student told him that SC/ST students were not allowed to drink water from the school tank.

According to Solanki, the upper caste students told him that the principal had told them to get water from the tank and pour it into bottles and utensils belonging to SC/ST students.

He also claimed that villagers confirmed the allegations and told him that SC/ST students were not allowed to sit and eat midday meals with upper caste students. They were made to eat meals in separate utensils and sit separately.

Locals told me that in 2012 the same allegation had been levelled against the principal, said Solanki.

According to him, the accused has been posted at the school since for past 17 years.
As the strike by government doctors entered fifth day on Friday, the government began a crackdown under the Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act (RESMA) and arrested six of them from different parts of the state.

In another development, the Rajasthan high court directed doctors to resume work with immediate effect and asked the government to ensure that the strike ends.

Health minister Kali Charan Saraf, who has been heading the panel talking to striking doctors representatives since the strike began on Monday, said if the doctors did not return to work by 7 pm on Friday, action will be taken.

Police said two doctors each from Bharatpur and Jhalawar districts, one each from Sawai Madhopur and Tonk districts were arrested under RESMA on Friday.

Saraf blamed obduracy of All Rajasthan In-Service Doctors Association (ARISDA) for the deadlock.

He said the government agreed to their fair demands on Thursday night when ARISDA president Dr Ajay Choudhary raised the issue of resident doctors. (Resident doctors of state medical colleges joined the strike on Thursday to show solidarity.)

The minister said the issue of resident doctors was not in the list of demands of doctors and was raised without information.

Showing two envelopes with Ajay Choudhary as the sender, the minister said the doctors had sent blank papers in the name of resignation, refuting doctors claim of mass resignation.

The minister said he was aware that despite alternative arrangements, patients are facing problems in hospitals across the state. But he ruled out any death due to the strike.

Meanwhile, the high court heard a PIL filed by advocates Abhinav Sharma and Anand Sharma and issued notices to the health principal secretary, director general of police, Dr Ajay Choudhary, Dr Durga Shankar Saini and secretary of the Medical Council of Rajasthan asking why no action has been taken against the striking doctors.

Justice KS Jhaveri directed the state government to ensure compliance of an order passed by the court in September 2012. The court had then held that the strike call given by Dr Ajay Choudhary and others in 2011 was unconstitutional and illegal.

The court said it was governments duty to ensure no one strikes work and it should exercise its power to see that the strike ends immediately.

The court directed advocate general MN Lodha that notices be sent individually to all the doctors on strike telling them that the HC has taken a serious view of the matter and that they should join work, said Sharma.

The bench directed the state to identify doctors on strike and provide the list to the court on November 15, the next date of hearing.

The high court also directed the government to fulfil feasible demands of the doctors. It said the government should set up a committee to look into the remaining demands.
The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday, hearing a writ petition filed against the setting up of the oil refinery in Barmer, issued a notice to the state government and HPCL and sought clarification on the issue.

The court turned down the governments request for four weeks time to reply on the issue and ordered it to submit the reply by November 27.

In the writ filed by Parasmal Kharwal, president of the salt producers committee--Shri Ashapura Sambhara Namak Utpadan Kshetra Vikas Samiti said if the refinery-cum-petrochemical complex in Barmers Pachpadra is established, the mega project would ruin the salt mines and which can be established at any other land.

The petitioners advocate Rakesh Arora and Mahesh Kharwal pleaded before the bench of justice Nirmaljeet Kaur that the state government is going to establish the project in a town where salt is being produced for decades.

We have pleaded before the court to stay the construction work until the case is pending before it, said Mahesh Kharwal.

There is an agreement signed between the state government and salt producers, under which Pachpadra, where salt is manufactured, was declared as reserved area under the Rajasthan Land Revenue (allotment of conversion of land for saline areas), Rules 1970, vide a notification dated April 30, 1973, he said.

There are more than 200 salt mines located on the land proposed for the refinery, Mahesh Kharwal said.

After the announcement for setting up of the refinery by the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) at Pachpadra, a notification was issued by the state government in July 2013, in which while rescinding all earlier notifications with regard to declaration of saline area, transferred the land of saline area to the revenue department.

In the notification, the land situated in Sajiyali, Rupaji, Kathwara and Sambhara and Pachpadra measuring 12,034.10 bigha was taken back from the saline area.

As per the Rule 6(3) of the Rajasthan Land Revenue (allotment of land in saline areas) Rules 2007, the notification issued, said a saline area can only be rescinded only if the land has become unfit or economically unviable for producing salt, he said.

In present case, the land in question is neither unfit nor economically unviable for salt production.

Petitioners advocate told the court that producing salt is an industrial work based on natural source.

The refinery, is also an industry but it can be established on any land but at the same time the salt industry cannot be established anywhere as it is based on natural sources of salt in the land.

If the saline area is allotted to the refinery, it will close down an industry based on natural sources at the cost of another industry which can be established at any other land.

Salt producers who have been producing salt for generations, were never given an opportunity to plead their case before the land was allotted to the HPCL, he said.

It is not a case where no other land in the neighbouring area is available to the government to allot for the refinery and as it was not imperative to allot the lard to HPCL at the cost of closing down the salt industry situated in the saline area.

The proposed refinery has remained a big political issue in the state. The previous Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in state had inked the MoU with HPCL to establish the refinery at Pachpadra.

In September 2012 during UPA regime, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had laid the foundation stone for the refinery in Pachpadra.

Soon after assuming power in state, the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government, however, went for a review of the project, alleging that the MoU signed by the previous government was a deal of loss.

In April, Raje inked a fresh MoU with HPCL and announced that the work on the refinery would start soon.

Senior BJP leaders and official sources said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for oil refinery in the last week of November.
A 23-year-old chartered accountancy student was killed when the car in which he was travelling along with his friends, fell into a gorge near the Nahargarh Fort, police said.

The incident took place early on Friday, when the five students were returning from near the fort, police said.

Preliminary investigation suggests that the car, in which they were travelling, fell into the gorge at around 2.30 am on Friday. One of the students died on the spot and two were injured, said assistant sub inspector (ASI) Gajanand of Nahargarh fort police station (north).

After the incident, the students did not inform the police and officials came to know about the incident only in the morning, police said.

The deceased student has been identified as Vineet Jain, 23, a resident of Jhalawar who was studying chartered accountancy in Jaipur. The two injured students, identified as Abhishek and Akshay, are admitted in the hospital. Two of the students didnt sustain any major injuries, said Gajanand.

The body handed over to the family members of the deceased after an autopsy, police said, adding that the car was badly damaged in the accident.

A case against two of the students has been registered under relevant sections of the IPC and the Motor Vehicles Act and further investigation is on in the case, said the ASI.
Hours after former Trinamool heavyweight and BJP leader Mukul Roy targeted Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee on a number of issues, the West Bengal chief minister and her government dismissed the allegations as baseless.

At his first public rally in Kolkata after joining BJP last Friday, Roy targeted his former boss over the Saradha scam, dengue deaths, frequent foreign trips and the ownerships of Biswa Bangla, a brand promoted by the state government, and Jago Bangla, the Trinamool mouthpiece.

In her response  at the inauguration of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) attended by film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Kamal Haasan and others  Mamata said, People should broaden their mind instead of playing politics.

I dont go abroad too often. I go once a year. This year, I visited the United Nations (referring to her trip to Hague) to accept an award given to our Kanyashree project, she said, adding that she was going to London (she left on Friday night) because a plaque will be placed at the residence of Sister Nivedita.

It is an honour for Bengal, Mamata said in Bengali.

(Margaret Noble, a Scottish-Irish social worker and author came to India in 1898 as disciple of Swami Vivekananda, founder of Ramakrishna Mission, who named her Sister Nivedita.)

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee with actors Amitabh Bachchan (2nd L), Shah Rukh Khan (2nd R), Kajol (R) and Kamal Haasan (L) during the inauguration of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival in Kolkata on Friday. (IANS)

The programme in London is being jointly organised by the Ramakrishna Mission and the state government, she said, wondering why she shouldnt organise Durga Puja and other festivals.

These are part of Bengals culture, she said, catching many in the audience by surprise as the Trinamool had so far chosen to ignore Roys move to the BJP.

Roy had accused Mamata of making frequent trips to foreign countries with a big team to woo investors, but in vain. He also compared Mamata to former state CM Jyoti Basu of the CPI(M) who used to take only a few people with him abroad.

He had also referred to cultural festivals organised by the government, saying the administration ignore the dengue deaths in the state.

The most serious allegation was that Mamatas nephew Abhisek Banerjee, a Lok Sabha MP, was the actual owner of the Biswa Bangla brand and party mouthpiece Jago Bangla.

Biswa Bangla, sponsor of the recent Under- 17 FiFA World Cup, is owned by Abhishek Banerjee. It is not a government entity. Rather it is a private entity owned by the chief ministers nephew, he said.

All campaign material, party literature, monograms, etc. of Trinamool Congress are printed by a company owned by Abhishek Banerjee. Perhaps few in the ruling party know it, Roy alleged.

The 63-year old former Rajya Sabha MP alleged that Trinamool Congress had turned into a limited company, hinting that it had become the personal fiefdom of the chief minister.

Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol during inauguration of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival in Kolkata on Friday. (PTI)

Though bureaucrats never react to allegations raised at political rallies, state home secretary Atri Bhattacharya refuted Roys allegation at Nabanna, the state secretariat an hour after the rally.

The allegation is baseless. The Biswa Bangla brand and logo were created by the chief minister. She has given it to the West Bengal government. The brand and the logo are registered in the name of the government. These are not owned by any individual, said Bhattacharya.

On the Jago Bangla allegation, Trinamool secretary general and state education minister Partha Chatterjee dismissed it as baseless at the partys headquarters.

Mamata Banerjee set up Jago Bangla with the money she made by selling her paintings? Doesnt Mukul Roy know the people in the advisory board of Jago Bangla? Why is he alleging that Abhishek is the owner of Jago Bangla? Let there be an investigations. If the charges the proved I will quit politics, said Chatterjee.

Former Trinamool leader Mukul Roy, who recently joined BJP, addresses a rally in Kolkata on Friday. (PTI)

Mamata met Saradha chief Sudipta Sen: Roy

Roy also alleged that Mamata had met Saradha Group boss Sudipta Sen several times.

He said he was present in a much-discussed meeting at Delo in Kalimpong along with journalist-turned-TMC MP Kunal Ghosh.

Meetings also took place at Pratidin office and the residence of painter Suvaprasannah, he said, promising to reveal more when people gather in lakhs.

The CBI is probing the fraudulent chit fund scheme run by Saradha Group that collapsed in 2013 leading to loss of Rs 2,500 crore deposits for about 17 lakh investors.

Several ruling party leaders were interrogated by CBI.

Incidentally, in a 91-page letter released in 2014, Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh alleged that Mamata met Sudipta Sen at a tourist lodge in Delo where he was also present.

Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee, dismissed the allegations, saying, He has not said anything new. He is merely repeating stuff.

Amitabh Bachchan, who inaugurated the film festival, Shah Rukh Khan, the chief guest, and a host of luminaries including actor Kamal Haasan and British director Michael Winterbottom were seated on the dais as she spoke.

Actors Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh Khan talk during the inauguration of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival in Kolkata. (IANS)

Interestingly, the festival was inaugurated at Netaji Indoor Stadium, which is barely half a kilometre from the BJP rally site.

Trinamool leaders said Fridays development, especially Mamata Banerjees reaction at the film festival, was disturbing. It seems Roy will continue to take potshots at Trinamool leaders, especially the chief minister, a senior leader said.
At least 25 Muslim families have fled an Aligarh village after a dispute over a mosque toilet sparked communal clashes and arson that left two people dead, officials said on Saturday.

A firewood shop was burnt down on Friday night despite additional security personnel deployed in Khurrampur Nagla Mewati village, about 20 km from Aligarh.

Sources that said about 155 Muslims who fled the village are unwilling to return as tension ran high in the area. The village had an estimated 2,000 people before the clashes on November 9.

One person, identified as Ramveer Sharma (50), died on Thursday in the hospital, while another person, identified only as Hasin, was killed in crossfire during the clashes. Sharma was injured and admitted to a hospital where he died, officials said.

Sharma, 50, had allegedly led a group of Hindus to demolish the toilet attached to a mosque when the clashes started. The toilet was constructed on his land, allegedly without his knowledge.

The death of Sharma sparked fresh tension when several BJP leaders reached the hospital with their supporters and later blocked a key road with the body.

The blockade was lifted only after the administration stepped in.

Family members and his associates said he had been seeking the administrations nod for demolishing the toilet for a long time.

Aligarh district magistrate Rishikesh Bhaskar Yashod said he has sought documents to clear the confusion over the toilet land.

We have assured the family of action on their demand... A decision will be taken soon, he told HT.

Hindu Mahasabha leader Sachin Sharma blamed officials for the situation and demanded sacking of the Vijaygarh police station officer.

Since six months we were making rounds of administration offices to get the toilet removed from our land but they did not act, said Suman, wife of Ramveer.

Muslims, however, blamed Hindu leaders of politicising the incident.

Politicians, particularly from BJP, are giving it (the incident) a communal colour. As MPs and MLAs have interfered in the incident, the administration is under pressure. Muslim families have deserted the village leaving behind their domestic animals. We will only return to the village when the administration guarantees us security, said Aslam, a relative of Hasin.

Another villager, Ashok Singh, said the clashes has broken the villages centuries-old communal harmony. The administration should deal with the incident in an impartial way, he added.
Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat said on Friday that the armed force is not facing any shortage of arms and it can give a befitting reply to the countrys enemies, contrary to claims of the top government auditor that its ammunition stock was in a critical level and will exhaust within 10 days.

We have to keep modernising weapons and arms as the technology is upgrading and we are trying to bring in new and modernised ones in our army, General Rawat told reporters in Varanasi after attending the bicentenary celebration of 9 Gorkha Rifles at 39 Gorkha Training Centre.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said there was a critical shortage of ammunition in the army in its report in July and that 55% ammunition used by the force would not last long to meet the minimum operational requirements.

It added that for the remaining 45%, the army has stock which could be put to use for a maximum of 10 days in case of an intense war.

The general also said incidents of stone pelting have come down significantly in Jammu and Kashmir and security forces are making all efforts to maintain normalcy in the restive state.

The army, Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Jammu and Kashmir police are working together in the state. Solution to this cant be achieved overnight, General Rawat said.

The government, intelligence agencies, state administration all are making efforts. Will be successful if things go in this direction, can say this with belief, he added.

General Rawat arrived in the temple town on Thursday afternoon and witnessed the Ganga aarti in the evening. He paid tribute to the martyrs by laying a wreath at the war memorial at 39 Gorkha Training Centre (GTC) where the bi-centenary celebration of Gorkha Rifles began on Thursday.

He offered prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Temple on Friday morning.

I sought the blessings of Baba Vishwanath and prayed for the well-being of every soldier. I offered special prayers for the soldiers who are deployed in tough terrains, the general said.

He said it was a matter of great pride for him to attend the bi-centenary celebrations of Gorkha Rifles that was known for its bravery.
Temple town Ayodhya is expected to score over communally-polarised Muzaffarnagar as the venue from where chief minister Yogi Adityanath is expected to launch his campaign for civic polls in Uttar Pradesh on November 14.

However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is still waiting for a final round of consultation with the CM and BJP general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal before deciding the venue from where Yogi will start his campaign comprising 32 rallies.

Apart from a rally in each of the 16 municipal corporations Ayodhya, Mathura, Saharanpur and Ferozabad have also become municipal corporations for the first time  Yogi is also expected to address nearly equal number of rallies for semi-urban bodies, as the Nagar Palika Parishad and Nagar Panchayats are known.

If the BJP think tank settles for Ayodhya, Adityanath would also address rallies in Gonda and Bahraich to make it three rallies on the opening day, a routine he is expected to follow for 10 days from November 24.

BJP has also decided to entrust one minister each with the responsibility of a municipal corporation.

While industrial development minister Satish Mahana has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that BJP does well in Ayodhya, power minister Shrikant Sharma has been made in-charge of Mathura while Varanasi has been given to urban development minister Suresh Khanna.

A day before launching the campaign, Yogi would visit Chhattisgarh to attend a function organised by a media house on November 13 before getting busy with the civic poll which the BJP has decided to use to connect with the people ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, which political experts say, could even be preponed.

I have a strong feeling that the Lok Sabha elections may be preponed. If that happens, the by-polls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur that are required after the resignation of Yogi and deputy chief minister Kehsav Prasad Maurya as MPs, will not be held, a BJP leader from Gorakhpur said.

In Gorakhpur, Yogi is expected to hold about four rallies as he is ostensibly aware that the political opponents may focus in the area from where Yogi is also the head priest of Gorakhnath temple.

Adityanath, who has announced several schemes for development of Hindu pilgrimage sites, will also visit Devipatan temple in Tulsipur, Balrampur, on Friday.

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Aramm

Director: Gopi Nainar

Cast: Nayanthara, Raams, Vignesh, Ramesh and Sunu Lakshmi

Rating: 3.5/5

Aramm opens somewhere near Sriharikota and were told India is preparing for its latest satellite launch. The mood is jubilant and people in nearby villages  where access to drinking water is a major concern - are eagerly looking forward to the big event. A baker puts his baking skills to test and whips up a cake in the shape of a rocket and puts it on display. A mother  on her way to fetch water - says shes looking forward to the launch because its a matter of pride for every Indian. The satellite launch is juxtaposed with a moving, hard-hitting story of hope and survival, leaving us almost in tears and in shock through most of the film.

Aramm, on many levels, questions the very system we live in and the inefficiency of the government and those in power. When an incident in a village  involving a life-and-death situation -- calls for immediate action, we witness the lethargic attitude with which some government officials react to the state of affairs. A tahsildar lies through his teeth about his whereabouts when asked if he has reached the incident site, a fire services vehicle breaks down on its way to the village and a local MLA threatens to stop the district collector from resolving the situation because he feels sidelined.

With its gripping and mostly intense narration, Aramm takes a look at our flawed system through the eyes of a 4-year-old girl. Gopi Nainar, in his maiden directorial outing, shines both as a writer and director in never going overboard with his realistic treatment, even in the films most emotional and uncompromising moments. In a television debate scene, one of the panellists points out how the government has funds for a satellite launch but cant even afford to have a rescue team in place to save a life. In another film, such scenes might have been mocked at but not in Aramm because its delivered very sensibly.

Stepping out of her comfort zone, Nayanthara shines in a very strong role. Its gutsy of her to shoulder a socio-political thriller on her own and she proves yet again that shes an actress of substance. She is well backed by the supporting cast. The core of the film is about the shortage of drinking water but its smart of Gopi to not set his story around it but use it as an undertone to address a bigger issue. Early on, he cheekily takes a dig at the government when a nurse stops to give polio drops to a young girl. We hear a dialogue that goes  ask the government if our thirst can be quenched by these drops.

Peter Hein does a splendid job choreographing the action sequences. The rescue operation scenes  aided superbly by cinematographer Om Prakash  keep us on the edge of our seats and the tension literally leaves us suffocated. Ghibrans background score elevates the tension, accentuating the whole mood of the film.

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Make sure to thank a veteran this weekend for his or her service to our great nation. All the freedoms we enjoy are due to the sacrifices of millions of men and women throughout the 237 years we have been a country. To all of you, including my son, thank you.

The 50 degree weather we are now experiencing should stabilize the water temperatures a bit, though with the cold nights they will probably slowly decrease until the next cold spell. High elevation lakes in the Rubys and East Humboldts have started to ice up and it wont be long before most of them are completely iced over.

With the weather forecast to be in the low 50s, light winds and mostly sunny skies, this should be a great weekend to get out and fish. And with the cooler water temperatures, fish are moving into the shallows looking for both food and warmer water.

This means that shore anglers should continue to catch as many fish as boaters. Dont be afraid to shorten your cast as many large fish are being caught in four to six feet of water, especially in low light conditions.

NDOW will be holding free fly tying classes starting this Wednesday, 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

Very little change here with good water quality, levels and fishing. Surface water temperatures are in the low 40s. Fishing has been good with shore anglers reporting limits of chunky 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 18 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 low to mid 40s, depending upon where on the lake you are and time of day. The algaie is clearing and fishing has improved with shore anglers along Jet Ski Beach reporting some nice fish, though not in great numbers. Expect numbers to pick up with the clearing water and colder water temperatures. Anglers also 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 low 40s. Best fishing for bass is late afternoon when the water temperatures are at their warmest, though it is very slow. Fishing in the ditch for trout has been good for trout, though most of the ditch has low clear water with 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 shore fishing is improving. 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 40s. Anglers will do well on night crawlers, Mepps, Panther Martins and Kast Masters for trout. Bass fishing is very slow. Trout fishing has been good using common nymph and emerger patterns as well as buggers. On warm sunny afternoons, small dries such as Griffiths gnats, elk hair caddis and mosquito patterns are worth a try.

CAVE LAKE

No change here as 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 but bass fishing is slow. 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 40s. Fishing has been fair to good as anglers have been catching mostly rainbow trout. The brown trout spawn is mostly over, but the 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 and water levels are dropping quickly as there is a problem with the outflow structure. No recent report on crappie fishing.

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. There is skim ice in the mornings on the edges. 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 and travel to the high mountain lakes is recommended for experienced back country hikers only. Lakes are starting to ice over and it wont be long before they are completely iced over and some of them dont have much open water to fish. 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 change from last week. Lamoille Creek is flowing at 4 cfs, Bruneau River at 30 cfs, Jarbidge at 7 cfs and the east fork of the Owyhee near Mountain City is flowing at approximately 18 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, Even though the spawn is pretty much over, this is still 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.
Qarib Qarb Singlle

Director: Tanuja Chandra

Cast: Irrfan, Parvathy

Rating: 4/5

Tanuja Chandra returns to films after a gap of nine years with Irrfan-Parvathy-starrer Qarib Qarib Singlle, bringing with her a refreshingly sweet but mature love story.

The movie tells the story of two adults who embark upon a journey and discover themselves in the process. It begins with Jaya (Parvathy), a work-obsessed 35-year-old widow who carries her understated personality in pastel dresses. While she rules her workplace, Jaya lacks confidence when it comes to her personal life. She shies away from meeting people, dedicates her Sundays to baby-sitting, and tries to please everybody around her.

Irrfan and Parvathy in a still from Qarib Qarib Singlle.

Thanks to a dating website called Ab Tak Single, Yogi (Irrfan) enters the scene. The world he brings with him is completely different  he is outspoken, exudes confidence, wears bright red and yellow clothes, and believes in living in the moment.

Through the lead characters, Tanuja takes us on a journey from Mumbai to Dehdradun, Roorkee, Jaipur and Gangtok. The movie offers a sneak peek of the scenic beauty that these places have to offer, but doesnt begin meandering either. Even when the characters undertake a luxury train journey or a road trip to Gangtok, the focus remains on their personal journeys through it all.

Both Yogi and Jaya come with baggage from their respective pasts, but while the former is open to new relationships, Jaya is not so sure. Focussing more on Jaya, the movie offers little explanation for Yogis wealth or his background (except for his past girlfriends, of course). The charm and maturity of the love story, however, do not allow us to dwell too long on these important details that seem to be missing.

The interactions between the lead couple are a novel and realistic way of depicting romance in Bollywood. They are devoid of flowers, hearts and chocolates, and even make light of cinematic cliches like saath jeene marne ki kasamein.

Almost all the songs in the film remain in the background, with the exception of Atif Aslams Jaane De  a smart choice as it only adds to the mood while keeping the flow of the narrative intact. Khatam Kahani is one song that stands out, mainly because of Raj Shekhars lyrics, and is aptly placed in the story.

Through the film, Irrfans character charms his way into the hearts of the audience and  eventually  Jaya herself. She finds him annoying, but in a sweet way.

Malayalam actress Parvathy, who makes her Bollywood debut with the film, is the perfect choice for the paradoxical role of the under-confident but self-dependant woman who fights a lonely battle with the ghosts from her past and eventually emerges the winner.

Interact with the author @swetakaushal

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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A 17-year-old was groped near her Andheri home on Thursday while she on an evening walk. It is the second such incident in the city this month, after a Russian nation was molested near her Borivli residence on November 1.

The minor, an FYBA student, told the police that she felt someone was following her, but before she could act, the man molested her.

After following me for a while, he suddenly hugged me from behind. I hit him with my mobile phone and raised an alarm, the teenager told the police, adding that the man ran away after she called out for help. The woman said she tried to chase him, but he managed to flee.

The Andheri police have registered a case of molestation under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act against the unidentified accused. The police have accessed CCTV footage from a nearby camera, which shows the accused entering the lane behind the woman, and minutes later running out of the lane.

According to the police, the accused is could be in his mid-twenties.

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A 24-year-old resident medical officer (RMO) working at a municipal hospital at Goregaon was found dead in her room on Thursday.

Police said the doctor from Siddharth Hospital hanged herself with a dupatta in her hostel room.

Mehzabeen Nasreen Sayyeds body was found in her fifth-floor room located above the hospital. A security guard saw her hanging at 10.20am. No foul play was involved, said an officer from Goregaon police station, adding that the room was locked from inside.

Police said she was supposed to report for duty at 9am. When she didnt, her seniors asked the security guard to go upstairs and check.

The guard knocked at her door and when he did not get an answer, he peeped through the ventilation grate and found her hanging, the police said.

He alerted hospital authorities, who informed the police. They had to smash the door to enter the room.

Sayyed was working at the hospital for the past two months as part of her post-graduate specialisation in gynaecology and obstetrics through the College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was the youngest of five siblings. She was enthusiastic and interacted with everybody, said a doctor from the hospital.

Her family refused to comment. We got to know about her death like everybody else, said her father.

The police have filed an accidental death report. The parents havent submitted a formal complaint over abetment of suicide. We will investigate, said Dhanaji Nalawade, senior police inspector, Goregaon police station.

The police suspect she killed herself between midnight and Thursday morning. They are speaking to her colleagues to find out if she had spoken to anyone before her death.

A team from Kalina Forensic Laboratory was called to assist the police and carry out a spot panchanama.

Officials collected a laptop and mobile phone. A forensic expert said no external injuries were found on Sayyeds body apart from marks around her neck caused by hanging, More than 16 samples were secured and sent to the forensic laboratory for testing, he said.
Akash Parab, one of the survivors of the Elphinstone Road station stampede on September 29 which killed 23 commuters, appeared for his university exam from his home on Friday.

In a rare case, the University of Mumbai has allowed Akash, 19, to appear for his second-year BCom exam from his residence as he had fractured his right foot in the incident.

I havent attended college since this injury, but have been studying regularly with the help of my classmates. Since I still cant walk, I was not sure about appearing for the exams, but one of my friends from college suggested that I seek help from the university, said Akash, a student of Ramanand Arya DAV College in Bhandup, and a resident of Vikhroli. Within days of writing to the university, officials from the examination department of MU contacted Akash and assured him that arrangements will be made so that he could appear for his paper.

With the permission of the acting vice chancellor Devanand Shinde, officials from the Board of Examination and Evaluation (BoEE) of the university visited Akash while he was still recuperating at KEM Hospital. Since this is a rare case, we decided to let him appear for the exam from his home. A representative from the university and an official from a local college were present at his residence while he finished his paper, said Arjun Ghatule, director BoEE. Akash was also awarded an extra hour to complete his paper.

Examinations for second-year BCom students began on Friday and the first paper was Financial Accounting.

Akash and his younger brother Rohit, 11, were on their way to the Dadar flower market to buy stock for their father, who is a flower vendor. While Akash was injured, his brother did not survive. Akash spent 20 days at KEM Hospital, Parel, recovering from his injuries and was not informed about his brothers death till he was discharged to go home.

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The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) has started digging the first tunnel for the 33.5-km underground Metro- 3 line (Colaba- Bandra- Seepz) using a highly mechanised tunnel boring machine (TBM) at Naya Nagar in Mahim on Friday.

Amid protests over how tunneling poses a threat to old and dilapidated buildings, the MMRCL began the gigantic task using a TBM procured from German major Herrenknecht AGs manufacturing facility in China in September.

By Friday afternoon, the TBM had drilled few millimetres into the ground. An MMRCL official said, The TBM, which is 110 metre long, will on an average drill 10 m every day. Within 7-10 days, the machine would be completely inside the tunnel.

The TBM will drive through Shitaladevi Metro Station and will be retrieved at the proposed Dadar Metro station. The machine is expected to cover a distance of 2.5 km in a year.

The TBM being used at the Naya Nagar launching site is one of the 17 TBMs which will be used to construct the 33.5-km-long twin tunnels. Seven launching sites will be created for the Metro-3 line. The entire tunneling is expected to be done in two years. The second TBM at the Naya Nagar site will begin boring next month.

When asked about the difficulties faced in the project, Ashwini Bhide, managing director, MMRCL, said, As compared to other cities, Mumbai doesnt have alternate routes and no road can be cordoned off for work. So we have to manage traffic and construction activity.

The Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) device will be used to construct tunnels in circular cross sections some 20m to 25m below the surface.

While the officials said they have monitored the health of vulnerable buildings, the project has seen few controversies. Residents of south Mumbai have expressed apprehensions over it affecting the structural stability of their buildings. Such tunnels are built in several cities across the world including London. The tunneling will happen 20m to 25m below the ground and most of the shocks would be absorbed by rocks. There are scientific methods to monitor the health of structures, added officials.

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In a move that could boost investment, but is likely to be opposed by trade unions, the state government is all set to amend the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 to relax the rules related to retrenchment, lay-offs and closure of industrial units.

Under a proposal as part of the governments ease of doing business initiative, owners of manufacturing units employing up to 300 workers need not take prior permission of relevant authorities to shut down their units or fire employees. The current employee limit for this is 100.

The proposal, aimed at boosting investment, is likely to get a positive response from investors, but will probably be met with strong opposition from trade unions. The state labour department has finalised the proposal, which could be moved before the state cabinet soon.

If approved by the state cabinet, 3,426 industrial units, which employ 100 to 300 workers, will be exempted from the legal bindings of seeking permission from government authorities. This also means the 5.84 lakh workers employed with them will lose protection from lay offs, retrenchments and closure of the units.

Of about 37,000 factories, governed under the Act, 32,000 are with less than 100 workers, while 1,365 are with more than 300 workers.

The step is an effort in boosting investment by easing out the exit policy for industrial units. This will ultimately give a boost to employment generation, an official from the labour department said.

The officer said the compensation will be increased to wages equivalent to 45 to 60 days,multiplied by the number of years served. The existing provision of compensation is calculated with 15 days multiplied by the years served.

The amendment is proposed in section 25 (K1) and is expected to be amended during the winter session of the state legislature scheduled to be held next month after a nod by the state cabinet. The industrial units need to take permission of the division commissioner for lay offs and retrenchment, while for closure the proposal is approved by the state government .

Rajesh Kumar, principal secretary, labour department, said the department has proposed a hike in compensation to three times for workers. The proposal will soon be brought to the cabinet for amendment. Besides the attractive compensation to the workers, they will get a fair chance of permanent jobs. In the existing scenario, the industrial units tend to employ workers on a contract basis if the number exceeds 100 workers. With the rise in the number of the workers, the chances of workers employed on permanent basis go up, he told HT.

Trade union leaders slammed the government over its continuous attempts in tweaking the laws related to the labour welfare. This is not the first time that the government is diluting the laws. Earlier, too, the Maharashtra government tweaked the factories act and other laws hampering the interest of the workers. While safeguarding the interest of the industrialists, the government is taking away the fundamental rights of the workers, said Prakash Reddy, secretary, All India Trade Union Congress.

Anil Ganacharya, Mumbai unit chief of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), said the proposal will lead to the unemployment.
Minister of state for home and senior Shiv Sena leader Deepak Kesarkar has raised questions over the pending cases, including allegations of disproportionate assets, against former chief minister Narayan Rane, who is expected to be inducted in the Maharashtra Cabinet soon.

The minister also demanded that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should clarify if the lists sent to the Supreme Court by the state government on politicians with pending cases against them has Ranes and his sons names on them.

An arch-rival of Rane from the coastal district of Sindhudurg, Kesarkar said the BJP and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis should think twice before inducting Rane into the Cabinet to avoid embarrassment in the future. Recently, the Supreme Court directed state governments to expedite the hearing of pending criminal cases against politicians. The state government, as per SC directive, has submitted lists of politicians names with pending criminal cases and those facing charges of amassing disproportionate assets. I know it is not appropriate for the government to disclose the names submitted, but it should at least tell the people of Maharashtra that the lists do not feature the names of Rane and his sons, Kesarkar told HT.

Kesarkar also said that hearings in a public interest litigation filed after a complaint was registered by ED against Rane is at an advanced stage in court, and the verdict is expected soon. Four hearings in the PIL have already been held, and the result is expected in the next couple of weeks.

Rane has threatened to sue the minister for the false allegations. We are sending him a legal notice for defaming us and constitutional institutions such as the Enforcement Directorate. The allegations are baseless and politically motivated, said Nitesh Rane, a Congress MLA and Ranes younger son.

If the ruling in the PIL goes against him or the SC raises questions referring to the names submitted to it by the government, it will be a major embarrassment for the government, the minister said.

Kesarkar has also pointed out that there are cases pending against Ranes sons Nilesh and Nitesh. Everybody knows that Nitesh and Nilesh are facing cases of criminal intimidation, he said.

Nitesh Rane told HT: The allegations levelled by Kesarkar are because of the threat to his political career if Rane saab is inducted into the Cabinet. We do not want to give much importance to Kesarkar. He should know that as elected representatives, we have been disclosing our assets and information about criminal cases whenever we contest elections. Had there been any substance in the allegations, we would have been disqualified.

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Over two months after the Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) rejected the proposal for reserving 33 hectare of land at Aarey Milk Colony for Metro car shed in the draft Development Plan (DP) of the city, the BJP-led state government overruled it.

The urban development department led by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis issued a notification on November 9, modifying the proposal submitted by the BMC, to ear mark the 33 hectare at Aarey in K/E ward as a Metro car shed instead of a green zone. Total 33 hectare of land shall be used for Metro car workshop and allied users only. Commercial users shall not be permitted, stated the notification that has granted a final sanction to this portion of the draft DP.

This also means that this plot has been reserved for Metro car shed or workshop for the next 20 years in the citys development blueprint.

To mitigate the environment impact on Aarey Colony, the notification has recommended six measures including planting more than 10-feet-tall trees of native variety, recharging ground water, maintaining trees for five years, third party audit of the plantation etc.

The Metro car shed in Aarey has been staunchly opposed by a section of environmentalists and activists. The Shiv Sena had sided with activists and opposed its ally-turned-rival BJP over the development.

On July 31, the elected body of the BMC rejected the proposal for Metro car shed in DP with the Sena and the Congress voting against it. This was the only proposal out of the 266 amendments suggested by the elected body that was put to vote.

The draft DP with this modification was submitted to the state government on August 2. We considered the amendments and rejected this modification. According to the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act, the state government retains the right to reject, modify and sanction in part or the whole draft DP submitted by the local civic body,  said a senior urban development official.

The work on the Metro car shed for the underground Metro-3 line has already begun at Aarey Milk Colony. The notification also modified a reservation for a multi-purpose community centre at 2,098 sq m plot in Vikhroli to a court building.

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After losing most of the elections in Maharashtra since 2014, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has realised the importance of social media in the current political scenario and asked its leaders to become aggressive on social media platforms. The leaders have been asked to open accounts on Facebook and Twitter, write blogs and try to become influencers to extend their reach. NCP chief Sharad Pawar has also expressed shock over poor show by party leaders on social media.

To make leaders understand its significance, the party held a special session on social media during its two-day conclave in Karjat near Mumbai on November 5 and 6. The conclave was organised to introspect and plan partys future strategies. The session was attended by all senior leaders including Pawar. Shriranjan Awte, a professor of political science from Pune, explained the importance of social media to the NCP leaders.

The NCP chief, while addressing the party leaders, said he is shocked to know that they are far behind when it comes to effective use of social media which is has become an important medium these days. I remember some three years back, we had taken up a training session over how to use social media platforms. But it seems no one bothered to follow it up later, Pawar said.

While addressing party leaders, Anand Paranjpe, head of NCPs social media wing of the state, asked all their leaders to become active on social media by opening accounts on Facebook, Twitter, writing posts and sharing tweets. Social media helped the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) influence voters in 2014, consequently, for the first time a non-Congress party got majority in the last general elections he said.

If we want to set a narrative, our senior leaders will have to start reacting on each and every issue on social media platforms. Similarly, all the other leaders need to re-tweet those tweets of seniors leaders and also share those posts on their Facebook accounts. With just one retweet, that particular statement will reach out to all your followers on Twitter. The reach will continue to add with more and more re-tweets and help us engage large number of people. Similar is the case with Facebook, Paranjpe explained.

He also gave an example of party MP Supriya Sules selfie tweet with potholes which turned in to a campaign after NCP leaders followed her by tweeting their selfies with potholes and others sharing them on all social media platforms.

Paranjpe said the social media wing has now opened Facebook pages of all the district committees of the party to extend its outreach, which can be achieved only if leaders start sharing all posts of district committees on their personal Facebook accounts.

NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad, in his address, said if you want to be followed by mainstream media, start a campaign on social media. There are so many instances when mainstream media followed successful social media campaigns, he said.

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The railways will allocate around Rs 10 crore to the Army for the construction of the foot overbridge (FOB) at Elphinstone Road railway station. While discussing the FOB design in a meeting with Central and Westerm Railway officials, the Army has asked for a Rs 10-crore outlay.

The bridge will be built towards the north end of the station and connect to Parel station.

The Army is likely to begin work by next week. WR officials have spoken to their civic counterparts and have decided on the landings of the bridge. The temporary FOB which will be constructed on the north end will have landing at Elphinstone Road station side. Army officials have said that the railways can dismantle the modular bridge whenever they want.

The railways will provide roughly Rs 10 crore for the FOB, said an official of WR.

The FOB is likely to be opened to commuters by February 2018. The exact estimate for the cost of the bridge is yet to be received, Said Mukul Jain, divisional railway manager, WR.

The Indian Army Corps of Engineers (IACOE) will use three precast sets of bridges which will arrive from Jaisalmer and Jalandhar. The bridges are called as Bailey bridges. They have been used since the First World War.

An army official said the bridge would have been built within a few days, but owing to the poor quality of soil, heavy rail traffic, over head equipment, it will take time.

The Pune wing of Indian Army Corps of Engineers is helping with construction of FOBs at three stations.
In January, 1999 Cassinelli Construction Co. was employed by Nevada State Public Works Department to remove a portion of Carolyn Street at the Nevada State Museum to construct a parking lot and build a small park facing Carson Street. It was during excavation for this project that my company and I discovered over 900 coin dies from the Carson Mint buried on the site.

After the coin die discovery, the Museum staff made a daily routine of coming out to see what relics we may have dug up during the day. We were constantly digging up old tools, V&T railroad spikes and other artifacts on the construction site at the former United States Branch Mint. I felt I knew the museum people well enough by that time that I decided to play a harmless little prank on them. Well, I thought it would be harmless, but as it turned out, a lot of people got mighty upset with me and my sick sense of humor

Our company always had a large ingot of lead solder lying around the shop of our business in Moundhouse. It did have the shape of a bar of silver bullion. I got the bright idea that it might be funny if I made the lead bar look like a silver bar from the old Carson City Mint and left it half-buried at the construction site. I knew it would not be long before some of the museum staff would make the discovery.

I used a set of lettering dies to stamp a message on the lead bar for the museum staff. In large letters across the middle of the bar, I stamped U.S. MINTCARSON CITY, NEV., 1876. In smaller letters in one corner of the bar, I stamped TO NSM STAFF, CASSINELLI CONSTRUCTION 1-1999. To make things more interesting, I stamped the last message in reverse. It read 9991-1 NOITCURTSNOC ILLENISSAC, FFATS MSN OT. I then stained the bar to make it look tarnished and threw it into a pile of muddy soil at the construction site for some unsuspecting artifact hunter to discover.

Sure enough, just before quitting time on a Friday afternoon, a maintenance worker at the facility came out to see if we had dug up anything interesting during the day. Almost instantly, he spotted the bar and pulled it up from the pile of mud and dirt.

Hey, what do you suppose this is? he asked.

Gosh, I dont know. It looks like a silver bar to me, I said.

No, he replied. Its probably just a bar of lead.

With that, I thought the prank was over. It appeared the worker was not fooled at all by my well-planned surprise. When we arrived back to work after a three-day stormy weekend, there were several cars from the Nevada Historical Society, State Public Works, The Historic Preservation Office and other agencies parked at the museum. Judy Hendrix, acting director of the museum at the time, sent word to me that the prank had just been discovered and that many people were very upset. A written reprimand soon followed.

It seemed that the phony silver bar had fooled nearly everyone who looked at it. Because I had found the coin dies in the same location, and everyone thought that was a tremendous discovery, they were especially gullible for another major find. The museum staff was so convinced the bar was a genuine silver bar that they called the United States Mint offices in Washington, D.C. and in San Francisco to help them break the mysterious coded message stamped on the bar.

Geophysics companies were contacted to determine if other treasures were still buried on the site. The Mackey School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno performed a spectrographic analysis to determine the composition of the bar. Experts from the State Historic Preservation Office and the Nevada Historical Society were contacted to assist with the investigation of this major find. The State Public Works Office was contacted to see if it could shut the construction project down until an in-depth archaeological study could be completed.

All of these things caused the professional staff members at the museum considerable embarrassment when the prank was finally discovered. Many professional feathers got ruffled, some feelings of anger surfaced and everyone involved was embarrassed because so many other people were contacted before the thing was found to be phony.

It was Cindy Sutherland who finally wrote the message down and decided to read it backwards. Despite the ruffled feathers and the hurt feelings of some of the staff, I was privately told by some of them that this was the funniest thing that ever happened at the museum.

By the time the project was completed, most of the people involved had forgiven me. However, Im sure theyll never forget the incident. I continue to be a volunteer at the museum to make amends for the prank.
The Santacruz police are investigating a cheating case where seven people allegedly conned Bombay Mercantile Bank to the tune of Rs34.65 lakh. The police registered the case after bank employee, Abuzar Rizvi, 53, lodged a complaint against seven people for fraud.

The accused allegedly forged documents to get a loan worth Rs34.65 lakh cleared for two flats in Malad. Senior inspector at Santacruz police station, Shantanu Pawar said, The accused applied for a loan for two flats in Vijay Properties Pride Building a couple of months ago. To find out how the loan was approved despite forged documents, the police are interrogating bank employees who were involved in the process.

The illegal nature of the documents was noticed at the Santacruz (West) branch of the bank, following which the bank officials alerted the Santacruz police station. The case was registered on Thursday under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal conspiracy, cheating, and forgery. The police have booked the loan applicant along with six others, including the middlemen involved in the forgery.

Bank officials at the Santacruz branch were not available for comment.

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The citys much-awaited Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) project finally got a mega push on Thursday. The executive committee of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) appointed three contractors for the Rs14,000-crore project.

The MTHL or Sewri-Nhava sea link aims to connect Mumbai with the mainland and is seen as an important project to decongest the city. The project is likely to be done by 2020-21.

The construction of the link has been divided into three parts. The first two parts are sea-bridge components, while the third is construction of a road up to Chirle in Raigad district. The first part has been awarded to L&T-IHI, the second has been given to Daewoo-TPL and the third to L&T again.

Officials said the contracts will be awarded by November-end and the work is expected to start next month. UPS Madan, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA, said, While major works will still take time, tasks like casting yard, boring and other smaller works will definitely start from next month.

While the estimated cost by MMRDA for the three packages was Rs14,137 crore, the contracts have been awarded at Rs14,262 crore, senior officials said. We have agreed that tax benefits will be provided by contractors as and when the rates are revised, Madan added while referring to the changed rates after GST.

First mooted over three decades ago, the 22-km long MTHL is expected to reduce vehicular congestion in several parts of the city especially the arterial roads connecting south Mumbai with the eastern or central suburbs and the Sion-Panvel expressway.

Vehicles going to Navi Mumbai, Pune, Konkan and Goa will be able to cut their journey by directly going to Raigad through this sea link. Significantly, a major idea behind building MTHL is to decongest south Mumbai as several offices could be shifted to Raigad side with a the bridge connecting them with the island city.

The sea link will also bring Mumbai and Navi Mumbai closer and is also being built keeping in mind the upcoming international airport there.

The project has been on the drawing boards since 1980s and several attempts by state agencies have failed to make it a reality until now. When it was first mooted in the mid-1980s, its estimated cost was Rs350 crore.

After four failed attempts, the state has decided to construct the 22-km sea link with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which will fund 80% of the cost.

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You are not a dictator, the Bombay high court told the Maharashtra government on Thursday.

We are living in a democratic society, said the court, in reaction to the arbitrary cancellation of a 12,500-sq-m plot at Goregaon, which had been reserved for a Christian cemetery.

How can the allotment of a plot for a Christian cemetery be cancelled just like that, for no apparent reason? asked a division bench of chief justice Manjula Chellur and justice MS Sonak.

The judges said they were irked to note that though there was no Christian cemetery between Khar and Dahisar and though adjacent plots were allotted for a Hindu crematorium and Muslim burial ground, the allotment for the Christian cemetery was cancelled merely on the recommendation of the commissioner, dairy development. It said the plot in question belongs to the animal husbandry department.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by United Christian Community Centre, a charitable organisation from Malad (East), which complained about a lack of cemeteries for a large section of Christians.

The bench has now directed the commissioner and a secretary from the urban development department to appear before the court on Monday and explain why the allotment was cancelled.
There was high-voltage drama for around two hours on Friday at Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the Maharashtra government, after a youth climbed out on the parapet of the seventh floor and threatened to jump off.

Dyaneshwar Salve, 28, from Maslakhurd village of Osmanabad district of the drought-prone Marathwada region, demanded to meet chief minister Devendra Fadnavis or agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar. A soyabean farmer, Salve told officials that he was agitated as he has not received the correct price for his produce. He claimed to have got only Rs19,000 for his produce, which according to him, was less than the input cost.

Salve finallyn climbed down after three state ministers  Vinod Tawde, Ranjit Patil and Deepak Kesarkar  rushed to meet him and promised to consider his demands.

Tawde said they have found Salves demands genuine and not politically motivated. He was demanding better prices for agriculture produce for the farmers and implementing recommendations of Swaminathan Commission report, which suggests the same. We have assured him to consider all his demands and bring relief to the agrarian community, Tawde said.

Tawde said the government has assured him that he will not be booked for his suicide attempt.

Earlier, on request from police officers, Salve threw a piece of paper mentioning his mobile number, which was used to speak with him and persuade him to climb down.

He also found a broken piece of glass window pane on the parapet that he was threatening to use to cut his throat if the police tried to catch him.

Meanwhile, fire brigade officials were ready with an inflatable sheet to catch him down on the ground if he jumped.

Salve probably has NCP connections, as on his Facebook account, he has declared himself as a staunch supporter of Udayanraje Bhosale, NCP MP from Satara. He has also shared a photo with a caption of him joining the NCP on February 13 this year.

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The JSW Group will pick up 30% stake in the Jaypee Group, allowing the struggling real-estate firm to complete 26,000 undelivered flats in its Wish Town and Aman projects in Noida, a top Jaypee official said on Friday.

JSW is a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate with interests in steel, energy, infrastructure and cement.

After several rounds of negotiations, the JSW Group has agreed to pump in funds in Jaypee Infratech and Jayprakash Associates Limited, thereby helping us finish the stuck housing projects, namely Wish Town and Jaypee Aman. We are happy with the deal because we will be able to deliver flats and fulfil promises made to homebuyers and investors, Sunny Gaur, senior director of Jaiprakash Associates Limited, told Hindustan Times.

Delivery of flats will happen as per schedule in all towers now because the 70-30 partnership will yield required funds to finish stuck projects. The investment details of this partnership will be made public soon, he said.

When contacted, JSW officials declined to comment. Insolvency proceedings against Jaypee were admitted by the Allahabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal in August after IDBI Bank, the lead consortium of lenders, moved a petition that the company defaulted on a Rs 526-crore loan.

Homebuyers who had booked flats but did not get possession approached the Supreme Court, saying insolvency proceedings could deprive them of any refunds. According to Indias insolvency and bankruptcy code, homebuyers are not secured creditors. They can get their money back if something is left after repaying financial institutions such as banks.

In September, the top court stayed insolvency proceedings against Jaypee. It also appointed an interim resolution professional (IRP) to work out a plan to protect the interests of homebuyers and creditors.

The Jaypee Group is currently developing 305 towers over two projects in Noida. Of these, 250 towers are incomplete, and an investment of Rs 2,500 crore is required to finish the projects.

Gaur said JSW and Jaypee will together submit their plans of revival of the realty projects. The revival plan has to be approved by the committee of creditors. Once we submit our plan, we will share detailed delivery schedule with buyers, Gaur said.

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A 19-year-old college student who was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound in his head on Thursday wasnt depressed and didnt own the revolver found with him, says his family.

Tanishq Bhasin, a second-year commerce student at SD College in Chandigarh, was found when a passerby spotted his white Toyoto Corolla near Berwala village on Morni Road in Panchkula and called the police at around 9am. The car was locked and police had to break a windowpane to get in, said Noopur Bishnoi, assistant commissioner of police (law and order).

The victim was found dead on the drivers seat with a bullet injury to the head, said Bishnoi. A revolver along with an empty shell were also recovered on searching the car. Prima facie, it looks like a case of suicide, but we are not ruling out anything at this stage, she said.

A police officer investigating the case said a revolver lay on Tanishqs lap and there were blood stains everywhere in the car. The officer, who didnt wish to be named, said a shot was misfired from the revolver, suggesting Tanishq might have panicked while shooting himself on the first attempt.

The victims father has denied owning the weapon or knowing anything about it, said Bishnoi. She said the police are trying to trace the revolvers owner.

Anil Bhasin, Tanishqs uncle, said it was a mystery how he managed to get an expensive revolver. It is a German-made weapon and costs not less than Rs 4 lakh in India, said Anil Bhasin.

Police found Tanishqs mobile phone in the car and are verifying his call details and checking closed-circuit television cameras. They suspect that Tanishq, who lived in Sector 4 of Panchkula, died at around midnight Wednesday. He called his father, Punjab and Haryana high court advocate Sunil Bhasin, at around 10:30pm on Wednesday to say that he will return home late.

Anil Bhasin said the college student left home at 6.30pm on Wednesday, saying he was meeting his friends. Then at 8:30pm, he talked to his father, saying that he was coming for dinner. But then at 10:30pm, he again called to say he would get late, said Anil Bhasin. Tanishqs mother is visiting a relative abroad.

Anil Bhasin said Tanishq was an intelligent student and planned to go abroad after graduation. The family hadnt noticed any behavioural change in him. His friends who visited us too said he did not show any sign of depression, he said.

The family cant believe Tanishq killed himself. We want police to probe the case from all angles, he said.
Punjab police claimed another success into last two years targeted killings of religio-political leaders on Friday, with the arrest of Hardeep Singh alias Shera, 21, outside a gym in Fatehgarh Sahib.

State police chief Suresh Arora claimed that Shera is the man who shot Brig Jagdish Gagneja (retd), state vice-president of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in Jalandhar last year, and other right-wing leaders.

This is fifth arrest in the matter. Sheras name came up during interrogation of Ramandeep Singh Canadian of Ludhianas Meharban village, police officials said.

The targeted killings were executed by Ramandeep and Shera. They were funded and supported by the ISI (Pakistans spy agency) and Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF), said director general of police (DGP) Arora at a press conference here.

In the last two years, Punjab has seen killings of nine such leaders. After no success for months, police earlier this week claimed to have solved most of the cases with the arrest of four men with alleged links to the ISI.

The DGP said Shera shot Shiv Sena leader Durga Prasad Gupta, Christian pastor Sultan Masih, RSS local leader Ravinder Gosain, and Sri Hindu Takhts district publicity manager Amit Sharma, all in Ludhiana, too. Both Ramandeep and Hardeep shot Dera Sacha Sauda followers Satpal and his son Ramesh Kumar in Khanna, he added. Ramandeep allegedly also opened fire at RSS worker Naresh Kumar and Shiv Sena leader Amit Arora, but they survived.

Had fled abroad

Shera used to go abroad for some time after executing the killings to evade arrest, police said.

On Friday, when cops tried to arrest Shera, who belongs to Majri Kishnewali in Fatehgarh Sahib district, he attempted to open fire at them but they overpowered him, police said, adding that they recovered four pistols and an airgun from Sheras possession.

Also, they claimed to have recovered an SUV and three motorcycles, including one from Sirhind Canal, on Sheras information. The one from the canal had been used in Gagnejas killing while another was used in Guptas murder, cops said.

The DGP specifically said that after shooting RSS leader Gagneja on August 6 last year, Shera fled to Italy on August 12. Police have seized his passport. We are further probing links of the killings to Pakistan, Italy, UK, Canada and some other countries, he said.

Social media picks

Shera allegedly told police that the module used to find targets on Facebook and other social media depending on who spoke against Khalistani separatism. In case of pastor Sultan Masih of Ludhiana, though, they randomly chose him as their Christian target to create communal rift, police claimed.

Ramandeep and Shera used to take turns in shooting the targets, added the DGP, They always went together on a motorcycle. Mostly, Ramandeep would handle the bike and Hardeep would shoot. He said Shera would practice with a Swiss airgun.

Mintoo and Bayi connection

The DGP also claimed that KLF commander Harminder Singh Mintoo, main accused in the Nabha jailbreak and currently being interrogated at Moga, also helped to get foreign funding for the killings.

Shera was adopted by his fathers elder brother who took him to Italy when he was a kid. Shera was 18 when he first met Mintoo in Italy. Mintoo stayed at their house there for 21 days and asked him to join KLF, but Shera did not show interest... After his relationship with his uncle strained, Shera again came in contact with Mintoo and remained in touch on Skype, the DGP said. After Mintoo was arrested in Thailand, a man named Bayi started operating his accounts and mobile phone. Bayi then started giving instructions to Shera and others.
Adirindhi, the Telugu dubbed version of Vijays Mersal, which finally released in Andhra and Telangana after three weeks of long wait, has opened to impressive numbers, according to trade sources. While the official numbers are yet to come in, we have been confirmed that the film has registered the biggest opening in Vijays career in Telugu. Despite mixed feedback to the content, the film has taken a huge opening at the box-office. Its undoubtedly the biggest opener for Vijay in Telugu. With Adirindhi, his market base in Telugu is sure to grow bigger, a source from the trade said.

In Telugu, Vijays biggest grosser till date is Snehitudu, the dubbed version of Shankars Nanban. The film is rumoured to have grossed over Rs 10 crore during its lifetime run. While Adirindhi may have done bigger business had it had a simultaneous release along with its Tamil version, it still has to be seen how much moolah it can rake in during its theatrical run.

Directed by Atlee, the film features Vijay in a triple role. He plays a magician, a doctor and a village head while Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha and Nithya Menen essay the leading ladies. Mersal has emerged as a blockbuster and has become the biggest grosser in Vijays career with over earnings of Rs 230 crore worldwide and counting. Produced by Sri Thenandal Studios, the film has music by AR Rahman.

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Reports have been doing the rounds that actor Keerthy Suresh suffered an injury during an accidental fall on the sets of her new film. A video, rumoured to feature her in the fall, had also gone viral on the social media. However, it was revealed after some digging that the actor in the video was Linda Kumar and she was shooting for the Malayalam film Kunjiramante Kuppayam and she suffered minor injuries.

The reports have been rubbished from Keerthys end. The Thodari actor is currently shooting for Pawan Kalyans yet-untitled project with Trivikram in Europe. She plays one of the leading ladies in the film and she joined the team only last week. 2018 will be a big year for Keerthy as the most anticipated project (Mahanati) of her career will hit the screens. In the biopic of the legendary southern actor Savitri, she plays the titular role and the project has already garnered lot of attention from all quarters.

In Tamil, she has Vikrams Saamy 2 and she plays the leading lady in the project. The project also originally features Trisha, who was part of the first part, in a crucial role. However, she opted out of the project following creative differences with the makers. Being directed by Hari, the film is gearing up for release early next year. Vikram will return as the hot-headed, mustache-twirling and foul-mouthed cop. The makers are currently shooting crucial action sequences. Keerthy also awaits the release of Suriyas Thaana Serntha Kootam, which has been confirmed to hit the screens during Pongal 2018.

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If the industry grapevine is anything to by, superstar Rajinikanth may make a major announcement on his birthday on December 12. Having relieved himself with the shoot of his films Kaala and 2.0, it is rumoured that Thalaivar is all set to take the political plunge. According to reliable sources, he might make announcement with regards to his political entry on his birthday and it has already created quite a buzz in tinsel town.

He is planning to make some announcement on his birthday. Its not a 100% certain that it could be about his political entry. Itll be a very special day for his fans, a source close to Rajinikanth said. With two of the most anticipated Tamil films in his kitty, superstar is eagerly looking forward to their releases. Shankars magnum opus 2.0, the Rs 400 crore action-based science fiction film, is gearing up for Republic Day weekend release next year. There were rumours that the film might be postponed to April and pave way for the release of Kaala in January 2018. However, Rajinikanth clarified that Kaala wont release before 2.0.

A poster of Kaala Karikaalan, which is being directed by Pa Ranjith.

According to sources, Kaala might hit the screens during Tamil New Year in April. Directed by Pa Ranjith, who has reunited with Rajinikanth after last years Kabali, the film features Thalaivar in the role of a slum lord turned gangster. The film features Rajinikanth fight for the rights of oppressed Tamils in Mumbai. Since film has been mostly shot against the backdrop of Mumbai, the makers have simultaneously shot the film in Hindi. Also starring Nana Patekar as a politician and Pankaj Tripathi as a cop, the film also features Anjali Patil, Huma Qureshi and Samuthirakani in pivotal roles. Rajinikanths 2.0, on the other hand, has shaped up very well. Made on a lavish budget, the film is believed to feature over 11,000 computer graphic shots, making it the highest number for an Indian film. A sequel to Enthiran, the film also stars Amy Jackson, Akshay Kumar and Sudhanshu Pandey in key roles.

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CARSON CITY  A deadline to reprice Spring Creek water bills looms for Great Basin Water Company as their appeal for a rehearing failed before the Public Utilities Commission.

PUCN denied GBWCs appeal Nov. 8. The decision comes as the water company has until Nov. 21 to calculate refunds to Spring Creek customers affected by a water meter reading issue in 2016.

GBWC was ordered by the commission Sept. 19 to resolve a water meter reading issue for Spring Creek water customers and begin repairing customer relations.

In that order, the PUCN denied the water companys stance that the issue was resolved consistent with its tariff.

The company was given 60 days from the issuance of the order to reprice water bills for residential customers at $3.47 per 1,000 gallons between January and October 2016. It excluded commercial customers, customers who had their bills previously adjusted, and customers who have a smart water meter.

On Oct. 5, the GBWC filed a petition to rehear and/or reconsider the order. In a statement, Wendy Barnett, GBWC president, said the company took responsibility for the situation; however we do have some questions about the order.

The company further stated they were asking the Commission to reconsider the preponderance of evidence presented in the initial proceedings on the matter.

In reading the PUCNs order, Commission Ann C. Pongracz stated GBWC failed to meet the standards of the Nevada Administration Code that requires the company to specifically identify parts of the order that were unlawful, unreasonable, or based on erroneous conclusions of law or mistaken facts and show why additional evidence could not have been introduced at the hearing.

Rather, the petitioner seeks to reargue the matters already considered and decided  Great Basin simply asks the Commission to change its mind, Pongracz said.

Chairman Joe Reynolds said he supported the Spring Creek customers and believed the order was the right thing to do, and noted the outpouring of residents complaints at two PUCN consumer sessions in April and September.

We needed a remedy, Reynolds said, there needed to be a fix to the problem.

This problem was created by Great Basin Water Company, whether it was their employee, lack of supervision, [or] lack of training. They created this problem, said Reynolds.

I disagree [with] the assertion that this was retroactive rate-making, Reynolds said. It was solving a problem that needed to be solved for the benefit of those residents.

Commissioner Bruce Breslow also sympathized with Spring Creek customers.

I hope the problems are over and I hope the solutions are happening quickly, because the people of Spring Creek have been dealing with this a long time, Breslow said. I hope it does not come back to us.

Present at the hearing, but not voting, was Utilities Hearing Officer Donald Lomoljo. Lomoljo presided at the PUCN consumers meeting in September.

Before Wednesdays ruling on Oct. 30, the GBWC filed a notice of intent with the PUCN to file for adjustment in rates. The company cited four reasons including investment in utility facilities, operating and depreciation expenses, cost of capital, and cost of service, noting they are not preparing a cost of services study for the meeting.

GBWC proposes to meet with the PUCN staff in early December before the company files its application on Dec. 29.

Great Basin Water Company did not respond to a request for a statement.

GBWC deadlines

The petition for rehearing and/or reconsideration did not change the timeline of the original order for Great Basin Water Co.

GBWC has until Nov. 15 to submit the steps they are taking to improve customer relations, which they must do annually until 2020, and they have 150 days to show they have complied with the orders requirements.

GBWC was ordered to reprice each Spring Creek customers water bill for the months of January through October, 2016, at the lowest Tier 1 rate of $3.47 per 1,000 gallons within 60 days of the Sept. 21 order.

By Dec. 21, the company is required to submit a report outlining its compliance with the repricing, provide a status of accounts and options offered by GBWC, and submit a report showing the costs the company incurred to prepare for and participate in the docket.

A quote by Chairman Joe Reynolds was corrected from a previous version.
Before settling down to the demands of parenthood, more and more pregnant women prefer to go on a babymoon to relax, according to a survey. As per the survey, about 82% of women said they wish to go on a babymoon and the most preferred time is the second trimester.

The survey by travel company Cox & Kings was conducted in metro cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata, among 1,000 females comprising both pregnant women and new mothers. Babymoon refers to a brief vacation taken by would-be parents to relax and travel before the baby is born.

About 72% of the new mothers had opted for a babymoon during their pregnancy as they feel it offers a great window to have a child-free getaway, the survey revealed. Given a choice, 65% of women wish to take an international babymoon trip, it added. A majority of the would-be mothers, 77%, want to go with on a babymoon with their husbands and not the entire family, it said.

Further, it revealed that beach destinations are the most preferred for 88% of the women as it offers leisure walks on seafronts and scenic views. The topmost priorities for the couple while planning the babymoon trip are safety, duration of travel and medical help, it added. Goa, Jodhpur, Maharashtra and Kerala topped the list of most preferred domestic babymoon destinations, whereas Seychelles, Thailand, Dubai and Sri Lanka were the most preferred international places.

Cuisine remained one of the most important aspects of such a vacation with 65% of babymooners wanting to taste local food over carrying packaged food or taking a chef along, the survey said. A majority of pregnant travellers (75%) would choose custom-made tours over group trips mostly at all- inclusive resorts, it added.

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The BBC says it is pulling a new Agatha Christie adaptation from its television schedule because of sexual assault allegations against actor Ed Westwick.

Westwick appears in mystery thriller Ordeal by Innocence, which had been due to run over the Christmas period.

The BBC said Friday that these are serious allegations which Ed Westwick has strenuously denied. The BBC is not making any judgment but until these matters are resolved we will not include Ordeal by Innocence in the schedules.

The cast of BBCs upcoming drama Ordeal of Innocence.

The broadcaster said Westwick has also paused filming on the 1980s-set sitcom White Gold.

Police in Los Angeles said Thursday they are investigating a sexual assault report filed against former Gossip Girl star Westwick.

Ed Westwick in a still from White Gold.

In a Facebook post on Monday, actor Kristina Cohen said that Westwick sexually assaulted her three years ago. Westwick has denied the allegation. A second actress, Aurelie Wynn, also accused Westwick of sexually assaulting her in a Facebook post on Thursday.

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Even Bigg Boss 11 realised a break from the constant fights and controversies was needed. So, in the Friday episode of Bigg Boss 11, there was an obstacle course added to the mix. While Priyank, Akash and Puneesh were supposed to show how fit they are, their female partners -- Benafsha, Arshi and Bandgi respectively -- were supposed to wash their faces (yaay, feminism). But thats not all that happened -- Hiten Tejwani revealed that he also has a stomach for fights while Shilpa and Vikas are the new best friends.

Without wondering on how fickle friendships can be inside the Bigg Boss house, heres a summary of everything that happened inside the house on Friday...

In Bigg Boss 11s Friday episode, Hiten Tejwani was the biggest surprise. Amid all the fights and ugly controversies, he had stayed above it all but not anymore. Stuck in a prison with Benafsha and Hina, he lets out his inner diva. Will this last only till he is inside the kaal kothri? We will just wait and watch.

Hina wondered if something was indeed cooking between Benafsha and Priyank. Hina said there is love between the two but Benafsha insisted they are only friends.

Vikas and Sapna believed that it was Hina who asked Luv to stare inappropriately at Arshi. Hiten simply listened to the allegations.

Hina, meanwhile, said that Vikas wants to run a dictatorship in the house but she wont not let it happen. She also claimed that Vikas repeatedly tried to grab Shilpa Shindes attention. Arshi claimed Vikas is not as bad as Hina and went on to tell Shilpa that Vikas, despite his faults, believed Shilpa is a better person than Hina. Shilpa said she might forgive him if he apologised.

Akash and Luv appeared to be burying their hatchet. Luv said he has no issue with either Akash or Puneesh.

Housemates later came together to choose the next captain and Bandgi, Akash and Sabyasachi were the three contenders. Bigg Boss announced the nest and egg task for captaincy.

All contestants were given a nest each while the competitors got three nests. The three competitors had to make other contestants hand over their eggs. The one who got maximum eggs would win. The three people in jail  Benafsha, Hina and Hiten  got a total of one egg. Sapna was be the sanchalak of this task.

Shilpa and Arshi supported Sabyasachi, Sapna also gave her egg to him. As Vikas agreed to give the egg to Sabyasachi, even Bandgi handed over hers to him. Vikas even went to prison to convince the three inmates to hand over their egg. Akash also accepted that he emerged a winner by handing over his egg.

As Vikas stood near Sabyasachis nest, Priyank insisted he did not trust the TV producer and Hina added to the chorus saying that Vikas was trying to sabotage Sabyasachis game. Sapna intervened and asked both to move away. Vikas wondered why Priyank and Sapna were fighting with him and walked away. Sapna continued to shout and said she doesnt care if Vikas drowns in the swimming pool but she wont let him go.

Bandgi cried as she lost the task and Puneesh said that she is a big person to give away her egg. Shilpa and Vikas became the new best friends in the house and he confided in her that Priyanks behaviour disappointed him.

Sabyasachi won the captaincy task and everyone seemed to be celebrating. Bigg Boss then gave him his first task  he could free one person from the prison. Sabyasachi chose Hiten.

Hina wanted to know why Bigg Boss did this to her. She told Luv and Priyank, who seem to be her constant audience, that she was very angry. Soon, Bigg Boss freed both of them.

As Luv carried Benafsha and Hinas stuff back inside the house, everyone made fun of him. Arshi started irritating Hina again and the TV star started shouting. Hina told Arshi that she may be desperate but she needs to get footage off someone else.

Next task was an obstacle course in which three jodis -- Priyank-Benafsha, Akash-Arshi and Puneesh-Bandgi  participated. The male member had to finish the obstacles and the female participant had to wash his face. Whoever did it in the least amount of time would emerge the winner.

Akash and Arshi won the task and he takes the Man of the Series award. They jump into the pool to celebrate.

Catch all the latest updates from Bigg Boss 11 here

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Republican leaders are calling for Roy Moore, the partys nominee for the US senate in Alabama, to quit the race if allegations of his initiating a sexual encounter with a minor are true.

The woman, Leigh Corfman, who is now 53, told The Washington Post she first met Moore aged 14 outside a courthouse where she and her mother waiting for a custody hearing. Moore, then 32, offered to sit with her as the mother went for the hearing. He asked her for his phone number shortly.

Corfman said he picked her up from her house after a few days, drove her to his house and kissed her. She said on the second visit, he took off his and her shirt and pants and touched her over her undergarments and guided her to touch him too.

I wanted it over with  I wanted out, she told the Post. Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over. She asked Moore to drop her home, and he did. That was the last encounter she spoke about.

The Washington Post spoke to four other women who have alleged Moore either dated them or had asked them out when they were under 18.

Moore denied the allegations. These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign, he said in a statement.

His campaign followed up with more vitriol. This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation, it said in a statement.

Moore, a former Alabama state supreme court chief justice, is infamous for comparing the Quran to Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf. He has also said Muslims must not be elected to congress, believes homosexuality should be illegal, and continued to hold on to the utterly fact-free notion that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States, even after everyone else had moved on.

Republicans were already concerned about Moore, who beat a candidate backed by President Donald Trump in the primaries, and may have reached the end of their forbearance.

Like most Americans, the president does not believe we can allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life. However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Mike Pences spokesperson said the vice president believes that if the allegation are true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement, If these allegations are true, he must step aside.

Senior party leader John McCain said: The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of.

But Moore has said he is not stepping down.
Frances foreign minister said on Friday he believed that former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri was not under house arrest in Saudi Arabia and did not have any particular constraints on his movements.

As far as we know, yes. We think he is free of his movements and its important he makes his own choices, Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

Frances ambassador to Saudi met Hariri on Thursday before President Emmanuel Macrons unscheduled visit to Riyadh to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, diplomats said. It was unclear whether Macron had any contact with Hariri during his stopover in the Saudi capital.

Paris has close ties with Lebanon, a former colony, and with Hariri, who has a home in France after spending several years in the country. Macron said in Dubai on Thursday there had been informal contacts with Hariri, but no request to transfer him to France.

Our concern is the stability of Lebanon and that a political solution can be put in place rapidly, he added.

Two top Lebanese government officials said on Thursday that Riyadh was holding Lebanons Saad al-Hariri captive and a third told Reuters that the Saudi authorities had ordered Hariri to resign while he was in Riyadh last weekend, and put him under house arrest.

Le Drian is due in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 16 and is scheduled to also travel to Iran later in the month.
A man rammed a vehicle into three Chinese students near the French city of Toulouse on Friday, leaving one of them in a serious condition, police sources told AFP.

The driver, who was arrested immediately afterwards in the citys Blagnac suburb, acted deliberately but was not on a list of known extremists, one source said, asking not to be named.

The BFM news channel said the man was known to police for previous non-terror crimes and officers were checking reports he suffered from major psychological problems.

All three of Fridays victims were in their twenties, with a 23-year-old woman the most seriously injured and two men aged 22 and 23 also hurt. The first reports from the scene suggested two of them had been seriously injured.

France has been victim of a series of vehicle attacks by extremists inspired by the Islamic State group, but there was no immediate confirmation of the drivers identity or motive.

In July last year, a Tunisian man ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd in the southern city of Nice, killing 86 people.

Toulouse in southwest France is the home of the Airbus plane manufacturer.
A German nurse has been convicted for killing at least 106 patients out of boredom.

On Thursday, investigators said Niels Hoegel (41), injected patients with lethal drugs and felt euphoric when he revived them. He claimed to be devastated when he failed.

Hoegel admitted to giving patients drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse, so he could then try to revive them and be hailed as a saviour. He was convicted in 2015 for murdering two intensive-care patients at Delmenhorst hospital near Bremen, but on Thursday, the on-going investigation revealed more details.

Hoegel isnt the first medical practitioner to become a killer. Heres a look at the shocking cases where medical practitioners turned into angels of death:

Charles Cullen

The American nurse was given six life sentences in 2006 after he admitted to killing at least 40 patients with fatal doses of drugs in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during his 16-year career.

Cullen, however, said his actions were mercy killing and he got no satisfaction from killing people. In an interview with CBC, he said he thought people werent suffering anymore. So, in a sense, I thought I was helping. Not all of his victims, however, were old or very sick.

The nurse was working at the Somerset Medical Centre in New Jersey when a priest, Florian Gall, died unexpectedly while recovering from pneumonia. The hospital discovered high levels of digoxin, a drug used to regulate heart rhythms, in his blood. Another suspicious overdose in two weeks led to Cullens eventual arrest in 2003.

Cullens experience as a former Navy electronics technician helped him exploit hospital systems that regulated medicines, so he avoided detection at the nine hospitals he worked at. Cullen escaped the death penalty after agreeing to help prosecutors identify his victims, according to The Wired.

A book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber is based on Cullens story.

Donald Harvey

The former nurse, also dubbed the angel of death pleaded guilty in 1987 to killing 37 people, mostly while he worked as a nurses aide at hospitals in Cincinnati and Kentucky. He later claimed he was responsible for killing 18 others while working at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati.

Many of his victims were chronically ill patients and he claimed he was trying to end their suffering.

Harvey used arsenic and cyanide to poison most of his victims, often putting it in the hospital food he served them, prosecutors said. Some of the patients were suffocated when he let their oxygen tanks run out. He was caught after a medical examiner smelled cyanide while performing an autopsy on a victim.

Harvey, 64, died earlier this year after being attacked and beaten up in his prison cell.

Daniela Poggliali

The Italian nurse, 44, was good at her job but she was also a compulsive thief with a penchant for dark humour. In 2014, she was accused of murdering an elderly woman in Umberto I Hospital of Lugo, Italy, by giving a dosage of potassium that can be fatal in excess, according to an article in The Daily Mail. Prosecutors had alleged there was an unusual spike in the number of deaths during Pogglialis working hours. But investigators were shocked when they found two images on her phone -- one showed her grinning and giving a thumbs up sign next to the body of a woman, and in the other, she is leaning over a body with her finger pointed like a gun.

However, Poggliali denied killing any patient and was acquitted in one case by a Bologna appeals court in June, local media reports said.

Ben Geen

Ben Geen, a former lieutenant in the Territorial Army, was convicted in 2006 of killing two patients and poisoning 15 others. He injected patients at Horton General hospital in Oxfordshire, Britain, with muscle relaxants, insulin and other drugs to satisfy his lust for excitement when reviving them, reported The Guardian.

The Oxford Crown Court was told during trial that Geen look elated as his patients went into respiratory arrest and boasted to a doctor: There is always a resuscitation when Im on duty, according to an article by BBC. Police also found a muscle relaxant in his pocket when Geen, now 36, was arrested in 2004.

Andy Taylor, the detective who was probing the case, said about Geen, It is clear that he wanted to be the centre of attention and in order to fuel this desire brought some of the patients to the brink of death and coldly murdered two of them.

Beverly Allitt

Another English nurse Beverly Allitt was sentenced in 2007 for murdering four toddlers and attempting to kill three others at the Grantham and Kesteven hospital in Lincolnshire, The Guardian said in a report. Allitts youngest victim was a seven-week-old baby Liam Taylor.

She was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment after it was found that Allitt was suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP) when the children were harmed in early 1990s.

MSbP is a form of child abuse in which caregivers induce illnesses in the recipients to attract attention or sympathy.

(WIth AP inputs)
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday welcomed a broad agreement reached by the 11 countries in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), even as others in the trade pact disputed that any deal had been reached.

Trade ministers from the TPP countries met on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Danang, Vietnam.

After the meeting, Japan said an agreement in principle had been reached, but the Canadian trade minister said on Twitter: Despite reports, there is no agreement in principle on TPP.

The spat highlighted the continuing challenge to reviving a pact whose survival was thrown into doubt when President Donald Trump ditched it, in one of his first acts in office, in favour of bilateral deal-making by the United States.

Abe told Perus President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski that he welcomed a broad agreement reached at the TPP ministerial meeting, a written statement by the Japanese government said on Friday.

The Japanese leader told Kuczynski that Japan would like to continue cooperating closely with Peru, one of the TPP countries, so that the pact will go into effect at an early date.

Japan had lobbied hard to proceed with a pact after the US withdrawal that could also help to contain Chinas growing regional dominance.

The TPP aims to eliminate tariffs on industrial and farm products across a bloc whose trade totalled $356 billion last year. It also has provisions for protecting everything from labour rights to the environment to intellectual property - one of the main sticking points.

Leaders of the 11 TPP countries are scheduled to meet Friday afternoon.

In a separate panel discussion at the APEC summit on Friday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was reasonably confident a deal could be reached without the United States.

We believe TPP is important for the region... The 11 countries led by Japan, we are trying to come up with our new version, Najib said.

I am reasonably confident. I am quite sanguine that we will get a deal but of course it has got to go through the process of ratification, he said.
ELKO  U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian will be in Elko for a meet and greet Sunday afternoon at 1750 Manzanita Drive.

Tarkanian is planning to challenge U.S. Sen. Dean Heller in the Republican primary. He previously ran for Nevada Senate, Nevada Secretary of State, and both the U.S. House and Senate.

Sunday Fun-day with the Tark Family is scheduled from 2-3:30 p.m.

Mr. Tarkanian will be volunteering his time to educate the voters of Elko on why he will best represent them in the U.S. Senate, stated the announcement. Food and drink will be provided by the campaign, and a question and answer session will follow his speech.

Its time we pass President Trumps America First Policies and prioritize the care of American citizens Tarkanian says on his website. No more foreign nation building. No more bad trade deals that gut our economy. We must secure our borders, stop funding failed programs, and repeal Obamacare.

Candidates for federal office must file by March 16. The primary election is scheduled June 12.
A 51-year-old man, believed to be of Indian-origin, has been arrested in Germany in connection with a murder following a restaurant war between Indian and Pakistani eateries in Scotland over 24 years ago.

Police Scotland said the man, who cannot be named at this stage, was arrested over the murder of Pakistani-origin Ansar Shah in the seaside town of Ayr in Ayrshire on October 4, 1993, and will now be returned to Scottish jurisdiction.

It is anticipated that proceedings to return the man to Scottish jurisdiction will take place in due course, a Police Scotland statement said.

The arrested man is believed to be Indian-origin Avtar Singh, who was arrested as he landed in Frankfurt from a flight from Delhi.

Singh was a waiter of an Indian restaurant in Ayrshire at the time of the murder and had disappeared after the murder, which local media reports at the time described as a restaurant war between rival Indian and Pakistani restaurants over migrant staff employed by them.

Shah, the owner of Armaan Brasserie which has since been renamed as Ayr India, was stabbed to death outside the eatery when a group of Pakistanis clashed with Indians, the Ayrshire Post had reported at the time.

Two other men had been severely injured in the attack and treated in hospital.

A nationwide manhunt was launched for Singh, also known as Tony and Dari, who had worked as a waiter in the Jewel in the Crown restaurant in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.

The unsolved murder case was being re-examined by specialist cold case detectives in the UK since May this year.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Bell of Police Scotland Homicide Governance Review said, Police Scotland is committed to pursuing those persons who are allegedly responsible for the gravest of crimes.

Time and location is no barrier to the efforts and determination of our staff and partners to pursue justice for victims and their loved ones.

The arrest follows a joint operation coordinated from the Scottish Crime Campus, and led by Police Scotlands Homicide Governance and Review Team, involving participation with Police Scotlands International Assistance Unit, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Law Enforcement partners across Europe including Europol, French and German authorities, and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The arrested man could accept the terms of the arrest warrant and agree to being flown to Scotland or fight it through the German courts.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether US President Donald Trumps first national security adviser Michael Flynn was involved in an alleged plan to seize a Muslim cleric and deliver him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Under the plan, Flynn and his son Michael Flynn Jr were to receive up to $15 million if they forcibly removed Fethullah Gulen from his home in the United States and delivered him to the Turkish government, people familiar with the investigation told the Journal.

The alleged plan emerged during Muellers wider investigation of possible Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any collusion by the Trump campaign, the sources told the Journal.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Gulen of instigating a failed coup in July 2016 and wants him extradited to Turkey to face trial. Gulen has denied any role in the coup.

A spokesman for Muellers team declined to comment on the report on Friday.

Flynn is a central figure in Muellers investigation because of conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak last year and because he waited until March to retroactively register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for the work he did for a Turkish businessman.

The Journal reported that FBI agents asked at least four people about a December meeting in New York where Flynn and Turkish government representatives discussed removing Gulen, according to people with knowledge of the FBIs inquiries.

File photo of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. (Reuters)

The discussions involved possibly taking Gulen on a private jet to the Turkish prison island of Imrali, one of the people who has spoken to the FBI told the newspaper.

Reuters reported on October 26 that one of Flynns business associates, former CIA director James Woolsey, pitched a $10 million contract to two Turkish businessmen to help discredit a controversial Gulen while Woolsey was an adviser to Trumps election campaign.

Woolsey was a member of Flynns firm, the Flynn Intel Group, according to a Justice Department filing by the firm and an archive of the companys website.

Muellers team has also interviewed White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, the highest-level Trump aide known to have spoken with investigators, CNN reported on Thursday.
A Myanmar court jailed two journalists on assignment for Turkeys state broadcaster, along with their interpreter and driver, for two months on Friday for violating an aircraft law by filming with a drone.

Cameraman Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and reporter Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia, were detained on Oct. 27 along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin.

The four had been working on a documentary for TRT World, the English-language subsidiary of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, when they were detained for attempting to fly a drone near parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw.

Aung Naing Soe, Burmese freelance journalist and interpreter, stands with three other co-workers for their first court appearance after being accused for allegedly flying drones illegally over parliament buildings Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. (AP)

While none of the four detained is a Turkish national, the case has further strained diplomatic ties in the wake of President Tayyip Erdogan accusing Myanmars military of carrying out a genocide against the Buddhist-majority countrys Rohingya Muslim minority.

Police initially began investigations into whether they had violated an import-export rule that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail, but the judge in the case opted to introduce a fresh charge of contravening the 1934 Burma Aircraft Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three months.

Both the cameraman and reporter pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, and the judge sentenced all four to two months, according to a Reuters reporter at the hearing.

A fresh hearing will be held on Nov. 16 to determine whether charges will be laid for violating the import-export rules.

The detainees admitted that they committed the crime hoping they would only be fined, so it shocked us when the judge sentenced them to two months, said defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw.

The lawyer said he would appeal for a reduction in the sentence to a fine.

Malaysian journalist Mok Choy Lin is held behind bars during her first court appearance for allegedly flying drones illegally over parliament buildings Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar. (AP)

Before proceedings began on Friday, Mok told reporters in the court that they were sorry for any disrespect of the Myanmars laws, but complained that the legal process had lacked transparency.

We have no idea what is going on and we are not allowed to speak to our family, she said.

And the rules and procedures are not explained to us. We were asked to sign statements that are completely in Burmese that we cannot understand.

Interpreter Aung Naing Soe told reporters as he was brought to court the four had not been mistreated while in custody, though police had asked about who they had spoken to and about the trips he had made to several of Myanmars restive regions, including Rakhine.

Myanmar says the military counter-insurgency clearance operation launched in August was provoked by Rohingya militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine State, and has denied both Erdogans accusation and a top UN officials description of the operation as a classic case of ethnic cleansing.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh since the military operation began.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.

When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. Id have rumbles here, rumbles there, said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?

Duterte won last years presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.

Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.

But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. Duterte denies the allegations.

The firebrand leader consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.

Duterte said last year he would be happy to slaughter three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a son of a whore for criticising the drug war.

Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example to police.

His spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a legitimate police action.

Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he maybe stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.

Dutertes aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in hyperbole.

His latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.
A woman has accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was 32, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, prompting top Republicans to say he should step aside if the allegations prove true.

Moore, 70, the states former chief judge, vehemently denied the allegations, calling them completely false and a desperate political attack.

In a series of Twitter posts later in the day, Moore cast the published allegations against him part of a bid to silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me, adding I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, working with a slim 52-48 majority, called on Moore to drop out of the race if these allegations are true. Several other Republicans, including Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and Utah Senator Mike Lee, all of whom endorsed Moore, echoed that sentiment.

At least two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and John Thune of South Dakota, said Moore should step aside immediately, with McCain calling the accusations deeply disturbing and disqualifying.

Leigh Corfman, now 53, told the Post she met Moore at a courthouse in 1979 when Moore offered to keep her company on a bench outside of a hearing room while her mother was inside for child custody proceeding.

Moore, at the time an assistant district attorney, asked for the girls phone number and days later took her to his house, where they engaged in sexual activity before she asked to be taken home, Corfman said.

The story also quoted three other women who said Moore dated them when they were between 16 and 18 years of age and he was in his early 30s, though none said they had sexual contact with Moore.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the allegations.

The Moore campaign accused the Post of colluding with Democrats to tarnish his reputation with false accusations.

The Post said none of the women had donated to or worked for Moores Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, or for his Republican primary rivals, and that Corfman said she had voted for Republicans in the past three presidential elections, including for Donald Trump in 2016.

POPULAR WITH ALABAMA REPUBLICANS

Moore has consistently led in polls over Jones. He was considered a heavy favourite in deeply Republican Alabama in the Dec. 12 special election to fill the seat of US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

It remains to be see whether Thursdays allegations can buoy Jones long-shot bid, which would represent a major upset for Democrats and narrow Republicans current edge in the Senate.

Jones campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Post story.

No matter what happens, Moore will remain on the ballot on Dec. 12 since a candidates name cannot be removed within 76 days of the election, according to the office of Alabamas secretary of state.

If, however, the state party tells election officials that it wants to withdraw its nominee, or if Moore himself decided to do so, election officials would not certify any votes cast for Moore. Write-in candidates are also allowed under state law.

Alabama political strategist David Mowery, who has worked for candidates of both parties, said the chance of Moore bowing out of the race was less than zero, and that it was almost as improbable for state party officials to abandon him in favor of a last-minute write-in candidate.

Mowery cited Moores overwhelming popularity with Alabamas Republican voters, who he said would tend to distrust allegations published in the Post. Nevertheless, he said Democrats would seize on the scandal to boost fund-raising.

Moore, who has made his moral and religious beliefs the heart of his pitch to voters, prevailed over several Republican opponents in a closely contested primary that saw Trump, McConnell and most Senate Republicans support the incumbent who had been appointed to Sessions seat, Luther Strange.

The race exposed rifts between the Republican Partys conservative base and its Washington-based establishment. Moores candidacy was heavily promoted by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who has vowed to support grassroots challengers next year to take on Republican incumbents.

On several occasions, Moore has made controversial statements and taken positions that have cost him his job. He has condemned homosexuality and said he believes some US communities are living under Islamic religious law.

He first became a national figure in the early 2000s, when he lost his position as Alabama chief justice after refusing a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from outside the courthouse.

After winning his position back in 2012, he was again forced out after defying the US Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage by ordering probate judges not to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On his Senate campaign website, Moore said he was suspended for upholding the sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman.
Saudi Arabias mass purge of elites accused of graft raises a few concerns, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday, adding Washington was closely monitoring the Gulf countrys unprecedented probe into alleged embezzlement worth $100 billion.

Speaking to reporters before landing in the Vietnamese city of Danang, where Tillerson is accompanying President Donald Trump to the APEC summit, Washingtons top diplomat said Saudi Arabias anti-corruption purge was well intended.

My own view is that it does, it raises a few concerns until we see more clearly how these particular individuals are dealt with, he said.

Around 200 people are being held for questioning over what Saudi Arabia says is an estimated $100 billion embezzlement and corruption scandal, the biggest purge of the kingdoms elite in its modern history.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is consolidating his power and among the dozens of high-profile figures sacked or arrested were princes, ministers and a billionaire business tycoon.

The purge comes as regional tensions soar, with Saudi Arabia and Iran squabbling over a failed missile attack against Riyadh airport on Saturday, that was claimed by Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen.

A political crisis is also unfolding in Lebanon after prime minister Saad Hariri announced his shock resignation in a speech from Riyadh, citing Irans grip on his country and threats to his life.

Washington is a staunch ally of Saudi Arabia, but there are fears the Crown Prince could be overreaching himself through the graft probe.

How disruptive its going to be remains to be seen, Tillerson said, adding he had spoken to his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir two days ago.

Its my understanding that theyre characterizing these as not really arrests at this point but theyre presenting people with evidence of what they think the wrongdoing is to see if theres a willingness to want to make things right, he added.

So how they choose to deal with it at this point is still a bit unclear but I wouldnt want to read more than what we know at this point.
The gunman, who killed 26 people at a church in United States Texas, claimed he had bought animals from a popular classified ad website to use them as targets during shooting practice, his former colleague at the US air force has said.

Jessika Edwards said Devin Patrick Kelley told her he was buying dogs as target practice from Craigslist while the two reconnected on Facebook in 2014, according to the CNN. She said she worked with Kelley at New Mexicos Holloman Air Force Base from 2010 to 2012.

The 26-year-old private security guard burst into the Baptist church in Sutherland Springs on November 5 during Sunday morning services and sprayed bullets at the congregation also wounding another 20 people.

Law enforcement officials continue their investigation at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. (AFP Photo)

She said she doesnt know if Kelleys claims were true but she stopped communicating with him after his admission.

Edwards said Kelley appeared to be fascinated with mass murders even while he was in the air force. He would make jokes about wanting to kill somebody ... And we would say wait, thats not funny, Edwards said.

The air force confirmed to television news channel that Edwards was stationed at the Holloman base at the same time as the shooter but did not say if they worked together.

Devin Patrick Kelley was involved in the First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs. (Texas Department of Safety via Reuters)

Kelley had a history of domestic violence that spanned years before the attack and was able to buy weapons because the air force did not submit his criminal history to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as required under military rules.

According to police reports, the shooter sneaked guns into an air force base and escaped from Peak Behavioral Health Systems, a mental health facility in New Mexico, in June 2012 months after he was accused of abusing his former wife and her child.

Kelley was discharged by the air force after being court-martialled in 2014 for the assault on his ex-wife in which he choked her and struck her son hard enough to fracture his skull.

He was charged with misdemeanour animal cruelty in Colorado in the same year after a neighbour reported him for beating a dog. Kelley initially refused to speak with officers about the incident. He denied abusing the animal but complied with an order to pay almost $370 in restitution.

He was also the focus of a protective order issued in Colorado in 2015.

If Kelleys past offences had been properly shared, they would have prevented him from buying a gun, the air force acknowledged on Monday.

Investigators also revealed Kelley had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, a member of the church, before the attack and that sheriffs deputies had responded to a domestic violence call in 2014 at his home involving a girlfriend who became his second wife.

Shot babies at point-blank range

A couple, who survived the attack, said Kelley went aisle to aisle inside the church looking for victims and shot crying babies at point-blank range.

Rosanne Solis and Joaquin Ramirez were sitting near the entrance to the First Baptist Church when they heard what sounded like firecrackers and realised someone was shooting at the tiny wood-frame building.

In an interview with San Antonio television station KSAT, Solis said congregants began screaming and dropped to the floor. She could see bullets flying into the carpet and fellow worshippers falling down, bloodied, after getting hit.

For a moment, the attack seemed to have stopped and worshippers thought that police had arrived to confront the gunman. But then he entered the church and resumed shooting hard at helpless families, Solis said.

The gunman checked each aisle for more victims, including babies who cried out amid the noise and smoke, Ramirez said.

Investigators believe Kelley died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he was chased by bystanders, one of whom was armed, and crashed his car.

(With AP inputs)
US President Donald Trump landed in Vietnam on Friday for a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations, the fourth leg of his 12-day Asia trip.

The White House has said Trump will set out a US vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region in a speech in the beach resort of Danang.

Trump arrived from China, where he praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping as highly respected and Chinese media had declared the visit had set a new blueprint for handling US-China relations and differences.

Trump will not have a separate meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the APEC summit in Vietnam due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said on Friday.

Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before landing in Danang.

Now, theyre going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely. But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, theres not one on the calendar and we dont anticipate that there will be one, Sanders said.

On Sunday the US president said its expected well meet with Putin to discuss North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

Four days later Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting in Vietnam with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been made on talks, which would be the first between the two men since they met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Trumps relationship with Moscow has haunted the first year of his administration.

His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate are under house arrest on charges including conspiracy to launder money, linked to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations that the campaign colluded with Russia.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
President Donald Trump singled out Indias success story for praise on Friday as he spoke of the US forging a new partnership with countries in Asia to promote prosperity and a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

Though he was addressing CEOs on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit at Danang in Vietnam, Trumps speech was peppered with repeated references to the Indo-Pacific, a new term coined by his administration to signal a shift in its priorities in the region.

He noted that countries in the broader region outside the APEC grouping were making great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific. India, he said, was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence as a sovereign democracy as well as, think of this, over 1 billion (people)  its the largest democracy in the world.

Since India opened its economy it has achieved outstanding growth and a new world of opportunity for its expanding middle class, he said. And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people together as one and he is working at it very, very successfully indeed.

He offered a renewed partnership with America to work together to strengthen the bonds of friendship and commerce between all countries of the Indo-Pacific to promote prosperity and security.

In an apparent reference to China, Trump said the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific was shared by sovereign nations with a vision of justice and accountability that have promoted private property and rule of law, and embraced systems that value hard work and individual enterprise.

But for thisIndo-Pacific dreamto be realised, we must ensure that all play by the rules, which they do not right now. Those who do will be our closest economic partners, those who do not can be certain that the US will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression, he added.

Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-Asean and East Asia Summits. Trump too is scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between Asean and eight of its partners.

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by Washington has coincided with reports of the revival of a quadrilateral alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India as a counter-balance to the rise of China.

Chinese officials have ruled out the possibility of their country being contained through measures such as the quadrilateral alliance. Beijing has so far avoided wading into the question of referring to the region as the Indo-Pacific.
US President Donald Trump would want Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to step aside if sexual misconduct allegations against him are true, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Friday.

A woman has accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the US Senate in Alabama, of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was 32, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Moore, 70, the states former chief judge, vehemently denied the allegations, calling them completely false and a desperate political attack.

Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life, Sanders said.

However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside, she said, as Trump arrived in Vietnam on his 12-day Asia tour.
What a year we have lived through since Donald Trump came out on stage and pledged to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans. As journalists who have been around this town forever and covered politics for decades, we are constantly asked about the Trump presidency: Has there ever been anything like this?

The answer is no. No to everything. Theres never been a president who endlessly litigated the last election  which he won, by the way. Theres never been a president who had lower approval ratings this early in his term: 37 percent, in the most recent ABC poll. Never has a president called our justice system a joke and a laughingstock. Never has a president left so many State Department positions unfilled, at a time when crises are erupting around the globe.

And never, of course, has a president set policy on Twitter.

All of the chaos surrounding the constantly churning White House is clearly taking its toll, as the elections this week in New Jersey and Virginia made clear. Voters in those states said, by a 2-to-1 margin, that they were showing up in opposition to the Trump presidency, not in support of it.

And there is much in the ABC poll that would send most presidents scrambling to try to set things straight. Majorities say Trumps not delivering on his major campaign promises, that hes not honest and trustworthy, that hes not a strong leader, that he hasnt brought needed change and that he doesnt have the right personality or temperament to be president.

As he makes the rounds in Asia, with North Korea foremost on the agenda, a shocking two-thirds of those polled dont trust their president to act responsibly in handling that situation.

But instead of trying to fix whats wrong, Trump rails against the media, the Democrats and the Clintons while proclaiming that he has done more in the time hes been in office than any president in history.

He probably believes that. Thats the part thats scary. Candide-like, Trump seems to think that because hes in charge, this must be the best of all possible worlds.

When Fox News Laura Ingraham recently asked the president about the number of vacancies in the State Department, he replied: The one that matters is me. Im the only one that matters because when it comes to it, thats what policy is going to be.

Some Trump voters now seem to understand that the election was all about him, that he is the one that matters, not them. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of Trump counties, only 32 percent say the country is better off than when their candidate was elected, and a majority sees no clear agenda coming out of the White House.

So now what? Where do we go from here? Democrats think this head-scratching year works for them  that by making the next election all about Trump, they can win.

The elections this week certainly give them reason to hope thats true. But there are some warning signs for Democrats as well. Among those likeliest to vote next year  people who turned out in the last midterm and say they are certain to do so again  Democrats and Republicans are dead-even in the ABC survey. Those voters also end up tied over which party best represents their values.

Democrats might be able to upset those numbers by getting more of their core voters to the polls than they usually do in off-year elections. That happened in Virginia, where minorities showed up in much larger numbers than they did in the last two gubernatorial years, and they voted for Democratic candidate Ralph Northam by an overwhelming 80 percent. In New Jersey, it was an even higher 83 percent of the minority vote that went for Democrat Phil Murphy. Both men lost the white vote, and in both cases, it didnt matter.

But there are still obstacles for the party to overcome. Fewer voters overall  27 percent  trust Democrats in Congress to make the right decisions for the country, compared to a pitiful, but still higher, 34 percent who say the same for Trump.

So no, theres never been anything like this. The year since Donald Trump was elected has produced a confused and concerned country. And in looking toward the Democrats, many voters dont see anything that attracts them.

Another chaotic year before the next election could change their minds.

The year since Donald Trump was elected has produced a confused and concerned country. And in looking toward the Democrats, many voters dont see anything that attracts them.
American lawmakers have decided not to press for tying certain financial aid for Pakistan to counter-terrorism measures against the Lashkar-e-Taiba, as was proposed by the Senate in an omnibus legislation it passed to fund the US military in 2018, because of resistance from the US defense department.

The provision was dropped from a legislation the two chambers agreed to on Wednesday through a process called conference  meant to reconcile differing versions of a bill passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The legislation will now be put to a vote for passage, which is guaranteed in such circumstances.

India will be disappointed but it could take comfort from a section of the reconciled legislation that proposes to direct the executive branch to set up a formal structure to pursue relations with India under the new definition of Major Defence Partner.

The US declared India a Major Defence Partner, for the purpose of defence cooperation extending to trade, co-development and co-production of military equipment, in 2016, during Prime Minister Narendra Modis meeting with President Barack Obama. But it was left largely undefined.

A defence budget bill  the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) codified it into law the same year, committing all succeeding presidencies to it, unless revoked. But it also did not specify how it will work. The 2018 bill directs the executive branch to finds ways to implement it.

It said a person should be appointed to shepherd the relationship as a Major Defence Partner, and also directed the Pentagon, headquarters of the US military, to devise a strategy to take it forward.

This provision was proposed by Senator Mark Warner, who is co-chair of the chambers India Caucus.

But New Delhi will be very disappointed by the dropping of the clause that had made payment of a substantial amount of aid to Pakistan from the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) conditional to action against the LeT.

The CSF is a mechanism to compensate countries that support the US-led international coalition forces in Afghanistan militarily and logistically.

Pakistan, it has been proposed in the reconciled final legislation, will get $5700 million under this head. Half of it, as proposed in the Senate bill, was to be tied to certification from the executive branch that Pakistan had indeed acted against LeT and the Haqqani Network, which operate from its soil.

The clause was killed during the reconciliation conference. Aides from the House of Representatives had issues with the addition of LeT and bumped it up to the defence department for a second opinion.

The answer, according to sources privy to the negotiations, was an unequivocal no  this would amount to shifting the goal post for the Pakistanis.

The defense department argued that the US must stay focussed on the Haqqani Network, which has targeted Americans in Afghanistan and emerged as the biggest challenge in the region. The US must not distract attention towards other terrorist groups.

Armed with this advisory from the defence department, negotiators dug in and forced the Senate to agree to drop the reference to the LeT and keep up the battle for other issues. There wasnt enough push back from the upper chamber, which has decided to fight this battle at a later, more convenient, date.

Section 1213 of the defence authorisation bill passed by the Senate in September had proposed to make CSF payments incumbent on Pakistan conducting military operations that are contributing to significantly disrupting the safe havens, fundraising and recruiting efforts, and freedom of movement of the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba in Pakistan.

The bill had added Pakistan must demonstrate it has taken steps to demonstrate its commitment to prevent the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba from using any Pakistan territory as a safe haven and for fundraising and recruiting efforts.

It must also show it is making an attempt to actively coordinate with the Government of Afghanistan to restrict the movement of militants, such as the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan must also show progress in arresting and prosecuting senior leaders and mid-level operatives of the Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

That will have to wait for another time, said a congressional aide.
A video posted by a far-right group on Facebook shows the ugly face of racism in Australia.

Australian senator Sam Dastyari was at a pub in Melbourne on Wednesday when a group of men belonging to a far-right group Patriot Blue, circled him and started heckling him with racist abuse.

In the video, which was being filmed by the hecklers, shows Dastyari trying to keep his cool as he faces a volley of racist questions from the group.

The video shows the group approaching Dastyari who is of Iranian heritage. They then proceed to hurl a number of abuses on him, including little monkey and terrorist.

Why dont you go back to Iran, you terrorist?, one man can be heard telling Dastyari.

The senator tried to ignore the men, and focused on placing his order for drinks at the Victoria University student bar. He told the men he did not want to engage with them, I think you guys are a bunch of racists. You are embarrassing yourself, Dastyari can be heard telling them.

As the senator walks back to his table, the men keep hounding him, repeatedly asking him, What race is Islam? tell us, what race is Islam?

Dastyari chooses not to answer but his friend and fellow Australian senator Tim Watts, leans into the camera and asks the men, What race is d***head?

Watts timely intervention earned him praise on social media, with many lauding his response as appropriate.

I must have watched Tim Watts saying "what race is dickhead" a dozen times and it hasn't stopped being funny yet pic.twitter.com/hDnOV1uLkg  Josh Butler (@JoshButler) November 9, 2017

Tonight will always be the night that we got harassed by cowardly white nationalists & @TimWattsMP yelled "what race is dickead" #strayamate  Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) November 8, 2017

Talking to the press later, Dastyari said this type of behaviour has no place in Australia, reported The Intercept.

This type of extremism, this white nationalism, this is what leads to Charlottesville in the US, Dastyari told Sky News. This is what leads to the problems they have in America and frankly, the far-right in Australia, yeah, do feel empowered at the moment.

In the video, the men can be heard declaring, We are the real Australians.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has introduced new citizenship laws based on Australian values, condemned the incident, calling it racial villification.

There is no place for racial vilification in Australia, Turnbull said. We are the most successful multicultural society in the world and that is because its built, our society is built, on a foundation of mutual respect. And so we should have zero tolerance racism and racist abuse like that.
The band will take up a four night residency in Dublin's National Concert Hall from the 5th to the 8th of March 2018.

These are the only shows the Gloaming have scheduled worldwide in 2018.

Tickets for the shows between the 5th and 8th are 40 (subject to booking fees) via Ticketmaster and the National Concert Hall website , and go on sale

Friday 17 November at 10am.
David Walsh and Donal Og Cusack have both come under fire for providing character references for Tom Humphries - so why hasn't Tyrone manager Mickey Harte been similarly criticised for providing a character reference for a sex attacker?

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INDIANAPOLIS - Alison Wrenne was making waffles for her two young children one morning when abdominal pain forced her to the floor. A neighbor who is a physician assistant urged her to go to the emergency room.

Wrong decision, according to her health insurer. Wrenne was diagnosed with a ruptured ovarian cyst, but Anthem said that wasn't an emergency and stuck her with a $4,110 bill.

"How are you supposed to know that?" the 34-year-old from Lexington, Ky., said. "I'm not a doctor ... that's what the emergency room is for."

In an effort to curb unnecessary and costly ER visits, the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer has told customers in a few U.S. states to go to the hospital only in a real emergency such as a heart attack, stroke and major bleeding - or they could wind up footing the bill.

Indianapolis-based Anthem wants patients to consider alternatives like drugstore clinics, nurse advice hotlines or telemedicine. Insurers for years have been raising ER co-payments to try to deter unnecessary - and expensive - visits, and Anthem's policy marks another round in this fight.

Even doctors agree the ER - an important revenue source for hospitals - isn't the best option for minor complaints like sinus infections, rashes or ankle sprains. They say it's better in those cases to see a family doctor who knows a person's medical history.

But some also worry that Anthem's clampdown will scare patients away from the ER in an actual emergency, especially when major problems may not seem serious at first.

Customers in Missouri and Georgia received letters earlier this year from Anthem warning them that minor complaints should be checked out at places like clinics or urgent care centers, where visits can cost $85 and $190, respectively. By comparison, Anthem says a typical ER visit costs around $1,200.

The ER should be used "as it was designed - to treat life-threatening illness," said Dr. Craig Samitt, Anthem's chief clinical officer. "This is in no way meant to compromise a member's determination of whether they've got an emergency."

The push began in 2015 in Kentucky and will expand to Indiana next year and possibly other states that have seen a rise in unnecessary visits. Those involve "common medical ailments" that the average person knows should not be seen in an emergency room, according to Samitt.

In Wrenne's case, a letter from Anthem said: "We do not believe that a person with an average knowledge of health and medicine would think that this needed care right away" to avoid a serious problem. The insurer said she could have been treated safely in a doctor's office or clinic.

The hospital whittled Wrenne's bill down to several hundred dollars. But now she's nervous about using the ER again.
In the wake of World War I, some veterans returned wounded, but not with obvious physical injuries. Instead, their symptoms were similar to those that had previously been associated with hysterical women  most commonly amnesia, or some kind of paralysis or inability to communicate with no clear physical cause.

English physician Charles Myers, who wrote the first paper on shell-shock in 1915, theorized that these symptoms actually did stem from a physical injury. He posited that repetitive exposure to concussive blasts caused brain trauma that resulted in this strange grouping of symptoms. But once put to the test, his hypothesis didnt hold up. There were plenty of veterans who had not been exposed to the concussive blasts of trench warfare, for example, who were still experiencing the symptoms of shell-shock. (And certainly not all veterans who had seen this kind of battle returned with symptoms.)

We now know that what these combat veterans were facing was likely what today we call post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. We are now better able to recognize it, and treatments have certainly advanced, but we still dont have a full understanding of just what PTSD is.

The medical community and society at large are accustomed to looking for the most simple cause and cure for any given ailment. This results in a system where symptoms are discovered and cataloged and then matched with therapies that will alleviate them. Though this method works in many cases, for the past 100 years, PTSD has been resisting.

We are three scholars in the humanities who have individually studied PTSD  the framework through which people conceptualize it, the ways researchers investigate it, the therapies the medical community devises for it. Through our research, each of us has seen how the medical model alone fails to adequately account for the ever-changing nature of PTSD.

Whats been missing is a cohesive explanation of trauma that allows us to explain the various ways its symptoms have manifested over time and can differ in different people.

Nonphysical repercussions of the Great War

Once it became clear that not everyone who suffered from shell-shock in the wake of WWI had experienced brain injuries, the British Medical Journal provided alternate nonphysical explanations for its prevalence.

A poor morale and a defective training are one of the most important, if not the most important etiological factors: also that shell-shock was a catching complaint.  (The British Medical Journal, 1922)

Shell-shock went from being considered a legitimate physical injury to being a sign of weakness, of both the battalion and the soldiers within it. One historian estimates at least 20 percent of men developed shell-shock, though the figures are murky due to physician reluctance at the time to brand veterans with a psychological diagnosis that could affect disability compensation.

Soldiers were archetypically heroic and strong. When they came home unable to speak, walk or remember, with no physical reason for those shortcomings, the only possible explanation was personal weakness. Treatment methods were based on the idea that the soldier who had entered into war as a hero was now behaving as a coward and needed to be snapped out of it.

Lewis Yealland, a British clinician, described in his 1918 Hysterical Disorders of Warfare the kind of brutal treatment that follows from thinking about shell-shock as a personal failure. After nine months of unsuccessfully treating patient A1, including electric shocks to the neck, cigarettes put out on his tongue and hot plates placed at the back of his throat, Yealland boasted of telling the patient, You will not leave this room until you are talking as well as you ever did; no, not before you must behave as the hero I expect you to be.

Yealland then applied an electric shock to the throat so strong that it sent the patient reeling backwards, unhooking the battery from the machine. Undeterred, Yealland strapped the patient down to avoid the battery problem and continued to apply shock for an hour, at which point patient A1 finally whispered Ah. After another hour, the patient began to cry and whispered, I want a drink of water.

Yealland reported this encounter triumphantly  the breakthrough meant his theory was correct and his method worked. Shell-shock was a disease of manhood rather than an illness that came from witnessing, being subjected to and partaking in incredible violence.

Evolution away from shell-shock

The next wave of the study of trauma came when the Second World War saw another influx of soldiers dealing with similar symptoms.

It was Abram Kardiner, a clinician working in the psychiatric clinic of the United States Veterans Bureau, who rethought combat trauma in a much more empathetic light. In his influential book, The Traumatic Neuroses of War, Kardiner speculated that these symptoms stemmed from psychological injury, rather than a soldiers flawed character.

Work from other clinicians after WWII and the Korean War suggested that post-war symptoms could be lasting. Longitudinal studies showed that symptoms could persist anywhere from six to 20 years, if they disappeared at all. These studies returned some legitimacy to the concept of combat trauma that had been stripped away after the First World War.

Vietnam was another watershed moment for combat-related PTSD because veterans began to advocate for themselves in an unprecedented way. Beginning with a small march in New York in the summer of 1967, veterans themselves began to become activists for their own mental health care. They worked to redefine post-Vietnam syndrome not as a sign of weakness, but rather a normal response to the experience of atrocity. Public understanding of war itself had begun to shift, too, as the widely televised accounts of the My Lai massacre brought the horror of war into American living rooms for the first time. The veterans campaign helped get PTSD included in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-III), the major American diagnostic resource for psychiatrists and other mental health clinicians.

The authors of the DSM-III deliberately avoided talking about the causes of mental disorders. Their aim was to develop a manual that could simultaneously be used by psychiatrists adhering to radically different theories, including Freudian approaches and what is now known as biological psychiatry. These groups of psychiatrists would not agree on how to explain disorders, but they could  and did  come to agree on which patients had similar symptoms. So the DSM-III defined disorders, including PTSD, solely on the basis of clusters of symptoms, an approach that has been retained ever since.

This tendency to agnosticism about the physiology of PTSD is also reflected in contemporary evidence-based approaches to medicine. Modern medicine focuses on using clinical trials to demonstrate that a therapy works, but is skeptical about attempts to link treatment effectiveness to the biology underlying a disease.

Todays medicalized PTSD

People can develop PTSD for a number of different reasons, not just in combat. Sexual assault, a traumatic loss, a terrible accident  each might lead to PTSD. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates about 13.8 percent of the veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan currently have PTSD. For comparison, a male veteran of those wars is four times more likely to develop PTSD than a man in the civilian population is. PTSD is probably at least partially at the root of an even more alarming statistic: Upwards of 22 veterans commit suicide every day.

Therapies for PTSD today tend to be a mixed bag. Practically speaking, when veterans seek PTSD treatment in the VA system, policy requires they be offered either exposure or cognitive therapy. Exposure therapies are based on the idea that the fear response that gives rise to many of the traumatic symptoms can be dampened through repeated exposures to the traumatic event. Cognitive therapies work on developing personal coping methods and slowly changing unhelpful or destructive thought patterns that are contributing to symptoms (for example, the shame one might feel at not successfully completing a mission or saving a comrade). The most common treatment a veteran will likely receive will include psychopharmaceuticals  especially the class of drugs called SSRIs.

Mindfulness therapies, based on becoming aware of mental states, thoughts and feelings and accepting them rather than trying to fight them or push them away, are another option. There are also more alternative methods being studied such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR therapy, therapies using controlled doses of MDMA (Ecstasy), virtual reality-graded exposure therapy, hypnosis and creative therapies. The military funds a wealth of research on new technologies to address PTSD; these include neurotechnological innovations like transcranial stimulation and neural chips as well as novel drugs.

Several studies have shown that patients improve most when theyve chosen their own therapy. But even if they narrow their choices to the ones backed by the weight of the National Center for PTSD by using the centers online Treatment Decision Aid, patients would still find themselves weighing five options, each of which is evidence-based but entails a different psychomedical model of trauma and healing.

This buffet of treatment options lets us set aside our lack of understanding of why people experience trauma and respond to interventions so differently. It also relieves the pressure for psychomedicine to develop a complete model of PTSD. We reframe the problem as a consumer issue instead of a scientific one.

Thus, while WWI was about soldiers and punishing them for their weakness, in the contemporary era, the ideal veteran PTSD patient is a health care consumer who has an obligation to play an active role in figuring out and optimizing his own therapy.

As we stand here with the strange benefit of the hindsight that comes with 100 years of studying combat-related trauma, we must be careful in celebrating our progress. What is still missing is an explanation of why people have different responses to trauma, and why different responses occur in different historical periods. For instance, the paraylsis and amnesia that epitomized WWI shell-shock cases are now so rare that they dont even appear as symptoms in the DSM entry for PTSD. We still dont know enough about how soldiers own experiences and understandings of PTSD are shaped by the broader social and cultural views of trauma, war and gender. Though we have made incredible strides in the century since World War I, PTSD remains a chameleon, and demands our continued study.
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The United States has proposed another difficult change to the North American Free Trade Agreement that could eventually restrict long-haul Mexican truckers from operating in the country, according to people familiar with the discussions.

American negotiators asked to remove Mexico's long-haul industry from a NAFTA chapter on cross-border services, according to an industry official familiar with the proposal who isn't authorized to speak publicly. That could open the door to restrictions on truckers, as losing NAFTA trade protections and advantages would make it harder for Mexico to challenge any future U.S. requirements on trucks such as new safety checks.

One government official familiar with the text said the U.S. proposal would allow restrictions and limitations on Mexican trucking if certain conditions were reached, while another official described it as a broad industry exclusion that came during the last round of talks in October. Neither was authorized to speak publicly.

The U.S. Trade Representative's Office declined to comment, and hasn't made its proposals public. Reuters News also reported last month that the U.S. was seeking fresh restrictions on long-haul trucks from Mexico, citing a person familiar with discussions.

The U.S. for years after NAFTA came into effect resisted giving Mexican truckers the right to operate throughout the country. They were limited to bringing loads a short distance into the U.S., where they would be transferred to American outfits for final delivery. A dispute resolution panel backed Mexico on the matter in 2001, though the U.S. didn't comply for years. Mexico at one point imposed tariffs in retaliation.

It wasn't until 2015 that the U.S. gave licensed Mexican truckers the right to haul cargo throughout the nation.

The U.S. proposal on Mexican trucking adds to a list of contentious demands that President Donald Trump's team has signaled must be met to keep the 1994 pact alive.

Negotiators have already said they will extend talks through March, which is longer than originally anticipated and could bring the issue into Mexico's presidential campaign season and U.S. congressional elections.

Mexico's government opposes the new proposal on trucking, seeing it as a rollback of the rights won in the previous cross-border trucking dispute settlement, according to a person familiar with the position.
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Wayne Gilbert doesn't mind admitting he has sold very few of the paintings he has made during the past 30 years.

He assumes few people are comfortable living with what he calls their "yuck" factor: The iconoclastic Houston artist covers his canvases with unclaimed, cremated human remains that he mixes with a gel, sometimes adding paint pigments.

Gilbert says buyers have expressed interest in his work, but he's loath to sell it, partly because he doesn't know how to price it and also because he doesn't want it to belong to anyone who might not take care of it in a respectful way.

But Gilbert, who turns 71 this month, has been thinking lately about posterity and what to do with the 40-by-50-foot climate-controlled trailer where he has stored his life's work.

He recently commissioned director Wayne Slaten to tell his story in the documentary "Ash." The 58-minute film premieres, along with Cressandra Thibodeaux's 30-minute "Jesse Lott: Artist in Action," Sunday during the Houston Cinema Arts Festival.

THE MURALIST HOUSTON FORGOT: Leo Tanguma is in no hurry to return to the city that holds his ultimate achievement.

More Information 'Ash: The Art of Wayne Gilbert' and 'Jesse Lott: Artist in Action' When: 4 p.m. Sunday Where: Brown Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet Info: $10; 713-429-0420, houstoncinemaartsfestival.org See More Collapse

Gilbert didn't censor the numerous art-world figures who comment on his work and motives in the film - among them Station Museum founder Jim Harithas, Blaffer Art Museum director Toby Kamps, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston director Bill Arning and the especially eloquent "Engines of Our Ingenuity" creator John Lienhard.

Susan Aberth, an art historian at Bard College in New York, may be Gilbert's most vocal champion. She believes his paintings exude psychic power. Others sound respectful but professionally conflicted about the work: Gilbert's imagery is not particularly sophisticated, often incorporating textual or visual puns about death.

Courtesy of the Artist

Harithas may nail it best, seeing Gilbert as an artist who found his own way and materials and continuously experiments. But Harithas also tempers his praise. "He is  a self-styled intellectual who thinks he knows more than he does," he says in the film. "Where he knows a lot is in his art, and that's where he communicates to me, more than with some of his theories we don't agree on."

The film doesn't cover Gilbert's full story.

A native Houstonian, he grew up in Houston's East End and lost his father before he was 9. His mother worked downtown as a punch-card operator.

He's been controversial pretty much since the day he decided to become an artist. To help him sober up from drug and alcohol addictions in 1977, his wife, Beverly Gilbert, persuaded him to enroll with her in a class at the Museum District home of artist Chester Snowden.

Gilbert began drawing, and by 1984, he had a painting degree from the University of Houston. His teachers included Gael Stack and Richard Stout, but he didn't identify with the fine-art-focused talents that emerged from the school.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST: A couple of years ago we followed Gilbert and another artist as they got ready to open an exhibition.

"I came from a practical, oil-field sales background," he says.

Nor did he need to make a living with his art. The Gilberts established a photo-retouching company in the late 1970s that today, as DigitalImaging Group, has 27 employees and national clients. The business also enables him to support other artists, most recently through his G Spot Contemporary Gallery in the Heights.

As an artist, Gilbert was always hell-bent on provocation. During his first six or seven years as a painter, he made canvases he describes as "Absurd Expressionism," focused on humanity at its ugliest, inspired by subjects such as the Jonestown Massacre.

He staged shows with other underground artists that often involved S&M performances and nudity. Gilbert's first art gallery, 101 Space, closed with a "human pinata" performance in which a bubble-wrapped cowboy hung from the ceiling to be attacked by a bull.

"We were outsiders," Gilbert says. "None of the museum people or galleries cared or were interested."

Gilbert insists he's exploring the philosophical nature of art: What it is that we respond to that can make a canvas something priceless, something that drives financial markets, when it is essentially nothing more than an object to hang on a wall?

When the idea for painting with cremated remains finally hit him, "It sounded almost like a deep breath of fresh air," he says. "It just seemed like the greatest way in the world to communicate the message that I intended: How weird is all of this art-world stuff?"

Finding a source for his material took persistence. Eventually he made his way to James Claire, the owner of a funeral home in southwest Houston who gave him access to a closet full of unclaimed remains.

"I don't give up easily. I'm just not the kind of guy that quits much of anything," Gilbert says.

But from the moment he placed his first boxed collaborator, if you will, on the car seat beside him to drive her back to his studio, he seems to have felt genuine respect for the remains with which he has been entrusted.

He loves watching viewers' reactions when they realize what they're seeing in his paintings. Invariably, heads turn.

"I understand sometimes just how radical this stuff is," Gilbert says, "but it's also communication, talking about this stuff."

He motions to a pure white canvas above the desk at G Spot. Unlike his other works, it has a small box affixed to its center.

"That's intense. That's big people stuff there," he said. "That's a little boy that was born, died and was cremated and left behind in a closet."

Gilbert has never seen his work as "funerary" art, generally shunning commissions from potential buyers who would like to have their own loved ones' remains incorporated into paintings.

And though he has shown his work in at least 20 countries, Gilbert feels frustrated that he's been ignored by the mainstream art world. He cites his "Stars and Stripes Forever" painting, noting that Jasper Johns and "a whole litany of artists" have made famous works based on American-flag imagery, yet he can't get his piece - which contains the remains of three actual Americans - on anyone's radar.

"I've obviously got a big enough ego that I would have liked to have been acknowledged," he says.

Though he no longer harbors any fantasies about fame, Gilbert still wants all of his paintings - and the people contained within them - to be handled properly when he's gone.

"This sounds a little weird, but one of the things I might do, because I can afford it," he said, "I might find a piece of land that nobody knows about, and find a backhoe big enough to dig a hole big enough to put that 40-by-50-foot trailer in there and just cover it with earth, put a small plaque on it and get on with it."

At least with this issue, he is not alone. Plenty of older artists, successful and not-so-successful, are burdened with unsold works.

"But this stuff is a little bit different because it has this significance of being people," Gilbert says. "So it's a conundrum."
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Flipping on the television, Pastor Mack A. Paul learned of the horror that followed Devin Patrick Kelley after he marched into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs with an assault rifle on Sunday and opened fire.

Paul's first reaction was to pray for everyone involved.

Then his thoughts turned to his own parishioners. Even though his Greater Galilee Missionary Baptist Church is 200 miles away from Sutherland Springs, Paul recognized the news would strike a blow - and hit all of the faith community in Houston.

He said his job is rise to the challenge - and tend to his flock.

"You intensify what you do on a weekly basis, which is to bring comfort, assurance and hope," he said. "You're talking about the process of time. Scars heal with time. But you have to keep pouring on the medicine, which in this case, is the message of Jesus. We don't change what we've been doing. We heighten the effort."

As an entire nation reels from another mass shooting, religious leaders will try to help their followers keep the faith, to spiritually stay strong after such a tragic violation of a most sacred place: a church. On this Sunday, millions of Americans will gather in the pews, with many likely feeling unease and sadness, yearning for some meaning and hope.

Paul, senior pastor at Greater Galilee in north Houston, will discuss the shooting in his sermon Sunday. He said his message will be simple: "We have to persevere."

Pastor Bill White of Village Heights Church on West 18th Street said his goal is to keep his congregation from feeling scared.

"There's a lot of fear and anger swirling around," he said. "Fear can be debilitating."

And even though the crime happened in another town, White said church members could become afraid of gathering to worship.

"It's not something you can ignore," he said. "You can't make it seem like this can't happen to us because it was in a different time and place. It's not clear what his intentions were. But regardless of that, Christians will be affected. Still, that doesn't mean we should be scared."

White said congregants can find strength in religion. "The church has faced unsurpassed persecution, but has outlasted, because we don't focus on loss," he said. "We focus on the gain in eternity. The church and the gospel have overcome many obstacles."

Imam Rizwan Khan will share similar sentiments at Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Greater Houston.

"We're not going to let terror and fear dictate our daily lives," he said. "Of course we are sad and shocked. But we can't allow that person to have power over us. As a community, we can come together and move forward."

Khan said that appealing to a higher power is essential to surviving this type of storm - even if individuals feel more like turning away.

"The real measure of faith is how they react when they face trials," he said. "This is exactly what the purpose of religion is - to help man deal with mortality. When there are hardships, that is when we must come together."

Khan said churches, like mosques, come with an expectation. "We expect it to be safe," he said. "It does violate the sanctity - not just of the religious space but also socially, for what is seen as a gathering place."

This shooting serves as a reminder, Khan explained. "The life we live, the house we have, the routine, the job - a crazy person can come and turn it all upside down," he said.

The one thing that can't be taken away is faith in God, Khan added. And he recommends cultivating that relationship. "It gives a person peace," he said.

As an imam, considering the safety of his own congregants has become paramount to Khan. "This is unfortunately something we have to ask: Are we prepared for something like this to happen? Are we looking after our own children? I think every spiritual leader asks, what can we do to protect people in this congregation?"

The Rev. Greg Han, director of Interfaith Relations with Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston, believes faith leaders across Houston are asking the same questions - whether in a mosque, synagogue or church.

As someone who stood on the pulpit for eight years before assuming his current post, he has a recommendation. "First and foremost, have a plan," he said. "Have an emergency plan in place. There are resources out there. Not having a plan is not an option."

He said an emergency plan will prepare for natural disasters, as well as active shooters.

"There is a strength and a hope endemic to faith communities," Han said. "We will not let tragedy or fear get in the way or prevent us from gathering. We are going to continue to do what we do - to gather and pray. It's a sign of hope and also resistance and resilience."

He hopes Houstonians will realize the power of faith to both "comfort and also embolden us."

"It helps us grieve and mourn, but (faith) also helps move us forward," Han said. "The faith we have in God makes room for mourning and sadness. We are also able to rise back up and be people in the world seeking a more just and peaceful community."

The Rev. Laura Mayo, senior minister of Covenant Church in the Museum District, said seeking change is a duty.

"We've got to keep military-type weapons away from civilians," she said. "This cannot keep happening. And it will keep happening unless we do something about it."

Her thoughts went to a verse in Matthew, to a story about Bethlehem and Herod ordering that boys 2 years old and younger be killed.

"Jesus was born into a world in which children were being killed," she said. "He had to decide how he felt about that. And we have to decide if that's OK with us. It's not OK with me - and I don't think it was OK with Jesus."

Jesus worked for peace, Mayo said.

She quoted the verse in the Bible where he wept over Jerusalem, saying, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace ... "

She believes the nation should search for the means for peace.

"Can we recognize the things we need for peace - background checks, sensible gun regulations?" she asked. "We pray with our actions, we pray with our votes, we pray with our feet. We are the body Christ has on this earth right now. We can't continue to sit around and do nothing."

Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss with Congregation Shma Koleinu said in addition to stopping gun violence, addressing spiritual pain is critical.

"We are never going to solve this issue unless we, as a society, take a two-pronged approach - addressing access to assault rifles and mental health," he said. "People who cause pain are in pain."

He believes that as a rabbi, he can help people deal with existential pain and use prayer to heal.

"There is power in prayer," he said. "Prayer is one of those things you can do especially when you feel there is nothing you can do."

He planned to host a special healing service for his congregation on Friday. He will record the service - and send it to the minister in Sutherland Springs.

"The service I'm doing on Friday night is a small thing," he said. "It's not going to solve anything. But this is us literally sending our prayers. This is us truly holding you in our hearts. You are not alone."
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There's a screened porch with artful lighting fixtures hanging from the ceiling and six midcentury-modern chairs nestled around a big table in Laura Bohn's country home in Pennsylvania. Potted plants make the space as outdoorsy as what's beyond the big screen windows and slatted walls.

But what she's excited about right now are its floors. They're porcelain tile that looks like wood, and the native Houstonian who's been an interior designer for nearly 40 years is embracing what's new right now.

"I'm not such a trends person, but I appreciate all the new materials. I do a lot of research. I love Pinterest and look at every periodical - anything for new materials," said Bohn, who has lived in New York for years. "You can buy gorgeous things at Home Depot for almost no money. The porcelain tiles that look like wood are incredible."

Bohn, whose new book, "Laura Bohn: Ways of Seeing," was recently published, will be in Houston on Tuesday for continuing education courses at the Houston Design Center and a book signing at River Oaks Bookstore.

Her father, Dale Cooper, was an engineer, and among his many projects was heading up work on the heating, cooling and electrical systems for the Astrodome. Her mother, Jean Cooper, had been a fashion illustrator at what is now the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

From them she learned to read architectural and engineering plans as well as work up interior design for homes, real or imagined.

She laughs as she talks about the modern way her mother decorated their Memorial Park home compared to their very traditional neighbors.

More Information 'Laura Bohn: Ways of Seeing' by Laura Bohn Pointed Leaf Press 192 pages, $65 Meet the author Design Center of Houston: 11 a.m. Tuesday keynote at Alkusari Stone, Suite 229; noon book signing followed by 1:30 p.m. panel discussion with Laura Bohn and others on French design, at Design House, Suite 115. Showrooms are at the Houston Design Center, 7026 Old Katy Road. Events are free; RSVP at thehoustondesigncenter.com. River Oaks Bookstore: book signing, 5-7 p.m. Tuesday 3270 Westheimer See More Collapse

"Our house was different from everybody else's, and it took me a long time to realize how it affected me. We had commercial-grade carpet and a hot-pink sofa. It was pretty funny," she said. "We had pine cabinets in the den with chartreuse paint on them. There were things that crept into my head that I didn't acknowledge until a lot later, and they came from Houston."

Bohn doesn't recall what she studied at the University of Texas, but she'll tell you straight up that she flunked out.

"I made all 'D's' and one 'F'. Whatever it was I studied, I wasn't very interested in it," she said.

She was tall and rail thin, so at 19 - it was 1959 - she left Houston for New York and worked as a house model for Seventh Avenue clothing manufacturers. From there she moved to Paris, where she modeled exquisite couture by Nina Ricci.

Her modeling career lasted more than a decade, and she returned to New York and made new friends. They were all professional women, and one day they leveled with her.

"I was still running around on the runway  doing five or six shows a day and running around with a pack of shoes. Someone said, 'You really need to go back to school and get on with your life. Get it together,' " she recalled.

She'd always loved drawing home plans - which her mother had always critiqued - so when she was 32 years old, she enrolled at the Pratt Institute's School of Design.

"I saw a presentation of environmental design and went, 'Oh, my God, this is it, it's what I want to do.' I was completely hooked and still am. It was really because (my friends) confronted me, and I became a straight-A student," she said.

She was influenced by Joseph D'Urso, a teacher at Pratt and the originator of minimalism. Out of college, though, she was hired by John Saladino - D'Urso's opposite - and she found herself in a world steeped in over-the-top luxury.

It was there that she met designer Joseph Lembo, and the two of them headed off on their own, getting residential and commercial projects all over the world. They created sets for "The Year of the Dragon" movie and converted gritty industrial spaces in New York into residential lofts.

In 1996, she founded Laura Bohn Design Associates and settled into her own aesthetic: simple interiors, modern yet classic style and plenty of light gray and pale neutrals.

Her book documents some of her best.

There's the 1907 Beaux-Arts bank building inNew York's Meatpacking District that she and her current husband, Richard Fiore, bought and converted into condos. For a while, they lived in its penthouse, with terrazzo tile floors and a fireplace framed in laser-cut steel. Its kitchen is a mix of stainless steel and ribbed wood, and natural light pours in through giant windows all around.

In a seven-bedroom two-story in the Hamptons, Bohn played with color; dark walnut floors are brightened with pale-gray walls and a white ceiling in a satin finish to reflect light. Its kitchen is a soft combination of Carrara marble, pale-gray walls and putty-colored cabinets for a more soothing look.

Tackling a big home on Mercer Island in the Seattle area, Bohn ripped out walls to create more open spaces and kept the family's warehouse full of antiques from feeling too stuffy by adding in clean-lined, contemporary furniture.

And she filled a home in Colorado's Elk Mountains with comfortable furniture in a range of textures - mohair, velvet, tweed - and sculptural lighting. Since the home was in a beautiful setting and designed by a skilled architect, Bohn wanted her choices to play off its already natural and luxurious materials.

Gray is a constant theme in her work, now and early in her career. It's her go-to color - right now she loves Sherwin-Williams Repose Gray, Aloof Gray and Dorian Gray - for its ability to be invisible.

"It's also a color no one remembers. You don't remember the gray walls, but you remember everything else that's in the room," she said. "I like the color to disappear except when I make it really appear and I'm in control of it."

Bohn said she gets restless every decade or so and needs to move. "I always say, 'When it's time to paint, it's time to move.' If you're going to paint, why not just get a new apartment?" she asked. She's antsy now.

She and her husband of 34 years are selling their New York home and are preparing for a new phase: life in a 19th-century chateau in France's Loire Valley.

"I have one picked out, and we'll see it at Christmas. It's big. Nobody wants these houses, that's the interesting part," she said, noting that she was drawn to its layout and huge windows. "My husband and I do everything together. We work together and build together."
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Partygoers and River Oaks residents could spot Saturday night's True Blue Gala a mile away.

The police-car cavalcade, army of guests decked in denim and festive lighting on the Fertitta family compound made for a brilliant sight - of navy, turquoise and cerulean - to behold.

There was an unexpected dash of red, too. High-profile Rockets players, including Chris Paul and James Harden, made cameos at the 10th annual Houston Police Foundation fundraiser chaired by the team's new owner, Tilman Fertitta, and his wife, Paige

The duo, scions Patrick Fertitta and Michael Fertitta, Rockets CEO Tad Brown and members from this season's roster all lumped together for one heck of a family photo inside the security-guarded living room. Muzzled K9s struck poses during the impromptu shoot as well - basically, the setup was holiday-card gold.

Outside, Mayor Sylvester Turner and his daughter Ashley Turner chatted poolside with dinner chair Laura Ward and her husband, emcee Dave Ward

The 800-plus crowd busied itself by hopping between demonstrations of Taser target practice and shoot-house simulations. For fuel, the crowd filled up on signature peach margaritas and trips to the bountiful Mastro's buffet stations.

Nothing like beef tartare, stone crab claws or the restaurant's legendary warm butter cake to maintain energy levels.

Two hours into the social frenzy, helicopters whirled overhead for the program's main event: a whodunit rescue mission for "kidnapped" Police Chief Art Acevedo Fortunately, SWAT teams remedied the staged hostage situation, and a Dolly Parton impersonator delivered an admittedly convincing performance following Acevedo's safe return to his table.

In celebration of the record-breaking evening, which raised $870,000 toward HPD equipment and training, a 30-minute backyard fireworks display capped the finale with a glorious bang.

Reportedly, even Houstonians outside the Loop caught views of those sparklers.
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A routine traffic stop Thursday afternoon on US 59 in East Montgomery County led to the seizure of approximately $120,000 in $20 bills and launched a federal investigation, according to Sgt. James Slack, spokesperson for the Pct. 4 Constable's Office.

"A deputy constable pulled over the truck when the driver didn't use his traffic signal and made some other violations," Slack said. "There was also a strap hanging down from the back wheel that we later found out was helping to hold up the suspension."

The driver, who could only speak Spanish, reportedly told deputies through an interpreter that he was en route to Livingston to pick up a load of fertilizer and transport it to the Texas Valley.

FORT BEND: $2.1 million in cocaine hidden in 18-wheeler

"He had nothing in the back of the truck. Trucks don't usually go anywhere empty. His story had some holes in it," Slack said.

A K-9 officer was brought to the scene to check the vehicle for the presence of drugs. The dog gave deputies "positive hits" that there were narcotics in the truck, Slack said, which provided probable cause to search the truck.

While no drugs were found during the search, deputies reportedly uncovered three large bundles containing cash found in a hidden compartment of the truck, according to Slack.

Based on photos taken at the scene, on the largest of the three bundles, "$59K" is written numerous times on the plastic packaging.

Slack said investigators believe the truck once was used for transporting narcotics or the money had recently been in contact with narcotics, which is why the dog alerted authorities to the money.

The bundles were turned over to federal authorities who are continuing the investigation. The driver was not arrested nor held for immigration violations.

"The federal authorities are now in charge. They chose to release the driver and the truck, and further investigate the case," Slack said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety also assisted in the initial investigation.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's longtime director of security told House investigators this week that a foreigner offered to send five women to Trump's hotel room during his visit to Moscow in November 2013.

Keith Schiller told the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he rejected the offer from the man, who appeared to be Russian or Ukranian, according to two people familiar with the discussion. He quickly dismissed what appeared to be a suggestion of procuring prostitutes for Trump, they said.

"No, man, we're not interested in that," Schiller told the man, the people said.

The offer came at the end of a late-morning planning meeting that Schiller attended when he accompanied Trump to Moscow for the annual Miss Universe pageant, which was produced by a company that Trump owned.

The 2013 trip was at the epicenter of one of the most salacious claims in a now-famous research dossier financed by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign. The document alleged that Trump consorted with prostitutes during his time in Moscow - a claim the president has vehemently denied.

Schiller, Trump's longtime bodyguard who frequently accompanied him on trips, told congressional investigators that he saw no compromising, illicit or illegal behavior by Trump while in Moscow, according to the people.

The offer to send women to Trump's room came after Schiller said he attended a meeting in Moscow with about 15 people to discuss details of the pageant. Among those in attendance were Russian pop star Emin Agalarov and his father Aras Agalarov, a business magnate with close ties to the government of President Vladimir Putin, according to the people familiar with his interview.

As the meeting broke up, Schiller said a man he did not know approached him and asked if he would like five women to visit Trump at his hotel room later that night, he told investigators.

Schiller told the committee that he joked about the offer with Trump later that evening as they headed back to their hotel, the people said.

"Can you believe one of these guys wanted to send some women up to your room?" Schiller recalled saying.

An attorney for the Agalarovs said they had no knowledge of the offer to Schiller.

"Categorically, neither one of them has any knowledge of that happening," said Scott Balber, a lawyer for Emin and Aras Agalarov. "They didn't do it, they didn't hear it, and they have no reason to believe it's true."

A White House attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An attorney for Schiller declined to comment on the details of his interview.

NBC News first reported that the House Intelligence Committee asked Schiller for details about the episode.

Schiller's long and close relationship with Trump makes him a potentially valuable witness to investigators examining Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. The former director of security at the Trump Organization joined Trump at the White House, serving as director of Oval Office Operations until September.

In his House interview, Schiller said he traveled as many as five and six days a week with Trump when the businessman ran the Trump Organization, adding that he could not remember the precise details of all their trips.

Schiller told investigators that he and Trump stayed at a luxury hotel during their 2013 Moscow trip, although he said he could not recall its name. He said he was not certain if he stayed on the same floor as Trump, although he acknowledged that they usually had adjoining rooms.

According to people familiar with the questions, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., asked Schiller if he saw Trump engage in any compromising behavior while on the trip.

"No, no, not to my knowledge," Schiller responded.

He also said he did not remember accompanying Trump on any other trips to Russia but told investigators that he could not rule it out. Schiller agreed to review his passport and get back to the committee with more information, according to people familiar with his interview.
Two Texas library organizations have awarded nearly $300,000 to Harvey-impacted public media centers struggling to replace collections, repair facilities or serve those who lost their homes in the storm.

On Thursday, the Texas Library Association awarded $102,600 in 25 grants, from sums of $2,500 to $15,000. Half of the recipients organizations are in the Houston area. Later in the day, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission announced $194,242 in grants, also to 25 organizations. Those awards ranged from $5,000 to $25,000.

Both organizations collaborated in the days after the late-August storm to assess damage to libraries and coordinate assistance. The grant money came from disaster relief funds initiated to restore library services in impacted areas.

The grants will be used for everything from small pop-up libraries to high school and community college media centers.

The Houston Public Library, which was forced to shutter seven neighborhood branches because of flooding, scored grants from both sources.

More Information About the groups The Texas State Library and Archives, a state agency, preserves the archival record of Texas, enhances the service capacity of public, academic and school libraries, assists public agencies in records maintenance and helps meet the reading needs of Texans with disabilities. The Austin-based Texas Library Association - the largest state library association in the United States - has more than 6,500 members who work in public, school, academic and special libraries as well as those who support educational institutions. The membership group was founded a century ago to help support, promote and improve library services statewide. More information Rebuilding Texas Libraries grants and details: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/rebuildinglibraries Texas Library Association Disaster Relief Fund grant recipients: http://www.txla.org/news/2017/11/tla-awards-over-100000-in-disaster-relief-grants See More Collapse

With $24,816 from the state library fund, the system will buy equipment to support six mini-libraries to provide residents with computer access, internet service, collection checkout and return as well as help with flood assistance applications. The library association awarded grants to support the temporary services at the shuttered Lakewood and Kendall locations.

The Kendall Neighborhood Library in Houston's Memorial area took on 6 feet of water, engulfing most of the bottom floor of the three-story building. Officials couldn't access the facility for about a week because the building remained flooded.

The Texas State Library created an emergency grant program called Rebuilding Texas Libraries with $300,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. A single library was eligible for $5,000 and an agency with multiple branches could have asked for $5,000 per site up to $25,000.

The Texas Library Association has been accepting contributions to its Disaster Relief Fund. As of Oct. 31, more than $160,000 had been donated by 1,100 individuals, organizations and corporations and the fund continues to accept donations for future grants. The association did not release specific grant amounts, but a news release said the money can be used for technology, facility repair, collections, furnishing or other damage.

College library flooded

"One of the most important things that a library can do is to help people get their lives back on track," Texas State Librarian Mark Smith said Thursday. "In some cases, we gave support to libraries that didn't even have damage but were providing support to families who did."

The library at Lone Star College-Kingwood also received twin grants totaling $10,000. Rushing floodwater laced with sewage flooded the first-floor media center, complicating the recovery process.

The state library awarded $5,000 for replacement instructional and supplement course materials, including textbooks. Library Director Anthony McMillan said the library association grant also was $5,000 and will be used for a "reserve collection" of items that students might use to support course work.

"It helps with the morale of the people who work in the library as well as the entire campus when we're able to do things like this," said McMillan, who estimates that the college library should reopen in late spring or next fall.

Kingwood High School, which is part of the Humble Independent School District, also received grants from both sources. Flooding rose to the second floor of the school and the entire campus is sharing facilities with Summer Creek High School.

The library association grant will be used to "purchase new books and update technology," Jerri Monbaron, Humble ISD's director of community development, said in an email.

The state library award will help rebuild the Kingwood High library collection.

Key role after storm

Libraries were essential in the days following the storm as some of the first places where people accessed digital devices, the internet and information  all of which are required for recovery in the 21st century.

The seven Houston Public Library branches are not expected to reopen for a year to 18 months. Three dozen other Houston libraries are operating as usual.

Excluding building damage, Harris County Public Libraries sustained an estimated $4.5 million in losses of technology, collection materials, furniture and supplies at four closed branches. The county's other 22 library branches are open as usual.

Local grantees represent the variety in media centers and illustrate how libraries present themselves in many areas of life: cities, community colleges, public schools, private academies and religious institutions.

The library association awarded unspecified amounts to Beth Yeshurun Library, which is part of a Houston synagogue; Lutheran South Academy, which is affiliated with the Lutheran Education Association of Houston; and YES Prep North Central Campus. School libraries receiving associations awards included locations in the Houston Independent School District as well as in the Clear Creek, Humble, Texas City, Klein and Hull-Daisetta districts.

The state library handed out a $5,000 grant to the University of Houston's Harvey Textbook Relief program, which provided students access to textbooks through the campus library's course reserves collections. The University of St. Thomas received $5,000 to replace 27 laptops that its library donated to students after the storm.
DPS

A suspected shooter already out on bail for a prior charge is behind bars again after opening fire following a Wednesday night fist fight in Sunnyside.

Christopher Terrell Stevens is facing gun and aggravated assault charges after the shooting that left one man in the hospital, according to Houston police.
A veteran Houston police officer was relieved of duty Thursday, after being charged with tampering and fabricating evidence.

Julissa Guzman Diaz, 37, was arrested Thursday and is currently in the Harris County Jail. She has worked since January 2006 for the police department and was most recently assigned to the Clear Lake Patrol Division.

"Ms. Diaz's betrayal of the public trust and oath of office is inconsistent with the dedication of the men and women of the Houston Police Department and their tireless, honorable service," said HPD Chief Art Acevedo in an e-mailed statement.

"While we cannot overstate our depth of disappointment, we take solace in the fact the investigation that led to Ms. Diaz's arrest was conducted by men and women of the HPD, the same organization and co-workers she betrayed," Acevedo continued.

Jodi Silva, a spokeswoman for the Houston Police Department, could not provide any further information Thursday evening on the arrest, citing an ongoing investigation.

Diaz's arrest comes as other Houston police officers recently have been taken into custody on unrelated incidents. A police officer, who Acevedo did not identify, was arrested last month as part of a 10-day prostitution sting at a massage parlor on Westheimer. A former police officer was indicted by a grand jury last month for a shooting an unarmed neighbor after a fight between their dogs.

Acevedo said Diaz has been placed on administrative leave pending the completion of an internal affairs investigation. He urged anyone with information of her alleged misconduct to contact the police department. Diaz is expected to appear in court on Monday.
On April 2, 1917 President Woodrow Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany.

It was a somewhat surprising turn of events. Earlier in his presidency, Wilson coined the phrase America First, and his supporters proudly waved banners at the 1916 Democratic National Convention extolling, He Kept Us Out of War. Now Wilson was explaining that Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved.

Like many scholars of the presidency, I think it is important to examine how presidents justify the use of military action. These presidential calls to war provide the foundation for public understanding of the conflict.

A pivotal moment

And while many presidential calls to war are well-known, Wilsons presidential voice  even at this pivotal moment  is oddly quiet to modern audiences. Perhaps this is because he was the last American president who never had his voice amplified over radio, television or the internet.

Wilson is commonly remembered as the president who traveled to Europe at the conclusion of World War I and tried to rally the world to support the terms of peace.

He saw these negotiations as paving the way to a new era of global cooperation. Wilson would later win the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in founding the League of Nations, the first global organization devoted to peace. But, despite his enthusiastic lobbying, the U.S. never joined.

Wilson could not convince Congress that a strong and neutral arbitrator was the best way to avoid future conflicts. Instead of pursuing a peace without victory, the triumphant allied nations punished the Axis powers and set the stage for another terrible war. It would take the second tragedy of WWII to convince both the U.S. Congress and other world leaders to embrace a global organization in the form of the United Nations.

Wilson was a reluctant advocate for American interventionism, but his war address to Congress provided a foundation for American foreign policy for the next century. In it, he had to convince Americans to accept massive costs to help create peace in a faraway land.

Little of the 20th-century history as we know it seemed inevitable at that moment when Wilson, who had come to the presidency with only two years of experience in elected office as governor of New Jersey, faced angry crowds of antiwar demonstrators threatening to block his entrance to the U.S. Capitol.

Americas place in the world

Access to open shipping lines was an important struggle in the British and German war. Germany responded to a British blockade by escalating its attacks on shipping vessels, but many Americans viewed these matters as not their concern.

Then came the May 7, 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which shattered the notion that this new form of warfare could be easily ignored. After being struck by a German torpedo, the luxury cruise ship sank in just 18 minutes, resulting in 1,198 casualties  including 128 Americans.

Despite the tragedy, Wilson continued to practice moderation. He responded to the Lusitanias sinking by gaining German agreement to limit the scope of their submarine activity. Over time, these included restrictions on what kinds of ships could be targeted and what kind of warnings should be provided.

But as the war escalated in 1916, these negotiated successes unraveled.

The Germans believed they could end the war quickly by taking a more aggressive stance. On Jan. 31, 1917, the German government announced the resumption of fully unrestricted submarine warfare.

Faced with the complete rejection of his primary means of limiting the European conflict, Wilson was also jolted by the public revelation of the Zimmerman telegram, which alleged German military collaboration with Mexico.

Both freedom and liberty

It was just weeks after Germany hardened its stance that Wilson strode to the podium and faced Congress.

Wilson addressed the importance of both freedom and liberty, but let his priority be known: Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

Wilson, one of the last presidents to write all of his own speeches, delivered an argument for going to war that provided a foundation for transforming Americas role in the global order.

Americans had long resisted the temptation to engage in European politics. A broad ocean reinforced the notion that European affairs could be left at a distance.

Wilsons speech directly addressed this notion the seas would protect Americans. He saw the oceans as conduits of a new era, not a barrier. He expressed disbelief that any civilized nation would reject the rules on submarine warfare, as Germany had, and explained how these commercial routes allowed international cooperation, describing the waterways as the free highways of the world.

Wilson was already embracing a more robust international order. He explained that Americans had no quarrel with the German people but only with their government. For Wilson, the German Empire was part of an outdated world order,

when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.

The use of U-boats as a weapon of terror represented the manner in which autocratic governments threatened their own people and the wider world. Neutrality gave way to defiance. Wilson said: We will not choose the path of submission.

Wilsons proclaimed peace without victory could be reconciled only with a postwar order grounded in liberty, not American dominance. He memorably declared, The world must be made safe for democracy and expressed We desire no conquest, no dominion.

Wilsons war

Wilson speech succeeded.

His call for war received acclaim from the daily newspapers, including The New York Times, which printed the entire text of his speech on page one.

More importantly, Congress declared war on Germany on April 6. American neutrality had been replaced by a substantial commitment of troops and resources, the first of which arrived in France that June.

The prominent historian and Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper Jr. described the address as not only the most important but also the greatest speech of his life. Wilson had surrendered the desire to remain neutral without giving up on persuading the world to build a more just postwar order.

Wilsons complex legacy would soon take a tragic turn. His aggressive campaign to lobby for this new peace and his League of Nations left him exhausted. He suffered a massive stroke in 1919 and died in 1924.

Wilson should be remembered for the contradictions. He won reelection for keeping America out of foreign wars and then lead us into one of the centurys bloodiest conflicts. He struggled with popular demands for American isolationism, but helped lay the foundation for the 20th-century vision of American leadership. Today, as leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are struggling to define the relevance of these international partnerships, Wilsons rhetoric is a powerful legacy.
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State District Judge Maria Jackson stood up behind a shaky makeshift bench in the basement of the Harris County jail and came eye-to eye with an inmate in an orange jail uniform 3 feet away.

"We're trying to get cases moving, so you need to make a decision," the judge told the handcuffed young man accused of rape. "If you need to talk to your attorney, go ahead."

The inmate and his lawyer took three steps back to huddle, wedged in between eight other inmates along a cinder-block wall.

Brief and overcrowded procedural hearings like this basement exchange have generated hundreds of pleas and dismissals, dubbed "Harvey deals," in what has become the new normal for the state's largest criminal justice system in the wake of Hurricane Harvey's destruction.

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The county's criminal courthouse, a 20-story skyscraper that sits on the banks of Buffalo Bayou on the north side of downtown Houston, remains shuttered after it was flooded with 4 feet of water during the August storm.

Damage extended throughout the building after water seeped in through the walls and pooled in the basement, triggering a malfunction in computers that regulate the water pressure. This in turn sent water gushing through sinks, toilets and water fountains on some upper levels, causing pipes to burst and flooding courtrooms that wouldn't otherwise have been damaged.

Now, two dingy and crowded classrooms-turned-courtrooms locked behind clanking steel doors in a jail basement have become the epicenter of an ever-growing docket of felony criminal filings. In a small room in another jail building, the judges and prosecutors handling misdemeanors are dealing with the same pressures.

The nearby Jury Assembly Building, which was built underground with a park on top, was destroyed. Another 111 county buildings sustained $127 million in damages, according to initial estimates.

County Engineer John Blount said he couldn't begin to estimate how much repairs and flood-prevention measures at the main courthouse would cost. But he said it will likely remain closed for at least another six months, with court staff and other county employees gradually moving back into their offices and courtrooms as work is completed over the next year. For now, criminal trials are being conducted in the nearby civil courthouse.

The county is following FEMA guidelines and will be hiring consultants this month, he said.

By the numbers By the Numbers $127 million - Preliminary estimates of Harris County building damage from Hurricane Harvey 113 - County buildings damaged, including courthouses 200 - Guilty pleas reached in low-level drug cases in what have been dubbed 'Harvey Deals' 110 - Drug cases dismissed by prosecutors amid crunch at criminal courthouse See More Collapse

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said the storm affected all aspects of county government.

"Obviously the county is working overtime and as hard as possible to get things up and running and as close to normal as we can, but it's still going to take some time," he said.

District Attorney Kim Ogg - whose staff of 700 has scattered to nine different locations, some as far away as the Galleria area - said her office is contending with the challenge.

"It is hard on our people and it's hard on the public," she said. "We're gritting our teeth and bearing it."

In a ballroom-sized area on the top floor of a downtown office building, almost 90 of Ogg's 300 prosecutors work elbow-to-elbow contacting victims, witnesses and defense attorneys to hash out misdemeanor cases. Instead of being an elevator ride away from court, prosecutors are working blocks or even miles away.

"It really looks like a giant telemarketing company," Ogg said of the makeshift misdemeanor bureau.

The DA's office lost workspace on six floors in the criminal courthouse, and Ogg said the effort of transporting files to court is now driving an initiative to go paperless.

Tight squeeze

During an afternoon in late October, Jackson presided over a jailhouse courtroom packed with more than 20 inmates, sheriff's deputies, court staffers, prosecutors and defense lawyers. At one end of Jackson's bench, a staffer handed out forms kept on an end table, fashioned from a pair of stacked milk crates. Attorneys signed forms to reschedule court hearings and piled them on the lid of a trash can.

The judge, a soft-spoken woman with silver spectacles balanced on her nose, said she was initially concerned about laying down the law to suspects just an arm's length away.

"We're real close," the judge said, referring to inmates near enough to make contact. "I'm not used to that. It wasn't what I was expecting. But as long as I have at least two deputies standing there, I feel safe."

In the adjacent courtroom, state District Judge George Powell shepherded cases through his criminal docket.

"It's inconvenient, but everybody's been inconvenienced. It's not just us," Powell said. "We don't want (inmates') constitutional rights violated. We want to make sure they don't stay there any longer than they have to, and we need to get the cases moving."

Every weekday, there are two docket calls in each of the pair of classrooms where two of the 22 felony judges alternate in holding court from a "bench" consisting of two chipped wooden desks lined up end-to-end. They are trying to move the cases of inmates charged with the most serious crimes waiting to go to trial.

Within earshot of a half-dozen other inmates, criminal suspects have their only opportunity to resolve their case for at least a week, until the court to which their case is assigned holds another hearing.

Defense lawyers in sneakers shuffle between the courtrooms and a "bullpen" set up in the jail's law library.

"It's a tight squeeze," said attorney Angela Weltin. "It definitely has its challenges, but everyone is doing their best to make sure these guys get a fair shake."

In the bullpen, prosecutors and defense attorneys work out plea deals. Once an agreement is reached, the defense lawyer, the inmate and the prosecutor stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the judge who can approve the bargain.

Defense lawyer Carlos Rodriguez said the parties are trying to make the best of a tough situation.

"Because they can't have court every day, when the inmates get to come to court, they really take advantage of it," he said.

'Harvey Deals'

Other lawyers said the crush of criminal cases has caused judges and prosecutors to evaluate their dockets with an eye toward getting rid of as many cases as possible.

"If the case is something not so serious, you've got a chance at getting a 'Harvey deal,' " said one lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But if it's serious, you get delays."

Ogg confirmed that in the wake of the storm, her top lieutenants reviewed about 600 low-level drug cases in a feverish bid to make plea deals.

"We dismissed about 110 of those cases, and we pled about 200 others," Ogg said. "There were about 300 that we couldn't plead."

Ogg said her office sought to expedite state jail felony drug cases, which typically involve possession of small amounts of cocaine or other drugs.

"I intend to continue to try to clear our table of cases that produce the least public safety benefit but suck the most resources," she said. "And those are low-level drug cases and those that involve the mentally ill."

Moving inmates

Until the storm, the courthouse housed the 22 state district courts presided over by felony judges like Jackson and Powell, as well as 16 misdemeanor courts. Each day, sheriff's deputies and detention officers escorted more than 800 inmates from the two nearby jails to courtrooms.

A covered walkway extends from beneath the jail, spans Buffalo Bayou and leads to the center of the courthouse at 1201 Franklin. In the core of the building, banks of secured elevators move inmates to dozens of holding cells in courtrooms from the eighth floor up to the 20th.

Historically, about 70 percent of the 9,000 inmates in the jail are waiting trial, although those numbers have been going down because of recent bail reforms. Most will resolve their case with a plea deal. But the number of criminal filings, which tops 100,000 a year, keeps going up.

Now, deputies move 300 to 450 inmates a day from jail cells to one of seven locations, including the jail basement or substitute courtrooms in the civil, juvenile and family courthouses.

Judges and defense attorneys praised Sheriff Ed Gonzalez's staff for maintaining an orderly process.

"It's been a test, but it seems like, so far, we're passing the test," said HCSO Chief Deputy Darryl Coleman.

Family watch room

Across the bayou from the jail complex, the county's 17-story civil courthouse has been pressed into service with the civil and felony criminal courts doubling up in courtrooms to accommodate suspects who are out on bail. It is still crowded, but defendants and lawyers are able to do their business in traditional courtrooms.

In a top-floor conference room divided into thirds by glass walls, big screen TVs equipped with cameras show what's going on blocks away in the basement of the jail. The room is carpeted, with chairs and several tables.

It's a place for suspects' families to view what's going on without trying to get into the jail courtrooms.

On a Friday morning in October, an older man with a hearing aid focused on the TV and waited for his son to appear, hoping to see the case resolved.

As his adult son approached the judge and signed a form on the makeshift bench, the father stood close to the TV to hear what was going on.

A minute later, an attorney held the form up to the camera to show the case had been postponed yet again. The older man leaned toward the closed-circuit TV to make out the date scribbled on the yellow form.

Then the father, who declined to give his name, gathered up his hat and newspaper and sighed.

"Another reset," said the man, who shook his head and left.
A San Antonio man posted revenge porn of his wife to YouPorn because he was upset she revealed he was simultaneously married to a second woman during their divorce proceedings, police said.

Police on Thursday arrested Jorge Luis Latorre, 35, and charged him with unlawful disclosure of intimate material. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $3,500 bond.

RELATED: 18-wheeler narrowly misses San Antonio home after careening off Interstate 35

According to his arrest affidavit, Latorre separated from one of his wives in February 2016. During the divorce proceedings, the victim learned that he was already married.

Now Playing: Facebook is asking users to submit nude photos... as part of their effort to combat revenge porn. Now, users can use Messenger to send their private images to be "hashed." The company uses the photo as a digital fingerprint to identify and block the same photo in case it's uploaded. Video: Wibbitz

"The divorce proceedings transitioned into annulment proceedings at that point, and [Latorre] reacted in anger towards [the victim] for revealing that fact in divorce court," the affidavit says.

Following the revelation, Latorre posted to YouPorn, a commercial pornography web site, a video of an intimate video chat the two had participated in sometime between August and October 2013, the affidavit says. In the videos, the victim is topless and apparently unaware she's being recorded.

The victim became aware of the video on August 12, 2017, when Latorre's other wife told her about it, authorities said.

RELATED: Texas executes Mexican national despite international outcry

Police said the revenge porn posting comes after a "pattern of behavior" by Latorre that included "threats to have [the victim's] clearance level removed or reduced at her military assignment, attempts to covertly assume her G.I. Bill benefits claiming to be her husband after their divorce and changing passwords to financial, cell phone and email accounts, locking [her] out of her own accounts," according to the affidavit.

Detectives took screenshots of the YouPorn posting for evidence and obtained a warrant for Latorre's arrest. The charge Latorre faces is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by one year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
AUSTIN -- As Democrats nationally are cheering recent wins in Virginia and New Jersey and are planning for an all-out assault on Republicans in Washington, Texas Democrats still have no announced flagship candidate to challenge GOP Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2018 election.

The party that hasn't won a statewide office in two decades does have a list of earnest wannabees for down ballot positions, struggling to get attention without much name ID, which is a key to getting elected.

But as the 30-day filing period for candidates opens on Saturday. Democratic party leaders are predicting surprises, lots of them, in the coming weeks and months that they predict will turn Texas more blue when the final ballots are counted in next year's general election.

"Even against all odds, with rigged maps, we're still making progress in Texas," Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said Thursday. "What you're seeing across the country right now, this Democratic rise after Trump vile politics have infected the Republican Party, you'll be seeing that happen in Texas. There are going to be some surprises."

Will the party field candidates for all statewide elective positions? Yes, he says.

For their party, state Republican Party officials acknowledge that while their party faces some challenges in certain districts, Texas will remain perhaps the Red State bastion of conservative GOP politics that it has been for years.

"Texas is solid Republican and it will remain solid Republican after the last ballots are counted, and you can take that to the bank, sir," said Williamson County businessman and longtime GOP activist Charles Jarmon, echoing the sentiments of party officials.

Even so, John Bucy III, the Democratic Party chair in Williamson County that has long been a Republican stronghold, noted after a recent meet-and-greet in Round Rock with Mike Collier, a Democrat running against GOP incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, that politics in Austin's largest suburb are changing.

Democrats recently have won local races, including a spot on the county commissioner's court.

"We are becoming more blue ," Bucy said.

Democrats in Harris and Fort Bend counties make the same point, as do party activists in San Antonio, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley.

"There have been a dramatic rise in Democratic candidates ready to file in a lot of these races," Garcia said. "There are going to be a number of competitive races."

Even so, as recently as this week, the party's choice to challenge for Abbott was publicly still up for grabs. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Garcia confirmed she was considering running, as were others who names have been bandied about for weeks.

Two other announced Democrats -- businessmen Jeffrey Payne of Dallas and Tom Wakely of San Antonio -- said they were still in. Andrew White, the son of the late former Gov. Mark White, said he was still seriously considering a run against Abbott, even though he said party leaders had shied away from him because he was pro-life and too conservative.

Political scientists suggest that the lack of a party flag-bearer to run for governor, as the filing period opens, suggests they have been unable to find someone to run -- an assertion that party leaders deny.

Former Fort Worth state Sen. Wendy Davis, who ran an unsuccessful race against Abbott in 2014 and has been rumored to perhaps be up to challenging him again, said she no plans to do so. Instead, she said she is helping the state Democratic party look for a candidate the party's base can support.

"There's only the very remotest of chances that I would do that," she said when asked if she would run. "I'm waiting for someone credible to step forward so I can throw my support behind them."

Asked what it would take for her to change her mind, and challenge Abbott, she responded: "A brainwash, maybe."

"It's expensive to create name ID and enthusiasm," Davis said. "It's not that it can't be done, but it takes resources. And, so, finding a candidate would be able to engender enough excitement that they can raise those resources is a challenge."

Party loyalists said none of the announced Democrats challenging Abbott appeal broadly enough to the party's more-liberal base to win statewide, even with moderate Republicans crossing over in significant numbers. As Davis explains it, "you cannot win a general election in this state without bringing the base along with you, lock, stock and barrel."

Democratic Party activists in Houston, Austin and San Antonio insist that Donald Trump will be Democrats' best friend in the November 2018 election. His controversial decisions that have created disarray in the ranks of Republicans, not only in Washington but in Texas, will fuel defections in congressional, state and legislative races, they predict.

Political observers are not so sure.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said the recent Democratic wins in Eastern states suggest to him that the "patterns of partisanship are hardening" in mid-term elections, rather than a shift in voter sentiment.

"The statistics suggest that blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder," he said, meaning that parties are looking to focus on their bases of support. "This could mean that Texas will get even redder."
Different set of rules

Regarding "Official cleared in work probe" (Page A3, Tuesday), how many of us regular citizens can answer for our transgressions by claiming "inexperience" and be given a chance for do-overs and for correcting forms? How many of us regular citizens can claim "inexperience" after two years at a job?

Too bad but our representatives nowadays seem to serve more as examples of what not to do rather than as good examples.

From failing to report Russian contacts, to failure to report vacation taken on time cards, our representatives seem to go by a set of rules different from the rest of us, giving credence to the claim that the whole thing might be rigged.

Jose C. (Carlos) Gonzalez, Houston

Public safety

Regarding "26 slaughtered at Texas church" (Page A1, Monday), one would like to think that the safest, most peaceful place you could be on a Sunday morning is at church.

But American public places continue to be degraded, and almost immediately after unspeakable numbers of people were slaughtered at a Las Vegas concert, three more were gunned down in a Walmart in Colorado.

America can never be great as long as there is no crime, however ghastly, that will oblige the Republican Party to back away from the National Rifle Association and place public safety high above the interests of the amoral gun manufacturers.

Ron Charach, Toronto, Canada

Enough already

Another week, another mass shooting. Mothers and children, neighbors and friends brutally murdered in their place of worship. All good and loving people gone in an instant. What's the matter with this country!? Every society on earth has deranged people. That's not going to change.

When will the gun lovers of this country come to their senses and realize that human life is more important that the Second Amendment? Our families are worth more than your beloved killing machines.

Anne Geyer, Houston
Among the many problems with the Great Gun Debate these days is that the pro-gun crowd wants to make it a culture-war battle and the anti-gun crowd wants to pretend that it isn't.

On public policy grounds, the pro-gun people have the better arguments. Firearm homicides have declined since the 1990s despite the loosening of gun laws.

Almost none of the remedies proposed in the wake of mass shootings would have actually prevented those crimes (though had so-called bump stocks been banned - as they should be - fewer would have died in the Las Vegas shooting last month).

Indeed, it's common in the aftermath of shootings to hear pundits and politicians call for the passage of laws that already exist.

I've lost count of the number of times people have insisted that "machine guns" be banned - they essentially already are. Others talk about banning "assault weapons" as if such a designation describes a specific kind of weapon. It doesn't. Nor would banning assault weapons, however defined, put much of a dent in the problem. Rifles of all kinds account for just 3 percent of the murder rate.

The slaughter at a Texas church on Sunday fits the pattern. Calls went out for background checks. But the shooter passed his; he just lied on the application. Some argued that people convicted of spousal abuse - like the shooter - should be barred from getting a gun. That's already federal law. (To be sure, such laws should be enforced better than the Trump administration seems inclined to do.)

More broadly, President Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress will not do anything significant to restrict gun rights in America. And the experience under President Obama, particularly in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, demonstrates that even some Democrats don't want to move against their electoral self-interest.

Indeed, the main reason for inaction isn't the "stranglehold" of the National Rifle Association - a relative piker when it comes to political spending - but the fact that millions of gun owners are likely to vote on the gun issue, while millions of gun-control supporters are not.

Also, a supermajority of Americans (76 percent to 23 percent, according to Gallup) do not want a ban on private gun ownership.

These facts probably help explain why the NRA has taken a dark turn of late, releasing ads that have virtually nothing to do with gun laws and everything to do with fueling cultural resentment. It's hard for a public policy lobbying outfit to keep membership dues flowing when they've already won.

Meanwhile, anti-gun campaigners cling to the belief that they are a cadre of dedicated pragmatists who merely seek sensible gun-control laws. No doubt there are some who fit this description. But given how the most vocal advocates of gun control tend to get basic facts wrong and have a history of praising countries such as Australia, which all but banned guns outright for normal citizens, it's easy to see why gun-rights supporters are suspicious about what their real goal is.

In 2015, the New York Times ran its first front-page editorial in 95 years to call for, in part, the confiscation of millions of guns.

Last month, columnist Bret Stephens called for outright repeal of the Second Amendment.

The simple fact is that many elites in places such as New York and Los Angeles, regardless of ideology (Stephens is a conservative), just don't like guns or the culture of people who do. One can see this in the suddenly pervasive fad - common in the pages of the New York Times and on Twitter - of mocking people who offer "thoughts and prayers" for the victims of mass shootings if they don't also subscribe to sweeping new gun-control measures.

It's a useful thought experiment to ask what America would look like if the gun controllers started to rack up policy victories, confiscating guns from law-abiding gun owners.

Aside from the massive financial windfall for the NRA, millions of Americans would have their darkest suspicions confirmed, and the deep resentment already felt in much of "red state" America would intensify beyond anything we've experienced lately.

Perhaps there would be fewer mass murders and other gun deaths - though I'm skeptical.

I'm sure our politics would be far uglier than they already are.

Goldberg is an editor-at-large of National Review Online.
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
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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

Google Ad

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
Drones have infiltrated our society quicker than anybody could have predicted. Whilst they are popular amongst wildlife and landscape photographers, can this new form of intelligent life actually prove beneficial in conservation efforts, or is it having a negative impact on nature and its inhabitants? Here we explore the development and the ethics of drones in the wild.

They take us to new heights

There's no doubt about it. Drones have introduced a new edge to photography, particularly for nature photographers. They have offered the opportunity for photography enthusiasts to go above and beyond, and create images that have never been seen before, with all sorts of panoramas being taken from all sorts of heights. Rock climber Dave MacLeod is one of those people, and has said that "[d]rones are fantastic for capturing the sense of being in the wider landscape"; this opinion is clearly shared by many, as the sales of drones is booming, and #drones is featured in just under 1.5 million posts on Instagram. But, this buzzing new trend prompts a concern; what impact is this having on the environment?

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The popularity of these devices has nature lovers and outdoor purists worried, as visitor safety is as much of a concern as habitat conservation. It goes without saying that drones will cause noise pollution in quiet, secluded places, such as national parks. In addition, it is fairly easy for almost anyone to buy, and use a drone, meaning it is hard to monitor and regulate how drones are used and where. However, in July, the UK government announced new regulations, compelling owners of drones weighing more than 250g to register their details and demonstrate that they understand safety and privacy laws that affect the way they use their drones. This measure came quickly after there were several near-misses with aircraft near airports. But the question is, should regulations be extended further? Currently, flying drones is forbidden in only two of the 15 national parks in the UK (the Peak District and the New Forest), and many nature enthusiasts want this to change.

Can drones be helpful in conservation efforts?

Humans have always been curious to learn about the habitats of animals, but at the moment this research is more pressing than ever, with habitat loss and climate change having a dramatic impact on all species. Whilst using drones in the wild can be met with negative reception by environmental activists and the public alike here in the UK, the unmanned aircraft is proving to be a real game-changer in world of conservation, allowing scientists to be more ambitious and efficient with their studies. They're offering a new way for scientists and conservationists to monitor animal behaviour, their habitats and their breeding habits.

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The potential of unmanned vehicles is not going unnoticed: these machines are being used to monitor migrating birds, spawning salmon and orangutans, map breeding habitats of endangered species, to deter poachers in Africa and much more. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the Orangutan Conservancy uses drones to count and map local primate populations, as the tropical jungles are so thick that it would take weeks (or even months) complete the research on foot. In addition, The World Wildlife Fund has plans to deploy remote controlled aircraft in Africa to find poachers before they strike. Research is being carried out to see how drones could help detect poachers, and if this research proves to make an impact, there is no doubt that this could help enormously with conservation efforts!

In particular, with birds often choosing to nest in locations that are hard to reach, (and for obvious reasons), carrying out vital research in the form of counting eggs and nest monitoring is often very dangerous for environmental researchers, or impossible; the introduction of drones to carry out this research for them is a real game changer.

They're making it safer for scientists to gather research, too

Drones not only allow scientists to be more ambitious and efficient with their studies, but more importantly, they make it safer for researchers to do their work. It goes without saying that it proves much easier, and safer, to monitor the habitats of endangered birds by attaching a GoPro to a small flying unmanned machine, than for conservationists to carry out the research in dangerous conditions - after all, the number one source of mortality for wildlife biologists is dying in a light plane or helicopter crash.

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Furthermore, thanks to drones, scientists are now seeing behaviour in animals they are monitoring that is almost impossible to see from a light plane or a helicopter; a drone can capture a tiny animals' behaviour far better than a human can. They are even cutting down on labour, as a drone can do an hour's worth of work in less than ten minutes, which means more research can be done in a shorter space of time!

The ethical question, is it fair?

So now, for the important part - is all of this fair on the wild animals? David Gremillet, an ecologist for the National Centre for Scientific Research in France, couldn't have put it better, saying that "[w]e clearly see a potential for research, but only if you assess the risk to wildlife first"; after all, there's little point in using drones to better understand wild animals if those same aircraft affect the animals' behaviour.

Jarrod Hodgson, of the Unmanned Research Aircraft Facility (the URAF) helped write up an animal-drone code of conduct, and has said that "[c]urrently, we have a limited understanding of the potential impacts that drones may have on wildlife. We expect that wildlife responses will vary due to factors such as an animal's life history, its ability to detect the drone and also its environment." At this early stage in understanding the pros and cons of drones in the wild, it is important to ensure there is a balance in the research carried out. If researchers can ensure drones aren't causing a ruckus, the technology could even improve on by-foot research, which can be surprisingly disruptive. Small animals, for example, often live in tall grasses. Just by physically going close to the animal on foot, you're trampling the very habitat that they use, and altering their behaviour; whilst a drone would disrupt the animal as well, the research is crucial, so it is a matter of weighing up the better option!

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Most animal studies already require research permits, so there is no doubt that researches will need to abide by high standards for drones to have impact that improves. It should also be important that researchers have proper permits, and proper training, when using drones! As humans' grapple with their role in climate change, it may seem strange that little robots made of metal could make a difference. In the hands of scientists however, they could become powerful tools for understanding animal populations in crisis, but it is important that we are very careful about how we use them, as to not cause harm to wild animals and their habitats. It is a very thin line between right and wrong, but there is no doubt that this could be enormously beneficial to the conservation world.

By Fran Collis - Online Journalism Intern

Frontier runs conservation, development, teaching and adventure travel projects in over 50 countries worldwide - so join us and explore the world!
Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

England is falling woefully short of delivering enough affordable housing. If the government is serious about delivering enough homes to tackle the housing crisis, it will empower local authorities and Mayors to deliver a mayor programme of genuinely affordable housing.

Figures released yesterday show that the delivery of affordable homes built with government grant are rising, government is still supporting far fewer than in previous years. What is more, the number of homes built at social rent, with deep subsidy and let at well below market rate to those in need, made up just 13% per cent of the total affordable housing stock. This is the lowest rate since the introduction of a broader definition of affordable housing in 2010.

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This is unsurprising. Research we published at IPPR yesterday showed that 92% of all local authorities are failing to build enough affordable homes. This is set against the backdrop of poor housing delivery across the board. New estimates by government put England's housing need at 265,936 homes per year. Just 189,650 were built in 2015-16, a 29 per cent shortfall.

What is more, as a result of government policy since 2010, 'affordable' housing has become increasingly divorced from earnings and linked to out-of-reach market prices. This means that much of the affordable housing which is being built is out the reach of many of those who need it.

Our research looked at four combined authority areas, each of which elected a new mayor in 2017, the West of England, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Tees Valley. In all but Tees Valley, affordable rented homes, which have their rents set at 80 per cent of the average local market rent, were unaffordable for single people on low incomes. In the West of England, which contains Bristol, an affordable rent home would cost a low income tenant more than half (56 per cent) of their take home wages each month.

Affordable housing models designed to help households into ownership are particularly failing to meet the needs of those on low incomes. In all of those areas studied, a low income family with one parent working full time and the other part time would be unable to afford any affordable ownership products.

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This is significant. Affordable housing is an effective buffer against poverty and deprivation and high rents lead to overcrowding, higher reliance on borrowing and constrain household budgets. Furthermore, high housing costs impact negatively on public finances. year. Clearly, a lack of affordable housing is poor value for everyone.

So what is to be done? Government has pledged to tackle the housing crisis and has recently announced a number of measures which aim to do so. Theresa May has already announced that the government will find an extra 10 billion in equity loans for the Help-to-Buy scheme and an additional 2 billion in capital spending for affordable housing, hoping to build at least an additional 25,000 homes. These proposals have rightly been criticised. Not only do they fall woefully short of the action needed and fail to tackle the issues which underpin this crisis, such as the dysfunctional land market, a further boost to the Help-to-Buy scheme is likely to inflate house prices, deepening the crisis for many.

If it is serious about tackling the housing crisis government should pave the way for a large-scale council house building programme by empowering local councils. In doing so, it should allow local authorities to borrow to invest in the building of a new generation of council homes. At the same time, the government should implement a threshold of 35% for affordable housing to all private developments nationally, with a higher threshold of 50% on all public land, in line with the approach adopted by the Mayor of London.

Local authorities are by no means waiting on government and many are already making significant efforts to take on the housing crisis. Recent research has shown that as many as 150 Local Housing Companies (LHC) are currently in operation, owned wholly or partly by local councils and designed to build homes while circumventing the restrictions placed on councils by central government.

In our report, we call on England's mayors to build on the success of local councils and establish combined authority-wide Mayoral Housing Companies. These could then be used to bring land to market for social and affordable rent, addressing the affordability crisis while creating a long term revenue stream for the public purse.

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Amr Dalsh / Reuters

Having driven for Uber for some years now, I can comment with some degree of authority over how those on the front-line, the drivers, have fared under the company.

What I've witnessed in my time there led me to join a union and get involved in the battle to win respect for drivers' rights. Hiding behind the shiny facade of the gig economy is no excuse to ride roughshod over rights at work - or compromise public safety.

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My trade union GMB secured a landmark legal win at employment tribunal last year. We challenged the company's ludicrous claim that Uber drivers are self-employed. We clearly showed that us Uber drivers are workers - and are therefore entitled to basic rights such as the minimum wage, holiday and sick pay. The judgement couldn't have been clearer - but Uber simply refused to accept it.

Despite all the money the 51 billion San-Francisco transport giant has thrown at this case, not to mention wasting all of our time - our campaign has been vindicated today. This morning the employment tribunal appeal upheld our hard won ruling - that the company's drivers should be classified as workers.

Uber fought tooth and nail to deny drivers us rights to which we are entitled. They lost. Again.

GMB brought the claims on behalf of 25 of its members to the Central London Employment Tribunal in July last year - and it ruled that Uber drivers are entitled to receive holiday pay, a guaranteed minimum wage and an entitlement to breaks. Since then, the number of GMB member claimants has increased to 68.

But this is a landmark case, with implications far beyond that, sending ripples through the gig economy. It's a shot across the bows to platform tech companies and app-based services that no company is above the law. GMB will continue to protect workers' rights and challenge those who seek to undermine them. It's why joining a union fighting for rights at work fit for the 21st century is so important.

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Today's ruling is the latest blow for Uber after Transport for London refused to renew their license to operate in London earlier this Autumn. The incoming Uber chief executive then took the extraordinary step of taking out newspaper advert apologising to Londoners and promised to "make things right". Those words should have been followed by action to respect the law, and to protect drivers' rights and public safety.

Instead, reeling from it's latest defeat today, Uber has already indicated it plans to drag it's lost cause to yet another court hearing - wasting everyone's time and money.
Today is the day women stop earning but just keep right on working.

It's Equal Pay Day. 10th November is the day this year when, because of the gender pay gap, women effectively stopped earning money, a full 51 days before their male counterparts.

A lot of people seem to think the battle for equality has been won in Britain. We have an Equality Act which has teeth and can be effective. What we don't have is a country where gender makes no difference socially, politically or in employment terms.

Those glass ceilings really do still abound. There are currently 208 women MPs in the House of Commons - a little under a third of the total number of representatives. Those 208 make up almost half of the women elected to Parliament since Constance Markievicz won the seat of Dublin St Patrick's for Sinn Fein in 1918. In business, women still make up only 22% of company boards of directors. 16% of companies have no female directors at all and fewer than 4% have women in the number one job or an equal number of women and men on the board. Even in education, a sector where women have traditionally had greater access to leadership roles, the situation remains unequal. There is still only a one in three chance that a new university vice-chancellor will be a woman and overall women are in charge at a little more than one in five universities. In the military numbers of women in command roles are vanishingly small and under the 2010 Act as the government's own report into diversity in the military puts it, "The Armed Forces are exempt from elements of the employment provisions of the Equality Act 2010 for reasons of combat effectiveness."

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Few places are immune. As principal of an FE college I can be confident that two lecturers in the same subject with the same skills and experience will be paid the same rate for the job, but that doesn't mean there is no pay difference on gender lines. Market forces impact on recruitment and lecturers in some disciplines command a higher salary than others. For example, engineers earn more than early years professionals in the workplace meaning the same is true in teaching. Engineers are more likely to be men and early years professionals are more likely to be women - another reason why it's vital to encourage our girls and young women to take a broad and ambitious view of their future options and to excite them about the possibilities of careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.
As I write, many parts of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico are still reeling from one of the most destructive hurricane seasons in decades. Meanwhile, across the Indian subcontinent more than 1000 people have been killed and more than 40 million have been affected by intense monsoon rains and floods. And closer to home, of course, Peru is still counting the costs of some of the worst floods in living memory.

Inevitably, there are those who have insisted on linking this litany of catastrophes to climate change and those who object strenuously to any connection. And so the old battle between two old stories goes on. I've been working on climate change for more than two decades and I'm tired of this. We are behaving, many of us, as if climate change were a university debate, where the objective is to score points off the other side. And yet, the real objective is, or should be, for us to tackle collectively, and with all our human ingenuity, the biggest challenge our species has yet faced.

In this year, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's Reformation, Hay Festival asked me for my "Reformation" of our actions on climate change. I will be coming to the Peru branch of the Festival, in Arequipa, to deliver the results. The more I thought about this question - and the more I wondered why it has taken us so long to act so feebly on something so obvious - the more I want to point the finger not at sceptics, nor at vested interests, but in the way we have become trapped in a battle between two stories fighting for the truth, when the truth is that they are both wrong.

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Let me explain.

In the red corner we have the sceptics. Climate change is not happening, they say, or it is happening but it's nothing special because climate changes all the time. Humans are not responsible, its effects have been exaggerated, we can adapt our way out of it, and above all that it is a leftist (or, in the case of President Trump, a Chinese) conspiracy designed variously to bring down capitalism and to stop the development of rival countries.

In the blue corner are the environmentalists, and - disclaimer - there are aspects of this story that I and many of my colleagues have been telling for a long time. It runs that apocalypse is coming, leaders are doing nothing to stop it, business is the enemy, the only hope is if you personally take responsibility by giving up your spoilt western lifestyle. Stop driving, stop flying, stop eating meat, stop using energy to make yourself comfortably warm or cool, and even if you do all this we are probably doomed. In summary: "Be frightened, guilty and miserable."

Of course there are aspects of truth in both these stories, and in my opinion more truths in the second than the first. But there are also flaws in both. To those in the red corner I say that climate change is real; and although it has indeed been happening since the dawn of creation; the latest bout of warming that the Earth is now experiencing is caused at least in part by the greenhouse gases that we are pouring into our air from burning oil, coal, natural gas and forests, and by the way we fertilise our fields. Moreover, although many environmental groups are also aligned with the politics of the left, many of the loudest voices calling for action on climate change today are those of businesses, military generals and traditional church leaders. And to those in the blue corner I say that many leaders are also acting. On the very day that President Trump announced that he was pulling the USA out of the Paris climate agreement, he triggered a movement amongst mayors, governors and CEOs; hundreds of these have now declared that their cities, states and businesses were sticking with Paris regardless.

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However, there are at least two problems with allowing these conflicting narratives to fight it out. First, we are expending far too much time trying to prove which story is right and not nearly enough figuring out how to solve the problem. Second, neither of these stories gives us anything to reach for, any way to thrill the human race into unleashing our collective creativity.

The first story abdicates responsibility, which is never an inspiring choice. The second story risks spreading the sort of pessimism and fear that shuts down human creativity instead of inspiring it. Luther's namesake, Martin Luther King, inspired the civil rights movement by declaring that he had a dream. And yet we have failed to build a collective dream of a world in which we have invented our way out of climate change.

I can offer some suggestions for what this world could look like. It will involve clean energy and widespread electric vehicles (even the CEO of Shell recently said his next car would be electric) with the result that our cities will be free of air pollution. They may also have an abundance of city farms. Perhaps you will walk through London, New Delhi or Lima and they will smell like forests. More local production, perhaps with a good helping of 3D printing, could feed the thirst that so many people have recently been evincing to take back control of their communities. If (I would rather say when) we solve this problem we will surely have more effective institutions, collaborations that cross traditional divides, governments being held to account more fully and businesses that are more inclined to work for the common good as well as for the profits of their shareholders.

Some of these might sound utopic, but all of them are potentially on their way. And the way to ensure they happen, I believe, is to rewrite the stories so they say much more about the world we are trying to reach for. If we don't know where we're going, it's no surprise that we should be pouring so much heat into arguing about the present instead of collectively building the future.

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People often ask if I am an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to climate change. I always say neither. Both of these options are fatalistic, a guess about what is inevitably going to happen. I prefer a concept that Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute calls "applied hope". Pessimism and fear shut down creativity. Optimism can be foolish and unrealistic. But applied hope takes the positive in human invention and pours it into creating, not simply stumbling into, the future.

To make this happen, I believe we all have to get out of our echo chambers, have thoughtful conversations with people we disagree with, and work collectively to build the future we all want to live in. After all the best way to predict the future is to create it.
When baby Jackson started struggling to breathe, his mum Maximilla searched frantically for help in Lodwar County Hospital, Northern Kenya. His ragged, wet lungs were clogged as pneumonia ravaged his body. Without oxygen, the biggest infectious killer of children might have claimed another victim in minutes. Had he not been resuscitated by a quick-thinking visitor called Jedidah, Jackson may have become another statistic.

Jedidah stepped in to help get oxygen into Jackson's lungs before the lack of it damaged his brain. A nurse by training, she knew this could happen imminently. She wasn't expecting to use her medical training that day. She just happened to be visiting the hospital as part of Save the Children's emergency response to a drought that is wreaking havoc across East Africa. But that day, there was only one over-worked nurse on the paediatrics ward, a dangerous but common occurrence caused by a then four-month long nurses' strike across Kenya. So Jedidah stepped in.

In recent months, 20,000 nurses have boycotted work in 47 counties across the country to protest against what they said was a breach of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) they signed with the government, in which they would receive a KSh12,000 (90) allowance, no matter where they were based.

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Over 50% of health facilities in drought-affected counties were closed because of the nurses' industrial action. National immunisation coverage rates dropped by almost a fifth and the number of women having their babies in clinics fell by a third. In some extreme cases, a doubling of maternal deaths was reported, because medical attention was simply not available to save lives when needed.

The nurses' strike has now been called off, just days after voting in Kenya's second general election. But the impact can still be felt. This was a humanitarian crisis within the national health system, which prompted Save the Children to start providing full-time salaried nurses to work in hospitals in the areas worst affected by the drought. These nurses were partially covering the gap in trained staff able to treat malnourished children - those whose chances of survival are often complicated by an inability to fight off diseases which prey on the weak and vulnerable.

More than 1,000 people have tested positive for malaria in Marsabit and other counties, just weeks after the disease killed more than 26 people in the region. The government and NGOs have managed to contain an outbreak of cholera, but the health workers' strike provided an opportunity for malaria to kill children, even if they do survive the hunger crisis which inevitably follows severe drought.

On top of the strike, the extended election campaigning period has delayed payments which are usually made by the national government to devolved counties to spend on their health care at a local level. In Lodwar, also currently suffering a spike in malaria, the county has a shortage of essential medicines to manage the condition: the last consignment was in July. The county's health system is not fully operational, with fuel shortages affecting the availability of ambulances and vaccines that cannot be delivered as there is no way to transport them safely at the required cold temperature.

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This year has seen one of the worst public health crises in Kenya's history. The critical danger to children is compounded by the drought, which has decimated harvests since 2015. Kenya is suffering the worst drought in a generation, with four consecutive failed rains in the northern counties of Turkana, Wajir and Mandera.

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance has doubled in just six months, from 2.7 million in February to 5.6 million in September. Rates of severe malnutrition are worse in some areas of Northern Kenya than those experienced during the region's 2011 famine, which killed more than a quarter of a million people. They died needlessly, mainly from preventable diseases which you are nine times more likely to catch if you are malnourished.
PETER PARKS via Getty Images

This week we heard that SSE and npower are in talks to merge their domestic energy supply businesses. This is great news if you're a shareholder in SSE or npower, but bad news if you're one of their customers. And it's bad news for the energy industry too.

Executives at both companies argue the merger will bring greater efficiency. At Bulb, we just don't see how this can be the case. Since the start of 2013, npower have the largest number of complaints per 100,000 customers received by any of the Big Six suppliers.

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Source: Ofgem Customer Service data

And, SSE are no better. They have the highest proportion of their customers on what Theresa May justifiably describes as "rip off" tariffs of any Big Six supplier. These customers are paying higher bills than customers who switch more frequently. They are effectively paying a loyalty 'fee'.

Source: Ofgem analysis of supplier data submissions

The merger between SSE and npower would be a consolidation of worst practices. It's hard to see how one inefficient supplier buying another would achieve greater efficiency. A merger isn't going to help families get better customer service or reduce their energy bills. Instead, we think SSE and npower should focus on increasing the efficiency of their operations and improving the service they deliver to customers.

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Historically, a small number of suppliers have dominated the energy market, stifling competition. A classic oligopoly. More recently, however, competition has been improving. Around 15 years ago there were just six energy suppliers in the UK. Today there are 60. And the new entrants are growing faster than any of the Big Six. A merger between SSE and npower would give them 22% market share. Going from the Big Six to the Big Five would undo the great progress we've made.

At Bulb, we're calling on the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate this merger. To reduce customer bills, suppliers need to lower their costs and that demands innovation. Consolidation does not count as innovation. Fewer suppliers means less competition and less competition means higher prices.

Along with other small suppliers, Bulb is driving change in the sector, pushing bills down and leading the uptake of renewables. Small suppliers are rising to the challenges of the energy transition and engaging with government proposals to reform the energy market. SSE and npower should do the same.
Inja is one of the leading poets and spoken word artists supporting Words that Burn , a new national poetry and human rights education project, from Amnesty International that launched in partnership with Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Here he performs his poem She just wanna dance exclusively for HuffPost UK, which is about sexual harassment and how, when on a night out, women just want to dance.

Words that Burn will help secondary school students explore human rights and express themselves through poetry. Each term Amnesty will provide information about an individual who has had their human rights violated. Students will be able to have their solidarity or protest poems sent to the individual or the relevant authority by Amnesty, so their literary creations can have direct impact and contribute to effecting change. Find out more about Inja's music on his Instagram and Facebook pages.
"Individuality is Freedom Lived" - Jon Dos Passos

Red is the new Black

'Cherry Blush' chiffon silk printed scarf, by Basma Design

From a style point of view, it's rather fitting that the colour red happens to be have been crowned 'The' colour for AW17, confirming that - "there is a shade of red for every woman" -(Audrey Hepburn) and adding a stylish edge to the abundance of Remembrance poppies this month.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a display of charitable commemoration being 'au courant' sartorially. From a design point of view, the flower is a gift to fashion designers. In 2015 Made in Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh wore a custom-made dress, designed by Giles Deacon, which featured 100 silk red poppies, to front the Remembrance Day Appeal. And this year, London designer Atiti Izogie designed a luxury leather 'Poppy bag' for the Ronti Collection (part of Eyato London), which was donated to a branch of the Royal British Legion for auction at the Bristol Poppy Appeal Ball. There is something edifying about a crimson red poppy on an outfit, which adds personality, humanity and and elan. I even think the poppy gives the BBC newsreaders extra gravitas.

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Red is alarming, uncompromising, empowering and fierce. As a society, we're hard wired to it since it taps into our primal, passionate impulses. It's the colour of the blood of Christ and also the Devil, with a cocktail of connotations consisting of fireworks, adrenaline, love hearts, red roses and indeed the aptly named districts where certain women make a living. The impact of Margaret Atwood's haunting Handmaid's Tale has formed the wallpaper of popular TV culture this year, with red dresses and white bonnets even headlining Vera Wang's fashion shoot in Vogue. Red is a big deal.

Red shouts. Revolutions are ignited by it, the camera loves it, Tibetan Buddhist landscapes are peppered by flags the colour of blood red robes. Remember the litmus test papers in those chromatography tests we did at school? You see? Red makes a point. Likewise, blushing red cheeks draw attention and have cultural symbolism. The matt scarlet 'Givenchy Red' seen on the AW17 catwalks reminds us that this colour is dangerous, subversive and fiercely feminine all at once, while Julia Roberts' Pretty Woman red dress confirms why every woman should own a red dress. Simply put, everything is better in red and it's a God given right that every woman should wear in what makes her feel wonderful. Red means business. Red gets stuff done.

"There is a shade of Red for every Woman" - Audrey Hepburn

Basma Design

The colour of Buddhism and Communism, Jezebels and a harlot's knickers, when we 'rouge' our lips we are embracing our womanhood and making a statement ["I'm gonna' rouge my knees and pull my stockings down" a la Liza Minelli]. "Let's paint the town red [....]". I defy anyone to not feel brighter, more confident and stronger when donning this traffic stopping colour. Bold and yet empowering, it's even been proven that athletes who compete in red are more likely to win!

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That red is also the colour of the iconic Remembrance poppy lends itself kindly to the thread of activism and identity at the heart of fashion's raison d'etre. Millennials are leading the charge on demanding meaning and substance from what they wear and what they buy and the fashion industry is fast adapting to meet their needs. The symbol of remembrance and hope, the poppy was first given prominence in Lt. Col. John McCrae's famous 'Flanders Fields' poem - lines from which are featured inside poppies this year - , and then by American Academic Moina Belle Michael.

It was Michael who committed to always wearing a poppy in 1918 and who, in 1921, began creating silk poppies to sell to raise money for veterans, wounded soldiers and their families. That they were initially made of silk - one of the most sublime and sentient of natural, luxury fabrics - is a fact which has really struck me this year, with silk emerging as part of our mainstream movement towards New Luxury. As consumers we are also very much humans. We want to 'feel'. We 'need' to feel. Fashion will always have activism in its DNA and self-expression woven into its very fabric and its capacity to make a statement through what we wear is one of its greatest gifts. Following on from Michael's initiative, the poppy flower has been represented in numerous end products using different fabric and materials since 1921, which have also equally been summarily sold to raise money for the needs of the serving and surviving British Armed Forces members and their families. I do not agree with the grievance - made by some - that a fashionable interpretation of the poppy is to the detriment of its sobering significance. From the Jeans for Genes campaign through to Fashion Targets Breast Cancer clothing, the fashion industry remains one of our greatest social influencers and this season's lusty affair with red is a gift to Remembrance and its iconic red poppy.

Rather, the only problem I might have with the iconic Poppy tradition is that it conjures a collective remembrance, with the risk of the individual becoming lost in the constituent mass of lives lost. One of life's most precious qualities is our identity, our individuality, having our name remembered when we enter a shop, club or pub or having our preferences or idiosyncrasies recalled. Our identity is everything and fashion is a tool with which we can express it. Fashion, or more specifically, what we wear, is a signifier. This is why the homogenous fast-fashion, prescriptive trend-obeying mindset is a travesty for individuality and personal growth, whereas using our clothing and accessories to express ourselves is hugely liberating. And fun! Yes, identity and individuality is freedom. Fashion has no rules. Fashion is freedom. Fashion is mood-enhancing. A flash of this uncompromising hue is equally impactful - as Christian Louboutin knows better than most. I know myself that when I step into my red stilettos, throw my 'Red Riding Hood' red coat over my shoulders or apply some Louboutin Red red lipstick, I'm owning myself, affirming my identity and making no compromises. It feels bold, brilliant and shamelessly indulgent.

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"To me, clothing is a form of self-expression; there are hints about who you are in what you wear" - Marc Jacobs

Courtesy of Waremakers

The right to personal identity is recognised in international law through a range of declarations and

conventions. From as early as birth, an individual's identity is formed and preserved by registration or being bestowed with a name.

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To have an identity; to express-oneself freely and to be valued as an individual are values which sustain our self-esteem and give meaning to our sense of self. These are fundamental human rights in a free society, which those soldiers fought for in the fields of Flanders. Few sectors of culture can support the

protection of identity better than fashion and independent designers will always have the edge in responsiveness, flexibility and individuality.

It's rather timely that, following a week in which the Ministry of Defence's leadership was assumed by an individual with a questionable record on supporting the needs of soldiers, veterans and their families, we wear our red poppy mindfully and take full advantage of the power of red.

No soldier should be remembered as a nameless collective, and each of us can use our wardrobe as a toolbox for self-expression, selecting what we want to say. Identity, independence and freedom are what each of those soldiers fought for on the fields and what their memory deserves. Identity is our most valuable possession and, together with freedom, will always be at the heart of fashion. Protect it. Wear it. Wear it with pride.

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Acronyms become a natural part of your conversation after a couple of days at the COP climate talks. One that's heard in every second sentence is NDCs - Nationally Determined Contributions - the offers to cut emissions that countries made in Paris in 2015, and that need to be being stepped up soon.

But there's also an important state contribution that can't be quantified in the same way, but is crucial to progress of the talks - you might call it the national political contributions, NPCs.

There was one surprise, effective NPC at the start of this COP from an unlikely source, Syria. On day one of the talks, it delivered a small fillip to the conference, and a big symbolic blow to President Trump, by signing the Paris climate agreement.

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No one is expecting this war-wracked country to make a splash in policy talks in Bonn, but it meant that every state in the world has now signed the treaty, and the US is the only one with the announced intention of withdrawing. That makes President Trump look even more isolated, as the US People's Delegation here was happy to celebrate.

There's a feeling sometimes that nations have "natural" places at COP that reflect their political and economic positions in the world - as key polluters or vulnerable victims - that are inevitable and unchangeable. But even a short look at history shows that isn't the case: politics does really matter, for the future of Paris Agreement, and the planet.

Two years ago in Paris, the US was in a far different position, with President Obama joining Francoise Hollande in a joyous celebration of the unexpected agreement to set an ambition to restrict warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, better than had been expected.

China's taken a new lead position. That happened, almost visibly at the Marrakesh talks in 2016, after the shock election of Trump. Every word, even the most banal, from a Chinese delegate, was listened to with unusual attention, and here in Bonn their leadership is regarded as crucial.

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We were told at an NGO conference that there'd been an important development at the just-concluded Party Congress in Beijing. An official paper there said that China should be a "leader" in global climate diplomacy. It was the first time that word had been used in this important context - and would not have been used casually.

The other nation very much under the spotlight here is Fiji, as the first small island nation to chair a COP. It must have been an enormous challenge, but the Fijians clearly have a powerful figure in their chief negotiator, Nazhat Shameen Khan, and importantly she looks to have a good rapport with the UNFCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa.

But it is clearly going to be a big challenge for a small state to stand up to the superpowers and pull them into line - it is going to have to stay true to its values and the needs of those it represents under tremendous pressure in the coming days. As Godwin Ojo from Nigeria's Environmental Rights Action said: "Fiji must be Fiji."

The European Union remains a significant, if somewhat diminished force, with its Nordic members providing considerable leadership by example in their economies and practices. And it is still taking significant formal steps, like the alliance with California announced at the start of COP.

But many of its member states aren't helping its position.

Germany collected some early points with an announcement of a new pledge of 50 million euros for the Adaptation Fund and the same amount for the Least Developed Countries Fund. As Jan Kowalzig, Oxfam Germany, noted, it was good that the announcement made before the high-level end of COP, when such steps usually unveiled by senior politicians to much fanfare.

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However, as Mr Kowalzig and many others said, that didn't make up for the fact that Germany's emissions haven't gone down for the past eight years, with the likelihood being that it will miss its domestic 2020 target of 40% against 1990 levels. It could be as bad as 32%. The stalling of the energy transition project is chiefly to blame, as in continuing use of coal.

France also managed to secure the "Fossil of the Day" award on day three of the talks, for its postponement of a target to drop nuclear power use and replace it with renewables. Emmanuel Macron talked the talk on climate change during his election campaign, but there's been little sign of commitment since.

Then we get to Britain. Still part of the EU. And with a fairly large and prominent pavilion here. But in three and a half days of discussion about the talks here, I've not heard the British "contribution" mentioned once.

And no wonder. To say our government is currently clearly distracted by other matters, like its chances of survival, is only a statement of the obvious. But it is clear that the direction it has given is leaving it an irrelevant laggard here, not a leader.

The pavilion, astonishingly, is advertising coal bed methane. Its chief branding is for the trade department, and its only "green" feature a fun but gimmicky "generate electricity with your steps" machine.

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The Brexiteers told us that leaving the EU would put us into a new position of global leadership. That's certainly not the case here in Bonn.
Prasit photo via Getty Images

Last week we learned that Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris sent all Vice-Chancellors a letter requesting they send him a list of lectures on European affairs and Brexit take place at their universities, which staff lecture in this area and copies of both their teaching materials and links to classroom discussions.

His letter was revealed by Worcester University Vice-Chancellor David Green which launched a furious reaction by academics and the public. Heaton-Harris's letter has been described as everything from McCarthyism to Orwellian. In a tweet that went viral, I made clear any such request would be refused - that we are universities and "not thought police". While information about modules and staff research interests can be widely available online, teaching materials are commercially-sensitive and classroom instruction data protected so Heaton-Harris's request went far beyond any Freedom of Information Act request in seeking information that could not be provided.

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Neither Heaton-Harris nor his colleagues were able to say what the purpose was for making the request. Universities minister Jo Johnson speculated that maybe he was planning to write a book someday although this was not mentioned in the letter to universities. I raised concerns that the intention was to intimidate academics into silence over Brexit to help tackle the endless stream of bad news the government has seen in EU negotiations that have gone virtually nowhere despite high expectations raised from the start.

It comes as no surprise to see pro-Brexit tabloids like the Daily Mail were ready to strike back. Front pages claiming academics were the new enemies of the people laid bare the real reason why academics were so alarmed by Heaton-Harris's request as individuals and institutions were named and shamed for little more than gossip and innuendo.

While the headlines spoke of pro-EU bias in lectures, the fine print exposed the lack of evidence which spoke volumes. All that is found are a couple isolated one-off incidents where pro-Brexit students might have heard someone disagree with them campaigning for leaving the EU outside lecture halls. In fact, the Mail provides not a single example of bias in lectures at any universities. The only incidents they find to condemn all happened elsewhere or off-campus through protected free speech. The attack is dishonest, biased and an attempt at threatening basic civil liberties of political speech that the Mail exercises in its own front page. Hypocrisy is too kind a description for it.

No one has made any complaint about teaching standards. We have a range of checks including the National Student Survey, external academic examiners and the government's newly imposed Teaching Excellence Framework to check quality. This isn't about how good lectures are, but an attack on discussions it doesn't to happen because it makes the government uncomfortable.

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Heaton-Harris's letter was more than an attack on academic freedom, but an attempt at scapegoating. First the judiciary is called enemies of the people for upholding parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law and now the enemies are universities. But who will he and his pro-Brexit MPs smear next after universities? Promises were made on a red bus and in the course of a campaign that aren't being kept. This is not because of judges or scholars - and maybe if they were listened to more carefully the negotiations in Brussels would make more progress.

But Heaton-Harris is also not just any MP. He is a junior government whip. Their job is to keep others in line supporting the Prime Minister - whips don't do rogue. The Prime Minister distanced herself from his letter, but serious questions must be asked about who knew or supported Heaton-Harris's letter to all universities - and far beyond his constituency in Daventry. Is he asking what more senior members in government want to know but don't want to be seen asking? And if so, why would the government want to be producing lists of private citizens that are critically of their policies while lawfully expressing their opinions? Until we have clear answers, the public has a right - even a duty - to be very concerned about a weak government spinning out of control.

This is not over yet. Despite no one in government coming out in support of the letter, I understand from colleagues that some institutions intend to reply to Heaton-Harris's request because they feel there is no other choice. Over 2,500 academics and supporters from the UK and around the world have signed a petition I launched calling on universities minister Jo Johnson to write to all Vice-Chancellors confirming none are required to respond: "In so doing, he would reaffirm his government's commitment to academic freedom, debate, and the high quality of teaching standards at our country's higher education institutions. We are global leaders that should be championed not enemies to be silenced."

The sooner Johnson can draw a line under this unfortunate matter, the better. Nor would it require a u-turn. If the Prime Minister and he support academic freedom and free speech, then our petition's demands are an easy request to deliver. If they do not, their actions will speak much louder than their words with a chilling effect on our campuses.
iHeartMedia Stock Tanks After $248M Quarterly Loss and Substantial Doubts About Survival [UPDATED]

[UPDATED] iHeartMedia Inc., the largest operator of commercial radio stations in the US, once again disclosed that it has "going concern" about its viability as a company going forward.

In its most recent financial filing with the SEC, iHeartMedia warned investors that it was in dire financial straits and noted that "there is substantial doubt as to the companys ability to continue as a going concern for a period of 12 months following November 8, 2017.

As well, iHeartMedia outlined concerns about "the impact of our substantial indebtedness, including the effect of our leverage on our financial position and earnings" and "our ability to generate sufficient cash from operations and liquidity-generating transactions and our need to allocate significant amounts of our cash to make payments on our indebtedness, which in turn could reduce our financial flexibility and ability to fund other activities."

UPDATE: iHeartMedia stock recovered 47% on Friday, still closing in the dread sub-#1 range which can lead to delisting at $.81 per share.

At the end of September, iHeartMedia had debt maturities totaling $366.9 million, $308.5 million and $8.368 billion in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively, according to the filing. In its effort to stave off default, the company said it must depend on its ability to "achieve forecasted results, our ability to conserve cash, our ability to refinance the amounts outstanding under the receivables-based credit facility."

At the end of September, the company listed cash and cash equivalents on hand of $285.4 million and said it had access to $85 million under a receivables-based credit facility.

The company's other financials painted a bleak picture as well.

In its latest quarter, the company posted a net loss of $248 million, a far steeper loss than the $35 million in red ink that the company posted in the same period in 2016. Revenue slipped slightly as well, down to $1.54 billion against $1.57 billion in 2016.

At the close of trading on Thursday, the company's stock had plummeted, down by 54% and trading below a dollar at $.55. The stock ticked up slightly as trading opened on Friday.

via CelebrityAccess

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Musical.ly and Live.ly Sold For $800M  $1B To Chinas Bytedance

Music video app Musical.ly and sister app Live.ly has been sold to Chinese media giant Bytedance. The deal is worth between $800 million and $1 billion, according to multiple sources. A division of Bytedance aquired Musical.ly rival Filpagram earlier this year.

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Hugely popular music video lip sync platform Musical.ly and its live streaming app Live.ly has been acquired by Chinese media conglomerate Bytedance for a reported $800,000  $1 billion.

Musical.ly was founded in 2104 in Shanghai by Louis Yang and Alex Zhu, and claims by more than 100 million active users. The Musical.ly founders and team will join Bytedance and continue to run the platform.

Musical.ly will continue to operate as an independent platform, integrating Bytedances global leading AI technology and leveraging its reach in China and key markets across Asia to enhance Musical.lys offering to users, creators, and partners, the two companies said in a statement.

Integrating Musical.lys global reach with Bytedances massive user base in China and key Asian markets, we are creating a significant global platform for our content creators and brands to engage with new markets, said Zhang Yiming, Bytedance CEO.

Some Musical.ly stats:

Average daily video views: 1 billion

Average daily video creations: 7.4 million

Average daily likes: 249 million

Average active user watches over 60 videos a day

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Superior Court Briefs: Nov. 6 - Nov. 9

Cases heard before Judge John Agostini on Monday, November 6.

Denzel LaFayette, 20, of Springfield had not guilty pleas entered on his behalf on two counts of rape and abuse of a child, two counts of assault and battery, and single counts of posing a child in a state of nudity, disseminating visual material of a child in a state of nudity, disseminating matter harmful to a minor, and possession of child pornography.

He was released on $250 cash or $2,500 surety bail. The charges stem from incidents involving a 16-year-old girl in Pittsfield and North Adams between October 21, 2015 and March 30, 2017.

Anthony Robertson, 35, of Pittsfield had not guilty pleas entered on his behalf on single counts of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute - his second offense - armed career felon, illegal possession of a large capacity feeding device, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, resisting arrest, illegal ownership of a firearm, possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card, and improper storage of a firearm.

He was released on $5,000 cash or surety bail. The charges stem from the execution of a search warrant on his home on August 25, 2017.

Cases heard before Judge John Agostini on Tuesday, November 7.

Billy Joe Twing, 37, of Pittsfield pleaded guilty to single counts of trafficking in fentanyl, resisting arrest, failure to stop for a police officer, and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license.

He was ordered to serve two and a half to three years at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction on the trafficking charge. He was given concurrent time at the Berkshire County House of Correction on the resisting arrest and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license charges. The other charge was placed on file.

The charges stem from a motor vehicle stop in Pittsfield on March 26, 2016. Single counts of possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute - his second offense - and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute - his second offense - were dismissed by the state.

Cases heard before Judge John Agostini on Wednesday, November 8.

Andrew Harding, 30, of Dalton had not guilty pleas entered on his behalf on single counts of conspiracy to violate drug laws to wit: possession of heroin with intent to distribute; conspiracy to violate drug laws to wit: possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and possession of cocaine.

He was released on $2,000 bail. The charges stem from a motor vehicle stop in Lenox on September 27, 2017.

Julianna Saez, 30, of Pittsfield had not guilty pleas entered on her behalf on two counts of possession of heroin with intent to distribute, two counts of conspiracy to violate drug laws to wit: possession of heroin with intent to distribute, two counts of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, two counts of conspiracy to violate drug laws to wit: possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and single counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, illegal ownership of a firearm, improper storage of a firearm, possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card, and possession of phencyclidine.

She was released on $1,000 bail. The charges stem from a motor vehicle stop and the execution of a search warrant at her home on September 27, 2017.

Corey Walker, 22, of Pittsfield had not guilty pleas entered on his behalf on single counts of possession of heroin with intent to distribute, drug violation in a school zone, and possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card.

He was released on $1,000 bail. The charges stem from the execution of a search warrant at his home on September 1, 2017.

Diane Wyand, 39, of Pittsfield pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of heroin.

He was placed on probation for six months. The charge stems from a motor vehicle stop in Pittsfield on February 10, 2017.

Cases heard before Judge John Agostini on Thursday, November 9.

Megan Bates, 41, of Adams had a not guilty plea entered on her behalf on a single count of permitting bodily injury to a child.

She was released on personal recognizance. The alleged incident occurred in Adams on August 5, 2015 and involved a three-month-old boy.

Wesley Childers, 31, of Adams had a not guilty plea entered on his behalf on a single count of permitting bodily injury to a child.

He was released on personal recognizance. The alleged incident occurred in Adams on August 5, 2015 and involved a three-month-old boy.

Jennifer Rilla, 21, of North Adams pleaded guilty to a single count of possession of heroin.

The case was continued without a finding for six months. The charge stems from a motor vehicle stop in Pittsfield on February 10, 2017.

Sam Wassilie, 39, of Hudson, N.Y. was found guilty on 10 counts of videotaping persons nude or partially nude, and five counts of videotaping sexual parts of children under the age of 18.

He was ordered to be held at the Berkshire County House of Correction without the right to bail pending sentencing. Wassilie installed a video recording device in a public restroom at Pinegrove Park in Dalton between September 14, 2014 and October 26, 2014.
The City of Pittsfield's

For those participating, lineup will take place from 9-9:45 a.m.

on Fenn, Pearl and Allen streets and will depart from City Hall at 10 a.m.

The group will proceed to the Pittsfield Veterans' Memorial Park on South Street for the ceremony.

Following the ceremony, a light reception for veterans and their family members will be held

at the Pittsfield VA Outpatient Clinic at 73 Eagle Street from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Annual Veterans Day Parade & Ceremony will begin at 10 a.m.
The Senate passed the amendment as part of the health care bill Thursday evening.

Senate Passes Amendment To Help Volunteer Ambulance Services

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  Some relief for struggling volunteer services is making its way through the legislative process.

The state Senate passed a health care bill Thursday night which included an amendment from Sen. Adam Hinds that alleviates the staffing requirements of an ambulance in rural towns. Currently, two emergency medical technicians are required to be on every basic life support transport.

Hinds amendment will alleviate that requirement in rural towns to allow for a first responder to drive the ambulance instead of an EMT. Now the health care bill moves to the House of Representatives for approval and Hinds is confident that the amendment will pass there too.

"Many of the small towns in Western Mass have volunteer ambulance services. As a result, meeting these requirements means waiting longer," Hinds said on Friday.

Lanesborough's ambulance service has been struggling in recent years. Part of the reason is a drop off in answering calls. Most of the volunteers work during the day and when a call comes in, often there aren't two EMTs available.

There are only six or seven active EMTs on the volunteer service to answer the call but there are some 30 volunteer firefighters who are trained first responders. There are times when a single EMT is available to work the back of the rig and care for the patient but the law required another EMT to be the driver.

Hinds amendment allows for those first responders to drive the rig on those occasions.

"This is a great example of how there are a lot of laws in Massachusetts that don't apply to small towns," Hinds said.

In a town like Lanesborough, if two EMTs aren't available an out of town ambulance has to respond. That lengthens the wait time for a patient and the local ambulance service loses out on business.

Hinds' amendment being passed as part of the health care bill is the first step in what has been a six-year process. Back in 2011, former state Sen. Benjamin Downing filed a bill requesting to alleviate the requirement.

The Department of Public Health had concerns with it. State Rep. Paul Mark worked on catering the bill to specifically rural areas, putting in limits on the use of first responders to only towns with a population of 3,000 people or less or with a density of fewer than 500 residents per square mile. Yet, that still didn't pass.

Hinds and Mark both re-filed the bill at the state of this legislative session but it hadn't gotten much traction. As the health care bill came up, Hinds used the opportunity to amend that bill to make the change.

"Until now the focus has been on bills, trying to get bills through the Senate and the House and it faced difficulties," Hinds said.

The senator said he also reached out the Department of Public Health to find a way to alleviate its concerns. Ultimately, the amendment added language that gives the medical director at the local hospital an approval authority of first responders on the ambulance ahead of time. That is already being done with the EMTs and will now extend to the first responders.

The amendment does include a restriction to towns with less than 500 residents per square mile.

"This is aimed at towns using a volunteer service," Hinds said.

Lanesborough fits that density and town officials have been keeping a close eye on the ambulance service's response rate. Last month, the Selectmen said the service was going in the right direction with responses. This bill could be a game changer for keeping that local service alive.

And Lanesborough isn't the only town struggling to keep the volunteer ambulance running. Charlemont and Hawley had both been seeking ways to avoid shutting down the services. Village Ambulance in Williamstown was facing a financial burden and is now merging with North Adams Ambulance Service.

The health care bill now moves to the House of Representatives. Hinds said he expects the House to take it up in the new year and if the amendment stays all the way through to the passage of the health care bill, the ambulance services could start using first responders by the end of 2018.
I will definitely buy a lavash or egg - Aram Mnatsakanov

On November 9, "Formula of success: Lectorium "project was hosted by famous musician, chef, TV host Aram Mnatsakanov at Ayb School. The topic of the master class was "Cook's profession. from early times to ours. The Secret of Success."Aram Mnatsakanov presented to the audience his stories of success. " When you start working in the field that is really close to you, your name begins to "speak" for you. It is important to understand that it is the person that is building his name and not the opposite," Mnatsakanov mentioned during the meeting. During the master class, Mnatsakanov also talked about the Armenian kitchen. "Armenian cuisine is a field with great potential. There is no food problem here. Delicious cuisine can have the country which has delicious food. The first person who will create a new Armenian cuisine by keeping traditions, definitely will succeed." Mnatsakanov mentioned that every week he visits the St. Petersburg market, where a woman sells products from Armenia. "If I meet this woman, I will definitely buy a lavash or egg from her. I think that the products from Armenia have a unique taste. This is the main secret of Armenian cuisine. " It should be noted that Aram Mnatsakanov will take part in the cooking battle of Italian cook Antonio Fresa and Armenian cook Andranik Manukyan as a special guest and jury member.
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European bank capital structurers have noticed a discrepancy in the pricing of bail-in debt that could be putting investors at risk. And with UK ringfencing rules set to exacerbate the differences in bank holding structures, lawyers are calling for asset managers to better understand ownership issues before a downturn.

Market participants told IFLR Practice Insight that senior unsecured debt issued by the holding company (holdco) of a bank is pricing cheaper than tier two notes issued by its operating company (opco), or subsidiary.

The holdco, and as such its creditors, is entirely dependent on dividend upstreams from the subsidiary. But in a bail-in scenario, all of the subsidiarys creditors  including tier two  are of course ahead in the queue of any equity, including those dividend streams to the parent.

Lawyers are concerned that some asset managers do not understand the difference between a holdco and an opco, and are loading up on what looks like senior unsecured debt without recognising the risks  or that there should be a subordination premium attached. They think a fairly significant repricing event could be ahead.

According to Gerald Podobnik, co-head of FIG origination at Deutsche Bank, there had initially been a healthy pricing differential between holdco and opco debt  but that has narrowed now. Its been good banks that issue out of holding companies, certainly, he said, adding that the gap is even wider in the US where, as a result of local bank regulation, far more holdcos exist.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

According to sources, the market is pricing structural subordination;

Some are concerned asset managers do not understand the difference between structural and contractual subordination;

They argue that bank holdco debt is by nature riskier than opco debt as the holdco is entirely dependent on upstreams from the opco, which cannot be paid until the opcos creditors have been paid;

At its most extreme the impact is the misallocation of risk by portfolio managers, though the consequences will not be known until a bail-in scenario arises;

Others believe its down to current market conditions in which all investors are hunting for yield.

Thats down to a US rule, in place since 2014, requiring foreign banks to establish an intermediate holdco on US soil  effectively a ringfence. The European Commission tabled a similar rule last year, a move many view as retaliation.

But I would argue that holdco debt is a bit riskier than opco debt, as theres a higher probability of the holdco running into trouble, added Podobnik. The opco has more means available to deal with issues, while the holdco is completely dependent on its subsidiaries dividend streams. Holdcos do very little outside of a resolution scenario, aside from hold the equity of their subsidiaries.

UK ringfencing rules will exacerbate the differences in bank holding structures UK ringfencing rules will exacerbate the differences in bank holding structures

But not everyone is convinced. The head of capital structuring at another European investment bank, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, disagrees that holdco debt is fundamentally riskier than that sold by its subsidiaries. We dont see any meaningful, discernible difference in the risk, he said. The reliance-on-the-opco argument doesnt really work either. As a creditor you are equally reliant on either legal entity.

Another hybrid capital structurer at a European bank thinks there is little difference. On the margin perhaps slightly, but if the bank is in trouble and is going to be bailed in then youre not exactly going to explain the difference between a holdco and opco to a deposit-holder  its a theoretical discussion, he said. Failing is failing.

But he thinks that could change, for UK banks at least, post-ringfencing. For banks with a significant portion of their business within the ringfence, the regulator is keen to recognise losses at the earliest possible point to protect the rest of the bank  so dividend upstreams to the holdco are more limited.

Ignorance vs. appetite

The market may not have a full understanding of the subordination implicit in ownership structures and exactly how losses are borne, said Knox McIlwain, counsel at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in London. Regulators would prefer the market to be buying the senior unsecured notes of the parent on the assumption that they will bear the losses of the whole group, and it's not clear thats the case yet.

He thinks that incoming new disclosure requirements under the Financial Stability Boards total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) rule may help investors better understand these issues. But thats a while off yet; TLAC will not be fully implemented in the EU until 2019.

Instead the onus is on the market to efficiently price the instruments risk  which is not happening. Structurers and analysts that spoke to IFLR Practice Insight put this down to the ongoing hunt for yield.

I think most specialist fund managers do understand the difference between old-style senior opco debt and new holdco debt in this new resolution world we live in, one London-based senior analyst said. Its just the search for yield that makes financials look cheap in relative terms versus investment-grade corporates.

It could be down to ratings. As Bridget Gandy, co-head of EMEA financial institutions at the agency explained, Fitch rates banks and instruments primarily on the likelihood of repayment rather than where those notes will sit in the pecking order if things go wrong. That approach differs from investors of course, but also from other rating agencies, which tend to draw a bigger distinction between holdco and opco-sold debt.

F0r it to make any difference which legal entitys debt you hold, youd need to be in a resolution scenario, she said. Then it matters, as if the opco has obligations to third parties it must honour those before making payments to the holdco. That potentially puts the holdco in some real trouble.

The potential mislabelling of risk this causes could also be standing in the way of effective portfolio management. Generally asset managers will have much bigger buckets for senior unsecured instruments than for subordinated debt. But if youre packaging a higher-risk subordinated credit in a senior unsecured skin, youre just injecting risk into that smaller bucket that really shouldnt be there, said a lawyer based in London who wished to remain anonymous.

History repeating

Pricing discrepancies are not much of an issue when times are good  many would argue that if thats what investors are willing to pay, then market price is correct.

It might only be when we see a holdco structure collapse and structural subordination being tested in practice that there could be some form of significant repricing, said Deutsches Podobnik. The same goes for UK ringfencing, which doesnt take full effect until January 2019.

And the longer-term implications could be more serious than asset managers incurring losses.

Permitting this accumulation of risk that can result in surprising losses is essentially what we saw in the financial crisis, said the lawyer. It leads not only to misallocation, but also to people holding that much risk that really shouldnt from a societal standpoint  pension funds for instance.

He puts the mismatch down to the fundamental shift in the way banks have been restructured since the crisis. When Lehman Brothers failed it broke apart into multiple local components, with the senior unsecured bondholders of Lehman Holdings dependent on the liabilities owed to it by its subsidiaries. But thats not the case anymore; the theory now is that no one but the equity and debtholders of the parent company will bear losses.

We dont even see this when multinational corporates enter insolvency, said the lawyer. But if regulators want bondholders and swaps counterparties to base their behaviour on the single point of entry structure, they need to tell them about it.

Credit Agricole sold Europes first senior non-preferred instrument last December, while Bank of America sold the first TLAC bond into the continent in February this year after the Federal Reserve issued its final rule.
Imperial Valley News Center

The doctor was a joker

Paris, Tennessee - You've gotta love Paris in the fall when the most festive of the year's holidays draw near Paris, Tennessee, that is.

It seems that Mom-to-be Brittany Selph went into labor five days early recently and when she arrived at the hospital she was greeted by her obstetrician, Dr. Paul Locus, was right there to greet Bethany and her husband, Justin. You couldn't miss him, says the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. He was the doctor all decked out as Batman's nemesis, Joker. It was Halloween, after all. The expectant mother was not fazed and allowed the good doctor to proceed with the delivery in costume. Mom and baby Oaklyn are doing fine. And, so is new dad Justin who has a great story to tell his son when he grows up.
United States Welcomes Announcement of Electoral Calendar in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Washington, DC - The United States welcomes the announcement by the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that long overdue elections will take place. With the announcement of the December 2018 date, the DRC has taken a significant step toward realizing its first peaceful, democratic transfer of power. It is now incumbent on the CENI, the government, opposition party leaders, civil society organizations, and the people of the DRC to work together to ensure that the electoral deadlines published by the CENI are respected, and that all actions and statements remain within the framework of the DRC constitution and the December 2016 St. Sylvestre Agreement.

The United States notes the importance of President Kabila abiding by the DRCs constitution, reaffirmed in the St. Sylvestre accord, that he will not seek a third term and will step down following elections. The United States also notes the urgent need for the DRC government to implement the confidence building measures included in the December Agreement. This includes an end to politically motivated prosecutions, the release of political prisoners, and respect for the right of peaceful assembly and association, so that opposition parties and civil society organizations may hold peaceful public meetings without government interference or intimidation.

The United States is committed to working with the people and institutions of the DRC, the African Union, regional and international partners, and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to ensure that the estimated 45 million Congolese voters are able to cast their ballots on time and as scheduled in December 2018.
Anti-Democratic Actions by Maduro Regime in Venezuela

Washington, DC - The United States condemns the Maduro regimes increasing disrespect for democracy and fundamental human rights in Venezuela. By attempting to strip the democratically elected National Assemblys Vice President and opposition leader Freddy Guevara of his parliamentary immunity and barring him from leaving the country, the regime is pursuing yet another extreme measure to close the democratic space in Venezuela, criminalize dissent, and control information.

Governance in Venezuela must be determined by the Venezuelan people, who have a right to engage freely and peacefully in political discourse. We stand with the people of Venezuela and the international community in urging the regime to respect the rights and choices of the Venezuelan people. We call for immediate steps to provide humanitarian support to the Venezuelan people, restore democratic norms, cease unconstitutional arrests, and to free all political prisoners.
Serzh Sargsyan holds meeting with Artsakh Parliament delegation

Today, Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting with the delegation of Artsakhs parliament led by Speaker Ashot Ghulyan. The delegation arrived in Armenia to participate in the 12th session of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian and Artsakhi parliaments. The President welcomed the delegation and highlighted the activities of the inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, the regular joint sessions of parliamentary standing committees, and stressed that no matter in what format the partnership is displayed, it is the best way to exchange information and unite efforts for solving common issues. I am always filled with optimism with the fact that although the imposed war, although the tension at the line of contact, our brothers and sisters of Artsakh are filled with great faith for their future and are strengthening their statehood with this faith, increasing welfare, developing democracy. And this convinces all of us that we are on the right path, that our will is irrevocable. On this path, the February 20 constitutional reforms referendum was certainly an important milestone, which once again reaffirmed that there is no discrepancy between the executive and legislative powers of Artsakh and the people, and this is a very important fact to resist challenges. I think no one has doubts that on the way of passing this path, not only is Armenia and all our citizens with you, but also all Armenians, and it will be so always, the President said. The Speaker of Artsakhs Parliament thanked the Armenian President for the reception and mentioned that being regularly hosted by the President during the sessions is very important for the lawmakers, because these meetings are a good opportunity to discuss other issues of mutual interest as well. Although we have chosen different administration models, we have many similarities in this process, because the path we passed proves this also, he said.
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An Israeli intelligence company has apologised for its work with the disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and has pledged to donate the proceeds to women's groups.

Asher Tishler, a member of the Black Cube advisory board, said: Of course we apologise to those hurt by this. Of course women were hurt. Now, in retrospect, it's a shame that we took this job.

His remarks came after the New Yorker reported Weinstein allegedly hired the company, comprised of former intelligence officials, to get information on those working to expose allegations of sexual harassment against him.

A spokesperson for Weinstein, Sallie Hofmeister, told The New Yorker: It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time.

Weinstein has denied any non-consensual sex acts took place, and representatives for the film producer have previously called the majority of allegations against him "false".

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.

Mr Tishler made the apology in an interview to Israel's Channel 2 News this week. He said the firm intends to give the profits from the project to women's groups.

Mr Tishler said he was not familiar with all the details of the work Black Cube carried out for Weinstein.

 Diane Abbott attacks Michael Gove for Harvey Weinstein joke

I think the job was taken in a justified manner. When it was discovered there was a problem, they stopped, he said.

Black Cube previously told The Independent it was the company's policy to never discuss its clients with any third party.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
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Lupita Nyong'o has accused Grazia of editing out and smoothing her hair to "fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like."

The Oscar-winning actor posted the comment on Twitter, featuring an image of the magazine's front cover, alongside what appears to be unedited shots from the same photoshoot.

On Instagram, she elaborated on her disappointment, adding: "As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too."

"Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are."

"Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style and texture."

She ended the post with the hashtag "#dtmh", a reference to the Solange track "Don't Touch My Hair", from her 2016 album A Seat at the Table. The Evening Standard previously apologised to the musician after airbrushing out her braids for the cover to its magazine.



The photo shoot involved the musician donning an elaborate crown of braids, a nod to "Don't Touch My Hair" and its tribute to the powerful historical, cultural, and artistic legacy of black women braiding their hair. A topic point ironically discussed within the magazine's own interview, which also saw Solange discuss her upcoming album.

After it emerged the crown of braids had been digitally airbrushed out of the magazine's cover, the musician posted the original, unaltered image to Instagram with the caption "#dtmh".

After the publication was widely criticised for erasing such a core part of Solange's cultural and artistic identity, The Evening Standard posted the following statement: "The decision to amend the photograph was taken for layout purposes but plainly we made the wrong call and we have offered our unreserved apologies to Solange."



Grazia has issued an apology for the cover, stating: "Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologies unreservedly to Lupita Nyong'o. Grazia magazine would like to make clear that at no point did they make any editorial request to the photographer for Lupita Nyong'o's hair to be altered on this week's cover, nor did we alter it ourselves."

"But we apologise unreservedly for not upholding the highest of editorial standards in ensuring we were made aware of all the alterations that had been made."

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Sean Astin has come to the support of his friend, and former Goonies co-star, Corey Feldman.

Feldman publicly identified a man he alleges molested him when he was a child film star in the 1980s as Jon Grissom, his former assistant and co-star, during a TV appearance. He had also previously named talent manager Marty Weiss, a convicted child sex offender, as one of his alleged abusers.

He's long spoken of being sexually abused by a Hollywood paedophile ring but has never previously named those responsible. He has now launched a $10m (7.6m) fundraising drive for a film in which he said he would expose paedophilia in Hollywood and name other alleged abusers.

He stated the money would pay for security for himself and his family and a legal fund, as well as the production and distribution of the film.

Astin said in a statement, posted on TwitLonger, that "Feldman communicated to me at some point, what some of his experiences were." He explained the two were never particularly close, but have remained friends, and that it pained him to witness his co-star's struggles with drugs and alcohol, and the lack of support he was offered by the adults around him.

"I've been communicating regularly with my friend and I've been rooting for him and dreading that he will suffer more in some way as a function of following his dream, pursuing his truth and staying focused on the mission he believes he was put on this earth to accomplish," he said.

 Corey Feldman says he is the victim of paedophilia in Hollywood

He noted that Feldman has his "friendship and my loyalty", but that he won't blindly support everything the actor does; that his is "reasoned, careful support".

"If he knows of specific people and can leverage some legal position to stop evil from happening, God Bless him. I'm proud of Corey," Astin added.

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Louis CK's history of joking about masturbation takes on a more sinister tone amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

Five women spoke to the New York Times about alleged experiences with the comedian and filmmaker. All of the claims accuse CK, whose real name is Louis Szekely, of masturbating in their presence or implying that he wanted to.

Comedy duo Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov claimed that CK invited them to his hotel room in Aspen, Colorado after a show and then, while they were still fully clothed, proceeded to "get completely naked, and start masturbating".

Abby Schachner and Rebecca Corry both accused CK of asking them if they could go to his dressing room so he could masturbate in front of them.

CK's publicist, Lewis Kay, told the New York Times that the comedian would not respond. "Louis is not going to answer any questions," Kay wrote in an email. The Independent has contacted his representative for comment.

Recommended Five women accuse comedian Louis CK of sexual misconduct

Since the New York Times story, people on social media along with several publications have pointed out how masturbation is a recurring theme in CK's work, which takes on a more sinister light in the wake of the allegations.

Here are some of the most cited examples, via The Cut:

Men dont really have judegment, they have intent. They just want to spray the world with their cum, with their mist. Louis CK, 2017

My problem is very simple  trying to find a place in my house where I can masturbate without somebody bothering me. And thats getting really difficult, theres nowhere to go. And my wife has her mother living with us. Im on the streets now with nowhere to go. Now I know when I see a guy in the West Side Highway, jerking off in plain daylight. Thats not a homeless guy, thats a married man right there. Hes got nowhere to go. Fuck it. Fuck you. Go ahead and look, man. What else am I going to do? Louis CK: "One Night Stand", 2005

Now when I see a beautiful girl walking down the street, Im like, Hey, fuck you, I dont give a shit.  ew. Go fuck somebody else, Ill jerk off to you later, probably have a better time. Shameless, 2007

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My dick had touched a lot of things  because  thats what you do when youre a young boy, you touch your dick to many surfaces around the world, just fucking looking for anything that feels good enough  that, uh, you dont have to talk to a girl. Shameless, 2007

Im 42, Im really good at masturbating. Im like the best masturbator on the planet earth. Im really there is nobody better at that than me, so Im gonna continue to excel at that. Im gonna focus on that and raising my children. I know its not nice to say both those things in one sentence, but they happen to be the two things that I do the best. - Louie, "Night Out, 2010

I need to cum, I need to  cumming is a need, I came the first time when I was 12 and I havent skipped a day. I cum every day and I fucked maybe 20 times in my life so. Its just been me doing most of the work and I really  you know, I jerk off way too much and it upsets me and I dont know why. Maybe cause its so selfish, I dont know what it is, but I know its bad, I know Im hurting somebody somewhere.

"Theres something wrong with  I was thinking the other day, that you can figure out how bad  how bad a person you are by how soon after September 11th you masturbated, like, how long you waited? And for me it was between the two buildings going down. Chewed Up, 2008Some things Im sick of, like the constant, perverted, sexual thoughts. Im so tired of those  It makes me into an idiot. Jacking off to morons, and ooh, look at my tits. Yeah, your tits are awesome. Its a dumb part of life that Im sick of. Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theatre, 2011

In 2015 there was also an article published by Death and Taxes which compiled a 27-minute supercut of the times CK referenced masturbation.

Recommended Jane Seymour reveals harassment that stopped her working for a year

Reports around CK's alleged behaviour emerged as far back as 2012, when Gawker ran an article titled Which Beloved Comedian Likes to Force Female Comedians to Watch Him Jerk Off? The article, which did not mention anyone by name, described as "shameless funnyman" - widely interpreted to refer to CK's comedy special Shameless,, and mentioned a specific alleged incident where the comedian exposed himself to a female comedy duo in his hotel room and blocked the door when they tried to escape.

In 2016, in an interview with the Daily Beast, Roseanne Barr predicted that another male comic - after Bill Cosby - would get "busted".

"It's Louis CK, locking the door and masturbating in front of women comics and writers," she claimed. "I can't tell you, I've heard so many stories. Not just him, but a lot of them. And it's just par for the course. It's just s**t women have to put up with."

Barr later clarified to the publication that she had no "first hand knowledge" of the allegations and was repeating on the rumours she had heard.

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This year's hotly anticipated John Lewis Christmas advert has been released fit with a song recorded by British band Elbow.

Fronted by Guy Garvey, the band follows in the footsteps of London band Vaults, Gabrielle Aplin and Tom Odell to be handed the honour of featuring on what has become an annual festive treat for British television viewers.

The song selected as this year's cover is The Beatles track Golden Slumbers, which features on the legendary band's eleventh album Abbey Road released in 1969.

This year's advert has been directed by the Oscar-winning writer-director Michel Gondry, more details on whom you can find here.

Brit Award-winning band Elbow have released seven records, their most recent - Little Fictions - being released on 3 February 2017 and their fourth, titled The Seldom Seen Kid, scoring them the coveted Mercury Prize in 2008. It featured well-known song One Day Like This.

Elbow - who performed a secret set at this year's Glastonbury Festival - supported The Killers' headline show at London's Hyde Park this summer.

The Manchester-hailing band is comprised of Garvey, bassist Pete Turner, keyboardist Craig Potter and guitarist Mark Potter. Their longtime drummer Richard Jupp left in January 2016.

John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Show all 9 1 /9 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Shadows, 2007 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years From Me to You, 2008 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Sweet Child of Mine, 2009 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Rocking Horse 2010 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Long Wait, 2011 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Snowpeople in Love, 2012 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Bear and the Hare, 2013 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Monty the Penguin, 2014 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Man on the Moon, 2015

Their cover of Golden Slumbers will feature on the band's Best Of album, released 24 November.

Previous John Lewis Christmas ad covers include Oasis song Half the World Away and Your Song by Elton John.

Click here for our verdict on the 2017 ad.

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This year's hotly anticipated John Lewis Christmas advertisement has been unveiled - and it's a two-minute short directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry.

The retailer's latest festive ad, featuring a creature known as Moz the Monster, is accompanied by a Beatles cover track performed by Elbow.

While Gondry has directed numerous features since 2001, his most notable work was the genre-bending 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood.

Gondry won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with the film enduring as something of a modern cult classic with many critics hailing it as one of the greatest films of the century so far.

His other credits include The Science of Sleep (2006), Be Kind Rewind (2008) and The Green Hornet (2011) which served as his Hollywood debut starring Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Oscar-winning actor Christoph Waltz.

John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Show all 9 1 /9 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Shadows, 2007 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years From Me to You, 2008 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Sweet Child of Mine, 2009 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Rocking Horse 2010 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Long Wait, 2011 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Snowpeople in Love, 2012 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Bear and the Hare, 2013 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years Monty the Penguin, 2014 John Lewis Christmas adverts through the years The Man on the Moon, 2015

The irreverent director's most recent film was 2015 comedy Microbe & Gasoline starring Amelie lead Audrey Tatou.

Gondry has previous directing adverts having shot commercials for Levis Drugstore, Gap, Nike and Apple. He has also directed videos for Bjork, Daft Punk and Metronomy.

You can find our review of the new Christmas ad here.

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For the past few years, Black Friday has become a focal point for many US and UK retailers  and for media outlets hungry for images of shoppers bursting into stores in pursuit of posh televisions.

The event, supposedly named after the moment when retailers move into profit for the year, has quickly escalated into a four-day shopping festival. But it is not the only game in town  or even the biggest.

Black Friday falls the day after Thanksgiving in the US (November 23 this year) and is followed up by a long-weekend extravaganza which culminates in the online-focused Cyber Monday. It has recalibrated, and brought forward, many consumers pre-Christmas shopping plans.

However, unlike Black Friday, Chinas 11 November Singles Day is still predominately focused on local consumers and completely dominated by one online retailer  Alibaba.

The economic impact of Black Friday is dwarfed by this online one-day retail festival from China. Singles Day has gone under the radar for most of the general public in the West, but in 2016, Chinese shoppers spent an incredible $17.8bn (13.5bn) in 24 hours on the Alibaba online platform  Chinas Amazon equivalent.

The event is also known as Bachelors Day because of the surplus of males caused by the governments one child policy (Shutterstock)

This online sales bonanza shifts more goods than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales days in the US combined. Black Friday in the US saw online sales hit a record of just over $3bn (2.2bn) in 2016.

Origins

Singles Day started as an obscure anti-Valentines celebration for single people in China back in the 1990s. The popular story is that it was started by students at Nanjing University who celebrated their singledom by treating themselves. It takes place on 11 November every year and is sometimes known as bare sticks holiday, after the way the date is written (11/11).

The event is also known as Bachelors Day, and its not hard to see why. China has a surplus of males caused by years of the governments one child policy. By 2020, sociologists expect the gender imbalance to have widened to 35 million and by 2030, it is estimated that one in four Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married. That is a big market.

Black Friday was, of course, initially driven and then exported to the UK and other markets by major US retailers, specifically Walmart and Amazon. In China, it was the e-commerce giant Alibaba which adopted Singles Day in 2009, just as online shopping started to explode.

By 2020, sociologists expect Chinas gender imbalance to have widened to 35 million and by 2030 (Shutterstock)

It has now become a day when everyone, regardless of their relationship status, buys themselves gifts. Alibaba spotted this as a chance for retailers to generate interest and excitement and to boost sales in the lull between Chinas Golden Week national holiday in October and the peak Christmas season.

Like much of the global growth in online sales, Singles Day has been driven by mobile. Nowhere is this more stark than in China where, with 1.3 billion smartphone users, mobile shopping is huge. Around 37 per cent of Chinese shoppers buy products using their phones, compared to the global average of 13 per cent.

Weve seen that Alibabas sales numbers for Singles Day are astonishing. And the growth has been too. The chart below shows how Singles Day sales for Alibaba have risen over the past seven years. Last year alone, sales were up 32 per cent on the previous year.

According to Alibaba, during the event on 2016 they processed more than a billion payment transactions in total, with 120,000 transactions per second at peak and their distribution system processed more than 657 million delivery orders.

Analysts have predicted this years event could see Alibaba rack up sales of $20bn (1 5.2bn) despite a slowdown in Chinas economy, partly due to it having a broader audience.

Copy cats

Of course those kinds of numbers attract the interest of Western retailers too and the 2016 event saw 37 per cent of total buyers purchasing products from international brands or merchants. Companies like US retailers Costco and Macys as well as Britains Top Shop and House of Fraser have marketplaces on Alibabas Tmall site have already got involved.

And, for the first time, Alibabas 2017 Singles Day festival will bring more than 100 Chinese brands to overseas buyers, offering special promotions targeting over 100 million overseas Chinese consumers in Asia and around the world.

There is one rather sensitive obstacle to the adoption of Singles Day in the UK, however. The eleventh day of the eleventh month is Armistice Day when Britain marks the end of the First World War and the nation remembers all those who have died in military service. There will be many who think it distasteful to run a shopping event on that day. However, as David McCorquodale, head of retail at KPMG, pointed out: Singles Day in China is the biggest promotions day in the world. [The date] will stall its entry to the UK, but not forever.

Given the rapid globalisation of most retail trends and the way online retail now allows immediate access to millions of products from thousands of manufacturers, it is indeed impossible to envisage that Singles Day wont extend its reach, in some form, to Western consumers very quickly.

Nelson Blackley is a senior research associate at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University. This article was originally published on The Conversation (theconversation.com)
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Ride hailing giant Uber has lost its appeal against what employment lawyers and trade unions have been calling a landmark ruling, ordering it to treat its drivers as fully-fledged employees of the company, and not self-employed.

But what does the ruling actually mean and should we, as customers, care?

What does Fridays ruling actually mean?

In a London court on Friday, Judge Jennifer Eady QC threw out Ubers arguments against a previous tribunals findings that its drivers must be classed as workers and afforded the corresponding rights under UK and EU law.

That means that the California-based company will have to pay drivers a minimum wage in the UK, provide sick pay and holiday pay.

The case was brought by two drivers -- Mr Farrar and Mr Aslam  who won the first round of the tribunal in October 2016, but Uber appealed that decision at the time claiming that it would deprive drivers of the personal flexibility they value.

What does the ruling mean for drivers in the long run?

Mareike Mohlmann, an assistant professor of information systems management at Warwick Business School, said that the ruling  if implemented  could change a lot for drivers.

This decision is likely to result in advantages, some drivers might receive a higher salary once being officially employed by Uber since they might now get compensated for sick leave or holiday pay. It might be easier for them to have a voice when organising in workers' associations, and thus this decision is likely to increase drivers work satisfaction, she says.

Recommended Brighton renews Uber license as it monitors London outcome

But she also says that there could be drawbacks in that it could decrease drivers autonomy.

Currently, Uber drivers are self-employed and work as freelancers. Thus, for instance, they can choose their working hours as they please, or use the car not only for business but also for private purposes, she explains.

"Due to this flexibility to work whenever it fits into their schedule, many Uber drivers are not driving full-time, but using Uber as a source to generate income in addition to their main job. The decision might limit access to jobs for some of the current Uber drivers, in particular those that work for Uber on a part-time basis, since Uber might hire less employees that are employed in full-time positions in future."

How has Uber reacted?

Uber immediately issued a statement condemning the decision and said that it intends to appeal. It said that there are up to two further potential stages in the appeals process: the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed. The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal, said Tom Elvidge, Uber acting general manager for the UK.

The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80 per cent of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. Weve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and well keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better, he said.

The company also pointed out that, more than 50,000 people in the UK drive with Uber and neither of the two people who brought the appeal currently drives on the Uber app.

It said that in 2016, drivers using the Uber app in the UK made average fares, after the companys service fee, of 15 per hour.

Even after costs, the average driver took home well over the National Living Wage.

So what implications does it have for customers? And will Uber become more expensive?

If Ubers subsequent appeals fail, and the ruling is enacted, it would certainly drive up costs for Uber and its not unthinkable that those would be passed on to the customer  though it would take some time to determine just how pricey trips might become.

Carolyn Brown, employment partner at audit, tax and consulting services company RSM said that costs could also be driven up as a consequence of Ubers exposure to tax and National Insurance Contribution liabilities.

As it stands, Uber would not be obliged to pay employer NIC in respect of their drivers if they are self-employed. If they are workers though, they may be exposed to a significant NIC liability. There may also be a substantial VAT liability, she said.

Could the ruling set a precedent for other cases and countries?

Crowley Woodford, employment partner at law firm Ashurst, said that beyond Uber the, said that this case could have implications far beyond Uber itself.

Uber's business model for its workforce has again been found to be fatally flawed, he said.

This decision has re-opened a can of worms which will have a ripple effect on the financial viability of the gig economy in its current form and beyond that into mainstream industries."

Tim Goodwin, associate at law firm Winckworth Sherwood, agrees.

This is a hugely significant decision for Uber, and also the gig economy more generally, he said.

Increasingly, we are seeing that courts and tribunals are reluctant to allow businesses to have their cake and eat it, by exercising enormous control over their workforce whilst also denying them basic rights like paid holiday, sick leave and protection from discrimination, he added.

Internationally, the ruling if implemented could have consequences too. It could set a precedent for other countries, where the gig economy and workers right are also being scrutinised. The UK, however, is one of Ubers biggest international markets, so any final decision here would likely be particularly noteworthy for the business.

And finally, does this have anything to do with the Uber London licencing ban?

Not directly.

On 22 September Transport for London announced that it was scrapping Ubers licence to operate in its current form in London. There were several reasons cited for the decision, but most centred around public safety and security  background checks on drivers and Uber's alleged use of secret software known as "greyball", which the company built to avoid regulators.

The process around this particular case also started almost a year before TfL made its decision.

Undoubtedly, though, Fridays decision is likely to deal a sharp blow to Uber at a time when its already bruised.

Uber is battling a slew of legal cases and challenges in several US states and has been forced to quit countries including Denmark and Hungary.

There no doubt that it could have done without Friday's decision.
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The European Union and Britain will not be able to reach a comprehensive deal on their future economic relations by a two-year exit deadline, Germanys largest industry group BDI said on Friday, adding that the threat of a hard Brexit was high.

The two sides will need many years to complete a comprehensive deal on trade and investments before the March 29, 2019, deadline mandated in EU law, BDI Managing Director Joachim Lang told Reuters..

The threat of a very hard Brexit remains high, Mr Lang said. Our companies are preparing for all scenarios. Anything else would be naive.

Mr Lang will be part of a delegation of European business leaders who will meet Prime Minister Theresa May in London on Monday.

Ms May will reiterate her desire for a two-year Brexit implementation period, her office said.

Mr Lang said that the unclear outlines of the future shape and the timeline of a deal were creating uncertainty for businesses.

It will be impossible to negotiate, agree and ratify a comprehensive deal on the future relationship that encompasses trade, investments and economic ties by 30 March 2019, Lang said. This process will last years.

The BDI said last month German firms active in Britain should make provisions for the scenario of Britain leaving the EU without an agreement, known as a hard Brexit, because the UK Government does not know what it wants.

Reuters
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Uber has lost its appeal against a landmark ruling ordering it to treat its drivers as workers, paying them minimum wage and affording them rights including sickness and holiday pay.

The business giant vowed to launch another appeal in the case, which could affect 40,000 drivers in London and has prompted concern among customers over potential price rises.

Uber sent only one representative to an Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing in London, which was packed with supporters of its drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam.

Mr Farrar, who has since stopped working for Uber because he could not earn enough money, said they would fight to the end if the firm is granted permission to launch a second appeal.

Its not about me and Yaseen, its not about all our co-claimants, all Uber drivers  its about workers everywhere, he told The Independent.

Uber wants to stay in the internet cloud and divorce itself from the reality on the ground.

Its time to come back down to the ground, face its responsibilities and run this business in a responsible way.

Mr Farrar said that if Ubers legal argument succeeds more firms may seek to replicate its business model and treat workers as serfs.

(AFP/Getty Images) (AFP/Getty)

Youll see the Uberfication of industry across Britain, he added. Thats the future if we lose this, so we have to continue fighting it until the end and we will.

Judge Jennifer Eady QC threw out Ubers arguments against a previous tribunals findings that its drivers must be classed as workers and afforded the corresponding rights under UK and EU law.

She told the hearing that any Uber driver with the app switched on in the area they were authorised to work in, and accepting assignments was working for Uber, which itself classes them as self-employed.

Recommended Uber to continue operating after filing appeal against its London ban

The companys lawyers called the findings inconsistent and perverse in their appeal but Judge Eady said: The reality of the situation was that the drivers were incorporated into the Uber businessthe true relationship was not one where Uber was acting as the drivers agent.

She thanked the claimants for their great patience in the long-running case, as they hugged and celebrated the result.

Mr Aslam said he had suffered a lot through the gruelling case, adding: Theyve got thousands of drivers on the streets with as little liability to them as possible and that cant be right.

You cant have a company making millions and workers working below minimum wage.

A report by Labour MP Frank Field previously found that some drivers were in danger of taking home as little as 2 an hour  less than a third of the National Living Wage.

Finding that regulatory risks and charges were being offloaded on drivers, the report concluded that the practices described to us by drivers working with Uber would appear to fit the Victorians definition of sweated labour.

Uber controversies Show all 4 1 /4 Uber controversies Uber controversies June 2017 Travis Kalanick resigned from his position as CEO of Uber in July of this year, after a tumultous period for the company. A sexist workplace culture was exposed by a damning internal report, leading to heightened pressure on the CEO and consequently to him taking a leave of absence in June. A week later he was forced to resign after losing the confidence of the board of investors AFP/Getty Uber controversies June 2017 Indian police escort Uber taxi driver and convicted rapist Shiv Kumar Yadav following his court appearance in New Delhi on 8 December, 2014. An Uber executive, Eric Alexander, was fired in June of this year after reportedly obtaining the records of the rapist's victim, with the intent to cast doubt on her account of the incident. She later sued the company for defamation and violating her privacy rights Chandan Khanna/AFP Uber controversies May 2017 The company were ordered to pay up to $45 million dollars back to New York based drivers, after taking too much in commission over a two and a half year period. We made a mistake and we are committed to making it right by paying every driver every penny they are owed, plus interest, as quickly as possible, said Rachel Holt, Ubers regional general manager in the US and Canada, to the Wall Street Journal Getty Uber controversies December 2016 Uber's self-driving cars were ordered to be removed from the roads by a Californian car regulator, after being spotted skipping traffic lights. Uber insist that the incidents were "human error" rather than a design flaw. The New York Times later refuted this in an article claiming the autonomous technology had in fact failed Youtube/KTVU

Its model is seen as part of concerning trends in the gig economy, where increasing numbers of workers have been left vulnerable by short-term contracts or freelance jobs.

In another case, London firm Pimlico Plumbers lost its appeal against a ruling finding a long-serving plumber was a worker entitled to the same rights contested in the Uber case, while another tribunal is considering Deliveroos business model.

Paul Jennings, a lawyer who represented Mr Farrar and Mr Aslam for Bates Wells Braithwaite, said the ruling could have significant implications for approximately 40,000 Uber drivers and, more broadly, individuals engaged across the so called gig economy.

Recommended UK workers prefer traditional employment to the gig economy

He added: We anticipate that tens of thousands drivers will now seek to make substantial back-dated claims.

Hailing the landmark victory against Uber, the GMB union urged it not to waste everyone's time and money dragging its lost cause to the Supreme Court.

The Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) is representing appellants in the Deliveroo and Uber cases and said it would continue lobbying for Mayor of London, Transport for London (TfL) and the Government to take wider action.

Its General Secretary, Jason Moyer-Lee, said Fridays decision classed Uber drivers as workers rather than employees while rejecting the firms claim that they would lose their freedom as a result of the ruling.

Theyre still self-employed but theyre in a different category, he added. They carry out their work as part of someone elses business and for that reason theyre entitled to a number of employment rights.

Stephen Hull, who works as an Uber driver in Birmingham, said that although the legal case only involved the companys London branch it had set a nationwide precedent.

Uber classes itself as an 'agent' of self-employed drivers (Getty)

We face the same problems, be it in Birmingham or London or Manchester or wherever in the UK, or even throughout the world, he told The Independent.

Its modus operandi works on over-supply and there being a car on each corner that is convenient for passengers.

I can see that, but as a driver who is bearing the cost of that over-supply Im not making enough money and its something that needs to be addressed.

Mr Farrar and Mr Aslam won the first round of the employment tribunal in October last year but Uber appealed, saying it could deprive drivers of the personal flexibility they value.

It has 14 days to launch another appeal attempt, which could take the case to the Court of Appeal and eventually the Supreme Court.

Tom Elvidge, Uber UKs acting general manager said: Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed. The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal.

The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80 per cent of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. Weve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and well keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better.

The judgement came months after Uber was dealt another blow by TfL, which said it will not renew the firm's licence.

The US-based company has launched a separate appeal against that decision and Mr Farrar said it was a terrible time for it to continue fighting the workers rights case.

He added: At a certain point you cannot thwart the will of the people, you cannot continue to flout multiple aspects of the law and get away with that."
We had many effective talks - Moldovan President, Farewell ceremony for President of Moldova

On November 10, farewell ceremony for President of Moldova Igor Dodon was held in the Armenian Presidential Palace. Before the ceremony the Armenian and Moldovan Presidents held a private meeting during which they highly appreciated the results of talks during Mr. Dodons visit which will give new impetus to the development of bilateral friendly ties and deepening the cooperation in fields of mutual interest. Dear Mr. Igor Dodon , I want to once again express confidence that your visit to Armenia will enrich the agenda of our relations and cooperation in political, economic and humanitarian spheres since in fact we need this, and it derives from the interests of our peoples. Yesterday you visited the Parliament, today you will meet the Prime Minister of Armenia, in other words, there is a chance to hold talks on all issues. Of course, we have a lot in common both in bilateral relations and aspirations of our peoples, as well as in our personal aspirations, and we will reach success through cooperation. I think we need to move forward in this way. Once again I want to thank you for the visit. We held productive talks discussing many issues of mutual interest, the Armenian President said. In his turn the Moldovan President thanked his Armenian counterpart for the invitation and wonderful reception, stating that he can say for sure that the visit was effective as expected. In fact, yesterday we touched upon all issues of bilateral cooperation. We agreed to hold a session of the Inter-governmental commission in near future. I hope it will take place in the first half of next year together with the business forum. Yesterday we had many effective talks with the leadership of the Parliament and lawmakers. We agreed to propose an initiative, and we will invite Armenian MPs, who will work in the inter-parliamentary friendship group, to Moldova. I hope this will happen in the upcoming months. We have also discussed other issues relating to cooperation of our countries. I once again want to thank for the invitation. Mr. President, we look forward to your visit to Moldova, Igor Dodon said.
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An Airbnb landlord in London made 12m in a single year - thanks to income from almost 900 rental properties across the capital.

New research says the unnamed individual or management company pulled in 11.9m revenue from a portfolio of 881 properties.

The figures were calculated by Airbnb analysis site AirDNA, which claims the individual is the highest-earning Airbnb landlord in the world.

Airbnb is a portal through which people list their entire home or rooms within their home for short-term rent, typically to tourists.

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A landlord in Bali was a close second, banking 11.8m through 504 properties in Bali.

Landlords in Cape Town, Paris and Barcelona also featured among the most lucrative places for Airbnb property owners.

The analysis raises questions about Airbnbs business model - what started as a very personal way to share your apartment appears to be turning into a portal through which big companies are basing entire property management businesses.

AirDNA chief executive Scott Shatford told the Telegraph: Airbnb is no longer a community just for individuals renting out their space or properties on their own.

But Airbnb says the typical host earns 3,000 a month and typically hosts for 36 nights per year.

The site scrapes data from the Airbnb site to come up with its calculations.

The split between individual and management companies is still around 65 per cent to 35 per cent, according to AirDNA, but it says the ratio is shifting towards the latter.

In contrast, Airbnb insists 80 per cent of its UK hosts are sharing space in their primary home.

A spokesperson said: The vast majority of Airbnb hosts are regular people who share their homes - typically their greatest expense - to boost their income and support their families.
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Cressida Dick has been accused of calling for more black boys to be locked up after suggesting that harsher jail terms should use to deter teenagers driving a spate of knife crime in London.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who is Britains most senior police officer, made the comments to campaigners, prison governors and academics gathered at a charity event.

Ms Dick voiced concern over a spike in stabbings in London, which have risen by more than 15 per cent so far this year and seen 16 teenagers among those murdered using knives.

I haven't come here to argue for putting more children in prisonbut I'm seeing them commit serious offences in increasing levels of violence and increasing numbers, and I have to be realistic, the Commissioner said.

We need a blend of better engagement by public services, more diversion and more imaginative community resolution to help keep as many young people out of prison as possible.

For debate, should we couple that with harsher more effective sentencing? It is clear other approaches are no longer working.

Ms Dick said young black men and boys were statistically more likely to be the victims and perpetrators of knife crime, making up 21 of 24 teenagers murdered so far this year.

The deadly spate of stabbings shows no sign of slowing, with a 21-year-old man murdered in Newham on Wednesday and a 17-year-old boy stabbed to death in Penge last week.

17-year-old Michael Jonas was stabbed to death in Penge, south-east London, on 2 November (Metropolitan Police)

Ms Dick said the crime wave was being driven by a core group of young offenders repeatedly committing assault and robbery with relative impunity.

The Commissioner cited the case of a 16-year-old boy from south London who has committed 42 separate crimes including assault and drugs offences in three years, carries a knife, is involved in gangs, but has never been jailed.

He's a child - he's our responsibility and we have to ask ourselves what is it about the system that isn't working? Ms Dick said.

Why is he offending so much and how is he able to? And he is by no means alone.

Recommended Knife crimes being prosecuted less despite rise in offences

She argued that an increasing number of young people do not fear state action and are not deterred by the threat of imprisonment because they do not believe theywill be jailed, or that it would be for a short time.

Ms Dick had been invited as a guest speaker by the Howard League for Penal Reform, which campaigns for fewer people to be jailed and highlights poor conditions and failures within the criminal justice system.

Frances Crook, the charitys chief executive, said the Commissioner had used the opportunity to call for more young children, in effect more black boys, to be sent to prison and for longer.

In a damning response, she said Ms Dick did not deliver a lecture - it appeared to be more a few unconnected thoughts presented as challenges to the audience.

Ms Crook added: It was rather surprising that the head of the Met chose not to talk about things that are within her power to act on, but instead to focus on areas outside her expertise and responsibility, particularly when there are some good stories to tell about the work of her organisation.

While Ms Dick argued that prison protects the public from dangerous people, she admitted that two out of three teenagers go on to reoffend within a year of their release.

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We also know that many of the perpetrators of violent crime are also victims of violent crime and vice versa, she added.

One in three robbery victims is aged 10 to 19, while the 26 per cent of rape victims are in the same age group, along with 16 per cent of sexual offenders.

We need to step in earlier into people's lives, the Commissioner said. We need to give more real deterrents and we need to use the opportunity that imprisonment could give to better ensure that children, and we must remember they are children, don't reoffend.

A HM Inspectorate of Prisons report found that not one youth jail in England and Wales is currently safe, after a staggering rise in violence, easy access to drugs and declining emphasis on rehabilitation.

A separate report by Labour MP David Lammy also found that black people in the UK are proportionally more likely to be imprisoned than those in the US.

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League, said that authorities should not be locking young offenders up for the remainder of their childhoods in institutions that have been deemed unsafe.

There is no evidence that more prison sentences will actually work, he told The Independent.

Knife crime was falling when mandatory sentences for knife possession were introduced a few years ago, and now its rising.

(ONS (ONS)

So it doesnt necessarily follow that her proposals would stop the knife crime epidemic.

Mr Neilson said that while the head of the Metropolitan Police cannot directly make sentencing decisions, anything she says carries weight and the intervention could influence politicians who can spark new laws.

He added: What [Ms Dick] is talking about is a change to a national sentencing policy, and I would question whether that should be changed by a local trend in London, however serious that is.

The campaigner described a vicious cycle, where increases in crime have driven lengthened sentences and a rising prison population, which in turn has worsened conditions and led to riots and violence.

The solutions to this are not going to lie in the criminal justice system - they might manage things slightly but they wont stop the underlying reasons why these gangs are running rampant, Mr Neilson added.

The debate came after the Metropolitan Police released guidelines to officers allowing them to stop investigating some lower-level crimes as the force works to save 400m by 2020.

An efficiency report released by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary this week warned that police across the country were struggling to maintain a full response because of significant stress caused by continued spending cuts amid a huge rise in demand.

Police leaders say their officers have become the service of last resort to fill gaps in mental health provision and other public services, despite being at the lowest number since 1985.
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A report into the treatment of the 96 Hillsborough victims families by the former bishop of Liverpool James Jones supports the proposed Hillsborough law  which would force public bodies and public officials to tell the truth.

Titled The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power, the report looked at the families 27-year ordeal  between the 1989 disaster and the end of the inquests in April 2016. It puts further pressure on the Government to make sure future victims and their loved ones dont have to endure years of lies and misinformation.

The report by Jones, who chaired the independent panel  which uncovered evidence that led to new inquests  was requested by Prime Minister Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary.

The Hillsborough law is an initiative of the victims families. It would prevent the obstruction and reputation management by police and others that made the 27-year process so tragic. The law would require public bodies to act with candour  simply put, to tell the truth. But candour means more than just not lying. It would require the police and other public bodies to cooperate fully with investigations. Under the Hillsborough law, victims can apply to the High Court or an inquiry chair to force public bodies to set out their position and make it clear what they say they did right, and what they accept they did wrong.

Duty of candour

There is already a common-law duty of candour in the UK, but its limitations were laid bare in the Hillsborough inquests. For two years, the various police parties refused to accept any failings. They convinced the coroner that the jury should not be told about the 2012 apology by the then chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, who stated that: In the immediate aftermath senior officers sought to change the record of events And that: Disgraceful lies were told which blamed the Liverpool fans for the disaster.

These two admissions were central to the Hillsborough families cases. But they were ignored by the police and their lawyers during the inquests. Instead they again argued aggressively that the disaster was the fans fault. This ensured that the hearing took longer, cost more and inflicted more pain on the families who were forced to endure it.

Recommended The Hillsborough investigations which led to six people being charged

Under the Hillsborough law, failing to comply with the duty of candour by a public official or public body would be a crime. If an official misleads the public, the media, court or inquiry, he or she could be fined or go to prison for two years. So in the Hillsborough inquests, the police would not have been able to pretend that the 2012 apology didnt happen. It would have spared the families and the public purse tortuous weeks of cross examination.

From Hillsborough to Grenfell

Proposed with cross-party support, the Hillsborough law had its first reading in parliament in March this year, but fell because of the general election. But the bishops report highlights the costs of inaction. The letter to Theresa May, and a big push on Twitter to coincide with the release of the bishops report may resurrect the bill in this Parliament  and there is no better time. The Grenfell Tower disaster is another tragedy that will require support for the victims and candour from public bodies.

The Hillsborough law would empower the Grenfell victims and their families (Reuters)

The immediacy of the apparent failings at Grenfell was shocking. We saw the fire spread with terrifying speed on television and soon learned of the tenancy associations warnings to the intractable management committee. We saw the anger in the streets at the councils relief and rehousing effort. Initial demands were made for a report by the end of summer, but the survivors and families were forced to settle for a longer public inquiry chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick  a retired judge.

The Hillsborough law would empower the Grenfell victims and their families to demand that the public bodies involved cooperate fully and openly with the inquiry. These bodies would be forced to tell the truth, and be clear about any failures. If the law is passed, the legacy of Hillsborough will help to create a new era of transparency and justice for victims and their families.

Jared Ficklin is a lecturer in law at the Liverpool Law Clinic at the University of Liverpool. This article was originally published on The Conversation (conversation.com)
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A teenage boy whose details were recorded by police for sexting is launching a legal challenge to have them deleted.

In the first case of its kind, representatives of the boy known only as CL, have won the right for a judicial review into Greater Manchester Polices (GMP) actions.

The force put the boys details on its system over an incident in 2015, when he was 14 years old.

After sending a photo of his penis to a girl over Snapchat, his head teacher and a local police officer told his mother and warned him that it was a criminal offence.

He was not prosecuted but GMP have kept a record of the incident under laws forbidding the making or sharing of indecent images, and have refused to delete his name from their files.

The boys mother argued that the decision could violate his human rights and affect his future education and employment prospects if he has to disclose his police record.

"It's going to be held there infinitum, so for all his adult life it hangs over him, she told the BBC.

"I'm his parent and it's my job to know when something needs to be dealt with and that's why I'm still pursuing proceedings to ultimately get his name removed.

"We are criminalising our children for something that if they did at the age of 18 is not a crime.

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A lawyer acting for the family told the High Court that police had breached the boys right to a private life under the Human Rights Act by recording the information and refusing to delete it.

The potential impact on CL is immense and likely to have a number of consequences for him, she told the hearing in Manchester.

Charlotte Bentham, acting for the Chief Constable of GMP, said the full retention of records was lawful and for a legitimate policing purpose.

Police are required to record all incidents on their crime systems by law, but can decide not to take further action against the young person if it is not in the public interest.

Recommended Why we need to teach children about porn and sexting

Forces treat usually treat sexting as a safeguarding issue for children rather than crime and the NSPCCs guidance states that recorded incidents are unlikely to appear on future records or checks, unless the young person has been involved in other similar activities which may indicate that they're a risk.

But Mr Justice Kerr said the boy's case was arguable and granted him and his family permission for a judicial review.

The judge said the full hearing, at a date yet to be fixed, will hear all the arguments before a judge will decide if the police must delete the record they are keeping of the incident.

The family is being supported by the Just for Kids Law campaign group, which said it wanted to see sense about sexting to prevent children from a lifetime of employment discrimination.

Sexting cases involving children have more than doubled in two years, according to police figures, amid calls to educate boys and girls about the long-term implications of sharing explicit photographs of themselves.

Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for child protection, said at the time: Forces are risk assessing every case to ensure we are not unnecessarily stigmatising children and saddling them with a criminal record.

But there will always be a criminal investigation where we see that young people are being coerced, exploited or blackmailed.

Additional reporting by PA
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The new editor-in-chief of British Vogue Edward Enninful has been lauded for ushering in a new era of diversity for the historic publication.

A far cry from the fashion bibles usual spotlight on trends, Mr Enninful's first issue is a nod to powerful players in politics and the arts, featuring Sadiq Khan, Zadie Smith, Naomi Campbell, Skepta and Millie Bobby Brown.

The front cover of the December issue features a retro-styled portrait of British Ghanaian model and activist Adwoa Aboah, taken by Steven Meisel.

Ms Aboah, 25, founded Gurls Talk, an online community for young women to discuss health, mental health, sex and social media.

The issue also features an interview with London mayor Sadiq Khan by Naomi Campbell on institutional racism and diversity in the UK.

As the magazines acting online editor states, the issue represents a new Vogue - one that celebrates the talented, diverse creatives of Great Britain.

In his first editor's letter, Mr Enninful said he was "determined" his first issue of the magazine would be "a real celebration of Britain".

"But what should such a celebration look like in 2017? The time seemed right to redefine what Vogue can mean today. To open it up," he said.

British Vogue underwent a massive shake up in June when former editor Alexandra Shulman stepped down from the magazines helm after 25 years.

Mr Enninful took his place as the first black male editor of British Vogue, leaving behind his position as fashion and creative director at W Magazine.

The 45-year-old, who was born in Ghana but raised in west London, became the fashion editor for i-D magazine at the age of 18.

His resume includes a stint at Italian Vogue, where he led the magazines first Black Issue" which featured only black models. It sold so successfully that the magazine had to print 60,000 additional copies.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Enninful said his vision for British Vogue was to make it more open.

My Vogue is about being inclusive, he said.

It is about diversity - showing different women, different body shapes, different races, different classes [and] tackling gender.

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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

Naomi Campbell, a close friend of Mr Enninful who was appointed a contributing editor for the magazine, praised the issue as iconic on social media.

This is an iconic day one we must all remember a day of change in most positive way, she wrote on Instagram.

Earlier this year, Ms Campbell criticised the lack of diversity at British Vogue under Ms Shulman, posting a photo to Instagram which showed no black editorial staff members.
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British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful has been praised for his inaugural issue of the magazine, which has shone the spotlight on diversity in politics, art and culture.

The front cover of the December issue features a retro-styled portrait of British Ghanaian model and activist Adwoa Aboah, as well as Sadiq Khan, Zadie Smith, Naomi Campbell and Skepta.

Mr Enninful took his place as the first black male editor of British Vogue earlier this year, replacing former editor Alexandra Shulman who stepped down from the position after 25 years at the helm.

As a child, Mr Enninful moved to London with his six siblings from the Enyan Denkyira region of Ghana.

He first entered the fashion industry as a model, after being spotted at the age of 16 by stylist Simon Foxton.

He was a very good-looking young man. The story has become quite apocryphal. I stopped him on the Tube as I was a scout for non-agency models. I asked him to model and he was interested but needed to ask his mum, he told the Evening Standard.

She was more unsure. I dont remember him having a burning ambition to get into fashion - I remember him wanting to go into law.

He did a couple of shoots and saw what was possible.

Mr Enninful left an arts degree course at Goldsmiths University to become the fashion editor for i-D magazine at the age of 18.

In 1998, he moved to Italian Vogue, before American Vogue. He then took over as fashion and style director of W Magazine in 2011.

His resume includes a stint at Italian Vogue, where he led the magazines first Black Issue which featured only black models. It sold so successfully that the magazine had to print 60,000 additional copies.

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 attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA

When it was announced Mr Enninful would take over British Vogue, he said he had grown up reading the fashion bible.

I am so honoured and humbled to be taking up the mantle of editor, he said in an interview with British Vogue.

I realise I am stepping into the shoes of a hugely respected editor in the shape of Alexandra Shulman, someone who has chosen to leave at the top of their game with a legacy of 25 years of success.
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A British woman imprisoned in Egypt on suspicion of smuggling painkillers is on her third lawyer after a previous representative told her to lie to police, her family has said.

Laura Plummer, 33, was detained after entering the country with hundreds of tramadol pills she said were for her Egyptian boyfriends injured back.

The drug, widely prescribed in Britain, is strictly controlled in Egypt and can only be brought in with government permission.

Recommended Foreign Office steps up drugs warning to holidaymakers to Egypt

Her family has described how lawyers asked her for tens of thousands of pounds and one even told her to lie and say the drugs had been planted.

Rachel Plummer told The Guardian the first representative, appointed in an airport holding cell where Ms Plummer was first detained, had said: If you dont give me 10,000, you will go to prison for 15 years.

That was where Ms Plummer reportedly signed a 38-page document in Arabic she believed would allow her to leave  but she has been behind bars ever since her arrest on 9 October.

And the second lawyer the family hired is said to have asked for 20,000 before instructing Ms Plummer to lie. He didnt last long. As a family we refuse to let Laura lie. He told us its the only way shell come home, but we took the risk, Rachel Plummer told the paper.

Ms Plummer, from Hull, is reportedly now being represented by a third lawyer, obtained through the British consulate.

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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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. 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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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She previously said in a note from her cell: Please help me get out of this hellhole. I dont know whats happening. Im scared. I had no idea that what I was doing was wrong. I thought I was doing a good deed.

Her brother, James Plummer, 31, said the family has been told she could face up to 25 years in jail, with one lawyer even mentioning the death penalty. It is unclear whether this advice came from either of the first two lawyers.

He said bringing the tablets into Egypt for her partner, Omar Caboo, had been an innocent, honest mistake.
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Gordon Brown has suggested the UK could yet remain in the EU if Leave voters realise they are at a "crisis point" in the Brexit negotiations.

The former Prime Minister made his remarks as the Government confirmed the precise time and date of Brexit will be written into law, with the UK set to leave the EU at 11pm GMT  midnight in Brussels  on 29 March 2019.

Mr Brown insisted he is not arguing for a second referendum at this stage but predicted there will come a point when Leave voters conclude that Brexit will not deliver what was promised.

Mr Brown, a Remain campaigner, said in an interview with the BBC that many Brexiteers could still be persuaded of the case for Remain if they were presented with new evidence.

Is there something that we didn't get right the last time that could persuade millions of Leave voters that it was worth going Remain? Mr Brown  who kept the UK out of the Euro saying the time was not right for the single currency  said.

Almost 52 per cent of those who voted in the 2016 Referendum backed Brexit, but Mr Brown said he believes it will become clear to many by next summer that the decision to leave will not deliver the UK what the Leave campaign promised  including an extra 350m a week for the NHS.

I would not try to tell people that they were wrong, he said, acknowledging that people had voted Leave for very real reasons that should be respected in a democracy.

But, he said, there may be scope" for a reassessment.

I cant tell you exactly whats going to happen.. but by next summer the public will have made up their minds that the four red lines that the Government had actually set in place are not going to be achieved.

So we will not have proper control of our borders, we will not have control of our money, we will be paying loads of money to the European Union, we will not have proper control of our courts because we will still be governed in many ways by the European Court of Justice, we will not have proper control of trade because we will not have individual trade agreements for years.

Recommended EU cuts UK growth forecasts due to Brexit

But as David Davis prepares for the latest round of negotiations in Brussels, the Brexit Secretary said the amendments currently going through Parliament will make the UKs departure from the 28-state bloc crystal clear.

And Theresa May issued a blunt message to pro-Remain MPs not to attempt to derail the Brexit process.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph the Prime Minister said: We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union.

Mr Davis indicated that he was talking a pragmatic approach to MPs' concerns by writing Brexit day into the Bill.

He said: Our amendment makes it crystal clear that the UK is leaving the EU at 11pm on March 29 2019.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA UK news in pictures 8 November 2022 A migrant attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA 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

We've listened to members of the public and Parliament and have made this change to remove any confusion or concern about what 'exit day' means.

This important step demonstrates our pragmatic approach to this vital piece of legislation.

Where MPs can improve the Bill, whatever their party, we will work with them.

"We look forward to further debate in the House of Commons when committee stage begins next week."
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Theresa May has vowed to put the exact Brexit date and time in law, after Tory rebels warned she was trying to quietly cling onto law-making powers for many years after departure.

The Prime Minister announced plans to amend the EU Withdrawal Bill to make it absolutely clear that Britains exit will come at 11pm on Friday 29 March 2019.

Let no-one doubt our determination or question our resolve, Brexit is happening," Ms May said, in a warning to MPs who might yet obstruct the legislation.

Recommended Government could keep new sweeping powers to change laws for years

It will be there in black and white on the front page of this historic piece of legislation, she wrote, in an article for The Daily Telegraph.

The move follows protests that the Withdrawal Bill would allow ministers to retain so-called Henry VIII powers for longer than two years after Brexit, as they claimed.

A group of Conservative backbenchers claimed the powers  allowing Parliament to be bypassed  could effectively be retained for as long as the Government wished.

Theres an ambiguity in the bill as to whether the exit day is a single date or several, ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve told The Independent, in September.

If it is more than one date, many of the very unusual powers in this legislation would last over a much longer period.

The pro-EU Open Britain group described the development as welcome, but also warned it did nothing to mask the Bills inadequacies.

James McGrory, executive director of the Open Britain group, said: This is essentially window dressing from a Government desperate to look like they are making progress on Brexit while the negotiations remain firmly stuck in the mud.

The Bill  which returns to the Commons next week  remained full of further hidden nasties that must be similarly dealt with for the House of Commons to even consider passing it.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, went further, saying: It is compounding the follies around the Brexit negotiations to fix a date and time.

Whilst it is a matter of complete indifference to the EU, it will reduce further the limited leverage which the UK has to tie the hands of negotiators in this way.

The departure day was already set out in law, as exactly two years after the Article 50 notice period was triggered.

Ms May has been accused of refusing to reveal private legal advice that Britain can unilaterally revoke the exit clause, should it choose.

She is also likely to be seeking to calm Brexiteer nerves that Britain will agree, next month, to pay a larger divorce bill in order to kick-start future trade talks.

The Withdrawal Bill will be scrutinised line-by-line by MPs next week - but the Prime Minister warned against attempts to stop it or slow it down.

"We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union, Ms May wrote.

At least 300 amendments and 54 clauses have been put forward for the Withdrawal Bill, which will be debated over eight days before Christmas.

Labour has vowed to continue to oppose it, without major changes, including stronger guarantees of a meaningful vote on any final Brexit deal.
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The British legal expert who wrote Article 50 will make a major speech on Friday accusing Theresa May of misleading the public over whether Brexit can be reversed.

Former diplomat Lord Kerr will condemn the Prime Minister for making a political decision to withhold the truth, that the Government can unilaterally stop Brexit any time it likes.

His latest intervention is the first time he has directly attacked Ms May for failing to be straight with voters about it, with her and her ministers refusing to give clear answers on whether Article 50 can be revoked.

He will also demand Downing Street stop suppressing the release of legal papers proving his case, arguing that the public has a right to know how the country can easily step back from EU withdrawal.

It comes as the next round of Brexit talks gets underway in Brussels with negotiators still struggling to make progress on the early issues of Britains divorce bill, EU citizens rights and the Irish border.

Next week more light will also be shed on the compromises the Government has to make in Westminster to push through its Brexit legislation, made all the more difficult since Ms May lost the Conservative majority in the Commons.

 Donald Tusk says Brexit can still be stopped

For months when asked if Article 50 is reversible, ministers have refused to go further than saying it is not the Governments intention to do so.

But in a speech at an Open Britain event in London, Lord Kerr will say: The fact is that a political decision has been made, in this country, to maintain that there can be no going back.

Actually, the country still has a free choice about whether to proceed.

As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view. And theres nothing in Article 50 to stop them.

I think the British people have the right to know this  they should not be misled.

For several weeks pressure has been building on the Government to publish legal advice it has received, that is believed to state that Parliament can stop Brexit.

The countrys top legal experts are said to have told the Prime Minister that leaving the European Union could be halted if MPs judge that a change of mind is in the national interest.

Lord Kerr, who was Britains permanent representative at the EU before becoming ambassador to the US, will say: The Government give the impression that the Rubicon has been crossed, but they currently refuse to publish their law officers opinion: I think we know why.

They have been careful not to say that we could not take back Mrs Mays letter.

During the Miller case, and at the Despatch Box in both Houses, Government spokesmen have consistently said only that as a matter of firm policy, we wont take it back.

That formula in itself confirms that we could take it back.

Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 1 /8 Brexit: the deciders Brexit: the deciders European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty Brexit: the deciders French President Emmanuel Macron Getty Brexit: the deciders German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters Brexit: the deciders Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA Brexit: the deciders The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty Brexit: the deciders Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images Brexit: the deciders Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA Brexit: the deciders After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA

Polling for The Independent has shown that there is a shift in attitudes towards Brexit with the change potentially accelerating amid a grim economic outlook for the UK.

The exclusive survey in October showed that once dont knows were redistributed, the country backed remaining in the EU by 52 per to 48 per cent.

Conservative MPs have warned Ms May that her own leadership hinges in part on being able to make progress in stalled Brexit talks, with Brussels currently demanding the UK commit to paying a larger divorce bill before any lucrative future trade partnership can be discussed.

But the longer Brussels refuses to allow talks to move on, the closer the prospect of a no-deal Brexit comes, something that industry figures and economic experts have suggested would be a catastrophe for the British economy.

The Government also faces a legislative quagmire in Parliament, trying to push through what is one of the most complex legislative programmes in 18 months without having a majority in the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

A string of European politicians including French President Emmanuel Macron, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and President of the European Council Donald Tusk have indicated that the door remains open if Britain wishes to change its mind.

Lord Kerrs call comes as David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, announced that Britains exit day from the European union will be put on the face of the EU Withdrawal Bill  a concession to the Eurosceptics on the Conservative backbenches.

The Department for Exiting the European Union added it would put this issue to rest and table an amendment to remove all doubt over Britains departure date.

Our amendment makes it crystal clear that the UK is leaving the EU at 11pm on 29 March 2019, Mr Davis said. Weve listened to members of the public and Parliament and have made this change to remove any confusion or concern about what exit day means.

This important step demonstrates our pragmatic approach to this vital piece of legislation. Where MPs can improve the Bill, whatever their party, we will work with them.
Interview of Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian to Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation

Reporter: This visit of yours, which I would say is very rare for Armenian Foreign Minister to visit Israel. Edward Nalbandian: I would rather say, this is very rare to receive Israeli Foreign Minister in Armenia. All Foreign Ministers of Armenia paid visits to Israel. I served for almost 10 years as Armenias Ambassador to Israel. That is why it is not my first visit to Israel. I am always very glad to be back to Jerusalem. It was a new opportunity to be here on the invitation of the Prime-Minister and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a short visit but very intensive one. I had meetings with the Prime-Minister Netanyahu, with Minister for Regional Cooperation Hanegbi, with Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Elkin, with Chairman of your Parliament Mr. Edelstein and also with the Vice-Chairman of Parliament, Tali Ploskov, who is also Chair of the Armenia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group. I had an opportunity to see the Armenian Patriarch. We have very important, centuries-old Armenian presence in Jerusalem. As always, I used the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem and to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Visiting Yad Vashem, as I said, is not the first time. Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan, teach us, especially such nations, like the Jewish and Armenian nations, who suffered, passed through the horrors of genocide, we have moral obligation to join our efforts to fight against new genocides, new crimes against humanity. Reporter: I wanted to ask you regarding this issue. What is your expectations from Israel regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide? Are you satisfied with the current situation? Has it been a topic during your meetings here in Israel? Edward Nalbandian: It was and it is always a topic of our dialogue. As I said, two nations passed through the horrors of genocide. Many scholars, many politicians consider that in case of adequate condemnation of the Armenian Genocide maybe could be possible to prevent Shoah and other genocides. That is why of course, we are expecting that Israel will recognize officially the Armenian Genocide. We feel that in the public opinion of Israel more and more people are in favor of the recognition, including in the Parliament. Yesterday I had a meeting with the Chairman of the Knesset. He again expressed his very clear position of the importance of the recognition by Knesset of the Armenian Genocide. Reporter: I would assume that one of the issues that are being raised between Israel and Armenia is the relations between Armenia and Iran. How do you view the Iranian position in the Middle East and in the region. Is it a positive player in your view? Edward Nalbandian: We have good relations with neighbouring Iran, we cooperate in different fields. Taking into consideration that we have closed borders with other two neighbours, with Turkey and Azerbaijan, so you have to understand that Iran and Georgia are the two neighbours with whom we have not just normal relations, but good cooperation. And we are deploying efforts with the aim to develop our bilateral cooperation and partnership. Reporter: Is it an obstacle to the relations between Israel and Armenia? Edward Nalbandian: I dont think this is an obstacle in our bilateral relations with Israel as the relations of Israel with any neighbouring country of Armenia is not an obstacle. Reporter: We dont see an Ambassador of Armenia in Israel and we dont see an Israeli Ambassador in Yerevan. Whats the reason of not exchanging the Ambassadors directly. Edward Nalbandian: Our position was very clear: as soon as Israel will open an embassy in Armenia, we will reciprocate and open an Embassy in Israel. Reporter: I would assume one of the difficulties in relationship between Armenia and Israel is the issue of your neighbour, Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis are claiming that in the past few months there have been difficulties with ceasefire through violations of the ceasefire. Whats your comment on that: is Armenia violating the ceasefire? Edward Nalbandian: We are never asking our friendly, partner countries to support Armenia against anybody and including against Azerbaijan. On Nagorno-Karabakh issue our expectation is to support and to be in line with the position of the international community. The international community gave a mandate to the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group- the United States, Russia and France - to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. This is the unique situation that the United States, Russia and France, on the level of the Presidents of those countries, adopted five statement on how the conflict could be resolved in a very detailed way with concrete principles and concrete elements elaborated as an integrated whole. And Armenias position is in line with the position of the Co-Chair countries, so with the position of the international community. Reporter: The position of the international community is that those territories are Azerbaijani basically, isnt it? Edward Nalbandian: This is not the position of the international community. The position of the international community, as I said, is expressed in the five statements of the three Co-Chair countries presidents, and its very clearly said that the final status of the Nagorno-Karabakh has to be decided by the free expression of will of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which will have an internationally legally binding force, including for Azerbaijan. This is the position of the international community and we are expressing our support to this position, but Azerbaijan doesnt. Concerning the ceasefire violations, and by the way this is also the position of the three Co-Chair countries, so of the international community, including Armenia, that we have to respect the trilateral ceasefire agreements reached between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1994-1995 without time limitations, three agreements about the ceasefire and about the consolidation of the ceasefire. Azerbaijan is always trying not to respect ceasefire agreements, and even to put under the question that those agreements are in force. This is the difference between our position and the position of Azerbaijan. Even more, the international community through three co-chairs come up with the proposals to create investigation mechanism of violations of the ceasefire agreements. Armenia supports the proposal on the creation of mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations which could serve as a mechanism of prevention. Azerbaijan is rejecting to creation of this mechanism, so the position of the three Co-Chair countries, of course they are mediators and could not always express their opinion about it openly and publicly. Nevertheless, they are always saying that the side, which is rejecting to create this mechanism of prevention takes the responsibility for all the violations of ceasefire. Reporter: Whats your expectations from Israel regarding the military aid or military exports because I know it has been an issue between the two countries. Edward Nalbandian: The trade of arms is not a trade of vegetables and such kind of trade always has its black side, which could have some negative consequences. Which is important in Armenias relations with Israel that we have no taboo for discussing all the questions, even sensitive questions we are discussing openly and we are trying to find ways out. Reporter: Whats your expectation from Israel in that regard? Edward Nalbandian: I said what I could say to you. We are discussing in very open and very positive way.
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Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones has asked for an independent inquiry to examine his "actions and decisions" in relation to Carl Sargeant, a spokesman said.

Mr Sargeant is believed to have taken his own life after he was sacked as Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children and suspended from the Welsh Labour Party following allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards women.

Family members and friends of Mr Sargeant, who was Assembly Member for Alyn and Deeside, raised concerns that he was not given the opportunity to defend himself and was not made fully aware of the allegations against him before he was suspended by the party.

A statement from Mr Jones, shared from his Twitter account, said that work to establish an inquiry, likely to take place after an inquest, was already underway.

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 attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA

Further to the First Ministers comments yesterday about the need for independent scrutiny of his actions and decisions in relation to Carl Sargeant, he agrees that there should be an independent inquiry and it would be proper to ask a senior QC to lead that work.

To ensure this happens separately from his office, the First Minister has asked the Permanent Secretary to begin preparatory work for this inquiry, and to make contact with the family to discuss the terms and reference of the identity of the QC.

It is our understanding that such an inquiry should not take place before the outcome of a Coroners Inquest  but we will take further advice on this matter.

Pressure has been mounting on the First Minister to announce such an inquiry since the sudden death of Mr Sargeant last week.

Mr Jones spoke publicly on the matter for the first time on Thursday to say that he had acted "by the book" in the way he had dealt with Mr Sergeant, who he described as a "true force of nature".

After meeting with Welsh Labour Assembly Members, Mr Jones called the situation "the darkest days" for the Assembly - and the "darkest of all" for the Sargeant family.

There had been speculation Mr Jones could resign, but Thursday's speech made no mention of his own future. He said: "There are a lot of inaccuracies in the press and many of you have questions to ask about what happened last week."

Mr Jones precise details "will need to be properly disclosed" at the forthcoming inquest.

"I and my team will of course be cooperating fully with any questions that are raised there," he said. "The family deserve to have their questions answered and if that isn't possible through the inquest then I will endeavour to make that happen through other means.

"I welcome any scrutiny of my actions in the future and it is appropriate for that to be done independently."

Recommended Crackdown in Parliament bar after sexual harassment claims
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Fewer social homes are being built than at any time since the Second World War, new official figures have revealed.

Government data shows just 5,380 new social homes were completed across England last year  down from 6,800 the previous year.

The number has plummeted from 39,560 in 2010/11  the year the Conservatives came to power.

Recommended Labour demands urgent rescue of social housing after Grenfell fire

The fall is in part a consequence of the Governments decision to prioritise the building of affordable homes, which are around 30 per cent more expensive, over social homes.

Local authorities say extending the Right to Buy policy, which allows social housing tenants to buy their properties, and forcing councils to sell off their most valuable homes, has led to fewer new social homes being built.

Overall, however, the number of affordable homes being built, which includes homes at affordable rents and shared ownership properties, increased by 27 per cent.

Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: With rents sky high and more than 250,000 people homeless in England, its clear to see just how bad our affordable housing shortage has become. This is largely due to handing near total control of our house-building to big developers who have little appetite for building affordable homes.

The government has a real opportunity to set things right in the upcoming Budget, it can start by reducing the mammoth cost of land and closing loopholes which are draining the country of the affordable homes families are crying out for.

Its unacceptable that were building the lowest number of social homes since the Second World War, just as homelessness reaches 250,000 in England.

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 attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA

Ministers have hinted they could shift away from current housing policy, which has seen funding for new social housing cut to zero and money instead diverted into other types of property, namely affordable homes.

At the Conservative Party conference last month, they announced an additional 2bn of spending on affordable housing. Some of this money will be used to build social homes, although the numbers forecast to be built are a fraction of what experts say is needed to meet demand.

Responding to the latest figures, Labour said immediate action was needed. John Healey MP, the partys Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, said: After the Grenfell Tower fire Theresa May admitted the Conservatives havent given enough attention to social housing. These shocking figures show she was right.

The number of new social rented homes being built is now at the lowest level on record, and the number of new low-cost homes to buy is at just half the level it was under Labour. After seven years of failure on housing the Chancellor must use the Budget to tackle the housing crisis.

Housing and Planning Minister Alok Sharma said: These latest figures show progress but we know there is more to do. Thats why we have increased the affordable homes budget to more than 9bn and introduced a wider range of measures to boost building more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people.

 Jeremy Corbyn points to Grenfell fire as epitome of failed housing policy

The latest figures were revealed as a new report found 92 per cent of local councils are not building enough affordable housing.

The study, by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said only 67 per cent of local authorities are meeting their overall housing need and even fewer are delivering enough homes for people on low and middle incomes.

The study found that some areas are missing their housing targets by huge margins. The shortfall in Greater Manchester, for example, is 42 per cent  or 4,518 homes each year. The deficit is likely to be even higher in many parts of London and the South East.

The IPPR said the Government should lift borrowing limits on local councils in order to allow them to build more homes. It also called on ministers to divert money away from the Starter Homes initiative, which will see cut-price homes built for first-time buyers, and instead invest in new genuinely affordable homes for rent.

Darren Baxter, a researcher at the IPPR, said: This analysis shows that not only are local authorities failing to build enough affordable homes, those which are being built are often out of reach of those who they are intended to support.

As calls grow for the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to use the Budget later this month to launch a significant round of investment in state house-building, another think-tank, Civitas, said new housing zones should be created in areas where demand is highest and councils given the power to buy land at cheaper prices.

Arguing that making land available for housing more quickly is the key to achieving a decisive breakthrough in the housing crisis, Civitas said councils should be allowed to buy land at close to its current value rather than the value once potential future development is factored in.

Daniel Bentley, the think tanks editorial director and author of the report, said: The upfront costs of development could be very much reduced by reforming the land compensation rules and allowing public authorities to buy land at prices closer to their existing use value.

In high-demand areas, this could save the taxpayer millions of pounds per hectare."
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Gordon Brown has dramatically backed Jeremy Corbyns leadership, saying his war on rising inequality and stagnant wages is absolutely right.

The former Labour prime minister praised his left-wing successor's policy priorities and growing popularity with the public, adding: Jeremy is a phenomenon.

Mr Corbyn was successfully tapping into rising public anger over the unfair effects of globalisation, after centrists appeared to show they had no answers, Mr Brown said.

People feel rightly or wrongly that the problems that they have  stagnant wages, inequality, polarisation between rich and poor, public service not being properly financed - they ascribe that to the failures of governments, centrist governments that have not been able to manage globalisation, he said.

On Mr Corbyns shock rise, Mr Brown said: He has come through because he expresses peoples anger at whats happened  the discontent.

When he attacks universal credit, he is speaking for many people, when he says the health service is underfunded, he is speaking for many people.

The Labour leader still had to show he had a plan for the future that is credible and, therefore, a programme that is electable.

Thats the challenge for any left-wing or progressive party, Mr Brown told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

He also expressed confidence in John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor  and bete noire of many moderate Labour MPs  noting he had backed Bank of England independence.

The endorsement is in stark contrast to Tony Blairs warning that Mr Corbyns policies would be a disaster for the country.

Mr Blair has called for a return of centre-ground politics, once warning Mr Corbyns populist policy making would be a very dangerous experiment for a major western country.

In the interview, Mr Brown denied he was moving to the left, but argued Mr Corbyns success was because New Labour did not finish the job of curbing inequality and bad banking practices.

He had articulated a view of a fairer society by pinching the for the many not the few slogan first used by the Blair government, he noted.

Mr Brown said the rise of Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, in France, also flowed from anger over economic failure, adding: We are in a new world.

The intervention comes after Nick Boles, a former Conservative minister, broke ranks to call for an end to austerity in this months Budget.

The David Cameron ally broke ranks by urging the Chancellor to rip up seven years of Tory economic policy, abandoning the flagship target to wipe out the Budget deficit.

Mr Boles also warned Theresa May and Philip Hammond they would be defeated at the next election if  after seven years  they persisted with trying to balance the books, as public support fades.

And he sided with Labour by arguing that higher investment spending was needed to generate a return to the economy and end Britains productivity crisis.
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A Tory MP who had the whip withdrawn after he was reported to the police over harassment allegations has hit out at the treatment he has received from the party.

Charlie Elphicke addressed his Conservative association to claim the way the Westminster sleaze scandal is being handled is a mess and that he faces a denial of justice because he says he still does not know what he has been accused of.

His remarks follow the apparent suicide of Welsh Labour Assembly Member Carl Sargeant, who was suspended by his party having been accused of harassment.

Mr Elphicke  who denies any criminal wrongdoing - claims the press were tipped off about the action being taken against him by the party before he was informed.

In one of his first acts as Chief Whip, Julian Smith suspended former party whip Mr Elphicke last week while the Conservatives handed over details of the allegations to the police.

In a statement to his Dover and Deal Conservative Association on Thursday, the married 46-year-old slammed the treatment he has received from Mr Smith and Theresa May.

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 attempting to communicate with journalists is pinned against a fence by members of staff, before being taken out of view, at the Manston immigration short-term holding facility, located at the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Thanet, Kent PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2022 Demonstrators with placards calling for a General Election march near the Houses of Parliament AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 4 November 2022 A peacock is seen in the early winter sunshine in the Dutch Gardens in Holland Park AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 3 November 2022 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty UK news in pictures 2 November 2022 A red squirrel gathers nuts in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 1 November 2022 Englands Tara-Jane Stanley scores their sides seventh try against Brazil during the Womens Rugby League World Cup group A match at Headingley Stadium, Leeds PA UK news in pictures 31 October 2022 GBs James Hall competes during the mens parallel bars qualification at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2022 People dressed in Halloween costumes paddle board along the river Avon in Christchurch, Dorset PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2022 Members of the public take pictures as police officers remove activists from a road during a Just Stop Oil protest, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 28 October 2022 A cosplayer attends the MCM Comic Con London 2022 at the ExCel Centre in London Reuters UK news in pictures 27 October 2022 98-year-old D-Day Veteran Bernard Morgan, whose story is among those featured on the giant poppy wall, during the launch of The Royal British Legion 2022 Poppy Appeal, at Hay's Galleria in central London PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2022 A meerkat explores a pumpkin in the enclosure at Wild Place, Bristol, where some of the animals are having pumpkin treats as part of their environmental enrichment PA UK news in pictures 25 October 2022 King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2022 Rishi Sunak celebrates with Tory MPs outside the Conservative Campaign Headquarters after becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party Reuters UK news in pictures 23 October 2022 The Green Man at October Plenty, Borough Market's annual Autumn Harvest festival, in London, which returns for the first time post pandemic PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2022 Sculptor Peter McKenna puts the finishing touches to a pumpkin that will form part of the Planet A Hebden Bridge Pumpkin Trail in the West Yorkshire town PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 19 October 2022 Salmon leap up Stainforth Force on the River Ribble in the Yorkshire Dales as they swim upriver to their spawning grounds during the annual Salmon migration PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2022 Just Stop Oil protesters continue their protest for a second day on the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which links Kent and Essex and which remains closed for traffic, after it was scaled by two climbers from the group PA UK news in pictures 17 October 2022 Hundreds of students take part in the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight on St Salvator's Lower College Lawn at the University of St Andrews in Fife PA UK news in pictures 16 October 2022 A protester holds a placard during a march into central London at a demonstration by the climate change protest group Extinction Rebellion AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 15 October 2022 A member of the public drags an activist who is blocking the road during a "Just Stop Oil" protest, in London, Britain REUTERS UK news in pictures 14 October 2022 Germanys Womens double skulls during day one of the World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals at Saundersfoot beach, Pembrokeshire PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2022 Family and mourners arrive at St Michael's Church, in Creeslough, for the funeral mass of 49-year-old mother of four Martina Martin, who died following an explosion at the Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal on Friday PA UK news in pictures 12 October 2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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I received a call from a journalist just after 9pm on Friday evening saying he had heard I was having the whip withdrawn in time for the 10 o'clock news and asked me what was going on, he told local activists.

I said I had absolutely no idea. Minutes later I received a call from the Chief Whip telling me that serious allegations had been made against me earlier that week and that these had been passed to the police.

I asked what the allegations were and he would not tell me. He only said that he and the Prime Minister had decided the whip should be suspended from me. As we spoke, the news spread across the national media.

And that is all I can tell you. Since then I have had no further information. And here we are.

"So extraordinary as it may seem I am no wiser now than I was on Friday evening when the Chief Whip called me."

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Mr Elphicke added: "The fact is that this whole area of reporting misconduct and managing allegations of misconduct is a mess.

I have every sympathy with people who have been harassed or victimised and feel they have nowhere to turn. That is a denial of justice.

It is also a denial of justice when people who have had allegations made against them, lose their job or their party whip without knowing what those allegations are.

I believe this is fundamentally wrong. Wrong because it's an injustice to those who stand accused. But also wrong because it undermines our values as a country.

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He continued in his speech: We believe in natural justice.

So I ask you: was it in line with our values as a country that the media was told of allegations made against me last week before I was?

Was it in line with our values that the presumption of innocence was undermined by the whip being suspended?

Was it in line with our values to cause prejudice and harm the chances of my getting a fair hearing?

The MP received the official backing of his constituency party, with Keith Single, chairman of the Dover and Deal Conservative Association, saying: Charlie Elphicke is the best MP Dover and Deal has ever had.

"As far as we are concerned, he is innocent until proven otherwise."

Meanwhile, Mr Sargeants family and friends have expressed concerns that the politician was not given the opportunity to defend himself over the allegations about his conduct towards women.

His body was found on Tuesday, four days after he was dismissed as communities minister for the Welsh Assembly and suspended from the Welsh Labour Party.

Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones said he had no alternative but to sack Mr Sergeant following complaints that he allegedly groped or inappropriately touched women.

Mr Jones insisted he had acted by the book in suspending the Assembly Member after Mr Sargeants lifelong friend said he had not done the decent thing and called for his resignation.

Mr Sargeants family has called for an inquiry into the handling of the allegations against him.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the death of his colleague, Mr Jones said: There are a lot of inaccuracies in the press and many of you have questions to ask about what happened last week.

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"Everybody is grieving and it is not appropriate for me to get into the precise detail.

These are matters for the future - things that will need to be properly disclosed through what should be a coroner's inquest.

As there will in all probability be an inquest, I and my team will of course be cooperating fully with any questions that are raised there.

The family deserve to have their questions answered and if that isn't possible through the inquest then I will endeavour to make that happen through other means.
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The body of a Canadian man who died after being restrained by hotel security in Costa Rica was returned to his family missing a brain and half his heart, relatives said.

Shawn Edmonds' mother has demanded a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of her 42-year-old son, who had been visiting the Central American island for a friend's wedding.

Shirley Hewitt said she still did not know what had killed her son at the resort where he was staying on Costa Rica's north-west coast last month.

Mr Edmonds, a carpenter and father of two daughters, is said to have been detained by four security guards after arguing with staff at Hotel Riu Guanacaste.

He was reportedly handcuffed and sat in a chair before losing consciousness and dying without being given medical help.

Police have not yet determined whether the death should be treated as suspicious.

Costa Rican authorities performed an autopsy on his body before it was flown back to Canada.

"They took his heart and brain out," Ms Hewitt told Canadian radio station 570 News. "They put [part of] his heart back in, but they did not put his brain back.

She told broadcaster Global News: "I have to lay him to rest and I know he's not whole. I know I have to live with that, but that's going to haunt me."

She added her son's body was severely bruised and he appeared to have suffered a damaged nose.

Ms Hewitt dismissed suggestions her son had suffered a heart attack.

He was healthy... Hes never had a problem with his heart, she said.

The Canadian chief coroner's office said it was performing a second autopsy at the request of Mr Edmonds' family.

Canada's foreign office said it was "working closely with local officials to gather more information and are providing consular assistance to the family and friends as required".

A friend of Mr Edmonds said he had been "so happy to go and to be a part of his best friends' wedding" in Costa Rica.

Kristen Botelho, writing on a GoFundMe page set up for Mr Edmonds' family, described him "a very loving, kind and caring man".
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A private, Christian school in Florida is offering bulletproof panels for its students' backpacks.

Florida Christian School in Miami lists a $120 ballistic panel for purchase on its website, under items like red t-shirts and winter gear.

The panels, according to dean od students and head of school security George Gulla, offer "another level of protection" to students "in the event of an active shooter.

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"The teachers are trained to instruct the students to use their backpacks as a shield to protect themselves," Gulla told CNN.

Mr Gulla declined to comment when reached by The Independent.

The panels are slim, binder-sized pieces of armour that weigh less than a pound, according to the Miami Herald. They are build to withstand bullets like a .44 Magnum and a .357 SIG, but not those from rifles.

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 panels are manufactured by Applied Fiber Concepts, a body armour company owned by Florida Christian parent Alex Cejas. Mr Cejas has been putting the panels into the backpacks of his children, ages 11 and 13, since they started school.

When Mr Gulla started running active shooter drills with students, Mr Cejas took note. He reached out about setting up a custom order for other parents. Mr Gulla told the Herald the reaction from parents has been largely positive.

Mr Gulla started working at Florida Christian in 2012, shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty children and six adults were killed in the shooting, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire on the Newtown, Connecticut school.

 Sandy Hook families sue gun manufacturer

More than 200 school shootings have occurred in the US since then, according to the Los Angeles Times. In October of 2015, for example, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured seven others at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. In 2013, John Zawahri shot and killed four people at Santa Monica College, before killing himself.

In the wake of these shootings, a market has sprung up for bullet-proof school accessories. At bulletblocker.com, parents can buy bulletproof backpack inserts, tablet cases, and binder inserts for their children. A school district in Minnesota spent upward of $25,000 outfitting their classrooms with bulletproof whiteboards.

Many school safety experts, however, are sceptical of the idea.

"After every high-profile school shooting, we have an explosion of gadgets, gurus and charlatans," school safety consultant Kenneth Trump told NPR. "Corporations see dollar signs, and believe that schools have huge budgets to buy new products and services."
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On Monday, as the Department of Homeland Security prepared to extend the residency permits of tens of thousands of Hondurans living in the United States, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly called acting secretary Elaine Duke to pressure her to expel them, according to current and former administration officials.

Duke refused to reverse her decision and was angered by what she felt was a politically-driven intrusion by Kelly and Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, who also called her about the matter, according to officials with knowledge of Monday's events. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

As with many issues, there were a variety of views inside the administration on a policy. The Acting Secretary took those views and advice on the path forward for [Temporary Protected Status] TPS and made her decision based on the law, DHS spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement, referring to a form of provisional residency called temporary protected status. He added that it was also perfectly normal for them to discuss the issue before she had reached a decision.

A White House official confirmed the calls to Duke on Monday but said Kelly's frustration had to do with Duke's lack of decisiveness.

With the extension of the Hondurans' residency permits, Kelly told her that the TPS decision keeps getting kicked down the road and that the additional delay prevents our wider strategic goal on immigration, the White House official said.

Duke, who was confirmed by the Senate in April, has informed Kelly that she plans to resign, the officials said. Hoffman said there is zero factual basis to the claim that Duke has said she will step down, and he disputed the claim that Kelly called to pressure Duke, insisting she had reached out to him to solicit advice on the TPS decision.

DHS had until the end of the day Monday to announce its plans for some 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans who were allowed to remain in the United States under TPS after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998.

An additional 50,000 Haitians and 200,000 Salvadorans were nervously awaiting the decision, as their residency permits will expire early next year. Trump administration officials have repeatedly cited the TPS program as an example of what they say is US immigration policy gone awry, because a programme designed to be temporary should not be used to grant long-term residency in the United States.

Duke had decided to end the TPS designation for the Nicaraguans, giving them until January 2019 to leave the United States or change their immigration status. But Duke felt that she did not have enough information for the much larger group of Hondurans, so she deferred, granting them a six-month extension, administration officials said Monday when they announced the TPS decision.

As DHS officials prepared to make that announcement, Kelly made an urgent call from Japan, where he was travelling with President Donald Trump. He was irritated, administration officials said, and did not want his handpicked nominee for DHS secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, to face potentially uncomfortable questions about TPS during her confirmation hearing.

He was persistent, telling her he didn't want to kick the can down the road, and that it could hurt [Nielsen's] nomination, one administration official said.

Duke held her ground, the official said. She was angry. To get a call like that from Asia, after she'd already made the decision, was a slap in the face.

They put massive pressure on her, said another former official with knowledge of the call.

Duke wanted to proceed cautiously, because the Central Americans have lived in the United States for two decades or more, and she had been contacted by former US diplomats who implored her to weigh the decision carefully.

Congress created the TPS designation in 1990 to refrain from deporting foreign nationals to nations too unstable to receive them following natural disasters, civil strife or a health crisis. Previous administrations have repeatedly renewed the residency permits every 18 months, and over the years TPS has become a target of immigration hard-liners who say the law has been abused.

Trump wants to overhaul the US immigration system, replacing a model based in part on family reunification with a merit-based approach to favour skilled labour.

The White House official said Kelly did not mention Nielsen by name during the calls with Duke but told her that this shouldn't be a problem for the next secretary to deal with.

The pressure from the White House ended up delaying Monday's announcement, which DHS officials did not make until an 8pm conference call with reporters, just hours before the deadline, as tens of thousands of immigrants and their families remained in suspense.

In public, at least, the White House has deferred questions about TPS, calling the decision a prerogative of Homeland Security officials, in consultation with the State Department.

Last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to Duke essentially giving DHS a green light to send the Nicaraguans and Hondurans back, telling her that conditions in Central America had improved.

White House officials said Kelly acknowledged during the call that the decision was Duke's to make. But she felt the pressure amounted to a direct intervention in the process, administration officials said.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat-Maryland, said the White House had given assurances that it would not interfere in the TPS decision-making process. They told us one thing and turned around and did something completely different, Van Hollen said in an interview. I'm glad the acting secretary stuck to her professional opinion.

Maryland has 22,000 TPS recipients, he said.

Duke, a DHS veteran, has informed Kelly that she will resign once Nielsen takes over, according to several officials, even though Trump has publicly asked her to remain in the deputy role.

Nielsen, who is Kelly's deputy at the White House and was his chief of staff when he ran DHS between January and July, appeared to breeze through her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday and did not face especially tough or contentious questioning.

No one asked her what she planned to do with the 300,000 TPS recipients who will lose their legal status and face deportation if their residency is not renewed. Their families include an estimated 275,000 US-born children.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs postponed a vote on her nomination scheduled for Thursday, citing a large number of questions about Nielsen's testimony to the panel on Wednesday.

Senator Ron Johnson, Republican-Wisconsin, the committee chairman, said members had submitted 197 written questions for Nielsen, far more than any previous nominee. He rescheduled the committee vote for Monday.

Senate aides say the White House is pushing for a full vote on Nielsen to get her confirmed before the Thanksgiving recess.

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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... Attacking Sadiq Khan following London Bridge terror attack After the attack on the London Bridge, Trump lashed out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticising Khan for saying there was no reason to be alarmed after the attack. Trump was taking the comments out of context, as Khan was simply saying that the police had everything under control Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming presenter Mika Brezinkski was 'bleeding from the face' Never one not to mock his enemies, Trump mocked MSNBCs Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, saying that she and co-host Joe Scarborough had approached him before his inauguration asking to join him. He noted that she was bleeding badly from a face-lift at the time, and that he said no MSNBC Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming the blame for Charlottesville was on 'both sides' Trump refused to condemn far-right extremists involved in violence at 'the march for the right' protests in Charlottesville, even after the murder of counter protester Heather Heyer AP Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Retweeting cartoon of CNN being hit by a 'Trump train' Trump retweeted a cartoon showing a Trump-branded train running over a person whose body and head were replaced by a CNN avatar. He later deleted the retweet Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Tweeting about 'slamming' CNN Trump caught some flack when he tweeted a video showing him wrestling down an individual whose head had been replaced by a CNN avatar. Trump has singled CNN out in particular with his chants of fake news Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Firing head of the FBI, James Comey Trumps firing of former FBI Director James Comey landed him with a federal investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 election that has caused many a headache for the White House. The White House initially said that the decision was made after consultation from the Justice Department. Then Mr Trump himself said that he had decided to fire him in part because he wanted the Russia investigation Mr Comey was conducting to stop Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Not realising being president would be 'hard' Just three months into his presidency, Trump admitted that being president is harder than he thought it would be. Though Trump insisted on the 2016 campaign trail that doing the job would be easy for him, he admitted in an interview that living in the White House is harder than running a business empire Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Accusing Obama of wiretapping him Trump accused former president Barack Obama of wire tapping him on twitter. The Justice Department later clarified: Obama had not, in fact, done so Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming there had been 3 million 'illegal votes' Trump was never very happy about losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million ballots. So, he and White House voter-fraud commissioner Kris Kobach have claimed that anywhere between three and five million people voted illegally during the 2016 election. Conveniently, he says that all of those illegal votes went to Clinton. (There is no evidence to support that level of widespread voter fraud.) Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Leaving Jews out of the Holocaust memorial statement Just days after taking office, Trumps White House issued a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but didnt mention jews or even the word jewish in the written statement Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Anger over Inauguration crowd size Trumps inauguration crowd was visibly, and noticeably, smaller than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. But, he really wanted to have had the largest crowd on record. So, he praised it as the biggest crowd ever. Relatedly, Trump also claimed that it stopped raining in Washington at the moment he was inaugurated. It didnt, the day was very dreary Reuters

Duke, who returned to DHS to be Kelly's deputy earlier this year, was never among the top candidates for the secretary job, lacking the law enforcement and counterterrorism credentials typically associated with that role. But she is considered a skilled manager and has earned praise for her stewardship of the massive federal agency, which has 240,000 employees, 22 subagencies and a $40 billion budget.

Nielsen, a cybersecurity expert, began her career as a Senate staffer, then crafted legislation and policy at the Transportation Security Administration. She was a White House adviser for emergency preparedness and disaster management under President George W. Bush, a job that put her at the centre of the administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

Kelly brought Nielsen to the White House to be his deputy, and she earned a reputation as a disciplinarian, with unwavering loyalty to the retired Marine Corps general.

The Washington Post
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YouTube star Lilly Singh has given away $1,000 (762) cash to a handful of fans "who truly needed it"  including help with their rent, exams and even food bills.

The Canadian comedian  known as Superwoman  gave the payments to supporters after reaching a landmark 1,000 vlogs on her channel.

It included money for one girl to take her sick mother out for dinner, and $100 (75) to another towards groceries for her and her 10-year-old brother while their mother is in prison.

Ms Singh is worth 5.7m, according to Forbes  making her the worlds highest earning female YouTuber on the back of her 12.5 million subscribers.

She took to Twitter this week to share out $1,000 (762) and told her 4.5million followers to write to her with any needs so she could help them with cash.

Ms Singh tweeted a link to a vlog over the giveaway and wrote: We made it to 1000 VLOGS!!! I decided I wanted to help people around the world and gave $1000 for people who truly needed it.

She replied to one who got in touch: I would like to help pay your rent and give you $100. Someone from my team will reach out asap sis x.

Another, Kristin, wrote: My mother was arrested recently and Im working as hard as I can to get her out. Becuz of this Im on my own with my 10 year old brother trying to take him 2 school and pay for bills and food. Its really hard. I really need some kind of help.

Ms Singh responded: You are so strong sis. Id love to help by paying for $100 worth of groceries. Give your brother a hug for me x.

Claudine, from Dallas in the US, also replied to Ms Singhs cash offer to her fans, writing: I want to get certified in Facebook blueprint to get a better job but I cant afford the test.

Ms Singh replied: I googled it and I think this test is $150? Start studying sister because I'm getting it for you.

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 Canadian comedian is the top earning female YouTuber and third highest overall.

She only trails Swedish gamer PewDiePie who is worth $15m on the back of nearly 50 million followers, and prankster Roman Atwood who has nearly 14 million and a fortune of some $8m.
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On the day John F Kennedy died, the CIA was working to kill Fidel Castro with a poisoned pen.

Mr Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, but Mr Castro survived a CIA plot to kill him with a lethal ballpoint pen. In the end, the Cuban leader outlasted his American rival by more than five decades.

The machinations against Cubas communist leader are revealed in a new batch of declassified documents relating to Mr Kennedys assassination. The National Archives has been steadily making thousands of documents available to the public, helping to illuminate both the governments scramble to investigate the Presidents death and the Cold War geopolitics playing out around them.

The poison pen plot is striking for its synchronicity. According to a recently released document, on 22 November 1963, a CIA officer in Paris passed a Cuban asset a pen rigged with a hypodermic syringe.

Half a world away, tragedy was engulfing America.

The evidence indicates that the meeting was under way at the very moment President Kennedy was shot, the document says.

The assassination of JFK  in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 The assassination of JFK  in pictures The assassination of JFK  in pictures President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy ride with secret agents in an open car motorcade shortly before the assassination, 22 November 1963 Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy prior to his assassination Keystone/Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures Kennedy is struck by an assassin's bullet as he travels through Dallas in a motorcade In the car next to him is his wife Jacqueline and in the front seat is Texas governor John Connally Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures The view from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, from which Lee Harvey Oswald is thought to have assassinated Kennedy. This photograph was taken approximately one hour after the assassination Hulton Archive/Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures Lee Harvey Oswald during a press conference after his arrest in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby on 24 November on the eve of Kennedy's burial AFP/Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office as President of the United States on the day of Kennedy's assassination. Jackie Kennedy is stood next to Johnson Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures Kennedy's funeral procession goes into Arlington Cemetery in Washington Newsmakers/Getty The assassination of JFK  in pictures Kennedy's casket sat in the East Room of the White House Newsmakers/Getty

But it is clear that the attempt, while eerie in its timing, is far from unique. The 1967 document laying it out, entitled Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, shows killing Mr Castro was a recurring obsession for the American president.

We cannot overemphasize the extent to which responsible Agency officers felt themselves subject to the Kennedy administrations severe pressures to do something about Castro and his regime, the report says.

Among the other plots described are an effort to have Mr Castro ingest poison pills, which were supplied to members of a gambling syndicate working on behalf of the CIA and then passed to a Cuban exile leader in Florida; gifting Mr Castro a poisoned skin-diving suit; and boobytrapping an unusually spectacular sea shell so it would explode when the Cuban leader lifted it.

 What are the JFK files?

Some plans were hatched before the Bay of Pigs debacle, in which an American-backed invasion of Cuba was easily repelled in a humiliating setback for the Kennedy administration. Early ideas included poisoning the air of a radio studio Mr Castro used and having him smoke a contaminated cigar before a speech, which would make him disoriented and undermine his credibility as he made a public spectacle of himself.

He wasnt the only world leader the CIA targeted. A previously released summary of CIA Involvement in Plans to Assassinate World Leaders revealed that Dominican leader Rafael Trujillo was also in the agencys sights.

But documents underline the CIAs intense focus on disrupting Cuba and undermining Mr Castro. Many of those efforts sought to foment a popular uprising that would topple the revolutionary leader.

They also encouraged bloodshed as a means to that end. A document references setting up a monetary bounty system for killing Cuban communists, part of an effort to put pressure on Cuban communists by creating distrust and disunity. The proposed rewards ranged as high as $100,000 for killing a government official.
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As the first day of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit in Vietnam drew to a close, things were not looking too promising. Mr Putin was there. Mr Trump was absent. For all the Kremlins insistence that a formal meeting between the presidents was about to happen, the White House seemed to offer different thoughts.

The two leaders did eventually cross paths, exchanging handshakes and brief comments during the summits official dinner.

But all throughout Thursday, Kremlin officials had treated the second bilateral meeting of the presidents as a fait accompli. President Putins aide Yuri Ushakov said the only thing left undecided was the time. The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said they were ready for negotiations. Even the Americans initially seemed game. President Trump said that he saw no reasons why the meeting should not take place.

Recommended Donald Trump will not meet with Vladimir Putin

On Friday morning however, aboard Air Force One, the Presidents press secretary Sarah Sanders walked back the chances of a full, bilateral meeting.

The White House did not anticipate there would be a formal tete-a-tete, she said. There were scheduling conflicts on both sides, issues that the Russians had neglected to mention. An informal interaction wasnt ruled out: Theyre going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible, and likely.

Lavrov, never hostage to political correctness, summed up the Russian frustration. How was he to know what Mr Trumps pen-pushers thought about the possibility of a formal meeting? He replied angrily: Ask them yourselves.

The Kremlin tried to save face. There were conflicting signals from Washington, the presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Ria Novosti news agency: We dont quite understand whats happening, but are patiently working to an understanding.

Mr Peskovs remarks had, in fact, come at the end of weeks of intense preparation. There had been discussions at ministerial level. US ambassador Jon Huntsman, just a month into the Moscow job, had met with senior foreign ministry officials to decide on a common agenda.

That task was a near-impossible one. Since the first and only face-to-face meeting between presidents in Hamburg, relations between the two countries have plummeted to historical lows  and policy disagreements have widened.

There is the matter of four investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 elections; the new American sanctions against military firms and oligarchs, due to come into effect in February; the tit-for-tat expulsions and diplomatic compound closures. And an information war that threatens to spiral out of control.

This month, the Kremlin-funded RT was forced to register as a foreign agent. An asymmetric mirror response against CNN, Radio Liberty, Twitter and Facebook is expected next week.

There was little illusion that progress would be made on the major sources of tension  the diplomatic expulsions, sanctions or the increasing disagreements on missile accords. These were off the immediate agenda.

The two thought this wasnt the right time or venue, but the problems are still there, Maxim Suchkov, non-resident expert of the Russian International Affairs Council, told The Independent.

The main items on the agenda were instead supposed to be Syria and North Korea.

Ending the disagreement on Syria has been in the common interests of both Moscow and Washington for a long time, said Mr Suchkov. While there were differences on the role of Iran and Bashar al-Assad, progress was possible on de-escalation and moving the peace process from Astana in Kazakhstan to the more neutral Geneva, he said.

Mr Trumps inability to commit to a meeting will do little to encourage Russian hopes of progress. The Kremlin is becoming resigned to the reality that the President is largely powerless to affect US-Russia relations.

They are now preparing themselves for living in the US sanctions mode for at least the coming decade, says Mr Suchkov. The question is whether the Europeans might ease the pressure sooner.

While Russian advisers understand the domestic pressures faced by President Trump, todays demonstrative indecision will not have played well in Moscow.

This was not so much a snub as evasion, says Mark Galeotti, senior researcher at the Institute of International Affairs Prague.

But even if it leaves Putin looking snubbed, far more serious is the extent to which is leaves Trump looking cowardly.
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Republican senators are calling for the partys Senate candidate Roy Moore to withdraw from a special election in Alabama if an allegation of a sexual encounter with an underage teen proves to be true.

If these allegations are true, he must step aside, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a formal statement on behalf of all Republican senators.

Mr McConnell and his team are said to have spent the morning figuring out how to deal with the extensive report by the Washington Post alleging that Mr Moore had contact with teenage girls when he was in his 30s.

Mr Moore, now 70, has denied the allegations. He has not yet responded to a request to comment from The Independent, but told the Post: These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign,

The campaign said in a subsequent statement that if the allegations were true they would have surfaced during his previous campaigns, adding this garbage is the very definition of fake news.

Mr Moores campaign said that he was the victim of a systematic campaign to distort the truth about the Judges record and career and derail his campaign.

Of the four women the Post interviewed, only one said she had sexual contact with Mr Moore that went beyond kissing. She says she was 14 at the time and that they did not have intercourse. The three other women said Mr Moore had contact with them when they were between 16 and 18 years old, though none said they had sexual contact with him.

Senator John McCain called on Mr Moore to immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of. Other Republicans said that he ought to do so if the allegations are found to be true.

The allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore are deeply troubling, Senator Cory Gardner, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Under Alabama state law, the ballot cannot be changed within 76 days of an election, according to the Post. The election is scheduled for December 12.

However, a candidate can still withdraw, or a state party can request a state judge or the secretary of state to disqualify a candidate from the race, the newspaper added.

The 70-year-old former judge, who was twice elected to and twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court, has been a controversial figure in the past.

Mr Moore, known for making strong anti-gay and anti-Muslim comments, had not been Mr McConnells first choice to be the Republican candidate in Alabamas special senatorial election.

Mr McConnell and other establishment Republicans  as well as Donald Trump  had backed Luther Strange, who had been selected to fill the Senate seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions became Attorney General.

According to Politico reporter Anthony Adragna, Senator Lisa Murkowski said she had spoken to Mr Strange about running a write-in campaign.

While on the campaign trail to defeat Mr Strange, Mr Moore  supported by ex-White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon  said Mr McConnell was an obstacle to a more conservative agenda.
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As he was gearing up to leave Beijing on Thursday night, President Donald Trump called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. Hours earlier he tweeted that he was looking forward to building a stronger relationship with China in the months and years to come.

While some had been expecting a number of tense meetings over the issue of North Koreas nuclear ambitions and trade between the US and China, superficially at least Mr Trump and Mr Xi put up a united front, with the US President calling his meetings productive and Mr Xi saying that the relationship between Beijing and Washington are at a new historical starting point.

Mr Trump had criticised the very one-sided and unfair trade relationship between the two nations, but stopped short of castigating by saying he doesnt blame the country for taking advantage of the US.

Speaking after the announcement of new business deals between US and Chinese companies, worth about $250bn (190bn), Mr Trump said the US and China must immediately address the unfair trade practices that drive the trade deficit, along with barriers to market success, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.

But I dont blame China, he said. After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? He later added in a tweet that he would have done the same.

For his part, Mr Xi promised a more open environment for foreign companies and reaffirmed Chinas commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Trump administration officials had been relying on the personal relationship between the two leaders to smooth over any bumps in regard to the subject matter of the talks. But the mutual love-in may have gone too far, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson having to inject some reality into proceedings.

Mr Tillerson offered a blunter assessment of Chinas trade surplus with the United States. The total surplus with the US for the first 10 months of the year was $223bn.

Trump is conducting a tour of south-east Asia (AP)

I think the best way to characterise it is that while we appreciate the long hours and the effort that our Chinese counterparts have put into those trade discussions, quite frankly in the grand scheme of a $300 to $500bn trade deficit, the things that have been achieved are pretty small, Mr Tillerson told reporters in Beijing.

He said that in terms of really getting at some of the fundamental elements of why this imbalance exists, there is still a lot more work to do.

Others have suggested that the $250bn of new contracts, a number of which are non-binding, do not represent much progress for US businesses, while a former White House Press Secretary for Barack Obama  Jay Carney  called it embarrassing that Mr Trump did not take questions during a news conference with Mr Xi  seemingly at the behest of the hosts. Mr Obama did not take questions during his own first visit, but did on later trips, while Bill Clinton and George W Bush also made a point of taking them.

When it came to North Korea, Mr Tillerson was slightly less abrasive. He acknowledged that there were differences in the tactics and the timing and how far to go with pressure on North Korea. But he insisted that the two countries were on the same page.

There is no disagreement on North Korea, he said.

 Donald Trump says he doesn't blame China for 'taking advantage of America'

Heading for Vietnam for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, Mr Trump potentially faces another key player in the North Korea situation, Russia.

Mr Trump and Kremlin officials have been dancing around the idea of a meeting between the President and Vladimir Putin during the forum, with the prospects shifting from possible to probable and then back again. The expectation is that it will happen in some form, with plenty to talk about. Not just North Korea, but also the situation in Syria and a number of other diplomatic spats, including election meddling.

The Kremlin says it has been trying to set up a meeting and Trump told Fox News before his Asia tour that he might meet Mr Putin in Vietnam to talk about Syria, Ukraine and North Korea.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian news agencies on Thursday that such a meeting would happen on Friday, but Dmitry Peskov, a Putin spokesman, later rowed back on that suggestion.

Mr Tillerson also seemed to pour some cold water on the speculation. Theres never been an agreement, certainly not to a full [bilateral meeting], Mr Tillerson said, but added it would not be unusual however if the two men had a spontaneous pull-aside meeting chat if they bumped into each other.

The question is whether weve got sufficient substance [for a formal meeting], the Secretary of State said, adding: Were in contact with them and the view is that the two leaders are going to meet if theres something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting.

Asked about Mr Tillersons comments, Mr Peskov said that a possible meeting was still being discussed before predicting that the two men would cross paths one way or another.

In whatever form the meeting comes, the reaction to it is likely to be less effusive by Mr Trump then a Beijing visit he will never forget.
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Elaine Duke, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is reportedly set to resign in light of being asked to reverse a decision extending temporary residents permits to thousands of Central American immigrants living in the US.

Ms Duke was reportedly asked by White House Chief of Staff and former head of DHS John Kelly to not allow some 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans to stay in the country on Temporary Protective Status (TPS).

DHS had a deadline of 6 November to make the decision for people who were allowed to remain in the US under TPS, a programme which began in 1990 to stop deportations to countries who could not handle an influx of people returning after natural disasters or other crises.

Recommended Trump nominates White House aide Kirstjen Nielsen DHS chief

Several Hondurans arrived in the US after Hurricane Mitch had hit the Central American region in 1998.

Ms Duke felt it was a politically driven intrusion on the part of Mr Kelly and White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert, sources told the Washington Post.

Ms Duke ultimately decided to end the TPS programme for Nicaraguans - they have until January 2019 to leave or change status - but gave the Hondurans a six-month extension for the agency to make a decision.

 Donald Trump's immigration crackdown encapsulated in poignant footage of father being deported

According to officials, she felt she needed more information on the situation with Hondurans and had received calls from diplomats asking her to weigh the fate of those immigrants, who had lived in the country for decades, with care.

The Trump administration has said it feels the programme is being misused, to grant long-term residency rather than a short-term stay in emergency situations.

Mr Kelly reportedly told Ms Duke that she was kicking the can down the road and it was not in line with the administrations immigration priorities.

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

Previous administrations have renewed TPS every 18 months.

He was also worried his nominated replacement Kirstjen Nielsen would face questions about it during her upcoming confirmation hearing, which she sailed through on 8 November.

An official told the newspaper that Ms Duke thought Mr Kellys urgent call from President Donald Trumps Asia tour admonishing her decision was a slap in the face.

Ms Duke had been asked to remain as Ms Nielsens deputy but will leave when the new Secretary takes office, according to officials.

She had also been criticised during the weeks following Hurricane Maria making landfall in Puerto Rico. Ms Duke had said US federal relief efforts were a "good news" story.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz expressed her frustration on CNN about what she called an "irresponsible" statement: "this is a 'people are dying' story, this is a life and death story, this is a truckload of stuff that cannot be taken to people story."

Mr Trump has repeatedly called for an overhaul of the immigration system to emphasise a "merit-based" system for skilled labour immigrants.

Neither Ms Duke nor the White House has responded to the report yet.
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A Russian involved in a 2013 Moscow beauty pageant offered to send five women to Donald Trumps room, according to NBC News.

The account flowed from testimony Mr Trumps former bodyguard Keith Schiller gave to the House Intelligence Committee, the news network reported, and Mr Schiller said he promptly shot down the offer.

We don't do that type of stuff, Mr Schiller reportedly replied.

In a statement to NBC, Mr Schillers attorney Stuart Sears decried partisan insiders who he said leaked details of Mr Schillers testimony to the media.

The Chairman and Ranking Member should investigate and hold accountable whoever is responsible for leaking false and misleading versions of Mr Schillers testimony, Mr Sears said.

The House panel is conducting one of multiple investigations into potential interactions between the Russian government and Mr Trumps presidential campaign.

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

Among other things, investigators are looking into a controversial dossier that makes salacious claims about Mr Trumps conduct when he was in Moscow to stage a Miss Universe contest there.

The President has rejected the dossiers contents as false, and according to NBC Mr Schiller emphatically did the same.

The NBC story does not identify the Russian who allegedly offered to send women to Mr Trumps room. But a July story by the Associated Press stated that Emin Agalarov  a Russian pop star who helped arrange a campaign meeting between Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer  offered to send prostitutes to Trump's hotel room during his 2013 trip to Moscow but was rebuffed by Mr Schiller.
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What does Veterans Day mark?

The public holiday honours all US military veterans. It also coincides with other holidays, including Armistice Day and Remembrance Day, which are celebrated in other countries to mark the end of World War I.

The US previously observed Armistice Day, but the holiday was was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

When is it?

Veterans Day is observed annually on November 11.

Why is it held on 11 November?

World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month. At 5.00 am that day, Germany  devoid of supplies and manpower and facing an invasion  signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiegne, France.

How do Americans mark it?

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

Because it is considered a federal holiday, some American workers and students have Veterans Day off from work or school.

When Veterans Day falls on a Saturday, then the preceding Friday may be designated as the holiday. If it falls on a Sunday, then the holiday is typically observed on the following Monday. This year, it is being celebrated on Friday, November 10.

Non-essential federal government offices are closed and no mail is delivered.
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A woman who married her own mother after they "hit it off" has pleaded guilty to incest.

Misty Spann, 26, was raised by her grandmother after her 44-year-old mother Patricia Spann lost custody of her three children.

The pair reunited in 2014 and began an incestuous relationship. They married in March 2016 in Comanche County, Oklahoma.

Authorities uncovered their relationship during a child welfare investigation five months later.

Detectives subsequently learned Patricia had also married her son in 2008. He filed for an annulment 15 months later citing incest, according to a court papers.

According to an affidavit, Patricia told police she and Misty "hit it off" after reuniting. She "had looked into" marrying her daughter and wrongly determined she it was allowed because her name no longer appears on Misty's birth certificate, the document added.

Misty was given a 10-year suspended jail sentence after admitting incest at Stephens County Court this week, reported Tulsa World.

Patricia and Misty Spann were arrested after child welfare investigators uncovered their incestuous relationship (Stephens County Jail)

Patricia, who gave her name as Patricia Ann Clayton on their marriage application, is due to stand trial in January.

The marriage was annulled in October at the request of Misty, who cited "illegality and fraud". She reportedly said her mother assured her she had received legal advice that indicated it was not a crime for them to wed.

Under Oklahoma law, marrying a close relative is considered incest whether or not the relationship is sexual. It is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
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The Asia-Pacific region must not be "held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," Donald Trump has said.

The US President warned "every step the North Korea regime takes towards more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

His latest tough talk on Pyongyang and its leader Kim Jong-un came during a speech at Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam.

The issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has loomed large over Mr Trump's first tour of Asia.

The President is looking to win support for ramping up sanctions on Pyongyang during visits to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

His speech came as South Korea announced it would join three US aircraft carrier strike in a rare military drill in the Western Pacific over the weekend.

The USS Ronald Reagan, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Nimitz will sail together in a display of military might timed to coincide with the last leg of the President's tour and amid heightened tensions in the region over North Korea.

Addressing an audience of chief executives on Friday, Mr Trump also claimed the US had not been "treated fairly by the World Trade Organisation" and said he would not let his country be "taken advantage of anymore".

 Donald Trump says he doesn't blame China for 'taking advantage of America'

In what appeared to a rebuke of China, he said America has lowered market barriers but "other countries didn't open their market to us".

"From this day forward we will compete on a fair and equal basis," he said, hours after leaving Beijing.

"We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first.

"We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them."

It was a striking change of tone from Thursday, when Mr Trump set aside his previous blistering rhetoric in favour of friendly overtures to China as he sought to flatter his host into establishing a more balanced trade relationship.

During the presidential election campaign, Mr Trump condemned China for what he claimed were inappropriate trade practices.

By contrast, in Beijing this week he criticised the "very one-sided and unfair" relationship between the US and China but said he did not blame the Chinese for having taken advantage of the US in the past.

He said China "must immediately address the unfair trade practices" that drive a "shockingly" large trade deficit, along with barriers to market access, forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.

"But I don't blame China," he said. "After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens?"

To applause, he said: "I give China great credit."

China's trade surplus with the US for the first 10 months of this year was $223bn (170bn).

In Friday's speech, Mr Trump also claimed "the whole world" was being "lifted by America's economic renewal" and that a "new optimism" has swept across the US since his election.

He said he had had the pleasure of sharing the "good news from America" at every stop on his first official visit to Asia.
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US President Donald Trump will not have a separate meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said on Friday.

Trump and Putin will both attend the APEC summit in the Vietnamese city of Danang.

Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before landing in Danang.

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

Now, they're going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely. But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one, Sanders said

Reuters
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A British man holidaying in India has been arrested and detained, accused of influencing the youth through social media, a Sikh group said.

Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, had a sack thrown over his head and was forced into a van by plain-clothes officers on 4 November, the Sikh Federation UK said.

The 30-year-old was reportedly out shopping with his wife and cousin when the incident happened in Jalandhar in the state of Punjab.

Mr Johals crimes reportedly include running a magazine in the UK of atrocities during the 1984 Sikh Genocide and influencing the youth through social media.

His brother and local MP have called for British authorities to intervene.

Mr Johal, who recently married, is said to have been in the country since 2 October for his wedding. His whereabouts and condition remain unknown, the Sikh Federation said.

His elder brother Gurpreet Singh Johal said: Unless the British authorities quickly step in this will guarantee a law-abiding British citizen will be illegally detained for some time and will not receive a fair trial. He should be immediately released and returned to the UK.

Martin Docherty-Hughes, SNP MP for West Dunbartonshire, has been supporting the family.

Grandmothers School, India Show all 12 1 /12 Grandmothers School, India Grandmothers School, India People buy vegetables sold on a truck in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India A woman holds a book as she attends a class at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School) in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Drupada Pandurangkedar, 70, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), serves her granddaughter Namita Thackrey lunch inside their house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Indu Pawar, 61, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), watches television inside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Uma Sitaramtupange, 65, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), holds a baby outside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Women attend a class at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School) in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Women leave after attending Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School) in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Kamal Keshavtupange, 60, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), lights fire as she cooks food on a stove inside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Sheetal Prakash More (R), a 30-year-old teacher, helps Janabai Kedar, 74, as she writes on a slate at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School) in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Vanita Dhau, 65, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), stands inside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Vanita Dhau, 65, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), works inside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters Grandmothers School, India Kamal Keshavtupange, 60, who studies at Aajibaichi Shaala (Grandmothers' School), drinks tea inside her house in Fangane village, India Reuters

He said: I am deeply concerned about the circumstances of Jagtar Singh Johals arrest and imprisonment in India. This has been an extremely distressing time for my constituents family and I am doing everything in my power to support them as their Member of Parliament.

The lack of information being given to Jagtars family by the police and judicial authorities in Delhi following his arrest is alarming. I have raised this as a matter of urgency with the British High Commission of India and the Foreign Office.

He added: I will also be contacting the Foreign Secretary and the Scottish Government to ensure that Jagtar and his family are not unfairly mistreated by the Indian authorities. This is an extremely serious matter and I hope my constituents will be fully supported in their efforts to secure a positive outcome.

PA
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Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Manila to protest against US President Donald Trump, ahead of his visit to the Philippines.

Activists from a loose coalition of left-wing groups held placards with signs including Ban Trump  Fight US Imperialist War and Plunder as they marched to the US Embassy.

The activists were blocked by scores of the capitals police kitted out in anti-riot gear just yards from the building. Minor scuffles broke out when protestors tried to break through the cordon.

But during the largely peaceful demonstration, protestors chanted anti-US slogans including, Trump, not welcome and Fight US imperialist war.

Others carried out symbolic acts  such as splashing black paint across a poster of Mr Trump which branded him a fascist.

A separate protest was also held outside the citys Trump Tower skyscraper. Members of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan  an alliance of left-wing organisations  gathered there. They claimed the US President wanted to build more US military bases in the Philippines.

They also believed his visit would move the country closer to the US and form a relationship that could see the Philippines dragged into any conflict in the region, such as with North Korea.

Trump represents the worst aspects of US imperialism, the group told the Southeast Asia Globe. He is right now the biggest threat to regional peace with his provocations against North Korea.

The protests come ahead of the Mr Trumps visit to the Philippines over the weekend, when he will meet with his Filipino counterpart President Rodrigo Duterte as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) trade summit.

 Martial law declared in South Philippines as government battles Isis-linked militants

Just days before the US leaders first visit, Mr Duterte has said he killed someone when he was just 16 years old.

Speaking to the Filipino community in Da Nang, Vietnam, to promote his drug war policies, he claimed: At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am President?

Mr Duterte won last years presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed. Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.

Aides, however, have said the 72-year-old leader is prone to hyperbole but the stories of his past violence have resurfaced multiple times.

In a text message to the AFP, spokesman Harry Roque wrote about the fatal stabbing claim: I think it was in jest. The [President] uses colourful language when [with] Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas.

In the same Da Nang speech, Mr Duterte also said he would slap United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard for criticising the drug war policies, saying they could amount to extrajudicial killings.

I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me, he said to the crowd. Mr Duterte has at various points denied inciting police or anyone else to kill, but is known for his incendiary language surrounding the war on drugs.

In 2016, Mr Duterte said that he would be happy to slaughter millions of drug addicts in the island nation and referred to former President Barack Obama as a son of a whore when the US leader criticised the policy.

Mr Trump and Mr Duterte also had an eyebrow-raising phone call in April of this year, when he told the Philippines leader that he thought he was doing a great job on the drug war.

Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Show all 14 1 /14 Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Riot police block protesters during a rally near the US embassy AFP/Getty Images Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters shout slogans while displaying portraits of U.S. President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte AP Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Activists clash with riot police EPA Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters burn a banner of Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters against Donald Trump's visit AP Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters deface portraits of Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte AP Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters clash with anti-riot police officers as they try to march towards the U.S. embassy REUTERS Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines A mural bearing the image of Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte is burnt REUTERS Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Activists march on a road leading to the US embassy during a protest in Manila EPA Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters scuffle with riot police AFP/Getty Images Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters shout anti-US slogans as they burn a banner featuring the image of US President Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Activists clash with riot police EPA Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Protesters display placards as they shout anti-US slogans AFP/Getty Images Protest in Manila against Donald Trump's visit to the Philippines Anti-riot police officers block protesters REUTERS

Asian leaders and Mr Trump will likely remain silent about any accusations of human rights violations  despite a number of rights groups calling for it  with a number of other issues on the table.

Mr Duterte also commented to reporters that if the issue is brought up by Mr Trump, he would say: You want to ask a question, Ill give you an answer. Lay off. That is not your business. That is my business. I take care of my country and I will nurture my country to health.

While Mr Trump is likely to find a relatively warm welcome in Vietnam, the Philippines could be a different matter. It was this time last year that Mr Duterte announced in Beijing that America has lost now. Ive realigned myself in your ideological flow. He told his Chinese hosts that he may also go to Russia to [say] there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. Its the only way.

Mr Duterte later insisted what he had referred to in Beijing was not a severance of ties, and that he wasnt cutting diplomatic relations. What I was really saying, he told reporters, was a separation of foreign policy.

Mr Duterte has promised to deal with President Trump in the most righteous way, when the two meet in Manila, but added that he will listen to him, what he has to say.

Joshua Kurlantzick, a Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council for Foreign Relations, told The Independent that though Mr Duterte may like Mr Trump, his views on America have been shaped through decades of anti-American sentiment.

He also noted that given the two leaders "bombastic" personalities "if [the relationship] goes downhill, it will go downhill very fast."

According to Mr Kurlantzick, Mr Trump's discussions will likely focus on Mr Duterte's "significant challenges" regarding counterterrorism in the Philippines as well as concerns about the South China Sea.

In July 2016, The Hague - in a case brought by the Philippines under former President Benigno Aquino III - found that "China's claims [sovereignty] are expansive and in no way legal under international law," he explained.

While the US and other southeast Asian nations want to "preserve freedom of navigation" in the hugely important body of water that accounts for nearly one-third of maritime global trade, Mr Duterte's approach is to be far more conciliatory to China than his predecessor had been, Mr Kurlantzick noted.

Mr Trump is currently on a 12-day Asia tour that has included visits to Japan, South Korea, and China. He is currently in Vietnam where officials say he may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit.
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The US military would find itself outnumbered and under-supplied if war broke out with North Korea, a former top commander in the region has reportedly claimed.

American troops are vastly outnumbered by North Korean forces, as well as [allied] forces that will conduct the overwhelming majority of the fighting, according to retired Lt Gen Jan-Marc Jouas.

They would also face problems in getting reinforcements or new supplies, he claimed, saying fresh troops may well find their bases subject to attack by conventional or chemical weapons, which will further delay their entry into the war.

Recommended Trump sends aircraft carriers into Pacific in rare military exercise

In a letter to members of Congress, obtained by Newsweek, Lt Gen Jouas said even limited military action against Kim Jong-uns regime would be likely to precipitate a full-scale war, yet would probably not destroy Pyongyangs nuclear capability totally.

He added: An enormous casualty and evacuee crisis will develop and include over 100,000 non-combatant Americans, many of who will turn to US forces to get them off the peninsula.

The use of nuclear weapons by Pyongyang could not be ruled out, he said. Lt Gen Jouas was deputy commander of US Forces Korea from January 2012 until his retirement in early 201.

US personnel in South Korea number about 28,500, Lt Gen Jouas said, though news reports place recent figures both higher and lower.

 H R McMaster calls North Korea a threat 'to the entire world'

An all-out war with North Korea would be bloody in the extreme, experts believe, as the country has huge amounts of ordnance aimed at Seoul, the Souths capital, which is just a few dozen miles from the demilitarised zone.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis has said the results of conflict would be catastrophic.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US think-tank, Pyongyang has some 1.1 million personnel in its armed forces.

The CFR added in a recent analysis: Although Pyongyang is outspent by its neighbours and adversaries in dollar-to-dollar comparisons and defence experts say it operates with ageing equipment and technology, the regimes forward-deployed military position and missiles aimed at Seoul ensure that Pyongyangs conventional capabilities remain a constant threat to its southern neighbour.

Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Show all 6 1 /6 Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb Photos released by North Korea show Kim Jong-un talking to subordinates next to a device thought to be the new thermonuclear weapon. There is no way of independently verifying the pictures STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb North Korea claims it has successfully tested an advanced hydrogen bomb which could be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A diagram on the wall behind Mr Kim shows a bomb mounted inside a cone STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) attending a photo session with participants of the fourth conference of active secretaries of primary organisations of the youth league of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in Pyongyang STR/AFP/Getty Images Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A new stamp issued in commemoration of the successful second test launch of the "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile KCNA via Reuters Kim Jong-un inspects weapon North Korea says is powerful hydrogen bomb A new stamp issued in commemoration of the successful second test launch of the "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile KCNA via Reuters

Lt Gen Jouas letter comes at a time of heightened tension between the US and North Korea, and as US President Donald Trump is in the middle of a tour of the Asia-Pacific.

However, Mr Trump appears to have introduced a hint of a softer tone to his statements on North Korea. In Seoul earlier this week he said: It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world.

Previously, he has threatened fire and fury if the North does not end its threats to neighbouring countries.
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Tweeting isnt presidential, says Frances Emmanuel Macron.

I dont tweet myself, and I dont follow myself, Macron said in an interview with Time Magazine, released on Thursday. Its not compatible with the kind of distance you need to govern and to preside. To be President, you need some distance from events, from the permanent flows of news and reactions.

Thats a difference between the 39-year-old French President and the 71-year-old US President Donald Trump, well known for using his Twitter account to expound on everything from politics to sports, several times a day.

I have to confess Ive heard of some news about Mr Trumps Twitter account, but I dont follow, Macron said.

Macrons office has a Twitter account, with about 15 posts in the past 24 hours, but almost all of them are links to photos and videos of his visit Thursday to the United Arab Emirates.

Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Show all 30 1 /30 Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Threatening to shut down Twitter after being fact-checked After the president tweeted that voting by post would be "substantially fraudulent", Twitter attached a warning label to his tweet and referred readers to a site which explained how the claim was "unsubstantiated". Trump then said Twitter was "stifling free speech" and that he may have to shut it down, something which he would not have the power to do AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Flippantly dismissing a serious allegation of sexual assault When author E Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her, the president responded: Number one, shes not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?" AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Insulting the Mayor of London as he landed in London Just before touching down at Stansted Airport for his state visit, Trump took time out to @ the London mayor Sadiq Khan on twitter. He said that Khan has done a "terrible job"as mayor and that he is a "stone cold loser" Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Taking plenty of "Executive Time" The president's official schedule sets aside the hours from 8 to 11am daily for "Executive Time". Further intermittent periods of "Executive Time" are scheduled throughout any given day, ranging from 15 minutes to 3 hours. His duties in these hours have not been officially disclosed, though Axios reports that he spends them watching TV, reading the newspapers and tweeting Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 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... Railing against the Mueller investigation The president has repeatedly claimed that the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, is a "rigged witch hunt" Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Contradicting a US intelligence report on Russian meddling in the presence of Vladimir Putin In the press conference that followed his landmark meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Trump stated that he saw no reason why Russia would have meddled in the 2016 US election. This contradicted a 2017 report by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence that found evidence of Russian interference in favour of Trump Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Contradicting his contradiction of a US intelligence report on Russian meddling Following furious backlash in the US, the president claimed that he meant to say that he saw no reason why it would not have been Russia who meddled in the 2016 US election. As to why he would have intended to use such bizarre phrasing, he did not comment Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Colouring in the US flag wrong The president coloured in the US flag wrongly during a visit to a children's hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He added a blue stripe where in tradition, and statute, there have been only white and red stripes AFP/Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Firing a Secretary of State over Twitter The president announced on Twitter that he was appointing Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, much to the surprise of then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Quoting a catchphrase from a reality TV show when discussing police brutality While addressing the issue of black athletes not standing for the national anthem in protest of police brutality, the president made reference to his catchphrase from reality TV show "The Apprentice": you're fired! Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Calling African nations "S***hole Countries" Ever one for diplomacy, the president reportedly referred to African nations as "s***hole countries". Asked to confirm this when meeting with Nigeria's President Buhari, Trump stated that there are "some countries that are in very bad shape". Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Defending Russian President Vladimir Putin Trump appeared to equate US foreign actions to those of Russian president Vladimir Putin, saying: There are a lot of killers. You think our countrys so innocent? Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Asking for people to 'pray' for Arnold Schwarzenegger At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump couldnt help but to ask for prayers for the ratings on Arnold Schwarzeneggers show to be good. Schwarzenegger took over as host of The Apprentice  which buoyed Trumps celebrity status years ago Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Hanging up on Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull Early in his presidency, Trump reportedly hung up the phone on Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull after the foreign leader angered him over refugee plans. Mr Trump later said that it was the worst call he had had so far Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... The 'Muslim ban' Perhaps one of his most controversial policies while acting as president, Trumps travel ban targeting predominantly Muslim countries has bought him a lot of criticism. The bans were immediately protested, and judges initially blocked their implementation. The Supreme Court later sided with the administrations argument that the ban was developed out of concern for US security Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... 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... Attacking Sadiq Khan following London Bridge terror attack After the attack on the London Bridge, Trump lashed out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticising Khan for saying there was no reason to be alarmed after the attack. Trump was taking the comments out of context, as Khan was simply saying that the police had everything under control Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming presenter Mika Brezinkski was 'bleeding from the face' Never one not to mock his enemies, Trump mocked MSNBCs Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, saying that she and co-host Joe Scarborough had approached him before his inauguration asking to join him. He noted that she was bleeding badly from a face-lift at the time, and that he said no MSNBC Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming the blame for Charlottesville was on 'both sides' Trump refused to condemn far-right extremists involved in violence at 'the march for the right' protests in Charlottesville, even after the murder of counter protester Heather Heyer AP Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Retweeting cartoon of CNN being hit by a 'Trump train' Trump retweeted a cartoon showing a Trump-branded train running over a person whose body and head were replaced by a CNN avatar. He later deleted the retweet Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Tweeting about 'slamming' CNN Trump caught some flack when he tweeted a video showing him wrestling down an individual whose head had been replaced by a CNN avatar. Trump has singled CNN out in particular with his chants of fake news Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Firing head of the FBI, James Comey Trumps firing of former FBI Director James Comey landed him with a federal investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 election that has caused many a headache for the White House. The White House initially said that the decision was made after consultation from the Justice Department. Then Mr Trump himself said that he had decided to fire him in part because he wanted the Russia investigation Mr Comey was conducting to stop Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Not realising being president would be 'hard' Just three months into his presidency, Trump admitted that being president is harder than he thought it would be. Though Trump insisted on the 2016 campaign trail that doing the job would be easy for him, he admitted in an interview that living in the White House is harder than running a business empire Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Accusing Obama of wiretapping him Trump accused former president Barack Obama of wire tapping him on twitter. The Justice Department later clarified: Obama had not, in fact, done so Reuters Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Claiming there had been 3 million 'illegal votes' Trump was never very happy about losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.8 million ballots. So, he and White House voter-fraud commissioner Kris Kobach have claimed that anywhere between three and five million people voted illegally during the 2016 election. Conveniently, he says that all of those illegal votes went to Clinton. (There is no evidence to support that level of widespread voter fraud.) Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Leaving Jews out of the Holocaust memorial statement Just days after taking office, Trumps White House issued a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but didnt mention jews or even the word jewish in the written statement Getty Donald Trump's least presidential moments so far... Anger over Inauguration crowd size Trumps inauguration crowd was visibly, and noticeably, smaller than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. But, he really wanted to have had the largest crowd on record. So, he praised it as the biggest crowd ever. Relatedly, Trump also claimed that it stopped raining in Washington at the moment he was inaugurated. It didnt, the day was very dreary Reuters

In the interview, Macron said he disagrees with Trump over the Paris climate accord and the Iranian nuclear treaty, but that they work closely on security and counter-terrorism. The relations between the two eldest allies is much stronger and much more important than the current presidents on both sides, he said.

Bloomberg
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A nurse who is already serving a life sentence for two murders he says he committed out of "boredom" may have killed more than 100 patients over several years at two hospitals in north western Germany, prosecutors have said.

Investigators have completed toxicological examinations on patients who died during Niels Hoegel's time as a nurse in hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, prosecutors and police in Oldenburg said. They found a further 16 cases in which he is suspected.

In late August, they said they had determined that he might have killed at least another 84 patients beyond the ones for whose murder he is already serving time. At the time, they said that they were awaiting toxicology results on another 41 fatalities, which have now been concluded.

Prosecutors reiterated in a statement that they expect to file additional charges against Hoegel early next year. Additional convictions could affect Hoegel's possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany.

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a hospital in Delmenhorst and was sentenced to life in prison.

During his trial, Hoegel had said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Hoegel worked at the Oldenburg hospital from 1999 to 2002 and in Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.

Prosecutors said he is now suspected in 38 cases in Oldenburg and 62 in Delmenhorst, but that in five of those cases further examinations are needed. It isn't clear when those will be concluded.

As part of a wider investigation involving both hospitals, police and prosecutors reviewed more than 500 patient files and hundreds more hospital records. They also exhumed 134 bodies from 67 cemeteries, and questioned Hoegel six times.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. 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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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Police have said if local health officials hadn't hesitated in alerting authorities, Hoegel could have been stopped earlier.

Authorities are already pursuing criminal cases against former staff at the two medical facilities.

AP
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A radioactive cloud of pollution that spread across Europe in September and October likely originated in Russia, or possibly Kazakhstan, French nuclear authorities believe.

The potential nuclear accident that launched the cloud most likely took place between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains in the last week of September, IRSN said.

Ruthenium-106 particles were detected by several countries in concentrations not harmful to human health, according to the agency, but disappeared from France in mid-October.

Jean-Marc Peres, IRSNs director, told Reuters: Russian authorities have said they are not aware of an accident on their territory, adding that his team had not yet contacted Kazakh authorities.

Germanys Federal Office for Radiation Protection said an accident at a nuclear power plant could be ruled out due to the type of particle detected.

It said: Ruthenium-106 is used as a radiation source in cancer therapy for the treatment of ocular tumours. Ruthenium can also occur during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel elements.

The release of nuclear material was of a scale that, had it occurred in France, would have required the evacuation of or sheltering of people within several kilometres of the origin point, IRSN said.
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A car has slammed into a crowd of people outside a school in Toulouse, south-west France.

At least three people are believed to be injured, including two Chinese students who have been seriously hurt in the incident, it has been reported.

A public prosecutor has visited the scene of the accident and there is no suggestion that it is an act of terrorism.

French police are apparently saying it was a possible deliberate vehicle attack and that the driver was not on a security watch list, according to AFP.

The driver, a 28-year-old man who was known to police for committing minor offences, was arrested at the scene, polices sources said.

Unconfirmed reports have claimed the driver suffered from major psychological problems.

The crash is believed to have taken place in front of Saint-Exupery high school in the suburb of Blagnac.

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 Mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc took to Twitter and said: "Very shocked by the aggression against the students in Blagnac. We offer them and their families all of our support"
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Lebanon believes Saad al-Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia, from where he resigned as Lebanese Prime Minister, two top government officials in Beirut said, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the front lines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

A third source, a senior politician close to Saudi-allied Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.

In a televised statement indicating deep concern at Hariris situation, his Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as Prime Minister and a national leader.

Hariris resignation last Saturday, read out on television from Saudi Arabia, came as a shock even to his aides and further embroiled Beirut in a regional contest between Riyadh and Tehran.

Hariris exit fuelled wide speculation that the Sunni Muslim politician, long an ally of Riyadh, was coerced into stepping down by Saudi Arabia as it seeks to hit back against Iran and its Lebanese Shiite ally, Hezbollah.

In his resignation speech, Hariri denounced Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife in Arab states and said he feared assassination. His father, a former prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005.

Saudi Arabia has denied reports he is under house arrest.

But Hariri has issued no statements himself to that effect, and has not denied that his movements are being restricted.

Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with (foreign) states to return him to Beirut, said the senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government had yet to declare that position.

Saudi Arabia says Hariri resigned because Hezbollah, which was included in Hariris coalition government, had hijacked Lebanons political system.

Hariri aides had until Thursday denied he was under house arrest but took a dramatically different tone after a meeting of the Future Movement convened at Hariris Beirut residence on Thursday.

A statement read by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said his return was necessary to recover respect for Lebanons internal and external balance, and in the framework of full respect for Lebanese legitimacy.

Hariris aunt, Bahia, sat next to Siniora as he read the statement. The party stood behind his leadership, it said.

Hariri came to office last year in a political deal that made the Hezbollah-allied Christian politician Michel Aoun head of state and produced a coalition government grouping most Lebanese parties including Hezbollah.

Saudi Arabia blessed the government at the time, but has been fiercely critical of the Hariri-led government since he stepped down, saying it failed to act against Hezbollah, whose guerrilla army is far more powerful than the weak state.

Saudi Arabia had wanted Hariri to take a tougher stance toward Hezbollah, and he failed to do so, the fourth source said. He was functioning as if it is business as usual, so the Saudis had to accelerate the process and to force a resignation.

Saudi Arabia this week lumped Lebanon together with Hezbollah as parties that are hostile to it, breaking with a long-established policy that has drawn a line between them and raising concerns of further Saudi measures.

Hariri flew to Saudi Arabia last Friday.

The top Lebanese government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: Lebanon is heading toward asking foreign and Arab states to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to release Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri.

The official said Hariri was still Lebanons prime minister, echoing other Lebanese government officials who say his resignation had not been received by Aoun, and his government therefore remained in place.

The resignation of Hariri, a business tycoon whose family made its fortune in Saudi Arabia, happened at the same time as a wave of arrests of Saudi princes and businessmen accused of corruption by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The senior Lebanese politician close to Hariri said: When he went (to Saudi Arabia) he was asked to stay there and ordered to resign. They ordered him to read his resignation statement and he has been held under house arrest since.

Two US officials said the Saudis, led by Crown Prince Mohammed, had encouraged Hariri to leave office.

The fourth source said: He is under controlled movement by the Saudis, limited movement.

Hezbollahs parliamentary bloc said Saudi Arabia must halt its interference in Lebanese affairs.

He made a one-day flying visit to the United Arab Emirates, a close Saudi ally, earlier this week before returning to Saudi Arabia.

Hariris office said in a statement he had received the French ambassador to Saudi Arabia at his Riyadh residence on Thursday. He had also met the head of the EU mission to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, and on Tuesday the British ambassador and the US charge daffaires.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed US Charge dAffaires Chris Henzel met with Hariri. Asked about reports Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia, Nauert declined to elaborate on his status or what was discussed, calling the talks sensitive, private, diplomatic conversations.

Nauert indicated the United States would not treat the Lebanese government any differently as a result of the uncertainty over Hariri.

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

Saudi Arabia warned its citizens on Thursday against travel to Lebanon and said those already there should leave. It has issued similar advice about Lebanon to its citizens before.

Lebanons Maronite patriarch will visit Saudi Arabia next week and has received a positive response from Saudi officials over the possibility of seeing Hariri, his spokesman said.

Patriarch Beshara al-Rais visit had been decided on a long time ago. In light of the developments, his mission has become national, Walid Ghayyad said. The patriarch will take a message to the kingdom that Lebanon cannot handle conflict.

Reuters
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At one point on Wednesday evening, more than 22,000 Britons were following the progress of a Nairobi-London flight online, waiting for now ex-International Development Minister Priti Patel to touch down.

A few hours later, thousands in Lebanon were doing the same, tracking a private plane that was supposed to be delivering newly resigned Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Riyadh home to Beirut.

When the plane landed, however, Mr Hariri was nowhere to be seen  and the consequences could have much graver fallout than Ms Patels tentative holiday meetings.

On Friday the President of Lebanons weak government, Michel Aoun, as well as Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, both declared that they believed Mr Hariri had not returned to Beirut because he is being held in Saudi Arabia against his will.

The Prime Minister  who was appointed just over a year ago, ending a two-and-a-half-year deadlock in Lebanons parliament  amazed his aides and rivals alike with a surprise resignation delivered from the Saudi capital last Saturday.

Mr Hariri cited his inability to unite Lebanons disparate political parties due to foreign Iranian meddling, as well as his assassination fears, in a stumbled-over statement broadcast on Saudi television.

Later the same day he made a phone call to President Aoun tendering his resignation, which the President rejected. He has not been heard from since, Lebanese officials say.

Meetings and appointments in his calendar for this week were not cancelled in anticipation of any such move.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

In a televised address on Friday, Hezbollahs powerful Hassan Nasrallah threw Riyadhs accusations of war-mongering in Yemen back at the Kingdom and claimed the Saudi authorities are holding Mr Hariri hostage.

During the last year, Lebanon was in a period of political stability and the situation was good. A president was elected, a prime minister was appointed and a government was formed, Mr Nasrallah said.

We condemn the blunt, bare-faced Saudi intervention in our domestic affairs.

Any offence to the Lebanese prime minister is an offence to all Lebanese, even when he is our adversary, he added.

Mr Hariris Sunni Future Movement party has long been backed by the Saudis as a bolster in Lebanons parliament against Shia, Iran-allied Hezbollah, but it is believed Riyadh had grown impatient with the Prime Ministers inability to contain Hezbollahs growing strength both at home and over the border, where it is fighting in Syrias civil war.

Hariris own party has already called for his immediate return home for the dignity of the nation.

The international community remained remarkably quiet on the unprecedented Riyadh-Beirut tensions until Friday, when the US, French and German foreign ministries put out statements which said that they believed Mr Hariri was in Riyadh of his own free will.

A delegate travelling with French President Emmanuel Macron, who embarked on a surprise visit to Riyadh on Thursday, told the AP on condition of anonymity that Mr Hariri had told foreign ambassadors himself that he is not a prisoner in Saudi Arabia.

 Saudi Arabia has 'declared war' on Lebanon and detained Lebanese PM, says Hezbollah leader

However, the French foreign ministry later offered more nuanced comments which suggested he may not be operating freely.

We wish that Saad al-Hariri has all his freedom of movement and be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon, deputy spokesperson Alexandre Georgini said in a statement.

The Lebanese premier is not the only person who is rumoured to be under house arrest after a week of frantic activity in Riyadh.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrests of more than 200 people, including 11 princes, ministers and influential businessmen, in an anti-corruption purge widely viewed as a concentrated effort to consolidate his own powers.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said from a tour of China that there was no reason to believe Mr Hariri was being prevented from returning to Lebanon but he is monitoring the situation.

The US supports the legitimate government of Lebanon and is asking other outside parties to stay out of it, Mr Tillerson added.

In Lebanon, however, the mood remains tense. Dozens of Saudi nationals left the country on Friday after an order from Riyadh for all citizens to evacuate  a decree issued four times over the last five years.

Many Lebanese are despairing over the collapse of a government which held so much promise a year ago, as well as the looming spectre of conflict if Riyadh has indeed decided the tiny country is the new front in its struggles against Iran.
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The ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels that targeted the Saudi Arabia capital was from Iran and bore Iranian markings, a top US Air Force official in the Middle East has said.

Lieutenant General Jeffrey L Harrigian, who oversees the Air Forces Central Command in Qatar, made the comments at a news conference in Dubai.

Mr Harrigian said authorities were investigating how the missile was smuggled into Yemen amid a Saudi-led coalition controlling the countrys airspace, ports, and borders.

Recommended Trump blames Iran for missile fired at Saudi Arabia by Yemen rebels

After the strike near Riyadh on 4 November, Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them.

More detail was not given, though the ministry also mentioned it found similar evidence after a 22 July missile launch however a rebel spokesperson told Al Jazeera that it was a Burkan 2-H missile - a Scud-type missile with a range of more than 800km.

French President Emmanuel Macron also said this week that the missile was "obviously" Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement earlier in the week that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant.

Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Isis militants in Syria in retaliation for twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Mr Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile they believed was used most recently.

Iran has denied the allegations it provided missiles to the Houthi rebels and what the Saudi coalition called a "a clear act of aggression" on the part of Iran.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

The 4 November attack prompted Saudi Arabia to close all ports, roads, and the air space in and out of Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition also sent a slew of missiles into the Yemeni capital of Sanaa several hours after the attack on the Riyadh airport.

The war in the region's poorest country began in 2014 when Houthi rebels took control of Sanaa and pushed south towards Aden.

Saudi Arabia and its coalition, fearing that the rebels were being backed by its rival Iran, then launched a series of air strikes to restore control for the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Since the air strikes began, at least 10,000 people have died as a result and 40,000 have been wounded, Al Jazeera reported.

Yemen is also facing an unprecedented famine and Saudi blockades on ports have exacerbated the dire situation, according to UN officials.

UN head of humanitarian affairs Mark Lowcock said: "it will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year, where tens of thousands of people were affected. It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."

The World Health Organisation has also confirmed that the country is facing a massive cholera outbreak, particularly affecting children; nearly a million reported cases are expected by the end of the year.
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An Israeli woman was told she could divorce her husband if she withdrew a rape complaint against him.

The ruling was made by the rabbinical court known also as the beth din, the spiritual part of the country's judiciary which controls divorces in the country. In Judaism, a couple needs permission from a rabbi before they can officially split.

Rights organisation Mavoi Satum has now taken on the woman's case and filed a complaint with the Attorney-General's Office.

Recommended We must reorientate our foreign policy away from Israel

They have called for an investigation into the case's presiding judges, who according to the Jerusalem Post, they have accused of extortion and interference with investigative procedures.

Under Jewish law in Israel, a husband must agree to a divorce and the wife must accept it.

During the divorce process, the wife claimed her husband raped her and was violent to her children, allegations which he denied. He said there was not enough evidence to support the claims.

Referring to the to the alleged crimes as "events of the past", the husband demanded the wife agree not to file a rape complaint with the police, in order to secure their separation.

She claimed the rabbis handling the case  Yosef Goldberg, David Bardugo and Mordechai Ralbag  then pressurised her to sign the document.

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

Mavoi Satum director Batya Kehana-Dror told the Post: "The rabbinical court not only denied the right of the woman to complain to the police and encouraged her to conceal information which she is obliged to provide, but also established it within an official court ruling."

She added: "This ruling has severe consequences, including encouraging violence in the family.

Defending the decision, the Rabbinical Court Association said both husband and wife had agreed the final document.

It said the presiding judges thought there was a possibility the woman could be refused a divorce, which was why they "thought it better" to approve the agreement containing a condition banning reporting the alleged rape.
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For adventure, head for London Gatwick. The Sussex airport has departures across Spanish speaking America, from Mexico and the Caribbean to the mountains and jungles of Costa Rica and Peru. Cancun is the gateway to the Yucatan Peninsula, the broad shoulder of Mexico  at its best between November and February, I reckon. Culture and coast coincide at Tulum, where a Mayan city is dramatically located above the Caribbean.

Delving inland, the finest Mayan site in Mexico (and I have checked) is Chichen Itza. The tallest pyramid in this magnificent city, built a millennium ago, was named El Castillo (the castle) by the awestruck Spanish conquistadors. But I like to lace archaeology with adventure. If you delve deeper into the Yucatan, you can trek through raw jungle to reach the enigmatic ruined city of Calakmul.

About 1,000 miles south and a little east of the Yucatan, rainforest drapes itself beautifully across Costa Rica. The capital, San Jose, is handily located at the heart of a verdant nation that has let nature run wonderfully wild. You can access dramatic highlands draped in cloud forest and profoundly rich in bird and animal life. The towering landscapes have been sculpted by the restless earth, and its power still flows  on display at the Arenal volcano, where molten lava lights up the night sky.

Youll find a wealth of interesting wildlife in Spanish-speaking America (Alamy)

Terra is a little firma at Punta Cana, at the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic. Close to the airport and the big resorts, Bavaro Adventure Park generates plenty of adrenalin with zip lining and zorbing (rolling downhill in a giant plastic inflatable ball  much more fun than it sounds). But for a richer experience, sign up for a 4x4 or overland truck tour into the interior. The Dominican Republic is the second largest nation in the Caribbean (after Cuba), and has a wealth of wildlife. You will encounter creatures such as iguanas and migrating birds, get to swim in natural pools fuelled by waterfalls, and have the opportunity to meet the local people in their villages. Or plan an adventure based around the nature reserves, staying in one of a blossoming number of eco-lodges.

Looking ahead to next summer, Lima beckons. The June solstice is a magical time to be in Peru  whether in Cuzco, on the Inca Trail or deep in the Amazon jungle.

Book a British Airways holiday with a deposit and pay the balance as late as five weeks before you travel (150 per booking up to a holiday of 1,500). Terms and conditions apply. Visit BA.com/wintersun
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Air Algerie flew many more passengers from France this summer than did British Airways or Lufthansa; and Zagreb, despite being Croatias capital, is only the third-busiest airport in the nation, after Split and Dubrovnik, in summer at least.

For this A to Z of fascinating aviation facts, and many more, you might want to sign up for The Anker Report.

Ralph Anker, who created this free newsletter, is paying particular attention to what Ryanair is doing this winter.

Europes biggest budget airline, you will not need me to remind you, has had a dismal autumn. Around three-quarters of a million people found their flight plans in tatters when 20,000 winter flights were cancelled because of problems with pilots rosters.

The vast majority of the 34 grounded departures were domestic, and many more British flights were affected than any other nation. Stansted to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and Gatwick to Belfast, have all been ditched during the winter, representing 80 flights and 15,000 passengers a week.

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You might imagine that Ryanairs inexorable expansion has gone into reverse. In fact, the cancelled routes are outnumbered by almost three-to-one by 130 new services.

Thats not a misprint and it does not include seasonal resumptions, Mr Anker told me. Thats 130 genuine new routes that Ryanair wasnt operating either this summer or last winter. Compare that with easyJet which is launching just 19 new routes during the same period.

So if UK domestic travellers are losing out from Ryanairs rearrangements, who is gaining? British international passengers, for a start.

From the airlines biggest base in Stansted, flights to Prague and Toulouse are doubled this winter. The Essex airport also gets 18 flights a week to Copenhagen, but these departures are simply moving across from Luton.

Italy is a prime beneficiary of what Ryanairs boss, Michael OLeary, calls One of the greatest suicide notes in history: Brexit.

While domestic routes in the UK disappear, Naples gets four new Ryanair flights a day to Bergamo (north of Milan) and two daily departures to Treviso (north of Venice).

Aer Lingus and Lufthansa will not be delighted to see that their grip on the Dublin-Munich route is challenged by Ryanairs new twice-daily between the Irish and Bavarian capitals, which is likely to attract plenty of skiers from both sides of the Irish border. Looking later this week, seats on Ryanair are available at 17; Aer Lingus wants five times as much, and the German airline is a dozen times more expensive.

With such new links, Ryanair will still be the number-one airline from Europes airports in November 2017, Mr Anker tells me. In second and third places are Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, with easyJet fourth.

Britains biggest airline has 4.8 per cent more seats this winter than last, compared with Ryanairs net growth of 4.3 per cent. Two smaller rivals, Vueling and Wizz Air, are expanding much more quickly, with the latter adding almost one-fifth more seats.

For an airline on financial life-support, meanwhile, Alitalia seems in remarkably good shape, and doing a good impression of a flourishing flag carrier. The Italian airlines available seat kilometres (for each flight, the number of seats multiplied by the distance) have actually increased, with new routes launched from Rome to Delhi and the Maldives  and enticing deals from UK airports to both destinations. The winner this winter will be the traveller.
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Northern Norway is not a place to just sit back and admire the view - or the Northern Lights.

This land of mystical, elemental beauty encourages a more intense interaction. You can hike, climb, ski, skim across the ocean on a RIB, drive a snowmobile, or be hauled on a sled by huskies. The Norwegians have devised many ways for visitors to embrace, rather than be intimated by, their winter wonderland.

Svalbard, an archipelago less than 800 miles from the North Pole, is one of the few places you can see the Aurora Borealis during the day as well as night; it is also one of the very few places in the world where you can explore under a glacier.

The Longyear Glacier provides a spectacular underworld of tunnels, crystals, caves and narrow corridors of ice and rock. Svalbard Wildlife Expeditions will guide you on this expedition and offer for those experienced enough, ice climbing.

The tip of Europe

Stay overnight in a Sami Lavvo (visitnorway.com)

Perhaps an easier physical interaction with this Arctic terrain is on a snowmobile. South of Svalbard, but still one of the most northerly points of continental Europe, you can join a snowmobile ride to Norways Nordkapp (North Cape) at the top of Magerya Island.

Destinasjon 71 Nord (en.71-nord.no) will whisk you through a hauntingly stark and barren snowscape, stopping to see the Northern Lights on the way until you come to this tip of Europe where there is a visitors centre, overnight accommodation and a viewing platform for potentially spectacular photographs of the Aurora Borealis.

Recommended Why you should travel to Troms

And in pursuit of the perfect holiday snap, some tour operators such as Green Gold of Norway have come up with a very helpful 24-hour package which not only offers snowmobile excursions, whale-watching and staying overnight in a Lavvo (tent), but a short photography workshop thrown in to teach you just how to take those Northern Lights pictures. Their expeditions are based around the city of Troms.

If its animals you want to photograph then head to Polar Park, the most northern animal park in the world. You will find it in the Salangsdalen Valley in Bardu, about 45 miles north of Narvik.

The animals roam in large enclosures, the scale more like a safari park than a zoo. There are wolves, brown bears, lynx, arctic foxes, elks, reindeer and moose. Visitors can even stay in a cabin in the wolf enclosure. Although very safe, it wont be the quietest night spent in the wilderness.

Colossal creatures

One of most exciting adventures in northern Norway is seeing a sperm whale in its natural habitat (Getty Images)

The ultimate animal to see in northern Norway is the sperm whale. Head to Andenes, on the Vesteralen islands, the only place in Europe where its possible to go whale-watching all year around. Just behind the coastline, receding ice age glaciers have left their mark: the huge Bleik Canyon, a mile-deep part of the sea where sperm whales thrive on the abundant fish and squid.

Hvalsafari will take you out in a trawler to prime whale-spotting territory. You dont have to wait long before the various body parts of these 60-foot-long colossal creatures begin to emerge: blowing, arching and fluking, lifting their tails into the air and then diving down oh-so-elegantly into the depths below.

No trip to northern Norway is complete without taking part in a bit of mushing, enjoying the Arctic tundra while being pulled by a team of huskies. How long you spend being driven through the snow is up to you - tours last between one hour to expeditions spanning days.

You can even learn to drive your own sled. Troms Villmarkssenter, which runs Tromss largest husky camp, offers a self-drive dog sledding package for those who want to be in control.

Let a team of huskies pull your sled through the Arctic terrain (Getty images)

If you prefer to be pulled by reindeer, a Sami guide will drive the sled, teach you how to lasso throw and give you an introduction to Sami culture.

Fore more inspiration click here - and to find out more and book your break to Norway, visit visitnorway.com
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Yesterday, just as President Obama was declaring that a decade of war was ending, the Prime Minister was warning in the Commons that we faced a generational struggle against an ideology. Newspaper headlines this week have screamed that War against al-Qaeda in Africa could last decades.

The aftermath of the terrorist outrage in Algeria is a time for clear thinking and considered judgement. And it is a time to apply the lessons we have learned over recent years. Stumbling into Sahelistan is in no ones interests.

The rhetoric of a global war on terror is certainly familiar. But it is a language  and a frame  that should be resisted, indeed rejected. Why? Because it suggested a unified, coherent transnational enemy, embodied by al-Qa'ida  when in fact the reality is a more complex and disparate mix of groups and grievances. It also allowed organisations  principally al-Qa'ida  to seek to aggregate diverse regional and religious problems into a single narrative around the alleged oppression of Muslims.

Manichean myths

Today the challenges and circumstances we confront demand a different response. Al-Qa'ida  using modern technology to advance medieval ideas  is like a mutating virus, seeking out weak host bodies in which to take root and spread. First in Afghanistan during Taliban rule, then resurfacing in Pakistan post 9/11 and more recently in Yemen and Somalia.

Today we are witnessing yet another mutation. The Arab Spring  which first powerfully challenged al-Qa'idas narrative of violent change - has nonetheless contributed to regional instability that Al Qaida now seeks to exploit. The spill over from this can now be seen across North and West Africa.

So how should the international community respond to this emerging threat in the Sahel region?

First - in a way that was not the case in Iraq, by prioritising an understanding of the peoples, history and culture of the region.

To try and draw simplistic lines between good and bad will only help those seeking to unify those with ethnic, regional and international grievances. The prize is to keep those movements separate, not unite them.

That requires good diplomacy  coordinated by the UN. The job of UN Special Envoy to the region has just been given to former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi  who is said to have no expertise in the Sahel, knows none of the local languages and only has a basic understanding of French. West Africa is not short on regional experts  so the UN must acknowledge the true scale and urgency of the challenge by empowering them to undertake this work.

Second, of course terrorist groups need to be tackled at root. The question is not whether to do so, but how?

Across this vast region we need more intelligence sharing on the characteristics and capability of the emerging threats. Notwithstanding the horror of In Amenas, the capacity of militants to strike beyond the region remains, as yet, uncertain.

Earlier this month the French acted to stem an advance that has already seen of al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb join with local forces to take control of an area twice the size of Germany.

The French intervention only reinforces the urgency of getting West African forces on the ground. Nigerian forces are now arriving in Mali but the need remains for financing, training and vital intelligence support. ECOWAS must be in the lead, but for this to happen will require the EU in particular to now work rapidly to enhance their capacities.

Law as weapon

This regionally led, multilaterally backed, approach is the means by which the UK doesnt just help French forces go in, but also helps French forces get out.

Third, the threat of terror must be met by the rule of law. Malis government doesnt just lack security. It lacks legitimacy after a military coup last March. Poverty and lawlessness blight the lives of the population. The development effort must therefore match the security response. That means a focus on politics and strengthening governance - both keys to unlocking a more prosperous and secure future for the country.

So we need a joint EU/AU led initiative  with the backing of the UN - aimed at strengthening governance and development in Mali so that the government will better command the support of all its citizens.

None of this is easy, or quick. But it is necessary. Learning the right lessons from our past is vital now to charting the right course for the future. The choice in the Sahel is not between doing nothing, and intervening with British and other Western nations combat forces. There is a wiser and more effective response that combines diplomacy, development, politics and security. This should be the choice that Britain makes.
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The Saudis may be holding the Lebanese Prime Minister hostage but their apparent plan to topple the Beirut government has gloriously backfired. Far from breaking up the cabinet and throwing Hezbollahs ministers to the wolves, the Lebanese nation has suddenly woken up to what its like to be united  against the Saudis. The Lebanese government has announced that it does not accept the resignation statement which Saad Hariri was obliged to make in Riyadh, and overnight hashtags have appeared on several Beirut streets saying kul na Saad  We are all Saad. Even the Sunni Muslims of Lebanon are furious at their Sunni counterparts in Saudi Arabia.

President Macron of France was first off the mark by detouring into Riyadh on his way to Dubai to ask 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman what on earth he was doing. Almost the entire two-hour meeting was taken up with why and for what Hariri has been detained  or constrained, or kidnapped or held hostage or treated as an honoured guest of Saudi Arabia (take your pick). For the Lebanese government  and for many tens of thousands of Lebanese  the Saudi decision to present Hariri with a resignation letter to read on the Arabia television channel was a national insult.

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 greatest fear in little Lebanon now is that the Saudis, having told their citizens in Beirut to leave the country  there are in fact very few here  will demand that more than 200,000 Lebanese citizens in the Gulf leave Saudi Arabia. These are mainly middle-management people in banks and government, and Saudi Arabia could scarcely do without them. But such an order would have a grave economic effect on Lebanon. The Prime Ministers captivity  albeit luxurious, since he is at home with his wife and children  has prompted customers to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars from his BankMed in Beirut.

US, British, EU and French diplomats have been allowed to visit Hariri, but former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was refused a visit when he was in Riyadh on the grounds that this was a purely internal Saudi matter  which it clearly is not. To have Saudi officials now trying to dictate the make-up of another Lebanese government suggests that they want to take on the role played out for decades by pre-civil war Syria. The Crown Prince may think he is as powerful as Hafez el-Assad used to be. But the Lebanese do not want to be tutored again.

Hariris next visitor is likely to be the Lebanese Catholic Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, who is due in Saudi Arabia on an official visit on Monday. Rai is an ambitious and unyielding cleric who has apparently been told he can see Hariri  though why the Saudis have the right to decide if a Lebanese patriarch can meet his own prime minister remains one of the Kingdoms current mysteries. Macron apparently called Donald Trump in China and asked him to phone the Crown Prince prior to his arrival in Riyadh. We do not know what Trump said.

But he has already blundered with his usual laziness into tweeting his support for the Crown Prince. Of the princes, ex-ministers and officials under house arrest for alleged corruption, he said that some of those they are harshly (sic) treating have been milking their country for years! But Trump obviously did not know  or care  that one of those detained princes, al-Waleed bin Talal, is an American citizen. Thus has the US President potentially accused one of his own citizens of corruption, words which might help to imprison him.

 Trump tells Middle East need to 'drive out' terrorism on their own

However, the Department of Home Truths  an institution I regularly visit when writing about the Middle East  would suggest that the Hezbollah are not guiltless in this little drama. They deeply angered Hariri earlier this year when they staged a press trip to southern Lebanon to show journalists armed and uniformed Hezbollah fighters in the UN peacekeepers zone along the Israeli border. And some of the speeches made recently by the groups chairman, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, gave the impression that he thought he was himself the president of Lebanon  the real job is held by ex-General and now President Michel Aoun  or even the prime minister.

And now one more small touch to add to the slightly grim moment of Hariris detention just under a week ago. The Lebanese Prime Minister  for thus we shall still call him since he was given his resignation statement to read  wears his very expensive and smart watch on his right wrist. And when he read that statement, the watch was gone. Just as his mobile phone and those of his bodyguards had been taken when his plane arrived in Riyadh last week. Hariri can use his watch to record or even make calls. But when, shortly afterwards, he was filmed meeting King Salman, the watch was back on his wrist. No problem now, it seemed. After all, he had by then resigned.
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About eight or nine years ago, I had an Afghan friend who previously worked for a large US aid agency funding projects in the Afghan provinces. He had been hired to monitor their progress once work had got underway, but he did not hold the job very long for reasons that he explained to me.

The problem for the Americans at the local agency headquarters in Kabul was that the risk of ambush by the Taliban was deemed too high for them personally to visit the projects that they were funding. Instead, they followed the construction from one step removed, by insisting that the Afghan company involved should transmit back to Kabul, at set intervals, detailed pictures of its activities, to show that they were fulfilling their contract to the letter.

Almost as an afterthought, the aid agency thought it might be useful to send along an Afghan in their employ to check that all was well. His first mission was to go to Kandahar province, where some plant  I seem to remember it was a vegetable packing facility  was believed to be rising somewhere in the dangerous hinterland. He went there, but, despite earnest inquiries, was unable to locate the project.

Back in Kandahar city, he asked around about the mystery of the missing vegetable plant, but found that his questions were answered evasively by those he contacted. Finally, he met somebody who, under a pledge of secrecy about the source of the information, explained to him what was happening. Businessmen in Kandahar receiving funds from the aid agency and knowing its reliance on photographs to monitor works in progress, had found it safer and more profitable to fake the whole process.

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

They engaged a small local company with experience of making TV advertisements and documentaries to rig up what was, in effect, a film studio  in which workers played by extras would be shown busily engaged in whatever activity the agency was paying for. In the case of the vegetable-packing facility, this must have been simple enough to fake by buying cabbages and cauliflowers in the market to be placed in boxes inside some shed by labourers hired by the day.

My friend returned to Kabul and hinted to his employers that this particular project in Kandahar was not doing as well as they imagined. He thought that it would be unhealthy for himself to go into detail, but he did not, at this stage, resign from his well-paying job. This only happened a few months later, when he was sent to Jalalabad to check on a chicken farm supposedly nearing completion outside the city.

Once again, he could not find the project in question and, when he met those in charge, put it to them that it did not exist. They admitted that this was indeed so, but  according to his report  they added menacingly that he should keep in mind that it was a long road back to Kabul from Kandahar. In other words, they would kill him if he exposed their scam: a threat that convinced him his long-term chances of survival were low unless he rapidly resigned and found new employment.

I was thinking of the story of the Kandahar packing plant and the Jalalabad chicken farm, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched his anti-corruption drive in Saudi Arabia last weekend. There may be a big difference in the amount of money to be made out of looting the Saudi state compared to US aid agencies in Afghanistan, but the psychology and processes at work have similarities.

In both cases, those making a lot of money out of corruption will put more effort into going on doing just that, than those who say they are determined to stop them. If a few wealthy individuals are scapegoated, then others will jostle to take their place.

It is important to take on board, when considering the case of Saudi Arabia, that many oil- or resource-rich states  be they monarchies or republics  have launched their own anti-corruption drives down the years. All have failed, and for roughly the same reasons.

Iraq, so different from Saudi Arabia in terms of history, religion and politics, is likewise entirely dependent on oil revenues. Its next biggest export used to be dates, though today even these are often imported from China. Corruption is chronic, particularly in giant infrastructure projects. Four years ago, I was in Baghdad early in the year, when there was heavier than usual rainfall, which led to a large part of the eastern side of the city disappearing under a foot of grey water mixed with sewage. This was despite $7bn (5.3bn) supposedly spent on new sewers and drainage systems, but which, in the event, turned out not to function  or even to exist.

The problem in resource-rich states is that corruption is not marginal to political power, but central to acquiring it and keeping it. Corruption at the top is a form of patronage manipulated by those in charge, to create and reward a network of self-interested loyalists. It is the ruling family and its friends and allies who cherrypick what is profitable: this is as true of Saudi Arabia as it was true of Libya under Gaddafi, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and his successors, or Iraqi Kurdistan that was supposedly different from the rest of the country.

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Corruption is a nebulous concept when it comes to states with arbitrary rulers, who can decide  unrestrained by law or democratic process  what is legal and what is illegal. What typifies the politics of oil states is that everybody is trying to plug into the oil revenues in order to get their share of the cake.

This is true at the top, but the same is the case of the rest of the population, or at least a large and favoured section of it. The Iraqi government pays $4bn a month to about seven million state employees and pensioners. These may or may not do productive work, but it would be politically risky to fire them because they are the base support of the regime in power.

Anti-corruption drives dont work, because if they are at all serious, they soon begin to cut into the very roots of political power by touching the untouchables. At this point principled anti-corruption campaigners will find themselves in serious trouble and may have to flee the country, while the less-principled ones will become a feared weapon to be used against anybody whom the government wants to target.

A further consequence of the traditional anti-corruption drive is that it can paralyse government activities in general. This is because all officials, corrupt and incorrupt alike, know that they are vulnerable to investigation. The safest course for them is to take no decision and sign no document which might be used or misused against them, a frustrated American businessman told me in Baghdad some years ago. He added that it was only those so politically powerful that they did not have to fear legal sanctions who would take decisions  and such people were often the most corrupt of all.
Despite predictions of a "red wave" rolling throughout the country  one in which Republican political candidates would cruise to victory up and down the ballot on the strength of nationwide frustration with crime, inflation and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration  Tuesday's midterm election delivered more of the same for many Rhode Islanders. In addition to Democratic victories in all the major statewide races, voters in North Kingstown, Narragansett and South Kingstown skewed overwhelmingly blue in General Assembly races and all local school boards and town council races. With the results of Tuesday's midterm election all but finalized pending a few outstanding mail-in ballots and certification, it appears local boards of government in Southern Rhode Island towns will see a large number of familiar faces. With that in mind, do you believe your local town and school committee seats are held by the best representatives available in your town? Why or why not? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
Family. Faith. Collaboration. Tradition.

Four pillars that epitomize Cabarrus County culture, both as it was, as it is and as it hopes to be.

These four core values, derived over months of research by an outside marketing firm, form the basis for the new Cabarrus County brand and led not only to a new logo but a powerful new slogan, as well: America thrives here.

This is the first brand weve had significant research put into, county Communications and Outreach Manager Kasia Thompson said. We used a tagline back in 2005 that was Home of American motorsports, and weve used the seal since then, but weve not had a county identity until now.

The county hired Avant Marketing Group and Walker Marketing Inc. companies to conduct brand research and develop a logo. Avant headed up the research portion, hitting the ground running with information from the countys community survey.

It is really important in order for a brand to be authentic and a brand to live up to its brand promise that the brand be based in detailed research, not just a couple of folks sitting around coming up with a slogan, Paul VandenElzen with Avant said.

The company formed five focus groups comprising residents, business leaders and county officials. Interviews with county leaders gave the company an idea of where the direction the county wanted to go, and meetings with high school students gave a base for the thoughts of the generation that would lead that future. They asked what people thought was both good and bad about the place they lived.

Through a brand audit, Avant took a look at Cabarrus five municipalities to verify what they found lined up with cities and towns. They also looked at past county messaging.

All that information combined into a brand platform, which is based on values rather than certain attributes, characteristics or attractions in the county.

The reason why we do that is we want to be sure that its a brand that is sustainable, and, as you know, anything can change and sometimes dramatically change in terms of what a county offers, Mark Vogel with Avant said. When you focus on values, youre focusing on the people that live there, that reside within the area, and by doing so you learn their values, the shared values of the community. And our values dont change quickly over a period of time.

Values, Vogel said, tend to form at a young age and stick with people as they grow.

They become basically the compass point of our behavior, he said. It really makes up the texture and fabric of any type or organization as well as a municipality or in this case a county.

The core values Avant found formed the basis of Cabarrus County culture were family, faith, collaboration and tradition. No one value is greater than the other, Vogel said; instead all four sit in what the company calls an equilibrium, defining what makes Cabarrus County.

Cabarrus County respects tradition while focusing on progress with a strong collaboration in their business, which is extremely critical, Vogel said. When we began our research earlier this year, there was one profound perspective that Cabarrus County has that we do not find in many communities throughout the country, and that is collaboration.

Vogel said that every community has people with differing points of view, and Cabarrus County is no exception. Many have a more progressive perspective, he said, with eyes on a future of development. Others take a more traditional approach and hope the county doesnt change much.

But even with those points of view, what we heard was that people have realized that growth is going to happen whether you like it or not in this county, and people have made up their minds that we better get out in front of our growth and manage it properly, collaborate among our municipalities and county government and so forth and ensure that its well managed, Vogel said. And thats very distinctive.

Cabarrus County Board of Commission chair Steve Morris said he was thrilled that residents reflected and an outside group recognized a value that commissioners have long encouraged. Through summit meetings that bring all the countys elected officials together several times a year and other joint projects here and there, working together has become an emphasis of both the county and municipalities.

It almost brings tears to my eyes because I get so excited, Morris said. That was not prompted. That was the community involvement piece of this, and for them to acknowledge that, recognize that we have dont those things and had successes in that area is very, very gratifying. Thats what its all about, and that really says to me that its working. If the public at large sees that and sees that as a positive thing, too, I think thats very important.

But collaboration on its own doesnt encompass the Cabarrus County identity. Vogel said that combined with strong family values, a nod to tradition and a deeply faith-based community all work together to make the county what it isand together brought the slogan America thrives here.

Its a pretty big, extensive promise for the county to live up to, Vogel said. It is pointed. It is distinctive. But it is also a challenge. The challenge is to live up to the promise America thrives here that is based upon brand values. It does not say that everythings perfect here; this is not utopia. But what it does say is that based upon the attitudes and perspectives of the government and collaboration of peers, that everyone works together to solve problems and have a common goal and vision for the future and a properly managed government properly managed county, so that the ultimate opportunities are there for everyone. And that is really what made up the identity.
Downtown Mt. Pleasant will see some major changes over the next few weeks, and town officials hope its just the beginning.

The new restaurant 73 & Main in the old hosiery mill building is already well underway. To compliment that projectand others they hope will come down the roadthe Mt. Pleasant town board finagled a series of partnerships with private business owners to pave several tracts of land into a free municipal parking lot.

Its been a dirt lot for eons, Town Administrator Randy Holloway said. Its been a chore trying to pull it all together, anytime youre trying to get private property owners to enter into a long-term agreement with the town, and its worked very well. Its going to be nice. We think the restaurant and the parking lot are going to be a catalyst for some other things in downtown over the next several months and several years.

The lotwhich sits west of Main Street and northeast of Franklin Street behind Marvin Fresh Farmhouse Restaurant and Dance Trapwill hold about 55 spaces and should be finished by Dec. 15. The project will cost about $400,000.

Property owners gave the town permission to use their land free of charge, and in turn Mt. Pleasant will pave, landscape and maintain the lot.

It was a win-win for everybody, Holloway said, pointing to what the land used to be. That was a gravel lot. This was a gravel lot. This was gravel. Now, its all going to be paved. So now they have a nice place for their customers to park.

Of the 55 spaces, about 10 will be reserved during business hours for the Mt. Pleasant Insurance Agency, and about three spots will be set aside for Dance Trap. All of those will be free public parking when the businesses are closed.

Landscaping around the lot will include a small sitting area behind Dance Trap, complete with park benches and shrubbery.

When parents come and drop their children off to go to class, you have parents waiting for children to get out of class, Holloway said. What they were doing is hanging out back here on the little playground, and this is gone away. So were going to have places for the parents to come and not just sit in their cars. Theres a lot of people that walk around town, so there will be some benches out here.

Moving forward, Holloway hopes the town will be able to add more paved parking lots to the square. The board has also already approved additional lighting in the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit area leading into town to illuminate street parking.

It will be very well lit, and so for people walking, there are a lot of people walking at night, Holloway said. That projects going on simultaneously with the parking lot. Wed already planned that last spring, so its already in the budget.

Mt. Pleasant has big plans, and the parking lot is a first step in the right direction. Holloway said he hopes both the on-street lights and the lot will help spur other projects in the works.

I was really proud of the board on this, he said. If you want people to come and make an investment in our town, we need to make an investment in our downtown. This is going to end up costing us right at $400,000 is what we budgeted, and it came in at a little under budget. That hopefully shows potential investors and current property owners like Moose Drug and all that that the town is ready to make some investment in our town.
Insolvency board enforces stringent tests for reviving defaulting companies

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has amended its rules governing lenders who invest in bankrupt companies. Promoters or any party proposing a rescue plan for a sinking company will be subject to strict tests of creditworthiness and credibility. The rescue plan must provide details explaining the background of the promoter, including any convictions, disqualifications, criminal proceedings, and the categorization of wilful defaulters.

This move puts greater responsibility on the professionals working out the resolution and the committee of creditors, to ensure that defaulting companies do not fall back into the hands of their original promoters. Lenders have long feared that promoters regaining control of defaulting entities cast a doubt on the credibility of the lending process.

RELATED: Audit and Financial Review Advsiory

No need for separate form for PAN/TAN

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) recently issued a clarification that, Permanent Account Number (PAN)/ Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number (TAN) forms do not have to be submitted separately, after filling the Simplified Proforma for Incorporating a Company Electronically (SPICe) e-form. PAN and TAN will now be issued based on the details submitted in the SPICe e-form.

This latest step is a part of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDTs) measures towards improving the ease of doing business for new companies. The CBDT had previously directed the MCA to issue the PAN/TAN within one day. New companies are also issued ePAN in addition to the physical PAN card. The SPICe e-forms were introduced in October 2016 to facilitate speedy incorporation of companies and remove the requirement of filling multiple forms.

RELATED: Shutting Down Indias Shell Companies  Government Continues Anti-Corruption Drive

RBI mandates unique code for all large corporate borrowers

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made it mandatory for corporate borrowers with an exposure of US$767,401 (Rs50 million) and above to obtain a 20-digit Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) from banks  a move that will significantly improve risk management in Indias stressed banking sector.

The LEI code is a key measure to improve the quality and accuracy of financial data for better risk management post the global financial crisis. According to the notification, large corporate borrowers must obtain the code for their parent as well as subsidiaries and associates. Borrowers who do not obtain an LEI within the stipulated time-period will not be granted renewal or enhancement of credit facilities.

Borrowers with an exposure of US$153 million (Rs10 billion) and more to the banking system must obtain the code by March 31, 2018.

Those between US$76.7 million (Rs5 billion) and US$153 million (Rs10 billion) by June 30, 2018.

Corporates with an exposure between US$15.3 million (RS 1 billion) and US$76.5 million (Rs5 billion) must get the code by March 31, 2019, and those with US$7.6-15.3 million (Rs500 million-1 billion) by December 31, 2019.

For borrowers of US$767,401 (Rs50 million) to US$7.6 million (Rs500 million), a deadline for obtaining LEI code will be issued in due course.
The 23rd edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), India's second oldest film festival, rolls back into the eastern metropolis on Friday, welcoming world cinema, attracting the finest of talents and embracing fresh cinematic experiments.

Beginning with a star-studded inaugural on Friday, the gala event, hosted by the West Bengal government, will screen an assemblage of 143 films spanning 53 countries under 16 different categories till November 17.

Stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan will be present at the inaugural ceremony. Tamil film icon Kamal Haasan and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt are also slated to attend the ceremony, to be presided over by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Britain will be the focus country this year in commemoration of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017 with as many as 13 of its films part of the week-long celeberation.

Headlining the British highlight in a retrospective are six films of acclaimed English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom. "Welcome to Sarajevo", "Trishna", "The Claim" are part of the film fest roster.

"Lady Macbeth", "Adult Life Skills" and "Sea Sorrow" are slotted in the contemporary British films while the classics is dominated by David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and Alfred Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" among others.

Icons of Indian cinema Tom Alter, Om Puri and Ramananda Sengupta will be remembered through rich tributes.

Three films will be showcased in memory of cinematographer Sengupta ("Headmaster") and actors Tom Alter ("Shatranj Ke Khiladi") and Om Puri ("Sadgati").

Promising the best of world cinema, the organisers have brought Iranian film maker Mostafa Taghizadeh's "Yellow" (2017) and French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's "The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company".

"Yellow" opens the festival.

The screening of "The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company" is significant as this will be the film's first Indian screening. The 1986 film, made for television, was restored and released in October this year in France.

A special tribute section has been devoted to 10 well-known filmmakers such as award-winning Turkish director Yesim Ustaoglu ("Clair Obscur"), French auteurs Arnaud Desplechin ("Ismael's Ghosts" starring Marion Cotillard) and Claire Denis (Juliette Binoche headlined "Bright Sunshine In") as also South Korean director and Cannes veteran Hong Sang-soo ("The Day After").

Stressing on innovation, this year the fest introduces Indian languages competition category as also 'Unheard India: Rare Indian Languages' section featuring eight films in as many languages (Monpa, Konkani, Kodava, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Khasi and Chakma).

The list includes Manju Borah's "Songs of the Horned Owl" (Bodo) and Ahsan Majid's "Sonam", the first feature made in Monpa dialect of the Indo-Tibetan branch of languages.

To give a fillip to the Bengali film industry, the festival will host the premiere of three Bengali films including acclaimed playwright and West Bengal IT Minister Bratya Basu-starrer "Baranda".

A package of 12 National Award-winning films ("Bisorjon", "Dashakriya" and others) has been pegged as "must-watch" by the organisers.

A contemporary Moroccan cinema package encapsulating six films including "The 5th String" -- which won special mention of the jury honour at the National Film Festival of Morocco, Tangier, 2011 -- is also in the programme.

Six films of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, one of Thailand's most celebrated working directors will be screened. Three Thailand National Film Association Awards winner "Fun Bar Karaoke" is among them.

As for the competitive section, the women's director's competition has been replaced with 'Innovation in Moving Images' with a prize money of Rs 51 lakh for the best film and Rs 21 lakh for the best director.

On schedule are no less than 14 films including German-Austrian venture "Uncle Vanya", Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Sayeed's "Death of A Poet", and Argentinian outing "A Sort of A Family".

In a toast to cinematic technique, an exposition of original equipment used by the Lumiere brothers, auteur Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak has been planned.

The Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture will be given by Rachel Dwyer, professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London.

A total of 93 foreign language films will be showcased through the festival and 50 from India.

The films would be screened across 12 venues in the city.

--IANS

sgh/rb/bg
Children of color in Indiana are being left behind, according to the 2017 Race for Results report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private philanthropy based in Baltimore that works to promote well-being of at-risk children.

This years report highlights the fact that Indiana must work harder to improve outcomes for African-American and Hispanic youth to ensure a successful future for the state and all Hoosiers. Even though Indiana often appears to be in the middle of the pack for child well-being, that isnt the case for all of our children, says Tami Silverman, president and CEO of the Indiana Youth Institute (IYI).

IYI works to increase the well-being of all Hoosier kids by supporting, educating and collaborating with the organizations and individuals that care for them, Silverman said, adding that IYI is the states source for high-quality, youth-focused data.

Breaking down the data reveals startling gaps between individual racial and ethnic groups, Silverman said about the report. In particular, we see significant disparities in nearly every category when comparing African-American and Hispanic children to other racial groups. The data also reveals similar challenges when looking at outcomes for the more than 155,000 Hoosier children living in immigrant families.

While Indiana typically scores above national averages in education, the data shows not all students are reaching benchmarks used to gauge educational progress, such as reading and math proficiency.

According to the report, about 78 percent of African-American and 71 percent of Hispanic/Latino fourth-graders are not proficient in reading, compared to 56 percent of white fourth-graders. Ninety percent of Indianas African-American eighth-graders and 85 percent of the states English Language Learners are not proficient at math, compared to 55 percent of white eighth graders and 60 percent of those who are not ELL students.

The data also shows gaps in higher education. Seventy-nine percent of Hoosier African-Americans, ages 25 to 29, and 84 percent of Hispanic young adults have not completed at least an associate degree, compared to 61 percent of their white counterparts.

Minority Hoosier children are also more likely to live in high-poverty areas. This contributes to the cycle of poverty and puts them at greater risk for negative outcomes. In Indiana, 72 percent of African-American and 67 percent of Hispanic youth live in low-income households, defined as having a household income of less than $49,200 a year for a family of four. Less than 40 percent of white and Asian children live in similar situations. Meanwhile, 59 percent of Indianas children in immigrant families live in low-income households, compared to 44 percent of children in U.S.-born families.

In the Latino community, its about educating the family, said Yecenia Tostada, senior program director of the Indiana Latino Institute. Children tend not to make decisions on their own. The family is very much involved in the decision-making process. Parents need to learn how to support their child at home. It would address the core of the issue. Parents are willing to do more, they just dont have the information.

Silverman also mentioned the importance of support at home in determining a childs chance at success.

We know many students lack the necessary support systems, opportunities and financial means that make continuing education a possibility, said Silverman. Some students face systematic barriers to success that begin in their formative years.  Many others may not have a parent, role model or mentor who can help them understand the benefits and process of obtaining a degree or apprenticeship.

A number of factors affect the Latino test scores that stem from bigger problems or bigger concerns, said Tostada.

Sometimes there are issues with cultural understanding of the school system, which then leads to the child not having all the support a child needs to be successful, said Tostada. Sometimes theres a larger need for information.

Without intentional and strategic intervention, research shows these gaps widen as a child progresses through school. While Indiana students typically graduate high school at rates near or above national averages, a quarter of Indianas African-American students do not reach this milestone.

Our futures are all intertwined, and each child represents boundless possibilities, said Silverman. For our state to reach its full potential, it is critical that individuals, communities and institutions from across Indiana come together to provide a supportive environment that promotes high-quality education, healthy development and economic stability and opportunity for all children and families. This ensures that every Hoosier child can grow, develop and thrive in our state and beyond.

race for results
In the last episode of Mere Angne Mein, we had seen Riya and Shivam go to the college and Riya ask for her documents. The man neglects and says that he can't help them...
106 inmates have been granted state pardon by the Ogun State Chief Judge, Olatokunbo Oloyede on Thursday as part of efforts to decongest prisons in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mrs. Olopade pardoned the inmates during her three-day tour of prison formations at Ibara and Oba in Abeokuta as well as those in Ilaro, Sagamu and Ijebu-Ode.

NAN reports that 38 inmates were released from Oba prison, 31 in Ibara, 13 in Ilaro, eight in Sagamu, while 16 inmates were set free in Ijebu-Ode prison.

Speaking during the visits, the judge said the pardon was to decongest the prisons across the country in line with the directive of the Attorney General of the Federation.

According to Mrs. Olopade, state chief judges were directed to visit prison formations within their jurisdictions and release inmates that should not be in custody.

She said the exercise, the second in 2017 legal year, was aimed at decongesting the prisons and release inmates who had been in custody without trial over a long period of time.

According to her, the prolonged detention of most of the inmates is due to negligence on the part of the prosecuting authorities.

Most of the inmates have been on awaiting advice from the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution) for years, and the DPP failed to render legal advice, and issues of missing case files as well as prison officers not producing inmates to court at the appropriate time are responsible for the delay in the judicial process.

I see no point keeping people here for years without no file or delay in legal advice; it is injustice, she said.

Mrs. Olopade, however, charged all stakeholders in the administration of justice to accelerate trial of cases and make effective use of the fast-track clinics provided by the state government to achieve the set objective of decongesting the prisons.

The CJ appealed to the prisons service to address the issue of not transporting inmates to court.

She said the prisons service should work effectively with the Ministry of Justice in the discharge of their duties towards speedy dispensation of justice to help in eliminating congestion in prisons.

She appealed to the government to provide more magistrates and magistrates courts, saying that the courts needed more qualified personnel.

The magistrates and judges are trying, we need more magistrates courts and magistrates in Ogun in order to manage legal cases, she said.

She, however, admonished the freed inmates to make the best use of the amnesty by shunning crime and criminal activities capable of bringing them back to prison.

Kolawole Olatunde, the deputy comptroller in charge of Ibara Prison commended the CJ for freeing the inmates and called for frequent visits by the chief judge.

He also commended the Federal Government for supporting the prisons with logistics.

Source: ( NAN )
Over an allegation that President Muhammadu Buhari had died when he was hospitalized in London and for demanding a bribe, a Brigadier-General in the Nigerian Army is set to face prosecution by a military court-martial

FLASH: Brig. General reportedly detained for demanding bribes also facing charges for spreading rumors that @NGRPresident Buhari died in UK pic.twitter.com/kilGywfx0Q  Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) November 10, 2017

Brigadier-General Lym Hassan (N/826) will face prosecution by a military court-martial for falsely claiming that President Muhammadu Buhari had died when the latter was hospitalized in London and for demanding a $600,000 bribe from a defense contractor.

According to the Nigerian Army Headquarters charge sheet exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters, the first of the two-count charge stated that Brigadier-General Hassan, in a phone conversation on January 17, told one Mr. Yarima Ibrahim, that President Buhari was dead. Mr. Ibrahims address, according to the charge sheet signed by Major-General JS Malu and dated October 11, is 2nd Avenue, EFAB Estate, Life Camp, Abuja. The alleged offense, the charge sheet stated, was prejudicial to good order and service discipline and amounted to a contravention of Section 103(1) of the Armed Forces Act (AFA) CAP 20 LFN 2004. On the second count, Brigadier-General Hassan was alleged to have, on February 24, demanded a bribe of $600,000 from OPEMS Integrated Concepts Limited. The demand was allegedly made in respect of a contract awarded for the relocation of Nigeria Level 11 Hospital, Mali, to its permanent site in Timbuktu. According to the Army headquarters, the alleged offense amounted to scandalous conduct and is a contravention of Section 91 of Armed Forces Act (AFA) CAP A 20 LFN 2004.

Source: SaharaReporters
The Bishop of an Anglican Diocese in the Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State has dragged three senior priests of the church to court for refusing to vacate the church premises as he accuses them of gross misconduct.

A peaceful protest was on Wednesday staged by the members of the Anglican Diocese on the Lake in the Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State over a crisis rocking the diocese.

According to a report by PUNCH, the Bishop of the diocese, Rt. Rev. C.B.N. Otti, had dragged three senior priests of the church, Ven. Canon Eugene Onwubie, Rev. Eugene Iheanacho and Ven. Caleb Udom, to court for refusing to vacate the church premises where they resided with their families.

It was gathered that the priests who were officially in charge of St. Mathias Anglican Church, Nkwesi and Emmanuel Church, Izombe, were sued for refusing to submit their ordination certificates to the bishop, a situation that made him to issue the priests a one week notice to vacate their official residences.

The members carried placards with inscriptions such as, Bishop Otti, stop this intimidation now or face our anger, Bishop Otti, is Diocese on the Lake your private business?, Bishop Otti, pay your priests, Oguta youths say no to your intimidation, harassment and humiliation, among others.

Speaking while briefing journalists, spokesman for the protesters, Edwin Onyemaechi, who is from St. Mathias Anglican Church, Nkwesi, described the bishops action against the affected priests as unfortunate, adding that the matter was minor and could have been settled in-house instead of going to court.

Another protester, said the crux of the matter was that the bishop accused the priests of withholding the money they were supposed to remit to the diocese from their parishes, an action the bishop viewed as gross misconduct and disobedience.

When the priests didnt bulge, he said the bishop demanded that they return their ordination certificates to him and cease to be priests of the Anglican Church.

The priests, who were allegedly owed salaries by the bishop, reportedly ignored the order. The disobedience, it was learnt, led to the bishop issuing notices to quit to the priests to vacate the premises of the churches they presided over.

Reacting individually, the three priests said that they were registered as ordained priests at the Owerri diocese and that surrendering their certificates and licences would mean that they had been sacked by the church.

They expressed worry over the continued silence of the Anglican Primate, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, on the matter. They accused the bishop of taking the law into his own hands by not waiting for the intervention of the Anglican Primate.

The bishop, who spoke with a correspondent on the telephone through Mr. Chidi Emeagi, said the three priests chose to disobey his instruction that all the diocesan priests who were ordained outside the diocese should submit their ordination certificates for new ones.

He said he had to approach the court to lawfully compel the disobedient priests to obey his instruction, which he said was in tandem with the laws of the Anglican Church.
Four men have been arrested by officials of the 32 Artillery Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Akure, Ondo State,in Ikaramu Akoko, in the Akoko North West Local Government Area of Ondo State, for allegedly posting nude pictures of some ladies on the Internet.

Though the identities of the suspects had yet to be disclosed by the brigade, PUNCH Metro gathered that three of them were members of the National Youth Service Corps who were serving in the state.

According to a source, the suspects usually invited their girlfriends to a hotel where they would ask them to put off their clothes before taking their nude pictures.

The source added that the suspects would later demand money from the ladies with the threat to post their nude pictures on the Internet if they failed to do so.

He said, Many ladies, including female corps members, have fallen victims. They were making a lot of money from the act before they were caught.

They would invite their girlfriends to a hotel in Ikare Akoko, and after having sex with them, they would take their nude pictures.

Some days after, they would demand money from the ladies and threaten that if the ladies failed to give them the money, they would post their nude pictures on the Internet. Any of them who failed to give out money, would find her nude pictures on the Internet.

The Assistant Director, Army Public Relations, Major Ojo Adelegan, confirmed the arrest of the suspects and said they had been handed over to the appropriate security organisation for further action.

Adelegan, however, refused to disclose the identities of the suspects.

I can confirm their arrest, but they are no more with us. They have been handed over to another security agency, the army spokesman said.

Similarly, the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the NYSC in Ondo State, Mrs. Christy Olatoye, confirmed the arrests.

She said the suspects were in the custody of the Department of State Services in the state.

She said, The matter is with the DSS; we cannot interfere. All we will do is to give them any information they need. It is a criminal offence; we cant stop the DSS from doing their work.

However, the Public Relations Officer of the Ondo State Police Command, Mr. Femi Joseph, said the matter was not reported at the command.

We dont know anything about it. We are not aware of the matter, Joseph said.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper)
The Federal High Court, Abuja, has declared the suspension of Ali Ndume by the Senate as illegal and ordered that he be paid all his outstanding salaries and allowances.

Justice Babatunde Quadri in his judgment on Friday, set aside the suspension and ordered that Mr. Ndume be allowed to resume his duties in the senate as a senator.

The suspension of the plaintiff (Ndume) is hereby declared illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional. The purported suspension contained in the letter of March 30 is hereby set aside.

The first and second defendants (the senate president and the senate) are hereby directed to pay the plaintiff his outstanding salaries and allowances forthwith.

The judge, however, refused to grant the N500 million damages Mr. Ndume asked the court to award him.

Relief on the issue of damages is hereby refused, because I hope this will facilitate reconciliation in the senate between the plaintiff and other members of the senate and bring peace to our nascent democracy.

The Senate had on March 30, suspended Mr. Ndume, who was former Majority Leader for 90 legislative days (six months).

Mr. Ndume was suspended for raising a matter that the Senate investigate public allegations of impropriety against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and another senator, Dino Melaye.

The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, which investigated the matter recommended that Mr. Ndume be suspended for one year.

The report, which was presented by the committees chairman, Samuel Anyanwu, was considered by the lawmakers at plenary.

Mr. Ndume was subsequently suspended for six months for bringing Melaye, his colleague, and the institution of the senate to unbearable disrepute.

Senator Dino Melaye

Mr. Ndume, not satisfied by the reason given for his suspension, headed to court to challenge the action of the senate.

Source: (NAN)
The Lagos State High Court in Igbosere has on Friday, dismissed two applications by alleged kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, alias Evans.

Two applications seeking to quash charges of murder and illegal sales of firearms against alleged kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a Evans, were on Friday, dismissed by the Lagos State High Court sitting in Igbosere.

According to PUNCH, Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo, in a ruling on Friday, described the applications as misconceived and lacking in merit.

The judge held that the proof of evidence filed by the state in support of the charges disclosed sufficient material worth pursuing by the prosecuting counsel.

The dismissal of the applications paved the way for Evans arraignment on two fresh charges.
The Nasarawa State Police Command have confirmed the death of a 28-year-old man, Hassan Papalolo, after a fresh clash between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the Awe Local Government Area of the state.

Three others reportedly sustained varying degrees of injury in the skirmish between the two groups.

The Police Public Relations Officer in Nasarawa, DSP Idrisu Kennedy, explained that the deceased was among of a group of youths who protested against the destruction of a farm by herdsmen.

According to him, Papalolo was stabbed and subsequently died when he and other youths invaded an assembly of Fulani herdsmen in protest over the attack on a farmer, Yunusa Makeri, by suspected herdsmen.

The police spokesman said, The deceased was killed in Awe market during a skirmish between some youths and Fulani herdsmen immediately after the injured farmer, Yunusa Makeri, and two herders were brought to the general hospital with machete wounds.

Kennedy stated that the command had already deployed more personnel in the crisis areas to maintain law and order.

Our correspondent gathered that the situation degenerated when the Awe youths insisted that only the farmer should be treated in the hospital while preventing medical personnel from attending to the two injured herdsmen.

It was learnt that the Emir of Awe, Alhaji Abubakar Umar, had to appeal to the youths before the injured Fulani herdsmen were allowed to get medical attention.

But the state chairman of the Miyatti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Muhammed Hussaini, said the vigilance group in Awe had arrested the herdsman who destroyed the farm which led to the skirmish.

He blamed the Awe youths for over-reacting, noting that the matter would not have degenerated if they had exercised restraint.

Meanwhile, the Fulani socio-cultural group, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani, has called for the intervention of the Federal Government to address the exodus of Fulani herdsmen from Benue State following the anti-open grazing law in the state.

The National President of the association, Alhaji Abdullahi Bodejo, described the law, which became effective on November 1, 2017, as an aberration against the provisions of the constitution which guaranteed the rights of every Nigerian to live in any place or states of their choice.

He said, We have the Benue State Government displacing innocent Fulanis and other pastoralists and Taraba State wanted to follow suit. What have Fulanis done to warrant this persecution?

Does it mean that the Federal Government and President Muhammadu Buhari are not aware of this development or are they afraid of living up to their constitutional responsibilities?

Bodejo called on the Federal Government to establish the National Grazing Reserve Commission as part of measures to resolve the crisis.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Members of the House of Representatives and other prominent Nigerians on Thursday warned Nigeria against supporting the application by Morocco to join the Economic Community of West African States.

They also said Nigeria must not consider the option of exiting ECOWAS, having sacrificed so much for regional integration in the West African sub-region.

The stakeholders spoke at a public hearing in Abuja on the Review of Nigerias Membership of ECOWAS in View of the Clamour to Admit Morocco into the Community.

They include the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs; Manufacturers Association of Nigeria; Lagos lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN); a former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Dipo Fashina; a former Director-General of the NIIA, Prof. Bola Akinterinwa; and the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria.

The hearing was organised by the House Joint Committees on Foreign Relations and Cooperation/Integration in Africa chaired by a member from Abia State, Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje.

All the stakeholders held the view that Morocco joining ECOWAS would have regrettable economic and political consequences for the sub-region, particularly for Nigeria.

They also noted that Morocco and West Africa had no geographical closeness and would be a direct breach of the ECOWAS Treaty to admit a non-regional country into the bloc.

Both Akinterinwa and Falana noted that Nigeria was the target of Moroccos plan, as the latter would use its tariff-free ties with the European Union to flood the country with foreign goods.

They also argued that Morocco would be used as a destructive and destabilising agent in West Africa.

Akinterinwa stated that admitting Morocco would be a contradiction for Nigeria, which over the years opposed the occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco.

He said, There is no reason why Morocco should be in ECOWAS and I can give 12 reasons why this idea must not be supported.

The Arab Maghreb Union has been completely bastardised by Morocco and the country is merely searching for future survival.

The argument that Nigeria or West Africa will enjoy increasing trade benefits is flawed because the volume of trade as it stands today is only $1bn.

That is not in any way comparable to the $345bn total GDP of West African countries.

The reason Morocco is coming is that it is going to be used to disintegrate Nigeria.

Falana, who shared the same opinion as Akinterinwa, told the session that the EU had for years sought to strike an Economic Partnership Agreement with ECOWAS, a move that Nigeria consistently blocked.

He noted that by admitting Morocco into ECOWAS, the EU would achieve the EPA objectives through the back door.

Falana added, They want to kill our industries and there will be job losses. The whole idea is to flood West Africa with European goods. When you talk about the West African economy, 70 per cent of it is Nigeria. So, Morocco will now subvert our economic prosperity.

MAN, which was represented by its Vice-President, North, Mr. Ibrahim Usman, stated that West Africa had nothing to benefit from Morocco because it was not an industrialised nation.

As far as MAN is concerned, Morocco is not industrialised and cant be useful to Nigeria other than to ship European goods into West Africa.

Nigeria must not be part of a plot to accept the EPA through the back door, Usman said.

On his part, Fashina, who spoke on behalf of the Nigerian National Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara, urged the Federal Government to protect Nigerias reputation as against embracing any economic gains it hoped to get from Morocco.

He cited Dangote Cement as one of the companies the government felt would benefit from the ties with Morocco, especially through easy access to phosphate and sulphur for cement production.

He said, How can we sell our hard-earned reputation because of business?

The NIIA, which was represented by Mr. Fred Agu, said Nigeria must stop Morocco and should also not consider the option of leaving ECOWAS.

He said, Nigeria leaving ECOWAS is like infecting the whole of Africa with HIV; the worse will happen. There is no window in the ECOWAS Treaty for the admission of Morocco. Nigeria must use its position to stop Morocco. We have our veto power. We must not even think of leaving ECOWAS.

However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyema, favoured Morocco joining ECOWAS, saying there were economic benefits for the sub-region and Nigeria.

He argued that although the ECOWAS Treaty was clear on which country could join the bloc, the Heads of State of the member-nations could choose to modify it to allow Morocco access into the group.

On the expected economic gains, Onyema said, The reality is that trade with Morocco has been increasing, both with ECOWAS and Nigeria.

So, we are looking at more trade, which will be a win-win for us.

Is Morocco a Trojan Horse for the EU? There are laws and rules in international trade that prevent dumping of goods or easy access to other markets.

It is not something that will happen easily that the EU will dump goods here.

When he was asked if it was not contradictory for Nigeria, which had opposed Moroccos occupation of Western Sahara to support its ECOWAS bid, the minister replied that engagements could resolve lots of differences.

The minister added that on legal, economic and political fronts, Nigeria had no fears to entertain.

However, after Onyema excused himself and left the venue, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Olakunle Gbambose, claimed that Nigeria had yet to take a stance on Moroccos application.

At this stage, no final decision has been taken by government. The apprehension that Morocco is a conduit for the EU is one of the issues to be thrashed out before a final position is taken.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper)
As the Thespian Family Theatre and Productions clocks 15, its founder, Mrs. Ayo Jaiyesinmi, speaks on her experience on stage, AKEEM LASISI writes

the story of Ayo Jaiyesinmis exploits in theatre in Nigeria is novel. Although she hails from the business community, she is in the forefront of those who have saved the stage from recession into which the sector slumped some 25 years ago.

Her joker is the Thespian Family Theatre and Productions, on the platform of which she stages plays in contexts that make theatre attractive to the audience. With the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, having hosted many of her plays, she has been helping to bridge the gap between society and works of the likes of Profs. Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan and Ola Rotimi.

While she has also, over the years, staged her own plays too  including Itan and The Five Maids at Fadaka  she makes her training and experience in human resources and entrepreneurship impact on the theatre business, so that where traditional stage wizards fail to convince corporate organisations to embrace the sector, she enjoys support from banking, and other industries. When the story of Thespian Theatre will, thus be told, the way it has helped to bridge the gap between the arts and the business community is likely to be emphasised.

It has been a great journey for us, Jaiyesinmi says in an interview with our correspondent. We have done over 300 shows, both theatrical and otherwise. While we have done eight of my plays  including Itan, Fadaka, Mad King of Ijudia and The Crustal Slipper  we have also staged works of many of our giant playwrights. The Thespian Theatre platform has given many people an opportunity to either reconnect with or discover the greatness in our writers. Through our performances, we have been able to showcase the industry, expertise and greatness of playwrights like the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Zulu Sofola and others.

Interestingly, the Thespian Theatres spree started out as a youth-developing organisation, mobilising, educating and inspiring youths to go the right direction. The need to engage the young ones in a productive way and the urge for Jaiyesinmi to express her passion as a playwright and arts promoter, however, later spurred her on to begin theatre productions.

She says, To change our society, we all need to understand the dynamics involved. You need to have a good understanding of what we are, where we are, why we are where we are, where we should be and how best to get there. I am scared that many people do not appreciate this fact. The world has gone too far than for us not to master our environment and our steps. I found out that theatre provides an opportunity to earn an enduring liberation. It is when we fail to master the dynamics that we grope in the dark.

Look at the example of Lakunle in The Lion and the Jewel. His story shows that you cannot change what you dont know. Why does he fall flat on his face? It is because he does not appreciate the complexity of the change he believes he represents. At times, you may have a good agenda for the people, but those you are doing it for may not see them the way you do, or you may fail to first establish the need for the change in their minds.

If you link the Lakunle saga to Odewales position in The Gods are not to Blame, you will discover that, as Odekunle tells his people later after calamity has befallen his kingdom and household, you need not blame the gods. Our reasoning capacity and the extent to which we are ready to change our mindsets and habit may just be the areas we should work on.

One opportunity that the Thespian Theatre has also availed Jaiyesinmi in the past 15 years is providing employment to youths and other professionals. According to her, she works a lot with undergraduates, especially from the University of Lagos, apart from professional actors, directors, lighting managers etc. engaged in different productions.

In terms of naira and kobo, Jaiyesinmi says it has been a business of passion more than anything else. She, however, professes that the adventures have also brought financial rewards. She thanks the likes of First Bank and Sterling Bank for the support they give the outfit.

One of the challenges Jaiyesinmi has faced is finding the right performance spaces. She, however, got a kind of consolation in The MUSON Centre. According to her, the pattern of the relationship that Thespian Theatre and MUSON has maintained is even changing as they recently struck a deal in which they will be doing joint productions.

Side by side with that is the fact that Thespian Theatre has also secured its own art space called Thespian Kona. Located in Lekki, Lagos, it will provide a compact arena where the group will stage plays regularly. The facility will also boast space for readings and other related programmes, as well as a restaurant.

Beyond infrastructural issues, one area that Jaiyesinmi has found challenging is in how some people relate too loosely with copyright matters. According to her, there is the need for people to respect ownership of intellectual property.

You do a play, and before you know it, somebody has taken lines, songs etc. from your play, she adds.

She feels fulfilled and believes that the coast is clearer for more exploits. Already, Thespian Theatre has started rehearsals on Adesewa, a musical written by her, which is due for the stage at the MUSON Centre this December. To Jaiyesinmi, diversifying into theatre has been an ample blessing.

I wont give myself a 100 per cent, but I am very delighted with what we have been able to achieve. The platform has helped us to pass vital messages through our productions. Along the line, we have gone into TV production, with our magazine programme, Art Arena sponsored by First Bank.

We have been able to create jobs. In the past 15 years, we have worked with over 15,000 people because most of our plays have large casts. Alongside other professionals, we worked with directors that include Ben Tomoloju, Tunji Sotimirin, Bisi George, Lookman Sanusi, Toyin Osinaike, Floyd Igbo and Isreal Ebo. Working with the different directors has added to our richness and broadened our perspectives.

Last year, Thespian Theatre honoured theatre greats such as Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, Odia Ofeimun, Femi Osofisan. Bayo Oduneye, Tomoloju and Jahman Anikulapo.

Source: Punch
the story of Ayo Jaiyesinmis exploits in theatre in Nigeria is novel. Although she hails from the business community, she is in the forefront of those who have saved the stage from recession into which the sector slumped some 25 years ago.

Her joker is the Thespian Family Theatre and Productions, on the platform of which she stages plays in contexts that make theatre attractive to the audience. With the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos, having hosted many of her plays, she has been helping to bridge the gap between society and works of the likes of Profs. Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan and Ola Rotimi.

While she has also, over the years, staged her own plays too  including Itan and The Five Maids at Fadaka  she makes her training and experience in human resources and entrepreneurship impact on the theatre business, so that where traditional stage wizards fail to convince corporate organisations to embrace the sector, she enjoys support from banking, and other industries. When the story of Thespian Theatre will, thus be told, the way it has helped to bridge the gap between the arts and the business community is likely to be emphasised.

It has been a great journey for us, Jaiyesinmi says in an interview with our correspondent. We have done over 300 shows, both theatrical and otherwise. While we have done eight of my plays  including Itan, Fadaka, Mad King of Ijudia and The Crustal Slipper  we have also staged works of many of our giant playwrights. The Thespian Theatre platform has given many people an opportunity to either reconnect with or discover the greatness in our writers. Through our performances, we have been able to showcase the industry, expertise and greatness of playwrights like the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Zulu Sofola and others.

Interestingly, the Thespian Theatres spree started out as a youth-developing organisation, mobilising, educating and inspiring youths to go the right direction. The need to engage the young ones in a productive way and the urge for Jaiyesinmi to express her passion as a playwright and arts promoter, however, later spurred her on to begin theatre productions.

She says, To change our society, we all need to understand the dynamics involved. You need to have a good understanding of what we are, where we are, why we are where we are, where we should be and how best to get there. I am scared that many people do not appreciate this fact. The world has gone too far than for us not to master our environment and our steps. I found out that theatre provides an opportunity to earn an enduring liberation. It is when we fail to master the dynamics that we grope in the dark.

Look at the example of Lakunle in The Lion and the Jewel. His story shows that you cannot change what you dont know. Why does he fall flat on his face? It is because he does not appreciate the complexity of the change he believes he represents. At times, you may have a good agenda for the people, but those you are doing it for may not see them the way you do, or you may fail to first establish the need for the change in their minds.

If you link the Lakunle saga to Odewales position in The Gods are not to Blame, you will discover that, as Odekunle tells his people later after calamity has befallen his kingdom and household, you need not blame the gods. Our reasoning capacity and the extent to which we are ready to change our mindsets and habit may just be the areas we should work on.

One opportunity that the Thespian Theatre has also availed Jaiyesinmi in the past 15 years is providing employment to youths and other professionals. According to her, she works a lot with undergraduates, especially from the University of Lagos, apart from professional actors, directors, lighting managers etc. engaged in different productions.

In terms of naira and kobo, Jaiyesinmi says it has been a business of passion more than anything else. She, however, professes that the adventures have also brought financial rewards. She thanks the likes of First Bank and Sterling Bank for the support they give the outfit.

One of the challenges Jaiyesinmi has faced is finding the right performance spaces. She, however, got a kind of consolation in The MUSON Centre. According to her, the pattern of the relationship that Thespian Theatre and MUSON has maintained is even changing as they recently struck a deal in which they will be doing joint productions.

Side by side with that is the fact that Thespian Theatre has also secured its own art space called Thespian Kona. Located in Lekki, Lagos, it will provide a compact arena where the group will stage plays regularly. The facility will also boast space for readings and other related programmes, as well as a restaurant.

Beyond infrastructural issues, one area that Jaiyesinmi has found challenging is in how some people relate too loosely with copyright matters. According to her, there is the need for people to respect ownership of intellectual property.

You do a play, and before you know it, somebody has taken lines, songs etc. from your play, she adds.

She feels fulfilled and believes that the coast is clearer for more exploits. Already, Thespian Theatre has started rehearsals on Adesewa, a musical written by her, which is due for the stage at the MUSON Centre this December. To Jaiyesinmi, diversifying into theatre has been an ample blessing.

I wont give myself a 100 per cent, but I am very delighted with what we have been able to achieve. The platform has helped us to pass vital messages through our productions. Along the line, we have gone into TV production, with our magazine programme, Art Arena sponsored by First Bank.

We have been able to create jobs. In the past 15 years, we have worked with over 15,000 people because most of our plays have large casts. Alongside other professionals, we worked with directors that include Ben Tomoloju, Tunji Sotimirin, Bisi George, Lookman Sanusi, Toyin Osinaike, Floyd Igbo and Isreal Ebo. Working with the different directors has added to our richness and broadened our perspectives.

Last year, Thespian Theatre honoured theatre greats such as Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, Odia Ofeimun, Femi Osofisan. Bayo Oduneye, Tomoloju and Jahman Anikulapo.

source: Punch
Veteran musician, Daddy Showkey has expressed his thoughts about the comments of Blackface in a recent interview.

In Blackfaces recent interview he expressed his dissatisfaction with lyrics and originality towards most Nigerian musicians including his former band member Tuface.

Taking to Instagram to react, Daddy Showkey called out blackface and advised that he works on his craft and stop ranting like a kid.

I dont see why people like building issues out of nothing. What do you want Tuface to come and say about him and Blackface? O boy! You and your pulse tv, make Una go sleep if una no get something to talk. If you want to make peace, you dont create war! You dont call people out to start saying things about one and another. People try to make peace between people. You are trying to call tuface to come and say what? O boy! Make Una no make person vex oo!!! What do you really know about these two young men Do you know where they started from? @blackfacenaija let your music speak for you! Stop RANTING!!! It is high time you guys stop this childish behavior! You all are peoples fathers, you have children. I went through what @official2baba is going through and I know what jealousy can cause. I am not happy when I see young men that started together beefing each other. If you want help, there are so many ways to go about it and if you feel you can do it by yourself, go ahead! It is not until when you bring your brother man down that will make you be relevant. If you want to sing, sing oooo! Our work Na to make people happy! Not to make people sad. E be like say time don reach wey I go call all of Una together. Make Una stop blab blab! Blow blow and DO MUSIC!!! If small pikin they do music, e dey pepper you. Stay your own too Tuface! No answer anybody. I no wan hear you answer anybody. Everybody get him mouth to yarn him JagaJaga story. So, make Una stay Una own Abeg.

Source: Naijaloaded
A Local Government boss has seriously warned against the eating of bush meat in Kaduna State as the deadly monkeypox disease causes panic.

The Sole Administrator of Kauru Local Government in Kaduna State, Alhaji Abdullahi Muktar, has warned people of the area against eating bush meat in view of the danger of monkey pox disease.

According to The Nation, he gave the warning during a meeting with unions of hunters and butchers in the area in his office at Kauru Local Government Secretariat on Friday.

Muktar said the call became necessary in view of the dangers associated with monkey pox disease, which remained a threat to the country.

The administrator said let me use this medium to call on our people to avoid eating bush meat to guard themselves against the dreaded disease.

According to experts, the disease is as a result of intake of bush meat, hence the need to completely avoid it for the sake of our health.

He said government would not fold its arms and allow people to fall victims of the disease.

Responding, a hunter, Malam Abdullahi Kauru, applauded the administrators efforts toward ensuring good health in the area.

He advised people to avoid any form of interaction with monkeys and assured the administrator of their support toward tackling the problem.
Popular Hollywood actress and kenyan, Lupita Nyongo has taken to her Instagram page to slam Grazia UK magazine for editing her photos to make her appear light skin.

The actress who frowned at the action stressed the importance of embracing her natural heritage and eschew any false impression created by the magazine publishers who tried to propagate the notion that light skin is better than dark skin.

See the photo below

Lupita wrote: As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are.

I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black womens complexion, hair style and texture. #dtmh.
A court in Abuja has ordered the immediate remand in Kuje prison of two senior military officers for alleged theft.

A Lieutenant Commander Akinbamidele Odunsi and Wing Commander Ishaka Yakubu have been fingered in the alleged stealing of military pension funds to the tune of N339 million.

The duo have been remanded in prison custody on the order of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja.

According to a report by Daily Sun, the suspects were alleged to have worked in concert with two bank officials, Adidemi Aderemi Kolade and Violet Ofoegbunam to collect monies meant for payment of death benefits to deceased army officers, which they converted to personal use.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ((EFCC), which dragged them before Justice D. Z. Senchi said their action breached Section 315 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 LFN (Abuja) 1990, and punishable under the same Act.

They were arraigned on a six-count charge of conspiracy and stealing of pension funds. One of the counts read:That you, Wing Commander Ishaka Yakubu m while serving as a cashier with the Military Pension Board, Lieutenant Commander Akinbamidele Odunsi m being an Assistant Director, computer, while serving with the Military Pension Board, Mrs Abidemi Aderemi Kolade f being a relationship manager while serving with United Bank for Africa Plc, Kuforudua branch, Abuja and Violet Ofoegbunam f being a branch manager while serving with UBA Plc, Kuforodua branch, Abuja, on or about February, 2016 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, while being entrusted with dominion over money belonging to the Nigeria Military Pension Board dishonestly converted to your own use the sum of N339.374 million only which was withdrawn from the Military Pension Boards account with pretence that the said sum represented payments to the supposed next of kin to deceased Nigerian as death benefit; that the said monies were paid and withdrawn in tranches and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 97 of the Penal Code Cap 532 LFN (Abuja) 1990.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge. In view of their plea, counsel to the EFCC, Steve Odiase, asked the court to fix a date for hearing and to remand the accused persons in custody pending trial.

Odiase invited the court to take note of the fact that Yakubu and Odunsi (first and second defendants) had on several dates refused to come to court, an attempt aimed at frustrating efforts to have them arraigned over the alleged offence.

He urged the court to impose stringent conditions should it be persuaded to admitting the defendants to bail. However, Yakubus counsel, Patrick Ediale, informed the court of a pending application dated November 2 praying the court to admit his client to bail.

He urged the court to exercise its discretion in favour of the defendant saying, he is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved.

Other counsel in the defence also joined in seeking bail for their clients. Justice Senchi, while ordering the remand of the defendants adjourned to November 13 for hearing of their applications.

The EFCC acting chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, had in a letter dated May 23, 2017 and addressed to the Chief of Defence Staff, said the suspects, who were later charged with fraud offences on May 31, 2017, allegedly opened 33 accounts with UBA into which the Military Pension Boards funds were diverted.

He said in the letter marked EFCC/EC/CDS/66/16 that the total sum of N339,374,478.58 was withdrawn from the Miltary Pension Boards account across the counter or transferred to other accounts in the bank.
Kenyan Movie Star, Lupita Nyongo, who graced the cover of Grazia Magazine, called them out for reportedly photoshopping her hair and giving her bald look.

According to Lupita who said she has embraced her heritage, she was not consulted before the Magazine ripped off her look.Here what she wrote;

As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are. I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black womens complexion, hair style and texture. #dtmh

The actress who shared photos from the magazine photoshoot where she had her hair in a ponytail, was however slammed by non-fans who accused her of being ungrateful, reaching, claiming that the magazine did her a favour by photoshopping her hair because the photoshopped look was better than her hair.
Nigerias Minister of Information and Culture , Lai Mohammed, who spoke during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos, slammed those presenting him as a liar and further asked them to dispute the facts he has always brought up right in their face.

According to the Minister, he has said that he has never told a lie before and the tag on him as a liar is orchestrated by PDP who he claimed is yet to forgive him.
Eight suspected vandals have been arrested in two weeks in various parts of the South-East by the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company.

The EEDCs Head of Communications, Mr Emeka Ezeh, said in a statement in Enugu on Friday that a middle aged man was also electrocuted while vandalising electrical installations.

Ezeh said that the electrocuted person and the eight suspected vandals were arrested in four states in Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States.

Two suspects identified as Amaechi Akpu and Chigbo Ejebu were apprehended by youths of Onuore Agba community in Ebonyi for vandalising of a 300KVA Sub-station, property of EEDC located in the community.

Members of Abor vigilance group also arrested a vandal identified as Emmanuel Izunna for vandalising 500KVA Igwe Umuenyiora 2 Sub-station located in Ogbunike in Anambra.

At Ogidi, Anambra State, the vigilance group arrested two vandals identified as Chukwudi Oforka and Godwin Onwansa for vandalising Anaka Town Sub-station located in Ogidi community.

While Ahmed Inusa, Aliu Abubakar and Umaru Jahe were arrested by vigilance group for vandalising the Umuabiahu 300KVA Sub-station located in Orlu, Imo State, he said.

Ezeh, however, said that luck ran out on an unidentified vandal as he was electrocuted while attempting to vandalize Onuseleogu 100KVA Sub-station, property of EEDC, located at Emene Industrial Layout, Enugu.

It was gathered that the vandal, who is a middle aged man, probably arrived at the substation when there was no supply and in the process of loosening the HV fuse, supply was restored and he was electrocuted.

Items recovered from the victim were spanners, a torch light and pliers.

His remains was evacuated to University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla morgue by the Police from Emene Division, he said.

Source : ( NAN)
Supporters of Nigerias two major political parties in the state  the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP ) and the All Progressives Congress ( APC)  clashed in Bayelsa State leaving three persons injured

The incident took place on Thursday at Twon Brass, the headquarters of Brass Local Government Council Area of the state.

It was learnt that supporters loyal to APC member in the state House of Assembly, Israel Sunny-Igoli; and those loyal to the Caretaker Committee Chairman of the council, Mr. Victor Isaiah, bickered over issues bordering on a carnival.

It was learnt that the supporters fought one another with deadly weapons such as guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons during the bloody clash.

It was further learnt that the clash was allegedly provoked by the decision of the LGA to declare curfew in the council area and declare as illegal the gathering of persons in the council, claiming to tackle problems of insecurity.

The alleged action of the LGA did not, however, go down well with the supporters of the APC, who rationalised that the decision was a deliberate attempt to frustrate the planned Christian praise and worship carnival being organised and sponsored by Sunny-Igoli.

Some other APC supporters claimed the action of the newly-inaugurated caretaker committee in Brass was a deliberate attempt to whittle down the power and influence of the APC and a former governor, Timipre Sylva, in Brass area.

An eyewitness at Twon-Brass, who spoke in confidence, claimed that the arrival of the council chairman, Victor Isiah, at the LGA headquarters allegedly with armed security men and some alleged cultists from Odioma and other neighbouring communities led to pandemonium, attended with heavy shooting of guns.

Reacting to the incident, Sunny-Igoli, the only APC elected House of Assembly member in Bayelsa State, described the incident as an attempt by the LGA chairman to allegedly use the PDP factor to intimidate the people of the area.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Bayelsa Police Command, Asinim Butswat, confirmed the incident on Friday.

Butswat, a deputy Superintendent of Police, said the Command had deployed a detachment of armed mobile policemen in the area to control the situation and restore law and order.

Butswat also confirmed that an emergency meeting between Sunny-Igoli and Victor Isaiah was convened on Friday by the Police Commissioner, Asuquo Amba.

The meeting was fruitful and all parties have agreed to go and discuss with their supporters in Brass LGA.

The Police command has also deployed a detachment of armed mobile policemen in the area to restore normalcy, the spokesman said.

It was gathered that at the meeting held at the State Commissioners office, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Bomo Sparrow-Jack; the Deputy Police Commissioners on Operations, Administration and Investigations, and the chairman of the Ijaw Youths Council, Central Zone, Tari Porri, were present.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Popular Hollywood actress, Lupita Nyongo who is from Kenya has taken to her Instagram page to blast Grazia UK magazine for photoshopping her photos to make her appear light skin.

The actress who frowned at the action stressed the importance of embracing her natural heritage and eschew any false impression created by the magazine publishers who tried to propagate the notion that light skin is better than dark skin.

The racist act by the magazine has attracted backlash from people who felt insulted by the manipulation. Many people have taken to social media to bash the magazine, canvassing for an unreserved apology over the despicable act.

Lupita wrote: As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are.

I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black womens complexion, hair style and texture. #dtmh.
President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated the Armed Forces Council and ratified the National Defence Policy 2017 (Revised); Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service Officers 2017.

Buhari also inaugurated the Harmonised Terms and Condition of Service for Soldiers/Rating/Airmen (Revised) among others.

Speaking to State House correspondents, the Minister of Defence, Brig. Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (retd.), said the council was reconvened and inaugurated by the President.

According to him, the last meeting of the council was held on July 17, 2014.

The Armed Forces Council was convened which had not been done since the inception of this administration.

The last councils meeting that was done was in 2014. It reviewed terms and conditions of service for officers and soldiers.

It reviewed some of the retirement benefits for officers and soldiers including Defence Policy which has been obsolete since 2006 that we reviewed and discussed and reached a conclusion on them.

The minister expressed the hope that the ratification of these documents would enable the Armed Forces cope with the ever changing contemporary security challenges.

He said the documents would help to enhance welfare, command, discipline and administration of the Armed Forces as well as the policy framework governing the conduct of security and defence in Nigeria.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday met with members and leadership of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) at the presidential villa, Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was attended by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, and Head of Service of the Federation, Winifred Oyo-Ita.

The meeting, being held behind closed doors at the council chamber of Aso Rock, was also attended by ministers, while the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, was represented by the permanent secretary, Ecological Fund Office, Habiba Lawal.

The president is also expected to meet with representatives of the Muslim community in Nigeria at same venue by 2 p.m.

Source : (NAN)
Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria on Friday clashed with policemen after they reportedly attempted to march into the Unity Fountain, Maitama to hold a rally.

The police were said to have fired tear gas canisters at the marchers who were defiant, with some of them allegedly stoning the policemen.

At least two Shiite members were said to have been injured during the fracas which started when the police cordoned off the road and prevented the sect members from marching to the Unity Fountain.

The marchers chanted, demanding the release of their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky who had been in government custody since December, 2016.

The Shiite members subsequently dispersed from the scene.

Meanwhile, a civil society group, Concerned Nigerians, has lauded the discharge and acquittal of some Shiite members who were standing trial before a Kaduna State High Court presided over by Justice Esther Lolo.

Justice Lolos decision reaffirms the widely held perception of persecution of the IMN by the Kaduna State government; It also boosts the confidence of the Nigerian populace as the last hope of the common man, the group convener, Deji Adeyanju said in a statement on Friday.

Source: { Punch Newspaper)
82 foreigners planning to go to Syria have been detained by Turkish authorities for allegedly suspected to be linked to IS in a string of anti-terror raids in Istanbul, state media reported on Friday.

The suspects had previously been involved with Islamic State group extremists in conflict zones, state-run news agency Anadolu said without giving further detail. They were detained during raids on 14 addresses and were planning to go to Syria in the coming days, it added.

Source : ( AFP )
Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has called on Nigerian youths to utilise the productive period of their lives, noting that while time waits for no one, obtaining a degree certificate does not always translate to success in life.

Osinbajo spoke at the 10th convocation of the Lead City University, Ibadan where 590 students were awarded first degree certificates in various disciplines on Thursday. Among them, 39 students graduated in the first class category.

Miss Mary Olukorede was adjudged the best graduating female while Amedu Anthony was announced as the best graduating male student.

At the event, the Chairman of Benin Electricity Distribution Company, Victor Osibodu, and the Chairman of Musoro Booksellers, Kolade Musoro, were also honoured with doctorate degrees.

Osinbajo, who was the special guest at the ceremony, said, I was 60 years old in March this year, and I must confess that one of the greatest surprises I ever experienced was that I just suddenly became 60. I can clearly remember when I graduated from the university. I was 21 years old at the time. How time flies.

One of the important lessons that you will learn is that time flies whether you are wasting it or you are using it well. It simply flies back. At the age of 60 years, I am entitled to give some advice.

By talent, a good degree and coming from a very well-to-do family does not bring success and certainly it does not bring greatness. The most talented people, those who get the best degrees do not necessarily become the most successful in life.

The difference between success and failure, mediocrity or excellence is character. Along with character is opportunity, perhaps the most crucial is the grace of God. Character is a set of values that shapes the conduct of an individual. It is a set of principles spoken and unspoken that a person observes and lives on.

In his address, the Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, who accompanied the Vice-President, said he was optimistic that the LCU would one day be ranked among the top 10 universities in Nigeria.

Punch
A Kenyan housewife ran out of luck after her husband who was tipped off by neighbours, stormed their home with security operatives and caught her red-handed in sex session with her lover on their matrimonial bed.

Kenyan media reports that the young lover was arrested and taken into custody.

Here are photos below;
Update 11/13/17  Bell Self Storage Group received approval from the Scottsdale Planning Commission to build its two-story project. The 4-3 vote on Nov. 8 came after the developers agreed to a reduce the facilitys height to 18 feet. Commissioners Ali Fakih, Smith and Kelsey voted against the project, according to the source.

We agreed to lower the building to 18 feet and they stipulated us to do that, Rose told the source in a Nov. 10 e-mail. It was a productive discussion, and we are going to continue working with the two adjacent neighbors.

Bell Self Storage Group is facing opposition from residents in its quest to build a two-story facility in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Scottsdale Planning Commission tabled the companys zoning application with a 5-1 vote during its Oct. 25 meeting, after several community members spoke out against the proposal for the vacant lot on the southeast corner of 116th Street and Shea Boulevard. The commission was expected to re-address the request at its Nov. 8 meeting, according to the source.

Developers George Bell Senior and George Bell Junior are in escrow to purchase the 4.6-acre site, which has been vacant for 18 years. The application, presented by Jordan Rose, founder and president of Rose Law Group PC, is seeking a zoning change for 2.8 acres. It also requests an amendment to the general plans zoning-district map for the entire parcel. The city council will discuss the general-plan change during its Dec. 5 meeting.

The facility would comprise 106,224 square feet of storage space in 700 climate-controlled units and include a basement. Originally, the plan proposed a 20-foot-tall structure, which is 2 feet over the permitted height.

Residents who oppose the project said theyre concerned about their home values and questioned whether the area needed another storage facility. They also had issues with the facilitys height.

Dana and Vickie Falen, whose backyard abuts the property, said the facility would block their view of sunsets and disturb their quality of life. Vickie Falen presented a picture of her husband, whos a paraplegic, in their backyard watching a sunset. This is what he does every single night. He goes in our backyard to look at sunsets, she said.

Falen noted that residents met four times to discuss the project, but no one representing the developer attended. Rose said she attempted to contact both homeowners whose property abuts the site. She also received a letter on Oct. 25 from lawyers representing the homeowners association. Three open houses, in June and September, have been held by the applicant or the city to discuss the project, the source reported.

Commissioners Larry Kush, Christian Serena, Prescott Smith and Kelsey Young expressed concern about the development. Im kind of torn as to what to say about this proposal, Smith said. Ive discussed with both sides of the fence, no pun intended. Theres clearly a disconnect between neighborhood and applicant.

Any development on the property could obstruct the views, commissioner Kevin Bollinger said. Either way its going to go away because the land is there; its going to have a building built, he added. Its an opportunity, in my mind, to see Mr. Bell taking as much care and stipulation.

Rose noted the storage facility would have minimal traffic compared to other uses, such as a charter school, daycare or office building. She also said the area is in need of more storage. The Bells hired a national consultant, and the national average is 6.82 square feet of storage per person. Scottsdale has just 4.83 square feet of storage per person, she said. The area population demand is 10 square feet per person. The four other storage sites within three miles are well above average occupancy rate.

The property would be state-of-the-art and include up to 50 security cameras, said George Bell Senior, a real estate broker and Scottsdale resident since 1969. The opposition to the project was upsetting, he said. Were not dumping dirt on your property there. Weve got a guy who put up an illegal tower on someone elses property, so dont impugn my integrity. Im here to build something nice, and you really hit me, he added.

Rose e-mailed the source on Nov. 7 noting the Bells planned to forgo their request to extend the buildings height to 20 feet. They would also design the property under the current standards for office buildings. We will develop with the currently permitted height [of 18 feet]. We are happy to take that issue off the table, and glad the neighbors gave us the opportunity to hear that concern and react to it, she wrote.

The Bells will also deed-restrict the site, which would restrict the land-use to storage unless approved by the two adjacent neighbors. In addition, no lighting will be installed on the east and south sides of the building. However, Tim Curtis, a member of the planning staff said security lighting would likely be needed on all sides.
A self-storage facility thats already under construction in Albuquerque, N.M., is now facing opposition from several residents and a city councilmember. The four-story building at 4100 Central S.E. in the Nob Hill neighborhood is on the former site of the Pulse Nightclub, which was demolished in 2015. Approved by the city in September, the project will include retail space on the ground floor, storage on the top three, and 33 covered parking spaces.

The Nob Hill Neighborhood Association (NHNA) contends the project shouldnt have been permitted before a public meeting was held. It was expected to file a formal appeal last week to request a public meeting, according to the source. We contend that the planning department made an incorrect decision, said NHNA President Adrian Carver.

The property at the corner of Central Avenue and Montclaire Drive is in the citys C2 commercial zoning, in which the transfer or storage of household goods is considered a conditional use. As such, a public hearing would be required under city code, the source reported.

Councilmember Pat Davis also believes a public hearing shouldve been held before the project was approved. I want to know what happened to the process, because the process was designed to say if your project doesnt meet the standards that we all agreed to, just set up a public meeting, he said.

City officials disagree, noting the proper procedures were followed. The determination was made that this current proposal was not a conditional use, but it was a permissive use. It was allowed by right, as a customer service provision within the C2 zone, and thats why it was allowed to move forward, said Brennon Williams, deputy director of the Albuquerque Planning Department.

The code-enforcement staff denied the project twice this year due to problems with the site plan, Williams said. However, the issues were resolved and the plan was later approved. Some of those concerns related to parking and landscaping, and those sorts of things just needed to be clarified on the plan. Once those were corrected, then the plan was approved, he added.

The storage developer plans to meet with residents to discuss the project. Even so, Davis contends the facility doesnt belong in the Nob Hill community. If you look at the plans, its a pretty decent way of doing public storage; it just doesnt belong there, he said. It interrupts the idea that you can walk from one end of Central to the other and have a full day of activity.
Aegon is among the latest to release an earnings report, and its pretty much good news for the multinational insurer.



Compared to the third quarter of 2016, Aegon saw a 31% rise in net income to 469 million ($545 million) for the same period this year. Higher underlying earnings, fair value items, and realised gains more than offset an increase in other charges driven by the conversion of the largest block of universal life business in the United States to a new model, it said.



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As for total sales in the period, they reached 4.5 billion  an increase of 53%  thanks to a 65% growth in gross deposits to 40.7 billion. Aegon cited exceptionally strong asset management deposits, as well as strong institutional platform sales in the UK.



Meanwhile new life sales posted an 8% decline to 202 million, with the finger of blame pointed at lower sales in the US and the exit from UK annuities. Accident & health and general insurance sales dropped 17% to 180 million, also because of the US.



Product exits and lower supplemental health sales in the United States more than offset higher travel insurance sales, reported Aegon. Travel insurance sales are expected to reduce significantly as of the first quarter of 2018 as part of the earlier announced strategic decision to exit the Affinity, Direct TV, and Direct Mail distribution channels.



Aegons Solvency II ratio, on the other hand, improved from 185% to 195% during the third quarter, with capital generation and benefit from the divestment of UK annuity book more than offsetting the accrual for the interim 2017 dividend.



I am pleased that our underlying earnings are up for the fifth consecutive quarter, reflecting growth across our businesses, expense savings, and management actions taken to improve returns, said Aegon chief executive Alex Wynaendts. We are also reporting strong net income, despite charges related to assumption changes and model updates.



Wynaendts added: Our strong capital position is a clear highlight this quarter, with a significant increase in the groups Solvency II ratio to 195%, which is now at the upper end of the target range. This enables our businesses to operate from a position of strength and underpins our target to return 2.1 billion of capital to shareholders over the period 2016 to 2018.



Aegon, which operates in more than 20 countries, provides life insurance, pensions, and asset management.




Product is available nationally in the US
Its a question that is often asked: how will brokers be affected by the coming technological revolution? From AI to driverless cars, the perceived technologies of the future are fast becoming technologies of today  and theres no doubt that the entire insurance industry needs to keep up.Technology will be a threat if you do not adapt to it, Ashish Nangla, senior director of insurtech & digital transformation at Synechron, told Insurance Business. In 2018, if a company is not looking into things like predictive analytics and does not have an eye on AI, I would definitely say that technology is a threat to them, he commented.The key for the insurance industry, which is often accused of being slow off the mark when it comes to technological take-up, is adapting to the fast pace of change and making sure they are not left behind, the director explained.One thing is for sure  change is inevitable, and brokers may have the most work to do.The latest technology trends will definitely change how the market works and how people interact with each other, as well as how things are presented in the market. Theres going to be a lot of change around customer engagement and how insurers communicate with their customers, and that might lead to disintermediation, Nangla warned.The role of the intermediary is likely to face the most disruption compared to insurance carriers, he went on to say.In my opinion there are a lot of ways in which this is going to disrupt the agent market, or at least change the way that they work and the meaning of what theyve been doing so far, Nangla said.With that in mind, its key that brokers embrace new technologies and ways of working.The agents that are just doing sales, they will be disrupted for sure. But agents who are working on value-added services, and who are establishing value in the insurance chain, will be able to continue as a business, Nangla commented.Earlier this week, Synechron launched a new suite of insurtech accelerators designed to equip incumbent industry players with the technological know-how to keep up with the insurtechs that threaten to revolutionize insurance.Insurers are looking to implement the latest technology to address real-world problems and avoid being disrupted by start-ups entering the industry, Synechron co-founder & CEO, Faisal Husain, said. These technologies bring benefit to insurers, brokers and underwriters by allowing them to better predict customer needs, personalize every aspect of the customer interaction, manage risks and streamline processes to higher efficiency.
Trump administration cuts to the Affordable Care Act could drive up broker business.



Open enrollment for the ACA started Wednesday. About 10 million people who buy their own insurance are just now getting a look at whats offered  and the information overload can be confusing. And with the Trump administration slashing funding, theres less assistance for customers trying to make sense of it all.



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The Department of Health and Human Services is turning to brokers to pick up the slack, according to an NBC News report. Its online marketplace, healthcare.gov, has a new Help On Demand feature under its Find Local Help tab. Using that feature, consumers can enter their contact information and get a call back from a licensed broker.



This move of working more with brokers will help make up some of the difference (due to slashed funding), although any time you remove help, thats not a positive step, John Dodd, president-elect of the Ohio Association of Health Underwriters, told NBC.



Although that means more business for brokers, it can mean tough sledding, too. Illinois broker John Jaggi told NBC that he and his daughter, broker Anne Petri, often spend the first half-hour of appointments helping their clients figure out if they qualify for a premium subsidy. By the time theyre done, Jaggi said, clients are so fed up they dont even want to discuss the details of the plan.



Dodd told NBC that he hoped Congress acts soon to stabilize the market. If no action is taken, he said, 2019 could be Armageddon  off-the-charts bad.





Related stories:

Trump says hell allow health insurance purchases across state lines

State regulator shoots down insurers request to change ACA plans
New apps from Amazon and Walmart could raise customers home insurance rates, according to experts.The apps  Amazons is called Amazon Key  come with smart locks, and allow the retail giants to deliver packages inside customers houses, even if those customers arent home. Amazon Key became available Wednesday for Prime customers in 37 cities. Walmart is testing a similar product in Silicon Valley and Miami.But apps like that raise serious liability concerns, according to a Chicago Tribune report.There are a lot of questions, attorney Kenneth Cantor, owner of Michigan-based Cantor Insurance Group, told the Tribune. When you have homeowners insurance, it covers you for your property and liability. If you invite someone on your property and they steal something or knock a candle over and the house burns down, would your policy cover it?Insurance policies will eventually catch up with technology, he told the Tribune  and that could mean a rate increase.Jim Whittle, assistant general counsel of the American Insurance Association, told the Tribune that with more people able to enter homes when the owners are absent, insurers will have to solve new liability problems. A pet could escape, for instance  or attack a delivery person. A delivery person could get injured while delivering. The app itself might even be hacked, allowing unauthorized people access to the home.In any of those situations, will Amazon be held liable or will the homeowner be at fault? Michael Macauley, CEO of Quadrant, asked the Tribune. Amazon Key is still in the early stages. There are so many questions surrounding liability if a problem were to occur during delivery.
Floridas Office of Insurance Regulation has approved a change in workers compensation insurance rates charged to business owners in the state.



Effective January 01, 2018, workers comp rates will decrease by 9.5%.



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The Associated Press reported that the National Council on Compensation Insurance had initially requested state regulators to approve a slightly smaller 9.3% rate decrease.



Workers comp rates in Florida were increased a year ago following key rulings by the state Supreme Court. One such ruling struck down a law that limited attorney fees in workers compensation cases.



Due to the ruling last year, regulators approved a 14.5% hike. Claims experience and new data, however, suggested that the rates were unnecessarily high.





Related stories:

Workers' comp lobby groups clash over premium reduction bill

Floridas workers comp rates could increase by 20%
Shares in builders merchanting group Grafton slid up to 8% yesterday on signs of slower growth in its core UK market.

The group gave a broadly upbeat trading update, saying overall revenues for the first 10 months of the year were up 9.1% on a year-on-year basis to 2.3bn (2.6bn); buoyed by improving trends in its Irish and Dutch divisions.
The White House has unveiled a slew of agreements with China as President Donald Trump seeks to address an imbalance in trade. While Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross boasted a total of $250bn (216bn) in business deals, getting to that figure may require some fuzzy maths.

Many of the deals werent broken out into separate valuations, while a large number were in the form of non-binding memoranda of understanding (MOU) or involved agreements with existing Chinese partners.

Boeings $37bn aircraft order consists mostly of previously agreed deals.

An official with knowledge of the matter said the order is mostly for jets that have been agreed upon since 2013 and set to be delivered through 2020.

Chinese airlines have been on a plane-buying spree amid a projection for the country to overtake the US as the largest air-travel market possibly in as soon as five years. The state has previously placed large orders through a centralised buyer before dividing them up among its airlines and leasing companies.

An agreement involving Cheniere Energy was presented at the signing ceremony as worth $11bn, though neither company involved announced the value. Other pacts are stretched over lengthy periods, such as a 20-year shale gas and chemical project in West Virginia. Watched by President Trump and Chinas President Xi Jinping at a signing ceremony in Beijing, US planemaker Boeing, General Electric and chip giant Qualcomm sealed lucrative multi-billion dollar deals.

The quarter of a trillion dollar haul underscores how President Trump is keen to be seen to address a trade deficit with the worlds second-largest economy that he has long railed against and called shockingly high.

But US businesses still have many long-standing concerns to complain about, including unfettered access to the China market, cybersecurity and the growing presence of Chinas ruling Communist Party inside foreign firms. Still, the wave of deals signals the potential for an easing of tensions between the two countries, in addition to an increase in trade for products ranging from helicopters to beef.

Some huge deals were announced. Among them the 20-year $83.7bn investment by China Energy Investment Corp in shale gas developments and chemical manufacturing projects in West Virginia, a major energy-producing state that voted heavily for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

The massive size of this energy undertaking and level of collaboration between our two countries is unprecedented, West Virginia Secretary of Commerce H. Wood Thrasher said in a statement.

Reuters and Bloomberg
A campaign to win employment rights for Uber drivers is to continue after the taxi firm decided to appeal against a tribunal ruling on the status of workers.

The UK Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) turned down an appeal by the company, which unions described as a "landmark victory" for workers rights, especially in the gig economy.

Two drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, won an employment tribunal case last year after arguing that they were "workers" and entitled to the minimum wage, sick pay and paid leave.

Uber lost its challenge at the EAT, but immediately announced it will appeal, saying almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before its app existed.

Mr Farrar, 49, said: "We cant give up because the case law is so important now that if we give up and give this victory to Uber, then the battle will be so much harder for everybody else that comes after us - not just Uber drivers, but people right across the economy.

"Because if Uber gets away with this, then everywhere you turn in Britain youll have people under this sort of fake self-employed conditions, carrying all the risk of the business and have no worker rights.

"This is a line in the sand. Not just for us, but for almost every worker in the United Kingdom."

Yaseen Aslam

Mr Aslam said: "Its wrong for Uber to drag people like myself through these courts. I suffered a lot, so have so many other drivers. If they want to make things right, just obey the laws."

Tom Elvidge, Uber UKs acting general manager, said: "The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive, and so we intend to appeal.

"The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

"Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. Weve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and well keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better."

Maria Ludkin, legal director of the GMB, which took the original tribunal case, said: "Uber must now face up to its responsibilities and give its workers the rights to which they are entitled.

"GMB urges the company not to waste everyones time and money dragging their lost cause to the Supreme Court."

TUC general secretary Frances OGrady said: "Uber should throw in the towel and accept todays judgment. No company, however big or well-connected, is above the law."

The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represented the two drivers, said the decision showed firms were depriving employees of their rights.

General secretary Jason Moyer-Lee: "Todays victory is further proof, as if any more was needed, that the law is clear and these companies are simply choosing to deprive workers of their rights.

"These companies are making a mockery of supposed employment rights. The Government needs to properly enforce the law and they need to do it now."

Chris Bryce, chief executive of the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE), said: "The growing number of employment tribunals linked to the gig economy shows there is a fundamental lack of clarity over what it means to work on your own behalf.

"The Government needs to seriously consider introducing a statutory definition of self-employment. That would bring greater certainty and reduce the need for further tribunals."
A 75,000 damages award to a woman who slipped and broke her ankle when walking down a wet grassy slope to leave a Dublin shopping centre car park has been overturned by the Court of Appeal.

In a significant decision concerning the extent of occupiers liability, Ms Justice Mary Irvine ruled the companies that own and operate Mountview Shopping Centre, Blanchardstown, had not breached their statutory duty to take reasonable care for the safety of the woman.

A visitor is expected to take reasonable care for their own safety and if they decide to go down a wet grassy slope in unsuitable footwear instead of using a nearby safe tarmacadam surfaced entrance, "they will take responsibility for the consequences of that decision", she said.

If an occupier had to provide the type of preventative measures suggested by the complainant's engineer to meet "reasonable care" obligations under the Occupiers Liability Act, such as installing a step with barriers either side of the slope, that would have "potentially significant adverse repercussions" for all who occupy land open to visitors, such as local authorities responsible for many "wonderful open spaces and parks" here.

Judges should be careful, when interpreting the relevant law, to ensure they do not inadvertently, contrary to the intention of the legislature, end up "denying children the joy of running down a grassy slope in a public park on a dry summer day or the golfer the pleasure of playing to an elevated green surorunded by a grassy bank".

Ardenheath Company and Ardenheath Management Company appealed over the 75,000 award made to the Dublin woman over her fall on December 20th, 2012. It happened after she had parked her car and was crossing the slope which she claimed was slippery and dangerous. The defendants denied liabilty.

In his High Court judgment, Mr Justice Hanna found the defendants had a duty of care and could have taken certain steps to have the embankment made safe or ensure people did not use it.

He awarded 125,000 but reduced that to 75,000 after finding 40 per cent contributory negligence on the womans part. He granted a stay pending appeal on condition of payment out of 30,000.

Giving the three judge COAs unanimous judgment, Mr Justice Irvine said an occupier is entitled, when deciding what steps it should take to meet its obligations, to assume visitors will take reasonable care for thir own safety and an adult can normally look after their own welfare.

The company was entited to expect an adult exercising reasonable care would avoid the wet grassy slope, particularly because of a six inch kerbstone, wearing shoes providing little grip and there being a safe entrance nearby with a tarmacadam surface, she said.

There was nothing to stop a visitor deciding to take a short cut down such a slope but, if they did, they cannot be said to have taken reasonable care for their own safety and, if injured, cannot seek to blame the occupier.

In providing visitors to its smaller car park with a safe and proximate entrance, which the woman could have used, the company had complied with its duty of care to the woman.

It was "preposterous" to find, as the High Court had, the company was required to install a barrier along the area of grass frontage to the side of the smaller car park to stop people going down the grassy slope when there was a safe exit just a short distance away, she said. Such a finding would be tantamount to constituting the company as the insurer of the safety of its customers.
by David Raleigh

A man has been rushed by ambulance to hospital after sustaining injuries in a suspected electrocution, at an Easons bookstore in Limerick.

Garda sources have confirmed the man was injured around 11.40am at the store, located on OConnell Street and Cruises Street, in the Treaty City.

The Munster Regional Fire Control command centre confirmed it received an alert about the incident at 11.46am.

The call was reported as a possible electrocution at Easons on OConnell Street, a source at the centre said.

Two fire brigade tenders attached to Limerick City and County Fire Service were dispatched to the store but have since left the scene.

A senior Garda source said the man was taken from the store by paramedics to University Hospital Limerick for injuries sustained in a suspected electrocution incident.

When asked about the incident management at the store declined to make any comment.

Power has been cut at the store, which has been closed pending further notice.

Its understood the ESB are liaising with management at the store.

A sign has been erected on the front door of the store stating: CLOSED DUE TO POWER OUTAGE. APOLOGIES.

Gardai at Henry Street Station are investigating the incident.
Upcoming rail strikes have been suspended to allow unions consider a Labour Court recommendation to resolve a pay dispute.

The terms of the deal, revealed today, says that staff should receive a 7.5% pay increase over the next three years.

These will come into effective on December 1, 2017, December 1, 2018 and December 1, 2019.

It also recommends that staff receive a once-off 500 voucher before the end of the year, in recognition of their service to the company.

"The trade union group from Irish Rail has reached a consensus that this Labour Court recommendation, which exceeds what as on offer at the WRC, is the best that can be achieved at this time, and is worthy of a ballot among our five trade union membership," said Siptu's Greg Ennis.

The Irish Rail Trade Union Group, including representatives of SIPTU, NBRU, TEEU, Unite and TSSA, has now suspended the proposed strikes to ballot their members on the deal.

Iarnrod Eireann welcomed the suspension of further industrial action by trade unions.

This ensures that full services will operate on November 14 and 23, and December 8. This will include additional DART, Commuter and Intercity services for the Republic of Ireland v Denmark World Cup play-off on November 14.

"The company thanks the Labour Court for arranging a hearing of the issues surrounding the current dispute, and for the urgency with which it considered the submissions and issued its recommendation," a company statement read.

"This has ensured that after two days of industrial action, customers will not suffer any further disruption in the immediate term.

"The company is reviewing the Courts recommendation in the context of its challenging financial position."
Furthermore Mr Ross also claimed last night he had not seen a letter about the trip that John Halligan sent to the North Korean embassy in London.

Its off. The trip to North Korea is not government policy and we are not going to do anything which is in breach of government policy, insisted Mr Ross in an interview on Prime Time.

John, Finian and I spoke regularly about making trips abroad and doing things which were constructive.

It was an idea on which we were working in a freelance capacity and very rarely did we have it in a structured way. We never had a structured plan to do it. It was a project we talked about. That is all it was. It had never developed to a stage where we were going. I dont think we had even mentioned it to Sean Canney or Boxer Moran.

Sean Canney and Kevin Boxer Moran were said to be very annoyed at the fallout from the revelation because of the ridicule it brought upon the Alliance.

Meanwhile, Mr Ross also Mr Mr Halligan made a serious mistake in the are you married incident, but added that asking him to pay the ultimate price of resigning when he is very fine minister, I think is going too far.

While Mr Halligan has apologised, there were calls from the Labour Party, the Greens and Solidarity for his resignation.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner from Thailand, Mr Halligan said he has no problem in paying the 7,500 in compensation ordered by the Workplace Relations Commission if deemed possible by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation.

I am so sorry but this was an innocent mistake. I accept the ruling, he said.

The minister said it was a genuine mistake and was never meant to cause offence.

I have no issue with paying the money back. I am not too sure how repayment could work but I have no problem in paying the money. If it can be paid, I will, he said.

In the Dail, meanwhile, his senior minister, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, made her unhappiness clear.

She said she was disturbed and disappointed when she learned of Minister John Halligans discriminatory question to a female official during an interview.

During Leaders Questions, Ms Fitzgerald said the comments were unacceptable and should not have been made.

She was responding to questions from Labour leader Brendan Howlin who wondered would Mr Halligan be facing any further consequences over the matter.

Shane Ross said last night: John Halligan made a serious mistake. He said some very inappropriate words at a time which he shouldnt have done. He should have known better. He has apologised. He has said he is not going to appeal this decision.
THG executive Mr Mallon and former OCI president Pat Hickey were due to appear in a Rio de Janeiro court on November 29, at a hearing, where the judge would hear witnesses for prosecution and defence.

Both men were legally required to attend, as part of a bond contract each signed in order to have their passports returned, enabling them to leave Brazil late last year.
Patrick Murphy of Coorycullane, Dunmanway, Co Cork, had been ordered to appear before Bantry District Court yesterday with proof of public liability insurance in the case dating back to the killing of a neighbours cat by stray dogs two years ago.

Different sittings of the district court this week heard that since that incident one dog has been poisoned and there have been claims that three dogs have been shot dead, while Murphy has been the subject of two bench warrants for failing to appear in court.

It all left Murphy, a farmer, facing the possibility of being jailed unless he produced adequate insurance yesterday, having been ordered to do so last Tuesday at Clonakilty District Court, where Judge Mary Dorgan described the situation as a farce.

On Tuesday, Insp Fergal Foley, prosecuting, said that, on September 24, 2015 a neighbour of the defendant awoke to find that dogs had killed his pet cat.

At a later date, the same person heard dogs near his home and followed them back to Murphys property. Following a complaint, the matter came before the court for the first time on July 26, 2016.

At that time, Murphy pleaded guilty to charges of not having a dog licence and failing to have dogs under control. He was fined 500 and legal costs for the local authority with respect to one charge, which were paid.

Judge James McNulty then adjourned penalty on the second charge as long as Murphy procured public liability insurance covering five licenced dogs that he said he wanted to keep, with four others to be rehoused or destroyed.

However, on September 2 last year, Murphy did not appear in court and a bench warrant was issued. On December 20, Judge David Waters remanded him on continuing bail and adjourned the case to January 17, warning him to provide evidence of public liability insurance and that four dogs had been rehomed or destroyed or he would vacate the initial order and impose a custodial sentence.

Murphy failed to appear in court in January and when the matter came before Judge Mary Dorgan on October 17 she adjourned it for penalty until last Tuesday. On that date, the court heard that three dogs had allegedly been shot by a neighbour when attacking sheep.

Also last Tuesday, Murphys solicitor, Ray Hennessy, said there had been a pay-out as per an insurance policy regarding a sheep kill claim that totalled 3,900 in April of this year, which showed his client did have adequate cover.

However, Judge Dorgan queried this when insurance policy numbers did not match up and when only one page of what appeared to be an older policy was produced in court.

In addition, Murphy said he now has no dogs on his property, as he had poisoned the last one.

I have given the dog poison, he said. I havent seen the dog.

Judge Mary Dorgan said she was appalled at this, adding that dogs needed to be put down in a humane fashion.

However, Murphy said he would not allow anyone with a gun to put the dogs down as he has other animals, including a horse, on his property and he did not want them frightened.

On Tuesday, Judge Dorgan said: He must think we are all awful eejits and we are not.

She ordered him to bring the correct documentation to court in Bantry yesterday or else face jail.

At yesterdays sitting in Bantry, Murphy produced an insurance form and consented to a request from the judge that agents for Cork County Council be allowed to check with the insurance company that it covers dogs, and if so, how many.

The matter was then adjourned until a sitting of the district court in Bandon on December 8.
Department of Finance officials confirmed the situation as it emerged the bill will also give TDs a pay rise in 2021  but crucially block any cabinet member from receiving an increase unless they specifically table a new law seeking more money.

Under the Public Service Pay and Pensions Bill, unions which have signed up to the agreement will be given pay increases of between 6.2% and 7.4% over the next three years.

For the first time in Irish history, four unions which did not sign up  the three teachers unions and Unite  will be treated differently than their compatriots, with their increases officially delayed by nine months.

However, while the deal is meant to be water-tight, senior Department officials privately said last night the four unions falling outside the agreement will still receive their increases from January 1 if they do not formally request not to be given the money.

This is because the Government will consider all unions to have signed up to the deal unless the ICTU tells it specific unions have asked the umbrella group not to include them, with the ICTU only able to do so if a union says it wants to opt out of the increases.

The situation is understood to be an attempt to save face for the Government, unions and the ICTU by allowing Government to claim all groups are, in effect, complying with the new law, union bosses to say there has been no split and protesting unions to claim they have won a deal for their members.

However, it has been stressed that the pay increases will be immediately removed if the four unions which remain outside the pay deal take strike action which will breach the deal or do not take up parts of the new working arrangements.

The move emerged as public sector pensions up to 34,000 will become exempt from the effect of the pension reduction from January 1 at a cost of 90m.

Meanwhile, as previously reported by the Irish Examiner, the public pay deal will see TDs receive pay increases in 2021 in line with other public sector pay brackets.

However, crucially, it also makes it clear that no member of cabinet  including the Taoiseach or Tanaiste  will be able to receive a pay increase until at least 2022 unless they specifically table a new bill seeking to change the law and give them more money.

The de facto cabinet pay freeze has been seen as a further attempt by the Government to calm criticism of the new pay deal and lessen claims they are out of touch with ongoing financial problems in the country.
Kathleen Stokes, aged 43, of Bay 4, St Anthonys Park, Knocknaheeny, Cork, pleaded not guilty to three charges against her arising out of the burglary. She pleaded not guilty to all three counts at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Ms Stokes was put on trial in front of Judge Sean O Donnabhain and a jury of four men and eight women yesterday on charges of stealing a safe during a burglary at a house on Faggott Hill, Clogheen, Blarney, Co Cork, damaging the house, and handling of stolen property, namely the safe.

The owner of the house, Mary Murphy, was away for the weekend and this alleged burglary was carried out at around 7pm on Saturday, April 29. Prosecution barrister, Imelda Kelly, said the alarm went off and the alarm company notified the family of the householders son and his family living 150m away.

When Ms Stokes was stopped at Faggott Hill, she told Garda Anthony Gardiner she was out for a walk.

During questioning at Gurranabraher Garda Station, Detective Garda Donal OConnell said to the defendant: You are not exactly dressed for running through fields.

Ms Stokes denied in interview that she had anything to do with a burglary.

I know nothing about any burglary, I dont commit crime, she said.

The householders daughter-in-law, Anne Murphy, drove to the house with her son, Peter, in response to the alarm company call.

Just as we were slowing down to turn this maroon jeep shot out the gate and stopped, she said.

We kind of looked at it. I said: They must have been in the house. I just drove after the jeep beeping at them to stop to know why they were in the house. There was a woman with long blonde hair in the passenger seat and people in the back.

They stopped at the last house virtually. I stopped behind them. We didnt know what to do really. Peter tried to phone the guards. The next thing they back backed on top of my car.

She said the jeep drove off again and into a field.

Mr Murphy said he saw a woman leaving the field via a neighbouring farmyard a few minutes later.

Sian Langley, defence barrister, put it to the witness that he could not say that the woman he saw in the jeep was the same woman he saw leaving the yard. He accepted that proposition.

Garda Anthony Gardiner said he responded to the call about the burglary and saw Ms Stokes walking on Faggott Hill in dressing gown and pyjamas-type attire.

Garda Gardiner said the jeep found in the field had a safe in the back of it. He said this jeep had been parked outside Bay 4, St Anthonys Park the previous day.

Ms Langley said this vehicle was not registered to the defendant.

The trial continues today.
On Monday 18 October 1847, a large, elegant sailing ship, the Stephen Whitney, named after a wealthy American merchant, left New York for Liverpool by way of Cork, on one of its three regular annual voyages. On board were 76 passengers, a crew of 34, and a cargo, which included corn, cotton, cheese, resin, and 20 boxes of clocks.

For the first 23 days of the voyage, nothing untoward occurred. But all this was to change when the Red Star Line packet ship approached Irelands perilous south coast.

As the ship rounded Mizen Head on Wednesday 10 November, the weather became hazy and the wind strengthened. When the haze turned to thick fog, Captain W Popham from Cork was unable to make out the glow of the Cape Clear light high above them.

Believing that he was already at the Old Head of Kinsale, when he was in reality still at Brow Head, Crookhaven, he began steering towards what he thought was Cork harbour.

At dinner, passengers congratulated officers on a safe journey in difficult weather. All were looking forward to meeting friends and relatives.

According to the Cork Constitution, many had emigrated from Ireland during the winter famine of 1846/47, but being disappointed in their hopes of settling in America, were returning home.

Just before 10 oclock the wind reached gale force.

A cry went out: breakers ahead! Suddenly there was a tremendous crash as the ships stern struck the western tip of Calf Island, near Skull.

Recoiling from the original impact, she then smashed broadside against the rocks.

After the vessel struck a third time, it was left shaking like a reed.

All on board were stupefied with horror and amazement, declared the Cork Examiner. It was evident the ill-fated ship was doomed.

In less than ten minutes, 92 passengers and crew were hurled into eternity.

Sixteen of the crew died, drowned or were crushed to death by the ship. They included Popham, a highly respected captain, who was dashed against the cliffs while trying to swim ashore.

Another victim was a local man, Joseph Cleburn of Bandon.

Seventy-six passengers perished. Many of their names were unknown because the ship only carried records of those who occupied cabins, not those in steerage class.

But there were survivors. Among them was a motherless boy, Patrick Patterson of Roscrea, Co Tipperary. Riddled with guilt for not trying to save his drowning father, he had to be restrained from throwing himself off the cliffs.

William Smith from Baltimore, Maryland, a sailor with seventeen years experience, provided a graphic account of what happened: We had all the necessary boats but there was no time to get them down. When the bales of cotton fell overboard, people began jumping on them, thinking they were rocks, and drowned.

By chance, others, including Smith, were spared: A very heavy sea washed us on the rock, and we jumped off, many of us without getting our feet wet We then crept up the rock till we felt the grass under our feet, and then sat down We halloaed as loud as we could... but there was no answer The mate said Theres a house The people of the house were as kind to us as if we had all been brothersI had nothing but my shirt on me, and the man of the house took off his own clothes to cover me. They made us some bread, and I believe, used all their own food to make it They had not any turf or wood, and they kept burning their straw all night to keep us warm Some survivors were taken by boat to Schull where people did their best to provide clothes for them.

Meanwhile, the driver of the Skibbereen mail coach took news of the disaster to Cork.

Stephen Whitney (1776-1860) New York businessman.

Next morning, a revenue boat cruising the coast between Crookhaven, Schull and Baltimore in search of lost property from the Stephen Whitney, passed through a sea of wood  the remains of the vessel, ground into small pieces by a ferocious tide.

Reports claimed that local people began to flock in thousands to the scene of the wreck to loot its valuable cargo.

During the next few days, bodies were washed ashore: a child picked up at Roaring Water Bay; a richly dressed lady wearing three gold rings; and a sailor with only one shoe, thrown up on the rocks at Calf Island.

One of the crew attributed the accident to the lamentably deficient state of lighting, which had led to so many shipwrecks. At Cape Clear the light was too high above sea level to be useful, and was often obscured by mist and fog. The whole of the south-west coast requires to be properly lighted, he said.

The year 1847 was a bad one for shipwrecks  there were five others off the Cork coast. But it was by no means exceptional. In 1867, no fewer than 28 ships went down.

But it was the wreck of the Stephen Whitney that resulted in a particularly high loss of life, and highlighted the need for change.

Responsibility for lighthouses, lightships, buoys and beacons around the coast of Ireland was entrusted that same year to the Commissioners of Irish Lights. Its remit was to provide aids to navigation, which ensure the safety of life and property at sea.

Under its auspices, the number of Irelands lighthouses has increased to 78  stretching from Bull Rock, Co Cork, to Buncrana Light, Co Donegal, and Muglins Lighthouse, Dublin.

Irish Lights still operate a system of traditional lighthouses, buoys and beacons around the coast of Ireland. It also provides modern radio aids such as radar beacons and GPS. All play a crucial role in maritime safety today, and might have prevented 92 passengers and crew perishing in a few terrifying moments on that foggy, windswept November night.

Rammings, sinkings, and secret stashes on board
Her client list as a private chef in LA includes Hollywood A-listers, such as Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, and in recent years she has started to incorporate marijuana into her cooking for medical purposes.

The results, she says, have been very encouraging and she hopes to organise a hemp event in Ireland in the New Year to explore the health benefits of the plant which is used in everything from clothing to building materials.

Here, the Cannabis for Medicinal Use Regulation Bill passed through the Dail last December, but in July the bill was effectively shelved following a report from the Oireachtas committee on health.

McAteer now hopes to open up a discussion on the health benefits of cannabis, drawing on her experience of using it infused in butters and oils in California where its use for qualified patients has been legal since 1996.

She says hemp has a wide range of health benefits and it is worth exploring how they can be exploited by integrating them into food. But that is just one element of her wide-ranging and holistic approach to cooking, which is underpinned by the guiding principle that you can eat your way to better health.

She discovered the truth of that in her late teens/early 20s when she was diagnosed with an under-active thyroid. She took medication at first, but then began to seek out ways to improve her health naturally.

Aine McAteer is in demand for her approach to diet, saying it should be as close to nature as possible.

The search brought her to the Golden Dawn, a macrobiotic restaurant in Dublin. I thought that everyone looked so healthy and I thought that whatever these guys are on, I want some of that.

As it turned out, some of that involved a radical change in diet. The woman who was brought up on creamy milk and cheese in Cavan discovered that she was lactose intolerant and had to cut dairy from her diet.

She introduced sea vegetables, rich in thyroid-boosting iodine, and a range of wholegrains and pulses and soon her health began to improve. She was so impressed, in fact, that she started to work for the restaurant. Two years later, she moved to London and began to study at a macrobiotic centre where she discovered the healing power of food.

I always go to my kitchen when Im not feeling well, she tells Feelgood.

There is always something I can do through food to improve the condition I have and I have seen it with the people I work for.

She moved to the States to further her studies and there she started to cook for Barbara Orbison, wife of the famous musician Roy.

Before too long, her holistic and healing approach to cooking was in demand and she was asked to cook for other famous musicians as well as a long list of Hollywood stars that included John Cusack, Pierce Brosnan and the Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Pierce Brosnan

Many of her clients simply wanted to maximise their health, but others were looking for an alternative approach to deal with illness.

For example, she recalls working with an R n B singer whose MS symptoms significantly improved after she cut sugar from her diet and began to eat in a more balanced way.

She says achieving more balance in the diet is crucial and recommends that our food be as close to nature as possible. Processed food, sugar-rich food and an over-reliance on carbohydrates cause acidity in the system, which brings with it a range of problems.

A lot of people start the day with coffee and toast, but that is really acidic, she says, recommending small, simple changes to improve health.

Here are two of her juices to start and finish the day.

Morning Green Elixir

Youll need: 1 bunch celery; 1 small cucumber; 1 bunch fresh parsley: 1 green apple, half lemon.

Cut into manageable sizes for your juicer. You can peel the lemon if you prefer a more mellow lemon flavour. If its organic, you can juice the skin too. Press through your juicer and enjoy.

Sweet Dreams Nightcap

Youll need: 1 cup of hemp, oat, almond or other nut milk; half tsp turmeric; 1 tsp honey.

Heat the milk and stir in the turmeric and honey. Sip and drift off into happy dreamland.
Five years ago, on November 10, 2012, the Irish electorate voted to include the 31st Amendment to the Irish Constitution. This amendment was ground-breaking because, for the first time, Irish society clearly had a chance to vote directly that children should have rights. Up to that point, the highest law of the land effectively made children second-class citizens. Adults and, more specifically, marital families enjoyed greater rights.

Historically, as a country we didnt have a great track record on how we treat children. The Ryan Report, which investigated abuse in industrial schools from the 1930s onwards, painfully described how thousands of children were denied their most basic rights through neglect as well as both physical and sexual abuse. The findings showed how we ignored children and didnt believe them when they told us they were being abused. The impact of that abuse followed them for decades.

Symbolically, we drew a line under these dark, dark days when the people of Ireland said Yes to children on this day in 2012. In laying this important foundation stone, we pledged as a society to put children first. We promised to do our best for all children in Ireland and we promised to listen to them.

It had taken us a very long time as a country to get to that point. To give some context, when the Childrens Rights Alliance was founded in 1995, making the Irish Constitution a childrens constitution was actually one of our founding goals.

This was just after the publication of the Kilkenny Incest Investigation, chaired by Judge Catherine McGuinness. That report sent shockwaves across the country  a truly horrific case where a girl experienced 15 years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her father in her own home. And, if that wasnt shocking enough, the investigation found that the family was well-known to child protection services. How could Ireland let something like this happen to a child? Or, more pertinently, how could we prevent it happening again or intervene earlier?

It was Judge McGuinness who noted at that time that our Constitution placed so much emphasis on the rights of the family that it may have consciously or unconsciously interpreted as giving a high value to the rights of the parents over the rights of children. Many felt the child had been left to wallow in abuse because the married family was considered sacrosanct and should not be tampered with. It was Judge McGuinness who called for a specific declaration of the rights of children.

But, unfortunately, it took more than 17 official reports documenting how we failed children for things to change. The Baby Ann case was also critical. Here, a two-year-old adopted child was returned to her biological parents after they wed despite the risk to her social and emotional development because of the constitutional preference for the married family. The ensuing public debate meant we finally reached a political tipping point where a referendum was possible.

Fast-forward to 2012, finally a referendum on children came to pass. Chaired by Judge Catherine McGuinness, the three big national childrens charities  the Childrens Rights Alliance, Barnardos, and the ISPCC  worked together on a civil society campaign to convince the Irish public to vote Yes in that referendum.

Some felt that the brand new Article 42A on Children was limited in scope because it left the definition of the family intact. While this is true, the amendment did seek to provide balance to the child being protected by the State versus making sure that interference was proportionate.

Getting this balance right is, of course, the trick here and is not always easy. But this change would give the State a bit more clout to intervene in a case like Kilkenny and a child would be spared hellish abuse.

The amendment did other important things for children too. It placed a duty on the State to introduce legislation to listen to childrens voices in childcare and family law  life-changing legal cases for children such as foster care, divorce, or custody.

It also lifted the legal barriers so that children born into marriage who were in long-term foster care could be adopted. This would impact on hundreds of children and finally allow them to live in security with their loving families.

These changes were passed on November 10, 2012. Our campaign won and this was a landmark day for the children of Ireland.

To mark the five-year anniversary, this week we held a major national conference. We wanted to take stock and ask have children benefitted from the amendment.

Overall, theres been lots of infrastructural change since 2012. A new national policy for children called Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures has been adopted. The Government set up a new child and family agency, Tusla, and launched a new Child Participation Strategy. Though it is still a work in progress, there are better systems to protect children and ensure that they can have their say.

In the legal sphere, how have judges in the courts interpreted the change? Are we seeing new laws reflecting this change for children? Are we better at listening to children and taking their views into account in the courts?

The legal system has a vital role to play in making constitutional change real. We can see in the courts that the amendment is beginning to be cited in cases. The Oireachtas has introduced legislation to give effect to childrens new constitutional rights. This includes new draft legislation to allow children to have their opinions heard through a guardian ad litem, a person who provides a child with an independent voice in court.

Constitutional change for children has been a good thing in many ways but it has not yet achieved everything we had hoped for. To be fair, legal change is incremental and does not happen overnight but there are still big gaps.

Are children able to express their views equally in child care proceedings or in family law cases such as custody, guardianship and access? They are not and we need to do more to listen to childrens views when important decisions are made about their lives.

The legal system is a very intimidating place for anyone and particularly so for children. Yet how many lawyers are trained to take instructions from children? Are judges sufficiently supported to have children participate in court proceedings? Courts need to be far more child-friendly.

Many families across Ireland rely on getting access to legal advice and remedies in very serious family law situations. We need to see this legal aid extended so more children and families can take cases when they need to. The Legal Aid Board provides an important service to families and they must be supported so they can continue their good work.

What else should we be doing to help bed down a society and a legal order where childrens rights are central? How do we make sure that the promise to fulfil childrens rights infiltrates down to every single child? How can the Constitution help children who experience poverty, social exclusion and homelessness? Do we need other legal reform to address these issues?

Most of the answers here are not rocket science. Meaningful change must be supported by meaningful resources in a recovering economy. The next five years will show if we actually meant it when we voted Yes.
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A Florida appeals court ordered a new trial this week for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and two other U.S. tobacco manufacturers in an Engle progeny lawsuit tied to the U.S. surgeon generals warning on cigarettes.

Engle progeny lawsuits sprang from a decision in 2006 by the Florida Supreme Court that decertified a $145 billion class action lawsuit initially filed by Howard Engle. That ruling limits former class members to filing individual lawsuits.

In July 2015, a Florida judicial circuit court jury awarded to John McCoy, widower of Glodine McCoy, $1.5 million in compensatory and $9 million in punitive damages from Reynolds, Lorillard Inc. and Philip Morris USA.

What makes Mondays appeals court ruling noteworthy is the defendants success in getting the three-judge appeals court panel to agree that the U.S. Surgeon Generals warning on cigarettes was erroneously admitted into evidence and improperly used to bolster expert opinions.

The panel ruled the warnings are hearsay that are inadmissible as public records or adoptive admissions.

The court made a similar ruling related to the surgeon generals warning on Aug. 30 in a case involving Philip Morris USA. As a result, the panel ruled that the extensive reliance on the (warnings) throughout trial renders it impossible for the plaintiff to meet his burden of showing that the error was harmless.

Reynolds and Philip Morris USA said Thursday they have no comment on the panels decision.

Juries can assign a percentage of the responsibility for health issues to the smoker  in this instance 35 percent was assigned to Glodine McCoy. Reynolds was assessed 25 percent of the blame, while Lorillard was assessed 20 percent.

That meant Reynolds would have been responsible for $4.05 million in punitive damages, counting its liability for Lorillard, while Philip Morris amount was $1.8 million.

The damages were adjusted in January 2016 to $670,000 in Reynolds and Lorillard compensatory damages and $6 million in Reynolds and Lorillard punitive damages.

The appellate court said during the new trial process, McCoy could add claims for punitive damages on his negligence and strict liability counts.
Updated at 3:50 p.m.

WASHINGTON  A growing chorus of Senate Republicans including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have called on Senate candidate Roy Moore to withdraw from a special election in Alabama in the wake of allegations that the former judge initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl nearly four decades ago.

"If these allegations are true, he must step aside," McConnell said in a formal statement on behalf of all Republican senators.

Other Republican senators who weighed in included Jeff Flake of Arizona, David Perdue of Georgia; John Thune of South Dakota, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.

The Washington Post published an extensive report Thursday describing Moore's relationships with the then-14-year-old and three other girls he pursued when they were between the ages of 16 and 18.

None of the women sought out The Post. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore's Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls.

Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don't know one another.

Washington Post News Service (DC)

Updated at 2:14 p.m.

WASHINGTON  Senate GOP leader says if report about Alabama's Roy Moore and sex with underage teen is true, Moore should step aside.

Updated at 2:12 p.m.

WASHINGTON  Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is accused of initiating a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32, according to The Washington Post.

Leigh Corfman said she was approached by Moore outside an Alabama courtroom in Etowah County and later exchanged numbers with him. He picked her up and kissed her, she said.

On another encounter, Corfman said Moore took off his clothes and undressed her while she touched his underwear.

I wanted it over with  I wanted out, she told The Post.

Two of Corfmans friends said she told them.

Three other women came forward and said Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 but none of them said they were forced into sexual contact.

Moore vehemently denied the allegations.

These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and The Washington Post on this campaign, he said.

Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, said no comment after the news broke. SLF spent money opposing Moore in the Alabama primary but backed him after he won that contest.

2017 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A woman is accusing a controversial U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama of touching her sexually when she was a teenager.

According to a Washington Post report, Leigh Corfman said former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore approached her while she was sitting on a courthouse bench in Etowah County, Ala., in 1979.

Moore, who was 32 at the time of the alleged incident, struck up a conversation, according to Corfman and her mother, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went to court for a custody hearing.

Corfman said the incidents took place at Moore's home. They involved Moore allegedly kissing and touching the girl.
When the cosmos shoots pool, it plays for keeps. It sunk a six-mile-wide rock in our pocket of the solar system 66 million years ago.

The smack of the asteroid against Earth released energy on the order of billions of atomic bombs. Dinosaurs were the cataclysm's most famous victims, joined by sea creatures, plants and microorganisms. All told, Earth's biodiversity shrank by 75 percent in what is known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene, or K-Pg, extinction (also known as the K-T extinction).

A large asteroid strike happens only once every 100 million years. And a controversial new report suggests the K-Pg impact was an exceptionally unlikely shot.

In a paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, a pair of researchers calculated the asteroid had little more than a 1-in-10 chance of triggering a mass extinction when it smacked into Earth. (We mammals should be glad it beat the odds: After the dinosaurs' swift exit, nocturnal furballs - our ancestors - scampered into the daylight and conquered the planet. And one branch of dinosaurs survived and persists as today's birds.)

Soot was the impact's most lethal symptom, argued paleontologist Kunio Kaiho, of Tohoku University, and Naga Oshima, an atmospheric chemist at Japan's Meteorological Research Institute. The asteroid hit Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. There, the researchers say, vast reservoirs of crude oil and hydrocarbons were tucked beneath a shallow sea, waiting to be set ablaze.

Kaiho and Oshima's previous work, published in 2016, modeled what would happen if an asteroid turned lots of organic matter into soot - millions and millions of tons of it, injected into the stratosphere. In the scenario, Earth's temperature plunged beneath the soot cloud that blocked the sun's radiation. Plants, trapped in this carbon choke hold, wilted and died. Starving animals soon followed suit.

Sixty-six million years ago, only 13 percent of Earth's surface contained enough organic material to generate this doomsday soot, the authors concluded in the new study. Had the asteroid hit the other 87 percent of Earth, Kaiho said, "I think dinosaurs could be alive today."

Timothy Bralower, a Penn State paleoceanographer who was not involved with this work, applauded the researchers for their "innovative way of thinking." But Bralower said he doubted that a soot cloud alone could explain why the asteroid was so lethal.

"The 13 percent number they're quoting has a lot of assumptions based around it," said Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin. The asteroid churned up soot, he said, but soot was "not the driver" that killed the dinosaurs.

The extinction asteroid theory, widely accepted as the most plausible explanation for the dinosaurs' disappearance, is the result of four decades of research. In the late 1970s, scientists Luis and Walter Alvarez, a father-son duo at the University of California at Berkeley, began to investigate rocks on the border between the Cretaceous and Paleogene geologic periods. The Alvarez team discovered the element iridium, at levels found only in asteroids, in Italian clay that dated to the ancient divide. Cretaceous soot, too, was mixed in with the red clay.

Iridium appeared in 66-million-year-old clay around the world, in locations as far apart as Tunisia and New Zealand. In 1990, scientists announced they'd found the entry wound. It was a giant pockmark in the Yucatan Peninsula, the "Crater of Doom," centered near a small Mexican town named Chicxulub.

Kaiho and Oshima based their soot cloud calculations on geologic layers in Haiti, near the peninsula. In the late Cretaceous, these rocks were rich in hydrocarbons. That, they said, was the ammunition the asteroid needed. "If the asteroid had hit a low-medium hydrocarbon area on Earth (occupying approximately 87 percent of the Earth's surface), mass extinction could not have occurred," Kaiho said.

But Gulick, part of a 2016 drilling project to explore the asteroid's crater, said there was little evidence for sufficient amounts of organic matter at the Chicxulub impact site.

Scientists have found a diary of horrors burned into geologic layers at the time of impact. Hypothesized "kill mechanisms" include toxic heavy metals brought by the asteroid, acidic oceans (so corrosive that animal shells dissolved) and global firestorms. Red-hot asteroid bits, kicked up in the collision, would have rained down on forests and started wildfires across the planet. This might explain the soot found in the clay, Bralower said.

The K-Pg extinction was not the result of one blow but a "quadruple whammy," he said. "I just don't think, with the diversity of life, one mechanism can explain all the mass extinction."

All the researchers agreed that the location, at Chicxulub, was crucial to its devastation. "The authors of the study are correct in making the point that you couldn't have hit just anywhere," Gulick said.

Both Bralower and Gulick pointed to a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters - they are listed as participants or third-party scientists - which contends that the asteroid released killer amounts not of soot, but of gas. Carbon dioxide and sulfur gases blown extremely high into the atmosphere would have the opposite of a greenhouse effect: surface temperatures plummeting by more than 20 degrees Celsius, or about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

"If you cool the planet by 26 degrees Celsius in five years you're going to cause a lot of extinction," Bralower said. To release these climate-altering gases, the asteroid needed to hit a shallow sea above sedimentary rock. In other words, the asteroid would have had to strike a place just like Chicxulub.
SAN DIEGO  It didnt take long for white liberals to start attacking Donna Brazile.

From its portals in media and politics, the vindictive left is in battle mode now that Brazile  a longtime Democratic strategist who became the first African-American to run a presidential campaign when she managed Al Gores bid for the White House in 2000  has spilled the beans about how broken our political system really is.

Having served as interim chair of the Democratic National Committee during the final innings of the 2016 election, Brazile ought to know.

In her explosive new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House, she reveals a secret agreement that turned the DNC into a wholly owned subsidiary of Hillary Clintons campaign. The Democratic frontrunner handed over about $20 million to help get the DNC out of debt. In return, she got control of the inner workings of the organization, which is supposed to be neutral in the primaries. This included decisions about when to schedule debates, who should fill key posts and how messages should be shaped.

Clintons challengers for the nomination  Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Martin OMalley, Lincoln Chafee, etc.  never had a chance. The fix was in.

When Brazile was recently pressed by ABC News George Stephanopoulos  himself a Democratic loyalist who helped elect Bill Clinton president, worked in the Clinton White House, contributed to the Clinton Foundation and joined in regular strategizing calls with top Democrats well into his conversion into a newsman  to say whether she thought the Democratic primaries were rigged, she responded that she found no evidence of that.

But Brazile strikes a different tone in her book, insisting that the agreement ensured that Democratic primary battle wasnt a fair fight and that it compromised the partys integrity.

Meanwhile, there is little integrity to be found in the graceless attacks on Brazile by liberals. In recent days, the Democratic Party insider has been called a liar, a kook, a traitor and worse. She has even be compared to  gasp!  Donald Trump for allegedly trafficking in rumors about the fragility of Hillary Clintons health.

About 100 former Clinton staffers and other Democrats signed an open letter saying that Braziles claims are troubling and puzzling.

Ground zero for the attacks is CNN  which ironically used to think highly enough of Brazile that it employed her as a contributor.

In a column on CNN.com, editor-at-large Chris Cillizza accused Brazile of contradicting herself. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper noted that it was Brazile who  before a Democratic primary debate  leaked a question to the Clinton campaign, which Cooper called completely unethical. And CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin pointed out that Brazile lied about passing along the debate question.

Still, character assassination aside, what Brazile has to say should concern the American people.

For one thing, it adds another explanation as to why the Democratic Party did such a masterful job of losing to the one Republican who should have been the easiest to beat: Trump. You would think Democrats would want to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes.

Moreover, Braziles accusations should be of special interest to those Democratic voters who supported  and, in some cases, even contributed money to  candidates not named Hillary. Even worse, imagine how silly you would feel if you also sent money to the DNC  the very entity that was, behind the curtain, working to deny your preferred candidate the title.

In any other field besides politics, that sort of shenanigan would be called fraud. And it would be illegal.

Brazile told Stephanopoulos that fellow Democrats who want to shut her up or at least discredit her can go to hell.

She has obviously been in a slow boil for some time over the condescending white liberals who run the Democratic Party. When she was at the DNC and she was told that she had to clear every decision with the Clinton campaign in Brooklyn, Brazile angrily declared that she wasnt Patsey the slave.

Twelve years ago, I wrote a column where I excoriated liberals for expecting Latinos and African-Americans to be deferential and attacking those who arent. The left, I noted, prefers minorities who ask for permission before they speak and make sure that what they say falls in line with the views of their liberal benefactors.

Out of the blue, Brazile sent me an email praising the piece and congratulating me for writing it.

Now she is the one who refuses to be deferential. She has every right to tell her story. And dont expect her to ask anyone for permission.


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The International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] on Thursday authorized [order] prosecutor Fatou Bensouda [official profile] to investigate potential crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burundi. The decision of Pre-Trial Chamber III was the result of a preliminary examination [JURIST report] launched in Spring 2016. Welcoming the decision, Bensouda noted [press release] that the opening of an investigation does not presume an outcome.

My decision to open an investigation does not make any determinative findings on the guilt or innocence of particular persons. Only if and when, based on the evidence collected, there are reasonable grounds to believe a person is criminally responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court, will my Office request the judges to issue an arrest warrant or summons to appear.

Bensouda also asserted that Burundi remains under a legal obligation to cooperate with my Offices investigations and the Court.

Unrest erupted in the east African nation in 2015 following president Pierre Nkurunzizas decision to seek a third term [JURIST commentary] despite constitutional limitations. Nkurunziza was elected to his third term [JURIST report] in July 2016. The response to protests by security organizations such as the Burundian National Police, the national intelligence service and ruling party affiliates like the youth organization Imbonerakure allegedly involved crimes against humanity including murder, rape, imprisonment, torture, and enforced disappearance.

In response to the preliminary examination, Burundi became the first state party to withdraw under Article 127 of the Rome Statute [text] governing the ICC, effective October 27, 2017. Thursdays announcement [press release], however, makes it clear the court considers its jurisdiction to include crimes committed during the entirety of a State Partys membership, including crimes that continue after withdrawal. This is a position that some scholars have disputed [JURIST Commentary].
Redistricting has taken on increasing importance nationally as controversies over the political gerrymandering of House seats in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin [JURIST reports] have moved into the spotlight. However, redistricting controversies are not confined to the national level. At the local level, redistricting causes emotions to run high, frustrates politicians and, sometimes, causes befuddlement. A survey of a few local redistricting stories:

School District Redistricting

At least in two recent examples, efforts to redistrict schools appear to be unpopular with parents and put school boards in a tough place as they try to balance enrollment. A plan was recently struck down [Asbury Park Press report] in Middletown, New Jersey, when the school board faced significant push back from the parents. 55 residents responded to the plan transferring 573 students amongst the various school districts and all of them opposed the plan. The board scrapped the redistricting plan which had cost approximately $25,000.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, the Albermarle County school board faces [Daily Progress report] an over-capacity elementary school and another at capacity. The board wants to redistrict its schools to deal with the problem. Some of the school districts look contorted, with one being split by another. However, as in New Jersey, parents are harshly critical of the plan, attending the redistricting committee meetings with signs declaring, This is about our children NOT pretty maps! However, the Albemarle plan had some support among parents at the meeting and will ultimately be decided upon in January.

Non-Binding Votes

In Indiana, a number of localities (most recently Indianapolis) have been proposing and passing [NUVO report] non-binding resolutions urging redistricting reform at the state level. These reforms seek to reduce or eliminate partisan gerrymandering. Supporters of these proposals see them as a way to build popular consensus on redistricting reform and to put public pressure on state legislatures. After the Indianapolis resolution passed, Democratic City Councilor Christine Scales remarked:

To affect change, we must use public pressure on those who would manipulate and rig the system to maintain the entrenchment of individual office holders and the power of one political party.

The opponents of the resolutions take two tracts, seeing the move as more political and less substantive. One, they point out that the resolutions are entirely non-binding, and thus, pointless feel-good votes, as the Republican Minority Leader, Michael McQuillen put it. Two, they argue a change in districts now is simply bad timing as another round of redistricting is coming in 2020. The expense of redistricting, as seen in the above Middletown example, can be high. Rep. Marianne Pfisterer suggested that redistricting reform could cost between $500,000 and $750,000. Such an expenditure to create new districts might, arguably, be frivolous considering it is the second half of the decade and new districts will have to be drawn soon enough.

The challenges presented by school redistricting are, of course, distinct from the political concerns surrounding the gerrymandering debates that are central to the Indiana resolutions. However, it appears that redistricting will continue to be a central topic in both our national political and local personal lives.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania [official website] issued a per curiam order [text, PDF] Thursday vacating a decision by the Commonwealth Court to stay a hearing in a gerrymandering case, League of Women Voters v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania [docket]. The outcome of the case is virtually guaranteed to have a substantial impact on the results of the upcoming 2018 elections.

Last month, the Commonwealth Court granted [order, PDF] a request by Respondents in the case  Republican members of the General Assembly including House Speaker Michael Turzai and Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati  apparently agreeing with their argument that the case should only proceed after the US Supreme Court has reached a decision in Gill v. Whitford [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], a case involving gerrymandering in Wisconsin. The Pennsylvania Supreme Courts order yesterday makes clear they disagree, stating the present case involves issues of immediate public importance requiring this Courts assumption of plenary jurisdiction.

The Petitioners in this case include the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, as well as residents of all 18 congressional districts. Noting that 13 of those 18 districts have gone to Republican candidates in recent elections, even when Democratic candidates win a majority of votes statewide, the Petitioners application [text, PDF] to the Supreme Court for extraordinary relief called the congressional districts rigged.

Following the 2010 census, the Republican-controlled General Assembly employed sophisticated technology to gerrymander the Commonwealths congressional districts more egregiously and effectively than ever before, manipulating district boundaries to discriminate against Petitioners and other Democratic voters on the basis of their political views, their votes, and the party with which they choose to associate. The gerrymander of Pennsylvania congressional districts has been ranked as one of the most extreme in the nation, and by some measures, it is the worst offender in the country.

The Supreme Court ordered the Commonwealth Court to file its  its findings of fact and conclusions of law no later than December 31, 2017.
The US State Department announced [press release] Wednesday that it will end the Central American Minors (CAM) refugee program, an Obama-era immigration initiative that sought to resettle children and eligible family members who are nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

CAM was established as a response to the thousands of unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central American countries in order to seek asylum in the US. The program came under review [Reuters report] once President Donald Trump signed an executive order [executive order] on border security at the beginning of his term.

In September the White House sent a fiscal report [Politico report] to Congress stating that they were ending CAM because the vast majority of individuals accessing the program were not eligible for refugee resettlement.

Going forward, the US government will no longer accept applications for the refugee program. Instead it will focus [NYT report] on working with the Costa Rican government, the UN and the International Organization for Migration to come up with more targeted ways to assist refugees.
The Instanbul 14th High Criminal Court on Tuesday upheld Enis Berberoglus 25-year prison sentence, finding the appeals court did not have grounds to order a retrial [Reuters report].

Berberoglu, deputy of the main opposition party, Republican Peoples Party (CHP), was convicted of military espionage in June after he allegedly reported video of Turkeys National Intelligence Organization (MIT) transporting weapons to rebels in Syria. The investigation [Turkish Minute report] began with the journalists who reported the MITs suspicious acts, but the Istanbul Public Prosecutors Office tracked the information back to Berberoglu after examining one journalists phone record history.

The High Criminal Court first sentenced Berberoglu to life in prison but then reduced it to 25 years. The appeals court ordered a retrial in October but the High Criminal Court refused to do so, finding the appeals court had full authority to review the case, but its decision to overturn [Hurriyet Daily report] the sentence was without due process of law and is against the law.
Three teens have been charged with aggravated sexual assault after they were accused of raping a mentally disabled classmate in a restroom at their school.

Charged in the October assault are 19-year-old Sylvanus Lanier and Marco Garcia and Elijah Willis, both of whom are 17. The Dallas Morning News reports police allege the teens alternated as lookouts outside a Cedar Hill High School restroom Oct. 19 while each sexually assaulted the 16-year-old girl, who reported the assault four days later. The suspects were arrested last week.

Lanier and Willis remain in Dallas County jail, while Garcia is free on $100,000 bond.

An Associated Press investigation earlier this year found at least 17,000 reports of sexual assaults by students over a recent four-year period in U.S. elementary and secondary schools.
Austrian artist perform a Vietnamese folk song at the press conference (Source: CPV)

The information was released by Ambassador Bruno Angelet, who is Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam, at a press conference held in Hanoi on November 9th.

The festival aims to honour the richness and diversity of European culture, contributing to improving the understanding and reciprocal knowledge, thus reinforcing the relations, between Europe and Vietnam.

It will be held by the Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam, the Embassies of EU member states and the European Cultural Institutes, to offer Vietnamese audiences concerts performed by virtuoso artists from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Sweden.



Admission to the concerts is free./.
President Tran Dai Quang and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak (Source: VNA)



At the meeting, the President urged the two sides to well organise activities marking the 45th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties in 2018 and soon implement consultation mechanisms such as the high-level defence cooperation committee and the working group on cross-border crime combat.

Vietnam and Malaysia should share experience in anti-terrorism, hostage rescue, rescue operations and pirate combat, he said, asking maritime law enforcement forces of the two countries to exchange experience and information while joining hands in settling emerging issues.

Malaysian PM Najib Tun Razak praised Vietnams efforts to organise APEC Year 2017 in general and the APEC Economic Leaders Week in particular.

He pledged to step up economic, trade and investment ties with Vietnam, especially in export-import, oil and gas, tourism and labour.

Malaysia will create favourable conditions for Vietnamese to live in the country and protect their legitimate rights, the PM promised.

Both leaders noted with joy the fruitful developments of the Vietnam-Malaysia strategic partnership in various areas, ranging from politics-diplomacy and national defence-security to economic, trade and investment.

They agreed to increase the exchange of all-level delegations and closely coordinate with each other to organise activities to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic next year.

The two sides will also urge relevant agencies to soon implement bilateral consultation mechanisms and sign agreements in order to create legal frameworks for cooperation in specific areas.

They also discussed regional and international of shared concern and agreed to intensify consensus within ASEAN and carry forwards the groups central role in dealing with important matters./.
President Tran Dai Quang and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Source: VNA)



The talks took place following a welcome ceremony for Chiles President Michelle Bachelet Jeria who is on a State visit to Vietnam from November 8th-9th.

President Quang spoke highly of the Chilean Governments close coordination and active support for Vietnams hosting Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2017 as well as the organisation of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders Week in central Da Nang city.

Vietnam attaches importance and wishes to deepen the comprehensive partnership with Chile, he stressed.

President Bachelet extended her deep sympathy to Vietnamese leaders and people over great human and property losses caused by recent typhoon Damrey, downpours and floods in Vietnams central region.

She noted that Chile considers Vietnam an important partner in Asia-Pacific, and congratulated the country on its contributions to APEC development through hosting APEC 2017.

The two leaders commented on the fruitful comprehensive partnership over the past years across fields, ranging from politics to trade, which has grown from 30-40 percent annually since the Vietnam-Chile Free Trade Agreement took effect on January 1st, 2014. In 2016, bilateral trade value reached USD1.1 billion, increasing more than two times over 2013. In the first nine months of this year, the figure was close to USD960 million, up 29 percent against the same period last year.

President Quang used the occasion to thank the Chilean Government for supporting Vietnams candidacy to the UN Security Council for 2020-2021.

Host and guest agreed to maintain the exchange of delegations at levels among sectors, localities and businesses, and such mechanisms as the bilateral free trade council and political consultation at the deputy foreign ministerial level.

The two countries will also work to complete a legal framework for bilateral cooperation and create the best possible conditions for their businesses to access the respective markets.

At the same time, they will establish trade and investment ties in agro-fishery production and processing, high-tech agriculture, mining, bio-technology and climate change response, while facilitating export and import of farm produce.

They consented to step up collaboration in culture, science-technology, education-training, tourism and other spheres.

Vietnam and Chile agreed to boost their collaboration at international organisations multilateral forums, especially the UN, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), APEC, negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC), along with promoting cooperation between ASEAN and the Pacific Alliance (AP) in an effective and pragmatic manner.

Talking about regional and international issues of shared concern, the two Presidents noted their support for settling sovereignty and territorial disputes by peaceful measures on the basis of respect for international law, particularly the UN Charter and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as diplomatic and legal processes.

President Bachelet invited President Quang to pay a State visit to Chile in the time ahead. The Vietnamese President accepted the invitation with pleasure.

Following their talks, the two Presidents signed the Vietnam-Chile joint statement and witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation agreements, including a Governmental-level memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in caring children and adolescents who are Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin victims in Vietnam; an agreement on income activities for relatives of diplomats and employees of consulates, representative offices and international organisations; and a MoU on cooperation between the two countries academies of diplomacy.

They then met with the press to inform outcomes of their talks.

Also on November 9th, President Quang hosted a banquet in Hanoi for President Bachelet and her entourage./.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc welcomes Chilean President Michelle Bachelet (Photo: VNA)



PM Phuc thanked President Bachelet for supporting Vietnam in hosting the APEC Economic Leaders Week. Vietnamese people always refer Chile as a friend who is always stands beside and supports Vietnam, he stated.

He also lauded President Bachelet for attending the APEC Economic Leaders Week, which he described as a contribution to the success of the event.

The Vietnamese Government welcomes outcomes of talks between Presidents Tran Dai Quang and Bachelet, he said, adding that the Chilean leaders visit will make practical contributions to the growth of the Vietnam-Chile friendship and all-round partnership.

For her part, President Bachelet said that Chile always supports Vietnam, not only in the past struggle for national liberation but also in current national construction and development.

Chile has recognised Vietnams market economy mechanism as well as the countrys efforts to expand relations with nations around the world, she said.

The Chilean President briefed her host on results of her talks with President Tran Dai Quang. She said that the two sides shared many measures to boost bilateral trade and connect business communities of the two countries in the coming time.

Chile hopes to learn from Vietnam in rice cultivation, she stated, expressing wish to cooperate with Vietnam in weather forecasting as Chile owns modern research centres in this field.

On the occasion, President Bachelet expressed her sympathy to Vietnam over heavy losses due to the recent storm and floods. She asserted that the two sides should work closer together in climate change response.

She highly valued Vietnam for assisting Chile in fostering cooperation with ASEAN.

She noted that political relations between the two countries have developed, while existing cooperation mechanisms have proven effectiveness, adding that Chilean and Vietnamese enterprises should enhance partnership. She suggested that both sides remove obstacles to increase the trade of agriculture products as well as promote cooperation in defence, security, peacekeeping, science and technology, while supporting each other at multilateral forums.

Sharing President Bachelets ideas, PM Phuc proposed that the two sides maintain and increase exchanges of delegations, especially high-level ones.

He pledged to direct ministries and sectors to effectively implement agreements reached between the two countries to bolster trade and investment partnership, especially in processing, seafood, and climate change response.

The PM asked the Chilean leader to create favourable conditions for Vietnamese farm produce, especially mango, lychee and longan, to access the Chilean market.

He said that Vietnam will import more Chilean products. Vietnam is also willing to transfer rice cultivation techniques to Chile, he vowed, adding that Vietnam and Chile should improve collaboration in new areas such as science-technology and defence.

Vietnam will support and cooperate with Chile in organising APEC 2019, he stated./.
A 32-year-old Lyman man died in a single vehicle rollover Thursday afternoon.

Authorities with the Nebraska State Patrol and the Scotts Bluff County Sheriff's Office responded at about 1:25 p.m. to the scene of a one-vehicle rollover near County Road R and County Road 5, west of Scottsbluff. The crash occurred about 1.75 miles west of Stegall Road.

The crash involved a man who had been being sought by Scotts Bluff County Sheriff's deputies after a family member contacted authorities requesting assistance at about 12:45 p.m. at a rural Lyman residence. Family members reported a man suffering from mental problems, Sheriff Mark Overman said in a press release. The man was identified as being possibly armed with a shotgun or crossbow.

While deputes were en route, family members reported the man had gone outside the residence and they heard several shots had been fired. The man left the residence in a pickup and another family member followed him.

The man rolled his vehicle shortly after cresting a hill at County Road 5 and County Road R. Responding deputies and Nebraska State Patrol officers were on the scene within minutes.

Authorities found a Ford F-150 pickup on its top in a south ditch, facing north, and it appeared the vehicle had rolled several times, Overman said.

A postal carrier and the family member were on scene. The postal carrier told officers that he had been traveling west on County Road R when he encountered the pickup at the crest of a hill. The carrier said the pickup was in the middle of the road and traveling at a high rate of speed. The carrier described the driver as swerving to avoid a collision and the carrier thought it likely the driver would crash. After cresting the hill, the carrier turned back around and after seeing that the driver had crashed, the carrier called 911.

The family member had been about a mile behind the pickup, due to the high speeds, and had thought the driver had collided with the mail carrier's vehicle.

Valley Ambulance and Air Link responded to the accident. Lyman firefighters extricated the man from the vehicle and he was transported to Regional West via Air Link. The man died at Regional West Medical Center.

Authorities have not identified the man killed in the crash. Victim identification is delayed pending notification of next of kin.

The investigation in the crash is continuing.
I stared Monday at the Hubs front page photo of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the scene of yet another mass shooting by an angry, disturbed man with an assault rifle. The small white building resembles thousands of churches in Americas small towns and along its country roads.

Take away the cupola, and the Texas church looks like a wider version of Pleasant View Christian Church that was southeast of Wilcox and my home church while growing up. News story descriptions of a small church in a close-knit community attended by generations of families sitting in pews on either side of a center aisle were eerily familiar.

We know the shooter was angry with a relative who often attends First Baptist Church but was not there Sunday morning. No explanations are sufficient to answer why questions about mass killings linked to place names  Sutherland Springs, Las Vegas, Orlando, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Columbine  that are so common now they are ranked by death toll.

Psychologists say Americans risk being desensitized to such violence and seeing it as a new normal or at least inevitable.

A contrast to the news about killers targeting innocent people is National Geographics magazine cover story about using citizen surveys to rate countries happiness. Ive visited two of the three happy places profiled, Singapore and Costa Rica. The third is Denmark.

There are big differences in the three countries and in how people define happiness  or maybe contentment. Some happy-related factors they seem to have in common include time to spend with family, friends and activities; government-provided health care; good education systems; freedom; adequate housing; and retirement support.

There is a world map with happy faces of various sizes and expressions to illustrate countries happiness ratings. The most happy places have big yellow happy faces with open-mouth smiles.

The United States has a smaller circle with a generic grin. Americans have much to be thankful for and many reasons to be happy, yet we seem to be getting more unhappy and angry.

That may reflect our growing political and cultural splits. When everyone takes sides and wont compromise, almost nothing gets done for the greater good, whether its solving health care issues or helping us feel safe in public places such as schools, concert venues and churches.

Name calling is not a substitute for presenting actual ideas, proposals and policies. It also isnt helpful to post on social media the first, worst things that come to our minds.

We have the wisdom and know-how, but apparently not the will, to find a way to keep assault rifles out of civilian hands without threatening gun ownership for hunting, target shooting and personal protection. Banning assault rifles wont stop all senseless violence, but it might limit the carnage possible by a single assailant.

Can we feel happy if we dont feel safe?

I know the odds of being a victim of a Sutherland Springs-style attack are tiny, especially compared to dangerous daily activities such as driving. Yet the message from victims, family members and bystanders at recent tragedies keeps playing in my mind: If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

Lori Potter is a Hub staff writer.
Rigorous, independent research and analysis should undergird everything the government does. Nowhere is that more true than at the Environmental Protection Agency, which crafts and enforces a wide range of regulations aimed at limiting damage to the environment  and to people  from pollutants.

Democratic administrations tend to use data to justify more aggressive regulation, while Republican administrations tend to prefer a lighter touch. But the current administration is following a third path, seemingly bent on converting the EPA into a science-be-damned rubber stamp for industry. And if director Scott Pruitt is successful, we will be living in a much more dangerous environment.

When his name first surfaced as President Trumps pick to run the agency, critics complained that the president was putting a fox in charge of the henhouse. Pruitt has done nothing to dissuade the country that his critics were wrong. In his most recent move, he has decreed that academics and other scientists who hold research grants through the EPA cannot serve on long-standing panels that advise the EPA on the science upon which it bases its regulations.

These committees arent merely window-dressing; rather, their work carries considerable weight at the agency. Members of the boards are top researchers primarily from academia. But Pruitts new ban, which he said is necessary to avoid conflicts of interest, would boot many of the academic researchers. Its a stretch to argue that because the scientists conduct some of their research under EPA grants  won through competitive bids  that they cant offer independent advice. Theres been no evidence of a problem with the boards, and its disingenuous to cook one up now as a pretext to removing independent minds from them.

Pruitt notably has issued no similar ban on people who work in industries facing regulation, where the conflict of interest is clear.

Pruitt is under investigation over his frequent trips home to Oklahoma using tax dollars and his occasional use of costly private planes and military aircraft. Whether that will affect his future at the EPA is unknown. But what is clear is that he has been a disaster for the agency and the environment. And this new move to clear the advisory panels of some of the nations most respected researchers in their fields is unconscionable.

Los Angeles Times
Nebraskans tell me about the importance of getting government out of the way so they can work together to grow their community. Ag producers looking to expand their operations have expressed concern about onerous regulations coming out of Washington. Small business owners feel the impact of Nebraskas high taxes. And professionals looking to secure a license or do business with state government want a more responsive customer experience.

Stories like these are exactly why reducing the size and scope of state government is a central goal of my administration. As President Ronald Reagan said, As government expands, liberty contracts. When we get government out of the way, the state empowers job creators, families, and private sector innovators to grow Nebraska. This helps keep Nebraska the best place in the world to live, work, and raise a family.

Over the past few years, our team at the state of Nebraska has achieved several successes that are helping reduce the size and scope of government. Together, the Legislature and I have successfully cut the rate of growth in state spending by 90 percent. Before I took office, the rate of growth of government was 6.5 percent. In this most recent budget, the rate of growth was only .6 percent, and we are still working to reduce the size and scope of government.

Three different approaches will be key as we continue to work to create a more effective, more efficient, and more customer-focused state government.

First, we are changing the culture of state government to focus more on the customer: Nebraskans like you. In July, I signed an executive order for a review of all state regulations. This review will help us look for areas to cut red tape. Nebraska is already number one in the nation for the best regulatory environment, but there is always room for improvement.

Second, we are changing the states approach to how we structure entitlements. We know that Nebraskans want to achieve greater financial independence, and we also know that taxpayers expect the state to be a good steward of their tax dollars. In 2015, we changed our unemployment program into a first-in-the-nation reemployment program. This is helping job seekers get back to work more quickly. Nebraska paid out $13.75 million less in unemployment benefits in fiscal 2016 compared to 2015 as people got back to work faster.

Thanks to the success of our reemployment efforts in this area, we are now piloting similar services in four communities to help connect families receiving food stamps with better jobs. So far, half of the participants have found better jobs. This has helped these families increase their respective salaries by an average of $6,900 a year. With better salaries, some of the participants were able to reduce their need for food stamps and about a quarter no longer need them.

Third, I have been working to support the efforts of privately led, volunteer organizations that are serving our community. State government plays some key roles in protecting public safety, building infrastructure, and supporting private sector efforts to grow our state. Governments role, however, is limited and cannot fulfill every need. Over the years, countless Nebraskans have stepped up to meet these needs, giving us one of the highest voluntarism rates in the country.

These are a few of the approaches we are taking to help reduce the size and scope of government in Nebraska.

Pete Ricketts is governor of Nebraska.
KEARNEY  When Cannon Marchand and James Knights signed up for University of Nebraska at Kearneys ROTC, they hoped to advance their world knowledge, improve their leadership skills and take part in amazing experiences.

Both were able to do that this summer through two special U.S. Army cadet training programs that took one to Bulgaria and the other to Germany.

Marchand traveled in June and July to Bulgaria where he helped teach English to officers in Bulgaria through the Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency program, or CULP.

Knights went to Baumholder, Germany, from July to August. He shadowed officers and practiced his leadership skills while learning more about the lives of officers and then enlisted through a program called Cadet Troop Leader Training.

Knights of Bellevue said the experience was invaluable because he plans to graduate in May and be assigned as a platoon leader in an air defense unit.

Ive always wanted to serve my country and be part of something bigger than myself, Knights, a business major, said. Id like to have a positive effect on peoples lives. Being part of a team. Patriotism is a big part of it, too.

Being able to talk to, observe and work alongside officers at the air defense base assured Knights he chose the right career path.

My objective was to see what a second lieutenant does on active duty in my job field  soaking it all up and seeing what happens. And asking the enlisted, What do they want to see in a platoon leader.

Knights spent almost all of his time on the base, which is south of Frankfurt where the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Regiment is stationed. He did travel to Paris, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, but sightseeing was not on his agenda. He participated in a lifesaver course and flew in a Black Hawk helicopter, among other experiences he had been looking forward to.

Marchands program took him to Plovdiv with a team of 10 other cadets to help Bulgarian officers there practice their English. Because Bulgaria is a newer member of NATO, the project was also intended to increase cultural awareness between the U.S. and Bulgaria.

Marchand, a history major from Kearney, was interested in learning as much as he could about the history, culture, architecture, geography and diversity of the foreign land on his first visit overseas. The Bulgarian officers  who already spoke good English  were Marchands travel guides as they passed Greek and Turkish settlements and historic sites, temples and monasteries, and encountered the Black Sea, his first beach.

The diversity of the country was so interesting, and learning about the time and historic stories of the places we visited made me appreciate this area and its relevance to world history, Marchand said. The importance (to me) was also in training with other cultures and observing their different ways of doing things.

As did Knights, Marchand said he appreciates the learning opportunities from ROTC, along with access to college. Having help paying for college is nice, Marchand said. He plans to graduate in 2019. But with the tradeoff of my time, Im getting advanced training and leadership and getting experiences others wont have.

Marchand and Knights said they also enjoyed the food and the camaraderie of the officers and friendliness of the people, who had positive regard for the U.S. soldiers, in the countries they visited.
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
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President Donald Trump, accompanied by Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on February 16, 2017. A U.S. lawmaker dropped a remark this week that illustrated how NAFTA is not the No. 1 economic priority in Washington these days, obscured by another paramount prerogative. That issue is tax cuts. As America's neighbours wonder whether the U.S. Congress might take a strong public stand against the cancellation of the three-country, free-trade agreement, a candid crack from Chris Collins made clear another economic file is causing cold sweats. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Evan Vucci
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Da Nang, Vietnam, for the APEC summit Friday, November 10, 2017. Efforts to reach an agreement this weekend on a Pacific Rim trade pact appeared to collapse Friday when persistent concerns over the deal, including Canada's, forced the abrupt cancellation of a scheduled leaders' meeting. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
This frame grab from video provided Wednesday, Nov 8, 2017 by the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media, shows pro-government troops taking up positions on the Iraq-Syria border. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that Islamic State militants have withdrawn from their last stronghold following a government offensive and that government forces and allied troops, including Iraqi fighters are combing Boukamal, a strategic town on the border with Iraq, Thursday. (Syrian Central Military Media, via AP)
FILE - In this June 15, 2008 file photo, actor Tom Wopat arrives at the 62nd Annual Tony Awards in New York. The former star of "The Dukes of Hazzard" accused of indecently assaulting two female members of a musical is facing a judge in Massachusetts. Wopat will be arraigned Friday, Nov. 10, 2017, at Waltham District Court on charges he assaulted a girl and a woman in July while rehearsing for the musical "42nd Street" at the Waltham-based Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, File)
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As a medical student, I immortalized myself with my classmates when I informed a lecturing psychiatry professor that I considered Freuds theories slightly more credible than the nuns tales about guardian angels. The lecturer ignored my obnoxious comment and continued his lecture. But Freudians have been on the defensive for the past decade. This trend culminated when the Library of Congress was forced to cancel a tribute to Freud in the name of political correctness.

Freud has always been viewed with suspicion by cultural conservatives. Freud rejected the concept of sin and explained abhorrent behavior regarding unresolved conflicts among competing brain factions  id, ego, and superego  that stemmed from childhood experiences. His treatment was to delve into an individuals childhood and attempt to resolve these conflicts  psychoanalysis.

But it wasnt pressure from the religious right that canceled the Library of Congress tribute. It was rather a combination of feminists and neuropsychiatrists. Freud theorized that unflattering female behavior could be attributed to penis envy, a verboten concept in the age of political correctness.

But what is truly destroying Freuds credibility is the exploding field of neuropsychiatry. While medicine has made exponential advances over the past century, the fundamental physiological function for many organs has been understood for centuries. The heart pumps blood through the body by contracting. The stomach sucks nutrients out of food and produces waste. The tongue facilitates speech. But the brain is a whitish gray blob. How does it allow us to reason, lose our temper, or fall in love?

It wasnt until the advent of a 20th-century invention that scientists were able to conceptualize the brain. The brain is a computer, perhaps one that is almost infinitely complex, but a computer nonetheless. Through our senses, the brain takes input from the environment, processes it through a multibillion unit network of wires called neurons and returns a response.

Once this is understood, it is obvious that an individuals behavior will vary according to the brains wiring. This wiring is determined to some extent by the blueprint given to us by our parents  our DNA. Thus, we are inundated with breakthroughs, practically on a weekly basis, as to how some behavior patterns may have a hereditary basis. Researchers have located genes that may be associated with risky behavior, obesity and sexual orientation.

But our brains are constantly being reprogrammed by our experiences. We learn that making obnoxious comments to our teachers can result in a lower grade and that picking fights with guys who have tattoos can result in large dental bills.

The genius of Sigmund Freud was that he conceptualized how the brain works without ever hearing of a computer or DNA. He also understood that trying to resolve our fears and irrational behavior through therapy was better than resorting to violence or substance abuse. Neuropsychiatrists who prefer Prozac, Xanax and Elavil to psychotherapy miss the point. Yes, these drugs alter the brain chemistry, but on a primitive level that is poorly understood.

Furthermore, what happens to the brain chemistry with psychotherapy? When a patient alters his behavior in response to a psychiatrists analysis, a biochemical change in the brain is occurring too. A patient who decides to be more assertive has, one way or another, altered the biochemical structure of his brain. It doesnt happen by magic! Physicians can debate the relative efficacy of each approach, but they shouldnt completely discount the value of psychotherapy.

Like Columbus, Freud has been subject to the vicissitudes of public opinion. It is true that Columbus was an intrepid explorer who began the exploration and colonization of the Americas. It is also true that as governor of Hispaniola, he butchered and brutalized the Arawak Indians who would not consent to being enslaved. Freuds personal life was less than perfect. He manipulated patients to obtain contributions for his research. He fell asleep and wrote letters during therapy sessions. But in spite of his flaws, Freud made the quantum leap required to treat brain disorders in a rational manner and ,in the long run, he will be given the credit that he is due. His guardian angel will see to it.

Joseph Bentivegna is an ophthalmologist and can be reached at his self-titled site, Joseph Bentivegna, MD. This article originally appeared in Connecticut Medicine.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Years ago, our government had a problem with health care. Medicare and other health care costs were spiraling out of control. It was clear that the problem was rapidly advancing technology and pressure to provide that technology to everyone who was demanding it. But the government, as usual, choose a politically motivated solution.

They went after the one group involved who was the most disorganized, least clear on its desires and most easily intimidated: the physicians. Out of this the bad doctor theory of health care reform was born. It led to a string of solutions all geared to do one thing: control the behavior of those bad physicians. These solutions followed the same pattern. Bad doctor plans were put in place, doctors complacently accepted, the plans failed, and because of politics and continued complacency, more bad doctor plans were put in place. Politics is insanity at its worst.

Today, as a result, health care is more expensive, more fragmented, with more burnt out physicians and angry patients than ever. Clearly, politics combined with complacency has not worked. The only solution will be if physicians demand a seat at the negotiating table and the government respects our rights and expertise to demand a workable solution for all. Given the extreme continued complacency of physicians, this is not likely to happen anytime soon.

For years now our government has had a problem with gun violence. Gun violence and the carnage that ensues continues to rip apart our inner cities, and mass shootings continue to spin out of control. It is clear that the problem lies with intent of the perpetrator, but the government, as usual, chooses a politically motivated solution. They try to go after the guns themselves and to disrespect the legitimate rights of Americans to protect themselves only this time the government has a problem. They have created such mistrust amongst a big segment of the population that an organization whose only strength is the sheer number of Americans who support them forms to stop the governments intentions: the NRA. Despite years of political attacks, the NRA stands firm taking what should have been the governments position from the beginning that the answer lies in going after the person with the gun, not the gun itself. The fact that even if the guns were gone these perpetrators would wreak havoc with knives, trucks, bombs or whatever else they can find is lost on the government. The fact that it would be the law-abiding citizens that would give up their guns first is also lost.

There is hope on the gun violence problem. Someday soon some politician will realize that the only way to start to solve the gun violence problem is to respect the expertise of the NRA, the legitimate rights of Americans to protect themselves and try to regain the trust that the government lost by inviting the NRA in as equal partners to hammer out the best ways to deter gun violence. With everyone in agreement, a truly workable solution may be obtained.

There is no such hope for health reform. With no one to stop them, bad doctor solutions will continue until the system becomes completely broken. There remains only thing that has a chance to reverse this although it may already be too late.

Physicians need their own NRA.

Thomas D. Guastavino is an orthopedic surgeon.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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As physicians, our patients generally look up to us as people who make a great impact on their lives and sometimes even save them. But over the last year, Id have to say that its my patients who have repeatedly saved me, starting with a four-month-old baby girl on November 9th, 2016.

The morning after election day, I walked into my first patients room at 9 a.m. Like most of the country, I had not slept a wink. Id hosted the worst election day party ever where one by one guests who had come to witness herstory left in utter shock, heartbreak and fear. I had no idea how I was going to get through my busy day of seeing a patient every 15 minutes. How was I going to tune out the freight train in my head and instead listen to parents concerns about their kids. As soon as I walked in and started approaching my first mother-baby duo, my patients mom looked at my eyes and said, Are you OK? I took a big breath and said, No, Im not.

I dont talk politics with patients or openly announce my political affiliations to them. I try my best not to let my personal life be carried over into my professional one. But that morning, I felt too defeated to put on a fake smile and pretend. I sat down on my rotating stool in front of my computer as that mom and I locked eyes. Instantly, we were both in tears, and she held her baby with one hand, kissing her forehead and reached out and grabbed my hand with the other. We just sat there a few minutes together and cried in silence, hand in hand. Then, we both wiped our eyes and went on discussing her beautiful babys growth and milestones, and somehow I saw the rest of my patients without outwardly crying despite feeling like an elephant is sitting on my chest. They were more important than the sirens in my head.

I spent some time after the election seething, angry, openly spewing my hatred towards the president until it became apparent to everyone that I was becoming so toxic to myself and my children that to continue to wallow in hate would accomplish nothing but hurt my own family. That poisonous hatred would mean not only did he win the election, but he won against me. I decided to flip the switch, to stop posting about hate and start taking action and to look for the everyday beauty and goodness in the people around me. In short, I got on the love trumps hate bandwagon. It was survival, and until recently, it was working.

Over the last year, there has been at least a weekly occurrence that made me want to go back to hate and depression. But each time, the next day Id go to work and see a mom with a newborn full of hope. I would think back to being a first-time mom myself sixteen years ago, just a few weeks after September 11th, 2001. At that time, I didnt have the energy to worry about the rest of the world. I was in my last year of pediatric residency and married to a surgical resident. All I had time for was my baby; he was my whole world. As an Iranian-American who had experienced some bullying in grade school in the post Iran hostage crisis, I worried that my baby might grow up to face some of the same discrimination I had. That possibility seemed unbearable and overwhelming every time Id look at him. I tuned it all out. While everyone else was watching the news 24/7, I avoided it. My only mechanism of survival was just to focus on myself and my baby.

Now, I see these babies and their parents and the hope they have for their kids. I realize that I have the time to expend energy into what they may not have the time for. Over this last year, with every infuriating news story, I tried to turn my anger into action: Id sign more petitions, donate to another organization, make more phone calls.

And then, I broke again. In hate vs. Paria  hate won. I hate that hate won  that he won. What finally shattered me was watching Mr. President throw rolls of paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico  as if its a big joke. I was already in a state of complete despair after the largest mass shooting in U.S. history in Las Vegas just a few days before. How could I expect a president who had shown not just a lack of response to Puerto Rico but was now treating it like a gameshow have any appropriate response to a mass shooting? Watching him do something that idiotic made me give up any shred of hope for gun control that I was holding on to. Signing petitions, donating money, making phone calls, all seemed like a complete waste of my time. Hate took over me, and I feel defeated. My options seem to be to either plummet into hopelessness or, even worse, not give a rats ass and only care about myself. I mean, why should I care? I have health care. I live a pretty comfortable but not extravagant life that is unlikely to change. I could just go about my life knowing that Ive got the resources to take care of my family and just hope that no one in my family is directly a victim of some horrific hate crime.

Here is the problem. To continue to live my cushy life, I do have to go to work. When I go to work, I have to see these beautiful babies and little kids. I cant stand the thought of them growing up in a country that is a mess, and Ive done nothing but get defeated. I cant face these babies and tell them I give up and decided youre not worth fighting for. So, I take a couple of weeks to cry and curse and wallow in hate, and then I think of that four-month-old baby who almost a year later is taking her first steps. I remember how that day, her mom sacrificed the precious time that should have been her babys to hold my hand, and I go back to the action pages for Moms Demand Action and End Citizens United to see what else I can do. I realize that although I gotten completely derailed for a couple of weeks, I have to get back on the love trumps hate bandwagon.

Paria Hassouri is a pediatrician who blogs at Mom On The Runsanity.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Ever mitched from school in Callans Mill Lane? Or perhaps you fished on the Kings River river? Do you love your car or you ride a horse for work, fun or sport?

Well, if the answer is yes to any or all of the above, then you wont want to miss Town Traits: Alternative Census, a free, day-long celebration on tomorrow, Saturday of what makes the sprawling, close-knit Kilkenny town so extra special.

Visual artist, Michelle Browne, says that the day-long event will see people with shared interests gather in specific locations at pre-arranged times in and around the town from 8am right through until 8.30pm. Each gathering will be photographed and images from the day will feature on unique postcards which will be distributed afterwards free of charge to all participants.

Michelle aims to create a unique community-building exercise which will really capture the imagination of those living in Callan for generations as well as newcomers to the town. Town Traits: Alternative Census is part of Meet You At The Green?, a Trasna Productions project produced by Callan Workhouse Union and funded by the Arts Council of Ireland's Arts Participation Project Award, she explained.

Orlaith Treacy of Callan Workhouse Union says it promises to be a very special day for Callan; for existing residents and for generations to come. Callan is very much a commuter town. People travel to Kilkenny city or to Clonmel to work and many of the people living here might not realise just how much they have in common with others they might meet when theyre out for a walk or shopping in the town at weekends. This could change all that.

Were really looking forward to working with people living in the town and finding out what people are into - their passions, pastimes and hobbies.

The day starts out with people who have ever fished in Kings River meeting in their fishing gear at 8am at the Abbey Meadow. The group portraits continue approximately every two hours and will bring people who share interests together - maybe in some cases for the first time. It all closes with a fitting event with the Do you believe in Ghosts gathering at Callan Workhouse in the dark at 8.30pm.
Kilkenny is to begin welcoming the first Syrian families next month for resettlement as part of the Irish Governments commitment to The Irish Refugee Protection Programme.

It's been revealed that the areas being considered for the first 18 families are Piltown, Urlingford, Callan, Rosbercon, Graignamanagh and Ferrybank. The council has said it will examine additional locations including Thomastown, Castlecomer and Kilkenny in 2018 for the remaining families, but other areas may need to be considered also depending on requirements of families and communities.

Around 25 to 30 Syrian families will be welcomed to the county this year and next. The hope is to house and resettle two to four families at a time, beginning in December. This is to ensure 'greater integration and greater supports for both the families and the welcoming communities'.

In a statement, Kilkenny County Council said that it and other agencies are delighted to welcome and support the resettlement of Syrian families.

"It is intended to purchase houses where possible and some houses will also be provided by Approved Voluntary Housing Bodies," reads the statement.

"It is our intention to ensure the minimum impact on our existing social housing applicants while also honouring our humanitarian commitment and welcoming families in real need to our county.

"In undertaking our commitment to the resettlement process Kilkenny County Council has established a local Resettlement Inter-Agency Working Group. This Working Group will ensure the provision of appropriate supports and services which will include the appointment of a Resettlement Worker and an Intercultural Worker to support families in their transition to life in Kilkenny."
SHANGHAI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - With Hong Kong stocks hitting fresh decade-highs this week, money inflows from China are accelerating as mainland investors, afraid of missing out on a spectacular bull run, pile in.

Increased buying from China could further fuel a market that has already posted an eye-popping 30 percent rise this year, while giving mainland investors more weight in a bourse once dominated by Western institutions.

"Every day, fresh Chinese money is flowing into stocks such as Chinese lenders and developers ... and the money stays there," said Stanley Chan, head of research at Emperor Securities Ltd.

"Pricing power by mainland money is increasing."

Chinese investment in Hong Kong has grown steadily since Beijing launched the first cross-border stock "connect" scheme three years ago, with cumulative net inflows under the scheme reaching roughly 560 billion yuan ($84.35 billion) by the end of October.

Renewed upward momentum this week propelled the benchmark Hang Seng Index to its highest level in 10 years, and mainland investors accelerated their buying.

By the closing bell on Thursday, net purchases by Chinese buyers this week approached 9 billion yuan ($1.36 billion) under the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect - almost double last week's amount and well above the previous weekly average.

Chinese money is also gushing into the former British colony's bourse via the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, another cross-border channel.

And Chinese investment funds are rushing to launch Hong Kong-focused products to tap rising retail interest.

In just three days last week, Harvest Fund Management Co. raised $1 billion for a stock fund that will allocate up to half of its equity holdings in Hong Kong, hitting sales target well ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, roughly 80 new products with "Hong Kong" in the name - which, by rule, means they must invest at least 80 percent of their assets there - are awaiting regulatory approval, potentially doubling the number of Hong Kong-focused mutual funds in China.

"Chinese asset managers are increasingly buying Hong Kong stocks ... whose valuation is still low by global standards," said Ma Xixun, executive director at PinPoint, which is launching a global hedge fund that will target Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Exchange data shows Chinese investment is focused on mainland financials such as Ping An and Bank of China, and developers such as Sunac and China Evergrande . Buying is also intensive in industry-leaders inaccessible in China, such as Tencent , and Geely Automobile .

Retail investor Ding Ou, who is studying ways to buy Hong Kong stocks, said not owning shares of Tencent is one of his "biggest regrets". The Hong Kong-listed tech giant behind popular apps in China such as Wechat and QQ has seen its share price double this year. ($1 = 6.6390 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Samuel Shen and John Ruwitch; Editing by Sam Holmes)
By Sandhya Sampath

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Australian shares edged lower on Friday, pulling back from recent 10-year highs, as weakness in commodity prices weighed on materials and energy-driven stocks.

The S&P/ASX 200 index was down 0.3 percent, or 20.625 points to 6,028.80 by 0244 GMT. Despite losses on the day, the Australian benchmark is on track to end the week firmer after the index breached the critical 6,000 level earlier this week.

"Technically that breakthrough of 6,000 points is psychologically important and I think we will continue to see our market supported, not withstanding that there is a bit of profit-taking there today," said James McGlew, executive director of corporate stock broking for Argonaut in Perth.

The benchmark index ended three straight sessions of gains, with materials stocks accounting for most of the losses.

Australia's materials index fell as much as 2.1 percent.

BHP Billiton fell as much as 2.9 percent and Rio Tinto lost as much as 2.8 percent as Chinese iron ore futures drifted down for a third day in a row on Friday. Base metal prices, however, recovered from earlier losses on a weaker dollar with London Metal Exchange copper edging away from one-month lows, although it remained on track for a weekly loss. Energy stocks languished, with the index falling as much as 0.8 percent on lower crude oil prices. Oil and gas producer Santos Ltd was the biggest drag on the energy index, losing as much as 3.4 percent, while Oil Search fell more than 1 percent.

Financials dipped as much as 0.3 percent, with three out of the "Big Four" banks falling in the range of 0.1 percent to 0.5 percent.

"November is always a month where we see a lot of dividends taken out of the market, all of the banks go ex-dividend at this time which can soften things up," McGlew said.

National Australia Bank , which traded ex-dividend on Thursday, was down as much as 0.5 percent.

Utilities stocks gained as much as 0.3 percent, while gold stocks rose as much as 0.4 percent before falling into the negative territory.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index fell 0.3 percent or 24.34 points to 7,996.75, dragged down by technology stocks and consumer cyclicals. The index was on track to lose 1 percent this week.

Accounting software firm Xero Ltd fell as much as 2.3 percent, while Fletcher Building Ltd lost 1 percent.

(Reporting by Sandhya Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Eric Meijer)
By Chijioke Ohuocha

LAGOS, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Nigeria plans to raise 710 billion naira ($2.26 bln) via restructuring its equity in joint venture oil assets and increasing private sector participation, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said on Thursday.

Oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell , Chevron and ExxonMobil , operate in Nigeria through joint ventures with NNPC. The government has considered selling stakes in these joint ventures for more than a decade.

The current plan was captured in the 2018 budget proposals and is aimed at providing revenue to the government to be used to create new assets, the DMO said in a statement, responding to Moody's downgrade of Nigeria's bonds.

In March, the government said it expected to earn 35 billion naira from the sale of some assets, including oil joint ventures, and reducing stakes in other oil and non-oil assets. Ratings agency Moody's on Tuesday cut Nigeria's long-term foreign-currency bond to B1 from Ba3 and kept its outlook stable, saying Nigerian efforts to broaden non-oil revenue had been unsuccessful. The local-currency rating was unchanged at Ba1. The debt office said Nigeria's economy had improved since Moody's last rating a year ago and that it expects improvement in revenues this year to continue into 2018.

Nigeria's sovereign bonds traded flat on Wednesday after the downgrade as investors had already factored in issues that triggered the rating change and were buying debt at a discount to book profits, traders said. However, Moody's move could make Nigeria's forthcoming dollar bond issues more expensive, analysts say.

On Tuesday, President Muhammadu Buhari presented to parliament a record 8.61 trillion naira budget for 2018 and said it would borrow abroad to cover half of its deficit for next year. The country issued $1.5 billion worth of eurobonds in the first quarter to fund its 2017 budget and plans to sell a further $2.5 billion worth this year in addition to refinancing a $3 billion treasury bill portfolio to lower its borrowing costs.

Nigeria has been holding talks with oil companies regarding new financing agreements for joint ventures since last year as it struggled to fund its portion of such partnerships through cash calls which have often been delayed in parliament.

($1 = 314.50 naira)

(Reporting by Chijioke Ohuocha; editing by Jason Neely)
HANOI, Nov 10 (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 0452 GMT.

November 10 USD/VND mid-point 22,465 USD/VND interbank 22,713/22,714 USD/VND unofficial 22,740/22,770 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.44/36.66

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.6-1.2

1 week 0.8-1.4

1 month 1.7-1.9

3 months 3.4-4.0

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016, the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Botswana coal producer Minergy plans to list in London next year to give it access to a pool of capital that it could tap at a later date to fund its expansion, it said on Friday.

CEO Andre Boje told Reuters the company, which is already listed in Botswana, could look to raise around 700,000 pounds ($925,000) mainly to cover the cost of the listing.

Minergy owns the Masama Coal Project, which is projected to produce 2.4 million tonnes of thermal coal for export to South Africa and mainly Asian markets.

Boje said the first phase of development was fully funded, but the company could come to the market for its expansion.

The listing is planned for the third quarter of 2018, after Minergy gets its mining licence from the Botswana government.

In an interview, Boje said London investors seemed upbeat about prospects for coal, despite a global move away from using fossil fuels for energy in favour of cleaner sources.

After slumping in 2015-16, coal prices have recovered and analysts say it will still have a major role in energy production for years to come.

Coal is still the world's second most used fuel after oil, according to the International Energy Agency, with many developing countries locked into its use until the cost of renewable and storage technology comes down.

"We were very surprised at how positive the vibe we got out of the United Kingdom as to investment in Africa and coal," Boje said.

"The UK investors are underweight in coal and they will admit it."

Minergy earlier this year scrapped a plan to list in South Africa, mainly due to an uncertain regulatory environment, while investors in Australia were not interested due to many past deals gone bad.

($1 = 0.7634 pounds)

(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by Mark Potter)
SAO PAULO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian pension fund manager Previ, the largest in Latin America, wants to diversify its stock portfolio over the next five years, Chief Executive Officer Gueitiro Genso said in a newspaper interview published on Friday.

The plan to exit stakes that are part of the controlling shareholder blocs of several companies would make Previ, which is formally known as Caixa de Previdencia dos Funcionarios do Banco do Brasil, "an activist minority shareholder," Genso told O Estado de S. Paulo.

Previ's media representatives did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Previ's most important pension plan has 46.9 percent of assets in stocks, with 12 companies representing 94 percent of an equities portfolio of about 74.9 billion reais ($22.87 billion), Estado reported.

"The good thing is that these are real-economy assets that will not turn into dust," Genso told the newspaper. "The big challenge is to disperse this portfolio."

Previ's top investments include miner Vale SA , Banco do Brasil SA , brewer AmBev and oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA . It also owns stakes in meatpacker BRF SA , utility CPFL Energia and fuel distributor Ultrapar Particpacoes SA .

Genso declined to say which assets it will put up for sale next.

($1 = 3.2747 reais)

(Reporting by Ana Mano; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
CHICAGO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The junk-rated Chicago Board of Education will sell $922 million of bonds next week in the wake of a new Illinois education funding formula that allocates more money to the cash-strapped district.

The two-part bond sale, pricing through J.P. Morgan on Wednesday and Thursday, tops the $9.84 billion of bonds and notes selling in the municipal market in the coming week, according to Thomson Reuters estimates on Friday.

Escalating pension payments have led to drained reserves and debt dependency for Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the nation's third-largest public school system.

The state funding formula enacted in August allocates an additional $450 million to CPS in the current fiscal year from new state money for operations and pensions and a local property tax increase.

"CPS is a different credit than it was just a few months ago," Ronald DeNard, the district's senior vice president of finance, said in an investor presentation.

But the district's general obligation ratings remain in junk with major credit rating agencies. Ahead of the deal, Fitch Ratings upgraded the district to BB-minus with a stable outlook from B-plus, citing the additional state aid. It also noted a continued high dependence on cash-flow borrowing. CPS has said it will decrease its reliance on tax anticipation notes to $1.3 billion in fiscal 2018 from $1.55 billion the prior year.

S&P rated the GO bonds B with a stable outlook, noting the district's "extremely weak liquidity and its vulnerability to unexpected variances in its cash-flow forecast." CPS will sell $632.5 million of GO refunding bonds and nearly $225 million of new GO bonds, as well as $64.9 million of dedicated capital improvement tax bonds that are rated at the investment-grade level of A by Fitch.

The biggest chunk of the GO bond deal, $441.7 million, will restructure 9 percent floating-rate debt that CPS sold in 2011, 2013, and 2015 into a fixed-rate mode.

Another low-rated Illinois issuer, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns Chicago's McCormick Place convention center, will sell $475 million of new and refunding expansion project bonds through Citigroup on Tuesday. The bonds are rated BB-plus by S&P and BBB-minus by Fitch.

Meanwhile, U.S. municipal bond fund flows turned positive in the latest week, according to Lipper, a Thomson Reuters unit. Funds reported net inflows of $463 million in the week ended Nov. 8 compared to net outflows of $655 million in the prior week.

(Reporting By Karen Pierog; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Euro zone government bond issuance is expected to exceed 30 billion euros next week in one of the busiest weeks of the year for bond sales in the bloc.

Italy, Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain are all scheduled to hold bond sales next week.

* On Monday, Italy plans to sell 4.5- 6 billion euros of bonds.

* The Netherlands on Tuesday auctions 2-3 billion euros of 10-year government debt, while Germany is scheduled to sell 5 billion euros of a new 2-year Schatz bond.

* Germany returns to the market on Wednesday with a 3 billion euro sale of 10-year bonds.

* On Thursday, France will sell up to 7 billion euros of bonds. * Spain will also hold a bond auction on Thursday, the details of which will be released on Monday. This will include a 50-year bond, according to IFR. * In addition, Italy is expected to offer some 6 billion euros BTP Italia bonds aimed primarily at small savers next week. On Friday, Italy set the minimum coupon on the new bond at 0.25 percent. * Analysts said the European Stability Mechanism could also issue a new bond in the week ahead.

(Reporting by Dhara Ranasinghe, Editing by Abhinav Ramnarayan)
ACCRA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The Bank of Ghana said the yield on its weekly 91-day bill rose to 13.32 percent at an auction on Friday, from 13.15 percent at the last such sale on Nov.3.

The bank said it had accepted 564.59 million cedis ($126.87 million) worth of bids out of the 588.4 million cedis tendered for the paper, which will be issued on Monday.

Ghana's treasury bill yields, which were around 23 percent a year ago, have eased steadily as the government has cut down on excessive borrowing under an IMF assistance programme that has also helped renew investor confidence in the economy.

For full details, click here: ($1 = 4.4500 Ghanaian cedis)

(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
Comex December gold remains technically constructive since the market has moved higher away from the 200-day moving average around $1,270 an ounce, but it may face a challenge on the upside around the 50-day average, says Charlie Nedoss, senior market strategist with LaSalle Futures Group. He describes himself as short-term bullish. Technically, we were able to close above some moving averages, Nedoss says. We had tested the 200-day. Nervousness in the equity market about the future of U.S. tax cuts may also help gold. A close below $1,270 would be a [technical] failure, he says. The next resistance I see is around $1,298.40, the 50-day moving average. I think thats going to be a tough nut for it to crack, but with a little bit of equity-market weakness, we could come up and test it.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Walshs Lusk: Delay In Tax Cuts Could Cool Stocks, Help Gold

Sean Lusk, director of commercial hedging Walsh Trading, looks for gold to be steady to higher in the coming days amid the uncertainty about prospects for quick passage of tax cuts in the U.S. The trade is a little worried about this tax reform being kicked down the road, Lusk says. These worries have stalled the record run in equities lately. Should this continue, gold may benefit, Lusk says. Golds technical-chart picture has been helped by the metals ability to trade above its 100- and 200-day moving averages, he adds. However, he adds, bulls want to see the market break up through the top of its recent trading range. If not, the metal could be susceptible to some back and fill, Lusk adds.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

RBCs Gero: Gold Break Above $1,300 Would Attract Buyers

Gold could attract new buyers if the metal can get back above the $1,300-an-ounce area, says George Gero, managing director with RBC Wealth Management. Comex December gold hit its highest level in three weeks on Thursday, peaking at $1,289.05. As of 9:45 a.m. EST Friday, the contract was down $2.10 to $1,285.40 an ounce. Gold [is] in Friday pullback mode today, but still up 12% this year and may gather more asset allocators if we move above $1,300 decisively, Gero says. He adds that holiday-related buying begins soon. Keys to the market will include developments in the stock market and tax-reform efforts in the U.S., Gero adds.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

Commerzbank: Uncertainty Underpinning Gold Demand

Political uncertainty and geopolitical worries are continuing to boost demand for gold, says Commerzbank. For example, U.S. President Trumps tax plans do not seem to be making as much headway as expected, and the introduction of lower corporate tax[es] has already been delayed, the bank says. Visiting China during his tour of Asia, Trump described North Korea as a threat to civilization, ensuring that this crisis continues to smolder. Meanwhile, there is no progress whatsoever in the next round of Brexit talks that began yesterday between the EU and the U.K. The divisions in the British government are one key factor stalling the talks. Shortly after 8 a.m. EST, spot gold was up 20 cents to $1,285.10 an ounce, not far from Thursdays $1,288.70 high that was the strongest level since Oct. 20.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

MKS: Gold Subdued In Asia But Drawing Interest

Gold-price movement was subdued during Asian-Pacific trade but the metal remains underpinned by a softer U.S. dollar and the debate over tax reform in the U.S., says Sam Laughlin, senior precious-metals trader with MKS (Switzerland) S.A. The precious metal initially drew a bid due to its inverse relationship to the U.S. dollar, but was unable to push through Thursdays high. Weakness out of China took bullion toward $1,285 with little movement in the on-shore premium; however, afternoon price action was generally supportive amid further dollar weakness to restrict any further declines, Laughlin says. Bullion continues to see interest conducive to further price action toward $1,300, with strength underpinned by the recent news of delays to tax reform out of the U.S. weighing upon the greenback and U.S. equity markets. Expect $1,280 to offer initial support, while below this the 100 DMA [day moving average of] $1,277.50 should see broad support toward $1,275. Around 7:45 a.m. EST, spot metal was up 40 cents to $1,285.30 an ounce with a high of $1,287.05.
Nov 10 (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group will fix a date within three weeks for a shareholder vote on the removal of Chairman Donald Brydon and retention of CEO Xavier Rolet at the behest of activist investor TCI Fund Management, it said on Friday.

TCI Fund Management had called for a vote to remove Brydon, saying the company had not explained why Rolet was leaving and that it also wanted the company to persuade Rolet to extend his tenure until 2021. "LSEG will meet its obligations in respect of the requisition," the bourse operator said in a statement on Friday, indicating that it would hold the shareholder meeting "as soon as reasonably practicable". The company must send out notice of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) within 21 of receiving TCI's letter on Thursday. Once sent, it must hold the meeting within 28 days, meaning it would take place before the end of the year at the latest.

LSE said on Oct. 19 that Rolet would step down by the end of 2018, nearly a decade after he took charge. During his tenure LSE's stock has risen from about 6 pounds to 37 pounds. The removal of a director has to be passed by a majority of those voting at the EGM.

TCI first complained about Rolet's planned exit in a letter to the LSE last Friday, in which it said that Brydon and the board were trying to force out the CEO, an allegation denied by LSE on Monday. <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LSE share and EPS performance under CEO Rolet ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Huw Jones in London; Editing by David Goodman)
DAKAR, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund said on Friday it had reached a staff-level agreement with Mauritania for a $163-million three-year programme of reforms under an Extended Credit Facility.

Mauritania was hard hit by a decline in iron ore prices in 2014-15, which cut the country's exports in half, depressed economic growth and caused external debt to spike.

The IMF said in a statement it would extend financial assistance worth up to $163 million over three years while the government would gradually reduce spending to free up money for investments in social sectors and infrastructure.

"Mauritania's economic reform program supported by the IMF aims to foster inclusive and diversified growth," said Eric Mottu, the head of a recent IMF staff visit to the country.

The agreement still requires approval from the IMF's Executive Board, which is expected to consider it next month.

In addition to iron ore, the country has reserves of copper and gold, with mines owned by Kinross Gold Corp and First Quantum .

(Reporting By Aaron Ross; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
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):

FOREIGN TRADE

The Central Statistical Office of Poland to release foreign trade data for January-September at 1300.

BANKS

Ukrainians working and living in Poland have become a target for banks, which plan to attract new clients, Rzeczpospolita daily said quoting banking sources.

CONSTRUCTION

Every third construction company faces problems with getting payments from its clients, Rzeczpospolita daily said quoting an industry report.

AZOTY , PULAWY Trade unions at Pulawy, a unit of Polish biggest chemical group Azoty, consider a strike against the management plans to merge the group's local trading units, Parkiet daily said.

****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 (Reporting by Warsaw Bureau)
By Darya Korsunskaya

MOSCOW, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Russia plans to hold a non-deal road show in China soon to pitch its OFZ treasury bonds denominated in yuan to Chinese investors, as a safeguard against new U.S. sanctions causing other foreign investors to exit the bonds, a Russian deputy finance minister said.

"We have been traditionally meeting regulators, now the task is a bit wider - to meet not only regulators but also potential investors who would be ready to buy bonds on the Moscow Exchange," the deputy minister, Sergei Storchak said.

"We are laying the groundwork to have an alternative just in case our traditional investors take fright. They might be frightened by the new sanctions regime.... We need to be prepared for that," Storchak said.

(Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Christian Lowe)
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 10 (Reuters) - South Africa sold 3.555 billion rand ($249 million) worth of three-month Treasury bills on Friday, at an average yield of 7.56 percent compared with 7.53 percent last week, central bank data showed. The bid-to-cover ratio fell to 1.6 from 2.0. Auction date: 10/11/2017 Settlement date: 15/11/2017 Days 91 182 273 364 Amount received (R'bln) 5.758 4.142 4.723 5.761 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 1.6 1.7 1.9 2.3 Avg discount rate (pct) 7.42 7.54 7.65 7.57 Average yield (pct) 7.56 7.83 8.11 8.19 ($1 = 14.3416 rand)

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Ed Stoddard)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
By Lawrence Delevingne

NEW YORK, Nov 10 (Reuters) - A group of prominent hedge funds have roared back with market-trouncing returns in 2017, helping the industry score its best performance in at least four years in a surprise rebound for an often maligned pocket of Wall Street.

An elite club of managers rode bull markets and increased dispersion between securities to score profits of at least 20 percent through the end of October, a dramatic improvement from last year for investors such as Larry Robbins, Philippe Laffont and Chase Coleman, people familiar with individual funds' performance said.

One of the largest returns came from Charlottesville-based investor Jaffray Woodriff, who used short-term stock bets to score a 68.3 percent gain in a key fund of his $4 billion Quantitative Investment Management.

By comparison, the S&P 500 Index was up 15 percent, more than double the benchmark HFRI hedge fund index, which was up 7.23 percent through October, its best annual return since at least 2013.

"We've been seeing significantly improved performance," Darren Wolf, head of hedge fund solutions for the Americas at Aberdeen Asset Management, said.

Graphic on top hedge fund returns in 2017: The last few years have been littered with hedge fund managers who charged steep fees and often promised heady returns only to lose money for investors or close shop entirely. A roaring stock market and the rise of low-cost investment tools, such as index funds, have also hit the industry.

Still, the mega winners this year offer some hope for investors and managers who believe the industry can produce "alpha," or returns above the market's "beta."

The main fund managed by Robbins' $11.7 billion Glenview Capital Management LLC is up 21 percent so far this year, thanks to positions in healthcare technology provider IQVIA Holdings Inc , health insurer Anthem Inc and chemical manufacturer FMC Corp , according to a public disclosure of top stock holdings and a person familiar with the returns. Like others, the person requested anonymity to discuss private information about the fund.

Robbins, a New York-based billionaire, lost money for investors in both 2015 and 2016, according to a report by HSBC Alternative Investment Group.

Coleman and Laffont relied on technology companies to drive outsized gains.

The main fund managed by Coleman's $20 billion Tiger Global Management LLC gained 34.5 percent through October, due partly to investments in Chinese internet companies Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.com Inc , a second person familiar with his performance said.

The main fund in Laffont's $12 billion Coatue Management LLC rose 29.3 percent, helped by positions in Facebook Inc and Shopify Inc , a third person said.

Coleman's main hedge fund lost money in 2016, while Laffont's produced a small positive return, according to media reports.

Other funds benefited from investments in emerging markets, people familiar with them said.

An Argentina-focused fund managed by $1.5 billion Bienville Capital Management gained 40.6 percent through October, while the oldest fund within $3.4 billion Toscafund Asset Management LLP gained 28.8 percent, helped by bets on financial companies in Portugal, Spain and Russia.

UNDER PRESSURE

The outperformers are still few though, and it is likely too early to tell if their successes signal a broad return to the bumper profits that made hedge funds famous, especially since the pressures facing the $3 trillion hedge fund industry remain.

A small but high-profile group of institutional investors have pulled out in recent years, and remaining clients continue to grouse about high fees and a lack of transparency into complicated bets.

Hedge funds usually charge 2 percent of assets under management and 20 percent of investment gains, though fees have fallen. Index funds cost just a fraction of a percent of assets.

Managers often justify tepid returns by saying they create a diversified portfolio that will hold up in a crash, making comparisons to generic stock and bond indices unfair.

If economic conditions sour and the bull market dissipates, as some are predicting, there could be a broader hedge fund comeback, said Arvin Soh, who helps pensions and other institutional clients invest in hedge funds for GAM Alternative Solutions.

"They are called hedge funds for a reason," Soh told Reuters. "Things can't go up forever, and that's when we'd really expect these strategies to shine."

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ GRAPHIC: Hedge fund stars of 2017 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; Additional reporting by Svea Herbst in Boston; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Susan Thomas)
ISTANBUL, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Here are news, reports and events that may affect Turkish financial markets on Friday.

The lira stood at 3.8690 against the U.S. dollar at 0516 GMT, easing from a close of 3.8634 on Thursday.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year bond was at 12.23 percent in spot trade on Thursday, dipping from 12.25 percent a day earlier.

The main BIST 100 share index fell 1.47 percent to 110,246.46 points on Thursday.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian shares slipped on Friday on uncertainty about U.S. tax reforms after Senate Republicans unveiled a plan that differed from the House of Representatives' version in several key areas, including a delay in the timing of a corporate tax cut. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2 percent. ERDOGAN

President Tayyip Erdogan will attend memorial ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the death of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (0545, 0800 GMT). He will also speak at a ceremony being held at the presidential palace to award certificates to women taking part in a leadership and entrepreneurship programme (1200 GMT).

YILDIRIM-PENCE MEETING

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence expressed "deep concern" to Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Thursday about the arrests of American citizens and local staff of U.S. missions in Turkey, the White House said. Yildirim's visit to the United States was coming to an end on Friday.

PETKIM RESULTS The petrochemicals producer posted a net profit of 374.1 million lira in the third quarter, surging from 136.7 million in the same period a year earlier.

PEGASUS Airline Pegasus posted a net profit of 536.8 million lira ($139 million) in the third quarter, a leap of 121 percent from a year earlier, it said late on Thursday. For other related news, double click on:

Turkish politics Turkish equities Turkish money Turkish debt Turkish hot stocks Forex news All emerging market news All Turkish news For real-time quotes, double click on:

Istanbul National-100 stock index , interbank lira trading , lira bond trading (Writing by Daren Butler)
(Adds context)

By Julia Payne

LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Gambia plans to market two offshore oil blocks that African Petroleum says it still legally holds, the country's minister of justice said on Friday.

Norwegian-listed African Petroleum said in October it had launched arbitration proceedings against the Gambian government to defend its exploration rights. Licences for the two blocks expired in September 2016 but the oil company had been in talks with the government until earlier this year to extend the exploration period. African Petroleum has previously said the terms of its licences stated they remained active until the state enacted a termination procedure, which it said had not been done.

It held blocks A1 and A4 that are thought to contain up to 3 billion barrels of oil and are next to licences in neighbouring Senegal.

"We respect African Petroleum's choice to initiate arbitration proceedings ... We will exercise our rights to market our blocks, including A1 and A4," Gambia's minister of justice and attorney general Abubacarr Tambadou said at an event in London.

The Gambian government said it had decided not to extend the firm's exploration rights, citing a failure by the firm to meet its commitments.

In August, prior to the start of arbitration proceedings, the government said the two blocks were open for bids. An official delegation from Gambia was in London on Friday to drum up interest in six offshore blocks. The government said it would send out a request for interest within the next month or so, an official said during a presentation.

Gambian Oil Minister Fafa Sanyang said the terms would be negotiable but that the state oil firm would keep a minimum 10 percent stake in the blocks.

(Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Susan Fenton and David Evans)
(Recasts, adds comment from separatist group)

By Fergus Jensen and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Indonesia's military said on Friday it was prepared to take tough measures against rebels who have threatened to "destroy" mining operations of Freeport-McMoRan Inc in the eastern province of Papua in their struggle for independence.

Police say an armed separatist group linked to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) is preventing about 1,000 people in five villages from leaving an area near the giant Grasberg copper mine, operated by a unit of the Arizona-based company. A state of emergency has been declared and at least 300 additional security forces have been deployed to the area of the province after a string of shootings since Aug. 17 that killed one police officer and wounded six.

The group, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), on Friday denied occupying villages near the mine.

Hendrik Wanmang, a representative of TPN-OPM, said none of its more than 2,000 fighters was stationed in the villages.

"We cannot mingle with the community," Wanmang said in a telephone interview. "That would endanger them."

Wanmang also denied police allegations his group had carried out rape and torture of civilians and said villagers were "continuing to carry out activities as usual".

However, he warned that Freeport employees and security personnel remaining in the area did so at their own risk.

"We are at war against the National Police, Indonesian Military and Freeport," he said.

"(TPN-OPM) will continue to fight until the root of this problem - Freeport - is removed," Wanmang said.

A spokesman for Freeport Indonesia could not immediately be reached for comment.

Papua Police spokesman Suryadi Diaz said on Friday that the situation in the villages near the town of Tembagapura was "conducive" and that the community was operating "as usual".

"They aren't hostage, but if you want to get to these villages you have to get past this armed criminal group," Diaz said, referring to the OPM.

Police were taking "persuasive steps" to resolve the conflict through negotiations and dialogue with community, religious and tribal leaders, he said.

But there were conflicting statements from authorities about the situation.

Indonesian military chief Gatot Nurmayanto said the group had taken hostages in the villages and the army would take a "hard" approach if necessary. Tough measures, including armed conflict, would be a last resort if negotiations with the group failed to resolve the issue, Papua military commander George Enaldus Supit said later, clarifying the statement. Wanmang said his group was not interested in negotiating.

"If the government wants to send millions of national police and Indonesian military troops to protect the Freeport area, go ahead - they are just trying to protect the deception."

The Grasberg mine has been dogged by security concerns for decades due to a low-level conflict waged by pro-independence rebels in Papua. Between 2009 and 2015, shootings within the mine project area killed 20 people and wounded 59.

More recently, Freeport, the world's largest publicly listed copper producer, has been grappling with labour problems at Grasberg and a dispute with the Indonesian government over rights to the mine. (Reporting by Fergus Jensen and Agustinus Beo Da Costa; Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by John Chalmers and Nick Macfie)
(Add comment, background)

By Mi Nguyen

HANOI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - An overseas institutional investor paid $395.8 million on Friday to buy 3.33 percent of Vietnamese dairy firm Vinamilk , the country's biggest listed company, the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange said on its website.

The stake sale, part of the Vietnam government's plan to divest state-owned enterprises, reduced its ownership in Vinamilk to 36 percent, enough to retain veto rights.

The exchange did not name the investor, which won the auction after bidding 186,000 dong ($8.19) per share. Analysts said this was much higher than the minimum price set earlier by Vietnam's state investment firm SCIC, which supervised the stake sale. SCIC deputy director Nguyen Chi Thanh said in an online statement that the sale was "successful beyond expectation".

The share sale met high demand from 19 investors in Vietnam and overseas, after the state investor removed some of the restrictions applied to a similar sale last year. Vinamilk is among a handful of state assets to attract significant interest from foreign investors as the government works to reform state-owned enterprises. The list includes top brewers Habeco and Sabeco , where privatisation progress has been slow. "The share price was very high in comparison to others in Vietnam's stock market. But this deal would be beneficial for setting prices of other stake sales such as Sabeco and Habeco," said Nguyen The Minh, a deputy research director at Saigon Securities Incorp.

Vinamilk shares hit an all-time high of 173,800 dong in trading on Friday. The company said its Q3 net profit rose 5.46 percent from a year earlier to 2.69 trillion dong ($118.4 million). ($1 = 22,713 dong)

(Reporting by Mi Nguyen; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Adrian Croft)
(Adds investor comment)

Nov 10 (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group will fix a date within three weeks for a shareholder vote on the removal of Chairman Donald Brydon and retention of CEO Xavier Rolet at the behest of activist investor TCI Fund Management, it said on Friday.

TCI had called for a vote to remove Brydon, saying the company had not explained why Rolet was leaving and that it also wanted the company to persuade Rolet to extend his tenure until 2021. "LSEG will meet its obligations in respect of the requisition," the bourse operator said in a statement on Friday, indicating that it would hold the shareholder meeting "as soon as reasonably practicable". The company must send out notice of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) within 21 of receiving TCI's letter on Thursday. Once sent, it must hold the meeting within 28 days, meaning it would take place before the end of the year at the latest.

LSE said on Oct. 19 that Rolet would step down by the end of 2018, nearly a decade after he took charge. During his tenure LSE's stock has risen from about 6 pounds to 37 pounds. The removal of a director has to be passed by a majority of those voting at the EGM.

TCI, led by British billionaire Chris Hohn, first complained about Rolet's planned exit in a letter to the LSE last Friday. The letter said that Brydon and the board were trying to force out the CEO, an allegation denied by LSE on Monday. Other LSE shareholders have since said they would like Rolet to stay at the helm.

A small institutional investor told Reuters on Friday that he would be happy for Rolet to remain as chief executive to guide the business through Britain's impending exit from the European Union, which could cause upheaval for the country's financial services industry.

"Particularly with Brexit going on, you need someone who knows what they're doing there (at the LSE)," the investor said.

The fund manager said he had not yet engaged with LSE or TCI but added: "I presume that he (Hohn) wouldn't be doing this unless he had been given the nod by Xavier that he's prepared to stay on."

A source close to Egerton Capital, another LSE investor, has also told Reuters that the hedge fund will support a resolution to keep Rolet at the company.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LSE share and EPS performance under CEO Rolet ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru and Huw Jones and Ben Martin in London; Editing by David Goodman)
* Suspension due to delays in soybean imports

* Plants affected are in Zhanjiang and Beihai

* China has longer approval process for soybean imports

(Adding analyst quote and background)

BEIJING, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Shandong Bohi Industry Co Ltd, a major Chinese soybean crusher, has suspended operations at two plants because of delays in soybean imports, sources said on Friday, amid growing worries about tightening supplies due to safety checks at the country's ports.

The latest plant suspension in China has further contributed to tightening supplies of soymeal in the south, causing another major jolt to the world's largest soybean market after major crushers shut plants due to delayed cargoes in August.

"The delay is affecting regional supplies now. But if it continues and spreads to a larger scale, it will have a major impact nationwide," said Li Lifeng, an analyst with industry portal cofeed.com.

The plants in Zhanjiang in Guangdong province and in Beihai in Guangxi halted operations as they ran out of beans after failing to get an import permit, an executive at another crusher who spoke to people at the two plants said.

Li Lifeng, the cofeed analyst, said she had spoken to a worker at the Zhanjiang plant, who confirmed the suspension.

An employee at the Beihai plant confirmed to Reuters that operations stopped a few days ago, but she did not know the reason.

The company, based in Shandong, did not respond to requests for comment. The company crushes 8 million tonnes of beans a year.

Supplies of soymeal were already tightening in the southern area following an earlier suspension for regular checks, and many crushers had stocks that could only last for a couple of days, the executive with another crusher said.

"The impact is quite big, especially in the southern area, as (soymeal) stocks are quite tight already," said the executive, who was also running low on soymeal.

China is taking longer to issue safety certificates for cargoes of genetically modified soybeans. Delays have hit soybean imports and caused growing concern over tight supplies. Beijing's tougher approval process, if it continues, would have a major impact on soymeal supplies across China, analysts said.

Chinese soybean buyers had to resell more than 500,000 tonnes of the oilseed in August amid growing concerns about losses among crushers and congestion at a major port in Shandong. Major crushers were forced to suspend operations due to delayed shipments and amid high stocks. China bought 5.86 million tonnes of soybeans in October, well below market expectations, due to weather-related delays. Some of the delayed shipments would arrive in November and December, analysts had said. (Reporting by Hallie Gu and Josephine Mason; Editing by Manolo Serapio Jr. and Adrian Croft)
By Rachel Lee



President Moon Jae-in is reluctant to back President Donald Trump's "free and open Indo-Pacific" initiative in an apparent bid to mend ties with China and have a balanced diplomacy with the four major neighboring powers.



However, Moon's position has caused confusion within his administration.



Seoul and Washington have also revealed a difference over the Indo-Pacific policy which included the joint statement between President Moon and President Trump, who was in Seoul on a two-day state visit, Tuesday and Wednesday.



The U.S. and Japan introduced the Indo-Pacific concept to replace the existing Asia-Pacific one by including India as a counterweight to China.



But South Korea feels burdened to actively join the U.S. promotion of the initiative because it needs to maintain a good relationship with China for trade promotion and the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.



In the joint statement announced Wednesday, President Trump stressed that "the United States-Republic of Korea alliance, which is built on mutual trust and shared values of freedom, democracy, human rights, and rule of law remains the linchpin for security, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region."



However, a day later, a senior Cheong Wa Dae official said the country did not agree on the plan.



Kim Hyun-chul, a presidential aide for economic affairs, told reporters Thursday that President Moon listened to Trump's explanations about the initiative. Kim, who is accompanying Moon on his Southeast Asia visit, made it clear that the President did not agree on the country's participation in the free and open Indo-Pacific initiative.



The aide said that this was the first time for President Moon to learn about the plan that Trump advocates.



"Japan initiated the free and open Indo-Pacific idea, and it does not seem right for South Korea to join in the plan considering various international affairs and conditions," Kim added.



President Trump did not demand, but suggested that Korea join the policy, the aide said. He said the issue was not something that South Korea could say it would immediately accept.



However, the foreign ministry presented a different view about the country's stance.



Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said in an afternoon briefing that day, "The strategy that the U.S. suggested is in line with South Korea's policy to a certain extent, and therefore the two nations could seek ways to cooperate in the new initiative."



Asked of the ministry's different view from the presidential office, Noh answered that what he said was basically the government's stance.



Amid the mounting controversy over the divided opinions between the presidential office and the foreign ministry, Cheong Wa Dae gave its stance again, which reflected some aspect of the ministry's opinion this time.



The presidential office said that Korea and U.S. has shared such values as freedom and democracy while continuing to cooperate closely in achieving the goal of securing security, stability, and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula as well as Northeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.



"The free and open Indo-Pacific concept, which the U.S. is recently suggesting, is in line with our effort to diversify diplomatic ground to some degree, but we concluded that more discussion is required about whether the concept is appropriate in carrying out our joint strategic goal," Cheong Wa Dae said in a press release.



"That's why we wrote in the joint statement that Trump stressed the initiative, not that the two leaders agreed on it."



The two countries will closely work together and seek possible ways to cooperate in the new plan from now on, it added.



As he travels across Asia, President Trump has pushed his new free and open Indo-Pacific policy, which replaces the existing Asia-Pacific one. The term has been mentioned in White House speeches and Cabinet meetings over the past few weeks.




















Lee Seok-mun / Courtesy of Jeju Office of Education



By Chyung Eun-ju

High school students on Jeju Island will receive a free education for the first time from next year, according to the island's superintendent on Wednesday.

"Free education fulfills the educational basic right' mentioned in the South Korean Constitution," superintendent Lee Seok-mun told a press conference held to discuss the island's 2018 education budget.

"It is an educational foundation and Moon Jae-in government's national agenda. I hope free education in Jeju becomes the start of this realization and spreads nationwide."

All 30 high schools on the island, private and public, will provide free education to 20,620 students regardless of financial backgrounds. The cost is estimated at 20.1 billion won ($18 million).

The island's Office of Education said the free education was feasible because the central government would start covering the free childcare (ages 3-5) program cost of 44.1 billion won, for which the education office had been responsible until now.

This has enabled the island's education budget to be increased from 3.6 percent to 5 percent, making available an extra 17.2 billion won.

However, Jeju will not be able to provide free lunches for all students.

"We take care of the lunch budget with Jeju Province, so we need their consent to provide a free lunch," an office spokesperson said.

To help increase the island's birth rate, the office also plans to pay for school meals, textbooks, school trips and uniforms for students from families with at least three children.

Free high school education was former President Park Geun-hye's presidential election campaign pledge, but was not implemented for budget reasons.

President Moon Jae-in also pledged free education during his election campaign and plans to implement it fully by 2022.

The Ministry of Education plans to pay for high school admission fees, tuition support fees and textbooks.

The estimated cost for free high school education nationwide is 2 trillion won. The government plans to us more than 20 percent of its tax revenue to cover the subsidy.

A Jeju official said, "We will use our provincial budget to pay for the free education until 2019 and from 2020 we will use state funds."

However, whether the ministry will be able to acquire the means to provide free education is still unclear.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance expressed reservations about increasing the government's education subsidy because of the low birth rate nationwide and a decreasing number of students.
Over 400,000 have signed a petition calling for a retrial of a child rapist Cho Doo-soon, who is set to be released from prison in 2020. However, this is unlikely to happen, based on legal grounds.



The petition on Cheong Wa Dae's website had 429,000 signatories Friday, calling for Cho to be kept in prison for life.



The petition's support is not only based on public outrage against the crime, but also concerns of him committing further offenses.



In 2008, Cho raped an eight-year-old school girl, which left her with permanent damage to multiple organs. He was sentenced to a 12-year prison term, based on the fact that he was intoxicated at the time of the offense, which stirred public uproar for leniency.



However, a retrial will take not take as these are only held when the trial was biased against the defendant, or if new evidence is found.



Based on this, voices are growing for stricter monitoring of Cho when he is released.




South Korean President Moon Jae-in left for Vietnam on Friday, wrapping up his three-day state visit to Indonesia.



The South Korean leader was due in Da Nang, Vietnam later in the day for the start of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. It will be the second leg in his three-nation Southeast Asia trip that began on Wednesday.



His trip to Indonesia marked the first time he made a state visit to a foreign nation since taking office in May.



In a bilateral summit held Thursday, Moon and his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo agreed to further upgrade the countries' diplomatic relations to a "special strategic partnership" that will emphasize greater economic and trade cooperation, as well as exchanges between their people.



"The Special Strategic Partnership places greater emphasis on concrete cooperation for the benefit of the two countries and peoples in various fields, particularly in key industries and infrastructures, and on strengthening the two countries' contribution to the region and the world, especially through their joint efforts including triangular cooperation framework," they said in a joint statement issued after their bilateral summit.



Efforts to boost exchange between their people will include simplifying Seoul's visa issuance procedure for Indonesian tourists to South Korea.



Moon's trip to the region also came amid efforts to greatly improve South Korea's relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).



Under what he calls the "New South Policy," the South Korean leader said his country seeks to build a win-win relationship with all 10 members of ASEAN.



Kim Hyun-chul, a senior economic adviser to Moon, earlier said the mutually beneficial policy will require Seoul to boost its imports from the countries to ensure joint development and co-prosperity.



"South Korea must expand its imports of agricultural goods or resources from ASEAN countries in the future," he said.



Moon's trip to the Southeast Asian countries also aims to win their support for Seoul's move to put more pressure on North Korea.



Pyongyang staged its sixth and most powerful nuclear test so far on Sept. 3.



The South Korean president insists maximum pressure and sanctions will leave the impoverished North with no choice but to come to the dialogue table and discuss a peaceful end to its nuclear ambition.



The APEC summit will bring together the leaders of 21 member economies, including the United States, Japan and China.



On Sunday, Moon will head to Manila for the East Asia Summit and a series of ASEAN forums that will also be attended by the leaders of China and Japan. (Yonhap)




By Choi Ha-young



The political fate of the minor conservative Bareun Party has been put at risk after eight of its 20 lawmakers rejoined the larger conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP), Thursday.



The party, which was established under the slogan of "reformist conservatives," is having an identity crisis between the hard-line conservative LKP and the liberal bloc, and this has resulted in the mass "re-defection" of its members and low public support.



Rep. Yoo Seong-min, co-founder of the party and the party's former presidential candidate, has attempted to soothe agitated party members.



"I will only trust citizens who wish for a complete overhaul of the conservatives," Yoo said Tuesday. "I hope the party staff members will move forward together, even if the party loses its negotiation body rights."



Yoo, who is running for the party leadership, dismissed some party lawmakers' requests to delay the party's Nov. 13 convention to elect new leaders and hold a joint convention with the LKP. His rejection prompted the eight lawmakers to leave for the LKP.



The four-term lawmaker criticized the LKP's decision to deprive former President Park Geun-hye of her party membership, which was a move to woo Bareun members who had earlier left the LKP to protest Park's corruption scandal.



Calling the move an "unjustifiable show," Yoo said the expulsion of the former president, whose political career is already over, was not a reform. "The unity of the LKP and the Bareun Party can never convince the public."



But party members are agitated, because with 12 remaining seats at the Assembly and low public support, the party may gain victory in only a couple of regions at the upcoming local elections in June.



A party official, who requested anonymity, said, "The party should work as a clean and competitive opposition party. However, it lacks political assets like creative policies and candidates to run in elections."



Yoon Tae-gon, a senior political analyst at The Moa Agenda and Strategy, echoed the party's gloomy outlook. "Actually, it's hard to find a breakthrough," he said. "The Bareun Party should have pushed for reform of the election-related law to pave its way as a minor party. The common goal could have made party members cling together, but they failed to form unity."



Yoo has targeted people with a center-right inclination who do not like either the ruling Democratic Party of Korea or the LKP. "However, the niche market is predominated by the centrist People's Party," Yoon said. "The party has to explore its own political agenda that Yoo floated during the presidential election instead of blasting the corrupt LKP," Yoon noted.



Some members of the Bareun Party and the People's Party are seeking collaboration. However, a merger of the two is unlikely, considering the opposition from some liberal members of the People's Party.




By Lee Kyung-min



A restaurant runner in his 40s, surnamed Kim, severely injured his left hand following a fight with a group of men hired by his landlord to evict his business in Seochon, Jongno, Seoul, Thursday. He is staying in a nearby hospital where he underwent an operation, Friday.



The landlord hired the men to help a justice ministry official execute a court order for 30 minutes to evict Kim and his business from the building. But they were forced to leave after Kim poured paint thinner over himself and said that he would set himself on fire.



This is the latest incident of "forced gentrification," in which artists and small businesses are pushed out from areas that have become popular, as landlords raise the rent following increased activities and businesses there.



Other than newly emerging popular tourist attractions in central Seoul, the situation is similar in other commercial areas including Daehangno and Bukchon in downtown Seoul, and Garosu-gil in southern Seoul.



The landlord's plan to sell the building for 7 billion won ($6.2 million) nearly two years after he bought it for 4.8 billion won, was put on hold.



Kim said the landlord told him to move out in January last year as the building needed remodeling, saying he would quadruple the monthly rent and more than triple the deposit _ from 2.97 million won to 12 million, and 30 million to 100 million won, respectively.



Kim refused, and the landlord did not let him know where to wire the monthly rent to for three months, which a district court recognized as grounds for evicting a delinquent tenant.



Under the law governing the protection of tenants, landlords are barred from refusing requests from tenants without due grounds. But one clause has a loophole _ landlords may do so when they need to rebuild or remodel the building.



Opinion is split between those supporting the landlord and Kim.



Supporters of Kim said the behavior of the landlord is typical of what Koreans call "Gapjil," a conduct stemming from a sense of entitlement based on the unequal power between the two parties.



"Should tenants pay exorbitant, unreasonable amount of rent only at the asking of the landlord? How are small business owners supposed to make a living? That is just so wrong," an internet user said.



However, supporters of the landlord said his property rights were violated. "I had a building which I rented out. I wanted to sell the building as it had gotten too dilapidated, but I couldn't as all the tenants refused to move out," an internet user said.



"I had to pay them money out of my pocket to cover the cost they needed to move out and the extra they demanded. It was a painful experience,"
























By Helder do Vale





Redrawing the boundaries of countries has often led to prolonged conflicts. While there are fewer territorial conflicts in the 21st century than in past centuries, they remain critical in several countries. Spain is a case in point, where one of its regions, Catalonia, is actively seeking independence.

Several other countries in Europe have on-going territorial contentions, but it is fair to say that Spain remains the only one where the conflict has escalated to a point where the ability of its democratic system to respond to the crisis is questionable. In recent decades, Spain's response to Catalonia's reaffirmation of its identity has been one of largely decentralized power.

Catalonia already enjoys a higher degree of self-government than almost any other region in the European Union, yet public support for independence is increasing and currently approximately 40% of Catalonians endorse independence. Amidst higher mobilization of Catalan separatists, an illegal referendum was held in early October triggering a unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia on October 27th.

The Spanish Prime-Minister Mariano Rajoy has responded to calls for independence with an appeal to respect the rule of law. In spite of the calls for law abidance, the regional government of Catalonia has unilaterally declared independence. In the meanwhile, the central government has approved in the Senate a law allowing Madrid to restore the rights of Catalonia to function as a regional government until new regional elections are held in December 2017. The current scenario represents one of the deepest ruptures of the constitutional order since the country transitioned to democracy three decades ago.

As it stands today, this territorial conflict has turned into a full-blown constitutional crisis requiring an urgent political solution. And a solution to the crisis will be difficult as Madrid promises to prosecute the main members of the Catalan "rebel" government, including the now ceased Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who recently fled to Brussels. As a response to Madrid's resolve, the Catalan separatist leadership has accused the Spanish government of being "undemocratic".

The region of Catalonia, one of the economically wealthiest regions of Spain, has had shaky relations with the central government in Madrid since 2005 when regional politicians unsuccessfully attempted to include the word "nation" in the preamble of its regional statutes to refer to Catalonia. Ever since, the Catalan roadmap to independence began developing with growing radicalization in the Catalan political arena. This radicalization consists of creating a conflictive discourse to antagonize the Spanish government.

Clearly, the territorial model that has held Spain together as a regionally diverse nation since 1978 has come to an end. The consequences of the deepening Spanish territorial crisis are many for the rest of Europe including the weakening of the image of an integrated EU.

While the crisis is still unfolding, lasting solutions will rely on a constitutional reform that is currently being negotiated. Fortunately, in its recent history as a modern democracy, Spain has done well in finding solutions to complex problems.





Helder do Vale (helderdovale@gmail.com) is a professor at Hankuk University's Graduate School of International and Area Studies.
The global climate is in trouble, worsening faster than experts believed only two years ago, and ambitious international steps to address the problem have been insufficient thus far. In December 2015, nearly every nation on earth committed themselves to the Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a concerted effort to limit the rise in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But scientists now say that threshold is too high  the line must be held at 1.5 degrees to prevent the climate change that's already underway from becoming catastrophic.



Representatives of the nations that signed the Paris agreement meet this week at a United Nations climate conference in Bonn to take stock of where the world is right now, and of individual nations' efforts to curtail emissions. The United States will have a diplomat there even though President Trump has begun the process of withdrawing from the pact, possibly the single most dangerous step he has taken. While the U.S. government's policy is to move backward  Trump wants to burn more fossil fuel, not less  state and local governments, other countries around the world and international corporations are all moving forward.



But the plans on the table are not enough. The UN's own Emissions Gap Report released Oct. 31 found that "the gap between the reductions needed and the national pledges made in Paris is alarmingly high," and that emissions must be throttled back even further. Nations also could help by pursuing reforestation programs, developing carbon storage technologies and adopting smarter agricultural and wetlands-management policies. Given the UN's latest findings, attendees at the Bonn convention must come up with a strategy for accelerating global efforts to reduce emissions and ensure that the world reaches net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.



Even that may not suffice. A new report by the World Meteorological Organization concluded that carbon dioxide increased in the atmosphere at record speed last year and has reached a level not seen in more than 3 million years. At that time, the average atmospheric temperature was 3 degrees Celsius warmer than today, which melted glaciers in Greenland and the Antarctic and pushed sea levels at least 30 feet higher than they are now.



Currently, scientists are predicting sea-level rise in terms of feet, not inches, which would inundate coastlines, destroy infrastructure worldwide and displace millions of people. We're already seeing increased storm strength, more frequent flooding and deeper droughts, all ascribed to global warming.



More troubling is that last year's increase came despite a global slowdown in fossil fuel use. Some scientists fear we may be reaching a "feedback loop" in which warmer air in the Arctic thaws permafrost, which releases trapped methane (and carbon dioxide), which in turn feeds the rise in the air temperature. Others, relying on historic comparisons to previous warming cycles, think that the risk from tundra emissions might not be significant, but that increased rainfall in the tropics, which leads to microbial processes that release methane, could be. In either scenario, it will be crucial to offset the increases by reducing the amount of methane released from such human activities as drilling, cattle ranching and rice farming.



Individual actions are important too; one person's carbon footprint scales rapidly when multiplied by 7.4 billion. Still, strong policies by major emitting nations  the U.S. is second on that list behind China  are the best hope to arrest the rise in global temperatures. And that's a difficult political lift, particularly in a country led by a man who believes climate change is a hoax.



Fortunately, a majority of Americans accept the science Trump and some of his appointees so rigorously rebuff. Climate change was woefully underplayed in the last election cycle, and it needs to be made a major part of the 2018 congressional elections. If the president won't lead on this issue, Congress must. The world is changing, and we need to do much, much more to limit the most devastating effects, from rising seas to fiercer storms to extended droughts. We created this mess, and became a wealthy nation in the process. We have both a moral and existential duty to act, and to act quickly.





This editorial appeared in the LA Times and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.




By Vincent Courtenay





On Nov. 11 I will be a guest of Korea's Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs participating in the 11th annual Turn Toward Busan ceremony at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan. I am most appreciative of the Korean Government's sponsorship of my wife and I while we are in Korea, along with many others being invited to participate in this event.

This year, instead of bringing veterans from 21 nations to Korea, the Ministry offered their places to bereaved family members who lost loved ones during the war. In that, the annual service comes full circle.

When I participated in the first government-sponsored Turn Toward Busan ceremony in 2018, there were only six veterans present as an honor guard for the bereaved family members. It was a solemn ceremony and the bereaved relatives of those buried in Busan appreciated greatly the assistance and the condolences of the veterans who had served alongside their loved ones.

After that the service was held for any by war veterans only, until the bereaved family members were again invited this year.

For me, it will be the 20th year in which I have visited the graves of 12 comrades who fell in the war. Most times it has been as a private person traveling independently.

My reaction is somewhat different than those of civilian relatives of those who fell. I was with many of those soldiers when they were killed in action. I served under fire with all 12 of them.

The UN Cemetery is maintained in fastidious condition. The plants, trees, grass are all well manicured. The roads, the structures, the grave markers are clean and impressive. The headstones are placed in equally spaced columns, giving an impression of order and of solemn dignity.

But veterans who served with those buried there know there was no order or dignity when they fell. The bloody shell torn hills were a shambles of chaos and confusion.

The soldiers who fell were later carted to a medical inspection post. Sometimes these fallen heroes were in pieces, having been hit by mortar bombs or by a shell. Their remains were bundled together in a blanket and trucked to a clearance center.

A medical officer gave a superficial appraisal of the cause of death. Instead of identifying whether bullets or shrapnel had killed the soldier, the medical officer simply wrote "missiles" and the area where they had hit.

All of the fallen soldiers buried in the UN Cemetery were trucked there, or sent there by rail. Their remains were not in caskets, but wrapped like mummies in tent canvas.

There was no embalming, no casket, no laying in state for these soldiers. They were buried as they fell in the same blood soaked, torn, burned clothing they died in.

They were buried in those canvas shrouds in the fresh dug earth. A small bronze bottle containing their documents was buried 46 centimeters under the soil.

In newspapers in their home countries they are often called "glorious." But there was nothing glorious about their passing. They fell in unimaginable turmoil, full exposed on the earthen hills, often never seeing the enemy who put death upon their scant numbers.

Those killed in action went from battlefield to the cold ground at Busan as quickly as possible. There was no remembrance service for them. They simply lived one moment and were gone the next.

A chaplain said a prayer for each of them when they were buried in Busan. The mother or the wife or nearest relative received a telegram saying their government was sorry that the soldier had died.

There should be great sadness in how these soldiers, many of them teenaged youths, died defending Korea. There was nothing wonderful in the battles they fought; they were harsh, unbelievably horrible testimony to man's capacity for rage and for cruelty.

I salute every one of the fallen soldiers I served with when I visit their graves. If I have flowers I place one on each of their headstones. Many of the twelve are buried within a few steps of each other, because all fell in battle on the same wicked, small, now meaningless hill. It sits forlornly on the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone.

What is glorious is how a great modern nation has arisen on the soil where they fell; the soil where hundreds of thousands who did not die suffered and quaked in fear as they served.

In the war years there was no sign of that great nation for any of us.

There were only bleak, treeless hills, the physical agony hiking over the land with heavy loads, the mental agony knowing that each step taken might be a final one. It was horrible to carry our wounded and dead comrades from the front and have their blood on our hands and under our fingernails.

The service in Busan is but one that are held in many nations around the world on November 11. One is held in Canada on November 10, synchronized to the minute with that at Busan. Others are held in Washington, DC; in many places in the United Kingdom; in South Africa; even in distant Colombia and in Ethiopia in Africa.

On that day many veterans the world over who knew the horrors of the Korean War turn to face Busan. They silently salute and pray for their comrades who died defending the Republic of Korea.

After 20 years, each visit to the graves of comrades at the UN Cemetery in Busan becomes no easier. For me, the place drips with sorrow. I am incredulous when I touch the cold bronze plaques on the grave markers of fallen friends. I wipe them off carefully if they have any soil or debris upon them.





Vincent Courtenay founded the Turn Toward Busan worldwide veterans tribute for the United Nations Fallen in 2017.
Numerous neon-light crosses brightening the night skies of Korean cities demonstrate the success of Christianity in this country. Protestant churches, especially large ones, are also financially successful, reportedly paying their pastors as much as executives at big businesses. Unlike corporate officials, these priests pay not a penny in taxes.



That must change _ right away.



According to Ministry of Strategy and Finance officials, the government had planned to hold a closed-door debate with religious leaders to discuss the issue Wednesday, but canceled it in the face of stiff opposition from Protestant churches.

Other religions, including Buddhism and Catholicism, and even smaller, more progressive Protestant churches have agreed in principle on taxing the clergy.



Large churches cite a lack of preparation as the main reason for opposing religious taxation, calling for a further delay.



It is a lame excuse. As is well known, the previous Park Geun-hye government revised laws in 2015 to levy income tax on clerics, but had to put it off until 2018 after threats from one of its largest voter groups.



Based on analysis by a taxpayer group, a priest who makes 80 million won ($71,870) in annual salary has to pay only about 1.25 million won as income tax even under the new law, compared with 7.17 million won paid by corporate employees receiving the same pay.



Pastors at large Protestant churches _ with active members of 3,000 to 5,000 or more _ are paid more than 100 million won plus various benefits. Most priests at smaller churches who make 40-60 million won a year will be exempt from taxes.



Critics suspect the vehement opposition from large Protestant churches reflects their reluctance to reveal their full incomes, regarded as too high for religious leaders as lay believers see it, as well as the churches' opaque financial operations.



Some Christian politicians, including Rep. Kim Jin-pyo, a ruling party bigwig, are also responsible for siding with church leaders trying to dodge taxes as long as they can.



These religious and political leaders must cooperate with the government lest waning public trust in the church continues to erode.




Is Japan playing to spoil Trump's palate?



Japan has protested about Korea serving "Dokdo shrimp" at a state dinner for U.S. President Donald Trump.



The shrimp, one of three kinds caught off Korea's easternmost islets to which Japan has repeatedly made claim _ was used in one of the dishes at the banquet.



Japanese media outlets made a big fuss over a brief reference to the shrimp in a Blue House press release.



The Japanese government followed the media's lead, with Foreign Minister Taro Kono lodging a protest with Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.



The way the Japanese media and government are handling the case looks silly, but could be seen as conspiratorial. After all, if Tokyo did not complain, there would have been no commotion, and no harm done to the trilateral coalition of Korea, the U.S. and Japan in dealing with North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.



That does not necessarily mean the Korean government has no role in the mess.



True, as the foreign ministry said, it was our decision what should be on the menu.



If Dokdo shrimps were used intentionally to accent our sovereignty over the islets, it would be juvenile, to say the least. There was a report that a presidential aide, who was hired for his media savvy, led the menu-selecting process, so the possibility of a jibe at Japan cannot be ruled out.



Dokdo is Korea's territory and under its control, so there is no reason for Korea to reinforce its claim in such a sneaky way. It smacks of the sly Japanese style, if it was indeed planned.



If it were an innocent act with no political plot, it was a case of carelessness.



Still, Japan's handling of the case leaves a bitter taste.



How are Trump and White House staff feeling, if they feel that his palate may have been used for political purposes?



This raises the possibility that Tokyo is taking things out of proportion to drive a wedge into the Seoul-Washington alliance, strengthened by the successful Trump visit. Japan wants to keep the U.S. closer to its side not just to boost its hand against its traditional rival, China, but also keep its perpetual naysayer, Korea, at bay.



In the same context, Japan protested about the meeting between Trump and a former comfort woman _ one of an aged and dying group of sex slaves forced to serve Japanese soldiers during the colonial occupation that overlapped America's involvement in World War II triggered by Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.



Tokyo cited the 2015 agreement to claim that Seoul was wrong to arrange such a meeting, but it is an open question whether the agreement has any clause to prevent such a meeting. Rather, it was a cowardly act of hiding behind an incomplete pact to deny the case of an attack on women's rights of colossal scale.



The Moon government should take extra care in dealing with a Japan under the ultranationalist Shinzo Abe, whose government appears preoccupied in seeking out any sign of weakness, whether in friends or foes, of which to take advantage.




By Jason Lim





According to Washington Post story by Travis M. Andrews dated Nov. 8, Facebook wants you to upload your own explicit photos  for your own good.

This is how it works. You have explicit pictures that you are worried that your ex-lover might post to Facebook to embarrass you. This is your typical revenge porn scenario. To proactively prevent this, you upload your own explicit photos  those that you suspect your ex has and might post  to some type of a secure Facebook portal. Facebook won't store the photos but will use some AI-driven algorithm to create a digital footprint of the photo so that it would be able to recognize the photo and disallow if someone tries to post it to the platform at some later date.

In a way, this is a very forward-leaning, prevention-focused way to address the growing revenge porn problem, rather than engage in incident management after-the-fact. At the same time, it does require you to submit your naked, explicit photos (and videos, I would assume, in the next iteration of this capability) to Facebook. That is a whole lot of trust that Facebook is asking you for.

Being the old geezer that I am, the question that immediately pops up is, "How about not taking naked, explicit photos of yourself and sharing them with your significant others?" Frankly, while I intellectually understand that sexting and associated behavior is a huge problem among high school students and young people in general, I haven't quite come to terms that such behavior is common enough to warrant a specific technical solution like the one Facebook offers above. But I guess I am wrong.

This brings me to a bigger question. How far does Facebook have to go to provide solutions to check the negative effects of (mal) intentional behaviors of its users? And not just Facebook, but any other widely used social media platform in which users generate contents to share with one another.

This question goes to the heart of the disinformation campaign that Russia engaged in during the last U.S. presidential campaign. Is it Facebook's fault if a Russian operative posts a fake news about Hillary Clinton and her alleged connections to all sorts of conspiracies? Or what if the same operative announces a Black Lives Matter protest event using incendiary language against the police? Should Facebook be responsible for ferreting these out?

Twitter is struggling with a similar challenge. Originally, Twitter prided itself as the free speech champion in which anybody can say anything to anyone else  even anonymously  without being censored by the platform. Twitter's primary brand was that of unfettered, neutral platform for free speech. The Preamble to Twitter's rules (2009-2015) read in part, "Each user is responsible for the content he or she provides. We do not actively monitor and will not censor user content, except in limited circumstances."

However, free speech is not necessarily civil speech. Trolls of all colors have had a field day harassing Twitter users whose posts they don't agree with ad hominem attacks using truly vile, hateful language. And it's not just the words used in the attacks but the frequency and number of attacks, all designed to shut the person up, not engage in spirited debate over the merits of an idea or position. In other words, unfettered and unmoderated free speech has led to the lessening of the "freedom" of speech by forcing users to take themselves off the platform.

In a word, the Twitter experience shows us that free speech without civility does not lead to neutrality. Let's turn this around. Without enforcing civility, you won't have neutrality. For Facebook, the equation is similar with slightly different variables. Without enforcing transparency and accountability, it will lose trust.

But how do you enforce civility? And where do you draw the line between civility and censorship? That's the key question. One person's civil discourse could be another person's trigger. Also, does civility only cover the abusive words or does it extend to tone and actual substance of the discussion? Does overly cynical or mocking tone  without using any apparent hateful language  constitute harassment? How about discussion about the scientific legitimacy of eugenics, positive aspects of the Holocaust, or justifications for assassinating the police? Are these allowed as long as they stay on the good side of George Carlin?

And the answer is necessarily, "It depends." Ugh. How unsatisfactory. How true, though.

What's acceptable and unacceptable is a function of the social and cultural context that we live in. Try insulting the king in Thailand and see what happens. Or try denying the Holocaust in Germany. Or reject that Rape of Nanking ever happened in China. Or claim that Comfort Women were willing prostitutes in Korea.

On a more subtle and difficult note, the whole debate about "safe spaces" is a case in point in which different demographic groups with differing social and cultural sensitivities want a space where they won't be exposed to speech and ideas that they find offensive. Too much moderation run the risk of turning Twitter, Facebook, and the like into virtual safe spaces catering to the sensitivities of the self-appointed "Safety Officials." Sounds deservedly ominous.





Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006.lsdie@koreatimes.co.kr
Olympus Korea CEO Naoki Okada speaks during an interview at his office in Seocho-dong, Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Olympus Korea





By Yoon Sung-won



For an enterprise, returning part of the profit it has gained to the local community is considered a socially responsible activity. But unfortunately, not all companies fulfill such responsibilities.



Olympus Korea opened a center for medical training and education in Songdo, Incheon, on Oct. 12 by investing 37 billion won ($33.23 million). It is the largest medical training facility ever established by a foreign company in Korea.



Olympus Korea CEO Naoki Okada stressed it was natural for the company to make the investment and set up the facility to support Korea in training doctors with endoscopic and laparoscopic skills as one of the largest medical equipment providers here.



"In Korea, especially at major hospitals such as Hyundai Asan Hospital, Samsung Medical Center and Seoul National University Hospital, laparoscopic techniques are increasingly being adopted by doctors," Okada said during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Tuesday.



"With the rapidly aging population, the demand for laparoscopic procedures to treat cancer patients will further expand here. But doctors need training for the new skills. We established the training center to meet such public needs. We believe it is our responsibility as a manufacturer of the medical devices they use."



Olympus is generating more than 70 percent of its sales from the medical equipment business on the back of its global dominance in the gastrointestinal endoscopic devices sector. Still, the move to invest 37 billion won in establishing the training center came as a bold decision considering Olympus Korea posted about 170 billion won in sales and 10 billion won in operating profit last year.



The new facility, called "Olympus Korea Medical Training & Education Center" (K-TEC), was established under an agreement between the company and the Incheon Free Economic Zone in May 2015.



Located in the new industrial cluster in Songdo, the four-story training center has various facilities including medical training rooms with surgical equipment as well as a product showroom where Olympus' latest medical equipment is showcased.



"We established a solid brand as the sole provider of both endoscopic image devices and energy devices for actual surgery. Our advanced optical technologies have realized 3D and high-resolution 4K imaging for laparoscopic procedures," he said. "But more important, we seek to be recognized as a trusted and needed brand in Korea."



Through K-TEC, Olympus Korea plans to cooperate with Korea's medical academic institutions to provide them with endoscopic and laparoscopic techniques as well as facilities necessary for educating medical professionals. It also signed an agreement with the Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the Korean Urological Association and the Korean Surgical Society for developing medical device education programs.



Olympus Korea has a five-person team dedicated to corporate social responsibility activities in Korea. The team is pushing for diverse projects not just in the medical sector but also in cultural circles. Under cooperation with the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, the company has sponsored talented artists to produce creative works.



Okada has led Olympus Korea for two years. In the meantime, the CEO said he has been trying to blend the core values of global Olympus as well as individual ideas of local employees.



"As a global enterprise running businesses all around the globe, Olympus has cherished the value of diversity in each local subsidiary while promoting open communication between employees," he said. "But at the same time, we seek to maintain honesty to keep promises with our customers as well as professionalism to meet diverse demands of the market."
By Yoon Sung-won



LG Electronics is joining hands with Shinhan Financial Group for a digital financial technology (fintech) service business as a part of a drive for a converged service ecosystem, according to the two companies, Friday.



LG Electronics President and Chief Technology Officer Ahn Seung-kwon met Shinhan Card President Lim Young-jin at the latter's headquarters in Seoul this week to sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in fintech.



"The combination of information technologies and finance, which are at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, will create a new business ecosystem and provide customers with differentiated experiences and new values," Ahn said.



Under the agreement, LG Electronics and Shinhan Card will build a new fintech platform, tapping into their experiences of developing and operating their respective fintech services "LG Pay" and "Shinhan Card FAN," instant payment services for mobile devices.



The two companies will organize task forces for the collaborative project. LG Electronics has already started setting up its team based on participation from all business divisions from mobile communication, home appliance and vehicle component units.



The new fintech platform is expected to be available in the latter half of next year.



According to the two companies, the new platform will allow customers to access the service from whichever device they are using. To this end, LG Electronics plans to connect the new fintech platform to its artificial intelligence (AI) system and apply it not only to smartphones but also to wider range of devices such as home appliances, robots, voice-recognition speakers, connected car systems and the internet of things devices.



The two companies also agreed to combine LG Electronics' AI technologies and Shinhan Card's big data analysis technology to design new customer services such as a recommendation system and instant ordering.



For instance, a smart refrigerator with the new fintech platform will be able to recognize the current amount of certain foods it is storing and automatically determine if the ingredients need restocking.



The smart refrigerator will also recommend foods to users based on its analysis on their consumption patterns and help them instantly order the products online and pay for them.



Meanwhile, Shinhan Financial Group is separately working with Amazon to develop an AI-based voice-recognizing banking service. For this project, the two companies have agreed to work on the Amazon Web Service's cloud network and to test technologies such as the blockchain security system for the financial enterprises' products.



LG Electronics is well known as a manufacturer of home appliances and digital devices. It was a powerhouse with feature phones in the 2000s and early 2010s.



But after failing to beat smartphone giants such as Apple and Samsung Electronics, it has tried to nurture new growth engines across the board.



The Seoul-based company also looks to catch up with the two smartphone leaders through improving its competitiveness in the lucrative business.




By Yoon Sung-won



Google is unlikely to accept Naver's request to disclose its earnings in Korea and to publicly verify the fairness of its search engines, according to industry sources, Friday.



"The chances are that Google will not accept Naver's demand," said a source close to the matter.



Ahn Chang-nam, a taxation and finance professor at Kangnam University, also said Google would not provide details of its business and how much it earned here.



"It is likely that Google Korea has engaged with its overseas affiliates that are involved in the Google tax issue globally through internal transactions," Ahn said. "For this reason, Google Korea is probably not going to make public the details of its sales and operating profit here, despite Naver's demand."



A Google spokeswoman said, "We do not have a comment on the issue."



The latest dispute between Naver and Google started with comments by Naver founder Lee Hae-jin during a parliamentary inspection, Oct. 31.



Lee argued that the legal system had inflicted reverse discrimination against local IT enterprises. He said foreign companies like Google were not paying taxes properly despite generating massive profits here.



Two days later, Google Korea released a statement denying his allegations. It also said his claims of search engine abuse were "incorrect" and "misleading."



Naver opened the second round of the war of words Thursday, releasing an official statement in the name of CEO Han Seong-sook.



In it, Han asked that the multinational IT firm reveal its sales, operating profit and taxes it paid here to dispel suspicions over alleged tax dodging.



As a limited liability company, Google Korea does not have to disclose such financial information as it has no legal obligation to do so.



During this year's National Assembly audit, Google Korea CEO John Lee said the company did not release details of sales in each country "due to some sensitivity."



When it was pointed out that Google has allegedly revealed its sales details in Britain for the past few years, Han said, "It is strange that Google is revealing its sales in other countries, but not in the parliamentary inspection of this country. Google's claim that it is rightfully paying taxes, without revealing its sales and profits, is also hard to accept."



Han questioned if Google was hiring enough employees in Korea in line with the gains it generated here. She said Google Korea should disclose details of its investments, donations and social contributions.



Han also raised the issue of the fairness of Google's search engine service, saying no search engines could be 100 percent free from abuse.



"Search engine service providers are predestined to face endlessly repeated abuse issues," the Naver CEO said in the statement.



"Against this backdrop, I wonder how Google can insist that it doesn't have any abuse cases regarding its search algorithms."



Han expressed disbelief over Google Korea's argument that its search results were "100 percent based on algorithm rankings and not influenced by financial or political pressure."



She suggested that Naver and Google Korea should undergo third-party verification to evaluate how they handled illegal information in their search results.



"We are raising these questions to set the rule of the market right to make all enterprises, local or foreign, compete on an equal footing," she said.



"I hope Google will answer the questions to help establish a fairer environment for competition."




Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency Administrator Lee Cheol-woo, center, and Lithium Korea CEO Kim Wan-jung, second from left, hold hands with attendees of a signing ceremony at the Ramada Gunsan Hotel, North Jeolla Province, Friday. Lee and Kim signed a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of a lithium plant in the Saemangeum Industrial Complex on the western coast. / Courtesy of Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency



By Park Jae-hyuk

A lithium plant with an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons will be established on a 165,000-square-meter plot in the Saemangeum Industrial Complex in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province.

The Saemangeum Development and Investment Agency (SDIA) said Friday it signed a memorandum of understanding with Lithium Korea for an investment of 345 billion won ($308 million) for the plant.

Attendees of the signing ceremony at the Ramada Gunsan Hotel include Lee Cheol-woo, the administrator of the SDIA; Choi Jeong-ho, the deputy governor of North Jeolla Province; Kim Hyung-cheol, the director of the port-economy department of Gunsan City; Byun Yong-seok, the vice president of the Korea Rural Community Corp.; and Kim Wan-jung, the CEO of Lithium Korea.

Lithium has been dubbed "white oil," as it is a core material for secondary cells used in electric-vehicle (EV) batteries.

Worldwide EV promotion policies have increased lithium demand.

Given that Korean companies have relied upon imported lithium, most have suffered from undersupply or price hikes.

The localization project therefore will likely address the issue of mismatch between supply and demand for the material here.

The new plant's anticipated annual production capacity will supply enough lithium for 500,000 EV batteries.

The SDIA expected the establishment of the new production facilities will reinforce the global competitiveness of the nation's secondary-cell industry.

"I believe that the investment in the lithium localization project will substantially benefit the Saemangeum local community and related industries in Korea," SDIA Administrator Lee said. "We promise our full support for the success of the investment in a promising new industry."

The administrator also said the SDIA will attract more front- and back-end industries, so as to develop the lithium project into a new growth engine in the industrial complex.

He promised to continue to build infrastructure and to create a range of incentives for investors.

The construction is scheduled to start in April 2018, and the plant will begin operations in January 2020.

Companies planning to participate in the project include Polaris Shipping that established Lithium Korea, the Australia-based Pilbara Minerals and LG Chem.

Pilbara will join the project as a supplier of raw material, while the Korean firm will serve as an end-user.
By Nam Hyun-woo





Kim Young-joo

The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) named former Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Kim Young-joo as its new CEO, Friday.



According to KITA, 32 senior members of the association held a meeting in Seoul and selected the former minister as its 29th CEO.



KITA will hold a general meeting Nov. 16 and officially appoint Kim to serve a three-year term.



Kim is an economic bureaucrat who spent most of his career in trade and industry policymaking during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration from 2003 to 2008. President Moon Jae-in was Roh's chief of staff.



Kim joined Cheong Wa Dae in 2003 and served as senior secretary for economic affairs, designing the Roh administration's economic policies. From 2006 to 2007, he served as the head of the Office of Government Policy Coordination.



From 2007 to 2008, Kim served as commerce, industry and energy minister, gaining credit for the signing of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement in 2007.



With those experiences, Kim's reputation is that he has a broad and balanced view on the government's policies.



If he gets approval, Kim will be the second former industry minister to lead KITA, following Lee Hee-beom, who headed the association from 2006 to 2009 and now is the chief organizer of the PyeongChang Olympic Games, which will take place next February in Gangwon Province.



KITA said it highly recognized Kim's experience as a former minister, especially his contribution to the ratification of the FTA between Seoul and Washington.



Kim is now a senior adviser at law firm Shin & Kim and an outside director of Doosan E&C.



KITA's CEO post has been vacant since former CEO Kim In-ho resigned Oct. 24.
Draft U.S. defense budget for 2018 provides $350 mln in aid to Ukraine, including lethal weapons

The draft U.S. defense budget for next year envisages the allocation of $350 million to provide assistance to Ukraine in matters related to security, including giving Kyiv defensive lethal weapons, according to Ukrainian Ambassador to Washington Valeriy Chaly.

"We have further support of Ukraine's defense capabilities by the U.S. The U.S. defense budget for 2018 provides $350 million for security policy assistance to Ukraine and a significant expansion in its scope. The draft law authorizes the provision of lethal weapons of a defensive nature to our state," he wrote in his Facebook page late on Thursday.

According to the Ukrainian diplomat, the document also envisages funds for the rehabilitation of wounded servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in U.S. medical institutions and training of Ukrainian medics in this field.

"For the first time, it is proposed to provide Ukraine with such defensive means: air defense radar and above-water surveillance means, naval countermine equipment, coastal patrol and defense ships," Chaly wrote.
Historic ties of north Meck span throughout region Though the north Mecklenburg area didnt see significant population growth until a few decades ago, its rich history dates back to the Revolutionary War. That was the basis of...

An easier-than-expected first mammogram experience HUNTERSVILLE  Scheduling a cancer screening probably ranks somewhere on your to-do list between "clean out the garage" and "donate those clothes that don't fit." Sure, you'll get to it at...
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing its own sources, the U.S. administration is ready to approve the sale of anti-tank Javelin rockets to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier expressed a desire to purchase the weapon system.

The decision of the U.S. administration is coordinated with both houses of the U.S. legislature in the 2018 military budget.

The legislation "authorizes $350 million to provide security assistance to Ukraine, including defensive lethal assistance," the document said.

The budget restricts half of these funds until the U.S. Secretary of Defense "certifies that Ukraine has taken substantial action to make defense institutional reforms critical to sustaining capabilities developed using security assistance," it noted.

Poroshenko earlier said Kyiv would be given $500 million worth of "lethal defensive weapons."

The British non-governmental organization European Leadership Network (ELN), commenting on the proposed delivery of weapons to Ukraine, said it would complicate the situation [in Donbas] for the Kremlin.
Le comedien Louis C.K. a admis, vendredi, qu'il abusait de son pouvoir lorsqu'il demandait la permission a des femmes de leur montrer son penis, comme si elle pouvait ensuite donner un consentement eclaire a cette vedette.

Mark Kennedy ASSOCIATED PRESS

Dans une declaration ecrite, l'humoriste repond vendredi aux allegations de cinq femmes, publiees la veille par le New York Times. Il admet d'emblee que les allegations des plaignantes sont veridiques.

Louis C.K. explique qu'a cette epoque, il se sentait autorise a agir de la sorte parce qu'il demandait d'abord aux femmes si elles voulaient voir son penis. Il soutient avoir appris, trop tard dans la vie, que lorsqu'on a du pouvoir et qu'on demande a quelqu'un de regarder son penis, cela ne laisse pas de choix. Le comedien estime qu'il a ainsi abuse de l'admiration que lui vouaient ces femmes.

Louis C.K. exprime des remords pour les gestes poses, et soutient qu'il devra maintenant vivre avec cette culpabilite. Mais il precise que ces sentiments ne sont rien en comparaison de ce qu'ont vecu et ce que vivent encore ses victimes.

L'humoriste conclut qu'apres avoir passe sa carriere a dire tout ce qu'il pensait, il se retire et prend maintenant un long moment pour ecouter.

La chaine Netflix avait plus tot vendredi annule le special qu'elle avait promis au comedien Louis C.K.

L'humoriste avait par ailleurs appris la veille que la sortie de son film I Love You Daddy etait annulee. Le film, presente au Festival international du film de Toronto en septembre, devait beneficier d'une premiere new-yorkaise jeudi soir.

La presence du comedien a aussi ete expurgee de l'emission-benefice speciale Night of Too Many Stars, de la chaine HBO, destinee a recueillir des fonds pour les personnes qui vivent avec un trouble du spectre de l'autisme.

Les scandales d'inconduites sexuelles continuent par ailleurs de faire rouler des tetes et echouer des projets artistiques, a Hollywood et a l'etranger.

Au Royaume-Uni, la BBC annonce vendredi qu'elle abandonne le projet de serie televisee qui devait mettre en vedette l'acteur Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl). Aux Etats-Unis, l'actrice Jenny McCarthy soutient que Steven Seagal lui a demande, il y a 22 ans, de se deshabiller pendant une audition ou elle etait seule avec lui.

La BBC a aussi annule la diffusion, pendant les Fetes, de l'adaptation du roman d'Agatha Christie Temoin indesirable, mettant en vedette Ed Westwick. Le diffuseur public a par ailleurs annule le tournage d'une comedie de situation dans laquelle il etait la tete d'affiche, White Gold. Deux femmes soutiennent avoir ete violees par l'ancienne vedette de Gossip Girl.

L'actrice Jenny McCarthy a aussi reitere ses allegations contre Steven Seagal: elle soutient que pendant une audition en 1995, l'acteur lui avait demande a plusieurs reprises de se deshabiller, alors que le role ne prevoyait aucune scene de nudite. Elle avait evoque la meme histoire en 1998, au magazine Movieline.

Jeudi, l'actrice Portia de Rossi a soutenu que Steven Seagal avait descendu sa propre fermeture eclair pendant une audition.
PRESS RELEASE

Trump and Xi Committed to Try To End U.S. Opioid Crisis

Nov. 9, 2017 (EIRNS)At the summit meeting between visiting U.S President Donald Trump and Chinas President Xi Jinping, the two leaders committed themselves to trying to end the opioid crisis in the United States. On Oct. 26, President Trump had declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, telling an audience in the White House that

"we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. This epidemic is a national health emergency. Nobody has seen anything like what is going on now,"

according to CNN.

Upon declaring the health emergency, Trump had also pointed out that fentanyl, a major cause of opioid-related deaths in the United States, comes in from China. On that occasion, he also said he intended to discuss stopping "the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl manufactured in China" when he meets President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Beijing.

Following the Trump-Xi meeting at Beijing on Nov. 9, while standing next to President Xi, Trump said,

"Every year drug trafficking destroys millions and millions of lives. Today, President Xi and I discussed ways we can enhance coordination to better counter the deadly drug trade and to stop the lethal flow of poisonous drugs into our countries and into our communities,"

Reuters reported.

Speaking later to reporters, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson added that,

"On the critical issue of opioids, we made some good progress to curb the flow of harmful narcotics into the United States in order to save American lives. The President [Xi] committed to taking new actions, including agreements to control the export and movement of fentanyl precursors, sharing intelligence on drug trafficking, and exchanging trafficking information,"

Reuters reported.
PRESS RELEASE

Xi Jinping: Sino-U.S. Relations Are At a New Historic Starting Point

Nov. 9, 2017 (EIRNS)Chinese President Xi Jinping has characterized the official visit of President Donald Trump to China, as a "new historic starting point" for Sino-U.S. relations. Xi has given Trump an unprecedented welcome. Trumps arrival ceremony was broadcast live on Chinese national television, something that has never happened before.

The two presidents held their summit today. "China is willing to work together with the United States to respect each other, seek mutual benefit and reciprocity, focus on cooperation, and manage and control differences," Xi said during talks with Trump. "We believe Sino-U.S. relations concern not only the well-being of both peoples, but also world peace, prosperity and stability." Xi said that he and Trump agreed that cooperation is the "only correct choice" for China and the United States, and a better future would only be achieved through "win-win" cooperation.

While they agreed that heads-of-state diplomacy will be the leading edge in developing bilateral relations, Xi explained that they also agreed to increase exchanges at various levels, giving a full play to the four high-level dialogue mechanismsthe diplomatic and security dialogue, the comprehensive economic dialogue, the law enforcement and cybersecurity dialogue, and the social and people-to-people dialogue. They will also expand cooperation in trade, the military, law enforcement and people-to-people exchanges, among other areas.

They agreed to strengthen cooperation dealing with issues pertaining to the Korean Peninsula and Afghanistan. They reiterated their firm commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and solving the nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation. They also expressed support for the protection of peace and stability in the South China Sea.

Trump for his part said: "There can be no more important subjects than China-U.S. relations. We have a capacity to solve world problems for many years to come."

Trump reaffirmed the one-China policy of his government.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed support on Thursday for the protection of peace and stability in the South China Sea, Chinas Foreign Ministry said.

While Trump decried Chinas "one-sided and unfair" trade surplus with the United States, he told President Xi "I dont blame China.... After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the sake of its citizens?"

Reuters quotes Trump as telling Xi: "The United States really has to change its policies, because theyve gotten so far behind on trade with China and frankly with other countries. And I have great respect for you for that, because you are representing China. But its too bad that past administrations allowed it to get so far out of kilter."

On North Korea, President Trump said: "We must act fast. And hopefully China will act faster and more effectively on this problem than anyone.... China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great President to hopefully work on it very hard. I know one thing about your President: If he works on it hard, it will happen. Theres no doubt about it."

Trump tweeted a message for Xi saying, "THANK YOU for the beautiful welcome China! @FLOTUS Melania and I will never forget it!"

"My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one. As we said theres great chemistry and I think were going to do tremendous things for both China and the United States."

In a video statement shared by the U.S. State Department, Trump confirmed:
The Days of Jerusalem will be held in Kyiv from November 14 to November 21 with the support of the Israeli Embassy in Ukraine, Israeli Ambassador to Ukraine Eliav Belotserkovsky has said.

"Jerusalem occupies a special place for every Israeli. This year we mark the 50th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem... We would like to convey this atmosphere of Jerusalem, so we scheduled a number of cultural events that will be held in Kyiv," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday, November 9.

In particular, the Jerusalem Quartet will give a concert at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine on November 14.

In addition, as part of the Days of Jerusalem, on November 16, Kyiv will host the screenings of four films made in Israel. The films were awarded national prizes and took part in international movie reviews.

In particular, the movies to be presented at the festival are Matan Yair's drama "Scaffolding," Jonathan Geva's family fantasy "Abulele," Yoav and Doron Paz's horror movie "Jeruzalem," and Yuval Adler's thriller "Bethlehem."

According to organizers, film screenings can be attended by all those who wish by preliminary registration on the festival's website, which will be open from November 13.

Several lectures will also be held as part of the Days of Jerusalem.
PRESS RELEASE

We Could See Largest Famine in Decades in Yemen

Nov. 9, 2017 (EIRNS)Contrary to the the Saudi contention (unfortunately endorsed by the White House) that the Nov. 4 attempted ballistic missile attack on Riyadh from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen was an escalation by Iran, the reality is that it is the Saudis who are committing crimes against the civilian population in Yemen. This reality was delivered to the UN Security Council yesterday by UN aid chief Mark Lowcock, who warned that if the Saudis dont lift their blockade of Yemen, it would result in "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims." Lowcock briefed the UNSC behind closed doors, but told reporters afterwards that he had told the council that "that unless those measures are lifted ... there will be a famine in Yemen. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims."

After Lowcocks briefing, Italian U.N. Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi said that the council

"emphasized ... the importance of keeping all Yemens ports and airports functioning, including Hodeidah port, as a critical lifeline for humanitarian support and other essential supplies."

Sputnik reported, yesterday, that the Saudis had opened the port of Aden for the transit of relief supplies, but Aden is in the area controlled by the puppet Saudi government. Theres no word on whether or not the Saudis will allow the Red Sea port of Hodeidah or the international airport in the capital of Sanaa to be opened. Both are in territory controlled by the government in Sanaa which the Saudis oppose.

Back in Washington, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Bloomberg Government News on Tuesday that the House of Representatives could be voting on a non-binding resolution as early as next week, that would state that U.S. military involvement in the Yemen war is not authorized by the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that was passed immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The nonbinding resolution, composed with involvement of the House leadership from both parties, replaces H.Con.Res 81, the resolution blocked by the House leadership last week, that wouldve directed the pullout of U.S. military forces involved in the Yemen conflict.
My new novel debuts on the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, which is also the historical moment of the book. It didnt take me quite 100 years to write The Revolution of Marina M., but 11 years was long enough.

Unlike my last books, White Oleander and Paint It Black, set in the 90s and the 80s in Los Angeles, I didnt live through the Russian Revolution. I couldnt call its subjects and ask, How did your telephone work in 1917? Could you walk from car to car on a train, or did you have to exit the car and walk back? How easy was it to join the Bolshevik party?

I did my best. I read hundreds of books  histories, biographies, memoirs. Im grateful to the libraries at USC, where as an adjunct professor I could borrow books for a semester at a time. As a novelist, my imagination springs from the concrete details, and the writing is only as vivid as my mastery of the time and the place. Russia is foreign enough, but the past too is a country, and it cannot be visited in the flesh.

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I once spoke with an eminent historian whose books on the revolution sit at my right hand. Surely, he could clear up some unsolved mysteries  after all, hed spent his career writing about this period. But he confessed that the kind of detail I was searching for was exactly what the historian clears away to get at the information he considers valuable. Then I understood that a novelists meat is a historians clutter.

A historian wants to be in the room where it happens.

A revolutionary banner is carried through St. Petersburg, Russia in October 2017. (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History / AP )

I just saw Hamilton at the Pantages Theatre, and Aaron Burrs song seems particularly appropriate. He wants to be in the room where things happen, where the decisions are made.

Ive been thinking a lot about history and the novel, the difference between making history and living in history.

In Lin-Manuel Mirandas musical, the viewer is made privy to the machinations of power. It subtly offers the comfort and importance of being in the room, the luxury of identifying with the people who make history. It makes us feel more powerful by proximity.

But what about the people who arent in the room, who are never in the room?

The poignant truth of human experience is that most of us arent in the room. Were not the hammer, but the anvil.

Yet this is not only our tragedy, I believe its also our heroism, our human dignity, our slice of freedom before the compulsion of fate.

Pasternaks Yuri Zhivago was no politician. In The Power and the Glory, Graham Greenes whiskey priest makes a personal response within a violent historical moment. Their struggles may seem insignificant compared to those of the great players of history. But human life lived with boldness and dignity under the pressure of large historical events to my mind can make a more compelling story, profound, rife with meaning.

How does one person suffer and dream and struggle to make sense of her life in a time of extraordinary change?

My book follows a young woman, Marina Makarova  daughter of privilege, a bright, idealistic girl, a poet  as she comes of age within the matrix of the Russian Revolution. Shes no Alexander Hamilton, or Lenin shaping his epoch, yet hers is a story of vital importance: How does one person suffer and dream and struggle to make sense of her life in a time of extraordinary change, the machinery of which is far beyond her control?

To tell my story, I have to know how it felt to stand in lines at the district soviet trying to get papers one needed to work, and listening to rumors of what was said in those rooms. Hungry, ill-clothed, hopeful, stressed out. Thats the room I want to be in. Not how people shape history, but how history shapes us, how it distorts our stories, what it calls upon us to do. Who we become under its pressure.

I scoured histories, memoirs, biographies for tangible detail, spoke with historians and translators. Yes, I had to be secure in the political framework but, more importantly, I had to be armed to re-create the texture of revolutionary life. It had to feel real. My novelists imagination requires stairs and hallways, broken pipes, outbreaks of cholera, tea and hats, shootings in the basement, love affairs, the terror and hope that was the daily bread of the revolution.

Womens memoirs offered the most valuable details. The women didnt feel it was beneath them to mention such things as laundry and sanitation, encounters with the unemployed and with soldiers, grinding fear and brutal cold. Everyone lived from rumor to rumor, reading between the lines of official news, seizing on any scrap of information. I understand that better today than I did when I started the book, ten years ago.

St. Petersburg in winter, 2011. (Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times )

I needed to go back to Russia, to St. Petersburg. I needed to sniff the wind, touch the stones of the embankments once more. Id been a student in Leningrad in summer 1977, enrolled in a summer language program at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. My idea of Russia had been formed by literature and films, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, Tarkovsky and David Lean. Soviet reality proved a rude awakening  the crumbling condition of the city, the poor quality of the food, the empty stores. But I would never forget those Soviet smells and sounds, the peculiar white skies, the nights of vodka and harsh cigarettes and cheap guitars, the kindness and brusqueness of the people, their humor, their stoicism  a unique blend out of which I began to assemble a more nuanced sense of the people and Russian life.

I remember too, they told me: We are not ourselves in the summertime. If you want to know us, come back in winter.

So 30 years later, I returned to that city, now St. Petersburg. It was January. I stood on the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge over the Neva, leaning on the railing with its iron seahorses, gazing out at the rivers rough ice in the low winter light where Id stood so long ago. Much had changed since I had last walked there, but now I was Marina. It was with her hand that I took notes in the frozen half-light. It was as her that I walked the canals and entered the courtyards where so much of the citys hidden life takes place. I was getting my Russian eyes back.

Russia is foreign enough, but the past too is a country, and it cannot be visited in the flesh.

Then, in 2009, lightning struck. I was awarded a Likhachev Foundation cultural fellowship, specifically designed to help Americans researching Russian projects in St. Petersburg. On my last trip, Id walked down foggy streets and gazed up at windows. This time, I entered the building  on a red carpet.

At the State Museum of Political History of Russia, not one but two curators fielded a multitude of questions about revolutionary life in the city. I saw photographs of black market speculators poised between train cars with enormous bags of illegal food, and shots of mass demonstrations  I was sure if I looked hard enough, I would see Marina staring back at me. Life and art were merging in the most dizzying way.

In the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg I saw objects Id read about for years: all-important ration cards for bread and fuel and galoshes. Precious labor books that meant the difference between subsistence and starvation, complete with their motto, He who does not work, does not eat.

I did a signing in the 24-hour bookstore on Ploshchad Vosstaniya, Insurrection Square, once Znamenskaya  the very site of the massacre witnessed by Marina that was the turning point in the February Revolution.

At the Anna Akhmatova Museum, that sacred place which houses the apartment where the poet lived with her husband, his ex-wife and his family, I joined the director and her colleagues. They began the interview by asking me to describe my book.

Within minutes, they were telling me about Marina, arguing about which young poet she reminded them of, where she lived, her family life, her school. They spoke as if they already knew her.

And in that moment, I saw that the character I had created was an actual person. She had a concrete reality that these knowledgeable people could see and feel. It reminded me of visiting the set of a movie based on a novel Id written, the excitement of being able to walk inside something that had only existed in my head.

That day, I knew I was writing a novel that someone could walk into and take a seat. I was in the room.

Fitch is the author of the new novel The Revolution of Marina M., as well as White Oleander and Paint It Black, which have both been adapted as films.
Its already snowing in Minnesota, where Louise Erdrich lives, by mid-October. Weve got a snowstorm outside, she says by telephone, because the connection is poor. It might be affecting the lines.

Erdrich, the acclaimed novelist whose 2016 LaRose won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, likes to maintain clear communication  which is why she prefers to conduct interviews via email. This is the problem with phone interviews, she says, a few minutes into an answer. I start off on tangents. But shes articulate, warm and candid as she speaks about her latest book, Future Home of the Living God (Harper, $28.99), a complete departure from her previous work. This dystopian novel set in the near-future revolves around Cedar Hawk Songmaker, a young woman who is half-Ojibwe by birth but who has been raised by an Anglo couple named Glen and Sera Songmaker.

Something dire has happened in the world, and its affecting all kinds of things, from the food supply to migration patterns to the very nature of human life. When Cedar discovers shes pregnant, she knows that she has to be careful. When she has an ultrasound, the technician says, Weve got one.

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While Cedar tries to hide while in her first trimester, once her pregnancy starts to show, she has to flee  and, fortunately, she has now been introduced to her biological family up north and has somewhere to go. I wanted to explore what a public creature you become when youre pregnant, how everybody puts their hands on you, youre vulnerable to an extreme degree when youre pregnant. Cedars flight and her adventures are, Erdrich acknowledges, an epic journey with an expectant mother at its center  and when was the last time you saw that?

Anti-choice is about controlling womens bodies period. Its about seizing control of young women. Thats it. Thats what its about. Period.  Louise Erdrich

Erdrich agrees that this novel is about the other side of choice. I dont know why this hasnt been explored more deeply, but every time you make a choice to have a child, you give up all of these other options that are potential children in your life. Youve basically thrown the dice, landed on some formation of genetic circumstance and thats the child youre having. Whereas, and thats still not your choice, youre still rolling the dice.

The subject matter isnt surprising for Erdrich, who has said that she couldnt have been a writer without birth control. She has now published 16 novels, plus poetry, childrens books, short stories and a memoir. When I was accepting the Library of Congress Prize I think I thanked Planned Parenthood first of all, because its true. If I hadnt been able to choose when to have a baby, I would not have been able to put in those crucial years of growth as a writer, when you make so many mistakes and you go in every direction and you paw through the language and you need that freedom at that time.

Louise Erdrich with her new baby Animiniki Kiniins Erdrich in 2001. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

When asked if she wanted to explore the idea of the state controlling women no matter what they want, she answers quickly and firmly. Thats why its so obvious to me that anti-choice rhetoric isnt about religious faith. Thats just a way for people to frame what theyre doing in a way that is palatable for them. Anti-choice is about controlling womens bodies period. Its about seizing control of young women. Thats it. Thats what its about. Period.

Erdrich also believes that older women with strong voices have a responsibility to those young women under siege. We do have stronger voices, in large part because we were able to make our choices at that crucial age. Of course, coming of age when I did, when I talk about it, it astounds my daughters who range in age from 16 years old to 32 years old. We had the right to have abortion. It was simple, very simple. They cannot believe it. That there was that, because its so different now. Its so different.

You can say Oh, I want to be a strong woman, but if you say I want power. Im ambitious. I want to control, then youre a witch.  Louise Erdrich

She continues: I feel extremely protective of young women, because I didnt know what was happening. Yes, I had all that freedom. Yes, I was able to make choices. However, Erdrich also admits that in the era of choice, there was something else dangerous to young women. She was in the first Dartmouth College class that admitted women. My whole mode was man pleasing at that age. I was surrounded by men, including most of my professors, and gravity just drew me to them. She says that today, on seeing women speak up about sexual predation, she is profoundly grateful. I had no name for what was happening to me at the time. I could not even conceive of a world where I wasnt fending off men  and trying to manipulate men.

One of Erdrichs favorite female villains of fiction is Becky Sharp of Thackerays Vanity Fair, because shes taken the lessons of our culture and applied them in perfect order. Shes manipulated. Shes ambitious. Shes greedy. She wants power. Its a short recipe for being a witch. You cant want those things out in the open, she says, if youre a woman. You can say Oh, I want to be a strong woman, but if you say I want power. Im ambitious. I want to control, then youre a witch. Even if you just want to control your own destiny, youre suspect. While she doesnt want to go into the election, Erdrich shares that her nonagenarian father told her, Im just voting for the most highly qualified person whos ever run for the presidency in Hillary Clinton. (At 92, recently recovered from a bicycle accident, hes planning on voting in the next election.)

One of the most interesting aspects of Future Home of the Living God has to do with females who are revered, including the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first (in 1656) Native American to be so recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. Cedar, who in spite of her bohemian adoptive parents objections has converted to Catholicism, looks to St. Kateri as a role model, along with other female saints like Hildegard of Bingen. But the outlines of sainthood are not exactly empowering to women, says Erdrich. Thats why I included Hildegard, and Kateri. By any accounts they led horrifying lives. Kateri experienced a time in which nine out of 10 people around her were dead. Nine out of 10! She either probably thought, Our ways havent helped us. Im going to go and conform to this entirely other world. She was traumatized beyond trauma. She had to seek some sort of help.

At the end of Future Home of the Living God things are left a bit open ended, and thats on purpose  but the author isnt sure if shell return to Cedars story, at least for a while. She has one or two other novels Im working on, so there is lots of Louise Erdrich writing to look forward to for readers.

She still writes in longhand, in notebooks, and she still sells paper books at her Minneapolis store, Birchbark Books. Its doing well, she says: Were kind of shocked, because we still cant get it through our heads that we have survived. In her life and her work, Louise Erdrich continues to pay attention to the future.

Patrick is a writer and critic whose work appears in the Washington Post and on NPR Books.
London police are investigating a criminal complaint against former Hollywood agent Tyler Grasham that alleges he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy there in 2010.

Jack Edwards, now 23, initiated the investigation when he filed a complaint with Londons Metropolitan Police on Monday. Edwards had previously alleged in an interview and statement provided to the Los Angeles Times that Grasham, then an agent with Beverly Hills-based Agency for the Performing Arts, or APA, had ordered him several alcoholic drinks and given him a pill to swallow before fondling the teenager in a London hotel room.

On Thursday, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the department had received the allegation of sexual assault, and were investigating it.

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The Times reported last Friday that at least nine young men, most of them actors, had accused the agent of sexually assaulting or harassing them in incidents spanning the last decade. Edwards is the third accuser known to have filed a criminal complaint against Grasham since last month.

APA fired Grasham, who had spent more than a decade as an agent there, on Oct. 20, after the first few accusers went public. Grasham has not yet made any public statement in response to the allegations, and did not immediately respond to a phone message from a reporter Thursday seeking comment on the London police investigation.

In a statement, an APA spokesperson said that the agencys primary concern is  and always has been  the safety and security of our clients and employees, and we will fully cooperate with the authorities as they conduct their investigation.

Edwards provided what he said was a copy of the report he filed with the Metropolitan Police. The report largely mirrors the statement he had previously provided to The Times, describing Grasham  who was in London with another actor client  buying drinks for Edwards before they ended up in the agents room at the Sanderson Hotel in Londons SoHo area. There, Edwards alleged in the police report, Grasham gave him a pill to calm his anxieties, and the rest of the evening was a blur.

I remember his wandering hands exploring my genitals and not having the courage or physical strength to move him, Edwards alleged of Grasham in the report.

Edwards said that he left the hotel room feeling confused and dirty.

He told The Times that after filing the report online, he was interviewed in person by police Wednesday. Edwards said he planned to forward the report to the Los Angeles Police Department, which is investigating the other two known criminal complaints filed against Grasham.

A 20-year-old actor and a 27-year-old film editor each recently filed sexual assault complaints against Grasham with the LAPD, which has said it is investigating the allegations.

gus.garcia-roberts@latimes.com

Twitter: @ggarciaroberts

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The financial backers of Semanal Media  the fledgling company buying LA Weekly from Voice Media Group  are still largely a mystery. But they have selected someone to manage the papers operations: Brian Calle, who on Thursday laid out an ambitious vision for the alternative newsweekly as the hub of the citys culture.

Calle comes to the role from Southern California News Group, where he has served as opinion editor for the Orange County Register and 10 other daily newspapers. While running the Registers historically libertarian editorial page, he described himself as a free-market enthusiast. But he said Thursday that the new ownership and management would not change LA Weeklys editorial bent.

He also confirmed that David Welch, a Los Angeles attorney known for representing members of the cannabis industry, is among Semanals investors. He would not name any others, although he said Welch is the only one with marijuana-industry ties.

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Emphasizing coverage of the arts and offering a guide to cultural issues and activities, along with investigative journalism, LA Weekly has the ability to be the cultural center of the community, Calle said.

Pursuing this goal with the resources available will take creativity and innovation, he said. About a dozen editorial staffers remain on the LA Weekly payroll, and they are slated to lose their jobs once the sale to Semanal becomes final. Calle said Semanal would offer to hire some current LA Weekly employees.

Calle voiced excitement about the opportunity to figure out a sustainable business model  a challenge that has long stumped leaders of most print publications. He cited Vice Media as an inspiration. The multiplatform media colossus, valued at billions of dollars, started as a free magazine in Montreal.

That doesnt mean Calle wants a lot of money to be poured into expanding quickly.

My hope on this is that were going to be careful and thoughtful and deliberate and analytical and data-driven, Calle said. He recalled what happened when Aaron Kushner and Eric Spitz bought the Orange County Registers parent company, Freedom Communications, in 2012 and embarked on a splashy, expensive effort to expand coverage and introduce Long Beach and Los Angeles print editions.

Their efforts failed. Kushner and Spitz resigned after less than three years, and in late 2015, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. Digital First Media bought its newspapers and added them to Southern California News Group.

Calles last day with Southern California News Group is Friday. He called his new role at Semanal, where he does not yet have an official title, exciting and humbling and scary.

The 37-year-old said that as an undergraduate at USC and grad student at Cal State Los Angeles, reading the newsweekly was a formative experience. I just have such a reverence for what LA Weekly is and what it does, he said.

Voice Media announced in January that it was putting LA Weekly up for sale. It said at the time that the publication, founded in 1978, was still profitable.

LA Weeklys print edition is distributed throughout the city and is free for readers to pick up. It was once thick with news and culture articles, criticism, columns and calendar listings  and ads. But the paper and its newsroom have shrunk in recent years as news publications struggle to make money in the internet age.

Editorial staffers who are part of the International Assn. of Machinists & Aerospace Workers union are still unsure where they stand. A union representative told them last month that LA Weekly staffers union contract would stay in force until it expires. Voice Media, however, said Oct. 31 that because Semanal is buying only LA Weeklys assets, Semanal will not be bound by the union contract.
Las Vegas convention and meeting business seems to be rebounding following a mass shooting in the city on Oct. 1, according to operators of two of the citys biggest casinos and resorts.

The city is one of the nations most popular spots to hold conventions, trade shows and business meetings, and such gatherings are an important source of revenue for hotels, restaurants and other travel-related operations.

The city hosted nearly 43 million visitors last year, with 6.3 million of those attending conventions. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has yet to release visitation numbers for October.

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In earnings reports over the past few weeks, executives from MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts say booking trends for groups remain strong in the wake of the shooting, which left 58 people dead and more than 500 wounded. The gunman had holed up on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.

We are pretty much back to normal [on] booking trends here at Wynn for the end of this year through next year, Maurice Wooden, president of Wynn Las Vegas, told analysts during a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings.

Steve Wynn, chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts, added, If youre going to ask what effect did the tragedy at Mandalay have on us, none that we can measure.

Last week, executives at MGM Resorts echoed Wynns assessment. MGM owns and operates the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.

MGM Resorts Chief Executive Jim Murren said cancellations surged after the shooting, and MGM responded to the shooting by suspending its marketing campaign.

Im happy to say that these cancellations progressively subsided by mid-October, and our booking pace remarkably returned to normalized levels almost immediately thereafter, he said.

Convention organizers also have promised to return to Las Vegas, he said.

Some of the largest groups weve ever had, including at Mandalay, said that they were going to not only stay, but were going to book again and again and honor the destination. And so, our booking pace going into next year is extremely strong, Murren said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
Los Angeles smaller theater companies this week are taking a look at a couple weathering major change, a coterie of classic Pedro Almodovar heroines, 150 years of Los Angeles history and a singing, dancing King Lear.

1. Rotterdam by Skylight Theatre

The essentials: Create an email, plug in Mom and Dads address, tell them youre a lesbian. Alice is ready to break the news to her parents, but before she can, her girlfriend, Fiona, has some news of her own: Shes always identified as a man and is ready to live as one.

Why this? English playwright Jon Brittain won the 2017 Olivier Award for achievement in an affiliate theater and nabbed attention in a brief festival run in New York. Although the situation he depicts is freighted with questions, Brittain has written it as a rom-com to keep audiences laughing while theyre thinking. In Los Angeles, the Skylights production is directed by Michael A. Shepperd, whose staging of The View UpStairs, wrapping an extended run at the Celebration, confirms his sharp eye and winning instincts. As specific as Rotterdam is, its also universal, Shepperd says. What happens when one of the people in a long-term relationship decides to make a huge change in their life? What happens to the relationship?

Details: The Skylight Theatre, 1816 N. Vermont Ave., L.A. Opens Saturday and performs at 8:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, 8 p.m. Mondays; ends Dec. 11. $15-$41. (866) 811-4111, www.skylighttheatre.org

2. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown by Musical Theatre Guild

The essentials: Based on Almodovars 1988 film of the same name, this musical follows women through 48 hours in Madrid as their love lives turn particularly chaotic. A missing lover, an attempted dive off a balcony and sedative-laced gazpacho figure into the plot.

Why this? Patti LuPone and Brian Stokes Mitchell were part of the 2010 musicals Broadway cast, but reviews were dicey and the show closed three weeks shy of its limited 16-week run. Its been largely invisible ever since, which is why its so handy to have the Musical Theatre Guild in town, specializing in little-seen musicals. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek, the book by Jeffrey Lane, who collaborated on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Yazbeks resume also includes The Full Monty and the new Broadway show The Bands Visit. Richard Israel, one of L.A.s surest directors of musicals, is at work with a cast that includes area powerhouses Kim Huber and Eileen Barnett, as well as Broadway cast member Nikka Graff Lanzarone, advancing here to a larger role. The semi-staged, book-in-hand presentation is one night only.

Details: The Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. 7 p.m. Sunday. $10-$45. (818) 243-2539, www.alextheatre.org

The cast of Musical Theatre Guilds Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown rehearses for Sundays semi-staged performance. (Katie DeShan)

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3. This Land by Company of Angels

The essentials: History  150 years of it  unfolds on a piece of land in what is now residential Watts. Successive inhabitants reflect the areas changing ethnic makeup, each generation caught up in traditions and recipes, loves and betrayals, gentrification and displacement.

Why this? This new drama is by Los Angeles native Evangeline Ordaz, whose plays Visitors Guide to Arivaca, about lives that intersect near an active Arizona border crossing, and Bordering on Love, touching on marriage equality and immigration reform, also were presented by Company of Angels. A former public interest lawyer, she writes with a strong sense of social consciousness. Armando Molina directs, as he did the other plays. He is Company of Angels artistic leader and a busy director whose credits include last years well received My Manana Comes at the Fountain.

Details: Company of Angels, 1350 San Pablo St., L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays, 7 p.m. Sundays; ends Nov. 20. $12-$25; Mondays pay what you can. (323) 475-8814, www.companyofangels.org

A piece of land is home to diverse generations of Angelenos in This Land by Company of Angels. (Grettel Cortes Photography)

4. deLEARious by Open Fist

The essentials: Shakespeare has had just about enough of King James I. The meddling monarch has him translating Scripture for a soon-to-be famous new Bible while expecting the Bard to sit back while Francis Bacon is brought in to tweak King Lear. Thats just part of this play-within-a-play about the creation of a present-day musical based on Lear.

Why this? Shakespeare is mightily put-upon these days. Hes also besieged in the touring Broadway musical Something Rotten!  now playing at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa, then moving to the Ahmanson. deLEARious is by writer-director-actor Ron West  a stalwart of the Second City comedy troupe  and composer Phil Swann. Dont be surprised to find them as characters in the show. West directs the Open Fist production, which is a reprise of its 2008 production. Reviving a show about a crazy, narcissistic king that is both sublimely silly and remarkably smart feels right for the moment, says Open Fists artistic director, Martha Demson. It's a marvelous antidote to the heaviness of this time.

Details: Open Fist at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays; ends Dec. 16. $30. (323) 882-6912, www.openfist.org

The cast of Shakespeares play sings and dances in deLEARious at Open Fist Theatre. (Darrett Sanders)

The 99-Seat Beat appears every Friday. Our team of reviewers  people with more than 50 years of combined experience tracking local theater  shortlist current offerings at 99-seat theaters and other smaller 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.

daryl.miller@latimes.com

Twitter: @darylhmiller

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'War of the Worlds' to invade Disney Hall and the streets of downtown L.A.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic raised a few staid eyebrows around the orchestral world this fall with a streak of four out of five weeks of subscription concerts conducted by women. It wasnt deliberately planned that way, former L.A. Phil President Deborah Borda said; thats just how it worked out due to the availability of the artists.

This was the week of the outlier program: Charles Dutoit interrupted the streak with an all-Ravel lineup at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night. (The program repeats Saturday.) Dutoit has long been and continues to be one of the best Ravel conductors on the planet. And there was one major novelty in his selection.

Dutoit seemingly had covered the slim Ravel orchestral archive during his epic tenure as music director for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra  available in a four-CD Decca box. But he pulled out something Thursday that he has not recorded yet, the one-act opera Lheure espagnole. The L.A. Phil had not played it before either.

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The 50-minute opera dates from 1911, uses a monster orchestra, and contains an encyclopedia of Ravels inimitably sumptuous orchestrations, kicking up its heels in the last half with a jota, a habanera and other Spanish dances. The story line takes place in a Spanish clock shop, so Ravel subtly integrates various clockwork noises into his score such as a metronome simulating the ticking of a clock. (This is a half-century before Ligetis notorious Poeme Symphonique for 100 metronomes.)

Yet Ravel seemed to have invested a tremendous amount of craftsmanship and care upon a silly little farce involving a clockmakers promiscuous wife whose lovers have to hide in the cases of her husbands grandfather clocks. Occasionally the libretto tries to give a touch of depth to these characters, but what I really look forward to are Ravels orchestral brainstorms, separated as they are by a lot of not-as-interesting underscoring. Maybe the above partly explains why this work by a popular composer isnt better-known.

There was virtually no attempt at semi-staging in this concert performance, but the excellent cast could do plenty of characterizing with just the voice. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard conveyed the cynical, coquettish nature of Concepcion with a Carmen-like tone. Francois Piolino displayed a saucy tenor voice as her husband Torquemada with Benjamin Hulett sporting a more conventionally ardent tenor as the would-be poet Gonzalve.

Jean-Luc Ballestra lent his imposing bass-baritone to the shy, clueless muscleman Ramiro, and veteran baritone David Wilson-Johnson portrayed the banker Don Inigo. Dutoit did his best to illuminate Ravels orchestral colors in the transparent Disney acoustic, giving a good snap to the dance rhythms.

Earlier in standard Ravel, Dutoit produced a peaceful, exquisitely phrased performance of Pavane for a Dead Princess, with infinite nuances in every note. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, like Dutoit, was right at the core of his repertoire in the Piano Concerto in G, delicately rippling away with occasional stabs of power, easily riding the crests of the slow movements climaxes, and having a ball in the sharply pointed finale with touches of jazz feeling. We expected top-notch Ravel from this team, and they delivered.

         

L.A. Phil with Charles Dutoit and Jean-Yves Thibaudet

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $20-$194

Information: (323) 850-2000 or www.laphil.com

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See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.

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Israeli and Syrian musicians brighten these Brooklyn Knight

How Placido Domingo taught L.A. to love opera

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U.S. to seek Russia's consent to deploy 20,000 peacekeepers in Donbas

The U.S. intends to discuss with Russia the possibility of deploying 20,000 peacekeepers in the east of Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported citing American and Western authorities.

The U.S. will seek approval from Russia to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine's east, the newspaper wrote.

It is expected the U.S. will raise the proposal with Russian officials to deploy peacekeepers in the coming days, the newspaper said.

According to the report, the U.S. and some Western countries, including France and Germany, hope that "Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for a way out of Moscow's military support to Ukrainian separatists."
Following in the audaciously silly footsteps of The Book of Mormon and Spamalot, Something Rotten! is a Broadway musical that sets out to pinion you with laughter.

Punchlines and pratfalls are the main order of business. This light theatrical souffle, conceived by brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, can only succeed by putting theatergoers into a state of gigging delirium.

When the show opened on Broadway in 2015, the comedy was executed to perfection by a cast that included Brian dArcy James, Christian Borle and Brad Oscar. The commendable touring production, which opened Wednesday at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa before heading to the Ahmanson Theatre in L.A. later this month, cant quite attain the same intoxicating heights.

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The spell isnt unbroken this time around. The zaniness doesnt eradicate all sober thought. But its never long before a devious joke or frantic dance step plunges us back into giddy hilarity. If its flagrant merriment you want, Something Rotten! will satisfy your fix.

Set in Renaissance England, when being a playwright was as cool as being a YouTube star today, Something Rotten! takes up the story of the hapless Bottom brothers, Nick (Rob McClure) and Nigel (Josh Grisetti), who are determined to make a name for themselves in the theater. These struggling playwrights are tired of living in the shadow of that cocky William Shakespeare (Adam Pascal), who struts about like a rock star after a string of hits has all of London talking like Romeo and Juliet.

Nick, whos married to plucky Bea (Maggie Lakis), is the more aggressively business-minded of the Bottom boys. Nigel, a jittery puppy barely able to take care of himself, is the true poet. The window of opportunity is rapidly closing on them: Every new story idea the duo comes up with is already claimed by Shakespeare, a shameless plagiarist always eager to filch an idea from Nigels notebook.

Nick vents his frustration in song. In God, I Hate Shakespeare (a title that adorns T-shirts in the Segerstrom concession stands), he grouses about how a mediocre actor from a measly little town / Is suddenly the brightest jewel in Englands royal crown. (The numbers by the Kirkpatrick brothers have a pastiche insouciance thats as fizzy as it is ephemeral.)

The musicals cartoon version of Elizabethan England is half the fun. Scott Pasks sets conjure the atmosphere of a rollicking fair. And Greg Barnes costumes, while a little heavy on the codpieces, allow for jaunty maneuvering.

The opening number, Welcome to the Renaissance, sets the cheeky tone of a theatrical world in which the velvet ropes and red carpets of our age are transported to 1595 London, where the boldface names happen to be dramatic poets like Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster. (That Marlowe died in 1593 and Webster was still only a teen in 1595 hardly matters: Something Rotten! isnt a study guide for Early Modern England.)

The book by Karey Kirkpatrick and John OFarrell contains a gem of an idea that tilts the show in the direction of a Forbidden Broadway spoof. Nick visits a soothsayer who goes by the name of Thomas Nostradamus (Blake Hammond). A Falstaffian wreck waiting for an easy mark, Nostradamus reveals to Nick that the next big breakthrough in the theater is going to be something called a musical, in which a character, for no reason whatsoever, will suddenly break into song to the ecstasy of theatergoers, who would rather be dazzled than treated like thinking adults capable of understanding difficult poetry.

How utterly absurd! Nick can hardly believe his ears, but after learning that hes about to become a father, he demands that Nostradamus poke his head into the future and tell him the subject of Shakespeares greatest hit. This is when the plot goes from madcap to gaily mad. Nostradamus, whos better at peering into the future than carefully sorting out the information, tells him about a play called Omelette.

Like with eggs? Nick incredulously asks.

Nostradamus, deciphering another vision, replies, Something  Danish?

In a poof of psychic confusion, the worlds first breakfast musical is born. Nostradamus helps turn this Hamlet with eggs vehicle into an extravaganza that borrows characters and plot points from 20th century musical theater landmarks, including The Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the Roof and Dreamgirls. The setup provides one excuse after another for director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon) to work his flamboyant stage magic

The prolonged farcical antics falter at moments, but theres always a spare kooky character to provide a lift. Shylock (Jeff Brooks), a moneylender whose dream is to become a producer  he gets verklempt by just being inside a theater  can hardly believe the cockamamie show hes agreed to fund.

Indeed, no one even semi-sane can understand what Nick is cooking up, including Nigel, who has fallen hard for poetry-crazed Portia (Autumn Hurlbert). The daughter of Brother Jeremiah (Scott Cote), a closet-case Puritan whos determined to close down the citys theatrical dens of iniquity, she encourages her diffident sweetheart to be true to his talent. Its a sentiment that leads inexorably to the number To Thine Own Self, a song that naturally catches Shakespeares pilfering ear.

Something Rotten! is filled to the brim with phallic humor and gay jokes, but the show is more daffy than naughty. This is Broadway camp served up with an elbow nudge and a wink. Borle, who won a Tony for turning Shakespeare into an arrogant lout, and dArcy James, who showed the veins popping in Nicks temples as his plans go haywire, gave the musical a bite that no touring company could expect to duplicate.

Fortunately, everyone gets the job done. McClures Nick, the musicals reliable engine, is part worrywart, part manic schemer. Grisettis endearing Nigel resembles a frail bumbler in one of Shakespeares early comedies. Pascals Shakespeare has an air of Billy Idol in his snarling prime. Lakis Bea and Hurlberts Portia show off their beautiful singing voices. Hammonds deliciously over-the-top Nostradamus goes beyond the call of riotous duty.

The production is at its inspired best during the big, splashy dance numbers. When the comic invention wears thin, the staging pulls out all the stops. Something Rotten! may not earn a prominent place in theater history, but it will remind many musical lovers why theyd rather sit through a singing Omelette than a serious Hamlet.

         

Something Rotten!

In Costa Mesa: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays; ends Nov. 19. Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive. $29-$109. (714) 556-2787, scfta.org

In Los Angeles: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays (call for exceptions); opens Nov. 21, ends Dec. 31. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave. $30-$140 (subject to change). (213) 972-4400, www.centertheatregroup.org

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

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The AFI Fest is in full swing. The Governors Awards are coming this weekend. And Christopher Plummer might end up getting an Oscar campaign.

Welcome to the Gold Standard, the newsletter from the Los Angeles Times that helps guide you through the ins and outs of the awards season leading up to the Oscars.

Im Glenn Whipp, The Times awards columnist and your newsletter host.

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AFI Fest offers moviegoers a vital destination

The annual AFI Fest opened last night with Dee Rees excellent Mudbound and will offer other high-profile awards-season contenders including The Disaster Artist and Call Me By Your Name. (Ridley Scotts thriller All the Money in the World was also scheduled, but was pulled in the wake of sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey, one of its stars.)

Times film critic Justin Chang offers his guide to the annual Hollywood festival here, noting that its emphasis on world cinema makes it a treasure for adventurous moviegoers. If youre in the area, his story offers a great guide to the event.

Kate Winslet stars in Wonder Wheel. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times )

The Wonder of Winslet + Why this Oscar season Is different

The first print edition of The Envelope published Thursday. It included another round with Kate Winslet, whos starring in Woody Allens Wonder Wheel, due Dec. 1.

In an earlier story, Winslet offered a powerful explanation as to why she didnt thank Harvey Weinstein when she won an Oscar for The Reader. You can read that feature here. In the latest piece, she talks about raising her children, being bullied as a girl and why she initially thought she couldnt make Wonder Wheel. You can read that cover story here.

I also wrote a column about why the conversation this Oscar season wont be about the awards. You can read that piece here.

The Envelope Screening Series also continues. At the latest event, Times senior writer Jeffrey Fleishman, who served as bureau chief for the paper in Cairo and Berlin, talks to Bobak Kalhor, director of the documentary A Dying King: The Shah of Iran.

Honorary Oscar recipient Agnes Varda. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times )

Governors Awards honors four movie greats

The motion picture academy will host its annual Governors Awards on Saturday, honoring actor Donald Sutherland, writer-director Charles Burnett, cinematographer Owen Roizman and director Agnes Varda.

Times film critic Justin Chang talked to Varda in advance of the event. You can read his insightful interview here. And Times film writer Trevell Anderson had a great conversation with Burnett, which you can read here.

Ill be attending the event Saturday, and you can follow the Times coverage this weekend on our website and in the print edition of Mondays paper.

One academy member who probably wont be in the room is Christopher Plummer, who will be replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World. Director Ridley Scott aims to reshoot all of Spaceys scenes  he played J. Paul Getty in the film  with Plummer and still make the Dec. 22 release date. Its a bold move and the publicity (and, likely, the performance) could catapult Plummer into the Oscar race.

You can read about the movies recasting here. Times writers Josh Rottenberg and Yvonne Villarreal write about Spaceys stunning downfall here.

Feedback?

Id love to hear from you. Email me at glenn.whipp@latimes.com.

Cant get enough about awards season? Follow me at @glennwhipp on Twitter.

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

Twitter: @glennwhipp
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.
Jesse James Double Feature Heartthrob Tyrone Power plays the title role in director Henry Kings 1939 Jesse James. The film casts a romantic and sympathetic light on the infamous train robber and his younger brother, Frank (Henry Fonda), as a couple of nice Missouri boys out to save the family farm. Historical accuracy aside, the Technicolor Western is a still a beauty. In The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), one of writer-director Philip Kaufmans earliest films, Robert Duvall plays a more intense and violent Jesse. Cliff Robertson co-stars as Cole Younger. New Beverly Cinema, 7165 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 938-4038. Nov 12, 6:30 p.m.; Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m. $8. thenewbev.com

TCM Big Screen Classics The oft-quoted classic Casablanca remains one of the best-loved movies even after three-quarters of a century. You think you know the film  a love triangle, an American gin joint in Morocco, World War II intrigue, a foggy airport  but each viewing brings something new. A must-see on the big screen. AMC, Regal, Cinemark and other theaters, Nov. 12 and 15, 2 and 7 p.m. www.fathomevents.com

Laemmle Anniversary Classics Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom, who cut his directing teeth making music videos for ABBA in the 1970s, broke through with My Life As a Dog (1985) and was rewarded with Academy Award nominations for directing and writing after it was released in the U.S. in 1987. Young Anton Glanzelius is superb in this picaresque coming-of-age drama about a boy sent to live in a rural Swedish village in the late 1950s while his terminally ill mother is hospitalized. Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles; Town Center 5, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino; Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. Laemmle Theatres, (310) 478-3836. Nov. 15, 7 p.m. $13. www.laemmle.com

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Daughters of the Dust A new generation discovered writer-director Julie Dashs 1991 independent film last year when it was credited with inspiring Beyonces transformative visual album, Lemonade. The film, about the journey of a Gullah family preparing to move to the mainland after living on one of the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina for generations, is partially based on the directors fathers family. Discussion to follow with Dash and Ava DuVernay. The Theatre at Ace Hotel, 929 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 235-9614. Nov. 16, 8 p.m. $25. www.axs.com

What is a Western? Film Series Director George Stevens won his second directing Oscar for Giant, the sweeping 1956 epic based on the Edna Ferber novel about the members of a wealthy Texas ranch family and their loves and rivals. Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor star as the glamorous heads of the Benedict family and James Dean, in his last role, plays the foil as handyman turned new money oil man, Jett Rink. Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper and Sal Mineo co-star. Autry Museum of the American West, Wells Fargo Theater, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, (323) 667-2000. Nov. 18, 1:30 p.m. Free with museum admission ($14; $10 for students with ID and ages 60+). Reservations recommended. theautry.org

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In its previous incarnation, Platt Boutique Jewelry in West Hollywood featured a couple of racks where jewelry store founder Larry Platts wife, stylist Robyn Goldberg, displayed some vintage clothing she had sourced. So when people came in to browse through Platts Art Deco and Victorian baubles, they had an option to look through Goldbergs Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent tops and dresses under her marquee, the Kit Vintage.

In a new Fairfax district space  at 2,000 square feet twice the size of the original  jewelry, clothing and handbags share equal billing.

They definitely feed off one another, Platt said. Now, we also have people coming in specifically for the clothing. The store opened earlier this year, and had its official grand opening on Oct. 24.

Platts line of antique jewelry stretches back to the 19th century, while the designer labels at the Kit Vintage span about 1940 to 1970. Platt said all things vintage remain on trend.

Especially in Los Angeles, where everyone wants what nobody else has, he said. And the vintage world has had new life breathed into it because of social consciousness. People like the idea of things being recycled.

Clothing prices start at $100 and the jewelry at $500.

Platt Boutique Jewelry and the Kit Vintage, 7427 Beverly Blvd., (323) 746-5788, plattboutiquejewelry.com

The Mighty Co.

The Mighty Co. is known for its sleek, fitted jackets, mostly in bomber, racer and biker styles. In October, the brand opened a brick-and-mortar space on Melrose Avenue designed to resemble a giant dressing room. (The Mighty Co.)

Since their launch in May of last year, the fitted jackets from the Mighty Co.  think racer, bomber and biker styles  have been so popular that the brands founder, visual artist Jessie Willner, decided to open a brick-and-mortar space.

I wanted something that feels like one giant dressing room for girls to try on the jackets, she said about the pale pink and cool gray marble space. Our studio is in the back so we can offer customization on site.

The focus remains exclusively on jackets. People like to hold on to their jackets, she said. I loved the idea of something in fashion that felt more permanent.

Willner sources her fabrics from Europe, including the French mill that produces for Chanel , and she makes all her pieces in Los Angeles. Bowing this month are her resort offerings, which were inspired by metallic things and bright colors mixed in with more subdued colors. Key looks include a reversible silk bomber that is a combination of hot pink, red and blue and a 70s-influenced racer in pale and dark blue emblazoned with stars.

The 3,200-square-foot space is shared with Los Angeles mens clothing brand Bordo and creative production company NYLA.

The Mighty Co., 8020 Melrose Ave., themightycompany.com

For the Record

This story originally said all pieces from the Mighty Co. are made in Los Angeles. Some products are made in Los Angeles, while others are made elsewhere.

The Great

Using a school boot from the 1930s as a jumping off point, designers Emily Current and Meritt Elliott of clothing label the Great launched their first shoe, the Boxcar boot. (The Great)

In each of their previous lookbooks, designers Emily Current and Meritt Elliott featured their models in vintage-inspired ankle boots, and as a result, were besieged with inquiries from fans of their womens label, the Great.

In September, the Great launched its first shoe, a vintage-inspired ankle boot in artfully worn leather and in colors such as black, cognac and cordovan (a rich Bordeaux). The sturdy Boxcar boot is a fitting accent to the billowing dresses and Nerd jeans that the Los Angeles-based brand is known for. The boot is a precursor to a full shoe line that will bow next spring.

The Boxcar boot sells for $425 at thisisthegreat.com.

The Ritz-Carlton

Chocolate from confectioner Valerie Gordon is at the heart of a limited edition series of treatments recently launched at the spa at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Los Angeles. (Don Riddle)

On the beauty front, the spa at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Los Angeles is appealing to chocoholics by making the indulgent ingredient a core feature of a limited-edition series of treatments.

In a collaboration with chocolatier Valerie Gordon, the spa in mid-October unveiled offerings such as the Chocolate Peppermint Pedicure, which uses a lavender-chocolate scrub made with 100% pure organic cocoa oil; and the Chocolate Spice Organic Facial, which uses a mud infused with cinnamon and sage. For the Chocolate Glow Body Ritual, clients are slathered with a chocolate-creme mask.

Treatments are available until the end of the year, and are priced from $95 to $185, which includes a box of edible treats.

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Earlier this year, Walt Disney World announced that Epcots popular Holidays Around the World celebration has been rebranded as the Epcot International Festival of Holidays, and ever since then weve been waiting with bated breath to see just what this new festival will bring. Well, on November 9, the full menus for the 15 food booths were released, and they almost sound too good to be true.

The 15 food booths, technically called Holiday Kitchens, will each highlight a different regions seasonal treats, The Disney Food Blog reports. Among the 15 Holiday kitchens, there are six new spots along the trail, including the Tarabaki Holiday Kitchen in Morocco, Hokkaido Holiday Kitchen in Japan, and the Yukon Holiday Kitchen in Canada. Each of these booths offers new and unique foods and beverages, such as a traditional French Canadian tourtiere served with Canadian Ketchup.

Some old favorites will be returning, too. Horchata margaritas are back in Mexicos Las Posadas Holiday Kitchen and Frances Alsace Holiday Kitchen is bringing back their slice of chocolate Christmas yule log - a charming candidate for your Instagram feed.

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Of course, no holiday celebration would be complete without cookies, which will be quite plentiful at the new Cookie Nook booth. There will be classic offerings such as a snowflake sugar cookie, snickerdoodles, and gingerbread, but if youre a little more adventurous you can also get a traditional Austrian Sachertorte (chocolate cake with apricot jam and dark chocolate glaze) or a gingersnap with cream cheese icing and a cranberry jam.

If this isnt enough Disney holiday magic for you, were not sure what else to tell you. But maybe these 10 reasons to visit Disney World or Disneyland this Christmas will do the trick.
Pepsi has plans to launch a seasonal cake-flavored cola in Japan on November 21. Named Christmas Cola, the beverage is meant to taste like one of the Christmas cakes traditionally served in Japan to celebrate the holiday.

The beverage will evoke the taste of a Yuletide sponge cake covered with whipped cream and filled with strawberries. Asian internet culture website Kotaku helpfully translated the Pepsi Japan press release, which explains the beverages flavor: Theres a sweet and tart strawberry aroma in a white cola, evoking the creamy holiday sweets.

Keeping in theme with the holiday, the Christmas Cola bottle will be decorated with snowflakes, wreaths, bows, and Santa hats. Looks like Starbucks and McDonalds arent the only ones with holiday-cheer packaging. Christmas Cola is just one of the many festive holiday drinks wed like to try this season. Anyone up for a quick jaunt to Japan?
If youve spent any time on the internet recently, you might have seen that viral warning from the Leachville Police Department in Arkansas. Though it has since been deleted from the departments Facebook page, it had many families with small children shivering in fear at the danger of their local grocery store.

According to the department, parents and shoppers of all ages should meticulously sanitize their shopping carts before roaming a stores aisles - or else risk overdosing on deadly drugs.

The drug of particular concern was fentanyl, an opioid pain medication that gives users a short, intense high. It wouldnt take much of this concentrated substance to threaten the life of a small child - spurring severe concern from the local PD. The idea behind the warning was that drug users in the community might inadvertently leave drugs on cart handles if they have fentanyl or something like that still on their hands.

All youd have to do is rub your nose or touch your childs mouth, the post warned. Children just being exposed to the powder or residue is a bad situation that can turn deadly.

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Deputy Administrator Jack Riley explained in a three-page document attached to the post: Fentanyl can kill you. It is 40 to 50 times stronger than street-level heroin. A very small amount ingested, or absorbed through your skin, can kill you.

Understandably, citizens were concerned. Shoppers were frantically wiping their carts down with the wipes provided at store entrances and fretting over the potential of overdose every time they entered the store.

But while sanitizing your cart is probably a good idea, the concern about drug poisoning was more than a little misplaced.

Chad Sabora, one of the founders of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Recovery, told CBS that the chances of sickness or overdose from exposure on a shopping cart is completely impossible.

Its just like comparing the HIV epidemic in the 80s when people claimed you could get AIDS from sitting on the toilet, Sabora said.

Other experts have since come forward, refuting the police departments claim that simple skin exposure to the opiate could cause significant damage.

The Leachville Police Department has since withdrawn the fearmongering document. Theyve now posted an apology to their Facebook page, which reads:

The post about the fentanyl was sent so me from another officer at another Department. I simply shared it. Im should have checked into it further before I posted it. Sorry for the confusion.

While were glad opioids arent threatening to kill you via your shopping cart, we do still recommend wiping down the handle. Theres no denying that the handle of your cart is one of the grossest germy places in the supermarket.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey announced Thursday the creation of a special task force to examine allegations of sexual assault roiling Hollywood as the number of accusations reported to police this week climbed.

Lacey made the announcement Thursday as local law enforcement agencies investigate allegations made against such Hollywood heavyweights as producer Harvey Weinstein, director James Toback and actor Ed Westwick, among others.

The district attorney said she has assigned a group of veteran sex crimes prosecutors to work together to examine the cases and ensure a uniformed approach to the legal review and possible prosecution of any case that meets both the legal and factual standards for criminal prosecution.

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Legal experts said the task force makes sense but continued to caution that such cases can be difficult to prove. Many of the alleged incidents occurred years ago, and detectives need to determine whether physical evidence or witness statements exist that can help build cases.

It does speak to the culture of the city that this is a major criminal justice issue worthy of a task force, said Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor and Loyola law professor. It is a good idea to have veteran, experienced prosecutors on these cases. But people shouldnt get their expectations up.

In the month since allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein first surfaced, the number of sexual assault or lewd conduct reports against Hollywood figures has steadily escalated.

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating allegations of rape and forced oral copulation in 2013 against Weinstein by an Italian model-actress as well as a lewd act in 2015. Detectives are probing allegations of sexual assault against Toback, whom more than 200 women have accused of sexual misconduct. Gossip Girl actor Westwick is the subject of two womens allegations he raped them in 2014.

The Beverly Hills Police Department also has open investigations involving Weinstein and Toback.

All three have publicly denied any wrongdoing.

Some Hollywood stars have also turned to the LAPD to investigate their claims of abuse. Actor Terry Crews this week reported he was sexually assaulted by a prominent Hollywood talent agent. The star of TVs Brooklyn Nine-Nine and former NFL football player claimed he was groped in 2016 at a party by an agent whose clients include numerous A-list actors.

Lacey said the police have yet to forward any cases to prosecutors for review.

We are in communications with the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills police departments, she said in a statement.

LAPDs sex crimes detectives in its Robbery-Homicide Division have been vetting the cases and working closely with prosecutors. The department is acting as a clearinghouse for agencies in Southern California as some reports are coming from other police overseas.

Los Angeles police officials Thursday said some of the allegations are too old to pursue because of the statute of limitations for various sex crimes. This week, actor Corey Feldman reported to the LAPD that he was sexually abused by two adults as a child in the industry.

In the case of Corey Feldman, unfortunately according to California law the alleged occurrence is out of statute, and Robbery-Homicide detectives have no other avenues to pursue this case, said LAPD spokesman Officer Sal Ramirez. However,the LAPD applauds Mr. Feldman for coming forward, as an out-of-statute assault report could potentially bolster any current and forthcoming case as it creates a pattern of behavior.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Twitter: @lacrimes

UPDATES:

6:55 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about open police investigations.

This article was originally published at 3:15 p.m.
The approved draft of the new U.S. National Defense Authorization Act foresees the rehabilitation of wounded Ukrainian servicemen in U.S. medical institutions, the training of Ukrainian medical experts in this field, as well as the strengthening of the Ukrainian Air Force and Navy, Ukraine's Embassy in the U.S. has reported.

"The draft law authorizes the provision of defensive lethal weapons to our state. It also includes new provisions allowing the use of U.S. defense budget funds for the rehabilitation of wounded Ukrainian servicemen in U.S. medical institutions, the teaching and training of Ukrainian medical experts in this field, as well as the strengthening of the capabilities of the air and naval forces of our state," the embassy reported on its Facebook page late on Thursday, November 9.

The diplomats specified that for the first time at the legislative level, Washington proposes giving Ukraine such defensive means as air-defense and surface search surveillance radars, naval countermine means, offshore and coastal patrol ships.

The bill must be voted by the Senate and the House of Representatives before is it submitted for signature by the U.S. president.

"The position of both chambers of the U.S. parliament once again underscores the high level of bicameral and bipartisan support of Ukraine in opposing the Kremlin's aggression," the embassy said.

As reported, the approved draft U.S. defense budget envisions authorizes $350 million to provide security assistance to Ukraine, including defensive lethal assistance.

At the same time, the legislation restricts half of these funds until the "Secretary of Defense certifies that Ukraine has taken substantial action to make defense institutional reforms critical to sustaining capabilities developed using security assistance."

In addition, the draft bill envisages allocations of $100 million to Baltic countries to beef up their defenses against possible Russian aggression.
The Los Angeles Police Department has ended its investigation into actor Corey Feldmans allegations of sexual abuse and will not seek charges.

A statement issued by the LAPD on Thursday said the occurrence Feldman reported was too old to be prosecuted.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives are committed to protecting victims of sexual assault and will thoroughly investigate any report of a sex-related crime, the statement said. In the case of Corey Feldman, unfortunately, according to California law, the alleged occurrence is out of statute and robbery-homicide detectives have no other avenues to pursue this case.

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Feldman, who is attempting to raise funds for a movie about alleged pedophiles in Hollywood, posted on his Twitter account earlier in the week that he had filed a report with the LAPD alleging that he was sexually abused as a child in the industry. Feldman has recently appeared on The Dr. Oz Show and the Today show promoting a campaign to raise $10 million for the movie.

But Feldman has also been criticized for not revealing the names of those he said molested him. In a 2013 memoir, Coreyography, the Goonies actor recounted  without revealing any names  abuse that he and late actor Corey Haim allegedly suffered when they were young performers.

Haim, who struggled with substance abuse, died in 2010 at age 38. In recent years, his mother, Judy Haim, has tried to distance herself from Feldman.

If he finally decides to release names and tell the world who they are, for the sake of more victims, I will be 100% behind it. But if hes waiting to release the names in the movie, I dont support that. He doesnt need $10 million to do it, she said in a statement to Today.

Last week on The Dr. Oz Show Feldman named one man he claims abused him, touching off a social media attack on a man with a similar name who, Feldman clarified later in the day, was not the man he was accusing.

On the show, Feldman and show host, Dr. Mehmet Oz, called the LAPD to ask whether a report could be taken on an alleged offense from 20 to 25 years ago. A detective said a report would be taken and interviews would be done, then a decision would be made on whether to move forward with the case.

In announcing the close of the investigation Thursday, LAPD spokesman Officer Sal Ramirez added that: The LAPD applauds Mr. Feldman for coming forward, as an out-of-statute assault report could potentially bolster any current and forthcoming case as it creates a pattern of behavior.

doug.smith@latimes.com

christie.dzurilla@latimes.com
California health officials have stepped up their hepatitis A prevention efforts in recent days as new fronts emerge in the battle against the states massive outbreak.

Most of the 20 people killed and more than 600 sickened in the outbreak that began in San Diego were homeless. But cases have begun to surge in Los Angeles County among gay and bisexual men who are not homeless. And an LAPD officer who works on skid row was recently infected with the virus.

As a result, county officials have called for first responders, members of law enforcement working in the field and men who have sex with men  as well as homeless people  to get vaccinated against hepatitis A.

Weve got to be there with those that were asking to help us deal with our homeless population, said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn. Weve got to be as concerned about their public safety as we are the safety of those who are sleeping on the streets.  This could be a huge public health crisis.

Gay and bisexual men are at risk

California declared a state of emergency last month because of the outbreak, which now ranks as the second-worst in the nation in more than two decades.

Hepatitis A outbreak 544 cases in San Diego County

76 cases in Santa Cruz County

29 cases in L.A. County

14 cases elsewhere in the state Sources: California Department of Public Health, local health departments

Hepatitis A is commonly transmitted through contaminated food, but also can spread through sexual activity or through contact with feces, even in microscopic amounts. The virus causes liver damage and can be particularly harmful to people with conditions such as hepatitis B or C.

Californias outbreak is spreading from person to person.

L.A. County has seen 15 reported cases among those who are homeless or use recreational drugs since the outbreak began. But officials say an unrelated hepatitis A outbreak affecting the LGBT community has sickened 14 gay or bisexual men this year, compared with nine last year and one the year before.

The sheer number of cases  is whats alarming, said Dr. Adam Cohen, director of advocacy and policy research for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The uptick is particularly worrisome because there have been recent large hepatitis A outbreaks among gay men in Colorado and New York, as well as in Chile and several countries in Europe, said Dr. Prabhu Gounder, a medical epidemiologist with L.A. Countys public health department.

What we were concerned about is that were at the beginning of a similar trend in L.A, and we wanted to get ahead of that, Gounder said. Some in L.A. County who are infected had traveled to regions with outbreaks, he said.

The county health department is offering free vaccines at its clinics to gay and bisexual men.

Earlier this month, officials in San Diego County ramped up efforts to vaccinate gay and bisexual men. There have been 13 gay or bisexual men infected there this year, compared with one or two in a typical year.

Gay and bisexual men generally are at high risk for hepatitis A and make up 10% of all new cases in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Takeshi Saito, a professor who studies viral hepatitis at the USC Keck School of Medicine, said the hepatitis A virus is highly contagious and can tolerate extreme temperatures.

Hepatitis A has survived in frozen berries and infected people whove eaten them. Even when someone washes their hands without soap, they might reduce the amount of the virus but wont necessarily eliminate it, Saito said.

The danger to first responders

The recently infected officer, said Los Angeles Police Protective League director Mark Cronin, is assigned to the LAPDs Central Division, which includes downtown.

Anybody that goes to Central Division drives through or walks through skid row every day, he said.

On Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved a motion asking the health department to make sure there was enough vaccine to cover the first responders most at risk of being infected. About 18,000 doses of hepatitis A vaccine have been distributed by the department, 3,500 of which have gone to first responders.

Our first responders are our first point of contact with many of our homeless, especially in the downtown skid row area, and its important we provide all resources available, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.

The county held a hepatitis A vaccination clinic Wednesday at Central Division, and more are scheduled at other LAPD sites in the coming days.

LAPD spokesman Joshua Rubenstein said medical privacy laws prevented him from confirming that an officer was infected with hepatitis A, but he did say that the department makes significant efforts to protect  our officers who encounter health and safety risks every day.

Gounder said that the risk of service providers contracting hepatitis A while working is not high. People who live or spend time downtown and dont fall into the high-risk groups should not be concerned about hepatitis A, he said.

For the general community ... just by being in the environment, we think the risk associated with that is extremely low, Gounder said.

For those who are homeless and at highest risk of contracting hepatitis A, theres a dire shortage of bathrooms and wash stations on skid row, said Amy Turk, president of the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative and chief program officer with Downtown Womens Center.

A report produced by activists and service providers found that sanitation conditions on skid row fall below U.S. standards for refugee camps, with nine public toilets available overnight for the 1,800 people living on the streets.

Most of the bathrooms shut down at night, Turk said. Come nighttime, folks have virtually no option but to use the streets.

soumya.karlamangla@latimes.com

gholland@latimes.com

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An argument over a military uniform led to a stabbing in San Diegos Gaslamp Quarter on Thursday night, just hours before Veterans Day ceremonies were set to take place throughout California, police said.

The dispute erupted around 11:40 p.m. outside a bar in the 600 block of 5th Avenue, according to San Diego police. Marc Dominguez, 42, was wearing a military uniform when he was approached by two others who took issue with his attire, according to San Diego police officer Tony Martinez.

Martinez did not know what prompted the argument, but local television stations reported that the men who approached Dominguez were a veteran and a current member of the U.S. military. They questioned the validity of Dominguezs uniform, according to those reports.

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Dominguez became agitated and lashed out with a knife, cutting one of the men in the head, chest and arm, according to Martinez.

The victim, identified only as a 30-year-old male, was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Dominguez was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, police said.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.
One of the pillars of so-called Brexit belief is that leaving the European Union will put the Great back into Britain.

With toots of the patriotic song Rule, Britannia! and nostalgia for the empire days of a century ago, when the Union Jack flag flew over about a quarter of the worlds land, the country would cast off the shackles of foreign meddlers and restore full sovereign powers.

So goes the mantra of those eager for Britain to exit the 28-nation EU after decades of unity and live by its own rules. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson talks of Britain as a great ship sailing into sunny waters.

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But as negotiations move slowly toward a March 2019 breakup date, it is becoming increasingly clear to some observers that Britain risks becoming weaker, poorer and, most damaging of all, increasingly irrelevant.

Britain faces a firm reality of economics and politics set forth by the 27 countries it wants to leave behind, though not entirely. For many from the remaining EU countries, emphasizing other issues  such as support for Spains move to keep the region of Catalonia from seceding  rightly places Brexit behind what is now more important for those sticking with the bloc.

Brexit, for self-obsessed Britons  might be a sacred cause, but not for the rest of Europe, said Guntram Wolff, director of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank.

Brexit is boring, he said. Europe has other priorities.

That stands to be a problem for Britain, which is expected to pay the EU tens of billions of dollars to leave  how much remains undetermined  and is struggling to set up trade deals and nail down other details for business and worker relations. Uncertainty about what might happen has made many people jittery.

International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development studies suggest the balance of risks to the British economy is likely to be negative and long-lasting.

The Bank of England recently warned Brexit would probably hamper productivity and put a brake on economic growth, estimating up to 75,000 job losses in the financial services industry alone and a drop in business investment of up to 20%.

A report in the Lancet medical magazine last month suggests Brexit could have a potentially catastrophic effect on the countrys National Health Service.

The workforce of the NHS is heavily reliant on EU staff, the report says. Financing of health care for U.K. citizens in the EU and vice versa is threatened, as is access to some capital funds, while Brexit threatens overall economic performance. Access to pharmaceuticals, technology, blood and organs is jeopardized.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in his state-of-the-union address in September, painted a bright future for the EU, speaking of measures such as greater political and monetary union. He mentioned Britains tragic and regrettable departure as a footnote.

We are going to make progress. We will keep moving. We will move on, because Brexit isnt everything. Its not the future of Europe. Its not the be-all and end-all, Juncker said.

Key issues before EU members include economic stability and the plight of migrants.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron held informal talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May at an EU summit in October, but the leaders of the two countries seen as the engine that drives the bloc are prioritizing their own domestic problems.

Macron, elected in May, wants to push through a widely contested program of reforms to boost the previously stagnant French economy; Merkel, who saw a drop in support for her conservative party in Septembers election, is tied up in complicated negotiations with other political parties to form a coalition government.

Brexit talks are supposed to address a number of issues besides money and the rights of British citizens in the EU and EU citizens in Britain. Among them is how to minimize the effects of the split on the fragile peace between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and Ireland, a separate country and member of the EU.

But Denis MacShane, former Europe minister under British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said patience is running out with Britain across Europe, where he said the attitude is if you want to go, get on with it. The June 2016 referendum on whether Britain should exit the EU resulted in 52% for leave supporters and 48% for remain backers.

Britain had a special, privileged position in Europe and our partners were sad to see us go. Now the attitude is one of indifference, MacShane said in an interview.

Brexit may be of the utmost centrality for a narrow self-obsessed English political class but the rest of Europe sees a petulant whining baby that will neither do the business nor get off the potty, MacShane said. In the EU, Brexit is seen as a British problem. Of course, its a lose-lose situation for both parties, but the greater loss is for the British economy.

The EUs Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier has described Britain as nostalgic, unrealistic and undermined by a lack of trust. Some British proposals have shown a sort of nostalgia in the form of specific requests which would amount to continuing to enjoy the benefits of the single market and EU membership without actually being part of it, he has said.

Theres no agreement on the amount Britain owes the EU as an exit fee  Britain has hinted at about $24 billion while EU officials estimated more like $70 billion or more.

Sovereignist hard-liners say Britain should go it alone without a deal: a scenario known as a hard or no deal Brexit. They suggest the nation could pal up with historic trading partners such as the United States and Commonwealth countries including Canada, India and Australia.

Many of those who cited immigration from EU countries, EU bureaucracy and lack of accountability as well as a deep-rooted desire to reestablish the nations borders and sovereignty as reasons for Brexit remain convinced Britain will be better off on its own.

That could include giving up the EUs single market arrangement and its four freedoms: free movement of goods, people, services and capital.

May, who originally supported remaining in the EU, and her troubled administration  two Cabinet ministers resigned in recent days amid separate accusations of improper conduct  have thrown their weight behind Brexit.

David Davis, the British minister negotiating the breakup, told Parliament this year that the decades-old EU no longer represented a bright future and was a crumbling relic. He recently reiterated that view, saying Britain would be more international, not less outside the EU.

It requires us to face the world, not looking away or glancing back, but with confidence and determination about the future we will build, he said at the Conservative Partys annual conference.

Think tank director Wolff and others said Britain, despite some struggles, probably will remain a successful country, though a poorer one destined to follow at least some rules set by EU countries.

Britains not going to become a Third World country, Wolff said. Five or 10 years down the line it wont be as influential as the European Union or big countries, but it could still be a power that matters.

Willsher is a special correspondent.
For decades, the wail of the nuclear bomb warning siren was ubiquitous in U.S. cities. Public service commercials drilled the duck and cover mantra into the minds of Americans, and the possibility of a Soviet attack was always around the corner.

But after the Cold War, most places abandoned their sirens. Fears of terrorism grew more urgent and, for many younger Americans, being on notice for nuclear war became a relic of the past.

Thats no longer the case in Hawaii.

Amid increasing North Korean threats against the U.S., Hawaii has launched the most aggressive effort in the country to prepare for attack. TV commercials warn the states 1.4 million residents to get inside, stay inside if a bomb drops. State officials are holding online forums and flying between islands for town halls to field questions from residents.

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On Dec. 1, the nuclear attack warning siren will be heard in the state for the first time in more than three decades.

the siren Hawaii residents will hear if a nuclear bomb is on its way. You may recognize it from the movies or, if old enough, the Cold War. pic.twitter.com/ry41KdI6Em  Jaweed Kaleem (@jaweedkaleem) November 4, 2017

A North Korean bomb is a major, major concern, Vern Miyagi, the administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said recently during a seminar he held for residents in a packed meeting room at the states Department of Defense offices in Honolulu. He painted a stark picture of what emergency officials expect if a nuclear missile was to reach Oahu.

We are talking about 50,000 to 120,000 trauma and burn causalities together with nearly 18,000 fatalities, Miyagi, the states chief expert on natural disasters and the North Korean threat, explained. The expected target: Pearl Harbor.

More accustomed to educating residents about hurricanes and tsunamis than atomic and hydrogen bombs, Miyagi displayed slides illustrating potential impact to the island from a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb detonated 1,000 feet above Honolulu. The explosion would hit an area about eight miles in diameter, he said. Ninety percent of people would survive the direct impact but could be hit by nuclear fallout and would have to navigate a crippled island.

We anticipate severe damage to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Hickam Air Force Base and Honolulu Harbor and Pearl Harbor. There will be widespread structural fires and building collapses. There will be damage to hospitals and government buildings, Miyagi warned. He left open the possibility that other islands could be hit.

Hawaii has largely avoided North Koreas crosshairs in recent months, though the nation has made threats against the state over the years. Concerns grew in 2009, when the Obama administration said the late Kim Jong Il could send a missile toward Hawaii and the U.S. military increased preparations in Honolulu.

But fears have further increased amid a tense standoff between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The U.S. military has recently focused on Guam, a U.S. territory much closer to North Korea that Kim has threatened.

The hurdles for North Korea are high. Its not clear that the reclusive country has the technology yet to get a bomb to Hawaii. With around 4,000 miles between Pyongyang and Honolulu, the islands are a difficult target. In addition, Pacific Command, the U.S. militarys headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region, ran tests over the summer and says it is ready to intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Any attack against us is suicide, Miyagi said, because U.S. retaliation against North Korea would be far greater.

Still, preparations are in full swing in Honolulu and elsewhere in the state. The new 50-second warning siren will follow a tsunami alert system that is tested monthly. State officials are telling residents to gather enough food to be able to remain indoors for as little as a few hours and as long as two weeks if a bomb hits.

Right now we consider the threat to be very unlikely. But it doesnt matter, said Lt. Col. Charles Anthony, a spokesman for the Hawaii state Department of Defense. If North Korea uses an intercontinental ballistic missile, from launch to impact in Hawaii is approximately 20 minutes.

Anthony said the state could give residents a 12-15 minute warning, rendering old fallout shelters mostly useless because they are too far away.

Vern Miyagi, right, led an information session in November for Honolulu residents about a potential North Korean nuclear attack. (Jaweed Kaleem / Los Angeles Times )

At the recent information session in Honolulu, the 40 or so people who showed up were eager to find out more about the prospect of nuclear destruction, and how they could help their families and neighbors.

Joe Brown, a 61-year-old Honolulu resident who lives close to Pearl Harbor, asked if the states alert system of text and radio messages in addition to the sirens would jam cellphone and broadcast towers. The answer: possibly, though broadcast stations on other islands could probably still transmit messages.

I believe the risk is very low. However, we need to know what will happen, Brown said.

We have five-gallon water containers at home and dried foods; were somewhat prepared and try to always be more prepared for disaster, he said. But, you know, with the president and what he tweets and says, we do get a little more concerned.

Lourdes Scheibert, a 66-year-old who lives near downtown Honolulu, said she first began readying her home for an attack after tensions rose during the Obama administration. She has thick plastic sheets to cover her windows and had loaded up on masks to filter the air. A veteran of three hurricanes, she owns a prepackaged bucket with a 30-day supply of dried food for her family of five.

You cant depend on the government to help you. If you want to help yourself, you need to take care of yourself and your neighbors, Scheibert said. Im watching the news. I have the alert system on my phone. Im just waiting to see if things come about, though I hope they dont at all.

jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com

Jaweed Kaleem is The Times national race and justice correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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On Saturday, tens of thousands of former members of the armed services will spend Veterans Day homeless  living on the streets or in vehicles or in shelters. And nowhere is the number of homeless vets larger than in Los Angeles County, where there are about 4,800 by the latest count, an alarming 57% increase over last year.

Given how desperate these veterans are for housing and services, its extremely troubling that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has taken $264 million that had been earmarked for services for homeless veterans who are placed into permanent supportive housing and put it into a general purpose fund.

That doesnt mean the money has gone away. It hasnt  at least not this fiscal year. The $34 million that was always going to the Greater Los Angeles VA will still go, without the earmark. And local VA officials here remain fervently committed to using it on counseling, case management and other services for homeless veterans, just as they would if it were still earmarked.

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But it appears the VA as a whole is backing away from its public commitment to this terribly important issue  and that the money is vulnerable to being diverted to other purposes in the fiscal years to come, depending on the priorities of the local VA directors. Thats a bad idea. Veterans Affairs should ensure that housing its homeless veterans remains a priority by continuing to earmark funds for services for them.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a bipartisan group of members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies have separately written letters asking the VA to stop the reallocation for the moment.

According to a representative for Veterans Affairs, the reallocation gives regional medical directors the ability to locally determine the appropriate funding level for their programs. And were all for local autonomy when it makes sense. But veteran homelessness is a national disgrace, one that went ignored for too long  until the last VA secretary before President Trump took office finally woke up to the severity of the problem. Housing homeless veterans must remain a national priority that cannot be watered down locally, and VA Secretary David Shulkin should make that clear. In Los Angeles, the VA has plans to build 1,200 units of permanent supportive housing for homeless veterans on the grounds of its West L.A. campus. A potential cutback in VA funding for the supportive services could imperil that housing.

Shulkin has set five priorities, all focused on improving delivery of healthcare to veterans and preventing suicide among them. These are important goals. But its imperative that he and the national leadership of the VA acknowledge that tackling homelessness among veterans is equally important and that it will not happen if it is not prioritized and funded.

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OK, lets get this straight. Roy Moore, the self-righteous, Bible-thumping Alabama Republican running for the U.S. Senate has been accused of having a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. Three other women said he pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his 30s. And who is Moore? A man who kept a gigantic monument of the Ten Commandments on his courthouse wall despite a judges order to remove it, and who has been a life-long public pontificator on behalf of traditional sexual morality. A rabble-rousing evangelical Christian who has condemned homosexuality, said that the transgenders dont have rights and who has called the United States a moral slum.

Is there no commandment about hypocrisy? If not, there should be.

Moore categorically denies the allegations, which were first reported by the Washington Post. And no one should be judged before all the evidence is in.

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Honestly, you cant make this stuff up.

Yet we cannot be blamed if we feel weve seen this movie before. There has been no short supply, historically, of mendacious conservatives who sermonize about the way others live their lives, but fail to abide by the standards they so glibly set. David Vitter. Dennis Hastert. Larry Craig. Just last month, Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who claimed to stand for the dignity and value of all human life, both the born and the unborn resigned from Congress after the local paper published text messages in which he urged his mistress to have an abortion. Honestly, you cant make this stuff up. Out of pure cynicism and political expediency, they deny truths about themselves and others, set rules (and pass laws!) that they personally cant or wont obey.

Does that make them worse than other run-of-the-mill sinners? In some ways, it does. Louis C.K., unacceptable as his behavior may have been, didnt inveigh sanctimoniously against masturbation. Quite the contrary.

As the Moore story developed, we were reminded on Facebook of a quote from the late Christopher Hitchens, for whom the puncturing of smug pieties was a lifelong commitment: Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner, rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon....

One of our colleagues on the editorial board begs to differ with all this. The hypocrisy argument, he has written, is an exaggerated evil. He argues: Id want a legislator to vote for tough penalties against, say, kidnapping, even if he was incubating a plan to kidnap someone during the election recess. Plus, he notes, some public figures see their duty as reflecting their constituents preferences, not their own  so maybe theyre not required to walk the walk. At the end of the day, he says, its not the hypocrisy that matters, but the underlying behavior that exposes it.

But the hypocrisy does matter. Fire-breathing preachers and members of Congress and other complacent moralizers ought to live the lives they insist others must live, or at the very least, be transparent about their inability to do so.

While it is true that few of us live up to standards every day of behavior we endorse in the abstract, most of us dont set the rules for others or make broad pronouncements about whose chosen lifestyles are acceptable or legal.

Given the number of people who spoke on the record about Moore in the Washington Post, this is not a story that will  or should  go away just because Moore has issued a categorical denial. Even in the absence of any criminal charges, he should make himself available for a detailed interview about the specific allegations. Did he know these women and girls? What was his interaction with them? If he is not willing to address or refute their recollections, he should get out of the race.

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Although the Virginia governorship was Tuesdays marquee race, the Virginia House of Delegates produced the days most surprising result. Democrats picked up at least 15 seats and reduced a 66 to 34 Republican advantage to, at most, 51 to 49. A gerrymandered chamber thought to be safely Republican suddenly became a toss-up  and may yet flip to Democratic control after all the recounts are completed.

This unexpected outcome raises the question: Can gerrymandering really be such a problem if a partys legislative edge can virtually disappear overnight? This question is especially important at present, as the Supreme Court mulls over Gill vs. Whitford, a potentially historic case about redistricting in Wisconsin.

The question also has a clear answer: Of course gerrymandering is deeply troublesome even if it can be overcome, at least temporarily, by a wave election.

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Consider the following facts about the Virginia House of Delegates: In three previous elections (2011, 2013 and 2015), Republicans won 66 or 67 out of 100 seats. Republicans maintained this supermajority even though Democrats narrowly won every statewide race over this period. To secure (roughly) half of the House seats on Tuesday, Democrats had to earn well over 50% of the statewide House vote. This was Democrats best showing in more than 30 years. Had Republicans done as well, they would have won far more than 50 seats: close to 70, in fact.

A clever gerrymander can set the bar almost impossibly high, condemning a party to minority status in all but the most extreme circumstances.

The upshot of these statistics is that gerrymandering works. The Virginia district plan operated exactly as intended in prior elections, returning overwhelming Republican majorities even when voters slightly preferred Democratic statewide candidates. And while a Democratic tsunami hit Virginia on Tuesday, if it recedes even modestly, the map will revert to massively favoring Republicans.

A second crucial point is that, although no one can predict a wave with certainty, a plans performance if a wave arrives can be accurately forecast. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won 17 Virginia districts represented by Republican incumbents. So it was apparent ahead of time that if Democratic candidates could match her showing, they would flip a large number of seats. And it was unsurprising that when Democrats substantially improved on her numbers, they prevailed in the bulk of these vulnerable districts. In fact, 14 of Democrats 15 pickups (so far) were in districts previously won by Clinton.

A final point is that not all maps are equally at risk if a Virginia-sized wave materializes. Take the Wisconsin state house plan at issue in Whitford. Its authors were not quite as greedy as those who drew the Virginia map. They were content for Republicans to win three-fifths (rather than two-thirds) of the seats in normal conditions. This somewhat less ambitious target let them sprinkle more Republican voters into each Republican district, yielding bigger margins and more leeway in the event of a Democratic groundswell.

Consequently, there are only three Wisconsin districts (out of 99) won by Clinton but represented by Republicans. If Wisconsin Democrats do as well in 2018 as their Virginia counterparts did in 2017, they will likely flip just four seats. For Democrats to win a majority of the Wisconsin Assembly, they would need a further five-point boost  a 100-year flood rather than an ordinary wave.

Its true, then, that with enough wind at its back, its always possible for a party to earn a legislative majority. But enough is a relative term. A clever gerrymander can set the bar almost impossibly high, condemning a party to minority status in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos is professor of law at the University of Chicago, where he specializes in election law. He represents the plaintiffs in Gill vs. Whitford.

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During his swing through Asia this week, President Trump avoided the sort of inflammatory and insulting language about North Korea that has alarmed diplomats and set nerves on edge.

As The Times reported, there were no repeats of his threats of fire and fury and no sabotaging of his secretary of State. And although Trump in his speech to South Koreas National Assembly on Tuesday accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of presiding over a cult animated by a dark fantasy, he didnt call Kim Little Rocket Man.

Instead of asserting, as he did at the United Nations, that the U.S. could totally destroy North Korea, Trump offered this more oblique warning: America does not seek conflict or confrontation, but we will never run from it. History is filled with discarded regimes that have foolishly tested Americas resolve.

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that in Seoul, Trump had invited the North Koreans to come to the table. But Trumps invitation came with conditions that Tillerson himself hasnt always insisted on.

In August, the secretary of State seemed to suggest that the U.S. would reengage with North Korea if it stopped testing ballistic missiles. That, he said, would be the best signal that North Korea could give us that theyre prepared to talk.

But in his speech to the South Korean parliament, Trump seemed to dust off the previous U.S. position that any new negotiations must have the stated objective of North Korean denuclearization.

We seek a future of light, prosperity, and peace, Trump said. But we are only prepared to discuss this brighter path for North Korea if its leaders cease their threats and dismantle their nuclear program.

This may be a good cop-bad cop strategy, with Tillerson in the good-cop role. (The secretary of State acknowledged in September that the U.S. and North Korea have been in direct contact. He told reporters: We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang. We can talk to them, we do talk to them.)

Of course, sometimes Trump himself plays the good cop. During a joint press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he said, It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal.

The question, of course, is what sort of deal. Expert opinion seems to be coalescing around the idea of negotiations without precondition that could lead to a freeze on North Koreas testing of missiles and nuclear devices  a deal that the U.S. would be free to portray as an interim agreement along the way to denuclearization, but which North Korea could view as an end in itself. This would be a policy of containment in fact but not in name.

Even if such talks were slow to bear fruit, renewed negotiations  coinciding with a cessation of North Koreas nuclear and missile tests  would make everyone breathe more easily. Will Trump allow Tillerson to pursue that possibility?

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The Moscow City Court has upheld the extension of the arrest of Ukrainian journalist Roman Suschenko, who is charged with spying on Russia, Suschenko's lawyer Mark Feygin told Interfax on Friday.

"Our appeal has been dismissed. Suschenko remains under arrest," Feygin said.

The arrest of Suschenko has been extended until November 30.

The preliminary inquiry is over, and the defense is studying the case materials.

It was reported on October 3 that Suschenko had been detained "while committing an act of espionage" in Moscow. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims journalist Roman Suschenko is a career officer of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Directorate of Intelligence.

Espionage charges were brought against Suschenko, he pleaded not guilty.

Lawyer Mark Feygin said that Suschenko, who had lived in France for six years as a correspondent of the Ukrinform news agency in Paris, repeatedly visited Russia and stayed there for personal reasons at the time he was detained. His relatives live in Russia.

Kyiv says Suschenko's detention in Russia is an act of provocation and the spying charges brought against him are far-fetched.
To the editor: The problems that led a young man to fire an assault rifle, killing 26 people, in a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, had deep roots that were planted long before Sunday mornings attack. (Texas gunmans long slide to mass murder began when he attacked his own family, Nov. 7)

At so many points along the way, systems and people failed to intervene or did so unsuccessfully. Our investments in preventing domestic violence, improving mental healthcare and reducing gun violence in California make this story feel particularly familiar and tragic.

In the wake of the Texas tragedy, there is a rush to identify a single problem and then suggest simple, often theoretical solutions. Instead, we need to support programs that address the fundamental causes and explore potential solutions that could prevent this carnage in the first place.

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The L.A. County Board of Supervisors decision this week to devote new resources for domestic violence victims and prevention is a step in the right direction. We owe it to the 26 people who died on Sunday and the countless others before them to do that hard work and implement enduring solutions so we dont repeat this grisly scene next week followed by the same hollow rhetoric.

Peter Long, San Francisco

The writer is president and chief executive of the Blue Shield of California Foundation.

..

To the editor: Some have called for guns in churches. There are religious reasons to resist this call to arms.

As a symbol of protection, the gun has become an object of worship in our culture. As such, bringing a gun into a sanctuary would amount to bringing an idol, another object of worship, into the sanctuary where there is also a cross. Both are symbols of violence.

The gun is the ultimate symbol of an individuals coercive power over others; it promotes violence as a way to preserve the peace. But the cross stands for Jesus giving himself over to the authorities as a rejection of the coercive power of the Roman Empire; his death on the cross was a repudiation of violence as a way to create peace. Coercive power is exposed as a power of violence and death.

Do we really think that Jesus would bring or allow a gun into a place of worship? Working for peace through justice takes a lifetime  even, sometimes, a life.

The Rev. Rick Marshall, Brea

..

To the editor: Its not a lack of gun laws that allowed the massacre in Texas to happen, but the failure of government to carry out its own laws and do the data input that could have prevented this killer from buying his weapons.

It was the U.S. Air Force that failed to report Devin Kelleys discharge for domestic violence that allowed him to purchase guns. Similarly, Charleston killer Dylann Roof had a rap sheet a mile long, but he was able to acquire guns because of the governments failure in flagging him.

It was an armed citizen who stopped Kelly by shooting him. If he had not acted before the police arrived on the scene, Kelley probably would have killed many more people. This raises the question of whether it is better to arm citizens to stop these killers, or disarm everyone but the criminals who could not care less about gun laws.

More laws are window dressing. Enforcing the existing laws with diligence would make a real difference.

Mark Collins, Altadena

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
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
Republicans have repeatedly noted that its been more than 30 years since Congress enacted a major tax overhaul  and within the span of a couple of hours this week, they unintentionally demonstrated why.

As a House committee prepared to pass one version of a tax bill on a party line vote Thursday, Republicans on a Senate panel unveiled their own legislation, which contained major differences in key areas involving individual and business taxes.

Trump administration officials and Republican congressional leaders downplayed the disparities even as the differences loomed as significant hurdles in the rush to pass legislation by the end of the year.

They noted the bills are largely the same at their heart. Each is centered around a huge cut in the corporate tax rate and makes revisions designed to provide a break to middle-class earners  although independent analyses of the House bill say it benefits the wealthy more than average Americans.

Yes, the Senate bill is going to be different than the House bill because, you know what, thats the legislative process, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters Thursday.

But whats encouraging in all of this is  we have a framework that we established with the White House and the Senate, and these bills are being written inside that framework, he said.

Here are five major differences between the two bills.

Bracket buster

A major goal of the tax overhaul is simplification. A key to that for individuals is shrinking the number of brackets that dictate the marginal tax rate people pay on their income.

That reduction has proved to be difficult as Republican lawmakers have tried to fulfill their promise of providing a break to the middle class.

The tax framework released in September by the White House and congressional Republican leaders proposed reducing the current seven brackets to three: 12%, 25% and 35%.

The major difference was that the top bracket, which applied to income of more than $418,400 for individuals and $470,700 for couples filing jointly, declined from 39.6%.

The framework left open the option of lawmakers adding a fourth bracket to make sure the overhaul does not shift the tax burden from high-income to lower- and middle-income taxpayers.

Even before the House bill was released, drafters exercised that option.

Source: Times reporting

Source: Times reporting

They restored the 39.6% bracket but increased the income level at which it kicks in to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples filing jointly.

Senate Republicans were concerned that the Houses four proposed brackets didnt do enough to reduce middle-class taxes. So they want to keep seven brackets but change some of the percentages.

Under the Senate plan, the new top rate would be 38.5%, and that would have the same income levels as the House bill: $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for couples.

The Senate bills new brackets would reduce rates on most income.

Its a way of making sure people in the middle really benefit from this, said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

Deduction reductions

President Trump meets with Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, right, and other House Republicans last week. (Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency / Shutterstock)

Another simplification was to reduce the number of individual itemized deductions with the goal of allowing most Americans to file their taxes on a large postcard.

Eliminating deductions also would provide more revenue to offset the cost of tax cuts and keep the bill from adding more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade  a budgetary requirement for the Senate to pass the legislation by a simple majority vote.

But one of the reasons tax legislation is so difficult is that every deduction has a constituency.

The September framework called for leaving only two deductions: charitable contributions and mortgage interest. The limit on the mortgage deduction going forward was reduced to the first $500,000 of the loan.

The decision to reduce and limit the deductions immediately caused problems.

Allowed individual deductions and credits

House Bill

Charitable contributions

Interest on new mortgages up to $500,000

Property taxes up to $10,000

Child tax credit of $1,600 for each child

Tax credit for expenses of adopting a child

Family tax credit of $300 for each parent and non-child dependent

Child and dependent care tax credit

Earned income tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers

Senate bill

Charitable contributions

Interest on new mortgages up to $1 million

Medical expenses

Student loan interest

Uninsured losses from federally declared disasters

Child tax credit of $1,650 for each child

Tax credit for expenses of adopting a child

Child and dependent care tax credit

Earned income tax credit for low- and moderate-income workers

Some House Republicans from California and other high-cost states balked at eliminating the deduction for state and local income, sales and property taxes. So the House bill tried to appease them by keeping only the property tax deduction and capping it at $10,000 a year.

California House Democrats and local officials complained about the elimination of the deduction for uninsured personal casualty losses from wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Realtors and home builders complained about the new mortgage interest limit.

And conservative groups hammered the decision to eliminate the tax credit for the expenses of adopting a child. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee this week restored that credit.

The Senate Finance Committee opted to eliminate the deduction for all state and local taxes, even property taxes. The additional revenue from that move allowed the Senate bill to keep some deductions the House proposed to ax, including those for medical expenses and interest on student loans.

The deduction for casualty losses would remain but only for those incurred in a federally declared disaster.

The Senate decision to knock out all state and local deductions could cost the votes of some House Republicans.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) already had cited the state and local deduction changes as a reason he opposed the House bill. He was reviewing the Senate bills details Friday but said it may leave us with the worst of both worlds.

Under this version, you dont just have Californians looking down the road to potentially higher taxes without the [state and local tax] deduction, but youre also delaying all the economic benefits youd see from the changes in the business tax code, he said. Thats a big mistake.

Corporate tax cut timetable

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) talks with Boeing Co. employees while on a tour of the airplane factory in Everett, Wash., in August. (Elaine Thompson / AP)

The centerpiece of the House and Senate bills is a huge cut in the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%. But they differ on when that would happen.

The House bill would lower the rate in 2018, which is President Trumps preference. The Senate bill would delay the reduction until 2019.

The corporate tax cut is the single-most costly change in the tax code. It would reduce federal revenue by $1.46 trillion over the next decade. Republicans argue that cost would be offset by increased economic growth, but historically, tax cuts have not produced enough growth to offset their costs.

The Senates one-year delay would save the U.S. Treasury about $108 billion.

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said a one-year delay is better than a longer one.

Leading business groups have been publicly mum on the proposed delay. But FreedomWorks , a libertarian advocacy group, said the delay was unacceptable.

Business groups and corporate lobbyists have pushed for a reduction as other countries have lowered their rates. The U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rate among the major developed economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But many companies pay a lower effective rate  and some pay no U.S. taxes at all  by using deductions in the tax code. The overall tax burden is near the bottom among developed economies.

U.S. tax revenue as a share of total economic output was 26% in 2014, the fourth-lowest of OECD nations.

The state of the estate tax

A newly built mansion on Lexington Drive in Beverly Hills sold for $26.75 million. (Simon Berlyn / Simon Berlyn)

Republicans have long sought to kill the estate tax, a levy of up to 40% on the assets passed down by wealthy Americans upon their death to their heirs. The House bill would kill it. The Senate bill would not.

Republicans have said what they call the death tax also hits family farms and small businesses while forcing many people to pay for expensive estate planning to try to avoid it.

Democrats counter that the estate tax affects very few people because the level at which it kicks in has been increasing.

This year, the tax hit estates of more than $5.49 million for an individual or $11 million for a couple. There were 12,411 estate tax returns in 2016, but only 5,219 of those owed taxes, according to the Internal Revenue Service .

The House and Senate plans would double the exemption next year for the estate tax. Both plans also would double  to $28,000 per person and $56,000 per couple  the annual exclusion from the federal tax on gifts to children or other people.

But the House plan would repeal the estate and gift taxes entirely in 2024. That would reduce federal revenues by about $150 billion over a decade.

The Senate bill keeps the estate and gift taxes in place with the higher exemption levels.

Small-business differences

Republicans have attempted something complicated in their tax plans: providing relief to small businesses. They each do it differently.

The owners of most of those businesses, known as pass-throughs, pay taxes through the individual code.

The House proposed capping the top tax rate for such entities  sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations  at 25%.

The Senate plan would continue taxing pass-through businesses at the individual rate that would apply to the owner, with a top proposed rate of 38.5%.

But to reduce taxes for them, the Senate bill would allow most pass-throughs to deduct about 17% of their business income from their taxes.

Small-business support is crucial to passing the bills.

The National Federation of Independent Business said it was very encouraged by the Senate bill.

Last week, the group said it could not support the House bill because most of its members already pay no more than 25% and would not benefit from the reduction in the top rate. (See chart below.)

Responding to those criticisms, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee made several changes Thursday, including the creation of a new, lower 9% tax rate for the first $75,000 in business income. That rate would be phased in over several years for small pass-through businesses.

Jack Mozloom, a spokesman for the federation, said the group supported the change and was likely to back the House bill, barring any surprises in the technical language. The group is still analyzing the Senate proposal and does not yet know whether it is better than the House approach.
A year after his election, President Trump remains wildly unpopular in California, and the states voters are split over whether members of Congress should work with him when possible, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll has found.

The percentage of voters seeking cooperation overall  47%  dropped somewhat when it came to Trumps immigration policies, which the states Democratic officeholders have fought with legislation and lawsuits.

Most California voters praised immigrants and rejected negative characterizations of them that have come from the president and some of his supporters. Eight in 10 said immigrants here without proper documentation were seeking work, not a handout, and that they improve the communities in which they live.

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Those sentiments were not shared by the bulk of Republicans, a strong majority of whom remain loyal to Trump. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans said they approved of the job he was doing as president; overall only 22% of California voters gave Trump positive marks as president.

The diversity of views pointed to a continuing truth about California: Under its lopsided support for Democrats in statewide offices rests a state with persistent political schisms.

Voters who are older and white, and who live in inland California, represent the presidents most loyal supporters here and wanted most for their representatives to work with him. That said, they were more enthusiastic about Trumps policies than about Trump himself.

Younger and more diverse voters, who have propelled California in one generation from reliably Republican in statewide races to an ocean of political blue, were far harsher in their verdict on Trump and strongly opposed their elected officials cooperating with him.

Among those ages 45 and over, for example, majorities believed that representatives should work with Trump on either immigration or other fronts.

Yet of those under age 35, 62% said elected officials should never cooperate with Trump, and more than 7 in 10 said California should not work with him on immigration.

The USC/Times poll questioned 1,504 Californians, including 1,296 registered voters, online from Oct. 27 through Nov. 6, a year before the 2018 midterm election. The poll has a margin of sampling error of 4 points in either direction for registered voters; larger margins apply to smaller voter groups.

The presidents unpopularity in California comes as no surprise; he lost the state to Hillary Clinton by more than 30 percentage points. But the poll made clear that he has done nothing to improve his standing since. In fact, it has worsened.

Antipathy toward the president was key to Democratic victories in Tuesdays general election in multiple states, but it is not clear from the poll whether the sentiment will influence contests here next year. Democrats are fighting for at least seven Republican-held congressional seats in California as part of their effort to take control of the House.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, was rated as twice as popular as Trump; the states Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, also were far more popular. Only Congress, perennially dismissed by Californians and now favorably looked upon by 1 in 10 voters, was less popular than the president.

Trumps positive impression of 20% meant that both his popularity and his job approval rating were substantially lower than the 31.6% of the vote he won in the state last November.

Among the voter groups most inclined to support Trump  Republicans, white voters and those living in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire  agreement with Trumps policies was consistently higher than his popularity or job approval rating. That reflected those voters backing of Trumps policy objectives rather than his methods of accomplishing them.

Among Republicans, for example, 59% said they had a positive impression of the president, and 65% supported the job he has done in Washington. Yet 71% said they agreed with his policies.

Even some people who like his policies probably dont like his tweeting  dont like the sense of creating division and havoc, said Robert Shrum, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, which sponsored the poll.

On the other side of the political divide, however, views of Trump were unrelentingly harsh. Among members of the states largest political party, the Democrats, only 4% had a positive view of Trump and only 5% approved of the job he is doing. Eight percent backed his policies.

Latinos, whom Trump has often criticized, were among the most critical of the president. Only 14% gave him positive ratings either personally or for his job, and only 15% backed his policies.

White voters, who make up most of the Republican Party, were more positive, although Trump remained in negative territory. Fewer than 3 in 10 voters approved of him or his handling of the job, and only 34% supported his policies. (The poll did not include enough voters from other racial groups to break them out independently.)

In the polarized political environment, age, too, marked a division. About 1 in 10 under age 35 gave him good marks personally and in his job, and only 15% approved of his policies, contributing to lackluster 26% support across the state for his policies.

Trumps unpopularity has led to fierce infighting among Democrats about how and whether to cooperate with his administration  something rarely considered optional during past presidencies.

Amid a range of California voters, the answer was ambivalence.

More than 3 in 5 California voters disagreed with the presidents policies, but a smaller 53% said elected representatives should never cooperate with Trump.

(Lorena Elebee / @latimesgraphics )

Almost 9 in 10 Democrats disagreed with Trumps policies, but 42% of them said members of Congress should try to work with him, compared with 58% who said they should not.

Opposition to working with Trump was fiercest among Latinos, those under 35 and those making less than $50,000 per year. Close to two-thirds of those groups preferred that their representatives stiff-arm the president.

Disagreement followed on the question of whether California officials should cooperate with Trumps immigration policies.

Overall, only 21% said California should cooperate completely with Trumps immigration policies, and 19% said California should cooperate most of the time. Sentiment against cooperation was more extreme, with 33% saying the state should never cooperate and 27% saying it should not cooperate most of the time.

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But the responses differed sharply by political affiliation  86% of Republicans favored cooperation, while only 16% of Democrats did. Nonpartisan voters were in the middle, with 43% saying cooperation should occur all or most of the time.

Part of the reluctance flowed from the multiethnic makeup of California, where Latinos have become a powerful voting bloc and Asian voters, also often affected by immigration policies, are growing in prominence.

Californians of every demographic description, for example, said that immigrants here without papers had come not for benefits but for work. Even among Republicans, a majority, 57%, said immigrants sought work, while 43% said benefits were their goal. (Immigrants in the country illegally do not qualify for most paid government benefits.)

Only 12% of Latinos thought immigrants came here for benefits, while 25% of white voters, who tend to be older and more conservative, shared that view.

Strong majorities of Californians in many groups defended specific criticisms of immigrants in the country illegally.

Most Californians said immigrants strengthen the economy rather than take jobs that would otherwise be filled by citizens. By almost 2 to 1, Californians also said such immigrants help revitalize their communities rather than increase crime.

Republicans took exception to those views. Almost 3 in 4 said immigrants here illegally take jobs that otherwise would be filled by citizens. And 73% of Republicans said immigrants increase crime rather than serve as a positive in their communities.

Essentially, these GOP voters share views expressed by the president to whom they remain loyal.

The people who remain in the party, not just here but around the country, rally around Trump, Shrum said.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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Coverage of California politics
More than 50% of Californians favor a new sanctuary state law to shield people from deportation, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll.

This year, California officials and the Trump administration have squared off over the landmark sanctuary state law, which takes effect in January and greatly limits whom state and local law enforcement agencies can hold, question and transfer at the request of federal immigration authorities.

The law was part of a broader effort by majority Democrats in the California Legislature to shield more than 2.3 million immigrants living illegally in the state from President Trumps expanded immigration enforcement orders. It has drawn sharp rebuke from Trump officials, making it a focus of a national debate over how far states and cities can go to prevent their officers from enforcing federal immigration laws.

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But in California, the law appears to have wide approval. The USC Dornsife/L.A. Times poll surveyed 1,504 eligible voters in California from Oct. 27 to Nov. 6, one year before the 2018 election. Of those respondents, 53% favored the legislation, with 31% in strong support. Nearly 29% opposed the law  18% did so strongly.

There were broader splits among poll participants when they asked to what degree Californias leaders  the governor, attorney general and city mayors  should cooperate with Trump administration policies. The majority, about 63%, believed they should mostly not or completely not cooperate with the presidents initiatives.

(Lorena Elebee / @latimesgraphics )

California becomes sanctuary state in rebuke of Trump immigration policy 

Despite the Trump administrations repeated attempts to frame illegal immigration as a threat to public safety, the poll also found an overwhelming majority believe that people without legal residency in the country help revitalize cities as opposed to increasing crime.

The survey results, poll analysts and policy experts said, reflect ongoing trends in California, where through the decades the public has tended to support immigrants in the country illegally, even when federal or state political leaders have stoked anti-immigrant sentiment to rally their bases.

We have seen this in California forever, said Jill Darling, the survey director for the Center for Economic and Social Research at USC. People, including Republicans, have been more supportive of immigrants and reform, even to the point of supporting a path to citizenship, more so than Republican leadership.

(Lorena Iniguez/@latimesgraphics )

Most poll participants also expressed positive perceptions of people without legal residency in the country.

Nearly 63% of people surveyed said they believed immigrants without legal status strengthened the economy, as opposed to roughly 38% who said they took away jobs. Sixty-six percent said immigrants in the country illegally helped revitalize cities, and about 34%  including more than 72% of Republicans  believed they increased crime.

Policy experts said the poll results reflect the explosive growth of Latinos, Asians and other minority communities that tend to lean Democratic. Californias families are so diverse, they said, that nearly everyone knows someone who came to the country as an immigrant  legally or illegally.

It also reflects a shift away from the us-versus-them rhetoric that damaged the Republican brand in the 1990s, political consultants and immigration policy experts said. During that time, Gov. Pete Wilson was criticized for using footage of people running across the border to dramatize the problem of illegal immigration, and voters passed propositions to bar immigrants in the country illegally from public benefits, outlaw affirmative action programs and teach only English in schools.

That no longer reflects our reality, said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project. In a state like California, immigrants are us.

Andrew Medina, state policy manager for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said he wasnt surprised by the results of the poll  or by the approval among California residents for the sanctuary state law. A study released in February by the Public Policy Institute of California found that a solid majority of Californians believe the state and local governments should make their own policies and take action to protect the rights of immigrants who are here illegally.

The final language of the sanctuary state law was the result of months of tough negotiations among Gov. Jerry Brown, Senate leader and bill author Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), and law enforcement officials. It will largely prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from holding or sharing information about people with federal immigration agents unless those individuals have been convicted of one or more offenses from a list of 800 crimes outlined in a 2013 state law.

Federal immigration authorities still will be able to work with state corrections officials  a key concession Brown had demanded  and will be able to enter county jails to question immigrants. But the state attorney generals office will be required to publish guidelines and training recommendations to limit immigration agents access to personal information.

It is positive that these polls show that there is support for immigrant communities, and it is especially positive in this era, Medina said.

Still, Romero advised caution.

Discrimination against immigrants is very real and a danger, she said, pointing to anti-immigrant rhetoric at the national level. I think we cant rest on a changing landscape in California and just assume that things will continue to be more receptive and open.

jazmine.ulloa@latimes.com

@jazmineulloa

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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
Atlantic RecordsWill Smith's new Netflix movie Bright has a star-studded soundtrack, courtesy of the folks who brought you the smash soundtrack for Suicide Squad.

The album features songs by everyone from Camila Cabello and Bebe Rexha to Sam Hunt, Machine Gun Kelly and Logic, to Portugal. The Man, X Ambassadors, Ty Dolla $ign and Bastille.

Two songs from the album -- "World Gone Mad" by Bastille and "Darkside" by Ty Dolla $ign and Future featuring Kiiara -- are now available to download. November 16 will see the release of the song "Home" by Machine Gun Kelly, X Ambassadors and Bebe Rexha. The video for that song will hit Netflix on Thanksgiving Day.

The entire album, which is now available for pre-order, arrives December 13. Bright premieres December 22 on Netflix. Set in a world where magical creatures are real, Bright is about two L.A. cops -- one human, one orc -- who team up protect a deadly relic that can destroy the world.

Here's the track listing for the Bright soundtrack:

Logic & Rag'n'Bone Man Broken People

Bastille World Gone Mad

Machine Gun Kelly, X Ambassadors & Bebe Rexha Home

Camila Cabello & Grey Crown

Ty Dolla $ign & Future (feat. Kiiara) Darkside

Migos & Marshmello Danger

Meek Mill, YG & Snoop Dogg Thats My N****

Steve Aoki & Lil Uzi Vert Smoke My Dope

A$AP Rocky & Tom Morello FTW (F**k The World)

Portugal. The Man Cheer Up

alt-J Hares On The Mountain

DRAM & Neil Young Campfire

Sam Hunt This Land Is Your Land

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Klykh was in a coma in Sept, no reliable information about his health - lawyer

Ukrainian Stanislav Klykh, who is imprisoned in Russia, spent six days in a coma, his mother said. At the same time, lawyer Ilya Novikov says it happened in September.

"The health of Ukrainian Stanislav Klykh imprisoned in Russia has sharply deteriorated. He spent six days in a coma," reads a statement posted on the website Crimea.Realities late on Thursday, November 9, citing Klykh's mother.

At the same time, Crimean resident, civil activist Olha Afanasyeva added that the coma had been caused by the medicines that were given to Klykh in a psychiatric clinic.

"I talked with his mother. She has recently visited him, and he is really in a very serious condition. He was taken to a psychiatric clinic, where they stuffed him with medicines. He spent six days in a coma, he has bedsores. His mother is very upset. She says that maybe now he can still be saved... It's about saving his life," she said.

Later on Friday, November 10, lawyer Novikov wrote on Twitter that Klykh was in a coma in September and that now he was in bad condition.

"As for Stanislav Klykh, the news that he fell into a coma refer to September. There is no reliable information about his current condition, but it cannot be good in any case. Stas is seriously ill," he said.

On May 26, 2016, the Chechen Supreme Court sentenced two Ukrainian citizens, Mykola Karpiuk and Stanyslav Klykh, to 22.5 and 20 years of imprisonment, respectively. According to the verdict, Karpiuk is to serve the first ten years of his sentence in jail, while Klykh will serve the first nine years in jail, after which they will be transferred to a high-security penal colony.

On October 26, 2016, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the sentences handed out to the Ukrainians convicted in the case involving the fighting in the first Chechen campaign on the side of the UNA-UNSO organization, which is banned in Russia.

In March 2017, Klykh was transferred from Chechnya to Verkhneuralsk.

In September 2017, he was treated in a psychiatric clinic in Magnitogorsk, Russia.
Interior Ministry of Ukraine suggests that the Verkhovna Rada adopt a package of legislative changes in the field of road safety.

The legislative proposals developed by the Interior Ministry in the sphere of traffic safety were presented at a special meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by Interior Minister of Ukraine Arsen Avakov on Friday, an Interfax-Ukraine agency correspondent reported.

In particular, the minister, using the Polish experience as an example, during the meeting of the government informed that the Interior Ministry proposes to enshrine in legislation the photo and video recording of traffic violations, limit the speed of traffic in populated localities from 60 to 50 km/h, increase 20 times a fine for driving a car without rights and establish a two-year period of the driving license obtained for the first time.

Also, the Interior Ministry offers to strengthen the responsibility for driving a vehicle in the state of drug or alcohol intoxication.
Recreational marijuana users in Burbank may soon be able to cultivate their own plants at home.

The Burbank City Council unanimously voted on Tuesday to approve the first reading of an ordinance that would amend the citys ordinance that oversees the use of cannabis to better align with state law.

The proposed changes to the ordinance, which are expected to come back to the City Council on Nov. 14 for a second reading, would allow Burbank residents to grow up to six marijuana plants at one time on their property to use for recreational use, said Daniel Villa, an associate planner with the citys Community Development Department.

Residents growing and maintaining the plants would need to be 21 years old or older, Villa said.

Additionally, the proposed modifications would clarify that residents who are growing marijuana for medical use can also have no more than six plants on their property.

The citys current rules, which were approved by the City Council in January 2016, allow medical users to grow plants for their use, but Villa said they do not state how many plants users could have.

Villa said the proposed amendments would also refer to all establishments that sell marijuana products as retailers, not as dispensaries as they have been called before.

City staff had suggested the cultivation of marijuana should only be done inside a home, but some residents expressed concerns about making that a requirement.

Resident Larry Fioritto said that limiting the growth of marijuana indoors would require that people spend additional money on grow lights, ventilation and increased electricity bills.

Villa said state law allows the growth of marijuana outside of someones private residence as long as it is out of public view.

He added that city staff opted to take a conservative approach when addressing where the plants can be grown.

State law also allows those living in apartments to grow marijuana outdoors if they have access to a balcony, Villa said.

During the November 2016 election, California voters approved Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults 21 years old and older. Since then, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 94, also known as the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, which set forth rules on the use of recreational and medicinal marijuana.

Though the proposed amendments would allow people to grow their own marijuana for personal use, Villa said the changes do not affect the citys regulations on the commercial sale of the drug.

Currently, Burbanks laws prohibit all commercial activities relating to marijuana, which include deliveries, opening a business to sell cannabis and cultivation for resale.

Although the proposed amendments were brought forward to update the citys marijuana regulations, they also led to a conversation about the effectiveness of the drug for medical uses.

Resident Mary Kellerman told council members she had been using medical marijuana since she was diagnosed 18 months ago with gastroparesis, a condition in which the stomach does not allow a person to digest food properly.

She said doctors had given her various medications to combat the symptoms, but nothing worked until she started taking cannabidiol, or CBD oil, which calmed her stomach.

It helps with the pain, and it helps with the discomfort, Kellerman said. Theres this constant pit in my stomach unless I use this CBD drop.

Mayor Will Rogers, who recently announced he has stage 4 liver cancer, concurred with Kellerman, saying he has also been prescribed different medications to treat his illness, but they suppress his appetite.

Rogers said he has smoked marijuana when he becomes severely nauseous and to help bring back his appetite as he undergoes treatments.

It is a miracle when you feel youre about to vomit in the next minute, and you take two puffs and its gone, Rogers said. Its not only gone, but you want to eat again  It really is a miracle.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
A proposed desalination facility producing 5 million gallons of drinkable water a day would satisfy the needs of all South Coast Water District customers, district General Manager Andy Brunhart said this week, though he added the agency would not rely completely on that source to serve ratepayers.

The 5-acre Doheny Ocean Desalination Project would be built on 30 acres of district-owned property near San Juan Creek in Dana Point.

We would never want to be 100% desalinated water, Brunhart said Thursday. We always want to take some [imported] water so pumps do not rust and decay.

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He added that if other cities are decimated by an earthquake, South Coast could transport water through pipelines to its neighbors.

South Coast serves 35,000 residents and 1,000 businesses in South Laguna, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente.

The district will hold the next in a series of workshops about the Doheny project on Wednesday. Brunhart plans to seek the boards direction on a preferred ownership structure for the plant.

Two options are a district-owned facility or a public-private partnership.

In the latter scenario, a private company would design, build, finance and operate a facility while the district would pay for water once it was delivered.

Desalination has been a topic of interest for several years but has been the subject of debate in Orange County recently with concerns about water supply during drought conditions.

In Huntington Beach, Poseidon Water is proposing a facility that would generate 50 million gallons of drinkable water per day. Many residents there oppose the project on environmental grounds.

South Coast imports 80% of its water from Northern California and the Colorado River at the rate of $1,075 per acre foot, according to district statistics.

With an annual need of 5,100 acre feet of water to serve its customers, it costs the district $5.4 million to purchase water from the Municipal Water District of Orange County, a wholesale supplier, according to South Coast.

An acre foot is equal to 326,000 gallons, or enough water to cover an acre of land 1 foot deep.

Municipal Water purchases imported water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The projected cost of imported water in 2020 is $1,240 per acre foot, according to the district.

With an anticipated need of 5,460 acre feet per year, the districts annual cost to buy water would be $6.7 million.

Brunhart said there are plans to develop more condominiums and hotels in South Coasts coverage area and therefore an anticipated increase in water needs.

It would cost South Coast more  $1,465 per acre foot  to produce potable water from a district-owned facility that generates 5 million gallons of water per day than from imports, the district said.

The cost would jump to $2,170 per acre foot under a partnership with a private company, Brunhart said.

With a projected need of 5,460 acre feet per year in 2020, it would cost South Coast $8 million annually with a district-owned plant compared with $11.8 million under a partnership.

Water costs more under a public-private partnership because a private entity seeks a profit, Brunhart said. That said, the district acknowledged that it would assume greater risk for designing and building its own plant during a presentation to the board Oct. 31.

The earliest a facility could be operational is December 2020, Brunhart said. A draft environmental impact report on the project could be completed by June.

The district also has given projections for a facility that produces 15 million gallons a day.

The reason the district is considering a facility that could produce 15 million gallons per day is that it could potentially sell some of the water to other agencies.

Our desire is to have the ocean desalination facility at Doheny be a regional resource, more than just the district, because its the right thing to do for Orange County, Brunhart said.

Under the proposal, crews would drill wells extending from Doheny State Beach to draw water from under the ocean floor rather than from open water.

The average person in South Coasts coverage area uses 90 gallons of water per day, according to district statistics.

Poseidon Water approached South Coast last year about a potential partnership.

Brunhart said representatives from other companies have attended prior meetings and workshops on the proposed Doheny project.

Wednesdays meeting begins at 3 p.m. at South Coasts office at 31592 West St., Laguna Beach.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
The University of Chicago honored Laguna Beach High teacher Mark Alvarez with its Outstanding Educator Award, the Laguna Beach Unified School District announced this week in an news release.

For more than 30 years, the university has asked its incoming freshmen to identify and commend outstanding high school educators who have challenged them intellectually and who have contributed to their academic and personal development.

Former student Regan Caraher, who took Alvarezs economics class last year as a senior, nominated him for the award.

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In a note thanking Alvarez for his role in her high school education, Caraher said, Taking your class was by far one of the most pivotal points in my high school career. I want to thank you for teaching such a rigorous class in a way that still keeps your students eager to learn, for gifting me the knowledge that I use and will continue to use every day, and for inspiring me to strive for the highest standards.

I am honored that Regan remembered me and thrilled she is pursuing further studies in economics, Alvarez said in the release. My experience over the years at Laguna Beach High School is that the students are so thoughtful and appreciative. I couldnt ask for a better place to do what I do.

The universitys admissions office gives the award to teachers who have demonstrated exceptional dedication to the education and mentorship of their students.

Alvarez was one of multiple teachers throughout the United States who were recognized because of nominations from former students, Karen Schrum, the universitys assistant vice president for enrollment and student advancement, outreach and communications, said in a phone interview.

Teachers make such a difference in the lives of kids, Schrum said. To have someone come back later on and say, My success is because of you, there is no better feeling than that.

Alvarez has taught at Laguna Beach High for 15 years and currently instructs more than 300 students in economics, Advanced Placement macroeconomics, and Advanced Placement United States government and politics.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
As the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce looks to drum up additional business, City Council members decided this week to lend a hand.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to add the capability for businesses to sign up for chamber membership as part of their business license applications.

That option will be available for the next year as the chamber embarks on a campaign to boost its membership.

Chamber Chief Executive Eileen Benjamin said such arrangements are not unusual as most cities in the county and the state help their chambers grow.

This will go a long way for Costa Mesa, she told the council.

The chambers stated mission is to promote local business interests and Costa Mesas economic climate.

While the chamber has a bit more than 600 members, there are approximately 12,000 active business license holders citywide.

The city will collect chamber membership dues that come in through the agreed-to partnership. On a monthly basis, the city will send those funds to the chamber after deducting credit card transaction and handling fees, according to the agreement.

During Tuesdays meeting, some said the city collecting money on the chambers behalf could become a sticky issue  should the organization opt to wade into local political matters.

Several residents said they felt some chamber officials inappropriately lobbied last year against Measure Y  a growth-control initiative requiring voter approval for building projects that meet certain criteria.

Others expressed concern that signing such an agreement with the chamber could lead other community organizations to seek similar arrangements.

Chamber President Tom Johnson assured the council that the organization plans to stay out of the political arena.

We are not going to be a political organization, he said. We are going to come to City Council when theres a business that we feel like we need to support, but were not going to be endorsing candidates for office or anything like that.

Councilman John Stephens pointed out that both sides have the ability to end the pact at any time.

If the Chamber of Commerce got inappropriate and political, we could terminate the agreement, he said Tuesday. If we had a whole rash of groups that came in  and asked for this and it became a burden, we could terminate this agreement.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoney
Consumer Brands LLC, a Newport Beach-based Internet development company, has hired Newport Beach Mayor Kevin Muldoon as its leader of business development efforts, according to a news release.

Muldoon, an attorney and former Orange County deputy district attorney, has experience advising clients on corporate strategy, government licensing and compliance, constitutional legal issues, intellectual property and other business matters, company officials said.

Home furniture company to open in South Coast Plaza

CB2, a home decor and furniture company, is opening a new store in Costa Mesas South Coast Plaza shopping center Nov. 17.

On Thursday, the store will have a party from 6 to 9 p.m. with live performances, a sale, henna tattoos, tarot cards and drinks.

Builders group hosts show at fairgrounds

The Building Industry Assn. of Southern California is having a show Wednesday and Thursday at the Orange County Fair and Event Center.

The event, which normally takes place in Riverside but has been moved to Costa Mesa this year, will include networking, brainstorming and industry-related presentations.

For more information, visit facebook.com/BIS.SoCalShow.

Newport Beach medical plaza breaks ground

C.W. Driver Cos., a builder providing general contracting, construction management and design-build services, has broken ground on Newport Harbor Medical Plaza, a medical facility off Newport Boulevard.

The facility at 330 Old Newport Blvd. will be 26,500 square feet. Completion is scheduled for fall 2018.

Newport start-up company builds custom mattresses

A Newport Beach-based startup company, Design Your Own Bed (DYOB), has started an online fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo.

The company creates customized mattresses. For more information, visit designyourownbed.com.

Leadership in Heels series coming to Center Club

The Center Club in Costa Mesa is hosting a leadership event Nov. 30.

Leadership in Heels founder and CEO Scharrell Jackson keynotes the event. A portion of proceeds will benefit the Irvine-based nonprofit Working Wardrobes.

For more information, visit scharrelljackson.com/about-leadership-in-heels.

Hoag named top cardiovascular hospital

Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach was named one of the top 50 cardiovascular hospitals by IBM Watson Health, according to a news release.

Watson Healths annual study included risk-adjusted inpatient mortality, risk-adjusted complications, percentage of coronary bypass patients with internal mammary artery use, 30-day mortality rates, 30-day readmission rates and severity-adjusted average length of stay, according to a news release.

Hoag received this distinction in the past.

Mothers Market to donate to environmental nonprofit

The Costa Mesa-based Mothers Market & Kitchen chain is donating a portion of funds collected from grocery bags through Dec. 31.

The money will aid Naturalist For You, a Silverado-based environmental group.
Joshua Recalde-Martinez, a former president of the Orange Coast College Republicans club, has been chosen as an associate delegate representative for the state Republican Partys executive committee.

He was elected last month by other associate delegate representatives statewide.

I felt confident, but you never know what will come, he said in an interview. When I won, I saw so many people in the party had faith in me.

Recalde-Martinez, 18, gained national media attention when he was president of the OCC Republicans and posted a video on its Facebook page of Olga Perez Stable Cox, a human-sexuality professor at the Costa Mesa college, calling now-President Donald Trumps election victory an act of terrorism.

The video, secretly recorded by another student during class last fall, created a nationwide debate between those who said Cox had the academic freedom to express her views in a private setting and those who argued that her statements went too far.

Recalde-Martinez said the experience will help him deal with contentious situations in the future.

The Victorville native said two of his top priorities now are helping to increase Republican Party membership and providing a voice for college Republicans.

Recalde-Martinez will graduate from OCC this fall and said he plans to earn a bachelors degree in public administration through Arizona State University.

Newport Beach Womens Democratic Club meets Tuesday

The Newport Beach Womens Democratic Club will hold its monthly meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Newport Beach Yacht Club, 1099 Bayside Drive.

Speakers will be Sara Holland, who was assistant to the state field director for Obama for America in 2008 and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Haley Horton, who co-chairs the Womens Democratic Clubs Voter Outreach Committee and is a board member for the AIDS Services Foundation.

Seating is limited, and RSVPs are required. For more information, visit NBWDC.org or call (949) 423-6468.
Local Episcopal Church leaders acknowledged the continual, bruising conflict that has surrounded the St. James the Great church in Newport Beach for the last two and a half years of off-and-on sale attempts, extending a promise to transparently work together with the ascension of a new bishop and the impending reopening of the long-shuttered sanctuary.

In a joint statement released Thursday titled Making All Things New, John Taylor, the successor to retiring Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno, Rachel Nyback, president of the diocesan Standing Committee governing body, and Rev. Canon Cindy Evans Voorhees, the priest who has continued to lead the St. James the Great flock, acknowledged the pain that has come from the sales attempts and related closure.

The churchs sudden closing hurt the people of St. James, they wrote. Their leaders countenanced hurtful statements and tactics. This cycle of hurt strained relationships in the diocese. We will end the cycle by sharing our narratives openly and honestly, using reconciliation in relationship to rediscover our unity and purpose as a diocesan family in Christ.

In October, the diocese announced that the second planned sale of the church property had been canceled and that the building, locked since a separate sale attempt in 2015, would be reopened to worshippers. This weeks statement affirmed that the diocese had no plans to sell the church, although it did not give an opening date.

The church may reopen soon for weekly services with rotating guest clergy, including Taylor and Voorhees. A portion of the facility will function as a broader Redeemer Center for Diocesan Ministries.

When the prior St. James congregation resumes its mission status organizational rank, it will regain use of the church and Voorhees as its vicar, according to the joint statement.

In another statement Thursday, Taylor said few advocates on either side will likely feel completely vindicated.

Winners and losers. Polarization and accusations of duplicity and betrayal. Inflexible positions and disrupted friendships, he said. Not the church at its best  but inevitable consequences whenever controversy erupts, the fog of conflict descends, and colleagues in leadership and ministry take up sides instead of tending relationships. In the midst of conflict, were often at our worst when we think or know were right.

Bruno told the congregation in May 2015 that he had committed to selling the site at 3209 Via Lido for $15 million to would-be luxury townhouse developer Legacy Partners. He locked the church doors and kept them closed even after the transaction fell through when Legacys investment partner dropped out.

This year, he entered negotiations with Newport Beach developers Burnham Ward for an undisclosed sum. The local company said it wanted to maintain the site as a place of worship.

Bruno  who is stepping down this month as he approaches the churchs mandatory retirement age  has faced a string of ecclesiastical disciplinary orders related to his attempts to sell the St. James property.

In March, a church panel conducted a three-day hearing similar to a trial in which Bruno answered allegations of misconduct related to his 2015 sale try. In August, the hearing panel found that he had engaged in misconduct and recommended a three-year suspension from ministry for Bruno, plus halting his renewed efforts to sell the St. James site. It also recommended unlocking the building so the congregation could resume worship there.

However, the diocese later said it planned to proceed with selling the property to Burnham Ward, citing a legal obligation created by Bruno.

Voorhees and other St. James congregation leaders offered to buy the property and run it independently, a proposal the diocese considered but rejected, the joint statement said.

Moving forward, the statement added, congregants will stop using communications strategists and social media to advocate in connection with its relationship to the diocese.

On the secular side, Save St. James the Great, an advocacy organization formed by church members after the 2015 sale effort, has dropped its appeal of an Orange County Superior Court ruling that Bruno, as a one-man corporation known as Corporation Sole, had the legal right to sell the church.

As a part of the  dismissal they have requested that I agree to not pursue legal actions against them and their legal counsel for filing a malicious prosecution lawsuit against Corporation Sole in 2015, Bruno wrote in a statement released Wednesday evening. Although there is sound basis on which to pursue further legal action, so as to fully resolve the conflict, I have agreed to those terms.

Similarly, an Orange County judge ruled in July that Bruno had legal control over the church property, nullifying a claim by the lands donor that it can only be used as a church.

The Griffith Co., which donated the land to the diocese in 1945, raised a deed restriction issue after the bishops first attempted sale.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
Military veterans received a heros welcome Thursday morning from students and faculty at Mariners Elementary School in Newport Beach as part of the campuss annual Veterans Day celebration.

Members of Boy Scout Troop 325 recited the Pledge of Allegiance during a flag ceremony alongside 20 veterans representing various branches of the armed services and several wars before the vets headed into classrooms to share their stories.

Some arrived wearing their uniforms and medals, while others brought personal mementos.

As first-time visitor Norman Briggs, 73, prepared to talk with second- and third-graders, he said he would steer clear of war stories and instead talk about fun things like his experience as a paratrooper.

Briggs said he was in the Army reserve for 41 years and was stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He served as an infantry officer on two-year duty as a paratrooper.

Briggs set the scene for students and described a plane flying at 1,000 feet with all its doors open and carrying more than a dozen military personnel wearing two 30-pound parachutes.

He stood up to wave one hand above his head, making a motion similar to waving a lasso. It was a signal for paratroopers to stand up and get ready to jump off the plane.

The first command makes you nervous, he said. This is it. You start getting ready and maybe your blood starts rushing.

Paratroopers form a line, also called a stick, and begin patting each other down, making sure their parachutes are firmly attached.

You just dont do this willy-nilly  you go by command, Briggs said. Some troops have drowned because they landed in water instead of on land, he added.

As the plane starts to slow down, paratroopers shuffle toward the jump door. At that point, theres no turning back, Briggs said. Once the green light is given, the jump master slaps each paratrooper on the back and its time to jump, he said.

Students mimicked real paratroopers by forming a stick by the classroom door. One by one they shuffled toward the door and placed their hands against the frame. Once Briggs patted their backs, they bunny-hopped over the doors threshold.

Briggs, who lives in San Diego, said in an interview that he felt it was important to offer a different perspective of a career few soldiers can qualify for.

Second-grader Katherine Harrington, 7, said her favorite part was jumping out the door, though she doesnt picture herself pursuing a career as a paratrooper.

Fellow student Elias Zunzunegui said he enjoyed hearing about history.

The kids love this, said Teresa Hlista, a parent who has organized the veterans event the past five years. It teaches kids what service is in our country, and theyre always so respectful. Im most proud of these kids on this day  they just eat it up.

Priscella.Vega@latimes.com

Twitter: @vegapriscella
The situation in the Anti-Terrorist operation (ATO) zone in Donbas did not change much over the past week, and members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) continued to observe violent incidents, the Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM, Alexander Hug, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

The scale of violence did not increase over the past week, but a number of violent episodes were observed in particular districts, Hug said, adding that the mission saw over 5,000 ceasefire violations in Donbas over the course of the week.
The acronym FABAG doesnt do justice to the Filipino-American Business Assn. of Glendale. And FABAG certainly didnt indicate the value of the organizations event on Oct. 28 titled Philippine Heritage Arts and Culture Celebration.

Filipino-Americans are the third largest ethnic group in Glendale, said state Assemblywoman Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), who was at the event. Also, according to Friedman, the citys Filipino community is growing here.

It was standing room only in the auditorium at the Glendale Central Library as association members and guests were served from a buffet of Filipino food to start the evening. Co-hosting were members of the Alexis Louise Quiza Foundation.

Edith Fuentes, member of the associations board of directors, was mistress of ceremonies for the nights activities. Joy Quiza, founder of the Alexis Louise Quiza Foundation, joined her. Fuentes introduced the dignitaries present, including Friedman.

Among those attending were Glendale Mayor Vartan Gharpetian, City Council members Paula Devine and Vrej Agajanian, Armine Gharpetian, members of the Glendale Unified school board, and Evette Kim, from Portantinos office.

After introductions came a lively program of dancing, singing and a fashion show of Filipiniana-inspired formal gowns and headdresses modeled by title holders from the Miss Young Filipino USA Pageant held earlier this year.

The models included teenagers Alyssa Guevara, Jazlynn Dizon, Alexandra Dalumpines and Shelley Quinn. Quinns proud mom, Fely Quinn, must have worn out her smartphone, taking photo after photo of the girls. Pageant finalist Erica Rose Madlangsakay from San Fernando posed prettily with Devine.

Friedman has co-authored a resolution making June 12 Filipino Independence Day. Oct. 28 is considered Filipino Heritage Day.

On display were certificates of recognition from the legislative offices represented at the event, including one from the office of U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).



Please Help Us Raise Money, read the flier. To that end, the St. Vincent de Paul Society recently teamed up with the St. James/Holy Redeemer Catholic Communities to put on their fourth annual fundraiser. The New Moon restaurant in Montrose hosted the event and donated 15% of its proceeds to those in need who contact the Catholic churches for help, which can include rent assistance and help with paying utilities as well as clothing, food, various kitchen appliances and car repairs.

Conference committee members of the twin parishes of St. James and Holy Redeemer hold interviews with those who need help. Supervising is Rev. Edward Dover. Conference committee member and La Crescenta resident Faith Holland was present at the fundraiser.

La Crescenta resident Eleanor Spaziano also attended and celebrated her birthday at the same time. Her guests were Tujunga residents Julia Vera and Yolanda Broutin. A hit at their table was the overflowing Chinese chicken salad.

Other La Crescenta residents attending the fundraiser were Stephanie Chong and Dolores Bromberek, who is the president of the St. Vincent de Paul, St. James/Holy Redeemer conference.

We dont care if [those in need] are Catholic or not, Bromberek said.

According to Spaziano, the days proceeds were about $400.

RUTH SOWBY RANDS may be reached at ruthasowby@gmail.com.
Near the end of Point Break, the 1991 film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, FBI agent Johnny Utah bids farewell to bank robber Bodhi with a Vaya con Dios, meaning Go with God in English.

But, this is not Point Break and the people mentioned hereafter are not Keanu Reeves or Patrick Swayze, and God may not have gone with them.

Earlier this week, the Glendale Police Department arrested two men and one teenage boy on suspicion of residential burglary after a witness spotted two suspicious people wearing matching masks of Ronald Reagan breaking into an apartment.

Thats where any similarities to the 90s movie end.

Glendale Police Sgt. Daniel Suttles said the witness saw the masked men climb onto the first-floor balcony of an apartment in the 300 block of North Kenwood Street and enter the home sometime around 9 a.m. An idling car occupied by a lone driver was waiting on the street, he said.

While the witness called the authorities, the men entered the waiting vehicle and began to flee the area, according to the witness. Suttles said the witness was already in his own car and followed the alleged burglars.

He followed them for a couple of blocks, Suttles said. Right around Lexington and Glendale were where the cops found the car and, from there, they took over [following the vehicle] and pulled them over.

A search of the vehicle was conducted, and officers reported finding the matching masks of the 40th president as well as a replica handgun and personal items belonging to the victim living in the burglarized apartment.

Suttles said the two men, 20-year-old Gagik Sarkisjan and 18-year-old Narek Martirosyan, were booked into jail on suspicion of burglary. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old who allegedly acted as the getaway driver was booked into juvenile hall.

All three are Glendale residents.

According to Suttles, investigators think the burglary was not random and that the three specifically targeted the apartment.

Anyone with information about the burglary can contact Glendale police at (818) 548-4911. Anonymous tips can be made at (800) 222-8477.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc
Island Air, the airline whose service linked four Hawaiian islands, will shut down as of midnight Friday, the company announced late Thursday.

The carrier served Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui and Oahu.

Passengers with reservations on Island Air beyond Friday must make alternative arrangements for inter-island transportation, Island Air said in a news release.

No alternative arrangements were offered.

For inquiries on refunds, the airlines website said, please contact your credit card company.

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It directed passengers to a toll-free number. A recording Thursday evening said, Your call is being forwarded to a Shoretel voicemail system. Ext. 8099 is not available. Thank you for calling. If you know the extension of the person you want to reach, you may dial it now.

Airline officials blamed the shutdown on those who own and lease five new aircraft.

Island Air announced in early September that it was adding new Bombardier Q400 turboprops, but last month, in a dispute with those lessors, Island Air filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The impact on Southern Californians and other passengers from the U.S. mainland is expected to be minimal because Hawaiian Airlines operates the largest share of transpacific and inter-island flights. Hawaiian Airlines has 200 flights a day, compared with Island Airs 200 a week.

Island Airs demise could be a plus for Southwest Airlines, which last month announced plans to begin flying to Hawaii, most likely in 2019.

On Wednesday, before Island Airs shutdown announcement, Bloomberg reported that inter-island flights are something that could prove lucrative for Southwest.

Southwest Chief Executive Officer Gary Kelly said last month that island-hopping flights are something its obviously considering, Bloomberg wrote. Theyre attractive in terms of year-round demand, easy weather, and steady prices.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel

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When U.S. Marines entered the Afghan militarys operations control center at an airfield here in April, they found a scene of confusion.

Afghan officers were coordinating operations against Taliban insurgents using paper maps taped to the walls. They were uncertain of the locations of key mosques, hospitals, bridges  even their own ground troops.

The war was going badly in Helmand, one of Afghanistans most volatile provinces and the deadliest for international forces in 16 years of hostilities. Since the Marines left in 2014 as part of a U.S. military drawdown, Afghan forces were losing scores of troops every month and had watched the Taliban march up to the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, lobbing rockets inside the airfield.

Seven months after a Marine-led task force returned, Helmand has become one of the few bright spots in the Afghan war , offering a blueprint for President Trumps troop surge, which will raise the number of American service members training and advising Afghan soldiers and police from 11,000 to about 15,000.

At the outset, a few dozen Marines moved into a series of low-slung buildings at Bost airfield outside Lashkar Gah, which houses an Afghan army brigade, the provincial police headquarters and the regional military control center. The Marines cleared cobwebs and old clothes out of a storage room and converted it into a mess hall where they dine on military rations, or eggs and instant noodles Afghans bring from a local market.

It's like we turned the lights back on.  Maj. Paul Rivera, a U.S. Marine advisor, on returning to Helmand province

At left, Afghan soldiers get their advanced training at the Regional Military Training Center in Helmand Province. At right, Marine Brig. Gen. Roger B. Turner Jr., center, discusses plans with Helmand Provincal Gov. Hayatullah Hayat, right, after they wrap up a security shura with leaders of local security forces in Helmand Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Next door, separated by a chain-link fence, is the control center where Marines have helped Afghan officers replace static maps with Google Earth, plot civilian buildings and ground troops with multicolored icons and process intelligence from the field.

Weve seen them exponentially increase their ability to manage the battle space because they can visualize it, said Maj. Paul Rivera, a Marine advisor from Houston. Its like going from being color-blind to seeing in color.

By re-engaging in Helmand, Rivera added, its like we turned the lights back on.

The U.S. militarys Task Force Southwest, led by 300 Marine advisors, has revitalized Afghan forces and increased airstrikes during a sustained government offensive that has pushed the Taliban away from major towns and highways and eliminated the threat to Lashkar Gah, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

While the Marines deployment to Helmand took shape in the last months of the Obama administration, their mission encompasses one of the main goals of Trumps troop surge, which Pentagon officials say is to get U.S. mentors out of large bases and closer to where Afghans are fighting in order to have a greater impact on the battlefield.

I think were doing whats in the new strategy now, within the capability and capacity we have, said Brig. Gen. Roger Turner, commander of the task force based at Camp Shorab, a small outpost next to the sprawling emptiness of Camp Leatherneck, an abandoned base that once housed more than 20,000 NATO troops.

Top, members of the Afghan Army Elite 7th Special Operations Kandak conduct a CASEVAC training near Camp Shorab in Helmand Province. Soldiers from the 3rd Company 6th Battalion 215th ANA Corp get their advance training in squad formations, left, and squad attacks, right, at the Regional Military Training Center in Helmand Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Roughly one-third of Turners troops have previously served in the province, etched in Marine lore for the bloody battles fought here in 2010 and 2011. Some 350 Americans lost their lives helping Afghan forces secure key districts  only to see many fall back under Taliban influence after they withdrew.

The new mission is different. While U.S. special operations forces still conduct secret raids, the Marines in Helmand, like the rest of conventional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, dont patrol highways or visit mud-walled villages anymore. They advise government troops from inside military bases, provincial offices and operations centers lined with monitors streaming surveillance footage.

(Los Angeles Times)

That has meant far fewer U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan  13 this year compared to nearly 500 in 2010, when there were 10 times as many American troops here.

But in a bid to break what Pentagon officials have described as a stalemate in the 16-year war, the Trump administration has expanded military commanders authorities to conduct airstrikes and deploy advisory units farther into the field, potentially putting them at greater risk.

Trump has set no end date for the troop commitment and Pentagon planners have declined to specify the numbers or destinations of the extra U.S. forces. That is a reversal from the Obama administration, which announced its intention to pull all U.S. troops out by 2014 before abandoning that plan when security deteriorated.

The enduring commitment to Afghanistan is hugely impactful to our partners, and I think to the population its the same thing, Turner said.

I think they want us to be here and they want us to help make things better here. And I think its had an impact on the enemy too, because now they cant just wait us out.

When Marines and British troops departed Helmand in October 2014, the Afghan army and police proved incapable of holding the Taliban at bay. Resources were slow to arrive from the capital, Kabul, and security forces complained of not being paid on time. Morale sank and desertions soared.

Crucially, without U.S. trainers, the Afghans could not request American airstrikes. Holed up inside checkpoints, they were easy targets for insurgents who see Helmand as their cash cow: home to the poppy fields that produce more than three-quarters of the worlds opium, the Talibans most important source of revenue.

The month before the Marines withdrew in 2014, 39 soldiers from the Afghan armys 215th Corps in Helmand were killed in action, according to U.S. military figures. During the same month of the following year, that number soared to 115.

Clockwise from top left: Afghan soldier Shokolah Saqib gets treated at the 215th Corps hospital at Camp Shorabak; U.S. Marines unload equipment from their MaxxPro armored vehicles in Camp Shorab; a soldier prays in the grassy area of a base in Helmand Province; and Afghan officers coordinate information relay at the Tactical Operations Center in Camp Shorab. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The commander of Afghan police in the province, Maj. Gen. Ghulam Daoud Tarakhel, saw his headquarters at Bost come under a steady barrage of rocket fire from insurgents poised at the city limits.

We couldnt even stand outside, Tarakhel said. Mortars would hit this spot from every side.

A small Army-led task force deployed to Helmand last year and began reestablishing links with Afghan soldiers based next to Shorab. It soon became clear that the Afghan commander was a big part of the problem. Appointed to purge the ranks of ghost soldiers  who existed only on paper so that corrupt officials could pocket their salaries  the commander, Maj. Gen. M. Moein Faqir, was arrested early this year on charges including stealing money meant to buy food for his men.

The Marines rotated in with a simple mission  keep Lashkar Gah from falling to the Taliban. They came just as a new Afghan commander was installed.

Maj. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, a burly, no-nonsense officer with a thick mustache, quickly forged a close relationship with Turner. He sometimes joined the blue-eyed, square-jawed general for strategy sessions over dinner at the Marines cafeteria, armed with large discs of Afghan flatbread.

In May, Ahmadzai impressed the Marines when he rode at the front of a convoy of Afghan troops as they fought to dislodge insurgents from Marjah, the poppy-growing town where nearly 50 Americans died in a major 2010 battle. In the months that followed, Marines advised Afghan operations to push Taliban fighters out of districts surrounding Lashkar Gah.

At left, Afghan soldiers conduct training near Camp Shorab. At right, A U.S. Army helicopter gets ready to take off from Camp Bost, Helmand Province. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

In July, with American F-16 jets and Apache attack helicopters supplying airstrikes, Afghan soldiers and police recaptured Nawa, a large town south of Bost airfield. They took down Taliban flags and presented them to their Marine advisors as gifts.

We have seen some good changes under my leadership, Ahmadzai said. Generals who werent capable of doing the job were removed. And because the Marines have come back and supported us, we have been able to clear all the main roads in the province.

The provincial government has begun to reopen schools and clinics in Nawa. Unlike in the past, when Marines tried to install basic social services in liberated districts, commanders are leaving governance to Afghan officials.

The focus is security and defeating the Taliban, said Col. Matthew Reid, the task forces deputy commander. [Fixing] governance, corruption, narcotics  that comes later. First you need to win the fight.

By aggressively attacking the Taliban, Reid said, the Afghans suffer fewer casualties. In the solar month ending Sept. 21, 36 Afghan soldiers in the Helmand-based corps were killed, the lowest total for that month in five years.

But the Afghans need American support to remain on the offensive. Pentagon officials say the troop increase will allow U.S. forces to reach beyond Afghan corps headquarters and into smaller bases to directly advise brigade and battalion leaders and coordinate more airstrikes.

Advisors have also helped the Afghans make better use of their burgeoning air assets, including surveillance drones.

One recent morning, two convoys of Afghan security forces traveling south toward Lashkar Gah came under fire from a house inside the village of Malgir. Inside a windowless, high-ceilinged room at an operations center near Shorab, Marines, Afghan officers, and American civilian contractors watched footage from a U.S.-made ScanEagle drone hovering above the village.

Once Afghan troops in the area determined the shooters location and that there were no civilians nearby, officers in the control room requested airstrikes, which were carried out by U.S. Apache helicopters. One of the shooters was killed, two were wounded and two escaped, said Afghan army Maj. Abdul Wakil.

If its a steady target we can use an Afghan aircraft to strike them, Wakil said. If they are moving targets, we can use our Apaches.

He shot a glance at the Marine major next to him and corrected himself: I mean, the American Apaches.

Top, U.S. Marines play basketball at sundown in Camp Shorab, Helmand Province. At left, U.S. Navy Lt. Damien Horvath watches a football game through the window of a dining facility in Camp Shorab. At right, U.S. Marines pick up their meals and exit the dining facility to eat outside at sundown in Camp Shorab. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Afghans attribute their recent successes to the Marines. At a training facility outside Shorab, as recruits practiced infantry maneuvers in a dirt field, instructor Mir Ahmad Malangzai said that after he was injured in a roadside bomb blast last year, Americans trained him to teach a course in detecting explosives.

Its with the Marines support and cooperation that weve reached this level, Malangzai said. If they leave again, things will 100% be reversed.

Commanders acknowledge that the task forces young Marines, in particular, would rather be fighting insurgents themselves.

Marine Sgt. Andrew Comtois, advisor to Helmands fledgling sniper training program, served three tours in Iraq and deployed to Sangin in 2013, when Marines were beginning to pull back to Leatherneck. On his wrist, he wore a bracelet bearing the names of four friends who had been killed in Afghanistan.

Being a sniper and being passionate, I would love to be back out there on the front lines fighting, Comtois said. But its not our fight anymore.

He watched as a young Afghan soldier lay on the ground behind a rifle, aiming at a target painted on a trash can 110 yards away. When he arrived in Helmand last month, Comtois found that sniper students were given only 20 rounds of ammunition with which to practice, the result of supply shortages. Sometimes instructors didnt set up targets, leaving students to aim their mock weapon into thin air.

Its a new process for them, he said. Theyre still getting that discipline.

Task force commanders expect that when they complete their deployment in early 2018, a larger group of Marines will follow.

Weve got a lot of blood, sweat and tears in the soil, a lot invested here, Reid said. If theres a long-term strategy for Helmand to ensure that its a secure province where terrorists dont have safe haven, the Marine Corps wants to be part of that solution.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia

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The Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-nation regional bloc encompassing more than 600 million people, will mark its 50th anniversary at a summit beginning Sunday in the Philippines. Attendees are to include President Trump , concluding his first official visit to Asia.

With a rare moment in the global spotlight, ASEAN faces a crucial question: Will it address the humanitarian catastrophe involving Rohingya Muslims that is unfolding on its doorstep?

United Nations officials have described the exodus of more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar  an ASEAN member state  as ethnic cleansing. The United States has withdrawn assistance from Myanmar army units it blames for driving members of the ethnic and religious minority from their homes.

But ASEAN, which maintains a policy of noninterference in members domestic affairs, has remained mostly silent. The summit website has posted condolences to victims of bombings in Iraq and hurricanes in the Caribbean  but nothing on what international aid agencies describe as the worlds most urgent humanitarian crisis.

Left, Rohingya refugee receive bananas from a Bangladeshi volunteer after crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh at Shah Porir Dwip Island near Teknaf . (Tauseef Mustafa / AFP/Getty Images). Right, a young Bangladesh boy waits on his boat as volunteers load water bottles on the boat to distribute to the Rohingya Muslim refugees who were stranded after leaving Myanmar waiting to enter Bangladesh. (Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP/Getty Images)

What is the Rohingya crisis?

In late August, the army in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, responded to a series of militant attacks by unleashing a scorched-earth campaign across northern Rakhine state in the countrys west, home to more than 1 million Rohingya Muslims.

Humanitarian groups estimate that more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled the onslaught and settled in overcrowded refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh.

Because journalists and independent agencies have been, in effect, barred from northern Rakhine, it has not been possible to assess the extent of the damage or how many people were killed.

Refugees who reached Bangladesh  including children who were separated from their parents  have told aid workers that Myanmar soldiers burned their homes, sexually assaulted and executed villagers and shot others as they fled.

Rohingya Muslim children, who crossed from Myanmar into Bangladesh, wait for their turn to receive food handouts distributed to children and women by a Turkish aid agency at Thaingkhali refugee camp in Bangladesh. (Dar Yasin / Associated Press)

How serious is the humanitarian situation?

After a visit to refugee camps in Bangladesh this month, Simon Henshaw, the acting assistant U.S. secretary of State for refugee affairs, described the conditions as shocking.

Despite an outpouring of international aid, humanitarian agencies have struggled to meet the needs of the swelling population of new arrivals, including many who arrive gravely ill from the journey.

In one camp, Kutupalong, the United Nations Childrens Fund reported this month that 26,000 refugees face acute shortages of food and water and high rates of diarrhea and respiratory infections. An assessment found that 7.5% of children in the camp faced life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.

Those with severe malnutrition are now at risk of dying from an entirely preventable and treatable cause, said UNICEFs Bangladesh representative, Edouard Beigbeder.

Top, Rohingya refugee children walk at Moynerghona refugee camp in Bangladesh, where nearly a million refugees are fighting for space. Left, a Rohingya Muslim woman, Shahida Begum, holds her 3-month-old son inside her shelter in Thaingkhali refugee camp. Right, a Rohingya refugee girl takes a shower at Thaingkhali refugee camp. (Tauseef Mustafa / AFP/Getty Images / Dar Yasin / Associated Press)

What has been Myanmars response?

Myanmars government does not recognize the Rohingya as one of 135 official ethnic groups and regards them as Bangladeshis who migrated to the country illegally. Many Rohingya families dispute this, saying their roots in western Myanmar date back generations.

Aung San Suu Kyi , the Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads Myanmars first democratically elected government in a half-century, played down the severity of the attacks in a speech in September, arguing that more than 50% of villages in Rakhine were intact.

Suu Kyi visited the state last week for the first time since the exodus began and has said Myanmar would begin allowing refugees to return home  although experts believe that because Myanmar doesnt consider the Rohingya citizens, they could be barred from reentering the country.

At the summit, the aloof Suu Kyi could be pushed to answer questions.

She will be forced to meet people and talk about this, which is a healthy thing, said Khin Zaw Win, director of the Tampadipa Institute, an independent think tank in Myanmar. In a democracy thats the kind of thing that must happen.

Clockwise from top left: Rohingya refugee children attend recitation classes of the Koran in a newly opened religious school amid material stocked for constructing latrines in Balukhali refugee camp; an exhausted Rohingya lies on the muddy ground after crossing from Myanmar into Bangladesh; Rohingya refugees carry an old man toward the shore of Naf River as people arrive by boats, in Teknaf, Bangladesh; Rohingya Muslims cross the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, near Palong Khali, Bangladesh. (Bernat Armangue / Associated Press / Abir Abdullah / EPA / Shutterstock)

How have regional countries reacted?

The crisis has split Southeast Asia largely along religious lines. When ASEAN issued a tepid statement in September  expressing support for Myanmars government and even omitting the term Rohingya  predominantly Muslim Malaysia distanced itself from the document.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has called on the United States, China and the United Nations to take action to resolve the refugee crisis. But critics say Razak is using the Rohingya issue to distract from a massive corruption scandal and to consolidate Muslim votes before elections next year.

Large anti-Myanmar protests have erupted in Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority country. Indonesia, where ASEAN is headquartered, has offered low-profile humanitarian assistance, setting up a hospital in Rakhine that treats members of all ethnic groups.

Thailand, which in past years has turned away Rohingya refugees attempting to flee Rakhine by boat, has supported Myanmar, a close ally. Singapore has hewed to the principle of noninterference.

What could the ASEAN meeting accomplish?

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement this week calling on Myanmar to end the use of excessive force and allow full access to U.N. agencies investigating abuses. Human rights groups argue that regional leaders should raise pressure on Myanmar to allow a U.N. fact-finding mission.

The ASEAN meeting, along with an Asia-Pacific economic summit preceding it in Vietnam, affords a chance for strong action on a problem that is among the worst human rights catastrophes in Asia in years, said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch .

World leaders shouldnt return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses and allow in independent observers and aid groups, Adams said.

Could Trump play a role? He has urged strong and swift action to end violence against the Rohingya, and his administration has withdrawn aid to Myanmars military. Trump could use the crisis to needle the Obama administration, which staunchly supported Suu Kyi, but so far he has skirted human rights issues on his Asia trip.

Khin Zaw Win said ASEAN could not be taken seriously as a global body if the Rohingya were not on its agenda.

ASEAN is trying to assert itself and take center stage in this part of the world, he said. If this issue were to be swept under the carpet, it would really be very shabby.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Twitter: @SBengali
After Aiko Tamura, a 23-year-old Tokyo resident, posted on Twitter her desire to commit suicide, her brother frantically began looking for clues to her whereabouts after she went missing Oct. 21.

His efforts triggered a police raid that uncovered a horrifying scene in a studio apartment in central Japan: nine severed heads, along with about 240 human bones packed in boxes filled with cat litter in an apparent attempt to conceal the stench.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said Takahiro Shiraishi was arrested Oct. 30. He was arrested Oct. 31.

As authorities continue their investigation  the remains of Tamura and eight other victims have been identified  many in Japan are asking how social media was used to reach the victims and whether it can unwittingly bolster destructive or suicidal thoughts.

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On Oct. 31, Japanese police arrested 27-year-old Takahiro Shiraishi of Zama City, in Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo. He faces one charge of disposing of dead bodies, but more charges are expected.

This is a case where cries for help were exploited, and [victims] were manipulatively drawn out, Japans chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said at a news conference Friday. The tactics used were extremely vile.

Suga said a multi-agency committee to propose prevention plans to avoid a repeat of the Zama case has been launched. The group will review how to deal with suicide postings on the internet and how to better support troubled youths. It aims to wrap up its findings by the end of the year.

Placing regulations on Twitter is not absolute but is likely to be considered, Suga said. Twitter did not return requests for comment Friday on his remarks.

Along with Tamura, the remains of seven other women were discovered, authorities said. One victim was male. The oldest was 26, the youngest 15. Police estimated that two of the victims had been dismembered only a week or two before Shiraishis arrest. The rest had been dead for weeks or months.

The case continues to unfold as San Francisco-based Twitter announced new global guidelines concerning posts on self-destructive behavior. On Nov. 3, the company unveiled rules saying Twitter users may not promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.

We did not rewrite the section on suicide and self harm because of this case, but we would like to avoid these types of cases from happening, Kaori Saito, a Twitter spokeswoman in Japan, said two days before Sugas comments at Fridays news conference. We are adding more wording to the rules on [suicidal posts] and clarifying whats OK and whats not OK on Twitter.

Japanese media outlets, citing police sources, say Shiraishi approached most victims using Twitter. Shiraishi, who authorities say referred to himself as a suicide expert on hanging, told his victims he would help them with their suicides, even die with them, reports said.

One Twitter account linked to him, @hangingpro, carried the message: I would like to help those who are truly suffering. Feel free to DM me.

According to media reports, Shiraishi used to work in the red light district of Tokyo as a scout, someone charged with finding women to work as prostitutes. He moved to the Zama apartment Aug. 22.

Within a week or so of moving in, Shiraishi killed his first victim, police estimate. Authorities say that he attacked his victims after offering them alcohol or tranquilizers, adding that many of the remains were thrown out with his trash. Neighbors have noticed strong odors coming from the garbage area and Shiraishis room for two months, police said.

Plastic bands, ropes, a saw, a hatchet and kitchen knives have been recovered by investigators from Shiraishis apartment. Multiple bank cards, medical cards, train cards and bags of victims belongings and remains also have been recovered from the scene, according to police records.

Investigators identified the remains found with Tamura through DNA analysis. Local media reports say three of the female victims were high school students and one attended college. The one man who was killed was reportedly the boyfriend of a 21-year-old.

Critics have pointed out how Twitter  which is used more than Facebook or Instagram by Japanese teens and 20-somethings, according to Japanese government data  could be misused in a country with high suicide rates. Twitter has 45 million monthly users in Japan, one of the countries with the largest number of Twitter users outside the U.S.

The majority of Twitter users in Japan are young people, and the app is popular because it allows for anonymity, a safe place in a country where speaking your thoughts openly can still be a cultural taboo, said Masakatu Morii, professor of information and communication technology at Kobe University.

Social media sites have been a convenient outlet for young people contemplating suicide to reach out to others, said Yasuyuki Deguchi, professor of criminal psychology at Tokyo Future University. In most cases, those feeling suicidal probably just wanted to talk to someone and not actually die, he said.

To avoid further cases like the Zama one, representatives at suicide prevention organizations say steps should be taken to stop predators from preying on troubled youths.

It may be prudent to ban those under 18 from using social media like Twitter in the same way they arent legally allowed to smoke or drink alcohol, said Masashi Yasukawa, president of nonprofit National Web Counseling Council, which trains youth counselors. Middle school and high school students dont have enough life experience and can be too trusting of strangers on social media, Yasukawa said.

Japanese youths are comfortable communicating through texts, said Jiro Ito, representative of Tokyo-based suicide prevention nonprofit OVA. Telephone hotlines have long been available, but given the comfort level young people have with texting and Twitter, perhaps text-based counseling and intervention programs should be made available, he said.

As for the Twitter account @hangingpro, it has been suspended.

Nagano is a special correspondent.
In President Rodrigo Dutertes Philippines, the police, with his explicit support, have killed thousands of alleged drug dealers and users without due process, some while they were in jail, or asleep, or at home with their families. They allegedly shot a 17-year-old while he was in custody, then dumped his remains in an alley. The youngest victim was 4.

Human rights groups, the U.S. Congress, the European Union and the United Nations have all condemned Dutertes war on drugs. Yet when President Trump meets Duterte in Manila, it probably wont enter the conversation.

The two leaders will hold talks at the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations summit on Monday in Manila, marking the last leg of Trumps five-country Asian tour, which has also included stops in Japan, South Korea, China and Vietnam. There are no signs that he will press Duterte on the killings  the White House, in advance of the trip, said Trump enjoys a warm rapport with the Philippine leader. Duterte, analysts say, is probably delighted.

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Duterte was in Vietnam on Friday along with Trump and other regional leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where Duterte made news after saying he killed someone when he was as young as 16. He had previously bragged about killing suspected criminals in Davao, where he had served as mayor.

When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail, Duterte said Friday in Da Nang, Vietnam. Id have rumbles here, rumbles there. At the age of 16, I already killed someone  a real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to this latest admission.

Duterte is tough-talking, but hes actually notably thin-skinned, said Phelim Kine, a deputy director in Human Rights Watchs Asia Division. When hes criticized, he lashes out. So what hes looking for, and what he hopes for from Trump, is someone who wont talk about his human rights record, and will give him very much what he desires  which is international acceptance and recognition, what hes been denied since he took office because of his bloody drug war.

A Catholic priest blesses photos of victims of killings during a Mass in Quezon City, east of Manila, Philippines, on Oct. 31, 2017. (Rolex Dela Pena / EPA/Shutterstock )

Trump and Duterte will discuss trade and investment, innovation, addressing cybercrime, countering radicalization, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, protection and promotion of rights for migrant workers, Robespierre Bolivar, spokesman for the Philippine foreign ministry, said on Friday. They will be joined by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, as well as Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Trump has shown no interest in criticizing the drug war  in an April phone call with Duterte, he reportedly congratulated him for doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem. Yet Duterte still cautioned Trump against bringing it up. You want to ask a question, Ill give you an answer, he told reporters on Wednesday. Lay off. That is not your business. That is my business. I take care of my country, and I will nurture my country to health.

This is about developing a strongman populist internationale  theres a solidarity between Trump and all the strongmen around the world, said Richard Javad Heydarian, the Manila-based author of The Rise of Duterte. Trump was absolutely out of place in [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization], very much isolated among Western allies. He feels at home with people like Duterte, and he loves it. And he knows that Duterte is very popular, not only in the Philippines, but also across the region.

Duterte, known for his profane rhetoric, has struck a more sinister tone with established critics. He said on Wednesday that if Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, investigates him for the killings, I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me.

Despite Dutertes tough talk, he faces serious headwinds at home  including dwindling domestic support for his campaign. In August, after police killed 17-year-old drug suspect Kian Loyd Delos Santos, they said he drew a gun, forcing them to fire; yet witness accounts and surveillance footage suggested that the teenager was shot while unarmed, in police custody.

The body of another teenager, 14-year-old Reynaldo de Guzman, was found in early September, riddled with stab wounds, his head wrapped in packing tape. The last time hed been seen, 20 days prior, he was with a 19-year-old friend who was also killed by police.

Duterte cast De Guzmans death as a conspiracy intended to sabotage the police. Still, his approval ratings plummeted  the Manila research institution Social Weather Stations in October put his net satisfaction rating at 48%, down 18 points from June.

Thousands of people participate in a healing protest in Manila on Nov. 5, 2017. (Noel Celis / AFP/Getty Images )

Two U.S. congressmen  Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), co-chairs of the House Human Rights Commission  have urged Trump to raise human rights concerns with the Philippine leader. Trump should reaffirm the US commitments to fundamental human rights, including due process, and the rule of law, the two wrote. (Duterte, in response, threatened to ban the two congressmen from coming to Manila.)

Trump and Duterte are more likely to discuss a battle between Philippine government forces and Islamic State militants in the southern city of Marawi, which ended in September after five months of grinding urban warfare. They may also discuss the South China Sea, where the Philippines has become a central player in resisting Chinas increasingly assertive territorial claims.

Obviously, Trump has made human rights a low priority, said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. But this is also about Duterte recognizing he needs certain things from the U.S.

Experts say Duterte, despite his harsh words toward Washington, hasnt significantly altered the underpinnings of the U.S.-Philippine alliance, which dates back more than six decades.

I think its still worth watching the extent to which the Philippines does continue to increase Chinese economic and security assistance, said Andrew Shearer, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. But so far the only practical Chinese security assistance has been a lot of second-hand assault rifles, which the Philippine military doesnt even want.

Then you stack up on the other side of the ledger, the support that comes from the U.S.  like Coast Guard vessels, much more modern equipment, and beyond that, the training, and behind the scenes assistance with intelligence, he continued. And of course, most dramatically, the U.S. support once things blew up in Marawi  that, I think, came along at the perfect time to remind Duterte and the Philippines more generally that the U.S. is an indispensable security partner.

Duterte, stung by U.S. criticisms of his drug war  and enticed by offers of Chinese investment and aid  has signaled a shift away from Washington and toward Beijing. He has struck a far more conciliatory tone toward China than his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III. In August, the Philippines did not challenge Chinese boats operating near an island in the heart of disputed territory. Why should I defend a sandbar and kill the Filipinos because of a sandbar? Duterte said at the time.

Duterte told reporters on Wednesday that he would ask Chinese President Xi Jinping about South China Sea issues. You want to control the passage, or do we have free passage? he said. Yet Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez told Bloomberg that Duterte and Xi have a very strong, close relationship, like brothers, suggesting he will not broach the subject with force.

Special correspondent Simon Roughneen contributed to this report from Manila.

jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com

For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter

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French President Emmanuel Macron made a surprise trip on Thursday night to Saudi Arabia, saying he wanted to speak to the kingdoms young, assertive crown prince about Iran and the war in Yemen.

Macron said he made the decision earlier in the day about heading to Saudi Arabia, in part over Shiite rebels in Yemen launching a ballistic missile that targeted Riyadh, the kingdoms capital. He bluntly blamed Iran for the attack, saying that though he still supported Tehrans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a new agreement needed to be reached concerning Irans missile program.

The missile that was intercepted by Saudi Arabia launched from Yemen, which obviously is an Iranian missile, shows precisely the strength of their program, Macron told journalists at a news conference held at a French school in Dubai.

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Iranian state media did not immediately report the remarks. Iranian officials, while backing the Shiite rebels known as Houthis in Yemen, have denied directly arming them.

Macron met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman late Thursday night and expressed Frances condemnation of targeting Riyadh city by a ballistic missile, according to a report on the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

The ballistic missile launched Saturday night flew near Riyadhs international airport before Saudi officials said they shot it down. By early Monday, the kingdom responded by closing off Yemens border crossings, seaports and airports and warning Iran that the rebel missile launch could be considered as an act of war.

I believe its important that we work with Saudi Arabia for the purpose of guaranteeing stability in the region and the fight against terrorism, Macron also said in the UAE.

Macron noticeably did not mention Saudi King Salman in his remarks Thursday night, and Saudi officials reported no meeting between the two. It suggests that France believes the kings 32-year-old son, Prince Mohammed, now controls the levers of power in the kingdom amid rumors his father may abdicate.

Macron also was careful not to criticize an ongoing campaign of arrests in the kingdom in what it describes as an anti-corruption push. Saudi critics and experts have called the unprecedented purge of top princes and businessmen a bold and risky move by the crown prince aimed at consolidating his control of the oil-rich, ultraconservative nation.

Despite criticizing Iran, Macron stressed France still stood by the nuclear deal, which now is under threat over President Trumps refusal to recertify the accord.

If we were to walk away from it, it would lead to either immediate war or an absence of control, which would inevitably lead to a North Korean [type] situation, which I could not accept, Macron said.

The surprise trip to Saudi Arabia came at the end of a two-day trip by Macron to the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.

After focusing Wednesday on cultural ties between France and the UAE with the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Macron on Thursday toured a nearby French naval base and discussed the military cooperation between the two nations.

Macron visited the Camp Peace naval base at Abu Dhabis Port Zayed, which sits just across the waters of the Persian Gulf from the new Louvre. The museums saltshaker-like dome sits in sight of the base.

A military band played La Marseillaise and an honor guard met Macron before he boarded and walked through the French frigate Jean Bart.

The French president later addressed gathered sailors there, noting their work to both battle extremists and stop smugglers and piracy in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters.

We have won in Raqqah and in the coming weeks, the coming months, I believe it strongly, we will completely win on the military level in the Iraqi-Syrian zone, Macron said, referring to the onetime self-described capital of the Islamic State group that fell last month to the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Frances military capacity is at the heart of my ambitions for our country, he added.

The French naval base opened in 2009, a reflection of Frances deepening military cooperation with the UAE. Macron later said about 700 French troops stay on the base.

France also stations troops and planes at Al-Dhafra Air Base, home to some of the 5,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country.

On the cultural front, Abu Dhabi agreed to pay France $525 million for the use of the Louvre name for the next 30 years and six months for its new museum, plus an additional $750 million to hire French managers to oversee the 300 loaned works of art. A center at Paris Louvre now bears the name of the late UAE President Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, which was also part of the deal.

While Macron toured the naval base, his wife, Brigitte, visited Abu Dhabis Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, its gleaming white marble minarets and walls shining brightly in the desert sun. Out of respect, she covered her head with a brown, white and black scarf with an Arabic-inspired design while touring the mosque, walking across its carpeting with her bare feet.

Macron then traveled to Dubai and met with ruling Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as the UAEs vice president and prime minister. Sheik Mohammed also had attended the Louvre Abu Dhabi opening Wednesday night.

The French president then attended an economic forum, where he offered a speech in English applauding the Emirates use of both military might and cultural offerings to fight those betraying Islam.

Our common challenge today is how to defend light, tolerance and respect of each other, Macron said. Thats the challenge of our generation.
Certain types of buildings are especially vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes  and earthquake-prone Mexico City is filled with them.

Those with so-called brittle concrete frames are well-known hazards. Buildings with a weak first story, often supported by narrow columns to accommodate parking, are also known to be dangerous.

How many such buildings exist in this 573-square mile metropolis, home to nearly 9 million people, is hard to know. The government has never cataloged its real estate to identify risky structures.

Now, in the wake of the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that killed more than 360 people in September, some experts are urging city officials to do just that  so tenants can be warned and building owners can be ordered to retrofit them with steel braces or new walls.

We have to move very fast, while the issue is fresh in peoples minds, said Sergio Alcocer, an earthquake expert at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Such an undertaking is costly and has long been viewed as politically difficult. Many cities have resisted similar calls.

But political sentiment can shift. In 2015, Los Angeles became the biggest city in California to pass a law to identify vulnerable concrete buildings and apartments with weak ground stories and mandate retrofitting. Once building owners are notified, they have seven years to fix weak ground stories and 25 years to complete modifications to stabilize brittle concrete frames.

Graphic by Raoul Ranoa/@latimesgraphics

In an interview, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti encouraged Mexico City to start now.

Waiting causes lives to be lost, he said.

Los Angeles anticipated organized opposition by building owners and overcame it by conducting two years of public education efforts on the risks of inaction.

But Mexico City hasnt had that level of discourse, and there is an expectation that owners would also oppose mandatory retrofits. Alcocer, who is a member of a mayoral commission established to make recommendations for the citys long-term seismic resiliency efforts, said he imagined offering owners economic incentives such as waiving property taxes or easing the financial burden with city loans or bonds.

In California, retrofits of smaller apartment buildings typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, while strengthening taller buildings can exceed $1 million.

Alcocer estimated that the cost of retrofits in many cases would be 15% to 20% of the cost of replacing a building.

A total of 42 buildings collapsed and as many as 1,000 more were damaged in the Sept. 19 earthquake that was centered about 80 miles southeast of Mexico City.

Many of the buildings that fell were made of brittle concrete, including a seven-story office building on Avenida Alvaro Obregon in Mexico City, where 49 people died  the largest death toll at any one site.

(Graphic by Raoul Ranoa/@latimesgraphics)

That building was a flat slab structure, a design that lacks horizontal beams that are far more durable in an earthquake. Flat slab construction was very popular in Mexico City in the 1960s and 70s, Alcocer said.

This system is not a proper system for a high seismic area, he said.

Retrofitted buildings survived just fine in the earthquake.

We have the prescription, said Saif Hussain, a Los Angeles-based structural engineer who visited Mexico City in October with the Applied Technology Council, which develops nationally recognized retrofit standards. Its just a matter of people being aware of it, and implementing it  and the political will.

Alcocer said he recently met with Mexico Citys mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, and suggested the city make a plan to review and eventually strengthen certain classes of buildings known to be hazardous, as well as evaluate all schools, hospitals and markets. Hes very open to it, Alcocer said.

The mayors office did not respond to interview requests.

Mexico City residents said in interviews that they would welcome new safety measures. But many doubted that the government had the political will to even conduct a census of buildings, let alone order costly improvements.

I think the government should tell us if the area is safe, if our building could be in danger if they do not make the right revisions, said Claudia Centeno, a 40-year-old nurse who was told that the damage to her apartment was only cosmetic. Im going to leave this building as soon as my rental agreement is up, but the next people who want to live here may be at risk and might not know if the government says nothing."

After the quake, city inspectors fanned out to assess the damage. But they were not checking for vulnerability to the next earthquake, according to Elizabeth Cochran, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist who recently visited Mexico City with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute as part of a mission to learn from the September earthquake.

Rosario Avendano, a 22-year-old marketing student whose apartment building in the Del Valle neighborhood is still standing, albeit with cracks in some walls, said she wants the government to conduct more thorough assessments.

The government is only covering the sun with a finger, she said. They are going to remodel, they are going to paint, they are going to change broken glass so that everything looks nice again, but they are not doing in-depth studies of why so many buildings were damaged in the city.

The government must tell us the truth about whether or not our houses are safe.

(@latimesgraphics)

Times staff writer Lin reported from Los Angeles. Sanchez is a member of The Times Mexico City bureau. Staff writer Kate Linthicum in Mexico City contributed to this report.

ron.lin@latimes.com

@ronlin

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Russia's hybrid military forces have attacked Ukrainian army positions in Donbas 19 times in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters has reported.

"Over the past day, Russian-occupation groups violated the ceasefire regime 19 times. In response, the ATO forces used weapons to defeat the enemy 12 times. As a result of the fighting, two of our military have been wounded," the ATO staff said on Facebook on Friday.

After 18:00 Kyiv time, the militants opened fire from infantry weapons and 82mm mortars four times on the defenders of the village of Luhanske, which is in the Luhansk sector. Moreover, the Russian-backed mercenaries used the same weapons three times against the Ukrainian fortified positions near the village of Krymske. The Ukrainian fortified positions near the villages of Triokhizbenka and Valuiske, as well as the town of Zolote also came under enemy fire. In addition, at about 22:00 Kyiv time, the occupiers lobbed twenty 122mm artillery shells into areas close to the village of Stary i Aidar.

In the Donetsk sector, the enemy opened fire from grenade launchers to attack the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near the town of Avdiyivka.

In the Mariupol sector, the invaders used infantry weapons near the village of Slavne in the evening.
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko emphasizes the importance of education reform to strengthen the status of the state language for every resident of the country.

"We have adopted a new and ambitious reform of education ... We are returning the Ukrainian language to Ukrainians from an early age. Yes, we protect national minorities, but every Ukrainian will speak Ukrainian, preferably a few more languages," Poroshenko said on Friday at the Forum of representatives of local communities, winners of the October elections, representing the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Solidarity Party.
The Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) has approved and handed to the dismissed head of the State Fiscal Service (SFS) of Ukraine Roman Nasirov, another person involved in the case - an employee of the SFS, as well as their defenders, an indictment in criminal proceedings on suspicion of committing a crime.

"The specialized anti-corruption prosecutor's office confirmed the indictment in criminal proceedings on the suspicion of the Ukrainian citizen, the dismissed head of the SFS of Ukraine, as well as the head of the department of the SFS of Ukraine, they today have handed over to the suspects and their defenders. The same indictment will be sent to the court," the SAPO press service said on its Facebook page on Friday afternoon.

It is noted in the published information that the procedural executives in the case, which are the SAPO's prosecutors, "are sure that there is indisputable evidence of the commission of crimes by suspects they are charged in."

Also the SAPO hope for the observance of reasonable terms of the trial.

"There is a hope that the court will ensure compliance with the requirements of Articles 314, 320 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine on the appointment of a preliminary hearing within five days from the date of receipt of the indictment at the court, as well as the reserve judge, taking into account the complexity of criminal proceedings and the extraordinary public resonance it caused," the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office said.

As reported, NABU detectives on March 2 presented charges against Nasirov and apprehended him in the Feofania hospital outside Kyiv. He is suspected of committing a crime pursuant to Part 2 of Article 364 (embezzlement) of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

Investigators believe that Nasirov in 2015-2016, acting in the interests of MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko took a number of groundless decisions which resulted in damage to the state worth UAH 2 billion.

On March 7, the Solomiansky district court remanded Nasirov to pretrial confinement for two months, setting bail at UAH 100 million, while prosecutors from Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office had asked the court to set bail at UAH 2 billion.

On March 16, Nasirov's wife posted UAH 100 million bail for him. The court obliged Nasirov to transfer all his foreign passports and other travel documents to the State Migration Service.

On June 2 Kyiv's Solomiansky District Court turned down a request by Nasirov to change the terms of his pretrial detention.

On July 28, director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk said that investigators of NABU completed the investigation of the case against the dismissed head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, who had been handed a final suspicion.
The German Federal Government allocates EUR 200,000 to the HALO Trust non-governmental mine clearance organization for the demining of the territory following explosions of ammunition in Balakliya (Kharkiv region) in March this year.

"The Federal Government promotes the clearance of the accident site in Balakliya from unexploded ordnance. It supports the world's largest mine clearance organization, HALO, by purchasing an armored vehicle that can effectively neutralize and eliminate explosive ordnance scattered on a large area as a result of the March 23 explosion. Germany provides EUR 200,000 for this purpose," the German Embassy in Ukraine said on Friday.

The embassy noted that Germany had been supporting the HALO Trust since 2016 as part of mine clearance in eastern Ukraine with a total of EUR 1.5 million.

About 100,000 square meters have been cleared so far at the expense of German funds.

As reported, explosions at ammunition storage depots near Balakliya, Kharkiv region, began on March 23, 2017. The blasts damaged 117 multi-storey residential buildings, 229 private households, two schools, two kindergartens, eight social facilities, as well as 22 infrastructure and industry facilities. About 20,000 people were evacuated. Ninety-three families were left homeless.
NEWARK -- Jurors deciding whether U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez accepted gifts from a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist can't agree on whether they were bribes or acts of generosity between two good friends, a juror dismissed from the case said Thursday.

"It's a hung jury right now," Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby told the media after she was excused from the trial Thursday afternoon.

The juror said her former fellow panel members were still going through documents amassed during nine weeks of testimony in an attempt to determine whether the Democratic lawmaker committed a crime.

In her mind, Menendez is not guilty, she said.

She called the government "corrupted" and said she felt prosecutors were trying to railroad Menendez.

"What I saw, the government didn't give me enough. I think the defense showed me enough to say he's not guilty on every count," she told Fios.

She said jurors are also struggling over whether Menendez is guilty of failing to report those gifts on his annual Senate disclosure forms.

"This is his friend and they (the government) keep saying that 'oh if I take you out to dinner and I pay for your tab isn't that a gift?' No it's not. So they got it confused. If this man wants to take him on any flight and that's his friend, why do it have to be a gift?" the juror said.

Juror No. 8 was excused Thursday, at the end of the third full day of deliberations, to head for a pre-planned vacation.

At the end of the day Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Walls called jurors out to dismiss them for the weekend and to tell Juror No. 8 she was excused.

"It's come that time to discharge the jury pursuant to our agreement," US. District Walls said shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, referring to jurors' request on Wednesday to end their day at that time to avoid Newark's heavy traffic.

He selected another female alternate to take her place as deliberations begin anew on Monday. That keeps the composition of the jury at seven women and five men.

Jurors are not sitting on Friday because of the Veterans Day holiday.

This is the second alternate of six selected that Walls has used during the trial, and the first to be used during deliberations.

The first, a man, was replaced when he said during the trial that he needed to attend the two-day funeral services of his grandparent.

Menendez is accused of accepting bribes in the form of lavish gifts from his co-defendant, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, in return for his political influence on government matters affecting Melgen's businesses.

MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The FBI is investigating an alleged plot involving former White House adviser Mike Flynn to return an Islamic cleric living in exile in the Poconos to Turkey, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a story published Friday morning, the newspaper reported Flynn and his son Michael Flynn Jr. were to receive $15 million to deliver Fethullah Gulen, the man the Turkish government says is behind a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Gulen, leader of the movement known as Hizmet, denies any involvement in the coup. He has been living at his Golden Generation Worship and Retreat Center, a gated 26-acre compound in Ross Township, Monroe County.

Sources told the Journal Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the alleged plan against Gulen as part of his probe into advisers to President Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.

At a Nov. 12, 2016 rally in Easton's Centre Square, Trump supporters held a sign saying the then-president-elect was coming for Gulen.

Supporters of Donald Trump hold a sign referencing exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen at a "Donald Trump is my president rally," around Center Square, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. A "Not our president" protest was held at the same time in the square. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A 27-year-old man has been remanded in custody after being refused bail on a charge of attacking another man with an axe outside a McDonalds restaurant in Tullamore.

Jason McDonagh (27), previously with an address at a halting site in Limerick but currently of no fixed abode, was charged at Portlaoise District Court with assault causing harm, on October 29 this year, at McDonald's Drive-thru, Church Road, Tullamore.

States evidence outlined that a man in a van was attacked by another man with an axe. The injured party fled the van, but was attacked again. He suffered injuries including nine stitches and a laceration.

This happened on a Sunday with lots of people at McDonald's. The court heard that the accused and the injured party have known each other nine years.

Garda evidence was also given of an ongoing dispute between families, and an incident involving 100 people at a wedding in June this year. The State said it feared an escalation.

Defence for the accused, Mr Aonghus McCarthy said that if granted bail, the accuseds mother would be welcoming to him residing with her at her home in Limerick.

Due to the seriousness of the charge, Judge Catherine Staines refused bail, remanding the accused in custody to Cloverhill District Court on November 16.
Better rural development is possible, and local people are willing to deliver, but they need a support, according to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

In a statement the EESC calls for flexible and effective support programmes from the European Commission and Member States such as Ireland.

It says the EU and national authorities need to empower villages and small towns with new programmes that are flexible enough to be adapted to the diverse needs of Europe's rural areas. Positive examples should be promoted  for instance through a yearly celebratory day  in order to encourage other communities.

With its opinion "Villages and small towns as catalysts for rural development", adopted at its last plenary session, the EESC wants to contribute to a revitalisation of Europe's rural areas.

"The challenges of the 21st century can only be tackled when towns and villages, regions and national states work together. The countryside and local communities in particular need to be better involved and play a greater role in smart and sustainable economic development, and it is the responsibility of the EU and its Members States to deliver the impetus for rural development. We must make our countryside a more attractive place to live, particularly for young people", says rapporteur Tom Jones.

Smart infrastructure

Economic and social development requires adequate infrastructure, including fast broadband services and a modern transport network. "This includes not just the provision of a smart transport network for road and rail, but also smart and efficient use of the transport network", Mr Jones explains.

Shared transport, including car-sharing, community- or cooperative-owned buses and cars, shared taxis, mobile services and shops are concepts that already work quite well in some parts of Europe. Businesses should be encouraged to support teleworking. Fast broadband  mobile as well as fixed  is crucial for the further economic and social development of villages and towns. The EESC strongly supports the European Commission's Smart Villages Initiative as a first step in the right direction, particularly as it combines initiatives from all directorates-general.

Mr. Brendan Burns, President of the Agriculture and Rural Development Section of the EESC: "The European Investment Bank (EIB) must also rise to the challenge and develop tailor-made support schemes for small rural businesses, both private and social enterprises, as promised in its 2017-2018 programme".

Rural-urban partnerships

Cooperation between cities, towns and rural areas in agri-tourism and rural tourism, health-related activities, and the food supply chain, would benefit all stakeholders and particularly the general public. Creating clusters of public and private services in education, training, health and social care in rural areas also provides an opportunity to renovate empty buildings and attract other businesses or even government offices.

Social and community enterprises can increasingly contribute to replacing lost public and private services, as initiatives such as the Virksomhed in Denmark or the Cletwr cafe in Wales emphatically prove.

"Many regions have historical buildings, such as old castles or farms, which could find a new use and so be maintained as historic monuments. Other cultural values found in villages should also be highlighted, especially since 2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage", says Tom Jones.

The Rural Development Programme (RDP) should be better supported by other European, national and regional programmes, as it is an excellent opportunity for local entrepreneurs to create new business, for instance by branding and marketing local farm and craft products such as drinks, food and handicrafts, as well as landscape and historical heritage, cultural and health recreational activities.

Involve people and showcase positive examples

Sustainable rural development will only succeed with the assent of local people, who must be involved in decision-making. "We need to encourage people, particularly young people, give them a voice and support their ideas", underlines Mr Jones.

He also considers it necessary to build on the valuable assets that already exist in the countryside, such as the ever-active voluntary sector.

"In many communities people already have ideas about how they could boost economic development in their communities, but the catalyst is missing  either because information or financial opportunities are lacking, or programmes are not flexible enough and present too much of a bureaucratic burden. These obstacles need to be removed so that ideas can be implemented. We also propose an annual day when successful, cohesive village and town communities are celebrated and their route to success demonstrated. We think that such an event could encourage other communities to make progress in their planning and implementation."

More information on this topic can be found on the EESC webpage.
A Castledermot woman is the new editor of Archaeology Ireland magazine.

Dr Sharon Greene, an archaeologist based in Castledermot, has agreed to succeed Tom Condit as editor of Archaeology Ireland.

Sharon graduated from UCD with a degree in Celtic Studies and then a Masters in Archaeology. In the following years she worked on various commercial projects, including Carrickmines Castle.

She held a number of research roles in the UCD School of Archaeology, where she also worked on the Francoise Henry Photographic Archive and as a tutor and occasional lecturer.

Her doctoral research on the early medieval settlement of the islands off north-west Mayo was funded by an IRCHSS Scholarship.

Since being awarded a Ph.D, Sharon has been based in County Kildare, where her research has included the early medieval ecclesiastical site of Killeen Cormac and the medieval walled town of Castledermot.

She has also been involved in a number of community heritage projects through the Castledermot Local History Group, liaising with the Irish Walled Towns Network and the Kildare County Heritage Office, and she is a council member of the County Kildare Archaeological Society. Sharon's publications are on such diverse subjects as artifact studies, landscape archaeology and local history.

The board and management of Archaeology Ireland are delighted to welcome her on board. As well as her academic achievements, she will contribute an interest and some achievement in communicating archaeology to the public. Sharon will take up the position immediately with the Spring 2018 issue, (Vol. 32, No. 2), said the magazine.

When asked to take on this role, she said; It is a daunting task for anyone to take over from the great work of Tom Condit and, earlier,  Professor  Gabriel Cooney. I intend to continue the key role that Archaeology Ireland plays in public archaeology.
News

Poland blast: What do Articles 4 and 5 of the NATO Treaty say?

A deadly explosion that killed two in Poland initially raised fears that NATO, which Poland joined in 1999, would be drawn into the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.
A COUNCIL decision to pass five orders aimed at stopping incineration type developments in Limerick could still impact Irish Cements 10m plans for Mungret.

Thats according to Fine Gael councillor Daniel Butler, who believes that if the plans go to a judicial review in the High Court, changes to local development plans could be taken into account.

Controversial proposals will see Irish Cement switch away from the use of fossil fuels in favour of used tyres and solid recovered waste.

But the blueprint  currently before An Bord Pleanala and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  has been opposed by thousands of locals, with fears of an increase in emissions into the atmosphere chief among the concerns.

Irish Cement has always insisted its reforms will not cause such an increase, due to the fact tyres and waste will be burnt at 1,500 degrees celsius.

This week, five motions from Cllr James Collins, Fianna Fail, were passed unanimously by councillors. Among these are a stipulation the local area plan rules out the incineration of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste  and the southern region waste management plan also be altered to reflect this.

While council boss Conn Murray pledged to seek legal advice on whether he could carry these orders out, the hope of members is that similar developments to Irish Cements will be stopped.

It has been claimed that because Irish Cements application was granted under the current development plan, it will be unaffected by these changes. But Cllr Butler said not necessarily when asked if he felt this would be the case.

He suggested in the event of the environmental regulator and An Bord Pleanala waving the controversial plans through, Limerick Against Pollution (LAP), which was set up in opposition to the plans, could launch a judicial review.

The only barrier to this would be cost. We've put forward a strong case, and if successful, it could play a hugely significant part in rejecting the Irish Cement application, he said.

Cllr Collins for his part, employed fighting talk when speaking on his motions.

People want us to do everything they can to ensure the Irish Cement development does not happen in their community. I suppose the main message is we are serious about prohibiting the incineration of waste in Limerick. Were not going to take no for an answer. If there are obstacles which are put i our way whether thy are statutory legal, or otherwise, we're going to do everything in our power to overcome those, he said.

Cllr Butler gave a cautious welcome to the passing of his colleagues motions.

It's positive we can try and advance this. We will be subject to legal advice. As it stands, it would seem we are contrary to national policy and we may be overruled. This is what we're expecting, he added.

A spokesperson for Mr Murray said: The waste management plan supercedes the local development plan. The chief executive cannot do something which is deemed not legal by a superior plan. The councillors asked for legal advice, so he is going to seek it.
A GUITAR donated by Steamboat Music and signed by astronaut Chris Hadfield at the Limerick Gig for Ghana sold for 1,050, with all proceeds going to Ghana Medical Health.

The event, which took place at the Clayton Hotel, Steamboat Quay this Thursday night, aimed to create awareness of the situation in northern Ghana and to raise money for medical training and emergency equipment.

Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space station, stopped by to lend a hand and to support the charity, which was founded by his niece Kelly Hadfield who is a student at the University of Limerick.

In northern Ghana they have one doctor for 60,000 to 100,000 people with one nurse with no basic CPR skills. They are responsible for health care of thousands of individuals in a community or rural village, where people make 5 a year, so they need basic medical skills and these tool kits, said Ms Hadfield.

Also up for grabs at the event was a photograph of Ireland  taken from space by Chris Hadfield  which sold for 3,000 to an anonymous bidder.

Picture of Ireland taken in space by Chris Hadfield being auctioned soon at Gig for Ghana @Limerick_Leader pic.twitter.com/o6TtQRW7df  Daniel Keating (@danielk1991) November 9, 2017

Mr Hadfield, who performed with his brother Dave Hadfield, said he was glad to be able to help out with the fundraiser.

When you reach adulthood you have to chose whats important to you, so my wife and I support several philanthropic organisations, but this one very much and not just because it's family but because it has an impact for several hundred thousand people, who just lack the very basics of what civilisation can bring, he said.

Other perfomers at the event were Denis Allen, Norman Morrissey and Kings of Connaught.

All proceeds raised on the night will go to Ghana Medical Health.
AIR tests are being carried out in a Limerick housing estate following the discovery of asbestos material in a number of local authority houses.

The asbestos was discovered within fire resistant packing rope located in the hot press area and the attic space of the houses at Vale Avenue, John Carew Park.

In a statement, Limerick City and County Council confirmed it has decided to remove the asbestos material and that it is liaising with the HSE in relation to the issue.

As part of the thermal upgrade programme, Limerick City and County Council is to conduct a series of air tests in Vale Avenue, Carew Park beginning this Friday, said a spokesperson.

The first stage of the process (to remove the asbestos) is air testing, followed by a temporary sealing off of the area, removal of the asbestos material and a follow-up air test.

Asbestos was used extensively in building materials in Ireland and internationally up until the late 1990s, due to its insulating, sound absorbing, and fire retarding capabilities.

Almost all buildings constructed before the year 2000 are likely to have some asbestos containing material.

Intact and undisturbed asbestos materials do not pose a health risk. However, asbestos can become a concern if they are damaged, deteriorate over time or are otherwise disturbed.

Letters explaining the situation, along with a HSE information leaflet, have been hand -delivered to the residents in Vale Avenue, Carew Park.

Specialist consultants and accredited contractors, who are experienced in the removal of asbestos, have been engaged to oversee and complete the necessary removal activities.
THE residents of a small housing estate in Ardagh have been unable to drink their tap water for the past three months.

But according to Cllr Seamus Browne SF, they are no closer to knowing what the problem is and what is causing it. All they do know, he told the Limerick Leader, is that there is a smell of petrol off the water and it is worse when the water is heated.

Last August, Irish Water told residents they would be taking samples of the water as recent results have shown slightly elevated levels of hydrocarbons.

There is no requirement to alter your use of the water, Irish Water said as the elevated levels were within drinking water guidelines.

However, in late September Irish Water again wrote to residents telling them that the HSE advice was not to drink the water or use it for prepared food, ice making or brushing of teeth.

However, unless any petrol type odour is noted, this water can be used for toilet flushing bathing, showering, laundry and dishwashing.

But, according to Cllr Browne, many residents are reluctant to use water for showers and baths because of the smell. This is going on for months. People shouldnt be living without clean water for this long. It is completely unacceptable, he said.

It is imperative, he continued, that Irish Water find the cause of this problem quickly and then move to resolve it. Residents also want to know why their homes, and not others in the village, are affected, he added.

Until that investigation is complete, everybody is going to be asking questions, he said. But no report has been issued to date.

Cllr Michael Collins raised the issue at a meeting of Newcastle West Municipal District this Wednesday and said Irish Water had informed him they would be handing out bottled water to residents this Friday.

Speaking to the Limerick Leader, he said, this was unacceptable and the company must provide residents with clean drinking water until such time as the problem is resolved.

Initially, he was told only three or four houses were affected but when he queried this, he discovered Irish Water, didnt really know how many houses were affected, or if other houses in the village were affected. Contaminated pipes were mentioned as a possible cause, Cllr Collins said.

Unfortunately, if that is the case, it could take up to 12 months to remedy.
The U.S. multinational inspection team, which will also include representatives of Canada and Denmark, will visit Ukraine on November 13 to monitor the military and political situation in the country's central and south-eastern regions, the press service of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has reported.

"The U.S. multinational inspection team, which will also include representatives of Denmark and Canada, arrives in Ukraine on November 13 to monitor the military and political situation in the central and south-eastern regions of our country," the report says.

The inspection team is expected to visit military units and subdivisions in the area of the anti-terrorist operation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. In addition, the U.S. side included the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the inspection area.

"Such events are important in the context of spreading reliable and unbiased information about the situation in Ukraine to the OSCE participating states, which will contribute to the efforts of the international community aimed at resolving the conflict," the ministry said.

The ministry also noted that in accordance with the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, this week Ukraine was visited by an inspection team from Germany, which also included representatives of France and Norway. On November 6-10, foreign inspectors visited a military unit in Chernihiv region.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said that he agreed with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on the parameters of monitoring the situation in Crimea.

"We are implementing the decision of the UNESCO Executive Board. We agreed with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova on the parameters of monitoring the situation in Crimea," Klimkin wrote on his Twitter page on Friday.

He also stated about the strengthening of "pressure on Russia" and added that UNESCO attaches an important role to the Group of Friends of Ukraine, which was created on Kyiv's initiative.
The storyteller of the islands Pankaj Sekhsaria on how his disappointment as an activist attempting to protect the ancient rainforests and Jarawa tribals of the Andaman islands, led him to write a novel, 'The Last WaveAn Island Novel', and tell the same story differently /news/talking-point/the-storyteller-of-the-islands-111646920213284.html 111646920213284 story

When Pankaj Sekhsaria first travelled to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as a student, he had little idea of how enduring his engagement with the islands would turn out to be. Over the last two and a half decades, he has been an environmental activist, a journalist, researcher, photographer and authorand in each of these roles, he has tried to unravel and communicate the complex issues that define the existence of the islands, its people and environment.

What is the meta question to be asked about the Andaman and Nicobar Islands?" asks Sekhsaria rhetorically. Broadly speaking, any system we are part of consists of three elementsthe socio-cultural-political, the ecological and the geological framework. On the islands, all these three are always in flux, and we need to find a language to articulate and account for how they influence each other. All development planning needs to take this constant change into account."

As a member of the Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group, Sekhsaria was part of the team of three non-government organizations whose petition before the Supreme Court resulted in orders for the closure of the Andaman Trunk Road (ATR) in 2002. This ambitious road on the Andaman island links Port Blair in the south to Diglipur in the north. It also cuts across the reserved rainforests that are home to the reclusive Jarawa tribals, exposing both the ancient rainforest and the Jarawas to exploitation. It was a vector, both metaphorical and literal, that brought in a number of undesirable and uncontrollable influences, on the one hand, and took away valuable resources like timber on the other.

The victory in the Supreme Court remained short-lived. Some of the orders, including those for the closure of the ATR, have never been implemented by the administration. The indigenous tribes that go back over 30,000 years continue to be vulnerable to the state and to ideas of development and mainstreaming that have not had any great successful precedence, certainly not in the case of these islands.

Chestnut headed bee-eaters on a tree, Rutland Island.

After years of trying to influence change as an activist and journalist, Sekhsaria published a novel, The Last WaveAn Island Novel, in 2014.

The fiction writing came from the disappointment of the activist," shares Sekhsaria. The question becamecan the same story be told differently?

As a journalist or activist, there is a particular form in which the story must be told. There is a limited reach. Can a different genre of writing tell the same story to the same people and make some headway?"

Sekhsaria recounts the events that led to his book. There was the failure of the administration to implement the Supreme Court order, followed by the devastation suffered after a tsunami in December 2004. Around that time, Sekhsaria was also reading Amitav Ghoshs The Hungry Tide, a novel set in the vulnerable archipelago of islands in the Bay of Bengal.

It was a little like a tubelight switching on in my head. Perhaps the story of the islands can also be told in the same way. When you are involved with any work for a long time, you understand that it is multilayered. As an activist, you end up portraying certain institutions as problematic. But, in reality, things are more ambiguous. The space in the grey is where everything lies. There is no one villain.

What fiction allows you to do is explore motivations and actions in a nuanced way. Good fiction demands that. There are certain voices that are not heard in a certain context, and I wanted to express their points of view and perspective."

In a chapter in The Last Wave, Sekhsaria writes about the connect, or lack of it, between the ancient community that faces inevitable annihilation and those whose actions are leading up to it.

The other original islanders, the Onge and the Great Andamanese, who had cohabited these forests with the Jarawas, had all but gone. The Jarawa were now being dragged down the same path. There was the evidence and the weight of historythe Jarawa would be pushed down the road to annihilationthat was the word David had used in their first meeting. What do the annihilated feel? That was not the question Harish wanted to ask. What does the annihilator feel? How would he, himself, feel when the Jarawa were no more? Not because he wanted them to be vanquished, but because he could do nothing about their slide into oblivion. The world he belonged to did not want to annihilate the Jarawa, but it did not seem to know better."

Sekhsaria recounts a recent exchange with a friend from Port Blair. Hamara wajood kya hai," asks the friend. What is our relevance in the larger world?"

Like all islands, this archipelago has its own allure in the imagination of Indias mainland population. Besides the attraction of its beaches, forests and sea, there is the historical connection to the freedom movement and the Cellular Jail. The islands remain a strategic outpost for the defence services.

Peeyush Sekhsaria

Where do the diverse people of the islands fit within this framework? Will they continue to be on the fringes of the national consciousness, their aspirations and conflicts forever marginalized?

Over the years, says Sekhsaria, he began to question what the core conflict between various peoples interests really was. I realized that somewhere we are dealing with a battle of ideas and ideology and knowledge and knowledge systems. There is a certain hierarchy of knowledge creation. How can we say the tribals knowledge is less than the scientists? They understand differently."

Has there been a difference in the way the book has been received in mainland India and on the islands?" I ask Sekhsaria.

For many of them, its as if the story of the islands has now been told. There are friends who say that reading this book makes many people change their perspective of their own islands. It is an amazing thing to hear and extremely humbling at the same time.

So what the activist was not able to communicate, in a way the fiction writer could do," says Sekhsaria. As an activist, your positions are pretty clear. You broadly take a stand and draw a border between right and wrong. Either the road is closed or the road is open. Either something is a violation or it is not a violation. An able chronicler, on the other hand, tells you all the stories."

Sekhsaria explains, for instance, that the ATR is a central element in the novel. The people who will be affected negatively by the closure of the road have a strong voice in the book, explaining why the road should not be closed. Why it is not fair on them.

It makes me wonder if it is possible that we become sympathetic to the other side when we feel that our own point of view has been understood fairly?"

As Sekhsaria articulates the eternal conflict between outsiders and insiders, the push for development and the pull of conservation, the island story begins to sound like a microcosm of the wider world. Conflicting interests, a hierarchy of power that seems immovable, a rapidly deteriorating environment, and entire societies teetering on the brink of annihilation.

Why does it happen the way it does? Is it completely unavoidable? Are we all, in some sense, prisoners of our own context? We feel that there is agency but we are also caught up in our own biases," Sekhsaria says. With time, you realize that as individuals we are all as compromised as anybody else is."

After touring with his fiction and non-fiction books, Sekhsaria has also designed a travelling exhibition of photographs from the island. He experimented with printing images on a large canvas of silk fabric and suspending them, so they moved in the air as light came through the prints. These photo installations are part of The Story of Space 2017, a science-meets-art festival in Panaji, on till 19 November.

I wanted to create another space of engagement between mainland people and the islands," says Sekhsaria. The same words and photographs that I had used in court petitions or journalistic articles were now available in a new formseeking to create a different experience and reflect the idea of flux and fragility. It is the same, yet it is new."

Just like the islands, which are also always in flux, responding simultaneously to destruction and renewal at the hands of nature.

Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker, media trainer and author of the book My Daughters Mum.

She tweets at @natashabadhwar
Travel Special: Ilhas de Goa Hidden in the embrace of the Mandovi, Goa's river islands have escaped the notice of visitors /news/talking-point/travel-special-ilhas-de-goa-111646920165068.html 111646920165068 story

The antedeluvian islands that sprawl unbelievably lush in the main channel and tributaries of Goas Mandovi river are a time capsule of the original virtues that define the character and culture of Indias famously laid-back, smallest state. Though some are easily accessible by bridge (and others via short ferry rides) from the mainland, they are decidedly not on the tourist-beaten track, which is just how the ferociously loyal natives like it. Just considering writing this little introduction caused me considerable heartburn, making me feel like I am betraying precious family secrets. When I asked other islanders about what could safely be recommended, more than one told me nothing", and then heaped complicated curses on my head for even asking. That attitude is understandable, because these rare jewels should be treated with respect, a gracious world that has almost entirely ceased to exist. The difference can be felt as soon as you cross the water, as time begins to move more slowly, and the garbage-strewn mayhem of the beach belt fades away to open roads, paddy fields, bird-calls and bicycle speed.

A walk along the recently restored ancient bunds. Photo: Vivek Menezes

Chorao

This is the closest to Panaji. In the 16th century, this largest of the Mandovi river islands was home to a famous Jesuit seminary, which is credited with grafting the original Alphonso mango. Magnificent old trees in its vicinity still produce famously superior fruit of that variety. Chorao is also famous for its robust, toothsome korgut rice, a variety that flourishes in salt-heavy brackish waters. The western tip of the island is fantastically overgrown with estuarine mangroves, forming the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary, a pocket-sized 1.7 sq.km area that explodes with biodiversity.

Dont miss: After making an appointment, do visit the headquarters of Wild Otters (Wildotters.com), the only non-governmental organization in India devoted to the well-being of otters".

Getting there: While it is possible to drive directly on to the island from the north Goa taluka of Bicholim, it is a much better idea to take the ferry crossing from Ribandar, perhaps the prettiest of all the commuter boat rides in the state, particularly near sunset (free for pedestrians).

Divar

Just across a narrow channel is Divar, home to the renowned Saptakoteshwar Temple as well as two particularly interesting churches. The Nossa Senhora da Piedade is a stunning little jewel, with an especially superb interior, which is widely considered one of the finest examples of the mature Indian baroque architectural style. At the far end of the island, the chapel of Our Lady of Candelaria has a decidedly un-churchy aspect, which many scholars attribute to the possibility that it was a Jewish synagogue that was taken over and adapted by the Portuguese in the earliest years of their occupation of the island, in the 16th century. In the middle of the island is the famous Marietta Bakery, where you can try a range of authentic Goan breads and snacks, including the dense jaggery-laced bol which is a traditional wedding speciality.

Dont miss: Bonderam, the colourful and unique festival of flags which is held on the island each August, has become a major tourist attraction, with a parade of floats and much merriment.

Getting there: Divar is best accessed by ferry from Ribandar and Old Goa.

Santo Estevao

Further down the river past Old Goa is exceptionally pastoral Santo Estevao, traditionally famous for its vegetables, especially okra (the villagers proudly identify themselves as bhendekars). This is the ancestral home of Angelo da Fonseca, the prodigiously talented painter and protege of Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan in West Bengal. His artworks often returned to the scenes and themes of his riverside childhood. Among Goans, the island is known for its fiercely loyal sons and daughters (who famously seek to marry each other rather than look elsewhere for partners).

Dont miss: Nice views of the surrounding valley are available from the pocket-sized, beautifully restored (by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) little fortress which is the main attraction on this otherwise sleepy island.

Getting there: It has recently been made accessible via a new bridge from Tiswadi.

Corjuem

On the Mapusa river which feeds into the broader Mandovi, and much closer to the raucous neon-lit attractions of north Goa, is Corjuem. It has another superb little fortaleza, which marked the border with enemy territory (mostly controlled by the Marathas) for over two centuries. The island is also home to pioneering graphic artist Orijit Sen and his wife, the designer Gurpreet Sidhu. Sen is developing an artists residency on his property, and has already hosted an international workshop headlined by Khoj, the Delhi-based international artists association.

Dont miss: Ask the locals in a wide arc of surrounding villages, and they will tell you the islands newest claim to fame is the spectacular pork ribs served at Phil Rock restaurant, which is also a fine place to test the finest no-label cashew feni available in this part of Goa.

Getting there: Corjuem can be approached by an impressive little suspension bridge from Aldona.
On Tuesday, November 14, at 11.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference devoted to the World Diabetes Day, entitled "The Need for Screening and Early Detection of Diabetes Mellitus." The participants include marketing director of the Business Credit company Olena Karchevska; representatives of patient organizations; medical director of pharmaceutical company Farmak Vitaliy Usenko. Representatives of the V.P. Komysarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Ukraine's National Academy of Medical Science are invited (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation.
Travel Special: Teen in charge A mother-daughter reunion trip is headed south, until the bright lights and arty graffiti of Taipei's markets save the day /news/talking-point/travel-special-teen-in-charge-111646920115736.html 111646920115736 story

I thought I had all the essentials in place: a meticulous list of things to do, gleaned from a Filipina classmate (a bank officer who makes all travel itineraries on Excel sheets!), a hotel booked near the Taipei Main Metro station, and the contact of a former classmate living in the city.

But I had not accounted for an angst-ridden teenager I was meeting after six months. The idea of planning a vacation to Taipei, Taiwan, was aimed at giving us, mother and daughter, a chance to spend some alone-time before I wrapped up my one-year course in Singapore and headed home to Delhi. In the interim, not only had my 13-year-old daughter grown to match me in height, she had also developed her own pig-headed ideas of what a vacation should be all about: namely, lazing in a hotel room. The last time the two of us had taken a trip together, she was 10 and I was in charge". This time around, she made it clear she would not be dragged through museums or early morning discover-the-city walks, or experiment with strange food.

I soldiered on the first day, thinking I could slip in a museum or two while we enjoyed the hot springs in Beitou, about half an hours train ride from Taipei.

Big mistake.

After all, planning a day trip in mid-June to a hot springs area, especially when we had no intention of using the public hot spring houses, is not the best idea. After we had seen steam and smelt sulphur, visited the Beitou Hot Spring Museum, built in 1913 by the Japanese as a bath house, and strolled through the Ketagalan Culture centre that houses artefacts and outfits belonging to Taiwans indigenous tribes, the teen was ready with a tantrum. Perhaps the only moment of enjoyment came when she was introduced to the stamp-the-postcard culture. In Taiwan (and in Japan), tourist attractions have stamping docks on every floor. Each stamp has a different image and ink colour, and the goal is to get all of them on your postcarda smart way to ensure visitors see every nook and cranny.

The making of xialonbao at Din Tai Fung.

As we trudged back, my daughter used every form of emotional blackmail possible to get me to promise that we would spend the rest of the day relaxing at the hotel. I, of course, had other plans which included doing some quick Google searches on what to do with teenagers in Taipei".

That evening, we visited Taipei 101, a landmark skyscraper, and as we zoomed up in 37 seconds to the 89th floor, which has an indoor observatory, I could sense a change in mood. A little later, during dinner at Din Tai Fung, watching how the famed xialonbao steamed bun is made after having devoured quite a few, thawed her some more. As we walked back to the Metro station, she let it slip that she had heard Taipei was a mecca of gadgets, and wondered if we were going explore that part of the city.

The next day, I signed up for Taipei Bike Tours, a 4-hour bicycle ride through the city. Quinn Rudolph, our young tour guide, is an American actor, English teacher, writerbasically a man who wears many hats. We hired YouBikes using the smart cards provided by him and over a breakfast of dan bing (egg crepes), youtiao (Chinese churros), sesame cakes and soy milk, Quinn told us how he came to be in Taiwan. The daughter was fascinated to hear about how he had taken off from the US to travel halfway across the world to teach English and then set up a business.

The tour gave us an introduction to street markets and temples. As we cycled away from the Shuanglian morning market after paying obeisance at the Wunchang temple, a Daoist temple dedicated to the god of education, my daughter and I chatted about Quinn and his lifestyle. She was curious, and I was happy to encourage her to ask questions. The tour took us along the Danshui Riverside Bikeway to the Longshan temple, where we tried to assess our fate by throwing two half spheres on the ground, to the back streets of the Ximending shopping area. There was incredible local street art, including a dinosaur made of used beverage cans and graffiti that was strange, colourful, and twisted by Taiwanese artist Mr Ogay.

The daughter and I discovered more about Mr Ogay quite by chance. Quinn had no idea who this recurring street art character was as he bid us goodbye at the CKS (Chiang kai-Shek) Memorial Hall. On his recommendation, however, we decided to head to the GuangHua Digital Plaza, a six-storey wonderland of electronics. We didnt buy any high-tech gadgets but we did discover quirky, fun things like a mini fan that can be attached to a smartphone. On our way back, we chanced upon the Wrong Gallery in Zhongzheng district. A mecca for all things Star Wars, including life-size models of all our favourite characters from the movie franchise, this gallery also houses the works of local Taiwanese artists. When we showed them the images we had taken at Ximending, they were quick to introduce us to the works of Mr Ogay on Facebook.

The Raohe night market.

The experience at Ximending had us planning visits to other markets. The daughter was in charge. Experimentation with food was not a priority, so after consulting the famed Taiwan Excel sheet, she picked four places: Ximending because we wanted to experience it at night, Raohe and Wufenpu, because they are close to each other and the latter is a wholesale clothes market, and Shida, which is considered a fashion hub for students.

Raohe turned out to be the most fun, with its carnival-like spirit and gaming pens of pinball, recreational fishing, and Snatching UFO games. Wufenpu was a bargain hunters paradise when it came to shopping for quirky T-shirts, with cat prints, long patterned shrugs and dresses for the daughter. At other markets, we forged a stronger bond over Taiwanese street fashion brands like Starkiki, and all food on sticks, including chilli sweet corn on the cob, seaweed wrapped in pork strips, Chinese cheese waffles, and ice shaving with mango pulp.

We shopped like crazy, avoided an overdose of museums and mausoleums and spent three of the five afternoons just lounging in our hotel room. We ended the holiday with a new set of rules for vacations: Do some stuff that my daughter demands and a little of what I want.

***

Changing of the guard

We knew little about the history of Taiwan. So a visit to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial was not high on our list. Our bike tour guide, Quinn Rudolph, advised us to catch the ceremonial change of guard that takes place every hour, from 9am-5pm, with a fresh pair of guards being escorted to the statue of Chiang Kai-Shek by comrades marching in perfect synchronization. It is an intriguing sight full of solemnity, grandeur and just the right touch of jingoism.

Anusha Sharma contributed to this story
Clean island living is a luxury Fresh air, seclusion, and space to disconnect are rare commodities today, says Soneva founder Sonu Shivdasani /news/talking-point/clean-island-living-is-a-luxury-111646920095376.html 111646920095376 story

Sonu Shivdasanis tanned face and lean frame is witness to the amount of time he spends in the sun and his emphasis on clean living. While I guzzle coffee during our hour-long breakfast meeting in Delhi, he sips green tea and makes notes in a much used leather-bound planner. The Indian-British hotelier is the founder and chief executive officer of Soneva, which owns several luxury island resorts in the Maldives and Thailand. His wife Eva and he have made their home on Soneva Fushi, their flagship resort on Kunfunadhoo island in the Maldives Baa atoll. He talks to Lounge about his fascination for islands, and creating memorable experiences for travellers. Edited excerpts from an interview:

Sonu and Eva Shivdasani on Kunfunadhoo island, where Soneva Fushi is located. Photo: Richard Waite

All the Soneva resorts are based on islands. What draws you to islands?

The Italian word for island is isola. The Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus describes isolate" and isolated" as: cut off, detached, disconnected, hidden, off the beaten track, secluded. I love islands because they are precisely that, isolated. They offer privacy, space, the ability to disconnect, and seclusion. All things that are important to me.

Do you have a favourite among the Soneva resorts?

Eva and I live at Soneva Fushi in the Maldives. We consider it our home.

Are beach holidays popular with Indian travellers?

Generally, Indian travellers are not associated with enjoying the beach. That said, the Indian population is large and the small minority that do enjoy such exotic holidays still account for a large number of people.

While we encourage guests to switch off at our resorts, we do still offer high-speed Wi-Fi that they can turn off at will. Similarly, there are televisions but these are hidden away in trunks.

Where do you see the future of luxury beach travel?

We see what we do in terms of the beach holiday experience appealing to more and more people. Our brand proposition is inspiring a lifetime of rare experiences".

Over time, the word luxury has become misused. Luxury is not about objects. It is about a concept and a philosophy, and it is essentially about that which is not commonplace and which one does not get every day. For the rich today, eating in a designer air-conditioned restaurant run by a famous chef, or sitting in the back seat of a German car, is commonplace. However, space, privacy, fresh food and fresh air are rare. And theres no better setting than a private island to offer all these to our guests and inspire them with rare experiences. As well as allowing us to create unique, beyond-compare guest experiences, private islands also allow us to be a microcosm of the way we think life can be around the world, of a luxurious lifestyle that is sustainable. Personally, for myself, this is a very important aspect of what we do.

The eco centre at Soneva Kiri recycles 74% of the resorts waste. Photo: Antonina Gern

Luxury and sustainability seem to be two diametrically different things. Can luxury be sustainable?

It is if you redefine what luxury means. At Soneva, our core purpose is slow life". We aim to offer our guests luxuries while minimizing our impact on the planet and enhancing their health. I dont believe that this has to run counter to a successful business modelin fact, it can be central to it. We find opportunities to make small positive changes that do not impact negatively on either our profitability or our guests perception of our products, yet which can generate considerable good for both the environment and society.

What have been some of your most effective measures towards sustainability?

At Soneva, we have made some radical changes to the way we do things, but we are the first to admit that this is the beginning of a journey and there is still much to do. Our hotels are located amongst some of the worlds most pristine waters and natural environments, which makes us acutely aware of their natural importance and passionate about conserving them. Reducing our environmental impact is central to our companys philosophy. We have implemented some specific initiatives that we can practise in our own business, but we also have programmes that are designed to impact the wider world.

In 2008, we took the simple step of adding a mandatory 2% carbon levy to our guests bills, to offset their travel emissions. In four years, we raised about $5m (around Rs32.3 crore now), which was used to fund a reforestation programme in northern Thailand, planting half a million trees to mitigate around 400,000 tons of CO2. Additionally, funds have financed wind-power generators in south India, and 150,000 low-carbon cooking stoves in Myanmar and Darfur (Sudan).

Another example of a small change that did not affect profitability but does a lot of good, is our decision to ban branded bottled water at our resorts since 2008. Instead, we serve water that is bottled on site. Apart from the obvious ecological benefits from taking a linear process and making it circular, and creating a smarter, more elegant table-top experience for our guests, we discovered that we also achieved financial savings serving purified and energized tap water compared with imported branded water. This saving has given 600,000 people access to clean water.

In the Maldives, we initiated the Learn To Swim programme to teach the children of the Maldives to swim. We hope that they will learn to love their ocean, and when they love it, they will protect it. The programme is supported by film-maker and National Geographic adventurer Jon Bowermaster.

We also convene some of the worlds greatest minds across science, business, philanthropy and policy at our annual SLOW LIFE Symposium, creating a space to address the worst challenges threatening our incredible natural environment, and find tangible, collaborative solutions.
Travel Special: A touch of island magic A travel special to inspire memorable island journeys /news/talking-point/travel-special-a-touch-of-island-magic-111646920081984.html 111646920081984 story

A couple of years ago, I visited Seychelles on an assignment. One of the places on the itinerary was a tiny private island known as Denis. Guests fly in on a small 16-seater twin-propeller plane and theres a strict limit on the luggage each passenger can bring in. Since the photographer accompanying me had a lot of equipment, our personal luggage was limited. My duffel only had a swimsuit, one dress, shorts and a T-shirt.

From the moment we landed, until we left, we walked about barefoot. It was as though we had left behind the normal framework of life. There was no thought given to dressing appropriately or choosing accessories; instead, the decisions were all about which beach to swim at, or whether to go snorkelling or birdwatching. For two days, that tiny 1.4 sq. km island and the handful of people on it were my entire world.

I remember a moment when I was lying in the hammock outside my cottage, watching fairy-like white terns float in the warm air. Everything seemed to have slowed down: the waves, the fluttering leaves, my own heartbeat. Like the birds suspended in the current, I felt suspended in time, away from its urgencies and demands. To this day, it is a moment of island magic that I tap into whenever my days get too intense. It helps me reboot instantly.

This Travel Special is a collection of such moments of island magic that we hope will inspire memorable journeys. Scientist and photojournalist Britt Basels piece about the Cuban festival Fiesta del Fuego celebrates the vibrancy of the Caribbean, whereas Vidya Balachander writes about the contemplative spaces islands offer in a piece from her island home Sri Lanka . Check our list of affordable private island getaways to help you plan your own vacation. Closer home, we tell you about Indian islands , in rivers, lakes and along the coastline, that you may never have heard of.

Other stories in this issue evoke some of my favourite memories. In his piece exploring just what makes islands so special , Vivek Menezes mentions Tobago, a joy-filled Caribbean island I visited in 2014. It boggled my mind with the surprising Nylon Pool, a sandbank bang in the middle of the ocean, where the water is like a lagoon. Visitors can hop off the boat and stand on its white sand in waist-deep warm water, while just a few metres away its edge drops into the bottomless ocean. In typical island fashion, it is a popular party spot, where boats play soca music and serve chilled beer and rum punch.

Wildlife photographer extraordinaire Dhritiman Mukherjees photo essay is about another island surprise: the enchanting birds of paradise found on one tiny isle among the thousands that comprise the island nation of Indonesia.

And as if that werent enough, theres a quick dive into the literature and art that islands have inspired . For that is the truly surprising thing about islands: They may be small in size, and limited in options, but they are big on inspiration.

Neha Dara, Issue editor
Travel Special: Celebrating fire A joyous week-long festive tribute to the ethnic roots that give the Caribbean its most vibrant dance, music, and traditions /news/talking-point/travel-special-celebrating-fire-111646920256870.html 111646920256870 story

In Regla de Ocha, an Afro-Cuban religion rooted in West African cosmology, religious dancers and drummers bring the orishasgodsto life through folkloric dance and ritual. In the Casa del Caribe, a religious dancer breathes fire while he dances and embodies Chango, the orisha of fire, thunder, and dance. Photographs: Britt Basel

The drummers were slick with sweat as they played, their thrumming music a prayer. The valley filled with the intoxicating waves of percussive sound pouring from their sacred drums.

Born half a world away in western Africa, brought to the Caribbean through slavery, and surviving against all odds, the rhythm they played resonated with the essence of dense forests, open savannahs, burning sun, and a world alive with spirits and gods.

The elaborate beats danced against my skin and my chest. My heart, I was convinced, had altered its ordinary cadence to keep time with the percussionists. I was among thousands of people who had gathered in Santiago, the second largest city of the island nation of Cuba, for the 37th Annual Festival of the Caribbean (3-9 July), better known as the Fiesta del Fuegothe Celebration of Fire. Delegations from the West Indies and Latin America flock here each year to celebrate the identity, art and community of the Caribbean nations, and the dance and music that drives it all. The weeks festivities include parades, performances, conferences, workshops, magical-religious ceremonies, and live music late into the night.

I felt right at home. Dance feeds me. Sometimes, I joke that I could abandon everything except my family to dedicate myself to dance. And little in my life has made my eyes shine like being enveloped by a warm Caribbean night and moving to the clavethe rhythmic backbone of most Afro-Cuban music. There was nowhere in the world I would rather be than at the Fiesta del Fuego, standing with the drummers at the base of a colossal metal sculpture of the Cimarron, a monument dedicated to the rebel slaves, or cimarrons, of the Caribbean. The percussionists music was a tribute to the invincible spirit and African roots of the Caribbean that the Cimarron represents. Cast in iron and bronze, heavily adorned with African religious symbols, and towering almost 10m high, the sculptures base is a ngangaa cauldronthat overflows with the power of life and death. From this ancestral cauldron the cimarron is born, and, along with the music, rises defiantly towards the sky.

Crowded into the back of a massive Russian-issue truck, the Steel Band of Cobre leads the crowd in a parade toward the harbour in Santiago, where people gather for the grand finale of the Festival of the Caribbean, the burning of the devil.

Decoding the Cimarron

The statue commemorates every fugitive slave as the cimarron who escaped his captors. He broke the shackles that enslaved his brothers and sisters, kidnapped from their homelands in western Africa and brought by force to the Caribbean. The cimarron was, and is, fiercely freeasserting his freedom and resistance through Cubas dance, music and art.

The essence of the cimarron, with his ethnic origins in the Yoruba, Carabali and Bantu cultures of West Africa, resounds in modern Caribbean culture. He is alive and well in Afro-Cuban dances, from rumba in the backstreet barrios (neighbourhoods) to the vivacious movements of the comparsa street dancers of Caribbean carnivals. For centuries, he has moved couples across dance floors with popular dances from danzon to Cuban salsa. He declares his freedom in the thundering feet and shoulders of people who take to the streets of Santiago to dance a conga. And he was there in el toquethe playing of drumsdedicated to him during this years Fiesta del Fuego.

Sculpted in iron and bronze by Cuban artist Alberto Lescay, the Monumento al CimarronMonument to the Escaped Slavesoverlooks the picturesque valley of Cobre, a small town in the mountains above Santiago. According to the artist, the sculpture is not only an homage to Afro-Cuban culture and religion, but also a celebration of the freedom of the human spirit.

Cubas original capital, Santiago de Cuba, was founded in 1515 when the Spaniards colonized the island. The city is a strategic port, framed by the imposing green peaks of the Sierra Maestra mountain range and the Caribbean Sea.

The streets spill downward from the foothills of the Sierra towards the bay, between brightly painted homes built wall-to-wall. Weathered facades harbour stories of the individuals who lived behind them during the citys 500 years of rebellion, revolution and music.

Its no coincidence that the cimarron is celebrated here. The determined and unbreakable Santiagueros have defended themselves from pirates in colonial times, fought for freedom from Spain in the 19th century, helped ignite the Cuban Revolution of 1953-59, and safeguarded the Afro-Caribbean culture of Cuba.

Bara-Rumba, the folkloric dance group from Baracoa, Cuba, performs guaguanco for the crowd in Santiagos colonial central plaza, Parque Cespedes. During gatherings in Santiago, couples from the audience take to the stage with the percussionists to dance guaguanco in a light-hearted and flirtatious competition of skill and sass.

A city alive

As the festival took over the city, the already humming streets blossomed like the blanca mariposa, Cubas national flower, with musicians, artists, performers, and intellectuals from every corner of Cuba and the Caribbean. The sound of excited discussions about identity, gender and environmental challenges poured on to the streets through the doorways and windows of colonial buildings as I made my way through the mid-July tropical heat and air so thick I could almost drink it. With dusk, a gentler warmth wrapped the city in its arms, as the menagerie of cultures gathered for the evenings festivities. Musicians from Martinique and Venezuela met in inspired bouts of improvisation. Brazilian samba dancers amicably challenged Dominicans to follow their moves on stage. Cubans danced the timba with Virgin Islanders in lamp-lit streets. Music and art poured from every revolutionary crack, overcrowded patio and makeshift stage in the city.

On the back patio of the Casa del Caribe, the Cuban ministry of cultures House of the Caribbean, I joined a sea of dancers moving jubilantly to upbeat congas, cowbells and horns.

Just as the conga-cowbell pandemonium ended, a friendly hand tapped me on the shoulder. Eider Lopez, a long-time friend and choreographer for the Cuban folkloric dance group Bara-Rumba from nearby Baracoa, had found me in the rowdy crowd. Come practise guaguanco with us tomorrow morningwere staying at the school!"

Lopez gave me a warm hug before taking the stage with his troupe. Their tour de force show of eastern Cubas traditional dances, from the melodic chivalry of kiriba to the whooshing skirts and sass of guaguanco, was the perfect finale to my evening.

Time to dance

Early morning, the streets were empty aside from the occasional motorcycle taxi. Lopez met me at the entrance and led me past a cacophony of musical groups whose competing rhythms resounded through the halls. It was impossible to tell whether they were practising for an upcoming performance or were still in the throes of last nights party. I decided that both might be true.

I hustled to match his pace as he led me to the third floor, past altars to Afro-Caribbean deities. I almost tripped on the concrete steps when we passed an old Haitian woman whose piercing gaze and lined face seemed to tell the stories of generations.

Lopez pushed open the door to the dormitory, revealing the still-sleepy faces of the Bara-Rumba troupe. As I made the rounds, greeting everyone with a small kiss on the cheek in accordance with Cuban custom, Lopez and his twin brother, Hector, plugged in a small speaker and started the music for our dance class. The tiny speaker emitted a feeble whimper that was lost in the overwhelming clamour of the musical groups. We exchanged a helpless look.

Lisandro, one of the groups percussionists, winked and got up. He tapped a few shoulders, shuffled around a few chairs, and pulled the conga drums from their bags. Felix grabbed the clave, the two sticks used to create the beat by the same name. Suddenly, we had a full band playing for my dance class.

Santiagos eclectic cultural heritage has shaped it into a mecca of Cuban music and dance. The city is especially known for son, the music and dance style that led to modern salsa, Afro-Cuban guaguanco and the citys traditional conga parades. The Parque Cespedes plaza is the heart and soul of the city.

Divine moment

Behind the dance and celebration, and the constant flow of rum and aguardientefire water, a liqueur made from sugarcane passed around in shared plastic cups, the festival is a tribute to African heritage that, against all odds, survived slavery and suppression. Now, fused with Catholicism and meticulously passed from generation to generation, these roots are the heartbeat driving the Caribbean. And the Fiesta del Fuego.

Spectators gathered by the thousands in Parque Cespedes, the plaza in Santiagos colonial centre, shielding themselves from the late-afternoon sun with an explosion of colourful umbrellas. The ceremony began to unfold and driving drum rhythms erupted from the plaza into the crowded city streets.

The Ifa priest was at the epicentre of the Bantu Yoruba drummers and dancers, kneeling in his flowing white robes as he used white chalk to methodically create sacred symbols of arrows and lines on the burning grey asphalt. With tobacco smoke, and then with clouds of aguardiente, forcefully expelled from his mouth, he blessed them. The explosive sound of the drums grew stronger.

A young girl sheepishly stepped forward carrying an ornately decorated cows horn, the mpaka, charged in a sacred ceremony with all the good of the festival". The horn shone in the sun with red, white and blue beads forming the stripes and star of the Cuban flag.

Looking like a tiny childrens doll with wide, sparkling eyes next to the imposing presence and commanding stature of the priest, the girl extended her arms upward, offering him the horn. Tenderness transformed his face as she gingerly placed the mpaka in his hands. I inhaled deeplyfor a moment, I had forgotten to breathe, and in that instant, the exchange had eclipsed even the rhythmic beat of the drums.

The whole scene came back into focus as the drumming again increased in tempo for the consecration of the festival.

The Ifa priest now shifted his gaze to a man and woman by his side, officials from the government. With confident grace he reached forward, presenting them with the mpaka, wedding Afro-Cuban heritage with Cubas present.

The spectators roared. The Desfile de Fuego, the Parade of Fire, began. Dance troupes began to sweep through the plaza.

Dancing river

I made my way through the celebration, finding a spot in Parque Cespedes where each delegation stopped, offering their final tribute. One woman, dressed in a vibrant, flowing blue gown, assumed the spirit of the water deity Yemaya, becoming the ocean in all its moods, from soft rolling waves to the ferocity of winter storms, with masterful movements of her skirt, feet, hips and arms. Some dancers exhaled fire in golden globes that erupted from their mouths. In a show of defiant cimarron-like invincibility, others rubbed burning torches against their bodies or ran the blade of a sharp sword against their flesh without drawing blood.

When the watching crowd quickened, moving into the street and becoming the parade, a fellow photographer grabbed my arm. In thick Cuban-Spanish, he warned: The conga is starting. Go somewhere safe and protect your camera." Dany Hernandez, a friend and Cuban photographer, came to my rescue. He guided me through the crowd to a monstrous truck, a relic from the Russian army, that was waiting at the lower edge of the plaza. Towering 5m above the crowd, the back was packed with musicians and steelpans, drums made from metal barrels. The musicians were poised to play and lead the masses of people in a conga towards the bay and the final event of the festival: La Quema del Diablo, the Burning of the Devil.

Hernandez and the driver exchanged a few words before we scrambled up the slick sides of the monstrous truck to perch on top of the cab, just above the band and far above the multitudes below. The diesel ignition grumbled and we started moving. The jovial, tinny sound of the steelpans filled the air. The conga began. A flowing river of radiant smiles followed us, dancing towards the harbour. With my feet carefully wedged into a grate for balance, camera in one hand and keeping beat with the other, I thought this is how the cimarron would have danced in celebration of his freedom.

When we reached the edge of the bay, our dancing river met a sea of colourful shirts and dresses stretching as far as my eye could see. The entire city of Santiago had gathered, waiting for the conga to arrive and waiting for the burning of the devil. It was time.

An enormous figure of el diablo, the devil dressed in burlap and painted with maniacally crooked eyes, loomed above the people. Someone struck the match and languid flames lapped up his sides, growing steadily in their ferocity. The Diablo began to disappear like a ghost into the fire, with the smoke consuming himthe symbol of evil and injusticepurifying the path to the future, and next years Celebration of Fire.

***

Cuban dances

Casino: Sometimes referred to as Cuban salsa, casino is a partner dance derived from the Cuban son that was originally performed in Havanas casinos before the revolution (1953-59). Dancers often add steps from guaguanco, danzon, mambo and cha-cha-cha to the intricate combination of footwork and spins.

Rueda de Casino: Casino is danced in a circle, or rueda, by two or more couples. The dancers follow the direction of a cantante or lider who calls out moves.

Salsa con Timba: A genre of fast-paced and heavily improvized modern dance music that blends popular Cuban music with Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythms and other influences, including American jazz and R&B.

Rumba: Originating in Matanzas and Havana, rumba is a genre of Afro-Cuban music and dance with three primary forms: yambu, the slowest form of rumba, which can be danced alone; the faster guaguanco, a flirtatious and light-hearted dance of conquest and evasion between a man and a woman; and columbia, most often danced alone by a man in a competitive display of prowess and confidence.

Cubaton: Reggaeton-inspired music, based in hip hop and reggae, that was brought to Cuba from Puerto Rico and blended with Cuban rhythms. The result is the most popular dance music among Cubas youth.

Photojournalist Britt Basel has travelled through 39 countries, telling stories, helping communities protect their resources, and teaching. She is currently based in Chiapas, Mexico.
The absent queen of Lakshadweep The Arrakal family from Cannanore controlled these islands since at least the 16th century, and still gets paid an annual pension for having surrendered sovereignty over Laccadive and Minicoy /news/talking-point/the-absent-queen-of-lakshadweep-111646920245086.html 111646920245086 story

In 1781, finding herself in a tricky spot with the English East India Company, an Indian woman sent a courier to the Ottoman sultan bearing a plea for assistance. Abdul Hamid I was inclined to help and, summoning the English ambassador in Istanbul, expressed hope that the Beebi Sultan, the Queen of Malabar" would be treated sympathetically by his countrymen. It was a generous gesture, certainly, but like most gestures did not translate into any tangible advantage for his supplicant. In 1783, on the contrary, since she had allied with the wrong side during the Companys war against Tipu Sultan, her fort in Cannanore (now Kannur) in Kerala was invaded, and her palace plundered. Plunder, that is, in addition to the Rs2.6 lakh she was compelled to pay as indemnity, of which a lakh, she discovered, was off the books to satisfy the personal (and secret) avarice of certain officers. A treaty was signed with both sides promising, somewhat ambitiously, to uphold it as long as the sun and moon shall last". Six years later, these exalted celestial bodies were brushed aside abruptly as the two parties went to war once again; and this time, the lady lost her fort forever.

The woman in question, Junumabe II, belonged to the Arakkal family of Cannanore that controlled the Lakshadweep islands from at least the 16th century, though of course no ruler ever actually condescended to visit their little kingdom, parked as they were across the water on the Indian coast. The origins of the house are obscure. One tale connects them with a legendary Malayali monarch who converted to Islam and sailed for Meccaan eternal flame was maintained in Arakkal Palace in memory of this uncle". Another story features a Hindu princess who, the Dutch said, was made pregnant by a prominent Moor or Arab", spawning a Muslim royal line that followed Hindu matrilineal succession. The firstborn ruled regardless of sex as the Ali Raja; if it was a girl, she had the additional honorific of Bibi". Yet another origin myth shows their ancestress in chaster lightshe was drowning when a Muslim youth dived in to her rescue, but having been touched by a stranger in a compromising watery situation, she took him and his faith as her own. A final story erases all royal links and simply points to a noble family that transferred its allegiance to Islam many centuries ago, and over time rose to princely status.

Either way, a local raja from the mainland granted this Muslim line the sovereignty of Lakshadweep in return for tribute. In its palmy days," one scholar notes, the House administered its own laws, maintained its own currency and exercised powers of inflicting capital punishment over its subjects." These subjects are believed to have gone in boats from Kerala to populate the islands a long time ago, some claiming descent from high-caste Hindu clans. At a certain point, a saint revered locally as Munbe Muliyaka sailed in and persuaded them to embrace Islam, though the religion actually practised was a blend of Quranic principle and Hindu custom. It was the Portuguese who first disturbed the independence of the islands, and in the resultant bloodshed, the islanders sought the protection of a Hindu rajathe very ruler who would transfer the suzerainty he thus gained to the progeny of the drowning woman. This new royal family grew wealthy by cultivating commercial networks as far away as Arabia and Persia, and their approach to the islands now in their possession was also driven by calculations of profit and lossa policy that led to great discontent in Lakshadweep.

It appears that the islands were viewed, from the comforts of the palace in Kerala, more as a cash cow than as a community to which its rulers also had certain obligations. In the 1760s, for instance, the Ali Raja introduced a coir monopoly under which islanders were prohibited from selling their goods to outsiders. The prices approved by the Arakkal treasury for coir, however, were vastly lower than the market rates. There were other rules too, some of them ridiculous enough to infect the air with a mood of rebellion. Except jaggery," we are told, all the minor products of the islands" (including tortoise shells!) were monopolized. Cowries, for instance, were purchased dirt cheap from Lakshadweep and sold at a 400% profit by its absentee princes in markets elsewhere. With tobacco, the arrangement was particularly scandalous", the Bibi reaping profits of up to 1,000%. Agents of her government stationed on the island made things worsetheir measly annual salaries meant they too were anxious for cuts. If a bovine were killed, the agent was entitled to a quarter of its meat. If a new boat was to be launched, the Bibis men could seize it if they were denied their fee.

In the 1780s, the cluster known as the Amindive islands revolted and pledged itself to Tipu Sultan. And when that ruler was defeated, control of these islands passed to the English as spoils of war. The Bibi, though, retained Minicoy and the Laccadive cluster, paying tribute to the Company nowduring negotiations, she claimed her revenue from these was only Rs20,000, while a British investigation revealed that she drew nearly six times that figure in actual income. Her tribute was settled grudgingly at Rs15,000 a year. The islanders, however, continued to clash with their overseas royal government, and, by the middle of the 19th century, several years of tribute was in arrearsin 1869, it was discovered that Arakkal had, in fact, lost control over most of the islands and had no revenue to begin with. A phantom sovereignty" remained in force, while the British took matters into their own hands. If Arakkal wanted the islands back, the Bibi was informed, she would have to improve her style of governmentand, of course, settle the pending payments. Neither of these, everyone knew, was actually feasible.

Decades passed in this fashion, till in 1908 the impasse was broken. Imbichi Ali Raja, the then Bibi, agreed to surrender sovereignty over Laccadive and Minicoy in return for an annual malikhana (pension) of Rs23,000an amount that is still paid to the family, which a few years ago petitioned for a raise. A seven-gun salute appears to have been granted, along with British recognition of the title sultan" for heads of the dynasty. As for the islanders, these events generated hope of a better, or at least fairer, regime. And to a certain extent, conditions were created, if not of prosperity, of fewer exactions. After all, in shaking off the autocracy of a princess in Kerala, the islands were only placing themselves under the very different variety of tyranny that came with becoming subjects of the British empire. And any real promise of progress would have to wait for some more decades till the colonial government withdrew, and a democratic state handed over the destinies of Lakshadweep, at last, to its own people.

Medium Rare is a column on society, politics and history. Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore.

He tweets at @UnamPillai
KYIV. Nov 10 (Interfax-Ukraine)  The situation in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in Donbas this week has not changed significantly, observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) have recorded individual outbreaks of violence.

"This week, the level of violence has not increased, but we recorded separate outbreaks of violence in certain areas... Over 5,000 violations of the ceasefire regime have been recorded over the week," Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM to Ukraine Alexander Hug sais at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
Ukrainian experts and public persons will discuss the future of taxation and cryptocurrencies at TOP FORUM Ukraine

International conference for business owners and senior executives is to be held on 4 December 2017 in Hilton Hotel Kyiv.

The agenda includes taxation trends, international business, blockchain and cryptocurrency. Please see more topics and speakers list on www.topforum.info/ukraine.

Conference moderator is Andriy Kulikov.

The representative of the Ministry of Finance, people's deputies, the President of ULIE, tax experts will tell what business should expect - about Ukraine's tax policy in 2018-2019, the impact of international trends on the tax system.

The famous tax advisers will discuss how Ukrainian companies approach the international markets. More topics will cover: establishing companies abroad, opening bank accounts, current trends in international taxation, opportunities and risks of financial transparency, BEPS, transfer pricing, management fee, service fee and many others.

The representatives of the Parliament and NBU together with other experts will discuss the Ukrainian regulation of cryptocurrencies, the perspectives and risk for using it in Ukraine.

How will the Blockchain change the work state registries and private banks? Its the topic for discussion of the representative of the Ministry of Justice, Advisor of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine and other experts.

How and why do Ukrainian companies check their contract partners - the information from the Interfax representative.

Register here https://topforum.pro/registration-ukraine/

Interfax-Ukraine is the general media partner of the event.
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A 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing his boyfriend to death in an apartment in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, authorities said Thursday.

Othman Al-Muttalaby of San Francisco was taken into custody Tuesday at San Francisco General Hospital while being treated for an injury, police said.

Officers responded about 3 p.m. on Nov. 2 to an apartment in the 300 block of Hayes Street to conduct a welfare check on Keith Harris, police said.

Harris, 48, was found with multiple stab wounds on the floor of the apartment, police said.

He died at San Francisco General Hospital.

Al-Muttalaby, also known as Alkoraishie Ali on social media, was at the hospital being treated for an injury when sheriffs deputies tracked him down, police said.

There was no information immediately available on Al-Muttalabys injuries.

Im just really confused as to the why, because Keith was just really generous and he was just trying to get Ali help, Arthur Patterson, 52, of San Francisco, a friend of Harris, told The Chronicle before Al-Muttalabys arrest.

He added that Harris friends suspected Al-Muttalaby was the killer when he disappeared after the stabbing.

Al-Muttalaby was charged with murder and domestic violence, according to the San Francisco district attorneys office. He is being held without bail. His arraignment is scheduled for Monday.

Keith was just a very kind person, he was really smart, and he was really generous just with his time, Patterson said.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide

By Cass Sunstein

Harvard University Press. 199 pp. $7.95

---

Hey, let's talk about impeachment. You know, just in case it ever comes up.

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein has written a concise, enlightening and argumentative history and guide to getting rid of presidents, but he insists he is not thinking of anyone in particular. Or, more accurately, he won't tell us if he's thinking of anyone in particular. "With the goal of neutrality in mind," Sunstein writes in his opening chapter, "I am not going to speak of any current political figure. I am going to focus on the majesty, and the mystery, of impeachment under the U.S. Constitution."

I'm not convinced that, under different political circumstances, we'd be seeing many new how-to books on the meaning and mechanics of presidential impeachment. (Indeed, Sunstein's is not even the only one with this title.) But let's take the author at his word and avoid naming names. For the moment, we can allow majesty to trump specificity.

And describing "Impeachment: A Citizen's Guide" as a how-to book is not quite accurate, in any case. It's more of a why-to and when-to, and a what-were-they-thinking-when-they-decided-to kind of book. Sunstein delves into the writings, speeches and deliberations of America's revolutionary generation and concludes that impeachment was at the core of the founders' effort to "balance the defining republican commitments to liberty, equality, and self-rule with the belief in a strong, energetic national government."

America, especially in the post-Articles of Confederation period, needed a strong executive but feared one as well. The solution, Sunstein writes, was "a chain with three links: a single magistrate; election every four years; and impeachment."

Sunstein draws heavily on the deliberations of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton - I mean, why wouldn't you - to explain the case for impeachment and its constitutional role. A president "might pervert his administration into a scheme of peculation or oppression," Madison worried, for instance. "He might betray his trust to foreign powers." But it is George Mason who delivers perhaps the most eloquent and memorable case for the people's right to impeach their highest elected leader: "Shall any man be above Justice? Above all, shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice? ... Shall the man who has practiced corruption & by that means procured his appointment in the first instance, be suffered to escape punishment, by repeating his guilt?"

More recently, high elected officials have delivered their own definitions and rationales. In 1970, Gerald Ford, then a member of Congress, described an impeachable offense as whatever a majority of the House of Representatives believes it to be "at a given moment in history." And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asserted this year that a president cannot be impeached unless he has broken the law.

"Both Ford and Pelosi got it fundamentally wrong," Sunstein writes. "Their views make a mockery of the constitutional design."

Based on his close reading of the founders and constitutional law, Sunstein notes, impeachment is a remedy available only "for egregious abuses of official authority." It is in a president's discharge of the duties of that office - or in the acquisition of the office - that impeachable offenses can occur. So criminal behavior is neither necessary nor sufficient to trigger impeachment. So while a crime is not absolutely necessary for impeachment, it is not sufficient to trigger impeachment, either. Sunstein binds impeachment to the revolutionary aims of the founders. "A violation of liberty or rights is an impeachable offense - even if it is not itself a crime."

You don't have to be an originalist to accept that the founders' vision of impeachment remains entirely relevant. "Sure, the president is far more powerful, and sure, he can commit 'misdemeanors' that the founding generation could not have imagined," Sunstein writes. "But the abstract concerns that motivated them - treason, bribery, corruption, egregious abuse of public trust or misuse of presidential authority - are no different from those that concern us."

Sunstein continues this book - which, don't forget, is absolutely not at all about any current politician - by considering scenarios that should or should not trigger impeachment. Just suppose, for instance, that a president "has admiration and sympathy for a foreign nation that wishes to do harm to the United States ... [and] reveals classified information to leaders of that nation," Sunstein posits. Or assume that a president really loves police officers, believes they are unfairly accused of murder and assault, and one day promises to pardon any one of them charged with such crimes. Or picture, if you can, a president who "lies, constantly and on important occasions, to the American people" regarding all manner of issues, in a repeated and egregious fashion. "We could also imagine," Sunstein writes, "a truly bizarre political context, in which a sitting president is destroying his own party's prospects, or in which his decisions seem, even to his own people, to be so damaging and eccentric that he has to be relieved of his duties." In all such cases, he concludes, impeachment can and should be an option.

But say, for instance, that a president is revealed to have cheated on his taxes before taking office or even after. Those are not impeachable offenses, even if they end up being criminal ones, Sunstein contends, because they did not involve a misuse or abuse of his official powers. Or imagine, if you possibly can, a president who constantly displays terrible judgment and makes erratic decisions that "lead to domestic and international turmoil." That would not be impeachable, either. Simply being a bad - or even failed - president is plenty enough to cost you re-election, but not enough to launch impeachment proceedings.

Sunstein returns again and again to what the Constitutional Convention was trying to accomplish with impeachment. "The delegates who supported the power to impeach and remove the president wanted to thread a needle," he writes. "They sought to create a safety valve while also maintaining the separation of powers and ensuring that the president would not be Congress' lackey."

The power of impeachment can itself be abused, Sunstein argues, pointing to the two presidential impeachments on the books thus far. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for firing his secretary of war and thus violating the Tenure of Office Act - a law that had been passed precisely to bait the president into an impeachable offense. And Bill Clinton was impeached during his second term, accused of perjury and obstruction of justice relating to his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and a lawsuit by Paula Jones. Even if the president acted unlawfully, Sunstein writes, the situation should not have risen to the level of impeachment because it did not involve an egregious abuse of the office. "It is not impeachable to use official power to cover up an action that is not itself impeachable," Sunstein writes. In both cases, the presidents were acquitted by the full Senate. And Richard Nixon, far more deserving of impeachment than the other two, never suffered the fate because his resignation pre-empted it.

For all his scholarly and historical excavations, Sunstein admits that impeachment has traditionally been a partisan affair. Democrats are more likely to support impeachment of Republicans and vice versa, while all politicians are less inclined to impeach presidents of their own parties. The author looks at modern politics and worries that extreme partisanship, the easy spread of false information, and various behavioral and psychological traps such as group polarization and confirmation bias - you know Sunstein's gonna Sunstein - "will result in unjustified, harmful and destabilizing efforts" to impeach presidents.

He is also concerned, to be fair, that our elected representatives won't use the power when they should, perhaps fearing the reaction by the president's supporters. "If a president systematically overreaches in his use of executive authority, or puts civil rights and civil liberties seriously at risk, he is likely to have, or to be able to get, the backing of a lot of Americans - at the very least, a big chunk of the electorate," Sunstein reasons. "Will We the People end up doing anything in response? I don't know."

Does he think we might face such a dilemma in the near future? This book doesn't say so - remember, majesty and all that. But there might be a clue in Sunstein's next book, an essay anthology forthcoming in March. Its title: "Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America."

I wonder if that one is also about no one in particular.
What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters

By Garry Wills

Viking. 226 pp. $25

---

Americans are obsessed with Islam as an idea, as a mystery and as an existential threat to the West. As a result, our debates over Islam and Muslims aren't really about "them" as much as they are about "us" - and the supposed battle between the two. In his new book, "What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters," historian Garry Wills shows how some Americans use Muslims as a way to define who they themselves are and what they stand for, and to sharpen their definition of Western civilization.

The 2016 presidential race was a case in point. As Wills writes, "The crowded field of Republican candidates sounded, at times, as if they were running against Islam, not against Democrats." Wills, the author of "Why I Am a Catholic" and "Why Priests?," comes at Islam as a sympathetic outsider or, more precisely, an outsider who wants to be as sympathetic as he's able to be.

Like many well-meaning observers, Wills hopes to educate readers about Islam in an effort to defuse Islamophobia. His book is directed at those who know little about the religion beyond what they glean from unsavory headlines. His premise is noble enough: that ignorance can be fought with knowledge. If only more people became more informed about the Koran, they might not believe those who insist that Islam is a dangerous religion. So it's hard to fault Wills for some cliched reassurances. For example, he writes of al-Qaeda and the soldiers of the Islamic State: "The minority fanatics seem to be unaware of their own traditions."

Here, Wills shows that his knowledge of the Islamic State's theology is sometimes limited. The problem isn't that Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is unaware of more broad-minded interpretations of the Koran; it's that he thinks they're wrong. As Yale University's Mara Revkin has shown, the Islamic State was built on a complex legal structure and could have been worked out only by people intimately familiar with Islamic legal precepts (however extreme and idiosyncratic their understanding of them).

The Islamic State's Salafi-jihadist rendering of Islam - a kind of originalist approach to the canonical texts - is appealing to its followers precisely because it distrusts accumulated tradition that has helped Muslims adapt Islamic law for changing times. For the Islamic State's ideologues, modernity has bent Islam to its will, and their job is to reverse that process. If there were slaves and concubines in the prophet's time, for instance, then there must be in all times.

Wills sometimes seeks to present Islam as something it never was. For instance, he claims that a "mountain of evidence" demonstrates that "Islam favors peace over violence." But Islam is not a pacifist religion. For centuries, Muslim jurists developed a body of law on the waging of war, including how to treat prisoners and civilians caught in conflict and the definition of what properly qualifies as jihad. Wills leaves an intriguing question unanswered: Why should Islam be pacifist in the first place? Since religions are more than just private belief systems, they inevitably must account not only for the ideal of peace but for the reality of war. The Koran was revealed to a prophet and a people engaged in battle, so Islam would necessarily have to address questions of violence and the conquest of territory by force. Before modern norms challenged the violent acquisition and annexation of territory, groups had to capture, hold and govern areas by force; no one voluntarily lets you take their land.

Wills makes other claims that are simply misleading, as when he asserts that "there are no 'portions' of the Qur'an that discuss Shari'ah."In support of his argument, he says that only about 500 of the Koran's 6,235 verses deal with legal matters. The Koran is not a legal manual, but 8 percent of a book isn't exactly nothing, either. The holy book is one of the major sources for interpreting sharia. Wills' presumption appears to be that a religion having something to say about law is a negative thing and must therefore be played down.

In a modern liberal context, the law explicitly belongs to the realm of politics and governance, while religion is seen as something separate, sacred and personal. This is not only a modern conception of law - a product of the nation-state system and the Enlightenment's preoccupation with the rational - but a distinctly Christian one as well. Wills appears to be reading this Christian understanding of religion into Islam. A "good" Islam - the one he introduces to readers - is basically peaceful and, like Christianity, bereft of a serious legal code.

Sharia, which encompasses Islamic law but also private rituals such as praying and fasting, cannot be found in any one place, evolving as it did through precedent and practice. Islam has quite a bit to say about public and political behavior, apparently making it, in Wills' eyes, difficult for Christian and nonreligious readers to comprehend. This probably plays some part in his tendency to offer awkward asides, at once patronizing and over-earnest, such as: "Some people might be surprised to hear there is such a thing as a Muslim feminist. In fact, there are many of them." Yes, there are many of them. Why wouldn't there be, is the more useful question to pose.

I have mixed feelings about emphasizing these faults. This is not a book by a scholar of Islam, so it shouldn't be judged for its lack of originality. It is a book for people who know little about the religion. But if the millions of Americans who found themselves suspicious of Muslims weren't already reassured by George W. Bush's pronouncements of Islam as a religion of peace, it's unclear why Wills would do much better. I also worry about the unintended effects of trying to soften Islam's image or dilute its content. Trying to make Islam digestible to non-Muslims by making it peaceful and legally ambivalent may only inspire more confusion. What happens when, after reading about this palatable, peaceful and unthreatening religion, Americans are confronted by a version of it that is unapologetically assertive and uncompromising?

---

Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of "Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World" and the co-editor of "Rethinking Political Islam."
The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors

By Dan Jones

Viking. 428 pp. $30

---

The planning was meticulous. Signed and sealed, laden with accusation and instruction, the letters were sent by the king to local authorities throughout his realm. They were to act exactly one month later, simultaneously and at the crack of dawn - on a Friday the 13th, as it happened. The targets were unaware of what lay in store, their leader even spending time with the king and seeming to enjoy his favor. The hour came, and armed men launched their surprise, summarily carrying off hundreds to the king's dungeons, and many ultimately to their deaths. It was a performance reminiscent of a Stalinist purge or Hitler's Night of the Long Knives.

The year was 1307, and the month was October. The king was Philip IV of France. And his victims were all members of the order of "the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem," better known as the Knights Templar - or simply the Templars. Over a period of two centuries, this charitable and military order of Crusaders had grown in power and wealth. At a stroke, and with the acquiescence of a weakened pope, Philip destroyed the order, imprisoning its leaders and burning many at the stake. "God will avenge our death," said James of Molay, the last Grand Master, as he faced the flames on an island in the Seine.

And, in a way, God has. The Templars live on in popular culture - from the video game "Assassin's Creed" to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Philip IV does not.

Dan Jones, the author of well-regarded histories of the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses, obviously gives no credence to the conspiratorial fantasies that have been spun around the Templars over the years. No, they do not guard the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, and never did. No, a surviving remnant does not protect the identities of the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdelene. No, the order does not secretly run the world - that's the Trilateral Commission or maybe Skull and Bones. In "The Templars," Jones relegates this curious afterlife to an epilogue. His aim is to present a gripping historical narrative, and in this he succeeds.

The raw material is rich. Founded by a French knight in 1119, after the successful First Crusade, the Templars began with a mission to protect throngs of pilgrims now traveling to the Holy Land. The members of the order wore white robes with a distinctive red cross, embraced personal poverty and lived according to a regime codified by the great Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. A papal charter was followed by a papal decree granting the Templars an exemption from taxes and local laws, effectively creating a transnational entity whose members could go anywhere. As Jones describes it, the order comes across as a combination of Blackwater, Goldman Sachs, Kroll International, FedEx, Fort Knox, Bechtel and, well, the Red Cross.

The financial acumen of the Templars was considerable. In the post-"Da Vinci Code" era, visitors to London often make their way to the Temple Church, between Fleet Street and the Thames, built in the mid-12th century. The circular nave - typical of Templar churches - is the oldest part of the structure and was used as a repository by English nobles and by the Crown itself. "By the 1240s," Jones writes, "the order was providing diverse financial services to some of the richest and most powerful figures across Christendom." The Templars "guaranteed debts, ransomed hostages and prisoners of war on credit, and could arrange very large loans - such as the one made in 1240 to Baldwin II, the emperor of Constantinople, and secured by his very own fragment of the True Cross."

The order's military record was mixed. In 1187, an army of Templars and others, under King Guy of Jerusalem, was surrounded and slaughtered by the sultan Saladin in his successful campaign to restore Palestine to the Muslim fold. Saladin had played his hand skillfully: stopping up wells even as he enticed the Christians farther into the searing flats; pausing long enough to allow dehydration to take its toll; then moving in for the kill. Some 200 Templars were captured, and Saladin beheaded them all.

That was an unhappy episode, but the Templars had another century of influential life in front of them, until that Friday the 13th in 1307. Philip IV was pious, paranoid, unscrupulous and mercurial - and deeply in debt to the Templars. It was all too easy to manufacture charges of heresy, blasphemy and sexual depravity: urinating on the cross, having sex on the altar - the usual allegations. The power and secretiveness of the Templars only fueled the charges. The decisive blow was struck in France, but within a few years the Templars were extinct throughout Christendom, except in the popular imagination.

"The themes of the Templar story resonate powerfully today," Jones observes. He rightly does not pontificate about this and draws no specious parallels, but the reader can't help recognizing familiar territory. There is the preoccupation in the West with what we now call the Middle East. Religions collide and atrocities abound. Cries of "Allahu akhbar" pierce the din of battle. The power of states is threatened, or seen to be threatened, by unaccountable forces with global tentacles. Information is unreliable and easily manipulated, allowing conspiracy theories to take root and spread.

Nothing is left of the Templars except words on parchment and ruins in stone. An older crusading order with certain similarities, the Knights Hospitaller, does still exist, after a fashion - its genetic progeny are the Knights of Malta. They have a palatial headquarters on the Aventine in Rome. They have a papal charter and enjoy quasi-sovereign status. They can issue their own passports. They maintain diplomatic relations with a hundred countries. And, like the Templars, they do not rule the world.

---

Murphy is the editor at large of Vanity Fair. He is the author of "God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World." His new book "Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make Believe," will be published this month.
Adults in the Room: My Battle With the European and American Deep Establishment

By Yanis Varoufakis

Farrar, Straus Giroux. 550 pp. $28

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"Aults in the Room" is hard to characterize. Ostensibly it is a nonfiction account by former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis of his negotiations with the Troika (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) over the Greek debt crisis. Sometimes, however, it reads like a novel centered on a globetrotting, motorcycle-riding hero fighting the forces of darkness and ignorance. Ultimately, perhaps it is best understood as the story of an academic idealist who became involved in deep political battles for which he had little understanding or sympathy.

The financial crisis left Greece bankrupt and in economic and social meltdown. In "Adults in the Room," Varoufakis claims he had a plan that would have ended Greece's suffering and revitalized Europe. Getting the Troika to accept it, however, would require threatening a Greek default, thereby potentially blowing up German and French banks (to which Greek debt was initially owed) and the euro zone itself. Varoufakis persuaded Greece's new left-wing prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, to accept his plan, and Tsipras then asked Varoufakis to become finance minister to carry it out. Having previously been an academic and wary of politics, Varoufakis hesitated but in the end accepted - influenced by the pleas of a homeless man who urged him to "remember" the people and by the realization that "an historical accident had given [him] a rare chance to do right, speak truth to power, and work to bring a genuine recovery to our wasteland."

Varoufakis thus headed off to save Greece and Europe - and was consistently and unceremoniously rebuffed. His plan called for Greece to trigger its nuclear option: its refusal to take on more debt, essentially ejecting itself from the euro zone. But Tsipras balked, and the whole thing came crashing down.

Much of "Adults in the Room" is taken up with Varoufakis' explanation of this failure. Convinced of his plan's economic and moral superiority, Varoufakis emphasizes his opponents' stupidity and immorality. (He sees himself as the only adult in the room.) Key officials, including his nemesis, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, are characterized as pushing "incompetent authoritarism," and their policies are seen as "organized folly" and "fiscal waterboarding." Varoufakis claims that the Troika rejected his plan to avoid admitting that their own mistakes had aggravated the crisis and engaged in "lies and distortions that would make Joseph Goebbels proud."

All good stories need a villain, and for Varoufakis it's the Germans. He alleges that their ultimate goal was enhancing their power, which meant crushing the leftist Greek government so as to not "give ideas to other Europeans." Varoufakis has nothing but disdain for how the rest of Europe submitted meekly to its new "master." ("Adults in the Room" catalogs the myriad people who agreed with him, but only in private.) The French come in for particular scorn for being unwilling to stand up to the Germans, not recognizing, Varoufakis claims, that German policy toward Greece was aimed at sending a message to Paris as well.

"Adults in the Room" provides, however, another interpretation of Varoufakis' failure. Varoufakis approached negotiations as an academic, convinced that with facts and decency on his side, any argument could be won; he was unaware of and uninterested in the political calculations guiding his opponents. Varoufakis was a terrible diplomat - he had little understanding of protocol or power dynamics and treated Troika meetings like university seminars. He misunderstood (and clearly disliked) the Germans. Schauble and the German government were committed to Europe; they just had a very different diagnosis of its problems than Varoufakis did. The Germans believed that the crisis was primarily caused by previous Greek governments' corruption, irresponsible borrowing, and inability or unwillingness to collect taxes. They were therefore unwilling to allow debt restructuring to precede reforms; they believed that only the threat of bankrupting Greek banks and perhaps booting the country out of the euro zone would inspire the Greeks to do what was necessary. Greece's own role in the crisis' backstory occupies only a few pages of nearly 500 pages of text.

Germany's position may have been wrong, but it was deeply believed and not only by Schauble's party, the Christian Democratic Union. Varoufakis does not recognize the political constraints facing the German government: Its taxpayers were loath to bail out a country seen as irresponsible and unwilling to accept the painful labor market and other reforms they themselves had endured.

Varoufakis' explanation of his Greek allies is similarly apolitical, focusing on their weakness and corruption by the system. He is particularly stung by Tsipras' betrayal; he believes that if Tsipras had stuck with him, his plan would have worked. But unlike Varoufakis, who took on the role of finance minister hesitantly and then constantly threatened to resign, as prime minister Tsipras was responsible for the fate of his country and party. Sticking to Varoufakis' plan would have meant ejecting Greece from the euro zone into a world where its banks had no money and its survival depended on constructing an entirely new and untested payment system to replace the euro. Any strategy whose success depends on a prime minister sending his country careening off a cliff into the unknown is probably not a very good one.

It is hard to read "Adults in the Room" and not feel admiration for Varoufakis' commitment to Greece and Europe, as well as frustration with his inability or unwillingness to play the messy and often irrational political games necessary to get his ideas a hearing. It is also hard to read this book and not feel immensely worried about Europe. During the crisis the European Union pushed around democratically elected governments in Greece and elsewhere and insisted that the will of the people could not outweigh what it believed were necessary economic reforms. Varoufakis' explanations of his failures may not be fully convincing, but his critiques of the E.U. are. If Europe is to survive, it will need to pay more attention to democrats and idealists like Varoufakis.

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Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, is the author of "The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe's 20th Century."
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An outcry broke out on social media this week over several Laredo high school students' choice of makeup for senior week as photos circulated online.

Social media posts show several United High School seniors dressed as the Jackson 5, American rapper Kodak Black and hip-hop artist Offset. But it was the fact that these students chose to paint their faces black as part of their senior week costumes that caused the uproar.

The photos of students posing in blackface generated a stream of comments, deeming the costumes inappropriate and racist. As a United High School alumna, Liliana Lozano said she was disappointed to see high school seniors using blackface in their costumes this year.

"I wasn't the only one to realize this act of racism, however 'harmless' the intentions may have been," Lozano told LMT.

READ MORE: UIW responds to allegations of student-athletes dressing in blackface

Lozano said she called the high school to express her concern. She said the last thing she wants is for people unfamiliar with Laredo's lack of diversity to think the ignorant acts speak for United High or the city of Laredo as a whole.

Traditionally, seniors dress in various costumes during the course of senior week. The week consists of themes that include character day, worldwide day and Hollywood day. Historically, blackface portrayals are considered offensive due to its roots in racial oppression.

The United Independent School District said corrective action was taken at the campus and students were cooperative.

"United ISD and United High School does not condone the deception of characters that may be deemed offensive or hurtful to anyone," UISD said in statement. "Campus administrators have addressed students and directed those whose costumes may be questionable to remove offensive makeup or props, or alter their costumes."

Another photo circulating on social media showed a student dressed as Adolf Hitler. The student, whose costume includes a swastika, is photographed performing the Nazi salute.

MORE FROM LMTonline: Army dad surprises kids with touching reunion at Trautmann Middle School

Christopher Kim said the incident was "absolutely appalling." Kim expressed how inappropriate it was for students to dress up in blackface or as Hitler, "especially in an educational setting where you learn the historical contexts of these actions/figures."

Kim said this wasn't the first time the school district's senior week consisted of controversial costumes. He said hopefully students will learn from their mistakes and the school district will work on changing their policies.

"Senior week is a reward to our seniors for four years of hard work," UISD said in a statement. "United ISD will review its guidelines and make amendments if necessary to ensure a safe and secure environment for all students."
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Fond memories and very few dry eyes filled the sanctuary on Nov. 9 at Houston First Baptist Church. Family and friends gathered to celebrate the life of Cypress resident Anna Klein who passed away one year ago at 24 from a brain injury suffered in a fall from her horse. Klein's organs became donations as gifts to others in need of lifesaving transplants.

Dignity Memorial Providers of Houston will honor Anna Klein at the 129th Rose Parade on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif. Family members, friends, and volunteers paid tribute by decorating a "floragraph"- a portrait made of floral and natural materials - to be featured on the Donate Life float at the Rose Parade.

Steve and Mary Klein, Anna's parents, made the decision to donate their daughter's organs because they felt it was fitting due to their daughter's love of helping others.

"This ceremony is a day to honor Anna's life for how she lived it on the earth and be able to share that with others," Steve Klein said. "It is to be reminded of giving our lives away while we are here on this earth. We feel and believe because of our faith, that to serves others is important to us and Anna did that so well. We are able to share that again through this event and that is meaningful to us."

After her passing, Klein helped others by giving the gift of life through five separate organ donations of the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, and corneas.

LifeGift, a nonprofit organization that offers hope to individuals needing transplants in Southeast, North and West Texas, was the intermediary between the Klein family, medical facilities and the patients who benefitted from Klein's donation.

"There is a need for organ donations. Without people like Anna, lives are lost," Laura Frnka-Davis said, Life Gift managing director and communications representative. "On one side there is the very sad story of death and loss, but on the other side there is a story of life. Even though Anna was not a registered donor, her family made the very difficult, courageous, and beautiful decision to donate her organs."

The organization is a member organization of Donate Life America, an alliance of national organizations and state teams across the United States committed to increasing the number of donated organs, eyes and tissue available for transplant to save and heal lives.

In a tearful speech, Adrian Steffes, a liver recipient from Klein's organ donation, thanked the Klein family and LifeGift for the priceless gift.

"As a liver recipient of Anna's I am humbled very much so," Steffes said. "Organ donations represent humanity at its best, not just as a scientific achievement, but as a sincere expression of human kindness. This gift has changed my life forever."

According to Life Gift, 13,000 people in Texas are awaiting a lifesaving transplant, 1,310 lives were saved last year across LifeGift's regions, and 47 percent of adults in Texas are registered donors.

"To be able to meet someone whose life has been able to be extended because of organ donations is a real joy to see," Steve Klein said. "It enriches our lives and it has brought a new depth and meaning to life. Twelve months later after our daughter's passing, we know see the beauty of donating her organs in someone else's life."

LifeGift services 10 transplant centers and 200 donor hospitals. It is accredited by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations and the American Association of Tissue Banks.

Through the creation of the floragraph portrait, family, friends, and volunteers aim to honor Klein and raise awareness of the need for organ, eye and tissue donors.

Klein was a volunteer at SIRE, a therapeutic horse riding organization, attended Lone Star College, and had a goal of working at a veterinary clinic.

"It was a privilege getting to know the family because of the circumstances they went through with loss of a child at such a young age, and the tough decision they had to make of their daughter becoming an organ donor," Will Schroeter said, general manager at Earthman Hunters Creek Funeral Home, a Dignity Memorial provider. "Organ donation is a way of helping others in their circumstances of needing a second chance."

The Dignity Memorial network of 21 funeral, cremation, and cemetery service providers honored Klein by sponsoring the floragraph finishing event where family and friends finished the portrait created by the artists commissioned by the Donate Life organization. Dignity Memorial, is a top-tier sponsor of the Donate Life Rose Parade float and has been a part of the program for 10 years.

"My hope is that we are able to share Anna's life through events like this and that her legacy points people to Christ. Anna shared her faith with other people," Steve Klein said.
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140 days.

That's the amount of time allotted for the Texas Legislature to get their job done until the next biennium. While it's a tightly choreographed calendar, the pressure is on for legislators to wheel and deal, build relationships and get the work of their constituents back home done.

The only interruption to that running clock is when the governor, who has the power, calls a special session forcing legislators back to the capital to finish the people's business or take on special agenda items.

Now that the legislature has convened until the next biennium, Rep. Ernest Bailes said he's back spending time taking care of constituent work in House District 18 that entails Liberty, San Jacinto and Walker counties.

"We're answering calls from the folks we represent, and we're working on upcoming legislation," he said.

The Speaker of the House also assigns Interim Committees and Bailes was assigned to one of those, the Coastal Barrier System.

"We're actually a joint sub-committee of the House and the Senate together on trying to find the most feasible aspect to protect the Port of Houston and the Gulf Coast," the state rep said.

Bailes said their task not only included the shipping system, but the consideration of a 1,200-foot floating gate system that would halt the storm surges from coming in and damaging the Port of Houston and all of the refineries along the Houston Ship Channel.

"The cost is a very fluid number," he smiled.

The first term legislator filed 12 bills going in, 11 of which were signed by the governor. He was also ranked the sixth-most effective member of the Texas House on his ability to get his authored bills signed.

"That took a lot of work and building a lot of relationships," Bailes said on Tuesday to Dayton Chamber of Commerce membership.

"There are very few votes that we take on the House floor that are actual party line Republican vs. Democrat," he said. "You have to have conversation, and know that it's legislation that's best first and foremost for the people of House District 18."

He also lamented that every vote in the Texas Legislature for public education is considered by some to be a liberal vote. His vote to uphold the pension plan for the firefighters in the city of Houston, some of whom live in the Dayton area, was also considered a liberal vote by some of his colleagues.

"These people did a job, they were promised this, and we simply made a vote to uphold what those promises were and that their pensions were taken care of. Their side of the deal was done," he said.

Bailes received the full attention of the members as he read off the population growth numbers predicted for Dayton.

Between 2017 and 2022, the growth rate predicted is 145 percent. The total number of households in 2017 to 2022 is expected to reach approximately 123 percent.

His growth numbers also were connected to another topic near to the hearts of drivers in and out of Dayton across the railroad tracks.

"That thing is so popular that it has its own social media page," he said to laughter in the room.

Bailes said it was one of the most hot, pretentious topics that he has heard about since we came into the race two years ago.

"That is not an easy thing to work on. Something called the railroads are stouter than any other thing in the state of Texas. I sometimes think they have more power than Governor Abbott," he smiled.

The state rep said they were a hard group to negotiate with and bring to the table.

"On the flip side of that coin, I think we've made some very positive strides with them the last year-and-a-half in being able to move the Dayton train," he said.

A couple of things were factored into the talks.

The initial conversations were halted by the SH 99 Grand Parkway.

Among the proposals was a triple flyover (overpass) with the train on the ground, US 90 above that, and SH 99 above that.

"With that, they had already started Oct. 27 to give GPI the right of acquisitions, utility adjustments and design with a scheduled completion of 2022," Bailes told the chamber members.

That's with Sections H & I.

"With that time frame, we weren't to a point where we could get a resolution with Union Pacific, the county and all other entities to move that track.

A lot of people thought that once those contracts went forward, that was the end of the negotiations

"Union Pacific, nonetheless, is a business. They're going to have a lot more increased traffic, the trains are getting longer and then you have the logistics of the CNC rail yard where a lot of the trains are and you also have the Union Pacific and BNSF yard on the other side of US 90," he said.

The logistics that had to be factored in is how to seamlessly get trains into the yard and out to make a continuous loop to Houston to service the growth and the area plants.

The current conversation is to move the track farther out of town with an overpass.

There were questions as to why not just put an overpass right where it is.

"In order to time that elevation and get an overpass at a minimum of 14-foot clearance, the new Stripes on SH 146, would get completely cut out of that and all of those properties along there.

"The only viable option is to go farther down US 90 and that's where the conversations are headed," the state representative said.

Now that the need is being considered, so is the funding mechanism.

"Even though they are a business and very wealthy as a national business, they say it's really not their problem. Anyone who has waited there for the train knows it's a problem," Bailes commented.

The overpass will be separate from SH 99, further out of town and with two turn tracks so that the trains could go both directions and it wouldn't halt the trains and keep them from moving their cargo one way or another.

"The degree of the turn based on the length of the trains must have a gradual turn so that it doesn't tear up the tracks whenever they pull the long trains through there," he said.

It will cost several million to reconfigure the yards for the trains coming in and out and be able to tie the tracks together.

"That's been one of the limiting factors and then you figure out the cost of the overpass with TxDOT then you have to see where the money comes from," Bailes said.

Negotiations continue.
A year ago, Western democracies were reeling from the biggest political shock in decades. American voters had just made a reality-TV star the most powerful person in the world. A presidential candidate who had campaigned on a divisive platform cheered on by white nationalists was now going to lead the world's most venerable democracy. An anti-establishment neophyte would soon be in charge of the American nuclear arsenal. Leading European statesmen struggled to contain their bemusement.

Among those celebrating, though, were members of Europe's far right. President Donald Trump's unlikely triumph was, for them, a dramatic repudiation of a liberal status quo they had long reviled. Trump's right-wing populism was a validation of their own anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ultranationalist agendas. As various far-right parties geared up for a series of national elections in 2017, they hailed Trump as a harbinger of things to come.

"Their world is crumbling," Florian Philippot, then the vice president of France's far-right National Front, tweeted a day after Trump's election win. "Ours is being built."

One year later, however, the establishment in Western Europe hasn't quite crumbled. Far-right parties in the Netherlands, France and Germany won unprecedented vote shares in their countries' elections, but are no closer to taking power - and are possibly bumping their heads on the ceiling of their political potential. Moreover, the past year has also seen many of the same European politicians who exulted in Trump's victory now trying to distance themselves from an American president who has become staggeringly unpopular on both sides of the pond.

While Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders heaped praise on Trump in the aftermath of his win, he grew more quiet around the time of his own country's national elections in March. There were early fears that his anti-Islam, anti-EU Freedom Party might emerge a winner, but Wilders finished behind a center-right ruling party that cast itself as a bulwark against Trumpism.

"Voters have now become negative about the measures taken by President Trump," a Dutch pollster told Bloomberg News in mid-March.

"#Wilders distances himself from former hero #Trump - says 'doesn't deserve standing ovation'. Expect more of this among Europe's far right.

- Cas Mudde (@CasMudde) May 20, 2017"

In France, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who cast himself as an outsider, trounced the National Front's Marine Le Pen in the presidential election. The French far-right party performed better than it ever had, but still remains firmly in the minority. Just as they had during France's 2002 presidential election, when Le Pen's father made the final round, the country's constellation of conservative, establishment and left-wing parties declared a Le Pen victory a threat to their republic, and endorsed Macron. What momentum Trump's success may have given Le Pen has long since dissipated.

Nor is Trump much of a hero for the French far right. In a recent interview with HuffPost, Cecile Alduy, a French politics expert at Stanford University, suggested that Trump's targeting of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad with a missile strike, as well as his chummy summer visit with Macron, would have won him little sympathy from the National Front's base.

"Since he's been president, Trump has disappointed on some issues  including strikes in Syria. Marine Le Pen's party is a noninterventionist party, they were supportive of Assad and their policy is that nations should keep to themselves," said Alduy. She added that "there's also this sense that Trump, for all his bravado, could be seduced and calmed down by a young 39-year-old president. That undermines his image for National Front supporters."Meanwhile, factional infighting has taken its toll on the party. Philippot, who gloated about the "crumbling" liberal order, was sidelined and compelled to quit the National Front in September. Speculation looms still over Le Pen's fitness to lead after two failed presidential campaigns.

In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, delivered a shock to the nation's politics by entering the German Bundestag as the country's third-biggest faction after elections in September. Critics of the far-right, xenophobic AfD link it to the country's dark Nazi past. But even its senior figures see Trump's behavior as occasionally being beyond the pale.

Trump's equivocating response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was "completely unnecessary," said Alice Weidel, a leading AfD politician, when asked about it in August by German reporters. She also suggested that Trump "should focus more on policies and less on tweeting and Twitter," adding that "if I had a wish list, then I would wish that Donald Trump would focus ... more on cleaning up his own house, and being a little more devoted to his governing responsibilities."

But while Trump's appeal may have dimmed thanks to his chaotic first months in office, the influence of Europe's far right has not. Anti-establishment populism - on both the left and the right - is reshaping politics across the continent. Meanwhile, center-right establishment parties are veering further to the right, adopting more of the hard-line nativism of the xenophobes on their flank. In Austria, for example, the far-right Freedom Party has formally entered coalition talks to form the next government.

Cas Mudde, an expert on European populism at the University of Georgia, warns that such accommodation may only lead to their demise, gesturing to the existential war consuming the Republican Party in the United States.

"By pushing politics more and more to the right, [center-right parties] will have only one choice left: stay somewhat true to their [own] ideological core, and face the rage of the radicalized electorate, or give them what they want and become a radical right party," Mudde wrote in the Guardian. "We can see how that looks currently in the U.S. It is imperative that European mainstream rightwing parties do not make the same mistake."
Washington

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who leads the House Judiciary Committee, announced Thursday he will retire at the end of his 13th term, becoming the latest GOP chairman not to seek re-election even though Republicans control all levers of power in Washington.

Goodlatte's tenure as chairman ends in December 2018 due to term limits. In a statement, the Virginia lawmaker described that as the "natural stepping-off point" and a chance to begin a new chapter. He said that every two years, he and his wife, Maryellen, sit down to discuss whether he should run again.

"When we discussed the 2018 election, the conversation ended a little differently than in past years," Goodlatte said. "After much contemplation and prayer, we decided it was the right time for me to step aside and let someone else serve" in the western Virginia district that includes Roanoke and is strongly Republican.

Following Goodlatte's announcement, Republican National Committee member Cynthia Dunbar said she would run for the seat. Dunbar is an outspoken conservative and former Texas Board of Education member who advocated that intelligent design and other theories be taught alongside evolution in science classes.

Virginia Del. Ben Cline, leader of the state's conservative caucus, also said he would run.

Over the past two weeks, two other House chairmen, both Texans, have decided to leave after their current terms end in January 2019: Rep. Lamar Smith of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of the House Financial Services Committee.

The 65-year-old Goodlatte, first elected in 1992, took over as chairman of the influential committee in 2013 after Smith had to vacate that post due to term limits. Earlier, Goodlatte led the House Agriculture Committee.

He's been staunchly conservative on most fiscal and social issues, but did find common ground with Democrats on technology and national security. Most recently, Goodlatte joined with committee Democrats to sponsor a bill that would require law enforcement agencies to get a court order before viewing intelligence collected by the National Security Agency.

A fiscal hawk, Goodlatte backed a 2012 amendment that would have cut defense spending by more than $7 billion.

He sparred frequently with the Obama administration and Democrats on immigration.

Four years ago, after the Senate passed a comprehensive bill to overhaul U.S. immigration laws, Goodlatte rejected the idea of giving millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally a special path to citizenship.
Lebanon called on Prime Minister Saad Hariri to return from Saudi Arabia, amid fears his sudden resignation from Riyadh last Saturday was part of a looming confrontation between the kingdom and regional rival Iran.

The way Hariri resigned was "unacceptable," Lebanon's President Michel Aoun told Saudi Arabia's envoy at a meeting in the presidential palace outside Beirut on Friday, according to the state-run National News Agency. Aoun also met with envoys from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan. The International Support Group for Lebanon, which includes Russia, the U.S., the European Union and other countries, said it welcomed the demand for Hariri's return.

Lebanon has long been a battleground for proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran. So when Hariri, a pro-Saudi politician, blamed his resignation on Iran's meddling in Lebanon's affairs through its proxy Hezbollah, it fueled speculation that Saudi leaders had demanded he do so and that he wasn't being allowed to go home. Shortly after Hariri's speech on Saudi television, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at the international airport in Riyadh -- an attack Saudi officials said could be an Iranian "act of war."

Tensions have escalated ever since. Saudi Arabia on Thursday advised its nationals to leave Lebanon, having earlier warned the Lebanese government of the dangers of Hezbollah, accusing the group -- part of the administration -- of being involved in every terrorist attack that threatens the kingdom.

"It's clear that Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon, and on Hezbollah," the group's chief, Hassan Nasrallah, an Aoun ally, said in a televised speech on Friday.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking in an interview as he flew from Beijing to Vietnam, said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had assured him Hariri had resigned of his own accord. Based on that conversation, Tillerson said he understands that the former prime minister -- a dual Saudi and Lebanese national -- would need to return home to formally leave his post.

Asked if Hariri was being held against his will, Tillerson replied, "I have no indication that is the case."

Hariri stepped down at a time when Iran and its allies are widely seen to have won the proxy war against Sunni powers in neighboring Syria. Lebanon has largely avoided the sectarian massacres that ravaged its larger neighbor for more than six years, but the conflict has weighed on its economy, cutting major trade routes and bringing more than 1 million refugees into the country.

Things may be about to get even tougher for Lebanon, according to Sami Nader, head of the Beirut-based Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs.

"The safety net Lebanon had is no longer in place," Nader said by phone on Thursday, adding that Lebanon may face the same kind of economic sanctions imposed by a Saudi-led alliance on Qatar since June. "We should expect further escalation from Saudi Arabia against Lebanon."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters he was concerned about the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and said he'd been in contact with the leaders of both countries.

"The escalation of the conflict would have tragic consequences," he said on Friday. It's "important to preserve the unity, the stability of Lebanon and the functioning of its institutions," he said.

The State Department said in a statement that it opposes any threat to Lebanon's stability, and that Prime Minister Hariri is a "strong partner of the United States."

"There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state," it said. "The United States cautions against any party, within or outside Lebanon, using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts or in any manner contributing to instability in that country."

Other Gulf nations have been using the missile strike to rally around Saudi Arabia against Iran. Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates minister of state for foreign affairs, called for Iran's ballistic program to be tackled as "an urgent priority" after the Houthi attack on Riyadh's airport.

Bahrain, also a member of the Saudi-led alliance imposing an embargo on Qatar, said Iran's actions should be curbed and the danger eliminated. The alliance has accused Qatar of cozying up to Iran and sponsoring terrorism, charges the Gulf nation has repeatedly denied.

Asked about the missile, Tillerson suggested the U.S. may bring Iran before the UN Security Council if forensic analysis traces the missile back to Tehran. Supplying such missiles to the rebels would violate Security Council resolutions covering the provision of arms in conflict zones, Tillerson said, echoing a statement from Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, who said the missile "may" be of Iranian origin.

Iran has denied supplying Houthi fighters with missiles, and accused Saudi Arabia of trying to escalate tensions.

"We've said for a long time that we are concerned about Iranian support for the Houthi rebels and we do know they're supporting them with weapons," Tillerson said. "Whether this specific missile came from Iran, it seems very likely, but I think we'd like to get the final forensics on it."

Saudi Arabia has said the missile has Iranian markings, though its investigation into its origins is still ongoing, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian told reporters in Dubai on Friday.

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Bloomberg's Kambiz Foroohar and Donna Abu-Nasr contributed.
WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans are forging their own path on the effort to overhaul the U.S. tax code, offering a plan Thursday that would delay an immediate corporate tax cut President Donald Trump has demanded and blow up House Republicans' carefully crafted compromise on a controversial tax deduction.

GOP Senate leaders unveiled a tax package that would delay cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent until 2019. That's a major departure from Trump's insistence on immediate tax cuts that he says are necessary to spur the economy.

The one-year delay would lower the cost of the Senate bill by more than $100 billion, giving negotiators more revenue for other changes. But it could also delay companies moving back to the United States from overseas or prompt them to hold off on other decisions as they wait for the corporate rate to fall.

The unveiling of the Senate plan, combined with a House committee vote to send a version of its bill to the House floor, is a step forward in the party's race to rewrite the U.S. tax code before year's end. Before those bills could become law, however, the House and Senate must pass matching versions of the legislation. And as leaders in each chamber grapple with difficult trade-offs on tax rates, deductions and deficits, the House is making decisions the Senate won't accept, and the Senate is doing the same to the House.

J. Scott Applewhite

"We know we have more work yet to be done, but this is a historic step," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said. "Will there be some differences? Of course, that's the legislative process. We welcome that."

Those differences became more pronounced Thursday, making the path forward more complicated. Republicans face intense pressure to pass a tax bill or face ending a year of near-complete control over the federal government without a single major legislative achievement to bring voters and donors.

Trump and his party face finishing a year in which they enjoyed near-complete control of Congress without a single major legislative achievement, leaving them with little to show donors and voters during 2018 campaigns after promising a broad, conservative restructuring of American government.

Delaying the corporate-tax-rate reduction was one of many tough choices Senate leaders made as they tried to craft a bill that would lower taxes but also add no more than $1.5 trillion to the debt over 10 years. Further changes are expected next week as lawmakers begin debating the measure.

The bill does not comply with Senate rules that prohibit certain legislation from adding to the deficit after 10 years. This could force Republicans to make some of the tax cuts temporary, though those decisions have not yet been made.

Senate Republicans briefed White House officials on the one-year delay, and Trump administration officials said they would accept such a provision. To try to prod companies into expansion next year, the Senate bill would allow companies to immediately deduct all capital investments in 2018. Companies would be allowed to immediately expense these investments for five years.

In a move that could cause major tension in the House, the Senate bill also would prohibit Americans from deducting certain state and local taxes from their federal bills, a change that could raise taxes overall for Americans in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon and Illinois.

The Senate's approach to state and local taxes is at odds with that of the House, where Republicans settled on a compromise - scrapping some of the state and local deductions but still allowing a deduction of up to $10,000 on property taxes - after GOP lawmakers from high-tax states revolted against an initial House plan to scrap the deduction entirely.

The proposal to eliminate that deduction in the Senate and House bills would apply only to individuals and families, while businesses would still be allowed to claim the deduction. The discrepancy could further inflame Democrats, who have criticized the GOP tax cut effort as offering too many benefits for companies and stripping benefits away from individuals and families.

"Senate Republicans are doubling down on their gamble with middle-class family budgets to pay for massive handouts to big corporations and tax cheats," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Trump, traveling in Asia this week, called in to a meeting between White House officials and a collection of moderate Senate Democrats on Tuesday, hoping he could win their support for his tax effort. The call was part of a broader push from the president to enact a major piece of his domestic agenda, with repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act having failed and the infrastructure package he campaigned still in its nascent stages.

The stakes are also high for Republicans in Congress, where Republicans on Tuesday night watched their party peers in state and local races get ousted in a string of election defeats. Top GOP officials were split on whether the losses would complicate the tax overhaul. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Wednesday that it demonstrated the need for the GOP to deliver on its promises.

"We need to start making our legislation match our campaign rhetoric," Meadows said.

Businesses are watching the process closely as well. The stock market fell Thursday after reports the Senate bill included the one-year delay to corporate tax cuts, with investors worried that it could force companies to hold back expansion plans.

The Senate bill also eliminates the personal exemption many Americans take to lower their taxable income, but it does expand the tax credits for families with children and nearly doubles the "standard deduction" taken by tens of millions of taxpayers who don't itemize their returns.

The Senate plan would also keep the mortgage interest deduction intact, according to a Republican official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly. In the House bill, homeowners would be allowed to deduct only interest payments on their first $500,000 worth of home loans, a proposal that generated fierce opposition from the housing industry, while the Senate bill would keep the current threshold of $1 million.

Another feature of the Senate bill would be to make changes to the estate tax, a levy placed only on very large estates when they're inherited from their deceased owner. The House bill would eliminate the estate tax by 2024, while the Senate bill would instead reduce the number of people who have to pay it by doubling the size of estates that are exempt from being taxed.

It would also continue allowing people to deduct payments on student loan interest and to deduct some medical expenses - a provision dropped from the House plan that could lead to significantly higher taxes for many households, particularly for the elderly.

The Senate bill would lower tax rates across income levels as a way to lower tax bills for most Americans, Senate Finance Committee aides said.

The package as currently constructed, however, has significant problems.

Senate Finance Committee aides said they planned to make adjustments to the legislation because it probably does not comply with the rules for a special Senate procedure they hope to use to pass the bill with 50 votes, rather than the 60 votes typically needed to beat a filibuster.

Republicans control 52 votes in the 100-seat Senate, meaning they can only lose two members if they want to pass a bill without Democratic support. A 50-50 tie would go to Republicans, as Vice President Mike Pence would cast the tiebreaking vote.

It's because of that delicate majority that many White House officials expect a tax bill - if it eventually becomes law - to more closely resemble the Senate bill. Senate Republicans will work to resolve differences among themselves in the next few weeks, but major changes made in the House could upend any agreement.

Senate lawmakers also must grapple with strict rules that regulate how a tax-cut bill is designed. To use special Senate procedures to get around a filibuster from Democrats, Republicans must write a bill that does not add more than $1.5 trillion to the debt over 10 years.

Republicans such as Sens. Bob Corker, Tenn., Jeff Flake, Ariz., and James Lankford, Okla., have said they would not support a tax plan that adds too much to the debt, creating a bloc of votes that would be able to kill the bill if they aren't appeased.

House Republican leaders are facing difficult decisions as they try to advance their tax bill. On Thursday, House Ways and Means Committee Republicans voted to advance their bill out of committee. The vote, which clears the bill to advance to the House floor, included revisions meant to eliminate a $74 billion shortfall and address other issues complicating the bill's passage.

To offset the various revenue-losing provisions introduced Thursday, House tax writers opted to increase tax rates on foreign assets that multinational corporations move back to the United States.

The House revisions would also direct further benefits to middle-class taxpayers. It would restore the Child Adoption Tax Credit left out of the previous version and allow for a deduction of moving expenses available to active-duty military members. The Child Adoption Tax Credit is also included in the Senate bill.

Other changes in the House bill are directed at businesses, including a further rate reduction for certain qualified "pass-through" firms that send their earnings to their owners to be taxed as individual income.

Earlier versions of the bill established a new 25 percent rate for income from "pass-through" firms that send their earnings to their owners to be taxed as individual income. But business owners already paying a top individual rate of 25 percent or lower would not benefit. The revised bill creates a rate as low as 9 percent for some small-business income.

The change was enough to win support for the House bill from a key holdout, the National Federation of Independent Business. "This amendment would create substantial tax relief for millions of small-business owners who were left out of the original bill," the group said.

There are other notable differences between the Senate and House bills.

In a break from the House plan, which kept the top marginal income tax rate at the current 39.6 percent, the Senate bill would slightly lower it to 38.5 percent - a win for advocates of supply-side economic theory who argue that a lower top rate will grow the economy.

The House bill would immediately cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, offer families a five-year "flexibility credit" of $300 per parent, and expand the child tax credit. It would also collapse the seven income-tax brackets paid by families and individuals down to four, only taxing income above $1 million at the highest rate of 39.6 percent.
BRUSSELS - The Grand Mosque of Brussels is Belgium's biggest and oldest site of Muslim worship. Officials in Belgium say it is also a hotbed for Saudi-backed Islamist extremism.

Now the Parliament wants the country's leaders to take over the sprawling complex that is just steps from the gleaming core of the European Union. It is the latest attempt to tighten security after radicalized Belgians emerged at the heart of terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels in the last three years.

The sudden move against the mosque underscores the challenge for Western European leaders seeking to embrace what they call a "European Islam" that endorses pluralistic values. For too long, many officials say, they have stood by as imams preaching the ultraconservative interpretation of Islam favored by clerics in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have worked among their populations, encouraging the frustrated descendants of North African immigrants to wall themselves off from mainstream society.

But the very same crackdown on the mosque puts Belgian policymakers in the unusual position of picking and choosing among strains of Islam in the name of protecting freedom of religion and democracy. The dilemma has grown more pressing after Europe was struck repeatedly by Islamic State-inspired terror, often perpetrated by disgruntled citizens born inside the countries they have targeted.

The mosque's leaders "are trying to live in their splendid isolation with a radical point of view, and their aim is not to integrate into our society. And that is a big problem," said Servais Verherstraeten, one of the leaders of a Belgian parliamentary commission that recommended last month that the government break the Saudi government's 99-year rent-free lease on the mosque. The lease was handed to Saudi King Faisal in 1969 as a goodwill gesture by Belgian King Baudouin.

"We want in Belgium an Islam practiced by people who respect our constitution, who want to integrate into our country," Verherstraeten said. "There is the perception that there is something to hide in the most important mosque in the country."

Leaders of the mosque and community center, which is run by the Mecca-based World Muslim League, deny that they espouse a conservative vision of Islam and say that they are working to improve openness.

"I don't see any contradiction between what we're trying to do and European Islam," said Tamer Abou El Saod, the executive director of the Islamic and Cultural Center of Belgium, which oversees the mosque.

Abou El Saod, a polyglot Swedish businessman, swooped in to run the center at the end of May after his predecessor upset the parliamentary commission with halting testimony at a hearing. Several lawmakers publicly questioned what he was covering up. That former director was a replacement in 2012 for a director who was quietly asked to leave Belgium after authorities said he advocated radical ideology.

"We can admit that we had some internal management issues," said Abou El Saod, who described himself as someone who was sent in to fix problems. "This place has maybe not been communicating enough in Belgium."

"An imam who talks to people here has to be different from one in Oman," he said in an interview in his office at the mosque, where photographs of Mecca adorn the walls along with blurry likenesses of the old Belgian and Saudi kings.

The Saudi lease is unusual but not unique. The Saudi government operates an Islamic school near Washington Dulles International Airport, for example, and it helps fund mosques and imams around the world.

Belgian counterterrorism officials acknowledge that a move against the crowded mosque will do little to stem radicalization that more often comes over the internet or on the street, and they say they have no evidence that its imams have advocated violence or lawbreaking.

But they also say they were mistaken to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude to the squat, plain concrete mosque tucked in the corner of the central Brussels's Cinquantenaire Park, across the street from apartment buildings and the boxy office block that holds the E.U. diplomatic headquarters. On Fridays, worshipers spill from prayers and mix with joggers and suited bureaucrats taking strolls along the park's manicured paths.

In the half-century since the Saudi government took over the site, Belgian authorities say the mosque has espoused the hard-line interpretation of Islam favored in the conservative Gulf monarchy. That has undermined an effort originally intended to help serve Belgium's then-growing Moroccan and Turkish guest-worker communities, they say. The center is Belgium's main hub for conversions to Islam, and its religious and Arabic-language schools teach 850 pupils.

The Belgian move came at the same time the newly-named Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced in Riyadh that he wanted to fight extremist interpretations of Islam.

Belgium's migration agency is also trying to expel the mosque's top imam, an Egyptian cleric who is accused of preaching an ultraconservative vision of Islam to his flock during his 13 years in Belgium.

The reassessment came after the March 2016 attacks on the Brussels airport and subway that killed 32. Those attacks were led by Belgians with Moroccan roots. They are not believed to have ties to the mosque, but the violence disturbed Belgian security services and led to a broad rethinking of their strategy.

Although the Saudi government is the leading funder of the World Muslim Leader, which operates the mosque, the group is independent and more than 50 other Muslim nations also contribute to its operations. The league's top leader, Secretary General Muhammad Al-Issa, was Saudi justice minister until last year.

The mosque's longtime imam, Abdelhadi Sewif, said that he is mystified that the Belgian state is attempting to expel him and his family by refusing to renew their residence permits. He is appealing the decision, and joked that his trim beard was too short and his floor-scraping robe too long to satisfy radicals.

In an interview, Sewif said that he had always advocated a moderate form of Islam, and that he never called Muslims to cut themselves off from mainstream society, as Belgian authorities have accused him of doing. He said he was searching his past words for what had made him a target. Authorities have not let him see the evidence against him.

"When I tell Muslims that Muslims love their Muslim brothers and have to help each other, does this then mean you should hate the rest?" he said. "I have always fought violence and spoken up against it. . . . I have always preached about forgiveness in Islam and in behavior."

But despite the mosque's protests, the Belgian government appears ready to break the lease and boot out its imams.

Sewif "is a dangerous man to the national security of our country," Theo Francken, the Belgian state secretary for asylum and migration and an anti-immigration hard-liner, told the RTBF broadcaster.

Lawmakers said that they were taken aback by the testimony of the then-director and one of Sewif's imam colleagues earlier this year.

"The hearing was astonishing," said Gilles Vanden Burre, a member of the parliamentary commission. "It was not an open and progressive and tolerant Islam."

Inside Parliament, the two mosque officials outlined a vision of starkly regressive gender roles and a prickly attitude toward mainstream Belgian society, Vanden Burre said.

"It's not objectively proved that they have a link with jihad or radicalization. But all those processes to show their goodwill to integrate, they never did," he said.

Segregation leads to alienation, Belgian security officials said. And that can make people more receptive to jihadist messages.

Officials said there was no recent shift at the mosque that set off alarm bells to cause the new approach. Instead, several said, it was Belgium that had changed. Policymakers have hardened their attitudes in a challenging era of terrorism.

"Many of the guys say they are not violent, but then they actually do preach hatred," said a security official who is familiar with the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal intelligence matters. "The issue that we have in Belgium is that people are teaching an Islam that is incompatible with Belgium or Europe."

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Annabell Van den Berghe contributed to this report.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said a wave of arrests in Saudi Arabia that snared at least 11 princes, a billionaire investor and former government officials was "well intended," but he remained concerned about how those detained would be treated.

Tillerson, speaking in an interview as he flew from Beijing to Vietnam, said he called Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir earlier in the week to seek clarity on the Nov. 4 detentions, which authorities said were part of a sweeping anti-graft crackdown. Tillerson added that he didn't want to read further into the situation until it was clearer.

"It's my understanding that they're characterizing these as not really arrests at this point, but they're presenting people with evidence of what they think the wrongdoing is to see if there's a willingness to want to make things right," Tillerson said. "My own view is that it does, it raises a few concerns until we see more clearly how these particular individuals are dealt with."

Tillerson struck a cautious tone, but ultimately appeared to take the same view as President Donald Trump, who sent a tweet on Nov. 7 backing Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince. Trump wrote that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman "know exactly what they are doing."

Trump and Tillerson were responding to King Salman's order to detain the princes, four ministers and dozens of former ministers and businessmen, including Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world's richest men. The move reinforced expectations that he was clearing any remaining obstacles to the crown prince's eventual accession to the throne.

The arrests come at a tumultuous time for Saudi Arabia and the region. Just days before, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri flew to Saudi Arabia and announced he was resigning his post. That fueled speculation that Saudi leaders had demanded he do so, and that he wasn't being allowed to go home.

Tillerson said that al-Jubeir assured him Hariri had resigned of his own accord, although he said the former prime minister, who has dual Saudi and Lebanese citizenship, would need to return home to formally leave his post. Asked if Hariri was being held against his will, Tillerson replied, "I have no indication that is the case."

The same day as Hariri's arrest, Saudi Arabia shot down a missile fired by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen towards its international airport. Saudi officials blamed Iran and called it an "act of war." Asked about the missile, Tillerson suggested the U.S. may bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council if forensic analysis traces the missile back to the Tehran regime.

Supplying such missiles to the rebels would violate Security Council resolutions covering the provision of arms in conflict zones, Tillerson said. That echoed a statement from Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who said the missile "may" be of Iranian origin. She called on international partners "to take necessary action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for these violations."

"We've said for a long time that we are concerned about Iranian support for the Houthi rebels and we do know they're supporting them with weapons," Tillerson said. "Whether this specific missile came from Iran, it seems very likely, but I think we'd like to get the final forensics on it."

Iran denied supplying Houthi fighters with missiles, and accused Saudi Arabia of trying to escalate tensions.

In the interview, Tillerson said Iran must stop its destabilizing activity and all sides need to lower the rhetoric. He said Saudi Arabia was not causing turmoil, saying it was only fighting forces that had overthrown "the legitimate Yemen government."

"All the parties need to be careful about characterizing the start of yet another new war," Tillerson said. "My input would be let's be a little more cautious about what we say."
BAD AXE  The last remaining suspect from a meth lab bust over the summer is set to stand trial later this month following a final pretrial earlier this week.

The two-day jury trial in the case against Gregory Delmarter, of Mount Pleasant, is scheduled to begin Nov. 28 in Huron County Circuit Court.

Delmarter, 34, faces seven meth-related charges: Operating a meth lab, possession of meth, operating a meth lab near specified places, controlled substance-meth lab with hazardous waste, and three counts of delivery/manufacturing meth.

He was one of six defendants charged after police seized more than 20 grams of processed meth from a Bad Axe home and also discovered an inactive cooking operation at a barn in Verona Township on May 26.

Delmarter was on parole at the time of the offense, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.

During Monday's lengthy hearing, Judge Gerald M. Prill heard several motions  most of which were denied  made by the defendant's attorney, Richard W. Schaaf.

However, some motions won't be ruled until the day of trial  one of those being a motion to change venue. If the court can't select a fair and unbiased jury, the trial could be moved to another county.

A plea cutoff date has been set for Nov. 22, but Huron County Prosecutor Timothy J. Rutkowski told the Tribune a deal has not been offered to Delmarter.

Related to the case, five of the codefendants have been sentenced  four to jail, one to prison  for their involvement with the meth labs. All codefendants must truthfully testify, if needed, at Delmarter's trial as part of plea agreements reached with the prosecutor's office.

As of Thursday, Delmarter remains lodged in the Huron County Jail on a $20,000 cash bond.
BEIJING - When President Donald Trump landed in Beijing on Wednesday, he was whisked through quiet streets to the Forbidden City, where he got a history lesson from President Xi Jinping and caught an opera at the Pavilion of Pleasant Sounds.

It was an apt opener. After twice tweeting out his gratitude, Trump on Thursday met Xi at the tightly guarded Great Hall of the People, where, surrounded by corporate chief executives, he oversaw the signing of $250 billion in trade deals and continued to praise his authoritarian host.

The two-day trip was orchestrated to project the image of remote and absolute power that Xi enjoys and Trump admires. There were no protests, no questions from the press, no ordinary people - nothing but pleasantries and soothing tones.

Trump brought up North Korea but said Xi could solve it. He raised the trade deficit but said it was not China's fault. He said the Chinese people are very proud of Xi.

After all the sweet talk, the United States is expecting a lot in return from Beijing - but Xi, in the ascendant, may not budge. That could lead to disappointment in the United States and friction down the road in the relationship.

While both sides were pleased to see a high-stakes visit end without incident, there are questions about what was gained and what, perhaps, was lost.

"Talk about embracing the Leninist political system," said Evan Medeiros, who heads the Eurasia Group's coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and was the National Security Council's Asia director in the Obama administration. "In Trump's effort to ingratiate himself with Xi, is he inadvertently ceding American primacy to China?"

The United States, Medeiros argued, is the anchor power in Asia because of the rules, institutions and values it represents. "Trump fundamentally calls that into question when he's praising the Chinese political system - and not getting much in exchange."

Xi, analysts said, may have calculated that the really tough negotiations with the United States, on a range of issues, still lie ahead - and that China can play a strong hand. Until then, he can sit tight.

"My expectation is that not much will come from China," said Max Baucus, until the beginning of this year the U.S. ambassador to China. "And that is going to put Trump in a bit of a box."

William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, applauded the trade deals but also wondered what comes next, whether the Trump administration would be able to use the momentum to tackle tougher issues in the U.S.-China economic relationship, such as market access for U.S. firms in China.

"The question remains: What is being done about these structural issues?" he said. "We hope to see proactive measures by the Chinese to address the imbalances in the relationship, as pressure is building in the U.S. to take reactive reciprocal actions."

As a candidate, Trump often lashed out at Beijing, blaming the Chinese economy for a host of U.S. ills.

But when Trump hosted Xi at the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his tone changed.

In an apparent effort to secure Xi's help on North Korea, Trump has curtailed his criticism and shifted his focus to areas where he thinks he can win.

The focus on signing deals in front of the cameras - as opposed to, say, hammering out solutions to long-standing economic issues - makes some sense, experts said.

Trump lacks diplomatic experience and has been slow to make appointments to several key Asia roles.

"We haven't yet had the bandwidth in the U.S. administration or the time to have detailed conversations with the Chinese side on market access and other systemic issues," said Timothy Stratford, managing partner of Covington and Burling's Beijing office and a former assistant U.S. trade representative.

"Unless you've had time to discuss these very difficult and complicated issues in some detail, you can't expect the two presidents to announce anything that is concrete and detailed and meaningful," he said. "I fully expect these very tough discussions to begin in the next few months."

Chen Dingding, a professor at Guangzhou's Jinan University, said the visit was a starting point - a first offer on the way to the next deal.

"What's the alternative? No trade deals? Often you can't get your best deal - you can get your second best, get your third and move from there."

Both the Chinese and U.S. sides, of course, are casting Thursday's agreements as first-rate. At a briefing after the meeting, Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said the deals were "a miracle."

China's Communist Party-controlled press seems pleased, for now, with Trump's visit, for what he said and didn't say.

The Global Times, a newspaper known for its nationalist rhetoric, ran an editorial Thursday headlined: "What do most Chinese people like about Trump?"

The piece noted Trump's "frank" character and "pragmatic" approach to U.S.-China ties, mentioning specifically that he does not bring up human rights.

One of the main reasons China likes Trump is that Trump likes Xi, the paper argued. "He respects our head of state and has repeatedly praised President Xi Jinping in public."

The paper noted in particular that Trump had been quick to call Xi after the recent 19th Party Congress. "This is respect for the Chinese system."

The question is what happens if the friendly rhetoric changes - if Trump, for whatever reason, stops being so positive about Xi. With the mood in the United States turning increasingly skeptical about China and the benefits of the bilateral relationship, that has to be a real possibility, experts said.

"President Xi and the Chinese leadership will think that they have done an awful lot to give President Trump face: They've done a 'state visit plus,' they've rolled the red carpet out with all the pomp and ceremony, they did all these business deals, and they come away thinking the relationship is on a solid footing," said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing.

"But President Trump may go home to a domestic political environment where people are disappointed he hasn't achieved more progress on trade and economics and North Korea," he said, "and you may see a shift towards a much harder line."

- - -

The Washington Post's Amber Ziye Wang and Yang Liu in Beijing contributed to this report.
A Midland man was arrested Tuesday after injuring a child, according to court documents.

Travon Rayvein Crisp, 23, was being held Thursday on a $25,000 bond for a third-degree felony charge of injury to a child with intent to commit bodily injury.

Midland police were dispatched to a school around 2 p.m. in reference to a child abuse claim.

The nurse advised the MPD officer and the assisting MISD officer that the child had large bruises and belt marks on her arms and hands, according to the affidavit. Crisp allegedly hit the girl for disrupting classes.

If convicted of the third-degree felony charge, Crisp could face up to 10 years imprisonment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) holds a grand ceremony to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump at the square outside the east gate of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

Trump says meeting with Xi was 'absolutely terrific', as they discuss issues ranging from Korean Peninsula to bilateral trade

President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump struck an upbeat, cooperative tone on Thursday on many key bilateral and regional issues, including the Korean Peninsula and trade.

China continued its "state visit-plus" reception for the US leader on Thursday, with a lavish welcoming ceremony featuring special arrangements, including the performance of US military music and the participation of 10 US students in the welcoming party, which normally consists of Chinese students.

Traditional Chinese musical instruments were on display at the Great Hall of the People, and live broadcasts were arranged, a rare occurrence for a welcoming ceremony and talks.

A meeting between the two leaders and their top advisers exceeded the originally scheduled one hour. Trump said that "our meeting this morning in front of your representatives and our representatives was excellent".

Addressing the media, Xi said that he and Trump had achieved a new consensus, and their meetings had been constructive and yielded fruitful results.

Xi affirmed China's commitment to reform and opening-up, saying that China will increase common interests with other countries and boost coordination between major countries.

The two sides should resolve problems and contradictions in economic ties through jointly boosting the overall scale of Sino-US economic cooperation in a visionary and constructive way, Xi said.

Sino-US relations are "at a new historic starting point", and cooperation is "the only correct choice" for the two countries, Xi said in his opening remarks at the extended meeting.

China is willing to focus on cooperation and control disagreement with the US, to benefit the people of both sides as well as the whole world, he said.

Trump expressed gratitude for the warm reception from the Chinese president, saying that his meeting with Xi on Wednesday night was "absolutely terrific".

"There can be no more important subject than China-US relations," Trump said.

The US president also highlighted his personal friendship with Xi. It's the third face-to-face meeting between Xi and Trump following the first in April at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and the second in Hamburg, Germany, during the G20 Summit in July.

"My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one  as we said, there is great chemistry," Trump said.

On bilateral trade, Trump said the US "really has to change its policies because they've gotten so far behind on trade with China, and frankly, with many other countries".

Trump said he believed that "there is a solution" to the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

Zheng Zeguang, vice-foreign minister, told reporters on Thursday that China will sharply ease market access in financial sectors including banking, security funds and insurance, and gradually cut taxes on imported cars, in line with its own timetable and road map.

The two sides agreed to continue to fully implement all of the UN Security Council resolutions on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, maintain pressure regarding the nuclear activities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and promote peaceful resolution of the issue through dialogue and negotiation, he said.

The two countries are dedicated to maintaining the global nonproliferation system and refuse to acknowledge the DPRK's status as a nuclear weapons-possessing nation, Zheng said.

The two presidents highlighted the importance of bilateral military ties, he said, adding that China welcomes US Secretary of Defense James Mattis to visit China in the first half of next year, and the US welcomes a Chinese high-level military delegation to visit the US.

During their talks, Xi elaborated China's principle and stance on the Taiwan question, and Trump reaffirmed that the US will continue to adhere to the one-China policy, Zheng said.
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Hulus new time-traveling sci-fi comedy Future Man is, well, a marvel, as it seamlessly spoofs the Back to the Future movies while creating its own endearingly silly identity. In the process, it reaffirms Hulus growing reputation as a prime generator of creative laughter, which youll see when all 13 episodes of the first season premiere on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Josh Hutcherson plays Josh Futturman, who spends his days cleaning toilets at the Kronish Laboratories, a research facility devoted exclusively to finding a cure for herpes, which afflicts its founder, Dr. Elias Kronish (Keith David). Josh lives with his parents (Ed Begley Jr. and the late Glenne Headly) and is obsessed with video games, one of which opens a portal in time through which a couple of hilariously unearthly video game characters emerge, Tiger (Eliza Coupe) and Wolf (Derek Wilson). Josh has a thing for Tiger, which becomes evident as she and Wolf pop in unannounced through the portal.

They have shown up to inform Josh that he is The Savior of mankind. As such, he has to travel back in time with them to prevent Kronish from getting herpes because the blister-lipped doctors research will eventually lead to the destruction of life.

Tiger and Wolf are woefully ill-equipped to blend in with human beings, regardless of the era. At one point, for example, Begleys character is trying to teach Wolf how to cook and gives him the instruction, Beat the eggs. There is a slight pause as we wait for the inevitable and are not disappointed when Wolf pummels the entire box of eggs to messy smithereens.

Josh is equally ill-equipped to save mankind, and certainly not up for going back in time to kill Kronish before he can get herpes. His efforts to keep Tiger and Wolf from dispatching Kronish entirely arent made any easier with the constant threat of robot-like creatures known as Biotics.

The script is filled with subtle and not so subtle plays on words, so when Joshs loyalty to the cause seems suspect, he is accused by Tiger of being pro-Biotics. Groaners like that fit in just fine with the pop culture references that flow through the first seven episodes of the series made available to critics.

Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver and Matt Tolmach are executive producers of the series, which was created by Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir. If you look at their credentials, youll understand why the shows humor is often juvenile, raunchy and gross, but always pretty funny.

The performances are worthy of praise, if only because its hard to imagine how the actors maintained straight faces during the making of the series (Goldberg and Rogen direct). Coupe and Wilson almost steal every scene they are in, but they have a lot of competition from supporting players such as Haley Joel Osment as Kronishs sleazy work colleague, Martin Starr as a villainous scientist and Britt Lower as Jeri, another Kronish employee who catches Joshs eye.

Josh Futturman has to be the voice of relative reason in the ensemble, but I stress relative. Hutchersons performance grounds the series both effectively and comically. Hes far more than a boyish straight man for the comedic chaos swirling around him.

Begley and Headly also contribute to the craziness of the series but, sadly, Headly died in June of an embolism and her role will not be recast.

Future Man may not be sophisticated comedy, but its unabashed cleverness and fun are hard to resist.

David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV

Future Man: Sci-fi comedy, 13-episode first season available to stream on Tuesday, Nov. 14, on Hulu.
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BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese and U.S. companies signed deals worth more than 250 billion U.S. dollars during President Donald Trump's state visit to China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday revealed the figure after he and President Trump witnessed the signing of the agreements.

China and the United States have huge potential in reciprocal economic and trade cooperation, Xi said.

Deals include purchases of Boeing aircraft, Ford automobiles, U.S. soybeans and joint development of liquified natural gas in Alaska.

Being the world's biggest developing economy and developed economy, China and the United States are highly complementary rather than competitive, Xi said when meeting with business delegates from both countries.

"We are willing to expand imports of energy and farm produce from the United States, deepen service trade cooperation. We hope the U.S. side will increase exports of civil technology products to China. We will continue to encourage Chinese companies to invest in the United States. We also welcome U.S. companies and financial institutions to participate in the 'Belt and Road Initiative'," he said.

Given the rapid growth of bilateral trade, it's unavoidable to have friction, said Xi. The two sides should uphold the principles of equality and mutual benefit, mutual understanding and accommodation, and handle disputes through dialogue and consultation, he said.

Xi reaffirmed China's commitment to opening up and reform and said China will not close its door to the world, and it will only become more and more open.

Overseas-invested companies, including the U.S.-invested firms, will enjoy a more open, transparent and standard market environment in China, he said.

Xi said China's economic outlook will look bright for a long time. The Chinese economy has been transitioning from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development with improving economic structure. It has the foundation, condition and impetus to sustain the good momentum.

China is the United States' largest trading partner while the U.S. is China's second largest. Bilateral trade surged to 519.6 billion U.S.dollars in 2016 from 2.5 billion dollars in 1979 when the two countries established diplomatic ties.

Over the past decade, U.S. exports to China increased 11 percent annually on average, while China's exports to the United States only rose 6.6 percent.

China holds a surplus in goods trade with the United States while the United States maintains service trade surplus with China.

Two-way investment is gaining steam. Jobs created by Chinese-invested firms across America had jumped ninefold since 2009 to 140,000 last year, according to a recent report by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and Rhodium Group.
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U.S. first lady visits elementary school in Beijing

(Xinhua) 07:47, November 10, 2017

Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, pose for a group photo with students after watching their performances at Banchang Elementary School in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 9, 2017. Melania Trump, accompanied by Peng Liyuan, visited the school on Thursday morning. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BEIJING, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. First Lady Melania Trump on Thursday morning visited Banchang Elementary School in Beijing, accompanied by Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In a high-spirited atmosphere, Peng and Trump joined the students in their English, astronomy and Peking Opera classes, and watched their singing and dancing performances.

Peng told Trump that Banchang is a public school. Teaching facilities have been improving in recent years, and the standard of education has been rising.

The students showed their self-designed Qipao, a kind of traditional Chinese dress, and invited the guests to help finish their wash painting of a little panda.

In a cookery class, Peng and Trump joined the pupils in making a famous Beijing snack and apple pie.

The students also presented their calligraphy and handicraft to the ladies, and gave performances at the school auditorium.

Peng and Trump agreed that Chinese and American children could and should know more about each other and make friends.

Melania Trump is in Beijing with U.S. President Donald Trump for a three-day visit.
A hotel owner has been ordered to pay 50,000 after he continued to take guests despite being issued with a prohibition notice for serious fire safety failings.

2:00 PM Barking and Dagenham Safety warnings
(Xinhua) 09:48, November 10, 2017

HOUSTON, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- For the first time since Texas church shooting happened, the gunman's father spoke to the public on Thursday, saying his family was grieving and hurting.

In an interview with ABC, Michael Kelley said, "we are grieving, our family is grieving." "I don't want our lives, our grandchildren's lives, destroyed by this media circus."

Devin Kelley killed 26 people and wounded another 20 in a South Texas church in Sutherland Springs Sunday morning.

Kevin Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the U.S. Air Force for assaulting his wife and child, and was sentenced to 12 months' confinement after a 2012 court-martial.

He served in Logistics Readiness at the Holloman Air Force Base in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, U.S. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told media earlier.

Stefanek later confirmed the Air Force didn't report the shooter's domestic violence conviction to the FBI, leaving the door open for him to buy weapons and make the mass killing.
Thiruvananthapuram : The loop around Transport Minister Thomas Chandy's neck over the land grab continues to tightens, after the party refused to back Chandy further in the controversial case.

As per the latest reports, the CPM has asked Thomas Chandy to decided himself on the resignation. If Chandy does not decide on his resignation, then a Front meeting would be convened to make a decision.

Otherwise, the LDF will ask Thomas Chandy to tender his resignation. Mr Chandy had allegedly encroached five acres of government land and stretches meant for public passage.
US President Donald Trump began his state visit to China on Wednesday, with the world expecting it to bring positive signals for the development of bilateral relations and hopes that China-US cooperation will contribute to world stability and prosperity.

This visit, responding to an invitation of Chinas President Xi Jinping, is Chinas first state visit to follow the 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress. It comes as the international community watches to see what changes it will bring to China-US relations as we enter an historic juncture of development.

Xi made its clear in his 19th CPC National Congress report that China will stay on the peaceful development path, continue its mutually beneficial opening-up strategy, have a convergence of interests with more countries, and coordinate and cooperate more with major countries.

This can serve as Chinas guiding design for its relationships with the world, and express the basic developmental philosophy of China-US ties.

The principle is that a China that strives for rejuvenation and continues to cooperate will provide new opportunities for both the US itself and China-US ties, but Xi also said that China will help to build a framework for major country relations through stability and balanced development.

Chinas rise to power differs from that of other great powers in history in that its cooperation-oriented approach is a reflection of diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. In other words, on its journey, it will never be influenced by the old zero-sum mentality or merely seek a stable transition of power.

Instead, it will work to build a new model of major-country relationship with the US, one that is conflict-free, non-confrontational, mutually respectful, with win-win cooperation to safeguard world stability and prosperity.

With greater national strength, China has been able to improve its cooperation and coordination with the US so that the two countries can now accomplish a lot and crack a lot of hard nuts, as evidenced by their joint effort to deal with the financial crisis.

China and the US have also maintained close cooperation in hot regional issues and global challenges through bilateral and multilateral methods.

When it comes to the issue of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), China and the US have a common interest in de-nuclearizing the peninsula and maintaining stability there. Both need to continue to look for a proper solution by respecting each others interests and keeping in close communications.

China is strongly committed to de-nuclearizing the peninsula, to maintaining peace and stability there, and to resolving the issue through dialogue and consultations.

China will also continue its supply-side structural reform, opening wider to the outside world, applying efficient trade and investment policies, and relax market access controls.

These measures will provide a broader space for mutually-beneficial economic and trade cooperation between China and other countries, including the US and both history and the present have shown that economic and trade relations between the two countries are mutually beneficial, and such cooperation has had an immense effect on the two countries and their peoples.

According to a National Committee on US-China Relations and Rhodium Group report, Chinese enterprises now employ more than 140,000 people in the USs Rust Belt across the state of Ohio and China-US economic and trade cooperation has created 2.6 million jobs in the US, either directly or indirectly.

Some US media have reported that many big enterprises were competing to be included in the presidents delegation before his visit to China. This no doubt indicates the demand and confidence for further economic and trade cooperation with the Chinese.

The average American, no matter what his or her line of work, from fishermen in Maine, to oil and gas workers from Texas, to farmers from the Midwest, can now be a stakeholder in China-US relations. And the well-being of the people from both countries is affected by the proper management of disputes and closer cooperation.

Xi and Trump have kept close communication for quite some time, interacting through meetings, or through telephone conversations and letters. Trumps visit is an extension of the strategic communications of the two heads of state and can chart the course of long-term development of bilateral ties.

When faced with new development opportunities in China-US relations, along with the international expectations for increased cooperation between the two countries, China and the US need to be far-sighted, and need to accommodate all interests and concerns, properly manage disputes and contradictions, push for joint cooperation, and realize win-win results.
MARTINSVILLEDo you have an idea to help Martinsville or the surrounding area diversify its economy? Then the Southern Virginia GO Region 3 Council wants to hear from you. The group is looking for business-related collaborations and marketing services as part of efforts to help the region diversify its economy.

GO Virginia, formally the Virginia Initiative for Growth and Opportunity in Each Region, is a coalition of business leaders statewide emphasizing a need for regional cooperation in attempts to create jobs and encourage growth within the private sector, as well as to prepare workers for careers.

Along with Martinsville-Henry County, Region 3 includes Danville and Pittsylvania, Patrick, Halifax, Nottoway, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Prince Edward, Lunenburg, Buckingham, Cumberland, Charlotte and Amelia counties. It is the largest of the nine GO Virginia regions, covering about 17 percent of the state. But it has the smallest population at roughly 372,000  about 4 percent of the states residents.

Like each of its counterparts, Region 3 has created a regional economic improvement plan focusing on three issues deemed crucial: Workforce talent and recruitment, sectoral development (attracting and retaining types of businesses with the greatest potential for expanding employment in the region) and improving Internet infrastructure.

Requests for proposals have been issued for collaborations involving cyber (Internet) infrastructure, high-value wood projects and apprenticeships. The deadline for submitting proposals is 2 p.m. Dec. 8.

Basically, Internet expansion is needed because companies and individuals alike are communicating and doing business online more and more, officials have said.

Because the region is largely rural, it has many trees that can be turned into wood products such as furniture. Some of its localities, including Martinsville-Henry County, have furniture-making heritages.

Apprenticeships with people already within professions have been cited as a way to help people learn how to do those professions in the future. Proposals for marketing, branding and communications services are due by 2 p.m. Dec. 1. The Region 3 Council wants to contract with a firm that can provide it with professional marketing and public relations services and, media and communications strategies.

Full details of the proposal requests are online at www.southsidepdc.org. That is the website of the Southside Planning District Commission in South Hill, which is overseeing GO Virginia Region 3 efforts and provides planning assistance to communities in eastern parts of Southern Virginia. It is that areas equivalent of the West Piedmont Planning District Commission in Martinsville.

Overall, the proposal requests are intended to help Region 3 find partners that can help it accomplish its mission, according to Contract Officer Elizabeth Povar.

The cyber, wood products and apprenticeship proposal requests are intended to help feed the creation of partnerships and build organizational structures, Povar said  so high-quality (project) applications can be received for (those) areas of critical need.

Region 3 officials have discovered, she said, that in trying to form regional partnerships, many people dont know who to talk to because they never have tried to reach out to people other than those in their communities.

Businesses or organizations with which Region 3 eventually partners could receive seed money from the state to help recruit other partners that could apply for state funding for projects aimed to address areas of need, according to Povar.

The marketing proposal request is aimed at trying to find ways to communicate our message better to potential partners, she said.

Anyone with questions about the proposal requests can call the Southside PDC at (434) 447-7101 or send an email to Gosouthernva@gmail.com. Already, the Region 3 Council issued an initial request for applications for state funding for projects intended to boost Southern Virginias economy. Monday was the deadline for submitting applications.

Povar said five applications were received and the bulk came from the western part of the region of which Martinsville-Henry County is part.

However, the applications have not yet been evaluated, she said. Evaluations will be done privately because they could contain confidential business-related information, she added.

On Dec. 20, the council will vote in a public meeting  most likely in Halifax County  on which applications it will recommend to the state GO Virginia board for approval, Povar said.

The state board plans to approve projects on Feb. 13, officials have said.
COLLINSVILLEWhile its a kind gesture any day, Curtis Millner challenged students on Friday to be especially open about their appreciation for veterans over the holiday weekend. The military veteran and chairman of the Henry County School Board spoke during a special assembly at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School.

On Veterans Day, we put veterans first, Millner said, encouraging students to reach out and help the families of soldiers who were far from home. Putting veterans first also means support and care of their families. It is why President Lincoln famously included widows and orphans when he promised to care for him who shall have borne the battle.

Millner was referring to Lincolns second inaugural address, given on March 4, 1865. In it, Lincoln talks about how the nation needs to come together and heal, in the aftermath of the Civil War.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nations wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, Lincoln said in his speech. He also called on Americans to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

That was a point Millner emphasized on Friday, encouraging those in attendance to help military families and show their support. Millner served in the Army for 23 years as an active duty service member and an additional six years as a Henry County Public Schools JROTC instructor in uniform.

After being introduced by Fieldale-Collinsville Principal Laryssa Hairston-Penn, Millner also gave a bit of his background. Enlisting in the Army at 17 years of age, the Axton native went on to serve tours in Germany, Thailand, Vietnam and Guatemala before retiring from the military in 1983 as a Chief Warrant Officer.

While serving his country, Millner earned a Legion of Merit award, for which the military recognizes exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.

Addressing the middle school students, Millner spoke not only about his own time in the armed forces, but also the vital role veterans play in protecting the freedoms from which the students at FCMS benefitted.

I proudly served as an American fighting man, Millner said.

Willing to give his life, if necessary, Millner devoted his days to the defense of the United States.

After completion of my military service and receiving an honorable discharge, I have earned the right to be called a military veteran, Millner said.

The chairman noted that a military veteran is someone that embodies the words found in Title 38 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which denotes a veteran as a person who served in the active military, naval or air force and who was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable.

Millner delved into a brief history of Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, a period originally set aside to commemorate the end of World War I in 1918, though it didnt become a federal holiday until 20 years later.

Legislation was passed designating November 11 to the cause of world peace, to be hereinafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day, Millner said.

The chairman explained to the group of middle school students that Armistice Day wasnt just a name  it had a meaning.

What is Armistice Day? Armistice is defined in the dictionary as an agreement between an opposing side in a war to stop fighting for a certain period of time or a truce, Millner said. In the original 18th century French, it means arms stoppage.

After World War II, which ended in 1945, and the Korean War, which ended in 1953, the government decided to rename the holiday to honor more than one group of soldiers.

In 1954, Congress amended the act of 1938 by striking out the word armistice and inserting the word veterans. With the approval of the legislation, November 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars, Millner said. A day to honor those who have served and now serve in uniform, as well as those who died in service to this great country.

The school board chairman also reminded students that war is real.

We must remember that to them, war is not a mere history lesson or the subject of a book or a movie, Millner said. To some of us, the battle continues even after the firing stops and our return home is complete.

For some, Millner said, it meant the worldwide conflicts of World War II, a lifetime or peacekeeping missions or the tense standoffs of the Cold War. For others, he noted the jungles of Vietnam and Panama and the freezing temperatures soldiers faced in Korea.

We cant forget that today, for many, service means multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan on active duty or reserve, Millner said. And guard members who sacrificed twice when they gave up their civilian jobs in order to serve our country. We consider the impact that those individuals have had on the world  defending freedom and protecting democracy.

Paying respect

As part of Fridays ceremony, members of the Student Council Association led part of the program, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, giving an introduction to the program, asking members of the military to stand for recognition and giving a historic overview of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Students from the middle school choir performed Let There Be Peace on Earth and an FCMS student played The Star Spangled Banner on a flute. The Martinsville-Henry County Honor Guard also held a special flag presentation ceremony where they folded the American symbol 13 times.

Before the program ended, Millner asked students to consider several things in the next few days. First, for Veterans Day, he encouraged students to approach those who served with gratitude.

Today, to honor their debt, I would ask you to take time to honor the service members, past and present, in at least one of several ways, Millner said. First, volunteer to help veterans or service members, regardless of whether you are a veteran or not. We have many wounded veterans in our world who need your compassion and your support and these wounds are not all physical.

Second, the chairman asked students to communicate with veterans.

If you have a family member or a friend who is currently on active duty, especially serving overseas, send them a card or a letter or maybe a newspaper clipping, Millner said. You young folks do something called Skyping. Im still trying to figure out what that is. Just to say hello and to let them know that they are there.

Should a student see a veteran, Millner suggested taking time to say a few kind words.

Last but not least, you can show your appreciation by just saying, Thank you for your service to a veteran that you meet on the street or in your day to day activities, Millner said. To a veteran, it means a lot.
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Giant pandas are both Chinas national treasures and symbols of wildlife conservation. As a precious wealth given by nature to man, they have been living on earth for over 8 million years, despite the extinction of many other species during the period.

The cute creature has many fans around the world. Wherever they go, the black-and-white bundles of joy would trigger a craze.

In 2011, Yangguang, or Sunshine, and Tiantian, or Sweetie, were brought to the UK as part of a cooperative research project and were warmly welcomed by the British. There was a long line in front of the panda house to see the cute creatures from China. It was interesting that the craze even inspired envy from their penguin neighbors who threw their dung balls at the crowd.

Because of the worlds desire to see the creatures, giant pandas, for a long time, have been playing a unique role in Chinas politics, economy and diplomacy as irreplaceable goodwill ambassadors of friendship.

Since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, giant pandas have been given by China as a national gift to many countries, including the former Soviet Union, the US, UK, France and Mexico.

From the mid-1980s, China had been sending giant pandas overseas for short tours rather than giving them as presents. Since 1994, the animals have been sent abroad for scientific research, while the pandas themselves and their offspring still belong to China.

Since international cooperation on pandas was first launched in 1996, the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP) has established scientific research relations with 14 zoos of 12 countries. Currently, a total of 30 giant pandas have been sent abroad, giving birth to 18 panda cubs.

With the efforts of domestic and foreign scientists, crucial achievements have been made from international collaborative research on breeding, physiology and diseases of pandas. Many papers have been published for its conservation.

Furthermore, the fund for collaborative research effectively accelerated the building of panda protection zones across the nation, especially those below national level, which promoted conservation and the restoration of habitats for giant pandas.

Training and exchanges on heredity and pathology of giant pandas also improved the practitioners skills in the country.

The development of such international cooperation has not only strengthened collaborative research of domestic and overseas research institutes on giant pandas but has also propelled the conservation and management of giant pandas and met the worlds aspirations for the animal.

The goodwill ambassadors allow people of the world to know more about China. For example, the Dujiangyan Base, Bifengxia Base and Shenshuping Base of the CCRCGP attract thousands of foreign visitors every year. They gain firsthand knowledge of the local conditions, customs, and humanistic culture by traveling to the hometown of giant pandas, which further deepens their cognition of and affection for China.

In the future, CCRCGP will continue to introduce the worlds advanced technologies, ideas and mature experiences to China through the exchange platform built for international cooperation on giant pandas.

In addition, it will seek broader cooperation on conservation, management, cultural construction, public education and ecotourism with overseas partners, and thus contribute more to the dissemination of Chinese culture and the construction of an ecological civilization.

The author is secretary of the Party committee of CCRCGP
SYDNEY, Nov. 10 (Peoples Daily Online)--On Oct. 26, 2017, Beijing-based Company Ofo welcomed its first 200 yellow bikes in the City of Sydney council area.

The most crucial part of Ofos introduction to Australia is partnering with government and community stakeholders in many cities across Australia in order to discuss local needs, best practices and potential launches.

We have found all levels of government and stakeholders to be receptive to our proposition and focus on launching the right way in Australia, said Xuanbin He, Ofos Regional Director (Australia).

Ofo is committed to rolling out a bike share scheme that truly works in Australia.

Even though dockless bike sharing is a new concept in Australia, the affordable price, easy-to-use and eco-friendly concept has prompted many citizens to download the software and use these yellow bikes.

The equipment of the Ofo bike complies with the requirements of Australian federal law including helmets and front and rear lights. Additionally, there is a three gearshift to accommodate night rides and the many steep slopes in Australia. Finally, the bikes are equipped with a GPS-enabled Geofence which ensures appropriate resourcing within the riding zone at all times.

No deposit is required and it costs only AU$1 for half an hour ride and AU$5 for an entire trip. Whats more, you dont need to lock it back.

Compared to the Chinese who like freshness and are willing to accept new things, Australians may not accept new concepts as fast, said He.

Therefore, we also distribute informative flyers to passersby in the streets to teach the community how to use Ofo. This will let everyone feel that Ofo is not an imported product but a product that can bring convenience into their life.

A recent report revealed that two-thirds of Australians spend and earn money through the sharing economy. With the rise of shared services such as Uber, Airbnb and many others in Australia, the shared economy has grown rapidly in Australia.

With its successful experience in China, Ofo localized the service of sharing bicycles according to local Australian conditions. 100 bikes were released in the city of Adelaide, followed by Sydney. The plan is to release another 200 bikes in the City of Waverly and the City of Inner West.

We believe that Australia as a market has significant transport gaps and a clear need for better short distance point-to-point transport solutions, said He.

It is believed that the sharing of bicycles, which is rated as one of the new big four inventions in China, will infuse new vitality into Australias shared economy.
WESTFIELD -- More than 40 precision manufacturing companies from around the Pioneer Valley and nearby Connecticut will attend a job fair next week in Westfield organized for the 80 workers who lost their jobs when Berkshire Industries shut down unexpectedly last month.

"We have had a pretty significant response from companies in the area," said David M. Cruise, president and CEO of the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County. "We are trying to outreach to the workers, to let them know it's happening."

The event is from 2-4 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Westfield Senior Center, 45 Noble St. Participants should bring a resume if they have one.

While the Regional Employment Board and area job centers organized the fair in response to Berkshire industries' abrupt shutdown Oct. 25, the fair is open to anyone seeking a job in precision manufacturing, Cruise said.

"There could be hiring on the spot," Cruise said. "Our sense is that a lot of what happens Thursday will lead to a more intensive interview back at the employer's place of business."

Companies that plan to be there include Hoppe Technologies of Chicopee, Belt Technologies of Agawam, Whalley Precision of Southwick, Savage Arms of Westfield, U.S. Tsubaki of Holyoke, Aerotech of Agawam and Sisson Engineering of Northfield.

"I know the employers that I have spoken to personally are very exited about the opportunity to speak with the former Berkshire employees," Cruise said. "We are not averse to doing more events."

Berkshire Industries had been in business since 1956 making precision parts for aircraft and other applications. Having changed hands repeatedly over the past few years, Berkshire Industries was no longer under local control when it closed.

Employees at the 100,000-square-foot facility at 109 Apremont Way referred questions to Whitesell Industries, the company's Florida-based owner.

Cruise said prospective employers are looking Thursday for machinists, quality-control inspectors, and programmers who work on computer-controlled lathes and other equipment. At least one needs to hire an engineer.
Court documents pertaining to a Springfield, Massachusetts, man charged in a double homicide that occurred in Townshend, Vermont, late last month describe a drug-fueled bender that ended in gunshots and a cabin engulfed in fire.

The wife of 46-year-old Justin Orwat told investigators that bath salts and Klonopin taken by her husband before the Oct. 27 killings made him paranoid and violent, The Brattleboro Reformer reported, citing court documents.

One of the victims, 43-year-old Steven Lovely, insinuated on what turned out to be the last day of his life that Orwat had been stealing from him, according to those documents, which include the affidavit of 38-year-old Tami Orwat.

Justin Orwat has an extensive criminal history in Western Massachusetts, including a 12-15 year prison sentence for his role in a gang-related murder in 1995.

He was arrested by Springfield, Massachusetts, police on four unrelated warrants about 12 hours after the Townshend homicides.

It wasn't until the following day that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Lovely and the second victim, 35-year-old Amanda Sanderson, had been shot to death.

A judge issued an arrest warrant for Justin Orwat the following Tuesday for charges of aggravated murder and first-degree arson.

Justin Orwat continues to be held without right to bail on a fugitive from justice charge in the Hampden County House of Correction in Ludlow. He denied that charge during his arraignment in Palmer District Court and is slated to return there on Dec. 1.

No decision has been made on extraditing him to Vermont to face charges there.

Lovely, a former Holyoke, Massachusetts, resident, was known by Western Massachusetts law enforcement as well, according to court documents. In 2015, after a traffic stop in Chicopee, he was cited on a number of drug charges including possession of heroin, oxycodone and suboxone with intent to to distribute.

Bellows Falls, Vermont, police interacted with the two couples on Oct. 5 when they stopped a vehicle, according to documents. Lively was behind the wheel.

After obtaining a search warrant, police found $47,000 in cash inside the vehicle, as well as white powder, trace amounts of marijuana and glassine bags.

The Orwats had been staying with Lovely and Sanderson at the latter couple's cabin at 163 Shirley Circle in Townshend for approximately two weeks before the homicides occurred, court documents state.

The foursome also spent some time in a house in Bellows Falls, starting on Oct. 26 and into the next morning.

Tami Orwat said during their stay there, she used heroin and cocaine while her husband and Lovely used heroin, cocaine, bath salts, marijuana and Klonopin. It was on that morning that Lovely began to insinuate that Justin Orwat had been stealing from him, according to the affidavit.

They left the Bellows Falls house at about 5 a.m. and tensions between the two men continued as they drove back to the cabin. Shortly after their arrival there, Justin Orwat told his wife to remain in their bedroom while he attempted "to clear the air with Lovely."

Tami Orwat then heard a loud argument, followed by gunshots.

The Reformer reported that a neighbor told detectives that he heard "three quick consecutive gunshots" at approximately 8:45 a.m.

The Vermont newspaper also reported that Tami Orwat told detectives "that absent his and Steven's use of drugs that night, this incident would not have happened."

The Vermont State Police Arson Investigation Unit's initial investigation indicated that a liquid accelerant had been used in at least nine locations to start the fire, according to the Reformer.

One of Justin Orwat's four warrants pertains to his arrest in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, on July 20 for stealing perishable food items from the Big Y on North Main Street, Police Sgt. Steven Manning said.

Tami Orwat, who drove away from the store with her husband, was cited for unlicensed operation and failure to stop, Manning said.

A fifth case against Justin Orwat, involving an alleged armed robbery at Walmart in Springfield, Massachusetts, was added Wednesday in district court there.
CHICOPEE - About two years ago Mayor Richard J. Kos took State Rep. Joseph Wagner and Massachusetts Housing and Economic Development Director Jay Ash on a late afternoon tour of the Cabotville Industrial Park and the downtown area to show its potential for development.

There was no press, there were no cameras there was just a three-way discussion about economic development in Chicopee Center.

"The mayor came to us and said we can do something good here but we need something," said Wagner, D-Chicopee.

That something turned into a $2.6 million MassWorks grant, which will pay for 90 percent of infrastructure improvements that will bring dependable water, new or improved sewer lines and a new submersible pump station with back-up generator to the area.

Thursday Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito gathered with other state and local officials for an official groundbreaking of the project that will make it possible for developers to convert the historic mills in the Cabotville Industrial Park, which are either vacant or under used.

"These are old building with old infrastructure in an older city," Wagner said.

The efforts have a chance to transform Chicopee Center by bringing more people downtown and will give it a new identity, he said.

Herbert Berezin, owner of Mount Holyoke Development, is starting that change. He is in the process of purchasing a 65,000 square-foot, five-story mill that was most recently used by Lyman Mills. He plans to renovate it to create 107 live-work loft apartments there. Estimates of the cost of the project are still being figured, but he said the investment is well above $1 million.

He and his son Ari Berezin attended the groundbreaking with Dennis Keefe and Mike Harrington, Westfield Bank officials who are planning to provide the financing for the project.

The building dates to the 1840s and was expanded after the Civil War to add the top two floors. At one time it was the larger producer of cotton, Berezin said.

The final plans are being completed now and then Berezin said he has to go through the permitting process. He hopes to begin renovations early in the new year.

"Thank you very much, this is a great project," Polito said, while speaking to the four before the official ceremony.

In total there are five or six different mills totaling about 700,000 square feet that will benefit from the infrastructure improvements.

There have been proposals to reuse the larger Cabotville building, which is owned by New York developer Joshua Guttman. His original project, proposed in 2005, was to create about 240 condominiums, an underground parking garage and retail and business in the building. It stalled and eventually died in part because the main water pipe that services the mills there runs through the canal and could freeze if the water level is too low, making the source unreliable for fire suppression.

Silverbrick LLC. two years ago proposed to buy Cabotville and renovate it, creating about 600 apartments, but that project also died.

Polito talked about the collaboration that brought together state and local officials and private entities and said that has been a goal of the governor's office. She wished for a successful completion of the work.

"I love this project sign because it has the whole team," she said.

Gardner Construction & Industrial Services, of Chicopee, has already begun the work and plans to start major excavation Nov. 23. It is scheduled to finish the work in May but if the winter is favorable to construction the job will be completed sooner, Jeffrey O'Connor, director of business development, said.

For the project, 4,000 linear feet of 8- and 12-inch water main pipe will be installed, 550 feet of 10- and 12-inch sanitary sewer pipe will be repaired, and 250 feet of 15-inch sanitary sewer pipe will also be installed. An existing pumping station will be removed and a new submersible pump station and back-up generator will be built, Kos said.

The existing water main was constructed around 1915 and could fail at any time. There is also a public safety risk because of the age of the system and the fire hydrants in the area, Kos said.
AMHERST -- William Kristol, founder and editor at large of The Weekly Standard, will join Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans in his last "Trump: Point/Counterpoint" series conversation on Nov. 16.

The discussion called "After Trump" begins at 7 p.m. in Stirn Auditorium.

Kristol is a frequent guest on political commentary shows. Before starting the Weekly Standard in 1995, he led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory.

He has also served in senior positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations.

This event is free and open to the public.
A Boston accountant whose South End office was forgotten by Eversource for more than a decade says the company is trying to bill him $23,000 for lost time.



The $20 billion dollar company apparently noticed its mistake recently and began demanding Keh-Jiann Pan pay them for all those years of keeping the lights on, reports The Boston Globe.



The Taiwanese immigrant has lately been receiving threatening notices promising "termination" if he doesn't start paying off the sum, documents viewed by the paper indicate.



From the unit in question, a 700-square foot commercial affair at the corner of Harrison Avenue and East Berkeley Street, Pan serves the accounting needs of a mostly immigrant population, he says.



He has so far refused to yield. Requesting documentation on how the company arrived at its number, Pan apparently learned no records existed. The total Eversource is asking him to pay is, instead, based on an estimate of the unit's monthly electric bill -- $200 -- multiplied from 2006.



"I am nobody; they are big business," Pan told The Globe. "So many times I called and tried to negotiate with them, but they always refuse."



Eversource spokesman Michael Durand told The Globe the company needs to "start over" in its approach to Pan.
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele wants to help explain what he calls 'the crazy' -- the divisive, increasingly extreme politics he says have gripped both his party and America as a whole.

"I think a lot of it is giving context to what has been one of the most unpredictable, frustrating, exciting and problematic years we've had in American history," Steele said in an interview.

And on Wednesday, Steele will bring that context to the Springfield Public Forum.

His talk, titled "The New Political Scene," is the third and final entry in the Springfield Public Forum's 2017 fall speaker series. The event is free to the public and starts at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 15, at Springfield Symphony Hall.

New England Orthopedic Surgeons and PeoplesBank are sponsoring Steele's talk. The Eagle Hill School in Hardwick is the Season Sponsor for the 2017 speaker series and MassLive is the premier media sponsor. Ed Kubosiak, Jr., MassLive's editor-in-chief, is the president of the Springfield Public Forum's board of directors.

Steele became the first African American elected to statewide office in Maryland in 2002 when he won election as the state's Lieutenant Governor. He spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention and ran for Senate in 2006, losing to Democratic candidate Ben Cardin.

He then led a Republican political action committee and worked for the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf before he was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2009.

Steele served in that role for two years, leading political mobilization and fundraising efforts during the 2010 Congressional elections. After Reince Preibus won the RNC chairmanship in 2011, Steele joined MSNBC as a political analyst.

Steele, who ran the RNC while President Barack Obama occupied the White House, expressed frustration with how Republicans have handled their new grip on power.

Despite Republican majorities in both Congressional houses and the election of President Donald Trump, GOP policy priorities -- like repealing Obama's health care act and enacting major changes to the tax code -- have remained unfulfilled.

"It's the difference between in the political opposition and fighting up, and being in the political majority and governing," Steele said. "This is an internal battle among Republicans who can't seem to agree on what policy should look like and how it should be implemented."

And while Steele's GOP establishment had to contend with Tea Party outsiders attempting to primary Republican candidates in 2010, he said those challenges are nothing compared to the infighting between conventional conservatives and the Trump wing of the party.

"What you have not is something even more outside than that. You've got the Bannonization of the Republican Party, where you have this third party force that's not even organized and structured threatening the party," he said. "It has at its core the ability to fracture the party."

Steele has not been afraid to wade into that fight. When Trump took to Twitter to distance himself from Republican Ed Gillespie after Gillespie's loss in Virginia's gubernatorial election on Tuesday, Steele stuck up for his party's man.

"Did YOU win Virginia?" Steele tweeted to the president -- noting the challenge facing Republicans in a state Hillary Clinton won by five points.

"I wasn't picking a fight, just stating a fact," Steele said about his response.

In his tweet, Trump said that Gillespie did not "embrace me or what I stand for." It was an unfair criticism, said Steele, who argued Gillespie had adopted more than enough Trumpism into his campaign.

"You're going after our candidate for the governor of Virginia who put on what I thought was a very good race," Steele said. "Then the president throws cold water on him and takes a cheap shot at him. I just reminded him, clearly you didn't embrace yourself because you lost Virginia as well"
AMHERST -- The first few days were hard for Lucio Perez.

Living at First Congregational Church for the last month, he misses his wife and children. But with the help of the greater faith community, he has adapted to a new way to be.

The church has given sanctuary from deportation to Perez, a Springfield resident who entered the U.S. illegally from Guatemala in 1999. He moved into the church Oct. 19, the same day he had been ordered to fly back to Guatemala.

Through translator Margaret Sawyer from the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, Perez said, "The first few days were hard but now I'm getting used to it."

Perez has a small apartment in the church and a portable shower.

He attends Pentecostal services three days a week. He reads the Bible. He lifts weights and rides an exercise bicycle. He has a TV and watches movies or listens to music.

And he has been helping the church get ready for its Nov. 18 cranberry fair.

Perez has lots of visitors, including Amherst College students and a recent guest lecturer from Guatemala. The church has screened and trained a stable of volunteers to help Perez and keep him company.

"There are lots of really nice people here," he said through Sawyer. "They give me courage and strength."

Perez's wife and three children visit about twice a week when they can get a ride from Springfield. They were there during an interview Friday with The Republican. Perez and his 8-year-old daughter had their arms around each other as he spoke. She said she misses going to church with her father.

His wife, Dora, said of the church providing sanctuary, "It's super nice. It would be better if he was home."

Perez smiled recounting some of the meals volunteers have provided, including lots of salads, which he didn't often eat at home. He misses the tortillas his wife makes, which they would eat at every meal. She said she sometimes brings him meals from home.

Perez worked as a landscaper. An incident in 2009 put him on the radar of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was allowed to remain in the U.S. as long as he regularly checked in with immigration authorities. An Obama-era prioritization system granted stays of deportation to many immigrants who had entered the U.S. illegally but did not have criminal records.

That changed after Donald Trump was elected president. The new administration prioritized removal of undocumented immigrants, and earlier this year authorities ordered Perez to buy a one-way plane ticket back to Guatemala.

He is now waiting for a judge to review his case.

The Rev. Vicki Kemper said providing sanctuary for Perez has been a challenge. "We're learning as we go," she said.

She said First Congregational is one of three churches in the state providing sanctuary. Members have been in touch with other congregations providing sanctuary in other parts of the country.

Kemper said First Congregational has been joined by 13 faith communities in the Amherst area that provide food and support for Perez.

"That makes all the difference in the world," she said.

She said church members "have expressed support for him and his family."

What the church is doing, she said, "is really not an act of resistance. It's an act of love, an act of faith."

Anyone who wants to help can donate. The church needs help covering expenses, and anything raised beyond that is helping Perez's family, Kemper said.
LUDLOW - The decision by Springfield police to get out of the overnight accommodations business is a benefit to the department, Springfield residents, and to those who end up as involuntary guests, said Sheriff Nick Cocchi.

Announced this week by Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri, the move allows the transfer of those in Springfield Police custody to the sheriff's department and moves the county closer to the creation of a regional police lockup facility, Cocchi said.

Cocchi, who campaigned for the sheriff's job two years ago with the promise of a regional police lockup, said the move makes sense for all concerned.

"It puts police officers back on the street and it lets us do what we do," Cocchi said.

A big chunk of what the sheriff's department does, Cocchi said, is to hold onto prisoners and keep them safe until they can be brought into court.

Springfield, the largest city, with the greatest number of arrests daily, automatically becomes "our biggest customer," Cocchi said. "That's no surprise there."

According to the change announced by Springfield police, beginning Thursday, anyone arrested too late in the day to be brought to district court for arraignment will be turned over to the Hampden County Sheriff's Department. For all intents, that will affect anyone arrested weekdays between 4 p.m. and 3 a.m. or at any time on a weekend or a holiday when the courts are closed.

Men will be taken to the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow, and women will be taken to the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center in Chicopee.

Ryan Walsh, Springfield Police Department spokesman, said the change has been in the works for some time.

"Many police departments are already doing this," he said. "But do to the volume of prisoners that Springfield would provide to the Sheriff's Department, we made sure to fine tune the plan."

Springfield police headquarters has several holding cells for prisoners. They were designed primarily for holding someone overnight prior to an initial court arraignment. They were not intended to hold someone for any extended time beyond that, he said.

Someone arrested for a minor offence will still be offered a chance to post bail before being transported, and someone held in protective custody will be held at the Springfield station, Walsh said.

"The Hampden County Corrections Centers have facilities that are more appropriate for longer stays," he said.

Cocchi said getting Springfield on board moves things a notch closer to fulfilling a campaign pledge of establishing a regional police lockup.

With the additional of Springfield, nearly every community in the county transports prisoners to the county jail for overnight holding. The only holdout so far, Cocchi said, is Holyoke.

Holyoke is interested, and may yet join, Cocchi said, but issues dealing with transportation have to be worked out.

The distance from Springfield police headquarters on Pearl Street to the men's jail in Ludlow is a little over 10 miles, or 20 roundtrip.

The one-way distance from Holyoke police headquarters on Appleton Street to Ludlow is between 9.5 and 10.5 miles depending on the route taken.

Cocchi said prior to Springfield joining in, West Springfield police use the regional jail most commonly. The West Springfield station is roughly 11.5 miles from Ludlow.

Departments are responsible for transporting prisoners to the jail. Once they are dropped off, the sheriff's department holds them overnight and drives them to the courthouse for arraignment the next morning.

For now, prisoners will be booked, photographed and fingerprinted at the arresting department's station. Once the booking paperwork is completed, they will be transported to the appropriate jail facility.

Cocchi said that one day a booking facility could be built at the jail that would allow departments to take prisoners there directly for booking. Officers could write their arrest reports at the jail. Such a setup would cost around $500,000.

Cocchi said he met with several area police chiefs recently and a regional lockup seemed to be the No. 1 common issue.

A regional system frees up salaries that would be spent on having booking officers in the station and puts them on patrol. Police departments are required to periodically check on inmates being held overnight to prevent suicides. Departments are also freed of the liability that can result if a prisoner dies or is injured.

The officers at the men's and women's facilities specialize in holding prisoners. The jail is properly staffed, the staff is properly trained to deal with an inmate who may be addicted to drugs or is suicidal, Cocchi said. The cells are monitored by video and the facilities have medical staff on duty continually.

The cost and the liability concerns are, Cocchi said, "a huge part of it."

He said there's not a police chief anywhere who would not want to pass off that responsibility for inmate care.

The Springfield police station has around 60 holding cells but as many as half of them are no longer suitable for holding prisoners.

Following the death of a prisoner in Springfield police custody due to an aneurysm, there have been calls to fit the booking area with a video surveillance system to monitor each of the cells. One recent estimate put the cost at around $100,000.

Cocchi said for Springfield to bring its holding cell area up to code, the cost would be in the millions.
Massachusetts State Police Colonel Richard McKeon, a 35-year veteran of the statewide law enforcement entity, is stepping down following allegations that he ordered state troopers to remove embarrassing details from an arrest report for a judge's daughter.

A Worcester native, he was appointed to the post in July 2015, succeeding Timothy Alben and taking command of over 2,300 troopers.

A lawsuit filed on Nov. 7 by Trooper Ryan Sceviour alleges supervisors forced Sceviour to edit an arrest report involving Alli Bibaud, the daughter of Judge Timothy Bibaud.

The lawsuit alleged Sceviour had to remove Bibaud's remarks about performing sex acts for drugs from the report, and that he, as well as another trooper, were punished for including the statements in the original report. The lawsuit claims the order to change the report came from above, including Col. McKeon and Lt. Col. Daniel Risteen.

According to NECN.com, a second lawsuit is expected to be filed by Trooper Ali Rei, who claims she too was forced to alter a police report by her commanders.

"The past few days have been difficult for the MSP and for me, in particular. We have always been highly scrutinized for how we perform our duties, as any police agency should be, and these last few days have been no exception," McKeon wrote in a statement. "That public examination, while sometimes uncomfortable, comes with the great authority bestowed upon us, and we must always pay attention to how we are perceived by those whom we serve and protect."

In a statement accompanying the news of McKeon's appointment at the time, Baker said, "Fostering trust between the community and law enforcement is essential to public safety and McKeon will be essential to strengthening those relationships."

He first joined the State Police in 1982. Before taking over as superintendent and colonel of the State Police, he was deputy division commander of the division of investigative services.

In 2011, he was the captain and unit commander for the State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office in Auburn.

"We may at times disagree on how we do this job, but I have no doubt that the more than 2,000 men and women who put their lives on the line every day for the Massachusetts State Police are dedicated to doing their very best every day to protect the honor of our corps and the safety of our citizens," McKeon wrote.
What the world thinks today, the Greeks thought thousands of years ago.

Take a sneak peak at the China Science and Technology Museum (CSTM), Beijing, to get a sense of the innovative Greek mind amid growing bilateral ties with China.

From portable analogue computer, which can accurately calculate the position of the sun, the moon and possibly the planets in the sky, robots that can walk and pour drinks to automatic theatre and slot machine, the CSTM is a one-stop destination for a wide range of Greek scientific and technological prowess.

An interactive model of Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek analogue computer dating back to the 2nd- 1st century BC. (Photo: Du Mingming)

"EUREKA! Ancient Greek Science, Art and Technology Exhibition" was officially opened to the public at the CSTM on November 3, 2017. The exhibition is jointly organized by the CSTM and Museum Herakleidon, Athens, Greece. Altogether, 53 models and demonstrations are on display. The exhibition will be on till March, 7, 2018.

A small sundial used for approximate calculation of latitudes, azimuths and star heights. (Photo: Du Mingming)

Visitors to the CSTM will have free access to pioneering Greek inventions up, close and personal. The exhibition showcases a broad scientific spectrum --- from building and public works, measurements of space and time, mechanical engineering, automaton, astronomy, shipbuilding to technology in arts and sports, military technology and telecommunications.

Herons odometer. (Photo: Du Mingming)

Visitors were impressed by the exhibits that embodied ancient Greeks innovation and wisdom. A girl, nicknamed Caicai, even held a live streaming on her smartphone to introduce each and every exhibit to her social media followers.

Ancient Greek techniques that have been used to build the Parthenon Temple in Athens. (Photo: Du Mingming)

This is the first time so many objects in various themes are on display, Pavlos Firos, founder of Museum Herakleidon, told Peoples Daily app. He said that although China and Greece are far apart, both civilisations encourage innovations and foster new ideas. He is looking forward to further cooperation with the CSTM to promote mutual understanding of achievements and enhance friendship between the two great nations.

A bronze statue cast using the lost wax method. (Photo: Du Mingming)

On September 21, 2017, an exhibition of ancient Chinese science and technology opened in Museum Herakleidon to celebrate the ongoing China-Greece Cultural Exchanges and Cultural Industry Cooperation Year.

According to Yin Hao, curator of the CSTM, the exhibitions are a culmination to implement Chinas ambitious Belt and Road initiative. Besides, it is a good start for the collaboration between the CSTM and its Greek partners.

Herons automated temple gates. (Photo: Du Mingming)

Elisabeth Fotiadou, Greek Minister Counselor to China, said that mutual cooperation was initiated in the fields of relic restoration, drama, film art, books and translation.

Strengthening people-to-people contacts was in line with vibrant diplomatic and economic ties between the two countries which would help understand each other better, she said.

For the uninitiated, Eureka! is a cry of joy or satisfaction in Greek when one finds or discovers something.

Photo shows the technology of ancient Greek theatre. (Photo: Du Mingming)

The word is attributed to ancient Greek scholar Archimedes, who had uttered in joy after discovering the principle of buoyant force of water in a bathtub.

A moving automatic servant made by Philo and Heron. (Photo: Du Mingming)
PITTSFIELD -- A New York man was convicted Thursday of secretly video recording children and others in the restroom at a Dalton park during the fall of 2014.

A Berkshire Superior Court jury found Sam C. Wassilie, 39, of Hudson, New York, guilty of installing a video recording device in the public restroom at Pinegrove Park in Dalton between Sept. 14 and Oct. 26, 2014, and secretly recording those using the toilets.

The victims included children younger than 5 years old.

A spokesman for Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless said a jury deliberated for about three hours Thursday afternoon, then returned guilty verdicts on 10 counts of videotaping persons nude or partially nude and five counts of videotaping sexual parts of children under the age of 18.

Judge John Agostini ordered Wassilie held at the Berkshire County House of Correction without the right to bail pending sentencing, the date of which was not set.

Wassilie was given a 31/2- to 10-year sentence in New York in June 2015 after he was found guilty of similar offenses in New Lebanon, New York.
SUNDERLAND -- Every year, children at Sunderland Elementary School walk to the town's Veterans Memorial Wall and Park to honor Veterans Day along with current and former members of the military.

The children wore knit hats, mittens and winter jackets as they joined veterans and military personnel in dress uniform at an outdoor ceremony Thursday morning, two days before the actual Nov. 11 federal holiday.

With school principal Ben Barshefsky serving as master of ceremonies, the students learned about the meaning of the day.

Military personnel are "our nation's secret force of superheroes," said Air Force Lt. Col. Diane Burch, a member of the 439th Force Support Squadron at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee. Burch advised the children to visit with veterans, ask them about their stories and thank them for their service.

Local official Michael Ahearn read a Veterans Day proclamation issued by Gov. Charlie Baker.

On November 11, 1918, the Armistice was signed in the Forest of Compiegne by the Allied Nations and Germany, ending World War I, "The War to End All Wars," after four years of conflict, the statement read.

"Since that day, every November people from around the nation have gathered to honor our veterans," Ahearn proclaimed.

Janet Conley, secretary of the town's Veterans Committee, introduced the University of Massachusetts Color Guard, whose members demonstrated a formal flag-folding ceremony in the brilliant sunlight.

Conley delivered a brief history of the flag, and spoke of its symbolism.

"Red symbolizes hardiness and valor; white signifies purity and innocence; and blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice," she said.

Conley said the flag, a symbol of American unity for more than 200 years, "flies on constellations of Air Force satellites that circle our globe, and on the fin flash of our aircraft in harm's way in every corner of the word."

The flag was raised to half staff by color guards as Frontier Regional High School students Ella Deane and Phaelon Kofki played taps. The crowd observed a minute of silence for the fallen.

The event ended on a bright note as the children sang a spirited rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land."

The lead organizer of the event is Danny Van Dalsen, a retired Air Force officer.

"In 2009, then-principal Timothy Merritt overheard two boys talking. One asked about the meaning of Veterans Day, and the other said he thought it marked the first shopping day before Christmas," Van Dalsen said.

In response, Van Dalsen and Merritt, who has since passed away, organized the first yearly event, and since then it has grown in size and scope.

After Thursday's ceremony, active duty and reserve military from Westover, as well as Army and Air Force ROTC units from UMass Amherst, traveled to the elementary school to share lunch with the students.

"It's baked potato day at the school," a local official announced.

Van Dalsen and Conley posed for a photograph in front of the Veterans Memorial Wall, which is inscribed with names of residents who served in conflicts from the French and Indian War to the present day.

The memorial park, with its broad wooden benches, native stone and bronze military plaques, was built in 2007, largely with private donations, said Van Dalsen. It is located at 12 School St. outside the town's municipal offices.

Conley said she maintains the park as part of the town's senior citizen tax work-off program.

"I'm down here practically every day," she said.

The park was designed by Dean Cardasis and Elizabeth Thompson of Cave Hill Landscape Architects, a Leverett firm selected by Sunderland residents after a 2005 design competition.
SPRINGFIELD -- The love for Roderick L. Ireland poured out Friday at a Symphony Hall ceremony dedicating the Hampden County Hall of Justice in his name.

"I'm almost speechless hearing all of these wonderful things," Ireland said. "I can't tell you how much it means to me to see so many dear friends here -- people from my childhood days to right up to the present."

The 50 State St. building -- which houses Hampden County Superior Court, Springfield District Court, and offices for the Hampden County district attorney, probate court and registry of deeds -- will now be known as the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse.

Ireland thanked his wife, children and grandchildren, and said he wished his parents and grandparents could have been alive to see this day.

"What a great day this is. It truly is a time for both ceremony and reflection," said Ireland, the first African American justice on the state's highest court and chief justice from 2010 to 2014.

People entered Symphony Hall to the voices of the Elias Brookings Elementary School Chorus.

Speakers included Wayne A. Budd, a former U.S. Attorney and current senior counsel at Goodwin Proctor.

"Isn't it nice that today's ceremony is not done in memory of chief justice Roderick Ireland," Budd said. "Here he is, among us in living color."

He said Ireland, who he has known since school days at Springfield's William Deberry School, has succeeded despite serious obstacles being placed in his path.

Budd said Ireland remained the same humble and self-effacing person he was when young. "He has always taken his job seriously but never himself seriously," Budd said.

Ireland, Gov. Charlie Baker said, had a reputation of making people feel they were being heard.

"The grace and the intelligence and the kindness and the decency and the manner with which he led his life, managed the courtroom and dealt with his peers and those in front of him were what really propelled him to the highest levels of our judiciary," Baker said.

Ralph D. Gants, the Supreme Judicial Court's current chief justice, said: "Chief Justice Ireland never lost sight of the fact every legal problem is a human problem."

Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno said Ireland never forgot his Springfield roots, and that the justice is a frequent visitor to the city.

Sarno said a guidance counselor encouraged Ireland to pursue a career in machine shops. His mom and dad ferociously said, "No such thing," Sarno said.

Retired state Rep. Benjamin Swan said the greater Mason Square community is very proud of Ireland. He said when the bill to rename the courthouse went through the House of Representatives and Senate, there was no opposition.

Other speakers were Robert A. DeLeo, speaker of the House of Representatives; Paula M. Carey, Massachusetts Trial Court chief justice; and State Rep. Russell E. Holmes, former chair of the Black and Latino Caucus.

A Springfield native, Ireland served on the Supreme Judicial Court from 1997 to 2014, rising to become chief justice. He stepped down from the court just before he turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for Massachusetts judges.

Ireland worked as a public defender and chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance before he was appointed to the Juvenile Court in 1977.

Gov. Michael Dukakis appointed him to the Appeals Court in 1990, and Gov. William Weld appointed him to the Supreme Judicial Court in 1997.

Gov. Deval Patrick tapped him as chief justice in 2010.

Since his retirement, Ireland has taken a position on the faculty of Northeastern University as a professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Ireland said he saw "lots and lots of judges" in the audience Friday, and told them they make a great deal of difference every day.

Ireland said he is a true son of Springfield.

"So for me it doesn't get any better," Ireland said, to have the local courthouse named after him.

He said the renaming of the courthouse honors his family, his neighborhood and the city.

Ireland said the renaming also honors "those persons of color who came before me, those who opened closed doors" and those who battled rampant racial oppression, which still exist.
The Republican file

By DIANE LEDERMAN, dlederman@repub.com

The University of Massachusetts recently lifted sanctions against Phi Sigma Kappa and Theta Chi after a review of the two fraternities prompted by parties to which police were called. Through a public records request, The Republican obtained documents that provide a partial accounting of the university's response.

UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham (pictured above) was part of the initial investigation.

Don't Edit

The Republican file

How it began

On Sept. 10, Enku Gelaye, vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life (pictured above), is notified by UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham about an ongoing fight involving 80 people at 510 North Pleasant St., the home of Phi Sigma Kappa.

"Reports of people being kicked, punched, ear bites," according to the memo she then sends to Greek Affairs Director Michael Wiseman and others.

Police tell her that, after responding to the fight, they pulled over a driver who had a large cut on his head. He admitted being involved in the fight and was sent to the hospital. APD is investigating this entire incident, according to the memo.

Gelaye instructs Wiseman to get in touch with Phi Sigma Kappa leaders. They should understand these are serious and allegations and full cooperation with APDS investigation exceedingly critical.

She also wrote: If fraternity leadership hasnt already reported this, that too is a serious problem.

She wants to ensure the house is inclined to be transparent, cooperative and supportive of campus goals.

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Diane Lederman | dlederman@repub.com

What happens next

On Sept. 11, Wiseman reports to Gelaye that the chapter president did call him to report the incident that began Saturday Sept. 10 and spilled into the early morning hours of Sept. 11.

Phi Sigma Kappa files an incident report stating that members ended their social event at 2 a.m. Sept. 11 and encouraged all guests inside the house to leave. However, some guests inside the building had invited outside guests into the premises and we told them they were not welcome at this time.

As guests exited the chapter house, pushing began and one of our brothers was punched.

The persons waiting outside our gate then joined in on the altercation and as additional brothers attempted to intervene and prevent the conflict from escalating  these brothers were also struck up the uninvited guests.

The alteration grew, and at 2:06, leadership called police, who arrived and cleared our lot. We moved members inside our chapter house, complied fully with Amherst police officers and answered questions. The memo is signed by chapter President Matthew Polimou and Vice President Charles Baranowski III.

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The Republican file

What the police said

The police report says officers saw 200 people quickly leaving the frat house. Some people did remain in the area and were yelling loudly of no apparent reason.

Officers did not see any injured. Officer Matthew Frydryk reported that in the parking lot it was apparent that some type of disturbance took place as there were numerous personal items left abandoned.  The parking lot was also littered with empty cans and bottles of alcoholic beverages.

As he pulled onto North Pleasant Street he saw a male sitting on the curb at Thatcher Way and about six to eight people standing over him. The male was shirtless and holding his ear.

A friend of the injured male told police he was in a fight and someone bit his ear.

The 17-year-old appears to be intoxicated: and told police he was involved in a fight and someone bit his ear. He said he did not know the person.

On Sept. 14, Amherst Police Capt. Jennifer Gundersen reports it is unlikely that criminal charges will result in this incident. I am glad chapter president called 911, as it could have escalated.

Don't Edit

Interim suspension

On Sept.15, Patricia Cardoso-Erase, associate dean of students, sent a letter to Polimou notifying him that the fraternity is on interim restriction and that the university was launching an investigation because of the fraternitys involvement in an incident that may constitute a violation of the Code of Student Conduct. It does not specify the incident.

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Support from alumni

On Oct. 11, Ed Doherty, an alumnus fraternity member, writes to Wiseman and talks about the growth of the fraternity and alumni involvement. Alums remain committed to helping the current members and look forward to a timely resolution of the incident, he writes.

Eighty-five alumni write a letter of support praising Polimous decision to call police, calling it very mature, responsible and the best course of action available.

Doherty states that alumni have been in daily contact with Polimou and the other leaders. We are actively reviewing risk management practices to make sure safeguards are in place to prevent the creation of an environment where another incident could occur.

The letter talks about a new social policy that holds the fraternity to a higher level of accountability by the alumni association.

Don't Edit

Houses pass muster

On Oct. 16, Wiseman notifies officials that Amherst police inspected chapter houses including Sigma Phi Kappa and reported the chapter passed inspection with very few concerns.

An Oct.26 memo details a meeting with Cardoso-Erase and chapter leaders. She informs them that police had no update on the assault investigation.

Polimou tells her the fraternity would not take in new members so they can focus on figuring out how to implement a new social policy.

On Nov. 1, the fraternity is notified that it is no longer on restriction and the investigation is being closed. The letter does not state why or the results of the review.

Don't Edit

Diane Lederman | dlederman@repub.com

Theta Chi also sanctioned

On Sept. 16, a party at Theta Chi draws a police response.

Later that day, Wiseman reports to university officials on a meeting with chapter officials of Theta Chi, before sanctions are put in place. Definitely stressed and upset and worried on many levels, Wiseman writes of fraternity members. He reports that members were unaware that anything had happened until police showed up.

On Sept. 19, Cardoso-Erase, associate dean of students, sends a letter to Nicholas McNulty, president of Theta Chi, informing him that the fraternity is on interim restriction and that the university is launching an investigation regarding an incident Sept. 16 that that may constitute a violation of the Code of Student Conduct.

UMass lifts the restriction on Theta Chi Oct. 23, but the fraternity receives a formal warning and is ordered to participate in a number of educational programs.
SPRINGFIELD -- Security cameras filmed Springfield murder defendant Davon Kelly-Griffin chasing a man behind a city elementary school, shooting him three times and then running away, according to court documents.

Davon Kelly-Griffin, 27, allegedly shot the victim in the face, shoulder and chest during a confrontation behind the William DeBerry Elementary School on Sept. 8. The victim, Rhakishon Pedraza, 29, of Springfield, was pronounced dead within an hour, making him the city's 12th homicide of 2017.

Kelly-Griffin pleaded not guilty in Springfield District Court Tuesday to murder and related charges, and was ordered held without right to bail.

No motive or details of the crime were disclosed during Tuesday's arraignment. But according to the arrest report and related documents filed in the case, the defendant's family believed Pedraza was involved in the murder of Kelly-Griffin's brother several years ago.

While both Kelly-Griffin and the victim were prisoners at the Hampden County Correctional Center in 2014, Kelly-Griffin's father asked jail officials to list his son as an enemy of Pedraza. The father "believes that Mr. Pedraza was involve in the death of his son," the report states.

On the evening of the shooting, video cameras at the school, a nearby church and a neighborhood business recorded Kelly-Griffin arriving at the school, shooting the victim by the playground, and fleeing on foot back toward his Westminster Street home, according to the arrest report.

The report offers a second-by-second breakdown of the events -- beginning at 6:07:34 p.m., when the school's front security camera recorded a male, later identified as Kelly-Griffin, jumping from a silver Lexus outside the school and heading toward a walkway on the school's west side.

The Lexus drove away quickly, with the passenger door still open as it pulled away, the report said.

Moments later, at 6:07:32 p.m., the playground video camera recorded Pedraza behind the school, heading east on the walkway. At 6:07:51, he is shown running back on the walkway, chased by a man holding what appears to be a firearm, the report said.

"The male is seen backing up, arm extended... . Pedraza is seen slumping over and falling down on the walkway, next to the playground," the report said.

The male -- wearing a black jacket, with his hair in dreadlocks -- was next filmed by a security camera at St. John's Congregational Church on Hancock Street, according to the report.

The suspect ran behind the church, heading toward Monroe Street. A third security camera on State Street showed the suspect walking through the parking lot at Walgreens, then running across State Street toward Westminster Street, the report said.

Several witnesses later identified Kelly-Griffin as the man they saw running from the crime scene and acquaintances identified him as the person appearing in the videos, the report said.

Detectives traced a cellphone found near the school to a relative of Kelly-Griffin's, according to the report, which said he also owns a Lexus similar to the one filmed outside the school before the shooting.

On Tuesday, a judge approved defense lawyer Blake Rubin's request for funds to hire a private detective to interview witnesses and otherwise assist the defense.

Kelly-Griffin, who formerly worked for a local armored car company, is due back in court for a pretrial hearing on Dec. 5.
SPRINGFIELD -- Springfield police and Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized heroin, cocaine, more than $6,000 in cash and three unlicensed firearms when they executed a search warrant on a Spring Street apartment Thursday afternoon.

Police spokesman Ryan Walsh said the warrant was executed at about 1:30 p.m. by the Springfield Police Narcotics Strategic Impact Unit and the DEA Task Force after 33-year-old Beinvenido Escalera was taken into custody during a traffic stop.

The search of 29 Spring St., Apt. 3R, turned up 331 bags of heroin, five bags of cocaine, the cash and three unlicensed firearms with three illegal high-capacity magazines for each one. One magazine could hold 30 rounds of ammunition.

Escalera has been charged with possession of a Class A substance with intent to distribute, two counts of possession of a Class B substance with intent to distribute, three counts of possession of a firearm without a firearms identification card, nine counts of unlawful possession of a high-capacity feeding device, three counts of improper storage of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.
A worker works in a factory of China's CIMC Vehicles in Monon, Indiana

Chinese investment is accelerating economic growth of central and western regions of the United States, repolishing the nameplate of US manufacturing, said Peoples Daily in an article published on Nov. 7.

Industry and manufacturing is what put central and western US states such as Michigan and Indiana on the map. However, the recession of the traditional manufacturing industry has given a new name to the region: Rust Belt.

However, after four years of depression, Michigan is expected to rise again and become a global center for intelligent transportation systems, and Chinese enterprises are playing a significant role in the states revival.

Statistics show that China is the third largest trading partner of Michigan. According to the US-China Business Council, cereals, automobiles, and vehicle parts sold to China from Michigan totaled $3.5 billion in 2016. And Chinese enterprises have invested over $4 billion in the state since 2010, creating more than 10,000 jobs.

Michigan has carried out in-depth cooperation with the Chinese government and Chinese industry, universities, and research institutes in the field of intelligent transportation systems, said Brian Connors, executive director of the Michigan-China Innovation Center.

In addition, Chinese enterprises are a major reason why Indianas economy is making a recovery. Chinese merchandise exports to the state grew 282% from 2006 to 2016, reaching $2.9 billion, and service exports increased 495% to $749 million.

In 2015 alone, more than 20,000 jobs related with the states exports to China have been created. China has become the states third largest exporter of merchandise and largest destination for the export of services in just a few years.

Hong Lei, Chinas Consul General in Chicago, said that central and western US is an agriculture- and manufacture-dense region with a developed economy and rich resources. Federal states and enterprises in the region, placing high importance on economy and employment, have placed great importance on their relations with China.

In the last decade, Chinese enterprises invested a total of $15 billion in nine US states, creating 36,000 jobs. In return, many multinational enterprises in the regions have also expanded their investments and business dealings in China, gaining huge success and profits.
The 2017 Tuole Forum on China-ASEAN International Production Capacity Cooperation was held in Panzhou, Liupanshui, in southwest Chinas Guizhou Province on Nov. 9. At the forum, ambassadors and diplomats in China from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, and other ASEAN countries said they expect to deepen China-ASEAN exchanges and cooperation, so as to achieve win-win results in production capacity investment, tourism, energy, and building materials.

Khampao Mao, vice governor of Xiangkhouang Province in Laos and a standing member of the Xiangkhouang Provincial Committee of the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party, said China and Laos are close and friendly neighbors bordering each other. Laos-China cooperation in trade, investment, culture, society, and tourism has yielded fruitful results. At present, Chinese businesses form the majority among the foreign-funded enterprises in Xiangkhouang.

Khampao added that his province will prioritize socio-economic development by attracting investment in tourism, agriculture, and processing. Khampao hopes to deepen friendly ties with Guizhou province in China and tap the cooperative potential and create a sound environment for investment, so as to achieve win-win results.

Liupanshui deserves promotion, because the city holds advantages in eco-tourism resources, cultural heritages, mineral resources, and agriculture products, said Bong Yik Jui, consul general of Malaysia in Nanning, capital of Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the southern part of China.

Bong Yik Jui said the ASEAN personages should use the forum to strengthen economic and people-to-people exchanges with China, create new opportunities, increase mutual trust and benefits, and finally achieve China-ASEAN complementarity and win-win results.

Pompop Uampidhaya, consul general of Thailand in Kunming, capital of southwest Chinas Yunnan Province, believes that hosting the forum in Guizhou shows the province attaches great importance to cooperation with ASEAN countries. Having advantages in terms of big data, manufacturing, tourism, and vocational training, Guizhou can be conducive to ASEAN development.

Pompop said Thailand is ready to join hands with Guizhou in various fields, while enhancing its connectivity with ASEAN neighbors and contributing to economic stability, prosperity, and sustained development in China and Thailand.

Other ASEAN delegates also shared their insight at the forum. Since the establishment of dialogue between China and ASEAN 26 years ago, the two sides, as close neighbors bordering each other, have grown to become mutually beneficial economic partners.

Holding respective advantages over industry, location, and opening-up, both sides gather to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, jointly cooperate in production capacity, set up an exchange mechanism for common needs, and materialize the common goal of win-win results.
If the Montana Legislature rejects the governors budget-balancing plan in next weeks special session, the University System may face, not a best-case scenario of $4.5 million in cuts, but a worst-case scenario  the possible loss of $44 million.

That would be "devastating," Montana State University spokesman Tracy Ellig said Thursday.

Instead of focusing on next weeks Board of Regents meeting in Bozeman or even the Cat-Griz football game, Ellig said, the eyes of MSU leaders are on Helena and what happens when the Legislature meets Tuesday.

By Gail Schontzler Chronicle Staff Writer

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/montana_state_university/montana-colleges-could-face-million-cut-if-special-session-fails/article_3b97d9c6-66d0-5716-ae23-409ab0971df7.html
Political in-fighting is already taking place in advance of next weeks special legislative session.

Governor Steve Bullock called the states first special session in 10 years to address a $227 million state budget shortfall.

Now the republican party is attempting to call a different session that would allow them to discuss more topics. A spokeswoman for the GOP said the governors call does not allow them to discuss cuts.

Republicans will have to get 76 lawmaker signatures to expand the session topics.

By Sarah Gravlee

http://www.kulr8.com/story/36809016/montana-gop-attempts-to-call-its-own-special-legislative-session
The founder and CEO of Chobani has no regrets about moving his Greek yogurt company to south-central Idaho, a region embroiled in the national debate over refugee resettlement that spread to company boycotts by far-right bloggers and conspiracy theorists.

"I hear the conversations here and there, but its a peaceful community that we all love," said Hamdi Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant. "Its the home of Chobani."

http://www.idahostatesman.com/latest-news/article183669291.html
The project to set priorities at the University of Montana highlights a gap between UM President Sheila Stearns stated commitment to transparency and the actual availability of information to the public.

Comments made by task force members also reveal the inclination of some UM officials and leaders  albeit not all  to shield information from the public.

Over the last few days, a UM task force made up of faculty, staff and students has taken votes on how to rank academic and administrative units at the university for future investment or disinvestment. UM produced reports that informed the votes, but the task force has made neither the reports nor the vote breakdowns available to the public.

KEILA SZPALLER [email protected]

http://missoulian.com/news/local/prioritization-process-challenges-transparency-at-the-university-of-montana/article_69690d5d-9ef2-548b-b4f5-99f819dc1a6a.html#tracking-source=home-featured
Siemens started testing its "eHighway of the Future" concept in Germany back in 2012, with commercial vehicles retrofitted with a diesel/electric powertrain drawing electricity from overhead cables to zip along on electric motor power only. Public highway trials in Sweden followed, and now the US has joined the party with a mile-long demo near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Paul Ridden

https://newatlas.com/siemens-ehighway-california/52148/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=669b699e3a-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-669b699e3a-92465361
2018-01-31 19:30:00

Montana State University Strand Union Building Ballrooms

Contact: http://www.montana.edu/news/17269/global-health-expert-dr-paul-farmer-to-speak-at-msu-on-jan-31

Paul Farmer, physician, anthropologist, Harvard University professor and chief strategist and co-founder of Partners In Health will speak at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 31, in Montana State University Strand Union Building Ballrooms.

Lecture tickets are $8 for students and $15 for the public and go on sale at 10 a.m. on Nov. 15 at all local TicketsWest outlets. A limited number of VIP reserved tickets are also available for $60 for seating in the front and include a post-lecture reception with Farmer.

http://www.montana.edu/news/17269/global-health-expert-dr-paul-farmer-to-speak-at-msu-on-jan-31
Les membres du gouvernement ont pris note de la presentation de lOccupational Safety and Health (Amendment) Bill au parlement, de la prochaine ecriture du National Computer Board Act, la promulgation du Building Control (Accessibility and Gender Compliance in Buildings) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 ainsi que celui du Consumer Protection (Control of Imports) (Amendment No. 5) Regulations 2022, Registration Duty (Derogation from Liability to Duty) Regulations 2022, Bus Modernisation Scheme, la desserte de Rodrigues une fois par semaine par Air Austral entre autres.

1. Cabinet has agreed to the introduction of the Occupational Safety and Health (Amendment) Bill into the National Assembly. The main object of the Bill is to address new and emerging occupational and health risks due to major changes in the world of work. The Bill makes provision, inter alia, to:

(a) ensure conformity with the fundamental conventions on occupational safety and health of the International Labour Organization;

(b) set up the National Occupational Safety and Health Department to better manage occupational safety and health at national level; and

(c) cater for changes associated with computerisation of the services of the National Occupational Safety and Health Department of the Ministry of Labour, Human Resource Development and Training.

2. Cabinet has agreed to drafting instructions being conveyed to the Attorney Generals Office with a view to repealing the existing National Computer Board Act and coming up with a new legislation for the setting up of a revamped institution with a new mission, vision and strategy, and which would become one of the pivotal organisations in Governments endeavour to transform Mauritius into a well-connected and knowledge-based society through a culture of technology and innovation. The proposed mission of the new institution would be as follows:

(a) to be an innovator and leader in pushing Mauritius towards a world class digital economy;

(b) to lead and drive the ICT skills, knowledge and talent pool; and

(c) to make technology widely accessible to everyone.

3. Cabinet has agreed to the promulgation of the Building Control (Accessibility and Gender Compliance in Buildings) (Amendment) Regulations 2022. The salient amendments concern, inter alia, the inclusion of requirements for tactile pathway and accessibility/gender signage, technical specifications with respect to Braille characters and assistive listening or amplification devices in respect of new buildings and those under major renovations.

The Regulations would come into operation on 01 January 2023.

4. Cabinet has agreed to the promulgation of the Consumer Protection (Control of Imports) (Amendment No. 5) Regulations 2022, whereby the moratorium period previously allowed in the Consumer Protection (Control of Imports) Regulations 2017 would be annulled such that the items Rolling machine, other than rolling machines of industrial types, used to manufacture cigarettes and Roll Your Own Cigarette papers would, henceforth, be prohibited goods, irrespective of their date of order or import.

5. Cabinet has taken note that the Registration Duty (Derogation from Liability to Duty) Regulations 2022 would be promulgated to clarify that a property in co-ownership, referred to in two sections of the Registration Duty Act where the first-time buyer exemption is provided, excludes a property owned jointly by a couple married under the regime of legal community of goods. This would ensure that each spouse benefits from the first-time buyer exemption once, as intended.

6. Cabinet has agreed to the sum of Rs70 million earmarked under the Bus Modernisation Scheme, for financial year 2022/2023, being used exceptionally to subsidise the acquisition of semi-low floor diesel buses, instead of electric buses only, as announced in Budget Speech 2022/2023. However, this would be subject to the semi low-floor diesel buses reaching Mauritius not later than 31 May 2023. The extension of the Bus Modernisation Scheme to conventional diesel buses would, therefore, provide bus operators with an adequate timeframe to plan for the electrification of their fleet.

7. Cabinet has agreed to the enlistment of a project management consultant for the AYUSH Centre of Excellence Project at Cote dOr.

8. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius has applied to become a Participant Member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions (OECD WGB). The purpose of the Participant status is to facilitate accession to the OECD Anti-Corruption Convention by Non-Members. As a member of the OECD WGB, Mauritius would benefit from the immense experience of the OECD in fighting bribery.

9. Cabinet has taken note of an updated situational analysis of the tourism sector. Mauritius welcomed 753,243 tourists from 01 January to 31 October 2022. For the month of October 2022, the recovery rates registered in the main markets have been positive, with United Kingdom, Germany and South Africa registering growth over October 2019 figures. The Maurice sans Passeport scheme for tourists from Reunion Island has kick-started as from 19 September 2022, and an incremental growth in tourist arrivals from this market is expected.

10. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the meeting of the First Session of the Joint Commission Mauritius  Reunion held in Reunion Island on 04 November 2022. The meeting was preceded by a Senior Officials meeting and a Private Sector meeting on 03 November 2022. The Minister of Land Transport and Light Rail, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade co-chaired the meeting with the Prefet de la Reunion in the presence of the Presidente du Conseil Regional and the President du Conseil Departementale and HE the Ambassador of France to Mauritius.

Discussions were held on themes of common interest such as mobilite et tourisme, securite alimentaire, jeunesse et sport, culture et patrimoine, transition energetique and formation, education et enseignement.

11. Cabinet has taken note of the nomination of senior officials who would hold specific responsibilities during the meetings of the G20 under the Indian Presidency which would start on 01 December 2022 and end on 30 November 2023.

12. Cabinet has taken note of the various activities that would be organised to mark the 30 years of existence of the Global Business Sector. The celebration would provide a unique opportunity to ventilate the Mauritius International Financial Centre (IFC) and the attractiveness of the country for global businesses.

Whilst the activities would span over a year, starting on 28 November 2022, the celebration would kick start, inter alia, with the following:

(a) a teaser video announcing the 30 years celebration;

(b) the launching of a commemorative logo for the 30 years of the Mauritius IFC;

(c) broadcasting of a commemorative video on the 30 years of the Mauritius IFC on the national carrier, Air Mauritius, from January to March 2023;

(d) an awareness campaign on the financial services sector throughout the island; and

(e) a local and international digital communication campaign together with the Financial Services Fund and Mauritius Finance.

13. Cabinet has taken note that experts from the World Health Organization would be in Mauritius from 21 to 25 November 2022 to enable the elaboration of the National Action Plan on Health Security (NAPHS). The purpose of the NAPHS is to ensure that the recommendations of the Joint External Evaluation of International Health Regulations are translated into actions.

The NAPHS reflects national priorities for health security, coordinates a multisectoral response, identifies partners and allocates resources for health security capacity development. The NAPHS would aim at reducing morbidity, mortality, disability and socio-economic disruptions due to public health threats and would contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

14. Cabinet has taken note of the storage level in our main reservoirs as at 10 November 2022. The total storage as at 10 November 2022 was 54.62 million cubic meters equivalent to 59.2% of the total capacity. The average groundwater levels for period ending 09 November 2022 show a declining trend and are close to average.

According to the Mauritius Meteorological Services, rainfall during winter 2022 has been slightly below normal, at 562mm. October is the driest month. Rainfall is expected to be below normal in November 2022.

15. Cabinet had taken note that Air Austral has been authorised to operate one weekly scheduled passenger flight on Wednesdays between Reunion Island and Rodrigues for the period 02 November 2022 to 22 March 2023.

In view of the above, Cabinet has also taken note of the implementation of a Protocol in Rodrigues to protect against Avian Flu, with the assistance of the Livestock and Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security. Disinfection measures have been put in place at Plaine Corail Airport. Farmers have been sensitised on the need to reinforce biosecurity measures at their farms. Appropriate NOTAM would be issued to inform that passengers are not allowed to carry poultry and poultry products in their luggage. Increased surveillance would be exercised in high-risk zones.

16. Cabinet has taken note of the capacity building programme on Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) conducted by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for officers of the Ministry of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives and related support institutions which was held recently in Mauritius. Two policy trainings were offered by UNIDO, namely on Digitalisation and Evidence-based Policymaking for Structural Transformation.

The main objective of the training programme on Digitalisation was to, inter alia, appraise a countrys readiness to tackle the opportunities and challenges stemming from digitalisation in the manufacturing sector whilst the training on Evidence-based Policymaking for Structural Transformation covered tools related to productivity and structural change, international trade, diversification and upgrading as well as global value chains.

17. Cabinet has taken note that the University of Mauritius would organise the 4th edition of the International Conference on Emerging Trends in Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering (ELECOM 2022) from 22 to 24 November 2022. The ELECOM 2022 would be organised in collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Mauritius Section and delivered in hybrid mode.

The Conference would address new developments on theory and practice in the fields of electrical, electronic, communications engineering and computing. The objective of the Conference is to bring together industry professionals, academics and a wider community of scientists from around the world for networking and promoting research. Some 45 professionals, academics and industry experts including 12 international delegates are expected to participate in the Conference.

18. Cabinet has taken note that the Universite des Mascareignes, in close partnership with the University of Limoges, Northumbria University, University of Aberdeen, Glasgow Caledonian University, Universite Polytechnique Hauts-de-France and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, would organise the 7th International Conference on Environment Friendly Energies and Applications, to be held in hybrid mode from 14 to 16 December 2022.

The objective of the Conference is to provide a platform for local and international academics from private and public universities, scientists, engineers and professionals from the industry to discuss recent developments in the field of environmental-friendly energies and their applications. Discussions would focus on themes such as renewable and sustainable energy systems, hybrid transportation systems, energy transition, energy security, hydropower and marine energy, and renewable energy technologies, amongst others. Some 100 participants, including 35 local and 65 international academics, researchers and industry experts, are expected to attend the Conference.

19. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of a Workshop on Role and Responsibilities of the Resident Engineer in the FIDIC Contracts, organised recently by the Construction Industry Development Board, in line with its mandate in promoting the development and improvement of the construction industry. Discussions were focused on the role and responsibilities of the Resident Engineer at three stages of project implementation, namely:

(a) prior to Start of Work;

(b) during Execution of Work; and

(c) during Defects Notification Period and Beyond.

20. Cabinet has taken note of the activities being organised by the Ministry of Blue Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, in collaboration with the Fishermen Welfare Fund, to celebrate the World Fisheries Day 2022, observed on 21 November. The following activities would be organised on Monday 21 November 2022 at 1130 hours at Le Morne Village Public Beach, where a monument has been erected in memory of fishermen who disappeared at sea during performance of their duty:

(a) inter-religious prayers;

(b) a wreath laying ceremony;

(c) speeches by eminent personalities; and

(d) a parade by the National Coast Guard followed by the Last Post.

21. Cabinet has taken note of the traffic diversion schemes along A1 (Port-Louis-St Jean) Road at Grand Riviere that would be implemented in connection with major excavation works to be undertaken by the Wastewater Management Authority in the context of the Pailles Guibies Sewerage Project Phase 2. The traffic schemes would be implemented in four phases and would be in place from 18 November till 23 December 2022. A sensitisation campaign would be conducted to inform and guide road users and the public in general on the different phases and on the upcoming traffic schemes that would be set up for that particular phase.

22. Cabinet has taken note that a new traffic scheme would be implemented across Motorway M1, at about 100 metres to the north of Nouvelle France roundabout, from Friday 18 November to Monday 21 November 2022, in the context of drain construction works being undertaken in the region.

The Traffic scheme would be as follows:

(i) the right-hand side lane of the Northbound Carriageway of Motorway M1 would be closed to traffic as from 1000 hours on Friday 18 November 2022 until 0400 hours on Monday 21 November 2022; and

(ii) the width of both lanes along the Southbound Carriageway would be reduced to 3.1 metres when approaching the works area and would return to normal beyond that point.

Traffic signs would be set up to inform and guide road users.

23. Cabinet has taken note of the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing in Mauritius. As at 09 November 2022, there were 81 active cases of COVID-19, out of which 30 were admitted at the New ENT Hospital. Over the period 03 to 09 November 2022, no death was attributed to COVID-19.

Cabinet also noted that as from 12 November 2022, the sanitary protocol regarding the mandatory wearing of face masks in public transport, including the Metro Express and taxis, as well as in passenger terminals at the port and the airport, would be lifted. The wearing of face masks in those places would be recommended but would not be mandatory. However, the wearing of face masks would remain mandatory in health institutions, pharmacies, nursing homes, care homes and disability care facilities.

Cabinet has further taken note that there is no suspected case of Monkeypox in Mauritius.

24. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent participation of the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development, as co-chair, in the 8th High Level Meeting of the Governing Board of the OECD Development Centre, held in Paris in the context of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Centre.

The theme of the discussions was Putting Development Back on Track. The interventions were focused on, inter alia, the following:

(a) most promising pathways for achieving more global collaboration in the face of mounting economic challenges to development;

(b) supporting the design of solutions at both international and national levels to avoid a development reversal and accelerate sustainable development; and

(c) creating sustainable solutions for managing global debt and development finance needs.

25. Cabinet has taken note of the main outcomes of the Extra-Ordinary Meeting of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Council of Ministers responsible for Trade held recently in Gabon and which was attended by the Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives. The meeting deliberated on several issues, including:

(a) the ongoing negotiations on the AfCFTA Phase II Instruments, which cover the Protocol on Investment, Protocol on Competition Policy and Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights, which were to be concluded according to the deadline set by the 35th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union held in February 2022;

(b) Trade in Services;

(c) the agenda and draft decisions of the upcoming Extra-Ordinary Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the AfCFTA to be held in Niamey, Niger on 25 November 2022; and

(d) the Draft Concept Note on the African Union Theme of the Year 2023  Acceleration of AfCFTA Implementation.

26. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the recent mission of the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance to South Africa where he attended two conferences in Johannesburg and Cape Town, respectively on Sustainable Investment with Impact in Africa, at the invitation of Vistra (Mauritius) Limited, a leading global fund administrator and corporate service provider.

The Minister intervened at both conferences on the theme Mauritius Framework for Environmental, Social, and Governance and Impact Investments, whereby he, inter alia, showcased Mauritius position as the leading international financial centre in Africa for doing business, which is built on the countrys vision for incorporating sustainable development into its financial strategies.

27. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Board of Trustees of La Clinique Mauricienne for the year 2023.

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Air Mauritius commemorated its 50 years of air services to Rodrigues at an official ceremony held at Plaine Corail Airport on the 11th October 2022.

Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Home Affairs and External Communications, Minister for Rodrigues, Outer Islands and Territorial Integrity was the Chief Guest at the ceremony.

On 13 September 1972, five years after its creation, Air Mauritius, was ready for its first take-off and made history as its first commercial flight landed safely in Rodrigues. It was operated by a 6-seater, twin-engine Piper Navajo aircraft, leased from Air Madagascar. This event marked the beginning of a great adventure for an airline that would fly an island nation to the world and back.

In his address at the function, the Chairman of Air Mauritius, Mr Marday Venketasamy, G.O.S.K, C.S.K, stated that

The Rodrigues route is served with 3 ATR72-500 aircraft, while we await runway developments at Plaine Corail Airport to consider deployment of bigger sized aircraft. We are proud that for the past decades we have been connecting Rodriguans to Mauritius and beyond via the Air Mauritius network. In order to meet our customers expectations, our inflight services to and from Rodrigues are currently being reviewed. For the Rodriguan tourism industry to thrive, we need to provide all facilities as well as regular and safe air connectivity. In order to boost tourism, Air Mauritius, with the support of Government, offers a Special Holiday Package to the destination.

The Prime Minister then proceeded to unveil a commemorative plaque. A Bois Clou, a critically endangered plant endemic to Rodrigues was symbolically planted at Plaine Corail Airport by the Prime Minister. The Chief Commissioner of Rodrigues, Mr Johnson Roussety, G.O.S.K. and the Chairman of Air Mauritius, Mr Marday Venketasamy G.O.S.K., C.S.K, also planted two other endangered endemic trees to Rodrigues namely the Bois Balai (Turraea laciniate) and the Bois Bouteille (Fernelia Buxifolia) respectively, in the presence of members of the Rodrigues Regional Assembly and other dignitaries.

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The 25th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders Meeting kicks off today, Nov. 10, in Da Nang as leaders of the 21 member economies arrive in the coastal city in central Vietnam. At the two-day summit, leaders are expected to consolidate the momentum of APEC cooperation. The four priorities for discussion include promoting sustainable, innovative, and inclusive growth; deepening regional economic integration; strengthening the competitiveness of micro, small, and medium enterprises; and enhancing food security and nutrition and sustainable agriculture, said Pham Binh Minh, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Vietnam.

Xis attendance

Before arriving for the APEC Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a signed article published on mainstream Vietnamese media Nhan Dan of Vietnam that China supports Vietnam in hosting a successful meeting. China will work with Vietnam and other members to engage in practical discussions on deepening regional economic integration, building the Free Trade Area in the Asia-Pacific, strengthening regional connectivity, advancing economic structural reform and innovation, promoting inclusive development, and outlining the Post-2020 Vision, President Xi added.

Xis attendance will be the first international multilateral meeting attended by a Chinese leader after the successful conclusion of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The attendance of President Xi Jinping at the meeting in Da Nang fully demonstrates that China attaches great importance to strengthening economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, noted Li Baodong, Vice Foreign Minister.

Inclusive growth

Under the theme of Creating New Dynamism, Fostering a Shared Future, experts said inclusive growth is a key element that has been a key area for discussion at the APEC CEO Summit, part of the activities of the APEC Leaders Weeks, which started on Monday, Nov. 6.

As the recent elections in Europe and US indicate, there are communities where people feel they are not able to participate in the global economy and feel they are left behind, said Monica Whaley, president of the U.S. National Center for APEC, a Seattle-based U.S. business association.

Leaders are thinking about how do we share the benefit and engage more people in the globalized economy, Whaley said, adding that Internet, digital economy, and service trade inside the APEC economic bloc are seen by many business and political leaders as good tools to achieve that kind of inclusive growth.

FTAAP action plan

At the Beijing APEC Summit in November 2014, leaders endorsed the Beijing Roadmap for APECs Contribution to the Realization of Free Trade Area of Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). FTAAP, which has been envisioned as a major instrument for ensuring an open economy in the Asia-Pacific, is a manifestation of Chinas steadfast pursuit for globalization.

APEC leaders have since reaffirmed their commitment to FTAAP at the Manila Summit in 2015, and a declaration of the FTAAP was issued by the Lima Summit in 2016.

APEC ministers had agreed to continue discussing the work plan on advancing the pact, Minh told the media on Nov. 9, when briefing on the outcomes of the 29th APEC Ministerial Meeting.

The member economies have formulated and determined fundamental content, as well as priorities to be included into the work plan, Minh said, according to Viet Nam News. However, the action plan has not been approved yet at the 29th Ministerial Meeting in Da Nang, he added. APEC ministers decided that they need more time to continue discussions in 2018 on the consensus-based priorities proposed by each member economy for the action plan.

Post-2020 Vision

When APEC Leaders gathered in Bogor, Indonesia, in 1994, they committed to achieve free and open trade and investment by 2010 for industrialized economies and by 2020 for developing economies. These targets became known as the Bogor Goals.

Since 1994, most of the APEC economies have changed dramatically, grown, and advanced dramatically.

As the 2020 targets are approaching, leaders are expected to assess how far both developing and developed members have achieved in reaching free and open trade and investment.

It is time to think about what is next and to have high quality discussion on the 21st century issues that are relevant to the current economy, Whaley said in an interview with People's Daily Online.

Minh said that to prepare itself for the fourth decade of development, as well as realization of the Bogor Goals, the ministers had discussed and voiced the necessity to maintain discussion on new cooperation orientation after 2020 in Da Nang.
Top Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt said on Friday it was time that Saad al-Hariri, who resigned as prime minister on Saturday while in Saudi Arabia, returned to Lebanon.

Jumblatt said in a Twitter post that after a week of absence from Lebanon, "be it forced or voluntary", it was "time for Sheikh Saad to return". "By the way, there is no alternative to him," he added.

Hariri read out his resignation on television from Saudi Arabia on Saturday, citing assassination fears and denouncing Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife in Arab states.

Jumblatt is the leading figure in Lebanon's small but influential Druze community and has often played the role of kingmaker in the country's political deal-making.

Two top Lebanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday that they believed Saudi Arabia was holding Hariri.

Riyadh has denied reports that he is under house arrest.

On Thursday, in a televised statement indicating deep concern at Hariri's situation, his Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.

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The United States is in talks to sell F35 fighter jets to partner nations, a senior U.S. military official said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, without giving details.

U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Stephen Wilson was responding to a reporter's question about the possibility of selling advanced jets to the UAE.

The F-35 is made by Lockheed Martin Corp, with companies including Northrop Grumman Corp, United Technologies Corp's Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems Plc also involved.

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Public Survey Underway Audio Article Throughout the month of November, the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) is conducting an online survey to identify traffic safety concerns and obtain feedback about interactions with the agency. The 2022 Public Survey is anonymous and takes approximately five minutes to complete. The survey is designed to be used as...

Purple Heart Placed on Memorial Audio Article At the second stop during the Veterans Parade Saturday, Jack Bonsell, a Purple Heart recipient, places a purple heart-shaped wreath at the memorial dedicated to all men and women wounded in all wars. This memorial sits on Main Street in front of the Riecker Building.

Controlling Board Approves Funds for Multiple Projects in 20th Senate District Audio Article State Senator Tim Schaffer (R-Lancaster) announced Monday, Nov. 7, the approval of over $34 million for projects across the 20th Senate District by the states Controlling Board. Ensuring our infrastructure, universities, and parks are updated and well maintained is critical for the health of our area, Schaffer said. Im thankful...

Morgan County Veterans Day Parade slated Nov. 11 Audio Article The Morgan County Veterans Day Parade will be held on Friday, Nov. 11. The parade will form at the Commons, in McConnelsville, at 9:30 a.m. and set out at 10 a.m. The American Legion Post 24 will render honors at the monuments at the Commons, Riecker Building, the Square, at...

A concert with two purposes Audio Article Wednesday, Nov. 30, a concert with dual purposes is being held at the Twin City Opera House in McConnelsville, Ohio. Its a thank-you to healthcare workers, who can attend for free, and its a benefit for the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society. In September 2021, Rick Shriver contracted COVID-19. He collapsed...

BOE reminder of early voting hours and polling location change Audio Article Remaining early voting hours at the Morgan County Board of Elections are as follows: from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov, 2 through Friday, Nov. 4; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5; from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6; and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m....
Lebanon's Hezbollah leader says war with Israel is unlikely amid the crisis facing his country following the resignation of its prime minister Saad Hariri in an announcement made from Saudi Arabia.

Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that his powerful militant group is watching carefully for any Israeli attempts to use the crisis to begin hostilities against Lebanon. Nasrallah says Israel is cautious and unlikely to make such a move.

Nasrallah warned Israel against "miscalculation" or "taking advantage of the situation."

He said Israel should not think "we are troubled. No, absolutely not."

"Today we are more confident and feeling stronger in the face of any threat," said Nasrallah.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has announced ten recommendations by the end of the World Youth Forum, including forming an international commission to combat illegal immigration and extremism, and establishing an Arab-African-international youth dialogue.

The week-long gathering, which brought together over 3,000 participants from around the world in the resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh, concluded on Thursday.

Sessions and discussions held over the week tackled issues including terrorism, refugees, illegal immigration, sustainable development, technology and entrepreneurship, El-Sisi's office said.

Speaking to the audience during the closing ceremony late on Thursday, El-Sisi announced the list of recommendations that also included holding the forum in the same month every year, adopting decisions of a simulation of the UN Security Council carried out during the forum, forming a cultural and civilisation integration centre to boost ties between world youth, and creating an African youth centre.

The recommendations also include forming an international commission to draw up a strategy to combat illegal immigration, terrorism and illiteracy and creating a regional centre tasked with supporting entrepreneurship and financing micro and small-sized enterprises.

"Our dream - the youth of Egypt, and I am with them  is that this forum becomes an effective means of discussion, through which concrete and realistic results are achieved," El-Sisi said.

Earlier on Thursday, El-Sisi said the recommendations agreed upon by youth participants in a day-long simulation of the United Nations General Assembly, which took place as part of the forum will be presented to the international body in New York.

Participants in the Security Council simulation primarily discussed three main threats to international peace and security: terrorism, cybersecurity, and unregulated migration, according to the World Youth Forum's official website.

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Patients who misuse alcohol and subsequently arrive at the hospital in critical condition develop more complications, have longer recovery times, develop organ dysfunction more frequently and are at greater risk of dying, according to earlier studies by Dr. Afshar and other researchers.Alcohol misuse is defined as heavy drinking (one or more drinks per day for women and two or more drinks per day for men) and/or binge drinking (four or more drinks per occasion for women and five or more drinks for men).Current methods to identify alcohol misuse are problematic. For example, many critically ill patients in intensive care lack the capacity to answer questions about alcohol use. And testing blood alcohol concentration does not distinguish among different types of alcohol use, such as heavy daily use or occasional binge drinking.An alternative test measures phosphatidylethanol (PEth), a compound in the blood that is a biomarker of alcohol use. With a half-life of four to 12 days, PEth lasts much longer in the body than blood alcohol concentration. (Half-life is the time it takes for PEth to fall to half its original level.) PEth remains detectable for up to three weeks.The study enrolled 122 adults at Loyola University Medical Center and the University of Colorado Denver: 33 were critically ill patients treated in intensive care and burn units; 51 were treated in an alcohol detoxification unit; and 38 served as healthy controls.Alcohol misuse was determined by giving participants the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, which asks questions such as how often a participant binge drinks, is unable to stop drinking or feels remorseful about drinking.The study found that a PEth level of at least 250 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) was 88.7 percent accurate in identifying participants who display alcohol misuse and a level higher than 400 ng/ml was 83 percent accurate in identifying those who showed severe alcohol misuse.The study is the first to examine the role PEth could play in critically ill patients. The findings "demonstrate good diagnostic accuracy for PEth in discriminating alcohol misuse, with useful cut-points to risk-stratify patients," Dr. Afshar and colleagues concluded."Further validation in a more representative sample of critically ill patients is needed prior to clinical and research application."Source: Eurekalert


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In the context of his participation in the second EU-Arab World Summit, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Katrougalos stressed that the geostrategic environment has improved as compared to the situation prevailing at the time of the first World Summit, but that the structural causes of the successive crises have yet to be fully dealt with.

Consequently, he added, economic governance in Europe needs to become more democratic and balance out the economic and social dimensions. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be raising these issues at next weeks Social Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden. In the Arab World, the Islamic State has suffered overwhelming losses, but terrorism has not been vanquished definitively. And one of the wounds it leaves behind is the refugee crisis issue.

In the face of these challenges, the Alternate Minister stressed, Greece plays a stabilizing role on a political and economic level. Through diplomatic initiatives like the Rhodes Conference, it is endeavouring to shape a security and stability system in the region. At the same time, our countrys orientation towards a new productive model based on the countrys comparative advantages, in combination with the strategic diversification of the economy that many Arab countries are implementing, is creating ideal conditions for deepening the economic cooperation.

On the margins of the Summit, Mr. Katrougalos had bilateral meetings with the Minister of Economy of the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Al Mansoori, Qatars State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Al-Muraikhi, and Egypts Minister of Trade and Industry, Tarek Kabil. On the evening of 9 November he will be meeting with Bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, adviser to the Prime Minister of Bahrain, and Nabil Shaath, the representative of the President of Palestine.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias will be in Brussels on Monday, 13 November, to participate in the EU Foreign Affairs Council (FAC).



Discussion will focus on EU-Africa relations and on Strategic Communications. On the margins of the FAC meeting, the EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs will have a working luncheon with their counterpart from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov.



Mr. Kotzias will also take part in a joint meeting of EU Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs, which will focus on security and defence aspects of the European Unions Global Strategy, and on EU-NATO relations. In this context, a ceremony will be held for the joint signing by the interested countries of the Notification Letter for participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the security and defence sector.
CASEVILLE TOWNSHIP  Despite already being a farming hotbed, Huron County could be adding a new crop to the area.

At this week's Caseville Township board meeting, officials heard from Adam Duke of Midwest Sustainable Sungrowers Association. Duke represents a local property owner interested in starting an outdoor organic marijuana growing operation in the township.

At the meeting, Duke went over what the operation might look like at its location at 5950 Sand Road and the potential steps moving forward.

"Obviously, it is the community that should speak up and your voices should be heard, as to whether or not a facility like this fits within the fabric of Caseville Township," Duke told the board.

Duke's organization promotes organically grown and sustainably produced agriculture products.

He said the proposed Caseville Township operation is on agriculturally-zoned land seeking a Class A license, which would allow the business to grow no more than 500 plants. It is the smallest grow license available.

"We want to grow 500 plants  it's the smallest amount," said Vincent Calimazzo, whose family owns the property. "We want to do it because we've seen the positive outcomes that we can achieve with cannabis with people in Michigan."

Calimazzo said his family has had a second home in the township for over 10 years and wants to see the area thrive. He said they are approaching other municipalities for the license, but would like it to be in Caseville Township.

Duke detailed the layout of the proposed operation, which would include an 8-foot tall fence, 50-foot setbacks from each of the property lines, security cameras around the entire property and a pole barn to provide workspace, storage and curing of end product.

A third party company would then come and pick the product up to be processed out of the area.

"Just like there are many types of apples, there's also many types of cannabis plants," Duke said. "The cannabis plants we are proposing to grow here in Caseville Township are minimally psychoactive and non-intoxicating varieties."

Duke added that due to being grown outside, the plants would be more suited to be turned into marijuana-infused products and not of the smokeable variety.

"It's been shown that this type of plant, specifically these varieties that don't really get you high, also have a whole wide variety of medical benefits besides the psychoactive nature," he said.

In 2008, Michigan voters approved the Medical Marijuana Act, which legalized marijuana for medicinal use. The law has been updated and tweaked at various times, with the latest change taking place in December 2016. It established a licensing and regulation framework for medical marijuana growers, processors, secure transporters, provisioning centers, and safety compliance facilities.

A marijuana facility cannot operate in a municipality unless that municipality has adopted an ordinance authorizing that type of facility.

To entice communities to have an opt-in ordinance, the state has offered to split some of the tax revenue at the state level. However, it is uncertain what that amount will be at this point and Duke admitted there are many unanswered questions right now.

The board took no action on the matter at the meeting.

In other business, the board:

 Heard from the Capital Improvement Committee, which has finalized all the blueprint specifications for the new township hall and turned them into the project engineer. The project is still on schedule to begin by next spring.

 Set a public hearing for the township's five-year Parks and Recreation Master Plan for 4 p.m. Dec. 4, prior to next month's regular meeting.

 Accepted the resignation of Russ Lundberg from the Caseville Township Planning Commission.

 Discussed the township's new five-year trash pick up contract with Emterra. The price per customer will remain the same for two years, then increase 2 percent the remaining three years of the contract.
CASS CITY -- The Huron and Tuscola County Health Department Abstinence Programs will be hosting a suicide prevention and information program next week.

The program is scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Charmont in Cass City. Michigan State Trooper Mark Swales will speak about the topic. Lunch will be served from noon to 12:30 p.m.

The two-hour workshop and lunch are free, and will give parents, caregivers and those working with youth, knowledge about suicide and youth.

Preregister for the workshop by calling Kristi Pitts at 989-269-3319 or emailing kpitts@hchd.us.
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WASHINGTON  Connecticuts Democratic senators found even more to criticize in the newly released Senate GOP version of the tax bill than they did in the comparable House measure released last week.

While it differs from the House GOP bill, in many respects the Senate proposal retains the core conviction that tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy would trickle down and create middle-class jobs and higher wages.

The Senate bill proposes elimination of the state-and-local (SALT) tax deduction, much valued in high-cost states like Connecticut. The House bill, by contrast, strikes deductions for state income tax payments but allows property-tax deductions up to $10,000.

With election results Tuesday suggesting repudiation of President Donald Trumps style and substance, particularly in suburban areas, Sen. Richard Blumenthal characterized the Senate bill as a virtual death warrant for Republican political fortunes.

The consequences will be deep and broad, magnifying what we saw Tuesday with suburban voters clamoring to vote against Republicans, Blumenthal said. In effect, it adds the pocketbook to the conscience when it comes to Trump opposition.

Also Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the House measure on a party line vote, sending it to the House floor.

We reaffirmed for all of the families and Main Street businesses struggling to get by that relief is on the way  relief from a broken tax code, from a slow-growing economy, from stagnant wages and from jobs fleeing overseas, said committee chair Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Blumenthal, Sen. Chris Murphy and Democrats from states like New York, California and Illinois are training their fire on GOP-proposed SALT modification or elimination.

It is essentially a message to Connecticut and suburbs generally that we dont care, were going to use you as a cash cow, Blumenthal said. They have, in effect, thumbed their noses at states like Connecticut. I think they have really doomed any pretense of fairness.

Blumenthal and other Connecticut Democratic lawmakers cite data saying the state is a donor state, getting back 83 cents in federal aid for every tax dollar sent to Washington. The loss of the SALT deduction would exacerbate the inequity, they argue.

On Twitter, Murphy took note of a statement by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that if Republicans fail to pass the tax measure, the financial contributions will stop.

The GOP tax bill isnt for you, Murphy tweeted to his followers. Its for (Republicans) billionaire and corporate donors. And theyre not even trying to hide it.

The Senates total deletion of the SALT deduction appears to be part of its political calculus of negative reaction to the bill. Unlike the House, there are few if any Senate Republicans in states like Connecticut, New York and California, where taxpayers depend on the deduction to make life affordable.

House Republicans from such states, by contrast, are exceedingly nervous about the political price they may pay if SALT elimination makes it into a final GOP tax-cut package.

Connecticuts five House members are all Democrats.

Republicans in both House and Senate are under enormous pressure to keep the cost of tax cuts at or under $1.5 trillion over a decade  an amount agreed to in budget bills that set up consideration of the GOP tax bill.

Failure to do so would end GOP hopes of passing the measure without Democratic help. With virtually all Democrats opposed, it is unlikely Republicans could muster the 60 votes in the Senate that would be necessary to pass the bill if it exceeds $1.5 trillion.

The Senate currently is divided 52-48 in favor of the Republicans.
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PORTLAND - A stubborn early-morning fire gutted an historic house that was being restored by a woman who had expected to move in shortly.

The house, located on the former Murphy property off Murphy Road, was reduced to two badly fire-scarred exterior walls and a fore-lorn chimney in a blaze that was reported to officials at 5:10 a.m.

No one was home at the time, and no was injured in the prolonged battle by firefighters to quell the flames, Fire Chief Robert A. Shea said.

The house, built in 1915 according to town records, is located nearly 1,000 feet down a steep dirt driveway. The isolated location hampered efforts to control the flames, officials said.

There is no hydrant service in the area of Murphy Road, which parallels a portion of Route 6 just east of the intersection with Middle Haddam Road.

Consequently, a raft of area fire departments including units from Marlborough, Glastonbury, East Hampton, East Haddam, Haddam Neck and Westfield descended on the fire scene. They did so to provide water and manpower as needed to help buttress Portland and Middletown firefighters who were battling the flames and to cover Portland stations in the event of another incident elsewhere in town.

Then an oil tank in an adjacent garage that fed heating oil into the furnace in the basement of the house sprung a leak. It spewed oil that fed the flames and enveloped the fire scene in thick choking black smoke.

Firefighters crawling on their hands and knees scoured the interior of the garage in an effort to find - and stem - the leak, Shea said.

The property was a part of a complex owned by the Murphy family. Most recently, Joseph Murphy lived in the house. But he died in July 2015, and shortly after that the home went into foreclosure, according to town land records.

This past December, the house was bought by a Middletown woman who set about renovating the house.

First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield, who met the homeowner at the fire scene Thursday morning, said the woman was devastated by her loss.

She had put a lot of effort into that house, Bransfield said.

Shea agreed.

She had been working ceaselessly to clear it out and make into a new home, Shea said as he watched a mechanical excavator lift still-smoldering debris from the basement of the ruined house.

The initial 911 call came from a neighbor who reported seeing a large volume of fire, although was uncertain what was burning.

So we knew what we were going to face when we got here, Shea said.

He pushed engines to the very edge of the fire scene to establish a perimeter to keep the fire from spreading. But immediately Shea knew We were going to needing a lot of water.

And so rang a second alarm, which triggered a Level II response from area departments to send their tankers to feed water to the scene. The sustained effort caused a drop in residential water pressure in portions of the town.

Our initial response was limited, but we had a good group here who checked the fire from spreading.

They did a nice job, Shea said.

And, as you can see, we have bits and pieces from every department here, Shea said in the early afternoon.

Reporter Jeff Mill covers East Hampton, Portland and Cromwell. Contact him at jeff.mill@hearstmediact.com.
The Air Force's pilot shortage has climbed to about 2,000 airmen even as officials work to keep them in cockpits, the service's top leaders said Thursday.

As the final numbers were tallied for fiscal 2017, leaders said they weren't surprised at the number of vacancies.

"Last summer, we were reporting to people that we were about 1,500 pilots short in the Air Force -- and we expected it to get worse," Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon.

"Almost 2,000 pilots short of a force that has 20,000 pilots, so that's one in 10 that we're short," Wilson said, alongside Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein.

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They didn't detail what type of pilots are most needed, but Wilson stressed the service's overall readiness -- from aircrew to spare parts, flying hours and munitions -- is facing shortfalls.

"Increasing the readiness of the force so that we win any fight, anytime are our top priorities," she said.

Wilson blamed the readiness crisis on the service being too small "for all the missions that we're being asked to carry out."

"Surge has become the new normal in the U.S. Air Force -- and you can do that maybe for about a year, two years, maybe three or four years," she said. "Less than 1 percent of Americans serve in uniform ... and they are carrying a very heavy burden."

The Air Force has announced a number of initiatives to stave off the growing hole in its pilot force.

Last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to voluntarily recall up to 1,000 pilots back to active duty. The Air Force recently said it's still working through how best to implement the measure.

Executive Order 13223 is an addendum of the Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty, or VRRAD program, instituted by the service in July to welcome back retired pilots into active-duty staff positions, according to Brig. Gen. Mike Koscheski, the Air Force Aircrew Crisis Task Force director.

The authorities were "previously there," he said, but limited. "Now the numbers are greater."

Additionally, "we now have options for a longer assignment cycle," Koscheski told reporters in October.

He added, "This is going to be a case-by-case basis. Every assignment will be a handmade, wooden shoe because it will depend."

"My 85-year-old dad, who flew F-4s in Vietnam, and his fellow retirees -- they're all excited about coming back," Goldfein joked on Thursday. (The age cap for VRRAD staff positions is 60.)

In addition, the Air Force this summer announced an increase to flight incentive pay and aviation bonus programs -- with bonuses of up to $455,000 over 13 years for some fighter pilots.

The executive order and incentives come at a time when the service is losing pilots to the commercial aviation industry, which can offer higher pay and more stable schedules.

"We're doing a number of things to try to move out and increase production -- but that's going to be a longer-term investment," Goldfein said.

Wilson added, "You can't train a pilot in just a year. You have to absorb them into a squadron, get them qualified in a weapons system."

When asked if Air Force fighter squadrons -- those on the front lines in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria -- have suffered because of the gap, Goldfein said, "We haven't yet.

"But if we don't turn this around through all the efforts that we're working on, then we'll end up heading down that [detrimental] path," he added.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
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...
Groundbreaking ceremonies leading up to Veterans Day were held in Washington, D.C., for a new World War I Memorial and a memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

On Nov. 2, family members and friends of the late five-star general and 34th president, members of Congress and the Eisenhower Memorial Commission gathered on four acres of land called Eisenhower Square near the National Mall to turn dirt for the construction of the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.

Cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Eisenhower graduated in 1915, and sailors from the aircraft carrier Eisenhower also joined in the ceremony.

Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican and Marine Corps veteran from Eisenhower's home state of Kansas, told the audience, "This is a very emotional day for the Eisenhower family; I have to tell you that."

Roberts, chairman of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission, said, "My family and I hope that the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Memorial will serve to celebrate not just Ike's life, but also those American values that under his leadership made our country, in war and peace, a beacon of hope for the rest of the world."

Construction of the new $150 million memorial is scheduled to be completed on May 8, 2020, the 75th anniversary of VE Day (Victory in Europe) over the forces of Nazi Germany.

The groundbreaking was the culmination of a 17-year struggle over the design that included initial opposition from the Eisenhower family.

"A lot of these monuments do take a long time, but this took a long time. I wish it had been sooner," Roberts said.

Veterans Day was initially known as "Armistice Day," tracing back to the armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory," Wilson said.

In 1938, Congress made Nov. 11 a legal holiday. In 1954, during Eisenhower's first term as president and after World War II and the Korean War, Congress amended the 1938 law by changing the word "Armistice" to "Veterans" to honor all who served.

In approving the change, Eisenhower issued a proclamation stating, "In order to ensure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose" of honoring veterans each Nov. 11.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Updated at 3:35 p.m. Eastern

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- A former Marine Corps drill instructor convicted this week of hazing and assaulting recruits at Parris Island and singling out Muslim recruits for harassment will serve 10 years, a military jury decided Friday.

Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix was also sentenced to a dishonorable discharge and reduction in rank to private in the hearing. The sentence is even more severe than the seven years prosecutors recommended in sentencing arguments. The maximum sentence he could have received is 21 years, 9 months.

Felix was convicted of three counts of maltreatment and eight more of failure to obey a lawful general order in the hazing case. He was also convicted of individual counts of false official statement, drunk and disorderly conduct, and dereliction of duty. He was acquitted of one count of violation of a general order and another of obstruction of justice.

While a drill instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina, Felix ordered one Muslim recruit into an industrial dryer and turned it on, slapped and berated another, and forced a group of recruits to drink chocolate milk until they vomited, the court found.

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Dozens of witnesses, mostly former recruits and drill instructors, testified during Felix's 10-day trial. Recruits testified that he choked, punched and slapped recruits who failed to perform to his standards and, on several occasions, made recruits choke each other.

Some testified to his apparent habit of targeting weaker recruits for punishment and harassment.

The case has received national attention because it came in the wake of the death of 20-year-old Raheel Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American Muslim recruit who jumped to his death from the third floor of a squad bay on March 16, 2016. Siddiqui's death was ruled a suicide by a South Carolina medical examiner, but his family disputes that claim.

A 2016 investigation found Felix had forced Siddiqui to perform physical "incentive training" when he claimed he could not sound off because of a sore throat that had him coughing blood. When Siddiqui collapsed during the training, Felix slapped him, the investigation found. Siddiqui would get up and run, vaulting over a railing and to his death.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Siddiqui's home state of Michigan, released a lengthy statement Friday honoring the fallen recruit.

"What happened to Raheel Siddiqui at Parris Island was a dereliction of duty and a tragedy," she said. "... Instead, Raheel and other recruits were targeted, degraded and mistreated by the individual charged. As the prosecution stated in closing arguments, Sergeant Felix 'wasn't making Marines, he was breaking Marines.' "

Dingell said she would continue to pursue justice in Siddiqui's case, working with the Marine Corps and the fallen recruit's family.

"Additionally, evidence presented at the trial reaffirms that the finding of suicide should be revisited," she said. "I will continue to work with all involved to have the initial findings revisited with additional facts that have become available so we can bring some measure of peace to the Siddiqui family."

Felix and his wife Jean gave emotional testimony Friday, speaking of Felix's love for the Marine Corps and his family and his longtime dream of becoming a drill instructor. Jean Felix sobbed as the sentence was read.

The lead attorney for the defense, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Clay Bridges, declined through a public affairs officer to comment on the sentence Friday.

An attorney for the prosecution asked the jury instead to think of the torment recruits endured under Felix, including Ameer Bourmeche, who testified that he has nightmares in the wake of being tumbled in a dryer.

"Think of what that recruit went through at the hands of the accused for no reason other than he was a Muslim," said Col. Jeffrey Groharing, the attorney. "There's no training value in that -- that's a hate crime."

Felix's sentence may be among the most severe ever handed down in a Marine Corps hazing case.

In 2011, multiple Marines were prosecuted following the suicide of 21-year-old Cpl. Harry Lew, who was allegedly hazed and abused in Afghanistan for falling asleep on watch. Ultimately, two of the Marines were acquitted, and one took a plea deal and received 30 days' confinement and demotion.

In perhaps the most famous Marine Corps hazing case, a drill instructor who had been drinking marched recruits into Parris Island's swampy Ribbon Creek in 1956. Six of the recruits drowned. That drill instructor was convicted of negligent homicide and drinking on duty and served three months in the brig. He remained in the service.

The dishonorable discharge, the most severe form of punitive discharge from the military, is equivalent to a felony conviction. It entails the loss of all veterans' benefits and precludes the discharged individual from owning firearms.

Felix will be transported to the brig at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, on Friday, said Capt. Joshua Pena, a spokesman for Marine Corps Training and Education Command.

Officials at Marine Corps Headquarters will determine where he serves out his full sentence.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- A former Marine Corps drill instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina, is guilty of tumbling a Muslim recruit in an industrial dryer in a liquor-fueled hazing session, and abusing and assaulting a dozen others, a military jury has found.

Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix is guilty of three counts of maltreatment and seven counts of violation of a general order for hazing recruits, including three Muslim recruits in three different platoons. He was also found guilty of drunk and disorderly conduct and making a false official statement to a Marine Corps investigator during an investigation into his own behavior.

He was acquitted on an obstruction of justice charge and an orders violation pertaining to conducting unauthorized physical incentive training with recruits in his platoons.

The decision was reached after 8 p.m. Thursday following 12 hours of deliberations and 10 days of testimony, during which dozens of former Marine recruits and drill instructors testified.

A bright spotlight was turned on to allegations of recruit hazing at Parris Island after the March 18, 2016, death of 20-year-old Raheel Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American Muslim recruit from Michigan who reportedly leapt from the third floor of a squad bay 11 days after arriving at boot camp. A South Carolina medical examiner ruled Siddiqui's death a suicide, but the recruit's family continues to dispute that finding.

After Siddiqui's death, 15 drill instructors and five other senior leaders at the boot camp were removed from their posts.

Felix, 34, was charged and designated for trial in general court-martial after three separate 2016 command investigations into hazing allegations, including one focused on Siddiqui's death. In that investigation, Felix was named as a senior drill instructor who slapped Siddiqui and made him conduct physical "incentive training" as punishment in the minutes before his tragic suicide.

Another investigation made public for the first time allegations of Felix's involvement in a previous alleged hazing incident involving a Muslim recruit.

That recruit, Ameer Bourmeche, reported being woken, made to conduct incentive training in the shower, then being ushered into the "Maytag Room" for a hazing ritual involving an industrial dryer. Bourmeche, who also alleged Felix called him a "terrorist" and told him "I've been fighting [expletive] like you," said Felix ordered him into the dryer and turned it on, opening it at intervals to ask him if he was still a Muslim in a mock interrogation.

Felix was also charged with ordering Bourmeche to simulate chopping off a platoon mate's head while shouting "Allahu Akbar," and tying Bourmeche up with a Marine Corps Martial Arts Program belt.

The Jury found Felix had called Bourmeche a terrorist, tumbled him in the dryer and hazed him in the shower, but found him not guilty of the simulated decapitation ritual and of saying he had been fighting [expletive] like Bourmeche.

The biggest surprise in the 10-day trial came with the testimony of Rekan Hawez, a former Marine recruit from Iraqi Kurdistan who testified that Felix began calling him "ISIS" and "Terrorist" after he discovered Hawez' ethnicity. In July 2015, on the same night Felix is accused of hazing Bourmeche, Hawez testified he told him "Hey ISIS, get in the dryer," and made him sit in the drum, though Felix did not turn it on.

Hawez, whose allegations were not included within the 2016 command investigation, was later contacted by Naval Criminal Investigative Service officials in connection with the Felix case and revealed his account.

Felix had allegedly been drinking Fireball Whisky in the parking lot with other drill instructors prior to this reported hazing ritual, and was charged with dereliction of duty and drunk and disorderly conduct in addition to the hazing charges. During trial, former recruits testified they could smell the cinnamon-flavored liquor on his breath and said he had openly talked about how much he liked it.

Felix was found guilty of all charges related to Hawez.

Hawez' revelations meant Felix was accused of singling out three Muslim recruits, all from different platoons, for special abuse. Hawez was a member of Third Recruit Training Battalion, Kilo Company, Platoon 3052, for which Felix then served as a drill instructor. Bourmeche belonged to a neighboring platoon, 3054.

Siddiqui was part of Platoon 3042, which Felix joined in 2016 on his first tour as senior drill instructor.

Felix, who had served as a drill instructor in four previous three-month training cycles, had begun to persecute Siddiqui even before the day of his death.

"Context is important here," Lt. Col. John Norman, an attorney for the prosecution, said in his closing statements. "He had been calling Siddiqui a terrorist already. In school circles, that's how he was known. [He said] Recruit Siddiqui 'smelled like a terrorist.'"

On March 18, Siddiqui woke up and wrote a note complaining that his throat was so sore he couldn't speak and he was coughing up blood. When he couldn't sound off, Felix allegedly made him start running back and forth in the squad bay. When Siddiqui clutched his throat and collapsed, Felix was accused of slapping his face and screaming at him.

The court found Felix not guilty of calling Siddiqui a terrorist, but guilty of forcing him to run back and forth and slapping him when he fell.

In the course of investigating the accounts of hazing described in the command report, prosecutors turned up even more accounts of recruit mistreatment.

Recruits from both of Felix's platoons alleged he made violent corrections for missteps and training failures. Among allegations that were charged under violation of a general order were accounts of Felix slapping and punching recruits in the face, choking recruits, and forcing recruits to choke each other.

Other accounts of illegal incentive training described Felix pouring Gain laundry detergent on the squad bay deck and forcing recruits to crawl through it until their skin burned and orders to scrub the floor with a "scuzz brush" until the brush's wooden handle disintegrated.

Felix was acquitted of the charge related to the unauthorized incentive training, or IT, allegations, but found guilty of crowding 30-40 recruits into a laundry room and walking on them.

The most stomach-churning allegation to emerge was an account that Felix forced a group of recruits to drink chocolate milk in the depot chow hall until the dispenser was empty, then demanded they complete incentive training, until some of them were vomiting.

"There's only one reason to do that," Norman said. "It's to abuse; to harass."

The jury found Felix guilty of the chocolate milk incident, and of choking recruits on four occasions and forcing one recruit to choke another on two different occasions.

He was also found guilty of striking three different recruits with an open hand and with his fist, push-kicking a locker into a recruit's chest, and ordering a recruit to choke himself with a chain in a scenario that echoes the 1987 film, "Full Metal Jacket."

Felix "bullied and brutalized the recruits of three training platoons," Norman said.

"He picked out three Muslim recruits for special abuse because of their Muslim faith," he added.

Between the prosecution and defense, dozens of witnesses were called over the course of the trial. The thickly built former drill instructor did not testify, but listened to testimony and arguments with a furrowed brow. He stood silent and stoic when his verdict was read.

While prosecutors in the case described Felix as a "bully" who preferred to dominate and torment his recruits rather than train them, the gunnery sergeant's defense team described a very different scenario.

Felix's attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Clay Bridges, scoffed at testimony from former recruits, saying it was so contradictory and in cases overblown that it could not be believed.

He held up testimony from one recruit who alleged he saw Felix choking another and lifting him off the ground.

"Apparently, Gunnery Sgt. Felix is the Hulk," he said.

Bridges said the account of the hazing involving chocolate milk in the chow hall was especially unbelievable, even though 19 former recruits testified to it.

"If the scene from the exorcist is playing out with the chief drill instructor, [senior drill instructor,] everybody [around,] what do you think is going to happen?" he said. "Just because a lot of people said it doesn't mean it's beyond a reasonable doubt."

Bridges described slaps administered to Siddiqui and another recruit, Garrett Issel, on separate occasions, as emergency measures designed to bring them back to consciousness after they passed out. When in situations like that, Bridges said, "you're not in the [recruit training order] anymore."

Regarding Bourmeche and the dryer incident, Bridges said Sgt. Michael Eldridge, a government witness in the case, is also to blame. Eldridge is the last of six Parris Island drill instructors to face hazing charges, and agreed to testify against Felix as part of a plea deal that will send him to an administrative summary court-martial and limit any sentence to 60 days.

Bridges jabbed a finger at Felix.

"Sgt. Eldridge saved himself at his expense," he said.

Five other drill instructors were charged with hazing in incidents unrelated to the Siddiqui and Bourmeche cases: Staff Sgt. Antonio Burke, Sgt. Riley Gress, Staff Sgt. Matthew Bacchus and Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez. Gress was acquitted, and the others received various levels of punishment at legal and administrative hearings.

Because of its relation to Siddiqui's death, Felix's case is one of the most high-profile Marine Corps hazing cases in the service's history. The case has been compared in news reports to the Ribbon Creek incident, a deadly case of alleged hazing that also took place aboard Parris Island. In 1956, six recruits drowned, when a drill instructor, Staff Sgt. Matthew McKeon, marched his platoon into the swampy creek after having drunk alcohol.

Ultimately, McKeon was convicted of negligent homicide and drinking on duty, and sentenced to three months in the brig before returning to service.

The sentence for Felix, expected to be handed down Friday, could well exceed McKeon's. For each charge of maltreatment, Felix could face up to a year behind bars. Each charge of violation of a general order carries with it a maximum sentence of two years. Felix also faces the possibility of a punitive discharge and forfeiture of all rank, pay, and military benefits.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
In a shabby, partly abandoned little park about a block from the White House, dignitaries gathered Thursday to make amends for the "national tragedy" that left World War I off the roster of America's conflicts that have memorials in Washington, D.C.

Once the homeless were cleared from the area, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley; Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin; and Sandra Sinclair Pershing, the granddaughter-in-law of World War I commander Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, joined others in taking gold-colored shovels to turn over soil brought from a century-old battlefield in France.

"It's a national tragedy that the millions of vets of the 'Great War' who were the parents of the greatest generation have not been memorialized in our capital," said Terry Hamby, a Vietnam veteran and commissioner of the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission.

"Today, this groundbreaking service starts a process of erecting a memorial," Hamby said, just days before the nation again marks Veterans Day, which began as "Armistice Day" after World War I.

Hamby spoke in front of posters and placards put up by the commission to tell some of the story of the 4.4 million Americans who answered the call to arms for the "war to end all wars."

There was a quote from an Australian trooper to his new American trench pal: "You'll do me, Yank, but you chaps are a bit rough."

That translates as admiration in Australian for the "doughboys" of the 131st and 132nd regiments of the 33rd Division of the Illinois National Guard, who had just gone over the top in a frontal assault that drove back the Germans in the French summer of 1917.

'Dash, Gallantry and Efficiency'

Lt. Gen. John Monash, the Australian commander, was also admiring of the aggressiveness of the untested Yanks, and especially of their willingness to disobey orders to get into the fight.

Monash wrote, "The dash, gallantry and efficiency of these American troops left nothing to be desired."

Gen. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces who would later have the title "General of the Armies," was not so admiring. Actually, he was furious, according to historians. He had strict orders against U.S. units taking direction from the allies.

Pershing was adamantly against the British and French encroaching upon his command and taking advantage of the new American troops by using them for frontal assaults that they had mostly abandoned for their own forces. That was for Pershing to do.

The British and French tried to advise Pershing against charging into "No Man's Land" to face machine guns without adequate artillery support and that new battlefield invention called the tank. The mantra was that "artillery conquers, infantry occupies."

Sometimes Pershing would listen, sometimes he wouldn't. War colleges still debate his generalship.

Pershing would later write, "It was thought reasonable to count on the vigor and aggressive spirit of our troops to make up in a measure for their inexperience."

A Major Factor

There is less debate that the new American troops were a major factor in stopping the last German offensive and breaking the trench warfare stalemate.

The Germans knew they had to act before the Americans arrived in force. Rudolf Bing, a staff officer to Gen. Erich Ludendorff, quartermaster general of the German General Staff, wrote that the German offensive of 1918 would run up against allied tanks, and "behind them there will be an American army which may number a million."

Before the armistice on "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918, more than 116,000 U.S. troops would be killed in combat. Two hundred thousand were wounded; another 56,000 would die in the Spanish flu pandemic.

In the Meuse-Argonne offensive alone, still the largest and bloodiest battle in U.S. military history, more than 1.2 million American troops took part, with more than 26,200 killed.

The soil used in Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony was from Meuse-Argonne.

"As Americans, we must remember the sacrifices and how their service changed the world forever," Hamby said. "For 100 years, the 116,516 veterans who gave their lives -- that's more than Vietnam and Korea together -- and the countless others who suffered physical and emotional injuries, and others who answered the call of our nation, have been forgotten by America."

Not Forgotten

But not totally forgotten, said District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser. On the National Mall near the World War II Memorial just off Independence Avenue stands a marble monument to the more than 500 from the District who died in World War I.

The new World War I memorial, expected to be completed in 2020, will be a "vital and long-awaited addition" to the District's monument, Bowser said.

In his remarks, Milley echoed his own constant "readiness" theme for the Army in stating that World War I should have taught the lesson that America must always be prepared for war to ensure peace.

In 1916, Pershing had an Army of about 200,000 that was busy chasing Pancho Villa in Mexico. In 1917, he was leading millions of raw troops against battle-tested armies in Europe, Milley said.

Of World War I, Milley said, "It was a horrible war" in which an estimated 38 million died, and it was blundered into by "the kings and the queens and the czars and the kaisers and the presidents of Europe."

"It was a war that ripped apart five empires," he said, and "set the conditions for the most horrific war in human history by ushering in World War II with the failed and flawed Treaty of Versailles. The struggles that we see today can be directly attributed to the first world war."

There are many lessons in operations, tactics and strategy from World War I, and there are "lessons of politics and government and economics," Milley said, "but if there's one lesson most of all to learn, it's the lesson to vow never to let it happen again."

"And the way to prevent war is to maintain preparedness for war," he said. "If there's one lesson to learn as a nation, it's to be prepared."

"If you want to sustain the peace, then have large, ready, credible military forces so that you can do whatever the nation asks in order to make sure this experiment in liberty is passed on to the next generation and the generation after that," Milley said.

He spoke in front of a statue of Pershing that is the centerpiece of what is now called "Pershing Park," which has turned into a triangular eyesore across the street from the historic Willard Hotel where Pennsylvania Avenue makes the turn to pass in front of the White House.

One of the World's Longest Bas Reliefs

Graffiti-marked cracked concrete is all that's left of what had once been a small ice-skating rink in winter and a reflecting pool in summer, but "this is really the perfect place for the location of the World War I memorial, right here in front of the Willard Hotel" where Abraham Lincoln stayed before his inauguration, said Bob Vogel, director of the National Capital Region (NCR) of the National Park Service.

Vogel also noted that Pershing led a parade the American Expeditionary Forces past the site along Pennsylvania Avenue 10 months after peace was declared.

To fill the space of the old skating rink, the Centennial Commission has chosen 27-year-old architect Joe Weishaar of Chicago, and collaborating sculptor Sabin Howard of New York City.

They have designed a 65-foot-long, 11-foot-tall bas relief depicting scenes from the war and the homecoming. Weishaar said it will be one of the world's largest bas reliefs. The project is expected to cost $30 million to $35 million, all raised from private donations.

"It's a series of tableaus that overlap and fade into each other," Weishaar said. "We want people to come face-to-face with the humanity we find in those who served in this war."

The humanity of those who served in World War I is uppermost for Denise Rohan, national commander of the American Legion.

In her remarks at the groundbreaking, Rohan said of the those veterans, "They are gone now, but their legacy endures."

The last surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, Cpl. Frank Buckles, died in 2011 at age 110.

"It was not the war to end all wars but, oh, how we wish it was," Rohan said. "How we wish that those 116,516 fallen American heroes were the last to die in war. How we wish that none of the Americans who went 'Over There' would have to return to Europe and the Pacific a generation later to fight another great war.

"And how we wish that all political leaders from around the world would conduct themselves with the honor and devotion of our brave military heroes, thus making future wars unnecessary," she said. "The legacy left by our doughboys and, yes, the women who also served, is freedom -- freedom from tyranny and fear."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
U.S. President Donald Trump marked his first Veterans Day in office by meeting with several veterans in Danang, where the first U.S. conventional troops landed during the Vietnam War more than 50 years ago.

"One of my great honors is to represent the people standing right behind me -- great, great warriors and veterans of the Vietnam War," Trump said in the meeting at the Hyatt Regency Danang Resort and Spa.

"To each of you with me today, you are the heroes who fulfilled your duty to our nation. And each of you, under the most difficult conditions, did what you had to do, and you did it well," the president said. He was attending an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Danang following stops on his Asian tour in Japan, South Korea and China.

Trump, who had five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, signed a proclamation honoring Vietnam veterans and said, "I just want to thank these seven very brave people for being here."

"I got to know them for a few minutes upfront, and they are definitely tough, smart cookies. We like them. I think they like me too," he said, joking that, "I'm not sure" but "I think they do. I think they do. I think they see what we're doing for our military."

Trump then asked the veterans, from a group called the Greatest Generation Foundation, to speak. One of them, Max Morgan of Santa Clarita, California, became emotional as he recalled the fallen, and Trump reached out to hug him.

"From my heart, thank you for your support of the military, and it's an honor to be here as one of seven Vietnam veterans representing the 58,000 heroes who never made it home," Morgan said.

Trump also touted his efforts to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs by making health care more available in the private sector under the Choice program, and by requiring more accountability from VA employees.

"Our veterans are a national treasure, and I thank them all for their service, sacrifice and patriotism," he said. "My administration, as you all know, is committed to rebuilding our military and honoring the hard work and sacrifices of all veterans.

"We're extremely proud of what we've done" at the VA, Trump said.

He said VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin "has done an amazing job with Choice and accountability and so many other things that we are doing and in the process of doing. It is a whole different ballgame" at the VA.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
ANN ARBOR, MI - The ancient beverage known as mead is being revived by a new business set to open next year in downtown Ann Arbor.

Partners Lauren Bloom and Matthew Ritchey plan to open Blom Meadworks at 100 S. Fourth Avenue and are hard at work preparing the almost 3,000-square-foot space for its early 2018 debut.

The husband-and-wife team were inspired to start their business after moving to Ann Arbor and discovering Ritchey was allergic to gluten.

Mead is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey with water and has been popular across the world since ancient times. It is naturally gluten-free.

Bloom and Ritchey searched for about a year and considered some other locations before securing the space on the ground floor of Courthouse Square Senior Apartments, in what used to be a hotel lobby.

"This ended up being the right one," said Bloom, walking around the area that features the high ceilings and floor space they looked for to accommodate fermentation equipment and future growth.

The location also sits between two major areas of downtown Ann Arbor, she said.

"It'll bring a little more retail to this side," Bloom said about the business at the corner of Huron and Fourth. "We hope it brightens up this corner."

Some of their equipment has already arrived: five 15-barrel tanks, each capable of holding around 465 gallons of mead, along with two smaller-sized serving tanks.

While mead can reach about 20 percent alcohol by volume, the partners said their products will hover more around 6 percent ABV and be more on the dry side, rather than sweet. It takes about two weeks to create a batch of mead or cider.

Bloom and Ritchey anticipate having eight taps, with four regular meads and one cider served year-round and seasonal products mixed in, based on what local produce is available, along with homemade soda.

Some of the products will also be canned, so customers can take some home.

Ingredients will be sourced from around the state, Bloom said, which has been one of the tougher parts of starting the business as the harvest season ends and there is a lack of fresh produce to secure.

"It's pushed us to be very creative," Bloom said.

The name is inspired by the ingredients involved in making mead and Bloom's Swedish ancestry.

"It alludes to what happens in our products," Bloom said, adding it is also a nod to the alcoholic beverage's Scandinavian roots.

They've already started the process of securing some ingredients and freezing or preserving some ahead of ramping up production, with Ritchey using his experience in founding a Chicago brewery and Bloom's own knowledge of food production.

Plans submitted to the city for Blom Meadworks detail a project of about $200,000 to renovate the space.

Bloom and Ritchey are working with design company Synecdoche, and have contracted general building work with O'Neal Construction. They have also secured financing through the Bank of Ann Arbor.

Construction could take around three months, Ritchey said, and the business is also working to secure licensing and inventory ahead of the 2018 opening.

Design plans include a taproom area with a bar, seating with community tables and more intimate seating arrangements, private event space, a production area and something Bloom called a "laboratory" for cooking up new recipes and testing products.

Once complete, Bloom said the space will be "open and airy and clean and bright" with visible production areas so customers can see the mead-making process from start to finish.

"We want people to have a good understanding of how it's made," Bloom said.

The two are planning to seek permits for outdoor seating, Bloom said, and are installing roll-up doors near the front entrance and along the windows of the building for extra seating when the weather turns.

Customers are welcome to bring food inside the business, Bloom said, as Blom Meadworks will offer a small menu of food offerings, but does not have a kitchen facility for on-site food preparation.

There's been some excitement over the announcement of the new business, Bloom said, which she attributes to the community's support for local businesses and a lack of mead-focused brewers in Ann Arbor.

"There isn't anything like it in Ann Arbor," Bloom said. "Ann Arbor has curious drinkers."
PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI - Shoppers could soon get their groceries without even entering a store with the recent approval of a grocery pickup area at the Walmart in Pittsfield Township.

Site plans for the grocery pickup area, which includes eight parking spaces on the southeast side of Walmart at 7000 Michigan Ave., were approved by the Pittsfield Township Planning Commission on Thursday, Nov. 2.

It could be functional as early as spring 2018, said Benjamin Carlisle, a planning consultant for Pittsfield Township near Ann Arbor.

He has been working with Walmart officials for the past two months on the grocery pickup area addition, which Carlisle said adds a convenience factor for shoppers.

Shoppers can select items online using a desktop or mobile device and Walmart employees will gather the items and load them in the car for free, according to the company's website.

"They text saying, 'I'm here,' and then someone from Walmart physically runs out their order out their car, so they don't even leave their car," Carlisle said.

The nearest Walmart location offering pickup grocery services is at 10562 Belleville Road in Van Buren Township.

Site plans for the grocery pickup area in Pittsfield Township received preliminary and final approval from the planning commission, and do not need to be voted on by the Pittsfield Township Board of Trustees, Carlisle said.

The site plans, submitted by Ohio design firm WD Partners, detail the grocery pickup area, which will have eight parking spaces measuring about 9.5 feet by 20 feet.

"The pickup staging area should not increase the amount of traffic to the site and will slightly reduce on-site parking demand," reads the project description provided with the site plans.

The planning commission's only significant concern was making sure the pickup area was well-lit at night, Carlisle said.

A final engineering review is one of the last steps ahead of making the grocery pickup area a reality.

"As soon as that gets approved, they can start construction," Carlisle said. "It'd probably be up and running by spring, I'm guessing."

Traditional groceries and superstores have been experimenting with online ordering in recent years, with some chains like Meijer and Kroger offering in-store pickup or delivery services for customers

Walmart announced a multi-million-dollar plan to update the chain's U.S. store portfolio in May, which includes moving in-store pickup areas to the front of the store and testing online grocery ordering with in-store pickup in 3 southeast Michigan markets.
A night of square dancing for adults and teens 13 and up will be held from 6:45 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 25, at HSB Inc., 5625 Burlingame Ave. SW in Wyoming.

Entry fee is $10 person, cash at the door. All proceeds will go to benefit HSB Inc., a local nonprofit.

RSVPs are appreciated, but timely walk-ins will be accepted. Those planning to attend should arrive on time, since it will be an instructional dance.

RSVP by phone or text to Sherri DeVries at 616-534-5162.

More information is on the Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/268694370314623/
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Unaudited Financial Results of the Bank for the second Quarter and Half year ended 30th September, 2017.

At 13:17 hrs Bank of Maharashtra was quoting at Rs 28.30, up Rs 0.60, or 2.17 percent.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 40.70 and 52-week low Rs 24.50 on 04 May, 2017 and 23 October, 2017, respectively.Currently, it is trading 30.47 percent below its 52-week high and 15.51 percent above its 52-week low.Market capitalisation stands at Rs 3,557.94 crore. Source : BSE

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In accordance with the Regulation 30(6) of SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, please find herewith attached Board proceedings related to Board Meeting of company held on 10.11.2017 and it concluded at 02.50 P.M.



Speedage Commercials is in the Finance - Investments sector. The current market capitalisation stands at Rs 0.93 crore.

The company management includes Aditya Srivastava - Non Exe. & Ind. Director, Dipesh P Sanghvi - Non Exe. & Ind. Director, B M Bhansali - Director, Jayesh B Bhansali - Director, Meenakshi J Bhansali - Director.

It is listed on the BSE with a BSE Code of 512291.

Its Registered office is at Bhansali House, A-5, Off Veera Desai Road,,Andheri (West), Mumbai,Maharashtra - 400053.Source : BSE

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Outcome of the Board of Directors of the company at its meeting held today the November 10, 2017 at the registered office of the company.

Tatia Skylines is in the Computers - Software Medium & Small sector. The current market capitalisation stands at Rs 1.20 crore.

The company management includes Sangita Tatia - Whole Time Director, S Pannalal Jain Tatia - Director, M Palanivel - Director, V Ramasubramanian - Additional Director.

It is listed on the BSE with a BSE Code of 526187 and the NSE with an NSE Code of TATIASKYLN.

Its Registered office is at New No.29, Old No.12,,Mookathal Street, Chennai (Madras),Tamil Nadu - 600007.

Their Registrars are Knack Corporate Services Pvt.Ltd.Source : BSE

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Just when the dust was settling in the rattled information technology (IT) space Karnataka government has decided to stir up the sector. It became the first state to recognise trade union in the IT sector.

Reports say that the state has recognised the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU) as a workers body to protect their interests.

Attempts have been made by IT professionals over the years to unionise their workforce but companies have managed to scuttle it.

IT professionals are the envy of workforce in other sectors as they are considered to be a pampered lot who enjoy various frills and facilities apart from a fat pay package.

However, a slowdown in their customer countries and structural technological changes have led to the sacking of employees, especially at the middle level. The high priced middle-level employees were replaced by cheaper fresh candidates. Though it made business sense to replace high-cost employees with lower cost ones, especially if there was not much difference in their skill sets, questions were been raised in the manner in which they were sacked.

Recorded conversations and videos between a sacked candidate and the Human Resource manager went viral recently. Many cases have been registered by sacked employees in labour courts in Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru.

This resulted in various trade bodies such as the IT Employees Wing of the New Democratic Labour Front in Chennai, and the Federation of IT Employees raising their collective voices.

There is no question that the unfair manner in which employees have been sacked needs to be corrected, but will unionization help?

One of the reasons why IT sector employees are treated better than those in other sectors is because employees and their knowledge base is the key raw material in the sector. Regular skill upgrades are encouraged so that both the employee and the company can grow. Improved skill sets with competence in new technologies are showcased by the companies in order to get more high-end work.

An employee union will only result in spoiling their relationship with management. There is any case a very thin line between employees and management in the IT sector. Further, the development comes at the worst possible time for the Indian IT sector which is still struggling to find their mojo.

One of the main reasons that India has become an IT hub is that of access to low-cost skilled manpower. It is a labour arbitrage game. Any increase in labour costs, in a scenario where the market is shrinking, will only result in the company shifting its base to some other state or country.

Various countries led by the USA have now encouraged local hiring. Indian companies had to take a hit on their margins and accept the diktat of the governments since these were where their customers resided. They have no such binding restrictions for the companies in Karnataka.

It would take very little provocation for the companies to move out of Karnataka, which it seems has been provided by the state government. The state government would have done so as a political move just ahead of the state elections, but the move has given a big blow to the IT sector in the state and with it perhaps the development of the entire state.
Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOEC) is in a sweet spot with projects being implemented on time and greater visibility on monetization of assets in the coming quarters. With the government announcing the second stage of auction of discovered small fields and putting forth a proposal to allow private firms to bid for a majority stake, HOEC stands well positioned to benefit from these measures.

HOEC is a pure exploration and production player in the oil and gas space. The company is one of the few private sector players who were allotted small fields in the 2016 auction of discovered small fields (DSF). It has a strong mix of both onshore and offshore assets in appraisal, development and production stages.

The stock had seen a sharp fall since 2011 due to the close down of production from one of its producing reserves PY3. Over the years the company has acquired and developed other gas and oil fields which have either started production or have a greater visibility of the revenue generation timeline now.

With clear plans the company seems well poised for a turnaround and the stock has already started picking up momentum running up 63 percent since the beginning of the year.

Financial and Peer Analysis

The stocks seems like an attractive pick with Q2 revenue growth of 51 percent YoY and a normalized net margin of 66 percent. The company expects operating margins to grow rapidly up to 75 percent with production ramping up at the fully installed Dirok block.

With the commercialization of the Dirok facility the company aims to stretch production to full utilization and avail the benefits of no/low profit-sharing with partners in the initial years of production. Although the company expects a much larger multi-fold increase, keeping a conservative view we expect FY18 revenues to be around Rs 42 crore and FY19 revenues around to Rs 110 crore.

With carry-forward tax benefit and no finance cost liability and 75 percent margin profile given the gas rates and crude oil trends, a majority portion would flow down to profitability. Moreover, the company has sizeable financial investments which would continue to earn additional income.

About the company

HOEC has a portfolio of 9 blocks with discovered resources: 5 onshore (2 North East, 3 Gujarat); 4 offshore (2 West Coast & 2 East Coast). Of these, 4 are oil reserves, 2 gas reserves and the rest 2 are a mix of both oil and gas.

Why HOEC?

Monetization of the Dirok Assam block

After significant investments towards the development of assets the company now has greater visibility of monetization. The ramping-up of the Dirok production (the key project for companys turnaround) is on track and commercial sale has started since August 2017. The fiscal terms for production stand in favour of HOEC with no profit-sharing for next two years given the carrying cost. All gas and condensate produce will be supplied to partners Oil India and IOCL which minimize the demand-side risks.

Moreover, attractive gas price at USD 2.89/mmbtu for gas and international price parallel for crude leave strong operating margins of around 75 percent for the company. To benefit further, the com20pany expects a possibility of higher than expected reserves in this block

PY1 reserves  a big positive

The hydrocarbon resources discovered at the PY1 reserves are larger than expected. The company plans to start extraction from this reservoir through reentry from Q1FY19 onwards. Reentry through wells would be cost beneficial and would generate quick output and returns without significant incremental costs.

Balance Sheet Comfort

HOEC has a debt-free balance sheet and an immense scope for benefits from leveraging in future providing capacity for inorganic as well as organic expansion. The cash flow position seems positive with a working capital at Rs 167 crore and cash reserves of Rs 82 crore to fund operations. HOEC has a deferred tax in its books and a carryover loss which would be utilized against future liabilities in this respect. Moreover, the company is looking for inorganic growth which might give it a strong upward momentum.

Government initiatives/inclination for auction to private players

The government's proposal to sell some block might further benefit  although this is only an anticipation and we do not have any confirmed news. We believe HOEC is one private player which would be well positioned

Minimization of geopolitical risks

The geopolitical risks associated with sensitive situation in the valley near Dirok block seems to be waning with the project fully commissioned and only indoor work remaining. Moreover, the company has seen immense support from both the local population and the government in the region.

The proposed revival of the PY3 block and inclusion of the upstream segment under GST could provide additional tailwinds to the stock in the future.
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Global internet giant Google is in talks with domestic hyper-local search engine Just Dial to buy the latter's business, Business Standard reported.

Sources in the know of the deal told the newspaper that the companies entered into exclusive talks a couple of months ago, after having discussed it for some time.

Earlier this year, Google launched a hyper-local app for food delivery and home service in India called Google Areo. Google has teamed up with UrbanClap, Faasos, Freshmenu, Holachef and Box8 to provide services, putting it in competition with Just Dial.

If the deal materialises, Google will get access to Just Dials database of 20 million pan-India listings, apart from the database built organically.

Abhishek Bansal, CEO of Just Dial said in response to the newspapers email that the company does explore various strategic tie-ups and meet various companies for the same.

Just Dials core listing business has been facing tough competition from companies like Zomato and Practo in the recent times. Nearly 70 percent of its traffic comes from Google.

In its response to a query from the stock exchange, the company denied being in discussion with Google for the sale of its business and termed the newspaper report as 'factually incorrect'.

Just Dial was founded in 1996 by VSS Mani in Mumbai and provides search services through its app, website and mobile. The company had 10,892 employees at the end of September 2017 quarter reported a net profit of Rs 37.5 crore and revenue of Rs 194.4 crore.
Divis Laboratories Ltd. | The companys profit margin in September 2020 quarter stood at 29.95 percent as against 25.13 percent in September 2019. In FY21 so far, the stock price has risen 69 percent to Rs 3366.05 on November 12, 2020, from Rs 1987.55 on March 31, 2020.

Indias drug regulatory body has initiated an inquiry against domestic drug manufacturers Zydus Cadila and Intas Pharmaceuticals for allegedly putting a combination drug out in the market without getting it approved first, the Mint reported.

The drug in question is used to treat hypertension. The Central Drug Standards Control Organization (CDSCO) started the probe after receiving a complaint from another pharmaceutical company that is carrying out clinical trials for the same drug and awaiting a launch.

Any manufacturer would require their medicine to be approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) before launching the product.

This particular hypertension drug has received the nod for launch only in the United States and Canada till now. According to the CDSCO guidelines on clinical trials, if a drug is approved somewhere else, but not in India, its safety and effectiveness on Indians have to be researched through phase III clinical trials and bio-equivalence studies before the launch.

The company that complained against Zydus Cadila and Intas Pharma also accused the manufacturers of not putting the product through the stipulated trials before launching it.

The product has been supplied from Uttarakhand, with licence from state FDA (Food and Drugs Administration), read the complaint, which was reviewed by Mint.

Zydus Cadila and Intas Pharma did not respond to an email sent by the newspaper on November 6 regarding the matter. The two companies were also reportedly contacted via text messaging multiple times but to no avail.

The complainant, Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Hetero Drugs Ltd, had applied for manufacturing and marketing approval for the hypertension drug in December 2015.

The recommendation of the drug advisory body led the company to conduct bio-equivalence and clinical trials in July 2017. It submitted its report to the DCGI in September this year.

But during the trials, Hetero Drugs found out that the combination drug they were trying to launch, was already out there in the market.

We noticed that the above mentioned combination was launched into the market by various companies without having DCGI approval, Hetero Drugs said in the complaint, according to Mint.
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The Congress Central Election Committee (CEC) is expected to meet today to shortlist candidates for the Gujarat polls.

The meeting is likely to be chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and attended by the party's senior leaders, including those from the poll-bound state, sources said.

Gujarat goes to poll in two phases on December 9 and December 14. The election result will be declared on December 18.
Trade and Industry bodies of Bihar on Friday welcomed the GST Council's decision to reduce the tax on a wide range of mass-use items from 28 percent to 18 percent.

With the reduction in the tax rate, these items will be consumed more giving impetus to business volume, Bihar Chamber of Commerce and Industries President P K Agrawal said.

PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Bihar, Chairman and industrialist Satyajit Singh termed the decision as a good initiative by the government.

He also expressed hope that the Centre would rationalise the tax percentage, besides simplifying the tax return procedure.

In the biggest GST rejig yet, tax rates on over 200 items, ranging from chewing gum to chocolates, to beauty products, wigs and wrist watches, were today cut to provide relief to consumers and businesses amid an economic slowdown.

The decision was taken at the GST council's 23rd meeting at Guwahati.

Bihar Industries Association (BIA) President and industrialist K P S Keshri, too, expressed happiness at the GST Council's decision.
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The CBI today strongly opposed the discharge petitions filed by former Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Kalanidhi Maran in the illegal telephone exchange case.

When the case came up before the XIV Additional Judge for CBI cases S Natarajan, the CBI strongly opposed the discharge applications moved by the Maran brothers. Maintaining that all charges framed against them were supported with material and documentary evidence, the CBI wanted the special court to dismiss the discharge applications moved by the duo and also filed an additional affidavit.

The judge adjourned the case after the counsel for Maran brothers sought time for filing reply to the additional affidavit filed by the CBI to November 21 for further hearing.

The court also allowed applications moved by the duo seeking to dispense with their appearance on Friday. According to the CBI, Dayanidhi Maran, during the check period of June 2004 to December 2006, when he was was Union minister for communication and information technology, allegedly misused his office and installed a private telephone exchange at his residences in Chennai and utilised the facility for business transactions involving Sun Network.

It said he had caused a loss of Rs 1.78 crore to the exchequer.

More than 700 telecom lines had been installed at their residences in Boat Club and Gopalapuram here, the agency charged. Among the accused are former BSNL general manager K Brahmnathan, former deputy general manager M P Velusamy and Dayanidhi Maran's private secretary Gauthaman.

Nearly four years after receiving complaints regarding the scam, the probe commenced in 2011 and the FIR was filed in October 2013. After a detailed probe, the CBI filed the charge sheet on December 9, 2016.
Q16. It is one of the oldest traditional sweet shops in India. It has catered to Mughal emperors, Presidents and Prime Ministers of India. It was founded by Lala Sukh Lal Jain, who had arrived in the walled city of Delhi from Amber. The shop is now run by his descendants. There are a couple of theories about how it got its name. According to one, it was so named by Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar himself, who asked his servants to get sweets from the shop below the bell. What is the name of the shop? (Image: Reuters)

The Delhi government will allow free travel for commuters in all DTC and cluster buses during the odd-even scheme to encourage use of public transport, Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said today.

The odd-even car rationing scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from November 13 as part of a graded response plan to tackle the alarming level of pollution in the city.

"To encourage use of public transport during Odd-Even, Delhi govt to allow free travel for commuters in all DTC and Cluster buses from 13-17 November," Gahlot tweeted.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the move will encourage people to switch to public transport.

The Delhi Transport Corporation has a bus fleet of around 4,000 buses while there are over 1,600 cluster buses that form the backbone of the public transport along with Metro.

According to official data, DTC buses carry around 35 lakh passengers every day.

However, since the AAP came to power, the DTC has not been able to purchase any new bus.

The odd-even scheme will be in place from 8 am to 8 pm and there will exemptions for women drivers and two-wheelers.
As the conversation around privacy grows and matures in India, there is a need for a comprehensive framework that defines the broad contours of the rights that citizens have with respect to this fundamental right, as ascribed by the Supreme Court of India.

Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, is going to table a private members Bill on privacy and data protection, which will include liability of not just the government, but also non-state actors.

I believe passionately that every individual has a right to privacy, and just as no one has a right to walk in on you when you're dressing, or undressing, similarly no one has a right to walk in on your data which is also a reflection of your private personality, he told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interaction.

Indias former Minister of State for Human Resource Development said as part of his Bill, he is advocating an independent privacy commission, on the lines of the Election Commission, which would be above and beyond politics and would be responsible for monitoring issues such as tapping or intrusions into private lives.

The Bill also takes into account situations where it may be necessary to access a persons private data, such as a medical emergency, or a criminal offence.

But we also say that people who collect data this way cannot have the right to store it indefinitely. They can use and maintain that data for as long as the purpose that they've collected it for is required, he said.

However, he said he hasnt yet made up his mind on the issue of Aadhaar linkage to several government and private services, simply because the Court is yet to reconcile its own declaration- first saying its optional, second, that there is a right to privacy.

Talking about the increasing role of data analytics and social media in the context of political parties and elections, especially given the role of Cambridge Analytica in the US elections and Brexit, Tharoor said the Congress would not use unauthorised data for elections.

When asked if the Congress has been approached by Cambridge Analytica for the upcoming state elections, he said, I am not aware of that.

Calling himself the poster child for intrusion in a public figures private life, Tharoor said he feels very strongly that this is wrong. I think the Supreme Court decision in that regard offers a potential way out- that your privacy is shamelessly violated, that there may be a basis to go to Court and say they're violating my right to privacy, he said.

Tharoor also heads the All India Professionals Congress, which connects professionals to politics, and said job creation is the biggest challenge in India where more and more young people are entering the workforce.

He emphasised the need to focus on tourism, skill development, and incentives for investors to promote job creation in the country.

Talking about the turning tide on social media platforms for Congress versus the BJP, he said that while online anonymity is empowering for some, it also gives people a free rein to abuse people. The way to deal with it, though, is not to regulate social media platforms, but take it on the chin and move on, and engage with the people who are willing to have a decent conversation.

On Rahul Gandhis projected elevation to Congress Partys president, Tharoor said, I think more interesting is the way in which his own dynamism, his own running around- from Berkeley to Gujarat- has actually captured imaginations, and raised a large number of very positive reactions from the public at large.
Representative Image.

The Pentagon has been asked by US Congressional leaders to develop a "forward-looking" strategy to form an enduring defence relationship with India.

Congressional leaders reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA-2018) also asked the US and India to work closely in Afghanistan.

The new version of the NDAA-2018 require the Secretary of Defence to "develop a forward-looking strategy that would build upon current objectives and goals, underlining a mutual desire to develop an enduring defence relationship with India".

According to it, the US and India "should work closely with Afghanistan" to promote stability in the region to include targeted infrastructure development and economic investment, means to address capability gaps in country, and improved humanitarian and disaster relief assistance.

The US Congress in its last NDAA-2017 had designated India as a 'Major Defence Partner'.

In its latest conference report, the Congressional leaders on Thursday said that the designation of 'Major Defence Partner' is unique to India, and institutionalises the progress made to facilitate defence trade and technology cooperation between the United States and India to a level commensurate with the closest allies and partners of America.

"The designation promotes joint exercises, defence strategy and policy coordination, military exchanges, and port calls in support of defence cooperation between the United States and India," it said.

Reconciled version of the NDAA-2018 now heads to the House and Senate floor for formal approval, before it is sent to the White House for US President Donald Trump to sign it into a law.

Among other things, it asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Defence Secretary Jim Mattis to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India.
US President Donald Trump today said the Asia-Pacific region was being held hostage by the "twisted fantasies" of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, as he called on countries to stand united against Pyongyang.

Trump has embarked on a tour of Asia this week trying to rally regional support for curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, warning that time is running out over the crisis.

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The region, he added, must "stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

Yesterday, Trump was in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, where he called on China to "act fast" over North Korea.

"China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," he said.

Washington has also worked in recent months to convince allies across Asia to oppose Pyongyang, an issue that will remain prominent during his two day trip to Vietnam, which is currently hosting a major regional summit.

Alongside Trump, the leaders of Japan, Russia, China and South Korea are also attending the APEC summit.
US President Donald Trump will not hold a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam, the White House said today.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the city of Danang and there had been mixed messages about whether a face-to-face was on the cards.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

Yesterday Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretary's comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
Mahanagar Gas (MGL) posted a weak set of earnings in Q2. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Rajeev Mathur, MD of MGL spoke about the results and his outlook for the company.

Achieved volume growth of 4 percent in Q2, said Mathur.

We expect that in the next quarter and in the next six months the volume growth should be much more than what we have been able to achieve in this quarter, he said.

He further said that Indraprastha Gas (IGL) has regulatory support of the legislature as far as mandating people to use compressed natural gas (CNG) whereas in Mumbai it's on voluntary basis to use gas.

Therefore, considering the number of vehicles that get added, the urge of people, economic compulsion for people to use, the growth rate is definitely lower than Delhi but by industry standards or by the rate at which gross domestic product (GDP) is growing, we are in consonance with that, he added.
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Tyre manufacturer MRF today reported a 22.15 per cent decline in standalone net profit at Rs 299.92 crore for the quarter ending September on account of lower income and higher expenses.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 385.29 crore during the same period previous fiscal, MRF Ltd said in a regulatory filing.

Total income during the quarter under review stood at Rs 3,660.22 crore as against Rs 3,736.70 crore in the July- September quarter of 2016-17.

Expenses during the quarter rose to Rs 3,219.30 crore compared to Rs 3,170.99 crore in the year ago period.

The company's board declared an interim dividend of Rs 3 per equity share for the financial year ending March 2018.

MRF Ltd stock was trading 3.21 per cent up at Rs 67,068.05 on BSE.
Intellect Design Arena has posted a strong set of earnings in Q2 with margin improvement. The Traction in the banks, financial services & insurance (BFSI) space is clearly showing in the numbers.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Arun Jain, CMD of Intellect Design Arena discussed the company's Q2 performance.

Grew at 20 percent in first half of FY18 and won 12 deals in Q2 out of which three are transformational deals, said Jain. Transformational deals are difficult to compete against global competition, he added.

On margin front, he said they have improved due to licensing deals. Our margins are not linear given deal lumpiness, he added.

Talking about payment, he said problem of payments is persistent in government organisations.

Private organisations have been showing strong technological adoption capability, Jain added.
Commercial and passenger vehicle maker Tata Motors has reported a robust three-fold growth in profit for July-September quarter, driven by better-than-expected JLR's operational performance.

Hitesh Goel of Kotak Institutional Equities said the house is happy with the margins but worried about the volume outlook for the company. The management were cautious on volume outlook for JLR.

Operating profit margin for JLR for the quarter stood at 11.8 percent, higher by 150 basis points year-on-year and 390 basis points QoQ. It was also much higher compared with CNBC-TV18 poll estimates of 10.7 percent.

Therefore, they havent changed their price target for Tata Motors and it remains at Rs 535-540. The house has cut the volume estimates on the JLR.

However, there has been lot of comfort on the margin side on back of cost saving initiatives both on JLR and standalone business by the company.

He said their numbers for the company on the earnings front have not changed because margins have gone up and the volume estimates on JLR have been cut by 3-9 percent over FY18 to FY20 since a double digit growth looks a little unlikely now. Most of the growth is expected to come from China Joint Venture and not from sale of imported models that go into China.

The house expects 8 percent growth in JLR volumes including China JV in FY18, which increases to 10 percent in FY19. Moreover, although reported margins have been 11 percent, they are expected to increase to 16 percent going forward because of downtick in hedging losses, said Goel.
To reduce the incidents of fraud in the motor and health insurance spaces, general insurance companies are now also taking special assistance from players in those particular segments. These include medical professionals, auto manufacturers and service centers.

Mukesh Kumar, Executive Director, HDFC ERGO General Insurance said that they do seek help from auto manufacturers and service centers to trace stolen vehicles.

Post the vehicle servicing data is obtained from the manufactures, it is matched again with the stolen vehicle data, he said.

At HDFC ERGO, they have a dedicated department called the Risk & Loss Mitigation Unit that has been set up to mitigate any risks arising out of frauds.

Here, fraudulent claims in health and motor insurance are usually detected by automated fraud trigger systems which detect any suspicious cases dynamically on the run-time.

Companies are also monitoring districts in terms of the historical data on claims. Frauds include fake or exaggerated bills for medical surgeries, false claims filed for getting car/bike serviced at insurer's cost and filing theft claims when vehicle has not been stolen to get claim amount.

Sharad Mathur, Head-Distribution, SBI General Insurance said that in case of motor insurance, insurers have started identifying districts across the country which have high fraudulent claims, historically.

He explained that the estimate is that industry frauds are in the region of about 10-15 percent of claims. Of this, a large chunk of frauds are in motor insurance, he added.

"Learnings from the past are being leveraged and insurers are making an attempt to come together to create a data centre of fraudsters and their methodology, which can operate similar to a credit bureau. A dedicated department called Risk & Loss Mitigation is being set up," said Mathur.

In the area of health insurance, fraud-prone areas are being modelled and erring hospitals are also being issued warnings against issuing fake or exaggerated bills for medical procedures.

Sukhesh P. Bhave, DVP  Accident & Health Claims, SBI General said that as far as health insurance is concerned, insurance companies have started employing specialists for claim investigation and fraud control.

"There are various initiatives being planned at an industry level to combat such frauds, right from creating repository to sharing information on fraudulent claims," he added.

While unheard of in the past, insurers like SBI General are also doing a retrospective claim analysis for predictive modelling which is also being used to identify fraud-prone areas, hospitals, and other agencies .

Additionally, Bhave said that insurance companies are also applying deterrents, either in the form of scrutinising policies at the entry level or using analytics, forensics, and technological tools like spot/hospitalization verifications on a real-time basis.

Penalties are also imposed on medical institutions that collude with fraudsters or individuals to file false medical insurance claims.

To ensure that the fraudsters are removed from the system, insurers are also filing police complaints and de-listing individuals or firms indulging in malpractices.

"Post the vehicle servicing, data is obtained from the manufactures is de-duped with the stolen vehicle data," said Kumar.

The frauds repository has also been helpful. The exchange of fraud data is done with many companies and currently, is also being facilitated by the General Insurance Council. Kumar of HDFC ERGO said that fraudulent insurance claims are updated in the repository on a regular basis for policy cancellation and non-renewal.

He added that any insurance claim that is found to be fraudulent during the verification process is repudiated and the concerned policy is cancelled.
India and Egypt have discussed ways to step up cooperation in the renewable energy sector with experts from both the countries sharing ideas to promote clean fuel in the light of its increasing demand worldwide.

The Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture of the Embassy of India in Cairo yesterday organised a round table 'Renewable Energy: Lightening the path to future' where experts from India and Egypt discussed, analysed and shared the Indian and Egyptian experiences in the sector.

India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said that the subject of renewable energy is particularly important in the light of increasing demand of clean energy worldwide especially when the traditional sources of energy affects the environment negatively.

Solar energy is becoming popular in several places in India including Rajasthan's desert where the government gives six-month trainings to rural women to generate solar energy in far rural areas, he said.

India is stepping up its cooperation and exchange of experience with Egypt by offering training courses and workshops to Egyptian experts, Bhattacharyya said.

"Egypt started to cooperate with the leading countries in the field of renewable energy by the early 1990s. Recently, a special programme of nutrition tariff for solar energy based projects was designed to fit the Egyptian market needs," said Mohamed Khayat, Executive Chairman of New and Renewable Energy Authority in the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy.

"The renewable energy projects need flexible dynamic policies in order to succeed," he said.

Renewable energy projects attract foreign investments and Egypt is also investing to save electricity consumption from the traditional sources, Khayat said, adding that the use of biomass energy is spreading in Egypt and there are chances in its expansion.

Former speaker of Ministry of Electricity Mohamed El Yamany said the Egyptian government succeeded in eliminating the power cuts though people are not saving electricity.

The Ministry of Electricity is working in two directions which are raising the efficiency of power plants and enhancing the efficiency of power consumption, he said.

Ashish Khanna, Program Leader for Sustainable Development (Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti), praised the Egyptian government's efforts in expanding the renewable energy projects and urged Egyptians to install solar cells in their houses.

Khanna said that renewable energy is the future of labour market for the Egyptian youth.
Indian labour market is seeing a shift towards gig economy, with an increasing number of workers seeking contractual or freelancing opportunities, and services sector is embracing it at the fastest pace, says a report.

According to the global job site Indeed, recruiters too are rethinking their remote work programmes, 7.7 per cent of all companies posting on the Indeed platform in India offer flexible work opportunities.

In addition, 2.8 per cent of all job postings on the site from India are for part-time or contractual roles.

As per data collected by Indeed from January, 2013 onwards till October this year, indicate a seasonal trend in contractual hiring in the services sector, where jobs of this nature increase towards the close of the year and remain relatively low at other times.

It has been observed that the percentage of part-time job opportunities rises from an average 5-10 per cent to a yearly high of 20-25 per cent between November to February, it said.

Other sectors that constitute the top 10 in terms of job flexibility include media, real estate, legal, hospitality, tech help, management, medicine allied and education.

"Employees are increasingly willing to sacrifice the additional benefits that come with a permanent job, such as gratuity or health insurance, in exchange for a greater amount of flexibility," Indeed India MD Sashi Kumar said.

Indeed data demonstrates an increasing demand for flexible work arrangements, especially in larger cities, where a daily commute might be time consuming.

"Of the leading metros in the country, New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore contribute 27.2 per cent, 12.4 per cent and 12.9 per cent respectively to all flexible work opportunities available in India," Kumar noted.

Given increasing employee preference for flexible arrangements, companies are proactively taking measures to ensure that all members of the company feel involved.

Companies are working to leverage technology to bridge the physical distance remote work might bring. From video conferencing to document sharing platforms, employers are going the extra mile, the report said.

The leading segment in terms of job flexibility, is the service sector, with the role of 'examiner' offering flexible work arrangements in 75.2 per cent of all job postings.

Other job profiles that correspond to maximum flexibility across sectors include freelance photographer (68.5 per cent), property management consultant (53.6 per cent), claims investigator (52.8 per cent), freelance writer (49.5 per cent) and event planner (43.2 per cent) among others.

A job role that sees a large number of openings, that of Data Entry Clerk, is also seeing part-time opportunities making up 16.9 per cent of all job postings on the site, the report noted.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today invited Chinese investors to invest in Karnataka, saying the state is ready to receive them with open arms and promised the speedy implementation of projects.

"India's exports to China touched USD 8.86 billion, whereas China's exports were USD 61.54 billion. I urge investors from China to invest in Karnataka," he said at the inauguration of 6th India-China Forum here. India-China bilateral trade also had reached USD 70.4 billion in 2015, he added.

Siddaramaiah said Karnataka is ready to receive China with open arms in future to keep discussions and engagements moving forward. "We will do everything possible to enable seamless conduct of business, with total transparency and with the assurance that your projects will be speedily implemented," he said.

Karnataka Government will continue to actively engage with China and explore all possible avenues to make them its valued partners in building of a strong and prosperous state, Siddaramaiah said.

He also expressed happiness over Karntaka signing Sister-State-Province agreement with Provincial Government of Sichuan of the People's Republic of China.

"It is just the beginning in identifying synergies in technologies which would strengthen and deepen the foundation of a Future-oriented Partnership between India and China and Karnataka and China, evolving business ties, particularly in defence,energy,infrastructure,agriculture and food processing, Information Technology and environment,to name a few,"he said.

Siddaramaiah said Karnatakas Industrial Policy for 2014-19 was manufacturing centric with a vision is to make the state an innovative and hi-tech manufacturing hub of India. He said India and China's relations has undergone an evolution in recent years developing along a positive track, into a friendly partnership.

"It has made great strides in recent years and has become truly multi-dimensional, spurred by a significant convergence of interests, mutual goodwill and high-level exchanges," he added.
Tax rates of 150-200 items are likely to be cut from 28 percent, with the GST Council set to approve sweeping changes including simpler procedures, a single return filing form for small firms and several changes to make composition scheme more attractive.

The GST Councilthe apex body for decision making headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley today in its 23rd meeting in Guwahati may also decide to do away with the distinction between air-conditioned (AC) and non-air conditioned restaurants (not under composition scheme) and tax them at 12 percent.

The reduction in rates will be a significant step towards simplification of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) to support the trader community ahead of the election in Gujarat that will be held in two phasesDecember 4 and 11. Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) have been hit by the implementation of the new indirect tax system and crucial steps will be taken to mitigate their challenges.

While the Council has till now rationalised rates of over 100 items, a committee of officers from the revenue department will today recommend bringing down rates of daily use items including furniture, geometry boxes, furniture, cocoa products, sanitary wares and shampoo from 28 percent to a lower tax bracket.

GST, billed as the country's biggest indirect tax overhaul, has consolidated a dozen of state and central duties into one single levy. All goods and services have been fitted into four broad slab structure 5, 12, 18 and 28 percentalong with a cess on luxury and demerit goods such as tobacco, pan masala and aerated drinks.

Meanwhile, in a letter to Jaitley, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal on Thursday said that 'GST has been introduced in undue haste causing huge damage both to government revenues and costs to business'.

"Nowhere this appears more evident than in the working of the GSTN where basic preparedness for the much ambitious information technology platform has been abysmal. If not corrected quickly, GST may turn out to be the biggest destroyer of the Indian economy for which successive generation will pay a price beyond redemption," Badal said.

On Thursday, four leaders from Congress including Badal and Karnataka Agriculture Minsiter Krishna Byre Gowda, among others, called for power petroleum and real estate to be brought under GST.

Since its implementation from July 1, the new indirect tax system has faced criticism owing to the teething troubles including higher rate for daily use items, lack of clarity on return filing, errors in invoice matching, and major technical snags on the information technology portal GST Network (GSTN), among others.

A group of ministers (GoM) headed by Bihar Finance Minister Sushil Modi is expected to present a paper to the Council, proposing crucial changes in the return filing process. To make the return filing process simpler, especially for small taxpayers, the GoM may recommend filing of only the summary return form GSTR3B, and doing away with filing GSTR1, GSTR2 and GSTR3.

GSTR3B is a summary form, which a business is supposed to file for July to December before the 20th of the next month. However, a taxpayer does not have to provide invoice level information in the form.

Currently, businesses have to file returns in GSTR1 (outward supplies or goods that they sell), GSTR2 (inward supplies or inputs and raw material that they buy) and GSTR3 (finalisation of outward and inward supplies of taxable items) and one annual return.

Another GoM headed by Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma will present its key recommendations pertaining to the composition scheme. The committee has recommended raising the eligibility threshold to Rs 1.5 cr from Rs 1 cr revenue per annum.

Sarma has also recommended that rates under the composition scheme--plan that provides lower tax rate for traders, restaurants and manufacturers--to be reduced.
Senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and the differently-abled can look forward to availing of basic banking services, right from the comfort of their home.

The RBI asked banks to provide doorstep banking facilities to senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently-abled persons by December this year.

Banks have been directed that senior citizens and specially-abled persons, including the visually-impaired, should be provided basic services like pick-up and delivery of cash, chequebooks and demand drafts at their residence.

Issuing a notification in this regard, the RBI said "it has been observed" that there are occasions when banks discourage or turn away senior citizens and differently-abled persons from availing banking facilities in branches.

"... in view of the difficulties faced by senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently-abled or infirm persons (having medically certified chronic illness or disability) including those who are visually impaired, banks are advised to make concerted effort to provide basic banking facilities...," the RBI said in a communication to banks, including small finance and payments banks.

These facilities should include pick-up of cash and instruments against receipt, delivery of cash against withdrawal from accounts, delivery of demand drafts, submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) documents and Life Certificates at the premises or residence of such customers.

"Banks are advised to implement these instructions by December 31, 2017, in letter and spirit and give due publicity in their bank branches and websites," it said.

The RBI noted that notwithstanding the need to push digital transactions and use of ATMs, it is imperative to be sensitive to the requirements of senior citizens and the differently-abled.

The notification further said that in addition to the facility of Digital Life Certificate under 'Jeevan Praman' Scheme, pensioners can submit physical Life Certificate form at any branch of the pension-paying bank.

"However, it is observed that often the same is not updated promptly by the receiving branch in the Core Banking Solution (CBS) system of the bank, resulting in avoidable hardship to the pensioners," it noted, asking banks to ensure that when a Life Certificate is submitted in any branch, including a non-home branch, the same should be updated and uploaded promptly in the CBS.

The RBI asked banks to provide a minimum of 25 cheque leaves every year for a savings bank account free of charge. They should not insist on physical presence of any customer, including senior citizens and differently-abled persons, for getting cheque books.

Banks have also been advised that a fully KYC compliant account should automatically be converted into a 'Senior Citizen Account' based on the date of birth available in the bank's records.

According to the apex bank, banks should provide senior citizens and differently-abled persons Form 15G/H (related to tax deduction at source) once a year (preferably in April).
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This weekend, top public sector bank (PSB) heads will huddle with experts and government officials to discuss and brainstorm banking sectors troubles and focus on improvement in credit growth and reducing non-performing assets amid capital needs for most banks.

At Gurugram in a conclave titled Vichar Manthan over two-days, seven groups led by a PSB chief executive officers will give presentations. This is the third such gathering after previous conclaves called as Gyan Sangam were held in 2015 and 2016.

A senior large public sector bank chief told Moneycontrol, We are meeting to discuss and deliberate on ways to improve the banking sectors performance, address governance and human resource issues, how to grow credit in the system and also take updates on the ongoing insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings. Capital needs are now being supported by the government as well.

The government has already laid out Rs 2.11-lakh crore capital infusion plan through Rs 1.35 lakh crore worth of recapitalisation bonds and Rs 76,000 crore through budgetary allocations and market fund raising.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to address the two-day conclave at the State Bank of India (SBI) Academy in Gurugram. Early sessions on Saturday at the conclave will dwell on lessons from nine years of loan growth covering days of heady expansion, the effects of the slowdown, and stress recognition, a banker confirmed.

According to a Business Standard report, the presentations will also touch upon themes of digital payments, financial inclusion, responsible and responsive banking. A senior bank executive said the government had accorded priority to increasing lending to medium, small and micro enterprises as they had a higher potential for employment creation. This will be one theme for a presentation with experience sharing on need assessment, monitoring, prompt support for units facing strain, and reducing risks of slippage.

There will also be a discussion around human resources, given the large-scale retirements at the senior level, and practices. Plus, a rapid shift in the skills requirement at the entry level due to digital banking and expansion of networks are expected to come up for discussion to flesh out immediate and long-term strategies, the report said.

In 2015, the government organised a similar conclave, Gyan Sangam, at the National Institute of Bank Management in Pune for banks and financial institutions. This was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Its second edition was held in March 2016 at the SBI Academy, after which the government said it had embarked on the third phase of reforms in PSBs that would look into all aspects, including consolidation.

Last week, the government announced the structure of an alternative mechanism to examine proposals for amalgamation. The mechanism, to be headed by the finance minister, may direct PSBs to examine consolidation proposals.

There are now 21 government-owned banks including the now merged SBI. The banking scenario has changed since bank nationalisation in the 1970s and 1980s with an increased presence of private banks, non-banking finance companies, regional rural banks, payments banks, and small finance banks.

The mechanism is expected to facilitate the creation of strong and competitive banks in the public sector. These entities will be better able to meet the credit needs of a growing economy and absorb shocks with an improved capacity to raise resources without depending unduly on the exchequer.
Ahead of the crucial meeting of the GST Council, Congress-ruled states today made a strong pitch for rationalisation in tax rates of commonly used goods and simplification of procedures under the new regime.

Punjab, Karnataka and Puducherry, where the Congress is in power, jointly voiced their reservations over glitches with the GST tax-filing network, demanding that real estate and petroleum products be brought under the new regime and the tax rate be kept at no more than 18 per cent.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the opposition party and its leaders have been targeting the government over difficulties faced by some businesses under the GST regime, with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi even calling it a "Gabbar-Singh Tax (GST)".

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal said all Congress states are unanimous that if the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is to be run, it should be run properly.

"If you keep electricity, petroleum, real estate out of the ambit of GST, then about 50 per cent of total revenue is out of GST. If GST is run properly in 150 countries, then why should it not run smoothly in India?" he asked while interacting with reporters here.

Punjab, he said, wants rationalisation in tax rates, simplification of procedures and removal of glitches in GST Network.

The GST Council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, will meet here tomorrow. It may take crucial decisions on pruning the list of items in the 28 per cent tax category.

The officers committee held its meeting today.

"We want that discussions should start on inclusion of real estate and petroleum in GST," Badal said, adding that while bringing the real estate sector within GST, the needs of autonomy of states to levy stamp duty and property taxes should be balanced and agricultural lands and old buildings should be kept out of GST.

The Congress, he said, is in favour of inclusion of petrol, diesel, natural gas, ATF and crude oil under the GST's ambit. The five products along with alcohol have been kept out of GST, for now.

Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the Congress had earlier asked that the GST rate should not be more than 18 per cent, but the government went ahead with the five tax rate slabs of 0, 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.

He said the 28 per cent tax slab was based on the premise that many luxury and sin goods should be taxed at a higher rate, but in realty "a lot of items of mass consumption were also in 28 per cent".

Construction material such as tiles, bricks, cement, sanitaryware and taps were put in the 28 per cent tax bracket, causing a lot of burden on individuals and home builders.

"Barring real goods of luxury or sin nature, we should bring (tax rate) down to 18 per cent (on all other products currently in that category)," he said. "We hope there will be a positive and result oriented discussion on that issue tomorrow."

He suggested that over time 12 per cent and 18 per cent should converge and only few items should remain under the 28 per cent slab.

According to the Karnataka minister, when GST was implemented in July this year, it was estimated that only 7-8 states would need compensation to make up for the revenue deficit arising out of the new regime.

"However, in reality, baring five states, all states needed compensation. This may be because the hastiness in GST implementation has reduced compliance," he contended.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said handicraft should be exempted from tax.

"In tomorrow's meeting with the GST Council, the Congress will demand to completely abolish the 28 per cent tax slab. The maximum tax limit should not be more than 18 per cent," the Puducherry chief minister said.

"In Puducherry, tourism is severely affected due to high taxation in the hotels segment. The state's revenue has come down by 30 per cent in the last three months," he added.

He was accompanied by a number of Congress ministers from various states, who came here to attend the meet.
The RBI today came out with simplified norms for hedging exchange rate risk under which companies can take exposure of up to USD 30 million on gross basis.

The scheme of simplified hedging facility was first announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in August 2016 and the draft scheme was released in April 2017.

"The facility is being introduced with a view to simplify the process for hedging exchange rate risk by reducing documentation requirements, avoiding prescriptive stipulations regarding products, purpose and hedging flexibility, and to encourage a more dynamic and efficient hedging culture," said a RBI notification.

The facility for resident and non-resident entities (other than individuals) to hedge exchange rate risk on transactions, contracted or anticipated, permissible under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) will be effective from January 1, 2018.

The products covered will be any Over the Counter (OTC) derivative or Exchange Traded Currency Derivative (ETCD), the RBI said adding cap on outstanding contracts is "USD 30 million, or its equivalent, on a gross basis".

"If hedging requirement of the user exceeds the limit in course of time, the designated bank may re-assess and, at its discretion, extend the limit up to 150 per cent of the stipulated cap," the guidelines said.

It further said banks should have an internal policy regarding the time limit up to which a hedge contract for a given underlying can be rolled-over or rebooked by the user.
No one exactly knows what will happen to a substantial quantity of demonetised currency notes which are floating in countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. The central government is yet to take a decision if it will be accepting them, even as the possibility remains slim.

Economic affairs secretary Subhash Garg, reportedly, told the Parliaments standing committee on finance that some of the demonetised currency is yet to be returned and the Indian neighbours have raised their concerns with the government, reported The Times of India. The committee is preparing a report on the demonetisation and digitisation.

The possibility of New Delhi accepting those notes is very low as the government has strongly opposed any fresh windows even for Indian citizens. As 99.3 percent of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination currency is back into RBIs coffers, the prospects get even slimmer.

The committee is looking forward to hearing other officials representing various government departments and institutes. According to the Times of India report, representatives of industry chambers, the ministry of corporate affairs and agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence are going to speak with the committee.

Senior officials likefinancial services secretary Rajiv Kumar, CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra and Subhash Garg have also been asked to submit information critical for valuation of demonetisation.

Expectedly, Congress MPs in the committee have argued that demonetisation had an impact on brand India, whereas, BJP's Rajiv Chandrasekhar backed the move. The chairman of the committee Veerappa Moily noted that a draft report can be prepared as they wait for additional information from various departments and ministries.
The New Delhi bench of the National Company Law Tribunal has started corporate insolvency resolution proceedings (CIRP) against Applied Electro Magnetic for not paying salary to an employee for a long time, the Times of India reported.

This is possibly the first ever instance of NCLT giving such a ruling under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the report said.

Nitin Gupta, a manager at Applied Electro Magnetic, filed a petition against the company under the provisions of IBC as an operational creditor. His petition said that the salary due was to the tune of Rs 46.77 lakh, piling up since 2008 because the company kept making late and irregular payments.

The company disputed Guptas claim, but admitted to overdue of salary of Rs 28.84 lakh. Based on this admission, the bench ruled that petitioner Gupta fell under the definition of operational creditor, and the salary dues qualified as operational debt, according to the TOI article.

Applied Electro Magnetic had opposed the period of due salary and said the claimed dues between 2015 and 2017 were "barred by limitation", but NCLT dismissed the contention.

The tribunal also said that in case the salary due is only Rs 1 lakh, insolvency application would be accepted against such companies.

"Under the provisions of the code even if the claim of the applicant is only Rs 1 lakh and default has been committed by the respondent in payment of such amount, the application (for initiating insolvency) is to be accepted," NCLT stated.

The portion of recoverable due, based on the claims of the creditor, will be determined by a committee of creditors and the interim resolution professional, according to the bench. The NCLT imposed a moratorium on Applied Electro Magnetic and referred for appointment of an interim resolution professional (IRP) to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.

Noting that companies should not take employee dues lightly, K S Ravichandran of KSR & Co Company Secretaries told TOI that any liability to any creditor, including employees, that is above Rs 1 lakh must be taken care of (by the company) if there is no dispute. Otherwise, it would trigger the insolvency process, which is both costly and damaging, he added.
3:30 pm Market Closing: Equity benchmarks ended mildly higher on Friday after volatile trade throughout session ahead of September industrial output and October inflation data due next week.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 63.63 points at 33,314.56 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 12.80 points to 10,321.80.

About 1,480 shares declined against 1,197 advancing shares on the BSE.

3:25 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices gained strength amid consolidation in late trade, after SBI earnings and GST meet.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 109.59 points at 33,360.52 and the NSE Nifty rose 33.50 points to 10,342.50.

3:15 pm Citi on SBI Life: Global research firm Citi has initiated coverage with buy rating on SBI Life Insurance Company and set a price target at Rs 800 per share, implying a potential upside of 22 percent from Thursday's close.

SBI Life looks well positioned to capitalise on increasing share of financial savings in India, it feels.

The brokerage house said franchise strengths would drive robust growth. It expects 200 basis points improvement in value of new business margin by March 2020.

It also expects value of new business to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 32 percent and average return on embedded value of 20 percent by March 2020.

The Sensex was down 42.92 points at 33208.01, while the Nifty was down 22.30 points at 10286.70. The market breadth was negative as 1037 shares advanced against a decline of 1524 shares, while 140 shares were unchanged.

2:49 PM GST rate cut: The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Friday decided to slash rates on more than 175 items, reducing taxes on these from the existing 28 percent in one of the biggest tax reductions since the new system kicked-in from July 1.

The council, which is currently meeting in Guwahati, has decided to cut keep only 50 luxury and `sin goods like tobacco in the highest slab, paving the way for price cuts in a raft of commonly used goods from furniture to sanitary ware.

The tax cuts will have a revenue implication of about Rs 20,000 crore.

The council is set to approve sweeping changes including simpler procedures, a single return filing form for small firms and several changes to make composition scheme more attractive.

2:30 pm Results: Car and utility vehicles manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra posted a better than expected performance for the September quarter, with profit rising over 22 percent.

The company posted a profit of Rs 1,411 crore against RS 1,156.7 crore it posted during the same quarter last year. A poll of analysts by CNBC-TV18 had seen this figure to be around Rs 1,228 crore.

Revenues were higher by 19.4 percent at RS 12,018 crore against Rs 10,065 crore year on year.

At an operational level, the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) soared 35.1 percent at RS 1,923.4 crore against Rs 1,423.6 crore last year, while the operating margin came in at 16 percent, higher than last years 14.1 percent.

2:08 pm Bonus issue: Mahindra & Mahindra, the utility vehicle and tractor maker, has announced bonus issue in the ratio of 1 share for every share held.

2:05 pm Market Check: Equity benchmarks extended gains amid volatility in afternoon, led by banks after SBI earnings.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 65.51 points at 33,316.44 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 12 points to 10,321.

The broader markets continued to outperform benchmarks, with the Nifty Midcap index rising 0.4 percent and Smallcap up 0.75 percent.

Here are the top headlines at 2 pm from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

1:57 pm Auto sales: Festive season failed to bring cheers to automobile manufacturers as domestic passenger vehicle sales dropped marginally in October, the first decline in four months with companies resorting to inventory correction.

Passenger vehicle (PV) sales declined to 2,79,837 units in October from 2,80,677 units in the same month last year, according to the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) today.

Car sales were also down 5.32 percent to 1,84,666 units last month as against 1,95,036 units in October last year.

This is also the first decline since June this year when car sales declined by 11.24 per cent.

1:40 pm Stake buy: Petronet LNG is eyeing a stake in the planned LNG expansion projects in Qatar as it looks to venture overseas to diversify its portfolio, its MD and CEO Prabhat Singh said.

Petronet, India's biggest LNG importer, wants to buy a stake that will give it a position on the board of the Qatari company, he said.

It currently buys 7.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum from RasGas of Qatar under a 25-year contract. RasGas had in the contract promised to give 5 per cent stake to Petronet or its nominee in the liquefication plant in the Gulf nation.

But Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) which was assigned to pick up the equity hesitated in making the USD 135 million payment. The stake is now worth USD 2 billion.

US-based SmallCap World Fund has

hiked its stake in real estate and hospitality firm Delta Corp by 2.79 percent through an open market transaction for an estimated sum of Rs 210 crore.

According to a regulatory filing, SmallCap World Fund, which held 2.36 per cent stake in Delta Corp earlier, bought 74.62 lakh shares representing 2.79 percent of equity stake.

The shares were bought on November 7 and based on the weighted average price of Rs 281.9 of the sock, the transaction is estimated to have been valued at Rs 210.37 crore.

Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and his wife Rekha Jhunjhunwala also hold over 8 percent stake in the company.

1:10 pm Expansion: DCM Shriram will invest Rs 838 crore for expansion of its sugar and chemical business, according to the company's quarterly report.

Already, the company is implementing projects involving investments of Rs 350 crore for setting up of a distillery and aluminium chloride units besides expansion of its chlor-alkali unit. These will be commissioned in the second quarter of the next fiscal.

In its quarterly report, DCM Shriram said the board has given nod for additional investment of Rs 838 crore for expansion projects.

Out of this, Rs 500 crore is estimated to be invested for expansion of its DSCL Sugar-Hariawan unit. With the capacity enhancement, total sugar business capacity will increase from 33,000 tonnes crushing per day (TCD) to 38,000 TCD.

12:55 pm SBI in focus: State Bank of India's second quarter standalone profit missed analyst expectations, falling 37 percent year-on-year to Rs 1,581.55 crore from Rs 2,538.32 crore crore.

Net interest income grew by 27.3 percent to Rs 18,585.9 crore from Rs 14,600.2 crore YoY, which was slightly higher than CNBC-TV18 poll estimates of Rs 19,088.7 crore.

Gross NPAs were lower at 9.83 percent against 9.97 percent QoQ.

12:45 pm Results: Public sector lender Bank of India's second quarter earnings beat analyst expectations, and even the asset quality improved, but the loan growth was tepid.

Profit for the quarter stood at Rs 179.1 crore, which was higher compared with Rs 126.8 crore in year-ago despite lower other income and operating income. It was driven by net interest income, lower provisions and improvement in asset quality.

Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, grew by 6.9 percent year-on-year to Rs 2,908 crore for quarter ended September 2017, with slow loan growth (0.3 percent YoY).

"Total advances increased to Rs 3.64 lakh crore in Q2FY18, compared with Rs 3.63 lakh crore in year-ago," the bank said.

12:30 pm Earnings: Auto ancillary products maker Motherson Sumi Systems has reported better-than-expected profit growth of 23.7 percent for July-September quarter, but operational numbers missed estimates on Friday.

Consolidated profit increased to Rs 593.4 crore in quarter ended September 2017, from Rs 479.8 crore in year-ago. It was estimated at Rs 498 crore for the quarter, according to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18.

Revenue from operations during the quarter grew by 32.7 percent year-on-year to Rs 13,431 crore, the company said in its filing.

Operating profit grew by 26 percent to Rs 1,251 crore with margin shrinking by 50 basis points to 9.3 percent in Q2 YoY, which were below CNBC-TV18 poll estimates of Rs 1,328 crore and 9.8 percent, respectively.

12:20 pm Mineral Auction: Minerals worth at least Rs 50,000 crore can be auctioned from 13-15 blocks in the remaining four months of the current fiscal with the upcoming proposed amendments in the auctioning rules, a top official of the Ministry of Mines said.

These 13-15 mines could include limestone, iron ore, emerald and molybdenum among others.

"We would like the progress to pick up. We are certainly hoping that we will easily cross the Rs one lakh crore figure for the current year, with new 13-15 blocks expected in the remaining four months of FY18," Union Mines secretary Arun Kumar said here last evening.

12:05 pm Buzzing: Just Dial share price was off day's high in afternoon after its clarification over the news that US internet giant Google showed interest to acquire the company.

The stock rallied nearly 20 percent in early trade to hit an intraday high of Rs 549.85 on the BSE, but trimmed gains to trade with gains of 7.75 percent at Rs 494.55 per share at 12:17 hours IST.

"Google, a subsidiary of parent Alphabet, has been talking to Just Dial for an acquisition for some time. Both the companies entered into exclusive talks about two months ago, a media report said.

Just Dial, however, clarified that as of now there is no proposal in respect of acquisition of business of the company by Google and news published in newspaper is factually incorrect.

Here are the top headlines at 12pm from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

11:50 am Management Interview: "We have Achieved volume growth of 4 percent in Q2, Rajeev Mathur, MD of Mahanagar Gas said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

"We expect that in the next quarter and in the next six months the volume growth should be much more than what we have been able to achieve in this quarter," he said.

11:40 am Earnings: Oracle Financial Services Software's Q2 profit fell 7.5 percent sequentially to Rs 342 crore and revenue declined 1.2 percent to Rs 1,189.5 crore.

Operating profit slipped 2.2 percent QoQ to Rs 513.6 crore and margin contracted by 40 bps to 43.2 percent in Q2.

11:30 am Market Check: The BSE Sensex recouped its early losses to trade flat in late morning deals while the NSE Nifty reclaimed 10,300-mark. The broader markets outperformed, with the Nifty Midcap rising 0.3 percent.

Investors await SBI Q2 earnings and GST meet outcome later today.

At 11:28 hrs IST, the 30-share BSE Sensex was up 12.24 points at 33,263.17 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 0.90 points to 10,309.90.

Aurobindo Pharma fell 4 percent and Tata Motors was down 3 percent, even as Q2 earnings were better-than-expected. L&T was biggest gainer, up nearly 4% on winning order worth Rs 4,023 crore.

FMCG was biggest gainer among sectoral indices, up 1 percent led by ITC that gained 1.8 percent.

11:05 am USFDA Approval: Zydus today, a part of Cadila Group, announced that the Mexico regulatory authority COFEPRIS (Federal Commission for the Protection Against Sanitary Risk), has granted marketing approval to commercialise Lipaglyn (Saroglitazar Magnesium) in Mexico.

The drug is used for the treatment of Dyslipidemia in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 and Hypertriglyceridemia in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 not controlled by statins.

10:58 am Divis in focus: Drug firm Divi's Laboratories today said the US health regulator has "closed out" a warning letter issued to a unit at Visakhapatnam following evaluation of corrective actions taken by the company at the plant.

"Divi's Laboratories has been informed by the USFDA that the agency has completed evaluation of the company's corrective actions in response to FDA's warning letter..dated April 13, 2017" the company said in a BSE filing.

"We also note from the update on FDA's website that they have closed-out the warning letter," it added.

10:45 am Auto sales: Domestic passenger vehicle sales declined marginally to 2,79,837 units in October from 2,80,677 units in the same month last year.

Car sales were down 5.32 percent to 1,84,666 units last month as against 1,95,036 units in October last year, according to the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) today.

Motorcycle sales last month declined by 3.50 percent to 11,04,498 units compared to 11,44,512 units in October 2016.

Total two-wheeler sales in October were also lower by 2.76 percent to 17,50,966 units compared to 18,00,668 units in the year-ago month.

Sales of commercial vehicles, however, rose by 6.44 percent to 69,793 units in October, the SIAM said.

10:35 am MOSt on SAIL: Shares of Steel Authority of India (SAIL) gained 3 percent in morning as the company's net loss narrowed in the quarter ended September 2017.

The company has reported net loss at Rs 539.1 crore against loss of Rs 731.6 crore in a year ago period.

Revenue has increased by 21.3 percent at Rs 13,617 crore against Rs 11,225 crore.

The operating profit (EBITDA) was up 723 percent at Rs 914 crore and EBITDA margin was up 570 bps at 6.7 percent.

Brokerage house Motilal Oswal has maintained sell rating on the stock with increased target price at Rs 43 per share.

10:24 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks remained under pressure amid consolidation, tracking subdued global cues. Investors await outcome of GST Council meet and SBI earnings later today.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 58.78 points at 33,192.15 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 19.60 points to 10,289.40.

All the sectoral indices led by metal, auto, pharma and technology stocks were trading in the negative terrain, falling by around half a percent each.

Brokers said sentiment dampened largely in tandem with a weak trend at other Asian markets following overnight weakness at Wall Street amid fears of delay in US corporate tax cut.

Tata Motors fell by 2.4 percent even as it posted three-fold jump in consolidated profit for the September quarter. Aurobindo Pharma and Asian Paints were down 2-3 percent while Reliance Industries declined 1 percent.

10:05 am Buzzing: Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) rose more than 1 percent in morning as its construction arm won orders worth Rs 4023 crore.

The heavy civil infrastructure business has won orders worth Rs 1906 crore, which includes major government order of Rs 1825 crore in JV with international partner.

The company's building & factories business won order worth Rs 830 crore for construction of a cancer hospital in Muscat, Oman.

The water and effluent treatment segment has received engineering, procurement & construction orders worth Rs 788 crore.

The power transmission segment bagged orders worth Rs 342 crore and smart world communication business has bagged order worth Rs 157 crore.

Here are the top headlines at 10am from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

10:00 am New Listing: Mahindra Logistics debuted at its issue price of Rs 429, but immediately fell 2 percent to hit early low of Rs 420 on the NSE.

9:48 am Rupee Trade: The rupee depreciated by 11 paise to 65.05 against the US dollar in morning at the interbank forex market today on foreign fund outflows.

The rupee opened lower at 65.08 per dollar against previous close of 64.94 per dollar. It dropped further to hit a low of 65.11 per dollar in morning session.

A currency trader said increased demand for the US currency from importers and banks and losses in domestic equity market weighed on the rupee.

9:38 am Results Estimates: State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, is expected to post profit at Rs 2,507.6 crore for the quarter ended September 2017, compared with net loss of Rs 560 crore in year-ago.

Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, may grow 5.5 percent to Rs 19,088.7 crore year-on-year, according to average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18.

The commentary from the new management will be closely watched, especially related to asset quality (slippages and watchlist) and loan growth for second half of current financial year.

Analysts feel if slippages come lower than previous quarter (Rs 30,059 crore in Q1FY18) and asset quality improves (from 9.97 percent in Q1) then that will be taken positively by the Street.

9:25 am Earnings: Drug firm Aurobindo Pharma today reported a 28.96 percent rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 780.97 crore for the September quarter of the current fiscal mainly on account of robust sales in the US and European Union.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 605.55 crore for the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, Aurobindo Pharma said in a BSE filing.

Consolidated total revenue from operations rose to Rs 4,435.89 crore for the quarter under consideration as against Rs 3,775.45 crore for the same period a year ago.

The US formulation sales of the company rose to Rs 2,098.9 crore as against Rs 1,735.1 crore in the same period year ago, Aurobindo Pharma said.

The sale of formulations in the European market grew to Rs 1,113.5 crore from Rs 813.4 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

9:20 am Buzzing: Bank of America Merrill Lynch initiated coverage on the Britannia Industries with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 5,500. The target implies an upside of 16 percent. The stock gained over half a percent.

The research firm believes that there could be a healthy upward trend in the operating income to sustain. It also expects volume, revenue and earnings per share to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 percent, 15 percent and 18 percent over the three financial years till March 2020.

It also said that operating income witnessed a CAGR of 32 percent during the last five financial years and for the next 10 years, operating income could grow at 15 percent CAGR.

The brokerage house also said that it expects CAGR of 20 percent in Britannias global business, starting Nepal in the next financial years.

In terms of the stock, it said that higher profitability and market share gains will support premium valuations, while large cash generation raises chances of higher dividend payouts.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened mildly lower on last day of the week Friday, with the Nifty falling below 10,300 level. Investors focussed on GST meet outcome and SBI earnings later today.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 67.70 points at 33,183.23 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 24.80 points to 10,284.20.

Aurobindo Pharma, Jindal Steel, SBI and HUL were mildly higher. Tata Motors, M&M, BPCL, Bosch, Motherson Sumi, Axis Bank and Hero MotoCorp were early losers.

Just Dial was up 11% as media report indicated that Google is in talks with the Mumbai-based service engine to acquire its business.

SRF, TV Today and Aptech were losers. SAIL, CG Power, PTC, DFM Foods and Den Networks were gainers post earnings.
Canara Robeco Mutual Fund has allowed its mutual fund investors to use MF Utilities India's MF Utility portal for transactions in addition to the existing platforms, the fund house said in a notice.

MF Utility is a 'transaction aggregator portal' and a shared service initiative of various asset management companies in India, wherein it enables the investors to transact in multiple schemes across fund houses.

To use the portal, Canara Robeco Mutual Fund has signed an agreement with MF Utility India.

Unit holders availing MF Utility can either transact electronically or physically in the authorised points of service approved by MF Utility India.
OnePlus will be unveiling its much-awaited smartphone OnePlus 5T on November 16 at 9.30 PM IST. The event will be held in Brooklyn, New York and will be live-streamed by the Chinese smartphone player.



Learn how you can be there live when we introduce the #OnePlus5T. https://t.co/JkqCyKkekX pic.twitter.com/iXq0DoU6gA

 OnePlus (@oneplus) November 6, 2017

The company is marketing the launch event of the OnePlus 5T as "A New View" event, showing thinner bezels in the display image.

Source: OnePlus, YouTube

The company has revealed that the phone will retain 3.5 mm headphone jack. Oneplus CEO Pete Lau in a blog post said, Sometimes, industry trends go against our core beliefs. This is one of those times when we respectfully disagree on what it means to be courageous. That's why we're proud to announce that we're keeping the headphone jack for the OnePlus 5T.

The company wants to keep the headphone jack keeping in mind audio quality and user freedom. In its surveys, the company found that 70 percent of the users prioritise sound quality, and wireless earbuds aren't there yet to provide the same quality of audio. Similarly, nearly 80 percent of their users use in-jack headphones. These numbers didnt make it practical to trade off the headphone jack for a wireless one, Lou said.

The phone maker, however, decided against wireless charging. Wireless charging is an exciting concept thats matured a lot over the last few years. But given the current state of this technology, Dash Charge is still the superior choice, Pete Lou said in another blog post.

Source: OnePlus India, YouTube

He reasoned that the maximum theoretical power delivered by wireless charging pads is around 15 watts which is 5 watts less than the dash charger company uses. Dash Charge produces 20 watts of power, reliably giving a days power in half an hour, he said.

He further argued that in case of wireless charging you have to keep your phone on the pad. There is no freedom to play games or chat while charging, unlike the wired charging.

OnePlus 5T Livestream

The launch will be live-streamed by the company on its official YouTube and Facebook pages. In addition, the company will also hold simulcast product launch event at select PVR theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. The tickets for the shows were made available on Bookmyshow website for Rs 99 since last week.

You can watch the OnePlus 5T launch livestream here

Rumoured specifications

The OnePlus 5T is expected to be OnePlus' first smartphone with a new bezel-less design and 18:9 aspect ratio display, however, there is no word on hardware specifications or official launch date just yet.

The new OnePlus 5T may also be coming with some hardware changes such as added water and dust resistance, apart from upgrades in the camera and battery department.

It is likely to run on Android 8.0 Oreo-based OxygenOS. The smartphone is expected to be powered by the same Snapdragon 835 SoC that was present on OnePlus 5. The price of the phone is expected to be around Rs 40,000, which will be slightly higher than that of its predecessor, OnePlus 5.

The much-awaited successor to its flagship smartphone OnePlus 5 will go on Early Access Sale on 21 November at 4.30 pm IST on Amazon India and OnePlus online store. The company in a statement said that the device will also be available through other sale channels.
Claiming that the overall atmosphere in poll-bound Gujarat was against the ruling BJP, NCP chief Sharad Pawar today said people had started "accepting" Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi which was reflected in the "huge" crowds at his rallies.

"A lot of fun was being made of Rahul Gandhi by those in power. But today, the reverse is happening. People are accepting him now and huge crowds can be seen at his rallies," Pawar told reporters here.

Gandhi has been spearheading an aggressive campaign in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state Gujarat, where Assembly polls will be held next month. The Congress has been out of power in the state for over two decades.

The veteran politician said the overall atmosphere in Gujarat is against the BJP, but refused to hazard a guess on the poll outcome.

"The overall atmosphere is against the BJP, but money power and government at the Centre can make anything possible. Hence, the political scenario there cannot be predicted before elections," he said.

Pawar said the NCP will contest a limited number of seats in Gujarat for which talks were on with the Congress.

"We will team up with anybody who is against the BJP across the country," he said.

Pawar, the wily Maratha politician, said it was not right for the Shiv Sena to attack the BJP-led governments. The Sena is a constituent of the ruling alliances led by the BJP both at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

Pawar had recently revealed that Sena president Uddhav Thackeray and party MP Sanjay Raut met him and "seemed not satisfied with the BJP government".

Responding to a query, Pawar said his advice was "routinely" sought about affairs of the state government, but not always implemented.

Pawar alleged "bogus" cases were being lodged against farmers opposing Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' Samruddhi expressway project.

"Such cases have come up before me. If this continues, the NCP will hit the streets along with farmers," he said.

On the protests held by opposition parties on the first anniversary of note ban yesterday, Pawar said people were "destroyed" by the exercise.

The Maratha strongman said farmers committed suicide during the tenure of the UPA government, of which is was a part, as well, but such instances were dealt with seriously.

"I myself toured the state with (former Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh and and demanded Rs 70,000 crore loan waiver for farmers. Today the situation is different. Farmers are not getting the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce and are facing extreme difficulties," he said.
By Major Sunil Shetty, SM (retd)

If someone said to you; "I visit" Somalia or Afghanistan "multiple times a year," you will be forced to wonder why?!

We all have known friends, family members or neighbors who travel periodically to destinations such as Bangkok, Bali, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc., but who and why, on earth, would anyone repeatedly visit trouble-torn areas of the world.

Well!! There is a breed of Indian entrepreneurs- who see opportunity and advantage in working in a conflict zone, says PVV Rama Raju, a former banker who played a key role in setting and scaling up two private banks in Afghanistan.

According to Raju, a conflict zone provides unique opportunity to achieve your goals or dream positions.

Raju, who has turned a consultant, frequently visits Kabul to provide consulting services to private banks.

Meet Sriram Sekhar, founder of My-Healthconnect, a startup that connects patients, especially for the remote area, with doctors for "medical opinion."

Sekhar has made multiple trips to Somalia this year and has a fascinating insight to share on how and why he picked this African country for gaining traction and scaling up his business.

During my decade, long entrepreneurial journey: that took me to difficult areas namely, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan and Haiti; I came across many Indian riskpreneurs (I prefer to call them) who took a tremendous risk to establish their venture in such trouble torn areas.

Similarly, for Sriram and Ramaraju their entrepreneurial journey pass through conflict zones of Somalia and Afghanistan.

Both the riskpreneurs concur; working in a war-torn area is a fulfilling experience.



Establishing Credibility: Since the time India emerged as a medical tourism destination; there has been a continuous flow of foreign patients, to India, especially from African countries.



However, there is intense competition among domestic hospital to grab the market share leaving little space for start-ups such as My-Healthconnect.

Thus, Sriram was exploring ways to connect with Somalian patients. However, the paramount thing on his mind was how to establish credibility in the foreign market, says, Sekhar.

He came up with the idea of organizing a medical camp in Somalia with Indian doctors.

Sekhar approached his portfolio of small and medium Indian hospitals with the idea, and one of them offered to send a doctor to the camp.

He then roped-in three regional doctors one each from Somalia, Syria, and Lebanon. The medical camp turned out to be a win-win for all involved.



Occupy mind-space: According to Sriram, the six days camps enabled him to occupyMind Space of his target customer by directly promoting and educating them about the platform. No amount of money spent on advertising would have achieved this one-on-one experience and direct two-way communication, says Sekhar.

Being smart with money: The whole trip was paid off by the revenue generated from the medical camp, says Sriram. Thereby the entire exercise was "net revenue neutral."The trip turned out to be great on two counts: I did not have to bear the expenses for my pocket and saw a jump in my user base, says Sriram.

Joining the dots: Sekhar has an interesting story to share on how he came to identify Somalia as the go-to- destination. From his past work experience in the healthcare sector, Sriram knew that Somali citizen were coming to India even for small treatments as their healthcare sector was not fully developed.

His research showed that Somali students, studying in Hyderabad, were driving the medical tourism as they either referred or brought their friends and family to the twin-city for treatment. This joining of dots helped Sriram home-on to Somalia as his first destination.

Identifying the Differential: Sriram knew his venture had to have a differential- that could set his start-up above the big corporate hospitals. Thus, he decided to work with small and medium Indian hospital as they provided economical and personalized health care to patients.The patient sees a lot of value with us, says Sekhar.

Community connect: Entrepreneurs tend to have a strong sense of joining and contributing to the society they work in. Similarly, during the week-long visit to the city of Bosaso in Somalia, Sriram took out time to deliver a lecture on healthcare & Career, at the University of Bosaso.They were the perfect audience to talk to on healthcare and health-related careers, wrote Sriram in his blog.



According to Sriram, his start-up benefited on two counts; establishing creditability among locals and introducing My-Healthconnect platform to patients.

Ramaraju, an independent consultant argues, it is a "moral duty to impart knowledge and help in capacity building" of people in conflict zones.

He has conducted numerous training workshops for Afghans in banking and finance in the past few years.

Entrepreneurs while chalking their path, in some case, found their journey passing through conflict zones of the world.

They saw opportunity in it; while others focused on danger, difficult or both.

Above all, deeply ingrained in their thought process, is a sense of community services- that stands out prominently.

(The author is founder-CEO of AskMentor with businesses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Views expressed are personal.)
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Bank of America Merrill Lynch initiated coverage on the Britannia Industries with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 5,500. The target implies an upside of 16 percent.

The research firm believes that there could be a healthy upward trend in the operating income to sustain. It also expects volume, revenue and earnings per share to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 percent, 15 percent and 18 percent over the three financial years till March 2020.

It also said that operating income witnessed a CAGR of 32 percent during the last five financial years and for the next 10 years, operating income could grow at 15 percent CAGR.

The brokerage house also said that it expects CAGR of 20 percent in Britannias global business, starting Nepal in the next financial years.

In terms of the stock, it said that higher profitability and market share gains will support premium valuations, while large cash generation raises chances of higher dividend payouts.

At 09:16 hrs Britannia Industries was quoting at Rs 4,757.00, down Rs 1.60, or 0.03 percent.
Angel Broking's currency report on EURINR

EURINR spot is expected to rise in todays trading session on account of weak DXY after the US President wrapped up his visit to Beijing with little in the way of fresh trade concessions and no new deal on how to handle North Korea. In a recent discussion, the German advisers have voiced their wants of needing a tighter ECB policy and longer Brexit talks. Also, Greece's Tsipras has said that the debt relief discussion shall be reviewed soon.

EURINR spot is expected to rise in todays trading session on account of weak DXY after the US President wrapped up his visit to Beijing with little in the way of fresh trade concessions and no new deal on how to handle North Korea.

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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Shares of Jaypee Infratech closed 10 percent higher on Friday after The Times of India reported that Sajjan Jindal-promoted JSW Steel plans to acquire a 30 percent stake in Jaypee Associates and jointly bid to invest in Jaypee Infratech which is facing insolvency proceedings. A meeting of the committee of Creditors is scheduled where the proposal is expected to be formally announced.

Jaypee Infratech was bought by Jaypee Associates under the insolvency proceedings at the behest of IDBI Bank which was in turn ordered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to take action.

The spotlight is on Jaypee Infratech as almost 25,000 flat buyers are stuck for close to a decade as the projects are running behind schedule. Protests by home buyers has prompted the government to rework rules in a bid to protect them.

The Supreme Court earlier on October refused permission to embattled Jaiprakash Associates to hive-off the rights of multi-crore six-lane Yamuna Expressway connecting Greater Noida with Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Jaiprakash Associates is a parent company of Jaypee Infratech.

Jaypee Infratech ended at Rs 13.84, up Rs 1.25, or 9.93 percent. It has touched an intraday high of Rs 13.84 and an intraday low of Rs 12.89.
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Just Dial share price was off day's high in afternoon after its clarification over the news that US internet giant Google showed interest to acquire the company.

The stock rallied nearly 20 percent in early trade to hit an intraday high of Rs 549.85 on the BSE, but trimmed gains.

It was trading with gains of 7.75 percent at Rs 494.55 per share at 12:17 hours IST.

"Google, a subsidiary of parent Alphabet, has been talking to Just Dial for an acquisition for some time. Both the companies entered into exclusive talks about two months ago, Business Standard said quoting an investment banker familiar with the discussions.

It may take some more time before the discussions are finalised, the report added.

Just Dial, however, clarified that as of now there is no proposal in respect of acquisition of business of the company by Google and news published in newspaper is factually incorrect.

The company said as part of its regular business, it does meet various relevant corporates for exploring any business / strategic opportunities and tie-ups.

Meanwhile, Just Dial, on November 6, reported a 26.5 percent growth year-on-year in profit at Rs 37.5 crore and 7.9 percent growth in revenue at Rs 194.5 crore for the quarter ended September 2017.

At 11:40 hours IST, the stock price was quoting at Rs 540.00, up Rs 81.00, or 17.65 percent on the BSE.
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Shares of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) touched a 52-week high of Rs 1,274, rising nearly 5 percent intraday Friday as it construction arm won orders worth Rs 4023 crore.

The heavy civil infrastructure business has won orders worth Rs 1906 crore, which includes major government order of Rs 1825 crore in JV with international partner.

The company's building & factories business won order worth Rs 830 crore for construction of a cancer hospital in Muscat, Oman.

The water and effluent treatment segment has received engineering, procurement & construction orders worth Rs 788 crore.

The power transmission segment bagged orders worth Rs 342 crore and smart world communication business has bagged order worth Rs 157 crore.

At 12:24 hrs Larsen & Toubro was quoting at Rs 1,270.80, up Rs 54.20, or 4.46 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Rakesh Patil
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Rain Industries, one of the largest manufacturers of carbon products in the world, reported stellar numbers aided by higher product pricing trends. the companys result underlines a sequential surge in price realizations which augurs well for companies like Himadri Specialty Chemical and Goa Carbon.

Quarterly update

For Rain industries, net sales growth of 36 percent was mainly aided by higher realization (+29 percent YoY) and higher volumes (+10 percent) in carbon business (71 percent of the 2016 sales). Key sub segments of the carbon business  CPC (calcined petroleum coke) and CTP (coal tar pitch) witnessed improved pricing due to structural changes in supply and improving demand scenario for the end market  aluminum and graphite. This resulted in higher EBITDA margin (+435 bps QoQ, +184 bps YoY) for the company.

In case of other businesses, the chemical business (19 percent of sales) witnessed lower volumes sequentially due to decline in chemical trading business wherein the company is reducing the share of low margin trading operations. Cement business was impacted by lower realisation (-14 percent YoY) offsetting volume increase of about 5 percent.

Carbon business leads the value growth

In terms of profitability, companys business is hugely skewed towards the carbon business (EBITDA contribution: 89 percent in 9M 2017. Both CPC and CTP benefit from the improving demand scenario for the aluminum industry.

In case of CTP, it additionally benefits from gains in the demand for graphite electrodes (used for steel manufacturing). Further, supply curtailment due to plant shutdowns by Koppers, last year and the Chinese governments effort to curb pollution suggests tight supply demand scenario.

In case of CPC, the situation is more striking because of pollution crackdown in China. China, which contributes about 55 percent of global production, has reportedly turned importer for its requirement. While China has also curtailed aluminum capacity but it has led to increased production elsewhere in the world. Further, as Chinas export of CPC has reduced, it has resulted in a net gain for the CPC manufacturers.

Capacity expansion

The company currently has a capacity of 3,455 kT for CTP and CPC. In each case, it is executing capacity expansion of about 16 percent. CPC plant (370 kT) in SEZ, Vizag is expected to be commissioned by Q1 2019. For CTP, the company is undergoing debottlenecking to the tune of about 200 kT in Europe (Germany and Belgium).

Raw material risk

Procurement of green petroleum coke (for CPC) and coal tar (for CTP) are the key risks for the company. Prices of green petroleum coke have also surged recently but the supply-demand imbalance is not as grave as it was in FY11. Further, the company is partially able to counter it and can process low grade raw material (high sulphur content) with the help of recent investments in desulfurization plant.

Rain Industries is currently trading at a multiple of 11.3x 2018 earnings, which is still not expensive after having a significant run this year. At present, CPC business is running near optimum capacity but CTP business can witness volume growth. 2019 onwards company gains from new capacity expansion. Current pricing realization can sustain in the medium-term in our view on account of structural supply curtailments. These aspects make the stock an accumulation candidate for long-term.

Having said that companys robust quarterly results have a positive takeaway for Himadri Speciality Chemical. Rain Industries sales realization for CTP business is broadly in the same range as that for Himadri and confirms that this is an industry wide trend.

Follow @anubhavsays

For more research articles, visit our Moneycontrol Research Page.
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Tata Motors, which had set a record by bagging the world's largest e-car order from Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) last month, today said it will make money from each unit it will sell to the government body, in sharp contrast to Mahindra, which had said it was stumped by the winning price.

The EESL order for 10,000 electric sedans is the single-largest in the world and Tata Motors, which has no e- car product so far, will have to begin delivery of the first batch of 500 cars by November 30.

Tata Motors today said it will be selling the electric version of its popular sedan Tigor to EESL. The car will be rolled form its Sanand plant on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

Tata Motors had bid for Rs 11.2 lakh including annual maintenance contract, which was Rs 2.3 lakh lower than M&M's bid. Tatas also offered a substantially lower running cost of Rs 0.25/km compared to Rs 1.35/km by M&M.

Though Tata Motors was eligible to supply the entire 10,000 order, ESSL later asked Mahindra, the only domestic e- car maker, to match the pricing of the Tatas.

"We will be making enough money from each of the units that we will be selling to EESL. As of now, we will be selling 6,500-7,000 units and if the other company (Mahindra) opts out we will lap up the rest of the order as well," Guenter Butschek, MD & CEO of Tata Motors said.

When asked whether they will be able to meet the delivery deadline of November 30 for the first phase of 500 orders, of which Tata Motors will be selling 350 and M&M the remaining 150 units, Butschek answered in the positive.

"All I can tell you now is that we are capable of meeting all the order requirements," said Butschek who was addressing the media at the second quarter earnings presser.

In sharp contract, it can be noted that days after agreeing to match Tata Motors' order, Pawan Goenka, managing director of M&M, had said they would lose money on every unit of its fully electric sedans it had committed to supply to EESL and that he was stumped by the rival's pricing.

"It is difficult to comprehend the price quoted by the L1 bidder (Tata Motors) though we've been in the e-vehicle business for sometime and we know the cost structure and subsystems very well.

"We will not be making any money on the cars we supply to EESL. We will be losing money on every car," Goenka had said at a concall on October 9.

The EESL contract will be executed in phases and the first phase involves 500 cars. Tata Motors had initially opted for 250 cars but increased it to 350 after M&M chose only 150.

While M&M has a few products under its Verito label, which is essentially a soupped down Renault Logan, which Goenka claimed is more powerful and bigger than the Tigor, the sub-4 meter compact sedan Tatas launched a few months ago.

"I don't know the specifications of the L1 car since it is not yet out in the market, unlike the Verito, which has been there for sometime. The Verito has a 20.5 kwh electric motor which can do 170-180 km on a full charge," Goenka said.

According to EESL tender, the sedan should have a range of 130 km on a full charge, can be fully charged in 6 hrs and should have a fast charge option of 90 minutes.

Goenka had also said they had not decided on bidding for the second phase saying, "will take a call if we are able to bring down the cost."

Mahindra is the only domestic company to have launched electric passenger cars though the EESL contracts saw Japanese giant Nissan too bidding.
When Bengaluru police arrested a long time wanted chain snatcher red-handed, they would not have thought the story could have a filmy twist. Apparently, the accused was working as a contractual health inspector with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and would snatch chains to fund his film.

Rangappa, alias Prathap Rangu was apprehended by the Basaveshwar Nagar police on October 28 while in the act of a robbery. The police recovered a total of 430 grams gold chains worth Rs 12 lakh from him, reported The New Indian Express. The 35-year-old is a resident of Mahalakshmi Layout near Ashokapuram.

There were a total of 10 cases registered against him in different police stations in the city, the police said. His favourite hunting grounds were Nandini Layout, Soladevanahalli, Rajarajeshwari Nagar and Puttenahalli. In these areas, he had snatched chains from many women in last 7-8 months.

Several police teams from different police stations were formed to arrest him. The Basaveshwara Nagar team had prior information about his plans of robbery from an informant. His Modus Operandi involved entering the houses when there were no men in the house and snatching chain from the women. Sometimes, he would also snatch chains from unsuspecting women sitting by the window.

Rangappa was also working with BBMP as a health inspector on a contract basis in the Cottonpete ward, the report said. The movie he was working on is named Double Meaning. A trailer for the film is already uploaded to YouTube and has raked up over 1.4 million views since it was posted in September.

Rangappa, as per the description of the promo video, is the Director and Producer of the movie.
Car alarm system | Of course, most cars get this straight out of the box, but if you were on a tight budget and skipped out on the alarm system, maybe you shouldnt have. Alarm systems are the first line of defence against theft as they start ringing as soon as something untoward happens with the car.

The Delhi government's recent revision of parking rates to arrest the rise in pollution levels has affected Delhiites. With a four-fold hike in parking rates, the authorities want to check the use of vehicles and bring down vehicular emissions.

Though some are welcoming this move as a good measure to keep the vehicles away from the roads, most are worried about the resultant amount they'd have to pay for parking.

Despite the hike, the national capital still has way lower rates when compared to other cities across the globe as per the Global Parking Index 2017 report by Parkopedia.

Also Read: Two capitals, one story: How Delhi and Beijing cope with the menace of pollution

Sydney in Australia, which figures at the top of the list, has an average parking charge of USD 34.85 for two hours, which is 14 times higher than that of South Delhi's parking charges for the same time (when converted into US dollars).

Not only that, parking your car for an entire day in South Delhi costs you USD 6.14, which is almost six times cheaper than parking your car in Sydney for two hours.

But there is a catch though: Australian and American cities are most expensive in the world for short-term parking owing to a system called frontloading, which means maximum charge for the parking is squeezed in the first one or two hours.

New York, which figures at the second position on the list, charges USD 32.97, close on the heels of Sydneys USD 34.85, is still 13 times higher than that of South Delhi's charges.

If you compare it with North Delhi Municipal Corporations parking charge, which is just USD 1.84 for two hours, it comes out to be almost 18 times higher than that of New York.

Moreover, taking the two-hourly parking charge of USD 2.46 of South Delhi as standard, other global business hubs such as Melbourne, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and San Francisco have parking charges 9.3, 6.5, 5.1, 5.5 and 6.1 times higher than that of the national capital.

Its important to keep in mind that this is just a mathematical comparison. Also, Delhi's hiked parking rates are only going to be around for a week.

"This plan is an emergency plan that cannot become a substitute for a long-term and decisive action to cut air pollution, said EPCA chairperson Bhure Lal as per media reports.

To read the full report, click here.

(Currency figures are in 1 USD= Rs 65.05)
The Congress is likely to release its first list of candidates for the Gujarat Assembly polls next week, the party sources said on Friday.

The Congress' Central Election Committee (CEC), chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi, met here earlier in the day.

The sources, however, were at variance on the number of candidates the first list will have.

According to a source, the party will come out with the list of 70 candidates for the phase one of the election.

Another source maintained that the list will have the names of 80 contenders.

The Congress is locked in a bitter battle with the ruling BJP in Gujarat, which has been under the saffron party's rule for over two decades.

Gujarat goes to poll in two phases on December 9 and December 14. The election result will be declared on December 18. It will be held in 182 assembly constituencies.
India and China are expected to hold the next round of talks on border issues as well as on other bilateral topics next month, the first between the two countries after Chinese President Xi Jinping began his second term as the chief of the ruling Communist party.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said here today that the 20th round of the India-China Special Representatives border talks as well as the Russia, India and China (RIC) Foreign Ministers meeting will be held in "due course".

She declined to give a schedule of both the meetings.

Officials, however, say both the border talks and the RIC meeting were expected to be held next month in New Delhi.

The 20th round of border talks will be the first after the recent 73-day long Dokalam standoff between the two countries.

The border talks will be held between National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who are the designated Special Representatives.

The two high-ranking officials also has the mandate to hold talks covering all the issues concerning the bilateral relations.

Yang, who currently holds the rank of the State Councillor which is few notches higher than the foreign minister, has now been elected to the powerful 25-member Politburo of the ruling Communist Party of China at its recent once-in-a-five-year Congress.

He is formally expected to relinquish his current post after March next year. Foreign Minister, Wang Yi is largely tipped to take over as the State Councillor.

Hua, however, said Yang continues to be the Special Representative for the India-China boundary talks.

"I have not heard about any changes in the Special Representative on the Chinese side," she said.

Both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made efforts for many years to resolve this issue, she said.

"In the previous meeting the Special Representatives had exchanged views and made positive progress. Now this mechanism is operating very well. The two sides will decide the date and time for this year's meeting in due course," she said.

Officials say the two sides achieved steady progress in manging the differences over the border due to the border dialogue mechanism though an agreement is yet to be reached.

Commenting on the forthcoming talks, Chinese experts said managing a crisis from a potential border conflict will top the agenda of the border talks.

The news on the highest-level border talks between China and India is a very positive sign that the two countries are committed to resolving problems through dialogue instead of confrontation, Qian Feng, an expert at the Chinese Association for South Asian Studies, told state run Global Times today.

"Resolving the border disputes has stagnated and the Dokalam standoff has led to a rethinking on the ties of the two countries, which will be reflected in the talks," Qian said.

The talks, coming months after the Dokalam standoff, will put managing a crisis on the top agenda as future disputes remain possible, and both sides need to manage the disputes and avoid confrontation, Qian added.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua also hinted that the next round of the RIC meeting will also be held soon.

"We highly value this mechanism. According to my information the three parties are in communication to this specific issue. We support India in holding this meeting," she said.

Earlier Chinese officials told PTI that the RIC meeting will be held in Delhi in December in which Wang will take part.

The talks will be the first round of dialogue after the CPC endorsed a second five-year term for Xi, with renewed powers.

Besides Dokalam, a host of issue including differences between the two countries over the USD 50 billion China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are expected to figure in the talks.

The CPEC is a part of China's multi-billion dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). India objected to the CPEC as it goes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Also the talks will be held in the backdrop of the new South Asia policy announced by US President Donald Trump ramping up pressure on Pakistan to crackdown on terror havens.

Trump held extensive talks with Xi during his three-day trip here which ended today.

Hua yesterday said both Trump and Xi discussed anti- terrorism issues related to South Asia and reached a consensus to uphold peace in the region.

In her briefing, Hua did not confirm any meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi at the East Asia Summit, being held in the Philippines.

"So far I have no specific information to offer. Various parties can keep communication, if they would like to meet," she said.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has alleged that Income Tax department officials had asked Minister DK Shivakumar to join the BJP while conducting raids. Siddaramaiah made the allegation on Wednesday when the opposition parties were holding black day protests during the anniversary of the demonetisation drive.

This BJP government is a raid government and the I-T officials who were part of the raid team directly asked Shivakumar to crossover to BJPs side, Siddaramaiah was quoted saying in a News18 report.

The Karnataka Chief Minister who hit out against BJP for allegedly using investigative agencies to pressurise opposition parties said that Shivakumar will not yield to pressure as he is a born congressman loyal to the party.

The raids against Shivakumar started in August when the I-T department raided the properties of the energy minister. The raid is said to have yielded Rs 300 crore in cash and gold worth Rs 15 crore. Since then there have been multiple raids on ministers properties and he has been summoned for questioning for not less than seven occasions by the department. Besides the minister, his close relatives have also been subjected to I-T departments scrutiny.

Also Read: Shivakumar case: IT conducts follow-up raids at 10 places

However, questions were raised about the alleged political motivation behind the action. Shivakumar had played a key role in housing Congress MLAs from Gujarat at a Bengaluru resort in order to prevent them from changing sides.

The Income Tax department, however, refuted the allegations. The Director General of Income Tax (Investigation), Karnataka and Goa in a press release said that the allegations were baseless and that No Income Tax officer or official has at any point of time made any such statement to the minister or to anyone else.

The recent allegations come at a time when the political parties in Karnataka are preparing themselves for the upcoming assembly elections. Further, multiple raids are being carried out by the I-T department on various properties connected to AIADMK leaders TTV Dinakaran and Sasikala.
MUMBAI, INDIA JULY 29: A temple based on South Indian architecture at Kings Circle Market, Matunga on July 29, 2015 in Mumbai, India. (Photo by Aniruddha Chowhdury/Mint via Getty Images)

A sessions court in Mumbai has just acquitted a 28-year-old man of rape charges after the woman who filed the complaint, currently his wife, admitted she had gone to the police station and taken the action in a fit of anger after he hadnt contacted her for a week.

The woman later told the court that they had sorted out their differences since and are now happily married with a child, said a report in Hindustan Times.

In 2016, a Shivaji Nagar police had booked Mohmad Faizan Khan after his girlfriend filed a complaint alleging that he had raped her under the pretext of marriage.

The couple had met in 2011, fell in love and informed their parents.

In 2014, Khan had taken out a rented apartment in the city, where the couple used to hang out. In August 2015, Khan went to Uttar Pradesh to visit his relatives.

The woman during this time period alleged that he did not contact her even once, which prompted her to go to the police and file a rape complaint against her then-boyfriend.

A year after the case came up for trial when the woman was asked to summon herself before the court she did not support the prosecutors case.

During cross-examination, she denied he had forced himself on her or any refusal to marry her.

She later said that as soon as he came back, he reached out to her and married her.

A few days back, the Indian Express reported Maharashtra government informed the Bombay High Court that a police officer was duty bound to register FIR and conduct a subsequent investigation in a case of rape.

The decision came up during the hearing of a PIL seeking that the police deny complaint where a woman alleges rape on grounds such as false promise of marriage.
The Ambit India Access Conference in Singapore will take place on 13-14 November and host of companies will be participating.

Ashok Wadhwa, Group CEO, Ambit in an interview to CNBC-TV18 spoke about what they expect from the conference and the outlook for market going forward.

He said it is an interesting time for the conference because the India story seems to be shining bright as ever. On the other hand commodity prices are going up, which could have impact on India but the investor confidence in India is high reflected by the quality of investors attending the conference, who are keen to know about what is happening India, he said.

There is immense liquidity in the world right now, which has driven flows domestically as well as globally, said Wadhwa. However, he cautions that we are moving away from a benign environment because of upward movement in crude, copper and gas prices, and India being large importer of these things.

However, if this trend continues then one could see some pullback from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) but that need not be too much of a worry because of robust domestic liquidity.

With all the structural changes taking place in India, the medium to long-term outlook for India remains positive, he said.

Although the valuations currently tend to look frothy in India, if one were to take into account all the changes that the government has made and their impact in the future and start discounting the future back, the valuations look okay, he said.

Talking about recapitalization of PSU banks, he said it has to be seen in the context of the important change that is Insolvency law. According to him, the political will behind the law and the manner in which it is implemented today, it is a phenomenal change.

If the implementatin of law is consistent, then, in fact, one could see some reversal in provisions, which could auger well for the PSU banks.

The only caution with regards to recapitalization of banks is that they have been adequately capitalized in the past, so it is imperative to augment management and underwriting capabilities of PUS banks, said Wadhwa.

Talking about GST, he said the tax buoyancy comes out of two items  One is covering more tax payers in the net and two, increasing collections from existing and new taxpayers. GST will definitely have positive impact on first one because many more people will come under tax legislation.

However, there is need for lesser number of rates and easier implementation of the legislation because the current one is complicated, he said. However, the government has shown phenomenal positive tendency to learn quickly and take corrective action, which will happen going forward in terms of chaning rates of various items.

Talking about consumption focused companies in the conference, Wadhwa said although demonetisation had a short term impact on consumption, over the last quarter consumption is coming back in a decisive nature. Therefore, one will see more buoyancy in consumption over the next two quarters.
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IRB Infrastructure's Q2 FY18 financial performance was impacted because of GST, muted growth in construction revenues, and monsoons. But, the company could be staring at exciting times with growth bouncing back in the second half of the current fiscal.

The company has started tolling two more projects and feels there will be a positive impact of interest cost, and debt will be pared as a result of transfer of build-operate-transfer (BOT) assets to IRB InvIT. We successfully transferred Pathankot Amritsar project to IRB InvIT and got two notches rating upgrade to A+ which is likely to reduce finance costs, said Virendra Mhaiskar, CMD, IRB Infrastructure Developers.

The Amritsar project has reduced debt of close to Rs 900 crore and provided cash of about Rs 500 crore. This is in addition to the cash of about Rs 1,700 crore it received last time when it transferred 6 BOT assets to InvIT.

The move will not only improve the debt-to-equity but also unlock large amount of equity, which is critical for bidding for bigger projects that are lined up under the Bharatmala initiatives.

We are out of GST-led slowdown in traffic and since September have been witnessing promising growth across projects. We have entered the second half with a lot more gusto and look forward to large opportunities unfolding with latest government initiatives, added Virendra Mhaiskar, CMD of the company.

Q2FY18 results: GST and monsoon impacts performance

The companys BOT segment, which accounts for 31 percent of the revenues, reported 22 percent growth from continued projects. Growth was largely driven by 18.5 percent toll rate hike for the Mumbai-Pune Highway. Adjusting for the same, toll collection grew by 5 percent on a year-on-year basis.

Management has indicated that post-September traffic growth has again resumed across projects, and this should reflect in growth in the coming months. That apart, it intends to commission one BOT project in Q3FY18 and three other projects by the end of FY18, which will help in further improving the visibility of the segment.

Investors should watch out for action in the construction division, which accounts for 70 percent of its revenues and witnessed muted 3 percent year-on-year revenue growth in Q2FY18 as a result of monsoon. The company which is sitting on an order book of close to Rs 8200 crore or 2.4 times its construction revenues in FY17, could see better execution and improvement in visibility.

By the end of FY18, the company is looking to win about 400-500 km of projects particularly from the Bharatmala initiative. The government had earlier indicated spending about Rs 7 lakh crore over the next five years to develop close to 83677 km of roads. Of this, about Rs 5.4 lakh crore will be spent on Bharatmala Pariyojana, which will include development of about 34800 km of roads.

Valuation

Considering the growth and opportunities in the sector, IRB Infrastructure, at current market prices of Rs 232 is trading at a reasonable valuation of about 9 times its FY19 estimated earnings.

Follow @jitendra1929

For more research articles, visit our Moneycontrol Research Page
In the techno-dystopian fiction, machines and robots are envisaged to think and act on their own, to the extent that they also control human lives. In reality, we are halfway there with automated devices and virtual assistants in our home. And, going by the experience of a German man, moving fast to cover the other half.

Oliver O Haberstroh, who belongs to Hamburg in Germany, in a Facebook post on Amazon Germany page described his ordeal when Amazon Alexa, a home assistant, decided to play music on its own, at full volume after midnight. Interestingly, Oliver was not in his home at that time.

While I relaxed in Hamburg, Alexa has independently, without command and without mobile (Spotify or the like) to be controlled, at full volume celebrated her own party in my apartment, said Oliver in the post.

However, she opted for an extremely unfavourable time between 1:50 am and 3:00 am midnight.

Oliver's neighbours, after shouting and knocking on his door, finally alerted the police. The police opened the apartment and found that no one was at home. They switched off the Alexa device and called a locksmith to change the lock on the door.

Once Oliver reached his flat he realised that he was unable to open the lock. He then rushed to the police station where his key and the locksmiths bill was waiting for him.

Oliver said that his flat is on the sixth floor and he shut the windows before going out so there is no possibility anyone else from outside would have played the music.

He wrote that the relationship between him and Alexa has taken a 'U-turn' since the incident. One could say "it is complicated" or even more so far that we, unfortunately, have to go our separate ways, he added.
France's Audrey Azoulay, the newly-elected Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), speaks to the media at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, October 13, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer - RC1A1866FC40

UNESCO member states on Friday overwhelmingly approved the nomination of France's former culture minister Audrey Azoulay to head the embattled cultural agency.

They confirmed the nomination by the agency's board last month of Azoulay, 45, who becomes UNESCO's second woman director general.

"The unity you have shown in this vote is a good omen for the coming period, in which we need to stand shoulder to shoulder," Azoulay told the members after garnering 131 votes with only 19 opposed.

She said she had "great faith" in UNESCO, which "bears the genuine power to transform the world."

Azoulay said members were "clear-sighted as to the organisation's difficulties (but) know how irreplaceable and essential it is in the face of our world's challenges."

Azoulay, who was culture minister under former president Francois Hollande, succeeds Irina Bokova, who was UNESCO's first woman director and whose second term expires this month.

Azoulay narrowly defeated Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari of Qatar, also a former culture minister, in last month's politically charged election.

Al-Kawari failed to pick up support from other Gulf states which are part of a Saudi-led coalition blockading Qatar.

The campaign was also overshadowed by Washington's announcement that it planned to withdraw from the Paris-based body after years of tensions over decisions seen as critical of Israel.

In the face of the Arab divisions, France presented Azoulay, who is Jewish of Moroccan origin, as a consensus figure who could mend fences and soothe tensions with Israel.

She also faces the daunting job of reforming the agency struggling under the weight of a bureaucracy that has become unwieldy over the seven decades since it was founded.
Pakistan today said it will allow convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, months after India had requested Islamabad to grant a visa to his mother on humanitarian grounds.

"The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal said in a statement.

"A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today, he said, adding that the meeting will take place on Pakistani soil.

In a rare move, Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April on charges of espionage and terrorism. The International Court of Justice in May halted his execution on India's appeal.

It is not clear what prompted Islamabad to allow Jadhavs wife to meet him in Pakistan, the Express Tribune reported.

There were speculation that the two countries discussed the issue in a recent meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Sawraj and the newly-appointed Pakistani High Commissioner to New Delhi Sohail Mahmood, the daily said.

India had requested for a Pakistani visa for Jadhav's mother, Avantika, who wanted to meet her son in Pakistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies.

Jadhav has filed an appeal with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to seek clemency, which is still pending.

Last month, the Pakistan Army had said it is close to a decision on the mercy petition of Jadhav.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested him from restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's sentencing had evoked a sharp reaction in India.

After India approached the ICJ, a 10-member bench on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.

The ICJ has asked Pakistan to submit its response or memorial by December 13 before the court could start further proceedings in the case.
Jarrett Coleman goes from school board to statehouse with win in 16th Senate District race
State officials announce $2.85M for new police station in Upper Moreland
Indecent exposure

A man was seen urinating into the duck pond at Community Park, 171 W. Edmundson Ave. He also exposed himself to a nearby child. The incident was reported 4:53pm Nov. 2.

Disturbance

Up to five juveniles with skateboards jumped over the fence at the new Hilltop Park on West Third Street and were seen skating on the new slide. The park is not yet open to the public. The trespassing was reported 5:01pm Nov. 2.

A large group of juveniles was hanging out in the Safeway parking lot, 235 Station Way, harassing customers. A female witness told police she did not feel safe getting out of her car. The disturbance was reported 9:47pm Nov. 3.

Auto burglary

A thief or thieves broke into a vehicle on West Edmundson Avenue and stole a wallet and credit card. The credit card was later used by an unknown person to purchase items at Target and a gas station. The theft was reported 7:36pm Nov. 2.

Someone stole a GPS unit from a Toyota Corolla rental car on Condit Road. The crime was reported 11:04am Nov. 3.

A thief or thieves smashed the window of a Ford F-150 pickup on Chicory Lane, and stole a laptop computer. The crime was reported 7:38am Nov. 5.

Someone smashed the window of a Honda Ridgeline near Barrett Avenue and Condit Road and stole a suitcase, laptop computer, iPad and textbooks. The crime was reported 10:41am Nov. 5.

Petty theft

A woman walked out of Safeway, 235 Tennant Station, with about $300 worth of baby formula that she did not pay for. The theft was reported 10:23am Nov. 3.

Stolen vehicle

Someone stole a silver 2000 Honda Civic from a spot on Del Monte Avenue. The theft was reported 6am Nov. 9.

A gray 2001 Volvo was stolen from a spot on Joleen Way. The theft was reported 4:03pm Nov. 7.

Recovered stolen vehicle

Someone abandoned a stolen GMC Sierra pickup near Fountain Oaks Drive and Hermosa Court in Morgan Hill. The vehicle had Arizona license plates. The vehicle was reported 1:28pm Nov. 8.

Fraud

A resident of Church Street received a call from someone claiming to be from SJPD who stated the residents grandson had been arrested. The caller said he needed $3,000 in gift cards for a bond to release the grandson from jail. The fraud was reported 1:48pm Nov. 8.

An employee of a store on Cochrane road received a counterfeit $100 bill from a customer. The incident was reported 10:21am Nov. 8.

Battery

Two intoxicated sisters got into a fight and called police to report the violence, which occurred near the U.S. 101 and Cochrane Road intersection. Police responded, but the sisters decided not to press charges. The fight was reported 5:22pm Nov. 8.

Vandalism

A vandal or vandals slashed six tires on a vehicle parked on Hazelton Court. The crime was reported 8:15am Nov. 9.

All subjects are innocent until proven guilty. Information is compiled from public records.
A man was found dead after a hunting accident on Thursday evening in the Chesterfield community.

Garry Lee Austin, 67, of the 3000 block of Pax Hill Road in Morganton, was found dead after he fell from a hunting stand in a tree, said Burke County Fire Marshal Mike Willis.

Police were contacted around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday after Austin was reported as an overdue hunter, Willis said.

Austin told family members that he would be back by 4 p.m., Willis said.

He was an avid hunter, so it was not unusual for him to be out hunting, he said.

A friend of the family found Austin prior to authorities arriving. Police were going to start a search if he had not been found, Willis said.

He was found approximately a half a mile to a mile from his house, he said.

Willis said no foul play is suspected.

He either lost his footing going up or coming down somehow from around the stand, Willis said. They said it was a very high fall.

Agencies that responded to the scene were Chesterfield Fire and Rescue, Burke County Rescue Squad, Burke County EMS, Burke County Sheriffs Office and the Burke County Fire Marshals Office.

Staff Writer Jonelle Bobak can be reached at jbobak@morganton.com or 828-432-8907.
Centum is gearing up to launch a new online platform with the expectations that it not only maximizes output, but that it becomes a recruiting tool unparalleled in the industry.Centum 2.0., slated for a November 28 launch, will have more user- and mobile-friendly interfaces, and monitor deal analytics in real time. Under the tutelage of new President and COO Chris Turcotte, Centum is attempting to break away from the fray and position itself as an industry innovator.On the back end, weve done a complete CRM package, said Turcotte. It tracks where youre submitting your deals, the progress of each one of your files, you have a really powerful CRM that will communicate with your clients at certain milestones in the transactions automatically and seamlessly in the background, but the big thing is the analytics of your business. Every time you log in youll have a snapshot of your business.At any given time you can log in and see how many deals you have in pre-approval status, how many you have submitted to the lender for approval, how many you have committed from a lender  itll given you a snapshot of where all your files are at. To be able to log in and see where every file I have is at in real time is huge. No more manual labour.Centum went a little dormant over the last year and stopped recruit  and its no coincidence that Turcotte has been in his role at Centum for 11 months. The company quietly developed Centum 2.0 but also wanted to gauge the rest of the industry.Were the little super broker that isnt under one of the big giants, so the disruption for us is these other bigger brands have similar technologies that they are charging for, but were the little guy coming in with the same technology  but the latest version  a few add-ons to make it more robust than what they offer, and were giving it completely free to our network, said Turcotte. We might not be the big guy, but we feel like were bringing a ton more value.Other companies are beginning to update their online presences, but most charge fees for access. However, the mortgage industry by and large overlooks technology, particularly social media, and thats where Turcotte sees opportunity. It doesnt hurt that he has a tried, tested and true formula.Turcottes background is in marketing and social media, and prior to his role at Centum he ran a mortgage brokerage in rural Manitoba, where up to 70% of business was derived from online leads.He says that Centums online posts receive more engagement than every other brand combined, but three times over. The company made a Facebook video about the B20 regulations, and it reached over nearly 30,700 Canadians, was viewed over 6,600 times, and was shared by 140 people.Launching in time for 2018, Centum expects its innovations and active social media footprint to become a recruiting game changer. When the company releases its analytics next year, Turcotte believes Centum will become the clear choice for brokers.The big differentiator is because I came from the broker channel and I was a franchisee, Im the only brand president thats spending an hour-and-a-half walking a franchisee through a Facebook campaign; Im the only president of a brand whose agents and franchisees can reach out to him through social media, email, via text, he said.Im getting in the trenches and helping them market. Ive done this business and the feedback Im getting is its so motivating that they can pick up the phone and talk to brand leaders, that theyre not delivering a corporate message that their VP of marketing wrote them. Were getting in the trenches together.
Would "Student Loan Mortgages" Solve Homeownership Problems?

In June the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released a "working paper" from the Rosen Consulting Group and the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, University of California, Berkeley, detailing several barriers to homeownership; affordability, post-foreclosure stress disorder, access to mortgages, and student loan debt, among others.

A second Rosen Group paper was released last week with suggestions for overcoming these barriers. We made passing reference to it while summarizing NAR's housing forecast for 2018. However, but some of the suggestions contained in Improving Access to Affordable, Safe and Sustainable Homeownership, especially those relating directly to affordability and mortgage access, are worth a closer look.

One key factor, relating to both affordability and access, is the difficulty households have saving for a down payment. Rents, which increased rapidly even during the recession, and the rising costs in other areas such as healthcare, child care, and transportation, have strained budgets, especially as incomes stagnated. The paper suggests this is likely to get worse, and will continue to prevent millions of eligible households from purchasing a home. They suggest, for starters, a down payment savings program.

Research from the 2017 Nobel laureate Richard Thaler on mental accounting concludes that individuals do not treat their money as one large fungible pool. As such, separating out savings into different accounts can encourage households to save for an explicit purpose; in this case to purchase a home.

The Rosen Groups sees a program, much like 401k or Individual Retirement Accounts that would allow households to save specifically for a down payment in a tax-deferred account. Under current rules, money can be withdrawn from the various retirement funds for a home purchase, but with restrictions, such as being permitted once in lifetime, limited in amount, structured as a short-term loan, or permitted only for a first-time home purchase.

For a program to successfully promote homeownership, the authors say, the withdrawal limitations of a separate account parallel to the current retirement vehicles, would need to be significantly reformed. Withdrawals would be taxed, but not interest earnings. They do suggest, however, that a restriction to first-time buyers or returning homeowners should be retained.

Other programs could be coordinated with this effort such as government or local downpayment assistance. Employers might be encouraged to match employee contributions,

Another suggestion from the Rosen Group is graduated payment mortgages (GPM.) Many would-be homebuyers are in the early stages of their careers, not yet making much money but with the potential to do so. They may not currently be able to afford a mortgage and the current pace of price increases may put them into a situation of perpetually pursuing affordability

In its simplest form, the GPM is a fixed-rate mortgage where payments are slightly lower early in the loan, rising gradually as the loan ages, but on such a schedule to track expected household income and avoid payment shock.

GPMs are not new, the FHA offered various versions from 1974 to 2008, and are not the only mortgage product seeking to increase initial affordability. Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), borrower buydowns, and government buydowns seek to do this, but with cost and risk implications the GPMs don't share. Some GPM drawbacks, such increased interest payments over the life of the loan and possibly some negative amortization issues, can be significantly mitigated, the paper says, by how such loans are structured such as by using a payment schedule with smaller increases over a shorter period.

Mortgage insurance is key to the availability of GPMs because they do carry higher default risk. Without it, lenders will tend to concentrate the loans among borrowers to appear to be the most upwardly mobile. those most likely to already qualify for a conventional mortgage. They may use a GPM simply to increase the amount of home they can purchase.

Another innovation is shared equity products. This is a homeownership model that allows a household to purchase a house by dividing the equity stake of the home among multiple parties. Several models exist today where households can purchase a home by partnering with an organization or investor. The partner provides a portion of the up-front money to buy, the homeowner shares a portion of the future capital gains when the property is sold. It has principally been non-profit organizations participating in these programs, but market-driven models are beginning to emerge. Shared equity arrangements have had low delinquency and foreclosure rates, and homeowners tend transition to another home at about the same rates as traditional buyers, using their share of sales proceeds to purchase their next home without assistance.

A related model involves buyers purchasing together, either occupying one single-family home or through an investor-like relationship. An example would be co-buying a home with parents or two siblings purchasing a home together.

Several proposals in the paper address the problem of student loan debt, which several recent surveys have identified as delaying homeownership significantly. Perhaps the most immediate help could come through standardizing underwriting guidelines related to that debt. The authors cite income-based repayment (IBR) plans that can be beneficial in some cases but be difficult for other borrowers because lenders find it difficult to calculate debt-to-income ratios.

Providing simplified options for calculating monthly payments, taking into consideration any assistance borrowers may be getting in repaying the debt, and applying guidelines across all mortgage lenders could expand mortgage opportunities to more younger persons and avoid penalizing otherwise qualified borrowers with student debt.

The paper lays out several proposals for increasing usability and benefits from the current allowable student loan interest tax deductions. However, since the bill before Congress at this time would severely limit what already exists, we will leave these suggestions for another time.

Perhaps the most innovative of the homeownership proposals is for a student debt mortgage. As envisioned in the working paper, this would be a product that would consolidate existing student debt into a purchase money mortgage.

The new loan would carry a slightly higher interest rate than a traditional mortgage, but probably one lower than that of the student loan. This, combined with spreading the student loan balance over 30 years, would result in a single payment lower than the sum of two separate ones. This would free up cash to allocate to mortgage payments while reducing the debt-to-income ratio. There could also be tax benefits to rolling student loans into mortgages, especially for individuals in higher tax brackets. A mechanism akin to private mortgage insurance would be necessary for at least the uncollateralized (student loan) portion of the new mortgage.

With student debt delinquencies comparatively higher than other debt types, a consolidated mortgage would also likely reduce late payments and improve credit profiles, thereby enhancing the ability of potential homebuyers to qualify for larger mortgages and trade up over the longer term. The policy would be especially effective in supporting younger, first-time homebuyers most burdened by student loans. With the composition of high-debt borrowers shifting to those with less earning potential during the past several years, the policy would also help bring more lower-income buyers into the market.

While this new loan type could make homeownership accessible to a larger number of student debt holders, the authors point to some factors that could deter borrowing and compromise successful implementation. Federal student loans carry several protections and benefits that would be lost through consolidation. These include flexible payment plans based on income and the ability to defer payments if the borrower is out of work or returns to school. The 30-year lifespan of the mortgage, while partially offset by a lower rate, still increases the total interest paid on the debt.

If the Rosen Group is correct, such a loan is a real possibility. They see a lot of potential backers, the most likely being existing mortgage lenders but also recognize the need for a secondary market and probably for some government incentives and guarantees. The existing GSEs or a new agency, working independently or in partnership with a major student loan company, could serve as intermediaries to support a new market for the loans. The authors also see a growing number of fintech companies, some of which are already in the student loan refinancing and consolidation area, as another new source of originations. Some work in this area is already going on; they point to a new provision from Fannie Mae allowing borrowers with sufficient home equity to fold student loans into their home mortgages and another Fannie program, the Student Loan Payoff Refi, operated jointly with SoFi.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has yet to decide if she will continue serving the central bank after President Donald Trump decided not to renominate her to the role, according to Bloomberg report.Yellens term as chair ends in February. She can continue serving the central bank in a separate governor term that will run until 2024.I dont think shes made any decision in regards to that one way or another yet, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.Mnuchins remarks follow the announcement that Trump plans to nominate Fed Governor Jerome Powell to replace Yellen. The nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.Trump has the opportunity to name three more governors to the seven-member board, including a governor that will serve as vice chair. If Yellen decides to leave the board, the presidents search may expand.Were turning our attention to the other positions and we look forward to filling them, said Mnuchin. Itll be as well a very robust process of considering people and interviewing people for them. They are very important jobs to fill.
Crude resumed its rally as escalating tensions in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Mideast raised concerns about stability in the oil-rich region.

Futures edged higher by 0.6 percent in New York. Saudi Arabia's elite were said to be scrambling to shift assets out of the region amid an expanding anti-corruption crackdown that's ensnared dozens of royals and investors. Separately, the kingdom advised its nationals to leave Lebanon, which is in the cross hairs of intensifying tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

At the same time, stored crude supplies at a key U.S. pipeline hub dropped by more than 1 million barrels, giving further impetus to rising prices.

"The news out of Saudi Arabia has really added to that bullish bias to prices," Rob Haworth, who helps oversee $150 billion in assets at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle, said by telephone. "You've got speculators who have been continuing to push their bullish position and that news flow -- fear of conflict with Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Yemen issue -- continues to underscore this market."

The Saudi anti-graft sweep that began on Nov. 4 threatens to overshadow a Nov. 30 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' gathering at which an extension of production limits is expected to take center stage. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said that a non-committal outcome from the meeting combined with accelerating drilling activity in the U.S. could push prices lower.

Conversely, additional escalation of recent geopolitical tensions could lead to another large rally, the New York bank's analysts said.

"Who wants to be short with everything that's bubbling in the Middle East, even though nothing has happened in Saudi this week to directly affect oil supply," Michael Hiley, head of over-the-counter energy trading at New York-based LPS Futures, said.

The Saudis plan to curb December exports by 120,000 barrels a day from November levels, an Energy Ministry spokesman said on Thursday. Shipments to the U.S. will fall by 10 percent on a month-to-month basis, he said.

West Texas Intermediate for December delivery climbed 36 cents to settle at $57.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have climbed more than 5 percent so far this month.
As he watched employees, elected officials and other guests arrive for the groundbreaking ceremony, Bryan Sheffield marveled at how his company has grown in a short time.

We started out with four employees nine years ago and today were at 450, said Sheffield, chairman and chief executive officer and founder of Parsley Energy. He was in town to celebrate breaking ground on a new conference center and two two-story buildings that will triple the capacity of the companys field office on County Road 120.

Its all about firing up the employees and re-energizing them going into 2018, he said.

Matt Gallagher, president and chief operating officer, agreed the expansion is geared toward the employees in Parsleys field office. Were excited to be building it, he said.

Paul Treadwell, senior vice president, operations and a co-founder of the company, called the site a tremendous property were proud to call home for some time.

He praised the companys operations team for their phenomenal job. Were so proud of them; theyve helped us grow.

The company operates in Midland, Upton, Martin, Reeves and Reagan counties.

Sheffield said the team is always preparing for the future. Were excited about our growth and the future of Midland.

Once finished in the fall of 2018, the expansion will include workspace for more than 300 employees and an auditorium that can accommodate 600 employees and guests. Sheffield said company employment is about evenly split between Parsleys offices in Midland and the corporate offices in Austin.

Since relocating the corporate office to Austin from Midland, weve been getting a flood of resumes, he said, including from University of Texas graduates who want to come back to the state capital. We can cherry pick our geoscientists.

Sheffield told the gathering that Parsley, along with other significant Permian Basin operators such as Concho Resources, CrownQuest Operating and Pioneer Natural Resources, descend from two men: Howard Parker and Sheffields grandfather, Joe Parsley, who formed Parker & Parsley Petroleum, which became Pioneer.

They are the root of all this growth, Sheffield said. They created thousands of indirect jobs.

He said that Parker & Parsley drilled two wells right behind where the expansion is under construction, and his own company also drilled two wells in the area.

It has a lot do with the Wolfcamp right underneath us that will generate more new wells for years to come.

As I look at your story, were fortunate in Midland that we still have that legacy here, Mayor Jerry Morales said. Thank you for helping make Midland a world-class city. And as I look into your story, Bryan, you are a pioneer. With Midlands young entrepreneurs, you can be a mentor to these young professionals. You will be a worldwide legend.

Midland County Judge Mike Bradford said the event was special to him because one of the first companies he was introduced to when he arrived in Midland was Parker & Parsley, and he said the Parsley family was so helpful to me.

The expansion of Parsleys field office is the nurturing of a vision that has resulted in an asset that will benefit not just the companys employees, its stockholders, but the community, Bradford said. That is the vision we still want. When a company builds in the county, it shouldnt extract the product, say goodbye, close the door and leave. Companies create value by staying and keeping the doors open to the community.

I cant wait for the next asset youre going to talk about, Bradford said.
Tim Fischer

Sen. Kel Seliger will be honored today by the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas for his service during the 85th Legislature.

Lubbock County Commissioner Patti Jones, past president of the association, will present Seliger with the 2017 Legislative Award at a ceremony planned for 1:30 p.m. at the Petroleum Club.
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Boeing said it signed an agreement on Thursday to sell 300 planes to China Aviation Supplies Holding Company worth $37 billion at list prices, one of several deals announced during a state visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing.

General Electric said it had signed jet engine deals worth $2.5 billion and a $1 billion agreement for power plant equipment and services.

State-run China Aviation Supplies, which leases planes to Chinese airlines, said the Boeing agreement covered 260 B-737s and 40 B-777s and B-787s. The breakdown between firm orders and non-binding commitments was not immediately available.

Analysts said, however, that some of the orders may be among more than 300 from undisclosed buyers posted this year, and it was not clear how much of the China deal was new business.

The new agreement also may overlap substantially with a similar, 300-plane agreement Boeing signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2015 visit to the United States. That deal, valued at $38 billion at the time, included orders and commitments for 190 B-737s and 50 Boeing wide-body planes, as well as leases for an additional 60 B-737s.

A spokesman for the planemaker declined to comment on what proportion of the new China agreement represented new or existing orders, but it was believed that some of the orders were already in Boeing's backlog. Boeing typically lets plane buyers determine what details to reveal about orders.Boeing shares were down 1.4 percent at $260.30.


Three men caught on video abusing dairy cows are being sought by the Okeechobee County Sheriff's Office.

An undercover video that purports to show workers kicking cows in the head and hitting them with metal rods has prompted authorities to open a criminal investigation at one of Florida's largest dairy farms.

Video purportedly shows animal cruelty at Larson Dairy

Okeechobee County Sheriff is investigating

Publix is suspending milk deliveries from Larson

Okeechobee County Sheriff Noel Stephen said last week that he assigned an investigator to the case involving Larson Dairy.



And Florida-based Publix supermarkets announced it has suspended milk deliveries from Larson, adding in a statement the company is "shocked" by the treatment of cows.

Publix said it has contacted the Florida Department of Agriculture about the alleged abuse. In a statement the company said, "we are disturbed by the images and shocked by the cruelty toward animals."

The video was shot by an investigator with Animal Recovery Mission, a Miami Beach-based animal cruelty group, who began working at the dairy in August.

Stephen said once the video was released, ARM turned in 350 hours of additional footage shot at larsen dairy but now they need more from the animal rights group.

"Dairy supervisors and milkers beat, stab and torment dairy cows with steel construction rebar," the narrator says. "The sharp metal rods pierce and penetrate the cows' bodies. Kept hidden from tours and visitors to the dairy, the cows are brutalized."

In a statement, Jacob Larson said an employee seen in the video hitting cows has been fired, adding that the "unusual use of force is simply unacceptable on our dairy or on any other farm."

"We have strict protocols involving animal care and clearly the behavior shown in this video goes against everything we stand for and will not be tolerated," Larson said. "The employee involved and featured in the video has been terminated. Further corrective action will be taken if necessary as we continue to analyze the video and conduct an on-farm investigation."

Larson, whose family has been in the dairy business since 1947 and in Okeechobee County since 1971, questioned the tactics of the animal rights group.

"We are equally concerned about the manner in which this video was brought to our attention," Larson said. "Had the `undercover' employee brought this to our attention when it occurred, we may have been able to prevent it earlier."

Richard Couto, the founder and lead investigator for the animal rights group, said members didn't choose the Larson dairy because of any cruelty reports but within an hour of starting the undercover operation found "strong sounds of animal abuse."

"We wanted to see what was happening in a typical, larger scale dairy setting in the state of Florida," he said.

The sheriff said the materials received by his office, including still photos and video, indicated three workers were involved.

He said he's known the Larson family for years and said they wouldn't condone such behavior.

"Had they known about it," Stephen said, "they would have fired them on the spot."
It was announced during a work session of the Hale County Commissioners Court that Hale County Sheriff David Mull had tendered a letter notifying the court of his retirement effective Dec. 7, 2017.

Hale County Judge Bill Coleman said that he had received a letter this week from Sheriff Mull indicating that he intended to retire effective Dec. 7.

The letter, a copy of which was provided by Judge Coleman to The Plainview Herald reads in relevant part:

This letter is to inform the Hale County Commissioners Court that I will retire my position as Sheriff of Hale County effective December 7, 2017.

I would like to thank God, my family, employees of the Hale County Sheriffs Office, employees of Hale County, the Commissioners Court and the citizens of Hale County for allowing me to serve as Sheriff for the last twenty-one years. I have enjoyed serving the citizens and appreciate the support they have provided.

Thank you again for your attention to this matter.

Coleman reminded the commissioners that they recently went through the process of appointing someone to fill the vacant constable position, which had been made vacant by the July 12 death of Mark Mull. Coleman suggested that filling the position of sheriff may be different in a couple of respects from filling the constable position.

County Attorney Jim Tirey said that when there is a vacancy in an office and the commission makes an appointment to fill a position it is good until the next general election. He said in the case of the sheriff, the commission would call a special election as it would be an off-cycle election for the sheriff. Tirey said that when calling a special election, the election will not go through a primary process and candidates will have a deadline set 75 days before the special election to declare their intention to seek the positon.

Tirey said there were no specified procedures under Texas law as to how appoint someone to fill a post.

Coleman then asked the commissioners how they would prefer to proceed on the issue.

Would yall like to move along with the process of determining candidates? He said. Do you want to let it out for applications as we have done? We dont have to do that, we can determine who we would like to appoint.

Tirey added that even though the Sheriffs effective of retirement is set in December, the sheriff would still hold the office until his successor qualifies, takes the oath and posts bond. Tirey said that the commissioners would not have to wait until December to begin the process of replacing Mull, and that they could begin as soon as they accepted Mulls resignation.

Coleman said that Dec. 7 is not very far away and that he did not know if the commission wanted to move that quickly to replace Mull. He added that he had visited with Mull about his retirement to see if there was any chance he might change his mind and Coleman said the sheriff told him that this was a personal decision that he had wrestled with for a long time and that he (Mull) felt like it was time for him to retire.

Mull confirmed for the Herald that he plans to retire effective Dec. 7, 2017.

Mull had this to say about his retirement, I just think it is the right time and I have some other things I would like to do.
Osama bin Laden's son, Hamza, is calling for followers to "rise in rebellion... against the agents of the Americans" and "to incite the masses... until the preparations are complete & the masses are ready for an uprising."

He also is calling on Muslims to "take revenge on the Americans" for killing his father, the founder of al-Qaeda.

Hamza, said to be about 28, made the comments in a speech released Tuesday by al-Qaida's as-Sahab Media Foundation.


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More than a dozen suspected members of a ruthless Houston street gang accused of tattooing their sex trafficking victims are behind bars, charged by federal authorities with everything from smuggling immigrants to illegal firearms sales and drug trafficking.

The violent Southwest Cholos crew, which boasts members with street names like "Pantera" and "Troubles", preyed on undocumented immigrants who were forced to work in brothels around Houston and in Mexico, prosecutors say.

The gang ran a transnational criminal network stretching from a Houston apartment complex, to towns along the Texas-Mexico border to the Mexican resort of Cancun, according to 37-count criminal indictment unsealed late Wednesday.

Ten suspects made initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy K. Johnson on Tuesday and Wednesday, most shackled in the casual street clothes they were wearing at the time of their arrests. The majority are set to reappear before the judge on Thursday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Goldman told the judge he considers them all flight risks and requested they be held in detention without bond, pending a hearing.

Twelve suspects were arrested Tuesday, on top of two already in custody. Another eight are still at large and being sought by the FBI.

The gang members enticed undocumented immigrants with promises of passage to the U.S. and restaurant jobs to pay off smuggling debts. But instead, the unwitting victims were forced to work as prostitutes in gang brothels, including one at the Carriage Way Apartments in southwest Houston. Prosecutors allege the complex was the gang's base of operations for methamphetamine and heroin peddling, gun trafficking and human smuggling.

When the women refused to work as prostitutes, the gang members allegedly threatened violence against their families.

Raids conducted Tuesday by agents across the city resulted in a string of arrests, as well as the rescue of seven trafficking victims. Previously, they'd already identified another six woman forced into the sex trade, including a 14-year-old girl.

On top of the brutal threats to harm their families, the alleged gangsters further terrorized their victims by tattooing them with nicknames to mark them as property and exert their control.The brothels, in Houston and elsewhere, operated from 2009 to 2017, according to federal charges.

But since April of this year, at least nine of the defendants also became involved in a related human smuggling scheme, prosecutors say. Together they smuggled immigrants from China, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Central American into the U.S. using gang-controlled stash houses in the Rio Grande Valley.

The smuggling victims forked over as much as $40,000 apiece to be transported into the U.S and overland to Houston by the gang. During this week's arrests, authorities discovered 16 immigrants hidden away at the secret stash houses.

The gang was largely a family operation headed by Freddy "King Mono" Montes, his mother Maria Angelica "Patty" Moreno-Reyna, 51, and Giovani Alexander "Whiteboy" Alecio, 26, all of Houston.

The government alleged that other leaders of the gang were Patty's husband, Erik Ivan "Casa Grande" Alvarez-Chavez, 39, and her four other sons - William Alberto "Payaso" Lopez, 27, Walter Lopez, 26, Eddie Alejandro "Monterrey" Torres, 38, and Jose Luis "Lucky" Moreno, 23, all of Houston.

The federal charges include multiple conspiracy counts ranging from sex trafficking of a minor and possession of methamphetamine to importation of aliens for immoral purposes, immigration law violations and making false statements.

One by one on Wednesday, the judge told them the possible sentences they faced on the allegations, and many learned they were facing life sentences on the sex trafficking conspiracy. Some of the alleged gang members also face a 10-year minimum sentence on the drug trafficking counts. The human smuggling charges could bring a maximum 20-year sentence, and the firearms trafficking could add another five years.

The FBI, DEA, Harris County Sheriff's Office, Houston police, the Texas Anti-Gang Center and ICE all worked on the investigation and arrests.
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Amid international outcry and claims of global treaty violations, Texas on Wednesday executed a Mexican national who has long professed his innocence in the rape and murder of his 16-year-old cousin in the Rio Grande Valley 20 year ago.

Ruben Cardenas Ramirez thanked his lawyers and declared his innocence one last time before he was pronounced dead at 10:26 p.m.

"I love you all very much. And I know that you love me too. Life does go on," he told his family in a written statement just before his execution.

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"I will not and cannot apologize for someone else's crime, but, I will be back for justice! You can count on that."

In the days before the 47-year-old's death, Mexican officials held press conferences in Mexico City and Houston, decrying the execution they said followed from flagrant disregard for international law. Amnesty International, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations all condemned the state's use of its harshest punishment.

"I am extraordinarily disappointed with this outcome and at the same time overcome with pride at the efforts made by his lawyer, Maurie Levin, and her team of lawyers," said Gregory Kuykendall, an Arizona attorney authorized to speak on behalf of Mexico. "And I'm equally proud of the Mexican government for so diligently pursuing every avenue of defense conceivable."

But for the victim's family, Wednesday's outcome was a final relief. The slain teen's sister - who witnessed her abduction 20 years earlier - declared "justice was finally served," and reminisced over the murdered girl's smile and loving nature.

Police first zeroed in on the Guanajuato native as the prime suspect in the shocking crime just hours after Mayra Laguna's disappearance on Feb. 22, 1997. Roxanna Laguna later said she had spotted a man slipping in through the window and snatching her older sister from the bed they shared.

When authorities pulled in Cardenas and his buddy Tony Castillo for questioning, at first they only admitted to a wild night out, filled with booze and cocaine. But after hours of interrogation, they confessed to the killing.

Later, prosecutors say, Cardenas led investigators to Mayra's body, tossed in a canal off the beaten path.

"This guy is guilty as sin," Hidalgo County prosecutor Ted Hake reaffirmed in the weeks before the execution.

But defense counsel alleged that the multiple confessions were coerced and said police led Cardenas to the dump site and not the other way around.

Aside from raising questions about the evidence, lawyers for Cardenas and representatives of Mexico have harped on alleged violations of a consular treaty and a World Court ruling.

When authorities in Hidalgo County first arrested Cardenas they did not immediately tell Mexico or notify the accused of his right to talk to his country's consulate, according to court documents  an apparent oversight that violates Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

A 2004 U.N. World Court ruling mandates that foreign nationals who weren't told of their consular rights are allowed a review to examine whether that oversight influenced the outcome of the criminal case.

Yet it was because of the lack of consular notification that Mexican officials didn't find out about the arrest for five months - long after Cardenas had given multiple, conflicting confessions that his lawyer argues were coerced.

Cardenas repeatedly asked for a lawyer, but authorities ignored his pleas until 11 days after his arrest, instead pushing on in their interrogations without telling him about his consular notification rights, his attorney alleged in court filings.

But a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision deemed the U.N. order unenforceable unless Congress takes legislative action  and it hasn't.

Wednesday's planned execution would be the fifth time Texas put to death a Mexican national in apparent violation of international law, officials said Tuesday.

Cardenas spent his final days pecking away at his typewriter and visiting with family, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. On Wednesday he refused breakfast and was transferred to the death chamber in Huntsville.

Meanwhile, in a flurry of last-minute filings, Cardenas' lawyers struggled in a futile bid to save his life.

On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals slapped down a pair of appellate claims seeking DNA testing, calling the request a possible stall tactic that wouldn't be enough to prove innocence anyway.

Then on Tuesday, defense attorney Levin filed a civil suit targeting prison officials she says refused to let her watch the execution. Citing previous botched lethal injections in other states, Levin argued for the need for phone access during and before the punishment.

Federal courts denied the claim on Wednesday, along with a suit demanding DNA testing in the case. Within hours, the Fifth Circuit denied the latter claim on appeal.

Carrying out the execution without more testing "violates the most basic notions of fairness and justice," Levin said.

The Hidalgo County District Attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

With hours to go before Cardenas went to the death chamber, his counsel filed two appeals begging the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution. The court denied both just before 10 p.m.
President Moon Jae-in on Thursday met with his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo during his state visit to the Southeast Asian country.

The two leaders agreed to strengthen ties and deepen cooperation on defense and foreign issues. They expressed "grave" concern over North Korea's nuclear tests and reaffirmed their support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
President Moon Jae-in suggested in a TV interview aired Thursday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump's belligerent talk about North Korea and Seoul's more cautious approach constitutes a kind of "role sharing" between the allies.

Moon told Channel NewsAsia in Singapore last week that Trump sometimes makes hardline remarks with the purpose of putting pressure on North Korea, but he does not actually plan to carry out any military action.

Moon was replying to a question whether Trump's Twitter outbursts make it more difficult to work for peace on the Korean Peninsula.


WASHINGTON  More than 600,000 Americans signed up for insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act during the first four days of the new enrollment season, according to federal figures that signal a brisk start despite Republicans efforts to dismantle the law.

Some 601,462 Americans chose a health plan from Nov. 1-4 in states relying on the federal exchange, the figures released Thursday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show.

While CMS officials did not provide a direct comparison with any of the four previous enrollment periods, administration officials said that more than 200,000 consumers selected plans on the first day, more than double the number last year. The officials spoke about the first-day figure on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose it.

The overall total for the initial four days compares with just over 1 million Americans who signed up on the federal exchange during the first 12 days of open enrollment in 2016.

But the initial federal figures suggest that the proportion of newcomers to the ACA marketplaces continues to decline. The 22 percent of new enrollees - 137,222 people  during the opening days in November compares with 24 percent in the early days of 2016.

The CMS data reflects only sign-ups in the roughly three dozen states that rely on HealthCare.gov, the federal enrollment website. But the apparent uptick there has been mirrored in states that run their own ACA marketplaces. The vast majority of those exchanges - including California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island and Washington - all report an increase in both enrollment and inquiries at their call centers.

Taken together, the early figures show that efforts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to undo much of the 2010 law have not dampened consumers willingness to turn to the insurance marketplaces it created. Another factor in the faster pace could be that the enrollment season lasts until only mid-December - half as long as in the past three years.

Unlike during those years, when President Barack Obama urged Americans to buy coverage and the federal government heavily subsidized both advertising and in-person assistance for consumers, federal officials have done little to promote this ACA enrollment period. The Health and Human Services Department slashed the federal advertising budget by 90 percent, cut funding to those assisting consumers with finding plans and shifted the governments messaging.

But another telling, if imperfect, way of gauging the marketplaces popularity - the average number of consumers who enroll daily  also suggests that this year may be running ahead. An average of about 150,000 signed up on each of the first four days this month, compared with an average of 84,000 during the first dozen days of the past enrollment period.

ACA supporters said they cannot point to a single reason for why more people are renewing coverage early or signing up for the first time.

Consumers are, generally speaking, expressing urgency with getting this task taken care of and off their to-do-list, Jennifer Simmons, navigation program coordinator for the North Carolina Navigator Consortium, said in an email. We are happy to report heavy traffic across the state.

But other state officials and health-care advocates have expressed concern about whether enrollment will dwindle among rural consumers, many of whom no longer have as ready an access to in-person assistance.

Jessie Menkens, who helps oversee statewide enrollment efforts as the Alaska Primary Care Associations navigator program coordinator, said in an email that while assisters have seen steady interest in the Anchorage area, enrollment in the states vast rural areas was much slower than in the past. This is concerning news.

In releasing the HealthCare.gov numbers, CMS spokesman Johnathan Monroe said that direct comparisons were not possible because enrollments are typically measured from Sunday through Saturday.

Consistent with our aim to have a seamless open enrollment experience for consumers this year, Monroe added, the website performed optimally and consumers easily accessed enrollment tools to compare plans and prices during the first week.

Lori Lodes, an Obama administration health official and co-founder of Get America Covered, said, The administration has caused a lot of anxiety for people over the last year when it comes to health care, but theres also been a more in-depth conversation about what Obamacare really is about.
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Equipped with a heart for San Antonio's culture and a finger on the pulse of current trends, one Southtown business owner is brewing his latest venture.

Brian Correa is the third-generation owner of Bar America, a staple of downtown San Antonio. Starting in January 2018, he and his partners, Janet Correa and Daniel Gonzalez, will also own Don Martin's Coffee Co., a new Southtown coffee shop with an old-school vibe at 540 S. Presa St.

Cafecito y pan dulce, the beloved comfort food, will be a selling point at the shop. The sweet breads will be made fresh at Cinderella Bakery on the West Side, another family business, and delivered daily. Along with the coffee and sweets, customers will be able to buy paletas, beer, wine and sodas, Correa said.

It will be a place for people "who don't want to be in the bar atmosphere, but still want to have a beer," as Correa said.

Correa's grandfather, Martin Ramirez, was one of the original Bar America owners. He bought the soon-to-be coffee shop space 35 years ago, long before Southtown came to be and used it for storage.

RELATED: The 14 newest San Antonio restaurants and bars

The owner said he noticed a scarcity of coffee shops in the area, but he didn't want his business to merely be a quick fix. He imagined a shop where the history of his family and his city would mingle under one roof.

"We really want to get back in touch with our San Antonio roots and culture," Correa added. "We wanted to carry on the history of what Bar America has already done for the city."

Hints of Correa's grandfather will also be worked into the business, starting with the "Don Martin" name.

Correa said he grew up around the bar and was able to spend ten years bartending alongside his grandpa.

While he learned the trade, he quickly learned what the community thought of his grandfather. He remembers the day a regular came into the bar and referred to him as "Don Martin," a term of endearment and respect within the Mexican culture.

The aesthetic of the new venture is also a homage to the patriarch, a true pachuco. The color and design will reflect his signature style  Stacy Adams shoes, pressed khakis and a fedora.

Correa said the interior will feature exposed brick and shiplap walls throughout the 1,300-square-foot space.

On those walls, customers will find art by one of the Bar America bartenders, Natalie Trinidad. Her work will incorporate the don's classic vibe, Correa said.

Ramirez passed away last year, but Correa knows he'd approve.

"I think he'd be there everyday, drinking all of the coffee," he added.

Correa said he hopes to see the clientele his family has amassed over nearly 80 years  a "mix of people from all walks of like"  along with new faces.

"I love my customers, we really value every customer that walks in the door," Correa said.

And he thinks his patrons, like his grandfather, will appreciate his ode to our hometown.

"People here take pride in our city and we want people to know, 'Hey we're right there with you,'" Correa added.

Get a first look at one the upcoming Southtown spot in the gallery above.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
First responders to be honored in Fonda

FONDA  The annual Montgomery County First Responders Appreciation Dinner is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16, at the Winner's Circle in Fonda,

The event will honor first responders from across the county with eight nominees.

The event was started by County Executive Matthew L. Ossenfort in 2014, to extend appreciation to local first responders as they keep the county's communities safe.

Tickets are $15 per person. RSVP by Monday to 518-853-4304 or to asantillo@co.montgomery.ny.us.

Awards will be given out starting at 7:30 p.m.

Book discussion set at Copake library

COPAKE  Ellen Condliffe Lagemann discusses her book "Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison" and her experience with the Bard Prison Initiative, at Roeliff Jansen Community Library at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2.

Lagemann is a Bard College professor at Bard College.

The library, chartered to serve Ancram, Copake and Hillsdale, is located at 9091 Route 22.

Also at the library, children are invited to a holiday party featuring a reading of Chris Van Allsburg's "The Polar Express," along with hot cocoa and surprises, at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1. Pajamas are welcome.

Gun buyback effort planned in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM  The Rev. William Hodgetts Jr., pastor of the Trinity Lutheran Church, along with the Amsterdam Police Department and Montgomery County District Attorney Kelli McCoski launches its third gun buyback program "Gifts for Guns."

Drop off any working handgun to Hodgetts from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 2 at the church, 42 Guy Park Ave., in exchange for a $100 gift card. The policy is "no questions asked."

The idea is to allow people to hand in weapons anonymously without fear of being prosecuted for illegal gun possession.

Renovations on agenda at Cohoes workshop

COHOES  The Cohoes Common Council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, for a workshop to discuss city matters.

On the agenda is declaring the city the lead agency on a State Environmental Quality Review to renovations to 95 Remsen St., authorizing the mayor to apply for funds under the state Restore NY grant program and granting an easement to National Grid to stabilize a telephone pole for the electric charging station on Van Schaick Island.

 Staff reports
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DANBURYStudents from New York and New Jersey hoping to attend Western Connecticut State University will soon be able to pay in-state tuition  less than half the current rate for out-of-staters.

The university announced that in-state tuition rates will be expanded next fall to residents from New York and New Jersey as part of a two-year pilot program to combat declining enrollment. Under the new pricing, students from the two states will pay $10,017 a year instead of the $22,878 out-of-state rate.

The program extends a smaller across-the-border recruitment effort that offered seven Hudson Valley counties in-state rates this fall. Under that program, New York students at Western grew from 74 in the fall of 2016 to 243 in 2017, an increase of 228 percent.

Paul Steinmetz, spokesman for the university, said the boost helped reverse the universitys steady enrollment decline, which he hopes can be sustained by expanding the in-state pricing.

Our enrollment has been going down 1 or 2 percent a year, Steinmetz said. You can do that for a year or two, but you cant keep doing it over and over again. (The initial program) went very well, and we think that theres additional opportunity by opening it up to the entire state of New York and New Jersey.

Western saw a 15 percent decrease in enrollment over the last five years, particularly among Connecticut students. But this fall, enrollment was flat.

Falling enrollment, along with cuts in state funding, has strained the universitys finances, forcing Western to use a portion of its emergency reserves to balance its budget.

Steinmetz said recruiting out-of-state students will not only help the university sustain its own budget but also benefit the region as a whole.

WestConn is an economic driver in western Connecticut already, Steinmetz said. The stronger it is, the better it is for the local economy. Were doing this to benefit the university, the students and the state of Connecticut.

The program will initially mean a $1.5 million loss of revenue for the university because New York and New Jersey students already enrolled will be charged the lower rate until they graduate. But Western estimates it will break even once 87 new students are gained, a goal it hopes to reach in less than two years.

Having more out-of-state students also means family members will travel to the Danbury area to stay, shop and eat at local businesses, Steinmetz said.

He added that Connecticut students will not be disadvantaged.

We arent kicking out Connecticut students, were filling seats that arent filled, he said. Were a Connecticut state university and were going to continue to serve our states students.

The universitys traditional pool of students has been getting smaller, Steinmetz said, mainly because the college-aged population in Connecticut has declined over the last several years. The number of high school graduates in Connecticut is expected to drop 14 percent from 2012-13 to 2025-26, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics.

Western also finds itself at a disadvantage compared to other state universities because, owing to Danburys proximity to the state line, about one-third of its enrollment radius already falls in New York, Steinmetz said.

The new program will roll out in the fall of 2018, allowing the university to spend this year marketing to students in the two states.

We will be providing our New York and New Jersey neighbors the same high-quality and affordable education as Connecticut residents enjoy, said Western President John Clark in a release. I invite everyone in those states to expand your college search and come visit our beautiful campuses.

aquinn@newstimes.com
BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have been caught falsifying documents on emission test results and failing to get approval for changes in components, according to the Ministry of Environment.

The latest revelation follows the massive Volkswagen emissions-tampering scandal that erupted in 2015.

The ministry said it will slap a sales ban on 28 BMW models totaling around 80,000 vehicles and fine the carmaker W60.8 billion (US$1=W1,118).

Mercedes-Benz and Porsche face fines of W7.8 billion and W1.7 billion fines. The automakers also face massive recalls if inspections reveal that their cars do not meet emission standards.

BMW will have to pay the highest fine ever imposed by the Korean government on a single automaker. The affected models were imported between 2012 and 2015. Seven of the 28 models are still being sold here, but their sales will be banned later this month.

Eleven Mercedes-Benz models (7,781 vehicles) and five Porsche models (787 vehicles) use components other than those that were authorized by the government.

Earlier, customs officials raided the Korean offices of the three German automakers and seized documents and other evidence. The ministry also accused 14 of their executives of violating customs laws.


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Things were different for veterans of the Vietnam War, explained Maj. Edward C. Johnson.

When Johnson returned after serving in the Gulf War, he returned to an appreciative American public.

"But that was not (given) to the Vietnam veterans," Johnson said. "There was no one at the airport to welcome them back."

As the guest speaker for the annual Wildcat Salute to Veterans at Humble High School on Friday, Nov. 10, he asked all Vietnam veterans to stand, as students, faculty, community members, and dignitaries applauded to show the veterans appreciation they may not have received upon their return from serving in Vietnam.

"Over 50,000 lives lost in that war," Johnson said. "We do pay tribute to you."

Humble High School hosts the Wildcat Salute to Veterans event every year to show veterans appreciation for their service to America.

Several school groups and numerous students contributed to the event. The JROTC performed the Placing of the Wreath, which was created by the floral design class.

The band played "Taps," and the choir performed harmonious renditions of the "Star Spangled Banner," and "Where There is Light in the Soul," by Elizabeth Alexander.

Stacey Hamlet, the international baccalaureate creativity, activity, service/service-learning coordinator at Humble High School, welcomed community dignitaries who attended the event, including Humble ISD school board member Nancy Morrison, and city of Humble Councilmen Alan Steagall and Norman Funderburk.

She read a proclamation from Congressman Ted Poe's office, declaring Nov. 10 as a day to recognize the students, faculty and staff of Humble High School for honoring the nation's veterans. Steagall also presented a proclamation on behalf of Mayor Merle Aaron and the city of Humble.

For Humble High School student Zaykeese Riley, venerating veterans extends to practicing veneration of the United States.

During his speech, "Voice of Democracy," the student council president took a passionate stance toward a current debate occurring in American society.

"My hope for America is that we all stand together," Riley said. "I hope that the individuals that kneel at the National Anthem one day understand the magnitude of their actions.

"I do stand for all those who have sacrificed life and limb.  I hope to assure each and every veteran in this room that their sacrifice does not go unnoticed. To assure you that my generation has not forgotten. To assure you, my veterans, our veterans, America's veterans, that we will always be here to love and support you because you stood when called and answered that call. You sacrificed your freedoms. You sacrificed you rights and you stood up when most would stay seated. For that, I will always be grateful."
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When World War II veteran Donald V. Blair was asked to sign a form to receive a Purple Heart, he declined.

Soon after Blair enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the age of 21, he was sent to England for five months of training to be a navigator/bombardier on the B-26.

He performed 65 flight missions over Germany and France, one of which ended with a helmet falling onto, and considerably wounding, Blair's head.

The Purple Heart form was offered to him while he was getting treated for his injury.

"Don refused," said Tom Evans, former Army Infantry Major and a good friend of Blair. "Let that sink in for a moment - saying that his cut head had nothing to do with a battle wound, just a stupid helmet, and he did not deserve the medal."

Although he refused the Purple Heart, Blair was eventually given the Medal of Freedom from the French government for his service in WWII.

Blair is now 97 years old, and still being celebrated for his service.

The Kingwood Park High School JROTC surprised Blair by holding a ceremony in his honor on Friday, Nov. 10.

Blair was escorted into the campus' auditorium where rows and rows of JROTC students applauded his arrival.

"Well, Mr. Blair, I told you we had a couple of friends that wanted to see you today, and they're very excited that you're here," said Patrick O'Hara, retired Lt. Col. US Air Force and senior aerospace science instructor at Kingwood Park High School.

Blair was led to a red armchair on stage, where he sat as Evans spoke.

"We're here today to show honor to a member of America's greatest generation, Mr. Don Blair," Evans said. "He unselfishly placed his life on the line for our freedom. He was an ordinary man, not much older than you cadets. He heard the call of duty and answered it. He left his home, his family, his comfortable life - not for recognition, or fame, or even the honor we bestow on him today - but, he fought to protect our freedom. To maintain our way of life."

The JROTC drill team performed a military drill routine, executing precise maneuvers with drill rifles as Blair observed.

Following the performance, O'Hara presented Blair with a plaque from Kingwood Park High School JROTC, honoring Blair as a great American for his service to the United States.

"We've had the chance to give a few of those out over the years," O'Hara said. "It's always special, but none more special than this one. This is really a great honor, and just a simple token. I'm very happy to give that to you."

Blair was also given a modern Air Force Flight Cap used today by active duty United States Air Force, as well as the Air Force JROTC cadets.

Finally, Blair was presented with a flag of the United States of America that was flown over the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 11, 2016, at the request of Congressman Ted Poe.

An accompanying certificate signed by Poe states, "This flag is presented as a symbol of respect and gratitude to Donald Blair for his service to our nation, the great state of Texas, and the United States Army Air Force. His patriotism and selfless sacrifices for our nation are an example of the best of the American breed."

After the certificate was read and presented, all of the JROTC cadets and instructors stood up, and facing Blair onstage, saluted.

"Sir, Kingwood Park Air Force Junior ROTC salutes you," O'Hara said.

Blair smiled as he approached the microphone, and addressed the cadets sitting before him.

"I am very surprised to see such uniform commitment to education and to our great country, the United States," Blair said. "I thank each and every one of you that participated because I did not expect anything to happen this year, or this week...Thank you very much for everything. I've enjoyed it very much and I'll never forget it."

As Blair was escorted off the stage and out of the auditorium, the JROTC cadets sang proudly in unison, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sun."
The Shenandoah Police Department is hosting a vehicle security workshop Tuesday, Nov. 14, for residents who want to get tips on how to make themselves-and their vehicles-a harder target for thieves.

The workshop is being hosted at the Shenandoah City Hall at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 14. Instructors will teach residents and others various ways to mitigate the risk of getting their car stolen, said Shenandoah Assistant Police Chief Barry Gresham.

"Having a vehicle stolen can create all kinds of problems aside from the obvious transportation issues," Gresham said. "Insurance rates can go up. People lose items inside the vehicle and it could take a lot of time trying to get another car."

Gresham said car owners can do simple things to prevent their cars from being stolen. The first is knowing your risk, he said.

The top three cars out of 10 that are stolen in this area are pickup trucks made by Ford, Chevy and Dodge, Gresham added.

Tips, such as ensuring you lock your vehicle, taking your keys and leaving nothing of value inside the car, will be shared at the seminar, Gresham said. Gresham said he has seen surveillance video showing a car stolen in less than a minute. Laptops, electronics and weapons are considered prime targets for thieves, he added.

On Nov. 7, Shenandoah police officials arrested two Houston-area men who police said had burglarized multiple vehicles in the city and allegedly stole property, mostly electronics. Because police were able to catch the men, most of the property from the stolen vehicles was returned to owners, Gresham said. But that doesn't always happen.

Gresham recommends that everyone with electronics, or other items of value, take note of each item's serial number and keep it somewhere secure, such as on a cell phone, which is likely to be with a person at all times. That way, if an item is stolen, the serial numbers can be given to law enforcement for easier tracking, he added.

More Information If You Go... WHAT: Shenandoah Police Department Vehicle Safety Seminar WHEN: 7 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 14 WHERE: Shenandoah City Hall, 29955 I-45 North, Shenandoah MORE INFO: http://www.shenandoahtx.us/community.cfm See More Collapse

"We're trying to serve our community the best way that we can," Gresham said, referring to the upcoming workshop. "When people take our advice in crime prevention, or any other aspect of what we're trying to teach, it makes our job easier."

For tips like these and many others, residents are encouraged to attend one of the many workshops the Shenandoah Police Department hosts in the city every other month.
BEIJING - China plans to ease restrictions on foreign ownership of financial services groups, the government announced Friday, a long-desired step for those seeking greater access to the vast Chinese market.

The news came at a briefing to mark the end of President Trump's state visit - a visit where he publicly pressed Beijing for better market access. It is not yet clear, however, whether the Trump administration was involved, or simply benefited from the timing of the announcement.

Zhu Guangyao, vice minister of finance, said detailed rules are still being drafted, but foreign firms will now be allowed to own up to 51 percent in securities, fund management and futures trading joint ventures (JVs). The previous cap was 49 percent.

He also said China planned to remove caps on foreign stakes in Chinese banks. At present, a foreign investor can hold a 20 percent stake in a Chinese bank and a group of foreign investors can hold a 25 percent stake.

The changes could be good news for U.S. companies, though experts said they need to know more about the rules and the timing of the changes.

"It is a positive step forward," said Paul Gillis, a professor at Guanghua School of Management in Beijing. "Fifty-one percent JVs offer control to the foreign investor, although the devil is in the details as to how management and the board are structured."

Major U.S. banks immediately cheered the move. Morgan Stanley, which has offices in both Beijing and Shanghai, called it a "milestone." The New York-bank already increased its ownership stake in its securities venture in China, Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities, from 33 percent to 49 percent, earlier this year. Now, it could potentially go further.

"Morgan Stanley is committed to growing our businesses in China and we see this policy change as an important step in the further development and opening-up of China's capital markets," the bank said in a statement.

Goldman Sachs also owns 49 percent of a joint venture in China. But in an interview with CNBC Thursday, the bank's chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, said the bank's ability to invest in China has been hampered by the country's ownership restrictions.

"It's a question of which of our people want to commit their careers to that kind of a joint venture? How much capital we put in it when we only have a claim on less than half of the" returns, he said. Blankfein was the only big bank CEO to join Trump's business delegation to Asia.

Goldman said in a statement Friday that it welcomed the announcement and "look forward to playing a greater role in China's capital markets."

Ownership restrictions have hindered China's economic activity for a long time, said William Zarit, chairman of the American U.S. Chamber of Commerce in China.

"I look forward to seeing the details, as opening up the financial sector in particular could greatly improve the allocation of financial resources and support China's future development," said Zarit.

Andie Xie, an independent economist based in Shanghai, was more skeptical. He predicted the impact of the changes would be "marginal."

"It's symbolic in the sense that the Chinese markets has become much tougher for financial institutions to crack, even without barriers, because the market is so competitive now."

Neither Xie nor Gillis saw it as a significant concession to Trump.

Xie saw the announcement as a nod to criticism from U.S. and Europe businesses that in recent years have accused China of protectionism, not as a fundamental change.

"China likes to throw bones to foreign visitors, so it was expected that Trump would be given some good news," Gillis said. "I doubt it is significant, however. It certainly won't create any U.S. jobs."

This also comes at a time when Chinese investors are maneuvering to delve further into U.S. financial markets. A group of investors led by Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group has launched a $20 million bid for the Chicago Stock Exchange that has been met by resistance by Congress and U.S. regulators. And former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is selling his investment firm, SkyBridge Capital, which has $11 billion in assets, to a Chinese firm. Both deals could give China a new level of access to U.S. financial markets and a map to its most wealthy investors, industry analysts have said.

- - -Shirley Yang and Yang Liu contributed from Beijing. Merle reported from New York.
It is not unusual for a political figure to try to get in front of bad news. Recall that in July, when the New York Times was about to report on the contents of emails Donald Trump Jr. sent before meeting with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign, Trump Jr. decided to post the emails on Twitter "in order to be totally transparent."

The idea was to make the Times' report seem inconsequential - before it even published - by appearing to release the emails voluntarily.

Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, made a similar effort on Thursday to head off The Washington Post's report that he allegedly initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old and dated teenagers when he was in his 30s. But Moore did not use Twitter or any official campaign channel. He used Breitbart News.

Minutes before The Post published its report, Breitbart posted a preemptive response from Moore under one of its signature, all-caps headlines: "AFTER ENDORSING DEMOCRAT IN ALABAMA, WASHINGTON POST PLANS TO HIT ROY MOORE WITH ALLEGATIONS OF INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONS WITH TEENAGERS; JUDGE FIRES BACK DENIAL."

(Disclaimer: The Washington Post editorial board endorses candidates, not The Washington Post newsroom.)

Breitbart has made no secret of its support of Moore. Website chairman Steve Bannon headlined a rally for Moore before September's GOP runoff in Alabama, and there is not even a pretense of neutrality in Breitbart's coverage of the general-election contest between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones.

Yet Breitbart's willingness to be used as a media-relations arm of Moore's campaign is a dive even deeper into the tank.

It is reminiscent of the time in March 2016 when Breitbart conjured an elaborate, alternative account of an incident in which Donald Trump's campaign manager at the time, Corey Lewandowski, grabbed the arm of a female reporter - a reporter who worked for Breitbart, no less. Reconstructing the episode, Breitbart asserted that its own journalist must have mistaken Lewandowski for someone else.

Video evidence later proved that it was indeed Lewandowski who grabbed the reporter, Michelle Fields. Breitbart removed its article challenging Fields' account, but its initial, reality-defying defense of the Trump campaign drove Fields, editor-at-large Ben Shapiro and spokesman Kurt Bardella to resign in protest.

Breitbart, to its credit, has since demonstrated that it can hold Trump accountable on foreign policy, immigration, health care and other issues that are important to the president's base. In fact, getting behind Moore put the site at odds with Trump, who endorsed incumbent Republican Sen. Luther Strange in the runoff.

Now, however, Breitbart is veering back toward blind loyalty to a candidate.
Most tourists drawn to Korea by the popularity of the country's soap operas and pop music are Japanese women, according to a study released Thursday by the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute.

Some 65 out of every 100 tourists who came to meet TV stars or attend pop concerts in 2016 were Japanese women, and 29 percent were in their 40s.

If men are included, 75 percent of Korean Wave tourists were Japanese, while 18 percent were from China, four percent from Hong Kong and one percent from Malaysia.

By age, 29 percent were in their 40s, 24 percent in their 20s and 23 percent in their 30s. Some 87 percent overall were women.

Their most popular destination was the downtown shopping district of Myeong-dong (86 percent), followed by COEX in Gangnam (53 percent), Sinchon and Hongik University areas in northwestern Seoul (47 percent), Gangnam subway station area (44 percent) and Dongdaemun market (30 percent).

The institute said 87 percent said they got their tourism information from the Internet.

A KCTI official said, "Considering the fact that the bulk of the Korean Wave visitors are Japanese women, we need to focus on developing other tourism products that cater to this group."
Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., on Friday issued an unequivocal rebuke of Roy Moore and those who have defended the Republican Senate candidate after he was accused of initiating sexual contact with a teenage girl when he was in his 30s.

He's also accused by three other women of pursuing them while they were teenagers, though none said he forced them into any sort of relationship of sexual contact, according to a Washington Post report.

"Roy Moore should not serve in the U.S. Senate," Comstock said in a statement posted on social media.

The two-term congresswoman from the Washington suburbs, the only woman representing Virginia in Congress, put Moore in league with other men in positions of power who have been accused of harassment and abuse.

"Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Roger Ailes, Roy Moore... No MOORE of this...," she said.

Her comments come three days after Virginia Republicans lost the governor's race and control of seven House of Delegates seats that overlap with her congressional district, posing a challenge to her reelection campaign.

Democrats are currently locked in a nine-way race for the party nomination to challenge her next year.

Friday's statement is in keeping with Comstock's call last year for Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race after the "Access Hollywood" tape, in which the GOP candidate boasts about groping women, was released; she called it "disgusting, vile and disqualifying."

Comstock's statement about Moore sets her apart from many of her GOP colleagues, including President Trump, who called for Moore to drop out of the Alabama Senate race only if the allegations are proved true. Some Republicans who endorsed Moore, including Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., have remained silent altogether.

"To date Roy Moore has not provided any credible explanation or response to the detailed allegations, particularly the allegations by a woman who was at the time a 14-year-old girl and Roy Moore was a 32 year old assistant district attorney," Comstock said.

She noted the detailed accounts about Moore from four women were confirmed by numerous sources who knew of his behavior "at the time or well before now," as uncovered in a Post investigation.

"I believed the stories from the victims of Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes and others because they were substantiated and consistent with the stories of how sexual predators operate," she said.

With her statement, Comstock included a link to an editorial from the conservative National Review explaining why Moore should drop out.

Also Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee filed paperwork to sever a fundraising pact with the Moore campaign.
Five months after President Donald Trump lent his support to the mayor of a tiny island with a vanishing shoreline, Virginia's senators are urging the president to protect Tangier Island from sinking into the Chesapeake Bay.

Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, both former governors who have visited Tangier, this week sent a letter to the White House, asking Trump to fulfill his promise to the island's mayor, James "Ooker" Eskridge.

In the summer, Trump called Eskridge, whose constituents are overwhelmingly Republican, and said his island of mostly watermen and their families would remain intact. The pledge came despite reports that show Tangier could be uninhabitable in 25 to 50 years.

Many island residents disagree that man-made climate change is to blame and say natural erosion washing away land has finally come to their doorsteps. In their letter, Warner and Kaine avoided the reason Tangier is disappearing at an average rate of eight acres a year.

"We can debate the causes for why this is happening, but regardless, the effects are clear," they wrote. "It is urgent that we address those effects."

They suggested Trump expedite an Army Corps of Engineers study of Tangier's infrastructure needs, consider a proposal to use soil from dredging projects to build up the island and direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to manage part of the island.

The 1.2-square-mile island off the Eastern Shore, with its 460 residents, may not score well on traditional federal cost-benefit analyses, but the senators asked Trump to consider Tangier's other assets.

"Its history and culture predate the United States, and its linguistic characteristics are unlike any in the world," they wrote. "Letting this island wither away due to bureaucratic inertia - or worse, an active decision to write it off - would not only result in the loss of people's homes and way of life, but would be a cultural and historical loss to America."
Seoul ranked 16th on the list of the Top 100 City Destinations released by global research firm Euromonitor International on Thursday. Korea dropped six slots from last year due to a decline in Chinese tourists.

Hong Kong was the most visited city in the world last year. It maintained the top spot for nine consecutive years. Most visitors were from the mainland, while the number of foreign visitors decreased.

Bangkok came second, and London third thanks to a weak pound.


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The company that owns the Oak Hollow Mobile Home Park, where Northwest Side residents were forced to vacate last year because of chronic raw sewage leaks, has been indicted on criminal environmental charges, according to city officials.

The city of San Antonio announced Thursday in an afternoon news release that the Bexar County District Attorneys Office had secured an indictment from the grand jury.

Last fall, although a dozen families were forced to relocate, more than 40 families remained on the Prue Road property that had severe issues with raw sewage leaks, including above-ground pools of the waste. The condition of the park was seen as a significant threat to health and safety.

On Thursday, the citys Department of Human Services sent out a notice to those remaining that they have to move out by Feb. 19. It cited the indictment while stating that state law required that the property owner either fix the sites septic tanks or close. According to the department, the owner had chosen to close the park. The departments notice said the city would cover up relocation expenses, up to $4,500 per lot.

The city, late last year, filed a separate civil suit against San Man Inc., the company owned by Joseph Mangione.

This charge should serve as an example to all negligent property owners who think they can operate above the law, Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a news release. You will be held accountable for your actions. All of our neighbors deserve to live in safe and clean conditions, and willful disregard for the safety and welfare of residents or the natural environment will not be tolerated.

The owner could be held responsible through felony criminal charges and the civil case for the expense incurred by the city for relocating families who lived at the park, the release said. Since the issue arose, the city has relocated 24 families while 19 others moved out on their own. Some 17 families remain on site, the release said.

District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez, a lawyer, said the affected families deserve restitution for the damages theyve endured.

Therefore, I will be working to connect them to free legal services. Some have first-party insurance remedy rights, civil claims against the defendant that can be prosecuted and claims against other third parties that have not yet been explored, he said. Well be helping them understand their rights and fight for them so that they are made whole.

jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh
EDINBURG  Around 100 students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley walked out of their classes Thursday, joining a nationwide action to show solidarity with their undocumented peers who face losing their protections from deportation.

Students carrying signs that read Dreamers Unidos and Soy Dreamer, Y Que walked through the Edinburg campus, chanting Bailey Escucha, Estamos en La Lucha, referring to UTRGV president Guy Bailey.

Two months ago the Trump administration said it would begin phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program on March 5, 2018, sending ripples of fear through this university campus in deep South Texas, where about 1,300 students are DACA eligible, more than any other Texas university.

Yet according to Bianca Castro, an 18-year-old psychology major, DACA students have not received university support, leaving many feeling vulnerable.

Over the past couple of years organizers have urged our administration to help our students, to create a support system, and that has been met with empty promises, said Castro, who helped organize the walkout. It comes down to this: how much do you care about your students?

For its part, UTRGV said the administration supports everyone affiliated with the university. The university has also hosted DACA information sessions and maintains a website that provides resources for DACA and undocumented students.

As I have stated in previous messages to our campus community, each student, staff, and faculty member who makes up our UTRGV community is an important part of our university family and will be supported regardless of place of birth or citizenship, Bailey said in a statement. Diversity, Access, and Inclusion is one of our core university values.

University organizations and United we Dream, a national immigrant rights organization, rallied students at high schools and universities across Texas and the country to stage walkouts and call Congress act before the end of the year to pass the Dream Act, which would offer the so-called Dreamers permanent residency and a path to citizenship. The demonstrators called for Congress to pass the bill without other anti-immigrant legislation measures attached to it.

Then-President Barack Obama enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, in 2012. The policy has given renewable two-year deportation reprieves to more than 800,000 young immigrants in the country without permission, including around 124,000 recipients in Texas.

But for undocumented immigrants living along the border with Mexico the presence of thousands of immigration agents patrolling the region is ominous reminder of their precarious footing in the country.

Abraham Diaz, 24, a DACA recipient and recent UTRGV graduate, now avoids the interior immigration checkpoints that are necessary to pass through to access the rest of the United States.

The checkpoints are located along highways miles north of the international line, and while DACA permit holders have been allowed to pass through, some have been questioned for hours after Trump announced the end of the deferred action program.

Its tough because we dont know what will happen next, said Diaz, whose DACA permit expires in December. Right now our dreams are on hold.

A check with San Antonio universities last week didn't show any groups joining the national walkout effort.

For another DACA recipient living in the Rio Grande Valley, the decision to participate in the walkout at UTRGV was made at the last minute. The 20-year-old sophomore asked to remain anonymous because of the uncertainty surrounding his future in the country.

There is a sense a danger on the street, he said. Within the university community I feel safe.

Staff writer Siliva Foster-Frau contributed to this report | anelsen@express-news.net | Twitter: @amnelsen
Veteran actress Na Moon-hee on Thursday won best actress at the Korean Association of Film Critics Award for her leading role in the movie "I Can Speak."

Na plays a woman forced to serve as a sex slave by Japanese troops during World War II.

"I'm so thankful to everyone. I'm speechless in accepting the best actress award," Na said. "In spite of my age, I will try to keep learning new things and inspire young people and give them hope."

But it was "The Fortress," a period flick starring Lee Byung-hun, that took the most awards, for best movie, directing, cinematography and music.

Sol Kyung-gu won best actor for the crime movie "The Merciless" and Choi Hee-seo won best new actress for her role in "Anarchist from Colony" about an independence fighter during the colonial era.

Best new actor went to Park Seo-joon for the comedy "Midnight Runners."
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A 39-year-old man was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly told a banking clerk at the Bexar County Jail that he was a serial killer and was going to murder her because she couldn't find his name in the computer system.

Joe Elliot Ramirez, of San Antonio, now faces a charge of making a terroristic threat against a public servant. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $1,600 bond.

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According to his arrest report, Ramirez called the victim, an inmate banking clerk at the Bexar County Jail, to inquire about the status of the account.

When the victim couldn't find him in the system, he allegedly began verbally threatening her.

"My last name is Ramirez, like Richard Ramirez the serial killer," he allegedly said, referencing the infamous Los Angeles-area home invader and rapist who killed 13 people.

Ramirez told the clerk that he was trying to be a serial killer, at which point the clerk told him she couldn't help him because he was being rude, the affidavit says. Ramirez then reportedly told her he was outside the building.

RELATED: Victims of Sutherland Springs church shooting officially identified

"I'm a serial killer, and I'm going to f--king kill you. I'm outside," he told her, according to the affidavit.

Surveillance footage later showed investigators that he was in fact outside of the building at the time of the phone call.

Deputies with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office later obtained a warrant for his arrest in connection with the alleged threats and booked him into jail.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
Authorities on Thursday jailed a 58-year-old man after a 16-year-old foster child he had befriended told Child Protective Services the man had groped him, court records say.

Daniel Berckmoes, who was reportedly living with a different 17-year-old foster child at the time of his arrest, was charged with indecent child contact. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $75,000 bond.

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According to his arrest affidavit, Berckmoes met the victim at a Thai Hut restaurant in San Antonio, where the 16-year-old worked. From April to September of this year, the two developed a relationship, authorities said.

"During this time [Berckmoes] would pick up the victim and drive him to his residence and they would meet often," reads the affidavit.

Berckmoes sometimes kissed the victim and grabbed his buttocks during these meetings, the vitim reportedly told authorities. During one ride to Berckmoes's house, the suspect groped his genitals, he said.

As this was going on, the victim's group home was shut down and Berckmoes applied to be his foster parent, officials said. His request was denied following a Child Protective Services background check, court records show.

The victim was eventually taken in by a family in Austin. Berckmoes continued to text the victim, saying things like "love you kiddo" and "love you miss you want you need you," the affidavit says.

RELATED: SAPD: Man posted revenge porn of wife to YouPorn after she learned he was married to 2nd woman

The new foster parents discovered the text messages, and on Sept. 25, the victim told authorities about Berckmoes alleged inappropriate behavior. In addition to the kissing and groping, the victim told authorities that Berckmoes expressed his desire to perform other sexual acts upon the victim, authorities said.

A CPS case worker notified San Antonio police of the accusations, and upon further investigation it was revealed that Berckmoes was living with another 17-year-old foster child, though it is unclear if this was sanctioned by CPS.

Authorities secured a warrant for Berckmoes' arrest and booked him into jail.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
AUSTIN - As Democrats nationally are cheering recent wins in Virginia and New Jersey and are planning for an all-out assault on Republicans in Washington, Texas Democrats still have no announced flagship candidate to challenge GOP Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2018 election.

The party that hasn't won a statewide office in two decades does have a list of earnest wannabees for down ballot positions, struggling to get attention without much name ID, which is a key to getting elected.

But as the 30-day filing period for candidates opens on Saturday. Democratic party leaders are predicting surprises, lots of them, in the coming weeks and months that they predict will turn Texas more blue when the final ballots are counted in next year's general election.

"Even against all odds, with rigged maps, we're still making progress in Texas," Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said Thursday. "What you're seeing across the country right now, this Democratic rise after Trump's vile politics have infected the Republican Party, you'll be seeing that happen in Texas. There are going to be some surprises."

Will the party field candidates for all statewide elective positions? Yes, he says.

'Solid Republican'

State Republican Party officials acknowledge that while their party faces some challenges in certain districts, Texas will remain perhaps the Red State bastion of conservative GOP politics that it has been for years.

"Texas is solid Republican and it will remain solid Republican after the last ballots are counted, and you can take that to the bank, sir," said Williamson County businessman and longtime GOP activist Charles Jarmon, echoing the sentiments of party officials.

Even so, John Bucy III, the Democratic Party chair in Williamson County, which has long been a Republican stronghold, noted after a recent meet-and-greet in Round Rock with Mike Collier, a Democrat running against GOP incumbent Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, that politics in Austin's largest suburb are changing.

Democrats recently have won local races, including a spot on the county commissioner's court.

"We are becoming more blue ," Bucy said.

Democrats in Harris and Fort Bend counties make the same point, as do party activists in San Antonio, Dallas and the Rio Grande Valley.

"There have been a dramatic rise in Democratic candidates ready to file in a lot of these races," Garcia said. "There are going to be a number of competitive races."

Even so, as recently as this week, the party's choice to challenge for Abbott was publicly still up for grabs. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Garcia confirmed she was considering running, as were others whose names have been bandied about for weeks.

Two other announced Democrats - businessmen Jeffrey Payne of Dallas and Tom Wakely of San Antonio - said they were still in. Andrew White, the son of the late former Gov. Mark White, said he was still seriously considering a run against Abbott, even though he said party leaders had shied away from him because he was pro-life and too conservative.

Davis unlikely to run

Political scientists suggest that the lack of a party flag-bearer to run for governor, as the filing period opens, suggests they have been unable to find someone to run - an assertion that party leaders deny.

Former Fort Worth state Sen. Wendy Davis, who ran an unsuccessful race against Abbott in 2014 and has been rumored to perhaps be up to challenging him again, said she no plans to do so. Instead, she said she is helping the state Democratic party look for a candidate the party's base can support.

"There's only the very remotest of chances that I would do that," she said when asked if she would run. "I'm waiting for someone credible to step forward so I can throw my support behind them."

Asked what it would take for her to change her mind, and challenge Abbott, she responded: "A brainwash, maybe."

Democratic Party activists in Houston, Austin and San Antonio insist that Donald Trump will be Democrats' best friend in the November 2018 election. His controversial decisions that have created disarray in the ranks of Republicans, not only in Washington but in Texas, will fuel defections in congressional, state and legislative races, they predict.

Political observers are not so sure.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said the recent Democratic wins in Eastern states suggest to him that the "patterns of partisanship are hardening" in midterm elections, rather than a shift in voter sentiment.

"The statistics suggest that blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder," he said, meaning that parties are looking to focus on their bases of support. "This could mean that Texas will get even redder."
By fall 2019, the children of Highlands Oaks should no longer have to trudge through the mud on rainy days to catch the school bus.

County officials announced this week that new paved roads in the subdivision in unincorporated Bexar County will be completed within two years if construction plans proceed as scheduled.

Its about time.

Southside Independent School District stopped sending its buses into the neighborhood in deep South Bexar County after several got stuck. The unpaved roads create a hazard for motorists during wet and dry conditions because of the soft loam, a soil combination of sand and clay.

Residents of Highland Oaks, a rural and low-income community, have lobbied county commissioners long and hard to have the roads fixed.

The county for decades has maintained that the roads were private and that public funds could not be used to address their condition. That position did not change after a 2015 Express-News Editorial Board investigation revealed the roads had been accepted by the county as part of a lawsuit settlement more than 30 years ago.

Then about a year ago, after much adverse publicity about the deplorable road conditions hampering emergency vehicle access to residences, the court had a change of heart.

Commissioners declared the situation a public safety issue and asked staff to assess the conditions of all roads in unincorporated areas of the county.

They declared Highland Oaks a top priority, and in the 2016-2017 budget allocated funds for the design phase of a road construction project. The engineering firm of CDS Muery was hired in April, and the design work for the road is about 60 percent complete.

Two months ago, commissioners provided funds for the construction phase for the project. It was the only new capital project funded by the county in its new budget.

The design and construction work has a price tag of $3.35 million.

County engineer Renee Green on Wednesday presented an update on the plans to about 150 residents of the Highland Oaks neighborhood and surrounding community.

The county expects to solicit construction bids in the spring. Work is expected to start in summer 2018 and take a year to complete.

San Antonio Water Systems is going to also bid the project. The utility company wants to replace existing 2-inch and 6-inch undersized water mains to meet its standard specification before the new roads are constructed.

Each new road will include two 12-foot lanes with 4 feet of paved shoulder, standard for rural roadways. The work will also include bar ditches for drainage, Green said.

John E. Rothe of CDS Muery said the Highland Oaks project will result in the construction of eight streets, for a total of 2.138 miles of new road. He said the preliminary work did not uncover any major conflicts or problems with rights of way.

Residents who turned out for the meeting at El Carmen Catholic Church welcomed the news delivered by Green, but were a bit miffed that Commissioner Chico Rodriguez and County Judge Nelson Wolff were not present. A meeting agenda circulated in the community indicated Rodriguez and Wolff were going to be in attendance.

I was sent a copy of that agenda, along with an email invitation to the meeting, from a community representative. A closer inspection of the document, however, showed it had an April date.

Is is unclear how that agenda came to be passed around, but it resulted in a fairly disgruntled group of residents Wednesday night. They were pretty vocal about it and made sure county staff took their message back to commissioners.

South Bexar County has long been a neglected sector of Bexar County, and for decades its residents have quietly accepted being marginalized.

It bodes well for the South Side that the voices of its residents are growing stronger and that residents are willing to wage battle against the status quo.

gpadilla@express-news.net
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California is facing new challenges, and the next governor will be forced to make major changes to prepare the state for a very different future, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democratic candidate for governor, said in San Francisco Thursday.

Health care, an aging population, climate change and the threat automation poses to existing jobs are just a few of the problems facing the state in coming years, the former San Francisco mayor told about 200 people at a downtown talk at the Public Policy Institute of California.

I could go on and on and on ... about setting audacious goals the next governor has to deliver, Newsom said, to laughter from the crowd.

But as governor, Newsom said, he would be willing to make the hard choices needed.

I have no interest in failing more efficiently, he said. I have no interest in playing in the margins.

His support for single-payer health care is one of the things that sets him apart from the other candidates for governor, Newsom said. The existing health care system is bankrupting the state, and we cant afford to not do something radically different.

The lieutenant governor argued that a single-payer system without the profit factor and the marketing expenses that mark the current private insurance system cant help but be cheaper.

Putting a single-payer plan into operation  and paying for it  will require leadership and creativity, as well as a consensus on what Californias priorities should be, Newsom said.

I know my opponents want to exploit this for political purposes, complaining that the arguments for single-payer are little more than wishful thinking bolstered by fudged numbers, Newsom said. But its not snake oil to face a problem head-on.

Newsom announced his run for governor in February 2015, just weeks after being sworn in for a second term as lieutenant governor. Hes been the front-runner ever since in a race thats beginning to split along regional and ethnic lines.

An online USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday showed Newsom with the support of 31 percent of registered voters. He was followed by former Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa with 21 percent, Orange County GOP Assemblyman Travis Allen with 15 percent, Democratic state Treasurer John Chiang at 12 percent, GOP businessman John Cox with 11 percent and Democratic former state schools chief Delaine Eastin at 4 percent.

Newsom outpolled Villaraigosa, 53 percent to 6 percent, in the Bay Area, while most of the former Los Angeles mayors support was in Southern California. Villaraigosa also has support from about two-thirds of the states Latino voters.

With Gov. Jerry Brown in Europe talking about climate change, Newsom introduced himself as the states acting governor. But because he and the governor have not always seen eye to eye, Newsom was forced to walk a narrow line, praising his popular boss but also suggesting that a Newsom administration would be very different.

At one point, for example, Newsom said that with all due respect, as a citizen and lieutenant governor he was frustrated that the state and, by inference, Brown ceded some of the federal immigration conversation to (former Arizona Gov.) Jan Brewer and (federal Secretary of Energy) Rick Perry  both avid supporters of President Trumps proposed immigration crackdown.

He also suggested that Brown has done a much better job setting goals for such issues as climate change, water storage and affordable housing than he has in actually meeting them.

On high-speed rail, one of the governors signature issues, Newsom argued that while he supported the original plan, he has real concerns with the proposed rail system as its now proposed.

Lets be honest with people, he said. Its not the vision, its the application of the vision.

That ratio of talk to action is not unique to Brown, Newsom admitted.

I get it, he said. When I was mayor, I was very good at establishing goals ... for (his successor, current San Francisco Mayor) Ed Lee.

But Newsom also had plenty of praise for Brown and even a bit for Trump, noting that the president didnt play politics with the Oroville Dam repairs and the Wine Country fire response.

Brown has balanced resistance to much of Trumps agenda with an ability to work with the president on the needs of the state.

Ive studied him, Newsom said, adding that Brown also has proved you dont have to be profligate to be progressive.

As governor, however, Newsom said he would be an agent of serious change for a state that soon will look very different than it does today.

Im not timid, he said. If you want timid, Im not your guy.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
Korean men are growing increasingly overweight. In 1998, three out of 10 men were obese, but the ratio rose to four last year. The increase was particularly high among men in their 30s and 40s, while there was almost no change in the proportion of overweight women over the same period.

According to a recent report by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the adult obesity rate stood at 34.8 percent last year, compared to 33.2 percent in 2015. The government conducts annual studies on public health, including obesity and smoking. The adult obesity rate stood at 26 percent when the first study was conducted in 1998.

The male obesity rate reached 42.8 percent last year, surpassing 40 percent for the first time and up from just 25.1 percent in 1998. Among men in their 40s, the obesity rate rose from 33.3 percent to 45.6 percent, and among men in their 30s from 19.3 percent to 32.4 percent. But the female obesity rate has been steady at around 26 percent, and among women in their 40s it actually fell slightly from 29.8 percent to 28.7 percent.

A KCDC official said this is due to more women paying attention to their physical shape and putting in the effort to watch what they eat. One health expert said, "The latest statistics show Koreans may have grown more interested in how they look and what they eat, but still remain unenthusiastic when it comes to actually taking care of their health."
Californias GOP members of Congress have to step up and oppose the new Republican tax plans or explain why their constituents will be paying thousands of dollars more to the IRS each year, San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi said Friday.

The tax bills making their way through Congress are very destructive to California, Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, said at a news conference at a Mission Bay fire station. Its hard to imagine why all 14 (Republican members of Congress in the state) voted against California in supporting the bill.

Both the GOP-led House and Senate have proposed tax bills, neither of which has come up for a final vote. So far, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), in the only California Republican to say he opposes the tax plans.

Pelosi, who was joined by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and a number of tax-plan opponents, called the GOP proposal a gift to corporate America at the expense of middle-class working people.

The bill proposed by the House would eliminate current deductions for state and local taxes and limit the deduction for property taxes, potentially exposing middle- and upper-class residents to thousands of dollars in additional taxes.

Even the way that deduction is applied is unfair, Pelosi added.

If youre an individual taxpayer, you cant deduct state and local taxes, she said. But if youre a corporation, you still can.

Republicans, however, argue that the proposed tax bills deliver much-needed help both to taxpayers and the countrys slowly improving economy.

The House tax bill would deliver real relief to the American people, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a statement Thursday. It provides exactly the type of tax cut and job growth our country needs to get back on track.

Pelosi said other proposed changes would hurt people, many of them senior citizens, who now deduct large medical expenses from their taxes. That deduction would disappear in the House tax plan.

That would be a devastating financial hit, said 85-year-old Vangie Buell of Oakland, whose 88-year-old husband, Bill, suffers from dementia.

Costs at the assisted-living senior facility where they live have tripled in the two years since her husband was diagnosed, but much of that cost has been deductible, she told the crowd at the news conference.

Eliminating the deduction would empty her familys savings much quicker.

Its an act of cruelty beyond my power to understand, Buell said.

Pelosi and Lee made it clear they want to pressure Californias GOP members of Congress, especially since a number of Republican lawmakers in other high-tax states already have said they cant back the tax bills as now written.

Republicans in New York and New Jersey have opposed the tax plan, she said, so whats the matter with our members?

Pelosi came bearing a chart that showed the number and percentage of households claiming the state and local tax deduction in each GOP-held district, as well as the average deduction those households received.

The chart showed the dilemma those Republican lawmakers face, especially in some of the states higher-wealth suburban areas.

More than 37 percent of the households in GOP Rep. Mimi Walters Irvine district claim the deduction, which is worth an average of $18,200 to each of them. Explaining why a bill touted as a tax cut for the middle class ends up costing many of their constituents money could be a tough slog for California Republicans already being targeted by Democrats.

The Republicans wrote a red state tax bill, which helps the low-tax states that backed Donald Trump for president at the expense of high-tax states like California, which didnt, said Tony Quinn, a former GOP consultant.

While voters in those GOP congressional districts might not have liked Trump much, they didnt dislike their local representatives, he added, especially compared to the university professors and Berniecrats running in their districts.

But the tax bill takes the spotlight off Trump and focuses it right on the GOP Congress members who support it.

This is actual dollars out of peoples pockets and affects virtually all the middle- and upper-class taxpayers who itemize deductions, Quinn said. This isnt like Obamacare, which affected mainly lower-income voters. This affects those suburban voters who are (Republican) constituents.

A sign calling for voters to Say No to the #GOPTaxScam was attached to the lectern where Pelosi spoke, and she promised that Democrats would hold similar antitax-plan events throughout the country in upcoming days.

But for Pelosi and California Democrats, the battle against the tax plan is a no-lose proposition. If they do persuade GOP Congress members to oppose the tax bill, it could kill the bill and give Democrats a surprising victory. But if those same Republicans back the tax bill, it gives Democrats a new and likely effective way to attack them in next years elections.

We want to call them out by name so people know what side their representatives were on, said Lee. The (tax) bill is frankly a disgrace.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
The seminar, cohosted by the San Antonio Police, will focus on what store owners can do to prevent skimming.

AUSTIN, Texas  Wayne Fueling Systems, part of Dover Fueling Solutions (DFS), has teamed up with the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) to host the Gas Pump Credit Card Fraud: Identification & Prevention Seminar yesterday at the San Antonio Public Safety headquarters.

This seminar for the fuel dispenser industry and c-store owners and operators focused on the current skimming situation and EMV transition. The group discussed steps to prevent skimming on the forecourt and what store owners can tell their customers on prevention.

U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Steve Gemperle spoke about fuel dispenser skimming and theft, while Sgt. Paul Castillon of the SAPD Financial Crimes division addressed current trends in fuel dispenser skimming in the South Texas region, identification of devices, and the hardening of dispensers and facilities. Tim Weston, technology solutions sales manager for Wayne Fueling Systems, presented what fuel dispenser technology offerings Wayne has in their portfolio to help prevent skimming at the pump.

Gas pump credit card skimming is creating significant losses for banks and consumers, both financially and in hours spent investigating and recovering from credit card fraud, said Lt. Marcus Booth with the SAPD. Its critical that law enforcement, the fuel dispenser industry, gas retailers and financial institutions work together to combat pump skimming. The San Antonio Police Department appreciates the opportunity to partner with Wayne Fueling Systems in sponsoring this seminar and bringing together a working group to minimize skimming and subsequent financial losses.

Were pleased to be working with officials such as the San Antonio Police Department to bring awareness to this issue and provide information on how Wayne can help combat fraud at the pump, added Bill Reichhold, DFS vice president of North America.
The fast-food chain will deliver via DoorDash from 2,500 locations in 48 markets by the end of the year.

DUBLIN, Ohio  Wendys is going all in for delivery. The burger chain announced plans to expand its delivery servicethrough partner DoorDashto 2,500 locations in 48 market by 2018, the Columbus Dispatch reports. The company tested delivery in Dallas and central Ohio earlier in 2017.

Wendys discovered that delivery options mean more customers, according to CEO Todd Penegor this week. Delivery tickets are higher than average as customers place orders for three or four meals, rather than one or two at the drive-thru. Food at home is the competitor, Penegor said.

The chain needs new customers and higher sales to counter its stale earnings report in the third quarter. Same-store sales bumped up 2% during that quarter, but corporate-owned stores registered a decrease. Im sort of disappointed with the consumer strength lately in the fast-food zone, said David Palmer, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. People should be able to spend.

Other fast-food restaurants are turning to delivery as well. McDonalds recently expanded its McDelivery option, with a goal of servicing 5,000 locations by the end of 2017. Even the fast-causal market is getting into delivery, with chains like Outback Steakhouse, Buffalo Wild Wings and Carrabbas Italian Grill offering the option.
Premier Li Keqiang met with visiting US President Donald Trump Nov 9 in Beijing.

Premier Li applauded the smooth progression in Sino-US ties, saying that President Xi Jinping and Trump have reached critical consensus concerning the two countries future cooperation in their fruitful dialogue during Trumps visit.

Close high-level exchanges help create new momentum for bilateral cooperation, he said.

The economic cooperation between China and the US has brought about closely intertwined interests, said the Premier, adding that the current uptrend of the two economies will benefit the whole world.

He explained that the potential is huge for Sino-US cooperation, as China, the largest developing country in the world, has a vast market and enormous human resources, and the US, the largest developed country, has advanced technologies and experiences.

The Premier acknowledged that disputes and disagreements are hard to avoid in such cooperation, such as the trade deficit issue that concerns the US. China never seeks trade surpluses with any country, he said. The fact that the economic ties between China and the US have grown fast in the decades since the establishment of diplomatic relations has proven that the two countries cooperation is highly complementary and relatively balanced.

He suggested both sides could further open up to each other, creating a level playing field for enterprises of both countries. China welcomes the US to expand service trade and increase high-tech product exports to China, Premier Li said. Through deeper economic and trade cooperation, both sides could achieve win-win results and give full play to their complementary advantages.

As permanent members of the United States Security Council and key players in the Asia-Pacific region, both countries should share responsibilities in maintaining peace and stability as well as prosperous development of the region. He said China is ready to strengthen communication with the US in international and regional issues, and he hopes the upcoming East Asia meetings could send positive signals in cooperation with joint efforts by all parties involved.

Trump spoke highly of his fruitful visit to China, expressing his hope that bilateral ties and cooperation could scale new heights, and that the two countries could jointly cope with the challenges and cultivate fair and balanced economic and trade relations.
Independent Tipperary TD Seamus Healy has called on management in the Boston Scientific plant in Clonmel to accept a Labour Court recommendation recognising the right of workers in the medical devices facility to trade union representation.

The Clonmel TD says the Labour Court has ruled in favour of workers in this facility being allowed to be represented by their union for the purposes of collectively bargaining on pay and working conditions but that management has refused to implement the recommendation.

"I will be supporting the workers on the streets of Clonmel this week on Friday 10th November and Saturday 11th November asking the public to sign a petition supporting the call for trade union recognition", he said.

Deputy Healy says that many Boston Scientific employees joined SIPTU following what he describes as an attempt by management to deduct 20% from their shift pay.

He says management attempted to make this cut despite many of the workers earning less than the living wage of 11.70 per hour.

Deputy Healy says that more than 400 workers signed a petition indicating their opposition to the move.

He adds - "It is now well beyond time that the union was recognised and industrial relations in the company put on a reasonable basis.

"I again call on Boston Scientific to show respect for their employees as human beings and to grant them trade union recognition".
By Online Desk

The registrar of the University of Hyderabad on Friday issued a notice to the chief security officer of the varsity directing the guards to record any 'suspicious activities' on the campus.

In the order issued earlier in the day, the guards have been instructed to take photographs of the activities, videograph events, check identity cards, confiscate banned substances, conduct regular inspection of hostel rooms/playgrounds/open areas of campus on suspicious grounds or anything that goes against the rules and regulations to 'safeguard' the interests of the university.

The order which comes into force with immediate effect was issued hours before the demonstration call by the students union who had called for a protest gathering at the Velivada on Friday afternoon to agitate the 'illegal hostel and academic suspension' of ten students.

The order was issued on Friday by the UoH administration. (UoH official website)

The Students Union has appealed all the students to join in to demand the revocation of suspension against 10 students and to reclaim a space of dissent.

It may be recalled that the administration of UoH on Wednesday suspended 10 students including two women students on charges of 'misconduct, physical and verbal assault on its officials.'

While three, including a PhD scholar, have been suspended for two years, seven others have been suspended for six months from academic programmes and hostels. The decision was based on the recommendations of a committee constituted on an incident that took place on the night of November 3 at the Men's Hostel-J when the wardens and the security staff conducted raids and found a woman student in one of the rooms. According to the university rules, women are not allowed in the men's hostels

The matter soon escalated and police had to be called in. On November 4, an inquiry committee was set up and it submitted its report on November 6.

The inquiry panel found Pratyush Nirjher, Atira Unni V (MA-sociology) and Sagnik Saha (PhD-history) guilty of refusing to comply with rules, preventing officials from discharging their duties and indulging in verbal assault, for which they were suspended for two years. Tinanjali Dam, a representative of the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), along with six other students, was suspended for six months.

Pratyush Nirjher in an open letter replied to the show cause notice issued to him by the UoH warden.

After Rohith Vemula's death in 2016 brought out issues linked to discrimination and difficulties faced by students from disadvantaged backgrounds, University of Hyderabad is now back under the spotlight for gender segregation and discrimination, and infantilising adult students by imposing draconian rules.

The registrar of the University of Hyderabad on Friday issued a notice to the chief security officer of the varsity directing the guards to record any 'suspicious activities' on the campus. In the order issued earlier in the day, the guards have been instructed to take photographs of the activities, videograph events, check identity cards, confiscate banned substances, conduct regular inspection of hostel rooms/playgrounds/open areas of campus on suspicious grounds or anything that goes against the rules and regulations to 'safeguard' the interests of the university. The order which comes into force with immediate effect was issued hours before the demonstration call by the students union who had called for a protest gathering at the Velivada on Friday afternoon to agitate the 'illegal hostel and academic suspension' of ten students. The order was issued on Friday by the UoH administration. (UoH official website) The Students Union has appealed all the students to join in to demand the revocation of suspension against 10 students and to reclaim a space of dissent. It may be recalled that the administration of UoH on Wednesday suspended 10 students including two women students on charges of 'misconduct, physical and verbal assault on its officials.' While three, including a PhD scholar, have been suspended for two years, seven others have been suspended for six months from academic programmes and hostels. The decision was based on the recommendations of a committee constituted on an incident that took place on the night of November 3 at the Men's Hostel-J when the wardens and the security staff conducted raids and found a woman student in one of the rooms. According to the university rules, women are not allowed in the men's hostels The matter soon escalated and police had to be called in. On November 4, an inquiry committee was set up and it submitted its report on November 6. The inquiry panel found Pratyush Nirjher, Atira Unni V (MA-sociology) and Sagnik Saha (PhD-history) guilty of refusing to comply with rules, preventing officials from discharging their duties and indulging in verbal assault, for which they were suspended for two years. Tinanjali Dam, a representative of the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), along with six other students, was suspended for six months. Pratyush Nirjher in an open letter replied to the show cause notice issued to him by the UoH warden. After Rohith Vemula's death in 2016 brought out issues linked to discrimination and difficulties faced by students from disadvantaged backgrounds, University of Hyderabad is now back under the spotlight for gender segregation and discrimination, and infantilising adult students by imposing draconian rules.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Dr Shamika Ravi, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies Program at Brookings India and Brookings Institution Washington D.C. is attending the meeting of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a part-time member.



Reports of Dr Ravis appointment to the panel have been doing rounds in the recent past. While an official announcement about her appointment is yet to be made and is expected shortly.



Meanwhile, the second meeting of the EAC to Prime Minister Modi is underway in the national capital under the chairmanship of Bibek Debroy.

Second meeting of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, under chairmanship of Bibek Debroy, underway in Delhi; Dr.Shamika Ravi also attends as a part-time member. pic.twitter.com/SR4GpexGt2  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017



In the first meeting of the council, ten issues were identified around which the Council Report would be structured in the coming month, developed by the Group through consultative processes involving ministries, states, experts, private sector players and other key stakeholders.



Addressing their first press conference post the formation of the council, Chairman Bibek Debroy highlighted that major priorities were identified for accelerating economic growth and employment over the next six months, with greater last mile connectivity.



Another key issue recognised was the need for effective tracking of key economic parameters through possible mechanisms for instituting an economy track monitor using lead indicators and triggers for action, based on informed assessment and analysis.



It was also agreed that specific issues papers would be brought out by members to address key concerns and linkages will be established with key national institutions.



The second meeting is also being attended by leading economists Dr. Surjit Bhalla, Dr. Rathin Roy, Dr. Ashima Goyal and Member Secretary Ratan P. Watal, who was also the former Finance Secretary and Principal Adviser to NITI Aayog.

NEW DELHI: Dr Shamika Ravi, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies Program at Brookings India and Brookings Institution Washington D.C. is attending the meeting of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a part-time member. Reports of Dr Ravis appointment to the panel have been doing rounds in the recent past. While an official announcement about her appointment is yet to be made and is expected shortly. Meanwhile, the second meeting of the EAC to Prime Minister Modi is underway in the national capital under the chairmanship of Bibek Debroy. Second meeting of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, under chairmanship of Bibek Debroy, underway in Delhi; Dr.Shamika Ravi also attends as a part-time member. pic.twitter.com/SR4GpexGt2  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017 In the first meeting of the council, ten issues were identified around which the Council Report would be structured in the coming month, developed by the Group through consultative processes involving ministries, states, experts, private sector players and other key stakeholders. Addressing their first press conference post the formation of the council, Chairman Bibek Debroy highlighted that major priorities were identified for accelerating economic growth and employment over the next six months, with greater last mile connectivity. Another key issue recognised was the need for effective tracking of key economic parameters through possible mechanisms for instituting an economy track monitor using lead indicators and triggers for action, based on informed assessment and analysis. It was also agreed that specific issues papers would be brought out by members to address key concerns and linkages will be established with key national institutions. The second meeting is also being attended by leading economists Dr. Surjit Bhalla, Dr. Rathin Roy, Dr. Ashima Goyal and Member Secretary Ratan P. Watal, who was also the former Finance Secretary and Principal Adviser to NITI Aayog.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The tussle within top judiciary today came to the fore with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster".

The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had yesterday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.

Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra.

However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned yesterday's order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters.

In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter.

"There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge nor a three-judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.

"Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annulled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners.

"Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he believed in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution.

Perturbed by yesterday's order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.

Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), including its President R S Suri, vice-president Ajit Sinha, Secretary Gaurav Bhatia and several senior advocates including Ashok Bhan, Aman Sinha and others strongly countered the allegations levelled in the petitions and said strong action should be taken against any attempt to "browbeat" the judges.

"Getting orders by terrorism should not be tolerated by this court. Strong action needs to be taken against any such attempt," SCBA members said while requesting the bench to initiate contempt proceedings in the matter.

The hearing in the jampacked courtroom saw allegations flying thick and fast with Bhushan even raising his pitch while asking the CJI to recuse himself from hearing the matter as his name has allegedly figured in the CBI's FIR.

The CJI retorted by asking Bhushan, who was accompanied by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, one of the petitioners, to read the contents of the FIR and warned against losing his temper.

"We have been giving you indulgence and you cannot deny that, despite you levelling wild allegations against me. You can afford to lose your temper but we cannot", the CJI said.

Bhushan, who was representing an NGO 'Campaign for Judicial Accountability' and Jaiswal, seeking constitution of an SIT to probe the corruption case allegedly involving judges, said the CJI's name features in it.

"What FIR against me? It is nonsense. There is not a word in the FIR naming me. Read our orders first. I feel sorry. You are liable for contempt now," the CJI said.

Bhushan dared the bench to issue a contempt notice to him and said the hearing cannot be conducted in this manner without allowing him to speak.

The activist advocate was also rebuked by Justice Arun Mishra, who observed that FIR cannot be lodged against sitting judicial officer of lower courts, judges of the higher judiciary, the Vice President of India or the President of India because they have immunity.

He said the contents of the petition filed before it was per se contemptuous.

Bhushan left the court in a huff midway during the hearing, alleging that he was not being allowed to speak while the court has heard "all and sundry". He was seen apparently being pushed and jostled while he was leaving the courtroom.

The court proceedings were extraordinary in that the CJI was asking all kinds of lawyers who were not parties to say things against the order of Court 2, w/o hearing petitioner. He tried to justify his role in the medical college case & speak against 'impropriety' of Court 2 https://t.co/iBAf4YwuCg  Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) 10 November 2017

The CJI also said he had set up the five-judge constitution bench as a two-judge bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, while hearing a separate plea with similar allegations of bribery earlier in the day, had said that the matter should be placed before the CJI for passing an appropriate order.

At the fag end of the hearing, one of the bar members requested the bench to pass an order gagging the media from reporting the case, claiming it would tarnish the image of the institution which is a "temple of justice".

The CJI refused to accept the oral submission, saying "I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

"Prime facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression should be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press," CJI Misra said.

The constitution bench also made it clear that the pleas regarding alleged bribes taken in the names of judges would be taken up by an appropriate bench after two weeks.

The CBI, in its FIR, has named several persons, including former Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, as accused in the alleged corruption case.

(With Express News Service inputs)

NEW DELHI: The tussle within top judiciary today came to the fore with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster". The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had yesterday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused. Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra. However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned yesterday's order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters. In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter. "There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge nor a three-judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench. "Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annulled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners. "Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he believed in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press". The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution. Perturbed by yesterday's order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function. Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), including its President R S Suri, vice-president Ajit Sinha, Secretary Gaurav Bhatia and several senior advocates including Ashok Bhan, Aman Sinha and others strongly countered the allegations levelled in the petitions and said strong action should be taken against any attempt to "browbeat" the judges. "Getting orders by terrorism should not be tolerated by this court. Strong action needs to be taken against any such attempt," SCBA members said while requesting the bench to initiate contempt proceedings in the matter. The hearing in the jampacked courtroom saw allegations flying thick and fast with Bhushan even raising his pitch while asking the CJI to recuse himself from hearing the matter as his name has allegedly figured in the CBI's FIR. The CJI retorted by asking Bhushan, who was accompanied by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, one of the petitioners, to read the contents of the FIR and warned against losing his temper. "We have been giving you indulgence and you cannot deny that, despite you levelling wild allegations against me. You can afford to lose your temper but we cannot", the CJI said. Bhushan, who was representing an NGO 'Campaign for Judicial Accountability' and Jaiswal, seeking constitution of an SIT to probe the corruption case allegedly involving judges, said the CJI's name features in it. "What FIR against me? It is nonsense. There is not a word in the FIR naming me. Read our orders first. I feel sorry. You are liable for contempt now," the CJI said. Bhushan dared the bench to issue a contempt notice to him and said the hearing cannot be conducted in this manner without allowing him to speak. The activist advocate was also rebuked by Justice Arun Mishra, who observed that FIR cannot be lodged against sitting judicial officer of lower courts, judges of the higher judiciary, the Vice President of India or the President of India because they have immunity. He said the contents of the petition filed before it was per se contemptuous. Bhushan left the court in a huff midway during the hearing, alleging that he was not being allowed to speak while the court has heard "all and sundry". He was seen apparently being pushed and jostled while he was leaving the courtroom. The court proceedings were extraordinary in that the CJI was asking all kinds of lawyers who were not parties to say things against the order of Court 2, w/o hearing petitioner. He tried to justify his role in the medical college case & speak against 'impropriety' of Court 2 https://t.co/iBAf4YwuCg  Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) 10 November 2017 The CJI also said he had set up the five-judge constitution bench as a two-judge bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, while hearing a separate plea with similar allegations of bribery earlier in the day, had said that the matter should be placed before the CJI for passing an appropriate order. At the fag end of the hearing, one of the bar members requested the bench to pass an order gagging the media from reporting the case, claiming it would tarnish the image of the institution which is a "temple of justice". The CJI refused to accept the oral submission, saying "I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press". "Prime facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression should be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press," CJI Misra said. The constitution bench also made it clear that the pleas regarding alleged bribes taken in the names of judges would be taken up by an appropriate bench after two weeks. The CBI, in its FIR, has named several persons, including former Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, as accused in the alleged corruption case. (With Express News Service inputs)
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: In the wake of Tipu Jayanti, Section 144 has been imposed in Karnatakas Kodagu on Friday. Section 144 imposed in Kodagu ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebration, security tightened, the District Administration said

BJP workers who took part in anti-Tipu Jayanti protests in Karnataka's Hubli and Kodagu today were detained by police in both places, reported news agency ANI.

"Have detained more than 150 BJP workers in Hubli protesting against Tipu Jayanti celebrations," said Renuka Sukumar, Karnataka DCP.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday opposed the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus.

After witnessing major clash in 2015 in the state over the celebrations of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the Karnataka Government last year decided to make the event an annual affair.

Stones were reportedly thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri, during protests against the celebrations.

Stones thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri, during protest against Tipu Jayanti celebrations pic.twitter.com/SgZQ9iD9wH  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

BJP and other outfits, which are opposing the celebrations, will observe it as a Black Day.

At an event in Bengaluru on Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, BJP has double standards. They celebrated Tipu when they were in power. But now, they are opposing the celebrations.

The celebrations have, meanwhile, been shifted to evening hours in view of the prayer timings of Muslims.

We have been celebrating Tipu Jayanti since three years and there has been no issues. It is just like observing birthdays of freedom fighters, saints and other inspirational leaders, said Minister Umashree.

If BJPs elected representatives dont want to participate, we have told district administrations to remove their names from the invitations, she added.Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, I have instructed police to act tough against those who try to disturb communal harmony. Requests to take out protest marches and processions have been rejected. Those who try to violate the orders would be dealt with strictly.

ADGP rank officials have been deployed in Mangaluru, Kodagu and other places to ensure peaceful celebrations of Tipu Jayanti. Elaborate security has been made across the state, especially in coastal areas and Kodagu district to maintain law and order.This will be the first major assignment for newly appointed DG&IGP Neelamani Raju.

Western range IGP Hemant Nimbalkar said, We have taken many anti-social elements into custody. As many as 4,000 police personnel have been deployed in four districts- Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagalur, Uttara Kannada and Udupi. Four Rapid Action Force (RAF) and 19 platoons of Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and District Armed Reserve (DAR) have been deployed.

Two ADGP rank officials- Prathap Reddy and Alok Kumar will monitor policing and IGP rank officers will be deployed in every districts of western range, sources said.

Good morning beat at sensitive locations

Police have launched Good morning beat system to ensure security at religious and other sensitive places ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebrations. Cops have been directed to identify and secure locations and use social media platforms and WhatsApp to connect with the residents.As per the new beat system, policemen will start visiting the sensitive areas from early morning. They will ask residents not to pay heed to rumours and circulate any sensitive message without verifying its authenticity.

Prohibitory orders in Udupi

Udupi SP Sanjeev Patil told Express that additional forces have been deployed in sensitive areas. CCTV cameras have been also installed at violence-prone areas, he added. To prevent any untoward incidents Udupi Deputy Commissioner Priyanka Mary Francis has clamped prohibitory orders under section 144 of IPC.

Drones deployed in Kodagu district

With Tipu Jayanti Virodhi Samiti declaring a district bandh on Friday, more than 1,500 police personnel, 16 sector magistrates have been deployed to prevent outbreak of violence. For the first time 300 CCTV cameras, drones and 50 internal check posts were installed in sensitive areas, said ADGP Bhaskar Rao (law and order).

(With ANI inputs)

BENGALURU: In the wake of Tipu Jayanti, Section 144 has been imposed in Karnatakas Kodagu on Friday. Section 144 imposed in Kodagu ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebration, security tightened, the District Administration said BJP workers who took part in anti-Tipu Jayanti protests in Karnataka's Hubli and Kodagu today were detained by police in both places, reported news agency ANI. "Have detained more than 150 BJP workers in Hubli protesting against Tipu Jayanti celebrations," said Renuka Sukumar, Karnataka DCP. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday opposed the Karnataka government's decision to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in the state on November 10. The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot, who fought against the British. However, the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch for being biased against Hindus. After witnessing major clash in 2015 in the state over the celebrations of Tipu Sultan Jayanti, the Karnataka Government last year decided to make the event an annual affair. Stones were reportedly thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri, during protests against the celebrations. Stones thrown at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri, during protest against Tipu Jayanti celebrations pic.twitter.com/SgZQ9iD9wH  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017 BJP and other outfits, which are opposing the celebrations, will observe it as a Black Day. At an event in Bengaluru on Thursday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, BJP has double standards. They celebrated Tipu when they were in power. But now, they are opposing the celebrations. The celebrations have, meanwhile, been shifted to evening hours in view of the prayer timings of Muslims. We have been celebrating Tipu Jayanti since three years and there has been no issues. It is just like observing birthdays of freedom fighters, saints and other inspirational leaders, said Minister Umashree. If BJPs elected representatives dont want to participate, we have told district administrations to remove their names from the invitations, she added.Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, I have instructed police to act tough against those who try to disturb communal harmony. Requests to take out protest marches and processions have been rejected. Those who try to violate the orders would be dealt with strictly. ADGP rank officials have been deployed in Mangaluru, Kodagu and other places to ensure peaceful celebrations of Tipu Jayanti. Elaborate security has been made across the state, especially in coastal areas and Kodagu district to maintain law and order.This will be the first major assignment for newly appointed DG&IGP Neelamani Raju. Western range IGP Hemant Nimbalkar said, We have taken many anti-social elements into custody. As many as 4,000 police personnel have been deployed in four districts- Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagalur, Uttara Kannada and Udupi. Four Rapid Action Force (RAF) and 19 platoons of Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and District Armed Reserve (DAR) have been deployed. Two ADGP rank officials- Prathap Reddy and Alok Kumar will monitor policing and IGP rank officers will be deployed in every districts of western range, sources said. Good morning beat at sensitive locations Police have launched Good morning beat system to ensure security at religious and other sensitive places ahead of Tipu Jayanti celebrations. Cops have been directed to identify and secure locations and use social media platforms and WhatsApp to connect with the residents.As per the new beat system, policemen will start visiting the sensitive areas from early morning. They will ask residents not to pay heed to rumours and circulate any sensitive message without verifying its authenticity. Prohibitory orders in Udupi Udupi SP Sanjeev Patil told Express that additional forces have been deployed in sensitive areas. CCTV cameras have been also installed at violence-prone areas, he added. To prevent any untoward incidents Udupi Deputy Commissioner Priyanka Mary Francis has clamped prohibitory orders under section 144 of IPC. Drones deployed in Kodagu district With Tipu Jayanti Virodhi Samiti declaring a district bandh on Friday, more than 1,500 police personnel, 16 sector magistrates have been deployed to prevent outbreak of violence. For the first time 300 CCTV cameras, drones and 50 internal check posts were installed in sensitive areas, said ADGP Bhaskar Rao (law and order). (With ANI inputs)
On the last day of their 3 day Ethiopia visit, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway visited Hitsats Refugee Camp located in Tigray region of Ethiopia. Norwegian Crown Couple was welcomed by the personnel of Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) at the camp.
Rogers project faces $20 million shortfall. What's next.

The numbers are a part of the construction firms 60% Construction Documentation Estimate, one of the deliverables requested by the city.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Light snow this morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 33F. Winds W at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 90%..

Tonight

Cloudy. Low around 25F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.
New Delhi: Amid a slowdown in economy and protests by traders, particularly in poll-bound Gujarat, Goods and Services Tax Council has decided to overhaul the indirect tax regime, reducing 28% tax on 178 items to 18% or less.

While businesses across the country have welcomed the move which is likely to help revive the demand, opposition parties claimed that the government had to bite the bullet as they had suggested from Day One that 18% should be the maximum tax on goods and services, except a few items like alcohol and tobacco products.

The liberal tax rates, however, come at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore on exchequer.

Only 50 out of 228 items have been retained in the 28% rate slab. Additionally, the 18% slab has also been pruned to 12% and 5%.

We have rationalized certain items from the 28% to the 18% or even less. Optically, there are few items that shouldnt be at 28% that were there earlier. There were 228 items in the 28% slab, 178 out of which have been shifted out of the slab. Cess items such as luxury items, sin goods, white goods, auto parts, cement, paint among others are the only ones remain in 28% category, said finance minister Arun Jaitley.

At its 23rd meeting in Guwahati on Friday, the GST Council decided to drop items used by common man and middle class from the highest tax slab. Further, Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the 18% slab has been rationalised to 12% and 5%.

For consumer interest, rate for all restaurants has been brought down to 5%, without input tax credit, confirmed Haseeb Drabu, finance minister, Jammu and Kashmir. This was done because the restaurants, according to government, did not transfer the benefit of input credit to the consumers.

The new rates will be applicable from November 15, 2017.

Citing the items shifted to lower tax slab, the finance minister said, Detergents, marble, flooring, toiletries have been moved from 28% to 18%. Armoured fighting vehicles along with one more item have been shifted from 28% to 12%. Thirteen items have been moved from 18% to 12%. Six items have been shifted from 18% to 5%. Eight items from 12% to 8% and 6 items 5% to nil.

Addressing the conference, finance and revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said, Return filing procedure till March 31, 2018 has been easened even more. Filing of return 3B will continue till March 31. All taxpayers will file only GSTR1 for this year. Penalty for late filing for nil return filers will be Rs 20 per day, compared with Rs 200 per day earlier. For tax filers having liabilities, the penalty has been slashed to Rs 50 per day from Rs 200 per day.

Government is expecting revenue losses of up to Rs 20,000 crore, which it hopes will be compensated by widening of tax base.

Amit Mitra, West Bengal finance minister, says, Tax losses to the tune of Rs 60,000 crore for the Centre and Rs 30,000 crore for the states have already taken place.

GST Council largely consists of state finance ministers headed by Union FM Arun Jaitley.

Bihar deputy chief minister and finance minister Sushil Kumar Modi said goods used by common man have been removed from the 28% slab. Only luxury goods and items such as tobacco and cigarettes have been kept in the 28% slab, he said.

The Rate Fitment Committee had proposed keeping 68 items in the top bracket.

Industrial production grew at a slower pace of 3.8% in September, primarily due to subdued performance of the manufacturing sector along with a contraction in output of consumer durables.

Factory output measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose 5% in September last year and 4.55 in August this year, data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) revaealed on Friday.

Narendra Modi Cabinets Group of Ministers (GoM) had also suggested that eating out at hotels that have room tariff of more than Rs 7,500 should attract a uniform 18% rate, which so far fell under the 28% bracket. With regards to traders, the GoM came up with a two-pronged approach under the composition scheme. It suggested that traders who want to exclude sale proceeds of tax-free items from turnover can pay 1% GST. However, those who pay tax on total turnover, the tax rate was proposed at 0.5%.

Criticising the move, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said, Indias FM did not apply mind while implementing GST. Sinha was in Patna addressing a symposium organised by JDU dissident Uday Narayan Chaudhary.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi posted a comment on Twitter: We will not allow BJP to impose a Gabbar Singh Tax on India. They cannot break the back of the small and medium businesses, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs.

Delhi deputy CM and finance minister Manish Sisodia posted a tweet saying GST on many essential commodities like paints and motor parts continue to be at 28%, despite opposition demand to reduce it. BJP government is having to swallow its ego, he added.
New Delhi: In what can be deduced as the biggest re-jig in GST rates, only 50 out of more than 200 items have been retained in the 28% rate slab. Luxury items and goods such as tobacco are the ones that will attract 28% tax from now on.

In a meeting held on Friday in Guwahati, GST council decided to drop items used by common man from the highest tax slab and lower their taxes to 18%.

GST council largely consists of state finance ministers headed by central finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who is also a member of the GST Council, said goods used by common man have been removed from the 28% slab. Only luxury goods and items such as tobacco and cigarettes have been kept in the 28% slab."

The Rate Fitment committee had proposed keeping 68 items in the bracket. Pruning this tax bracket may result in revenue loss of Rs 20,000 crore. The government seems to have gone a step further.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) had also suggested that eating out at hotels that have room tariff of more than Rs 7,500 should attract a uniform 18 per cent rate instead of any separate category for a 5-star hotel, which currently falls under the 28% bracket. With regard to traders, the GoM came up with a two-pronged approach for taxation under the composition scheme. It suggested that traders who want to exclude sale proceeds of tax-free items from turnover can pay 1% GST.

However, for those who pay tax on total turnover, the tax rate has been proposed at 0.5%.

Criticising the move, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said on Friday, India's FM did not apply mind while implementing GST. He was in Patna addressing a symposium organised by JDU dissident Uday Narayan Chaudhary.
Mumbai: Senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and the differently-abled can look forward to availing of basic banking services, right from the comfort of their home.

The RBI on Thursday asked banks to provide doorstep banking facilities to senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently-abled persons by December this year.

Banks have been directed that senior citizens and specially-abled persons, including the visually-impaired, should be provided basic services like pick-up and delivery of cash, chequebooks and demand drafts at their residence.

Issuing a notification in this regard, the RBI said, "it has been observed" that there are occasions when banks discourage or turn away senior citizens and differently-abled persons from availing banking facilities in branches."

"...in view of the difficulties faced by senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and differently-abled or infirm persons (having medically certified chronic illness or disability) including those who are visually impaired, banks are advised to make concerted effort to provide basic banking facilities...," the RBI said in a communication to banks, including small finance and payments banks.

These facilities should include pick-up of cash and instruments against receipt, delivery of cash against withdrawal from accounts, delivery of demand drafts, submission of Know Your Customer (KYC) documents and Life Certificates at the premises or residence of such customers.

"Banks are advised to implement these instructions by December 31, 2017, in letter and spirit and give due publicity in their bank branches and websites," it said.

The RBI noted that notwithstanding the need to push digital transactions and use of ATMs, it is imperative to be sensitive to the requirements of senior citizens and the differently-abled.

The notification further said that in addition to the facility of Digital Life Certificate under 'Jeevan Praman' Scheme, pensioners can submit physical Life Certificate form at any branch of the pension-paying bank.

"However, it is observed that often the same is not updated promptly by the receiving branch in the Core Banking Solution (CBS) system of the bank, resulting in avoidable hardship to the pensioners," it noted, asking banks to ensure that when a Life Certificate is submitted in any branch, including a non-home branch, the same should be updated and uploaded promptly in the CBS.

The RBI asked banks to provide a minimum of 25 cheque leaves every year for a savings bank account free of charge. They should not insist on physical presence of any customer, including senior citizens and differently-abled persons, for getting cheque books.

Banks have also been advised that a fully KYC compliant account should automatically be converted into a 'Senior Citizen Account' based on the date of birth available in the bank's records.

According to the apex bank, banks should provide senior citizens and differently-abled persons Form 15G/H (related to tax deduction at source) once a year (preferably in April).
New Delhi: The last 48 hours in the Supreme Court of India have witnessed exceptional events.

On Wednesday, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra recalled the orders passed by another bench of the apex court in two cases.

Both the cases pertained to issues of considerable significance. The first one related to the protracted stand-off between the central government and judiciary over finalising the new norms for appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and high courts. The second one was a matter related to exploring the possibility of an alternate forum to decide criminal appeals without delays.

While the other bench comprising Justices Adarsh K Goel and Uday U Lalit sought assistance of the Attorney General, the CJI-led bench wrapped up the cases without requiring to hear the AG on the first day, in a hearing spanning less than 30 minutes.

Questions arose what exigency required the bench headed by the CJI, who is also the master of the roster and is in-charge of allocating cases to different courts, to transfer these two cases to itself and then close the proceedings?

Did it not undermine the wisdom of the other bench, which wanted to go into the cases in details and had even requested the AG to assist? Was it not an instance of an "intra-court" appeal in the Supreme Court, which neither the Constitution nor does the Court rules acknowledge?

Then came Thursday.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave approached Court number 2, headed by Justice J Chelameswar, for an urgent listing of a PIL. He claimed that the top court must step in because the credibility of judiciary and the judges were at stake in view of certain bribery allegations and hence, the truth has to be unravelled.

But this request was not much different from the one on Wednesday, when he had shown up before Justice Chelameswar.

A day ago, Dave along with advocate Prashant Bhushan, had mentioned a similar PIL, arising out of the same criminal case and with identical prayers. Justice Chelameswar, who had to hear cases meant for urgent listing because the CJI was heading a Constitution Bench matter, posted the other case on Friday.

However, on Thursday, Justice Chelameswar agreed to take up the second similar matter on an urgent basis at 12.45 pm. The direction was to place the case before a bench headed by him.

This was apparently a departure from the usual practice in the Supreme Court, where even the urgent matters are directed to be placed before an "appropriate" bench, which is decided by the CJI.

But Justice Chelameswar manifestly decided not to wait for the CJI to take a call on the administrative side as to which bench should hear the case.

Meanwhile, 45 minutes before the scheduled hearing of this case in Court number 2, the Constitution Bench led by the CJI got up abruptly in Court number 1 and said it will resume proceedings at 2 pm.

At 12.45 pm, Dave stood before the bench of Justices Chelameswar and SA Nazeer. He demanded an independent probe by a special investigation team under the supervision of a former CJI in the wake of the allegations that the rot of corruption behind granting approvals to medical colleges could run to the top judiciary. Dave pointed out that a former Odisha High Court judge was arrested in this case and the FIR indicated others could also be involved.

Justice Chelameswar found substance in Dave's arguments and agreed to examine the case "in the interest of the institution and the whole nation".

Not just the bench directed the CBI to produce all materials on investigation in this case before the apex court for a safe custody which essentially meant a stay of trial proceedings, but also referred the matter to a Constitution Bench.

Seconds before Justice Chelameswar was to dictate the order, the bench received a draft order issued "purportedly by the CJI. This order, according to the sources, talked about listing of the similar PIL before another court on Friday.

Unfazed, Justice Chelameswar passed the order and said that the CJI's order on administrative side about listing of the case shall be placed along with the order being passed by him.

On his part, Dave further said that the order has to record that the CJI should not deal with this case either on the judicial side or on the administrative side because most of the cases of granting recognition to medical colleges were heard by the bench led by the CJI.

Justice Chelameswar cited Article 145(3) to state that a matter could be placed directly before a Constitution Bench and that he did not think there was a necessity to pass such an order.

In its order, the bench further said that the case shall be heard by five senior-most judges in the Supreme Court.

This direction is also questionable since who shall comprise a Constitution Bench is usually decided by the CJI, after the matter is placed before him. The possibility of an opinion by the CJI seems to be dispensed with, in the order dictated by Justice Chelameswar.

When the CJI refers an issue to a larger bench, even then the order mentions that the matter be placed before the CJI for constitution of an appropriate bench, but this practice was done away with perhaps because Dave's petition had said the CJI should be kept away from this case both on judicial and administrative side.

In case of exclusion of the CJI, the Constitution Bench is located to be headed by Justice Chelameswar again being the second senior-most judge.

While this case has to now come up on November 13, the other PIL will be heard by a different bench on Friday.

Cases getting withdrawn from some other court or an apparent negation of the authority of a CJI have been unprecedented developments at the highest court of the land whose credibility must remain unimpeached for keeping up the faith of the people.

The opaqueness of the system also generates several questions about procedures and practice being followed in distribution of important cases equitably between all the benches of the Supreme Court where the CJI is "the first among equals" only in terms of his administrative authority.

The extraordinary events in the last 48 hours demand concerted efforts by the fellow judges and senior lawyers to play the role of conscience-keepers and make sure the glory of the institution remains intact. They must rise to the occasion being the equal stakeholders in the institution. Their silence and abstinence at such a time of crisis may in fact prove too costly.
Kota (Rajasthan): A fast deteriorating public health situation in Rajasthan  where nearly thousands of doctors have gone on strike since November 6  is now facing an unexpected backlash from within the community.

A private dairy federation in Kota, which has been the epicentre of protests by more than 640 doctors over the last five days, has announced it will stop supplying milk to the striking doctors.

The president of Kota Private Dairy Federation, Mohammad Umar, has said that are over 300 private dairies in Kota that are part of the federation, will now not deliver milk to the residences of the doctors who have joined the statewide agitation.

Umar has told local media that at a time when seasonal diseases are at their peak, a strike by doctors is unethical considering that poor patients have nowhere to go.

The doctors have gone on strike, mainly to demand better facilities at workplaces, in order to treat their patients better, they claim.

The general secretary of All Rajasthan In-Service Doctors Association, Durga Shankar Saini, has told local media that the doctors were forced to go on strike as the state government did not pay heed to their 33-point demand.

These demands are not in the interest of the doctors but for improvement of medical and healthcare facilities that would eventually be beneficial for the patients, Dr Saini was quoted by local media.

Meanwhile, the state government is now reportedly mulling over the option of imposing Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act (RESMA) in the state. Imposing RESMA would immediately make the strike unlawful and mandate strict punishment against the doctors including their arrest.

The public health crisis, in form of agitating doctors, in Rajasthan has been in making for a long time. Earlier last month, around 10,000 doctors in Rajasthan went on one days leave to protest better working conditions, increase in their rural allowance, separate allowance for treatment of infectious diseases, timely promotion and rectification in salary discrepancies, along with over two dozen other demands. While state government had assured them that their demands would be met, the issue has never really been resolved till now.

As of now, the state government has asked eight major private hospitals to compensate for the shortfall in number of doctors in public sector by providing free OPD services till the standoff goes on.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said that credibility of the judiciary cannot be put in the hands of a police sub-inspector.

Included in the five-judge Constitution Bench, Justice Arun Misra was emphatic about the constitutional protection given to the judges and emphasised that an FIR cannot be registered against a member of the judiciary on a mere complaint or even by passing judicial orders.

Justice Mishra, who sat on the bench presided over by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, said that there is no law to register criminal cases against the judges and it is guided only by a procedure.

"Judges have got certain protection. And this protection is not for the individuals but for the institution. We also say it with utmost seriousness that there should be no corruption at all and all such complaints should be duly checked. But are we going to put the credibility of the judiciary in the hands of a SI (sub-inspector)?," asked the judge.

Justice Mishra was referring to the contentions in a PIL that a comprehensive probe was warranted in the wake of the allegations that the judges at the highest level might be involved in settling cases relating to medical colleges.

When advocate Prashant Bhushan stated that the name of the CJI might come up during the probe, Justice Mishra retorted that not just his bald allegations amounted to contempt of the court but also that the PIL could not ask for an inquiry against a sitting CJI through a judicial order.

"We are not here to protect the individuals but the constitutional protection will have to be respected. There is a procedure to inquire. When the allegations are against the members of the subordinate judiciary, high court chief justice gives approval. When high court judges are involved, the Supreme Court and the CJI look at them. And when someone alleges against the CJI, there is President and Vice-President. We cannot take cognisance of such complaints on the judicial side," he maintained.

Justice Mishra said that it is "neither conceivable nor proper" to authorise just any other police officer to start investigating against sitting and former judges.

The judge also questioned the order passed by Justice J Chelameswar a day ago wherein a similar PIL demanding a probe into grant of accreditation to medical colleges was directed to be placed before "first five" senior judges.

"The question is can a two-judge bench refer a matter to a Constitution Bench? Even if we assume the issues involved were constitutionally important, why the first five judges? Are other judges not competent?" he asked.

About the CJI, he said that Justice Mishra was in a "dilemma" whether or not to constitute a bench in the second matter now.

Justice Misra, on his part, pointed out that Bhushan should first look at the orders passed by the bench headed by him in the medical colleges' cases since the court gave no approval to the colleges mentioned in the CBI FIR for the academic year 2017-18.

As Bhushan said he wanted CJI's recusal since cases being heard by his bench were subject-matter of investigation, Justice Misra replied: "We deal with hundreds of cases every day and pass orders. But what's going on? We are also concerned about the institution. You (Bhushan) may hurl allegations against me and also lose temper but we cannot afford to do it. If this goes on the institution cannot function. We are not going to be guided by what people talk about us in the Court corridors. We are on the issue of judicial propriety."
New Delhi: In an extraordinary turn of events implying an unprecedented power tussle in the Supreme Court, the Constitution Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, on Friday declared that the CJI is the "master of the roster", having the exclusive power to decide which case will go to which judge in the Supreme Court.

No other judge can decide to hear a case by himself nor can he instruct the CJI to set up a particular bench in the top court, ruled the Constitution Bench, adding any deviation from this principle will cause "anarchy and chaos in the administrative dispensation of justice".

The order came a day after a two-judge bench, headed by Justice J Chelameswar, had passed a judicial order that a five-judge bench of senior-most judges in the top court shall be constituted to consider an independent probe into a corruption case, in which bribes were allegedly being taken in the name of settling cases pending before the Supreme Court judges.

Nullifying the order passed by Justice Chelameswar, the larger bench on Friday held that any such order shall be "ineffective" and will not be binding since only the CJI can decide where and how a case is to be listed for hearing.

The Constitution Bench has however also clarified that the two PILs will now be listed afresh before a new bench on orders of the CJI.

"No judge can take up the matter on his own unless allocated by the CJI since he is the master of the roster. Once the CJI is declared to be the master of the roster, a two-judge bench or a three-judge bench cannot allocate the matter to itself or direct for constitution of a larger bench. There cannot be a command or a direction to the CJI...," ruled the Bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar.

Raising the issues of "judicial discipline and decorum," the larger bench maintained that passing a judicial order by any other judge is not "countenanced in law and cannot be allowed".

The Constitution Bench, which kept referring the order passed by Justice Chelameswar-bench, said that if any such order has been passed by any other bench, it will not hold the field anymore

The pressing need for a ruling by the five-judge bench on Friday arose in the wake of the developments in the last two days.

NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability had filed the first petition, seeking a special investigation team under supervision of a former CJI to thoroughly probe the case relating to granting recognition to medical colleges since the matter might involve sitting and former judges of the Supreme Court and high courts. The plea sought recusal of the CJI, contending the medical admission cases were being heard by his bench in the apex court and that his role might also need to be examined.

When the matter was mentioned before Justice Chelameswar on Wednesday, he said the case will be heard by an appropriate bench and thus the case was listed on Friday. However, a similar PIL with identical prayers in connection with the same allegations was again mentioned by senior advocate Dushyant Dave and Justice Chelameswar allowed a hearing at 12.45 pm.

The bench led by Justice Chelameswar then took up the matter at 12.45 pm and even after he was shown an administrative order during the proceeding that only the CJI could post a matter for hearing before a particular bench, the order was issued for setting up a larger bench "in the interest of the institution and the nation."

When the NGO's PIL came up for hearing before a different bench in the Court on Friday, it simply ordered that this matter should be placed before the CJI for appropriate directions.

Within two hours, the CJI constituted the five-judge bench and issued an authoritative order, annulling the order passed by the bench of Justices Chelameswar and S A Nazeer.

While Additional Solicitor General P S Narasimha and senior members of the SC Bar Association regretted the manner in which Justice Chelameswar-bench passed the order, advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for the NGO, complained he barely got to speak despite being the petitioner in the case. Ninety minutes into the hearing, Bhushan stormed out of the court room saying since the Bench was not interested in hearing him at all, it could very well pass an order even in his absence.
The National Green Tribunal has slammed the brakes on Delhi governments plan to bring back the odd-even scheme for a third run, saying the Arvind Kejriwal administration sat on several other measures for one year. The government, meanwhile, announced that travel in DTC and cluster buses would be made free from November 13-17, the duration it had set for odd-even return.

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Danang (Vietnam): US President Donald Trump on Friday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time," he said. "The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield. "Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said. Trump praises India's growth story, PM Modi at APEC Summit

Danang (Vietnam): US President Donald Trump on Friday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in Vietnam, Trump said that countries outside of the grouping

were also making "great strides in this new chapter for the Indo-Pacific".

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of 1.3 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, a key meeting between ASEAN and eight of its partners.

The US president also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time," he said. "The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over a proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting with India, Japan and Australia, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".

In his address, Trump also praised countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, which also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam war, in which Da Nang was a key battlefield. "Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends," Trump said.
New Delhi: India and Pakistan may disagree about a thousand things but pollution is a common enemy. And Pakistan seems to be getting the strategy to curb crop burning right. As the pollution level has peaked in Delhi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and many others have blamed it on crop burning in Punjab and Haryana. And despite several attempts, the government has failed to incentivize the farmers to stop burning the stubble.

When Kejriwal tweeted, urging Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh to take steps to stop crop residue burning, Pakistan jumped on the bandwagon. Responding to Kejriwals tweet, the official handle of Pakistani Punjab government said, We have imposed a ban on stubble burning in (Pakistan) and hope @capt_amarinder takes similar measures.

https://twitter.com/GovtOfPunjab/status/928321089889013768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Findiatoday.intoday.in%2Fstory%2Fdelhi-pollution-arvind-kejriwal-captain-amarinder-singh-pakistan-punjab%2F1%2F1086143.html

In an earlier report, News18 pointed out how Pakistan has been able to take better measures than India to control crop burning. This year, according to reports, 2,620 incidents of crop fire were spotted via satellite in Indian Punjab. In Pakistan, the number was limited to just 27.

Images by ISRO showed that Pakistan had a near same incidence of farm fires a couple of years ago. But they have managed to reduce it. However, India is still struggling.

Meanwhile, Punjab province Minister for Environment Zakia Shah Nawaz Khan said that both India and Pakistan need to collaborate to find a sustainable solution to this problem.

Both countries need to collaborate in order to find a sustainable solution. The only proper forum to do that, at the moment, is through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), Zakia Shah Nawaz Khan, environment minister of the Pakistan province of Punjab, wrote in an opinion piece.

Right now, Pakistan is blaming the India side for polluting its air. Maybe when we sit together, face to face, we can be more realistic, he wrote.

However, India has dismissed the suggestion. India, instead, said that the SAARC meetings can happen only if one country stops providing enabling-environment to terrorism.

Our stand remains unchanged. For the talks to go ahead there should be a conducive environment which has to be created - an environment has to be created which is free of terrorism and free of terrorists getting support from Pakistan, MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
London: A 51-year-old man, believed to be of Indian-origin, has been arrested in Germany in connection with a murder following a restaurant war between Indian and Pakistani eateries in Scotland over 24 years ago.

Police Scotland said the man, who cannot be named at this stage, was arrested over the murder of Pakistani-origin Ansar Shah in the seaside town of Ayr in Ayrshire on October 4, 1993, and will now be returned to Scottish jurisdiction.

"It is anticipated that proceedings to return the man to Scottish jurisdiction will take place in due course," a Police Scotland statement said.

The arrested man is believed to be Indian-origin Avtar Singh, who was arrested as he landed in Frankfurt from a flight from Delhi.

Singh was a waiter of an Indian restaurant in Ayrshire at the time of the murder and had disappeared after the murder, which local media reports at the time described as a restaurant war between rival Indian and Pakistani restaurants over migrant staff employed by them.

Shah, the owner of Armaan Brasserie which has since been renamed as Ayr India, was stabbed to death outside the eatery when a group of Pakistanis clashed with Indians, the 'Ayrshire Post' had reported at the time.

Two other men had been severely injured in the attack and treated in hospital.

A nationwide manhunt was launched for Singh, also known as Tony and Dari, who had worked as a waiter in the Jewel in the Crown restaurant in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.

The unsolved murder case was being re-examined by specialist cold case detectives in the UK since May this year.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Bell of Police Scotland Homicide Governance Review said, "Police Scotland is committed to pursuing those persons who are allegedly responsible for the gravest of crimes.

"Time and location is no barrier to the efforts and determination of our staff and partners to pursue justice for victims and their loved ones."

The arrest follows a joint operation coordinated from the Scottish Crime Campus, and led by Police Scotlands Homicide Governance and Review Team, involving participation with Police Scotlands International Assistance Unit, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Law Enforcement partners across Europe including Europol, French and German authorities, and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The arrested man could accept the terms of the arrest warrant and agree to being flown to Scotland or fight it through the German courts.
Washington: UN General Assembly and Security Council members managed on Thursday to award four out of five judges International Criminal Court seats, but the fate of Indias candidate hung in the balance.

India's Dalveer Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election at The Hague-based the ICJ, which has a bench of 15 judges. Five of them are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

After five rounds of voting, Nawaf Salam of Lebanon won his bid, as did current leader of the court Ronny Abraham of France, his vice president Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia and Antonio Augusto Cancado Trindade of Brazil. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

The 193 assembly members and 15 council members will reconvene Monday at 1:30am IST on Tuesday in the hopes of deciding between Dalveer Bhandari and Christopher Greenwood.

Stakes are high for both India and Britain for the last seat. In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority  115 votes  in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes. However, in the 15-member Security Council, Greenwood got majority (9) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

The process has proved arduous: the 193 Assembly members and 15 council-members must choose the same candidates simultaneously while voting with paper ballots in separate rooms. To win a spot contenders must also obtain a majority of 97 votes in the Assembly and eight in the Security Council.

Regulation requires new ballots until both UN arms reach the same conclusion at the same time.

Throughout the day voting was interrupted with lengthy breaks, especially at the Council where just 15 members means a faster process.

The ICC is made up of 15 members, and a third of them are up for re-election every three years.

In 2014 it took seven rounds in the General Assembly and four in the Security Council to elect five judges.

Based in The Hague, the ICC is tasked with prosecuting those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when national courts are unwilling or unable.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari, 70, was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

(With agency inputs)
New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University has slapped fines ranging between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 on four students for cooking and eating biryani near the Administrative Block. The university said this constitutes indiscipline.

Warning the students to not involve in such exercise in future, the order also set a deadline of 10 days for paying the fine, failing which more stringent action would be taken.

The incident happened on the June 27, when the then JNUSU president Mohit Pandey and Satrupa Chakraborty had gone to the vice-chancellors office to discuss some issues.

The students have claimed that V-C Professor Jagdesh Kumar refused to meet them or listen to their pleas despite repeated requests. He also refused to give them an appointment for the next day.

As a mark of protest, JNUSU Union President and other office bearers decided to camp outside the administrative block the entire night. This is when other students joined in and cooked biryani for dinner at the protest site.

According to a notice issued by Chief Proctor Kaushal Kumar, fines between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 have been slapped on the four students who allegedly prepared 'Biryani' near the building in June.

"In a proctorial enquiry you have been found guilty of cooking food (Biryani) near the stairs in front of admin block and eating it thereafter along with other students," the order said on the students, adding the act was serious in nature and calls for strict disciplinary action.

Students claim they have been fined and penalized for something which has been happening in front of the admin block for many years now.

(With PTI inputs)
The University of Madras has announced the re-scheduled exam dates of the UG/PG/Professional theory exams that got postponed last week due to heavy rains in Chennai and adjacent areas.

As per the new schedule the UG/PG/Professional exams that were originally scheduled to be conducted on 3rd November 2017 and 4th November 2017 will be now organised on 5th December and 6th December 2017 respectively. Due to excessive rains in Chennai last week, two Universities viz Anna University and Madras University had cancelled the semester exams indefinitely.

Anna University has also released the re-schedule of the exams and will be conducting its postponed exams of 3rd November on 25th November and the exam that was scheduled for 25th November will be conducted on 4th December 2017.

The Chennai rains last week had created a flood-like situation in Chennai and its neighboring districts which made movement impossible in the capital city of Tamil Nadu. The heavy down pour started on last Thursday i.e. 2nd November and continued till the next day disturbing normalcy in Chennai and adjoining localities.

The schools and colleges were closed by the government in Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram areas besides the cancellation of these University exams. Candidates can now prepare for their examination as per the re-scheduled time table and gear up to appear for the same next month.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Controller of Examinations has requested various college principals and examination authorities to keep the question papers of the postponed exams under safe custody to avoid any manipulation.
New Delhi: Pakistan has allowed Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, currently on death row, a meeting with his wife. The gesture has been made 'purely on humanitarian grounds,' a press release issued by Pakistan's foreign affairs ministry declared on Friday.

It said that the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has been informed of the decision. Pakistani foreign affairs ministry mentioned that this request has been granted months after India's foreign affairs ministry had first raised it with Pakistan.

The Indian government has been trying to arrange a meeting of Jadhav with his family since July and had moved a visa application for his mother, but Pakistan had not reciprocated at the time. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had even written a "personal letter" to Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz asking for approval of visa application of Jadhavs mother so that she may travel to Pakistan.

Pakistan has also turned down at least 15 Indian requests for consular access to Jadhav since his arrest last year and India says that this was in violation of the Vienna Convention.

It is not yet clear what prompted Pakistan to relent but top government sources told News18 that the change in stance is an indication that Pakistan is under pressure from the international community and the case in International Court of Justice is not going in their direction.

Coming after some backchannel dialogue and meetings, it is likely to be seen as a Confidence Building Measure (CBM) between the two nations, who have been battling it out in the ICJ. The move comes after Pakistan defence spokesperson gave hints of hanging Jadhav, who is on death row on the allegations of spying as an agent of R&AW.

It was only last month, on October 5, when the Director General of Inter Services Public Relation (ISPR), Major General Asif Ghafoor had said that the mercy petition of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav is in its "final stages" and a "good news" was likely to come "very soon."

Though he didn't spell it out, the "good news" for Pakistan was understood to be a hint at the army chief turning down Jadhav's mercy petition, clearing way for his execution.

How will, if at all, the Chief of Pakistan Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa turn down the mercy appeal of the Indian national, remains to be seen as any such order would be not stand in view of the ongoing arguments at International Court of Justice.

The ICJ had at India's request asked Pakistan to restrain from hanging the former Indian naval officer. On May 18, the top UN court had ruled that Pakistan "shall take all measures at its disposal to ensure Jadhav is not executed pending final decision."

Jadhav was arrested by Pakistan officially on March 3, 2016. Pakistani army claimed that he had 'illegally crossed over to Pakistan and had confessed before a Magistrate of, on behalf of R&AW, planning, coordinating, and organising espionage'. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Here is a copy of the Pakistan foreign office's release:
New Delhi: There seems to be more questions than answers at this stage of the CBI probe in the murder case of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur in Ryan International School in Gurugram.

A court order from September 2017 shows, CBI raided the premises of the class XI student, who has been accused of murder, on September 28.

This search took place just 6 days after CBI registered the FIR in the case. As per the court order in possession of CNN-News18, the CBI found certain articles/documents which it wanted to retain for the purpose of investigation. The same court heard the arguments and then ordered that CBI is permitted to retain the seized articles/documents for the purpose of investigation.

This order copy raises certain questions. Was the accused under CBI scanner right from the beginning of the CBI probe?

If the CBI could move so quickly on the accused then why was Gurgaon police still treating this student as a mere witness? Was there an attempt by the Gurugram police to name an accused and work backwards to dress the case?

Earlier the countrys premier investigative agency had said that the murder weapon was the knife which was recovered from the commode of the toilet. This too was in direct conflict with the Gurugram police theory that the knife was recovered from Ashok, the conductor and prime accused as per the state police.

The CBI apprehended the 16-year-old student on 7th November for allegedly killing Pradyuman.

The arrest came after the Haryana Police initially arrested a school bus conductor for the boy's murder.

The family and lawyers of Pradyuman, who was killed inside the school premises in September have demanded the accused boy be tried as an adult and be awarded strict punishment.
Pope Francis has outlawed the sale of cigarettes at the Vatican in a bid to lead by example on healthy living.

"The Holy Father has decided that the Vatican will cease to sell cigarettes to employees as of 2018," the Vatican said in a statement on Thursday.

"The reason is very simple: the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people," it said, adding that smoking claims more than seven million lives every year, according to the World Health Organization.

"Although the cigarettes sold to employees and pensioners in the Vatican at a reduced price are a source of revenue for the Holy See, no profit can be legitimate if it puts lives at risk," it added.

Francis, who has only one lung, does not smoke. He has let the locals keep their other guilty pleasure, tax-free alcohol.

The cigarettes and booze are sold in a luxury duty-free shop, opened in 2003 in what was once the Vatican's magnificent railway station but is now home to everything from designer handbags and shoes to flat-screen televisions.

Only those with a pass -- Vatican employees or pensioners -- can shop there, and many pick up goods, food and even fuel inside the city for Italian friends on the other side of the tiny state's imposing walls.
Celebrated Indian fashion designer Neeta Lulla is excited about launching her N Pret label -- an affordable wedding range -- in Singapore.

She will be debuting in the South Asian fashion retail market on Friday and Saturday, by partnering with multi-brand store White & Gold who connect the global residents of Singapore with Indian designers.

Located at the Orchard Boulevard, the heart of luxury shopping in Singapore, White & Gold houses pret a porter collections of Rohit Bal, Anita Dongre, Anju Modi, AM:PM, Mandira Wirk, Pankaj & Nidhi, amongst others.

"Yes, this is the first time I'm showcasing in Singapore and I'm excited. N Pret has received a phenomenal response in India and it's time to launch the label overseas," Lulla said in a statement.

"I appreciate the vision of White & Gold who are showcasing Indian designs that experiment with craft and heritage in a contemporary and chic manner. From stunning haute couture to ready-to-wear pret styles, it has something for everyone," added the four-time National Award winner.

The label N Pret, which comes from her iconic retail powerhouse, The House of Neeta Lulla, aims to create a fine balance between haute couture and pret a porter for the discerning consumers who are sentient of fashion aesthetics. The USP of the brand is its ability to fuse western and ethnic silhouettes, prints and designs catering to varied taste.

It is priced under Rs 100,000.
A report that aims to tease out trends among travellers in Asia-Pacific suggests that Japanese holidaymakers are the region's biggest foodies while Aussies are most adventurous and that Chinese travellers seek out luxurious experiences more than other countries.

That's according to the findings of a new report from Expedia Media Solutions, the advertising arm of Expedia, which polled 3,000 travellers in Australia, Japan and China earlier this spring.

When it comes to travel preferences, food emerged the top priority among Japanese travellers compared to China and Australia.

A closer look reveals that a destination's culinary experiences outranked price and activities for Millennial and Boomer travellers in Japan.

Over in China, younger Millennial and Generation Z travellers said their biggest priority when on holiday was to "feel pampered" during their vacation, while Australians place the biggest importance on the kinds of activities a destination offers.

This is particularly true for Generation X and Boomer travellers.

For the survey, Generation Z is grouped as 18-23-year-olds; Millennials 24-35; Generation X 36-55; and Boomers 55 and older.

The survey also revealed that of the three, the Japanese are most likely to vacation within their own country -- a preference that could, perhaps, be connected to the fact that they are among the countries with the least number of vacation days in the world: Only 14 percent of Japanese respondents said their last trip was taken outside their country.

That compares to Australia, where 45 percent said they had travelled abroad for their last trip, and China, where the figure is 27 percent.

Analysts also found that while hotel rates take up the largest portion of budgets for travellers in China and Japan, flights eat up the biggest part of the budget for Australian travellers who live in isolation from much of the world.

Likewise, Chinese Millennials emerged the biggest shoppers, allocating the largest percentage of their travel budget (18 percent) to retail therapy -- more than any other Asia-Pacific generation.
The sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and other Hollywood stalwarts have created a storm with several sexual harassment victims from across the fields speaking up and sharing their experiences. While many starlets from Hollywood have named the culprits in the industry, Bollywood has maintained its silence apart from a few actors whove addressed the issue at large.

Joining the likes of Priyanka Chopra, Sayani Gupta, Vidya Balan, Swara Bhaskar and Parvathy, Tillotama Shome, too, has voiced her opinion over the sexual misconduct of the heavyweights pan countries. In an interaction with News18.com, Shome shares that as women, we often question ourselves if that touch was really a bad touch, or I imagined it.

If I am convinced that what happened to me was not right, I will choose a way to express myself in a way that I can live, with knowing very well that it will have consequences. How well I can express myself is a steeper learning curve, she says.

She also maintains that as a woman and as an actor, shes better equipped to say no and to walk out, if necessary, from situations that make her feel unsafe.

Shome adds, I can say this because I have had the good fortune of working on many films where I was not only made to feel safe but also treasured. Which is perhaps why my tolerance for anything less than that, is pretty low and actually needs to be lowered even further.

The actor also advised the filmmakers that if they want to make films, even if its on low budgets, they should create a safe and sound environment for the cast and crew.

Making a film, especially low budget films is tough, but if you still want to make a film, please create an environment in which your actors feel safe and are allowed to work with dignity. This is a minimum requirement. Otherwise please don't make your film no matter how important you think it is, she adds.

Sayani Gupta, who attended the recently concluded Dharamshala International Film Festival, also expressed her opinion and said that the silence has more to do with the latent fear of being out-casted or their work getting hampered.

"If you say one line, something else is made out of it. Journalism is different here than in the West. We're a society and we need to help each other. So if someone comes out and says something, we as a society need to make sure that the person is safeguarded, she said.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea seeking a stay on the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmavati, but the controversy surrounding the movie refused to die down with BJP MP Subramanian Swamy alleging that it was financed from Dubai.

Speaking to CNN-News18, Swamy said the dismissal of petition by the top court was right, but added that the funding of the movie should be probed.

Most funding for Bollywood movies comes from Dubai. This needs to be investigated. There should be a check on how history is distorted in movies. Bollywood films on Muslim rulers are funded from Dubai, Swamy said, admitting that he had only general evidence of his claim. I will ask the government to further investigate the matter.

Hitting back at the parliamentarian, actor Raza Murad who is also part of the movies cast challenged Swamy to show proof. Let Subramanian Swamy show proof of Dubai funding. Alauddin Khilji has been portrayed as a villain in the movie. It is wrong to comment before watching the film.

The movie, which is being called an epic historical drama, features Deepika Padukone as Rajput queen Rani Padmavati, Shahid Kapoor as her husband Rawal Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khilji. It is set to release on December 1.

Dismissing to stay the release, the Supreme Court on Friday said the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) considers all aspects before granting certificate to any film.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said there were enough guidelines to be followed by the censor board to grant certification of a film before its release.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Siddharajsinh M Chudasama and 11 others, which also sought setting up of a committee of eminent historians to check the veracity of the script to prevent any inaccuracy in the portrayal of Rani Padmavati.

The petitioners have sought a stay on the release of the film till such time the alleged historical inaccuracies in the movie are corrected by the producer and the director.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Congress has accused the BJP of delaying the Winter Session of Parliament to avoid Opposition scrutiny on issues like GST and demonetisation ahead of the upcoming assembly election in Gujarat.

In a tweet on Friday afternoon, Congress spokesperson and Lok Sabha MP from Assam, Sushmita Deb, asked the government why dates for the parliament session have not been announced yet.

The government feels they have no responsibility to the parliament. They only indulge in politicking. Demonetisation and GST are issues that the government needs to answer for and the winter session should be called urgently, said Randeep Surjewala, Congress Spokesperson.

Constitutionally, it is binding on the government that difference between the two sessions of parliament should not exceed six months. The monsoons session ended in August, and technically, the NDA can wait till February before calling for the next meeting of the house.

But conventionally, parliament sessions are called thrice every year- winter, budget and monsoon. The winter session is usually held for a month beginning in the third week of November.

This year, however, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), which is headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, is yet to meet and finalise the session dates.

Sources say that the delay is on account of Gujarat polls, which will keep top party leaders from both Congress and BJP out of Delhi.

The CCPA recommendation is sent to the President of India, who calls the parliament to session.

This call is notified at least a fortnight ahead of the first meeting of parliament. As the CCPA is yet to be convened, it means, parliament can be called to session latest by end of November.

The government, however, has rebutted any allegations imputing political motives to delay in calling the parliament to session.

But now Trinamool Congress, Congress and the Samajwadi Party plan to approach the Lok Sabha speaker, seeking intervention from the presiding chair of the Lok Sabha.

The opposition also plans to give a notice demanding a discussion on media reports related to of BJP President Amit Shah.
Hyderabad: "I declare Urdu as the second official language in Telangana." This statement by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on the floor of the Telangana Assembly has kicked up a language war in the state, with the BJP coming out to ask why Hindi or English are not being considered for the same.

Accusing the Chief Minister of playing vote bank politics, Krishna Sagar Rao, BJP spokesperson told CNN-News18, We strongly condemn this Muslim appeasement move by the Chief Minister. First, he announced a special IT corridor for Muslims, which was bizarre and now this impractical move of making Urdu the second official language. People prefer English or Hindi, as it does value addition and help them with jobs, etc. We completely reject this move as it will lead to splurging of public money and nothing else.

In this latest move, Chief Minister KCR has asked all government offices starting from the Chief Ministers Office to District Collectorate, to receive all petitions in Urdu as well.

All competitive examinations will also be conducted in Urdu.

Not just making Urdu an official language, earlier the CM had announced that minorities development and welfare will be among the top priority programmes being implemented by the state government.

However, the most controversial move was to develop an exclusive industrial estate and IT Corridor for Muslims.

Showering the minorities with several such schemes, he has also asked his officers to work with more dedication towards the minorities, who are, like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, living in poverty.

The Telangana government had even passed a Bill to secure 12 percent reservation for the Muslims, which will ultimately increase their reservation in jobs and educational institutions. The Bill is yet to be approved by the Centre.

Reiterating his commitment to fulfill these promises, the KCR has said that if the Centre fails to take a call, they may even consider moving the Supreme Court to get a minority quota.

As political parties gear up of for the state Assembly elections in 2019, the politics over minority rights or appeasement is likely to heat up over the coming days.
Bhopal: A candid confession by Madhya Pradesh minister Om Prakash Dhurve that he did not understand the Goods and Services Tax (GST) left the BJP red-faced as it argued that he is only a minister and not a chartered accountant.

According to Dhurve, even big CAs are not able to understand the GST leave aside traders and people like him. He made the remarks during an address to a gathering of BJP workers organised to mark anti-black money Day at Umaria town on November 8, the first anniversary of demonetisation.

A video of his speech has gone viral on social media. The results (of GST) would come after some time... there are problems as of now. What is GST, I am not able to understand myself... (Hence) I will not speak on this issue, let the experts speak, Dhurve told the gathering.

Even big CAs are not able to understand. What it is.... even traders are not able to understand, he added. The BJP, however, tried to defend him stating that Dhurve is right in saying that people would gradually understand the new taxation system.

GST is a new tax regime. He (Dhurve) is a minister and not a CA. So, what he was saying is that people would gradually understand about this new tax system, state BJP chief Nandkumar Singh Chauhan said.

Dhurves statement gave an opportunity to the opposition Congress to slam the BJP-led NDA government as it said that the GST is complex and even the Centre is unable to understand it.

The Centre has been making continuous changes in the GST since it was launched. Even the government is not able to understand its complexities. So, Dhurve ji was also right in saying that he is not able to understand it, state Congress spokesman Pankaj Chaturvedi said.
Chennai: Superstar Rajinikanth may announce his political plunge when he celebrates his 67th birthday on December 12, sources close to the actor told CNN-News18 on Friday, adding that a new party was on the cards.

Sources, on condition of anonymity, said Rajinikanth would float his own party first which may later ally with the BJP. The saffron party has been wooing the actor ever since he dropped hints of joining politics earlier this year.

Rajinikanths contemporary Kamal Haasan, too, had said he would make a big announcement on his birthday, November 7, leading to speculation that he would announce his political entry. Haasan, however, marked the day with the launch of an app called Maiam Whistle to connect with the people.

Haasan has been more vocal of his political ambition than Rajinikanth, taking on the AIADMK and the BJP over the issues such as Mersal release and demonetisation. His remark on saffron terror had led to a heated exchange with Right-wing leaders.

Rajinikanth, on the other hand, has kept himself busy with the upcoming release of his movie 2.0. In a cryptic tweet, however, the actor had lauded the team of Vijay-starrer Mersal for addressing an important topic. The tweet had added to the debate over the alleged insult to central schemes such as GST and Digital India in the movie.

Rajinikanth had also taken an apparent jibe at Haasan last month when he said name and fame were not enough to succeed as a politician. "If you have to succeed in politics, it takes more than just fame and money. Something bigger is needed to transform an actor into a politician. I hope Kamal Haasan (knows) what it is," Rajinikanth had said at a memorial ceremony for legendary actor Sivaji Ganesan.

"Kamal would have told me what it is had I asked him two months ago. Today, he says he will show me if I come with him," he added, as Haasan looked on from the dais.
Now, you can experience South Africa's wildlife and vicariously trek its national parks through the eyes and lenses of local wildlife rangers who have captured the essence of the nation. All these thanks to a team of nature-loving South Africans in partnership with Google Street View and South African Tourism who have released a large collection of 360-degree imagery of the country's wildest areas. Along with the main attractions from the African country, which include the Kruger National Park, Table Mountain and Cape Point (these three locations are also known as The Mzansi Experience), viewers can now also look at 170 new trails from South Africa's national parks and reserves.

The e-trails, launched on November 9, extend the existing Street View imagery of South Africa's wilderness areas to include all 19 national parks, 17 previously un-trekked' nature reserves and many sites of natural, cultural and historical significance in all the nine provinces of South Africa. It took more than 200 volunteers from across the country, and 12 months of mapping out the lesser explored parts of South Africa before the images could be put together. Wildlife rangers from SANParks, CapeNature and KZN Ezemvelo, along with guides, hikers, nature-lovers, and tech-enthusiasts worked on the project.

"The hundreds of volunteers who helped along the way proved to be truly passionate about showing the best of South Africa through their participation in the loan program," said Magdalena Filak, Programme Manager for Google. The project is part of Google's Street View Camera Loan Programme, which encourages people to apply to borrow the 360-degree camera technology and map the planet. The team of volunteers was coordinated by loan programme partner Drive South Africa. Andre Van Kets, outdoor enthusiast and founder of the Cape Town-based travel company, saw the potential in this technology to showcase South Africa to travellers around the globe.

The applicants to the program capture 360-degree view of the locations using a uniquely crafted multi-camera set up. "The trekker camera is a 22kg custom-made backpack fitted with 15 cameras pointing in all directions. The onboard technology plots the camera's exact location on the trail. While recording, the camera takes a 360-degree photo every two seconds. It's basically the off-road equivalent of Google's Street View cars," Van Kets said. "For the first time, travellers and wildlife lovers from across the globe can explore the full spectrum of South Africa's diverse wilderness areas on Google Maps and Street View," said Sisa Ntshona, CEO of South African Tourism.

Through their gadgets, Street View users can now trace the footsteps of Nelson Mandela, climb seven new trails to the top of Table Mountain, like the famous five-day Otter Trail, track cheetah on foot, and walk with elephants and other wildlife. Additionally, seven of South Africa's eight Unesco World Heritage Sites are also on the e-list. Users can experience South Africa's treasured spots like the Mapungubwe Hill that is home to an ancient African civilisation, the Richtersveld that is known for its arid moonscapes, the Drakensberg Mountains that is known for its height, and iSimangaliso Wetland Park that is South Africa's oldest UNESCO site and a critical habitat for a range of species.

All this can be viewed at South Africa in 360', a micro-site launched by Drive South Africa. The website is inspired by a similar project showcasing the US National Parks and is an immersive virtual-reality adventure to South Africa's four top tourist destinations and some of its lesser-known gems. "This is the way in which we do tourism," said Sisa Ntshona. "Collaborations like this, with entrepreneurs and world-renown brands, Google, that will ultimately define the success of South Africa as a unique destination," he added.

Watch Video: Exclusive Interview - Chris Jaffe, VP User Interface, Netflix
Senior Congress leaders assure Muslim League leadership that Sudhakaran will not make statements giving credence to RSS.
Danang, Vietnam: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin briefly shook hands at a gala dinner during an Asia-Pacific summit on Friday after days of frenzied speculation on whether the two would meet.

It is still unclear whether the pair plans to hold substantive talks during their visit to Vietnam following days of mixed messages from the Kremlin and the White House.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials  a charge Russia denies.

Trump had previously indicated that he hoped to hold talks with his Russian counterpart during his Vietnam visit, to pressure Moscow into supporting his moves to challenge North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the Vietnamese city of Danang.

At a gala dinner on Friday evening they shook hands and posed briefly for a photo with regional leaders dressed in loose-fitting shirts commissioned for the gathering by current APEC hosts Vietnam.

But there had previously been conflicting indications on whether a full face-to-face was on the cards.

Earlier in the day White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had ruled out a bilateral meeting, but the Kremlin suggested it would go ahead.

Pressed on the issue later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov swatted away the question. "Why are you asking me? We are saying that we have heard President Trump's wish to meet President Putin, expressed by President Trump himself."

"I do not know what the rest of his pen pushers are saying, I cannot answer that."

Both Moscow and Trump had previously suggested that talks were likely to take place.

On Sunday the Trump administration said "it's expected we'll meet with Putin" to discuss North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Trump's relationship with Moscow has haunted the first year of his presidency.

His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate are under house arrest on charges including conspiracy to launder money, linked to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations that the campaign colluded with Russia.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.

The two last met during a G20 summit earlier this year.
Toulouse (France): A man deliberately drove his car into a group of people outside a school near Toulouse in southern France on Friday, injuring three Chinese students, police sources said.

The driver of the vehicle, a 28-year-old man, was known to police for committing minor offences but was not on a terrorism watchlist, the sources said. He was arrested at the scene. One of the students, a young woman, was being treated for serious head injuries.

"For the moment, it is not being looked at as a terrorist incident although it is also not ruled out," the Toulouse prosecutor said in a statement.

The driver has long suffered from psychological problems and was hospitalised until Dec. 2016, the prosecutor said.

More than 240 people have been killed in France since early 2015 in attacks by Islamist militants or assailants inspired by the Islamic State group.

Monday will mark the second anniversary of attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people. Earlier this week, French police arrested nine people and another was arrested in Switzerland in coordinated counter-terrorism swoops.
Beijing: US First Lady Melania Trump hiked the Great Wall and spent some time with a couple of China's most prominent diplomats in Beijing on Friday: the pandas Meng'er and Gu Gu.

While President Donald Trump jetted off to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China, his wife stayed behind to see the Beijing Zoo's favourite tenants before heading to the Great Wall.

The former model was greeted by a group of schoolchildren who waved Chinese and American flags and led her to the panda enclosure.

They oohed and aahed as Meng'er crawled on to a platform and began munching bamboo. His name means "Cute No 2" in Mandarin.

Trump later "interacted privately" with Gu Gu behind-the-scenes, zoo director Li Xiaoguang told reporters. Born in 1999, Gu Gu is a "good-looking panda with a robust memory," traits that serve him well as "goodwill ambassador of the zoo", Li said.

Gu Gu's name doesn't have a particular meaning, but the repetition of syllables is generally used in China to make names sound adorable.

Beijing has cultivated a global fascination with pandas as part of its diplomacy by sending the animals to overseas zoos where they have proven a wildly popular draw.

In 2015, former US first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan, chose the name for Bei Bei, a panda cub born at the National Zoo in Washington.

Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous southwestern China, have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss. Trump later visited the Great Wall.

After a short cable car ride, she braved the cold weather to spend about half an hour hiking the refurbished Mutianyu section of the famous fortification.

An official told reporters she had said: "This is beautiful. This is amazing."

Donald Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall, despite it being a usual stop for US presidents.

China treated the Trumps to a lavish state visit with a private tour of the Forbidden City on Wednesday and a banquet dinner yesterday.

The president wrote on Twitter that his wife would later fly to Alaska to meet with US troops.

The US leader was in Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit and he will then head to the Philippines on Sunday for the final leg of his five-nation tour of Asia.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Pakistan on Friday blocked off roads into Islamabad, the capital, as an Islamist party that backs strict blasphemy laws staged a sit-in on a key highway, demanding the resignation of a minister it blames for changes to an electoral oath.

Dozens of Pakistanis are on death row, convicted of having insulted Islam's prophet, a charge that carries a mandatory death sentence, although no executions have been carried out.

More than 500 supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, or Movement of the Prophet's Followers, chanted slogans as speakers addressed them from atop a cargo truck, pledging their lives to protect Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

The protesters demanded the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid, whom they hold responsible for the law change, and denounced him as a blasphemer.

"Immediately appear before us and beg for forgiveness," said one speaker.

Two high court lawyers who joined the sit-in said they would work to advance Labaik's agenda in the courts.

"He (Hamid) has insulted the blasphemy laws, the punishment for which is death," said one of the lawyers.

Pakistan's interior ministry did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.

The ruling Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) unexpectedly set off a firestorm last month after voting through the alteration of the oath, among seemingly small changes to the nation's electoral law.

The changes prompted accusations of blasphemy from religious parties and the government retreated, apologising in parliament for what it called a "clerical" mistake.

But the apology did not satisfy Tehreek-e-Labaik, triggering the sit-in, as the culmination of a march of nearly 400 km (249 miles) from the eastern city of Lahore.

The party rose to prominence in September, after placing third in a by-election in Lahore, edging out a major opposition party to pick up 6 percent of the vote.

Last month, it gained nearly 8 percent in a by-election in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

While Tehrik-e-Labaik is unlikely to break out of single digits in coming votes, its rapid rise could present a challenge for the PML-N.

On a bridge overlooking the highway demonstration site, drivers of trucks halted by blockades erected by city authorities complained about cargo delivery delays.

One commuter unable to take public transport to work told Reuters his business had suffered.

"I run a tailoring shop and can't go to work today," said Mohammad Altaf. "I have lost a day's earnings."
Washington: The Pentagon must "demonstrate" to Pakistan the "consequences" of continued support to terrorists, US Congressional leaders have said as they backed President Donald Trump's new South Asia policy.

Trump in August unveiled America's new policy for South Asia and Afghanistan, criticising Pakistan for providing safe havens to terrorists.

The bipartisan group of Congressional leaders, reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the 2018 National defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), also urged the Department of Defence to closely monitor US security assistance to Pakistan and ensure that the country does not use it to support terrorist groups.

The lawmakers, in a joint report of the Senate and House Armed Services committees released on Thursday, asked the Pentagon to "demonstrate to Pakistan the consequences of continued support to terrorists".

Such a demand from lawmakers comes days after the Indian security forces recovered US-made rifle meant for Pakistan from a terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir.

A carbine Colt recovered from an encounter site in Pulwama district, where three Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants, including its chief Masood Azhar's nephew Talha Rashid, were killed on Monday night.

The US State Department refused to respond to a question on recovery of equipment from terrorists. "We refer you to the government of India regarding their investigation into this matter," a State Department spokesperson told PTI.

In another move, the House receded its amendment to remove the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from the certification requirements not eligible for a national security waiver. The reconciled version of the NDAA-2018 now makes USD 350 million of USD 700 million available to Pakistan under coalition support fund (CSF) contingent upon certification from the Secretary of Defense that Pakistan is taking demonstrable steps against the Haqqani Network.

In the last two years, two successive US defense secretaries -- Ashton Carter and his successor Jim Mattis -- refused to give such a certification to Pakistan, in the absence of Islamabad taking demonstrable and satisfactory actions against the Haqqani network.

The lawmakers, however, noted that action on the part of the Government of Pakistan against the LeT, as well as other terrorist groups operating within the borders of Pakistan, remains a priority for the US, according to the voluminous conference report.

The conferees expressed concern about the persecution of groups seeking political or religious freedom in Pakistan, including the Balochi, Sindhi and Hazara ethnic groups, as well as Christians, Hindus and Ahmadiyya Muslims.

Consequently, the conferees believe that the Secretary of Defense should ensure that Pakistan is not using any assistance provided by the United States to persecute minority groups, the report said.
Washington: As part of its new south Asia strategy, the United States wants to make sure that there are no terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said, asserting that there are ways for the US-led NATO member countries to hold Islamabad accountable for its fight against terrorism.

The new South Asia strategy comprises of regionalisation, realigning of forces, reinforcing them and to reconciliation, the political goal, he told reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

"What we want to do is start with -- from India to across the region -- is to make certain that everyone's working off the same sheet of music. We want to make certain that no terrorist organization can find a haven anywhere, and, with a border adjoining Afghanistan, that makes Pakistan a priority," Mattis said.

As such the United States is engaging with the Pakistanis, he added.

"We're engaging a whole-of-government effort. We've got international efforts going on. And one of the reasons we brought it up here was to make certain we were all aligned about where we stood on this," the US Defence Secretary said.

Referring to the discussions he had with other NATO member countries, Mattis said, "It was remarkable alignment about us all working together to get Pakistan to do everything it can to cut the insurgents off, the terrorists off."

When asked what is different with the Pakistan policy this time, Mattis said there are ways that the US can reward Pakistan and ways that the international community can ensure they are held to account.

"But our principle, going into this, is that we are going to work with Pakistan and make this work, so that there's no longer a threat coming across the border there," he said.

This is an international effort and not just an American-alone effort, he added.

"So that in itself, that we're aligned internationally, now, with what we're doing, is probably the biggest change, he said.

At the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting, Mattis said he and his colleagues were "orchestrating" their fight against terror and the next steps from Afghanistan to the Middle East.

Over the two days, I shared with them President Donald Trump's South Asia strategy, which was very well received and firmly supported, he said.

Specifically to Afghanistan, the reconciliation remains the political goal of NATO's military campaign and our comprehensive approach, Mattis said, adding that the Reconciliation must be Afghan-led, with an open door to the Taliban if they choose to stop killing and live by the Afghan constitution.

"This strategy, carried out by, with and through our Afghan partners and within the coalition framework ensures this regional campaign is politically, fiscally and militarily sustainable," he said.

There is no military campaign that does not have a "political goal", he added.

Mattis said the NATO nations and coalition partners are in the process of finalising troop increases and additional support efforts.

"Over two dozen nations have stated that they intend to raise the troop numbers that they have on the ground there now, including some very small nations, for whom this is the largest overseas deployment they have been engaged in.

"We appreciate their commitment to stabilising the South Asia region," he said.
Paris: Two years after the deadliest terror attacks in modern French history, the only surviving suspect to take part in the carnage in Paris remains an enigma.

Captured after four months on the run following a massive international manhunt, Salah Abdeslam is now France's most closely guarded detainee.

But the 28-year-old petty criminal-turned-jihadist has not been the goldmine of information investigators have hoped for: he refuses to talk.

Abdeslam's role in the events leading up to November 13, 2015, when Islamic State jihadists armed with guns and bombs killed 130 people enjoying a Friday night out, has yet to be fully understood.

His suicide belt was found in the southern Paris suburbs several days after the bloodshed.

Did he change his mind about blowing himself up, as he told friends before he was finally arrested in Brussels? Or was the device defective?

Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin, is known to have played a key role in organising logistics for the attacks, renting cars and hideouts and helping several jihadists get into Europe via the migrant trail.

And the sprawling investigation has revealed links to the jihadists involved in the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016 -- four days after his arrest.

What is infuriating for investigators -- and for the families of victims seeking answers -- is Abdeslam's refusal to cooperate since French authorities charged him last year with terrorist murders.

His silence has even prompted his lawyers, Frank Berton of France and Sven Mary of Belgium, to abandon his defence.

Jailed in Europe's biggest prison at Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, Abdeslam is being held in solitary confinement and monitored around the clock in his cell.

In recent months the conditions of his detention have been slightly relaxed after signs that his mental health was deteriorating.

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet on Thursday confirmed fears he could commit suicide -- something that the victims' families want to avoid, eager to see him stand trial.

"We are doing everything to make that impossible," Belloubet told LCI television, saying Abdeslam had now been granted a window and limited contact with others.

He has received letters in prison -- sometimes praising his actions -- and responded to some of them, including to a woman whom he reportedly told: "I'm not ashamed of who I am."

Abdeslam surprised many by offering to appear at a separate trial in Belgium for the attempted murder of police officers injured in a shootout at an apartment in the Brussels neighbourhood of Forest, three days before his capture.

He is believed to have fled during the shootout before finally being captured across the city in Molenbeek, where he once ran a bar with his brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers.

The Brussels trial is due to take place from December 18 -22, with a Paris appeals court, expected to rule soon on whether to give the green light for Abdeslam's temporary transfer.

It remains to be seen whether he will break his silence at the trial, and some of the victims' lawyers fear he will use it as an opportunity to avoid being sent back to France.

"Why would this guy, who isn't talking to investigators in France, demand to be sent to trial in Belgium?" said Gerard Chemla, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs.

"We should ask ourselves 'is this is an attempt to escape from French authorities?'"

A date for Abdeslam's French trial -- expected to be one of the most closely watched in decades -- has not yet been set.
London: A UK court has held unlawful a British landlord's ban on "coloured" people from India and Pakistan renting his properties because they cooked curry and left behind lingering smells.

Fergus Wilson, who owns hundreds of properties in Kent in south-east England, had denied being racist but lost the legal action brought by the UK's human rights watchdog when Maidstone County Court granted an injunction against the policy this week.

The injunction, in place for three years, orders that Wilson cannot apply a lettings policy stopping Indian or Pakistani people renting his properties.

If he breaches the order, he could be found in contempt of court and face jail or a hefty fine.

"I find the policy is unlawful. Such a policy has no place in our society," said Judge Richard Polden in his ruling.

The 69-year-old property tycoon and former boxer defended himself in court against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which had challenged the policy after it emerged in an email sent to a lettings company informing them of his policy of "no coloured people because of curry smell".

"I refuse to take tenants from a group of people that produce curry smells. I take just about anyone except Pakistanis and Indians? Wilson said in a subsequent email exchange with the EHRC when it confronted him.

Wilson's defence in court ranged from asserting that the email containing the ban on "coloureds" was just a joke and banter with a young letting agent, through to defending it on behalf of all landlords and describing the legal action as "political correctness gone mad".

"My only concern is for people who would have been coming into buy to let but now will not. Has a public opinion on my side throughout,? he claimed.

He had justified his ban on Indian and Pakistani tenants on economic grounds to save costs on re-carpeting homes that smell of Indian cooking once the tenants have left.

"Its perfectly legal not to buy a house because you think it smells of curry. The problem is that if you have a 250,000 pounds mid-terrace house, the valuation drops by 50,000 pounds if it smells of curry," Wilson told the court.

But the judge was not convinced by any of his arguments and ruled in favour of the EHRC, whose chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath welcomed the decision as a step closer to a "more equal Britain".

"Our homes are fundamental to our private lives and to who we are. Denial of a home on the grounds of race or colour is abhorrent conduct we do not accept in today's society. There are still deep inequalities in our country and sadly some of the causes of those inequalities were illustrated by Mr Wilsons comments over the summer," she said.
London: The UK will leave the European Union on March 29, 2019 at 11 pm (local time), British Prime Minster Theresa May announced on Friday as she set out plans to enshrine in law the exact date and time for Britains exit from the economic bloc.

The prime minister said the EU Withdrawal Bill will be amended to formally commit to a Brexit date and time deadline before the amended version of the proposed legislation comes up for scrutiny by MPs in the House of Commons next week.

"Let no-one doubt our determination or question our resolve, Brexit is happening. It will be there in black and white on the front page of this historic piece of legislation: the United Kingdom will be leaving the EU on March 29, 2019 at 11 pm," she wrote in 'The Daily Telegraph' on Friday.

The date marks the two-year cut off point after Britain invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to trigger the process of leaving the 28-member economic bloc on March 29 this year following a referendum in favour of Brexit in June 2016.

The EU Withdrawal Bill, which is intended to convert all existingEUlaws into UK law to ensure there are no gaps in legislation on Brexit day, has already passed its second reading and now faces several attempts to amend it at the next part of its parliamentary journey the committee stage.

May has warned Eurosceptics, in her own Conservative party and the Opposition, that while the government would listen to MPs if they had ideas for improving the bill, it would not tolerate any attempts to delay or halt the process.

"We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union," she writes.

Her warning came as the former diplomat who had drafted Article 50 said that the Brexit process was reversible right up to the last minute.

Lord Kerr, a former UK ambassador to the EU, said suggestions by Brexiters in the UK Cabinet that Brexit was irreversible was misleading.

"At any stage we can change our minds if we want to, and if we did we know that our partners would actually be very pleased indeed, said Kerr, now a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords.

He noted: The Brexiters create the impression that is because of the way Article 50 is written that having sent in a letter on 29 March 2017 we must leave automatically on 29 March 2019 at the latest. That is not true.

"It is misleading to suggest that a decision that we are taking autonomously in this country about the timing of our departure, we are required to take by a provision of EU treaty law.

He also indicated that people had a right to change their mind over the decision.

As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view. And theres nothing in Article 50 to stop them, he said.

The debate comes as the UKs Brexit secretary, David Davis, and the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, prepare to meet in Brussels for the second day of the latest round of talks before a make-or-break summit of European leaders next month.

With weeks of political crisis surrounding senior members of her Cabinet, including resignations by Priti Patel as international development minister and Michael Fallon as defence minister, Theresa May is under increasing pressure to be seen as tough on the Brexit process.

There have already been 300 amendments and 54 new clauses proposed for the crucial EU Withdrawal Bill and getting it through Parliament will not prove an easy task since the Conservatives lost their majority in the snap general election earlier this year.
Melania Trump toured Chinas famed Great Wall at Mutianyu, where she rode a cable car to a watchtower, signed a guestbook and strolled along a stretch of the wall for about half an hour with a small group of aides and security officers. (Image: AP)
Multiple agencies responded to an early Friday morning fire just outside the town of Appomattox, according to the Appomattox Volunteer Fire Department.

Appomattox County Emergency Services received a call about the blaze at TriTech Solutions of Virginia Inc. just after 4 a.m., according to the agency. TriTech is a metal fabrication company that launched in the area in 2013.

The blaze was heavy in the buildings front office, according to a fire department Facebook post. Smoke also was coming from the warehouse near the building, but firefighters stopped the flames from spreading further by making an interior attack on the blaze, according to the post.

The Appomattox County Sheriffs Office; Delta Response Team, an ambulance service; and 32 volunteers from the Concord and Appomattox volunteer fire departments worked to put out the fire, according to the post.
TULSA, Okla. - A brief moment of grace  a sheriffs deputy paying for a strangers meal at a fast-food restaurant drive-through  snowballed into that man painting a wounded veterans home.

Tulsa County Sheriffs Deputy Tracy Lewis paid for the $3 cheeseburger months ago. The recipient, Tom Barbour, turned that small courtesy into using his company, CertaPro Painters, to perform the painting job.

It only takes one random act of kindness to move the world forward, Lewis said.

Despite Lewis efforts to avoid being complimented for her favor, Barbour informed the Sheriffs Office about it. He asked for its help to pay the kindness forward.

Barbour and the Sheriffs Office, after some searching and deliberation, decided they should paint the house of James Martin, a disabled veteran who served 15 years in the Army. He also is the founder of Wounded Veterans of Oklahoma.

Sheriff Vic Regalado surprised Martin on Thursday morning with the gift. When he delivered the news, work already had begun on Martins house.

Martin, as a result of his service in the Middle East, has had at least six major surgeries, Regalado said.

Veterans are truly this nations most valued treasure, the sheriff said. James has earned the right to sit back and just enjoy life.

Yet through Wounded Veterans of Oklahoma, he continues to sacrifice for the benefit of others who have served this country with honor and pride.

Martins organization teams up veterans for hunting, fishing and camping trips so they can share what they went through, what helped them endure and what continues to provide them some relief.

Martin was unaware what was happening to his house when the sheriff invited him to speak to his deputies about Wounded Veterans of Oklahoma. He keeps the organization open to emergency responders, who he said share experiences similar to those of veterans.

This is a complete shock, Martin said after finding out about the painting project. Its amazing how things work.

Martin said the gift was such a blessing for him and his family. For years, he said, they have not had the time or money to paint their home.

Small acts of kindness for people who serve can be life changing, he said. One of the biggest struggles people face in the military and  first responders and police officers face is do people really appreciate what were going through?

Barbour told Martin that by the time he arrived home Thursday, his house would be a mess. Prepping for painting is a unsightly, Barbour said, but by the end of the job Saturday the home will look like a new place.

Martin said Lewis, who purchased that cheeseburger for a stranger and then tried to dodge a thank-you, had performed a huge act.
It is untrue (that retrenchments are still ongoing). The retrenchments that we carried out were in June and it has been in the books since last year when we were carrying out the restructuring exercise which completed. The intention was to match the productivity levels and the payroll, she said.
For visitors it is their first glimpse of Zimbabwe. For those returning from their trips, it is a welcome first sight of home. As you are the face of Zimbabwe, it is only befitting that this airport be named after you, we want to express our gratitude to you for accepting this honour bestowed on you by your grateful nation. It is therefore appropriate that the airport be named after an illustrious son of Zimbabwe, Minister Kasukuwere said.
No Charges for Cops

in Killing of Man Who

Was 'Biking While Black'
It sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible. The laboratory in Irvine, California, is protected by locked door after locked door, glass barriers, double-paned windows, metal-enclosed workstations, video surveillance, and 24-hour guards. And a waiver lets visitors know they risk complete paralysis just by entering. At the center of all this security? A drug to make wrinkles disappear. In fairness, Botox actually has a number of approved medical uses beyond cosmetics; it can treat migraines, muscle spasms, and perhaps soon depression, Bloomberg reports in an in-depth look at the $2.8 billion Botox empirebuilt on one of the deadliest known toxins in the worldand the intense measures taken to protect that empireand humanity.

Botox is made from a toxin purified from Clostridium botulinum. A small amount of the toxin can suffocate a person, and a study found just one crystallized gram could kill more than a million people if "evenly dispersed and inhaled." To prevent any of the toxin from falling into the wrong hands and becoming weaponized, Botox-maker Allergan and the US government have shrouded the drug in secrecy. Only a handful of company and government officials know where Allergan's stash of the toxin is located; shipments to the Irvine lab and a factory in Ireland (where even the Allergan CEO doesn't have full security clearance) happen at unknown intervals by unknown methods; and the Botox recipe is "a trade secret" like that for Coca-Cola. This "government-assisted operational secrecy" has given Allergan a 90% share of the medical neurotoxin market. Read the full story here. (Read more Longform stories.)
Teacher Mandi Kapopoulos noticed a trail of juice in the hallway Nov. 1 at Equestrian Trails Elementary in Florida and followed it. That's when she saw third-grader Kolston Moradi and realized it wasn't juice. There were pools of blood at his feet and his whole shirt was covered in blood," Kapopoulos tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Moments earlier, Kolston had been stabbed in the arm by his own freshly sharpened pencil, which was poking out of his backpack. The pencil went about 6 inches deep near Kolston's armpit and jabbed an artery. Kolston tells WPTV he "didn't really feel anything." He wasnt screaming or crying or saying anything, Kapopoulos tells the Sun Sentinel.

Kapopoulos says she wrapped her sleeve around Kolston's arm in a makeshift tourniquet and yelled for help. Elizabeth Richards, a fellow teacher who had spent two years in nursing school, elevated Kolston's arm and pressed on the wound. They stayed with the 8-year-old for the 20 minutes it took for emergency crews to get there. It's a good thing they did. The EMT told me that if the teachers hadnt acted as quickly as they had, my son would be dead, Kolston's mom, Annalisa Moradi, tells the Palm Beach Post. "Without them, this story would have been different, she adds to WPTV. Kolston got two staples in his arm at the hospital and returned to school the next day. His fellow students got a warning about keeping their pencils in their pencil cases. (Read more pencil stories.)
President Trump's longtime bodyguard reportedly told Congress this week that Russians offered to send five women up to Trump's hotel room while he was in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant in 2013. Sources with direct knowledge of Keith Schiller's testimony in front of the House intelligence committee this week confirmed the account to CNN, NBC News, and ABC News. Sources say Schiller, who had worked full-time for Trump since 2012, testified the offer was made by someonehe doesn't remember whofollowing a business meeting ahead of the pageant. He reportedly testified that he turned the offer down, believing it to be a joke. Sources say he later told Trump about the offer, and they both laughed about it.

Committee members asked about the incident because of allegations made in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British agent. Specifically, the dossier alleged a "salacious" encounter between Trump and prostitutes at his Moscow hotel that was secretly recorded. Sources say Schiller testified that Trump went to bed alone that night and that he waited for a few minutes outside Trump's door before going to bed himself. He reportedly said he couldn't be sure what happened after that, but he doubts Trump had any guests. Sources say Schiller testified he and Trump were aware of surveillance dangers posed by hotels in Moscow. Schiller's lawyer says "the versions of Mr. Schillers testimony being leaked to the press are blatantly false and misleading." (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
An American woman living in Zimbabwe could face 20 years in prison for subversion over a tweet. According to prosecutors, New Jersey native Martha O'Donovan, 25, tweeted a photo last month of President Robert Mugabe next to a drawing of a catheter and a reference to him being "selfish & sick," per the New York Times and Al Jazeera. The tweet came from an anonymous account known to be critical of Zimbabwe's government, but prosecutors say they were crafted by O'Donovan as part of a months-long effort "to incite political unrest" and "replicate offline uprisings like what happened in Tunisia and Egypt" in 2011. O'Donovan says those claims are "baseless and malicious," per the AP. In granting a $1,000 bail on Thursday, a high court judge appeared to agree.

O'Donovanwho works as a project coordinator at Magamba Network, an online news channel known for political satirehas "a plausible defense," said judge Clement Phiri, adding he's seen no evidence of a plot "to overthrow the government." Though O'Donovan is ordered to stay in Zimbabwe, her lawyer says the hearing was a victory since O'Donovan had spent at least three days in a maximum security prison following her arrest a week ago, while the Twitter account cited by prosecutors remained active. Hers is the first internet abuse case since a ministry designed to monitor cybersecurity was created last month. Some fear it's actually being used to control social media as Mugabe, 93, seeks re-election next year, following a 37-year rule. (Read more Zimbabwe stories.)
Senate candidate Roy Moore has been accused of making sexual advances on a 14-year-old girl when he was 32which is why he wants supporters to give him more money. In a fundraising email Thursday afternoon, the Alabama candidate said the allegations were "filthy and sleazy" lies spread by the "Obama-Clinton Machine's liberal media lapdogs," Politico reports. Three other women have said Moore tried to date them when they were between 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. "The forces of evil will lie, cheat, steal even inflict physical harmif they believe it will silence and shut up Christian conservatives like you and me," Moore wrote in the email, pleading for "emergency contributions."

Numerous Republican senators have urged Moore to step aside before the Dec. 12 special election if the allegations are true, and President Trump has taken the same position, the Washington Post reports. "Like most Americans, the president does not believe we can allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a persons life," spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday. "However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside." Steve Bannon, who broke with Trump to support Moore over Sen. Luther Strange in the GOP primary, slammed the Post, which first reported the allegations, as an "apparatus of the Democratic Party," the AP reports. Strange says it is too early to say whether he plans to re-enter the race as a write-in candidate. (Read more Roy Moore stories.)
The man StepFeed calls "the most unfortunate groom ever" probably wishes he'd skipped his own bachelor party after a celebration in Egypt gone wrong. Per local police, 28-year-old Osman al-Alsaied was bidding adieu to his single days on Monday night when a fellow reveler decided to partake in what the New York Post calls a common but illegal tradition in Middle Eastern and Arab countries: shooting his gun into the air. Except instead of pointing his gun skyward, the 26-year-old man accidentally fired toward al-Alsaied, hitting him in the hand, thigh, and testicles, the BBC reports. The groom was rushed to the hospital with what was said to be serious injuries, while the shooter panicked and ran from the scene; he was later apprehended and arrested.

The incident has spurred a wave of criticism from those who decry the custom, with some calling it "regressive" and "reckless." "If you did this while expressing your happiness, what would you have done if you were angry or upset?" one posted on social media, per StepFeed, which noted al-Alsaied isn't the first to receive a gunfire-induced injury during wedding festivities. Just last month, a 30-year-old wedding guest had to undergo emergency surgery after a stray bullet hit his thigh during the party. Public Radio International in 2016 noted such trigger-happy high jinks take place not only at weddings, but also at "funerals, graduations, birthdays  even when a political leader just talks on television." (This bride allegedly pulled a gun from her dress and opened fire.)
An Ohio substitute teacher was removed from the classroom and arrested early Thursday for allegedly having sex with at least two 11th-graders. Police say 23-year-old Madeline Marx is accused of having sex with one student in a store parking lot in July and another student in an apartment building parking lot in September, the Dayton Daily News reports. One students was 16 years old and the other 17, police say. According to court documents, Marx admitted to police that she sent one of the Fairmont High School students nude photos of herself on Snapchat and Instagram.

"We became aware (the teacher was) possibly involved with inappropriate activities with a juvenile," says Kettering Superintendent Scott Inskeep. "When we become aware of them then we will remove those people and not have them around our students." WHIO reports that Marx was booked into the county jail and charged with two felony counts of sexual battery. Late Thursday, a judge said she could be released on condition that she live with her father while the case is pending. (An art teacher in Arkansas admitted having sex with four students after another teacher overheard a parent threatening her.)
A Marine Corps drill instructor was convicted by a military jury of physically abusing young recruits, sometimes while drunk, and focusing his fury on three Muslim-American military volunteers. The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, NC, determined Thursday that Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix was guilty of hazing and maltreatment of recruits at the Marine Corps' Parris Island, SC, boot camp, the AP reports. The jury of five sergeants and three officers decided Felix punched, kicked, and choked military hopefuls. The 34-year-old Iraq veteran could be sentenced to military prison, financial penalties, and a dishonorable discharge. The jury will begin sentencing deliberations Friday.

Felix was accused in more than three dozen criminal counts of being a central figure in an abusive group of drill instructors at Parris Island that came to light after the March 2016 suicide of one of the three Muslim-American recruits Felix targeted. The charges against Felix included a series of disturbing acts against more than a dozen recruits. They included commanding recruits to choke each other, punching recruits in the face or kicking them to the ground, and twice pressuring Muslim recruits into an industrial clothes dryer, which was then turned on. "He wasn't making Marines. He was breaking Marines," prosecutor Lt. Col. John Norman told jurors, describing Felix as a "bully."

(Read more Marine Corps stories.)
President Trump was on Tuesday served beef ribs with gravy that had 360-year-old soy sauce as an ingredient during South Korea's state dinner, and it came served with two sides of controversy. PRI reports it was the first state visit by a US president in 25 years, so South Korea made a big deal out of the dinner, along with some bold moves. The meal featured shrimp harvested near islands with disputed ownership: South Korea calls them Dokdo; Japan, Takeshima, reports the Guardian. And that wasn't the only snub Japan says it suffered. Trump was photographed greeting one of the evening's guests, Lee Yong-soo, an 88-year-old former "comfort woman" forced to have sex with Japanese servicemen. Japan reached a deal with South Korea to help survivors in 2015.

George Washington University political science professor Celeste Arrington sees Lee's presence as a calculated show of strength by South Korea: "There's been a lot of talk about how close [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe] and Trump are. The message was, 'Don't take us for granted ... We have national interests, too.'" A Japan government rep voiced the "need to avoid making moves that could negatively affect that close coordination," and the Guardian reports a complaint was registered via diplomatic channels. The AFP reports that Seoul's foreign ministry on Thursday dubbed Japan's comments regarding what it chose to serve at a state dinner "inappropriate."

(Read more South Korea stories.)
When a nurse informed Rebekka Hauskins her baby, Hayden Ruth, was stillborn at 32 weeks it was "complete devastation," People reports. I just remember at one point saying to my husband, I just want to die. Its just so painful, the Oregon mother says. But within weeks of her daughter's death in 2010, Hauskins started getting the urge to help others in some way, according to Today. "You just feel like there has to be something you can do to help after a loss," she says. Hauskins' inspiration came in the form of, of all things, a hospital bill. For over a year, Hauskins' husband wrote a monthly check for $77 to pay off the $1,000 hospital bill for the delivery of their stillborn daughter. "It hurt every time," Hauskins says.

To make sure other couples wouldn't have to worry about a bill while dealing with the loss of a child, Hauskins and her husband, Randy, started Hayden's Helping Hands in 2011. "We didnt want her little life to be in vain, Hauskins tells People. A 2013 study of a decade of stillbirths in Michigan found that giving birth to a stillborn child was about $750 more expensive than giving birth to a live baby and in some cases the bill exceeded $14,000, Refinery29 reports. Since its founding, Hayden's Helping Hands has covered the hospital bills for 44 families in Oregon and Washington to the tune of more than $40,000. The families who've been helped by Hayden's Helping Hands say it's not just about finances but an acknowledgement that their child was real. "For us, it's about saying, 'I know you had a baby and I recognize your loss,'" Hauskins tells Today. (Read more stillbirth stories.)
At least two ex-members of President Trump's campaign team have been burned so far by the Mueller Russia investigation. Now, more rumblings about an ex-administration member. The Wall Street Journal Friday detailed an alleged plot that Robert Mueller is probingone that involves Flynn and his son, Michael G. Flynn, receiving up to $15 million if they could arrange for the "forcible removal" of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen from the US and deliver him to Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long been trying to extradite him. People who say they're familiar with the probe say the FBI has already cornered at least four people about a December meeting at NYC's 21 Club, where Flynn and reps of the Turkish government were said to be in attendance. One source said Flynn was even ready to use his influence in the White House to try to send Gulen back to Turkey legally, via extradition.

The Journal's sources didn't have further details on the meeting or the alleged plot, and there's no evidence suggesting money ever came into play. But Flynn was already known to have been a lobbyist for Turkish interests before he joined Trump's administration, though he didn't disclose that until after he'd been driven out for not coming clean about conversing with a Russian operative. And ex-CIA Director James Woolsey was at a previous meeting in September with Flynn, Turkish government officials, and Erdogan's son-in-law and told the Journal he found the subject of removing Gulen from the US "startling and the actions being discussed possibly illegal." What investigators are now reportedly looking into on Flynn: whether he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which "requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in the US" to disclose such dealings. A rep for Mueller wouldn't comment, nor would lawyers for either Flynn. (Read more Michael Flynn stories.)
Prosecutors say an Oklahoma woman once married one of her sonsand then, years later, married one of her daughters. That daughter, Misty Spann of Duncan, pleaded guilty to incest on Tuesday in Stephens County District Court. The Tulsa World reports the 26-year-old received a 10-year deferred sentence, which the AP describes as 10 years of probation. Her biological mother, 44-year-old Patricia Spann, has pleaded not guilty to the same charge, which is a felony in Oklahoma that carries a sentence of up to 10 years. She has a January court date. Patricia allegedly said she believed the marriage to be legal because she lost custody of her daughter and two sons when they were children (and reportedly "hit it off" with her daughter after reuniting with her in 2014) and isn't named on their birth certificates.

But the World notes that she used a different namePatricia Claytonwhen applying for a marriage license in March 2016. KFOR reports the womens' marriage ended Oct. 12 of this year after Misty was granted the annulment she filed for, having cited "illegality and fraud"; she says her mother told her she sought legal advice that confirmed their union was legal. But the annulment came more than a year after their September 2016 arrest, which came after a state Department of Human Services child welfare investigator responding to an unspecified inquiry suspected the two had an incestuous relationship and alerted police. Det. Dustin Smith told KOCO last year that the women "told me they got married to basically defraud the state in order to receive more benefits under health care. That sort of thing." More on Patricia's marriage to her son here.

(Read more incest stories.)
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New Delhi:

Two people were killed and their three friends injured after their car plunged into the YamunaA River allegedly after the driver could not see a turn due to smog and darkness in north Delhi's Timarpur area, the police said. The accident took place around 2 am when they were returning after a party at Shyam Ghat in the Yamuna Khadar area. Deepak Jangir, who was driving the car, and Kishan Yadav, who was sitting beside him, were killed, the police said, adding that their friends Deepak, Anand and Akash escaped with minor injuries. They were all in their 20s and it is suspected that they had consumed alcohol. The car's front was completely submerged, leaving no room for Jangir and Yadav to escape. Their friends, who were in the back seat, managed to come out, they said. They informed the police and claimed that Deepak Jangir could not see the road ahead and ended up driving into the river, the police said. Deepak Jangir and Yadav were taken to a hospital where they were declared brought dead, they said. The police said that on Wednesday, Deepak Jangir and Yadav along with the others had come to Deepak's house, but as his landlord had issues with him consuming alcohol, they went to Shyam Ghat. Yadav's aunt is a constable with the Delhi Police and he was staying with her family. He belonged to Rajasthan and was preparing for competitive exams. Jangir also belonged to Rajasthan and was staying with a family member posted with the Delhi Police. He owned the car and used to also rent it out as a taxi. Deepak, who belongs to Haryana, was staying in Wazirabad, and the two others also came to Delhi to prepare for competitive exams.
New Delhi:

The Karnataka government will observe the birth anniversary of 18th century Mysore ruler, Tipu Sultan, on Friday amid protests by the right wing groups which see him as a 'religious bigot. The state government has beefed up security to prevent any untoward incident.

Karnataka Police has deployed more than 11,000 security personnel in Bengaluru. Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar said, "We are not giving permission to any procession, whether it is in favour of Tipu Jayanti or against it. The government itself is celebrating the event in various parts of the city for which we have made elaborate arrangements."

The practice of celebrating the erstwhile Mysore Kings birth anniversary, began two years ago. The state witnessed riots and the death of a Kodagu resident in the first year of these celebrations.

Tipu Sultan is also viewed in a negative light in Kodagu district where he is alleged to have persecuted the local Kodava population, as also the Roman Catholics of Mangaluru, on religious grounds and forced conversion to Islam.

The controversy was further spurted when the President Ram Nath Kovind hailed Tipu Sultan, saying he died a heroic death fighting the British, remarks that came in the backdrop of protests by the BJP in Karnataka against the glorification of the 18th century Mysore ruler.

Read more: Prez Kovind hails Tipu Sultan at Karnataka Legislative Assembly

Tipu was a ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore, who was considered an implacable enemy of the British East India Company. He was killed in May 1799 while defending his fort of Srirangapatna against the British forces.

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New Delhi:

People torched a youths house on learning his alleged attempt to rape a two year old girl in Madhya Pradeshs Shivpuri.

According to police, the 18-year-old accused, Roop Singh, tried to force himself on her on finding her alone. When she screamed for help, nearby women rushed to the spot to rescue her.

Read more: Jharkhand: Abducted Indian Army personnels body recovered from Bokaro

The accused even tried to kill the girl after his failed attempt, but the women nabbed him and handed him over to police.

Following the incident, the agitated crowd went on rampage and along with youths house, several vehicles and cylinders were set on fire.

"I heard my daughter's scream while i was washing utlensils at my home and rushed out to rescue her", victim's mother said in a statement.

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New Delhi:

Senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday accused the Modi-led government of amending major changes in the taxation system to lure voters of Gujarat in the upcoming Assembly elections.

In a series of tweets P Chidambaram hit out at the BJP-led government for enforcing the GST without proper planning. In a tweet he said, aThanks to Gujarat elections, Govt forced to heed advice of Opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST.a

Thanks to Gujarat elections, Govt forced to heed advice of Opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST. a P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 10, 2017

The former finance minister in one of the tweets hinted that the Modi-led government in fear of losing the forthcoming Gujarat elections is forced to amend changes in the GST. aExpect a shower of changes in GST rates from GST Council meeting today. Panic-stricken govt has no option but to concede demands for change,a wrote Chidambaram in Twitter.

He also wrote that Gujarat cities are closely watching the BJP governmentas move in the 23rd GST Council Meeting. aCongress FMs will force changes in GST Council meeting today. Agra, Surat, Tiruppur and other hub towns are watching.a

The 23rd meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is now underway in Guwahati and is being chaired by the Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley. The Council is also expected to slash tax rates on various goods of common consumption such as handmade furniture, shampoo, sanitary ware, plywood, stationery articles, and play instruments, among others.

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New Delhi:

The Pakistan government on Friday decided to arrange a meeting of Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife on humanitarian grounds.

India has been asking Pakistan authorities to arrange visa for Kulbhsuhan Jadhavs family for a long time.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had written a letter to her Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz for grant of visa to Jadhavs mother, Avantika.

A military court in Pakistan has awarded death penalty to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav on the suspicions of spying. However, India have rubbished al the accusations of Pakistan and moved to International Court of Justice against Jadhavs death penalty.

The ICJ had on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing the death sentence.

While Pakistan claims that its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3, 2016 after he reportedly entered from Iran, India maintains that he was abducted from Iran where he had legitimate business interests.

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New Delhi:

In a major development in Pradyuman Thakur murder case, CBI sleuths are questioning another class XI student of Ryan International School in connection with the murder , confirm agency sources, a day after detained arrested student confessed to his crime.

According to CBI sources, sleuths of the agency are questioning classmate of the detained student, who is also believed to have played an important role in the murder of the class II boy.

The agency on Thursday late evening claimed that a class XI student of Ryan International School has confessed his crime  murder of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur  in front of his father and an independent witness.

CBI officials on Thursday had taken the 16-year-old juvenile to several places to corroborate his statement.

Sleuths questioning him, remained tight-lipped about the exercise, stating that any comment or revelation can affect the investigation.

The court has sent the juvenile to three-day CBI custody. The agency had sought the minor's custody form the Juvenile Justice Board and had said that his custodial interrogation was needed to ascertain if any other person was involved in the crime or not.

The class 11 student was apprehended on Tuesday night. He is being kept at Sewa Kutir in Kingsway Camp, from where he was brought to the CBI headquarters in New Delhi at 10.45am for questioning, the sources said.

Also Read | Ryan murder: Ashok to file case against policemen who framed him

They said the agency will go through an extensive corroborative exercise, which will include the identification of the person and shop who sold him the knife and crime scene recreation before filing its report in the court.

Pradyumn, a Class 2 student of Ryan International School, was found dead with his throat slit lying in a pool of blood near a toilet in the school campus on September 8.

According to the agency, the suspect allegedly murdered Pradyuman to defer school examination and parent-teacher meeting (PTM). The agency did not find any evidence of sexual assault, a CBI spokesperson said on Wednesday.

In a big twist to the case, the agency also rejected the Gurgaon polices theory that the killing was the handiwork of school bus conductor Ashok Kumar.

Also Read: Pradyuman case: CBI detains class XI student

The CBI has said that there was no evidence against Kumar so far.

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New Delhi:

Unidentified people on Friday pelted stones at the house of Muslim woman teacher Rafia Naaz against whom a fatwa was issued for teaching Yoga.

Following the attack, security has been increased at Rafias residence in Ranchi and police is trying to identify the attackers.

Earlier, Rafia Naaz, a Muslim woman Yoga teacher was threatened by the members of her community and a fatwa was also issued against her.

Rafia informed Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) about the incident and a complaint was lodged, Deputy SP Vikas Chandra Srivastav said.

Following her meeting with the SSP, the police had provided security to her. But after she gave an interview to a TV channel, some people pelted stones at her house, Deputy SP Srivastav said.

"I have received a lot of threats, I am thankful to the State Govt for providing security. I will not be scared and will continue with what I am doing," said undeterred Rafia Naaz.

Two quick response teams have been stationed near Naazs house, Srivastav said, adding that senior police personnel have assured security to the Yoga teacher and her family.

Also Read: Fatwa issued against woman for teaching Yoga in Ranchi

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New Delhi:

The Art of living International Centre organised Paigam-e-Mohabbat program aimed to bring normalcy in Kashmir in Bengaluru on Friday. The program was all about love and emotions.

The program brought together family members of slain militants, former militants, common Kashmiris and families of security personnel who have been martyred in the valley.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had organised this program and brought 100 Kashmiri families to Bengaluru.

Farook Ahmed Dar, a former militant and resident of Sopore town of Baramulla said, "Kashmir is a place of saints and Sri Sri will be able to bring peace back in Kashmir as saints have always been welcomed in Kashmir.

Sri Sri said that bringing everyone together on one platform was not an easy task, but, to make Kashmir paradise again, they needed to work hard and he is doing that.

There were some emotional moments when Priya Sankalp, wife of Martyr Lt. Col Sankalp broke down on stage remembering her husband who was martyred in Uri area of Kashmir.

Priya Sankalp said that she lost her husband in Kashmir conflict but today she is sitting with Kashmiris so that this conflict ends and no more lives are lost.

Speaking on this occasion ,Neha tripathi, wife of martyr Pramod Kumar who was commandant in CRPF and was martyred on 26 January 2016 in Srinagar said," I was very hesitant to come on this program when I heard Kashmiris are part of this but then I remembered my husband used to tell me that always be positive and I hope if by coming here I can make 5% Kashmiris to think that they are also part of India as rest of us then it will be a great success for me ".

Munir choudhary from Salamabad of border town Uri requested all to forget past and join hands together to regain the paradise.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that he didn't take any support from government of India for hosting this program and he is ready to talk to everyone in Kashmir including Hurriyat conference to bring normalcy back in Kashmir.

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New Delhi :

Though it is unclear as to how long humans will be ignorant about the nature that surrounds them, but it is very clear that human actions have caused the extinction of many animal species and one of them is Sudan, the last living northern male white rhinoceros.A

Sudan was transported from from a zoo in Czech Republic in 2009 to Kenya at the Ol Pejeta Conservatory on the pressumption that it would be convenient to breed in African soil. Several attempt of breeding with other female white rhinos Fatu and Najin have met with failures.A A

The photo of Sudan taken by Biologist and activist Daniel Schneider has taken micro blogging site Twitter by storm which has been retweeted 42,000 times.A

Want to know what extinction looks like? This is the last male Northern White Rhino. The Last. Nevermore pic.twitter.com/o4obIQUpaR a Daniel Schneider (@BiologistDan) November 6, 2017

Since Sudan is 44 years old, breeding attempts have failled on account of low sperm counts. However scientists are determined to try IVF technology to save the last of Sudan's species.A

In order to protect him from being poached, Sudan has been placed under 24 hour armed guards. Earlier this year, Sudan had a Tinder account to raise funds for research andA Assisted Reproductive Techniques to save the species.

"I don't mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me," read his profile.A

White rhinos are the second largest land mammal.A A

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New Delhi:

Carme Forcadell, the Speaker of Catalonias dismissed Parliament was detained on Thursday by the Supreme Court of Spain pending bsil of 150,000 euros.

Carme Forcadell and four other deputies were facing charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds for aiding the Catalan parliament's secession bid and they had appeared before Spains highest tribunal.

It was suspected that Carme Forcadell and his deputies were following a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official announcement on October 27.

If the charges against them are proved, they Forcadell and his men shall face a jail term upto 30 years.

On Wednesday, the apex court of Spain had annulled the declaration of Independence by the now sacked Catalan Parliament.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena ordered one Catalan lawmaker freed, but the four others apart from Forcadell must pay 25,000 euros within a week to avoid jail.

Following the Catalan Parliaments bid to Independence, Spain is facing one of its most serious political crisis which forced hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region.

The crisis has caused disquiet in the European Union which is already dealing with Britains shock Brexit decision.

On Wednesday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe and disrupting trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

(With PTI inputs)

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New Delhi:

Thousands of radical Islamists protested in Islamabad demanding the removal of Pakistan's law minister Zahid Hamid over the omission of Prophet Muhammad in a recent constitutional bill.

Members of radical Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah party started the protest march earlier this week at the main Faizabad crossing outside Islamabad.

The number of demonstrators increased to over 3,000 on Friday which disturbed the public life on the outskirts of Capital city. The police have to put barricades in order to stop protesters from entering the city.

The protesters shouted slogans against Hamid and claimed that he purposefully made the omission of Prophet Muhammad to appease the minority Ahmadis sect.

Addressing emotionally charged demonstrators, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the head of the Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah party, said they will not end their protest until the government sack Hamid.

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Multilingual robot concierges have been unveiled in Tokyo prior to trials that will gauge their ability to welcome visitors to the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike attended an unveiling ceremony at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government headquarters on Thursday.

The metropolitan government plans to start testing 5 different types of robots from next Monday. They can communicate in several languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean.

At Thursday's event, Governor Koike asked one of the robots how tall the government main office building is. It gave the correct answer -- 243 meters.

Koike also tested the robot's language ability by asking in English what the UNESCO world heritage site in Tokyo is. Cheers erupted from the audience as the robot replied that it is the Ogasawara Islands.

Koike said the metropolitan government has decided to seek the robots' assistance in welcoming foreign visitors.

She added that her government will continue to promote and conduct pilot programs with advanced technologies.

The trial will run through late February of next year. The metropolitan government hopes that the robots will be ready for work in time for the 2020 Games.

Nov 10 (ANNnewsCH) - aeaaaaaaaaaeaaaaYeaYeaaSaaaaaaaaaaaazaaaaY5aaaaaaaaaaaa ecYaaaYesaaeaaaaYa
Japan's Economic Revitalization Minister says all the 11 signatory nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have reconfirmed their broad agreement to put the deal into effect without the United States.

Toshimitsu Motegi is among ministers from 11 countries that in principle reached the agreement at a meeting in the Vietnamese city of Da Nang on Thursday.

The agreement was to be confirmed at the summit meeting scheduled for Friday, but was postponed.

That came as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in a meeting before the planned summit that member countries were not ready to confirm the agreement.

This led TPP ministers from the 11 countries to hold a new round of talks on Friday.

Motegi told reporters that Canada's delegation said it had gained consent from the top leader.

Motegi also said it would be difficult to hold a summit due to the schedules of the leaders. He said he and his co-chair, Vietnamese Industry and Trade Minister Tran Tuan Anh, will publicize the content of the agreement and release ministers' statement on Saturday.

Motegi said the Canadians had expressed clear support for the broad agreement on Thursday, and added that this time the country confirmed all the details including wording.

Top leaders of TPP signatory countries are in Vietnam to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Nov 11 (ANNnewsCH) - 10aaasaaaaaYaaaaaeaTPPicaaceaasi11aaaeeasaaaaSaaceaaaaYaYaaaYaaaSaaaYaaaaccaeisaTPPeeasaaaYaaaaaeaaaaYaaeeasaaaa9aeasasaaacaaaYaasaaaceaaaaasaaaYa
Even with its convenience stores, souvenir outlets, tour buses and boutique coffee shops, Mount Koya might be modestly alluded to as a Japanese Lhasa. There is no living being, of course, who embodies the doctrines of a religious order such as the Dalai Lama, but in the person of the saintly priest Kukai, who founded the temple complex in 816 as the center of the Tantric Buddhist sect known as Shingon Mikkyo, the mountain top finds an ecclesiastical figure of compelling and charismatic force.

A remarkable man --- a gifted calligrapher and scholar --- it's not difficult imagining Kukai as a mendicant monk, wandering through this mist filled mesa. In contrast to today's pilgrim, decked out in crisply laundered and ironed apparel, all effort circumvented or accelerated by modern amenities such as buses, Kukai's robes would likely have been saturated with damp and filth after months of walking through these forests, co-existing with leeches, snakes, monkeys and wild boar. The Buddha may have befriended animals, turning them into fellow travelers, but common pilgrims would have faced the animosities of the natural world without the benefit of divine protection or wizardry.

The notion of companionship on a spiritual journey is a recurring theme, though, on Mount Koya. Many of the white-clad pilgrims who stream through the town in the direction of Okunoin, a cryptomeria forest that is also a massive graveyard, place of worship, and repository for religious reliquaries, have dogyo ninin (twin-person group) printed on their clothing, the words expressing the conviction that they are not alone, but making a pilgrimage in the company of none other than Kukai himself.

The faithful who come here to bond with the saint believe that he never really died, at least in the spiritually active sense, that he still meditates, sitting cross-legged, in the position his body was placed at death --- in a mausoleum in the deepest recesses of the forest. It's also possible that his body has crumbled into dust, as all mortals do, along with the cerements worn at death.

The transition from the present to the past, daily to sacred life, takes place in graduated stages. The cable car for the ascent to Mount Koya, cut into the side of the mountain to form a moving observation shelf, is a passage from Japan's unruly urban mash to a view of tidy, ceramic-roofed village homes, geometrically precise fields and, as the summit is glimpsed, nature reprised in slopes smothered in old growth forest.

It is just a few steps, passing across a small bridge, the Ichinohashi, into the forest-cemetery of Okunoin. Inhaling shredded wisps of incense at the core of Mount Koya is the acrid perfume of Buddhism itself, which compares our short existence to the burning of incense sticks. Here on the mountain, monks pour powdered incense over hot coals.
Oracles Network is an open, public, permissioned network based on Ethereum protocol with Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus, reached by independent pre-selected validators. By PoA we mean a modified Proof of Stake, with identity used as a form of stake, which incentivizes validators to act in the interest of the network.

In any project, however, whatas more important than definitions is the answer to WHY the project exists in the first place. In this post, we will describe why we are building Oracles Network and how it finds its place in the blockchain smart contracts universe.

To answer WHY, we will first zoom in and take a closer look at whatas under the hood. We will examine the parts of the structure that the Oracles Network R&D team has been developing for the last eighteen months. After that, we will zoom out to see how this inner structure enables the broader purpose.

Consensus by Individuals as Business Model for Blockchains

In the last couple years, blockchain technology has demonstrated a number of potential applications: from enabling completely new business models to simplifying our daily routines. Without a practical path to implementation, however, all innovation resembles a theoretical exercise.

It is especially true when such innovation is not directly related to consumer-facing applications, but involves protocol changes. We have witnessed the creation of multiple siloed chains that were not compatible with each other and required months before they could even launch. This made the aNot another chain!a comment a staple in community forums. The arrival of the interledger protocol brought a promise of connecting various chains to communicate and transfer value. But it did not make it simpler, cheaper, or faster to run smart contracts or to implement blockchain technology for small and medium businesses.

As a result, such businesses are left with a few options. First, they could build their services on top of existing expensive public networks. Execution of this option, from start to finish, would require the allocation of significant resources. Second, they may try to build their own private blockchains. That would give some bragging rights to the business founder, but in reality would represent a structure no different than just a database. Third, they could just keep the status quo and miss out on the blockchainas opportunities. The bottom line is that open public blockchain networks are still out of reach to businesses with which we interact on a daily basis.

Can there be a cheaper solution that would allow small and medium businesses (SMBs) to take advantage of blockchain technology without having to divert a significant portion of their resources to it?

At Oracles Network, we are making the case that consensus by individuals is a feasible business model for blockchains. A streamlined consensus algorithm that creates a trustless environment without an expensive setup, combined with a swarm of blockchains, connected to each other to transfer value, can establish a foundation for faster and cheaper smart contracts. This will ultimately open the doors to the crypto world to many businesses. Making open networks more affordable and accessible to SMBs is the crucial step we need to make for broad blockchain adoption.

Zooming ina

Letas first look under the hood of Oracles NetworkaSaaSwe call it aOracles Network Corea. Oracles Network Core consists of the PoA-based protocol, the validators who seal the blocks according to the rules of this protocol, and the DApps that enable the network functionality.

Oracles Network adopts the best practices of the Ethereum protocol but, nevertheless, is an independent chain with its own native coin. Instead of current PoW or soon-to-be implemented PoS, Oracles Network uses consensus established by the reputation of verified and known individuals. A blockchain established on such protocol with consensus by private actors on public duty makes smart contract creation and execution cheaper and faster.

The idea of consensus by known individuals raises two questions: 1. How can a small group power the entire network? 2. How can a few people be ensured to act in the interests of the network?

To address the first question, we need to acknowledge a certain bias that the PoW-based consensus creates in our minds. As the most popular consensus mechanism requires a lot of computing power to function, we kind of expect that to be the case for any network. However, since the validators in the PoA network are not solving complex mathematical tasks, the computing requirements to them are pretty lightweight. There is no need for specialized equipment, aside from high-speed reliable internet connectivity.

To address the second question, consensus by a few trusted people in PoA is far from a novel concept. Take DPoS, for example, where select delegates are chosen by the stakeholders to represent them. Establishing a group of trusted parties is possible not only by having them stake their funds, but also by having them stake their identity. While the same size monetary stake has different value for different actors, depending on their overall wealth, own identity is valued by everyone pretty much the same. We believe that Identity at Stake setup can establish the incentives in such a way that the only course of action, which makes sense, would be acting in the interests of the network.

As we described before, the validators need to have their identities known and verified. We achieve that by requiring them to have an active public notary. Why public notary? Because this allows us to take advantage of the existing system providing information about a validator in the public domain. For example, you can go here and get the addresses of all the notaries in the state of California.

This serves a number of purposes. At a minimum, public notary certification means that a person has passed a test that he or she is of good morals and has no criminal record. More importantly, should things go wrong, the suffering party to a transaction knows who validated that block and has the means to go after the validator. In fact, the validators on the core Oracles Network are required to sign a legal agreement, making them liable for willful misconduct and fraud, regardless of what technology has been used in the process. The agreement formalizes on-chain governance, allowing other validators to terminate abad guysa or fork the network if a validator or a group start acting nefariously (due to collusion or as the result of someone hijacking a good validatoras node).

Lastly, why should a user of Oracles Network in Australia even care about public notary? That certification means absolutely nothing to them. And it should not. Whatas important is what that certification means to a validator, who now stakes their identity to secure the network. The fact that validators know that they are under observation and their mistakes will be visible and cost them the right to validate the network makes them act the way they are expected to act. This enables an incentives model where you donat need to personally trust a validator, but the setup will still work and self-cure should things go wrong. A rational validator understanding that his or her information is publicly available is better off acting in the interests of the network than cheating the system.

To establish these rules, Oracles Network uses DApps that initiate the network. The Ceremony DApp allows for distribution and exchange of the keys necessary for the validation on the network. The Governance DApp establishes on-chain governance. The Validators DApp provides the information on the validators.

By using these DApps, anyone can initiate a public or a private PoA-based network with any set of validators, specific to an industry or a community. These networks will support any DApps run on Oracles Network. Similarly, the validators for Oracles Network can also secure other PoA-based networks, introducing the concept of aconsensus-as-a-servicea.

This kind of replicability is the foundation of the horizontal scalability concept we introduce.

Zooming outa

A chain where a few known private actors enable consensus for the benefit of the network results in a cheaper and faster platform on which to build other DApps and write smart contracts. Take an example of universities building a DApp to handle official transcripts on the Oracles Network. However, Oracles Network Core by itself is inevitably confined within its capabilities by the fact that the people who validate the network cannot be known to everyone. Even though the incentives are built in a way that validators are better off staying honest, users have a stronger affiliation to a network if they actually know the validators. The ability to replicate networks with the authorities relevant to a specific community has a potential to create a number of networks where each individual network has participants who are vested in its success while together the networks are compatible and connected.

Whether in Australia or Finland, using Oracles Network DApps, an initiator can launch a new PoA-based network by distributing the keys to the validators, authorities in that community, who might, but do not have to, include some of the validators from the Oracles Network Core. That means the model of consensus by the known individuals would be transferred into the context of a specific community. Once the blockchain is incepted, the initiator does not have any more power to change anything, and the validators act according to the governance rules. Their identities are verified and can be cross-checked in the public domain of that country or industry.

Similar nature of networks allows connectivity, seamless value transfer, and speed at which these networks can be established. With a number of aclonesa serving different communities yet remaining compatible with each other, we create micro-universes, self-sustainable ecosystems, or what we call a aClones Swarma. When these chains are connected by an interledger protocol, like Cosmos or decentralized bridges, the combination of parachains creates a truly decentralized structure and can solve the blockchain scalability issues.

Before the multiple clones of Oracles Network can start appearing, however, we need to launch the Oracles Network itself. In order to make the concept of horizontal scalability practical, we cannot leave the inception of the Core Network to the remote future. Only launching the network and issuing the native coin automatically with the receipt of contributions to the crowdsale, will allow us to achieve the expedited progress to realizing the horizontal scalability goal. The faster we deliver the native coin to the hands of the contributors, the quicker the it will live up to its true utility value. And thus, our ICO will be a one-of-a-kind cross-chain token sale where funds are raised on Ethereum Mainnet and the native coins are simultaneously created on Oracles Network.

We have been enabling the community to run their own crowdsales using our automated ICO Wizard (you can read more info here). Now we will introduce a new practice that can close the gap between the fundraising and the time the campaign supporters get the native token. Oracles Network has built and tested a cross-chain bridge allowing to connect any Ethereum-compatible networks. Using it, we can create cross-chain crowdsale contracts and collect funds on the main Ethereum network while issuing tokens on another, more performant and cost-efficient Ethereum-compatible network. On a bigger scale, such bridges will allow us to seamlessly transfer value between the networks. By conducting a first cross-chain token sale ourselves, we are hoping to be trailblazers in this new practice. We envision it as a way to align the interests of all ecosystem participants and to give more confidence to the token holders, the members of the engaged community with the true desire to see it thrive.

By launching Oracles Network simultaneously with the token sale, we are laying a concrete path to realizing our vision of horizontal scalability and, ultimately, making blockchain technology more accessible to everyone.

Join us in this exciting journey:

Oracles Network ForumaSaaSwe discuss our progress updates, answer questions, reply to your feedback;

Follow our official updates via Twitter ;

Letas chat on Telegram.

We welcome ideas and feedback from the community and are open to collaborations!
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NEW MILFORD  In late 1942, just shy of her 20th birthday, Veronica Ronnie Bradley was walking to her job on Wall Street when a picture hanging in a storefront  of a woman wearing a Marine Corps hat  caught her eye.

Bradley, who had always loved hats, wanted to know how to get one, so she wrote down the phone number on the poster. When she called, she was offered a spot in the newly formed Marine Corps Womens Reserve, one of about 25 women selected in New York in the first round of recruitment.

I had a sense of being a good American, said Bradley, who now lives in New Milford and turns 95 next month.

Boot camp at Hunter College in the Bronx was followed by a graduation ceremony at St. Patricks Cathedral and a march down Fifth Avenue. She was then sent to training in Indiana before going to an air base in Santa Barbara, Calif., where she was assigned to aircraft repair.

It was an exciting time, Bradley said. I was very proud.

A year later, Bradley was chosen to be the subject of a recruitment poster, which showed her standing before a warplane in her Marine uniform and hat. The poster reads: Be a Marine. Free a Marine to fight.

Floor-to-ceiling replicas of the image now hang in several museums and it has been reproduced on postcards and other posters. It also appeared in documentaries about the war and womens role in it.

Its amazing, said Bradleys daughter, Patty Coelho. Its so cool to see her up there and seeing peoples reactions to her.

Bradley hadnt posed for the image and didnt even know of it until a friend pointed it out in a poster hanging in the window of a butcher shop. She suspects her picture was used because one of her friends on the base was a photographer and often took pictures of her.

Women in the reserves were given jobs stateside, so the Marine Corps could send more men to fight overseas. The Marines had done the same in World War I, when about 300 women joined its ranks for desk jobs.

The Army began accepting women in 1941, and the Navy followed in the summer of 1942 with passage of a bill that also allowed the Marines to create a womens reserve. But adding women was unpopular with many Marines, who cherished their image as an elite force.

The women didnt begin serving until 1943.

The men Marines didnt like it at all, she said. I dont blame them. They have a lot of history and we were getting into that history.

To help improve the relationship, the women decided to put on a show for the men in a hangar at the air base. It wasnt until the last dance number  when one womans bra strap broke  that the men began cheering.

It brought everyone together, she said.

The women in the reserves were called Marines rather than a nickname like those used in the Army and Navy.

Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb, who at first opposed inclusion of women in the Marines, told Life magazine in 1944, They dont have a nickname and they dont need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere at a Marine post. They inherit the traditions of Marines. They are Marines.

Bradley left the Marines when the war ended.

I signed up for three years, but I think I would have stayed in much, much longer, she said.

She declined to return for the Korean War because she was married and had started a family. But she regularly attended Marine functions and spent years sharing her story, visiting schools and passing around her own Marine Corps hat for students to try on.

In 2011, the Marine Corps honored her as their Marine of the Year.

The best thing I ever did was go into the Marine Corps," Bradley said.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345
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GREENWICH  In a classroom at the Byram Archibald Neighborhood Center, an adult student read a textbook blurb about an immigrants struggle to learn English.

In the scenario, she moved to a neighborhood where everyone spoke her native language, and none of her friends knew English. She wanted to gain fluency, but she had no way to practice.

Pobrecita, said one of the students, a Spanish word that roughly translates to poor girl.

Eight classmates brainstormed together, offering advice on how to resolve this somewhat fictionalized but familiar problem. The woman could watch TV in English, or pick up an English book, they said.

Or she could go to English school, like them.

For over 40 years, Literacy Volunteers has provided a place for women and men 17 or older to advance their knowledge of the English language, free of charge. During the 2016-17 academic year, about 145 volunteers logged over 12,000 service hours with 824 students in Stamford and Greenwich.

On Nov. 15, Literacy Volunteers will sponsor its 17th-annual Scrabble Challenge at the Stamford Hilton Hotel so they can continue to provide quality education and resources to local adults who want to improve their English.

As part of Family Centers, Literacy Volunteers caters to some of Fairfield Countys least served demographics. Forty-six percent of students in 2016 reported that their family incomes were under $10,000, and 33 percent said they made between $10,000 and $24,999 per year. Thirty-eight percent of participants had less than a twelfth grade education in their home countries, while 15 percent were unemployed and seeking work now that theyre in the United States.

We cant pay, said Ofelia Affon, who has been attending Literacy Volunteers courses for over a year. We dont want to lose these classes. They help us a lot.

For a good number of the students, English is not only a skill, but also the key to their future. To have any possibility of achieving their aspirations, they must be able to navigate the language.

Affon studied accounting in Peru, but these days, she dreams of opening her own local baking company.

On the Wednesday after Halloween, she brought elaborately decorated cupcakes for everyone at Byram Archibald Neighborhood Center. Moist and elegant, they exuded the kind of artisanal vibe at elite bakeshops.

Though her pastries pass muster, Affon said she will need to speak English if she is to ever have her own business in the U.S.

Andrea Ospino, 19, has a similar story. She moved stateside from Colombia only a month ago, and she attended her first Literacy Volunteers class last week because she wants to be a translator. More than that, she knows that English can be an access point for the life she hopes to lead.

I want to travel around the world and get to know cultures, she said.

For two hours on a recent Wednesday evening, tutors talked roomfuls of adults through workbooks, like the ones from French or Spanish class in high school. Someone confused ride and write, and a facilitator patiently described the difference.

In one of the sessions, students learned phrases to express a lack of understanding. Can you spell that? they asked patiently, mimicking their tutor. Excuse me? they said.

In another classroom across the hall, a table of women practiced conjugating in past tense.

I need more practice, one student admitted.

The facilitator asked a woman if she wanted a hard or easy example to conjugate.

Easy, easy, easy! she exclaimed.

These were Chris Feys students, all of whom were excited to be there, even if the past tense proved challenging. Fey sympathized with their struggles, admitting that this exercise could be called English is annoying. 

Affon, who studies with Fey, said that through word of mouth, more and more students are showing up to learn from him each week.

We need a bigger table, she joked.

The director of Radiology at Greenwich Hospital, Fey is in his second year teaching for the program. He said that during the 2016-17 calendar, he was astonished by how much he grew to admire the men and women who benefit from Literacy Volunteers.

The people in last years class were tremendously hard workers who worked all day at various trades and then still at the end of the day found the time to try to improve their ability to function in the culture, he said. They wanted to be a more integral part of America, like many other peoples ancestors who have come.

The participants in Literacy Volunteers are often immigrants. In a Journal of Student Writing published over the holidays last year, some of them expounded their experiences after coming to the U.S. One admitted that some people here  punish you because of the color of your skin or the language that you speak.  Another wrote that he had traveled to our country for a better future for him and his wife.

Yet another wrote, I miss my family. In this country everybody feels alone.

But a few pages later, someone countered, I am so glad to be in this country.

Fey said that in his sessions, he tries to incorporate the history of the immigrant experience in America and emphasize that our nation is a work in progress.

Im not trying to make the class political, but I think its fair that people realize that theyre part of a long American tradition of immigration thats not starting with them, he continued.

In response to the anti-immigrant sentiment that has invaded the U.S., Fey offered his observations from a year at Literacy Volunteers.

The idea that the immigrants coming to the country are somehow negative characters who cause a problem is completely the opposite of what I see, he said.
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NORWALK  Twenty-five minute webinars on widely ranging topics  from fighting students summer learning loss to the future of Connecticuts philanthropic landscape  have marked the Fairfield Countys Community Foundations celebration of a quarter century.

The foundation, which engages in charitable work, began in July of 1992, when a fund representing Norwalk, Darien, Weston, Westport and Wilton merged with three other funds representing Danbury, Greenwich and Stamford. According to its first annual report, the foundation was meant to be a vigorous, unified entity fashioning a regional philanthropic approach to the many issues which go beyond the borders of any single town.

Over 25 years, Fairfield Countys Community Foundation has awarded over $8 million in educational scholarships and over $220 million to nonprofits. The foundation has over 571 charitable funds and has underwritten research in various fields impacting Fairfield County.

In addition to the webinars, which have been released on the 25th of every month since April and are based on the foundations publications, on Oct. 26, roughly 150 people converged on Grace Farms, a converted horse farm that now serves as a center for nonprofits, to honor the organizations longtime sponsors.

Twenty-five years later, some of our original funders are still with us, said Juanita James, president and CEO of the foundation. They still help us with our community... Thats very special.

James herself has been with the foundation since 2011. She first encountered the organization while working with technology company Pitney Bowes.

Pitney Bowes and Fairfield Countys Community Foundation would sometimes support the same charitable causes, and she began to learn about the other work the fund was doing. For example, in addition to writing grants, the foundation was home to the Center for Nonprofit Excellence (which trains and provides resources for local nonprofits) and the Collaborative for Affordable Housing (which has helped create, maintain and manage over 2,000 affordable homes).

I realized this was an organization that really wanted to make a community impact, James said. And I was impressed by their approach of researching where the biggest needs are  and then researching best practices.

One of her favorite memories since joining the foundation was an immigration symposium it hosted a few years ago. Speakers were brought in to discuss the myth and reality of immigration in America, and James remembered learning about how immigrants contribute to the economy.

You can always tell when you have a good symposium when you have a lot of questions and answers, said James  and that day was filled with them.

Aside from research and education, the foundation also coordinates different groups working for similar causes. Were working with the nonprofit sector, elected officials, businesses and individuals interested in philanthropy, said James.

She pointed out that not every nonprofit has the funds to do the type of research Fairfield Countys Community Foundation can (the organization has $205 million in net assets). Looking forward after 25 years, she said the foundation will continue to focus on educational and economic success for people across Fairfield County.

We want to focus on economic opportunities so that people have the skills that they need to earn a living wage to support themselves and support their families, she said. To be independent so they can contribute to the economy and become engaged citizens. And we still have work to do on that.

rschuetz@hearstmediact.com; @raschuetz
MISSISSAUGA, ON, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Crescita Therapeutics Inc. (TSX:CTX) (Crescita or the Company), a commercial dermatology company with a portfolio of non-prescription skincare products and prescription drug products for the treatment and care of skin conditions, diseases and their symptoms, today announced its financial and operational results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2017 and the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Key Developments of the Third Quarter 2017

Reduced Q3-17 operating loss to $1.5 million from $2.9 million in the same quarter of the prior year;

from in the same quarter of the prior year; Received a US$0.5 million milestone payment from Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Taro) upon the issuance of the Flexicaine composition patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office;

milestone payment from Taro Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Taro) upon the issuance of the Flexicaine composition patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Ended the quarter with $8.8 million of cash;

of cash; Amended the Knight loan, freeing up $8.6 million of previously restricted cash;

of previously restricted cash; Reduced debt by $3.1 million in the quarter;

in the quarter; Completed convertible debenture financing with Bloom Burton Funds for proceeds of $1.0 million ;

; Completed the acquisition of Alyria  from Sanofi Consumer Health Inc. - a skincare line using scientific research;

from Sanofi Consumer Health Inc. - a skincare line using scientific research; Received positive topline results from a Phase 2 clinical trial (The Trial) studying the efficacy of the Mical 1 formulation in patients with plaque psoriasis. The Trial was conducted by our partner, Ferndale Laboratories, Inc., in conjunction with a leading U.S. Contract Research Organization;

Entered into a Mutual Release agreement with all but one (0.3%) of the former shareholders of INTEGA pursuant to which the former INTEGA shareholders forfeited their rights to any future payments from Crescita under the INTEGA purchase agreement;

"It was a successful quarter as we reduced losses, reduced debt, increased available cash and closed an exciting acquisition," said Serge Verreault, Crescita's President. "We are very excited to continue improving Crescita's operations and achieving our goal of profitability and positive cash flow."

Corporate Developments

Crescita appointed Jose DaRocha as Chief Financial Officer effective November 7, 2017. Mr. DaRocha is a Chartered Professional Accountant and is an accomplished finance executive with over 25 years of experience with increasing levels of responsibility in multinational public corporations in both the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. His track-record includes finance, accounting and reporting, business development and financial systems implementations.

"I am truly delighted to welcome Mr. DaRocha as our new CFO," said Serge Verreault, Crescita's President. "We believe that his hands-on business experience in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries makes him an ideal candidate to help transform Crescita into a highly successful company and deliver shareholder value."

The Company would like to thank Ms. Muneerah Kanji, MBA, CPA, CA, for all her contributions and efforts during her tenure with the Company as Interim CFO. Ms. Kanji has been pivotal in providing financial leadership through the integration of the INTEGA acquisition and will be staying with the Company until a full transition has been completed.

Third Quarter Financial Results

Note: All figures are in Canadian dollars. The Q3-2017 Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A), interim condensed consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes can be found on www.crescitatherapeutics.com/investors and have been filed with SEDAR.

In thousands except per share data and

number of shares Three months ended September 30,

Nine months ended September 30, 2017 2016

2017 2016 Product Sales 1,966 924

5,966 924 Out-licensing revenue 675 21

3,466 72 Services revenue 79 118

226 260 Revenue 2,720 1,063

9,658 1,256 Operating expenses 4,227 3,948

13,715 11,016 Loss from operations* (1,507) (2,885)

(4,057) (9,760) Other income (expenses) 1,050 115

1,008 (303) Loss from continuing operations (457) (2,707)

(3,049) (10,000) Net loss from discontinued

operations (56) (343)

(157) (2,187) Net loss (513) (3,050)

(3,206) (12,187) Net loss from continuing

operations per share (0.03) (0.19)

(0.22) (0.82) Weighted average number of

common shares











Basic and diluted 14,003 13,903

13,958 12,234 Cash and Cash equivalents 8,755 15,031

8,755 15,031

* Loss from operations is a non-IFRS measured used by the Company's management to assess its performance. Loss from operations is defined as total revenue less total operating expenses.

Cash and Cash Equivalents

Available cash and cash equivalents were $8.8 million as at September 30, 2017 compared to $9.8 million at December 31, 2016. The restriction on cash held as short-term investments at December 31, 2016 was released as part of the Knight loan renegotiation during the quarter.

Revenue

Total revenue, consisting of product sales, out-licensing and services revenue, for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 was $2.7 million and $9.7 million compared to $1.1 million and $1.3 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016. The year-over-year increase in revenue related to a milestone payment received from Taro in relation to the Flexicaine composition patent issued of US$0.5 million ($0.6 million), as well as the full quarter's impact of product sales of non-prescription skincare products resulting from the INTEGA acquisition.

Operating Expenses

Total operating expenses for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 were $4.2 million and $13.7 million compared to $3.9 million and $11.0 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016. The increase in operating expenses related primarily to the full three and nine months' impact of INTEGA's operations including product costs, as well as costs related to the restructuring of the business. The Company continues its focus on rationalizing its cost structure.

Other Income (Expenses)

During the quarter, the Company renegotiated the terms of the original Knight loan. The difference in the fair value of the amended loan and the carrying value of the original loan resulted in the reported non-recurring, non-cash gain of $1.1 million, net of transaction costs. The prior period amounts consist of foreign currency gains (losses) on the settlement of foreign currency denominated balances.

Net Loss from Continuing Operations

Net loss from continuing operations was $0.5 million for the three months ended September 30, 2017 compared to $2.7 million in the comparative quarter of 2016. The year-over-year improvement was primarily driven by the non-recurring non-cash gain on the renegotiation of the Knight loan, the milestone payment received in relation to the Flexicaine patent issuance and to the incremental gross margin on INTEGA's operations. For the current nine -month period, net loss from continuing operations was $3.0 million, compared to $10.0 million in the comparable nine months of 2016. The year-over-year improvement was primarily due to the same factors as for the quarter, as well as to the up-front payment received in the second quarter from Taro for the exclusive U.S. rights for Pliaglis.

About Crescita Therapeutics Inc.

Crescita (TSX:CTX) is a publicly traded, Canadian commercial dermatology company with a portfolio of non-prescription skincare products for the treatment and care of skin conditions and diseases and their symptoms and prescription drug products for the treatment of pain. Crescita owns multiple proprietary drug delivery platforms that support the development of patented formulations that can facilitate the delivery of active drugs into or through the skin. For additional information, please visit www.crescitatherapeutics.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This Press Release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as: "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "will" and similar references to future periods.

Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on the Company's current beliefs, expectations and assumptions, the future of its business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of the Company's control. Crescita's actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, readers should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause Crescita's actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, the risk factors included in Crescita's most recent Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2017 under the heading "Risks Factors", and as described from time to time in the reports and disclosure documents filed by Crescita with Canadian securities regulatory agencies and commissions. These and other factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on Crescita's forward-looking statements. As a result of the foregoing and other factors, no assurance can be given as to any such future results, levels of activity or achievements and none of Crescita or any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of these forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement made by the Company in this Press Release is based only on information currently available to it and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, Crescita undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

SOURCE Crescita Therapeutics Inc.

For further information: Investor Relations, Email: [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.crescitatherapeutics.com


According to Carolyn Stewart, executive director of the Ontario Association of Food Banks, the organization's members serve over 335,000 people each month and, of those, 113,000 are children under the age of 11. With this donation, she says the dairy farmers are helping meet the nutritional needs of these children.

"Farmers make it possible for people in need to enjoy local food every month," Stewart explains. "This donation is providing the connection so that these Ontarians can benefit from our robust agricultural sector."

The DFO is partnering with Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Ltd, which will provide dairy products at cost to maximize the donation.

"Many Gay Lea farmers already donate to food banks through a check off program, so this partnership goes above and beyond what we are already doing," says Steve Dolson, a dairy farmer and chair of Gay Lea. Approximately 1-million litres of milk is donated annually to food banks by dairy farmers now, he adds, but the DFO partnership will allow more milk and milk products to reach more families in need.

"The Royal is where the farming community meets and it helps people in the city to see where milk comes from," Dolson says about making the announcement at The Fair.

Stewart agrees that The Royal is a good place to talk about dairy products and the importance they play in growing healthy children. "Farmers play a key role in providing access to good food," she says.

About The Royal:

The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair is the world's largest combined indoor agricultural and equestrian show. This year, the 95th Royal Agricultural Winter Fair runs November 3 - 12, 2017 at Exhibition Place, Toronto. For competition schedules, live webcasting, results and to purchase tickets, please visit www.royalfair.org.

The Royal is supported in part by the Province of Ontario and City of Toronto.

SOURCE Royal Agricultural Winter Fair

For further information: Karen Poncelet, Marketing Communications and Community Relations Manager, The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, 39 Manitoba Drive, Exhibition Place, Toronto, ON M6K 3C3, Direct: 416-263-3411, Fax: 416-263-3488

Related Links

http://www.royalfair.org


In conjunction with the acquisition, Gecko Namibia and Gerald J. McConnell, Chair of the Board of Namibia Rare Earths, have each agreed to complete a private placement with the Company in the amount of $250,000 at $0.05 per share for total gross proceeds to the Company of $500,000 ("Private Placement"). A total of 10,000,000 common shares of Namibia Rare Earths will be issued pursuant to the Private Placement. The Private Placement is subject to the approval of the TSXV.

This transaction provides Namibia Rare Earths with a high quality, diversified portfolio of critical metals and at the same time has secured a highly experienced strategic partner. Gecko Namibia and its subsidiaries are substantial participants in the Namibian resource sector with 327 employees and a proven track record in the mining industry. The Gecko Namibia portfolio of properties will expand the Company's commodity base from solely rare earths to a variety of highly critical commodities including cobalt, copper, zinc, lithium, graphite, tantalum, niobium, nickel, and gold. Ground holdings in Namibia will increase from 221 km2 (Lofdal) to over 6,850 km2.

Property Acquisition and Private Placement

Namibia Rare Earths has entered into an agreement with Gecko Namibia to acquire its 95% interest in a portfolio of exploration properties consisting of 14 exploration prospecting licences ("EPLs") four of which are pending, one mineral deposit retention licence ("MDRL") and Gecko Namibia's rights under an option agreement to acquire a 60% interest in a further exploration prospecting licence which interest may, subject to the terms of the option agreement, be increased to 80%.

The Property Acquisition and Private Placement are expected to close on or before January 31, 2018 and are subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals including the approval and acceptance by the TSXV. Upon completion of the Property Acquisition and Private Placement, Gecko Namibia will own 69,000,000 common shares of the Company representing 43.75% of the outstanding common shares of the Company. The Property Acquisition is further conditional upon receipt of the approval of shareholders as required by the TSXV.

The proceeds of the Private Placement will be used to carry out work on the properties acquired from Gecko Namibia with an initial focus on advancing the Kunene cobalt-copper project and to fund general corporate requirements. The common shares of the Company issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a four-month hold period.

Namibia Rare Earths and its insiders are at arm's length with Gecko Namibia and there are no finder's fees payable in connection with the Property Acquisition or the Private Placement.

Following the closing of the Acquisition, Gecko Namibia will nominate two members to the five-member board of Namibia Rare Earths with Gerald McConnell remaining as Chair. Pine van Wyk will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Namibia Rare Earths based in Namibia and Donald Burton will remain as President. Dr. Rainer Ellmies will be appointed Country Manager of Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd. based in Namibia.

Gecko Namibia  A Strategic Partner

Gecko Namibia is a private, Namibian-owned, fully integrated exploration and mining company with diversified interests in Namibia. Headquartered in Windhoek, the company and its subsidiaries operate with a work force of 327 employees with a professional management team of 24 people dedicated to every stage of mineral resource development including exploration, mining, mineral beneficiation and processing, and the provision of mine services (drilling, blasting, laboratories, plant construction, processing and contract mining).

Gecko Namibia and its sister company Genet South Africa (Pty) Ltd. ("Genet") were founded by Kobus Smit who is the Chairperson of both groups. Genet is a similar resource focused company providing mining and mineral processing services in South Africa with 703 employees and a team of 20 professional managers. The group also employs 285 people in its various tourism related businesses.

Genet Mineral Processing introduced an innovative dry process, using air clarification to upgrade coal for the South African market, including to clients like Exxaro and Eskom. Mr. Smit's entrepreneurial spirit has led to the establishment of a diversified portfolio of business interests that include some of the most valuable mining and tourism assets in private ownership within the Southern African region. Most notably, in 2003 Mr. Smit and his partners established a new coal mining company, namely Umcebo Mining, which grew into a significant coal producer in South Africa with annual production of approximately 9MT. Over a period, 7 coal mines were developed as greenfield projects, all with in-house capacity. The success of Umcebo was mainly the result of innovative technology in coal processing developed in-house that gave Umcebo Mining a significant competitive advantage over other coal producers. The most significant contract recently completed was a coal supply agreement with Eskom to the value of R6.8 billion. In 2011 Glencore acquired a 41% share in Umcebo Mining. Umcebo Mining was valued R2.2 billion at that time. During 2017, Mr. Smit disposed of all his interest in Umcebo Mining in order to focus on the expansion of his business interests in Namibia.

The Portfolio  Diversification into Critical Metals in Namibia

The transaction dramatically increases the Company's exposure to a wide variety of critical metals and minerals at various stages of development, providing a pipeline of projects spanning the spectrum from near-term discovery to preliminary economic assessment. All the projects are located in Namibia, a stable mining jurisdiction in which the Company has operated for the past seven years and where in-coming senior management have worked for over 20 years. This diversification will provide the Company with considerable flexibility in targeting those commodities which can provide immediate shareholder value. The strategic partnership with Gecko Namibia will allow for fast tracking to mine development as projects mature to feasibility stage. The portfolio of eight projects, their principal commodity targets and development stage are summarized in Table 1 and more fully described below. Project locations are shown in Figure 1.

1. Lofdal Heavy Rare Earth Project

In terms of project maturity, Lofdal is the most advanced with a 43-101 resource in place and completed Preliminary Economic Assessment1. In 2016 the Company completed an Environmental Impact Assessment and filed for an Environmental Clearance Certificate from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and concurrently filed for a Mining Licence with the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Lofdal is a unique opportunity to develop a relatively low cost, heavy rare earth mine that could produce significant quantities of dysprosium, terbium and yttrium from the principal mineral, xenotime . The project has very similar mineralogical characteristics to the Brown's Range deposit in Australia which is currently under development by Northern Minerals (ASX:NTU) with AUS$97M of financing in place to complete an initial three year pilot phase operating at 72,000 tpa.

2. Kunene Cobalt-Copper Project

In terms of commodity interest, the Kunene cobalt-copper project offers the most attractive near-term value add opportunity for the Company. The Kunene project builds upon the recent exploration success led by Dr. Rainer Ellmies to explore for "copper belt" style deposits in northern Namibia. This work led to the first recorded discovery of Copperbelt-type stratabound cobalt-copper mineralization in Namibia in a sedimentary horizon termed the dolomite ore formation ("DOF"). The mineralization is uniformly 5 to 10 meters thick, stratabound within a dolomitic shale horizon, and averages around 0.5% copper and 1000-2000 ppm cobalt. The initial discovery is currently under intense exploration by Celsius Resources (ASX:CLA) including a 15,000 meter drill program to complete a maiden JORC resource estimate by February 2018. As per Celsius Resources' press release dated May 18, 2017 "Data from the first 20 holes drilled across this 11 km zone has enabled the Company to generate an Initial Exploration Target of between 33 and 41 million tonnes, grading approximately 0.13% - 0.17% cobalt and 0.45% - 0.65% copper. It is noted that the potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature, and that there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource."

The Kunene cobalt-copper project comprises a very large area of favourable stratigraphy contiguous with the DOF discovery adjacent to the ground held by Celsius Resources. Secondary copper mineralization over a wide area points to preliminary evidence of a regional-scale hydrothermal system . Exploration targets on EPLs held in the Kunene cobalt-copper project comprise direct extensions of the DOF style mineralization to the west, sediment-hosted cobalt and copper, orogenic copper, and stratabound Zn-Pb mineralization. Most of the occurrences are likely spatially related to what Dr. Ellmies' geological team has interpreted as a large hydrothermal center termed the Steilrand hydrothermal system. There is considerable scope for further discoveries both along strike of the Celsius discovery and in equivalent stratigraphy elsewhere on the property. Initial investigations will trace the western extension of the DOF which may continue for over 10 km in the project area, and will follow up on numerous copper-cobalt targets drilled in the past but never analysed for cobalt.

3. Black Range Graphite Project

The Black Range flake graphite prospect was discovered in the late 1980's and was explored by Rossing Uranium Ltd. between 1988 and 1992. Rossing interpreted the graphite horizon in a fold structure with a total strike length of about 8 km. Based on 3,821 m of percussion drilling and 3,931 m of diamond drilling from a 1 km segment of the horizon, employing a cut-off grade of 2% graphitic carbon and using the polygonal section method, an historical estimate of 12.46 MT grading 4.63% graphitic carbon was utilized by Rossing to assess the project (reference "The Black Range Graphite Deposit, Feasibility Study Final Report" dated August 1992). This historical estimate does not cite reference to CIMM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. Additional drilling and sampling will be required to validate the historic database. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and this historical estimate is not being treated as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. Preliminary mining plans were drawn up and preliminary metallurgical work was carried out by Mintek of South Africa but the project was terminated before the flowsheet was fully optimized when the decision was made to focus instead on the graphite deposit at Okanjande. Okanjande was brought into production in 2017 by Gecko Namibia in a joint venture with Imerys.

Black Range is slightly lower grade than the producing Okanjande Graphite Mine (but the potential resource is much larger than the 1 km of strike length that has been tested to date. The data cannot be used in its present form for reporting under JORC or NI 43-101, however a similar problem was encountered at Okanjande and was addressed by a program of twinning of old drill holes and assaying of the core with full QAQC. That work largely validated the Rossing work so it should not be necessary to re-drill all the holes at Black Range. The near-term focus will be on metallurgical test work and, with a viable flowsheet, the project could be taken rapidly to a compliant PEA stage.

4. Warmbad Lithium Project

The Warmbad project is located in southern Namibia near the South African border in an area of historic small-scale pegmatite mining known as the Tantalite Valley. The Tantalite Valley pegmatites have been mined since about 1946 for beryl, columbite-tantalite, lithium and bismuth minerals. Mining has been re-activated by Kennedy Ventures Plc who control African Tantatite (Pty) Ltd. and are producing concentrates of >40% Ta 2 O 5 being sold into global markets. Initial production of 20M tpa concentrate is ramping up to 120M tpa. An initial lithium resource estimate is being prepared by MSA Group for early 2018 following the sampling of lepidolite bearing pegmatites grading >1.6% Li 2 O.

The Warmbad EPL covers 605 km2 and hosts three pegmatite occurrences of undetermined extent from government maps. There are no records of any systematic exploration over the EPL. The area has recently been mapped by the Geological Survey of Namibia and the Council of Geosciences (South Africa) which has provided updated geological information. A key result of the mapping campaign is the delineation of previously unknown extensive pegmatite swarms of up to 13 km strike length. None of these pegmatites have ever been sampled and assayed . This new data will be utilized to undertake systematic sampling of the pegmatites.

5. Epembe Tantalum-Niobium Project

Epembe is an advanced stage exploration project with a well-defined, very large multiphase carbonatite dyke that has been mapped and sampled at surface over a strike length of 10 kilometers of which at least 7 km of strike length is mineralised . Gecko Namibia has completed detailed mapping and over 11,000 meters of drilling on the dyke, with preliminary mineralogical and metallurgical studies. The carbonatite contains variable concentrations of pyrochlore which is unusually enriched in tantalum. The other commodities of interest are niobium (hosted in pyrochlore) and apatite. Drilling covered only 15% of the pyrochlore hosting carbonatite. Grades of the drilled portion of the carbonatite average on the order of 150 ppm Ta 2 O 5 , 1,300 ppm Nb 2 O 5 and 2.4% P 2 O 5. Initial sorting tests (XRT) indicate the potential for significant physical upgrading. Planned work will focus on improving grade by optimizing XRT sorting and investigating amenability to XRF sorting. There is potential to delineate a substantial open pit resource by further exploration, both by extending known mineralized zones along strike and vertically.

6. Grootfontein Nickel-PGE Project

Grootfontein is an early stage conceptual target based on geophysical and historical evidence for a large buried mafic-ultramafic intrusive complex. It is a poorly explored geological complex due to the extensive coverage with Kalahari sands and calcrete.

Based on historic drill holes and airborne magnetic survey interpretations, Grootfontein constitutes a huge mafic complex covering 360 km2 with the potential to host magmatic nickel, copper, vanadium, platinum group elements and chromite mineralisation as cumulates or late magmatic disseminations and stockworks. Previous work by Ongopolo Mining proved that the main intrusive phases are depleted in nickel and copper. The metals were likely fractionated as sulphides during the intrusive phase, gravitationally accumulated in the magma and intruded in the adjacent, preexisting rocks. As in other mafic hosted copper-nickel deposits such as Norilsk and Voisey's Bay, sulphidization by scavenging of sulphur from country rocks and tectono-magmatic concentration of the sulphide-rich melts are the key for the formation of this type of magmatic copper nickel deposits. Only two shallow drill fences (total of 1,386 m) were drilled by Anglo American in 1988 leaving 55 km of strike length untested.

There is also potential for zinc-lead-vanadium mineralisation of the Berg Aukas type where dolomite-hosted deposits bordering the mafic complex, which according to historical records, produced 1.6 MT of ore grading 16.77% Zn, 4.04% Pb and 0.93% V 2 O 5 during the period 1967-1975.

7. Otjiwarongo Carbonatite Project

Otjiwarongo is another early stage conceptual target based on remote sensing data in proximity to known alkaline intrusive complexes, most notably the Okorusu complex which hosts the Okorusu fluorspar deposits. The area of interest is completely hidden by cover. The circular anomaly measures one kilometer in diameter and can be easily tested by drilling to determine if in fact a carbonatite body is the source and what styles of mineralization might be associated with it (fluorspar, rare earths, tantalum, niobium etc.).

8. Erongo Gold Project

The Erongo gold project covers an area of over 600 km2 within the Navachab-Ondundu gold trend. There are numerous mineral occurrences within the project area including at least two gold occurrences. The area has been prospected but not systematically explored. Potential targets include skarn and greisen gold-(copper-bismuth) and tin-tungsten mineralization; pegmatites formed during the late Damaran orogeny hosting lithium minerals and semi-precious stones and structurally controlled gold mineralisation. Historical figures indicate small scale mining for all of those deposit types on the property.

Project Management Strengthened  Operational Experience Focused on Namibia

Operations in Namibia for all projects will continue under Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd., the Namibian operating company of Namibia Rare Earths. Project management will be streamlined through utilization of Gecko Namibia's in-country administrative and service providers drawing upon the resources of the following senior personnel:

Pienaar-Schalk (Pine) van Wyk (NHD Met. Eng. B.Com, MBA), Managing Director of Gecko Namibia will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Namibia Rare Earths based out of Namibia. Pine joined Gecko in 2008 bringing over 25 years of extensive process and project management experience to the Gecko Group. Prior to joining Gecko Namibia he worked for Rossing Uranium as Engineering Manager and later with Paladin Energy at the Langer Heinrich uranium mine where he held the positions of Operations Manager and Business Development Manager. As Managing Director for Gecko Namibia, Pine has developed a strong network of contacts throughout the mining sector and with government agencies in Namibia. In addition to his professional qualifications as a Metallurgical Engineer from Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria), Pine holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of South Africa and Masters of Business Administration from University of Bloemfontein with a focus on project management.

Rainer Ellmies, PhD., General Manager of Gecko Exploration since 2016, will be appointed Country Manager of Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd. based out of Namibia and will carry principal responsibility for the design, implementation and development of all projects through to feasibility stages. Rainer has been instrumental in assembling the property portfolio for Gecko Namibia and has been directly involved in a number of significant mineral deposit discoveries in Namibia including the heavy rare earth deposit at Lofdal, Namibia's first sediment-hosted cobalt deposit at Opuwo, tantalum-niobium at Epembe, copper, zinc-lead-barite in the Kunene region and light rare earths at Keishohe/Dicker Willem. Rainer brings a combination of extensive technical and commercial skills as well as in-country knowledge of Namibia's mineral sector through his seven-year tenure as Manager of German-Namibian Development Cooperation in the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy. Rainer received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Economic Geology from the Technical University of Berlin.

Other Interests within Gecko Namibia

Graphite Mine in Production

Gecko Namibia was instrumental in bringing the 500,000 tpa run of mine Okanjande Graphite Mine into commercial production in 2017 through a joint venture partnership with Imerys, a global leader in the production of mineral-based, high value specialty products. Gecko Namibia re-designed a portion of the crushing, milling and flotation facilities at the Okorusu Mine for graphite processing of up to 20 000 tpa of graphite concentrate.

Fluorspar Mine and Processing Facilities

Gecko Namibia acquired all the mine and processing facility assets of the Okorusu Fluorspar Mine from Solvay in 2016. A comprehensive test program has been developed with the objective of re-opening the fluorspar operations at Okorusu. Gecko Namibia envisages a metallurgical process with dual product output of high grade acid spar and low grade metallurgical spar, following on-going mineralogical studies of all ore bodies, gravity separation tests and high-end flotation tests. Okorusu produced close to 1.8 million tons of fluorspar concentrates over a 27-year period between 1998-2014, when Solvay made the corporate decision to close down its global mining division.

Various Salts and Limestone Operations

Gecko Salt, a subsidiary of Gecko Namibia, operates a small-scale salt production plant located approximately 120 kilometers north of the coastal town of Swakopmund. The project is currently operating at a rate of 200,000 tpa and targeting to increase to 1,000,000 tpa. The first shipment of 25,000 t of salt for the North American market was exported in August 2017.

An internal assessment has been completed over portions of the Otjivalunda salt pans, located north of Etosha National Park, which comprise natural deposits of burkeite, thenardite and sodium sulphate. Gecko Salt intends to initially produce approximately 100,000 tpa of sodium sulphate as well as washing powder, soap and other salt products for sale into the South African market.

An internal resource of 5 million tons of high-quality white marble with >98% calcium carbonate has been defined by drilling near Swakopmund together with an internal resource in excess of 25 million tons of calcitic marble rock for a calcining project. An Environmental Impact Assessment for the project has been completed and the company has received the Environmental Clearance Certificate.

Industrial Corporate Vision

Gecko Namibia envisions substantial industrial growth for Namibia, in part through the realization of its multi-faceted resource portfolio. To this end, Gecko Namibia has initiated two high level projects related to industrial development in the Swakopmund-Walvis Bay area.

An application for the development of a 200 ha industrial park named Nonidas Industria to be located 11km east of Swakopmund is at an advanced stage. The site is uniquely situated between the B2 National Highway and the main TransNamib railway leading inland from Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. The Vision Industrial Park (VIP) is a much larger concept that has been proposed by Gecko Namibia to develop a new deep-water port with an associated industrial development zone to be situated 25 km north of Swakopmund. The Namibian Cabinet awarded Gecko Namibia the right to develop a private port together with 700 ha of industrial land for the development of chemical and mining related industries. The port will be designed to accommodate Panama size vessels and have the capacity to handle 5-10 million tons of cargo volume per annum. The concept is very similar to the Coega Project of South Africa where an industrialized development zone was created with a dedicated port facility in 2009. Since its inception, Coega has attracted 54 industrial firms that have brought in over R30 billion in investments.

Donald M. Burton, P.Geo. and President of Namibia Rare Earths Inc., is the Company's Qualified Person and has reviewed and approved this press release.

About Namibia Rare Earths Inc.

Namibia Rare Earths Inc. is focused on the accelerated development of the Lofdal Rare Earths Project and on building a critical metals portfolio in Namibia. The common shares of Namibia Rare Earths Inc. trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "NRE".

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The foregoing information may contain forward-looking information relating to the future performance of Namibia Rare Earths Inc. Forward-looking information, specifically, that concerning future performance, is subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the appropriate securities commissions.

______________________________

1 Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Lofdal Rare Earths Project Namibia dated October 1, 2014 authored by David S. Dodd, B. Sc (Hon) FSAIMM - The MDM Group, South Africa, Patrick J.F. Hannon, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. and William Douglas Roy, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. - MineTech International Limited, Canada, Peter Roy Siegfried, MAusIMM (CP Geology) and Michael R. Hall, B.Sc (Hons), MBA, MAusIMM, Pr.Sci.Nat, MGSSA - The MSA Group, South Africa

SOURCE Namibia Rare Earths Inc.

For further information: Namibia Rare Earths Inc., Don Burton, President, Tel: +01 (902) 835-8760, Fax: +01 (902) 835-8761, Email: [email protected], Web site: www.NamibiaRareEarths.com

Related Links

http://www.namibiarareearths.com


TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - True Patriot Love Foundation (TPL) is pleased to announce the launch of the Captain Nichola Goddard Fund, which will provide essential programs for servicewomen, female Veterans and their families.

Captain Goddard was killed at age 26 during an ambush west of Kandahar city on May 17, 2006. She was the first female Canadian soldier to die in a combat role.

TPL will work with the Goddard family to continue Nichola's legacy, benefiting military families across the country.

Canso Investment Counsel Ltd., a long-time supporter of True Patriot Love, made a gift of $200,000 to this fund in late October allowing immediate impact to be made in Nichola's honour.

Quotes:

"We are honoured that the Goddard family has asked True Patriot Love to set up and manage a fund in Nichola's name  a fund that will remind us of Nichola's legacy and her love for her fellow soldiers. Nichola reminds us that all people should have an equal opportunity to make for themselves the lives they wish to have." - Bronwen Evans, CEO of True Patriot Love Foundation.

"The Captain Nichola Goddard Fund will continue Nichola's legacy and support women during and after their service. Caring for her troops in the field and when they came home was incredibly important to Nichola, and we're excited to partner with True Patriot Love on this initiative moving forward." - Sally Goddard, Mother of Nichola Goddard.

About True Patriot Love Foundation

True Patriot Love Foundation (TPL) is a national charity with the mission to inspire every Canadian to contribute to the resilience and wellbeing of our military and Veteran families. Since 2009, TPL has provided more than $18 million to support military families, including supporting more than 100 community-based programs across the country that address the unique challenges resulting from service including mental health, physical rehabilitation, transitioning to civilian life, and the special needs of children. In addition, TPL contributes to advancements in research and technology through our $5 million commitment to the Canadian Institute for Military and Veterans Health Research (Queen's University). For more information, visit www.truepatriotlove.com.

SOURCE True Patriot Love Foundation

For further information: Media inquiries please contact: Laura Hearn, Senior Director Marketing and Communications, True Patriot Love Foundation, 647.213.4631, [email protected]

Related Links

www.truepatriotlove.com


CORTLAND COUNTY, N.Y. -- An Upstate New York insurance company employee is facing charges for stealing money from customers, according to the Cortland County Sheriff's Office.

Tracey L. Rialdi

A person called law enforcement after receiving a cancellation notice claiming their insurance plan had been terminated due to not being paid on time, the office stated.

An investigation revealed the person, along with several others, paid their premiums in cash to employee Tracey L. Rialdi, 53, of Miller Drive, Homer. Rialdi then pocketed the money instead of putting it toward the bills, deputies said.

At least seven customers lost money to Rialdi, according to the sheriff's office. The thefts had been going on for about a year, with Rialdi taking home about $12,229.

Deputies declined to give the name of the insurance company but said it was a local business.

Rialdi was arrested Thursday after a five-month investigation and charged with first-degree scheme to defraud and third-degree grand larceny, both felonies. Additional charges may be added as investigators continue looking into the case, according to the sheriff's office.

Cortland County deputies asked anyone with information on Rialdi or the investigation to call them at (607) 758-5536.
By GMM 10 November 2017 - 08:31





Fernando Alonso is not denying speculation he is on a fast track to next years Le Mans.

Reports this week suggested the continuing McLaren driver visited Le Mans team Toyotas Cologne headquarters for a seat fitting.

The latest rumour is that Alonso will test the LMP1 car in Bahrain next week.

"I also read the news but I have no comment.

"I am often in places between one grand prix and the next, we will see," Spanish reports quote the 36-year-old as saying in Brazil.

When asked specifically if he is testing the Toyota next week, Alonso answered: "I have nothing to comment on that for now.

"Next week I will be home and well see if I can rest and recover a bit after a few of these races in different time zones," he said.

As for speculation of a 2018 assault on Le Mans, Alonso answered: "There is no pressure on me to do that race next year. I am at an age where I can still compete at Le Mans for many years."
When it came time to pick someone to serve in the newly created position of consumer advocate for customers of the Hartford-based Metropolitan District Commission, state officials turned to a familiar face in the water utility business.

David Silverstone of West Hartford will start his new part-time job in January, Elin Swanson Katz, Connecticuts consumer counsel, said Thursday. Silverstone was president and chief executive officer of the New Haven-based South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority from 2001 to 2008.

Silverstone also has a background in advocating for utility consumers, having served as Connecticuts first consumer counsel from 1974 to 1977. The states consumer counsel represents the interests of ratepayers served by for-profit utilities, but Silverstone said because the MDC is a nonprofit, Katz cannot represent the interest of its customers.

The idea of doing this intrigued me, Silverstone said. It seemed like the right amount of work for me given my current schedule. And given my background, I think I bring a broader perspective to the job.

Katz said she selected Silverstone because he has more experience than anyone else in the state when it comes to establishing an independent consumer advocate office. Part of that experience, she said includes serving as consumer advocate for the Regional Water Authority from 1980 to 1989

He will bring needed transparency to the MDC process and provide a strong voice for MDC water consumers, Katz said. Confidence in the water system is essential for both the community and the MDC.

Silverstone has another part-tme job which he will continue to do. He serves as president and chairman of the board of the Science Park Development Corp., the nonprofit agency that oversees the redevelopment of the former Winchester Firearms corporate campus in New Havens Newhallville neighborhood.

Lawmakers created the position to which Silverstone is being named during the last legislative session amid concerns by MDC customers about rapidly increasing rates and a lack of transparency in its operations, The MDC serves Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor, along with four non-member towns: Glastonbury, Farmington, South Windsor and East Granby.

Some of the lawmakers who represent the towns that are served by the MDC praised Silverstones selection. State Sen. Beth Bye, D-W. Hartford, called Silverstone an excellent choice.

I am counting on him to be a strong advocate for all of MDCs consumers, Bye said in statement. We have an independent consumer advocate today because MDCs customers refused to stand by when they saw issues of concern. Consumer voices matter, and when the community speaks out, it makes a difference.

State Rep. Derek Slap, D-W. Hartford, said Silverstones selection is another important step in strengthening the voice of MDC consumers.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
Fifty-Eight years ago Richards Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II saw their final collaboration, The Sound of Music, make its world premiere at New Havens Shubert and now, sturdy as ever, its back.

NETworks Presentations national touring version of the beloved musical, which continues through Sunday, boasts no established stars, as the original had in Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. Thats because the immutable stars of The Sound of Music are its creators, namely Rodgers (music), Hammerstein (lyrics) and Howard Lindsey and Russel Crouse (book). The show is a paradigm of the book musical that Rodgers and Hammerstein championed, starting with their initial collaboration, Oklahoma! in 1943 (which premiered at New Havens Shubert under the title Away We Go!).

Today nearly everything about the musical holds up remarkably well. The shows ace-in-the-hole, naturally, is its score, bulging with such staples of the American Songbook as My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Mi, and Climb Evry Mountain. Even its second-tier hit songs, such as Sixteen Going On Seventeen and Edelweiss (Rodgers and Hammersteins final song together) remained etched in the walls of musical theater fame.

More amazingly, Lindsay and Crouses libretto, suggested by a memoir of Maria Augusta Trapp, remains fresh today  certainly crisper than most books from the American Musicals AARP section (including other Rodgers and Hammerstein shows). Audiences still relate to the love story of Maria, the young postulant, or aspiring nun, and Capt. Von Trapp, a wealthy widower with seven mostly marvelous children. And while antagonists may come and go, the Nazis have even longer staying power than your lecherous landlord with a mortgage.

Most striking about Lindsay and Crouses work is that, as in Rodgers and Hammersteins South Pacific, it holds and charms us even though there is no palpable conflict until the second act. Everythings pretty much peach fuzz and popsicles until Herr Zeller, that nasty Nazi with, in this production at least, a striking resemblance to Stephen Miller in manner and vocal inflection, crashes the honeymoon to order Capt. von Trapp to walk in goosestep with the rest of the party.

The reigning star, then, of this NETworks production is Jack OBrien, director of the tours initial cast of two years ago (Matt Lenz recreated OBriens staging for the current, non-Equity cast). As this production unfolds, one quickly appreciates how OBrien eschews cliche, sentimentality and stock tricks. He even surprises theatergoers now and then with new wrinkles, such as during the Lonely Goatherd number when Maria first gains the kids trust as they sweat out a thunderstorm.

Wonderful performances abound. Jill-Christine Wiley is an earnest, genuinely sweet Maria blessed with a glorious soprano. Mike McCleans Capt. von Trapp is (thankfully) younger than more star-laden productions, making the love scenes with young Maria palatable instead of creepy.

Annie Shermans Elsa (going on for the indisposed Melissa McKamie) and Jake Mills Max Detweiler are delightful in their two songs, How Can Love Survive? and No Way To Stop It (both cut from the 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews).

The best voice of all belongs to Lauren Kidwell, who is this productions trump card as The Mother Abbess. She too is younger than most actors playing this role. Her powerful voice is steadily strong and her stage presence energized and calming at once.

NETworks production of The Sound of Music should delight theatergoers new to the classic as well as their parents who grew up watching the film on video through childhood. It hits the spot.

E. Kyle Minor is the New Haven Registers free-lance theater writer/reviewer.
In a wide-ranging report on traffic stops released Thursday, Central Connecticut State University researchers flagged a number of police departments in the state for disparities in enforcement that might indicate racial bias.

In Traffic Stop Data Analysis and Findings, 2015-16, researchers determined that State Police Troop B in North Canaan and local police departments in Berlin, Monroe, Newtown, Norwich, Ridgefield and Darien had statistically significant disparities in traffic stops of minorities compared with stops of whites.

The authors of the report  which also tracked overall town-by-town pull-over rates  said those agencies that were noted for racial disparities would be analyzed further. The numbers used in the study come from police data compiled from Oct. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2016.

One way the study examined possible bias was by comparing stops during the day and those at night  when police are less likely to discern a drivers race before pulling a vehicle over.

In Norwalk, the study indicated, Hispanic drivers were stopped during the day at a rate that was 2.3 times their rate of being stopped at night.

The study also looked vehicle-search success rates, also known as hit rates, that measure how often people are searched in a traffic stop against how often contraband is found.

More Information Longer-range study: 2013-2016 When researchers accounted for three years of data, they found additional towns and State Police Troops with "statistically significant" racial or ethnic disparities. Ansonia, Groton Town, Madison, New Milford and State Police Troops C, G, H, and K made that broader list. Monroe and Norwich made both. See More Collapse

White drivers who were searched after being stopped in Monroe were found with contraband 42.9 percent of the time, while black drivers were found with contraband only 8.3 percent of the time.

The studys authors indicated those results might suggest more than one conclusion.

Police officers make decisions to search in an effort to maximize their expectations of finding contraband, the studys text said. The implication being that police will be more likely to search a group that has a higher probability of carrying contraband ... In turn, motorists from the targeted demography understand this aspect of police behavior and respond by lowering their rate of carrying contraband.

Monroe Chief of Police John Salvatore said his department would look into the reports conclusions.

Speaking for my department, we hire good people, Salvatore said. We train them well and theyre out there doing what they think is the right thing and the proper thing. But that doesnt mean that were not going to be looking at what is in this report.

Salvatore said he has concerns about the reports methods. He said it appeared that assessments of driving populations in the study did not factor in those passing through from other towns and cities.

Others took issue with the study, too.

In a written document dated Sept. 7, to the president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, Stephen M. Cox, a professor in the criminology and criminal justice department at CCSU, pointed to problems with the report as part of a peer review of one portion concerning 2014-2015.

One point of contention for Cox was the way researchers determined the number of drivers in a given municipality.

The use of population-based benchmarks and descriptive statistics to approximate towns driving populations has weaknesses and are not recommended to be used nor presented in these reports, Cox wrote.

The report said Connecticut State Police likely exhibited the largest and most persistent disparities in the day/night stop tests. The agency also had very low hit rates across all minority groups.

Trooper Kelly Grant, a spokeswoman for Connecticut State Police, said the material in the report would be carefully reviewed.

We look forward to continuing our years of cooperation ... to address any concerns raised by the results and to account for the many variables that are inherent in this research, Grant said. We trust that, as in years past, further analysis of the data in conjunction with the research team will provide a reasonable explanation for any apparently outlying results.
NEW HAVEN  Somewhere along a short path around the corner of Temple and Chapel streets, Roberta Hoskie lost a $10,000 check.

And somewhere along that same path, Elmer Alvarez found the check  and promptly returned it.

I thought I had it with my stuff in my car, Hoskie, president and CEO of Outreach Realty Services, said Thursday. I must have had it and it slipped.

Hoskie lost the check Wednesday morning. Without realizing she had lost it, she got a phone call the same morning informing her a check made payable to her had been found. She stepped out to Temple Street to find and meet Alvarez a short time later. While doing so, Alvarezs friend told Hoskie that Alvarez is currently homeless.

The scene unfolded in a Facebook live video posted by Hoskie Wednesday. The video details the story while searching for Alvarez and strategizing how to help him moving forward. The 22-minute recording had more than 13,000 views by Thursday afternoon.

I dont care what you say. There are so many really good people in this world, Hoskie said as the video begins. I dont know who this guy is. But I dropped my check and he called  I didnt even know I dropped this check  and he called me.

Alvarez said he wanted to do the right thing.

First of all, I believe in God, Alvarez said Thursday. My faith is what keeps me going through. ... I always believe that once you do right, right always comes back to you. Because God dont like ugly.

Alvarez broke down in tears after Hoskie presented him with another check. He said hes hoping to get his life back together and is currently looking for a job. He said Thursday he placed himself in the position of the person who lost the check. He said he told his friend that he needed to find the person after finding the check.

Hes a good person. He talked to me and said, thats the right thing, Alvarezs friend said in the video.

Before becoming a local real estate agent , creating her own business, establishing seminars and businesses classes, Hoskie was another person struggling.

She, too, was once homeless, living in the Douglas House Shelter in New Haven.

To come from a place of being homeless to owning multiple companies, I represent something different, Hoskie said

Hoskie, who was described by many New Haven residents as an inspiration, was the New Haven Registers Person of the Year in 2015.

Hoskie said she is offering Alvarez free classes at her real estate school. Yet, even her own kind gesture exposed the prejudice Hoskie said homeless people face every day: The bank Alvarez visited to cash his check hassled him.

Thats unfair. He had a check, he had a signature  he had a license, Hoskie said.

The outpouring of support has overwhelmed Hoskies Facebook page, which was inundated with suggestions for how to help Alvarez. She said she even got calls from people as far as California and Texas seeking to help. She said anyone interested in helping Alvarez can reach her at rhoskie@outreachrealtyservices.com.

She plans to keep in contact with him and helping himmove forward to teach him how to fish. Alvarez said he will try to take advantage of the blessing he said hes received from Hoskies helping hand.

I know it sounds so cliche, but you cannot judge a book by its cover, Hoskie said, adding: There needs to be more people like Elmer.

Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901 or esteban.hernandez@hearstmediact.com.
Demand for electricity in New England is expected to decline over the next 10 years, even in peak summer demand periods, the regions power grid operator reports in a new study.

Holyoke, Massachusetts-based ISO-New England released its 2017 Regional System Plan, which details needs of the grid through 2026. The energy forecast contained in the plan predicts total annual use of electricity will decline by 0.6 percent per year, with the summer peak needs declining 0.1 percent annually by 2026 under normal weather conditions.

Gordon van Welie, president and chief executive officer of ISO-NE, said the regions energy system is in the midst of a major evolution toward a cleaner, hybrid grid.

It will include renewable technologies such as wind and solar, and conservation measures such as energy-efficiency, as well as traditional resources, such as natural-gas-fired generation, van Welie said in a statement.

But Joel Gordes, a West Hartford-based energy industry consultant, said basing energy demand forecasts on normal weather conditions is unwise.

The weather were seeing now is anything but normal, Gordes said.

The demand for electricity from the grid also is being driven down by energy efficiency resources such as from the increased deployment of photovoltaic solar panels at homes and businesses, according to the findings of the Regional Plan.

But Connecticut lawmakers are using $177 million in energy efficiency funds to balance the states budget over the next two years, Gordes said. Further raids on energy efficiency funding in the future in Connecticut or other New England states could increase demand for electricity in the region beyond what ISO-NE predicts.

New generation sources are needed because by 2020, power plants that collectively produced 4,800 megawatts of electricity will have shut down, either because they are no longer economical to operate or as a result of environmental concerns. Older power plants that either run on coal, oil or nuclear power are likely to be replaced by either natural gas-fired generation or renewable energy sources such as solar or wind.

About 1,918 megawatts of solar power were available in the region at the end of last year, if the generation systems were operating at full capacity. By 2026, the level of soar resource available in New England is expected to more than doubled to 4,733 megawatts. according to the ISO-NE forecast.

About 12,899 megawatts of new generation sources had applied to connect to the regional grid as of April 2017. But ISO-NE official say that, historically, the attrition rate of power producers that apply for interconnection to the grid, but never begin operating, is about 68 percent.

The ISO-NE plans caution that the more use of renewable energy grows, the greater the likelihood there is that more transmission lines will need to be built.

The most reliable and economic place for resource development remains in southern New England near load centers, the report states in part.

The region has grown increasingly reliant on natural gas-fired power plants. On any given day in New England, natural gas-fired power plants account for 50 percent or more of the power produced.

That level of reliance on power produced from one energy source is problematic, according to ISO-NE officials.

The limited availability of the natural gas transportation infrastructure to supply gas to generating units can present fuel-security risks to the region, especially during winter operating conditions, the plan says in part. ISO-NE is conducting an analysis to quantify the regions risk and will release its findings next year.

Gordes said more focus should be placed on expanding liquid natural gas storage facilities in the region, so the fuel source would be closer to power plants that use it.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
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NEW HAVEN  It was not just students who are in limbo, but families from Haiti and Central America whose special protections are being eliminated that brought more than 300 people to rally for revisions to immigration laws Thursday night.

They listened to speakers and chanted as they marched from the steps of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church to the Superior Court and then to City Hall.

Emily Almendarez, a sophomore at Yale University, talked about her father who immigrated from Honduras more than two decades ago and has remained here under Temporary Protective Status, which was given to persons escaping civil war or environmental disasters.

Nicaraguan residents lost these protections last week and Hondurans are scheduled to lose it next July.

She said those rallying want a clean Dream Act that will continue to protect young people brought here as children by their undocumented parents, but they dont want to leave other immigrants behind.

We fighting for a clean Dream Act  yes. But not at the cost of other members of our community. Not through ... ignoring parts of the 11 million undocumented. We will not throw anyone under the bus for the rights of a selected few, Almendarez told the crowd.

Our streets. Whose streets? Our streets, they shouted as they marched. Whose city? Our city. Whose country? Our country.

Yemimar Cortes, 19, an undocumented student from Mexico, said she has been here since she was two years old.

If there is not a clean Dream Act I would feel it in my family, I would feel it in my loved ones and I would feel it in my undocumented community, she said. She then described her family.

Cortes said her mother has been cleaning houses for 20 years. She said her father works two jobs  construction during the day and as a musician at night. She said they have no health insurance and were always afraid of going to the hospital.

Cortes said a clean Dream Act should protect all immigrants who work hard. As soon as legislation hurts one of those people ... thats when we say no Dream Act, she said. We are demanding no more deportations. We are demanding that we protect TPS. We are simply demanding to be human beings living in this world without being scared that we will no longer be able to survive.

These things that have been going on in the immigrant community have always been racist. ... We are here to stay, Cortes said. We are not a chess game for these politicians to play with.

Anthony Reyes, the son of Marcos Reyes who has taken sanctuary in First and Summerfield United Methodist Church for the past three months, thanked all those who visit his father.

This santuary has welcomed us with open arms, but it is not the warm embrace and comfort of his actual home, he said. Times are incredibly tough and uncertain times for my family and I, but we continue ... to hold one another up when we feel we are falling. Reyes, his parents and two sisters are from Meriden.

Two Yale students came to speak on behalf of Viviana Andazola Marquez, a senior at the university, whose father is being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Colorado on an expedited deportation order after she had petitioned to change his status.

Every day ICE tears families apart without discretion, without conscience, one of the students, Maya Jenkins, said. She called the immigration system fundamentally racist, unjust and unacceptable. As students, as neighbors and as people we have a moral responsibility to take a stand and say Hell no, to ICE.

Jesus Morales Sanchez addressed another concern of the large crowd that was representented by a range of ages.

Standing on the steps of the Superior Court, he said ICE is picking up immigrants who come there as defendants or victims.

They are putting themselves at risk of being caught by ICE, he said.

That is not a coincidence. We have prosecutors in these very courts called ICE on people. They say it is their protocol ... I call that bull..., he said.

People are coming here for minor incidents and they have been taken away by ICE. ... We are not going to allow it and we have the names of prosecutors who are engaged in this, Morales said.

mary.oleary@

hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577
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WEST HAVEN  A Seymour man died in violent, head-on car crash Thursday night involving an East Haven motorist who allegedly was fleeing Orange police following a hit-and-run traffic accident.

Philip Hunt, 54, of Davis Road, who was not involved in the police pursuit, suffered life-threatening injuries in a crash at Meloy Road and died shortly before midnight at Yale New Haven Hospital, police said.

First and foremost, the thoughts and prayers of the entire Orange Police Department are with the family of Philip Hunt, who unfortunately succumbed to his injuries as a result of the crash in West Haven, Orange Police Chief Robert Gagne said in a statement Friday.

The Orange Police Department referred further questions to the Connecticut State Police, which is handling the investigation of the crash.

Orange police initially were called to the scene of a crash at Route 34 and Route 152 in Orange, where a minivan had hit another car from behind and fled the scene, going east on Route 34, the Orange Police Department said in a release. Shortly thereafter, Orange police saw a vehicle matching the description traveling south on Dogwood Road near New Haven Avenue. The vehicle, a 2005 Toyota Sienna, had front-end damage and was being operated in an erratic manner, police said.

The vehicle initially slowed to a stop for police on Dogwood Road near Route 1, but then continued east on Route 1, and then south on Meloy Road into West Haven.

The driver, identified as Robert Kryzkij, 45, of East Haven, was traveling east on Meloy Road when he reportedly crossed over the double, yellow center line and entered into the opposing westbound lane. The driver then allegedly sideswiped the left side of a 2006 Scion XA and continued east, ultimately colliding with the front end of 2012 Subaru Outback, driven by Hunt, according to police.

I was sitting right there (at the window). I was going to shut the TV off and go to bed. ... I heard like a tire burst and then, all of a sudden, BAM! I looked out the window, and I saw the driver (of the Subaru) spinning out if of control onto the grass, said Bruce Jones, who lives on Meloy Road. I could have sworn I saw the drivers face.

The driver and the front passenger of the 2006 Scion XA were uninjured, police said. Robert Kryzkij was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

Tassoula Nicolaou-Jones, Jones wife, said the accident sounded like a tire popping and [then] a big loud pow, a big boom, like if something exploded. And then something sounded like it was dragging, like metal. It could have been a muffler or something.

Jones said people couldnt help but look at the aftermath, noting that until you got to the cabin, there was no car. Everything was pushed back. There were no motors. I didnt see any motors on either car. He said the Toyota, which was on fire before someone put it out with a fire extinguisher, ended up stopping right in front of my mailbox. Dead center in the middle of the street, while the Subaru was against the fence.

Maria Fernandes, who also lives on Meloy Road, said she didnt see the accident, but she heard what sounded like thunder. She said neighbors came out from their homes to see what had happened, believing if neighbors were asleep, they would have awakened.

Nicolaou-Jones said a lot of cars have hit the same curb.

She said she has even seen somebody hit the curb and continue slowly up the hill because the car had a flat tire.

Sometimes people break two tires, she said.

Meloy Road was temporarily closed between Ridge and Eileen roads while police investigated but reopened Friday morning.

Orange police said they were working with the West Haven Haven Police Department on the case and cooperating with Connecticut State Police. The original crash at Route 34 and 152 and its connection to the West Haven crash also remains under investigation.

While there is no uniform policy across the state on pursuits of vehicles, many police departments have adopted a version of the International Association of Chiefs of Police model policy for vehicular pursuit.

The model policy says a vehicular pursuit should only be authorized if the officer has a reasonable belief that the suspect, if allowed to flee, would present a [immediate] danger to human life or cause serious injury. Pursuits for minor violations are discouraged.

The decision to initiate a pursuit must be weighed against the immediate danger created by the pursuit against potential danger should the suspect remain at large. Unless a greater hazard would result, a pursuit should not be undertaken if the subject can be identified with enough certainty that they can be apprehended at a later time, the policy states.

John DeCarlo, former Branford police chief and an associate professor at the University of New Haven, said that while looking at a potential loss of life in a police pursuit as opposed to solving a motor vehicle accident are two very different paths, its literally impossible to play the blame game until we have all the facts.

DeCarlo said there are so many dynamic variables occurring such as whether permission was given by a supervisor, the time frame between the start of the pursuit and when the crash happened and the reasons why the alleged suspect fled and why police pursued, that its hard to make a cogent determination.

The state police will come in and do a really, really thorough investigation, DeCarlo said. The reason why they do an investigation is to actually find out all the variables and actions that occurred between the time this pursuit began and the time the crash occurred.

Anyone with information related to either accident is asked to contact state police at 860-779-4917.

@jesslerner on Twitter
WOODBRIDGE  At age 95, World War II veteran Maurice Chartoff quickly recalls the simple item that helped him survive the deadly 60-mile Bataan Death March during World War II: a can to fill with water along the way.

He shared his water with many, filling the can at artesian springs along the way, and survived, only to then be put in a series of work camps as a Japanese prisoner of war for the next 3 years.

The death march and POW camp were both severe and deadly, said Chartoff, who resides at Brookdale Woodbridge senior living community. I survived in part because I had a can that held water.

In his first assignment after the march, Chartoff was placed on a hazardous road building assignment that most did not survive and led to his hospitalization before going on to the next camp. He was sick, weak, working in the hot sun with little water and food, which consisted mainly of rice.

Of 325 men on that road job, only 50 survived and Chartoff was among them, said his daughter-in-law, Karen Chartoff.

His time in the military started in 1941 when, after a year at the University of Vermont  he grew up in Bennington  Chartoff decided to enlist in the U.S. Army because he didnt have enough money to attend a second year.

He was 20 and figured hed get an education in the military.

I didnt think it was this way, he said of what would ultimately happen during his time of service. He was trained as a radio operator.

He was based in Manila, Philippines, when World War II broke out and when the Japanese took the capital city, Chartoff was captured with his unit in Bataan.

He was forced into the 60-mile march, in which the Japanese transferred American and Filipino POWs between prison camps. The march took the lives of 3,000 others.

Chartoff, a soft-spoken man, said they took away his watch, water, food, suitcase and helmet for the walk, which during the day was in hot sun.

Someone gave him the can along the way and he filled it with water and what little food they got, sharing with others.

He also volunteered during the walk to help bury bodies of those who couldnt make it. Many soldiers who stumbled or fell during the death march were shot or bayonetted, he said.

For some reason, they let him keep that can, Chartoff said.

Rife with severe physical abuse and killings, the Bataan Death March was later judged to be a Japanese war crime, according to a press release sent to the Register on his (Chartoffs) behalf.

The camps he was held at include ODonnell, Billibid Prison in Manila, Cabanatuan Camp No. 1. Then, in 1944 until liberation, he was moved to a camp in Japan.

In testimony he gave to the United States War Crimes Office in 1946, Chartoff spoke of American prisoners, including himself, being slapped, hit, mistreated and in some cases, severely beaten.

They were made to work even when sick or in a weakened state and he recalled a work party being sent out in a typhoon.

His testimony showed the cruelties in detail.

Until July, 1945, we ran to the train whenever an air raid alarm sounded. Many prisoners were beaten for not running fast enough, he told the interviewer.

He also told them that in July 1945 they continued working even with American planes overhead and anti-aircraft being fired at them.

We were allowed to go to the shelter only after bombs had fallen, he told the war crimes interviewer, noting an occasion when one POW was killed and another lost his arm.

He testified: We were only given three rest days a month and on these days we were not allowed to rest until the middle of the afternoon and not then if we desired to be issued clothing or turn clothing in for repair.

Chartoff spent about 3 years in captivity until he was liberated at the end of the war, when at 6 feet tall, he weighed about 95 pounds.

Chartoff said he felt exhilarated upon being liberated in 1945 and he climbed an electric factory with smoke stacks across from the camp as food and beverages were dropped from a military plane.

After returning from the war, he graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1950 and became an electrical engineer.

Although the service wasnt what he expected at 20, Chartoff said it was worth it to get that education.

It allowed me to get an education at MIT, he said.

His son, Dr. Stan Chartoff, for 27 years a reservist in the U.S. Air Force, said his father didnt talk about his war experiences while he was growing up.

Its a amazing what these World War II vets have been through, said Stan Chartoff, who has been deployed many times, including to Saudi Arabia, Germany and Afghanistan.

Karen Chartoff, Stans wife, said that World War II group of veterans didnt tend to talk about their service upon returning  they just got back to life.

Maurice Chartoff settled in New Jersey with his now-late wife, Doris, and he came to Woodbridge so he could be close to his son and daughter-in-law.

Monica Giuliano, activities coordinator at Brookdale, said she was touched during the dedication of a veterans wall at the facility when another veteran announced to the audience that while it was nice to have a wall, it was even better to have a hero in their midst, referring to Maurice Chartoff, who received applause.

Chartoff said he doesnt consider himself a hero at all. He said he was given two guns, which he would never use, and also, he said, he was never shot at by someone else.
European interest in China has been growing over the past few years. Today, China constitutes the second biggest market for the EU, but this new focus is not only about trade and economics. It is also driven by research on how Sino-European relations could develop in the near future, and in particular what the implementation of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) means for the Old Continent.

The institutional framework is already in existence. In 2015, the European Commission welcomed China's participation in its 315-billion-euro Investment Plan for Europe. Significant opportunities have arisen since then. Last year, for instance, China became a shareholder in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) as its 67th member. Subsequently, the EBRD and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) agreed to deepen their cooperation. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the EBRD and the Silk Road Fund at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in May 2017.

China is paying particular attention to the rollout of the BRI towards the Balkan Peninsula and in Central and Eastern Europe. The EBRD is simultaneously exploring further possibilities for collaboration. A report authored by economist Jens Bastian for the EBRD sheds new light on the Balkan Silk Road dimension of the BRI.

Bastian, a former professor at the University of Oxford and an appointee of the European Commission to the Task Force for Greece, offers useful insights about how Europe should see Chinese investment and lending for infrastructure projects in the Balkans. His report notes that, "Chinese investments in EU and non-EU member states create leverage for acquisitions and infrastructure innovation on an unprecedented scale." It is thus possible for the region to benefit from increased trade with China and diversify its sources of capital.

According to the study, the total trade volume between China and certain western Balkan economies reached 3.3 billion euros in 2015-16. Serbia accounts for almost half of that total trade volume. China's ranking as a trading partner in 2016 after the EU's 28 countries was as follows: second in Albania, third in Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and fourth in Macedonia and Serbia.

This gradual rebalancing of trade relations for countries in southeast Europe opens up opportunities for the EBRD. One illustration from Bastian's report is the purchase of four diesel and two electric trains by Macedonia from the Chinese CSR Corporation, which was financed by a loan of 50 million euros secured by the EBRD. He also highlights a project in Serbia with the China Railway Construction Corporation, and another on a hydro power plant turbine.

Undoubtedly, a project relationship between the EBRD and Chinese companies is emerging in the Balkans. For Bastian, the willingness of both sides to cooperate is evident. More importantly, the ongoing process can test the waters on issues such as "how EBRD procurement rules are adhered to by Chinese counterparties." For their part, Chinese companies could benefit from the EBRD's know-how and support for local economies, including the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Bastian's study has been published during a period in which the EU and the U.S. are closely monitoring the Belt and Road Initiative. There is a growing question inside the commission in Brussels and among national governments whether the acquisition of European companies by Chinese ones should be subject to increased vetting procedures. In his 2017 "State of the European Union" address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed a new EU framework for investment screening. He connoted China without mentioning it by name.

Joining the debate, Bastian believes that "it is more appropriate to consider China a complement to, rather than a substitute for, the Balkan countries' European partners." Bastian argues that Chinese loans for infrastructure modernization in Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have provided these countries with a welcome source of project financing and diversification. This development can foster dialogue between the two sides in good faith. Differences between the partners do exist, but what matters more is to build on a common will to bridge them.

On the whole, Bastian draws on realism. He sees no homogenization of Chinese investments in the Balkans and refrains from anticipating whether spillover benefits for the region will be similar to those of Central and Eastern Europe. He discusses the added value of future infrastructure works such as the proposed construction of a high-speed railway connecting Belgrade with Budapest. But his report does not ignore the ongoing European Commission investigation on the flagship project linking Serbia with Hungary.

Perspectives for the future remain promising. China's footprint in southeast Europe will continue to grow in the coming years. This requires, as Bastian argues, that multilateral organizations such as the EBRD, the European Commission or the Regional Cooperation Council in Sarajevo harness collaboration with China.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn.
President Muhammadu Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has handed over the task of nominating new ministers to his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Daily Trust learnt from credible sources yesterday.

The party leaders will, however, carry out the assignment in consultation with state governors, our sources said. The expansion of the cabinet will also come with cabinet reshuffle and the splitting of some big ministries, the sources hinted.

The president announced at the partys NEC meeting last month that he would expand the cabinet to accommodate wider interests and eliminate disaffection.

At the inception of his presidency, Buhari almost single-handedly formed his cabinet with little or no input from the party and state governors.

This drew flak from party faithful who felt short-changed despite helping to ensure the victory of Buhari.

One of the sources said: The president had spoken, the cabinet would be expanded but what I would add here is that there would be cabinet reshuffle, meaning fresh hands would come on board, this is certain.





And this is where the APC would come in; the governors are already working to get good hands because the president said they would have a say and the party would also have a say, he said.

When asked if Buhari is only succumbing to pressure because he needs a second term, the source said: No, not at all; the president is extremely popular with the masses but the fact is there is the need to fully accommodate the interest of the party and that of the governors.





We are operating a federal system of government and the president cannot operate as an island, there is need for synergy and this can only come when everyone has input in governance, he said.

In 2015 President Buhari insisted that governors should allow him select people he would work with as ministers.

The APC was also reportedly side-lined during the selection process; a development that rendered the ruling party very weak amidst serious complaints from those who worked for its success.

A source familiar with the matter told Daily Trust that based on plans, six new ministers will be introduced, while some current ministers may be dropped and replaced.





It was gathered that disloyal ministers and those with dual allegiance would be shown the way out.

Above all, there are some who did not perform and would therefore be replaced, he said.

A source said barring change of plans, the names of the ministerial nominees will be submitted to the Senate for confirmation next week.

The source said the list was supposed to be forwarded to the Senate this week, but the plan was shelved due to the 2018 budget presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly.

Another source told Daily Trust that the President is set to bring eight new ministers into the federal executive council.

We have been told that Lagos and Kano states will get one more minister each. The two states will have two ministers in the cabinet, the source, who is close to the Villa, said.

He said one slot has been allocated to each of the six geopolitical zones of the country.

From all indications the cabinet will now be 42 as against the 36 that we have at the moment, he said.

The source added that the nominees have submitted their Curriculum Vitae (CV) to the presidency for scrutiny.

One of the persons being considered who is presently at the Senate told me that he has submitted his CV. The person is from the home state of the president, he said.

According to him, some of the serving ministers have been pencilled down for sack.

He also said some close aides of the President may be affected.





New ministries coming

Some ministries, including Power, Works and Housing as well as the Ministry of Transport would be unbundled to reduce pressure and workload on the ministers manning them at present, our sources said.

It was gathered that while the ministry of power might become independent to confront gigantic projects, two more ministries, including one in charge of aviation and another in charge of railway transportation might come on board.

Another source said even the ministry of agriculture might be split to have another one that would handle dry season farming and irrigation.





Agriculture is one area the president would like to live a legacy and he is consulting, seriously consulting to make the ministry work, the source said.

How cabinet expansion idea came about

A credible source said Buharis resolve to expand the cabinet is not all about 2019; rather, he has realized the need to do so considering the complexity of the Nigerian state and the workload that needed to be dispensed with.

A source said, If it is because of 2019, Buhari will not increase the number of ministers because he is not power drunk; but you know, the issue of capital projects are very close to the heart of the president.





He wants several power projects, including the gigantic Mambilla Hydro Dam; the newly conceptualized ones and some abandoned projects to be completed.





And look at the various railway projects, from Lagos to Kano, Enugu to Maiduguri and Kaduna to Kano among others, that is why there is the need to have a new ministry, he said.

Speaking on this, the National Secretary of the APC, Mai Mala Buni, said Buhari is fully carrying them along adding that as leaders, they had for long understood that the president was being circumspect in giving out appointments because of the peculiar situation the country found itself.

There was no money and the country was in recession; his major concern was to have enough money; prioritize and then swing into action.





And now that the recession is gone and the economy is stabilizing, the president is not relenting; you know very well that we passed a vote of confidence on the president during our various meetings, including NEC and Caucus meeting; this goes to show that we are in tune with what he is doing, Nigerians are in tune with what he is doing and Buharis popularity is swelling everywhere because of his impeccable integrity, he said.

Buni said those saying Buhari is only reaching out now because of 2019 are not being fair.

But the fact that Nigerians are endorsing him day-after-day shows that he is a man to beat. We believe in his style of leadership and he would always have the right of first refusal; I said this severally because even in advanced democracies, incumbents have this opportunity and we cannot be an exception; we want him to continue with his laudable projects, he said.





The undercurrents

Daily Trust gathered that besides improved economy, Buhari decided to toe the party line and carry governors along because it was clear many chieftains were not happy.

Everyone was actually sad and many were ready to go; you know that the APC is a combination of forces from legacy parties, including the defunct ANPP, CPC, ANPP, part of APGA and the PDP.





The worst scenario then was that the party (APC) and the government were not on the same page and this aggravated the problem with serious crisis in almost all the state chapters.





Therefore, some leaders from the legacy parties had perfected plan to leave the APC but suddenly the president took ill and everything subsided because the major issue then was the survival of Nigeria.





And thank God, when he returned, the apprehension and acrimony came to the fore once again and in order to douse tension, the president met with party leaders including the Caucus ahead of the NEC meeting where everyone ventilated his anger.





The president agreed with many of the submissions and promised to make amends with a caveat though.





He was said to have told both the party and the governors not to nominate people with garbage on their head, people with questionable integrity or those who stole public funds because he would never compromise his anti-corruption fight, he said.

Another source said one problem confronting the president and the APC is that several organs are missing.

Their works are beyond just NEC and Caucus, the party needs to have strong BoT, zonal executives and major committees such as think-tank, research and documentation among others; all these must be sorted out so that we can be truly a ruling party, he said.
Happy New Month Nigeria! Welcome to the month of June. As the world searches for a respite from all its troubles since 2020 began, one can ...
File Photo: Job Interview

A social media user, Yomi Owolabi who rose from the ranks of a low morale after graduating with a Third Class degree from a higher instition to become a big player in the labour market has shared his story to inspire people. I give this testimony to the glory of God and to the shame of the devil. At the end of my university education; through its ups and downs, bitter and sweet moments, I eventually graduated with a third-class degree in computer science.

At that point in my life I was overly disappointed, highly discouraged and even suicidal on my bad days because I knew what was happening in the labour market. Every employer wanted graduates with second class upper and above for the limited and highly coveted employment slots. And here I was, I didnt even have a 2.2, even if employers wanted to reach out in grace.

I had given my life to Christ on campus, and my thirst for God had intensified during this period. To the glory of God, even with my third-class degree, I did not sit at home as I got a job immediately, which is a whole miracle-story on its own. This job came with great exposure and an intense learning curve for me as a fresh graduate and I embraced the job even though the pay was not fantastic. Those of us who were taken by the company were put through a training programme to initiate us into Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing industry. Time went by and I emerged as one of the brightest trainees through the programme. We were soon staffed and placed on projects for multinational companies. After a while, some of my colleagues started filling out applications and searching for bigger opportunities. They would repeatedly forward job links and vacancies to me as I was considered one of the best among my peers. I did not apply for any of those positions as I was always self-defeated because of my third-class university certificate and the devil held it high up in my face all the time. I continued to do my job diligently and also develop myself in my field.

On Mothers Day in May 2015, Pastor Nomthi preached about the unmerited grace and favour Moses witnessed in the house of Pharaoh, when there was an order to kill every male child of the Israelites. She said that Moses was not only spared but was raised as a prince. I immediately keyed into this lesson of grace and I was full of faith. I applied for a job someone had recommended me for and I was offered the position on the spot with 100 percent increase with good pension and sumptuous packages.

I thought I had seen all. Before the resumption date I was given, I was invited for another job interview with one of the telecom giants in Nigeria. Through the interview process I had to compete with the best of the best and even more experienced applicants. At the end of the interview and test process which lasted several weeks, I came out top as the preferred candidate of all. Now my problem became choosing between the two offers as they were both fantastic and had good prospects. I sought the face of the Lord who had made all these happen, and eventually I had to turn down the Multi-national Telecom Giants offer. Now I am at my new job and I have even been given opportunities to travel to different countries on projects (I had never travelled out of Nigeria before this job).

A month ago, another job offer came through with take-home package closing in on about half a million which I had to turn down after wide consultation and seeking the face of the Lord. I also did not apply for this job; all these opportunities came by recommendation. A third-class graduate now turning down job offers from multinational companies  it can only be God and I am here to give back ALL the praise to HIM alone.

By Yomi Owolabi  Todays Showers Vol 345 (Fountain of Life Church)
Fresh documents about the controversy over an alleged $1.4m contract scam have indicated that the Minister of Defence, Brig. Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (retd.), and two of his ministrys officials, have not come clean about details of the contract.The contract documents, obtained and published by an online newspaper, The Cable, on Thursday revealed that the ministry applied for and received approval for $1.464m from the Presidency for the United Nations project but awarded the said contract for $1m.There was no explanation or record to show what happened to the balance of $464m.The contract was for the building of a United Nations Level 2 Hospital in Mali  in which the minister and three senior officials of the ministry were allegedly involved.Dan-Ali, the immediate past permanent secretary of the ministry, Danjuma Nanfo; and the coordinator of peacekeeping, Brig. Gen. L.Y.M. Hassan, were being questioned in connection with the disbursement of part of the $1.4m meant for the project.Hassan was reported to be in detention and facing a court-martial over the issue.However, in response to the issues earlier raised, the Ministrys Public Relations Officer, Col. Tukur Gusau, said on Wednesday, The procedure for awarding contracts by the ministry is in line with the existing procurement Act of the Federal Government of Nigeria.The said contract has already been successfully executed and the contractor has requested a team to carry out a completion inspection of the project. There is no fraud in the process.However, three internal memos detailing the official communication between the Presidency and the ministry in connection with the contract indicate that the minister and the two other officials have further explanations to make.The first document, AE/HMOD/CPSO/01/ABJ, dated July 21, 2016, was a letter of request for funds totalling $1,464,750 for the UN project. It was written and signed by Dan-Ali to the Office of the President.The second document, PRES/178/MOD/77, was from the State House and dated September 26, 2016, signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, conveying the Presidents approval of the request.However, the third document, dated February 2, 2017, was from the Procurement Department of the ministry, showing the award of the contract in a breakdown totalling $1m.The letter was signed by Michael Chukwurah, Director, Procurement, and addressed to a contractor, Opem Integrated Concepts Ltd., in Garki Market, Abuja.Our correspondent observed from the third document that the contractor was given two months to complete the awarded project.When contacted, the ministrys spokesman, Col. Gusau, on Thursday with information obtained from the published documents which appeared to indicate that the top ministry officials were being economical with the truth, he said he had yet to see the documents.Gusau noted that he had no fresh comments to make insisting that the statement he authored, signed and released on the issue late on Wednesday should suffice because he had nothing new to add.He said, We have made a press release; the same we brought out yesterday (Wednesday). We have said everything that the process of the contract had followed the due process. It is in line with the governments procurement Act.I am not aware of anything. Maybe, you will need to come and show me the documents.
Two suspected militants, who allegedly took part in the kidnapping and killing of a British optician, Dr Ian Squire, in Burutu area of Delta State, have been arrested by operatives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team, IRT, while another member of the gang was killed during an exchange of gunfire.It was gathered that two IRT operatives, Sergeant Sanusi Lanre and Sergeant Agunbiade Adebayo, also sustained serious bullet wounds on their stomachs and hands, during the shootout which occurred in an apartment at Sapele area of the state.Sources disclosed that, the IRT led by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, was deployed to Delta State by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, after receiving reports of the abduction of the optician and three of his colleagues on October 13, 2017, by a militant group known as Karowei, in Burutu, Delta State.His colleagues, David Donovan, his wife, Shirley and Alanna Carson, were freed on November 6, 2017, after an undisclosed amount was paid to the militants as ransom, having spent 24 days in captivity.It was gathered that the two members of the group, were trailed by the IRT operatives to Warri area of the Delta State, where they were eventually arrested.The areested suspects were said to have confessed during questioning that they were members of the group who carried out the kidnapping and they also volunteered to lead the operatives to Sapele, where other members of the group were hiding.It was gathered that the IRT operatives were first sighted by the militants when they arrived their hideout in Sapele Town.A member of the gang allegedly armed with a beretta pistol, was said to have opened fire on the IRT personnel, leaving some of them with severe injuries.The operatives were said to have returned fire immediately killing the suspect on the spot, while his baretta pistol was recovered.The injured operatives were rushed to a public hospital in the state (name withheld) where Sgt Lanre, who sustained a bullet wound in his stomach was undergoing emergency surgery at the time of filing this report.
About 81 days after he returned to the country from his medical trip to London, United Kingdom, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday...

Buhari, who arrived the country on August 19 to a wild jubilation by Nigerians after spending over 100 days abroad, has been operating from an office located inside his official residence and another one located inside the Presidential Banquet Hall.The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, had said the Presidents office needed renovation because of its devastation by rodents during his long period of absence.Following the three months period of disuse, rodents have caused a lot of damage to the furniture and the air conditioning units, he had said, explaining that it was impossible for the President to operate from the office in that condition.Although he said he could not tell when the renovation would be completed, the presidential spokesperson had stated that the maintenance company had been asked to speed up its pace of work.Our correspondent reported that Buhari on Thursday entered the office for the first time since he returned to the country.The President inaugurated the Armed Forces Council inside one of the halls located inside the main office.He then proceeded to preside over a meeting of the council.The Presidents Personal Assistant on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, confirmed the resumption on his Twitter handle, @BashirAhmad.While responding to a media report published earlier in the day indicating that the President had yet to resume at his office, Ahmad wrote, And, President @MBuhari is currently presiding over an Armed Forces Council meeting in this particular office youre talking about.While Buhari was still operating from his residence and the Presidential Banquet Hall, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had said where Buhari was operating from were also offices.Adesina said the most important thing was that the President was working.Office na office. He (the President ) uses one now, and the work goes on, he had simply said.
The Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has advised Nigerians to improve their attitude to issues as a way of helping curb economic, security and social crisis in the country.Buhari gave the advice in Abuja at the 2017 Annual Congress and Scientific Conference of Nigerian Psychological Association (NPA) with the theme: Psychology, Attitude Change and National Development .She was represented by Dr Hajo Sani, her Senior Special Assistant.The wife of the president noted that the problems that plunged the country into the current economic, security and social crisis were attitudinal, some of which included greed, corruption, poor planning, resource wastage, stereo-typing and intolerance.She noted that counselling and educational psychologists had made valuable contributions to the improvement of teacher-student relationship through effective learning.Buhari added that psychology had made landmark contributions to medical improvements.As behavioural scientists, you know that negative attitudes are highly implicated in the ample traditional practices associated with child abuse, human trafficking, gender-based violence, among othersThe present administration believes that the most valuable opinion to mobilising positive social action for inclusive society, ethical reorientation and national development is strategy and attitude change, she saidBuhari urged the association to examine research evidence on attitude change factors and strategies that were critical for national development.She also advised the association to study social-cultural factors that promoted social inclusiveness and peaceful co-existence to propose actionable recommendation to the Federal Government and variable implementation.According to her, the association needs to consider various ways to curb industrial crisis in the health and education sectors to reduce the human capital economic calamities of the nation.Prof. Michael Ezenwa, President-elect of NPA, said that to contribute to the rebuilding of Nigeria and attitude change, we must change our attitudes towards the people and government.Ezenwa said that capacity building was one of the ways to develop members of the association and the populace and stressed the need to work with government agencies to rebuild the country.No country can develop Nigeria; only Nigerians can develop Nigeria. We have to know that this is our country and we have no other place than Nigeria so we must develop Nigeria.We have to explore opportunities of developing our awareness of security and our environment, so we need a lot of collaboration in various government agencies, he said.Prof. Andrew Zamani, outgoing President, NPA, said there was new hope for psychologists in the country and that the association had a lot of role to play in the development of Nigeria.Psychology as a discipline has not been given the recognition that it deserves with regards to the technical contribution that it can make to Improving a lot of people in the country, he said.
The attention of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has been drawn to a recent publication in the Nation Newspaper, titled Boko Haram: Open Letter to Finance Minister, which was reportedly written by one Wing Commander AA Abubakar of Minna, Niger State, said to be a retired NAF officer.The letter, published in the Nation Newspaper on 6 November 2017, claimed among other things that the Honourable Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun was deliberately starving the NAF of funds.It was specifically stated in the letter that the NAF could therefore not buy aviation fuel and hence, its inability to respond to the Nigerian Armys request for air support in a recent Boko Haram attack in Sassawa, Yobe State.The letter also states that NAF personnel were being owed their monthly allowances. The scenario painted by the author(s) of the malicious letter is far from what obtains in todays NAF. Accordingly, the NAF hereby dissociates itself, in unequivocal terms, from the contents of the letter and from the supposed writer.The Federal Government Administration has been highly supportive of the NAF through adequate and timely provision of funds without which the NAF could not have recorded its many achievements, especially in the past 2 years.Consequently, the NAF has always acknowledged the significant role being played by the Federal Government and its various agencies, including the Ministry of Finance, towards the successful accomplishment of its mission.For the records, the NAF has aviation fuel in abundance for the conduct of its air operations and could thus not have failed to respond to any request for air support on account of lack of aviation fuel.Besides, the Defence Headquarters had since made it clear that the reports of NAFs failure to respond to requests for air support in Yobe were a figment of the imagination of enemies of Nigeria. Likewise, personnel of the NAF participating in the counterinsurgency operations are not being owed their monthly allowances.It is important to state that available NAF records do not indicate the existence of any Wing Commander AA Abubakar (rtd), the supposed author of the open letter. It is therefore clear that the open letter was authored and published by mischief makers who are hell bent on causing distraction and disaffection within Government agencies probably with a view to eroding the gains being made in the fight against insurgency.The NAF, therefore, continues to assure the general populace of the commitment of its personnel to completely eliminating the scourge of insurgency in Nigeria.Signed by OLATOKUNBO ADESANYA Air Commodore Director of Public Relations and Information Nigerian Air Force.
The Senate has commenced an investigation into the alleged plan by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to secure the release of $350m ...

The Senate has commenced an investigation into the alleged plan by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to secure the release of $350m domiciled with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority to finance electricity projects.

The lawmakers specifically criticised the ministry for allegedly spending $35m out of the money on power projects without approval by the National Assembly.





The decision followed the adoption of a motion by Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi-West), at the plenary on Wednesday, entitled, Monumental Fraud in the Power Sector.





Granting a prayer of the motion, the Senate mandated its Senate Committees on Power and Public Accounts to invite the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) to render a detailed account in terms of public funds spent on the Fast Power Projects (Afam Fast Power Project in particular); evidence of feasibility study indicating the viability of the projects; requisite appropriation by the National Assembly as required by the Constitution; and the controversial presidential approval for the projects.





President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, in his remarks, noted that the issues had previously been raised concerning the power sector in the chamber.





He also noted that the law establishing the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority was due for a review.





It is not having proper oversight. First, I am told that they dont require any confirmation for their appointment by the Senate; there is no report to the Senate; and this is an organisation that is controlling over $1.5bn and a lot of monies are being sent there; and it is growing everyday with no oversight at all.





I think there is the need for relevant committees to duly carry out a diligent investigation on the activities of the NSIA, Saraki said.





In the motion, Melaye recalled that the Federal Government raised $1bn through an Eurobond issue in July 2013, while the government released $350m out of the sum to the Nigeria Electricity Bulk Trading Company Plc as shareholder contribution to shore up its capitalisation.





Melaye said, The Senate observes that this fund has been with the NSlA since 2014 and has helped build market confidence especially among new investors in the electricity market who see NBETs positive balance sheet as a form of security that their investments are safe and that NBET has the wherewithal to meet its payment obligations.





The Senate is alarmed that there is now a desperate attempt by the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing to retrieve this fund ($350m) and divert same to fund the so-called Fast Power Projects, which the ministry has already spent $35m of public funds not appropriated by the National Assembly.





The Senate is further alarmed that since the introduction of the Fast Power Project by the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, a total sum of $35m has been spent by the ministry on Afam Power Project alone to pay $29m to General Electric as cost for turbines and $6m in consultancy fees to other entities respectively, all without requisite feasibility study of the projects and appropriation by the National Assembly as required by the Constitution.





The senator said a lot of questions are begging for answers as regards the $29m paid to General Electric and the $6m paid to other consultants.




Succor may soon come for states owing doctors salaries, House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara hinted yesterday.

Succor may soon come for states owing doctors salaries, House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara hinted yesterday.The Speaker said that President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to bailout the debtor-states to enable them fulfil their obligations s to doctors.Dogara spoke while hosting the representatives of the National Association of Resident Doctors of Nigeria (NARD), who visited him in National Assembly office.According to him, the gesture was in recognition of governments responsibility to ensure the overall welfare of all citizens.He was updating the doctors on the outcome of their request for improved welfare of doctors in state teaching hospitals.The speaker identified access to healthcare as one of the major concerns of the President Buhari-led Federal Government.Dogara said: For us, the welfare of our citizens is the number one priority of government. When we talk about welfare, you have to be healthy first before you can pursue any other thing.Whether you are in school, whether you are in a religious organisation, whatever you do in contributing to the work of democracy, if you are not healthy, you cant do that work. So, health comes before any other thing.There is no nation that will be healthier than the general health of its citizens and so, this is a priority. And as a responsible government which has pride itself on grassroots support, we will have to ensure that our base in the grassroots are well taken care of.For us to do that, we obviously have to take care of the doctors, who are sacrificing so much in order to bring succour to the people.Reacting to the doctors demand for more funding for the health sector, Dogara said though yearly budgets show an increase in figures, the value of the money has fallen, meaning, there isnt enough to fund all projects of government.He went on: Doctors should be innovative to attract medical tourists to Nigeria and save money from people who patronise hospitals abroad, adding that the present government is focused on providing infrastructure that will stimulate growth in all sectors of the country, leading to more economic activities and improved revenue for government to deploy for development.The speaker also noted that the bill seeking for a Cancer Fund to support treatment of indigent citizens is in the legislative mill and will soon be passed by the National Assembly.Some of the requests made by NARD include: improved welfare for doctors in state teaching hospitals; improved funding for health sector; passage of the Residency Bill as well as funding; establishment of a Cancer Care Fund; provision of adequate facilities; equipment in the medical field; funding of exchange programmes for doctors and thorough oversight by the relevant National Assembly committees to ensure that funds released for equipment of hospitals are appropriately utilised.NARDs President, Dr. Chinaka Ugochukwu thanked the Speaker for his intervention in the strike action by doctors in 2016 and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) drawn from their meeting with him.Ugochukwu said the MoU formed the basis of their negotiations with the executive, with about 90 per cent of what was captured in it been implemented by government.The speaker, he said, should use his good offices to promote the welfare of doctors in the country, while notifying him of his selection as an ambassador of doctors in the country.
Following calls by some agitators, particularly the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) urging people in Anambra State to boycott the Novemb...

Following calls by some agitators, particularly the indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) urging people in Anambra State to boycott the November 18th election, Biafra Nations Youth League, BNYL, has said that it wants no bloodshed on the election day.

BNYL Leader, Princewill Obuka said the group has no plans to directly or indirectly interfere in the exercise, as we recognize the right to vote or boycott.





Obuka said the group is equally not against some agitators boycott ideology/





We know boycott is another form of protest, and voting is all about right.





If pro Biafrans dont want to vote the government cant use force on them.

BNYL urged agitators not to threaten, intimidate or harm those who may likely come out and vote on the said day,





We know there are non indigenes who do not give a damn, we urge our colleagues not to harass those who do not share or buy into the ideologies especially non indigenes of the State.





BNYL said the group is only interested on how Biafrans will take total charge of every structures within the old Eastern region.





Its unfortunate, our political leaders are cowards he added





We are watching, studying and learning from Catalonia and Southern Cameroons, the political leaders are sincere and we are seeing cooperation that exist between separatists leaders and the regional authorities.




The BringBackOurGirls coalition has said it will resume its daily protest march to the Presidential Villa, Abuja from Tuesday.

The BringBackOurGirls coalition has said it will resume its daily protest march to the Presidential Villa, Abuja from Tuesday.The movement said that nothing had been heard from the Federal Government since 82 of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram were released in May, 2017.The BBOG spokesman, Sesugh Akume, in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, said it was now over 1,305 days since the abduction of the 113 girls that were still in custody of the insurgency group.He explained that none of the commitments made by the government had been fulfilled, noting that President Muhammadu Buhari recently in his Independence Day broadcast on October 1 promised to ensure the release of the remaining girls, but this, the BBOG said, had not been done.The group stated that it had on several occasions put on hold its march expecting to see the outcome of the commitments made by the government.It added that it had yet to see evidence of any outcomes.Our movement therefore resumes daily marches to the State House, in order to refocus attention on the plight of our #ChibokGirls and all the incidences of abductions, killings, and general insecurity as well as the abysmally poor handling of the situations; to demand their immediate return, the statement said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila.

Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown.





When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. Id have rumbles here, rumbles there, said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.





At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?





Duterte won last years presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed.





Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data.





Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer.





But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes.





He at times denies inciting police or others to kill, but also consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war.





Duterte said last year he would be happy to slaughter three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a son of a whore for criticising the drug war.





Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example for the police.





His then spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a legitimate police action.

 Killer, or killer jokes 





Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he maybe stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang.





In an election campaign rally Duterte also said he was expelled from college for shooting a fellow student who was insulting him. The victim reportedly survived.





Dutertes aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in hyperbole.





His new spokesman, Harry Roque, indicated that may be the case with his stabbing-to-death claim.

I think it was in jest. The Pres uses colourful language when w Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas, Roque said in a text message.





In Danang, Duterte also targeted the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has been a frequent critic of the drug war.





This rapporteur, he said, after referring to Callamard by name. I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me.





Dutertes latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.





Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks.





Trump has praised Dutertes handling of the drug war, telling the Philippine leader in a telephone call in April that he was doing a great job.





Human rights campaigners have said the summit will be a public relations coup for Duterte, with Trump and other leaders expected to ignore the drug war controversy.





Duterte will enjoy the gift of tacit silence from East Asian leaders on his murderous drug war during the upcoming summit, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine told AFP.





Adding to a sense of supreme confidence ahead of the event, Duterte on Thursday also proposed hosting a global summit on human rights in which all nations would be placed under the microscope.





Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments, he said, specifically naming the United States, France and Russia.




An end came to a period of barrenness for a lucky couple, Mr and Mrs Ibikunle Ajala, in Ibadan when the wife was delivered of quadruplet...

An end came to a period of barrenness for a lucky couple, Mr and Mrs Ibikunle Ajala, in Ibadan when the wife was delivered of quadruplets.The couple had waited for 20 years before having children.An elated Mr Ajala said his joy knew no bounds seeing that he suddenly became a father of four. He said God was so good to them for delivering four children at a time to make up for the past 20 years of waiting.It is good to wait for Gods time. I must confess it has not been a rosy journey but we thank God for the grace to wait. Waiting is not the biggest issue, it is what one does at the time of waiting, he said.Mrs Sarah Ajala gave birth at a private hospital in Ibadan last Friday.She grinned from ear to ear as she welcomed well-wishers to her hospital room.The couple got married in December 1997 and has since stayed closely knitted together since then.While Mr Ajala is a senior officer with the Nigerian Immigration Service, his wife works with BOWEN University, Iwo.Friends, relations and other well-wishers have since been thronging the hospital to felicitate with them.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, in this interview responds to topical issues. Excerpts:









Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture, in this interview responds to topical issues. Excerpts:

The fact that Mr. President, immediately the issue came to his knowledge asked for Mainas disengagement is the most important thing. That to me is a clear signal that we do not condone corruption. There is no better way to handle the issue than this.As early as 2015, he (Buhari) did direct that they should bring nominations.And he was very clear in his directives as to who should make the boards, who should qualify. I remembered he said anybody that they must be frontline actors in the run-up to the 2015 election. Anybody who had either contested for primaries within the party and had lost, or as a consensus, was asked to step down, anybody who either contested election either at the governorship level, National Assembly or even state level against either PDP or APC and had lost. He said these are the main stakeholders in the party and are people who ought to be recommended for appointments. As you know, Mr. President himself cannot know all these people. All politics as they say is local.The president cannot know who in Akwa Ibom for instance, contested for National Assembly and lost against PDP or who in Borno State contested primaries for Senate with a fellow APC candidate and lost. So, I think those who are charged with that responsibility failed and that is why we are in the mess we are in now. The president has, however, promised that he is going to take a fresh look into it. One thing is to dissolve the boards but you cant leave them vacant. But I believe we are going to see lots of progress in that area very soon.But also dont forget, that all politics is local. If I am the chairman of Delta State APC or I am a leader in Delta State APC and I am given criteria, but I decide to bypass those criteria Mr. President is too busy to look into all these things. I know many states for instance where people are complaining that it is not those who ought to be compensated that were rewarded by the government. But again, it is not possible for you to compensate everybody at the same time. Certain boards are not due for dissolution because some of them are tenured while some are governed by certain rules. Also, certain boards need specialists to manage. Like I said, the truth of the matter is that Mr. President as far back as 2015 gave this assignment to party members and they failed. They failed Mr. President. That is the honest truth, I know.I wouldnt know where they are making the money from. But clearly, in politics, they always say never empower your enemy.To the best of my knowledge, Kachikwu made his point and Baru also did same. But the point is that over time, we have seen Baru and Kachikwu working together. However, the position of government is that you cant start talking of fraud. There is nothing like $25 billion fraud in the NNPC; not in the least. The opposition, notably the PDP felt that they have something to hold against this government. But I can assure you that it is not possible under this administration to have a $25 billion fraud. The entire economy will collapse. There is no $25b fraud. Yes, there could have been lack of communication, understanding and procedure but I think all that has been put behind us.As to whether we are afraid of the PDP staging a comeback, I can confidently tell you that we are not even contemplating it. It will be a tragedy for Nigeria to fall back into the hands of PDP. They dropped us in hell and we are taking people out of hell. How can Nigeria now go back to Egypt? It is not about APC or President Buhari. With the kind of revelation that is coming out, the kind of rot, you want those people to come back and preside over the affairs of Nigeria again? What will happen to the investigations that were carried out if the PDP should win elections again? It will be swept under the carpet. This is the first time in the history of this country that we are making real recoveries. Nigeria should never ever pray for PDP to come back.When we negotiated with the Swiss government to return Abachas loot, they gave us some conditions. One of which is that we must identify what programmes we want to use the money for and that the World Bank will supervise what we are using the money for. When we now argue that we are a sovereign country and that they cant dictate to us how we are going to spend money that was stolen from our country and they are returning, they said yes, but when we returned part of it to your country, you re-looted it under Jonathan; which is true.I have two burdens. The first is that I happened to be the face of the opposition and PDP has not forgiven me and they will never forgive me. I think they look at the magnitude of what has happened to them and they hold me solely responsible; which is not fair. But, I did my bit. Now, becoming the face of government again, it is automatic that whatever comes from Lai Mohammed, we must shoot it down as fake news and a lie. Unfortunately, my father gave me the name Lai also. So, it makes it very easy for them. But what I challenge them every time is please, give me one thing I said that is not true. Emotionally, you may not agree with me but in terms of facts and figures, I have never said anything which they can dispute. You dont have to like it but you cant deny that they are facts./Of course, we are very worried about it because if the avengers should start destroying our oil installations, it is going to bring the country back to its knees. And that is why we are appealing to them. We have not breached any agreement with them and we will rather appeal to them to understand that there is more to gain by all sides in engaging than in going back to the trenches. Even power has improved in the Niger Delta. Infrastructure has improved. Contractors can now go and work there. We are talking of University of Maritime Technology in the Niger Delta, Second Niger Bridge and East-West road. I think what they are fighting for will be achieved much more if there is peace and we will continue our engagements with them because it will not be in the interest of anybody to have crisis.
A protest march by members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) in Abuja, Friday, turned violent after the protesters replied the teargas shot at them by the police with stones.Trouble started when the protesters broke into a barrier mounted by the police while they were marching to the Unity Fountain, Abuja to demand the release of their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky.Reports say the police, on seeing the protesters break in to the barrier, began firing teargas at them.Another report has it that the police also shot live bullets at the protesters.No casualty has been reported yet so far.It said, in retaliation, the protesters responded by throwing stones at the police personnel.
A 24-year-old man, John Okonkwo, who allegedly stole his employers N3.5m and invested in the Mavrodi Mondial Movement scheme, on Thursd...

A 24-year-old man, John Okonkwo, who allegedly stole his employers N3.5m and invested in the Mavrodi Mondial Movement scheme, on Thursday, appeared before an Ojo Magistrates Court.The accused, a sales attendant, is facing a charge of stealing.Okonkwo, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.The prosecutor, Insp. Uche Simon, said that the accused committed the offence at Shop 26, Zone E, Block 2A Aspamda Market, Trade Fair Complex, Lagos between the months of March and October.He alleged that the accused put the N3.5m sales proceeds belonging to his employer, Mrs Jane Ekweanua, into Ponzi scheme.Okonkwo put sales proceeds into MMM without the consent of his employer.It was during auditing that it was discovered that N3.5 million was missing, he said.Simon said the offence contravened Section 287 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.Section 287 prescribes three-year imprisonment for stealing.Magistrate A. S Okubule granted the accused N500,000 bail with two sureties in like sum.She said that the sureties must reside within the courts jurisdiction and must be gainfully employed.Okubule adjourned the case until Jan. 23, 2018.(NAN)
The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) has blown $55,000(N19 million) on training of 20 members of its staff in Denmark.

The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) has blown $55,000(N19 million) on training of 20 members of its staff in Denmark.The cost of the four-day training is outside the flight tickets and exigencies.The federal government is said to be worried that the agency violated its directive to all parastatals on January 22, 2016, placing embargo on foreign training and international travels by public servants in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies.The agency is belived not to have sought the permission of the supervising Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.The programme was between October 23 and 27.The row generated by the overseas training made the government to rate it as suspect.A source, who spoke in confidence, said: The government is worried that NBET ignored the circular banning foreign training for staff. It also did not refer the training to the supervising ministry for input and approval.Apart from the large number of employees on the trip, the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has discovered that the training could be done locally.The contents of the course can be handled by some institutions, like Pan-Africa University, specialised universities and management centres.Alternatively, the resource persons could have been flown to Nigeria for the four-day training.We discovered that NBET merely blew scarce resources on unnecessary training in Denmark. The agency paid DKK 339,375, including 25% VAT (DKK 68, 875)(about $55,000), for the training outside the expenditures incurred on flight and allowances.The government is looking into this and will take appropriate action against the management of NBET.The January 22, 2016 circular said:Proposals for participation or attendance of international Conferences, Seminar, Workshops, Study Tours, Trainings, Presentation of Papers, Negotiation/Signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) abroad at Government expense, shall no longer be allowed except those that are fully funded by sponsoring/inviting Organization;No Ministry Extra-Ministerial Office, Department, Agency or Parastatal shall send staff outside Nigeria for training at Government expense-whether or not that Agency draws funds from the Federal Government Budget or meets its financial needs from revenue generated by itself;According to a document obtained by our correspondent, the management of NBET had entered into an agreement with the Department of Management of Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University for a four-day Professional Training Programme for 20 officials.The agreement said in part: The programme focus is on the use of scenario planning, systems thinking and strategic modeling in the electricity sector. It explores how these methods can create an advantage for NBET and provide tools and frameworks for understanding the challenges laying ahead for the organization.The progamme is designed on the basis of the Aarhus BSS course: System Thinking and Scenario Analysis, and customized for the specific request of NBET. (Training Programme)
This afternoon, Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha, unveiled the statue built in honor of visiting Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

While appreciating the gesture of the state governor, the Liberian president said she has never received such an honor. According to her, she has a statue in her alma mater, Harvard University, but the size of the statue cannot be compared to the one built by the Rochas Okorocha administration.
Three persons have been injured in Bayelsa State as supporters of two major political parties in the state  the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress  clashed.The incident took place on Thursday at Twon Brass, the headquarters of Brass Local Government Council Area of the state.It was learnt that supporters loyal to APC member in the state House of Assembly, Israel Sunny-Igoli; and those loyal to the Caretaker Committee Chairman of the council, Mr. Victor Isaiah, bickered over issues bordering on a carnival.It was learnt that the supporters fought one another with deadly weapons such as guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons during the bloody clash.It was further learnt that the clash was allegedly provoked by the decision of the LGA to declare curfew in the council area and declare as illegal the gathering of persons in the council, claiming to tackle problems of insecurity.The alleged action of the LGA did not, however, go down well with the supporters of the APC, who rationalised that the decision was a deliberate attempt to frustrate the planned Christian praise and worship carnival being organised and sponsored by Sunny-Igoli.Some other APC supporters claimed the action of the newly-inaugurated caretaker committee in Brass was a deliberate attempt to whittle down the power and influence of the APC and a former governor, Timipre Sylva, in Brass area.An eyewitness at Twon-Brass, who spoke in confidence, claimed that the arrival of the council chairman, Victor Isiah, at the LGA headquarters allegedly with armed security men and some alleged cultists from Odioma and other neighbouring communities led to pandemonium, attended with heavy shooting of guns.Reacting to the incident, Sunny-Igoli, the only APC elected House of Assembly member in Bayelsa State, described the incident as an attempt by the LGA chairman to allegedly use the PDP factor to intimidate the people of the area.The Police Public Relations Officer, Bayelsa Police Command, Asinim Butswat, confirmed the incident on Friday.Butswat, a deputy Superintendent of Police, said the Command had deployed a detachment of armed mobile policemen in the area to control the situation and restore law and order.Butswat also confirmed that an emergency meeting between Sunny-Igoli and Victor Isaiah was convened on Friday by the Police Commissioner, Asuquo Amba.The meeting was fruitful and all parties have agreed to go and discuss with their supporters in Brass LGA.The Police command has also deployed a detachment of armed mobile policemen in the area to restore normalcy, the spokesman said.It was gathered that at the meeting held at the State Commissioners office, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Bomo Sparrow-Jack; the Deputy Police Commissioners on Operations, Administration and Investigations, and the chairman of the Ijaw Youths Council, Central Zone, Tari Porri, were present.
Uk based Nigerian comedian, Klintoncod, took to his Instagram story to accuse pop stars, Iceprince and D'banj, of snubbing him at the...

Uk based Nigerian comedian, Klintoncod, took to his Instagram story to accuse pop stars, Iceprince and D'banj, of snubbing him at the Abuja airport .

He wrote:





Iceprince on seeing this, went to the comment section to apologise. He wrote "Sincere Apologies To The Brother! Wasn't Intentional At All. Love Always!"




Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has called on Nigerian youths to utilise the productive period of their lives, noting that while time waits...

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has called on Nigerian youths to utilise the productive period of their lives, noting that while time waits for no one, obtaining a degree certificate does not always translate to success in life.Osinbajo spoke at the 10th convocation of the Lead City University, Ibadan where 590 students were awarded first degree certificates in various disciplines on Thursday. Among them, 39 students graduated in the first class category.Miss Mary Olukorede was adjudged the best graduating female while Amedu Anthony was announced as the best graduating male student.At the event, the Chairman of Benin Electricity Distribution Company, Victor Osibodu, and the Chairman of Musoro Booksellers, Kolade Musoro, were also honoured with doctorate degrees.Osinbajo, who was the special guest at the ceremony, said, I was 60 years old in March this year, and I must confess that one of the greatest surprises I ever experienced was that I just suddenly became 60. I can clearly remember when I graduated from the university. I was 21 years old at the time. How time flies.One of the important lessons that you will learn is that time flies whether you are wasting it or you are using it well. It simply flies back. At the age of 60 years, I am entitled to give some advice.By talent, a good degree and coming from a very well-to-do family does not bring success and certainly it does not bring greatness. The most talented people, those who get the best degrees do not necessarily become the most successful in life.The difference between success and failure, mediocrity or excellence is character. Along with character is opportunity, perhaps the most crucial is the grace of God. Character is a set of values that shapes the conduct of an individual. It is a set of principles spoken and unspoken that a person observes and lives on.In his address, the Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, who accompanied the Vice-President, said he was optimistic that the LCU would one day be ranked among the top 10 universities in Nigeria.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) says the young man who blew the whistle on the massive stash of money recovered ...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC ) says the young man who blew the whistle on the massive stash of money recovered from an apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, is now a millionaire.Acting Chairman of the commission, Mr Ibrahim Magu, stated this in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday, spokesman of the EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, said in a statement.Uwujaren said Magu spoke at the ongoing 7th Session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.On April 7, EFCC operatives broke into a four-bedroom apartment on Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, and pulled out $43 million, 27,800 and N23 million stashed in a wardrobe.The commission said the discovery followed an operation triggered by a whistle blowers alert received by its Lagos office.Uwujaren quoted Magu as saying that the whistle blower was already a millionaire by virtue of the percentage he was officially entitled to.We are currently working on the young man because this is just a man who has not seen one million Naira of his own before.So, he is under counseling on how to make good use of the money and also the security implication.We dont want anything bad to happen to him after taking delivery of his entitlement. He is a national pride, he said.The EFCC boss called on Nigerians who want a positive change in the country to take advantage of the whistle blowing policy announced by the government early this year.He noted that aside from contributing to the eradication of corruption, potential whistle blowers also stood to benefit from the illicit acquisition by the looters.So, we encourage more whistle blowers to come forward with genuine information that will lead to recoveries from looters of public treasuries.That is part of the ways we can put an end to the looting madness in the public sector.When they know that they have no place to keep the loot, as all eyes are on them, they will find looting of public treasuries unattractive,  Magu said.On June 7, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos ordered the final forfeiture of the money to the Federal Government.(NAN)


One thing I wont take from nobody is saying trash to other people all in d name of FAME !!!!dis idiot that look like fire  wood dust is saying rubbish to me. Hey man I dont know u cos u are nobody. The energy u are putting to bring other celebrities down pls use that energy to build ur dusted future back to life. U keep granting different interviews up and down as if dey are paying u to say all dis rubbish u are vomiting from ur damage lips .You are judging other people..who are u to judge  them. U never tell us say na u be d son of God who he sent to start judging people fool . Cheers guys Bobrisky is back #itakenoshitfromnobody
FAIR LAWN -- These unidentified individuals pictured at the 1966 Fair Lawn Memorial Day Parade ask local residents to remember military personnel serving in Vietnam.

MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey

If you would like to share a photo that provides a glimpse of history in your community, please call 973-836-4922 or send an email to ghatala@starledger.com. And, check out more glimpses of history in our online galleries on nj.com.

Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.
ATLANTIC CITY -- The state's largest teachers union went all in on its bid to push out state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, spending more than $5 million to help defeat the powerful Democrat in his home district.

It didn't work. Sweeney was easily re-elected Tuesday and he blasted New Jersey Education Association leaders for their "waste of money" in the costliest state legislature race in New Jersey history.

NJEA leaders praised the failed effort to oust Sweeney, saying the campaign "energized NJEA members" and electrified state politics.

What do rank-and-file NJEA members think?

NJ Advance Media randomly polled 100 union members Thursday as they picked up their registration badges at the start of the NJEA's annual teachers convention in Atlantic City.

The random, unscientific poll showed union members were split on whether the NJEA was wise to spend more than $5 million trying to dethrone Sweeney. Of those polled, 28 said they thought it was a "good idea" to spend millions on the Sweeney race. Another 28 union members said they thought spending millions on the effort was a "bad idea" and a waste of money.

The remaining 44 of those polled were indifferent. They either said they didn't know about the money spent on the Sweeney legislative race or they didn't care how the NJEA spent their union's money on politics.

The NJEA members polled gave their opinions on the condition that they did not have to give their names. They ranged from a brand new teacher from Camden to a veteran school secretary from Hunterdon County and a retired educator from Burlington County.

"To spend that much money on anything is ridiculous," said one veteran teacher from Monmouth County.

Others said the NJEA campaign to get rid of the Democrat was worth every penny because it showed the union would stand up to all politicians, regardless of party, if they did not stand with the state's teachers.

"It sent a message," said one teacher from Bergen County.

It is unclear exactly how much the NJEA, one of the state's most powerful unions, spent on the race between Sweeney and Republican challenger Fran Grenier. Final spending numbers have not been calculated yet, but early estimates said more than $20 million, including at least $5 million from the NJEA, was spent on the campaign in South Jersey's 3rd legislative district.

"It was a big race," said Steve Baker, NJEA's spokesman.

But, the NJEA was far outspent by Sweeney supporters, Baker said.

Sweeney, who won his re-election by 18 percentage points over his Republican challenger, called for NJEA members to replace their leadership.

"Teachers are wonderful people who do great things for our children. But their leadership needs to be re-evaluated," Sweeney told NJTV shortly after his victory Tuesday.

Asked Thursday whether the NJEA had damaged its relationship with Trenton Democrats and imperiled the union's legislative agenda, Sweeney stopped short of extending an olive branch to the teachers.

"At this point, it's really up to them," Sweeney said. "They're a constituency group, just like there are a whole lot of other constituency groups. And I'm gonna stay focused on trying to get things done."

The NJEA's convention continues in Atlantic City through Friday. The convention, which has a social justice theme this year, includes more than 300 professional development seminars and a convention floor filled with exhibitors offering classroom materials, field trip ideas and other products.

Gov.-elect Phil Murphy, a Democrat who was endorsed by the union, is scheduled to speak at the NJEA convention Friday morning.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Brent Johnson contributed to this report.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.
NEWARK -- Immigrant advocates, emboldened by Gov.-elect Phil Murphy's strong pro-immigrant stance, called on Essex County Thursday to end its agreement with federal immigration agents to house more than 800 detainees.

About a dozen gathered on the steps of the Hall of Records chanting, "shut it down" and calling for the Board of Chosen Freeholders to immediately sever its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that allows the agency to place immigrant detainees inside the Essex County Correctional Facility on Doremus Ave in Newark.

"Here in Newark they claim we are a sanctuary city," said Jay Arena, part of a loose coalition of groups called Stop Immigrant Detention in Essex County. "The newly elected governor talks about a sanctuary state, we say that is a farce as long as we have this ICE detention facility."

Arena said the county renewed its contract with ICE last year for 10 years, agreeing to provide about 800 beds at the county jail.

Cities across the state, including Newark, have declared themselves so-called "sanctuary cities," and although there's no clear definition for the term, it generally means a jurisdiction will limit its cooperation with federal immigration agents.

In practice, that usually means local law enforcement declining to hold undocumented immigrants arrested locally on behalf of ICE under what's called a detainer request without a judicial warrant.

Under the contract with Essex County, ICE conducts its enforcement actions but houses some of its detainees at the jail.

Other municipalities, in the face of increased targeting of undocumented immigrants by the Trump Administration, have proclaimed they are welcoming communities that embrace all immigrants.

"This anti-immigrant hysteria is being whipped up specifically to divide and concur," said Branden Rippey, of the Newark Education Caucus Workers and a teacher at Science Park High.

Advocates on Thursday said housing immigrant detainees in the city flew in the face of what the city -- and its leadership -- stood for.

"These contracts and these prisons that detain immigrants who are working hard to contribute to the economy must stop," said Alejandro Jaramillo from Cosecha, an immigrant rights group.

The groups presented their demands to the Freeholders on Thursday.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.
NEWARK -- A 29-year-old Indian national living in New York City has pleaded guilty to assault for touching a girl without her permission while both were flying to Newark this summer, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday.

Vijaykumar Krishnappa, a physician, was flying from Seattle July 23 when he touched the victim near the groin area while she was asleep in the seat next to him. Krishnappa did not know the girl.

Krishnappa faces between 30 and 90 days in prison when he's sentenced in January.

Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
NEWARK -- A Superior Court judge on Thursday ruled statements Ali Muhammad Brown gave to investigators in 2014, implicating himself in the killings of Livingston native Brendan Tevlin, can be admitted as evidence at Brown's upcoming trial on murder and terrorism charges.

Judge Ronald D. Wigler said Brown was familiar with his right to an attorney from facing 15 previous criminal charges and investigators who interviewed him complied with various requests he made before he would talk with them.

"Mr. Brown was, at all times, in complete control of each of these statements, and it was very clear that Mr. Brown wanted to speak to Essex County authorities," Wigler said of two interviews Brown gave without a lawyer present.

The judge's ruling comes more than three years after Brown confessed to killing Tevlin and three other men in Seattle in acts of "vengeance" for lives lost in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, according to authorities. Brown's journal, recovered during his arrest, made references to the Islamic State, a terrorist organization commonly known as ISIS.

In an interview with investigators after his arrest, authorities have said, Brown admitted that he fatally shot Tevlin while the 19-year-old college student was stopped at a traffic light at Northfield Avenue and Walker Road in West Orange shortly before midnight on June 25, 2014.

A video of the July 25, 2014, interview played in court shows Brown saying he had "fired on and killed a man" a month earlier.

"I came up out of the woods, disguised, and in an ambush-type situation, I fired upon the man with my pistol until he was dead," said Brown, who was on a federal terrorism watchlist at the time of the killing.

He said he then moved Tevlin's body to the passenger seat of Tevlin's Jeep, drove the car to an apartment complex and left it there.

Brown's attorney, Albert Kapin, has argued Brown's initial request for an attorney -- and a letter Kapin sent to the prosecutor's office, requesting they not contact his client -- made Brown's subsequent statements "fruit of the poisonous tree" and inadmissible at trial.

He told the judge Thursday that the July 25, 2014, interview with investigators never should have happened because Brown had asked for an attorney a week earlier. Kapin also said a prosecutor's office detective, who testified at the hearing, had misled Brown about how to get a lawyer.

In his own motion to admit Brown's July 18 and July 25, 2014, statements to investigators, Assistant Prosecutor Jamel Semper said Brown had voluntarily waived his Miranda rights at the time of those interviews, the latter of which came at Brown's request.

"This is the work of a savvy criminal operator," Semper said at Thursday's hearing. "This man was in control of what he was saying and how he was saying it."

Tyrone Crawley, the prosecutor's office homicide detective, testified that on July 18, 2014, he and another investigator first sat down with Brown, read him his Miranda rights and started to question him. After a few minutes, Brown said he would "prefer to have a lawyer" present, according to video of the interview played in court.

Three days later, authorities from Seattle came to Newark to talk to Brown about the other homicides he was accused of, Crawley testified under direct examination by Semper. Crawley said he sat in on the Seattle authorities' conversation with Brown to make sure they did not ask him about the Tevlin killing, since Brown had said he wanted a lawyer present when he talked about that accusation.

Brown contacted the homicide investigators through a prison guard on July 25, 2014, and said he wanted to talk to them, Crawley testified. The investigators reminded him of his Miranda rights, and Brown did not ask for a lawyer to be there, Crawley said.

Brown confessed during that next interview to fatally shooting Tevlin, according to the video played in court.

Kapin, on cross-examination, questioned whether Crawley could accurately remember everything that was said three years ago. Crawley said he could not recall exact phrasing but remembered the gist of the words exchanged.

Kapin also suggested to Crawley that on July 18, 2014, he had led Brown to incorrectly believe he was responsible for finding his own attorney. Crawley, in response, said he was trying to tell Brown the prosecutor's office had no control over the specifics of what kind of lawyer Brown ended up getting.

Brown, a Seattle resident who had pleaded guilty to bank fraud conspiracy nine years earlier in connection with an FBI terrorism investigation, was also wanted in connection with an armed robbery at a coffee shop in Point Pleasant Beach at the time of his arrest.

Brown is serving a 36-year state prison sentence in New Jersey for another robbery in West Orange on July 10, 2014.

His trial in Tevlin's killing is scheduled to begin on Jan. 29 or 30.

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.

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IRVINGTON -- A 48-year-old man charged with fatally shooting a New Jersey man is believed to have fled to metro Atlanta, the FBI said.

Dennis M. Cunningham, who goes by Muhamad, has been charged in the death of 34-year-old Dino Bermudez, who was shot in the left thigh May 12 in Irvington, authorities said. Bermudez later died at a hospital.

Cunningham has family in the area of Douglasville, Georgia, but also has ties near Jesup, Georgia, said David J. LeValley, special agent in charge of the FBI Atlanta Field Office. The suspect was described by the FBI as standing at 6-foot-2-inches tall and weighing 215 pounds.

Police responded to calls of shots fired about 12:33 p.m. May 12, the FBI said. The shooting occurred in the 300 block of Myrtle Avenue in Irvington, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly of the Prosecutor's Homicide Unit said.

Arriving officers found Bermudez suffering the gunshot wound on the front porch of a residence. He was taken to a hospital, but later died of his wounds.

Cunningham has also been charged with federal unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, the FBI said.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about Cunningham's whereabouts to call them at 404-577-8477.

Luke Nozicka may be reached at lnozicka@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @lukenozicka.

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The city of Newark has decided to close an Ironbound parking lot that, according to a court ruling last year, should not have been allowed to operate when it opened in 2013.

Newark's order comes 15 months after the Appellate Division of state Superior Court said the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment should not have approved the variance that allowed J&L Parking to be built at 28 McWhorter St.

In its August 2016 decision, the three-member panel said 28 McWhorter Street LLC, which owns the lot, failed to prove that the business would benefit the neighborhood, would not impact the community negatively or go against the master plan.

Despite the ruling, Jose Lopez, president of 28 McWhorter Street, LLC insisted there is a need for parking in the Ironbound.

His attorneys appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court, arguing that the decision would put the parking lot out of business. The court, however, denied the request last December.

MORE: Recent Barry Carter columns

PLANewark, a group of residents, architects and planners, had been asking the city to stop Lopez from operating and even went to court over it, but nothing happened until last month, when the administration placed a concrete barricade in front of one of the lot's entrances and posted a sign saying it will close Nov. 24.

"All of sudden, there is urgency to address the negligence," said Madeline Ruiz, an architect and member of PLANewark. "If the citizens of Newark are left to guess why, then the fact that (Newark) elections are around the corner (next May) is very suspect."

Carmelo Garcia, acting director of the Department of Economic and Housing Development for Newark, said the city didn't delay efforts to close the lot. He said J&L was given a transition plan several months ago that would have allowed it to cease operations by the end of the year.

"At some point, however, they no longer operated in good faith and were served with legal notice that the parking lot was being operated illegally," Garcia said.

Lopez, whose lot is a few blocks from Newark Penn Station, said it is unfortunate that his business must close when it serves the Ironbound community.

"As long-term stakeholders in the community, our plans were to continue to operate the property as a 100 percent-capacity parking lot that met the neighborhood's needs while preparing for thoughtful redevelopment of the site," Lopez said.

Lopez said the city didn't offer any transitional plan to close. He said his company acted in good faith with Newark when it presented a plan in March to build a 12-story, 384-unit apartment building that needed a variance to exceed the eight-story height restriction.

The zoning board, however, delayed its decision, saying in June that it needed more time to review the application, a decision Lopez disagreed with at the time. In the interim, Lopez said, he was advised by the city and his attorney to withdraw the application after the administration introduced a MX-3 zoning amendment that would allow development around Newark Penn Station to include 12-story buildings.

Renee Steinhagen, attorney for PLANewark, said the administration's decision to close the lot has more to do with a deal she believes was made with Lopez to develop his property under the MX-3 ordinance than with adhering to the appellate court ruling.

"It's part of the same systematic problem that's existed in Newark historically, that there are deals being made between the city and the developers," said Steinhagen, who is also executive director of NJ Appleseed, a nonprofit legal advocacy center representing PLANewark residents

Garcia rejected that perspective, saying the city made no such agreement with Lopez.

The MX-3 zoning ordinance was approved last month by the City Council, along with an inclusionary zoning ordinance that requires new projects with 30 or more residential units to set aside 20 percent of the units for low- and moderate-income residents. Lopez said his company is reviewing the new regulations and how it plans to proceed with its residential project.

MORE CARTER: Newark parking ticket should lead to street cleaning change

The parking lot debate lot in Newark has been an issue for years. Under city ordinances, parking lots are prohibited unless the zoning board gives permission for them to exist. PLANewark said it's not against parking lots, but the zoning board's approval of variances created a glut of surface parking lots that stifle development.

"This is a commuter park-and-ride, not a community lot serving local business at all," Ruiz said.

But without the 158-car J&L lot and others in the area, said Seth Grossman, executive director of the Ironbound Business Improvement District, there won't be any parking in the Ironbound.

"For the Ironbound business community to lose a parking lot is a very difficult pill to swallow," Grossman said. "This is not good news."

Lot patrons, some who work in New York, said they were disappointed by the city's decision, but would make adjustments and park elsewhere. Jack Costa, president of the Newark Portuguese Sport Club, said J&L allowed his guests and members to park there for free during weekend events it hosted after the club's visitors could no longer park at the Lafayette Street School playground.

"With the closing of the lot I don't have parking lot now,'' Costa said.

The J&L Parking lot issue began in 2006, when Lopez tried to develop the property after the zoning board gave him approval to demolish an industrial building on the site. At the time, he planned to construct a seven-story mixed-use building with a parking garage, residential units, retail and commercial space.

A poor economy, however, shelved those plans. Lopez decided instead to rent the building to a church for five years. In 2012, the zoning board allowed Lopez to raze the industrial building and use the land as a parking lot.

It's been that way four years, but all that has changed now. The city removed the barricade and extended the deadline to close the lot until Dec. 23.

Lopez is not waiting. The lot is closing Nov. 24.

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or

nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL
LOGAN TWP. -- A South Jersey family is mourning the loss of a son killed in a crash with an alleged drunk driver.

Daniel C. Dill, who served with the U.S. Coast Guard as an information systems technician, died Sunday following a head-on collision the previous day in Virginia.

Melissa Ann Hancock, 25, was allegedly driving a 2011 Cadillac the wrong way on Interstate 264 in Virginia Beach early Saturday when her car collided with Dill's 2009 Mazda, according to Virginia State Police.

Dill, 29, of Portsmouth, Virginia, was on his way to pick up his wife from a birthday celebration when the crash occurred.

Hancock, who recently appeared in a TV reality show, was initially charged with driving while intoxicated and maiming. In light of Dill's death, the Commonwealth Attorney will review the case for additional charges, the state police said.

Dill's father, Christopher J. Dill Sr., recalled his son as a "really good guy."

"He was clean cut, didn't smoke or drink. He wasn't ever in trouble. He was just laid-back, always happy and always looking to make everybody else happy."

Dill was a 2006 graduate of Kingsway Regional High School and joined the Coast Guard in October of that year.

Melissa Ann Hancock, 25, of Virginia Beach, Virginia. (Virginia State Police)

He was serving aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Bear when he met his future wife, Natalie Rocha. They bought a house in Portsmouth a few years ago.

"That was going to be their hometown," his father said.

His son would frequently serve as the designated driver and he was doing just that the night of the accident when he went to pick up his wife. When her husband didn't arrive, Natalie hailed an Uber to get home, hoping she would find him there.

Dill's father only wishes Hancock had sought other alternatives to driving herself.

"It's just a shame. There were so many workarounds," he said. "She didn't have to be behind the wheel."

A funeral Mass with full military honors is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Portsmouth, Virginia. Family will receive friends on Friday from 7 to 8 p.m. at Loving Funeral Home in Portsmouth.

Hancock, a Virginia Beach resident, appeared in episodes of the Lifetime TV reality show "Little Women: Atlanta."

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
GLASSBORO - Rowan University was awarded $1 million by Give Something Back, also known as Give Back, a nonprofit organization that supports students in New Jersey, to help fund scholarships for students.

On Friday, Give Back announced a $1 million gift to Rowan University and a $500,000 gift to Rowan College at Gloucester County (RCGC) to fund scholarships for economically disadvantaged students to attend the schools.

In 2015, Give Back awarded Rowan University $1 million which funded full rides for 50 students.

The Give Back program involves much more than simply paying tuition for students. In the past, the organization has worked with select school districts, inviting freshmen to apply for entrance into the program, which, if successfully completed, will include a four-year scholarship to college.

Give Back is a nonprofit organization founded by philanthropist, entrepreneur and author Robert O. Carr that supports college-bound students from low-income families by providing scholarships and mentoring programs, helping them to graduate with little or no debt in four years.

Since 2003, the organization has prepaid more than $35 million in scholarships to help more than 1,500 students in seven states.

Caitlyn Stulpin may be reached at cstulpin@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitstulpin. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
TRENTON -- Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday appointed longtime friend and outgoing state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos to the board of directors of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey -- the insurance company that has been the target of the governor's verbal attacks for most of the year.

Kyrillos, who declined to seek reelection to an eighth term, would earn $77,000 a year as a part-time board member for Horizon, if the Senate approves the nomination. Christie also named one of his most trusted confidantes, Michelle Brown, the CEO of a pro-economic development group, to the board in June.

Christie tried to exert control over Horizon last winter by ridiculing the $12 billion nonprofit for greedily keeping $2.4 billion in reserve, hoping Horizon would donate $300 million to aid his efforts to combat opioid addiction. Horizon resisted, and the administration publicly sparred with top executives into the spring.

The fight led to a budget impasse embroiling the Legislature and a three-day state government shutdown in July. The matter was settled by Christie signing a bill that added two Legislative-appointed board members to improve government oversight.

Christie did not comment on his nomination of Kyrillos, and Kyrillos could not be reached for comment. But the move is likely a nod to their decades-old friendship. Christie introduced Kyrillos to his future wife, Susan Doctorian; Kyrillos ran Christie's campaign in 2009.

But strains in the Christie-Kyrillos relationship became apparent several years ago. When Kyrillos ran for U.S. Senate in 2012, Christie raised substantial sums but did little campaigning.

Kyrillos once took to the Senate floor to criticize the dysfunction at the Port Authority under Christie's watch.

Kyrillos also backed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination over Christie. Kryillos had long been friendly with the Bush family, having worked for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush in his 1984 re-election campaign.

Kyrillos leaves the 40-member Senate in January. He will be replaced by Assemblyman Declan O'Scanlon, R-Monmouth, who won election Tuesday.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY - A city employee has been suspended without pay after pleading guilty to federal tax evasion charges.

Linda Jumah, a manager in the Department of Health and Human Services, admitted to underreporting income generated through her political fundraising and consulting firm, resulting in a tax loss of $39,633, Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick said.

A hearing has been scheduled to determine whether Jumah will be terminated from her position with the city.

"This is the same as every other employee, but it is important to note that this has nothing to do with her position in Jersey City, but this is the policy," city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

Jumah was hired by the city in November 2016 and was earning $75,000 a year.

The guilty plea could result in up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Jumah was released on a $75,000 secure bond. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 14, 2018.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- A 33-year-old Jersey City man has been charged with breaking into a woman's home, knocking her out cold and then preventing her from getting medical attention on Saturday.

Freddy Rivera, of the 2500 block of Kennedy Boulevard, is charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault and burglary, the criminal complaint says.

The criminal complaint said the punch left bruising bruising under her left eye and Rivera barred her from getting help. The pair know each other, but the nature of their relationship was redacted from the criminal complaint.

Rivera made his first appearance on the charges on Wednesday in Criminal Justice Reform Court via video link from Hudson County jail in Kearny.

At the hearing, the state moved to detain him through the course of his prosecution and a detention hearing is scheduled for Tuesday before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City.
UPDATE: The judge in the case questioned jurors Monday about whether they heard or read about the dismissed juror's comments, and ultimately decided to allow them to continue deliberating. The defense later requested a mistrial after the jury foreman reported the group was deadlocked following nearly three hours of deliberations, but the judge instructed them to return Tuesday to attempt to reach a verdict.

NEWARK -- A juror dismissed from the federal corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez yesterday offered a rare glimpse into the jury room of the first trial of a sitting U.S. senator in nearly a decade.

But will her candid comments pose any legal questions for the court to consider when the trial resumes on Monday morning?

U.S. District Judge William H. Walls, who is presiding over the trial in Newark, dismissed Evelyn Arroyo-Maultsby, 61, from the jury Thursday because of a looming vacation of which she had informed the court during jury selection. One of five remaining alternates is slated to take her seat when deliberations resume.

Arroyo-Maultsby revealed the jury was deeply divided as to the guilt or innocence of Menendez and Salomon Melgen, the wealthy ophthalmologist accused of bribing the senator in exchange for government favors. The pair's trial, which began on Sept. 6, had originally been expected to last six to eight weeks.

Arroyo-Maultsby, who said she would have voted to acquit the senator of the alleged bribery scheme, also said she was the only juror who did not initially believe Menendez was guilty of intentionally concealing Melgen's gifts from the Senate.

Alan Tuerkheimer, a jury consultant and principal of Chicago-based Trial Methods, said in an email Thursday night that the substitution of the alternate "fully changes the dynamic" of the deliberations.

"They have to get up to speed, integrate into the process, get comfortable expressing views, etc.," he said. "It can be done and happens from time to time but it makes the whole deliberation process more bumpy."

Tuerkheimer said he was not aware of any formal rule in the federal court system that would prevent a dismissed deliberating juror from talking about his or her experiences, but that Arroyo-Maultsby should have been admonished not to speak about the case until a verdict had been reached.

Walls did not issue any specific instructions prior to Arroyo-Maultsby's dismissal regarding any future contact with the media.

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who now chairs the white-collar defense group at McCarter & English in Newark, said judges vary in their approach to advising jurors at the conclusion of a trial about speaking with the media.

"Often judges will discourage it, but they cannot bar jurors from discussing the deliberations with reporters," he said. "When a juror is dismissed during a trial, the court will generally strongly urge them not to discuss the case, at least until a verdict is reached, since it may undermine the public's confidence in the ultimate verdict.

"But these discussions do not necessarily create an appellate issue, since these comments to the media should not impact the deliberations of the remaining jurors."

Walls has instructed all of the jurors to avoid news coverage of the proceedings during their service on the panel.

Joseph Hayden, a North Jersey trial attorney with years of experience handling high-profile corruption cases, told NJ Advance Media it is very uncommon for a juror dismissed during deliberations to speak so candidly with the press.

"This is highly unusual, but the ultimate legal question will be whether or not it had any impact on the deliberating jury," Hayden said.

Brian Neary, a Hackensack-based criminal defense attorney who teaches trial advocacy at Rutgers Law School, said the scheduled substitution of an alternate for Arroyo-Maultsby's seat was unusual in itself.

"Usually you put a substitute in because something unusual happens," he said.

Neary said the judge may question the remaining jurors individually to determine whether they've seen their former colleague's comments.

"It's a matter of, have the jurors seen the fellow juror's comment?" Neary said. "And as a result of that comment, do they feel their ability to be fair and unbiased has been compromised?"

A judge can make that inquiry on his or her own, he said, but will usually leave it to one side or the other to make the request.

"It's not an easy case to say, 'Because something happened, declare a mistrial,'" Neary said. "It's not a do-over kind of case."

Asked for comment Thursday evening about Arroyo-Maultsby's remarks, a representative for Menendez pointed a reporter to the senator's comments outside the courthouse earlier that afternoon, in which Menendez thanked Arroyo-Maultsby for her lengthy service and said he looked forward to a new juror taking her seat on Monday

The senator told reporters he had faith "that (the new juror) will join with others in finding us innocent of all the charges."

Thomas Moriarty may be reached by email at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.

MaryAnn Spoto may be reached by email at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
ATLANTIC CITY -- The state's largest teachers' union's contempt for Gov. Chris Christie is matched only by its love for Gov.-elect Phil Murphy.

At least that was the feeling inside the Atlantic City Convention Center Friday when New Jersey Education Association members gave the state's incoming governor a hero's welcome at its annual convention.

NJEA members packed the corner of the massive hall hear from Murphy and cheer him on as he vowed to fulfill his campaign promises, including fully funding public schools.

"The people of New Jersey said in a clear voice on Tuesday that they want a different direction," Murphy said.

"They want an end to the name-calling and the disrespect," he said. "As a state and nation, we are better than this."

Murphy added: "We are going to stop the underinvest in public schools."

The state's fallen short of fully funding schools according to its formula by $800 million to $1 billion annually, depending on who you ask.

Murphy's campaign pledge to fully fund the formula has been ambiguous.

At one point, his campaign said they planned to support a proposal in the Legislature that would meet the formula's requirements over time. However, Murphy also said aprior to the election he would immediately fully fund schools.

He has proposed a $1.3 billion tax plan that could theoretically fund the school formula. However, some of those revenues wouldn't be immediately realized and are needed to fulfill other campaign promises he made on the trail.

Murphy didn't take any questions from reporters and missing from his remarks was any mention of how he'll work with the state's second most powerful Democrat come January related to the NJEA.

The group spent millions of dollars in a failed attempt to unseat Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, in Tuesday's election. It was the most expensive legislative race in the state's history. Both sides shelled out more than $16 million.

The result is a fractured relationship between Sweeney and NJEA leadership.

What does any of that have to do with Murphy?

Candidate Murphy never publicly told the NJEA to knock it off, which bemused Democratic lawmakers and sparked speculation of Sweeney-Murphy tension.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.
UPDATE: A phone call to fleeing driver ended tri-county pursuit, police say

The chase lasted more than two hours Thursday, sending authorities speeding up and down major roads in Warren and Hunterdon counties, but appears to have ended where it began.

Hackettstown police initiated the pursuit, which went back and forth on Routes 57, 31 and 46, according to police and radio reports. A man was taken into custody about 10:45 a.m. on Route 57 at the edge of town, police confirmed.

Radio reports indicate the chase started about 8:30 a.m. as Hackettstown officers pursued a vehicle west on Route 57 in Mansfield Township. It reportedly continued into Hunterdon County, going up and down Route 31 through Hampton and Glen Gardner before returning to 57 East through Hackettstown, then turning west on Route 46. A call at 10 a.m. reported the vehicle had turned around on 46 in White Township and headed north on Free Union Road. Speeds reportedly reached 70 mph at times.

It ended with the suspect being taken into custody behind a Route 57 car wash at the eastern edge of town.

New Jersey State Police confirmed they were involved at points in the pursuit, including providing helicopter assistance.

Hackettstown police have not yet confirmed what preceded the chase, but said more information will be released Friday.

#BREAKING: Video shows Hackettstown police and other agencies in pursuit of a vehicle on Route 57. @wrnjradio @NJerzyFireAlert pic.twitter.com/zPsE0KPKCL  Jay Edwards (@JayEdwardsWrnj) November 9, 2017

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
'Just let me know my child dead': Family IDs man killed in Little Woods
Parents can now apply for Audubon Charter through the city's OneApp process. Edward Hynes Charter is also joining the centralized school enrollment system.(Provided by Gregory Thompson)
Former President Donald Trump is preparing to launch his third campaign for the White House with an announcement Tuesday night. Trump is looking to move on from disappointing midterm defeats and defy history amid signs that his grip on the Republican Party may be waning. The former president had hoped to use the GOP's expected gains in last week's elections as a springboard to win his party's nomination by locking in early support and keeping potential challengers at bay. Instead, Trump now finds himself being blamed for backing a series of losing candidates in last week's midterm elections.
Claudia Hauser joined the Hospice of Southwest Iowa in January 2011 as the clinical team lead. She is currently the manager.

She attended College of Saint Mary for her associates degree in nursing, received a bachelors degree in health administration from Buena Vista College, attended College of Saint Mary for her bachelor of science in nursing and in 2008 attended Nebraska Wesleyan for her masters of science in nursing education.

She has been a registered nurse for 38 years. Hauser began her nursing career working in the hospital as a medical-surgical staff nurse and clinical coordinator. She later went into clinical education for a health care system in Omaha and then was clinical team lead/manager for Hospice of Southwest Iowa.

She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International, Hospice and Palliative Care Nurses Association, Hospice and Palliative Care Association of Iowa Board of Directors and is a past president of the Nebraska Society of Healthcare Educators.

In December 2010, Hausers mother was in the hospital on end-of-life care, and then was admitted into hospice services. She was very fortunate to have a nurse from Hospice of Southwest Iowa come and visit the family. Her mother passed away a few days after entering hospice care, but the support and care of the staff will be remembered.
Inmates at the Pottawattamie County Jail now have a little more food for thought, thanks to Nicole Juranek.

Juranek, a communications professor at Iowa Western Community College, donated 800 books to the jail Wednesday.

That makes her third annual donation a record, more than doubling the 300 she gave during the first two years.

In the past, Juranek donated during the holiday season but this year decided to do it on the heels of her 40th birthday.

In lieu of a party, I asked friends and family to send/drop off paperback books, she said. My goal was 400.

Juraneks colleagues at Iowa Western have contributed generously to her book drives.

Im lucky to be housed with all the English teachers  so the people in my wing are very well read, she said.

Other faculty members often bring books to Juraneks office and sometimes leave bags full of paperbacks hanging on her door, she said.

But I have friends and family that save books all year, she added.

The books must be paperbacks but can be any genre, Juranek said. She donates a wide variety, from chapter books for children to science fiction, nonfiction, mystery and travel books.

The cause is an obvious choice for Juranek.

Im a believer in literacy and, of course, second chances, she said. If I can increase literacy in any way, I think the world is slightly a better place.

Juranek used to teach reading workshops on weekends at the Omaha Correctional Center, she said. She volunteered up to 20 hours a weekend to do it.

I met some of the most intriguing people of my life there, she said.

Juranek and an elderly nun taught inmates together  with no jail staff or security present, she said.

It was intimidating, at first, but it was just an amazing experience, she said. I just really saw them as people, instead of always associating them with the crimes they committed. I just believe in this population that is absolutely neglected.

Juraneks favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, because the main character wants to improve a terrible prison library, she said.

That part in the movie always spoke to me  to advocate for literacy, she said.

Juranek stopped volunteering at the correctional center when her first child was born because of the time commitment, she said.

Her sons are now ages 9 and 6, and she has signed up to volunteer at the Pottawattamie County Jail.

The boys are dedicated helpers when its time to deliver a shipment to the jail, Juranek said.

I think, more than anything, I just want to teach them about second chances, she said.

Juranek herself is, of course, an avid reader.

Im a nonfiction reader, so I love biographies and self-improvement, she said. You can read just snippets and learn a lot.
The Iowa West Foundation Board of Directors has approved $4.4 million in grants and initiatives funding to 22 nonprofit organizations and government entities in southwest Iowa and eastern Nebraska.

Heading the grant list, the City of Council Bluffs received $2 million for the parking garage to be constructed on the Iowa side of the Missouri Riverfront just east of Tom Hanafan Rivers Edge Park.

Through our partnership with the city, the riverfront is now active with events like Loessfest, public art, a community building, trails and more that can be enjoyed year-round, said Pete Tulipana, president and CEO of the Iowa West Foundation. People need a place to park in order to access all of these amenities. The garage is necessary if were serious about attracting residents and visitors to live, work and play at the riverfront.

The five-level, 743-stall structure will cost $13.8 million in total. While the city will match Iowa Wests $2 million contribution, the foundation also will cover the tax-increment financing shortfall, projected at $1.9 million for the first five years. IWF also will guarantee payment if, for any reason, the development is not completed and there is a TIF shortfall.

The City of Council Bluffs also received approximately $25,000 for holiday lights in Bayliss Park. In the past few years, the city has sought to restore the display to its former prominence. The grant will allow the city to install custom lighting on the trees in the park and continue the forward momentum.

Whether driving by or walking around the park, visiting the holiday lights at Bayliss Park has become a tradition for many of our residents, Mayor Matt Walsh said. Thanks to the grant from Iowa West, we get to expand the display this year and give our residents even more to enjoy.

This years lighting ceremony will be held on Nov. 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. and kicks off Winterfest. Those attending the event can enjoy family-friendly activities in the park and at partnering locations around the park, in addition to hot chocolate and cookies. The hope is to attract visitors from throughout Pottawattamie County and surrounding areas and increase traffic to Bayliss Park overall during the winter months.

In the foundations focus area of education, the Council Bluffs Community Education Foundation received $426,775 for the STARS post-secondary scholarship program geared toward adult parents.

We are so excited. The scholarships, academic counseling and resource support that is afforded because of the funding from Iowa West allows parents to complete degrees or professional licenses while working and caring for their children, STARS program director Brenda Moran said. Scholars receive funding for everyday needs such as auto repair, gas cards, child care, internet bills and more. This allows them to dream and hope for a future where they can enjoy a career and better support their families.

Started 20 years ago in 1997 by then-Iowa West Foundation president and CEO Chub Beno and Grants Program Director Deb Debbaut, about 450 STARS scholars have completed the program, earning 275 degrees or licenses, Moran said. There are currently 82 people in the STARS program.

Kathleen Rapp, vice president of grants and initiatives for the Iowa West Foundation said more than 60 percent of jobs in the metro area require a postsecondary degree or credential.

STARS is an effective and supportive program that helps ensure working parents can earn their degree or professional license and provide a better life for themselves and their families, Rapp said.

The foundation also awarded funds to two Pottawattamie County fire departments as part of its ongoing commitment to rural southwest Iowa communities. The Crescent Volunteer Fire Department received $10,000 for bunker gear, and the Walnut Volunteer Fire Department received $7,567 for equipment.

The letter of inquiry period for the Cycle 1 of 2018 grant application process opened on Nov. 1 and will close Wednesday. Applications are due Dec. 15. Grant application and initiative decisions will be made in February.

The Iowa West Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the midwest. It has distributed more than $400 million to nonprofits and governmental agencies throughout southwest Iowa and eastern Nebraska since the inception of its grant program.

Funding for the grants comes from investment earnings and the Iowa West Racing Association, which receives contractual fees from casino operators, Ameristar and Harrahs.

The association is the license sponsor for Ameristar and Harrahs and the license holder for Horseshoe-Bluffs Run. The foundation targets resources into programs and projects that focus on economic development, education, placemaking and healthy families.
The City of Shenandoah and the Shenandoah Chamber and Industry Association are sponsoring the third annual Christmas tree-decorating contest in the citys downtown green space at the corner of Blossom Street and Sheridan Avenue.

The Shenandoah Chamber and Industry Association is seeking organizations, businesses or families to decorate the trees as part of a contest to win chamber gift certificates. The city will provide the Christmas trees and lights to be set up Nov. 20.

Participants should contact the chamber in advance at 712-246-3455 or email chamber@shenandoahiowa.net. Each group will receive $15 in Chamber bucks to help offset decorating costs.

SCIA is offering gift certificates to the winners. First prize is $100, second is $75 and third place is $50.

Its a fun activity that enhances the enchanting downtown decorations and provides a wonderful Christmas setting for families to take photos, SCIA Marketing Director Shelly Warner said.

Shenandoahs Christmas theme for 2017 is Hometown Christmas, Celebrate the Spirit of Giving. Decorations may reflect the theme.

Sponsors ask that the trees be decorated by 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 25, the night the lights come on, and that decorations be firmly wired or tied to the tree to prevent them from blowing off.

There are 19 trees in all. Warner noted four of the trees have already been spoken for, leaving 15 available. Contact SCIA at 712-246-3455 with questions.
Before their first date at Marquette University, Teena Gasior doubted the long-term prospects with a guy named John Beehner.

She didnt like the sound of Teena Beehner. But that all changed when she got to know him. John and Teena Beehner married and had seven children.

After her husband died suddenly while playing Frisbee in 1997, Teena continued working, obtained more education and raised the four kids still at home.

Teena Beehner, 68, died in hospice care Monday of multiple complications related to the treatment of atrial fibrillation. All seven of her children were with her when she died.

We feel like our mom lived a very full and vibrant life, said daughter Amy Roland of Omaha. Were just so grateful to our parents for giving each of us life and faith and each other.

Beehner, a dental hygienist, joined the Creighton University School of Dentistry faculty in the early 1990s, Roland said.

After her husband died, she earned a masters degree in counseling. Besides her dental hygiene work in the School of Dentistry, she added instruction on behavioral health in the school.

She became a member of an informal band of six women who had endured the deaths of husbands or loss through divorce. The women became known as The Sassies or The Sassy Six and went to movies and dinner together. They celebrated birthdays and went to Italy.

One of the members, Anne Raynor of Omaha, called Beehner frank and funny. After both lost their husbands, Raynor asked Beehner how she was doing. Beehner responded with a word that starts with an s and ends in a y.

She was vivacious. She was generous, fun to be with. Just open  just an openly loving person, Raynor said. Beehners death is like a big cannonballs gone through our wall.

The other members are Ginny Casey, Margie Chartrand, Jennifer Cyr and Jan Otepka. The five women will serve as pallbearers.

Beehner had a license plate that read: HVN CN W8, for heaven can wait.

Guess it couldnt wait much longer, Raynor said.

Besides Roland, Beehner is survived by children Scott of Los Angeles; Carrie Hoarty of Omaha; Johnny of Los Angeles; Melissa Pinch of Los Angeles; Ben of Seattle; and Luke of Milwaukee; mother Dorothy Gasior of Omaha; sisters Michele Cooper of Omaha and Claudia Cox of Lincolnshire, Illinois; brothers Paul and David Gasior, both of Johnsburg, Illinois; and 14 grandchildren.

The funeral service is today at 10 a.m. at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, 6116 Dodge St.
An Omaha doctor who was an early champion of hospice care developed his interest in medicine growing up on a small Iowa farm, his son said Wednesday.

Dr. Cletus J. Baum, 96, had a deep respect for the dignity of life, and when a patient neared the end, he felt the compassionate thing to do was help them with the transition, said his son, Robert Baum of Omaha.

Cletus Baum died Sunday in hospice care at Lakeside Hospital after suffering a stroke. His funeral Mass will be celebrated today at 10:30 a.m. at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church.

Born in 1920 in a farmhouse near Cascade, Baum grew up using an outhouse and kerosene lanterns. After graduating from high school, he became a corpsman in the Navy during World War II and escorted wounded soldiers to their homes.

He later graduated from Loras College in Dubuque and went to work as a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Baum was accepted into the Creighton University School of Medicine, where he graduated in 1952.

He always knew that he wanted to go into medicine, Robert Baum said. That was an interest he developed while watching the small-town doctor where he grew up.

Cletus Baum hung out his shingle in midtown Omaha in 1953. After making his hospital rounds in the morning and seeing patients at the clinic, Baum made house calls at night.

Dad used to say there probably wasnt a home in the midtown area that he and his black bag hadnt been in, his son said.

When the idea of hospice care began to spread across the country, Bergan Mercy Hospital was looking for someone to lead its program, Robert Baum said. Cletus Baum, who taught a death-and-dying course at Creightons medical school, was an avid proponent and took the job.

During a 1985 medical seminar in Omaha, Baum told the audience that when he began his medical career, it was common practice not to tell a person he was dying. Hospice counseling, he said, should help a patient reflect on accomplishments and fears but should not attempt to hide unpleasant aspects of death.

Basically, you die as you live, Baum said. No two people will die the same way.

Baum was preceded in death by first wife, Alma, with whom he raised six children. In addition to Robert, he is survived by his second wife, Mary Baum of Omaha; sons Daniel Baum of Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Steve Baum and Michael Baum, both of Omaha; and daughters, Susan Wilson and Mary Ellen Keeley, also of Omaha.
Southwest Iowa is a place that shines when it comes to honoring veterans.

From the Eagles of Honor sculptures to Oaklands Freedom Rock to the Council Bluffs Veterans Plaza at Bayliss Park, an area with a large number of veterans and current military members has done its duty to honor and remember the sacrifices made.

Veterans Day is Saturday. It is a time to remember those whove served and to, most of all, say thank you.

Countless businesses are offering free or discounted meals or services for veterans, while area businesses, museums and organizations are hosting special veteran programs.

Thats among the many ways area communities are helping out.

The Council Bluffs Veterans Day parade came a week earlier than the day itself, featuring high school marching bands, fire trucks, ROTC groups, Clydesdale horses and other parade entries making their way along the route as attendees on both sides of Pearl and Main Streets waved miniature American flags and thanked those who served.

Its very patriotic, Roger Hasz of Omaha said of the parade. This is one of the better parades in the area.

We commend the American Legion Post No. 2 in Council Bluffs for, as always, putting on a parade that was respectful of veterans and all military members while providing a quality time for families. We agree with Haszs sentiment: its one of the best in the metro.

Its important to remember that the U.S. is still engaged in military conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as a new generation of veterans serve their country. No matter your thoughts about U.S. entanglements abroad, its important to keep those soldiers in mind today, Saturday and going forward.

And for both active and retired military members, its important we provide adequate mental and physical health services in addition to praise and respect.

Congress should continue to work to ensure the Department of Veterans Affairs is properly funded and providing the best service possible to veterans across the country. In the metro area, an unauthorized waiting list for psychotherapy appointments at Omahas VA hospital delayed care for 87 veterans this year and led to the departures of two employees, The World-Herald reported in late October.

U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin on Monday rejected the idea that revelations about the unauthorized waiting list reveal a broader pattern of waitlist issues across the VA.

Its imperative that everyone from Shulkin on down work to provide adequate, timely care for both veterans and current military members.

As another Veterans Day approaches, we credit southwest Iowa for its dedication to military members and offer a thank you to all that serve.
(Radhika Chalasani for ABC News) Sherile Pahagas, left, and Edith Mendoza met through the Damayan Migrant Workers' Association and found out they'd been employed as domestic worker for the same German couple. They are now suing their former employers. (NEW YORK) -- Sherile Pahagas said she remembers exactly where she was five years ago when she got the news she had been chosen for a job as a live-in housekeeper and nanny with a diplomats family in New York.



I was so excited, so overwhelmed, Pahagas said of the opportunity to provide a decent wage to support her three children in the Philippines and give her the chance to live in America.



I felt like I am so lucky because when I apply for the visa, it got approved immediately. And after one week, I flew to the United States.



After working for four years as a domestic worker in Hong Kong, Pahagas landed at John F. Kennedy airport Nov. 3, 2012, she said. The city was still reeling from Hurricane Sandy, but she couldnt contain her excitement as she took a taxi to the hotel her employers, Pit and Mareike Koehler, had arranged for her.



A few days later, she said the couple took her back to their home in West Harrison, New York, to start work.



I felt like I am still dreaming when I step foot here, Pahagas, 33, told ABC News. I cannot believe it. I am imagining the work, and I am excited because the promise they gave me is like $9.86, with overtime pay.



But the reality of working as a domestic employee for the family was very different, Pahagas said. She and another employee of the family who was hired after she quit were forced to work roughly 90 to 100 hours a week, earning about $4 per hour with no overtime or overtime compensation, according to a federal complaint Pahagas and Edith Mendoza filed June 28 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.



Pahagas worked for the family from November 2012 to October 2014, while Mendoza worked for them from January 2015 to June 2016, according to the complaint.



Their responsibilities included caring for four young children, cooking meals, cleaning the familys six-bedroom, six-bathroom home, and shoveling snow, according to the complaint.



During the terms of their employment, Pahagas and Mendoza lived in the familys home in a town about 20 miles northeast of Manhattan.



I could not do anything, and I was scared to lose my visa, Pahagas said.



Mendoza, 51, said she quit after a year and a half because the heavy workload started to affect her health. Her employers refused to let her go see a doctor, according to the complaint.



I felt not valued. Because when I got sick, they didnt care about my situation, Mendoza, also a Philippines native, said. They never cared about it, they never let me rest.



The Koehlers attorney did not respond to ABC News multiple requests for comment.



The womens attorney, Reena Arora, called the conditions under which they worked grueling.



Youre asking someone in your household to be working between 90 and 100 hours per week -- and theyre completely isolated, theyre in a mansion in Westchester, they dont have access to public transportation, they have only one day off a week, when their health is in jeopardy and theyre penalized for trying to seek medical attention, theyre not given any days off, theyre being paid woefully under what the promised rates were, Arora, an attorney with the nonprofit Urban Justice Center in New York, told ABC News.



According to a statement of damages Arora filed with the court Oct. 12, Pahagas and Mendoza are seeking $368,402.94 in damages, including the wages they say they are owed, plus interest and attorneys fees.



In October, the Koehlers attorney filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that the couple is immune under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. On Nov. 9, Mendoza and Pahagas attorneys filed a letter standing by their clients' assertions but acknowledging that under the law, the couple is immune from civil action, withdrawing their motion for default judgment and saying they had decided not to oppose the Koehlers' motion for dismissal.



A hearing is set for Nov. 15 on the Koehlers' motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Tito Sinha, an attorney with the Urban Justice Center working on the womens case with Arora, declined to comment on their case until after the hearing.



The German Mission to the United Nations declined to comment in detail out of respect for the Koehlers privacy, telling ABC News it had forwarded all information about this legal employment to the appropriate U.S. authority.



But Arora said Mendoza and Pahagas are far from alone and that labor exploitation is a huge problem in the diplomatic community.



This is a rampant practice, in my opinion, Arora said, adding she has investigated two other such cases so far in the past eight months at the Urban Justice Center. This is a problem in D.C., which houses most of the embassies, and in New York, which houses the United Nations. We see a lot of these cases come through.



A report titled Diplomatic Immunity and the Abuse of Domestic Workers: Criminal and Civil Remedies in the United States, published in 2016 in the Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, found that since 2003, domestic workers have filed only 28 civil cases against diplomats and other international officials in U.S. federal courts.



The reports authors, Martina Vandenberg and Sarah Bessell, wrote that civil litigation like that brought by Mendoza and Pahagas has become a more promising proposition for domestic workers alleging exploitive work conditions.



Arora said that is what Mendoza and Pahagas are hoping to accomplish.



Were really trying to hold these folks accountable for their actions and to explain to all diplomats that once theyre in this country, regardless of the technicalities of immunity, they should be respecting the contracts they make and the labor laws, she said.



Pahagas lived and worked for the Koehlers from the beginning of November 2012 until Oct. 25, 2014, according to the complaint.



Her workday typically began around 6 a.m. and ended around 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, and, in the beginning, she said, stretched from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Saturdays. She said she prepared all the familys meals and snacks, helped the children dress, brush their teeth and catch the school bus and drove Pit Koehler to the train station.



She was responsible for daily deep cleaning of the house and garage, including vacuuming, laundry, dusting, ironing and grocery shopping, while also caring for the couples infant son. In the winter, she also shoveled the snow, the most taxing task, she said.



I was the one who raised the baby for two years, Pahagas said. "They felt love for me.



Before starting work with the Koehlers, Pahagas said she and the couple signed a contract. But she worked far more than the 35 hours and earned far less than the $9.86 per hour (plus overtime) she had been promised in the contract, the complaint alleges. Instead, she was allegedly paid around $345 per week for between 92 and 102 hours of work, less than $4 an hour.



Pahagas first spoke to Pit Koehler about her wages in August of 2013, after she had been working in the house for more than six months, the complaint states.



That morning, a Saturday, he was transferring my salary into my account, Pahagas said. I said, You said that you were supposed to pay me more than that because I work too much time, like 17 hours a day. But he said, Oh, Sherile, we cannot afford more than your salary.



She said she struggled with what to do. Her mother was counting on her to send $200 per week back to help care for her three children, all of whom were under the age of 10. She didnt want to let her down. On Sundays, her one full day off, she called her mother and her children and tried to pretend everything was OK.



I felt devastated, she said. I felt ashamed because they thought I had a better job here.



She said she kept the reality from her friends back home, too.



In social media posts, Pahagas said, I pretended like I am happy and have a good life here.



She approached the Koehlers about her schedule in October 2013 and her hours were changed to total about 92 hours per week, according to the complaint.



A year later, she approached Mareike Koehler about how her long hours were affecting her health. But it didnt make things better, she said.



I feel like there was a pressure in the house since I complained to them, Pahagas said. They didnt talk to me, sometimes she didnt talk to me for the whole day. I felt so much pressure. I was the one who was ashamed in the house because I was just a maid.



In October 2014, Pahagas found out she was pregnant. She told the Koehlers she could not continue to work long hours, she said.



They were upset. They didnt expect me to quit the job. They expected me to extend it when the contract was almost done, Pahagas said. I am thinking the work is too heavy for me. I was scared because I was experiencing back pain and winter was coming. I was scared I would need to shovel the snow again.



Pahagas said she had borrowed money from the Koehlers for a ticket home and to help pay for her fathers funeral expenses. After she paid off the loan at a rate of $100 a week, she said, she quit.



She now lives in Queens with her two-year-old son, and does domestic work in Manhattan. She assumed she would never see the money she was owed, Pahagas said. That was until she met Edith Mendoza, who began working for the Koehlers about three months after Pahagas quit.



Halfway around the world, Edith Mendoza had received the call she had been waiting for: She would be leaving her job as a domestic worker in Qatar to come to the United States. She would arrive in New York City just before her 49th birthday. Her salary would help her put her two children home in the Philippines through college.



I dreamed at that time that I would give my family a better life, Mendoza said. When I stepped off the airplane, I kept looking outside and thinking, Wow, this is America. It was overwhelming, seeing all the lights from the airplane.



Her written contract said she would make $10.02 an hour for a 35-hour work week, and would earn time and a half for any hours worked over the 40-hour limit, according to the complaint. She began working shortly after arriving in the United States on Jan. 12, 2015.



But soon, Mendoza said, she experienced conditions much like the ones Pahagas has alleged. She worked from 6:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Mondays to Thursday, and longer on Fridays, she said. Mendoza also worked 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, making for an over 90-hour work week, according to the complaint, for which she was paid $350.70 per week.



She struggled to finish all the chores she was assigned, according to the complaint, and was not permitted to take breaks.



The more work they gave me to do, the more nervous I became, because I needed to finish it all before the kids came home from school, Mendoza said. It was very, very stressful actually.



But things worsened in early December 2015, when she asked for a day off to see a doctor, according to the complaint. Her menstruation had become heavier and she had been bleeding for three months, she said.



But the Koehlers told her she needed to wait until the family left for vacation to go to the doctor, according to the complaint.



Mendoza was finally able to see a doctor in February 2016, she said. By then, she was so sick she took six days off to recuperate, according to the complaint, and the Koehlers were upset.



The doctor requested me to rest, so I sent a message back to my boss and all the copies of the doctors statements, Mendoza said. I was staying with my church friends. [Mareike Koehler] sent back a message saying that it was unreasonable, that it was unacceptable.



Mendoza visited the doctor twice more in May 2016, according to the complaint, and Pit Koehler threatened to fire her if she missed work again. In June of that year, she went to the doctor anyway and was fired, according to the complaint.



She said she hasnt had regular work in the year since she left the Koehlers, and struggles to pay the rent for the apartment she shares with a roommate in Queens.



Its hard for me now to find a good job because I dont have a reference, Mendoza said. They spoiled my future. Every time I get a job, they ask me to give references. How could I get references from my former employer since I dont have that kind of good ending?



Mendoza said she met organizers from the Damayan Migrant Workers Association after being referred there by members of her church.



I got to the point I was devastated, powerless, isolated, and not being treated like a human. I was very sad and was like, Why did they do this to me? Mendoza said.



But after meeting with organizers at Damayan, Mendoza said she learned about her rights and met Pahagas, who she said had experienced the same things. Mendoza said she also read the story of Lola Pulido, a Filipina maid who worked without pay and died without ever seeing justice, in The Atlantic. She said she was determined not to let that be how her story ended.



Organizing live-in domestic workers often presents a challenge because many are isolated geographically, Arora, the womens Urban Justice Center lawyer, said.



They are absolutely an invisible workforce, and their isolation contributes to the problem that people dont see them and theyre unable to assert their rights, Arora said.



Like Mendoza and Pahagas, many domestic workers in Westchester County, are living with their employers and theres no space in which to interact or have any connections with organizers or groups on the ground, she added.



But through the lawsuit, Mendoza said she is determined to hold her employers accountable.



I came here without nothing. I came here with a great promise, they lured me here with promises, but they were lies, Mendoza said. I thought, if I dont do anything about this, they will do it again and again to another domestic worker.



Pahagas agreed.



I feel bad because I am ruining a familys reputation, she said. But I revealed what they are.



On Aug. 7, domestic workers and activists joined Pahgas and Mendoza in a demonstration outside the German consulate. Attorney Arora said its also about sending a message more broadly that domestic workers are not afraid to report exploitive work conditions.



I think in the political climate that we are in under the Trump administration, we have been told that immigrant workers are the enemy, and that has further compounded and emboldened employers to be more exploitative and to instill a sense of fear about workers coming forward to assert their rights, Arora said.



For Edith and Sherile to speak up against such a powerful person and a former employer working for the United Nations, she added, its an inspiration for other domestic workers who are dealing with these conditions day in and day out.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The Twin Platte Natural Resources District board voted to set allocations for wells located within the boundaries of the Nebraska Cooperative Republican Platte Enhancement project area on Thursday following a public hearing on the matter.

The board approved a motion to set the allocation period and base allocations for wells located on the N-CORPE project area as required by the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources.

Twin Platte NRD did receive a letter from the Department of Natural Resources in regard to our proposed amendement to our rules and regulations, said Kent O. Miller, TPNRD general manager. The rules and regulations intent is to place a 12-inch allocation on the N-CORPE property.

Miller said that what the allocation amounts to is a total aggregate allocation of 120 inches over a 10-year period for each acre of land that was certified for irrigation at the time N-CORPE acquired the property.

Lets say you pump your 120 inches in the first three or four years and all of a sudden you say were out of water and we need to pump more, said an unidentified questioner from the audience. Then what happens.

Miller said that water would not be available and he said the gentleman was correct in saying the wells would be shut off at that point in time and no pumping would take place.

Following the public hearing on the proposed amendment to the rules and regulations, the TPNRD board voted unanimously in favor.

Under the public forum agenda item, representatives of the Landowners for a Common Purpose group shared their opinions concerning the ongoing debate whether the N-CORPE property should be placed back into the private sector.

The group has advocated for separating the land from the water so the land can go back into production and placed back on the tax rolls.

Were here tonight to ask the board, why does the NRD want to be a land owner or a land developer or in the real estate business at all, said group spokesperson Kirk Olson. Myself and the group doesnt really understand why we need to be landowners. We didnt think that was the intent of an NRD.

Olson and other members of the group asked a number of questions. Dr. Ernie Goss from Creighton presented a brief overview of his economic impact study concerning the N-CORPE property and answered questions from the board.

Ryan McIntosh, an attorney with the Mattson Ricketts Law Firm in Lincoln, representing the Landowners group, spoke about the legal indications that would allow the land to be separated from the water.

No action was taken on the sale of the property, but board chairman Dennis Schilz said the board would take the information under advisement and try to come up with a solution.
A special locomotive will pass through North Platte on Saturday in honor of the states veterans.

Union Pacific unveiled locomotive No. 1943 last month, featuring a design to honor U.S. military personnel.

Its going on a multistate tour, UP spokesperson Kristen South said. We wanted to give as many folks a chance to see it as possible.

North Platte residents can expect to see the train pass through between 6 and 8 p.m. Saturday, South said.

But that is a very rough estimate, she added.

No. 1943  or The Spirit  is modeled after a Boeing B-17 airplane that flew in World War II. It was named The Spirit of Union Pacific because UP employees at the time funded the planes construction by purchasing war bonds.

It flew five missions before being shot down in Germany, South said.

The rest of the engine covers all the branches of the U.S. military and features the POW symbol on the back.

To say we are still thinking of them, South said.

The design team actually worked with veterans working for UP to create No. 1943. South said about 17 percent of UPs workforce has military experience, and nearly 50 employees are deployed at any given time.

The military has always been near and dear to Union Pacific, South said. Weve had soldiers in our ranks since the railroad started. This is a way to honor the men and women who have served our country.

Trains have also been a part of Americas wars since the Civil War, South added, and even now UP provides equipment and food for U.S. troops.

Were proud of that heritage, she said.

South hopes that when people see The Spirit passing through their communities, they will recognize it as a tribute to servicemen and women and know how important they are to the railroad.

After traveling to Cheyenne for a Monday open house, the locomotive will also visit California and Nevada before going into regular service. It will travel the U.S. railways in all 23 states that UP operates in.
At 19, Nelson Jett is the youngest real estate agent in Nebraska. The 2017 St. Patrick High School graduate has gotten his start in the real estate market working at Gateway Realty, 111 Halligan Drive.

At Gateway Realty, Jett works alongside his maternal grandmother, JoAnn Perlinger. He grew up helping Perlinger in her office and in the last few years decided he wanted to make real estate his career, he said.

Last February, Jett began 60 hours of prerequisites.

My goal was to get my license before I graduated high school, he said.

But after Jett learned that Nebraska requires a person to be 19 to become an agent, Jett waited until shortly after his October birthday to take the test. He passed the exam on the first try.

Since starting at Gateway Realty three weeks ago, Jett said, he has met with a number of clients.

I had a lot of people tell me when I first started out, theyre not going to want you, because youre younger, Jett said. That doesnt seem to be the case.

Jett said clients appreciate his savvy with social media and internet  my youthfulness, he said with a laugh.

Before he received his certification, Perlinger said, Jett helped her with her own social media and advertising.

He kind of specializes in the latest in technology and social media, she said.

Jett took most of his classes online and traveled to Omaha twice for exam-preparation classes. Perlinger said he also spent the summer lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons.

Hes always busy, she said, describing her grandson as very energetic and ambitious.

By the end of August, Jett was finished with courses and down to independent studying.

The content was a whole lot different than anything Ive done before, Jett said, describing a math-intensive exam.

In his current role, Jett shows homes that are for sale to his clients, and when they find one they like, helps them write an offer. He presents the offer to the sellers agent, and if the offer is accepted, hell spend the next weeks doing paperwork, arranging home inspections and finishing details until the homes closing.

Well get everything figured out, he said.

Jett also helps clients list their homes for sale, sometimes advising them on prices based on comparable sales and nearby homes, though the final listing price must be the clients decision, he said.

As Jett enters a career based solely on commission, he said hes not worried. Working alongside his grandmother will help, and hes gained a tight network from the town hes lived in his whole life. Having attended school at St. Pats and church at Holy Spirit, the Catholic community is huge, he said.

Jett said hes also made connections while volunteering for organizations like the Platte River Fitness Series in town.

Jett said lessons learned in high school speech and drama help him interact with clients.

Though Jett isnt sure where the future leads, he hopes someday to obtain his brokers license and own his own real estate agency.

Ill see where things take me, he said.
The Public Service Commission will decide by Thanksgiving on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Please contact Mary Ridder, the PSC member representing North Platte, and tell her to vote NO on KXL because it does not serve Nebraskas interests for the following reasons:

1. It will not increase U.S. energy independence. Most of the tar sands oil will be refined for export by Motiva, a Saudi Arabian company that is one of the primary customers for KXL crude.

2. It wont use U.S. steel. The majority of KXL steel comes from Welspun, an Indian company that has been sued for defective steel by pipeline companies.

3. Its already a dinosaur. Investors have been pulling out of the KXL project, and TransCanada is unlikely to find U.S. customers interested in long-term shipping contracts.

4. It violates personal property rights by granting eminent domain to a foreign corporation for private (not public) profit.

5. It threatens the continued economic viability of agricultural land due to the 91 significant leaks predicted by a UNL professor that will occur, polluting our precious aquifer.

6. It will not create jobs for Nebraskans. TransCanada admits it prefers to import workers from Oklahoma and Kansas rather than hiring locals to construct the pipeline.

In short, the banks dont like it, the people dont want it, and the country doesnt need it.

To reach Ridder at the PSC and tell her to vote no on KXL, call 800-526-0017 or use the form at psc.nebraska.gov

Nancy Meyer

Cedar Bluffs
The Canberra Raiders have confirmed the signing of former Bulldogs Player Brad Abbey for the next two seasons.

Abbey has joined the club for pre-season training and comes with a classy junior resume, including an appearance for the New Zealand Warriors at fullback in the 2014 NYC Grand Final, and representation of the Junior Kiwis.

He made his NRL debut for the Bulldogs in 2017 playing four matches and scoring one try.

Raiders NRL Recruitment and High-Performance director Peter Mullholland said the club was looking forward to having Abbey in the squad for the next two seasons and said he was an exciting young talent with big potential.

"Brad was standout at junior level and was one of the best young fullbacks to come out of the NYC competition," Mulholland said.

"At just 20 years of age he showed he can perform at NRL level this year with the Bulldogs and we know hell work hard during the pre-season and will add strong depth to our squad.

Abbey's contract is for two years until the end of the 2019 season, with the Raiders holding an option to sign him for a further season in 2020.

The signing of Abbey coincides with the club releasing Clay Priest, who has taken up an opportunity with the Bulldogs.

Priest was the first player from the Mounties system to make his NRL debut with the Green Machine and played 31 NRL matches for the Raiders since his debut in 2016.

The Raiders would like to thank Clay for his time with the club and wish him all the best for the future.



NRL register Foran, Woods to Bulldogs

Foran keen to find a home at Bulldogs

Mbye set to become Bulldogs fullback

Cotric re-signs with the Raiders

Tough Plays of the Year


The nine-member committee created to help guide development around South Shore Line train stations will assemble for the first time Monday to discuss their roles and responsibilities if and when transit development districts are established.

Members come from the seven municipalities served by the South Shore, and from the two that will be, if the planned West Lake Corridor is built.

The Transit Development District Steering Committee will convene under the auspices of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, which was given the responsibility for establishing transit development districts, or TDDs, and using the funds generated by them to promote development.

Bill Hanna, president and CEO of the RDA, said the steering committee will advise decision-makers on creation of the districts and the type of development that would best suit them.

Committee members include: Marino Solorio, East Chicago; Bernard Doyle, Chesterton; Carolyn Saxton, Ogden Dunes; Brian Poland, Hammond; James Mueller, South Bend; Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Gary; Rich Murphy, Michigan City; Lynn Eplawy, Munster; and Scott Jefferson, Dyer.

The opportunity to establish TDDs was created by legislation enacted during this year's General Assembly. Growth in local property and income taxes in the districts will go to development funds administered by the RDA in Lake and Porter counties, and by the redevelopment commissions in Michigan City and South Bend for TDDs in those cities.

The districts can cover one-half square mile when established, and be expanded to one square mile after that.

The steering committee will meet at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Purdue Technology Center, 9800 Connecticut Drive, Merrillville.
Indiana's nonfatal occupational injury and illness rate fell to a historic low of 3.5 injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time workers last year, according to the Indiana Department of Labor.

The rate has been below four injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time workers in the Hoosier state for five consecutive years. Workplace injuries declined 8 percent from 3.8 injuries or illnesses per 100 workers in 2015, which had previously been the lowest rate since the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses report debuted in its current form in 1992.

We are proud of our Hoosier workforce and their dedication to maintaining safe and healthy workplaces, Indiana Department of Labor Commissioner Rick Ruble said. Indianas employers and employees continue to make workplace safety a top priority. Partnerships with organized labor, trade associations and safety councils, as well as Indianas IOSHA enforcement and INSafe programs, help ensure that workplace safety is more than a buzzword. Its a culture.

Indiana's manufacturing industry saw injuries and illnesses decline to 4.1 per 100 workers in 2016, a 13 percent drop from the rate of 4.7 per 100 workers in 2015, according to the Indiana Department of Labor. Construction, another relatively dangerous occupation, stayed steady last year with 2.8 injuries of illnesses per 100 workers.

Fifteen of the 19 major industry classifications in Indiana reported fewer injuries last year.
HAMMOND  A Whiting man is pleading not guilty to demolishing a historic railroad bridge for scrap metal.

Kenneth R. Morrison, who operates T&K Metals, appeared Thursday before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew P. Rodovich on a federal charge of interstate transportation of stolen property. No trial date is currently scheduled.

The U.S. Attorney and the Environmental Crimes Division of the U.S. Department of Justice allege Morrison dismantled the century-old Monon Railroad bridge over the Grand Calumet River in Hammond and sold it to Illinois metal dealers.

A code inspector for the City of Hammond, which owned the bridge as a historic remnant, issued a stop order on Morrison's work Jan. 29, 2015, and a state conservation officer cited Morrison for sending creosote-soaked railroad ties into the waterway as he dismantled the structure, but officials couldn't stop its complete destruction later that year.

Morrison defended his actions in a 2015 interview with The Times, arguing the bridge was "like a shipwreck," and that "if a ship sinks, that's abandoned and it's fair game."
A Gary mother faces felony charges on allegations she is responsible for the death of her 12-year-old son in failing to monitor his kidney disorder and seek medical attention when symptoms worsened.

The Lake County coroners office classified Davarion Davis' May 4 death as a homicide and in the autopsy report noted it is very rare for a child diagnosed with Nephrotic syndrome to die from this medical condition, according to a probable cause affidavit filed Thursday in Lake Criminal Court.

The cause of death was determined to be a complication of Nephrotic syndrome "complicated with penile infection due to neglect," court records show.

Nephrotic syndrome is a kidney disorder associated with high protein levels in urine and fluid retention in the body that can be managed with medication.

Teisha Ellis, 34, is charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death where the victim is less than 14 years old and neglect of a dependent in which she placed the dependent in a situation that endangers the dependent's life or health, according to the affidavit.

Gary police said they were contacted in August by a social worker with the Indiana Department of Children and Family Services assigned to a child death review panel in the Lake County Prosecutor's Office.

The panel determined Davis' death could have been prevented and warranted further investigation, court records show.

The boy was diagnosed with Nephrotic syndrome three years ago when he complained of an uncomfortable pain in his genitals and Ellis observed he had swollen genitals, the mother told police. He received treatment for a few years, but she took him off medication two months before an April 2016 doctor's visit.

Results at that time showed he was doing better, court records show.

The mother was advised to routinely test his urine and seek medical help upon signs of relapse, court records show.

Police interviews with medical professionals and review of health records show Ellis lied to investigators about Davis seeing a pediatrician before the start of the school year.

She also told police she routinely tested protein levels and checked his genitals for swelling, but police allege she did not, noting his genitals were "very swollen" on the day of his death, court records show.

Medical professionals interviewed by police said Ellis routinely only made appointments when her son was "in medical crisis" rather than following recommended routine follow-ups.

One health professional said she allegedly failed to give her son his medication over a four-month period because "it had slipped her mind," according to the affidavit.

Ellis kept her son home from school two days in April and three days leading up to his death, telling the school he was having an "allergic reaction" but was still taking medication, court records show.

Davis was reportedly extremely lethargic the day of his death, and frequently urinated and vomited in the days leading up to his death, according to the affidavit.

The boy's father, who is in a wheelchair, told police Ellis was mostly responsible for Davis' care.

He found the boy unresponsive in the home and he was taken to the hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Tissue samples taken during his autopsy determined Davis' infection had been present for "two to three weeks" prior, court records show.

Ellis is in custody at Lake County jail, court records show.
GRIFFITH  The school district has severed ties with a teacher at Beiriger Elementary School five days after she was accused in court of stealing more than $19,000 from the school's Parent/Teacher Council.

Griffith Public Schools has "severed employment" with Kristen G. Reczek, 34, of Crown Point, according to a statement by the district's director of finance and operations, George Jerome, in a news release Friday.

Reczek is accused of using the council's Centier Bank debit card to make unauthorized purchases and make 32 ATM withdrawals between May 21 and Oct. 10, according to Lake Criminal Court records.

"The issue came to light in October when the (Parent/Teacher Council) noticed what appeared to be financial irregularities," Jerome said in the release.

The school's principal and current president of the council brought the alleged theft to the attention of law enforcement, court records show. The council president and principal told police Reczek was the only person who had the debit card for the council's account.

Reczek allegedly told the council president and principal she did not steal any money from the account. Video surveillance images from multiple ATM locations showed Reczek making withdrawals, court records said.

Reczek is accused of trying to conceal the amount of stolen money by submitting falsified treasury reports to the Parent/Teacher Council's leadership. The council operates separately from the school.

Lake Criminal Court records show Reczek was released from custody after posting bond Tuesday.

Although Parent/Teacher Council organizations are not under control of the school district, schools officials said Jerome and Meghan Damron, corporation treasurer and human resources director, are reviewing practices for all organizations regarding handling of funds.

"Where needed, procedures will be implemented to prevent a recurrence, Jerome said in the news release.

Damron said the job opening for a sixth-grade teacher at Beiriger Elementary was posted on the school website Friday.

* Editor's note: This story has been corrected from an earlier version.
MERRILLVILLE  An open sign remained dark and the front door was locked Friday at Seoul Spa Massage, one day after authorities raided the business and were seen escorting women out the back door.

Local, state and federal law enforcement officials executed a federal search warrant just after 9 a.m. Thursday at Seoul Spa Massage in the 2400 block of U.S. 30.

The U.S. attorney's office confirmed a warrant was executed, but a spokesman said he could not confirm or deny an investigation. Local police said the case was sealed.

A check of federal court records Friday showed no recently unsealed cases linked to the warrant.

On Friday, the business appeared closed. Fraternal Order of Police stickers covered a large portion of the locked front door.

During the raid Thursday, a woman wearing a jacket marked "victim services" was seen entering and exiting the front of the business.

About an hour after the raid began, two women exited the back of the business and got into an unmarked pickup truck driven by an FBI agent. Agents then drove away with the women.

Ashley Nowak, a cashier at the Hookah Tobacco Plus store several doors down from the spa, said on Friday she and other employees in the strip mall had suspicions about the spa.

The spa's clientele appeared to include mostly men, many of whom avoided parking directly in front of the spa, Nowak said.

Women from the spa came into her store to purchase cigarettes, she said.

"They were really nice," she said. "They were really quiet. They kind of kept to themselves."

Some of the younger women  who may have been in their 20s  dressed provocatively, but the older women did not, she said.

The U.S. attorney's office confirmed a second federal warrant was executed Thursday morning at a home in the 7400 block of Taylor Street in Schererville. However, a spokesman declined to confirm or deny whether that warrant was connected to the warrant executed at Seoul Spa.
CROWN POINT  The Lake County Council is considering paying as much as $8.25 million to settle more than eight lawsuits alleging misconduct and negligence by county employees that led to four deaths and several injuries.

Lake County Attorney John Dull presented council members Thursday a list of cases he recommended they settle to avoid trial, and the possibility of greater damages being assessed by judges and juries.

The council will vote Tuesday on whether to borrow to make the payments.

The largest settlement would involve $2.75 million to the family of Gregory Smith, 39, of Hobart, who died two years ago in the county jail after a county jailer used a stun gun on him.

The county would pay $2.2 million in the death of Adekunle Odumabo, 39, of Lansing, who hanged himself with a bed sheet in April of 2007 in his county jail cell.

A U.S. District Court magistrate judge previously had ordered jailers to put Odumabo on suicide watch because he had threatened to commit suicide.

The county would pay $800,000 in the death of 43-year-old Cedell Wright in the county jail in March of 2013. He died of pneumonia and other medical ailments. The suit alleged the county's medical team neglected obvious deterioration of his health.

The county would pay $435,000 in the wrongful arrest of Renee and David Otten, both of rural Crown Point.

Merrillville attorney Russell W. Brown Jr., who represents the Ottens, said Thursday they had an argument in February 2015 and Renee Otten left their house to walk outside and cool off.

Brown said county police received a report that someone in a car was attempting to run her over, but when officers found her walking along the road in the 6200 block of 85th Avenue, there was no car nearby and she was in no danger.

Brown said Renee Otten told officers she didn't need help, but officers drove her home. When they got there, officers entered the house without permission and awoke David Otten who was asleep in their bedroom.

Brown said David Otten told police to leave, but instead officers used a stun gun on him and struck him in the head, leaving a gash, and then arrested both of them.

Brown said police and the prosecutor charged the Ottens with disorderly conduct, but the court acquitted them early last year.

The county would pay $400,000 to the family of Christopher Reynoso, 52, of Evergreen Park, who died in September 2013 when his motorcycle and a car collided near 109th Avenue and Parrish, south of St. John.

Valparaiso attorney Jon Schmoll, who represents the Reynoso family, said evidence of the county police investigation into the cause of the accident focused on a deep drop off on the shoulder of the road. Schmoll said the county highway department failed to fill that in with gravel.

The county would pay a Burnham, Illinois, couple $200,000 over allegations of their wrongful arrest and unnecessarily rough treatment in July 2012.

Vincent and Denise Price said they were in the Hammond supermarket parking lot when they saw Lake County Police officer Joseph Kraus arresting a woman in a violent manner.

Vicent Price began recording the arrest on his cell phone. The officer took the phone away from Price and injured Price's rotator cuff. The officer arrested him and Denise Price when she protested the officer's behavior.

Dull said the county should pay a Hobart man $20,000 for booking him into the jail after he was arrested in a case of mistaken identity, and $70,000 to several sheriff's employees who were wrongly denied overtime pay.

Dull said the county still is negotiating a dollar amount for a settlement with an Illinois man who was attacked by the K-9 of a county policeman who was working a second job as a security guard.

Dull said he and other county legal advisors negotiated the other settlements, but they were negotiated for smaller amounts then originally stated, so the council paid less.
EAST CHICAGO  The Indiana Youth Institute, Foundations of East Chicago and Boys & Girls Club of Northwest Indiana are teaming up to host a free event for educators, youth workers, community leaders, parents and other caring adults to learn how to address achievement and opportunity gaps through their student programming. This Youth Worker Cafe will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at School City of East Chicagos Administration Building, 1401 E. 144th St.

Melba Salmon with The Practical Counselor will show attendees how to use data to guide work and critical discussions of the core issues and realities that create achievement gaps. Attendees will learn how to connect youth to services that enable mobility, as well as how to apply new knowledge to equity efforts in the kindergarten-12 school environment and community organizations.

As part of IYIs Youth Worker Cafe program, the forum and lunch are free, but reservations are required. RSVP at www.iyi.org/calendar.
SCHERERVILLE  As a young boy, Norm Hill wasn't too thrilled about attending what was then the two-story Homan School in Schererville. During his first day, he ran back to his nearby home during recess.

"I said this ain't the place for me," Hill remembered.

But on Friday, the latest version of Homan Elementary School was most definitely the place for the 85-year-old Korean War veteran and more than 200 others as they were honored for their service.

Hill, with his wife, Doris, traveled the 80 miles from their home in Mishawaka to the school at the invitation of their daughter, Cindy Sweeney, who now teaches kindergarten at Homan and had put up a display in his honor.

With young voices singing and reading poems in recognition of their service, the veterans were honored at a special program annually sponsored by the school's third-grade teachers. The youngsters at the school invite grandparents, parents and other relatives or neighbors who are veterans to attend the annual event.

"It's a great thing they are doing here," said Hill, who was a member of the U.S. Army Airborne Infantry.

"It's pretty awesome," agreed Terry Bess, who served in the U.S. Army between 1983 and 1993, and was invited by his grandson, Nathan.

He said the event means a lot to the veterans, especially those from the Vietnam era who weren't really appreciated by society when they first returned home. Among those veterans was Frank Borroel, who spent time in Vietnam while serving with the U.S. Marines from 1965 to 1979.

Borroel, whose daughter Jenn DiPasquo is a secretary at the school, expressed appreciation for the recognition he and the other veterans were getting Friday. Principal Kathi Tucker's father, U.S. Army Signal Corp. veteran John Novelli, and her uncle, U.S. Army veteran Thomas Knudsen, also both attended the event.

In addition to entertaining the veterans, the students also sit, visit and ask questions of the veterans.

"I think it's fantastic," said Knudsen, who noted the young students also are learning a little bit of what their relatives went through for them to have the things that they now enjoy.
Choosing to serve in the United States military requires dedication and hardship, and men and women transitioning from deployment, active duty or the reserves can find assistance pursuing their educational goals at Ivy Tech Community College through the Veteran Student Services Program.

Ivy Tech is an affordable college where you can maximize your VA education benefits, prep for transferring to a four-year school and build your network, said Adam Grooms, Ivy Tech associate director of Veteran Services based at the South Bend campus.

Grooms, 38, served nine years in the U.S. Army as a specialist with two years in Korea, one year in Iraq and the remaining time with the U.S. Army reserves in Kingsbury, Indiana.

Veterans come out of the service expecting to have a job similar to what they had in the military, he said. However, they find they need a certificate or a degree.

The Veteran Student Services Program helps veterans apply for and manage the benefits theyve earned, and provides access to additional resources in the community, Grooms said.

We currently have roughly 300 students utilizing this program at seven campuses  East Chicago, Gary, Valparaiso, Michigan City, South Bend, Elkhart and Warsaw, Grooms said.

Various programs can help veterans achieve their goal of getting an education. Federal Veteran GI Bill benefits include the following:

Chapter 30  Montgomery GI Bill for Active Duty provides a monthly stipend based on enrollment.

Chapter 31  Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment provides payment of tuition and fees, books and supplies and a monthly stipend based on enrollment.

Post 9/11 and Transfer of Entitlement  Based on a percentage of eligibility and enrollment, this can provide help with tuition and fees, a book stipend and basic allowance for housing.

The Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs also offers two veteran education benefits. Tuition and fees are provided for the child of a disabled veteran. Purple Heart recipients also can receive help with tuition and fees.

Military tuition assistance is available to those who serve in the Air Force, Army, National Guard, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard.

Success is in the details

Understanding and applying for these federal and state veteran education benefits often requires guidance, which is provided by Ivy Tech students who are part of the programs work/study system at each campus, Grooms said.

Mitchell Chmielewski, who served four years as a senior airman with the U.S. Air Force, provides that assistance at Ivy Techs Valparaiso campus.

I greet all veterans. I go through the finances and benefits and explain what each one means, Chmielewski said.

The 25-year-old LaPorte resident also works with other advisors to set up class schedules for veterans and provide access to other services in the area.

Its important because a lot of veterans dont understand how the benefits work, how to access them and where to go if they have an issue, Chmielewski said.

Some veterans plan to transfer to four-year institutions after completing their education at Ivy Tech.

Chmielewski is one of them.

He applied for the volunteer work/study position with Grooms to help other veterans while he completes his own associate degree in the business administration program.

When he receives his associate of applied science degree, Chmielewski will transfer to Valparaiso University, where he will pursue a bachelors degree specializing in finance.

Ivy Tech offers a military tuition rate of $111.15 per credit hour, and many veterans can get academic credit for their experiences while serving in the armed forces, Grooms said.
CROWN POINT  Residents have a chance to meet the crew of the new USS Indiana nuclear attack submarine Friday.

More than 70 years have passed since the last USS Indiana sailed, and now the newest attack submarine in the U.S. Navy's fleet is named Indiana.

The American Legion Post 20, 1401 N. Main St., is hosting a meet and greet with the crew of the USS Indiana, which was christened in April. A replica of the submarine will be on site for participants to view. The event will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday.

The USS Indiana is the first submarine named for the state in more than 75 years.

Ray Shearer, the chairman of the USS Indiana Commissioning Committee, said the sailors have toured the state over the past year to raise awareness for the Hoosier boat and to thank the over 150 Indiana manufacturers that built different components for the submarine.

"Hoosiers get to know the sailors, but it's important for the sailors to get to learn more about their namesake," Shearer said. "It's about building a lasting relationship with the people of Indiana."

The sailors will also take part in Hammond's Veteran Appreciation Day parade at 10 a.m. Saturday in the citys 5th and 6th districts. The parade route travels from Olcott Avenue, down 173rd Street and ends at the Hessville Park Veterans Memorial.

Shearer said the submarine is about 98 percent complete.

"She's in the water," he said. "Sailors scheduled to move onboard sometime next month."

In late spring/early summer the submarine will officially be commissioned into the service of the Navy. The ceremony, a public event Shearer would like Hoosiers to attend, will either be at Norfolk, Virginia, or Port Canaveral, Florida. Details have yet to be released.
The Salvation Army has kicked off holiday bell ringing in 2017 at Strack & Van Til stores throughout the county. Bell ringing at Jewel-Osco, Walmart, and other area businesses will begin the day after Thanksgiving.

The goal of the 2017 Christmas Campaign in Lake County is to raise $780,000 through traditional red kettle bell ringing and individual contributions. This goal accounts for approximately one-third of the cost of programs and services The Salvation Army provides in Lake County annually. Services include food, utility and housing emergency assistance; hunger programs; youth programming and summer camp; disaster assistance; and case management/social services.

Major Jose Tamayo, coordinator of the Salvation Army in Lake County, is asking residents to help the Salvation Army reach their goal by volunteering to bell ring. Grab a friend, some hot chocolate, bundle up, and greet your neighbors for two hours, Tamayo. said. Nothing will get you in the holiday spirit faster than ringing the bell and helping some of your neighbors this Christmas season.

Individuals, families and groups can sign up to bell ring (for two-hour time slots at a time) on The Salvation Armys online sign-up site, Register to ring at www.registertoring.com.
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CHICAGO  Lawyers for former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to uphold his first-degree murder conviction in the 2004 drowning death of his third wife.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the petition filed Thursday follows a September ruling by the same court to uphold Peterson's murder conviction in the death of Kathleen Savio. The court rejected the argument by Peterson's attorneys that it was improper to use hearsay testimony to convict Peterson in 2012.

The 63-year-old Peterson is serving a 38-year sentence for Savio's death and another 40-year sentence after being convicted of plotting to kill the prosecutor in the case. Peterson is also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. He has not been charged.
Miguel Sanchez tread an uphill path to Wall Street. He emigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a child, not knowing a word of English. He was raised by a single mom in Paterson, New Jersey  and as he prepared to graduate from high school with lackluster grades, had no plan for what was next.

That is, until he lucked upon a Marine recruiter at the mall. I didnt know much, but I knew it was an opportunity to change my life and be a part of something bigger than me, Sanchez recalls.

He would go on to serve his country in Afghanistan.

Like too many veterans, when Sanchez looked to exit the Marines and return to civilian life, he knew nothing of private-sector work and wasnt sure how to find any. He recalls walking up and down Madison Avenue with a three-page resume.

Since 2001, more than 3 million veterans have rejoined civilian ranks. While military service ingrains communications expertise, efficiency on tight deadlines and high-stakes teamwork better than any ordinary office job, soldiers often struggle to translate their talents to the private sector.

Most Army jobs dont have direct correlates in the civilian sector, said Jeffrey Wenger, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corp., who studies the transition of military personnel into the civilian labor force. While private-sector employers value the soft skills soldiers develop, Its hard for soldiers to figure out how they can leverage the skills..."

Sanchez ultimately landed a job working as a bank teller and attended night classes on the GI Bill. At the bank, he caught glimpses of a wider world of finance he never knew existed. His curiosity piqued, he started studying on his own: What are capital markets? The yield curve? Credit default swaps? He soaked it all in.

But like many veterans switching fields after military service, he found companies reluctant to take a chance on a new recruit.

Sanchez was lucky to learn from a career adviser about one firm that leads the way for companies looking to set veterans on new career paths.

Academy Securities is the nations first and only post-9/11 military veteran and disabled veteran owned and operated investment bank and broker dealer. It was founded in 2009 and boasts an advisory board of top military leaders, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace and former top military intelligence official Maj. Gen. Spider Marks. The mission-driven firm, Marks says, is living our values.

With populism on the upswing and Wall Street greed reviled, this is one investment bank easier to cheer on than Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.

Today, military veterans own 62 percent of the firms equity, and 44 percent of its employees are veterans.

Employees also have the opportunity to earn equity in the company. But the broader mission is to apprentice military veterans to Wall Street veterans  to reward talent and hard work with the advancement through the ranks that soldiers seek and expect.

Academy hopes the vets learn the ropes and stay for the long term, but the firm also speaks proudly of the veterans whove gone on to larger firms.

Starting as an intern and working his way up, Miguel Sanchez has been at Academy for nearly three years. Hes sat side by side with mentors who helped him learn the ways of Wall Street, and hes used hard-won military skills to deliver results.

This Veterans Day, consider the challenges confronting veterans returning home from service. We have the greatest fighting force in history, and we must do more to welcome them back to the workforce and take full advantage of their skills and training.
A 28-year-old Egyptian newlywed woman, is seeking a divorce after only two weeks of marriage because her husband does all of the household chores. Her husband, 31, also runs a successful clothing store, where he employs several staff members and is therefore able to spend most of his time at home. Samar claims that he spends all of that time cleaning and rearranging furniture and that she can no longer handle living with him.

The woman, known only as Samar M., claims that her husband, Mohammad S., is acting like a housewife, and she has grown bored of him. Not only does he do all of the chores, but he refuses to allow her to help at all. She eventually confronted her husband but said that he responded by saying that if she wanted to live in his house, she had to follow his rules.

Photo: Kim Siever

Weve been married for just two weeks, Ive known and loved him for over 2 years but I hate living with him and can no longer handle his actions, Samar told Egyptian news website Masrawy.

My husband is a housewife. He doesnt let me touch anything in our house and does all the cooking, cleaning and general household chores. He controls everything in our house, and I have no say in anything, not even where he puts the TV set. Even though he owns his own business, he hired people to manage it, in order for him to stay at home, while I sit and watch, the woman explained her decision to get a divorce.

When Samar told her mother-in-law about her husbands actions, the woman was surprised, saying that Mohammad had never done chores when he lived at home with his parents.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

He is the woman of the house and Im hating my life with him. Weve been only married for two weeks, and he is either cooking or doing the laundry because he knows how to sort the washable clothes by color. He then irons the clothes, sweeps, and arranges the food in the fridge, Samar complained. I sit down watching him all day while he moves stuff around looking very happy.

Samar has filed a complaint in Family Court in New Cairo, saying, My husband did not give me the freedom to handle my home affairs, I feel like a guest in a hotel. She is seeking khula, a procedure through which a Muslim woman can divorce her husband by returning the dower (mahr) that she received to marry him.

The case is pending before the court.
Robert L. Dilenschneider

On Saturday, November 11, we observe Veterans Day to honor the men and women who stand in harm's way so that we at home can live full, safe lives.

There will be parades and speeches across the nation and a special ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. But each of us needs to add our own contribution, if only in our thoughts and prayers.

It appears there will not be a day in our lifetimes when American men and women arent out there defending us, for we have been at war without pause ever since the 9/11 attacks.

We have more than 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories, including such conflict zones as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Niger and Somalia.

There are longstanding troop deployments in Japan (39,980), South Korea (23,591), Germany (36,034), Britain (8,286), Turkey (1,364), Bahrain (6,524) and Qatar (3,055). And nearly 38,000 troops are on undisclosed missions  the Pentagon describes their locations only as unknown.

It is an extraordinary national commitment. We need to appreciate each and every one of the men and women who fulfill it.

But our obligations dont end there. Every day, dozens of service people return to the U.S. from assignments overseas. They deserve our recognition and gratitude.

There are 3.8 million veterans with service-related disabilities. They need our help. Approximately 7.4 million veterans, ages 18 to 64, are in the labor force. Thousands more need jobs.

Veterans Day originated as Armistice Day on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. President Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor all those who served in American wars.

Here are some important facts about America's service men and women:

18.5 million: The number of military veterans in the U.S. in 2016.

1.6 million: The number of female veterans.

9.2 million: The number of veterans 65 and older. At the other end of the age spectrum, 1.6 million are younger than 35.

6.7 million: number of Vietnam-era veterans. 7.1 million served during the Gulf War. 768,000 in World War II. And 1.6 million in the Korean War.

Three states are home to more than 1 million veteransCalifornia (1.6 million), Texas (1.5 million) and Florida (1.4 million.)

28.3 Percent of veterans 25 years and older have a bachelors degree or higher.

The annual median income of male veterans is $40,076; for female veterans it is $34,178. Both figures are well below the 2015 median national income of $56,516.

Of the 5.5 million businesses in the U.S., 398,453 are veteran-owned.

14.4 million veterans voted in the 2016 presidential election. Thats a participation rate of 69.6 percent, compared with 60.6 percent among non-veterans.

I invite you to consider the following, which says all that must be remembered about this special group of patriots and heroes:

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the organizer, who gave us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag. And whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."

--Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

***

Robert L. Dilenschneider is founder and chairman of The Dilenschneider Group, a global public relations and communications consulting firm headquartered in New York City. The former CEO of Hill and Knowlton, Inc., he is also author of more than a dozen books, including the best-selling Power and Influence.
German chemical giant Bayer created Aspirin in 1898, a product that Andrew Essex, in his new book,  The End of Advertising , calls the most successful drug of all time.

The pill single-handedly killed the snake oil industry of advertising hucksters who were peddling an array of phony remedies, most of which turned out to be cleverly packaged opium or alcohol. For example, Mrs. Winslows Soothing Syrup and Hoopers Anodyne, the Infants Friend were opium-based products administered to kids.

The Bayer scientists who invented Aspirin developed another drug that quickly became a corporate priority: Heroin.

According to Essex, who was CEO of creative advertising powerhouse Droga5, Heroin made its debut at the 1898 annual Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians, presented as a synthetic cough medicine that was ten times more effective than available folk remedies.

Bayer produced more than a ton of Heroin within a year, and sold the stuff in 23 countries. By 1900, Heroin, driven by intensive advertising, was Bayers No. 1 product. One of its creators bemoaned Bayers mistake of making it so cheap for consumers.

Available in lozenges, salts and pastilles, Heroin was considered extremely respectable. Much of that respectability was the result of its sober advertising, wrote Essex. Indeed, one might call it a patina of sincerity, science, and progress, very much the same tone of authenticity perfected by the good people of Procter & Gamble, the brains behind Ivory Soap, which put modern consumer package advertising on the map.

Bayer targeted physicians, which led to hundreds of favorable clinical papers, a form of advertising that would be reprinted in myriad newspapers and magazines.

The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal gushed: Heroin possesses many advantages. Its not hypnotic and theres no danger of acquiring a habit.

After a decade or so, American officials become concerned with the nations growing drug problem. Synthetic drugs from fancy German factories which were once given a pass, went under scrutiny.

In 1912, The Hague Opium Convention called for the control of all narcotics, including Heroin. Two years later, The Harrison Act kicked off the War on Drugs in the US. Bayers Heroin was the first casualty.

Bayer has been writing Heroin out of its corporate history. Any mention of the worlds most notorious controlled substance has been thoroughly redacted from the companys record, wrote Essex. Bayer simply refuses to acknowledge its role in Heroins paternity, even in passing. If success has many fathers, then Heroin is an orphan.

The Heroin brand though has never been stronger. Which proves that advertising comes in many forms, and in many qualities, but nothing works quite like world of mouth and a strong brand name, wrote Essex.

Once sold as a legitimate drug and alternative to bad medicines, Heroin morphed into a universally infamous icon whose unrivaled pain-killing properties have generated billions of dollars in illicit revenue and millions of broken hearts and busted lives, wrote Essex.

"The End of Advertising" is an insightful read of where advertising was and where it must go to survive in our ad-free future that Essex believes will begin in five minutes or 50 years from now.
Two out of every five employees  or 40 percent  characterize themselves as disengaged from their current job. Whats worse, that level of workplace detachment appears pervasive across generations  from Gen Z and Millennials to Gen X and Boomers  as well as job title. But depending on what stage employees find themselves in their career, staffers expressed varying traits they believe contribute to their engagement at the workplace, according to key findings in a new research report commissioned by Padilla that sheds some light on how employee engagement affects the workforce in every area from staff retention to earnings.

The study, titled Beyond Ages: Engaging Employees at all Career Stages, analyzed employees across varying stages in their career in a bid to understand what motivates them and how those preferences differ depending on how long employees have been on the job.

The studys findings suggest that where an employee finds him/herself in the course of their career may be a far more accurate indicator in determining what engages them at the job, as opposed to mere age or even title.

Padilla defined employees across four key career stages: Newbie, Sophomore, Tenured and Sage. For the Newbie demographic, or those whove have been with a company for three years or less, the study found that the top motivator for a majority of this group  59 percent  is the prospect of learning new skills or gaining new knowledge. Funding for life priorities and saving for retirement were seen as top challenges for members of this demographic.

In regards to the Sophomore group, or those whove have been with a company between four and seven years, good performance was cited by 63 percent as a top motivator. The study found that nearly a third of this demographic  29 percent  also said they fear getting stuck or not feeling challenged enough.

For the Tenured demographic, or employees whove have been at the company between eight and 10 years, 58 percent said a top motivator involves contributing to the companys overall goals. Saving for retirement was cited as a top challenge.

Finally, theres the Sage stage, or those whove been with a company for 11 years or more. A clear majority of this demographic  63 percent  said feeling pride in having accomplished a task was a top motivator.

On the other hand, the study also discovered some universal agreement regarding what values employees ranked as the top drivers of engagement, regardless of their age or where they find themselves in their career.

A workplace that treats all employees fairly and with respect, regardless of employees position or level, took the highest average importance rating, at 8.6 out of 10. Employers that genuinely care about the health and well-being of their staff and workplaces that promote a positive culture were also rated highly by employees across all career stages.

Employees also said they widely prefer financial incentives in the form of employee rewards as opposed to mere recognition for their efforts.

The study, which was conducted by market research firm SMS Research Advisors, polled 1,500 workforce professionals in August of varying ages and across industry and staff positions.


Kimberley Fritts

Podesta Group CEO Kimberley Fritts is leaving the embattled DC firm to launch her own shop.

The departure follows the Oct. 30 exit of PG founder and well-connected Democrat Tony Podesta in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his right-hand man Rick Gates for violating foreign lobbying laws.

PG had worked for European Centre for a Modern Ukraine in a PR push that was organized by Manafort.

The firm maintains it fully disclosed its representation of ECFMU and complied with FARA filing regulations five years ago within weeks of starting its work. Any insinuation to the contrary is false, a spokesperson told O'Dwyer's.

Fritts was expected to relaunch PG under a new brand, but told staffers yesterday of her plan to leave, according to a report in Politico.

She joined PG in 1995 as a veteran in Republican politics. Fritts had served as southern political director for the Republican National Committee, deputy campaign manager to Florida's former governor Jeb Bush and political director for former Florida senator Connie Mack.
The natural experiment in girls education came in 1990, as a result of an article that journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote about a 13-year-old in Yejuao, China.

Its a story that helped to launch Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, on a path toward advocating for women around the world, and one the two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists recounted at Girls Inc.s Lunch for the Girls event on Thursday.

To the crowd of more than 600, WuDunn remembered Dai Manju, the young girl who dropped out of school because her parents couldnt afford the $13-a-year-tuition. In the small mountain-side village of mud huts, that was a large sum, particularly to spend on a daughter.

Laid out in the pages of the New York Times, Dai Manjus story prompted readers to send in donations that allowed the young girl and many others in her village to attend school.

Dai Manju graduated from high school, attended a trade school and landed a job as an accountant in a factory, becoming the first in her family to earn a degree and receive a paycheck.

Like many of her peers, Dai Manju began sending part of that paycheck back to her family, lifting them out of extreme poverty.

In that region, this village stood out because it educated its girls, WuDunn said, explaining that educating a young female can mean changing a community.

Thats a central theme in Kristof and WuDunns best-selling book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunities for Women Worldwide and one that the couple thanked Girls Inc. for promoting.

Kristof encouraged the audience to stay active in pushing for social change, both locally and abroad.

We psych ourselves out by thinking these are such grand, huge problems that whatever we do is just a drop in the bucket, he said. But the story of Dai Manju is a story that should remind us to keep caring and pushing for progress, Kristof said. Im a great believer in drops in the bucket.

Kristof, who has traveled to more than 150 countries and reported on conflict and genocide, said he often gets asked how he can remain so upbeat.

His reply: Its because side by side with the worst of humanity, invariably youll find the best.

Its a message that 18-year-old Victoria Beauguard said will stick with her. After 15 years in Girls Inc., Beauguard is now at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, studying criminal justice in hopes of attending law school.

As young women, we sometimes dont get invited into conversations about these issues that are hardest to talk about, Beauguard said. Kristof reminded us that those are the discussions we most need to have and that we too can make a drop in the bucket. 
The writer represents Congressional District 2 in the U.S. House.

Every Veterans Day I reflect on my experiences from nearly 30 years as an airman and on my meetings with Nebraska veterans and their families.

Veterans Day is a time for all to recognize the sacrifice veterans and their families make. Evonne and Bill Williams have made an impact in Omahas veteran community and throughout the country. Through their photographic war memorial, Remembering Our Fallen, they honor our fallen heroes from the war on terror, which allows grieving families and Americans across the nation to remember our fallen soldiers legacy.

I was in Washington, D.C., and saw the memorial when it was unveiled. It was an impactful day meeting with the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

When I joined Congress, I knew I had to ensure a commitment of care for our veterans and military families, and I knew it had to be a commitment for life. I have co-sponsored over 20 bills that expand and improve veterans access to health care, ensure accountability within the Department of Veterans Affairs and address other issues facing veterans.

I personally know there is nothing more devastating than knocking on the door of a family who is expecting a loved one to return home safely and telling them it will not happen, or handing an American flag from the coffin of a fallen service member to the family left behind. These families are called Gold Star families.

Having met with many of these families, I have learned there are inconsistencies and gaps in current law. The only provision in law today that defines what it means to be a Gold Star family simply mentions a lapel pin; this is why I introduced H.R. 3897, the Gold Star Family Support and Installation Access Act.

Gold Star families confront many challenges, often made worse by policies that fail to compassionately honor the memory of their loved ones service and sacrifice to the nation.

H.R. 3897 is about commitment  a commitment for life. It gives our service members the peace of mind that if something were to happen to them, their families would be cared for.

A part of this commitment for life is ensuring lifetime access to military installations for Gold Star spouses and children so they can attend memorial services and visit gravesites. It also provides ease of access to other benefits, such as grief counseling, to which they are already entitled.

Sadly, we have learned that base access procedures for these honored families are not always as straightforward and dignified as they should be. Over the last decade, the Army, Navy and Air Force have each established their own independent Gold Star installation access programs.

H.R. 3897 addresses this issue in statute and requires standardization and reciprocity across all military services. If a surviving family relocates, and the nearest installation is from a different branch of service, the family would be able to access the installation. This is a modest but meaningful gesture that extends a small measure of compassion, dignity and respect.

I also learned that when a surviving spouse with dependent children still at home remarries, the spouse loses the ability to use the commissary, exchange and other base morale facilities, even when the dependent children are still entitled to use them. H.R. 3897 fixes this by allowing surviving spouses who remarry to keep these benefits for as long as dependent children of the deceased service member still live at home.

On Tuesday, the Gold Star Family Support Act, with 89 co-sponsors, passed by unanimous consent in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., has introduced the companion bill.

Thank you to our veterans who fight to protect our American values and freedoms, and thank you to their families who sacrifice everything to better our nation.
Do you know where your drone is?

Americans piloted as many as 1.1 million drones last year, federal estimates show, and that number is expected to more than quadruple over the next four years.

This rush to the air comes with particular challenges for governing the skies  protecting both personal safety and national security.

Thats where Federal Aviation Administration rules come in. Federal regulations require pilots to notify a control tower and airport authority when flying drones within five miles of an active airport or airfield. It also prohibits drones from flying within three miles of many military bases, with good reason.

But too many drone pilots are ignoring these FAA rules about flying too close to civilian airfields and military installations, including Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue.

Aerial hobbyists could cause a plane crash, risking lives and property. Drones have caused damage in other cities and have narrowly averted disaster at major airports, including LaGuardia Airport in New York, where a commercial airliner barely missed colliding with a drone at 2,700 feet in 2015.

National security is another concern. In addition to preventing accidents, the military must guard against the potential use of drones for espionage and sabotage.

Security personnel at Offutt Air Force Base recently warned that any drone that violates the bases airspace and puts its people or security at risk would be disabled or destroyed. Civilian air facilities are also taking steps to protect planes and personnel.

All this noise and fury comes down to a basic point. When it comes to drones, think before you fly. No hobbyists should risk someones safety for personal gratification. And if they become careless in the wrong place, their drones might be grounded permanently.
The horrors of violence and war lay bare  raw and deeply personal  before Juan Asensio, MD.

The renowned Creighton University trauma surgeon, who, in his youth, fled Cuba with his family, has made it his mission to save lives, bring about physical healing, and passionately crusade for something even more enduring: peace.

In the 12th century, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, already tasked with defending the Christian faith, was given another sacred charge  the protection of the poor and infirm.

In the intervening 900 years, the Hospitallers, now known as the Order of Malta, continue to regard their position as one aimed at any number of social ills, including war and poverty.

Its a mission that Asensio, a 21st century Knight of Malta, has taken to heart in his role as the CHI Health Creighton University Medical Centers chief of the Division of Trauma Surgery and Surgical Critical Care and a professor in the School of Medicines Department of Surgery.

Asensio has dedicated his life and a career spanning nearly four decades to the most complex issues in surgery under some of the most harrowing circumstances.

As his forebears in the Order of Malta, he has ministered to the grievously wounded in battle. He has worked trauma centers in hospitals where the bloody tableau of gun violence plays out hourly. He has been up to his elbows in a patients chest with no cause for hope and yet he has hoped, all the same.

My job has been to address the most difficult problems known in life, the impossible challenges in surgery, says Asensio, who arrived at Creighton in 2014 after stints in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago, and as a senior distinguished professor of surgery and surgeon with the armed forces at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the closest hospital for treating casualties of the American conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have been blessed by God with a set of talents, and I am using those talents. This is what we do. These are the blessings of God. Our profession is the natural guardian of human rights.

Creighton University offers a top-ranked education in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition. Read more about the university, and connect with Creighton on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The announcement comes a week after the Republicans' disappointing midterm results and will force the party to decide whether to..

euronews (in English) 16 Nov 2022
by  Graham Pierrepoint



Inarguably the Grand-Daddy of all social media  save for MySpace, of course  Facebook has evolved far beyond its initial remits across the years to bring a whole host of different interactive services and features to help family and friends share photos, life events and more. However, recent developments may not sit so easy with privacy campaigners  while the firms data-holding policies may be well-known, many people have actively avoided the platform as they are unsure whether to trust Mark Zuckerberg et al with their personal data. Get ready for a whole new strike to that tally  as a trial scheme looks set to request nude photos from users, even though it has their best interests at heart.

Facebook is currently trialling a scheme in Australia whereby users are encouraged to upload nude photos of themselves  if they are worried about falling victim to a revenge porn scheme. Revenge porn is a relatively new phenomenon which has caused concern globally  it is the act of an ex-partner, oftentimes, uploading nude photos of their exes without their consent  with the aim of publicly shaming them. Several cases of revenge porn have gone to court  and sensitive photos and data have been used multiple times in blackmail cases, too.

Facebook, therefore, is attempting to get in on the revenge porn backlash by allowing you to upload a nude photo to act as something of a hash or a fingerprint  so that your body and profile can effectively be recognized should anyone post obscene imagery of you anywhere on-site. Facebook already bans explicit and nude imagery outright  but there are hopes that this new system  or should that be nude system  will help to counteract revenge porn and photo shaming ahead of traditional reporting.

While the networks intentions may be honorable, their techniques may not sit too comfortably with those who are already worried about Facebook holding too much information on them. Revenge porn is already banned in some countries, with the UK offering up to a two-year jail sentence if a perpetrator is found guilty. How many people  however  will feel truly comfortable in uploading their most personal photos to Facebook to act as a preventative measure? Whos to say  but if youre already careful about the information the big F holds on you, you may not wish to take part. Its a pilot scheme for now  lets see where it goes!
The Hollywood Reporter 11 Apr 2022

The disgraced comedian won best comedy album for 'Sincerely Louis CK,' his first special since 2017, when multiple sexual..
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Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Mubadala Investment Company will join CDC International Capital in direct investments alongside sovereign wealth funds, and Bpifrance, in a new investment vehicle aimed at private and direct investments in the French economy.

Mubadala Investment Company is the Abu Dhabi-based strategic investment vehicle. CDC International Capital and Bpifrance are affiliated with Caisse des Dpts Group and the French government.

Signed during President Macron's recent official visit to Abu Dhabi, the objective of the partnership is to invest up to one billion Euros in co-investments and technology investments. The co-investment program, known as the Franco-Emirati Fund, which was launched by CDC International Capital and Mubadala in 2014 to support the development of French companies within a proven growth potential, will be increased by 500 billion Euros. FEF has already committed nearly 300 million Euros through long-term investments in healthcare, education, elderly care and real estate.

Bpifrance and Mubadala will also invest up to 500 million Euros in startups and more mature technology companies through both direct investments and venture capital funds. The program will focus on information and communication technologies, biotech, green tech and other fast-rising technology sectors.

"We see France as a significant growth market, in both established and new enterprises. We want to build on our successful partnership by expan......................

To view our full article Click here
Opalesque Industry Update - Neuberger Berman, a global, independent, employee-owned investment manager, further enhanced its quantitative investment capabilities announcing that Ram Ramaswamy has joined as Managing Director, Head of Investment Solutions for the Neuberger Berman Breton Hill team. Using the Neuberger Berman Breton Hill research platform, Mr. Ramaswamy will develop portfolio insights and assist clients by providing thoughtful and innovative investment solutions. He will work closely with institutional and high net worth clients, globally, to help them think through and realize their investment objectives. Prior to this role, Mr. Ramaswamy spent 16 years at Goldman Sachs Asset Management in the Alternative Investments and Manager Selection group. He has an MBA from The Wharton School. The Neuberger Berman Breton Hill team, based in Toronto, Canada, utilizes rigorous quantitative research and proprietary technology infrastructure informed by deep capital markets experience. Neuberger Berman Breton Hill's investment solutions range across the risk and return spectrum, with a focus on alternative risk premia and investment solutions spanning equities, currencies, commodities and rates. The group manages capital for a diverse investor base comprised of institutions, ultra-high net worth individuals and retail investors across various vehicles. The team manages approximately $2 billion in quantitative strategies and has 15 investment professionals. Ray Carroll, Chief Investment Officer, Neuberger Berman Breton Hill, commented "Success in quantitative investing requires the best investment professionals. We look forward to Ram driving client solutions through his deep understanding of quantitative investing. We will continue to build the team as we strive to produce the best investment outcomes for our clients."
The U.S. Justice Department has sued the largest foreclosure trustee in the Pacific Northwest, claiming it illegally foreclosed on at least 28 military members or veterans in the past six years.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle was prompted by the case of Jacob McGreevey, a longtime Marine who lost his Vancouver home to foreclosure between his third and fourth tours of duty in the Middle East.

The federal lawsuit comes six months after The Oregonian/OregonLive chronicled McGreevey's legal fight against his former lender. At the time, the Justice Department sided with the bank.

Now, in a marked reversal, the U.S. Department of Justice has accused Bellevue, Washington-based Northwest Trustee Services of repeatedly ignoring the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, an obscure and often overlooked federal law intended to protect members of the military from foreclosure and other collections efforts while they're on active duty.

With Northwest Trustee's help, PHH Mortgage of New Jersey repossessed McGreevey's house in 2010.

The Department of Justice alleges that Northwest Trustee checked a federal database to see whether McGreevey was protected due to his service. It proceeded with the foreclosure anyway.

No charges have been filed against PHH.

"The loss of a home is a devastating blow for anyone  but far worse for active duty service members often called to war zones," said Annette Hayes, U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Washington.

"Our investigation revealed that Northwest Trustee Services repeatedly failed to comply with laws that are meant to ensure our servicemembers do not have to fight a two-front war  one on behalf of all of us, and the other against illegal foreclosures."

Sean Riddell, McGreevey's Portland lawyer and a Marine who served for a time as McGreevey's commanding officer in Iraq and still serves in the reserves, offered a less diplomatic view. "I want Northwest Trustee and PHH put out of business, their buildings burned down and the ground salted so that nothing ever grows for what they did to veterans," he said.

Northwest Trustee did not return phone calls and emails seeking comment. It emerged as the region's dominant foreclosure mill law firm during the Great Recession of 2008-2010. In a 2012 interview, CEO Stephen Routh said Northwest Trustee was handling 48,000 foreclosures a year.

The Justice Department did not release the names on the foreclosure list, other than McGreevey's. But it's likely to include other potential victims from the region. Oregon is part of Northwest Trustee's territory.

McGreevey and Riddell have fought a so-far unsuccessful legal fight against PHH and Northwest Trustee. A district court judge threw out McGreevey's lawsuit last December, agreeing with the defendants that he'd waited too long to file the action.

McGreevey appealed and the case is currently pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

McGreevey was in Fallujah in Iraq's "bloody triangle" during the surge. Altogether, he served four tours in either Iraq or Afghanistan. In between deployments, McGreevey would return to Vancouver, where he bought a house on Northeast 24th Court. But he fell behind on payments.

PHH Mortgage repossessed his house in June 2010. Knowing next to nothing about the consumer protections afforded him as a member of the military, McGreevey didn't contest it. The foreclosure became final the following September.

McGreevey had advanced from private to staff sergeant by the time his final deployment ended in 2012. Though diagnosed 80 percent disabled with post-traumatic stress syndrome, hearing loss and a back injury, he set about reinventing himself for civilian life. He earned a business degree from Portland State University and got a job at a bank.

That's when he learned about consumer protection laws, including the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. He got on the phone and asked Riddell for help.

The Department of Justice is seeking monetary damages from Northwest Trustee. If it wins, the proceeds could be shared with McGreevey and the 27 others, federal officials said.

In other recent cases involving similar violations against veterans, the Justice Department secured settlements that returned about $125,000 per victim.

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects military members by suspending or modifying certain civil obligations. The law prohibits foreclosures while they are on active duty and one year thereafter without a court order.

The Justice Department launched its investigation after McGreevey and Riddell submitted a written complaint in May 2016.

As currently written, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act does not have a statute of limitations. That forces judges to look to the closest analogous state law to determine which time limit should apply. The judge in McGreevey's case ruled that the deadline in Washington state is four years after the collection action, which meant that McGreevey filed his case too late.

Last May, U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Oregon, introduced legislation that would have lengthened the statute of limitations for veterans to file Servicemembers Civil Relief Act cases.

The legislation went nowhere in the Republican-controlled House.

-- Jeff Manning

503-294-7606, jmanning@oregonian.com
Portland Public Schools is finally ready to hire the person who is supposed to fix how Oregon's largest school district responds to sexual misconduct.

The district posted a detailed job description this week. It invited applicants who think they can "lead the district toward eliminating discrimination" on the basis of sex to apply.

The job posting lays out sweeping expectations, including effective anti-harassment training, better tracking of complaints, prompt investigations and protection for those who report misconduct.

Action to hire that employee is one of several signs of momentum from a school district beset by setbacks.

Only a month into new Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero's tenure, hiring for long-vacant positions is moving at a quicker clip. A new human resources director started in September. And this week Guerrero also announced an organizational overhaul intended to beef up attention on academics: he'll add a deputy superintendent for instruction and school communities.

All U.S. school districts must have a designated employee  ideally full-time in a district Portland's size  to oversee sexual misconduct investigations, track complaints, and train employees on the federal law that protects against sexual harassment and discrimination. The job is called Title IX coordinator. But Portland has historically sent people with sexual misconduct complaints to an untrained employee who filled the role in an unofficial capacity.

Portland Public Schools leaders said as early as April that changes needed to improve the district's handling of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct would hinge largely on an official full-time Title IX coordinator. So why did it take so long to post the job?

District officials attribute delays to upheaval. Hiring of a permanent superintendent went awry in May when the board's preferred finalist didn't pan out. The district lost its human resources chief, its top lawyer and the lawyer who'd coordinated the proposed change in Title IX policies to other employers. Replacing them took months.

Still, the urgent need for a qualified anti-harassment coordinator was evident.

School board member Amy Kohnstamm said in April that she hoped to pass the new harassment policy before or soon after the graduation of Annabelle Schwartz. Schwartz, then a Cleveland High student, called out the need for change and worked with district officials to craft new procedures.

But Schwartz will soon wrap up her first semester of college, and a new policy has yet to be passed.

The need for change was also illuminated by an Oregonian/OregonLive investigation, published in August, that revealed the ways in which district leaders and practices helped educator Mitch Whitehurst evade allegations of sexual misconduct.

In response, the school board hired a hand-picked team of independent investigators to examine how the district handled Whitehurst with an eye toward policy change.

The long-awaited policy still isn't done or even ready for public review.

School district lawyer Stephanie Harper recommended in August that board members kick back the sexual harassment policy district officials drafted to a board committee so there could be "a good vibrant discussion" around how to prevent and stop harassment and also to ensure policies protect gender-nonconforming students.

Another reason to slow down, she said, was that the new Title IX coordinator should have a role in the changes.

From college, Schwartz wrote to the school board in October that the issues Harper brought up were important points of discussion.

"I in no way want to say that these issues with our proposal are not valid, but I have to ask: Why hasn't this work been done?" Schwartz wrote. "It has been two months since these concerns were presented to the board. Why hasn't a full-time Title IX coordinator been hired? What is happening to students while we move this conversation to the back burner?"

Harper, who had become the district point person on these efforts, quit in October.

Kohnstamm said staff needs more time to work on the policy before her board committee looks at it.

"This has certainly moved more slowly that I would have liked, but it's important to get it right," Kohnstamm told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "I'm hoping we can get that done by the end of this month."

There is no application deadline for people wishing to become the district's Title IX coordinator. The job is open "until filled," the posting says.

Note: Due to an editing error, this story originally said the district also hired a new communications chief in recent months. It has been updated to remove that inaccuracy.

 Bethany Barnes

Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com
The firing of Portland Public Schools' deputy chief executive officer comes on the heels of a significant setback in the district's plan to fix inequities in Oregon's largest school district.

Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero hasn't said why he axed his second-in-command. A district spokesman released a statement that Yousef Awwad was an at-will employee and didn't fit with the new leader's vision.

In recent weeks, Guerrero was forced to announce that information Awwad provided about potential health hazards at Harriet Tubman  one of two middle schools slated to open next school year  wasn't reliable.

At an Oct. 16 meeting  Guerrero's second week on the job  school board members asked Awwad if people should be worried about the environmental safety of the school.

"We have no concerns about the air quality in Tubman," Awwad responded. "That's the answer."

But the school board lost confidence in those assurances.

The next school board meeting, which was supposed to be a jubilant celebration of the vote to open the schools, was anything but joyous. Instead, on Oct. 24, Guerrero broke the news that testing was needed and the community should be prepared to learn that Tubman might not be a viable site after all. He told the public they may be the dark about the future of the school for some time.

"We don't know what we don't know," Guerrero said.

Frustrations from the board were clear: They'd been told by Awwad they did know  and now they had to tell their constituents that wasn't true.

School board vice-chair Rita Moore said at the meeting she felt she had to personally apologize as a result.

"I was either misinformed or misunderstood and I passed along incorrect information," she said.

District spokesman Dave Northfield said in a text message the breakdown in the plans for Tubman had nothing to do with Awwad's ousting.

Awwad was not the district's environmental health officer. But he oversaw that position and was the top-ranking administrator responsible for school facilities and had known since spring 2016 that serious safety hazards were a reality in the district's aging schools. The cover up of lead in drinking water results helped lead to the firing of two key facilities officials and the departure of Superintendent Carole Smith. Awwad was the chief financial officer at that time and was then tapped to take on more leadership as someone respected and uninvolved in the scandal.

To applause, Moore said she wished Tubman's potential health issues had been given a deeper look when they first arose.

"I think we ought to look at how'd we get here," she said. "How come these issues weren't surfaced long before now?"

The news was especially painful as it wasn't the first delay North and Northeast Portland parents and students have suffered. Last fall, Interim Superintendent Bob McKean, with Awwad at his side, announced the opening of Tubman and Roseway Heights as middle schools would be moved to the 2018-2019 school year instead of the 2017-2018 school year because of competing district priorities.

The glacial pace is maddening for the community, which is tired of drawn-out promises that the district will act to correct deep unfairness in the system that disproportionately hurts low-income children and children of color. The district concluded years ago that K-8 schools on the eastside suffer from small enrollments in the middle grades, which keep them under-resourced. Fewer students translate to fewer programs, a problem that doesn't similarly affect the district's middle schools.

Tubman, in particular, is a sore spot because of the historical importance of the school in the black community, which has long been denied equitable treatment.

Awwad made a name for himself in the district as a force of competence and steadiness in the aftermath of the lead scandal and the revelation that a host of hazards plagued Portland's old school buildings. Awwad drew praise as someone who helped put the district back on track.

Awwad blames his firing on the fact that he dared challenge a school board's investigation into his conduct. Awwad says he was illegally investigated for a romantic relationship with a coworker. Awwad said the investigation cleared him and he'd been told the district planned to a statement that praised him, removed the specter of misconduct and expressed a hope he'd be with the district for years to come. But he began contesting how the board went about the investigation and instead of praise he was shown the door, according to Awwad.

Awwad argues the investigation was illegal because it wasn't voted on publicly. In addition, he said, the district's rule on workplace dating only pertains to relationships between managers and employees they directly supervise. Awwad was not the direct boss of his girlfriend. He did approve a raise for her while interim superintendent, but said his signature was a formality. Many employees got the same raises and human resources did the decision-making, he said.

He said the school board's investigator agreed he was in the clear. The district held confidential meeting to discuss the personnel investigation but has not said anything about the findings. Nor has the disrtrict responded to The Oregonian/OregonLive's months-old public records request for the contract for that investigation.

School board chair Julia Brim-Edwards has said in a statement Thursday evening the board had nothing to do with Awwad's firing.

It's not unusual for new superintendents to clean house and bring in their own hires for senior leadership roles that require shared trust and vision. Power dynamics may have been strained considering Awwad had been keeping the superintendent seat warm for the new leader from July to October.

Awwad was quick Thursday to say he plans to sue. That makes it unlikely Guerrero will be more forth-coming about why he ousted Awwad.

 Bethany Barnes

Got a tip about Portland Public Schools? Email Bethany: bbarnes@oregonian.com
A Forest Grove man found guilty of trying to kill his estranged wife and her boyfriend by detonating a pipe bomb was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years in prison.

Timothy Holycross

Timothy Holycross, 57, also was ordered by Washington County Circuit Judge Beth Roberts to participate in domestic violence and substance abuse treatment programs and stay away from his now ex-wife, Renee Giacomini, her boyfriend, Scott Brown, and others while undergoing three years of post-prison supervision.

A Washington County jury on Oct. 20 found Holycross guilty of attempted murder, first-degree arson, unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, first-degree criminal mischief, unlawful possession of a firearm, stalking and violating a court's stalking protective order.

The explosion occurred May 19 outside Brown's apartment in the 2200 block of Kingwood Street shortly after 1:20 a.m. No one was injuring in the blast, which sent shrapnel as far away as 225 feet and damaged the siding of the apartment, according to a search warrant affidavit. Police said the pipe bomb was placed near the home then detonated.

Holycross denied involvement when interviewed by investigators the day of the incident and again when arrested in June, the affidavit said. He admitted to buying an eight-inch pipe and end caps from an ACE hardware store in Forest Grove about a week before the explosion. Investigators determined the same parts matched the items used to make the pipe bomb.

Washington County Deputy District Attorney Mark Richmond recommended Holycross receive a prison sentence ranging from 15 to 20 years. Factors included his public attempt to kill Giacomini, the blast putting the lives of others at risk and other evidence, including Holycross continuing to stalk Giacomini despite a previous court order and an arrest for violating the order.

"The premeditated nature of this crime, his lack of remorse, and continued stalking and threatening behavior show that there is little basis from which we can form a hope that he will be rehabilitated and not serve as a threat to the victims or the community," Richman wrote in a sentencing memo.

Defense attorneys Ted Occhialino and Francis Gieringer said there's no witnesses, fingerprints or any other direct evidence that shows Holycross created and detonated the pipe bomb, and that he maintains his innocence after the jury verdict.

Holycross is in poor health after past strokes and a heart attack, they said. Occhialino and Gieringer asked for Holycross to be given a 10-year sentence and noted he may still die in prison under that scenario. They described their proposal as "humane" and "just punishment."

"This sentence allows Mr. Holycross to be punished, and ensures that even if he does survive his 10 years in prison, he is unlikely to be a threat to others or a risk to reoffend," the attorneys said in a sentencing memo.

Giacomini told police after the explosion she suspected Holycross was involved, the search warrant affidavit said. Giacomini said she called one of Holycross' neighbors, who told her Holycross came home about 15 minutes after the explosion. She also referenced Facebook posts he wrote at the time about her and her boyfriend, the affidavit said.

About three hours before the explosion, Holycross wrote "what do you call a person that messesaround with another mans wife call them SCOTT BROWN I call them dead meat. You will get whats comeing to you scott karma on its way."

Giacomini told investigators she had recently ended her 37-year marriage with Holycross because he used and sold drugs and couldn't keep "any legitimate employment," the affidavit said. She said she talked about her martial problems with Brown, who was a mutual friend of the married couple.

She said she left Holycross in January and began dating Brown that May, and Holycross had recently learned of their relationship, according to the court documents. She said she lived with her sister in Corvallis when she moved out of their home, but Holycross drove there several times uninvited and sent her more than 600 emails.

She was granted a stalking order against Holycross in Benton County in April. She said she had called Forest Grove police two days before the bombing, saying she saw Holycross riding a bike and later driving a car past Brown's home while she was there.

Giacomini and Brown reported the next day seeing Holycross watching Brown's home from across the street while sitting on a bench in a park. A Forest Grove officer found Holycross at the park near Brown's home and told him to stay at least 100 feet away from Giacomini, the affidavit said.

When interviewed by investigators after the explosion, Holycross said he was at home the whole time and had "cried himself to sleep" hours before the blast, the affidavit said.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
Friday 10 November 2017 12:49pm



L-R: Dr Su Young Han, Prof Allan Herbison, Dr Jenny Clarkson.

Crucial new information about how the brain controls fertility has been unlocked by University of Otago researchers, with their findings just published in prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).



Professor Allan Herbison, Director, Centre for Neuroendocrinology in Otagos Department of Physiology, says it is little known that the brain controls fertility, by first controlling the pituitary gland, which in turn controls the ovaries in females and testes in males.



The brain does that by generating pulses of hormone secretion in the blood about once every hour, in both males and females, which then goes down and tells the ovary or the testis what to do. Since the discovery of pulsatile hormone secretion over 40 years ago one of the key challenges in this field has been to understand how the brain actually generates these pulses, he says.



Professor Herbison and his principal co-authors Dr Jenny Clarkson and Dr Su Young Han have identified a group of about 2000 kisspeptin neurons in the brain's hypothalamus that synchronise their activity to generate the hormonal pulse, a discovery which has important implications for better understanding and manipulating fertility.



Women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), affecting about 5% of all reproductively aged women, have pulses that occur too fast, often leaving them infertile. On the other hand, women who are not generating pulses of hormone or the pulses are too slow have a condition called hypothalamic amenorrhoea, also leaving them infertile.



It turns out that these cells in the brain making kisspeptin are the pulse generator. So having identified them, this means that we can now go in and start manipulating kisspeptin receptors to control the pulses.



Professor Herbison says while there are kisspeptin neurons in different places through the brain, it is the kisspeptin neurons in this particular part of the hypothalamus which, every hour or so, synchronise their activity and send out a signal that generates the pulse of hormone secretion.



"We don't yet know anything about how they actually manage to synchronise their activity, so that is where our research is heading. The more detail we can find about the mechanisms involved, the more chance we have of manipulating them to generate or stop synchronization."



The research has been described as a "landmark study" by Professor Stafford Lightman from the University of Bristol, UK. He is the President of the British Neuroscience Association and a world authority on how pulses of hormones are generated in the bloodstream.



The site of the brains pulse generator that controls the whole cascade of reproductive hormones essential for sexual function and fertility has been a holy grail of neuroendocrinologists for the last 40 years, he says.



This is a landmark study and opens the way to develop new therapeutic strategies to help regulate fertility in clinical medicine.



Major funding for the study was provided by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC). Chief Executive Professor Kathryn McPherson has welcomed the insights Professor Herbison and his colleagues have provided.



This research shines a bit more light on how crucial our brains are for controlling all of our functioning  including fertility  something we tend to take for granted until it doesnt happen. It also highlights that our researchers must often spend years at the lab bench to drive forward new treatments in the real world.



The HRC is delighted the research grant to Professor Herbison and team has produced fascinating insights to the brains function and new opportunities to help people confronting fertility issues.

For further information, contact:



Professor Allan Herbison

Email: allan.herbison@otago.ac.nz
To the editor:

I recently visited Rep. John Moolenaars office in downtown Midland to discuss so-called tax reform. At the office I was met by one of his people. The first thing I asked was the congressmans position on the Republican plan to raise the taxes on the middle class through the elimination of the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes, which includes the state income tax and local property taxes. The infuriating response was I dont know, the congressman has no position.

This is so typical. Every time I ask his position before a vote, all I hear is the congressman has no position. Then he votes every time against the interests of his constituents in Midland. Meanwhile, the Republican congressmen in New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other states have taken a position against this tax increase on the middle class.

Get a backbone John and admit to your constituents that you dont stand with them. Admit that you stand with the wealthy elites in the Republican Party who plan to give a massive tax cut to the top 1 percent and pay for it by raising taxes on the middle class, cutting Medicare, Medicaid and other safety net programs.

To the people of Midland, it is time you pay attention to the damage Moolenaar is doing to our country. Wake up Midland.

GREG MAYVILLE

Midland
NORMAL  KBL Design Center will be closing its Normal showroom and consolidating its operations at its retail location in Peoria.

The showroom featuring bath and kitchen selections at 107 Mall Drive will close in January, the company announced Friday.

Unfortunately, retail and economic realities, especially in Central Illinois, have changed dramatically in recent years, forcing us to consolidate our operations into our Peoria location," Walter Zich, president and CEO of KBL, said in a statement.

"We will focus on growing our sales to Central Illinois contractors, electricians and designers by hiring additional outside sales consultants, he added.

A store consolidation sale will start Nov. 17, allowing KBL to sell off inventory from both its retail locations and its discount center located in Edwards near Peoria.

At the same time, KBL will be rolling out KBL Surfaces that will be located next to the discount center in Edwards. KBL Surfaces will offer floor coverings, counter tops, custom-installed closets and shower systems.

Zich said he hopes that every employee in the Normal store will stay with KBL Design Center, either selling/servicing area contractors in the Twin City market, or working at the Peoria store, where it has been since 1986.
BLOOMINGTON  A Chicago man remains in the McLean County jail after allegedly resisting arrest and pushing Hudson Police Chief Dale Sparks to the ground on Tuesday.

Robert Mabbott, 50, was charged Thursday with two counts of aggravated battery and two counts of resisting arrest in McLean County Circuit Court.

Assistant States Attorney David Rossi said in court that Mabbott filed four suspicious documents with a Lincoln bank and indicated he was going to the United Community Bank in Hudson next. Officials from the Lincoln bank informed bank officials in Hudson and when Mabbott showed up, the Hudson Police Department was called.

Rossi told Associate Judge Lee Ann Hill that when Sparks arrived, he approached Mabbott, who pushed Sparks to the floor inside the bank. As Sparks fell, he grabbed Mabbott's leg, Rossi said.

"How is this possible?" Mabbott asked via a video link from the McLean County jail. "I don't understand."

Rossi asked Hill to set bond at $100,000 due to Mabbotts extensive criminal history that includes convictions in Cook and Lake counties, Wisconsin and Las Vegas. Hill agreed; Mabbott must post $10,035 to be released.

He is due in court for arraignment Nov. 17 at 10 a.m.
NORMAL  Standing on the top of uptown's newest building, it's easy to forget how long the site spent as a hole in the ground.

"Quite the view here," said Chris George, development coordinator for developer Tartan Realty Group, looking northwest from the heart of uptown, over the Normal Theater to Manchester Hall. "This is something where, when you get people up here, there's a wow factor. You can't see this on a plan. You have to see it firsthand."

A decade after construction stopped abruptly across the street from what's now Uptown Station, leaving an infamous chasm on the cherished Uptown Circle, it's almost finished again  this time resulting in One Uptown on the Circle, a building with three stories of luxury apartments atop second-floor town offices, a future first-floor restaurant and underground parking.

The town plans to move in starting next week, and residents will follow shortly. George still is promoting the building's 21 rental units to potential residents, with about half currently set to be occupied.

Rents range from $1,650 per month for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit to $4,200 for a three-bedroom, three-bathroom penthouse with a terrace, though both of those are taken. More details are at liveonthecircle.com.

The restaurant, and even a timeline for a reveal, remains unannounced. Promotional materials refer to the eatery as an "American-themed bistro."

The town plans to move engineering, facilities, inspections and planning employees into its space. The offices will open to the public Dec. 4.

That will free up parts of Uptown Station, which will be used for communications offices; the City Hall annex, which will be used for parks and recreation storage; and the "dentist's office" space at 305 Linden St., which will be unoccupied. The town hopes to demolish the annex to clear space for a new Normal Public Library as part of a future "uptown south" district.

The same night The Pantagraph saw the building, town officials toured as well, looking over not only their newest offices and the apartments above but also a substantial investment of public resources.

The town lent Tartan, the Chicago developer behind Portillo's, The Flats and other local projects, $2.5 million to build the structure; sold the land it sits on for $1; and will pay top-of-the-market rent for office space there for 15 years.

One Uptown on the Circle is phase two of Tartan's plans in uptown, following the Hyatt Place hotel next door, for which the town lent Tartan $5.1 million. The hotel's owners requested a $264,000 tax rebate this summer to make up for poor business that was later withdrawn.

"The (units) up top are just unbelievable, spectacular. They're so cool," said Normal City Manager Mark Peterson.

"As my father used to say, they oughta be (for what) they cost," added Communications Director Dan Irvin with a laugh.
BLOOMINGTON  A relatively stable economy sounds decent unless stability for you means living paycheck to paycheck.

"It seems like, while the economy seems to be chugging along fairly well, a lot of people are struggling day to day, living paycheck to paycheck to meet their basic needs," said Major Gary Felton of The Salvation Army of McLean County. "Christmas is a difficult time for a lot of families."

That's why this year's Salvation Army Make A Difference campaign  including the Red Kettle campaign and donations by mail and online  is as important as ever, Felton said.

Felton spoke with The Pantagraph after Friday's campaign kickoff at The Salvation Army, 611 W. Washington St., Bloomington. About 50 people attended the event, where Bob and Julie Dobski of Bloomington were announced as honorary campaign chairs.

The Dobskis announced a campaign goal of $515,000. Felton and Lt. Edward Williams hope to collect $255,000 from the Red Kettles and $260,000 through mail and online contributions.

"There is a major need in this community for people who don't have a traditional family unit," Bob Dobski said. "They can have family with The Salvation Army."

Last year's campaign raised a record high $529,689  $253,696 in the Red Kettles and $276,001.97 from mail and online appeals and other gifts.

"This is our biggest fundraiser of the year," Felton said. "If we don't make our goal, it will be difficult for us to provide services not only during the Christmas season but year-round."

Make A Difference campaign donations account for nearly one third of The Salvation Army of McLean County's yearly operating budget of $1.8 million. Donations support programs, including Safe Harbor homeless shelter, food pantry, case management to help people out of poverty and an after-school program.

Last Christmas, The Salvation Army distributed 1,200 food baskets. Throughout 2016, 500 men and women were sheltered at Safe Harbor, more than 50,000 meals were served there and more than 2,500 households received food from the food pantry, Felton said.

"We anticipate similar numbers this year," he said.

Twenty-five Red Kettles are going up at stores throughout Bloomington-Normal. Kettles are scheduled to be up 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, with the exception of Thanksgiving, through Dec. 23.

The Dobskis urged McLean County residents to go to www.ringbells.org and click on "Bloomington" or call 309-829-9476, ext. 204, to sign up to be volunteer bell ringers.

The Dobskis  co-owners of Little Jewels Learning Center and former co-owners of McDonald's in Bloomington-Normal, McLean and Gibson City  are part of a group who have prepared and served a meal at Safe Harbor once a month for the past 20 years and organized McDonald's managers to be bell ringers in the past.

"People should give because they have an opportunity to give to something that truly can make a difference in our community," said Williams.
BLOOMINGTON  Gov. Bruce Rauner understands what Normal is going through in raising property taxes to pay for pension costs, but he said he can't support a council member's suggested solution.

After voting for a 6.38 percent property tax increase Monday to cover employee pensions, Kevin McCarthy asked aggrieved residents to call their state lawmakers about a provision requiring municipalities to catch up on pension payments by 2040  but Rauner thinks that law should stay.

"We've done what they're (town officials) saying in Illinois for decades, and that's created the ... $150 billion liability we're dealing with today that's crushing our budget," he told The Pantagraph.

The Republican pointed to restructuring pensions and reducing overlapping units of government as better solutions to what ails municipalities like Normal and McLean County, which are cutting employees and expenses in response to declining funding from the state and local sales and income tax losses.

"If we could shrink that bureaucracy, it would free up money to go to a municipality or a school district while also allowing property taxes to be saved. It's a win-win," Rauner said.

Rauner discussed that issue during an interview at CJ's Restaurant in Bloomington. The Winnetka businessman is running for re-election in 2018 against several Democrats and a Republican challenger.

He stopped in town to attend an event for state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, the Senate minority leader.

Of whether residents can expect another state budget impasse  Illinois went two years without a spending plan, wreaking havoc on local social service agencies  Rauner laid the blame on House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat who passed budgets for decades under other governors.

The governor's office has said the budget still is $1 billion or more out of balance despite an income tax hike, though other officials have challenged that. They don't dispute that the state has nearly $17 billion in unpaid bills.

"All I said was, 'Let's have a balanced budget,'" Rauner said. "This is unsustainable."

Rauner also lauded congressional Republicans' tax reform plan despite the possibility of ending a federal tax deduction for state and local taxes paid by residents, which would especially hurt residents of high-tax states like Illinois. The plan is intended as a broad tax cut but could hurt the middle class.

"What I do believe would be good is to have lower rates and reduce the tax burden on working families and businesses, there's no question. Our taxes are too high at the federal level, and they're too high at the state level," he said.

Rauner affirmed his opposition to a progressive income tax, which would charge wealthier residents a higher percentage of their income. The federal government and 34 states have such systems, but Illinois has a flat tax.

"It would push more employers out of the state," he said. "All the changes I'm recommending either bring down growth in government spending, or it helps boost our economic competitiveness to grow more jobs and expand our tax base. Otherwise, we'll never have balanced budgets."
Saturday is Veterans Day, a federal holiday that commemorates and honors every veteran who has served and is serving in America's armed forces.

It has its roots in Armistice Day, the day when world leaders signed the documents to end World War I  at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

Many present-day ceremonies, including Saturday in downtown Bloomington, start at 10:49 a.m., 11 minutes before the actual anniversary. Veterans past and present  from the Revolutionary War to our present-day warriors, are honored and memorialized with speeches, prayers, pride and tears.

It hasn't always been that way.

Ask a Vietnam War veteran how he or she was welcomed home in the early 1970s, and you'll likely get a hard stare as those painful memories are dredged up. This year, Veterans Day recalls the centennial of the beginning of the first World War.

Few are left of the "greatest generation," those who served during World War II. Veterans of more recent wars, conflicts and peacetime service are gradually aging and finding themselves in need of help that can be provided through various veterans' organizations and the Veterans Administration.

Providing that help is a weekly feature, called Veterans Corner, that appears each Monday in The Pantagraph. Coordinated by leaders of local veterans groups, the Q&A format provides quick and easy answers and shares benefit information with veterans and their families.

There are those who believe "veteran" is reserved for people who served in war time, and those who served on hostile ground. We prefer to use the designation to honor all who have served overseas and stateside, in war time and in peace.

Anyone who chooses to wear the uniform and bear arms to serve, protect and defend the United States is worth celebrating, thanking and remembering. We are proud to help give back through our partnership with local veterans' groups to provide Veterans Corner.

But Saturday, on Veterans Day, we ask that you consider attending a Veterans Day ceremony, observing a moment of silence at 11 a.m., shaking a hand of someone in uniform, or just paying silent tribute to those who have served and continue to serve our country.

Earlier this year, our communities mourned the death of Sgt. Josh Rodgers, 22, an Army Ranger who died in Nangarhar Province during a joint operation with Afghan forces. It was his third tour to Afghanistan.

His loss, and all those that came before him, remind us of the freedom protected by all veterans, past and present, who have served our nation.

On behalf of a grateful nation, we offer our heartfelt thanks to all those who have served and are serving in America's armed forces and to their families who selflessly support their efforts.
100 years ago

Nov. 10, 1917: Major upheaval is unfolding in Russia. Moscow has fallen to a rebel group determined to abolish capital punishment but also to arrest and imprison the present regime. Premier Kerensky has fled. The U.S. expects a stable government and stands by Russia.

75 years ago

Nov. 10, 1942: For Armistice Day (now called Veterans Day) tomorrow, there will be a flagpole dedication in Chenoa as part of the ceremonies. In Clinton, businesses will close for 15 minutes while rites are conducted on the public square.

50 years ago

Nov. 10, 1967: Night manager Lyle Braggonier was closing up at Cooks Bi-Rite on South Lee Street. A robber approached and forced him to reopen the store and safe and put all the money in a bag. The robber then forced Braggonier into the basement and fled. Loss may be $1,000.

25 years ago

Nov. 10, 1992: Now that I-39 is open, the El Paso Dairy Queen is closing. Owner Don Gieselman said most of the DQs traffic came from Route 51, and it appears he was right. He said he considered moving the business closer to I-39 but found the cost of land prohibitive.
Last night, Lupita Nyong'o tweeted at British magazine Grazia U.K., saying that she disapproved of the publication's decision to photoshop her hair on its cover to "fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like."

Disappointed that @GraziaUK edited out & smoothed my hair to fit a more Eurocentric notion of what beautiful hair looks like. #dtmh pic.twitter.com/10UUScS7Xo

 Lupita Nyong'o (@Lupita_Nyongo) November 10, 2017

Nyong'o included both the magazine's cover, which shows her hair closely buzzed, and what seemed to be the original photos, in which she has longer hair pulled back in a ponytail. She also posted about the incident on Instagram, expressing her frustration and explaining why the magazine's edit was about more than simply changing her appearance:

"Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style and texture."

As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are. I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style and texture. #dtmh

A post shared by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on Nov 9, 2017 at 6:11pm PST

A post shared by Lupita Nyong'o (@lupitanyongo) on Nov 9, 2017 at 6:11pm PST

Grazia has now apologized "unreservedly," saying in a statement, "Grazia is committed to representing diversity throughout its pages and apologizes unreservedly to Lupita Nyong'o." However, the magazine said they would also "like to make clear" that no one on the staff asked the photographer "for Nyong'o's hair to be altered nor did we alter it ourselves." It is unclear, then, who edited the photo.

Less than a month ago, Solange had to call out The Evening Standard for photoshopping out a significant portion of her braided hairstyle with an Instagram referencing her famous Seat At the Table track, "Don't Touch My Hair."

dtmh @eveningstandardmagazine

A post shared by Solange (@saintrecords) on Oct 19, 2017 at 9:25am PDT

A post shared by Solange (@saintrecords) on Oct 19, 2017 at 9:25am PDT

The magazine apologized, and the writer of the piece publicly disowned the work.

I am publicly disowning the Solange piece London Evening Standard published today. The entire piece was a fiasco despite my efforts.

 Angelica Jade (@angelicabastien) October 19, 2017

This appears to be a lesson that needs to be learned more than once before it sticks.

[h/t Vanity Fair]

Image via BFA
In the summer of 1978, just three weeks after his high school graduation, 18-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer killed the first of his eventual seventeen victims in Bath, Ohio. It was the beginning of Dahmer's career as a serial killer and of his captivation of the American psyche as the Milwaukee Cannibal.



Just a few months before that, though, Dahmer was an American high school senior, albeit a notably awkward and reclusive one. In his final year of school, the lonely teenager with a penchant for doing experiments on animals even found a group of friends who dubbed themselves the "Dahmer Fan Club." Though he went on to live a grisly life as a serial killer of young men, eventually being beaten to death by a fellow inmate in prison in 1994, Dahmer left a strong impression on his ragtag group of friends, undoubtedly made even stronger with the knowledge of the crimes he would later commit.

Director Marc Meyers brought that graphic novel to life with a film by the same name that serves as a disturbing, tense and at times relatable psychological profile of the teenaged serial killer. We spoke with breakout star Ross Lynch, who portrays Dahmer, about transitioning from his previous life as a Disney star on "Austin & Ally" to playing one of the most infamous murderers of all time.

PAPER: How much did you know about Jeffrey Dahmer before getting this role?



ROSS LYNCH: I actually didn't know who he was at all. He died before I was born. When I first heard about the script, I was like, "Hey, there's this script about Jeffrey Dahmer going around." And my dad was like, "You kind of look like him." Which, I was like, "What?" I didn't actually like that fact at first. But I'm kind of okay with it, because I probably wouldn't have gotten the job if I didn't resemble him a little bit. But once you hear about someone like that, you immediately go to Google and read all that you can.



If you just search "Jeffrey Dahmer," you're about to go down a spiral of research and learning about what this guy did. And there's a lot of stuff, obviously, where all the things you read about first are tragic and terrible, disgusting. Because they obviously primarily talk about who he killed and how he killed and how many he killed. Which is terrible. But once you get to interviews and it talks about more the psychological stuff, and sort of how he came to be, which is where our story takes place, all his high school years, all the days leading up to his first kill, is where a lot of the substance of the story is.

PAPER: There's a lot of really detailed, sordid information about the crimes of serial killers out there, but not always as much about their psychology or lives before they became murderers. Were you able to find information about Dahmer the person?

RL: There's a lot of stuff. Dahmer's dad wrote a book, which is interesting. And there's interviews where he basically talks about everything - him and his dad. His mom actually does some interviews too. There's a good amount of material that you can really go pretty heavy into. Really I used a lot of the interviews to get his physicality and to get just a sense of him down. Granted it's him in front of a camera, and Dahmer in front of a camera is very charming and well-spoken and presentable. High school Dahmer wasn't quite that way. You take everything with a grain of salt. I had to dial back and think of him as just a lonely high school kid who's playing with animals in the woods.

PAPER: Did you talk to anyone in his life or anyone who knew him?

RL: The "Dahmer Fan Club" [portrayed in the film], the actual guy that existed came on set quite a bit. And Durst, the author of the book, sat down with me and [director] Mark Meyers before filming. We got to talk a lot about his experience with Dahmer, his experience in high school really and just how their chemistry was and how he acted.

A key question that I had was, what was his eye contact like? Eye contact is very important in how someone thinks of themselves. How comfortable they are. Also his physicality and everything. It was super important to playing this role. Actions speak louder than words, and in this particular story, it's all about what's not being said. We're watching this character -- this kid, rather -- do a downward spiral into losing his humanity and becoming unhinged. His physicality represents that in a large way.

We know he's the Milwaukee Cannibal, the guy that we know to have killed seventeen young men. That's what makes this movie so fascinating, because we're watching his spiral out of control. And we want to step in and stop him. We want to reach into the screen and avoid what's gonna happen. But it's like "Romeo and Juliet," you know what I mean? They're gonna kill each other in the end. There's nothing you can do to stop it. You want to intervene, but you just can't. It leaves you feeling strongly conflicted. It leaves you feeling sad and empathetic for this guy. But you also want to hate him because he's, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer.

PAPER: It must have been a pretty dark head space to be in.

RL: It had its moments for sure.

PAPER: How did you handle that? When you went home at the end of the day, did you feel like it was still with you?

RL: It was definitely. And it's definitely heavier than I usually am [laughs]. But they would put this colored dye in my hair everyday, and when I was in the shower at the end of the day I would watch that come out of my hair and go down the drain and that was my way of shedding Dahmer for the day.

PAPER: It must have been a big transition going from doing stuff for Disney to doing a film like this.

RL: I want to be flexible. I want people to notice that I can do a wide variety of things. That's really where this role fits in. I did Disney Channel and that's a side of me, and I can also do Dahmer and that's a side of me, and I think ultimately people underestimate the layers of human beings. Especially sometimes with actors. I really want to expose that. I want to be that guy that can do anything. Even more than acting, I really just want to explore and do lots of different creative work.

PAPER: Was it conflicting to try and portray him in a somewhat sympathetic light?

RL: Yes and no. Being an actor, rule number one when you're portraying a real person is you can't judge the subject. But I didn't actually have trouble empathizing for Dahmer because he was a teenager. He was a kid. And he was a human being. And yes, everything he was going to do was terribly unfortunate and would've been much better if he didn't do that, obviously, but he's an interesting serial killer because he tried not to. He got into alcohol and he joined the military and he actually tried not to kill anyone. He knew it was wrong but there was something that he just couldn't deny. There was a temptation and a desire and an erotic fantasy that he just couldn't, it just got the best of him.



It's really, above all, a sad story. Everyone left him, and he went on to do the things that he did. It's sad that not even that just society failed him, but that sort of the universe kind of aided in him becoming the serial killer that we know him to be. Because even if his dad were home when he took Stephen Hicks home, for instance, that wouldn't have happened. The fact that he was just left alone. That is a reason. And there's multiple reasons like that that led him down the path. It's just super unfortunate.

PAPER: Dahmer has been portrayed before [by Jeremy Renner in 2002's Dahmer], but with someone like a serial killer or mass murderer it can be difficult portray them without criticism that you're glorifying the story. Did you have any pushback from the victims' families?

RL: I personally don't think we're glorifying a serial killer at all. I think these things happened and obviously are very unfortunate. And there are thousands of people that still mourn the deaths of the victims. But in no way are we glorifying Jeffrey Dahmer at all. It's just a fascinating story and a cautionary tale that maybe we can prevent in the future. These things, they kind of still happen. We still see, and I hate to bring it up so soon, but we still see things like Vegas. And it's just terrible. The movie is a cautionary tale.





My Friend Dahmer is in theaters now.





Images via ID PR
Models, musicians, and more came out for a private dinner at Flower Shop in New York City hosted by PAPER and Burberry. The event was celebrating the iconic British brand's latest collection, bringing in fabulous guests, like PAPER fall cover star Duckie Thot, Michael Fassbender, Skepta, Olivia Culpo, Paloma Elsesser, Violet Chachki, Leigh Lezark and more. Check out the slideshow below for a sneak peek at the intimate evening.

From Your Site Articles Skepta Is the Face of Diesel's Sound of the Brave Fragrance 
Earlier today Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple Acquires a Next-Gen Leader in Quantum Dot Technology and Image Sensors that could Eliminate Sony in iDevices," that provided a little history of TSMC working with InVisage and how Apple may use TSMC to make future image sensors of their own design cutting out Sony.

A quick peek at InVisage's press releases lets you see the kind of technology Apple is inheriting, like specialized cameras for autonomous drones using QuantumFilm camera sensors which would be a great iDevice accessory for photography buffs. Our cover graphic illustrates their depth camera using a dot projection system just like Apple's patent filing that we covered earlier today.

Below is a list of 63 patent applications filed by InVisage. Not shown is InVisage was granted 71 patents, many from the ones listed in the patent applications list. With an overlap, there's probably 100 plus patents that Apple's various teams will be able to work with over time.

The patent figures noted below are from patent application number 20120056289. In patent FIG. 1 you're able to see the markets their technology could apply to includes cameras, sensors, consumer, medical, military, machine vision and beyond.





In one segment the patent notes that "In embodiments, processing techniques may be implemented, such as for spatial differentiation, which could result in a power advantage as well as an improved signal-to-noise advantage. Spatial differentiation may use motion to some advantage, as in the way the human eye utilizes motion in processing the scene. This technique could help compensate for the inherent shaking of a cell phone or a camera, and may help eliminate pattern noise, because pattern noise may not differentiate. Processing may also be performed across the entire array, with a delta-alarm that triggers an increase in sharpness. Processing for edge detection for auto-focus may also be facilitated, with regions determining local sharpness. A direct signal may be fed into a feedback loop to optimize the degree of sharpness. The use of on-chip processing may provide localized processing, allowing for a reduction in power and overall size of a product.

The image above is from the same InVisage patent illustrating a Quantum Dot. Geeks at heart could review this highly technical patent here for the details behind one of InVisage's quantum dot inventions.

Microsoft may get a little paranoid with this acquisition. Microsoft was working with PrimeSense technology for Kinect and Apple acquired the Israeli company. Microsoft just killed Kinect last month. In 2016 InVisage put out a press release stating that the first 2K near-infrared camera module SAM was specifically designed for mobile authentication systems like Windows Hello, expanding the reach of cameras indoors and outdoors with 50 times less system power consumption.

InVisage also had their eye on Hollywood filming which just happens to be an area of interest for Apple, now that they're entering the space of Netflix with a drama series like the one they just signed up for a two year run with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

InVisage signed on oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to their advisory board who was behind films like Gravity and Birdman. At the time, Jess Lee, president and CEO of InVisage stated that "We are honored to have Mr. Lubezki join our advisory board. With Mr. Lubezki's artistic direction, we intend to bridge the gap between Hollywood and advanced nanotechnology, bringing Hollywood quality to QuantumFilm-enabled smartphones and mobile devices."

Apple's acquisition of InVisage is very exciting as iPhone cameras are becoming a key feature to keep their smartphones ahead of the pack. Advancing video will be very exciting to see come to the iPhone and beyond. Between the advances in Quantum Dot technology and depth cameras, they have expertise in many markets that Apple could tap into over time.

In the video below they show a video shot on an iPhone 6 versus their technology to show a dramatic change in stability. Both Samsung and Google have mocked Apple's shaky video compared to their technology and now Apple will be able to use InVisage's technology to kill the competitIon.

InVisage Quantum Film Smartphone Sensor Demo vs. an iPhone Camera Sensor













Here's to hoping that Lytro is on Apple's shopping list for camera technology. But that's a story for another day.





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* * *

(7-5-96)

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The following series of dialogues with leading anti-Catholic apologist Dr. Eric Svendsen, took place on Bishop James Whites Sola Scriptura discussion list, between 27 May and 5 July 1996. Dr. Svendsens words will be in blue ; my older cited words in green .

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I didnt say we need no earthly authorities. Clearly we do, and the NT bears that out.

Good. This would be progress for many Protestants who have anarchical beliefs. Do you have a bishop, then, by the way? If not, why (its certainly biblical)?

But it doesnt teach anything about Romes authority, nor a popes authority, nor apostolic succession.

Not Rome  that comes immediately after the NT period, but is directly apostolic, since Peter and Paul both ended up there and were martyred there  surely not for no reason, in Gods Providence. I have my Peter and the Pope: 50 NT Proofs paper, if youre interested (privately, of course). NT has nothing about the pope, huh? Shows how profound the gap is between us. Very sad. Ive shown how apostolic succession is biblical, too. But apostolic succession also flows from simple common sense and a respect for maintaining all Christian truth undefiled.

My point was that it is a non-sequitur to jump from the NT teaches ecclesial authority to that ecclesial authority must be singular, must be Rome, and must be the pope.

It is not singular, strictly speaking, because it encompasses bishops and councils as well. The pope often acts formally in concert with them (or, at the very least, consults them in every major pronouncement he makes. The Rome factor is apostolic, and was present from the beginning (e.g., St. Clement of Romes letters). The papacy is grounded in Peters extraordinary prerogatives, granted him by Christ,as shown in my paper.

We are not a denomination, but the original New Testament Church.

Many assumptions cloud your perspective: (1) you assume the church is a visible organization (a shell as it werewhich is in contradiction even with your catechism!).

It is visible, but more than that. We hold to the Mystical Body also (which is how we can include you guys, since you deny visibility). I prove visibility in my paper on the Church. Not sure why you use the description shell, nor how you think this contradicts the CATECHISM, which speaks of visibility in, e.g., #815, under the category The Church is One.

(2) that apostolic succession is a fact (this has not been demonstratedand probably is not appropriate here);

It is a fact, and has been demonstrated. You guys must deny the fact because you have removed this proof from your ecclesiology and principle of authority. But the fact remains nonetheless. We have the continuity from the Apostles, whereas you have forsaken that by ditching wholesale all the doctrines which Luther and the so-called Reformers found personally distasteful, or unbiblical, or, in some cases, even politically or morally inexpedient.

(3) that the current Catholic church is the same as the historic catholic church (it is not).

It certainly is. Here, you reveal that you misunderstand development of doctrine (as virtually all Protestants do). You confuse outward appearance with continuous doctrinal essence. This very factor is what made me a Catholic. Once I understood it, my fight was over, as I had no logical, consistent counter-reply. The Protestant has only two choices in this regard, in my opinion. He can either ignore Church history, and what it teaches us (the usual course of action)  or (related) can distort it and engage in dishonest revisionism for polemical purposes, as Dave Hunt and many other anti-Catholics do, or, he can face up to historical realities and apostolic succession and become a Catholic. As John Henry Newman says, To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. Is it any wonder, then, that so many Protestants are abysmally ignorant of Church history? Studying it only creates problems for them, so why start? Ignorance is bliss . . . :-) <-said half= span= tongue-in-cheek=>

Im happy to renounce much of what happened in the Inquisitions, Crusades, etc. Why cant you guys renounce your sinful sectarianism, as many Protestants have in fact done?

Who doesnt admit it? The difference, of course, is that FALLIBLE institutions are allowed to errinfallible ones arent. :)

All kinds of people dont admit it, by pretending that they have unity in the essentials, when in fact there is very little of that: And if there were, why not start uniting the denominations if there is so much agreement, once having admitted that division is sinful? As it is, usually only the liberals do that, because they all agree in ditching fundamental tenets of faith, and in their indifferentism. You cant have it both ways.

The Crusades and the Inquisition (where they did stray) were instances of moral failure, not doctrinal, thus having nothing to do with infallibility, as defined by the Catholic Church (e.g., in 1870 at Vatican I). If youre going to bash us, at least use the appropriate club! :-) In any event, Protestants, in my opinion, are far more guilty of religious persecution and intolerance, especially in light of their otensible first premises of freedom of conscience, etc.

Ive not yet heard an answer as to my query of what is the true, best Protestant faith (i.e., what is true Christianity, with no error mixed in)? Care (and dare) to take me up on that one? Again, if you cant even tell the man on the street what true Christianity is, what good is that view? It is a disgrace, and a disrespect for Gods truth, I say. At least have the courage of your convictions. I am being obnoxious, but heaven knows all the flak the Catholic Church takes, most of it unjustified. So I return the favor, with all due respect.

One of the reasons why we cannot view Romanism as the true church is because, while we Protestants may not ultimately agree on what every passage of Scripture means, we do know what it cannot mean. Hence, while we may disagree on whether Christ is merely represented, spiritually present, or consubstantiated with the bread and wine, we all agree that He is nottransubstantiated (hows that for Protestant unity? :).

A pity indeed. Ive been saying this for years. About all that Protestants can agree on is that the Catholic Church is wrong! Even then, you must split into at least two camps, which regard us as 1) an aberrant form of Christianity, but still within the fold (e.g., Walter Martin, Colson, Geisler, J.I. Packer, Billy Graham) or 2) the Whore of Babylon, the Beast, Pelagians, idolaters, pagans, etc. (e.g., Dave Hunt, Bart Brewer, James White, Boettner, D.J. Kennedy, MacArthur, Ankerberg, ad infinitum). But you must demonize us or at least severely criticize us, else how would you justify your own existence as a schism out of the Catholic Church?

Yet on this subject, I find it quite interesting that Super-Pope Luther did not regard belief in transubstantiation as an obstacle to joining his party, as late as 1543, I believe, and gentle, cultured Melanchthon opted for the death penalty for those who denied the Real Presence (but later changed his own mind on the subject!). Luther regarded Zwingli, on the other hand, as damned, because he denied the Real Presence. But then again, many a Protestant exhibits not the slightest interest in what Luther taught, thinking it has no relevance whatsoever to their own beliefs.

Rome simply has too many biblically untenable and contradictory beliefs.

A Protestant criticizing someone else for contradictory beliefs! Is any further comment necessary?

Why dont we start instead with the inerrancy and material sufficiency of the Scriptures? What do Catholics believe about these issues? I have yet to receive an answer from anyone on the Catholic side. Are you afraid of these issues? By the way you side-step them, I think you must be.

Nice try. As for fear, Im waiting to see if James White responds to my simple request for a list of what the Apostles believed [see Dialogue on the Alleged Perspicuous Apostolic Message as a Proof of the Quasi-Protestantism of the Early Church]. I aint scared o nuthin! I believe in inerrancy (always have  what that means exactly, of course, is the topic of much discussion among those who hold to it  and I claim no particular expertise on it). I responded directly to James Whites question on material sufficiency, but gave a nuanced answer, and argued that, in the final analysis, it is largely a moot point.

I agree that defining dogma is useful in distinguishing between heresy and orthodoxy. So here are some of those dogmas that all Protestants in good standing must believe to be within the pale of orthodoxy: the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Christ, the full deity and personhood of the Holy Spirit, the co-equality and co-eternality of all three persons in the being of God, salvation by grace alone through faith alone (sola fide), final authority in Scripture alone (sola Scriptura), one bride of Christ consisting of all who have ever placed faith and trust in him, the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead, the bodily second coming of Christ in glory, the bodily resurrection of the saved to eternal life and the lost to eternal damnation.

Catholics agree with all of these save for sola fide and sola Scriptura, so this list does not really accentuate our differences. No one taught sola fide from Paul to Luther, according to Norman Geisler, and no one of any note (save for perhaps Wycliffe) set the Bible against Tradition and the Church (which is the usual form and spirit of sola Scriptura) until Luther. So you have an insurmountable historical obstacle where it concerns these two pillars of the Reformation. Most Protestants resolve that dilemma by simply ditching Church history, and abracadabra  no more problem! Is that your solution, too?

Perhaps the issue should really be sola Scriptura groups vs. non-sola Scriptura groups. Within nonsola scriptura groups, there is WIDE disagreement. Non-sola scriptura groups would include Catholicism, Seventh-Day Adventism, the Watchtower, Mormonism, Christian Science, and every other false Christian cult in the world that relies on an infallible interpreter, tradition, or some other extra-biblical authority.

Does that mean Catholics are among these false Christian cults? Your sentence could easily be interpreted that way. I think, rather, that the relevant analytical dynamic is private judgment vs. apostolic Tradition and the resultant hierarchical Church structure. You guys are much more similar to these heresies (excluding SDA and the Catholic Church), many of which originated in America (gee, I wonder why?). They invariably result from one man or woman, who, of course, is infallible (and more often than not, an autocrat):

7th-Day Adventists: Ellen White



Jehovahs Witnesses: Charles Taze Russell



Mormons: Joseph Smith



Christian Science: Mary Baker Eddy



The Way International: Victor Paul Wierwille



Worldwide Church of God: Herbert W. Armstrong (no relation!)

Heresies have traditionally relied on sola Scriptura, but seen though the lens of one man. The original Arians, e.g., quoted Scripture alone, but the Catholic Church countered with Scripture as interpreted by apostolic Tradition. Likewise the Monophysites, Gnostics, Nestorians, Monothelites, and a host of other non-Christian heresies. They were always countered by recourse to apostolic succession and apostolic Tradition, of which the Catholic Church was Guardian, and of course, Scripture always, too. But Scripture-within-the-Tradition, not Scripture in atomistic isolation, eisegeted by one idiot with a novel idea. Newman discusses this at length in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which made me a Catholic.

Now, this heretical dynamic is also very much present in early Protestantism, where Luther formed his own church in which he was infallible (I have MANY quotes substantiating this, lest anyone doubt it for a second). Calvin was the infallible Super-Pope in his church, from which derives Presbyterianism and Reformed sects today. So then, private judgment reigned, but the private judgment of ONE MAN. Zwingli started the novel idea of a symbolic Eucharist, and Bucer, Bullinger and Melanchthon tried to steer a middle course, very broadly speaking. And apostolic Tradition and succession was necessarily thrown to the four winds, since the new sects could not even pretend to hold to it in so many particulars. Visible authority had to go too (excepting Luthers secular princes, who replaced the bishops, and Calvins virtual dictatorship in Geneva). The Anabaptists spurned all authority in many cases, which is equally unbiblical.

It goes without saying that Catholicism is entirely different than this. No one man predominates. The popes clearly must respect and build upon doctrines already etablished, and none have remotely the power of infallibility claimed by Luther and Calvin. Our popes make infallible decrees (in the strictest sense) only every 100 years or so, whereas Luther claimed that ALL his teaching was from God. He regarded his self-proclaimed authority as tantamount to a prophet: i.e., unquestionable. So where do you guys get off accusing us of authoritarianism?

It is the same way (to a lesser degree) with pastors in independent congregations, who have their own little popedoms, often regulating peoples private lives with impunity and extreme arrogance and impropriety (e.g., Calvins Geneva and the modern shepherding fiasco). Popes, on the other hand, work together with bishops, Councils, many advisors, and the sensus fidelium, the sense of the faithful, in which the beliefs of the masses are by all means taken into account when a new dogmatic pronouncement is being considered. No kidding!

If someone thinks otherwise, I am curious as to what one man would have started Catholicism? Constantine? Ludicrous. Leo the Great? Hardly: the whole system was in place long before his reign. Gregory the Great? Same as Leo, but even more so, as he was 150 years later. I can think of only one Man Who can be thought of as the Founder of my Church, and that Man is none other than our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. I wouldnt want it any other way, so thats one reason Im where I am. Thats why St. Jerome said:

I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness, that is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built, I know. (Epistle 15, writing to Pope Damasus)

(which, I am certain, far exceeds the 25,000 denomination figure railed against us by the Catholic side).

I doubt it, Eric. Why dont you back up this certainty of yours with some documented figures.

All sola scriptura groups (so far as I am aware) agree on the deity of Christ. Almost every non-sola scriptura group (with the exception of two that come to mind) [deny it].

But one of those exceptions is MY Church!!!!! Talk about non sequiturs! One billion people is one huge exception!

I think you get the idea. On this view, sola scriptura has actually prevented churchly disunity that surely would have occurred if every Protestant denomination had their own infallible interpreter.

Ah, I see. But unfortunately for your schema, the first Protestants DID have infallible Super-Popes, and DID experience massive, scandalous disunity. Of course, that was somehow Romes fault too, as everything must ultimately be!

We may use strong debating language, but that certainly does not make us anti-Catholic. Youll remember, my wife is CatholicI certainly do not despise my wife! :). I think that I can demonstrate that you are just as anti-Protestant as you claim we are anti-Catholic. Note in even this (your last) post:

Orthodoxy according to whom? I dont know what this means (well, its correct doctrine, but who determines that?). The Arians thought they were orthodox, while the Catholics were heretical. The Nestorians, Monophysites, Monothelites, Sabellians, Eastern Orthodox, etc. ad infinitum thought likewise, so this is not merely a clever, rhetorical question, but a deadly serious one.

Now, Dave, if I were to take every thing you say personally, I might note here that you have equated me with Arius, Nestorius, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Sabellianism. And I might find just cause to say to you, Why, youre nothing more than a Protestant-bashing anti-Protestant! We are no more anti-Catholic than you say you are anti-Protestant.

I think youre sharp enough to understand the analogy I was making. It doesnt imply, ipso facto, that Protestants are in the same league with all the early heresies, only that you guys have a problem in determining orthodoxy, just as these others do (in fact anybody who is non-Catholic), because orthodoxy means (historically speaking) what was decided upon by the Catholic Church, time and again.

If you say that Catholicism as a system is Christian, then you are not anti-Catholic (by my definition, anyway). I believe in context I was referring more to an attitude of severe bias (and often bigotry), which could spill over onto people who technically arent anti-Catholic. I realize this is subjective, so I suggest we just drop it. But I am not anti-Protestant in my terms, because I accept Protestants as Christians. Thus, any criticisms I levy (however severe) are from a brother to a brother, so to speak. Ive described the difference before as the comparison of a family fight to a struggle between Christian and infidel. James White has a ministry devoted to making Catholics come out of their non-Christian error and convert to Christianity (preferably his own Calvinism, of course). This is quintessential anti-Catholicism. How could it be construed otherwise?

When the debate is sola Scriptura vs. Scripture plus something else, then that something else automatically has to first be proved.

And it was, to my satisfaction, in my Tradition is not a Dirty Word paper.

But neither am I going to trust a system which sanctioned Reservations, Indulgences, Expectancies, Dispensations, Nepotism, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and multiple popes (each condemning the others to hell). Catholics . . . shall exterminate the heretics, possess the land without dispute and preserve it in the true faith. . . . Hence if forgers . . . are straightway justly put to death, . . . with much more justice can heretics . . . be not only excommunicated but also put to death. When I referred earlier to Catholics killing Protestants, I wasnt being anti-Catholic, I was being truthful! Are you one of those Mythical Catholics who revise Catholic history?

No, but I think it quite fair to point out that Protestants are in no better shape (I think much worse, actually) once their own scandalous history is examined (which it rarely is). I dont even attempt to defend the Crusades or Inquisition, although I regard neither as intrinsically evil. I simply attempt to balance the scales by teaching others about how Protestants did the same sorts of things. And their acts are all the more heinous since they supposedly believed in the primacy of conscience and private judgment from the beginning.

Yes, the popes authority (in the final analysis) is distinct from the Councils  this was defined so as to avoid the error of conciliarism, which is a root problem of the Orthodox, who have no non- arbitrary way of determining the legitimacy of an Ecumenical Council.

Oh, I see. To prevent the error of adhering to the consensus of opinions, we adopt the non-arbitrary method of adhering to the opinion of one man. HELLO!!!

HI!!! You guys decide which Councils are or are not legitimate individually. We do it through the institution of the papacy (with all its guarantees of infallibility, etc.). Either way, one is left to judge Councils. One man provides a unity that no group can ever attain. But in large measure, the pope agrees with conciliar decisions, so it isnt an either/or proposition.

Im talking about the interpretation of one man entirely dominating a denomination. You simply cant assert that about any one pope. It cant be done, period.

Is not your pope an infallible interpreter? Besides, your criteria is a bit arbitrary and self-serving. The pope is seen in RC as the vicar of Christ on earth and his pronouncements are seen as infallible. Put it this way; even if he doesnt say its infallible, if the pope says it, you may be certain the Catholic church will heed it. THAT is one-man dominance.

You miss my point entirely yet again. No single pope has constructed the edifice of the Catholic Church and its dogmas. Not even close. So my argument stands, entirely unchallenged. In other words, no pope can be said to be the Founder of Catholicism.

Your opinion on Luther is irrelevant to my argument, since it is an analogy between Protestantism and the non-trinitarian heresies. Luther had more power in his sphere than any pope ever dreamt of, and this is the whole point. You keep switching the terms of the debate, whenever youre trapped by the incoherence of your own position.

I honestly do not follow you here. What terms am I switching? On the contrary, to equate Luther as some kind of infallible interpreter is indeed to throw a red herring into the argument.

My original argument (countering you) was that the heresies and Protestantism are similar in that they adhere to sola Scriptura, but seen through the lens of one man. And this was certainly the case with Luther and the Lutherans, at least in the beginning, which was my primary emphasis. Thus, in terms of refuting my analogy, it is absolutely irrelevant what you think of Luther or his claims. The fact remains that he made himself infallible. Do I have to give you the quotes? This is no red herring, whatsoever. It is a valid analogy (I love analogical arguments, because they are largely what made me a Catholic  from Newmans Essay on Development, which is chock-full of em).

You seem to view Luther as somehow the genesis of apostolic succession of Protestants;

All Protestants stem from his dissent.

This is simply not true. The Anglicans have no connection to Luther other than the fact that they departed about the same time. Calvin admired Luther, but noted that he was wrong on many points. The Anabaptists absolutely had no connection to Luther. Well, that just about covers all the reformed groups of the sixteenth century.

I meant in spirit, not technically, or apostolic succession, as you put it, as if Protestants had no disagreements (which would be like saying that zebras have no stripes). Luther was the first to successfully break, thus making the unthinkable (excepting the Orthodox) thinkable. The similarities are such that I think my opinion is valid. All are agreed in antipathy to Catholicism, and especially in opposing the pope.

By the way, my wife was very disappointed to discover (last night) that the Catholic Biblical College where she was enrolled teaches the legitimacy of higher criticism (JEPD, Source, Form, and Redaction), and that Gen 1 not only contradicts Gen 2 (since, they argue, they were written by two different authors), but also that Gen 1 and 2 are examples of Biblical myth, not history.

Classic liberalism, aint it?

The book she was reading had both the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, guaranteeing that there are no doctrinal errors.

This is obviously often abused.

Several questions for you. First, I am assuming (and I would hope) that you see a mythicalreading of Gen 1 and 2 as doctrinal error. Yet the Catholic Magisterium has placed its stamp of approval on it. Who is right? You or the Magisterium? Second, I am assuming (and I would hope) that you disagree with the mythical interpretation of Gen 1 and 2, no? But if so, then where is your unity of belief with other Catholics on this point?

Geisler in his recent book Roman Catholics and Evangelicals points out that all Catholics must agree that:

. . . the first 3 chapters of Genesis contain narratives of real events . . . no myths, no mere allegories or symbols of religious truths, no legends. (p.63)

I understand this to be the Catholic dogma on the subject, with which I agree (as a good Catholic). To believe otherwise would be to deny the reality of original sin, as Ive already stated. Ludwig Ott also discusses this, under Creation (if you have his book). By the way, Geisler also strongly confirms what I said about our views on inerrancy (pp.29-31). Very good! Liberals will be liberals. All you need is a liberal bishop (or even an orthodox one who wants to avoid controversy and unpopularity) to grant an illegitimate Imprimatur.

This same point could be made, of course, about the hundreds of other places where your interpretation would differ from the scholarly interpretation.

As is the case in evangelicalism as well. But, again, we have the books to authoritatively ascertain what is an error.

In light of this, I cannot see how you can maintain that the Catholic church is united in its interpretation of Scripture in any meaningful sense. Remember, Dave, this teaching is stamped with both the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat.

The books, Eric, the books. Thats all I care about, and that is our system, not a collection of dissenting, intellectually-dishonest, bleeding-brain liberals.

This decision was made twenty-six years before Hippo. The Western (Roman) church accepted a Canon that did not include the book of Hebrews, but eventually followed the East in including all twenty-seven books. In other words, the Roman church relied upon the Eastern Orthodox church for her Canon. Far from making an infallible decision, the Roman church, at Hippo and Carthage, simply adopted the decision of the Eastern church. Therefore, the Canon that we currently have is the work of the Eastern Orthodox church, which doesnt claim infallibility.

Again, there was no Eastern Orthodox church at this time, so the argument is altogether fallacious. So what if a truth comes from the East in its entirety or partially? Catholic means universal. We rejoice in such occurrences. This has nothing whatsoever to do with our current argument, nor will it resolve your insuperable difficulties vis-a-vis the Canon.

The point, of course, is that this was at a time before Roman Catholicism existed.

Alright, then: Please define for me: 1) Catholicism, and 2) Roman Catholicism, and inform me as to when each (or either, as the case may be) began. Ive yet to hear any Protestant apologist give a cogent, sensible answer to this. This viewpoint, frankly, reminds me of pro-abortionist arguments as to when a fetus becomes a person, all theoretical points of origin being purely arbitrary and subjective. It will do no good to say that my question is irrelevant, since you yourself have stated that there was a time (i.e., the 4th century) when Roman Catholicism did not yet exist.

If you cant tell us when it did begin to exist, then your historical statement is unfalsifiable and therefore suspect. You do use the term Roman church above. Is that body synonymous with either the Catholic Church or the Roman Catholic Church? This is a particularly relevant consideration in light of the fact that you make reference to the Eastern Orthodox church as presumably existing in the same time period. I say that this historical/ecclesiological scenario is hopelessly muddled. Perhaps your clarification will clear up my confusion.

If later on, the East and West split, what gives you the right to claim an Eastern father?

If youre speaking of St. Athanasius, the Western church leaders and the pope claimed him to a far greater extent than the Eastern (almost always caesaropapist) political and church leaders did (which fact I mentioned in the same post). The Eastern Orthodox today venerate, e.g., Pope St. Leo the Great, while they frown upon, e.g., St. Augustine. Pick and choose. For our part, we venerate and hold in high esteem all the Fathers. It is of no consequence to us whether they are Eastern or Western. But the fact remains that there was but one universal Christian Church at this time, and youve shown me nothing to cause me to jettison that perspicuous fact of Church history.

Furthermore, it is quite amusing and ironic for any Protestant to chide us for claiming Eastern fathers as our own, when it is patently ridiculous for a Protestant to claim any Father, Eastern or Western, as their own, or even anywhere close to proto-Protestant (most notably, St. Augustine, who was present at both Hippo and Carthage and exercised a prevailing influence).

You are simply assuming that Rome was on the right side of the issue,

As it always was. This is what made Ronald Knox and Newman sit up and take notice, so striking and far beyond coincidence was it. As I said, historically speaking (most strikingly in the early centuries of the Church), orthodox is equivalent to the Roman position on any given issue. It was not very easy to know what Christian orthodoxy was (there were many competing heretical groups), apart from an acceptance of the authority of the Roman see and the papacy, which was shown (with hindsight) to be orthodox again and again. This, to us, is compelling evidence of divine guidance and protection from error. On the other hand, one constantly finds in the East in those centuries heretical patriarchs, and massive, widespread defections from orthodoxy, such as the Robber Council of 449 and the huge, tragic Monophysite schisms after Chalcedon in 451.

that everyone before that time were Romanists,

This is far too broad of a statement to tackle rationally.

Put it this way; suppose the Eastern Orthodox were to claim, say, Clement of Rome as one of their own against Romanism. How would you feel about that?

For the third time: such talk is meaningless and moot, since there was but one Church then. It is a common heritage, just as medieval England is the common antecedent of both America and Canada. One doesnt speak of Shakespeare as American or Canadian. Now, if some Orthodox want to claim that they are the true Church over against us, that is another quarrel (one which they will lose), but one beyond our purview here. The Catholic Church is presently trying its utmost to be ecumenical and accepting of the Orthodox, with, e.g., word pictures such as Pope John Paul IIs two lung perspective on ecclesiology, and ecumenical Encyclicals such as Ut Unum Sint (1995).

Besides, one letter from a single patriarch is not a binding requirement. The East still believed in ecumenical Councils at that time  they would be binding, not a single epistle. And you act like infallibility must necessarily possess the attribute of first time mentioned, which is untrue.

Are you under the impression that Hippo and Carthage were ecumenical councils? They were neither ecumenical nor councilsboth were nothing more than local synods.

Of course. You misunderstood my point. All I was saying was that St. Athanasius letter was not binding since it was not conciliar (which is the least one would expect in the East, if one wants to maintain  incorrectly  that they rejected the papacy en masse in this period).

So, again, we are faced with the consistency of Romes decisions. Are all local synods infallible and binding?

Obviously not. If they are orthodox then they are part of the ordinary magisterium, as David Palm noted.

If not, then you end up picking and choosing which are and which are not. Why do you arbitrarily pick Hippo and Carthage as infallible and binding on the church? Let me guessbecause Rome tells you to, right?

Well, yes. They were ratified by Pope Innocent I (d.417) and Gelasius I (d.496). This is how Ecumenical Councils are determined as well. The conciliarism of Eastern Monophysite heretics brought us the Robber council of 449. The leadership of the Western papacy, on the other hand, led to Chalcedon in 451. Before you deride this outlook, let me remind you that you have proposed nothing as a substitute for authoritative determination of the NT Canon. Our system is consistent, but yours is incoherent. You can deny our premises (as is the case in any belief-system), but at least we proceed logically from them, whereas Protestantism is self-defeating with regard to the question of the NT Canon & how it was finalized (and sola Scriptura also).

Thank you for your candor.

Youre most welcome.

We Catholics eagerly await a non-contradictory, plausible alternate Protestant explanation of how Christianity came to obtain the present NT Canon. Such insurmountable obstacles are representative of the reasons many of us former Protestants felt compelled to accept Catholicism, not some dreamt-up psycho-babble of an alleged infantile desire for fideistic dogma-without-reflection-and-exegesis, as James White would have it.

Note well, folks, the circularity here. We as Protestants are told that we have no right to pick and choose which decisions of the church we hold and which we jettisonthat it is all or nothing.

In a word: nonsense. What youre told is that you ought to retain doctrines which have been the historical teaching of the Church from the beginning (e.g., infused justification, baptismal regeneration, Real Presence and apostolic succession come to mind immediately as striking examples of the general Protestant departure from orthodoxy). Protestant picking and choosing of correct doctrines is, in the final analysis  completely arbitrary, often based historically on the whim of one man (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Zwingli). When these depart in essence from historic Christian teaching they can only be deemed heretical.

Our system, on the other hand, is neither circular, nor based on a radically individualistic, subjective, anarchical principle. Weve said all along that Rome, and more specifically the pope, were the arbiters of orthodoxy. The pope is the final court of appeal, and he ratifies councils, whether local or Ecumenical. Im glad you press this point, Eric, because now I will post a lengthy comment by Newman regarding what can happen in Council (Robber Council of 449) without the pope and what happens with the pope presiding by common consent (Chalcedon  451). That will illustrate our perspective quite adequately, I think.

Note that both Protestants and Orthodox have a problem in determining which Council is orthodox and which not. But we have always held to papal primacy and jurisdiction. This is precisely why the pope is needed  as a principle of unity (as even many Lutherans and Orthodox are willing to admit). And of course papal primacy is in turn a fairly explicit biblical doctrine. We need not ditch history, nor the Bible, nor consistency, as you guys do when it comes to these sorts of questions. Your principle of individualism and sola Scriptura, on the other hand, leads to 200 Interpretations of This is My Body within 60 years of the 95 Theses(a book by that title which appeared in Germany).

Moreover the specific test case for this, provided by the Catholic side, is the issue of the canon.

In this discussion, perhaps, but of course there are many, many test cases in which the Protestant position is revealed to be utterly incoherent as well.

Unless we ascribe infallibility to the church in deciding upon the canon, we cannot know with certitude if the church chose the right books. And the minute we ascribe infallibility to the church in this area, then we are inconsistent if we do not likewise ascribe infallibility to the church in all areas.

Yes, you make a tacit exception to your system by bowing to a local council (not even an Ecumenical one) and conceding that a bunch of Catholics got it right. Why would, and how could, that be? God made an exception to the rule of sola Scriptura and individualism just because the Bible was involved? Why accept any councils in the early days but not later ones? Protestants hold no councils that Im aware of. When was the last: the acrimonious Marburg Colloquy in 1529, in which Luther and Zwingli butted heads over the Real Presence?

Yet the minute we press the issue, we get another story altogether! Were Hippo and Carthage councils? Well, no, they were synods. Were they even ecumenical? Well, no, they were both local. Indeed, were they even infallible? In the words of David Palm: Lets make sure were precise. The decisions of local councils are never taken as intrinsically infallible in and of themselves.

Another story? This is silly. There are no big revelations here. Only Ecumenical Councils are infallible, and only insofar as they are in accordance with the pope, who may veto some of the proceedings. It must be this way, otherwise one is faced with the sad reality of the Robber Council, in which the East adopted Monophysitism wholesale.

But if this is the case, then Catholics themselves pick and choose which synods and councils are infallible and which are not. And in fact, the very synod (often posed to Protestants as a council until challenged) Catholics point to as their coup de grace ends up not even being infallible itself. Ah but (we are told) Hippo and Carthage are infallible by virtue of the ordinary magisterium. Do you know what ordinary magisterium really means, folks? It simply means that the Catholics can have their cake and eat it to. They can neatly avoid labeling all councils and synods as infallible (as avoid they must since many councils and synods subscribed to heresies); yet at the same time they can reserve the right to label those councils and synods by which they are well-served infallible via an esoteric principle that the Catholic church could not possibly be led into error.

In other words, theyve covered their tracks. How do we know whether a synod or council is infallible or not? Why, only the Catholic church can tell us. Conveniently enough, Hippo and Carthage just happen to be included within the infallible ordinary magisterium. That, my friends, is circular reasoning at its best. I dare say that if the Protestant side tried this kind of rationale, the Catholic side would be only too quick to point out our faulty reasoning.

A fair enough description of our system (at least by you :-). But you ought to substitute pope for the Catholic Church and Catholics in a couple of places, for accuracys sake. Pure conciliarism is the principle of the Eastern Orthodox, although they dont seem to have many Councils lately. Again, our system is not circular. You have not proven that in the least here. But yours is, as Ive shown in my Fictional Dialogue on Sola Scriptura, which has not really been answered.

* * * * *
Part II: Mr. Whites 7-Page Initial Reply (6 April 1995)

My book (2013, 395 pages; available for as low as $2.99).

* * * * *

Complete Debate:

Part I: Introduction and My Initial Form Letter (23 March 1995)

Part II: Mr. Whites 7-Page Initial Reply (6 April 1995)

Part III: My 16-Page First Counter-Reply (22 April 1995)

Part IV: Mr. Whites 17-Page Second Counter-Reply (4 May 1995)

Part V: My 36-Page Second Counter-Reply (15 May 1995) and Mr. Whites One-Page Reply (10 November 1995)

***

April 6, 1995

To: Dave Armstrong

Dear Mr. Armstrong:

I am in receipt of your letter of March 23rd, which, it seems, was sent to a number of ministries listed in the Directory of Cult Research Organizations. I quote what seems to be the thesis statement of your letter:

I am disturbed by the tendency among cult researchers and other leaders in Protestantism to regard the Catholic Church as apostate and/or non-Christian, since it supposedly denies the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not worthy of men of your stature and theological training, and is also uncharitable, since it is slanderous and schismatic.

I am enclosing two books I have written on this subject. The thesis of the first, The Fatal Flaw, is seemingly, from your perspective, uncharitable and slanderous and schismatic. However, I stand by the thesis, and insist that truth is only uncharitable, slanderous and schismatic to those who have embraced a belief that is not in accordance with Gods revelation. Im sure the teachers in Galatia felt Paul was being most uncharitable in writing Galatians, but that did not stop him from doing so.

Personally, Dave, I find the Roman churchs anathemas, contained in the dogmatic canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, as well as those of Vatican I, to be most uncharitable. What is worse, since they are in direct opposition to the truth, I find them to be most reprehensible as well, and much more accurately entitled schismatic, since that term can only be meaningfully used with reference to a departure from the truth.

Before you dismiss my response as merely the ruminations of a fundamentalist anti-Catholic, let me point out that I have studied the Roman position quite thoroughly. Indeed, I have engaged in seventeen public debates against Roman apologists such as Dr. Mitchell Pacwa, Dr. Robert Fastiggi, Gerry Matatics, and a friend of yours, Patrick Madrid (my copy of Surprised by Truth is even autographed!). I will be debating Robert Sungenis and Scott Butler at Boston College in a matter of weeks. I know the arguments of Catholic Answers quite well, I assure you.

Your story in Surprised by Truth is almost predictable, Dave, no offense intended. Your rejection of Roman theology was not based upon a knowledge of why, and hence was ripe for refutation. You admit you rejected the tenets of the Reformation when you say, I had always rejected Luthers notions of absolute predestination and the total depravity of mankind. And your involvement in Operation Rescue simply gave you the opportunity of seeing that Roman Catholics can be real nice folks who really believe in the teachings of the Church in Rome. And the feeling of brotherhood created by standing against a common evil, joined with the simple fact that you were not truly a Protestant to begin with, is reason enough to explain your swimming the Tiber.

You wrote in your letter,

Catholicism is not only Christian  it is far superior to Protestantism on biblical, historical, and rational grounds. Secondly, I would say that a position maintaining that Protestantism is Christian while Catholicism is not, is self-defeating, incoherent, and intellectually dishonest, if thought through properly (which is rarely the case). I never had this outlook as a Protestant for these very reasons.

Im sure you believe that the Roman position is superior on biblical grounds, but, of course, how could you believe otherwise? Rome claims final authority on biblical interpretation to begin with, so surely once you have accepted the claims made by Rome to ultimate religious authority, how could you believe anything other? Yet, I have to wonder about claiming biblical superiority when, in point of fact, entire dogmas, like the Immaculate Conception, Bodily Assumption of Mary, and Papal Infallibility lie, quite obviously, outside the realm of the Scriptures. Oh yes, I know all the arguments  see my refutation of Patricks attempt to come up with a biblical basis for the Immaculate Conception in our journal, Pros Apologian (I am enclosing a copy for you), and my debates with Dr. Fastiggi on Papal Infallibility and the Marian doctrines. What really strikes me as being not worthy of someone such as yourself, Dave, is stating that a system that could produce a document like Indulgentiarum Doctrinais in fact biblically superior to a system that could produce something like Hodges Commentary on Romans or Edwards sermons on the sovereignty of God.

As to being superior on historical grounds, I again have to beg to differ. I well know how easily Roman apologists cite patristic sources as if the early Fathers would have been subscribers to This Rock. However, I have found a woefully consistent practice of anachronistic interpretation in Roman apologetic works. I have found that normally the Roman apologist will find a phrase, say, having to do with Peter, and will read into that phrase the fully developed Roman concepts that, quite honestly, did not even exist at the time of the writing of that particular Father. What is worse, many such apologists are dependent almost completely upon what I call quote books. For example, when I debated Gerry Matatics for more than three hours on the patristic evidence regarding the Papacy in Denver during the Papal visit, he did not have any original source materials with him. Instead, he was utilizing compilations, such as Jurgens. This often led him to grave errors. Indeed, one time he stood before the audience counting index entries in Jurgens and telling the audience that such-and-such number of early Fathers supported his position, and that on the basis of index entries in Jurgens! An amazing sight to behold, I assure you. Be that as it may, I believe it would be relatively easy to dispute such a broad statement as the one you made in your letter.

As to the use of the broad term Christian with reference to Roman Catholicism, such a term, due to its ambiguity in this situation, is less than useful. Faithful in preaching the apostolic message of the gospel? Certainly not, and that is the issue, Dave. If you feel a communion that replaces the grace of God with sacraments, mediators, and merit, can be properly called Christian, then please go ahead and use the phrase. But please understand that if a person shares the perspective of the epistle to the churches of Galatia they will have to hold to a different understanding, and hence may not be as quick to use the term Christian of such a system.

You then listed a number of what you called insuperable difficulties of anti-Catholicism. I would like to briefly comment on each one.

1) The Canon of the Bible was determined by the Catholic Church. Thus, sola Scriptura necessarily requires a Tradition and Catholic (conciliar and papal) Authority. Not to mention the preservation of Bible manuscripts by monks.

That is a common argument, but it is a sadly misinformed argument, Dave. The canon of the NT may have been recognized by the Christian Church (note I specifically limited that statement 1) to the NT, as the OT canon long pre-existed the Christian church, and 2) to the passive voice, recognized not determined as you used it), but that is a long stretch from the point you and your compatriots not only would like to make, but must make to establish your position. First, the canon of the NT pre-existed either Hippo or Carthage, see Athanasius 39th Festal Letter for just one example. Secondly, your entire argument falls apart when we ask if your theory holds true for the Old Testament. If the OT did not require conciliar and papal authority, why would the NT? And what is more, please note how easily, and yet without any basis, you insert the capitalized form of Tradition into your argument. Are you saying the canon is an apostolic tradition? If so, which apostle gave the canon? If not, are you not admitting that it was derived at a later time? Roman apologists take all sorts of different positions on these topics, especially when it comes to the nature and extent of tradition. In light of your third point I think you might seek to do some house-cleaning before condemning Protestants for their variety of opinions. Oh, one other item: the Catholic Church of the fourth century was a far cry from the Roman Catholic Church of the 20th, wouldnt you agree? I mean, you constantly mentioned Newmans theories in your Surprised by Truth article, and it would seem to me that anyone who recognizes the necessity of embracing Newmans hypothesis recognizes the vast differences between primitive and modern beliefs on many important subjects.

2) At what moment did Catholicism becomes apostate? At Johns death? In 313? With Gregory the Great and the ascendancy of papal power? In the Dark Ages of c.800-1 100? With the Inquisition or Crusades? Or at the Council of Trent? And how can anyone know for sure when?

Whats even more important, why does it matter? It was obviously a process, just as the papacy developed, changed, and grew over time. Do we know for sure when the Pharisees became corrupt? Do we need to know? Of course not.

3) 23,000 denominations and the scandalous organizational anarchy, schism, and theological relativism inherent within virtually disproves Protestantism in and of itself.

Does the theological relativism in modern Roman Catholicism disprove it on the same grounds, Dave? Does the fact that you can get about as many opinions from Roman priests as you can get from Protestant ministers mean something to you? As you well know, the Watchtower Society makes a similar claim. Why is their claim invalid and yet yours is not?

4) Protestantism has only been around for 477 years!

And modern Romanism, replete with such theological novums [sic] as Papal Infallibility and the Bodily Assumption of Mary, has been around for less time than that, Dave. It really doesnt seem like your arguments are very consistent, does it?

In your fifth point you mention the Inquisition disproving Catholicism. The problem with your point is this, Dave: we Protestants dont claim infallibility. Rome does. There is a big difference. Please note the following comparison:

IV LATERAN COUNCIL

Convicted heretics shall be handed over for due punishment to their secular superiors, or the latters agents. . . . Catholics who assume the cross and devote themselves to the extermination of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgence and privilege as those who go to the Holy Land.

VATICAN II

This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs.

Not only do we see the obvious conflict between these two ecumenical councils, but we see that the IVth Lateran Council specifically taught that those who would take up the cross in the effort to exterminate heretics would enjoy the same indulgence as those who went to the Holy Land. Now, Dave, surely you can see the vast difference between the silliness of, say, a Protestant like Benny Hinn teaching his ideas as facts, and an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church teaching that indulgences would be given to those who took up the cause of exterminating the heretics (i.e., simple Christian folks who were slaughtered at the behest of the Roman hierarchy). What is more, is not the granting of indulgences based upon the exercise of the keys? Does this not then touch upon the very faith of the Roman church? I believe it does.

Your sixth point was little more than a statement that you feel Protestants inconsistently and dishonestly appeal to various of the early Fathers. Well, I feel that Roman Catholics inconsistently and dishonestly appeal to the very same Fathers. So? What do you do with citations such as the following?

Regarding the Papacy itself, and Matthew 16:18, Oscar Cullmann said: He who proceeds without prejudice, on the basis of exegesis and only on this basis, cannot seriously conclude that Jesus here had in mind successors of Peter. . . . On exegetical grounds we must say that the passage does not contain a single word concerning successors of Peter . . . The intent of Jesus leaves us no possibility of understanding Matthew 16:17ff. in the sense of a succession determined by an episcopal see. (Peter: Disciple, Apostle, and Martyr (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1953), 207, 236.)

On page 162 of the same work Cullmann said: We thus see that the exegesis that the Reformation gave . . . was not first invented for their struggle against the papacy; it rests upon an older patristic tradition.

Johann Joseph lgnaz von Dollinger, in his work The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1869), 74, asserted:

Of all the Fathers who interpret these passages in the Gospels (Matt 16:18, John 21:17), not a single one applies them to the Roman bishops as Peters successors. How many Fathers have busied themselves with these texts, yet not one of them whose commentaries we posses  Origen, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustine, Cyril, Theodoret, and those whose interpretations are collected in catenas  has dropped the faintest hint that the primacy of Rome is the consequence of the commission and promise to Peter! Not one of them has explained the rock or foundation on which Christ would build His Church of the office given to Peter to be transmitted to his successors, but they understood by it either Christ Himself, or Peters confession of faith in Christ; often both together. Or else they thought Peter was the foundation equally with all the other Apostles, the twelve being together the foundation-stones of the church (Apoc. xxi.1 4). The Fathers could the less recognize in the power of the keys, and the power of binding and loosing, any special prerogative or lordship of the Roman bishop, inasmuch a  what is obvious to any one at first sight  they did not regard the power first given to Peter, and afterwards conferred on all the Apostles, as any thing peculiar to him, or hereditary in the line of Roman bishops, and they held the symbol of the keys as meaning just the same as the figurative expression of binding and loosing.

Karlfried Froehlich wrote,

The earlier exegetical history of Matt. 16:18-19, Luke 22:32, and John 21:15-17 was largely out of step with the primatial interpretation of these passages. . . . The mainstream of exegesis followed an agenda set by patristic precedent, especially Augustine, but also other Western Fathers. . . . The understanding of these Petrine texts by biblical exegetes in the mainstream of the tradition was universally non-primatial before Innocent III . . . . It was the innovative exegetical argumentation of this imposing pope which began to change the picture. (St. Peter, Papal Primacy and the Exegetical Tradition 1151-1350). Found in Christopher Ryan, ed., The Religious Role of the Papacy: Ideals and Realities 1150-1300 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1989), 42, 4.)

One truly wonders about blanket statements regarding Protestant misuse of patristic sources, Dave.

As to point number seven, I would direct you especially to my discussion of the development of doctrine in the enclosed book, Answers to Catholic Claims, pp.63-73. I would also like to ask if you have read Salmons refutation of Newman in his work, The Infallibility of the Church?

Finally, do you really feel point number eight carries sufficient weight to establish anything?

You write that sola fide is not the gospel. Yet, it is the clear record of the NT that it is the gospel. Lets say you are right that there wasnt a gospel around for 1500 some odd years for the sake of argument. Would this be sufficient reason for you to reject the NT witness to that gospel, Dave? You are, of course, not right to say that there was no gospel for those 1500 years. Even if you were to ignore Wycliffe and Hus, and all those murdered by Rome in the intervening centuries, what do you do with Clement of Rome?

They all therefore were glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous doing which they wrought, but through His will. And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Epistle of Clement of Rome, 32)

You then repeated some well-worn slogans regarding Luther along with the first canon of the Council of Trent on justification, and concluded, This would seem to be sufficient to put the matter to rest. But blind prejudice and anti-Catholicism stubbornly persist. The problem, Dave, is that you need to also quote canons 4, 5, 9, 12, 14, 1 5, 1 7, 24, 30, 32, and 33. I quote just a few of these:

Canon 24: If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema. Canon 32: If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema. Canon 33: If anyone says that the Catholic doctrine of justification as set forth by the holy council in the present decree, derogates in some respect from the glory of God or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, and does not rather illustrate the truth of our faith and no less the glory of God and of Christ Jesus, let him be anathema.

This kind of teaching has led Roman Catholic theologians to conclude:

Man, for his part, in order to arrive at full sanctification, must cooperate with the grace of the Holy Spirit through faith, hope, love of God and neighbor, and prayer; but he must also perform other works. It is a universally accepted dogma of the Catholic Church that man, in union with the grace of the Holy Spirit must merit heaven by his good works. These works are meritorious only when they are performed in the state of grace and with a good intention. (Matthias Premm, Dogmatic Theology for the Laity, p.262). We have shown that according to the Holy Scripture the Christian can actually merit heaven for himself by his good works. But we must realize that these works have to be performed in the state of grace and with a good intention. (Ibid., p.263).

Again we find that having an allegedly infallible guide does not result in unanimity of opinion. The point that you seem to have missed as a Protestant, Dave, and now miss as a Roman Catholic, is that the Reformation was never about the necessity of grace. Did you ever read such monumental works as Calvins Institutio when you were a Protestant, or as you were seeking answers to the claims of Rome? If you had, you would know that no one has ever said that Rome teaches that grace is unnecessary. That is not the issue. The issue, Dave, is the sufficiency of Gods grace apart from mans works. That, my friend, is the issue that you still have to face (see pp.36-37 of The Fatal Flaw).

Just today my seventh book came out, The King James Only Controversy. I will be quite busy for some time due to the release of the book. However, I may be making an East Coast swing to do some debates with KJV Only advocates, and I am always willing to engage Roman apologists as well. Would you be willing to defend the statements you made in your letter in public debate, Dave? Your letterhead included the phrase Catholic Apologist (I note in a font very reminiscent of that used by Catholic Answers). If that is the case, might you be interested in engaging in some very practical apologetics? I would be happy to debate sola scriptura, the Papacy, justification by faith, the Marian doctrines, etc. Shall we discuss the possibility?

I am sending this letter to you along with the noted materials in the US Mail. However, I am also going to fax it to you so that you will receive it quickly. I am also sending a copy to Eric Pement, should anyone contact him regarding your mailing to the individuals in the cult directory. In fact, I would be more than happy to make this letter available to anyone who wishes to see a brief response to the claims you made in your letter.

I have added your name to our mailing list. Our next Pros Apologian will be a full-length rebuttal of Patrick Madrids article, The White Mans Burden, replete with a defense of the doctrine of sola scriptura. That edition has already been written, and is simply in the proof-reading stage.

I am sure, Dave, that you are quite happy right now in the bosom of Rome. There is a wonderful feeling, Im sure, that accompanies being told with infallible certainty what to believe. But I simply hope, Dave, as I hope for those who have embraced the same kind of authoritarian claims from the Prophet in Salt Lake City or the Governing Body in Brooklyn, that you will realize that your decision to embrace that allegedly infallible authority was in and of itself not infallible. You might well be wrong. Think about that my friend.

Justified by faith and hence at peace,

James White

Recte Ambulamus ad Veritatem Evangelii
Iran deal only covers nuclear-related issue: EU Foreign Policy Chief

11/09/17

Source: Press TV

Iran and six world powers has nothing to do with the Islamic Republic's national missile program, emphasizing the importance of keeping the multilateral pact "as it is." Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, Mogherini said Iran's missile program or its regional polices are not related to the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as two separate issues.

"We wish to see US continuing its implementation of #IranDeal in the future and we're ready to work with them." @FedericaMog pic.twitter.com/xyjpmNAfo8  EU External Action (@eu_eeas) November 7, 2017

During her talks in Washington a day earlier, "we made clear, very clear, that these issues have to be tackled outside of the nuclear agreement that covers only nuclear related issues," she said.



Mogherini further said the EU attaches "great importance" to "keeping the Iran nuclear deal up and running," adding that during her recent visit to Washington she had discussed the issue with US officials.



"For us, it is very important to keep the nuclear agreement as it is -renegotiation is not possible in our view and you do not change an agreement that is delivering," she added.



The top EU diplomat expressed confidence that the bloc would "manage to keep the Iran nuclear deal in place," adding that all sides to the accord must remain committed to their obligations under the deal.



"We will continue to keep the highest possible attention for the strictest possible implementation of the agreement - in all its components and by all sides," she said.



Mogherini further praised Iran's good cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is tasked with monitoring Iran's compliance with the deal under a 2015 UN Security Council resolution.



The UN nuclear watchdog has in eight reports confirmed Iran's commitment to the terms of the JCPOA struck in 2015 between Tehran and the P5+1 states - Russia, China, France, Britain, the US plus Germany.



"I met also the Director General of IAEA in Washington, Dr [Yukiya] Amano, who reiterated to me his assessment that they are having the appropriate access. We trust the Agency's independence and technical knowledge to monitor in a very strict manner that all the nuclear commitments that Iran has taken are actually met," Mogherini added.

.@FedericaMog spoke #JCPOA and nuclear non-proliferation with @iaeaorg Director General Yukiya Amano during visit to Washington DC pic.twitter.com/vBqT9N0x6e  EU in the US (@EUintheUS) November 7, 2017

From Washington, Amano also hailed Iran for remaining fully committed to its side of the deal.



Under President Donald Trump, who took office more than a year after the JCPOA was signed, Washington has at various times attempted to either scrap the agreement or open renegotiations to change its terms.



The US has also imposed fresh sanctions on Iran over its missile program, which it claims violates the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal.



However, Tehran insists its missile tests do not breach any UN resolutions because they are solely for defense purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.



Iranian officials have time and again said the Islamic Republic's missile program is for defensive purposes and it's non-negotiable.
Ghanas poor showing in the issuance of the 2017 Energy bond has caused the state some 1.2 billion cedis, Ranking Member of the Finance Committee, Cassiel Ato Forson has said.



Mr Forson, who led the Minority to address a press conference on Wednesday, 8 November, said the abysmal showing is a vote of no confidence in the Akufo Addo-led government among the investor community.



The country failed to achieve its target of raising some revenue from the bond despite an extensive road show.



Mr Forson accused government of failing to seek parliamentary approval before the issuance saying they will haul Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta before the House soon for causing financial loss.



The government could have saved up to 200 basis points if they had gone to the financial market on the strength of Government of Ghana ratings, rather than the ESLA PLC which is unrated and unknown. Simply put, the state could have saved 2% of 6 billion cedis times 10years, which is an equivalent of 1.2 billion cedis over the period. The government delegation has woefully caused financial loss to the state as a result of this gross incompetence, he explained.



"We intend to summon the minister responsible for finance to appear before parliament to answer to the circumstances that led to the willful breaches of the laws and constitution of the Republic of Ghana through this reckless conduct. Such gross disrespect for the constitution and parliament will have no place in our current democratic dispensation where actors like the Finance Minister arrogate to themselves the status of 12th century despots," he added.







Source: Class FM









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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Ghana scooped all $221.4 million tendered for a three-year domestic dollar bond at a 6.25 percent yield on Thursday, boosting the governments plans to explore local funding sources, arrangers said.



Initial guidance for the bond, the second to be issued by the major commodities exporter and open only to Ghanaian investors, was 6.25 percent.



Ghana is emerging from a fiscal crisis that has left it with high deficits and a steep public debt that forced the government into a credit deal with the International Monetary Fund worth around $918 million in 2015.



The bond, which will mature in November 2020, was issued through a joint book-building arranged by Barclays Bank, Stanbic Bank and brokerage firm Strategic African Securities. Settlement is slated for Nov. 13.



The West African country last year issued its debut dollar denominated domestic bond worth $94.64 million in two-year paper with a coupon of 6 percent after an initial price range of 5.5-6.5 percent.



The government of President Nana Akufo-Addo, who assumed office in January, has pledged to cut waste and restructure public debt which reached nearly $32 billion, or 68.6 percent of gross domestic product, at the end of June.

Source: Reuters









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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Government is to send 58.95 million dollars on the printing of the stamps, including the purchase of servers and other maintenance activities for the implementation of the Tax Stamp Policy.



The amount is for a period of five years, with $11.79 million dollars being spent per year.



Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, the Deputy Minister of Finance, was speaking at the Tax Stamp Sensitisation Workshop, as part of the Governments strategy to familiarise the media with the policy and its implementation, in Accra.



He said the previous government had paid part of the amount and the new Government had also paid some considerable amount to the Company manufacturing the stamps.



Tax stamps are small stickers with security features, supplied by government to some manufacturers and importers and to be affixed to their products before they are released onto the market.



These stamps, once they are seen on a product, provide significant guarantee that the products are authentic.



In line with the Excise Tax Act, 2013, the Government would begin the implementation with Tobacco, Alcoholic and non-Alcoholic drinks, bottled water and textiles when the policy takes-off in January 2018.



He said the policy was part of Governments effort to address the counterfeiting of products on the markets and to improve revenue generation.



He said the Government needed to improve on revenue mobilisation by expanding the tax net to include more people to enhance the development of the economy.



Once the tax stamp policy has been adequately rolled out, government will lead the campaign to remind consumers that patronage of products that ought to have tax stamps but do not have tax stamps is unsafe and that consumers do so at their own risk, he explained.



Mr Akwasi Yankyera, the Chairman for the Implementation Committee, said with the new policy, the Government would record 20 per cent increase in revenue compared to what was collected previously.



He said after consultation, a recommendation was made for the sharing of the cost of the stamps, particularly, at the inception of the programme to engender stakeholders to buy in as well as reduce the potential burden on both the affected taxpayer and the Ghana Revenue Authority.



He said the GRA had taken steps to meet the requirement of this provision in the Act, by establishing modern and efficient affixing facility at the port of Tema and the Aflao entry point.



Affixing facilities are also being set up Takoradi, Elubo, Akanu and Kpoglo, he added.



He said all products in the affected categories found without the excise tax stamp affixed on them beyond the transition period or had affixed on them fake, counterfeited or altered stamps shall be seized as prescribed.

Source: GNA









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Electrical dealers have denied a recent newspaper report which created the impression that all imported electrical cables are fake and substandard and that locally manufactured cables are durable.



The dealers, who registered their displeasure in a press release dated 8th November and signed by Dr Jospeh Obeng, President of the Ghana Electrical Dealers Association, said such reports could be damaging to all businesses which import quality cables into the country.



The association also said that the publication could also raise suspicion about the tendency to use state agencies to destroy other competitors in the cable industry which is unfair and unacceptable.



We therefore question the truth or validity of the claim by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and debunk the assertion that only two electrical cable brands sold on the Ghanaian market met standards and were safe to use. This is because all imported cables are tested by GSA before permits are granted for clearance from the countrys ports.



It is therefore the duty of GSA to unravel how the substandard cables enter the Ghanaian market.



The association revealed that most of its members sell quality electrical cables in the country.



GSA, as a state agency, is empowered by law to conduct post-clearance test and take action as prescribed in the law. Members of GEDA supply about 80 percent of all electrical gadgets used in the country.



While we acknowledge the fact that some electrical dealers, who may or may not be members of our association, could be contributing to importation of inferior cables, key imports in the power sector such as cables and transformers with their corresponding parts, are sourced internationally.



We wish to add that test conducted by GSA on electrical equipment imported by our members showed that our products meet both local and international standards and in most cases beat the locally produced cables in all parameters set for testing.



It said that its members drew the attention of GSA to the existence of substandard cables on the market and that when GSA conducted tests on cables, they were found to be indeed substandard.



Therefore, we can say with confidence and certainty that the claim by GSA that only two cables are of good quality cannot be true since GEDA distributing members are more than the two importers quality brands.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Ashanti Business Owners Association (ABOA) has appealed to the government to suspend the implementation of the newly introduced three per cent Valued Added Tax (VAT).



Rather, it said the government should stick to the old 17.5 per cent tax else many businesses would collapse.



The Secretary of ABOA, Mr Mark Osei Boakye, said this at a press briefing in Kumasi last Tuesday that the three per cent was misleading because it rather increased the VAT portfolio to more than 20 per cent.



Currently, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) collects the old 17.5 per cent VAT at the ports and at the manufacturing stage and then goes ahead to charge the new three per cent, making the overhead cost of transacting business very high.



Previously, businessmen struck out the difference between their input and output and the difference was paid to the government as VAT.



But as it stands now, businesses are to add their projected profit to the cost of the item which is already high, plus the three per cent VAT and pass it on to the consumer, Mr Boakye explained.



Disadvantage



Mr Boakye said the practice was putting businesses at a disadvantage because if the chain of distribution was long, by the time the goods got to the final consumer, the price would just be unbearable.



He added that major companies such as UNILEVER, which were exempted from the VAT, could decide to mount warehouses all over the country and deal directly with the consumers, thereby killing the local businesses.



He said the practice had already taken root in the Ashanti Region where consumers preferred goods from companies with their warehouses than dealing with those in the retail markets.



Mr Boakye suggested that the government should increase the VAT rate at the ports and the manufacturing stages so that there would be no point adding another tax at the distribution stage.



He described the basis for the new tax as unrealistic and urged the government to engage ABOA for a practical demonstration of how the system worked and its effects on the economy.



The current tax regime is simply killing our businesses; and our appeal is for us to have a fruitful discussion with the government to demonstrate the practical understanding of how the system really works, he said.



Mr Boakye said the new tax regime favoured those who had not registered for VAT because their prices would always be lower.



He expressed the fear that companies might be compelled, under the circumstance, to lay off a number of workers to reduce their overhead cost, which would invariably have a negative effect on the economy.



He said it was important for the government to find a better way of collecting taxes instead of indirectly asking them to do so.

Source: Daily Graphic









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The lawyer representing a 30-year-old man, who is said to be behind the publication of the false report that the Accra Mall had been attacked by terrorists, has told an Accra Circuit Court that his client is not mentally stable.



The accused, Ebenezer Boadi, was arrested on November 1, 2017 at his hideout at Offinso in the Ashanti Region after spreading the false information, which according to the police, caused fear and panic among Ghanaians.



He is said to have put out the false message on Whatsapp and other social media platforms, claiming the Accra Mall was under terrorist attack, with some shoppers killed and others held hostage.



He was hauled before the court yesterday on the charges of publication of false news with the intent to cause fear and panic.



He pleaded not guilty.



His lawyer, who filed an application for bail, told the court that Ebenezer Boadi, a teacher, is mentally unstable.



According to him, his mental condition is known to the authorities of the school where he teaches, adding that the authorities sometimes drag him out of the classroom because of his behaviour.



He prayed the court to grant bail to the accused person.



The court, presided over by Marian Affoh, granted the accused bail in the sum of GH5,000 with two sureties.



She also ordered the case investigator to take the accused to the Pantang Hospital for psychiatric examination to ascertain the lawyers claims.



She further ordered that the residences of the two sureties be verified and a passport size picture of the accused person to be taken.



The case has been adjourned to December 14, 2017.



Facts



The prosecution said the accused person is a native of Asante Effiduase in the Ashanti Region.



On September 24, a social media message alleging that terrorists had attacked some people at the Accra Mall went viral.



On the same day, the Bureaux of National Communications, under the National Security Council, was tasked to assist the police to ascertain the source of the false message.



A technical search conducted online indicated that the message was generated in a Whatsapp group; Buy and Sell Anything GH and Travel Agent Gh.



Further investigations pointed to Boadi Ebenezer as the architect of the false message.



He was subsequently contacted and invited to the Ashanti Regional Office of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on October 5, 2017, but he refused to do so.



On November 1, 2017, the accused was arrested and sent to the Bureaux of National Communication where he was questioned.



He admitted the offence during interrogations.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The UK Ghana Chamber of Commerce (UKGCC) has donated a cash amount of $2,000 towards the 2017 British High Commissions Remembrance Day celebrations in Accra.



The event, organized annually in honour of Ghanaian Veterans is to acknowledge Ghanaian Veteran Soldiers who devoted their time and sacrificed their lives for their nation. The event is expected to be held on Saturday 11th November, 2017 at the British High Commissioners Residence in Accra.



The CEO of the Chamber, Tony Burkson says UKGCC is happy to be part of this program. We acknowledge the great works of our Veteran Soldiers and we deem it important to celebrate them. By this, we pay due homage to them for their hard work.



He further said UKGCC will continue to support courses that seek to promote the interest of its members and the entire country.



Darren Nichols who received the donation on behalf of the Defence Section of the British High Commission expressed appreciation to the UKGCC saying We are grateful for the support you provide to the British High Commission, particularly the Defence Section. We look forward to continue working with you for a successful event this year and beyond.





Source: Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Audio Attachment: Listen to Kweku Baako Jnr. on Peace FM's 'kokrokoo' programme

Seasoned journalist Kweku Baako has come to the defence of Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia for responding to the claims by former President John Dramani Mahama over the National Digital Property Addressing System (NDPAS) that he (Dr. Bawumia) has embarrassed President Akufo-Addo by introducing the project.



Ex-President Mahama, addressing party faithfuls at their Unity walk in the Central Region, rubbished the government's project to digitize the economy - GhanaPost GPS - describing it as a "419 scam".



How can you launch a Google GPS system that is freely available on our mobile phone and say it is a national addressing system. It is such a pity. Why will you embarrass the president so much? You go and take a whole president to bring him to come and launch a system that is 419.



"When we talk about accountability, this is where the president should show that he is serious about corruption...The toughness of the fight against corruption is that you are able to take action against your own people and that is what we did when we were in office. Here the NPP seems unable to take, the president seems unable to take self-action in anything," Mr. Mahama said.



Following the former President's comments on the project, Vice President Dr. Bawumia released a statement demystifying issues to Mr. Mahama.



"When I read his (Mr. Mahama) reasoning for such a description, it was evident to me that he has no clue about what he was talking about and was just engaged in parroting propaganda. I actually had a good laugh. Let me therefore take this opportunity to educate him and others who may think like him about Ghanas landmark digital property addressing which has been achieved in less than one year, something his government could not do in eight years!" Dr. Bawumia replied during a Consultative Forum towards a Marshall plan for Agriculture.



Addressing both leaders on the Wednesday edition of Peace FM's Kokrokoo, Kweku Baako stated emphatically that he supports Dr. Bawumia and so, expected him to have a more "robust" response to the former President.



To him, he had wanted Dr. Bawumia's statements to Mr. Mahama to have been stronger than he did because the former President intended to criminalize the digital address system, an initiative by the government.



I think it wasnt robust. What else did you want him to say when you criminalized the project? The project was criminalized.



Mr. Baako also targeted critics of Dr. Bawumia, following his quick riposte to the former President, saying "I dont see where Bawumia insulted former President Mahama. It was harsh. It was direct and I think that it was right...What did he say that was indecent? You know if I felt that way (that Bawumia's response wa indecent), Id say it".

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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West Shore restaurant inspections: Oct. 15-21

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture oversees restaurant inspections in the state. Inspection reports are "snapshots" of the day and time the inspections took place. In many cases, violations are corrected on site prior to the inspector leaving.

The municipalities included in this roundup are Camp Hill, Dillsburg, East Pennsboro Twp., Fairview Twp., Hampden Twp., Lemoyne, Mechanicsburg, New Cumberland, Newberry Twp., Silver Spring Twp. and Wormleysburg.

The following establishments, that handle food, were inspected the week of Oct. 15-21 and were recorded by PennLive as of Nov. 8.

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The following West Shore establishments were out of compliance:

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Peppinos serves customers for carry out at their counter. They also offer a dining area. (photo Laura Mathews, The Patriot-News)

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PEPPINOS ITALIAN PIZZERIA

3649 MARKET ST CAMP HILL

Regular -- Out of compliance

Food Employee observed changing tasks that may have contaminated hands without a proper handwash in-between. A food employee was observed touching cooked pizza with bare hands. Food facility does not provide lockers or storage for food employee personal clothing and possessions  as some were found on a shelf over the dough mixer, on a shelf on the make-line, and on a shelf with clean dishes on the make-line. Tuna, cooked pasta, par-cooked soup, sliced ham, turkey, prepped lettuce, and hard boiled eggs, refrigerated ready to eat time/temperature control for safety foods, in both baine maries in the kitchen area, not compliant with datemarking by being labeled with a discard or use by date of no more than 7 days. Observed an accumulation of old food debris on the food contact surface of the dough mixer that was not clean to sight and touch. Observed dirty cutting knives being stored in the clean knife holder. Can Opener Blade was observed to have food residue and was not clean to sight and touch. Flour ingredient storage container, in the kitchen on the make-line, not labeled with the common name of the food. Observed metal bowl without a handle being used as a scoop touching product in the flour container. Observed the plastic handles on several utensils deformed and misshapen from heat, and are not durable under normal use in the food facility. Observed an accumulation of dirt and food debris behind the reach-in freezer in the prep area. Observed an accumulation of dirt and food debris on the door handles of both the reach-in freezer and baine marie on the make-line. Observed an accumulation of old food debris on the bottom shelf of the reach in freezer in the prep area. Non-food contact surfaces on the dough mixer were not cleaned at a frequency to preclude accumulation of dirt and soil. Observed several containers of clean food equipment in kitchen, were stored wet in a manner that does not allow for draining and/or air drying (wet nesting). The floor/wall juncture coving behind reach-in freezer in the prep area is cracked or broken and not a smooth and easily cleanable surface. Mops are not being hung to air dry. The handwash sink in the kitchen was blocked by clean dish table and not accessible at all times for employee use. Observed a lighter being stored on clean dish shelf next to clean dishes and directly over a prep table in the kitchen. Observed first aid supplies being stored on a shelf directly over the dough mixer in the kitchen, which is a possible source of contamination. The Person in Charge does not demonstrate adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this non-compliant inspection. The food facility does not have the original certificate for the certified food employee posted in public view.

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GIUSEPPE BROTHER'S PIZZA

301 S 18TH ST CAMP HILL

Regular -- Out of compliance

Observed black mold like residue on the ice machine deflector plate. Observed black mold like residue on the food contact surfaces of the customer self-serve soda machine. Observed an accumulation of black mold like residue in the floor drain next to the ice machine in the storage hall way. Observed several employee's open beverage containers on top of the reach in freezer in the food preparation area. Observed soap and chlorine mixed together in the sanitizer bucket making the sanitizer solution 0 ppm, rather than 50-100 ppm as required. Deli slicer was observed to have old dried food debris on the slicer blade and was not clean to sight and touch. Observed an accumulation of old food debris adhered to the food contact surface of the can opener blade. Food employee observed in kitchen, wearing bracelet on left arm. Food employees observed in kitchen, not wearing proper hair restraints, such as nets or hats. Food dispensing utensil in the salt and flour were observed stored in the food and not with handle above the top of the food and the container. Observed several wet wiping cloths throughout the kitchen not being stored in sanitizer solution. Observed one green and one on the baine marie -- deeply scored cutting boards not resurfaced or discarded as required. --Observed an accumulation of food debris and dirt under the flat top grill on the make-line, on top of oven, and behind the pizza baine marie. Tableware for customer self-service is not displayed so that only handles are touched by consumers and employees. Plumbing system not maintained in good repair - observed water leaking at the base of the three bay sink piping in the prep warewashing area, and water leaking from both swing nozzles at both three bay sinks. Food facility does not have enough outside waste receptacles as evidenced by refuse and waste lying on the ground. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the Ansul system directly over the food contact surfaces of the flat top grill, steam table, and deep fryers. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the fan guards in the walk-in cooler. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the ceiling and vent guards over the front kitchen prep table. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the vent cover in the storage hallway. The Person in Charge does not demonstrate adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this non-compliant inspection.

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HARBOUR HOUSE OF CRABS

5523 CARLISLE PIKE MECHANICSBURG

Regular -- Out of compliance -Observed old crab debris on the floor behind the steamers. The hot water was turned off at the handwash sink in the processing area; warm water was not being used to wash hands. The door in the live walk-in cooler that leads to the outside has a gap and does not protect against the entry of rodents or insects. Observed spray bottles of sanitizer with no identifying label. Observed a missing light shield in the processing area. Observed a cell phone stored directly on a tray used for food in the processing area. Food facility does not have available chlorine sanitizer test strips or test kit to determine appropriate sanitizer concentration. Observed containers of pan detergent stored above food in the back storage area. Food facility is using chlorine Sanitizer at an extremely high concentration of greater than 200ppm, not approved in the Code of Federal Regulations for food contact sanitizing at this level. The Person in Charge does not demonstrate adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this non-compliant inspection.

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In compliance, with some violations, on the West Shore:

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LOWER ALLEN DINER

3449 SIMPSON FERRY RD CAMP HILL

Type 2 Follow-up

An employee's open beverage container was observed on shelf over prep table in the prep area. Time in lieu of temperature being used in the food facility to control ready to eat potentially hazardous food par-cooked potatoes and wet pancake batter without written procedures or documentation to verify disposition of food. Clean dish racks observed stored on the floor in warewashing area.

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(Shutterstock)

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SHAWARMA HOUSE

3616 CAPITAL CITY MALL DR CAMP HILL

Follow-up

Observed several small holes in the wall in the rear prep area, behind the reach in freezer that are in need of repair. Food facility does not provide lockers or storage for food employee personal clothing and possessions -- observed painting equipment, letters, personal food, and personal single use items above, on top of, or directly next to cases of food or food cooking equipment in the rear prep area.

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SUBWAY

4830 CARLISLE PIKE MECHANICSBURG

Regular

The facilities Food Employee Certification expired 5-17-2017.

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Daniel Zampogna, PennLive

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SAPPORO EAST

4612 CARLISLE PIKE MECHANICSBURG

Follow-up

Observed an accumulation of food debris and grease on the inside of the Mechanical warewashing machine. Wall in the warewashing area, has several small holes, and is in need of repair.

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(file photo)

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BROTHER'S PIZZA & RESTAURANT

265 CUMBERLAND PARKWAY MECHANICSBURG

Regular

Observed an accumulation of red and black mold like residue on the deflector plate on the ice shoot on the customer self-serve soda machine. Time in lieu of temperature being used in the food facility to control ready to eat potentially hazardous food pizza without written procedures or documentation to verify disposition of food. Observed an accumulation of dried food debris on the food contact surface of the floor mixer, that was not clean to sight and touch. Observed clean pots and pans being stored over the three bay sinks in the warewashing area next to the handwashing sink, where it is subject to being splash by handwashing water. Observed torn rubber door gasket on the walk-in cooler door. Observed several clean food equipment on a shelf directly over the three bay sinks in the warewashing area, being stored wet in a manner that does not allow for draining and/or air drying (wet nesting). Observed a large gap between the floor and the screen curtain located at the rear exit of the food facility, which does not protect against the entry of rodent, insects, or small animals. Food facility does not provide lockers or storage for food employee personal clothing and possessions. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the hood system directly over the deep fryers and oven doors in the kitchen.

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(Shutterstock)

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NORTHSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

400 N WALNUT ST MECHANICSBURG

Regular

Observed several food employees in the warewashing and front service line, not wearing proper hair restraints, such as nets, hats, or beard covers. Food facility does not have a three-compartment sink for manual warewashing. Observed no maximum registering temperature indicator device to monitor sanitation temperatures in the high temperature mechanical warewashing machine. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the vent cover directly over clean food equipment in rear kitchen and storage room.

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SUN-UP MARKETS

101 N WALNUT ST MECHANICSBURG

Regular

Observed an accumulation of black mold like residue on and around the Jolly Rancher dispensing nozzles, a food contact surface what was not clean to sight and touch. Inside of microwave had food residue and was not clean to sight and touch. Observed an accumulation of dust, dirt, food debris, and trash on the floors in the walk-in cooler and in the rear warewashing area. Observed an accumulation of static dust on all of the fan guards in the walk-in cooler. Observed two bags of ice melt and gas pump supplies being stored above case of tea and soda in the storage room. Observed several bags of food being stored next to several working containers of hand sanitizer in the back room.

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(Shutterstock)

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ST JOSEPH'S SCHOOL

420 E SIMPSON ST MECHANICSBURG

Regular

Observed an accumulation of black mold like residue and dirt in both floor drains in the kitchen under the warewashing and prep sinks. Observed an accumulation of black mold like residue on the fan guard in the reach in cooler on the receiving line. Observed an accumulation of dirt on the floor under shelving in the walk-in freezer. Observed an accumulation of food debris and dust on top of the dish machine in the warewashing area. Observed an accumulation of static dust on the intake filter in the hood system directly over the dish machine.

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(screenshot)

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A PLUS SUNOCO

101 LIMEKILN RD NEW CUMBERLAND

Change of Owner

Observed 5 to 10 small beetle like insects on the floor around and in the insect control device near the rear exterior door in the storage room. Observed several retail shelves in the walk-in cooler to have an accumulation of black mold like residue. Observed an accumulation of food spillage on the wall and floor near the milk retail shelf in the walk-in cooler. Observed an accumulation of food debris, black mold like residue, and trash in the floor drain in the warewashing area.

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717 Armory owner Patrick Connaghan sees his business as a lot more than a gun range.

Instead, the former Marine called it a one-stop shop for gun enthusiasts and novices alike.

At about 24,000 square feet, 717 Armory will have five 50-yard shooting lanes, ten 25-yard shooting lanes, and four 20-yard archery lanes. All lanes are rifle rated up to .50 caliber, which means most rifles and pistols can be used.

717 Armory is located at the former Star Skating Rink at 7500 Derry Street in Swatara Township.

Once complete, the facility will have:

a classroom for non-range instruction

a lounge for members and corporate guests

a place where customers can buy firearms, bows, ammunition, and accessories

firearms that can be rented to use on the range

in-house gunsmith services by Rob Megonnell

laser-engraving services.

After graduating from Bishop McDevitt High School, Connaghan enlisted with the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006. During his service in the infantry, Connaghan completed three combat tours - two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

Connaghan said he completed his service in 2010 and went on to work as a private security contractor in Afghanistan, where he "really enhanced" his own training and the philosophies behind it.

He then returned home and worked for a defense company, HESCO, where he built outdoor firearms ranges.

"Through my travels across the world, I entered a lot of indoor range facilities, and I kept thinking to myself, 'Man, if I only had one of these growing up at home, that would be the best thing I could think of in Dauphin County,'" he said.

That idea was something he decided to act on.

"The whole process started a couple of years ago on a bar napkin," he said, with the idea being to have the range at the old Star Skating Rink.

Construction at the site has been going for several months. Crews on Thursday were still crafting the old building into Connaghan's vision.

"We're on schedule right now, no major hiccups there," he said. "We're hoping that we'll be doors open on December 20th, and then our grand opening will be Saturday, December 23."

Membership has its perks. Like access to the 50 yard line. Our first sale is Veterans Day, Saturday, November 11, 2017. Preview membership opportunities and pricing here: http://bit.ly/2AnDuri Posted by 717 Armory on Thursday, November 9, 2017

Connaghan explained that the philosophy of the facility is "Learn. Shoot. Repeat."

"It elevates an individual in not only their confidence, but their capabilities," he said.

For those that may have had little or no experience with firearms, Connaghan said instructors will offer both classroom and practical instruction to build their confidence, and in turn, their capabilities.

"We're going to cater to all novices," he said. "We're going to go slow, we're going to take our time. We're going to instill confidence before anybody even pulls the trigger with a round in it, that they walk into the range feeling comfortable enough to pull that trigger at a target."

717 Armory will also offer women-only classes and shooting leagues, as well as sessions of firearm and archery training specifically for youth.

Connaghan said even advanced marksmen can learn something new at this facility, whether it's learning new techniques or renting and trying out a new firearm.

"They could be a great shooter of a shotgun, and they've never shot a pistol ... and they might find a whole new passion and hobby," he said.

717 Armory will also cater to the schedules of local law enforcement.

"I understand that they work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which makes it really difficult for them to train across the board," Connaghan said of police officers.

As a result, local law enforcement will be able to schedule appointments for dedicated range training time that fits their schedule. During that time, a staff member will be on site so the department can conduct training.

"We're not open 24 hours a day, but for local law enforcement department training, they can come in and schedule before or afterhours training," Connaghan said.

Normal hours of operation for the facility will be 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

As Connaghan has worked to fulfill his idea of a one-stop shop for gun enthusiasts, his vision has become a family business.

Connaghan's sister, Erin, serves as the marketing and communications director. Their father, Steve, is the vice president of operations for the facility.

Erin explained that she has a background in marketing and public relations. When her brother looked to expand staff at 717 Armory, the idea of working with her family drew her to the company.

"There's nothing more enticing to me than being a part of a family business," she said. "Our whole life, we were raised to support one another and be there for one another."

Patrick's mother Angie, wife Bri, and sister Meghan also have roles within the business.

"Patrick has always been centered on family, and has always been centered on doing the best for the close ones in his life," Erin said.

While 717 Armory is on schedule to open in December, it will soon be possible to purchase memberships in advance.

Officials with 717 Armory will set up shop at Susquehanna Valley Harley to sell t-shirts and hoodies and pre-memberships. The pre-memberships will also be sold on 717 Armory's website.

Connaghan said discounted prices for family and single memberships will be given from Nov. 11 to Dec. 11.

Connaghan also encouraged veterans to stop by the dealership, as they will be hosting a veterans luncheon at the same time.
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania's Council of Trustees voted today to request that the Board of Governors of Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education appoint Aaron A. Walton the university's next president. The request will now be forwarded to the Board of Governors for consideration.

The council took the action after conferring with students, faculty, staff and alumni about who would best serve as the university's next president, according to a press release. As a result of Thursday's vote, the council will ask the board for limited dispensation from its policy on presidential selection in order to expedite the process. Walton has served as Cheyney's interim president since May.

"Since the day he arrived on campus, Interim President Walton has demonstrated both his outstanding leadership abilities and the courage to make the difficult but necessary decisions to help secure Cheyney University's future," Council Chair Robert Bogle said in the release. "He has made the decisions that have had to be made as we seek to secure a positive decision from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education regarding our accreditation.

"It's essential as we near a decision from Middle States that we have strong, stable leadership in place. Aaron Walton is the leader we need now, and into the future."

READ MORE: Can the nation's oldest black university survive?

The Board of Governors named Walton the university's interim president shortly after Middle States ordered Cheyney to "show cause" as to why its accreditation should not be withdrawn. The university's accreditation has been on probationary status for two years.



By moving forward now with the recommendation that Walton be appointed president, the Council of Trustees hopes to alleviate Middle States' concerns about the lack of permanent leadership at the institution and to further support the university's efforts to secure its continuing accreditation.

Walton will appear before the commission next week on behalf of the university, after which the commission will make a decision regarding Cheyney's accreditation.

"I will do everything within my power to demonstrate to Middle States that Cheyney University deserves a future," he said. "Our students deserve the opportunity to attend Cheyney University, to receive a high-quality education here, and to earn a degree that will help ensure their successful future."

Walton is a former senior vice president of Highmark Inc. He previously served on both the State System's Board of Governors and California University of Pennsylvania's Council of Trustees.

He holds a bachelor's degree in speech pathology and audiology from Cal U and a master's degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University.
MIDDLEBURG - A Snyder County man has been placed on probation for two years for possessing an instrument of crime, which in this case were four "sour gummies" containing marijuana.

The sentenced imposed Thursday in Snyder County on Timothy Allan Everett, 39, of Sunbury, also included 25 hours of community service.

Everett, who had pleaded guilty, admitted he had sold the candy to a fellow employee at a movie theater complex a year ago.

State police charged him following an investigation they said began when he was heard talking about "sour gummies" with fellow employees at the movie complex in the Susquehanna Valley Mall, located north of Selinsgrove.

Surveillance cameras last Nov. 19 captured Everett in a supply room giving another employee a plastic bag, the charge states.

The candy, which the employee said he bought for $12, was given to a trooper. It tested positive for marijuana, arrest documents state.

There is no indication moviegoers were approached about buying the laced candy, police said.
Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller plans to announce new developments about deleted basement footage in the Penn State fraternity hazing death case on Monday.

A news release issued late Thursday said Parks Miller would hold a news conference at 1 p.m. Monday in Bellefonte to release her findings about the basement video.

The decision to hold a news conference is a strong indication that police were successful in retrieving images from deleted footage. The news release also expressly referenced activities caught on the basement video, further indicating police have gained new insight.

The video was deleted after Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers were made aware of an investigation into Timothy Piazza's death and that police were planning to retrieve the footage, according to the news release.

A State College police lieutenant testified in August that he believed a member of the Beta Theta Pi house deleted potentially incriminating video footage right in front of a police officer.

The entire video system was then sent to the FBI for further analysis, right in the middle of a preliminary hearing for 16 fraternity brothers. Parks Miller previously said that she would file additional criminal charges if she could prove that someone tried to destroy evidence.

The news release hinted that the deleted images may have recorded additional criminal activity as well.

"The basement video captures the ongoing hazing that occurred on bid acceptance night and the continued repeated furnishing of alcohol by the Beta brothers to Tim Piazza, as well as the other pledges, throughout the evening," the news release said.

Piazza, 19, died from injuries he suffered in several falls inside the Beta house in February during a pledge party in February.

That night, pledges underwent an alcohol chugging obstacle course on the main floor, some of which was recorded on the cameras. After that, the fraternity hosted a "social" party in the basement with alcohol, but activities downstairs had previously remained largely unknown.

The house's video surveillance system recorded disturbing images from the main floor, but the basement cameras reportedly were not working, at least according to initial reports. Police later announced their suspicions that footage had been deleted.

Police previously confiscated video footage from the main floor, which showed Piazza stumbling and repeatedly falling and hitting his head in an obvious drunken stupor, and thrashing about or rolling on his fraternity's floor, showing what would be the last signs of life.

Parks Miller said in August she didn't know at that time what could have been recorded in the basement, but "it must be terrible if you pick to delete that video and not the one upstairs? What might it have shown?"

Prosecutors initially charged 18 fraternity members in Piazza's death, two of whom waived their preliminary hearing. A judge in early September threw out the most serious charges - involuntary manslaughter and felony aggravated assault - against eight defendants. But prosecutors recently refiled all 16 of those charges.

The fraternity has been disbanded.
Arctic air will move into central Pennsylvania on Friday, bringing with it potentially record-breaking cold temperatures for this time of year, according to forecasters with AccuWeather and the National Wealth Service at State College.

"The coldest air of this season will descend upon central Pennsylvania Friday through Saturday. Low temperatures Saturday morning, under clear skies and light winds, will drop into the teens," according to the National Weather Service at State College.

The low temperature early Saturday morning in the Harrisburg area is expected to be 19. The records low for any Nov. 11 is 23, set in 1954, according to records kept by National Weather Service.

The low in Williamsport on Saturday morning is expected to about 16. The record low for any Nov. 11 is 18, set in 1949.

For Friday, expect sunny skies and a high near 36, with wind gusts as high as 24 mph. The low at night into Saturday morning is expected to be around 19.

VETERANS DAY: Sunny, with a high near 39. Low at night around 25.

SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. There will be a 30 percent chance of rain and snow. Low around 34.

MONDAY: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 49. Low around 33.

TUESDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 49. Low around 33.

WEDNESDAY: Mostly sunny, with a high near 50. Low around 38.

For the latest forecasts, visit PennLive's weather page.

You can see live weather updates via the National Weather Service and other Twitter sources below.

Tweet us at @pennlive with photos of inclement weather at your place, incidents you see on your commute or send a submission to submissions@pennlive.com.
The central Pennsylvania landscape is still beaming with orange, red and yellow leaves, but those fall colors could soon be dotted with winter white.

Arctic blasts are expected to move through our area three times in the next 12 days and snowflakes could follow those cold fronts.

The first chill is hitting the Harrisburg region this weekend, with a record-breaking low expected Saturday morning. The low Saturday morning is expected to be 19, which would break the 23-degree record set on Nov. 11, 1954.

A similar blast of cold air is also expected next weekend, Nov. 18 and 19, and a third is predicted for the day before Thanksgiving.

"There are three shots of cold air coming with the stretching and strengthening of the polar vortex, and they bring a chance of snow," said Paul Pastelok, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Arctic air masses get trapped trapped in valley areas, like the Susquehanna Valley, and keep the cold air in place longer.

That sets the stage for a mix of sleet, snow and rain.

"Sunday into Monday, that could cause problems in the central and northern parts of the state," Pastelok said.

Another shot of cold air next weekend will cause a storm to form along the cold front, bringing of mix of snow and rain to central and eastern Pennsylvania.

At the very least, it will be rainy and cold, Pastelok said.

And a third cold front will collide with Thanksgiving travel, starting as rain and possibly changing to snow - particularly in higher elevations.

There aren't predictions for high inch counts or warnings to get out snow shovels, but there could be enough "tough conditions" to cause problems, he said.

"It could get tricky, especially in the I-80 corridor with snow squalls," Pastelok said.

Several areas in Pennsylvania are prone to snow squalls, and they have caused multiple crashes through the years.

For example, there are snow squall warnings in the Bradford area today and this weekend.

Snow squalls are also possible in DuBois and along I-80 in Columbia County, according to David Martin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in State College.

Gusty winds are also expected late tonight and tomorrow throughout Pennsylvania, with temperatures dropping down into the low 30s, Martin said.

Even as the region braces for record lows this weekend, much attention turns to next weekend.

"There's a big storm moving, pulling in more cool air that looks like it will hang around into Thanksgiving," Martin said. "We'll have to keep an eye on it."
With the advantage of distance, it's tough not to reach the conclusion that the debate over this year's state budget didn't so much reach a fruitful conclusion as it did sputter to a halt, the air going out of it like an overinflated balloon.

Yes, Republicans who control the General Assembly and the Democratic Wolf administration figured out a way to pay for the $32 billion spending document that landed on the governor's desk in July.

But there's little room for doubt that policy-makers will be back in 2018 facing the same set of problems that confronted them in 2017.

The budget was balanced - and a $2.2 billion deficit was closed - on the back of $1.5 billion in borrowing against the state's share of the nationwide tobacco settlement; a $500 million raid on a host of special funds, and, lawmakers hope, $200 million raised by a massive expansion of legalized gambling.

That seems rosy.

The state already collects billions in tax revenues from casinos. And while Wolf told the PennLive/Patriot-News editorial board earlier this year that he'd only accept expanded gambling that raised new money, it seems reasonable to conclude that new "mini-casinos," online gaming and new "video-gaming terminals" at truck stops and elsewhere will likely cannibalize the existing revenue stream - not expand it.

Leadership failures abounded on all sides. Wolf continued his frustrating habit of allowing bills to lapse into law without a gubernatorial signature. While it's perfectly legal, that tactic also seems hopelessly wishy-washy.

Sign it or veto it, Governor. The power - and choice - is yours.

Senate Republicans and legislative Democrats deserve credit for at least trying to reach a solution early.

The intractability of House Republicans, whose conservative ranks are utterly unwilling to put up votes for taxes - only extended the misery. The House GOP returned to the table twice with revenue plans it knew would be unacceptable to the Senate.

The debate also highlighted the backward way in which Pennsylvania approves its annual fiscal document. Only in the topsy-turvy world of politics does it make sense to approve a spending document first, and then figure out a way to pay for it later.

Thus, a proposal by state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, that would allow lawmakers to cast a single vote on both the spending and revenue side of the budget, putting an end to the current nightmare, is worthy of consideration.

Lest we focus too much on doom and gloom, lawmakers met their annual responsibility to fund Pennsylvania's four state-related universities: Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities.

Those institutions, along with Penn's respected veterinary school, received $650 million in public support, which will allow them to offer subsidized tuition for Pennsylvania residents.

But reliable forms of revenue, notably a severance tax on natural gas drillers, were left on the table as lawmakers skedaddled out of town.

A severance tax was included in the revenue bill that passed the Senate in the long-ago days of July.

A severance tax bill also cleared the House Finance Committee in the waning days of the debate, but it never received a vote. Upon their return from an election week recess, lawmakers should begin debate anew.

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, has often said that he doesn't want to see state government become as paralyzed as Washington D.C.

More than four months after its initial approval and eight months after Wolf proposed his spending plan to lawmakers, Pennsylvania's elected leaders may not have matched Washington's paralysis, but they certainly rivaled it.

Pennsylvania's taxpayers deserve better than this year's performance. And lawmakers should strive to do so next year.
As a child and a young man, I remember watching movies such as "Waiting to Exhale," "Set it Off," "A League of their Own" and "Soul Food."

Anwar Curtis (PennLive file)

In each one of these movies, I observed groups of women coming together, making a bond and staying committed to it regardless of their circumstances because these women understood how significant a sisterhood is.

Gillian Sumpter is a woman who lives by those values.

With so many distractions that are still placed in front of women today, Sumpter took it upon herself to be proactive, creating an event for women she admires, "Boss Babes," to encourage women to find their voices and honor what makes them beautiful, which is their confidence. Group members encourage each other to pursue their goals.

For too long, society has been dominated by groups of people that have made women feel insecure and undervalued. These stigmas have affected women no matter their race.

These stigmas lead to high cases of domestic violence, which results in a lack of communication skills and builds walls upon walls of trust issues. When women battle being unhappy, they tend to overlook their part in the world, producing balance.

By developing "Boss Babes," Sumpter made a goal to have women work together, using their gifts to step over boundaries and understand that their value is limitless.

One of Sumpter's biggest influences is Taqiyya Muhammad, a local artist who strives to help heal others through painting.

"Taqiyya is somebody that I go to for everything. She has known me from day one," Sumpter says.

After working for a local youth center, Muhammad noticed her life evolving.

Taking a leap of faith, Muhammad started her own business, Paint Parties with Taqiyya, teaching children and adults the importance of expression. Nobody really knows what a person is suffering from, but everyone needs an outlet to express themselves.

Painting is essential to the healing process because it is extremely therapeutic and allows a person to become vulnerable without an explanation.

"When somebody sees something in you that you don't see, you cultivate that energy. You should also naturally feel compelled to push that back into somebody else," Muhammad says.

Sumpter also felt that it was important to have an underdog on her side, a person who has her own story to tell. Sumpter understood other women could relate to it. Ashley Rooks, a young lady who has talent out of this world considers herself an introvert.

Rooks says she is excited to be connected with a group full of African-American women who aspire to inspire.

Many believe being an introvert gives people a disadvantage in life.

On the contrary. Being reserved gives Rooks the upper hand, allowing her to manifest her many gifts.

Rooks is a graphic designer and photographer who has pushed herself to surpass her own expectation, balancing both a career and motherhood.

"I have expressed to Gillian how much she has encouraged me to live my dream and use the gifts God gave me to work this thing out," she says.

Then you have LaTasha Williams. Sumpter considers her a "boss babe" because of her drive, paving her own way. "LaTasha has a really good energy. Sometimes in this city we look to the people whose names are on everything. LaTasha is somebody people need to look up to and respect for her craft" Sumpter said.

If you are wondering what those achievements are, look no further. Williams is studying to be a criminal defense attorney. She also lives the life of an entrepreneur.

Over the years, African-American women haven't had too many options when it comes to buying hair products from their own race. Williams currently has her own hair extensions line, Elevated Extensions.

"When you have a passion, you often extend your services for free," Williams says. By connecting her passion with her business, Williams' ultimate goal is to allow Elevated Extensions to help fund her passion, which is giving legal representation to convicted felons who believe they have been falsely accused. This has birthed Elevated Advocacy.

Another heavy hitter whom Sumpter makes sure she acknowledges as a "Boss Babe" is author Julia Mallory.

Sumpter has looked up to Mallory since she was a young woman for her professionalism and style. Mallory is an author who spreads love through her poetry and children's books.

Thank you, Gillian Sumpter, for your inspiration, telling women everywhere: No matter how deep the ocean, you can swim.

Anwar Curtis of Harrisburg is a PennLive Opinion contributor. His work appears biweekly.
By Joe Scarborough

It might be comforting to believe that Tuesday's election can be explained as a political primal scream aimed at President Donald Trump and his dangerous excesses. Some may even conclude that a Democratic sweep of next year's midterms will follow along with the speedy impeachment of Trump.

Joe Scarborough (MSNBC photo)

Then, surely, reason and order will return to the business of running the United States.

Unfortunately, that pipe dream ignores the more profound meaning of this week's election results: The shellacking Republicans took proves again just how unmoored American politics has become in the 21st century.

Democrats and Republicans have held a duopoly over Washington since Franklin Pierce got elected president in 1852. For most of that time, both parties saw their governing majorities rise and fall over the course of entire generations.

The Grand Old Party more or less dominated national politics from Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 until the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democratic coalition dominated from 1933 until the Reagan Revolution began to reshape politics in 1980.

When Ronald Reagan's Republican Party finally gained control of Congress 14 years later, it was the first time a GOP speaker had run the House in 40 years.

Since then, though, the political alignments that once endured decades of change have begun collapsing in two-year intervals. In 2004, Karl Rove spoke of a permanent Republican majority. Just over two years later, Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House.

In 2008, many hailed Barack Obama's winning coalition as a new Democratic majority, built on a well-educated and demographically diverse coalition. Fast-forward two years and the tea party laid waste to all previous political presumptions.

But their unfocused, anti-government zeal proved to be no match for Obama's reelection campaign. At that time, Obama told Mika Brzezinski and me that his 2012 victory would finally make Republicans deal with his White House. But just two years later, Republicans again routed Democrats in local, state and national legislative races. And two years after that, Trump destroyed the Democratic establishment, but only after reducing the Republican political machine to rubble.

Now, less than a year after seizing control of all branches of government, Trumpism is in full retreat.

Even before Tuesday's drubbing, the president was weighed down by historically low approval ratings. The Republican Congress fares even worse, with a dismal 13 percent approval rating. Remarkably, the Democratic Party seemed even less united before Tuesday's rout.

The fact that Trump's GOP was beaten so badly by the party of Donna Brazile and a Virginia gubernatorial candidate who one observer compared to a bag of mulch proves again that voters are voting against political parties instead of voting for inspiring leaders.

The last president to own majorities in both the House and Senate for two terms was Roosevelt. Since then, Republican majorities have been undone by the excesses of McCarthyism, Watergate and Iraq, while Democratic alliances have collapsed under the weight of Vietnam, a runaway welfare state, the enduring impact of the Great Recession and a brand of identity politics that some Democrats quietly suggest fed into Trump's destructive rise.

It seems the long-term political turbulence shaking the United States' two- party system to its knees comes from the inability of either party to explain why working-class jobs keep leaving the country and why most Americans' wages have stagnated for decades. More importantly, no candidates have come forward with a convincing plan to turn those trends around.

Trump promised voters last year that his unique brand of economic witchcraft would magically send millions of workers back into coal mines, return automotive assembly lines to full capacity and transport U.S. workers back to a time when factories were spinning out manufactured goods and workers had a salary that supported their families.

But the dreams Trump sold working-class Americans are already turning to dust. His promise of a more affordable and accessible health-care system is dead. His plan to reform the tax code now seems to be little more than a payoff to rich political patrons and billionaires like him. And instead of draining Washington's swamp of unethical behavior, Trump has put his White House, his family and himself in the legal sights of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Even if Tuesday's election begins the long process of removing the president from office, Americans will be left with the same corrosive system that led voters to take a chance on Trump. The only way to escape that cycle is to break apart the hyperpartisan two-party duopoly that has kept Washington too divided, too dysfunctional and too directionless for too long.

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, hosts the MSNBC show "Morning Joe." He wrote this piece for The Washington Post, where it first appeared.
US President Donald Trump speaks on the final day of the APEC CEO Summit, part of the broader Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit, in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on Friday Nov. 10, 2017. World leaders and senior business figures are gathering in the Vietnamese city of Danang this week for the annual 21-member APEC summit. (Anthony Wallace, Pool via AP)
Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray is sworn in as a new cabinet minister in Edmonton on Monday February 2, 2016. Alberta is putting aside $40 million to help workers losing their jobs as the province transitions away from thermal coal mines and coal-fired power plants over the next decade. CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
FILE - In this Sunday, March 2, 2014 file photo, Lupita Nyong'o accepts the award for best actress in a supporting role for "12 Years a Slave" during the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. British magazine Grazia U.K. on Friday Nov. 10, 2017, has apologized to Lupita Nyong'o after the actress accused it of altering her hair on its front cover "to fit a more Eurocentric notion" of beauty. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP, File)
Christopher "Jake" Carrizal, right, arrives at the McLennan County courthouse with an unidentified women, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, in Waco, Texas. A jury started deliberating around noon after both sides of the case presented closing arguments. The Dallas chapter president of the Bandidos motorcycle club is the first to stand trial involving the 2015 shootout where nine people were fatally shot and 18 people were injured outside of Twin Peaks restaurant. (Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune Herald, via AP)
#FIFA World Cup Captain Son Heung-min willing to risk health for fans It would be too risky for any athlete to return to competition less than a month after suffering facial fractures. But Son Heung-min, the beloved captain of the South Korean men's ...
FILE - In this Oct., 31, 2017 file photo, U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph A. Felix, his wife, and his lawyers exit a courtroom after testimony at Camp Lejeune, N.C. A Marine Corps jury on Friday, Nov. 10, is deciding whether Felix should be sentenced to military prison time for choking, punching and otherwise tormenting recruits, especially Muslims, one of whom eventually hurled himself to his death down a stairwell. The eight-man jury at Camp Lejeune, N.C., also could sentence Felix to financial penalties and a dishonorable discharge. (Rory Laverty /The Washington Post/via AP, File)
FILE - In this June 25, 2016 file photo, Louis C.K. attends the premiere of "The Secret Life of Pets" in New York. Louis C.K.'s longtime manager is apologizing for not taking complaints about his client's sexual misconduct more seriously. Dave Becky says in a lengthy statement Monday that he misunderstood the nature of the allegations by a female comedy duo in 2002. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
Venezuela and Trinidad & Tobago ahead with Gas connection between the two countries PDVSA



Douglas Sosa, Deputy minister for Gas of Venezuela. The project is been executed by Shell, NGC and PDVSA.



By Elio Ohep

CARACAS

Petroleumworld 11 09 17 The Venezuelan Deputy Minister for Gas, Douglas Sosa participated on Thursday in the panel of speakers at the conference event "Business Opportunities between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, on the Natural Gas sector", an activity organized by the Venezuelan Gas Processors Association (AVPG). The importance of Venezuela's potential to develop its natural gas resources and the monetization of it by Trinidad and Tobago was highlighted in the conference.



Sosa said that currently the most important gas project that is being carried out today between both nations is the development of Dragon Field, a project been develop by MinPetroleo, PDVSA, Shell and The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago NGC, with the support of the governments of both countries to seek the development of Venezuela's natural gas resources with a view to its monetization in Trinidad and Tobago.



Vince Quan-Vie, Commercial Vice President of NGC, emphasized that "the governments of both countries are working very closely for some time on this project and have great confidence in the early completion of it. The proximity of our West Coast with Venezuela is a very positive point for us to work together. "



For his part, the president of PDVSA Gas, Cesar Triana, explained at the conference that Venezuela and Trinidad have the opportunity to incorporate in this project companies in the sector that in the future will serve to finalize gas exports via Trinidad and Tobago.



"These projects have a high probability rate to be implemented with the help of companies such as Shell, NGC, which will result in the generation of new jobs and high value for the development for the countries," said Triana.



For his part Luis Prado, President of Royal Dutch Shell Venezuela, explained that the project includes the construction of a 17-kilometer pipeline from the shallow-water Dragon gas field in Venezuela to the Hibiscus platform on the north coast of Trinidad, according to the agreements signed between the governments of both countries.



The Dragon field is one of the four fields that make up the Venezuelan Mariscal Sucre Project (MSP) that has proven reserves of 14.7 TCF in the north of the Paria Peninsula, and which aims to produce long-term, 1.2 trillion cubic feet. (bcf) of gas and up to 28 thousand barrels of oil per day. Other fields in the North of Paria are Patao, Mejillones and Rio Caribe fields.



The conference was sponsored by the Venezuelan Gas Processors Association (AVPG) and was held on Thursday, November 9, at the Melia Caracas Hotel.



The AVPG is a private, non-profit organization, formed by companies of the gas sector in Venezuela.



Since its inception, the AVPG has maintained institutional links with the international "Gas Processors Association" (GPA), based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has is "Venezuelan Chapter".



Story by Elio Ohep, Editor of Petroleumworld



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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
Pennsylvania's medical marijuana program will launch early next year, but Philadelphia  a city of more than 1.5 million people  is likely to host only two dispensaries.

Four storefronts initially were set to operate within the city limits when the state Department of Health awarded permits in June.

Two of the permit holders, however, ran into immediate opposition. Now one of those locations is entangled in a court battle and the other announced its intention on Friday to move to Chester County.

PharmaCann L.L.C. had designs on the site of a former ChiChi's Mexican Restaurant adjacent to the former Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia. The owners of the mall, Simon Property Group, are challenging the location in court.

TerraVida Holistic Centers had planned to occupy a former bank building in East Mount Airy. Neighbors, led by Councilwoman Cherelle L. Parker, challenged TerraVida's zoning by claiming the Stenton Ave. location was too close to an unlicensed child care facility. Rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars in a protracted legal battle, TerraVida asked the state for permission to relocate. By law, all dispensaries are required to be operational by New Years.

Chris Visco, TerraVida's president, said she spent months searching for a new city location.

"There was nowhere to go," Visco said. "We looked everywhere."

An ordinance, sponsored by Councilwoman Parker and adopted earlier this year, forbids dispensaries within 500 feet of a day-care center.

Because of the ordinance, "(t) here's not a single building that would meet approval in Mount Airy," Visco said. "We looked at Chestnut Hill, but none of the properties are zoned correctly."

Dispensaries must have a private, out-of-view access in the rear of the building. Visco said finding one is "virtually impossible" in Philadelphia. In addition, strip malls owned by out-of-state companies won't lease to dispensaries, she said.
Developer Jeffery Kozero wants to build a complex of ten residential towers on the Delaware River waterfront after years of stunted efforts to complete projects in Maryland and central Pennsylvania. Read more

Developer Jeffery Kozero wants to remake a swath of South Philadelphia's Delaware River waterfront into Philadelphia's version of Miami Beach. Imagine 10 towers  up to 34 stories  overlooking the Delaware in what would be the city's biggest residential project in memory.

But if past performance counts, the developer might not be up to that ambitious vision.

From the Chesapeake Bay shores to the streets of east Baltimore to central Pennsylvania's farmland, Kozero has left a trail of unfinished houses, unhappy customers, and unpaid contractors, at one point drawing sanctions from Maryland regulators.

That history looms large as he now wants to play an out-sized role in determining how Philadelphia's waterfront is developed, seeking wide-ranging changes to carefully thought-through rules governing building heights.

Baltimore architect David Gleason, who once sued Kozero over unpaid invoices, offered his own assessment.

"I would be very cautious about Jeff Kozero," Gleason said. "He left a lot of people high and dry."

Kozero declined to be interviewed for this article, explaining that he was recovering from a medical procedure. He defended himself, however, in a written response to questions late last month.

"If you inspect the record of any developer, you are sure to find a history of litigation," he said. "Given the size, scope and number of projects I've been involved in, disagreements, disputes and lawsuits are inevitable."

Kozero was invited to share examples of successful projects he's worked on, but offered none.

The Philadelphia plan proposed by his current company, K4 Associates LLC, calls for a 10-tower, 2,000-unit project on 26 waterfront acres between Reed Street and Washington Avenue purchased from the citys sheet-metal workers union local.

It includes towers that blast past limits of 244 feet  or about 25 stories  imposed by the Central Delaware Overlay zoning district four years ago for an area from Port Richmond to South Philadelphia.

The rules are designed to keep waterfront building heights in line with surrounding neighborhoods. They were forged over months of negotiations that included neighborhood groups, property owners, and open-space advocates.

They also aim to stop zoning changes for projects that overshoot demand and fail, yet increase the market value of the underlying land to a point that it is economically difficult to develop going forward.

The result of that is blight, said Matt Ruben, chairman of the Central Delaware Advocacy Group, a coalition of river-adjacent neighborhood associations.

"We're concerned about projects that can get zoning, but can't actually be built," Ruben said. "It's important not to enable speculative behavior."

City Councilman Mark Squilla, whose district includes Kozero's site, introduced legislation in the spring to change the overlay rules to accommodate K4's plans but had Council delay consideration of the bill before holding a final vote.

He has said he's working on a revised plan that incorporates input from critics of the earlier legislation .

State Rep. William Keller (D., Phila.), meanwhile, has vouched for Kozero's request for $44 million from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program.

"I think this is a good development for the city, for the region, and especially for the district," said Keller, adding that he trusts that K4 had adequately studied the market. "I give it my full support."

But a close look at Kozero's history  gleaned through interviews, public records, and media coverage  suggests that Keller's confidence may be misplaced.

Kozero graduated from Penn State in 1978 with a degree in water resources engineering technology, a university spokeswoman said. He did not earn the architecture degree claimed on his LinkedIn profile, according to the spokeswoman.

He blamed the inaccuracy on a social media consultant in charge of his web presence and said it is being corrected.

In the mid-2000s, Kozero was running Empire Homes LLC, which built homes in southern Maryland.

Among his customers were Alan and Donna Spealman, who ordered a home in 2005 on land near the Chesapeake Bay in Lexington Park, Md.

In records with the Maryland Attorney General's office's consumer protection agency, the Spealmans said Empire owed them more than $50,000 after abandoning the building site, leaving behind a faulty septic system and an unfinished driveway.

Contacted by state consumer protection officials on the Spealmans' behalf, the company refused to pay or submit to arbitration, according to division records.

Kozero disputed that account, saying he had gone to arbitration and that the state found the Spealmans' claim to be "either inflated or incorrect," although he agreed to pay the couple $9,500 to complete their driveway and update their home warranty.

He said he has records reflecting his version of events, but did not immediately respond to a request for them.

Another customer, Theresa Newton, said in an interview that she paid Kozero's firm nearly $400,000 in 2005 for a custom-built house in Great Mills, Md., that her wheelchair-bound mother could easily navigate.

The house that was delivered had raised molding between rooms  "speed bumps," Newton called them  that her mother couldn't traverse, and a basement outfitted with too few sump pumps to keep the space from flooding, Newton said.

"I definitely wouldn't recommend them to anybody," said Newton. "They really didn't put the house together the way they were supposed to."

Kozero said he does not recall Newton or her house.

"As the CEO and owner of Empire, which was developing and building multiple subdivisions in several states, I did not have direct contact with most home buyers," he said.

About that time, Kozero was also pursuing opportunities in Baltimore renovating blighted rowhouses.

Gleason, the architect, said Kozero contracted him around 2006 to help design the project.

But he wasn't paid for his work, documented in a legal claim for $11,160 decided in his favor in 2009, Baltimore court records show.

Kozero said Gleason was not paid because of "inferior" work that did not qualify for construction permits.

Emails submitted as part of Gleason's lawsuit tell a different story. In one, Kozero apologizes for not paying the architect, blaming the economy.

Kozero's lender on the Baltimore project, Sandy Spring Bank, also went unpaid by Kozero after he defaulted on a $1.5 million loan, according to court records. Kozero said he worked with the bank to locate another borrower to assume his debt.

Kozero was then pursuing an even bigger venture in rural Adams County, Pa. where he gained approvals for two developments totaling 740 units over 54 acres. The proposal was abandoned when the housing market unraveled in 2007.

Kozero said his project was one among many derailed by the real estate downturn.

"As I recall, the whole world economy contracted at that time," he said.

Kozero later came into the sights of the Maryland attorney general's office for failing to report at least 30 lawsuits against him by lenders, contractors and others.

In June 2010, the developer signed a consent decree in which he agreed to pay $20,000 in retribution.

Kozero said he had worked to pay lenders, contractors and others as much as he could during the downturn, when banks abruptly withdrew or held back funding for real estate projects.

He agreed to the settlement, he said, to save "time, expenses and headaches" for all involved.

By then, Kozero was running a new company formed to build a broadband internet network in and around Northumberland County using federal stimulus funds. His application for about $100 million in grants and loans was declined, and the project was never built.

Kozero soon seized on to a new way to finance his ventures: the EB-5 immigrant visa program, which allows foreign nationals to earn U.S. residency by investing in big, job-creating businesses and projects here.

By July 2012, Kozero had founded the Three Streams Regional Center, which gained federal authorization to sponsor projects for investment by overseas visa-seekers.

Within a few years, Philadelphia developer Eric Blumenfeld had hired Kozero to help build apartments and shops on part of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association Local 19's waterfront property in partnership with the union.

Kozero's access to funds through his EB-5 regional center was one reason he got the job, Blumenfeld said.

In 2015, Kozero took over as developer, with his local firm, K4 Philadelphia LLC, acquiring an 18-acre river-facing section of the property from Blumenfeld and the union for $10 million.

Kozero and his partner on the project, former Sheet Metal Workers local head Thomas J. Kelly, have said they are negotiating to buy the remaining eight-acre section from the union to round out the development site.

Among the lenders behind $17.8 million in mortgages on the acquired land is an entity Kozero controls through Three Streams, records show. Despite that, Kozero said Three Streams is not involved with the proposal.

At this point, Kozero said because he had enough "interest from equity investors and banks, K4 Philadelphia does not need the EB-5 investment," he said.

He did not respond to a request to identify those backers, but touted the involvement of Wells Fargo & Co. as the prospective underwriter of a government-backed loan sought for the development as "Confidence in K4 Philadelphia, LLC, and in the ultimate success of this project."

Asked about his assertion, a Wells Fargo spokesman said his company is no longer involved in the project.
Brian Powell, cofounder and CEO of Junto Bicycle Works Ltd., said his electric bikes are not about competing with bikes. I want to get cars off the road. Read more

As the "old" guy at Junto Bicycle Works Ltd., an electric-bike manufacturing start-up on the edge of Philadelphia's millennial-heavy Fishtown neighborhood, 55-year-old Brian Powell is dazzling his younger collaborators with his legs.

Not his actual gams, impressive as they may be from Powell's pedaling (with battery-powered assistance) more than 25 miles a day between his Chestnut Hill home and Junto's headquarters. It's his "sea legs"  his calm during daunting times, which are numerous with a young enterprise.

"When things get rocky or things get uncertain, he's got a very stable pair of sea legs on him," said Sam Ebert, 25, product director at the year-old company, which shipped its first bikes to consumers Nov. 1. "It's really comforting to me and other guys in the company to hold so steady."

[Join the Inquirer for the inaugural 55+Thrive Lifestyle Conference. Get tickets here.]

That calm demeanor has been honed by 35 years in business, starting when Kenneth and Mary Powell's youngest of seven children left St. Joseph's University without a degree but with irrepressible entrepreneurial nerve.

Brian Powell, who grew up the son of a cop in South and Northeast Philadelphia, went on to sell icy treats (FrozFruit), chicken (Farmers Pride and its successor Bell & Evans), artificial sweetener (NutraSweet), and energy bars (Balance Bar and allGoode Organics) with varying success before starting Powell & Mahoney, an especially toast-worthy venture, in 2010. That Salem, Mass.-based company produces all-natural cocktail mixers, with annual sales close to $15 million, Powell said.

Starting an e-bike business in an industry still gaining traction in the United States  estimates indicate only 200,000 will be sold this year  doesn't scare Powell, who attributed that cool, in part, to age.

"What happens in your dotage is, you become content with who you are," said Powell, married with two kids in college. "You become wise. I know what I'm good at. I know what I'm not good at. I'm pretty good at starting brands. Why stop?"

This business idea started in August 2016, when Powell was vacationing in Cape May and headed out on a traditional road bike toward Ocean City. There he was on Route 9, hunched over and pumping the pedals hard, when inspiration came whizzing by.

"I was past Wildwood, and a big guy flies by me on a bike," said Powell, who whistled him to a stop for an inquisition. "I said, 'What the eff is this, buddy?' He said, 'My brother and I made this in our garage.' "

Powell talked the guy into letting him take a spin.

"It was like I had a jet pack on," he said. "It was like Buck Rogers, like Star Trek. Superman came down from Krypton, and he saw a bike, and he got on it. That's what it's like."

A self-described obsessive with "incredible vision," Powell went home and couldn't get that contraption off his mind.

"I commenced to research, and I dug in, and I really, really fell in love with the whole idea," he said. Research showed electric bikes were tremendously popular in Europe and Asia, yet a relative blip here. What was selling in the U.S., Powell added, "was really cheap, horrible  incredibly unsafe."

What happened next Powell described as a yellow-brick-road journey. But instead of meeting up with the Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man, he met Ebert and Mike Tonkinson, and reconnected with an entrepreneur he had done business with in the past, Simon Goode.

Ebert's mother is Powell's neighbor. When he mentioned his ambition to build an electric bike, Kristen Kreider told Powell he should talk to her son Sam, a Germantown Friends School alum who had been working on bikes since he was a young boy and, while at college in Ohio studying studio art, started the Kenyon College Bike Co-Op. To that professional mountain biker, Powell emphasized his intention of not "competing with bikes; I want to get cars off the road. I would like to eliminate congestion. I want to give people another option to get around our great city."

Ebert was hooked and got Powell to enlist Tonkinson, 27, a University of the Arts graduate and watch designer, as creative director to help with web and product design.

Ed Benjamin, a consultant in the bike industry, gave Powell encouragement, telling him there was opportunity in the market for a "modestly priced, super-high-quality e-bike for America," as Powell recalled it.

Powell, Ebert, and Tonkinson designed a commuter bike with the goal of standing up to what Powell suggested "could be the worst conditions in the First World for riding a bicycle  cobblestones, trolley tracks, potholes and people's half-eaten Whoppers. I say that because I slipped on one." Designing, test-riding, and tinkering took four or five months.

They went to China for parts. For funds, Powell reached out to a half-dozen friends from his days at La Salle College High School and St. Joe's, who kicked in $600,000.

Explaining the ease of convincing his friends that an e-bike company was a worthy investment, Powell said: "For people like us, guys getting old, it's bikes, man. Let's change the world. These guys are ecologically minded."

In June, Goode  who cofounded allGoode Organics in Santa Barbara, Calif., with Powell in 2000 (they sold the company three years later)  called Powell. A numbers guy and graduate of the London School of Economics, Goode said he had moved to Boise, Idaho, and was looking for his "next great adventure." A minute and a half into Powell's description of his e-bike venture, Goode, also 55, said he was in. As Junto Bicycle Works' chief operating officer and chief financial officer, he has been making monthly trips to Philadelphia since then to help the company prepare for product roll-out.

Twenty bikes, selling for $2,222 each, were sold within 10 days of the website going live. Featuring 29-inch wheels, a seven-year warranty on the bike, and a two-year warranty on the battery and motor, Juntos were exhibited Saturday and Sunday in Philadelphia at the 2017 Electric Bike Expo.

The bikes offer five levels of pedaling assistance, up to 20 mph. Anything faster is the result of rider power and/or a steep downhill. Depending on rider weight, road conditions, and selected mode of assistance, the battery can support rides as long as 30 to 60 miles before needing to be recharged, Ebert said.

For a company name, Powell, Junto's president and CEO, tapped his love of history. He considered Philadelphia's role in Benjamin Franklin's discovery of electricity, and a philosophical group the inventor cofounded to meet for discussions of weighty issues  the Junto Club.

Junto bikes are assembled in Boise and shipped to customers in custom-designed boxes. On delivery, the front wheel and right pedal must be attached with accompanying tools. Competitors sell through bike shops, a middleman approach Junto wanted to avoid to keep costs down, Powell said, adding: "I do not want to put a mom-and-pop shop out of business. I want to make sure that the independent bike shops realize they are going to be able to fix our bikes."

It's a business model that one of his millennial colleagues, Ebert, the bike-repair expert, has reluctantly come to accept. Sort of.

"I'd be lying if I didn't say I still have kind of deep, dark reservations on occasion about the direct-to-consumer industry," Ebert said. "At the same time  it is the way things are going to be proceeding."

After all, it's what millennials demand.
Meek Mill isn't a victim of the criminal justice system, but of his own ego.

The homegrown rap star faces two to four years in state prison because he didn't follow the rules. Excessive hubris clouded his judgment and made him feel above the law and the terms of his probation.

He did exactly what he wanted  popped wheelies on his dirt bike in Manhattan, got into a fight at an airport, abused Percocet, and allowed himself to be booked for concerts outside of the area against the judge's orders. Now we're supposed to blame the system for his downfall? It's not that simple.

He had plenty of chances and blew them all. So many good people stepped forward to help him get his life on track. Among them: the Rev. Damon B. Jones Sr., senior pastor of Bible Way Baptist Church in West Philly; Chad Dion Lassiter, president of Black Men at Penn School of Social Work Inc.; and Howard Brown, a Goldman Sachs alum who heads his own finance firm, Brown Holdings International.

Eventually, though, Judge Genece Brinkley got fed up and slammed the book at Mill, ordering him back to prison.

That's an awfully harsh price to pay for his 2008 drug and gun case that dragged on and on. Celebrities from Jay-Z to Kevin Hart have spoken out in solidarity and fans have started a #freemeekmill hashtag to galvanize support for extricating Mill from a system that ensnares far too many black men.

But what many don't seem to realize is that Brinkley is African American herself. She gave Mill all kinds of opportunities before she snapped on Monday.

"I gave you break after break, and you basically just thumbed your nose at this court," Brinkley said from the bench.

The internet is dragging the ruling and the judge too.

"This judge is obsessed with Meek Mill and Robert Williams [Mill's given name] and that in and of itself goes against the supposed unbiased judicial system," said Lassiter, also a former member of the board of trustees of the Philadelphia Prison System.

I have to confess that my eyebrows have been way up about how Brinkley said she visited the Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia after ordering Mill to feed the homeless at the church as community service. She discovered him sorting clothing instead of doing exactly as she'd instructed.

He should have just done what she told him to do.

If he had done that from the beginning, he wouldn't be in this mess. With his kind of money, Mill could have surrounded himself with a team of legal advisers to ensure that he never overstepped the terms of his probation. He shouldn't have allowed handlers to book concerts outside the area or make any other moves before he cleared it. Instead, he insisted on doing things his way, and the judge wasn't having it. It was going to be her way  not his. Brinkley made that clear years ago.

Mill's attorney says he'll appeal. But for now, to borrow from Mill's mixtapes: Freedom is just a dream he'll have to chase.
Have President Trump and his son-in-law bet their entire Mideast policy on a reckless 32-year-old Saudi crown prince who is getting in over his head?

That's the question that should grab Americans as we watch the wild game of thrones playing out in Saudi Arabia, where, last week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) arrested 11 princes along with an additional 190 officials and businessmen. Another prominent prince died in a mysterious helicopter crash.

What's riveting the Mideast is the degree to which Trump has fully embraced the youthful prince (and his elderly father, King Salman). Who can forget the scenes of the president sword dancing as he was lavishly feted and flattered on a May trip to Riyadh, and promised (unfulfilled) billions in arms deals? Moreover, first son-in-law Jared Kushner, a new buddy of the young prince, has made three trips to Riyadh this year, the latest a secret four-day visit last month.

Trump tweeted, in the midst of his Asia trip: "I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. They know exactly what they are doing." Clearly the purge doesn't bother a president who admires strongmen.

More to the point, Trump and Kushner appear to be relying on the crown prince to spearhead a Sunni Arab campaign that will roll back Shiite Iran's expanding influence in the Mideast (and godfather a peace between the Palestinians and Israel). A look at the prince's track record should have dampened their enthusiasm for MBS.

Sure, Prince Mohammed talks a good game. He says he wants to modernize the kingdom, fight corruption, let women drive, and promote a more moderate form of Islam. That would certainly be a welcome change, since Saudi Arabia's export of their fundamentalist Wahabi variant of Islam has paved the way for the rise of jihadism around the world.

Yet his roundup of the kingdom's most prominent businessmen in a kingdom where corruption is endemic looks more like a Putinesque shakedown than a move toward a transparent system. Any seized funds may be used to underwrite MBS's grandiose scheme to build a new $500 billion high-tech metropolis in the desert called NEOM.

As for moderating the Saudi brand of Islam, that would be a boon to the kingdom and the world. But although some clerics have been arrested, and religious police lectured, the Crown Prince has cracked down as hard or harder on intellectuals and peaceful activists. Indeed, Jamal Khashoggi, the editor of one of the country's more progressive newspapers, Al Watan, was forced out, after publishing an opinion piece that questioned the austere Saudi form of Islam.

So it appears that Prince Mohammed's main goal is to solidify power in his hands alone, in a country where kings have long ruled by consensus. Whether he has the judgment to handle that power is questionable.

"In America, you have restraints to keep Trump from impulsive action," Khashoggi says. "In Saudi Arabia we don't." Trump and Kushner should be listening.

MBS's impulses are most questionable when it comes to his campaign against Tehran, waged all over the region. The Saudi track record vs. Iran is one of unmitigated failure  despite U.S. backing.

Yet this is the campaign Trump and Kushner are counting on the prince to win.

In Syria, President Barack Obama subcontracted to the Saudis to arm and fund Sunni rebels against President Bashar al-Assad. The winner: Assad  backed by Russia airpower and Shiite militiamen directed by Iran.

In Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein the Saudis refused U.S. requests to help Iraqi governments counterbalance Iranian influence. Finally, Riyadh is reaching out to Baghdad, with too little, too late. Iran has heavily penetrated Iraq's government and security forces.

In neighboring Yemen, just after his father became king, MBS launched a war against Houthi insurgents who had ties to Tehran. The war has dragged on for two years, as Saudi and United Arab Emirates fighter jets bomb civilians relentlessly, with full Trump support and advanced U.S. weapons. Despite thousands of civilian casualties and a humanitarian disaster, it's clear the Saudis can't win without an unlikely ground invasion. The longer the war goes on in Yemen, the more the Houthis are bound to Iran.

In Qatar, the Crown Prince launched a blockade of the small, oil-rich Gulf state, supposedly due to Iranian influence. Trump tweeted his strong approval (and is now belatedly trying to undo the damage). The result: Qatar has been pushed closer to Tehran, and the unity of Sunni Gulf Arabs against Tehran has been split.

And, in his latest move vs. Iran, MBS just forced the resignation of Lebanon's Sunni prime minister, Saad Hariri, a businessman with close Saudi ties who was summoned to Riyadh and is now being held there. Hariri was part of a Lebanese coalition government which included politicians from the powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah; that government is now in disarray. Lebanon now fears a new sectarian civil war.

But it is hard to figure out what the Crown Prince is up to in Lebanon, since the Lebanese government and army are too weak to stand up against Hezbollah, which is armed to the teeth by Iran. The Israeli press is busy speculating that MBS is out to spark another war between Israel and Hezbollah that neither side wants now.

With the prince's terrible track record so far, you'd think that Trump would be branding MBS a loser. Or at least proceeding with great caution.

Instead, Trump and Kushner have heedlessly harnessed their Mideast hopes to an undependable Saudi prince.
Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania is the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English. Read more

Sing to me, Muse, of Emily Wilson, she of many moves, first woman ever to translate the Odyssey into English, how, in her office at Penn, her house, wherever she wandered for five years, she read many books and saw the authors' minds, how heartsick she probably got as she sailed the perilous ways of translation, fighting to get this thing done and bring it home.

That, friends, is a silly version of the opening lines of the Odyssey, applied to Emily Wilson. She is associate professor of classical studies and chair of the program in comparative literature and literary theory at the University of Pennsylvania. And last week, she published her pellucid, demotic, canny  and, as it turns out, historic  translation of the Odyssey (W.W. Norton, 592 pp., $39.95).

Many are the English translations of this ancient wonder-work. And they're all by men. Well, shove over, big dogs. Wilson has created a page-turner, spacious, direct, and light-shot, yet also very much an exciting chain of adventure stories. A perfect gift for everything from Christmas to Festivus!

Wilson will be at the Penn Book Center at 6 p.m. Monday for a free reading and discussion with classics colleague Bridget Murnaghan. Wilson spoke by phone about the poem, the translation, the wondrous women in it, and  being first.

Can it really be true that no other woman has ever done this?

It's extraordinary, right? I know. It does seem mind-boggling. It's been done into French by Anne Dacier in the early 1700s, three centuries ago. But as for English, yes, it does seem to be the case. I've been working on this for five years, and we have been asking around, and we've searched libraries and databases, and so far, no, we can't find any others.

How did you feel when you were done?

With big projects, there's always post-partum depression. And I'd played around with so many drafts of almost every line, it was so hard to let it go. And I still second-guess myself. If I had another five years, I'd keep working on it.

The translation really clips along. It reads aloud so well, direct and rhythmic. Can you talk about your choices? Iambic pentameter?

One reason I signed on for it at all is that I'd been getting frustrated by what's become the norm: of translating this very metrical Greek poetry, entirely gorgeous and musical, into English poetry without a meter. And then the idea that you have to impose a supposedly "epic" style on it. I felt something different was needed. Many translations, to my ear, are not paying attention to the way it sounds. A lot of the time I was reading the original aloud, and then read my own draft aloud, and I'd stop whenever I found I wasn't being true to the poem rhythmically or musically. The original has so much fluidity in rhythm, sound, pacing, speeding up, slowing down. My job isn't to reproduce that but to engage with it, pay attention to it. As for iambic pentameter, I found I sometimes kicked against the rules  but I also loved having the rules, having five strong beats in a line. Since I knew that ahead of time, I was forced to find solutions I wouldn't have found otherwise.

Speaking of women, Ive always been drawn to the female characters.

Several get significant airtime and depth, with detailed grounding of their characters: Calypso, Circe, Helen, Nausicaa.

And Penelope, the long-waiting, long-suffering wife of Odysseus.

The way the poem frames her, Penelope is smart, and her grief matters. In an artistic sense, she doesn't have to be as interesting as she is, but she is. She sees ambiguities in her situation with Odysseus and the suitors that he doesn't see. So she has a lot of power. But really, her mobility is more or less confined to her way of thinking and seeing things. In reality, she is pretty circumscribed: She is stuck on Ithaca, and she has only one choice, really: stay with Odysseus or marry someone else. Meantime, Odysseus can travel the world  an exclusively elite-male privilege in this story.

The poem is concerned, even anxious, as Odysseus is himself, with the degree of her mobility. People like to fantasize that this poem was either written by or performed for women, as in "there are so many girls in it, it must have been written by a girl." I don't know about that. I will say that in Penelope and other female characters, they are allowed space for criticism of the way things are with men and women. One even says, "This is unfair." And women in conversation with men often know things the men don't know. Athena, for example, who in Book XIII out-lies the big liar, Odysseus.

In your introduction, you talk about guest-host culture, the huge importance of treating guests well, especially the stranger. In Book VI, Nausicaa says, All foreigners and beggars come from Zeus / and any act of kindness is a blessing.

I guess I'm thinking people in 2017 are going to be aware of the European migrant crisis, the U.S. debate on the issue. And it's moving that there's a fundamental ethics in the Odyssey regarding how you treat a stranger at your door  that is, you invite them in, give them a bath, drink, food. You don't interrogate them before you let them in. It's pretalk: First you give them what their bodies need. Later, there might be time when it's OK to ask questions.

But theres an anxiety, even a crisis, over this relationship.

Yes: It explores when it's OK to switch from hospitality to piracy or war mode. This gets mixed up when Odysseus and his men visit the Cyclops.

I always felt sorry for him.

The Cyclops, alas, actually gets it wrong. He's responding to them as war-makers, and they're not. By the same token, what they end up doing to him is memorably awful.

Talk about getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

So the poem gives you a lot of reasons to feel the pathos of what's done to the Cyclops, but he also has broken the rules.

In the end, its just a great story, with a great feeling for people.

The very variety of characters and scenes is so wonderful, and the understanding of what's in people's minds and hearts. Of course, the Greeks hadn't read Freud, or any of our ways of speaking about psychology. But that doesn't mean they didn't understand people, how they talk to each other, how they shape what they say so the other person will get it. Or what Odysseus and Penelope, for example, go through emotionally in their reunion. Somebody worked very hard on that scene, felt very deeply about people, and about how they'd feel if they've been through a 20-year trauma, as this man and woman have.

Emily Wilson and Bridget Murnaghan: The Odyssey: A New Translation. 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13, Penn Book Center, 130 S. 34th St. Free. Information: 215-222-7600, pennbookcenter.com.
Everybody keeps saying Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, and everybody keeps being wrong.

Actress Gerwig has made dozens of independent movies, many in the "mumblecore" tradition of coauthorship, in which actors contribute dialogue and other ideas  she has an official codirector credit with Joe Swanberg on Nights and Weekends. She has formal writing credits on Mistress America and Frances Ha, and informally has had long conversations with every cinematographer she's ever worked with.

So if you see Lady Bird on Friday, and you say this movie is way too good to be anybody's directorial debut, you'd be correct.

Even so, the polish and the confidence of the work come as a shock. As does Gerwig's method of making it. Her background is improvisation and fluid collaboration, but her teen girl coming-of-age movie is old Hollywood  the dialogue, banged out on a keyboard, is all Gerwig's, shot as she wrote it, nary a word changed.

And why would you want to?

Sharp, funny, humane, and uncommonly intelligent  let's start with the Grapes of Wrath reference in the first scene, set in the front seat of a car, where a mother (Laurie Metcalf) is driving her willful daughter (Saoirse Ronan), who calls herself Lady Bird, home to Sacramento from an abysmal tour of California colleges the girl doesn't want to attend.

She wants to go East, way East, where "writers live in the woods" where colleges are prestigious and exclusive and completely unaffordable.

This offends her mother on some deep level, and after a minute you realize why  it's no random thing that they're listening to books-on-tape Steinbeck. It's one of the movie's most important ideas  the young girl does not realize it, but she is reversing one of U.S. history's great migrations.

"For so many people in California, who can trace back to being Dust Bowl farmers, how your family got there is a huge part of who you are," said Sacremento native Gerwig, on whose teen years the movie is very loosely based. "So when this girl says, 'I want to leave,' it's in the context of all that her foremothers and forefathers sacrificed to get there. And that's funny, and it's also heartbreaking, and it's also so American  there is an economic thread here, it's about the class system, and the idea that we are still all trying to make a better life than the one we have."

Gerwig shows us in Lady Bird that on some level, the feuding mother and daughter share these aspirations. On Sundays, they go to open houses and wander through mansions, wondering what it would be like to live there.

Their own house is modest, paid for by a mother who works double shifts at a hospital, necessary now that the father (Tracy Letts) has lost his job. That's all background, though, to the up-tempo rat-a-tat profile of Lady Bird's whirlwind, hectic, mistake-prone senior year at Catholic school  besties, boyfriends, being overwhelmed by a Dave Matthews Band song.

"Something I wanted to create was this idea that time is tumbling forward faster than you can hold on to it. I think teens experience life that way. And also, at that stage, people cannot accept generosity at the moment it is given," she said.

Gerwig is talking about Lady Bird's patient mentor  a good-natured nun (Lois Smith) who looks past the student's missteps, determined to nurture her potential. The sister's faith is rewarded, as we see in a crucial scene  Lady Bird finds herself in a position to fink on a boy who's angered her, but makes a different choice (we'll word this carefully to avoid spoilers). The young lady is smart, but she has absorbed another lesson  that life should have a moral dimension as well.

"That's one of my favorite scenes. It's where the movie really turns, and you realize not just this certain kind of comedy, that there's an undertow, and that something deeper is going on," she said. "She's becoming a person. We see her for the first time as an individual making important decisions, and she's really seeing another person for the first time, which is part of that process. And I think what she does reflects the way people have invested in her."

Gerwig is not Catholic, but she has deep respect for the school she attended, and the sisters who helped run it, and who, to borrow her phrase, invested in her.

"It's just so easy to play [parochial school] as just a straitjacket on someone, a rules-based system that is entrenched and inflexible," she said. "But my experience was that the [nuns] are quite groovy  accepting and funny and very much individuals."

If the scenes that open the movie and help it to pivot are cleverly done, the quietly radical ending is even better.

At this point in Lady Bird, the title character has managed to tidy up most of the messes she's made, except for the biggest and most important. The ineffable impasse between mother and daughter remains  the mutual love is obviously, passionately there, but it always manifests as mother pushing daughter, daughter pushing back.

How to demonstrate that these women love each other, to prove it to the audience, without a traditional speech or an embrace?

Suffice it to say that Gerwig finds a way, even if all she has to work with is runny mascara and a phone message (not to mention Ronan, sure to be nominated for an Oscar, as is Gerwig, as is Metcalf).

"That's the ending that came to me, and even though there were questions about it, I really stuck to my guns," said Gerwig, who maintained firm control of the movie up to and through the final half second.

Two thousand miles separate mother and daughter.

Lady Bird is on her own.

"She inhales, and we cut to black in the middle of a breath, because I felt that when she breathes out, we're in a different story."

That's one sequel I would welcome.
Murder on the Orient Express is a buffet, occasionally tasty, supplied by actors offering unlimited servings of ham.

The classic Agatha Christie story is an ideal vehicle for dream cast showboating  a 1903 murder on a Paris-bound train stuck in to Yugoslavia, offering 12 suspects, 12 lavish costumes, 12 outrageous accents, and 12 garish character traits, brandished by actors who perform as if they've been well-compensated and handsomely housed. Happy to be there, happy to be entertaining us.

Kenneth Branagh  he also directs  is genius Belgian detective and person-attached-to-a-mustache Hercule Poirot, Judi Dench as an imperious aristocrat named Countess Dragonbreath (or something), Josh Gad is a tubby sidekick, and Johnny Depp plays a self-obsessed weirdo (not much of a stretch).

Nobody seems to care that Branagh has given the plum role to himself, or lavished so much attention on Poirot, Christie's version of Sherlock Holmes, a likable know-it-all who somehow makes arrogance look good. Poirot has slightly better manners, and (as played by Branagh) a form of OCD  he likes his boiled eggs (and other things) to match precisely.

Asymmetry gets under his skin, and this eye for slightly-out-of-place detail makes him a good detective, as we see during Poirot's scene-stealing entrance at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, where he solves a crime and deploys his walking stick in a way that proves he is several chess moves ahead of the culprit, and the crowed.

The titular crime is a harder nut to crack. It occurs under Poirot's very nose, yet the deed proves very difficult to solve  due not to a deficit of suspects, but a surplus. Everybody seems to have a motive, and everybody  including governess Daisy Ridley, creepy German Willem Dafoe, husband-hunting divorcee Michelle Pfeiffer  seems to have an alibi. Poirot's high opinion of himself is tested  he's accustomed to knowing more than everybody else, and here the situation is reversed.

The plot sticks to Christie's original  Poirot eventually deduces that a great many of the passengers have some connection to a sensational murder that occurred some months earlier in the U.S. (Christie modeled this crime-within-a-crime on the Lindbergh kidnapping). Yet the more he learns, the more clouded a solution becomes.

Branagh the actor finds a nice balance between Poirot's colorful flourishes and his moral seriousness. Branagh the director gives the movie the same balance, and wants the audience to have as much fun as the actors, which is true more often than not.

He also leaves Christie's famous ending more or less intact. That makes sense  at this point, why take another stab at it?
Stanley Brenner in the Canadian Rockies in this undated photo. A lawsuit alleges that he was buried without a casket liner because another body was found next to his wife in their prepaid plot at Shalom Memorial Park. Read more

Stanley Brenner's funeral plans were simple and specific.

He wanted to be buried next to his wife, Sandra, at Shalom Memorial Park, the Huntingdon Valley cemetery located just over the Northeast Philadelphia border, where they had purchased side-by-side plots in 1970  Lot No. 202. Section M2.

"He bought it when I was in high school," said Brenner's daughter, Marjorie Schaefer, formerly of Roxborough. "He liked that it was under a tree."

Sandra was buried there in 2002. But when Stanley died this June at the age of 92, his carefully planned funeral was upended.

The day before Brenner was to be buried, the cemetery informed Schaefer that someone else was buried next to her mother, partially in her father's plot.

"They gave me the choice of disinterring my mother and burying her twice as deep, with my father on top," Schaefer said, "or moving them both, which was not acceptable."

Schaefer reluctantly accepted the third option: Transfer her father's body from a normal casket to a thin, undersized casket with no handles and bury him in what she called a "ridiculous position"  without a concrete liner and wedged tightly between his wife's casket liner and that of the stranger in his plot.

"The funeral was the next morning," Schaefer said Friday. "I had to make the decision right then."

Schaefer is the lead plaintiff in the latest lawsuit filed against Service Corporation International, the Houston-based company that operates more than 2,000 funeral homes and cemeteries, including Shalom, and describes itself as North America's largest provider of funeral and cemetery services. Her attorneys, who filed suit Friday, are seeking class-action status to represent similarly affected families.

SCI, a publicly traded company that generates about $3 billion a year in revenue, did not respond to a request for comment on the latest lawsuit.

"It's just not right," Schaefer said. "They're taking advantage of the people that bought these plots a long time ago."

Those allegations are familiar. The Inquirer and Daily News reported in April that an unknown person was discovered in a prepaid plot for Edna Waxler, 99, who died in June 2016 and was supposed to be buried next to her husband at Shalom.

Waxler remained above ground for more than a month until after SCI's Pennsylvania subsidiary could obtain a court order in Montgomery County to dig up the unidentified remains and rebury them elsewhere in the cemetery.

"The funeral parlor said they've never heard anything like this before," her son, David Waxler, said in April. "We went through the whole ceremony, then the funeral parlor took her back and put her back in the refrigerator, which is unbelievable."

David Waxler, the vice president of finance at a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm, has an open lawsuit against SCI in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.

In 2014, SCI was sued by Maya Devinskaya, 73, whose 42-year-old daughter died in 2013. Devinskaya sued SCI after her daughter was buried in a plot that overlapped someone else's. That case was later resolved on confidential terms.

Susan Helfand also described haggling with the cemetery in 2010 on the morning of her mother's funeral after she was told there was no room in the prepaid plot next to her father. The service for her mother, Edith W. Taylor, took place a few hundred feet from the burial site, and cemetery staff later lowered her father deeper into the ground so Taylor could be buried on top.

"It didn't make any sense, but we felt as if there was nothing we could do," Helfand told the Daily News in 2014. "The whole thing just seemed bizarre."

Attorney Bryan Lentz, who is representing Schaefer in the potential class-action lawsuit filed against SCI last week, said the company doesn't appear to be improving, despite paying out several eight-figure legal settlements around the country.

"They bought a lot of these 'legacy' cemeteries, and they didn't do the due diligence," Lentz said. "Really, they've got to do a full audit of the cemeteries in order to anticipate and avoid these problems. They're trying to avoid the cost of fixing the problem globally."

SCI has previously declined to respond to questions from the Inquirer and Daily News about its burial practices at Shalom or elsewhere, saying only that Shalom is "committed to honoring its commitments with families."

Schaefer, who flew in from Florida for her father's funeral, said his service was undignified and didn't properly honor the World War II veteran.

"It wasn't what it should have been," she said.

The pallbearers struggled to carry the casket because it had no handles, she said, and the U.S. flag draped atop hung far too low because the casket was so small.

"When they got it on the rollers, the whole thing was tilted because it wasn't wide enough," she said. "I was angry."

She's also concerned that a heavy storm could cause her father's casket to rise because it's not inside a concrete liner.

Although past lawsuits apparently haven't forced SCI to reform its cemetery practices, Schaefer hopes a class-action lawsuit might bring change.

Like other families who have clashed with the company, Schaefer feels as if she let her father down by not following his instructions.

"I could not do what he wanted," she said. "I know it wasn't my fault, but it was the last thing he was going to have any control over, and it didn't go the way he had wanted."
Seven times in the last four years, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Genece E. Brinkley has sent men off to state prison for violating their probation, only to see them challenge her in appeals.

Not until Monday, when Brinkley added Philly-born rapper Meek Mill to the list, did the public seem to notice. But despite their cries of injustice and internet petitions for his pardon or her removal, the claim by Mill's fans that the two- to four-year prison term was unusual or excessive might not hold up  if history is a judge.

A review of other Brinkley sentencings of probation violators shows that Mill's punishment was not an outlier. And every time, her decisions have been upheld by a higher court.

In fact, a review of the Superior Court opinions in those seven cases shows that Brinkley, 61, a city judge since 1993, often follows the same pattern: probation extensions that drag on for a decade or more, followed by a final violation that carries a lecture in which Brinkley berates the probationers for blowing multiple chances at redemption and "thumbing your nose at the court."

That was the same message she gave Mill before sending him back to prison for violating the terms of his probation: testing positive for the prescription narcotic Percocet, and misdemeanor arrests this year for an altercation at the St. Louis airport and a traffic violation involving his motorcycle in Manhattan.

The appeals documents also offer a window into a judge  a Nashville native and 1978 graduate of Spelman College, with a law degree from Temple University  who has quietly served on the city's Common Pleas Court for a quarter-century but now finds herself at the center of a media maelstrom for her handling of the 30-year-old hip-hop star born as Robert Williams.

Brinkley has declined to comment, restrained by the judicial code of conduct from publicly commenting about a pending case.

Still, the judge can find comfort that her future is playing out in the insular world of the appellate courts, where her words, reduced to a written opinion depending on law, precedent, and the record she created, will be judged. It's a far different place from the turmoil of the internet or the electric, high-decibel live performances and recordings that have made Meek Mill an urban superstar.

In the aftermath of Monday's surprise sentencing, Mill's lawyers pledged to legally challenge the judge's ruling. But as of Friday, no such appeal had landed.

Lou Natali, a retired veteran defense attorney who, since 1990, has been a Temple University law school professor, said he thought Mill's odds of success were long.

"He's not going anywhere with a claim of an excessive sentence or abuse of discretion. There's no law that helps him on that," said Natali. As to the judge's punishment, "I think most people would say, 'What took you so long?' "

Samuel C. Stretton, a Philadelphia defense lawyer, said the Superior Court, an intermediate appeals court between the trial courts and the state Supreme Court, has such a heavy caseload that many consider it "mostly a rubber-stamp court."

Still, Stretton said he believes Brinkley's sentence was "excessive and an abuse of discretion," and he was critical of Brinkley's record with probationers.

"My problem is that she takes these things very personally," Stretton said. "I think her intentions are good, but you can only go so far as a judge with those kind of intentions."

Stretton said that Brinkley's probationers remain under her control for too long, and when they violate her rules, as most probationers will, "it becomes personal: 'I'm trying to change your life, I'm going to do good for you.' "

"That's the problem," Stretton said. "When you are a judge, you can't become their therapist."

At Monday's hearing, Brinkley recounted the night she actually tried to verify Mill was feeding the homeless, part of the community service she ordered. She went to a Center City soup kitchen run by the Broad Street Ministry  and found him instead sorting clothes.

"It was only when you realized that I came there to check on you that you decided to serve meals," Brinkley told him.

Despite her decades on the bench, Mill's is by far the highest-profile case of her career  and one that has been languishing in and out of the headlines since his 2008 conviction in a drug and gun case. He was released from prison in 2009, but Brinkley revoked his probation and sent him back in 2014 for a few months for failing to give his probation officer a working phone number and traveling out of state without permission, among other violations.

Mill's lawyers challenged that decision, too, all the way up to the state's highest court. Their emergency appeal contended that Brinkley overstepped her authority by trying to transform him into a person more to her taste. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal without comment a month after it was filed.

The record shows the judge treading the same path with other defendants.

Take the appeal of Herbert Cottrell, arrested Dec. 4, 2004, for retail theft. Six months later, Cottrell pleaded guilty, and Brinkley sentenced him to three to 23 months in prison, followed by one year of reporting probation.

Brinkley paroled Cottrell from prison in October 2006, and he immediately ran into problems. He never reported to his probation officer and racked up three arrests for retail theft in the next few years. Back before Brinkley in October 2009, she sentenced him to 11 to 23 months in prison, ordered Cottrell to attend drug treatment, get vocational training, seek and maintain employment, and stay out of trouble.

He didn't. Paroled to a halfway house and then a drug treatment center, Cottrell was arrested for retail theft in April 2012. Six months later, he stood before the judge.

"Each time this court gave [him] the opportunity to avoid state prison and turn his life around through county programs," Brinkley said then, "[he] showed complete contempt for this court's orders and continued to do what he wanted to do."

Cottrell's sentence: two to four years in prison followed by seven years of probation. Now 51, Cottrell is in the state prison in Graterford in Montgomery County.

Cottrell appealed to the Superior Court, calling Brinkley's sentence excessive for a "technical violation" of his probation. In December 2013, the Superior Court affirmed the sentence, citing among other things "the well-reasoned opinion of the Honorable Genece E. Brinkley."

The problem for anyone appealing a sentence for violating probation is that state appellate court rules give broad discretion to the sentencing judge, and appeals judges must not reverse that sentence "unless the record discloses that the judgment exercised was manifestly unreasonable or the result of partiality, prejudice, bias or ill-will."

Moreover, one of the stated grounds for sentencing an errant probationer to prison is that the sentence "was essential to vindicate the authority of the court."

Mill's best bet to successfully challenge his sentence might depend on the truth of his most serious allegation: that in a private meeting, the judge asked Mill last year to record a version of a Boyz II Men ballad called "On Bended Knee" and mention the judge in it.

According to Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Mill based in New York City, Mill laughed off the request and told Brinkley: "I can't do that. It's not my music. I don't sing that stuff. And I don't do, like, you know, shout-outs to people in my songs."

Tacopina said Brinkley responded by saying: "OK, suit yourself."

Tacopina was not in the in-chambers meeting, which was requested by Mill and then-lawyer Frank DeSimone. The transcript of the meeting remains sealed  at the request of Mill and his lawyers.

Both Natali and Stretton agree that, if the allegations about the private meeting with the judge are true, Brinkley should have recused herself from further involvement in the case.

"But they're going to have to prove it," said Natali.

Stretton also said he believed it was a mistake for Brinkley to have allowed a private meeting in the middle of the probation-violation hearing.

"This was a criminal proceeding," Stretton said. "Everything should have been done in public in open court."
On Tuesday, Philadelphia elected a district attorney who has pledged to take the death penalty off the table.

But two days later, prosecutors asked a jury of Philadelphians to impose it one last time  in the case of Robert Lark, a 63-year-old man who has already spent more than three decades on death row for the 1979 murder of 36-year-old Tae Bong Cho at a takeout restaurant Cho owned in North Philadelphia.

The jurors, who had already found Lark guilty of murder, sent a note to Judge Steven Geroff after an hour of deliberations: "We are at a deadlock. Nobody is budging, and there won't be a unanimous decision."

That meant Geroff would have to sentence Lark instead  to the mandatory term of life in prison with no possibility of parole.

"It's obvious to me that you are quite a villain," Geroff told Lark. Then, he tacked 22 to 45 more years in prison onto the life sentence, for a series of related convictions on charges including terroristic threats and kidnapping.

Lark was first convicted of the crime in 1985. But that verdict was overturned in federal court based on Lark's claim that the prosecutor in his trial had used race-based practices in jury selection. At an evidentiary hearing, the prosecutor could not provide an explanation other than race for striking three African American jurors in the case.

Jury selection for Lark's new trial, which began Oct. 2, took more than a week. In a death-penalty case, lawyers must select a pool of jurors who state they are willing and able to impose the harshest punishment the law provides.

"Each of you," Assistant District Attorney Gail Fairman told the jury, "looked inside of yourselves, and each of you stated, 'Yes, we can do this.'"

A majority of Pennsylvanians no longer support capital punishment, according to a 2015 York College of Pennsylvania poll. One complaint is that so-called death-qualified juries are inherently biased, and studies have shown such juries inherently are more likely to convict.

No one has been executed in Pennsylvania since 1999. Since 2015, Gov. Wolf has maintained a moratorium on executions.

The standard penalty for first-degree murder in Pennsylvania is life in prison, but aggravating factors can trigger the death sentence. The prosecutors described two such factors. The first, they said, was that Lark had murdered a witness. They said he killed Cho on Feb. 22, 1979, because Cho was scheduled to testify in court the next morning that Lark had robbed him at gunpoint two months earlier.

Second, they said, Lark qualified to be executed because of his significant criminal history, which included the gunpoint robberies of a store clerk, of Cho, and of his own landlord.

"The crime was an affront to the justice system," Fairman said.

Lark's lawyers presented mitigating factors: a childhood destroyed by his mother's drug addiction and neglect, and his stepfather's violent abuse.

His birth was a surprise to his 15-year-old mother, defense lawyer Regina Coyne said. "In his first year of school, when he was 5 or 6, he went to five different schools," she said. "He was in survival mode."

She described rats and a leaking roof, vomit on the floor. She spoke of foster homes where he was taken away from his siblings, and described how he ran away from those placements and slept in cars until he could find his siblings and reunite them.

The jury's decision means Lark will move from death row  where for 32 years he has been kept in his cell for 23 hours a day, according to his lawyer  into the general prison population.

Nonetheless, Lark will appeal the verdict, according to his other lawyer, James Berardinelli, who said he had been prevented by the judge from presenting key evidence, including a pattern of questionable behavior by the police who investigated the case.

That, prosecutors noted, means prolonging the pain for Cho's family as well.

Seeing the case return to court, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Notaristefano said, "brought back everything. They thought this was over with, and then they had to relive it all over again."
Janene Wallace killed herself in a Delaware County prison in May 2015. Read more

Janene Wallace's final 52 days on Earth played out in the same torturous loop.

Lost in the grip of depression and paranoia, Wallace, 35, spent 23 hours a day locked in solitary confinement at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County, where she was being held in 2015 on a probation violation.

As Wallace's condition deteriorated, a guard at the prison allegedly taunted the Upper Darby woman and encouraged her to kill herself. On May 26, Wallace hanged herself with a bra she tied to an air vent in her cell.

That appalling yet familiar narrative formed the foundation of a lawsuit attorneys David Inscho and Shanin Specter filed two years ago on behalf of Wallace's estate against Community Education Centers, a for-profit prison company that ran Hill at the time.

The lawsuit was recently settled for $7 million, Inscho and Specter announced Thursday.

Inscho said Wallace's mother, Susanne, reached out to him to learn more about her daughter's death. Wallace had no history of violence or misbehavior at Hill, but was denied basic medical care, he said.

"What struck me was that Susanne wanted answers that no one in Delaware County or at the prison would tell her," he said. "Janene's greatest crime was having a mental illness."

Inscho said Wallace was one of about 700 inmates at Hill who have mental illnesses. Those in solitary confinement are supposed to have daily medical checks, psychiatric evaluations after 30 days, and be evaluated by security personnel to see if they should remain in isolation, he said.

"Those are the basic ground rules. None of them were followed with regard to Janene," Inscho said.

Wallace was arrested in 2013 on harassment charges that were related to her paranoia, Inscho said. She violated the terms of her probation by traveling across the country, which led to her being sent to Hill.

A few days before Wallace's death, she was seen by a psychiatrist who recommended she be returned to the general population, according to the lawsuit Inscho and Specter filed in Philadelphia. But she was allegedly returned to solitary confinement after she appeared to be anxious and agitated, and spent Memorial Day weekend  85 straight hours  alone behind bars.

On the day Wallace took her life, she got into a verbal argument with a corrections officer.

"The guard called her a 'dirty b' and told her to kill herself," Inscho said. "Janene yelled out that she was going to choke herself, and the guard said, 'Go ahead and choke yourself.'"

That guard and two others were ultimately fired.

The 1,883-bed prison has been plagued in the past with similarly disturbing incidents. At least 12 inmates died at Hill between 2002 and 2008 when it was run by the GEO Group, one of the leading private prison companies in the world.

GEO  created decades ago by Upper Darby native George Wackenhut  abandoned its contract in 2009, following a raft of wrongful death lawsuits, clearing the way for New Jersey-based CEC to take over.

GEO resumed control of Hill this year, after purchasing CEC for $360 million.

Pablo Paez, a spokesman for GEO, said Thursday he was unable to comment on the prison's litigation or settlement except to note that the company did not manage Hill's operations at the time of Wallace's death.

In addition to the substantial payout, Inscho said, GEO agreed to revise its suicide prevention and restricted housing policies. Going forward, mentally ill inmates will not be held in solitary confinement strictly because of symptoms related to their illnesses. Those who are will be evaluated by a psychologist within 24 hours, and medical visits will be performed three times a day. Prison officials, including the warden, will also be required to personally review and approve requests to keep inmates in solitary confinement.

The for-profit prison industry has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years over concerns about riots and a lack of access to food or medical care. Last month, the Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement voted to divest $1.2 million worth of stocks it held in GEO and two other for-profit prison companies.
Pennsylvanias Seventh Congressional District has been cited as an example of extreme partisan gerrymandering. Read more

In a case that could force the redrawing of congressional maps before the 2018 elections, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Thursday ordered the Commonwealth Court to decide a gerrymandering lawsuit by the end of the year.

"We will have our day in court, and we will get a decision and a resolution of this matter in time for the 2018 election," said Mimi McKenzie, the legal director of Philadelphia-based Public Interest Law Center, which represents the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania in the case.

If the districts are, in fact, redrawn before next year's midterm elections, the result could have national implications. New districts could give Democrats a boost in competitive, Republican-held districts just outside Philadelphia as they push to take control of the U.S. House.

"It's something that has broad national implications," said Michael Li, senior redistrict counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

The high court's 4-3 vote overturned a decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pelligrini, who last month ordered a stay in the league's suit pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a similar case out of Wisconsin.

But the league asked the state high court to fast-track the case. In agreeing to do so Thursday, the court employed a power it rarely used. "They reserve it for cases that are of great public importance," McKenzie said. "This is exactly the kind of case that's meant for the Supreme Court to exercise extraordinary jurisdiction."

Experts view Pennsylvania as one of the nation's most gerrymandered states, with congressional and legislative boundaries drawn to partisan advantage. While Pennsylvania's voters are fairly evenly split between the parties, Republicans have 13 of the state's 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Tests suggest the map is intentionally designed to favor Republicans.

A lawyer representing the state's General Assembly and its Republican leadership, who are defendants in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. The lawmakers had sought the stay that was overturned.

A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Wolf, named in the lawsuit, said the governor "supports reforms that would remove partisanship and special interests from the drawing of districts."

If the case results in a call for new districts, the legislature and governor could be ordered to draw them up quickly. That would allow public officials to consider "legitimate" political considerations, Li said, such as which towns should be grouped together.

But that also might prove a difficult task in Harrisburg, where partisan divisions between the Republican legislature and Democratic governor have hampered even basic governance. One of the courts could also appoint an independent special master to draw up new districts, as has happened in North Carolina, Li said.

"If these districts are unconstitutional, if they do unfairly treat voters, then voters have already voted in three elections under unconstitutional maps and it wouldn't be fair to have them vote under a fourth election," he said.

Chief Justice Thomas Saylor and Justices Max Baer, and Sallie Updyke Mundy dissented with Thursday's order, which requires a Commonwealth Court judge to be assigned to hear the case and render a decision by Dec. 31. The Supreme Court will then review the case, McKenzie said.

"Regardless of when this action is heard or who hears it, the congressional map  which has been in effect for three congressional elections  will be upheld," said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Speaker Mike Turzai (R.,Allegheny). "Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly who voted for this map stand behind its constitutionality."

Lawyers challenging the state's maps want to present evidence at trial on who drew them and what criteria were used. But lawmakers so far have refused to provide that information, McKenzie said.

Even without that, McKenzie said, "there are a bunch of different ways you can show that these maps are gerrymandered to an extreme." Similar to the Whitford case from Wisconsin, the league's lawsuit uses the "efficiency gap"  a measure developed in recent years to identify heavily gerrymandered political maps.

And beyond statistics, "you can start with the most basic evidence  you just look at these shapes," McKenzie said. "It's hard to imagine that happened by chance."

Staff writer Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON  Should the Pentagon be allowed to authorize the use of unapproved drugs and medical devices on an emergency basis for combat soldiers?

That question has sparked a furious battle this week among some of Washington's biggest power players, with the Defense Department and its congressional advocates on one side and the Food and Drug Administration and the health committees on the other.

The Capitol Hill clash was set off by a provision in the annual defense authorization bill.

The provision would allow the secretary of defense to authorize the emergency use of drugs and devices that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The permission would apply to military personnel who are outside the United States. The purpose, the bill says, would be "to reduce the number of deaths or the severity of harm to members of the armed forces . . . caused by a risk or agent of war."

Under current law, the FDA has the sole authority to make decisions on medical products, including during an emergency. The Defense Department can ask the FDA to grant an emergency authorization to use unapproved drugs and devices if there's a threat of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agent.

The FDA and leaders of congressional health committees say that giving the Pentagon the authority to decide whether to use unapproved drugs and devices could expose soldiers to dangerous products. Members of the defense panels and the Pentagon argue that the measure would save lives by ensuring that soldiers in combat situations get cutting-edge treatments.

Capitol Hill talks to resolve the dispute are now underway. The FDA and the leaders of the health committees favor a different approach that would create an expedited process for the Pentagon's emergency-use requests. That would be similar to the FDA's "breakthrough" designation for promising drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions. If lawmakers agree on new language, it could be offered as an amendment to the defense bill or in future legislation. The House-Senate conference report, filed Wednesday, which includes the provision to allow unapproved drugs and devices, could be voted on by the House as soon as next week.

Regardless of the outcome of the talks, the disagreement, first reported by Politico, puts on public display an internal rift within the administration and in Republican congressional ranks.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, in remarks at an event on the opioid epidemic sponsored by the Hill on Tuesday, expressed unhappiness with the defense-bill language, saying medical-product approvals should be kept under his agency's control.

"We think we provide a level of oversight that helps ensure the safety of products, helps follow-up to make sure that if there are adverse events we're monitoring them, we're collecting that information," he said.

Navy Cmdr. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the Defense Department, if given the emergency authorization, would exercise caution.

"Patient safety is at the heart of everything we do," he said. "If DOD is given this authority, we would work closely with our FDA colleagues to ensure lifesaving treatments are fielded quickly while protecting patient safety."

Under the defense bill's language, the Pentagon would be required to create a panel of outside experts to recommend when an unapproved product should be used, and defense officials would have to consult with the FDA  but would not have to follow its advice.

Congressional supporters of the provision say lawmakers are frustrated over what they see as FDA delays in approving freeze-dried plasma, a dehydrated form of plasma that is intended to be quickly reconstituted and given to soldiers during military operations. Such plasma is being used by a small number of U.S. troops under limited permission from FDA, and by some U.S. allies.

"Members feel like if the secretary of defense thinks this is a life-and-death situation and there's something on the market internationally that can make a difference but hasn't been approved by the FDA, there ought to be a way to short-circuit the process and get it on the battlefield as soon as we can," a House aide said.

Gottlieb said that the FDA could approve the plasma as soon as 2018, more quickly than if the Pentagon had to develop its own review process.

The Pentagon provision has strong support among defense lawmakers of both parties, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R., Ariz.); ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.); House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R., Texas), and ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.).

In a letter to those lawmakers on Thursday, five former FDA commissioners who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations  Margaret Hamburg, Jane Hanney, David Kessler, Mark McClellan and Andrew von Eschenbach  denounced the provision and said it "likely increases the risks for our military personnel."

Lawmakers who support the FDA position include Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Rep. Greg Walden (R., Ore.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said it is a "horrible idea" for the Pentagon to get authorization to use unapproved materials on troops. "It will endanger the FDA's authority and endanger the soldiers," he said.

Some critics pointed to the Pentagon's past failures to protect soldiers from potentially dangerous experimentation. For example, for many years during the last century, thousands of troops were exposed to mustard gas, hallucinogens and other dangerous substances without their knowledge.
The Air Force is facing scrutiny after it was revealed this week that it failed to follow policies for alerting federal law enforcement about Devin Kelley's violent past, therefore allowing him to obtain firearms before the shooting rampage that killed at least 26 churchgoers Sunday in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Kelley, who served at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, should have been barred from buying firearms and body armor after he was convicted on domestic-abuse charges.

Here's what you need to know:

What happened to Kelley?

He was sentenced to a year in prison and kicked out of the military with a bad-conduct discharge following two counts of domestic abuse against his wife and a child. In a statement, the Air Force said that Kelley's domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database, which is used by gun-sellers to screen for felons and violent criminals who are prohibited from buying firearms.

How was Kelley able to purchase weapons?

Kelley was able to purchase two weapons from a firearms retailer after passing federal background checks this year and last. It is unclear whether he used the same weapons in Sunday's shooting.

But his ability to buy guns highlights the Air Force's failure to follow the Pentagon's guidelines for ensuring that violent offenses are reported to the FBI. Domestic abuse convictions are among the crimes the military services are required to report.

What was the military's response?

Lawmakers called on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to determine how many former service members who have been convicted of violent crimes also have been improperly documented. Mattis said Tuesday that he had directed the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate further.

"If the problem is that we didn't put something out, we'll correct that," Mattis said.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said Thursday she expected that a draft report due next week would detail how the service failed to send Kelley's information to FBI criminal databases. Additionally, Air Force databases are being searched for other instances of violent offenders who might have fallen through the cracks, Wilson added.

Did Kelley receive a proper punishment?

Kelley's case shows the military "has an archaic, ineffective sentencing system they have refused to reform," said Don Christensen, a former Air Force chief prosecutor. In Kelley's case, a jury of airmen  not a judge  chose his sentence.

Jurors typically hand down lighter penalties, Christensen said, and Kelley's crimes probably should have demanded more severe punishment. Had Kelley received a dishonorable discharge, his information almost certainly would have reached the FBI criminal database.

"Sentences typically skew light in crimes of violence than what you see in civilian world," Christensen said, calling the appointment of a jury in a case of such magnitude both highly unusual and "disturbing." Severe child abuse carries a maximum prison sentence of five years in the military court system, which can be similar to offenses like one-time drug use, he said.
Critics of the campaign run by District Attorney-elect Larry Krasner have expressed concerns over how the civil rights lawyer who made a career of suing the Police Department will now create a working relationship with current prosecutors and Philadelphia police.

On Facebook, some police officers have made clear where they stand on the matter.

Officer Marc Marchetti, who changed his profile photo to Krasner's on Wednesday, began a conversation in which friends used the hashtag #notmyDA and described Krasner in profane terms.

As for Marchetti, he wrote, "He doesn't give me my arrest powers so [I] don't care. No blood on my hands when he lets the sbags out."

Another officer, Bob Condart, responded with an image of the logo of the District Attorney's Office flipped upside-down, a move that is considered a symbol of distress.

Also on the page, Officer John Graziano called Krasner a "creepo scumbag." And Officer Steve Mancuso wrote: "He's got that look on his face you just wanna wipe off with a bitch slap." (Mancuso has been accused of such rough handling, in a "violent takedown" of an Eagles fan during a game; the case was settled out of court.)

Another commenter wrote, "Hitler could run for DA or Mayor on the Democratic ticket and win."

Then Marchetti's partner, Kevin Klein, posted a video of Marchetti prank-calling the law office of Krasno Krasno & Onwudinjo to congratulate Krasner on his win. The video shows a close-up of Marchetti calling the office  which is not connected to the DA-elect  and asking a confused receptionist if Krasner was available. The video, which looked as if it was made inside a police facility, was removed or made private after Philly.com contacted Klein requesting comment. Klein referred questions to police Internal Affairs.

The other officers did not respond to messages requesting comment. Philadelphia police said they were not familiar with the posts but did confirm those names matched those of officers on the force. In response to an inquiry about what the posts might suggest for the future of the two departments, a spokesman said in an email: "The relationship between the Police Department and District Attorney's Office going forward will be the exact same as it has always been."

Elsewhere on Facebook, the #notmyDA hashtag was picked up by former bail commissioner Tim O'Brien.

Ben Waxman, a spokesman for Krasner, said that the officers' comments were not reflective of the DA-elect's relationship with the city's police department.

"Larry has said repeatedly that he is excited to work with the good officers of the Philadelphia Police Department, which he believes are the overwhelmingly majority," Waxman said in an email. "He already works closely with many in the department, including Commissioner Ross and the previous two commissioners. Larry also benefited during the campaign from the endorsement of the Guardian Civic League, an organization of African American police officers. He looks forward to working with the PPD and other law enforcement agencies to ensure the fair application of justice for all people."
Hundreds of students in Washington, D.C,. and Maryland area protest Thursday at the Hart Senate Office Building over the Dream Act. Read more

WASHINGTON  They ditched school and marched to Capitol Hill en masse, then filled four floors of balconies in the vast atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. Silent at first, fists raised in the air, they soon erupted into bellowing chants that echoed through the massive marble-clad room.

"Dream Act. Dream Act."

"Si se puede. Si se puede."

The demonstration Thursday involving high school and college students from the Washington, D.C., region and beyond was the latest attempt by undocumented immigrants and their advocates to keep Congress focused on their plight.

In September, President Trump announced that he would kill the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants work permits and deportation protection to nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants brought here as children.

If Congress can't pass legislation to replace the program, work permits will begin expiring in March.

Competing bills have been proposed to offer DACA recipients a path to citizenship, and a group of Republican lawmakers held a news conference Thursday to urge action on that legislation this year. But the Republican leadership  currently consumed with plans to cut taxes  has said no vote is likely before January.

"It's been two months since DACA has been rescinded, and we have no solution yet," said Bruna Bouhid, communications manager for United We Dream, the organization that helped plan Thursday's protest. "Immigrant youth are honestly fed up, and they are tired of waiting."

Students wore orange shirts that said "Clean Dream Act," a reference to legislation that would offer a path to citizenship without adding tough new anti-immigration measures. They came from local high schools and colleges.

Groups also traveled from states as far as Washington and Arkansas. Kristina Saccone, a spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools, said the protest was not a sanctioned school event, and students who participated received unexcused early dismissals.

A U.S. Capitol Police officer used a megaphone to warn the crowd that it is illegal to demonstrate in the building.

"Stop chanting if you do not intend to be arrested," the officer said.

Most people became quiet and raised their fists in the air, but a handful of protesters continued their refrain.

Eva Malecki, a spokesperson for U.S. Capitol Police, said 15 people were arrested, all of them were adults.

Martin Martinez, a 24 year-old DACA recipient from Spokane, Washington, said he came to Capitol Hill to fight for his future. He immigrated from Mexico with his family when he was 8, and now attends college and works as a field organizer for United We Dream.

"I consider this country my country," Martinez said. "DACA gave me the opportunity to feel safe and provide for myself and my family. That power that I have been given to help myself and my community is at stake."

Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) stood with some of his staff in the corner of the Hart Senate Building watching the protest unfold early Thursday afternoon. He said it was a powerful display, and that he wants to vote for a clean Dream Act as soon as possible.

"We need to just get Ryan to put something on the floor so we can vote on it," Ellison said, a reference to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

On Wednesday, Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security was asked about DACA recipients during her confirmation hearing.

Nielsen said participants in the program would not be an enforcement priority for Immigration and Customs Enforcement if Congress fails to act, an assurance that drew criticism from anti-immigration groups on social media.

She also told Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.), one of the administration's fiercest critics, that the government would not use personal information it has compiled through the program to track down individuals whose DACA permits expire and deport them.

No matter. The young protesters who came to the Senate a day later said they would not stop demonstrating until Congress passed firm legislation.

As they exited the Hart building Thursday, again with their fists raised, they chanted once again.

"Undocumented," they yelled. "Unafraid."
A screen shot of a 2017 sample ballot sent to some Burlington County, N.J., voters. Read more

South Jersey's Eighth Legislative District, which spans three counties, has been a Republican stronghold for decades.

But on Tuesday, upstart Democrat Joanne Schwartz fell around 300 votes short of capturing one of the district's two Assembly seats, according to unofficial tallies. She said she has not conceded yet because her party is mulling asking for a recount.

Schwartz, chief executive officer of Rosemont Health & Rehabilitation Center in Bryn Mawr, trails Republican Ryan Peters of Mount Laurel, who is currently a Burlington County freeholder.

The other Assembly seat also was claimed by a Republican, incumbent Joe Howarth. At the back of the pack of candidates was Democrat Mary Ann Merlino.

"I think people underestimated me," said Schwartz, a former Burlington County freeholder who lives in Southampton.

The other Republican incumbent in the district, Assemblywoman Maria Rodriguez-Gregg, decided not to seek re-election.

The district's Senate seat went to Republican incumbent Dawn Marie Addiego, a veteran state senator.

Joe Andl, the chairman of the county Democratic Committee, did not return calls and an email asking for comment. He told the Burlington County Times that the last time a Democrat won in the Eighth District was more than 40 years ago. Since that time, however, the district has been slightly redrawn.

The district now includes parts of Burlington and Camden Counties and one town in Atlantic County, Hammonton.

Chris Russell, a political consultant for the three GOP candidates, said in an email that the candidates' "ability to win in a district where Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans, in a tough year for the party statewide, speaks to their strength as candidates."

Peters, an associate with the law firm of Pepper Hamilton LLP in Philadelphia, did not return calls for comment. He is a Navy SEAL who saw combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and is a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve, assigned to SEAL Team 18.

Peters is a member of the all-Republican Burlington County Freeholder Board, with one year left in his term. In 2015, he and running mate Kate Gibbs defeated the Democratic incumbents  Schwartz and her running mate, Aimee Belgard  giving the board its Republican monopoly. On Tuesday, Balvir Singh and Tom Pullion regained two seats on the board for the Democrats, beating Republican incumbents.

In the contest for Senate, Addiego's challenger, Democrat George Youngkin, said he fell short by about 2,400 votes. He noted that Addiego had won four years ago with a 15,000-vote margin. "It was a small victory for the Democrats  we moved the needle closer for the next race," Youngkin said.

But he said his loss was not close enough to consider a recount. He said he was excited, however, that his running mate, Schwartz, might be able to score a win if a potential recount goes in her favor.

Addiego did not respond to calls for comment.

On Tuesday, Schwartz led the pack in Burlington and Camden Counties, but fell short in Hammonton.

Before a judge would order a recount, upon the request of a candidate, all three counties would first have to certify the unofficial tallies they have reported on their websites. They would check for accuracy and then add in the votes submitted by paper ballot.

Burlington County Clerk Tim Tyler said counties have until Nov. 17 to certify the results and send them to the state Board of Canvassers in Trenton. The board has until Dec. 5 to announce the winners of the District Eight races after reviewing the tallies and adding up the votes cast in all three counties, including mail-in and provisional ballots.
Unlike the administration he represented for 10 heady days in July, Anthony Scaramucci does a fair bit of apologizing these days  but always, of course, with caveats.

In a speech and question-and-answer session at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon, Scaramucci acknowledged that he "shouldn't have said those vulgar comments"  the profanity-laced, unprintable-in-a-family-newspaper interview he gave to the New Yorker that ultimately ended his tenure as White House communications director. But then he lamented that the press had "taken the story and tried to mash and disfigure my life as a person."

He apologized for the eye-popping poll his new media venture, the Scaramucci Post, posted on Twitter last month, asking how many Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust: "If you were offended by it, I hope you'll accept my apology," he said.

Then, the caveat: his business partner  "a practicer of Orthodox Judaism"  had posted the poll trying to make a point about the public's lack of knowledge surrounding the Holocaust, he said. Scaramucci himself had been speaking at Oxford University when the poll dropped. "I was like, oh, man, this is not going to go well for me," he said. (He said he has since learned from a friend, the Philadelphia-based freelance journalist Laura Goldman, that "as a policy, you should stay away from matters related to the Holocaust.")

Since he became a household name this summer, Scaramucci, a former Goldman Sachs executive who ran his own investment firm until he sold it in January, anticipating a move to the White House that came months later and lasted just over a week, has tried on a number of hats. He's launched the media venture and maintains a position on the advisory board at Tufts University, his alma mater. (Since the Holocaust poll, students have been circulating a petition for his removal.)

He told the room at the Loews Hotel Thursday of his early days on the Trump campaign and an initial conversation with campaign staff: If the New Yorker reporter who recorded his infamous interview had rolled tape during that conversation, "well, that would have been a doozy," Scaramucci said. And he was blithe about his eventual firing: "John Kelly fired me and put my head on a stick, but I have an enormous amount of respect for him."

He was similarly optimistic about his former employer's agenda, and predicted a Trump win in 2020, largely because it's hard to unseat an incumbent president. In a brief interview after his speech, The Mooch waved away Democratic gains in Tuesday's election as normal political blips.

Scaramucci said he'd first sensed a change in American politics in 2016 at a Trump rally in Arizona, speaking to disaffected working-class voters who showed up by the thousands  "mostly white," he clarified after an audience member asked about the demographics of the crowd. "We have to figure that out, because we've got a mosaic in this country."

And he defended the Trump administration against charges of bigotry, saying that white supremacists like Richard Spencer and David Duke were only latching onto Trumpism to raise their own profiles. "You've got to have a zero tolerance policy for neo-Nazis," he said, referencing Trump's tortured, much-criticized response to the killing of a counterprotester at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville this summer. (Still, another caveat: "The percentage of people in that category is infinitesimally small.")

Asked what he would change about the administration, he said he'd "dial down the rhetoric about the press," get Trump to start filling some of the vacancies in his administration, and encourage the president to engage more with Congress.

All of those things, he noted, were in the communications plan he'd drawn up.
WASHINGTON  David McCullough is trying to stage an intervention with Congress.

The renowned historian's latest book, The American Spirit, a collection of speeches he has delivered over the last three decades, begins with his 1989 address to a joint session of Congress and ends with 2016 remarks in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, both of which included calls for lawmakers to live up to the history of the building.

This week, his publisher, Simon & Schuster, is delivering the book to every member of the House and Senate with an inscription letting them know they "can enact change and help close the gap to common ground."

If they still do not get the message, McCullough is happy to be more clear: Stand up to President Trump.

"I recommend that people in public office stand up and speak out, and particularly in the halls of the great Congress of the United States, that absolute acropolis that we've created on Capitol Hill," McCullough said in a 40-minute interview this week.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the biographies Truman and John Adams is most definitely not a fan of Trump's presidency. He believes the former reality-television star and real-estate mogul is devaluing the dignity of the Oval Office through his actions and misstatements about basic facts.

"It's as if we put someone in the pilot seat who's never flown a plane and who doesn't seem to know where we're on our way to, and who frequently tells us either inaccurate or grossly misleading information about how the flight is going," he said. "Irresponsible words matter, and it cannot be permitted to go on."

But the historian is in some ways more upset with members of Congress, particularly Republicans, for not forcefully reining in their president. There is precedent for a greater show of leadership, in his view: a speech delivered in 1950 by then-Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, which happens to be the final subject of his new book.

Smith spoke out against Joseph McCarthy, the senator from Wisconsin whose attempt to root out communists had gripped the entire nation. Smith accused her fellow Republican of "character assassination."

In an address that the Senate Historical Office now calls "A Declaration of Conscience," Chase spoke for 15 minutes, with McCarthy looking on, of the Senate's debasement to "a forum of hate."

"Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America," she said. "It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others." She asked her fellow Republicans not to ride to political victory on the "Four Horsemen of Calumny  Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."

McCullough said he appreciated the tenor of a recent speech on the Senate floor by Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona denouncing Trump with a simple "enough." But the author noted that it was a retirement announcement  and that Flake was "not going to stay for consequences."

"She wasn't about to retire. She was a freshman," McCullough recalled of Smith, who would go on to serve 24 years in the Senate. "It wasn't supposedly her turn to speak out, and she spoke out against Joe McCarthy in a way nobody had, and it changed the course of history."

Like many of Trump's critics, McCullough struggles with the question of just what can be done beyond strong denunciations that so far appear to have little effect on the president. But he believes that showing outrage could help: "Stand up, show courage, show what you stand for, what are your principles, what do you believe?"

Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) is a fan of McCullough's work. This week, he helped distribute some copies of The American Spirit to other senators as a board member of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. A former history professor himself, Blunt thinks McCullough's previous subjects would find today's political environment quite familiar, particularly John Adams, whose loss to Thomas Jefferson in 1800 ranks among the most bitter presidential elections ever.

"That was probably the most analogous time to now, what people say about each other," Blunt said. "The newspapers were clearly Republican or Federalist, they made no bones about it. It was like MSNBC and Fox everyday, and you got the paper you wanted to read."

Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), who now holds Smith's seat and considers her an idol, considered taking Flake's route and that of Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), another fierce Trump critic not seeking reelection next year. But Collins said the weight of the issues in Washington led to her decision to stay in the Senate rather than run for governor.

"Some people feel that they can be more effective in bringing about change from the outside, and I respect that view, but I don't share it," she said.

Collins has not been as outspoken in her Trump criticism, but she has done so with her votes, notably in opposing the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in July.

McCullough views faint criticism of Trump from Republicans as evidence of a larger regression of the entire Congress over the past few decades. The paralyzing partisanship that has set in, he believes, suppresses the instinct to speak out on principle if it means crossing a member of one's own party. It also makes it vastly more difficult for the body to function  to pass laws and run the government.

"As an institution in the aggregate and the whole, it is bad," he said, "because we've lost the capacity to bridge the divide between political parties with friendship and respect."

In the late 1970s, after writing a book about the Panama Canal, McCullough moved to Washington to essentially lobby on behalf of the Panama Canal Treaty, which faced fierce criticism. He considers Howard Baker, the Republican leader at the time, a hero for supporting the treaty and rounding up the votes for it.

It's a good thing that McCullough's next book does not involve Washington, given his feelings for the current state of its institutions. He's writing about Ohio and its unique role in history, including its early days as part of the Northwest Ordinance. Its founders demanded three guarantees: freedom of religion, free education and no slavery.

"I've always wanted to write a book about people you've never heard of, who did something noble, who did something admirable," he said.

That does not meant that he has entirely given up on today's leaders. One reason, perhaps, stems from how much time he has spent studying the history made on Capitol Hill. "I still have faith in Congress, as strange as that may sound in this moment," he said.

In 2016, while accepting the Freedom Award from the Capitol Historical Society, McCullough closed out a speech by pointing to the statue of Clio, the Greek muse of history. He was standing in Statuary Hall, which served as the first chamber for the House. Clio sits atop an ornate clock that was in the chamber then, helping mark time but also marking history.

"What you say today will be remembered and recalled, and will count for or against you in the future, in what is called history," McCullough said in the interview. "She's saying how do you want to go down in the history of our country, what kind of record do you want to leave? And I think that's something that everyone who serves in Congress ought to always have in mind."
WASHINGTON  Five Democratic senators say they want to hold an additional confirmation hearing for Kirstjen Nielsen, the Trump administration's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, citing a Washington Post report Thursday detailing efforts by the White House to pressure the agency's acting director on a major immigration decision.

Nielsen testified Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and made no stumbles, calmly fielding questions on a range of security topics. But five members of the confirmation panel  all Democrats  sent a letter to committee leaders later Thursday calling for her to return for further questioning under oath.

On Thursday the panel postponed its confirmation vote on Nielsen, after senators submitted 197 written follow-up questions to her testimony. That vote is now set for Monday.

But Democrats who signed the letter say they now have more doubts, after the Post described White House attempts to pressure the acting homeland security secretary, Elaine Duke, to expel tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants, as well as Duke's plans to resign.

"These developments raise important new questions not only about the political interference of the White House in a key national security matter, but also about the qualifications and appropriateness of Ms. Nielsen's nomination to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security," the senators wrote in their letter, which was addressed to the committee's chairman, Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill.

"The nominee must now answer questions about her ability to maintain independence from her current immediate superior, the White House," they wrote.

As the majority party, Republicans control the committee, and Johnson could decline the request to bring Nielsen back. He has stated that he wants her nomination to proceed quickly, and Capitol Hill sources say the White House is eager for her to get a full confirmation vote on the Senate floor before the Thanksgiving recess.

During Wednesday's confirmation hearing before the panel, Nielsen took questions from senators on everything from climate change to violent extremism and cybersecurity. Nielsen, 45, a former DHS official who is the current deputy White House chief of staff, appeared to breeze through the session, demonstrating familiarity with a range of security issues.

But the five senators who sent the letter  Maggie Hassan (D., N.H.), Heidi Heitkamp (D., S.D.), Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Gary Peters (D., Mich.), and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.)  said Duke's potential resignation was another factor requiring additional testimony from Nielsen.

"Given the possibility, based on news reports, that the Department's Senate-confirmed Deputy Secretary may soon resign, Committee members should be given a chance to revisit Ms. Nielsen's management qualifications in a formal hearing setting," they wrote.

Nielsen was picked for the top DHS job by her boss, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff. She was his chief of staff when he was DHS secretary until July, when Duke, the deputy DHS secretary, took over acting leadership of the department and its 240,000 employees and 22 sub-agencies.

The Post's article Thursday described last-minute efforts by Kelly and the White House homeland security adviser, Tom Bossert, to persuade Duke to terminate the provisional residency of some 57,000 Honduran immigrants living in the United States for nearly two decades with what is known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

The decision to renew or terminate the TPS permits is supposed to be left to Homeland Security officials in consultation with the State Department. White House officials have repeatedly given assurances that they would not interfere in the process.

Duke opted to end TPS protections for about 2,500 Nicaraguans, but decided she lacked sufficient information to make that decision for the much larger group of Hondurans, granting them a six-month extension to the frustration of Kelly and others at The White House.

Jonathan Hoffman, the top DHS spokesman, disputed the accounts that Kelly called to pressure Duke, insisting she had reached out to him to seek advice on the TPS decision. He said claims that Duke plans to resign have "zero factual basis."

DHS must also announce in the coming weeks whether it will extend, modify or cancel TPS for roughly 50,000 Haitians and 200,000 Salvadorans whose residency is due to expire early next year. But on Wednesday senators did not ask Nielsen for her views on TPS or how she would make the decision.
Senate Republicans unveiled their big tax proposal Thursday, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) hailing it as a way to "give hard working taxpayers across the country growing paychecks" and create a "vibrant" economy.

Tax cuts are the centerpiece of President Trump's economic plan that Republican lawmakers are aiming to get to him by Christmas. The Senate had the benefit of going after the House, so senators saw what generated the most outcry in the first go around.

Here's a rundown of the winners and losers. It's likely that most Americans would pay less in taxes under the plan, but it depends on a person's specific circumstances. Under the House bill, 31 percent of middle-class households would pay higher taxes by 2027, the Tax Policy Center found. Studies of the Senate plan will come out soon.

Winners

Big corporations. America's mega companies get a big tax cut: From 35 percent down to 20 percent. Yes, the lower rate doesn't kick in until 2019, a one-year delay from what Trump promised, but it's still coming. These businesses also get to deduct any new equipment purchases right away, another tax savings. And the whole business tax system shifts from worldwide (where income anywhere in the world gets taxed) to a territorial system (where income only in the U.S. is taxed), something corporations have wanted to see change for a long time.

Many small businesses. The vast majority of America's businesses (about 95 percent) are organized as "pass through" entities like partnerships, sole proprietorships and S-Corporations. Under the Senate plan, most "pass throughs" would be able to deduct 17.4 percent of their income tax free. The rest of the business income would be taxed at the business owner's individual income tax rate. Service businesses (i.e. law, finance or medicine) that earn more than $75,000 ($150,000 per married couple) would not be able to take the deduction. The National Federation of Independent Business said it was "encouraged" by the Senate plan that "includes real tax relief" for small businesses.

The wealthy. The rich get a tax cut from 39.6 percent to 38.5 percent. They also get some expanded tax breaks in the Senate GOP plan. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) goes away and they can deduct more of their charitable giving. Families making up to $1 million can also claim the child tax credit, well above the current $110,000 threshold where the credit starts to phase out now. The Senate plan would, however, keep part of the estate tax, but we'll get to that later.

People with homes worth $500,000 to $1 million. Under the Senate plan, Americans can deduct the interest paid on the first $1 million of mortgage debt. The House bill capped the deduct for new mortgage debt worth up to $500,000. The current threshold is $1 million, and the Senate keeps that in place, a boost to home builders, real estate agents and wealthy homeowners. Only 6 percent of U.S. mortgages are worth more than half a million.

Americans with hefty medical bills. The Senate keeps the popular medical deduction in place, which allows Americans with really high medical expenses to reduce their income taxes to help defray the costs of treatment. The deduction is currently taken by 8.8 million Americans, including many seniors suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Families that adopt children. The Senate keeps the one-time credit worth up to $13,570 for every child that families adopt. The House had originally proposed getting rid of the credit, but public pressure restored the credit on both the House and Senate plans. The credit helps families offset the sizable legal fees and adoption agency payments.

Graduate students. Many PhD students were concerned about the House bill's provision to count tuition waivers from their universities as taxable income, a move that would raise many graduate students' tax bill by thousands of dollars. But the Senate plan keeps the tax breaks in place for graduate students.

Losers

People living in high-tax states such as New Jersey and California. All state and local tax deductions (SALT) are gone in the Senate plan.Taxpayers would lose the ability to deduct their state and local property and other taxes from their federal taxes, a break used by about 44 million people (or 30 percent of tax filers.) A number of Republican House members insisted on only a partial repeal in the House bill, but the Senate has gone for a full repeal in an effort to raise more money to pay for tax cuts elsewhere.

Law, architecture, consulting, finance or medicine small businesses. The Senate plan does not allow "service businesses" that earn more than $75,000 a year ($150,000 per married couple) to benefit from the small business tax break. Other small businesses like pizza shops can deduct 17.4 percent of their income, but service businesses cannot. Business owners also lose the ability to deduct many of their daily expenses for supplies, home office costs, legal fees, etc.

1,800 super healthy heirs and heiress. The Senate has opted to keep in place the estate taxes (sometimes called the "death tax" by critics). At the moment, the tax only impacts about 5,000 wealthy families a year and it's only assessed on assets worth over $5.49 million ($11 million per couple). Under the Senate plan, the threshold doubles so people won't pay tax on the first $11 million they inherit (or $22 million for couples). The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that only 1,800 families would end up paying the estate tax after the change.

The poor. More than 70 million Americans don't make enough money to have to pay federal income taxes. Many of those people currently receive money back from the government because they qualify for refundable credits. Under the Senate plan, those credits aren't going away, but they also aren't growing. On top of that, the plan raises America's debt, which will likely require cost cuts somewhere down the line. Republicans have proposed sizable cuts in the past to some safety net programs used by the poor.

People who bike to work. The Senate plan does away with the $20 per month deduction people can take who bike to work.
Asaf, 9 and Raul Berrios, 64, in the living room of their South Philadelphia home on Thursday, November 9, 2017. They left Carolina, Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island. Read more

Victor Torres wasn't in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria hit, but the storm has battered him nonetheless.

In the six weeks since, he moved from Florida, where his temporary work and housing dried up, to New Jersey, where he slept on a cousin's living-room floor, and to Philadelphia, where his sole relative here took him in.

On Tuesday, three days after arriving, he sat at the disaster center the city opened in North Philadelphia for those who have left the island. His father and uncle, who were visiting him in Florida when the storm hit and now can't return home, were beside him. He hopes to bring his four children and their mother, his longtime girlfriend, here, too, but on Tuesday, he had other things on his mind.

"Something we can eat. We've been having just one meal a day. Clothes. I mean we don't have nothing for winter," Torres said. "I'm not working. It's a mess."

More than 850 others who fled Puerto Rico for Philadelphia have come through the center over the last four weeks, according to city officials. And more are coming every day. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College estimates as many as 27,000 Puerto Ricans could move to Pennsylvania in the year after Hurricane Maria, second behind only Florida.

Philadelphia officials trying to help the transition have called the challenge unprecedented, especially given the limited funding coming from the federal government.

"We need longer-term housing options and other financial support to help families integrate, at least temporarily, in Philadelphia," Lauren Hitt, Mayor Kenney's spokeswoman, said in a statement. "Our city has never had to beg for these supports before  with every other natural disaster that's happened on the mainland where individuals affected fled to Philadelphia, we received significant federal support."

Puerto Ricans have left the island in large numbers for years, many settling in Philadelphia because of its relatively low cost of living and existing Puerto Rican community. About 134,000 Puerto Ricans call the city home. That is nearly 50 percent more than did two decades ago. An additional 23,000 live in Camden, about a third of the city's population.

The conditions fueling the diaspora, including high poverty and low employment, have only worsened since Hurricane Maria and are likely to drive more people to the mainland in the coming months and years, experts say.

"Unemployment is going higher and higher as we speak," said Edwin Melendez, director of the center at Hunter College. "That means you should expect, just for unemployment reasons, about two times what was the [normal migration]."

Jose Gonzalez, standing beside a downed bridge in Utuado, Puerto Rico, last week, said the lack of jobs was the main reason he had decided to leave. He said he works in the construction industry but worries that only the politically connected will get contracts as the island rebuilds after Maria. As soon as he can sell his trucks, he plans to join his wife and son, who moved to Newark in August.

"I'm going to leave maybe for a year or two," Gonzalez said. "I need money. There's no jobs here."

Philadelphia officials, while anticipating later waves of evacuees, are trying to meet immediate needs.

At the disaster center, housed at the Rivera Recreation Center, the folding chairs in the middle of the room filled up quickly Tuesday morning. Half a dozen local, state, and federal agencies were set up at tables around the room where people got help filling out FEMA assistance forms, securing food stamps and Medicaid, accessing Section 8 housing, and connecting with medical care.

Housing is a chief concern. Last week, FEMA activated its Transitional Shelter Assistance program, which pays for evacuees to stay at hotels for up to 60 days. Hitt said the city has received no federal funding for longer-term options.

Melissa Wiehenstroer, a FEMA spokeswoman, said that before the vouchers run out many people will have had their homes in Puerto Rico inspected, allowing them to receive additional funding for rental assistance. Each household can receive up to $34,000 in FEMA disaster assistance.

As federal funding slowly materializes, the city has made do with a patchwork of other options.

Raul Berrios and his 9-year-old son, Asaf, were the first in Philadelphia to receive hotel vouchers. They previously were living in a South Philadelphia Airbnb through a partnership between the city and the company.

The father, a 64-year-old cancer survivor with high blood pressure, said he worried about his health and that of his son. He saw no option but to leave his home in Carolina, just east of San Juan. He picked Philadelphia, where Asaf's mother lives, though she did not have room for them to stay with her.

One afternoon last month, the two sat in the Airbnb's living room after Asaf returned from his first day at Southwark Elementary School. (About 725 other students from Puerto Rico have enrolled in Pennsylvania schools since the storm, according to the state Department of Education.)

"The teachers are very nice. I'm doing the best I can. The food is pretty good. And I love it," Asaf said. "And I made a friend. He's called David."

Berrios, a musician by trade, included among the few belongings he brought to Philadelphia a steel drum made from the bottom of a trash barrel. Asaf stood at the drum that afternoon, his father tapping the bottoms of enamel pots pulled from the kitchen cabinets. The father picked "Kumbaya," the campfire spiritual.

"We need to give thanks to God," Berrios said. "Because we are here."
Republican senators on Thursday called on Roy Moore, seen here in a file photo in Florence, Ala., to withdraw from the Senate race in Alabama if allegations of sexual misconduct are true. Read more

WASHINGTON - Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore declined Friday to rule out that he may have dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, though he said he did not remember any such encounters and described such behavior as inappropriate.

"If I did, I'm not going to dispute these things, but I don't remember anything like that," Moore said on the Sean Hannity radio program, when asked if he dated 17- or 18-year-old girls at the time.

In the same interview, Moore denied outright the claim of Leigh Corfman that he had initiated sexual encounters with her when she was 14. "I don't know Ms. Corfman from anybody," he said. "The allegations of sexual misconduct with her are completely false."

He did recall knowing two other accusers, Gloria Thacker Deason and Debbie Wesson Gibson, as well as their parents. "I knew her as a friend," he said of Gibson, who has said that Moore asked her on a date when she was 17 after speaking at her high school. "If we did go out on dates, then we did, but I do not remember that," Moore said.

When asked about Deason's claim that he provided her wine on dates when she was 18, Moore said: "In this county, it's a dry county. We never would have had liquor."

Alcohol sales began in Etowah County in 1972, years before the alleged encounter, and the Washington Post confirmed that wine was for sale at the time at the pizzeria where Deason remembered Moore taking her when she was under the legal drinking age of 19.

The legal age of consent for sexual activity in Alabama is 16, as it was at the time of these alleged encounters.

"After my return from the military, I dated a lot of young ladies," Moore told Hannity.

When Hannity asked Moore again if he could unequivocally say he never dated any girl in her late teens when he was 32, Moore said, "That's out of my customary behavior." Hannity said he would not want his 17- or 18-year-old daughter dating a 32-year-old. "I wouldn't either," said Moore.

Moore's comments came as Republican leaders scrambled Friday to limit the political damage from allegations Moore initiated sexual encounters with teenagers nearly four decades ago.

Two Republian senators - Steve Daines of Montana and Mike Lee of Utah - withdrew their endorsements of Moore following his interview with Hannity.

"Having read the detailed description of the incidents, as well as the response from Judge Moore and his campaign, I can no longer endorse his candidacy for the US Senate," Lee wrote in a tweet.

In a tweet, Daines offered less explanation - "I am pulling my endorsement and support for Roy Moore for U.S. Senate" - but he also retweeted Lee's statement.

And the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulled out of a joint committee it had set up with Moore, depriving him of a fund-raising vehicle for the final weeks of the campaign. But current and former national party leaders admitted that they have little power to actually force Moore from the race. The election is Dec. 12.

Strategists also backed away from discussions for a Republican write-in campaign in the state, saying there was little hope of success if Moore stays in the race - and raising the possibility that Moore's scandal will remain a problem for the party into the 2018 midterm elections, as candidates are asked to take a position on the abuse of minors and intergenerational dating.

"Other Republicans are going to be dragged into it," said Steven Law, the CEO of the Senate Leadership Fund, a political committee affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) that opposed Moore's nomination.

The comments came a day after the Post published a story in which a woman said Moore had initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was 14 and he was 32. Three other women said he had taken them on dates when they were teenagers.

Allies of Moore in Alabama attacked the accusers in an effort to protect Moore. "What these women are doing is such a shame," said Alabama State Rep. Ed Henry, a Republican, in an interview Friday with Huntsville station WVNN-AM. "As a father of two daughters, they discredit when women actually are abused and taken advantage of. They're not using their supposed experience to find justice. They're just using it as a weapon, a political weapon."

At the same time, more national party leaders came forward to call on Moore to leave the race. "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections," said Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee, before referencing the woman who had accused Moore of inappropriate sexual contact. "I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."

Romney joined his former rival, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) in calling for Moore to step down immediately. Other Republican Senate leaders, including McConnell, have called on Moore to step down on the condition that the reports prove to be true - but they have not yet described a process for assessing the truth of the claims.

Democrats familiar with the campaign of their nominee, Doug Jones, said no new ad buys or investments were planned to take advantage of the story.

None of the women who alleged teenage relationships with Moore sought out the Post. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore's Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls.

Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don't know one another.

In interviews since the publication of the story, state officials have said either that they would investigate the claims or raised questions about the timing of the revelations, suggesting that the accusers were politically motivated.

"I will hold judgment until we know the facts," Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said Thursday evening.

Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, a Republican, told the Washington Examiner that biblical stories offered a justification for the acts Moore is accused of committing. "Take Joseph and Mary," Zeigler said. "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

Even before the accusations became public, Senate Republicans had been asked repeatedly about Moore's more extreme positions on the proper role of the Christian faith in American political life.

Now, party leaders expect new questions about the Moore accusations.

"I'm prepping my candidate for what he is going to say if he is asked," said one Republican campaign manager for a top 2018 race, who asked to speak anonymously to not draw attention to the race. "At the very least, it is something that everyone is going to have to answer: Do you think Roy Moore at the age of 32 with a 14-year-old is like Mary and Joseph?"

During the 2012 election, Republican Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana made inaccurate or controversial comments about rape that allowed Democrats to make inroads with women voters across the country. Republican leaders later said those comments helped prevent Republicans from winning the Senate majority that year.

Law blamed former White House aide Stephen Bannon and his website Breitbart News for creating problems that could endanger Republicans in 2018. "This is what Stephen K. Bannon's French Revolution looks like, chaos and embarrassment for the Republican Party," Law said.

In the interview with Hannity, Moore desciped allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct with minors as a false attack by his political opponents.

Moore called it a "completely manufactured story meant to defrock this campaign," adding: "They don't want to acknowledge that there is a God. And we have refused to debate them because of their very liberal stance on transgenderism."
State Sen. Scott Wagner (R.,York), seeking the Republican nomination for Pa. governor, at a forum last month. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Read more

HARRISBURG  Just one week into State Sen. Scott Wagner's campaign for governor, a fellow senator introduced him at a rally as "Donald Trump light."

For months, he seemed to embrace comparisons to the president.

Yet on Thursday, the York County Republican took a more nuanced, winding approach that distanced himself ever so slightly from Trump.

Asked about Democratic gains earlier in the week, attributed to a voter backlash against Trump, Wagner was quick to point out differences between them.

While they're both businessmen, Wagner said, he has worked in state government for 3 years. Trump came in cold to Washington. Trump grew up in the "New York real estate world. I grew up on a farm in York, Pa.," Wagner said.

"Donald Trump has his style. I have my style," he said. "I think people are going to see maybe a difference in the styles."

Still, Wagner said he would be "proud and honored" if Trump traveled to Pennsylvania to support him if he wins the Republican nomination for governor.

"Donald Trump wants to make America great again, and I want to make Pennsylvania greater again," Wagner said, borrowing a line from Trump's campaign.

Republicans everywhere will have to make careful calculations about the president, analysts said.

"Everybody who runs statewide is going to have to think about how they're going to handle that," said political scientist and pollster G. Terry Madonna. "The jury is out as to how it ultimately plays out."

Wagner was speaking at his campaign office in Harrisburg, where he formally announced plans to run alongside lieutenant governor candidate Jeff Bartos, a real estate executive from Lower Merion who has never run for office.

Bartos announced this week that he was dropping out of the GOP U.S. Senate race to run alongside Wagner, a move that is unusual this early in the gubernatorial race. Voters will select candidates for the two posts separately during the primary next year.

Paul Addis, who is running for the party's nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (the same race Bartos quit), issued a statement Thursday saying Republican losses in Pennsylvania this week "should be a wake-up call for all Republicans."

"It's clear [voters] are also demanding a great deal more from politicians and campaigns than loyalty to President Trump," Addis said.

Meanwhile, there were signs that House Speaker Mike Turzai might run for governor after all. He hasn't said, but a message posted to a Turzai Twitter account this week hinted of a "major announcement" and a video on his campaign website had the feel of a political ad.

The two-minute video features Turzai speaking at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh late last month. In the video, Turzai says House Republicans have been the "last and strongest line of defense for people who earn, who hire, who produce, who make and build things in Pennsylvania."

On the Democratic side, there could be a new candidate for lieutenant governor. State Rep. Madeleine Dean of Montgomery County announced that she is exploring a potential run and hopes to make a decision before Dec. 1. Dean, a representative since 2012, serves on multiple committees and sits on the Pennsylvania Commission for Women.

Staff writers Jonathan Tamari and Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article.
Armand Della Porta, 95, a retired Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge who also served on the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, died Saturday, Nov. 4, of complications from a series of strokes at his home in Chestnut Hill.

He was best known as a trial judge in Common Pleas Court from 1971 to 1993. In the first decade of service, he heard homicide cases in the criminal division; in the final 12 years, he presided over civil matters.

"Over the past couple days, I've gotten lots of emails and texts from lawyers who appeared in front of him," said his lawyer son Armand Della Porta Jr. "What they said was that he had an ideal judicial temperament. He was fair to everyone, gave everyone a chance to say their piece, and was gentle and humble."

The judge built a reputation for running an efficient courtroom because of the large number of cases he settled prior to trial. But he also cared about defendants, his family said.

While sentencing an 18-year-old offender in 1982 to life in prison, Judge Della Porta followed the mandatory guidelines with apparent regret.

Defendant Orlando Stewart was one of 10 West Philadelphia teenagers convicted in the 1981 death of University of Pennsylvania graduate student Douglas Huffman after a robbery attempt.

Stewart received a much harsher sentence than the others because he had turned 18 just before the crime was committed, and the law considered him an adult.

"This is the best example of how wrong mandatory sentencing is," the judge said.

This past July, the judge's comment resurfaced in news coverage of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that juveniles are less culpable than adults because their brains are still developing. The youngsters cannot, therefore, be sentenced to life without parole under the mandatory sentencing rules. But the ruling left 18-year-olds without any relief.

"He was quoted 35 years after a case of his, on the front page of the Inquirer," his daughter Adriana Dell Porta said, with obvious pride.

Superior Court James J. Fitzgerald III, a family friend, said Judge Della Porta was a man of great compassion who understood human frailty, and he used his position on the bench to try to help people  even the defendants he sentenced.

"He was a principled man who had a heart of gold," Fitzgerald said. "And he took a lot of things into consideration before he passed sentence. He didn't just drop the hammer. He encouraged defendants to get an education when they were in prison. He wanted to improve their lives."

In 1993, Judge Della Porta was appointed as a senior judge to the Commonwealth Court, an appellate court that hears cases in which the state is a party. He served until 1995, when he retired.

A leader in his profession, Judge Della Porta wrote and lectured widely on methods of resolving civil litigation without a trial. He chaired a judges' committee on sentencing guidelines for the Common Pleas Court and was a member of the Pennsylvania Conference of State Trial Judges.

A busy civic volunteer, he was chairman of the board of Northwestern Human Services from 1969 to 2000 and a trustee of the Free Library of Philadelphia from 1971 to 1981.

He served on the board of governors of the St. Thomas More Society and was a member of the Justinian Society and the American Justinian Society of Jurists.

In recognition of his achievements, Judge Della Porta received the Papal Honor of the Knight of St. Gregory in 1998 and the St. Thomas More Society Award in 1983.

He was a leader in his Catholic church, Our Mother of Consolation in Chestnut Hill. For 30 years until he was 87, he organized outdoor Stations of the Cross on Good Friday.

"We start at 11:30 a.m. and we do the Stations around Chestnut Hill," the judge told the Catholic Standard & Times in 2009. "The first station is at Chestnut Hill Hospital, where we pray for the patients. The next stop is at the Presbyterian Church, then to a school on Crefeld Street, and so on."

Born in Philadelphia, Judge Della Porta graduated from Central High School, Temple University in 1947, and Temple's School of Law in 1950. He interrupted his schooling to serve in the Army from 1943 to 1946 during World War II.

He began his legal career in the office of Philadelphia District Attorney Richardson K. Dilworth, one of 28 prosecutors who loved their jobs so much that they hated to go home, the Welcomat wrote years later.

"The gently brilliant and self-effacing Judge Armand Della Porta" was one of Dilworth's disciples, the newspaper wrote.

At home, the judge was no less gentle and kind, his daughter said. "He was the guy who taught me how to polish my shoes. He was a sweet man who would hold my hand as we walked to church."

In addition to his son and daughter, he is survived by his wife of 63 years, Marie C. Della Porta; children Peter F. and Adrian, who is Adriana's twin; and six grandchildren.

A viewing from 9 to 10:45 a.m. Friday, Nov. 10, will be followed by an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass at Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church, 9 E. Chestnut Hill Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19118. Interment will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Springfield.

Memorial contributions may be made to Our Mother of Consolation Parish School at the address above.
At the media event, I was reminded again of the GMT's potential to revolutionize the field of exoplanet research. Jared Males, an assistant astronomer at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory, presented a chart of some known exoplanets the GMT will target. Among them is Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-sized planet orbiting our nearest stellar neighbor. Using adaptive optics, which removes the blurring effect of Earth's atmosphere, the GMT will be able to detect compounds like molecular oxygen, ammonia, and ozone in the atmospheres of Earth-sized planets in their stars' habitable zones, which could indicate the presence of life.

The GMT will also peer back into the universe's first billion years, and closer to home, it will improve our solar system imaging capabilities. Scientists studying ice giants will get sharper views of Uranus and Neptune, which is helpful because those planets don't get spacecraft visitors very often. The GMT is also agile enough to track asteroids.

So far, we know of about 30 Earth-size exoplanets in their stars' habitable zones. Could the GMT, or one of its brethren like the European Extremely Large Telescope or James Webb Space Telescope, make one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time? The prospect is enticing.

And if we detect nothing? Perhaps it will inspire us to take better care of our own fragile world, which could actually be a cosmic outlierthe only known oasis in the lifeless void of space.
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Posted by maft on Wednesday, November 09 @ 17:08:12 UTC Syndication Terms


One of the highlights of New York Citys Fall for Dance Festival this year was an appearance by the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a company of men who dance on pointe with as much panache and style as any prima ballerina. Their performance of Paquita was funny, of coursethey specialize in comic renditions of classical ballets but also bracingly well executed. The star of the evening, Carlos Hopuy, aka Alla Snizova, was simply astonishing. His pointework sparkled, his hops on pointe were clean and strong, and he looked like he could have balanced in attitude forever. There was something deeply exciting about the way he combined delicacy and control with the explosive power and steel of a mans physique.

Hopuy, who was born in Havana, Cuba, and trained at the countrys famed National Ballet School, has been with the company since 2012. Like all the Trocks, he has both a female and a male alter-ego: when hes not portraying Alla Snizova, hes Innokenti Smoktumuchsky, a dopey cavalier. He is also one of the dancers featured in the upcoming documentary Rebels on Pointe, which will have its theatrical release November 15. I recently caught up with Hopuy, who, when hes not on tour, lives in Orlando with his husband Paolo Cervellera, a former Trock. We spoke by phone, in Spanish.

Did you always want to dance?

I always liked ballet. My mother, Norma Hopuy, was a principal with the Ballet de Camaguey. I used to hang around the rehearsals. She started giving me lessons at home. Then, when I was nine, I auditioned for the National Ballet School. I had the choice between that and gymnastics and I chose ballet.

When did you start going on pointe?

When I was 11. I would ask my classmates for their old pointe shoes and would try them on at home. When my mother realized that I liked to go on pointe, she started training me and bought me my own pair.

Was your entire pointe training done at home with your mother?

Yes, all of it. She got it right away and never asked me why. She knew she had the ability to help me, and so she did.

Did you ever get to dance on pointe in Cuba?

Actually, I got to dance on pointe at my graduation performance. My teacher created a version of Sleeping Beauty for me in which Carabosse went on pointe, and even did fouettes.

Was the idea of a boy dancing Carabosse on pointe accepted at the school?

At first the authorities at the Ballet Nacional de Cuba didnt want me to do it because they couldnt understand why you would have a man on pointe. They organized a separate audition for me, to see if I was really ready. There were rumors that there was a kid at the school who could dance better on pointe than a lot of the women at the Ballet Nacional. So the four Jewels of Cuban Ballet [Loipa Araujo, Aurora Bosch, Josefina Mendez and Mirta Pla] came to audition me and confirmed that yes, I was good enough. But it created a lot of controversy.

Why werent you taken by the Ballet Nacional?

They said it was because I was too short [Hopuy is 55], but I think the dancing on pointe was also a factor. There was a bad feeling about it in the air. After graduating, I spent six months at home, doing nothing, because the Culture Ministry said I was a young talent who had been formed by the Revolution and my talent was too great for me to dance in any other company than the Ballet Nacional. So they wouldnt let me leave the country. Finally, they allowed me to dance with a company run by Laura Alonso, Pro Danza.

How did you get from there to the Trocks?

I went to Costa Rica with official permission and danced with the National Ballet of Costa Rica for four years, in traditional male roles. Then, a friend invited me to Mexico to dance Coppelia. I went, and then I decided to cross the border into the U.S. illegally. At the time it was not so difficult for us Cubans to stay the U.S. I spent four years at Ballet San Antonio, and then I reached out to the Ballets Trockadero. I auditioned, and the same day, I got a contract.

One of the striking things about the Ballet Trockadero is that the company spoofs ballet, but at the same time, all the dancers are tremendously good at the very thing they are poking fun at.

Yes, the jokes are built into the ballets, but the technique is always present. When I dance, Im serious about what Im doing. It takes just as much rigor, or even more, to do what we do. And I think that making people laugh is even harder than making people cry.

What do you enjoy most about the ways the Trockadero rep tweaks the repertory?

What I like is that it doesnt take it all so seriously; it takes that tremendous pressure that exists in traditional companies down a notch. In traditional ballet, people get so upset if even the slightest thing doesnt go right. At Trockadero we feel bad, but not as bad.

The company in a 2016 performance of Paquita at the Joyce Theater. (Hopuy enters at 2:07.)



Do you also enjoy dancing traditional male roles from time to time?

I do. There is something so explosive; the dynamic is different. I still do a few things here and there.

Where do you take class?



In New York, I go to Nancy Bielskis class at Steps on Broadway. And in Orlando, I take class at Central Florida Ballet.

Have you ever thought about teaching a pointe class for men?

I would love to. Its an idea I have for the future: a ballet school just for men.

Photo by Zoran Jelenic, Courtesy Ballets de Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

When you go onstage, do you feel like youre dancing yourself, or a character that youve invented?

Part of it is me. I have to put all my love and all my effort into it so that it will look natural. But another part is the ballerina. That ballerina is part of me, but shes not there all the time. When you put on that wig and those eyelashes this other part, that you like to explore, comes out.

Like Wonder Woman!

Yes. The superhero is there, but she only comes out sometimes.
The Joffrey Ballet and University of CaliforniaBerkeleys Cal Performances have joined forces on a five-year residency series that offers the public in-depth, behind-the-scenes access to the art of ballet. The first installment runs Nov. 1319 with repertory classes taught by Joffrey dancers, a panel discussion and open rehearsals as well as performances in Zellerbach Hall November 1719.

There is so much interesting work happening, and we want to share it, says Joffrey artistic director Ashley Wheater, whose Bay Area ties go back to his days as a San Francisco Ballet principal dancer and ballet master. He has slated Justin Pecks In Creases, Annabelle Lopez Ochoas Mammatus, the West Coast premiere of Alexander Ekmans Joy and Joffrey ballet master Nicolas Blancs Encounter for this years bill.

Joffrey Ballet dancers in rehearsal for Alexsander Eckmans Joy. Photo by Todd Rosenberg, Courtesy Cal Performances.

Both organizations value community engagement as much as artistic innovation, so the residency encourages an up-close, personal experience of dance. People will be able to watch the creative process happening, Wheater says, at three open rehearsals with Blanc and the dancers, who will be working on a new piece co-commissioned by Cal Performances and slated for performance during the Joffreys next visit. A pair of all-abilities ballet classes, plus a public forum on the choreographic process, round out the programming.

The Joffrey is scheduled to return in 2019 for the second of three visits over the five-year commitment. But, says Cal Performances associate director Rob Bailis, this first visit is going to define how we nuance the next set of activities. It could be more-frequent visiting, it could be a different approach.

The Joffrey Ballet in Justin Pecks In Creases. Photo by Cheryl Mann, Courtesy Cal Performances.

Whats certain is the partners shared dedication to making ballet accessible and appealing to wider audiences. For years and years, the ballet world has been this private domain, Wheater says. Taking down the walls and inviting people in is our responsibility.
A 37-year-old man charged in the shooting of the New York City police officer Brian Moore during a routine encounter in Queens Village in 2015 was convicted on Thursday of murder.

NYPD Officer Brian Moore was shot and killed on duty in 2015. His killer was convicted of murder Thursday. (Photo: NYPD)

The 12 jurors, who began reviewing evidence on Wednesday, delivered their verdict against the defendant, Demetrius Blackwell after several hours of deliberations.

Though the shooting occurred more than two years ago, on May 2, 2015, it continues to resonate sadly for Officer Moores colleagues at the 105th Precinct station house and throughout the Police Department.

On the evening of the shooting in 2015, Officer Moore, 25, and Officer Jansen were patrolling in plainclothes in an unmarked sedan looking for burglary suspects. They noticed the man Officer Jansen later testified was Mr. Blackwell, who looked up at them as he was crossing 212th Street and appeared to be trying to hide something.

They drove up on the wrong side of the road to question Blackwell, but before they could step from their car, he turned and raised a silver five-shot revolver with his left hand five feet from Officer Moore and fired.

The first shot hit Officer Moore in the left temple; the second hit a door and then lodged below his right eye; the third sailed over the police cars roof and hit a house, the New York Times reports.
What factors can really help drive down crime? The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said in a report released Thursday that certain proactive policies aimed at preventing crime before it happensincluding stop and friskshow mixed results. Yet it is not enough to simply identify what policies appear to reduce crime, a panel convened by the National Academies cautions in the report. Authorities must also consider the real-world risks of applying these approaches in ways that are biased or illegal, they wrote.

Historically, policing has focused largely on responding to calls and investigating crimes. But in the past few decades there has been a shift toward preventing crime by routinely sending officers into communities and identifying potential problem areas. Not all police departments are using these strategies, notes David Weisburd, chair of the expert panel and director of the center for evidence-based crime policy at George Mason University. But it is becoming relatively common and is a big departure from the standard model, in which police mostly respond to crimes that already occurred, Weisburd told Scientific American.

For police chiefs who want to do something, increases in violent crime are often very localized and occur among specific people and on specific streetsand the evidence from the report is that when you focus on those, you can produce reductions in crime, Weisburd says. Hot-spotting, for examplea practice in which police are disproportionately stationed in areas with higher crime ratesseems to help, and does not just displace crime into immediately surrounding areas, the committee says. And stop and frisk can be effective when it is highly focused on areas with high concentrations of crime or robberies, Weisburd adds. His committee also found that third-party policingin which businesses or building owners partner with police or are pressured to work with themcan help. When police officers identify specific problems, try to understand them and make a tailored plan to solve them, it can reduce crime, too. Finally, focusing police resources on high-rate offenders (to either get them off the street or reduce crime) has good evidence behind it.
NDI Recognition Systems (NDI-RS) announced they are the first company to have received Home Office Certification for Management Server Products. As a Silver Certified partner, NDI Recognition Systems can now offer NAS accredited software and services to each of the UK's 45 territorial police forces and national law enforcement bodies.

Invited by the Home Office to test for certification, NDI-RS was able to complete all Bronze and Silver Stage testing requirements to reach approval. The acceptance criteria had to be demonstrated and met under categories of Data Exchange, Information Assurance, NRD Ingestion, Performance and Capacity and Resilience, to name a few.

As a NAS Management Server provider, NDI-RS's VISCE and VeriPlate software solutions will provide seamless communication between UK Police Forces and the National ANPR Service. The NDI-RS Management Server provides a compliant and secure delivery of information to bolster data sharing across the UK policing landscape. This access will increase the ability to detect, deter and disrupt criminality leading to increases in solving criminal cases and monitoring for potential terrorist and organized crime threats with added ease and efficiencies.

"NDI has always been a UK leader in Automatic Number Plate Recognition," stated Stuart Nicoll, Head of Development for NDI-RS. "We are proud our Management Server products have been accepted and certified for use across the UK. It's an honor to continue providing the right tools needed to protect the UK against criminality."

For more information about NDI Recognition Systems, visit www.ndi-rs.com.
Amtec Less-Lethal Systems TRMR-LE Training Flash-Bang

Amtec Less Lethal's TRMR-LE is a reloadable diversionary device and stress inoculation training aid. The twist-to-arm training flash-bang device has an output of 172 decibels with 1.2 PSI overpressure measured at 5 feet. It is engineered to be reloaded up to 250 times. The device does not require special ATF approval and uses the ALS1208 cartridge, which has no special storage requirements. www.lesslethal.com

Axon TASER X2 and TASER X26P

Axon's TASER X2 features dual lasers, cross-connect, and a more accurate smart cartridge. This two-shot option was developed with agencies' most requested features in mind, and includes features such as a backup shot and a warning arc. The TASER X26P is Axon's smallest and most compact smart weapon, with a larger ergonomically designed handle. Similar to previous generations of TASER weapons, the TASER X26P is a single-shot device that does not require replacing inventories of cartridges. www.axon.com

Combined Tactical Systems CTS Flash-Bang

Combined Tactical Systems' Model 7290 Flash-Bang is engineered to provide versatility and functionality while maintaining a high degree of safety. The Model 7290 produces an explosive report and a brilliant flash. Energy is released radially and equally through top and base ports at an angle of 15 degrees off the vertical axis. The balanced output is designed to ensure that the device does not become a dangerous projectile. www.tssi-ops.com

Defense Technology 40mm Blunt Impact Projectile Collapsible Gel Rounds

Defense Technology, a brand of The Safariland Group, has announced the release of its 40mm Blunt Impact Projectile (BIP) Collapsible Gel Rounds. This BIP round's collapsible gel nose technology is designed to enable the projectile to engage the target with higher kinetic energy across the operational range, while remaining less lethal at the minimum engagement range. The 40mm BIP projectiles have payload options of OC, CS, inert powder, marking liquid, or marking powder. www.defense-technology.com

FN America FN 303 Launcher

The FN 303 Less Lethal Launcher is constructed from durable lightweight polymer with comfortable ergonomics and an easy-to-operate safety. It is equipped with both flip-up iron sights and an integrated MIL-STD-1913 top mounting rail. The lightweight polymer magazine holds 15 projectiles and offers a clear rear cover to allow the operator to instantly verify both the payload type and the number of projectiles remaining. www.fnamerica.com

Mace Tactical Solutions Take Down Extreme

The Pepper Gel formula used in Mace Tactical Solutions' Take Down Extreme line is designed to outperform conventional pepper sprays by delivering the extreme stopping power of a 1.4% capsaicinoids concentration suspended in a gel that sticks on contact and minimizes cross-contamination, making it ideal for use indoors or in windy conditions. The nonflammable formula will not ignite with stun guns or similar electronic devices, according to the company. www.macetactical.com

Mission Less Lethal Mission MLR / MLR-FA

The Mission MLR and MLR-FA compressed air launchers from Mission Less Lethal are made to provide up to 200 shots per fill. The patented air-powered feed system indexes the next projectile into the firing chamber with each shot, for continuous feed rates of up to 15 rounds per second. An easy-twist on/off valve is designed to allow launchers to be reliably deployed within seconds. Both the MLR and MLR-FA are 100% mechanical. www.missionlesslethal.com

Monadnock PR-24 Control Baton

Monadnock's PR-24 side-handle baton is made to offer maximum protection. It is the most field-tested baton for blocking, controlling, and striking, according to the company. This fixed-length rigid polycarbonate baton is designed for close-quarter confrontations, and the grenade-style grip with Trumbull Stop helps keep the baton in your hand and increases baton retention and subject-control holds. Made in the USA with a limited lifetime guarantee. www.safariland.com

PepperBall VKS Less-Lethal System

PepperBall's less-lethal system called "VKS," for "Variable Kinetic Speed," provides multi-mission capability and variable payloads in a single M4-styled platform. The company says projectiles deployed with the VKS have a variable kinetic impact of between 13 and 30 Joules. Target accuracy is 120 feet, utilizing PepperBall's patented VXR fin-stabilized projectiles, with area saturation available to over 200 feet. The VKS comes standard with a Picatinny rail mount. www.pepperball.com

Sabre Crossfire Gel

Featuring Sabre Crossfire technology, the Sabre Red 1.33% MC, 3-ounce, MK-4 Crossfire Gel maximizes target acquisition by deploying from any angle or orientation. The MK-4 Crossfire gel deploys 13 full one-second bursts at a range of 15 to 20 feet. Gel greatly reduces cross-contamination by not allowing the formula to atomize into the air, and gel is least affected by wind. www.sabrered.com

Sage Ace Launcher

The Sage 37mm and 40mm Ace is a single-shot tactical launcher capable of firing a wide range of less-lethal munitions. The Sage Ace is perfectly suited for patrol, SWAT, or mobile field force operations. It is designed to be affordable and simple to operate. The Sage ACE 40mm launcher accepts all types of 40x46 NATO compatible less-lethal ammunition. The optional sight/quad-rail kit will also accept a wide array of enhanced optics/sighting systems. www.sageinternationalltd.com
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The party of family values has a message for you, which  to be fair  you have probably already received, given their support of sexual predator Donald Trump.

Just in case you missed that Republicans are the party of Excusing Assault Against Women, Alabama Republican State Auditor and alleged Christian Jim Zeigler used the Bible to defend Republican Judge Roy Moore from accusations of child rape, claiming that Joseph was an adult, while Mary, Jesus mother, was a teenager.

Saying the accusations that the Republican Judge who is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl is much ado about nothing,

Zielger told the Washington Examiner, There is nothing to see here. The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.

Well. No. Just no.

Not only do we have these pesky things called laws that a Judge and Senator would need to be aware of, given that both jobs are centered on writing, upholding and enforcing the laws of our country  not to be confused with the Bible, which has nothing to do with the laws of our country and yes, the founders intended it that way (see the abuse of so called divine authority if anyone is confused as to why), but this story happened a long time ago, in another land.

What in heck does the story of Joseph with Mary have to do with the laws of the United States?

The real problem here, Ziegler contended, is the mainstream media. Alabama voters will not care that Moore is alleged to have violated the law and sexually assaulted a young girl. They will see this as the media attacking a good man.

Asked whether or not the report would upend Moores campaign, Ziegler predicted that Alabama voters would be angrier at the Washington Post for desperately trying to get something negative than Moore for his dalliances with teenage girls decades ago.

Then Ziegler used the Bible, citing Zachariah and Elizabeth and then Joseph and Mary.

Theres just nothing immoral or illegal here, Ziegler determined. Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Again, there is something illegal here  it was and is illegal. Alabamas age of consent was 16, as Law Newz noted.

Ziegler might be shocking some people, but then they havent been paying attention. This is a Republican Party that justified Donald Trumps multiple assaults on women, that he admitted to on tape.

The fact that Moore is accused of assaulting young girls will make him MORE likeable to Republican voters. Not less.

The Republicans taking a stand against Moore did not ever want Moore in the Senate. So its hard to take those comments as indicative of some wider value of women. These same men are pushing Donald Trumps tax plan through as they denounce Moore.

Moore is accused by this 14-year-old girl if, among many other things, guiding her young hand to his underwear.

Republicans can find any excuse to justify assault of women and girls. They called Trumps assaults locker room talk and now, the Bible said it was okay.

The only question remaining is what the voters think of Republicans. Sure, Republican voters are cool with assault. It is, in fact, part of the resume at this point. It is a plus, not a negative. Much like beating up a POC or immigrant.

The party of family values has become the party defending the alleged sexual assault of a young girl. Not only is it not an issue, reporting on this assault will make the Republican voters like Moore even more.

It is not a negative for Republican voters that Roy Moore allegedly sexually assaulted a teenager, just like it wasnt a negative that Donald Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Its called brutal, oppressive, intimidating hate, and its being deployed against everyone but rich, white men.
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Republicans appear to be unfazed by the major blow they were dealt in Tuesdays elections, as they continue to move forward with a tax reform plan that would decimate the same voters behind the Democratic wave: Suburbanites.

In a statement on Thursday, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi hit Republicans for their massive giveaway for the wealthy and told House Speaker Paul Ryan that the legislation will push Suburban Republicans into extinction.

Pelosis full statement:

At every stage, the GOP tax scam grows more generous for multi-national corporations and more destructive toward American workers and middle class families. The Senate bill confirms it: Washington Republicans are dead-set on raising taxes on middle class families to give tax breaks to the wealthiest one percent and corporations shipping American jobs overseas. Republicans are about to tattoo their most vulnerable, suburban Members with a huge middle class tax hike. Every House Republican who votes for the GOP tax scam next week is voting to completely destroy the state and local tax deduction, and raise taxes on their own constituents. It turns out that deficit hawks are extinct in the Republican Party. Now, Speaker Ryan is going to drive suburban Republicans into extinction too.

Instead of doing some soul searching, the GOP appears to be doubling down on the out-of-touch governing that has quickly turned the American people off since Trump took office.

Despite promising a tax plan that would be beautiful for middle-income folks, it is increasingly looking like just another Republican scam meant to fill the pockets of those who dont need it at the expense of everybody else.

So not only is the GOP embracing the unpopular president and divisive version of American politics, but theyre turning a blind eye to the folks that helped them succeed in 2016 and emboldening those who may have sat out last years elections.

As The New York Times noted on Wednesday, The American suburbs appear to be in revolt against President Trump after a muscular coalition of college-educated voters and racial and ethnic minorities dealt the Republican Party a thumping rejection on Tuesday and propelled a diverse class of Democrats into office.

If the GOP continues to embrace Trump and push for policies that put the donor class over the middle class, what happened on Tuesday will happen on a much larger scale in 2018  and beyond.
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Rep. Ted Lieu pointed out that contrary to some reporting today, there is no statute of limitations in Alabama for criminal charges for sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 16.

There is no statute of limitations in Alabama for sexual abuse of minors under age of 16. Law enforcement needs to open an investigation on Roy Moore. https://t.co/f87zGREGJi  Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 9, 2017

Legal Match explains that although the statute of limitations for a civil complaint is very short (two years), criminal charges are a different story:

Although the civil SOL is very short, Alabama gives prosecutors a lot of time to file violent or childhood sexual abuse charges. The criminal statutes of limitations vary depending on the severity of the offense. The criminal statutes of limitations include:

No statute of limitations: rape, violent sexual abuse, sexual abuse with the threat of violence, and any sexual abuse of a victim under the age of 16,

Other felony sexual abuse: three years, and

Misdemeanor abuse: one year.

If there is any justice in Alabama and these accusations are credible, charges will be filed against Republican former Judge Roy Moore.

Rather than allowing judges and lawmakers and presidents to get away with violating the law, they should be held to a higher standard. Not only are they supposed to be role models, but their very job description is about writing and upholding the laws of our country.
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Support for new gun safety legislation has reached a new high in the United States, according to a new poll released on Thursday.

The Gallup survey found that 51 percent of the country want the federal government to pass tougher firearm regulations, the first time in the polls history that a majority of the country has held such an opinion. Even after the deadly mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, just 47 percent of the country had thrown their support behind stricter laws.

The poll was conducted after the massacre in Las Vegas, the most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history, but it was taken before the most recent church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which killed 26 people.

It also comes as former Rep. Gabby Giffords gun safety organization filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its relationship with the National Rifle Association.

According to the Huffington Post, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence is suing the Trump administration for failing to turn over documents that could show the National Rifle Associations influence over President Donald Trumps gun policies.

HuffPo details what documents the gun safety group is seeking:

Specifically, Giffords group filed FOIA requests seeking any records relating to Trump administration policies on concealed carry reciprocity, gun silencers, bump stocks and assault weapon exports; evidence that Donald Trump Jr. improperly lobbied on behalf of gun manufacturing companies; communications between gun lobbying groups and senior administration officials following last months mass shooting in Las Vegas; and attempts by the NRA to review bump stock regulations in coordination with ATF.

Its unclear if the documents will eventually be handed over, but its telling that it could take a lawsuit for the administration to be forthcoming about its relationship with one of the most influential lobbying groups in the country, particularly at a time when gun violence has been at the forefront.

With blood continuing to spill in schools and churches and movie theaters  in big cities and small towns all across the U.S.  not only is it past due for the Republican-controlled Congress to support common sense gun reform, but its also time for the administration to be forthcoming about its relationship with the NRA.

If Donald Trump and his GOP colleagues continue to block reforms that a majority of the country support, the American people deserve to know why.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters)  White House officials tried to pressure Acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke into expelling tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, saying also that Duke said she planned to resign.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert both called Duke about her decision to extend residency permits to the immigrants, the newspaper reported, citing current and former administration officials.

The calls came on Monday just as she was about to announce the Temporary Protected Status for the Hondurans, they said. She refused to reverse the decision on the immigrants.

Homeland Security had a Monday deadline to announce plans for 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans who were granted TPS after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998.

Duke ended the protected status for the Nicaraguans on Monday but said DHS needed more time to decide on the Hondurans. She extended their status to July 5, 2018.

The officials said Duke was irritated by what she saw as politically driven interference by White House officials, including her old boss Kelly, who had been Homeland Security secretary.

Duke informed Kelly she would resign, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

DHS spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton said in an email that Duke is committed to continuing her work at DHS and had made her decision based on current immigration law.

As with many issues, there were a variety of views inside the administration on TPS, Houlton said. It is perfectly normal for members of the White House team to weigh in on major decisions.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on reports on the internal debate in the Post and the Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration has targeted the program, which critics say allows participants to repeatedly extend their stays in six-to-18-month increments in case of a natural disaster, civil strife or other emergencies in their homelands.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
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About those criminal sexual conduct with teenagers accusations being made against Alabama Republican Judge and Senate candidate Roy Moore.

Roy Moore is being persecuted like Jesus. According to his brother.

CNN correspondent Martin Savidge spoke to Moores brother Jerry Moore on the phone.

Jerry denied the allegations against his brother and drew an analogy between his situation and the persecution of Jesus Christ, Savidge reported Friday in an interview with CNNs John Berman.

Moore went so far as to say that his brother is being persecuted, in his own words, like Jesus Christ was, according to Savidge. Very defiant and very outspoken, relying on his faith and defending his brother to the hilt.'

Jerry Moore told Savidge the allegations are not true and then pivoted to concern about the the impact of the accusations on their mother, which is one way of saying that the women in Moores family matter, whereas the 14-year-old daughter (the age of one of Moores alleged victims) in someone elses family does not.

Moore blamed the Democratic Party and money as the motivators for the women coming forward against his brother. He said suggested these women would have to answer to God for making these allegations, these women are going to, as [Moore] put it, have to answer to God for these false allegations, Savidge said.

When the news broke that Roy Moore was being accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and assault, my first reaction was that it was a good thing for Moore.

Being a Republican, Moore can use accusations like this to play to his base, like Trump did. For the Republican base and indeed the Party, even Donald Trump being caught on tape admitting to sexual assault is not problematic enough to cause them to distance themselves from him.

And in red areas, the media, the Democrats, liberals, women  are the devil.

The constant demonizing Republicans do of the truth and of reality allows them to use religious faith to set themselves up just like this  they are Jesus, being persecuted. The people reporting on their behavior are evil, are out to get them and therefore should be shutdown. The base is primed for this, and it works on them, much like it would in a cult.

It was just yesterday that another Republican tried to use the story of Jesus birth to defend Roy Moore. Alabama Republican State Auditor and alleged Christian Jim Zeigler used the Bible to defend Republican Judge Roy Moore from accusations of child rape, claiming that Joseph was an adult, while Mary, Jesus mother, was a teenager.

This stuff sounds pretty nuts if youre not a Republican. If you are a Republican, it makes perfect sense. Roy Moore, alleged child sexual assaulter, is like Jesus. Dont look at the facts, dont listen to the women. Listen to Jesus/Roy. Only Roy/Republicans will tell the truth.

Jesus for child rape? Is that where Republicans are really going? Correction: That is where Republicans have already gone.

Predators come from both sides of the aisle. The difference is that Democrats toss theirs out (albeit sometimes after delays), while Republicans elevate theirs to the White House and liken them to Jesus himself.
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The trial for Russell Laffitte, a former top executive for Palmetto State Bank, continues this week in Charleston's U.S. District Court. He stands accused of helping Alex Murdaugh defraud his former law clients, while using money from his family's bank to prop up the disbarred attorney's shaky finances. Read moreRussell Laffitte offers defense against bank fraud charges on Day 6 of federal trial
FILE - In this Oct., 31, 2017 file photo, U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph A. Felix, his wife, and his lawyers exit a courtroom after testimony at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Closing arguments could begin soon for a former Felix, a Marine Corps drill instructor facing court-martial on charges including cruelty and maltreatment. Prosecutors have spent more than a week at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina laying out the case against Felix. They returned to court Wednesday, Nov. 8. (Rory Laverty /The Washington Post/via AP, File)
Across South Carolina, from the coast to our mountainous state line, new and expanded trails have certainly made a lot of headlines in recent months. Here are just a few of the exciting developments: Read moreEditorial: From the SC coast to the mountains, welcome progress on new trails
Former President Donald Trump is preparing to launch his third campaign for the White House on Tuesday, looking to move on from disappointing midterm defeats and defy history amid signs that his grip on the Republican Party is waning. Read moreTrump prepares to launch 3rd campaign for the White House
Sun Country is ditching its plan to offer flights between the Twin Cities and Cuba starting in December.

The Eagan-based airline had permission to provide weekly nonstops to two destinations on the island, Santa Clara and Matanzas.

But last week, the carrier told the U.S. Department of Transportation it is giving up the authorization it had received to serve Cuba.

"Regrettably, the market demand remains uncertain and there is still a lack of clarity surrounding travel restrictions," Sun Country general counsel Eric Levenhagen wrote. "Therefore, Sun Country does not desire to retain the granted frequency allocations for Saturday-only Minneapolis/St. Paul to Matanzas and Sunday-only Minneapolis/St. Paul to Santa Clara."

This week, the White House announced tight new restrictions on Americans travelling to Cuba. Most individual visits won't be permitted. And Americans are prohibited from doing business with dozens of hotels, shops and tour companies linked to Cuba's military, intelligence or security services.

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Other airlines have reduced or eliminated Cuba flights, even before the Trump administration acted.

Delta Airlines and American Airlines offer one-stop service to Cuba from the Twin Cities.
CALEDONIA  A man facing multiple felonies for stealing three handguns was sentenced Wednesday to five years of probation and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $8,927.63.

Sean Alan Ewing, 26, of Chatfield, was charged in August 2016 with two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and four counts of theft.

He pleaded guilty in September 2017 to one of the theft counts; the remaining charges were dismissed at sentencing in Houston County District Court.

In addition to the restitution and probation, Ewing was ordered to follow through with his drug treatment program and must write a letter of apology to the victim.

The case began July 22, 2016, when a man reported the theft of three handguns  a Ruger .357, a Glock 9 mm semi-automatic and a Colt .357  carrying a value of nearly $3,900.

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The guns had been stolen from the locked gun safe in his home sometime in the past two weeks, the owner said; the safe is opened by a finger-touch passcode.

The man suspected Ewing, the complaint says, who he believed took the guns to purchase drugs. In addition, the victim said the safe also held the titles to their vehicles; all were still there except for the title to Ewing's car.

The next day, the man called authorities again to report a Breitling stainless steel wrist watch valued at more than $4,700 also was missing.

Ewing was in jail in La Crosse, Wis., at the time of the report; he denied any involvement in the thefts.

A few days later, however, another inmate at the jail met with officers. The man said Ewing had told him about stealing guns and a watch; the inmate had information about the items that hadn't been made public.

A second inmate also said Ewing had talked about the stolen guns, allegedly indicating he'd sold the guns to people from Chicago for cash.

A third man who knew Ewing said he was aware Ewing had tried to get rid of some guns before landing in jail, the complaint says.
CANNON FALLS  Micah Jeppesen's ex-boyfriend changed her life.

Little ways, at first, then more and more each day until the day  that day  when he assaulted her in an act of dating violence so brutal she feared for her life.

"It was kind of like a nightmare," Jeppesen said during a presentation Wednesday during the Cannon Falls Area TRIAD Citizens and Law Enforcement Partnership meeting. "If I wouldn't have gotten away, it would have happened."

Jeppesen's ex-boyfriend  a young man she won't name as she tells her story to groups ranging from senior citizens to high school kids  beat her, pulled out chunks of her hair and tried to break her arm, she said, all in an attempt to control her.

A Strong Girl

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Before she started dating the young man, Jeppesen was an active, outgoing girl. A senior at Cannon Falls High School, she was a multi-sport athlete, a member of the cheerleading squad, and had many friends who were the focus of much of her time.

But that all changed when she started dating him.

"I think her friends were shocked because she's just that strong," said Elise Taube, her mother. "It just shows how powerful people can be over your feelings."

Jeppesen's grandmother, Beth Jeppesen, said she asked her own daughter if there was something wrong with her granddaughter's relationship with the boy. "I just thought, you're so strong and smart, how can you let this happen to you?"

"It happens to anyone," said Ashleigh Weidner, a youth advocate with Hope Coalition. The organization works with Jeppesen, and even created a documentary on dating violence around her experience. "Dating violence, sexual assault, domestic violence. there's no face for it. It literally can happen to anyone."

Changes In Behavior

For Jeppesen, it happened when her then-boyfriend started complaining about the people she hung out with. Jeppesen said she liked to hang out with her brother and his friends  most of whom were guys  and that didn't sit well with her new beau.

But, she said, she loved him, so she did what he asked, cutting off her old friends to be with him.

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That's how dating violence begins. "The biggest thing is that isolation piece of it," Weidner said. "So, if you have a kid who is super involved with her family, super involved with her friends, and now they're not. They're not coming home as much or they're only spending time with that one person, that's usually when that red flag would start waving."

Once she was isolated, more dependent on him, Jeppesen said, that's when the violence began. It started with him grabbing her arm so hard it left bruises. He slapped her face. There was also verbal abuse.

"I'd go home from his house and cry," she said. She saw a doctor for her depression, but he got mad she went to the doctor. "I would constantly think about breaking up with him, but his opinions overpowered mine. He would take total control over me."

Weidner said one of the keys in dating violence is the victim is made to think he or she has no value, and will never be able to find anyone better. That, she said, is how Jeppesen was treated.

Party's Over

The day it all ended for Jeppesen was Father's Day, 2015. She and her boyfriend had been at a graduation party. He had been drinking, but as a responsible senior, she decided to stay sober. Still, when they left the party, he insisted on driving even though it was her car.

On the ride to their next destination, he snapped, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her head against the window, she said. At one point, she got in the back seat. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back to the front seat.

With the car stopped, she said, she tried to run away into a field. He chased her, dragged her back into the car, but since she'd dropped her purse, she fled again to get it. He chased her again, this time pushing her back into the car so she wouldn't get away.

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But she locked the doors before he could get in, Jeppesen said, and she drove off, leaving him there. She drove to her father's house, and he took her to the hospital. In the aftermath, her mom took time off work to spend with Jeppesen just to make her feel safe. Her dad looked for support services, eventually finding Hope Coalition.

Road To Recovery

"I think she's slowly getting stronger and stronger, but she still has panic attacks for no reason," Taube said. And her daughter still gets help from Hope Coalition to this day.

Part of that help is letting Jeppesen tell her story. "If anyone is going what I went through, I want them to get out of it," she said. So she works with the organization to show the documentary "Standing Strong" and talk about dating violence.

Taube said, "A ton of people have reached out to her. There's a lady that reached out to her from Wisconsin who said her story saved her life."

Jeppesen admits her friends and family were telling her she had changed, but at the time she just wouldn't listen to them. And if someone who is older had told her about dating violence, she'd have shrugged it off as something that happens to "old people," and not her.

Having Jeppesen give talks to people who see her as a peer and role model, Weidner said, is invaluable when spreading the message.

"If I could take Micah and bring her to work with me every day and do a different presentation every day, I think I would," she said. "It makes it more real. It helps kids understand it's something they need to watch for and be aware of. "

Today, she shares her story with peers, and hopes they listen. She's also studying to be a surgical technician, and has a new boyfriend, one her mom and grandmother both like.

"If someone said something," she said. "Now I would listen to anyone."
In about three weeks, Rochester police will start expecting parking violators with five or more tickets to start coming to them.

Under current policy a warrant could be issued to the owner of a vehicle with five unpaid parking citations that are older than 30 days, but a policy being implemented this month will call for towing such vehicles, requiring owners to take action.

Sgt. Chad Blanchette of the Rochester Police Department's parking enforcement said the practice of issuing warrants was suspended about two years ago.

"When we used warrants to handle registered owners who failed to respond to the multiple notices for delinquent tickets, it was a cumbersome process that had the potential of talking someone's freedom away that was not the person who committed the parking offense," he said.

Starting this month, letters are being mailed to registered owners and lessees of any vehicle with five or more parking citations that have remained unpaid for at least 30 days. Nick Lemmer, marketing and outreach coordinator for Rochester Public Transit and Parking, said 184 vehicles would be included at last count.

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Blanchette said those vehicles account for approximately $110,000 of $460,000 unpaid city parking tickets. He said the department is researching options to deal with the other $350,000 in unpaid tickets.

People receiving the letters this month are being given 21 days from the date of the letter to pay the citations or risk having their vehicles impounded until all fines, penalties and towing charges are paid.

Once the first letters are mail, Lemmer said future violators reaching the five-ticket limit will be notified of the potential for their vehicles to be towed.

Anyone with unpaid parking tickets can pay them online at www.rochestermn.gov or by telephone at 888-266-1408. Tickets may also be paid in person at the Rochester City Clerk's Office or using the after-hours drop box in the city-county Government Center parking lot.

Payment also can be made by mail with check or money order to City Clerk's Office, 201 Fourth St. SE Room 135, Rochester, MN 55904. Mailed payments must be received and processed by the City Clerk's office prior to the expiration of the 21-day grace period to avoid this enforcement action.
It was the lights that attracted the Nukic family to Peace Plaza on Wednesday night.

Shortly before 8 p.m., the Rochester family of five made their way into the inflatable Airglow igloo that had attracted Murisa Nukic's attention after work earlier in the week.

After spending time amid the lights and music, they said it was worth the trip.

"It's kind of fun for the kids," Murisa said.

She and her husband, Amel, said they'd be interested in making more trips to downtown Rochester if they knew regular family-friendly events were offered, even as the weather turns colder.

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"We'd definitely come down here more often," Amel said.

That's part of the information that Rochester Downtown Alliance is hoping to gather with the eight-day event that started Saturday.

Jenna Bowman, RDA director, said the organization is working with the Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency and Northern Sun Productions to see if families would be attracted to Peace Plaza in cooler weather and during the middle of the week if more options were offered.

The results appeared mixed Wednesday evening.

Megan Casey, of Strawberry Point, Iowa, said she wasn't convinced the attraction was worth the time for her family of four.

"It's unnecessary," she said, noting she had just had dinner with her husband and two children when they decided to check out Airglow after a day of appointments at Mayo Clinic.

She said she expected more activity inside after seeing the exterior of the exhibit and lights in Peace Plaza.

Bowman said she's heard from all sides since the white inflatable igloo was set up outside Chateau Theatre.

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"Some people have loved it, and some people have absolutely not liked it," she said.

The exhibit is testing a variety of things that have been discussed as potential changes for Peace Plaza and the surrounding area are being considered.

The Heart of the City Community Advisory Committee, which includes Bowman as a member, has been pondering ways to engage more people in the core downtown area, which sits between the Gonda Building and Shops at University Square and stretches north to Center Street and south to Second Street Southwest.

The committee has raised questions that Airglow could address. Among them are:

 Will art installations attract people to the area?

 What is the reception for family-friendly events without alcohol?

 Will people buy tickets for events such as the silent disco tonight and Saturday?

 How well are multiday events attended?

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Bowman said the passive nature of the exhibit during the week meant people could engage with it as fit their needs, while the ticketed events will be more intentional. Both are opportunities to attract people to Peace Plaza, she added.

"It shows what you can do from a temporary standpoint that can activate a space," she said.

Bill Von Bank, marketing and communication director for the DMC EDA, said the exhibit was working effectively as a test of what can happen with the downtown public space. He spent evenings this week at the site and said he saw people interested in what was happening.

"The engagement with it from all age levels has been great to see," he said.

Bowman said the next step will be to discuss the lessons learned and how they can inform future discussions about development in the Heart of the City subdistrict.
Yesterday the Washington Post published a long article on Roy Moore and his inappropriate relationships with four teenage girls more than 35 years ago.

The story focuses on a then 14-year-old girl with whom Moore had sexual contact in 1979, some 38 years ago. All the relationships discussed in the story are of this vintage, when Moore was in his early 30s and serving as an assistant Etowah County district attorney. Moore is now 70 and the Republican candidate for Alabamas open Senate seat. At National Review, David French sets forth the argument for taking the charges seriously.

Let me jump to Moores response to the charges. The Post article quotes Moore: These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign. (Fox News has more from Moore here.)

Moores response as quoted by the Post does not itself appear to be true. I draw an inference against Moore from the apparent falsity of his response.

I have two reservations about the substance of the Post story. First, it is confined to events that occurred long ago with respect to charges that were never aired before now. Second, and it describes behavior that is generally compulsive. Unfortunately, the Post article does not go beyond the ambit of a reconstruction of events that occurred long ago.

The proposition that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty is to be applied by a jury sitting in a criminal case. Jurors sitting in a criminal case are bound to apply the presumption of innocence until charges are proved beyond a reasonable doubt. No criminal case will be brought against Moore.

The presumption of innocence does not apply here. It does not apply to judging the fitness of a man for public office. Such a judgment necessarily implicates an imperfect assessment based on past behavior.

Alabama voters are left to judge Moores fitness for office based on a common sense reading of the facts and circumstances. The rest of us are left to render our own judgment simply as citizens participating in our public life. Now in each case that judgment must necessarily make reckon with the events recounted in the Post article. I have made my own reckoning based on the information available as of this morning.
The article may not be inaccurate, but in this day and age, when many are decrying "fake news" we should be very careful to note the source of what we're reading.



Mr Putin has a very effective system in place that leverages the internet to weaken his perceived foes in the west and he will do anything he can to set us against each other and pull us apart. He's succeeding with Brexit and Trump's "presidency" and if we're not careful he'll succeed elsewhere - the UK, Spain, more of the EU, NATO if we're not extremely careful.



Hell, dude is even working on California's secession!
Minister Krzysztof Szczerski

Krzysztof Szczerski, top aide to Polish President Andrzej Duda, noted positively Ukraine's initiative to hold an extraordinary session of the Consultative Committee of Polish and Ukrainian heads of state.

Minister Krzysztof Szczerski co-chairs the committee on Poland's behalf and the administration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has already been notified the aide is ready to host his Kiev counterpart with a delegation.

For Warsaw, the meeting would offer another opportunity to present the Polish stance in key Polish-Ukrainian matters, after recent visits to Ukraine by Deputy Prime Minister, Culture and National Heritage Minister Piotr Glinski and Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski.

President Andrzej Duda hopes President Poroshenko will take personal action over the current state of bilateral relations. (PAP)
Biden honors friend, former Rep. William J. Hughes, at Stockton awards

By CLAIRE LOWE

Staff Writer

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP  As a congressman, William J. Hughes spent 20 years representing South Jerseys 2nd District, and in that time, made a huge impact in the region.

His legacy was honored Thursday evening by family, friends, colleagues, a former vice president and the policy center named for him at Stockton University.

The biannual William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy Honors are awarded for professional excellence and a commitment to public service, civility and bipartisanship. The center promotes research, analysis and policy solutions.

Presenting Hughes lifetime achievement award at Stock-ton Seaview Resort was former Vice President Joe Biden.

Bill Hughes, youre a good man, Biden told his old friend, who joined him in Congress in the 1970s.

The two would sometimes ride the train together to Washington, D.C., from Wilmington, Delaware. Before that, Biden was a presence in Hughes first campaign.

He became one of my heroes early on, Hughes, 85, said in an interview last month, noting Bidens work to clean up the rivers in Delaware. I remember his ads very clearly, and that was before the environmental movement was as strong as it is today.

When he ran for Congress, Hughes asked Biden to be one of his first guest speakers at a fundraiser. Biden said he had the good sense to campaign for Hughes, and for 20 years, they were not only partners in Congress, but they became friends.

Im known for riding Amtrak, Biden said. You do a lot of business on that commute, but a lot of the time Bill and I just spent talking about our families, getting to know one another.

Biden talked about the many legislative accomplishments the two men achieved in the House and Senate, including passage of a ban on ocean dumping and major anti-crime laws. He also talked about Hughes integrity.

Its a privilege to honor a man without whom I know we wouldnt be here because there would be no Hughes Center, Biden joked, adding that he is not sure his career in the Senate would have been successful without Hughes either.

Far better, he said, is that through the Stockton Policy Center, Hughes legacy will continue to inspire good public service.

Its only through consensus and cooperation that the U.S. will continue to function, Biden said.

On Thursday night, Hughes, who served three years as the ambassador to Panama under President Bill Clinton, was humble and proud.

I have loved every bit of the work Ive done over those years, Hughes said, thanking Biden for his words. I remember fondly my years on Capitol Hill.

Hughes, a resident of Ocean City, came to the area from Salem County and served 10 years as a prosecutor before pursuing public office. He and his wife, Nancy, have four children, several grandchildren and a great-grandchild. While many of his family members came to celebrate, Hughes was sad to report that Nancy was not able to attend.

She is certainly here in spirit, he said.

To Biden, Hughes said he and many others miss him being in office.

You sound more and more presidential, Hughes said, drawing a resounding applause.

In addition to Hughes, Stockton also honored the late state Sen. Jim Whelan, who died unexpectedly this summer. New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney presented Whelans wife, Kathy, with his Excellence in Civic Engagement Award.

Jim Whelan wasnt just a big guy, he was a giant, Sweeney said.

Other honorees include U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12th; state Sen. Diane Allen, R-Burlington; Montclair State University Professor of Political Science and Law Brigid Callahan Harrison, a Stockton alumnus; and recent Stockton graduate Maryam Sarhan.
Gov. Chris Christie announced Thursday he was appointing former Cape May County Sheriff James Plousis as chairman of the Casino Control Commission, replacing current Chairman Matt Levinson.

Levinson, the son of Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson, has been the chairman and CEO of the commission since 2012. He did not respond to a request for comment.

But Dennis Levinson said Thursday the reason his son was not reappointed was Atlantic County is suing the state over its share of the payments in lieu of property taxes, or PILOT, that Atlantic City casinos are locked into for 10 years.

This is how it works, and its not a big surprise, the elder Levinson said of New Jerseys government under Christie. If you go along with everything they want, they take care of you.

Calls to Christies spokesman were not returned Thursday.

Plousis, is currently the head of the N.J. Parole Board. He has also served as the U.S. marshal of New Jersey, after being appointed by then-president George W. Bush. Plousis could not be reached for comment.

Levinson and Christie have been sparring since spring, when Christie backed off a handshake deal to give Atlantic County 13.5 percent of the PILOT.

Instead, the county has received 10.4 percent of the payments, which is $4 million less than what the county expected to get each year from the casinos. The lesser percentage raises the likelihood of tax increases for county taxpayers in municipalities outside Atlantic City, something that has angered mayors.

Despite the smaller percentage, the county is still receiving more money than it did from the same properties last year, according to previous reports.

The county will receive nearly $12.5 million from the casinos included in the PILOT program. Thats about $518,000 more than the $11.9 million the county got from those same properties in 2016.

The county was promised the 13.5 percent from Christie during a press conference in 2015. The state backed off the promise in the spring, claiming the county did not step up to the plate in helping the city during its financial crisis.

But Levinson said the county offered to collect trash, provide meals on wheels, and buy the citys municipal utilities authority for $100 million.

(Matt) was collateral damage in this, and we expected it, Levinson said. But Matt told me (before the lawsuit was filed) that he would be disappointed in me if I didnt do what I believed was right for the county.

The commission, described as somewhat of a judicial panel, has up to three members appointed by the governor of New Jersey and is in charge of licensing New Jersey casinos and their key employees.

The members serve five-year terms and can only be removed for cause. By law, no more than two commissioners can be of the same political party, according to the commissions website.

Matt Levinsons term as chairman expired in August, but he has remained on while a new chairman was appointed.

Levinson was re-nominated by the late Sen. Jim Whelan in February, but he never got a hearing in the state Senate and was not appointed by Christie.
MAYS LANDING  A judge decided Monday that a Pleasantville man charged with four counts of attempted murder after allegedly being involved in an August shootout on the Atlantic City Expressway will remain in jail.

Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael Blee ruled in favor of the states request to detain Devan Leggette, 21, until the case is tried. Leggette will be back in court Thursday for other pending cases.

Authorities allege Leggette was the driver of a black Dodge pickup truck that exchanged gunfire with a white Ford Expedition on Aug. 29 near milepost 11.2 in the eastbound lanes of the expressway.

Authorities said the four others were injured in the Ford Expedition, which was struck by gunfire at least 21 times and drove on a bare rim to a parking lot at Wawa on the Airport Circle in Egg Harbor Township.

The pickup truck exited the expressway at Exit 5 in Pleasantville.

Wilbert Demosthenes, 25, of Pleasantville, was shot during the incident and drove himself to Philadelphia for hospital treatment of a gunshot wound. He was later arrested and charged in the incident.

Rosemond Octavius, 22, of Egg Harbor Township was in a third vehicle and was killed in the shooting.

Blee said in court that an off-duty police officer gave a description of the driver of the pickup truck and later identified Leggette as the driver from a photograph lineup.

A victims statement also was mentioned during Mondays hearing, stating Leggette was seen at the Atlantic County courthouse engaging in a fight before the shootout.

Leggette was charged Wednesday with the attempted murder counts as well as one count of unlawful possession of a handgun and one count of possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose.

Assistant Prosecutor Erik Bergman said Leggette has prior and pending charges from three other incidents.

The pending charges include attempted murder, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit a crime, manufacturing and distributing marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In April 2016, Leggette was arrested in Pleasantville and charged in connection with a May 2015 drive-by shooting, according to Press archives. Police said Leggette, a passenger in a vehicle, fired multiple rounds at Martin Harmon, who was attending a barbecue at his West Pleasant Avenue home. Harmon was shot in the leg and chest.

Blee also noted Leggettes record includes three warrants for failure to appear.

He would be a danger to the community, Bergman said during his argument to detain Leggette. Especially, as its the states belief, to witnesses of this case and his pending case. And he would obstruct or attempt to obstruct the justice process, as he did in the past, based on his prior juvenile conviction.

Leggette is scheduled to appear in court at 8:45 a.m Thursday.

He will remain at the Atlantic County jail in Mays Landing.
PLEASANTVILLE  One of the men arrested and charged in an August 2016 shootout on the Atlantic City Expressway was arrested this week on drug charges, police said.

Wilbert Demosthenes, 27, of Pleasantville, was charged with two counts each of possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of CDS with intent to distribute and possession of CDS with intent to distribute within 500 feet of a public park, police said.

Demosthenes also was charged with resisting arrest by flight and eluding police in a motor vehicle, police said.

Grand jury indicts three in 2016 Atlantic City Expressway shooting Three of the suspects in an August shootout on the Atlantic City Expressway were indicted by

About 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Patrolman Ryan VanSyckle attempted to conduct a motor vehicle stop on a gray Dodge Journey near Tremont and McKinley avenues, police said.

The cars operator, later identified as Demosthenes, refused to stop, started a motor vehicle pursuit and attempted to elude VanSyckle for several minutes through multiple residential areas before abandoning the car behind Dollar General at 600 S. New Road and fleeing on foot along with passenger Naseir Hampton, 18, also of Pleasantville, police said.

Demosthenes was apprehended by VanSyckle and Patrolman Daniel Davis after a brief foot pursuit and was found to be in possession of 41 bags of suspected heroin and 10 grams of suspected cocaine/fentanyl, police said.

Hampton was apprehended by Detectives Pablo Solorzano and Mark Millard a block away without incident, police said.

Suspect in AC Expressway shootout appears in court MAYS LANDING  A judge decided Monday that a Pleasantville man charged with four counts of a

An investigation led to Hampton being charged with possession of about 4 ounces of marijuana packaged for distribution, police said.

Hampton was also charged with resisting arrest by flight, possession of marijuana over 50 grams with intent to distribute and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute within 500 feet of a public park, police said.

Demosthenes was taken to the Atlantic County jail pending a detention hearing, and Hampton was processed and released on a summons, police said.

In August 2016, Demosthenes was one of five people injured during a rolling shootout on the Expressway. Police have said he was shot during the melee and drove to Philadelphia, where he admitted himself to a hospital for treatment of a gunshot wound to his arm.

He was later found at a home on Willard Avenue, where he was arrested without incident by Pleasantville police and State Police detectives.

Detectives previously said Demosthenes was in a black Dodge Ram pickup truck associated with the shooting that was later found in Pleasantville with his blood in it, matched through a DNA test.
Robert E. Ford Jr., of Galloway Township, knows firsthand that during and after the Vietnam War, veterans had few services to take advantage of, and most people didnt care.

Ford, 69, who did two tours in Vietnam between 1968 and 1971, saw how things started to change for the veterans who came back to this country after fighting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, wars.

After 9/11, more and more people were getting into the military. More and more people were getting deployed, and as people came home in pieces, there was a greater need for treatment and services, treatment of all kinds, not just physical, but also psychological treatment and services, Ford said.

Two services started after 9/11 that were not available to veterans of previous wars.

The Department of Defense began the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program in 2008 to promote the well-being of National Guard and Reserve members, their families and communities by connecting them with resources throughout the deployment cycle.

An estimated 355,766 veterans live in New Jersey, according to the VA. In Cape May County, veterans make up nearly 9 percent of the population, one of the highest rates in the state.

At Yellow Ribbon events, National Guard and Reserve members and their families can access information on education, employment, financial and legal benefits and health care.

The Wounded Warrior Project started in 2003 as a nonprofit charity that serves veterans (and their families) who incurred mental or physical illness, injury or wounds as a result of their military service on or after Sept. 11.

South Jersey veterans may be a little better off than their fellow service members in other parts of the country, at least when it comes to education, said Jason Babin, director of Stockton Universitys Office of Military and Veteran Services.

Babin, 35, of Galloway Township, is a veteran himself. He spent six years as an engineer in the U.S. Army.

After his time in the military, he decided to pursue a career in academics and higher education. Babin said he sent out 50 applications looking for jobs and didnt get that many interviews. He ran into a problem many other veterans can relate to.

They all questioned my military experience and whether or not I could function in a higher-education environment without the structure. ... Higher education is very independent, very different thinking, Babin said.

When he interviewed at Stockton University in Galloway Township, they never asked if he could function. They knew right away he could.

Stockton University did something that many other institutions dont in that they saw my military experience as not a negative, but an actual positive, Babin said.

In 2009, Stockton was one of the first in the state to create its own Office of Military and Veteran Services. The school hired a staff whose focus was making sure veterans are successful in their academic progress, Babin said.

Stockton was one of the first in the state to create a veterans lounge for its students, with an attached quieter computer lab, Babin said.

Even though services have increased and improved for service members, there is still more that needs to be done.

Jim Keyser, 68, of Ocean View, Dennis Township, remembers Egg Harbor Township resident Charles R. Ingram III, 51, dying at Temple Healths burn unit in Philadelphia hours after dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself on fire March 19, 2016, outside the Northfield clinic, which is part of the Wilmington VA system.

The clinic at 1901 New Road was closed at the time, as it always was on weekends.

There have been positive changes made since then, but Keyser said more work could be done as far as educating veterans about all the available services.

The services that are provided are a little bit better, but the things that were troubling the VA before are still there. Veterans having to get on a bus and travel 80 miles (to visit a VA hospital) because the Choice Program ... doesnt work, Keyser said about the health program known as Veterans Choice. The VA system is what is really screwed up, not necessarily the people.

Since Ingrams death, the work of retiring U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, and others has led to a new, expanded Vineland clinic and hours extended at both Vineland and Northfields community-based outpatient clinics.

The VA has provider agreements with more than 220 South Jersey medical providers, including Bacharach Institute, Cape Regional Medical Center, HealthSouth, Inspira and Shore Medical Center. In 2015, the VA had no provider agreements with local medical facilities.

And most recently, LoBiondo announced last month that a new Veterans Affairs clinic is coming to Cape May County. Details are being worked out.

Help available to veterans includes:

OVERALL

Atlantic County Veterans Services; visit aclink.org or call 609-677-5700.

COUNSELING

Ventnor Vet Center. Call 609-487-8387 or 609-487-8387. The address is 6601 Ventnor Ave., Suite 105, Ventnor Bldg., Ventnor, N.J. 08406. For assistance after hours, weekends and holidays, call 877-WAR-VETS.

EDUCATION

Stockton Universitys Office of Military and Veteran Services. Visit stockton.edu or call 609-652-4315.

HEALTH

The Wilmington VA Medical Center in Wilmington, Delware. Visit wilmington.va.gov

Atlantic County Community Based Outpatient Clinic, 1909 New Road, Northfield, 08225

Cape May County Community Based Outpatient Clinic, 1 Monro Ave., Cape May, 08204

Cumberland County Community Based Outpatient Clinic, 79 W. Landis Ave., Vineland, 08360

WOUNDED OR DISABLED VETERANS

Wounded Warrior Project is a nonprofit, charity and veterans-service organization that offers a variety of events, programs and services for wounded veterans of the military actions after Sept. 11, 2001. Visit woundedwarriorproject.org or call 877-832-6997.

Disabled Veterans of America, a nonprofit charity issued a federal charter in 1932, provides a lifetime of support for veterans of all generations and their families.

DAV, Chapter 70, 601 Dolphin Ave., Northfield, meets at 7 p.m. on the second Wednesday monthly. Call 609-432-3255.

DAV, Chapter 10, 433 White Horse Pike, Absecon, meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Monday of each month, starting in December.

DAV, Chapter 58, American Legion #4, 28 South West Ave., Vineland, 08361, meets at 8 p.m. on the fourth Thursday monthly. Call 856-696-0335.

THE AMERICAN LEGION

American Legion posts can be found in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and southern Ocean counties. Check legion.org for addresses, phone numbers, dues, meeting times and dates, and the names of commanders.

VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS

VFW posts can be found in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and southern Ocean counties. Check vfw.org for addresses, phone numbers, dues, meeting times and dates and the names of the commander and quartermaster.

VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA

The VVAs goals are to promote and support the full range of issues important to Vietnam veterans. Visit vva.org or call 301-585-4000. Address: 8719 Colesville Road, Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP  A Vietnamese refugee who proposed to construct a Vietnam veterans memorial in the townships Gazebo Park has been given the green light.

Commanders of Barnegats VFW Post 100 and John Wesley Taylor American Legion Post 232 approved in September Thy Cavagnaros proposed monument design and location, Mayor Albert Bille said Friday. The monument will be dedicated March 29, Vietnam Veterans Day, instead of Cavagnaros proposed Veterans Day dedication date Saturday.

We did that on the advice of the commanders of the VFW and American Legion, the 43-year-old Barnegat resident said Friday. The Vietnam veterans could relish in being honored on their day.

American Legion Post Commander Gene OGrady, 53, said his organization was happy to give its input.

The Vietnam veterans were thrilled somebody remembered them, he said.

OGrady said he supports the decision to delay the dedication. In March, the Vietnam veterans will get their own day, and what better way to celebrate, he said, adding the Legion post will hold its Veterans Day ceremony 11 a.m. Saturday at the Gazebo Park.

Cavagnaro fled from Saigon, the former South Vietnamese capital, in 1975.

Only 1 years old at the time, she escaped with her family of five after their neighborhood was bombed.

Along with her husband, James, they are using their own money to pay for the monument to honor those who sacrificed their lives in the war.

The monument will be 28 inches by 21 inches, which is smaller than other memorials at Gazebo Park because she didnt want the new one to be larger than the existing ones, she said.

The only changes made to the monuments original design are the dedication date and her husbands name. He wanted it to say James instead of Jim, she said.

Several monument companies reached out to the Cavagnaros to build and install the monument. The couple ultimately chose Prestige Memorials in North Arlington, Bergen County.

Prestige was able to give us exactly what we wanted without any limitations. We are very comfortable with them, Cavagnaro said.

The estimated cost of the monument is $4,395 and will be paid completely out of pocket. They have not done any fundraising for the project, nor have they accepted any offers from people to fund it, she said.

She said she didnt need any help from the township. Shes not asking for anything, Bille said.

The Township Committee supported the project since its initial proposal in April but didnt want to step on anyones toes, so they consulted the townships veterans groups, Bille said.

Im very, very happy we can get it done. There was no opposition to it at all, he said.

Cavagnaro wants to visit New Jerseys two existing Vietnam veteran memorials  The Wildwoods Vietnam Memorial Wall and the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Holmdel, Monmouth County.

We have never been there before, and we wanted to feel the impact of those memorials before we dedicate ours, Cavagnaro said.
Nearly 17 years ago I challenged the Atlantic County prosecutor to a debate regarding Americas longest running war, the War on Drugs. Our opposing perspectives were published side by side in The Press of Atlantic City.

On Oct. 19, former Cape May County prosecutor and current Ocean City prosecutor Donald Charles authored a guest commentary, Myths and money behind push for legal marijuana. In it he demonized cannabis and the attempts to legalize it.

Regrettably the arguments supporting prohibition have not changed since writing my opinion 17 years ago. What I wrote then is, sadly, just as relevant today.

One major change since 2000 is the number of American prisoners, which has increased from 1.5 million to 2.3 million, with the same percentage of drug-related prisoners, 33 percent.

Another difference is that many states have legalized medical marijuana. The problem is U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions refuses to respect those state laws, maintaining the fear of federal agents making arbitrary arrests of patients.

The prosecutors commentary was filled with unsubstantiated medical assertions such as: Pot is a Schedule I drug because of its high potential for harm.

The truth is that when Alcohol Prohibition was ended, the alcohol czar at that time, Harry Anslinger, needed to justify his budget. Cannabis use was mainly confined to Mexicans, and by making it a Schedule I Controlled Substance  same as heroin  Anslingers prohibition warriors were back in business. Arresting and imprisoning Mexicans was in full swing and without any concern by the majority of ordinary Americans or politicians.

It is a racist and class war on African Americans and Hispanics.

African-Americans make up 14 percent of New Jerseys overall population, but make up more than 50 percent of the states prison population, according to a report on criminal justice reform from the Fund for New Jersey. African-Americans are also nearly three times as likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana in New Jersey than whites, even though nationally more whites report using marijuana than African-Americans.

In my view, Schedule I is all about politics, and nothing to do with a high potential for harm. Writing for a N.J. Appellate Court ruling Oct. 31, Judge Michael Guadagno stated the state should at least consider removing the drug from its list of the most dangerous controlled substances.

The Ocean City prosecutor claims that an overwhelming percentage of drug addicts started out smoking pot. A senior probation officer said pot is socially addictive. This unfounded assertion based on the observation of someone whose livelihood depends on maintaining prohibition is meaningless. Continuing with unfounded assertions, he states: Pot use often leads to meth or cocaine use, which often leads to heroin use.

Scientists long ago abandoned the idea that marijuana causes users to try other drugs. As far back as 1999, in a report commissioned by Congress to look at the possible dangers of medical marijuana, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences wrote, There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.

People who work in the criminal justice system have a vested interest in demonizing cannabis. According to the Fund for New Jersey report, N.J. state spending on corrections has jumped from $241 million in 1985 to over $1 billion in 2015. Affordable housing, health care, transportation and education are a more constructive alternative.

America today has more than 2.3 million prisoners, many of whom are black and hispanic non-violent drug offenders. How does the fact that America incarcerates more people per capita than any other industrialized nation in the world square with the myth that we live in a land of freedom where people may pursue life, liberty and happiness?

Andre Gide, French author, gives me the best insight to the drug warriors: The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity. They have told themselves so many rational lies about their deception, that they deceive even themselves. 

Those who lose track of their hypocrisy, especially who begin to consider it virtuous, are the most dangerous hypocrites of all. Alas, when it comes to consensual crimes, they are the most prevalent form.

Dr. Steven Fenichel, of Ocean City, for two decades has worked for drug enforcement reform in the courts and at the local government level.
The biggest cost in government, as in most private businesses, is employees. And right behind their wages is the cost of their benefits, particularly health insurance.

This year the Christie administration and the unions representing state and local employees have been working together to reduce health-benefits costs. Last month they celebrated an impressive achievement  no increase next year in premiums for workers in the State Health Benefits Program and $1.6 billion in savings for the state.

The Communications Workers of America called it a big deal for the state employees it represents, who had seen premiums rise as much as 9 and 10 percent in some years.

The state credited the joint panel of state and union officials with finding ways to reduce costs that kept the quality and quantity of care intact. Changes to the coverage plan included prescription-policy adjustments and some potential reduction in costly out-of-network services.

But the biggest driver of savings was a change in how the state selects its pharmacy-benefits manager. Companies will now participate in a reverse auction, competing on price to provide prescription drugs. That change is expected to save $350 million in 2018 and $1.6 billion over the next three years.

The union and state officials hardly had time to bask in deserved praise before the Christie administration spoiled it by going after the teachers union for not delivering more potential savings.

Teachers are covered under the School Employees Health Benefits Program, and the New Jersey Education Association didnt agree to changes similar to the coverage for other government workers.

In late October, state Treasurer Ford Scudder sent teachers in 291 school districts a letter telling them their health insurance premiums will increase 13 percent next year and criticizing the NJEA for blocking changes that would have saved them and the state money.

He said the union was costing its members $20 million and New Jersey taxpayers $170 million by failing to do what other government employee unions were doing.

NJEA officials said that even had the changes been made, premiums next year would have risen about 8 percent. And they said members would have felt a significant impact from the changes, such as required use of generic drugs, increased emergency room co-pays and reduced reimbursement for out-of-network acupuncture, chiropractic and physical therapies.

The state is entitled to press the teachers union to be more efficient in spending taxpayer dollars on the health care of members, but lobbying union members directly is an improper way to go about it. Instead, the administration should have made its case to the public through the news media.

State government shouldnt blame unions for choosing the more expensive options from what the government offers them. Legislators and governors can limit how much they spend on government employees if they wish.

The Christie administration figured teachers would want to know their union was responsible for a failure to reasonably control their out-of-pocket costs.

But taxpayers have a much greater interest in controlling what the state and local governments are taking out of their pockets, and thats where the administration should have directed its information campaign.
School taxes neglected

Every candidate has something to say about how they will reduce property taxes. The funny thing is that not one of them has said they are going to get to the real heart of how to reduce tax bills.

Everyone knows or should know that the reason they are so high is because of school taxes. In most tax bills, 60 percent of it is made up of school taxes. Has any candidate said they are going to challenge the schools on ways to reduce their taxes? The answer is no. Nothing is said about that.

Unless they are going to confront the schools about this amount (listen up, N.J. Education Association), taxes arent going anywhere but up. Neither county or local taxes are whats causing high property taxes (they account for the other 40 percent), its the school taxes. Cut them in half and it would be affordable to live here.

Seems that is the sacred cow no one wants to confront. Politicians havent lowered school taxes in 40 years or longer, so dont count on them going down anytime soon.

David Wessel

Galloway Township

Immigrants welcome but should play by the rules

I agree with the letter writer who said that immigrants should be welcomed to this wonderful county, but they must be legal. My father was a German immigrant who came over with his family, dirt poor, when he was in sixth grade. It took him until the age of 21 to get his Americanization papers.

My father didnt speak much German in our home because he said that he didnt want his children to grow up and be given a hard time for being children of an immigrant. Which would mean even back then immigrants were not treated especially kindly, so it couldnt have been easy for him. As an adult he still spoke with an accent but he embraced the American way, making his living as a real estate broker.

My father worked hard, played by the American rules, became an American citizen, and thrived. It can be done. Come to America, the land of opportunity. But play by the rules to get here.

Carol Meyer McGuire

Margate

Excess donation requests

I absolutely have had enough with the coin drops seemingly every weekend in Egg Harbor Township. Years ago it was reserved for volunteer firefighters, EMTs and the like. The hard-working citizens of the township who grind it out each day should not have to be subjected to this constant form of panhandling.

When local groups are having a car wash or a plant sale, I try to participate as they are providing a good or service.

What bugs me the most are all the youth travel teams with their parents begging for money  and thats what it is. The only difference between them and the guy with the sign at the traffic light near the Ben Franklin Bridge is at the end of the day they drive high-end cars home and count the coins on their granite countertops.

Greg Bowers

Cologne
An exhibition of paintings from the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus is now on display at the National Art Museum of China. Lin Qi reports.

The tranquil landscape of Belarus and the artists nurtured by this landlocked country are little-known to most Chinese people.

But as the Eastern European country strengthens its ties with China with the Belt and Road Initiative, more Belarusian artworks have been introduced to Chinese audiences at several exhibitions held in Beijing this year.

An exhibition of 57 paintings from the collection of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus is now being held at the National Art Museum of China.

Paintings loaned from Belarus' national art museum, including Issac Levitan's The Alps (top) and Nikodim Silvanovich's Soldier with a Boy (above), on show in Beijing. Photos Provided to China Daily

The Beijing museum also staged another Belarusian art exhibition that concluded recently. It showed sculptures and watercolors by Sergei Selikhanov (1917-76) inspired by a visit to China in 1956. They were shown in China for the first time, and they were juxtaposed with the works of Konstantin Selikhanov, 50, Sergei's grandson, who is a sculptor in Minsk.

In June, Tsinghua University Art Museum presented Nonlinear Reality, an exhibition of Belarusian lithographs, watercolors and drawings on loan from the country's National Center of Modern Arts.

Speaking about this show, the center's director, Natalia Sharangovich, says no one is better than an artist at expressing a country's beauty and soul.

It is the same idea that is demonstrated at the current exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, which also celebrates the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Belarusian diplomatic ties this year.

The exhibition took two years to prepare, says Wu Weishan, director of the museum, and it is grounded in the variety of collections, from historical iconographies to modern works, at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus.

Wu says the exhibition traces the evolution of Belarusian art since the 19th century to the present day, with a selection of portraits, landscapes, still lifes and genre paintings that "hail the majestic expanses and clear, blue sky of the land and its people's desire for a peaceful, free life".

The exhibition starts with the paintings of 19th-century Russian artists largely belonging to the artists' collective Peredvizhniki, or The Wanderers.

Uladzimir Prakaptsou, general director of the Belarusian museum, says that after Belarus was merged into the territory of the Russian Empire in the 18th century, many Belarusian artists were nourished by Russian art, and some received training in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Among the Russian masters featured are Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov, two portrait artists, and Ivan Shiskin and Issac Levitan - both of whom are known for their realistic depiction of Russian landscapes.

Paintings of the four artists from the collection of Moscow's State Tretyakov Gallery were shown at an exhibition on the Peredvizhniki group of artists at the National Museum of China in 2015.

Their influence on Belarusian painters is examined in the show through the works of Ivan Khrustsky, a still life master, and Stanislau Zhukousky, an outstanding painter of landscapes.

Belarusian artworks of the second half of the 20th century constitute the bulk of the treasure trove of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus and number more than 15,000, says general director Prakaptsou.

He says the current exhibition features representative artists who established the national art school of painting in Belarus at the time.

He says their productions focus on the life and work of ordinary people after World War II, including how people reconstructed the war-torn capital city, Minsk.

He adds that the 1960s also saw a boost of Beralusian landscapes in which one can "feel a love of the country, a sentimental mood, an excellent arrangement of colors and a revealing of people's mental being in the depiction of daily scenes".

Belarus declared independence in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Prakaptsou says contemporary artists have sought a national cultural identity, and they take great interest in the origin and traditions of ethnic Belarus culture.

The paintings on display of Mikalai Seliashchuk and Vasil Kastiuchenka, for example, take their inspiration from the country's folk tales, festivals and fables.

Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 11/10/2017 page21)
FRANKFURT, Germany and VIENNA, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The portfolio comprises five Trophy Assets: Highrise " Upper West " in Berlin , the High Street assets " Kaufmannshaus " and " Alsterarkaden " in Hamburg , deve l opment " Upper Zeil " in Frankfurt as well as the 50% RFR shareholding of the project " Karstadt at Munich Main Train Station "

Largest real estate deal in Germany in 2017 with a volume of c. EUR 1.5 Bn in the most sought after locations of the 4 largest German cities Berlin , Hamburg , Frankfurt and Munich

The long-term portfolio of SIGNA Prime is further diversified through the acquisition in terms of rental income, usage mix and long-term leases

SIGNA Prime Selection AG has recently acquired an extraordinary portfolio, comprised of five Trophy Assets in absolute prime locations in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich from RFR Holding GmbH. With an absolute transaction volume of c. EUR 1.5 Bn, the transaction is the largest real estate deal in Germany in the year 2017. This extraordinary portfolio of assets comprises five Trophy Assets: Highrise "Upper West" in Berlin, the High Street assets "Kaufmannshaus" and "Alsterarkaden" in Hamburg, development "Upper Zeil" in Frankfurt as well as the 50% RFR shareholding of the project "Karstadt at Munich Main Train Station". The other 50% of the project is already owned by SIGNA Prime.

In summary this portfolio of high street assets comprises c. 160,000 m of lettable area, spread over c. 70,000 m retail, c. 55,000 m office, c. 17.000 m Hotel, c. 1,000 m gastronomy as well as c. 17.000 m other areas. The assets all have long-term secured and creditworthy tenants as well as a diversified usage mix with additional value-add potential. The close to fully let portfolio will, as is customary for SIGNA Prime, be held for the long-term, and will ensure the continued diversification of the portfolio in terms of rental income, usage mix and long-term leases.

The acquired assets are:

The newly built Upper West in Berlin, which with a height of 119 meters is one of the tallest buildings in Berlin, and will be used as an office, hotel and retail location. Thanks to its attractive architecture from Christof Langhof, the building has a high recognition value and occupies a special place in the booming City West. The Upper West is showing itself to be a landmark asset in the absolute prime location of Berlin next to the Gedachtniskirche. The new build is comprised of a tower with 34 floors as well as a podium with 8 floors, and was completed in September 2017. The c. 53,000 m lettable commercial area are essentially fully let. Main tenants are Motel One, Gortz Lawyers, WeWork and Gortz Shoes.

The Alsterarkaden, at the Jungfernstieg in Hamburg, which is based on the historical designs of Alexis de Chateauneuf for the Hamburg Rathausmarkt, is seen with its corner location to the shopping street "Neuer Wall" as the entry gate to the Hamburg luxury mile. The Alsterarkaden offer office tenants a beautiful view over the Binnenalster and the Rathausmarkt. The retail tenants profit from the tourists which walk along the Jungfernstieg and the Neuer Wall. Tenants include Wempe, Swatch, Douglas, and many more.

The in 1905 constructed, and in 2013 revitalised Kaufmannshaus presents itself in Hamburg with the historical exterior of a Kontorhaus, in the middle of the traditional shopping square of Hamburg (Groe Bleichen), and offers high quality retail and office space to tenants. The Kaufmannshaus not only offers excellent gastronomy, but also retail with Marc Cain, Suitsupply, Guess, etc. which invite you to shop. The central location has attracted office tenants like Rent24, shipping company Offen, Norton Rose Fulbright, FCB and Yelp to sign up as tenants.

The commercial building Upper Zeil is being developed in Germany's shopping street with the highest frequency, between Galeria Kaufhof and MyZeil. The impressive glass facade of the building will spread over 45 meters and offer views into and onto the Frankfurt Zeil from all floors. The Upper Zeil is currently still in development, and will prospectively be completed end of 2018. This chance to place themselves at the hot spot of Frankfurt is being used by labels such as Benetton, Reserved, and Vodafone.

The asset Karstadt at the Munich Main Train Station offers unparalleled development potential direct in the heart of Munich, at the Munich Main Train Station. Here, SIGNA Prime will take over the remaining 50% shareholding from RFR. In a central location in Munich, between the Main Train Station and Stachus, the most important shopping street of Munich, will be created. The Schutzenstrae will become a prolongation of the Neuhauser Strae, one of the most significant shopping streets in Germany. With the planned renovation of the main train station as well as the extension of the S-Bahn line, the Schutzenstrae will only become even more important.

"The acquisition of this unique portfolio allows us to continue to build out the market position of SIGNA Prime as one of the leading European real estate companies, and to position itself as one of the largest European real estate companies," Timo Herzberg, Executive at SIGNA Prime Selection AG.

"A transaction like this requires a lot of trust between the involved parties. We have had good, constructive and trusting discussions with SIGNA Prime from the start. That is why we are particularly happy to sell these extraordinary assets to one of the most successful real estate companies in Europe," Michael Fuchs, Founder RFR Group.

About RFR

The RFR Holding GmbH (RFR) belongs to the RFR Group of the German-born real estate investors Michael Fuchs and Aby Rosen. Over the last 25 years RFR has built a unique real estate portfolio. Classic architecture history such as the Seagram Building in New York from Mies van der Rohe, or the famous Lever House from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill are complemented by modern office and commercial buildings, hotels, and luxury residential in prime locations. Today the RFR Group manages real estate in the USA and Germany of over EUR 12 Bn. The RFR Management GmbH based in Frankfurt/Main is responsible for the property and asset management of the real estate portfolio of the RFR Group, with a total area of c. 700.000 m in Germany. Additional information is on http://www.rfr.com.

About SIGNA

The by the Austrian entrepreneur Rene Benko founded SIGNA Group is a private entrepreneurially active industry holding in the industries of real estate and retail. The company, with a real estate gross asset value of over EUR 10 Bn, and an additional development volume of EUR 5 Bn, is one of the most important real estate investors in Europe and operates with over 20,000 employees and over EUR 3.8 Bn revenue well known retail companies in Germany. The Group comprises two central industry areas: SIGNA Real Estate and SIGNA Retail.

SIGNA Prime Selection AG, which is part of the SIGNA Real Estate group, has since its founding in 2010 developed itself into one of the largest real estate companies in Europe. SIGNA Prime owns, amongst others, real estate icons such as the KaDeWe in Berlin, the Alsterhaus in Hamburg, the Oberpollinger and the Alte Akademie in Munich, as well as the Park Hyatt and the Goldenes Quartier in Vienna. For years, the company has used the successful strategy, to build a portfolio of exceptional real estate in prime city locations in Germany, Austria, and Northern Italy, and to continue to acquire or develop targeted prime assets. SIGNA Prime counts to the largest real estate owners in cities like Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, and Vienna, and follows the goal to own its real estate over generations. Additional info can be found at http://www.signa.at

Questions:

SIGNA

Robert Leingruber

Head of PR & Communications

E-mail: r.leingruber@signa.at

T: +43-1-5329848 - 2534



SOURCE SIGNA
- Former CIO of China internet giant will oversee key China pillar of WXNC's global data platform strategy

- The expansion of WXNC's platform will provide an ever more powerful engine for consumer genomics and precision medicine in China and worldwide

SHANGHAI, CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts and REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi NextCODE, the global standard platform for genomic data, today announced the appointment of John Gu as Chief Digital Officer, leading data onboarding for the company's growing China platform. Gu, who joins the company from digital innovation consultancy Silver Sand Technologies, was formerly chief information officer for Baidu, the leading internet service provider and search engine in China, and held successive senior technology positions at Alcatel-Lucent in Europe and the US.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/600995/John_Gu_WuXi_NextCODE.jpg

"John has played a key role in the growth of world-leading technology platforms and we are thrilled to have him leading the expansion of our data strategy in China," said Hannes Smarason, CEO of WuXi NextCODE. "Our aim is ambitious: to enable patients and consumers across China not only to benefit from their own genomic data but also empower them to use it to advance precision medicine for others across the country and around the world. John's experience in organizing massive amounts of data and connecting the individuals and enterprises that generate and use it is uniquely suited to executing this vision."

"Putting the genome to work to improve health and medicine is the biggest data opportunity in the years ahead," said John Gu. "WuXi NextCODE's global platform for genomic data is leading the way in realizing this opportunity, and China is at the heart of this strategy. I am very excited to put my efforts to work building this platform in China and to develop and deliver the benefits of the genome to people everywhere."

As the CIO of Baidu, Mr. Gu defined the enterprise IT strategy for one of the world's largest search engines and the leading cloud service provider in China. In the dozen years prior, ultimately as the group CIO of Alcatel-Lucent, he led global IT functions, including IT transformation, SW development, enterprise cloud services and data management. He also served as a management consultant at Booz Allen and PwC. Mr Gu holds a BS in computer science and electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, an MS in computer science from Loyola University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

About WuXi NextCODE

WuXi NextCODE is a fully integrated contract genomics organization (CGO) building the global standard platform for genomic data. With offices in Shanghai; Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Reykjavik, Iceland, we serve the leading population genomics, precision medicine, diagnostics and wellness initiatives and enterprises using the genome to improve health around the world. Our capabilities span study design, sequencing, secondary analysis, storage, interpretation, scalable analytics, and AI and deep learning  all backed by the most proven and widely used technology for organizing, mining and sharing genome sequence data. We are also applying the same capabilities to advance a growing range of sequence-based tests and scans in China. WuXi NextCODE is a WuXi Group company. Visit us on the web at wuxinextcode.com.

Contact:

Edward Farmer, PhD JiaWei Wang efarmer@wuxinextcode.com jw_wang@wuxinextcode.com +1 781-775-6206 +86 21 5046 5558

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/601008/logo__wuxi_nextcode_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.wuxinextcode.com



SOURCE WuXi NextCODE
New Delhi, Nov 6 : Indian short film "The School Bag", which tells a story based in Pakistan, has won the Best Short Film Award at the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal (SAFFM), says director Dheeraj Jindal.

"While making the film, each member of the team literally put their heart and soul and we didn't know what will happen with the film. For many people, I included, it was the first experience working on a short film. So it's a great feeling when your debut work gets international recognition," Jindal told IANS.

SAFFM concluded on Sunday.

The movie's plot is based in Peshawar and tells a story about the relationship between a mother and her seven-year-old son who wants a new school bag on his birthday, but fate has something else in store for him.

The film recreates events that happened in Peshawar in December 2014 when terrorists mowed down hundreds of school children.

Actress Rasika Dugal plays the mother in the short film.

Jindal, who is from Delhi, is happy that short films are getting visibility.

"In India, now there are platforms that are supporting and funding short films and because of that the quality of the films have drastically improved. The acclaimed actors have also started working in them as there are many good stories which don't need to be long but can be as impacting as a feature film.

"Therefore, short films are becoming a serious business, which is going to grow further," he said.
United Nations, Nov 7 : The UN Security Council has issued a presidential statement on Myanmar complimenting and criticising the country over its stance on the Rohingya crisis and it also gave the government a month to "get its act together".

Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi of Italy, this month's UNSC president, read out the 1,300-word statement at a formal session on Monday, the first such statement on Myanmar in 10 years, reports Xinhua news agency.

It strongly condemned attacks against the Myanmar security forces carried out by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on August 25, then expressed "grave concern" over the government's response, the alleged burning of villages and threats to villagers to flee, among others.

The council said the government's primary responsibility is protection of Myanmar's population, citizens or not.

It called for reform in Myanmar's security and justice sectors and urged the government to work with Bangladesh and the UN to allow the voluntary return of refugees to their homes, on the basis of an October 24 memorandum of understanding between the two countries.

The panel welcomed a "union enterprise mechanism" for humanitarian assistance, resettlement and development in Rakhine.

It recommended the government ensure the mechanism supported such return and allow UN agencies full access, urging governments and all humanitarian partners to pay special attention to the needs of women, particularly survivors of sexual violence.

The council also welcomed the Myanmar government's public support for recommendations by the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and called for their full implementation.

It urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to consider appointing a special advisor on Myanmar.

Since the August attacks,over 604,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh. Some fled by land, others in boats over an inlet of the Bay of Bengal.

In the last two weeks, 4,000 refugees entered Bangladesh while four people drowned in a shipwreck while fleeing, officials said.
New Delhi, Nov 9 : Unfazed by opposition criticism, Indian Railways is working overtime to push ahead with the much-talked about the "Bullet Train" project, aiming to complete it ahead of the August 2022 deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani, who has a reputation of a turnaround man, has taken up the task of monitoring and chairing the periodic review meetings of the project that is estimated to cost over Rs 1 lakh crore ($15 billion).

Lohani held a high-level meeting in Rail Bhavan last Thursday which was attended by Japanese Ambassador Kenji Hiramatsu, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, Central government officials, Principal Secretary-rank officials of Gujarat and Maharashtra, officials of NHSRCL (National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited), officials of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the General Manager of Western Railway.

A senior railway board member, requesting anonymity, told IANS, "The railways is in no mood to delay the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project. Lohani will now hold a review meeting once every three months... And even on weekly basis, if required."

Emphasising on the government's intention, the official said, "The attendance of the Niti Aayog Vice Chairman, the Japanese Ambassador and the CRB in the review meeting is a clear signal that the government is taking the project seriously and there is no scope for any delay."

"The CRB wants Indian Railway officials to take lessons from their Japanese counterparts about meeting deadlines," he said.

The opposition has attacked the government for taking up a project at a huge cost instead of focusing on safety, a dire need of the time, and on schemes to improve passenger amenities.

The official said it was also decided at the meeting that "a road map for consultancy and civil engineering works will be prepared by January 2018".

A ministry official associated with the Bullet Train project said a report on the signalling system and electrical reports would be ready by April 2018. According to him, the tracks and most of the signalling system would be brought from Japan.

The foundation stone for the Rs 1.08 lakh crore ($17 billion) 508-km Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train was laid in Ahmedabad by Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on September 14.

Of the Rs 1.08 lakh crore, Japan is giving a loan of Rs 88,000 crore at a minimal interest of 0.1 per cent for 50 years. And the repayment will begin only after 15 years.

The railway official said that to encourage the Prime Minister's ambitious 'Make in India' programme, "an appeal will be made to Indian and Japanese companies to make use the opportunity to work together".

Meanwhile, the officials of the government of Maharashtra and Gujarat assured the railways of their help in land acquisition and smooth shifting of raw materials to construction venues.

A three-level monitoring committee was also constituted, including the Vice Chairman of Niti Ayog and Special Advisor to Japanese Prime Minister.

A working group led by Managing Director of NHSRCL Achal Khare and consisting of representatives of the ministries concerned, and the representative of JICA, has been formed. Besides the two committees, a technical expert committee led by the Managing Director of NHSRCL has also been formed.

Of the 508 km stretch, 92 per cent (468 km) of the route will be elevated, six per cent (27 km) will be in tunnels and the remaining two per cent (13 km) will be on the ground .

The high-speed train would also pass through the country's longest tunnel of 21 km, of which seven km will be under the sea.

Twelve stations have been proposed that include Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati.

The distance will be covered in two hours and seven minutes if the train stops at four stations -- Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Mumbai. If the train stops at all 12 stations, it will cover the distance in two hours and fifty-eight minutes.

According to Railway Ministry officials, the operating speed of the bullet train would be 320 kmph and the maximum speed would be 350 kmph.

(Anand K. Singh can be contacted at anand.s@ians.in)
Mumbai, Nov 9 : Actor Irrfan Khan's forthcoming movie "Qarib Qarib Singlle" will be releasing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

"It is really great to see your movies reach audiences all over the world. A romantic story like 'The Lunchbox' travelled around the world and with 'Hindi Medium' being appreciated across, it is encouraging as an actor to see your work being explored in new markets," said Irrfan in a statement.

Zee Studios International is releasing the film in the foreign markets.

Vibha Chopra, Head - Zee Studios International, Film Marketing, Distribution and Acquisition, said: "Unconventional films call for unconventional markets. We are delighted to take 'Qarib Qarib Singlle' to territories like Germany, Austria and Switzerland where Indian film releases aren't as common... 'Qarib Qarib Singlle' is a simple yet beautiful narrative that is bound to find an audience in these markets."

"Qarib Qarib Singlle" is a contemporary love story of two people who embark upon an unusual journey which becomes a mad adventure.

The Tanuja Chandra directorial will release in Germany and Austria on November 10 -- the same date the film is releasing in India. It will open in Switzerland on November 12.
Moscow, Nov 9 : Russia supports the idea of establishing a free trade area (FTA) in the Asia Pacific region, which is believed to enhance the country's position in the region's market, President Vladimir Putin said in a statement.

"We support the idea of forming an Asia-Pacific free trade area," Putin said in an article on Wednesday night entitled "The 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Da Nang: Together Towards Prosperity and Harmonious Development".

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Summit will take place from Friday to Saturday in Vietnam's coastal Da Nang city, reports TASS News.

"We believe this is in our practical interest and represents an opportunity to strengthen our positions in the rapidly growing APR markets. I want to note that over the past five years, the share of APEC economies in Russia's foreign trade has increased from 23 to 31 per cent, and from 17 to 24 per cent in exports. And we have no intention of stopping there."

Putin said this sweeping project should be implemented with account of the experience of key integration formats in Asia Pacific and in Eurasia, especially the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) where Russia cooperates with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

"Our union has been developing dynamically, and we are eager to build relations with all countries and associations that are interested in doing so," he said.

Putin recalled that Vietnam, the host country of the current Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, was the first country in the region to sign a FTA with the EEU.

"As a result, our trade grew significantly and became more diversified. Talks on a trade and economic cooperation agreement with China concluded a short while ago. Talks with Singapore have begun, and we are working on the possibility of signing a free trade agreement with Asean (Association for Southeast Asian Nations)," he wrote.

He assured that Russia was interested in a successful development of Asia Pacific region.

"We believe that effective economic integration based on the principles of openness, mutual benefit and the universal rules of the World Trade Organisation is the primary means of achieving this goal," he added.
New Delhi, Nov 9 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday leave on a three-day visit to the Philippines where he will attend the Asean and East Asia Summits and hold a bilateral meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte, it was announced on Thursday.

This will be Modi's first official visit to the Philippines.

"He will be going there to attend the 15th Asean-India Summit and the 12th East Asia Summit," Priti Saran, Secretary (East) in the External Affairs Ministry, told the media.

With this, India would have undertaken high-level visits at the level of President, Vice President and Prime Minister to all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - in the last three years.

"This shows the importance India attaches to its relations with the Asean," Saran said. "It symbolizes India's commitment to deepening relations with Asean member states in particular and with the Indo-Pacific region in general within the framework of our Act East Policy."

While Modi will meet Duterte, also this year's Asean Chairman, on November 13, the two leaders will participate in the two Summits the next day.

Modi will also attend the special celebrations to mark 50th anniversary of the Asean's formation, a meeting of the leaders of the countries of the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and an Asean Business and Investment Summit.

RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement between the Asean member states and the six states with which grouping has free trade pacts - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

Asean accounts for over 10 per cent of India's external trade. Asean and India together comprise a population of 1.85 billion, one-fourth of the global population, and a combined GDP of $3.8 trillion.

Saran said investments in India from Asean countries in the last 17 years had been over $70 billion, accounting for 17 per cent of FDI. Indian investments in Asean is over $40 billion.

Modi's visit assumes significance as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the India-Asean dialogue partnership.

"Asean is central to India's Act East Policy. Therefore, our Prime Minister's participation in the Asean-India Summit and the East Asia Summit provides a very important opportunity to reiterate our commitment to the partnership," Saran said.

India also has 30 sectoral dialogue mechanisms and seven ministerial-level interactions with Asean.

Saran said India supported Asean's centrality in the regional security architecture, and enhancing physical, digital, economic, cultural and people-to-people ties was a key focus in the relationship.

New Delhi attached the greatest importance to the East Asia Summit, of which India is a founding member, she said.

The East Asia Summit is held annually by leaders of Asean countries and those of Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the US.

On the margins of the summits, Modi will hold bilateral meetings with some other leaders as well.

Modi and Duterte were expected "to set up the stage for a quantitative change in our bilateral relations with the Philippines", Saran said.

She said there was immense potential to enhance bilateral economic ties.

In the Philippines, Modi will meet members of the Indian community, visit the International Rice Research Institute and the Mahavir Philippines Foundation, an associate centre of the Bhagwan Mahavir Bikalang Sahayta Samiti of the Jaipur Foot fame.
Da Nang (Vietnam), Nov 10 : Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has urged members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to maintain stable and robust connectivity in the region.

"In 2015, we reiterated our belief that a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) should be pursued as a comprehensive free trade agreement built on ongoing regional undertakings," Duterte said at an APEC CEO summit here on Thursday.

The Philippines, which is holding the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), hosted the 2015 APEC summit in Manila, reports Xinhua news agency.

In his keynote speech, the Philippine President urged the 21 APEC economies to continue advocating stronger and deeper regional economic integration by facilitating liberalisation of trade and investment.

"Diversity will always pull us in separate directions, but regional integration anchored on open and free trade will allow us to maximise the opportunities presented by global trends like cross-border flows and digital developments," he told the summit attended by some 2,000 senior officials, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

As part of the ongoing APEC Economic Leaders' Week, the CEO summit is the largest annual event of the business community in the Asia-Pacific, which culminates in the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on Friday and Saturday.

Duterte said as the fulcrum of several integrated mechanisms such as Asean, APEC can be instrumental in promoting more inter- and intra-regional trade, investment and people-to-people connectivity between other economic blocs.

"Since Asean and APEC are regions of vast physical divide, a stable, interconnected and integrated infrastructure is necessarily the backbone of our progress," Duterte said.

Besides physical connectivity, the President also urged the APEC business community to continue to promote people-to-people connectivity as a critical growth and development strategy.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.
New Delhi : World War I finally came to a blood-soaked end on November 11, 1918. As we mark the 99th anniversary of the Armistice, there is increasing recognition of the roles played by Indians in that war.

Books by Shrabani Basu, Gordon Corrigan, Vedica Kant, and others have contributed as, counter-intuitively, did the film "Dunkirk" (though set in another war), for omitting Indians.

Around 1.5 million Indians served in World War I, mostly in the Army. There was also a tiny Indian presence in the air. Four almost-forgotten Indians flew as combat pilots: Lieutenant Hardit Singh Malik, Lieutenant SC Welinkar, Second Lieutenant E.S.C. Sen and Lieutenant I.L. Roy, DFC.

Malik and Roy make a neat pair for Indian aviation enthusiasts; like the fictional aviators Biggles and Wilks, one flew the Sopwith Camel and the other flew the SE5a.

Malik, the first Indian military pilot, was at Oxford when war began. His tutor interceded with Lieutenant-General Sir David Henderson, GOC of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), to secure a commission for him.

Malik was selected as a scout (as fighter pilots were then called), and posted to an RFC squadron flying Sopwith Camels, the most iconic British aircraft of the war. He went into action in September 1917, initially from the famous St Omer airfield and then from Droglandt in Belgium. His Flight Commander was the Canadian Captain William "Billy" Barker, who ended the War with a VC, two DSOs and three MCs -- the most highly-decorated serviceman in the Commonwealth.

Barker's biography, "Barker, VC", and Malik's autobiography, "A Little Work, A Little Play", both vividly describe one particular dogfight. Malik shot down one enemy aircraft, but at least four others attacked him. Hit in the leg, he crashed and passed out. He was pulled from the wreckage and carried to hospital. He recovered but retained two bullets in his leg all his life.

He continued flying, and returned to France for more operational service. He was the only one of these four to beat normal aircrew survival odds -- wartime aircrew rarely survived more than a few weeks' operations.

Malik went on to distinction in independent India, serving as India's first High Commissioner to Canada and later as Ambassador to France, highly-respected by British, Canadian and European comrades-in-arms.

While Malik was at Oxford, Shrikrishna Chundra Welinkar, from the Gwalior royal family's household, was at Cambridge. He enlisted in February 1917, and was immediately assigned to an RFC Cadet battalion, probably because of Brigadier General (later Air Vice Marshal, and later still UK Director of Civil Aviation) Sir William Sefton Brancker, an early advocate of training Indian aircrews.

Welinkar probably overlapped with Sen during training. He was injured in a crash in August 1917 but recovered, completing training by early 1918. In April he was posted to the No. 1 RAF Squadron in France, flying Sopwith Dolphins, a new design but notorious for poor crash survivability.

On June 27, 1918, Welinkar took off at 9.45 a.m. He was seen engaging an enemy aircraft in combat, but never returned and was declared missing. It emerged later that he survived his downing but died in a German field hospital three days later. The Germans appear to have made efforts to save him but to no avail.

Lt. Welinkar was the first of those four pioneers killed in action. He is memorialised at the Hangard Cemetery in France, near the Somme battlefield.

While Malik and Welinkar were at university, Errol Suva Chandra Sen was at a prominent British public school and joined the RFC through the OTC, the British equivalent of the NCC. Commissioned in August 1917, he was posted to an RFC squadron, also flying Sopwith Camels. In September 1917, he moved to Poperinghe in Belgium at almost the same time that Malik was at Droglandt in the same area.

At 7 a.m. on September 14, 1917, Sen took off on patrol. At 7.45 a.m.he was attacked by several enemy aircraft. His aircraft was hit and seen trailing fuel. He was eventually forced down the first Indian aviator lost in action. He survived, was captured, and made a prisoner of war (PoW). He was repatriated after the war and left the RAF soon after. He is believed to have worked for a British merchant house in India and Burma after the war.

Indra Lal Roy, fresh out of school like Sen, was commissioned a month earlier. He is credited with 10 combat victories. Clearly an incredibly gifted combat pilot, he achieved those victories over just two weeks, in July 1918. Three of them came in four hours, on one day.

Roy was born in Calcutta but finished school in the UK. Shortly after turning 18, he joined the RFC, and was commissioned in July 1917. After training, he was posted to 56 Squadron RFC, the first to fly the Royal Aircraft Factory SE5a, another iconic British type. In December 1917 he crashed, was knocked unconscious, taken for dead and actually laid out in a morgue. When he regained consciousness, he banged on the morgue door, shouting for help in schoolboy French. The morgue attendant was so frightened by this apparent resurrection from the dead that he did not unlock the door immediately.

After returning to duty Roy was posted to No. 40 Squadron RAF. His Flight Commander was the Irish Captain George McElroy, MC and bar. They clearly combined well in the air. Over the next two weeks, Roy flew into the record books with 10 victories, two shared with McElroy.

Roy's first victory came on July 6, 1918. This was followed by that brilliant spell of three victories in four hours, including a formidable Fokker DVII, on July 8. He also achieved two on July 13, two on July 15 (both DVIIs) and one each on July 18 and 19.

Three days later Roy took off on patrol with two other SE5as. They were attacked by four Fokker DVIIs. Two attackers were shot down but Roy went down in flames over Carvin. He was not yet 20.

Roy was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. He is buried at the Estevelles Communal Cemetery, 100 km from where his compatriot Lt SC Welinkar lies. Both graves are marked and well looked-after.

The war ended on November 11, three weeks before Roy would have turned 20.

Fourteen years after the war, Roy's nephew Subroto Mukerjee was one of the first Indians at the RAF College, Cranwell. Mukerjee later became the first Indian Chief of the post-Independence Indian Air Force, thereby establishing a link between those four forgotten Indians over Flanders and the thousands who have worn IAF uniform since.

Sadly, very little is known about these young men, beyond the bare facts, in British records. They were from well-off families, attending prestigious schools or universities in the UK. They were probably highly westernised and spoke impeccable English. But they are no less Indian for that. In every unit they served in, they would have been known as "the Indian".

A century after these four heroes put themselves forward for service in the Flying Corps, perhaps our film industry can consider a "Dunkirk"-like production on them -- before we, like Hollywood, forget.

(The author is a lifelong student of Indian aviation, maritime and military history and the author of several articles on the Indian Air Force. The views expressed are personal. The article is in special arrangement with South Asia Monitor/www.southasiamonitor.org)
Nainital (Uttarakhand), Nov 10 : One of the most sought-after destinations for tourists visiting Uttarakhand, Nainital has remained an abode of eternal charm, but very few are aware of the Lok Sanskriti Sangrahalaya, a private museum in Bhimtal that houses several rare art objects. Its owner, now in his late 70s, continues to strive day and night on its upkeep.

Meet Yashodhar Mathpal, the septuagenarian who built this museum to preserve local culture, document oral and written traditions and folklore, provide training to the vanishing arts and crafts of the region, and encourage local artists and artisans.

"Art is something which, if not preserved, will become extinct. It represents our culture and is our identity. If not protected, then nothing will be left to show the later generations. So, I wanted to build a place where I can collect and display the art and let people know about our roots," Mathpal, 78, told IANS.

This museum man of Bhimtal has multiple designations in his kitty; apart from being the founder of this museum, he is a Padma Shri awardee, a curator, research scholar, public relations officer, fund-raiser, artist, sculptor, guide -- and even a sweeper.

With a team of just three, including himself, Mathpal said it is often a difficult task to take care of the entire museum. He added that his age has now become a hurdle, but it is his long association with the museum and love for art that still keeps him going.

"Before opening this place I worked in many other museums and learned many things. And now, that experience is helping me to make Lok Sangrahalaya stronger. I am still the curator of this gallery," he explained.

But there was a touch of despair in Mathpal's tone. He conveyed that despite being a museum with such valuable art objects, there are hardly any visitors to his place -- the reason being people are unaware of the museum.

"Art is what defines us, it is our identity. Strangely, people are not concerned about it. It is mostly foreign tourists who come here and very few Indians. Not even the local people make any visit," Mathpal lamented.

His effort to keep the dying art of the Kumaon and Garhwal belt alive has been largely ignored by the media, but he has no regrets. He doesn't lament that he hasn't got due credit for his contributions. What hurts him, though, is the lack of appreciation and promotion by the government.

"I got a call from a museum in France to showcase my collection, but unfortunately never got a chance to be a part of any art exhibition in Nainital. Art is yet not appreciated in India as it is done in other countries, especially in Europe," he said.

"This is a tourist spot; the hotels can add this museum in their travel suggestions. Local art can survive only if the locals are involved in it. Help from the people living in this region is needed; they should first be made more aware and then the DM (District Magistrate) and the state government officials should come and help," Mathpal added.

Although he has got several invitations from the National Museum to display his collection, he never accepted the requests. And now the museum authorities have fallen silent. The reason?

"The officers, without taking commission, will never sanction any proposals for the museum. And they know very well that I am not going to give money to display my collection. So now they don't bother to call me," he responded.

His future plans? "I have travelled a lot and still prefer to, when my health permits. But I want to continue collecting art objects till my last breath," he said.

Founded in 1983, the Lok Sanskriti Sangrahalaya is located three km from Nainital. It is home to more than 500 paintings, including cave paintings, a 14-foot-long water colour, old manuscripts and much more.

And all this is the effort of a single man.

(Somrita Ghosh can be contacted at somrita.g@ians.in)
New Delhi, Nov 10 : India on Friday issued a medical visa to another Pakistani national following a promise made by the Ministry of External Affairs on Independence Day.

"Amna - We have approved medical visa for your father Mr Shamim Ahmed," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted in response to a request from one Amna Shamim through the Twitter handle of Karachi's Muhammad Talha.

Shamim also posted a reference letter dated October 9 from a doctor in Sri Ganga Ram Hospital who stated that the patient was being considered for a liver transplant.

On Independence Day, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had announced that India would provide medical visas to all bonafide Pakistani patients.

As ties between the two countries soured over various issues, the ministry had announced in May that only a letter of recommendation by then Pakistan Prime Minister's Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz would enable a Pakistani national to get a medical visa for India.

The action was termed "highly regrettable" by Islamabad, which said that asking for such a letter violated diplomatic norms and such a requirement had not been prescribed for any other country.

However, a patient from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, seeking treatment in New Delhi for liver tumour, was given a visa on July 18.

Sushma Swaraj then said that he needed no recommendation from the Pakistani government for a medical visa because the territory "is an integral part of India".

Since August 15, however, Pakistani nationals seeking medical treatment have not been denied visas.
Da Nang (Vietnam), Nov 10 : US President Donald Trump arrived here on Friday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.

In his speech to regional leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference, Trump was heavy on history and full of praise for the countries representing the 21-member bloc, reports CNN.

"America stands as a proud member of the community of nations who make a home on the Pacific," he said, before describing US engagement in the region, from trade ships sent to China in the 1780s to economic partnerships with Thailand and other nations.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time."

He also briefly touched on the bloody history of the Vietnam War (1955-1975), in which Da Nang was a key battlefield.

"Today we are no longer enemies, we are friends."

He flew in from Beijing earlier in the day after an official three-day visit to China which was the third leg of his five-nation Asia tour following stops in Japan and South Korea.

Echoing points he made in China, Trump took a harsh tone on trade, vowing "we are not going to allow the United States to be taken advantage of anymore", CNN reported.

"I am always going to put America first the same way I expect everyone in this room to put your countries first.

"I do not blame China or any other country for taking advantage of the United States on trade... They are just doing their job."

But, he added, "we are not going to allow the United States to be taken advantage of anymore".

Alhough his speech was dominated by trade policy, Trump did make references to the ongoing North Korea crisis.

He encouraged the international community to make sure "every single step the North Korean regime takes towards nuclear weapons is a step it takes in to greater danger".

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage by a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail."

The Summit will be attended by some 10,000 delegates, 2,000 chief executive officers of leading firms in APEC economies, and 3,000 reporters.

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

After Vietnam, Trump will travel to the Philippines for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit.
Jaipur, Nov 10 : The Rajasthan government plans to set up a committee to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali's forthcoming controversial movie "Padmavati".

"Modalities in this direction will be worked out soon. The committee will watch the movie and will identify the scenes in the film that may hurt the sentiments of public," Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told IANS.

"What has to done after that... Do we have to talk to the filmmaker... It will only be decided after watching the film. Moreover, what we can do on our level will also be decided after the committee watches the film," Kataria said.

While the Rajasthan government may set up a committee, it is not immediately clear whether Bhansali will screen the movie for it as by law, only the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has the right to certify a movie.

"Padmavati", which attempts to tell the tale of the valour of Rajputs with the backdrop of the 1303 siege of Chittorgarh, is scheduled to release on December 1.

It is embroiled in controversy over the conjecture that it distorts history by showing a dream romance sequence between Rani Padmini and invader Alauddin Khilji -- a claim rubbished by Bhansali.

Still, organisations like Shri Rajput Karni Sena and Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha to go up in arms against the release of the movie, while BJP leaders have been making statements and appeals to stop its release.

"They are trying to defame Padmavati by distorting historical facts. It is not acceptable," an activist of Karni Sena said.

In the wake of the controversy, even film distributors in Rajasthan are wary of releasing the film in the state.

On his part, Bhansali has clarified that the movie, featuring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, has nothing which can hurt anyone's sentiments.
BRUSSELS -- With 504 days and less than 10 hours left before the March 29, 2019 deadline, Brexit passed its midway point on Friday.

But negotiators from the two sides of the English Channel tried in vain to bring the long-anticipated progress in their sixth round talks, giving rise to increasing fear of a no-deal scenario through Europe.

TIME IS DRAINING, SO IS BARNIER AND DAVIS' VOCABULARY

"Do not wait for us today, as we are, announcements or major decisions. The discussions of these last days are, in the moment we are, between two European Councils, a moment of deepening, of clarification, of technical work," European Union's (EU) chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters.

"Only sufficient progress, that is, sincere and real progress on the three key topics of this negotiation, will enable the second phase of our negotiation to begin," he reaffirmed, only managed to add "sincere and real" to avoid duplication with his previous speeches.

The three key issues are citizens' rights, a financial settlement and the Irish border, according to Barnier.

Time is ticking, but the deadlock remains.

"This is a serious business. If we are to find a way forward it will require flexibility and pragmatism from both sides as I think Michel also stressed," said Britain's Brexit Secretary David Davis during the joint press conference with Barnier at the EU headquarters.

Like his counterpart, his vocabulary for "flexibility and pragmatism" also seemed dry, and merely managed to add "This is a serious business" into his reaffirmation, which didn't make him more persuasive.

Kicked off in Brussels on Thursday, the two-day sixth round Brexit talks coincidently marked the halfway point for Brexit -- 505 days since the referendum and 505 days until Britain should formally leave the EU, and was tasked to make preparation for the EU Winter Summit in December.

PROGRESS IN MAJOR ISSUES BUT IN DRIBS AND DRABS

"On citizens' rights, we are making some progress; we need to work more on a number of points. The UK wants to put in place administrative procedures through which EU citizens can obtain 'settled status'. The EU needed reassurance on how such a system would work: it should be simple to use, and low cost. We also needed reassurance on how people, when rejected, can appeal effectively," said Barnier.

"There are a few areas where our citizens need to see further progress and movement from the European Union ...However, if it does fall out of scope, we will discuss this issue bilaterally with Member States," Davis warned.

On the Irish border, Davis said Britain recognize the need for specific solutions for the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland, but made clear that "This cannot amount to creating a new border inside our United Kingdom", calling for more spirit of pragmatism, creativity and with a high degree of political sensitivity form both sides.

As to the financial settlement, Barnier said the two sides "must now work on the precise translation of the commitments made in her speech in Florence by the British Prime Minister", calling it as an imperative condition to achieve sufficient progress in December.

"On this subject, I repeat that it is only, as in any separation, to settle the account," he warned.

The long-awaited Brexit talks was launched on June 19, nearly one year after Britain voted to leave the bloc by a narrow margin on June 23, 2016.

May sent a notification letter to the EU in late March, triggering a two-year countdown to Britain's withdrawal of the bloc after more than 44 years of membership.
Varanasi, Nov 10 : Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Friday said the need of the hour is to equip the armed forces with the latest technology.

The General told the media that there was no shortage of weapons with the Army.

Talking about the Army's preparedness to tackle the challenges from Pakistan and China, he said his men were prepared to meet any situation.

After a visit to the Kashi Vishwanath temple here, Rawat said he prayed to Lord Shiva for the well-being, safety and success of the soldiers. The Army chief was accompanied by his his wife and other family members.
Gandhinagar/New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Congress party's central election committee is likely to meet on Friday to finalise the list of candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections.

The meeting in New Delhi will be chaired by All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Sonia Gandhi, where top party leaders, including from the poll-bound state, are likely to attend.

The Congress will be fielding candidates in all the 89 constituencies of the first phase of elections, to be held on December 9. Around 100 candidates which have been selected by the scrutiny panel are likely to be finalized for the first phase initially, according to sources.

The meeting will be attended by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel. Senior party leaders from Gujarat, like Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) President Bharatsinh Solanki and Gujarat in-charge for elections, Ashok Gehlot, have already reached Delhi for the meeting. Other senior leaders like Siddharth Patel, Shaktisinh Gohil and Arjun Modhwadia are likely to attend.

The list of candidates will be finalized and the candidates will be instructed to start their preparations for the contest, but they won't be publicly declared till two or three days prior to the day of nomination, the sources said.

Earlier, just after the Rajya Sabha seat elections for Gujarat in August, the grand old party had announced that as a reward to loyal MLAs who did not give in to the massive allurements and temptations by the BJP, all the sitting MLAs will be given tickets to contest the assembly elections.

It will be interesting to see which candidates are likely to be given the chance as the party is also in talks with Hardik Patel, leader of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) who has been agitating against the BJP government, demanding reservation status for his Patel community for about two-and-a half years.

Congress senior leader Kapil Sibal has assured the Patidar community a reservation status on a constitutional basis, if the party comes to power in Gujarat. The leaders had brief discussions late night on Wednesday and the talks are still in progress. Now the ball is in Hardik Patel's court as they will deliberate on the offer by the Congress and discuss it with his community's leaders and institutions.

The state elections are on the radar of national politics as it is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and also BJP national President Amit Shah. The BJP government is under heavy pressure to retain power under the anti-incumbency it has been facing in the form of agitations by various communities in recent times.

The Gujarat elections will be held in two phases on December 9 and 14 and the results will be declared on December 18.
New York, Nov 10 : Extreme fluctuations in the systolic (top) reading may be just as bad as having consistently high blood pressure as it increases risk of stroke, heart attack or even death, researchers said.

The systolic blood pressure indicates how much pressure is being exerted by the blood against the arterial walls.

According to the American Heart Association, a normal systolic blood pressure is less than 120 while high blood pressure is categorised as above 140.

The findings showed that patients with systolic blood pressure numbers that varied by as much as 30-40 between doctor visits over an extended period of time were more likely to die.

"Blood pressure is one of those numbers we encourage people to keep track of, as it's one indicator of your heart-health," said lead investigator Brian Clements, an internal medicine specialist with the Intermountain Medical Centre Heart Institute in Utah.

"If you allow your blood pressure to remain uncontrolled for any period of time, or notice big changes in your blood pressure between doctor visits, you increase your risk of stroke, heart attack, kidney or heart failure or even death," Clements added.

For the study, to be presented at the 2017 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in California, the team examined visit-to-visit variability of systolic blood pressure in 10,903 patients.

Patients should do everything they can to control their blood pressure on a regular basis, Clements said.

"Eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and if your doctor has prescribed you medication for blood pressure, be sure to take them consistently.

"Because any time your blood pressure is out of control, you're at higher risk of injury or death," Clements said.
Bhopal, Nov 10 : President Ram Nath Kovind is paying a two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh from Friday, during which he will attend an event on 15th century mystic poet-saint Kabir.

President Kovind, who is set to arrive in the afternoon, will reach the Lal Parade ground to address the Kabir Pragatotsava as chief guest.

Later, Kovind will pay tributes at the statue of Rani Jhalkaribai at Guru Tegh Bahadur Complex in the state capital.

The President will then go to the Raj Bhavan where Governor O.P. Kohli will host a dinner in his honour.

He flies to Raipur on Saturday from where he will go to the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) helipad at Amarkantak. He will then proceed to the Narmada temple to offer prayers. After the temple visit, the President will take part in IGNTU's second convocation ceremony.

Thereafter, he will proceed to New Delhi via Raipur.

This will be the President's first visit to Madhya Pradesh after assuming office.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : It was planned as a seamless connect between India and its Southeast Asian neighbours, a motorable highway through the northeast to Myanmar and beyond to Thailand that would see an exchange of goods, people and the intermingling of cultures. But the Trilateral Highway, one of India's main connectivity projects with the Asean, is sadly nowhere near completion even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves to attend the 15th India-Asean Summit in Manila on Sunday.

The 1,700-km Trilateral Highway, connecting India, Myanmar and Thailand, was to have been completed by 2016, according to a Joint Task Force meeting between the three countries in September 2012. But the target has been slipping continuously, and has now been pushed back, with 2020 being given as a tentative date.

Modi had in his speech at the 13th Asean-India Summit in Kuala Lumpur in November 2015 assured that "the Trilateral Highway project is making good progress and should be completed by 2018". His government has maintained that its Act East Policy is more robust and execution-oriented than the previous regime's Look East Policy.

The delay in completion comes even as China pushes vigorously forward with its own connectivity corridors with neighbours as well as setting up collateral infrastructure like warehouses, factory sheds and office blocks.

The year 2017 is special in Asean-India ties, with both sides commemorating the silver anniversary of their dialogue partnership, and the 10-member grouping is also celebrating its golden jubilee. The Modi government has in celebration of the ties invited all the heads of the 10-member Asean nations for the Republic Day Parade in January.

The Trilateral Highway project -- to link Moreh in Manipur, India, to Mae Sot in Thailand through Mandalay in Myanmar -- was in fact inked by the previous NDA government under A.B. Vajpayee. It was visualised as a "highway of opportunity and friendship that would facilitate not just the movement of goods and services, but also of people and ideas".

Rajiv Bhatia, who was India's Ambassador to Myanmar when the project was launched in 2002, told IANS: "The deadline keeps getting pushed into the future... The Indian government is doing what it can. The final issue is connectivity to Asean."

According to Prabir De, coordinator of the Asean-India Centre at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has upgraded the 160-km Tamu-Kalewa-Kalemyo section of the highway in Myanmar at a cost of $27.28 million. And development of a new road between Kalewa to Yargi (around 120 km) in Myanmar is ongoing.

The highway also involves strengthening or rebuilding of 69 bailey bridges of World War II vintage, which will allow it to take container loads, besides passenger movement.

De says that the earlier military junta in Myanmar had not shown much interest in the project, but State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is "very positive" about it and "Prime Minister Modi has taken a personal interest in its completion".

The three countries are also negotiating a Motor Vehicle Agreement to allow vehicles to travel without a hitch on the highway.

"The negotiations have not started so far, probably Myanmar takes the line that they will do it closer to the time when the highway is ready," said Bhatia.

After it is completed, the highway is to be linked to Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. It could then serve as a lifeline between India's northeast and the Mekong region.

India inked an MoU with Myanmar on cooperation in upgrading the 69 bridges during the visit of President U Htin Kyaw in August 2016. Another MoU was inked for upgradation of the Kalewa-Yargi road section of the highway.

Sonu Trivedi, Professor of International Relations at Delhi University who specialises in Southeast Asia and connectivity issues, told IANS that the delay in completing the project is an issue in India's relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours, especially Myanmar and Thailand.

"The countries are eagerly awaiting how and when it will be implemented, and the delay is causing certain anxiety in their minds, particularly in the changed environment in the region, especially after the speech given by President Xi Jinping (on the Belt and Road initiative) and his elevation. That is why they are now looking towards India, as a country which is significantly going to play the balancing power in the region, and that is why this delay is causing an issue between the countries that are falling in this route."

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is also Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, told IANS: "Both Look East and Act East have rightly identified essential needs, both to open up to our Southeast Asian neighbours and to boost connectivity with, and economic growth in, our own northeastern states. Unfortunately, getting roads built and rail lines installed is far more difficult than making speeches. Project execution is our besetting weakness and the comparison with China is stark."

(Ranjana Narayan can be reached at ranjana.n@ians.in)
Patna, Nov 10 : Ending speculation, RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Friday said his son Tejashwi Yadav will lead the party in the next Bihar Assembly polls. He will also be the Rashtriya Janata Dal's Chief Ministerial candidate.

"RJD will contest the 2020 Assembly polls under Tejashwi's leadership. He will be our Chief Ministerial candidate," Lalu Prasad told the media here.

He spoke after senior RJD leaders Abdul Bari Sidddiqui and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh reportedly said there was no clarity yet on the next Chief Ministerial candidate of the party.

On Wednesday, RJD state President Raam Chander Purve had proposed Tejashwi Yadav's name as the next Chief Ministerial candidate. Later, Siddiqui and Singh expressed their disagreement over Purve's view.

Lalu Prasad also praised his younger son's work. A former Deputy Chief Minister, Tejashwi Yadav, who turned 28 on November 9, is now Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar assembly.
New York, Nov 10 : Researchers have discovered nearly 500 finger and toe bones belonging to primates -- some half the size of a mouse -- that lived about 45 million years ago in what is now China, offering evidence that early human ancestors came from Asia.

During the mid-Eocene period, about 45 million years ago, they lived in tree canopies and fed on fruit and insects in a tropical rainforest in what is now China, according to a study published online in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Representing nine different taxonomic families of primates and as many as 25 species, the specimens include numerous fossils attributed to Eosimias, the very first anthropoid known to date, and three fossils attributed to a new and much more advanced anthropoid.

The anthropoid lineage would later include monkeys, apes and humans.

"The new study provides further evidence that early anthropoids were minuscule creatures, the size of a mouse or smaller," said study co-author Daniel Gebo, Professor at Northern Illinois University in the US.

"It also adds to the evidence pointing toward Asia as the initial continent for primate evolution. While apes and fossil humans do come from Africa, their ancestors came from Asia," Gebo said.

Many of the smaller fossils are between one and two millimetres in length, and the animals would have ranged in full body size from 10 to 1,000 grams, the study said.

The newly described fossils were recovered from a commercial quarry near the village of Shanghuang in the southern Jiangsu province of China, about 100 miles west of Shanghai.

"The fossils are extraordinarily small, but in terms of quantity this is the largest single assemblage of fossil primate finger and toe specimens ever recorded," Gebo said.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Supreme Court on Friday set up a five-judge constitution bench to hear a plea seeking a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the role of a former Orissa High Court judge in a medical admission scam.

The decision by the top court came in response to the plea by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms that had sought setting up of a SIT to probe the role of judge I.M. Quddusi in enabling private medical colleges to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.

The judge was arrested in September and is lodged in Tihar Jail here.

Quddusi, an Orissa High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, has been accused by the CBI of legally guiding the private medical colleges and assuring them of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court.
Guwahati, Nov 10 : Poachers have killed yet another one-horned rhino in Assam's Kaziranga National Park, the fourth to die in one week, sparking protests over the state's failure to check the menace.

A forest official said they recovered the carcass of the slain rhino cow from near the Kahara range of the park on Thursday. Her horn was missing, indicating she was poached.

The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) on Friday staged a massive protest in Golaghat district that borders the park. They demanded the immediate resignation of Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma.

On November 2, poachers had killed the first rhino at Burhapahar range while another two rhinos, a mother and her calf, were killed within 48 hours of this in the same park range area.

After the November 4 killings, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had asked the Superintendent of Police of the surrounding districts of the park to assist the Forest Department in containing the menace.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday said the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme won't be allowed in the capital till its efficacy was known.

The green court issued the directive a day after the Delhi government announced it would bring back the odd-even plan from November 13 to 17 to combat severe air pollution in Delhi and NCR region.

The tribunal said the government needed to satisfy the court that the odd-even car rationing scheme was productive.

NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar said while the green bench was not against the odd-even scheme, it wanted to know how it helps.

"We will not allow odd-even vehicle rationalisation scheme until you prove that it's not counter-productive," he said.

"Reports from DPCC (Delhi Pollution Control Committee) and CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) showed there was no change in pollution level last time. It's clear that small cars are not major polluters; it's the diesel and overloaded vehicles," he said.

The bench also asked the government to clarify how many out of the proposed 500 extra buses to boost public transport during the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme would be running on diesel.

Kumar observed that even Delhi Metro failed to help during the last edition of odd-even as during peak hours "it was difficult to even breathe inside the metro".

He also asked the government to clarify the logic behind allowing two-wheelers.

The final decision to roll out the scheme is expected on Saturday.
Santiago, Nov 10 : Explorers have found the hulk of the steamship Itata, known as the "Chilean Titanic", which sank 95 years ago off the country's northern Pacific coast with more than 400 people aboard.

The greatest marine disaster in Chile's history left 374 people dead, reports Efe news.

The discovery of the Itata is the culmination of years of work, one of the expedition leaders, marine biologist and documentary filmmaker Carlos Cortes told the media on Thursday.

He said that the spot where the Itata sunk was pinpointed several weeks ago by a team from Chile's Universidad Catolica del Norte (UCN) and Matthias Gorny, an expert in Remotely Operated Vehicles who is science director of the global conservation group Oceana.

But at first, the team did not find any wreckage.

"History changed just a few days later, when the images sent back by the robot submarine from a depth of 200 metres confirmed that the expedition was directly over a part of the ship," Cortes said.

Javier Sellanes, the head of research at UCN's school of marine science, said that the discovery of the Itata opens up possibilities for study in fields ranging from underwater archaeology to history and anthropology, and even to disciplines such as chemistry and marine biology.

"All of this will continue to be carried out with the appropriate permits and due respect both for those who lost their lives in this tragic event and their families," he added.
Da Nang (Vietnam), Nov 10 : US President Donald Trump revived his tough talk on trade on Friday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) here, warning he will not allow "the US to be taken advantage of any more."

Speaking at a gathering of business leaders, Trump demanded trade "on a fair and equal basis" and returned to his campaign rhetoric, promising to place America first in global deals and agreements.

"We are not going to let the US be taken advantage of any more," Trump said, speaking shortly after arriving in Vietnam, his fourth stop on a five-country tour through Asia.

"I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first," the Washington Post reported.

APEC brings together 21 economies from the Pacific region -- the equivalent of about 60 per cent of the world's GDP.

The US President's more fiery and protectionist tone offered a stark departure from just a day earlier, when in Beijing, Trump seemed reluctant to press his case as sharply with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Post said.

There, Trump lavished praise on Xi and blamed his predecessors, not China, for the trade imbalance.

He also laid out Washington's new approach to trade, telling the audience at the summit on Friday that he would no longer pursue multi-national trade agreements "that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.

"I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade," Trump said without directly mentioning Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major trade deal with 12 APEC member countries.

After taking office, Trump pulled the US out of the TPP, arguing it would hurt US economic interests.

In a tacit knock on Chinese leaders, the US leader said Washington would "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property", CNN reported.

"We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state, and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," he said.

Businesses in the US have long complained about China failing to honour intellectual property rights.

Xi, speaking at the event shortly after Trump, did not respond to his speech but said economic globalization had become an "irreversible historical trend".

"Against the backdrop of evolving global developments, economic globalization also faces new adjustments both in form and substance," Xi said.

"In pursuing economic globalization, we should make it more open, more inclusive, more balanced, more equitable and more beneficial to all."

Trump also continued the tough talk on North Korea. He said the region "must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail".

APEC comprises Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

After Vietnam, Trump will travel to the Philippines for an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit.
Sydney, Nov 10 : Researchers in Australia have found that the vaccine that protects against cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV) also prevents an uncommon but incurable childhood respiratory disease.

The findings, published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, suggest that the chronic and difficult-to-treat condition, recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, is disappearing in Australian children as a result of the nation's highly successful HPV vaccination programme.

"This is a world-first finding of evidence that the HPV vaccine has actually prevented recurrent respiratory papillomatosis cases," said study author Julia Brotherton of Victorian Cytology Service in Melbourne, Australia.

"It's really exciting that we finally have a way to prevent this terrible disease. It adds to the list of strong reasons why you as a parent should choose to vaccinate your child," Brotherton added.

The condition is thought to occur in children when HPV (specifically, HPV type 6 or 11) is spread from mother to child around the time of birth.

In some children, the virus can cause wart-like, non-cancerous growths called papillomas to develop in the respiratory tract, eventually making it difficult to breathe.

The condition can be life-threatening, and repeated surgeries are usually required to keep the airway clear.

The researchers reported the initial results from a nationwide surveillance programme in Australia created to monitor the disease, building on an existing programme that monitors rare pediatric diseases using reports from clinicians.

Seven cases of juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis were reported in 2012, the surveillance programme's first full year.

The number of new cases reported annually declined over the next five years. Clinicians reported just one case in the entire country in 2016.

None of the mothers of the children who were diagnosed with the disease from 2012-2016 had been vaccinated against HPV prior to their pregnancy.

The study showed that in Australia, where HPV vaccination rates are high, new cases of the disease in children declined between 2012 and 2016, suggesting an additional benefit from HPV immunisation, which also protects against cancer-causing types of the virus.
Bonn, Nov 10 : Leaders from a wide range of sectors on Friday came together to announce a new set of initiatives to transition to renewable energy and to show that more ambitious clean energy development can quickly become a bigger part of national climate plans submitted under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

"With the price of renewable and storage technologies tumbling, and greater understanding on how to set the policy table for a cleaner energy mix and more integrated energy planning, the question before decision makers is, why wait?" said UN Secretary General's Special Representative Rachel Kyte, as per a statement.

Success stories, action and new commitments shared during Energy Day at the UN Climate Change Conference named COP23 here from businesses, states, cities and forward-thinking countries continue to show ambition to ensure the clean energy transition is not only underway but is irreversible.

"Our pledge to leave no one behind is a critical component of the Paris Agreement. The energy transition that we can see is underway and must be a transition towards energy systems around the world that secure sustainable energy for all," said Kyte, who is also the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All.

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Director-General Adnan Z. Amin said: "Two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions stem from energy production and use, which puts the energy sector front and centre of global efforts to combat climate change."

"Our analysis shows that renewables and energy efficiency can together provide over 90 per cent of the mitigation needed in the energy system by 2050 to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement, while also boosting the economy, creating jobs and improving human health and well-being," he said.

International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said: "The transition of the energy sector in the next decades will be critical to meeting shared climate and sustainable development goals. Widespread action by governments and private sector alike has helped keep global energy-related emissions flat the last three years."

The central goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement is to keep the average global temperature rise well below two degrees Celsius and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees.

About one degree of that rise has already happened, underlining the urgency to progress much further and faster with the global clean energy transformation.

Energy Day was organized by the Climate Group, International Energy Agency, IRENA and Sustainable Energy for All as part of a series of thematic action days held under the auspices of the Marrakech Partnership.

Meanwhile, IRENA's new report, 'Untapped Potential for Climate Action: Renewable Energy in Nationally Determined Contributions,' said the renewable energy components of current national climate plans lagged behind actual deployment trends, national energy targets and the cost-effective potential for accelerated deployment.

It suggests there is substantial scope for countries to cost-effectively increase the renewable energy ambitions set forth in their Nationally Determined Contributions so that they are aligned with the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.

Two years after the world united around the Paris Climate Agreement and a year after its entry into force, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's (UNFCCC) 197 parties have been reconvened for the 23rd annual climate change talks in Bonn till November 17.

The Bonn talks, which began on November 6, are expected to take a number of decisions necessary to bring the Paris Agreement to life, including meaningful progress on the agreement implementation guidelines, to achieve a goal of keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius with an aim to cut greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
Agartala, Nov 10 : Aiming to intensify the party's campaign in Left-ruled Tripura ahead of assembly polls early next year, a BJP parliamentary team will visit the state on Saturday to gather feedback on the prevailing situation, a BJP leader said here on Friday.

"A three-member parliamentary team of the BJP, led by Meenakshi Lekhi, would visit at least three districts of Tripura on Saturday and Sunday to study the law and order situation," state BJP President Biplab Kumar Deb told reporters.

The team would talk to a cross-section of people and BJP leaders and workers on various issues, including the killing of television journalist Shantanu Bhowmik, to gather feedback on the prevailing situation, he added.

"There is lawlessness in Tripura. CPI-M cadres are attacking BJP leaders and workers almost every day and police remain inactive on the directions of the government," Deb said, adding his party would raise the issue in Parliament's Winter Session."

He said the BJP wanted a CBI probe into the September 20 murder of Bhowmik but the government had set up a Special Investigation Team which he claimed was a 'B' team of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

The other members of the BJP Parliamentary teams are Prahlad Patel and Saroj Pandey.

Meanwhile, at least 10 CPI-M and BJP members were injured in a clash between the two parties at Bishalgarh in western Tripura's Sipahijala district on Thursday night.

"We have deployed adequate security forces in the trouble-torn areas. Both CPI-M and BJP members are also organising rallies on Friday," Sipahijala police chief Sudipta Das told IANS over phone.

"Police authorities likely to take action against a Tripura State Rifles jawan who was also involved in the political clash."

Of the ten injured, seven are admitted to hospital.
Mumbai, Nov 10 : Majid Majidi's maiden India-set project "Beyond The Clouds" will have its India premiere at the 48th International Film Festival of India, to be held from November 20-28 in Goa.

The Iranian filmmaker says he is curious to see the reaction of the audience.

Starring Ishaan Khatter and Malavika Mohanan in the lead roles, the movie celebrates the triumph and adoration of life against a Mumbai backdrop.

"Beyond The Clouds" has been invited to be the opening film at IFFI, 2017.

"This is my second time at the IFFI, Goa. The first time it was a retrospective of my earlier films and this time, it's for 'Beyond The Clouds'. I am very happy and curious to see the reactions of the audiences because this is the first time the film will be presented to Indian audiences," Majidi said in a statement.

The film presents an amalgamation of three languages (Hindi, Tamil and English) instead of it being shot and dubbed separately. Each language will form a major part of the film and will be used in the scenes and setups that befit those languages.

Produced by Zee Studios and Eyecandy Films, "Beyond The Clouds" is centred around a brother-sister relationship.

Majidi, along with the lead actors, Oscar winning music director A.R. Rahman, Hindi dialogue writer of the film Vishal Bhardwaj and producers Sujay Kutty, Business Head at Zee Studios and Shareen Mantri Kedia and Kishor Arora of Namah Pictures, is expected to attend the premiere on November 20.
Mumbai, Nov 10 : Actor Sidharth Malhotra, who will be seen sharing screen space with Manoj Bajpayee in "Aiyaary", says the National Award winning actor is amazing and a team player.

Sidharth on Thursday treated his fans to a question and answer session over Twitter.

A user asked the "Student Of The Year" actor about his experience working with Manoj in "Aiyaary".

Sidharth replied: "He's an amazing actor and a team player on set."

"Aiyaary", set in Delhi, London and Kashmir, revolves around two strong-minded Army officers having completely different views, yet right in their own ways. It is a real-life story based on the relationship between a mentor and a protege.

Presented by Plan C and Jayantilal Gada (Pen), the project is produced by Shital Bhatia, Dhaval Jayantilal Gada, Motion Picture Capital.

When asked about the development of the film, Sidharth replied: "Awesome. Excited to show it in a few months."

Sidharth, 32, also described his "Brothers" co-star Akshay Kumar as his "brother from another mother."
Kolkata, Nov 10 : Looking to climb a mountain against a virtually unbeatable India at home, Sri Lanka batsmen were seen negotiating spin and trying a lot of paddle-sweep shots during their long practice session ahead of the two-day warm-up game against Board President's XI starting here on Saturday.

Led by Dinesh Chandimal, the Lankans -- coming on the back of a 2-0 Tests whitewash of Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- the tourists toiled hard against local spinners for close to three hours in the morning.

The two-day tour match will take place at the Jadavpur University campus ground here.

Chinaman Lakshan Sandakan, who returned career-best figures of 5/132 against India in Pallekele during the first innings of the third Test three months back, bowled a lot of overs at the nets while veteran left-arm spinner Rangana Herath was restricted to a few overs.

Herath -- with 405 Test wickets from 85 matches -- is their highest wicket-taker in the side. The 39-year-old was also seen playing the mentor's role and advising the youngsters. Alongwith Herath, all-rounder Angelo Mathews was part of the Sri Lankan team that toured India in 2009.

Sri Lanka are without the services of promising batsman Kusal Mendis in this series with the selectors wanting to protect him from a further potential loss of form and confidence in India.

Mendis endured a modest Test series against Pakistan, in which his contributions were 10, 18, 1 and 29. Although he made an excellent century against India in August, he had crossed 50 in only two of his last 14 innings.

In his place, Dhananjaya de Silva, who fared well for Sri Lanka A on the West Indies tour with scores of 104, 73 and 64, was also seen sweating it out at the nets.

It is also a comeback for Mathews who could not play against Pakistan due to injury. Mathews also spent a lot of time at the nets.

After practice, the Lankans chose not to speak to the waiting media on the eve of their warm-up tie.

Kerala wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson will lead a third-string Board President's XI on Saturday against the Lankans. Samson on Friday made it clear that it would not be a "practice game" for them. Rather they would like to cash in on the opportunity of playing a top quality Test side.

Due to the ongoing Ranji Trophy, the Board has opted for an outfit primarily comprising players from Hyderabad, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab who are not featuring in the ongoing fifth round of the domestic meet.
Gandhinagar, Nov 10 : A PIL demanding stay on the release of film 'An Insignificant Man' based on AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been filed in the Gujarat High Court.

The PIL, filed on Thursday, has been posted for hearing on Monday.

The Gujarat Assembly elections are in December and the model code of conduct (MCC) is in effect right now.

Advocate Bhavik Samani filed the PIL seeking the Gujarat High Court's direction to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to restrain release of the film on the ground that the MCC is in effect in Gujarat in view of the assembly polls. He said that the film is scheduled to be released on November 17.

Somani has written to the Election Commission of India (ECI) saying 'An Insignificant Man' violates the MCC.

According to sources, AAP is likely to contest on 25 seats in Gujarat polls scheduled for December 9 and 14.

The trailer of the 100-minute documentary, which has real-life characters essaying the roles, has been out on the social media.

The lawyer has also requested the ECI to see that the film should not be viral on the internet too as it is an important medium of campaign and it can influence the voters to a great extent. Samani has dubbed the film as AAP's election propaganda material, and said it would not be shown under the party's election expenditure but as the producer's expenditure.

"The film includes real-life footages right from the rallies of Kejriwal and his team during the Jan Lokpal stir to poll campaigns at Delhi and other places," said Somani.

The advocate also argued that in the modern age of digitization, the spread of a film or its teaser could be an indirect advertisement of a particular party and also denial of opportunity of level playing field for other parties for free and fair elections.
Patna, Nov 10 : The BJP's youth wing in Bihar on Friday protested reservation in outsourced contractual appointments made by the state government and shouted slogans against party leader and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi for supporting the move.

Hundreds of slogan-shouting leaders and workers of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, with saffron flags, banners and badges on forehead, took out a march and staged a dharna outside the main gate of BJP state headquarters.

They were demanding a roll back of the reservation decision taken by the BJP-JD-U government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and threatened to launch a statewide protest if their demands are not considered.

The workers also expressed their anger against the Deputy Chief Minister for supporting reservation, saying it is against the interest of upper caste youths, who are jobless.

"We have protested against Modi, who has supported reservation in outsourced jobs... That is why we have chosen to stage dharna outside the BJP office," a protesting worker said.

Modi, who belongs to the Baniya caste, one of the powerful OBCs, has publicly supported the reservation move and claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party was on board with the decision.

However senior BJP leader and former Union Minister C.P. Thakur had earlier opposed the measure, saying reservations are not appropriate in outsourcing as this "may lead to social and public unrest that may become difficult to handle".

BJP MLC Sachidanand Rai also openly expressed his displeasure with the government's move. "I am not totally against the idea of reservation. But I strongly oppose the extending of quota in the outsourced jobs."

Both Thakur and Rai belong to powerful upper caste Bhumihar.

Last week, the Bihar Cabinet approved reservation in contractual appointments made by the state government through outsourcing. Nitish Kumar subsequently said that he favours reservation in private sector jobs.

Ignoring criticism of his proposal, Nitish Kumar said: "There must be a debate on reservation in private sector at the national level."
Ranchi, Nov 10 : Four security personnel were injured in a landmine blast triggered by Maoist guerrillas in Jharkhand's Latehar district on Friday, police said.

According to police, the blast took place when the security personnel were involved in an anti-Maoist operation in Latu jungle in Latehar district.

The injured security personnel were airlifted to Ranchi for treatment.

Jharkhand Police, along with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), have launched a massive operation against the Maoists in Budha Pahad in Garwah district. Top Maoist commanders Sukhdakaran and Arvind are said to be present in the jungle.

Maoist guerrillas are active in 18 of the 24 districts in the state.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : In an unusual order, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on Friday annulled an order by the Justice J. Chelameswar-led bench for the setting up of a five-judge constitution bench to hear an alleged bribery case involving a retired Orissa High Court judge, saying the CJI is the "Master of Rolls" who can assign cases and direct composition of benches.

Issuing the order, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra cited a 1998 order of the apex court that held that the Chief Justice of a High Court will be the Master of Rolls and assign cases to different benches.

The Justice Misra-headed bench said any order contrary to the 1998 judgement would be inactive in law and shall not be binding.

Extending the same principle, the bench said Chief Justice of India is the "Master of Rolls" in the top court and any order passed by any bench assigning any matter to itself or directing the composition of benches won't be binding.

The order came a day after the two-judge bench led by Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice of India, ordered the setting up of a five-judge bench to hear on Monday a corruption case involving former Orissa High Court judge, I.M. Quddusi.

Quddusi, an Orissa High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, is alleged to have helped a private medical college to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.

The judge was arrested in September and is lodged in Tihar Jail here after CBI accused him of guiding the private medical college and assuring its management of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court.

A petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal on Thursday sought an investigation into the case by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team. The petition was taken up for hearing by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar.

Jaiswal's petition was filed even as a plea by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms seeking a similar probe in the case was already listed before the bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri.

The court said the two petitions will be heard by an appropriate bench after two weeks and there will be no more hearing in the case till then.

Earlier, the Court took exception to the manner in which a second petition was filed, and was heard by another bench.

Taking exception to the manner the second petition was filed and entertained by the bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar, the bench of Justice Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan asked advocate Prashant Bhushan as to what was the urgency.

Making it clear that they were not underestimating the seriousness of the matter, the court in its order said that let the appropriate order be passed to tag the petition by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms with the one by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, which was referred to a five-judges constitution bench on Thursday by the bench of Justice Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.

Pleading ignorance about the second petition that was filed by Kamini Jaiswal, Bhushan said that since the allegations were in respect of the matter heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, he should not have exercised his administrative and judicial authority.

Referring to the FIR filed by the CBI in the matter, Bhushan said, "Whole conspiracy was to bribe the bench hearing the (medical college) matter". At this, Justice Sikri said that whether the Chief Justice should have dealt with the matter or stayed away should have been left to him.

"The request that the Chief Justice should not deal with the matter should have been made to him. He should have decided," said Justice Sikri.

Expressing its displeasure, the court on Friday allowed the Supreme Court Bar Association to implead itself in the matter before the five-judges bench.

The matter relates to the CBI investigation into a Orissa High Court judge assuring a Lucknow-based medical college set up by a trust to get round the court order not to admit students for two academic years - 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.
Mumbai, Nov 10 : Announcing the launch of Future Relics, an interactive installation that takes participants on a shared journey, connecting the past with the present whilst looking to the future, Google Arts and Culture unveiled its first lab experiment in India on Friday.

Part of the landmark "India and the World: A History in Nine Stories," exhibition that opened at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) on Friday, the Future Relics project blends ancient craft and modern technology to build relics for the future.

As visitors navigate the museum and come across the Future Relics installation, they will be asked to react to the question: "What object would you like archaeologists 1,000 years from now to remember our present day culture by?" Responding directly to India and the World's exploration of pots as story-telling objects, the Future Relics installation will invite audiences to pause and consider their own lives and stories within the context of the global histories presented by India and the World.

Speaking at the launch, Freya Murray, Programme Manager and Creative Lead, Google Cultural Institute Lab said: "Google Art and Culture brings cultural treasures of the world to the fingertips of art enthusiasts and culturally curious people. With our first-ever cultural lab experiment in India, we want to craft new bridges between technology and culture whilst giving audiences a new perspective of archeology in the digital age. We hope that visitors will enjoy interacting with Future Relics and becoming a part of a time capsule that will capture, as a growing landscape of pots, the most popular objects reflecting our lives today."

The contributions of visitors will provide future generations glimpses into the lives and stories of people who lived in the present day, just as the artefacts of the museum give a glimpse of those who lived and ruled in the first cities of India. From thousands of contributions, a collection of artifacts will be created digitally and at the end of the three-month-long exhibition, a special physical collection of 3D printed clay vases will be designed based on visitors' most popular contributions.

The Future Relics project was developed at the Google Cultural Institute Lab, which brings artists and engineers together to explore new ways to experience art and experiment with art and technology. The Lab is part of Google Arts and Culture, a new immersive way to experience art, history, culture and wonders of the world.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : A 24-year-old law student was shot dead here by an unidentified bike-borne assailant after a scuffle, police said on Friday.

Police said the incident took place on late Thursday night when the deceased, Ashish Bhardwaj, a final year law student of a Gurugram-based private college, was walking along with his friends, near their residence in Nala Road in Burari.

"The biker intervened and abused them for walking so late in the night which led to an altercation. They indulged in a scuffle and Bhardwaj's friends Anup and Himanshu tried to overpower the accused. The biker pulled out his pistol and fired at Bhardwaj," a senior police officer said.

Anup and Himanshu, who are preparing for the civil services examination, informed the police and Bhardwaj was taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead on arrival, the police officer said.

Bhardwaj stayed here with his elder brother.

"We are investigating the case to ascertain the identity of the accused person. A probe is on with all possible angles including personal animosity," he added.
Kolkata, Nov 10 : Megastar Amitabh Bachchan on Friday inaugurated the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), highlighting how unity in diversity and national integration are reflected in music in Indian cinema. National Award winning filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt appealed to storytellers to retain originality emphasising "lifeblood of entertainment is the right to free speech".

Speaking about collaborations of Hindu and Muslim artistes in the Indian playback industry, Amitabh spotlighted the true spirit of India: inclusivity without sectarian barriers.

"Since times immemorial, music and songs in Indian films have found its strength, its voice in our cinema. It has embraced the spirit of unity in diversity, encouraged secular, patriotic and social ideas, showcased India's wonderful culture and given us our unique identity," he said in the opening speech.

Tracing the influences of regional music in Indian cinema, the 75-year-old actor spoke about the "indelible" effect of music from West Bengal as also the importance of South Indian Carnatic music, the Lavni of Maharashtra, the Lohri and Bhangra from Punjab, the folk songs of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the nautanki music of Bihar and the vibrant Garbha of Gujarat in Indian cinema.

"Thus, our films in all their diversity have united us as Indians beyond petty regional prejudices," he said.

Drawing attention to the fact that music has been a regular feature in Indian films right from the birth of Indian talkies in 1931, Big B spoke about the emphasis on equality and freedom as also the role of music in challenging social vice.

"Often, Hindi films have emphasised democratic values of equality and freedom... most of us are aware of patriotic film songs like 'Mere desh ki dharti', 'Nanha munna rahi hun' .... and several others.

"The first patriotic ballad that took the country by storm was the superhit number 'Door haton duniya walon Hindustan hamara hai' from the Ashok Kumar starrer 'Kismat' way back in 1943 when such tracks were banned by the British Raj," he said.

However, he stressed "the most egalitarian and important aspect of Indian films is reflected in the fact that several Muslim composers have set to tune bhajans eulogising Hindu gods and goddesses".

Naushad's "Madhuban mein Radhika nache re" from "Kohinoor" is one such glowing example, he pointed out.

"Here is a Hindu bhajan composed by a Muslim, rendered also by a Muslim (Mohammed Rafi), the divine lyrics written by a Muslim poet (Shakeel Badayuni). What could be a better example of integration and amity," he asked.

"I am a proud Indian, an Indian that has lived in the era when Mohammed Rafi sang the song whose lyrics were written by Shakeel Badayuni, composed by Naushad and Dilip Kumar enacted them in completely fearless and secular situations often played by Hindu protagonists."

Citing examples from the works of Sahir Ludhianvi and Javed Akhtar, Amitabh lauded the "continued inclusiveness" of the film industry "without sectarian barriers."

"This then, is the true spirit of India.. the abiding lessons of our culture where humanity and empathy reign supreme, where love for our fellowmen and respect for all religions are the many-splendoured threads that weave our priorities without prejudice," he said.

Bhatt said: "Stories can either bring us together or throw us apart. It is very important that story tellers retain the right to be story busters because power centres insist that they put weight on us and make us tell their story We must fight them and retain our originality and see the world and interpret the world as we experience them for that is the right lifeblood of entertainment is the right to free speech and our founding fathers have given us that. Let us never never lose that."

Bhatt also praised the introduction of a category devoted to films in rare Indian languages.

British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Bollywood actress Kajol were also present at the opener.

Iranian film maker Mostafa Taghizadeh's "Yellow" was screened signalling the start of the event.

The festival will screen an assemblage of 143 films spanning 53 countries under 16 different categories till November 17.
Bengaluru, Nov 10 : Tipu Sultan Jayanti in honour of the 18th century Mysore ruler was held in Karnataka on Friday amidst mass protests, shutdowns and preventive arrests by the BJP and other right-wing organisations.

Tipu's 267th birth anniversary was celebrated with special functions at his birth place in Devanahalli village on Bengaluru's outskirts and in cities and towns that were part of his kingdom in the Deccan region.

In the state capital, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah inaugurated the event titled "Hazarath Tipu Sultan Jayanthi" at Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, in the presence of dignitaries.

The ruling Congress began celebrating the birth anniversary of the 18th century Mysore ruler on November 10 since 2015 to honour him as a patriot and remember his service to the people in the region.

However the Bharatiya Janata Party and various right-wing organisation are against the festival, as Tipu is perceived to have been anti-Hindu and alleged to have forcibly converted hundreds of Hindus during his reign in the last decade of the 18th century.

BJP lawmakers from Madikeri, Appachu Ranjan and Sunil Subramani were among the detained when they attempted to take out a protest rally, waving black against the ruling Congress for celebrating the birth anniversary of a tyrant.

Protests were held at several other places too despite police banning them.

"About 300 activists of the BJP and right wing organisations were arrested at Ballari, Madikeri, Mysuru, Mangaluru and Kalaburgi for defying the ban order enforced to ensure peaceful celebration of the festival," Karnataka Additional Director of Police, Law & Order, Kamal Pant told reporters here.

Kodagu district, especially Madikeri town, 270 km from Bengaluru, was shut down, as shops, hotels, markets and offices remained closed and buses stopped playing since 9 a.m. after a state-run transport bus was damaged in a stone-throwing incident.

Vehicular movement, including that of inter-state and intra-state buses and trucks, was also affected in the Mysuru region due to fear of attacks by protesters.

To prevent a repeat of violent protests that claimed one life in 2015, police had imposed prohibitory orders in Madikeri.

Security was tightened with the deployment of additional forces, including paramilitary troopers in Bengaluru, Kodagu, Mandya, Mysuru and Mangaluru to prevent untoward incidents and disruption of normal life.

About 200 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police, city armed police and 6,000 Home Guards were posted in sensitive areas till Saturday morning.

Eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali, Tipu (1750-1799) is also hailed as the "Tiger of Mysore" for fighting against the British East India Company to protect and enlarge his kingdom. He was killed in a battle with the British Army in 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatnam near Mysuru, about 120 km from Bengaluru.
Kolkata, Nov 10 : Wowing fans with a fresh attempt at Bangla at the opening of the 23rd Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) here on Friday, superstar Shah Rukh Khan sought a traditional Bengali 'dhoti' for the next edition, promising to be fluent in the regional language.

"I have promised that I will keep on learning Bangla. My Bengali has to get better. This is my new attempt with eight lines. Please bear with me. Let me get this right because by next year I have to do it without reading it off a paper," Shah Rukh said attired in a tuxedo while officiating as the co-host at the KIFF inaugural.

"Ei film festival er bishesh onusthane uposthith thakte pere sammanito bodh korchi. (I feel honoured to be present at this special event). Sanskriti ebong oitihjjyor ei shohor (Kolkata is the city of culture). Shob cheye Mishti Shohor Kolkata (It is the sweetest city)," said SRK to rousing applause.

The 52-year-old actor who is Bengal's brand ambassador, also requested a 'dhoti'.

"Next time I am going to ask my friends to give me a dhoti also... Come and speak in full Bengali... fluent also and be here," he said, congratulating State Chief Minister Minister Mamata Banerjee for organising the festival.

Banerjee on her part promised the attire.

"We will give a dhoti-panjabi to Shah Rukh. He has asked us," Banerjee added.
Lucknow, Nov 10 : The Uttar Pradesh Police on Friday brought out a booklet with a compilation of 'Get well soon' messages and other nice comments for the Swiss couple who were brutally assaulted and injured in Agra on October 22.

The booklet, which carries Twitter messages and news cuttings on the incident, was released by Director General of Police (DGP) Sulkhan Singh here.

The UP Police had launched a 'Get well soon' campaign for the Swiss couple, Quentin Jeremy Clerc and his partner Marie Droz, both in their 20s, who while strolling around a railway track in Fatehpur Sikri were attacked by local youth. The police had also appealed to people to tweet comments with the hashtag #GWSMarieAndJeremy.

Thousands has sent in their comments on this and they have been compiled in the book, Rahul Srivastava, PRO to the DGP, told IANS.

On the directions of the DGP, Srivastava and the SSP, Agra, Amit Pathak personally handed over a copy of the booklet to the deputy head of the Swiss mission in India, Tamara Mona, and Raveesh Kumar, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson.

Srivastava said the media in Switzerland has done stories on this campaign of the UP Police and the unique initiative has been appreciated a lot. "The idea was a goodwill gesture on the part of the UP Police. Initially our focus was to arrest the guilty and bring them to book, and after that we thought of the Swiss couple and their ordeal and decided to express our solidarity with them through this gesture in the form of a booklet," the official added.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday cleared a proposal for creation of a National Testing Agency (NTA), to conduct entrance tests which are at present being conducted by the CBSE.

An official statement said the NTA will be created as a Society registered under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860, and as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organization to conduct entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.

The NTA would initially conduct those entrance examinations which are currently being conducted by the CBSE. Other examinations will be taken up gradually by the NTA.

Apart from Class 10 and 12 board exams, CBSE conducts five other tests which include Joint Engineering Entrance (JEE), NEET, UGC's National Eligibility Test (twice a year), Central Teacher Eligibility Test (twice a year) and the entrance test for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas.

Under the NTA, the entrance examinations will be conducted in online mode at least twice a year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best, said a statement.

In order to serve the requirements of the rural students, it would locate the centres at sub-district and district level and as far as possible would undertake hands-on training to the students.

The NTA will be chaired by an eminent educationist appointed by Human Resources Development Ministry, the CEO will be the Director General, who will be appointed by the government and there will be a Board of Governors comprising members from user institutions.

The Director General of this body will be assisted by nine verticals headed by academicians and experts.

The NTA will be given a one-time grant of Rs 25 crore from the central government to start its operation in the first year. Thereafter, it is to be financially self-sustainable.

Establishment of NTA will benefit about 40 lakh students appearing in various entrance examinations. It will relieve the CBSE, AICTE and other agencies from responsibility of conducting these entrance examinations, and also bring in high reliability, standardized difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence and problem solving abilities of the students.

In view of the need to have a specialized body in India like the most advanced countries, the Finance Minister in the Budget speech of 2017-18 had announced setting up of a National Testing Agency (NTA) as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organization to conduct all entrance examinations for higher educational institutions.
Chandigarh, Nov 10 : India's first Military Literature Festival (MLF) will be held here in December as a tribute to the armed forces, whose contributions to the nation remain etched in history as iconic events, Punjab Local Bodies and Tourism and Culture Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu said Friday.

The MLF will be held here from December 7 to 9.

Sidhu told media here that Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, himself a military historian and author, was pioneering this initiative, which is being jointly promoted by the Punjab government and the Chandigarh Administration with the objective of spreading awareness about the subject among people.

Top thinkers, authors, historians, curators and experts related to defence matters will participate in the event, he said.

"With Punjab standing tall in terms of Param Vir Chakras won by its men, the festival is an apt and glowing tribute to the grit, courage and fearless determination of the country's defence personnel," Sidhu said.

Punjab Chief Minister's Senior Advisor, Lt. Gen. T.S. Shergill (retd), said military literature had ancient roots, with the longest poem, the Mahabharata, being all about warfare.

He also spoke about the relevance of technology to military and literature, underlining the importance of promoting all aspects of the subject.

Scores of books on defence and strategic affairs, including the wars that India has fought, have been written in the past many decades.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : India and Pakistan on Friday agreed for constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders as well as "utmost caution and care" in dealing with civilians during the bi-annual talks between the chiefs of both countries' border guarding forces.

The three-day 44th Director General-level meeting of the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers, which began on November 8 and ended on Friday, also saw both sides agreeing on more frequent meeting between field commanders. It was also decided that the next round of talks will be held in Pakistan.

"The talks were held in a constructive atmosphere. The need for cooperation to maintain the sanctity of the borders was stressed upon. The talks ended with both sides agreeing on constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders," a BSF official told IANS.

"It was agreed upon in deliberations that utmost caution and care should be exercised in dealing with the civilians. The need for timely exchange of information at the field level with increased frequency of field commanders-level meetings and simultaneous coordinated patrolling were also discussed."

A BSF statement said that the Indian side firmly and strongly took up specific issues of concern including incidents of unprovoked cross-border firing, smuggling of narcotics, infiltration attempts, tunnelling and defence construction activities.

"The issue of inadvertent crossing over by the border population and ways to facilitate their return on both the sides was also discussed," it said.

The 23-member Indian delegation was headed by Director General Border Security Force K.K. Sharma, and the 19-member Pakistan Rangers delegation was led by its Director General, Sindh, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Saeed.

Both the delegations also had representatives from respective Home and Foreign Ministries along with officers from narcotics control and survey departments.

The DG-level talks process between the BSF and Pakistan Rangers, aimed at reviewing the implementation of the agreed norms of cooperation between the two border guarding forces, was started after a decision taken in a Home Secretary-level meeting held in Islamabad in May 1989.
Patna, Nov 10 : Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in a bid to improve the country's economy.

"Modi should remove or change the Finance Minister if we want to improve the country's economic condition," Yaswant Sinha, himself a former Finance Minister, told the media here.

He said Jaitley should be replaced by someone who can handle the Finance Ministry "properly".

Sinha also attacked the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by saying that "GST ne desh ki arthik waywastha ko kabada kar diya" (GST has ruined the national economy).

He said Jaitley had been repeatedly amending the GST but insisted that the tax regime would not work.

"Jaitely as the Finance Minister did not apply his brain when he prepared and implemented the GST. This is evident the way he has been tinkering it time and again. Even today some changes have been made. But any patchwork will not work. GST needs an overhaul."

Sinha asked Modi to set up a high-level committee headed by economist Vijay Kelkar to study GST and suggest remedial measures.

Earlier, Sinha rubbished Modi's claim that demonetization and GST were successful, saying both exercises had actually failed.

"Notebandi and GST failed as their objectives were not fulfilled. None of the black money has returned to the banks" after Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were scrapped in November last year, he said.

"But as usual the central government has been telling lies to claim that it was a success," he said at a function organised by rebel JD-U leader Uday Narain Choudhary.

Accusing the Modi government of not being serious about fighting corruption, he asked why a probe had not been ordered into the business dealings of Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah's son Jay Shah.
Johannesburg, Nov 10 : Are you worrying too much about money issues? Beware as you may be putting your heart at risk.

A new study has claimed that people suffering from financial stress are at a 13 times higher risk of having heart attack.

Researchers say people, majorly in the developing countries, are experiencing a hike in the chronic diseases of lifestyle such as myocardial infarction -- a medical condition that develops a blockage of blood flow to the heart muscle.

Therefore, psychosocial aspects of the body, especially stress related to finances, deserve more attention in order to prevent the increasing rate of cardiovascular diseases.

"Our study suggests that psychosocial aspects are important risk factors for acute myocardial infarction. Often patients are counselled about stress after a heart attack but there needs to be more emphasis prior to an event," said Denishan Govender, Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

"Few doctors ask about stress, depression or anxiety during a general physical and this should become routine practice, like asking about smoking. Just as we provide advice on how to quit smoking, patients need information on how to fight stress," Govender added.

The researchers studied over 106 patients suffering from acute myocardial infarction but without any symptoms of cardiac diseases.

All participants completed a questionnaire about depression, anxiety, stress, work stress, and financial stress. The levels of psychological stress based on social conditions were compared and associated with chances of having heart attack.

The paper, presented in the Annual South Africa Heart Congress 2017, noted that self-reported stress levels were common among all participants.

There was also a three-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction if a patient had experienced any level of depression compared to those with no depression.
Da Nang (Vietnam), Nov 10 : Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday championed the "cause of globalisation" at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in contrast to US President Donald Trump who advocated for "bilateral policies".

"Over the last few decades, economic globalisation has contributed significantly to global growth. Indeed, it has become an irreversible historical trend," Xi said during the APEC summit meeting in Vietnam.

He called for economic globalisation that is more "open, inclusive, balanced, fair and beneficial" for all, Efe news reported.

Xi called for greater trade integration in the Asia and Pacific region and for global trade based on multilateralism.

He further stressed the need for a vision of multilateral trade that allowed developing members greater benefits from trade and investment.

While speaking at the meeting, the US President criticised multilateral agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which he pulled out in January, and advocated for "bilateral trade agreements" based on fairness and reciprocity.

Trump further spoke against large scale agreements which "tied our hands and surrendered our sovereignty".

"Many opportunities for mutually beneficial investments were lost because people could not trust the system. We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses, and we will not tolerate them," Trump said.

He claimed that in the past his country opened its economy without imposing any conditions but this attitude was not reciprocated and denounced that the World Trade Organisation had admitted members who did not follow the rules of the institution.

The APEC, founded in 1989, has agreed to establish a free trade network between its 21 member economies by 2020.

The APEC is made up of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, the US, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam.

The bloc accounts for 59 per cent of global GDP, 49 per cent of global trade and constitutes a market of around 2.85 billion consumers.
Varanasi, Nov 10 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi on Friday was the worst polluted city in the country even as the entire focus of battling toxic air quality remained fixed on Delhi and NCR.

Varanasi beat Delhi and its suburbs with average Air Quality Index (AQI) of 491 at 4 p.m.

In the national capital and its adjoining regions, the average air quality was 468.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitors air quality in 48 districts across the country. On Friday, 12 areas had "severe" air quality of which six were from Uttar Pradesh.

According to CPCB's data, PM2.5 or particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 mm, the pollutant that has direct health impacts, was the major cause of air quality deterioration in Varanasi.

According to the officials of Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), the dust from construction works in Varanasi was the major cause of pollution.

"Varanasi has no polluting industry around, and it (pollution) is because most of its roads are dug up and drains are being constructed, so there is heavy civil construction going on. This is the reason of high bad AQI value," UPPCB's Varanasi Regional Officer Anil Kumar Singh told IANS.

Pointing out that dust pollution, along with sudden dip in temperature in the entire region, was the major cause of poor air quality in Varnasi, Singh said: "Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are all under control."

The UPPCB uses CPCB's monitoring stations in Varansi.

Following Varanasi, other polluted cities in India under CPCB's monitoring included Ghaziabad (485), Gurugram (480), Noida (470), Delhi (468), Bhiwadi (463), Lucknow (462), Kanpur (461), Patna (428), Faridabad (428), Muzaffarpur (409) and the Taj city Agra (404).
Islamabad, Nov 10 : Pakistan on Friday announced that the wife of alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a military court, can meet him "purely on humanitarian grounds".

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said a Note Verbale to this effect was sent to the Indian High Commission here on Friday.

"The government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds," a two-para statement from the ministry said.

Islamabad has said that Jadhav, allegedly an officer with the Indian Navy and attached to the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was arrested on March 3, 2016 after he crossed illegally into Pakistan.

Friday's statement said Jadhav had "confessed" in a Pakistani court "that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan".
Chandigarh, Nov 10 : Six armed men looted Rs 1.18 crore from a private bank's cash van near Jalandhar city in Punjab on Friday, police said.

The unidentified men came on three motorycycles and forced the HDFC Bank cash van to stop near Manak Rai village, about 25 km from Jalandhar.

The vehicle was being operated by a private security agency and there were two bank employees and two security guards in it.

The van was carrying Rs 2.16 crore in cash to be distributed to various ATMs in rural areas.

Police said no resistance was offered by the security guards. "We are investigating the matter from various angles," a police officer said.
Srinagar, Nov 10 : Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday said threat posters by the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit asking parents to keep youths away from functions of the army and other security forces were "irrelevant".

Threat posters by Hizbul Mujahideen were seen pasted at many places on Friday in south Kashmir Tral town that asked parents not to send their boys and girls to sports, cultural and other programmes sponsored by the army, police and other security forces.

State Director General of Police (DGP) S.P. Vaid said in summer capital Srinagar: "This is not the first time that such threat posters have appeared. These are irrelevant and have no impact."
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Months after Indian and Chinese troops disengaged after a standoff situation on the Doklam plateau of Bhutan, India and the Himalayan kingdom on Friday held the annual bilateral development cooperation talks here.

Terming the talks an important bilateral mechanism to review the entire gamut of India's development partnership with Bhutan, the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement that India has committed assistance of Rs 4,500 crore for implementation of development projects during Bhutan's 11th Five Year Plan that ends next year.

The Indian delegation in the talks was led by Vijay Gokhale, Secretary, Economic Relations, in the Ministry of External Affairs, while the Bhutanese delegation was led by the country's Foreign Secretary Dasho Sonam Tshong.

There are a number of institutional mechanisms between India and Bhutan in areas such as security, border management, trade, transit, economic, hydro-power, development cooperation and water resources.

India is Bhutan's largest trading partner. In 2016, bilateral trade stood at Rs 8,723 crore with total imports being Rs 5,528.5 crore (82 per cent of Bhutan's total imports) and exports recorded at Rs 3,205.2 crore including electricity (90 per cent of Bhutan's total exports).

India has set up three hydroelectric projects in Bhutan totalling 1,416 MW, which are operational and exporting surplus power - amounting as much as three-fourths - to India.

According to Friday's External Affairs Ministry statement, the Bhutanese side conveyed appreciation of for the "invaluable support" from India for their socio-economic development priorities, and for timely disbursement of funds for ongoing projects.

"The two sides also initiated discussions on Government of India's assistance to the 12th Five Year Plan (2018-2023) of the Royal Government of Bhutan," the statement said.

Friday's talks come close on the heels of the Bhutanese royal family's goodwill visit to India earlier this month.

President Ram Nath Kovind deeply appreciated Bhutan King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck's role in resolving the standoff when the King, accompanied by Queen Jetsun Pema Wangchuk and Prince Jigme Namgyal Wangchuk, called on him at Rashtrapati Bhavan here on November 1.

Indian and Chinese troops were locked in an over two-month-long standoff at the Doklam plateau.

The crisis, which erupted in June over Chinese moves to build a road in an area claimed by Bhutan, ended in August, with both sides deciding to "disengage" from the face-off point.

While India and Bhutan said that Beijing's move violated the status quo in the India-Bhutan-China international trijunction, China claimed that it was its territory.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The government on Friday deplored the comments by Leo Heller, the United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, about Mahatma Gandhi's glasses, which is also the logo of the Swachh Bharat Mission, and said he had shown "serious insensitivity".

In a hard-hitting statement, the government said the UNSR's "rambling report" on human rights and water supply and sanitation in India had "biases", "inaccuracies" and he had made "sweeping judgements which were factually incorrect".

It said the UNSR had looked at the Swachh Bharat Mission with "a tinted lens".

Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM), a flagship programme of the BJP-led government, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, 2014.

Rejecting Heller's "mostly baseless assertions", the government said SBM and the rural and urban drinking water programmes fully conform to the Human Rights Criteria and Principles as established by the United Nations system.

"The Government has the highest commitment to human rights in general and particularly in the water supply and sanitation sectors and strongly rejects the claims in the UNSR's report and press statements," the statement issued by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation said.

"The government has deplored the serious insensitivity towards the Father of our Nation shown by Leo Heller, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation," the statement said.

It said Heller, in a press release on Friday had said: "Now is a critical time to replace the lens of those glasses (Gandhi's glasses) with the human rights lens."

The government said that the world knows that Mahatma Gandhi was the foremost proponent of human rights, including for sanitation, which was his unique and special focus.

"Gandhiji's glasses, the unique logo of the Swachh Bharat Mission, epitomise core human rights principles," it said.

The release said that UNSR on human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation undertook a visit to India from October 27 to November 10, 2017.

"While, the UNSR appears to compliment India's efforts in recent years in addressing gaps in water and sanitation services through an `unprecedented commitment, he goes on to make sweeping judgements which are either factually incorrect, based on incomplete information, or grossly misrepresent the drinking water and sanitation situation on the ground," the statement said.

"Admitting that `two weeks is not sufficient to fully understand all aspects of the situation of human rights to water and sanitation in a country as big, diverse and complex in India', he (Keller) still goes ahead to make the unsubstantiated allegation that human rights principles have not been properly addressed in India's water and sanitation programmes," it added.

The statement referred to "incomplete understanding of water and sanitation in India," and said the UNSR has "failed to acknowledge the paradigm shift in national sanitation policy which has moved from construction of toilets to open defecation free communities and (he) seems to be looking at the SBM from a tinted lens."

The government said Keller also attempts to question the findings of a third party - a national survey by the Quality Council of India - that usage of toilets was above 91 per cent and had "misleadingly" compared it with a survey of only 1,024 households by Water Aid which focused on toilet technology and not on usage.

It denied the UNSR's allegations, citing a report by a private organisation, about the lack of toilets in government schools.

The statement said an unprecedented programme to ensure separate toilets for boys and girls in every school was successfully implemented between August 2014 and August 2015.

On UNSR's claims about "inadequate attention and funds for water supply," the statement said Rs 1,20,000 crore has been invested by the Centre and states into rural drinking water since the launch of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) in 2009. It said Rs 40,000 crore has been invested by the Central government on urban water supply since 2005.

It said an additional Rs 40,000 crore was devolved every year to rural local bodies and most states have invested heavily on drinking water both for rural and urban sectors.

"The above are only a few examples of the inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases revealed in the UNSR's rambling report (often confusing between rural and urban)."

It said the report has been produced after only a two week visit with "fleeting trips" to a few states.

The government also listed the achievements under SBM, including in districts getting open defecation free (ODF) status and also under drinking water programmes.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday met Democratic Republic of Congo's Vice Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister Leonard She Okitundu and discussed ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

"Both sides reviewed the current state of bilateral relations and discussed priority areas for future cooperation," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"They expressed satisfaction over the close and friendly relations between the two countries," it added.

India is a major development aid partner of the central African nation and has extended several lines of credit, including over $350 million for hydro-electric power generation and transmission projects.

Congo is also a major beneficiary of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation and Indian Council for Cultural Relations scholarships.

Total bilateral trade stands at $286.41 million, tilted heavily in India's favour. India's main exports include pharmaceutical products, vehicles, nuclear reactors, electrical machinery and equipment and cotton.

According to the ministry statement, Sushma Swaraj conveyed India's continuing support for developmental partnership including Lines of Credit and capacity building in the DRC.

It said that Okitundu "expressed the desire for stepping up cooperation in areas such as mining, education and electoral processes".

The Congolese Vice Prime Minister also thanked India for its contribution of troops to UN peace keeping operations in his country.

India has been increasing its engagement with Africa, including through a series of high-level visits in the last two years. New Delhi hosted the India Africa Forum Summit in October 2015 that drew all 54 African nations.

This year, India hosted the annual meeting of the African Development Bank.

Friday's meeting was Sushma Swaraj's fourth such engagement with African nations in two months. Earlier this month, she met her counterpart from Guinea and in October those from Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Union Agriculture Ministry on Friday said it has issued an advisory to state governments to check stubble burning that caused severe pollution in the National Capital Region in the last few days.

The advisory came in the wake of the National Green Tribunal's (NGT) strict warning to states for measures to stop stubble burning.

The ministry has asked the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to create awareness among the farmers about the harmful effects of straw burning and provide the necessary means to them for effective disposal of the stubble.

It has also directed the states to use the funds of Rs 4,000 per hectare available under the Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization to provide straw management machinery and equipment to farmers, as per the release.

These include zero till seed drill, happy seeder, straw baler, rotavator, paddy straw chopper or mulcher, gyro rake, straw reaper and shredder.

The ministry has also asked the states to make available the machinery and equipment through custom hiring centres or village level farm machinery banks.
Gandhinagar, Nov 10 : A three-day BJP meeting chaired by party chief Amit Shah to select candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections began at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's house on Friday.

The meeting will conclude on Sunday. The list of finalized names will be presented at the BJP parliamentary board meeting to be held on November 15 in Delhi.

Besides Rupani, the meeting that began in the evening is also being participated by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, BJP state president Jitu Vaghani, the Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and other senior party leaders. Shah will finalize a panel of list of candidates prepared at the state level.

Elections are less than a month away, and like all parties, the BJP too is planning full-fledged for it. The party, though unwilling to admit, faces an anti-incumbency in the state where it has been in power for more than two decades. Many agitations depicting issues of various communities have surfaced after the exit of then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the state politics.

Friday's meeting agenda is likely to focus on the candidatures of 89 state assembly constituencies, which comprises of 14 districts.

According to sources, the party might consider fielding Patidar candidates for eight of the south Gujarat constituencies and 24 constituencies of Saurashtra region. As has been in the past, the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been known to go for the no-repeat theory, where many sitting MLAs' names are likely to be chopped.

The finalization of candidates will be done by the national parliamentary board at a two-day meeting in Delhi scheduled on November 14 and 15. Considering the fact that the elections are going to be held in two phases, there is likelihood of three panels of the list being prepared at the state meeting.

The saffron party has to face many fronts other than the opposition Congress, like the Dalit community's ire, the recently evolved Karadia Rajput agitation against state president Jitu Vaghani, the Thakore community, which has been going against the saffron party. On top of that is the Patidar agitation, led by young turk Hardik Patel, who has pledged non-cooperation and opposition to the saffron party.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday gave its approval to a proposal to strike an agreement with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China for transparency in tax matters.

According to an official statement, the Cabinet gave its nod to the proposal to enter into an agreement with China's HKSAR for avoidance of double taxation and prevention of evasion of taxes on income.

The statement said the agreement would stimulate flow of investment, technology and personnel from India to HKSAR and vice versa, prevent double taxation and facilitate exchange of information between the two contracting parties.

"It will improve transparency in tax matters and will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance," the statement added.
Rabat, Nov 10 : Morocco and Hungary on Friday signed several cooperation agreements on the sidelines of the 3rd session of the Joint Economic Commission.

The session was held under the co-presidency of Morocco's Secretary of State for Foreign Trade Rkia Derham and Hungarian Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy Levente Magyar.

The two countries signed an industrial cooperation agreement aimed at boosting cooperation in industry through the exchange of experiences, information, statistical data and publications.

The agreement is also aimed at strengthening the partnership between the institutions in charge of promoting small and medium-sized enterprises and developing cooperation between the Moroccan Office for Industrial and Commercial Property and its Hungarian counterpart.

A draft triennial programme for cultural cooperation aimed at strengthening cultural ties was also signed.

The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation between the Moroccan Normalization Institute and the National Accreditation Body of Hungary.

An agreement between Morocco's Institute of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine and the Hungarian National Agricultural Research and Innovation Centre was also inked with a view to establishing cooperation in the fields of sustainable agriculture, climate change and agroforestry.
Hyderabad, Nov 10 : Two Bahraini nationals and a 'qazi' (Islamic judge) were arrested on Friday for trafficking of girls in the guise of marriage, police said.

The arrested Bahraini nationals have been identified as Mohamed Mahmood Abdul Rehman Mahmood and his brother Yousuf Mahmood Abdul Rahman Mahmood Khairi.

The arrests were made during the continuing investigations into a huge racket involving aged Arab nationals marrying minor girls from poor families with the connivance of brokers and qazis.

According to police, Kulsum Begum had lodged a complaint with Bhavaninagar police station in the old city that Mohamed Mahmood Abdul Rehman Mahmood married her 29-year-old daughter on May 24.

After marriage, the Bahraini nationals took her daughter home as a maid servant and after fulfilling their sexual desire, they sent her back, said Deputy Commissioner of Police V. Satyanarayana They were arrested following a tip-off that they were in Hyderabad again to marry another girl.

Police also arrested Qazi Askar Ali Rafai who had performed the marriage and owner of a flat who had given shelter to the Bahraini nationals.

In another case, police arrested five persons including two women brokers in connection with the marriage of a 64-year-old Omani national with a minor girl.

Salma Begum had lodged a complaint on Thursday that her 14-year-old daughter was married to Shaik Sagharoun Salim Abdullah of Oman in 2014.

Three women brokers lured the poor family into performing the marriage with the foreigner, who was in touch with two other brokers Naser Bin Mahmood and his brother Fathe Bin Mahmood. They struck the deal for Rs 1 lakh.

After the marriage, Abdullah spent a week with the girl in a lodge. He later returned to Oman and sent visa for the girl. She spent two years in Oman before returning in March this year on health grounds.

Police said as Abdullah was harassing the girl over phone to make her return to Oman, she went to Doha on maid servant's visa but was tortured by her employer.

Siddiq Ahmed, the qazi who performed the marriage, and a woman broker were absconding.

The police officer said south Zone Police has setup a special information system to collect the information about Arab nationals coming to Hyderabad for contract marriages.

In September, police had busted the racket with the arrest of 20 people including five Omani, three Qatari nations, five local brokers, three qazis and four lodge owners.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The central government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it will bring a bill during the Winter Session of Parliament to amend the Representation of People Act for allowing Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) to exercise their franchise from their offshore locations.

Seeking that the matter be adjourned for six months, the central government on Friday told the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud that permitting the NRIs to vote from their overseas location was being done through legislation that will be brought during the Winter Session of Parliament.

However, the court adjourned the hearing for 12 weeks.

In the earlier hearing of the matter on July 21, the top court had asked the central government to tell it the time it would require for bringing a bill to amend the Representation of People Act.

A team of ministers had on July 20, 2017, decided that to "facilitate external modes of voting to the overseas electors, amendment to the Representation of People Act, 1951 would be required by way of introduction of Bill in Parliament", the bench was told during the July 21 hearing.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : India and Pakistan on Friday agreed on "constant endeavour" to maintain peace on borders, "utmost caution and care" in dealing with civilians as well as resuming commandant-level talks to resolve local issues during the bi-annual talks between chiefs of their border guarding forces.

The three-day 44th Director General-level meeting of the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Pakistan Rangers, which began on November 8 and ended on Friday, also saw both sides agreeing on more frequent meeting between field commanders.

The border guarding forces have decided to initiate dialogue at the local level, a practice suspended one and a half years ago. Both the forces have agreed to the proposal and the meetings would be held at regular intervals.

It was also decided that the next round of talks will be held in Pakistan.

"The talks were held in a constructive atmosphere. The need for cooperation to maintain the sanctity of the borders was stressed upon. The talks ended with both sides agreeing on constant endeavour to maintain peaceful and tranquil borders," a BSF official told IANS.

"It was agreed upon in deliberations that utmost caution and care should be exercised in dealing with the civilians. The need for timely exchange of information at the field level with increased frequency of field commanders-level meetings and simultaneous coordinated patrolling were also discussed."

A BSF statement said that the Indian side firmly and strongly took up specific issues of concern including incidents of unprovoked cross-border firing, smuggling of narcotics, infiltration attempts, tunnelling and defence construction activities.

"The issue of inadvertent crossing over by the border population and ways to facilitate their return on both the sides was also discussed," it said.

The 23-member Indian delegation was headed by Director General Border Security Force K.K. Sharma, and the 19-member Pakistan Rangers delegation was led by its Director General, Sindh, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Saeed.

Both the delegations also had representatives from respective Home and Foreign Ministries along with officers from narcotics control and survey departments.

The DG-level talks process between the BSF and Pakistan Rangers, aimed at reviewing the implementation of the agreed norms of cooperation between the two border guarding forces, was started after a decision taken in a Home Secretary-level meeting in Islamabad in May 1989.
New Delhi, Nov 11 : The Supreme Court on Friday axed an order passed by a bench headed by Justice J. Chelameswar to set up a constitution bench to hear a plea for a SIT probe into graft allegation involving a retired Orissa High Court judge, amidst high drama involving noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Chief Justice Dipak Misra and fellow lawyers.

A five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice Misra, Justice R.K. Agrawal, Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said that the CJI was the "Master of Rolls" and he alone can assign cases to different benches and decide composition of benches.

After a 90-minute hearing, the bench cited its 1998 judgement that held that the Chief Justice of a High Court was the master of roll and said that same applied to the top court, adding that there can be no doubt that the CJI is the first amongst the equals, and definitely exercises certain administrative powers.

Referring to convention and top court rules in this respect, the order said that any order passed contrary to this will be "ineffective in law and shall not be binding on the CJI".

It also said that unless the position about the CJI's powers "is clearly stated, there will be utter confusion" and affect the court's smooth functioning.

"..., there cannot be any direction to the Chief Justice of India as to who shall be sitting on the Bench or who shall take up the matter as that touches the composition of the Bench. We reiterate such an order cannot be passed. It is not countenanced in law and not permissible."

Earlier, complaining that he was not being allowed to speak, an emotional Prashant Bhushan told the bench it can do whatever it wanted, as fellow lawyers heckled him while he was leaving.

The hearing that started with Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha addressing the bench first, saw senior lawyers including SCBA president Rupinder Singh Suri, its secretary Gaurav Bhatia, senior counsel Ajit Sinha, Ashok Bhan, Supreme Court Advocate on Record president Gopal Singh, and other lawyers training their guns at Bhushan for raking up cases hurting the credibility of the Supreme Court as an institution.

However, an unrelenting Bhushan reiterated the plea that Chief Justice Misra should not be part of the bench hearing pleas seeking an SIT probe into the role of a retired Orissa High Court judge and pointed fingers at the CJI.

As Bhushan lost his cool in the initial stages of the hearing and levelled allegations against the CJI, Justice Arun Mishra told him that his "conduct was not proper".

"No condemnation in the court. We are not here for this," Justice Mishra said as some lawyers sought to condemn the conduct of Bhushan.

As some lawyers wanted the bench to haul up Bhushan for contempt, CJI Misra said: "He is not worth contempt." However, he remarked that "the court can't function like this".

The Chief Justice also rejected the suggestion that media be restrained from reporting the proceedings and that it be held in-camera.

"I am not going to pass any order to restrain media. I hold the freedom of speech and expression in the highest regard," he said.

Friday's order came a day after the two-judge bench headed by Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice, ordered the setting up of a five-judge constitution bench to hear on Monday a corruption case involving former Orissa High Court judge, I.M. Quddusi.

Quddusi, who was the High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, is alleged to have helped a private medical college to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.

The judge was arrested in September and is lodged in Tihar Jail here after CBI accused him of guiding the private medical college and assuring its management of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court.

A petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal on Thursday sought an investigation into the case by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team. The petition was taken up for hearing by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar.

Jaiswal's petition was filed even as a plea by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms seeking a similar probe in the case was already listed before the bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri.

The five-judge bench on Friday said the two petitions will be heard by an appropriate bench after two weeks and there will be no more hearing in the case till then.

Earlier in the day, the bench of Justice Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan took exception to the manner in which the second petition by Jaiswal was filed, and was heard by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar, asking Bhushan as to what was the urgency.

Making it clear that they were not underestimating the seriousness of the matter, the court in its order said let the appropriate order be passed to tag the petition with the one by Jaiswal, which was referred to a five-judges constitution bench on Thursday by the bench of Justice Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.

Pleading ignorance about the second petition, Bhushan said that since the allegations were in respect of the matter heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Misra, he should not have exercised his administrative and judicial authority.

Referring to the FIR filed by the CBI in the matter, Bhushan said, "Whole conspiracy was to bribe the bench hearing the (medical college) matter". At this, Justice Sikri said that whether the Chief Justice should have dealt with the matter or stayed away should have been left to him.

Expressing its displeasure, the court on Friday allowed the Supreme Court Bar Association to implead itself in the matter before the five-judges bench.
Gurugram, Nov 10 : BJP leaders in Haryana are a divided lot after the CBI declared that the murderer of a Class 2 student here was a senior schoolmate and not a bus conductor as alleged by Haryana Police.

The investigation into Pradhuman Thakur's gory killing took a dramatic twist on Wednesday when the CBI arrested a Class 11 student, also of Ryan International School here, and charged him with murdering the young boy in the school washroom on September 8.

Haryana PWD, Forest and Civil Aviation Minister Rao Narbir Singh came in support of the Haryana Police investigation and called the arrest of the Ryan student by CBI "unjustified".

"I am not able to digest the outcome of the investigation carried out by the CBI. The Haryana Police probe was more acceptable," said Narbir Singh, a BJP MLA from Badhshahpur constituency of Gurugram.

But Rao Inderjit Singh, a central government minister and an MP from Gurugram, backed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

He said the CBI was the top investigating agency in the country and people always demanded a probe by CBI when they were not satisfied by investigation done by local police.

He said the Haryana Police had implicated some people in a murder and gang-rape case in Dingar Heri village near Gurugram two years ago.

Later, the case was handed over to the CBI, which gave a clean chit to the jailed accused and arrested the real culprits.

Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij demanded strong action against officers of Haryana Police who investigated the Ryan murder.

The BJP MLA from Gurugram also sought stringent action against police officers who ended up arresting bus conductor Ashok Kumar for Pradhuman's murder.

The police arrested Kumar on September 8. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar handed over the murder case to the CBI.

The CBI began probing the case from September 22 and arrested the Ryan student on November 8, It also gave a clean chit to the conductor.
Guwahati, Nov 10 : In a major revamp of the GST tax structure, the GST Council on Friday removed 178 items from the highest 28 per cent category while cutting the tax on all restaurants outside starred-hotels to 5 per cent but withdrawing input credit facility for them. Industry welcomed the changes saying these would boost consumer demand Only 50 products, including luxury and sin items, white goods, cement and paints, automobiles, aeroplane and yacht parts have been retained in the top 28 per cent slab.

"The GST Council has decided to slash tax slabs of 178 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. It will be applicable from 15th of this month (November)," Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while briefing media persons after the two-day meeting here.

West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra earlier told reporters that the loss on account of a "hasty and ill-designed" GST had resulted in the exchequer losing around Rs 60,000 crore for the Centre and Rs 30,000 crore for the states in just the first three months.

With the latest decisions, GST has been cut on a host of consumer items such as chocolates, chewing gum, shampoo, deodorant, shoe polish, detergents, nutrition drinks, marble and cosmetics.

Luxury goods such as washing machines and air conditioners have been retained at 28 per cent.

"Thirteen items, which were earlier under 18 per cent, have been brought down to 12 per cent. Six goods have come down from the 18 per cent slab to five per cent, eight items have come down from 12 per cent to 5 per cent and six items from 5 per cent to zero tax," Jaitley said.

Eating out has become cheaper as all restaurants outside high-end hotels charging over Rs 7,500 per room will uniformly levy GST of 5 per cent. The facility of input tax credit for restaurants is, however, being withdrawn as they had not passed on this benefit to consumers, Jaitley said.

Restaurants in hotels with rooms above Rs 7,500 per day would continue to pay 18 per cent GST with the benefit of input credit.

The GST Council also made changes in return filing procedures to reduce the compliance burden for the small taxpayers. It decided that filing GSTR 3B would continuing till March 31, 2018.

"All taxpayers will continue to file GSTR 3B. In case of small tax payer or nil tax payments, 3B will be simplified so that in two or three steps one can easily file their return," Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters.

"The Council also decided that for this fiscal, only GSTR 1 will be filled and because we are running in a backlog -- where we will file return for July only by December 11," he said.

"For taxpayers above Rs 1.5 crore turnover and who have large number of invoices, we do not want to keep their returns pending for a quarter and instead they should file their invoices monthly," he added.

The Council also decided that penalty for late filing for a 'Nil' tax payer would now be at Rs 20 per day from the earlier Rs 200, and for others, it was cut to Rs 50 per day.

The Council deferred a decision on bringing real estate under GST to its next meeting, for lack of time.

Welcoming the changes, industry body Assocham said these would lead to a pickup in consumer demand and help revive business sentiment.

"The increase in the composition scheme threshold would make life much easier for the small business entities," Assocham Secretary General D.S. Rawat said in a statement.

Deloitte India Partner Mahesh Jaising said: "The reduction in GST rates should reduce the burden on the common man. Hopefully, this is the start to the changes which are eagerly anticipated."

Abhishek Jain, Tax Partner, EY said the Council meeting had produced "a mixed bag for the real estate sector with positives like rates of granite and marble being lowered from the current 28 per cent to 18 per cent, and negatives like non-alteration of cement rates."

"As typically, GST in relation to construction becomes a cost to most, non lowering of the significant tax costs of cement has disappointed the construction industry and customers as a whole," he said.
Rajkot, Nov 10 : India top-order batsman Cheteshwar Pujara missed out on a successive double hundred but helped Saurashtra post a commendable 570 against Gujarat in the first innings of their Group B Ranji Trophy tie here on Friday.

Pujara (182) stitched together a 253-run stand for the second wicket along with fellow overnight centurion Snell Patel (156) as Gujarat's 17-year old left-arm spinner Siddharth Desai returned best figures of 4/154.

Pujara, who scored 204 against Jharkhand in Saurashtra's previous encounter, put on 69 runs with Jaydev Shah (46) and then 53 with Prerak Mankad, who made 62 off 77 balls.

There was also a useful contribution from Chirag Jani, who finished with an unbeaten 46.

At stumps on the second day, Gujarat skipper and veteran stumper Parthiv Patel was batting on 29 while opener Priyank Panchal was not out on 12 as the hosts trailed by 525 runs.

In a Group A match, the Karnataka batsmen continued their good work on the second day as well with India discard Stuart Binny converting his overnight score of 14 into a well-crafted 118 off 155. Mayank Agarwal (169 overnight) made 176 off 250 balls before Nitish Rana got him run out.

Karnataka were 348/4 after the first day's play.

Wicketkeeper-batsman C.M. Gautam fell four short of a half-century as the R. Vinay Kumar-led side amassed a mammoth 649 in their first essay.

In reply, Delhi's Unmukt Chand (8) and Gautam Gambhir (12) remained at the crease during stumps at Alur.

In Kalyani, West Bengal, Vidarbha rode on openers Sanjay Ramaswamy's 182 and Faiz Fazal's 142 to usurp Bengal skipper Manoj Tiwary's decision to win the toss and field first.

They posted 499 to push the hosts to the brink after Lalit Yadav took two quick wickets to send opener Abhimanyu Easwaran (0) and in-form Sudip Chatterjee (15) packing early.

At stumps, Bengal were reeling at 89/3 with Tiwary looking good for his unbeaten 36 off 52 deliveries and Koushik Ghosh batting on 1 in the Group D clash.

At Palam ground in New Delhi, Sachidanand Pandey brought Goa to their knees after scalping 3/23. The Sagun Kamat-skippered side were 150/6 at stumps on Day 2 after the Services were also bowled out for a modest 263 with Heramb Parab taking three wickets for 37 runs.

In Cuttack, Tamil Nadu built on Murali Vijay's 140 with Vijay Shankar notching up a hundred from his overnight score of 8 and Baba Aparajith remaining unbeaten on 109.

The Abhinav Mukund-led side posted 530/8 declared with Odisha openers Sandeep Pattnaik and Natraj Behera batting on 15 and 17 respectively and the team on 36/0.

At the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Baroda made the most of a poor show with the bat by the hosts who were skittled out for a paltry 171 on the first day.

Overnight opener Aditya Waghmode scored a century (138 off 309) while skipper Deepaak Hooda racked up a decent 75 before being dismissed by Vijay Gohil. At stumps they were 376/4 having taken a healthy lead of 205 runs.

Elsewhere in Lahli, Haryana recovered from being 115/7 down at stumps on the first day to post 223 riding overnight batsman H.V. Patel's fighting 83.

In reply, Rajasthan failed to pose any sort of challenge, getting shot out for just 74. Haryana now lead by 149 runs.

Maharashtra rode on overnight wicketkeeper-batsman Rohit Motwani's 189 to post 481 against the Railways. At stumps, the Railways were 88/0 with openers Saurabh Wakaskar (32) and Shivakant Shukla (47) at the crease.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Congress party on Friday said its opposition had forced the government to "relent" and slash tax slabs for 178 items to 18 per cent and remarked that the "populous changes" were made with an eye on the Gujarat elections, though the Model Code of Conduct was in force in the state.

Earlier, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said his party will not allow the government to impose 'Gabbar Singh Tax' -- Gandhi's acronym for GST or Goods and Services Tax.

"We will not allow the BJP to impose a Gabbar Singh Tax on India," Gandhihe tweeted even as the GST Council's 23rd meeting was on.

The GST Council -- which also has state Finance Ministers including those from Congress-ruled states on board -- announced rate cuts on 177 goods on Friday.

"They cannot break the back of the small and medium businesses, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs," Gandhi said.

"Modiji's 'Gabbar Singh Tax' is shrewdly designed to help his wealthy crony friends with big businesses, but hurting millions of small traders, MSME's and informal Sector," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

'Might' is not always 'right'. Glad to see that the resolve of people and Congress party's opposition has finally forced the government to relent. We will continue to fight for making GST from 'flawed' to 'flawless'," he added.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: "It is the worst example globally of a noble conception how quickly it can be distorted to a nullity, out of arrogance and obstinacy.

"I am sure there will be some populous changes because of Gujarat elections, but a GST Council advising is being held in the middle of the Model Code of Conduct operational in Gujarat. Himachal may have ended, but it is a very nice time to call a GST Council meeting in the middle of elections in Gujarat," he added.

He also asked where had the concept of one-tax one nation gone. "It is a seven-tax minimum. where is one nation when 40 per cent of the nation is kept out of GST in value terms. It is not a GST if you aggregate petroleum, realty, and alcohol," Singhvi said.

Slamming the government, Singhvi said: "The Modi government and Finance Ministry functions on the basis of shoot first, take aim later and think last. The sequence should be reversed - think, aim and then shoot."

Singhvi also said: "If the new regime is shoot, aim and think, India is in for a disaster. Neither the old regimes nor the new regimes can have shoot, aim and think. Any regime, Congress or non-Congress, BJP or non-BJP, India or global has to think, only then take careful aim and then shoot."

Gandhi in his tweets, ahead of the GST Council meeting, had made a few suggestions to improve the GST regime.

"Correct the fundamental flaw in GST architecture to give India a Genuine Simple Tax, Don't waste India's time with lip service, Acknowledge your incompetence, shed your arrogance and listen to the people of India."

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday announced that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has decided to slash tax slabs for 178 items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal, in a letter to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, on Friday sought the proposal for opening "Schools of Excellence".

"Proposal for opening of 'Schools of Excellence' (which would have an ambience and environment like the private schools) has never been received in my Secretariat nor was the issue ever raised by the Chief Minister in any of their weekly meetings.

"It should be sent to me expeditiously as per rules so that there is no further loss of time," the letter said.

The Lt Governor, in a statement, said that he assures support to any proposal which improves the quality of education in government schools here.

He also said that the matter has been pending in Sisodia's office since the first week of September.

Baijal emphasised that a solution could have been found in this case also as per the scheme of governance of NCT (National Capital Territory), if he was apprised of this issue in time.

He said that there could have been a joint meeting with all the stakeholders concerned "to iron out any creases in the smooth implementation of this proposal".
New Delhi, Nov 10 : Alleging that Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat had not passed on the fertiliser subsidy provided by the UPA government to the farmers, the Congress on Friday accused his government at the Centre of resuming the subsidy with an eye on the state polls.

The party said the subsidy, which had been discontinued by the UPA government as it was being "pocketed" by the Gujarat State Fertiliser and Chemicals Ltd (GSFC), was restored by the Modi government in March this year to use as a "lollipop" in the Gujarat polls.

"Modi, who seeks to appropriate UPA's scheme of 'Direct Benefits Transfer' could not even transfer the subsidy to 55 lakh farmers of Gujarat. It speaks of the difference about his words and deeds," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media here.

"When the GSFC was caught pocketing the same, the UPA withdrew the earmarked amount (for 55 lakh farmers), so that a better method could be devised to transfer the said subsidy," Singhvi said.

He said the fertiliser subsidy was out of Modi's mind for three years after coming to power at the Centre in 2014.

"In the meantime, judicial procedures were also followed and GSFC was found guilty of pocketing an amount of Rs 986.56 crore meant as fertiliser subsidy for Gujarat's farmers," Singhvi said.

He said the amount of Rs 986.56 crore was reportedly used by the GSFC to show revenues of Rs 5,477 crore and a net profit of Rs 419.5 crore in 2016-17.

"Thus the turnaround story of a state PSU was artificially concocted by the BJP and Modi. The GSFC has not provided any data and justification to substantiate that subsidy paid by the government did not result in undue gains to the company," Singhvi said.

He said it was intriguing that instead of following legal procedures, the Modi government withdrew the case and an "out-of-court settlement" with the GSFC was reached in March this year and agreed to resume the subsidy from that month itself.

Singhvi said the Modi government was also actively considering paying the GSFC the subsidy it withheld from 2013 to 2017.

"In fact, a part of that outstanding amount -- Rs 170 crore -- was also released in March. Clearly, the Gujarat elections acted as a definite factor in resuming this subsidy," he said.

Singhvi further said the CAG report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly on March 31, 2016 "exposes the false myth of 'Vikas Model' and 'Brand Namo'".

"The CAG report is a telling irony of crony capitalism, malicious enrichment of private parties, writing off public money invested in questionable oil/gas reserves, besides deliberate bleeding of a state public sector undertaking by a Chief Minister who encouraged and institutionally supported plunder of state resources," he said.

Singhvi said the GSPC surrendered 45 gas blocks, i.e. 70.31 per cent of the 64 blocks owned by it, and the total loss to public exchequer from the surrender stood at Rs 2,992.72 crore, as per the CAG report.

"Out of these, loss on account of 11 overseas blocks that were surrendered is Rs 1,757.46 crore."

"Never before have the state resources been plundered in this reckless fashion and loss caused to public exchequer as brought by the CAG. Narendra Modi refuses to respond, leave apart placing the facts before the nation. Is this the reason for condoning corruption by other BJP honchos?" Singhvi said.
Mumbai, Nov 10 : The Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) on Friday welcomed the decision of the Pakistan government "to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds".

"It is a step in the right direction and it will send a positive message," the Forum's General Secretary for India Jatin Desai said here.

The PIPFPD also urged the Pakistan government to allow the parents of innocent Mumbai youth Hamid Ansari to meet him.

"They are trying desperately to meet him for a long time ... ever since he went missing in Pakistan a few years ago," he added.

The PIPFPD said it believed that both countries -- India and Pakistan -- must allow relatives of all arrested persons, including those from the fishing community, to meet them.

"Ideally, both countries should release all the fishermen and women from their custody. India-Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners had also unanimously recommended this step," said Desai.
New Delhi, Nov 10 : The Union Cabinet on Friday gave its approval to continuation and restructuring of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make it "outcome-based, competitive and better monitored" with Rs 23,050 crore outlay for the next three years.

An official release said the programme will also have increased focus on sustainability of schemes to ensure good quality service delivery to the rural population.

"A sum of Rs 23,050 crore has been approved for the programme for the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) period 2017-18 to 2019-20," it said, adding the programme will cover the entire rural population across the country and the restructuring will make it flexible, result-oriented, competitive and will enable the ministry to reach the goal of increasing coverage of sustainable piped water supply.

It said NRDWP will continue co-terminus with the 14th Finance Commission cycle till March 2020.

With the restructuring of the NRDWP, there will be two percent earmarking of funds for Japanese Encephalitis (JE)/Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) affected areas.

The release said that a new sub-programme under NRDWP viz. National Water Quality Sub-Mission (NWQSM) will address the urgent need for providing clean drinking water in about 28,000 arsenic and fluoride affected habitations which have already been identified.

The NWQSM aims to cover all rural population in arsenic/fluoride affected habitations with clean drinking water on a sustainable basis by March 2021.

The release also said the states have been given more flexibility in utilisation of NRDWP funds by reducing the number of components under the programme.

It said pre-financing for the agreed schemes will be reimbursed later and if a state fails to claim this amount before November 30 in the financial year the funds will become a part of the common pool, which will be released to the high performing states.

"Other half of second instalment of funds will be released to the states based on functionality status of completed piped water supply schemes, which will be evaluated through a third party," the release said.

As per the Integrated Management Information System of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, about 77 percent of rural habitations in India have achieved a fully covered status (40 litres per capita per day), while 56 per cent of the rural population have access to tap water through public stand posts within which 16.7 percent have household connections.

NRDWP, a centrally Sponsored Scheme with 50:50 fund sharing between the Centre and the states, was started in 2009.
Riyadh, Nov 11 : Italy'sAambassador to Saudi Arabia, Luca Ferrari said on Friday he had a "cordial" discussion in Riyadh with Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri, who last weekend announced his resignation during a visit to the Kingdom.

Ferrari told AKI he met Hariri at his residence and they had "a long and very cordial discussion".

Hariri also had a meeting with Russia's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Serguei Kozlov, he said.

Hariri said in a TV broadcast from Riyadh on Saturday he was stepping down because of an unspecified threat to his life. He also attacked Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah Shia movement and its ally Iran.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun and other senior politicians have demanded Hariri return amid suspicions that he is being held by the Saudis under house arrest and forced to do their bidding.

Hariri's Future Movement is seen as opposed to Hezbollah politically, even though they are both members of the government.
New Delhi, Nov 11 : A Jet Airways flight carrying 150 passengers on Friday landed back in New Delhi after eight hours due to non availability of taxi way at Patna airport, police said on Saturday.

The Jet Airways flight 9W 730 departed from Terminal-3 at the IGI at 2.30 p.m but "due to non availability of taxi way" at the Patna Airport the flight was diverted to Varanasi, however, the flight landed back at Terminal-3 at 9.30 p.m, Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjay Bhatia said.
Beirut, Nov 11 : A high-level official of US air forces affirmed on Friday his country's support for a stable Lebanon.

Deputy Under-Secretary of the US Air Force for International Affairs Heidi Grant made the remarks after meeting with commanders of Lebanese army and air forces, a statement by US embassy said.

"The United States remains committed to a stable, secure, democratic and prosperous Lebanon," said the statement.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard announced a reimbursement of $42.9 million for border operations conducted by the Lebanese army from 2015 to 2017, according to the statement.

On November 8 and November 10, the US provided the Lebanese army with munitions worth over $24 million.

The US has been supporting the Lebanese Army, providing weapons, armour and munitions before the army's battle against the Islamic State on the country's northeastern border.
Beirut, Nov 11 : The leader of Hezbollah on Friday accused Saudi Arabia of holding Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri captive in Riyadh.

Hariri announced his resignation while on a visit to Saudi Arabia on November 4, prompting some in Lebanon to assert that the Saudis had forced Hariri to step down.

"The Prime Minister is detained in Saudi Arabia and is forbidden to return to Lebanon," Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech, Efe reported.

In announcing his resignation, Hariri denounced an alleged plot to assassinate him. The Prime Minister, a Sunni Muslim, also criticized Shiite-majority Iran for interference in Lebanese political affairs.

Hariri's critique of Iran is connected to Tehran's support of Hezbollah.

Nasrallah, however, insisted that Hariri, who has dual Lebanese-Saudi citizenship, was forced to resign by Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia is ruled by adherents of the Wahhabi fundamentalist interpretation of Sunni Islam and Riyadh views both Iran and Hezbollah as religious apostates and political adversaries.

"Saudi insulted all the Lebanese by forcing PM Hariri to read a resignation statement written by the Saudis, detaining him, and preventing him from returning to Lebanon," the leader of Hezbollah said.

Nasrallah said that Hariri must return and declare his real position on Lebanese soil.

Hariri's party, the Future Movement, suggested in a statement that the prime minister was not operating under his own free will and also called for him to come back to Lebanon, insisting that his return was "necessary to restore dignity and respect to Lebanon."

Hariri's resignation has not yet been accepted by Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, who said he awaits Hariri's return to Lebanon to learn the reasons behind the resignation.

"Finalizing the resignation is put on hold until the return of PM Hariri and until the real reasons for his decision are revealed," Aoun said during a meeting with the ambassadors of the International Support Group for Lebanon (ISGL).

Comprising the United Nations, China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and the Arab League, the ISGL was created in September 2013.

Lebanon's three main sectarian groups: Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, have tried to maintain a delicate power-sharing arrangement since achieving independence from France in 1943.

Under the terms of the so-called National Pact adopted then, a Maronite Christian is supposed to be the country's president, a Sunni Muslim holds the post of prime minister and a Shiite Muslim serves as speaker of parliament.

There have been times in recent history, such as the 1975-1990 civil war, when this division of power has been unable to stem the tide of sectarian violence in Lebanon.
Tripoli, Nov 11 : The headquarter of the Deputy Interior Minister of the UN-backed Libyan government was attacked by rocked-propelled grenades on Friday, a security source told Xinhua.

The headquarter of Faraj Eg'em in the eastern city of Benghazi was attacked, leaving three security personnel killed and nine others injured, according to the source.

The place used to be the headquarter of former Anti-Terrorism Department in Benghazi, the source revealed.

"We do not know who is behind the attack, however, we expect that the shells have been fired from the last stronghold of terrorists in central Sidi Ekhrebish," said the source.

The attack comes less than a week after a car bomb hit the convoy of Eg'em in Benghazi, killing one security man and wounding four others.

Eg'em was appointed by the Government of the National Accord in August. The decision angered the eastern-based army commander General Khalifa Haftar, who issued a decision banning any official of the Government from exercising any official activity in the areas under the control of the army.

Despite signing a UN-sponsored peace agreement by the country's political rivals and the establishment of the Government of National Accord in 2015, Libya remains politically divided amid insecurity and chaos.
Madrid, Nov 11 : The speaker of Catalonia's Parliament, who had presided over votes to allow a separatist referendum and the region's declaration of independence from the rest of Spain, left jail on Friday after raising bail as stipulated by a Supreme Court judge who set paying a financial bond as a condition for her release.

Carme Forcadell has spent the night at Madrid's AlacalA Meco jail after giving testimony before judge Pablo Llanera, who opted to set bail of $175,000 instead of applying an unconditional prison sentence as requested by Spain's Prosecutor, Efe reported.

Forcadell had committed herself to comply with the conditions set by Spain's constitution in future political actions.

During her testimony, she said that the application of Article 155, which stripped Catalonia's autonomy and installed direct rule from Madrid, was legitimate and added that the unilateral declaration of independence had been purely symbolic.

Forcadell's lawyer, Adreu van den Eynde, arrived at the jail to accompany her after ensuring the bail sum had been paid by the treasurer of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana, a pro-independence organization that she was formerly the president of.

The decision to free Forcadell was signed by the Supreme Court and then communicated to prison authorities.

Llanera had on Thursday opted to release the other four other members of Forcadell's parliamentary office, deputy speaker LuAs Maria Corominas as well as lawmakers LluAs GuinA, Ramona Barrufet and Anna SimA on bail of 25,000 euros.

The judge took no action against Joan Josep Nuet, who had voted against the declaration of independence on Oct. 27.
The Fast 50 program honours 50 Canadian technology companies with the highest revenue-growth percentage over the past four years. Influitive ranked 13th with a 3,682.7 percent in revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

Influitive today announced it ranked 57th on Deloittes Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America.

Influitive has also been recognized for rapid revenue growth, bold innovation and its entrepreneurial spirit with a Technology Fast 50 program award. The Fast 50 program honours 50 Canadian technology companies with the highest revenue-growth percentage over the past four years. Influitive ranked 13th with a 3,682.7 percent in revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

The Technology Fast 50 program winners are made up of public and private companies in the technology sector that share common traits and strengths and have transformed the industry. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the program augments the broader North American Technology Fast 500 initiative with winners automatically eligible for this elite ranking.

Influitive's CEO Mark Organ credits the companys focus on customer engagement and advocacy for the its substantial revenue growth.

Organ said, Our growth is fueled by advocates. With customer value as our companys north star and a focus on advocate engagement, were able to quickly mobilize our customers as advocates. Their referrals, online reviews, success stories, and reference calls build trust with prospects and accelerate sales, while their direct feedback on our products and services allow us to continuously improve our offerings.

To qualify for the Technology Fast 50 ranking, companies must have been in business for at least four years, have revenues of at least $5 million, be headquartered in Canada, own proprietary technology, conduct research and development activities in Canada and invest a minimum of five percent of gross revenues in R&D.

Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 137 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with a median growth rate of 378 percent.

Influitive customers are also enjoying rapid growth due to their advocacy initiatives. Blackbaud, Namely, and PowerDMS are just a few Influitive customers increasing their sales pipeline and revenue through more advocate referrals, reviews, and references. Several other Influitive customers with strong advocacy programs have grown enough in the past year to file for an Initial Public Offeringincluding MongoDB and Okta.

About the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 - The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 program is Canadas pre-eminent technology awards program. Celebrating business growth, innovation and entrepreneurship, the program features three distinct categories including the Technology Fast 50 Ranking, Companies-to-Watch Awards (early-stage Canadian tech companies with the potential to be a future Deloitte Technology Fast 50 candidate) and the Leadership Awards (companies that demonstrate technological leadership and innovation within the industry.) Program sponsors include Deloitte, Aequitas NEO Exchange, Bank of Montreal, Bennett Jones, CBRE, OMERS Ventures and Wellington Financial. For further information, visit http://www.fast50.ca.

About Deloittes 2017 Technology Fast 500 - Deloittes Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companiesboth public and privatein North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America.

About Influitive - Influitive is driving the shift from company-centric marketing to advocate marketing. Our advocacy platform, AdvocateHub, and our team of experts helps the worlds most successful businesses discover, nurture, and mobilize their greatest marketing asset: their customer advocates. We believe the companies that put their customers at the heart of their marketingand their businessare the ones that will win. To learn how Influitives advocate marketing platform makes expanding reach, accelerating sales revenue, and increasing customer retention and growth easier, visit http://www.influitive.com.
Within just a few short years, Powerley has successfully bridged the smart grid to the smart home.

Powerley today announced that the company has received the 2017 Michigan Energy Innovators Award for the Emerging Business of the Year. Presented annually by the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, the awards recognize pioneering businesses that have advanced the energy industry while providing economic impact within the state.

Within just a few short years, Powerley has successfully bridged the smart grid to the smart home, said Manoj Kumar, CEO of Powerley, As the first company to combine energy management with home automation, we have driven behavioral changes and raised the bar for energy efficiency. This industry-first innovation would not be possible without the incredible talent and innovative partners found right here in Michigan.

Providing real-time energy management, Powerley enables homeowners to see how much energy their home, and every appliance and device within it, are using every minute of the day. And, through a complete smart home experience, provide control of the home and its energy usage via their smart phone, smart watch or voice commands.

We were very excited to see that Powerley was selected for the Emerging Business of the Year award, said Michigan EIBC President Liesl Eichler Clark. This award is granted to a new advanced energy business in Michigan that has demonstrated a commitment towards growing and strengthening the states advanced energy industry, and Powerleys remarkable growth over the past two years is a perfect example of that. We cant wait to see how the company continues to grow.

Founded in partnership with Detroit-based DTE Energy and Vectorform, Powerley is now working with 10 utilities across the U.S. and Canada. The company has continued its expansion since launching in 2015 and is currently available to 5.5 million utility customers.

DTE Energy is proud of the innovation and the impact Powerley has and will deliver to the energy industry and to the state of Michigan, said Dave Meador, vice chairman and chief administrative officer, DTE Energy, By reimagining the relationship with energy, Powerley has elevated efficiency and transformed the customer experience. We are also excited about Powerley moving into the home automation space providing an innovative, leading edge solution by utilities for utilities.

The awards will be presented tonight at the 5th Annual Michigan Energy Innovators Gala in East Lansing, Michigan. To learn more about the Michigan Energy Innovators Awards and the complete list of winners, visit mieibc.org.

About Powerley

Powerley is the first company to integrate real-time home energy management within a complete smart home solution. Built together with leading energy providers, Powerley enables utilities to provide an experience in which consumers can manage both their energy and their smart home devices through mobile, wearables and voice via Amazon Alexa. With a constant connection to the homes smart meter, Powerley provides real-time energy usage data for the whole home and every connected appliance and device within it. The turnkey platform is available to energy providers to offer a utility-branded experience to their customers. To learn more about Powerley, visit powerley.com.
Smart Business magazine has recognized the Pittsburgh regions four top executives for innovation, impact and sustainability with its fourth annual Smart 50 Awards, presented by Arthur J. Gallagher. This year, for the first time, two of the areas business leaders tied for the sustainability award.

The top honorees have served their community, while energizing their respective organizations and uniting them around a unique vision, said Dustin S. Klein, publisher of Smart Business, a publisher of regional business publications including Smart Business Pittsburgh. But their work goes far beyond any one organization and has a profound impact on the lives of everyday people in our region.

Tara Rudnicki, president of Tobii Dynavox, North American market, earned the Innovation award. The Innovation category honors an organization for developing and commercializing new products, services and solutions. Under Taras leadership, the technology of Tobii Dynavox, a leading provider of touch and eye-tracking technology designed to assist those with disabilities, has helped thousands of individuals with conditions such as aphasia, Lou Gehrigs disease and muscular dystrophy lead richer lives.

Mark Perlin, Ph.D., chief scientific and executive officer of Cybergenetics, earned the Impact award. The Impact award honors an organization whose products, services and solutions benefit the organization, its employees, investors and others in categories ranging from sales and expansion to giving back to the community. In his work with Cybergenetics, Mark has commercialized his TrueAllele technology, which uses advanced algorithms to interpret DNA mixtures from two or more people. Mark has done great work publicizing this technology, marketing it as a better way to approach forensic science. He now works with authorities in 38 states, who benefit from his new approach to forensics.

Matt Myers, president of Myers Well Service, was honored for Sustainability. The Sustainability award honors an organization whose combination of innovation and impact lead to a sustainable, scalable business that develops and fosters community. Matt has grown Myers Well Service, a company started by his grandfather, into an industry-leading oilfield firm that provides trucking, water transfer and environmental services to clients throughout western Pennsylvania and Ohio. He has instilled a small business mentality in his company of nearly 250 employees, promoting the values of honesty, safety and hard work.

Susanne Cole, president and CEO of Pressley Ridge, was also honored for Sustainability. After spending 11 years at Pressley Ridge as a teacher and counselor for children with developmental challenges, she took over as leader of the organization in 2001. During her tenure, operating revenue has increased by 240 percent, while debt has been reduced by 72 percent. Susanne currently oversees 1,100 employees in six states, who serve 6,800 children and their families each year.

The ceremony was held Nov. 9 at the Fairmont Pittsburgh Hotel. Shawn Crosby of All Covered IT, Rob Schwartz of Highmark and Jarrod Duffy of Clark Hill presented the awards to the special category winners. Dustin Klein with Marshall Wunderlich of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Jim Altman of Huntington Bank and Hollie Geitner of WordWrite Communications presented awards to the Smart 50 Honorees.

Arthur J. Gallagher, Huntington Bank and Clark Hill sponsored the awards, along with All Covered IT, WordWrite Communications, Highmark, Convero, and the Fairmont Pittsburgh. To receive a nomination form for the 2018 awards, or to learn more about the Smart 50, please contact: Meredith Rankin at mrankin(at)sbnonline(dot)com, or 440-250-7023.

About the Smart 50 Awards

The Smart 50 Awards recognize the 50 top executives in select regions for their ability to effectively build and lead successful organizations. Eligible Smart 50 nominees must lead organizations that have a physical presence in the region where the awards are being presented.
Watch Night is a compelling story of a young slave girl, named Baby Doll, whose prayers for freedom are answered through the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation that led the slaves to gather New Years Eve when their freedom would be granted. Living on the plantation of Howard B Lynch, she stays in constant prayer believing that freedom will come one day. Baby Doll enters into a romantic relationship with the Masters nephew who does not agree with the Masters view on slavery. Despite, their romantic involvement, Master continues to impress upon them the disciplines of his Grandfather, Willie Lynch.

Watch Night has become a tradition for many years. Millions of people attend church on New Years Eve for a celebratory service known as Watch Night and very few of them know the true meaning of how it began. On December 31st 1862, the eve of freedom, slaves gathered to praise GOD and watch for freedom day to come. Slaves rejoiced as January 1st 1863 marks the first day of freedom.

We are excited to showcase an amazing and captivating performance about Watch Night and how it originated. says Director Greg Ellis. This play will help educate and highlight the importance of New Years Eve and how it relates to slavery and freedom. Its definitely a must see.

Gospel legend Fred Hammond, will have the audience on their feet while performing his greatest hits during intermission. Watch Night will also feature Irma P Hall, (Soul Food), Greg Ellis and many more. This will be a one night only production! The show will take place at Divine Faith Ministries International, 9800 Tara Blvd. Jonesboro, Georgia at 6pm sharp on December 2nd. To purchase tickets to Watch Night visit http://www.watchnighttheplay.com

ABOUT (DIRECTOR) GREG ELLIS:

Greg Ellis executive produced the Carter High movie, which starred: Vivica A. Fox, Charles Dutton, David Banner, Pooch Hall and Reginald Hayes. Greg Ellis is from Wendell North Carolina. He is married to his high school sweetheart Tangie Ellis, they have three beautiful children. Ellis earned a scholarship from the University of North Carolina & was 1st rounds pick by the Dallas Cowboys, he earned pro-bowl & comeback player of the year honors. For more information about Watch Night http://www.watchnighttheplay.com
Today Sea Hawk, the world's leading premium nautical coating brand, announced the expansion of its Distributor Council Meetings during the International Boat Show held in Fort Lauderdale this November. The Distributor Council Meetings involve experienced dealers and marine service experts who work directly with Sea Hawk to provide feedback and improve collaboration with the International Boating Community. Sea Hawk will develop major products, programs and policies with input from the Distributor Council Meeting participants. The Sea Hawk International Distributor Council Meetings are led by Denis Laesker, Sea Hawks manager of international sales and 25-year marine industry veteran.

Distributor Council Meetings are an essential element in Sea Hawks mission to provide boat owners with the highest quality solutions for protecting and enhancing their vessels, said Erik Norrie, Sea Hawk CEO. "We value the input we receive from the noted list of International Distributor Council members and consider it in new products, programs and policies we develop, Norrie added.

The Sea Hawk Distributor Council Meetings launched with members who represent the core of the Mediterranean luxury yacht sales and service industry and was held, after the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, at Sea Hawk corporate offices in Clearwater, Florida. Members represented luxury yacht sales and marine service professionals from Malta and Palma de Majorca. The participants included Andreas Bodmer and Gustavo Ravell from Yacht Center Palma  YCP in Palma de Mallorca and Mark Kissaun and Karl Borg from Yacht Shop Malta in Malta all who have strong backgrounds in the marine industry and distribute Sea Hawk antifouling paints, primers and Hawk Epoxy.

A trendsetter of marine bottom paints, New Nautical Coatings, Inc. and the Sea Hawk brand was established in 1978 and is dedicated to bringing only the highest quality products and customer satisfaction to todays mariner. New Nautical Coatings is family owned and operated with a commitment to excellence. It provides a wide array of application specific marine coating products that include antifouling systems, primers, solvents, and resins. Now offering innovative products globally, the Sea Hawk brand has enjoyed unprecedented growth and continues to grow as its products become more in demand worldwide. For more information, contact Michael O'Keene at (727) 523-8053 or visit http://www.seahawkpaints.com.

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This recognition reaffirms our prominence in North Carolina and our commitment to the community. We are proud to be recognized as one of the most innovative, top-performing businesses in our state.

Zealandia Holding Company has been named to the 2017 Grant Thornton North Carolina 100 (NC100), which ranks the states largest private companies by revenue. The complete list was released in the October issue of Business North Carolina and can be viewed at GrantThornton.com/NC100.

We are honored to be named to the 2017 Grant Thornton North Carolina 100 list, said Butch Patrick, co-founder, President and CEO of Zealandia Holding Company. This recognition reaffirms our prominence in North Carolina and our commitment to the community. We are proud to be recognized as one of the most innovative, top-performing businesses in our state.

Since 1984, the NC100 has ranked the states largest private companies by revenue in the most recent fiscal year, based on data provided by the participants.

To view the complete 2017 list, visit GrantThornton.com/NC100.

Zealandia Holding Company (ZHC) is a value-added strategic investor formed to leverage the assets, businesses and teams of ZHC and its subsidiaries. Since 2001, ZHC has acquired or invested in 22 companies covering a wide range of resort real estate and related businesses. ZHCs strong history of operational excellence, brand development and sector expertise further develops its portfolio companies for sustainable profitability and growth. With a focus on investing in Travel and Leisure and related businesses, ZHC is uniquely positioned to provide the resources and relationships necessary to maximize the value of our companies.
"Bank of America is proud to support the vital mission of the General Richard B. Myers Veterans Program at Medisend College, and we applaud its focus on job training for deserving veterans," said Bank of America Business Banking Executive Rick Bridwell.

Bank of America has awarded the General Richard B. Myers Veterans Program at Medisend College a $15,000 grant to provide veterans a rapid pathway to jobs through its new, fast-track Associate of Applied Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering Technology. The program is specifically designed to provide veterans with the skills to transition from the military into the civilian workplace as professional biomedical technicians.

We are grateful to Bank of America for its ongoing commitment to our nations veterans. This grant will help secure futures for these deserving men and women in well-paying jobs, said General Richard B. Myers (USAF Ret.), 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, current President of Kansas State University, and Chairman of the Medisend College Board of Trustees.

2017 graduate, veteran Timothy Hall commented, I enrolled in the General Richard B. Myers Program at Medisend College because I wanted to enter the biomedical field while still utilizing the technical skills I learned in the military. My aim was to obtain a good job to support my family. The Myers Program helped me accomplish this goal and exceeded my expectations.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the number of job openings in the biomedical technology field is expected to outnumber qualified applicants much faster than the average for other occupations.

Through strong partnerships with healthcare industry leaders, the highly regarded General Richard B. Myers Veterans Program has a near 100% success rate in job placement. 2017 graduates are currently employed at organizations such as Siemens, GE and Henry Schein.

Bank of America is proud to support the vital mission of the General Richard B. Myers Veterans Program at Medisend College, and we applaud its focus on job training for deserving veterans, said Bank of America Business Banking Executive Rick Bridwell. Through our partnership, we can provide a pathway to economic mobility and future success for these men and women whove served our country well.

For more information on MediSend College of Biomedical Engineering Technology and the General Richard B. Myers Veterans Program, go to medisend.org.
Simparel, Inc. (http://www.simparel.com), the innovator in next-generation information technology (IT) for the fashion and consumer goods industries, announces that intimate apparel brand Leading Lady has replaced a legacy ERP system with the Simparel Enterprise software solution at its Beachwood, Ohio headquarters. After going live on the new system in just 6 months, the wholesaler and direct-to-consumer e-tailer of lingerie, nursing, maternity, and sleepwear products is already enjoying improved system performance and integration across its omnichannel operations.

According to Chong Mi Kim, Leading Lady Chief Operating Officer, To better meet the fast-changing needs of our partners and customers, we knew that we needed a more flexible, responsive, and connected business system. After a thorough evaluation, we chose Simparel because it gave us not only the capabilities we were looking for but a more modern and scalable platform that provided easy integration with our e-commerce partners. We found in Simparel a system that can grow with us and is backed by a team of knowledgeable and committed industry professionals.

Approximately 30 team members at Leading Lady will use the Simparel software to manage product development, sourcing, supply chain management, logistics, warehousing, order fulfillment, EDI communications, financials and other mission-critical processes across their entire business. The company is also leveraging the systems built-in integration with Amazon.com and other e-commerce channels.

We are honored by the opportunity to partner with Leading Lady to support their growth and industry leadership, noted Simparel President and CEO Roberto Mangual. We applaud their commitment to a rapid implementation that is already providing their teams and partners with the tools and information they need to seize the opportunities in todays dynamic marketplace.

About Leading Lady

Leading Lady is a premier maternity, nursing and full-figure intimate apparel company dedicated to creating functional, feminine and easy-to-wear bras. The ultimate blend of comfort and affordability, Leading Lady is committed to helping women find their perfect fit for an exceptional value. The collection utilizes playful stretch lace, supportive design details and unparalleled fabrics to create seamless everyday styles that complement a woman's unique figure.

Since 1939, family owned and operated Leading Lady has been expertly tailoring quality lingerie for mothers-to-be, new moms and full figure women for top brands and retailers across North America for more than 70 years. The full collection is available on Amazon.com and in select retailers nationwide, as well as direct to consumer on Leadinglady.com. Website: http://www.leadinglady.com | Social: @leadingladybras

About Simparel, Inc.

Designed for the apparel, footwear, accessories, home furnishings and other soft goods industries, Simparel empowers brands, manufacturers, and vertical retailers to advance and scale their businesses by accelerating and improving performance across the entire business and global supply chain. The Simparel Enterprise Solution provides global process visibility, control and collaboration by combining traditionally independent Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Sourcing & Supply Chain Management (SCM), Materials Requirements Planning (MRP), Shop Floor Control (SFC), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Warehouse Management (WMS), Financial Management (FMS), and other productivity tools into a single, fashion-focused business system. For more information, visit http://www.simparel.com.
Mrkt360, a full solution digital marketing agency, has been chosen to join the prestige league of the 1000 companies in the world who are partners of the renowned firm, Facebook. There are 35,000 agencies in the world, and Mrkt360 is one of the 1000 Facebook managed agencies.

Mrkt360 CEO, Eran Hurvitz, believes the partnership is perfectly aligned with the company's mission to ensure that every business has the help it needs to succeed on the web. Facebook is an incredibly powerful advertising platform, but can sometimes be complex and overwhelming. This new partnership will help Mrkt360 offer their clients new and improved Facebook advertising services.

Mrkt360 will be working with their designated Facebook Agency Manager, who has partnered with some of the largest firms in the world. According to her, This Facebook partnership exists to grow you and your end clients by bringing you support, the latest product updates, beta test opportunities, agency reports, helping with business opportunities, and much more that we will discover throughout the relationship.

Ill be educating your agency and guiding you through campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger for the most optimal advertising solutions. I cant be more excited to see your agency grow as a direct result of our work together, she continued.

With access to top support, and betas, we are confident this partnership will also allow us to provide better results for our clients. Our team is excited for new learning opportunities and delivering top quality services to our customers. We have seen great success with our Google Premier Partnership and we look forward to an equally long and successful relationship with Facebook," said Mrkt360 CEO Eran Hurvitz.

About Mrkt360: Mrkt360 is a Google Premier Partner marketing agency located in Toronto, Ontario. They were awarded the Gold Prize in the Google Partners competition, ranking them number three in Canada for new client revenue to Google. They provide services in Google AdWords, SEO, SMM, SEM, Web Design and more. With their artificial intelligence SEO platform, they have helped start-up companies grow from their incubation period to publicly traded companies, generating millions of clients for their customers, and 100s of success stories. Moreso, CEO Eran Hurvitz, was the sole judge of the SEO competition held by WIX in 2017.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact MRKT360 at 1-888-215-0005, email us at pr(at)mrkt360(dot)com or check out our Facebook page here.
Ms. Jyoti Auluck, Founder, President and CEO of Rhinelander Brewing Company is tickled pink and over the moon to announce a major expansion of her operations in downtown Rhinelander, WI. She has purchased an 8,000 sq ft property at 43 S. Brown St in downtown Rhinelander where she will open a tap room and a brewery that will produce its craft beers including a new line of small batch craft beers - Hodag Ales (design shown below).

The new building will be the headquarters of the company. It will feature a taproom with 10 of its tastiest craft beers as well as offer tours and tastings to the public. It will also have a gift shop and retail shop for beer to take home in growlers, cans and bottles and a historic brewery memorabilia museum. Ms. Auluck is urging local residents to donate to the brewery any historic Rhinelander or other area breweries memorabilia they might have. Donated items will be displayed for enjoyment by locals and visitors alike. The donators names will be acknowledged in the museum with the display of the artifacts.

A local brewer and craft beer enthusiast Al Ewan is the new brewmaster and Brenda ORourke is the manager of the taproom, retail Store and bottle Shop. This is a culmination of Ms. Aulucks dream to revive Rhinelander beer production in the city of Rhinelander, WI.

As people in the Midwest still recall fondly, the historic Rhinelander Brewery produced the finest beers at its brewery from 1882 to 1967, owned by Otto Hilgermann and Henry Danner located at Ocala Street in Rhinelander, next to the Pelican River. - The former brewery location is now the Eye Clinic of Wisconsin at 2 E Ocala St. It was closed just like hundreds of other breweries closed with the advent (and aggressive tactics) of multi-national mega breweries. Interestingly, Mr. Hilgermann and his family lived in the house across the street from the brewery at 919 Arbutus St. complete with a 5 foot tunnel under the street and a 2 inch beer pipeline to his house. For many decades, Rhinelander Shorty was one of the most successful regional brands sold in the Midwest including Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and of course, Wisconsin.

During the period from 1882 to 1967, Rhinelander Brewery put Rhinelander on the map. Its returnable Rhinelander Export Lager and of course, the Rhinelander 7 oz Shorty is still etched in the memory of millions of Midwesterners. The historic Joseph Huber Brewery in Monroe, WI kept on producing Rhinelander beers in the 12 oz returnables from 1970s for another 35 years. The famous Rhinelander returnables lost their lustre in the early 2000s when the customers gradually stopped bringing back their Rhinelander returnable bottles. It should be noted that the returnable bottles are heavier and more expensive than one way bottles. In fact, the returnable bottles must have at least 10 turns for them to be a viable alternative. Joseph Huber Brewery switched Rhinelander beer to cans but that was not what the customers wanted and soon the Northwoods lost one of its most famous beers.

In June 2011, the Canadian born Ms. Auluck re-launched Rhinelander Shorty with great success. It took her 2 years, requiring a sizeable capital investment including creating brand new molds for the Shorty style bottle, creating a retro label design, equipping the brewery to package the unusually shaped Shorty bottle and most importantly, working diligently to perfecting the recipe and creating the taste of the original Rhinelander Shorty beer.

The response throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest was nothing short of amazing. Almost every retail store and bar in and around Rhinelander started selling the Rhinelander Shorty Export Lager, as well as Madison, Milwaukee and other parts of the state of Wisconsin. Orders were also received from other Midwestern states and from parts of Canada.

Keeping the best quality mantra that the original Rhinelander Brewery stuck to for 85 years of its existence, Ms. Auluck expanded the Rhinelander family of beers to Rhinelander Lager and Rhinelander Light 12oz, Craft Beers Thumper American IPA, Imperial Jack Double IPA, Chocolate Bunny Stout and Mystical Jack Traditional Ale as well as seasonal Rhinelander Oktoberfest. Also in early 2016, she launched her Rhinelander Hard Root Beer soon followed with Over the Barrel branded hard sodas in 5 flavors, Rootbeer, Blueberry, Cream Soda, Black Cherry and Grape hard soda  all with great success. Rhinelander Brewing Company now produces and sells over 1 million pints of beers per year throughout the Midwest, making it one of the largest breweries in Wisconsin.

She is also expanding her gift shop in downtown Rhinelander on Brown Street with exciting new Rhinelander branded apparel, glassware and a lot of her beer products  where people can come and taste their fine products and buy them to enjoy at home. The retail gift shop and beer tasting area is now being expanded ten fold.

It should be noted that Rhinelander Brewing Companys new location on Brown Street will sell a lot of its beers and other alcoholic products but it will NOT sell its own products that are carried and marketed by other Rhinelander based retailers. This is Ms.Auluck's way of supporting local businesses and a way of thanking Trigs Cellar 70, Steins, WalMart, House of Spirits and other local retailers who have supported her immensely over the last 7 years, thereby contributing greatly to her success.

Ms. Jyoti Auluck, President & CEO of Rhinelander Brewing Co is available for interviews. E-mail her at President(at)RhinelanderBrewery(dot)com or by telephone at (715) 550-BEER.
The Franchise Show, Presented by Roy Rogers Restaurants, is pleased to be taking place at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, November 11 & 12, 2017. The Show is the perfect venue for attendees to find their best opportunity to attain prosperity and success by taking the first step to becoming a business owner. Many entrepreneurs dream of starting their own business and every year thousands of Americans consider franchising as a way to make it happen. Visitors have the chance to speak directly with representatives from proven, successful franchises. Full-time franchises and part-time business opportunities are available across Pennsylvania. The show plays a critical role in helping people find the business thats right for them.

Franchising gives people the opportunity to start a business without feeling overwhelmed and alone. They have the support system of a company behind them with training, marketing and in most cases a proven brand, said Fred Cox, president, National Event Management, which produces the Franchise Show.

The event features companies that are household names such as Roy Rogers Restaurants, Benjamin Moore, Raceway, and Rosatis Pizza. The exhibitors at the show offer a variety of industries from traditional retail stores and restaurants to fitness, home services, education and printing. The Show is also an excellent venue to discover new franchises and get in on the ground floor of a new opportunity.

The Franchise Show successfully hosts thousands of attendees across North America every year, with the hope of helping each one become their own boss. Its important to be able to meet and speak with representatives from the companies at the event because it gives you a better understanding of the culture of a company and gives you a better indication of whether or not a company complements your specific personality, says Mr. Cox. The opportunity to speak directly with representatives from the hottest franchises as well as industry experts make this event a must attend for anyone considering owning a small business or looking to grow their already established business.

The show is a significant source of information for people looking to open their own business and research franchising in depth. Visitors may attend free daily seminars given by industry experts including lawyers, financial specialists and franchise experts that have information that entrepreneurs need to know to start and grow a business. Seminar topics include: Making Smart Choices when Launching a Business, How to Become a Successful Franchisee, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Franchising - But didnt know who to ask. For a full schedule of free seminars please visit http://www.philadelphiafranchiseshow.com.

The Franchise Show

Dates: Saturday, November 11 and Sunday, November 12

Time: Saturday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Location: Greater Philadelphia Expo Center

100 Station Ave,

Oaks, PA 19456, USA

Admission:

For more info: $8 at the door, 2 for 1 tickets available online

http://www.philadelphiafranchiseshow.com

Contact Information

For media accreditation and more information, contact: Lisa Spodek, Director of Marketing

1-800-891-4859 ext. 225

lspodek(at)nationalevent(dot)com

# # #
Texas Health Resources opened its new Carrollton emergency room at 7am Friday, November 3, 2017. The new facility is located at 2745 E. Belt Line Rd., Carrollton, TX and is open 24-7.

We are pleased to bring this facility to the Carrollton community and look forward to delivering the highest quality emergency medical care here, said Barclay E. Berdan, FACHE, CEO of Texas Health Resources.

To celebrate the opening, Texas Health Emergency Room made a donation to Turner High School at Texas Health Emergency Rooms ribbon cutting with the Metrocrest Chamber of Commerce. Following the ribbon cutting, Texas Health Emergency Room hosted a medical community open house.

All Texas Health Emergency Room facilities are open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. The facilities are staffed exclusively with board-certified physicians and emergency trained registered nurses. First Choice Emergency Room facilities are equipped with a full radiology suite, including CT scanner, Digital X-ray, Ultrasound, as well as on-site laboratories certified by the Clinical Laboratory Improvements Amendments (CLIA) and accredited by the Commission on Office Laboratories Accreditation (COLA).

To learn more about Texas Health Emergency Room and the new Carrollton location, please visit https://texashealthemergencyroom.com/locations.

About Texas Health Resources

Texas Health Resources is one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit health systems in the United States. The health system includes 25 acute-care and short-stay hospitals that are owned, operated, joint-ventured or affiliated with Texas Health Resources. It includes the Texas Health Presbyterian, Texas Health Arlington Memorial, Texas Health Harris Methodist and Texas Health Huguley Hospitals, Texas Health Physicians Group, outpatient facilities, behavioral health and home health, preventive and fitness services, and an organization for medical research and education. For the last two years, Texas Health Resources has been named as a Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For and the #1 Best Company to Work For in Healthcare. For more information about Texas Health Resources, call 1-877-THR-WELL, or visit http://www.TexasHealth.org.
Denver Community Joins Forces for Kids "This year we are grateful for the opportunity to give our support to our community's children in need," Aleea Watson WGC Chapter Co-President

The carbon valley SantaCops program is a nonprofit program that brought smiles and Christmas wishes to disadvantaged children in Firestone, Frederick and Dacon. The joy of bringing Christmas to a child that may not even have one gift to open can be life changing.

On October 25th in front of The Town of Firestone Board of Trustees, along with Mayor Paul Sorensen, a check for $12,000 plus was presented to the Carbon Valley SantaCops program by the Women of Global Change - WGC Denver Chapter along with the Fair Hand Foundation. Also in attendance were Chief David Montgomery, Cheyenne Hunt, Dawn Moses, and Trent John.

SantaCops was started by Beverly Medina along with Angel Gahnstrom, and Michele Powers. Theyve been sharing the joys of Christmas for years as they have witnessed a steady increase in those that are not able to provide holiday season for the children.

The Carbon Valley SantaCops program last year served over 280 children for Christmas in northern Denver. This year that number will grow exponentially and so will the children who will be served.

Such organizations as Make A Wish Foundation and celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres have long stood in support of children living their dreams. And this year many children in the northern Denver area will do just that.

The WGC  the Women of Global Change has been a force for good both nationally and internationally and is a recipient for four years in a row of the White House award for service. With the recent expansion of WGC US Chapters, they are now a consistent community presence in cities across the nation.

"This year we are grateful for the opportunity to give our support to our community's children in need. When the outside world is giving us every reason to worry we want to be there to bring families together and show them there is hope. We also want to recognize the police departments in Fredrick, Dacono, and Firestone for being a consistent light for so many kids and their community, stated Aleea Watson one of the Co-Presidents of the Denver Chapter of Women of Global Change.

Join the movement on Wednesday, November 29, 2017 where the funds raised will be used to purchase gifts. Then December 8, will be a wrapping party followed by December 9 when the children will be able to come meet Santa and pick up their gifts they have been blessed with. Donations and volunteers are very much welcomed and appreciated.

Women of Global Change Denver Presidents Melissa Tietz and Aleea Watson and their members are leading the charge by collecting gifts, cash donations and volunteers to help make this Christmas Season a great one for the children of these areas and they need your help!

To join the movement visit the Firestone website http://www.firestoneco.gov/index.aspx?NID=141 Help WGC Denver and SantaCops make this a GREAT Christmas for these children!

More about Women of Global Change: http://womenofglobalchange.com/
The ONSET Drupal platform is very flexible, much easier to use and maintain than our old CMS, and is built with responsive design for access on any device.

NEWSCYCLE Solutions, the leading provider of content management, advertising and subscription technologies for the global news media industry, today announced its latest ONSET web content management system go-live at Skive Folkeblad (http://www.skivefolkeblad.dk) in Skive, Denmark.

Skive Folkeblad is a daily news media company serving the Jutland region in the north of Denmark. Skive selected the Newscycle ONSET platform to help meet the demand from readers and advertisers for a more modern and responsive website. In addition, ONSET allows Skive Folkeblad journalists to easily create neutral first content that can be shared seamlessly for online or print publications.

We wanted to build a new, contemporary website based on a broadly used and flexible CMS, said Michael stergard, Head of IT at Skive Folkeblad. The ONSET Drupal platform is very flexible, much easier to use and maintain than our old CMS, and is built with responsive design for access on any device.

Based on Drupal 8 technology, the Newscycle team designed ONSET from the ground up to be open, intuitive, and fully responsive, said Donna Beasley, Director of Product Strategy for Newscycles media products. It is architected specifically to meet the needs of transformative news media organizations like Skive.

Newscycle has developed more than 100 extensions and plug-ins  known as ONSET modules  that enhance the Drupal 8 platform with added features and functionality built to streamline the content creation and publishing process for all web, mobile and print channels. With ONSET, journalists and editors get a unified set of essential tools required for modern digital storytelling.

Skive Folkeblads 20 journalists use ONSET on a daily basis to create and manage content for the skivefolkeblad.dk website. In addition, ONSET allows two-way story sharing with the companys Newscycle Content editorial system. The tight integration with Newscycle Content makes it easy for our reporters to publish content both for our printed paper and to our website, said stergard.

The feedback to date is encouraging. Skive Folkeblad reports that readers are giving the new website very positive responses on the companys Facebook page. In the next phase of the project, the company plans to add a paywall module to enable subscribers to access premium content.

We are proud of our continued partnership with Skive Folkeblad, and this project was truly a team effort on behalf of both our companies, said Jonas Bringle, Newscycles Managing Director, EMEA. We are especially pleased that they chose to continue to work with Newscycle because of the proven stability of our software in online and print production, which is crucial to meeting tight news deadlines.

The ONSET platform at Skive Folkeblad is hosted in the Newscycle Cloud, which is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). This makes the system easy to upgrade and provides the site with the highest level of stability, security and performance required by modern news organizations. In addition, ONSETs Drupal 8 technology platform enables fast, modular development with the ability to add features from the worldwide Drupal community. With the Drupal modules that Newscycle has developed, Skive Folkeblad was able to implement a complete content management solution with functionality designed specifically for news media companies.

Skive Folkeblad is the first customer in EMEA to go live on our ground-breaking new ONSET platform, which we believe will be as solid as our predecessor solutions, said Bringle. By extending the partnership with Newscycle, we are confident that they will continue to see the advantages of working with a single, trusted vendor for future migration projects, with an open, adaptable upgrade path that meets new and emerging requirements in multichannel content management.

About NEWSCYCLE Solutions

NEWSCYCLE Solutions develops and delivers software technology that empowers the global news media industry. Our editorial, advertising, circulation and mobile solutions enable publishers to drive profitability, accelerate digital business models and optimize core print operations. We help our clients create stronger, better-informed communities while safeguarding the integrity of news, advertising and customer information. Newscycle is a trusted partner serving over 1,200 media companies with 3,000 properties producing more than 8,000 titles in 30 countries. Our company is headquartered in Bloomington, MN and has U.S. offices in Florida, Michigan and Utah; with international offices in Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Canada and the United Kingdom. Please visit http://www.newscycle.com for more information or write to us at info(at)newscycle.(dot)com.
This will allow us to better serve our members and encourage them to get in the habit of saving.

Two propositions were passed in the recent Nov. 8 election that will help Neighborhood Credit Union and other financial institutions better serve their members.

One of the passed propositions, Proposition 7, will now allow financial institutions to offer prize-linked savings accounts in a raffle-style approach as a way to encourage savings. While Neighborhood CU has been offering its own Prize Savings Account for the past 10 years, it has been conducted in a sweepstakes-styled approach that severely limited the value of prizes that could be awarded.

With the addition of Proposition 7 to the Texas Constitution, Neighborhood CU will now be able to offer better prizes to further encourage good saving habits in the communities it serves. Currently the credit union rewards more than 2,400 of their members with over $100,000 in cash prizes each year.

Neighborhood Credit Union established the Prize Savings Account in 2007 to encourage people to save more money while having fun doing it, at a time when the personal savings rate had dropped to one of the lowest levels in U.S. history.

This will allow us to better serve our members and encourage them to get in the habit of saving, said Chet Kimmell, president of Neighborhood Credit Union. Our members will earn a market rate of interest on their savings account while at the same time having a chance to win a fantastic cash prize. This is a great start as we begin to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of our Prize Savings Account.

How the Prize Savings Account works: Neighborhood Credit Union members receive one drawing entry for every $25 monthly average balance in their Prize Savings Accounts. The greater the savings, the greater the chance a member has of winning. Members are eligible for monthly drawings up to $5,000 and quarterly $10,000 drawings. At the start of each year, a winner is drawn for the newly-increased $49,999.99 grand prize based on the average monthly balance in the savings account at close of business December 31. The upcoming 2018 drawing marks the 10th Anniversary Grand Prize Savings drawing for Neighborhood Credit Union.

About Neighborhood Credit Union: The oldest credit union in Dallas (chartered April 18, 1930), Neighborhood Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial organization serving Dallas, Denton and Ellis counties, as well as the City of Arlington. With branches in Dallas, Richardson, Arlington, Mesquite, Duncanville, Waxahachie, Lancaster, Grand Prairie, Coppell, and Highland Village, and assets topping $600 million, Neighborhood Credit Union has a membership of approximately 50,000 and continues to welcome new members daily. For more information, call (214) 748-9393 or visit http://www.myncu.com.
When we heard about the need for a new computer at All Faiths Pantry, it was a no-brainer for us to donate it to them. We hope it makes a difference in the day-to-day operations of this important organization," said Chief Technology Officer Kathy Golden.

OEConnection LLC (OEC), a leading technology employer in Northeast Ohio, donated a computer, as well as the time needed for set-up and installation, to All Faiths Pantry (AFP), a non-profit organization which delivers nutritious groceries to local low-income seniors and those with physical disabilities. The organization has been using a refurbished computer for years, and frequently experienced issues with insufficient computer memory, making even simple tasks, such as printing a document, very time-consuming. AFP Board Member, OEC Enterprise Director Sarah Truman, noticed the outdated technology and decided to help.

Giving back to our community is one of the core values of OEC, said Kathy Golden, OEC Chief Technology Officer. When we heard about the need for a new computer at All Faiths Pantry, it was a no-brainer for us to donate it to them. We hope it makes a difference in the day-to-day operations of this important organization.

OEC associates Brandt Ward and Steve Yontz, who work in the companys IT Operations department, set up the new computer at AFP, using company-paid volunteer hours to do so.

All Faiths Pantry Executive Director John Visnauskas said, This computer upgrade donation from will be a big help in serving our mission. We are very grateful for OEC's generosity, not only in contributing the upgraded system, but expertly setting it all up too! Community partners like OEC make what All Faiths Pantry does possible.

To learn more about All Faiths Pantry, visit their website at allfaithspantry.org.

###

About OEC

OEConnection (OEC) is the leading automotive technology provider for OEM distribution networks, enabling automakers and dealerships around the world to deliver parts and service information quickly and accurately into the hands of repairers in collision, fleet, mechanical and retail segments, as well as their own service lanes, through a suite of parts cataloging, supply chain, pricing, ecommerce, service and business intelligence solutions. OEC serves nearly 50 international auto brands and fleet companies, and more than 120,000 dealership and repair customers worldwide. OEC is headquartered in the greater Cleveland area at 4205 Highlander Parkway, Richfield, Ohio, USA, 44286. Additional information is available at http://www.oeconnection.com or by emailing Geo Money at Geo.Money(at)oeconnection(dot)com.
Caperton Fertility Institute, along with Drs. Lee and Kelly Caperton, are now offering a free IVF Explained Seminar for those individuals and partners looking for more information about IVF. Dr. Lee Caperton is a Board-Certified Reproductive Endocrinologist and Fertility Specialist. Co-founder and President, Dr. Kelly Caperton, is a Board-Certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist. Together they run a nationally acclaimed practice with locations in El Paso, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The seminar is designed to be informational and allow attendees to have a deeper understanding of the IVF procedure. Additionally, to thank the El Paso community for their continued support, Caperton Fertility Institute will be donating one IVF cycle to an attendee. Space for the seminar is limited to 100 people. Topics covered will include: IVF fully explained, what to expect, testimonials from patients, Q & A session with Dr. Caperton, and the drawing for the donated IVF cycle. The seminar details are as follows:

November 30, 2017, 6:30pm

El Paso Marriott, 1600 Airway Blvd., El Paso

Snacks and beverages provided

We really hope people take advantage of this seminar, commented Dr. Lee Caperton. We will be covering the IVF procedure from A to Z and the open Q & A will allow for all questions to be answered. And my team is so happy to thank the community with our donated IVF cycle. There will be a huge impact on someones life that night.

According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, over 200,000 patients sought out IVF assistance to become pregnant in 2015. Closer to home, residents of El Paso, Texas and the surrounding area undergo hundreds of IVF cycles a year. As our science continues to advance and planned births start later in life, these procedures are likely going to become more common. And, for these patients, in-depth and detailed information about IVF is critical to making a decision that will have a lasting impact.

Anyone that has been struggling to conceive or considering IVF is encouraged to attend.

The seminar is free, but you must RSVP to attend. Please RSVP to: http://www.ExplainIVF.com
Dr. Angela Cotey, Mount Horeb, WI Dentist, Hosts Local Chamber of Commerce Event

Dr. Angela Cotey, skilled dentist in Mount Horeb, WI, and her staff at Village Smile Care, are excited to host a community event for the Mount Horeb Area Chamber of Commerce on November 16, 2017, at the State Bank of Cross Plains. The objective of the anticipated social event is to help connect community members and facilitate a strong community mindset. Dr. Cotey and her team offer custom dental treatments including orthodontics, general hygiene cleanings, dental implants and other leading dental services.

A variety of local businesses will join Village Smile Care in hosting an annual community event for their local Chamber of Commerce. The social event is intended to help members of the community connect with each other and learn more about local services and opportunities. Dr. Cotey, respected dentist in Mount Horeb, WI, and her entire staff are dedicated to helping their community grow. They are also passionate about improving the oral health of individuals of all ages through preventative treatment and leading dental care.

Village Smile Care offers a variety of services to help improve oral appearance, functionality and health, including general cleanings, dental implants and orthodontics, including Invisalign. Invisalign clear aligners are a popular orthodontic treatment for those who want to straighten their teeth without wearing noticeable metal brackets and wires. Dr. Cotey and her team also offer leading dental implant placement for patients with missing teeth in need of a long-term, natural-appearing tooth replacement solution.

Dr. Cotey is an accomplished dentist in Mount Horeb, WI, who enjoys helping members of her community obtain beautiful, fully functional smiles. She encourages patients who are interested in orthodontics, regular hygiene cleanings, dental implants and other dental services to schedule a consultation by calling Village Smile Care during regular business hours at 608-433-2102.

About the Doctor

Dr. Angela Cotey is a general dentist offering personalized dental care to patients in Mount Horeb, WI. Dr. Cotey and her entire team take pride in offering the latest advancements in dentistry and dental technology to ensure each patient enjoys a comfortable experience with long-lasting results. Dr. Cotey combines advanced dentistry with a fun and friendly style. She is a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Dental Association, the Wisconsin Dental Association, American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, Fellow in the Academy of General Dentistry and current President of the Wisconsin Dental Study Club and Madison Dental Progress Forum. To learn more about Dr. Cotey or the services she offers, please visit her website at http://www.villagesmilecare.com or call 608-433-2102 to schedule an appointment.
Financial Poise It is critical to preserve information systems and address and prevent weaknesses in cyber protection efforts.

The INSIDE COUNSEL INSIDER: CORPORATE & REGULATORY COMPLIANCE 2.0 Financial Poise webinar series covers corporate and regulatory compliance as it relates to procurement and government contracting, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, data privacy and social media. The various episodes examine these topics from a companys perspective, delving into compliance issues that pertain to specific company practices across industries and borders and impact companies of all sizes and types.

The third and final episode of the INSIDE COUNSEL INSIDER: CORPORATE & REGULATORY COMPLIANCE 2.0 webinar series is Data Privacy Compliance, airing on November 13th at 2pm CST (REGISTER HERE), and features host Rafael Zahralddin-Aravena of Elliott Greenleaf. He is joined by Lisa Vandesteeg of Sugar Felsenthal Grais & Hammer, Meshach Y. Rhoades of Armstrong Teasdale, and Scott Laliberte of Protiviti to discuss ways in which companies can reach data goals ethically, efficiently and legally.

All levels of society rely upon information technology systems. Network operations are pervasive and impact nearly every aspect of our society. The desire of companies to collect, use, store, and secure information about customers, employees, and other individuals is a requirement of the new economy. It is no wonder that the prevalence of electronic communications and a growing dependency on cyber structures and operations also create potential vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. It is critical to preserve information systems and address and prevent weaknesses in cyber protection efforts. This webinar examines the means for companies to reach data goals ethically, efficiently and legally. Best practices and model comprehensive privacy and cybersecurity policies are discussed. And, data breach response and related litigation, including class action litigation issues and fiduciary duty violations under corporate law, are discussed.

The INSIDE COUNSEL INSIDER: CORPORATE & REGULATORY COMPLIANCE 2.0 webinar series is sponsored by EisnerAmper. All episodes premiere live through West LegalEdCenter and then are made available on-demand.

Each episode is delivered in Plain English understandable to business owners and executives without much background in these areas. Yet, each episode is proven to be valuable to seasoned professionals. As with all Financial Poise Webinars, each episode in the series brings you into engaging, sometimes humorous, conversations designed to entertain as it teaches. And, as with all Financial Poise Webinars, each episode in the series is designed to be viewed independently of the other episodes, so that participants will enhance their knowledge of this area whether they attend one, some, or all of the episodes.

ABOUT FINANCIAL POISE:

Financial Poise (http://www.financialpoise.com) provides unbiased news, continuing education, and intelligence to private business owners, executives, investors, and their trusted advisors. For more information contact Cristina Nolan at cnolan(at)financialpoise(dot)com or 312.469.0135.

ABOUT EISNERAMPER: EisnerAmper is a leading full-service advisory and accounting firm with offices coast to coast and internationally. Visit http://www.eisneramper.com.
Airports Going Green has been the industrys leading sustainability platform for the past ten years. The event brings together more than 400 aviation leaders, experts, and innovators from around the world to exchange ideas in the area of sustainability.

Hover Energy, LLC (Hover or the Company) announced today that the Company will participate in Airports Going Green 2017 in Dallas, Texas next week. On Monday, November 13, Chief Executive Officer Albert McLelland will take part in the Airport Business Partners CEO Panel, which will examine the trends that are shaping renewable power technologies and the aviation sectors approach to sustainability. He is expected to be joined by Robert Shapard, Chief Executive Officer of Oncor, Dr. Rao Mulpuri, Chief Executive Officer of View Glass, Inc., and Jonathon Spitz, Vice President - Sales of Autocase.

On Wednesday, November 15 from 911am, Hover will display its technology at the conferences Technology Demonstration & Innovation Theater at the headquarters of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Airports Going Green has been the industrys leading sustainability platform for the past ten years. The event brings together more than 400 aviation leaders, experts, and innovators from around the world to exchange ideas in the area of sustainability. The conference aims to translate global sustainability trends into practical technology advances for airports and the aviation sector. Detailed information about the conference may be found at https://www.aaae.org/aaae/171104.

About Hover Energy, LLC

Hover Energy, LLC possesses a transformative wind power generation technology. The Company expects to remake the onsite wind energy market by providing an impactful wind power solution with high energy density and a wide range of applications, including the built environment. Additional information is available at http://www.hoverenergy.com.

(NO STOCK EXCHANGE, SECURITIES COMMISSION OR OTHER REGULATORY AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN.)

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain statements concerning the development and completion of a wind power generation technology and the timing of its delivery, as well as other expectations, plans, goals, objectives, assumptions and information about future events, efficiency, outcomes, applications, conditions, results of operations or performance that may constitute forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. Such forward-looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions, which may prove to be incorrect.
Harris Teeters commitment to supporting our military goes well beyond the one-month Support Our Troops campaign ... we continually work together on projects and events that help, not just our military, but the entire community ... Their support is unmatched

This Veterans Day, Harris Teeter announces the companys recent honor of being named the 2017 recipient of the USO of North Carolinas Teer Award which was presented during the USO of North Carolinas annual Salute to Freedom gala. USO of NC President and CEO, John Falkenbury, also announced the companys induction into the prestigious Chairmans Leadership Circle.

The Teer Award  named in honor of Mr. Robert Teer, the founding father of the USO of NC RDU Center, is presented annually to a community business that shows outstanding commitment to assisting in the mission of the USO of NC.

For six consecutive years, Harris Teeter has partnered with the USO by hosting Support Our Troops  a point of sale, register campaign, throughout each of its stores. Each May, Harris Teeter shoppers are invited to make a $1, $3 or $5 donation at checkout. Since 2012, Support Our Troops has raised over $4.6 million. In 2017 alone, the in-store campaign raised $1 million. Over $525,000 was raised in North Carolina and will directly benefit USO of NC.

Harris Teeter extends sincere thanks to its generous shoppers and valued associates who are directly responsible for the success of the annual campaign.

Without the generosity of our loyal shoppers and valued associates combined with the diligent support of our USO partners, this campaign would not be possible, said Danna Robinson, communication manager for Harris Teeter. We are extremely proud of the impact this years $1 million campaign will have on our American service members and their families.

The USO of North Carolina was honored to present Harris Teeter with the 2017 Teer Award at our 13th annual Salute to Freedom Gala, said John Falkenbury, president of the USO of North Carolina. Harris Teeters commitment to supporting our military goes well beyond the one-month Support Our Troops campaign. Throughout the year, we continually work together on projects and events that help, not just our military, but the entire community. Thats what partners do for each other. Their support is unmatched, and we are so grateful for the generosity of the entire Harris Teeter team and all Harris Teeter associates and shoppers that contribute year after year.

In addition to receiving the Teer Award, Harris Teeter was also inducted into the Chairmans Leadership Circle, the foundation for Leadership Giving for the USO of North Carolina. Harris Teeter is the first and only member of this prestigious group which serves as partners in connecting American service members to their families, home and country, throughout the duration of their service to the nation.
Tim Cluke and Andrea Timlin of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation celebrate 9 years of campaign contributions with the Kongsberg Geospatial team. We are so grateful that Kongsberg Geospatial has chosen The Ottawa Hospital as a charity of choice. Your support is making a difference in the lives of patients.

Kongsberg Geospatial presented a cheque for $25,000 to Tim Kluke, President and CEO of The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, in a modest ceremony at Kongsberg Geospatials Kanata office. The money was raised through employee contributions and matching contributions by the company to help fund cancer research for the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre.

This year, Kongsberg Geospatial marked the ninth year theyve contributed to cancer research through a grass-roots campaign. The campaign was conducted in support of clinical trials by Dr. John Bell, who has been doing ground-breaking work in clinical applications of a combination of the Adenovirus, derived from the common cold virus and a modified version of the Maraba virus to attack tumours while leaving healthy cells unharmed. In addition to attacking tumours directly, the virus stimulates the bodys own immune system, making it more likely to recognize and attack cancerous cells on its own.

Over the past nine years, the Kongsberg Geospatial team has raised over $340,000 for cancer research and improvements to cancer care through a combination of employee-run initiatives and events, and a donation matching initiative by the company. The campaigns are managed entirely by workplace volunteers.

This continued support to the Ottawa Hospital Foundation is a source of pride for Kongsberg Geospatial employees, according to company CFO, Tanya Hume. Were proud of the fact that were celebrating our ninth year campaigning on behalf of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation. Weve had nine great years, and were looking forward to doing something extraordinary to celebrate the tenth year of our partnership with them in 2018.

We are so grateful that Kongsberg Geospatial has chosen The Ottawa Hospital as a charity of choice. Your support is making a difference in the lives of patients, said Andrea Timlin, Development Officer with The Ottawa Hospital Foundation. Their very generous $25k plus is going directly to the research that benefits our cancer patients for the best care and therapies that they duly deserve. No one should have to leave Ottawa to get world class care.

With their contribution, and a shared vision of a future without cancer, the employees at Kongsberg Geospatial have helped to bring victory in the fight against cancer a little closer to reality.
HS-AFM movies of DNA cleavage by Cas9RNA. Fluctuations of the nuclease domain are indicated by magenta arrows. The cleavage products released from Cas9RNA are indicated by blue arrows.  this study provides unprecedented details about the functional dynamics of CRISPR-Cas9, and highlights the potential of HS-AFM to elucidate the action mechanisms of RNA-guided effector nucleases from distinct CRISPR-Cas systems

Researchers at Kanazawa University and the University of Tokyo report in Nature Communications the visualization of the dynamics of molecular scissors  the main mechanism of the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic-engineering technique.

One of the techniques used in genetic engineering  the process of artificially modifying the genome of a living organism  involves the so-called CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease system. Using this system, a cells DNA can be cut at a desired site, where genes can be deleted or added. Selection of the site to be cut is done by a guide RNA molecule bound to the Cas9 protein. Now, a team of researchers led by Mikihiro Shibata from Kanazawa University and Osamu Nureki from the University of Tokyo has visualized the dynamics of the CRISPR-Cas9 complex, in particular how it cuts DNA, providing valuable insights into the CRISPR-Cas9-mediated DNA cleavage mechanism.

For their visualization studies, the scientists used high-speed atomic-force microscopy (HS-AFM), a method for imaging surfaces. A surface is probed by moving a tiny cantilever over it; the force experienced by the probe can be converted into a height measure. A scan of the whole surface then results in a height map of the sample. The high-speed experimental set-up of Shibata and colleagues enabled extremely fast, repeated scans  convertible into movies  of the biomolecules taking part in the molecular scissoring action.

First, the scientists compared Cas9 without and with RNA attached (Cas9RNA). They found that the former was able to flexibly adopt various conformations, while the latter has a fixed, two-lobe structure, highlighting the conformational-stabilization ability of the guide RNA. Then, Shibata and colleagues looked at how the stabilized Cas9RNA complex targets DNA. They confirmed that it binds to a pre-selected protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) site in the DNA. A PAM is a short nucleotide sequence located next to the DNAs target site, which is complementary to the guide RNA.

The research teams high-speed movies further revealed that targeting (DNA interrogation) is achieved through 3D diffusion of the Cas9RNA complex. Finally, the researchers managed to visualize the dynamics of the cleavage process itself: they observed how the region of molecular scissors undergoes conformational fluctuations after Cas9RNA locally unwinds the double-stranded DNA.

The work of Shibata advances our understanding of the CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing mechanism. In the words of the researchers:  this study provides unprecedented details about the functional dynamics of CRISPR-Cas9, and highlights the potential of HS-AFM to elucidate the action mechanisms of RNA-guided effector nucleases from distinct CRISPR-Cas systems.

Background

CRISPR-Cas9

CRISPR, short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, refers to a set of bacterial DNA sequences containing fragments of the DNA of viruses having earlier attacked the bacteria. These fragments are used by the bacteria to prevent further attacks by the same viruses. Cas refers to CRISPR-associated genes; Cas9 is a CRISPR-associated protein with two nuclease domains (A nuclease is an enzyme capable of cleaving nucleic acids, organic molecules present in DNA and RNA).

In recent years, a genetic-engineering technique where a CRISPR-Cas9 complex acts as molecular scissors has been developed; the Cas9 nuclease binds to a guide RNA molecule that contains information about the DNA site to target. Using high-speed atomic force microscopy, Mikihiro Shibata from Kanazawa University and colleagues have now studied the dynamics of the CRISPR-Cas9 complex in great detail.

Atomic force microscopy

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an imaging technique in which the image is formed by scanning a surface with a very small tip. Horizontal scanning motion of the tip is controlled via piezoelectric elements, while vertical motion is converted into a height profile, resulting in a height distribution of the samples surface. As the technique does not involve lenses, its resolution is not restricted by the so-called diffraction limit. In a high-speed setup, AFM can be used to produce movies of a samples evolution in real time. High-speed AFM has been used successfully to study protein dynamics, for example myosin V walking on an actin filament, the photo-induced conformational change of bacteriorhodopsin, and the degradation of cellulose. Shibata and colleagues have now applied the high-speed AFM technique for visualizing the dynamics of DNA cleavage by CRISPR-Cas9.

Reference

Mikihiro Shibata, Hiroshi Nishimasu, Noriyuki Kodera, Seiichi Hirano, Toshio Ando, Takayuki Uchihashi & Osamu Nureki. Real-space and real-time dynamics of CRISPR-Cas9 visualized by high-speed atomic force microscopy. Nature Communications, 10th November 2017.

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01466-8

About Kanazawa University

As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 16 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities.

The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa  a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 12,200 students including 600 from overseas.

Kanazawa University website: http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/
"Celebrate" The new album from Win Marcinak I started recording and releasing club songs about fifteen years ago. Each track on the CELEBRATE album has a story and luckily, were well-received by DJs and fans. Like a fine wine, theyve all grown even better with age!

Dance floor commander Win Marcinak is back on the scene with a brand new full-length dance music album titled, Celebrate," released today on Burning Tyger Music. The pulsating anthology features new songs, cover tunes, guest divas and rare commercially unreleased hit Billboard charting tracks. Already building a story is the album's infectious cover of Three Dog Night's "Celebrate," featuring the incomparable Pepper Mashay, belting it out right along with Divo Win Marcinak. The Celebrate album also contains the new single When Were All One, featuring Kaylah Marin and Marcinaks 2016 hit dance single, Look Up to the Sky with Jeanie Tracey.

I started recording and releasing club songs about fifteen years ago now. Each track on this album has a story and luckily, were well-received by DJs and fans. Like a fine wine, theyve all grown even better with age, states Win Marcinak. There are some delicious new tracks and remixes included that are the cherry on top of this labor of love.

The concept for the Celebrate anthology incorporates a celebration of 15 years of the artists work in dance music. The album was also stimulated by Marcinaks recent departure from San Francisco and his move back to the Midwest in Grand Rapids, MI where he grew up. The collection of songs features some rare, unreleased and remixed dance tracks from Marcinaks biggest hits. To round it all out, Marcinak has included two brand new songs: a self-penned club anthem titled, When Were All One featuring San Francisco based diva vocalist Kaylah Marin and a club cover version of Three Dog Nights Celebrate featuring international dance diva Pepper Mashay. Floors will shake with pulsating beats and giant vocals, as the new "Celebrate" dance mixes from Peter Monk, Dirty Disco, Rich Earnshaw, Tony Badtone Iannone and Silverland hit the house.

Purchase the full-length album on iTunes now.

As a special treat, Win Marcinak included a special featured appearance on the package: the voice of Expose diva Gioia Bruno, sampling "Dirty Cash" against Marcinak's male divo vocals on the Collision Mix of Kiss & Tell. Marcinak has also produced a fiery updated 2017 remake of Kajagoogoos timeless 80s classic Too Shy featuring DJ Timmy Loop. Dance music lovers will recall Marcinaks 2006 career break-through cover of Too Shy, which infiltrated dance floors with the help of legendary record promoter Harry Towers.

This year has been unbelievable in terms of change and celebration for me, states Marcinak. I left my heart in San Francisco and returned home to Grand Rapids, Michigan to experience a new love of life. I have no regrets and I am celebrating where I have been and exactly where I am. Everyone, come and celebrate with me!

Tracks included in the Celebrate full-length album:

1. Celebrate  Peter Monk Mix

2. Celebrate  Original Mix by Tony BadTone Iannone

3. Celebrate  Silverland Dub

4. Too Shy 2017 featuring DJ Timmy Loop

5. When Were All One  Josh Harris Mix

6. When Were All One  Dirty Disco Mix

7. When Were All One  Rich Earnshaw Dub Mix

8. Look Up to the Sky with Jeanie Tracey

9. Kiss & Tell  Collision Mix Featuring Gioia Bruno on Dirty Cash

10. Kiss & Tell

11. In My Heart

12. Dont You Want Me?

13. Mighty Real

14. We Are What We Are

15. Rock Steady

16. Love You

17. Love Vibration

About Win Marcinak:

Dance floor commander Win Marcinak is back on the scene with a new dance album titled Celebrate featuring new songs, cover tunes, guest divas and rare unreleased hit dance remixes. Last year Marcinak released the single titled "Look Up to the Sky!" co-produced by the legendary house diva Jeanie Tracey. This year, Marcinak returns with a stupendous round up of club tracks due out soon. Win Marcinak, a man of many talents, is a storyteller songwriter, vocalist and classical dancer turned instructor in the vibrant San Francisco arts scene. Reminiscent of Andy Bell's lilting vocals, Win Marcinak's voice styling encapsulates the robustness of a warm and glowing technique crashed with a brilliant Euro-pop approach, which resonates far beyond the boy band gimmicky sound of today. Win Marcinaks smooth and velvety vocal, often compared to the voices of Boy George and Limahl floating over sophisticated electro production. A seasoned performer, Win has been touring throughout the country for the last two decades; singing and dancing in famous clubs and auditoriums everywhere. In 2004, Win released his full-length CD titled 'In My Heart,' which spawned several dance hits including the title track, 'It's A Dream' and the unforgettable cover of Kajagoogoo's 'Too Shy.' The songs were licensed by DMX Music and immediately turned into staples at a variety of venues and clubs around the world. Win Marcinak has also been featured on Ultra's 'Mad About the Boy' compilation. In 2008, Win unleashed his smash-up single 'Kiss & Tell' - a reinvention of the pop rock Bryan Ferry classic. Making a special featured appearance on the package was the voice of Expose diva Gioia Bruno sampling "Dirty Cash" against Marcinak's male Divo vocals. Win is back to win it all!

Please visit the Win Marcinak Facebook Page
Panama-based Prime-Ex Perpetual has sold over 2.5 million tokens  its minimum ICO threshold in a pre-sale event that started on November 1. The pre-sale of PEX-Tokens guarantees that Prime-Ex Perpetual will be able to start their proof of concept beginning in January.

The company reported today that this has secured all of its minimum targets during the first leg of the campaign. Prime-Ex Perpetual focuses on building, selling, and long-term financing of American-style homes for expats via branded real estate ecosystem tokenized by their PEX-Token, the blockchain technology which is available from the Waves platform.

Crossing over the 2,500,000 PEX-Token threshold for token sales is a major achievement for us. We are eager to get out there and begin building the homes today that will be the backbone for our ecosystem tomorrow, said Prime-Ex Perpetuals CEO John Gilbert. Prime-Ex Perpetual will now start implementing its unique residential real estate ecosystem and breaking ground on the first houses in Panama.

Prime-Ex Perpetual will market residential real estate to expats around the world who cannot easily get financing abroad but are members of an elite group with high discretionary income. Prime-Ex Perpetual is stressing building quality, overall value, and life experiences for expats through its extensive marketing campaign, which has been running in the Western and European top tier media recently.

Prime-Ex Perpetual is offering PEX-Tokens for sale on its website. PEX-Tokens will be used in the future to incentivize homebuyers: they can pay mortgages directly with them on their newly financed homes by entering the DEX Exchange and purchasing PEX-Tokens from existing token holders. Prime-Ex Perpetual says that it is creating a whole new asset class of value with its unique offering and is raising a new type of REIT through blockchain utilization.

Prime-Ex Perpetual pre-sale of PEX-Tokens ends November 8th. The ICO will start on November 15th and will run through November 30th .

About Prime-Ex Perpetual

The Prime-Ex Perpetual 125 home proof of concept will occur in the cool highlands and the warm beaches of the Republic of Panama, the top expat destination for home ownership and a place where financing homes used to be challenging for expats. Once the concept has been proven, Prime-Ex Perpetual will expand into other international locations. To buy Prime-Ex Perpetuals PEX-Tokens please visit prime-ex.com or for more Prime-Ex Perpetual info download the white paper http://www.prime-ex.com. http://www.facebook.com/PEXTokens or follow us on Twitter: @PEXTokens
Theres an adage that says first impressions make lasting impressions, which is why representatives with The Creativity Workshop proudly announced today that it has redesigned its website with a visually beautiful design that provides site visitors with not only a lasting impression, but an unforgettable one.

We wanted to offer a better experience for the user, said Ceci Glusman, spokeswoman for The Creativity Workshop."We made the site much faster, secure and easy to read.

Visitors to The Creativity Workshop's newly redesigned website, according to Glusman, will be able to subscribe to news and special offers. Those who subscribe will receive The Creativity Workshop's monthly email with the latest news while also having exclusive access to special offers that are not available or listed on their website.

Visitors will also have access to The Creativity Workshop's 2018 Calendar, including workshops in New York, Florence, Lisbon, Verona, Crete, Barcelona, Prague, and more.

And perhaps the best thing about The Creativity Workshop's newly redesigned website is that it has been optimized with a responsive web design, which means the organization's web page looks great on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and phones. This design gives visitors to The Creativity Workshop's website the ability to resize, shrink, and enlarge the content on the website, for improved navigation and user experience based on the type of device the user is using.

"We're very excited about the workshops that we have planned now and in the future," Glusman stressed, before adding, "As times change, technology has also changed, so it was very important for us to ensure that our website utilized the latest technology, which in turn enhances the user experience, making everything on our website quick, easy, and visually pleasing to the eye while browsing each page."

For more information, please visit https:creativityworkshop.com/whoweare

About The Creativity Workshop

The Creativity Workshop is based in New York City and is taught around the world.

The Creativity Workshop was established in 1993 by educator and writer Shelley Berc and multimedia artist Alejandro Fogel. The organization is dedicated to teaching individuals and groups about creative processes.

Contact Details:

The Creativity Workshop

One Columbus Place

40th Floor Suite N40F

New York, NY 10019

Tel: (212) 203-3252

Email: questions(at)creativityworkshop(dot)com

Source: The Creativity Workshop

###
NexCore has enjoyed collaborating with the Summit Healthcare team on the space programming and development process, which will pay off in the form of an innovative and outstanding solution that we know will be an asset to the patients and providers throughout the region for many years to come.

Guided by its innovative space planning process, NexCore Group is helping to bring more accessible, integrated healthcare to residents of the Show Low area, as well as increased productivity to the leading local provider.

Ground was broken on Monday, Nov. 6 for three buildings totaling 174,778 square feet on an 18.81-acre outpatient campus adjacent to the Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center (SHRMC) in Show Low, an east-central Arizona mountain community about 180 miles northeast of Phoenix. The project consists of:



Summit Healthcare Outpatient Pavilion, three stories, 103,866 square feet;

Summit Healthcare Outpatient Surgery Center, one story, 16,213 square feet; and

Summit Healthcare Auxiliary Building, one story, 54,699 square feet, housing administrative offices, community meeting rooms and materials management space.

Denver-based NexCore Group, a national healthcare real estate (HRE) developer, is providing strategic planning and development services for the overall campus, and is handling financing, development, leasing, property management and asset management for the outpatient pavilion, which it will own.

A visionary solution: creating a new healthcare delivery platform

NexCore was engaged by Summit Healthcare, a health provider that draws patients from a radius of about 100 miles, to lead the development of a new outpatient campus. The systems goals were to increase patient satisfaction and enhance the providers productivity by consolidating and coordinating nine primary and specialty care clinics spread across a wide geographic area.

Weve had very rapid growth within Summit Healthcare reflected in the number of employed providers weve added to the system. We have about 90 providers located in 22 clinical offices, and so that means we have 22 leases, Summit Healthcare COO Doug Gilchrist explains. We were looking for operational efficiencies that would allow us to see more patients during the day with an accountable care model that has an emphasis on population health, clinical integration and patient-centric medical homes. This model made a lot of sense to us, having everything in a one-stop shop, where a patient could come see their physician, have labs done, images done, get their medications, and have their therapies done.

Using its innovative space planning process, NexCores in-house design team guided administrators, physicians and staff of Summit Healthcare and Summit Healthcare Medical Associates through a space transformation and consolidation effort to arrive at design solutions that will provide greater patient convenience while increasing physician capacity, streamlining workflows and improving efficiency.

Initially, the project team envisioned an outpatient center totaling about 60,000 to 70,000 square feet. But as the feasibility process progressed, it became clear that a larger facility integrating a wider range of services would be a more farsighted solution. A larger project could not only serve current needs but also accommodate anticipated future growth with a minimum of additional investment.

Todd Varney, Managing Principal, says NexCore is pleased to provide advanced solutions that result in the development of the most convenient, efficient and productive healthcare facilities possible in all types of settings, including this growing resort community in the mountains of Arizona.

NexCore has enjoyed collaborating with the Summit Healthcare team on the space programming and development process, which will pay off in the form of an innovative and outstanding solution that we know will be an asset to the patients and providers throughout the region for many years to come, he says. We are looking forward to seeing this great campus come to life.

Beyond the blueprints: NexCores space planning process

The process NexCore used to develop a plan for Summit Healthcare Outpatient Pavilion included several different components. First the team took a detailed look at the current provider throughput and platform utilization. The team then conducted time trials to get a sense for how many patients were being seen and how the current patient check-in system worked, as well as wait times and patient in-room times.

Summit Healthcares Chief Medical Officer, Alan DeWitt, MD, says their team found the process to be invaluable.

NexCore has provided a tremendous resource in helping us analyze the current workflows in our various clinics and then improve upon those workflows and the design of our new integrated clinic. During NexCores planning process we focused on how patients experience care in our clinics from check-in to exam to scheduling procedures. We also looked at elements of the provider workflow like what percentage of time an exam room is filled, how often the provider is there to see patients, and so on. Frankly, we did not have this kind of expertise in house, and so its been fantastic to have NexCores guidance and leadership as we make critical decisions about the new clinic, Dr. DeWitt says.

In addition to conducting feasibility studies and answering questions, NexCore organized tours of facilities at other health systems to explore various workspace and workflow options, and went beyond blueprints and plans by building a life-size mock-up that allowed Summit Healthcares providers to visualize and experience those proposed workflows. Along with the increased satisfaction and convenience to patients, the new platform is anticipated to increase physician capacity by 20 percent while delivering a 10 percent cost reduction.

I had never heard of anyone doing a full-scale mock-up of an entire clinical pod, but with the mock-up height, the substance of the walls, and details in the exam rooms and provider workspace, you can really envision what the actual clinic is going to look like and how it will perform. Touring the mockup has been very reassuring for our physicians, explains Dr. DeWitt.

As the project progressed, the development team also realized that it would provide greater flexibility if the new Outpatient Surgery Center was built as a separate, freestanding structure because that would allow for future expansion. The Surgery Center will, however, be connected to the Outpatient Pavilion for added convenience.

The Auxiliary Building will house non-clinical services that are currently located in the adjacent hospital, and will support the entire campus. The space vacated by the relocation of these functions will allow for expansion of inpatient services within Summit Regional Medical Center.

Plans call for all three buildings to be completed near the end of 2018.

Benefits to all: patients, providers and the region

The new Summit Healthcare outpatient campus will provide primary and specialty care, imaging, physical and occupational therapy, sleep lab, pharmacy and ambulatory surgery services. In addition to providing many benefits to the citizens of Show Low, the first-class outpatient campus will also be an asset when it comes to recruiting physicians and staff. Additionally, Summit Healthcare will be able to compete more effectively with specialty providers in Phoenix by offering comparable services in Show Low.

Jessica McGinnis, Summit Healthcares Director of Practice Management, says the new facilities are a win-win for the community.

Im 100 percent sold that this new integrated clinic is going to be a wonderful thing for our patients. Its going to give them the appropriate care at the appropriate time at the appropriate location, and its going to bring our team members together under one roof to work together as a unit, she says.

The Summit Healthcare Outpatient Pavilion will be occupied by Summit Healthcare outpatient services, over 60 Summit Healthcare physicians, 65 the NEAR Care Team members, and affiliated independent physicians. Space is still available on the second and third floors of the Outpatient Pavilion to lease to independent physicians. For more information on leasing, please contact Stacey Hall, Vice President, Leasing at (928) 288-5354 or stacey.hall(at)nexcoregroup(dot)com.

About NexCore Group LLC

NexCore Group develops healthcare facilities for hospitals, health systems and physicians. We solve complex real estate challenges through innovative building solutions and creative financial structures. In a rapidly changing healthcare industry, NexCore has the superior expertise to deliver quality environments and flexible spaces that help grow your business, lower expenses and mitigate risk. Over the past 25 years, NexCore has developed and acquired a total of 7.1 million square feet of health care facilities across the country. Our company has been recognized repeatedly as one of the Top Healthcare Real Estate Developers in the U.S. by Modern Healthcare magazine. NexCore is headquartered in Denver and, as the company continues to grow, so does its geographic reach. During the past several years, NexCore has opened regional offices in Chicago; Bethesda, Md.; Portland, Ore.; Dallas; Orlando, Florida; Laguna Niguel, Calif.; and Indianapolis. For more information, please visit http://www.nexcoregroup.com. Contact: Tracy Hindman, Marketing Director, 303-293-0673.

Fact Sheet

Summit Healthcare Show Low (three buildings)



Summit Healthcare Outpatient Pavilion

Summit Healthcare Outpatient Surgery

Summit Healthcare Auxiliary Building

Location: Addresses for the Outpatient Pavilion, Outpatient Surgery and Auxiliary Building have not yet been assigned.

Product Types: Outpatient Center, Ambulatory Surgery Center and Auxiliary Building

Size: Outpatient Pavilion: three stories, 103,866 square feet (gross); Outpatient Surgery: one story, 16,213 square feet (gross); Auxiliary Building: one story, 54,699 square feet (gross). The three buildings are on an 18.81-acre site that directly abuts Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center.

Construction Start: October 2017

Construction Completion: December 2018

Developer: NexCore Group LLC, Denver

Equity: Outpatient Pavilion: NexCore Group LLC

Lender: Outpatient Pavilion: Siemens Financial Services Inc.

Owner: Outpatient Pavilion: NexCore Group LLC, Denver; Outpatient Surgery and Auxiliary Building: Summit Healthcare, Show Low.

Tenants: Outpatient Pavilion: Summit Healthcare and affiliated independent physicians; Outpatient Surgery and Auxiliary Building: Summit Healthcare

Architect: Orcutt Winslow, Phoenix

Contractors: Haydon Building Corporation and UEB Builders, Phoenix

Asset Manager: Outpatient Pavilion: NexCore Properties LLC, Denver

Property Manager: Outpatient Pavilion: NexCore Group LLC

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Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican, compared GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore to accused sexual predators Harvey Weinstein and Roger Ailes, as well as former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is currently in prison for sexting a minor.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Comstock addressed The Washington Post report detailing various cases of sexual misconduct by Moore, including an instance in which he allegedly made advances on a 14-year-old girl in 1979 when Moore was a 32-year-old man.

"Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Weiner, Roger Ailes, Roy Moore No MOORE of this 4 women have come forward with detailed stories about Roy Moore," Comstock said in a statement. "Their stories are confirmed through numerous sources who knew the actions at the time or well before now."

Comstock also said that the allegations, all of which are on the record and backed up by 30 witness and accounts, were more credible than Moore's denial.

"I believed the stories from the victims of Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes and others because they were substantiated and consistent with the stories of how sexual predators operate," Comstock added.

"To date Roy Moore has not provided any credible explanation or response to the detail allegations, particularly the allegations by a woman who was at the time a 14 year old girl and Roy Moore was a 32 year-old assistant district attorney. The defense from some of his supporters is beyond disturbing. Today, the National Review Editorial board also set out the case against Roy Moore and why he should drop out. Roy Moore should not serve in the US Senate."

And Comstock is not the only Republican to outright call for him to step down. Sen. John McCain, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and others have demanded that Moore vacate the race.

Moore's campaign has vehemently denied the allegations, saying in a statement Thursday, "This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation."

On Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee severed its ties to Moore's joint fundraising agreement, while the Republican National Committee and Alabama GOP are still on board.
Uber has failed to overturn an employment court ruling that said it must treat its drivers as workers as opposed to self-employed contractors.

The legal case against Uber was brought last October by ex-Uber drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam. They claimed Uber was acting illegally by not giving drivers basic worker rights (such as holiday pay and the minimum wage) and won.

Uber appealed the decision at a two-day employment tribunal in September, saying that Uber acted just like traditional minicab firms. The company has always maintained that drivers who use its platform are independent contractors. It frames itself as a technology platform, connecting riders and drivers and taking a fee in the process.

Judge Jennifer Eady QC announced that she was "dismissing" the appeal in her verdict, which was summarised at an employment tribunal court in London on Thursday.

Nigel Mackay, employment solicitor at law firm Leigh Day, which is representing the drivers, said: "We are very pleased that the EAT has rejected Uber's appeal.

"We have always believed that the Employment Tribunals decision from last October was entirely correct in saying that our GMB member clients were entitled to workers right such as the minimum wage and holiday pay.

"We now hope that Uber will accept this decision, rather than seeking pursuing appeals, so that we can swiftly return to the Employment Tribunal on behalf of our GMB member clients, for the Tribunal to decide the compensation that they are entitled to."

In a statement, Uber said it plans to appeal the ruling.

"Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed," said Uber UK's acting general manager Tom Elvidge. "The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal.

"The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK.

"Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. Weve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and well keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better."

Ex-Uber drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam

The ruling could have broader implications for the gig economy

It's a major decision that could cost Uber millions of pounds and make the San Francisco-headquartered company think twice about its UK business operations. The ruling could also have ramifications for other companies operating in the UK's so-called gig economy, such as Deliveroo.

Paul Jennings, partner at Bates Wells Braithwaite, which is representing the drivers, told Business Insider that the ruling could prove to be very expensive for Uber if drivers seek to claim back pay that they may have missed out on. "It's going to cost them," he said.

But Uber drivers shouldn't get too excited about the prospect of receiving standard worker benefits just yet. Uber is planning to appeal the decision, meaning that the case could end up being dragged through the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Jenning said it's conceivable that some Uber drivers could end up being workers and some could end up being self-employed.

"The whole thing is complicated with drivers using a multitude of apps," he said. "I think then the driver potentially moves into a self-employed space where they're marketing their services to the world through a range of portals."

There are over 1 million people working in the gig economy in the UK, according to recent government estimates.
Jurors in Nassau County, N.Y. deliberated on the issue for more than two days before they convicted the 38-year-old for raping the 11-year-old girl on multiple occasions at his Long Island home.

He was charged with the crime in 2015 and found guilty at Nassau County court, New York, this week.

Maraj's defense attorney, David Schwartz, argued that Jacqueline Maraj, the mother of the victim who divorced Maraj last year, made-up the allegations in an effort to extort $25 million from Maraj's famous sister, Nicki Minaj.

But the victim, who is now 14, testified during the trial and said Maraj repeatedly raped her and would beat her if she refused his advances. Her 10-year-old brother also testified and said he walked in on Maraj sexually abusing his sister.
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The song is about how painful it is to have one's partner snatched from them and at the same time how pleasant it is to snatch one's partner from another.

Speaking on Joy News he revealed that the motive behind the song is to encourage people to stay monogamous and not chase after other peoples partners.

I believe in drinking water from ones own water system simply do not do unto others what you do not want them to do unto you he said.

The song which features Kofi Kinaata was released a month ago and has since gone viral.

Captain Planet expressed excitement at the pace at which the song is being played on media airwaves.
The court further ordered that the suspect should be examined by any of the recognised psychiatric hospitals in the country to ascertain his mental status, after his lawyer had argued that Mr. Boadi was not in the right frame of mind when he posted the said alarmist news on social media.

READ MORE: Land guards assault teacher for sacking a form 3 student

It would be recalled that on September 24, social media was awash with the news that the largest and most popular mall was besieged by terrorist, holding both workers and customers hostage.

The security agencies debunked the assertion with dispatch and an investigation was instituted into the matter to figure out the source of that information.

A joint security task force was able to traced the source of that fake news to the 30-year-old teacher who resides in the Ashanti region.

He posted the false news on a WhatsApp platform called Buy and Sell Anything and Travel Agent GH which he is the organiser.

Boadi was invited via telephone to report to the BNI office in Kumasi, on October 5, but he failed to honour the invitation.

He was later arrested at his hideout and brought to the BNI office where he admitted to originating the said fake news and its video attachment.
Mohammed Lukeman and Awudu Usman were identified as members of a gang who have been terrorising residents of Kumasi in the Ashanti region.

READ MORE: Court orders psychiatric examination of teacher who faked Accra Mall terror attack

Ashanti regional police Public Relations Officer, ASP Juliana Obeng told journalists that three other members have been arrested while another three are still at large.

ASP Obeng further revealed that the modus operandi adopted by the robbers was to often use an Opel Astra taxi to pick unsuspecting female passengers and midway through the journey, they gag, rob, rape and severely beat them.

According to the GNA, some residents have already identified the suspects as those that have attacked them, which the robbers themselves have admitted to.

They disclosed that their latest robbery was just about five weeks ago, when they picked up two female passengers, beat and dumped them in the bush after seizing their cash and other valuables.
Whether its an off the shelf application or one that is customised to suit your exact needs Npontu has a tailor-made package for you. Npontu has a product flagship which includes a Digital Messaging Application, a Revenue Collection Application, a Pensions Management Software, a Church Management System and a School Management Software .

Our digital messaging application, DEYWURO which comes with both web and mobile portals, has the capacity to connect to billions of phones in seconds, so whether its a transactional message or simply for sensitization, we are the go to. DEYWURO also has a bulk email feature which is all for the clients convenience. The icing on the cake is that DEYWURO has the capacity to do targeted ads and research using big data. The face of marketing and advertising has changed; different customers want to hear different things so instead of doing omnibus marketing and advertising, let us help you with predictive analysis, get to know who your customers really are, save cost, and reach them directly, using our effective algorithms put together with the client in mind. All this with a client facing portal which helps you monitor your service to get your moneys worth.

READ MORE: A Ghanaian carpenter went all tech with this amazing electronic bed

KARIBI, our revenue collection application has helped businesses gather millions of Cedis from clients through various payment mediums which includes cash, cheque and mobile payments. It helps you track your revenue collection in real time, deliver instant notifications to clients on actual balance and moneys received, monitor loan defaulters and customer complaints as well as monitor staff performance. All this is done in real time, and can be done paperless. The application has features which can be used for data analysis, and for review of staff performance, which feeds to into critical managerial decision making which can either make or unmake an organization. The wonderful thing about KARIBI is that unlike all other revenue collection applications, it is a total ERP, and serves all the human resource management and finance needs of the client apart from its money collection aspect.

DUA PA, our pensions management system helps you manage the future of your Client. It is an entire ERP with pensions modules like parties, schemes, benefit processing, contributions, investments. Put together by industry experts, it has a robust reporting feature which ensures that you always exceed the expectation of the client and are in sync with regulating authorities.

With Ghana being a predominantly Christian nation, the church is not left out, thanks to our GENESIS Church Management application. A church need not worry about the figures when they have our application from recording of church attendance to remembering birthdays to tithe record, GENESIS does even more. With a front facing portal for church members, who can read the Pastors sermons, GENESIS creates a whole new world for the church. GENESIS is simple enough to use and comes as an ERP taking church administration to a whole new level.

NYIMDZIE, our school management system, takes off the stress of using multiple applications. We understand the need to be both business and tech savvy and this is what we offer to schools. With features such as managing inventory and procurement to automated student academic reports and promotions, there is a lot to expect from our application. We consider it the school administrators panacea.

It must be stressed that all Npontu Technologies applications function as an ERP, have payment platforms, are integrated with Messaging features and most importantly can be customized to suit a particular clients need. Not forgetting that we offer 24/7 support for ALL our clients

In line with our one-year anniversary, Npontu has an exclusive offer. Npontu Technologies is opening its doors to all schools who wish to have its School management application NYIMDZIE. From now till the end of the year, any school can have this application set up for them and customized for their specific use.
For ages, the Osae assembly hall has been painted green and white.

READ ALSO: Prempeh College threatens to sack students who fail exams

However, as part of the school's preparations to celebrate its 68th speech and prize giving day, the headmaster Samuel Fordjour decided to repaint the assembly hall brown.

This new phase didn't really go down well with old students of Prempeh College. They believe the brown painting disrespects the green colour tradition of the school.

READ ALSO: 6 SHS with the strongest alliance groups
The two - Lukeman Mohammed and Awudu Osman  were shot on Thursday, November 9, after they allegedly attempted escaping lawful arrest.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ashanti regional police command, ASP Juliana Obeng said the suspects confessed to the police that they had arms hidden in an uncompleted storey building at Sepe, a suburb of Kumasi.

She said that the two tried escaping while leading officers trace a cache of arms.

"Whilst the search was ongoing, the two suspects who were in separate handcuffs jumped from a one-storey building to escape from the police. They were, however, chased and fired at to immobilise them from escaping, but suspect Awudu Osman died instantly, while suspect Lukeman Mohammed was pronounced dead on arrival at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, ASP Obeng explained.

Tension is, however, heightening in Aboabo following the incident as the family of the deceased and other residents suspect foul play.

On the floor of parliament on Friday, the Minority Chief Whip, Alhaji Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka said he was disappointed in the manner in which the two were suspects were gunned down by the police.
Authorities at the Department of Social Welfare said various attempts to get the doctor to release the baby were not successful.

The Central Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Mr. Smith Dankwa said he is disappointed at the decision by Dr Dordoye to release the child to the supposed Good Samaritan because the department should be the one to handle such actions.

These allegations are coming on the back of threats by nurses at the Ankaful Psychiatric hospital to lay down their tools if the Director of the facility, Dr. Eugene Dordoye is not removed from office.

For the nurses at the facility, the Medical Director is running the facility as if it is his home, and has rather turned a deaf ear to their needs.
The accused, Daniel Nunoo, who has been washing cars for a living, bolted after committing the crime but was later arrested.

The Court that heard the case on Tuesday adjourned it to November 21, 2017.

READ ALSO: Land guards assault teacher for sacking a form 3 student

He has provisionally been charged with attempted murder.

Prosecuting Detective Sergeant Simeon Terkpor told the court that, the complainant, Charlotte Kai Adjetey, aged 29, is a cook residing at La, Accra.

The accused person also resides in the same area.

He said that the accused and Ms Adjetey were in a relationship and cohabited. They had a child who is currently 9 years old.

Nunoo used to abuse Ms Adjetey, causing her to break up with him.

The two attended the same funeral on October 8, 2017.

READ ALSO: Man dies after he slept with 3 electric fans blowing air at him

The prosecution said the complainant at a point in time decided to leave the funeral grounds.

Nunoo then called her but the complainant ignored him.

Nunoo then grabbed Ms Nunoo and stabbed her with an implement. She fell unconscious after bleeding for a while.

The accused person left the complainant to her fate, however, she was rescued by two men, who rushed her to the 37 Military Hospital where she was admitted and two surgeries performed on her.
According to Accra-based Adom FM, the suspect, Corporal Dovlo Agbeshie, with service NO 192629, and member of the Band unit of the army, allegedly extorted huge sums of monies from unsuspecting Chinese Nationals and some local miners in Enchi and its surrounding communities.

The Enchi Police Commander Supt Raymond Kofi Erzuah said the residents of the area reported the extortion to the security agency.

READ ALSO: Interior Minister summoned to parliament over killing of 2 robbers by police

Corporal Agbeshie and his accomplices were arrested but he subsequently escaped.

He was however rearrested at the Yiwabra barrier at Enchi together with a civilian accomplice.

The police retrieved his military uniform and 3 different mobile phones from the suspect.

The military personnel and his civilian accomplices are expected to be transferred to the Asankragua police Command for further investigations.

Superintendent Raymond Kofi Erzuah said this is the third time in less than two months that military personnel have been arrested by the police for alleged extortion and robberies in the Western region.
MP for Aowin in the Western Region, Mathias Kwame Ntow who was not happy with the situation told parliament: When I got to the gate, the road had been blocked. I was told a movie was going on. Mr. Speaker I am so much concerned because this the second arm of the government of the Republic of GhanaNow we have only one gate, in case of any eventuality, where do we go?
The Ashanti Regional Police Commander COP Mr. Ken Yeboah made this known on Kumasi-based Ultimate FM at a time when it was believed that the case surrounding the members of the pro-NPP group had ended.

A Kumasi Circuit Court earlier this year discharged the eight members of vgilante group who were being tried after they disrupted court proceeding of 13 of their members.

The 13 were arrested by the police after they attacked the newly appointed Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator, George Agyei. The men argued that Mr Agyei did not deserve the position because he played no role in the struggle to bring the NPP into power.

The case against the eight was dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Speaking on the subject matter, COP Ken Yeboah said: according to the Attorney General, we did not have enough evidence so they were let go, but we came out appealing to the public to assist us to get credible information that will lead to the arrest of the culprits.

They were not the culprits and the real culprits, we are looking for them. You as a citizen, you have every right and responsibility to also assist, he said.

He further indicated that the Regional Security Coordinator, George Adjei has been refusing to corporate with the police and this is frustrating investigations.
His comments come on the back of calls by the regional Chairmen of the party for him to lead the party into the 2020 elections.

According to the former president, it is premature to state his intent on running for the presidency in 2020.

A statement issued Friday and signed by Special Aide, Joyce Bawa said Mahama clearly stated his intentions during the meeting with Regional Chairpersons of the party on Thursday.

"HE Mahama, during the meeting also stressed the need for the leadership of the Party across the structures- Branch, Constituency, Regional and National- to work towards educating supporters on the ongoing Branch reorganization activities and use the opportunity to build up the support base of the Party in the communities," it said.

"The former president further repeated his earlier call on all members of the NDC to focus on the ongoing restructuring and reorganization exercise while pledging his commitment and support for the process and the Party."

Below is the full statement:

STATEMENT ON MEETING WITH THE REGIONAL CHAIRPERSONS CAUCUS OF THE NDC

The Office of HE John Dramani Mahama wishes to formally thank the Regional Chairpersons Caucus of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for their fraternal visit on Thursday November 09, 2017, and also appreciate the opportunity to discuss a number of issues.

Given that the former president had always wanted to thank Ghanaians for their support and cooperation during his tenure as both Vice President and President of the Republic of Ghana, and as reiterated during the meeting he will discuss the timing of the requested Thank You Tour with the leadership of the Party.

On the issue of considering the request of party colleagues and supporters to lead the NDC to the 2020 Elections, HE John Mahamas position, as stated in Cape Coast, remains that it will be premature to announce his decision whether or not to contest, in view of the ongoing reorganization efforts of the Party.

HE Mahama, during the meeting also stressed the need for the leadership of the Party across the structures-Branch, Constituency, Regional and National-to work towards educating supporters on the ongoing Branch reorganization activities and use the opportunity to build up the support base of the Party in the communities.

The former president further repeated his earlier call on all members of the NDC to focus on the ongoing restructuring and reorganization exercise while pledging his commitment and support for the process and the Party.
In a statement issued by the FEC, it said insulting and vilifying potential contenders will only divide the party further instead of the unity they are currently seeking.

The FEC notes with extreme concern the tenor of some of these individuals in their public pronouncements. Equally, FEC notes with concern the conduct of some persons and groups affiliated to these aspirants at all levels. We have observed that some potential aspirants and their followers have resorted to insults, and vilification of potential contestants. This abuse takes place, at times in a highly toxic manner on social media and sections of the media, the statement signed by the National Chairman of the NDC, Kofi Portuphy indicated.

The FEC wishes to remind potential hopefuls, aspirants and their affiliates as well as party followers that such acts constitute anti-party conduct and at the same time destroy the cohesive unity of the party. Such conduct seriously undermines the painstaking efforts by Council of Elders and the NEC to reorganize the party, it added.

FEC also reminded party faithfuls that internal electoral processes that allow members to engage in a campaign and other political activities had not yet been officially launched.

The statement comes shortly after all 10 regional chairmen of the party endorsed the former President John Mahama for the 2020 election, even before he announces his intentions.

The 10 regional chairmen did this after a meeting on Thursday, November 9, 2017.
All 10 regional Chairmen of the NDC have called on the former President John Dramani Mahama to lead the party into the 2020 elections.

The Regional Chairpersons who had a meeting with Mr Mahama on Thursday, November 9 in Accra urged the former president to consider the request of teeming supporters of the NDC and Ghanaians to lead the party to the 2020 general elections.

Many have since indicated that this endorsement gives John Mahama an edge over other contenders.

For some, the call by the chairmen is in bad taste.

But Ade Coker said their communique is not an endorsement of the former president.

He urged critics to be serious with their reading lessons.

The ten regional chairmen havent endorsed anybody. The communique is explicit. I dont know why we are making a hue and cry over all this thing. People should read. We make Bawumia have some justification. People are not reading," he said.

He indicated that at the regional level, the party meets every quarter to look at the problems in the party and find solutions.
Since that trip, President Trump in October de-certified the Iran deal, and warned Washington may yet walk away from "one of the worst" agreements in history, leaving its fate in the hands of Congress.

In exchange for controls to prevent Tehran from developing an atom bomb, the deal's signatories agreed to gradually lift sanctions.

In a statement, the IAEA said Haley and Amano "discussed the IAEA's verification and monitoring of Irans implementation of its nuclear-related commitments" under the agreement with six global powers -- the US, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

Amano also repeated his assessment that the agreement "represents a significant gain for nuclear verification," and that Iran's nuclear-related commitments "are being implemented."

The IAEA chief assured Haley the agency has "so far had access to all the locations it needed to visit" Iran, and will continue to work "in an impartial and factual manner."

Meanwhile, the US mission to the UN expressed Haley's appreciation for the UN watchdog's "expertise and professionalism."

Haley vowed the US would support the IAEA "in carrying out robust verification of nuclear-related activities in Iran" -- also stressing the importance of "full and transparent access for the IAEA" in Iran.
Tamale is home to a large population of migrant Nigerian sex workers .

Speaking to the DAILY GUIDE, some of the Nigerian sex workers expressed dissatisfaction with the decision of the Assembly to clamp down on prostitution in Tamale.

Since the Mayor made the announcement, business has gone down and it has really affected our lives. Life has become unbearable for us. There is nothing we can do about it. We will return to our country since we are foreigners in Ghana and the laws of the country are against the practice.

Its never anybodys wish to do this thing. If I had been told this is what I was getting into, I wont have travelled to Ghana, she told the paper.

Subsequently, a 21-day ultimatum was given to all engaged in the trade to stop or face the full rigorous of the law.
Lupita blasts UK Mag for photoshoping her hair

The beautiful actress who took to her Instagram page on Friday, November 10, 2017, to speak on what she calls an unconscious prejudice against black women, feels she should have been consulted before taking off her natural hair from the cover.

" As I have made clear so often in the past with every fiber of my being, I embrace my natural heritage and despite having grown up thinking light skin and straight, silky hair were the standards of beauty, I now know that my dark skin and kinky, coily hair are beautiful too. Being featured on the cover of a magazine fulfills me as it is an opportunity to show other dark, kinky-haired people, and particularly our children, that they are beautiful just the way they are.

"I am disappointed that @graziauk invited me to be on their cover and then edited out and smoothed my hair to fit their notion of what beautiful hair looks like. Had I been consulted, I would have explained that I cannot support or condone the omission of what is my native heritage with the intention that they appreciate that there is still a very long way to go to combat the unconscious prejudice against black women's complexion, hair style, and texture. #dtmh," she wrote.

ALSO READ:

The Academy award-winning actress appears not to be in the mood in keeping silent over issues that affect her personally or her brand.

It would be recalled that she was one of the actresses who called out movie producer, for sexual assaults. Lupita while granting an interview with New York Times, gave a deep insight on the two times she was sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein. She said she decided to speak out after she heard all the women who were harassed by Weinstein. She said the revelations resurfaced memories she had tried to forget.

Lupita went on to give a detailed account of how the first assault happened at his residence where she had earlier met his young children.

"Harvey led me into a bedroom  his bedroom  and announced that he wanted to give me a massage. I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times.

"I began to massage his back to buy myself time to figure out how to extricate myself from this undesirable situation. Before long he said he wanted to take off his pants. 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. If were not going to watch the film, I really should head back to school, I said."
This new bombshell was dropped by foremost Hollywood costume designer, Susan Bertram who gave a detailed account of what transpired between her and Robert Knepper.

The actor who is famous for his role in the hit television series, Prison Break was said to have while shooting AllisonAnders drama "Gas Food Lodging," harassed Susan.

Bertram, who was 31 at the time of the alleged 1991 assault, says she was a newcomer to the industry when Anders hired her "out of the blue" to work on Gas Food Lodging. She said she had gone to the trailer to drop off some clothes where she met Robert Knepper inside the trailer. She said Knepper "jumped up," reached under her dress and grabbed her crotch "as hard as he could."

ALSO READ: Harvey Weinstein fired after sexual harassment allegations

"I'm going to fuck your brains out," according to Susan Bertram, those where the words of Robert as he tried to force himself on her. Bertram says she struggled free and managed to push him off, shouting "I'm working, I'm working!. I flew out of that trailer as fast as I could. I just kind of fell out the door, and landed in the dirt on my knees," she says.

Susan Bertram said she ran into a bathroom after that and found out that she was bleeding in her crotch and she later confided in her then assistant, Dominique DuBois.

Susan says her decision to tell her story was as a result of the Harvey Weinstein saga which has revealed a lot about what has been going on in Hollywood for a very long time. She said she was also moved by the infamous tape that went viral during the presidential campaign of then-candidate, Donald Trump about his tactics with women.

"I kind of buried it for a long time until Trump came out with his 'Grab 'em by the pussy' thing. When that happened, I started reeling. People think that's a joke, but that really happened to me," she said.
The actress who has been married to fellow actor Olu Jacobs for over two decades, spoke to Pulse Nigeria on how to ensure a happy home.

"The issues that tend to break marriages are issues that are so small. They are just made to become hydra headed," she said.

"If you can just realize that you're approaching things from different perspectives. You say because probably you went to a school on the Island, and then you say probably you went to school on the mainland.

She explained that most couples are simply coming from different perspectives, but at the end of the day, they are human beings who are in love with each other.

"So talk about it and if you have to argue about it, argue about it. And then at the end of the argument, make up. But it's not enough to separate," she said.

"And I think that's the point of "Potato Potahto." That's the message of the film: we don't have to separate over those trivial things."

The movie "Potato Potahto" features the veteran actress as Mrs Wilson, whose recently divorced daughter is sharing a home with her ex husband.

Silva said that the mixture of drama and comedy is what endeared her to the project. She also liked the fact that in the writing of the script, the seriousness of divorce isn't left out.

"But it's easier to absorb because it's funny," she said.

"The seriousness of the topic is passed through; you know how you're giving people bitter medicine and then you sugarcoat it. So it's easier to swallow."

"Potato Potahto" is a movie that also captures the typical relationship between an African mother and daughter.

"One of the very funny scenes is something we do as Africans. Your child is right there and you have all the older people asking "how are you? I was at your wedding." You don't leave the girl to talk.

And because the mother knows what is going on, she answers all the questions quickly. The daughter is the one being asked the questions, the mother is the one answering. It was an amazing scene. I loved it."
AFRIMA -- sponsored by the African Union -- are the continent's equivalent of the American Grammy Awards, with interest reflecting the continent's rich seam of emerging talent.

Davido and his Nigerian compatriot Wizkid, Tanzania's Diamond Platnumz, Sarkodie of Ghana and Ivory Coast's DJ Arafat are leading a musical revolution: Afrobeats.

The genre was born in Nigeria but has spread across Africa as fast as the rhythm of the bass in a nightclub.

"Nigerians knew how to mix all the influences of Afropop: Congolese soukous, Ivorian coupe-decale, Ghanaian Highlife, Jamaican dancehall," said video journalist Hugo Claveau, who wrote and directed the documentary, "Afrobeats, From Nigeria to the World".

"They created a sound for all of Africa. They created the first pan-African music," Claveau told AFP.

Banning Eyre, an African music specialist, added: "It's very interesting for me, because it's totally different from what we've seen in the African scene for the past 30 years."

Breaking boundaries

Afrobeats (with an 's') -- a name given in homage to the Afrobeat (without an 's') of the 1970s -- was born about 10 years ago with pioneers such as 2Face, D'Banj and P-Square.

The internet and satellite television channels did the rest.

"Music channels like MTV or Channel O made a big impact on exporting Nigerian music," said Efe Omorogbe, 2Face's manager and the head of the Now Muzik Limited label.

"For the first time you could sit at home in South Africa and you see the best of Nigerian artists."

In its wake came the French channel TRACE, which in turn led to TRACE Naija (slang for Nigeria) two years ago, where Nigerian music accounts for about 60 percent of its output.

TRACE Africa is one of the most popular channels in French-speaking Africa and about a third of its programming is exclusively Nigerian.

Omorogbe said the channels "broke the boundaries. Now Africa makes one boundary, not 53".

The increase in festivals and events such as AFRIMA has equally allowed artists to meet, exchange ideas and collaborate.

Wizkid, for example, sings on "My Soweto Baby" with the South African DJ Buckz.

Ivory Coast's DJ Arafat and Nigerian Iyanya use their song "Fever" to call on "Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria" to dance together.

The internet has again been a game-changer.

Kenyan afro-pop star "Sauti Sol sent me a beat and I liked it, I thought it was cool," said Kritzbeatz, a 22-year-old Nigerian music producer.

"So I did a mix with my sound and now we have 'Whine for me'. He came to Lagos for an event, so we took this opportunity to shoot the video clip."

Huge market

African pop stars are fighting among themselves to work with Nigerians in hope of breaking into a huge market of nearly 190 million people, where pop music is ever-present.

"Smaller markets naturally look towards Nigeria," said Oris Aigbokhaevbolo, a journalist with the Music in Africa magazine.

"Tanzanians can't afford to do music for the Tanzanian market only. But Nigerians are very proud of their music and very resistant to what's coming from the outside."

In Nigeria, music is business, where sponsors and patrons can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance a concert.

By signing Wizkid, Davido or D'Banj, record labels Sony and Universal are finally turning towards African pop music instead of the "world music" of Salif Keita or Youssou N'Dour to conquer the African market.

The financial rewards are considerable.

"There are all falling over themselves to sign contracts with Nigerian artists," said Claveau.

"But the guys developed their business by themselves. They conquered the continent and don't need them to fill stadiums in Africa.
To add to that, his men in Nigeria have told her they are watching her closely and would not hesitate to kill her if she makes a wrong move.

Read her story here:

"My name is , a 28-year-old woman. I got married to three months ago but I am convinced I made a grave mistake by accepting to marry him.

I can no longer cope with what is going on as I am not safe. I met Adu through a friend who match-made us.

Adu lives in Malaysia and when my friend who is related to him told me her brother is looking for a wife, I did not give it any serious thought.

After my friend kept pestering me, telling me how much Adu loves me after she sent my pictures to him, I decided to give him a chance.

We started communicating via social media and went from there to talking on the phone. He would call me and spend hours talking, telling me all the good things a woman would love to hear. He sent me his photos and what I saw was one handsome young man.

He told me he was into the importation of cars and electronics into Nigeria and was in the process of building his mansion in Lekki where, according to him, we would live when we got married.

He instructed his brother to take me to the building site and said I should monitor the progress of work. He would send money to me to pay the contractors and engineers, practically putting me in charge.

His brother took me to his hometown to meet with his family and his mother was very happy that her son would finally settle down and become a responsible man.

I had now come to fall in love with Adu even though I had not met him before and was basking in the euphoria of getting married to him.

Early this year, Adu came to Nigeria and we had our introduction and engagement but I noticed one thing about him which got me troubled initially. He was always getting calls at night and would sneak into the sitting room to pick those calls.

When I asked him why he would not pick calls in my presence, Adu would tell me the calls were from his business partners and that I would not understand what they talked about.

After our wedding, I thought Adu would take me with him to his base but he said he would not want me to come to Malaysia as the country was very hostile. He promised to be coming to Nigeria every month and that he had plans to come back finally in a year or two.

But the happy bubble burst for me when I found out that my husband was not only married and had kids with an Asian woman he lived with, he was also into drug trafficking.

I got to know this when some of his friends came to our house and told me they wanted to take some documents that could be incriminating.

I wondered what documents could be incriminating in my house and told them I won't allow them into the house without permission from my husband.

One of them got angry and brought out a gun which he pointed at me and told me to cooperate or they would kill me there and then. They ransacked the house and removed documents I never knew were in the house.

When they were done, they asked me if I had heard from Adu and I told them that he had not called in two weeks and that I could not get him on phone.

That was when they told me that Adu had been arrested in a drug raid and was in prison already pending when he would be charged to court. The same guys told me that I was to be Adu's drug mule and that he was grooming me for that.

I was shocked at what I heard. How could a man do that to a woman he claimed to love and married?

After the men left, I did some findings and found out that Adu was not only into drugs but a cultist and ritualist.

My life is in danger because those men told me that they would be watching me and that if I reported the matter to the police, they would come after me.

Stephanie."

The teaser for the day was:

What would you advise Stephanie to do?

How Nigeria voted:

Stephanie should run for her life before they kill her - 64%

Stephanie should report the matter to the police - 21%

Stephanie should play along with the men to save her life - 9%

Stephanie should stick with her husband - 6%
Teachers in Kaduna vandalized the State Assembly because Governor El-Rufai sacked 21,000 teachers who failed an exam for Primary 4 students.

For proof El-Rufai shared a few of the exam scripts on Twitter to show that thousands of Kaduna children were not getting the best of education.

Normally you would think this move by the Kaduna state government would be universally applauded, but it has found a few critics online who are more bothered with what would happen to the teachers than then students.

The uproar over El-Rufai's move shows that many Nigerians are comfortable with mediocrity. There are a bunch of us who want the status quo to remain unchallenged, who want mediocrity to be the standard.

This is because it is easier to demand change than activating change. When we know we will be put on the scale too, we start to backpedal.

As citizens, we have every right to demand that the government does better but if we cannot use this same energy in our personal lives, Nigeria cannot be better.

Nigerians wail about corruption in high places while bribing their neighbourhood PHCN man. We bribe our way through a lot of things and condemn Nigeria politicians for doing the same thing.

The reason why Nigeria continues to punch below its weight is because we are comfortable with mediocrity. At the end of the day, we get the country we deserve.

Lagosians have been complaining about the rickety danfo buses since forever. When Governor Ambode announced his plans to do away with these buses and their drivers and bring new ones, you would think that it would be met with unanimous applause.

Some people legitimately complained that the unruly drivers would be out of jobs if the new buses are introduced. You just can't please Nigerians. I bet if the Federal Government announces that 24 hour uninterrupted power is now a reality people would complain that the seller of generators would be out of jobs.

Essentially, we dream of a land of milk and honey but the bitter truth is that many of us are not willing to milk the cows or go to the beehive to get that honey. We pay lip service to excellence and it ends there. When it is time to make the hard decisions, we moan and complain.
Not like we blame them anyway, some are at war while other just don't care about International relation

These countries don't want you and you shouldn't visit either. At least for your own good.

1. North Korea

North Korea does not want you in their country and they would not go out of their way to hide it.

They require all visitors to book a full package tour before visiting. During your visit, youll be required to stay with your guides the entire time. The lack of North Korean embassy in Nigeria means youll need to travel to China before booking a tour.

2. Iran

If you are able to secure an Iranian visa through the Pakistani embassy, you will need to show that youre travelling with a tour group. If not, just stay in your country.

3. Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia requires all visitors to be sponsored by a legal resident or citizen before entry.

Even if youre sponsored properly, theres no guarantee that youll then be awarded a visa as the application process is highly selective.

4. Syria

Syria is currently in the midst of conflict and they have no visa for anyone.

Since each visa has to be approved through a complex process, potential visitors face an indefinite wait to be approved or declined.

5. Somalia
This time, the honours belonged to Liberian President, Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

The statue of the African female hero, the Liberian President Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf unveiled in Imo State, the Governor announced with immense pride.

You could have heard him from Okitipupa in Ondo State.

The recipient of the latest statue was gushing with palpable gratitude and excitement as well.

"I have travelled to every part of the world and I have travelled all over Africa, I have never experienced something like this. I have seen leaders of Africa build schools, roads, give scholarships, and so on, in all of these things....

"I have not seen any of them go beyond the ordinary by gathering indigent children of Africa from all of our countries, bring them together in our family, sharing together, I thank you. There is no other better way to fight poverty and preach unity than this, said Johnson Sirleaf.

ALSO READ: Erecting a statue of Jacob Zuma in Nigeria is a really dumb move

There are also statues of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, among others, dotting the Imo skyline.

Bronze statues. Imposing. Standing at magnificent feet and staring down on the rest of mankind like they should.

Imo is now the statue State.

No one does statues quite like Okorocha these days and he should be encouraged to erect some more for the good of humanity. For mankind.

If we can't feed in Africa, at least we should gaze at statues until we receive nourishment from them.

ALSO READ: Imo Governor says he will build more statues

We are done fighting Okorocha on his right to flood Imo with statueswhether for deserving recipients or not. We are doomed to lose, anyway.

We should throw our collective weight behind the Governor of statues.

And since a statue never hurt anyone and there is a statue for everyone who visits Imo right now, its time to pack the bags and head for Okorochas country.
While speaking at the launch of the portal in Abuja on Thursday, November 9, 2017, the minister said the cutting edge initiative will boost the 'Ease-of-Doing-Business' in the sector as it will prove to be very effective.

He said the portal will be a great source of reliable information about the sector as it will perform business processes such as online mining licences, mineral titles applications and many others.

He said, "The overall objective of the project is to increase provision of reliable information and knowledge, to enhance promotion of investments in the sector, using the technology-driven innovation and to increase the sector's GDP.

"The portal was designed for mining investors to perform business processes such as online mining licences and mineral titles applications, online payment of royalties and fees, database for revenue drive and to block revenue leakages.

"The portal is credible and provides timely information about the mining sector, performs and responds to online queries, business intelligence/analytics, reports and statistical data generation.

"Mining investors could view all existing mining titles and track them anywhere in the world through the portal, access all agencies information, global mining news, live chat and document library, among others.

"Lists of mining operators with valid licences and related minerals trade on private mineral buying centre and renewal of private mineral buying centres could also be accessed through the portal.

"The portal is designed to serve as an input and decision support system to other entities of government MDAs.

"We have spent about N700 million to develop this Integrated Automation and Interactive Geo Information Systems (GIS) Web Portal to improve 'Ease-of-Doing-Business' in the mining sector.

"This event is coming at a very auspicious time, on a broad scale; dividends of this administration's commitment to turning around our economic fortunes."

The Minister of State, Solid Minerals, Abubakar Bwari, assured that the country's mining sector will greatly contribute to the generating revenue as long as the government makes all the smart choices to improve it.

FG's investment in mining sector

Dr Fayemi recently told Reuters in an interview that the government is committed to supporting investors in the exploration of the country's minerals.

In its bid to end the country's major dependence on oil, the Federal Government has been pooling a lot of resources into making the mining sector a very big attraction for investors.

To achieve that, Dr Fayemi had earlier highlighted incentives available to investors in the mining sector to include renewable tax breaks, duty waivers on imported mining equipment, and 100% ownership of business concerns, among others.

ALSO READ: FG grants tax breaks to investors
The statue was unveiled at Ikemba Ojukwu Square in Owerri, the state capital, next to the N520 million bronze-cast monument of South African president, Jacob Zuma, that earned Okorocha public condemnation when it was unveiled in October.

The Liberian president arrived in Owerri on Thursday, November 9, on a two-day working visit and was at the governor's Rochas Foundation College of Africa early on Friday.

She had high praise for the governor's foundation, remarking that it was the best she's ever seen in all her travels.

She said, "I have travelled to every part of the world and I have travelled all over Africa, I have never experienced something like this. I have seen leaders of Africa build schools, roads, give scholarships, and so on, in all of these things.

"I have not seen any of them go beyond the ordinary by gathering indigent children of Africa from all of our countries, bring them together in our family, sharing together, I thank you. There is no other better way to fight poverty and preach unity than this."

Africa's first elected female head of state was also honoured with the chieftaincy title of Ada di Ohanma of Igboland at Eze Imo's palace led by Chairman of the State Council of Traditional Rulers, Eze Samuel Ohiri.

According to Ohiri, conferring the title on the Liberian leader was a way of encouraging her and other African women who have contributed to the development of Africa, especially the education of indigent African children.
According to an environment advocacy group, Mohammed granted illegal permits to Chinese firms to import endangered species of Nigerian timber during her stint as Environment Minister in the Buhari cabinet.

Mohammed has been accused of aiding and abetting the depletion of Africas virgin forests and endangering wildlife, by her actions.

Rosewood racket

A Washington based environmental advocacy organisation called Environmental Investigation Agency alleges that Mohammed signed documents which allowed Chinese wood importers to clear $300M worth of Rosewood log held for months by Chinese border authorities.

Mohammed is currently the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations.

Senior Policy Advisor and Director of Forest Campaigns at the EIA, Lisa Handy, says thousands of permits were ultimately signed by the then Minister of Environment, Amina J. Mohammed, who currently serves as Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations

The EIA calls the investigation the Rosewood Racket.

EIA investigators say Mohammed signed thousands of retroactive CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) permits in January 2017 in one of her last acts as Minister of Environment.

Alexander von Bismarck who is the Executive Director at the EIA told Nigerias Guardian newspaper that the power and reach of organised timber criminals in forest rich countries is overwhelming, if illegal wood is allowed to be sold overseas without consequences.

1.4 million Rosewood logs left Nigeria for China following Mohammeds signature, according to the EIA.

The logs which were at the time detained at the Chinese border for months because they had left Nigeria in violation of national and international laws, were then cleared to end up in Chinese shops for use in luxury furniture.

Bribe

There are unconfirmed reports that Mohammed and other top officials in Nigeria received over $1M in bribe money just to allow the illegal Rosewood passage into China.

The Rosewood which is locally called Kosso, came from remote Nigerian forests.

Rosewood is a threatened specie of trees. Logging Rosewood illegally is a criminal offence.

"The EIA says the exploding Chinese demand for Kosso over the past five years has triggered a series of boom and bust cycles which have led to the depletion of forests across West African Nations", writes the Guardian.

"The boom began in Gambia and Benin, but Chinese traders had to rapidly move on through other countries in the region, before settling on the untapped forest resources of Nigeriaas supply was exhausted in just a few short years".

No wrongdoing

Mohammed says she did no wrong.

The UN Deputy Secretary General reportedly said in an interview last month that the certificates came in bags and I just signed them because that is what I had to do. I dont remember how many I signed

Mohammed added that she ensured that Nigerias forests were harvested sustainably whilst she was Environment Minister.

Mohammeds current employer, the UN, is standing by her.

UN backing

The Secretary General ( has been informed by the Deputy Secretary General about the reports and reiterates his full support and confidence in her, read a statement from the UN.

The statement added that; she of course categorically rejects any allegations of fraud. The Deputy Secretary General welcomes the effort to shine more light onto the issue of illegal Rosewood logging and exportation that she fought hard to address during her tenure in the Nigerian government.

She says that her actions as Nigerian Environment Minister were intended to deal with the serious issue of illegal wood exportation. As a result, she instituted a ban and set up a high level panel to find policy solutions to the crisis of deforestation in Nigeria.

Ms. Mohammed says that the legal signing of export permits for Rosewood was delayed due to her insistence that stringent due process was followed. She says that she signed the export certificates requested before the ban only after due process was followed and better security watermarked certificates became available.

The statement was signed by UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.

2,992 export certificates

Mohammed is the highest-ranking woman at the United Nations.

She served as Buharis environment minister from November 2015 to February 2017.

According to an AFP report on the development; Foreign Policy magazine quotes a senior Nigerian forestry official, who asked not to be named and who said that Mohammed had signed 2,992 export certificates on January 16.

Mohammed had been due to begin her new post at the United Nations on January 1, joining Antonio Guterres as he began his term as UN chief.

But she delayed her move to New York to stay on as Environment Minister at the request of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and was finally sworn in as Deputy Secretary-General in late February".

Mohammeds office is perched on the 38th floor of the UN headquarters in Manhattan.

ALSO READ: UN chief announces 37 career offers for young Nigerians

The sprawling UN office in Manhattan overlooks the East River.
He revealed this while speaking during the visit of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the foundation in Owerri on Friday, November 10, 2017.

The governor said when he started the foundation decades ago, many people misunderstood his intentions that he was doing it for politics, but that it was part of his commitment to contribute to the future of African children.

He said, "When I started this foundation 20 years ago, it was like a miracle. This foundation started from Jos at a mosque. I would go to this mosque every Friday to help feed the indigent children, what you call the beggars.

"As we kept going there, the population kept rising. Then we decided that rather than giving just the food and support and cash, we could now build schools for them.

"Today, we're proud to have 10 Rochas Foundation Colleges across this nation with over 15,000 children, 75% of them are orphans, and that's a qualifiaction with which you can come to this school. In other words, when you don't have anybody who could help you.

"I recall my first Rochas Foundation school in Owerri, and in Kano Jos and the rest, many did not understand where I was coming from and most people misunderstood the entire intention because it was the first time hearing of somebody giving free education without counting the cost of returns. It was difficult to believe and no one believed me.

"People tried to associate this whole outing of mine 20 years ago to mean politics and some people could attribute it to a smart way of making an image for yourself, but they do not understand that Rochas Foundation is a spiritual contract between me and my creator when I swear that if God blesses me, I'll bless others; if he honours me, I'll honour others; if he educates me, I'll educate others because on my own I can do nothing but I can do all things through God who giveth me the strength.

"It was spiritual and contractual with God, and it was an oath I took remembering that I wouldn't have gone to school if the mercy of God never came upon my head.

"I was not an orphan but it was difficult to make ends meet with 12 children belonging to two poor parents whose total capital was not up to $10 in their business, so I know what it is to suffer, I know what it is to stay a whole day without food and I know what it is to stay wanting to go to school and help will not come from anywhere. That was my concern, and that was my oath that I took.

"So what I do today is not a dramatisation of afluence. Definitely I'm not the richest African; the richest foundation is a dramatisation of sacrifice for the less privileged and for those who wouldn't have gone to school.

"So today, we have decided to take five children every year from each of the African countries. Liberia has five today; next year, we expect another five from Liberia and many African countries."

Speaking after the governor, President Johnson-Sirleaf commended him for his wonderful initiative and sacrifice that'll most definitely rewrite the future of many African children.
According to reports, oil spills in the area has affected the indigenes drinking water and source of livelihood  Fishing.

Speaking to Punch, Mr. Bari-ara Kpalap said that the rate of pollution in Ogoni land is expanding rapidly.

Kpalap also said Our expectations have not been met because since June 2, 2016 to date, we cannot point to anything concrete that the Federal Government has done that is on the ground today in the history of the clean-up of Ogoniland.

The inauguration was done in June 2016 and they did another groundbreaking for the construction of the integrated contaminated soil management. As we speak, construction or clean-up of the area is in comatose.

No clean water in the area; the drinkable water in Ogoniland is contaminated and have led to increase in health challenges.

If by the end of December this year, we did not see anything that convinces us that the government is ready to commence the clean-up, we will go back to the trenches and embark on a peaceful campaign against the Federal Government, until government match its words with action.

One year after

The Federal Government in 2016, flagged-off the Ogoni clean-up exercise.
THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER

2018 budget threatens refurbishment of health centres, vaccine production

The N71.11 billion allocated for capital projects in the 2018 budget may have technically knocked out the refurbishment of 10,000 primary healthcare centres (PHCs) and execution of other projects in the sector.

Ex-minister under probe over alleged $1b illicit deals

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) yesterday released a report showing how over 1.4 million illegal rosewood logs from Nigeria, worth $300 million, were laundered into China.

National Assembly investigates 26 girls death in Spanish warship

The National Assembly has resolved to investigate the death of 26 young Nigerian girls found in a Spanish warship on the Mediterranean en route Italy.

__________________________________________________

VANGUARD NEWSPAPER

Chaos in Apapa as trucks, tankers, miscreants force lockdown

The lingering chaotic traffic situation on the Mile Two/Berger/Coconut axis of the Oshodi/Apapa Expressway has taken an alarming turn for the worse, no thanks to security operatives deployed to ensure free traffic flow on the dual expressway but who are now taking advantage of the situation to extorting money from tanker and truck drivers.

How ex-FCT Ministers son paid N1.1bn for Abuja properties, EFCC tells court

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, yesterday, narrated before the Federal High Court in Abuja, how Shamsudeen, son of a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr. Bala Mohammed, allegedly paid a cumulative sum of N1.1billion to acquire properties in different parts of Abuja.

2 military officers, bank managers remanded in prison

A Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja, yesterday, sent two serving military officers and two female bank managers to Kuje Prisons over alleged connivance and stealing of N339 million meant for the payment of military pensions.

__________________________________________________

THE PUNCH NEWSPAPER

Recovered N13bn: Court orders forfeiture of Ikoyi flat

The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the temporary forfeiture of Flat 7B Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, where the sums of $43,449,947, 27,800 and N23,218,000 were discovered stashed away in iron cabinets and Ghana-must-go bags in April.

Buhari returns to his office 81 days after rat invasion

About 81 days after he returned to the country from his medical trip to London, United Kingdom, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday finally returned to his main office inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Buhari holds first meeting with Armed Forces Council

President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated the Armed Forces Council and ratified the National Defence Policy 2017 (Revised); Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service Officers 2017.

__________________________________________________

THISDAY NEWSPAPER

Ikoyi Billions: Whistle Blower Now a Millionaire, Says EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has revealed that the young man who blew the whistle on the sums of $43,449,947, 27,800 and N23,218,000 recovered from an apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos, last April, is now a millionaire.

No Automatic Ticket for Atiku, Says PDP BoT Chair

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Walid Jibrin, has stated that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar will not be given an automatic ticket to contest the 2019 presidential election on the platform of the party.

In a First, Buhari to Visit SEast Next Week, Inaugurates Armed Forces Council

For the first time since he assumed office as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday inaugurated the Armed Forces Council in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

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BUSINESSDAY NEWSPAPER

Listing IJVs could boost stock market cap by $10bn

Nigerias stock market could see an increase in market capitalisation to the tune of $10 billion as a result of incorporating the oil Joint Ventures (JV) and listing their assets.

Nigerias N85 billion used lead acid battery market eludes regulation

The local market for used lead acid batteries (ULAB) in Nigeria is worth over N85 billion but much of the activities of operators are informal and unregulated even though lead acid batteries constitute the most deadly toxic waste next to nuclear material.

Kola Alukos penthouse sold in New Yorks biggest foreclosure auction
Carrying over twenty million passengers on a yearly basis, the airport whos code is LOS, is the busiest airport in Nigeria, and also one of Africa's busiest.

A brief history of Murtula Muhamed International Airport

There used to be a West African Airways Corporation that was formed in 1947 and had its main base at Ikeja. The airport which was built during World War II was at the time, under the above corporation.

Originally, the airport was known as Lagos International Airport. It would be renamed Muritala Mohammed International Airport in the mid-1970s during construction of the then new international terminal.

Named after Gen. Murtala Muhammed who was a military Head of States from 1975 until he was assassinated in 1976, in an unsuccessful Coup Detat, the international terminal which was officially opened in 1979, was modelled after Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

And as a result of it being an international airport, it is opened to service twenty-four hours daily. The domestic terminal is, however, open for only sixteen hours daily.

With Lagos being the centre of Nigeria's activities, Murtula Muhamed International Airport is known to be the main base for Nigerias flag carrier airlines, which are Aero and Arik Air.

Of course, they are not the only airline operating within confines of the airport. There are over forty airlines that fly from Lagos to over sixty destinations worldwide, carrying over twenty million passengers annually.

Be that as it may, the ridiculous state of governance in the country, the facilities that the airport provides for its customers are way behind in comparison to what should be expected.

Mismanagement has succeeded in creating a loop that seems to be giving space to deterioration.

And this is made visible even before admission, from the poor organisation of public transport to the roads that are not in great condition, which usually harbours long traffic jams.

However, the airport is located in Ikeja, a popular suburb of Lagos city of and the capital of Lagos State.
The reality TV queen was also in the news sometime back for a mobile game app KimKardashian:Hollywood said to have raked in millions of dollars in revenue.

This app is meant to enable her followers dress like her and other celebs they follow. It can be applied across social sites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat among others.

Problem with this is most of the outfits that these stars wear are pricey and would be far from reach for the average Joe, which would only make some feel some type of way.

It's more like a reminder for some that Instagram can be very intimidating with all the perfect photos, exotic locations and all.

How does the app work?

The app works by taking a screenshot of the outfit you are admiring on a celebrity,

Then, heading back into Screenshop to access your camera roll.

Screenshop will then show you a number of clothing options that are similar to what the figure in your screenshot is wearing, along with their prices.

When you click on the option you desire, you get redirected to the merchants website, all without leaving the app.

Apparently, you can take a picture of someones outfit on the street and screenshop it.

And even though the app sometimes gets it wrong in matching the type of outfit screenshopped, according to those who have tried it such s bring results of heels when you screenshop sandals, the app is still pretty awesome.

Screenshop is definitely convenient, and a great idea. For ladies, if you love a friend's shirt, but are too lazy to ask her where she got it, this app is perfect for you. And if you want to create a budget version of what SelenaGomez is wearing, Screenshop can help you do that too.
In the decision, the judges authorised ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda "to open an investigation regarding crimes within the jurisdiction of the court allegedly committed in Burundi or by nationals of Burundi outside Burundi since 26 April 2015 until 26 October 2017."

Bensouda can also extend the probe by her team to acts committed both before and after that date "if certain legal requirements are met".

A violent political crisis was triggered in Burundi when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in office, winning July 2015 elections which were boycotted by the opposition.

In a swift reaction, Burundi presidential office spokesman Willy Nyamitwe denounced the "corrupt" ICC in a tweet.

He accused the court of cheating and said it had just "shot itself in the foot."

"Without any doubt, Burundi will emerge the winner of this battle," he added.

Although Burundi officially left the ICC on October 27, the court said it "retains jurisdiction over any crime within its jurisdiction up to and including 26 October, 2017, regardless of Burundi's withdrawal".

jpegMpeg4-1280x720Since Burundi had been a member of the ICC during the period "it has a duty to cooperate with the court for the purpose of this investigation" since it was approved before its "withdrawal became effective," they stressed.

Bensouda opened a preliminary probe in April 2016 into reports of killings, torture and rape amid the political upheavals in the landlocked country in the Great Lakes region.

The judges found there was now "a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation in relation to crimes against humanity".

The court said according to estimates "at least 1,200 people were allegedly killed, thousands illegally detained, thousands reportedly tortured and hundreds disappeared".

"The alleged acts of violence have reportedly resulted in the displacement of 413,490 persons between April 2015 and May 2017," the judges said.

They warned that if "sufficient evidence" is found the prosecutor could "issue either summonses to appear or warrants of arrest".
But exhumations and analyses since then have uncovered evidence of scores of other victims, with police saying in August that Hoegel had murdered at least 90 other patients.

On Thursday, police and prosecutors confirmed an additional 16 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths to at least 106 patients at the two hospitals where Hoegel worked between 1999 and 2005.

They said they expected to bring the new charges against Hoegel early next year.

Hoegel has admitted to injecting patients with drugs that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse so he could then try to revive them and, when successful, shine as a saviour before his medical peers.

He earlier testified that at times he acted out of "boredom", feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life and devastated when he failed.

The death toll "is unique in the history of the German republic," the chief police investigator in the case, Arne Schmidt, said in August, adding that Hoegel killed "without a discernible pattern" and preyed especially on those in critical condition.
Under tight security, around 14 million worshippers crowded into the golden-domed mausoleum where the Prophet Mohammed's grandson is buried, Karbala's religious authorities said, beating their chests in unison against a background of religious music.

Imam Hussein's killing in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD was part of a fierce dispute over who should succeed the Prophet, which eventually developed into a bitter schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam.

Tens of thousands of security personnel and Shiite militiamen were deployed, as in past years, around the perimeters of the sanctuary as well as on all roads leading to Karbala, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad.

The expulsion of IS from Iraqi cities has added an extra dimension to this year's pilgrimage, as the Sunni extremist group has repeatedly targeted Shiites. Last year, a suicide bombing killed at least 70 mainly Iranian worshippers returning from the commemoration.

The jihadists have seen their self-styled "caliphate" disintegrate on the battlefield, and are currently fighting to hold a last pocket of territory in Iraq on the Syrian border.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the security operation to protect the millions of pilgrims was a "success" and "another victory" for Iraqi forces who have routed IS from most of the country.

'Finished with IS'

Believers from across the Middle East and beyond made the pilgrimage to Karbala.

Shiites make up some 60 percent of Iraq's population.

Ahead of the peak of the commemorations local governor Aqil Tourihi told AFP that over 10 million Iraqis had arrived.

More than two million Iranian pilgrims also crossed the border into Iraq for Arbaeen, an Iranian official said.

The overall attendance of around 14 million appeared down on the roughly 17 to 20 million people estimated to have attended Arbaeen in 2016.

"There are pilgrims coming from Arab countries, from Turkey, from the US, the Gulf, from everywhere in the world, and this is the proof that Muslims all over the world are united," said Shia al-Mussawi, a pilgrim visiting from Iraq's Misan province.

Helicopters flew overhead to ensure security in the city, located some 300 kilometres (185 miles) southeast from where Iraqi forces are battling to snuff out IS.

Along hundreds of kilometres of road leading to Karbala, thousands of volunteers greeted the pilgrims, most of whom walked to the Imam Hussein shrine, to offer food, drink and a variety of services.

Behrouz Mahdavi, a pilgrim from Iran, brought with him a six-metre-long tent in which he invited pilgrims aching from the long walk to rest while he massaged their feet.

Calling themselves "servants of Imam Hussein" these volunteers took pride in preparing tea for the pilgrims, handing out water bottles, some dates or even home-cooked meals for the hungry.

Tahsin Jundi al-Hassan and Ahmed Rahim set up a "taxi service" offering pilgrims a free ride on a wooden cart for the last few kilometres to the shrine.

"The conditions are perfect, above all in terms of catering for pilgrims and security," Kuwaiti pilgrim Fadel Yaqoub told AFP.

Bandar al-Hamami brushed off the concerns about security after walking some 350 kilometres with his family from their home in the southern city of Nasiriyah.
Piervincenzi had been investigating Spada's alleged links to the far-right CasaPound movement and his nose was fractured in the attack.

"We are here to say a headbutt or even criticism will not stop us," Dino Giarruso, a colleague of Piervincenzi, said at the protest in the coastal resort of Ostia, just outside Rome.

"Journalists are not exempt from reproach but that in no way justifies being assaulted when you are doing your job -- it's unacceptable in a democratic country," Giarruso added.

Piervincenzi was questioning Spada for a report for national broadcaster Rai about municipal elections, two years after the local council was dissolved due to mafia infiltration.

CasaPound, suspected of links to organised crime in the area, won eight percent of the first round votes.

Italian police arrested Spada on Thursday for assault aggravated by mafia-style violence, with prosecutors saying his behaviour was typical of methods used by organised crime groups to control territory.

He faces up to three years behind bars.
Hariri's situation was not completely clear but calls, including from his Lebanese political rivals, mounted for Saudi Arabia to guarantee the prime minister's freedom of movement.

The 47-year-old announced his resignation on November 4 in a surprise move that coincided with a sweeping purge in the Saudi kingdom's elite, ostensibly over embezzlement accusations.

Hariri, who was born in Saudi Arabia, did not say when he would return to Lebanon, where President Michel Aoun has yet to formally accept his resignation.

In a statement issued on Friday after a meeting with the Saudi envoy to Lebanon, Aoun insisted Hariri should return to Lebanon but did not elaborate on the premier's current situation in Riyadh.

"President Aoun met Saudi charge d'affaires Walid Bukhari and informed him that the circumstances in which Mr. Hariri's resignation took place were unacceptable," the statement said.

The president "called for the return to Lebanon of the head of the government."

Aoun, whose political ally Hezbollah is a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia, also "voiced his concern over what is being said" about Hariri's current status in Saudi Arabia and demanded a "clarification".

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country has close ties with both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, visited Riyadh on Wednesday.

Macron's foreign minister said on French radio Friday he thought Hariri's freedom of movement was not impeded, despite most of the Lebanese political class implying he was de facto under house arrest.

"He went to Abu Dhabi the day before President Macron's visit (on Wednesday) so we think he's free to move around," Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

Nasrallah, whose party is the only organisation that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war and now has an arsenal that outstrips Lebanon's own armed forces, accused Saudi Arabia of seeking to incite conflict.

Nasrallah, whose movement Hariri has repeatedly said should lay down its arms, also warned that his movement, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006, was stronger than ever.
The measures, which are being prepared ahead of Russia's presidential election in March, would be a huge blow to already tattered US-Russia ties.

State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin charged deputies with updating existing legislation after state-controlled Russia Today (RT) television was ordered by Washington to register as a "foreign agent" by Monday.

Volodin told Russian reporters the new measures, which are likely to affect dozens of US news organisations operating in Russia including CNN and Voice of America, could be adopted at first reading on Wednesday and at a third and final reading next Friday.

Washington has been fighting what it calls a barrage of "fake news" from Russian media, including RT and the Sputnik news agency, which it says is aimed at interfering in US domestic politics.

"What the US authorities are doing today is an infringement on fundamental civil rights, on freedom of speech," Volodin said.

"The United States speaks beautifully about the freedom of speech when it comes to other countries but acts dogmatically itself."

Tolstoy called for the mobilisation of all of the country's political forces, saying it was "an emergency situation".

Lawmakers said the measures targeting US media would be "reciprocal" and would set the same limitations that US authorities were seeking to impose on Russian media.

In a Facebook post, Tolstoy suggested that social networks would not have to register as foreign agents.

"This does not mean someone is impinging on Facebook, Twitter etc," he wrote.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor, for its part, proposed blocking the websites of foreign media groups and nongovernmental organisations, without any need of a court order.

Roskomnadzor has repeatedly threatened to block Facebook and Twitter if they do not comply with a government demand to store the personal data of Russian nationals on Russia-based servers.

In 2012, Moscow adopted a law which requires NGOs that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents", a move critics said was part of a clampdown on civil society.

Lawmakers said the existing law would be amended to include media groups.

'Huge number of limitations'

The head of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, said on national television Thursday that the broadcaster was "suddenly" told by Washington that it had until Monday to register as a "foreign agent" or face having its accounts frozen, among other measures.

She said RT would file a legal challenge against the demand by the US Department of Justice, which could require it to identify itself as a "foreign agent".

Registering would also hinder the channel's work in the United States because it would have to publicise internal documents including their employees' addresses and salaries.

"It will very much complicate the possibility of interviewing people because we will have to report this too," she said. "There are a huge number of limitations."

She also said the demands contradicted both democracy and freedom of speech.

"It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents," she was quoted as saying by RT.

Simonyan also denounced the US move in a caustic tweet.

"The US Department of Justice wheeled out a cannibalistic Monday deadline," she tweeted. "Can you feel the smell of freedom?"

Washington, which considers RT a propaganda arm for the Kremlin, told it in September to register its American operation under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is aimed at lobbyists and lawyers representing foreign political interests.

The same month Simonyan complained to President Vladimir Putin that RT and Sputnik had come under pressure in the United States.
It is unusual for Washington to have three of its aircraft carriers in the same place at the same time, and US Pacific Fleet commander Scott Swift said in a statement it was the first such triple-carrier drill in the region since 2007.

Seven South Korean navy vessels -- three destroyers and four escort ships -- will take part in the exercises, the South Korean official said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea regularly denounces such military drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes conducts its own military manoeuvres or missile tests in response.

The US warships will carry out air defence drills, sea surveillance, defensive air combat training and other training operations, the US Navy said.

The exercises come on the heels of US President Donald Trump's visit to Seoul and Beijing this week, with the North's nuclear and missile threats looming large.
Australia declared the centre closed on October 31, shutting off water and electricity supplies following a Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruling that the camp was unconstitutional.

The detainees were taken to PNG under a tough Australian policy that sends asylum-seekers who try and reach the country by boat to Manus or a second camp on the Pacific island of Nauru.

The refugees have refused to leave the camp even as conditions have deteriorated, citing fears of a hostile reception from locals near three new transition centres set up for them.

"Everyone in the tropics knows how precious water is and how quickly dehydration can become a serious medical issue," Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul said in a statement Friday of the authorities' actions.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee on Manus, tweeted Friday that shelters were torn down and rubbish bins used to collect rainwater had been destroyed.

"Police and immigration destroyed our shelters. Inside the rooms is very hot without power for fans. We built these shelters to provide shade & cover from tropical sun & rain," he wrote.

'Sick, thirsty and hungry'

He said workers on Thursday had also removed security fences around the centre.

A photo he shared with AFP showed water being emptied from bins. Another refugee, Sudanese Abdul Aziz Adam, showed AFP an image of men removing a shelter.

Earlier Friday, footage released by GetUp showed men sleeping on tables outside cramped shipping containers to escape the heat, as well as blocked toilets and makeshift wells dug to store water.

"Death or serious illness is inevitable in coming days," GetUp human rights co-director Shen Narayanasamy, who visited the camp, said in a statement.

"These men are sick, thirsty and hungry. The conditions are appalling and it's obvious you wouldn't choose to stay here if you thought you could be safer elsewhere."

The GetUp report came after a notice put up at the camp Thursday warned "force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily" by Saturday.

PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill added that "appropriate means" would be used to "apprehend individuals who are causing unnecessary anxiety and violence".

Canberra has been under pressure from refugee advocates and the United Nations to close the camps on Manus and Nauru amid concerns about their conditions and the impact of prolonged detention on mental and physical health.

But the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva Thursday slammed the closure of Manus "without adequate arrangements for long-term viable relocation solutions for all refugees and asylum-seekers transferred there".

The refugees are barred from resettling in Australia but Canberra has struggled to transfer them to third countries.
"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said during a speech in Vietnam to the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The region, he added, must "stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger".

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

On Thursday, Trump was in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, where he called on China to "act fast" over North Korea.

Washington has also worked in recent months to convince allies across Asia to oppose Pyongyang, an issue that will remain prominent during his two-day trip to Vietnam, which is currently hosting a major regional summit.

The leaders of Japan, Russia, China and South Korea are also attending the APEC summit.

'Channels still open'

At the same time, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington has "two or three channels" open with North Korea and was always ready to hear what Pyongyang wants to say.

Tillerson has consistently emphasised diplomacy in dealing with the North, while Trump has traded personal insults and threats of war with leader Kim Jong-Un.

At a speech in South Korea's parliament on Wednesday, Trump denounced the North's "cruel dictatorship" but appeared to moderate his bellicose tone somewhat when he offered Pyongyang a "path to a better future".

Tillerson reinforced that thrust on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit.

"We have two or three channels in which we can with high confidence get messages to him and he can get messages back to us and we keep those open," he said of Kim.

"As part of our ongoing diplomatic effort we are always ready to hear what he has to say diplomatically", he said.

"Whatever he wants to say publicly, he can say publicly, and what we say to him diplomatically is not public either.

"Because I think eventually we're going to have one of those days where we're both going to say ok maybe it's a good time to have that first conversation", he added.

But North Korean media reiterated Friday that Pyongyang would not put its nuclear weapons up for negotiation, calling such suggestions a "foolish daydream" and Trump a "war maniac".

"We do not oppose dialogue but will never put the issue related to the supreme interests of the DPRK and security of its people on the bargaining table," said a signed commentary in the government newspaper Minju Joson.
"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

On Thursday Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretary's comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.
The Paris-based cultural, scientific and cultural organisation "must show through its actions that UNESCO is addressing the challenges of globalisation today," said the 45-year-old whose nomination was confirmed on Friday.

She said she would seek to "reduce a certain amount of tensions" but conceded that they would "always exist".

The vote that saw Azoulay succeed outgoing UNESCO chief Irina Bokova was overshadowed by Washington's announcement that it planned to withdraw from the body after years of strained relations over decisions seen as critical of Israel.

In 2011 US president Barack Obama suspended funding for UNESCO -- about 22 percent of its annual budget -- for accepting Palestine as a member.

In the years since, UNESCO has been the scene of several flare-ups over Arab-sponsored resolutions critical of Israel.

In July, it declared the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank an endangered World Heritage site, infuriating Israel while delighting Palestinians.

The decision by Obama's successor Donald Trump to withdraw from the body will take effect at the end of 2018, when Washington will establish an "observer mission" to replace its UNESCO representation.

"But UNESCO must keep the door open and continue to work with American civil society," said Azoulay, who was culture minister under the Socialist president Francois Hollande for a little over a year until he left office in May.

"We must nip divisive issues in the bud, find joint solutions" and avoid issues that UNESCO cannot resolve -- "which is not its function by the way", Azoulay said.

She recognised that the sprawling 72-year-old body is "sometimes paralysed or taken hostage by disputes that it cannot resolve".

'Realistic' budget

Azoulay said UNESCO's budget integrates both dues and voluntary contributions and is "realistic".

"As for the current budget, we must determine the most crucial areas for action by UNESCO, where it is the only one acting, and adapt our priorities to our means."

The agency can also "maybe get support from other networks, other partnerships," she said.

Asked about UNESCO's image as a second-tier UN agency that is mainly concerned with developing its prestigious World Heritage list, Azoulay said that view was "very French".

"When you go to South Korea, Japan or sub-Saharan Africa, they talk to you mainly about education when it comes to UNESCO."
"My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea," the US leader wrote on Twitter before flying to Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit.

"He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!" he said, referring to Xi's wife.

Trump has repeatedly congratulated Xi for his reappointment as head of the Communist Party at a congress last month where he consolidated power -- raising eyebrows over the admiration of a non-democratic process.

US and Chinese firms signed more than $250 billion in business deals during Trump's visit, though analysts say many were nonbinding agreements that could take years to show any results and would do little to reduce the US-China trade imbalance.

Trump, who has softened his past criticism of China, again lambasted past US administrations for allowing the $350 billion trade deficit to balloon over the years.

"I don't blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the US on trade leading up to a point where the US is losing $100's of billions," he wrote as he again circumvented China's Twitter ban.

"How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same!"

China was the showpiece of Trump's five-nation tour of Asia, which ends on Monday.

During their talks on Thursday, Trump thanked Xi for his backing of United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang and China's own restrictions on banking for North Koreans.

While Xi said China was committed to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, he did not announce any new steps to squeeze the reclusive regime.

'Very special man'

Xi and Trump have struck up a friendship since their first meeting at the former real estate tycoon's Mar-a-Lago resort in April.

Xi treated Trump to a lavish "state visit-plus" that included a private tour of the Forbidden City, a military honour guard and a banquet.

The US leader called his host a "very special man" and showed him a video of his granddaughter singing ballads in Mandarin. The two men will be in the same room again at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in the Vietnamese resort of Danang.

First Lady Melania Trump did not join the president for the rest of his Asian tour, staying in Beijing on Friday to continue the US charm offensive. She will see pandas and visit the Great Wall.

"Melania is staying behind to see the zoo, and of course, the Great WALL of China before going to Alaska to greet our AMAZING troops," Trump tweeted.

Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall -- a usual stop for US presidents.
A California woman pleaded guilty Thursday in Henry County Circuit Court to possessing 20 pounds of heroin during a May 8 traffic stop on Interstate 80 eastbound.

Maria del Carman Sancez Rosas, 41, of San Leandro, was sentenced to the mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years, according to a negotiated plea agreement. She also will have two years mandatory supervised release, court costs and a $2,000 mandatory drug assessment. A $1.3 million street value fine was reduced to judgment, meaning the state won't bring her to court regularly to collect.

Class X felony charges of controlled-substance trafficking and possession with intent to deliver were dismissed.

Ms. Sanchez Rosas appealed to Judge Terry Patton to reduce her prison sentence, saying she was not a bad person, but a single mom who was the victim of abuse years ago.

"I have no authority to do that," said the judge, noting she'd received the minimum sentence by law.

Co-defendant Esteban Quiroz Ibarra, 30, of Union City, California, has a Nov. 27 pretrial hearing.
Bob Vogelbaugh reflected for a moment, adjusted his glasses and tugged on his trusty sweater vest.

His words -- like always -- were from the heart, which he wears on his sleeve.

"Hard to believe,'' Mr. Vogelbaugh, known nationwide as "Mr. Thanksgiving,'' said during a news conference Thursday to announce his annual community Thanksgiving dinner. The meal is set for Thursday, Nov. 23, from 4-6 p.m., at the quadrant near the Von Maur store at Moline's SouthPark Mall.

"It is unbelievable, 47 (years),'' Mr.Vogelbaugh said, noting he will lead the dinner for three more years, hoping to reach Dinner No. 50, then turn it over to 9-year-old Isaac Rumler and his parents, Matt and Amber.

Mr. Vogelbaugh, like always, was quick to tell all the event is not about him. It is a great collection of community, business and the Quad-Cities' give-back spirit.

"It's like making the perfect pie or cake,'' he said. "You have to have the right ingredients. We have it in a great place at SouthPark, we have the amazing folks from MetroLINK to make sure people get to and from, we have great volunteers, we have the donations and we have the wonderful diners to make this happen. This is not a charity event, this is people having Thanksgiving dinner together.''

Mr. Vogelbaugh says more than 2,000 diners shared a meal in 2016, and to bring a meal of such size together in 2017, costs approximately $20,000. Though just $1,200 has been donated so far to cover the cost of the day, Mr. Vogelbaugh says he has faith everything will come together

"We have only two weeks to make it as far as enough money to make the day go,'' Mr. Vogelbaugh said. "You worry, but you don't worry, because the community has always come to the front.''

SouthPark Mall general manager Dennis Gilliam, says the dinner gets Thanksgiving off a great start at the local mall.

"We want to be the meeting place of the Quad-Cities and we are thrilled to have Bob on hand that day,'' Mr. Gilliam said. "His goals and our goals are similar as far as the mall being a wonderful community place. We like it that people will be there at 6 p.m. when we open for business and go to work.''

If there was a unique side to the news conference, it was Mr. Vogelbaugh naming Isaac, a third-grader at Seton Catholic, as his successor. Involved in the dinner for three years, Isaac will be 12 when he succeeds Mr. Vogelbaugh.

"Isaac and his parents are on board with him taking over,'' Mr. Vogelbaugh said. "He is much older than his age and he has the right outlook and spirit. A couple of years back, Isaac received $20 for a great report card and asked if he could give it to 'Mr. Thanksgiving' to help out. I am the school crossing guard at Seton and I talk with his parents about this all time. He's the one. After my 50th year, God willing, he  and his parents will be beside him  will be in charge.''

Such an undertaking is not lost on Matt and Amber Rumler, Isaac's parents.

"We know what is ahead and we are behind Isaac,'' Matt Rumler said. "He has that volunteer spirit about him. Isaac is looking forward to making this year a success first, but he is excited about the chance to step in when Bob decides to step back.''
Time magazine's cover story for the week of Nov. 6 is a classic. It blares: "The Wrecking Crew: How Trump's Cabinet Is Dismantling Government As We Know It." The New York Times ran a lead editorial complaining that team Trump is shrinking the regulatory state at an "unprecedented" pace.

Meanwhile, last week the stock market raced to new all-time highs; we had another blockbuster jobs report with another fall in the unemployment rate; and housing sales soared to their highest level in a decade.

Are the editors at Time and the Times so ideologically blinded that they are incapable of connecting the dots?

The U.S. economic revival of 3 percent growth has already defied the predictions of almost every Donald Trump critic. I vividly remember debating Hillary Clinton's economic gurus during the campaign: They accused Trump and advisers such as myself of "lying" when we said that pro-growth policies would speed up economic growth to 3 to 4 percent.

Jason Furman, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, told reporters earlier this year that the chances of reaching 3 percent growth over a decade were about 1 in 25 -- which is what many political experts said was Trump's chance of winning the election. Another Obama economist, Alan Krueger, called the 3 percent growth forecast "extremely rosy."

Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to Obama, questioned the "standards of integrity" of the Trump economic team's forecast for 3 percent (or more) growth. "I do not see how any examination of U.S. history could possibly support the Trump forecast as a reasonable expectation," he wrote in The Washington Post.

Congress weighed in, too. "This budget relies on absurd economic projections and pretend revenues that no credible economist would validate," Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., announced at a House budget hearing.

Paul Krugman of The New York Times declared Trump's growth forecast an act of "economic arrogance." He said that the productivity improvement necessary for faster growth was as likely as "driverless flying cars" arriving "en masse."

Admittedly, we shouldn't read too much into six months of very good economic data (with 3 percent growth) or the booming stock market. These trends can always reverse course quickly. Trump's more restrictive policies on trade and immigration could harm growth potential.

But so far the Trump haters have missed the call on the economy's trajectory. Doubly ironic is that the same Obama-era economists who are trashing Trump's increasingly realistic forecast of 3 percent growth are the ones who predicted 4 percent growth from the Obama budgets. Obama never came anywhere near 4 percent growth, and at the end of his second term, the economy grew at a pitiful 1.6 percent.

Under Obama, free enterprise and pro-business policies were thrown out the window. What was delivered was the weakest recovery from a recession since World War II, with a meager 2.2 percent average growth rate. Middle America felt it, which is why Trump won these forgotten Americans.

One reason that economist Larry Kudlow and I and others assured Donald Trump that 3 to 4 percent growth was achievable was that Trump could capitalize on the underperformance of the Obama years. Under Obama, business investment fell almost two-thirds below the long-term trend line -- thanks to higher taxes on investment. Now, partly in anticipation of the tax cut, business spending keeps climbing.

Maybe the liberal economists and their shills in the media should show some humility. They should acknowledge they were dead wrong about how much Obamanomics was going to grow the economy and about how Trumponomics would crash the economy and the stock market. Or better yet, maybe the rest of us should all just stop listening to them.
Id like to address the elephant in the room. That elephant being the Republican Party and their refusal to represent the majority of their constituents. Lets begin with stricter gun control (something that would help lessen the fears parents have when sending their children off to school), 53% of Americans favor this (Pew Research) yet the elephant in the room refuses to consider any such thing. Over 70% of Americans want stricter background checks yet again; the elephant in the room refuses to represent them. 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Again, the elephant in the room pushes laws that do the opposite. 74% of Americans do not want social security reduced in any way. But the elephant in the room pushes to do just the opposite, cut social security. 63% of Americans now prefer Medicare for all, but the elephant in the room fights it with all its might. 67% of Americans feel more needs to be done to reduce climate change, but not the elephant in the room. The elephant sides with the fossil fuel industry claiming its not a big concern. Given these few statistics (there are more like them) its obvious that the Republican Party is the party of minority rule, quite the opposite of what our founding fathers envisioned. The Republican Party has become a power cult, not a party that represents the majority of Americans. Remember this while you mark your ballot in this midterm election. Save Democracy! Vote Democratic!
The line serves the populous Fergana valley and Namangan, Uzbekistans second largest city, which has a population of nearly 500,000 people.

A direct rail connection between the region and the Uzbek capital Tashkent was established last year with the completion of the 123.1km Angren - Pap line, which was electrically operated from the outset.

At present the Pap - Namangan - Andijan line is used by just three freight trains and two passenger services a day. Electrification of the route will be accompanied by the introduction of more frequent services and enable a three-hour journey time between Namangan and Taskhent, while also reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 10,000 tonnes per year.

Uzbekistan Railways (UTY) estimates that completing electrification of its network in the Fergana valley could quadruple rail freight volumes in the region.

The total cost of the project is $US 177.5m, with the government and UTY contributing the remaining $97.5m.

Uzbekistan electrified around 1000 route-km between 2009 and 2016, and 65% of the network will be electrified by 2025.

UTY recently launched a tender for electric locomotives, which will be funded with the aid of an ADB loan.
In recognition of Veterans Day, the Chicago Transit Authority announced several initiatives to advance its commitment to United States military veterans.

In addition to promoting outstanding veterans currently on staff, the CTA has implemented new community partnerships to aggressively recruit men and women who have served in the U.S. armed forces.

The agency said that the number of veterans on staff has steadily increased, more than doubling in the past few years, from 173 in 2010 to 414 as of Veterans Day 2017. Forty-five of those veterans hold management positions, including U.S. Army veterans Don Bonds, who was recently promoted to Chief Transit Operations Officer, and Jeremy Fine, CTAs Chief Financial Officer.

The CTA is committed to honoring the service and sacrifice of veterans and their families, by rewarding the skills, leadership and dedication they have to offer our riders, said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. Veterans are among our most outstanding employees, and we will continue to actively seek and employ these terrific men and women.

To help increase veteran recruiting and better serve existing veteran employees, CTA has implemented several new initiatives, including:

Participation in multiple local and military based job fairs;

Partnering with organizations such as Recruit Military to post positions and attending Hiring Our Heroes career fairs to further expand the veteran applicant pool;

Establishing an internal veterans committee to better serve veteran employees and their families by providing them with information on available benefits, offers, discounts, and opportunities.

Prior to any vacancy posting, the CTA reviews and adjusts job descriptions, where applicable, to account for equivalent experience, including appropriate military experience. Also, during the interview rating process, a veterans experience is factored as equivalent work experience in the candidates overall score. That process, the agency said, has led to veterans working in a wide variety of CTA positions, from bus and rail operators to electricians, mechanics and customer-service assistants.
The United States Senate has advanced President Trumps pick for the number-three post at the Department of Transportation, squashing protests from three of the four Democrats representing New York and New Jersey, who want the Administration to commit to the federal share of the multi-billion-dollar Northeast Corridor Gateway Program. However, the number-one spot at the Federal Railroad Administration remains trapped in a contentious game of political maneuvering.

In an 87-9 vote, the Senate invoked cloture and ended floor debate on Derek Kans nomination as Undersecretary of Transportation for Policy. The Senate is expected to confirm Kan on Nov. 13.

Kan, a former Lyft General Manager, Presidential Management Fellow at the Office of Management and Budget and Amtrak board member, also previously served as a policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)who happens to be married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. Kan was nominated in April, along with veteran railroader Ron Batory as FRA Administrator, but both nominations have been stalled by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). The trio (New Jerseys Senior Senator, Democrat Robert Menendez, is in the middle of a criminal corruption trial and has been silent on the matter) has been loudly vocalizing that they want assurances from the Administration that it will deliver its share of the Gateway Program.

Speaking about Kans nomination, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said, This non-controversial, well-qualified nominee has been languishing in the Senate for far too long. Its truly unfortunate that we have to go through the cloture process on this particular nominee, who is well-known to many of us here due to his previous work as a staffer in the Senate. No project should get to cut the line based on the machinations of a handful of our Democrat colleagues.

The Gateway Program has been a priority for transportation agencies that operate intercity and regional/commuter rail service on the Northeast Corridor (Amtrak, NJ Transit, New York MTA), as well as for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is contributing a substantial share of funding. Gateway consists of constructing two new Hudson River tunnels (doubling the number of tubes under the river), replacing the existing Portal Bridge on the New York-New Jersey High Line, and adding platform and station capacity at Penn Station New York by reconfiguring the James A. Farley Post Office Building into Moynihan Station, an extension of the existing facility. The Pennsylvania Railroad built the existing facilities in 1910 as the major portion of its New York Improvements Project, at the time one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken.

The existing tunnels require a major overhaul involving closing down one tube at a time, but doing so without having Gateways new tunnels in service would reduce system capacity by up to 75%. This would create traffic jams far worse than those that occur today, and seriously damage the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area economy, project advocates say.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, outgoing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Amtrak, the Port Authority and the Obama Administration, with support from the New York and New Jersey Senate delegations, committed to funding Gateway, but the Trump Administrations commitment is uncertain, despite the Presidents assertions about pouring roughly $1 trillion into U.S. roads, bridges and railroads through a promised infrastructure bill. The USDOT has withdrawn from Gateways board of trustees, and the Administration has proposed limiting funding for a grant program in such a way that would exclude Gateway. Curiously, DOT Secretary Chaos husband, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, has in the past called Trumps promised infrastructure bill a non-starter.

While Kans appointment is now a matter of a simple vote on the Senate floor (and Sens. Schumer, Booker and Gillibrand voted against cloture), Batorys appointment remains stalled. Critics say that Schumer and companys political machinations holding up confirmation of the nations number one railroad safety official are compromising overall railroad safety, as the FRA is essentially operating without experienced leadership. They note that when a passenger train incident occurs involving fatalities and injuriesand in recent years, several have taken placeSchumer and his Senate colleagues from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are the first to convene press conferences demanding that something be done.

In his floor speech, Sen. Thune specifically mentioned Federal Railroad Administration nominee Ron Batory as one of those well qualified and whose nomination should not be on held hostage in exchange for federal funding of the Gateway Program, observes Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner. Senate sources say Majority Leader McConnell may similarly seek to invoke cloture and end the hold on Batorys nomination prior to the Thanksgiving recess so that Batorys nomination moves to the Senate floor for a vote.

The kerfuffle over the Gateway Program funding is largely based on fiction created by Senators Schumer, Booker and Gillibrand. They allege that former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx assured the federal funding on behalf of the Obama Administration, and that current Transportation Secretary Chao has reneged. In fact, there is no legislation allocating the funds, nor has a written agreement allocating the funds been produced.

There has been some limited funding by Congress, but nothing near the $15 billion federal share the region is seeking. For example, Congress allocated $235 million for the Hudson Yards concrete casing (part of Hurricane Sandy recovery funding), and some $100 million for environmental and engineering work toward Gatewaybut zero money for new Hudson River tunnels or for the full Portal Bridge replacement project.

There is just the undocumented allegation of these three senators, who have been engaging in what appears nothing less than attempted extortion. Confirming Batory and Kanboth of whom possess exceptional knowledge of why the Gateway Program is essential to Northeast Corridor commuter and intercity rail operationsand engaging in bipartisan efforts to justify the federal funding seems a more productive strategy.
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Russian investigation into Ukrainian journalist charged with spying completed

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  Investigation into Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, who stands charged with espionage in Russia, was completed, his lawyer Mark Feygin wrote on his Twitter account on Friday.

The attorney also announced that the Moscow City Court had dismissed an appeal against the extension of Sushchenkos detention. The Ukrainian journalist will stay jailed until November 30.

According to Russias Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ukrainian citizen has "purposively collected classified information about the Armed Forces and National Guard of Russia." Leak of data abroad could cause damage to the national defense capability, the FSB officials claimed earlier.

Charges were brought against Sushchenko in October 2016. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Ukrinform news agency earlier confirmed that Sushchenko had been acting as its reporter since 2002. Since 2010, he has been working as Ukrinforms personal correspondent in France. According to the agency, Sushchenko arrived in Moscow on private business during his vacation and was arrested immediately upon his arrival.

Ukrinform repelled accusations against Sushchenko calling him "a journalist with years of unblemished professional reputation."
Constitutional Court rules meetings of MPs and voters can be regulated by law

ST. PETERSBURG, November 10 (RAPSI)  The Constitutional Court of Russia has ruled that legislators have a right to regulate the procedure of hosting a meeting between MPs and voters, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom on Friday.

Earlier, 104 members of the State Duma have asked the Court to analyze amendments to the law on public events introducing additional legal regulation of the meetings with voters on all legislative levels. The amendments dividing public gatherings into two distinct categories came into force on June 18. According to the law, meetings held indoors in specially assigned territories and closed-off areas were classified as one group while gatherings made in public space were classified as another.

In the latter case gatherings must be authorized under same procedure as rallies, demonstrations and other forms of public gatherings. MPs argue that the law forces them to authorize meetings with local authorities, preventing them from serving their mandates.

The Court noted that Russian Constitution does not provide an institution on meetings between MPs and voters, allowing legislators to find various ways of regulating said gatherings, although they have to acknowledge Constitutional requirements concerning legislative authority. Since these meetings are usually held in public and involve masses of people they may be regulated as other public events.

According to the Court, meetings held indoors and special places dont require notification because said areas are restricted, adding that such places should be provided in each settlement. If these meetings mutate into rallies they are to be held in accordance with specialized legislation, the Court held.

At the same time the Constitutional Court believes that authorities must provide sufficient arguments for banning these meetings. Also, unplanned meetings held in public areas are allowed, although they must be immediately cancelled if these events present danger to citizens or functionality of infrastructure.
Lawyer asks court to dismiss lawsuit on seizure of anti-corruption ex-officials property

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  A lawyer of Dmitry Zakharchenko, former Russian anti-corruption official charged with receiving a large-scale bribe, has asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit of the Prosecutor Generals Office seeking to turn his clients property to the state, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom on Friday.

According to the lawyer, during his clients service in bodies of the Interior Ministry, Zakharchenko did not participate in deals related to purchase or sell of real estate. In addition, the case documents how that his clients ex-wife Yana Saratovtseva did not purchase any real estate either.

On Friday, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow initiated review of the lawsuit filed by prosecutors. Other defendants in the case are Zakharchenkos parents and other relatives.

Earlier today, the prosecutor said that an apartment belonging to relatives of the defendant contained $124 million and 340 million rubles (about $5.7 million), adding that from 2001 till 2016 Zakharchenko earned only 12 million rubles (about $202,700) and that his relatives did not have the means to obtain this sum as well.

Prosecutors seek to turn 27 objects of real estate in elite neighborhoods of Moscow, 4 high-end automobiles and 8 billion rubles (about $135.1 million) into the state property.

Ex-Russian anti-corruption official Dmitry Zakharchenko was arrested on September 8, 2016. During searches at the apartment belonging to Zakharchenkos sister law enforcement officers found around 9 billion rubles (about $156 million at the current exchange rate).

Zakharchenko himself denies any relation to seized funds.

Zakharchenko was charged with receiving a 7-million-ruble ($121,600) bribe from an unknown source. He has also been charged with abuse of office and hindering the conduct of preliminary investigation. On March 2, it was revealed that he is charged with two more instances of corruption crimes.

According to case papers, the father of Dmitry Zakharchenko, Viktor, is charged with being an accessory to embezzlement. His father also pleads not guilty to embezzlement.
Ex-Russian senator appeals 8.5-year sentence for $3.3 mln embezzlement

ST. PETERSBURG, November 10 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) - Former Russian senator and owner of Liviz liquor producer Alexander Sabadash has filed an appeal against his 8.5-year prison sentence for embezzling 190 million rubles ($3.3 million) from Bank Tavrichesky, according to the press service of St. Petersburg courts.

The banks chairman Sergey Somov and his deputy Dmitry Garkusha, who had been given 7 years in prison each in this case, also appealed the sentence. The defendants had asked the St. Petersburg City Court to acquit them, the press service told RAPSI on Friday.

According to case papers, from June to December 2013, Somov, Garkusha and Sabadash stole 190 million rubles by signing credit contracts in violation of a procedure of approval and processing of loans established in the bank. The defendants transferred the embezzled money to accounts of foreign companies controlled by Sabadash.

In 2015, Sabadash received a 6-year prison sentence for attempted embezzlement of 1.8 billion rubles (about $32 million) involving Arkhangelsk-based developer ES-Kontaktstroy and JSC Vyborgskaya Cellulose. Sabadash, believed to be the owner of Vyborgskaya Cellulose, has organized a fraudulent VAT refund scheme, according to investigators.

Sabadash was stripped of his seat in the parliaments upper house, the Federation Council, in 2006 after he was accused of carrying out business activities, which senators are forbidden to do.
Moscow Region court initiates restructuring of Trust bank ex-owners debts

MOSCOW, November 10 (RAPSI)  The Moscow Region Commercial Court has initiated the procedure of debt restructuring on the request of Trust Bank against one of the former banks owners Nikolay Fetisov, RAPSI learnt from the court on Friday.

The banks demands seeking 3.59 million euros and about 101 million rubles (about $1.7 million) were included in the creditors demands list. Hearings in Fetisov's bankruptcy case are set for April 19, 2018.

In April 2017, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals dismissed Fetisovs appeal over transfer of the bankruptcy case to the Moscow Regional Court. On January 10, the court of appeals found Trust banks lawsuit legal.

In April 2016, Trust Bank lodged a lawsuit with the London High Court seeking $830 million in damages from its ex-owners Ilya Yurov, Nikolay Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev.

The claim was filed following a court decision to freeze assets belonging to ex-shareholders. The ruling was delivered on the grounds that companies connected with the defendants obtained credits amounting to $1 billion providing security worth nearly $150 million, according to the statement of Otkritie Holding.

These loans were serviced prior to reorganization of Trust Bank in 2014.

Before lodging the claim, in January, Trust Bank turned to the London High Court seeking to freeze accounts of ex-owners and suspend a deal stipulating free divestment of assets priced at $100 million, Otkritie Holdings press service said.

In May, Yurov sought for reversal of the assets freeze. However, this motion was dismissed.

In late December 2014, the Central Bank of Russia said it would provide Trust Bank with up to 30 billion rubles ($530 million) to stop it going bankrupt. At the time the bank was placed under temporary supervision of the Deposit Insurance Agency it was on the list of top 30 Russian banks.

The financial rehabilitation of Trust Bank was led by FC Otkritie Bank, part of Otkritie Holding JSC.

On December 17, 2015, Moscow's Tverskoy District Court issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Yurov and two other former owners of the bank, implicated in a large-scale embezzlement case. As reported earlier, they allegedly concluded sham credit contracts with companies registered in Cyprus and then transferred funds to accounts controlled by Trust Bank ex-owners.
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ANNOUNCEMENT FROM CODY FIREARMS MUSEUM

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is pleased to announce that Timney Triggers has pledged $500,000 toward its Cody Firearms Museum (CFM) reconstruction. The Center recently revealed its plan to fully renovate the CFM. Timney Triggers donation combines with several federal grants and high-level individual donations received to date for the project; however, they have led the charge in the firearms world as the first substantial industry gift.

I am happy to make this gift, said John Vehr, Timney Triggers owner, because our industry must support and appreciate the benefits derived from having the finest gun museum in the world educate hundreds of thousands of people who visit [the museum] AND are new to guns, on the historical importance and the positive aspects of our industry.

The Center is privileged to have Timney Triggers support of the Cody Firearms Museum renovation project, especially with the companys rich history as one of the oldest and largest trigger manufacturers in the world. It has produced replacement triggers for more than 70 years, and since its launch in 1946, the business prides itself on the quality of precision machining and workmanship that goes into each and every Timney Trigger. Each trigger is proudly made in the USA and offers a lifetime warranty.

The CFM is planning a two-floor renovation that caters to both firearms enthusiasts and the general public. This museum will boast more than 4,500 firearms on display, Steel Challenge simulators, and additional hands-on interactive displays that teach people not only about how firearms changed throughout history, but why theyre significant to our cultural heritage.

Peter Kuyper, newly appointed CFM Advisory Board Chair, is thrilled to be a part of such a terrific opportunity to educate the public about firearms history. No other firearms museum in the country is poised to tell this story in a way that will reach both the collector and the novice. Im honored to become a part of the Cody Firearms Museum making its own history.

Robert W. Woodruff Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum Ashley Hlebinsky is ecstatic to have Timney Triggers in support of this project. When we set out to plan the new museum, we wanted to make sure that our historic roots were fostered in the new museum. However, it is equally important that we acquire representation from newer companies, or companies whose stories havent been told previously in museums, solidifying their place in history.

To learn more about the Cody Firearms Museum, go to: https://centerofthewest.org/explore/firearms/

Check out Timney Triggers online at: https://www.timneytriggers.com/
United States President Donald Trump on Friday praised India's "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Da Nang in the Vietnamese port city, Trump cited India as one of the countries in the Indo-Pacific region making strides.

He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of over 1 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very, very successfully indeed," the US president said.

Earlier, a senior Trump administration official told reporters travelling with the president from China to Vietnam said that India is a major economy that has registered fast growth.

"Prime Minister Modi has been doing a lot in the way of pressing reforms to allow India to pull even more people out of poverty," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

India, the official said, is increasingly a partner of America in security terms as well, and it also happens to share many values in common with the United States.

"India and the United States are the world's first and second largest democracies, and both of us have an abiding interest in the maritime commons remaining open and trade continuing to flow freely," the official said.

"So it is no accident that we are viewing the region with a wider aperture to include India as one of the "bookends", as Secretary (of State, Rex) Tillerson calls it, of the region -- the United States being the other bookend," the official said, defending the use of term Indo-Pacific instead of Asia-Pacific for the region.

The Indo-Pacific is a term that, in a sense, widens the aperture for the region, the official said.

It talks about a region that encompasses everything from India to the West Coast of the US; all of the Asian countries in Northeast Asia; down in Oceania with Australia; the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand in the south; India to the west; the United States to the east; and, of course, Southeast Asia as the crossroads to all of that, the official said.

With a vibrant area, a young demographically, one should be envious of the demographics, said the official.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, where he is expected to meet Modi.

Meanwhile, in a veiled attack on China, Trump said the US would "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property."

"We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state, and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," the US president said.

American firms have long complained about China failing to honour intellectual property rights.

Trump had travelled to Da Nang from Beijing, where he had also discussed America's huge trade imbalance with China.

In the speech, Trump said he had spoken "openly and directly" with Chinese President Xi Jinping "about China's unfair trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produced with the US."

Trump's tone in Vietnam was strikingly different from the day before in Beijing, where the US president appeared to be friendlier toward the Communist giant as he sought Xi's help to reduce the massive trade deficit and to rein-in nuclear-armed North Korea.

The bilateral trade between the US and China was worth USD 648 billion last year, but trade was heavily skewed in China's favour with the US amassing a nearly USD 310 billion deficit.

Xi, speaking at the same APEC event shortly after the US President, did not respond to Trump's remarks, but said economic globalisation had become an "irreversible historical trend."

Trump also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter China's rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over the proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third party's interest".
The GST Council's agenda includes trimming the number of items in the 28 per cent slab by 75 per cent, easier compliance for assessees and small taxpayers, and a presentation on bringing real estate under GST.

Dilasha Seth reports from Guwahati.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Ahead of the crucial goods and services tax (GST) Council meeting in Guwahati on Friday, Congress finance ministers pitched for 'a major overhaul' in the indirect tax reform, suggesting that the meeting may be a stormy affair.

The four Congress finance ministers demanded bringing real estate, petroleum, and electricity in the GST net, besides a significant reduction in the tax rate for commonly used items and easing the compliance burden.

Reducing the 28 per cent GST basket to just 62 items is on the agenda of the Council meeting, besides easing the compliance burden for all taxpayers.

Including real estate in the GST is also slated to be discussed in the day-long meeting, though at a conceptual stage.

"The feeling one gets is that the entire GST has been introduced in undue haste, causing huge damage both to government revenues and costs to business... if not corrected quickly, GST may turn out to be the biggest destroyer of the Indian economy," Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal told the media ahead of Friday's GST Council meeting.

The GST officers meeting in Guwahati on Thursday, November 9, started noisily with Assam Congress leaders protesting outside the venue demanding reduction in the highest GST slab from 28 per cent to 18 per cent.

Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, along with Assam Congress President Ripun Bora and other party leaders and workers, staged a gherao at the Radisson Blu, the Council meeting venue. They were arrested and taken to the Basistha police station.

'We are protesting against the reckless GST and demanding a rollback,' Bora tweeted.

Meanwhile, GST officers visited the Kamakhya temple. A cruise on the Brahmaputra during the sunset followed.

Earlier in the day, officers met to create a consensus on key issues, forming the basis for the minister-level Council meeting, to be chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday.

The Council has an exhaustive agenda for the 23rd meeting.

It includes trimming the number of items in the 28 per cent slab by 75 per cent, easier compliance for assessees and small taxpayers, and a presentation on bringing real estate under GST.

For including real estate, the approval of the states is key because the stamp duty and registration fees on property are their exclusive domain and will require an amendment of the Constitution.

The Central Act -- the Indian Stamp Duty Act, 1899 -- empowers the states to collect and impose stamp duty.

Stamp duty charges vary across states, currently in the range of 3 to 10 per cent.

According to the proposal of the fitment committee, the 28 per cent slab should be for 62 items, including digital cameras, hair dyes, marble and granite, chocolates, and cement.

Easing the compliance burden, the Council may decide on continuing the summarised tax return filing beyond December 31, instead of GSTR 1, 2 and 3.

"This meeting of the GST Council would deliberate on some thorny issues and it is hoped that the consensus building process we have seen in the previous meetings continues, said M S Mani, partner-GST, Deloitte India.

"Since several issues relating to states are expected to be debated, and the outcome of this meeting will be very keenly watched as it will determine the course of the largest tax reform of the country," Mani added.

The Council may allow quarterly return filing for all taxpayers with a monthly tax payment. This proposal is there in the report of the group of ministers led by Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Besides, the composition scheme, which allows a flat rate of tax and easier compliance, may be eased further.

The Council may increase the threshold for eligibility to an annual turnover Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore from Rs 1 crore now. The move will require an amendment to the GST law.

A flat one per cent rate for manufacturers and restaurants will be considered against the current rates of two per cent and five per cent, respectively.

For traders, a lower rate of 0.5 per cent in the case of a cumulative turnover of exempted and non-exempted goods, and one per cent for non-exempted goods may be allowed.

Allowing interstate sales under the composition scheme will also be taken up.

Additionally, a reduction in late filing fees to Rs 50 per day, against Rs 200 at present may also be considered.
'Differences will almost certainly arise over how the minorities are to be viewed and how educational institutions are to be treated.'

'These issues would be non-negotiable for Mr Modi's BJP.'

'So he may well refuse to lead a government in which his freedom of action is constrained by others in the coalition,' feels T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

Narendra Modi has had an extraordinary political career since he became chief minister of Gujarat in October 2001. He won three successive assembly elections there, with handsome majorities each time.

He used to run the state in an uncompromising way -- at one stage, it is believed, somewhat alienating the RSS also.

But even as his stature grew he chose to maintain a low profile within the party right till the end of the summer of 2013.

A few months later in September, he was chosen to lead the BJP in the general election of 2014. And a star was born, the likes of which India had not seen in 44 years.

He led his party to a stunning victory in May 2014, winning, against all expectation, a thin 10-seat simple majority. No party had managed to do this since 1984.

As prime minister he has run his government in exactly the way he ran his government in Gujarat -- in an uncompromising way.

Service delivery rather than the flimflam of policy has been his style of governance.He has been criticised for this.

But the truth is that Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi ran their governments exactly like this because they too ran majority governments. They too were criticised in their time.

Like it or not, this is how governments must be run -- at least as long as your party has a majority. There is enough literature to show that.

But I have often wondered how Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi would have led coalitions. In both 1984 and 1991 that was very much on the cards. In the event, the contingency did not arise.

We now need to ask the same question because there is no guarantee that Mr Modi will deliver majority a fifth time. Good for him if he does, but the odds are now against him.

Hence the question: Can Mr Modi lead a coalition?

One answer is that he is already leading one. True, but leading one in which your party has a majority is very different from leading one in which it hasn't.

India has had five prime ministers who ran governments in which their party did not have a majority -- six if you include the Indira Gandhi government of 1969-1971.

In each case, the prime minister has been hostage to the coalition partners.

Morarji Desai never quite understood what Manmohan Singh would later call the coalition dharma. He was brought down in 1979. The same thing happened to V P Singh in 1990.

P V Narasimha Rao was very flexible, and so were four of his successors -- H D Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. But that flexibility ended on May 26, 2014, when Mr Modi was sworn in as prime minister.

Partly because he doesn't have to, and partly because it is against his nature, he has been entirely unmindful of what the non-BJP members of the NDA think or need.

Indeed, some would say he has treated his own party members in the same way. The examples are several and well known.

On economic issues there won't be much divergence. All political parties in India are anti-business.

Foreign policy also runs on a broad consensus. Political parties, when not in power, don't care what the government does as long as their senior members get enough junkets to the West.

On matters of administration and governance also there won't be much argument. Political vision here is largely restricted to patronage in the matter of contracts for friends and postings of government employees.

Even over purely media issues like Kashmir, entitlements, and rights, it is hard to see much angst except between 7 and 10 pm on TV channels.

S****ing Kashmiri separatists is good, as is expanding rights and entitlements. But our political parties don't much care if the reverse happens, either.

That said, differences will almost certainly arise over how the minorities are to be viewed and how educational institutions are to be treated.

Discriminating against the former and high-handedness in the latter would have to be ended.

This will be the real sticking point. These issues would be non-negotiable for Mr Modi's BJP. So he may well refuse to lead a government in which his freedom of action is constrained by others in the coalition.

Let's not forget that in 2001, when he was asked to become deputy chief minister of Gujarat under Keshubhai Patel, he declined.

I need full freedom, he is believed to have said.
'No one would be allowed to impure the stream of justice,' declared the top court.

The Supreme Court on Friday, November 10, termed the allegations of bribes taken in the name of judges as 'very serious' and asserted that no one would be allowed to 'impure the stream of justice'.

The top court observed that whoever, how mighty he is, cannot evade the law and said that justice would be delivered.

"The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) has raided and the case is lodged. No one can undermine the importance of this case. This matter is very serious," Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said.

"Our endeavour is that nobody impures the stream of justice. Whoever, how mighty he is, (he) cannot evade the law. Justice needs to be delivered," the Supreme Court judges said.

The judges also told advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitoner NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability, that they were 'pained to see how the matter was listed before it'.

"When the matter was mentioned on November 8 and directed to be listed before an appropriate bench, then what was the need to file a second petition before court number 2 yesterday (Thursday, November 9). You could have told me and if possible, I would have recused. You know me," Justice Sikri said.

Bhushan said he was more pained as on November 8, the registry had informed him that the matter which was directed to be listed in court number 2 itself stood transferred to another bench as there was a prior order of the Chief Justice of India to that effect.

Justices Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said the CJI takes a call before which bench a matter is to be listed.

"There has to be a thorough and proper investigation into the matter. The issue needs to be examined whether the CBI be allowed to continue with the investigation or, as you have prayed, the SIT (Special Investigation Team) be allowed," the judges said.

The court, Prashant Bhushan said, has ordered for a hearing by a Constitution bench so 'what else can be asked for. ... You (Justice Sikri) may be part of that bench'.

To this, Justice Sikri said, "I am not interested. If you say, I may recuse from that bench".

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Bar Association president and senior advocate R S Suri and its secretary Gaurav Bhatia said the SCBA wanted to be impleaded as a party in the matter.

Prashant Bhushan said he was not opposed to the SCBA plea, but a proper application should have been filed.

The bench, however, on an oral request by Suri and Bhatia, impleaded the SCBA as a party and tagged the matter with earlier petitions, which has been listed for hearing before a Constitution bench of the five senior-most judges of the apex court on Monday, November 13.

The apex court had on Thursday referred to the Constitution bench a plea alleging that bribes were being taken using the names of apex court judges, promising to secure favourable settlement of a case.

The court had termed as 'disturbing' the allegations levelled in the CBI's first information report that mentioned a former Orissa high court judge as one of the accused.

Senior advocate Dushyant Dave had on Thursday submitted that the medical admission matter, the genesis of the CBI FIR, was being heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, and hence he should not be involved with it either on the judicial or on the adminstrative side.
Bringing the state under a thick security blanket, Tipu Jayanti celebrations were held amid protests across Karnataka on Friday to mark the birth anniversary of the controversial 18th-century ruler of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom, Tipu Sultan.

With a sharply divided opinion over Tipu's legacy and rising political temperature, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, several Hindu organisations and individuals opposed the Karnataka government celebrating Tipu Jayanti through statewide protests.

As over 54,000 police personnel and platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police, bolstered by the Rapid Action Force, kept a hawk-eyed vigil, functions were held at the district headquarters, where in-charge ministers and others hailed the legacy of Tipu.

There were reports of stones being hurled at a state transport bus and over 100 people, including local BJP MLA Appachu Ranjan, being detained in Kodagu district, where widespread protests and violence had marred the Tipu Jayanti celebrations two years ago, when a local VHP leader died and several others, including policemen, were injured.

Kodagu district observed a shutdown in response to a bandh called by the BJP and certain Hindutva outfits. Prohibitory orders are in place in the district till Saturday morning.

Tipu was a ruler of the erstwhile kingdom of Mysore and considered an implacable enemy of the British East India Company.

He was killed in May, 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatna against the British forces.

But, Tipu Sultan is a sensitive issue in Kodagu district as Kodavas (Coorgis), a martial race, believe that thousands of their men and women were seized and held captive during his occupation and subjected to torture, death and forcible conversion to Islam.

Kodagu-based writer of historical books C P Beliappa had called the erstwhile ruler of Mysore a "treacherous tyrant".

However, the scale of such suppression is disputed by several historians, who see Tipu as a secular and modern ruler who took on the might of the British.

With a sharp polarisation over Tipu Jayanti celebrations, the Karnataka government had made massive security arrangements across the state, deploying over 54,000 police personnel, 20,000 home guards and 212 platoons of the KSRP.

The state security personnel were bolstered by the deployment of 15 platoons of the RAF across the state.

In Bengaluru alone, 11,000 policemen were deployed, officials said.

Prohibitory orders have also been clamped at certain places in Belagavi and Chitradurga districts.

In Mangaluru, BJP district minority morcha president Franklin Monteiro, who tried to break the security cordon and barge into the premises where the celebrations were organised, was placed under arrest.

Tipu is seen in a negative light in the coastal Dakshina Kannada district, where the Christians believe he had unleashed atrocities and forced conversion to Islam on their community.

Even as BJP MLAs and MPs stayed away from the event, with some even writing to the respective district administrations not to mention their names in the invitations for it, party MLA from Vijayanagara constituency in Ballari district Anand Singh joined the celebrations.

Recently, Union minister Anantkumar Hegde had kicked up a row after he requested the Karnataka government not to include his name in the list of invitees for the Tipu Jayanti event.

Tipu Jayanti has become so controversial that recent remarks made by President Ram Nath Kovind during his address to a joint session of the Karnataka legislature on the then Mysore ruler had sparked a war of words between the ruling Congress and opposition BJP in the state.

The president had hailed Tipu, saying he died a heroic death fighting the British.

The BJP sees Tipu as a "religious bigot" and a "brutal killer", while some Kannada outfits call him anti-Kannada, citing that he had promoted Persian at the cost of the local language.

IMAGE: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah shares a light moment with MLA Zameer Ahmad during Tippu Jayanti celebrations at Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru. Photograph: Shailendra Bhojak/PTI Photo
The government says MPs will be busy campaigning in Gujarat.

The Opposition counters this, saying campaigning for elections in 5 states was held in the midst of the Budget session earlier this year.

Archis Mohan reports.

Thousands of workers protested against the Narendra D Modi government's economic policies barely a kilometre away from Parliament on Thursday, November 9, while a conglomeration of farmer organisations announced its plan to gather at the same location to highlight farm distress on November 20.

These protests had been decided months in advance to coincide with the winter session of Parliament. But there is little clarity on the dates and duration of the winter session, which usually begins in the second or third week of November.

Opposition parties have expressed their fears over possibilities of the Modi government scrapping the session altogether or convene a brief session after polling was over in Gujarat.

Government sources have maintained that most MPs would be busy with campaigning in Gujarat, which will lead to poor attendance during the session.

Opposition leaders have pointed out that campaigning for elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, was held in the midst of the Budget session earlier this year.

Himachal Pradesh went to the polls on Thursday while Gujarat is scheduled to vote on December 9 and 14.

According to sources in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats, the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs meets a fortnight before the convening of a session to decide and announce the dates, and members of Parliament are intimated thereafter. This is yet to be done.

Opposition leaders have said the government does not want to face Parliament, with questions being raised on the Centre's demonetisation drive besides calling into question the goods and services tax and the alleged business dealings of Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit A Shah's son Jay Shah.

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh is scheduled to reach out to some farmer organisations on November 15, but not to the 180-odd organisations who have come together to protest on November 20.

The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated trade union, has planned a protest to highlight the problems of the farm sector on November 17.

In Nagpur, BJP MP Nana Patole said senior party leader Yashwant Sinha and Lok Sabha MP Shatrughan Sinha will address a convention of farmers in Akola in eastern Maharashtra on December 1.

Patole was in the news recently for saying that the PM didn't like to take questions. Sinha is also slated to address meetings in Gujarat in mid-November.

Patole also claimed that he was approached by the Congress and Shiv Sena, both of whom asked him to join their party. Both offers were, however, declined by Patole who said he did not want to leave the BJP.

The BJP MP, however, said he would try meet Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi to discuss farmer-related issues during the winter session of Parliament.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi, flanked by Ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Dr Jitendra Singh and Ananth Kumar, addresses the media before a Parliament session. Photograph: PTI Photo
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat on Friday said that there was no shortage of arms and ammunition to the forces and they are fully prepared to give befitting reply to enemies.

The army chief, who was in Varanasi to attend the bicentenary celebrations of the 9 Gorkha Rifles at 39 Gorkha Training Centre, also assured the nation that the borders are fully secured.

"The army is fully prepared to deal with our enemies and give them befitting reply," he told mediapersons.

"There is no shortage of arms and ammunition with the army and the need of the hour was to continuously upgrade to latest technology. And the army was getting itself equipped with the modern weapons," he added.

Gen Rawat arrived in Varanasi with his family on Thursday to attend the two-day bicentenary celebrations from November 9 to 11.

An official press statement said that the Gen Rawat took part in the event also in the capacity of the president of the Gorkha Brigade.

A galaxy of senior officers, both serving and retired, and 500 veterans, many of whom came from far-flung areas in Nepal, attended the event along with their families.

Gen Rawat also laid wreath at the war memorial to pay homage to the martyrs of the regiment and released the First Day Cover to mark the occasion, the statement added.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the release of Deepika Padukone starrer Padmavati over which the Allahabad high court also declined to entertain a plea seeking a ban of the Bollywood film.

The Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed period drama, which also starred Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, in lead roles is due to be released on December 1.

The court verdicts come as a big boost to Bhansali in the aftermath of a mob attack in Jaipur and a vandalism incident in Kolhapur during the shooting of the film.

An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra refused to entertain a plea seeking a stay of the release of the film after it enquired at the outset as to whether or not the censor board has issued the certification.

"Has the film been placed before the censor board? Has the censor board certified the film," the bench, which also comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, asked from the counsel for petitioners.

On being intimated that the Central Board of Film Certification was yet to certify the movie, the bench said, "This court should not exercise its writ jurisdiction in such situation".

The top court said that there were several guidelines for the CBFC in granting certification to a movie and moreover, there is Film Certification Appellate Tribunal to look into grievances regarding a film.

The bench was hearing a plea filed by Siddharajsinh Mahavirsinh Chudasama and 11 others against the film.

Besides seeking a stay on the release of the movie, the plea had also sought setting up of a committee of eminent historians to check the veracity of the script to prevent any inaccuracy in portrayal of Rani Padmavati.

It was also contended that the film be not allowed to be released till such time any historical inaccuracies in the movie are corrected by the producer and the director.

The plea noted that the war-saga was based on the 13th century historical battle between Maharaja Ratan Singh and his army of Mewar and Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi.

It claimed that the movie distorted certain historical facts "hurting the sentiments of Kshatriya community".

"The trailers show Rani Padmavati doing a 'ghoomar' dance," the plea said, alleging that "the depiction of Rani Padmavati in the said dance sequence is contrary to how traditionally 'ghoomar' is being performed...."

In Lucknow, a division bench of the Allahabad high court asked a petitioner, seeking a ban on the movie on the ground that it allegedly propagates the practice of 'sati', to approach the censor board with his plea. Sati is a practice whereby a widow threw herself on to her husband's funeral pyre.

The bench comprising justices Vikram Nath and Abdul Moin on Thursday refused to interfere in the matter.

The petitioner Kamta Prasad Singhal had pleaded that under the Sati (Prevention) Act, the practice was banned and even its propagation was banned and made punishable.

Citing the said provision, the petitioner claimed that the movie shows women committing sati and therefore, should be banned.

Declining to go into the merits of the matter, the bench said the petitioner has another forum where he could appeal for his grievance.
As part of its new South Asia strategy, the United States wants to make sure that there are no terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has said, asserting that there are ways for the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member countries to hold Islamabad accountable for its fight against terrorism.

The new South Asia strategy comprises of regionalisation, realigning of forces, reinforcing them and to reconciliation, the political goal, he told reporters at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

"What we want to do is start with -- from India to across the region -- is to make certain that everyone's working off the same sheet of music.

"We want to make certain that no terrorist organisation can find a haven anywhere, and, with a border adjoining Afghanistan, that makes Pakistan a priority," Mattis said.

As such the United States is engaging with the Pakistanis, he added.

"We're engaging a whole-of-government effort. We've got international efforts going on. And one of the reasons we brought it up here was to make certain we were all aligned about where we stood on this," the US Defence Secretary said.

Referring to the discussions he had with other NATO member countries, Mattis said, "It was remarkable alignment about us all working together to get Pakistan to do everything it can to cut the insurgents off, the terrorists off."

When asked what is different with the Pakistan policy this time, Mattis said there are ways that the US can reward Pakistan and ways that the international community can ensure they are held to account.

"But our principle, going into this, is that we are going to work with Pakistan and make this work, so that there's no longer a threat coming across the border there," he said.

This is an international effort and not just an American-alone effort, he added.

"So that in itself, that we're aligned internationally, now, with what we're doing, is probably the biggest change, he said.

At the NATO Defense Ministerial meeting, Mattis said he and his colleagues were "orchestrating" their fight against terror and the next steps from Afghanistan to the Middle East.

Over the two days, I shared with them President Donald Trump's South Asia strategy, which was very well received and firmly supported, he said.

Specifically to Afghanistan, the reconciliation remains the political goal of NATO's military campaign and our comprehensive approach, Mattis said, adding that the reconciliation must be Afghan-led, with an open door to the Taliban if they choose to stop killing and live by the Afghan constitution.

"This strategy, carried out by, with and through our Afghan partners and within the coalition framework ensures this regional campaign is politically, fiscally and militarily sustainable," he said.

There is no military campaign that does not have a 'political goal', he added.

Mattis said the NATO nations and coalition partners are in the process of finalising troop increases and additional support efforts.

"Over two dozen nations have stated that they intend to raise the troop numbers that they have on the ground there now, including some very small nations, for whom this is the largest overseas deployment they have been engaged in.

"We appreciate their commitment to stabilising the South Asia region," he said.

IMAGE: US Defence Secretary James Mattis during the defence ministers meeting of the ASEAN in Philippines last month. Photograph: Dondi Tawatao/Reuters
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet project 'Swachh Bharat' mission on Friday came in for sharp criticism by a top United Nations expert on sanitation who said it "lacked a holistic human rights approach", drawing swift reproval from the government.

The government also took exception to the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation Leo Heller's reference to Mahatma Gandhi's spectacles in the mission's logo, and his "rambling" report containing "inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases".

"In the last two weeks I have visited rural and urban areas, slums and settlement camps where undocumented population is residing... and I have found that these initiatives lack a more human rights approach," he said.

A press release by the office of the High Commissioner, United Nations Human Rights, on the issue, which had a reference to Mahatma Gandhi, drew strong criticism from the government. The release was distributed at the press conference.

"Everywhere I went, I saw the logo of the Clean India Mission- (Mahatma) Gandhi's glasses. In its third year of implementation, now is a critical time to replace the lens of those glasses with the human rights lens," Heller was quoted as saying in the release.

Taking a strong note of his remarks on the logo of the Clean India Mission, the government issued a statement deploring that it showed "serious insensitivity towards the Father of the Nation".

The statement said the world knows that the Mahatma was the foremost proponent of human rights.

"Instead of taking the human rights approach to sanitation in a holistic way, a piecemeal approach is there," Heller told the press conference, and urged the government at all levels to impart a human rights perspective to its national programmes on safe drinking water and sanitation.

Heller on Friday concluded his fortnight-long visit to the country during which he met several government officials and visited New Delhi, Kolkata, Imphal, Lucknow and Mumbai where he also visted a few slums.

The expert, charged by the UN Humans Rights Council, to monitor, report and advise on the realisation of the human rights to water and sanitation worldwide, said he also found that in certain areas people belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes faced "discrimination" in accessing toilets.

Eliminating open defecation is not just about building latrines, Heller said.

Heller said he had a "mixed perception" about the mission which was a unique initiative of India and launched by the Prime Minister himself.

"On my last day in India, the website of Clean India Mission showed 53 million toilets built in the last years, in rural areas only, (besides in urban areas). I need to recognise that it is very impressive," he said.

He also brought up the issue of the human rights of manual scavengers.

"The government's emphasis on building toilets should not involuntarily contribute to violating the fundamental rights of others, such as those specific caste groups enagaged in manual scavenging, or those who are marginalised such as ethnic minorities living in remote rural areas," he said.

The government dismissed his preliminary findings as a "rambling report" and said it contained "inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases".

"The report has been produced after only a two-week visit with fleeting trips to a few states and including some anecdotal reference," the government said, asserting its "highest commitment" to human rights in general and water supply and sanitation in particular.

The UN expert, who visited India at the invitation of the government will submit a full report on his findings with recommendations at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2018.

Heller was also critical of the certification mechanism being followed while declaring a particular area open-defecation free.

"The certification procedure is not very straightforward. According to responsible ministries, the protocol to certify an ODF area is not the same for rural and urban areas. I also learned that in some places, ODF certified areas are not de facto open defecation free," he said.

Heller said the information, education and communication mechanism used for the mission lacked proper methodology. He said just a few workshops and events were not enough for effective implementation of the mission and that sustained efforts needed to be made.

"Just dedicating funds is not enough. It is good the government has earmarked dedicated funds for the mission, but proper implementation through IEC is needed," he added.

The UN expert also said both sanitation and provision of safe drinking water should be accorded equal priority.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi wields a broom with NDMC workers to launch the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in New Delhi in 2014. Photograph: PTI Photo
'Any 21st-century political campaign will involve a lot of jockeying for social media territory.'

The higher the profile of the campaign, the more likely it is to draw freelancers.

Devangshu Datta surveys the Battle of the Bots.



Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

On October 15, at 1.56 pm, the official Twitter account of Rahul Gandhi reacted to a tweet by US President Donald Trump praising American-Pakistani relations with this tweet: 'Modiji quick, looks like President Trump needs another hug.'

The tweet quickly zoomed to 30,000-plus retweets.

On October 21, news agency ANI carried a report claiming that Gandhi was using fake Twitter accounts -- so-called Twitter bots from Kazakhstan, Russia and other nations -- to retweet his tweets and thereby amplify the apparent popularity of his account.

The story showed screenshots of several automated Twitter accounts that retweeted that Trump tweet.

This story was seized upon gleefully by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Its social media cell spread the story far and wide using hashtags like #RahulWaveinKazakh.

BJP Minister Smriti Irani made snide remarks to the effect that Gandhi intended to win elections in Russia and Kazakhstan.

The Congress social media team responded quickly by pointing out several oddities about the Twitter bots that were cited in the story.

These accounts had been created several days after Gandhi had made that Trump-related tweet. These accounts specifically stated location data (which can be turned on and off at will) allowing them to be identified as Kazakh and Russian accounts.

The BJP IT cell had also started publicising the ANI story a couple of hours before it was actually released -- a sign that it was clearly in the know of the whole affair.

Divya Spandana, who manages social media and digital communication for the Congress, said the story was 'factually wrong' and many experts said that this looked like a clumsily faked sting operation where the bots had been created by right-wing supporters to try and embarrass Gandhi.

This is the latest instalment in the ongoing battle to win visibility on social media.

The BJP has the largest and most organised social media apparatus and Prime Minister Narendra D Modi himself has over 38 million followers compared to Rahul Gandhi's relatively measly 3.9 million.

But the Congress is pushing hard to increase its social media visibility and the Aam Aadmi Party is also pretty good at managing the Twittersphere.

The Congress' social media wing categorically says that it would not use bots to try and generate Twitter volume.

But despite the Congress' assurances, fake Twitter accounts will almost certainly be deployed by all sides in this battle for social media visibility.

In fact, fake accounts controlled and deployed by neutral third parties could end up operating freelance on both sides!



Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Any 21st-century political campaign will involve a lot of jockeying for social media territory.

The higher the profile of the campaign, the more likely it is to draw 'freelancers'.

Both the Twitter accounts of Modi and Gandhi have a huge number of fake followers and many of those are freelance.

Every high-profile account attracts bots.

Bot controllers seek out high-profile, high-volume accounts that they can follow and retweet in the hope of gaining more followers themselves.

For example, a European escort service used to follow Modi and faithfully retweeted him for a while, in between shilling for clients!

It may seem absurd that an overseas escort service would attempt to gain traction from the Swachh Bharat Mission, but that is the absurd way in which social media sometimes works.

Following and retweeting a high-profile account is a low-cost way to gain some visibility.

Perhaps only one out of every million real followers will notice the fake account, but it's a free ride.

If a hacker controls 10,000 bots (and that's not impossible), he can multiply his chances of being noticed.

It's even cheaper than the old game of sending out spam emails. That involved buying e-mail databases.

Twitter is a free service with most accounts publicly visible.



Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

Trump's presidential campaign is known to have gained traction from one such freelance operation.

Macedonia is one of several tech-savvy Eastern European nations where exploiting social media to garner ad revenue is a popular form of entrepreneurship.

In the final weeks of the US presidential election, the small town of Veles in Macedonia attained short-lived fame because at least 100 pro-Trump Web sites were being run out of there. Many were filled with blatant fake news such as Trump slapped a voter on the campaign trail; Hillary Clinton faced criminal charges; the Pope endorsed Trump, and so on.

In early 2016, a tech-savvy teenager from Veles was running multiple blogs, cut-pasting content on a dozen different topics (sports, politics, health care) in the hope of generating ad revenue.

He discovered that news about Trump generated lots of views, which of course translated into better advertising revenue.

He also set up similar blogs extolling Bernie Sanders and Clinton, but Trump supporters seemed more gullible and generated more ad clicks.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

So he focussed on Trump, setting up Web sites like PoliticsHall.com and USAPolitics.co to ride the Trump campaign. He sourced content from dozens of obscure right-wing pro-Trump American sources, directly cut-pasting.

He created Facebook groups with names like 'My America, My Home'; 'The Deplorables' and 'Friends Who Support President Donald J Trump' to publicise the content.

He and his equally tech-savvy friends created fake Facebook profiles and fake Twitter accounts to push those links out.

Each of those stories was immediately discredited by mainstream media, but that didn't matter.

Social media is a bubble and many Trump supporters continued to believe the lies. It all fell apart after the election, but by then the Macedonians had made their pile.

It wasn't just the Macedonians, of course. The Trump campaign is reckoned to have had four times as many bots working in its favour compared to the Clinton campaign.

By the final stages, the Trump bots were generating seven times as much Twitter volume on the relevant hashtags.

The Trump campaign spent millions crafting its Facebook-Twitter campaign and micro-targeting the message to suit specific swing states.

And, of course, the Russians are alleged to have helped Trump for their own reasons.

The Brexit campaign had a similar high-bot presence.

Lies and fake statistics were generated by the pro-Brexit camp and then propagated by the use of these automated mechanisms. It worked.

It was only after the referendum that a lot of Brexit voters realised that they had been sold a dummy.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Faili Kurds

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date November 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Faili Kurds, November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a056c397.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.

Updated: November 2017

Profile

Faili Kurds are an ethnic group historically inhabiting both sides of the Zagros mountain range along the Iraq-Iran border, and can be considered a cross-border population. Today, the estimated 1.5 million Faili Kurds in Iraq live mainly in Baghdad, as well as the eastern parts of Diyala, Wasit, Missan and Basra governorates. A sizeable population can also be found in the autonomous Kurdistan region. They speak a distinct dialect f Kurdish, which is a sub-dialect of Luri. Unlike the majority of Kurds, who are generally Sunni Muslims adhering to the Shafi'i school of Islam, Faili Kurds are Shia Muslims. Their dual Shi'a and Kurdish identity has historically exposed them to stigmatization and persecution, most notoriously in the 1970s and 1980s under the Ba'ath regime.

History

Beginning in the nineteenth century, Faili Kurds began moving westwards from the Iran-Iraq border region, settling in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Due to their connections with trade routes between Baghdad and Iran, they flourished as traders, becoming central players in Baghdad's commercial life. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the departure of many Jewish trading families, Faili Kurd merchants moved in to fill the gap, quickly rising to the ranks of the middle and upper classes. They came to control many of the main bazaars in Baghdad, including Shorja and Jamila markets.

Despite their economic and social preeminence, Faili Kurds faced official discrimination from early on. Historically, they had tended to be viewed as Persians, and some had acquired Persian nationality as a means of avoiding conscription in the Ottoman army. In 1924, an Iraqi Nationality Law was introduced which distinguished between descendants of Ottoman citizens, who were considered 'original' Iraqis and automatically granted Iraqi nationality, and citizens of Persian origin, who had to acquire Iraqi nationality. Faili Kurds were relegated to the latter category and considered second-class citizens, despite the fact that many had been in Iraq for hundreds of years.

These initial distinctions introduced by the 1924 Nationality Law served as the basis for increased repression after the Ba'ath Party came to power in 1963. That same year, a new Nationality Law was introduced that built upon the discriminatory provisions of the 1924 law, and led to many Faili Kurds being stripped of their nationality. After the second Ba'ath coup in 1968, the government began large-scale deportations of Faili Kurds to Iran. According to one source, 40,000 Faili Kurds were deported across the border in one episode in the fall of 1971. According to another source, almost 70,000 Faili Kurds were displaced between 1969 and 1971.

Scholars have posited different reasons for the Ba'ath party's targeting of the Faili Kurds. In part, their harsh treatment at the hands of the regime was undoubtedly a form of retaliation for their oppositional political activity. Beginning in the early 1960s, many Faili Kurds backed the Kurdish uprising, providing both moral and material support. They were also active in the Dawa and Communist parties, which were viewed as adversaries to the regime. However, the Ba'ath regime likely also felt threatened by their economic and social influence.

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, as relations between Iraq and Iran turned hostile, the Ba'ath regime, now firmly under the control of Saddam Hussein, escalated its campaign of violence against the Faili Kurds. Government propaganda portrayed citizens of 'Iranian origins' as traitors to Arab nationalism and fifth columnists for Iran, and even as contamination of Iraqi blood. By vilifying the Faili Kurds, the regime played on both anti-Shia sentiments, in the context of brewing enmity with Iran, and anti-Kurdish sentiments, in the context of the wider Kurdish rebellion against the Ba'ath regime.

A Faili Kurd by the name of Samir Ghullam was blamed for the April 1980 assassination attempt on Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, which helped spark the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam Hussein vowed to take revenge on all those responsible. Ghullam's entire family was rounded up and executed. Shortly after the assassination attempt, the Revolutionary Command Council passed Decree No. 666 of 1980, which mandated that Iraqi citizenship be revoked from all those of foreign origin 'whose disloyalty to the nation, people and the higher social and political principles of the revolution had been revealed' and authorized the Minister of the Interior to expel all those whose nationality had been revoked.

Faili Kurds were systematically rounded up, and various state agencies cooperated in compiling lists of names for deportation. In one notorious incident, 900 of Baghdad's leading businessmen were summoned to the Chamber of Commerce building, and told that they were going to be given new import licenses. The Faili Kurds among them, who numbered around 400, were then separated and led out of the back door, where they were loaded onto buses and transported to the Iranian border. As deportations gathered speed, government, security and intelligence officials were instructed to bring their national IDs to security offices for inspection, and the government instructed children to bring their IDs and those of their parents to school to be checked. Security services conducted raids on Faili Kurd homes. All those found to be of Iranian origin were stripped of their identification documents and swiftly deported. Estimates of the total number of Faili Kurds who were denationalized and deported range from 150,000 to 500,000. Decree No. 666 remained in place for 24 years, along with approximately 30 other decrees issued by the Revolutionary Command Council against the Faili Kurds.

Faili Kurds identified for deportation were not permitted to take any of their belongings with them, save for the clothes on their backs. Their movable and immovable assets were confiscated, and inventoried for redistribution to Ba'ath party members. Upon arrival at the border, they were forced to travel into Iran on foot. During this period the government also reportedly offered 10,000 Iraqi dinars (US$30,000) to Iraqi nationals who divorced their Faili Kurd spouses and allowed them to be deported. In addition to the deportations, the government also separated thousands of military-age young men from their families and detained them in Nigrat Al-Salman, Abu Ghraib, and other Iraqi prisons. They were allegedly subject to torture and, according to some reports, testing of chemical and biological weapons. The estimated number of disappeared young men, whose corpses have never been found, ranges from 10,000 to more than 20,000. Others were used as human shields during the Iraq-Iran war, when they were sent across the border into territory heavily contaminated with land mines.

Of the Faili Kurds deported to Iran, unknown numbers died making the journey on foot, especially women, children and the elderly. Those who survived the journey were treated as foreigners by their Iranian hosts, although a small number who had proof of Iranian ancestry were able to apply for citizenship. Many others lived as stateless refugees for decades in camps without access to education or employment, despite the fact that many had been wealthy and successful in Iraq.

Current challenges

State-sanctioned persecution of the Faili Kurds officially came to an end after the U.S.-led deposition of the Ba'ath regime in 2003, and many Faili Kurds began returning to Iraq from Iran. The preamble to the new Iraqi constitution passed in 2005 recognized the Faili Kurds as victims of oppression and massacres. In 2006, a new nationality law was passed, which repealed Decree No. 666 and established the right to regain Iraqi nationality for those previously denaturalised on political, religious or ethnic grounds. The Iraqi parliament also unanimously passed a resolution in 2011 recognizing the crimes perpetrated against the Faili Kurds as genocide, and the Iraqi High Tribunal convicted four Ba'ath party officials in connection with their roles in the deportations.

Since then, many Faili Kurds have been able to have their Iraqi nationality reinstated. At one point, the Iraqi government reported that 97 per cent of Faili Kurds denaturalized had been able to restore their nationality. However, the UNHCR and other observers pointed out that the government did not release any baseline data indicating the total target group on which this statistic was based. Reportedly, the process of reinstatement is slow and bureaucratic, sometimes taking years to complete, and often requires applicants to pay bribes to officials. Moreover, the documentary requirements are fairly onerous, requiring applicants to provide a copy of their registration from the 1957 census, amongst other documents that many Faili Kurds are unlikely to possess. According to recent statistics from the Minister of Immigration, between April 2003 and April 2013, only 16,580 Faili Kurds had their nationality reinstated and 6,853 were in possession of national identification documents, out of an estimated total population of at least 150,000 Faili Kurds denaturalized during the Ba'ath era.

Without nationality documents, Faili Kurds cannot access public services such as education and healthcare. They are also unable to obtain other documents such as birth, death and marriage certificates. For those Faili Kurds who managed to obtain nationality documents, it has been reported that the identity cards issued are a different colour than those of other Iraqis, or show them as citizens of 'Iranian origin,' which could open them up to discrimination. Reportedly, Faili Kurd files and records are still being kept in the foreigners' section of the General Nationality Directorate. Some community members have reported facing insults, harassment and humiliation, such as being called aoeSafavids,a when visiting government offices. It is worth mentioning that many Iraqis educated during the Ba'ath era were raised to harbor deep hostility towards Iran.

Another major challenge facing Faili Kurds denaturalized during the Ba'ath era is the issue of recovering their confiscated properties. Upon returning to Iraq, many found that other people had occupied their homes. While the Property Claims Commission established after the fall of Saddam Hussein was mandated to resolve Ba'ath-era disputes, the process of compensation was reportedly inefficient, and incapable of dealing with cases in which property deeds had been confiscated. Apparently, there are few reports of compensation actually being transferred to families. There has also been little progress on implementing Law No.16 of 2010 on Compensation for Persons Affected by the Ba'ath Regime.

Politically, Faili Kurds lack representation in a unified body capable of backing their demands. Due to their unique minority status, they do not fit in neatly with either the Kurdish or the Shia bloc, and neither of these dominant groups has taken up their cause. Consequently, they do not benefit from the quota system through which government posts are divided between the three major blocs (Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds). They also do not have a reserved seat in parliament, unlike many of Iraq's other minorities.

Ways forward

An immediate priority in addressing the situation of the Faili Kurds is completing the process of reinstating the nationality of all those denaturalized during the Ba'ath era. This requires the government of Iraq to find ways to facilitate the currently onerous procedures in place and to accommodate applicants whose papers were lost or destroyed. The government should also standardize and clearly communicate the process and documents required to its citizens. Moreover, it should cease the practice of issuing identification cards of a different colour or designating Faili Kurds as being of Iranian origin, which could open them up to further discrimination.

Similarly, further progress is required to compensate Faili Kurds for property lost due to the actions of the previous regime, and facilitate their reintegration into Iraqi society and economy. The government should devote adequate resources to implementing Law No. 16 on Compensation for Persons Affected by the Ba'ath Regime. Faili Kurd activists also call for investment and development in their areas, including removing remaining landmines and ensuring the provision of basic services.

Finally, efforts are needed to ensure proper documentation, recognition and commemoration of the atrocities perpetrated against Faili Kurds and to build public awareness of the crimes perpetrated during that period of Iraq's history. The government should take all possible measures to determine the whereabouts of the thousands of disappeared Faili Kurd prisoners whose fate remains unknown, including by systematically investigating Ba'ath party records and locating mass grave sites. Efforts to build public awareness and end legacies of discrimination could include producing programming for the state media that covers the genocide of the Faili Kurds, as well as incorporating this history in the official curriculum.

Updated November 2017

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - El Salvador : Lencas

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date September 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - El Salvador : Lencas, September 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a056daa7.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.

Updated September 2017

Profile

The Lencas reside in the Eastern departments of Usulutan, San Miguel, Morazan and La Union north and east of the Lempa river. Few Lencas still speak the language 'Poton Lenca', however a few Poton Lenca texts have been published aimed at promoting and protecting the language and culture.

Historical context

The Lencas ruled sizeable areas of what is now Honduras and El Salvador.

In their efforts to control the region, the Spanish invaded the Lenca Kingdom in the 16th century. Under Crown Princess Antu Silan Ulap I, the Lencas organized a war of resistance conducted by combatants drawn from all Lenca cities, including the eastern region of present-day El Salvador. These warriors were later put under the command of a war chief named Lempira who led a ten-year resistance struggle that ended with his assassination. In 1536, the Spanish called for peace talks apparently with ulterior motives; upon his arrival, Lempira was shot by the Spanish.

The Lencas in El Salvador have maintained the memory of the ancient dynasty through oral tradition and have instituted programs with universities and community councils to preserve and promote their heritage, history, health and human rights.

Current issues

Very few of the current Lenca population speak the native language. Despite government efforts to revitalize the Pipil language through intercultural education, this programme has yet to be extended to other indigenous communities. While the Pipil language has been revived, other languages - such as Poton Lenca spoken by the Lencas, have not received this kind of support.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Cameroon : Mbororo

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date January 2018 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Cameroon : Mbororo, January 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a05736b7.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.

Estimated population: above 1 million

Profile

The Mbororo community are an indigenous community situated in the borderlands of Cameroon and in neighbouring areas of Central African Republic, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Though the more than 1 million Mbororo in Cameroon are spread all over the country, they are mainly concentrated in six regions (Far North, North, Adamoua, East, North West and West), with the majority based as pastoralists in the savannah of the North West.

Depending on their origins, clan, age and gender, there are also significant divisions amongst these 'grassfield' Mbororo. Though dependent on land to graze their livestock, resource conflicts and inter-communal tensions with large landowners have left them at risk of eviction and other human rights abuses - a situation exacerbated by the uncertainties some community members experience around statelessness.

History

Mbororo arrived in Cameroon at the beginning of the 20th century, in dispersed and fragmented groups, made up predominantly of Muslim pastoralists. The presence of other settled communities in these areas led to tensions, particularly around cultural divisions and the control of land, though they were formally recognized as citizens by colonial authorities. Yet they subsequently found themselves regarded as strangers by their neighbours and successive state regimes.

The problems around citizenship for the Mbororo were especially evident in the North West. Under British colonial rule, Mbororo citizenship and access to land was uncertain because of the Native Land and Rights Ordinance that declared all land 'native' territory, defining a native as someone whose parents belonged to a tribe indigenous to the Cameroons - a classification that effectively left the status of many Mbororo uncertain due to their relatively recent arrival and nomadic lifestyle. Their situation did not improve in the wake of independence, though Mbororo were in principle recognized as citizens, as what was then West Cameroon's land ordinance was only a slightly amended version of the colonial Land and Native Rights Ordinance. Consequently the definition of a "Cameroonian" under the land law closely resembled that of a 'native' during the British administration, meaning that once again the citizenship of Mbororo was not fully recognized. Though cattle grazers were awarded a 25-year grazing permit as a means for the state to secure revenue from them, this did not include land ownership rights of any sort.

Current issues

The distinct social code, nomadic traditions and to some extent their predominantly Muslim faith, as well as the pre-existence of other settler communities in the areas where they migrated, has meant that Mbororo remain to this day on the 'margins of citizenship' in Cameroon. Research among the community has repeatedly highlighted how they continue to be widely regarded as 'settlers' and that their nomadic practices mean that many believe they may in future leave the territory again. This is rooted in the fact that contemporary views of citizenship in much of sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly defined by debates over 'belonging' that have raised the risk of statelessness among Mbororo.

A number of factors have reinforced the community's exclusion. Besides what has been described as a culture of 'self-isolation' that has discouraged some Mbororo from engaging with state structures and very low levels of schooling, resulting in part from their geographic isolation and pastoral lifestyle, Mbororo find themselves marginalized from mainstream Cameroonian society. This isolation has meant that they have very limited contact with authorities at a local or national level.

These factors have all contributed to their citizenship issues, which in turn have undermined their ability to access public services or even secure employment. A large number of Mbororo also lack important documentation such as birth certificates and national identification documents, leaving them vulnerable to statelessness. As one Mbororo activist interviewed for this research stated, 'Not having birth certificates and ID cards make it difficult to assert their nationality and they can be easily considered as foreigners. This limits their access to social facilities like schools, job opportunities or even engagement in the political processes in the country' - a situation he attributes in part to lack of awareness of the importance of these documents among many Mbororo. This is also linked to birth registration, a key component in preventing statelessness as it proves the birthplace and ancestry of a child: Mbororo children in the most remote areas are often not registered at birth due to the limited functioning of civil registrations centres, leaving them unable to access identification documents and the accompany benefits of public services such as education.

These challenges have both reinforced and been exacerbated by a broader context of protracted human rights violations against Mbororo, in particular a decades-long conflict with a powerful landowner in the North West that has seen hundreds displaced from their land through a campaign of harassment and evictions. While the cost to the community has been high, it has also strengthened their political activism in the face of continued abuses.

Ways forward

In response to the difficulties they have experienced, their secondary position within Cameroonian society and their exclusion from social activities, public facilities and political processes, community members established the Mbororo Cultural and Development Association (MBOSCUDA) with the aim of addressing the power imbalances that have contributed to their marginalization, including through the development of a strong sense of 'ethnic citizenship' and challenges to their political invisibility at the national level. It has provided support for its women's groups, especially on functional and political literacy, capacity building, microfinance and enterprise development. It has recently engaged in the political realm of human rights work through a paralegal extension program designed to challenge the exploitative relationships between locals and Mbororo graziers, and citizenship rights and status are promoted through advocacy, civic education and voter registration.

This work has resulted in some successes and significant improvements in the economic, educational and social status of many Mbororo, including the appointment of a number of Mbororo into high-ranking government positions as part of a drive to introduce more indigenous representatives into government.

However, these milestones are not linked to a more fundamental acceptance of Mbororo as full members of Cameroonian society as they have been brought into state and civil society structures through patron-client mechanisms that depend more on their relationship with well-placed individuals rather than their recognition as citizens with full rights. This has left them, in the words of Sam Hickey, 'at the intersection of citizenship, clientelism and marginality in contemporary Cameroon'. Much therefore remains to be done, from improved access to education and civil registration to an underlying transformation in societal attitudes to the position of Mbororo led by the state, to ensure their full rights as Cameroon citizens and so reduce the risk of statelessness.

Updated January 2018

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Bahrain : Migrant workers

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date August 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Bahrain : Migrant workers, August 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a0574617.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.

Profile

Around half of Bahrain's population are migrant workers, who together comprise more than three quarters of the country's workforce. Hailing predominantly from South Asian countries such as India and Bangladesh, but also other countries such as Egypt, Jordan and the Philippines, their numbers have increased steadily from the 1970s, sustained first by Bahrain's oil boom and subsequently by its economic development in other sectors following liberalization. While spread across diverse sectors, the migrant workforce remain concentrated particularly in construction and services such as domestic work.

Current issues

Domestic workers in Bahrain are vulnerable to abuse as Bahrain's existing labour laws fail to adequately protect them. The various forms of exploitation they face include the failure to be paid their wages, with many cases indicating that migrant workers can go months or even years without receiving payment from their employer. Confiscation and withholding of passports, which makes it increasingly difficult for an individual to leave an abusive work environment, is also a common occurrence. Unsafe working and living conditions also take their toll: in January 2013, for example, 13 migrant workers were killed in an apartment building fire because of improper housing standards.

Female domestic workers have reported cases of physical and sexual abuse, with many not even allowed to leave the confines of the home, as well as working excessive hours. There have been many reports of suicides among migrant workers who have been involved in forced labour, debt bondage and isolation.

Although the Bahraini government introduced reforms to strengthen safety regulations, combat human trafficking and enable migrants to leave employers, in practice little has changed in the treatment of migrant workers and their ability to seek justice. There is little evidence to suggest that employers who violate the rights of migrant workers ever face the consequences now stipulated in Bahraini law. Human Rights Watch stated that according to data provided by Bahrain's Labour Ministry, only 30 per cent of complaints filed by migrant workers in 2009, 2010, and 2011 were resolved. It was further documented that legal cases took between 6 and 12 months to resolve and that during this time migrant workers are unable to work. With no income, they are essentially put in a situation that may push them to accept an out-of-court settlement.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Cameroon : Montagnards

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date October 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Cameroon : Montagnards, October 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a0579ed7.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.

Updated September 2017

Profile

The Montagnards, made up of around 15 distinct groups also known as 'Kirdi', a pejorative term adopted as a marker of ethnic pride, live in the highlands of northern Cameroon. Once enslaved by the Peuhl, they were forced to give up some of their lands to escape Islamization and were reportedly marginalized under the Ahidjo regime.

Current issues

Montagnards reportedly face ongoing discrimination. The UN Independent Expert on minority issues expressed concern following a 2013 country visit that some Montagnards undergo exploitative labour practices amounting to bonded labour or forced servitude; have little or no decision-making power in their communities; and suffer from lack of access to services.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - El Salvador : Pipils

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date September 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - El Salvador : Pipils, September 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a0581547.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.

Updated September 2017

Profile

Pipils are considered to be a branch of the pre-Columbian Toltec civilization that flourished in Central Mexico near the end of the 1st millennium CE.

The present day Pipil population was formed from at least two different streams that were loosely joined by conquest and cooperation. The earliest group consisted of nomadic farmers who migrated into Central America after 200 BC. Until the ninth century CE they also interacted with Maya communities whose limestone pyramid ruins are found in western El Salvador along with a giant Olmec stone sculpted head.

After the collapse of the Mayan dynasty, a second group called the Izalco Pipil, are thought to have migrated into the region late in the tenth century occupying an area west of the Lempa River which marked the frontier with Lenca lands. Archaeological research suggest these new migrants were ethnically and culturally related to the Toltecs, as well as to the earlier Nahua and spoke an Aztecan related language called Na:wat.

Most of the migrant Izalco Pipil settled in El Salvador and organized a nation known as Cuzcatlan, with at least two centralized city-states that integrated some of the Maya groups. Like the Maya before them, the maize-based Pipil agricultural economy produced cotton textiles, and carried on a wide-ranging trade network for woven goods and agricultural products.

By the time the Spanish arrived, the Pipils controlled almost all of western El Salvador, and a large portion of the central area up to the banks of the river Lempa. Some Pipil urban centres developed into present-day cities, such as Sonsonate and Ahuachapan.

Spanish efforts to control El Salvador were firmly resisted by the Pipils and the remaining Mayan-speaking indigenous groups. Led by a war leader named Atlacatl, the Pipils repelled the Spaniards and forced them to withdraw to Guatemala. It took two expeditions in 1525 and 1528 to finally bring the territory under control of the Spanish invaders.

Salvadoran indigenous peoples for the most part are descendants of the Pipils, a migrant Nahua speaking group from central Mexico. The Pipils reside in the southwestern region in the states of Sonsonate (especially the communities Nahuizalco and Izalco), Ahuachapan, La Libertad and (to a lesser extent) Santa Ana. The best known communities are Santo Domingo de Guzman (Sonsonate), Cacaopera (Morazan) and Panchimalco, just outside of the capital San Salvador.

Virtually all of El Salvador's indigenous population speak Spanish as their only language. A few Pipils still speak the Nahuat language and follow traditional ways of life. The traditional communities live mainly in the southwestern highlands near the Guatemalan border. Very few indigenous Pipils now wear traditional dress, such as the huipiles (skirts worn by women).

The Pipils have had a strong influence on the current culture of El Salvador, with a large portion of the population claiming ancestry from this indigenous people.

In July 2011, the Nahuizalco municipality in Sonsonate passed an ordinance recognizing the Pipils as the original setters of the territory and encouraging the participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes. It is the first ordinance of its kind in El Salvador.

In 2012, the Ministry of Education and Don Bosco University partnered for a new project aimed at the revitalization of the Pipil language of El Salvador through intercultural education.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Quranists of Egypt

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date October 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Quranists of Egypt, October 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a0582207.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.

Updated October 2017

The Quranists are a small group of Muslims who regard the Qur'an as the only valid religious source for Islam. In Egypt, they have experienced state harassment due to its perception of the group as unorthodox. In 2007, for example, four Quranists were arrested while accused of defaming Islam, sparking condemnation from human rights groups. A Quranist writer was also detained at Cairo airport in November 2009 and refused the right to travel out of the country. In October 2010, a Quranist blogger was arrested in what was described as 'forced disappearance' and remained in prison for three months before being released.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Shi'a of Egypt

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date October 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Shi'a of Egypt, October 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a059a067.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.

Updated October 2017

The size of the Shi'a minority in Egypt is unclear. Official statistics do not distinguish Muslims by sects and Shi'a Egyptians are discreet about their beliefs for fear of persecution. Estimates tend to range from 800,000 to two million out of Egypt's total population of about 90 million.

Shi'a Islam is deeply rooted in Egypt, and Cairo was in fact founded, named and established as a capital city in 969 by the Shi'a Fatimid dynasty which ruled Egypt for 200 years. The venerated Al-Azhar University, one of the world's oldest universities and a leading centre of Islamic learning, was originally founded as a Shi'a university in the early 1970s.

Shi'a Muslims in Egypt are a 'disfavoured' minority and have faced sustained hostility for their beliefs at both a popular and an institutional level. However, this is the result of modern politics, not primordial animosities. Sectarian tensions can be traced in large measure to the 1979 revolution in predominantly Shi'a Iran, with which Egypt cut diplomatic ties after signing a peace agreement with Israel and granting asylum to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi. Viewed always - but not only - through the lens of regional geopolitics, the religious practices of Shi'a in Egypt have often been restricted and regarded by religious and government officials as an alien imposition, a threat to national stability and security.

This was evident in August and October 2007, when security personnel detained two Shi'a activists. They were held on charges of 'promoting extreme Shi'a beliefs with the intent of causing contempt of Islamic religion' and 'spreading false rumours' that 'could undermine trust in security agencies by claiming that prisoners and detainees died as a result of torture.' In 2009, around 300 Shi'a were imprisoned by state authorities without explanation. The 2009-10 annual report of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) subsequently highlighted increased sectarian tension towards Shi'a.

Anti-Shi'a attitudes have remained strong in post-revolutionary Egypt. Ongoing tensions with Iran and the increasingly divisive conflict in Syria resulted in fears of a 'spread' of Shi'a beliefs, leading to an escalation of hate speech and rhetoric by prominent Sunni clerics and political figures. This culminated in violence in June 2013, when a mob led by Salafist sheikhs attacked a group of Shi'a privately celebrating a religious ceremony in the village of Abu Musallim, in Giza governorate. Though four men were killed, including a prominent Shi'a figure, Sheikh Hassan Shehata, and other Shi'a houses were also set on fire, the police allegedly failed to take action to halt the attacks. The incident reportedly followed weeks of violent rhetoric by Salafi preachers in local mosques.

Contrary to principles of religious freedom, and despite the Shi'a school of Islam being deemed a legitimate branch of Islam in 1959 by Al-Azhar, Egypt's current religious establishment considers Shi'a rituals to be in violation of the tenets of Islam. The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, has used television appearances to implore his audience to beware of Shi'a proselytizers. Moreover, the Ministry of Religious Endowments runs mosques in Egypt in accordance with Sunni doctrine and does not recognize Shi'a mosques or rituals. In May 2015 a Shi'a dentist from Daqahlia governorate received a six-month prison sentence for contempt of religion after authorities found in his home books and other items supposedly used to perform Shi'a religious rituals. A week later, Shi'a cleric Taher al-Hashimy was arrested following a raid on his apartment where books and other items were confiscated by security forces.

In a blasphemy case in October 2016, a Shi'a man in Kafr Shakr, Sharqiya was accused by other villagers of teaching children about Shi'a beliefs, convicted of insulting Islam, and sentenced to two years in prison. Later that month, following an annual pattern since 2011 and under the pretext of forestalling sectarian clashes, the Ministry of Endowments announced the closure of the al-Hussein Mosque in Cairo to prevent Ashura celebrations from taking place.

Updated October 2017

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Sudan : South Sudanese in Sudan

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date November 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Sudan : South Sudanese in Sudan, November 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a059b6d7.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.

Updated November 2017

Profile

The response of the Sudanese government to the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in 2011 has created a population of several hundred thousand people perceived to be of southern origin at risk of statelessness in Sudan. The Sudanese government has chosen to withdraw recognition of nationality from anyone it interprets to have acquired South Sudanese nationality (whether or not the person has in fact made any attempt to claim South Sudanese nationality). Meanwhile, the new South Sudanese nationality law provides a very broad definition of South Sudanese nationality, and attributes nationality automatically to people resident outside the territory. Many people with no real connection to South Sudan are no longer recognized as Sudanese.

History

Sudan had a unique status during the period of European empires in Africa, as a British-Egyptian condominium from 1899 to 1956. Under this regime, the Arabic language and Islam were dominant in the north; in the south, the British permitted Christian missionaries to operate.

The 1948 Definition of Sudanese Ordinance defined a Sudanese as 'every person of no nationality [thus excluding British, Egyptian and other nationals] who . . . is domiciled in Sudan and (i) has been so domiciled since 31 December 1897, or else whose ancestors in the direct male line since that date have all been so domiciled'. This formulation influenced the wording of subsequent laws on nationality through its emphasis on establishing a connection through a male ancestor to a specific date.

Sudan gained independence in 1956, and the 1957 Nationality Act provided citizenship to be attributed based on paternal descent through male ancestors who had been resident in Sudan since 31 December 1897. The new state was swiftly engulfed in civil war, as the south rebelled against northern domination. A 1972 peace agreement led to a decade of relative peace as a degree of autonomy was given to the southern region; the 1957 Nationality Act was also amended in 1972 to change the date a male ancestor should be established in Sudan to 1 January 1924.

However, in 1983, the civil war was reignited as the government adopted a policy of Islamicization, including the imposition of shari'a law in the north, and revoked the southern region's autonomous powers. A series of unstable governments ended in 1989 when a coup d'etat brought Omar al-Bashir to power. A new nationality law adopted in 1994 (initially as a military decree of 1993) maintained the rule of paternal descent, but changed the date of establishment in Sudan to 1 January 1956, the date of independence. In 1998, a new constitution was adopted which removed gender discrimination in transmission of nationality to children, providing that 'Everyone born of a Sudanese mother or father has the inalienable right to Sudanese nationality, its duties and obligations. Everyone who has lived in Sudan during their youth or who has been resident in Sudan for several years has the right to Sudanese nationality in accordance with the law'. This was not, however, translated into an amended version of the 1994 nationality law.

The civil war continued with brutal effects. Peace negotiations resumed in 2002 and finally brought the war to an end in 2005, with the adoption of a detailed Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The CPA provided for a five-year transition period, during which the south would have a degree of autonomy, followed by a referendum on independence. (Meantime, however, a further rebellion had broken out in 2003 in Darfur, in the west of northern Sudan.)

The CPA provided that 'the people of South Sudan have the right to self-determination'. This right was also enshrined in interim constitutions for Sudan and Southern Sudan that followed the peace agreement. The Interim Constitution for Southern Sudan and the legislation establishing the eligibility for individuals to vote in the referendum on the independence of South Sudan provided two parallel rules, one based on membership of one of the 'indigenous communities of southern Sudan', the other on residence in southern Sudan since 1956. The 1994 Sudanese nationality law was also amended in 2005, in response to the CPA and the adoption of the Interim National Constitution, and for the first time gave the child of a Sudanese woman and foreign father the right to apply for nationality (although not the automatic conferral of nationality by operation of law, as for the child of a Sudanese father).

The referendum was held in early 2011, and resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence of the South. Six months later, in July 2011, South Sudan split from Sudan to form a new state.

The parties failed to reach any agreement on attribution of citizenship during the transitional period. Both states moved separately to introduce laws and procedures on nationality.

Article 8 of the new South Sudanese Nationality Act provided for nationality to be attributed to an individual on very broad grounds: including if '(a) Any parents, grandparents or great grandparents on the male or female line were born in South Sudan; (b) Such person belongs to one of the indigenous tribal communities of South Sudan' (other articles provided for rights based on residence since 1956).

On 19 July 2011, the National Assembly of the Republic of Sudan adopted amendments to the Sudan Nationality Act 1994. New section 10(2) provided that: 'An individual will automatically lose his Sudanese nationality if he has obtained, de jure or de facto, the nationality of South Sudan.' A minor child of an affected parent would also lose his or her nationality. Sudan had permitted dual nationality in most cases since an amendment to the law adopted in 1993; the new amendment created the extraordinary situation where dual nationality was allowed with every other country in the world except for South Sudan. In addition, the question of whether the person was a dual national would be determined by Sudan's interpretation of South Sudanese law, rather than any consideration of whether the person had sought recognition of South Sudanese nationality or would be able to establish it.

Southerners resident in the north began to be dismissed from employment in the civil service and in the private sector, while their children were refused registration in school and treatment in public health clinics. In practice, the decision of whether someone had 'obtained the nationality of South Sudan' was often based on subjective perceptions based on language, last name, and skin colour. Little or no distinction was made between recently arrived internal migrants or displaced persons, and members of families resident for generations in the north.

Faced with this situation, several hundred thousand people of southern origin who were resident in the Republic of Sudan had already headed south since the date of the referendum, on their own or with the assistance of the United Nations (UN) and International Organization on Migration (IOM); tens of thousands of others who had made the first steps to returning, selling their homes and many of their possessions, found themselves stuck in temporary camps without the resources to continue their journey. Others did not move, since they considered themselves Sudanese.

In 2012, the two governments signed a 'Four Freedoms' agreement, establishing rights for the nationals of one state in the other to freedom of movement, residence, economic activity and to acquire and dispose of property. However, there was no agreement on the determination of nationality in case of doubt. The Sudanese courts began to hear cases brought to challenge denial of nationality to those with one parent from either side of the border, denied recognition despite the constitutional guarantees of gender equality in transmission of nationality in place since 1998. There was some limited success, but no conclusive reform of the law by the end of 2017.

In late 2013, the breakdown of the South Sudanese government put an end to all further negotiations between the two sides. Tens of thousands of people displaced from the renewed fighting in the south once again streamed into the north -- but this time as cross-border refugees, rather than as internally displaced persons, as they had been prior to 2011.

Current situation

The changes to the Sudanese Nationality Law providing for automatic loss of nationality to any person presumed to have acquired South Sudanese nationality left many at risk of statelessness. Those particularly affected were individuals of mixed parentage, and members of ethnic groups that straddle the border between north and south, as well as individuals belonging to ethnic groups perceived to be southern, but whose families had been resident in northern Sudan over many generations. A very substantial number of people resident in Sudan who, though perceived as 'southern' in origin, identified as Sudanese, spoke no language of South Sudan, and had no meaningful connection to South Sudan were also regarded as having acquired South Sudanese nationality, because of the extremely broad terms of the South Sudanese nationality law. They found themselves unable to obtain a Sudanese national identity card under a new system for civil registration introduced shortly after the secession of South Sudan. Even if these people had a theoretical right to South Sudanese nationality, many had no proof of a connection to South Sudan. Several hundred thousand people were arbitrarily deprived of Sudanese nationality in this way (based on UNHCR estimates of long-term displaced southerners remaining resident in the north), of which a substantial though unknown number also became stateless.

Ways forward

The Sudanese government should reverse the changes made to the Sudanese Nationality Act in 2011. While international law is neutral on the point of dual nationality, due process is required before a person loses nationality, and confirmation that the person affected has in fact acquired another nationality. That is, if a person has a right to South Sudanese nationality in theory, he or she should only be deprived if they have actually taken up that right and obtained confirmation of nationality from the South Sudanese authorities. There is thus also a need for a joint mechanism between Sudan and South Sudan to determine nationality in case of doubt, and for an automatic right of court review of decisions made in these cases.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Sufi Muslims of Egypt

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date October 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Egypt : Sufi Muslims of Egypt, October 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a059c6c7.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.

Updated October 2017

Sufi beliefs or practices are not distinct from Sunni or Shi'a Islam in the Muslim world, but rather a form of religious worship that is prevalent in both sects. The number of practising Sufis in Egypt is not known, though some estimates put it at 15 million or even higher.

Although prominent institutions such as Al-Azhar include Sufi practitioners, their political visibility has traditionally been low, with their position more associated with secularist and established politics than Islamism. This is accentuated by their relatively limited formal organization and even self-identification as a group, according to some commentators.

However, since 25 January 2011 there has been some sign of increasing political involvement from Sufi groups, though this nevertheless remains limited. More troublingly, there have been a rising number of incidents against Sufi places of worship in the post-revolutionary period, with the Secretary-General of the Union of Sufis in Egypt claiming that more than 100 attacks against shrines had taken place. Their future situation therefore remains an area of concern in Egypt's current context.

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Chile : Afro-Chileans

Publisher Minority Rights Group International Publication Date September 2017 Cite as Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Chile : Afro-Chileans, September 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a059f427.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.

Profile

Chile's Afro-descendant population has never been officially recognised by the government in the national census. However, a recent study by Chile's Instituto Nacional de Estadistica (National Statistics Institute, INE), the organization responsible for conducting the census, estimated the Afro-descendant population of the northern Arica and Parinacota region, where a large proportion of the community are concentrated, at 8,415 people.

History

While Chile's poverty meant that its slave trade did not reach the same scale as some other countries in the region, thousands of African slaves were nevertheless brought into Chile and then absorbed into the population - following the curtailment and subsequent abolition of slavery in 1823, making it the second country in the region to do so after Haiti.

In the ensuing decades, alongside continued discrimination, Afro-Chileans struggled to achieve full recognition of their distinct identity. In 2011, John Salgado, representative of the NGO Oro Negro and the Chilean Alliance for Afro-descendant Organizations, described to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) the 'invisibilization' of their ethnicity, which meant that 'it is impossible to acknowledge problems . . . [as] you don't see the people who are suffering them'.

Current issues

Afro-Chileans achieved a significant step forward in 2013 when, for the first time in the country's history, the INE launched a study of the Afro-descendant population in the Arica and Parinacota region. This study found that 8,415 people, or 4.7 per cent of the regional population, self-identify as Afro-descendants and primarily live in urban areas.[1] Despite this study, the INE did not include an Afro-descendant category in the partial census that took place in April 2017 and does not intend to do so in the full census that will take place in 2022.

Nevertheless, the findings draw attention to the acute development challenges facing the community. Almost 60 per cent of the population has not received a secondary education, only 47 per cent of the population is employed and more than 13 per cent of the population is living with a disability.

[1] http://www.ine.cl/canales/chile_estadistico/estadisticas_sociales_culturales/etnias/pdf/informe_de_resultados_encuesta_de_caracterizacion_de_la_poblacion_afrodescendiente_de_la_region_de_arica_y_parinacota_2013.pdf

Copyright notice:  Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.
In response to widespread criticism for removing claims of sexual assault from its forums to keep them "family friendly," TripAdvisor has started placing warning symbols - or "badges" - on the review pages of hotels and businesses where rape and other safety incidents have been reported.

The travel and restaurant review website has so far placed warnings on the pages of three popular resorts in the coastal town of Playa del Carmen in Mexico: the Iberostar Paraiso Maya, the Iberostar Paraiso Lindo and the Grand Velas Riviera Maya. A red banner box now appears at the top of those pages with a warning that reads: "TripAdvisor has been made aware of recent media reports or events concerning this property which may not be reflected in reviews found on this listing. Accordingly, you may wish to perform additional research for information about this property when making your travel plans."

While the warnings do not cite specific reported incidents, they are meant to alert customers of possible health and safety issues including theft, sexual assault, rape and discrimination, company spokesman Brian Hoyt told The Washington Post. The warnings are also meant to encourage customers to do more research before booking their stays, Hoyt said, including looking up additional information outside of TripAdvisor.

"Our vetting of news reports continues, and it is likely more businesses will receive this badge as more information is reviewed," Hoyt said. TripAdvisor will flag businesses for a minimum of three months, he said, and the decision of whether to remove the badge after a three-month period will be made by a TripAdvisor committee.

The new feature comes after a lengthy investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel documented repeated instances where TripAdvisor removed posts warning of alleged rape, assault or other injuries at some Mexican resorts.

One traveler, Kristie Love, told the Journal Sentinel that a TripAdvisor moderator spotted her post in which she said that she had been raped at a resort and decided it went against the company's "family friendly" tenets. TripAdvisor refused to show the Journal Sentinel which posts it had deleted, the newspaper said.

The Journal Sentinel spoke with more than a dozen travelers who said TripAdvisor blocked their warning messages after they had traveled to Mexico.

In July, the newspaper began investigating the death of a Wisconsin college student in Mexico. That reporting uncovered widespread safety issues, including those tied to tainted alcohol, at Mexican resorts.

In 2010, Love posted on the website about her experience at Iberostar Paraiso Maya. The title of her post included the name of the resort, the date of her stay - and the word "Rape."

Love, 35, wrote that after a night out with friends she went back to her hotel room to find that her electronic key card had been deactivated. On her way back to the lobby, Love stopped to ask a uniformed guard for directions.

That guard then raped her, she said. Later, she said, the hotel staff would not call the police.

Last week, TripAdvisor said it issued an apology to Love for deleting her post. But the apology first appeared to be a public one, in the form of a news release addressing the Journal Sentinel's article. On Nov. 3, TripAdvisor chief executive Steve Kaufer posted a statement on his LinkedIn page saying the company had "apologized to the victim for her experience."

But Love soon commented on Kaufer's post that no one from the company had actually contacted her. "WHAT APOLOGY?" she wrote. "I've yet to hear a word from TripAdvisor, and certainly not an apology!"

Kaufer did eventually call Love, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Love's Iberostar Paraiso Maya warning went back online in October - seven years after it was originally submitted. But the post was republished chronologically alongside other posts from December 2010 - at one point is was listed on the forum's 2,608th page.

Despite the warning at the top of its TripAdvisor page, the Iberostar Paraiso Maya resort is rated 4.5 out of 5 by reviewers, who rank it the fourth-best hotel in the area. A search engine is available on TripAdvisor for customers to search a page's reviews, but keywords such as "rape" and "sexual assault" yield no results. Love's review was posted in a separate Playa del Carmen forum on the site.

The company said that when Love's post was removed seven years ago "all language needed to be G-rated," but that the policy has since been changed "to allow more descriptive reviews on the site about firsthand accounts of serious incidents like rape or assault."

"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," the statement read.

In addition to the warnings, Hoyt said Thursday, TripAdvisor will begin to explain to users why it chooses to reject some reviews and forum posts. Reviews in the past have been rejected on grounds of hearsay, as they would sometimes cite the opinion of someone else or include a medical diagnosis. The policy has caused some confusion, as not all users are aware that their reviews are supposed to be firsthand accounts of their experience.

Now, TripAdvisor will clearly explain to users the phrasing or sentences in a review that violate the website's guidelines, Hoyt said, and invite users to edit and resubmit their reviews.

"In some cases, like with some of the people reported on in recent weeks, a small sentence edit can be made and the review resubmitted to be a valid firsthand experience," Hoyt said.
WASHINGTON - A growing chorus of Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have called on Senate candidate Roy Moore to withdraw from a special election in Alabama if allegations prove true that the former judge initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl nearly four decades ago.

"If these allegations are true, he must step aside," McConnell said in a formal statement on behalf of all Republican senators.

Other Republican senators weighing in included Jeff Flake of Arizona, David Perdue of Georgia, John Thune of South Dakota, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Richard Shelby of Alabama and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called on Moore to step aside as well - and without couching his statement with "if true" language.

"The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying," McCain said. "He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of."

More for you Woman says Senate candidate Moore initiated sexual encounter...

Vice President Mike Pence also "found the allegations in the story disturbing and believes, if true, this would disqualify anyone from serving in office," said spokeswoman Alyssa Farah.

Moore has denied the allegations and given no indication that he will exit the race. "Our children and grandchildren's futures are on the line," he tweeted Thursday. "So rest assured - I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!" Moore also emailed a fundraising pitch off the revelations. "I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values," he wrote.

The state Republican Party has the power to disqualify Moore from the election, according to the Alabama secretary of state. If that happens, McConnell and other Republicans would face the challenge of figuring out which candidate would run in Moore's place - and how to win an election in which it is too late to replace the former judge's name on the Dec. 12 ballot.

Under Alabama state law, the ballot cannot be changed within 76 days of an election. However, in the event of either disqualification or withdrawal, votes cast for Moore would not be certified.

In addition, state law allows write-in votes to be cast in general elections, as long as the names are for living people and written in without using a rubber stamp or stick-on label. Despite a state law barring candidates from appearing twice on ballots in the same election cycle, Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who lost in the primary to Moore, would be an eligible write-in candidate, said John Bennett, an official at the state secretary of state's office.

Several state Republicans suggested Thursday that the party is unlikely to disqualify Moore.

Samuel Givhan, the senior vice chairman of the state party, described The Washington Post story as "allegations from somebody who has been silent for over 40 years" who was speaking out just weeks before an election. When asked about the Senate majority leader's call for Moore to step aside if the accusations are found to be true, Givhan said, "I'm not sure Sen. McConnell has any say so in this."

Jonathan Gray, a Republican consultant in Alabama who is not working with any of the Senate candidates this year, was more pointed: "I think it was already perfectly well stated that no one in Alabama gives a s--- what Mitch McConnell or John McCain thinks we should do."

A group close to McConnell that spent millions of dollars to oppose Moore in the primary called on Gov. Kay Ivey, R, and the state party to investigate the allegations. "If there's even a shred of evidence to these accusations, Gov. Ivey and the Alabama Republican Party need to do everything in their power to remove Judge Moore from the ballot," said Steven Law, chief executive of the Senate Leadership Fund. "There is no place in our party for sexual predators."

Strange avoided reporters' questions in the Capitol on Thursday, but Shelby, his Alabama colleague, said: "Luther Strange is a good senator, he's a friend, and I support him. I don't know what he's going to do, but we'll see what develops."

In an extensive report published Thursday, The Post detailed the allegations against Moore by the then-14-year-old and three other girls who were between the ages of 16 and 18 when they said the incidents occurred.

None of the women sought out The Post. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore's Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls.

Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don't know one another.

The news struck the Capitol with a thunderbolt Thursday afternoon. As senators headed in for an afternoon vote on a Transportation Department nominee, reporters swarmed Republicans in a bid to get their reaction.

McConnell was hounded more than usual as he headed to the Senate Chamber, with reporters shouting questions at a lawmaker they know usually stays mum when asked questions in the hallway.

Once he stepped onto the floor, McConnell quickly voted and conferred with aides. Moments later, Strange came to the floor and headed straight for McConnell. They conferred for several moments before McConnell asked an aide to track down his top spokesman, Don Stewart.

"You can't make this up," mouthed one of McConnell's aides to another colleague.

Stewart came to the floor and told McConnell and Strange that a statement was being sent to reporters. In it, McConnell called on Moore to step down if the allegations are true.

Strange, seemingly unsure of what to do, was instructed to vote and leave the chamber as quickly as possible.

McConnell then conferred with other senators, including Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Thune. Stewart also assured the senators that a statement was out but then, realizing that reporters were watching from above, instructed McConnell, "Please go."

He walked toward the back door of the Senate Chamber, paused momentarily and stepped out. Several reporters were waiting for him in the Ohio Clock Corridor.

McConnell's inner circle spent late Thursday morning discussing the repercussions and how Republicans should move forward - and grousing that if Strange, their preferred candidate in the primary, was still the nominee, they would not be answering questions about Moore's conduct.

"If it's true, the Republican Party doesn't have any place for pedophiles and he should step down immediately," said Josh Holmes, a McConnell confidant and his former chief of staff. "Steve Bannon is responsible," he added about the McConnell foil and former White House chief strategist, for enabling candidates such as Moore who are out of the GOP mainstream.

That view was shared by Scott Reed, a political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who opposed Moore's nomination. "Here we go - another Steve Bannon special," Reed said.

- - -

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe, Karoun Demirjian, Paul Kane and David Weigel contributed to this report.
Rancho Cordova, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 11/10/2017 --The average ammo store in Sacramento doesn't always have the best selection or deals on ammo, but Redline Ballistics does. This ammo store in Sacramento goes direct with major brands of ammo and sells LAX-branded ammo, which cuts out the middleman and passes the great selection and savings to you.



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China recently launched Asias biggest dredging ship, raising fears in Southeast Asia that Beijing will use it to further its claims over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

The Tiankun, dubbed by designers as the magical island maker, wont enter service until June of next year, according to Chinas official Xinhua news service.

The 140-meter-long vessel is currently being tested in waters off Chinas Jiangsu Province, which is located in the eastern part of China and far from the South China Sea. Its ultimate destination was not disclosed.

Experts are puzzling over what signals Beijing might be sending by announcing the vessels launch shortly before an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting was set to begin in Vietnam.

According to Murray Hiebert, senior associate in the Southeast Asia Program at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Beijing may be showing off its new dredger as a signal to President Donald J. Trump.

The aim would be to show that China has global interests, including in the Asia-Pacific, says Hiebert.

The unveiling of the magical dredger by Xinhua on Nov. 3, says Hiebert, can also be seen as a signal to Southeast Asia claimants in the South China Sea, particularly Vietnam.

Putting it another way, China seems to be telling rival claimants that China is in the South China Sea to stay and may build more artificial islands with military installations on them to protect its claims.

Vietnam has stood outat least until recentlyas the most vocal among Southeast Asian nations resisting Chinas moves to dominate the South China Sea.

The regional sea carries one third of the worlds maritime trade. Its also said to harbor rich deposits of oil and natural gas.

The importance of the oil reserves was dramatized during an incident involving China and Vietnam which occurred in early August of this year.

A Spanish company contracted by Hanoi said that it had suspended oil drilling in a block off Vietnam, where prospecting in South China Sea waters claimed by China infuriated Beijing and brought Chinese pressure on Vietnam to stop, according to a Reuters news agency report.

Western scientists say that the vast waterways diverse marine environment also adds to the seas importance.

Millions of people depend on fish from the South China Sea as their main source of protein. But the sea has been overfished by Chinas fishing fleet, leaving some fish species in danger of collapse.

As the demand for fish grows among Chinas middle class, overfishing has threatened the survival of some fish species, and fish stocks have declined, as they have in many other parts of the world

Some forms of dredging have also destroyed coral reefs, which protect and support certain species of fish.

Dredgers stir up plumes of sand and silt that damage coral tissue and block sunlight from organisms such as reef-building corals which cannot survive without it, according to reports published in scientific journals.

Since 2013 China has been dredging sand, gravel, and silt in the South China Sea and depositing it onto rocks, reefs, and sandbars to create artificial islands.

Chinese military and construction teams have followed up by building airstrips that can accommodate fighter planes and placing hangers, radar, and anti-aircraft guns on the islands.

The newly unveiled dredger will be more powerful than any used previously.

According to Xinhua, the Tiankun, designed by the Tianjin Dredging Co., can dredge 6,000 cubic meters per hour, dig as deep as 35 meters under the sea floor, and pump sand and silt into the vessel. It can then blow the sand and silt out as far as 15, 000 meters away.

Territorial disputes

China claims most of the South China Sea as its territorial waters, based on what it describes as history going back for centuries.

But six governments have overlapping claims with China in the vast waterway, including those of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Taiwans claims are almost identical to those of China.

China says that the much-disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands were once under the control of imperial China.

Vietnam disputes Chinas historical account, saying that China never claimed sovereignty over these islands until the 1940s.

Nearly all of the islands claimants are gathering in Vietnam this weekend for an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit.

Speaking on Friday in Da Nang, Vietnam, U.S. President Donald Trump delivered an America First speech focused on what he described as unfair trade practices.

When it came to what Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations consider to be Chinas growing dominance in the South China Sea, Trump made a clear reference to the South China Sea, mentioning a need for freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes.

The United States takes no position on various sovereignty claims in the region.

But the U.S. does conduct freedom-of-navigation operations in which it challenges Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea by sailing through international waters.

The latest of these occurred a month ago, on Oct. 10, when the missile destroyer USS Chafee entered waters near the Paracel Islands.

This triggered a public complaint from a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.

Trumps Da Nang speech on Friday also spoke of creating a free and open Indo-Pacific region through a grouping of four democracies-- U.S., Japan, Australia, and India.

According to The Wall Street Journals veteran columnist Andrew Browne, such a grouping would look to China like a strategy to contain its advance.

Meanwhile, Beijing is not halting that advance.

As Browne puts it, Chinas President Xi Jinping is likely to calculate that time is on his side

Chinas new super-dredger embodies Beijings strategy of pushing Chinese interests by any means short of war, says Browne.

Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor.
Cambodias Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday dismissed threats of sanctions by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz over the jailing of opposition leader Kem Sokha on charges of treason, saying American laws cannot be applied to his country and rejecting the need for international recognition of elections set for 2018.



In a letter to Cambodias Ambassador to the U.S. Chum Bun Rong dated Oct. 23, Cruz had expressed deep concern regarding the Sept. 3 arrest of opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) President Kem Sokha for allegedly collaborating with Washington to overthrow the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), calling it an attempt to undermine the Cambodian peoples faith in their democratic process.



Cruz said at the time that if Hun Sen did not release Kem Sokha by Nov. 9the voter registration deadline for Cambodias July 2018 general electionsit would be impossible for any impartial observer or nation to certify that elections in your country have been free and fair and he would push for sanctions banning Cambodian government officials from travelling to the U.S.



On Friday, Hun Sen dismissed the Texas lawmakers threats as interference in Cambodias sovereign affairs, saying there is no such thing as international standards when it comes to politics and that there is no need for outsiders to legitimize the outcome of elections in his country.



Each country must resort to its own version of standards based on the reality on the ground, he said, speaking to a group of Cambodian and Japanese exchange students during his meeting with delegates of the 2017 Ship for Southeast Asian and Japanese Youth Program at the Peace Palace in Cambodias capital Phnom Penh.



We cannot copy a foreign standard to apply in a Cambodian context. Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliamentary form of government.



Hun Sen echoed an earlier statement by Chum Bun Rong in response to Cruzs letter, saying Kem Sokha had been arrested in accordance with Cambodias Criminal Code and suggesting his actions would evoke a similar response under U.S. law, pointing to the example of Paul Manafortthe former campaign manager of U.S. President Donald Trump who was indicted last month on conspiracy charges related to money laundering.



An arrest has just been made in the U.S. for a person who is accused of treasonhe was the campaign manager of U.S. President Donald Trump, he said.



We can also do that, because we need to apply our own laws too.



The evidence presented against Kem Sokha so far is a video recorded in 2013 in which he discusses a strategy to win power at the ballot box with the help of U.S. experts, though the U.S. embassy has rejected any suggestion that Washington is interfering in Cambodian politics. Cambodias Supreme Court plans to rule on whether to dissolve the CNRP for its alleged involvement in the conspiracy on Nov. 16.



Hun Sens government has faced widespread condemnation in recent months over its actions against the opposition party, as well as for orchestrating the closure of independent media outlets and cracking down on nongovernmental organizations.



But the prime minister said his country is still committed to a policy of liberal, multi-party democracy, and vowed that next years elections would go on, with or without international backing.



You have threatened us that you will not recognize the next national election, but it isnt important if that election is or is not recognized by an outsider, he said.



Most importantly, it is enough for the legitimacy of the government as long as the election is recognized by our Cambodian people. It has never been necessary to beg foreign countries to recognize any of our elections. We dont need such support.



Kem Monovithya speaks with RFA's Khmer Service in Washington, Nov. 10, 2017. Credit: RFA US support



On Friday, Kem Sokhas daughter Kem Monovithya told RFAs Khmer Service during an interview in Washington that she had received significant support from U.S. lawmakers for her campaign to bring pressure on Hun Sen to release her father, end his persecution of the opposition, and lift restrictions on the media and NGOs.



As a result, a draft bill from the Senate Financial Committee is in the pipeline and slated to be adopted by the end of the year  [that] includes visa bans on specific government officials who are involved in the violation of human rights and democracy in Cambodia [to prevent them] from traveling to the US, she said.



U.S. Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin have also drafted a resolution in support of the bill urging the U.S. State Department and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the Treasury Department to consider placing all senior Cambodian officials on a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), she said, blocking their assets and preventing U.S. nationals from doing business with them.



These sanctions are significant to impact the top brass of the ruling elitesthey will frustrate them from their travel and business transactions with the U.S. and allies, Kem Monovithya said.



To sum up, the bill and resolution, which I believe will be passed 100 percent, have one thing in common: a demand for free and fair elections.



While Hun Sen is pretending he isnt under pressure, Kem Monovithya expressed confidence the measures would force him to reconsider his strategy.



The government officials who are listed in the SDN will be affectedthey will be concerned, she said.



[Additionally] Cambodia cannot stand alone without international assistance. Cambodias economic growth is contributed to foreign support.



She noted that Hun Sen has expressed hope that Cambodia can become a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), whose heads of governmentincluding those from the U.S., China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia, and Mexicoare currently meeting in Da Nang, Vietnam.



That shows his reliance on international recognition and status, she said of the prime minister, who traveled to Vietnam later on Friday to attend an informal dialogue between APEC leaders and heads of state from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)of which Cambodia is a member.



She said she had also enlisted the support of officials from the United Nations and European Union, who agreed to bring up Cambodias political situation during the ASEAN summit.



Call to defect



In the meantime, Kem Monovithya said, Hun Sen is buying time and attempting to cajole and buy CNRP members to defect to the CPP ahead of next years elections, threatening them with the loss of their jobs in the event that their own party is dissolved.



[But] very few CNRP members have taken his bait, she said, because the CNRP is still strong.



Our supporters and members who serve the national interest do not sell their wisdom  Simply put, Hun Sens attempts to fool CNRP members into defecting to the ruling party have failed.



Last week, Hun Sen called for members of the CNRP to leave and join the CPP in a video clip posted on his Facebook page, and opposition officials told RFA they had been invited to attend a viewing by local authorities, but refused.



Hun Sen does not want a free and fair electionhe is certain that if such an election is held he will lose it, Kem Monovithya said.



Shamelessly he has resorted to all means of political repression  to weaken and if possible dissolve the CNRP, she added.



He is buying time so that he can continue to demoralize the opposition party members, who he hopes will buy what he is selling, but time is running out for him because our members and supporters are strong and determined.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
An editor working for a prominent Chinese human rights website is being held on suspicion of "insulting a national leader,' weeks after the end of a major political congress in Beijing, fellow activists said.



Editor Ding Lingjie of the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website is being held at the Shijingshan Detention Center on the outskirts of the Chinese capital after initially 'disappearing' in Shandong's Zibo city.



She met with her defense attorney Ren Quanniu for the first time this week.



"One of the reasons they detained her was to do with a video clip regarding [President] Xi Jinping that was given to her by petitioners, that she posted directly to the site," Ren told RFA after the meeting.



"When they were interrogating her, they wouldn't let her watch it. All they wanted was her admission that it was she who posted it," he said. "The interrogators told her she was being questioned on suspicion of 'insulting a national leader.'"



Ren said the authorities had violated China's criminal code during the investigation.



"Not one of them told her their full name, nor did they produce any form of ID, which is against the Criminal Procedure Law," he said.



"All she knew was the charge she was accused of. Neither did they provide her with any of the documents she was supposed to be given. She has received no documents since her detention," Ren said, adding that Ding's case has been shrouded in secrecy from the start.



"We don't even know which government agency is prosecuting this case," he said. "Before I met with her, I had thought it was the Shijingshan police department, but I asked them about this twice and they said they had never heard of the case. I suspect that their name was used [as a smokescreen]."



Ren said Ding is also in poor health.



"According to what she told me, she can't straighten her back properly," he said. "I asked her about this, and she said it was due to bone hyperplasia. She said her health has worsened because of having to sleep on hard boards in the detention center."



Ding's friend and colleague Cheng Yulan said she had been denied permission to visit her friend in the detention center on Wednesday.



"Firstly, we are worried because the charges against her have changed, and also, another concern is that her health is poor. We are short-staffed now; our website has suffered a huge blow, but we will definitely carry on."



Website targeted



Website founder Liu Feiyue is currently being held incommunicado on suspicion of "incitement to subvert state power" in the Suizhou No. 1 Detention Center.



His detention came after China Rights Observer group founder and veteran democracy activist Qin Yongmin was detained in the provincial capital Wuhan in 2015.



Qin is currently awaiting trial on charges of "incitement to subvert state power" at the Wuhan No. 2 Detention Center, while his wife Zhao Suli has been missing for more than two years.



Staff say censors have also targeted the group's website, deleting a number of articles, including one written by Qin.



President Xi has already shown himself to be far less willing to tolerate dissent and criticism than his recent predecessors, rolling out a massive ideological crackdown at the start of the year that includes detailed policing of foreign online content, social media activity and the country's news organizations.



An Aug. 25 directive issued by a "stability maintenance" steering group under the party's Central Committee orders complaints departments at all levels of government and party to ensure that no petitioners are allowed to crowd around the outside of government buildings in the run-up to the party congress.



Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
As President Donald Trump headed to an economic summit in Vietnam at the end of his state visit to China on Friday, dissidents and rights activists said tight surveillance and security controls during his trip had yet to be lifted.



A survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre said he is still under 24-hour police guard, in spite of being on a dialysis machine for some of the time.



"They haven't gone yet, though it may be their last shift, maybe finishing at 5.00 p.m.," Qi Zhiyong, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers victims group, told RFA after Trump's departure.



"All dissidents in Beijing are being watched round the clock in three shifts, some by the state security police, and others by a local police car [outside their homes]," Qi said.



He said veteran activists Zha Jianguo and Gao Hongming had been kept under guard along with many others.



Beijing resident Xu Chongyang said security measures seemed to be much tighter in China than when President Xi Jinping last visited the United States.



"The two governments have very different ways of dealing with this. For example, they don't put the local population to so much inconvenience when Chinese leaders visit the U.S.," he said.



"They don't limit the freedom of movement of their people in the same way."



Beijing residents were subjected to road closures and traffic jams near the diplomatic quarter for the duration of Trump's three-day visit.



'All about business'



Ordinary Chinese people pursuing complaints about the ruling Chinese Communist Party, called petitioners, have often sought to speak directly to visiting foreign officials about grievances that have met with no redress.



One Beijing petitioner said Trump's visit appeared to have been all about business.



"I didn't see Trump trying to apply pressure with any of his opinions during this trip," the petitioner said. "Trump is a businessman, first and foremost, so he's going to be more focused on profit."



Chinese constitutional scholar Zhang Lifan agreed, saying Trump had maintained a conciliatory tone on this visit.



"It appears that the two sides may have reached some kind of tacit agreement, judging from the recent meeting between Trump and Xi," he said.



Indeed, official Chinese media hailed the visit as a success, saying it had set out a "roadmap" for future ties between the two nations.



"The Beijing visit was a remarkable moment in the history of China-U.S. relations," state news agency Xinhua said in a commentary article on Friday, adding that "the trip showcased positive interaction between the world's top two economies."



Behind the scenes



Su Hao, international relations professor at China's Diplomatic Institute, said that surface agreements such as the U.S.$250 billion worth of economic cooperation agreements signed during the visit don't mean that bilateral tensions have been resolved.



They may just be being negotiated behind the scenes, he said.



"The stronger momentum of cooperation that we are seeing between China and the United States can lessen, or cover up, the differences and conflicts existing between the two sides," Su said.



"Coordination and cooperation are now the main theme, while the differences have been relegated to a secondary status," he said. "But a lot of this is about tacit agreements, too."



"[One of those has to be] that North Korea's ... nuclear missile development must be curbed, and that it must never be allowed to get to the point where it attacks the United States," he said.



"But they would never publicly discuss any joint measures they plan to take over North Korea, because it's too sensitive," Su added.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
A North Korean mother and child arrested with other defectors by Chinese police last weekend in Shenyang risk torture and abuse if they are forcibly sent home, the womans husband said from South Korea while calling on Chinese authorities not to repatriate his family.



The woman and her four-year-old son were part of a larger group of ten picked up by police ten days after fleeing across the border from North Korea, and had moved from one shelter to another before being detected by authorities.



Speaking by phone to RFAs Korean Service on Thursday, the womans husband and childs father, using the pseudonym Tae Won Lee, urged his wife not to lose hope while detained.



I am always praying that we will meet again one day, Lee said. I ask the Chinese government not to send them back.



Lee, who fled North Korea ahead of his family two and a half years ago, said he is especially concerned for the fate of his son.



He may not be killed if he is returned, but if he is sent to a political prison camp, he may never be able to leave again during his lifetime.



Please do not send them back. Please help them to come to South Korea, Lee said.



Lee said he has spoken several times to the South Korean consulate in Shenyang city in Chinas Liaoning province bordering North Korea, but was told there is little they can do to help.



They said that they cannot go to where my family is being held, he said, adding, All they can do is ask that they will be treated humanely.



Torture, persecution



Speaking to RFA on Friday, Phil Robertsondeputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watchsaid that China should immediately recognize the detained ten North Koreans as refugees.



Despite the documented risks of torture and persecution faced by North Koreans sent back by China, China continues to forcibly repatriate families trying to flee to safety, Robertson said.



I call on the Chinese government to stop repatriating North Korean refugees, starting with these ten, based on the U.N. Refugee Convention that China has signed, Robertson said.



The rate of forced returns has dramatically increased over the last year, with 51 North Koreans detained in China from July 2016 to June 2017, and another 49 detained from July to September of this year alone, according to Human Rights Watch.



Also speaking to RFA, UK-based North Korean defector Jihyun Park said she has spoken to the BBC broadcasting service and to the newspaper the Telegraph, hoping to raise awareness of the detained North Koreans situation.



Two years ago, the body of a three-year-old Syrian refugee boy washed up on [a European] shore, and this drew international attention to the Syrian refugee crisis.



Now, I would like to see the world pay more attention to the problem of the forced return of North Korean refugees from China, she said.



Reported and translated by Hee Jung Yang for RFAs Korean Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.




A court in Myanmar sentenced two journalists reporting for Turkish state media, their interpreter and their driver, to two months in prison on Friday for violating a law regulating the use of aircraft after they used a drone to film near parliament in the countrys capital Naypyidaw.



Police had arrested Singaporean cameraman Lau Hon Meng, Malaysian reporter Mok Choy Lin on Oct. 27, along with their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin, and held them at Yamethin Prison in Mandalay region, around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital, ahead of their trial.



On Friday, a judge sentenced the four, who had been working on a documentary for Turkish Radio and Television Corporation subsidiary TRT World, to two months in prison for violating the 1934 Aircraft Acta charge that carries a maximum three-month jail term.



The act allows authorities to pursue legal action against anyone who flies aircraft over any specified area, either absolutely or at specified times.



According to Khin Maung Zaw, Moks lawyer, the four had only learned they would be charged under the Aircraft Act upon their arrival in court. Police had initially investigated whether charges of violating an import-export rulewhich carries a sentence of up to three years in prisonwould be brought against them.



The two foreign nationals had pled guilty to the lesser charge in the hope of getting out of jail time, the lawyer told RFAs Myanmar Service.



We all thought that they would only be sentenced to paying a fine of about 50,000 kyats (U.S. $37) if they admitted this as their first violation, but [all four] were sentenced to a two-month imprisonment, he said.



Khin Maung Zaw said he had applied for bail for the four at Fridays hearing, but was rejected, adding that he plans to appeal that their sentence be reduced to a fine at a district court.



A hearing will be held on Nov. 16 to determine whether the defendants will face charges for violating the import-export rule, he added.



Reuters news agency quoted Mok ahead of Fridays proceedings expressing frustration over the lack of transparency in the courts legal process.



We have no idea what is going on, and we are not allowed to speak to our family, she said.



And the rules and procedures are not explained to us. We were asked to sign statements that are completely in Burmese that we cannot understand.



Reuters also cited interpreter Aung Naing Soe as saying that the four had not been mistreated while in custody, though police had asked about who they had spoken to and trips he made to several restive regions, including Rakhine state, where Myanmar blames attacks by ethnic Rohingya militants on security posts for provoking a brutal military counter-insurgency launched in August.



Reaction mixed



Members of Myanmar State Counselor and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyis ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party defended the sentence, saying the defendants had violated the law and risked national security in doing so.



It shouldnt be like this if we see it from the perspective of press freedom, but we must consider the aim of the journalists for doing it, said NLD spokesperson Monywa Aung Shin.



As our country is under threat from the international media, the authorities took action against them for reasons of security and to protect the nations sovereignty.



Lawyer Aung Thein, an NLD lawmaker in the Lower House of parliament, pointed out that under the Aircraft Act, authorities were within their rights to take action against any form of flight.



We cant say it is wrong to sentence them, as they violated an existing lawthey can ask permission to visit and observe the area of parliament, but they tried to view it with a drone and that is a violation of an existing law, he said.



It is also not a strong sentence, as they only got two months imprisonment.



Myanmar Press Council member Myint Kyaw questioned the judges decision, however, saying the sentence was too harsh.



I dont think they should have received a jail sentencethe authorities havent announced anything about people not being allowed to use drones and this was their first violation, he said.



They may also be charged under the Import-Export Act and could receive jail sentences for that. I dont think its fair and they should only have to pay a fine. This kind of reaction only frightens people, but isnt effective in stopping them.



International press freedom group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), also condemned the sentence in a statement Friday, urging authorities in Myanmar to release the reporting team immediately.



We condemn today's sentencing to prison of journalists Mok Choy Lin and Lau Hon Meng, their interpreter and driver, said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's senior Southeast Asia representative.



Without clear legislation on drone use, Myanmar's legal authorities are making up the rules as they see fit to suppress the news media. Journalists should never be jailed for their reporting activities.



While none of the four defendants are Turkish nationals, the case has ratcheted up diplomatic tensions after Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Myanmars military of carrying out genocide of Rohingya Muslims in the Buddhist-majority countrya charge Myanmars government has denied, despite similar accusations by a top United Nations official.



More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh since the military operation began.



Reported by Htet Arkar and Khin Khin Ei for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
US President Donald Trump speaks on the final day of the APEC CEO Summit, part of the broader Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' summit, in the central Vietnamese city of Danang, Nov. 10, 2017.

U.S. President Donald Trumps ongoing trip to key Asian countries this month can help clarify his policies and reassure countries in the region concerned both about changes in Washington and Chinas growing power, experts on Southeast Asia said.

At the same time, Trumps silence on human rights problems ranging from Chinas treatment of dissidents to the alleged ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar make it important for other leaders to raise these issues at two annual Asia-Pacific summits, a rights expert said.

Trump and other world leaders are attending a series of summits in Asia on Nov. 10-14, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Danang, Vietnam, which culminates with an economic leaders meeting. He will also attend the East Asia Summit in the Philippines.

The presidents visit to Southeast Asia will highlight the strength and the importance of the relationship and many of the issues that confront the region  everything from hoping for increased trade with the United States [to] economic development, but also issues in democracy and human rights which are also very important and something that we care deeply about, said Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the 20-member Congressional Caucus on ASEAN.

The Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) is a regional grouping that promotes economic, political, and security cooperation among its 10 members  Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Castro spoke briefly on Wednesday at an event on Capitol Hill where a panel of experts discussed U.S.-ASEAN relations in security, defense, trade, and human rights on the eve of Trumps visit.

Trumps 12-day trip to Asia, which began on Nov. 5, is taking him to five Asian nations  Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

In Japan and South Korea, Trump called on leaders to increase pressure on North Korea, and the threat that the nations ballistic missile and nuclear weapons program poses, with tougher sanctions and tighter military cooperation.

Though Trump praised China for taking some measures against the rogue nation, he also pressed Beijing to do more to rein in North Korea by scaling back its dealings with Pyongyang and sending back North Korean workers.

The threat posed by North Korea will dominate Trumps meetings with ASEAN members during the various summits as well, experts said.

The entire Asia region, as you all know, is being overwhelmed with the question of what becomes of what has essentially been the stare down between the United States and North Korea, Castro said. So we will need to marshal the support of all nations, not only in Asia, but [also] around the world to tackle that problem, and thats another topic of discussion that will come up between President Trump and the leaders of the ASEAN nations.

David Shear, senior advisor on Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia at McLarty Associates, discusses US security and defense policy in Southeast Asia, in Washington, Nov. 8, 2017. Credit: RFA Security and defense policy

As for security and defense policy, ASEAN nations will be looking for the president to define what the U.S.s role in the region will be, said David Shear, senior advisor for Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia at McLarty and Associates.

Asians are gripped by uncertainty right now, he said.

They are gripped by uncertainty flowing from Chinas rise and the increasingly assertive Chinese foreign policy in the region; they are uncertain because of North Korea, of course, [but] they are also uncertain because they dont know what Americas role in the region in the future is going to be, he said. And they will be looking to the president to answer that question.

Trump will press ASEAN leaders to strengthen their implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and trade restriction on North Korea, Shear said.

Southeast Asia remains a weak link in our effort to pressure North Korea, and the president will be doing everything he can to strengthen that link, he said.

Chinas aggressive moves in the South China Sea, where it has claimed disputed territory and built military infrastructure, will be another topic that Trump will address at the APEC summit as part of a wider defining of American policy in the Indo-Pacific region, Shear said.

Trumps nine-month-old administration has not yet outlined a full Asia policy, he said, adding that the U.S.s position in the region has suffered as a result.

The Southeast Asians will be looking for us to better define our approach to the South China Sea and to the region in general, said Shear, a former assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs from 2014 to 2016 and a former diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.

Though the Indo-Pacific concept is not new, Shear said the administration adopted it to demonstrate the importance the U.S. places on relations between the western Pacific and South China Sea as well as the Indian Ocean.

Theres a strong strategic link between the two  a strong link between what we do with our allies and partners in the Pacific and what we would like to do with Indians in the Indian Ocean, he said.

A third topic that Trump will touch on with ASEAN leaders is counterterrorism, especially when he meets with president Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, where the U.S. military has provided advice to the country on freeing the southern city of Marawi from ISIS attackers, he said.

Trump will also spend time at the summits in Southeast Asia discussing U.S. commercial relations in the region.

Two-way trade between the U.S. and ASEAN generates more than U.S. $200 billion a year, and the market for American exports of goods and services to the region is in excess of U.S. $100 billion annually.

These are very commercially significant opportunities for U.S. businesses, said Marc Mealy, vice president of policy for the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, a U.S.-based regional trade association.

Mealy said that Southeast Asias young population, rising level of rural-to-urban migration, and growing market for U.S. services are current draws for American businesses.

People sometimes ask me why American companies are really active in Southeast Asia, and the simple reason is that that is where the growth in the world is taking place, he said.

For U.S. companies, ASEAN is an important market, he said. Its probably one of the most globally competitive sets of markets.

Trade agreements

In January, the Trump administration pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)  the largest regional trade pact in history  and declared an end to the U.S. pursuit of multilateral trade pacts, instead opting for bilateral agreements with allied nations.

Twelve Pacific Rim countries  the U.S., Vietnam, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and Peru  signed the TPP in February 2016 after seven years of negotiations, agreeing to lower tariffs and to the establishment of a dispute settlement mechanism for trade.

Having pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, the region cries for a systematic American approach to economics and trade in the region, Shear said.

ASEAN countries are now moving ahead on the TPP without the United States and are negotiating a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)  a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between ASEAN members and six states with which the regional group has existing trade accords, namely Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.

Experts said these trade deals will have broader implications for the U.S.-ASEAN trade relations.

The meetings in Southeast Asia will be an opportunity for Trump to gain a broader understanding of the trade-related issues and dynamics in the region, said Barbara Weisel, a managing director of international economic policy firm Rock Creek Global Advisors.

She said there seems to be some urgency for ASEAN nations to move ahead on the TPP and RCEP following the U.S. pullout from TPP because countries realize that its important for them to demonstrate that they still value trade liberalization and the benefits that it has brought to their countries in terms of economic development.

The administration keeps talking about bilateral agreements, and I think there will be some elaboration of this approach in the statements that the president will make, but certainly not a reconsideration of the withdrawal from TPP, said Weisel, who was the lead U.S. negotiator on the trade deal.

It remains to be seen how the countries in the region will respond to the overtures that the U.S. makes on bilateral agreements, she said.

On Friday, the U.S. president said in a speech in Danang that the U.S. was ready to make bilateral trade deals with any country in the Indo-Pacific region based on mutual respect and mutual benefit and will not tolerate trade abuses.

As the U.S. builds a framework for trade and investment policy in Southeast Asia, it also will seek to establish a set of rules by which all nations are expected to play and push for their enforcement, Weisel said.

ASEAN countries generally dont like to take strong action against one another, so they are looking for help from us for ways to consider what action can be taken, she said. Any decisions will occur in multilateral and bilateral negotiations. We need to find like-minded countries to work with us on this.

Weisel also said the U.S will need to spend more time working with ASEAN trading partners on issues not covered by global trading system or by rules that already exist, especially with China as the largest trading partner of all countries in the region.

The China model has growing appeal to the region, especially with the perception that the U.S. has pulled back from the region, she said.

And that it has a model in the absence of an alternative is attractive, she said. What this means is that the U.S. needs a more comprehensive strategy that calls for collaborating more closely with ASEAN nations about trade concerns and challenges.

We wont succeed on our own by imposing rules unilaterally, she said.

Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, who entered Bangladesh by boat, rest as they wait to go to refugee camps near Thankhali refugee camp in Ukhia subdistrict, Cox's Bazar, southeastern Bangladesh, Nov. 10, 2017. Credit: AFP Human rights a no-go

The Trump administration has said it will not broach the issue of human rights with authoritarian leaders in Asia during the presidents trip, despite what John Sifton, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), calls an unprecedented level of human right violations in Southeast Asia this year.

Trumps national security advisor H.R. McMaster told reporters at a daily White House briefing on Nov. 2 that it did not help to yell about these problems.

What the President is doing is being effective, he said at the time.

Among the major violations in the region are the crisis in Myanmars northern Rakhine state where a military crackdown has forced more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh; Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sens silencing his political opposition in the run-up to national elections in 2018; and the war on drugs in the Philippines in which Duterte has encouraged the killing of drug dealers and addicts.

Sifton said the summits offer an opportunity for other government leaders, such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to venture where the U.S. wont tread and to address these matters.

These [summits] are opportunities for these leaders to raise human rights issues with the hosts and with other participants and try to solve some of the problems, he said.

Sifton also noted that the APEC Summit is being hosted by Vietnam, which has more than 100 political prisoners, including those convicted of spreading propaganda against the state or criticizing the government.

What were asking is that visiting government officials who care about human rights raise these cases with the Vietnamese authorities and tell them to stop arresting and prosecuting government critics and ask them why it is a crime in Vietnam to criticize the government, he said.

On Thursday, HRW issued a call for world leaders at the meetings in Southeast Asia to address Myanmars Rohingya crisis and the deteriorating human rights situations in Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The evidence of atrocities committed by the Myanmar military against Rohingya in northern Rakhine is unimpeachable, Sifton said, noting that the countrys powerful armed forces as well as its civilian government are in a state of denial about the crimes against humanity committed there.

The solution is for independent observers to be allowed into the area to find out what happened, he said, though the Myanmar government has so far refused to let in a U.N.-appointed investigative commission.

That is the one call we are pressing governments to unite on both in Danang and in Manila, he said.

HRW believes in using relationships to incentivize governments to change their behavior on human rights issues, Sifton said, whether these are economic agreements or deals to sell weapons or to provide military training.
Philippine Navy commandos patrol the waters of Bongao in the remote southern Philippine island of Tawi-Tawi, the same province where soldiers rescued four Vietnamese hostages from Abu Sayyaf gunmen, Aug. 30, 2007.

Soldiers rescued four Vietnamese hostages from Abu Sayyaf bandits in the southern Philippines on Friday, but found a fifth lifeless, some nine months after they were seized, the military said.

The dead hostage apparently succumbed to a lingering illness, military southern command spokeswoman Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay said.

The military launched the rescue while President Rodrigo Duterte was visiting Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.

Petinglay identified the rescued hostages as Buy Xuan Vien, Bui Trung Duc, Nguten Quang Huy, and Nguyin Huu Trong, and the dead as Hu Trung.

All were crew members of the cargo ship MV Giang Hai 5, which was boarded by Abu Sayyaf gunmen as it passed through waters off Sulu Island in the south last February.

The Vietnamese were among 17 crew members, including two who were also killed when they fought off the gunmen. Ten others were able to escape, officials said.

"Due to a lingering illness, Huu Trong succumbed to death during his captivity," Petinglay said, without elaborating.

The rescue operation was carried out in the early evening of Friday, near the island of Kang Tipayan in the remote island province of Tawi-Tawi, in the countrys far south, the military said.

In September, troops rescued two Indonesian hostages also held by Abu Sayyaf militants in the jungles of southern Jolo Island. Seven other foreigners are believed still in Abu Sayyaf hands in the south, according to the military.

The Abu Sayyaf, or Bearers of the Sword, is the most violent of several Muslim rebel factions in the southern Philippines. It is responsible for the worst attacks in the country, including a ferry bombing in Manila Bay that killed more than 100 people in 2004.

The gunmen beheaded an elderly German captive earlier this year after his government failed to fork over ransom, while two Canadians were also killed in the same manner last year.

Military regional chief Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez said ground units would push ahead with its anti-terror operations against the bandits to thwart their kidnapping ploys and rescue their victims.

Another Abu Sayyaf faction led by Isnilon Hapilon, the acknowledged leader of the Islamic State in the region, engaged government forces in a five-month battle that destroyed much of Marawi city, also in the south. The vicious firefights killed 930 militants, 165 soldiers and 47 civilians, officials said.

In August, naval counter-terrorism troops also rescued Do Trung Hieu, a Vietnamese sailor held hostage by Abu Sayyaf militants for nine months on Basilan island, about 1,500 km (875 miles) south of Manila.

On Wednesday, six soldiers were killed and four wounded when the military clashed with the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, in what is considered the single deadliest encounter for the army since security forces regained control of Marawi in October.

Duterte skipped a gala dinner in Vietnam after he was told of the militarys rescue operation.

He is supervising and coordinating (the) safe recovery of Vietnamese captives of the Abu Sayyaf group, Roque said in a short statement.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
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Both Exeter and Richmond are seeking to compel the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to follow local ordinances for its plans for a visitors center on Browning Mill Pond.
Harry Whitford died after striking a tree off Stony Lane on his motorcycle this past June. He had been drinking at Gillian's Ale House a few moments prior.
Paige Healy was 9 or 10 years old and taking an art class when students were asked to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

For Healy, it didnt take much thought.

I drew myself in a chef jacket and tall chef hat in a kitchen with a pan in my hands, she said.

Healy started tagging along to work with her dad, Kevin Healy, at his restaurant, later renamed The Boathouse at Sunday Park, before she was tall enough to reach the kitchens food prep counters. When she was older and taller, she pitched in with bussing tables and food prep, and later with hostess and bartender duties.

I was very lucky from a very early age to be able to share that passion with my dad, she said. It started just getting into my blood really early on. Its really something that I have been passionate about since I was a little kid.

Today, at age 30, Paige Healy is chief creative officer of the restaurant company founded and headed by her father and which has grown to five restaurants  four locations of The Boathouse concept and one Casa del Barco Mexican-themed restaurant in downtown Richmond.

More locations are coming. A second Casa del Barco is scheduled to open in Short Pump Town Center in late December, while a third planned for Chesterfield Towne Center is expected to open in late summer or early fall of 2018 and will be paired with a new concept called Shrimp Shack.

Early on, the focus of growth was to grow the business at our one location in Sunday Park, said Kevin Healy, looking back to 1988 when he took over operations of the former Sundays Restaurant in the planned Brandermill community in Chesterfield County.

We accomplished that by adding outdoor decking, and outdoor bar, enclosing a patio and by converting an adjacent waterfront swimming pool into the pavilion area and designing it for large events like weddings and receptions, Kevin Healy said. In 2006, he rebranded the restaurant as The Boathouse at Sunday Park.

As the growth and reputation of The Boathouse at Sunday Park expanded, so did opportunities for new locations, he said.

The companys flagship waterside restaurant in Brandermill specializes in seafood dishes and is known for its stellar views of Swift Creek Reservoir. Healy opened a second waterside location in 2009  The Boathouse at Rocketts Landing, settling into a scenic space in the luxury mixed-use development that straddles the Richmond-Henrico County line along the James River.

Most of the companys expansion has been in the past five years.

Casa del Barco opened in a refurbished Italianate building along Richmonds Canal Walk in 2013. A third Boathouse restaurant opened in 2015 at Short Pump Town Center, and a fourth opened this past June in City Point in Hopewell.

I had a very good foundation in restaurant management prior to ownership. Its a business to me. Theres not a lot of ego involved, said Healy, whose first job in the restaurant business was as a dishwasher at age 15.

Later, in college at the University of Dubuque in Iowa, he was a student manager at the college cafeteria. After college, he held a succession of jobs  starting at a Richmond restaurant group that operated the areas Arbys franchise locations.

Mr. Ripp hired me out of college, said Healy, referring to local restaurant titan Richard Ripp, owner of The Restaurant Co., which operates local Arbys franchises. At the time, in addition to the Arbys, they had several restaurants in town. I did that for four years and worked in a number of their restaurants.

Next was a stint at the now-defunct Chi-Chis restaurant chain where he was a regional manager and, after that, he was food and beverage director for a Tidewater area hotel chain.

I think that one of the things I have done particularly well and we as a group do particularly well is we listen to our guests. If you listen, they will tell you what you need to do, Kevin Healy said.

***

His companys expansion is occurring at a time when Richmonds restaurant scene is bursting at the seams with dozens of locally operated restaurants offering creative and tasty cuisine.

Longer-running restaurants and more established groups have been the catalysts for the tremendous growth of the past four to five years, said Christopher Staples, director of hospitality for EAT Restaurant Partners, which operates eight area restaurants including Boulevard Burger & Brew, Fat Dragon and Red Salt Chophouse & Sushi.

We do compete with each other, but we dont let that draw a line between us, Staples said. Instead, we focus on more important things like developing our respective cultures, quality of our product and focusing on the guest experience. The competitor, if anything, makes us better, more capable and aware of what we need to.

Of Healy, Staples said, Hes a sharp guy and has a vision. You cant do what he has done without a clear vision.

Healy returned the praise to EAT Restaurant Partners and to the Richmond Restaurant Group, a company founded in 1995 by Michelle Williams, Jared Golden and Ted Wallof that now owns seven restaurants including The Daily, The Hard Shell and The Hill Cafe.

Healy said he admires those two restaurant groups ability and confidence when thinking outside their everyday comfort zone and adding unique concepts to their lineup of restaurants.

***

In the competition for taste buds, the Healys are holding their own.

Earlier this year, Kevin Healy rebranded his company, renaming it HOUSEpitality Family.

It has many layers of meaning to it, Kevin Healy said.

The word house is obviously part of The Boathouse, and less obvious Casa del Barco translated is house of the boat. Hospitality is what we are all about. And yes we are a family-run business, he said.

In addition to daughter Paige, a son, Colin Healy, and son-in-law Gregorio Spinzo (Paiges husband) are active in the business.

With the new brand came putting down on paper the values that had been part of the company.

If you are somebody who appreciates integrity, innovation, empowerment and knowledge  those are our four values  you are going to be who feels like at the end of the day we are adding to their cup rather than taking away, Paige Healy said.

Healy opened his first restaurant with a small business loan.

This past summer, Transact Capital Partners, a Henrico-based business brokerage and mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, assisted HOUSEpitality Family with securing a $6.1 million loan with Park Sterling Bank to finance the new Casa Del Barco location at Short Pump as well as to restructure its long-term debt.

***

The company has approximately 350 employees. Food service traditionally has a lot of employee turnover, but HOUSEpitality Family has a plan to keep more on board. About a year ago, the company developed an in-house training program open to employees who want to move up and assume more responsibility.

We are seeing often potential inside them that maybe they dont see. And when you give them the road map and opportunity to succeed, I think thats one of the keys to our low turnover, Kevin Healy said.

At a training class last week, employees from across the company gathered at The Boathouse at Sunday Park for an hourlong presentation by Kevin Healy and Colin Healy, a local musician who handles some of the companys accounting operations, on the economics of running a restaurant.

The employees each were given 100 pennies and asked to parse out the coins based on percentages of the companys cost of sales, labor, other expenses and profit.

At this stage in our development, we are almost spending more pennies than we make, Healy said. Were trying to grow this business and create opportunities because I think we are good at it. We have a good team and good support.

Even little things such as how many bar towels are used a week and whether a bottle of sanitizer is thrown out before its completely empty affects the bottom line, Healy said.

Candy Smith is one employee who is in it for the long run.

She started with the company in 1995 as a lunchtime server, and later took on administrative duties in payroll and scheduling. After the third restaurant opened, she became director of operations. She recently was named chief operating officer.

We all have the same passion  to continue with the growth, and we all have a passion of doing the right thing  providing excellent customer service, Smith said.

***

For Paige Healy, the title of chief creative officer also is new.

She took time off from the restaurant business to earn a college degree. She rejoined the company, excited about the changes her father was making.

There is all this cool stuff going on that my dad has created with the growth, Paige Healy said.

About four years ago, she attended a culinary program in Southern Italy and brought those skills to the business as a cuisine developer, working with chefs to create new menu items.

Eating local, eating fresh, eating whats minutes or hours off the vine versus days or weeks, she said.
As a student at Tuckahoe Elementary School, Catherine McCormick used to stand with her grandparents  Sam and Jane Graham  at the schools annual Veterans Day assembly when their names were called to be recognized for their military service.

At the schools Veterans Day event on Friday, McCormick, now a teacher at Tuckahoe, introduced them as the keynote speakers.

Its really special, said McCormick, who is in her second year as an exceptional education teacher, standing in the school lobby before the assembly. Im probably more excited this year than when I was a kid.

Her grandparents, who attended these assemblies through the 1990s and early 2000s as Catherine and her older brothers matriculated through Tuckahoe, were saluted with a standing ovation. They spoke of their service in an auditorium filled with students from grades three to five and their invited guests: parents, grandparents and other veterans from their families. Each, of course, has a story, but as the years rush past and the Grahams keep pushing on, their story becomes ever more remarkable.

In 2017, they are the rarest of couples: a husband and wife who both served during World War II. The Grahams, each of whom is 97, have been married for 71 years.

They are proud of their service, but also modest  and quite funny. When I visited their home in Cedarfield in western Henrico County on Thursday, Dr. Sam Graham, a retired urologist, shared a story about the first time he took Jane and their children to see where he grew up in Wise County in Southwest Virginia.

We got between Coeburn and Norton  in Tacoma  and they were doing some highway construction so they made us stop, he said. In Tacoma, cows were fenced out, not fenced in. The windows were down in the car because there was no air-conditioning, and this cow on the side of the road stuck its head in the window and said, Moooo!

They laughed at the memory.

The Grahams met in Charlottesville in the early 1940s when they both were attending the University of Virginia (as a resident of Albemarle County, Jane was allowed to attend even though women were not officially admitted to the university until 1970). Their mothers became friends in a weekly bridge group before Sam and Jane ever met. Their first date was in February 1942, just weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, an event that would shape their world for the coming years.

Sam, on his way to medical school, volunteered for the Navy, which kept him in school and eventually put him on active duty in 1943 while he completed medical school under a compressed schedule that saw him attending classes six days a week, one term closely following another.

Meanwhile, Jane wanted to do something for the war effort but didnt know what until the Navy started the WAVES  Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve. She joined, and was sent for three months of officers training at Smith College in Massachusetts.

I didnt know a ship from a bus when I went up there, she said with a laugh. We had so much to learn in such a short time.

Of her service, she said, It was such an honor, really, and a privilege, rather than sitting home while the war was going on. It was just a natural thing to do: the right time at the right place.

After training, she was ordered to Washington, D.C., and the Office of Naval Communications, where she coded and decoded dispatches to and from U.S. ships crossing the Atlantic amid the danger of German U-boats. It was round-the-clock work that was not for the fainthearted.

It was tense because you had to be right, she said. I mean, you couldnt make mistakes. Too many lives were involved.

It also was top-secret work that Jane and her colleagues were told not to discuss with anybody.

Ive been married to her for almost 72 years, Sam said with a laugh, and she still wont tell me what they did.

Jane was promoted to lieutenant, and in August 1945 she was among the first to learn Japan had surrendered when her office received a directive from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal announcing the end of the war.

Sam and Jane were married in March 1946  soon after he graduated from medical school and she left the Navy  and the next day Sam reported to the Navy Hospital in Philadelphia, a facility intended for 800 patients that was attempting to serve a few thousand war wounded, including many amputees. The following year, Sam was promoted to chief of rehabilitation and physical medicine at the hospital.

My main job was to get people back to good health, he told the school assembly.

He later went into urology, setting up a practice in Staunton where the family lived for more than 40 years and where, in the early 1960s, he was approached about running for the City Council. He said no. Those who wanted him to run persisted.

Finally, I told them, All right, you can put my name up, he said, but Im not going around shaking hands, and Im not going to make any speeches.

He was out of town on a family vacation on election week. Naturally, he won (although Jane was quick to point out an initiative involving the fencing of dogs actually tallied more votes, but he topped the human part of the ballot). He served four years on the council, including the last two as mayor.

That was enough.

They moved to Cedarfield 20 years ago, soon after the senior community opened, figuring theyd live out their days there. Its turned out they had a lot more days left than they thought. And theyre still kicking.

Among the sweetest of many sweet moments at Fridays assembly at Tuckahoe was when Jane told the audience, with a wry laugh, that her Navy bridge coat had shrunk over the past seven decades and no longer fit her. At which point, their granddaughter, the teacher, came strolling across the stage  wearing her grandmothers coat.

It seemed to fit perfectly.
On election night, Mayor Levar Stoney exerted more influence in a Richmond suburb than within the city limits. And thats not necessarily a bad thing.

Stoneys political action committee, One Richmond, backed fellow Democrat Courtney Lynch in her bid against Republican Bob Witte to fill the Henrico Board of Supervisors seat left vacant by the death of Richard W. Dick Glover. The mayor called her the leader our region needs to help us move forward on issues that impact us all.

Henrico Supervisor Pat OBannon, a Republican, didnt like the mayor meddling in county politics. The Republican Party of Virginia attacked Lynch with dubious ads. But Tuesday, she won the Brookland District seat, giving Democrats control of the Henrico board for the first time in decades.

Meanwhile, Democrat Ralph Northam was garnering nearly 61 percent of the gubernatorial vote in Henrico, where dramatic demographic changes have shifted the countys political leanings from red to purple to blue.

Some observers remain disinclined to read much into this outcome.

We should not expect any major policy changes by the board, Nelson Wikstrom, a professor emeritus of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University, said in an email Tuesday night. This is simply because of the institutionalized political culture of the board, which will maintain the Henrico Way of providing excellent services to the citizens at a moderate cost.

Perhaps. Wikstrom is a longtime observer of Henrico politics. And indeed, fiscal responsibility was a Lynch mantra in her bid. But Id wager that Henrico will become more extroverted in its posture toward Richmond.

Or as Lynch, a Marine veteran and the co-owner of a leadership development consulting firm, said Thursday: I do think theres a strong spirit on the board now for regional cooperation, and I certainly will be a large part of working to make cooperation as strong as it can be.

The board has always worked well together, and that wont change, she said. But, she added, I will bring fresh perspective, and Im excited to bring that perspective.

Lynch, born and raised in Fairfax County, has lived in Henrico since 2012. Shes a wife and a mother to a son and twin daughters.

Beyond the Marines, she says she was shaped by eight years serving as primary caregiver for her grandmother  beginning at age 26  when her cancer-stricken mom could no longer fulfill that role.

Lynch, a self-described leadership geek, reflects the wave of new residents from other regions and states who are challenging  and at times, transforming  a prevailing local culture whose defining feature has been a leeriness of change.

During an interview Thursday, she sounded willing to take on the excessively go-it-alone approach of the regions jurisdictions, which historically have been as competitive as they have been collaborative.

Thats human nature, she said. We seek to be independent, and we seek to achieve  thats us as people. As leaders, its more difficult to recognize interdependence is more effective.

During the campaign, those Republican flyers carried an implicit message rejecting all things Richmond, from the mayor to mass transit. Such appeals  which critics said bore racial overtones  carry diminishing resonance in an increasingly urban, diverse county with a growing poverty rate.

The challenges we have as a region  and the opportunities  are too complex for us to act alone, Lynch said.

Its that journey of going from independent to interdependence, and its difficult. But its whats required.

Kenya Gibson learned something about independence during her campaign. Unlike Lynch, she didnt have Stoneys support to fill the 3rd District seat on the Richmond School Board formerly held by Jeff Bourne, now a member of the House of Delegates. But with 46 percent of the vote, she soundly defeated the mayors choice, interim board appointee Cindy Menz-Erb, and several other candidates.

Gibson, the daughter of a Massachusetts couple, moved with her husband 11 years ago to Richmonds North Side, where they enrolled their children in Linwood Holton Elementary School. Like Lynch, shes part of the new wave remaking RVA.

This week, Virginia made it clear that were ready for progressive leadership. Im so excited to be a part of that, she said. But if she holds any hard feelings about not getting Stoneys endorsement, she wasnt conveying them.

My campaign had the support of parents, teachers and regular citizens who want to be part of the solution. When I stood at the doorstep and introduced myself to someone new, I said again and again, I cant do this alone! she said. We need the mayor and state to find funding, school leaders to earn trust, and for the community to find hope through advocacy.

Asked what role she sees for herself on the board, Gibson said: One thing I know about Richmond  and we arent unique  is that for as much as we demand change, were scared of it, too.

We want Wegmans, but only if we can still get Ukrops potato salad somewhere, you know? I cant fully predict the role I will play on the School Board; right now Im still an outsider looking in. But as we are making decisions to create a path forward, Id like to be someone who helps identify all the things we are afraid of.

She views this process as part of being transparent. Sometimes, there may be valid reasons to put on the brakes, but not always, she said. I believe if we trust each other enough to name and acknowledge those fears, we can get stuff done.

Virginians shed some of their fears and biases in historic fashion on Tuesday night. But a reluctance to change and collaborate continues to hold us back as a region.

Each jurisdiction must reach the same conclusion: We cant do this alone. Until we embrace our mutual dependence, One Richmond will be nothing more than a slogan.
Danica Roem, elected Tuesday as the first transgender lawmaker in Virginia history, is no longer able to keep up with media requests.

She cant receive texts because her phone is overloaded, and her voicemail is full.

But Roem  a newspaper reporter by profession  told journalists on a conference call Friday to make sure they got her personal cellphone at the state Capitol in January so she can maintain an open dialogue with the press and help with Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Virginia General Assembly will kick off a legislative session next year that will include a diverse new group of Democratic lawmakers following Tuesdays historic gains the party made in the 100-member House of Delegates.

As far as Im concerned, Im the reporters liaison in the General Assembly, Roem said, noting that voters also elected a second journalist, Democrat Chris Hurst, who beat Republican incumbent Joseph R. Yost in the Blacksburg area. Weve put two reporters into the House of Delegates. Thats pretty dangerous for the existing folks who are there.

I will always be a reporter before Im a politician.

That doesnt mean shed violate the trust of her legislative colleagues, she said.

Roem, a lifelong resident of Prince William County, was a reporter at the Gainesville Times and made fixing traffic congestion on a major thoroughfare in the county the top issue of her campaign against 13-term incumbent Del. Robert G. Marshall. She also wants to expand Medicaid coverage for the uninsured and focus on core quality of life issues.

Shes been too busy to handle every media request, but she took questions Friday on the conference call before heading out for an interview with CNN. Weve now made Route 28 world famous, Roem said.

Roems defeat of a lawmaker known for his socially conservative positions is among the biggest of many stories stemming from Tuesdays election. He attacked her over her personal life and gender identification while she focused on his inability to offer solutions to traffic congestion in the growing county south of Washington. The 13th House District also includes the city of Manassas Park.

Roem said she feels no need to be angry at Marshall, who has not called her to concede or congratulate her.

The voters spoke.

What more validation do I need? she said. The voters did not elect me to be rude. The voters elected me to lead. ... We know where the voters of the 13th District stand on discrimination. They support inclusion.

She said she doesnt want to use eminent domain to fix congestion on Route 28 but would like to replace traffic lights with overpasses. She said she wants to use her influence as a delegate to make sure Prince William has the money needed for transportation improvements as the county plans its future.

She said shed fight to stop any discriminatory bills in the General Assembly. It will be dead on arrival.

Roem said her legislative role model growing up in Prince William was the late state Sen. Charles J. Colgan of Manassas, a Democrat who partnered with the late Del. Harry Parrish, a Republican, to build the Prince William Parkway and help recruit community college campuses.

They were incredibly successful in what they did, she said.

She slammed President Donald Trump for not putting forward a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, as he promised during his campaign.

This White House over and over and over again has put discriminating against the American people over taking care of core quality of life issues. How amazing would it be if instead of spending $15 billion dollars on a wall that is literally impossible to complete because you cant build a wall through the geographic equivalent of the Grand Canyon ... what if we took that money and we actually put it toward Metro, which needs a dedicated funding source right now, what if we actually took that money and put it toward 28?

She said she plans to file a bill to create a public records ombudsman, something Maryland has done, to help expedite flow of information and accountability. She also said shes interested in Virginia creating a shield law that would protect reporters from going to jail if they dont identify their sources.

Ill be happy to lead the charge on FOIA, she said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden called Roem on election night to congratulate her. A photo of her on her knees crying spread online quickly.

She has advice for other politicians: Just be yourself.

The worst thing any politician can do is say, Oh, should I be more centrist on this issue? Should I be more progressive on this issue? Just be yourself.

Roem asked reporters to also note the election of Democrat Dawn Adams of Richmond, who defeated Del. G. Manoli Loupassi, R-Richmond. Adams will be the first open lesbian to serve in the House, according to the House Democratic Caucus. Adams knows health care policy and is an incredible, incredible person, Roem said.

She also thanked Emerge Virginia, a group that trains Democratic women to run for office.

Del. Charniele L. Herring, D-Alexandria, the partys caucus chair, said Roem ran a positive and pragmatic campaign focused on fixing Route 28 congestion and her opponents inability to do so during the 13 terms that he served.

She called Marshall, who sponsored a bathroom bill, the most anti-LGBT politician in the House of Delegates.

Del. Mark H. Levine, D-Alexandria, an openly gay member of the House, said the election of the states first transgender candidate was a fantastic day for Virginia.

The second transgender candidate, he said, would be less interesting  and thats the way it should be.
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Kermit Dyke graduated from high school in 1932, at the peak of the Great Depression. A block from his house near downtown Los Angeles, scores of men lined up each day, looking for work and finding none. He didnt want to end up like them. So Dyke, tall, blond and handsome, joined the National Guard.

It drilled just once a month, but it gave him three things: A little spending money; a bit part in a Hollywood silent film (They needed someone to stand there in a uniform with a rifle; I got five dollars); and an entry into what he describes as probably the most honorable profession there is.

In 1936, he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and today, at 103, he is its oldest living graduate. Sitting in the home he shares with his wife, Bobbe, in Solomons, Maryland, the retired colonel cradled an old album stuffed with black-and-white photos of young men posing in jodhpurs and Shako hats, sitting on horseback, or just goofing around in T-shirts and shorts.

Thats me, throwing a paper bag full of water on an upperclassman, he said, pointing at one. And heres my graduation class. Of the three dozen young men in the photo  the class total was 450  few are still alive.

Dykes family history of service spans more than 100 years, from his grandfather, a Union soldier in the Civil War, to his son, also a West Point graduate, who is a retired major, and extends to his father-in-law and brothers-in-law, who also served.

He was born two days before the start of World War I  too late to have met his grandfather, Robert Dyke. Theres Grandpas sword, he said, pointing up at the wall. Sliding off the leather sheath revealed a blade with delicate engravings of flowers and an image of a woman, and, at the base, crude notches whose meaning could only be guessed at: XXXIIII.

He was first attracted to his wife, a chemistry major and science teacher, because, as she explained, Id read all the books on his required-reading list.

Those books were about atomic energy and nuclear power. The attraction was mutual; since Bobbe also came from a military family, she said, being around him worked.

After marrying in 1951, the couple had postings around the United States and Canada  including 15 years in McLean, Virginia, where their three children attended high school. Bobbe, 91, was one of the first docents at the National Air and Space Museum when it opened in 1976, and she continued there until last year, with her husband driving her the 130-mile round trip route every week until the year he turned 100.

Looking over his photos, Dyke recalled things he liked and didnt like about West Point. He liked firing guns. He didnt like getting up at 6 a.m. Or the fact that when you were a plebe, you couldnt look down at the food you were eating; you had to look straight ahead. They didnt want you to feel like you were being pampered.

But there was plenty of fun. Part of cadet training included learning to waltz and fox trot, and photos showed Dyke and his classmates dancing in a stage production alongside attractive companions with long hair, glamorous makeup and flared skirts.

These are all men, he noted  fellow students at the academy. West Point did not admit its first co-ed class until 40 years after he matriculated.

The album also contained artifacts from World War II, during which Dyke served as an Air Force officer in North Africa, Italy and France: an authorization paper from the Arrondissement Maritime dOran, issued in 1942. A picture of him standing beside a guide in front of the pyramids in Cairo. A 1944 ration card, good anywhere in the North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, that entitled him to weekly allotments of items such as candy bars, tooth powder, pipe cleaners, beer and cigarettes.

Dyke stopped smoking decades ago, and so did his wife.

I stopped at midnight, Dec. 31, 1967, she said. We had just moved to McLean to a bigger house and he had bought me new bedroom furniture. He said, I dont know why I bought you new furniture. Youre only going to burn holes in it like every other piece of furniture. 

The ex-smoker with perfectly coifed white curls grinned at her husband of 66 years. You were so right, and I was so embarrassed that I stopped.

Drinking is another matter, though. The couple faithfully go out for a drink every evening, at the bar and grill at Asbury Solomons, the continuing-care retirement community where they live, or at the nearby Solomons Island Yacht Club, where they were members for years and still frequent.

They always order identical drinks.

We used to do martinis on Mondays and Thursdays, Manhattans on Tuesdays and Fridays, Old-Fashioneds on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and Sundays was something special, like old Scotch, Bobbe said. But as they got older, they simplified things. Now its martinis (her preferred cocktail) on Mondays and Thursdays, and Manhattans (his favorite) on other nights.

They are also active in Asburys Wii bowling league. Both were longtime bowlers, and for a while they dominated the Wii tournaments.

Till the young whippersnappers came, Bobbe said, referring to 70- and 80-year-old neighbors.

Kids, Dyke spat out.

Looking at the faces of his old classmates, he mused about the direction the country has taken in the decades since they graduated  not a good one, in his view. I just think that the way things are going now, its not a matter of everybody helping everybody else to survive, its a matter of whos getting the most money, he said, adding that discipline  including the discipline to balance the national budget  is disappearing.

But not for him. The same man who could stand on his hands as a cadet still goes to the fitness room every day for a workout. He had no apparent problems hearing a reporters questions or peering through his glasses to identify people in tiny 90-year-old photographs.

People are always saying, You dont even use a cane,  Bobbe said.

Dyke grinned. My secret is, Dont make any changes if things are working right,  he said. So if youre drinking Manhattans, keep going.
A truck crash on Interstate 81 that killed two drivers has spawned at least $1 million in additional legal settlements on top of an earlier settlement round of at least $900,000.

The court-approved agreement endorses a plan for C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. to pay $550,000 to the family of Tanya Diane Mann and $450,000 to the family of James R. Anderson, according to filings in U.S. District Court. The Anderson matter settled last week, while the Mann case settled in August.

Robinson is an Eden Prairie, Minnesota, transportation services and logistics company that court papers said retained a former trucker with a history of negative marks.

Philip Osars Emiabata crashed April 1, 2014 while hauling laundry detergent on I-81 in Wythe County. A passenger vehicle driven by Mann and a truck driven by Anderson hit the wreckage, court papers said.

During an earlier round of litigation that wrapped up in 2015 against Emiabata and his trucking company, Nova Express, the Mann family was awarded $550,000 and the Anderson family $395,000, court papers said.

Emiabata ran his truck off the road and overturned near Rural Retreat in the first crash, which contributed to two others.

Mann, 56, of Zirconia, North Carolina, crashed her car into the cab of Emiabatas truck, which was partially blocking a southbound lane.

Andersons truck struck a piece of guardrail that had been dislodged by Emiabatas truck and left partially blocking a north lane. Andersons truck ran off the left side of the interstate, struck the edge of a bridge, fell onto the road below and caught fire. Anderson, 34 of Decherd, Tennessee, died, while his passenger, Jeremy Johnson, was injured.

Court papers do not disclose amounts of settlements for Johnson.

A Wythe County General District Court judge convicted Emiabata of reckless driving and fined him $2,000, according to online court records. Emiabata, who was 53 and living in Pflugerville, Texas, at the time of the crash, did not appear in court and has not paid the fine, court papers said.
On Saturday, Nov. 11, several volunteers from the Blacksburg Volunteer Rescue Squad will travel to Norfolk for the State Emergency Medical Services Symposium.

Earlier this year, we were honored to receive the 2017 Regional Award for Outstanding EMS Agency by the Western Virginia EMS Council, said Chief David English. Now we are heading to Norfolk to see how we fare at the 38th Annual Governors EMS Awards Ceremony.

Kellie Lavine, a member who grew up in Blacksburg, will be among those attending. Its really exciting to see all our hard work and effort being recognized. Its hard to believe how far weve come since I joined, and Im proud to be a part of the future of this organization.

The Governors Award for Outstanding EMS Agency is presented to the EMS Agency that exemplifies outstanding professionalism and service to its community, whose high level of patient care is evident by innovative training, community awareness, preventive health programs, public relations efforts and participation in local, regional and statewide EMS systems.

The awards are presented in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Healths Office of Emergency Medical Services Annual EMS Symposium.

This weeklong training event is the largest EMS training event in the commonwealth, and one of the largest in the nation.

The symposium welcomes more than 1,600 providers and issues approximately 22,558 hours of continuing education credits.

 Submitted by Sydney Gay
By Wade Gillley

Gilley, a retired university president, once served as Virginias Secretary of Education and on national boards related to research and economic development. He is a native of Carroll County.

J. D. Vances popular book Hillbilly Elegy (a sad story) effectively tells his personal story of growing up in poverty and rising to the top after graduating from Yale Law School. It is certainly well written and should be inspiring to the young people growing up in similar situations, who can be found in virtually every community in the country.

Whether people are in the Deep South or in a factory-oriented community in the Rust Belt or even in a town in the Appalachian Mountains, this story can inspire them. Vance endured and grew through many challenges facing young people today growing up in Rust Belt, inner iities, rural communities across America or a Blue Ridge Mountain community with substantial poverty issues.

However, having grown up as an Appalachian hillbilly, I found myself shaking my head no, no many, many times while reading Vances book. You see I grew up in a long-term hillbilly community in the 1940s and 1950s and can testify it was different from the mythical hillbilly community Vance described. Lots of youth in Appalachia have found and are finding opportunities across America, especially in hillbilly communities in the Appalachian Mountains of America.

For example, a friend grew up in a coalfields mountain community near Clintwood, Virginia, where the father was a coal miner in Jenkins, Kentucky. Of the four kids in the home in the 1950s, three went on to earn college degrees while the fourth pursued vocational training for a specific career. They lived a young, frugal life, but all did well as grownups.

In the mill town near my community lots of kids did well with the support of their families. One became president of two colleges while another, who did not graduate from high school, ended up owning a trucking empire and a chain of restaurants.

I grew up in a small mountain country community named Hilltown near Fries, Virginia. The community was founded by my great-grandparents John Robert and Martha Jane Hill, who got married in 1867 and moved to Carroll County, Virginia, on the New River, not far from what we now call the Blue Ridge Parkway. Martha Janes father and mother gave her $500 as a wedding present in 1867, and she and Robert bought some 300 acres of land in Carroll County and began farming in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They eventually divided the farmland among their 13 children, and my grandfather, Alex Hill, subdivided much of his land for several of his nine children. My mother lived at home until she was 24 years old, although she went to work in a new cotton mill in Fries when she was 14 years old. Later she married my father, whose family had come from the Appalachians near Ashe County, North Carolina. They bought a lot from my grandfather, and my sister and I were born there, in a community with more than 30 first cousins and many more second and third cousins.

My mother was a spinner in the cotton mill, and my dad worked for the railroad and eventually an army ammunition plant as a security guard. They had a good life and achieved one of their primary goals: college degrees for their children.

I had more than 30 first cousins in the area around Fries and more than 200 first, second, and third cousins total. About a third of my cousins graduated from high school, which was normal for the 1930s and 1940s. A third of those went on to pursue advanced education or training that was employment oriented. Less than ten percent were divorced, and only one or two got in trouble with the law. Although some drank mountain dew, there were few alcoholics where I grew up.

In Hilltown, where I met my great-grandmother Martha Jane in 1943, there was a real sense a community. There was competition, but also pride in cousins accomplishments. Most classified themselves as Scots Irish (it was originally Irish, but Scots was added when the new Irish Catholics showed up in America), but we were very diverse. Both of my grandmothers were one-fourth Cherokee, and one had strong Jewish genes. Both helped my spinning wheel mother so she could work and save money for her children to go to college.

In my research over the years, I have discovered that this family was not unique among the Hillbillies of Appalachia, where community and family were at the center of everything.
Sheffield Crown Court

A DESPERATE criminal who tried to be sent back to prison by causing a bomb scare at Rotherham Interchange failed when he was handed a suspended sentence.

Scott Elsey pleaded guilty to the hoax and to stealing 45 worth of cheese when he appeared at Sheffield Magistrates Court last Friday.

Elseys lawyer, Mr Sal Ahnoud, said he had wanted to return to custody so he could have some food and a place to stay.

But the magistrates refused to grant his wish, sentencing the 35-year-old to 22 weeks in prison suspended for 12 months.

Ms Susan Fisher, prosecuting, said Elsey, of Broomhall in Sheffield, had stolen ten packets of cheese from the One Stop Shop on Park Road, Thrybergh, on September 6 after being released from prison on licence days earlier.

He approached a police community support officer in the interchange in Rotherham at 5.50pm on September 26, Ms Fisher said, and told the officer he was wanted by police because he had breached his curfew and ripped his electronic tag off.

The officer had made enquiries and found Elseys claims were false, the prosecutor said.

Elsey then asked the PCSO: If I p**s on you will you lock me up?, the court heard.

Ms Fisher said: I think the defendant has then given the PCSO his phone number and asked him to contact him if he found out anything about the tag issue.

At 7.30pm, she added, South Yorkshire Police had received a call from a man who said: Ive got a bomb and Im going to blow everything up at Rotherham bus station.

If you dont come and arrest me, Im going to blow it up.

Ms Fisher said: The PCSO, who had previously had dealings with Elsey, was made aware of the call, recognised the defendants voice and the defendant was arrested.

The phone he had in his possession was the phone that had made that call to police.

It seems the defendant was just trying to get sent back to prison.

Mr Alnoud said Elsey had stolen the cheese to sell on and make a profit as he did not have any money from when he was released from prison days earlier.

The hoax call is completely out of character, he said.

He tells me hes extremely embarrassed and ashamed that hes made such a call. It was foolish and with no meaning or purpose behind it.

He is remorseful and knows it would have caused some inconvenience  thankfully it didnt in terms of police and emergency services being called out, but had the potential to do so.

He wanted to be taken into custody so he could have some food and a place to stay.

Elsey, who has previous convictions mainly for dishonesty, had struggled with drugs and alcohol but was now living with his new girlfriend, which he hoped would give him stability to help him overcome the transition period, added Mr Alnoud.

Elsey admitted theft and communicating to police information he knew to be false with the intention of inducing a false belief that a bomb was present.

He was also ordered to pay 45 compensation in relation to the theft and 85 costs.
Volunteer Mohammed Usman packing some of the boxes for last year's appeal

AN appeal to help make Christmas a little happier for disadvantaged kids is up and running again.

Operation Christmas Child co-ordinator Hazel Adebogun and her team are asking kind-hearted Rotherham residents to fill a shoebox with little presents and hand them in over the next week or so.

The boxes will be flown out to Eastern Europe, Syria and Africa.

Hazel said: These little gifts are sometimes the only gifts these children have ever received and are so special to them.

People happy to help out are asked to decorate a shoebox and place inside a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and a face cloth together with paper and pencils, a packet of sweets something to keep a child a bit warmer  such as a hat and gloves  and anything else they can fit in and drop it off at collection points borough-wide.

This year, donations can be left at Asda in Aldwarke, Tesco Extra and Shoezone in the town centre, Madheads on Wellgate, Beauty by Pene inside Techniques at Broad Street, Parkgate, and Talbot Lane Methodist Church opposite the Town Hall.

The processing centre where all the boxes are checked and packed is at Talbot Lane Methodist Church and will be open until Friday, December 1, from 10am to 4pm, for people to go along and help out or simply see the operation in action.

Previous years have seen up to 3,000 shoeboxes collected.

For more information, visit the Operation Christmas Child UK website at https://www.samaritans-purse.org.uk.
Last year's display

A HUGE team effort has ensured a village can pay its respects in style this weekend.

Conisbrough will once again commemorate the fallen as its historic castle is decorated with projected poppies from 6.30pm until 8.30pm on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Firmly in the foreground of the spectacular remembrance event will be the towns war memorial, featuring an armed soldier, which has been given a makeover and seen its missing bayonet restored.

The Light Up the Castle project managed to gather 3,000 in online crowdfunding pledges within weeks and 1,920 in donations was raised for the restoration of the memorial.

Steve Pugh, who has organised the event with Simon Duffty, said: Weve had an awful lot of goodwill this year to make everything happen.

Its been a true community collective this year.

Sculptor Thomas Kenrick has replaced the bayonet on the memorial and Historic Building Restorations also jet washed it all free of charge.

The Doncaster councillors donated some money from a planning agreement too and an anonymous donor, who lives in the village, gave us some cash  she even offered to pay for it all herself.

Some of the wording was worn away on the plaques and the artist Darren Beachill has re-done all that.

The castle will be illuminated with a poppy design drawn up by artist Rachel Horne and organisers are hoping to raise thousands of pounds for the Royal British Legion (RBL) and for the Conisbrough community.

Mr Pugh added: The bayonet was first installed in 1921.

Ive lived in Conisbrough all my life and it might not seem like a big thing but that bayonet is a symbol of our heritage and its been missing for so long.

We hope the event will once again be a success and hope to see lots of people there.
(ehudlaniado.com) - So far in our look at beneficiation in the diamond industry, we have seen how many countries have attempted to leverage their rough diamond resources to create additional wealth and employment within their borders. There have been successes and failures, and for many, the longer-term outcome is still unknown. However, in keeping with our broader definition of beneficiation to include the overall benefit of diamonds to any economy, it is important to see how diamonds have helped non-producer nations as well. There are many countries in the world that have never unearthed a single rough diamond, but that still enjoy important economic benefits from the diamond trade.
African Diamond Council (ADC) said diamond producing countries on the continent are plagued by issues of mismanagement, theft, smuggling and money laundering.

Association chairperson Mzee Fula-Ngenge told a De Beers diamond conference in Gaborone that this had contributed to a significant loss in revenue.

ADC, he said, had made it their top priority to recover lost revenue in the African diamond producing countries.

The Global Witness recently released a report on Zimbabwes Marange diamonds, which alleged that Zimbabwes diamonds were left to the mercy of the countrys highly partisan security services and political elites, much to the detriment of development and democracy.

The report, "An Inside Job", alleged that the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) spy agency held a concealed stake in a company active in the Marange diamond fields.

It claimed that diamonds produced by the CIO-linked company were traded in Antwerp and Dubai.

The funds, it alleged, may have funded political repression.

Meanwhile, Ngenge said Africa was home to seven of the top 10 diamond producing nations, but non-diamond producing nations were influencing a large part of our market.

There are efforts to manage and administer African diamond resources, which is not always accepted in the views and eyes of African Diamond Council, he said.

Ngenge also said that ADC wants to ensure that sustainability does not become a grave oversight or conceptual limitation inside organization circles.

We also need to ensure tangible benefits not only to consumers, but most importantly for Africans to benefit from the natural resources, he said.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, from Gaborone, Botswana, Rough&Polished




CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation concluded its annual congress in Bangkok, Thailand, covering a wide range of issues on the agenda of the international gemstone and jewellery industry and focusing on responsible sourcing, Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability, particularly in the coloured gemstone sector, says a press note from CIBJO.

Meeting on the final day of the of the congress, the CIBJO General Assembly elected Dr. Gaetano Cavalieri to another two-year term as CIBJO President.

Dr. Cavalieri said that the government involvement is necessary to help verify the veracity of the source of supply, and that element, coupled with self-administered due diligence at the industry level, is likely to provide the most viable alternative available. "I propose that we work towards creating a Kimberley Process-type structure for rough coloured gemstones, which will enable the industry to demonstrate the integrity of its chain of distribution through a combination of government monitoring, and self-administered due diligence, he said.

A number of industry leaders which were present at the Congress stressed the growing urgency to formulate a viable responsible sourcing policy for the sector, including organizations like Responsible Jewellery Council and companies like Gemfields.

The Prime Minister of Thailand General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who officially opened the 2017 CIBJO Congress assured his government's support for the Thai gem and jewellery industry, which is the country's third largest export earner. "Thailand is committed to improving our products and to becoming a global jewellery hub in the next five years, and I hope we can grow stronger together and enable Thailand to secure this vision," he added.

The CIBJO Diamond Commission also called upon Dr. Cavalieri to begin a dialogue with synthetic diamond producers to bring them into the greater jewellery industry forum, protecting the interests of consumers and the industry alike.

In his address, CIBJO President Cavalieri said: "As most of you know, a CIBJO Congress is not a commercial event. We have no illusions. Jewellery and gemstones are luxury products that consumers purchase because they want to, and not because they have to. For us there is no margin of error. If we lose the confidence of our consumers, and in so doing undercut the value of our product, we will not remain in business, let alone prosper," Dr. Cavalieri stated.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore has come under fire from several members of his own party amid allegations he pursued sexual relationships with teenagers.

A report from the Washington Post cites accounts from four women claiming Moore tried to initiate sexual relationships with them while they were in their teens and he was in his early 30s.

Several Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., said Moore should drop out of the Alabama senate race if the allegations are true.

"If these allegations are true, he must step aside," McConnell told reporters Thursday when asked about the Washington Post report.

Meanwhile, Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., said Moore should immediately step aside, calling the allegations "deeply distributing."

"The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying," McCain said. "He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of."

Moore has denied the allegations, with his campaign manager Bill Armistead describing the report as a "Hail Mary" by the former state Supreme Court chief justice's political opponents.

"Judge Roy Moore has endured the most outlandish attacks on any candidate in the modern political arena, but this story in today's Washington Post alleging sexual impropriety takes the cake," Armistead said in a statement.

Moore is running against Democrat Doug Jones in the race to fill the seat previously held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The election is scheduled for December 12th.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
(Agencia CMA Latam) - The United States Department of Commerce decided to impose tariffs between 71.45% and 72.28% on imports of Argentinean biodiesel.

In August, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a 50.29% to 64.71% tariff on imports of the Argentinean biodiesel. The then-preliminary sanction resulted from research conducted by private U.S. biodiesel producers, which accused Argentina of dumping and unfair practices.

Thursday's final decision means that the U.S. government considered the American producer's claim legitimate.

"The biodiesel industry has been hurt in recent years by unfairly traded imports from Argentina and Indonesia," said Doug Whitehead, director of operations for the National Biodiesel Board.

In Argentina, the state-owned news agency Telam reported that sources in the Foreign Affairs and Agribusiness Ministries said that the government assesses possibilities such as to address the case to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Greta Van Susteren, the former CNN, Fox News and MSNBC host, is ready to unveil an apology app called Sorry, according to her Facebook post. The app is for users to accept or deny apologies.

The app will be available for free on the App Store this November 14.

Susteren wrote on Wednesday, "It is an exciting project for me - mostly because it is a completely new field."

"SNAPCHAT AND INSTAGRAM are about to get some competition!" Susteren said on the post.

According to Susteren, her first app "Sorry" would let people send apologies to one another.

"You will get to 'accept or reject' apologies from a friend (kept private between you and your friend) or 'accept or reject' apologies of public figures which we ALL get to see and vote to accept or reject," she said.

Susteren said her research has found that people apologize on social media more than 475,000 times a day. "Just google the words 'sorry,' 'apologizes,' 'apology,' and see the celebrities out there and the corporations and even nations apologizing," she noted.

Susteren said she's been working on the app for more than a year.

In her post, Susteren promised, in all caps, "SO MANY MORE DETAILS AND FEATURES TO COME."

She said that she came up with the APP idea when left Fox in September 2016. Earlier this year, she hosted a program on MSNBC, but was stopped after about 6 months reportedly due to poor ratings.

Recently, she has been been conducting interviews for Voice of America's VOA TV.

Meanwhile, the app is already being mocked on social media, calling it unnecessary.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
PPDAI Group Inc. (PPDF), a online consumer finance marketplace in China, said that it priced its initial public offering of 17 million American depositary shares at a price to the public of US$13.00 per ADS for a total offering size of about US$221 million, assuming the underwriters do not exercise their option to purchase additional ADSs. Each ADS represents five Class A ordinary share. The ADSs are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today under the symbol "PPDF."

The company has granted the underwriters an option, exercisable within 30 days from the date of the final prospectus, to purchase up to an aggregate of 2.55 million additional ADSs to cover over-allotments.

Concurrently with, and subject to, the completion of this offering, Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited, through its wholly owned subsidiary, will purchase from the Company US$50 million in Class A ordinary shares at a price per share equal to the initial public offering price adjusted to reflect the ADS-to-Class A ordinary share ratio.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Canadian stocks were poised for another lackluster open Friday morning amid concerns that U.S. lawmakers will delay President Trump's proposed tax reforms until 2019.

The TSX Composite Index has eased from record highs seen earlier in the week. The index starts the day at 16,082.

Still, November has been a great month for Canadian stocks, led by strong gains in the energy and mining sectors.

Crude oil prices have surged to the highest in 2-years on expecations OPEC will continue to cut supplies in 2018.

After yesterday's deluge of earnings news, traders will assess a trickly of corporate headlines today.

Hydro One's (H.TO) profit attributable to common shareholders was $219 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, down from $233 million last year.

Sherritt International Corp.(S.TO) agreed to restructure its Ambatovy Joint Venture with Sumitomo Corporation.

CAE (CAE.TO) reported earnings and revenue rose last quarter. Shares were upgraded at RBC.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders has announced President Donald will not hold a formal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as previous reports had suggested.

"Regarding the Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday. "We're not going to be able to make anything work."

Russian media had reported that Trump and Putin would hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

Sanders acknowledged that both leaders would be at the summit and indicated that an informal conversation was possible.

"Now, they're going to be in the same place, so are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely," Sanders said.

She added, "But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one."

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said a formal meeting between Trump and Putin was "under consideration."

"We're working with the Russians, as you know, in a number of very difficult areas. And we have been in contact with them," Tillerson said.

He added, "The view has been if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting?"

Tillerson said U.S. and Russian officials are discussing various issues, including Syria and Ukraine as well as allegations of Russian meddling in last year's election.

(Photo: Kremlin.ru)

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
E10 has become the top-selling petrol in France, helped by a tax break that makes it cheaper than its conventional rival, according to a statement by French ethanol producers reported by Reuters.

Sales of unleaded SP95-E10 accounted for 38.5% of petrol sales in France in September, compared with 36.8% for SP95 and 23.6% for SP98.

Over the first nine months of 2017, SP95-E10 was also ahead with a share of 38.2% versus 37.5% for SP95.

The rise in demand for SP95-E10 in France contrasts with Germany where sales of E10 petrol fell last year despite a price advantage due to concern it is not suitable for all cars.

Due to a tax incentive SP95-E10 is 4 to 5 cents a litre cheaper than SP95. It was launched in 2009 and is now available at more than 50% of French filling stations.

UK forecourt owners are still waiting to find out whether E10 petrol will be introduced after the most recent Government announcement on the issue in September failed to indicate a way forward.

The trade had been waiting for a response to the consultation on the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, which ended in January.

During the consultation the PRA had warned the forecourt sector was not ready or able to handle the introduction of E10, but environmentalists argued it was the best way to meet the governments commitment to reduce carbon emissions from transport.

In his foreword to the response, transport minister Jesse Norman indicated that the Government favoured introducing E10, but no mechanism was proposed to carry this out.

He said: Increasing the renewable content of petrol by moving to E10 fuel should make achieving our targets easier and potentially more cost effective, as well as providing an economic boost to domestic producers.

The government will work with industry to facilitate any future introduction of E10 petrol, playing our part to ensure that it is managed carefully and to ensure ongoing availability of fuel suitable for older (pre-2000) petrol vehicles. In doing so, we expect the oil industry to do their part to help minimise any impacts on owners of older vehicles.

A spokesperson for the oil industry body UKPIA said they could not comment on the Governments intentions until it clarified what it meant by working with the industry.
The GST rate on 50 items of mass consumption, that were in the 28 per cent tax slab, rest items has been slashed to 18 per cent, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the panel of Group of Ministers for tackling IT-related glitches, said on Friday.

"All items of common consumption have been reduced from 28 per cent to 18 per cent tax rate.

"Tax on goods of mass consumption like chewing gum, chocolates, shaving items, shampoo and skin creams, whose revenue implication is not much, has been reduced," Modi told reporters on the sidelines of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meet here.

He further added that the revenue implication of these will be approximately Rs 20,000 crore.

Modi said it was important that the system under GST regime stabilises as only four months were remaining for the close of the current financial year.

The 23rd GST Council meeting got underway on Friday at a city hotel under the chairmanship of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The Finance Ministers of at least 24 states of the country participated in the meeting. Some of the states were represented by their Chief Ministers as they hold the Finance portfolio as well.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused a plea seeking to ban the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's controversial "Padmavati" epic drama featuring Deepika Padukone as a Rajput queen.

The court said it could not intervene since the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was yet to decide about its certification.

The film, which also stars Shahid Kapoor as Rawal Ratan Singh and Ranveer Singh as invader Alauddin Khilji, is set for release on December 1.

The movie has been a subject of many controversies. Some Hindu groups and political parties, including the Congress and the BJP, claim that the film distorts history and wrongly portrays Padmavati, a contention Bhansali has rebuffed.

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Tight security across Karnataka for Tipu festival Security has been tightened across Karnataka on Friday to ensure peaceful celebration of the state-sponsored Tipu Sultan Jayanti in honour of the erstwhile Mysore ruler amid protests by the right-wing opposition. Additional forces, including the paramilitary troopers have been deployed in Bengaluru, Kodagu, Mandya, Mysuru and Mangaluru across the southern region to prevent untoward incidents and disruption of normal life.



The Bharatiya Janata Party and various right-wing organisation are against the festival.



"Vigil has been stepped up across the state to maintain law and order and ensure peace for the Tipu festival. Processions and protest rallies against the Jayanti (fest) have been banned.



"Liquor sale also banned for the day," Additional Director General of Police Kamal Pant told reporters.



"About 200 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserved Police (KSRP), City Armed Police and City Armed Forces (CAR) and 6,000 Home Guards have been deployed in sensitive areas till Saturday morning," Pant said.



The ruling Congress began celebrating the birth anniversary of the 18th century Mysore ruler on November 10 since 2015 to honour him as a patriot and remember his yeoman service to the people in the region.



Eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali, Tipu (1750-1799) is also hailed as the "Tiger of Mysore" for fighting against the British East India Company to protect and enlarge his kingdom.



Tipu was killed in a battle with the British Army in 1799 while defending his fort at Srirangapatnam near Mysore, about 120km from Bengaluru.



Tipu's 267th birth anniversary is also being celebrated with special functions at his birth place in Devanahalli village on Bengaluru outskirts and in cities and towns that were part of his kingdom in the Deccan region.



In the state capital, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will inaugurate the event titled "Hazarath Tipu Sultan Jayanthi" at 6.30 p.m. at Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat, in the presence of dignitaries and invitees.



To prevent a repeat of violent protests that claimed one life in 2015, the police imposed a ban order under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) at Madikeri town in Kodagu district, about 270km from here.



"The ban restricts assembling of more than five persons and maintain law and order in the specific area. We will impose the ban as a precautionary measure at other places if required to ensure peace," Pant said.



About 200 activists of the BJP, VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and Bajrang Dal were detained at Madikeri for defying the ban in the hill town.




Samoa and Tonga may not see eye to eye on the rugby league level but they certainly share common goals and commitment to good governance and addressing systemic failings in the work of the government bodies in their jurisdictions to bolster accountability and transparency in the administration as well as fairness for its people.

This week, the Ombudsmans Office host special guests, a delegation from the Tonga Ombudsman Office led by its Chief Executive Officer, Linda Folaumoetui, on a one week attachment supported and funded under the Flexi Funding Programme administered by the Office Commonwealth Ombudsman.

Upon arrival C.E.O. remarked: We are very pleased with the opportunity to be able to come over to Samoa to make connections and further our relationship with the Ombudsman Office here and share ways we can learn and strengthen each others work and responsibilities to our citizens.

This is the Tonga Ombudsman staffs first official visit to Samoa since the Office was formally constituted in December 2001 as the Ombudsman Office of Tonga which was formerly known as Office of Public Relations Tonga.

I am delighted with the Tongan delegation to Samoa, said Ombudsman Maiava Iulai Toma.

Not only will we learn from each others good practices in its Governance work but also an opportunity for them to see something of my Offices other mandates that maybe of interest to them such as the Special Investigations Unit and Human Rights.

The three delegates will return at the end of this week.

They will spend their week in each of the divisions within the Ombudsman Office with the opportunity also to observe the Offices prison inspections work and meet villagers of Vavau village during the Offices awareness and education programme.
The faasamoa (Samoan culture and way of life) has nothing to do with the struggles of today. The problem lies with us  the people.

So says 65-year-old Lua Pule, a father and grandfather of Siufaga, Savaii.

Lua says we need to do away with the mentality that faalavelave contributes to our daily problems.

People think the main reason behind our struggles today is our culture, Lua told the Village Voice.

They also think that culture means hardships that could lead to many problems and pressures that we encounter every day.

Lua says people make life expensive.

Its us, when we look closely to many faalavelave, when it comes to vailolo, we change the coconuts to soft drinks and it costs us a lot of money, he said.

I mean almost everything in our culture has changed because we create the change.

Personally, its the kind of poor mentality that we should get rid of before its too late, it will fall back on our shoulders especially on our children.

He takes his village as an example.

In our village we are still practicing the traditional way of living because we believe it does not add a lot of burden on the villagers, Lua adds.

As Ive mentioned earlier, our culture has nothing to do with the hardships of today, the problem is us, and we are trying to compare ourselves to those who live in New Zealand and Australia.

But it is good for our people who live in overseas countries because the expensive cost of living in Samoa is worrying.

We need to stop comparing ourselves to those who live in other states because they are well looked after by those governments.

Lua added pride also contributed to our daily struggles.

The other thing that brings physical hardships and emotional stress to our people is the pride within us, he said.

Pride never lets us admit our struggles and problems especially when we think we have it all or we can deal with the issues we face.

I know its human nature and our people want to impress others but we must understand that changes have consequences and were responsible for the impact it has on our culture.

The churches, government, and villages including chiefs at all levels need to work together and look into this as soon as possible.

We created the mess so we need to deal with it and we need to go back to the good old days  its cheaper!
We need to have a positive attitude and mind-set so that we can see the opportunity in every difficulty we face in life.

Ask 45-year-old Ulimasao Valeli from Puapua, Savaii and he will explain the importance of being optimistic.

I believe the key to getting by every day is having a good and positive attitude, Ulimasao said.

The Village Voice team met him while on-duty at the Amoa Resort in Savaii yesterday morning.

This is me every day, enjoying every day of my life and I come to work every morning, he said.

And through proper budgeting, he is able to prioritise the essential needs of his family and meet all the required obligations by the church and village.

My salary is not that much but at least Im happy and have something in my hand every week to give back to my family, Ulimasao said.

We make little but if we manage what we have wisely, then we will have enough and thats the mentality that we should all have when we look at the high cost of living.

For your information, I am the only one who provides for my family financially, we have a plantation, pigs, but I know Samoa is not about anything like that these days because money always does the talking.

He said life was getting tougher every day.

Thats why no matter how far I live, I always try to come to work every day, said Ulimasao.

I want to make sure to always be on time and to put in all my effort and abilities in what Im doing because there are people who rely on me.

The lack of job opportunities in Savaii is something not to question because we all know whats happening to both islands, there are no jobs opportunities.

But when youre offered a job, then there you are; you have to make good use of it and be honest with yourself.

He believes that whatever opportunities come our way, we have to hold onto to them whole-heartedly.

When we get little or a lot, its always good to be positive and be happy about it, we need to walk around with a satisfied heart, Ulimasao said.

My family is doing very well at the moment and we dont go through any problems except money problems.

Ulimasao advises youths to never give up.

My message to all the youth is dont waste time and serve your family to the best of your ability, he said.

Be honest with your work and chores, and serve your family, village and church.
This week:

From Chef Jiju 

Executive Chef at the Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys Hotel & Bungalows

A Part of my passion for cooking, is also travelling, seeing the world and soaking up all the culinary facets of the various global cultures.

Part of my lifes journey has included living in Europe for over seven years, of which part was in Italy. On the newly launched menu of our Aggies Restaurant here at the Sheraton Samoa AggieGreys Hotel & Bungalows, you will find a delicious dish of Truffle Gnocchi.

The origins of this dish, is from when I spend time with my very own Italian family and at the head of this family, was a beautiful lady I would call Nonna (Italian term of endearment for a grandmother).

Nonna ran a farm, which included potatoes, and to make the Gnocchi from scratch, the potatoes were freshly picked by Nonna herself!

Then to obtain the Truffles, specially trained dogs were used to dig up these Truffles, only during specific seasons of the year. Fun fact: Traditionally this task was done by farm pigs!

The Gnocchi was then covered in a mouthwatering mushroom sauce, made from Forest Mushrooms picked in the region of Piedimonte, where Nonna lived.

For our dish we use Truffle Extract Oil, made from White Truffles and shipped in from Italy.

As a Chef my goal is to present New Flavours and Textures from around the world to Beautiful Samoa.
Much of the funding used to house San Diegos poorest residents could be eliminated under a proposed federal tax plan, which could create more homelessness and make housing woes worse, state treasurer and gubernatorial candidate John Chiang said Thursday in San Diego.

As part of the Republican tax bill introduced last week, two programs used since 2013 to fund more than 50 San Diego County subsidized projects would be effectively eliminated, he said.

Its time to hold representatives  mostly Republicans  feet to the fire and ask them, Where is your loyalty? he said Thursday morning at the Wyndham San Diego Bayside. Is it to your partys leadership in Washington, D.C., or to the Californians in your district who are struggling to pay rent, food, shelter care, and those that depend on affordable housing to keep them from homelessness?

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Chiang said the Tax Cut and Jobs Act would eliminate the Private Activity Bond Program and the 4 percent Low Income Tax Credit, which produce two-thirds of all subsidized housing built in California.

For instance, the recently opened Atmosphere on Fourth Avenue downtown was allocated $43.1 million from the two programs. The 12-story building has 205 apartments that range from $525 to $1,250 a month for families or individuals who earn $17,000 to $48,000 a year.

The treasurer made his comments to a crowd of roughly 150 people attending a conference of the California Council for Affordable Housing. He criticized local Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) as part of the political party pushing an unfair bill.

Chiang is running for governor and is a member of the Democratic Party, something Issa pointed out in his emailed response. Issa had previously said he would vote no on the tax plan, but did not offer any further comment on cuts to subsidized housing funds.

Instead of wasting taxpayer dollars flying around the state campaigning for promotion, why doesnt Treasurer Chiang do his job and join me in the fight to reduce taxes for all Californians? Issa wrote.

Hunter spokesman Michael Harrison said the congressman believes the plan is necessary to stimulate economic growth and create jobs.

Reform is long overdue and it is not surprising to hear that a California official, responsible for creating one of the highest tax burdens on its citizens and businesses, is opposed to letting Californians keep more of their hard-earned dollars, he said.

The tax plan is still very much in flux. The Senate is working on their own version of a bill that, unlike the House version, delays cutting the corporate tax rate and other changes, said The Washington Post.

Richard Rider, chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters, said low-income housing tax credits contribute to the problem of wasteful government spending. He said the per unit construction cost of new subsidized housing was much more expensive than just buying older units, or providing a voucher program. He said the region would be better off reducing impediments to building.

The goal is not to get more units per dollar, he said by phone. Instead, it is what can we do that is the most politically profitable.

Chiang said while California regulations have made the cost to build more expensive, it didnt negate the tremendous implications of the Republican proposal.

Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) reiterated a similar perspective Thursday afternoon by phone. He said the state needed to do more to cut costs. But, he pointed to recent efforts to speed up construction, such as the recently passed Senate Bill 35, an effort to streamline the permitting process.

Time is money, he said. Reducing the amount of time on these projects should save money.

It was not just politicians concerned about cuts to subsidized housing at the conference.

It is hugely significant, said Rick Gentry, CEO of the San Diego Housing Commission, of potential funding cuts. There will be implications down the line.

Republican leadership has indicated it will try to pass by Christmas for President Donald Trump to sign.

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phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1891 Twitter: @phillipmolnar

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The vanishing San Diego single-family home
Question: Would San Diegans, on balance, benefit from the proposed federal income tax changes?

Phil Blair, Manpower

NO. As the legislation currently stands San Diegans and all Californians will lose their higher mortgage deductions, which are a result of our much higher cost of housing and deductions for our very high state income taxes. Residents of other states are primed to benefit much more than Californians.

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Kelly Cunningham, National University System

NO. Capping mortgage interest, and eliminating state/local income, sales, and several other expense deductions certainly harms more expensive places like San Diego. California already subsidizes the rest of the nation, for every one dollar paid in federal taxes the state gets back about 80 cents. For the federal government to take even more taxes from California will further impinge the state economy. Taxes slow the economy, reduces wealth, reduces investments, reduces wages, reduces standard of living.

David Ely, San Diego State University

NO. For many residents, a lower tax rate will not offset the loss of some popular deductions. San Diegans pay high state income-tax rates so losing the state income-tax deduction will impact anyone who itemizes. Limiting the interest that can be deducted to $500,000 in mortgage debt and capping the deduction for property taxes at $10,000 will affect many new homeowners. As area home prices continue to climb, even more home buyers will be impacted.

Gina Champion-Cain, American National Investments

She is not participating this week.

Alan Gin, University of San Diego

NO. Because the income tax is so high in California, residents of the state benefit a lot from the ability to deduct those taxes before paying the federal income tax. Losing that deduction would cause the taxes of some Californians to go up. Also, because homes are so expensive, the interest paid by Californians is much higher than other states. So limiting the mortgage interest deduction would also hurt. The latter would pose a double whammy as it may cause home values to decrease.

James Hamilton, UC San Diego

NO. The proposal is to cut marginal tax rates and pay for it by reducing some deductions. Even if the plan is overall revenue neutral, it will mean higher taxes for some households (those who have bigger mortgage payments and higher state taxes) and lower taxes for others. House prices in San Diego and tax rates in California are well above the national average, so on balance this could mean higher federal taxes for many of us.

Gary London, London Group of Realty Advisors

NO. If you are seeking a new home in San Diego, and you are a high-income earner, this is a tax increase of major significance. The inability to deduct much mortgage interest, property taxes and state income taxes will be very impactful. If you are old and retired, and stay in your home, you win. Overall, I see this as a big, negative hit for many San Diegans who will be disproportionately hurt relative to persons not living in coastal California.

Norm Miller, University of San Diego

NO. Most residents in California will be seeing lower after-tax incomes, if all the proposed modifications go through. The loss of several exemptions and deductions, especially state and local taxes is a huge setback for us, even with the higher standard deduction. The tax credit increase (Thanks Ivanka) for children handles two weeks of child care, at best. The mortgage deduction limit could negatively impact many homes in the future, with our average single-family price now at $830K.

Jamie Moraga, IntelliSolutions

NO. California has the highest income tax rate and one of the highest median home prices in the country. San Diego is one of four metro areas in the U.S. where more than half of homes are priced above $500K. Capping mortgage interest deductions to $500K for new loans could limit first time homebuyers, prevent empty nesters from downsizing, and slow down new home purchases. Also, losing the SALT (state and local tax) deduction could increase the tax burden for Californians. Would the doubling of standard deductions counter balance the loss of these popular tax breaks in our state? We shall see.

Austin Neudecker, Rev

NO. This tax proposal would be worse for San Diegans, who will be affected by not being able to deduct our (relatively high) state income taxes. Anyone with, or looking to purchase, a home mortgage over $500K will lose part of their mortgage deduction and become subject to the new property tax deduction cap. More importantly, we are using these tax hikes on individuals to pay for huge breaks for large corporations in other regions.

Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates

YES. The state will soon have the highest taxes in the U.S. for income taxes, state sales tax, vehicle tax and the gas tax. The Trump plan lowers the income tax rates, eliminates loopholes, preserves tax incentives for mortgage interest and much more. However, the proposal eliminates the deduction for state and local taxes hitting Californias wealthy taxpayers hard. It is time for California to enact its own tax reform and thank Prop. 13 for relief.

Lynn Reaser, Point Loma Nazarene University

YES. Significant numbers of higher-income households, especially homeowners, could lose from the scaling back or ending of important deductions. They could benefit from the planned phasing out of the estate tax. Most San Diego households will probably benefit from a doubling of the standard deduction and lower tax rates. Companies, their shareholders, and their employees should benefit from lower business taxes, which could also spur faster economic growth.

John Sarkisian, SKLZ

Is not participating this week.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health

NO. I dont think its a balanced approach to tax reform. Homeowners and not-for-profits would be effectively funding tax breaks to for-profit corporations. The limits on mortgage deductions is a real concern given the cost of housing in San Diego. And without tax-exempt bonds, it will cost millions more for local not-for-profit health systems to finance the rebuilding of hospitals required by state law. That additional cost will ultimately hurt everyone in our community who needs health care.

Have an idea for an EconoMeter question? Email me at roger.showley@sduniontribune.com

Follow me on Twitter: @rogershowley

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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
Jessops, where four generations of San Diegans have ordered their wedding rings, brought their clocks and sterling silver to be repaired and picked up custom-built sailing trophies, is going out of business after 125 years.

Jim Jessop, 65, announced closing plans of one of the citys oldest businesses at Thursdays San Diego Rotary Club.

Im looking forward to retiring and I have a lot of things that I hope to accomplish, he told several hundred Rotarians at Liberty Station. But its really sad to see the Jessop store close.

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He said hes leaving because no other Jessop, including his three sons, was interested in taking over the store.

RELATED: Next generation preferred tech and mushrooms to jewels

At one time there were 11 Jessops in Jessops stores and Im the one remaining jeweler, he said. I could keep doing it until Im 80, but it wouldnt have been fun.

After a going-out-of-business sale kicks off next week at the store at 401 W. C St., Jessop said he will also find a permanent place for the familys 110-year-old street clock.

Located on the main level of Westfield Horton Plaza since 1985, the 22-foot-tall Jessops clock needs to move because Westfield is considering redeveloping or selling the shopping center.

Jessops great-grandfather, Joseph Jessop, designed the clock based on one hed seen in Switzerland. A staff machinist, Claude E. Ledger, spent 15 months building it in a foundry at the downtown jewelry store.

He incorporated 17 locally mined jewels of tourmaline, topaz, jade and agate and built 20 faces, including 12 showing times in principal cities around the world, from New York to Europe, Asia and Australia.

It was erected at the stores Fifth Avenue store south of Broadway in 1907 and moved 20 years later north of Broadway when a new store opened there.

Jessop said he has three new prominent but secure downtown locations in mind and hopes to turn the clock over to a nonprofit such as the San Diego Foundation or San Diego History Center. He also hopes to secure funding in perpetuity to maintain and refurbish the clock as needed.

Its always been downtown and has never left downtown, he said.

The city declared it Historic Site. No. 372 in 1998.

Jessop graduated from San Diego State University with a bachelors degree in business marketing and is a graduate gemologist and certified gemologist appraiser. He said he still enjoys finding the perfect item for customers, giving it to them and have them just light up, he said.

But after 44 years of six-day workweeks, he looks forward to extended vacations  including a possible stop in the English countryside where his great-grandfather, then 13, apprenticed as a watchmaker to his uncle in the 1860s.

He also said he expects to spend time with his sons families in the San Francisco Bay area and take extended cruises on his boat docked at the San Diego Yacht Club. He also will remain active in the jewelry business, advising long-time customers, attending jewelry shows and buying and selling items privately.

The stores six employees have yet to settle on what they will do after the store closes sometime next year. The long-term lease in the Emerald Plaza building will expire March 31 but can be continued on a month-to-month basis.

Jessops got its start when Joseph Jessop immigrated with his wife and seven children from England in 1890 for health reasons. He tried farming for two years in the Miramar area before returning to watch repair in 1892. He opened his first downtown store the following year. He died at age 81 in 1932.

After World War II his sons opened satellite stores around the county and then sold to Dayton-Hudson retail chain in 1970. Ultimately there were 11 Jessop stores that a later owner closed in the 1990s.

Jessops father, George Carter Jessop, opened a store under his own name in 1973 and Jim Jessop took it over in 1987. He purchased the Jessop Jeweler name back a decade later.

Earlier this week, Jessop sent about 2,500 invitations to long-time customers for a three-day presale that will take place next week. The public sale, with prices knocked down as much as 70 percent, will begin Nov. 17. He said the sale will end when all 3,000 pieces of jewelry and precious gem stones, estimated at $3.5 million, are sold.

Store hours will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday with an extra hour on Thursday nights.

Information is available at jessopjeweler.com or (619) 234-4137.

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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
Solana Beach decided this week to postpone for a year the adoption of a recreation impact fee to be charged for seawall permits, so the city can consider new modifications suggested by the California Coastal Commission.

We want more vetting on this new scientific information that theyve added, Mayor Mike Nichols said Wednesday before the vote.

The city has been collecting an interim fee of $1,000 per foot for seawall permits since 2008 and will continue to collect the money while it works out the details of a complicated formula for how much it should be, based on the amount of sand on the beach, the speed of erosion, the estimated wages of people who visit the beach and other factors.

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The fee is intended to compensate the public for recreational opportunities lost to the construction of seawalls, which cover part of the beach and hasten its erosion.

Revenue from the fee would go toward efforts to improve access to the beach with things such as stairways and parking lots, or to increase the size of the beach through programs such as sand replenishment.

The citys proposed formula for calculating the fee works out to $431 per foot in 2016, rising annually to $610 per foot in 2026. The Coastal Commissions suggested modifications would almost double the fee, making it $721 per foot in 2016, rising to $1,192 per foot in 2026.

In all, the Coastal Commission suggested 16 modifications to the citys fee program, according to a city staff report. City officials agreed to adopt most of them, but balked at a proposed increase in the estimated value of beachgoers time based on 67 percent of average wages instead of the 33 percent used in the citys formula for the recreation impact fee.

I dont like any of the fees, said Councilwoman Ginger Marshall. We need to maintain local control.

However, she agreed to the one-year extension and said the city should keep working on the fee calculation.

Fees charged for seawalls are an attempt to balance the needs of private property owners and the rights of the public to access the beach, Nichols said.

Bluff-top owners would say zero, he said. We say 33 percent and the Coastal Commission says 67 percent.

Bluff-top homeowner David Winkler asked the council to reject the suggested increase in the fee, saying the commissions calculations are based on statewide statistics.

When we look at the recreation fee in Solana Beach, it ought to be particular to our town, Winkler said.

Property owners also pay a separate sand mitigation fee for seawall permits. That fee is based primarily on a calculation of how much sand on the beach would be lost because of the construction of the seawall.

Solana Beach is one of the first cities to explore the recreation fee issue because it is the only coastal city in San Diego County without a Local Coastal Program, which is a document that allows the city to decide planning and development issues that otherwise would go to the Coastal Commission.

The recreation fee is a relatively new requirement of the Coastal Commission to be included in the Local Coastal Program, or LCP. Other cities with LCPs approved years ago were not required to have one.

Solana Beachs efforts to get an LCP approved have been frustrated for years by a number of issues, but primarily things related to seawalls.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
Seven months out from the June primary, the most consequential race you wont hear much about is the subject of this weeks civic sermon.

Seven years ago, county voters in their finite wisdom decided that the Jurassic Park of Supervisors needed to be blown up.

The TNT? Term limits.

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This time next year, two T Rexes -- Bill Horn and Ron Roberts -- will be writing letters of recommendation for their staffs.

Between them, 48 years of county policy experience will be flushed away.

In late 2020, two more white, SDSU-educated, Republican pols -- Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox -- will be preparing farewell speeches that will reflect upon a combined 53 years of service.

All told, 101 years will be kissed away.

The new 2021 board, assuming Supervisor Kristin Gaspar wins re-election, will have a total of eight years under its five belts. (If Gaspar does not retain her seat, its four.)

Revolution, right?

Well, not so fast. Faces will change, but the boards stolid conservative bent could easily survive the 2018 election and well beyond.

In District 5, the northern reach of the county, Horn has starred in messy cliff-hanger elections, six in all. His campaigns have featured a questioned purple heart, dubious campaign contributions from developers, a suspected romance with a former chief of staff, questionable construction at his Valley Center ranch, the infamously insensitive (but really funny) Horn crack when supervisor raises were being debated: Were not Franciscans.

Horns campaigns were headline-generating machines promoting the myth of Bulldozer Bill and his trips into china shops.

Horns endorsed successor, youd guess, would be a brash Trumpian figure whod appeal to Horns rock-ribbed North County base.

Well, not exactly.

By endorsing San Marcos Mayor Jim Desmond, Horn is signaling to his loyalists that the 61-year-old Delta pilot, whos also been endorsed by Roberts, Jacob and Cox, may have some suspiciously smooth edges but hell be good for business and bad for criminals, Horns bedrock values.

Its an open question how much fight two longtime Oceanside council members -- Democrat Esther Sanchez and Republican Jerry Kern -- can muster to stop the county Establishments choice, but this much is certain: Attention will be hard to gain on the margins of two raging wildfires.

It doesnt take a political scientist to predict that the vast majority of union, partisan and business resources will be directed away from D5, which Desmond appears the clear favorite, and toward the epic clash of two partisan lightning rods -- former DA Bonnie Dumanis, who was no doubt encouraged to run by Republicans to keep a certain someone from claiming the seat, and Nathan Fletcher, who is that certain someone, an energetic right-to-left political changeling supported by his wife, the astonishingly effective Dem dervish Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez.

Potential spoilers hope the negatives on Dumanis (convicted Mexican mogul ties, quitting DA mid-term) and Fletcher (what the hell does the shape-shifter believe, really?) will scramble the primary into a free-for-all.

However D4, a traditional rung to the San Diego mayors office, plays out, count on a ton of media coverage.

As if D4 werent siphoning enough energy out of D5, the 49th Congressional District pits incumbent Darrell Issa, R-Vista, against three fairly well-funded Democrats hoping to put Issa on ice.

Throw in the risible left-wing protests outside Issas Vista office and you have manna from heaven for local and national reporters.

Tuesday night, I moderated a 90-minute D5 candidate forum hosted by the Deputy Sheriffs Association and the Associated General Contractors.

Maybe 30 people showed up at the DSAs Poway office.

The three candidates were polite, smart, well-prepared. Not one personal attack. You had to like them all.

In fact, the forum felt a bit  Canadian.

Singing from the same hymnal, the candidates bemoaned the chronic understaffing of the Probation Department, a ticking time bomb thanks to early prison release. They cheered for infrastructure and economic growth.

Ive seen more combative fizz in water board races.

In the past, Horns gruff political persona guaranteed close, riveting elections.

The four southerly supervisors, on the other hand, typically coasted to re-election, well-known moderate Republicans touting sensible fiscal management.

This time around, however, Horns district appears to be a snoozer. Roberts district will be where the action is.

Throw in Issas intriguing balancing act (is he a Trump acolyte or a centrist Republican with an independent streak?) and its no wonder the District 5 race appears destined to play out in relative obscurity.

After 24 years of Horny arousal, D5 voters may welcome the nap.
Ileana Cabra only released her arresting debut album, the Grammy Award-winning iLevitable, in 2016, but shes no newcomer to music.

As the younger sister of Calle 13s Eduardo Visitante Cabra Martinez and Rene Residente  Perez Joglar, she spent a decade performing  under the stage name PG-13  with that immensely popular Puerto Rican band.

On her own as iLe, the 28-year-old vocalist turns away from Calle 13s infectious blend of hip-hop, reggaeton, rock, folk and electronica to embrace such Latin styles as bolero, trova, mambo and boogaloo.

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Her often understated singing is wonderfully nuanced, while her affinity for weathered music traditions suggests shes an old soul in a Millennials body.

Ile, with Todo Mundo: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The Music Box, 337 India St., San Diego. $32 (advance); $42 (day of show); must be 21 or older to attend. (619) 795-1337 or musicboxsd.com/ile

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga
A series of errors by Panama Canal pilots navigating the littoral combat ship Montgomery through a pair of locks last year caused a deep gash in the aluminum hull, a Navy probe determined.

The Navy released the investigative report into the Oct. 29, 2016, incident in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

It revealed that inexperienced Panamanian pilots  the shipboard guides who direct boats through the tight confines of the Canal  failed to safely move the trimaran-hulled vessel through a tight channel, causing at least $250,000 in damage.

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In the most serious incident, an unidentified lead pilot stubbornly refused to read important information about the warship or listen to another pilot and the Montgomerys skipper before trying to move the vessel through a lock, according to the investigation.

Canal officials and the Navy worked throughout the year to fix problems listed in the report, changes that likely will prevent future mishaps, officials said. They also learned that the warships bridge and crew performed well during the mishaps, a sign of well-led and proficient sailors.

Thats part of the reason why we do these investigations. Its to take the lessons learned out of them and to make improvements, said Capt. Jordy Harrison, the commodore of the San Diego-based Littoral Combat Ship Squadron One.

With a distinct trimaran hull that makes the Independence-class littoral combat ship look like something Batman would sail, the Montgomery isnt what typically moves through the Canal.

It has a beam that runs 105 feet at the ships widest point, only five feet smaller than the width of the series of four locks it would have to navigate to reach the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Montgomerys aluminum hull and the gracefully tapered bow make the warship lighter, faster and more nimble than many steel vessels.

That light hull helps the warship cut and turn faster through the waves and a shallow draft lets it nose up to shores other vessels cant get near, but its also easier to damage.

The Navy method when transiting the older and skinnier canal  rubbing, not racing  works for steel warships because the metal at slow speeds can withstand the scraping along the channels walls, but its potentially disastrous for lighter aluminum hulls.

Thats especially true for the Montgomery because despite its narrow bow the body flairs out, creating what Harrison called an optical illusion for the pilots because it suggested more room for the hull in the channel than actually existed.

The ships skipper, Cmdr. Daniel Straub, had asked Canal officials to use their tugboats to prod the $360 million Montgomery through a new 950-feet wide Neopanamax channel, but they denied permission and scheduled the warship for the older channel.

He also requested special fenders that would have cushioned the shock of the ship bumping against channel walls, but the American dockyard had no time to put them on before the warship reached the Canal.

Now theyre pasted and bolted to the warships long before they sail there.

A key reason why Straub asked for more room is because the Montgomerys propulsion system is quirky. It relies on water jets like a jet ski and an azimuth thruster network instead of a rudder, making its movements harder to predict and correct by inexperienced pilots as it transits the channel.

It moves around a lot more than they might be used to with a ship of its dimensions, Harrison said.

When pilots push vessels through the tinier channel they rely on a ballet of mules  locomotives on both shores that propel and steer a ship by adjusting the tension of connecting wires.

Radios connect observers on land and aboard the vessels to communicate movements with the ships bridge and conductors on the mules.

At the Gatun lock, a cable snagged on the rear of the vessel, ripping a quarter-sized divot in the aluminum. But that was only cosmetic damage because it failed to puncture the hull, according to the report.

It might have happened in part because the pilots on the Montgomery could not fully see what was happening. Chalk that up to the lack of bridge wings on the warship, walkways that lead out from the pilot house.

They make it easier for pilots perched on them to eye the walls and cables, but littoral combat ships initially waited until they arrived in San Diego for the wings to be welded on. Now theyre added by the shipyard before they go to sea so canal pilots can use them.

In May, the Navy imported a pair of Panamanian pilot trainers to the high-tech training complex at Naval Base San Diego. There, they learned how to handle littoral combat ships like the Montgomery in a wide variety of sea conditions.

Those drills helped ensure that the aluminum-hulled littoral combat ship Gabrielle Giffords made a summer transit through the locks without incident.

The Montgomerys second mishap happened hours later than the first, when the Montgomery clanged into the wall of the Pedro Miguel lock.

The impact punched an 18-inch dent on the left side of the ship and caused a crack the same length along the welding seam, about 10 feet above the waterline.

The accident investigation determined that a key reason for the accident stemmed from the Panamanian practice of rotating pilot crews as the vessel transited the locks and lake of the canal.

When an oncoming team leader arrived to replace the pilot and his crew on the Montgomery, a conversation erupted that did not appear to be convivial, according to the report.

In fact, a Montgomery sailor overheard the replacement lead pilot tell the departing team leader, This is not the first time I am doing this. Youre going to show me how?

When Cmdr. Straub tried to explain to the new pilot that the Montgomery needed to be handled gently, he rebuffed him.

He also declined to read the pilot card provided by Straub, vital information that wouldve showed him the unique speed, draft and other characteristics of the warship.

With the Montgomery 20 feet from the wall and closing, the pilot ordered it to move the bow right. Straub insisted he needed to slow the vessel and shift direction.

The safety officer on the left of the ship began shouting out the Montgomerys proximity to the wall  10 feet, then five, and then it struck.

Although the bridge rushed sailors to patch the hole and Straub requested a tugboat after leaving the lock to prevent further damage, the lead pilot still failed to realize that the ship had been slit open, the probe determined.

It wasnt the only headache for Straub since the Montgomery was commissioned in Alabama on Sept. 10, 2016.

Three days after leaving port, it suffered a pair of mechanical glitches that damaged the ships gas turbine engine.

The San Diego Union-Tribune requested the Navys report into the engine problems, but officials said one was never completed.

At Naval Station Mayport in Florida for repairs, the Montgomery was ordered out of port on Oct. 4, 2016, because Hurricane Matthew was bearing down on it and the Navy wanted the crew to ride out the storm at sea.

While under tow and in heaving waters, a tug boat struck and cracked the hull, causing a minor seawater intrusion that the crew also had to patch, according to Navy officials.

Citing the potential for litigation with the tug boat company, Navy officials declined to release that probe.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
Two new reports from government watchdog agencies say the Border Patrol is losing more agents per year faster that it can hire new ones, and that border and immigration enforcement agencies face significant challenges in hiring and training new personnel.

The reports from the Inspector General for Homeland Security department and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) were released separately over the past week. Yet both highlight the difficulties that federal agencies have filling the ambitious hiring goals laid out by President Donald Trump.

In a January executive order Trump called for hiring 5,000 more Border patrol agents, and 10,000 officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Both are key components of the administrations crackdown on illegal immigration and desire to bulk up border security.

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The GAO report examined how the Border Patrol deploys agents and the effectiveness of checkpoints manned by the agency. Auditors said that the agency has fewer agents now than it is supposed to have under a 2011 congressional mandate, which required the agency to have 21,370 agents.

But as of May this year the agency had just 19,500, or 1,870 fewer than required.

Compounding the problem is agents are leaving faster than they can be replaced. Auditors said that between 2013 and 2016 the Border patrol hired an average of 523 agents each year  and saw an average 904 leave.

Reason include better pay at competing agencies, a hiring process that requires applicants to pass a polygraph exam (which other agencies dont require) and assignments that often send new agents to remote locations along the border.

All but one of the nine sectors that comprise the southwest border, including San Diego sector, are operating below the number of agents they are authorized to have, the report noted.

Auditors also examined how the Border Patrol deploys the agents it has by analyzing three years of work deployment data. It found that 42 percent of the time agents were not available for deployment because of scheduled off time, training or not being on duty.

The audit also sheds new light on where unauthorized immigrants are apprehended and where drug are seized.

Four in 10 apprehensions between 2012 and 2016 occurred a half mile from the border.

However between 64 and 70 percent of all drug seizures by the agencies occurred more than 10 miles from the border, where the agency mans a network of checkpoints. Only 11 percent of seizures occurred close to the border and checkpoints account for less than two percent of apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants.

The checkpoints are controversial with critics saying they are not effective, easily circumvented, and violate constitutional rights. The audit said that the effectiveness of these checkpoints cant be resolved in large part because the agency still does not have good data collection practices. Auditors have urged better data collection as far back as 2009 but said that there are still gaps in reporting that make analyzing the effectiveness problematic.

The Inspector Generals report examines the management challenges facing the massive Homeland Security department, which includes Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol and ICE, and says the agencies cant yet justify hiring thousands more agents and officers.

Neither CBP nor ICE could provide complete data to support the operational need or deployment strategies for the 15,000 additional agents and officers they were directed to hire, the report said. Although DHS has established plans and initiated actions to begin an aggressive hiring surge, in recent years the Department and its components have encountered notable difficulties related to long hire times, proper allocation of staff, and the supply of human resources.

In a report one year ago the Inspector General said that it took about nine months to hire a single Border Patrol agent, and about seven months to hire an ICE officer.

The new report noted that while hiring times have improved there are still significant delays. It attributed those delays to not enough hiring staff and internal systems needed to hire staff efficiently

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
A lawsuit filed by a California Highway Patrol officer is alleging discrimination and harassment in his Central California station over his requests for leave to serve in the Air National Guard.

Officer Christopher Lutz alleges that his supervisors in the Oakhurst Station, east of Merced, made it difficult for him to report for his guard duty on time, belittled his service as an inconvenience to his colleagues and falsely accused him of filing improper requests for leave.

Lutz is seeking damages in state court in Sacramento for discrimination, retaliation and defamation.

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The lawsuit, filed in July, has become a test of whether claims can be brought against the state under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA, the federal statute that protects civilian job rights and benefits for veterans and members of reserve units.

The California attorney generals office argues that the state is legally immune to such claims. It has asked a judge to dismiss portions of the case alleging violation of the federal law. It argued in a court filing that, as a sovereign state, California cannot be sued under the statute.

Superior Court Judge David I. Brown scheduled a hearing on the motion for Dec. 4.

The lawsuit alleges that Lutz, who has been a CHP officer since 2005, encountered resistance to his leave requests after his 2011 transfer to Oakhurst, a small station at the foot of the Sierra Nevada.

His complaint says supervisors told him and others that his absences from the CHP because of military duty and training caused inconvenience for the supervisors, managers and other highway patrol officers.

They told Lutzs co-workers that he was to blame when the station was short staffed and officers were required to work extra hours.

He also alleged that he was shunned in the field, causing him to respond to emergencies without backup.

After Lutz filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor, the lawsuit said, then CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow  who became head of the UC Davis Police Department in July  told officers in his National Guard chain of command that he was dishonest and fraudulently creating military duty orders.

A National Guard investigation cleared him but was thoroughly embarrassing and humiliating and damaging to his military career, the complaint said.

Lutz alleged that his supervisors also denied him state employment/retirement credit for the time he was away on duty and required him to schedule vacation to get time off for his duty.

According to the complaint, Lutz served in the Army National Guard from 1996 to 2002, then joined the Air National Guard. He has piloted C-130 transport aircraft on more than 100 combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. He has also led missions fighting wildfires in the U.S.

A statement from the CHP said the agency would not comment on the case but is committed to supporting our military personnel while serving stateside or deployed overseas during peacetime or times of war.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Michael D. Gowe declined to comment on the case. In filings to the court, he contested the courts jurisdiction under the uniformed services act, arguing that the War Powers Act of the Constitution did not give Congress the authority to abrogate a states sovereignty.

Although there is no reported California decision on this issue, other states courts have concluded that Congress lacked the authority under Article I to abrogate state sovereign immunity in enacting USERRA, the motion said.

It cited an appeals court ruling in Minnesota that held that, while Congress may have wanted to abrogate state immunity against USERRA claims, it lacked the authority to do so.

A ruling for the state would not entirely derail the case, parts of which were filed under California law.

doug.smith@latimes.com

@LATDoug

UPDATES:

3:20 p.m.: This article was updated with a statement from the CHP.

This article was originally published at 2:30 p.m.
An 18-year-old man who allegedly jumped a woman and stabbed her husband while trying to steal their car near Lindbergh Field last month pleaded not guilty Thursday to premeditated attempted murder and other charges.

Alberto Moreno Jauregui was ordered held on $1 million in bail.

He was taken into custody after entering the San Ysidro Port of Entry from Tijuana on Monday, according to the San Diego Harbor Police Department.

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Late on the afternoon of Oct. 28, Jauregui allegedly confronted a North County couple as they were putting items into their vehicle in a parking lot off Admiral Boland Way, north of the airport.

The suspect allegedly brandished a knife, grabbed the woman around the neck and demanded the keys to the couples car. Her husband intervened, suffering several stab wounds before the assailant ran off.

Medics took the seriously injured man to a hospital, where he was treated for several days before being released, Harbor police Lt.Eric Womack said.

Jauregui, a U.S. citizen who is known to stay both in San Diego and Baja California, faces life in prison if convicted of attempted murder, assault, attempted carjacking and attempted kidnapping.

Jauregui will be back in court Nov. 16 for a status conference and Nov. 27 for a preliminary hearing.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
What's the point anymore?Oil is dying.Let it go.Notley plans pro-pipeline speaking tour, argues snubbing energy is 'economically negligent'As Kinder Morgans pipeline expansion in British Columbia faces a fresh challenge, Premier Rachel Notley will speak to business crowds in three provinces in an attempt to build support for the controversial project considered critical for Albertas energy sector.Notley said in an interview Sunday she will bring her sales pitch to Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver later this month in the hopes of convincing more Canadians the Trans Mountain expansion project is in the countrys best interest.We are a very small economic player internationally, and we punch well above our weight, but were not going to be able to do that if we become paralyzed by very parochial decision-making, she said.The oil and gas industry continues to contribute significantly to national economic growth. . . To walk away from it is negligent. Its economically negligent.Kinder Morgans project, already faced with legal challenges, has been met with new resistance in Burnaby, B.C., where the municipal government has not issued permits to allow for the $7.4-billion pipeline expansion.Arguing Burnaby is intentionally delaying construction, the company has asked the National Energy Board to intervene and allow for work to begin. That city counters it is following its process for reviewing similar development applications and rejects the idea it is dragging its feet.
Even for Yemenis accustomed to the brutal economies of life under a years-long siege, the effect of a blockade of all air, sea and land ports into the country was a surprise.

Food merchants immediately doubled all their prices. Fuel, in one moment, disappeared from the markets and the price of what remains is insanely high, said Yemeni civil rights activist Baraa Shaiban in a phone interview from London.

And those who are sick, who need to travel for treatment, theyre the worst hit.

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The result of the closure by a Saudi Arabian-led coalition could be a famine affecting millions of victims, said Mark Lowcock, the United Nations undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, in a briefing at the U.N. Security Council.

It will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year where tens of thousands of people were affected. It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011, said Lowcock.

There were reports earlier in the week that Saudi Arabia would allow work to resume at the southern port of Aden, but as of late Thursday, it was unclear whether aid boats had been able to dock, said Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, in a phone interview.

The coalitions imposition of the blockade on Monday came after the Houthis -- the rebels who seized the reins of power three years ago and whom Saudi Arabia views as a proxy for Iran  launched a ballistic missile targeting the airport of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Though the projectile was intercepted, the incident enraged Saudi leaders, who called it an act of war by Iran.

In response, the coalition sealed off the country to address vulnerabilities in its inspection procedures, which had already slowed aid deliveries to a crawl in Houthi-controlled ports such as Saleefah and Hodeidah. The latter is the main entry point for roughly 70% of Yemens food imports, including those reaching the capital, Sana.

The coalition even shut down those entry points under the control of its ally, the internationally recognized government-in-exile of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, which the coalition has supported with a bombing campaign that human rights organizations say has killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians. It also imposed a siege beginning in March 2015 that has all but crippled Yemenis ability to cope and precipitated a wide-scale cholera crisis that has affected some 900,000 people.

The U.S. has provided arms as well as logistical support (including mid-air refueling) to the coalition.

The Red Cross said on Tuesday the latest closure prevented it from delivering a shipment of chlorine tablets, necessary for the prevention of cholera, and fears that it will not be able to deliver 50,000 vials of much-needed insulin.

Humanitarians access to the country has also been impeded, the U.N. said.

Saudi is killing Yemenis not only with cluster bombs, but with starvation and disease, said Nasser Arrabyee, a Sana-based journalist, in a phone interview on Thursday. Its a matter of life and death for us.

Saudi Arabia blamed the Houthis, saying in a letter delivered to the U.N. on Wednesday that their continued resort to violence, refusal to return to legitimacy and abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions, have resulted in the catastrophic humanitarian situation and is obstructing the political solution to the conflict.

It accused Iran of manufacturing and supplying the missile launched by the Houthis, which it said was clear evidence of Irans hostile behavior.

Irans continued role in smuggling weapons to the Houthis is a clear sign of its complete disregard for international obligations.

The closures come as part of a larger escalation by Saudi Arabia against what it sees as Iranian interference in the region. Over the past week, it has de-facto deposed Saad Hariri, Lebanons prime minister, and is holding him against his will, according to Hariris party.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said on Tuesday that her government was committed to containing Irans destabilizing actions and will not turn a blind eye to these serious violations of international law by the Iranian regime.

McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said that even if aid could reach Aden, it is only one of several ports needed for humanitarian access.

Its not an alternative, and it doesnt have enough capacity to substitute for Hodeida and Saleef, said McGoldrick. Aside from food, he added, the lack of fuel, used to pump clean water, has forced people to take a gamble on untreated water, potentially exacerbating the cholera challenge.

Shipping aid to Aden would force humanitarians to truck shipments to Sana, almost 200 miles to the northwest, and other Houthi-held areas in the north of the country, a journey of at anywhere from 12 to 18 hours across a chaotic battlefield with dozens of checkpoints run by a patchwork of militias.

It would also allow the coalition to control aid flows in the country  a chilling development for those living in Houthi-controlled areas, said Kristin Beckerle, Yemen researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Given the coalitions immense power over what goes in and out of Yemen, their ability to affect civilian life is exponential, Beckerle said in a phone interview.

Forgetting politics, Sana is the largest population center, with people who have nothing to do with the war. Its willful ignorance of what it means to civilians to close particular ports of entry.

And although she welcomed the opening of Adens port, she warned that reliance on Aden should not become the permanent arrangement.

Even before Monday, the U.N. was raising the alarm bells and saying it needs more access and the coalition did the exact opposite, she said, adding that other closures that hurt civilians, such as the shutting down of the Sana airport in August 2016, had been allowed to become the status quo.

Aden port will be a positive development from where we were on Monday, but thats not the baseline.

Bulos is a special correspondent.

Twitter: @nabihbulos
Nearly every Tuesday morning since President Donald Trump entered the White House, hundreds of protesters have met outside of Rep. Darrell Issas Vista office to push the Republican congressman to reject the new presidents agenda.

Loosely organized by volunteer leaders, they formed a dozen or so grassroots organizations with little if any background in politics and no real budget.

Some of that is now changing with the recent addition of a new group that plans to bring in seasoned political operatives charged with creating a long-term political movement in the district. It also has money from a Manhattan-based political committee.

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Flip the 49th Neighbors in Action was legally formed in May, and is driven by stalwarts of progressive politics  organized labor and the local Democratic party. It brings skills to organize voter registration drives, organize communities and launch data-driven outreach programs.

After the election in November, the old rules didnt apply, said David Lagstein, the political director of Service Employees International Union, Local 221 and a principal officer in Flip the 49th. And one of the old ways is that from the perspective of labor and the Democratic Party and the emerging groups, there really needs to be an effort to work together.

Terra Lawson-Remer of Encinitas, one of the groups other officers and a former Obama-era adviser in the Treasury Department, said theyre combining elements of traditional campaigns and community organizing, backed with data-driven analysis to support the various grassroots organizations in the district.

Were a community organizing program, Lawson-Remer said. Were focusing on the issues that are most important to them, and were trying to get people to do that work more effectively.

Leaders say they are trying to create a sustainable movement within the district, rather than operate like a political campaign that surges in the months before an election and then disappears after polls close.

Ellen Montanari is also listed as an officer. She has long been behind the weekly protests in Vista and holds the city permit that makes the assemblies legal.

IRS records show that Flip the 49th formed as a so-called 527 organization, a type of group that has been criticized by both the left and the right as conduits for dark money in politics. Records from July also show that it has received $25,000 from Manhattan-based Fight for a Better America political group and another $235 from other sources. A new financial report is due in January.

Issa spokesman Calvin Moore said the addition of the Flip the 49th and the New York donation wont make a difference in the election, and said its clear that the opposition to Issa is being covertly run by liberal insiders, not local constituents.

They poured in millions of dollars to our district last year in a failed effort to topple Congressman Issa. Voters wont be any more receptive this time around, now that theyve seen their shady playbook and the dark money backing their carefully scripted theatrics, Moore said.

Flip the 49th has added structure compared to previous efforts, said Tazheen Nizam, who volunteered for Democratic candidates during the last two congressional races. Previously, a hodgepodge of groups worked alongside each other and often overlapped their efforts, she said.

It was amateurish, Nizam said. We were organizations, but we were not professionals. I have a full-time job, a kid and a family. We were just amateurs.

Now, groups meet monthly and there is a team that goes to neighborhoods with a list of addresses they should visit. They know the residents names, if they want a yard sign and what issues matter to them, she said.

Montanari said that the weekly protests outside of Issas district office are still led by people across the political spectrum who are fed up with national politics, but theres now a way to coordinate the efforts.

If theres not some infrastructure there to support them, some paid staff, you really cant get a lot done, Montanari said. We can hire people who can do some heavy lifting and the volunteers can get out and do what they want to do

The leap in organization is, in part, due to money. Federal Election Commission records show that Flip the 49th received $25,000 from Fight for a Better America, the political-action committee in Manhattan. The group is known as a super-PAC because it can raise and spend unlimited money. It cant, however, give directly to candidates or coordinate with them.

The super-PACs treasurer and chairman, Bill Kuhn, said his groups founders and supporters are from liberal strongholds and want to put their money in Republican-held districts that can turn. They noticed the 49th District when Lawson-Remer wrote a detailed analysis of the 2016 election, in which Issa won by a mere 1,621 votes  the closest margin of any congressional race in the country.

We obviously wanted to go to where there was a lot of activism and there was a lot of momentum and reaction to Trump, and, obviously, the margin of victory. We also had a local on the ground who wrote a strategy paper, Kuhn said.

Moore said the funding shows that the opposition to Issa is disingenuous.

Since the day the Indivisible Guide was published, its becoming increasingly clear that political professionals in Washington and liberals from San Francisco have been calling the shots and paying the bills for these protest groups antics, Moore said.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
A man in a possibly faked Army uniform stabbed an active-duty serviceman who challenged him at a Gaslamp Quarter bar late Thursday night, according to police and a witness.

The witness, who talked to Fox 5 news and other reporters, said he and his friend tried to make a correction on the other mans Class A uniform.

He said the uniform was missing a patch and his rank was upside down.

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After the fact he got hostile we realized it was kind of fake, the witness, whose name was not given, told reporters.

An argument over whether the mans Army uniform was real turned into a fight that spilled out of Henrys Pub on Fifth Avenue about 11:30 p.m., San Diego police said.

Police said the uniformed suspect, identified as 42-year-old Marc Dominguez, cut the victim several times with knife. The victim, 30, was treated by medics, then taken to a hospital.

News footage outside the bar showed the victim in a blood-spattered T-shirt but no apparent major injuries.

His friend described the confrontation, saying, He came up and attacked my friend. I was finally able to grab his hand and throw him off my friend.

Police had no information to confirm whether Dominguez is an Army serviceman. He was booked into jail about 3 a.m. Friday on one count of assault with a deadly weapon. His bail was set at $30,000.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
A year after California voters legalized recreational marijuana, cities from San Diego to Eureka are about to find out whether consumers will flock to licensed stores to buy it.

The state and many cities are hustling to write and issue the permits that retailers would need to begin selling cannabis on January 1st, a long-standing goal.

San Diego has already authorized a marijuana supply chain that covers everything from cultivation to testing to manufacturing.

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Other cities are strongly opposed to the sale of adult use marijuana, and have banned it.

The conflicting moves have created confusion about what is and isnt permitted under Proposition 64, the law voters approved last year, giving people 21 and older the right to possess, grow and eventually buy recreational cannabis.

The Union-Tribune spoke to everyone from state officials to marijuana retailers to to police to provide this update of whats about to happen.

Q: How many licensed stores will begin selling recreational marijuana on or about January 1st, and where will the stores be located?

A: The details are still being worked out, but it appears that there will be about a dozen stores in San Diego. The city has issued 17 licenses for the sale of medical marijuana, and roughly 12 stores are now open. Those stores are likely to get permission to sell recreational marijuana on January 1st, or shortly thereafter. The outlets are located in places like Bay Park, Kearny Mesa and Mission Valley.

The number of outlets is expected to grow. San Diego has embraced the sale of marijuana more fully than almost any other community in California, including San Francisco and Los Angeles. The city established a supply chain for marijuana that involves everything from cultivation to testing and manufacturing.

Like other cities, San Diego is hoping to generate a lot of money by taxing marijuana sales, and perhaps to deal a blow to the black market at the same time.

Q. What are other cities and unincorporated San Diego County doing?

The county Board of Supervisors has taken an opposite stance, outlawing cannabis stores and farms in unincorporated areas. The handful of licensed dispensaries that already exist in those areas will be limited to selling medical marijuana.

Many cities also have banned the commercial sale of recreational marijuana, including Poway, Santee, San Marcos and National City. It is possible that one or more will reconsider if things go smoothly in San Diego. Chula Vista is going to discuss legalization in December. Encinitas voters will decide next year whether to allow for the commercial cultivation of marijuana.

Despite these restrictions, people who are 21 or older can possess, transport and buy up to one ounce. Thats been true since California voters approved Proposition 64 in November 2016.

Q: Does that mean I can buy marijuana without worrying that my employer will fire me if I consume it?

A: Not necessarily. Employers can fire you if you test positive during a drug test. And landlords do not have to allow you to use marijuana on their properties. Those two provisions were included in Proposition 64, largely to increase its likelihood of passing.

Q: Are there places to buy marijuana other than licensed stores?

A: There are unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries in the region, and its very easy to obtain the card you need to purchase cannabis. In most cases, all you need to do is answer a series of questions that are meant to suggest that you need the card, whether you do or not. You can apply at the offices of companies that sell these cards, or do everything online. In many cases, you can also arrange to have the marijuana delivered to your home.

Q: Will I have to show an ID to buy recreational marijuana?

A: Youll need a state or federal ID. Your drivers license will do. And, as noted, you have to be at least 21. Parents wont be able to bring children into the stores, so plan accordingly. And dont even think about asking for sample that you can consume in the store. Thats forbidden. So is consuming marijuana in public places.

Q: What kind of products do the stores sell?

A: They sell everything from loose marijuana to pre-rolled joints and cigars to battery-powered vaping devices that can be charged by sticking them in to the USB port of a laptop. They also sell a lot of edible marijuana products, including popcorn, cookies, syrup, chocolate and candy. Marijuana is available in a variety of drinks. And it is infused in butters and other things that are spread on bread and bananas. There are topical creams and soaps, some of which are designed to alleviate stress, pain or sleeplessness without get a person stoned. Some stores also sell marijuana to treat arthritis in dogs.

The marijuana you buy will come in a sealed container. You can transport cannabis in a motor vehicle. But dont open it until you reach a place where you can legally use it, such as a private residence. In fact, place the marijuana in your trunk when youre leaving the dispensary. Remove temptation.

And do not transport marijuana across state lines, even to states like Nevada, where recreational marijuana is legal. Youd be breaking the law.

Q: Can I use a credit card to buy pot?

A: No. The sale of marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, which means that these stores dont have easy access to the banking system and financial service companies. For the most part, it is a cash-only businesses. Many stores feature cash machines.

Q: A lot of marijuana farms were damaged in Northern California during Octobers wildfires. Does that mean that there would be an adequate supply in San Diego when recreational sales increase?

A: San Diegos marijuana retailers are not dependent on one company or region for their supply. So the fires arent expected to cause a local shortage. But the stores could experience heavy demand when they begin recreational sales. Its possible that there will be spot outages.

Q: Is it true that marijuana is far more potent today than it was years ago?

A: Scientists broadly agree that pot has become more potent based on the percentage of THC that they find in marijuana. THC refers to tetrahydrocannabinol, one of the chemical compounds found in the planet. THC is psychoactive; its the thing that gets you stoned.

Two years ago, Charas Scientific, a potency testing lab in Colorado, reported that the level of THC in samples it measured was about 20 percent. Some samples hit 30 percent. The THC level was believed to be less than 10 percent in the 1970s and 1980s.

The University of Washington offers a different perspective on THC levels, stating on its website: The marijuana used today is stronger than it used to be, but not as strong as has been written in some media reports (claiming marijuana is 30 times stronger today than during the 1970s).

Q: How will a consumer know whether the marijuana they buy from January 1st on is free of harmful pesticides?

A: Dallin Young, executive director of the Association of Cannabis Professionals in San Diego, told us, Each and every product must be tested for each of these contaminants before they reach retail shelves

Because of this, each time a product changes hands along the entirety of the supply chain, it will most likely be tested to ensure that the buyer is not at risk of a contaminated product.

Q: California has a clearly stated law on alcohol and driving. How clear is the law when it involves marijuana?

A: California Vehicle Code 23152 says, in part, It is unlawful for a person who is under the influence of any drug to drive a vehicle.

Police use a variety of roadside techniques to determine if a person is impaired. They also can administer a blood test, which will reveal THC levels. But the test does not clearly indicate when a person used pot. And the amount of THC does not always match how high a person is.

Young notes: Marijuana effects everyone differently. What makes one person much too high to drive a vehicle might not even cause another person to be impaired at all.

The state legislature turned to UC San Diego for help, giving researchers $1.8 million to develop a better, faster roadside sobriety test for marijuana. The research is underway right now.

Q: The sale of marijuana is illegal under federal law. Could the government simply shut down all of these stores?

A: Theoretically yes, said Lincoln Fish, co-founder of Outco, a licensed seed-to-sale marijuana company in El Cajon.

Practically it would be incredibly challenging. The Rohrbacher-Farr amendment, which is likely to be renewed in the next budget, completely restricts the use of federal dollars for enforcement or prosecution of cannabis-related crimes in states where it is legal.

So they have no money to go after dispensaries, grows. And since the American public is now 94-percent in favor of medical marijuana (Quinnipiac poll) and over 60-percent for recreational, its unlikely the feds will try to make such a bold move.

Union-Tribune staff writer David Garrick contributed to this story.

Sources: California Bureau for Cannabis Control, Association of Cannabis Professionals, San Diego Police Department, UCLA Cannabis Research Institute, UC San Diego, Urbn Leaf, Outco, Mankind Cooperative, Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana, and How to Smoke Pot (Properly) by David Bienenstock.

THE WILL OF THE VOTERS

On November 8, 2016, California voters approved Proposition 64, which made recreational marijuana legal for people 21 and older. The measure passed by a margin of 57.1 percent to 42.9 percent. In San Diego County, 744,836 people voted in favor of the proposal, and 561,478 opposed it.

The new law permits people to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, and gives them the right to grow up to six plants in their home. The law also prohibits the smoking of marijuana in public, and it reaffirms that driving while impaired by cannabis is illegal.

Recreational marijuana is now legal in seven states, and the District of Columbia. Medical marijuana has been approved in 29 states, and the District of Columbia. California approved medical marijuana in 1996, becoming the first state to do so.

BY THE NUMBERS

$7 billion

The state estimates that legal marijuana sales could raise $7 billion a year

$1 billion

The state estimates that Proposition 64 could raise up to $1 billion a year in tax revenue by 2021.

183 million

The United Nations estimates that 183 million people used marijuana around the world in 2014.

1,000

Number of pounds of marijuana that were grown over the past year by Outco, a licensed commercial grower based in El Cajon.

WORTH QUOTING

We are producing too much (marijuana and) are going to have to scale back. We are on a painful downsizing curve.

-- Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

I believe that recreational marijuana will become as mainstream as craft beers.

Will Senn, founder of Urbn Leaf, a San Diego-based marijuana retailer

WORDS TO KNOW

The federal government says the word marijuana refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica plant.

The website Zamnesia attribute the following traits to the two strains:

Sativa: Energizing and uplifting. Stimulates creativity and thoughts. Promotes sense of well-being. Relieves headaches and migraines. Reduces nausea. Stimulates the appetite. Relieves depression.

Indica: Relaxing and laid back. Relieves pain and aches. Reduces anxiety and stress. Aids sleep. Reduces inflammation. Helps relieve spasms and seizures. Stimulates the appetite.

Independently, marijuana experts note that the plants can also create the opposite effects of the ones stated above.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency considers marijuana to be a harmful drug, stating on its website: Short-term physical effects from marijuana use may include sedation, blood shot eyes, increased heart rate, coughing from lung irritation, increased appetite, and decreased blood pressure. Like tobacco smokers, marijuana smokers experience serious health problems such as bronchitis, emphysema, and bronchial asthma. Extended use may cause suppression of the immune system. Because marijuana contains toxins and carcinogens, marijuana smokers increase their risk of cancer of the head, neck, lungs and respiratory track.

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
State transportation officials plan to share their latest thinking on how to prevent suicides on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge next week.

A study by Caltrans is investigating how other cities have prevented suicides on bridges, cliffs and at other locations to determine which methods are most compatible with the Coronado Bridge.

We will be showing some of the elements that weve studied and the results that weve seen so far, said Cathryne Bruce-Johnson, spokeswoman for Caltrans District 11.

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Public meetings to outline progress on the study will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday Nov. 14 and Thursday 15 at the Coronado Community Center (1846 Strand Way) and the San Diego Community College (1901 Main St.) respectively.

Attendees will be able to ask questions and offer feedback to Caltrans employees working on the project.

They can learn about the progress weve made on the study, including some displays about some of the suicide prevention (system) types that weve looked at so far, Bruce-Johnson said.Its an opportunity for an exchange of information.

More than 400 people have plunged to their death since the bridge opened in 1969, and suicide attempts have regularly caused traffic jams on the 200-foot structure.

Community members have for years called for officials to come up with a solution. The bridge has a three-foot-tall wall along either side.

Caltrans started looking into different suicide deterrent systems this summer, and the final report is expected this spring.

Other cities have used tall barriers with some success to prevent people from jumping to their death. In San Francisco construction is underway on stainless steel nets about 20 feet below the Golden Gate Bridge.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com
In 1973, while serving in the Pentagon, I was assigned to a study group charged with reorganizing the Navys fleet staffs to accommodate a 25 percent cut in staffing. Hoping to achieve something positive from such a reduction, I proposed combining eight surface ship type commands into two surface force commands at the three-star level, one on each coast. My intent was to create a Navy surface warfare community equal in prestige, professionalism and influence in the competition for resources to the naval aviation and submarine communities. The two combined staffs, replacing eight others plus support units, would also eliminate redundancy.

After the usual resistance to major change, the recommendation was approved and Commander Naval Surface Force, based in Coronado, became the surface boss, as he is called, with maintenance, training and administrative responsibilities for all cruisers, destroyers, amphibious and service force ships plus associate staffs and support units. At the time, we were optimistic that the change would result in a highly professional surface warfare specialty that would attract and accept only the best.

Unfortunately, it hasnt worked out that way because of a culture prevalent in our Navy that perpetuates the mindset that while it takes special skills and intensive training to fly or crew an airplane or command or crew a submarine, nearly anyone can learn to command a ship or serve as an officer in charge of a bridge watch underway (Officer of the Deck, or OOD). If an unrestricted line officer doesnt have the right stuff to be an aviator or submariner, we can always find something for him or her to do on a ship.

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Aviators and submariners are extensively trained before assigned to an aircraft squadron or submarine. Things are different in the surface navy. New officers report onboard their first ship with little or no training in ship handling and seamanship which they are expected to learn onboard in addition to their regular duties with occasional sessions in a simulator. Our Navy ships are, essentially, training platforms. Merchant ships, which comprise most of the traffic on the seas, are, on the other hand, staffed with professional, licensed mariners on the bridge who are already trained. The difference in professionalism and experience is significant.

There was a time in our Navy when ship handling and seamanship were prized above all other skills. That time has passed as the complexity of combat and engineering systems and other shipboard equipment has increased. The emphasis now is on warfighting skills, division or department responsibilities, collateral duties and administrative programs, some having little to do with the Navy mission. Ship handling, seamanship and watch standing duties have been relegated to the level of collateral duties.

In contrast with licensed civilian mariners, driving our complex and expensive warships is a part-time job with the average career surface officer spending at least half a career ashore and much of the sea duty in port. Experience matters at sea in todays crowded seaways and surface warfare officers dont get enough of it. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that our fleet, the smallest since the Great Depression, is stretched almost to the breaking point by increasing commitments. This is becoming more and more evident as demonstrated by three collisions and a grounding this year resulting in three anti-ballistic defense ships based in Japan out of action at a time of greatly increased tensions.

In reviewing the recent collisions, there has been reference to a culture in the Navy ships involved that contributed to the collisions. But Navy commanding officers (COs) are hardly onboard long enough to establish a culture which is part of the problem. A two-year command tour is too short. Adm. Hyman Rickover at one time insisted that COs in his nuclear-powered ships and submarines stay at least four years in command.

Our surface warships have an abundance of new ensigns onboard, most of whom will not remain in the surface Navy but still will receive shipboard, simulator and classroom training, diluting the training effort which should be concentrated on those who will remain. We should focus the training on the very best of these. But the emphasis in the surface Navy has been more on building career paths rather than professionalism and experience and now we have 17 dead sailors to show for it. We must do a better job of preparing OODs and COs and providing them with the requisite training and experience. It is not enough to fire people and replace them with more of the same. We have to change the culture Navy-wide. Our sailors, their families and the taxpayers deserve nothing less.

Kelly, a retired Navy captain who commanded three San Diego-based ships and a naval laboratory, is a freelance writer based in Coronado. He teaches ship handling and seamanship at Naval Base, San Diego.
Democrats have been elated since Tuesdays wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governors races, their huge gains in the Virginia legislature and smaller, notable victories nationwide. So will congressional voters in 2018 make President Donald Trump the fourth straight president to have his party lose control of Congress while in office?

Citing historically low polling numbers for Trump and an energized Democratic base, Democratic political operatives are hopeful. Still, the GOP is positioned to retain the Senate. Democrats hold 25 of the 34 Senate seats that are up for grabs  10 in states Trump won in 2016, five won by double digits.

The House is different, though. Even if Trump were more popular, Republicans were likely to struggle in 2018s 435 House races to hold the 241 seats they won in 2016. The presidents party has a long tradition of doing poorly in midterm elections  with an average loss of 24 seats over the last 60 years. Thats the same number of seats Democrats need to pick up next year to retake the House, and Roll Calls analysis says 50 Republicans  including Vistas Darrell Issa  face close races as opposed to only 14 Democrats who do.

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But for three big reasons, Democrats shouldnt assume 2018 will be their year.

The first is that if the economy keeps growing, the stock market keeps booming and Republicans manage to pass a tax-overhaul bill that truly does help the middle class, that narrative offers powerful cover for GOP incumbents. This cover may be diminished by the results of the Russia probe, new Trump scandals, war or terror attacks, but a humming economy is a powerful political advantage.

The second is that Democrats are in the middle of a civil war that has reached new heights in recent weeks with allegations by former interim Democratic Party chair Donna Brazile that the Democratic National Committee acted to help former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defeat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 party nomination fight  a conspiracy theory that Berniecrats have long believed. The same sort of purity tests that cost Republican incumbents their seats at the height of the tea party movement are likely in many Democratic primaries, including California. State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, for one, is challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the grounds that she is insufficiently militant in her opposition to Trump and in her support for progressive causes.

The third is that the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, is at a 25-year low in popularity, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday. Just 37 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party  about the same as with Trump, but better than the GOPs 30 percent. Americans arent enthusiastic about either partys agenda.

The discontent on display in U.S. politics in recent years isnt subsiding. Whatever happens in the 2018 elections, its likely that millions of Americans will still want to throw the establishment bums out  no matter who they are  in 2020. Until more Americans believe that Washington is looking out for them, topsy-turvy elections are the new normal.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Backed by fellow California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris and nearly two dozen other co-sponsors, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced a bill that would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of 205 military-style assault weapons as well as high-capacity ammunition magazines and devices such as bump stocks that let semi-automatic weapons fire at fully automatic rates. The bill explicitly allows Americans to keep the weapons and magazines they already legally own.

This is a smart, desperately needed, limited proposal with promise to reduce the gun massacres that have become all too common in America. The most recent are among the worst: 26 dead Sunday at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and 58 dead last month at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas.

Feinstein famously authored the assault-weapon ban that was law from 1994 until its sunset in 2004. Studies show the ban led to a decline in both gun murders and crimes committed using assault weapons. And the previous ban didnt lead to a slippery slope in which draconian new gun controls were adopted  the core argument used by the powerful National Rifle Association against new gun laws. Feinstein deserves support from those who want a safer America  starting with her fellow lawmakers.

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Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
A month before a high-profile special Senate election in Alabama, the race is suddenly receiving a lot of media attention as one candidate is denying a series of allegations about his conduct decades ago.

According to a story published Thursday by The Washington Post, four women are alleging that Roy Moore, a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, pursued them when he was in his early 30s and they were teenagers.

One said he asked her on dates that her mother forbade, two said they went on multiple dates with him, and one claimed he initiated sexual contact with her when she was 14 and he was 32. Alabama is a state where the legal age of consent is 16, and 14-year-olds were legally allowed to get married until 2003 when the minimum age for marriages was increased to 16. Moores defenders are noting the age of consent, but Moore has not.

These allegations are completely false and are a desperate political attack by the National Democrat Party and the Washington Post on this campaign, Moore, now 70, said in a written statement to the Post.

Moore is running against Democrat Doug Jones in a special election on Dec. 12 to fill the seat left vacant when Jeff Sessions became President Donald Trump s attorney general.

The allegations dominated the news cycle on Thursday, to say the least.

There is a lot to unpack here. Here are a few things to know about this story and the potential ramifications for Moore in the race.

What do the women claim?

Leigh Corfman, now 53, said she was 14 when Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, approached her in early 1979, according to The Post. She said that over the course of two encounters, he kissed her, took off his and her clothes and touched her over her bra and underpants.

Gloria Thacker Deason said she was 18 and Moore was 32 in 1979 when they dated on and off for several months but that their physical relationship did not go further than kissing and hugging.

Wendy Miller also told The Post she was 16 in 1979 when Moore approached her and, two years later, began asking her out on dates, which her mother forbade.

Debbie Wesson Gibson told The Post that she was 17 in 1981 when the two dated for two or three months.

How did Moore respond?

Moore denied the allegations and, in a statement, slammed the Democratic Party and the countrys most liberal newspaper for a fabrication.

Judge Roy Moore is winning with a double-digit lead, the statement read. So it is no surprise, with just over four weeks remaining, in a race for the U.S. Senate with national implications, that the Democratic Party and the countrys most liberal newspaper would come up with a fabrication of this kind.

The statement ended, This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation.

Will this affect the race?

Moore is running to replace the seat vacated by Sessions when he went on to become Trumps attorney general. Trump and other leading Republicans supported his GOP opponent, Sen. Luther Strange, in the Sept. 26 runoff election.

Trump praised Moore a day after he defeated Strange in the primary, and the president was reportedly mad at Republicans who had encouraged him to endorse Strange.

The latest poll by Fox 10/Strategy Research in mid-October shows Moore leading by 11 points ahead of the December runoff election. But RealClear Politics on Thursday showed Moore had an average poll lead of 6 points.

How are Republicans responding?

The story was getting a lot of attention in Washington where a tax overhaul bill unveiled by Republican senators was suddenly pushed out of the news cycle on Thursday. As the Moore story broke, journalists sought out Republicans for their reactions.

Some of them called on Moore to resign if the allegations are true. One said Moore should immediately step aside.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski , R-Alaska:

Sen. David Perdue, R-Georgia

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado

Who is defending Moore?

Breitbart News, which is overseen by former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, supported Moore with a headline in bold letters on its site that read: AFTER ENDORSING DEMOCRAT IN ALABAMA, WASHINGTON POST PLANS TO HIT ROY MOORE WITH ALLEGATIONS OF INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONS WITH TEENAGERS; JUDGE FIRES BACK DENIAL  BREITBART

Joel Pollack, a Breitbart editor, also defended Moore on MSNBC.

The 16-year-old and the 18-year-old have no business in that story because those are women of legal age of consent, Pollack said in reference to Alabamas minimum legal age of consent, then and now, which is 16.

Another defender of Moore, Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler, drew parallels to biblical anecdotes of older men fathering children with much younger women.

Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist, Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

What do you think  should Roy Moore step down from the race in Alabama? Is Moore the target of a smear campaign as his defenders say? Is this just a big distraction to keep us from talking about tax reform?

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.
Another Trump official resigns.Trump official ready to resign after being asked to deport 50,000 immigrantsElaine Duke, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is reportedly set to resign in light of being asked to reverse a decision extending temporary residents permits to thousands of Central American immigrants living in the US.Ms Duke was reportedly asked by White House Chief of Staff and former head of DHS John Kelly to not allow some 57,000 Hondurans and 2,500 Nicaraguans to stay in the country on Temporary Protective Status (TPS).DHS had a deadline of 6 November to make the decision for people who were allowed to remain in the US under TPS, a programme which began in 1990 to stop deportations to countries who could not handle an influx of people returning after natural disasters or other crises.Several Hondurans arrived in the US after Hurricane Mitch had hit the Central American region in 1998.Ms Duke felt it was a politically driven intrusion on the part of Mr Kelly and White House Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert, sources told the Washington Post.Ms Duke ultimately decided to end the TPS programme for Nicaraguans - they have until January 2019 to leave or change status - but gave the Hondurans a six-month extension for the agency to make a decision.Donald Trump's immigration crackdown encapsulated in poignant footage of father being deportedAccording to officials, she felt she needed more information on the situation with Hondurans and had received calls from diplomats asking her to weigh the fate of those immigrants, who had lived in the country for decades, with care.The Trump administration has said it feels the programme is being misused, to grant long-term residency rather than a short-term stay in emergency situations.Mr Kelly reportedly told Ms Duke that she was kicking the can down the road and it was not in line with the administrations immigration priorities.
Curiosity about the federal governments ongoing probe into Russian election interference was rekindled Thursday with CNN reporting that Stephen Miller , a senior White House policy adviser, had met with FBI special counsel Robert Mueller .

Miller may not be as well-known a name as others in the Trump administration, but he is certainly a person with influence as a close adviser to President Donald Trump. Miller has also had memorable appearances in front of TV cameras, including a time on Aug. 2 when he clashed with CNNs Jim Acosta over immigration.

So who is he, what does he do at the White House and what did Mueller want to ask him? Here is a quick breakdown of the latest developments in the Russia investigation.

Who is Stephen Miller?

Miller joined the Trump team in early 2016 when the campaign appointed him as a senior policy adviser. After Trumps election victory in November, Miller was then named national policy director in the transition team.

Before all that, he served as the communication director for then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is now Trumps attorney general. Miller has also worked as a press secretary for other lawmakers, including Rep. Michele Bachmann , R-Minnesota, and Rep. John Shadegg , R-Arizona.

Miller was born in Santa Monica in 1985 and is a graduate of Duke University. He was profiled in a Vanity Fair article that was published this summer and detailed what led to the 31-year-old shaping Trumps travel ban.

Whats his role in the White House?

Miller is now a senior White House policy adviser, and he is widely credited as being the architect of the travel ban, working side-by-side with then-White House adviser Steve Bannon, according to Vanity Fair.

His communication skills have come in handy as a Trump speechwriter, too. He helped craft an inaugural speech that the Wall Street Journal said struck a nationalistic tone for using the phrases America first and radical Islamic terrorism for the first time in an inauguration  and a high-profile speech Trump gave in Poland.

How is he germane to Muellers investigation?

FBI investigators are interested in people who attended a March 2016 meeting that one former Trump campaign adviser said he could help arrange with Russians, CNN reported. Sources reportedly told CNN that Miller was in that meeting.

In addition to investigating what, if any, links Russia may have had with the Trump campaign, Mueller may be investigating the circumstances around which Trump fired James Comey , who was then FBI director.

CNN reported that Miller helped Trump write a memo giving his reasoning to fire Comey. The letter was reportedly never used.

Has Miller been accused of wrongdoing?

Miller has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

In another development of the Mueller investigation two weeks ago, Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman for Donald Trumps presidential campaign and his former business associate, Rick Gates, were both charged with 12 counts ranging from money laundering to making false statements to authorities to conspiracy against the United States, while George Papadopoulos, a one-time foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, has been charged with lying to FBI investigators.

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.
President Donald Trump s campaign promise to put America first was sent loud and clear in a speech he gave at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO summit in Vietnam on Friday.

From this day forward, we will compete on a fair and equal basis, he said. We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore.

The speech to regional CEOs was given at the summit amid a multination trip to Asia the president has been on for the past week, and he said hes been using the journey to share the good news from America.

Ive had the honor of sharing our vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, a place where sovereign and independent nations with diverse cultures and many different dreams can prosper side by side and thrive in freedom and in peace, Trump said.

That vision, Trump explained, is boosted by a new optimism in the United States that the president referenced at the summit while outlining how he thinks trade should be conducted among APEC members.

I am always going to put America first, the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first, said the president.

Here are some other highlights of Trumps speech:

Denouncing previous U.S. administrations

The current trade imbalance is not acceptable. I do not blame China or any other country, of which there are many, for taking advantage of the United States on trade. If their representatives are able to get away with it, they are just doing their jobs. I wish previous administrations in my country saw what was happening and did something about it. They did not, but I will.

Pledging an America first policy for trade

From this day forward, we will compete on a fair and equal basis. We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first.

The United States is prepared to work with each of the leaders in this room today to achieve mutually beneficial commerce that is in the interest of both your countries and mine.

His expectations for future trade deals

I will make bilateral trade agreements with any Indo-Pacific nation that wants to be our partner and that will abide by the principles of fair and reciprocal trade. What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible.

We must ensure that all play by the rules, which they do not right now. Those who do will be our closest economic partners. Those who do not can be certain that the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating, or economic aggression. Those days are over.

Denuclearizing North Korea

Earlier this week, I addressed the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea and urged every responsible nation to stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger. The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictators twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail.

Watch Trumps full speech below.

Da Nang, Vietnam

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
A group of volunteers, both veterans and non-veterans, have been providing rifle salutes at military funerals.

The Joint Honor Guard, headed up by retired Marine Corps veteran and Poway resident Joe Gunner Vaineharrison, was started in December 2016.

The group is chartered by Poway Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7907 and supposed by both the Poway VFW and the Poway American Legion Post 479. There are 14 members in the group, including Vaineharrisons wife, Michele, and son Wyatt. While members do not have to be veterans, they must be at least 16 years old to handle the rifles.

Vaineharrison said that contrary to popular belief, rifle salutes are not automatically provided by the military at all veteran funerals. Most (veterans) dont get rifle salutes unless they retired (from the military), were killed in action or were famous, he said.

Vaineharrison said he and his fellow volunteers feel that every veteran deserves a rifle salute at his or her funeral.

The mission of the Joint Honor Guard is to provide funeral honors and assistance to all veterans and their families during their time of need. The JHG will promote Americanism, dignity and respect for our countrys warriors by upholding the utmost professionalism and integrity through its conduct and image at all times. With the responsibility bestowed on us, we will never forget that it is the veteran who commands the dignity we protect. We will always conduct our missions, in humbled reverence, to the best of our ability, said Vaineharrison.

In addition to undertaking funeral missions for military veterans, the group also performs color guard duties, such as at Poways Veterans Day ceremony on Saturday, as well as flag retirements three times a year. The group retires unserviceable flags that are left in the flag drop box outside of the VFW Post 7907.

Vaineharrison said the group has performed quite a few missions since its creation last December, at Fort Rosecrans, Dearborn Memorial Park and private cemeteries.

We take our obligation very seriously, he said. Its about honoring the veteran and his service. It also provides a form of closure for the family, saying goodbye to their loved one.

Vaineharrison said his group makes sure to ask questions about the veteran before a mission. We dont want to just show up. We want to know who we are honoring.

Vaineharrison was active in the Marine Corps for 22 years and retired in San Diego, where he met his wife. He is a member of the Poway VFW and the American Legion. He is also the chaplain for the VFW and has presided over military funerals, he said.

Many of their missions come from word-of-mouth, Vaineharrison said, but information on the group is also available on the VFW and American Legion websites.

Those interested in joining the group or requesting their services can contact jhg7907@aol.com.

Email: news@pomeradonews.com
Reasoned commentaries

In these volatile times of wars and threats of wars, I read with special interest the recent reasoned commentaries by Dave Patterson, Vic Vizcarra, and Darrell Beck. None glorified war, differing in outlook for deterring it.

I was reminded of a moment in history when this very matter was dramatically addressed.

At that time, an impressive series of Ethiopian warrior queens, queen regents and queen mothers known as kentakes controlled what is now Ethiopia, Sudan and parts of Egypt.

In 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great set his sights on the rich kingdom of Ethiopia, the presiding kentakes, known as Black Queen Candace of Ethiopia, designed a battle plan to counter Alexanders advance. She placed her armies and waited on her elephant for the conqueror to appear for battle.

Alexander approached from a low ridge, but when he saw the Black Queens army displayed in a brilliant military formation before him, he stopped. After studying the array of warriors waiting with such deadly precision and realizing that to challenge the kentakes would quite possibly be fatal, he turned his armies away from Ethiopia toward a successful campaign in Egypt.

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Ramona
After watching the movie To Kill a Mockingbird as a child, which is based off of Harper Lees best-selling novel, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson knew he wanted to be a lawyer because he had a great deal of admiration for attorney Atticus Finch.

But as he grew older, that thought went into the rearview mirror; and he started goofing off in class and not taking academics seriously. As a junior in high school, however, he was publicly ridiculed by his eighth-grade math instructor and his attitude began shifting.

I got a 63 on my test, and she (the teacher) plopped it right down in front of my desk in front of the other students and said, you could do really well in this class, but youd rather be a funny guy instead of trying, Peterson told Fremont Middle School students during a Thursday assembly held in the school gymnasium.

Peterson told students that the teacher saw something in him that he didnt see, and that motivated him from that point on to work hard in school and try to achieve the best marks possible. He told FMS students to not follow in his footsteps in that regard, but to start focusing now.

During the approximately hour-long assembly, Peterson spoke about a wide range of topics; but predominately focused on the negative aspects of drug use, peer pressure and internet safety.

Students in the sixth through eighth-grade range, he said, start experimenting with recreational drug use, often times marijuana. He highlighted that during these formative years, marijuana can have an adverse effect on children, especially those with preexisting mental health conditions.

Doctors have done studies, and they indicate that those who participate in recreational marijuana use may be more susceptible to developing certain conditions, he said.   And you may find yourself in a peer group where you have to make that decision in a split second. And I hope you says, hey, Im not going to do it.

In regard to internet safety, Peterson spoke about the risks of online predators and those online for the sole purpose of luring children and teens into human trafficking. As acting attorney general, Peterson said that he has seen several tragic situations involving young girls  and boys  that were the targets of adults.

He said that those targeting children online often times lure them in with promises of love, caring and understanding that they feel they arent receiving. Children can feel like they know someone just because of a five-minute online conversation, but in-fact they dont, he said.

While conversation regarding human trafficking is uncomfortable, FMS Principal LaVonna Emanuel said that its something that needs to be talked about. Its an adult conversation, but if children dont know what to look for and what warning signs may arise they could be more susceptible to being taken advantage of.

He (Peterson) really feels that we need to have more conversations with this age group, that sometimes when you wait to address a high school audience that you can be a little late, Emanuel said. It is a very adult conversation, but its a conversation that needs to be had.

In addition conversations regarding drug use and human trafficking, Peterson responded to numerous student questions that they prepared prior to his arrival. Some student questions included: did he see himself in this career path?, what are the favorite aspects of his job?, what are the craziest cases hes seen?, what should happen with gun laws?, questions regarding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and more.

Peterson said that hes been to several assemblies such as the one that took place at FMS, and that this was the first time hes done a question and answer session.

I am just really impressed by how good these questions are, and I will tell you that as a seventh-grader I would have been really scared getting up asking these questions, he said.

Emanuel said that having students prepare questions helps them learn and become more confident with speaking.

Whenever we have some sort of special programming come in like an all-school assembly, we like to do some pre-teaching and some pre-learning, she said. We talk about who the attorney general is and some of those aspects, so there were some mini-lessons created and we asked them (teachers) to have the students submit some questions. From all the students questions, we selected some questions that we thought would be in line with his message for today and that would be timely in current events.

Emanuel was impressed with her students questions and conduct during their time with Peterson.

Its very important for kids to show their best behavior when we have a guest in the room, and I thought that they did a really good job, she said. They were really attentive, and quiet, and I really hope that they took some good things away from this.
Metropolitan Community College has received funding to begin a Veterans Upward Bound program, a national initiative from the U.S. Department of Education. The federal grant totals $263,938 annually for the next five years.

The new program falls underneath the TRIO umbrella at MCC and is designed to motivate and assist veterans in the development of academic and other requisite skills necessary for success in postsecondary education.

The program will offer services such as mentoring, academic instruction, tutoring and more to increase veterans enrollment in postsecondary education. Other services include academic, financial and personal advisement and assistance in securing support services. The program will serve veterans in Dodge, Douglas, Sarpy and Washington counties in Nebraska.

Individuals interested in becoming a participant in the program can email equitydiversity@mccneb.edu.
Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/10/2017 -- Global Wearable Sensors Market 2017 Survival Strategies explore Economic Impact in Global Industries Manufactures, Growth, Size, Share, Trends, Development Challenges and Opportunities till 2022



A Research legwork on " Global Wearable Sensors Market 2017-2022 " represent the market share and size of Wearable Sensors in international Industry. MRS Research Store added latest market research report by United States Market Insight. Research Report provides an essential information and statistically evaluated data about the Wearable Sensors. The research report provides a detailed study of the Wearable Sensors market, enlightening the major areas such as future market scenario, market growth factors, market growth restraints, and others. The advanced technological trends and various new opportunities are also provided in this research report.



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Important Manufacturers in Global Market Includes :



NXP Semiconductors N.V., STMicroelectronics N.V., TE Connectivity Ltd., Broadcom Limited, Knowles Electronics, LLC., Analog Devices, Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, Asahi Kasei Corporation, Sensirion AG, InvenSense, Inc., Robert Bosch GmbH, Texas Instruments Incorporated, Panasonic Corporation, mCube, Inc., ams AG (Austria), ARM Holdings Plc. (U.K)



Product Type Devided by :



By Sensor Type, Accelerometers, Magnetometers, Medial-based Sensors, Touch Sensors, Others

By Wearable Mode, Wristwear, Eyewear, Footwear, Bodywear, Others



Major Applications/End Users Includes:



Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Industrial, Others



Report Covers by Some Importatnt Regions/Countries as Following :

United States, EU, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia



The research report provides the Wearable Sensors market's classification in detail. The Wearable Sensors market is bifurcated into a number of segments on the basis of materials,types,applications,and end-users. The geographical analysis of the global Wearable Sensors market is also coveredin the report. The vital information mentioned in the research report helps in significantly predicting the future scope of the global market.



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The various segmentation of the global market is based on the overall product profit, costing, global market growth, and manufacturing processes. The report covers a region-wise analysis which provides the customer with different market studies that give a detailed analysis of the product and its impact on the global market. The Wearable Sensors report also highlights the growth statistics depending on the supply and demand in the different regions.



Features of our report:



1. The market analysis of the global market share, position, and size from the different regions are done.



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The Wearable Sensors report covers the precisely studied and evaluated data of the global market players and their scope in the market using a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as investment return analysis, SWOT analysis and feasibility study are used to analyze the key global market player's growth in the Wearable Sensors industry.
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/10/2017 -- The residential water treatment equipment market in South America is rapidly growing and the technology has a decent penetration rate in urban South America. Owing to deteriorating water quality and rising consumer expectations regarding the quality of drinking water, demand for water purifiers in the region is anticipated to increase. The South America residential water treatment equipment market has been estimated to be valued at more than US$ 330 Mn by 2016 end and is expected to register a CAGR of 9.2% during the assessment period (20162026).



By value, the Brazil residential water treatment equipment market accounts for the maximum revenue share among all the South American country level markets, followed by Argentina and Venezuela. Brazil is expected to register a significant CAGR of 8.7% over the assessment period due to rapidly increasing urban population in the country.



Obtain Report Details @

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/south-america-residential-water-treatment-equipment-market



The Brazil residential water treatment market was valued at nearly US$ 195 Mn in 2015 and is projected to be valued at more than US$ 475 Mn by 2026. Water contamination particularly in the states of Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo is rapidly increasing owing to the rising industrialisation in these regions, leading to a great demand and rising adoption of water purifiers.



The Brazil residential water treatment equipment market is growing with significant Y-o-Y growth and the market is projected to reach sales revenue in excess of US$ 250 Mn by 2026.



In terms of volume, unit sales of RO purifiers in the Brazil residential water treatment equipment market stood at 345 thousand units in 2015 and is projected to reach up to 875 thousand units by 2026. Sales of RO purifiers in the region are primarily driven by rising preference for advanced products by high end urban customers, and sales are being accomplished through retail stores and online channels, with minimal direct marketing activities.



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Cutthroat competition in the Brazil residential water treatment equipment market is not favourable until leading market players work on their strategies to bring in more product differentiation. Continuous innovation in product offerings will continue to be the main driver for companies who wish to retain their market share in the Brazil residential water treatment equipment market.



Brazilian manufacturers have primarily focused on UV and Gravity/Media based purifiers, and have introduced products that are also high on aesthetics. Significant adoption of such products have primarily come from top-notch customers residing in urban Brazil. With the introduction of water purifiers from Forbes Lux Group, Panasonic, LG, and Philips, the adoption of UV purifiers in Brazil is projected to increase during the forecast period.
In 1945, Clarence Hupka, from St. Mary, Nebraska, found himself in one of the worlds greatest ironies. Surrounded by an ocean of blue water, he was dying of thirst. Traveling from Guam to the Philippines, the USS Indianapolis sunk in the Pacific Ocean after being torpedoed during the final phase of World War II. Clarence had been a member of a crew 1,200 menonly 317 survived. He knew that drinking the salty water of the Pacific would only cause him more pain and likely kill him. Remarkably, he followed his training, resisted temptation, and lived.

After the war, Clarence moved near Cook, Nebraska, where he and his wife farmed for 40 years. Throughout his life, he shared his stories of the war, ultimately joining other Indianapolis survivors being featured in the documentary, USS Indianapolis: The Legacy.

On October 29, 2017, Clarence Hupka passed away at the age of 95. Only 18 survivors of the Indianapolis are still with us, including Dale Krueger of Wayne, Nebraska. We should honor them and listen to the stories they share with us.

The stories of Clarence Hupka, Dale Kreuger, and veterans throughout Nebraska are inspiring to all of us. They are accounts of patriotism, heroism, and sacrifice. They are also reminders of why we can never break our promise to care for those who have bravely served this nation and defended the freedoms we hold dear.

In December 2016, Congress passed my bill, the CHIP IN for Vets Act, which granted local communities the authority to manage construction of VA projects and ensure these projects are completed on time and on budget. It set up a pilot program to test this new model of construction with five initial projects. Omaha is the first community in the country to use this model.

We must also care for veterans suffering from the invisible scars of war. Right now the VA does not provide service animals to those with PTSD. That needs to change. Research shows that service dogs often provide benefits to veterans suffering from PTSD, often treating the issue better than prescription drugs.

Thats why I worked with Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to introduce The PAWS Act, a bill directing the VA to implement a five-year pilot program to provide service dogs to veterans suffering from PTSD. This pilot program would connect veterans with organizations that pair service dogs with those in need. These vets would also receive follow-up support for the rest of the dogs life, helping those suffering from the unseen wounds of combat.

In May, I was humbled to join more than 650 Vietnam veterans from Nebraska for their honor flight to Washington, D.C. Flying from Omaha Eppley Airfield to Reagan National Airport, I was able to express my gratitude to them in person before they visited the memorial dedicated in their honor. Seeing Nebraska veterans reconnect with friends from the war was an incredibly moving experience that I will never forget.

Like Clarence Hupka, our veterans have experiences they want to share with the next generation. What they have lived through is a story that helps to weave our nation together. As we commemorate Veterans Day this year, I hope you will take the time to listen to what our veterans have to say and thank them for their service to our nation.

Thank you for participating in the democratic process, I look forward to visiting with you again next week.
Edgewater to Deliver BroadSoft-Optimized SD-WAN Service

By Paula Bernier , Executive Editor, TMC

Real-time communications like voice and video need access to adequate network resources to avoid latency and other service-impacting issues. And voice and video are part of such unified communications solutions as those provided by BroadSoft (News - Alert).







But the internet connections many businesses want to use for their cloud-based applications are typically best-effort. That means they can be rather inconsistent in the bandwidth and other performance metrics they deliver.

However, BroadSoft partner Edgewater Networks (News - Alert) Inc. is working to address that with its upcoming SD-WAN service. This network overlay service will automatically put BroadSoft application traffic on the best available internet connection. As a result, BroadSoft customers will be able to offer end user service level agreements.

BroadSoft, which Cisco last week announced plans to buy, brings its UC software and services to market through an ecosystem of communication services provider partners.

The SD-WAN service is available to companies using Edgewaters Network Edge Orchestration platform. The service, which is optimized for the BroadSoft BroadWorks and BroadCloud platforms, will be available for customer trials starting Nov. 1. Its full commercial rollout is slated for early January.

SD-WAN is a nice match for VoIP, as Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO (News - Alert) Inc. noted in the SD-WAN cover story package of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazines first quarter 2017 issue.

Radizeski explained that SD-WAN has the ability to improve VoIP. One way is through the packet shaping and QoS features built into an SD-WAN appliance. If that fails to improve the call quality, SD-WAN allows for best path routing. In other words, on a network with two or more internet connections (for example, DSL, cable, and 4G), SD-WAN can not only bond these circuits into one bigger pipe, SD-WAN can analyze which connection has the best path for VoIP (or real-time communications like video) and route VoIP packets that way.

To learn more about the many benefits of SD-WAN, join TMC (News - Alert) and many of the leaders in the communications and networking arena at SD-WAN Expo. This event will take place Feb. 14 through 16 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Edited by Mandi Nowitz
Press Release

November 10, 2017 WORKERS TO GET BIGGER 13TH MONTH PAY, YEAREND BONUSES DUE TO TAX CUT -ANGARA Workers from both public and private sectors will be getting bigger 13th month pay and yearend bonuses because of the law that raised the tax exemption cap of bonuses and benefits. Pursuant to Republic Act 10653, the 13th month pay and other benefits, including productivity incentives and Christmas bonuses, are exempted from tax if they do not exceed P82,000. Before RA 10653 was signed into law in 2015, only bonuses not exceeding P30,000 were tax-exempt. Senator Sonny Angara, who sponsored such law, commended the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for its recent announcement that government employees will receive their 14th month pay and P5,000 cash gift next week. The 13th month pay was already given in full last May. "Dahil sa batas na ito, ang 13th at 14th month pay at iba pang mga benepisyo ng halos lahat ng kawani ng gobyerno ay hindi na kinakaltasan ng buwis. Dahil sa 'bonus sa bonus,' mas malaki na ang maiuuwing kita," said Angara, chairman of the ways and means committee. Based on the DBM's latest government manpower information system database, there are 1.1 million filled positions in the government. Of the 1.1 million, approximately 1 million or nearly all government employees may receive tax-free 14th month pay. They are those with Salary Grade 18 and below or those with basic monthly salary of P38,000 and below. If the tax exemption cap of the 13th month pay and other bonuses was not amended, only about 86,000 government employees--those with Salary Grade 6 and below or with basic monthly salary of P14,000 and below--may enjoy tax-free bonuses. Meanwhile, for private sector employees, the 13th month pay should be given not later than December 24. It must be equivalent to one-twelfth (1/12) of the basic salary of an employee within a calendar year. The senator reminded employers that they must pay their rank-and-file employees a 13th month pay regardless of the nature of their employment and whatever the method their wages are paid, provided they worked for at least one month during a calendar year. "Hindi lamang mga regular na empleyado ang dapat makakuha ng 13th month pay. Kahit mga contractual, casual, fixed term, probationary, seasonal employees ay dapat din makatanggap ayon sa ating Labor Code," said Angara, who is also pushing for the passage of a bill that will lower the income tax rates of 99% of Filipino taxpayers.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 Double or triple MRT-3 maintenance checks - Nancy

...says daily train breakdowns contribute much to holiday woes With failing trains, commuters face a less than merry Christmas. Senator Nancy Binay today called on the Department of Transportation and the MRT-3 management to double the number of maintenance and inspections of its trains and tracks to ensure the passenger safety and stable operations in anticipation of the holiday rush. According to Binay, it is important that the train systems undergo additional maintenance checks as passenger volume is expected to increase this season of Christmas. "Naiintindihan ko ang posisyon ng DOTr na kailangan tumakbo ng mga tren, but the safety of the riding public should always take the front seat. Given the poor state of our mass transportation, especially the MRT, it will be difficult for our kababayans to spread holiday cheer as they face the horrors of their daily commute," said the senator. The MRT-3 is notorious for its mishaps and faces technical glitches on a daily basis. Aside from increasing maintenance and inspections of the MRT-3, Binay said that the DOTr and MRT-3 management should also look into beefing up security checks in all train stations to ensure the safety of train passengers. Binay noted that a study was conducted by the Mass Transit Railway of Hong Kong in 2014 indicating that the MRT-3 system is at risk of derailment and the track condition requires immediate attention. The report likewise stressed the need to overhaul all its trains. The government has recently terminated the maintenance contract of Busan Universal Rail Inc. due to its poor performance which has been blamed for the train system's glitches. "I hope the DOTr was able to review the 2014 study of MTR-Hong Kong which says the state of the MRT-3 railway system is alarming. Ang kaso, APT Global, which was the maintenance operator then, ignored the Hong Kong report and reiterated that the MRT-3 rail system is safe," Binay added. DOTr said it has now taken over the maintenance of the MRT-3, and has assured the public that it would improve the efficiency of the trains within "three to six months." "Let's give DOTr some leeway to address all the problems of MRT-3. At kung tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang mga breakdown na maaaring mauwi sa aksidente, huwag na nating hintayin pa na may mangyaring di kanais-nais. Perhaps the DOTr may consider temporarily suspending its operations to ensure the safety of the riding public," Binay pointed out.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 Dispatch from Crame 194

Sen. Leila M. de Lima's statement on calls for a revolutionary government under Duterte 11/10/17 Those asking for a so-called RevGov or revolutionary government under Duterte should be careful what they wish for. A revolutionary government means the abrogation of the Constitution, the only thing that is keeping Duterte president of the country. Without the Constitution, there is no longer any legal basis for keeping Duterte in power. Without the Constitution, the AFP (possibly the only government institution that will survive without the constitution) is no longer bound to recognize Duterte as president, and might be inclined to grab power for itself and lead the country through a military council or junta led by its chosen generals. Unless Duterte's sycophants are so sure of the AFP's loyalty to their idol, they should therefore think twice before opening a pandora's box to a military takeover. As far as I am concerned, the military has no particular reason why it should want to keep Duterte as President in the absence of the 1987 Constitution. His record in kowtowing to China and selling out the Spratlys is notorious among the generals and junior officers. The AFP has never felt any affinity to the number one external security threat to the Philippines. In the absence of Duterte's constitutional mandate with the abolition of the Constitution, the AFP's generals and junior officers have no reason whatsoever to continue tolerating a civilian leader who has not shown any resolve in asserting PH's hard-fought victory before the Arbitral Tribunal at the Hague, hence, weakening the AFP's external defense position in the country's territories in the West Philippine Sea. Thus, in the event of an adventurist declaration of a RevGov by Duterte as supported by his fanatics, he might actually be the very first civilian leader to be overthrown or arrested by the military for the crime of coup d' etat, regardless of the fact that he is President, because more than owing loyalty to the duly-elected President, the AFP is sworn to defend the constitution, and the Philippines from all enemies, foreign or domestic. Duterte's looming call for a revolutionary government is now the most immediate domestic threat to the country. Its call for the abrogation of constitutional democracy flies in the face of the rule of law and national stability. The sooner the AFP realizes this, the better it can respond to this adventurist threat, if it does not choose first to grab power for itself. Who needs Duterte and his kakistocracy of the worst and banal of public officials, if the military has so much more talent to offer from its ranks than Duterte's dysfunctional lot of "the best and brightest"? We should never welcome a military takeover. But because of this infantile call for Duterte to declare a revolutionary government, that is exactly what we might end up with, and Duterte's head at the end of a stake.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 On Harry Roque, the Truth Bender for Hire

by: Sen. Leila M. De Lima In politics, image is critical, and knowing how to manipulate situations and scenarios to one's advantage, or to the advantage of one's principal, and to the disadvantage of their opponents and dissenters is a highly sought after skill of a political operator. Make no mistake, it is a skill that requires manipulation of truth and reality. To political operators, the fact that the manipulated image or scenario no longer even bears a resemblance to the truth - or is perhaps even outrightly fabricated - isn't as important as the end result: make yourself look like a saint, while vilifying those who are exposing the hypocrisy of your action. Truth becomes Lies. Right becomes wrong. I admit that this is one area where I am at a disadvantage: as a personal trait, I have always valued honesty and integrity. I aim not to manipulate, but to educate. I place great faith in the public's ability to tell lies from truth; propaganda from real accomplishments; and public servants from political operators. This is why I have always been ambivalent - if not strongly against - using a mouthpiece. Who better to deliver my message than me? So that people, members of the public and the media, can see my sincerity and honesty without the buffer of a hired image manipulator. I have always let the people judge for themselves my accomplishments and worth as a public servant. What you see is what you get. I also have to admit that this is the advantage of the Duterte Administration over us who served under the PNoy administration - because our principal then followed the same philosophy: we will let our actions, accomplishments and, yes, even our failures to speak for themselves. Hindi kami naniniwala noon sa progapanda, lalo na sa pagbubuhat ng sariling bangko. Hindi rin namin minamanipula o tinatakot ang media, at malaya silang nakapagbabalita kahit tungkol sa pinakamaliit naming pagkakamali dahil iyon ay mahalaga upang matuto kami kung paano mas maayos na makapagsisilbi sa bayan. When a government denies their mistakes and sweeps everything under the rug, how can they be held accountable? That is why, as difficult as it was to do one's job under the glare of public and media scrutiny, we chose to endure and even value the criticism because a strong media, in the face of a strong government and in a society that is run by wealthy private interests, is what is needed to protect the public's interest. What we "saved" from funding propaganda machineries, we chose to put into improving public and social services. We put so much faith in the power of Truth. And that is why Truth is now under attack. Fake news. Propaganda. Political operators as spokespersons. It would be funny, if it wasn't so depressingly infuriating to see, that the President who claims to be a plain talker - who claims he has to be given a pass for being an uncouth and foul-mouthed narcissist and misogynist because he "tells it like it is" - has hired so many mouthpieces, including bloggers and social media personalities, and invested billions of pesos on his communications and propaganda machinery. The hypocrisy would be hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that it is Filipino taxpayers' money that is being wasted on attempting to cosmetically alter one unrepentant man's broken humanity, and to simultaneously destroy those who speak the plain truth against him. It is in this context that we must view the statements thus far made by newly minted Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque. I've had occasion to work with Mr. Roque before, when I was CHR Chair and Secretary of Justice. For some years, actually. Enough that I would have, at a different time, been fooled into thinking that he is sincere when he said that he wishes me well. But he betrays his own credibility and sincerity because of his prior and contemporary acts and statements. He tells me that he wishes me well, yet he was at the forefront of the slut-shaming spectacle and despicable treatment I received at the hands of members of the House of Representatives last year. He proved to be a great disappointment to the human rights movement because, previously, he projected himself to be the defender of the oppressed, even lawyering for high publicity cases about abused women, yet he said things that no true human rights advocate would make about another person. Shameful doesn't even begin to describe it. He also betrays himself to be the political operator he is aspiring to be because, while he purports to take the high ground by wishing me well, he goes on to say that I "did not do anything" as CHR Chairperson and Secretary of Justice. That's a lie, and he knows it. A convenient lie for him and his principal because it obscures the reality of why I am being persecuted. My accomplishments speak for themselves, loudly and clearly, especially given the fact of where I am as I write this piece. I am under detention precisely because I performed my job in both capacities without fear or favor. I dared to speak out about the violence of a powerful Mayor, "The Punisher", back in 2009, for instance. I caused the investigation of the PDAF Scam, which resulted in exposing how so-called lawmakers and public servants were complicit in stealing from the national coffers. As Secretary of Justice, I championed the fight against human trafficking or modern day slavery. It might not have had such a sensationalistic bloody appeal as the so-called "War on Drugs", but the result speaks for itself: there were more convictions during the Aquino administration because of the Composite Team (investigators and prosecutors) approach we implemented, and it resulted in the elevation of the Philippines to Tier 1 Status, up from where it was languishing at Tier 2. The DOJ, during my time, worked closely with other departments, including the DILG and the DENR to address common issues like illegal gambling, illegal logging, illegal mining, etc. This is because to say that "justice sector reforms" is the sole problem of the DOJ is to oversimplify reality. Justice Sector Reforms require a comprehensive capacity and cooperation building approach, hence, the tripartite DOJ-DILG-SC partnership collectively forming the Justice Sector Coordinating Council (JSCC). I led the major drug raid, the first ever, that dismantled the luxurious lifestyle of high-profile inmates inside the Bilibid - which earned the ire of these same convicts, who are now exacting their revenge on me by falsely testifying against me. Also, Harry Roque should know this, I worked hard to ensure the progress of the Maguindanao Massacre case, even in the face of daunting challenges - including the power and influence of the personalities involved, the sheer number of accused and witnesses, the security risks that the prosecutors faced, the internal dynamics between private and public prosecutors, etc. These are just some of my accomplishments as a public servant. That he glosses over this, and other efforts I made during my time as Secretary of Justice which he ought to know about, including the prosecution of the Laude case, is a political stunt. Nothing more and nothing less. I am not saying that I am an ultra performer. Nor am I asking for hallelujahs. I am not perfect. But I will speak up to try to set the record straight. Harry Roque thinks that he can manipulate reality by greasing the media with "pandesal" and appearing to take their side against his fellow propaganda artist, Uson, in their dramatized conflict about the appalling treatment that certain vocal and independent media organizations are receiving. But that is all that he is doing: he is attempting to bend reality to his will. Like the good, little propaganda artist and political manipulator that his principal wants him to be. But to what personal end would one such as he - who has, for years, marketed himself as a human rights lawyer - would make such an obvious heel turn remains to be seen. Time will tell.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 HONTIVEROS: DUTERTE MUST DRAW INSPIRATION FROM ASEAN TO IMPROVE PH MATERNITY LEAVE LAW Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros on Friday called on President Rodrigo Duterte to draw inspiration from the Philippines' neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and improve the country's existing maternity leave law. "Even as the Philippines serves as this year's Chair and host of the ASEAN, the stark reality remains that the Philippines falls woefully below international & regional standards for the number of paid maternity leave days. We are host to this year's ASEAN but our country is inhospitable to women suffering from an archaic and inadequate maternity leave law," Hontiveros said. "President Duterte must draw inspiration from our ASEAN neighbors to improve our country's maternity leave policy. The President must see our hosting of this year's summit as an opportunity to follow the example of our ASEAN neighbors regarding progressive maternity care," Hontiveros added. In a press conference on Thursday, November 9, different women's organizations and labor groups said that the Philippines currently has one of the shortest number of paid maternity leave days among ASEAN member states. At the moment, the current law grants only 60 days' leave to expectant mothers. This is a far cry from the 180 days given by Vietnam. Singapore grants 112 days' leave, while Brunei and Laos each give 105 days. Myanmar grants 98, which is also the recommended number of paid maternity leave days under Convention 183 of the International Labor Organization. Last March, the Senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 1305, or the Expanded Maternity Leave Act authored by Hontiveros. It provides 120 days of maternity leave for expectant mothers, with an additional 30 days for solo parents. However, the measure's version in the House of Representatives is still waiting approval from its members. Hontiveros, who serves as the Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, and the Vice Chairperson for the Committee on Health, urged President Duterte to muster the political will to convince his allies in the House of Representatives to pass the said bill. "Our maternity leave law has not been improved in 25 years. It is time for the Philippines to follow the best practices of its ASEAN neighbors even as it exercises leadership as this year's ASEAN chair," Hontiveros said. The Senator's call comes as Philippines plays host to the upcoming ASEAN summit from November 13-15.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 Legarda to Advance PH Interests in 2017 UN Climate Talks in Bonn On 13-17 November 2017, Senator Loren Legarda will serve as Head of the Philippine Delegation to the 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany. Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committees on Climate Change, Foreign Relations and Finance and UN Global Champion for Resilience, said that the Philippines, as one of the most vulnerable nations to extreme weather events, has a lot at stake in this year's climate negotiations, which will focus on the drafting of a rulebook on the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change from 2020 onwards. Legarda will be taking over the leadership role from Climate Change Secretary Emmanuel M. De Guzman who was designated as Head of the Philippine Delegation from November 6-12, 2017. "The Philippines' active involvement in this year's climate talks signifies our steadfast commitment to realize the principles that we have championed in the Paris Agreement, which we ratified early this year. This is yet again a manifestation of our commitment to climate justice--to make the developed and industrialized countries answer for contributing the most to global warming and climate change--as well as a testament of our solidarity to the call for greater and more ambitious global climate action," Legarda said. "It is in this disposition that the members of the Philippine Delegation have prepared and engaged in the negotiations. While we continue to advocate for a climate goal that would limit global temperature to 1.5-degrees Celsius, we are also emphasizing the need for climate financing for projects and programs that would build the resilience of climate vulnerable countries, such as the Philippines, against the impacts of climate change," she added. Since November 6, 2017, members of the Philippine Delegation have been engaging in climate negotiations and advancing Philippine interests in the following workstreams: Adaptation; Mitigation; Loss and Damage; Agriculture; Capacity-building; Finance; Technology Transfer and Development, Implementation and Compliance, Transparency, Global Stocktake; Indigenous Peoples (IP), Persons with Disabilities (PWD), and Gender Concerns; Facilitative Dialogue 2018; and the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report on the 1.5-degree climate goal. As Head of the Philippine Delegation, Legarda will deliver the National Statement and the ASEAN Joint Statement on Climate Change--the Philippines being the incumbent chair--during the High-Level Segment of the UN Climate Change Conference, which will be attended by dignitaries, ministers, and other senior officials of 197 member-countries. The Senator will also deliver the keynote address to the Innovative Climate Finance Strategies and Instruments by and for Climate Vulnerable Countries and a presentation on the Philippine Perspective on Green Lending Instruments and Supportive Policy Frameworks to Scale Low Carbon Investments in the Asia-Pacific Climate Action Forum hosted by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). She will also be a guest speaker at the Discussion Session on the Best Practices of National Programs on Climate Change Communication organized by The Climate Reality Project. Legarda is also scheduled to meet with UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa, the International Network of Parliamentarians for Renewable Energy, and fellow National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Envoys. "In all of my engagements, the message will be clear: climate change has taken too many lives and destroyed too much of our environment--a source of basic commodities and livelihoods to many. Without proper interventions, we continually subject ourselves to climate and disaster risks. And in order to implement the necessary interventions, we need the technology, knowledge, skills, and financing to safeguard the welfare of our fellow Filipinos," Legarda said. "This is the message that we, as a developing country, would like to get across to the global community. I hope this call that carries the voice of the vulnerable would be supported by many," she added. Updates on the COP23, press statements and speeches will be posted on Legarda's official website [www.lorenlegarda.com.ph] and social media accounts [Twitter: @loren_legarda, Facebook: senatorlorenlegarda, and Instagram: iamlorenlegarda]. For COP-related posts, please use the official hashtags #COP23, #ClimateAction, and #Uniting4Climate.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 Legarda Urges Improved IEC on Environmental Protection Senator Loren Legarda today urged agencies of government to strengthen information, education and communication programs about the environment to bring all sectors and citizens together in protecting, restoring and enhancing environmental quality. Legarda, co-author of the Environmental Awareness and Education Act, made the statement in celebration of National Environmental Awareness Month this November. "We are all aware that it is our duty to protect the environment but we must be more proactive and creative in engaging citizens, especially the youth. We have to explain the benefits of protecting the environment and our responsibility to ensure that future generations would continue to benefit from it," she said. Legarda, who chairs the Senate Committees on Finance and Climate Change, said that the proposed 2018 national budget contains special provisions urging the Department of Education (DepEd) and state universities and colleges (SUCs) to incorporate environmental awareness subjects and programs in their curriculum and activities. The DepEd and SUCs are mandated to include in their school curriculum the laws on the protection of the environment, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk reduction. All DepEd schools are required to establish a materials recovery facility (MRF) within their school premises in compliance with the Ecological Solid Waste Management Law and to promote environmental awareness and action. Meanwhile, SUCs should promote the protection and enhancement of protected areas located within their campuses through sustainable management and ecotourism development. The SUCs, in coordination with the local government units (LGUs) and with assistance from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), should also include in their research program the mapping and inventory of the biodiversity of the province where the main campus of the SUC is located. SUCs will also work with DENR for the establishment of nurseries including clonal nurseries, the conduct of forest research, and mangrove reforestation activities and other similar activities within the scope of the National Greening Program (NGP). "Through these initiatives, we aim to restore and enhance the quality of our environment and we also hope to inculcate in our youth the real value of our rich biodiversity, that protecting the environment is our responsibility as stewards of the Earth, and that we must learn to co-exist with nature," Legarda concluded.
Press Release

November 10, 2017 VILLAR, DENR AND BFAR LEAD LIVELIHOOD CARAVAN IN TONDO Senator Cynthia A. Villar, together with representatives from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), led a livelihood and clean-up caravan here in Tondo. The activity is part of her commitment to provide Filipinos livelihood opportunities to help improve their lives and contribute to the country's economy. "By giving them means to earn a living, we are affording them the opportunity to be able to change their lives for the better. If they want to get out of poverty, they must work hard to realize this goal," said Senator Villar. Villar and BFAR representatives joined community members in harvesting tilapia from the fishpond provided by the agency. BFAR representatives also conducted a demonstration on how to smoke fish using the equipment provided by the agency. To complete this package of assistance, Villar turned over 10 trike bicycles to members of Care for Women Organization to help entrepreneurs move their products to the market. In coordination with DENR, Villar also handed out seedlings of fruit-bearing trees like guyabano, rambutan and kalamansi, as well as vegetables seedlings like tomatoe and eggplant. They were given to the community groups present during the caravan including the Kabalikat sa Kaunlaran ng Baseco Manila, Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission (PRRC) and the beneficiaries of the Department of Social Welfare 4Ps in Barangay 649, Gasangan, Baseco. In addition, Villar distributed organic fertilizer to help ensure a productive yield for the communities. As chair of the Senate Committees in Agriculture and Food and Environment and Natural Resources, Senator Villar continues to pursue legislation and activities to support the government's goal of poverty alleviation. In Baseco and other parts of the country, Villar continues to organize livelihood and clean-up activities to engage communities and empower them to improve the quality of their lives.
Despite hot and dry weather this summer, U.S. corn yields hit a new record high this year at 175.4 bushels per acre, according to Thursdays update from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Crop yields have risen sharply in recent years due to crop genetics, better pest management, improving machinery, and increasingly efficient farming techniques. Rising yields have allowed the U.S. to continue providing a surplus of grain despite a rising global population, increasing livestock herds (that are largely grain-fed), and the additional demand from biofuel production.

This years harvest is projected to exceed 14.3 billion bushels, which could leave an excess, or carryover, of more than 2.3 billion bushels of corn. Fears of oversupply knocked corn to a new low price near $3.40 per bushel, cutting deeply into farmers profitability for those that waited until harvest to price their grain.

Saudi shakeup unnerves oil market

Saudi Arabia was a hotbed of activity this week, which spooked the oil market to a two-year high near $58 per barrel.

The Middle Eastern Kingdom is undergoing internal turmoil after the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, fired numerous government ministers and detained other princes on the premise of anti-corruption efforts. The moves are being seen by many as a consolidation of power, as the Crown Prince takes out many of the ruling class, some of whom rank among the wealthiest in the world.

On top of the internal struggles, Saudi Arabia shot down a missile this week that was fired at its capital from neighboring Yemen. U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the missile came from Iran and was fired by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been at war with these rebels for years, but now declared that the missile attack may be an act of war by the Iranians.

If war were to break out between two of the Middle Easts major military powers, and two of the worlds largest oil producers, the impact on the global oil market would be devastating on a scale not seen since the First Gulf War.
San Francisco plans to open a 70-unit supportive housing complex this month for chronically homeless veterans, bringing the total number of vets on the street close to what homeless officials call a functional, or statistical, zero.

The facility will be located in the Auburn Hotel, a former residential hotel on Minna Street that has been refurbished so it can be leased to the city for homeless services. More than 300 units of supportive housing  meaning there is counseling on-site  have been created in the city for homeless people during the past year, and about 45 percent are for military veterans.

Once the new units are filled, there will be only about 30 chronically homeless veterans in need of housing each month, the city estimates. Experts say about 17 veterans are classified each month in San Francisco as chronically homeless, meaning theyve been on the streets for at least a year and suffer from a range of debilitating challenges.

Our veterans courageously fought for our country, they should not have to fight for housing in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement announcing the Auburns imminent opening. Thanks to permanent supporting housing sites such as the Auburn, we are coming ever closer to ending chronic homelessness for veterans in San Francisco.

Functional zero is reached when the number of people becoming homeless roughly equals the number being housed. City officials hope to reach that for chronically homeless vets in 2018.

The Auburn will be managed by the nonprofit Delivering Innovations in Supportive Housing, and counseling and other support services will be provided by Episcopal Community Services.

Were just trying to keep the pedal to the metal and add whatever housing we can, said Leon Winston, housing director for the nonprofit Swords to Plowshares, which helped plan the Auburns opening with the Homes for Heroes Collaborative, a public-private partnership working on solutions for homeless veterans.

 Kevin Fagan

Local support: Four progressive San Francisco supervisors have broken ranks with hometown Sen. Dianne Feinstein  the citys most prominent and longest-standing Democratic politician  and instead endorsed her challenger, Kevin de Leon.

Supervisors Jane Kim, Hillary Ronen, Aaron Peskin and Norman Yee all threw their support behind de Leon, the state Senate president pro tem who jumped into the race in October as a long-shot candidate.

De Leon gained popularity crusading against the policies of President Trump this year, and his views on immigrant rights, climate change and single-payer health care are picking up support in the Bay Area, campaign spokesman Roger Salazar said.

Raised in Los Angeles by an immigrant mother who cleaned houses, de Leon has cast himself as the humble alternative to Feinstein, a resident of the citys posh Pacific Heights neighborhood.

Feinsteins political consultant, Bill Carrick, rejected the notion that de Leon is the more progressive candidate and said he isnt intimidated by the supervisors endorsements.

San Francisco is a politically active city, and everyone has opinions, Carrick said.

De Leon supported District Nine supervisor candidate Joshua Arce in last years campaign over Ronen, but that didnt stop her from backing him this time around.

Ronen, who declined to comment, has evidently forgiven the slight.

 Rachel Swan

Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com, kfagan@sfchronicle.com, rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfcityinsider, @kevinchron, @rachelswan
The unnerving discovery of a mountain lion lurking around the mansions in the Presidio and Sea Cliff has created an uproar in San Francisco, where wildlife experts are trying to figure out how and why the fearsome carnivore ventured into the city.

The predator can plainly be seen on security-camera footage taken at 5 a.m. Wednesday loping past the home of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who lives in Sea Cliff, near China Beach.

The billionaire tech executive also recorded a cougar on Saturday on surveillance video, leaving his multimillionaire neighbors to wonder whether the big cats are settling in San Francisco or one lonely lion was simply out trolling.

We believe its just one mountain lion at this point, said Peter Tira, the Fish and Wildlife spokesman, adding that it is probably a juvenile male. We do find young male lions stumbling into developed areas. A lot of times, they are looking for a home range to call their own and they wander into places they arent supposed to be.

Wildlife experts say the big cat either found its way to the Presidio from wildland areas on the Peninsula, swam across the bay or sauntered over the Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of the night, a path coyotes have been known to take.

Courtesy Marc Benioff

Its a bit of a mystery, said Chris Wilmers, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who tracks cougars for the Santa Cruz Puma Project, which he started in 2008. If the animal came from the Peninsula, hed have a hard time getting that many miles into San Francisco without somebody seeing him.

Zara McDonald, the president of the Felidae Conservation Fund, a Marin County-based nonprofit that studies wild cat species, said it is very unlikely the cougar came over the bridge because there arent any pumas in the Marin Headlands. In fact, she said, no mountain lions have been detected on remote cameras south of Muir Woods in four years.

She said that one mountain lion detected north of the Golden Gate is an elderly cat with an ocular defect that was photographed over the past few years using research cameras on the northwest side of Mount Tamalpais. McDonald believes the animal most likely came from Sweeney Ridge, Montara Mountain or the Crystal Springs Reservoir area on the Peninsula.

I would say that based on the history here and our work south of San Francisco that its very possible that this lion could have come from the south, she said. They are masters at stealth. They know how to remain out of sight.

The only way to know for sure, Wilmers said, is to capture the cougar and test its blood. Previous studies have shown the species north and south of the Golden Gate Bridge have different, very distinct, genetics.

Benioff has been busy lately with Dreamforce, a tech conference in downtown San Francisco, but he found the time to send out an alarmed tweet Wednesday about the latest visit, which was captured on security footage and posted on Twitter and YouTube.

The first visit came on the same day of another reported sighting of a cougar near 27th Avenue and Lake Street.

Pumas were also spotted by citizens in and around San Francisco four times in June and July 2015, including surveillance footage of a cougar in the Sea Cliff neighborhood and a reported sighting the same day in the Presidio.

That creature was spotted by members of the public near Lincoln and Washington boulevards in the Presidio near Fort Winfield Scott. It was also seen on the 1000 block of Gough Street on July 1, and in southwest San Francisco near Lake Merced on July 3, officials said.

Wildlife officials believe there are between 4,000 and 6,000 mountain lions in California. Tira said their territory can extend from 10 to 400 square miles, so it isnt unusual for roaming animals to find themselves in populated areas.

Human-cougar encounters in the Bay Area mostly occur because mountain lion travel corridors have been blocked by development. One such incident occurred in May 2014 when a large male puma  which had a GPS-tracking collar  hid behind a small hedge on a busy street in Mountain View for nine hours as pedestrians and bicyclists passed only a few feet away.

The confused cat eventually was tranquilized amid a community furor and released in the hills, but he was later killed trying to cross Interstate 280.

He wasnt the only cougar to run into trouble. At least a half dozen of the animals have been hit and killed trying to cross Highway 17, particularly along the treacherous Laurel Curve in Santa Cruz County.

They are just trying to find habitat and they are running into barriers, McDonald said. Im sure we will see more of this because there is just too much fragmented habitat, which makes it hard for the lions to avoid this scenario once in a while.

The Puma Project is working with Caltrans to design fencing that would channel wildlife into culverts under highways on the Peninsula and South Bay.

Although California mountain lions are strong enough to kill and eat a grown man, recent studies have shown that the sharp-clawed carnivores almost always run away when they hear humans approaching. Studies of the more than 40 collared animals in the Santa Cruz Mountains showed that they often kill deer in residential areas, but spend less time feeding when they are near humans.

It is unusual for a cougar to find its way into San Francisco.

Wilmers said the cougar could probably survive in the Presidio on raccoons, possum, feral cats and maybe a coyote or two for as long as a month, but no more.

Theres enough tree cover in there for it to find places to lay low during the day, but its not going to want to live there for long before it decides to get out, he said. Thats when it will probably end up getting stuck in someones backyard.

Tira said residents should be wary, but not overly concerned. He advises anyone who encounters a mountain lion to stand tall, act aggressively and never run away. Throw rocks if the puma remains close, he said.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @pfimrite
The budget crisis in the Oakland schools has reached a critical level, with the situation so desperate that top-level administrators are voluntarily giving back part of their paychecks, and layoffs as well as classroom cuts are imminent.

The districts most pressing concern is a $15.1 million deficit in this years budget, which will require schools and the central office to slash expenditures even though the academic year is nearly half over.

Without immediate action, and with another $11 million in cuts needed to balance next years budget, the district is at risk of a state takeover  again.

It is not imminent; however, it is serious, said Alameda County Schools Superintendent Karen Monroe. Oakland has little margin for error at this point.

The district is still reeling from a $100 million bailout and state takeover in 2003, with $40 million still owed to California from that crisis.

Yet those charged with preventing a similar fiasco  a state-appointed fiscal trustee, the county superintendent, the school board and district leadership  have failed to stave off crisis.

Despite its checkered economic past, the district has been spending beyond its means again, a multiyear pattern masked in part by accounting tricks and lax oversight, district officials acknowledged. To cover the deficits, the district has dug into its reserve, pushing the rainy-day fund below state-required levels.

In fact, there have been internal warnings about fiscal issues for several years that were not fully addressed, district Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell said in an email. As a result, we have spent beyond our means and depleted savings to the point where immediate action is necessary.

Johnson-Trammell, appointed superintendent in May, inherited the problem from her predecessor, Antwan Wilson, who left in February to run the Washington, D.C., schools.

The overspending at times has been eye-popping. In 2014, for example, the district budgeted $7.1 million for consulting services, but ultimately spent $22.6 million that year.

Last year, the board budgeted $10.4 million for supervisors and administrators, but spent $22.3 million.

The exception to that trend was in the category of books and supplies. In 2016, the district planned to spend $20.1 million on such materials, but spent only $6.8 million.

District officials and county Superintendent Monroe said several additional factors have contributed to the overspending, including increases in special education costs, big spikes in pension payments and declining enrollment.

But through it all, the district has had lax internal controls, meaning those in charge of the budget failed to monitor spending or flag problems. Last year, for example, the districts enrollment was 400 students lower than expected, yet Wilson failed to adjust staffing to reflect that  which cost the district more than $3 million in unexpected expenses.

In July, the state assigned a new trustee, Chris Learned, to oversee the Oakland schools. The previous trustee, Carlene Naylor, retired.

Learned, a veteran in school finance who came out of retirement to take the job, pored over the districts books and came to a quick conclusion: My thought was, boy, I sure liked retirement, he said.

The district, he added, hasnt been managed well.

Learned said he is playing an active role in ensuring that the district doesnt keep making the same mistakes that occurred under Wilsons tenure.

I dont agree with a lot of what I saw him do. I think he was very insistent on getting his way, Learned said. The role of the trustee is to be sure that the board and the superintendent are not making decisions that are putting the district in financial risk.

On Wednesday night, the Oakland school board officially acknowledged the need to balance the budget, approving a plan of action, including an expected vote on Nov. 27 to identify specific ways to slash $15.1 million from this years budget. The superintendent vowed to clean up the mess.

As leader of Oakland Unified School District, I want us to be known as the district that can and does overcome fiscal adversity while meeting the diverse needs of students, Johnson-Trammell said. I am committed to putting us on the right path to fiscal stability.

Yet the expected cuts required to do that prompted afternoon protests on several street corners Wednesday, with teachers and community members lambasting the districts mismanagement as well as the states underfunding of schools.

Nobody had the gumption to say no to Antwan Wilson, said Trish Gorham, president of the Oakland Education Association, the local teachers union. We know there have to be cuts.

Gorham added, however, that she thought $15 million in cuts was too drastic, especially coming midyear.

Hoping to reduce the deficit, several members of the districts top leadership last week decided to donate a part of their salaries back to the district, said district spokeswoman Valerie Goode, although specific numbers werent available.

At this point, principals and other unionized administrators are not part of that effort, and their participation would have to be established through collective bargaining, Goode said.

But it will take a lot more than salary donations to balance the budget. Learned believes the superintendent and school board are on track to make the decisions necessary to get back into the black  but it will take time to stabilize.

I think they are getting it, but its going to be painful, he said. Im working with them and really believe that Kyla is listening, the board is listening, and there will be changes that will make this district much more efficient, much more transparent and its just going to take this fiscal year to get it back in shape.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Thursday filed a legal motion asking a judge to halt the implementation of federal rule changes, announced by the Trump administration last month, that give employers more leeway to opt out of the Affordable Care Acts contraceptive mandate.

Becerra, along with the attorneys general of Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia, filed a request for a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. The move is part of an ongoing lawsuit the states filed in October, which challenges the federal policy change on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and unlawfully targets women.

The rule change, announced by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department on Oct. 6, allows more employers to cite religious or moral objections if they want to stop providing no-cost contraceptive coverage to workers. The change applies only to employers with self-funded health plans, which are regulated by the federal government. It does not apply to employers with fully funded plans, which are regulated by the state  which in 2014 passed a law mandating employer-based health plans provide free birth control to workers, called the Contraceptive Coverage Equity Act.

In California, about 6.6 million people are in employer self-funded plans, according to the California Health Care Foundation.

A womans birth control and health decisions should be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor  not by her employer and not by politicians, Becerra said in a statement. These backwards rules will deny millions of women across the United States access to healthcare, unconstitutionally permitting discrimination against women. ... We will not stand by while the Trump administration continues to disregard the rule of law.

In California, the federal policy change will likely prompt at least 25 employers to opt out of the birth control mandate, which would impact nearly 55,000 women, Becerras office estimates.

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If granted, the injunction would prevent the policy from taking place nationwide.

Prior to the policy change, only houses of worship, religiously affiliated nonprofits and some private companies with few shareholders, such as Hobby Lobby, could opt out of providing birth control coverage by seeking an accommodation  a workaround in which the health insurer rather than the employer pays for the contraception, but women still get access to birth control.

Under the new rules, those employers can go a step further in restricting birth control coverage by seeking an all-out exemption, which means women in those workplaces, and their dependents, will no longer have contraceptive coverage at all. The new rule also allows publicly traded companies and all nonprofits and universities to take a religious exemption.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
Glassdoor, an online job-rating site, must unmask anonymous users who posted damaging reviews about a company under investigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco ruled Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in Arizona served the Mill Valley company with a subpoena in March, demanding the names and IP addresses of reviewers who wrote on the site that a Department of Veterans Affairs contractor was committing fraud.

The unnamed company, which administers two veterans health care programs, is under investigation by the federal government for alleged fraud and abuse. In court documents, the federal government maintained that there is no other way for it to identify the employees who claim the company was committing the fraud.

Glassdoor, which allows people to post anonymous comments about what its like to work at a company, said that unmasking the reviewers would violate its users First Amendment rights. But in the Wednesday decision, the court said Glassdoor reviewers have a limited right to speak anonymously.

Other Internet companies, including Yelp and Twitter, have faced legal efforts to reveal the identities of anonymous users.

Duffy Carolan, a media and advertising attorney with Jassy Vick Carolan in San Francisco, said that in the Glassdoor case, the court applied a low standard for overcoming the protections of the First Amendment, one that could create a chilling effect on free speech online.

The decision is a step back in the Dark Ages, she said.

While Glassdoor may appeal the decision, the case could set a dangerous precedent for cases in which the government wants to unmask an anonymous source, she said. The courts decision weakens the protections for anonymous speech online and went against its own recognition that such speech is protected under the First Amendment, she said.

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The reviews on the Glassdoor site are anonymous, but to post a review, a user must provide an email address. Before anonymous reviews are posted, the website warns users that it may disclose their identities if required by law.

According to the companys privacy policy, it will disclose data on its users only if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary  to comply with relevant laws or to respond to subpoenas or warrants or legal process served on us.

Glassdoor disagreed that such disclosure is necessary in this case.

We argued that the lower court applied the wrong standard in placing the interests of government ahead of Americans protected free speech rights under the First Amendment, the company said Thursday.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani
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Things are looking worse at the West County Detention Facility in Richmond.

This week, I read a copy of a letter signed by 27 female inmates at the jail saying that they were being treated poorly because of their immigration status.

That letter was dated in September  before Contra Costa County sheriffs deputies who run the jail say they heard there were problems.

Meanwhile, inmates, their attorneys and jail monitors say that since the detainees spoke out about the conditions, their treatment from some jail staffers has gotten worse.

The letter signed by the 27 inmates was sent to Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, or CIVIC, a San Francisco group that monitors jails where immigrants are detained.

In the letter, the women say that jail staff doesnt give them access to classroom learning materials that they readily give nonimmigrant inmates. The letter also told of immigrant detainees being kept locked up for hours and told to use bags in their cells when they need to go to the bathroom.

The letter was handwritten by Nancy Mayer, a 40-year-old native of Mexico.

When we are on lockdown and a county inmate needs to use the restroom, she is unlocked so that she can use it, Mayer wrote. When an ICE inmate asks, we are always told to either hold it, or to use a red bag  Bio Hazard Bag. This is unacceptable.

The fact that these women were complaining as far back as September raises the question of how sheriffs officials didnt know this was happening.

And get this: Since The Chronicle reported the allegations on Nov. 2, the conditions have deteriorated for the detainees, according to attorneys and jail monitors Ive spoken to. Detainees who signed permission forms to be interviewed and photographed by The Chronicle when I visited the jail Oct. 31 say they have been singled out by guards who have withheld soap and shampoo and have not allowed them to brush their teeth after meals.

Theyre the women who made the startling allegations of being denied access to the bathrooms and sufficient health care. Instead of being interviewed as part of an internal investigation, the women are being punished.

Because theyre advocating for the humanity of those detained with them, theyre being subjected to practices that the prison system has always used, said Rebecca Merton, CIVICs national visitation coordinator, referring to long periods of confinement. This isnt an issue of misconduct of just a few individual jail guards. Its clear that the whole system is a machine of oppression.

One detainee, who requested that her name not be published, told me in a phone call from the jail this week that detainees must stay in their cells all day even if their doors are unlocked. And to use the restroom, they have to be escorted.

Sheriffs officials have denied allegations of mistreatment and say inmates can typically leave their cells to use bathrooms and take classes.

But theres been one small change: The inmate who called this week said that some of the guards havent been making the detainees wait as long as before  up to 23 hours  to use the bathroom. Still, they must wait hours after making a request to go.

Contra Costa County has a $6 million-a-year contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run a federal detention center at the Richmond jail, housing male and female ICE detainees for the feds.

But the complaints raise serious questions about oversight and accountability at the jail.

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Several elected leaders have said they are appalled at the allegations. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, has scheduled a Nov. 27 tour of the jail. And state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, sent a letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra urging his office to immediately look into the conditions at West County.

So far, theres no indication Becerra is going to take any action  and thats a mistake on his part. Skinner reminded him in the letter that the Legislature provided his office with an extra $1 million this year to look at ICE detention centers.

The allegations in this story are concerning, the attorney generals press office said in a statement. As part of the California Department of Justices review of immigration detention facilities, we intend to look into issues like this and gain a better understanding of the conditions in these facilities.

Thats weak. Women  mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and friends  are sounding the alarm about inhumane conditions at a jail. What will it take to get somebody in there to investigate?

They have the power to go in there and figure out the truth, and they ought to be doing it, said Richmond Mayor Tom Butt, referring to the attorney generals office.

Butt opposed the 150,000-square-foot expansion of the West County Detention Facility, approved by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in June. Butt said the jail is already too big because Sheriff David Livingston contracts with ICE.

When I visited the jail, a quarter of the 800 inmates were ICE detainees.

Basically, hes running a jail for rent out there, Butt said of Livingston. People in this part of the county generally dont appreciate that.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
At 2 a.m. on Nov. 23, 1818, a soldier named Dolores Cantua galloped into the crumbling Presidio of San Francisco. He had ridden 90 miles through the night from Monterey, the capital of Spanish Alta California, to deliver an urgent message: Two powerful foreign warships had just attacked Monterey.

Lt. Gabriel Moraga mustered the few cavalrymen that were available and rode south through a heavy downpour as fast as he could. The Presidio of San Francisco might be the farthest-flung outpost in Alta California, which was itself the remotest part of the vast, decaying Spanish empire, but its unpaid, ragged troops had sworn allegiance to Spanish King Ferdinand the Seventh, and they were going to do their duty.

The middle-of-the-night ride to the Presidio was San Franciscos only involvement in one of the strangest battles ever fought in California, which took place almost exactly 199 years ago: The attack on Monterey by the privateer Hipolyte Bouchard.

Bouchard was a Frenchman fighting under the flag of a new country called Provincias Unidas de Rio de la Plata, also known as Argentina  and how he even came to the shores of Monterey two centuries ago is a long, convoluted tale involving failed adventures, knife fights and naked ambition on the high seas.

The battle of Monterey was an odd footnote to the Latin American wars of independence, which erupted in the early 19th century when Spains New World colonies began to revolt. For 20 years, wars raged in all four of the vast viceroyalties that comprised its colonial holdings: New Spain (which included the territory that is now Mexico and part of California), New Granada, Peru and Rio de la Plata. In 1816, insurgents seized the viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata and declared it an independent nation, the Provincias Unidas del Rio de la Plata.

The Argentine revolutionaries wanted to strike vulnerable Spanish supply and commercial ships, but their small navy had been disbanded. So they turned to a peculiar institution: privateering.

A privateer was a private individual who carried out acts of maritime war with a legal commission from a host country. This commission, known as a letter of marquee, gave the privateer permission to fight and capture enemy ships as prizes. In effect, the privateer was a legal pirate. Historys most famous privateer was Sir Francis Drake, who had landed on the California coast during the age of Shakespeare, 139 years before his French counterpart.

Hipolito Bouchard, the leading man in the drama that was about to unfold, was a remarkable figure. As Peter Uhrowzik recounts in The Burning of Monterey: The 1818 Attack on California by the Privateer Bouchard, he was born in 1780 in Provence and fought with Napoleon in Egypt before coming to Buenos Aires in 1810. Unlike many other mercenaries hired by the rebels, Bouchard was not just in it for the money: He adopted Argentina as his second home, married a local woman, and fought in South Americas wars of independence.

He was a tall man with a dark complexion, great courage and a hot temper. He also knew how to use a knife.

Bouchard was given his letters of marque in October 1815. His first voyage was a portent of shipboard unrest to come. On the voyage to Cape Horn, his disgruntled officers demanded they capture the first ship they found, divide the proceeds and go their separate ways. The quasi-mutiny was abandoned when Bouchard threatened to execute them, but hard feelings evidently persisted, since the officers later tried to poison him.

Bouchard blockaded the port of Callao, Peru, and captured several ships, including a 464-ton, 34-gun frigate called Consecuencia. An Argentine patriot and investor named Vicente Echevarria purchased the ship, now renamed La Argentina, and made Bouchard her captain. (In the meantime, an unknown man, probably hired by one of the disgruntled officers, attacked Bouchard with a knife; Bouchard stabbed him.)

On July 9, 1817, Bouchard set out to sea on La Argentina, commanding a crew of 164 men. His instructions gave him a number of options: Lima, Cadiz, the Caribbean, or northeastern South America. Instead, hoping for even richer prizes, he sailed for the Philippines.

Before La Argentina sailed, there was a drunken riot, during which Bouchard was attacked by a crewman with a hatchet. (As usual, Bouchard stabbed him.) Cutting short disciplinary proceedings, Bouchard sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. What followed, Uhrowczik writes, was one of the great adventures in privateering.

After two months, La Argentina reached Madagascar, where Bouchard impounded four slave ships until a British corvette arrived. By November 1817, four months into the voyage, 84 members of his crew had contracted scurvy and 40 had died. La Argentina was attacked off Borneo by pirates in Malayan outrigger sailboats called proas. The weakened crew managed to fight off the pirates, several of whom committed suicide by stabbing themselves and jumping into the water when they realized they were going to be captured. Bouchard kept some of the young pirates to serve as crewmen, sent the rest back to the ship and cold-bloodedly sunk her with all hands.

In January 1818, six months after leaving Buenos Aires, Bouchard reached the Philippines. But the Spanish ships in the harbor wouldnt put out to sea, and he lost more men in a battle with a ship that got away. He also learned that the Manila galleons, the fabled treasure-ships that had been sailing from Manila to Acapulco every year since 1565, had stopped sailing.

With his trip to date a failure, he pondered his options. He could return the way he came. He even considered sailing to the island of St. Helena to liberate Napoleon. In the end he decided to head east, making it a voyage around the world.

La Argentina reached Hawaii in August 1818. There he acquired a 280-ton corvette called the Santa Rosa de Chacabuco, which had sailed from Buenos Aires as a revolutionary Provincias ship but whose crew had mutinied and sold her to the king of Hawaii. Bouchard paid for the ship and had one of the mutiny leaders executed.

In Hawaii, he met an English seaman named Peter Corney, who had visited Monterey three years earlier. Corney told Bouchard the city was vulnerable. Hoping to seize Spanish ships, seize booty and incite the Californians to revolt, Bouchard decided to attack it.

So on Oct. 25, 1818, Bouchard and Corney, who was commanding the Santa Rosa, set sail for Alta California with 360 men and 52 cannons.

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Their target was feebly defended. There were just 65 poorly equipped and trained troops at Monterey; in all of Alta California there were only 400 (and just 3,500 Spanish inhabitants). But the outnumbered and outgunned Spanish had one advantage: They knew Bouchard was coming. An American ship that had been in Hawaii had just landed in Santa Barbara, and its captain told the Spanish commander that two insurgent ships were coming to raid the California coast.

The Spanish governor ordered the presidios and missions to be prepared to fight.

On Nov. 20, 1818, a lookout at Monterey saw two ships approaching. The battle for Alta California was about to be joined.

Next installment: Part II, the attack

Gary Kamiya is the author of the best-selling book Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, awarded the Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction. All the material in Portals of the Past is original for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: metro@sfchronicle.com

Editors note

Every corner in San Francisco has an astonishing story to tell. Gary Kamiyas Portals of the Past tells those lost stories, using a specific location to illuminate San Franciscos extraordinary history  from the days when giant mammoths wandered through what is now North Beach to the Gold Rush delirium, the dot-com madness and beyond. His column appears every other Saturday, alternating with Peter Hartlaubs OurSF.

Trivia Time

Previous trivia question: Where does the Salesforce Tower rank in height among U.S. buildings?

Answer: At 1,070 feet, it is the 11th-tallest building in the country (and the second-tallest west of the Mississippi).

This weeks trivia question: What did guitarists Jerry Garcia and Django Reinhardt have in common?
Demonized for decades, marijuana remains controversial even on the brink of its statewide legalization  and even in pot-friendly strongholds such as San Francisco. The city is one of many still debating local regulations that will either embrace an overdue retreat from the drug war or effectively prolong the failed policy at the neighborhood level.

For vacillating municipal officials, some context is in order. This week alone, New Jersey and Virginia voters resoundingly elected gubernatorial candidates promising to liberalize marijuana policy; Constellation Brands, a Fortune 500 seller of many popular wine and beer brands, was reported to have bought a nearly $200 million stake in a Canadian cannabis company; and Californias attorney general approved signature-gathering for a ballot measure to legalize psilocybin mushrooms.

Of course, many marijuana advocates would hesitate to unleash psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen, but the general momentum for drug decriminalization is obvious and justified. Preventing American adults from legally procuring marijuana, let alone jailing them for it, is well on its way to being regarded as a folly on the order of prohibiting them from buying a beer. A recent Gallup poll found that 64 percent of Americans favor legal cannabis, including a majority of Republicans.

And yet in San Francisco, home of medical marijuana pioneers, the Board of Supervisors is considering measures that would ban dispensaries from particular neighborhoods or, by virtue of strictly limiting their proximity to schools and other facilities, most of the city. Such not-in-my-backyard proposals are only masquerading as safety measures: As with alcohol, minors can be discouraged from consuming the drug by law enforcement, not an extra blocks walk.

San Francisco is also joining Oakland and Los Angeles in devising a program to prioritize licenses for those harmed by the drug war, as indicated by past criminal convictions and other prerequisites. Though noble in their intent, the programs seem more likely to impede the transition to a regulated market than to redress injustice. The best answer to the drug war is to proceed with the cease-fire voters have declared.

As evidenced by State Treasurer John Chiangs efforts to grapple with cannabis financing challenges  he has proposed a fleet of armored vehicles to collect revenue from what remains a cash business  legal marijuana presents plenty of genuine policy challenges. The states cities need not invent any.

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.
Weapons of war dont belong on our streets. Thats the message behind Sen. Dianne Feinsteins push to ban assault rifles in the wake of two mass shootings in six weeks that have left 89 dead and hundreds injured.

Nervous lawmakers and the monolithic National Rifle Association may want to ignore her call, backed by 22 Senate Democrats, including Californias other senator, Kamala Harris. But the massacres in Nevada and Texas underscore the consequences of allowing rapid-fire weapons to be so easily obtained.

Feinstein authored a similar bill that banned the sale and transfer of assault rifles from 1994 to 2004, but Congress failed to renew it, allowing sales to soar. Now, in the wake of so much bloodshed, theres a duty to try again. Her measure also bars high-capacity magazines and bump stock devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire faster, a device used by the Las Vegas shooter.

Her plan wouldnt touch such weapons already in circulation, a pool estimated to be in the millions within an ocean of some 300 million firearms in private hands. Those numbers have led doubters to say a ban now wouldnt do much. But allowing continued sales invites more deadly attacks. The proposed ban would also include a requirement for a background check before an assault rifle changes hands. Grandfathered guns would need to be securely stored.

The ban faces steep political odds. A Republican majority in Congress is in lockstep with the NRA on opposing any hint of stricter controls. President Trump has already veered away from talking about assault rifles by citing mental health as the issue in the Texas shooting.

Feinstein is acknowledging her chances to move the legislation along arent good. The public, she said, should know that a tool to reduce these massacres is sitting in the Senate, ready for a debate and a vote. She added, To my colleagues in Congress, I say, Do your job.

Washingtons inaction and avoidance isnt acceptable. Feinsteins bill needs to come to a roll-call vote so Americans can see which of their elected officials are taking a stand for public safety.

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.
Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Four progressive San Francisco supervisors have broken ranks with hometown U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein  the citys most prominent and long-standing Democratic politician  and instead endorsed her challenger, Kevin de Leon.

Supervisors Jane Kim, Hillary Ronen, Aaron Peskin and Norman Yee all threw their support behind de Leon, the state Senate president pro tem who jumped into the race in October, to long-shot odds.
Senate Republicans introduced a tax bill Thursday that would raise federal taxes on millions of Californians by eliminating the individual deduction for state and local taxes, a move that puts the states GOP House members in a ticklish situation.

The legislation poses a stark choice for those 14 Republicans, many from suburban districts of the kind where Republicans got crushed in Tuesdays election. If they support a bill party leaders say is vital to remaining in power by proving that the GOP-dominated Congress can pass significant legislation, they will have to explain to their constituents why they voted to raise their taxes. Or they can vote against a tax bill that is the top priority of the party and President Trump.

Only one California Republican, Darrell Issa of Vista, who narrowly won re-election in his suburban San Diego County district last year, has come out against the House version of the bill, in part because of its treatment of state and local taxes.

And in a telephone interview Thursday, Issa said the Senate bill goes from bad to hopeless. One reason is because while the House bill ends deductions for state and local income and sales taxes, it allows for up to $10,000 in property tax deductions. The Senate bill eliminates the entire deduction.

The House bill needed to deal fairly with the recognition that Californians should not pay taxes on the same income twice, Issa said.

But his main objection to the Senate bill is that it delays for a year the corporate tax cuts intended to spur growth. Issa described that as fraudulent on its face.

He said businesses will simply delay investment decisions by a year, even though Senate tax writers continue to claim economic benefits. You dont get a return on an investment you never made, Issa said. Its frustrating that the Senate doesnt seem to have two businessmen to rub together.

Issa, a wealthy former businessman, blasted what he called the marketing material distributed by House leaders claiming that all taxpayers will see their taxes go down, saying, Its just not true.

Issa said its impossible to claim that everyone gets a tax cut, and that adds up to about $3 trillion, and then turn around and say, were doing it with $1.5 trillion.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that by the end of a decade, more than a quarter of individual taxpayers would see a tax increase, about 38 million people.

Part of the reason is the state and local deduction, which has been a trouble spot for Republicans since they began their effort this fall to slash corporate tax rates from 35 to 20 percent. Even allowing for a $1.5 trillion increase in the deficit that the tax bills would produce within 10 years, lowering business taxes requires reducing or eliminating many deductions that benefit middle- and upper-middle-income taxpayers.

One of the largest is the state and local deduction, which especially helps taxpayers in Democratic-leaning states that tend to have higher taxes.

More than a third of Californians use the deduction, on average deducting $18,437 from their income, according to calculations by the Government Finance Officers Association.

Under pressure from New York Republicans, House tax writers watered down their elimination of the deduction by exempting up to $10,000 in property taxes.

But while that helps New Yorkers, it does little for Californians, whose property taxes tend to be comparatively low thanks to a decades-old ballot measure, Proposition 13, but who pay the nations highest state income tax. California Republicans  Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is the second-ranking Republican in the House and responsible for rounding up the votes  have been publicly quiet about the provision.

Now the Senate bill would eliminate the deduction entirely. Gov. Jerry Brown last month called the tax legislation an attack on California and New York and New Jersey and other states that did not vote for Trump.

House and Senate Democrats have pounced on both bills, arguing that their tax benefits are heavily weighted toward very high-income taxpayers, which independent analyses confirm. The bills eliminate or slash several taxes paid by the wealthy, such as the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax.

White House officials argue that because wealthy people pay the bulk of income taxes, it is impossible to cut taxes without benefiting them disproportionately, a reversal from earlier claims by White House economic director Gary Cohn that the tax plan would not benefit the wealthy.

The House Ways and Means Committee approved the House tax bill on a party-line vote Thursday, with Republican Devin Nunes of Tulare voting yes. McCarthy announced that the House would vote on the plan next week, not specifying a day.

Rep. Mike Thompson, a St. Helena Democrat on the committee, said the House bill retains a provision that he said would eliminate deductions for personal losses due to fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters, but keep it for losses from recent hurricanes.

McCarthy said in a statement that the bill lives up to its name  cutting taxes for individuals, families and businesses of all size, and delivering more jobs and higher wages for the American people.

Republicans are hoping to pass combined House and Senate tax legislation by years end and send it to Trump to sign.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that if Republicans fail to do so, The party fractures, most incumbents in 2018 will get a severe primary challenge, a lot of them will probably lose, the base will fracture, the financial contributions will stop, other than that itll be fine.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said Republicans have it all wrong, if they think their tax legislation will keep them in power, citing Tuesdays election results. Noting the Senate bills elimination of the state and local deduction, she said House leaders are forcing vulnerable suburban Republicans to walk the plank for a bill that will harm their own constituents.

Those members should be worried, very, very worried, Pelosi said. She has scheduled a news conference in San Francisco on Friday with Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee to highlight the state and local deduction in what she calls the GOP tax scam.

Asked whether California Republicans are laying low because one of their own is in the leadership, Issa said, Certainly Kevins (McCarthy) telling people this is a good idea carries a lot of weight, adding, but Kevin has no real business experience.

Issa compared the looming vote to the narrow passage of a big Medicare prescription drug benefit during George W. Bushs administration, when he said GOP leaders assured their rank and file that a yes vote would give them a permanent Republican majority, even though they had no plan to pay for the new benefit. Republicans soon after lost their House majority, Issa said.

Carolyn Lochhead is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
It only took Pierre Birebent a few sips to figure out that Wine Country will be OK after all.

It tastes, he said, like its supposed to.

On a sunny day last month, Birebent sipped from about a dozen stainless steel tanks still standing on the torched hillside at Signorello Estate Winery just north of downtown Napa. His job as chief winemaker is to sample the fermenting wine; that day, he needed to determine whether any of it was damaged by the fire that decimated the 40-year-old estate earlier in the month. Were the 50,000 bottles worth of Cabernet Sauvignon salvageable, or should he pour it all into the nearest drain?

He poured a sample from one tanks valve into a small glass, took a sip and smiled. He checked the lab reports and smiled some more. The alcohol, vinegar and sugar levels were all within their normal ranges. It went by itself and was waiting for me to take care of it, Birebent said.

Lets not panic. The fire is out. It didnt burn everything. Nothing wrong with this years vintage  at least not with the stuff in the bottles that will say 2017 on the labels.

Signorellos landmark tasting room, like a chunk of Wine Country, is gone. Photographs of the gutted ivy-covered stone building have become iconic images of the October firestorm. But, said Birebent, its just a building. The estate survived.

In fact, virtually all of Wine Country remains intact. Take a drive down Highway 29 or the Silverado Trail, through Napa County, and the scenery is familiar, save for some burned swaths. The wineries are still lined up shoulder to shoulder, like obedient choirboys. All but a scant few are open for business.

In the next valley over, take a walk around the gracious Sonoma Plaza. The Basque coffeehouse is open, the boutiques are open, the restaurants are open. So is the gourmet Oakville Grocery, where a ham and Brie sandwich goes for $14 and most customers say it is worth it. Everything is open.

Come back, come back, come back, say the vintners, the restaurateurs, the merchants, the chambers of commerce. Everything you saw on TV and read in the newspaper  yes, it happened. Forty-three lives, more than 8,000 buildings and 162,300 acres were lost in fires that hit five counties in the region.

But most of the Wine Country is right where its always been.

The hot-air balloons are soaring, the art galleries are exhibiting, the bakeries are baking. The famous French Laundry in Yountville isnt laundering  but thats because thats not what it does. Its open for dinner, the three-star kind, at $310 a head.

If you want to help us out, please visit, said Brenda Beal, spokeswoman for the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce. Were open. Were ready. Were up and running.

The majestic Sonoma Plaza a few steps from her office was spared. The historic artifacts that were whisked out of the historic Mission San Francisco Solano on the square, for safekeeping, are in the process of being whisked back.

Were lucky not to have suffered any damage on our plaza, Beal said. There was no effect on downtown.

St. Helena calls itself Napa Valleys Main Street, and Christi Metzner, a manager at the Chamber of Commerce, said there are special deals all over town, and many area wineries are waiving their tasting fees or donating them to the fire relief funds.

Were not mentioning the word fire around here, she said. We know people were displaced and that doesnt just go away. But were concentrating on getting people back.

Not far away in Calistoga, the fabled mineral baths are still full of their good old magnesium, same as ever. General manager Michael Lennon of the Calistoga Spa Hot Springs said business is down about 50 percent because of the fires, which moved him to knock about half off the price of a Girls Getaway Package.

Its $99, and for that price a girl  or anyone else  gets a massage, an eye mask, a bottle of lavender lotion and an embroidered robe to take home as a reminder to come back and do it all over again.

Come on up and see us, Lennon said. If you want to help, thats the best thing you can do. Everything here is the same as it was.

Sifting through the rubble at Signorello, winemaker Birebent said that the best part of 2017 is safe and sound. Its tucked away in barrels, in the warehouse, which survived just fine. Signorello, unlike most of the wineries, did lose its landmark building  but thats a temporary setback.

It will take a year or so to build a new tasting room, he said. But well do it. You should see the plans. It will be better than ever.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Keith Schiller, Donald Trump's longtime head of security, told congressional investigators that he rejected an offer to send five women to Trumps hotel room during a trip to Moscow ahead of the Miss Universe Pageant in 2013, sources tell ABC News.



In a four hour-plus meeting with congressional investigators Tuesday, Schiller was questioned about the 2013 Moscow trip with Trump and the president's firing of former FBI Director James Comey.



Sources say Schiller told Congress he believed the offer was a joke, and that he responded to the offer by saying Trump was "not interested."



He told Trump about the exchange several hours later and the two laughed about it, Schiller told investigators, according to sources familiar with the interview.



After walking Trump to his hotel room, Schiller reportedly told investigators he stayed outside the door for several minutes  his standard practice as Trump's security guard  before heading to his own room. He said did not see anyone enter Trumps room.



ABC News first reported on congressional investigators' interest in Schiller. A former New York city cop, Schiller has been at Donald Trumps side for years.



Schiller, who left his role as Trumps director of Oval Office operations in September, hand-delivered Comeys termination letter to FBI headquarters in May. He told investigators he did not know anything about Trumps decision until he was asked to deliver the letter to the FBI.



Schiller denied knowledge of the salacious allegations against Trump included in the unverified dossier produced by the investigative firm Fusion GPS, and did not provide investigators with many definitive answers about his time with Trump, according to several sources in the room for the interview.



Trump has also denied those allegations himself, saying he knew there could be cameras hidden inside hotel rooms in Russia.



I was in Russia years ago with the Miss Universe contest which did very well, Trump said. And I told many people, be careful because you dont want to see yourself on television, cameras all over the place.



Schillers attorney Stuart Sears declined to comment.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
CEDAR RAPIDS  If running for office was easy, Fred Hubbell says, I might have done it a long time ago.

Now retired from leading Younkers retail stores and later the Equitable of Iowa life insurance company, as well as stints chairing the Iowa Power Fund and as interim director of the state economic development department, Hubbell, 66, is running for office for the first time.

Hes not running because being governor was on his bucket list.

Im not interested in the title, he said while in Cedar Rapids earlier this week. Im not interested in moving back into Terrace Hill, the governors residence that the fifth generation Iowans family gave to the state in 1971. Im interested in making Iowa a better place. Im just a vehicle to make the state a better place.

Hubbell, one of seven Democrats running for the partys 2018 gubernatorial nomination, believes state government is suffering from a lack of leadership on priorities such as education, health care and mental health. Theres also a lack of moral leadership, he said about the various lawsuits GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds and her predecessor, Terry Branstad, have been involved in and all the sexual harassment claims that are being ignored.

His lack of experience as an elected office is less important than the experience he gained leading business organizations and activities in the nonprofit sector, Hubbell said.

Ultimately, voters are looking for somebody who knows how to get things done and puts people first and will invest in people to grow our state, he said.

In those roles, he said hes learned the value and importance of listening to people talk about what is working in their communities, what could work better and if there are ways the state can help.

Hubbell differentiates himself from others in the Democratic primary in June, pointing out that its rare to find businessmen running for office that have as long of a progressive track record as my wife (Charlotte) and I do.

Were a little different than most progressives or most business people, he said. My campaign is a strong combination of both and I think thats amplified by not having been a politician.

In addition to Hubbell, the other Democrats running for governor are Ross Wilburn, Andy McGuire, Jon Neiderbach, John Norris, Sen. Nate Boulton and Cathy Glasson.
The recent rain that put a welcome end to wildfire season in badly burned Northern California has a downside: toxic runoff.

Though no major problems have been reported in the Wine Country, which was hit this week with its biggest storm since last months deadly fires, hundreds of workers are on the ground to prevent the remnants of scorched homes and hillsides from washing into creeks and reservoirs  and ultimately the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay.

Water officials fear that heavy metals and other pollutants, as well as large doses of dirt, could muck up water supplies for both humans and wildlife. Soil erosion also could undermine roads and bridges, and mudslides could break loose on fire-ravaged slopes.

Santa Rosa and its northern outskirts are most vulnerable, officials say. A team of local, state and federal agencies is coordinating to stabilize the charred area, including the neighborhoods of Fountaingrove, Coffey Park, Larkfield and Skyfarm, so that potentially murky, contaminated water doesnt proceed through streams and storm drains into the Russian River and to sea.

In addition to removing debris  a process that probably will run through March  crews have put hundreds of straw filters over curbside drainage inlets to catch unwanted materials, sunk nets into ditches to trap bad stuff and seeded hillsides to keep things from slipping in the first place.

Wildfires burned much of the soil and vegetation that normally sop up runoff and prevent erosion.

To the southeast, workers are targeting charred sections of Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley, where noxious runoff threatens Sonoma Creek and the Napa River, both of which run to the bay.

So far, we havent seen any problems, said Claudia Villacorta, a supervising engineer for the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Testing for water problems is just beginning. Though the regional water board, along with a number of other natural resource agencies, has bumped up the monitoring of hundreds of creeks in Sonoma and Napa counties, most of the test samples taken since the rain remain at the lab  and theyre still collecting others.

Exactly what theyll find remains unclear. Results will depend largely on where and how quickly runoff occurs, as well as such factors as how hot the fire burned and in what chemical state it left things.

Villacortas biggest concern are metals like zinc, copper and lead, washed from the rubble of homes, as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that result from burned grasses and trees. Each is potentially toxic to humans.

Although no major reservoirs are at risk in Sonoma County, residents who get their water from wells or streams might have issues.

In Napa County, fires burned to the edge of three reservoirs, where water officials arent worried so much about toxic waste as they are about too much sediment. Turbidity problems havent surfaced, but officials are keeping a close eye on the city of Napas Milliken Reservoir, Yountvilles Rector Reservoir and Calistogas Kimball Reservoir.

Sediment also can harm the regions fish, including threatened steelhead trout, chinook salmon and coho salmon.

Were mindful of what the winter can do up here, said Mike Kirn, public works director for the city of Calistoga. A lot of rain can come down in a short amount of time and impact the clarity of the water.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
Every Friday morning, SFGATE finds the biggest headlines in local (and sometimes national) beer. Check back here weekly for news, events, and information about special releases from your favorite local breweries.

Sutro Stewards, a nonprofit conservation group in San Francisco, teamed up with a handful of local breweries for Beers Made By Walking, an awesome program that "invites brewers to go on nature hikes and make beer inspired by plants, sights, and smells found along the trail." As a result, breweries like Black Hammer, Woods, FDR, Southpaw and more are serving up some beers for the wilderness-traversing drinker at Laughing Monk this Saturday, Nov. 11, beginning at 2 p.m. Such beers include an Irish red ale with redwood spring tips and wax myrtle dry leaf, an oak-smoked acorn gratzer, a cider with redwood tips, and a strong pale ale dry-hopped with black sage (the last of which is actually a Sonoma Pride beer from ThirstyBear). Tickets for the event are $30 and include 10 4-oz. tastings and a commemorative glass. Proceeds go to the nonprofit.

Pilsner Urquell is celebrating its 175th birthday at Monk's Kettle in San Francisco this Saturday, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The company's brewmaster and Plzen native, Robert Lobovsky, will also be there taking questions and drinking along.

Magnolia Brewing turns 20 years old this Saturday, November 11  at exactly 11:11 a.m. It's a huge milestone and certainly not one that will pass by uncelebrated. "The trip has indeed been long and strange, but also pretty wonderful every step of the way and through all manner of times," a post on the brewery's Instagram account reads. "As of Saturday, we'll have brewed 2,575 times in that basement and the Pub is still the heart and soul of Magnolia two decades later." They'll celebrate with a birthday bash that day, and pop their Anniversary Ale at the Haight Street brewpub.

Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine honored both Sante Adairius and Drake's in their roundup of the best beers of 2017. The publication lauded SARA's Saison Bernice mixed-fermentation saison as "weightless and airy with subtle citrus flavors and a touch of funk over a masterfully restrained acidity." Drake's The Void  a 17.5 percent imperial stout they released for their 28th birthday back in August  was "the single highest-scoring beer our blind panel tasted."

Anchor is doing its first ever release of a barrel-aged version of their Christmas Ale. The beer itself, from 2016, was aged in "various whiskey and wine barrels" for a year before being tasted. The resulting blend is a includes notes of "whiskey, vanilla and sumptuous wintry spice notes layered on top of a rich malty base." The ticketed release event is on Nov. 15 at the Potrero Hill brewhouse.

Monk's Kettle in San Francisco has rolled out a cheaper menu and some less expensive beer options. The menu, viewable here, still includes some house favorites, but the big news is that draft beers will be more affordable. The most expensive drafts will be $1 less, and they will "strive to offer a bottle/can option for $6 or under for all the styles that we are able to."

Hop Grenade in Concord will roll out a number of Sonoma Pride beers from Russian River, Cooperage, and HenHouse for a special benefit event on Friday night. More details here.

Almanac is introducing a new happy hour, to take place Tuesday through Friday, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. There will be food specials aplenty, but also a $2 discount on all draft beers and a free glass growler with every fill purchase (or a 20 percent discount if you bring your own growler).

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.


If you missed it ...

In a week when Twitter expanded to 280 characters, and that was nowhere near enough to list all the men in Hollywood and the media accused of sexual misconduct, this also happened:

Some actually nice news: TJX, which owns such retailers as TJ Maxx and Marshalls, is still paying workers in Puerto Rico, even those at stores that have been closed for weeks because of Hurricane Maria. We believe it is the right thing for us to do under these circumstances, a TJX representative told People magazine.

After getting questions from the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, eBay removed listings of sand that was supposedly taken from Hawaii beaches. Its illegal to take sand from the states beaches, with only a few exceptions. And no, selling it on eBay isnt one of them.

So who did love the Twitter change? German bureaucrats, who enjoy really long words. Theres an old law about beef labeling, for example, that was known in German as the Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz.

Who didnt love the change? Author J.K. Rowling, for one, who tweeted that the move destroyed Twitters uniqueness. The whole point, for me, was how inventive people could be within that concise framework. Chimed in Stephen King: What she said.

Besides, a tweet really could have summed up the week with only two characters: Ew.

Speaking of two characters, Warrior Steph and restaurateur Ayesha Curry, left, race around a cartoon kitchen in a free new app called, of course, Chef Curry. You might have to pay the price if you really want to give it your best shot: There are in-app purchases.

Facebook in Australia announced an experiment to fight revenge porn, but it requires a leap of faith. If youre afraid an ex might post intimate photos of you, a blog post explains, you can sign up for the program and send any images youre worried about to yourself via Messenger. Facebook will put its digital fingerprint (but not the picture itself) on a database so the image wont get uploaded.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicle
Dara Khosrowshahi wants to make something clear: The new Uber will not look like the company he inherited.

Speaking publicly for the first time since he became Ubers chief executive in August, Khosrowshahi painted a rosier vision of the future of his San Francisco company. His aim: To escape from the shadow cast over the ride-hailing giant after a series of scandals shook the company to its core and resulted in the eventual ousting of former chief executive and co-founder, Travis Kalanick.

The culture went wrong, the governance went wrong, the board went in a very bad direction, Khosrowshahi said in conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook conference on Thursday. I think winning gives some excuses for bad behavior.

Indeed, when Khosrowshahi stepped into the role in August, he had to deal with a series of scandals. Employee attrition was at a high, the companys board of directors was rife with infighting, the company faced no fewer than five federal inquiries into its business practices. And, moreover, the brand and what Uber stood for was taking a beating. The #DeleteUber hashtag surged across social media earlier this year, resulting in more than 500,000 deleted accounts.

Now, Khosrowshahi is trying to put his own imprimatur on the company in what he calls Uber 2.0.

He confirmed, for the first time publicly, that Uber is working on securing a multibillion-dollar investment from SoftBank, the Japanese mega-conglomerate angling to get into the American ride-hailing market. He hinted at pulling back on Ubers long-espoused strategy of spending enormous amounts of money in order to gain market share in certain areas.

Perhaps most important, he has embarked on an apology tour of sorts in cities and countries around the world, trying to repair the damage done by Kalanick and his contentious, bare-knuckled approach to dealing with regulators in new markets.

I think we were generally immature with how we deal and dealt with regulators, Khosrowshahi said.

He spent the past few weeks traveling to London, where Uber is facing the threat of being banned, as well as Brazil, where Uber narrowly escaped being regulated as if it were more like a taxi service.

He has not eschewed the companys history entirely. Khosrowshahi nodded to the passion it took for Kalanick to get Uber to the near $70 billion transportation behemoth it is today. Khosrowshahi said still talks regularly with Kalanick and that he would be crazy not to rely on Kalanicks genius and tenacity to take the company forward.

But make no mistake: Uber is Khosrowshahis company now, not Travis Kalanicks. And Khosrowshahi said he has made clear he needs some distance from the former CEO to do his job, and to do it well. Thats especially true if he wants to make good on his goal of taking the company public in 2019.

Ive got to put my stamp on the company, he said. Were on our way.

Mike Isaac is a New York Times writer.
LONDON  Uber suffered another setback in its biggest market outside the United States on Friday when an employment tribunal in London rejected the ride-hailing companys argument that its drivers are self-employed.

The decision, which affirmed a ruling issued last year, means that Uber will have to ensure that its drivers in Britain receive a minimum wage and paid time off. That creates problems for the gig economy, which relies on workers who do not have formal contracts.

Companies argue that using such a model increases flexibility for workers and businesses, but critics counter that the system is exploitative and deprives employees of important safeguards like unemployment insurance.

The ruling Friday was the second blow to Ubers business here in recent months. In September, Londons transport authority barred the company from operating in the British capital.

In the case before the employment tribunal, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam had challenged Uber on behalf of a group of 19 drivers, saying that the service had denied them basic protections by classifying them as self-employed. Uber countered with an argument it has used around the world: Its drivers were independent contractors.

You can hide behind technology, but the laws are there, and they need to be obeyed and respected, Aslam, 36, said in an interview after the tribunal issued its decision. The impact of this ruling could affect thousands of drivers, and not just drivers but millions of workers across the U.K.

It just means we cant be exploited, he added.

The acting chief of Ubers British operations, Tom Elvidge, said the company will appeal, either to the Court of Appeal or to Britains Supreme Court.

The employment case here is one of several challenges that Uber faces. Although the company has expanded at a breakneck pace and grown into a behemoth valued at $70 billion, it has had to grapple with allegations that it does not do enough to vet its drivers, revelations that it used software to evade the gaze of the authorities and other issues.

Complaints about an aggressive workplace culture forced Travis Kalanick, a founder of the San Francisco company, to resign as chief executive this year. He was succeeded by the former chief executive of Expedia, Dara Khosrowshahi, who has displayed a more conciliatory style.

As part of his softer approach, Khosrowshahi went on a charm offensive last month in an effort to win over the London transport authorities. Uber is appealing the London ban, which declared the company not fit and proper to operate in the city. Uber was allowed to continue operating in the city until a final ruling was made in the case.

Khosrowshahis shift in tone comes at a crucial time. Uber is aiming for an initial public offering in 2019, and working on securing a multibillion-dollar investment from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

As part of its push to win over customers and drivers concerned about Ubers reputation, the company has introduced new measures and services, including allowing users to add tips to fares. Uber also has promoted its efforts, particularly in Britain, to provide drivers with benefits like access to insurance and pensions.

Essentially, it has been outrunning employment law and legislators, said Andre Spicer, a professor at City Universitys Cass Business School in London. Its having to become more like a normal company, rather than one that was able to evade existing legal frameworks.

Ubers operations in London are crucial to its global expansion. The company started operating in the city in 2012, and now offers its services in dozens of cities nationwide. About 40,000 people drive for Uber in the British capital, and the company says that 3 million customers have used the app in London at least once in the past three months.

Ubers arrival in London has, however, set off a clash with the citys famous black cabs. Drivers in the centuries-old taxi system must pass an exacting test known as the Knowledge that requires the memorization of around 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks. A ride in a black cab is typically far more expensive than using Uber, which cabbies complain is too lightly regulated.

Opponents of Uber argue that it is able to undercut rivals on price largely because of its employment practices, which mean it can avoid paying some of the costs and contributions required by permanent employees. But the companys business model is facing challenges across Europe. The regions highest court is expected to rule by years end in a case involving whether Uber should be regulated as a taxi service, which would make it subject to rigorous safety and employment rules, or as a digital platform that simply connects independent drivers and passengers.

Labor experts say that laws in most countries have failed to keep pace with advances in technology and the rise of the gig economy. In Britain, for example, the main piece of legislation that regulates how workers are treated was passed in 1996.

The legislation is old, said Susannah Kintish, a partner at the law firm Mishcon de Reya who specializes in employment law. It came out when the Spice Girls had their first hit. Its just way out of date.

Prashant S. Rao is a New York Times writer.
More than a year before the new State Route 99 tunnel is scheduled to open to vehicles in Seattle, I took a ride Thursday from one end of the 2-mile tube to the other, beneath this booming city and its waterfront. While the views werent as spectacular as those from the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct that the tunnel will replace, the experience felt like an historic journey into the future of transportation in this city.

Starting at the south end near CenturyLink Field, members of the media were loaded into a tram of sorts  a metal-caged vehicle with bench seating used to move workers. The vehicle moved away from the light and views of the sky and into the dimly lit tunnel at a relatively plodding pace, avoiding workers and equipment along the way and sounding the horn regularly to announce its approach.

We traveled along the lowest level of the tunnel in what will eventually be the bottom surface of a maintenance pathway  a space beneath the lower roadway surface of the double-decker highway. Its situated between the corbels, or ledges, that will support that lower deck.

Much of the tunnel has progressed beyond the circular shape created by Bertha the boring machine and the concrete rings laid in her path to create the tunnels outer wall. Interior walls have been poured, and most of the upper southbound roadway has also been installed thanks to a cast in place method  visible in this time-lapse video from the Washington State Department of Transportation.

So cruising through the tunnel on Thursday felt like driving through a rectangle  with lots of Honey Buckets and tools along the way.

The 10- to 15-minute ride (at just a few mph) ended near the north portal close to Seattle Center and the Space Needle. This is where Bertha finished her years-long push beneath Seattle and popped back into daylight on April 4. Seattle Tunnel Partners spent the summer cutting the tunnel boring machine and her 5-story-tall cutterhead into pieces, lifting them out of the receiving pit and trucking them away. That process concluded at the end of August.

The progress thats been made on building the upper roadway was starkly evident here, as well. Several hundred yards from the north end of the tunnel, the roadway stopped, with rebar protruding high above, waiting for the concrete to catch up to it. At more than 90-percent completion, 159 of 171 concrete pours have been made on the upper deck.

Walking up an incline away from the tunnel and back toward daylight on what will be the northbound roadway, a sign has been installed to alert future drivers of the toll theyll be paying for the fancy highway they just used. Its the same as those mounted on the SR 520 bridge over Lake Washington. The road also splits here, with the option to continue north on 99 or exit at Dexter Avenue.

After gawking for a while at the opening where Bertha made such a dusty appearance last spring, we hopped back in the tram for a return trip to the southern end.

It felt good to see the sunlight again and fill the lungs with fresh air. A Seattle Sounders FC flag was visible, flapping in the wind on a building overlooking the stadium where the team would be playing Thursday night.

The Seattle skyline was also visible, but for those who have always appreciated that view  and the water, ferries, mountains and sunsets to the west  as they drive north along the upper deck of the Viaduct, the uniquely Seattle scene will fall out of sight as you drive down into the tunnel.

But it was a big day at this end because precast panels for the tunnels lower deck roadway began showing up this week from Tacoma, where they are being made by Concrete Technology Corp. Theyve been building the panels  which are 32-feet wide and 8-feet long and weigh 22 tons each  since the beginning of the year, and the lower deck will take 1,152 of them.

A specialized crane (called a precast gantry crane), built to slide along temporary rails inside the tunnel, will lift and place the slabs on top of the corbels on both sides of the tunnel. Once theyre fastened in place, a layer of concrete will be laid over the top to create a smooth driving surface  unlike the bumpy ride I took on the way in and out.

Work continues on the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems inside the tunnel, and is expected to be completed by next March. The lower deck installation should wrap up by the end of 2018, as the entire project shoots for a January 2019 opening  which will bring with it the start of the Viaducts demolition.

As project administrator Joe Hedges of WSDOT said on Thursday, more than four years after Bertha first started cutting a pathway beneath Seattle: There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Friday morning was an eventful one for 29-year-old Victor Flores of Fremont, according to Fremont police.

Flores first drew the attention of two police officers about 6:38 a.m., when the pair was dispatched to the 3600 block of Norfolk Road for a car accident, police said.

The two officers confronted Flores at the scene and found that he had been driving on a suspended license, according to police, who issued a citation for the violation and had the car towed.

Flores then made his way about 3.5 miles northwest of the scene of the accident to the Fremont Hub shopping center, where he stole a FedEx truck, police report.

The two FedEx employees responsible for the truck told police that they left the truck running at 10:54 a.m. while they went into a business at the Fremont Hub.

While in the store, they heard the whir of the engine and ran outside only to see the truck being driven south through the parking lot and away from the shopping center, police said.

The truck had a GPS tracker, but one of the FedEx workers had brought it into the store with him, making the tracker useless for catching the thief, he told police.

But the truck was a conspicuous choice of vehicle to steal, and it didn't stay missing for long  about 40 minutes later, police said, a local Good Samaritan found it unoccupied and idling at an apartment complex just south of the shopping center. Oddly, it appeared no packages were taken from the truck.

About 30 minutes later, a resident on Margery Drive called to report that a man matching Flores' description knocked on her door asking to use her phone.

The officers arrived and recognized Flores from the accident scene earlier in the morning.

"This time," police said in a statement, "he received a ride to jail."

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter
A bilingual San Francisco police officer who acted as a Spanish-language interpreter in the interrogation of the man accused of fatally shooting Kate Steinle on Pier 14 mistranslated key portions of the interview, a Spanish translation expert testified Thursday.

The recorded interview of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate is a central piece of evidence in his trial, and defense attorneys called the expert as their final witness. Theyre seeking to refute the accusation that the 45-year-old man fired the stolen gun intentionally  rather than accidentally  and is therefore guilty of second-degree murder.

Though homicide investigators asked Garcia Zarate at various points in the four-hour interrogation if he had pulled the trigger of the gun, Officer Martin Covarrubias never actually said the word for trigger  gatillo  when he translated the questions into Spanish, said Fanny Suarez, an investigator for the city public defenders office and a former court interpreter.

Police asked Garcia Zarate several variations of the question, Did you pull the trigger? But instead, Suarez said, Covarrubias translated into Spanish, Did you shoot? Garcia Zarate answered in the affirmative.

After Suarez took the stand, the defense rested its case, signaling that the high-profile trial is nearing an end, though the prosecution could call rebuttal witnesses next week. Closing arguments are scheduled for Nov. 20, with jurors deliberating after that.

Suarezs testimony about the translation was aimed at the heart of the prosecutions case against Garcia Zarate, a homeless man with a history of drug crimes and deportations to his native Mexico who was released from County Jail before the July 1, 2015, killing  despite a federal request to hold him for another deportation.

Steinle, 32, had been strolling with her arm around her father toward the end of the pier when the bullet struck her in the back. The shooting gained wide attention not only because of the randomness of Steinles death, but also because of how it figured into the national debate over sanctuary laws and the anti-immigrant sentiment embraced by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Prosecutors have suggested a range of evidence supports a murder conviction, including that the pistol that killed Steinle cannot be fired without a pull of the trigger, and that Garcia Zarate discarded the weapon in San Francisco Bay shortly after the killing.

The defense, though, has sought to prove that the gun unintentionally discharged shortly after Garcia Zarate found it under a seat at the pier. According to court testimony, a single round bounced off the concrete ground of the pier 12 to 15 feet away from Garcia Zarate before traveling roughly 78 more feet and striking Steinle.

Garcia Zarate, who was interrogated in the hours after the shooting, provided rambling accounts of how it happened.

At one point he said he had aimed at a sea animal. At another point, he said the gun  which had been stolen four days earlier from the car of a federal ranger while it was parked near the waterfront  had been under a rag that lay on the ground, that it fired when he stepped on it, and that he quickly tossed the weapon into the bay so it would stop shooting on its own.

Defense attorney Matt Gonzalez, of the public defenders office, said its not clear if Garcia Zarate fully understood what police were asking and what he was admitting, such as that he had been aiming at sea animals or that he was 5 feet away from Steinle at the time of the shooting, not 90 feet away.

The translation issues only worsened the quality of the interrogation, Gonzalez said.

Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia asked just a few questions in her cross-examination. Though Suarez testified that every word matters, when Garcia asked her if she felt that Covarrubias interpretation was off the mark, she said she did not have an opinion on the matter.

When asked outside court if there was a difference between admitting to pulling a trigger and admitting to firing a gun, Gonzalez said, Thats for the jury to sort out.

I know Officer Covarrubius and I like him, Gonzalez said. There are certainly parts of his interpretation that are accurate. Our point is not to say hes an incompetent interpreter. Our point is to say if youre going to give significance to individual words and answers, then you have to look at this transcript very carefully.

Garcia Zarate had been on track for a sixth deportation when federal authorities, in March 2015, brought him to San Francisco to face a 20-year-old warrant in a marijuana case. When city prosecutors dismissed the case, the Sheriffs Department, relying on the citys sanctuary policies for immigrants, released Garcia Zarate despite a federal request to hold him for removal.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
RICHMOND, Va.  Danica Roem, a transgender woman whose defeat of an outspoken, socially conservative lawmaker has made news around the world, is just one of several women making history in this weeks Virginia elections.

The state House is also getting its first Latina members, its first Asian American woman delegate and likely its first openly lesbian member.

Altogether, at least 10 Democratic women will be joining the 100-member House, which previously had only 17 female members. That number could tick up as races that were too close to call go through recounts. Observers say the new diversity could represent a sea change for the chamber, control of which was still up in the air Wednesday.

The General Assembly will truly look more like this state than ever before, said Julie Copeland, executive director of Emerge Virginia, which helps prepare Democratic women to run for office and trained nine of the winners.

Among Emerges trainees are Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala, who will be the first Latina members of the House, representing northern Virginia districts. Though the states population is about 9 percent Hispanic, the House currently has only one Latino delegate. Both Guzman and Ayala unseated incumbents.

Kathy Tran, who defeated Republican Lolita Mancheno-Smoak to win an open northern Virginia seat, will be the first Asian American woman delegate. And Dawn Adams, who claimed victory Wednesday night after Richmond-area incumbent G.M. Manoli Loupassi conceded in a race that had been too close to call, is expected to be the first openly lesbian state legislator.

Charniele Herring, chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, said the diversity will play out during the legislative session on issues like health care and paid family leave.

And Roem said that with Democrat Ralph Northam in the governors mansion and what may be a Democratic majority in the House, lawmakers shouldnt even think about introducing discriminatory legislation.

Sarah Rankin is an Associated Press writer.
1 Sex harassment: Disgraced and facing financial and professional fallout over allegations of sexual misconduct, comedian Louis C.K. issued a statement Friday in which he acknowledged accounts of him masturbating in front of colleagues are true and expressed remorse for wielding his influence irresponsibly. The comedian said the harassment claims by five women detailed in a New York Times report published Thursday are true and that he can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. He apologized to the cast and crew of several projects hes been working on, his family, children and friends, his manager and the FX network, among others. C.K. stepped forward on the same day the indie distributor The Orchard said it will scrap the release of his film I Love You, Daddy. C.K. already has been edited out of the upcoming HBO benefit Night of Too Many Stars and his work is being scrubbed from the cable networks vaults. FX Networks and FX Productions said Friday they were ending their association with Louis C.K.

2 Hazing suspension: A student-run council at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has suspended fraternity social events following allegations of sexual misconduct and hazing involving fraternity members. The Interfraternity Council said in a statement that the suspension will allow council members to immediately begin the process of assessing our policies and practices and develop a formal plan going forward. The statement didnt detail the allegations, but the Michigan Daily student newspaper reported allegations of sexual misconduct, multiple reports of hazing and people being taken to hospitals in recent weekends.
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas  The Texas church where more than two dozen people were killed by a gunman during Sunday services will be demolished, the pastor said.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this week that it would be too painful to continue using First Baptist Church as a place of worship.

Pomeroy discussed the state of the building with the denominations top executives, who traveled to the rural community in a show of support, a national Southern Baptist spokesman said.

The pastor described the church as too stark of a reminder of the massacre, spokesman Sing Oldham said.

No final decisions can be made without consulting congregants, but Pomeroy discussed turning the site into a memorial for the dead and putting up a new building on property the church owns, Oldham said.

Charlene Uhl, mother of 16-year-old Haley Krueger, who died in the attack, agreed that the church should come down.

There should still be a church but not here, she said Thursday as she visited a row of white crosses commemorating the victims in front of the building. She said her daughter attended worship services and a weekly Thursday night youth group meeting held by another victim, Karla Holcombe.

Jeannie Brown, visiting from Indiana, stopped at the site with her daughter, who used to live in Sutherland Springs but left decades ago for San Antonio.

Asked whether the church should be destroyed, Brown said: Yes. Who would want to go back in there? But then if it is destroyed, does that mean he (the gunman) won?

The gunman shot and killed 25 people at the church. Authorities have put the official toll at 26, because one of the victims was pregnant.

Other sites of mass shootings have been torn down, including Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in December 2012. A new school was built elsewhere.

A one-room Amish schoolhouse near Lancaster, Pa., was torn down in 2006, 10 days after an assailant took children hostage and shot and killed five girls ages 6 to 13.

The previous site of the school is now a pasture. A nearly identical schoolhouse with a security fence was erected nearby and named New Hope School.

Paul J. Weber and Emily Schmall are Associated Press writers.
Donna Brazile told a sold-out San Francisco crowd Thursday that she knows why Hillary Clinton lost, and its all in her new book.

The culprits in the 2016 presidential election, said the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, were insufficient campaign funds, bad tactics, then-FBI director James Comeys last-minute butting in, Donald Trumps tweets, the right-wing ecosystem, Clintons failure to campaign hard enough in a handful of states, millions of dollars worth of free Trump TV time, and a lot of other reasons that had nothing to do with Donna Brazile.

But mostly it was the Russian hack of Democratic Party headquarters. Not by coincidence, the title of her book is Hacks.

They corrupted our data, they got into our voter files, they used active measures to disrupt our campaign and discredit our nominee, she said. The Russians are coming back.

This book is a warning, she said. I dont want no bears in my house. This is some super-duper hacking.

Brazile said she sure hoped each and every member of the audience would buy a copy of the book for $28, plus tax.

The political strategist and TV pundit is a lifelong Democratic activist. Before being involved in the Clinton campaign, she was involved in the losing presidential campaigns of Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson and Dick Gephardt.

Seated in a gray easy chair onstage at the Marines Memorial Theater, Brazile was folksy, earthy and chatty as she batted away questions.

Asked by moderator Audrey Cooper, editor in chief of The Chronicle, whether she had regrets about published reports that she had used her position as a TV commentator to pass leaked debate questions to candidate Clinton, Brazile said she had tipped off candidate Bernie Sanders as well, because she wanted to give Hillary and Bernie a heads up.

Cooper asked whether she would do it again.

Hell, yes, Brazile replied.

In her 238-page book, released this week, Brazile also criticizes a fundraising agreement that she said gave the Clinton campaign effective control of the party before Clinton had won its nomination.

But Thursday, most of her scorn was directed at the man who beat Clinton, whom she referred to as DT.

Trump, she said, is divisive, xenophobic and racist (and) unable to bring the country together. She said she agreed with Clinton that Trump is unfit. But, she added, lets give him some credit, he cracked the blue wall.

Commonweath Club members in the audience said they liked the speech, but most left without buying the book, despite Braziles frequent waving of it from the stage. (Brazile, according to the online bookseller Amazon, is currently the 41st most popular author in the world, right between J.R.R. Tolkien and the author of the Captain Underpants series.)

I loved her exuberance and her passion, said audience member Bill Maxey of San Francisco. But we got a ticket early, and when you sign up early enough, they dont make you buy the book with your ticket.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
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The Washington Post published a story Thursday detailing alleged relationships between U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore and four teenage women in the 1970s and 80s. One woman says she was 14 when Moore pursued her. At the time, he was 32.

But before the Post's story was even printed, Breitbart News was on the defensive.

The far-right website published a pre-emptive story that leaves out the context of one of the accuser's comments.

More for you Roy Moore defender invokes Jesus to downplay alleged sexual encounters with teens

Debbie Wesson Gibson told the Washington Post she dated Moore for a few months in 1981, when she was 17 and he was 34.

In response to Gibson's account of the relationship, Bretibart writes:

"This woman also is not cited making any claims of inappropriate sexual conduct. In fact, she characterized Moore as being romantic, reading poetry to her, and playing the guitar."

While Gibson does admit the relationship was consensual, she doesn't describe Moore as "romantic," according to the Washington Post's reporting.

"Looking back, I'm glad nothing bad happened," Gibson told the Post. "As a mother of daughters, I realize that our age difference at that time made our dating inappropriate."

Breitbart also paints the Post story as a partisan effort to discredit Moore, led by "open borders champion Jeffrey Bezos."

The article's headline reads, "After endorsing Democrat in Alabama, Bezos's Washington Post plans to hit Roy Moore with allegations of inappropriate relations with teenagers; Judge claims smear campaign."

Moore is the Republican nominee for an open Alabama U.S. Senate seat. Voters are set to choose between the Alabama Supreme Court justice and his Democratic opponent Doug Jones on Dec. 12.

In the same article, Breitbart describes Jones as a far-left candidate who is "financed by George Soros" and supports "open borders and a host of radical causes."

Now Playing: Roy Moore, a GOP nominee for a senate seat in Alabama, is under fire for allegedly engaging in sexual conduct with underage women. Now Moore's colleagues in the senate asking him to step aside if the claims are true. A Washington Post report alleged that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl when he was 32. The report also stated he pursued other women when they were between 16-18. Moore called the claims "fake news." Video: Wibbitz

Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler also made an attempt to defend Moore Thursday.

"There is nothing to see here," Ziegler told the Washington Examiner, before invoking religion.

"Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

Moore denied the allegations to both Breitbart and the Washington Post. "This garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation," a statement from his campaign reads.

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at amartichoux@sfchronicle.com.
MASON CITY | A portion of South Kentucky was blocked Thursday afternoon as officials investigated a possible house fire.

South Kentucky Avenue was blocked between Fourth and Sixth Street Southeast around 3:40 p.m. Thursday.

Light smoke was visible at a home in the 900 block of Fifth Street Southeast. Mason City firefighters were ventilating the home for a small fire in the back of the residence.

Mason City police provided assistance at the scene.

No other information is available at this time.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more details.
One of the nastiest controversies in local government in Iowa in many years was the impeachment in May of Muscatine Mayor Diana Broderson by the city council.

The case isnt over. She has appealed her removal from office.

Im not here to pass judgment on the councils decision.

But I do know this: City Administrator Gregg Mandsager owes it to residents to be more forthcoming with public records. Those records would allow people to make informed judgments about the councils actions, about money the city has spent on the case, and about discussions among council members and Mandsager leading to the impeachment vote.

Mandsager has acted to keep people in the dark about these legitimate questions. His actions illustrate a flaw with Iowas public records law that needs to be corrected by the Legislature.

People having a right to monitor and evaluate government officials actions. Iowas public records law was written with this in mind. But thats not how Muscatine is carrying out the law.

For example, the law allows people to inspect bills submitted by vendors or service providers to any state or local government body. That includes bills from Brick Gentry PC, the West Des Moines law firm that represents Muscatine.

The law also classifies written communications among Muscatine City Council members and Mandsager as public records, too, unless they can point to a section of law that makes communications about the impeachment confidential.

The public records law is worthless if people cannot afford to pay the fees to examine government records. Its obvious to those of us who believe in government accountability that these fees are the way City Hall is limiting in-depth public scrutiny of the impeachment.

Two examples illustrate this unwarranted secrecy:

WQAD-TV in Moline asked Mandsager how much the city has paid Brick Gentry for its work on the impeachment case. Mandsager said he could not answer because the lawyers bills are not recorded that way.

The law may not require him to make those calculations, but the law does not prevent him from answering the simple question many people are asking.

WQAD then asked for all invoices Brick Gentry submitted. Mandsager first said it would cost $412 to retrieve them, to review the bills and make copies. When the work was completed, however, he said the station owed an additional $848, bringing the total cost to $1,260.

The 134 pages of Brick Gentry invoices provided to WQAD are all but useless. Thats because (a) it is impossible to calculate the total amount the law firm billed, (b) Mandsager removed the description of the attorneys work on all but one line, thus preventing citizens from determining whether the charges involve work on the impeachment or on other city matters, and (c) the city administrator decided to blank out the law firms charges on many pages.

A footnote: The $1,260 in fees WQAD paid include eight hours of time, one full work day, that Mandsager said it took his secretary to retrieve the lawyers bills and 12 hours of his own time that Mandsager said he spent reviewing and redacting portions of the 134 pages.

Those 12 hours come out to an astonishing average of almost 5.5 minutes per page.

Mandsager justifies the redactions by claiming the details on the invoices involve the attorneys work product. Releasing the bills intact would violate attorney-client privilege, he claims.

That privilege belongs to the city, not Brick Gentry, and Mandsager could waive that privilege and make public the details if he wanted. Instead, he chose secrecy over transparency.

There is no justification for redacting the amounts Brick Gentry billed.

WHBF-TV in Rock Island, Ill., asked for copies of emails circulated among Mandsager and council members about their complaints with Mayor Broderson. Mandsager estimated it would cost $25,000 to retrieve those emails. Not surprisingly, WHBF said no thanks.

Access to government records should not be dependent on someone being independently wealthy and able to pay breathtaking amounts to monitor their government.

The position Mandsager takes goes against the spirit of openness that is the foundation of Iowas public records law. This is wrong, and the public should let him know that.
CALGARY, Alberta, Nov. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eagle Energy Inc. (Eagle) (TSX:EGL) is pleased to report its financial and operating results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2017 as well as changes to its board of directors (the Board).



Wayne Wisniewski, Eagles President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, At our annual general meeting in June, we laid out two priorities for the remainder of 2017. The first was to drill and test our first North Texas horizontal well in 2017. Although scheduling fracking operations for a single well has been difficult, we are excited to be in the middle of fracking our North Texas well this week and expect to test the well by the end of the year. The second priority was to reduce general and administrative expenses. Eagle has reduced its aggregate executive compensation on an annualized basis by 50% and we expect a 23% year over year reduction in annual general and administrative expenses.

Changes to Eagles Board of Directors

Eagle is pleased to announce that the Board has appointed Mr. Wisniewski as a fifth director of Eagle, effective immediately. Mr. Wisniewski will not receive additional compensation as a result of being a director, in addition to his role as Eagles President and Chief Executive Officer.

Eagle also wishes to announce that David Fitzpatrick, the Lead Independent Director and former Chair of the Board, has advised the Board that he will be retiring as a director of Eagle on January 1, 2018. Mr. Fitzpatrick has lead Eagles Board since Eagles inception.

Richard Clark, Executive Chairman of Eagle, stated, On behalf of Eagle and its Board, I would like to thank Mr. Fitzpatrick for his many years of service and invaluable leadership of Eagle. We wish him all the best in his well-deserved retirement.

Eagles Board is in the process of determining a suitable candidate to fill the vacancy that will be created in early 2018 by Mr. Fitzpatricks retirement.

Third Quarter 2017 Financial Results

Eagles unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and related managements discussion and analysis have been filed with the securities regulators and are available online under Eagles issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on Eagles website at www.EagleEnergy.com.

This news release contains non-IFRS financial measures and statements that are forward-looking. Investors should read the sections titled Non-IFRS Financial Measures and Note about Forward-Looking Statements near the end of this news release. Figures within this news release are presented in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.

Highlights for the Three Months ended September 30, 2017

During the third quarter, Eagle successfully drilled the first horizontal well on its North Texas property with reservoir quality appearing as good or better than expected along the lateral length. Eagle expects to complete fracking operations and test the well by the end of the year.

Year-to-date general and administrative charges were 21% lower than the prior year with expectations of a 23% year over year drop for the full year. Eagle previously announced that effective September 1, 2017 its aggregate executive compensation (cash and non-cash on an annualized basis) had been reduced by 50% from 2016 levels of $2.8 million. Eagle also announced that it had negotiated a new Houston office lease which will reduce its 2018 annual rent by 60%, or $US 170,000, and realize average annual savings of 30% when compared to the terms of its current office lease.

2017 Outlook

This outlook section is intended to provide shareholders with information about Eagles expectations for capital expenditures, production and operating costs for 2017. Readers are cautioned that the information may not be appropriate for any other purpose. This information constitutes forward-looking information. Readers should note the assumptions, risks and discussions under Note about Forward-Looking Statements at the end of this news release.

As a result of higher than anticipated service and supply costs in the third quarter, Eagle is reinstating its capital budget to its original level prior to the August 10, 2017 downward revision. Average production and monthly operating cost guidance remains unchanged from what Eagle previously announced on August 10, 2017 and is as follows:

Guidance

2017 Revised Guidance 2017 Previous Guidance Notes Capital Budget $23.0 mm $21.0 mm (1) Average Production 3,700 to 3,900 boe/d 3,700 to 3,900 boe/d (2) Operating Costs per month $2.1 to $2.3 mm $2.1 to $2.3 mm (3)

Notes:

(1) The revised 2017 capital budget of $23.0 million consists of $US 11.8 million for Eagles operations in the United States and $7.8 million for Eagles operations in Canada.

(2) The production mix consists of 83% oil, 4% natural gas liquids (NGLs) and 13% natural gas. These numbers include working interest and royalty interest volumes.

(3) Operating expense guidance is stated on a per month basis rather than per boe basis due to the mostly fixed nature of the costs.





Eagles Expected Funds Flow from Operations, Ending Net Debt and Field Netback

As a result of guidance revisions and updated commodity price and foreign exchange rate assumptions of management, resulting expected funds flow from operations, ending net debt and field netback and related sensitivities are as follows:

Amount Notes Funds Flow from Operations $12.2 mm (1) Ending Net Debt $71.4 mm Field Netback (excluding hedges) $20.47 / boe (2)

Notes:

(1) 2017 funds flow from operations is expected to be approximately $12.2 million (previously $10.7 million) based on the following assumptions:

average production of 3,800 boe/d (the mid-point of the guidance range); pricing at $US 51.75 (previously $US 50.00) per barrel WTI oil, $US 3.03 (previously $US 3.05) per Mcf NYMEX gas, $CA 2.12 (previously $CA 2.22) per Mcf AECO and $US 18.11 (previously $US 17.48) per barrel of NGL (NGL price is calculated as 35% of the WTI price); differential to WTI is $US 3.18 discount per barrel in Salt Flat, $US 3.50 discount per barrel in North Texas, $CA 11.50 discount per barrel in Dixonville and $CA 8.00 discount per barrel in Twining; average operating costs of $2.2 million per month ($US 0.8 million per month for Eagles operations in the United States and $1.2 million per month for Eagles operations in Canada), the mid-point of the guidance range; and a foreign exchange rate of $US 1.00 equal to $CA 1.25 (previously $CA 1.24).

(2) This figure assumes average operating costs of $2.2 million per month (the mid-point of the guidance range) and a $US 51.75 (previously $US 50.00) WTI price. Field netback is a non-IFRS financial measure. See Non-IFRS Financial Measures.

2017 Sensitivities

The following tables show the sensitivity of Eagles 2017 expected funds flow from operations to changes in commodity prices, production and foreign exchange (FX) rates:

Funds Flow from Operations 2017 Average Production (3,800 boe/d) Sensitivity to Commodity Price FX 1.20 FX 1.25 FX 1.30 $US 46.75 WTI $11.5 mm $11.8 mm $12.1 mm $US 51.75 WTI $11.9 mm $12.2 mm $12.5 mm $US 56.75 WTI $12.3 mm $12.6 mm $13.0 mm





Sensitivity to Production 2017 Average Production

(WTI $US 51.75, FX 1.25) 3,700 3,800 3,900 Funds Flow from Operations ($CA) $11.5 mm $12.2 mm $13.0 mm

Assumptions:

(1) Operating costs are assumed to be $2.2 million per month (mid-point of guidance range).



(2) Differential to WTI is held constant.

(3) The foreign exchange rate is assumed to be $US 1.00 equal to $CA 1.25, unless otherwise indicated in the table.





Summary of Quarterly Results

Q3/2017 Q2/2017 Q1/2017 Q4/2016 Q3/2016 Q2/2016 Q1/2016 Q4/2015 ($000s except for boe/d and per share amounts) Sales volumes  boe/d 3,749 3,966 3,767 3,803 4,085 4,147 3,854 3,783 Revenue, net of royalties 12,459 14,167 14,218 13,891 12,854 13,149 9,099 11,603 per boe 36.12 39.25 41.95 39.72 34.20 34.84 25.94 33.34 Operating, transportation and marketing expenses 6,301 5,885 7,165 6,799 6,564 5,928 6,265 6,356 per boe 18.27 16.31 21.14 19.44 17.46 15.71 17.86 18.26 Field netback 6,158 8,282 7,053 7,092 6,290 7,221 2,834 5,246 per boe 17.85 22.94 20.81 20.28 16.74 19.13 8.08 15.08 Funds flow from operations 3,346 4,272 1,589 3,901 4,582 5,148 2,167 5,147 per boe 9.70 11.84 4.69 11.15 12.19 13.64 6.18 14.79 per share  basic 0.08 0.10 0.04 0.09 0.11 0.12 0.05 0.15 per share  diluted 0.07 0.10 0.04 0.09 0.11 0.12 0.05 0.15 Earnings (loss) (4,711 ) 675 1,303 30,508 52 (9,288 ) (11,713 ) (23,198 ) per share  basic (0.11 ) 0.02 0.03 0.72 0.00 (0.23 ) (0.29 ) (0.67 ) per share - diluted (0.11 ) 0.02 0.03 0.72 0.00 (0.23 ) (0.29 ) (0.67 ) Cash dividends declared - - 425 637 636 1,274 1,584 2,614 per issued share 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.015 0.015 0.03 0.04 0.07 Current assets 11,122 11,847 18,819 9,302 9,787 10,618 12,829 19,767 Current liabilities 8,042 6,599 11,474 74,758 72,387 75,035 5,472 9,397 Total assets 213,867 222,155 233,951 218,199 190,945 195,044 199,708 208,572 Total non-current liabilities 92,367 97,086 104,359 26,202 31,690 32,397 96,317 92,616 Shareholders equity 113,458 118,470 118,118 117,239 86,868 87,612 97,919 106,559 Shares issued 43,302 42,857 42,857 42,452 42,452 42,452 42,452 34,863





For the three months ended September 30, 2017, sales volumes decreased 5% from the second quarter as a result of natural decline, offset by Eagles first half 2017 drilling program, as well as temporary weather-related effects in September 2017 from Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Field netback decreased 26% from the second quarter due to lower production and an 11% decrease in realized prices which was commensurate with a decrease in the WTI benchmark price. As well, there was a 7% increase in operating, transportation and marketing expenses in the third quarter of 2017 compared to the second quarter of 2017 due to plant turn-arounds and workovers on Twining properties in Canada. For 2017, Eagle remains on-track to achieve its average monthly operating cost guidance of $2.1 to $2.3 million per month.

Funds flow from operations decreased 22% from the second quarter of 2017. This was primarily due to lower field netbacks which were partially offset by a $1.0 million reduction in quarterly general and administrative expenses. Third quarter finance expenses and realized risk management gains remained consistent with the second quarter.

Earnings (loss) on a quarterly basis often do not move directionally or by the same amounts as funds flow from operations. This is due to items of a non-cash nature that factor into the calculation of earnings (loss), and those that are required to be fair valued at each quarter end. Third quarter 2017 funds flow from operations decreased 22% from the second quarter of 2017, yet the third quarter net income was 798% less than the second quarter of 2017 primarily as a result of the decrease in the fair value of unrealized risk management contracts due to stronger forward commodity prices at the end of the third quarter. The third quarter of 2017 includes an unrealized risk management loss of $2.0 million compared to an unrealized risk management gain of $2.2 million in the second quarter of 2017.

Total non-current liabilities decreased in the third quarter from the second quarter due to a lower foreign exchange rate applied to Eagles U.S.-denominated debt being slightly offset by additional principal of $US 0.7 million. During the first quarter of 2017, Eagle retired all amounts drawn under its bank credit facility that was classified as a current liability and entered into a new four year term loan agreement which is classified as a non-current liability. During the second quarter, Eagle prepaid $US 4.0 million of term loan principal.

Non-IFRS Financial Measures

Statements throughout this news release make reference to the term field netback which is a non-IFRS financial measure that does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers.

Field netback is calculated by subtracting royalties, operating expenses, and transportation and marketing expenses from revenues. This method of calculating field netback is in accordance with the standards set out in the Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook maintained by the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers (Calgary Chapter). Management believes that field netback provides useful information to investors and management because such a measure reflects the quality of production and the level of profitability.

Note about Forward-Looking Statements

Certain of the statements made and information contained in this news release are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively referred to as forward-looking statements) within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements other than statements of historic fact are forward-looking statements. Eagle cautions investors that important factors could cause Eagles actual results to differ materially from those projected, or set out, in any forward-looking statements included in this news release.

In particular, and without limitation, this news release contains forward-looking statements pertaining to the following:

Eagles expectations regarding the retirement of one director and finding a suitable candidate to replace the vacancy created;

Eagles expectation that 2017 general and administrative expenses will be approximately 23% below 2016 levels;

Eagles new office lease in Houston and expected 2018 annual rent reduction and average annual savings resulting therefrom;

Eagles 2017 capital budget, specific uses, timing of commencement of drilling, drilling results and relationship to 2017 expected funds flow from operations;

Eagles expectations regarding its 2017 full year average production, monthly operating costs, ending net debt and field netbacks (excluding hedges);

Eagles expectations regarding its 2017 funds flow from operations and sensitivity of this metric to changes in commodity prices, production and foreign exchange rates; and

anticipated crude oil, NGLs and natural gas production weighting and prices.

With respect to forward-looking statements contained in this news release, assumptions have been made regarding, among other things:

future crude oil, NGL and natural gas prices, differentials and weighting;

future foreign exchange rates;

future production levels;

future capital expenditures and the ability of Eagle to obtain financing on acceptable terms for its capital projects, operations and future acquisitions;

Eagles 2017 capital budget, which is subject to change in light of ongoing results, prevailing economic circumstances, commodity prices and industry conditions and regulations;

not including capital required to pursue future acquisitions in the forecasted capital expenditures;

future production estimates, which are based on the proposed drilling program with a success rate that, in turn, is based upon historical drilling success and an evaluation of the particular wells to be drilled, among other things; and

projected operating costs, which are estimated based on historical information and anticipated changes in the cost of equipment and services, among other things.

Eagles actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the risk factors set forth below and those in Eagles Annual Information Form (AIF) dated March 16, 2017.

volatility of crude oil, NGL, and natural gas prices;

commodity supply and demand;

fluctuations in foreign exchange and interest rates;

inherent risks and changes in costs associated with the development of petroleum properties;

ultimate recoverability of reserves;

timing, results and costs of drilling and production activities;

availability and terms of financing and capital; and

new regulations and legislation that apply to the operations of Eagle and its subsidiaries.

Additional risks and uncertainties affecting Eagle are contained in the AIF under the heading Risk Factors.

As a result of these risks, actual performance and financial results in 2017 may differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by these forwardlooking statements. Eagles production rates, operating costs, field netbacks, drilling program, 2017 capital budget, funds flow from operations, ending net debt and reserves are subject to change in light of ongoing results, prevailing economic circumstances, obtaining regulatory approvals, commodity prices, exchange rates, financing terms, and industry conditions and regulations. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all of these factors or to assess, in advance, the impact of each such factor on Eagles business, or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which are inherently uncertain, are based on estimates and assumptions, and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties (both general and specific) that contribute to the possibility that the future events or circumstances contemplated by the forward-looking statements will not occur. Although management believes that the expectations conveyed by the forward-looking statements are reasonable based on information available to it on the date the forward-looking statements were made, there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which forward-looking statements are based will in fact be realized. Actual results will differ, and the difference may be material and adverse to Eagle and its shareholders. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release and may not be appropriate for other purposes. Eagle does not undertake any obligation, except as required by applicable securities legislation, to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Note Regarding Barrel of Oil Equivalency

This news release contains disclosure expressed as boe or boe/d. All oil and natural gas equivalency volumes have been derived using the conversion ratio of six thousand cubic feet (Mcf) of natural gas to one barrel (bbl) of oil. Equivalency measures may be misleading, particularly if used in isolation. A conversion ratio of 6 Mcf: 1 bbl is based on an energy equivalency conversion method primarily applicable at the burner tip and does not represent a value equivalency at the well head. In addition, given that the value ratio based on the current price of oil as compared to natural gas is significantly different from the energy equivalent of six to one, utilizing a boe conversion ratio of 6 Mcf:1 bbl would be misleading as an indication of value.

About Eagle Energy Inc.

Eagle is an oil and gas corporation with shares listed for trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol EGL.

All material information about Eagle may be found on its website at www.EagleEnergy.com or under Eagles issuer profile at www.sedar.com.

For further information, please contact:

Kelly Tomyn

Chief Financial Officer

(403) 531-1574 Wayne Wisniewski

President & Chief Executive Officer

(713) 300-3245 Eagle Energy Inc.

Suite 2710, 500-4th Avenue SW

Calgary, Alberta T2P 2V6

(403) 531-1575

(855) 531-1575 (toll free)

info@EagleEnergy.com




While were waiting to find out which Hollywood (or political or business) big-wig is the latest massive (and possibly criminal) creep, we might want to consider how many of them have Academy Awards. Harvey Weinstein, whose alleged sexual assault on dozens of women has opened the floodgates on sexual harassment, is behind numerous Oscar awards. In fact, a recent Vulture piece details the lengths to which Weinstein went to secure Oscar nominations and wins. So Ive got to ask  should Weinstein return his Oscar? And should those who won Oscars because Harvey Weinstein twisted arms to get them statuettes return them as well?

Id argue yes and no. Harvey Weinstein should give back every award hes ever gotten because he is a garbage person accused of raping women who wanted to work for him. The Hollywood producers statements since the accusations began always seem to include the phrase second chance. There is no way  NO WAY  Harvey Weinstein will ever get a second chance at nearing the red carpet opening of a sex addict rehab center, much less red carpet at the beloved Academy Awards.

So yes, give back the Oscar and the BAFTA and the other ones, Harvey.

So I've got to ask  should Weinstein return his Oscar? And should those who won Oscars because Harvey Weinstein twisted arms to get them statuettes return them as well?

But must Gwyneth Paltrow hand over the Oscar she won for Shakespeare in Love because Weinstein produced the film and aggressively angled for her win? No. Not only was Paltrow herself a victim of Weinsteins inappropriate and assaulting advances, theres no way to prove she wouldnt have won anyway.

Paltrow is one of dozens of film professionals whose work has been awarded Oscars in part, at least, the Weinsteins aggressive tactics when it comes to influencing Academy voters. In the Vulture piece, one former actor details numerous calls to his residence from Weinstein staffers, demanding to know if hes seen  and then enjoyed  the film, Sling Blade. Other allege that Weinstein actively worked to discredit Oscar competitor, The Hurt Locker, finding soldiers to decry the film as inaccurate. Sure, these actions dont come close to the horrors of sexual harassment, and it was no secret that Weinstein was widely regarded as a jerk. But if Weinstein was such an all-powerful figure, are his related Oscar wins valid? Without this guy, would Academy Award history look different  and should it?

According to Forbes, Weinstein is behind 81 Oscar wins. Negating ALL of those is neither rational nor fair.

First of all, Harvey Weinstein was just too big of a power-player to now try and sift out his influence from the past. Secondly, allowing one mans predatory and allegedly criminal behavior to diminish the accomplishments of others is unfair and likely, inaccurate. You dont deserve to be punished like a jerk just because you worked for one. If you had an Oscar, would you give Weinstein credit for it? And would you now give it back? Nope. Should you do everything in your power to use your success to help ensure that sexual harassment and assault has no place in any environment? Yep.

And then theres Kevin Spacey. The two-time Academy Award winner has been accused of numerous instances of sexual assault, some against minors. Spacey tried to downplay his alleged crimes by simultaneously confessing to having a problem and also coming out as gay  as if that might distract us from his climbing atop a 14-year-old child. Spacey, while unrelated to any of Weinsteins mess, should hand back his Oscars as well. And then there's Roman Polanski, accused of raping multiple teenagers. He remains a beloved Hollywood figure. Although at least with Polanski, who suffers little shame for his crimes, hes so afraid of being arrested that he doesnt enter the United States. So thats something, I guess.

To even broach this subject opens a massive can of worms. At what point does a public figures private life negate their public accomplishments? After all, Donald Trump was elected to our nations highest office after he was recorded openly congratulating himself on his sexual assault skills. In theory, you should get to be whatever kind of person you want to be until you break the law  or your companys policies. Weinstein should have been fired ages ago. The same with Spacey  and yeah, ditto for Donald Trump.

Dustin Hoffman, Jeremy Piven, Louis CK, Charlie Sheen, Steven Segal  the stream of stories alleging predatory behavior seems to grow daily. Presumably, hopefully, it will be more difficult for those who actually harassed and assaulted others to find work and thus garner accolades and awards (not that Steven Segal ever got either).

But if we look at just one case, if we look just at Harvey Weinstein, we should demand his Oscar back. The statuette might be a small token, but taking it back might just one small teeny tiny way we can take back power.

No more shiny things for you, Harvey Weinstein, unless theyre available in the jail commissary.
Frozen remains of an extinct cave lion cub have been unearthed in Russia, according to local media reports. The specimen is so well-preserved, with its facial features intact and its head resting on its paw, that Russian scientists hope to clone it.

A local resident from the Siberian city of Yakutsk uncovered the remains of the prehistoric animal in September, according to the Siberian Times. It is only the third cave lion specimen to ever be discovered, and the frozen carcass could date as far back as 50,000 years.
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JetSuiteX, an airline carrier company offering tickets for short trips on 30-seat planes, is launching its newest route between Oakland and Burbank on Nov. 13.

The company's pitch rests on the premise of easing traveling, by helping passengers avoid "long security lines, cattle-call boarding and baggage claim crowds." The company promises that fliers will save up to an hour on each end of the trip due to evading such common airport hassles.
You've probably heard someone make the argument recently: Seattle is the perfect alternative to San Francisco. It's politically similar and the quality of life is high, but real estate and living costs remain cheaper than the ridiculous Bay Area.

So, with a weekend getaway to Seattle on the calendar, I decided to approach the trip with that in mind. Could Seattle make a Bay Area resident happy  or would it leave you wanting?

Before you even ask, yes. The weather was beautiful. The next weekend it snowed, however, so I'm aware that the brief, perfectly crisp autumn weather colored my trip. Armed with the ability to do things outdoors without a rain coat, I hit up some of Seattle's many parks.

My favorite was Discovery Park, a natural oasis that immediately brings to mind the Presidio. Tucked within its labyrinth of well-maintained trails are the historic buildings of Fort Lawton, a former Army post. For Bay Area residents who require close proximity to nature, Seattle passes the test with flying colors. Pretty spots, far from the downtown crowds, are 20 minutes away or less by car.

Now Playing: Amtrak's Coast Starlight has been called "one of America's most beautiful train rides" since the 1940s. Video: HouseBeautiful

In the all-important food scene, Seattle scores lower than SF  but with San Francisco recently taking the lead for most three-star Michelin stars in the nation, that's not much of a surprise. On the higher end, Seattle restaurants were comparably priced to similar Bay Area eateries (read: expensive), but the food just wasn't quite as good. With that said, we had the nice perk of food getting comped at two different places. One time it was for slow service  it took almost 20 minutes for a server to appear after being seated  and another time it was for a dessert that, after we'd eaten it, we were told "sucked."

More for you Lonely Planet names its 10 best cities to visit for 2018

As for the elusive "vibe" category, Seattle's most charming outside of the downtown confines. In the heart of downtown, Seattle feels like any other big city  plus a ton of extra construction. Street closures and high-rise developments dot every corner, tamping down the city's charm like a very loud wet blanket. For the best of Seattle, leaving the city center was a necessity.

(And, for those who think they can escape San Francisco's homelessness issue in Seattle, that wasn't the case downtown. Within hours of arriving, I unfortunately saw a fistfight break out between people who appeared to be living on the streets.)

One final note for Bay Area residents thinking of relocating to (or simply visiting) Seattle: It's going to be tough if you're a 49ers fan. Seattle residents don't mess around with their Seahawks; all weekend long, the streets were full of fans in jerseys. Even the dogs have tiny Seahawks jerseys. You've been warned.

To see some of the best Seattle tourist attractions  and a few you can skip  check out the gallery above.
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) Systems Market are high end sophisticated systems which are used for removing solids from the wastewater and returning distilled water to the process (source of water), leaving zero discharge at the end of the treatment cycle. The basic components of ZLD system includes a clarifier or reactor used for precipitation of metals and other solids, a chemical feed for facilitating precipitation or coagulation of solids and other suspended particles, a filter press which is used for filtering secondary solid waste, an ultrafiltration membrane which is used for removing remaining small suspended particles or solid waste along with brine concentrator and crystallizer for removing remaining suspended solid particles. An effective ZLD system should be able to cope with large variations in waste contamination and flow, should be able to recover 95% of liquid waste for reuse and should have the ability to treat and retrieve valuable byproducts from waste.



ZLD systems are frequently adopted by a large number of industries including small and medium size industries for treating effluent and waste water generated through industrial processing. Increasing water pollution due to heavy industrial discharge and human activities such as dumping of excessive waste and increased volume of waste water generated especially from industrial processing plants and chemical industries will propel growth of the market. Furthermore, stringent government regulation regarding industrial discharge into water streams is leading to large scale adoption of water and effluent treatment systems.

Get free sample of this report: http://www.crystalmarketresearch.com/report-sample/ME07176

The conventional ZLD system segment dominated the global market in 2016, owing to wide adoption by florate effluent treatment plants for recovering valuable minerals and compounds from waste water. Furthermore, stringent government regulations related to waste generated and its disposal is set to drive the growth of the conventional ZLD systems. The evaporation & crystallization segment held the largest of the global market in 2016, owing to its ability to effectively recover valuable water from a brine or waste stream or the production of potable or process water from seawater. This system not only prevents contamination of the environment and cuts dumping fees and penalties, but also provides a potential source of income to the client.

The energy & power segment accounted for the largest share in 2016. This can be attributed to an increasing number of power and energy plants, especially in North America and Europe, processing large volumes of waste water thereby requiring a large number of ZLD systems to be installed. Petrochemical industries are expected to witness significant growth during forecast period.

North America dominated the global market in 2016 and is expected to maintain its dominance during forecast period, owing to increase demand for zero liquid discharge systems for effluent treatment. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, owing to increasing number of chemical and processing industries and increasing focus of government towards environmental protection.

Major Market Players

The key players operating in the market focus on new product launch, mergers, and acquisitions for expanding their product portfolio and ultimately acquire large market coverage. For instance in April 2014, Veolia acquired Kurion to develop a world-class industrial offer for nuclear facility cleanup and the treatment of low and medium-level radioactive waste present in industrial effluents. This acquisition has strengthened product portfolio of the company thereby strengthening global position in radioactive treatment systems.

Aquatech International

GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft

Veolia Water Technologies

GE Water & Process Technologies

ENCON Evaporators

Doosan Hydro Technology LLC

Saltworks Technologies Inc.

H2O GmbH

Petro Sep Corporation

U.S. Water Services

Aquarion AG

Buy Report: http://www.crystalmarketresearch.com/checkout/ME07176

Key Findings of the Research Study:

The conventional ZLD system segment accounted for the largest share of the global market in 2016. This can be attributed to its standard process for the treatment of effluents and sludge leading to high adoption rate.

The evaporation & crystallization segment accounted for the largest share in 2016 owing to its broad application range for industries including chemical and bioprocessing industries.

North America held the largest share in the global market in 2016 and will continue to maintain its lead over the forecast period, owing to increasing number of industries and strict government mandates regarding effluent discharge.

Asia-Pacific is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period owing to increasing manufacturing activities especially in India and China.

The overall ZLD market will witness high growth during the forecast period owing to increasing government regulations and rise in scarcity of water resources worldwide.

About Crystal Market Research

Crystal Market Research is a U.S. based market research and business intelligence company. Crystal offers one stop solution for market research, business intelligence, and consulting services to help clients make more informed decisions. It provides both syndicated as well as customized research studies for its customers spread across the globe. The company offers market intelligence reports across a broad range of industries including healthcare, chemicals & materials, technology, automotive, and energy.

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Back in early September I took a quick trip to Mexico City and came away as impressed as I was when I visited five years ago to write this story for BBC. I know it may sound crazy coming from someone who has traveled to a LOT of cities, but Mexico City is one of my favorite places in the world. Seriously. Go there, or talk to someone who has recently visited and youll find out why. [FULL STORY & comments]

I was all set to sit down and write this Trip Report when the earthquake struck Mexico City on September 19. According to my sources there, in the six weeks since the tragic 7.1 temblor, the city has quickly recovered and there is very little visible evidence of the disaster.

Officials report that nearly all the big 3- to 5-star hotels used by business travelers are open and unscathed by the quake. And demand for hotel rooms has been remarkably resilient. Mexico City hotelier Michael Chiche told me, Its fair to say that the city is back to business as usual. He said that most of the severe damage was in residential areas, but that the central touristic areas, including popular Polanco where his Las Alcobas hotel is located, are fine.

As a matter of fact, hotel occupancy in the city dipped only 4.4% in the the third quarter of this year. Mexico City Tourism authorities report that the hotel occupancy rate is running at 86.4 percent, which is actually higher than this time last year. A crowd of 300,000 turned out for the Day of the Dead parade last Saturday. And the city just hosted the huge Formula 1 Grand Prix, which drew close to a million spectators. The NFLs Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots will play in Mexico City on November 19th. The airport has been open and operational since the day after the quake.

More Information Chris McGinnis tracks fares and travel news on the TravelSkills.com blog. Sign up for email alerts or follow him on Twitter @cjmcginnis See More Collapse

The big, bustling, diverse and fast-paced metropolis is moving on.

Heres my story, advice and photos: See TravelSkills.com for full slideshow

In early September, I flew Alaska Airlines from San Francisco to Mexico City for Labor Day weekend. It had been about five years since my last visit, and once again, I came away impressed.

CDMX, as the city now refers to itself, has an incredibly diverse and sophisticated food scene. While there are few brand new hotels, the existing stock is impressive, continually updating and inexpensive a quick scan of rates shows five-star hotels going for as little as $220 per night this fall and winter. Its insanely busy and frenetic since CDMX is the countrys capital city, financial center, technological & industrial heart, and its Hollywood, the city feels like a combination of New York, Washington and Los Angeles with a little chili pepper tossed in.

Getting around town is an inexpensive cinch now that Uber is there. And the downtown core is cleaner, and feels safer, than most U.S. cities Ive visited recently. From the ride from airport to city, to my walks along the Paseo de la Reforma and the hip neighborhoods of Condesa, Roma, and Polanco, I saw almost no litter and few homeless, and I felt as safe or safer than walking around Union Square in San Francisco, Midtown Atlanta or Manhattan. To me, Mexico City felt like Europe without the jet lag, high prices and tourist throngs.

Most of the business travel scene takes place on the western side of the central core, where the action is in and around Polanco and the broad, tree-filled, European-style Paseo de La Reforma and Chapultepec Park. Take a stroll through this clean, green well-tended park and youll find yourself catching your breath since Mexico City lies at 7,200 feet above sea level. If you have time, see Chapultepec Castle where Maximiliano lived (I regrettably missed this due to a late start).

AIR: Nonstop flights between the US and Mexico City are proliferating, which means more flight choices and lower fares. San Francisco is a perfect example of that. As of last summer, there are four airlines serving SFO-MEX nonstop: Aeromexico, Alaska Air, United and Volaris. (San Jose recently announced new nonstops, too. Seattle did, too.) As a result of all that competition, round trip fares between the two cities have dipped as low as $225 round trip this fall and winter- which makes a trip to Mexico City even more of a bargain than it already was. Checking today, I found roundtrip fares on Volaris, a Mexican discounter, at $224; other carriers are in the $300 range. I flew Alaska Airlines over Labor Day weekend when fares were about $350 round trip. First class fares are a relative bargain, too, at about $600 round trip (for a four-hour flight). Arrival, customs and immigration in Mexico City were easy and uneventful. Even with an Air France A380 from Paris unloading at the same time, we only spent about 20 minutes in the immigration line (there are no fast track lanes).

GROUND: Uber is cheap, easy, safe and plentiful in Mexico City. We never waited more than three minutes for a car. While Mexico Citys cheap-but-efficient Metro trains now run to the airport, it would be a challenge to take a comfortable ride with baggage since the trains are so jam packed. For airport runs, I recommend a car or taxi just be aware of roadway rush hours 8-10 am, 6:30  8:30 pm. UberX costs only about $12 for the ride from the airport to the city center; Uber Black is about $30. (Ubers new tipping function does not work in Mexico.) Lyft does not operate in Mexico City. Since Uber was so easy, I did not use taxis at all. Most of our center-city rides cost less than $5. But I spent most of my time on foot my Fitbit recorded a whopping 20,000 steps per day for the three days I was there.

For more photos and comments, see the full post on TravelSkills.com

Disclosure: I covered all expenses for this trip except for a special 50% off media rate from the St Regis Mexico City. CDMX Travel paid for my airfare on Alaska Airlines.

Chris McGinnis is a travel blogger and editor of TravelSkills.com. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.
BEIRUT  With the fall of the Islamic States last significant stronghold in Syria, Iranian and Russian-backed Syrian troops now turn to face off with their main rival, the U.S.-backed forces holding large oil fields and strategic territory in the countrys north and east.

The complicated map puts U.S. and Iranian forces at close proximity, standing just across the Euphrates River from each other, amid multiple hotspots that could turn violent, particularly in the absence of a clear American policy.

There are already signs.

Iran threatened last week that Syrian troops will advance toward Raqqa, the former Islamic State capital, which fell to the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in October, raising the potential for a clash there. The Kurdish-led SDF also controls some of Syrias largest oil fields, in the oil-rich eastern Deir el-Zour province, an essential resource that the Syrian government also says it will take back.

The SDF also faces restlessness in an Arab-majority town it liberated last year, a possible sign of things to come in other areas that the Kurdish-dominated forces control in their self-rule area in northern Syria, now about 25 percent of the countrys territory.

The question now is whether the United States is willing to confront the troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian-backed militiamen. The Kurds are seeking a clear American commitment to help them defend their gains. U.S. officials have said little of their plans and objectives in Syria beyond general statements about continuing to deny Islamic State safe havens and continuing to train and equip allies.

During a meeting this week with Ali Akbar Velayati, the adviser of Irans supreme leader, Assad said his war was against terrorism and against plans to partition Syria, a direct reference to Kurdish aspirations for a recognized autonomous zone in the north. He repeated that his government plans to regain control of all of Syria.

Government victories have foiled all partition plans and the goals of terrorism and the countries sponsoring it, Assad said.

Meanwhile, four U.S. officials said Thursday the U.S. and Russia are nearing an agreement on Syria for how they hope to resolve the Arab countrys civil war once Islamic State is defeated.

With its collapse in Boukamal on Thursday, the Islamic State has no major territory left in Syria or Iraq. Its militants are believed to have pulled back into the desert, east and west of the Euphrates River. The group has a small presence near the capital, Damascus. Late Thursday, the extremist group carried out a counteroffensive in Boukamal, regaining control of more than 40 percent of the border town.

The Euphrates now stands as the dividing line between Syrian government troops and the SDF in much of Deir el-Zour province.

Government forces and their allies, including Iranian troops and fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, control the western bank. They hold the provincial capital and several small oil fields.

The Kurdish-led force, along with American troops advising them, is on the eastern bank.

Sarah El Deeb is an Associated Press writer.
CAIRO  As Saudi Arabia tightens the screws on its weak southern neighbor, the war it launched in Yemen over two years ago appears more intractable than ever, with nothing but further suffering in sight.

Despite crushing air power by the Saudi-led coalition seeking to reinstall the countrys exiled president, which has reduced much of the north to rubble, Yemens Shiite rebels, with the political backing of Iran, still hold large swaths of territory, including the capital, Sanaa.

And while the U.S.-supported coalitions recent tightening of a blockade to include aid shipments might be intended to starve the rebels into submission, they remain dug in to difficult, mountainous and urban terrain.

Unlike other regional conflicts in Syria or Libya, no side is winning, and peace talks are nonexistent. With both sides deeply committed to victory, face-saving exits are elusive, especially with the Saudi-Iranian rivalry heating up. The war, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians and pushed millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine, appears unlikely to end any time soon.

On much of the ground and especially in the north, the battle-hardened Shiite rebels known as Houthis hold the upper hand. They control most state institutions and fortifications, are well-armed, and are backed by the remnants of a powerful army built up by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Infrastructure, such as health care, water and electricity however, are failing.

Opposing them are a jumble of forces ostensibly loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and a collection of tribes under nominal tutelage of Saudi Arabia and its main coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates.

These forces control most of the south, including the port city of Aden, Yemens second largest and the official seat of Hadis government, but a place where weak security, local factional power struggles and repeated attacks have kept him away for most of the year.

Neither the Saudis nor the UAE appear to have forces capable of taking over the whole country. An earlier drive northward ended up in tragedy for the coalition, with over 100 Emirati soldiers killed in combat so far.

After all the fighting, to say Yemen lacks leaders with broad consensus is an understatement.

The Houthis, a long-neglected Shiite offshoot, consider themselves revolutionaries fighting corruption. But their enigmatic leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, appears only rarely, and his appeal has little reach beyond the bounds of sectarianism.

Likewise, his erstwhile ally Saleh, who once mastered the country with a deft tribal balancing act until he was deposed in a 2011 Arab Spring uprising, now has little broad appeal, although some yearn for the pre-war days when he ruled. The two have reportedly fallen out, with news occasionally surfacing that the Houthis have put Saleh under house arrest.

Hadi, meanwhile, has fared no better as a potential leader of a post-war Yemen. Now in exile in Riyadh, he has been prevented by the Saudis from traveling to Aden since February, saying its not safe. As his influence waned, the UAE built up its own force in the area, training and financing militias loyal to it.

The UAEs rising clout in the south, where it has backed alternate local leaders, has led to friction with Hadi and further undermined his rule.

Brian Rohan is an Associated Press writer.
BEIRUT  Dozens of citizens of Gulf Arab countries began leaving Lebanon on Friday after their governments ordered them out of the Mediterranean country, as the president called for the return of Lebanons prime minister who mysteriously resigned from the Saudi capital last week.

The manner in which Saad Hariri resigned was unacceptable, a Lebanese official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

This was conveyed by Lebanese President Michel Aoun to the Saudi charge daffaires in Lebanon, Walid al-Bukhari, at the presidential palace on Friday, the official said.

Hariri shocked his country last Saturday when he announced in a televised statement from Saudi Arabia that he was resigning. The unexpected move has thrown the tiny nation in turmoil and led to rumors that he is being held in Saudi Arabia against his will.

President Aoun has refused to accept Hariris resignation before he returns to the country and explains the circumstances of his decision to step down, which effectively shattered a year-old coalition government in Lebanon. Aoun met with foreign ambassadors, including al-Bukhari, on Friday to discuss the resignation and his next moves.

Meanwhile, a French official in President Emmanuel Macrons office said Hariri has told foreign ambassadors that he is not a prisoner in Saudi Arabia, where he has been holed up since the unusual resignation.

The French and U.S. ambassadors in Saudi Arabia met with Hariri, and Hariri says he is not a prisoner, the (Saudi crown) prince says he is not a prisoner, said the official.

Macron paid a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia on Thursday night and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for talks about the rising tensions between the kingdom and Lebanon, a former French protectorate.

The official said Hariri did not ask to see Macron during the visit and that French officials dont have any specific signs that the Lebanese prime ministers life is in danger. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to presidential policy.

Also Friday, Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe-1 radio that to our knowledge, Hariri is not being held.

Hariri, who cited Irans and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollahs meddling in the region in his resignation speech, has not returned to Lebanon or made contact with Lebanese officials since then.

Saudi Arabia sees Hezbollah as an extension of Iran amid a spiraling rivalry between the two regional Sunni and Shiite heavyweights and is demanding that a new Lebanese government be formed without Hezbollah members in it.

Bassem Mroue and Sylvie Corbet are Associated Press writers.
1 Human rights violations: Sri Lankas government faced increasing pressure Friday to answer for alleged human rights violations following a recent war crimes lawsuit and allegations from over 50 men who said they were raped, branded or tortured as recently as this year. The men said they were accused of trying to revive a rebel group on the losing side of Sri Lankas 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009. Many ethnic minority Tamils contend the government continues to target them as part of a larger plan to destroy their culture. Tamils speak a different language and are largely Hindu, unlike the countrys largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

2 Bin Laden arrest: Among those caught in the unprecedented arrests this week of top princes, wealthy businessmen and senior officials was the scion of one of Saudi Arabias most recognizable families: Bakr Binladin, the chairman of the kingdoms preeminent contractor  and Osama bin Ladens half-brother. It was a stunning end to a decades-old alliance with the ruling Al Saud family that saw the Saudi Binladin Group secure a near-monopoly on mega-expansion projects in Islams two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. The government says 201 people have been taken into custody in the purge. and uncovered at least $100 billion in graft and embezzlement.
JUBA, South Sudan  South Sudans army is steadily capturing more rebel-held territory, even as peace talks try to find a resolution to the countrys nearly four-year-old civil war.

As the army gains ground, complaints are growing that both sides are committing atrocities against civilians.

The Associated Press recently spoke with eight rebel soldiers who had been on the front lines in a rebel-held area and all recounted similar events: government forces gang-raping women, burning houses with people inside and killing children.

Inconclusive peace talks were held in the capital, Juba in October. The negotiations are scheduled to resume in December and by that time opposition forces probably will have lost more territory, experts say.

In the past six months, despite President Salva Kiirs declaration of a unilateral cease-fire, government troops have captured large swaths of land previously held by rebel forces. What was once the opposition heartland, Upper Nile state, is now mostly under government control.

South Sudans civil war has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 2 million people to flee the country, creating the largest displacement of civilians in Africa since the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Refugees, and some of the more than 200,000 people sheltering in U.N.-run camps across South Sudan, have recounted targeted killings and rapes by government troops.

In the Equatoria region, Amnesty International found many accounts of civilians being killed with reckless abandon by government forces and allied militia, according to a report issued in July.

South Sudans army has denied the allegations, saying the opposition is spreading negative propaganda in order to portray them as butchers.

This is what youd expect from your opponent, said acting army spokesman Col. Santo Domic Chol. We dont kill women and children and we dont want to kill everybody in South Sudan.

The governments purpose is to promote peace and have everyone, including the opposition, join in national reconciliation, Chol said.

The South Sudan governments campaign is pushing the rebels further into the bush rather than convincing them to give up arms, said Alan Boswell, conflict analyst for Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based group focusing on armed violence. The government hopes to dictate victory on its own terms rather than being forced into a political settlement with its opponents.

With the dry season approaching and fighting expected to increase, rights groups are urging both sides to stop the attacks, including violence against civilians, said Jehanne Henry, senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Since the start of the conflict, we have been documenting horrific attacks on civilians and its high time government puts an end to these crimes and holds those responsible to account, Henry said.

Justin Nyuol, chairman of South Sudans Human Rights Commission, agreed.

While its true some government forces have committed atrocities, opposition fighters have committed atrocities as well, including in Equatoria or other areas where they control, Nyuol said.

There is an element of brutality and its being carried out by all the parties to the conflict. ... When the war gets more intense, the level of brutality goes up.

Sam Mednick is an Associated Press writer.
DOUG MILLS/NYT

BEIJING  President Trump heaped praise on China President Xi Jinping on Thursday, blaming past U.S. administrations for Chinas yawning trade surplus with the United States and saying he was confident that Xi could defuse the threat from North Korea.

Trumps warm words, on a state visit to China replete with ceremony but short of tangible results, showed a president doubling down on his gamble that by cultivating a personal connection with Xi, he can push the Chinese leader to take meaningful steps on North Korea and trade.
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The Treasury advised the previous administration to think deeply about its ownership of commercial broadcaster Television New Zealand, which will need a Crown lifeline if the collapse in advertising revenue continues.

Officials put a report back in front of ministers in February this year after a scheduled meeting with TVNZ's chief executive and chair didn't go ahead, saying if the broadcaster's revenues continue to fall Crown support will be needed to keep it operating, something that could happen as soon as 2021. The report was among a number of documents published on the Treasury's website in response to an Official Information Act request.

The state-owned broadcaster forecast it wouldn't meet the commercial objectives under the TVNZ Act, which are to provide a commercial return, quality content including local content, and provide channels free of charge.

"Under current settings, TVNZs revenue and profitability is in a long-term decline and the Treasury does not see TVNZs financial position improving," the report said. "This means that without structural change, ministers would eventually need to provide ongoing operating funding for TVNZ to continue broadcasting."

The Treasury said a sale of the broadcaster could potentially deliver the highest value commercial option and that it was unclear what TVNZ offered from a public policy perspective that couldn't be achieved through other mechanisms. The paper said the Ministry for Culture and Heritage wanted to do more work on the issue, and had an early view that TVNZ "remains important to keeping the contestable funding model, via NZ On Air, viable" and "serves a more diverse audience demographically than strictly commercial considerations would dictate, and this is reflected in the range of NZ On Air content that it carries, both for mainstream and more specialised audiences, compared with other broadcasters or platforms."

Speculation of a merger between TVNZ and rival free-to-air broadcaster MediaWorks surfaced last year, although the Commerce Commission's rejection of a tie-up between publishers NZME and Fairfax New Zealand was seen as largely quashing the likelihood of such a deal getting over the line.

New broadcasting minister Clare Curran has said TVNZ will stay in Crown ownership and is promising a shake-up in public broadcasting with an extra $38 million a year set to beef up public interest journalism and programming.

In the Oct. 25 response to the request, TVNZ said the report was "an excellent summary of where things were" in February and since then things have deteriorated with rivals MediaWorks and Prime TV's performance worsening, Australian broadcasters struggling and TVNZ writing down the value of its Disney contract.

TVNZ reported a profit of just $1.4 million in the June 2017 year due to the Disney writedown, although revenue slipped 2.5 percent to $316.5 million and underlying earnings more than halved to $17.4 million. The broadcaster's annual report, tabled in Parliament yesterday, shows TVNZ's net profit was just 0.6 percent of equity and underlying earnings were 5.5 percent of revenue, both substantially lower than the previous four years.

The documents also show the Treasury recommended ministers consider further use of the mixed ownership model for other Crown entities, in a similar fashion to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and Accident Compensation Corp investment portfolio taking a stake in Kiwibank. The March 2017 report singled out Transpower as the "single most value-adding option", however, then state-owned enterprises minister Todd McClay's handwritten remarks on the paper said "I didn't ask for this, send it back to them!!".

Another paper shows the Treasury was approached by an unnamed party in February wanting to buy its 25 percent shareholding in Christchurch International Airport. The report noted double right of refusal with Christchurch City Council and Ngai Tahu, although the preamble to the documents said ministers chose not to proceed with the deal.

(BusinessDesk)

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An unnamed Asian member of the so-called TPP-11 has thrown a spanner in the works of 11th-hour negotiations on the future of the controversial Pacific Rim trade and investment deal.

Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker told New Zealand media early local time that there had been an unusual turn of events at the trade ministers meeting in Da Nang last night.

The ministers believed they had reached an agreement at around 10pm and there was celebratory clapping, only for an official of an unnamed nation to dispute that a settlement had been reached.

The issue arose in checking details of text changes agreed to the agreement.

Parker would not name the country but said it was not New Zealand and not Canada, which has been sending signals it is reluctant to be rushed into an agreement.

Vietnam, the host country for the APEC leaders summit where the TPP-11 talks are occurring, and Malaysia are both known to have been resistant to concluding an 11-member deal because both are making major concessions on labour and environmental standards and trade which were most valuable when the US was in the TPP tent.

US president Donald Trump withdrew his country from the TPP as his first act upon election, but the remaining 11, led by Japan, have sought to keep the deal alive.

Parker declined to discuss the outstanding sticking point, but said it was of importance to New Zealand, suggesting the issue may relate to market access for agricultural access, which is the primary value of the deal for New Zealand exporters but sensitive for most other TPP members.

There were suggestions overnight of irritation that news of the consensus was leaking ahead of a TPP-11 leaders meeting this afternoon local time. Leaders thunder had effectively been stolen by the early leaks.

Significantly, Parker gave the strongest indication yet New Zealand is ready to sign the TPP-11 deal, despite getting less than the new Labour-led government wanted in terms of watering down investor-state dispute settlement provisions.

New Zealand had improved its position, he said.

(BusinessDesk)

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November 16th Morning Report

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A shiny new system or the Wazgij of planning systems?

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LAS VEGAS, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Medical Lasers Market have significant applications in eye surgeries and cosmetic procedures worldwide. As per the UK-based Laser Eye Surgery Hub, more than 30 million eye related surgeries have been carried out across the world so far using lasers. During such surgeries, lasers are used to vaporize targeted parts of the cornea to reshape it in order to treat visual impairments. Every year, more than 120,000 people opt for laser eye surgery in UK. The use of lasers in eye surgeries helps in quick vision correction with less painful procedures, which is contributing to the market growth. Rising focus on aesthetic appeal is one of the major driving factors for the medical lasers market. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic surgery (ASAPS), Americans spent more than $15 billion on aesthetic procedures in 2016, amounting to a rise of 11% from the previous year. Increasing demand for non-invasive procedures by the patients will further drive the demand for medical lasers. Lasers assist surgeons in performing complex tasks with reduced blood loss further minimizing the chances of wound infection.



Diode lasers segment holds a significant share of the global medical lasers market. These lasers have varied applications in different cosmetic procedures such as treatment of acne, wrinkles, and skin rejuvenation procedures. Solid state lasers are expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This high growth rate can be attributed to the compact designs and the low device cost along with their applications in skin treatments such as tattoo removal will further boost the market growth.

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Cardiovascular diseases market is expected to grow at the high growth rate over the forecast period due to the presence of technologically advanced laser-based cardiovascular treatments such as laser angioplasty and laser thrombolysis. Rise in prevalence of cardiovascular diseases coupled with aging population is contributing to the market growth. Ophthalmology market will also register a promising growth owing to the rising applications of medical lasers in refractive surgeries.

North America held more than one-third share of the global medical lasers market in 2016. Rise in geriatric population leading to cardiovascular disorders is a key factor driving the market growth. Asia-Pacific holds huge growth opportunity, due to presence of a large patient pool of cardiovascular disorders, rapidly aging population, and prevalence of unmet medical needs coupled with increase in disposable income of the people.

Technology and innovation are driving the competitive medical lasers market. For instance, in April 2014, Lumenis expanded its product portfolio by introducing three new products LightSheer INFINITY, LightSheer DESIRE and Q-Switched Nd:YAG for laser and hair removal and skin rejuvenation to sustain its competitive position in the market. Similarly, in April 2016, BTL China launched the BTL 6000 high intensity laser.

Major Market Players

Bausch & Lomb Holdings

Spectranetics Corporation

IRIDEX Corporation

Cardiogenesis Corporation, Inc.

Biolase Inc.

Syneron-Candela

Lumenis Ltd

Alcon Laboratories Inc.

Cutera

American Medical Systems

PhotoMedex Inc.

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Key Findings of the Research Study:

Diode lasers segment held a major share of the overall market in 2016, due to their wide adoption in cosmetic procedures.

Solid state lasers market is poised to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period due to their wide applications in skin treatment procedures.

Cardiovascular disease market will grow with a highest CAGR because of the rising cases of cardiovascular diseases and rapidly rising geriatric population worldwide.

North America held a major share of the global medical lasers market as prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and geriatric population is on the rise.

Asia-Pacific is the most promising market with immense growth opportunities as a result of highly unmet medical needs and increasing disposable income of people.

About Crystal Market Research

Crystal Market Research is a U.S. based market research and business intelligence company. Crystal offers one stop solution for market research, business intelligence, and consulting services to help clients make more informed decisions. It provides both syndicated as well as customized research studies for its customers spread across the globe. The company offers market intelligence reports across a broad range of industries including healthcare, chemicals & materials, technology, automotive, and energy.

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LAS VEGAS, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In wireless health, the traditional medicines are combined with wireless technology for diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of disease. Patients physiological condition can be determined by wireless healthcare devices. Markers of the chronic diseases can be monitored by wireless health which will lead to more effective management of these diseases. Wireless health can be useful in monitoring blood pressure, fluid stats and cardiac function of a patient for effective management. This reduces hospital stays and emergency room visits. Wireless health can also be used in communicating health information about a patient suffering from trauma present on field. Wireless health allows patient to live his life without restricting the interaction between the patient and clinician to a specific time and place. Wireless health helps in offering diagnosis, monitoring and treatment to patients in places where it is difficult to reach. It helps the clinical workforce to diagnose and monitor huge population by means of automated monitoring.



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The software market will witness considerable growth during the forecast period as the awareness about the advantages of healthcare IT is on the rise across the world. Increasing adoption of software applications related to different healthcare processes such as diagnostics and patient monitoring will drive the growth of this market over the forecast period. The WPAN segment accounted for the majority of the wireless health market in 2016. The high security features of the technology along with low cost implementation have majorly contributed to the robust growth of this market.

Patient-specific application segment accounted for the largest share of the market in 2016, due to rise in adoption of patient specific products and need for quality healthcare. Services providers segment accounted for the major share of the overall market in 2016, due to large number of healthcare providers adopting wireless health solutions to deliver high quality health care.

U.S. held the major share of the North America wireless health market in 2016 owing to the huge spending on healthcare IT in the country. According to a survey conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services in May 2016, nearly all the hospitals in the U.S. are using certified Electronic Health Records to manage patients health records. Emerging countries such as China and India are aggressively adopting wireless health technologies.

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Strategic collaborations and product development are the major strategies adopted by the companies operating in the global wireless health market. For instance, in August 2016, Philips Healthcare and Qualcomm Life Inc. collaborated to leverage Philips HealthSuite and Qualcomm Lifes 2net platform to advance personalized connected healthcare. Likewise, in October 2014, Philips Healthcare collaborated with Eseye, a global provider of M2M cellular connectivity, for supplying Multi-IMSI AnyNet connectivity for their telehealth platform, Philips Motiva. Moreover, in November 2016, Smiths Medical launched PharmGuard interoperability software for smart pump programming.

Market Players in the Global Wireless Health Market

AT &T Inc.

Cerner Corporation

Alcatel-Lucent

Omron Corporation

Verizon Communications Inc.

Qualcomm Inc.

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc.

Aerohive Networks Inc.

Philips Healthcare

Vocera Communications Inc.

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Key Findings of the Research Study:

The software segment is expected to witness lucrative growth during the forecast period due to rapid adoption of healthcare IT software products by the industry.

The WPAN segment accounted for the largest share in the wireless health market in 2016 as it is widely used to link wireless healthcare devices with computers.

The Bluetooth segment accounted for the largest share of the WPAN market in 2016 owing to its low cost application.

North America accounted for the major share of the global wireless health market in 2016 due to the large scale adoption of wireless healthcare devices and software solutions in the countries such as U.S. and Canada.

Asia-Pacific market will experience robust growth during the forecast period due to rapidly increasing internet penetration and adoption of wireless medical devices.

About Crystal Market Research

Crystal Market Research is a U.S. based market research and business intelligence company. Crystal offers one stop solution for market research, business intelligence, and consulting services to help clients make more informed decisions. It provides both syndicated as well as customized research studies for its customers spread across the globe. The company offers market intelligence reports across a broad range of industries including healthcare, chemicals & materials, technology, automotive, and energy.

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TORONTO, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Sky Guys, Canadas leader in drone technology and unmanned solutions, have teamed up with NVIDIA, IBM and University of Toronto to be awarded $750,000, from Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), as part of the Small Business Innovation Challenge (SBIC). The group will work closely with the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) to develop an artificial intelligence-enabled drone solution to monitor Ontarios 400-series highways in response to the Vehicle Occupancy Detection Problem Statement.



The application, titled, Long-Range AI-Enabled Unmanned Aerial System for Highway Traffic Enforcement with Future Road Applications, was selected and funding will be administered by OCE on behalf of the Ontario government over the next two years while The Sky Guys, NVIDIA, IBM, and U of T work with Ministry of Transportation on this project.

OCE is proud to deliver the Small Business Innovation Challenge on behalf of the Ontario government, says Tom Corr, President and CEO of OCE. The program will support Ontario-based, technology-driven SMEs in their mission to develop and test innovative technology solutions for public sector challenges. In Ontario, small businesses are at the heart of emerging trends and cutting-edge research, and act as a key part of the supply chain bringing innovation from ideation to market across industries. I would like to congratulate the successful applicants and I look forward to seeing their products and services grow.

This is very exciting for us, said Adam Sax, President and CEO of The Sky Guys. Ontario is the hub of innovation in Canada, so we are very honoured to be selected for this amazing project. The project will see The Sky Guys work with the ministry to test AI-equipped drones for highway enforcement and management, beginning with High-Occupancy Vehicle/High-Occupancy Toll (HOV/HOT) lanes.

The growth and momentum of The Sky Guys have been remarkable, said Ian Hull of Hull and Hull LLP, a new member of the company's board of directors. New products such as the DX-3 are being developed, the amazing success of the Second Annual Big Drone Show, an oversubscribed private placement with a major investment from Fairfax Financial earlier this year, and now this project with the Province of Ontario is just more proof that The Sky Guys are Canadas leader in drone technology.

The Sky Guys are leveraging the latest advances in aircraft controls, AI, and cloud security to offer a safe, privacy-protected, and reliable package for billing and enforcing HOV/HOT lanes. Were extremely excited to work with The Sky Guys on sharing our latest research to support the project, said Angela Schoellig, a professor at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. And this is just the beginning. In the future, our system will evolve to address additional challenges, from tracking road defects to correlating highway contractor choice to the quality of roads they maintain, added Jeremy Wang, CTO of The Sky Guys.

We have understood the disruptive capabilities of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles since launching The Sky Guys, and have helped countless clients reap the benefits, said Sax. To see government expressing interest in how our technology can help build smarter cities in Ontario is thrilling, and we are beyond excited to develop the best methods to assist in the monitoring of highway traffic laws in the province.

To learn more about The Sky Guys visit theskyguys.ca

Media Enquiries:

Michael Diamond

+1.647.986.0477

michael@upstreamgroup.ca

About The Sky Guys

The Sky Guys are Canada's leading solutions providers and technology developers in the UAV / Drone industry. Their team of world class engineers, data scientists and advanced technologists continually break the mould by providing clients with new insights and innovative applications.

The Sky Guys offers specialized UAV services to over 600 clients, using a unique approach to capture data, aerial video and photography, infrastructure inspection and 3D mapping.

Through its wholly owned technology division, Defiant Labs, they instigate disruption at every corner. Developing proprietary drone technology and advanced data analytics for commercial and industrial use to give clients that needed edge. Defiant Labs, the future lives here.

About Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Inc.

OCE drives the commercialization of cutting-edge research across key market sectors to build the economy of tomorrow and secure Ontario's global competitiveness. In doing this, OCE fosters the training and development of the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs and is a key partner with Ontario's industry, universities, colleges, research hospitals, investors and governments. A champion of leading-edge technologies, best practices and research, OCE invests in sectors such as advanced health, digital media and information communications, advanced manufacturing and materials, and cleantech including energy, environment and water. OCE is a key partner in delivering Ontario's Innovation Agenda as a member of the province's Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE). Funded by the Government of Ontario, the ONE is made up of regional and sector-focused organizations and helps Ontario-based entrepreneurs rapidly grow their company and create jobs.
Beverly Hills, California, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Modern Cinema Group, Inc. (OTCPK: MOCI) is proud to announce the upcoming launch of the first international media exchange for the purpose of trading both equity and licensing rights for movies, television series and electronic games.



The exchange software, developed by Kapp Software based in India is fully featured and not only complies with the requirements of prominent regulatory authorities, but offers a feature set for the most sophisticated of traders.

Today Kapp Software, a 14 year old company provides the software for 8 different exchanges around the world and specializes in high-capacity systems that are friendly to all users.

Says Ross Cooper, CEO of Modern Cinema Group, I saw the Kapp Software exchange system and network for the first time when I was meeting with The Pride Group and Pride Holdings in Chicago. I was not only impressed with the functionality of the software, but the look and feel as well. Its an impressive system and highly customizable, which is important for our media exchange. In fact, Ive never seen anything like it. When I then saw the companion App for mobile devices, I instantly knew Kapp would be the best provider of software systems and networking to our company.

The Kapp Software team is made up of highly trained software developers with vast industry experience. Many of the developers have more than 15 years of experience The team is focused primarily on the development of exchange software and mobile apps, however new products and services are in the pipeline. Each person on the Kapp Software team is encouraged to involve themselves creatively so all products arrive with careful thought and brilliant design.

Modern Cinema Group will soon be launching the first of its kind media exchange for the buying and selling of both equity interest and license rights for media content titles including long and short-form content not to mention Live television. This is the first time in history when such an ambitious exchange development  effort has been undertaken, and Kapp Software is providing the much needed infrastructure for the network.

Says Jacob George, CEO of Kapp Software, we find the synergies between Modern Cinema Group and Kapp Software to be ideal. Ross Cooper brings his vision which is perfectly aligned with functions and features of our exchange platform. We look forward to the upcoming launch the first-of-its-kind media exchange. Our team believes this new media exchange will change the way media assets are financed and distributed here in India and around the world. Ross brings his experience in the media industry and we bring the time-tested software. We make a great team.

Modern Cinema Groups new Media Exchange software system and network will be ready for its first listing before the end of November, 2017. All commercial aspects of the trading platform are ready to go.

Mr. Cooper goes on to say, Kapp Software and the Modern Cinema Group team based in America are working overtime to list our first movie on the exchange in the next few weeks.

Modern Cinema Group based in Beverly Hills, founded in San Diego has spent the last three years designing and patenting new business and technology models that allow both producers and distribution partners to integrate their systems in such a way as to leverage each others natural advantages. www.moderncinemagroup.com

Kapp Software based in India is a 14 year old company employing some of the best software developers in its industry. Pride software systems are running in many countries today with plans to expand in the near future.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENT

This press release contains certain forwardlooking statements, as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Statements, which are not historical facts, are forwardlooking statements. The Company, through its management, makes forwardlooking public statements concerning it expected future operations, performance and other developments. Such forwardlooking statements are necessarily estimates reflecting the Companys best judgment based upon current information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the Company. They include, but are not limited to, the Companys ability to develop operations, the Companys ability to consummate and complete the acquisition, the Companys access to future capital, the successful integration of acquired companies, government regulation, managing and maintaining growth, the effect of adverse publicity, litigation, competition, sales and other factors that may be identified from time to time in the Companys public announcements.

Source: Uptick Newswire
VANCOUVER, B.C., Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Associa British Columbia will be hosting its Bylaws 2.0 - Can You Relate? educational seminar from 6-8PM PST on November 27, 2017. The interactive session will focus on topics surrounding how residents in strata communities can better relate to their governing bylaws.



The event will feature industry expert speakers Fern Barker, Associa director of strata managers and Laszlo Antal, Associa business development manager. The seminar will be held in the Tynehead room at the Sheraton Guildford Hotel in Surrey, BC.



Associa British Columbia is dedicated to educating not only our clients but non-Associa clients as well, stated Berit Hansen, Associa BC president. Hosting each seminar allows us to reach the community and educate them on industry issues that are important. Having educated residents and boards allows us to lead successful communities.



To register for the event please contact Laszlo Antal at laszlo.antal@associa.ca and include your strata plan number and/or name of your strata. Seats are limited and non-Associa clients are welcome.



With more than 180 branch offices across North America, Associa delivers unsurpassed management and lifestyle services to nearly five million residents worldwide. Our 10,000+ team members lead the industry with unrivaled education, expertise and trailblazing innovation. For more than 40 years, Associa has provided solutions designed to help communities achieve their vision. To learn more, visit www.associaonline.com.



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Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/08f1ef66-902f-4aa2-b944-82db930bbbb2
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Several members from Trusted LASIK Surgeons will be presenting the latest in ophthalmological techniques and research at the 2017 American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Annual Meeting to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from November 11 to November 14, 2017. The annual conference is expected to draw over 24,000 medical professionals from all over the world. Members of Trusted LASIK Surgeons, a leading online directory of vision correction surgeons in the United States, will be among this year's distinguished presenters, empaneled experts, and attendees.



Several LASIK and cataract surgeons featured at Trusted LASIK Surgeons will be featured on panels and giving presentations at the AAO Annual Meeting, including Dr. James McCulley (Dallas, TX), Dr. Deepinder Dhaliwal (Pittsburgh, PA), Dr. Edward Manche (Palo Alto, CA) and Dr. Jason Brinton (St. Louis, MO).

"Having so many of our specialists involved in this conference is a testament to the excellence of the doctors who are part of our directory," James J. Salz, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Trusted LASIK Surgeons stated. "Our members are pioneers in the fields of LASIK and refractive surgery and strive to share that excellence with other professionals. The fact that they are well regarded by their professional peers is a testament to their excellence in everyday practice."

About Trusted LASIK Surgeons

The primary mission of Trusted LASIK Surgeons is to assist prospective patients in locating a vision specialist in the areas of LASIK and refractive surgery who are among the best and most trusted professionals in the United States

Trusted LASIK Surgeons utilizes a unique screening process to ensure only the best vision correction experts are eligible are featured in our LASIK and cataract surgeons directories. Each surgeon is screened based upon their professional credentials, experience, accomplishments, and quality of patient care. Most of the professionals listed in the directory have participated in FDA clinical studies and have academic appointments at the top medical schools in the United States.

The goal of Trusted LASIK Surgeons is to educate patients as well as assist them in finding a premier vision correction surgeon to improve their eyesight. Because there are several options for vision corrective surgery beyond LASIK, our website endeavors to assist patients in exploring all available options available, including premium lens implants, KAMRA inlay, cataract surgery and other vision correction procedures.

To locate a LASIK surgeon and vision correction expert near you, please visit the Trusted LASIK Surgeons Directory. For cataract surgery, please visit our Trusted Cataract Surgeons Directory.

(800) 483-8028
Did you know that about 15 lakh engineering graduates come out of colleges to compete for the job market in India? Most of them are not fit for engineering jobs and do away with something not related to their field. Around only 5% of them are actually employable in IT sectors. The graduates are very high and there aren't enough jobs indicating a severe gap. Moreover, traditional civil, mechanical jobs are extremely difficult to get. It is followed by computer science jobs of both hardware and software along with electronic engineering vacancies. The plight of millenials is not different in BFSI (banking financial services industry), life sciences, humanities, and arts in India. The story of the rest of the world is not so different. The developed world will have a shortage of 40 million skilled people by 2020. Major reason for this is the huge requirement for knowledge professionals and skilled workers. 41% of companies in developed world already complain that they have trouble finding skilled talent. But there is an apt solution for it in Intellipaat training institute which provides world class training on emerging technologies.

Rub the lamp and out comes the e-learning genie

Do you know that the global market for e-learning industry was $166 billion in 2016? Can you guess what the valuation is now, in 2017? A mind boggling $255 billion and a 65% growth in a single year. This assertion is enough to state that e-learning is here to stay and thrive. According to a Survey by Global Shapers it was found that among 25,000 people 77% of them took online courses in their life. Educational universities will increasingly contend with e-learning institutes to provide quality education. E-learning will provide huge training for the students so that they are employable in service sector. It is to be noted that service sector is a large part of world's GDP. About 63.5% of total wealth globally comes from service sector.

Professional training

Among these online training, professional training is meant for those working employees and students who are preparing for certification exams. Courses are wide ranging from foreign languages, nursing, accounting, civil services, public services and so on. There is also an emerging e-learning market that provides training on emerging technologies like big data, IoT, data science, salesforce, DevOps, business intelligence and so on. Big data is a field which has grown phenomenally and worth noting. The terms Hadoop, Spark, MapReduce will become more common to the general public as time flies. Intellipaat is a pioneer in this sphere. In the same Global Shapers survey, about half of them confessed that they would like to go for certification training even after they get jobs.

The key benefits from the online professional training are that the session could be recorded and made to play as many times as needed by the student. This can't be expected from the traditional classroom education. Moreover the prices of these courses are considerably lower than that of the university education. On top of that the course is covered in very less time than compared to degree courses. You have to go to a two year degree on a subject say big data analytics in a prestigious college. On the other hand you can get the training which is exactly what the job industry requires form the e-learning providers say in about weeks.

Conclusion

As internet connectivity becomes a necessity from want so will the online training industry will prosper. Sometimes people choose convenience which online training provides like a student can literally sit in his home and learn the courses. People in remote areas but with net connectivity can avail the most upto date training on the subjects of their choice. Online training which is still considered as a tertiary form of learning is soon poised to marginally rival traditional university education. This adoption of online training will especially be taken upon by job seekers. As said earlier there is a predicted increase of 65% in e-learning industry in 2017. So the future is ripe for online training to leverage.

Author Bio:

Vaishnavi Agrawal loves pursuing excellence through writing and have a passion for technology. She has successfully managed and run personal technology magazines and websites. She currently writes for intellipaat.com, a global training company that provides e-learning and professional certification training.

The courses offered by Intellipaat address the unique needs of working professionals. She is based out of Bangalore and has an experience of 5 years in the field of content writing and blogging. Her work has been published on various sites related to Big Data Online Training, Business Intelligence, Project Management, Cloud Computing, IT, SAP, Project Management and more.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police continue to seek tips from the public in an incident where a teen was groped on a bus on Manor Road in West Brighton, according to a social media post.

The NYPD previously asked for the public's help to identify a man sought for questioning in connection with the groping of a 15-year-old girl on an MTA bus.

The 120th Precinct asked for tips via its Twitter feed.

An unidentified man grabbed the child's buttocks on Sept. 14 around 3:50 p.m., while the two were on a northbound S54 bus near the intersection of Curtis Avenue and Manor Road, according to a written statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The victim immediately moved away from the man and she exited the bus as soon as possible, police said.

The unidentified groper remained on the bus and then left at the Manor Road and Forest Avenue stop.

Police described the individual sought for questioning as a black male between the ages of 20 and 25, about 6 feet tall, and about 160 pounds. He was wearing a distinctive multi-colored backpack at the time of the incident, police said.

Surveillance footage from the bus was provided by police.

Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Two men died of suspected overdoses in the same Graniteville home in separate incidents 11 months apart -- including one whose death was central in the historic "Operation Final Kut" North Shore drug bust, according to law enforcement sources.

The suspected overdoses occurred in a home on the quiet residential street of Willowbrook Court, those sources said.

Authorities allege that Richard Zeifert, 52, bought the fentanyl that killed him two days before Christmas in 2016 from Stephen Cummings, who was charged in "Operation Final Kut."

As a result of the narcotics sting, Cummings was the first person in New York City to be charged with manslaughter for allegedly selling the illegal drugs that caused another person's fatal overdose.

His case still is pending.

Cummings, whose nickname was "EZ," warned Zeifert in advance about the strength and potency of the drugs he was purchasing, according to authorities.

Fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller, is 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin and, when mixed, the two drugs can form a potentially lethal dose.

Zeifert was found lying facedown amid drug paraphernalia on his bed by his adult son, also named Richard, sources said.

Police responded to their apartment at about 11 p.m. and the elder Zeifert was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Tragedy struck again in the Zeifert residence about 11 months later, on Nov. 5, when Antonio Fuentes, 34, also died of a suspected overdose, sources told the Advance.

Fuentes was found around 12 a.m. in a bedroom.

He was seated in a chair with his head tilted back and a spoon and an empty glassine envelope near his body, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

EMS performed CPR and administered naloxone in attempts to revive Fuentes before pronouncing him dead at about 1 a.m., the source said.

The home is located on a cul de sac at the end of the street filled with single and semi-attached homes located a couple of blocks from Markham Intermediate School (I.S. 51) and the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway.

Public records list several apartments in the home.

ANOTHER FATAL 'FINAL KUT' OD

Another defendant in "Operation Final Kut," David Nieves, 44, was found dead with no signs of trauma in an overdose in a home on St. Mark's Place on the morning of Oct. 11, officials said.

His death was caused by acute intoxication from the combined effects of several drugs, including fentanyl, heroin and cocaine, the medical examiner determined.

Nieves had pleaded guilty on Oct. 5 in state Supreme Court, St. George, to fourth-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance in connection with the drug bust.

The charge accused him of acting in concert with two co-defendants to sell buprenorphine to a buyer on Dec. 6 of last year. Buprenorphine is a painkiller and also used to treat opioid addiction.

As part of his plea, Nieves was ordered to enter a long-term residential drug treatment program. His fatal overdose occurred several days later.

If he completed treatment, he would have been sentenced to five years' probation. He could have been sentenced to up to 66 months in prison if he failed to finish the program.

Operation "Final Kut" began in July 2016 and uncovered a violent narcotics distribution ring that included several alleged gang members, according to a media release from the Office of District Attorney Michael E. McMahon.
Page Content

The Minister of General Affairs, Prime Minister William Marlin, hereby makes the following known.





The Minister of General Affairs is responsible for designating a location where meetings of the Main Voting Bureau are held, this in accordance with article 12 sub 6 of the Voting Ordinance.





1. The meeting to allow political parties to submit their slate of candidates will be held on November 13, 2017 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the New Government Building at Soualiga Road Pond Island.





2. Endorsing of the slates of candidates will take place on Tuesday November 14, 2017 from 9 :00 am to 4:00 pm in the building where the Census Office was previously housed across from the New Government Building at Soualiga Road 6. Persons wishing to endorse a slate of candidates must walk with a valid ID and must be a registered voter.





3. A slate of candidates that does not get the required amount of signatures on Tuesday November 14, 2017 will be given a second opportunity to get the required amount on Wednesday November 15, 2017, again from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.




VANCOUVER, B.C., Nov. 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- There are only three weeks left to submit nominations for the 15th Annual Small Business BC Awards, presented by Small Business BC and Canada Post.



So far, there are over 400 nominees from communities across British Columbia, including Summerland, Terrace, Coquitlam, Victoria and beyond.

Nominations for the largest small business awards contest in the province are open until November 30, 2017, so there is still time to nominate in one of the following 10 categories:

Premiers Peoples Choice

Sponsored by the Province of British Columbia Best Apprentice Training

Sponsored by Industry Training Authority Best Community Impact

Sponsored by Vancity Best Company

Sponsored by Sage Best Concept

Sponsored by Rogers Best Employer

Sponsored by TruShield Best Immigrant Entrepreneur Best Innovation Best International Trade

Sponsored by UPS Best Marketer

Nominated business owners are tasked with gaining as many votes as possible through social media, word of mouth, e-mail or any other means possible.

Each award winner will receive the Premiers Prize of $1,500 cash, a one-year All-Access Pass to Small Business BC education products and services, and access to the amazing marketing and PR opportunities that the awards present.

The hardworking entrepreneurs who create and operate small businesses are so critical to our communities and economy, said Lise Cote, General Manager of Consumer & Small Business Marketing at Canada Post. Canada Post is proud to partner with them, knowing that their success makes our company and our country stronger.

But the celebrations do not stop there. This year for the first time, Small Business BC, the Province of British Columbia and the Small Business Roundtable are also encouraging members of the public to nominate their community for the Open for Business Awards. The Open for Business Awards recognize the communities that best demonstrate they are promoting and adopting business friendly initiatives in their region.

We are delighted to see the nominations coming in for the Open for Business Awards, in many of the communities we work with across the province, says George Hunter, CEO at Small Business BC. We see first-hand the impact a thriving community can have on a business, and were excited to celebrate that.

Small businesses continue to drive B.C.'s strong, sustainable economy and create good jobs for British Columbians across the province, says Premier John Horgan, It's important to recognize leaders and innovators in small business for their contributions to our province, and I am delighted to support this year's awards and the work of Small Business BC.



The winners will be announced at the Small Business BC Awards Gala on February 23, 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

More details on what happens after nominations are submitted for both the Small Business BC Awards and Open for Business Awards can be found at www.sbbcawards.ca.

About Small Business BC

Small Business BC provides entrepreneurs with the information and guidance necessary to build a solid foundation for their business. Through a wide range of products, services, education and resources theres a piece that fits with every business. No matter what stage or what skill level, when an entrepreneur finds themselves asking How do I? Small Business BC is the one to call.

About Canada Post

Canada Post is Canada's primary postal operator, providing service to more than 16 million addresses and delivering nearly 8.4 billion items in 2016. They are committed to providing innovative physical and electronic delivery solutions that create value for customers, small business and Canadians.

About the Province of British Columbia

The B.C. government recognizes that small businesses are the heart and soul of our communities, and the backbone of our economy. Small business plays a vital role in developing both the economic and social fabric of our province. The Small Business Branch, through the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training, is committed to supporting and developing small businesses throughout the province in every stage of the business lifecycle. Its part of our goal to make B.C. the most small-business friendly jurisdiction in Canada.

About the Small Business Roundtable

The permanent Small Business Roundtable was established in 2005 to engage in a dialogue with small business owners to identify the key issues and opportunities facing small businesses in British Columbia, and to develop recommendations for small business and government on strategies to enhance small business growth and success.
Brolucizumab, the first and only anti-VEGF to maintain a majority of patients on a 12-week treatment schedule immediately following loading phase in Phase III trials, met primary endpoint of non-inferiority vs aflibercept



Significantly fewer brolucizumab patients showed signs of disease activity as well as retinal fluid (IRF and/or SRF)-key markers used by physicians to determine injection frequency in clinical practice



Brolucizumab delivered superior reductions in retinal thickness (CST) due to fluid accumulation versus aflibercept



Overall ocular and non-ocular adverse event rates for brolucizumab were comparable to aflibercept in both studies

The digital press release with multimedia content can be accessed here:





Basel, November 10, 2017 - Novartis, a global leader in ophthalmology, announced further positive results from two Phase III studies of brolucizumab versus aflibercept. Results showed non-inferiority in primary endpoint, superiority in key retinal health outcomes, and long-lasting effect in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), a leading cause of blindness. The results of the head-to-head trials, HAWK and HARRIER, were presented at the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) 2017 Annual Meeting[1].

In neovascular AMD, abnormal blood vessels leak fluid into the eye, ultimately causing damage and blindness[2]. At week 16, relative to aflibercept, 35% fewer brolucizumab 6 mg patients showed presence of IRF and/or SRF in HAWK, and 33% fewer in HARRIER (P<0.0001 for both)[1]. Again at week 48, relative to aflibercept, 31% fewer patients on brolucizumab 6 mg had intra-retinal fluid (IRF) and/or sub-retinal fluid (SRF) in HAWK, and 41% fewer in HARRIER (P<0.0001 for both)[1]. The absence of fluid for patients in the brolucizumab arm suggests the potential for a long-lasting effect and decreased treatment need.

Additionally, brolucizumab 6 mg patients demonstrated superior reductions in central subfield thickness (CST)[1]. In nAMD, an elevated CST-as measured by optical coherence tomography (OCT)-is a key indicator of abnormal fluid accumulation in the retina[3]. Significantly improved CST reductions were evident at week 16 (P=0.0016 in HAWK and P<0.0001 in HARRIER) and at week 48 (P=0.0023 and P<0.0001, respectively)[1].

Brolucizumab met the primary efficacy endpoint of noninferiority to aflibercept in mean change in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) from baseline to week 48 in both trials[1]. These results were achieved while a majority of brolucizumab patients-57% in HAWK and 52% in HARRIER-were maintained on a q12w dosing interval immediately following the loading phase through week 48[1].

"HAWK and HARRIER demonstrated that brolucizumab has the potential to positively impact disease management and provide long-lasting treatment effect," said Dr. Pravin U. Dugel, Managing Partner, Retinal Consultants of Arizona; Clinical Professor, Roski Eye Institute, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California; and principal investigator of both trials. "HAWK and HARRIER showed that brolucizumab outperformed aflibercept on disease activity assessments, including key measures of disease progression seen on OCT, which forms the basis of a clinician's treatment decisions. Importantly, improvements in these key OCT measures were seen as early as week 16 and maintained at week 48, with a majority of brolucizumab patients on a 12-week treatment interval."

Frequent injections into the eye, a standard requirement for nAMD therapies, can be a significant hardship for patients and burden on caregivers[4],[5]. Brolucizumab is the first and only anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment for nAMD to demonstrate robust visual gains with a majority of patients maintained on a less-frequent 12-week (q12) treatment interval immediately following the loading phase in randomized clinical trials[1].

"Having delivered on our non-inferiority endpoint with a majority of patients on a q12 week interval, we're truly excited to share these data showing that brolucizumab clearly improves key anatomical outcomes that are biomarkers of disease," said Vas Narasimhan, Global Head, Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer, Novartis. "Brolucizumab represents a major scientific and clinical advancement for patients, caregivers and retina specialists around the world."

With brolucizumab, significantly fewer patients had active disease at week 16 in a matched head-to-head comparison. Active disease was observed in 23.5% of brolucizumab 6 mg patients versus 33.5% of aflibercept patients in HAWK, and in 21.9% of brolucizumab patients versus 31.4% of aflibercept patients in HARRIER (P=0.0022 for both)[1].

Brolucizumab safety was comparable to aflibercept with the overall incidence of adverse events balanced across all treatment groups in both studies[1]. The most frequent ocular adverse events (greater than 5% of patients in any treatment arm) for brolucizumab 3 mg, 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively, in HAWK were reduced visual acuity (8.7%, 6.9% and 8.9%), conjunctival hemorrhage (8.4%, 6.4% and 5.6%), vitreous floaters (6.7%, 5.0% and 3.1%) and eye pain (5.9%, 4.4% and 4.2%)[6]. The incidences of these events for brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively, in HARRIER were reduced visual acuity (5.9% and 6.2%), conjunctival hemorrhage (1.9% and 3.3%), vitreous floaters (3.0% and 0.8%) and eye pain (2.7% and 3.3%)[6]. The most frequent non-ocular adverse events were typical of those reported in an nAMD population; there were no notable differences between arms[6]. The incidence of arterial thrombotic events (ATE) was 3.9%, 2.5% and 5.6%* (brolucizimab 3 mg, brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept respectively) in HAWK and 2.7%* and 4.3%* (brolucizumab 6 mg and aflibercept, respectively) in HARRIER[1].

*Since publication, a minor numerical error has been corrected; this has no impact on the overall safety conclusion.

About brolucizumab (RTH258)

Brolucizumab (RTH258) is a humanized single-chain antibody fragment (scFv) and the most clinically advanced, humanized single-chain antibody fragment to reach this stage of development. Single-chain antibody fragments are highly sought after in drug development due to their small size, enhanced tissue penetration, rapid clearance from systemic circulation and drug delivery characteristics[7],[8],[9].

The proprietary innovative structure results in a small molecule (26 kDa) with potent inhibition of, and high affinity to, all VEGF-A isoforms[7],[10]. In preclinical studies, brolucizumab inhibited activation of VEGF receptors through prevention of the ligand-receptor interaction[7],[8],[9],[10]. Increased signaling through the VEGF pathway is associated with pathologic ocular angiogenesis and retinal edema[11]. Inhibition of the VEGF pathway has been shown to inhibit the growth of neovascular lesions, resolve retinal edema and improve vision in patients with chorioretinal vascular diseases[12].

About HAWK and HARRIER study design

With more than 1,800 patients across 400 centers worldwide, HAWK and HARRIER are the first and only global head-to-head trials in patients with nAMD that prospectively demonstrated efficacy at week 48 using an innovative q12w/q8w regimen, with a majority of patients on q12w immediately following the loading phase[1]. Both studies are 96-week prospective, randomized, double-masked multi-center studies and part of the Phase III clinical development of brolucizumab[13],[14].

The studies were designed to compare the efficacy and safety of intravitreal injections of brolucizumab 6 mg and 3 mg (HAWK only) versus aflibercept 2 mg in patients with nAMD. The primary efficacy objective of HAWK and HARRIER trials was to confirm that brolucizumab is noninferior to aflibercept in mean change in BCVA from baseline to Week 48. Secondary endpoints include average mean change in BCVA from baseline over the period week 36-48, the proportion of patients on a q12w interval at week 48 and anatomical parameters[13],[14].

In both trials, patients were randomized to either brolucizumab or aflibercept. Immediately following the 3-month loading phase, patients in the brolucizumab arms received a q12w dosing interval with an option to adjust to a q8w dosing interval based on masked disease activity assessments at defined visits. Aflibercept was dosed bi-monthly according to its label[13],[14].

Week 16 was an important pre-defined data point, as it represents a timepoint when the treatment assessment for brolucizumab and aflibercept were identical, providing an opportunity to observe how both drugs performed in a matched comparison[1].

About neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD or wet AMD)

nAMD is the leading cause of severe vision loss and legal blindness in people over the age of 65 in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia, impacting an estimated 20 to 25 million people worldwide[15],[16]. nAMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels form underneath the macula, the area of the retina responsible for sharp, central vision. These blood vessels are fragile and leak fluid, disrupting the normal retinal architecture and ultimately causing damage[17],[18],[19].

Early symptoms of nAMD include distorted vision or metamorphopsia and difficulties seeing objects clearly[20]. Prompt diagnosis and intervention are essential. As the disease progresses, cell damage increases, further reducing vision quality. This progression can lead to a complete loss of central vision, leaving the patient unable to read, drive or recognize familiar faces[17]. Without treatment, vision can rapidly deteriorate[21].

About Novartis in ophthalmology

Novartis is a leading ophthalmology company, with therapies that treat both front and back of the eye disorders, including retina diseases, glaucoma, dry eye and other external eye diseases. In 2016, approximately 200 million patients worldwide were treated with Novartis ophthalmic products.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "potential," "can," "will," "plan," "expect," "anticipate," "look forward," "believe," "committed," "investigational," "pipeline," "launch," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures; general economic and industry conditions, including the effects of the persistently weak economic and financial environment in many countries; safety, quality or manufacturing issues, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Novartis

Novartis provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, cost-saving generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals and eye care. Novartis has leading positions globally in each of these areas. In 2016, the Group achieved net sales of USD 48.5 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 9.0 billion. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 121,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are sold in approximately 155 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at http://twitter.com/novartis

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact media.relations@novartis.com

References

[1] Dugel P, et al. HAWK & HARRIER: 48-week results of 2 multi-centered, randomized, double-masked trials of brolucizumab versus aflibercept for neovascular AMD. Presented at: The American Academy of Ophthalmology 2017 Annual Meeting on November 10, 2017, New Orleans.

[2] NHS Choices. Macular Degeneration. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Introduction.aspx (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[3] Kang SW, et al. The correlation between fluorescein angiographic and optical coherence tomographic features in clinically significant diabetic macular edema. Am J Ophthalmol 2004;137(2):313-322.

[4] Mantel I. Optimizing the Anti-VEGF Treatment Strategy for Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration: From Clinical Trials to Real-Life Requirements. Translational Vision Science & Technology. 2015;4(3):6.

[5] Gohil R, et al. Caregiver Burden in Patients Receiving Ranibizumab Therapy for Neovascular Age Related Macular Degeneration. PLoS ONE. 2015;10(6):e0129361.

[6] Data on file.

[7] Escher D, et al. Single-chain antibody fragments in ophthalmology. Oral presentation at EURETINA congress. 2015. Abstract. Available at: http://www.euretina.org/nice2015/programme/free-papers-details.asp?id=4072&day=0 (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[8] Nimz EL, et al. Intraocular and systemic pharmacokinetics of brolucizumab (RTH258) in nonhuman primates. The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) annual meeting. 2016. Abstract 4996.

[9] Gaudreault J, et al. Preclinical pharmacology and safety of ESBA1008, a single-chain antibody fragment, investigated as potential treatment for age related macular degeneration. ARVO Annual meeting abstract. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2012;53:3025. http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2354604 (link is external).

[10] Tietz J, et al. Affinity and Potency of RTH258 (ESBA1008), a Novel Inhibitor of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A for the Treatment of Retinal Disorders. IOVS. 2015; 56(7): 1501.

[11] Qazi Y, et al. Mediators of ocular angiogenesis. J. Genet. 2009;88(4):495-515.

[12] Kim R. Introduction, mechanism of action and rationale for anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs in age-related macular degeneration. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2007;55(6):413-415.

[13] ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier NCT02307682. Available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02307682 (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[14] ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier NCT02434328. Available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02434328 (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[15] Schmidt-Erfurth U, et al. Guidelines for the management of neovascular age-related macular degeneration by the European Society of Retina Specialists (EURETINA). Br J Ophthalmol. 2014;98:1144-1167.

[16] Chopdar A, et al. Age related macular degeneration. BMJ. 2003;26(7387):485-488.

[17] World Health Organization. Priority eye diseases: Age-related macular degeneration. Available at http://www.who.int/blindness/causes/priority/en/index7.html (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[18] NHS Choices. Macular Degeneration. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Introduction.aspx (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[19] National Eye Institute. Facts About Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Available at https://nei.nih.gov/health/maculardegen/armd_facts (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[20] NHS Choices. Macular degeneration - Symptoms. Available at http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Macular-degeneration/Pages/Symptoms.aspx (link is external). Accessed November 2017.

[21] van Lookeren Campagne M, et al. Mechanisms of age-related macular degeneration and therapeutic opportunities. J Pathol. 2014; 232(2):151-64. doi: 10.1002/path.4266.

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The North Caucasus: Russias Soft Underbelly

Summary

In last weeks Deep Dive on the South Caucasus , we explained how the regions unforgiving, mountainous terrain has served as both borderland and battleground for empires. This Deep Dive will focus on the North Caucasus, the relatively flat region above the Greater Caucasus mountain range whose terrain has made it vulnerable to Russian domination. Moving forward, however, the weakening of Russia and the re-emergence of political Islam means the region will likely pose a security threat to the Kremlin.

The Region

In sharp contrast with the South Caucasus, the North Caucasus is not composed of separate sovereign states. Instead the North Caucasus is an integral part of Russia, divided between two of the Russian Federations eight districts  the North Caucasian Federal District and the Southern Federal District. Most of the region belongs to the North Caucasian district, which split from the Southern district in 2010, a year after the end of the Second Chechen War. With the Southern district lying largely to the north, the North Caucasian district is the only Muslim-majority district in the federation.

The North Caucasus stretches from the Caspian Sea in the southeast to the Sea of Azov in the northwest. The westernmost part of the area, composed of Krasnodar region and the enclave of Adygea, lies within the Southern district. Krasnodar consists mainly of flat lands, which allowed Russia to more easily slavicize the territory after the forced exodus of its Circassian inhabitants in the late 19th century. The rest of the North Caucasus region  the North Caucasian district  has maintained its distinct Muslim identity and hence was configured into a single federal district. This district runs from Krasnodar to the Caspian Sea and consists of the republics of Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. The region of Stavropol  sandwiched between Krasnodar in the west and Dagestan in the east, and sharing borders with each of the other republics in the south  and North Ossetia are the only majority ethnic Russian and Orthodox Christian units within the North Caucasian district.

This current administrative arrangement of the North Caucasus is the outcome of the Russians centuries-long struggle to subdue this region. Until the North Caucasus was brought to heel during the time of the czarist regime in the late 19th century, the region was what noted Caucasus and Central Asia scholar Marie Bennigsen Broxup referred to as a barrier that separated Russia from the heart of the Muslim world. At the same time, the mountainous terrain kept major Muslim powers to the south, such as the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid (and later Qajar) Persians, from truly accessing this region. Though both the Turks and the Persians had sought to expand into the Caucasus region, neither side was able to move past the South Caucasus.

By the 18th century, both the Ottomans and the Persians lacked the modern political, economic and military capabilities Russia and the other Europeans had acquired. Furthermore, they were embroiled in a bitter rivalry in the Middle East, and the Turks were heavily committed in Europe where they were starting to lose territory. Ultimately, the Ottomans and Persians were unable to seize the massive Greater Caucasus mountain range. The Russians, however, had no such trouble. Though a lengthy undertaking, Orthodox Christian Russia was much better positioned to eventually occupy the North Caucasus.

Russian Conquest

From a strategic point of view, Russia must control at least the North Caucasus, and ideally the South Caucasus, because these areas are buffer regions; should they fall into hostile hands, the entire Russian core would become vulnerable. These areas, however, have historically proven difficult to control because of both the terrain and the locals.

Ivan the Terribles 1556 conquest of Astrakhan (an area of the North Caucasus that lies along the northwestern tip of the Caspian Sea) sparked Russian interest in the region. During this initial thrust into the North Caucasus, which lasted until 1604, the Russians reached as far as Dagestan, thanks to the flat terrain in the regions northern half. This invasion did not last, however. The Ottomans, who were still a powerful force at the time, supported the Dagestanis against the Russian incursion. The Russians were forced to pull back to Astrakhan.

From 1604 to 1783, the region was more or less left to its own devices. Russia had turned its focus to Europe, and the Turks were tied down in their wars with the Persians. This relative isolation allowed Islam, which had been present in the area since the 8th century, to spread rapidly through the central and western parts of the North Caucasus  in large part because of the halt of the Russian efforts to penetrate the area and the support of the Ottoman Turks and the Crimean Tatars.

Under Catherine II, Russia was able to project power into the North Caucasus. From 1783 to 1824, Russia engaged in a systematic campaign to conquer the region. Between 1785 and 1791, the Russians faced massive resistance from the forces of the Ottoman-backed Chechen Sufi leader Sheikh Mansour, who managed to unite much of the North Caucasus. After a major defeat at the hands of these Muslim warriors, on the banks of the Sunzha River in 1785, the Russian army, buoyed by its victory in the Napoleonic Wars, was able to come back and subdue the resistance. Though ultimately defeated, the uprising established among the locals that Islam could serve as both a unifying force and the basis of armed resistance.

This experience led to a series of jihad-inspired campaigns that continued until the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. During this time, the North Caucasus saw the decline of the traditional feudal elite and the rise of Sufi orders, further entrenching Islam within the political fabric of the North Caucasus. The U.S. Armys Command and General Staff College scholar Robert F. Baumann explains how Russian efforts to complete their conquest of the region were complicated, as religious fervor proved to be an effective mobilizer of anti-Russian resistance. But though Islamic resistance made the conquest of the region more costly to the Russians, it failed to block the conquest completely.

The ramifications of the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus is not dissimilar to that of British and French colonialism in India and Africa, respectively. As former CIA and national security official Paul Henze notes in a 1996 article, Russian colonialism brought order and development to the North Caucasus  an otherwise chaotic region of tribal highlanders cut off from the rest of the world. Indeed, Moscow provided the region with modern infrastructure in the form of roads, railroads, ports and urban centers, but only after a long campaign to suppress local dissent.

Unlike most other European powers that sought colonies in distant lands, the Russians sought to control a land much closer to home. Indeed, the Caucasus was on Russias doorstep, and thus, it was imperative that the Russians fully assimilate the area. They spent a great deal of time trying to convert the people of the region to Orthodox Christianity, operating on the assumption that conversion would aid in assimilation. Ultimately, that policy backfired. Despite the fact that there were many ethno-linguistic groups that inhabited this region, a majority of them had been Muslim for centuries.

Affinity to religion varies considerably across the region. Islam plays an important role in the identity and ideology of the Chechens and the Dagestanis in the east. Yet, as one moves west, religious fervor tends to taper off. Beyond Islam, there is little commonality among the various peoples of the North Caucasus. They are divided along clan, ethnic, linguistic and territorial lines, and the Russians sought to exploit these differences.

At the social level, traditional feudal Muslim elites and religious scholars sought to preserve their power through two sets of laws. The former emphasized customary laws, while the religious leaders sought to increase their influence by promoting Shariah, or Islamic law. Until the arrival of the Russians, these two competing forces were largely able to coexist.

According to Loyola University historian Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia pursued a complex strategy in its effort to take over the North Caucasus region. In some instances, the Russians found allies. But in others, they resorted to force, especially in terms of the takeover of lands and expulsion of the locals. In need of local partners, Russia would often co-opt the feudal Muslim elite, transforming them into loyalists of Moscow through assimilation. Elites from the North Caucasus were sent to study in Moscow, where many embraced Orthodox Christianity and Russian culture. Yet these individuals did not help promote assimilation in the North Caucasus, as few returned home. By the latter half of the 19th century, the Russians realized they needed people to represent Russian interests in the North Caucasus, and Moscow began to support locals who held grievances toward the landed gentry.

The attempts to convert people of the region to Orthodox Christianity undercut the more crucial interests of securing loyalty to the empire. Attempts at conversion were obviously anathema to the Muslim clergy, but they also triggered opposition from within the traditional elite quarters. For the Russians, who saw conversion as part and parcel of their efforts to advance their imperial interests within the region, it was difficult to alter course. In addition to the need to secularize the process of assimilation, there was ambiguity on how the North Caucasus would be controlled by Moscow. Should it be fully absorbed into the empire as a full-fledged province or should it be treated as a colony?

As the Russians searched for the best way to administer the North Caucasus, the region experienced another outbreak of major resistance. The leader of this campaign was Imam Shamil, who in the mid-19th century established the Caucasian Imamate, an Islamic polity that sought to liberate the area from the Russians. The Russians were forced to recognize that the regions legal traditions had to be incorporated into their new system of governance. But here the Russians found themselves caught in the existing duality between customary and Islamic laws. Siding with the clergy would have helped undermine the tendency toward armed religious resistance, but the Russians needed local interlocutors who would be willing to adopt Russian customs and thus preferred the local economic and political elites.

As a result, throughout the czarist era, Russia struggled with how best to manage the North Caucasus. The empire eventually succeeded in creating a pro-Russian elite class in the region because, for many local elites, the only path toward European modernization was through Russification. Yet the masses remained loyal to Islamic teachings, and the gulf between the elites and the masses widened. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, the elites and the masses would find common cause through the fusion of religious identity with ethnic nationalism.

The Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras

Already isolated from the rest of the world by geography and Russian subjugation, the North Caucasus became more or less completely cloaked behind the iron curtain of communism and the Soviet Union. Well aware of the struggles their czarist predecessors had to face in the North Caucasus, the Soviets divided the region, lumping its various pieces into different Soviet Socialist Republics. The main Soviet Socialist Republic in the North Caucasus combined Chechnya and Ingushetia to form the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Furthermore, the Soviets maintained a sophisticated and efficient coercive security establishment led by the KGB, allowing them to subdue this historically restive region.

Yet the Chechens openly expressed their discontent and, under the leadership of the nationalist guerilla leader Hasan Israilov, mounted an insurgency against the Soviet regime between 1940 and 1944. To suppress opposition, Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered the mass displacement of people from the region after accusing the Chechens of having collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. In 1944, some 650,000 people from the region  most of whom were ethnic Chechens  were forced to relocate to Central Asia. The Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was dissolved and its areas gerrymandered. It was not until the era of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that efforts to make amends with the Chechens began. In 1956, the Chechens were returned to their homes. Two years later, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was restored.

The region generally remained calm for the next three decades, only to erupt yet again in the early 1990s when 15 republics declared independence and the Soviet Union dissolved. The South Caucasus divided into three independent republics  Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia  along with a few disputed territories. But the Russians were not willing to allow the North Caucasus, especially Chechnya, which declared independence in 1991, to become sovereign entities. Two back-to-back wars ensued, the first lasting from 1993 to 1996 and the second from 1999 to 2009.

Initially, the Chechen wars were dominated by nationalists, who subscribed to the Sufi religious creed, seeking an independent Chechnya. Gradually, however, Salafists assumed greater control of the fighting against Russian forces. These jihadists eventually moved beyond the goal of establishing an independent Islamic Chechnya to pursue broader, transnational agendas including creating a regional Islamic state that would encompass the broader North Caucasus region. Inspired by al-Qaida and aided by the influx of many Arab foreign fighters, Chechen jihadists modeled themselves after the historic religious warriors who resisted Russians in the North Caucasus since the Russian incursions began in the 16th century. In 2007, a regional movement called the Caucasus Emirate was founded.

With the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the Caucasus Emirate group has essentially become irrelevant. Many Chechen militants and those from other parts of the North Caucasus moved to Syria and Iraq to join the jihadist regime. This weakening of the Chechen insurgency in the late 2000s allowed the republic to establish a stable regime led by the Kadyrov clan, which has kept peace for at least a decade. The key to this stability is Russian President Vladimir Putins dedicated support of the Kadyrov regime.
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The honour, recognising significant achievement in the arts, literature or the propagation of these, was bestowed in recognition of Latham's project The Flowers of War.

Chris Latham artist in residence at the War Memorial is receiving the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ambassador. Chris Latham in front of the Somme Winter diorama. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Latham, the first musical artist in residence at the Australian War Memorial, will join such honourees as George Clooney, Ron Radford, Robyn Archer and Kylie Minogue.

Saturday, November 11 is Remembrance Day and this year, for longtime Canberra musician Christopher Latham it will prove especially memorable. On that day, the French Ambassador, Christophe Penot, is making him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

"I'm accepting it in my stepfather's name - he didn't get one."

Marc Honegger was a musicologist who wrote the standard French music dictionary and was also a big influence on his stepson.

"He steered me on the music in warfare path."

Honegger played the young Latham music of the World War One period including pieces by Alberic Magnard, "the Mahler of France, who was killed in the first few days of the First World War".

Over the four years marking the centenary of World War I (2014-18), supported by the Anzac Centenary Cultural Fund and the Mission Centenaire 1418 in a cultural exchange between Australia and France, Latham has been organising a series of concerts in the two counties. They featuring music by composers of the World War I era - some of them recently rediscovered such as the Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly, who was also an Olympic gold medal-winning rower - as well as newly commissioned music to commemorate the period.
Is there anything better than driving past a moment of pure mid-century modernist "awe" in suburban Canberra?

Verge House at 204 Monaro Crescent in Red Hill is one of those moments. Canberra House at 19 Downes Place in Hughes is another.

Interior designer Bronwyn Blue said collaboration was a hallmark of mid-century modernist design. Credit:Karleen Minney

But my personal favourite is Enrico Taglietti's McKeown House in Watson, with its sleek diagonal lines, exposed roof beams and minimalist exterior.

For Deakin resident Brownyn Blue, walking past a moment of mid-century modernist "awe" - the Malcolm Moir house at 43 Melbourne Avenue in Forrest - every day on her way to school inspired a career in interior design.
Residents of Braddon's Ori building say they are fed-up with the thumping reverberations coming from a gym on the first floor.

But the building's landlord says the gym's owners have ordered a new floor worth $70,000 to dampen the noise and address concerns.

The Ori building on Braddon's Lonsdale Street. Credit:Graham Tidy, Fairfax Media

An employee from one Ori building business, who did not wish to be named, said banging from the gym was extremely disruptive.

"It's not just the noise through the wall, it's that the floor literally vibrates when they drop big weights," they said.
Attacks on critical infrastructure are not a new concern for security researchers, cyber intelligence group Talos said. "The distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that have brought major websites and internet infrastructure to a screeching halt in places as varied as New Hampshire and Liberia could serve as a harbinger for the havoc Internet of Things-enabled devices could unleash on the utility grid." A growing threat The importance of cyber security for utilities is of little surprise to many in the industry. A cyber attack on high voltage transmission networks could take down an entire city's power. Credit:AAP

While much of the focus of cyber attacks has been on personal scams, the real damage is done by malicious attacks against major utilities and institutions, such as Wannacry's global ransomware attack on targets as varied as the UK's National Health Service and Spain's telecommunications network. While less publicised, a wave of cyber attacks targeted Europe and North America's energy sector this year, CISCO's cyber intelligence group Talos stated. "These attacks target both the critical infrastructure providers and the vendors those providers use to deliver critical services," Talos said. "Attacks on critical infrastructure are not a new concern for security researchers, as adversaries are keen to understand critical infrastructure ICS networks for reasons unknown, but surely nefarious." According to Symantec, a computer security group, while these attacks have been occurring since 2011, they have ramped up over the last two years.

It pointed to what are believed to be Russian state-backed groups known as Dragonfly or Energetic Bear as the main perpetrators, who use methods as simple as malicious Word documents disguised as job resumes in order to surreptitiously gain access to company login details and user credentials. The most recent serious attacks were in Ukraine, where hacking caused disruptions to the power system and affected hundreds of thousands of people. In April this year, Ireland's entire electricity and transmission control system  EirGrid  was hacked into, although no systems were shut down. Iran's nuclear energy sector was attacked and nearly destroyed by programmable logic controller virus Stuxnet, while Shamoon  disk-wiping malware  hacked into Saudi Arabia's energy networks in 2012 and 2016, destroying master boot records. Earlier this year, the US' Wolf Creek nuclear power plant was also attacked, however security specialists managed to respond to the threat before their system was penetrated. In May this year, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at strengthening the US' critical infrastructure network, specifically addressing cyber threats that could cause electricity disruption and power outages.

But what steps has Australia taken to protect itself? Australia at risk? Australia's relative distance from other nations has not made it invulnerable to attack, with Minister for Cyber Security, Dan Tehan, stating the nation must be on constant guard. "We are naive if we think that in Australia we are immune to [cyber attack] threats," Mr Tehan said. "A cyber-secure Australia will only be achieved if governments, industry, and individuals continue to work together to share information and strengthen our defences against cyber threats," he told Fairfax Media.

In 2016/17, the Australian Cyber Security Centre reported that 7283 cyber security incidents affected major Australian businesses. "The ACSC also responded to 734 cyber incidents affecting private sector systems of national interest and critical infrastructure providers," Mr Tehan said. Australia launched a $230 million cyber security strategy for the nation in April, led by attorney general George Brandis, and zeroed in on our critical infrastructure  our power and water networks  in October. "With increased foreign involvement, through ownership, offshoring, outsourcing and supply chain arrangements, Australia's national critical infrastructure is more exposed than ever to sabotage, espionage and coercion," Mr Brandis said. Mr Tehan added, "Securing critical infrastructure assets in partnership with industry is a key focus of Australia's $230 million Cyber Security Strategy."

"The new Critical Infrastructure Centre in the Attorney-General's Department will work closely with our national critical infrastructure companies to identify cyber vulnerabilities, develop risk assessments and risk management strategies." This partnership has developed a new bill, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Bill 2017, in order to counter threats to the nation's energy networks. "Firstly, it will create a 'last resort power' which will allow the Minister to issue a direction to an owner or operator of a critical infrastructure asset to mitigate significant national security risks," Mr Brandis said. "Secondly, a critical assets register will be created providing the government greater visibility of who owns, controls and has access to, critical infrastructure assets. This information will inform the government's assessments of assets most at risk from espionage, sabotage and coercion." Last month, Mr Tehan and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, also launched an international cyber engagement strategy which "aims to foster good cyber security practices in our region and improve our collective capacity to respond to global cyber incidents".

While legislative steps have been put in place to protect critical infrastructure, the onus remains on industry to ensure their data and access to their systems remains secure. "Businesses and individuals must also take responsibility for their own cyber security and the government encourages the operators of critical infrastructure to adopt the Australian Signals Directorate's Essential Eight cyber security risk mitigation practices," Mr Tehan said. Even with these measures, how safe are Australia's power and distribution networks? "There is a threat [to energy infrastructure] that is persistent in the Australian landscape," Schneider Electric senior cyber security consultant Peter Clissold told Fairfax Media. Within Australia, AGL and Origin have both taken steps to secure their business against cyber threats.

AGL has created a cyber threat intelligence and incident manager role to recognise and protect against these kinds of intrusions. Origin regularly commissions independent penetration tests and carries out other security reviews to test its security and improve controls. "Our strategy is focused on protecting information and operational performance and safety from cyber security threats," a spokeswoman said. Origin's executive general manager, technology, risk, and transformation, Carl McCamish, added, "We protect our people and assets through a dynamic cyber security strategy that is regularly tested and reviewed to ensure we remain agile and resilient to emerging threats." Beyond the screen

While the lights will come back on soon after a cyber attack, Mr Clissold said the real damage will be in the changed perception of the company. "The biggest impact will be on reputation, it will have a far bigger impact than the punitive cost or loss of supply," Mr Clissold said. This can have a flow-on effect to a company's bottom line. "There has been evidence of share prices falling," he said. "The share price of companies were impacted because of their public notification of an attack," Mr Clissold said.

This was supported by an Oxford Economics report, which found that "publicised cyber attacks generally have some impact on stock market valuations and by extension company reputations". There is also the loss of customers who no longer trust the capability of their energy company after such an event. The impacts of cyber attacks are multi-staged, and go beyond the initial intrusions. Energy companies need to put in place measures in order to present a less vulnerable target. Loading
Darlinghurst's Tropicana Caffe  the birthplace of the world's largest independent film festival, Tropfest  has sold before auction for $6 million.

The Victoria Road cafe site was bought, unconditionally, two weeks before its scheduled auction by an Australian expatriate. The investor flew to Sydney to inspect the property and signed a contract before his return flight. The property, marketed by LJ Hooker Commercial Sydney's Steven Kruyer and James Griffiths, sold on a tight 4.2 per cent yield.

Darlinghurst's Tropicana Caffe, the birthplace of international short film festival Tropfest, has been sold to a private investor.

Mr Kruyer said the purchaser was drawn to the security the investment offered, especially the recent purchase of the business by Tonci Farac, the former owner of Wildfire Restaurant in Circular Quay, and Duncan Thompson, a long-term member of Bill Granger's restaurant team, will be managing the restaurant.

Mr Kruyer said Tonci Farac has taken a 10-year lease with two, 10-year options on the Tropicana Caffe, "so the purchaser recognised the safety of the investment".
Underground coal miner Dave McLachlan has been "saved" after the Fair Work Commission found he was unfairly sacked for joining workers who stripped down to their underpants in protest against cuts to their laundry services.

The Fair Work Commission on Friday reinstated the sacked miner after finding his dismissal from Illawarra Coal Holding's South 32 mine in April was "harsh, unjust and unreasonable".

CFMEU members Lee Webb (left) and Dave McLachlan on April 19 - the day Mr McLachlan was sacked. Credit:Robert Peet

The decision follows a national "Save Dave" campaign led by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in support of the 50-year-old miner at the centre of the so called "undies protest".

Workers at the Appin Colliery staged a 10-minute protest after their employer refused to provide replacement work clothes and a laundry service at the South32 Appin Colliery. The laundry service and clothes which had been a condition of their enterprise agreement for many years.
Barnaby Joyce is fighting a by-election because he was found, somewhat to his surprise, to be a person entitled to the rights of a Kiwi, on the basis that his father was born there. Joyce thinks voters in that seat are annoyed about needing to vote again and, believing in his ignorance of his dual citizenship but regarding it as some silly and unintended technicality, thinks the constitution should be amended to stop such things ever happening again. Another constitutional dunce deplored the fact that a court (once) given to "creativity" and "judicial legislation" when it suited it was (now) given to black-letter law. This sort of nonsense can get about because many people find it difficult to read, or to understand, High Court judgments. Actually, if anyone wanted to try, its latest judgment, on parliamentarians' citizenship, would be a good one on which to start. It is quite straightforward, and the reasoning is easy to understand, as is the fact that most of the arguments Joyce is still putting forward were ones the court specifically considered and, quite reasonably, rejected. Just as were the arguments put on behalf of Malcolm Turnbull and his principal legal adviser, George Brandis. To add irony to insult, the court plainly preferred the argument put by former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson, with whom Brandis seemed to share a mutual loss of confidence. The prospect of a successful referendum amendment is zero, even if such a referendum could be held in time to save those now in trouble.

The court was implementing, rather than making a colourful interpretation of, section 44. Like the court in 1991, it gave a little ground for reasonableness where strict, black-letter interpretation might have forbidden it. The reasonableness requirement makes it ultimately a question of Australian law, not foreign law, whether one is a citizen of another country. One looks at the law of that other country first to decide whether a person was a citizen of it. But, the court said, no Australian citizen can be prevented from standing for parliament simply because the law of another country makes them one of its citizens. A person in this situation can break free of the disqualification by renouncing the citizenship, but the renunciation must be effective: one must do all that is reasonably required by the other country's law to renounce their foreign citizenship. If the other country makes it practically impossible, the court will judge the efforts made. In adopting this view, the court was quite predictable, following previous decisions. If politicians had had their wits about them, or if their party organisations had, no one could have been surprised by the decision. The court considered arguments suggesting that section 44(1) needed to have a mental element  consciousness of being a foreign citizen; or, for others, what The Castle called "the vibe"  whether the person, regardless of their real legal status, "felt" themselves to be Australian and Australian only. The problem was, of course, that being a citizen of another country is a matter of law, and ultimate fact, not a feeling, emotion or something that does not exist until one is aware of it. The government argued that section 44 required that foreign citizenship needed to have been obtained voluntarily, or retained consciously. By this argument, a person needed to know or be wilfully blind (like the now suddenly retired Senate president) of this foreign citizenship.

The court also rejected the argument put by Joyce and Nationals senator Fiona Nash that a person needed to "know" of their foreign citizenship, and thus be able to be said to have "chosen" it, or to have consciously kept it going. In parliament, Turnbull had been confident, to the point of seeming to bully the court, that it would see things his way. All seven judges joined in rejecting the government's submissions. They stuck with precedent, and with an interpretation that "adheres most closely to the ordinary and natural meaning of the language of section 44(1)". The history of why the section was in the constitution, and why it was worded that way, did not suggest anything but the obvious interpretation. In any event, any of the alternative interpretations argued, including the government's, would create their own uncertainty and instability, the court said. Everyone, including some politicians (such as the Senate president) who had kept mum about the circumstances, now seems to have got the message. It is now apparent that there are at least eight, and possibly more, lower-house politicians whose right to sit may be open to challenge. Many of them, on the information presently available, look set for disqualification, and the seats will face by-elections. Some of these could be Labor members  although, for them, it seems, the main issue will be whether renunciation occurs when received by the foreign government (in which case they are safe) or when acted upon by it (in which case some might not be safe). At least one crossbench member of the House of Representatives may be also in trouble. What is now admitted to be a "crisis" saw Turnbull in his usual, dreadful form. It was embarrassing to watch.

At first, he resisted any idea of an "audit" into the situation of all MPs and senators, and was at full bluster and hector when questions were asked about Josh Frydenberg, whose mother arrived in Australia as a stateless person, but who may have regained Hungarian citizenship in recent years by virtue of a new law in Hungary. Then there was, as it seems there so often is with Turnbull, retreat, redefinition of what an "audit" may mean, if with impractical and silly efforts to make it depend on the honesty and forthrightness of the politicians involved. Yeah, right. And, conscious that Labor members might be caught up, he decided to seek a bipartisan approach, which was to say to demand that the opposition agree with him about having his voluntary audit, followed by some jointly agreed response, at a time after parliament rose until February. Bill Shorten, relishing the image of dithering, confusion, distraction and lack of direction the government has projected, was, naturally, unwilling to share Turnbull's pain, or the electorate's wrath at the way government seems to only talk about matters affecting politicians, and not do much for the people at large. It could well be true that there could be further by-elections for Labor-held seats in the House of Representatives. But Labor is not defending a bare majority, and the crisis of a loss of Labor seats does not the government's very existenceor Turnbull's future, in the way that any by-election for a government-held seat can. And that is assuming Labor is worried it would lose a seat in present circumstances. The parties cannot collude to make good, or to ignore, any existing constitutional problems, or to avoid facing the High Court. The prospect of a successful referendum amendment is zero, even if such a referendum could be held in time to save those now in trouble.
According to a leader of the "no" camp, Senator Eric Abetz, the bill does not adequately protect "parents, freedom of speech and religious freedom, along with conscientious objection". Senator Abetz's arguments can be read only as an attack on existing anti-discrimination laws. He is saying in effect, "You can end discrimination over same-sex marriage, but we demand the right to keep discriminating."

If opponents of same-sex marriage are not now going to respect the wishes of the people, expressed as they required in the manner they specified, then what was the point of that whole $122 million exercise?That fundamental contempt for the popular will aside, the arguments put forward by "no" campaigners against the same-sex marriage bill proposed by the West Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith are equally unscrupulous, equally damaging.

It looks as if the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, may be having some success at the APEC summit in salvaging what remains of the Trans Pacific Partnership after President Donald Trump decided to pull the United States out. Although the final shape of this temporary and provisional agreement is not entirely clear, it should be a boost of some sort to the causes of internationalism and free trade. Although the World Bank calculated that the original TPP would benefit Australia hardly at all, Mr Turnbull will undoubtedly feel relief at this success in regional diplomacy after a week in which domestic politics has seemed to lurch from bad to worse.Back home both his opponents and his supposed allies are trying to ensure he gets no traction anywhere. As November 15, the day the results of the plebiscite on same sex marriage will be published, approaches and the "yes" case seems ever closer to winning, MPs opposed to the proposition are staging a strategic withdrawal to other prepared positions. Those positions are as frail as the initial "no" case, but just by itself this fallback manoeuvre reveals the dishonesty behind the original demand for the plebiscite.

And to grant the exemptions he demands would be to undermine fatally Australia's entire anti-discrimination apparatus. That may well be Senator Abetz's objective, but it will hardly commend itself to the more clear-sighted members of the government, or to fair-minded members of the public. The proposed bill quite rightly exempts only ministers of religion, celebrants and some organisations from the provisions of the Marriage Act.

As the skirmishing over marriage intensifies, the wider battle over citizenship has flared anew. More MPs are now implicated, and the fitness of even the replacements for those previously ruled ineligible has come into question. Three new senators have been waved through, but Hollie Hughes, a Liberal who was going to replace the Nationals' Fiona Nash as a senator for NSW, may have cruelled her chances by accepting a post on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal  an office of profit under the Crown, forbidden by section 44 of the constitution. A full bench of the High Court will hear her case next Wednesday.The member for Bennelong, John Alexander, whose father was born in Britain, is also at risk. He wants to recontest the seat, but must relinquish British citizenship first. Time is tight: he must quit by Monday or the byelection will be pushed into the new year  more delay, more uncertainty. At least three Labor MPs may also be caught by section 44. The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have held talks about ways to move forward, without success. Each is now blaming the other for their failure.

Quite by chance both the tactics of same-sex marriage opponents, and the manoeuvring on both sides over the section 44 fiasco have coincided to produce the impression of a parliament and a government addicted to delay. This is not entirely the Turnbull government's fault  Labor too is dragging its feet  but the government is in power, and the public will inevitably give it most of the blame.

Federal politics right now evokes feelings similar to being stuck in gridlock. Lights change, engines turn over, people argue about who should do what first  but all the to-do produces no movement. Today's political fights are about nothing beyond politics itself. The issues that affect ordinary people are overlooked. A victory is the renegotiation of a trade deal which some argue will make no definitive difference to people's lives. If the government were somehow to lose its majority in all of this, and an election were to be called to settle many of these issues, we suspect the main reaction from the general public would be relief.
Illustration: Jim Pavlidis But not everything that happens in these havens is legal, as Konza's example shows. The timing of the leak is exquisite. In the very week that marked the centenary of the Russian revolution and the birth of communist government, this massive leak of secret tax data reminded everyone of some of the growing and glaring inequalities that dog the modern world. Communism was history's mightiest, deadliest protest against inequality. The Paradise Papers draws attention worldwide to the fact that trillions of dollars sit in bank accounts in offshore tax havens protected by secrecy laws. How many trillions? The former chief economist for the McKinsey consultancy, James Henry, for instance, estimated the total at $US21 trillion ($27 trillion) to $US36 trillion. And that was rich individuals only, not counting corporations. And that was five years ago.

For perspective, that would be the equivalent of about a half to a third of the annual GDP for the entire planet. And it would represent perhaps $US200 billion in revenues that governments could be collecting in tax each year. Last year Oxfam published a study concluding that the world's richest 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world population. That is, 53 men and nine women have the same amount of money and assets as 3.6 billion people have collectively. That was a shocking statistic. But in January Oxfam published a correction. New data showed that the richest nine people last year had the same wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion. This year, as the concentration of wealth proceeds, it's eight people owning as much as the poorest half of humanity. The founder of microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, posits that as this process goes on "soon four people will own as much wealth as the poorest billions of people, and then two, and finally one person will have as much as half the human race. How can we sit back and let this happen?" Historically, we haven't. When too much wealth is in too few hands it creates a critical situation "which history has diversely met by legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty", wrote the husband and wife historians Will and Ariel Durant in their survey of Western civilisation, The Lessons of History.

So what'll it be this time? Legislation or revolution? Recent world politics has given an indicator that the situation is approaching a critical situation. Outbreaks of destructive populism such as Donald Trump's takeover of the US Republican party or UKIP's success in taking Britain out of the European Union are some of the rich world's early warnings that inequality has gone too far. Central to restoring trust is the problem of flagrant tax evasion. The biggest economies, through the G20, have embraced the OECD's policy program to address "base erosion and profit shifting", inelegantly known as BEPS, and many governments are working towards fixing their leaky tax systems, cheered on by Oxfam and others. But tax havens and tax secrecy remain one of the big parts of the problem. The EU is taking the hardest line, moving towards a blacklist of 53 tax havens. The EU proposes banning all transactions with these jurisdictions. "I don't think there's an appetite in Australia for a ban," says Mark Zirnsak of the Tax Justice Network, an international coalition of NGOs pushing for fairer and more rigorous tax systems. "Australia has been working with some of these countries for an exchange of information so they get notice of Australians holding assets there, but less so with corporations."

As for the corporate tax integrity agenda, it might surprise you to learn that Australia has been at the forefront. Tax commissioner Chris Jordan has been the leader of a tax revolution. "We were intellectually browbeaten," says Jordan, the former chairman of the NSW arm of the big accounting firm KPMG. He was appointed in 2013, the first tax commissioner recruited from the private sector. Corporations, he tells me, "brought in sophisticated advisers and they'd get a great stack of global experts to write reports for them, and they'd say, 'Who are you the tax office?' "To be frank, our top people would go though all these reports and technically under the law these cases were probably right." Jordan challenged this as "the whiteboard view of the world - it doesn't translate into what's actually happening on the street." He created a new international group, put Konza in charge, and told them to look at what was happening inside the businesses. Some of the biggest targets were the biggest companies. The big mining houses and their so-called "marketing hubs", for instance.

They were selling Australian iron ore and coal to companies in China, Japan and South Korea but booking much of the profit through "marketing hubs" that they set up in low-tax countries. So they'd pay tax in Australia on only a fraction of their sales value. "The companies were arguing that their sales forces in Australia were adding no value, arguing that sales activity in Singapore and Ireland was adding the value. The local salesmen in Australia were a bunch of robots walking the streets at the direction of someone overseas." The tax office took a new line to establish where actual sales were being negotiated. "These companies said to us, 'hang on, no one has interviewed our customers before, you can't ask for that information,'" Jordan recounts. "Yes we can." And what did the tax office find? "In reality their salesmen in Australia were doing what you expect salesmen to do - they sought deals, negotiated deals, concluded deals, and got paid bonuses at the end of the year for it." The companies' schemes were exposed as mechanisms to transfer profits out of Australia so they'd face lower tax rates. "I'm sick of being stooged," Jordan told a Senate estimates hearing last year in a speech known as his "enough is enough" moment. "We are not going to put up with it any more."

The big US tech firms were another prime target. "It struck me that these big international e-commerce companies had these really aggressive structures," he says. One dodge was to set up an offshore shelf company in a low-tax jurisdiction and make it the legal owner of key intellectual property. The company would sell its products worth billions in Australia but book the profits with the offshore shelf company in Bermuda or some other tax haven. "Billions of dollars a year would end up in a company with no employees and no operations. The intellectual arrogance of of the advisers tried to force us into a corner on technical questions." The Jordan tax office refuses to cop this. "The real world approach," it turns out, "is quite innovative internationally. It's caused a huge disruption." The tax office over the past year has issued back assessments of $4 billion to big international firms. Armed with new laws - the multinational anti-avoidance law and the diverted profits tax - and more resources from a supportive Coalition government, Jordan says the tax office has had good early success. "Virtually all the big-name companies are restructuring to comply with these laws. They are booking their sales in Australia - $6.5 billion of income previously booked in Ireland and Singapore are now being booked in Australia." Companies including Facebook and Google and Rio and BHP are acting.

The Paradise Papers are more about individuals rather than corporations stashing money in offshore tax havens. Jordan asks for patience. "People complained for four years that we weren't getting anywhere with Project Wickenby, but by the end of year five there was a billion dollars recovered and 46 people in jail. The Panama Papers were two years ago and so far we have $50 million and two criminal investigations under way." This week Treasurer Scott Morrison signalled a renewed effort to ask the Senate to pass the government's proposed corporate tax cuts. Donald Trump's proposed tax reform plan would cut the US company tax rate to 15 per cent compared with Australia's 30 per cent. Other countries are running the same race, seeking global capital investment by cutting their corporate tax rates. Among them are sensible centrists like France's President Emmanuel Macron and progressives like Canada's Justin Trudeau. And here is the tension. At the same time that governments worldwide are starting to take more seriously the need to address gross inequality, they are also proposing to cut company tax rates to attract investment and create jobs. The government frets that, with Labor and the Senate crossbench opposed, Australia will not be able to keep up with the competition and will end up with the highest company tax rate in the developed world.
Turnbull government MP Nola Marino may have acquired Italian citizenship through marriage, in what would represent a new twist in the eligibility crisis that has engulfed the federal Parliament.

Ms Marino's case also highlights a gap in the proposed new disclosure regime being debated by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, which does not consider the possibility of dual citizenship attained through marriage.

The development comes after fellow Liberal MP John Alexander declared he was still waiting on "conclusive" advice from the UK Home Office about his citizenship status. There is mounting speculation he will resign by Monday, sparking a byelection in his Sydney seat of Bennelong.

Also on Friday the High Court decided to examine the eligibility of Hollie Hughes, the Liberal who was set to replace former deputy Nationals leader Fiona Nash. Ms Hughes is under a cloud because after last year's election she took up a government job, which could disqualify her from office .
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says the Australian government does not want any violence on Manus Island after Papua New Guinean authorities threatened to forcibly evict hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from the now-decommissioned detention centre.

On Friday, PNG officials began dismantling makeshift shelters and emptying water supplies used by the detainees over the 10 days since the centre was shut down. The government has called on the men to leave by Saturday and warned that "force may be used" if they don't comply voluntarily.

Mr Dutton has also cautioned that, according to the government's intelligence, the ongoing stand-off is being closely monitored by people in south-east Asia looking for a chance to travel to Australia aboard a people smuggling boat.

"We've got group of core agitators, of organisers, who I think will try and provide some sort of scene where there is a confrontation with police. They will do that because they want that footage broadcast back here," the Immigration Minister told radio station 3AW on Friday.
The government is hailing the free trade agreement with Peru as the fastest Australia has ever negotiated. There's a reason for that.

Negotiations began in May this year, after it became apparent that President Trump would pull the United States out of the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, signed but not ratified by the United States and 11 other nations in February last year.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after signing a letter of intent for a Peru-Australia free trade agreement. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The so-called TPP 11 are trying to go it alone, or at least some of them are. It's rules say it can't come into force without the US. But a near-identical agreement could come into force, and could even include a clause allowing the US to join later, under another president.

Australia and Japan are keen. The other nine are less keen, and Canada, led by Justin Trudeau, is close to hostile.
The latest cult brand to announce its intentions to turn vegan is Hourglass Cosmetics with claims it will be 100 per cent vegan by 2020. We love the brand for its soft highlighting powders, lipsticks, famous Veil Mineral Primer. So now we really just have another reason to buy it.

CEO and founder Carisa Janes told Vogue of her commitment to thevegan path, "This begins with our commitment to creating cruelty-free products and ultimately being the first completely vegan luxury cosmetics brand in the world. It is not a simple solution, but we are dedicated to putting in the time and effort it will take to find vegan alternatives for our product formulas."

Founder of Hourglass Cosmetics, Carisa Janes is taking her brand vegan. Credit:Cibelle Levi

So what defines a vegan product?

Vegan beauty and cosmetic products are free from animal testing, animal ingredients and animal-derived ingredients (including insect extracts, bovine uric acid and beeswax).
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has some pretty special "darling bozos" helping her through her cancer treatment.

Ahead of her third round of chemotherapy, Louis-Dreyfus shared on social media the hilarious skit her Veep co-stars, Matt Walsh and Sam Richardson, filmed to helped her get "psyched."

Julia Louis-Dreyfus' win for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series was record breaking. Credit:AP

In the video, Walsh and Richardson attempt to deliver motivation through quotes, only to discover Google suggested words spoken by authors that are less than ideal including Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein.

"I believe in one thing only: The power of human will."
Something strange lands on the table. It looks like an escapee echidna from a bushfire.

"Bombe Alaska?" suggests one neighbour. "Deep-fried dahlia?" proffers another. Nope, it's carciofo alla giudia ($9), literally artichoke in the Jewish style, a dish that originated in Rome's Jewish quarter. You strip a whole globe artichoke of its tough outer leaves, bash it to open the remaining leaves, then fry it in olive oil until darkly crisp outside and soft and steamy inside. Sounds simple  and it is, in the way that any highly evolved dish of an ancient culture is simple.

Ricotta and sour cherry crostata. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

For Flavio Carnevale, it's a major part of his mission to transform his popular, southern Italian Popolo into an outpost of Roman cucina povera, with young chef Christuan Jordaan in the kitchen.

Now renamed Marta, after the dragon-slaying patron saint of hospitality, Marta proudly posts a weekly wall calendar of daily specials  the sort that makes you wish you were there on Saturday for the pork or Sunday for the lasagne rather than Tuesday for the ravioli. Dish of the day for Monday (when they are closed) is listed as: "You're cooking".
Former Finance Department boss and ANZ board member Jane Halton has been named independent chair of the Council on the Ageing.

The senior's advocacy body announced the appointment on Friday, with Ms Halton set to start the three-year position next month.

Jane Halton has embraced life in the private sector. Credit:Jay Cronan

A 33-year veteran of the federal public service, she retired from Finance in late 2016 after previously leading the Department of Health and Ageing, serving as a deputy secretary at Prime Minister and Cabinet and attracting controversy during federal Parliament's inquiry into the children overboard affair.

Ms Halton is a board member for ANZ, law firm Clayton Utz and the Australian Policy Institute, as well as being an adjunct professor at the University of Canberra and University of Sydney.
Refugees securing a recently damaged perimeter fence at the Manus Island immigration detention centre on October 30. Credit:Refugee Action Coalition/AAP In response to this need, Galbraith set up Writing Through Fences, an online forum for refugee writers and artists. "The idea was to create a safe space for their voices," she says. "They encouraged each other to remember themselves as they were, prior to detention, and to imagine themselves into the future. Eventually it also became a space where people told their stories. They wanted to tell the world what was happening to them." As the word spread, Galbraith was contacted by asylum seekers on Nauru, Manus Island and in mainland detention centres. She was introduced to Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, then little known beyond the centre, young cartoonist Eaten Fish, and many others. "They were hungry to tell their stories, rather than have them told for them," says Galbraith. Through collective discussion, the forum developed its credo: "No one can give us a voice and no one can take our voices away. Our voices are ours, and we do with them what we will." Men inside the now-closed regional processing centre at Manus Island, showering in the rain. "The group members desperately needed a sense of family, especially young people, unaccompanied minors," says Galbraith. "We set up a closed page where they could talk and share their work freely and openly."

Galbraith travelled to Christmas Island and conducted clandestine workshops in the detention centre, and met asylum seekers in mainland centres. Refugees and asylum seekers protesting inside the now-closed regional processing facility on Manus Island, which they refuse to leave. Those detained on Nauru and Manus were particularly vulnerable. Their isolation and sense of abandonment was more complete. As the years went by, Galbraith witnessed the deterioration of their mental and physical health. Messages and pleas for help could come at any hour. Galbraith became acutely aware of the depression which spread like a contagion whenever there was an incident of self-harm or death. She heard the panic in the men's voices when 23-year-old asylum seeker Reza Barati was murdered in February 2014, and the men's sorrow and fear for their physical safety after each of the five subsequent deaths on Manus Island through medical neglect, suicides and accident. A depiction of Reza Barati, who was killed on Manus Island, and other people who died in Australian immigration detention centres are seen during a rally in front of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's electoral office in Edgecliff in March 2016. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Galbraith remains in contact with women on Nauru who have been sexually harassed and raped. "The women's sense of humiliation was intensified many times over when their stories were not believed," she says. After the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled, in April 2016, that Australia's detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was illegal, Galbraith flew to the island and met some of the men in Lorengau. A group of four men she had long corresponded with arrived at the guest house in a ute. Hani Abdile with Janet Galbraith on the ferry to Manly in 2015, after Hani was moved to community detention in Sydney. "They jumped off the back and I ran to them, laughing," says Galbraith. "They were desperate for human touch and affection. Finally, they were able to cry. We sat on the veranda talking till late at night." One of the men left to catch the bus back to the detention centre. He returned an hour later, bruised and beaten. He had been attacked by locals. It was a brutal reminder of the continuing danger.

The cover of They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from detention. Galbraith has returned to Manus four times, and visited detained men sent to Port Moresby to be treated for mental breakdown. She became the carer for two very ill men, who were in the psychiatric unit of the Port Moresby General Hospital. The unit was one large room with old hospital beds and barred windows set high up in the walls. Galbraith was overwhelmed by what she saw - the lack of sanitation, excreta that had to be washed off the walls, shortages of food and medication. "There were not enough psychiatrists to cope with the load," she says. "Nurses did the best they could, but they lacked specialist training." The room was locked at night. Galbraith slept on the floor every night for three months, along with other carers. She witnessed outbreaks of violence. Mosquitoes, rats and ants crawled over the floors. "The men from Manus were suffering from severe post-traumatic stress," she says, "and needed intense care. Yet these were the conditions that Australian authorities were assuring us were OK."

Galbraith's anxiety about the current crisis is echoed by writer Michael Green, who has also developed close friendships with some of the men on Manus Island. "I can't look away from it," he says. "I receive new messages of distress from Manus at any time, day or night. I have not been sleeping well. What is happening now is a disaster. I am at a loss to understand it. It has been handled so badly by the Australian government." Green joined lawyer Andre Dao and other co-founders of Behind the Wire - a project started in 2014 aiming to bring a new perspective on mandatory detention, and the men, women and children who live it. In January 2016, Green began a podcast, The Messenger, with Manus Island detainee and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Muhamat. The award-winning podcast, produced by Behind the Wire and the Wheeler Centre, continues to this day. "How beautiful it is to have a conversation with someone," says Green. "To understand each other, and to explore the beauty that arises from that conversation. Aziz speaks poetically, and with deep insight of the daily realities of detention."

In July 2016, in the wake of the PNG Supreme Court decision, and after thousands of voice messages, Green met Aziz on Manus. "It was the first time that Aziz had left the detention centre, except for guard-escorted medical treatment. He was stressed and nervous. But when we saw each other we hugged. Abdul Aziz Muhamat with Michael Green in Lorengau, July 2016. Credit:Behrouz Boochani "It was exhilarating, and a huge opening-up for Aziz. He was a young man who wanted to enjoy life and experience freedom. It was bittersweet and short-lived. Aziz had to return to the centre." Aziz spoke of a low point back in December 2014. The then immigration minister, Scott Morrison, visited the centre, and spoke briefly to a group of the detained men. He told them 'you will never come to Australia'. Then he left. There was no engagement. "[Aziz] had to learn how to live with it, and with his sense of injustice," says Green. Aziz is one of the camp community leaders, and he's been active in taking care of practical needs during the current standoff on Manus. He releases regular updates on The Messenger podcast on the plight of the men and their daily struggle for survival.

Green and Dao also spent several years working on the anthology They Cannot Take the Sky. "Our goal was to work collaboratively with asylum seekers to give them a voice, and get their stories directly onto the page," says Green. "I was taken by the beauty of the people's speech, their phrasing, the cadence, the word choices. There was something very powerful in their eloquence, and the courage of their expression." Reflecting on his evolving friendships over the past few years, Green says: "I have learnt an enormous amount on what it means to be human. It has been hugely inspiring for me, but I am particularly worried for the men now." Galbraith too speaks of what her friends have taught her. "They have given me a whole raft of ways of looking at the world," she says. But what she has witnessed has also taken a great toll. Earlier this year, she was driven to the point of breakdown. In the middle of her own crisis, there was a knock on the door of her house. There stood Hani Abdile, holding a bunch of flowers. She had flown down from Sydney and taken the train to Castlemaine. "Come sister," she said. "Let's get out and take a taxi to the bush, and walk." Abdile was 17, and imprisoned on Christmas Island, when she first contacted Galbraith. She became a key participant in Writing through Fences. Since her release on temporary protection, she has become a creative force, and is aiming to be a journalist. "She bubbles over with life and beauty," says Galbraith.
An Australian man has been extradited from New Zealand after allegedly defrauding at least 35 people from nine countries of more than $5.6 million through fraudulent investment schemes.

Dressed in a dark T-shirt and tracksuit pants, Daniel Albert, 51, was escorted by detectives through Sydney Airport to a waiting police vehicle on Friday morning.

He was then taken to Mascot police station where he was charged with 35 counts of fraud. He was arrested in Auckland on Wednesday.

NSW Police allege that a body scanner that would supposedly allow people to make 3D-printed models of themselves or their pets was one of many scams.
Coralie Richmond, front, centre, with her family who suffered much trauma after her father ended his own life. Credit:Wolter Peeters "I think he said, 'I'm so ill, I'm in so much pain, I have to do something about it'," she says. A high-stakes moment With bills before the parliaments of the two largest Australian states, NSW and Victoria, the issue of physician-assisted dying is prompting national debate not seen since the Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalise such laws (later nullified by the Commonwealth). In NSW, MPs will on Thursday debate a private member's bill devised by a cross-party working group that would create a law, supporters argue, containing some of the most stringent safeguards of any such legislation globally.

To be eligible a patient must be at least 25 years old and suffering from a terminal illness from which they are expected to die within 12 months. The decision must be signed off by two medical practitioners, including a specialist, and the patient assessed by an independent psychiatrist or psychologist. There is a 48-hour cooling-off period, the patient may rescind the decision at any time and close relatives can challenge patient eligibility in the Supreme Court. A seven-person medical board would oversee all assisted deaths in NSW. MPs will be given a conscience vote, but Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Opposition Leader Luke Foley have said they are opposed to the laws. Without expected support from key crossbenchers and deep divisions in both major parties, the vote is expected to be a photo-finish in the upper house.

Should it pass and be referred to the lower house, its passage there is viewed as even more uncertain. But supporters hope for some momentum from voluntary assisted dying laws being debated the Victorian parliament's upper house. Unlike in NSW, the Victorian bill has been introduced to the parliament by the government and has the support of Premier Daniel Andrews. The bills differ in important ways: in Victoria the age limit is 18, there is no requirement to consult a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist and no appeal right for relatives. Proponents say both laws are, by international standards, extremely conservative regimes modelled on the first American state to pass such laws: Oregon, in 1997. But Michael Gannon, the national president of the Australian Medical Association, which is opposed to the law, says that the passage of a bill through one parliament would be a signal to the nation's others.

The high stakes have mobilised the Catholic Church and even former prime minister Paul Keating, bringing debate on the ethics and practicalities of medically assisted dying to a level not seen in Australia for 20 years. The arguments for voluntary assisted dying People are suffering "bad" deaths The most prominent argument for assisted dying laws highlights the consequences of not having them: often violent suicides that traumatise family and friends. The Victorian state coroner gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry last year that between January 2009 and December 2013 there were 2879 suicide deaths in Victoria. In 240 of these cases there was "evidence that the deceased had experienced an irreversible deterioration in physical health due to disease or injury". The most common suicide methods were by poisoning, hanging and firearm.

Dr Rodney Syme, who has supplied the drug Nembutal to terminally-ill patients in Australia, also points out that simply knowing the option of voluntary assisted dying is available can offer significant psychological comfort to a person anxious about the circumstances their death. Palliative care cannot alleviate suffering in all cases Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organisation as "an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering". However, research has found even high-quality palliative care cannot relieve significant pain and suffering in some cases. Surveys conducted by the University of Wollongong's Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration between 2008 and 2011 found "patients can still experience high levels of pain and other symptoms despite the involvement of a specialist palliative care service". The surveys found that 58 per cent of patients reported mild levels of pain and 25 per cent severe pain.

The legislation is based on a long-standing law in the US state of Oregon The NSW voluntary assisted dying legislation is modelled on law in force in Oregon since 1997. Under the Dying With Dignity Act, Oregonians can "obtain and use prescriptions from their physicians for self-administered, lethal doses of medications". To be eligible a patient must be aged at least 18, an Oregon resident, mentally competent and suffering from a terminal illness that will lead to death within six months. In Oregon, 1749 people have had prescriptions written under the Act and 1127 patients have died from taking the medications. In 2016, there were 204 deaths under the Act, with 80.4 per cent of patients aged 65 and over. The rate of Dying With Dignity Act deaths for that year was 37.2 per 10,000 total deaths. Advocates say the state of Oregon is evidence that conservative models for physician-assisted suicide can be maintained without gradual expansion. That state's strict laws affording euthanasia drugs only to patients facing death within six months have not been amended for nearly two decades.

The arguments against voluntary assisted dying The slippery slope Only seven states around the world have legalised voluntary euthanasia, including the Low Countries, Switzerland, Colombia, Canada and some American states. Opponents say their experience shows laying down terms such as "unbearable suffering" in law leads to future blurring of their meaning. The director of palliative medicine at RPA Hospital, Dr Maria Cigolini, says: "Once you change a criminal law [allowing] people to be killed, then it can be extended beyond just being terminally ill and to include psycho-social reasons."

A 2006 review of international cases found "psychological, existential and social reasons" figured more often than medical symptoms when patients asked for a hastened death. Euthanasia has been extended to include cases involving children in both Belgium and the Netherlands but laws in America have remained stable. Alcoholism, mental illness caused by sexual abuse, botched gender-transformation surgery and paralysis have all been used as reasons for euthanasia in Europe. But in Belgium official statistics list cancer as behind more than 70 per cent of requests and psychological reasons in fewer than 5 per cent. Medical ethics A number of major medical bodies have refused to endorse euthanasia because they believe a doctor hastening the end of life undermines the foundation of medical ethics. The World Health Organisation, the Royal Australian College of Physicians and the Australian Medical Association all believe that more palliative care is the ethical policy response.

Opponents also believe that euthanasia presents muddy issues relating to patient consent. Some physicians who specialise in end-of-life medicine, such as Dr Cigolini, say the desire for death is often transient. One attempt to quantify this phenomenon, a 1999 study in the medical journal Lancet, measured the will to live of about 150 elderly patients in the advanced stages of terminal cancer and found it fluctuated even between intervals as short as 12 hours. Safeguards Many in the state parliament voting against the bill worry that no legislation, however well designed, can protect vulnerable people from feeling like a burden to their families and seeking to end their lives. A 2013 attempt to introduce euthanasia in the NSW parliament was defeated easily. Some MPs who then voted no are now leading the charge for this bill, which they argue has stronger safeguards.
Victim: Pig farmer Keith Cini was beaten to death by intruders. The judge said the occupants were attacked when they "were not only entitled to safety and security but at a time when they were at their most vulnerable - in bed asleep". The Badgerys Creek offences also involved a planned targeting of a home when the residents would be at their most vulnerable. Leanne Adam, (left), the daughter of Keith Cini, along with Kirby Delamont, a victim of one of the home invasions are seen outside the NSW Supreme Court on Friday Credit:AAP Evans repeatedly used the pick handle to strike Mr Cini later saying: "It was like I couldn't control myself ... I just kept going until he didn't look like a person anymore and he was covered in blood."

Outside court on Friday, Mr Cini's daughter, Leanne Adam, and Mr Delamont's daughter, Kirby Delamont, said they were happy with the sentence but had hoped for a life term. Lucina Boldi, centre, during the trial of Ryan Evans. Credit:Kate Geraghty Evans will be eligible for parole in 2050. Mr Cini's partner Lucina Boldi witnessed the attack, and told the court previously that she woke every day feeling terror, rage, guilt and sadness. Keith Cini.

Ms Boldi gave chilling evidence about how she "played dead" so a masked intruder would stop hitting her. She said she was woken in the early hours of May 30, 2014, by Mr Cini calling out "Luce". She turned on the light, opened her bedroom door and saw two men dressed in dark clothing and with their faces covered standing with Mr Cini outside his bedroom door. As one of the men turned towards her, she went back inside her bedroom. "I put my back to the door trying to hold the person out but I wasn't strong enough," she told the court.

"The door got pushed and I was pushed in and I think I got hit in the head and the person kept hitting me and I put my arms up to protect my face." She fell to the ground and asked her attacker to stop, but he didn't. Senior Crown prosecutor Christopher Maxwell, QC, said, "Was there a point when he stopped?" "When he thought I was dead," she said. She continued to play dead while she heard smashing sounds and a voice saying, "Here it is."

About 10 minutes later, she found Mr Cini lying on the floor, unconscious. She suffered fractures to her arm and hand. She has a steel plate in her arm and cannot close her hand. She also had 50 stitches to her head. Mr Evans was also convicted of another home invasion in Medway, in the NSW Southern Highlands. In that incident, Mr Evans attacked Brett Delamont with a pick handle in the early hours of April 28, 2014. Mr Delamont's wife Alana Bush previously told the court she woke up to find two masked men in her bedroom, with her husband, suffering an injured and bloodied head, convulsing beside her.

Mr Delamont was left with severe brain damage and $8000 in cash was stolen from the home. In a victim impact statement, Mr Cini's daughter Leanne Adam asked: "How could someone lock the doors that night, go to sleep in their own home and be bashed to death for money? "My dad did not die of old age or sickness but was viciously attacked when he was tied up," she said. "I desperately hope he didn't lie there alone, in pain and suffering, knowing he was going to die. "What a horrible way to die - not being held by someone who loves you and kind words being your last thoughts."
It took 11 months for the coroner to determine a cause of death for 32-year-old Jason MacDonald-Cheung. Socio-legal studies senior lecturer Rebecca Scott-Bray said when a death was referred to the coroner, funerals were delayed and families were forced to deal with medico-legal processes that added to their stress. "It's another layer of complication in what they have to deal with at a very significant time of their life," Dr Scott-Bray said. Bundaberg Base Hospital surgeon Jayant Patel was accused of falsifying death certificates. Credit:MIchelle Smith The solution may be as simple as providing clearer guidelines to doctors, she said.

Doctors are required by law to report unnatural, violent or suspicious deaths to the coroner, and natural-causes deaths need be referred only if a probable cause cannot be identified. State Coroner Michael Barnes says many deaths by natural causes are being referred to the NSW Coroner's Court, creating a backlog in Sydney. Credit:Janie Barrett Mr Barnes said recent medical scandals in which doctors and hospitals were accused of covering up adverse events  such as British serial killer Harold Shipman and Bundaberg surgeon Jayant Patel  might have made doctors overly cautious. "I think there might be a misunderstanding about the level of satisfaction they need to have before they can issue a death certificate," he said. But Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Bastian Seidel said doctors were driven more by the need for clarity than their own aversion to risk.

Elderly patients often had multiple co-morbidities and it was not possible to tease out which one was responsible for their ultimate demise. They also consulted several doctors, and it was difficult for a practitioner who may have seen them only once to rule on a cause of death without having their full medical history. "In the past it was one doctor they saw  the GP  but now it's multiple doctors seeing the patient and that doesn't help," Dr Seidel said. "If as doctor you don't know what the cause of death is, then under the law you need to run this past the coroner's office, whether you like it or not." About 60 per cent of the 5800 deaths reported to the NSW Coroner in 2015 were by natural causes, and just under half of those  about 1500 deaths  did not require an autopsy for a cause of death to be determined.

The investigation of such deaths was considered an invasion of privacy when the Coroner's Act was set up in 1960, with the minister citing an 1884 judgment that described the prospect of a coroner interfering with funeral arrangements as "intolerable". "Nothing could justify such interference except a reasonable suspicion that there may have been something peculiar in the death, that it may have been due to causes other than common illness," Justice James Stephen then held. Once a death is reported to the coroner, procedures kick into play that involve the police, undertakers, mortuary workers, counsellors, forensic pathologists and coronial staff. The body must be taken to a mortuary  usually in Glebe or Newcastle  which is particularly upsetting for religious and cultural groups that believe in maintaining vigil over their deceased kin until they can be interred. Alex Zilich, director of the Jewish funeral operator Chevras Kadisha, said each time this happened, it held up plans and caused further anxiety to families wishing to bury their dead.

"We can't plan anything, we don't know whether they're going to be released or whether there's going to be an autopsy, which is not permitted under Jewish law," Mr Zilich said. "The rules is the rules and we can't avoid that, but at the same time it puts families in further distress." The Productivity Commission's latest report on court services, in 2015, indicated the NSW Coroner's Office met its key performance objective of finalising 90 per cent of cases within 12 months of them being lodged. Natural-causes deaths that do not require an autopsy are often finalised within days, but more-complicated deaths can take months. Kathleen MacDonald waited 11 months to get a cause of death for her 32-year-old son Jason  too late for his father who died of cancer before the final report was released.
Sister Berenice Twohill is one of the few people to have survived a POW camp and become a heroine of a film about her experiences.

'I saw life at its best and its worst ... what hatred could do and yet what faith could do and what kindness could do': Sister Berenice Twohill. Credit:Australians at War Film Archive

With the Japanese army pouring south through Pacific islands, the young Australian nun from northern NSW opted to stay behind in Rabaul to look after local children and when the town fell she spent more than three and a half years in captivity.

She hid with fellow missionary and nursing POWs in fetid tunnels to avoid Australian and US fighters and bombers, witnessed Diggers abandoned by Australian authorities and told to fend for themselves as they were massacred en masse at nearby Tol Plantation or put on the death ship SS Montevideo Maru that was torpedoed by a US submarine. She saw Australian nurses taken to Japan, was forced to watch the torture of an Australian major whose heart was cut out while he was alive, ate horses and weeds to survive and for years was denied medicine for her debilitating malaria.

Japanese guards were constantly kept at bay by her Polish-born Catholic Bishop who thought he was German. The guards taunted the nuns, jabbing their bayonets at them saying "Blood of an Australian soldier, blood of an Australian soldier" although the women suspected they used tomato sauce.

A well-received telemovie Sisters of War aired on the ABC in 2010 was based on the friendship between Sister Berenice and an army nurse Lorna Whyte during their period as POWs.
The Federal Court has fined the CFMEU and two officials for trying to force workers to sign up and join the union at a central Queensland building site.

The union has been fined $45,000 for coercion, misrepresentation and contravening workers' rights to shun union membership.

Credit:Erin Jonasson

Union organiser Jody Moses told workers on the Gladstone Boardwalk project that it was a union site, and that they'd be kicked out unless they became members.

Mr Moses has been fined $5500, and CFMEU delegate Gregg Churchman $4000 for doing nothing to stop the illegal threats back in 2013.
RMIT has become the first university in Australia to offer courses based on Apple's 'App Development with Swift' curriculum, partnering with the iPhone-maker to give thousands of students the opportunity to learn app development skills.

Apple has this week expanded its previously US-focused Everyone Can Code initiative globally, aiming to help students at all levels become proficient with its open-source Swift programming language, and RMIT will use the curriculum to offer a new online program from this month and an on-campus short course from February 2018.

Apple VP Lisa Jackson meets RMIT students at the university this week.

"Our program has been incredibly popular among US schools and colleges, and today marks an important step forward as we expand internationally," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement.

"We are proud to work with RMIT and many other schools around the world who share our vision of empowering students with tools that can help them change the world."
Astronomers have observed what may be one of the universe's most powerful explosions.

They watched a star in a far-off galaxy first grow so huge it was bigger than our entire solar system - that's from the sun all the way out to far-off Pluto - and then collapse and explode.

This artist's representation of the supernova shows star-matter moving outwards from a series of explosions in the star's core over more than 600 days. Credit:Carl Knox / Swinburne University of Technology

The explosion, known as a supernova, was itself several times the size of our solar system. And it kept exploding, over and over again, for almost two years.

The explosion was so big that it has broken all existing theories of how stars die.
Hoddle Street mass killer Julian Knight has always claimed he went on his murderous rampage as a result of being bullied at the Duntroon Military College where he served as a cadet in 1987.

But cartoons drawn by Knight when he was a year-12 student at Melbourne High School show he was having dangerous fantasies of military-style mass killings two years earlier.

"The Six Million Dollar Mouse", a cartoon Julian Knight drew while a pupil at Melbourne High in 1985.

In his four-panel cartoon, Knight's hero - a frail mouse called Seymour - is shot but makes a remarkable recovery to exact revenge, killing 16 enemies in one frame.

In the final image, he draws his hero "Rambo style" carrying a machine gun surrounded by bloodied corpses.
The hunt for two youths linked to the hit-run death of a Melbourne father has stretched into a third day, despite two other teenagers allegedly involved in the crash being charged on Friday.

As family and friends of Keith Stevens mourned his death, police interviewed the teenagers about multiple offences allegedly committed this week.

Keith Stevens, who was killed in a hit-run in Mitcham.

The crime spree allegedly continued after the death of Mr Stevens, who was riding his motorbike home from his job as a sheet metal worker when he was struck in Mitcham on Wednesday afternoon.

A 17-year-old has been charged with culpable driving and numerous aggravated burglary offences and will face a children's court at a later date.
A Perth primary school has set a new Guinness World Record for the most people dressed as Harry Potter.

Wembley Primary School counted a whopping 827 would-be wizards dressed up as the popular fictional character, smashing the previous record of 676 set in the United Kingdom in June.

Wembley Primary School deputy principal Shane Stott said Charlotte Raston was the mastermind behind the idea.

"Charlotte did a Primary Extension and Academic Challenge (PEAC) course and they were set a challenge to see if they could drive a world record attempt," he said.
Fast-forward four months, through a series of new diplomatic, political and foreign policy tensions, and Trump is acting more stand-offish.

They met behind closed doors for more than two hours, without an official note taker. It yielded a limited Syrian cease-fire. Trump also spent unscheduled time with him at a dinner hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There was also another brief meeting.

The last time he and US President Donald Trump met, in July at the G-20 summit, Trump couldn't seem to get enough of the Russian president.

A handshake during the obligatory family photo was the closest US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin got. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Kremlin officials expected the two men to hold a formal meeting in Danang, Vietnam, where Asia-Pacific leaders are gathering for a summit. Instead, all Putin got on Friday was a handshake and hello from Trump as the APEC leaders posed for a group photo. They didn't have any encounters otherwise, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The summit will continue Saturday.

"Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible and likely," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders had told reporters earlier. "But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one."

Russian officials reacted with confusion, disappointment and irritation. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shot back at a state TV reporter who asked him about the meeting: "Why are you asking me? We heard President Trump express a wish to meet President Putin. I don't know what the rest of his pen-pushers are saying."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed the significance, saying there had never been an agreement for a formal bilateral meeting, especially amid stark differences between the two leaders on North Korea, Syria and Ukraine.
Papuan Armed Forces commander at a joint task force ceremony on Monday in Timika police station. Mr Boy estimated the armed group had less than 100 members, 25 with firearms and the rest with traditional weapons. A video purporting to be from the National Liberation Army of West Papua, the armed wing of the Free Papua Organisation, warned it would not negotiate because its fight was for sovereignty, not food or economic development. West Papua police chief and West Papua Armed Forces commander meet the troops. "We and Papuans only want independence. We will continue to fight until we achieve independence," the video says.

"To those Papuans working with the TNI [military] and police, we are declaring you as our enemy. It's clear you are our enemy, whatever form you come to us you will lose your lives." Troops are massing after unrest from people seeking independence from Indonesia. The National Liberation Army of West Papua also told Indonesian authorities to stop referring to it as an "armed criminal group", saying it had existed since before Papua was incorporated into Indonesia after a widely-discredited UN-backed referendum in 1969. Victor Yeimo, the chairman of the pro-independence West Papuan National Committee, posted the video on his Facebook account. Checking the troops.

"It's the real thing," he told Fairfax Media. "The National Liberation Army of West Papua chose Freeport because it's the reason behind all that [has] happened in Papua. Capitalism." In an earlier video, the National Liberation Army of West Papua said the main reason Papua was integrated into Indonesia was a conspiracy between the US and Indonesia to exploit Papua for the Freeport mine. "That resulted in the colonisation of Papua lands by foreign capitalism and the Indonesian government. That's why we continue in our fight to destroy Freeport." There has been increasing unrest in the area in recent weeks. A series of shootings left one police officer dead and an ambulance belonging to Freeport was shot at, wounding a woman who had just given birth. Freeport spokesman Riza Pratama said the mining company was "deeply concerned" over the continued escalation of security incidents.

He said Grasberg's operations were running normally, but workers were being transferred to and from the mine in armoured buses. "We are continuously working together with security apparatus to stop these disturbing incidents," he said. One Freeport worker, whose wife and child lived in one of the occupied villages, told Fairfax Media he prayed they would be evacuated soon. "Just help my family with prayers," he said. Villagers from the two blockaded towns, many of whom are illegal gold miners, originally from other parts of Indonesia, were scared of running out of food.

"We have 113 members up there," a member of the Javanese community, who requested anonymity, said. He said villagers' mobile phones had been confiscated, but he had managed to get in touch with someone who had hidden their phone. The man said the road to the village of Kimberly was being guarded and the villagers dared not leave. "They are scared how they are going to eat. I am their family. I am very worried." In a recent report, the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict said despite giving more personal attention to Papua than any previous president since Suharto, the government had made three miscalculations in its policies. These were that economic development would make political grievances go away, that past human rights violations would be easy to resolve and that fraudulent local elections could be safely ignored.
Mission Lifeline attempts to save struggling asylum seekers. Credit:Javi Julio In the last month Lewis reached a new level of authority: head of mission. On the MV Lifeline, funded by the German charity Mission Lifeline, he was the boss. He was excited by the promotion. But command comes with a heavy burden of responsibility, and last month he faced a terrible choice. Rough seas as seen from the deck of non-government boat Mission Lifeline. Credit:Javi Julio "For 24 hours I thought I'd killed 17 people," he says.

He wonders still if they did die. Simon Lewis with crew on the Mission Lifeline. Credit:Kenny Karpov On October 23, the Lifeline got a call from the MRCC, the maritime rescue co-ordination centre in Rome. "Seventeen migrants had left the coast off [Libya's capital] Tripoli and were about 5 hours away from us," Lewis recalls. "We were told we were the only boat to rescue them  we were told there were no other options." The Mission Lifeline crew. Credit:Simon Lewis

But the Lifeline was already bolting for safe harbour. The Mediterranean  a balmy bathtub in summer  was frothing into a nasty autumn storm. Lightning was flashing over the sea. The waves were two metres high and rising. They would have to turn about and sail into the storm. "I had to make probably the hardest decision of my life," says Lewis. "[It] will stay with me." The "lifejackets" are filled with foam which absorb water. The storm was building. The waves at the heart of it could be five metres high. The RHIB dinghy used for rescues would have sunk and the Lifeline would have struggled. "My executive job was to decide who lives and who dies," Lewis says. "I was either going to kill 17 refugees or put my crew in extreme danger. It was the best shitty decision ... a calculated, easy decision."

But as they sped for harbour he, and his crew, had an image in their minds of a small, overcrowded rubber boat behind them, packed with refugees in the middle of the storm. They imagined the fear and panic the refugees would be feeling, alone in the sea. The next day Lewis called the duty manager at the MRCC. It wasn't normal protocol, he says, but he had to ask: what happened? "He goes 'Oh, they got rescued and they're on their way to Italy'. I don't actually know if that's legit ... I just didn't want to have the conversation. So I don't know how some magical ship came out of nowhere to rescue them ... it blows our mind, that, after we were told we were the only asset." Lewis took the best traditions and procedures of Australian lifesaving into the Mediterranean. In 2016 he set up a rapid response group on the Greek island of Lesbos, pulling Syrian refugees from the water between Turkey and Greece. "We used Australian knowledge and Australian values," Lewis says. "It makes me proud."

But on board the southern Mediterranean NGO ships in 2017 it was a much more complicated situation. Rescue ships have been accused of colluding with people smugglers, and Italian prosecutors are investigating whether charges can be laid. Charities have been accused of entering Libyan waters to pick up smuggler "deliveries". Lewis says he knew he would be under intense scrutiny. "Our friends one day can be turning against us the next," he says. "It's very political ... I get death threats, I get crazy people commenting and facing up to me ... I know I'm targeted, I know our phones are hacked, I know that I'm watched, I'm a big boy and I know this is what the scenario is." He has nothing to hide, he says.

"We publicise exactly what we're doing ... you can get on the internet and see exactly where our boat is, we have film crews on board. We're like Big Brother on a ship." Europe is toying with an Australian-style "turn back the boats" policy, in response to the thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean in the last couple of years. While it rescues refugee boats in international waters, Italy has sent its navy into Libyan waters to help the local coastguard intercept boats just after they leave the shore. Lewis believes European navies are involved in a sophisticated operation to block NGO rescues.

"The navy would patrol in front of us, closer to the shoreline, and use their powerful radar to pick up any boat movement and then send the Libyan coastguard to intercept them and send them back to Libya," he says. His crew would watch helplessly as the refugees jumped into the water as they realised the approaching boat was Libyan, not European. They have recorded the encounters and radio communications, and intend to present them to the European Parliament. On one occasion, Lewis says, a Spanish navy ship blocked them for a whole day to ensure they performed no rescues. "We had unknown warships visit us in the night, that stalked us in stealth mode," Lewis says. "As soon as we did a 180-degree turn to say hello, they immediately sped away at 37 knots in the shadow of the moon. It was a very smart, sophisticated navy operation."

As an Australian, Lewis says he understands the "stop the boats" policy. But it just cannot apply to the Mediterranean, he says. The people he rescues have been raped and tortured in Libya, burned with acid, shot, exploited, traumatised. His ship sailed past a Libyan city engulfed in civil war, seeing the smoke, hearing the gunfire. He cannot imagine that sending refugees back into this is the right thing to do. Lewis is not the only Australian working to rescue refugees on the Mediterranean, as the seas turn grey and the boats keep coming. Madeleine Habib is the search and rescue co-ordinator on the SOS Mediterranee rescue ship Aquarius  at sea, over the radio, she and Lewis shared experiences and advice. Habib is a Greenpeace veteran who has worked across the world from Yemen to Macquarie Island. In a September blog post she said she picked up a love of the sea in the Whitsundays, where her parents lived, and dreamed that she could combine this with humanitarian work. Madeleine Habib on the Aurora Australis in 2013. Credit:Colin Cosier

"Nobody on board the Aquarius is here to judge why people have fled their home," she said. "But people don't leave their home unless they have a very good reason. "We don't judge whose life it is, or what it is they are fleeing, [we] are here simply to save their lives." Also on board the Aquarius is Lauren King, 33, from Sydney, who is working with Medecins Sans Frontieres to care for those pulled from the sea. Earlier this month they rescued 588 people in just one day  three rubber boats overloaded with men, women and young children collapsed, spilling their human cargo into the sea. But King says rescues are rarer these days  in April they were "constant", but by late northern summer fewer boats came from Libya, thanks to the coastguard and Italian navy. Nevertheless, people are still trying to flee "hell". And as the weather turns colder, hypothermia is a risk as well as drowning.

"But people tell us they would rather risk their lives trying to escape Libya than stay there one more day," King says. "If their boat is intercepted by the Libyan coastguard they try to take the journey again. "I recently spoke to a woman, it was the second time she tried to take a rubber boat. The first time she had three children and they all drowned in front of her. She was intercepted by the Libyan coastguard, and she tried again a few months later. People are risking their lives again and again. Nobody gets on these boats unless they have no choice." Intercepting boats just "keeps these people out of sight", King says. Those rescued have stories of arbitrary detention in squalid conditions, torture, abuse, rape of men and women. The scars on the refugees' bodies are testament to their claims. "One young man from Sudan spoke of being bought and sold several times, they're treated as commodities," King says.
Washington: RT, a Moscow-headquartered website and television channel that the US government says is a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin, will register with US authorities as a foreign agent, its editor said Thursday.

The registration follows a months-long back-and-forth between RT and the Justice Department over whether it was required by US law to register as an agent of the Russian government.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and RT's Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan in Moscow, Russia. Credit:AP

"The American Justice Department has left us with no choice,'' RT's editor in chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement posted on the organisation's website. "Our lawyers say that if we don't register as a foreign agent, the director of our company in America could be arrested, and the accounts of the company could be seized. In short, in this situation the company would not be able to work. Between those consequences and registering as a foreign agent, we are forced to choose registration.''

She added: "We will continue to work and continue to fight this as long as it's possible.''
Madrid: The European Union has expressed alarm at the increasing propaganda role being played by Russia in the push for Catalonian independence.

Victor Bostinaru, a Romanian MEP and vice-chairman of the Social Democratic group in the European Parliament, on Thursday said he had evidence of Russian interference in the Catalan crisis.

Mr Bostinaru called Catalonia "another case of perverse interference" by Russian-backed media organisations and hackers with the aim of destabilising the EU, which has supported Spain in its crackdown on the Catalonian pro-independence movement.

"We mustn't be naive: behind those words and those slogans favourable to the independence movement, there are hidden intentions."
It is with a deep sense of sorrow and personal loss that I received news of the passing of Mrs. Yvette Hodge Fleming Beauperthuy better known as Ma Fleming, in Miami today. It seems like only yesterday that I had the privilege to spend some memorable time with her on her 100th birthday last year and again when she not too long ago celebrated 101 years.

She was a good spirited, loving daughter of the soil who was a trailblazer, especially in the field of business on the island. A devoted mother, she considered all the young people of St. Martin as her children and grandchildren.

The whole island, North and South, has lost an icon who epitomized the best in St. Martin womanhood.

On behalf of the government and people of St. Maarten and on behalf of my family and myself I wish to extend heartfelt condolences to the entire Fleming family, friends and all the loved one that she left behind.

May her soul rest in eternal peace.

PRIME MINISTER OF SINT MAARTEN

William v. Marlin
Guardzilla 360 Smart Home Security and Monitoring Camera Breakthrough Named a CES 2018 Innovation Award Honoree

Posted by Publisher Hardware

ST. LOUIS, MO  (Marketwired)  11/09/17  ; a leader in affordable, HD WiFi security cameras that enable customers to monitor and protect their homes inside and out from their smartphone, today announced its newly introduced video monitoring system has been named a CES 2018 Innovation Awards Honoree. The product is the first-ever all-in-one security and monitoring system on the market that delivers full 360-degree live HD viewing and motion detection capabilities. To experience the power of the Guardzilla 360s full panoramic video monitoring right on your smartphone, follow the instructions below.

Unlike typical WiFi video security systems that offer a very limited 130-150 degrees of view and protection, the Guardzilla 360 provides a live 360-degree field of view, 360-degree night vision, and 360-degree motion detection with instant phone alerts. The new system also features breakthrough communication features including a built-in microphone and speaker that enables two-way conversing with friends and family (vs. the one-way walkie-talkie communication other security cameras utilize) through the Guardzilla app, and three programmable call buttons for instant push notifications to smartphones (e.g. mom, dad). The Guardzilla 360 also offers a 100dB alarm to deter intruders and geo-fencing capability, so users have the option to automatically arm or disarm the system when their smartphone is detected exiting or entering the geo-fence perimeter.

It is truly an honor to be recognized as one of the few recipients of this award, particularly in the highly competitive and innovative Smart Home category, said Terry Bader, Chief Revenue Officer at Guardzilla. The Guardzilla 360 is literally a game-changer in the home security industry, giving users the ability to see and communicate with their entire environment from their smartphone, while also providing an unprecedented suite of security features, all in real time.

Products entered in the prestigious CES Innovation Awards program, sponsored by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), are judged by a panel of independent industrial designers, independent engineers and members of the trade media. Their mission is to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting-edge consumer electronics products across 28 product categories.

Entries are evaluated on a set of guidelines including the products engineering, aesthetic and design qualities, intended use/function and user value, unique/novel features present, and how the design and innovation of the product directly compares to other products in the marketplace.

Members of the press can see and experience the Guardzilla 360 system at the on Thursday, November 16 in New York City. CES 2018 Innovation Honoree products are also featured by visiting . Guardzilla will be demonstrating the Guardzilla 360 at in Las Vegas on January 8, 2018 at the Mirage Hotel.

To experience the amazing power of 360-degree viewing and security on your smartphone, text 360 to (833) 360-3366. Within seconds you will receive a text reply which includes a link to an interactive video demo that will showcase the impressive Guardzilla 360. Once youve opened the link, please hold your smartphone horizontally for the optimal user experience.

Guardzilla 360 is available today at a $229.99 MSRP, online and in-store from leading retailers across the country including WalMart, Best Buy, Target, Office Max, Staples, and Home Shopping Network.

Founded in 2014 and based in St. Louis, Guardzilla, a WiFi security and home monitoring company, was established to break the barrier that kept homeowners and renters from protecting their loved ones and property due to the high installation cost and onerous monthly fees security companies charge. Individuals can monitor and protect family members, pets, their home and small business with Guardzillas easy-to-use, affordable, and customizable security systems that stream video to users smartphones in real time. For more information, please visit our website at , and follow us on and .

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Megan Kathman

ph: (651) 785-3212
Georgetown School of Arts and Sciences students who competed in the in the SCISA State High Quiz Bowl, were, seated from left, Avery Rose Higgins, Isabella Neubauer, Chris Attias and Avi Goldschmidt, and, standing, Eli Goldschmidt and Ryleigh Neubaur. The Kingfishers finished second.
Pleasant Hill Elementary School fifth-grader Wade Cribb leads the Pledge of Allegiance at the School Board meeting on Nov. 7. Principal Teddy Graham, right, introduced Cribb.
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Kubicki: Much of the blame for the situation lies with the states themselves. They haven't been able to pass decent laws. For decades, tax authorities have been taking aim at the phenomenon of tax havens, and the most aggravating thing is that they aren't just in Bermuda or on the Cayman Islands, but right outside our front door.

SPIEGEL: You are referring to Malta ...

Kubicki: ... the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg and others, exactly. We have to take a close look at their tax regimes, particularly if we want to move forward with European integration. We can't have a situation in which some EU member states enrich themselves at the expense of their partners.
The is a trailer for The Pirates of Somalia, originally known as Dabka.









Based on the New York Times bestseller

by Jay Bahadur, it examines what led to the hostage saga that was told in the film Captain Phillips.

It was written and directed by Bryan Buckley, and stars Evan Peters, Al Pacino, Melanie Griffith, and Barkhad Abdi. It will be released by Echo Bridge day-and-date on December 8, 2017. Check out the synopsis and trailer below.





"In 2008, rookie journalist Jay Bahadur forms a half-baked plan to embed himself among the pirates of Somalia. He ultimately succeeds in providing the first close-up look into who these men are, how they live, and the forces that drive them."
London, Nov 10, 2017 (SPS)- Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW) has denounced the Moroccan wind energy projects in the occupied Sahrawi territories, underlining that the Moroccan and foreign companies involved in these projects are systematically violating the decisions of the European Court of Justice and the United Nations.

With the new planned wind farms in Boujdour, 40.3% of Morocco's green energy production would come from the occupied territories of Western Sahara by 2020, said WSRW in a statement.

The non-governmental organization warned that the Moroccan green energy programme plans to "link two wind farms, which are still in the planning phase: the Aftissat plant (200 MW) and Boujdour farm (400 MW). Both projects would be built in the occupied Western Sahara."

"The construction work on the Aftissat plant is already ongoing, adding that the British company Windhoist is installing the 56 Siemens wind mills," said WSRW.

These two new plants would be added to two other wind farms that are being illegally built in the occupied Sahrawi territories, as part of a programme that includes the construction of five wind farms, of which two in Western Sahara.

The programme has been entrusted to a consortium of firms, led by the German giant Siemens, which teamed up with Italy's Enel Green Power and Moroccan company Nareva.

Siemens is involved in almost all wind energy projects in the occupied territories, said WSRW.SPS

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Arusha (Tanzania), Nov 10, 2017 (SPS) - The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) has attended the African Third Judicial Dialogue, held in Arusha (Tanzania), represented by the Secretary General of the Sahrawi Women's Union, Fatma El Mehdi, who is also the vice president of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union.

The meeting, which is being held under the theme of 'improving judicial talent in Africa', is organized by the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights, in collaboration with the German Agency for International Cooperation, the World Bank and the European Union.

The African Judicial Dialogue falls within the framework of improving the links between the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights with the national judicial systems.

The meeting underscored the need to introduce technology into the African legal system, improve human capital and bring justice closer to citizens. SPS

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Chahid El Hafed, Nov 10, 2017 (SPS) - The Council of Ministers has yesterday approved a framework agreement for cooperation between the Saharawi Republic and the Republic of Nicaragua in view of its submission to the National Council for ratification.

The Council of Ministers, in a meeting chaired by the President of the Republic, Secretary-General of the Frente POLISARIO Mr. Brahim Gali Sadiq has approved a framework agreement for cooperation between the Government of the Saharawi Republic and the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, in view of its submission to the ratification of the National Council of Sahrawi, to enter into force.

The cooperation agreement aims to strengthen relations between the two countries, especially exchanging visits, coordinating positions and cooperation in various political, economic, cultural and other fields.

On 12 September 2017, the Nicaraguan National Assembly ratified a cooperation agreement between the Republic of Nicaragua and the Saharawi Republic signed between the two parties in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua on 21 June 2017. SPS

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Chahid El Hafed (Saharawi Refugee Camps), Nov 10, 2017 (SPS) - The President of the Republic, Secretary General of the Frente POLISARIO, Mr. Brahim Gali, received on Friday at the headquarters of the presidency the Special Representative for Western Sahara and MINURSO Chief, Kim Bolduc, who is making a farewell visit to the Sahrawi authorities.

The meeting was held in the presence of the Saharawi Coordinator with MINURSO, the member of the National Secretariat of the POLISARIO, Mr. M `Hahamed Khadad, who in statements to SPS said that he has approached with the Special Representative for Western Sahara the work accomplished, recalling that the supreme objective of MINURSO continues to be the organization of a referendum for the self-determination of the Saharawi people.

The meeting also addressed the Saharawi issue at the UN level, especially with the new envoy, Mr. Koehler, who will submit a report to the Security Council after his visit to the region. SPS

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Veterans Day ceremony Saturday

The Lewis and Clark County Veterans Memorial Foundation is conducting its annual Veterans Day ceremony at the Lewis & Clark County Veterans Memorial located in Memorial Park at 3 p.m. Saturday. Gold Star families, current military, area veterans, their families and citizens of Helena and Lewis and Clark County are invited to attend. In case of inclement weather, the ceremony will be held at American Legion Post #2, 3095 Villard Ave.

Associated with this event, a no-host reception will follow at the American Legion Post #2 to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the management by the Lewis & Clark County Veterans Memorial Foundation.

***

Cranium Cafe series continues

Helena Community Connections, Inc. continues its Bridges program, in partnership with AARP Montana, with a selection of offerings targeted to everyone over age 50, but with interest to all.

On Wednesday Cranium Cafe will feature Nanette Holmes, life enrichment director at Touchmark, speaking about, Is Aging a Disease? Cranium Cafe is a brain health workshop featuring brain health exercises and education in a relaxed, fun environment. Participants will learn how to feed and care for the brain for improved memory, overall health and well-being. Bring a brown bag lunch. Beverages will be provided. Cranium Cafe is free, however nonperishables for Helena Food Share are suggested. The program begins at noon at Covenant United Methodist Church, 2330 E. Broadway. For more information, visit BridgesHCC on Facebook.

***

LWVHA holding monthly meeting

The League of Women Voters Helena area will meet Tuesday at noon at the Lewis & Clark Library, 120 S. Last Chance Gulch. The guest speaker will be Nancy Leifer, state president, who will report on the national convention and elaborate on state LWVHA activities. Also on the agenda is planning for the December social. Everyone is invited to attend.

***

Free Coffee or Tea with AARP Montana

The final Free Coffee or Tea Tuesday with AARP Montana will happen Tuesday from 9-11 a.m., at Firetower Coffee House, 422 N. Last Chance Gulch.

Show your AARP membership card, bring a guest, and receive free coffee or tea.

If you have questions, email MT@aarp.org or phone 866-295-7278.

***

Church hosting Thanksgiving dinner

Helenas First Presbyterian Church, 535 N. Ewing St., will host a Thanksgiving Dinner Nov. 23 at 1 p.m. featuring turkey and all the trimmings. The public is invited to this yearly event. The dinner is free.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Applications sought for scholarships

Soroptimist Club of Helena is accepting applications from women for three awards/scholarships.

There are two $2,500 Live Your Dream Awards, and one $2,500 professional/technical scholarship. The application deadline is Wednesday. The application and full eligibility guidelines can be found at the Soroptimist Club's website at www.sihelena.org.

***

Medicare open enrollment help available

Medicare open enrollment for 2018 Medicare health plans and Part D drug plans ends on Dec. 7. Plan costs and covered benefits can change from year to year. It is important to review your coverage choices every open enrollment to make sure your current plan still works for you. You may find lower costs and co-pays.

Visit www.medicare.gov, call 1-800-MEDICARE or contact the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) counselor at the Area IV Agency on Aging by calling 1-800-551-3191. SHIP counselors provide free personalized assistance to find a plan that suits your needs.

***

State accepting proposals to address suicide prevention

Department of Public Health and Human Services Director Sheila Hogan announced that the state of Montana is accepting proposals to provide grants for evidence-based suicide prevention efforts in schools and communities.

The deadline to apply for funding is 2 p.m. Dec. 1.

Last legislative session, Gov. Steve Bullock included in his budget $1 million to support suicide prevention programs.

Those eligible to apply include schools, tribes, tribal and urban health organizations, local governments, nonprofit and community organizations, professional organizations, and other organizations on a case-by-case basis.

Proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements listed in the solicitation, which can be found online on the state procurement website (eMacs) at bids.mt.gov. This is a formal process; therefore, questions should be submitted on the Q&A board of the eMacs site or directed to the single point of contact listed in the solicitation.

***

Date set for annual sock sew at St. Peters

St. Peters Hospital Association is seeking volunteers to help sew stockings for patients who are hospitalized over the Christmas holiday, and to sew large stockings for babies born during December. All December babies get to travel home in their handmade stocking.

The sewing, cutting and gluing will begin at 9 a.m. Dec. 4 in St. Peters Hospital Education Center and continue until the stockings are completed at approximately 2 p.m. Those interested in volunteering should bring a sewing machine and scissors; all other supplies and lunch will be provided. For those interested in participating, please call Arlene Matthews at 442-7264.

***

Help your neighbor stay warm this winter

Energy Share of Montana is accepting applications for emergency heating assistance at Rocky Mountain Development Council, 447-1625. Energy Share is an independent, nonprofit organization that helps Montanans who are facing financial difficulties which may result in loss of heat or lights in their home due to circumstances beyond their control. Energy Share helps people no matter what their heat source, but the assistance is usually only once every 10 years or so because the organization is truly a source of emergency funds, intended to complement government assistance programs, but not replace them.

Energy Share is supported by donations from individuals, small businesses, utility companies, electric cooperatives and large electric users across Montana so your neighbors struggling with difficult circumstances dont have to go cold.

For more information on how to apply or how to help, visit www.energysharemt.com or call 1-888-779-7589. You will also see an informational donation envelope or pledge card in your November utility bill or, if youre a member of an electric cooperative, in the Rural Montana magazine.
Tougher restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides are justified by the growing weight of scientific evidence they are harmful to bees and other pollinators, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said on Thursday 9th November.

Setting out the UKs position, the Secretary of State said the UK supports further restrictions on the use of these pesticides. Unless the scientific evidence changes, the government will maintain these increased restrictions post-Brexit.

This follows advice from the UK governments advisory body on pesticides which said scientific evidence now suggests the environmental risks posed by neonicotinoids  particularly to our bees and pollinators  are greater than previously understood, supporting the case for further restrictions.

Research estimates the value of the UKs 1,500 species of pollinators to crops at 400-680million per year due to improved productivity.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:

I have set out our vision for a Green Brexit in which environmental standards are not only maintained but enhanced.

Ive always been clear I will be led by the science on this matter. The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our 100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. I believe this justifies further restrictions on their use. We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.

I recognise the impact further restrictions will have on farmers and I am keen to work with them to explore alternative approaches both now and as we design a new agricultural policy outside the European Union.

Since December 2013, the EU has banned the use of three neonicotinoids  Clothianidin, Imidacloprid and Thiamethoxam  on a number of crops attractive to bees, such as oilseed rape.
Before you rake the yard this weekend, see if you have any in-tact Maple leaves. Brightly-colored Maple leaves could make you big bucksor at least one buck.

A website called cash4leaves.com is offering $1.00 per leaf for New England fall foliage. The requirements are that leaves MUST be from a New England state and must be red, yellow or orange with no no visible imperfections. Brown of any form is unacceptable.
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BRIDGEPORTNorwalk police are asking for the publics help in an unsolved double murder.

Rickita Smalls, 22, and Iroquois Alston, 27, were murdered on Aug. 6, 2011.

It hurts to know there is someone out there and we have no idea who it may be, Angela Syphrette, Small's aunt, told Hearst Connecticut Media on the anniversary of their deaths in 2012.

Smalls was a 2007 graduate of Bassick High School in Bridgeport who worked in the bakery at Stop & Shop in Westport. Alston had attended Westhill High School in Stamford. They were in a car when they were killed on Avenue B in Norwalk, the young womans grandmother, Barbara Smalls, told Hearst at the time.

On Friday, police renewed calls for tipsters to help in the case, reminding the public of a $50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the killer or killers.

Anonymous tips can be called into the Norwalk Police Tip Line at 203-854-3111 or sent to Norwalk Police website at: www.norwalkpd.com.

More News Family, friends remember homicide victims

Tips can also be submitted by text by messaging CRIMES (274637) starting with the letters NPD, followed by the message.

Members of the Smalls and Alston family are expected to speak at a press conference on Monday, though a time has not yet been announced.
When men and women join the U.S. military, they understand that they may give their lives for America. And the service they give, particularly those in the five armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard) in war zones, can be tough. So, when these people, together with Reservists and National Guardsmen, come home and rejoin the civilian workforce, they're prime candidates to make a difference.

Related: Discover the Raw Talent of Millennials and Veterans

No wonder so many employers have discovered that these brave individuals make quality employees. This is probably why the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the unemployment rate for vets to be a modest 4.3 percent. That is lower than the national average for all working Americans for the same period. And that alone explains why "hiring a vet" makes total sense.

However, retaining veterans and reservists requires an understanding of their nuanced needs. Thankfully, the following five model companies have it all figured out:

Comcast NBCUniversal

Media and entertainment organization/ Philadelphia

Often, active National Guard and Reserve members still have service responsibilities -- training and military duties -- throughout the year. Employees shouldn't have to chose between their civilian jobs and service careers

Comcast NBCUniversal offers active National Guard and Reserve employees paid time off for their commitments. In the opinion of company leaders, this cost is worthwhile.

"In most cases, the work and roles these individuals do in their National Guard and Reserve units is drastically different from their civilian jobs," Dave Gaulin, director of military and veteran affairs and a major in the Air Force Reserve, said in an email. "As a result, you have a very well-rounded individual with a mix of qualities, skills and abilities that complement each other."

Global Rescue

Evacuation, medical, security, and travel risk management services/ Lebanon, N.H.

Military life and civilian life are different animals. It's not uncommon for veterans to have trouble with this transition. They need to have a culture of support and stability to succeed.

Related: Why Veterans and Civilian Employers Have So Much Trouble Communicating

"Given Global Rescue's culture of acceptance, new personnel transitioning directly from the military are welcomed more naturally in our organization than in some others," Ann Shannon, public relations manager, wrote via email.

The company offers resources and training to help employees translate their military skills. Veterans, National Guard and Reserve members make up nearly a quarter of Global Rescue's workforce thanks to this company's commitment.

Power

Home improvement company/ Chester, Pa.

Sometimes, veterans need the guidance of someone who's already made the transition to civilian life. At Power, each new veteran employee receives a follow veteran as a mentor. The mentor is there to address the mentee's needs as a whole person, not just an employee.

"Sixty to 80 percent of veterans will leave their first post-military job before their second work anniversary," Michael Hansen, vice president of military affairs, said in an email. "Companies looking to make an impact in the veteran space need to evaluate their company's culture."

To do this, Power makes a point to educate every employee about veterans' issues. This program creates a sense of understanding and community for veterans. As a result, veterans and military spouses have a higher retention rate than do average Power employees.

Veterans United

Home loans/ Columbia, Mo.

National Guard and Reserve members are often deployed for long periods of time. Those employees shouldn't be forgotten once they're out of the office.

Veterans United sends care packages to its deployed employees every few months. Co-workers send favorite snacks, photos and handwritten cards to support deployed team members. And that's not where the commitment to veterans ends.

"Internally, the overwhelming majority of our employees -- more than 90 percent -- contribute at least 1 percent of their paycheck to Veterans United Foundation, which is dedicated to helping military families," Amanda Andrade, chief people officer, said in an email.

Veterans United has won awards for its military-friendly policies. Last year, Glassdoor named it one of the best employers for veterans.

Wells Fargo

Banking and finances/ San Francisco

Veterans who leave the military often need help making plans for their next career step. Many joined the armed forces when they were young. They've never considered what to do long-term when they returned home.

Wells Fargo offers veterans counseling once a year as part of its career options. The company provides resources, tools and information about the company's career-development process. One of these advancement opportunities is the Veterans Diverse Leaders Program. This is a three-day experience that helps veterans prepare for leadership roles.

This focus on the future has helped Wells Fargo retain its veteran employees. According to Jose Garcia, senior vice president and manager of the company's diversity talent acquisition strategy, 54 percent of veteran employees have been with the company more than five years.

"Our commitment to veterans doesn't end once a job offer is made," Garcia said an in email. "The company strives to create a caring culture that supports veteran team members throughout their careers."

Related: Military Veterans Joining the Ranks of Franchise Ownership

Now, that's something worth thinking about next time you tell a veteran, "Thank you for your service."

Related:

The Top 150 Franchises for Veterans

Veterans and Reservists Are Your Secret Talent Weapon. But, Careful, You May Lose Them.

6 Lessons This Marine Veteran Learned Overcoming PTSD, Alcoholism and Suicidal Thoughts to Build a Successful Business



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


A Helena man was arrested Tuesday and charged with choking his significant other.

According to court documents, David Edward Neill, 29, was charged on Wednesday with felony strangulation of a partner or family member, misdemeanor partner or family member assault and misdemeanor assault.

Helena police officers arrived at the 800 block of North Montana Avenue for a domestic disturbance late Tuesday morning and found Neill and his partner involved in a verbal argument, court documents say. Neills partner allegedly had a visible forearm injury.

Another witness had reportedly intervened in the altercation to stop further harm to Neills partner and was then punched by Neill, causing visible injuries to the witness, according to court documents.

In a statement to the police officer, Neills partner said she had been strangled by Neill as well as grabbed on the arm.

Neill has one prior partner or family assault conviction, according to court documentation.
STAMFORD  The 2012 property revaluation was, by most accounts, so cockeyed that angry homeowners assailed City Hall.

In some cases, they said, the value of one house increased as much as it decreased for a similar house on the same street. It resulted in 25 percent tax hikes for some homeowners, and significant drops for others.

This years reval is shaping up to be less dramatic.

Mayor David Martin said results from Municipal Valuation Group, the company hired to conduct the reval, are very preliminary. So far, though, they indicate no wild swings.

They are still crunching their numbers, and things are nowhere near final, but I suspect there may be a little bit of an evening out, so those who had large tax increases four years ago might not have that this time, Martin said. Its probably because the apartment buildings are earning such high rents that their value will increase a little and, if so, residential property owners will get a little bit of a savings.

Director of Administration Michael Handler said the tax burden often alternates between residential and commercial properties from one reval to the next.

Its too soon to say for sure, but we are expecting a minimal shift, ever so slightly  maybe 1 percent or 2 percent  from residential to commercial this year, Handler said.

Even if that isnt the case, we certainly dont see an increase in property taxes for homeowners, Martin said.

They could use a break.

State law mandates that a reval, which is based on recent sales, be conducted every five years. Stamfords last two were in 2007  the height of the real estate market  and 2012, which was soon after the market collapsed.

So not only had the value of most homes fallen by 2012, there were so few sales that year that the data was skewed. Accurate values are difficult to estimate when a company has, say, 100 sales to analyze rather than 10,000.

The more data you have, the better the statistical model will be, Handler said.

The purpose of a reval is to update the fair-market value of properties and ensure that the tax burden is distributed accurately, Handler said.

If condos appreciate more than single-family homes, that adds to the worth of condos, and their share of the tax goes up, he said. Its just about data.

Several months ago, the city mailed notices asking owners to verify details about their property. About 22,000 notices were sent and half were returned, Handler said.

That information will be considered along with neighborhood real estate sales data as it appeared on Oct. 1.

Municipal Valuation Group will complete its statistical analysis next month, Handler said. In December, the company will mail property owners the results. Owners who wish to contest their revaluations may do so in January, he said.

Stamford tax officials will use the data to determine the assessed value of each of the citys 40,000 properties. Assessed value  which is 70 percent of the fair-market value  is the amount that is taxed.

From that they compile a Grand List, the total amount of taxable property. Members of the Board of Finance then set the mill rate, which is used to calculate tax bills.

They are significant. The average annual bill for a single-family home is $10,600. Its $7,000 for a multifamily home and $5,000 for a condominium, according to the assessors office.

And, in Stamford, its been increasing.

This year the state Office of Policy and Management released data showing the citys mill rate spiked 49 percent between 2012 and 2017  the fourth-highest increase in the state.

It was significantly higher than Connecticuts other large cities. Bridgeports mill rate increased 37 percent during those years, the OPM reported. Norwalks went up 21 percent and Hartfords 4 percent. New Havens mill rate fell 5 percent.

Martin said most of Stamfords mill rate hike  35 percent  came from the 2012 reval. His budget increases account for 11.6 percent of the total for the period, which covers his four years as mayor, said Martin, a Democrat running for re-election on Nov. 7.

Sal Gabriele, a Republican member of the Board of Finance, said he has been concerned since the last reval that the city is not accurately assessing some of the large commercial properties and they are not paying their fair share of taxes.

He pointed to the Highgrove luxury apartment building at 70 Forest St., which sold for $80 million in 2013 and $90 million two years later. But in 2016 the city had the appraised value listed at only $60 million.

Data from the tax assessors office shows that, in the last reval, property taxes for seven large commercial buildings dropped by a total of $2.5 million because of decreases in assessments. Taxes on the UBS building on Washington Boulevard and the BLT Financial Centre on East Main Street each fell by about $900,000, records show.

The reason for this has to be made clearer, said Gabriele, a member of the Property Revaluation Review Committee who is running for reelection to the finance board. The city has to do a better job of challenging it. The recommendation I would make is that the city hire a tax attorney, so when these large commercial owners come with their high-powered, in-house lawyers to argue for a lower value, we would have somebody to make the citys case.

For residential property owners, the playing field isnt level, he said.

My guess is that if you go in as a homeowner every five years and argue that your property is depreciating, you arent going to get very far, Gabriele said.

acarella@stamfordadvocate.com.
POW/MIA Chair Dedicated in The United States Capitol for Veterans Day

83,000 Service Members are Still Missing in Action Since WWII -- 1,606 from the Vietnam War

Contact: Dr. Scott Magill, Veterans in Defense of Liberty, 417-556-8499; ViDoLAmerica.org

SPRINGFIELD, Mo., Nov. 10, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- 8 November 2017 passed with little notice by most. However, it was a red-letter day for our POW/MIA's and their families.

Freedom is never free, but it is the American Warrior and their families who paid the price. None paid a greater price than American prisoners of war and those missing in action. Every American Warrior who answered their country's call deserves to walk on American soil again, or to be buried within it. Above all, they deserve never to be forgotten by a grateful nation.

For several years Rolling Thunder, Inc. made every effort to secure a bill in Congress honoring the sacrifice of Americas POW/MIA's, specifically by placing an Empty Chair in our nation's Capitol Building, which belongs to "We the People." The Empty Chair would represent our missing Warriors, and acknowledge the obligation of our elected representatives to continue working on behalf of these American citizens whose service and sacrifices for our country must be considered ongoing until finally resolved. After years of frustration, Veterans in Defense of Liberty(ViDoL) set up a meeting in Washington, D.C. with Senator Roy Blunt (MO), a delegation veterans from ViDoL, and representation by Rolling Thunder Inc.

Senator Blunt concluded that historic meeting by stating, "Let me see what we can do." And do he did. Yesterday the Empty Chair was finally dedicated, "prominently located in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center." There it will remain on permanent display, stark testimony to the price of freedom paid by America's military heroes.

Regarding the role of Veterans in Defense of Liberty to make this a reality, Senator Blunt remarked yesterday, "This wouldn't have happened without your encouragement..."

Our Kudos to Senator Roy Blunt who assumed a leadership role in bringing this powerful national tribute to fruition, and taking a symbolic knee by assuring the dedication of this chair to honor our POW/MIA heroes.

We encourage all Americans to take a knee this Veterans Day week to thank God for our awesome military, and in remembrance of our POW/MIA heroes: You shall not be forgotten.

ViDoL is a national 501(c))4 committed to honoring our oath. We are a Brotherhood/Sisterhood of veterans committed to maintaining the integrity of our Republic upon correct moral and constitutional principles
To the Editor:

I returned this week from a trip to Cuba. The Trump administration just announced its new rules that would restrict such people-to-people visits. Its ironic that these regulations, supposedly imposed to punish a government the U.S. views as authoritarian, came out the very day that Donald Trump was clinching new business deals with the repressive, one-party communist government of China.

The regulations are supposed to punish hotels, stores, and other businesses tied to the Cuban military. But, during our visit to the island on a 40-person delegation organized by the peace group CODEPINK, we found that it is the private business sector, the sector that the Trump administration wants to encourage, thats already feeling the impact.

We met with small entrepreneurs who had poured their savings into starting new private restaurants in the homes or refurbishing rooms for rent in anticipation of a U.S. tourist boom. Their hopes have been crushed.

This mean-spirited policy of sanctioning Cuba has failed since it was first imposed in 1961. On Nov. 1, for the 26th year in a row, the UN General Assembly, voted overwhelmingly to condemn the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The vote this year was 191 nations against the embargo vs two in favor: the United States and Israel.

Just before the UN vote, 10 U.S. Senators, led by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), sent a letter to President Trump saying: Our failed embargo against Cuba has been repeatedly and publicly condemned by the international community as ineffective and harmful to the people of Cuba. The longer we maintain this outdated Cold War policy the more our international and regional credibility suffers. The overwhelming majority of Americans, including Cuban-Americans, and Cubans, including Cuban entrepreneurs and many dissidents, oppose the embargo and favor engagement of the United States with Cuba.

The reversal of President Obamas Cuba opening is a victory for a small handful of southern Florida members of Congress, but a big defeat for diplomacy, people-to-people ties, and most of all, to Cubas new business sector.

Cynthia Cochran

Torrington, Wyoming
Even with artillery rounds, .30-caliber machine-gun fire and rockets from escort gunships obliterating his landing zone, 1st Lt. Jim Lawton knew that when the white phosphorous round exploded near his chopper, his protective fire was about to cease, and it was time to land his Huey.
CONNELLY SPRINGS  A Connelly Springs man, who was featured as a wanted fugitive on Americas Most Wanted,  was arrested on Thursday afternoon after being on the run for more than eight years.

Clarence Edward Henderson, of Connelly Springs, was arrested by the U.S Marshals Service  Violent Offender Task Force and Burke County Sheriffs Office, according to a press release from the United States Marshals Service.

Henderson was scheduled to appear for his sentencing of being convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon on May 15, 2009, in US District Court, in the District of Montana, but he never showed up. A warrant was issued for his arrest and Henderson was considered armed and dangerous due to his extensive criminal history, spreading throughout several states, the release said.

He was an allegeded member of the Aryan Nation gang, prior to going on the run, in 2009. Henderson also was featured on John Walshs television show, " Americas Most Wanted, " in February of 2011, but Henderson was able to continue to avoid apprehension.

The U.S. Marshals Service, in the District of Montana, requested the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service in the Western District of North Carolina, to investigate old addresses and affiliations that Henderson may have had contact with in the past, the release said.

Through interviews and surveillance, conducted with the assistance of the BCSO, it was determined that Henderson was living under the name of Chris Danjou, in Connelly Springs, the release said.

Police with the mentioned agencies witnessed Henderson get ting into a white Dodge truck and leave the residence of 6372 Laurelwood St . in Connelly Springs as a passenger. The vehicle was stopped and Henderson was quickly identified by his tattoos and subsequently arrested. Henderson was transported to the McDowell County Jail, where he is housed, pending his court proceedings.

This is another example on how the U.S. Marshals Service continually works with other federal, state and local police agencies, to ensure violent fugitives who flee across jurisdictional lines are brought to justice, said Kelly M. Nesbit, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of North Carolina.

U.S. Marshals are the nations primary fugitive hunting organization and capture more federal fugitives each year than all other law enforcement agencies combined.

For more information about the U.S. Marshals Service, go to www.usmarshals.gov.
The National Education Ministry (MEN) will benefit from a positive budget revision this month, and the budget bill for 2018 will be the biggest of the past 10 years, Minister Liviu Marian Pop stated on Friday in Baia Mare, within a working meeting with principals of pre-university education units of Maramures county.

"This month we will have a positive budget revision, will will pay the money stipulated by sentences, including the corresponding interests, there are no problems with paying wages, and the draft budget for next year will be the biggest of the past 10 years," Education Minister stated, according to a release of the MEN sent to AGERPRES According to the release, the minister also informed the participants, including Prefect Vasile Moldovan and Mayor of Baia Mare Catalin Chiriches who attended the meeting, that an important concern of MEN is amending the legislation regarding the funding, so that funds for personnel expenditures be sent from the ministry to the education units through county school inspectorates/ Bucharest School Inspectorate (ISMB).At the same time, the release shows that the launching of the project called "Relevant curriculum, education open for all" (CRED) was announced, under which 55,000 teachers (15,000 primary education and 40,000 secondary education) will be provided with curricular training for a methodological approach which focuses on key-competency, in agreement with the new curriculum.The working meeting of the Education minister with several principals of Maramures county was also attended by representatives of the county's trade unions in education, students' and parents' associations, as well as members of the university branches leadership of the city.The working meetings of Maramures county will continue on Saturday, 11 November, in Sighetu Marmatiei, where Minister Liviu Pop will talk with principals of Sighet, Viseu and Borsa areas.
President Klaus Iohannis on Thursday sent a message for the 24th edition of the 'National Ranking of Companies' Gala hosted by the Romexpo centre of exhibition in Bucharest in which he says that it is a great injustice that business people's efforts are thwarted by uninspired tax policies, arguing that such practices must end.

"It is obvious that, in an unstable business environment, entrepreneurship has to battle with economic uncertainty inherent in business, as well as with the unpredictability of government policies. To avoid such a climate, preparation and good faith are essential in political decision-makers. I think it is a great injustice that your efforts and business plans are thwarted by uninspired tax policies that are insufficiently substantiated or even lacking in economic fundamentals. I believe that these practices must end," says Iohannis in his message delivered by presidential advisor Cosmin Marinescu.He points out that the business environment can only thrive through responsible, coherent economic policies that will solve the present problems without generating much more serious ones in the long run.He argues that it is the duty of policy makers to provide solutions for the shortcomings of the business environment.Iohannis reiterates that Romania is currently experiencing a period of economic growth in the European Union, which has reached 6.1 percent according to the latest economic forecasts, but he adds that this growth is based almost entirely on consumption, while investment is regressing.He says that economic performance must be sustained by a consistent development of infrastructure, which must become the zero priority of any governance programme. The head of the state also says that another challenge in the current economic context is the problem of human resources, adding that the Romanian administration must take decisive steps towards modernity and the technology era by the use of promptness and transparency. AGERPRES
"Discover and know Romania" is a programme the Ministry for Romanians Abroad wishes to continue throughout the year 2018, dedicated to the Great Union Centennial, Minister Andreea Pastarnac said on Friday at the Parliament Palace where the project's second stage was opened.

"Discover and know Romania" brings to Bucharest rd 100 young people from the Republic of Moldova who for three days will meet representatives of the Romanian authorities, the minister detailed."Beyond the dialogue you'll have, hopefully you'll return home with a wish to cooperate with us, with cooperation ideas. If last time most of you were Law students, many were working in the public administration - and I have met a lot of ideas linked to these fields - I understand that today many of you are working in engineering, exact sciences, in the social domain and in social care. Your ideas will enrich us," she added.Andreea Pastarnac gave a few details about how the programme runs. "In general, when creating programmes or develop policies dedicated to the Romanians abroad or the historic communities, we have a tool that is the interministerial group. (...) This way we are trying to understand what are the best instruments we could apply for those who are abroad," the minister specified.According to her, the programme is part of a series of similar initiatives all over the world."As a diplomat, I had the chance to talk, in the countries where I was in the diplomatic service, with the young people in other countries, who participate in similar programmes. (...) I believe that through this programme (Discover and know Romania, ed. n.) we basically engage in an effort many states with communities abroad are making, it is a successful pattern everywhere, a pattern that practically is based on what the real world is today, a world of interactions, a world of the travel speed, a world of connections," the minister added.The opening event was attended by members of the gov't, parliament. AGERPRES
Minister for Romanians Abroad Andreea Pastirnac met in Brussels with members of the Romanian community of the region, representatives of the associative environment, as well as with representatives of the Romanian language media.

According to a release sent to AGERPRES on Thursday, the discussions agenda which took place on Tuesday, included funding opportunities granted by the Ministry for Romanian Abroad (MDR) for projects and activities, but also amendments proposed on laws that aim to support Romanians living abroad.The meeting also tackled the support offered to Romanians wanting to return to Romania, the minister presented the measures adopted in order to facilitate this process, as well as the ongoing programme called "Diaspora Start-up," through which Romanian can receive up to 40,000 euro of non-reimbursable funding.Taking into account that the celebration of the Centenary is close, the Romanian official expatiated the MRP project dedicated to the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Great Union called "Centenary by Twinning," which aims to develop associative networks created on the basis of twinning between localities, ensuring a structured, intense and multilateral cooperation between administrative - territorial units of Romania and the historical and emerging communities, according to the source.The minister also had a working meeting with mayor of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode commune Emir Kir, during which they talked about the twinning process of this village with the District 5 of Bucharest.Furthermore, Minister Andreea Pastirnac also attended on this occasion the debate called "The Romanian Diaspora in the European Union," which was organised on Tuesday at the European Parliament by Rombel, the Council of Romanians Abroad and GRASP.
The tax measures adopted by the Government are sustainable and will yield positive results for Romania, including bigger pensions, prime minister Mihai Tudose stated.

"The tax measures adopted yesterday (Wednesday, ed. n.) are sustainable and will yield positive results for Romania including bigger pensions. I assure you that we will have enough money to accomplish our social programme of increasing the citizens' wages, as well as investments in road infrastructure, health and education. We are not letting ourselves impressed by those who just want to take money out of Romania. They make a profit at Romanians' contributions, they have revenues in Romania due to the favourable business environment, that they respect us then, because we respect them! They make profit here, they should pay here!" Tudose wrote on Thursday on his Facebook page.According to the head of the Executive, the European Commission, the IMF, the EBRD and the World Bank have revised upwards the evolution of the Romanian economy for this year."The National Prognosis Commission showed that we will have a record 6.1 pct economic growth and we tend to believe that we will attain the forecast made by the Commission. The most important thing is that Romanians see this economic growth in their pockets and we are on the right track. According to INS [the National Institute of Statistics, ed. n.] the purchasing power of the average net salary has increased by 14 pct in August 2017 as compared to August 2016, and the average pension of social security has recorded a rise of 15 pct as compared to August 2016," premier Tudose further mentioned. AGERPRES
The Romanian Foreign Ministry (MAE) welcomes the election of Audrey Azoulay of France as director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), reads a press statement released by MAE on Friday.

The election took place at the 39th session of the UNESCO's General Conference. Azoulay's tenure at UNESCO's helm begins on Wednesday.The MAE also reiterates Romania's commitment to UNESCO, "including asserting the importance of UNESCO inside United Nations system as well as globally, and expresses its full willingness to cooperate with the new UNESCO director-general to fulfill UNESCO's basic role: building peace in the spirit of mankind, according to the organisation's constitution."At the same time, MAE extends outgoing UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova "thanks for the very good cooperation during the two terms in office," that started in 2009. MAE praises Bokova for her activity to ensure the efficiency of and strengthening the organisation amidst numerous challenges facing UNESCO.Under the UNESCO constitution, the director-general is the highest official of the organisation, and in such capacity runs the UNESCO Secretariat. The director-general is nominated by the Executive Board and appointed by the General Conference for a period of four years.Audrey Azoulay was born in 1972 in France. She served as minister of culture and communications in the French Government from February 2016 until May 2017. She began her career in the audio-visual sector in France, where she held executive offices, and then she was a rapporteur at the French Court of Auditors and a legal expert with the European Commission in the field of culture and communications. AGERPRES
Commander of the Romanian Gendarmerie Sebastian Cucos is attending a NATO conference in Rome, Italy, November 9-10, during which a two-day workshop will take place in which experts from the NATO member countries and civil society leaders contribute to drafting the concept of stability operations. At the end of the two-day conference, a NATO Allied Command Transformation (NATO ACT) team will analyse the findings and put forth recommendations for the project manager, the Romanian Gendarmerie said in a press statement on Friday.

The first activity of this kind took place in October 2016, followed by the one organised in February 2017 by the Romanian Gendarmerie in Bucharest, and a May meeting in Amsterdam. The head of the Romanian Gendarmerie participated as an expert in these previous activities organised by NATO ACT.

At this event, Romania is represented by Dorel-Gheorghe Caprar, chairman of Parliament's Committee on Defence, Public Order and National Security, and Commander of the Romanian Gendarmerie Sebastian Cucos. The invitation to Cucos to attend the 4th workshop under the project "Capabilities of NATO's stability Policing amidst emerging security challenges" is said to be the result of constant involvement of the Romanian Gendarmerie in the unfolding of the project.

Agerpres.
Romanian servicemen will be present in Afghanistan also in 2018, respecting all the responsibilities assumed at the allied level, Defense Minister Mihai Fifor said in Brussels on the second day of the Meeting of Defense Ministers in NATO states.

"As to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, we have underscored Romania's important role as a significant contributor with troops to the RSM, as well as maintaining the commitment to providing the necessary support to the Kabul authorities to stabilize and develop the profile and capability of the National Security and Defense Forces of Afghanistan. We also mentioned that Romanian servicemen will be present, alongside our allies, in Afghanistan also in 2018, respecting all the responsibilities assumed at the allied level," said Minister Mihai Fifor, according to a release issued by the Defence Ministry (MApN) on Thursday for AGERPRES Minister Mihai Fifor presented the developments recorded in the setting up of the adapted advanced presence in the Black Sea area. It is about the operationalization of the Multinational Brigade in Craiova, the transformation of its headquarters into a NATO structure, the increased presence of allied naval forces in the Black Sea, the continuing air police activities over Romania, the participation of the allies in drills on the territory of our country, the MApN informed.The Defense Ministry reminded that the progress made in the operationalization of the Multinational Brigade could also be noticed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on the occasion of his participation in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly held in October in Bucharest."We also announced that we are in the process of finalizing, together with the Turkish and Bulgarian allies, the concept of the Joint Training Initiative, launched by Romania also under the aegis of NATO presence in the Black Sea region, with its first coordination conference to be held in early December," said Minister Mihai Fifor.Fifor reiterated Romania's support for the efforts of the international community in order to fully eliminate the threats of DAESH, the MApN also informs.
AGERPRES special correspondent Dana Purgaru reports: Secretary of State with Romania's Ministry of Internal Affairs, head of the Emergency Situations Department, Raed Arafat, accompanied by the head of Romania's Representative Office in Palestine Catalin-Mihai Tirlea visited Thursday evening and Friday morning two medical facilities in Ramallah, headed by alumni of the Romanian school of medicine.

The delegation of Romanian and Palestinian officials visited on Thursday evening the Istishari Arab Hospital in Ramallah, a private facility built two years ago for patients covered by private insurance and defence personnel.Hospital representatives presented the Romanian - Palestinian delegations the hospital, including the blood collection and newborn center, as well as the polyclinic and emergency department. The head of the 340-bed medical facility that employs over 400 people declared himself proud of receiving such a visit and confessed in Romanian that he studied in Romania in the '80s, but returned to Palestine to practice his profession. In his turn, Dr. Raed Arafat said he was impressed by the exceptional medical equipment of the Istishari Arab Hospital.On Friday morning the Romanian delegation, accompanied by Palestinian Health Minister Jawad Awaad and other officials, went to the Palestine Medical Complex, Ramallah's main public medical facility that consists of five hospitals with different specializations. The director of this institution too looked back in time, telling the guests in Romanian that he studied in Romania and then chose to practice in Palestine. He added that one of the six Palestinian doctors who completed in the Romanian city of Targu Mures a six-month emergency medicine course is currently leading the emergency department of the Ramallah hospital.
DECATUR  The unlocked double doors swing open easily  an inviting, comforting sign that all are welcome at St. James Catholic Church for a recent morning Mass. The smiling face of the priest leading services from the altar makes the visit all the more serene.

In light of the shooting deaths of 26 people at a rural Baptist church in Texas on Nov. 5, some churchgoers may be forgiven if they should look askance at a stranger in their midst. Many churches have revisited security measures they hope will reassure their congregations. As flocks gathered this weekend in prayer, the message was as strong as ever: be vigilant, but be true.

I'm crying right now thinking of it, the Rev. Wayne Dunning of Faith Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church said about the Texas shooting. I can't imagine somebody coming in faith and spraying us down, and we're so vulnerable. But it's happening around our nation.

The haunting massacre in the small town of Sutherland Springs southeast of San Antonio has renewed soul-searching and conversations regarding safety in what had long been considered a sacred place, before a series of violent acts erupted in recent years at places of worship.

Many in attendance at St. James on Wednesday morning said life requires they cleave to their faith all the more going forward. Or as Matthew 22:39 puts it, Love your neighbor as yourself," a nearly universal sign of humanity, compassion, caring, civilization itself.

John Schilawski, a member of Sts. James and Patrick Parish, said the latest church shooting did not deter his daily morning Mass ritual. Instead it only increased his faith.

The man that shot the people, that badness will be a source of good, he said. It will unite people. It brings people to their knees.

But in this new environment, security is a challenge in a welcoming house of God that is nevertheless a place on Earth, with all the troubles that entails. There usually are no metal detectors. There are no guards. But there now are sometimes notes of caution.

We are a church that is always welcoming, said Pastor Matt Samuels, of gtChurch in Decatur. We have to do what the Bible says. Be gentle as doves. But if you see something strange, contact security or staff.

It's an unsettling message borne out of a series of attacks similar to the Texas rampage, from seven dead at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Texas in 1999 and six killed at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to the nine lives lost at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. Three were shot at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park in 2014.

Three years earlier, in Maryville, Illinois, near Edwardsville, the Rev. Fred Winters was fatally shot while he delivered Sunday services at First Baptist Church. The gunman, Terry Joe Sedlacek, had enough ammunition to kill up to 30 people, law enforcement said. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2015. It's unclear what prompted the shooting.

The Maryville church coincidentally shares the name as the Texas one where Devin Patrick Kelley, wearing black, stormed in and opened fired this month, in what is the deadliest mass shooting in state history.

Gunfire rang out for several minutes. Some were methodically killed at point-blank range, police have said.

The ages of the dead range from 1 to 77. Eight killed are from the same family. Kelley was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Vice President Mike Pence at a prayer vigil Wednesday in Sutherland Springs said, "we mourn with those who mourn, and we grieve with those who grieve, but we do not grieve like those who have no hope. Because our faith gives us hope, and heroes give us hope."

'You have to change the people'

The same Sunday as the Texas shooting, a man gunned down his ex-wife and her new boyfriend in the parking lot of St. Alphonsus Church in Fresno, California. On Sept. 24, a gunman killed one and injured several others at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee.

More than 91 people have been killed in at least 22 church-related incidents since 1999, with at least eight shooters then killing themselves also. With three deadly shootings in 2017, this has been the deadliest year for killings at U.S. churches.

Dunning is concerned such tragedies will keep faithful away. I can see people say, 'I'm going to stay right here at home and watch a televangelist on TV instead of fellowshipping with the saints.' I can see that. TV is exciting, but I'd rather be there in person, and be a participant instead of an observer, Dunning said. Church is still a place where we need each other, to get some sort of respite from the world and be among people who are common-minded.

The Rev. Eric Trickey, senior pastor at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, said he and his staff are committed to making the church safe for everyone.

While at the same time realizing that, because of sin and evil in the world, terror and tragedy will continue to touch us all, driving believers deeper into the arms of Christ, our hope of life beyond death.

Tragedies like the shooting deaths in Texas are symptoms of deeper problems in society, said Ted Smith, the pastor of Mound Chapel Church of God. Addressing the symptoms won't fix what's really wrong.

The problem stems, obviously from a pastor's standpoint, that we've gotten away from God (as a society), he said.

Smith reminds his congregation they are called to invite others in, not qualify people whether they're worthy.

Social media hurts relationship-building skills, he said, and people will say things online they wouldn't dream of saying in person. It's coarsened interactions even in person, and people are less respectful, less kind and more willing to push the envelope.

You can't regulate people in a society, he said. You have to change the people. You can't just make laws.

No matter how horrific the situation, ministers often advise their congregations to pray not only for themselves but for those who have caused the pain.

We are called to pray for our enemies, said Father Steven Arisman, pastor of Our Lady of Holy Spirit in Mount Zion. And to pray for those who are suffering.

Remaining vigilant

As a retired deputy police chief, Ed Smith keeps his eyes and ears open while his is sitting in his pew either at St. James or St. Patrick.

Be aware of what is around you and your circumstances, he said. And dont be a victim.

He also believes people can not let the tragedies change them. Thats what these people want, to change peoples perspective, he said. They want to make us afraid.

The tragedy in Texas didnt stop Schilawski and others from attending Mass during the week. They feel the sanctuary is a place where they can give these and other troubles to God. They also know the church is no safer than any public place.

It could happen on a bike path, or a school, or a restaurant, Schilawski said.

The Rev. John Burnette, pastor of Sts. James and Patrick Parish, reaffirms one of the pillars of the church.

God gives us the gift of human freedom, Burnette said. We as Christians, when bad things happen, we hand it over to Him.

The freedom people are given is not only used for evil but also for good. Burnette encourages his congregation not to hate those who do wrong and cause pain.

It is all our choice, he said. We are not robots. We can chose good and bad, he said.

Whenever tragedies happen, many churches see an increase in attendance. Samuels has addressed these events in past sermons. He also stresses Gods gift of free will.

He didnt cause it, but He is ready to heal and comfort through us, Samuels said. God's going to sort that out. Our job is simply to build relationships, that's where it really starts. We have to be able to develop that relationship before someone would want to come in" to the church community.

Pence delivered a similar message of resilience at the Wednesday vigil. He said there is hope that this Sunday, houses of worship "all across America will be filled to overflowing."

"I hope that Americans of every background and belief will send a chorus of prayers from their hearts into the heart of heaven for these families, for this community, and for this land  to pray for those we lost and those they left behind; to pray for the injured and those who tended their wounds, even as we speak; to pray for the good congregation of the First Baptist Church, that they would soon fill that sanctuary with the sounds of praise and worship again; and to pray for all the good people of Sutherland Springs and of this special state of Texas," he said.

Bill Hanes regularly attends Wednesday morning Mass at St. James Church. The services are open to anyone, although he feels he is diligent about watching his surroundings, he has come to accept what his world has become.

This is going to be part of our lives, Hanes said. But as Christians, we shouldnt be afraid to die.
It was anything but an ordinary St. Louis Board of Aldermen committee meeting Tuesday.

Alderman Megan Green, one of the citys most vocal critics of developer tax incentives, was seeking her colleagues endorsement of a property tax break for an apartment project in her ward south of Tower Grove Park. Its a common request that St. Louis routinely approves for dozens of new developments every year.

But members of the Housing Urban Development and Zoning Committee were in no mood to rubber-stamp her request.

For almost three hours, they grilled her and the developer on the projects finances and an associated deal between the prospective builder and the neighborhood, referred to as a community benefits agreement. Even Aldermanic President Lewis Reed made an uncommon appearance for the hearing.

I believe youre using this community benefits agreement basically to cover up what I see as fairly hypocritical treatment, Alderman Jack Coatar, who represents downtown and Soulard, told Green. You rail against incentive projects everywhere else in the city, but now youre seeing if you want to do new construction in your ward, its pretty expensive.  So in the future, I encourage you to maybe cut your colleagues some slack instead of just constantly railing against projects in their communities.

With an ongoing debate over the citys use of developer subsidies, big projects asking for significant incentives can generate heated debate. Yet the $6.4 million, 26-unit apartment building on Morganford Road is hardly a megaproject. The 10-year tax abatement request amounts to about $634,000 over a decade. It received a solid endorsement from the citys development office.

Instead, the committees scolding of Green highlighted the political animosity directed toward her by some aldermen and the consequences of bucking the tradition of aldermanic courtesy  dont vote against projects in my ward, and Ill leave the ones in yours alone.

It also elevated the simmering issue of community benefit agreements, which get developers to pay for some public good, such as infrastructure or affordable housing, in exchange for a tax incentive.

Treasurer Tishaura Jones made the concept a prominent part of her mayoral campaign, and other members of the citys progressive wing, including Green, have backed the approach. Green has sponsored a bill laying out a citywide framework for community benefit agreements, though it has languished in committee.

When a group made up of two California investors and local resident Rob Maltby approached her about the Morganford project, Green said she wouldnt support abatement without a community benefit agreement. It was something she said her constituents wanted, and many ultimately voted to support.

After months of negotiations, the developers ultimately offered to contribute $60,000 to a nonprofit organization that would promote affordable housing in the neighborhood, where property values have jumped in recent years.

While Green has touted the deal reached between the Tower Grove Neighborhood Association as a precedent for sustainable development, it drew the ire of the committee. Alderman Scott Ogilvie went so far as to call it illegal, citing state conflict of interest law that says official acts shouldnt be exchanged for money.

The Pandoras box we are opening here is that any alderman can negotiate a community benefit agreement in any way they see fit, Ogilvie said. They can require payments to friends, associates, family members, business interests.  This type of process is ripe for the exact type of abuse that residents find abhorrent.

Dave Sweeney, an attorney representing the developers, said they were only following Greens instructions. And the community benefits agreement isnt attached to the bill; its a private contract between the neighborhood and the developer.

Its not before you, Sweeney said. Were talking about it, but you guys have no control.

By the end of the meeting, though, committee chairman Joe Roddy asked the citys development office to write up language prohibiting future incentive bills from using third-party community benefit agreements without expressly including them in legislation.

What I think we need to do, until we develop a community benefit agreement policy for the whole city is preclude those going forward, he said.

Roddy admitted he has pushed for similar arrangements to fund infrastructure and other projects in his ward, often through Park Central Development, a community development corporation . He called it a valid criticism and said such agreements should be more transparent and accountable.

We need to kind of make it relatively easier on the developer, and if theres money involved, some public entity needs to be kind of the custodian of that money, he said.

A citywide policy is likely still a long way off. Reed has sponsored his own community benefit agreement bill, and it has drawn enough co-sponsors to pass. But Reed and Roddy say its mostly a placeholder for now as the policy details are worked out.

Roddy wants to gather data on metrics such as affordable housing and public school spending per student, and compare it to other cities to decide what sort of services community benefit agreements should fund. He said its not even clear the agreements are necessary, pointing to Ogilvies argument that simply minimizing property tax breaks in order to support St. Louis Public Schools might be more beneficial.

Reeds chief of staff, Tom Shepard, said the board president has been meeting with aldermen and community groups to discuss the bill and community benefit agreements. But he said action in the Board of Aldermen wouldnt happen until we feel weve talked to enough people.

A citywide process, Shepard said, is necessary so developers know coming into a deal whats going on and dont get hit with something like what happened with this.

Whether the project moves forward is unclear. Committee members indicated they may support it without the community benefit agreement and instead grant a 90 percent tax abatement instead of a full property tax break.

Green said she would take that proposal back to her neighborhood to see if they would support it.

Its clear that there are two different kinds of community benefits agreements, she said in a statement. One kind puts all the power in the aldermans hands. Thats the way it currently is done. The other is a new kind of community benefits agreement. One that can involve the community, and not just the alderman.  Thats what we tried to do in the 15th Ward, to test it out before going citywide, but the system is pushing back. Im still optimistic that any citywide CBA standard will be truly community-oriented.
PANA  In the last few days of her life, Virginia Ferguson had not spoken much. A couple of hospice volunteers walked into her room one day, and she greeted them with Good morning. Two simple words the family was happy to hear.

They would talk about being in the war, her daughter Lisa Ferguson said of the volunteers' time. And she loved playing cards.

Opening up, reliving the stories and simply having company, a kindred spirit, can help make those final days something less painful to bear, say volunteers of a program called No Veteran Will Die Alone, through which veterans visit other veterans in hospice care.

Virginia Ferguson was a Navy pharmacist technician during World War II. She went on to nursing school and was employed at the Pana Community Hospital for 35 years as registered nurse.

Hospice volunteers provided her and her family with assistance during the final stages of her life. Volunteers often help with household chores, transportation, comfort and compassion. The group of veterans visited many times during her illness simply sitting, talking and visiting before her death July 11 of congestive heart failure at the age of 94.

No Veteran Will Die Alone is a group of 13 men who spend time with veterans in hospice care with Quad County Home Health and Hospice. The volunteers serve four counties: Christian, Shelby, Fayette and Montgomery. A social worker communicates with the hospital and the families offering the special service.

Through hospice, Virginia Ferguson's family was able to receive assistance for her care, and No Veteran Left Behind provided health care items such as a wheelchair, a bed and a patient lift.

If it wasnt for the veterans, we wouldnt have been able to keep her at home, Lisa Ferguson said.

Volunteer Erich Weidemiller, vice commander of Sons of the American Legion, said the key is getting the patient to open up.

You just have to start in one place and build on that, he said. Sometimes, they feel we are the only ones they can trust.

With everyone that has served, we thought this would be good for the area, said Carol Chandler, Quad County director with Pana Community Hospital. Chandler was inspired by a similar volunteer program in Chicago two years ago.

Jack Moss, chaplain and Vietnam War Navy veteran, has volunteered for the program since it began. He said he notices veterans in hospice care understand they are speaking with someone who has had similar experiences.

Their families cant relate to them, he said.

Richard Simms, Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran describes his time with hospice veterans as exhilarating.

We are all very proud, he said. They make you excited about this.

Simms has found a a hospice patient may not talk about their time in the military until a fellow veteran is with them.

They want to talk, he said. It is something they dont normally do until we come in.

Army veteran Mickey Clemons recently visited an Air Force veteran who happened to be a motorcycle enthusiast, and the men reminisced about both.

He loved to talk about his Harley-Davidson, Clemons said. And he loved to talk about working on the aircraft.

During his visits, Clemons learned more about history, just by sitting and listening.

The stories that they tell are fascinating, he said.

Earl Baker is the commander of the Sons of the American Legion and a volunteer for No Veteran Will Die Alone. Baker's father was a World War II Navy veteran, and he said he is aware of the emotions, the need for veterans to tell their stories. He said finding the common interest between the two veterans is important, and they building a relationship through the process.

If you are going to be with these people on a weekly or biweekly basis, it can be emotional, Baker said.

A popular part of the program is the pinning ceremony. Before the visits are scheduled, Quad County volunteer coordinator Rachael Flesch-Springate contacts the family and offers the service.

Because obviously its not about us, Flesch-Springate said. Its about the veteran in hospice. During the ceremony the veteran will receive an American flag pin, a military branch pin, a blanket and pillow featuring their branch and a laminated certificate with a salute from the visiting veterans.

The volunteers march into the room for the ceremony wearing black pants and white shirts. The volunteer chaplain offers a prayer, and music is provided. Another veteran will speak during the ceremony before presenting the pins, and the event ends with refreshments.

We want it to be a celebration for them, Flesch-Springage said. But we dont stay long. We dont want to wear anybody out.

Army veteran Roger Swim often sees a difference in the patient during the ceremony.

When we go in (for the pinning ceremony), they dont know what it is about. he said. Then we do the ceremony, and they just come alive.

The volunteers understand their visits are important, especially toward the end of a person's life. One or two volunteers will periodically visit the veteran, staying 20 to 30 minutes.

Sometimes, they dont want you to leave, Moss said.

If the veteran was in a war, they may have had to protect themselves by any means in a life-or-death situation, continuing to bear those emotional and physical scars.

Another vet is not going to judge that, Flesch-Springate said. They are going to relate to it.

The help offered by the veterans often goes beyond the patient. The caregivers and families find relief as well. Because of the contacts and relationships the volunteers have forged, they often continue helping the family after the veteran has passed away.

The volunteers say it as an honor to help those who served before them.

Maybe someone will be there for me, Army veteran Joseph Marley said.
Media executives dreaming of megamergers got a wake-up call this week: President Donald Trump's administration isn't the rubber stamp they'd once thought it would be.

In media circles, the Trump presidency was seen as ushering in a new era of consolidation, largely because Republican administrations are thought to be more business-friendly.

Now, Washington is no longer considered a sure thing. In the first major test of its approach to merger reviews in the Trump era, the Justice Department has pushed back against AT&T Inc.'s $85.4 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc., throwing the deal into jeopardy.

AT&T had expected the deal would be done by now.

"I thought that was a lay-up," AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said Thursday at a New York Times conference. He's been seeking the deal to deliver programming from Time Warner, the home of HBO and the Warner Bros. studio, to AT&T's pay-TV users and wireless subscribers, with advertising tailored to their tastes.

The sudden resistance from regulators isn't just a potential setback for the telecom giant. It's a warning shot to other media companies contemplating their own tie-ups.

"The narrative that Democrats will reject anything and Republicans will approve anything can be thrown out the window," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson. "It's a reminder that just because Republicans are in charge doesn't mean anything goes at DOJ."

AT&T's battle with antitrust officials escalated this week as the two sides sparred over whether the company should sell assets to get the deal approved. Forcing AT&T to sell off the Time Warner division that includes CNN has come up in talks between the companies and Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The focus on asset sales is a surprise since the Justice Department was said to be discussing conditions to ensure a level playing field for rivals. That was before the new chief of the antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, was confirmed by the Senate and joined the review of the deal. He has said he isn't a fan of conditions that force the Justice Department into ongoing monitoring of companies' behavior.

AT&T's Stephenson said this week he won't sell CNN, and is girding for a potential court battle in case the government sues to block the deal.

"If the companies choose to litigate, they have a good chance of winning the battle," said Jennifer Rie, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. "While the DOJ has been successful in recent M&A court challenges, they have all been mergers of competitors, rather than vertical, like this one."

If the transaction falls apart, other bidders could emerge for Time Warner. Apple, for instance, reportedly approached Time Warner about a possible deal before AT&T agreed to buy it. And 21st Century Fox Inc. made an offer for Time Warner years ago.

"But we think new bidders could be wary," said Doug Creutz, a media analyst at Cowen & Co. "If the DOJ objects to an AT&T buy, they might equally object to other prospective buyers of significant scale."

Even if AT&T prevails in court, the government's tough stance could have a chilling effect on other deals that would need its approval. Walt Disney, for instance, recently held talks to buy 21st Century Fox Inc.'s movie studio and other assets. Sprint Corp. and Altice, the cable company, have both considered bids for the cable giant Charter Communications Inc.

Meanwhile, Discovery Communications is awaiting government approval to buy Scripps Networks Interactive, and Sinclair Broadcast Group is seeking clearance to purchase Tribune Media Co.

Trump warned during the campaign that his administration would fight AT&T's tie-up with Time Warner, arguing it would concentrate too much power in one company. His hostile views toward CNN have fueled speculation that he ordered the Justice Department to force the sale of the cable news network as revenge for what he calls its "fake news" reporting. Democrats including Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota and Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii have said the Justice Department must demonstrate that it's not acting against the merger for political reasons.

The Justice Department said this week it's reviewing the deal on its merits.

As recently as Oct. 5, Time Warner was trading as high as $103.64, close to AT&T's offer price of $107.50  a sign that investors were more confident the deal would get approved. The shares closed at $87.05 on Thursday, illustrating fresh doubts about the transaction.

Until recently, AT&T's acquisition seemed assured because there was precedent: In 2011, regulators signed off on similar deal between Comcast and NBCUniversal, combining a large distributor of pay television with a creator of television programming. The companies agreed not to interfere with internet subscribers' web traffic and to share NBC programming with online rivals, among other conditions. AT&T had said it was open to similar arrangements.

Deals between TV distributors and programmers, known as vertical mergers, are considered easier to get cleared in Washington because they don't involve one rival taking out another to reduce competition  a horizontal merger. Last year, before he was nominated by Trump to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division, Delrahim said AT&T's deal "would have an easier route toward approval than a merger of two competitors."

The Justice Department has said Delrahim was speaking before he'd been privy to all the information about the merger. But his comments may also give pause to media companies who look at buying rivals, as Disney sought to do in its discussions with Fox.

"It's not crazy to read into this that if you can't sell a vertical deal to DOJ then a horizontal merger would be a heavy lift," Moffett said.

The AT&T-Time Warner deal marks Delrahim's first major deal review since he took over the antitrust division in September. He's wasted no time sending a message.

"Before this people were saying anything could go through because Trump would be a rubber stamp," said Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at New Street Research. "By taking a tough stance on this deal, Delrahim has changed the narrative. He's put the whole world on notice. The message is: 'These guys are taking a hard look at everything.'"
There was a surge in sign-ups for health insurance coverage during the first week of open enrollment this year, despite attempts to unravel the Affordable Care Act.

The demand for individual health insurance plans comes during the same year in which Republicans have launched repeated attempts to roll back the Affordable Care Act, which has increased access to coverage for millions of Americans.

The surge in enrollment is more evidence that people value health insurance, said Sidney Watson, an expert in health law at St. Louis University. I think the political debate has frightened people that they were going to lose resources like health insurance.

This open enrollment period comes after the administration of President Donald Trump shortened open enrollment, and cut funding for advertisements and enrollment aid.

For those who receive financial aid, shopping for coverage this year has been a pleasant experience, but shoppers who dont receive aid are seeing significant increases.

Most Missourians shopping for coverage on HealthCare.gov will be immune to the steep price increases experienced by those who are ineligible for financial help. But at least one family facing significant increases for 2018 coverage says theyre considering becoming uninsured.

This year its just nuts, Matt Ghio, 48, a self-employed St. Louis attorney, told the Post-Dispatch.

Ghio, who has bought marketplace plans in the past, said his health insurance premium this year for a similar Cigna plan will be around $2,300 a month, compared with about $1,300 last year. The plan covers Ghio, his wife and two children.

The $14,000 deductible is a pain point, as well, he said.

Hes consulting with his insurance broker to see if he should switch to a bronze plan that has a less expensive premium but still has a high deductible. The caveat is bronze plans have less expensive monthly premiums but costs are higher when a patient needs care.

Ghio said hes seriously considering becoming uninsured and trying to work out a monthly payment plan with his two daughters pediatricians. Hes also considering a health care sharing ministry, an alternative option to comprehensive coverage that comes with its own risks.

Im 95 percent sure that Im not paying $2,300 to Cigna, Ghio said.

But Trish Curran, 40, breezed through open enrollment this year.

I had an easy experience. I did it on my phone over lunch, she said.

Last year, she was enrolled in an Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. Anthem is no longer an option this year after the carrier decided it would no longer sell plans to individuals in Missouri and numerous other states.

Curran was left to choose between Cigna, which primarily contracts with BJC HealthCare, or Centenes Ambetter product which contracts with SSM and Mercy but not BJC.

She went with Cigna and will pay about $200 in monthly premiums. She qualifies for financial help because of her income, and her plan is actually less expensive this year, she said.

Thanks to HealthCare.gov, she said shes able to work part time so she can take care of her ailing parents. Her father has dementia and her mother is dependent on oxygen due to congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Without the Affordable Care Act, she would have had to remain employed full time so she could qualify for an employer-based plan, she said.

Phillip Hauser, 60, is taking his time before enrolling this year.

He wants to understand what his obligations will be for out-of-pocket expenses given the medications he takes.

However, there are some bronze plans that would require no monthly premium, if his annual income does not exceed $47,000, according to the options on HealthCare.com.

That is a possibility, he said, since he lives off his retirement savings.

But while the bronze plans are the less expensive option this year, hes worried hell be too exposed to out-of-pocket expenses since bronze plans typically cover only 60 percent of medical costs.

This year he met his out-of-pocket maximum, he said, due to numerous health issues.

Hes still studying his options, he said.

It took me a while to sign up last year, too, he said.

Enrollment ends Dec. 15.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Updated at 9 p.m. with comment from a defense attorney.

ST. LOUIS  A federal jury here on Thursday found a Cape Girardeau neurosurgeon, his fiancee, and their companies submitted false medical claims to Medicare and Medicaid, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

The U.S. Attorney's office claimed in a civil whistleblower suit originally filed by Cape Girardeau doctors and health care providers that Dr. Sonjay Fonn performed spinal fusion operations using spinal implants distributed by a company owned by his fiancee, Deborah Seeger.

Seeger's company, DS Medical, received inflated commissions when Fonn used certain implants, and in exchange Fonn benefited from a yacht, home improvements and other purchases, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Jurors found that Medicare and Medicaid should be repaid $1.6 million and that the defendants conspired to submit 228 false claims, the U.S. Attorney's office said. The final damage award will be determined later.

Defense lawyers argued in pretrial filings that there was no evidence to support prosecutors' claims. The commissions were not inflated and Fonn did not provide any conditions on the use of any particular implants.

Jim Martin, one of the defense lawyers, said Thursday that the jury rejected the vast majority of the government's claims.

He added that the government "failed to produce any evidence that Dr. Fonn did anything that was not in the best interest of his patients."
Tony Messenger Tony Messenger is the metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Tony Messenger 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

SIKESTON, Mo.  She was 11 when Papa crawled into her bed.

He had picked her up in New Madrid after a long bus trip. The day began with so much promise. Holly Rehder, the daughter of a single mother living in poverty, had been chosen out of a program for at-risk children to spend a day at Six Flags amusement park in Eureka. It was just the coolest day, she remembers.

The bus got in late and they stayed at Papas house. She slept in her grandmothers old room, as she had many times before.

It was my safe space, she says.

Rehder, now a 48-year-old Republican state representative from Sikeston, Mo., doesnt remember how long she was asleep.

I woke up to him touching me, she says.

Papa was her grandfather.

She squirmed. She kicked. She cried all night.

Everything she thought she knew about the world was shattered, the fragments of her broken life strewn across the floor of a bedroom that was no longer secure.

He was the man in my life, Rehder says. I loved him so much. It was like losing my security blanket, and realizing that there was no place in the world where I was safe.

The next morning, Papa drove her in silence to her great-aunts house, where she was staying. Her mom had recently packed up Holly and her two sisters and moved from their trailer in Morehouse, Mo. It was the story of her life.

When things werent going well, wed pick up and get on a Greyhound bus and go wherever Mom was taking us next, she says.

At her great aunts house, she made a decision that would end up shaping the life of one of Missouris rising political stars.

She told.

She told her great-aunt. Turns out she had been sexually assaulted by Papa also. She told her mom. She told her neighbors. She told, because even at 11 years old, she knew that was the only way to stop him.

I told everybody, Rehder says. I wasnt going to let him do it again. If somebody would have stopped him before, it wouldnt have happened to me.

Now a public figure, Rehder is sharing her story  her #MeToo story  because she is caught up in the national movement of women suddenly finding the strength to out their abusers and turn the tide in a country that for too long treated sexual abuse like a shameful secret tucked away in the closet.

God didnt give me a microphone to keep my mouth shut, she says.

It started with Harvey Weinstein. Rehder happened to have some free time that early October week and she read all the stories of women accusing the Hollywood mogul of assault, harassment and rape. She read everything she could get her hands on. She stayed up at night, unable to sleep, taken back to her own experiences. It wasnt just Papa. She remembers being silent when her mom and her sister were both assaulted by her mothers boyfriends. As an adult, she hadnt shared her stories, short of a brief mention on the House floor in a debate three years ago when she discussed sexual assault.

I had a pit in my stomach, Rehder says, as she read about woman after woman coming forward, against Weinstein and other Hollywood stars, against business and media leaders, and in state legislatures. I couldnt get (the stories) off my mind. I had not thought about these things in so many years.

So she wrote, a little bit each night, until she had an essay she wanted to share with the world. She showed it to her husband, Ray, and her grown children, and her sisters. Mom died years ago. So did Papa. The writing was cleansing to her, she says. That, too, is her message to other women who have been assaulted, whether by a family member or the Harvey Weinsteins among us.

I want others to know that what somebody else does or says does not define us, Rehder says. She shared her story with me at her home overlooking the Mississippi River, two days before the Washington Post published a blockbuster account of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore being accused of sexual assault of a minor when he was a young attorney.

There is a cleansing to talking about this and getting it out, she says. There is a strength and power in stopping your perpetrator, whoever he is.

Rehder stopped her Papa. Eventually, after she told relatives, and refused to talk to him, he sought treatment. But like in the other cases of sexual assault she knew about as a child, there were no charges. No trials. No convictions. It was a different time.

Earlier this year, Rehder was a candidate for speaker of the Missouri House. She has passed major legislation and is one of the states leading advocates for combating opioid abuse. The strength she learned as an 11-year-old translated to her personal and professional life.

She tells her #MeToo story for the next generation.

I think about that little girl who is 10, who is going to be abused when she gets home from school today, Rehder says. If she knew she could tell, if somebody in her life was telling their story, and she knew that it was OK to tell  how her tomorrow could be different.
DECATUR  Dozens of local military veterans, whose collective service spans from World War II to the 2010s, were honored by the Metropolitan Decatur Rotary Club on Friday in anticipation of Veteran's Day.

The luncheon at the Decatur Club has become an annual tradition, according to organizers.

Tony Brewster, a veteran who served in the Marines during the 1990s, gave the keynote speech. Part of his message encouraged people in communities everywhere to reach out to a veteran this weekend.

"Sit down, get to know them. Tell them 'Thank you,' and take the time to hear their story," Brewster said.

What has become a ritual for the Rotary Club on Veteran's Day and Memorial Day comes from Dick Cain, an army veteran and longtime Decatur resident.

Cain, who says he can recite poetry for the duration of a drive from Decatur to St. Louis, performed "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian Lt. Col. John McCrae.

The poem from 1915 describes a moment in the author's experience in Belgium during World War I, when he visited the grave of his fallen friend.

"I always wondered (after) my uncle came home in a flag-draped casket, what it would've been like had he lived with (a) wife and children that he never had the opportunity to have. This poem pretty well says that," Cain said.

Irwin Soliday said he was probably the oldest person at the lunch Friday, and in approaching his 100th birthday in February, he's probably right.

Soliday said he's still a member of the veteran's association of the army division he served with in the South Pacific during World War II.

"There's few of us living now," Soliday said. "We had a unit of about 16,000 after the war that formed the association. Today, it's under 100. But I still belong to it."

"I see these other veterans now, they come in wars after me. There was one other World War II veteran I think I saw here," Soliday said. "We're getting pretty scarce."
JEFFERSON CITY  After sputtering earlier, Gov. Eric Greitens bid to replace Missouri's top school official appears to be gaining steam.

The Post-Dispatch has learned that three of the Republican governor's appointees to the state Board of Education have requested a special meeting of the board to discuss the hiring and firing of agency personnel.

The maneuver came just a day after Greitens named a fifth member to the eight person board, giving him enough votes to oust school Commissioner Margie Vandeven.

The three members who asked for the meeting are Eddy Justice, Doug Russell and Claudia Onate Greim.

Justice, an insurance agent from Poplar Bluff, told the Post-Dispatch he expects board President Charlie Shields to schedule the meeting for Nov. 21.

Shields could not immediately be reached for comment Friday and Vandeven declined to comment.

Justice would not confirm the purpose of the meeting, saying the board will be meeting behind closed doors to discuss the hiring and firing of Department of Elementary and Secondary Education personnel.

I dont think there will be any surprises, but I cannot legally discuss personnel issues, said Justice, who also is active in Republican Party politics.

Board members Victor Lenz and Mike Jones, who represent the St. Louis area and sat on the board before Greitens took power, said they would refuse to vote to fire Vandeven.

"I'm going to object, needless to say," Lenz said. "Margie has done a wonderful job from everything that I've seen. I don't see any reason for this kind of action."

"It's pretty obvious that this has been planned and they know what they're doing. I just wonder how much planning has gone in ahead of time," he said of the three members who requested the meeting.

Greitens, a Republican, appointed lumber company owner Marvin Jungmeyer of Russellville on Thursday to the state board. Jungmeyer replaces Joe Driskill, a former Gov. Jay Nixon appointee who resigned from the board effective this week citing work obligations.

The governors move to stack the board with his appointees has been met with controversy. Shields earlier said the board is designed by the state constitution to be independent and non-political.

One of Greitens earlier attempts to replace members of the board floundered when Melissa Gelner of Springfield was appointed and then removed after she complained she was being improperly pressured to dump Vandeven.

Jones earlier called the first-year governors behavior incompetent.

But, with the addition of Jungmeyer, Greitens now has enough votes on the board to move forward.

Its not clear whom Greitens wants in the top job, but in August he paid $1,596 out of his campaign fund to fly Atlanta charter school expert Kenneth Zeff to mid-Missouri as a possible replacement.

Greitens has said expanding charter schools in Missouri is a priority, but the State Board has no power to expand them. Only the legislature can do that.

Vandeven, who earns $191,544 annually, took the helm as commissioner in January 2015, replacing Chris Nicastro. Her goals then included expanding access to early childhood education, improving teacher quality and increasing accountability for teaching colleges.

In recent months, Vandeven, the state education department and state board have also taken a hard hand in demanding charter school quality by heightening pressure on charter school sponsors.

While the state board virtually has little power to close a charter school  unless the board itself is the sponsor of the school  the board approves new charter school applications.

Kristen Taketa of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct that the meeting is scheduled for Nov. 21.
Ashley Jost Ashley Jost is the higher education reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow Ashley Jost 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

In a special session of the University of Missouri System's governing board Friday, the curators discussed a new way to prioritize building projects.

Campuses previously pushed capital projects out on an annual basis that they hoped the Legislature might fund.

But an almost complete turnover of the board of curators is leading to new approaches on a series of issues, including an expectation that this particular annual process develops into a more strategic, five-year plan.

Those plans for each of the four University of Missouri campuses  and MU Health Care in Columbia  are what the board heard Friday.

The curators specifically heard about five priorities from each campus  all preliminary. Campus leaders will come back to the curators in the spring prepared for the board to approve the priorities they want to send to the Legislature for potential funding in the 2019 session.

Friday was more about ironing out the process, which curator David Steelman said needs to become a board-driven effort. It's a recent example of how hands-on the new board is trending.

At a board meeting this summer, Steelman said the curators had "abdicated" their role by not being more involved in this process in the past.

Board members and other administrators admit that in the era of declining state funds for higher education, the odds that the Legislature will fund any of the asks is low. Still, every state school submits one project annually.

As a four-campus system, the University of Missouri can submit four projects. Here are some of the proposals the board discussed:

Mizzou: A $150 million Translational Precision Medicine Complex that would be an interdisciplinary building under the medical school. Translational medicine is an interdisciplinary effort to find new ways to diagnose and treat health issues.

A $150 million Translational Precision Medicine Complex that would be an interdisciplinary building under the medical school. Translational medicine is an interdisciplinary effort to find new ways to diagnose and treat health issues. UMSL: A $16 million plan to consolidate space on campus, eliminating outstanding maintenance costs and allowing the campus to tear down a few outdated buildings, including Bellerive Hall.

A $16 million plan to consolidate space on campus, eliminating outstanding maintenance costs and allowing the campus to tear down a few outdated buildings, including Bellerive Hall. UMKC: A $32 million research center for the School of Computing and Engineering, which eliminates maintenance costs and allows the school to grow the number of students enrolled.

A $32 million research center for the School of Computing and Engineering, which eliminates maintenance costs and allows the school to grow the number of students enrolled. Missouri S&T: The third phase of the renovation of Schrenk Hall is slated to cost $54 million.

The board also approved a contract extension for Chris Maples, the interim chancellor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.

Maples was hired earlier this year when former Chancellor Cheryl Schrader accepted a new job leading Wright State University. As an interim leader, Maples was brought in on a one-year contract. Six months in, the board extended that contract by another year.

Multiple sources have said that Maples is not currently interested in the permanent chancellor job. He came to the Rolla campus as the former president of the Oregon Institute of Technology.

This story has been updated to swap out the example project used for Missouri S&T.
MOWEAQUA  More than two weeks after the resignation of Moweaqua's police chief and its only full-time officer, village leaders have not said publicly how, or if, they plan to fill the positions or made any comment on reasons for the departures.

Former Chief Rob Maynard resigned Oct. 30, a day before he was to return from a one-week suspension, and officer Chad Lamb resigned earlier in October. Dozens of residents questioned the reasons for Maynard's suspension at a village meeting Oct. 24. Mayor Boomer Neece and board members said they could not comment on the disciplinary actions that preceded the two resignations but would be able to if Maynard signed a waiver allowing it.

Since then, Maynard, a 15-year veteran of the department, has signed over a copy of his personnel file to the Herald & Review. Still, Neece has not returned five calls to the mayor's office in the past week, and multiple email messages sent to him and village's six trustees have gone unanswered.

In October, three board members responded to messages, saying they could not comment. "If the chief were to sign the release I would be more that happy to speak to you," Trustee Shawn Conlin wrote in an email.

After Maynard signed over his personnel file last week, it was handed directly from the village clerk to a reporter from the Herald & Review. Still, officials either declined to comment or did not return messages.

Documents in Maynard's personnel file appear to confirm his claim that he never received formal complaints in his career at the Moweaqua Police Department until last summer. Maynard alleged last week that he was a target of "discrimination" by a newly elected Moweaqua government that came on board in May.

The recent chain of actions from village officials starts with a legal memo from village attorney Ed Flynn dated June 19. It asks Maynard to formally confirm he received a number of issues related to his performance: "Control and/or manage the only employee that reports to you; be engaged in public events; mix up the hours of employment."

A month later, the village board said in a written reprimand that Maynard had not improved in the concerned areas, citing a failure of Maynard to communicate with Lamb over a police call at Casey's General Store. The same memo also stated Maynard did not provide officials with a statistics report of police activity.

Maynard defended his actions in an interview last week after the Herald & Review obtained the disciplinary form for his one-week suspension. When asked Wednesday about other allegations in his personnel file, the former police chief said he had signed a nondisclosure agreement with a new employer and could no longer talk to the news media. He would not say what his new job is.

His latest performance evaluations as police chief cover his first three years, which show adequate marks and no complaints. Later years were not included in his file.

Shelby County Sheriff Don Koonce said Oct. 31 that Moweaqua's law enforcement needs will be covered fully by his department. Asked how his office would provide the help, whether through extra shifts or deputies, the sheriff said his deputies would be serving the taxpayers of Moweaqua with law enforcement, that is what we will be doing.

The sheriff's office did not respond to two requests for comment for this story.

The village board's next meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, at the village hall, 122 N. Main St.
As we have since July 2006, each Friday well post our sampling of cigar news and other items of interest from the week. Below is our latest, which is the 555th in the series.

1) Debonaire Cigars and Drew Estate have teamed up to launch Debonaire Daybreak, which is shipping this week and expected to hit retailers this month. It is the first Ecuadorian Connecticut Shade-wrapped cigar exclusively sold through Drew Diplomat Retailers as part of the Drew Estate portfolio, according to a press release. Daybreak offers the ultra-premium quality expected of the Debonaire product line with crisp notes of spice and earthiness from the Central American fillers, [and] a nutty and sweet richness from the Dominican tobacco in the binder and filler with a smooth finish. Six sizes will be available in the $8.74 to $13.25 price range: Corona (6 x 46), Belicoso (6 x 54), First Degree (4 x 44), Robusto (5 x 50), Sagita-Petite Lancero (5.5 x 38), and Toro (6 x 50). Daybreak has given me a unique and nostalgic feeling of excitement in releasing another quality product into the industry Ive been blessed to enjoy now for over 25 years, said Phillip S. Zanghi III of Debonaire. I cannot begin to express the excitement of the Debonaire lines growth, as well as the thanks and gratitude for those who enjoy my product and are willing to work with me.

2) In an interim report this week, tobacco giant Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) announced plans to spend up to $7 million to open two new retail cigar shops in Texas. STG owns General Cigar and operates a number of retail outlets internationally, as well as catalog and online operations. In the U.S., STG has three Cigars International shops in Pennsylvania and Manhattans tony Club Macanudo. STG did not specify locations or names for the new Texas shops and did not reply to an email seeking further details. The opening for the first new store is planned for the middle of next year. (UPDATE  10:20 AM ET: STG has confirmed both locations will be Cigars International stores, with one in Forth Worth and the other in the Dallas suburb of The Colony.)

3) Pennsylvania-based retailer Famous Smoke Shop has announced two new exclusive cigar lines, both made at Nestor Plasencias Nicaraguan factory and blended by Famous employees. Jim Charnley, director of purchasing and merchandising, created Huntsman Cigars, which is inspired by his Scottish heritage. His recipe includes a Nicaraguan Habano wrapper, a Mexican binder, and Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Brazilian filler tobaccos. Michael Klingerman, Famous buyer of exclusives, created Truce Connecticut Reserve to symbolize the middle ground we turn toward in times of turmoil. His blend includes a Honduran Connecticut wrapper, a Nicaraguan Habano binder, and filler tobaccos from Honduras and Brazil. Both new lines are offered in three sizesChurchill, Toro, and Robustoand retail in the affordable $5.25 to $5.75 range.

4) Apple has removed multiple apps from its app store because of their cigar-related content. Cigar Aficionado announced this week that its Where to Smoke app, which provides cigar smokers with listings of smoking-friendly venues, was removed after Apple cited the app as violating its prohibition on promoting tobacco use.

5) Inside the Industry: Gurkha is offering three distinct Super Luxury Packages that include first-class accommodations from anywhere in the world to Miami for a three-night stay to blend your own cigars at Gurkhas headquarters. Depending on your package of choice, you will receive anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 cigars. Prices range from $100,000 to $1,000,000.

6) From the Archives: Cook a steak up right, with the our guide to the perfect steak.

7) Deal of the Week: StogieGuys.com recommends Bespoke Post, a monthly collection of awesome items (think fine bar accessories, hot sauce kits, shaving accessories, wine, workout gear, exclusive cigars, and more) delivered for just $45. Once you are signed up there is no obligation; you can skip or purchase every month. Sign up here to be eligible for the December box.

The Stogie Guys

photo credit: Drew Estate
South Shores School fifth-graders have adopted the Decatur Police Department this school year and kicked off the class project with a visit from police in September.

As part of their developing relationship, the fifth-graders on Wednesday hosted 'Pop with a Cop.' It was a fun, informal event in the classroom that let the students ask questions and officers share their stories.

This event was one in a series the school will host with police throughout the year. "Our kids here are inner-city kids, and I think we're trying to make a positive experience with the police department and try to help these kids," teacher Greg Smith said during officers' first visit in September.
Farmers, who are trying to make a buck to feed their family, are finding it hard to do for a variety of reasons.

One of the latest issues, which hasn't had time to garner much attention is the problem with 2017 soybeans, which are just not up to snuff.

It wasn't the fault of any farmer, not his seed, nor his production practices. Instead, Mother Nature provided weather that caused soybeans to fall short on their protein content.

Instead of averaging 35 percent protein, Iowa State University grain quality specialist Charlie Hurburgh says they are averaging 34 percent to 34.5 percent.

No, farmers will not be docked a few cents at the elevator for each bushel delivered for sale. It is much bigger than that. While a half percent shortfall in protein content in a miniscule soybean seems insignificant, believe me, it is a big deal.

When soybeans are crushed to separate the oil, the meal and the fiber to go their different directions, processors such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. or Bunge sell meal that is 48 percent protein. That is the global standard which allows livestock feeders to know how to build feed rations.

Bunge said last week that it and most other soybean processors have shifted to 47 percent protein coming from mills in the eastern Corn Belt and 46.5 percent protein produced by soybean crushing plants in the western Corn Belt. Some independent brokers were even questioning if those levels could be achieved, given the shortfall of protein in raw soybeans.

When the soybean is starting out on the short end of protein, the end user has to feed more soybean meal to achieve the required protein content in the livestock ration. For a nation, such as China, which will purchase upwards of 3.5 billion bushels of soybeans to feed a massive pork and poultry industry, a soybean which is a half percent short of protein is enough to cause its buyers to shift their business elsewhere. That is exactly what has happened.

With U.S. and Brazilian soybeans being offered at a price that would allow cost, insurance and freight to deliver beans for $11.60 per bushel to Shanghai, China has made the switch to South America because of the lower protein content in U.S. beans. China has told suppliers to make about 200 million bushels of soybeans available from South American sources in November, instead of splitting the order with U.S. soybean exporters.

When your biggest and best customer, who has indicated it wants the equivalent of all U.S. soybeans in five more years, makes such a change, it ricochets throughout the market. Basically, it is a loss of a substantial amount of business, and that means more soybeans left over at the end of the marketing year next August. More carryout means a lower price to soybean growers.

But just for the sake of argument, lets imagine U.S. soybeans were a predictable high quality and desirable to finicky global bean buyers, such as those in China. And China has ordered 95 million metric tonnes of soybeans for delivery from the Gulf ports at New Orleans. Oh, and by the way, shipment has been ordered on the new larger Panamax freighters handled only by the new Panama Canal. That is 1,666 shipments to be exact, since they carry just over 2 million bushels each.

Farmers familiar with the Gulf grain terminals near New Orleans will probably utter an expletive. The U.S. will be losing that business as well, since the larger Panamax vessels have a loaded draft too deep for the channel at New Orleans. And they are too deep in the water to embark for the open Gulf water and the Panama Canal.

The Army Corps of Engineers can certainly deepen the channel to the required 50 feet, but that is going to take lengthy study, and new calculation of the cost-benefit ratio.

In the meantime those Panamax vessels will haul 3.5 billion bushels of soybeans out of South American ports to Shanghai and the U.S. farmer will suffer again, through no fault of his own. More carryout. A lower soybean price.

And people frequently wonder why farmers are complainers.
CHICAGO  An appeals court has ruled in a civil case brought by a "GoTopless Day" activist that a Chicago ordinance barring women from baring their chests in public doesn't violate her constitutional rights.

The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reports a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower-court ruling 2 to 1.

Sonoko Tagami sued after police ticketed her for violating the ordinance during a 2014 nationwide protest of such bans. She said Chicago's ban violated her free-speech rights.

Writing the majority opinion posted Wednesday, Judge Diane Sykes said Tagami's need to explain she was protesting demonstrated her nudity didn't communicate a message. She added the city's interests in "protecting traditional moral norms" were self-evident.

Dissenting Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner disagreed, saying Tagami's message was clear.
SPRINGFIELD  Gov. Bruce Rauner downplayed on Thursday the beating he took in the fall legislative session as evidence of an "ongoing and difficult" struggle for a better state.

With less than a year before he stands for re-election, lawmakers finished work Thursday after overturning more than a dozen gubernatorial vetoes, including requiring students to continue learning cursive handwriting.

The first-term Republican dismissed the notion that GOP lawmakers are abandoning him.

"The battle to get a better future for the people of Illinois is going to be ongoing and difficult," Rauner told reporters after a deployment ceremony for six Illinois National Guard members headed for Afghanistan.

"This is about what's best for the people of Illinois: Protecting our taxpayers, reducing our tax burden, growing more jobs, making our economy competitive. I vetoed some bills that were harmful to the people."

He claimed a key victory in his three-year-old agenda when the House failed to override his veto of a measure barring local governments from establishing "right-to-work" zones immune from labor-union influence.

And on Friday, the Senate failed to overturn him on a bill that would prohibit employers from asking an applicant's salary history, a practice advocates say hurts women who are traditionally underpaid.

But Rauner didn't fare as well when no one in the House and just three senators stood with him on separate override votes on an issue that became a political spat with Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza. It requires state agencies to report on the bills they've incurred monthly instead of once annually. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Rauner called it a "make-work" waste of money to generate instantaneously obsolete reports because of the speed with which government financing changes.

Mendoza also began using $6 billion in borrowed money Wednesday to pay down a mass of overdue bills wrought by a two-year budget stalemate. The first payment dropped the debt by $3.5 billion, to $13.2 billion.

But documents prepared to secure the loan showed that $2.8 billion in Rauner administration spending last year had not been authorized by the Legislature. She said Wednesday that the just-approved "debt-transparency act" would have helped taxpayers see the overspending sooner.

"Comptroller Mendoza criticizing an unbalanced budget that the Democrats passed and that she has worked on is like a bank robber calling the police and saying, 'We've got a problem,'" Rauner said. "This is a broken system."

Among other overturned vetoes, children in Illinois who start their school careers at keyboards will be required to learn cursive writing.

The Senate voted 42-12 Wednesday to override Rauner's veto of legislation that students learn cursive writing despite far less long-hand writing these days.

Advocates say printing is not efficient and sloppy and writing will never go out of style. They say lacking an understanding of cursive writing will hinder the ability to read historical documents or family histories.

Critics complained school teachers have too many requirements from the state.
We had junior child-pigs charging fences, squealing, rolling and leaping at buckets, as two pet pigs escaping on a food-finding mission. The students loved the role playing, but were also interested in a how a book was created from first draft to publication, says Jennifer.

The children were fascinated that the stories were true and based on real events.

They loved The Day Dad Blew Up The Cowshed, said Jennifer. They couldnt believe it was a true story.

Co-authored with Jennifers sister-illustrator, Margery Fern, the series is based on their childhood adventures growing up in 1960s and 70s on their family dairy farm. Their four titles: The Day Dad Blew Up The Cowshed, The New Old Truck and The Eel Hunt and A Very Greedy Tale have all won first place awards in the United States-based Purple Dragonfly Book Awards for excellence in childrens literature.

I hope budding writers will be encouraged to write about their own stories, says Jennifer. Country-themed books are gaining more recognition, which is great. They are part of our heritage as New Zealanders.

Jennifers stories are educational as well as entertaining. A Very Greedy Tale features pigs, electric fences and the kiwi inventors who pioneered them.

The Eel Hunt takes todays children eeling at night with torches and home made spears. The Old Truck follows the passage of the old truck being abandoned in a farm shed to its new life as a restored example of vintage machinery.

The Day Dad Blew Up the Cowshed harks back to the dairy shed revolution and the introduction of rotary milking.

Feedback from teachers indicates that some children are inspired to be authors and write about their own experiences.
Britain's Minister for the Armed Forces, Mark Lancaster, began a two-day familiarisation visit to Gibraltar on Wednesday, which included meetings with chief minister Fabian Picardo, deputy governor Nick Pyle and services personnel stationed on the Rock.

The purpose of his visit was to discuss matters relating to Brexit and the role of the UK military in Gibraltar.
The authorities are calling for calm and insisting there is no danger to the public after a tragic incident on Wednesday evening in which a woman died and a man was seriously injured.

The police were called to the scene at a flat in Apricot Court, in Sir William Jackson Grove, around 6.30pm and discovered two people suffering from serious stab wounds.

One was a 32-year-old woman, whose name has been released as Carolina Elisabeth Lishman, and the other was a man who is thought to be in his forties, whose identity has not been revealed.

Both were taken to St Bernard's Hospital, but Ms Lishman died from her wounds. The man is still in a critical condition in hospital.

Following the incident, the Royal Gibraltar Police turned to social media to update the public and reassure them that there is no danger, posting on Twitter:

The Royal Gibraltar Police has issued a press release regarding the incident at Gib V this evening to the media. We urge the public to take their information from them. We ask the public to refrain from speculation and be mindful of the family.

Chief minister Fabian Picardo also used social media to spread the message that there is no reason for alarm:

At this tragic time, please carefully note the @RGPolice statement below & follow that advice. I urge all to think first of the deceased & the family. The harrowing circumstances of this matter are not for social media speculation, explained the chief minister.

Anybody who thinks they may have any information which might help the police with their investigation, no matter how unimportant it may seem, is asked to contact the RGP. The telephone number to ring is (00350) 20072500.
Industry results and forecasts released this week have confirmed that the southern Spanish region of Andalucia is still one of Europe's top tourist destinations.

The British are Andalucia's best customers and the World Travel Market (WTM), held this week in the ExCel centre, was the ideal time and place for the tourism authorities to announce more good news for the sector.

The president of Andalucia, Susana Diaz, in London to open the region's stand at the ExCel centre, revealed the industry's predicted results for 2017, the best tourism figures in the history of the region. By the end of 2017, 29.4 million visitors will have travelled to Andalucia and among them they will have spent 52 million nights in hotel accommodation.

Andalucia has always been a favourite holiday destination for the British, who show no signs of changing their preferences.

In fact the region's Tourism minister, Francisco Javier Fernandez, said at the WTM that British visitor figures are expected to be up six per cent next year.

We expect good results because Andalucia is showing its strength, quality and diversity, said Diaz. This is essential if we are to continue to improve thanks to new market niches.

One of the main objectives for the region in the coming year is to attract British tourists with greater spending power, said the president, something being achieved by offering more quality high-end facilities and services.

British tourists are not just good news for Andalucia in terms of visitor numbers, which grew 16% last year. Diaz pointed out on Monday that the British take longer holidays in southern Spain than most, an average of ten days; they spend more - up to 71 euros a day, five more than the average; and they value their holiday experience more highly than other visitors, according to surveys.

This tourist satisfaction translates into loyalty. While a large proportion of British visitors have been to the south of Spain more than once, the regional tourism authority still believes there is room to strengthen this loyalty even further.

Over the three days at the travel trade fair this week, more than 12,000 tourism professionals visited the Andalusian section, with over 3,000 meetings taking place.

Meanwhile in the Costa del Sol's own section of the World Travel Market, the mayors and tourism officials of all the most important tourist resorts could be found all making optimistic noises about the latest growth figures for the market.

The president of the provincial government, Elias Bendodo, however brought a note of caution to the general triumphant tone. There are indications, he said, that we are approaching a change in cycle and priority has to be given to tourist loyalty.

By the end of 2017, three million British passengers will have arrived at Malaga airport, he said.

What's more we have passed the one million guest milestone in Costa del Sol hotels and apartments, up 2.8% on last year, said Bendodo, warning of the danger of not making the mistake of believing we are the best and that our success will last forever.

Competition warning

Tuesday's business at the WTM included meetings with ABTA, the Association of British Travel Agents.

The ABTA representatives confirmed their confidence in the Costa del Sol as a safe and favourite destination for British tourists, but said that traditional Mediterranean competition was making a recovery.

Due to instability in recent years, countries such as Egypt, Tunisia or Turkey had lost British tourists to the benefit of southern Spain. Now, warns ABTA, tourists are starting to go back.

ABTA has chosen Andalucia's capital city, Seville, as the venue for its Travel Convention next year.

Andalucia in the street

The region has not been content with talking to agencies and operators at the WTM. At the end of last week it went out onto the streets to deliver its message to potential tourists in person.

While a bus covered in images of Andalucia did the rounds of London, the Angel Central Shopping Centre in Islington was the venue for a display of all things Andalusian. Shoppers were treated to flamenco shows and traditional ham and wine tastings and were able to take their photographs in front of images of some of the most beautiful landscapes, beaches and monuments in Europe.

The Costa del Sol tourism authority has also been out in the streets of London, but this time decorating traditional black cabs. The campaign was launched in the city on Wednesday.
Armenian Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan met with representatives of the Lebanese AC Holding company, which plans to manufacture home electronic appliances in Armenia.

The company has already obtained a site.

Karayan told the company reps that the Armenian government is ready to help facilitate the project.
Spanish telecom giant Telefonica has said that it plans to invest 125 million euros in the Costa del Sol and Malaga province over the next three to four years.

The investment was announced by the company's president in Spain, Luis Miguel Gilperez, at a high-level international conference in Malaga this week. The 4K-HDR summit brought together global experts on next-generation ultra-high-definition technology for communication devices.

The Telefonica investment locally is part of a programme across Spain to ensure all homes have access to faster fibre-optic services, improving internet speeds.

Our aim is that by 2021 at the latest where there is currently copper cable there will be fiber, Gilperez told delegates.

There will also be investment in 4G phone services.

According to Telefonica, Malaga province is already ahead of the rest of Spain in the roll out of fibre optic. At the end of this year it is expected to have reached 65 per cent of local homes, compared to 60 per cent in all Spain.

The two areas of weakness are rural districts and smaller towns, which will now be focused on. However the company president was keen to highlight that broadband roll out is higher than in other large EU countries.
Secessionist political parties won't form a united pro-independence coalition in the forthcoming Catalan regional elections on 21 December.

The deadline passed this week to register electoral coalitions for the vote, called by the national government as a solution to the separatist crisis that has gripped the region over the past weeks.

It had been thought that the PDECat, ERC and CUP parties might unite to form a single block along with other civil groups, however, in the end, ideological differences over the best way to pursue an independence agenda prevented agreement. In the last regional election, ERC and PDECat had formed the Junts pel Si alliance.

The decision means that each party will stand separately at the polls, although they haven't ruled out some cooperation, and comes as opinion polls show a very close race between unionist and independence parties, mirroring closely the existing regional assembly.

Puigdemont stays in Belgium

While parties on both sides have started taking positions ahead of the December election, it still wasn't clear what the role will be of Carles Puigdemont, former regional president, and other ex-ministers who were removed when Article 155 was imposed by Madrid two weeks ago.

It is possible that Puigdemont could stand as a candidate, although he was still in Brussels this week, along with four former ministers who also failed to turn up in court last week in Madrid, where they are being investigated for offences including rebellion.

Following the issuing of an international arrest warrant, Puigdemont and the others turned themselves over to Belgian authorities last Sunday. A court there will decide on 17 November whether to extradite them to Spain. They remain free.

Meanwhile, the nine ex-regional government leaders who did turn up in the Audiencia Nacional court last week have spent the week in prisons around Madrid, except one, Santi Villa, who was allowed out on bail.

Appearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday in a similar investigation was Catalan parliament speaker, Carme Forcadell, and five regional MPs responsible for parliamentary business. These have not been removed from their posts and their hearing was delayed from last week.

Reports said that, unlike the former ministers last week, the group on Thursday had cooperated by answering investigating judge's questions and, as a result, the prosecution was said not to be insisting on them being held without bail.

Reports on Thursday said that all the cases of the different officials could be brought under a single investigating judge in the Supreme Court in the near future and that those in prison while inquires continue could be allowed out if they promised to abide by the Constitution.

Mayors charter a jet

Some 200 pro-independence mayors from Catalonia chartered a plane to Belgium on Tuesday to show support for Carles Puigdemont in Brussels. Although no officials received them, they took part in a rally with Puigdemont in which each one brandished their stick of office as a sign of defiance and support.

Puigdemont said in a letter published on Thursday that he was going to create a stable structure to coordinate the actions of the [dismissed] regional government.

A general strike on Wednesday in Catalonia, in protest at the detentions, caused disruption with demonstrators on roads and railway stations however the main trade unions did not support the industrial action.
madrid. The former president of the regional government of the Comunidad de Madrid was freed on bail this week after spending seven months in prison without bail.

Investigating judges had originally said that there was a high risk of Gonzalez fleeing or destroying evidence in the ongoing inquiry into the so-called Lezo corruption case.

The case centres on the supposed syphoning off of millions of public funds from the region's water company by buying over-inflated overseas assets in Latin America.

Now judges have decided that as the investigation is sufficiently advanced, there is no risk in Gonzalez being free while it continues. Eleven people have contributed towards the 400,000-euro bail. Prosecutors say they believe Gonzalez may still have hidden foreign bank accounts.
The Bank of Spain has released its first official estimates on the economic impact of the Catalonia crisis, and they're just as vague as you'd expect. The bank predicts that the recent turmoil seen in the north-eastern region of Spain could shave off anywhere between 0.3% and 2.4% off the country's GDP over the next two years. In hard currency, that equates to a dent of between 3 and 27 billion euros. If that seems like an awfully big gap, it's because the task of predicting how much longer this sorry affair will last is practically impossible.

In making its catch-all forecast, the bank's economists imagined two extreme hypothetical scenarios playing out. In the first of these, Scenario A, the Catalonia affair is tied off by the end of this year and the Spanish economy takes a relatively minor hit of around 3 billion euros. The bank obviously has to allow for the possibility of such a swift resolution to Spain's constitutional crisis, but it would be incredibly optimistic (to put it mildly) to believe that, in less than two months, the curtain will have gone down on the Catalonian drama.

For a start, exiled pro-independence Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont might remain in Belgium until early 2018. And so long as he is in exile - seen by followers both old and new as a martyr for democracy, willing to go to prison for his people - the Catalonia drama will lack a political resolution and separatists will retain a powerful spokesperson.

The only real possibility of Scenario A materialising depends on anti-secession parties coming out on top in the snap regional election Mariano Rajoy has called for 21st December. Yet according to a GAD3 poll for La Vanguardia newspaper last weekend, pro-independence parties would jointly win between 66 and 69 seats in the 135-seat parliament, giving them a slim majority. A contemporaneous poll for the newspaper La Razon found that secessionist parties would gain the most seats (65) but not a majority.

Scenario B sees the Catalonia crisis causing severe and prolonged risk to the Spanish economy and continuing for the next couple of years. If this situation played out, the bank estimates that Spain's GDP growth over the 2018-2019 period could be reduced by up to 60% and that Catalonia could suffer a full-blown recession.

For the battle over Catalonia to rage on into 2019 would be a terrible thing for Spain, a country whose economy is still fragile despite three years of expansion. It would, of course, be a political and social disaster too. Yet given the current level of animosity between Rajoy and the separatists and the uncertainty surrounding the December 21st election, it's not unthinkable. Hopefully, reality will fall somewhere in the middle of the bank's two extreme hypotheses.
A scheduled session of the Armenian National Assemblys Standing Committee on Defense and Security today, to debate the adoption of two bills regarding military service and defense, had to be cancelled as not enough members showed up to constitute a quorum.

Not only was committee chair Koryun Nahapetyan absent, but deputy-chair Davit Manukyan was a no-show as well.

Only three of the committees eleven members were present to debate the merits of a bill that would do away with most student draft deferments. (Students at various Yerevan universities have been boycotting classes for several days now in protest.)

The whereabouts of Koryun Nahapetyan were unknown. The National Assemblys webite says he was in Slovenia from November 6-9 for the 96th Rose-Roth meeting of legislators from NATO member and partner countries.

Update: The committee held a late night emergency session and approved the bills, sending them to the parliament for a final vote.
CAZENOVIA, NY - The newest Aldi in Central New York is set to open in Cazenovia on Dec. 15, said Greg Widrick of Sphere Development, which is building the store.

The new discount-grocery store will be 18,700-square-foot, and is being built at 2392 Route 20 East at what village officials call the eastern gateway to Cazenovia.

Aldi is the anchor tenant in a development which includes a drugstore, bank and and 32 apartments for seniors. The new store is near McDonald's and down the road from the Hampton Inn in Cazenovia.

An attempt to stop the project with a lawsuit went nowhere. The suit alleged the village changed the zoning to accommodate the store.

Town and village officials say they are looking forward to the new store.

Aldi now operates nearly 1,700 stores in 35 states. There are 11 Aldi stores in Central New York - the newest one opened in July in Baldwinsville.
Former "Magnum, P.I." star John Hillerman is dead at age 84.

Variety reports the Emmy-winning actor died Thursday in Houston. His publicist, Lori De Waal, told The New York Times that Hillerman had died of natural causes.

Hillerman was best known for playing the snooty caretaker Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on "Magnum, P.I.," opposite Tom Selleck as the titular detective. The popular TV series ran from 1980 to 1988 and earned Hillerman four Emmy Award nominations and a win for best supporting actor in 1987, along with a Golden Globe in 1982.

"It's the best gig I've ever had," he told the Times in 1984. "You're looking at this rare thing: a happy actor."

Hillerman, a native of Texas, also appeared on "One Day at a Time" as Bonnie Franklin's boss and had a recurring role on "The Betty White Show." He also appeared in four films directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and had notable roles in movies like Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter," Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" and Roman Polanski's "Chinatown."

According to Variety, Hillerman attended the University of Texas and served in the Air Force before moving to New York to begin his acting career. He got his first on-screen role in Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" after meeting the filmmaker while appearing on stage in Shakespeare's "Othello."

Hillerman is survived by one sister and several nieces and nephews.

Rest in peace "Higgins". You will be missed. "John Hillerman" pic.twitter.com/hlmBr63HWd  Michelle (@michlmcm) November 10, 2017

John Hillerman, Higgins on 'Magnum, P.I.,' dies at 84 https://t.co/7tPb23OuVu pic.twitter.com/MuAEyxVz6i  Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 9, 2017
VIENNA, N.Y. -- A man died Thursday after a logging accident in Central New York.

The Oneida County Sheriff's Office rushed to a wooded area in Vienna, Oneida County at 1:26 p.m. to investigate a call about an unresponsive man. The man, Gilbert Martin, had been injured during a logging accident on Elpis Road, deputies said.

The Camden Fire Department carried Martin out of the woods, deputies said. He was then taken by AmCare Ambulance to Rome Memorial Hospital.

Martin, of Boonsville, was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was 72 years old.

The accident remains under investigation.
ROME, N.Y. -- A level three sex offender is missing in the Central New York area after breaking free from his GPS ankle bracelet, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced.

Ronald Cook

Ronald Cook, 66, was convicted of first-degree rape after he raped a 24-year-old woman he did not know near Binghamton in 1990 , according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.

He was sentenced to 12 1/2 to 25 years in state prison and was deemed a level three sex offender. The state considers him a sexually violent offender and a predicate offender.

DOCCS officials stated Cook cut off his issued GPS ankle bracelet.

Cook was last seen Wednesday afternoon in Rome, Oneida County, wearing a bright yellow windbreaker. The sex offender registry lists his last known permanent address as 129 Eagle St. in Utica.

Cook is 5-feet, 9-inches tall and weighs about 240 pounds. He has gray hair, hazel eyes and needs corrective lenses.

Cook should be considered dangerous, and anyone who sees him is asked to call local law enforcement immediately, according to the department.
International Seaways narrows losses

International Seaways reported a third quarter net loss of $21.8 mill, compared with net loss of $50.9 mill, for 3Q16.

The net loss reflected $7.3 mill in vessel impairment charges and $1.2 mill in debt modification fees, and a decline in TCE revenues, compared with 3Q16. Net loss for the nine month period ended 30th September, 2017 was $15.4 mill, compared with net income of $39.5 mill for the first nine months of 2016. Consolidated TCE revenues for 3Q17 were $56.5 mill, compared to $77.2 mill in 3Q16. Shipping revenues for the third quarter of 2017 were $60 mill, compared to $80.8 mill in the same period of 2016. Consolidated TCE revenues for the first nine months of 2017 were $209.9 mill, compared to $302.8 mill for 2016s nine-month period. Shipping revenues for the nine months were $220.7 mill, compared to $312.5 mill in the previous years nine-month period. Operating loss for the quarter was $11 mill, compared to operating loss of $35.3 mill for 3Q16. Operating income for the nine month period was $20.2 mill, compared to operating income of $70.5 mill for the 2016 nine-month period. Adjusted EBITDA was $15.8 mill for the quarter, compared to $37.1 mill in 3Q16, principally driven by lower daily rates. Adjusted EBITDA was $94 mill for the 2017 nine-month period, compared to $184.5 mill for the 2016 period. TCE revenues for the crude tankers segment were $34.9 mill for the quarter, compared to $50.2 mill in the third quarter of 2016. This decrease resulted primarily from the impact of significantly lower average blended rates in the VLCC, Aframax and Panamax sectors, with spot rates declining to $16,200, $10,800 and $11,100 per day, respectively, aggregating around $14.1 mill. The decline also reflected decreased revenue in the crude lightering business, due to hurricane-related disruptions and lower full-service lightering margins and fewer revenue days in the Panamax and Aframax sectors, resulting from an increase in drydocking days. The addition of the two 2017-built Suezmaxes, each of which delivered to the company in July, partially offset the declines in revenue. Shipping revenues for the crude segment were $38.3 mill for the quarter, compared to $53.5 mill in 3Q16. In addition, shipping revenues for for the nine-month period of this year were $146.1 mill, compared to $212.9 mill in the 2016 nine-month period. TCE revenues were $136.7 mill for the first nine months of 2017, compared to $204.1 mill for the 2016 nine-month period. TCE revenues for the product carrier segment were $21.6 mill for the quarter, compared to $27 mill in the third quarter of 2016. This decrease was primarily due to a decline in average daily blended rates earned by the MR, LR1 and LR2 fleets, with spot rates declining to $10,100, $11,100 and $12,000 per day, respectively. The decline in blended MR, LR1 and LR2 rates accounted for $5 mill of the decline in TCE revenues. Shipping revenues for the product carriers segment were $21.7 mill for the quarter, compared to $27.2 mill in 3Q16. For the nine-month period, TCE revenues were $73.2 mill, compared to $98.8 mill for the 2016 period. Shipping revenues were $74.6 mill for the 2017 nine-month period, compared to $99.6 mill for the same period in 2016. During the quarter, the company took delivery of the Seaways Hatteras and the Seaways Montauk, 2017-built Suezmax newbuildings. Both commenced trading in the Blue Fin Suezmax pool. Subsequent to quarters end, International Seaways agreed to acquire a 2010-built VLCC for $53 mill. The vessel was delivered in November and will commence trading in the Tankers International pool. During 3Q17, the company sold a 2001-built MR, which was delivered to her buyers in August, 2017, and recognised a gain of $1.9 mill. Subsequent to quarters end, the company agreed to sell a 2004-built MR and a 2002-built MR, which are scheduled to be delivered to buyers during November, 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, respectively. During the quarter, the five-year contracts for the companys FSO joint ventures with Euronav commenced with North Oil Company (NOC), the new operator of the Al Shaheen oil field, off the coast of Qatar. The new contracts, which involve the FSO Africa and FSO Asia, are expected to generate in excess of $360 mill of EBITDA for the joint venture over their five-year terms. Based on International Seaways 50% ownership in the joint venture, the contracts are expected to generate in excess of $180 mill of EBITDA for the company. Lois Zabrocky, International Seaways president and CEO, commented. We have continued to benefit from our lean and scalable model with low breakevens in a challenging tanker market, while taking steps to further implement the companys disciplined capital allocation strategy and maintain its solid contracted cash flows. During the quarter, we have capitalised on attractive asset values with the acquisition of two Suezmax tankers and a recent acquisition of a 2010-built VLCC. In addition to growing our diverse fleet, we took advantage of our strong balance sheet to return capital to shareholders during the quarter, as we opportunistically executed on our share repurchase programme. Consistent with our focus on fleet growth and renewal, we also sold a 2001-built MR, which delivered to buyers during the quarter, and recently agreed to sell two additional MR tankers. We also commenced two five-year contracts for our FSO joint ventures during the quarter, which are expected to generate in excess of $180 mill of EBITDA for the company over the contract period. We are pleased with our initial progress growing and modernising our fleet, which has enabled International Seaways to reduce the average age of its fleet and increase our size on a dwt basis. We remain in a strong financial position with the flexibility to pursue additional compelling growth opportunities as asset prices continue to be historically low. With our balanced fleet deployment and contracted cash flow from our joint ventures and fixed-rate charters, we also continue to maintain the ability to both optimise revenue through the current tanker cycle and benefit from a market recovery in both the product and crude tanker sectors, he concluded.




KNOP reports higher revenues

KNOT Offshore Partners has reported total revenues of $58.2 mill for the three months ended 30th September, 2017, compared to $54.4 mill for the second quarter of this year.

The increase was mainly due to a full quarter of earnings from the Vigdis Knutsen, as she was included in the results of operations from 1st June, 2017. Lower fleet utilisation for the third quarter, compared to second quarter, was offset by one additional calendar day during 3Q17. Vessel operating expenses for 3Q17 were $11.8 mill, an increase of $2.4 mill from $9.4 mill in 2Q17. The increase was also due to the Vigdis Knutsen being included in operations and higher operating expenses, mainly due to the strengthening of the Norwegian Kroner (NOK) against the US dollar, compared to the second quarter. The second quarter was affected by the receipt of insurance proceeds related to the technical default with the Raquel Knutsen. As a result, operating income for 3Q17 was $26.7 mill, compared to $26.1 mill in 2Q17. Net income was $21.1 mill, compared to $16.9 mill for 2Q17. The net income also increased by $1.7 mill from $19.4 mill recorded for 3Q16. Operating income for 3Q17 increased by $5.6 mill, compared to 3Q16, mainly due to increased earnings from Raquel Knutsen, Tordis Knutsen and Vigdis Knutsen being included in the Partnerships operational results from 1st December, 2016, 1st March, 2017 and 1st June, 2017, respectively. Carmen Knutsen went offhire on 26th September, 2017 for the mobilisation trip to Navantia Cadiz shipyard in Spain in order to complete her planned five-year special survey drydocking and certain repairs. She arrived in the yard on 12th October, 2017 and is estimated to be back on charter with Repsol by mid-December, 2017. There were also 3.9 days of offhire in 3Q17 for damage repairs sustained by the Tordis Knutsen. On 30th August, 2017, the Partnership entered into an unsecured revolving credit facility of $25 mill with NTT Finance Corp. This facility will mature in August, 2019, bear interest at LIBOR plus a margin of 1.8% and have a commitment fee of 0.5% on the undrawn portion of the facility. As of 30th September, 2017, the Partnership had $50.1 mill in available liquidity, which consisted of cash and cash equivalents of $38.1 mill and $12 mill of capacity under its revolving credit facilities. The revolving credit facilities mature in June and August, 2019. The Partnerships total interest-bearing debt outstanding at the end of the period was $1,009.2 mill. On 29th September, 2017, the Partnerships wholly owned subsidiary, KNOT Shuttle Tankers, acquired KNOT Shuttle Tankers 26, the company that owns the shuttle tanker, Lena Knutsen, from Knutsen NYK. The purchase price was $142 mill, less about $133.8 mill of outstanding debt related to the Lena Knutsen, plus around $24.1 mill for a receivable owed by Knutsen NYK to KNOT 26 and about $1 mill for certain capitalised fees related to the vessels financing. On the closing of the acquisition, KNOT 26 repaid around $41.9 mill of the debt, leaving an aggregate of about $91.9 mill of debt outstanding under the secured credit facility related to the vessel. Lena Knutsen was delivered in June, 2017 and is operating in Brazil under a five-year timecharter with a subsidiary of Shell, which will expire in the third quarter of 2022. The charterer has options to extend for a further two five-year periods. The Partnerships earnings for 4Q17 will be affected by the planned drydocking and repair of the Carmen Knutsen, which is expected to be offhire for 73-75 days until mid-December, 2017. On 5th July, 2017, Knutsen NYK acquired from Chevron the Brasil Voyager, a DP2 Suezmax class shuttle tanker built in 2013, which has been renamed Brasil Knutsen. In October, Knutsen NYK agreed to enter into a five-year charter for the vessel with Galp Sinopec, with options to extend the charter for up to two three-year periods. Brasil Knutsen is expected to commence operations under the charter in Brazil by the end of this month. Knutsen NYK expects to offer the Partnership the opportunity to acquire the vessel after commencement of its charter.




Reedy joins DHT Holdings board

DHT Holdings has appointed Susan Reedy to its board of directors as a Class I Director until the company's 2020 annual meeting of shareholders.

As a result, 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 DHT and BW Group on 20th April, 2017. Under the terms of the IRA, BW Group is entitled to nominate two persons to the company's board. She became the second person to be nominated by BW Group as a director. Erik Lind, DHT's Chairman, said: "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 between 2011 and 2016.




Wallem, USCG in safety initiative

Two US Coast Guard (USCG) marine inspectors recently sailed on board the Wallem-managed 2005-built Aframax 'Tofteviken.

This formed part of the USCG's Ship Rider Programme, which is aimed at ensuring and enhancing safety and security at sea by enabling USCG inspectors to experience operations on tankers first hand. Wallem claimed that it is one of the few shipmanagement companies to have offered this learning experience for the USCG marine inspectors. During their three-day voyage, the inspectors learned about various operations on board, including discharging, loading and STS/lightering operations. They shadowed the crew on board, occupying their work spaces and asking them questions about the work involved. According to Wallem, the inspectors were grateful for the opportunity and to the crew for sharing their expertise, stating that they learned an immeasurable amount of information, which will only aid in building better marine inspectors. Elsewhere in the Group, clinical psychologist and author of Wallems Wellness@Sea guide, Kevin Menon, has been working with Wallem Ship Management for over two years, helping to conduct wellness workshops at regular Wallem fleet officers meetings held worldwide. Menon said wellness is particularly important when it comes to life at sea, due to the unique conditions seafarers face, which can place seafarers under a lot more stress than someone working on land. When left unaddressed, these can result in lowered moral, conflict, mental health issues, increased human error, accidents, lifestyle illnesses, lowered productivity, burnout, and even suicide. He stressed, Seafarers need to be adequately equipped to manage their personal wellness. One aspect of wellness that Menon believed is critical to address both by mitigating and responding to is mental health. All shipping companies should ideally have a wellness management system so that a comprehensive approach is taken to provide proactive programs that help build awareness, resilience and wellness in all seafarers as well as remedial support that is provided to identify and help seafarers who may be struggling with mental health issues. Wallem is breaking down the stigma and helping normalise the fact that a mental health issue is just like any other health issue, as everything contributes to our overall wellness. Wallem is also helping support seafarers in understanding how they can take proactive measure to manage their wellness while at sea, as well as understand that they can come forward if they at any time need support in this area, he said.




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A new NASA study suggests that a "mantle plume," nearly as hot as the Yellowstone supervolcano, is causing ice to melt from underneath Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land.

Mantle Plume Underneath West Antarctica

About three decades ago, a scientist argued that the presence of a heat source underneath the Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica could explain the regional volcanic activity that takes place in the area.

Many have doubted the theory, and since that time, there hasn't been any evidence to back it up. However, a new NASA study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth has now added more weight to this idea.

"I thought it was crazy," said Helene Seroussi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) when she first heard about the concept. "I didn't see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it."

Mantle Plume

A mantle plume is an upwelling of hot rock in the Earth's mantle. John Tuzo Wilson was the first scientist to propose the theory of a mantle plume back in 1960's.

NASA Researchers Begin Studying Mantle Plume

Seroussi and her team decided that the best way to study the concept was to develop a numerical model of what would take place if indeed a heat source exists underneath.

They then would observe the effects of the heat on the "ice sheet" that lay on top. The model along with observations from NASA's IceSat satellite allowed Seroussi and her team to estimate the amount of heat that's being produced deep below the ice.

Results

The results of the model show that the mantle plume generates energy that is no more than 150 milliwatts per square meter. More than that would cause too much ice to melt quicker. The heat underneath Yellowstone National Park generates about 200 milliwatts per square meter on average.

Mantle Plume Under Marie Byrd Land Formed 50 To 110 Million Years Ago

Researchers estimated that the mantle plume under Marie Byrd Land formed 50 to 110 million years ago, way before the time when the ice sheet came into being.

The existence of a massive mantle plume can explain why the area is so unstable today. The heat is also responsible for the hidden lakes and rivers that lay beneath the ice sheet. Researchers say that its presence is not something to worry about. If the mantle plume is there, then it's been there forever and will always be there.

Researchers say that understanding the heat source beneath Antarctica could help them estimate how long it may take for the ice to melt in the future.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Puerto Rico is still recovering from the damage dealt by Hurricane Maria, and Alphabet has provided the island a boost through Project Loon.

Project Loon, which uses high-flying balloons to provide internet connectivity, have been deployed over Puerto Rico, and have allowed thousands upon thousands of the island's residents to go online.

Project Loon In Puerto Rico

In October, Google parent Alphabet was granted an emergency license by the Federal Communications Commission to use Project Loon to try to restore cellular services in Puerto Rico.

Less than two weeks later, Alphabet deployed the high-tech balloons of Project Loon to provide the residents of Puerto Rico who own an LTE smartphone with internet access and cellular connectivity.

Three weeks after the deployment of Project Loon, Alphabet's X Lab, which runs Project Loon, tweeted that more than 100,000 people have been able to connect to the internet thanks to the high-flying balloons. The figure is a huge jump from the "tens of thousands" of people that X said were able to access the internet after a week of operation.

AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers have been able to connect to the internet through the balloons, which are up 65,000 feet to create a network that can relay LTE signals to the telecommunications partners on the ground.

Providing an internet connection to more than 100,000 people is not a major success, especially considering that the population of Puerto Rico is at 3.4 million. However, Project Loon has likely made a difference for those 100,000 residents, especially as there was likely no other way to communicate with others in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The Applications Of Project Loon

In Puerto Rico, Project Loon has provided basic internet communication, which includes text messages, email, and access to other basic online services. Voice calls, however, are not supported.

The purpose of the deployment of Project Loon, which has targeted the hardest-hit areas of Puerto Rico, was to improve the coordination of restoration and relief efforts among the local governments and citizens of the island. Project Loon has also provided the people methods to communicate with loved ones both locally and abroad.

Project Loon was also deployed in Peru earlier this year to provide the same connectivity to people affected by the major floods in the country.

With Project Loon proving its usefulness in Puerto Rico and Peru, Alphabet's X Lab should be commended for technology that really helps people in need. There is a lot of work left to be done to bring Puerto Rico back to its feet, but having Project Loon's balloons up in the sky will certainly help out.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Authenticom, a La Crosse-based data integrator in the automotive industry, informed 55 employees that they will be laid off effective Feb. 2 because of the companys prolonged antitrust battle with two larger companies, founder and CEO Steve Cottrell said Wednesday.

I consider these people as family, Cottrell said during a phone interview Wednesday in which his voice reflected obvious anguish over the decision, which he described as a resizing mode.

I deeply, personally regret this. Weve done everything in our power to avoid this, Cottrell said of the action, which will leave Authenticom with 36 employees.

La Crosse's Authenticom wins injunction in antitrust suit Authenticom Inc. gained substantial traction in its antitrust lawsuit against two companies that the La Crosse corporation contends are trying to drive it out of business when a federal judge granted a temporary injunction against the pair.

Cottrell had remained steadfast in his resolve to keep Authenticoms roughly 110 employees on the payroll as the antitrust suit against CDK Global and Reynolds and Reynolds Co. winds its way through the court system.

Cottrells announcement to the affected employees came two days after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago dealt Authenticom a blow in its suit, which the company filed in federal court in Madison on May 1.

Preliminary injunction quashed

The appeals court set aside a district courts preliminary injunction barring CDK Global and Reynolds from interfering with Authenticoms business.

Although we are disappointed with the Court of Appeals ruling, we continue to remain confident in the ultimate success of our case and continue to work diligently through discovery in preparation for trial, Cottrell said in a letter addressed to valued partners Tuesday.

The human side of the layoffs is sweeping, Cottrell lamented during the interview. One employee has been with me for 15 years and has four small children. There are employees with pregnant spouses, and some who have just bought homes.

Authenticom, which tried to hold its number of layoffs to the dozen announced in August, set the Feb. 2 date to lay off the 55 to extend benefits for them, Cottrell said. They will receive help with job-placement efforts, resume writing and other assistance needed to secure new jobs, he said.

These are the people who made this company, and made us a success, he said. This is a tribute to what the larger team has done.

After the downsizing, Authenticom will be well-positioned and viable and able to pay bills that had piled up as CDK and Reynolds took actions that Cottrell said are intended to bankrupt the company he founded in 2002 in his sons bedroom.

We have found significant opportunities outside of the automotive sector, he said.

Change is on the horizon, and we are inspired by the way our industry has embraced both technological change and at the same time pushed back on the status quo of control of emerging technology by the privileged few, he said.

Authenticom, which is headquartered in the Doerflinger building in downtown La Crosse, is a third-party data integrator that links car dealers to software vendors such as CDK and Reynolds. Cottrells suit alleges that CDK and Reynolds have colluded in an illegal plot to block Authenticom from access to their data, costing it millions of dollars and pushed it to the brink of insolvency.

CDK and Reynolds counter that their data is proprietary and insist that Authenticom should not be allowed to scrape the information.

Profits plunge nearly 80 percent

The companies actions caused Authenticoms profits to plunge by 77.22 percent between the third quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of this year, according to Authenticoms suit filings.

They have left Authenticom cash-flow insolvent, with insufficient earnings and resources to satisfy its outstanding debt obligations, the suit alleges.

Authenticom had been unable to pay an $11 million principal payment to a bank in April, as well as a tax-related obligation of about $1.17 million that same month, among other financial setbacks, the suit contends.

CDK and Reynolds are the two big dogs in the automotive data sector, in which Authenticom is the other major player. CDK is a publicly traded Delaware corporation with headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Ill. It provides DMS software and services to car dealerships throughout the country and has more than $2 billion in annual revenues. The private corporation of Reynolds and Reynolds is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio.

For its part, CDK issued a statement saying, in part, We strongly believe that our policy of not allowing unauthorized intermediaries onto our systems is the best way to preserve the integrity of those systems and the security of our customers data.

No court has mandated unfettered access to the data and systems operated by another company, according to the statement. We remain committed to protecting our property rights and those of third parties with data on our systems, and will continue to mount a vigorous defense against the meritless claims that have been made against us by Authenticom.

Obama lauded company for growth, wages

Cottrell was thrust into the national spotlight in 2015, when President Barack Obama saluted Authenticom during a major financial address he delivered at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

So this business that began in Steves sons old bedroom is now one of Americas own fastest-growing private companies based in a historic building right here in downtown La Crosse, Obama said.

Now, I guarantee you Steve worked hard, he put everything he had into it. He took enormous risks, the president said. But he also is somebody who recognizes that he didnt do it by himself.

Hes proud of what he accomplished, but he also talks about how fortunate hes been to be part of a community like La Crosse, Obama said.

The president lauded Authenticoms practices of paying fair wages, with paid sick days, and treating employees like family.

In the letter to clients, Cottrell said, We are ready to further our role as the data integrator of choice and the premier data services provider.

In addition, he wrote, Authenticom plans to launch new, simplified technology and a new website for its DealerVault product.

During the interview, Cottrell expressed gratitude for the support that Mayor Tim Kabat and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-La Crosse, have offered his company amid the throes of the court actions.

Cottrell also voiced confidence in the companys ability to rebound, saying, This is just a chapter in the book, but the book is not written.

We are taking steps necessary to make this a 100-year company, he said.
In a move to honor their lost loved one, Maxwell Gruver's family is taking a stand against hazing and urging young adults to be responsible and brave in the face of peer pressure.

Rae Ann Gruver, Max's mother, said she isn't ready to speak to the media about the tragic loss of her son, who died from alcohol poisoning after police say the LSU student was forced to drink at a Phi Delta Theta hazing ritual in September. But she mailed The Advocate a family statement that describes her son as a caring, giving Christian.

"Our beloved Max was a person who cared deeply about others. He took actions time and again to help others, especially if they were facing challenging circumstances," says the message from "Max Gruver's family." "In the giving spirit of Max, we are reaching out to the young people who have been blessed to have had their lives touched by Max."

While the Gruver family is sending out its plea, higher education leaders in Louisiana met Thursday with Gov. John Bel Edwards to discuss a path forward to reduce the risk of hazing, alcohol abuse and drugs on college campuses in the aftermath of Gruver's death. The meeting also came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by a University of Louisiana at Lafayette fraternity pledge who says he fell asleep at the wheel and killed another student in 2016 because of sleep deprivation related to hazing.

Gruver died on Sept. 14, a few weeks after classes at LSU had started. Law enforcement says he had a blood alcohol level of 0.495 and was forced to drink 190-proof liquor during a hazing game at the Phi Delta Theta house. Ten men were arrested for hazing, and one of them was arrested with the additional charge of negligent homicide.

On Thursday, the higher education leaders didn't reveal any major policy changes, but committed to researching best practices to try to eradicate dangerous behavior. The leaders said they will host a conference of national hazing experts in February.

"This is a reminder that hazing is not an innocent activity, it's not a rite of passage, it's illegal," Edwards said. "It's not just a tragedy when a death occurs, it's illegal all the time."

Several of the university system leaders, as well as the governor, defended the Greek system, saying the vast majority of students are doing good works in the community that fly under the radar. The officials also defended their existing policies that govern student safety, despite a rash of hazing complaints over the years.

"If you took an inventory of policies in place right now on our college campuses, I dare say that all of you would be impressed," Edwards said when asked if he had specific policies he'd like to see enacted. "Obviously, those policies don't always translate into all of those campuses being as safe as we want them to be for all of our students. That's why we have to keep working."

LSU President F. King Alexander said LSU's Greek organizations are hardly more problematic than any other major school, noting it's common for an SEC school to have about 20 percent of its Greek organizations in trouble at any given time. At LSU, one-third of all Greek organizations are in some level of reprimand and almost half of the fraternities are in trouble.

Alexander also suggested the fix at LSU isn't going to come from strict policy changes. However, a task force has been impaneled to give policy recommendations by the end of January 2018.

"The best way to eradicate this behavior is not by having a policy book that's three times what we have now," he said. "It's going to be peer to peer interaction."

After Gruver's death, Phi Delta Theta was immediately removed by the national organization. Three more fraternities have been penalized in the weeks that have followed.

This week, the University of Lafayette-Louisiana found itself in a similar position after lawsuits were filed against the University of Louisiana System, Kappa Sigma and some of its members for a hazing incident last November.

As first reported by KATC, Michael Gallagher Jr. and his parents filed suit alleging Gallagher had been forced to be a designated driver for the drunk fraternity members, but was suffering severe sleep deprivation because of hazing in the days leading to the crash. While driving, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into and killed a pedestrian, 24-year-old graduate student Rustam Nizamutdinov.

The mother of the victim, Farida Shavkatova, of Uzbekistan, also filed a suit alleging Gallagher had been subjected to "extreme sleep deprivation" in the days leading to the crash.

Jim Henderson, University of Louisiana System President, said Thursday he was "deeply saddened at the loss of a student's life," and said the University responded "quickly and effectively" to punish the fraternity.

Kappa Sigma's national headquarters revoked the UL fraternity charter in July.

+3 While LSU frat pledge Maxwell Gruver's death brought drastic action, past hazing violators got off easy In 2013, LSU's chapter of Pi Kappa Phi hosted an event for its new member class called "Big Brother Night." At that gathering, LSU would later

The family of LSU's Max Gruver is encouraging young people to be mindful of risky situations that can escalate into something more dangerous. Rae Ann Gruver said the family message was printed inside her son's funeral program.

"Be very aware that situations can quickly get out of control. Look out for and be cautious of situations that could put you or your friends in danger," the statement says. "Such situations could result in tragic consequences not only for you, but also your friends and family."

"So please look out for yourself and, as importantly, look out for others," the message says. "Speak up if you see a situation that does not look right. If you're noticing something doesn't seem right  chances are, it's not. Take action. Get help. Taking action takes courage  even if it seems like the unpopular route to take."

Rae Ann Gruver sent The Advocate materials she's produced to promote her message  purple silicon wristbands with yellow lettering that say "#StopTheHazing" and stickers that say "#FlyHighMax," with his initials in a heart. She said she's sent out 15,000 wristbands to spread the message.

"As members of Christ's family it is our responsibility to look after one other and to help each other," the message states. "In the giving spirit of Max, take this community with you when you go out into the world and keep each other safe."
Harriet Tubman Charter School Principal Julie Lause, second right, talks to Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White, right, in New Orleans, La. Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. According to the department of education, the school implemented a K-2 Montessori program in 2016 to provide students with greater focus, ownership of work, and accelerate student growth. Students have a two-hour work block in both the morning and afternoon to choose their own independent work Oon the shelfO while instruction in math and English Language Arts happens in small groups. White is taking part in a statewide tour of schools.
Congress failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act despite muscular efforts by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and many other Republicans, but President Donald Trump's administration is still doing its best to undermine the law from within. One strategy has been to cut back on efforts to help people sign up for plans on the law's individual marketplace. The administration has reduced its own outreach efforts as well as aid to outside groups that have been working with customers since the law took effect. The enrollment period has been cut in half.

It's almost as if its leaders don't want people to sign up.

Yet the opening days of enrollment, which started Nov. 1, brought some not-so-surprising news. People signed up in record numbers anyway. It's almost as if this insurance, for which many customers qualify for subsidies, is something really people want.

That message still doesn't seem to be getting through to the administration or to Congress, which is reportedly mulling the idea of repealing the law's individual mandate as part of its big tax rewrite. The mandate is designed to bring young, healthy customers into the system, which in turn helps cover the cost of insuring patients who need more costly treatments and services.

Maybe after Tuesday, it finally will. There was no national election, but the results from several states suggest the desire for more affordable care is a top concern of many Americans.

In Maine, voters easily approved the nation's first referendum on accepting Medicaid expansion, after the state's Legislature backed the move five times, only to see it vetoed each time by Republican Gov. Paul LePage. Maine is the home state of Susan Collins, one of the few Republican senators who has stood up strongly against efforts to strip the law and its benefits, and you can bet the vote will only strengthen her resistance.

Medicaid expansion was also an issue in Virginia, where outgoing Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe has tried to implement the program but faced opposition from the Republican legislature. Tuesday, Democrat Ralph Northam won the governor's race handily, and Democrats made huge gains in the House of Delegates. Observers there now expect expansion to finally happen.

Louisiana's already had this fight, of course.

Gov. Bobby Jindal had refused to accept the expansion, which allows people who make too little to qualify for subsidies on the private exchanges to get insurance. Democrat John Bel Edwards ran on a promise to reverse Jindal's decision  a stance echoed, although not as enthusiastically, by his three Republican primary opponents. He quickly followed through, and more than 440,000 Louisianans who did not have insurance before now do.

Edwards considers this one of his proudest accomplishments, and makes a point in public speeches of recounting how many people have been screened for serious conditions under the expansion, and how many are now getting treatment. And when Republicans who hope to make Edwards a one-term governor look for issues to highlight, they rarely pick this. That's one of many signs the policy is widely accepted despite Louisiana's Republican leanings.

One exception is Attorney General Jeff Landry, who rarely skips a chance to take partisan shots at Edwards.

On Tuesday, as all those voters in Maine and Virginia were casting ballots, Landry unveiled a new prescription take-back box at the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters Tuesday  and took a moment to launch an disingenuous allegation that, by expanding access to prescription coverage, Edwards' initiative has compounded the opioid problem. This isn't an original idea, but a Washington talking point that's been circulating among opponents of the ACA. According to the Associated Press, the notion came from a report for Republican Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson. The AP added that researchers who study the drug epidemic see no evidence of causation.

In fact, there's a much more convincing argument that Medicaid expansion helps fight the problem by paying to treat addiction. About 13,800 expansion patients in Louisiana have received inpatient or outpatient substance abuse treatment in the last year, according to the state Department of Health. The department has also worked to reduce the possibility of abuse by imposing limits on availability of drugs in question. As of July, Medicaid patients suffering acute pain can only get a seven-day supply.

Like his counterparts in Washington, Landry is clearly hoping for the return of the days when railing about Obamacare worked. But Tuesday's results underscore how much the ground has shifted.

And the sooner they finally accept that, the sooner they can stop all this nonsense about undermining the law, and finally get to work fixing its shortcomings.
The head of Canadian dairy heavyweight Saputo believes the company will acquire the distressed dairy processor Murray Goulburn and says a top priority is to lift the processor's annual milk volume to 2.5 billion litres.

Lino Saputo jnr, who is in Australia on a 10-day roadshow meeting Murray Goulburn suppliers and industry figures, said his company might consider other acquisitions in the Australian dairy industry in future if suitable opportunities emerged and regulatory approval was allowed.

Lino Saputo Jnr: "Our balance sheet is very clean and our desire to grow is very, very big." Credit:Rob Gunstone

"Our balance sheet is very clean and our desire to grow is very, very big," he told Fairfax Media. "So we have an appetite to grow, we have talent within the system that is always looking to take on more responsibility.

"Growth through acquisition has been really our model and that's something that we will continue to do in all the platforms."
US media giant CBS's $41 million takeover of the Ten Network can proceed, with a court approving the transfer of all shares in the free-to-air TV broadcaster to the American company.

A hearing into the NSW Supreme Court concluded last Thursday, following days of delays due to three minor shareholders opposing the transfer - a deal which leaves them empty-handed.

Handing down his decision in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Ashley Black said there was "no prejudice or unfair prejudice arising" from the transfer of Ten shares to CBS.

Richard McHugh, representing Ten administrators KordaMentha, said the shares would not be transferred before 5pm on Tuesday, which would allow the shareholders time to decide whether or not to seek an injunction.
The section of the constitution that has landed us all in such a pickle, section 44, states that anybody who "is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power  shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives".

Of course, section 44 contains other grounds for ineligibility, including treason and bankruptcy and holding "any office of profit under the Crown". Yet it is the provision on "adherence to a foreign power" that is not only the cause of the crisis, but also strikes many as an historical anomaly.

Former National Party senator Fiona Nash ran afoul of section 44. Credit:AAP

Nobody argues those "attainted of treason" should be allowed to sit in Parliament. But men and women of, for example, British heritage? At the time the constitution was framed, there was not even a concept of Britain as a "foreign power".

So if we were the founding persons framing the constitution today, I expect section 44 would look more like this:
Trade between nations boosts exports and jobs, and helps generate the wealth needed to improve living standards and create opportunities. But if it is not free and fair, one nation prospers at the expense of people elsewhere. The best way to create free and fair trade is through the rules that underpin bilateral and multi-lateral agreements. This weekend Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, long a fervent supporter of such commerce, is seeking to extend Australia's trading relationships, amid concern populism in the US and China's aggressive state capitalism will undermine world trade, to the detriment of people everywhere.

It is in Australia's interests that Mr Turnbull, along with other leaders, succeeds at the Vietnam meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation  a forum of 21 Pacific Rim countries that promotes and facilitates free trade in our region, the world's fastest growing  in countering this threat. A report, released days ago, commissioned by the Australian government, says that in the three decades since APEC was established, the freeing up of international trade has increased annual household incomes by $8500. One in five Australian jobs is now trade related.

Malcolm Turnbull needs to deal with Donald Trump.

One of the first things US President Donald Trump did after winning power was withdraw from one of the world's most important and extensive trade agreements, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Mr Turnbull and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are leading a campaign to press ahead with the agreement without the US, but are leaving open an option for the US to rejoin at some stage. The remaining 11 nations are reportedly close to a deal, but key elements are yet to be agreed.

Mr Trump claims the TPP was not in the interests of US workers. This is widely seen as a miscalculation, not only economically, but geopolitically, because it leaves a vacuum China is thought keen to exploit. China, thus, is Mr Turnbull's trump card.
Yvonne Lenders, Hampton It is time we heeded the science Let us ignore the propaganda coming out of Adani. Instead, let us abide by the science which urges no new coal and a rapid roll-out of renewables here and in India. Barbara Fraser, Burwood Climate catastrophe awaits our children

If the federal government does not like refugees as now seems more clear than ever, why is it doing so little about minimising climate change and taking so little heed of the latest predicted effects of catastrophic sea level rise? That will make the world's current refugee problem much more severe, and our Pacific neighbours have been warning of this for many years. But the populations likely to be displaced in our region are orders of magnitude greater than the population of the Pacific Islands at risk. Even the United States' military takes seriously the impacts of climate change in its planning, so why doesn't our federal government? Apart from all this, the government acts as if it is ignoring the implications of the available knowledge. In this case, it is morally obliged to take this into account. Do none of the Coalition MPs have children or grandchildren? How can they sleep at night when they extol the virtues of coal-fired power generation, ignoring expert advice that such polluting generation will very soon be uneconomic and completely unnecessary  if it is not so already? John Robert, Surrey Hills THE FORUM Respect and peace

Following the racist incident, Sam Dastyari said he worried about young people, adding: "I've got a voice but a lot of people don't" (The Age, 10/11). Our young people are learning good skills in schools and communities: the number one rule is not to respond with insults. Bring respect and peace into the exchange. Look the angry person in the eye and reply calmly: "That's not true. We can accept and respect each other's differences. Have a good day." Keep the "you" out of it; do not get drawn into the anger. Sinking to the level of exchanging insults fuels the ugliness and incites more racism. Unfortunately Labor MP Tim Watts' response  "What race is dickhead?"  was not helpful. Sadly, Parliament demonstrates too often the pointlessness in exchanging insults. Be assured Sam, young people are learning the skills to defuse racism. Our political leaders can learn them too. Sue Benham, Woonona, NSW Where's the logic? I live in Moonee Ponds where the skyline is becoming crowded with new apartment towers. I used to worry about the hoards of new residents, with their cars, soon to be flooding our streets and shops, then thought: "The population is growing, people need somewhere to live, I shouldn't be greedy". Now I find that 1800 properties in Moonee Ponds are empty ("Pretty vacant: 20,000 properties empty in city", 10/11). And, yet, still more are being built. What?

Rosemary Davison, Moonee Ponds Dangerous locations As a former resident of Papua New Guinea, I note that little or no attention has been given to one significant problem with locating asylum seekers on Manus Island. Most of the citizens are envious of the living conditions provided by Australia and PNG to the asylum seekers. Many Manus Islanders, in fact many others in parts of PNG, would gladly swap places with them. This disparity is causing considerable tension and should have been foreseen by both governments. Moving the asylum seekers to another location will not change this fact. John Simmonds, Collingwood A shameful record

It is blackly amusing that some of the people who have supported the manufacture of hatred of, and caused distress for, refugees are, or may be, ineligible to sit in Parliament. Perhaps they should be sent to Manus Island while we wait to find out if we have to continue to pay their generous entitlements or whether we taxpayers will get our money back. Indigenous people excepted, it is time we acknowledged ourselves as a nation of refugees and again showed some humanity. To be an Australian in the world, cosily allied to Donald Trump, and denying marriage equality, climate change and decent treatment of refugees, is shameful. Deb Campbell, Deans Marsh End this stupidity I was intrigued by Dyson's cartoon showing Linda Burney and Patrick Dodson as the only MPs with "nothing to declare" (Letters, 9/11). I do not know the details of each person's heritage but I do know that, under our ludicrous citizenship debacle, it would be technically possible that both Dodson and Burney hold dual citizenship: if one of their parents (or is that grandparents, now?) was born other than in Australia, the cartoon would be inaccurate.

Jacquie Lambie has previously claimed she is Indigenous, now she is caught up in the citizenship issue. Perhaps it is time for common sense: if you were born in Australia and never applied for any other country's citizenship, you are Australian. Pam Cupper, Dimboola Rewriting the clause Because countries have moved to offer citizenship based on lineage, and to issue rights and privileges associated with work, such as the Green Card, the wording of Section 44 (part 1) is outdated  "Any person who is ... entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives". Obvious dual citizenship and passports aside, if you could even potentially gain the same rights as the citizen of another country, then you are in breach of the clause. The High Court had no choice but too apply the black letter law as it is written. This has been known for 20 years  so the day the first senator offered to resign, it should have been rejected and a bipartisan committee set up to rewrite this clause. Can we please stop this political grandstanding and behave like adults.

Tom Danby, Coburg North Dwindling investment What a joke. An email from the current Myer board states: "Vote for all resolutions to protect your investment in Myer." What part of cloud cuckoo land is the current board living in? My investment in Myer has dwindled to the extent that it is worthless to sell. Trish Young, Hampton A plague of mynahs

In recent years the number of Indian mynah birds has greatly increased in and around Melbourne, and seems to be approaching plague proportions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has declared this aggressive bird one of the world's most invasive species, and a threat to biodiversity. It out-competes native birds, evicting parrots and kookaburras and even galahs from their natural nest sites, and is a long-term threat to sugar gliders and to insect eating bats that help keep mosquitoes under control. Governments from far north Queensland to the ACT, in liaison with the RSPCA, are helping to humanely control these dangerous intruders, and have greatly reduced their numbers in those regions. Isn't it time something similar was put into action here? And sooner, rather than later. David Hancocks, Carlton Just give me peace

As a resident close to Flemington Racecourse, am I asking too much to hope that all those precious princes and princesses will catch taxis or public transport, instead of a helicopter, next year? Ian Anderson, Ascot Vale Functionality first About $100million is being spent to upgrade Flinders Street Station (The Age, 9/11) and yet the one thing that needs to be fixed, will not be. The Elizabeth Street subway is less than 2metres wide in parts. The minimum width, as observed elsewhere in the world, would be 10times that size for such a passenger flow. If there were a rush to exit any platform, let alone all of them, people might be killed. This is the disease that has infected Australia. We cannot do anything properly. If it is done at all, it is done on the cheap because of our "race to the bottom" tax rates. The point of a train station is its functionality, not just its appearance.

Paul Kennelly, Caulfield North Boo hoo, poor you Many disgruntled NBN users, such as those trying to operate businesses in regional areas, have genuine grounds for complaint. But my sympathy ends with those who whinge about not being able to get instantaneous access to video games, which are massive consumers of data. A First World problem, surely. Read a book instead. Mike Puleston, Brunswick AND ANOTHER THING

The racial abuse of Dastyari shows some people haven't got over the end of the White Australia policy. Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW Hanson Hanson called Dastyari "a little Mr Bean". She's in no position to comment on anybody's appearance.

Jean Tansey, Berwick Hanson's "battler" bus ground to a halt with a long, weary sigh from its heart. Jon O'Neill, Waurn Ponds Is Hanson aware that fresh fruit and vegetables are halal without needing to be labelled as such? Barry Klein, Bulleen

Politics Pyne says the refugees are squatters. What about his dual citizenship mates fraudulently in Parliament? Martin Klavins, Crafers West, WA Does Dutton think that anybody believes anything he says any more? Why would the UN lie? Judith Stone, Cowwarr

Turnbull's slogans: deafening white noise that is meant to prevent us from hearing the truth. Mario Moldoveanu, Frankston Why does Turnbull need to refer MPs to the High Court? I thought he knew what its rulings would be. Greg Lee, Red Hill All MPs should resign and let anarchy reign. Things can't get much worse than they are now.

Marie Nash, Balwyn Poor old Malcolm. He's always being subjected to a AAA rating assessment. Abbott, Abetz and Andrews. Phil Labrum, Flemington Furthermore An OPEC report finds fossil fuels, gas and shale oil will be the power sources of the future (9/11). What a surprise.
As Australians we like to tell ourselves that we are not a racist country, that our multiculturalism is a success (indubitably true), that attacks like these are isolated and confined to the extremes (the men were part of a "patriots" group that seems to have only two membership criteria: you have to be white, and of subnormal IQ). But to speak as frankly as Watts, when men like this are able to openly hunt a Muslim man in a public bar, the claim that Australia is not racist is clearly rubbish. The attack was condemned by both sides of politics as "un-Australian", which is about as meaningful as saying the deadly Charlottesville white nationalist rally was "un-American", or that the 2004 Redfern riots were "un-Sydney". Actually, the attack on Dastyari was marinating in Australian-ness - the beery, blokey, hostile masculinity of the perpetrators, the fact it happened in a bar, the cool attempts of the victim to order beer while being lambasted, the slack vowels of the bullies as they told the senator to go back to Iran. Also particularly "Australian", was the way media outlets, including, astoundingly, the ABC, later sought out the main bully, who is known to police for having previously threatened a rabbi, and granted him an interview.

Channel Nine's A Current Affair and Melbourne radio station 3AW gave him minutes of airtime. What were these journalists hoping to get out of their talent, a known white nationalist and criminal? A considered elucidation of his arguments? A much-needed counter-balance to the charge that he was racist? In any other country, if a dark-skinned man is called a "monkey", the person labelling him that doesn't get a platform on which to further publicise his moronic views. Eighty years ago, men not so different from him were wearing jackboots and smashing the windows of Jewish shopkeepers. But this is Australia in 2017, so we put him on television.

Hopefully the wide publication of the incident will serve to remind us why our anti-discrimination laws are more necessary now than ever. As we await the results of the same-sex marriage postal survey next week, the "no" campaign is preparing itself to ensure "protections" for freedom of speech and freedom of religion are inserted into legislation legalising gay marriage. They see no problem with introducing more (slightly different) discrimination into law designed to remove it. That's because these culture warriors seek the drastic rolling back of all forms of anti-discrimination law, and this is as good a place as any to start. The Dastyari incident shows why we can never let that happen - because racism and racist abuse is still very Australian, and if we want to stamp it out, few things have greater moral force than Australian law which strongly condemns it.
Shane Edward Nicholson simply "lost it" when he rammed a teenager's new Toyota in a road rage incident in Newcastle that was shared around the world.

Nicholson, 47, Branxton, pleaded guilty in Newcastle Local Court last month to a range of charges after the August 19 incident on Maitland Road, Sandgate, in which another driver was deliberately rammed and the footage uploaded to social media.

Shane Edward Nicholson, 47, left, leaving court on Thursday with his solicitor, Mansell Laidler. Credit:Peter Lorimer

And on Thursday in Maitland Local Court, Nicholson was fined a total of $2600, disqualified from driving for 18 months and placed on a two-year good behaviour bond.

Nicholson appeared to become "enraged" when the P-plate driver of a Toyota FJ Cruiser, which was only purchased the week before, slowed down in a 60km/h roadworks speed limit zone, according to court documents.
Honey Birdette has dismissed a petition calling the lingerie chain's advertising pornographic as ridiculous, with its managing director stating "you'll see more flesh at the beach".

"We've spent the last 11 years empowering women, all this group wants to do is disempower women, it's 2017 it's time to grow up," Eloise Monaghan said on Friday afternoon.

Thousands are petitioning against Honey Birdette, but the company's managing director says the brand empowers women. Credit:Facebook/Lillian Ayoub

On Thursday, Fairfax Media reported thousands of people had signed an online petition calling on Westfield stores around Australia to stop the brand from using "porn-style advertising".

Ms Monaghan confirmed some Honey Birdette employees experienced harassment on Friday from people entering or calling stores and insulting staff in response to the petition.
The Attorney-General has decided not to appeal the verdict of Matthew Scown's case, the man who walked free from a Brisbane court smiling and laughing after serving two years and eight months for the manslaughter of his four-year-old stepson.

However, Yvette D'Ath said she would fight the seven years jail handed down last month to Armstrong Renata, who pleaded guilty to unlawful striking causing death after killing 18-year-old Cole Miller in January 2016.

Matthew Scown leaves the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Credit:AAP

Ms D'Ath said she lodged an appeal on Tuesday against the sentence for Mr Renata but had elected not to fight the decision regarding Mr Scown.

The stepfather of Tyrell Cobb, who died in May 2009, was sentenced to four years jail for manslaughter but walked free from court having already spent two years and eight months in custody.
Brisbane City Council has rejected an aged-care providers proposal to build a three-tower development in Brisbanes south-west after the developer refused to scale back its plans.

TriCare submitted a development application to the council to build a residential facility and retirement facility on an 11,830 square metre site at Seven Oaks Street, Taringa, on June 29.

Architect Deicke Richards' design for a TriCare aged-care and retirement facility at Taringa that the council rejected. Credit:TriCare

More than 1200 residents signed a petition opposing the development which included towers of 16, 14 and nine storeys.

On August 9, the council wrote to TriCare outlining several concerns including the scale, height and bulk of the proposal.
Labor has doubled its commitment to build and refurbish schools in Queensland to more than $1 billion.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday committed $500 million to build 10 schools and refurbish 17 schools during a visit to Everton Park State High school in the LNP-held Everton electorate.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (centre) is seen at Everton Park State High School during the Queensland election campaign. Credit:AAP

The Premier said Queenslanders deserved equal access to education. Ms Palaszczuk's two sisters are teachers and her father - former Queensland government minister Henry Palaszczuk - was a teacher before politics.

There is $308 million in new funding added to an existing promise of $500 million to go towards 10 new schools including already-announced secondary schools in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane inner-city south and Calliope and a primary school in Springfield West, as well as the newly-announced primary school in Ripley Valley, secondary schools in North Lakes/Mango Hill, Coomera/Pimpama and Yarrabilba, as well a special school in the Caboolture area.
Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls has refused to acknowledge claims he cut $14 million out of drug and alcohol services while treasurer under the former Campbell Newman LNP government.

New drug rehab centres in regional Queensland are at the centre of the LNPs $52 million plan to tackle the scourge of ice.

Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls announced that the LNP, if elected, will invest $52 million in a plan tackle the use of the drug Ice. Credit:AAP

From the very marginal electorate of Toowoomba North, held by the LNPs Trevor Watts by 1.6 per cent, Mr Nicholls announced an action plan including more policing resources, public awareness and prevention.

Labor Health Minister Cameron Dick said Mr Nicholls cut $14 million out of drug and alcohol services while treasurer under the former LNP government, forcing 20 staff members out of agencies like Drug Arm, Boystown and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation of Queensland.
The Dal Zottos plan to increase production by 30 per cent in 2018, and 15 per cent each year after that. Michael Dal Zotto says they can't keep up with demand for prosecco. "As a small business its hard to balance the ability to grow with the demand for your product sometimes you are always chasing your tail," says Michael. Michael and his brother Christian Dal Zotto have just bought the King Valley-based business off their parents, ensuring the business of prosecco is kept in the family. Dal Zotto's prosecco sales are up 40 per cent. Credit:M Tay

Christian says prosecco has a broad appeal as a light, fresh easy drinking sparkling wine. "You don't drink it like champagne you don't critique it, you literally enjoy the moment," says Christian. "It's a bit lower in alcohol and lighter in calories as well which is a bit of a bonus. It's affordable luxury." Pizzini Wines' vineyard in the King Valley. We are not anti free trade but we want people to be aware of what's happening. Michael Dal Zotto, prosecco maker. Dal Zotto employs 30 staff and turns over $4 million a year but the brothers say the success of their business and the region is in the balance.

"When we planted Australia's first commercial vineyard of prosecco we bought a variety of prosecco," says Michael. "In 2009 prosecco's name was changed to 'glera' and a geographic indicator was created called prosecco. It was a little bit cheeky." Christian Dal Zotto says prosecco offers affordable luxury. Credit:Izzy Wedgwood Australian prosecco growers challenged the finding and won but the use of the name prosecco is still an issue. "Now with the Free Trade Agreement coming up Italians have put it on the agenda," says Michael. "We have been lobbying both sides of politics just so the politicians are aware of what is going on. We are not anti free trade but we want people to be aware of what's happening." The Pizzini family.

Australian prosecco makers argue prosecco is a globally recognised grape variety and that this would be akin to losing the right to use the term chardonnay or sauvignon blanc. The Prosecco Road The Dal Zotto's are part of a prosecco growers group called the Prosecco Road which markets prosecco but has now stepped in to a lobbying role as well. Prosecco Road members including Michael Dal Zotto headed to Canberra last month to meet with parliamentarians and the group will continue to lobby ahead of the negotiations with the European Union. Tony Battaglene, chief executive of the Winemakers' Federation of Australia, said the industry was looking to work cooperatively with Australian government trade negotiators to develop a strategic approach to the negotiations that would allow Australian prosecco to trade throughout the world.

"We need the government and opposition representatives to understand that there are real jobs and investment at stake. In the past, free trade agreements have delivered significant benefits to the Australian wine industry, and we are strong supporters of these agreements. However, the right to use prosecco is key to the Australian wine sector's future success." A significant issue Pizzini Wines is also a Prosecco Road member and chief executive Carlo Pizzini says prosecco is the most important product in Pizzini's portfolio. "Like the Dal Zottos we are a family business, Mum and Dad started the business, they were tobacco farmers and we started growing grapes for local wineries and then commenced making our own lines in the early '90s," Pizzini says. "Our volume is largely dominated by the Italian varieties for us the topic of prosecco and naming Italian varieties is an issue for us and King Valley in general and the reputation we have for them," says Pizzini. "We have developed a solid niche market for ourselves. It would be a significant issue for us if they were to change anything."
The next generation of bigger container ships bound for Australia will not be able to safely pass beneath the West Gate Bridge nor enter the Yarra River channel to reach the city's port, costing Melbourne valuable trade, industry warns.

The warning follows the release of new data that shows Sydney overtook the Port of Melbourne as Australia's busiest last financial year.

A container ship sails down the Yarra River under the West Gate Bridge after leaving the Port of Melbourne. Credit:Craig Abraham

Shipping and transport groups say the Andrews government's failure to resolve looming constraints at the Port of Melbourne has put Victoria at risk of losing import and export trade to interstate ports and even to New Zealand, with negative consequences for the health of the state economy.

Sydney's Port Botany has nudged ahead of the Port of Melbourne as the chief destination for container trade, handling 34 per cent of Australia's container movements in 2016-17.
On Tuesday, Nov. 14, Wisconsin will celebrate its first Womens Entrepreneurship Day Wisconsin (WEDWisconsin) at the Monona Terrace. It aims to support all women, not just those who have started their own business, and help them live out of an entrepreneurial mindset.
Andrew Lee, red, is shown punching Patrick Cronin, green. After the brawl, Mr Cronin was also seen in CCTV footage telling friends he had been hit. He and his friends left the hotel about 11.30pm but his condition worsened over the following hours. He died in hospital the next night, from bleeding on the brain. Justice Lasry said Lee had stood to the side of the bar brawl observing for at least one minute before he struck Mr Cronin, and it would have been obvious the teenager was trying to defuse the situation. Andrew Lee punches Patrick Cronin. That was an example Lee could have followed. The judge found Lee failed to take heed of the knowledge gained from practising Muay Thai, a form of martial arts, that it only be used for self-defence.

"You should have remained standing and watching, or preferably followed the example of Patrick Cronin and done what you could have to have prevented the fight from continuing," Justice Lasry told the killer. Andrew Lee outside court after an earlier hearing. Credit:Eddie Jim "It is significant that the one person who suffered the terrible consequences of this incident was the person whose behaviour featured no aggression whatsoever. "On any view you acted violently and that violent act had a dreadful consequences." Patrick Cronin's parents Robyn and Matt speak outside court on Friday. Credit:Justin McManus

Mr Cronin's family spoke outside the court after the sentence. Despite living with the "life sentence" over the death of their son and brother, they were relieved to put their 19-month legal ordeal behind them. Andrew Lee is taken into court on Friday. Credit:Justin McManus Matt Cronin said his son was fatally injured doing what he had been taught to do by his parents  looking after his mates. "He had a choice that night. He could have thrown a punch, he could he could have added to the violence of the situation but instead he chose to help his mate," Matt Cronin said.

"Andrew Lee, he had exactly the same choice but instead he chose tho throw a coward's punch and that punch killed Pat. "The sentence that's been given today, it was never going to be enough, we resigned ourselves to that fact a long time ago. "What Andrew Lee needs to live with is the fact that he killed Pat and he's got to live with that for the rest of his life. That's his life sentence." Prosecutors initially applied for Justice Lasry to impose a mandatory 10-year minimum jail term under Victoria's one-punch laws, but withdrew the request when they couldn't prove Lee intended to punch Mr Cronin. Justice Lasry was not satisfied Lee intended to strike Mr Cronin.

Matt Cronin and his wife Robyn said on Friday the one-punch legislation introduced in 2014 was poor and ambiguous, and would never be used unless it was reworked by lawmakers. "Our most basic understanding, and I am not a lawyer, is that manslaughter is murder without intent," Ms Cronin said. "And then to be sentenced on a coward's punch, intent is suddenly brought back, so how can it ever be used in that fashion? It has to change." Matt Cronin earlier told ABC Radio sentencing needed to meet community expectation. "Let's not forget there's really only one victim and that's Pat," he said.

"Pat hasn't had a voice since April 16 so we're his voice and in standing up for our son we just feel that the way the system works is we don't have anyone in our corner." Mr Cronin said he and his wife had had many meetings with the Office of Public Prosecutions, and most "have ended in tears". The Cronin family and their supporters planned to get together on Friday night to remember the life of the promising young footballer and aspiring physiotherapist. "Nineteen months ago a rusty dagger was thrust into our hearts and that dagger's been sitting there," Matt Cronin said. "Today we're able to pull that dagger out but there's still some rust there. There's a lot of healing, there's a hole in our hearts and we need to get that to heal."
The WA government's failed gold royalty hike has been revived, with Treasurer Ben Wyatt revealing he is speaking to the industry about trying to make it work without significantly affecting marginal mines.

Last month, the Opposition and crossbenchers in the upper house blocked the Labor government's plan to lift gold royalty rates from 2.5 to 3.75 per cent to shave $392 million off net debt over four years.

Labor's state treasurer Ben Wyatt. Credit:TREVOR COLLENS

The industry launched an expensive ad campaign against the plan, and a major reason for the Liberal Party blocking the hike was the risk of significant job losses and mine closures.

But Mr Wyatt said on Thursday he was willing to make adjustments to the plan.
Family on the US side of the border, visit with their family members in Mexico through the border fence. Credit:Tribune "Some people might think it's the worst time to propose it, but you could also think it's the best time," said architect James Brown. "Especially in the political climate that we're in, it might capture the public imagination." Friendship Park is the name for a small area that surrounds Monument 258, a stone marker at the site of the original boundary point between the United States and Mexico. For decades, it marked the space where families from both sides of the border would gather. People look at prototypes for Trump's Mexico border wall in San Diego. Credit:AP "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo calls for peace and friendship between the people of the two nations," Fanestil said, saying this location should be a place that pays homage to that.

Loose fencing in the area for years had allowed people to reach across, hug, share picnics. But in recent years such exchanges have become largely impossible. The Mexican boy artwork by French artist JR in Tecate, Mexico, on the Californian border, aims to prompt discussions about immigration. Credit:AP Saul Rocha, a community liaison officer in San Diego for the US Border Patrol, said stronger fencing became necessary as smugglers seized on the opportunity to infiltrate legitimate gatherings. "The smugglers were taking advantage of the opportunity that we were providing the families to blend in and conduct their illicit activities." A border wall prototype stands near the border with Tijuana, Mexico, in San Diego. Credit:AP

Today, the fence consists of a highly controlled double-barrier. On weekends, the secondary fence is opened for several hours, allowing those on the US side to step up to the primary fence and talk to friends and family across the border; the tightly woven metal mesh that allows them only to touch fingers. Two or three times a year, the primary fence is opened briefly at the request of the group Border Angels, allowing people to embrace. "Friendship Park is one of the most important meeting spaces in the world, but at the same time, it's one of the least humane," Brown said. Removing a 300-metre stretch of the double fence at this spot is at the heart of the Friends of Friendship Park proposal. Brown and Fanestil speak of a 14-hectare park built around this area that would span Tijuana and San Diego, and could even include a pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. "Wouldn't it be fun to walk out on the pier with your friend from Mexico, and then come back, and give them a hug, and say, 'See you next time,'" Fanestil said.

The proposal at this point is conceptual, and leaves many open questions. Just how would authorities maintain control over the flow of people through the area? How would the perimeter be secured? How would people get there? Would only people with border crossing documents have access? To come up with a design, a group of Loeb fellows - mid-career architects, designers and other professionals from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design - are scheduled to come to the region early next year. There will be two public hearings, one in Tijuana and the other in San Diego, said Brown, a former Loeb fellow and the creator the experimental art space Bread & Salt in Barrio Logan. Fanestil and fellow park proponents argue their proposal is not inconceivable - nor is it unprecedented. The US-Canada border already has bi-national parks, most notably the international Peace Arch Park that spans British Columbia and Washington state. And for a pedestrian-only border crossing look no further than the Cross Border Xpress pedestrian port of entry linking Tijuana's airport to Otay Mesa. New technologies in recent years have offered a range of possibilities for law enforcement agencies on the border. A 2015 white paper titled Envision 2020 by University of California, San Diego and Cubic Transportation Systems listed vision analytics, biometric markers, sensor technology, and drones as part of the wave for the future for border security. Removing the wall and creating a bi-national park "you'd have to secure the perimeters of the park," said Katie Busch-Sorensen, a global senior solutions architect for Cubic Transportation Systems. Physical barriers, biometric markers, overhead video cameras could be part of a future solution, she said.
Berlin: Germany must create a third gender category for people who do not identify as either male or female or were born with ambiguous sexual traits, the country's constitutional court has ruled, finding that binary gender designations violated the right to privacy.

In 2013, Germany became the first European country to allow parents to register newborns as neither female nor male, if the child was born with characteristics of both sexes.

A ,ale, female and unisex toilet sign. Credit:iStock

The new decision, by the Federal Constitutional Court on Wednesday, goes further, giving lawmakers until the end of 2018 to either allow the introduction of a third gender category or dispense with gender altogether in public documents.

The ruling arrives as society, medicine and law increasingly recognise the ways in which gender is socially constructed and not necessarily fixed or stable.
if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...
State Debate: Time for America to stop being held hostage by gun fringe, says the Beloit Daily News
Derrick Bernoden burns sage at a makeshift memorial for the First Baptist Church victims Nov. 7, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen and injuring others. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Diamonds are beautiful precious stones but have you ever wondered about how diamonds are created, where diamonds are found and how diamonds are mined? Have you ever wondered about how diamonds are cut, polished and set and what diamond cut is ideal?

Recently I visit the Antwerp World Diamond Centre in Belgium and explored the origin of these stones. The story of how these precious stones were created, more than 100 million years ago, 200 kilometres under the earth's surface, and at intense pressure, is truly fascinating. Over 80% of these diamonds then go through Antwerp either as rough stones or as polished stones to be set in exquisite items of jewellery. I didn't realise the importance of Antwerp as a diamond centre before my visit and it was intriguing to find out this information.





I also found out from the infographic below that diamonds are found everywhere from Angola to Botswana, Canada to South Africa, but the biggest diamond mine is in Russia. Not a lot of people know that. This special Russia diamond mine called the Jubilee, contains over 153 million carats of diamond!





To find out more about diamonds, check out this Infographic below 'From Mine to Mine', and watch out for my posts about 'Antwerp - the city of diamonds', soon.

















Do you own any diamonds? Are there any facts that surprise you about diamonds from the infographic?




On the heels of an election cycle in which neighborhoods were frequently at the center of discussion, the College Station City Council on Thursday weighed possible options to regulate student rental housing in single-family residential areas.

It's an issue the council has revisited several times, and the Planning and Zoning Commission has already recommended some potential tools that could help mitigate the impacts of rental properties in established neighborhoods. The council opted to continue the discussion during a later workshop meeting rather than make any decisions Thursday on what it would like to see in a future ordinance.

There are 5,603 single-family homes listed as rental properties in College Station, primarily concentrated west of Texas 6 and north of William D. Fitch Parkway within 5 miles of the Texas A&M campus. In neighborhood conservation areas, which include some of the city's oldest neighborhoods, there are 1,663 active rental properties.

The Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended the following suggestions for regulating student rental properties:

 In neighborhood conservation areas, requiring one parking space per bedroom for all new single-family construction

 Allowing accessory living quarters to be rented out to any person

 Amending the single-family overlay code section to allow additional options for inclusion in neighborhood conservation overlay districts.

Of the immediate options for consideration the council could have taken Thursday, principal planner Jennifer Paz said allowing neighborhoods pursuing conservation overlay districts -- which allow residents to petition for requirements to impose on their neighborhoods to preserve the unique qualities there -- to choose from two additional options for inclusion would likely be the best way to minimize issues caused by rental properties. The overlays don't limit rental properties, but can discourage them. Those additional options neighborhoods could pursue would include requiring garages and further limiting the number of unrelated people who could live together to no more than two.

The option of allowing accessory living quarters to be rented out would also add a new housing option to the rental market, Paz said, and could help with the city's housing affordability issue. Currently, the city has seen those accessory living quarters, like garage apartments, be occupied by family members of property owners, but they cannot be rented. Allowing rentals, with certain requirements, could also allow property owners to supplement their incomes and preclude them from choosing to sell their homes, which could be later demolished for less desirable rental properties.

If adopted, the parking requirement proposed by P&Z would apply to all new single-family home construction in neighborhood conservation areas. One off-street parking space would be required per bedroom, with a minimum of two and no maximum.

Councilwoman Julie Schultz expressed concerns about the time it would take to enforce those recommendations, and said it would likely require hiring additional city staff. Councilwoman Blanche Brick said she was less concerned with the potential staff time it would take, adding that the city can't attempt to enforce anything before it sets some standards to abide by. She suggested three options in addition to those from the P&Z.

Brick suggested that a property owner wishing to rent out their single-family property by the bedroom be required to live in the home, that homeowners not be allowed to rent out their homes in single-family neighborhoods to more than two unrelated individuals, and that a "multi-resident" zoning district be established to respond to the need for the popular rental properties, especially in areas where more than half of a street has gone in that direction.

"It should not be seen and be attacked as being anti-student, because that's not the case," Brick said. "It's an attempt to respond to real concerns of people who have purchased homes in our neighborhoods... we're seeing a real problem in maintaining any decorum in those neighborhoods today, and I think that we can respond to it and we can offer other alternatives to areas that have already developed these multi-resident homes."

Councilman Barry Moore said he's supportive of the council taking steps to help residents control the direction of their neighborhoods, and was in favor of post of the P&Z recommendations, but called the suggestion for property owners to be required to live in homes they rent by the bedroom "absurd."

In addition to looking into the property rights implications brought up by Moore, Mayor Karl Mooney said the city's legal staff would look into other issues before the council discusses the issue next at a future meeting.

Also at Thursday's meeting:

 The council voted 4-2 to select the current City Hall property at 1101 Texas Ave. as the site for a new City Hall building in the future. Brick and Schultz voted against the motion and Mooney abstained. Some basic concepts and site layouts were discussed for three proposed locations, which also included city-owned parcels at the corner of Krenek Tap Road and Texas Avenue and at the corner of Dartmouth Street and Krenek Tap Road. The design process is tentatively scheduled to begin this fiscal year, with construction planned for fiscal year 2019.

 Three new design options for the new police department facility were presented to the council members after they requested a more traditional design last month. The new options reflected the council's request for design elements like pitched roofs, arches, columns, brick and colors reflective of the city's gateway entries, but all three designs are estimated to be over the $28 million budget for the building. The council directed Houston-based PGAL architects to bring back a design that would fall within budget and exact cost estimates as soon as possible.
Texas A&M is set to welcome Disney Animation Studios animator Brandon Jarratt as the keynote speaker for the university's geographical information science event next week.

The keynote address is part of the free, three-day Texas A&M GIS Day event set for Monday through Wednesday.

Jarratt, an A&M class of '10 graduate, works as a general technical director for Disney in Burbank, California, and has participated in the creation of the feature films Big Hero 6, Moana and Zootopia.

In addition to his bachelor's degree in computer science, Jarratt also earned a master's degree in visualization from A&M.

"Brandon's work is a great example of the application of geospatial technology and highlights the diverse career opportunities that are available," said University Libraries Map Librarian and chair of TAMU GIS Day Sierra Laddusaw. "All Aggies, from geography students to engineering majors, will benefit from hearing about Brandon's unique experiences."

Jarratt's address is planned to take place at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in room 2300A of the Memorial Student Center.

In addition to Jarratt's address, the event will also include several free workshops covering a number of topics including using mapping to assess public health data, the use of GIS applications to support wildlife research, exploring imaginary places -- featuring popular fictional icons such as Middle Earth, Hogwarts and Westeros -- and more.

A&M officials said they recommend those interested in participating in the events to register for the events using the "TAMU GIS Day" application for mobile devices.

For more information on GIS Day events, visit gisday.tamu.edu.
Reps. Amanda Stuck, D-Appleton, and Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, are co-chairs of the bipartisan Wisconsin Future Caucus of state lawmakers age 40 and under.
Texas A&M University is taking further steps to expand its partnership with the Texas Medical Center in Houston through a proposed multi-institutional campus.

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents gave Chancellor John Sharp authorization to begin agreement negotiations with the Texas Medical Center and other involved institutions regarding participation in the campus.

Referred to as the TMC3 campus, the collaborative translational research campus would involve A&M alongside the Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the UT Health Science Center at Houston as founding institutions, should the current plan fully come to fruition.

"This campus will transform the medical community in Texas forever," Sharp said in a statement. "I believe the innovation and research that will be developed by The Texas A&M University System at the TMC3 Campus is going to save lives, improve health and spark incredible advances in medicine."

A&M officials said the TMC3 campus is envisioned as a "premier research campus for biomedical innovation and commercialization" that would serve as a home for clinical research, genomics, health policy and regenerative medicine institutes.

The Texas Medical Center has proposed a site plan including one large, central building surrounded by four smaller buildings -- corresponding to the four founding academic institutions -- on a 30-acre site located in the center's mid-campus.

Texas Medical Center President and CEO Bill McKeon said he hopes the campus will serve as a "city center" of sorts where researchers from across labs and institutions can collide and interact in ways that have the potential to spawn new ideas.

Mckeon, who was promoted in April from his position as executive vice president and chief strategy and operating officer, said TMC3 is part of the center's strategic plan moving forward -- one goal of which is to further establish the area as the "third coast" of the U.S.

"We have the largest medical city in the world, but it's one thing to say we have a large number of people and physicians and patients, but we didn't really have a universal front door to industry," McKeon said. "TMC3 evolved into the third coast -- enough about East Coast and West Coast, we have the largest platform in the world, and we're also proud as the coastal state of Texas that this was our stamp on claiming our rightful place as the third coast in life sciences."

He said the possibility of having the four "top institutions" on board as founding partners of TMC3 would bring the project a level of prestige.

McKeon said he wants to see TMC3 take a concept used by similar collaborative partnerships such as the Broad Institute -- which brought together MIT and Harvard -- and expand upon it by using the existing proximity and relationships already in place in Houston.

"There is this new phenomenon of 'collabetition' -- collaboration and competition," he said. "So how do we collaborate together to compete not with the person across the street, how do we compete on a global basis... TMC3 is really doing that, but on steroids, because unlike them [on the East Coast] we are already on one campus."

"So now for us to design our campus moving forward where they're already here and now we're putting them all adjacent to one another, sharing our labs together, we think we're actually going to leapfrog that phenomenon with this initiative," he said.

In addition to the stellar reputation of the Baylor College of Medicine, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the UT Health Science Center, McKeon specifically cited A&M's recent moves into Houston -- such as the Engineering Medicine partnership with Houston Methodist Hospital -- as signs the institution is developing into an even larger player in the area.

"There are some really amazing things that are happening here on our campus," he said.

While he said he acknowledges it is typically easier for organizations to continue operating "within a brand," he is grateful these institutions seem willing to take this opportunity to do something "truly innovative in a multi-institutional way."

"That's so Texas to do that and I think it's our rightful place and time to do that," McKeon said. "(I hope) this will be the Spindletop of life sciences in Texas... I really hope that it carries through."

The Texas A&M Health Science Center has had a partnership with the Texas Medical Center through the Albert B. Alkek Institute of Biosciences and Technology since 1999.

A&M officials said the expanded presence on the proposed campus would allow for further growth of the institute's presence at the Texas Medical Center.
The Brazos County World War I Centennial Committee has identified an additional Aggie who died during World War I, bringing the total number of known Aggie casualties to 61.

Joseph Louis Smith, class of 1915, was identified by Texas A&M library associate Bill Page and confirmed by Tara Jirinec, information services manager for The Association of Former Students, as they were working on a project to identify all Aggie casualties in U.S. conflicts.

According to a press release announcing his identification, Smith was born in McKinney and attended Texas A&M from 1912 to 1913 as part of the two-year agricultural program. Smith was inducted at Camp Bowie, near Fort Worth, on May 29, 1918, and was assigned to Company L, 143rd Infantry Regiment, 36th U.S. Division.

Smith departed for France later that July and fought at St. Mihiel and St. Etienne before dying of pneumonia on Oct. 31, 1918. Initially buried in France, Smith was reinterred at Pecan Grove Cemetery in McKinney in 1921.

Earlier this year, the committee honored the discovery of five other students who died during World War I whose names were never included on a memorial. They include John W. Butts, Class of 1910, Herbert R. Florence 1911, Joseph Z. Sawyer 1916, Ira W. South 1917 and George W. Splawn 1917.
A speaker at the same event from Tanzania said the human cost of climate change was already threatening the lives of millions of her people: "our livelihood is at stake if we don't act now".

By contrast, at an event in the Bonn zone on aviation and shipping, the International Maritime Organisation, the UN agency overseeing global shipping, explained that any change in environmental regulations would take a minimum of 22 months to bring into effect.

But we were reassured, new environmental regulations had come in for ships, covering incremental improvements such as "propeller polishing, hull cleaning and LED lighting".

A five-year cycle

The aviation industry was even worse: it has committed to take extremely limited action from 2020 - but only to offset increases in emissions, even though it's generally agreed that all the cuts we can make need to be just that, not trade-offs for increases elsewhere. It appeared that for the International Civil Aviation Organization, anything faster wasn't even on the horizon.

The timetables for the global stocktake that Ms Dagnet was referring to is what's generally accepted in the Bonn zone, as is the "enhanced ambition" schedule.

That refers to the fact that the Paris talks two years ago, although states (to the surprise and delight of campaigners) agreed to have an ambition of stopping climate change at 1.5 degrees (and we're two-thirds of the way there now), only assembled offers of national contributions at about 3.4 degrees.

What's needed is for them to considerable increase their offers - but the significant contributors of greenhouse gas emissions are all waiting for each other to act. Many of the events in the Bonn zone are offering suggestions of what they could do - but what there's yet to be any signs of are solid promises to act.

It isn't that there isn't discussion in the Bonn zone about this. One of the terms covering it is "the near-term agenda" (referring to actions before the next big scheduled meeting in 2020 - the talks operating on a five-year cycle of decision then implementation).

Truly essential

It had been hoped the formal talks would start with some agreement on that. It hasn't happened, not yet anyway. And that aviation and maritime meeting, even though not part of the main agenda, with jam-packed, with three times as many people in the room as seats. And almost no one left despite the rising heat.

One of the key events of day one of COP was the International Meterological Organization announcement of its latest climate calculations - and they were all bad news. It said 2017 is set to be the third-warmest on record (higher than had been expected after the end of the El Nino weather phenomenon, which has lifted temperatures in the last couple of years).

The report is of rising sea levels, a shrinking cryosphere and between 2000 and 2016 the number of people vulnerable to extreme heatwaves rising by 125 million.

In the division of urgency between the states and the campaigners, there's no doubt on which side the scientists are on. And that should be taken as a clear and urgent message for the states.

Listen to the campaigners, and the scientists, and bridge that urgency gap. It is truly essential you do it now. A few years' time is too late.

This Author

Natalie Bennett is the former co-leader of the Green party. She is in Bonn with the Green Economics Institute. She tweets at @natalieben.
You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being sexualised , and then an audience that does the same thing.
This week, quirky online retailer ThinkGeek is busily preparing for the worlds biggest shopping event. But that event isnt Black Friday, Cyber Monday or related in any way to the December holidays most U.S. shoppers traditionally shop for this time of year.

Instead, ThinkGeek is prepping for Singles Day, a Chinese holiday held each year on Nov. 11 which encourages singles to buy gifts for themselves. While the holiday emerged in the 90s, the event got a major boost when Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba began offering Singles Day sales in 2009. Today, the holiday has broken most sales records, with Alibaba expected to do $24 billion in sales this year (up from $17.8 billion in 2016), nearly three times the U.S. sales generated last year by Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Despite these eye-popping numbers, most Americans have still never heard of Singles Day -- even as U.S. brands such as Gap and Nike participate in sales overseas. Since the holiday hasnt yet gained traction in the U.S., ThinkGeek hasnt just needed to promote its deals in its email blasts, social media posts and blog posts. Its needed to educate customers that the event exists at all.

We caught up with Jeff Burchett, ThinkGeeks director of product marketing, to learn more about why its one of the few retailers targeting American consumers and whether U.S. retailers should consider getting in on the action next year.

Related: Alibaba's Singles' Day Is a Multi-Billion-Dollar Sales Juggernaut -- and You Could Build Your Own

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is ThinkGeek participating in Singles Day this year?

It seemed like something that would resonate with our fans. Our fans are the kind of fans that will talk to you about Festivus, a holiday made up in Seinfeld 20 years ago. They get interested in and engaged in things that are a little bit off the beaten path. We try to service all things geeky and interesting and new and unique, and not just tread down the same paths all the time.

We have some strange holidays that we celebrate at ThinkGeek. It's a thing that we've made part of our brand -- celebrating these obscure holidays -- and some are more obscure than others. We have Send ThinkGeek a Pizza Day. As I've heard it told, one of our very earliest employees, about 18 years ago, had a greater-than-average love of pizza. Send ThinkGeek a Pizza Day was celebrated on his birthday, kind of as a joke. And then it became an ongoing process. Last year we didnt promote it outside of a ThinkGeek calendar we create, and we still received a couple dozen pizzas.

We also celebrate events like Harry Potters birthday with sales or big giveaways. So its sort of nothing new for us to be trying things that other people wont necessarily try.

Why do you think Singles Day might resonate with shoppers in the States?

When we saw that Alibaba did this insane volume of sales on Singles Day last year that indicated to us that a lot of people were interested in it. I don't think this is the kind of thing that's going to stay particularly localized to China. You can make it into whatever you want it to be about. If you want to make it about you and your friends, you can do that. If you want to make it about your transition from being single to marrying someone, you can do that. If you want to find yourself a partner, you can do that. There are so many ways that a person can take it and make something meaningful to themselves out of it that it seems like a really worthwhile and valid holiday to me.

What have you learned from Chinese companies in how they target shoppers for Singles Day?

So, one of the things that we wanted to sort of push on it, for our fans, is the idea that 'You are the single you,' There's not anybody else who's got your own set of interests and the collection of the things that make up your interest in fandom. So we're pushing on that and saying it's OK to be single, it's OK to be married, it's OK to be whatever you want to be, be happy being you, because you're the only one of you. And that seems to be the tack that a lot of the Chinese companies have taken as well. And so far, it's resonating pretty well, I think, with our fans.

What products is ThinkGeek offering Singles Day promotions on?

Orpheus, the Saddest Music Machine, always does really well for us but we've definitely seen that one bump. Hes this cute little robot made out of laser-cut wood, and its got a music box inside it and plays a melancholy tune. Our Shark Attack Bowl has popped up and done crazy well. Thats a very ThinkGeek product, I would say. Not many people would make a bowl thats a sharks mouth that you eat out of.

A lot of them fall into the general category of products that we would say are to treat yourself. With sales like this, especially at this time of year, we tend to mark stuff down that is bestseller stuff. This is kind of a, well help you treat yourself for stuff we know you love type of a sale.

Most shoppers dont really know about this holiday. What is ThinkGeek doing to address that?

We have taken the path of education on this, which I don't think would work for every retailer, because we at ThinkGeek and our fans wear the label of "geek" very proudly. And things that work here probably won't work elsewhere. So for us to go out with a message that is, "Hey, learn about this cool new holiday that you've never heard about before. This is pretty interesting," is something that resonates with our fans that might not with a lot of others. So, that is one of the ways that we've positioned this, as an opportunity for education expansion for our fans to tell them about something new and interesting.

Related: 21 Simple Ideas for a Successful Small Business Saturday

Why don't other U.S. retailers get in on Singles Day?

I would say, number one, people just don't know about it. I mean, it's easy to not know about it if you don't shop on AliExpress or maybe you've just never encountered it. Number two, I think a lot of people are just stuck in a position of saying, "That's a Chinese holiday." Number three, people don't have the ability, the time, the runway to execute on something like this. One of the analogies that we use here during crunch time in Q4 is like, "It's really hard to look at the horizon when you're stuck staring down at your feet to make sure that you don't trip over something." If you're constantly just trying to see how to get through today or this week, it's really hard to look way off in the distance and say, "Are there any cool opportunities coming 12, 18 months from now that we should we should be looking at?" We started talking about this a little over a year ago here as something that we might want to get involved in. So we started tracking it and seeing how other retailers, whether they're in the U.S. or not, were performing with it.

What have you learned so far about Singles' Day, for those who might want to get in on this next year?

People love holidays. People love a reason to be excited for something and to be happy and to celebrate. I think that's just part of human nature, that we're sort of looking for fun and exciting things to do. We're looking for shared experiences. That's one of the great things about fandom. If you like Batman and I like Batman, we immediately have something to talk about. We have a community, we have something in common, and the more of that that you're a part of, the more of a built-in community you have. People are looking for that experience, and we've found that people are willing to come along for the ride with us.

If you train your customers to expect something, then they will. And if you constantly try new things and give them something new to latch onto, it increases engagement, it increases their interest in your brand, it increases your credibility as a brand that is at the forefront. Nobody wants to align themselves or associate themselves with something that's stagnating or stuck. Everybody wants to be part of the next thing. So the only advice that I would give is, really and truly be willing to try new things, and maybe give Singles' Day 2018 a shot. I don't think it's going to get any smaller.

Related video: How to Build a Successful Brick-and-Mortar Startup

Related:

5 Ways to Grow and Build Trust

U.S. Retailers Aren't Embracing Singles' Day -- a Billion-Dollar Sales Opportunity. This Retailer Is Trying to Change That.

10 frases que el cliente quiere escuchar



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This months mobile food pantry in Grand Island is planned for Saturday in the garage at the city Utilities Department building at 315 N. Jefferson St.

The food giveaway is sponsored monthly by the Food Bank for the Heartland and Trinity United Methodist Churchs Loaves and Fishes ministry. This months event is scheduled earlier because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The mobile pantry will begin at 9:30 a.m. and numbers will be handed out starting at 8:15. Clients should not arrive on site before 8 a.m.

A mobile pantry is a traveling food pantry that delivers food free of charge directly to individuals and families who need assistance for a one-day food distribution. The goal is to provide food where there is a high need but limited resources. Items to be distributed at the mobile pantry in Hall County include spaghetti, tomato sauce, canned pork and beans, cereal, pancake mix and other shelf-stable products along with perishable items, including a variety of fresh produce and bakery items.

Approximately 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of food, the equivalent of 20,800 to 25,000 meals, will be distributed to individuals and families living in Hall County and surrounding communities who are food insecure.

Those who come to the mobile pantry are encouraged to bring boxes or bags to assist in carrying the food they receive. No identification is required to receive food.

In October, the mobile pantry in Grand Island provided food to 470 households in Hall County, said Susan Ogborn, president and CEO of Food Bank for the Heartland. This is one of the largest monthly mobile pantries hosted in the Food Banks 93-county service area. It is providing meals to local food-insecure children, families and seniors.

Results of a study supported by the Conagra Brands Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the Nielsen Co. show approximately 10.5 percent, or 6,380 people, in Hall County are at-risk for hunger. That includes 3,140 children.

The Food Bank is continuing to work with the city of Grand Island to establish a permanent location for the monthly mobile pantry. The next food giveaway in Hall County is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 9, again in the city utilities garage.

Calvary Lutheran hosting craft fair

Calvary Lutheran Church will host a craft fair and flea market from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, at the church, 1304 W. Custer Ave.

Christmas gifts, crafts and goodies will be sold by individual vendors. The event also includes a bake sale and food will be served.

First-Faith UMC sponsors craft sale

First-Faith United Methodist Church in Grand Island will host a crafts, baked goods and homemade noodles sale on Saturday, Nov. 18, at the church.

The event will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the church, 4190 W. Capital Ave.

Cairo church plans Soup and Bazaar Day

CAIRO  Cairo United Methodist Church will host its annual Soup and Bazaar Day on Saturday, Nov. 18.

The event will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Coffee and rolls will be served in the morning and a meal including chicken noodle, chili and vegetable beef soup, sandwiches and pie will be served beginning at 10 a.m. Carryout meals will be available. A freewill offering will be collected.

The event will also include crafts, baked goods, jellies and plants for sale, along with a large selection of attic treasures.

The church is located at 506 E. Kansas St. Hunters are welcome.
Grand Island residents and city officials were able to get a look at the citys proposed five-year transit plan at an open house Thursday evening at the Grand Island Public Library.

According to information in a brochure provided at the open house, Grand Island and Hall County have had public transportation services since the 1970s, but after the 2010 census, when Grand Island became a metropolitan statistical area, the city of Grand Island took over transit services from Hall County in July 2016 and worked to come up with a five-year transit plan.

During Thursdays open house, Corinne Donahue with Olsson Associates in Omaha, gave a presentation on the study. MPO Program Manager Allan Zafft said the city of Grand Island hired Olsson Associates last March to commission the study. He added that through Nov. 15, the city is taking public comments on the draft summary report of the study.

Donahue said the study began with public engagement as Olsson Associates and the citys transit staff spoke with focus groups, major city employers and current transit users.

Once we had all of that feedback, we looked at these different alternatives, the main modes of transportation and our status quo, Donahue said. In five years, are we going to do the same thing as today, or do we want something new?

Donahue said the current service has transit users call 24 hours in advance and they must be over 18 to use the service by themselves. She added the study could change the service as transit users could have service within a couple hours when they call, rather than 24 hours.

We will continue the status quo-demand response service as today with 24-hour reservations Monday through Friday, Donahue said. We start at 6 a.m. and go until 5 p.m. We operate seven or eight vehicles depending on how many trips are scheduled. Our budget today is just under $500,000. The fare continues to be $2 every time you get on the bus.

During her presentation Thursday evening, Donahue talked about four primary alternatives: status quo, same-day demand response, flexible route service and fixed-route service.

In the brochure provided by Olsson Associates on the transit study, the fiscally constrained plan is based on technical data analysis, public engagement and financial projections for the city of Grand Island for the next five years.

Due to a limited resources in the citys general fund and little budget flexibility, the brochure explains the fiscally constrained plan maintains the current status quo, 24-hour demand-response service that is offered today.

The fiscally-constrained plan is for five years, but we must show the resources are out there, Donahue said. We cannot just ask for $200,000 next year. The city has to say it knows it has tax revenues coming in that will fund its service. We have to be real with that plan.

Another transit plan presented Thursday evening was the illustrative plan. Donahue said due to the current budget restraints the city has, this plan would not be feasible for at least three years. However, should funding become available, she said Transit Program Manager Charley Falmlen can begin planning for flexible routes.

Donahue said the two proposed routes under the illustrative plan would begin at Central Community College. One would travel through the western portion of Grand Island, while the other route would begin at Wal-Mart North and travel through downtown before going back to Wal-Mart South.

These are fairly high-level routes. When Charley gets the funding, she would need to go a little bit more detailed, Donahue said. But this is a pretty good glance of where activity centers are today and where we have the demand for transit.

Donahue added that the citys current transit service is just under $500,000 today. If it moves to a flexible route service, the cost would be $682,000, meaning the city would need an additional $200,000 to operate the service.

Other transit options Donahue presented were ride sharing and the Vanpool program, which was implemented by the Nebraska Department of Transportation at the beginning of 2017.

It is usually free. You go straight to a site and sign up for it, Donahue said of the ride sharing option. If I sign up for it and another person needs to go to Kearney every day. If you enter that information, you put what time you work, what time you need to get home, the program matches you up with six or seven people you can contact and you are responsible for meeting and getting there.

As for the Vanpool program, Donahue said a group of people heading to a specific destination, such as one of Grand Islands major employers, retailers or the veterans home, can pool together to drive to their destination.

Another option presented at Thursdays open house was an inter-city bus service, with routes going from Grand Island to Hastings, and from Grand Island to Kearney.

Donahue said: We can begin the planning work and Charley, as the transit manager, will have to reach out to Hastings and Kearney to see where the citys route is going to go and when we are going to leave to connect people to the destinations where they need to go.

The public comment period is open until Nov. 15; that will open into the final draft summary report. The final draft is available for review and public comment through Nov. 15 at City Hall and the Grand Island Public Library.

The final report will include a review of existing transit operations in the study area, will identify the areas in Grand Island with the greatest transit need, present future transit options, and provide a realistic plan moving forward.

The final summary of the transit study is expected to be adopted by the GIAMPO Policy Board on Dec. 12.
Authorities cited two men accused of running an illegal deer-hunting operation in Trempealeau County.

Travis Brush, who owns Brush Ranch Outfitters in Galesville, and employee Randall Hoff lured wild deer into a fenced captive deer farm to harvest trophy bucks, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

The men altered the fence to allow wild deer to enter the ranch, where people could hunt and harvest deer year-round. They also used illegal bait and allowed hunts during closed seasons.

The DNR and state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection launched an investigation after complaints from the public.

"In this instance, we found that the actions of Brush Ranch Outfitters created a situation where captive deer and wild white-tailed deer commingled to create a potential disease risk that, if we had not stopped it, could have had a negative impact on the deer population in this part of Wisconsin," said Paul McGraw, Wisconsin State veterinarian with the DATCP Division of Animal Health.

Brush, 48, of Holmen was issued 34 citations and two misdemeanors for unauthorized use of taking a deer from the wild in Trempealeau County Circuit Court. Hoff, 61, of Galesville was issued 14 citations.
Ever since arriving on campus at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2003, Denise Cobb, PhD, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, has continuously helped pave the way for student and faculty success.

On this weeks episode of Segue, which airs at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 12, on WSIE 88.7 The Sound, SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook, PhD, and Cobb have an insightful conversation about her responsibilities and how she helps the University community thrive.

Cobb serves as the chief academic officer for the University and is responsible for promoting the academic and scholarly environment at SIUE. She works in collaboration with the academic deans, faculty and staff, as well as the SIU System president, SIU Board of Trustees, and the Illinois Board of Higher Education. She is responsible for strategic academic program and budget planning, policy development and review, and program assessment, as well as faculty and student development.

As provost, you work with virtually all of our Universitys academic units, Pembrook says. That is a lot to help coordinate.

It can be challenging at times, Cobb replies. We have a wide-ranging set of programs, but it is a tremendous opportunity to help our deans, faculty and staff to create programs that will be successful and serve our region.

I take the big problems as they come our way and make sure to try and clear the path for the people to do the good work they imagine for our students, faculty and staff.

An Arkansas native, Cobb earned her bachelors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1993 and a masters from the University of Central Arkansas in 1995. In 2003, after she achieved a doctorate from Tulane University, Cobb joined the SIUE Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies as an assistant professor. Prior to her promotion to professor and appointment to interim provost in 2015, she was assistant provost for academic innovation and effectiveness, then associate provost for academic affairs since 2012.

As an administrator, it is important to have lived the lives of the people you serve. You have been a faculty member, associate chair, and worked in assessment and program development, Pembrook says. Those things give you a great perspective as you think about what our deans are trying to accomplish and when you work with academic individuals at SIUE.

Its been incredibly helpful and my journey here has prepared me in ways I have never imagined, Cobb says. It has been beneficial to imagine what my fellow faculty members need and what can help them do the type of work that is meaningful for them in and outside the classroom.

Our faculty and students want a provost who helps and understands the challenges they have, whether their issues are budgetary, with personnel, or trying to acquire the equipment to fulfill their research needs.

Looking toward the future, Cobb believes that interdisciplinary program growth, increasing the Universitys retention rates, and developing more research opportunities for undergraduate students are SIUEs keys to success.

I want to make sure we have the programs that our students and our communities need and thinking about curricular innovation is extremely important to me, both in the short and long term, Cobb says. By providing opportunities for our students to thrive and achieve their higher education goals, they will be able to move toward their degree in the way theyre supposed to, which will help us raise our four and six-year graduation rates.

We also want to make sure each student has an opportunity to work independently or collaboratively with faculty on research or creative activity early in their curriculum rather than at the end of their undergraduate career with their senior assignments, she says. Its the work our faculty love doing with our students, and it will help students work toward graduation in a seamless way.

Not only has Cobb secured SIUEs reaffirmation of institutional accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission, but she also seeks various program accreditations throughout the Universitys academic disciplines.

At the institutional level, accreditation is a necessary condition. Its an institutional stamp of legitimacy, accountability to the federal government, and allows us to strive for continuous quality improvement.

We also pursue accreditation for our various academic programs to say that we are meeting the disciplines standards and that our students will be ready for professional practice. Accreditation for our programs in the Schools of Business and Engineering, for example, helps shore up our academic reputation and communicates a story to our potential students that they will get the same experience they would have received at another accredited institution.

Looking forward to the future, how do you think education will change? Pembrook inquires.

The focus on online education will be even greater to meet the needs of each kind of learner, Cobb answers. Although brick-and-mortar universities are here to stay, online or technology-based programs will allow us to meet the needs of adult learners or other students who may not be able to go to campus for the traditional experience.

With the growth of technology, SIUE will continue to be able to provide pedagogical programs that help student learning, whether its in an online program or in the classroom.

Listen to Cobb and Pembrooks conversation in its entirety at 9 a.m. this Sunday, Nov. 12, on WSIE 88.7 The Sound.

By Madelaine Gerard, SIUE Marketing and Communications
The Midnight Line: A Jack Reacher Novel

By Lee Child

Delacorte. 384 pp. $28.99

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One of a distinct minority, I have not been a Lee Child fan. I read one Jack Reacher novel and didn't like the foundational concept of the popular series - a hulking former Army Military Police vigilante who rights wrongs the police can't or won't fix. Criminal justice reform is what we need, I thought (and still do) - not rough-and-tough, know-it-all, solve-it-all Jack Reacher. He struck me as basically a well-meaning violent jerk who should probably be arrested.

I reacted very differently to "The Midnight Line," a timely, affecting, suspenseful and morally complex thriller. In fact, it's one of the best thrillers I've read this year.

This time Child confronts the opioid epidemic, and he does so with keenness, understanding and a burning anger over the scourge's causes - poverty, hopelessness, war - and the haplessness of the U.S. criminal justice system's response, or lack thereof.

Given the subject, Reacher is more thoughtful and measured than usual, relying more on his wits than on those fists of his that are "the size of a supermarket chicken." Not that fans of acrobatic-action-hero Reacher will be disappointed. He dispatches an entire biker gang while suffering no worse than a few scrapes and bruises, and he threatens to stuff a South Dakota drug kingpin into a tumble dryer, letting the bad guy pick the setting - either "delicates" or "all the way to where it can kill a bedbug."

But it's a sentimental notion that sets the novel's well-oiled narrative in motion. Having just broken up with his most recent girlfriend (Reacher wears his intimacy issues like a chest full of Army medals), crime fiction's favorite drifter notices the class ring of a fellow West Point grad in a small-town Wisconsin pawnshop window. He buys the ring and sets out to learn why the apparently female former owner had to part with an object of almost sacred importance.

It's soon apparent that Serena Rose Sanderson has come to grief in some terrible way, probably connected to her five Army tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sanderson's twin sister, Jane, and an ex-FBI agent PI join Reacher on his quest to locate Sanderson and return the ring to her. It's refreshing to see Reacher working well with others. His habitual loner-ness has bordered on the pathological, a trait Reacher himself occasionally pokes fun at. Referring to his never having a home and constantly riding around on buses, he tells a fellow West Pointer, "We fought for freedom. This is what freedom looks like." He is sort of kidding and sort of not.

Readers will practically need a GPS to follow Reacher and his posse around the Western plains through parts of South Dakota and Wyoming, and it's a pleasure to ride along. Child writes beautifully about the vast open spaces of the West, with its physical landscape that's magnificent but a human landscape that's often not pretty at all. Among the novel's most startling scenes are ones that show the daily lives of addicts with heartbreaking exactitude. Officer Sanderson - no spoiler alert necessary here; this is obvious and happens early - suffered the worst kind of physical and psychic wounds in Afghanistan.

Child is not so witty as other laconic hard-boiled writers - in that regard he suffers in comparison to Elmore Leonard - but he can still be entertainingly droll. A technophobe, Reacher has no cellphone, and when the ex-FBI guy wonders if Reacher works for a website, he replies, "I don't. Whatever that means." Fittingly, he has an uncanny knack for locating working pay phones, quite a feat these days.

Through his winding tale, Childs weaves in a passionately told history of opioids in American life. War has been a major part of that history, from the invention of morphine before the Civil War to the painkillers used during the carnage of the World Wars, and more recently in Vietnam and the Middle East. Wars create a lot of addicts. Post-war governments often throw those people in jail. That is stupid and ugly, and Child's outrage over this sorry state of affairs is only just barely contained.

---

Lipez writes the Don Strachey PI novels under the name Richard Stevenson.
The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World

By Jeff Goodell

Little, Brown. 340 pp. $28

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Some of humanity's most primordial stories involve flooding: The tales of Noah, and before that Gilgamesh, tell what happens when the water starts to rise and doesn't stop. But for the 10,000 years of human civilization, we've been blessed with a relatively stable climate, and hence flooding has been an exceptional terror. As that blessing comes to an end with our reckless heating of the planet, the exceptional is becoming all too normal, as residents of Houston and South Florida and Puerto Rico found out already this fall.

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria provide a dramatic backdrop for the story Jeff Goodell tells in "The Water Will Come": If there was ever a moment when Americans might focus on drainage, this is it. But this fine volume (which expands on his reporting in Rolling Stone) concentrates on the slower and more relentless toll that water will take on our cities and our psyches in the years to come. Those who pay attention to global warming have long considered that its effects on hydrology - the way water moves around the planet - may be even more dramatic than the straightforward increases in temperature.

To review the basic physics: Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air does, which means you get more evaporation and hence drought in arid areas, and more rainfall and hence floods in wet ones. (Harvey, for example, was the greatest rainfall event in American history, the kind of deluge possible only in a warmer world.) Meanwhile, heat melts ice: Greenland and the Antarctic are vast stores of what would otherwise be ocean, and now they're beginning to surrender that water back to the sea.

These effects were somewhat harder to calculate than other impacts of climate change. In particular, scientists were slow to understand how aggressively the poles would melt, and hence the main international assessments, until recently, forecast relatively modest rises in sea level: three feet, perhaps, by century's end. That's enough to cause major problems, but perhaps not insuperable ones - richer cities could probably build seawalls and other barriers to keep themselves above the surface. Yet new assessments of the disintegration of glaciers, and more data from deep in the Earth's past, have convinced many scientists that we could be looking at double or triple that rate of sea level rise in the course of the century. Which may take what would have been a major problem and turn it into a largely insoluble new reality.

Consider Miami and Miami Beach, where Goodell has concentrated much of his reporting. Built on porous limestone or simply mounds of mud dredged from the surrounding sea, low-lying South Florida streets already flood regularly at especially high tides. The simple facts, however, haven't stopped the Miami real estate boom: When Irma hit, more than 20 huge cranes were at work building high-rises (and two of them toppled). Goodell manages to track down the city's biggest real estate developer, Jorge Perez, at a museum opening. He was not, he said, worried about the rising sea because "I believe that in twenty or thirty years, someone is going to find a solution for this. If it is a problem for Miami, it will also be a problem for New York and Boston - so where are people going to go?" (He added, with a Trumpish level of narcissism, "Besides, by that time I'll be dead, so what does it matter?")

Goodell dutifully tracks down the people who are working on those "solutions" - the Miami Beach engineers who are raising city streets and buildings; their Venetian counterparts who are building a multibillion-dollar series of inflatable booms that can hold back storm tides. In every case the engineering is dubious, not to mention hideously expensive. And more to the point, it's all designed for the relatively mild two- or three-foot rises in sea level that used to constitute the worst-case scenarios. Such tech is essentially useless against the higher totals we now think are coming, a fact that boggles most of the relevant minds. When a University of Miami geologist explains to some Florida real estate agents that he thinks sea level rise may top 15 feet by 2100, Goodell describes one "expensively dressed broker who was seated near me" who sounded "like a six-year-old on the verge of a temper tantrum. ... 'This can't be a fear-fest,' she protested. 'Why is everyone picking on Miami?'"

No one, obviously, is picking on Miami. But the developed world is definitely picking on the low-lying islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans (Goodell gives sharp descriptions of the imperiled Marshalls and the outsize role the nation played in international climate negotiations). The vast majority of people at risk live in places such as Bangladesh and Burma, where rising seas are already swamping farmland and forcing internal migration, mostly of people who have burned so little fossil fuel that they have played no serious part in causing the crisis we now face.

There are precisely two answers that give some hope to a world facing this greatest of all challenges. The first is to stop burning fossil fuels. If we moved with great speed toward 100 percent renewable energy, we might still hold sea level rise to a meter or two. And this is now a realistic possibility: The rapid fall in the price of wind and solar power over the past few years means we could conceivably make the transition in time. That's precisely what President Trump is now preventing (and to be fair, it's more than President Barack Obama wanted to do, either - Goodell's extensive interviews with the former president capture both his fine rhetoric and his sad policy waffling). At this point, the world seems more likely to stumble along a path of slow conversion to clean energy, guaranteeing that the great ice sheets will crumble.

The other way forward is to adapt to the unpreventable rise in sea level. Goodell describes a few of the plans for floating buildings and such, but if you want a real sense of what this option looks like, you're better off reading Kim Stanley Robinson's massive and massively enjoyable novel "New York 2140," published this year. Robinson is described as a science fiction writer, but in this case he's more like a political scientist, describing a New York a century from now that's been largely inundated but where people inhabit (often with surprising good cheer) the ever-shifting intertidal zone. Of course, this metro-size version of the Swiss Family Robinson happens only after two great pulses of sea level rise have killed off a huge percentage of the human population, so it's not the ideal scenario.

Or we could take the path laid out by Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine at the 100th anniversary of the founding of Miami Beach. "If, thirty or forty years ago, I'd told you you were going to be able to communicate with your friends around the world with a phone you carried around in your pocket," he said in 2015, "you would think I was out of my mind." Thirty or 40 years from now, he promised, "we're going to have innovative solutions to fight back against sea-level rise that we cannot even imagine today." Forget building the ark, Noah - we've got an app for that.

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McKibben is the founder of the global climate movement 350.org and the author of the novel "Radio Free Vermont."
Students at Woodland Elementary School got a big surprise at a school assembly Thursday. Representatives from Amazon were there to donate $10,000 of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) products to the school. But the students werent told about the gift until the assembly.

The students came straight to the gym after arriving at the school. They were already excited, since it was crazy hair day and there was no school on Friday. When they saw the Amazon boxes on a table in front of the gym stage and the news people there, the excitement and noise level rose even higher.

As loud and excited as they were, when Principal Tara Fox asked for quiet, they immediately complied. After giving the customary school greeting of Good Morning, Ms. Fox, the students settled in to listen.

She opened the assembly by reminding the students who were there last year about STEM day. The day is held near the end of the school year. Last year, students launched rockets and participated in other STEM projects. Every year our PTO has been very good about buying supplies for STEM day, Fox said. The students reactions to the reminder about STEM day made it clear that it was a fun and memorable day. She asked the students if they would like to have a STEM room in the school that they could use all year. The answer was an enthusiastic yes.

Fox told the students that they had a surprise, but first she wanted to introduce some people. She then introduced Edwardsville Mayor Hal Patton.

Math is my favorite part of STEM, he said. He congratulated the students on their gift.

This is a great outreach by Amazon, Patton said. Theyve done a great thing for our community. Now its going to challenge me to raise enough money to get this in all our schools. You are the first, but you wont be the last, he said.

Before the assembly, Patton had said that he was committed to working with the district to raise money so all four elementary schools could also have STEM rooms.

Jason Speedy, with Amazon, said that he learned about STEM day from Fox.

We asked how can we keep them doing STEM every day all year long, he said.

Speedy said that Edwardsville was home to several Amazon employees, including him. I have three kids. One is at Goshen and one at Cassens, he said.

Edwardsville is our home, said Mike Moore, also with Amazon. Its where we live and work. He thanked the district and school for working with Amazon on this project.

Finally, the moment the students were waiting for arrived. The stage curtains opened to reveal several Amazon employees with the STEM products displayed on tables.

Fox said after the assembly that the gift was a welcome surprise. Amazon contacted us and said that they give $10,000 in products to a local school whenever they open a new fulfillment center, she said. They asked us what we wanted.

Fox said a committee decided how to use the money. The school has a technology room, and they decided that creating a STEM room would be a good use of the money. Well give teachers dedicated time in it each week, and they can also sign up for additional time if they want it, she said.

The school decided what products they wanted to get with the donation. They got several kits, games and toys that are age-appropriate for the students, from Tinker Toy and Lego building sets to microscopes.
Beginning New Years Day, Illinois schools will be required to provide free feminine hygiene products to students in the restrooms of school buildings.

Thats because on Aug. 18 the Illinois General Assembly passed a new law called the Learn with Dignity Act. It amended the school code to require school districts to make tampons and sanitary napkins for use in connection with the menstrual cycle available for free in school bathrooms.

The law, which becomes effective Jan. 1, also applies to charter schools. Additionally, it only applies to schools serving students in sixth through 12th grade.

Feminine hygiene products are a health care necessity and not an item that can be foregone or substituted easily, the law, Public Act 100-0163, says. Access to feminine hygiene products is a serious and ongoing need in this state. When students do not have access to affordable feminine hygiene products, they may miss multiple days of school every month. When students have access to quality feminine hygiene products, they are able to continue with their daily lives with minimal interruption.

For District 7, which has provided students with these products for free in the school nurses office, that means purchasing and installing dispensers in the appropriate bathrooms at Liberty Middle School, Lincoln Middle School and Edwardsville High School.

This law simply means we are going to have to obtain dispensers, which we are in the process of doing, Edwardsville District 7 Superintendent Lynda Andre said. That would be something not based on money, but something that would dispense materials for free. And then we will install those in girls restrooms. So it doesnt really change what were doing because weve always had that service available through the nurse. So now they dont have to leave the restroom or come and ask somebody.

According to State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, that ability to not have to ask someone for a necessary product is one of the benefits of the law.

Young women get periods, thats a fact, Stuart, who voted for the bill, said. There is nothing shameful about menstruation, but unfortunately many young women feel shame and embarrassment when they have their period. Having to make a trip to the nurse or making sure to take coins with you when you leave the classroom (to buy a product) can increase the unease a young woman is already dealing with.

A benefit (of the law) is it gives students the assurance that if they need something and they might be embarrassed to go ask an adult, they have the ability to get that item discreetly, Andre agreed.

Andre said District 7 currently does not have an estimated cost for purchasing, installing and providing upkeep for the dispensers. She estimated the installation process would be accomplished over a student break such as the holiday break.

Andre said the district will continue to offer free feminine hygiene products at the nurses office even after the dispensers are installed.

Despite the positive aspects of the bill, it is not without its criticisms. Some have called it an unfunded mandate because lawmakers did not provide money for districts to comply with the new requirement.

HB 3215 will have a fiscal impact on school districts, the fiscal note attached to the bill says, however, the specific amount is not known.

A fiscal note is a written estimate of costs, savings and revenue gains or losses that would result if the bill is enacted.

Another worry is the potential for students to steal items from the dispensers.

Andre said she did not have either of those concerns for District 7.

I dont anticipate it being a large cost item, certainly in the operation of this district, nor do I think people look at something like that to take, she said. They understand why its there and for the most part kids are going to do the right thing. Weve never experienced theft of things in restrooms so Im not concerned about that.

A critique Andre did have, however, related to the necessity of the law.

Im not sure that I believe a law had to happen in order to make school districts (provide free feminine hygiene products), Andre explained. As Ive reviewed many articles about this, at a point when Illinois has so many really large problems to deal with it was interesting to see this come out as a law.It just wasnt necessary because Ive talked to many school district people who were already (providing free feminine hygiene products) and didnt believe it needed to be a law. But it doesnt matter. It is so well certainly comply with it.

Stuart, a former middle school and high school teacher, said making this a legal requirement seemed logical.

It only makes sense to have feminine hygiene supplies available where young women will actually need them and not force them to basically announce to all their peers that they are currently menstruating by carrying a small purse with them into the restroom, Stuart said. School attendance is imperative for academic success and this law helps girls attend school, no matter what time of the month it may be.
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Linkedin Alan Bollard (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 13:38 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a28540b0 3 Opinion APEC,#APECmeeting,Trade,regional-economy,international-trade Free

On Saturday, the leaders of the worlds largest and most dynamic trading corridor, joined by President Joko Jokowi Widodo and newcomers including United States President Donald Trump, will convene in the central Vietnamese port city of Danang for their annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting.

Together, these 21 leaders will attempt to align their ideas for making trade between APEC economies work better in the common pursuit of growth and job creation back home, with enormous implications for their three billion constituents and the rebounding global economy.

For all the stakes, APEC has over the years lived up to its name as a cooperative forum for tough economic issues, enabled by its enduring focus on voluntary, non-legally binding policy prescriptions for easing trade bottlenecks like tariffs, administrative red tape at borders and mismatching standards that raise costs for businesses and consumers.

Approaches agreed to by consensus are in turn adopted as the vision for technical coordination among the diverse economies of APEC, which, in all, account for half of global trade and 60 percent of the worlds gross domestic product.

Beyond these sometimes unwieldy deliberations, high drama at the APEC table, as in Bali, Beijing, Manila and Lima most recently, is the regular issue of what traditional attire the leaders will adorn in their family photo at the invitation of the host economy. The custom is a lighthearted display of cultural understanding and partnership. Only these are hardly routine days for trade in the Asia-Pacific or elsewhere.

So where do things stand? On the bright side, after three decades of proactive efforts by APEC member economies to improve their connectivity and trade-driven growth, we have seen over a billion people lifted out of poverty in places like China, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam, and into the ranks of the middle classthe biggest achievement for economics in the history of the world.

This breakthrough is translating into vast new market opportunities driven by surging demand for goods like cars, high-end cosmetics and meat, and, increasingly, services such as cleaner and more efficient energy, higher education, financial services, preventive healthcare, mobile apps, travel and tourism that reflect decidedly middle class lifestyles and tastes.

The potential to take advantage of these emerging growth drivers extends to workers, businesses and a new generation of digitally empowered entrepreneurs in advanced economies too  whether they are very large like Japan and the US, relatively small like New Zealand and Singapore, or somewhere in between like Australia, Canada and South Korea.

All told, these trends are today powering exports and a return to growth in the region, as reflected in the latest forecasts in APEC, and the global economy along with it. There is a flipside to all of this, however. For all the progress unfolding in the Asia-Pacific, challenges in the global and regional trading environment and to the institutions that support it put this momentum at risk.

The swell of populist misgivings towards globalization in some areas, most profoundly manifested in the Brexit and subsequent events in developed economies over the last year, has brought genuine questions about the fairness of trade and who benefits from it into greater focus.

The potential composition, impact and desirability of new, bigger and more sweeping trade agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership are the subject of correspondingly heavy scrutiny by proponents and detractors.

The rules of trade as governed by the World Trade Organization, intended to kept markets open and trade buoyant, are showing signs of fraying over dispute resolutions and modernization requirements.

The rapid pace of technological change has moreover raised concerns about automation replacing workers like those on assembly lines, at banks and airport check-in desks, and behind the wheel. And e-commerce and big data has fundamentally revised skills demand and the meaning of security in one fell swoop.

In an inextricably interconnected world, these challenges are not limited to any one economy or group of economies, developed or developing, big or small, market or non-market. They are challenges that all of us now face. But they are clearly proving hard for the trading landscape and the institutions around the world that underpin it to handle.

APECs leaders in Danang, traditional clothing and all, are in a position to lead the way forward in dealing with these issues, helped by the flexibility and room for innovation, say, in digitally driven trade, startup promotion and even adjustment schemes and safety nets, made possible by the loose cooperation between them and their economies. Inroads in such areas would make a real difference.

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We are looking for information, opinions, and in-depth analysis from experts or scholars in a variety of fields. We choose articles based on facts or opinions about general news, as well as quality analysis and commentary about Indonesia or international events. Send your piece to academia@jakpost.com.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post.
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 08:20 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a283e90f 4 Editorial #Editorial,religion,native-faiths,religious-freedom Free

We as Indonesians are proud of our rich diversity of ethnicities with their distinct cultures, including languages and indigenous faiths  which we advertise for tourism and display as Instagrammable souvenirs from our vacations.



That followers of such beliefs face much hardship in their daily lives are at best considered unfortunate, a classic fate of traditional communities, as they are not regarded as equal citizens with those who follow mainstream religions.



On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court reminded us that these faith minority members are not exotic objects, but long-neglected, stigmatized citizens .



In an historic step, the court unanimously annulled two articles of the Civil Administration Law that state citizens whose faiths have yet to be recognized by the state should leave vacant the space for religion on their ID cards; and that such citizens would still be registered in the population database.



The court ruled the above clauses, which exclude native faiths in their reference to religion, unconstitutional, rendering the law inconsistent with itself and with other laws such as the Human Rights Law as apart from the Constitution. Such inconsistencies have perpetuated the violation of citizens constitutional rights  namely the difficulties among the minorities to get access to public services, even though they are registered.



Native faith followers have reported difficulties in enrolling children in school, applying for jobs, acquiring birth and marriage certificates  even death certificates. Many parents in Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), for instance, have allowed their children to be baptized to ensure their education, increasing the risk of extinction of the ancient Marapu faith.



However as an official said in the wake of the verdict, recognizing the faiths as religions might invite backlash from mainstream groups.



Foreigners may wonder why people are so adamant on stating their religious identity, considered a private matter in the West. Here, followers of native faiths say they yearn to state their real faiths on their civil documents. However the most feasible policy change following the court ruling might be resorting to New Order days when native faith followers could opt for belief on the ID card space for agama/kepercayaan (religion/non mainstream belief).



Maybe we could emulate Singapore, which does not list religion on its IDs, to lift doubts that native faith followers would likely still be discriminated against when listed as such on their IDs. Eradicating the religion space from IDs would ensure Indonesia does not even discriminate against possible atheists.



The naysayers would say Indonesians still need religious identity on their documents for clarity in affairs partly regulated under religious law such as inheritance.



Monotheism came much later to our archipelago, meaning our rainbow of creeds is central to Indonesias heritage. Ending discrimination of the followers of those creeds is central to preserve that heritage, an inseparable part of our identity.
The creative economy is generating many new businesses driven by the rapid development of technology and a climate conducive to entrepreneurship.

The creative economy is generating many new businesses driven by the rapid development of technology and a climate conducive to entrepreneurship.

Euis Rohani, who runs Rajasamas Jaya with the Raja Serayu and Rajasamas Batik Maos brands, spoke of the governments strong commitment to developing local creative ventures.

The Raja Serayu brand originated out of the collaborative Designer Dispatch Service (DDS) program initiated by the Ministry of Trade in 2016, while the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) is responsible for expanding the brands exposure at Ambiente 2017, one of the largest international trade shows in Europe. Through Ambiente 2017, Bekraf aims to encourage the increased export of national fashion and craft products, as well as to support brands in entering new markets, while the DDS program facilitates collaboration in design development involving business players, designers and entrepreneurs from regions across Indonesia.

Raja Serayu explores design that combines hand-painted woven batik fabrics and bamboo, and symbolizes the regeneration of interconnected batik makers in Cilacap, Central Java.

Raja Serayus products passed the curation selection at Ambiente Talents 2017 and was shortlisted along with 38 designers from 18 countries. Through the event, Raja Serayus products won the Ambiente Talent award for using new materials in their creation. Since Raja Serayus participation in Ambiente 2017, orders for its handmade products flooded Euis workshop in Cilacap, leaving her 15 employees of mostly young housewives and 200 local artisans working hard to meet the orders.

Rajasamas Batik, which is owned by Euis and Tonik from Cilacap, also collaborates with Mufti Alem. Apart from using bamboo, Rajasamas Jaya also uses rattan, rumput ilalang (alang-alang) and enceng gondok (water hyacinths). One product in high demand is their woven bamboo laundry basket.

Euis has received an order for 16 shipping containers of the laundry baskets from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Now, we are preparing the third container and it is expected to be delivered by end of August, said the 40-year-old mother of two enthusiastically. The company employs local housewives and dozens of artisans from several Cilacap subdistricts in producing their products.

Euis expressed her appreciation for the professionalism of the Trade Ministry and Bekraf officials, who have given strong support to local handicraft business players.

A case in point, she said, was a recent handicraft exhibition in Salone del Milano, Italy, where Bekraf facilitated the Handmade Contemporary Indonesian Pavilion. She didnt attend the exhibition in person, but a team from Bekraf gave her a list of buyers interested in her products after the exhibition.

Bekraf plays an important role in promoting and netting global buyers of our products. They work sincerely and professionally, and they demand nothing from us. Their intention is simply to develop our creative economy, said the alumna from Bandungs Pasundan University.

One thing certain about Euiss venture is its social mission. She aimed to empower housewives who preferred to work in their home country, rather than overseas as migrant workers. I also want to help create more jobs and raise the standard of living, she said.

Khanaan Boutique brand manager Iskandarsah also echoed a similar view on Bekrafs professionalism. He said that in its bid to help local designers expand their market overseas, Bekraf has mapped potential target countries, and this way, products could effectively reach the target market.

Iskandarsah explained further that Bekraf selected candidates for its international marketing program based on the assessment of a team of curators instead of by direct appointment, which provided an unbiased outcome for candidates. They (Bekraf) are directly accountable to the President, he added.

Khanaan Boutique, owned by the young and talented designer Khanaan Shalman, was established in 2009. The brand passed the Bekraf selection process and joined a May 18 show at Arab Fashion Week 2017 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

Khanaan explained that the theme they chose was based on the target market: We carried the theme lumiere, or light, that takes its inspiration from the light that illuminates architecture of Jaipur, the pink city of India. For the fabric, we maintained traditional way of making batik using the canting (spouted copper hand tool) and malam (hot liquid wax), but in terms of design, we modified the batik motifs, using simple and modern cuts but with luxury details, making the products have an elegant look.

Our boutique received many orders after the event, he said, adding that the brand also took part in 2015s Hey Arabian Fashion Exhibition in Qatar, which attracted many key business players in the local fashion industry.

In helping to promote Indonesian designers overseas, Bekraf fulfills more than just a facilitating role. They monitor our business. We send a report to them each month and they are ready to lend a hand if we face any problems. Khanaan said. Khanaan applies a downstream-to-upstream strategy, starting with from batik making in Pekalongan, Central Java. Hundreds of batik makers are involved in finishing the pieces in Jakarta, where we employ 30 people, said Iskandar.

Milestone

Raja Serayu and Khanaan Boutique are a among the brands that Bekraf has served to help them further develop their reach through the agencys top programs, which are designed by the respective deputies within the creative economy ecosystem.

The two brands high need for inceased global branding falls within the scope of the marketing deputy, with programs designed specifically to boost global branding for national creative economy products, including fashion, crafts and the culinary sector.

In early 2015, President Joko Jokowi Widodo issued Presidential Decree No. 6/2016, paving the way for establishing the Indonesian Creative Economy Agency, a non-ministerial agency dedicated to assisting the President to set, coordinate and synchronize creative economy policies. Bekrafs establishment has been seen by many as a milestone in developing Indonesias creative economy.

The agency is led by chairman Triawan Munaf who, along with its vice chairman, general secretary and six deputies, strives to implement the agencys vision to turn Indonesia into one of the worlds leading creative economies by 2030.

To achieve this vision, Bekraf is realizing its holistic mission to unite all assets and creative potentials to become an independent, creative economy nation; to create an ecosystem conducive to the development of creative economy by opening horizons and raising public appreciation for all aspects of the creative economy; to raise public awareness on intellectual property rights, including legal protection of creative rights; and to design and implement specific strategy to put Indonesia on the global map of creative economy.

When it comes to creative business growth, business players need to be highly aware of a wide range of aspects, including branding, marketing, intellectual property rights, data management, funding, partnerships, networking and regulations. But startups commonly face growth-hindering issues, depending on the individual company. Some companies, for example, may find difficulties in obtaining intellectual property rights, critical to safeguarding the added values their products offer.

This explains why, within the creative economy ecosystem framework that Bekraf is currently building, the agency has six deputies, each with its own programs to help resolve stakeholders problems. The six deputies are responsible for Research, Education and Development; Access to Capital; Infrastructure; Marketing; Intellectual Property, Rights and Regulations, and Institutional and Regional Relations.

The deputies are expected to translate Bekrafs vision and missions into programs accommodating the needs of 16 select subsectors: cuisine, crafts, fashion, application and game development, architecture, interior design, visual communication design, product design, film and video animation, photography, television and radio, music, performing arts, publishing and advertising.

The Research, Education and Development deputy is responsible for programs that include Coding Mum, an educational program that teaches coding and programing to housewives; facilitating the music database and compiling folklore for PIXAR Animation Studios; and providing packaging training for the culinary sector.

Meanwhile, the Access to Capital deputy has designed its Creative Economy Fund (DEKRAF) program, which supports business players in the 16 subsectors. To realize the program, this deputy join forces with banking and non-banking institutions.

Bekrafs Infrastructure deputy has the duty of preparing programs that support the formation of an ecosystem conducive to the national creative economy. This includes government aid to facilitate the revitalization of physical infrastructure for creative spaces, creative space equipment, information technology and communications.

Programs under the Marketing deputy include ICINC (Indonesian Creative Incorporated), which aims to provide a comprehensive branding strategy for Indonesian creative products in international markets. Programs within ICINC include Archipelageek for the apps and games development subsector.

The Institutions and Regional Relations deputy focuses on coordinating ministries, institutions and regions, signing memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations on creative economy cooperation, forming a curating committee across ministries and organizations to help and supervise working programs across the 16 creative economy subsectors.

All six Bekraf deputies are fully committed to building a conducive creative economy ecosystem by carrying out their roles professionally and working cooperatively with creative players.
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Linkedin Ni Nyoman Wira (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 11:10 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a28480a6 1 Art & Culture CB-Cebulski,comic-artists,marvel,writer,#Marvel,comic-book Free

Marvel has been home to quite a few Indonesian creators, with most of them working for the company as artists and colorists.

During pop culture events, such as the recently held Indonesia Comic Con, some of them, including artists Ario Anindito and Alti Firmansyah, were invited to share their knowledge.

I think weve hired between 10 and 12 Indonesian artists over the past two to three years, said CB Cebulski, the vice president of international business development and brand management for Marvel. I have traveled to Jakarta several times, been to several Comic Cons and received some portfolios to review. I must say the level of talent is really rising.

During a recent phone interview with The Jakarta Post, Cebulski shared some tips that could be used by aspiring artists and writers, especially those who are interested in working for Marvel.

Prepare to write in English

If you want to attract a global audience use English in your manuscripts, said Cebulski. He added that it is also important for writers to communicate clearly in English. You have to write your script in English because thats the way the system works.

Make the most of social media

I think any talent, writers or artists, have to realize that Marvel is not that far away, said Cebulski. It may seem that it is a big company based in Los Angeles and New York, but the world has become smaller thanks to social media -- its easy for you to reach out to us and make contact.

Ario, for instance, met his Italian agent when he posted his illustrations on the online art-sharing platform DeviantArt.

Cebulski also believes that social media can be used to create a buzz about you. One of our current creators recommend another creator to us and sent us the link to the artist's portfolio, he said. So its important to use the internet as a tool to market yourself -- not just to Marvel, but to other creators as well.

Read also: Finding Indonesia in Marvel universe

CB Cebulski, the vice president of international business development and brand management at Marvel, with some superhero props. (The Walt Disney Studios/File)

Use a different approach

Many young artists and writers are inspired by certain characters or stories from when they were younger. And our natural inclination is to try to tell something similar; to try to recreate that magic using similar storytelling devices or dialogue, Cebulski said. But the Marvel universe is, as long as weve been around, not about rehashing the past. Were about taking those characters that we love, looking at their history and coming up with something new.

Dwelling on your favorite characters or stories may inspire you, but it is better to think about what the next generation is going to love. Look at the things [thats happening right] now. Dont tell us what you know about Marvel; show us something we havent seen in the Marvel universe.

Be authentic

During the interview, Cebulski, who currently lives in Shanghai, China, said Marvel would love to see Indonesian superheroes. We really want international heroes that we create to be authentic. Our current challenge in creating Indonesian superheroes is finding the right Indonesian writers and artists who are able to create not just a cool Indonesian superhero, but a real Indonesian alter ego. We really want to find creators who can build Indonesian heroes from the ground up.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Marvel Studios seems unstoppable. Following Thor: Ragnarok that premiered in October, the studio is scheduled to release Black Panther in February, Avengers: The Infinity War in April and Ant-Man & the Wasp in July. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 07:00 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a283e241 1 City clean-water,West-Jakarta Free

Residents of Jl. Jambu Air and Kampung Koang in Pegadungan subdistrict, Kalideres, West Jakarta, have long lacked access to clean water, according to a subdistrict official.

To fulfill their daily needs, residents get water from the nearby Maja River, the quality of which is also inadequate, Pegadungan subdistrict secretary Tajidul Anwar said on Thursday.

In response to the problem, Tajidul said his office was currently in the process of registering for access to tap water from private water operator PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja).

Just yesterday [Wednesday], Palyja officers inspected the area to install tap water. The installation will proceed if more than 60 percent residents agree to the process, Tajidul said as quoted by kompas.com. (rdi)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 16:26 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285c438 1 City crime,shooting,East-Jakarta Free

A medical doctor who allegedly shot and killed his wife on Thursday has tested positive for drugs, according to a police official.

Ryan Helmi, 41, was found to have Benzodiazepine in his system after surrendering himself to the Jakarta Police.

We conducted a urine test last night and he tested positive for Benzo, Jakarta Police general crimes director head Nico Afinta told kompas.com on Friday

Benzodiazepine is a psychotropic drug used to treat anxiety and insomnia.

Nico said investigators were examining Helmis medical records.

Medical doctor Letty Sultri, 46, was found dead at Az-Zahra medical center in Cawang, East Jakarta, on Thursday afternoon after she was allegedly shot six times by her husband.

The incident occurred at around 2 p.m. when Helmi arrived at the clinic and reportedly began to argue with Letty about their marriage.

Police said that Helmi had rejected Lettys request for a divorce.

Helmi fled the clinic after shooting Letty, but turned himself over to the police later that afternoon.

Letty had previously reported Helmi to the police for alleged domestic violence, but later retracted her statement. (fac)
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Linkedin Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 11:18 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2848859 4 Business economists,UI,crisis,infrastructure-development,BI-rate Free

University of Indonesia economist Fasial Basri has warned of a possible minor economic crisis in December because of reckless government policies, particularly massive infrastructure construction.

It is possible there will be a small crisis in December, a crisis created by the government, said Faisal during a discussion in Jakarta on Thursday as quoted by tempo.co.

Faisal said massive infrastructure development had not been well planned. He said problems were likely to emerge in the construction of several airports that had forced the government to spend vast amounts of money.

On the other hand, he said, the government was unlikely to achieve its tax revenue target. He estimated the shortfall would reach Rp 200 billion (US$14.8 million) this year.

Like it or not, the government will have to swallow a bitter pill because tax revenue will be far from the target and problems will mount at the end of the year, he added.

Faisal also criticized Bank Indonesia for cutting its benchmark rate. He believed the weakening of the rupiah against the US dollar was a result of the BI policy.

As a consequence, he said, BI has had to use its foreign exchange reserve to prevent the rupiah from further weakening. If BI did not intervene, the rupiah exchange rate could not be maintained at the 14,000 level, Faisal added.

He said the government would still face problems in the first quarter of 2018. (bbn)
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Linkedin Martin Abbugao and Jerome Taylor (AFP) Danang, Vietnam  Fri, November 10, 2017 20:09 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a28692bf 2 Business diplomacy,TPP,Vietnam,global-economy,summit,Pacific-Rim-trade,trump,Canada Free

Talks in Vietnam to resurrect a landmark Pacific trade deal rejected by the Trump administration remained deadlocked on Friday, as Canada was accused of stalling for time and hampering the prospects of a breakthrough deal at a regional summit.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was initially a US-led project between 12 nations accounting for 40 percent of global GDP, but deliberately excluding Washington's regional rival China.

It was thrown into disarray when US President Donald Trump abruptly pulled out of the deal at the start of the year, dismaying allies including Japan, Australia, Canada and Vietnam.

Hopes had been high that the remaining countries -- dubbed the TPP-11 -- would be able to hash out a new deal on the sidelines of the annual APEC summit in Vietnam.

They are keen to show the deal can still go ahead without the world's largest economy.

But three days of talks have made little headway, despite premature reports late Thursday that an interim deal had been struck.

Chile's foreign minister Heraldo Munoz said negotiators almost had an agreement nailed down until a last-minute intervention by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"The Prime Minister of Canada has asked for more time," he told reporters on Friday afternoon, adding that among the demands Ottawa was pushing for were stronger intellectual property protections.

- 'Gold standard' -

The original TPP deal was once described by the US as a "gold standard" for all free trade agreements because it went far beyond just cutting tariffs.

It included removing a slew of non-tariff measures and required members to comply with a high level of regulatory standards in areas like labour law, environmental protection, intellectual property and government procurement.

Canada is keen to strengthen those progressive provisions.

But they are much less attractive to countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Chile and Peru now that the carrot of access to the US market has been pulled.

Japan, the world's third largest economy, is leading the charge to revive the TPP, concerned that delays could lead to the eventual collapse of the pact.

But there has been much confusion over the progress of talks in Danang, with a string of cancelled press conferences and conflicting statements.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said TPP-11 negotiators had been burning the midnight oil until 3am on Friday and planned to meet again in the afternoon.

"I am reasonably confident, I am quite sanguine that we'll get a deal," he added.

However two sources with knowledge of the talks said there was little progress when negotiators met on Friday afternoon.

- 'Metrics changed' -

Without the US, TPP-11 only represents 13.5 percent of the global economy but the remaining countries are scrambling to avoid the deal's collapse, especially given the increasingly protectionist winds sweeping through the United States and Europe.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Australian trade minister Steven Ciobo said Washington's withdrawal had "changed the metrics" for a number of the remaining TPP countries.

He said TPP negotiators were working on ways to "suspend the operation of certain parts" of the original deal in the hope of reaching an agreement over the rest of the pact.

Trump's spectacular emergence has unpicked decades of US-led efforts towards more open global trade and lower tariffs.

Washington's withdrawal from the TPP has paved the way for China to portray itself as the new global leader for free trade.

But critics say Chinese-led initiatives are much weaker on labour and environmental standards.

Both Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping gave speeches at APEC on Friday that laid out sharply divergent visions for the future of global trade.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 12:59 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2851826 1 City crime,shooting,East-Jakarta Free

A doctor who allegedly fatally shot his wife at Az-Zahra Medical Center in Cawang, East Jakarta, turned himself into the police on Thursday afternoon.

He apparently confessed to shooting his wife, Letty Sultri, 46, who was also a doctor.

The police said he had two hand-made guns in his possession. Letty was shot six times.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr.Comr. Argo Yuwono said the police were questioning the suspect.

"He hasn't given us complete information," Argo said on Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.

East Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Andry Wibowo said it was suspected that marital problems had led to the incident.

Andry said the suspect had rejected his wife's request for a divorce. (cal)
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Linkedin Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 18:47 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285faa9 1 National climate-change,bamboo,bamboo-planting Free

Cultivating bamboo could help Indonesia mitigate the impacts of climate change, an Indonesian environmental scientist said during a side event of the United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany.

At the event, Arief Rabik, founder of the Bambu Lestari Foundation, said planting bamboo was a very effective way to rehabilitate degraded land and absorb and store carbon dioxide, adding that citizens could reap economic benefits from cultivating the plant.

The discussion was held on Tuesday at the Indonesia Pavilion set up by the Indonesian delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP23), which runs from Nov. 6 to 19.

One cluster of bamboo could store up to 5,000 liters of waters, demonstrating its role in soil water management. Meanwhile, one hectare of bamboo could absorb up to 50 tons of greenhouse gases per year.

Bamboo can also be cultivated in a wide range of soil types, making it easy for locals to manage.

"Bamboo is the winner when it comes to rejuvenating degraded land," Arief said as quoted by a statement released by the Environment and Forestry Ministry.

Arief, however, said bamboo still had a low economic value compared to other plants. In fact, he said, bamboo could be harnessed to produce products ranging from textile fiber to panels for construction.

Arief said his group, with the help of the ministry, was working on a project to cultivate bamboo in 1,000 villages across Indonesia. It is hoped that each village can cultivate at least 70,000 bamboo seeds.

Desi Ekawati, a researcher with the ministry's research and innovation development agency, said her team was developing a new bamboo cultivation method to help spur Arief's 1000 bamboo villages project.

Called "spartan seedling," Desi said the method could cut the period before harvest from eight or nine months to two or three months. (ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Jayapura  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:35 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a28621e9 2 National police,Papua,separatists,Freeport-Indonesia,unrest Free

Indonesian authorities and armed separatists were locked in a tense standoff near a huge US-owned mine in restive eastern Papua province Friday, with both sides blaming each other for what police claimed was a hostage crisis.

Some 700 heavily armed Indonesian military personnel encircled two villages near US firm Freeport-McMoRan's gold and copper mine, where they claimed an armed separatist group was keeping 1,300 residents against their will.

Villagers have been prevented from entering or leaving their small communities for two days, but have so far not been harmed, authorities said earlier Friday.

"These people are from a criminal group that commit violence and intimidation -- what they want is war," local police chief Victor Dean Macbon told AFP.

"For now we are prioritising pre-emptive and preventive measures. We still have not forced our way in because we don't want the villagers victimised," he added.

The separatists, part of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), have been fighting a long-running insurgency marked by periodic bouts of violence.

Backers of the group and an official at Indonesia's human rights body said the gunmen were not holding locals hostage but rather, protecting residents from the police and military.

The villages are in an area where there have been a string of recent shootings, including one last month that left a policeman dead.

Natalius Pigai, an official with the National Human Rights Commission, said the villagers feared the military and suggested it was waging a public relations campaign to portray the separatists as criminals.

"People are terrified, that's why (the Free Papua group) are standing guard...so the military cannot enter," he said, adding that many of the gunmen had family members in the villages.

"I assure you there is no hostage situation. It is impossible (they) would hold their own relatives hostage."

A Papua police force spokesman said the group was trying to disrupt activities at the nearby mine, but Freeport said it had not received any demands from the group and its operations were unaffected.

The region is off limits to foreign journalists without special permission, making the accounts difficult to verify.

Papua has faced a low-level insurgency since it was annexed by Indonesia in the late sixties, with Freeport's mine frequently a flashpoint in the struggle for independence and a bigger share of the region's rich resources.

Authorities said Friday they have been communicating with local religious and community leaders in a bid to end the standoff.

However, Indonesia's top military chief Gatot Nurmantyo warned that the military was ready to end the crisis in a "hard" way if negotiations fail.
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Linkedin News Desk (Vietnam News/ANN) Danang, Vietnam  Fri, November 10, 2017 22:27 1831 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a286b7da 2 Business Indonesia,Vietnam,trade-fair,summit Free

Twenty-six Indonesian companies are showcasing their products at a trade fair which opened its doors in the central city of Danang on Thursday.

On display at 32 booths are cars and components, food stuffs and beverages, paper, fine arts and handicrafts, as well as fashion products.

In his speech at the fairs opening ceremony, Indonesian Ambassador to Vietnam Ibnu Hadi said the event aimed to advertise Indonesias image and its quality products, deliver updated information about bilateral relations between Vietnam and Indonesia in trade, investment and tourism while helping the two countries businesses seek new co-operation opportunities.

A dialogue between Vietnamese and Indonesian businesses is slated to be held on Saturday on the sidelines of the fair. Co-organized by the Indonesian Embassy and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the forthcoming event is expected to attract about 100 businesses from two countries.

The fair runs until Sunday.

Bilateral economic co-operation between the two nations has experienced encouraging results over past years.

Two way trade reached US$5.6 billion in 2016 and $4.72 billion in the past nine months, up 23 percent year-on-year. Of the total, Vietnamese exports $2.11 billion worth of goods to Indonesia while its imports from the market hit $2.61 billion.

Among Vietnams exports to Indonesia included chemicals, paper and paper products, plastics materials, telephones and telephone components. Meanwhile, Vietnam mainly imported automotive items and coal from Indonesia.

In terms of investment, Indonesian businesses have pumped $39 million into Vietnam over the past 10 months. The latest addition has brought Indonesian investment in the country up to a total of $453.4 million, ranking 30th among 128 countries and territories investing in the country.

These figures, however, fail to match the potential of the two countries, trade experts said.

Vietnam and Indonesia are working hard together to raise two-way trade to $10 billion next year.
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Linkedin Rana Moussaoui (AFP) Beirut, Lebanon  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:56 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2866c8b 2 World Islamic-State,Syria,attack,terror-attack Free

Islamic State group fighters conducted a blistering counter-attack on Albu Kamal in eastern Syria Friday in a desperate bid to cling to the last urban bastion of their imploding "caliphate".

The jihadists punched back into the town they had lost a day earlier and swiftly retook several northern neighborhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

"IS started counter-attacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Observatory, told AFP.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had retaken the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

Albu Kamal was the last significant town to have been under full IS control and lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling "caliphate" the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest," Abdel Rahman said. "IS is trying to defend its last bastion."

The jihadist organisation has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

According to Syria state TV, regime and auxiliary forces had retaken full control of Albu Kamal by Thursday.

The Observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.

- US-backed forces advance -

Losing the town, where IS leaders used to meet and were once considered untouchable, would cap a process which has seen the group relinquish any ambition as a land-holding force and return to the desert to fight a clandestine guerrilla war.

Many of the group's top leaders have been killed as Syrian and Iraqi forces with backing from Russia, Iran and a US-led coalition rolled back the territorial losses that saw the jihadists declare a "caliphate" roughly the size of Britain in 2014.

But the whereabouts of the first among them, self-proclaimed "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains unclear. He has been reported killed or wounded many times but IS has never offered any confirmation.

In Deir Ezzor province, which used to be the heartland of their proto-state, the group's remaining fighters only control about 30 percent of territory, most of it desert.

On the other bank of the Euphrates, coming from the north, the Kurdish-led US-backed forces that retook the IS "capital" of Raqa last month were also advancing on IS positions.

According to the Observatory, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retook four villages from IS there on Friday.

Kurdish-led fighters and Syrian troops will eventually square off when the last IS holdouts are flushed out, heightening the risk of a clash between the rival forces backed by the US and Russia respectively.

Observers have predicted the regime may seek to retake towns and cities wrested from IS by the SDF, such as the northern city of Raqa which the jihadists had used as their main Syrian hub.

The regime, with significant support from Hezbollah, Iran, Russia and various mostly Shiite militia groups from Iraq and even Afghanistan, has notched up victories in recent months.

It has reconquered many key areas that had once fallen to IS or rebel groups and now controls 52 percent of Syrian territory.

Fewer countries explicitly demand President Bashar al-Assad step down than at the beginning of the six-year-old Syrian conflict.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011, which spiralled into a complex, multi-front war that drew in jihadists and armed forces from around the region and beyond.
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Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 08:57 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2842dc7 1 National Kolese-Kanisius,school,Central-Jakarta,#school Free

Prestigious is how Kolese Kanisius, the all-male high school in Central Jakarta, is perceived by the majority of the public.



But as the school celebrates its ninth decade this year, many people may be unaware of the schools 4C of competence, conscience, compassion and commitment. These are the values students of the Catholic school, also known as CC  an abbreviation of Canisius College  are taught to adopt.



It is hoped these values will inspire the students to be leaders with faith. This faith is not limited to Catholicism alone, but includes other religions and even traditional beliefs, said Joannes Heru Hendarto SJ, the schools rector, adding that around 30 percent of the thousands of junior and senior high school students at CC were not Catholic.



Muhammad Reza Imansyah, 17, is one of the non-Catholic students at the school. When it came to choosing a high school, Reza believed it was important to enroll in an institution where he could grow as a man for others.



This understanding motivated the 12th grader to choose Kolese Kanisius, five years ago.



Attending the Jesuit high school since seventh grade, Reza said he had not only developed academically but had also learned compassion through the schools various programs and activities.



I discussed with my parents and we all agreed that Kolese Kanisius was where I should go because of its history of producing high-achieving students, said Reza, who is a Muslim. My parents are ok about it being a Catholic school. Moreover, I do not feel like I am being brainwashed to become a Catholic. I am still a devoted Muslim.



He was even given time to perform Islamic prayers, particularly on Fridays when he was allowed to leave the school to attend a Friday mass prayer at the nearest mosque, he said.



Earlier this year he and his school friends  who are mostly Christians  lived for three days at a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) in Indramayu, West Java.



There, he said, he witnessed that everyone could be good friends despite having different religions.



For me, visiting a pesantren is normal but not for most of my friends. But I saw they could blend in well despite having a different religion. Some of my friends even cried when we had to go home, said the aspiring civil engineer.



The Catholic school, which was established on Jun. 1, 1927 by Dutch Jesuit priests, has produced well-known academics, government officials, politicians, entrepreneurs and athletes such as Rhenald Khasali, Erlangga Hartarto, Akbar Tandjung, Sofjan Wanandi and Ade Rai.



It has gained a reputation for being among the capitals top high schools thanks to its long list of alumni who have become prominent figures.



Father Heru said the 4C values played an important role in shaping the students into people who not only worked to help themselves but also others.



Through these values, we strive to produce aspiring leaders who are not only competent but that also have a strong conscience, said Heru. If they have great skills but their inner voice is silent, what good are they?



These values, he added, were instilled in the students through both in-classroom and outside activities.



For instance, every day before going home, the students are required to write a reflection on what they had been through that day. This serves as a moment for the students to engage in an internal dialogue with themselves and, thus, find out who they really are.



This year marks the 90th anniversary of CCs dedication to Indonesia. Hence, the school and its alumni have held a series of celebrations under the theme Bracing for the new century: the past reinvented, the future regenerated since early this year.



The celebrations will peak on Saturday, when the school will hold a full-day event featuring a student exhibition and arts performance at JIEXPO Kemayoran in Central Jakarta.
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 16:20 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285bb17 1 National native-faiths,Muhammadiyah,NahdlatulUlama,Constitutional-Court Free

The two largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, have welcomed a recent Constitutional Court ruling that grants native-faith followers the right to state their beliefs on their ID cards.



Muhammadiyah secretary-general Abdul Mu'ti said the ruling had boosted efforts to provide legal certainty for the country's followers of indigenous faiths, many of whom had their rights denied in the past.



The government should follow up the court ruling by compiling the data of native-faith followers across the country, he said. "There is no need to limit native-faith followers by [deciding] who are recognized or not," Abdul told The Jakarta Post recently.



"Regulations related to public services such as civil administration registry, marriage, religious education and others should also be revised," he added.



The court ruled that articles 61 and 64 of the law that required people adopting indigenous faiths to leave the religion column on their ID cards blank were discriminatory, on the grounds that the articles provided no legal certainty and violated principles of equal justice for all citizens.



Meanwhile, NU secretary-general Helmy Faishal Zaini said the ruling had reaffirmed the country's role to protect the rights of its citizens to freedom of religion and beliefs.



He went on to say that the NU was not worried about the impact of the ruling. "Our nation is mature in terms of its experiences in maintaining interfaith relations," Helmy said. (ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Sydney  Fri, November 10, 2017 16:13 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285b1b2 2 World Papua-New-Guinea,Australia,refugee-detention Free

Refugees holed up in a closed Australian detention camp on Papua New Guinea were warned Thursday authorities will move in, using force if necessary, if they do not leave by the weekend.

The remote facility on Manus Island -- one of two offshore centres that holds asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat -- was closed more than a week ago after the PNG Supreme Court ruled last year it was unconstitutional.

But some 600 men have refused to move to transition centres, saying they fear locals there would be hostile.

Water, power and food supplies have been cut with a Papua New Guinea court on Tuesday rejecting one refugee's application to have them restored.

With conditions deteriorating, PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said the holdouts must move to the new accommodation.

"The Manus centre was established for the sole reason of processing asylum claims. Now all claims have been processed and the centre has closed," he said.

"Given the Supreme Courts decision, the government has no choice but to intervene for the well-being of both the refugees and non-refugees."

He warned that "appropriate means" would be used to "apprehend individuals who are causing unnecessary anxiety and violence".

"Their actions are now heading towards a law-and-order situation, as well as a hygiene and sanitation problem, and it will be dealt with as such, whether they are genuine refugees or not."

A notice put up at the camp Thursday warned "force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily" by Saturday.

Iranian refugee Behrouz Boochani, who has been acting as a spokesman for the asylum-seekers, said police and immigration officials entered the camp to spread the message.

"The refugees are extremely scared by immigration threat but still saying we will not leave this prison camp for another prison camp," he tweeted.

Canberra says its tough immigration policy against boat people dissuades would-be migrants from attempting the dangerous crossing to Australia and has therefore prevented hundreds of deaths at sea.

However, it has been widely criticised by the United Nations and human rights advocates.

Read also: Boat refugees to leave PNG despite US uncertainty: Australia

Canberra has strongly rejected calls to move the refugees to Australia and instead has tried to resettle them in third countries, including the United States.

But so far just 54 refugees have been accepted by Washington, with 24 flown to the United States in September, under a deal struck with former US president Barack Obama and bitterly criticised by his successor Donald Trump.

Amnesty International warned that "any use of force in this highly charged environment is likely to lead to serious injury or loss of life", calling for aid to be allowed into the camp.

"It is the Australian and PNG governments who have left the men without food, clean water, proper sanitation or electricity," said Amnesty's Pacific researcher Kate Schuetze.

"They cannot, having created the situation, now compound it by sending in security forces to force the refugees to move.
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Linkedin Moses Ompusunggu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 16:08 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285a59c 1 National aviation,Jokowi,N-219-aircraft,Nurtanio Free

President Joko "Jokowi" announced on Friday that Nurtanio had been chosen as the name for an N-219 aircraft that was jointly built by state aircraft manufacturer PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) and the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN).

Jokowi said he had chosen Nurtanio to honor Nurtanio Pringgoadisuryo, an Indonesian aerospace industry pioneer who died while flying a modified Aero 45 aircraft in 1966.

"He devoted all of his life to the development of the Indonesian aerospace industry," Jokowi said at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base as quoted by a statement released by the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry.

The announcement was part of the commemoration of National Heroes Day, which falls on Nov. 10, and the remembrance of the battle between Indonesia and Allied Forces in Surabaya in November 1945.

N-219 is the successor of the N-250 aircraft produced in 1995 when Indonesian aircraft maker company IPTN was led by BJ Habibie, who would go on to become Indonesia's third president.

Officials claimed the N-219 plane was solely produced by local workers.

Jokowi said the next step to be taken after the Friday announcement was to ensure the N-219 could be marketed domestically and internationally.

PTDI has said the aircraft is best to serve domestic flights to remote areas. (ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 14:07 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2855014 1 Politics setya-novanto,KPK,Agus-Rahardjo,Saut-Situmorang Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has warned the National Police not to prosecute Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) leaders if there is not sufficient evidence to justify the move.

We cannot afford to have [prosecution] without evidence and facts, the President told reporters at Halim Perdakusuma air base shortly before flying to Vietnam on Friday.

Antara reported that Jokowi had been told about the polices move to investigate KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo and commissioner Saut Situmorang. The two officials were reported to the police for alleged document forgery and abuse of power by a laywer of House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto, who is under KPK investigation for his alleged role in the high-profile e-ID graft case.

The lawyer, Fredrich Yunadi, accused the KPK officials of falsifying a document requesting the immigration office extend a travel ban on Setya. The document was released just a few days after the South Jakarta District Court in late September ruled that the KPKs decision to name Setya a suspect in the e-ID case was unwarranted.

The President said he hoped relations between the police and the KPK would remain cordial and that the new probe against KPK leaders would not create political disturbances. (ahw)
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Linkedin Anuj Chopra (AFP) Riyadh  Fri, November 10, 2017 22:01 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a286a40a 2 World Saudi-Arabia,Royal-Purge,corruption-eradication Free

Its chandelier-studded ballrooms hosted global business titans just weeks ago. Now Riyadh's palatial Ritz-Carlton is reported to have morphed into a makeshift prison after the kingdom's unprecedented crackdown on the coddled elite.

Saudi Arabias attorney general has vowed no special treatment for those detained in the purge, which includes princes, ministers and businessmen such as flamboyant billionaire tycoon Al-Waleed bin Talal.

But the five-star hotel spread over 52 acres (21 hectares), originally built to house guests of the royal family, is a far cry from a gritty prison cell -- it boasts of majestic suites and pastel-hued hallways awash with bronze statues and glittering chandeliers.

It has prompted light-hearted banter on social media, with jocular speculation on who would be added to the "Ritz guest list" as the crackdown expands, and some quipping "take us with you" to be incarcerated in the lavish hotel.

"Those people are as soft as butter and probably cannot survive a real prison," a Saudi man said on Twitter, referring to the elite detainees.

The attorney general has said some 201 people are being held for questioning over an estimated $100 billion in embezzlement and corruption, many of them subjected to detailed interrogations conducted in secret.

It is not clear if they are all being held at the Ritz-Carlton.

Police cars surround the palatial compound, with its imposing gates uncharacteristically clamped shut. Its website posted a message saying that the "hotels telephone lines are currently disconnected until further notice".

Royal purge, royal privileges

There's no official indication how long the group will remain under house arrest.

Last Sunday, the 492-room hotels online reservation page showed no availability until December. On Friday, it showed no availability until February 1, fuelling speculation that the "guest list" was expected to grow.

A Saudi businessman who had planned to host an event at the hotel this week was abruptly informed it had been cancelled.

"Due to unforeseen circumstances out of the Ritz-Carlton, the hotel had been ordered to accommodate a high-profile government delegation beginning November 4, 2017," he told AFP, quoting a message from the hotel management.

A brief and shaky video allegedly leaked from inside the hotel showed people sleeping on the ground covered in brightly coloured blankets, while armed guards lurked in the background.

The New York Times identified the place as the hotel's "Ballroom B", saying it appeared to be a makeshift barracks for the guards.

The arrests of jet-setting members of the royal family have sent a ripple of anxiety through the kingdom.

Saudi forces have grounded private jets at airports, possibly to prevent high-profile figures from leaving the country, an aviation source said, provoking fears of more arrests.

Just weeks ago, the hotel hosted a glittering investment summit - dubbed "Davos in the desert" -- which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman used as a platform to pledge a "moderate" Saudi Arabia and to showcase his ambitious reform drive.

The crackdown has exposed the kingdom's once-untouchable elite to rare public scrutiny -- Saudis on social media have quipped that the Ritz-Carlton was not the worst place to be trapped.
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Riyadh  Fri, November 10, 2017 22:12 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a286b16b 2 Business Saudi-Arabia,saudi-aramco,energy,deal Free

Saudi Aramco on Thursday signed agreements worth nearly $4.5 billion with multinational oil and gas contractors, in what the company dubbed as an effort to diversify the economy.

The deals were signed with companies including Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas, Italy's Saipem, China Petroleum Pipeline and Abu Dhabi's National Petroleum Construction.

The investments "reflect our concerted effort... to diversify our economy, promote local manufacturing, support a sustainable environment and strengthen our business and investment climate", Aramco's chief executive Amin Nasser was quoted as saying in a statement.

Saudi Arabia last year announced plans to sell under five percent of Aramco, the kingdom's crown jewel, in what is expected to be the world's largest ever initial public offering.

The plan forms the cornerstone of a reform programme envisaged by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to wean the economy off its reliance on oil.

It could generate much-needed revenue after the country lost hundreds of billions of dollars since crude prices slumped in mid-2014, leading to huge budget deficits and withdrawals from strategic reserves.

Analysts, however, have voiced misgivings following recent media reports that the flotation could be shelved amid concerns over its feasibility.

Nasser last month shot down the reports, saying the IPO will happen as scheduled in the second half of 2018.
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Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:37 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a286305d 1 Politics KPK,setya-novanto,police,e-ID,graft Free

The lawyer of House of Representatives Speaker Setya Novanto has moved to report the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to the National Police after the antigraft body, for the second time, named Setya a suspect in the mega-corruption case surrounding the national electronic ID program.

Only hours after the KPK announced Setya a suspect on Friday, Setyas lawyer Fredrich Yunadi said he was on the way to the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department to report the KPK for opposing a court ruling as stipulated under Article 414 of the Criminal Code.

The South Jakarta District Court in late September declared as unwarranted the KPK's first move to name Setya a suspect.

The KPK is in contempt of court, Fredrich told The Jakarta Post.

Fredrich said he would also file another pre-trial lawsuit against the KPK's latest decision to name his client a graft suspect in the e-ID case.

Setya is suspected of having committed the offense of swindling state funds to enrich himself or other people or corporations as stipulated in Article 2 of the 2001 Corruption Law.

The KPK accused him of colluding with businessmen Anang Sugiharjo and Andi Agustinus and former Home Ministry official Irman to rig the 5.9 trillion (US$3.7 billion) e-ID project, causing Rp 2.3 trillion in state losses.

The announcement came only days after the National Police said they had started an investigation into a report filed by Fredrich on allegations that Saut and KPK chairman Agus Rahardjo had falsified documents to ask the Immigration Office to extend a travel ban on Setya. (ahw)
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Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 21:08 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a286a13b 1 National Wonogiri,students,heroes,NationalHeroesDay Free

A student died after falling unconscious while participating in a flag-hoisting ceremony to commemorate National Heroes Day in Wonogiri, Central Java, on Friday.

Hilda Firdaus, 15, an eighth-grade student at Muhammadiyah Pracimantoro junior high school, initially received CPR from health officials en route to a clinic.

She passed away just minutes after arriving at the clinic, said the school's principal, Kusaini.

"Before the ceremony, she complained of a headache," said Kusaini.

"Some of her friends chose to get out of the ceremony's line to take a break. But Hilda insisted on taking part in the ceremony," he added.

It is common in Indonesia to hold a flag-hoisting ceremony to commemorate national days, including National Heroes Day, which falls on Nov. 10 to remember the battle between Indonesia and Allied Force in Surabaya in 1945.

Meanwhile, around 20 participants in the ceremony held at Wonogiri city center also fell unconscious, including Aji Setyawan, a member of the flag-hoisting team.

"Most of them skipped breakfast before the ceremony," said Warjo, head of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) branch in Wonogiri. (mos/ahw)

Topics : Wonogiri students heroes NationalHeroesDay
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:30 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2861c76 1 City Tangerang,police,National-Heroes-Day Free

To commemorate National Heroes Day on Friday, Tangerang traffic police in Banten wore national hero replica uniforms while carrying out Operation Zebra to ticket unruly motorists in the city.



Officers are wearing this attire because this is the 10th day of the operation, which coincides with National Heroes Day [every Nov. 10], Second Police Insp. Rochmatulloh told tribunnews.com on Jl. Ahmad Yani in Tangerang on Friday.



He added that police would be firm in ticketing motorists found violating traffic laws.

This is a day of commemoration, however it doesnt mean well be lenient. Well keep taking action against violators. Meanwhile, we are also giving away free helmets to motorcyclists found not wearing them, he added.



Another officer on duty, Second Police Insp. Widya Aryanti Maharani, said providing free helmets was part of the polices efforts to protect civilians from traffic-related accidents.

We are fighting for the safety of riders to avoid unwanted things from happening, she said. (fac)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:00 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2860467 1 City labor-rally,minimum-wage,anies-baswedan,Sandiaga-Uno Free

Workers demanding wage increases in front of City Hall in Central Jakarta on Friday rejected Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno's proposal to compensate with free Transjakarta bus rides.

They said such a policy would be useless to many workers because most of them lived far from the city center and did not need the bus service for their daily commutes.

"The proposal is good, but we can't agree because not all workers in Jakarta use the Transjakarta service," said Muhamad Rusdi, deputy chairman of the Confederation of Indonesian Workers Union (KSPI).

The city's 2018 provincial minimum wage was set at Rp3.6 million (US$266) last week, lower than the workers demand of Rp 3.9 million.

The workers also rejected the administration's proposal to compensate for their demands with housing for workers.

"The question is, when will they build [the houses] and how many will be constructed this year? Meanwhile the cost of living in Jakarta is rising. Their political pledges should be honored, otherwise they are traitors to the workers of Jakarta," Rusdi said as quoted by kompas.com.

Earlier, KSPI chairman Said Iqbal added that Anies and Sandiaga could not take credit for the promise of providing compensation such as free bus rides and discounts at city-owned market operator PD Pasar Jaya. He said the policy was enacted under Governor Regulation No. 160/2016, issued during the administration of Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama. (fac)
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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Danang, Vietnam  Fri, November 10, 2017 19:39 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2863b65 2 SE Asia Duterte-style,Putin,weapon,Russia,the-philippines Free

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday warmly thanked Russian leader Vladimir Putin for shipping weapons to his struggling military, adding that he will buy more Russian arms in the future.

"I want to pass on words of thanks from the Philippine people for the timely aid that Russia provided by giving us trucks and weapons," he said as the two met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Danang, Vietnam.

Duterte said the military "was delighted at the weapons" in remarks translated into Russian.

Last month Russia handed over army trucks and thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles to Duterte during a visit by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a first-ever visit by a Russian defence minister to the US ally.

The weapons shipment is also believed to be the first ever from Russia to the Philippines.

The Philippine military in October declared an end to a five-month battle in the southern city of Marawi where the poorly-equipped army struggled to oust militants loyal to the Islamic State group.

"These are high-precision weapons. We had to lead a new type of warfare, we had to fight snipers... we were fighting back house-by-house. That's not so easy," Duterte told Putin.

He said he initially intended to buy weapons in the US but "the United States has equal authority of Congress and President, so it was not so simple."

Duterte last year threatened to sever defence ties with the United States following criticism from the administration of former US leader Barack Obama over his crackdown on drugs, which has seen police kill thousands of people.

However relations warmed under the presidency of Donald Trump.

"The weapons we received from Russia, modern weapons, were given to special police regiments. That was very important. I intend to continue buying these weapons in the future."

In a reserved response, Putin said that "weapons are important" but Duterte's "readiness... to fight the threat of terrorism" is even more significant.

"We are ready to develop our relations, including in the military sphere," he said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 10:06 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2843695 1 News Komodo-Island,Komodo-National-Park,East-Nusa-Tenggara,komodo,tourism,travel Free

Komodo Island in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) is becoming the hottest holiday spot in Indonesia, with tourists from all over the world flocking to get a glimpse of the dragons that inhabit the region.

Amid rising tourist numbers, a local official has called on the central government to regulate visitor flow to the island to protect the habitat and ensure the safety of the world's largest living lizards.

Marius Ardu Jelamu, NTT Tourism and Creative Economy Agency head, told Antara news agency of the concerns related to the spike in the number of visitors.

Read also: Labuan Bajo faces challenges with rising tourism

"I have already discussed the issue with Komodo National Park authorities, including plans to write to the Environment and Forestry Ministry to urge it to pay attention to the matter," Marius said in Kupang on Wednesday.

Marius further said the letter would urge the ministry to conduct a coordination meeting together with the Tourism Ministry and the national park to control tourist visits to the island.

Marius added that he had gathered input from various parties, including foreign tourists, who he said had also conveyed concerns about the situation that was feared to risk disturbing the komodo dragons' habitat and may lead to aggressive behavior from the animal.

"The aggression of the giant lizard is indeed difficult to predict. However, what is feared is when they start to have a shortage of prey animals. In these conditions, the visitors can become a komodo dragon's target," Marius said.

Read also: Five must-visit places in Komodo National Park

The official suggested controlling visitor flow.

"If necessary, visits could be organized through registration, so, while waiting their turn, visitors could also visit other destinations around Komodo Island and Labuan Bajo," Marius said as an example.

He emphasized that the rearrangement of tourism visits to Komodo Island was solely aimed at preservation, so as not to threaten the safety of the rare lizards.

"We certainly do not want the Komodo dragons to become stressed or ill due to the many number of visitors," Marius said. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 13:05 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285372b 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,banda-neira Free

Indonesian consul generals from London, Den Haag, New York as well as diplomats and representatives of neighboring countries have been invited to join an inaugural sailing trip from Ambon to Banda Neira to celebrate the ongoing Banda Festival 2017 in Banda Islands, Maluku.

The festival kicked off on Oct. 11 and will end on Nov. 11 as part of the 350th anniversary celebration of the Breda Treaty.

The group of around 350 people have departed from Ambon on Nov. 10 using KM Pangrango ship and will arrive in Banda Neira on the next day at 6 a.m.

While in Banda Neira, these honorary guests will attend a seminar on Banda Island and Breda Treaty at Hatta-Sjahrir Banda Neira Teacher Training College (STKIP).

Participants will join a seminar with speakers from the United States and Australia, said Maluku Tourism Agency head, Ona Saimima.

Other than consul generals and diplomats, the participants also include historians, anthropologists, cultural observers, scientists, academicians and representatives of central and regional administrations.

Read also: The burning memory of colonialism

After the seminar, the group will join a tour to explore historical places in Banda Neira and visit Banda Festival 2017.

Before sailing back to Ambon, we will hold a gala dinner and a movie screening of Banda The Dark Forgotten Trail by [director] Jay Subiakto, Ona told.

The documentary tells the story about Arabs monopolization and the Crusades that led Europeans to discover the spice islands.

Banda Islands that produced nutmeg was one of those islands. During that time the Dutch removed their authority over Nieuw Amsterdam (Manhattan, New York) in order to have British leave Banda, a deal later known as the Breda Treaty. This is also when the slavery and mass massacre first happened in the archipelago.

Tourism Ministrys archipelago tourism marketing development deputy Esthy Reko Astuti mentioned Banda Island is home to around 30 diving spots.

Banda Island is known for its spices and wonderful natural wonders, said Esthy.

Other attractions in Banda include Banda Api volcano, Belgica Fort that was built by the Portuguese, Hollandische Kerk Old Church, Cultural House, Mini Castle and the exile house of Mohammad Hatta. (kes)
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Linkedin (Pesona Indonesia) Jakarta  Fri, November 10, 2017 16:08 1832 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a285afdf 2 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,North-Sumatra,Lake-Toba,coffee-festival Free

Lake Toba in North Sumatra is set to host Toba Coffee Festival 2017 at Sipinsur Park for two days starting Dec. 2.

North Sumatra Deputy Governor Nurhajizah said the province's coffee is one of the most well known coffees in the world.

Coffee varieties from North Sumatra include lintong, mandheling, sidikalang, tarutung, silimakuta, dolog sanggul, karo and samosir.

As a way to promote North Sumatran coffee, Toba Coffee Festival is being held to attract tourists, including coffee enthusiasts from overseas, Nurhajizah said.

Read also: Banaran coffee, a legendary century-old tale

Around 30 participants are said to take part in the festival, some hailing from other cities such as Jakarta, Bekasi, Surabaya, Palembang and Makassar.

Among the activities that will be held throughout the festival are Coffee Blending & Field Trip workshop, seminar, competition, music performance and others.

Toba Coffee Festival 2017 is expected to contribute to the coffee productivity in Indonesia as well as increasing the economy in North Sumatra. This activity also aims to bridge a strategic partnership between coffee farmers and coffee manufacturers and exporters, she added.

Indonesia is the third biggest coffee producer in the world after Brazil and Vietnam with an average production reaching 685 tons per year, or 8.9 percent from the total coffee production in the world.

Among the most popular coffee varieties from Indonesia are luwak, Sumatran arabica from North Simalungun, sidikalang, mandheling, tarutung and lintong. (kes)
Part of a mans leg washed up along the banks of the East River, near Sixth Street. [Daily News]

Architecture critic Paul Goldberger describes Extells monstrous One Manhattan Square as, a gargantuan, shiny glass tower that is not that different from a lot of whats gone up in Long Island City and the West Side of Manhattan. Meanwhile, another critic, Justin Davidson said its shocking to see the 80-story tower looming over the Manhattan Bridge, making one of the citys, great monumental pieces of infrastructure look puny in comparison. He called Extells decision to put up a big hunk of glass in the remote Two Bridges area, incredibly wasteful. [Commercial Observer]

Remembering Kate Millett, the pioneering feminist author who died at the age of 82 earlier this fall. [EV Grieve]

A profile of Jessica Goldman Srebnick, who oversees the Bowery/Houston mural wall. [Channel 11]

The Women of Corlears Hook Park: Photos by Ethan James Green. [Vogue Italia]

One of the countrys best pizzerias may be coming to Orchard Street. [Eater]

Russ & Daughters shows off its new food production facility in Brooklyn. [Bedford & Bowery]
Its not only first responders who became sick due to the September 11th terrorist attack in lower Manhattan. Thousands of students, teachers and other people working or living in the area were also exposed to toxins from the Twin Towers. At a news conference in Chinatown yesterday, an attorney who has represented thousands of 9/11 victims, the United Federation of Teachers and community leaders helped to get the word out: Medical help is available.

During the event at the Confucius Plaza housing complex on the Bowery, attorney Michael Barasch said hes now representing four teachers with breast cancer and nine former students who attended schools near Ground Zero. The students have a variety of illnesses, including cancer and lung diseases.

Its heartbreaking, said Barasch. This is a growing and serious health epidemic and it is so important for anyone who lived, worked or spent time in that area to understand that if they are sick, there is a presumption that it was caused by their exposure to the World Trade Center toxins.

Also in attendance yesterday were local elected officials, local district leaders Jenny Low and Justin Yu and Michael Mulgrew of the teachers union. They wanted to make sure everyone in lower Manhattan knows that they may be eligible for health care and compensation through the extension of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

The first in a series of 9/11 health forums will be held Saturday, Nov. 18 at P.S. 124, 40 Division St., 3-5 p.m. The event, which the Confucius Plaza Tenant Association is helping to sponsor, will offer information in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. The World Trade Center Health Program covers all of lower Manhattan below East Houston Street, as well as Brooklyn Heights. To find out if youre eligible, have a look at this map. Barasch urged anyone experiencing health issues to get a checkup through the program.

Michele Lent Hirsch, now 32, is among those who became sick after 9/11. On September 11th, she was a student at Stuyvesant High School, located just a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site. It wasnt until 2010 that she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Hirsch told the New York Post, Cancer is so terrifying to deal with when youre a young person They sent us back to a school that was not safe. We were exposed to toxins that were physically harmful. You dont send students back to a toxic school before its safe. Stuyvesant re-opened just a month after the attacks.

The United Federation of Teachers began its outreach at a dozen schools in the area and is now contacting parent-teacher associations to find former students who may have been downtown during and after 9/11. Officials said people are surprised to learn they may be eligible for medical help. Theres a common misperception that only first responders are covered.

Barasch represented James Zadroga, the NYPD detective who developed pulmonary fibrosis as a result of his exposure to toxins at the World Trade Center site. His death eventually prompted Congress to approve the Zadroga Act.
An Appleton man was charged with first-degree reckless homicide for allegedly providing the heroin that killed a Berlin woman in July of 2016.

Samuel Moreno-Baza was charged in Green Lake County Circuit Court on Monday, Berlin police said.

He was identified by police as the person who delivered heroin to the woman, who was found dead of an overdose at a Swetting Street home in Berlin 16 months ago.

"Through long hours of investigation and identifying the drug dealer, it is my hope the individual responsible for supplying the heroin to her is held accountable for his actions," said Police Chief Dennis Plantz in a release on Thursday.

Online court records show numerous open cases against Moreno-Baza, mostly for possession or delivery of illegal drugs.
A man showed up at a local hospital with a gunshot wound early Friday morning after officers couldnt find a reported shooting victim, Madison police reported.

The mans injuries were not believed to be life threatening, according to a police news release.

The incident began at 12:14 a.m. when officers responded to a call reporting that a person was shot outside near Kipling Drive and Browning Road, near the Dane County Regional Airport, the release states.

Police said the female caller sounded distraught and hung up on the Dane County 911 Center.

Officers checked the area, but could not locate a shooting victim, the caller or anyone with information on the reported incident.

But at 12:41 a.m., a 21-year-old man with a gunshot wound showed up at a local hospital and indicated it occurred on Kipling Drive, the release states.

Police said the investigation is continuing.
Forget your old-school glass bottled perfume, the English scent maverick, Jo Malone has created The Fragrance Paintbrush with her newest brand Jo Loves.

Jo Loves is a brand that represents the memories and moments in life that she loves. Amongst the collection of bath, body, and candle fragrances is her pioneering new product: The Fragrance Paintbrush.

If we are going to take fragrance advice from anybody, we are going to take it from Jo Malone. So if Jo says we should paint fragrance onto the body, rather than just spritzing it randomly over our skin, who are we to argue?

Its looking at fragrance as becoming the artist and picking up the paintbrush and painting yourself with fragrance, which is a paradigm shift.

The revolution behind the paintbrush is that it dries all the alcohol quickly and then can take another fragrance and then different parts of your body [will have different scents.]

The Fragrance Paintbrush application method is the first of its kind, with a quick-drying gel formula allowing you to layer the fragrances and create your own unique scent.

The innovative idea developed after Ms. Malone's husband, Gary Wilcox, encouraged her to change the way that fragrance is applied forever. Once in your lifetime' he said, 'you should change the way that the world wears fragrance  just once.

You may think this method sounds intimidating compared to your normal glass bottle spray, and even Jo admits that the paintbrushes were a crazy idea. However, she began experimenting with the idea once she found gel-formula cologne and a paintbrush that was the ideal size for the compact shape that she was imagining.

At the launch of these state-of-the-art fragrances,

Jo Malone said: whether I am at the beach, on a plane, walking around the city or out for dinner, the Fragrance Paintbrush comes everywhere with me.

The fragrances come in a selection scents, including Pomelo, Red Truffle 21, White Rose & Lemon Leaves and Green Orange & Coriander.

My personal

favourite is Red Truffle 21, Combining the rare culinary delicacy with green fig and bitter citrus,

quite unlike any other fragrance I have ever smelt,

adding a modern twist to what feels like a classic fragrance.

It's compact, genius and contemporary. If you love a unique fragrance and an even more unique way of applying it, then Jo Loves has got it.
BBC broadcasters have called for an end to wage disparity on Equal Pay Day.

Radio 4 Today presenters Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague, as well as broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire and Womans Hour host Jane Garvey, have championed fair pay.

Campaign group the Fawcett Society has dubbed Friday Equal Pay Day  the day in the year when women start to work for free because of the difference in the pay of men and women.

Holding up a piece of paper with an equals sign, Husain tweeted: Closing the gender pay gap is about equality. It should matter to everyone #equalpayday.

Montague wore a T-shirt with the same symbol and wrote: Happy Equal Pay Day! #bbcwomen.

Their comments come after salaries revealed by the BBC showed a stark gender pay gap, with DJ Chris Evans the highest paid earner at 2.2 million.

Claudia Winkleman was the top earning woman but her pay packet was dwarfed by those of several men.

Those speaking out on Friday included BBC news correspondent Orla Guerin, who wrote: When I started full-time work, in 1985, never occurred to me that I or any female colleague might be paid a penny less that a man for the same work. Have learned some lessons since then. #EqualPayDay.

When I started full-time work, in 1985, never occurred to me that I or any female colleague might be paid a penny less that a man for the same work. Have learned some lessons since then. #EqualPayDay  Orla Guerin (@OrlaGuerin) November 10, 2017

News anchor Kate Silverton wrote: Thank you to the men retweeting on Equal Pay. Hard to believe women still face Gender Gap half a century on from #equalpayact #equalpayforequalwork @fawcettsociety.

Garvey wrote: Its equal pay day for you and all BBC women wherever they are.

And she joked: New scientific research Ive just invented says only well-endowed men can fully support closing the gender pay gap #equalpayday #bbcwomen.

Front Row presenter Samira Ahmed wrote: When I started work Equal Pay Act had been law for 20 years. The young me would be horrified were still battling for it #EqualPayDay #bbcwomen.

When I started work EqualPayAct had been law for 20yrs. The young me would be horrified we're still battling for it #EqualPayDay #bbcwomen  Samira Ahmed (@SamiraAhmedUK) November 10, 2017

Derbyshire wrote: Its Equal Pay Day  bosses of small firms, large corporations, charities, start-ups, multinationals etc  do the right thing #BBCwomen #womeneverywhere.

Fellow broadcaster Razia Iqbal wrote: All broadcasters are equal. Some are more equal than others. Its Equal Pay Day. If inequality exists for #BBCwomen you can be sure it does everywhere. Fight inequality.

"All broadcasters are equal. Some are more equal than others" it's #EqualPayDay. If inequality exists for #BBCwomen you can be sure it does everywhere. Fight inequality. Please RT pic.twitter.com/Gu0uNXEiNF  razia iqbal (@raziaiqbal) November 10, 2017

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Ore Oduba pledged his support, posting a snap of actress Jodie Whittaker, unveiled on Thursday, wearing a coloured, striped T-shirt in costume as the new Doctor.

Im no Whovian, but inspired by the Timelord today.#EqualPayDay #BBCWomen #drwho #comeon, he wrote.

I'm no Whovian, but inspired by the Timelord today #EqualPayDay #BBCWomen #drwho #comeon A post shared by Ore Oduba (@oreodubaofficial) on Nov 10, 2017 at 12:04am PST

And another male presenter, Greg James, also lent his support in a tweet posted by Jo Whiley.

Tweets by Radio 4 stars Husain and Montague come after the boss of Radio 4 defended the station  saying its presenters are paid fairly.

Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams told the Press Association that pay at the station was fair and that the gender pay gap was a BBC thing, with news and other issues.

The Fawcett Society has warned that the gender pay gap is widening for some women and it will now take 100 years to close it.

Chief executive Sam Smethers said: The pay gap is widest for older women as it grows over our working lives but we are now seeing a widening of the pay gap for younger women too, which suggests we are going backwards and that is extremely worrying.
Being a girl can be beautiful- we get to enjoy make-up and dresses with no stigma attached to it. We get to live longer, enjoy our boyfriend's clothes and in most cases, were not the ones that have to think of stupid pick-up lines.

But theres the dark side of the moon as well. Women and girls get to experience a significantly higher percentage of sexual harassment and assault. In fact, 82% of all juvenile victims are female, while 90% of adult rape victims are female.

We have all been reminded of this recently with the Hollywood sex scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein and others, as well as the unfolding sexual harassment scandal surrounding the Houses of Parliament.

B

e it day or night, public transport, work or club, women are vulnerable. This is well known, and yet it is still shocking to hear how long some people can get away with such outrageous behaviour.

As such we wanted to come up with some advice to help any readers who ever experience sexual assault or harassment.

Unfortunately, theres no 'list of rules' to follow to avoid sexual harassment and assault. But we have put together some advice on how to deal with such a situation if it occurs.

1. Be attentive

It might seem a bit obvious as many of us girls already have a set course of actions when leaving home but:

avoid dark streets and walk far from corners.

Stay as far away as possible from bushes and other objects that can prevent clear view.

Do not go through parks and others nature spaces later at night unless theres no other way around.

Don't wear headphones!

Listen to the sounds around you, if you see someone walking towards you, make a note of their features as they come closer.

2. Take precautions

Different girls use different methods. If you really have to walk home alone, bring a pepper spray with you. Alternatively, hold a key between your fingers or pretend to have a conversation on your phone.

Don't stare down at your phone!

The light will blind you, as well as distracting you from paying attention to your surroundings. Put the phone next to your ear and act out a conversation or call a friend and make them have a chat with you.

3. Dont talk to strangers

Ok, I know this has been THE RULE since kindergarten but it is equally important as an adult especially later at night-do not stop to talk to strangers.

Not even if theyre only asking for directions or time.

It might seem rude but Ive talked to my male friends and a lot of them agree that they wouldnt stop a girl on the street as they realise she might feel intimidated.

4. Know the definition of sexual harassment and assault

Sometimes, we are not sure where the borders are. Was he just being friendly while he danced with you in the club or was his hand around your waist too much?

Any unwanted sexual behaviour is sexual harassment!

It can begin with words, him pressuring you, manipulating you or even making jokes that are inappropriate. When words turn into actions, it is sexual assault.

Any unwanted sexual touching is assault. Rape is a sexual assault as well. So, if you did not specifically agree to take part in any act of a sexual nature it is sexual harassment or assault.

You have the right to raise your voice and seek help.

5. Remember key phone numbers

Know your countrys emergency number as well as local police numbers. Research what organisations help victims in your community.

Even if not for yourself, it might be helpful for a friend.

6. Try to attract the attention of others in the area

Though we hope you never experience any kind of sexual assault, if it does occur try and get the attention of others in the area by shouting and making as much noise as possible.

Additionally,

try to defend yourself if possible, though never put your life at risk.

Focus as much as you can on the person in order to take in and remember descriptive features for later on in case you report the crime. Lastly, make sure you get medical treatment as soon as possible! Doing so will check your physical wellbeing and support your case if you decide to report the crime.

7. Talk to someone

You might not be ready to talk to the police at first. It is absolutely normal and understandable. However, talking to someone close to you can help you analyse the situation and start working towards healing.

It will take time and is a highly individual process but it is always easier if you can trust someone. While some of us are blessed with good friends and close family, there are other options as well- such as charities, organisations and helplines who have people ready to offer support.

Last but not least- when youre ready, talk to the police. Do not forget that the person who assaulted you deserves to face consequences for their actions and they might be putting other people at risk.

8. Dont be afraid of your feelings

It is normal to be scared, sad or angry. You could even feel ashamed or disappointed and try to reject what happened.

Everyone is different and has their own way of coping with pain, but do not think youre not right to feel whatever you feel.

In truth, there is no wrong or right way to cope. However, in order to understand your emotions completely and interpret and cope with them in a safe way, it is a good idea to seek specialist help.

There are people out there who have been trained to provide professional support and help you go through what happened while prioritising your mental health above everything. It is always a good idea to reach out and see if they can help you, especially if you are struggling.

9. Never blame yourself

Don't ever think it is your fault! Neither sexual harassment nor assault are ever the victims fault.

Your outfit was ok. Even if you drank a bit too much it wasnt an invitation to anyone. The fact that you couldnt say no does not mean you said yes.

That fact that another human being couldn't act with courtesy and respect, but instead chose to take advantage of your vulnerable state, is a reflection of them, not you!

10. Share with the world

If youre ever ready, do speak out loud, not just to your friends but to social media and your wider circle. In the times we live in, we need to realise that sexual assault happens, and can occur in a variety of circumstances. Every story is important in raising awareness of this issue, and reminding people of just how many men and women are affected.

There are of course people who value their privacy and won't want to share their story, but never hide it out of fear that it is

shameful or degrading- it isn't! It actually means you dealt with something traumatic and have been able to come through it stronger.

If youre ever ready, do join the likes of so many other men and women who have found the strength to address the issue of sexual harassment and assault.

11. Keep living

Get out of bed. Go out to the club again. Go meet your friends. Face the world and find the little moments and things that would make you happy. Pursue your goals. Be the amazing human being you are.

As much as we believe in all the points, as said before, there can hardly be a guide to an individuals life and experience. The best we can do is talk, and keep talking, until our society accepts that children should be taught to not harm others.

In case you have been a victim of sexual assault, or know someone that has, we have included some useful help points to look up:

Rape Crisis Helpline: 0808 802 9999 (12-2:30 and 7-9:30)

NSPCC Helpline: 0808 800 5000 (24 hours, every day)

NHS Choices  Sexual Abuse Referral Centres (SARC) - offers help across the country after rape and sexual assault

https://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Rape%20and%20sexual%20assault%20referral%20centres/LocationSearch/364

Victim Support Helpline: 0808 168 9111

Women Against Rape: www.womenagainstrape.net

The Survivors Trust Helpline: 0808 801 0818
Think about Africa.

Which images cross your mind when you picture the continent?

When asked to imagine Africa, many people conjure up images of white beaches, orange skies and dusty savannahs. Thoughts of the continent don't necessarily bring to mind a thriving technology sector.

Clearly, Africa is a continent of extremes - comprised of over 50 countries and home to over 1,000 languages.

Africas diversity is inconceivable - from the colourful city of Marrakech in the north, to the thriving savannah plains of Kenya, to the golden beaches of Ghana. And, with an estimated 60% of the population under the age of 25, a fresh-faced, hopeful, and innovative generation is coming to the fore, eager to change perceptions of Africa.

In particular, the technology and communications sector is thriving. From instant money exchange over mobile phones, to the use of drought-resistant seed varieties in farming, technological advances are providing local people with political power, global connectivity, and growing economies.

Here are three ways technology is revolutionising the lives of African people:

Money exchange over mobile phones

Many African countries have leapfrogged the use of landlines and moved straight to mobile phones, creating a new opportunity for innovators to get creative. In Kenya, Vodafone and Kenyas own Safaricom created M-Pesa, a money transfer system for mobile phones which the majority of the adult population now use.

With M-Pesa, all monetary exchanges are completed via basic mobile phones. Rural families no longer need to travel for hours to visit the bank or risk sending money in the mail - all transfers can be done through the secure mobile phone exchange. Previously, if locals needed to pay their bills or go shopping, they would have to carry around large sums of cash, leaving them vulnerable to robbers  now, this new cashless system ensures that people feel safer and that their money is secure.

New seed varieties and agricultural apps

Climatic changes, rapid urbanisation, and an exponential population growth mean that Africas agricultural landscape is changing dramatically, and coming under increasing pressure. To accommodate these changes, technology is now incorporated into traditional farming methods.

New climate-smart crop varieties have been introduced across the continent with remarkable success. A drought-tolerant maize was introduced in 2006 and has now been adopted in 13 African countries. Not only does this new seed variety produce an increased yield throughout droughts, it promises a 20-30% increase over farmers current yields.

With increased mobile phone use throughout the population, new apps are being developed to help the agricultural sector. Created by Kenyan farmer Su Kajumbu, iCow is an app which can be used on basic mobile phones to register individual animals, with SMS reminders sent to inform farmers about the milking schedules, immunisation dates and tips about nutrition and breeding or information about local vets or artificial insemination providers. Farmers can then make informed decisions about their animals to ensure the best yields.

Technology is revolutionising agriculture and, as long as these projects are implemented with local knowledge and cultural sensitivity, they are certain to ensure continued economic growth across the continent.

Technology as a political tool

Despite Africas economic growth, many people feel underwhelmed by the speed of development, placing blame on the corruption and exploitation still rife in African politics and in community spheres.

In the past, many Africans have been powerless against corrupt leaders - but now local people can access legal information online, and then report crooked officials and organise groups across their country to protest unjust governmental actions. Information is power and, as more and more locals gain access to information and communications networks, positive change, driven by empowered, educated, connected people, looks increasingly likely.

New advances will also help local people during times of crisis. In Kenya, Ushahidi has been created  an online mapping system which shows violent outbreaks so people can safely navigate their way through their country.

Technology is a key driving force for change and it will be interesting to see what other innovations come from this extraordinary and diverse continent over the coming years.

Intrepid Travel has been taking people off the beaten track to discover the world's most amazing places for 28 years.

The Melbourne-based adventure travel company is part of the Intrepid Group, the worlds largest provider of adventure travel experiences. Intrepid offers more than 1,500 trips in more than 100 countries and on every continent. Trips are designed to truly explore local culture, meet local people, try local food, take local transport and stay in local accommodation. Award-winning tour leaders, small group sizes and lots of included activities means travellers are able to have a sustainable local experience that is great value for money.
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A woman found near John Nolen Drive early Friday suffered life-threatening stab wounds, Madison police said.

The suspect, Tony M. Mason, 63, was still at large as of Friday evening.

The victim and Mason knew each other, said Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain.

The 911 center said the stabbing was reported at 12:13 p.m. near the Capital City Path Downtown.

The victim, who DeSpain said is in her 40s, was in surgery Friday afternoon. She was stabbed several times inside the vehicle after something like an argument took place, he said.

After the woman was stabbed, she somehow got out of the vehicle Downtown along John Nolen Drive near Broom Street before the assailant drove off, DeSpain said.

He said this was an isolated incident and that he doesnt believe there is an ongoing threat to the public.

The motive behind the stabbing is unknown, he said.

Mason is 6-feet-2 and 165 pounds. He was driving a 2010 black four-door Nissan Sentra with a broken right-rear window and a Quality Transit decal on the right-rear door.
First United Methodist Church is celebrating the 180 years since Methodism was established in Madison. As part of the special anniversary celebration, the church invites members of the public to attend a walk journeying through the religions Madison history on Nov. 19.

Events will begin at the 9 a.m. church service led by Bishop Hee-Soo Jung. After the service, Jung will lead the Bishops Walk around the Downtown area highlighting special liturgical locations.

The walk will include special places where the Methodists worshiped in their early days in Madison.

According to organizers, the first religious service was held in a rooming house on the corner of East Washington Avenue and North Pinckney Street in 1837.

Around 1849, the early Madison Methodists built their first church building on the corner of North Pinckney and East Mifflin streets, and then a large Gothic-style church was built at Wisconsin Avenue and East Dayton Street in 1873.

Both the morning service at the church, at 203 Wisconsin Ave., and the Bishops Walk are open to the public.

For more information, call Bobbi Foutch-Reynolds at 920-478-2115 or the church office at 608-256-9061.
Wisconsin would join a majority of other states in allowing the farming of industrial hemp under a bill sent to Gov. Scott Walker.

The Wisconsin Assembly passed the bill unanimously Thursday. It cleared the Senate unanimously Tuesday.

Spokesman Tom Evenson said Walker would review the bill but did not commit to signing it.

The proposal would establish state licenses for farmers who want to grow industrial hemp. People with drug convictions wouldnt be eligible for the licenses. The plants couldnt contain more than 0.3 percent THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

At least 30 states have passed legislation allowing hemp farms. Supporters of the Wisconsin bill say hemp has a wide range of uses and farmers should have the option of growing another profitable crop.

LEAD PIPE:

A bill designed to help Wisconsin homeowners pay for replacing lead pipes has cleared the state Assembly, but it now must go back to the Senate for another vote after Republicans lowered the benefit available.

The measure passed Thursday would allow public water utilities and local governments to provide grants, loans or both to property owners to help them replace portions of water pipes going from the house to street containing lead.

The Senate version allowed for up to two-thirds of the cost to be covered. The Assembly version lowered that to half.

WAITING PERIOD:

Couples who get divorced would no longer have to wait six months before remarrying under a bill approved by the Assembly.

Under current state law, a person who was a party to a divorce action in Wisconsin or any other state must wait six months after the divorce is granted before remarrying. The bipartisan bill approved Thursday would do away with the waiting period.

The proposals author, Republican Rep. Cindi Duchow, said the waiting period penalizes people who get divorced when theyve broken no laws.

The bill now heads to the state Senate.

SUNSET RULES:

All Wisconsin administrative rules would be reviewed every nine years under a bill approved by the Assembly.

Democrats and a broad array of other opponents fear such a move would make it easier to undo consumer, workplace and environmental protections and a host of other regulations. They have branded the measure passed Thursday as a special interest giveaway.

Republican supporters say the bill will ensure that state regulations stay current and relevant.

CHILD PHOTOS:

It would be a crime to solicit nude or sexually explicit photos from a child in Wisconsin under a bill approved by the Assembly.

Under the bill passed Thursday, adults who try to coax children into supplying them with nude or sexually explicit photos would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

Adults between the ages of 18 and 21 who solicit such photos from children no more than three years younger than them would be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months in jail.

The bill has bipartisan support and now goes to the Senate.

CRIME VICTIMS:

A constitutional amendment designed to give crime victims more rights has passed the Legislature.

The measure must pass the Legislature again next session before it goes to voters for approval. It would be added to the Wisconsin Constitution only if voters approve it.

The amendment largely duplicates existing crime victim protections but goes further in several areas.

In addition to privacy, victims would have the right to be heard at plea, parole and revocation proceedings, the right to refuse defense attorneys interview, deposition or discovery requests and the right to attend all proceedings in their cases.

The Assembly passed it Thursday on a bipartisan 81-10 vote. It cleared the Senate on Tuesday.

TEST NOTIFICATION:

Wisconsin school districts would be required to inform parents every year of all state or federally mandated tests to be given under a bill passed Thursday by the Assembly.

The Assembly also passed a bill that would give students in all grades subject to state-mandated testing the option not to taking the tests.

 Associated Press
Pearl Brown Bull

According to The Bush Chicken, an Internet based magazine, Liberian lawyer, Pearl Brown Bull, criticized the presence of ECOWAS and African Union leaders in the country, saying that the countrys judicial system can handle the current situation without outside interference. (The article referenced can be found on the TLC Magazine).

These are critical and crucial times in Liberia. So, when such an inflammatory statement is made, especially by a prominent lawyer, one reads further for proof. How is the conclusion derived that the ECOWAS and AU leaders were indeed on a mission that could be reasonably described as outside interference?

A rational mind didnt have to look further to debunk the statement. The article goes further:



Guinean President Alpha Conde, who heads the African Union, and Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe, who chairs ECOWAS, recently ended a one-day political stakeholders meeting in Liberia with heads of various political parties. The two leaders visit was meant to ease tensions following a decision by the Supreme Court to put a stay order on the runoff November 7 presidential election scheduled between Unity Party and the Coalition for Democratic Change.

It is clear that the ECOWAS and AU leaders were not in Liberia to interfere in the judicial system of Liberia, but to ease tensions and curb potential future crises. There is a good reason why this is a reasonable and necessary position for these stakeholders to take: The last time Liberia went into the self-destruct mode, the crises spilt over into neighboring countries. It cost our neighbors tens of millions of dollars to contain our escalating war, and it even cost them the lives of a number of their soldiers who were on peace-keeping missions. Most importantly, displaced Liberians became refugees in these neighboring countries at a tremendous cost to the hosts; some Liberians still remain abroad as refugees.

One has to wonder, is the lawyer not aware of these crucial occurrences in our most recent past? How does one blow such hot air about Liberias self-inflated sovereignty when we have had to rely on the humanity and generosity of not only our immediate neighbors and regional counterparts, but the global community as a whole? Have we forgotten the role the UN has had to play for over a decade to stabilize our nation? If we recognize and appreciate the foreign contributions, then we are compelled to show our gratitude, instead of marginalizing them. They have a stake in our affairs, and rightfully so!

The fact that Liberia is a founding member of the OAU (which eventually became the AU) and ECOWAS, as the lady stressed, is immaterial and irrelevant. Yes, we are an older country in terms of chronology, but any evidence of modern advancement is scant, compared to our neighbors. It is time to recognize that and face it honestly; our fall out of grace is our own doing and no amount of self-aggrandizement or delusion of grandeur will change that reality.

The Counselor ended on a sour note, and it is not clear whether her remark was meant to be a joke. If so, we must have different senses of humor, because I didnt think it was funny. She went on to bash and belittle Liberian men by blaming them for the pending crises and the general lack of leadership in the country. She lavished praise on President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and said to the men, If yall not able to rule this country, give it to the women.



Several points are necessary to be pointed out here. First of all, the pending crises are directly attributable to President Sirleaf; this is still her administration. She appointed all the members of the National Elections Commission (NEC), and the unfolding crises can easily be attributed to the incompetence of that body. Several complaints have been brought against the commission. There have been numerous complaints of mismanagement against the Director of the NEC, yet nothing was done to replace him. Isnt the president, by default, to blame for any incompetence or disregard for the law? Doesnt the buck stop with her?

Counselor Pearl Bull is playing a dangerous game by defining our national problem along gender lines. She cant be serious about turning our leadership over to women; our president for the last twelve years has been a woman, and she has created this mess we face. For the last two terms, the president has failed to initiate any innovative leadership style to generate substance. It has been business as usual, except this time our national captain at the helm of leadership has been female, instead of male.

Some other women understand that sirleafs leadership may mean more about her and the glorification of global accolades than it is about feminist leadership. This is how two women, writing in an eye-opening article, saw it:



The over glorification of sirleaf as a feminist icon is particularly troubling since her 12-year presidency has actually served the interests of a small, elite group of women and men in politics and thus upheld long-standing patriarchal norms in Liberia.

Writing under the title, Is Liberias Sirleaf Really Standing Up for Women? the two outstanding female authors ended on a sour note: If the current political landscape in Liberia is any indication of future trends, it may well be a century before we elect a female (or male) head of state who is truly committed to a feminist agenda.

To conclude this article, perhaps it is necessary to caution the good counselor that Liberias political problems know no gender lines. We are in this mess together, and it will take all of us working together harmoniously, for the sake of our common humanity, to solve this problem. Pointing fingers at the various demographic groups, male or female, on the ground or in the Diaspora, young or old, rich or poor, country or city We are all in the same boat now and we need our international partners, both in the West African region and further to come to our aid. Disparaging and marginalizing them is not a wise alternative; well never know when we might need them again.

Please direct all comments, questions, or need for clarification to Theodore T. Hodge at imthodge@gmail.com

What is your take? Please post your comments below:


A Republican-backed proposal limiting the publics access to footage from police body cameras cleared the Wisconsin Assembly on Thursday, despite objections from open records advocates and Democrats who say it will quash the publics ability to view certain video.

The bill has the support of law enforcement agencies across the state. Supporters say the goal is to institute guidelines and privacy protections for members of the public unwittingly captured on police cameras. But Democrats argued Thursday that the measure could be improved to ensure the public has access to footage without infringing on peoples privacy rights.

Under the proposal, all footage from a police body camera would be exempt from Wisconsins open records law except for video involving injuries, deaths, arrests and searches. But if footage were taken in a place where someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as their home, police would have to obtain permission from victims, witnesses and property owners before it could be released to the public.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, said he predicted because the bill puts privacy guidelines in place it will result in more law enforcement agencies equipping officers with cameras. He said that would lead to more footage being available to the public rather than less.

Further the divide

But opponents argued the consent notices for footage taken in places where privacy is expected were too onerous to result in video being released.

This bill does nothing but further the divide between the police and the communities theyre meant to protect, said Democratic Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, of Milwaukee. Democratic state Rep. Chris Taylor, of Madison, called the bill a missed opportunity to enact standards that work.

The whole point of these body cameras is undercut by this stupid bill, said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, which represents newspapers, broadcasters and other media outlets. This bill is poorly worded and will result in the denial of access to records that even the police would like to release.

Body camera footage should be treated like dashcam video, police reports and other records that are presumed to be open unless the agency determines that the harm in releasing them outweighs the public interest in seeing them, Lueders said.

The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and Wisconsin Newspapers Association are working on amendments to the bill to increase public access to the body cam footage. Those changes werent before the Assembly on Thursday but could be taken up by the Senate, if it elects to debate the bill next year.

Kremer, the bills sponsor, said Thursday he would be open to making improvements to the bill later if necessary and anticipated the Legislature would be returning to the issue in the coming years. If the Senate changes anything to the current bill, the Assembly would have to vote on it again next year.

The Assembly passed the bill on a voice vote.

Thirty other states have laws related to police body cameras. Of those, 18 address how data captured on the cameras are handled under open records laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Theres been a push nationally in the wake of shootings involving police to require more officers to wear body cameras to help determine what happens in those cases. The footage can end speculation about an officers actions, stoking or quelling public outrage in high-profile, racially charged shootings.

Wisconsins proposal does not require police departments to use body cameras. But its backers say establishing the privacy guidelines will lead to more agencies feeling comfortable equipping officers with cameras.
With student activism heating up on campus  from divestment art to actions supporting increased gun control  the wisdom of our Colleges most seasoned activists is becoming increasingly relevant. The S&Bs Saiham Sharif met up with Professor Eliza Willis, political science, to learn about her first call to activism and her consequent participation in political actions, all the way to the present day.

The S&B: When did you first begin your activism?

Eliza Willis: Well, I probably first began my activism when I was a college student, protesting some U.S. policies abroad. Most of my activism, early on, was about international involvements of the United States, so I was involved in a protest following U.S. policies in Central America and Latin America, also, in other places in the world, where the U.S. was intervening in ways I disagreed with. So, mostly early on I was doing things like marches. I was more of a participant, not a leader. That was when I was an undergraduate and a graduate student. Ive always had some level of activism in the institutions that Ive worked at or where Ive studied, more on things that the institutions were doing, not necessarily political. The activism that Ive been doing the past couple of years has been more politically focused because I have more time for it. Im what we call Senior Faculty Status, so I have more free time to devote, and Ive really stepped up my involvement in voting rights, in particular, something Ive been working on. And now, in regard to gun violence and gun control  Im getting involved in that now.

How does your academic interest feed into your activism?

Because I had spent a lot of time living in Latin American countries, I had a perspective that came from there about U.S. involvement. I think I probably felt a lot more informed about what those policies really looked like in practice, and how people were affected by them. Rather than just accepting the official story, the reasons for these involvements, I had a rich perspective, more complete because I was studying the politics of the region. I had a deeper understanding of the impact, and it did seem out of step [with] what the purported values of the government were. That disconnect really struck me. That informed a lot of my activism.

Do you teach activism in your classes?

My classes are taught from a really scholarly, academic point of view. What Ive tried to do in the classes is try to provide the kind of knowledge that has been important to me in my activism, in informing the activism that Ive done. Knowing what a situation is in a deeper way, and not just accepting the superficial understanding. Getting to a deeper understanding informs my activism in a deeper and more sustainable way. My classes have been devoted to providing a variety of perspectives on issues. Well, I take that back. I used to teach a tutorial about the fight against global poverty, which was about the way to act, if you call that kind of social entrepreneurship about how to act. How do you create an organization to address an initiative that you would like to introduce activism? I havent taught from the perspective of how to lead a social movement.

Your activism seems to be very information based. People say we live in a post-truth society. We have fake news swarming around. How do you think activists or maybe students can stay informed?

I think its gotten a lot harder. I think that you really need to study the sources that you think are credible, [some] have been around for a while. You can examine their credibility by looking at what other news entities say about the same issue, and see how well those align. Of course, if youre reading media that has a really strong perspective, youre going to get that news through that filter. Just be aware of what [that] filter is. Maybe that filter is consistent with your own worldview, or not. I do think there are credible sources out there and theyre identifiable. But you might have to work at it. I agree it has become more difficult. Never take one story for the basis of anything. Never. You really need to look beyond one particular report, whether it comes from a newspaper of record, like The New York Times or Washington Report or Democracy Now, or some other site with a stronger perspective. You always want to have multiple sources to be using. I still believe in facts. They exist.

How can we reconcile activist efforts even though were still complicit in oppressive systems?

Thats called living in the United States. Thats called living in the modern world. You cant completely divorce yourself from that reality, and I think we all are going to be complicit in certain things because you cant fight every front at every time. Im not very interested in isolating myself in the woods. It bothers me, but  this might sound kind of lame  we do the best we can. You know, we do. Each individual needs to decide which thing theyre being complicit in that bothers them the most. Im going to say something about activism: You need to do things that you feel passionate about. You simply cannot feel passionate about anything. Youre going to put your best energy into things youre passionate about, whether that be divestment from oil and gas, or be gun control or reproductive rights. You have to choose where you have to put your energy. You have to address the complicity involved in that. That seems most realistic to me.

What is your general philosophy of activism? What can students take away?

Just this recent activism Ive been involved with, it has its ups and downs. It has its high heady moments of, Wow, this is incredible what were doing and these other moments where you feel like youre not making a difference or you cant agree with other people about how to move forward or youre exhausted, energy-wise, monetarily-wise. The passion will carry you through. That will be a very important message. Another important message, which we hear all the time is: take care of yourself. Its so important to take care of yourself in that process. To be an activist is taxing. In this day and age, its gotten worse because youre concerned about the blowback you might get, which has always been there, but there are more ways one can experience that than in the past. Inform yourself. Be a well-informed activist. Activists lose a lot of credibility when they dont inform themselves well.

Some of my activism isnt connected to Grinnell, but connected to my training as a political scientist, looking at voting rights, voter registration, and trying to really address issues of low registration in marginalized communities  a lot of what I do, in Iowa City, where I live. Some of my activism is associated with Grinnell, what policies Grinnell has, where its located and so forth. I would say its still institutionally-tied [and] disciplinary, to some extent. I definitely see the world through my disciplinary training. You have to figure based on your information, your studies, what feels true to you. I dont devalue intuition.

One reason that many Grinnell students feel weve lost our history of activism is that there are so many issues, and in the past, weve had far fewer issues that people could get behind. What I would say, and the other thing is that people have come to believe that change is not possible. I totally disagree with that. I was giving the example of guns  things didnt used to be that way, they will not be that way in the future. Only we can make change. Its a myth that we cant. People would like you to believe that we cant change things. Theyre wrong.
By Arumina Fatehpuria

fatehpur@grinnell.edu

Grinnell students gathered in Harris Center on Friday, Nov. 3 to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali. Hosted by the South Asian Student Organization (SASO), this year marked the tenth year that Grinnell College students have celebrated Diwali as a public event.

Diwali, also known as the festival of lights, marks the return of the Hindu god, Rama, to the kingdom of Ayodhya after a 14-year long exile. It is believed that during his exile, Rama fought and defeated the rival king Ravana of Lanka. On his return after his victory, the people of South Asia lit and decorated their houses with oil candles in little clay pots called diyas to signify the triumph of good over evil, or light over darkness. This tradition of decorating ones house with diyas remains a popular one all over South Asia today. This celebration occurs over a period of three days in India and over five days in Nepal (there, the festival is called Tihar, instead of Diwali). It is a time for meeting ones extended family. At night, after performing the various rituals, people often set off fireworks.

In Grinnell, Diwali kicked off at 6 p.m. when the SASO cabinet served Indian food brought in from Des Moines. The menu for the night featured dishes such as tandoori chicken, alu gobi and drinks like mango lassi. At 7 p.m., there was a cultural show hosted by Kavya Shah 18 and Vedika Haralalka 18, showcasing Bollywood dance and musical performances by students as well as the Bollywood Dance group on campus.

For me, Diwali is about getting together with your community, said Sanah Suri 20, vice president of SASO. It may not necessarily be the same as how Id celebrate it back home, but you still get that family feeling. I feel that Diwali here is really special because we dont only celebrate it as Indians, but its a really inclusive time. We also have students from Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh who join in on the festivities.

SASO intends not only to unite the South Asian community at Grinnell, but also to bring awareness of South Asian culture to all students.

SASOs aim is not only to bring the South Asian community in Grinnell together but also to make domestic and other international students aware of the rich and varied cultures of South Asia. This year, in addition to college students, a few townspeople also attended the event, said Nandita Banik 20, a cabinet member of SASO.

The organization has changed its cabinet structure this year, and has a student from every country in South Asia as part of its leadership. Earlier this semester, a Rohingya fundraiser was held to raise awareness and funds for the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Another event celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi will be hosted by the organization in the spring semester.

SASOs intention is to talk about and discuss South Asian culture, especially in the context of being South Asian in the United States. When asked one thing she wants the colleges students to know about SASO, Suri said, we make good chai.
Donald Trump lost Tuesday. Bigly.

He wasnt on the ballot in Virginia but make no mistake, hes the reason the race turned out like it did.

In a normal year, Democrat Ralph Northam would not have won as easily as he did.

In a normal year, Northam may not have won at all.

Four years ago, Terry McAuliffe won with just under 48 percent of the vote in a three-way race. Even then, McAuliffe barely scraped by against Ken Cuccinelli, a polarizing figure who turned off many moderate voters.

This time around, Republican Ed Gillespie was as mainstream a Republican as youd find. He seemed well-positioned to win back the suburban moderates who first defected from Cuccinelli and then recoiled from Trump a year ago. And yet none of that seemed to matter, not with Virginia voters feeling the way they do about Trump.

They didnt vote for Trump a year ago and in exit polls Tuesday they made it clear they liked him even less. In the only poll that matters  the one held at the ballot box  voters went for Democrats in a way that seems impossible to explain except as a reaction to Trump.

Northams percentage margin was the biggest for a Democratic candidate for governor since Gerald Baliles in 1985. His raw vote margin was the biggest ever.

Its not just that the Democrats swept the three statewide races with Justin Fairfax becoming the states second African-American lieutenant governor and Mark Herring winning re-election as attorney general. Democrats also made astounding gains in the House of Delegates, and might win back control of the chamber for the first time since 1999. Nobody  at least nobody youd take seriously  predicted that could happen.

Democrats needed to pick up 17 seats, which seemed in surmountable number  yet they won 13 with six others still too close to call Tuesday night. Even if they fall short, the dynamics in the General Assembly will be very different come January. Medicaid expansion might yet happen.

In the nights biggest shocker, a transgender candidate even upset Del. Bob Marshall of Manassas, the states most vocal Republican legislator on cultural issues. The Democratic wave didnt spare moderate Republicans either. Del. Joseph Yost, R-Giles County, was perhaps the most atypical Republican around, but even he was upset by Democrat Chris Hurst, the former newscaster. Democrats once again have something that was previously thought nearly impossible  a legislator from west of Roanoke (even if the New River Valley isnt very far west).

This was no ordinary night. ...Its instructive to look at where and how the Democrats won, because the results give more shape to a Virginia that weve long known was changing, but now is changing perhaps more dramatically.

In rural Virginia, we saw Republicans continue to grow their share of the vote while the Democratic share continued to dwindle.

Look at Buchanan County in the coalfields. In the 1980s, Democrats often took 65 percent of the vote there. That percentage shrank over the years but as recently as 2005, Democrat Tim Kaine carried Buchanan with 52 percent of the vote. Four years ago, though, McAuliffe took just 30 percent of the vote.

It turns out that wasnt the floor. Hillary Clinton polled just 18.6 percent of the vote there last fall. On Tuesday, Northam took 23 percent. You can look at that two ways: He ran slightly better than Clinton did, or his showing was poorer than McAuliffe.

Either way, Northam wasnt really a factor in rural Virginia  even though he grew up in a rural area and had a military background that in another time might have played well with rural voters.

One of Northams signature issues was a proposal to expand the University of Virginias College at Wise to create a bigger economic engine in the heart of the coalfields. His electoral reward? None at all. McAuliffe took just 26 percent of the vote in Wise County; Northam ran even worse, at just under 22 percent.

And none of that mattered, because voters in the urban crescent went decisively for Northam.

Four years ago, McAuliffe couldnt even get 50 percent of the vote in Loudoun County, carrying it by 3,905 votes. This year, Northam took nearly 60 percent of the vote in Loudoun County, with a margin of 23,432 votes.

Look at Prince William County, another suburban bellwether. McAuliffe took 52 percent of the vote there, for a margin of 8,010 votes. Northam won the county with almost 61 percent, and a margin of 24,673 votes.

Republicans simply cant win in Virginia if theyre losing in northern Virginia by margins like that. There just arent enough votes in rural Virginia to make that up, even if Gillespie did win many rural localities with a Trump-like share of the vote, often 70 percent or more.

Going forward, Republicans will need to figure out that puzzle. Gillespie thought he had the key  emphasize tax cuts to bring back the suburbs while invoking cultural issues to energize Trump voters.

The latter might have worked in rural areas, but clearly did not in northern Virginia. This is perhaps a landmark moment. Exit polls  and pre-election polls  showed that voters overwhelmingly favored keeping Confederate monuments in place. Northam said they should come down; Gillespie rallied to their defense.

Either the Confederate issue simply didnt matter that much to many voters  or Gillespies embrace of it backfired in northern Virginia.

Trump acolytes will no doubt say Gillespie didnt go far enough in embracing Trump. There is zero evidence in these returns to support that argument. Instead, what we see is that voters  especially in northern Virginia  wanted to cast a vote against Trump and took that out against the nearest Republicans they could find, whether they deserved it or not.

Its unclear how Republicans disentangle themselves from Trump, but the Virginia results make it very clear he is an electoral problem for them heading into the 2018 mid-terms.

With either candidate, Virginia would have found itself with a competent chief executive. In Northam, we have one who  at least temporarily  will become something of a national star. Northam seems too level-headed to get excited about that, and thats a good thing.

He might have expected to win, but he surely didnt expect to bring in this many Democratic delegates with him. Richmond will be a different place, and we suspect Washington may be too.
By Carter Howe

howethom@grinnell.edu

A new local group, Welcoming Communities Grinnell, has been started to ensure there is support for immigrants in Grinnell and to advocate for pro-immigrant legislation. The group held their first meeting on Oct. 16 at First Presbyterian Church and were joined by the group Immigrant Allies from Marshalltown and the Eastern Iowa Community Bond Project, based in Iowa City, which helps provide persons who are detained by immigration enforcement with legal representation and money to post bond. Their next meeting, which will be a strategy session, will be held Nov. 16 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the basement fellowship room of the United Church of Christ at 902 Broad St.

The groups founder, Aaron Wagner 99, who has past experience organizing for immigrant rights, felt compelled to do something because of Trumps handling of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era executive action that granted relief from deportation to undocumented people brought to the country as children.

Realizing that Trump was using DACA and impacted students as a bargaining chip to try to build the wall, that made me decide that I needed to get active and try to get people together locally, you know. I dont think that those actions reflect Grinnell values, Wagner said.

Though Wagner sees the group working on efforts outside of Grinnell as well, especially in nearby Marshalltown where there is a sizeable and growing Latinx population, they also emphasized that there are many immigrants here in Grinnell whom they hope the group can be a resource for.

It was started, you know, to support immigrants generally in Marshalltown and Central Iowa, but also realizing that we do have a growing immigrant population and refugee population in Grinnell, and we want to make more concerted efforts to, you know, make sure that impacted persons, whether theyre in the community or at the College, know theyre supported, Wagner said.

With an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cedar Rapids and a detention center in Marshalltown, Wagner hopes that the group can be an advocate for individuals who might have received unfair treatment from law enforcement, like Asucena Natareno Ramirez, who fled violence in her native Guatemala but was later detained and held in ICEs office in Cedar Rapids. After members of the public staged a demonstration, she was released.

They were able to get her released with some public pressure, but, you know, its part of the unfortunate circumstance that every single case has to be fought individually to get people out of detention, Wagner said. We also want people hopefully to know that, hey, people are being detained in your backyard in this part of Iowa.

Though the group is still in its early planning stages, they already have a few things planned. For example, they will be handing out signs. Grinnellians may have seen around town that say that immigrants are welcome in various languages.

Additionally, local resident retired medical ethicist David Isch is also helping to organize a project called Friends for International Harmony. A partnership with First Presbyterian Church, the project helps new immigrants in Grinnell secure various things and skills, from drivers education to furniture to help learning English and obtaining healthcare.

There are 21 volunteers and we are willing to help international persons integrate into the community socially as well as economically and politically so that they feel comfortable and feel welcome. Its a very practical application of social justice, Isch said.

Wagner is happy that they have not received any backlash yet, though they concede that the groups organizing efforts are not yet in full swing.

I put my name on the flyer and said contact me, and I havent received any hate calls or anything and I think were prepared for that, Wagner said. So far we havent met any friction, but we really havent started to rock the boat in any way either.

Wagner hopes that undocumented people in the community will feel comfortable joining Welcoming Communities Grinnell.

Were hoping that those folks feel comfortable joining our group, that they know that were supportive, but if because of legal fears theyre not able to feel comfortable attending in person, we just want to be communicating and letting them know that theres a group of us in town that want you to feel supported and loved as human beings in a difficult political climate.
By Hallela Hinton-Williams

hintonwi@grinnell.edu

The Leyla McCalla Trio took over Herrick Chapel last Monday, Nov. 6 as the end of their Midwest tour, as well as the last public event of the semester for Grinnell College.

The trio is made up of Leyla McCalla, the lead vocalist, who alternates between the cello, banjo and guitar, Daniel Tremblay, who plays the banjo, guitar and triangle and Free Feral, the violinist and back-up vocals. The three play a variety of songs in a genre that blends soul and folk. Their influences mainly stem from Haitian and Creole culture. In fact, a majority of their songs are sung in French and McCalla provides a translation of the lyrics before the song.

Growing up with Haitian parents, McCalla quickly developed a curiosity about Haitian music and culture that fascinated her as she explored instruments such as the banjo, cello and triangle  instruments still present in the trios performance. McCalla started to follow prominent Haitian artists and started to adapt the style of music to Haitian and American poets. McCallas Haitian roots influence her music style and guide her towards different artists and poets.

Creole culture is another important inspiration for the music the trio plays. The group is based in New Orleans, so the local blend of Creole and Haitian culture is reflected in their music. In the performance on Monday, the audience members saw this Creole influence in their first song, All the Plates on the Table Are Set.

During the performance, the Leyla McCalla Trio plays a tribute to the troubadour music common in Haitian culture, emphasizing the musics tendency to be a veiled social and political commentary. The trio also plays a song, Money is King, from an upcoming album, The Capitalist Blues, which is inspired from the current political climate and commentary from Haitian and Creole musicians, artists and poets. The group also honors Langston Hughes by adapting his poetry into music, a concept presented in McCallas first album, Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes.

The Leyla McCalla Trio is a group that unifies the musical genres of soul and folk in their music while honoring roots in Haiti and New Orleans. The group produces beautiful covers, as well as original music that created a great experience for the audience on Monday night.
By Saiham Sharif

sharifsa@grinnell.edu

Last Tuesday Nov. 7, Rashmi Varma, an associate professor of English at the University of Warwick in England, delivered a Faulconer Gallery talk on how the art of indigenous communities can land in private collections. This topic provided a lens into postcolonialism, aesthetic challenges and culture. Her presentation is a part of the current Faulconer Gallery exhibit on Indigenous Indian Art.

She began her speech with a striking example that captures the life of many indigenous artists.

In 2001, a small newspaper column in India had reported that Jangarh Singh Shyam had committed suicide in Tokamachi, Japan, Varma said. There are two or three of his works here. Jangarh was a tribal, Adivasi artist, who belonged to the Pardhan clan of Gond tribe from central India. Working in contracts and privately owned millionaire museums in Japan, where he had been brought to produce a body of work for a running salary of about $200. Much is not publicly known about the circumstances leading to his death, whether his suicide was a culmination of an act of depression, or luminous in a foreign plan, or an act of desperation and cognitive dissonance, against the exploitative conditions of the globalized production of art. His death was both a catastrophe and an omen.

Impoverished, many indigenous artists must hold day jobs, stealing away rare free moments to work on their art. Mostly through the lens of Jangarh, Varma focused on the Adivasi community, who comprise eight percent of Indias population and constitute a marginalized community. She touched on the storytelling role of artists in communities, and how capitalism disrupts culture through its relentless commodification.

Some modern Goan art includes depictions of gods and goddesses, but Verma believes, there is absolutely no evidence in [indigenous] Goan culture of visually representing their gods and goddesses.

However, the art market, reflecting the desires of private individuals who expect certain cultural icons in art, compels distortions. Consequently, indigenous artists create works that appeal to consumers, and thereby change the perception of their culture.

My contention in this talk is that any critical interpretation of Adivasi art must draw upon the material economic and symbolic observation of its emergence and presence in postcolonial India and beyond, Varma said.

Delving into the mechanics of Marxist theory, she explained how specifically primitive accumulation, also known as the private accumulation of capital, contributes to the suffering of many indigenous artists.

Primitive accumulation entails the enclosure of private property, a recurring theme in Indias colonization and current globalization. When private property is reserved for the wealthy, the poor are then displaced and must move elsewhere to live. Art is an extension of this accumulation. Once publicly supported, art is now privately held mainly in special collections. Capitalism thereby demands culturally impure art and the subjugation of the poor.

Varma connected a Ramachandra Guhas quote to the state of Goan art.

In the history of Independent India, the most bloody conflicts have taken place in the most beautiful locations, Varma quoted. There is a similar structure of feeling in Goan art, radiating from the beautiful pictures of trees, inhabited by magical creatures, people dancing. In [this] art there is a feeling of loss that emerges from only the destruction and enclosure of forests and many peoples, but also culture, a pervasive theme.
On the evening of Thursday, Nov. 9, Dissenting Voices held a national vigil in support of survivors of sexual assault. The vigil was part of a current national movement on campuses throughout the United States in response to the Trump administrations rescinding of Obama-era Title IX guidance, and to continue awareness of the recurring problem of sexual assault on campus. The S&Bs Kate Irwin sat down with Dissenting Voices co-leaders Evan Feldberg-Bannatyne 20 and Ty Pratt 20 to discuss the intention of the vigil and what Dissenting Voices has planned for Grinnell this semester.

The S&B: How did Grinnells Dissenting Voices decide to join in on the national movement against sexual assault?

Evan Feldberg-Bannatyne: I came upon a couple different organizations that we were subscribed to saying that they were going to have this in the wake of Betsy DeVos rescinding the 2011 Dear Colleague letters. So building off that momentum is kind of what spurred [Dissenting Voices holding a vigil]. We wanted to localize this national movement and bring that here to campus so that we can amplify the momentum behind the call.

Is this the first time Dissenting Voices has held a vigil for survivors of sexual assault?

EF: Maybe specifically a vigil is new. But definitely demonstrations  [DV has] a long history of that. Check out our website!

What are the plans for the vigil?

Ty Pratt: The vigil is kind of our first meeting in addition to this, so were going to introduce people to Dissenting Voices as it is our first meeting of the year. And just [tell people] what we do.

EF: Were going to be doing some art and some sign making, chilling with the members. Were going to leave it open-ended [and ask people if they] want to learn more about the policy change on the national level, or hear more about the history and legacy of sexual assault at Grinnell. And for the people who come to the meeting, we can be a resource and direct them to further resources if they have more questions.

In September Betsy DeVos decided to rescind the preponderance of evidence standard for reporting sexual assault. How do you think the Trump administrations decision to raise the standard to clear and convincing evidence affects how sexual assault is reported? How does this impede the ability of students to report sexual assault and to ensure that sexual assaults are thoroughly and appropriately deal with?

TP: People are going to be less likely to want to report, because they might feel like, oh the evidence that I have isnt up to the standard that the government wants anymore. Also I think too it might just be the fact that maybe a survivor didnt get a rape kit done because they were scared, and by the time they realized they wanted to come forward, all the physical evidence is gone. So they might feel like theres no point. And even if they try and go through a process theyre [told they] cant do anything.

EF: I guess the new guidance allows schools to use that new standard of clear and convincing evidence for sexual assault  even though schools use a preponderance of evidence for all other violations, essentially creating a different class for sexual assault. It kind of issues the government a license to discriminate against survivors, which is a pretty serious problem.

Part of the reasoning behind this decision was that advocates for accused students, most often men, believed that the judicial process became biased in favor of other victims. Do you think there is any credibility to this rationale?

EF: Im going to say no. I think the [old] system very clearly shows that a lot of the times the accused walks free and is actually a pretty harmful system for the survivors to go through. And it rarely leads to any serious consequences. Out of every 1,000 rapes, 994 preparators will go free. So, if anything, the system doesnt do enough to back survivors and ensure that rapists are kept from becoming serial rapists. And the fact that the Trump administration is lessening this is quite worrisome.

What does Dissenting Voices hope to gain from being part of this national movement?

TP: Ultimately, awareness of the fact that this stuff is going on. I feel like a lot of people on campus and on campuses around the country dont know that these are happening. The huge, big picture goal is for this not to be the case anymore. But immediately, awareness and letting people know if something happens to you, even if the government isnt on your side, were here for you.

EF: This is meant to be a healing space for survivors, so letting them know that despite the federal policies, theyre not alone and were going to be working tirelessly to hold our school accountable to keep doing even better than we have been, to keep pushing for that progress.

Does Dissenting Voices have any plans for the future of ways to raise awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault or ideas on how to work to lower and end sexual assault on campus?

EF: In terms of raising awareness we plan to do more actions this semester.  In terms of policies, were focusing on three goals this semester: expelling rapists, making sure that we can hire a permanent, fulltime Title IX coordinator and establishing a fully staffed womens center here on campus, which is something that our peer institutions all have and we do not.

What are immediate steps that can be taken to help end sexual assault on our colleges campus?

TP: I feel like a lot of it is active bystanderism, not in the sense that people can do something all the time, but if rapists know theyre being watched, theyre less likely to do something.

What is Dissenting Voices mission statement?

EF: We are a grassroots coalition of students who are committed to ending sexual violence at Grinnell College through collaborative policy changes and peer education. Were the schools only gender-based violence prevention group, and we are here to end rape on campus.
Kelly Page

pagekell@grinnell.edu

As the Board of Trustees held their third round of discussions on the possibility of Grinnell College divesting from fossil fuels on Monday, Nov. 6, student activist coalition Grinnell Student Resistance held a coinciding day of action.

Leading up to the Grinnell Student Resistance programming on Monday, the student activists undertook a week of visual activism around campus, which consisted of various art installations and informational signage related to the impact of global warming.

[The goal of the visual campaign] was to bring attention to the student body, to remind them that this issue is ongoing and that this is the time to take a stand, said Evan Feldberg-Bannatyne 20, a member of Grinnell Student Resistance. We had coal piles and the facts and the oil spills out front of the JRC. We did handprints in charcoal, all sorts of good stuff.

Feldberg-Bannatyne explained his involvement in the divestment campaign and described his concerns about the Colleges investments in fossil fuels.

People are dying right here right now abroad and in the United States as a direct result of fossil fuels. These are finite resources and we cant exploit them forever. Coal is dead, so why do we have $11.4 million invested in coal? It doesnt make any sense. There are lots of companies that are very profitable that are sustainable energy programs. I think it makes a lot of financial sense to divest because when this bubble bursts, stocks are going to crash, and that could leave the College in trouble, he said.

Following the visual campaign, on Monday Grinnell Student Resistance ran nine and a half hours of action. These events coincided with presentations coordinated by the trustees Fossil Fuels and Climate Impact Task Force. From 12 p.m. until 3 p.m. in the Spencer Grill, student bands played music and Grinnell Student Resistance provided art supplies so that students could create activist art.

Next, at 3 p.m., the task force held community conversations in which students discussed the issues of divestment and the Colleges climate impact with trustees. At a dialogue moderated by Professor Tim Dobe, religious studies, the conversation turned to Grinnells decision decades ago to divest from South African companies during the apartheid era, under the belief that to stay invested would be morally reprehensible. Then, in Faulconer Gallery, Rabbi Rob Cabelli led a spiritual and moral contemplation of divestment. His talk was centered on how to make a difference when one feels powerless and how to foster conversation without power dynamics getting in the way.

Not any single college is going to solve [the problem of climate change], but that has never been a reason to stop doing the right thing, Cabelli said.

Next on the docket was a rally in the Grill, wherein students engaged in chants, such as Hey, get off it! The enemy is profit. Climate devastation will not be stopped by corporations, and One, we are the students. Two, we have the power. Three, we want divestment for our future. Student musicians played along. Students whose lives have been directly impacted by climate change then gave testimonies about their experiences. One student spoke of the impact that fracking had had on their community: the towns drinking water was polluted to the point that residents could light it on fire.

Im getting chills just thinking about [the testimonies]. It was really powerful, said Morgane Garnier 19, a leader of Grinnell Student Resistance who played a part in organizing the Day of Action.

At 6:30 p.m., student activists set up in the top floor of the Dining Hall to host D-Hall-Ogues.

We intercepted the advisory committee and trustees to ask them to join us in dialogue thinking about shareholder activism, climate change and divestment as a social issue, and how it relates to our commitment to social justice as a college, Garnier said. The night concluded as students had coffee with trustees, engaging further in dialogue around divestment.

Garnier viewed the day of action as a success.

I was really impressed with how many people turned up to the D-Hall-Ogues. I think that was really great and the trustees really got the message that we care as a student body.  And Im amazed at how many first-years came, and people who I didnt really expect to be there. So Im appreciative of that.

Come April, trustees will vote on whether or not to divest. In the meantime, there is no doubt that Grinnell Student Resistance ensured that concerned students voices could be heard.
Chloe Wray

wraychlo@grinnell.edu

On Monday, Nov. 6 and Tuesday, Nov. 7, the Fossil Fuels and Climate Impact Task Force held the last of three rounds of community dialogues on divestment and carbon footprint reduction that have occurred this semester. The goals of this weeks campus wide dialogue series were open, transparent and participatory, as described by Kathryn Mohrman 67, a member of the task force.

These three major principles do take a specific form in the task forces current practices, as elaborated upon by Michael Kahn 74, chair of the task force. [Our goals include] recommending meaningful actions Grinnell College can take to positively impact climate, including consideration of fossil fuel divestment, taking a very broad approach that will consider our curriculum, our campus carbon footprint and our use of capital, Kahn wrote in an email to The S&B.

In order to achieve these goals, the task force, composed of Kahn, Mohrman and Ed Senn 79, has worked in conjunction with an advisory committee of students and faculty to host three rounds of dialogue on campus throughout the semester. These dialogues have focused on the Colleges fossil fuel usage and climate impact.

This weeks set of dialogues involved the task force, the advisory committee, students, faculty and the Grinnell community at large. The Grinnell College website explained that these talks focused on [d]ivestment decisions by other colleges, reducing the Colleges carbon footprint, providing more curricular support and exploring sustainability efforts.

Discussions varied from the importance of partnerships in divestment and how other colleges have gone about divestment, to alternate renewable energy options and Grinnells own sustainability plan. Student activist groups also held demonstrations in the Joe Rosenfield Center (JRC) over the course of the two-day event, calling on the College to divest from the fossil fuels industry.

The dialogue series was kicked off on Monday morning with a video conference call by activist Matt Remle, who spoke on his involvement with the Standing Rock movement and his work with the city of Seattles own divestment. When it became known in 2016 that Wells Fargo supported the Keystone Pipeline, Remle urged the city of Seattle to pull out of their contract with Wells Fargo and explore alternate banking options. Remle centered his story around his reliance on partnerships to implement change.

Remles talk was followed by a presentation on Monday evening by Rick Lancaster 76, vice president for Power Generation, Great River Energy, entitled Transitioning to Renewable Energy  Practical Challenges. Following Lancasters talk was one by Pitzer College former President Laure Trombley on Pitzers own process leading to divestment.

Grinnell really cant do this alone  we want to have significant impact. We need to have partners who multiply our impact, Mohrman said in her introduction to Trombleys talk.

In her presentation, Trombley shared the steps that Pitzer College took to divest, albeit with a smaller endowment than Grinnell: Pitzer depends on their endowment for only about 20 percent of their operating costs, as opposed to Grinnells 55 percent. Since achieving divestment in 2014, Pitzer has acted as a model and example to other institutions. However, Trombley stressed that the journey to divest for Pitzer occurred after years of carbon footprint reducing initiatives, highly driven by students, and that the shift did not occur overnight.

For some, however, the link between divestment and carbon footprint reduction is not so clear.

As we have heard from many speakers, a divestment action brings greater public awareness to climate change, but in itself does not have any immediate impact on climate, Kahn said. Grinnells shares in the five fossil fuel stocks we own would be bought by other investors in a matter of seconds. Divestment or being an engaged investor is about having impact, by making your voice heard. On the other hand, there are many things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint, so there is no need to choose between one or the other.

Professor Liz Queathem, biology, elaborated on this relationship between divestment and the Colleges carbon footprint, specifically in relation to her work on the advisory committee.

We [focused on the carbon footprint] in part because that was the charge that the president gave the committee  but also because we did not believe that we could persuade the Trustees that divestment would be worth the risk of lower returns, Queathem wrote in an email to The S&B. The beauty of our carbon footprint is that we have control over it, and it is truly and concretely our responsibility.

Queathem enumerated some of the most frequently asked questions surrounding divestment.

What steps can we take that will do the most good? If someone else is going to purchase the stock in companies when we divest, does it even hurt them? If it doesnt hurt them, what good does it do? I believe that it makes a moral point, and holds companies up as examples of bad actors, but I think we are all hoping for more than that, and educating ourselves on how people understand and analyze these issues of corporate accountability, public shaming and moral responsibility.

Over the course of the next few months, the task force will gather the information that they have acquired from the dialogues and presentations, assembling a report with recommendations to the trustees that will be presented at the April board meeting.

Until then, Kahn encourages students and community members to continue collaborating in the divestment evaluation process.

Continue to reach out and communicate with us, Kahn said. The trustees share the desire to see our College take meaningful actions on climate, and we are all in this process together.
The Legislature is rolling ever so slowly in the right direction toward tougher and smarter drunken driving laws.

If only lawmakers would step on the gas.

The state Senate this week sent a bill to the Assembly that would revoke  for at least a decade  the drivers license of any person convicted of driving drunk for a fourth time.

That would make it harder for chronic drunken drivers to get to work and back, some critics have noted, because those offenders would no longer be eligible for occupational licenses that allow driving to a job.

But more important, Wisconsins roads would be safer because many of the worst OWI violators would be banned from getting behind the wheel.

And if those repeat offenders continued to drive without licenses, they could face fines up to $10,000 and a year in jail. In addition, to get a drivers license reinstated after a decade of staying out of trouble, offenders would have to undergo an alcohol assessment and agree to a safe driving plan.

Congratulations to Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, and other supporters for steering this proposal through the Senate, which voted unanimously for passage. A former police officer, Wanggaard reconstructed and investigated drunken-driving crashes in his past career. Alarmingly, 1,859 drivers were convicted of their fourth or higher OWI charge during 2015.

These drivers we are targeting with this legislation have had opportunities to seek treatment and correct their unacceptable behavior, Wanggaard said during testimony at the state Capitol this fall. Because they have not, we must take action to keep them off the roadways to protect Wisconsin communities.

Hes right.

The Assembly should now act so Senate Bill 135 becomes law.

The Senate this week also sent to the governors desk Assembly Bill 98, which will require all repeat offenders (and some first-time drunken drivers with especially high blood-alcohol levels) to operate only vehicles that are equipped with ignition interlock devices. The devices prevent ignition if they detect alcohol on a drivers breath. Loopholes in the law that let some drivers dodge or delay this requirement would be closed.

SB 135 and AB 98 represent small yet positive changes to better protect the public from Wisconsins deadly scourge of drunken drivers careening down roads in two-ton vehicles.

But so much more needs to be done.

Promising technology that tests the blood or fingernails of chronic offenders to enforce sobriety should expand. And every drunken driver should have easy access to treatment for alcohol abuse. Wisconsin remains the only state that treats a first offense as a traffic ticket. First-offenders should have to spend a night in jail, appear in court and face a misdemeanor charge.

Wisconsin is making progress but must move faster toward a more comprehensive OWI solution.
Japanese automaker Nissan Motor on Thursday said the company had rolled out its 1,00,000th car under its Datsun brand from the Oragadam facility near Chennai.

A red colour hatch back, redi-GO equipped with one litre engine, marking the occasion was rolled out of the assembly line at the companys joint venture factory with Renault at Oragadam situated about 45 kms here.

The 100,000th roll out of Datsun is a strong testimony of customer acceptance and their confidence towards our brand, products and value based offerings, Nissan Motor India, Managing Director, Jerome Saigot said.

On behalf of the Datsun India team, I would like to thank all our customers and dealer partners for the commitment towards our brand, he said in a company statement.

Nissan has been selling Datsun Go, Go+ and the redi-GO from the Chennai unit. The Datsun brand accounts for more than half of the total sales for Nissan Motor in India, he said.

We are very confident that the future is bright and exciting for the Datsun brand in India. We are confident that our challenger brand positioning, unique product differentiation and best in class cost of ownership will continue to drive the customers owning and experiencing our prodcuts, he added.

Nissan Motor Company announced the relaunch of Datsun brand, the companys third global brand after Nissan and Infinit in March 2012. Nissan sells Datsun in India, Indonesia, Russia and South Africa from 2012.
Emphasising the significance of new technologies and experiments in agriculture and allied sector, Haryana Chief Minister (CM), Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday said the state government is adopting best farm technologies including micro-irrigation of Israel so as to make the agriculture profitable.

A good combination of best practices of less land, less water and less cost can increase the productivity and make farming profitable, the CM said while farmers after inaugurating countrys first Integrated Bee-keeping Development Centre set up under Indo-Israel project under Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture at Ramnagar, Kurukshetra on Friday.

This project has been set up on 25 acres of land at a cost of Rs.10.5 Crore. Describing Israeli farm technologies as best, Khattar said that four Indo-Israel Centre of Excellence in the areas of Vegetables, Fruits and bee-keeping had already been established in the state and two another such centres of fruits and dairy sector were under process.

He urged the farmers to adopt best practices to make agriculture profitable. There are 13 bee-breeders in this centre which would be increased to 32 by next year. State government is providing subsidy of Rs four lakh per bee-breeder.

The CM said replicating worlds best farm practises in Haryana for betterment of farming community would certainly help in realising the vision of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to double the income of farmers by year 2022.

Khattar also exhorted the farmers let the traditional farming and adopt crop diversification as well as organic farming to earn more profit on less land and increase soil fertility.

Describing the present government as pro-farmer, the CM said that the state government had given Rs 2450 Crore as compensation to farmers during last three years, whereas about Rs1300 Crore was disbursed by the previous governments during 48 years.

Farmers are the backbone of our nation and it is our duty to empower and strengthen them, he added.

Speaking on this occasion, Ambassador to Israel to India, Daniel Carmon said that the objective to set up this centre was to empower the farmers. He said that Israel will hold a conference on Agro-technologies in May 2018.

Agriculture and farmers welfare minister, OP Dhankar said that after this centre, state government would replicate the dairy technology of Israel at Hisar. A team of expert would visit Haryana in the month of December for this purpose, he said.
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari on Friday blamed the Kejriwal government for the toxic haze and deterioration in air quality in the capital over the last four days.

He alleged that situation is worse than what existed before the introduction of the CNG vehicles in Delhi.

It is surprising that while the scheme to implement car rationing system is being announced on 9 November, on ground it will be implemented four days later . The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has raised questions on the odd-even system. The Kejriwal government should tell about what draft policy it has made as anti-pollution measures, especially for situation like this, he said.

Meanwhile, the Delhi Congress also slammed the Kejriwal government for the rise in air pollution in the capital.
A group of Dalit students has launched a postcard campaign against imposition of NSA on Chandrashekher, the chief of Bheem Army, who is the main accused in the Saharanpur violence case. Chandrashekher is in custody.

President of Democratic Students Front at CCS University, Sushil Gautam, is heading the postcard campaign that started on Friday on the campus with the slogan I stand with Chandrashekher. Some other organisations also have raised the issue and demanded withdrawal of NSA. Earlier, Chandrashekher was admitted to Meeruts LLRM Medical College.

Under the campaign, students scribbled their demand on postcards, which will be sent to the President of India, requesting for the release of Chandrasekhar, Gautam said, adding that students in JNU and Delhi University have also assured to extend their support to the campaign and demand for Raavans release.

The responsibility to draw support in JNU has been given to Pradeep Narwal who has been associated with Democratic Students Federation there, Gautam said, adding that student leaders in DU are also being contacted to fetch more support.

Charging the police and district administration of Saharanpur with deliberately imposing NSA on him, Gautam said they dont want the release of Chandrasekhar from the jail.

Meanwhile, activists of Bahujan Sashaktikaran Sangh also demonstrated outside the DM office on Friday and handed over a memorandum against the imposition of NSA on Bheem Army Chief.

Chandrashekher was arrested in June this year in Saharanpur for his alleged role in spreading violence in the district. The Bheem Army chief was denied permission to hold a panchayat of Dalits after which the violence broke out.

Chandrashekher had been in jail ever since . He was admitted to district hospital of Saharanpur last month after he had a pain in the abdomen. Three days before he was transferred to LLRM Medical College Hospital where the doctors confirmed that he had typhoid and infection in the lever.
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
Actor Charlie Sheen has denied that he sexually assaulted Corey Haim when he was 19 years old, and the late actor was only 13.

Charlie Sheen categorically denies these allegations, a representative for Sheen said, reports aceshowbiz.com.

Sheen worked with Haim in the 1986 film Lucas.

Haims long time friend, actor Dominick Brascia, revealed to the National Enquirer that Sheen sexually assaulted his then-co-star during the films production. He said that Sheen corrupted Haim with drugs and anal sex.

Haim told me he had sex with Sheen when they filmed Lucas. He told me they smoked pot and had sex. He said they had anal sex. Haim said after it happened Sheen became very cold and rejected him. When Corey wanted to fool around again, Charlie was not interested, Brascia said.
The AAP on Thursday targeted the Centre for keeping mum over the alarming levels of air pollution in the national capital and said the Delhi government was ready to work with neighbouring states to combat the problem.

Hitting out at Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, who was away to attend the UN Climate Summit in Germany, AAPs Delhi unit convenor Gopal Rai said the minister is missing in the hours of crisis.

Why is the Centre mum over this problem? The BJP and Congress are projecting the crisis in a way that the Delhi government is doing nothing. We appeal to both these parties that Delhi government wants to work keeping all its political differences aside, Rai said.

He said that despite appealing to work together to tackle the crisis, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has not received any positive response from his counterparts in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.

He said the air-quality dip is not restricted to Delhi alone, but cities like Lucknow, in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab and Haryana, and even Lahore in the Punjab province of Pakistan are facing the problem.

Rai was referring to a request Kejriwal made to Manohar Lal Khattar and Amarinder Singh, the chief ministers of Haryana and Punjab respectively, to work on a solution.

My office continuously trying to take time from the CMs of Punjab n Haryana for me to meet the two CMs. Its an emergency, Kejriwal tweeted yesterday.

Stubble-burning in Haryana and Punjab is one of the major reasons for the deteriorating air quality in and around the national capital.

Rai asserted that while the BJP and the Congress were busy playing politics over the issue, the AAP government in Delhi was trying to find a solution to the problem.

The AAP government today announced odd-even road rationing scheme to curb vehicular traffic.

The Delhi government is proactive and is seeking solutions. Despite appealing to the three chief ministers, no one is ready for a joint solution, Rai said.

On their part, the Congress can ask the Punjab chief minister while the BJP can direct the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to work together on this matter, he added.

He also assured the environment experts that whatever solution they suggest will be seriously looked into.
Under fire for supporting stubble burning in Punjab, leader of Opposition and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, Sukhpal Khaira on Friday said the smog in Delhi is being caused by industrial and vehicular pollution.

The burning of stubble in Amritsar and Gurdaspur doesnt reach Delhi. There are other causes of huge smog in Delhi. This smog is not because of stubble burning but due to industrial and vehicle pollution, Khaira told media.

Farmers in Punjab are dying or are committing suicide because of colossal debt. Why is the government not implementing the National Green Tribunal order? The Government of India and the Punjab Government have been clearly directed to create a mechanism, give the farmers heavy tractors on rent. The government has done nothing in the last two years, he added.

Even as the AAP chief and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has blamed stubble burning for the thick, toxic fog that has enveloped the national Capital over the last few days, on October 15, Khaira led a farmers protest in Ludhiana and burnt paddy stubble.

He also opposed the Punjab governments decision to book farmers allegedly involved in stubble burning.

With stubble burning triggering a major smog crisis in the northern belt of the country, Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Amarinder Singh has again written to Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, seeking compensation for farmers for crop resident management to check the dangerous trend of stubble burning.

He has also requested the Prime Minister to convene a meeting of CMs of the affected States along with the Union Ministers for Agriculture, Food and Environment on the issue.

Reiterating his request, as raised earlier on July 5 2017, CM Amarinder has sought PM Modis intervention for arresting the problem of paddy straw burning by providing a bonus of Rs 100 per quintal as incentive to compensate the farmers to manage the crop residue scientifically.

The CM pointed out that most of north India, including the national capital New Delhi, is currently in the throes of a pollution crisis, induced largely by burning of paddy straw in the paddy-growing areas of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said profitability of farm sector had declined and there was a need to bring entrepreneurship in the farming process to increase it.

Unless value chain involving the producer till consumer was created, profitability of farming would not improved, he said in his address at an agriculture conference here.

In the last few years there has been an agrarian crisis and the profitability of farm sector has declined. This is mainly because farmers have medium to small holdings, and poor market access and also too much dependence on few crops and very little diversification, he said, as per an official release.

Entrepreneurship development is an integral part of farming process to increase the profitability of farming.

Naidu also said the prosperity of the nation was linked to the betterment of farming community so they needed to be enlightened on the use of modern technologies for achieving sustainability and profitability.

Despite being self-sufficient in many agricultural produce through series of revolutions, the increased production had not resulted in proportional increase in the farmers income, he added.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused a plea seeking to ban the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansalis controversial Padmavati epic drama featuring Deepika Padukone as a Rajput queen and Ranveer Singh as Alauddin Khalji.

The Apex court said it could not intervene since the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was yet to decide about its certification.

The film, which also stars Shahid Kapoor as Rawal Ratan Singh, is set for release on December 1.

The movie has been a subject of many controversies. Some Hindu groups and political parties, including the Congress and the BJP, claim that the film distorts history and wrongly portrays Padmavati, a contention Bhansali has rebuffed.

Earlier, Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali had rubbished rumours and reports of a romantic dream sequence between Rani Padmavati and the invader Allauddin Khilji in his forthcoming movie Padmavati.

There is no interaction whatsoever between the characters played by Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, Bhansali said.

The former royal family of Jaipur had also opposed release of the film if historical facts are distorted.

Former princess, Diya Kumari, a BJP MLA, in a statement had said that no film should hurt the sentiments of a community by twisting historical facts.

A legislator of BJP from Hyderabad had threatened to burn down theatres in Telangana if they screen Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Padmavati, which is slated for release next month.

T Raja Singh, a member of Telangana assembly, had called upon people to boycott the movie, saying as an attempt is being made to denigrate Rajput community. The MLA had even announced that he will bail out youth if they are arrested for setting afire the theatres.

Keeping sentiments of Rajput groups in mind, the BJP said that they preview the movie as as many fringe groups have threatened to disrupt its screening for manipulating historical facts.

Earlier, BJP demanded the film either to be banned or postponed, as it is releasing ahead of the Gujarat elections, which will be held on December 9 and December 14.

Congress had also joined the BJPs narrative on banning the movie, the party said if there is actually distortion of history in the movie then it should not be released at all.

Senior Congress leader and national spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil had said, that just postponing the release will not assuage the feelings of a community. We demand that if there has been distortion of history as claimed, the movie should not be released at all.

The film, which is based on the historical era of the 1300s, has grabbed the attention of many political parties for its content. Padmavati narrates the story of Rani Padmini and Alauddin Khilji. The protesters had urged the Election Commission (EC) to ban the film in Gujarat or shift the release date of the film post the elections.

Earlier, Jai Rajputana along with Karni Sena workers had vandalised the films set in Jaipur and even attacked the crew. They have also asked for a pre-release of the film or they would burn the cinema houses and multiplexes!

In Gujarat, a group of protesters had stormed into a mall in Surat in mid-October and destroyed a rangoli of actress Deepika Padukones Padmavati poster drawn by a local artist.

The Bhansali movie has Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh in lead roles.

(With agency inputs)
Not quite, the circumstances are decidedly different. Yet even while still in orbit are myriad contradictions surrounding the killing of a young girl in an eastern satellite of the Capital, another gruesome murder of a child in a western satellite has exploded in controversy.

In both cases, when entrusted with the probes the CBI has some up with findings very different from what the local police had projected: which fuels suspicions of detectives not hesitating to fabricate cases only to assuage public passions.

It cannot be forgotten that Aarushis parents spent years in prison before the Allahabad High Court overturned the verdict of a Special CBI court because no incontrovertible evidence was presented against them.

In the Ryan school murder, as it is popularly known, the conductor of a school-bus who was arrested by the Gurugram police within hours of the killing of seven-year-old Pradyuman Thakur has been behind bars for all of two months: now the CBI finds nothing against him. Yet the poor mans family will have to seek judicial intervention before securing his release.

And who knows, a few months down the road the people could still be asking who killed Pradyuman ~ the very same query that remains unanswered about Aarushi? It would be inappropriate and premature to comment on the still-incomplete CBI probe into the Ryan School affair, and it would be best to pay little heed to loaded statements from lawyers; just as it would be prudent to ignore CBI claims of a confession from the Class XI boy of the same school who has now been apprehended.

A court of law ~ not the media ~ will make the vital determination. Yet it would be relevant to ask why there are such discrepancies in the forensic evaluation of CCTV footage, how the same murder weapon was said to have been used by the bus conductor and the senior student ~ neither the CBI nor the local police have hinted at any connection ~ or how the CBI found witnesses that eluded the police.

The Haryana chief minister hasa dded his own twopaisa-bit to the conundrum by giving his cops a clean chit saying their inquiry was still at an initial stage when the CBI was called in. The CBI has added to the rigmarole by declining to take up the Junaid affair saying the Haryana police was competent enough to do so.

Where does that leave the common man? Can he have a modicum of faith in the cops ~ or the CBI for that matter ~ when such contradictory stories are being told? Police reform is long overdue, it is more than a matter of maintaining law and order, tackling terrorism or nailing VIP crooks.

Basic crime-detection is no less a casualty: surely the police leadership would concede that point.
Kancha Ilaiah is a political theorist, writer and Dalit rights activist. He writes in both English and Telugu. He headed the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad and also served as a member of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR).

Prof Ilaiahs book Samajika Smugglurlu Komatollu, a searing critique of caste in Hindu society, angered the Arya Vysya community as he has called them social smugglers. Prof Ilaiah was attacked in a public place and an FIR was registered against him for hurting the sentiments of the community. However, the Supreme Court has refused to ban his book. Prof Ilaiah is now virtually living under house arrest as he is apprehensive of another attack.

He has said he is ready to withdraw his book if the community representatives are prepared to earmark 5 per cent jobs in their establishments for Dalits, Adivasis and members from washermen and barber communities.

In an e-mail interview to ABHIJEET ANAND, Prof Ilaiah said the ruling BJP is protecting the interests only of the upper castes and its agenda is limited to cow protection and Yoga, among other things.

Excerpts:

Your book has drawn criticism from only two states. So is it based on research that is specific to a region?

No, the Telugu version made them get on to the streets, without even reading the chapter from my major book called Post-Hindu India published by Sage in 2009. This book has the potential to expand the anticaste debate to new areas, where Dr B R Ambedkar left it. This is the book that draws a line between productive castes and unproductive castes ~ namely Banias and Brahmins ~ in many parts of India. Only in certain pockets they are in productive spheres.

Does your book say that Banias or Arya Vysyas were responsible for all the inequality that is there in India?

They are the richest caste in India which controls business from village markets to the monopoly capital of India. The Bania capitalists have now become the Indian Wall Street. The whole OBC, Dalit and Adivasi mass has become the Indian working class without rights to improve their lot. The BJP has changed the system much more fundamentally with a Bania mindset. It is not that all inequalities are created by this caste. But this is the richest caste, with Ambani, Adani, Laxmi Mittal, Vedanta and so on belonging to it.

They created conditions of establishing caste monopoly in the Wall Street of India. That has enough potential to destroy many lives. It has no progressive capitalist face. It supported the cow rights agenda of RSS as against the human rights agenda of any capitalist economy. That became a source for destroying the entire human rights of Dalits and Adivasis.

This caste capital has brought Narendra Modi and Amit Shah to political power. They have no concern for agrarian castes. All Shudra castes like Jats, Patels, Gujjars have no role in the capital or in the running of the nation.

The Banias, Brahmins and Jains, who are also mostly Banias, are running every institution. It is they who made cow the national legally protected animal, even though they were never involved in cattle grazing labour. They wrote books about cows sacredness. No Shudra has a role in that writing. The BJPs main agenda is Bania economy, Brahmin bureaucratic control, cow protection, Sadhu protection and Yoga. All these things have nothing to do with production to sustain the nation in agriculture and artisanal economy.

These communities are not part of the main army that lives on the borders and fights for protection of the nation. The BJP supports only vegetarian nationalist agenda, while talking about general nationalism. They hate meat-eaters. Whatever number of Dalits die or OBCs starve they do not care.

Going by your ideas, privatisation and the growing corporate culture will prove a hindrance for inclusive development.

It is going to destroy the social basis of the democratic fabric of India. Caste capital with total nexus with caste politics from above not from below would have huge implications.

You have written about Hindutva-Mukt Bharat in your book. Does this imply that the BJP government has not been able to protect the interests of Dalits and Adivasis?

Absolutely right. When a ruling party is more interested in protecting the interests of the rich upper caste from above, defending their spiritual and social culture as the core of nationalism, 92 per cent of Indians suffer enormously. Their wage system, livelihoods, their food culture and so on will be attacked as anti-national. They have already done this. In other words all OBCs/Dalits and Adivasis get defined as anti-nationals. This is a dangerous situation.

You have demanded that there should be reservation for Dalits and Adivasis in private set-ups. How do you justify that demand?

All productive castes that are the source of monopoly wealth have no share in it. All the foot soldiers, all the constabulary and all those have their roots connected to the Harappan city civilization have no share in the wealth of the Aryan upper castes. Look at the way the Banias call themselves Arya Vysyas. It is a clear racist name.

Are you worried about freedom of speech in India?

I have gone through torture. The richest community of two Telugu states was on the streets threatening me with death, abusing me, urinating on my photographs and printing my photo on gunny bags and forcing Dalit/OBC and Adivasi labourers to crush it under their feet. If they refused to do that they were threatened. All this was done just for writing an academic book. Mahatma Gandhi must have turned in his grave.
The curved mountaintops blanketed in milky green grass gave way to infinite blue sky. Cows grazed on land speckled with wind turbines. If it wasnt for the unpaved roads and one-storey houses in pops of candyfloss pink and lime, I could easily have been in the Alps rather than Monteverde in northwestern Costa Rica.

It is a landscape far removed from the postcard pictures of beaches and rainforests for which the Central American nation is famous. And thats just the way the locals, who have long been keen to keep the fertile region secret, like it  so much so that theyve campaigned to stop developers paving the gravel roads leading here.

While access to the small community is steadily improving, reaching Costa Rica has never been easier. But despite the rattling drive, about 250,000 visitors still make their way to Monteverde every year, mostly to admire the cloud forest. I came for a lesser-known attraction: cheese. The towns foundations are intertwined with curds and whey. It was a largely untouched patch of land until a group of American Quakers chanced upon it in 1950. The 11 families from Alabama sought refuge from conscription and, as Costa Rica had abolished its national army in 1948, it seemed the perfect escape.

This town belongs to the Quaker families, they are the ones who named it, said my guide, Rosie, as we wandered through the factory they established in 1953, looking into labs replete with pipettes and scales and peering through windows at the production lines where men in white suits hauled great slabs of cheese from vats.

Without any prior cheese-making experience, the families wrote to the US department of agriculture for guidelines. They arrived in the post and the rest is history: Monteverde Cheese Factory became the first place to pasteurise cheese in Costa Rica and is now the second biggest producer in the country.

The factorys repertoire has swelled since the early days. I sampled a smooth manchego, a milky edam and a sharp cheddar, among others. But it&s signature Monte Rico that is the queen cheese  a silky, mild, melt-in-the-mouth concoction, aged for just 10 days.

Monteverde cheeses appear in numerous guises on local tables: fried strips of Montino Semiduro top breakfast plates of gallo pinto  Costa Ricas national dish of rice and beans; nuggets of queso turrialba are baked until gooey, inside flaky corn empanadas; and grated Monte Rico dusts tacos heavy with marinated pork.

A walk to the neighbouring town of Santa Elena, cone in hand, takes you past tiny galleries, shops selling handicrafts and coffee plantations. But the owner of local roastery and coffee house Beso Espresso told me the best beans came from the regions of Alajuela and Heredia, and that barista-style coffee was hard to come by.

Long a primary export, coffee propelled Costa Rica into one of the region&s wealthiest countries. But before the beans were introduced, the republic was famous for another crop native to Latin America: cacao. And eastwards, beyond the sprawling cloud forests lies a region ripe for its production. La Fortuna, meaning the Fortune, is a cradle of fresh produce. It has a very rich soil that&s good for agriculture, explained Erica, my guide on the Rainforest Chocolate Tour, as rain tapped the tin roof and dripped from the trees.

At the foothills of the towns number one calling card  the mighty Arenal Volcano  I marvelled at the pendulous baubles of cacao. The traffic light-shaded pods command a lot of local significance. In 1709, the seeds became Costa Rica&s first official currency. And it was here in Mesoamerica that the bean, rather than the flesh, was first used.

It was considered the food of the gods, Erica said, leading the way through thick rainforest, over muddy earth and past tree trunks wrapped in vines to see the fruit, the path lined with clusters of pepper and bunches of pink bananas. Cacao was first used as a bitter drink in the early 1500s, she explained. The toasted, ground beans would be mixed with vanilla (for aroma), chilli (to heighten flavour), maize (for thickness) and water, to be savoured by the elite, often during religious rituals.

Today there are few cacao plantations in Costa Rica, after a fungus blighted crops in the 70s. But thanks to the recent introduction of disease-resistant strains, cacao farms are starting to spring up across the country once again, namely in the form of small, artisanal and organic operations that focus on high-quality cacao confections sold locally. Most Ticos, Erica explained, still consumed chocolate in its liquid form with an afternoon snack of tortillas or tamales.

In La Fortuna, Erica walked me through the bean-to-bar process, each stage accompanied by a distinct scent: the surprisingly fruity aroma of the raw beans, the acidic whiff of them fermenting and the rich, smoky scent when roasting. But ultimately I was holding out for the same final stage: tasting the melted product. Armed with teaspoons, I could drink as much as I wanted  the thick molten liquid coating my tongue, accompanied by sweet hits of orange essence, vanilla, sea salt, almonds, hibiscus.

Although I had sampled more than my fill, I daydreamed about what it must be like to live in a land where cacao grows on trees. Erica offered a solution, Were looking for new Oompa-Loompas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied on Thursday any wrongdoing in two corruption affairs in which he is a suspect.

Earlier, Police Spokeswoman Luba Samri confirmed that Netanyahu was questioned for the fifth time for four hours by the police 433 Lahav anti-corruption unit in the prime ministers residence in Jerusalem, Xinhua reported.

Samri declined to reveal details of the investigation.

After the questioning, Netanyahu said in a post on his Facebook that there will be nothing because there was nothing.

Netanyahu has repeated the sentence for many times, accusing the media of hunting him.

The Prime Minister was suspected of receiving luxury gifts from Israeli-U.S. Hollywood tycoon Arnon Milchan and being involved in secret deals to receive favorable coverage in Yediot Aharonot, one of Israels largest daily newspapers.

The recent questioning comes about a month after Netanyahus former aide Ari Harow had signed an agreement to become a state witness.
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Cloudy with snow. Temps nearly steady in the low to mid 30s. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 100%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected..

Tonight

A few snow showers around this evening, otherwise mostly cloudy. Low 28F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 30%.
. To do so, first type the original number into the text box. Then click on the "Scientific Notation" option located at the top of the floating window. Finally, click on the "Standard" button found beneath the text box to display your result. This program is useful for scientists and engineers working with decimal-based numbers. It provides easy access to those who need to convert those numbers into more compact forms without having to do heavy math calculations first.

Scientific notation is a way to express very large or very small numbers. It is used in physics, chemistry and other fields where large numbers are common. Those numbers are written as a power of 10 followed by a number with an exponent. For example, 1,000,000 (one million) is written as 1  103. The exponent shows how many zeros are after the first digit. For example, 1,000,001 is written as 1  102. Scientific notation is a useful tool for making calculations easier. You can use it to write down very big or very small numbers in one step instead of writing out both the large and small numbers separately. You can also use it to express large or small numbers in terms of other units like centimeters or millimeters.

Scientific notation solver is an online tool that can be used to convert any number into scientific notation. Simply enter any number to the left of the decimal point and it will automatically convert it into a scientific notation equivalent. This web tool can be very helpful when you need to convert a large number into scientific notation. However, please note that this online tool can only convert numbers that are in scientific format. For example, it cannot convert a non-scientific number like "1,085" into a scientific notation equivalent. It is also important to keep in mind that this web tool only works when converting numbers from one particular format to another. For example, if you want to change a non-scientific number like "1,085" into standard format, then you will have to use another online tool like NumberFormatting.com.
Ive bought a cheap flight to the US but have a hefty stopover in Reykjavik. Whats the best way to spend my time?

A long layover is an opportunity to add a little adventure to your trip. Stopping over in Reykjavik offers many:

Reykjaviks Blue Lagoon

This is a great opportunity to take a dip in the Blue Lagoon  one of Icelands best-known geothermal baths. Its located about 20km south of Keflavik and several bus companies can shuttle you there from the airport. Alternatively you can pick up an excursion at the airport kiosk. Entry is a little expensive (35 euros) but imagine how good it would feel to experience the surreal nature of the amazing blue-water. Its colour is derived from the skin-brightening silica. Avoid queues by booking in advance.

Read also: Iceland Ring Road  Icelands road to natural phenomena

Fish and chips

For lunch take the bus to Reykjavik and pop into Icelandic Fish and Chips on Tryggvagata 11, where chips are roasted in the oven and fish is fried in spelt batter and down with organic beer.

Lamb hot dog

Or head to the Old Harbour to Baejarins Beztu Pylsur where they serve a lovely lamb hot dog (Bill Clinton loved his). You can eat it on the hoof as you stroll along the harbour where colourful boats bob on their lees. Perhaps check out the street-art scene around Hvefisgata.

Whales of Iceland Museum

It may be too chilly to go whale watching (or perhaps you cant fit it in) so the alternative is to see 23 life-size model Moby Dicks at Whales of Iceland Museum (24 our  get 15% discount when booking online).

Flea market

If you happen to be there over the weekend you could check out the covered Kolaportid flea market for a souvenir or a woolly jumper.

Coffee at Reykjavik City Hall

The Reykjavik City Hall built in 1992 may look a bit drab but inside is a massive 3D map of Iceland. You can grab a coffee here while taking in the view over Lake Tjornin outside while the swans float across it.

The best view over the city

Talking about views the best is to be had at Hallgrimskirkja, the largest  and most recognizable  church in Iceland. It took 38 years to build the Expressionist styled building and from its 73-metre high spire you can see an expansive view over the city.

Have you got a question?
Job Title: Procurement Manager

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 Procurement

Manager performs local procurements of goods and services, in coordination with

the projects Operations Manager, following all relevant USAID and Abt

Associates policies and procedures. Specific tasks include preparing and

conducting local tenders, organizing the receipt and assessment of quotations

and developing and maintaining a tool to track purchase orders and outstanding

vendor payments.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:



The ideal candidate for the USAID Project

Procurement Manager job placement should hold a Bachelors Degree in Business,

Management, Administration, or other relevant field.



Extensive knowledge of Federal and AID

Acquisition Regulations (FARs and AIDARs) is required.



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,

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 requiredto be considered includes a Cover Page, CV, biodata form , payslip from the mostrecent position held, copies of educational certificates/degrees, and contactinformation of at least 3 references we can contact (must include emailaddresses 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






But the tribe has a long way to go
Saudi Arabia on November 9 asked its nationals who are visiting or residing in Lebanon to leave that country as soon as possible.



Official news agency SPA reported that the government also advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon amid accusations that Riyadh is playing a role in the current Lebanese political crisis.



Tension has risen between Riyadh and Beirut since November 4, when Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his resignation while on a visit to Saudi Arabia, prompting some in Lebanon to assert that the Saudis forced Hariri to step down.



Hariri, who remains in Riyadh, met Thursday with French Ambassador Franicois Gouvette and with the head of the European Union delegation, Michele Cervone d'Urso.



Hariri, a dual Lebanese-Saudi citizen, has denied that he is under house arrest in Riyadh.



In announcing his resignation, Hariri denounced an alleged plot to assassinate him. The prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, also criticized Shiite-majority Iran for interference in Lebanese political affairs.



Hariri's critique of Iran is connected to Tehran's support of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.



Saudi Arabia, where the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam is dominant, views both Iran and Hezbollah as adversaries.



Hariri's resignation has not yet been accepted by Lebanese President Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, who said he awaits Hariri's return to Lebanon to learn the reasons behind the resignation.



Lebanon's three main sectarian groups: Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, have tried to maintain a delicate power- sharing arrangement since achieving independence in 1943.



Under the terms of the so-called National Pact adopted then, a Maronite Christian is supposed to be the country's president, a Sunni Muslim holds the post of prime minister and a Shiite Muslim serves as speaker of parliament.



There have been times in recent history, such as the 1975-1990 civil war, when the division of power among groups has been unable to stem the tide of sectarian violence.



Saad Hariri's fear of possible assassination may come from his family's relationship with politically motivated murder. In 2005, his father, former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, died in a car bombing, an incident that led to the Cedar Revolution and Syria's exit from Lebanon.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday urged all countries to stop arming, financing and trading with the "murderous" North Korean regime even as he claimed that China had a solution to the Korean nuclear crisis.

Addressing a joint press conference with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall, Trump, on a three-day visit that began on Wednesday, said he and Xi had agreed not to replicate failed approaches to resolve the growing crisis.

North Korea figured majorly on the agenda when Xi and Trump held talks at the Great Hall of the People. Trump indicated he wanted China to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear designs.

While Xi promised cooperation and coordination, Trump said China had the solution to the problem.

"Our meeting ... was excellent, discussing North Korea and I do believe there is a solution to that, as you do," Trump told Xi. "We have the capacity to solve world problems for many years to come."

Xi said: "China is ready to work with the US to enhance cooperation and properly manage the differences in a spirit of mutual benefit."

He said the US and China had "more coordination and cooperation in North Korea nuclear issue and other world challenges. Right now China and US relations are at a new starting point".

At the press conference, Trump said all responsible countries must join together to stop arming and financing and even trading with the "murderous North Korean regime".

"Today, we discussed our mutual commitment to the complete denuclearisation of North Korea.

"We agreed on the need to fully implement all the Security Council resolutions on North Korea and to increase economic pressure until North Korea abandons its reckless and dangerous path."

China is the North's ally and its biggest trading partner. Washington believes that Beijing has influence over Pyongyang because of the close ties. Mao Zedong's son died fighting in Korea against the US in the 1950s.

China says it will do whatever possible to rein in North within the regulated framework of the UN but is not in favour of unilateral sanctions against the reclusive country.

"As long as we stand together with others, if necessary against those who threaten our civilization, that threat will never happen. It doesn't even have a chance," Trump said.

"The entire civilized world must unite to confront the North Korean menace and the entire world is watching us right now.

"Together we have enough power to finally liberate this region and the world from this serious nuclear menace. But it will require a collective effort, collective strength and collective devotion to winning the peace," Trump added.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have escalated after North Korea's test firing of missiles and conducting its most powerful hydrogen test in September.

North Korea fears the US wants it to be merged with South Korea.

Trump also talked about the yawning trade deficit between two countries. He blamed his predecessors, not China, for the problem.

"(The) US really has to change its policies because they've gotten so far behind on trade with China and frankly with many other countries. But it's too bad that past administrations allowed it to go so far."

Trump is in China on the third leg of his five-nation Asia tour after stops in Japan and South Korea. He will later go to Vietnam and the Philippines.

This is Trump's first visit to China as US President and the third meeting with Xi this year.

-IANS
Hezbollah has called on Saudi Arabia to stay out of Lebanese affairs, saying the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, announced from Riyadh over the weekend, has raised many questions.

In a statement, the militant groups parliamentary bloc said Saudi Arabia was mired in crisis after the failure of its 2 ?-year military intervention in Yemen, which has led to a military stalemate.

Saudi Arabia has demanded that Hezbollah, a powerful Iran-backed group, play no role in Lebanons government.

The Shiite group has been represented in Lebanons parliament since 1992 and is a key member of the coalition government. Its armed wing is more powerful than Lebanons army, and its fighters battle alongside Syrian President Bashar Assads forces in Syria.

(AP)
Its not very often that you see a company on the junior market raise a sizeable chunk of money by issuing shares at the going rate, but thats exactly what IQE did on Friday.

The semiconductor wafer maker raised a whopping 95million from investors to help it expand the business and develop its products and technologies.

More impressive was that shares were issued at 140p  the same as Thursdays closing price  as well as the fact the placing, which was only open to institutional investors, was completed in less than 24 hours.

IQE, a semiconductor wafer maker, raised a whopping 95million from investors

IQE shares have quadrupled so far in 2017 and they added another 10.1 per cent this week to 161.2p as smaller investors followed the big City boys lead.

Another big gainer over the past few days was fibre optic infrastructure developer CityFibre after it unveiled a long-term strategic partnership with telecoms giant Vodafone.

The two firms are joining forces to build a new ultra-fast broadband network for up to 5million homes and business across the UK.

The fibre-optic FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) network will be capable of carrying one gigabit (1,000 mbps) of data to the door of the user. To give you an idea of how fast that is, the average download speed in the UK is just over 16mbps.

CityFibre, which joined AIM back in January 2014, will build, own and operate the network with Vodafone having exclusive rights to market ultrafast consumer broadband services for a set period.

In return for that exclusivity Vodafone has agreed to minimum volume commitments, which will largely offset the expected 500-700million cost of building the network.

Shares surged 38 per cent to 61.7 per cent after Thursdays announcement, which bodes well for star fund manager Neil Woodford who has an 18 per cent stake in CityFibre.

Redx Pharma and Tower Resources were the two big fallers on the junior market this week, although both have just come back from share suspensions which probably explain a lot.

Drug discovery group Redxs AIM shares started trading again on Monday for the first time since May when it entered administration after a 2million loan from Liverpool City Council fell due.

It sold off its BTK inhibitors business for $40million which allowed it to pay back the money so this weeks 45 per cent fall to 17.5p is the City adjusting for the smaller size of the company.

Tower Resources is a slightly different story as its shares were suspended while it raised money from investors.

Given the backdrop for small oil explorers, the 2.1million fund raise was no mean feat but the cost was reflected in the heavy discount to the market price when the shares were suspended in May.

With the cash now secured the company can again concentrate on advancing its exploration of the Thali block offshore Thailand. But the discounted fundraise inevitably weighed on the share price, which more than halved to 0.98p.

It hasnt been a great week for the juniors or their blue chip cousins as the record-breaking runs seen across the global markets over recent weeks ran out of steam.

The AIM All Share lost 0.4 per cent, or 3.8 points, to close the week at 1,039.8, while the FTSE 100 gave up 1.3 per cent or 95.7 points, to 7,464.

Fever-Tree Drinks has endured a rollercoaster few days

One of those weighing on the AIM index was electronics firm Stadium Group. Investors were quick to head for the exits on Wednesday after it warned full-year profits would miss expectations.

Stadium said revenues were expected to be in line with forecasts at 61million but due to delays in customer orders for some of its higher margin products, pre-tax profit growth will be in the single digits.

The delayed sales and a shortage of certain components also mean that net debt will increase in the year to 31 December.

The issues dont seem to be fading away anytime soon either, with Stadium stating that the delays and pricing pressures will continue to impact the group in 2018. Shares dropped 29 per cent to 80p.

It was a much better week for Zanaga Iron Ore after it was awarded an environmental permit by the Republic of Congo authorities for its Zanaga project in the central African country.

The AIM-quoted company originally applied for the permit back in 2014 and submitted an amended version earlier this year. Zanaga said the award was a significant milestone as it takes the project another step closer to development.

On top of the permit, the recent rise in the iron ore price wont harm either. Shares jumped 71 per cent to 10.5p.

Rounding things up this week is one of the junior markets biggest companies, Fever-Tree Drinks, which has endured a rollercoaster few days.

The posh tonic maker fizzed higher on Tuesday after its annual November guidance upgrade confirmed what a lot of investors had hoped for/ expected: full-year results will be materially ahead of current forecasts.

Shares quickly went flat on Wednesday though with investors starting to take profits as the stock headed back towards all-time highs. With the up closely followed by the down, Fever-Tree finished the week marginally in the black at 20.60, valuing the company at almost 2.5billion.
SPRINGFIELD - While those that value life have been disappointed with pro-abortion victories in the Illinois legislature and with a Republican governor that defied his GOP colleagues in the General Assembly to assist pro-abortion advocates' efforts, there has been an array of pro-life victories at the federal level in 2017. The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List compiled this list of pro-life victories, thanks to the Trump Administration:





JUDGES

~ Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court

~ Eight judges confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals

~ Four judges confirmed to the U.S. District Court



MEXICO CITY POLICY



On January 23, President Trump reinstated and dramatically expanded the Mexico City Policy, which had been in place in Republican administrations since 1984. This policy withholds funding from international groups that perform, counsel, or lobby for abortion. President Trump modernized the Mexico City Policy to not only apply to family planning organizations but to any organization, increasing the swath of involved U.S. dollars from $575 million to $8.8 billion.



UNFPA FUNDING



On April 4, the Trump Administration ended funding to the United Nations Population Fund on the basis it is complicit with Chinas forced population control and abortion policies. $32.5 million in foreign aid will be redirected to other family planning and health programs.



TITLE X



On April 13, President Trump signed into law H.J. Res 43, which nullifies President Obamas executive order banning states from blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving Title X funds.



NO TAXPAYER FUNDING FOR ABORTION ACT



This bill passed in the U.S. House in January and would make permanent the Hyde Amendment, which blocks the use of federal funds for abortion or health coverage if it includes abortion. It also extends the Hyde Amendment to cover Obamacare, which currently funds roughly 900 insurance plans that include abortion on demand. President Trump has publicly pledged support for this bill.



PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILD PROTECTION ACT  AKA MICAHS LAW



This bill passed in the U.S. House in October. It protects unborn children and their mothers from painful late-term abortions starting at 20 weeks after fertilization. President Trump was the first president to issue a written statement in support. In May, Iowa became the 20th state to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.



SEPARATE ABORTION SURCHARGE PAYMENT ENFORCEMENT



HHS announced in October it would begin enforcing an Obamacare rule not enforced by the Obama administration, which requires insurers to bill separately for abortion. Until Obamacare is overturned and replaced with a system that does not subsidize abortion, this will serve to inform consumers and add an administrative layer.



SETTLEMENT AND NEW RULE REGARDING HHS MANDATE



The Departments of HHS, Treasury, and Labor issued two interim rules (meaning they take effect immediately while allowing a comment period) in October that provide permanent, enforceable relief from the Obama era HHS mandate that forced religious objectors, like Little Sisters of the Poor, and moral objectors, like Susan B. Anthony List, as well as private employers and educational institutions, from providing insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacient drugs.



DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD



President Trump has publicly pledged support for redirecting funding from Planned Parenthood to community health centers.
Zach Mottl, Chief Alignment Officer at Atlas Tool and Die: This is exactly what a small company like ours needs. Lower taxes means more money for me to invest in my company, and a simpler system means less money that I need to spend on accountants.

Dave Hill, Superior Ambulance: As a Chicagoland business we are thrilled to see tax reform move forward. These changes to the tax code will help us purchase more ambulances, hire more employees, and grow our business.

John Carpenter, Choose DuPage: We are pleased to see the work of Congressman Roskam and others to improve our tax code. These changes are a big win for our middle class investors!

Steve Romanelli, Core Pipe: I am very much in support of this new tax reform bill. Companies in the sixth district need tax reform to thrive.

Mike McGrath, McGrath Lexus: Yes, very strongly support tax reform, we are the ones being hurt by this current tax code, and we are being taxed to death. We need tax reform, and this is the best path forward. I am all for it.

Troy Mertz, Gilberts Development: Congressman Roskams bold work to cut taxes for small businesses creates the capital we need to reinvest in our communities! This once in a generation opportunity to lower taxes forces government to be more responsible with how they spend our money and puts reasonable restraint on future expenditures.

Brad Stepson, Barrington Bank and Trust: Weve seen a lot of companies who are playing the wait & see game. Tax reform helps move business forward and helps them invest and hire more employee.

Andrew Johnson, Graphic Packaging: We really need this tax reform. Having a fair and balanced tax system is what helps businesses thrive.

Doug McAllister, Douglas Automotive: This tax reform is exactly the kind of thing we need to improve our business, purchase more equipment, and hire more employees. We are definitely taking a step in the right direction.

David Dykstra, Wintrust Financial Corporation: Tax reform would be tremendously beneficial to the economy, and most importantly, the American people. Our customers, both consumers and businesses, need lower taxes and a simpler tax system which will boost economic growth and create jobs. Most importantly our borrowers are telling us they need tax reform to happen soon so they have certainty in order to make informed plans and investments in their businesses. And our individual consumers need tax relief to bolster their savings and increase their purchasing power.

Mary Johnson, Millennium Trust Company: Millennium Trusts businesses support American retirement savings. We strongly support tax reform that increases the household income of middle-class families, encourages retirement savings, and increases the resources available for retirement.

Colin Wickstrom, Wickstrom Ford: As an auto dealer, tax reform would help us to keep growing our business, retain and hire more employee and invest in our companys future.
Dozens more people have been taken into custody by Saudi authorities, the kingdom said Thursday, bringing to 201 the number detained in a sweep that investigators say has uncovered at least $100 billion in corruption.

Saudi critics and experts have called the unprecedented purge of top princes and businessmen a bold and risky move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at consolidating power as he casts his eye toward the throne, sidelining potential rivals and dismantling alliances built with other branches of the royal family.

The sweep comes at a time of increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and its main regional rival, Iran, over the ongoing conflict and suffering in Yemen and a newly erupting political crisis in Lebanon.

Saudi Attorney General Saud al-Mojeb said 208 people had been called in for questioning, and that seven were released without charge, leaving 201 in custody.

The figure is the first reported by the government and far larger than what was previously known, reflecting a continuing series of arrests throughout the week. The stunning purge began overnight Saturday, initially catching 11 princes and 38 officials, military officers and business leaders. They are being held at five-star hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.

The 32-year-old crown prince, who is the son of King Salman and is popularly known by his initials MBS, is leading the investigation as head of a newly formed anti-corruption committee.

Among those detained are billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and two sons of the late King Abdullah, including Prince Miteb, who until Saturday had headed the powerful National Guard. Several years ago, he was considered a contender for the throne and was recently believed to be opposed to MBS becoming crown prince.

The government declined to identify the individuals being questioned, saying it is respecting their privacy during this phase of the investigation.

An estimated 1,700 individual bank accounts have been frozen.

"The potential scale of corrupt practices which have been uncovered is very large," al-Mojeb said, adding that based on investigations in the past three years, at least $100 billion has been misused through corruption and embezzlement.

Al-Mojeb confirmed that action was taken to suspend personal bank accounts, but he did not disclose any figures. The government stressed that only personal accounts have been frozen, leaving businesses untouched.

Saudis have complained for years of rampant corruption and misuse of public funds by top officials in a system where nepotism is also widespread.

In recent years, Saudi families have also had to contend with austerity measures that have driven up costs while simultaneously being told they can no longer count on cushy government jobs.

Meanwhile, members of the sprawling royal family and their business associates had long been seen as operating above the law. Members of the royal family receive undisclosed monthly stipends from state coffers built up over years of high oil prices.

After oil prices fell three years ago without fully recovering, Saudi Arabia introduced new taxes and lifted some subsidies in order to boost revenue and cut government spending.

Supporters of MBS say fighting corruption is part of the crown prince\s Vision 2030 plan, a blueprint for how to restructure the country and wean it from its dependence on oil revenue.

Faisal Abbas, the Saudi editor-in-chief of the daily Arab News, wrote in a widely shared column this week that the kingdom is "damned if it acts against corruption, damned if it doesn\t."

"Anyone who understands who is who in Riyadh knows only too well that none of those arrested  whether royals or non-royals  has or would have had any political sway in the current climate whatsoever," he wrote.

"More importantly, it is just mind-boggling that very few are noticing the obvious; which is that all of those being detained are incredibly wealthy," Abbas added.

Still, independent Saudi observers say the anti-corruption probe targets only select members of the royal family, government and business community. Additionally, several of those arrested were ministers under King Salman working on the crown prince\s economic reforms, raising questions about where responsibility begins and ends.

While few would argue against allegations that some top princes and officials have enriched themselves during years in power, the selection of who has been detained raises speculation that the purge is political.

Prince Miteb\s detention stands out because he was the last remaining prince of his generation in a position of real power, which made him a potential obstacle to the throne for MBS.

Earlier this year, the crown prince engineered the ouster of another more experienced prince from the line of succession.

Many also have questioned a recent purchase by MBS of a yacht estimated at anywhere between $200 million to $500 million.

Saudi observer Thomas Lippmann said it is difficult to draw the line between what constitutes corruption in Saudi Arabia and how business deals, contracts and access have been won over the years.

"I don\t believe for a minute this is really about disrupting the payout system or corruption," said Lippmann, author of "Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally."

"This is about getting rid of the centers of power," he said.

As the purge unfolded, U.S. President Donald Trump gave his stamp of approval, saying the king and the crown prince "know exactly what they are doing."

French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists in the United Arab Emirates that he wasn\t making any judgments.

"This is not the role of a president, and similarly I would not expect a leader of a foreign country to come and infringe on domestic matters," Macron said.

Macron is expected to visit Saudi Arabia and meet with the crown prince on the crisis in Lebanon sparked by the sudden and mysterious resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He announced his resignation in a pre-recorded message from Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and one of Lebanon\s most powerful figures, has openly speculated that Saudi Arabia played a role in Hariri\s resignation and might have been held against his will in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia ordered all of its citizens to "immediately" depart Lebanon amid heightened tensions with Hezbollah and the militant group\s patron, Iran. A brief statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency also warned Saudis against travel to the country. Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have similarly warned their citizens against travel to Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia\s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said earlier this week that his government would "deal with" Lebanon as a hostile state as long as Hezbollah was in the government. He said Hezbollah\s participation in government is an "act of war" against Saudi Arabia.

In Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since March 2015, the United Nations and more than 20 aid groups said a Saudi-led blockade of all ports in the war-torn country was threatening to bring "starvation and death" to millions of people.

Unless the coalition lifts the blockade, Yemen will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims," said U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock.

The coalition closed all ports and halted aid shipments after Yemen\s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile over the weekend that was intercepted near Riyadh. Saudi Arabia blamed the strike on Iran, which supports the Houthis but has denied arming them.

SOURCE: Associated Press
Eastern Libyan forces on Thursday expelled Islamist fighters from one of their last strongholds in the country\s second-largest city of Benghazi, military officials said.

The battle for Benghazi between the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar and an array of Islamist militants and other fighters has been part of a broader conflict since Libya slipped into turmoil following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Several Islamists and one soldier were killed when special forces moved into the Khreibish district, one of the remaining pockets of resistance after Haftar declared victory in the battle for in Benghazi in July. Ten soldiers were wounded.

Commander Wanis Bukhamada told Reuters on Thursday evening his special forces controlled almost the entire district after a day of heavy fighting.

"Tonight will be the last night for Daesh in Khreibish," he said, using a derogatory name for Islamic State.

Haftar launched his "Operation Dignity" campaign in May 2014, slowly gaining the upper hand against Islamist militants and former rebels who fought Gaddafi in the 2011 uprising.

Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya. He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.

SOURCE: REUTERS
As with every mass shooting, the mainstream media has been promoting the idea that Devin Patrick Kellys firearm was responsible for killing almost 30 people during a Sunday church service in Texas. What they love to ignore, however, is the fact that the massacre ended early because an armed citizen decided to shoot back.

While the chances of finding yourself in a mass shooting are minuscule, that doesn't mean you don't have an inherent right to self-defense and why bringing a gun to Church in states where permitted is a good idea. The blood had not even been washed from the floor and scrubbed from the pews of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs before the Progressives put out the call for more gun-control laws and new attempts to educate the yokels about the ineffectiveness of prayer.

This report by NBC News is so wrong as to what Trump had to say after the Texas church shooting in his reference to gun related killings in Chicago.

New York laws are much stricter than Chicago. You need a license just to purchase a gun, which takes several months at a cost of several hundred dollars. You can only have one, and no long guns are permitted.

All guns are funneled into Chicago, because Chicago has no gun shops, despite a federal court order to allow them.

New York has had the strictest gun laws in the nation since the Sullivan Act was passed in 1911,

Homicides in New York surpassed 2200 per year prior to Rudy Giuliani terms as mayor (1994-2001). Giuliani used the broken window doctrine, which postulates that lax enforcement of minor laws leads to more major crime, and vice versa.

Giuliani and his successor, Michael Blumberg, also subscribed to the stop and frisk policy, where police would detain people for suspicious behavior, especially in high crime neighborhoods.

By the end of his term as mayor, gun deaths had dropped below 300 per year, in a city four times the size of Chicago.

Advances in crime prevention by Giuliani have been abandoned by Mayor DeBladio for political reasons. Chicago, on the other hand, has been under progressive leadership for many decades, and never subscribed to Giulianis methods. Instead, police are obligated to fill out a form for each stop, taking about 30 minutes each time. As a result, fewer stops, more crime.

Indiana gun shows allow face-to-face purchases between non-dealers without a background check. You must prove you are a resident of Indiana. Licensed dealers, who comprise most of the sellers at gun shows, always require completion of ATF form 4473 together with an NICS background check, per federal law.

What happened in Sutherland is a tragedy on many counts, An entire family was wiped out, and everybody in that town knew one of the victims. The ultimate blame lies solely with the shooter, but many other errors allowed him to perpetrate his awful deed. Any one of the following counts would have prevented him from buying a firearm in the United States.

He was involuntarily committed to a mental institution, from which he escaped, for threatening a superior office with a firearm.

He was convicted by the Air Force on two counts of domestic abuse, and sentenced to 12 months in prison (any sentence of 1 year or longer, regardless of time served).

He received a dishonorable discharge from the Air Force.

Of what use is the universal background check demanded (misleadingly) by gun-control advocates, when convictions and facts are withheld from the NICS data base? The government (Air Force) failed badly, yet millions of law abiding gun owners are asked to give up their rights as though that would help.

The church in Sutherland was, by Texas law, a gun-free zone. While Texas is a gun-friendly state with regard to concealed carry, none of the parishioners in that church could be legally armed. Progressives would like to keep it that way, and a similar measure has been proposed several times in Illinois, most recently sponsored by alderman Burke of Chicago. Time after time, only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, whether the good guy is a police officer or ordinary citizen, as in Sutherland. There, a passerby heard the screams and shooting, retrieved his own rifle and wounded the gunman as he targeted others outside the church, causing him to drop his weapon and flee.

Twenty-three places are denied to concealed carry in Illinois, including public transportation, which has seen many instances of robbery, assault, even machete attacks. Theres something about a gun-free zone that attracts criminals. Perhaps they fear an armed victim more than a jaded judge.
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WASHINGTON  Election Day results notwithstanding, Republicans on Capitol Hill are steaming ahead with a deep tax-cut package that GOP stalwarts believe is a necessary ingredient to future success.

On Thursday, it was the U.S. Senates turn to unveil its version.

While it differs from the House GOP bill in many respects, it retains the core conviction that tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy would trickle down and create jobs.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said that in light of electoral results favoring Democrats, the Republican tax effort is "lose-lose for them.

"They lose if they dont pass it, Schumer said, referring to Republican worries about defections by donors and the GOP base. "But they lose if they pass it, because this is going to hurt them throughout America.

Schumer and his fellow Democrats have already denounced the House bill as a giveaway to the wealthy and large corporations at the expense of the middle class. President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, on the other hand, have defended the measure as an engine to generate economic growth and jobs to benefit the same struggling Americans.

The House Ways & Means Committee approved the House measure Thursday on a party line vote, sending it to the House floor.

"We reaffirmed for all of the families and Main Street businesses struggling to get by that relief is on the way  relief from a broken tax code, from a slow-growing economy, from stagnant wages, and from jobs fleeing overseas, said committee chair Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Schumer and Democrats from states such as New York, Connecticut and California that have a significant state income tax in addition to property taxes are training their fire on GOP's proposal to modify or eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes  SALT, for short.

The Senate's bill eliminates the SALT deduction, much valued in high-cost states like New York. The House bill, by contrast, strikes deductions for state income tax payments, but allows property tax deductions up to $10,000.

With election results Tuesday suggesting repudiation of Trumps style and substance  particularly in suburban areas  Schumer characterized the tax bill as a political death warrant.

"The Senate (bill) doesnt trim state and local deduction, it doesnt tweak it  it completely eliminates it, Schumer said. "So the Senate Republicans are completely pulling the rug out from under their colleagues who represent suburban districts in the House.

That line was clearly aimed at GOP moderates such as Reps. John Faso and Elise Stefanik who have expressed deep concern over the changes to the SALT deduction. Stefanik has already said she is a no vote on the current House bill.

The Senate bill reportedly also contains these elements:

 Reduces the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, same as the House.

 Caps the mortgage-interest deduction at $1 million, the same as current law. The House bill caps it at $500,000.

 Keeps the estate tax but doubles the threshold to more than $11 million. The House bill phases it out altogether over time.

 Keeps seven tax brackets, the same as current law, but lowers the top rate from 39.6 percent to 38.6 percent. The House bill cuts seven brackets to four, keeping 39.6 percent for those earning over $1 million.

The Senates total deletion of the SALT deduction appears to be part of its political calculus of negative reaction to the bill. Unlike the House, there are few if any Senate Republican in states like New York, Connecticut, California and Illinois, where taxpayers depend on the deduction to make life affordable.

House Republicans from such states, however, are exceedingly nervous about the political price they may pay if SALT elimination makes it into a final GOP tax-cut package.

One prominent Republican, Rep. Peter King of Long Island, also has said he would vote against the House bill as written now.

Republicans in both House and Senate are under enormous pressure to keep the cost of tax cuts at or under $1.5 trillion over a decade  an amount agreed to in budget bills that set up consideration of the GOP tax measure.

Failure to do so would end GOP hopes of passing the measure without Democratic help. With virtually all Democrats opposed, it is unlikely Republicans could muster the 60 votes in the Senate that would be necessary to pass the bill if it exceeds $1.5 trillion.

The Senate currently is divided 52-48 in favor of the Republicans.

For Republicans, the loss of SALT deductions would go a long way toward closing the $1.5 trillion gap. Schumer estimated the revenues at $1.4 trillion in the Senate bill (if, indeed, it totally eliminates the SALT deduction) and $900 billion in the House bill.

According to IRS data compiled by the non-partisan Urban Institute Tax Policy Center, 2.9 million New York State returns filed for tax year 2015 took advantage of the SALT deduction for state income tax payments. Those represented 30.4 percent of all returns. Nationwide, 22 percent of returns claimed the state income tax deduction.

All but seven states have some form of state income tax.

For property taxes, 2.3 million New York returns claimed the deduction for 2015. That was 24.9 percent of the total number of returns, in line with the national level of 25 percent.

"New York is a net donor state, giving far more in tax dollars to the federal government than we receive, said Heather Briccetti, president and CEO of the Business Council of New York State. "Eliminating SALT will only exacerbate that disparity.
TROY - Sweet-natured carpenter Bruno Doriguzzi is proud of his buttercup yellow-bordered card that proclaims him a Son of Bitche.

It's not a typo. It's a prank card his World War II Army buddies concocted to honor the soldiers who fought to at a 13th century French fortress in the snowy Vosges Mountains.

Doriguzzi was "duly inducted in the ranks of the exalted society of Sons of Bitche for his part in the storm and capture of the citadel of the Maginot Line on March 1945."

The village of Bitche was at that time a Nazi-occupied hub along the Maginot Line, a string of heavy weaponry, concrete obstacles and ancient fortifications. Bitche's motto,"None shall pass," is on the little card in French and so is the English language response, "But we did!"

Now 102 years old, Doriguzzi lives in the Troy Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing. The nursing home held a ceremony at which the men living there received simple medals thanking them for their service. The medal that the United States gave Doriguzzi was the Bronze Star for heroism in the 1944 battle of Reyersviller.

Doriguzzi was 27 years old when he enlisted in the army. Two years later, he was a sergeant in the 398th Infantry when he and his men were ordered to attack a string of Nazi pillboxes.

"Doriguzzi's platoon was pinned down by withering fire," his Bronze Star citation reads. "Realizing the impossibility of advancing or withdrawing from the position during daylight hours, Sgt. Doriguzzi moved from soldier to soldier throughout the day, encouraging his men and keeping them in position. When darkness came, he skillfully directed the retirement of the group (and) his efficient leadership and control of the platoon prevented the infliction of major casualties."

His family says that the looming Great Depression forced him to drop out of school after eighth grade to work on the family farm. When he returned from war, he supported his wife, Louise, and their two daughters as a carpenter for GE 32 years and supplemented his income with roofing work.

He has two grandchildren and five great grandchildren. His health was too fragile for him to be interviewed. But his hometown stands ready to praise him.

When he turned 100 two years ago, Ballston Lake honored him with a proclamation that listed his accomplishments, including a Good Conduct Medal, the Europe-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. He is a former member of the Knights of Columbus and of the Holy Name Society, a Meals on Wheels volunteer and a blood donor.

"He loved fishing passionately," recalled Dorothy Sokol, former parish life director at Our Lady of Grace Church in Ballston Lake. "He once said that he fell out of his boat, got soaking wet and just climbed back in, picked up the rod and kept fishing."

He clearly didn't mind getting wet. Sokol also praised Bruno for having been the parish team's oldest volunteer on the annual CROP Hunger Walk who finished all the walks "no matter what the weather was like."

The nation is now poised to honor those who served in the armed forces on Veterans Day. This year marks the 71st time since the end of World War II that the holiday is being observed. For Bruno Doriguzzi it is another time to be recognized for his military valor and for his long life as a member of the community where he was born and has lived for over a century.
Albany

Workers whose schedules change at the last minute would get extra pay and other protections under proposed new rules announced Friday by the state Labor Department.

The rules are meant to address something called "on-call scheduling," in which companies give employees little or no advance notice on whether they are expected to work.The practice is most commonly used in the retail and restaurant industries.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who this fall asked the Labor Department to study the issue, praised the proposal. Advocates had said it was needed to protect lower-paid workers, who often cannot meet educational and childcare schedules, or take additional jobs, when work obligations shift suddenly.

"We have achieved nation-leading success in workers' rights," he said. "The regulations will increase fairness for workers and allow employers to retain flexibility."

A union official also praised the proposal. The changes will "ensure that workers will gain more control over their own lives and their ability to earn a living," said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

The proposal would not apply to union members whose labor contracts contain provisions that require on-call payments.

The state's largest business lobbying group said the changes could be a hardship at a time when the minimum wage is increasing.

"We appreciate that the rule reflects several concerns we raised during the department's public hearings, including the exemption of higher-earning employees and providing relief during emergency circumstances," said Heather Briccetti, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State.

"This represents another administrative and financial hurdle for New York employers that is not imposed in most other states. It will drive employers with part-time and/or lower-income employees to significantly modify their scheduling practices, at a time when they are also absorbing the costs of an increased minimum wage and dealing with the complexity of the new paid family leave act," she said.

The proposed rules would require:

 At least two weeks advance notice of work schedules, with a bonus of two hours extra pay for last-minute assignments. People who report at the last minute will have to be paid for at least four hours, in addition to the bonus.

_ Four hours pay to workers whose shifts are canceled within that two-week time frame, and for workers who are required to be on stand-by to be called into work, and who are not called.

The rules would allow shift changes to be offered within a new worker's first two weeks of employment, and would not require bonus payments to be made because of weather-related schedule changes or other so-called "acts of God."

The Labor Department is taking public comment on the proposals for 45 days from the planned Nov. 22 publication in the State Register. Comments can be emailed to hearing@labor.ny.gov

In early 2015, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began investigating the issue of on-call scheduling.

He subsequently obtained agreements with a number of national retail firms to stop the practice in New York and other states. Companies agreeing included Aeropostale, , J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, Disney, Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Pier 1, and the parent company of Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret.

Ted Potrikus, president and CEO, New York State Retail Council, said the state has created a "consistent and uniform policy ... while helping New York retailers win and grow in a challenging international marketplace. "

Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, D-Albany, also has proposed a law to regulate on-call scheduling for retail, food service and cleaning employers with 50 or more employees.

Under the bill, an employee could request to no longer be subject to on-call scheduling. An employer could deny the request, though such a denial would have to come with a "bonafide business reason" if the employee is making the request because of a serious health condition, their responsibilities as a caregiver, their enrollment in a career-related educational or training program, or a reason related to their second job.
MENANDS  Is recess too short?

That's what Kyllee Sleck's oldest son insisted last year when he started kindergarten at the Menands School.

By the time he got his coat on, got in line and got outside, he barely had time to play before he was called back in for lunch, he told his mom. But kids are kids, she thought. Of course he wanted more time to play. So when he complained again this year, Sleck didn't think much of it.

"I blew it off," she said. "And then another parent told me recess had been cut to just 10 minutes. I didn't know it was that short. What can you even do in 10 minutes? It blew my mind."

Menands School Superintendent Maureen Long said recess was an unfortunate casualty in the district's longstanding quest to increase instructional time during the school day. In her first two years on the job, she said, she consistently heard from teachers who wished they had more time for lessons. And increasing the length of the school day didn't seem like the best way to achieve that, she said.

"We already have one of the longer school days in the area," she said.

But some parents see the decline of recess as a symptom of the growing pressure to raise test scores at any cost, and lament the loss of unstructured free time that researchers say is critical to social and emotional development. It's during recess that young children learn to socialize, solve problems, handle conflict and let off steam.

And its after-effects make a pretty convincing academic case, as well. Teachers whose students get substantial recess say their class comes back better focused and less fidgety, with fewer behavioral problems and more engagement with the lesson at hand. Science supports such observations. Regular "brain breaks" have been shown to increase cognition, retention and learning.

So why then  nearly five years after the American Academy of Pediatrics urged schools to treat recess as a necessary component of a child's school day  does the beloved free period continue to shrink?

A Times Union survey of Capital Region elementary schools found recess can range anywhere from eight to 30 minutes a day, with many school leaders admitting that state-mandated curriculum changes have forced the play period to the back burner. It's near impossible, educators say, to fit the Common Core-recommended allotment of English language arts, math and other subjects into the day without sacrificing something.

"In order to increase (recess) and meet all of our other curriculum requirements, we would need a longer school day," said Cynthia DeDemonick, superintendent of schools in Lansingburgh, where daily recess is also just 10 minutes.

Lengthening the school day, of course, is easier said than done. It requires negotiating with local teachers' unions and reopening contracts, as well as contending with parents who may have grown used to a particular schedule. But it's not impossible.

The Waterford-Halfmoon Union Free School District added 20 minutes to its school day last year in order to fit in more academics, Superintendent Patrick Pomerville said. Recess remained untouched  at 20 minutes a day.

Districts say they're attempting to make up for the loss by encouraging teachers to make more frequent use of the outdoors in their lessons or to use more play-based learning. They also defend their physical education programming as an important component of a well-rounded school day.

But researchers say it's not necessarily the physical activity that makes recess so important. It's that the time is unstructured  the child can choose how to spend it themselves (with adult supervision)  paving the way for important social and emotional development.

"We have always had a population of parents who are (were) in support of recess and we consciously decided not to mess with it," said Rich Pogue, principal at Tamarac Secondary School near Troy.

Recess becomes much less common when students advance to middle and high school, due to curriculum requirements. Tamarac is one of few schools that noted it offers a 20-minute recess for its middle-schoolers. In the nearby town of East Greenbush, school leaders this year launched a pilot program to provide middle schoolers with recess two days a week, hoping it will help boost student attention and lower disciplinary referrals.

"Though it is a challenge with increased instructional demands, we believe physical activity is an important part of a student's education and promotes team building, collaboration, problem solving and leadership skills," said spokesman Mark Adam.

A 2009 study published in the medical journal Pediatrics found that children who received at least 15 minutes of recess a day had better class behavior than students who had no or fewer minutes of recess a day, and that those least likely to receive adequate recess were more likely to be black, from families with lower incomes and lower levels of education, to live in large cities, to be from the Northeast or South, and to attend public school.

Because of its impact on behavior, pediatricians recommend teachers not withhold recess as a punishment  arguing it's often the students recess is withheld from who need it the most. Letting off steam during recess may very well cause those students to come back better behaved than they were prior to recess, they say.

Corinth Elementary School Principal Jennifer Steimle said her teachers are forbidden from removing recess for punitive reasons.

New York currently has no policy requiring recess of any sort, the state Education Department confirmed. But then again, few states do  in 2011, just Delaware, Virginia and Nebraska required at least 20 minutes of recess, according to a study published the same year in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

In Menands, parents are so concerned by the loss of recess they've begun to organize and circulate petitions to win it back. Superintendent Maureen Long said she's not opposed to looking anew at the issue based on feedback from parents. On Wednesday, she will discuss the recent changes at a meeting of the Parent Teacher Association at 6 p.m. at Menands School.

"It's just upsetting," said Sleck. "I understand the schools are under a lot of pressure from Common Core and feel like they always need to be doing more, more, more. But I feel like the overall cost to my child's development is just too high."
This past Wednesday, the Chicago media was giddy covering former President Obama being called for jury duty. The Daley Center was alive with activity along with a large amount of added security. There were reports of unusually huge lines taking up to 40 minutes to enter for people who had regular business with the Cook County Court System. Everybody wanted to get a glimpse of the president.

Some are speculating this was a stunt or a calculated move to show residency in Cook County for a possible run for United States Senate for him or his wife Michelle in 2018. Others say it was an opportunity for the former president to get some news coverage perhaps overshadowing President Donald Trumps successful trip in Asia. Main Stream Media is saying he was just doing his civic duty.

The Obamas own a home here but spent most of their time In Washington DC. As you recall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel had questions about his residency as he rented his home to a tenant so he could live in DC. He argued because he kept his wifes wedding dress in a crawl space, that constituted residency. Perhaps Rahm would had save some trouble by just being on a jury?

Either way, everybody knows President Obama could make one phone call and get out of jury duty. So was it all a stunt?

Mark Weyermuller is a small business owner, real estate professional, and conservative activist in Chicago. He is a citizen journalist and regular contributor to Illinois Review. Mark can be heard weekly on the radio in a "man on the street segment" at 2:31pm as a regular guest on the Stephanie Trussell Show heard Saturday afternoons 1-3pm on the 50,000 watt WLS-890-AM.
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ALBANY - Developers over the years have aimed to revitalize Clinton Avenue buildings into affordable housing in the Arbor Hill neighborhood.

But plans have always fallen short  mostly due to a lack of funding and the challenge of maintaining dozens of separate properties.

But a Rochester-based developer says they have the means and experience to rehabilitate roughly 70 buildings in Arbor Hill if they can secure historic and low-income housing tax credits and an $8 million reduction in taxes through the citys Industrial Development Agency.

We do have some properties in Rochester that are scattered sites, said Adam Driscoll, development manager for Home Leasing. We feel we have a very good system, and a very strong staff and support staff and resources to be able to do as best we can.

Home Leasing boasts a large portfolio of affordable and senior housing complexes across western New York as well as some in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

More for you Developer eyes Clinton Ave. for affordable housing in Albany

The Rochester developer in August purchased the Arbor Hill homes from Clinton Revival Housing Development Corp. for $3.3 million  a total of 220 units  stretching from Henry Johnson Boulevard to Ten Broeck Street on Clinton for a nearly $48 million affordable housing project, according to the project portfolio submitted to the IDA.

All the buildings will get new roofs, windows, plumbing and electrical, among other improvements, and will offer studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments to those who meet certain income thresholds, Driscoll said.

More Information By the numbers Total number of buildings: 70 Total cost of project: $47,838,223 Cost to purchase buildings: $3,286,786 Property tax abatement sought: $8,055,361 over 30 years Revenue from payment-in-lieu-of-taxes: $2,562,320 over 30 years See More Collapse

The project strays from the typical 10 percent shelter rent affordable housing projects provide in Albany. Affordable housing developers typically do not pay traditional property taxes, instead paying a small portion of the total rent they collect on units, a so-called shelter rent. Home Leasings request would pay 5 percent shelter rent  amounting to about $2.5 million in revenue to the city over 30 years. The properties have been off the tax rolls for the past 11 years.

Capitalize Albany President Sarah Reginelli said the challenge of managing scattered sites  multiple HVAC systems, electrical and plumbing  coupled with the investment needed and the projects needed affordability requires more financial support.

The investment level that Home Leasing is ready to make on the project in addition to their really locally-focused management plan was exciting to see, Reginelli said. They are taking things a bit differently than in the past.

In the 1980s, Vulcan Development Corporation acquired the buildings to provide low- and moderate-income rental units, but the corporation couldnt afford to continue. Vulcan officials had said the project ran into trouble due to people unwilling to move to the area because of it being perceived as high crime. The properties were taken over by a creditor in the mid-1990s, according to Times Union archives.

The buildings in 2001 were bought by Clinton Revival Housing Development Fund Corporation  a not-for-profit started by Stanley Rosenberg, of Rosenberg Construction Development, and his partner.

We were looking to turn these properties into homeownership. Unfortunately, we just couldnt do it, Rosenberg said.

The recession made funding scarce, plus managing dozens of separate buildings  some of which were vacant when purchased  was difficult with a small staff, he said.

They were taking out copper, cutting the pipes and the basements would fill up with water. People would have to go around to these buildings every day to make sure things were functioning, Rosenberg said. Then in 2014, my partner in this deal passed away.

Tides have now turned, with investments in the surrounding area, including Sheridan Hollow, activity downtown and in the Warehouse District as well as North Swan Street encouraging further development, Reginelli said.

All of that investment really strengthens the investment on Clinton Avenue, she said. Previously, that had only just begun. They didnt have the strength to work from.

With a history of Clinton Avenue building improvements falling flat, residents are concerned the latest proposal could be another flop.

Home Leasing has met with community organizations and stakeholders to discuss the project, and plans to work with the community when it comes to hiring during construction.

Were definitely sensitive to that, Driscoll said. Were committed for 30 years.

About 50 percent of the buildings have tenants, but Home Leasing plans to renovate the vacant buildings first so residents in the occupied buildings can relocate, he said. They hope to begin construction by mid-2018.

Were super excited to be working with the state, and its going to be an amazing outcome, Driscoll said. Its going to be a very big, noticeable difference coming down Clinton when were done.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS - The City Council has called a special meeting to discuss hiring an election lawyer "to have all proper absentee ballots counted and to defend the city's voters in any potential court proceedings."

The meeting, which does not yet have a time or date, was announced on the city's website.
Angelika Graswald's case was puzzling from the beginning. And now it has ended, still essentially a puzzle.

It started on a windy evening in April 2015. Graswald and her fiance, Vincent Viafore had a few drinks, then decided to go kayaking on the Hudson River. At some point, Viafore's boat capsized and he vanished under the turbulent waters. Graswald paddled against the current, out of reach. His body was found weeks later.

At first, it seemed like an accident. But after Graswald gave a series of conflicting and callous statements about Viafore's death in a police interrogation, prosecutors in Orange County, New York, charged her with second-degree murder. They said she wanted out of the relationship and had sabotaged his boat in hopes of killing him. She also had a financial motive, they alleged: his death would have given her a shot at his $250,000 life insurance policy.

Now Playing: Angelika Graswald, charged with murdering her fiance Vincent Viafore in 2015 by sabotaging his kayak before his fatal trip on the Hudson River, pleaded guilty Monday to criminally negligent homicide, PEOPLE confirms Video: Brandpoint

The Hitchcock-like intrigue brought national attention to the case. The CBS News show "48 Hours" devoted an entire episode, titled "Death on the Hudson," to dissecting the relationship between Graswald and 46-year-old Viafore, and investigating the tactics police used during her interrogation.

Graswald, 37, and her defense attorneys insisted on her innocence, saying police had coerced incriminating statements out of her. But in July, shortly before the case was set to go to trial, Graswald pleaded guilty to criminal negligent homicide, admitting that she had removed a drain plug from his kayak, knew that a locking clip on one of the paddles was missing before they went out. She also said she knew he was at risk because he had been drinking, had left shore without a life jacket and that she did not help him as he flailed in the water.

On Wednesday, Graswald was sentenced to up to four years in state prison, as the Associated Press reported. She could be paroled before the end of the year, having received credit for time-served.

The sentencing closes the books on the case, but seemed to leave a number of issues unresolved.

In court, Judge Robert Freehill said the apparent sabotage of Viafore's kayak wasn't the main issue. Rather, he said, it was Graswald's inaction as Viafore struggled in the cold, choppy waters and her failure to "perceive a substantial risk."

"Was it removing a plug from the kayak, which appears to have been done months ago? Was it tampering with the clip on the paddle? Not really," the judge said, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. "It was the immediate acts of you being in your (kayak) and Vincent floundering in the water and you not taking any steps to try to help him."

Freehill added that Graswald's self-absorption was a factor in Viafore's death. "You could have walked out on Vinny if you were unhappy," he said, "rather than whatever it was in your mind that led to removing the plug and the other acts you took."

None of the parties signaled they were pleased with the outcome.

"I loved Vince very much and miss him terribly," Graswald said in a statement through her lawyer, Richard Portale, according to the Associated Press. "I don't believe I was treated fairly. This entire process was incredibly one-sided and unjust."

"I am not a murderer," she said. "I've said that from the beginning. If I could do anything to bring Vince back, I would."

Viafore's relatives also expressed disappointment.

"As far as I'm concerned, we did not get justice," his mother, Mary Ann Viafore, told NBC New York.

His sister, Laura Rice, read a victim impact statement before the judge issued the sentence, imploring him to give Graswald the maximum punishment.

"My brother did not deserve to have his life end this way," Rice said, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. "Our family feels Angelika should be held accountable for the actions she has admitted to . . . a short, four-year-sentence does not seem just. Serving a portion of that sentence seems even more unjust."

"When I think of my brother's last moments alive," Rice added, "I think of the pain he must have endured and I visualize him trying to survive hypothermia in the freezing cold river, confused and not understanding why the woman who said she loved him and wanted to marry him did nothing to help him."

Graswald's defense attorneys had previously argued that police coerced statements out of her during an 11-hour interrogation in 2015. They also said that removing the kayak plug would not have caused it to fill with water, and that rough waves could have more easily caused it to capsize. They also noted that it was Viafore's own decision not to wear a life jacket and that his blood alcohol level was .06.

Graswald, a Latvian immigrant, could face deportation after her sentence is complete. She was the main beneficiary on Viafore's life insurance policy, under which she still stands to gain $250,000, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. She could take legal action to claim those assets.
Washington

A month before Alabama's special election, Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore abruptly faced lurid allegations Thursday of sexual misconduct with minors decades ago  and an immediate backlash from party leaders who demanded he get out of the race if the accusations prove true.

The instant fallout followed a Washington Post report in which an Alabama woman said Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, had sexual contact with her when she was 14. Three other women interviewed by the Post said Moore, now 70, approached them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s. All four women spoke on the record to the Post.

The Moore campaign denied the report as "the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation."

Defiant as ever, Moore himself issued a fundraising appeal asking for emergency donations in a "spiritual battle."

"I believe you and I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values," he wrote. "I will NEVER GIVE UP the fight!"

Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court justice, has made his name in Republican politics through his public devotion to hardline Christian conservative positions. He was twice removed from his Supreme Court position, once for disobeying a federal court order to remove a 5,200 pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building, and later for urging state probate judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage.

On Thursday, senior Republicans swiftly called for Moore to step aside from the Senate race if the allegations are shown to be true. And the man he defeated in the Republican primary, current Sen. Luther Strange, left open the possibility he may re-enter the campaign.

Moore's name cannot be removed from the ballot before the Dec. 12 special election even if he withdraws from the race, according to John Bennett, a spokesman for the Alabama secretary of state. A write-in campaign remains possible, Bennett added.

Strange wouldn't immediately say whether he'd re-enter the race.

"Well, that's getting the cart ahead of the horse. But I will have something to say about that. Let me do some more research," he told The Associated Press.

The Alabama special election is to fill the vacancy created when Trump tapped Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as the U.S. attorney general. Then-Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Strange in the interim.

Reaction after the Post story was published online was swift and severe.

"The allegations against Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore are deeply troubling," said Colorado Sen. Chairman Cory Gardner, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm. "If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell added, "If these allegations are true, he must step aside."

The intensity of the reaction may partly reflect lingering bad feelings from the primary contest between Strange and Moore, held in late September. Much of the Republican establishment  including McConnell and President Donald Trump  supported Strange, while the GOP's more conservative flank  including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon  backed Moore.

Neither Bannon nor the White House had an immediate comment.
ROTTERDAM  Police are searching for a man who robbed a Stewart's Shop at knife point early Friday morning.

There were no reported injuries.

Police say around 5 p.m. the bandit walked into the store on Mariaville Road where he showed a knife, grabbed an unknown amount of money from the cash register before fleeing on foot toward Mariaville Road.

The suspect is described as an approximately 6-foot tall dark-skinned man who was last seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt, black pants and black white trimmed sneakers.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Rotterdam detective division at 355-7397.
Washington

The White House unsuccessfully tried to pressure the Homeland Security Department to end a program that allows hundreds of thousands of people from countries affected by natural disasters or violence to live in the United States without fear of being deported, according to people familiar with the discussions.

John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, made an eleventh-hour plea to Elaine Duke, acting Homeland Security secretary, before a deadline Monday to decide about the status of immigrants in the program from Honduras and Nicaragua.

Duke ultimately delayed for six months a decision on the status of immigrants from Honduras, saying she had concluded after an internal department review that she did not have enough information about conditions in the country to decide. But she ended the protected status for thousands of immigrants from Nicaragua who came to the United States illegally after Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Accounts of her phone calls with Kelly laid bare the strains between Trump administration officials trying to reduce both legal and illegal immigration and career immigration officials who see those efforts as overly broad and harsh.

Internal tensions over the administration's immigration agenda were on display in discrepancies among descriptions of the calls.

A White House official said Kelly had encouraged Duke to make a decision but did not pressure her to end the program.

But two other people briefed on the exchange said Duke had informed the White House over the weekend of her decision to postpone ending the program for Hondurans. Soon afterward, the two people said, Kelly called Duke from Asia, where he was traveling with Trump, to tell her she had made the wrong decision and to reconsider.

Kelly's message to Duke was she needed to reverse course and end the program immediately, according to one of the people briefed on the call, who asked for anonymity to describe a private discussion.

Kelly raised none of the issues about conditions in Honduras, the person said. Kelly's focus was on a smooth confirmation process for Trump's pick to run the department, Kirstjen M. Nielsen, and avoiding any steps that would jeopardize the administration's immigration policies.

A Homeland Security spokesman denied that account. "It is perfectly normal for members of the White House team to weigh in on major decisions," Tyler Q. Houlton, the spokesman, said Thursday.

And the White House official said that neither Nielsen's name nor the subject of her confirmation hearing came up during Kelly's call with Duke.

The Washington Post first reported the White House pressured Duke to end the protected status for tens of thousands of Honduran immigrants living in the United States.

In their discussions Monday, Duke, who was Trump's choice to be deputy homeland security secretary, also told Kelly she would resign from the department once Nielsen was confirmed, two people familiar with the calls said. The Senate Homeland Security committee held a confirmation hearing for Nielsen on Wednesday but has delayed its vote on her nomination while senators seek more information from her.

In a news release Monday, Duke said despite getting information from a number of different sources regarding Honduras, she needed extra time to determine if ground conditions in the country warranted sending people back. She extended the temporary protective status for Hondurans until July 5.

A memo written by the department's Office of International Affairs division suggested extending the temporary protective status for another 18 months, saying it made no sense to send citizens of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador who were covered back to their countries of origin.

The memo suggested economies in those countries were still incapable of creating sufficient job opportunities for their young and growing populations and could not handle an influx of thousands of returning people.

Overall, the decision to end the program received pushback from other officials at the department, Homeland Security employees said.

In response to questions about pressure to end the program, they said, White House officials and Kelly were making the argument to Duke that conditions had improved enough in Honduras to allow the protected immigrants to return home.
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RENSSELAER  A special grand jury is examining prior investigations of fatal police shootings in Troy as part of its ongoing examination of Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove's handling of the 2016 shooting death of a DWI suspect.

The panel's review is contrasting the rapid grand jury review that cleared Sgt. Randall French in the April 2016 fatal shooting of Edson Thevenin with an earlier but much longer grand jury investigation involving the August 2015 shooting of Thaddeus Faison by Officer Joshua Comitale.

Michael P. McDermott, who was previously a first assistant district attorney in Albany County, testified before the special grand jury on Thursday. He represented Comitale when the officer appeared before the grand jury that cleared him of wrongdoing in the shooting death of Faison, who had fired upon the officer before he was killed.

McDermott said he answered questions about the length of the Comitale shooting investigation, when a grand jury convened by Abelove's office did not issue its findings until more than 75 days after the shooting. In the Thevenin shooting case, French was cleared by a grand jury less than a week after the incident, and while the investigation was ongoing.

"There were questions about that," McDermott said.

Abelove's decision to rush French's case before a grand jury that cleared the officer less than a week after the killing of Thevenin is a focus of the special grand jury investigation being conducted by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office.

Abelove has maintained that he properly handled the French shooting and he testified before the special grand jury investigating his conduct on Oct. 27.

The Troy police had video of Comitales shootout with Faison during which the officer was severely wounded. The video also showed Officer Chad Klein being wounded when Faison shot him from behind.

The city surveillance cameras were not working in the area where French shot Thevenin through the windshield of his car on Hoosick Street.

Comitale did not receive immunity from prosecution when he testified before the 2015 grand jury, according to city police sources familiar with the case. But French was not required to sign an immunity from prosecution waiver when he testified before the 2016 grand jury, the Times Union previously reported.

State attorney generals investigators had made inquiries about the Comitale case after Abelove testified before the grand jury last month.

I was questioned about grand jury procedures regarding police officers and the use of deadly physical force, McDermott said.

As a prosecutor, McDermott said he presented hundreds of cases to grand juries. He said this was the first time he was subpoenaed as a witness before a grand jury. It was a different perspective, McDermott said.

The special grand jury was empaneled in September in the city of Rensselaer rather than at the county courthouse in Troy, where they normally meet. The district attorneys third-floor office is across the hallway from the grand jury room at the county courthouse. The attorney general's grand jury was empaneled for four months, with its term scheduled to end in late January.

Abelove is the first district attorney to face a criminal investigation by Schneiderman's office since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order giving Schneiderman authority to intervene in cases in which an unarmed civilian is killed by a police officer. Abelove has been an outspoken critic of the governor's order and unsuccessfully challenged it in court.

Schneiderman accused Abelove of doing an "end run" around the executive order when Abelove presented the French case to a grand jury after being notified the attorney general's office may intervene.
Beijing

President Donald Trump heaped praise on President Xi Jinping of China on Thursday, blaming past U.S. administrations for China's yawning trade surplus with the United States and saying he was confident that Xi could defuse the threat from North Korea.

Trump's warm words, on a state visit to China replete with ceremony but short of tangible results, showed a president doubling down on his gamble that by cultivating a personal connection with Xi, he can push the Chinese leader to take meaningful steps on North Korea and trade.

In public, Trump projected an air of deference to China that was almost unheard-of for a visiting U.S. president. Far from attacking Xi on trade, Trump saluted him for leading a country that he said had left the United States "so far behind." He said he could not blame the Chinese for taking advantage of weak U.S. trade policy.

Behind closed doors, U.S. officials insisted, Trump forcefully confronted Xi about the trade imbalances between the two countries. He also pressed China to take tougher measures toward North Korea, including a suspension of oil shipments.

In neither case did the Chinese make significant concessions, nor did Trump express dissatisfaction with their response.

It was a remarkable moment in the story of China's rise and the United States' response to it, with Trump's performance suggesting a tipping point in great-power politics. By concluding that the United States can better achieve its goals by flattering a Chinese leader than by challenging him, Trump seemed to signal a reversal of roles: The United States may now need China's help more than the other way around.

Trump marveled at the reception Xi had given him, from a full-dress military parade in Tiananmen Square to a sunset tour of the Forbidden City. He congratulated him on consolidating power at a recent Communist Party congress, declaring, "Perhaps now more than ever we have an opportunity to strengthen our relationship."

"You're a very special man," he told Xi in an appearance before reporters, at which they did not take questions.

Xi, for his part, did not return Trump's personal praise, seeming to treat him like any other U.S. leader.

"I told the president that the Pacific is big enough to accommodate both China and the United States," Xi said, after reciting his well-worn line that the two countries could peacefully coexist if they respected each other's political systems.

Trump administration officials said that the leaders' exchanges had had a harder edge behind the scenes. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that Trump had, in effect, used flattery to appeal to Xi to do more to isolate North Korea.

"Our president has been very clear with President Xi that he takes the view that, 'You are a very powerful neighbor of theirs, you account for 90-plus percent of their economic activity, you're a strong man,'" Tillerson said, channeling Trump. "'You can, I'm sure, solve this for me.'"

Tillerson dismissed Trump's contention that trade deficits were the United States' fault as "a little bit of tongue in cheek" in the midst of a much tougher discussion. During their meeting, he said, Robert Lighthizer, U.S. trade representative, listed the long history of trade imbalances and warned that the situation could not be allowed to continue.

The one tangible gain from Trump's trip  $250 billion worth of business agreements between U.S. and Chinese companies  was viewed as a token of Chinese goodwill. Many of the deals are preliminary and will take years to come to fruition. They broke no new ground in areas, like technology, where the United States is losing market access.

Tillerson himself played down the significance of any progress that was made in trade talks. "Quite frankly, in the grand scheme of a three- to five-hundred-billion-dollar trade deficit, the things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small," he said.

Still, Chinese analysts said the deals underscored Xi's desire to give Trump a victory. "OK relations with Trump's America is very important for both Xi's glory and his strategy," said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University.

Trump's conciliatory words on trade were particularly striking, given his protectionist threats during the 2016 presidential campaign. At the end of his appearance with Xi, a U.S. reporter asked whether Trump still believed, as he once said, that China was "raping" the United States through unfair trade practices. (Trump did not respond.)
ALBANY  A Vermont woman was sentenced to eight months in jail for absconding from a federal halfway house in Albany.

Keisha Richards, 24, was supposed to be staying at the Horizon House Residential Re-entry Center on Elizabeth Street as part of her sentence for a federal drug conviction in Vermont.
Twenty years ago, Diana, Princess of Wales walked next to a minefield in Angola, drawing the publics attention to the effect of unexploded landmines and bombs on some of the worlds poorest people.

More recently, Prince Harry called on the international community to make a renewed commitment to clear these indiscriminate killers and make a world free from landmines a reality.

Derbyshire-born Dr Jane Cocking OBE has been chief executive of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), whose UK headquarters are in Manchester, since January 2017.

She studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate at the University of Manchester and brings more than 25 years experience in the international humanitarian and development sector to the job, having lived and worked in East Africa, the Balkans and southern Africa for many years.

MAG has helped more than 17.7 million people in conflict-affected communities in over 40 countries since 1989, giving them greater safety and the opportunity to rebuild their lives, livelihoods and futures.

By removing unexploded landmines and destroying them, they enable communities to grow food and make a better living, access health services, and know that their children can walk to school in safety.

In essence, MAG is still about people on the ground, but we have also campaigned, lobbied and advocated for people who are responsible for dealing with unexploded remnants of war, to really make sure the problem as a whole is tackled, she says.

MAG became a co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, and that work led to the Ottawa Convention.

MAG was very proud 20 years ago to become a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, says Dr Jane. In a city like Manchester which is proud to have many Nobel Prize winners, MAG is the only recipient of the Peace Prize.

What got you started in your field of work?

Ive felt passionately since I was a teenager that it is wrong that some people in the world are lucky enough to have the opportunities, care and resources that we do, while others dont. Thats what originally drew me into development and humanitarian work.

I visited Somalia in the early 1990s during the worst of the famine and felt so passionately that it was important we offered what we could to people who find themselves in those unacceptable circumstances. I was determined that it was going to affect my life.

Ive been incredibly lucky to work all over the world, and to realise that humanitarian assistance isnt about doing things to people for people, its about doing things with people. Thats what the ethos of MAG is.

Who have been your biggest influences?

The people I meet when I work, live or travel to places where humanitarian crises have happened or are happening. I know from each of my visits there will be one or two people who really stick in my mind. The grandmother in Zimbabwe who was bringing up nearly 20 grandchildren and great grandchildren on her own because her sons and daughters had died. The women in Syria running their own schools and support networks. People in South Sudan.

I remember meeting one woman who had walked heavily pregnant with her family from the place they left to the place where they sought shelter because of the conflict, and remember the determination and commitment, but also the good humour she still had. How can you not be impressed? They are doing things that I know would finish me off.

What is your proudest achievement so far?

Helping grow the number of people Ive reached with the organisations Ive worked for, by working with local organisations who know the place. So we have more people receiving what they need when they need it, in the way theyve asked for it, from organisations close to them. The last organisation I worked for we grew the amount of people from half a million to seven million, and we did that largely by working with more local organisations.

What does a typical day involve?

Im sure everybody says there is no such thing. A typical day in Manchester is working to hire the right people, making sure weve got the right business systems in place and we connect with people locally.

A typical day with the program teams in Iraq could be going to villages where people are returning after fleeing from the conflict with IS, and talking to people who are waiting to go back into their houses but cant because of the appalling improvised landmines. Thats a very different typical day.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Chad launching a new project to clear landmines in the north-west of the country, and I had to give a speech in French to government officials. Next week I will be in Washington talking to our donors and partner organisations.

How do you relax on your days off?

I love to bake and I love to walk, particularly in the Peak District. Ive been a Border Collie owner for a long time and they always need exercise. And I love sailing, and the freedom it gives you.

What is the best advice youve ever been given?

Am I allowed two pieces? Theyre both African proverbs. One is: Never judge anyone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. The other is: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.

If things hadnt worked out, what else could you have seen yourself doing?

I think I would have probably been in some kind of caring management position in another sector, so maybe a health service manager. Im reasonable at organising things, so I think I would have combined that with a caring profession.

Tell us one thing about yourself people might be surprised to hear

I have a PhD in Cretan textiles. Which believe it or not is strangely relevant and helpful, but its probably not something youd expect.

Red or Blue?

I will say neither, but its because I have reason to love both. Blue because when I first lived in Manchester as a student I lived near Maine Road and could hear it from my bedroom window. But Red because Sir Bobby Charlton is such a big supporter of landmine action and we work closely with his charity.

Name your three favourite places in Manchester

Afflecks Palace. I remember when it was a basement in Lever Street when I was 18, and the best skirt Ive ever owned came from there. I wore it until it fell apart. And now the ice cream there is the best in the world.

Central Library, because of the feeling of calm and learning and peacefulness in the reading room. I still go and sit there when Ive got documents to write and it gives me a sense of calm.

And this might sound unbelievably tacky, but Piccadilly Station. When I came for my university interview and sat in the station waiting for my train home, thats where I first felt Manchester was the kind of place I could be at home in. I wanted to come back.

If you could change one thing about Manchester, what would it be?

It has to be the weather. I would love it to be a bit sunnier. But I do realise that Manchester would not be here if it wasnt for the weather, because thats why the cotton mills were here.

And finally, what do you love most about Manchester?

I love the robust humanitarian spirit. What I really recognised when I came back at the beginning of this year was that people on buses and trains are just funnier than they are anywhere else, and so open and helpful. It makes you feel really welcome.

The UK Government will match every pound donated to MAGs Walk Without Fear appeal, supporting work in countries affected by conflict and helping more families to walk without fear. Find out more here.
GPD

TMZ reports that 'All My Children' star Shane McDermott was arrested in Galveston Sunday after a night of drinking.

According to police, McDermott was at a bar around 2:00 a.m. when he became involved in a "verbal altercation."
New York voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to convene a Constitutional Convention. But whether you were a supporter or opponent, take heart  multiple avenues for political reform are still available. We can make our government work better.

Albany moves slowly, and too often disappoints proponents of reform. We should be undeterred. Everyone ought to coalesce around certain constitutional amendments and press the state Legislature into action.

Convention supporter Bill Samuels has spelled out his ideas. The New York City Bar Association has listed its own suggestions, too. Whether or not you agree with these ideas or not, they are a good starting point for discussion. That should start now, because persuading two successive state legislatures, and then the voters of the state, to approve constitutional amendments will not be easy. But this is a propitious moment to make an all-out effort. Reforms could actually become effective in two short years.

That's not all we can do. The citizens of our 62 cities, 932 towns and 539 villages can enact certain local reforms without waiting for Albany. Take, for example, the state's egregiously high campaign contribution limits  a deserved target of good government groups and editorial boards. New York City fixed this on its own. With the imprimatur of New York's then-Attorney General Robert Abrams, the city determined it had the authority to enact this reform for municipal elections by amending its city charter. Thus, starting in the 1980s, candidates for New York City public office have enjoyed dramatically lower contribution limits, a cap on spending in their races, and partial public funding of their campaigns. There is no reason that all other local jurisdictions cannot follow suit.

Similarly, New York City has lowered the number of signatures required for candidates to get on the ballot, and, like other jurisdictions in the state, imposed term limits.

In light of the debate aroused by the Constitutional Convention ballot question, a group in New York City is about to embark on an effort to amend its charter even further  to enact early voting, easier registration and enrollment procedures, and same-day registration. If Albany continues to drag its feet on these issues, other jurisdictions can do the same for their elections.

I opposed a constitutional convention, but whatever side one was on leading up to the vote, everyone ought to agree to join in a collective effort for state and local reforms. Time and effort are required, but unquestionably will pay off many times over. Bar associations are invited to research jurisdictional opportunities, and leaders on both sides of the now-settled debate are encouraged to discuss shared goals.

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.

One of the leading supporters of the con-con argued that it was "the last best hope for fundamental reform." He was wrong. Let's prove it.

Jerry H. Goldfeder teaches election law at Fordham Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and previously served as New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's special counsel for public integrity. He is currently special counsel at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.
The family of missing Tipperary man Stephen Cullinan from Ballymackey, Nenagh have appealed for the publics assistance in locating the 25 year old who was last seen on Thursday, November 2.

Stephen is the son of North Tipperary IFA chair and pig farmer Tim Cullinan.

The University of Limerick student was originally reported missing from Castletroy, Co. Limerick however it is now believed the last known sighting of the student was near St. Stephens Green Dublin on Thursday November 2.

In a post on social media Stephens brother Brian said that the last phone call made from Stephens phone was in Dublin.

Gardai say that he was last seen wearing a hoodie, jeans and runners and he also wears glasses. Stephen is 511 with a slight build and light/ fair brown hair. There are concerns for his well being.

Gardai in Henry Street are investigating the incident and are seeking assistance from the public in establishing the location of Stephen. Anyone with information is being urged to call Henry Street Garda station 061-212400, any garda station or the garda confidential line 1800-666-111.

Posts appealing for information have been extensively shared on social media with many members of the farming community helping in the search for the missing 25 year old.
[November 09, 2017] Zipwhip Ranks 14th Fastest Growing Company in Washington State on Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

Zipwhip, the leading platform for conversational business texting, today announced it ranked 14th fastest-growing company in Washington state on Deloitte's (News - Alert) Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Zipwhip revenue grew 224 percent from 2013 to 2016. Zipwhip CEO and co-founder John Lauer cites the company's 2014 pivot to providing B2B software as the defining factor in the company's rapid growth; Zipwhip provides companies with an easy-to-use platform for conversational texting from their existing landline, VoIP or toll-free phone number. "The market for conversational, two-way business messaging is huge, and as the company that invented business texting, we're in the best position to bring powerful messaging software to modern companies," said Lauer. "The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend ou sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers."



Zipwhip recently closed a $22.5 million Series C funding round, after a successful Series B round just 10 months earlier. The new capital is being invested in the core network, accelerating the product roadmap and scaling sales and marketing efforts. About Zipwhip

A Seattle-based SaaS (News - Alert) company, Zipwhip is modernizing the texting medium by adding secure, reliable text messaging to existing landline, VoIP and toll-free phone numbers. Zipwhip pairs direct network connectivity with easy out-of-the-box software, so businesses of any size can give customers the choice to "text or call" and handle two-way text conversations at scale. Learn more about Zipwhip at www.zipwhip.com. About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500 Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies - both public and private - in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016. In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006188/en/

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[November 09, 2017] Dashlane Ranks as a Fastest Growing Company in North America on Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dashlane, one of the world's most trusted digital security companies, today announced it ranked 65 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a ranking of the 500 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. Dashlane grew 2,484 percent during this period. Dashlane's chief executive officer, Emmanuel Schalit, credits product innovation across all platforms, global expansion, as well as an uptick in Dashlane's enterprise product (Dashlane Business) with the company's increased revenue growth. "We're thrilled to receive this accolade from Deloitte and appreciate the recognition of our progress," Schalit said. "Consider this  nearly everyone on the Internet use passwords every day, and the average consumer has between 130 to 150 different accounts with passwords to manage. Couple that with the rising rate of cybercrime and it's obvious why Dashlane is growing exponentially." "The Deloitte 2017 North America Technology Fast 500 winners underscore the impact of technological innovation and world class customer service in driving growth, in a fiercely competitive environment," said Sandra Shirai, vice chairman, Deloitte Consulting LLP and U.S. technology, media and telecommunications leader. "These companies are on the cutting edge and are transforming the way we do business. We extend our sincere congratulations to all the winners for achieving remarkable growth while delivering new services and experiences for their customers." "Emerging growth companies are powering innovation in the broader economy. The growth rates delivered by the companies on this year's North America Technology Fast 500 ranking are a bright spot for the capital markets and strong indicator that the emerging growth technology sector will continue to deliver a strong return on investment," said Heather Gates, national managing director of Deloitte & Touche LLP's emerging growth company practice. "Deloitte is dedicated to supporting the best and brightest companies of the future in the emerging growth company sector. We are proud to acknowledge the significant accomplishments of this year's Fast 500 winners."



Overall, 2017 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 135 percent to 59,093 percent from 2013 to 2016, with median growth of 380 percent. About Deloitte's 2017 Technology Fast 500

Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 provides a ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies  both public and private  in North America. Technology Fast 500 award winners are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2013 to 2016.

In order to be eligible for Technology Fast 500 recognition, companies must own proprietary intellectual property or technology that is sold to customers in products that contribute to a majority of the company's operating revenues. Companies must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000 USD, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million USD. Additionally, companies must be in business for a minimum of four years and be headquartered within North America. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee ("DTTL"), its network of member firms, and their related entities. DTTL and each of its member firms are legally separate and independent entities. DTTL (also referred to as "Deloitte Global") does not provide services to clients. In the United States, Deloitte refers to one or more of the US member firms of DTTL, their related entities that operate using the "Deloitte" name in the United States and their respective affiliates. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more about our global network of member firms. About Dashlane

Dashlane, one of the world's most trusted digital security companies, takes the pain out of passwords with its password manager and secure digital wallet app. Dashlane allows users to securely manage passwords, credit cards, IDs, and other important information via advanced encryption and local storage. With so many devices, the line between home and work no longer exists. Thankfully, Dashlane works everywhere, for everyone. The company has helped 9 million consumers manage and secure their digital identity and enabled over $10 billion in e-commerce transactions. Dashlane Business is trusted by 7,000+ companies to create, enforce, and track effective access management, and features the only patented security architecture in the industry. The Dashlane app is available on PC, Mac, Android, and iOS, and has won critical acclaim by top publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today. Dashlane is free to use on your favorite device for life, and costs $39.99/year to sync between an unlimited number of devices. Dashlane was founded by Bernard Liautaud and co-founders Alexis Fogel, Guillaume Maron and Jean Guillou. The company has offices in New York City and Paris, and has received $52.5 million in funding from TransUnion, Rho Ventures, FirstMark Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners. Learn more at Dashlane.com. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dashlane-ranks-as-a-fastest-growing-company-in-north-america-on-deloittes-2017-technology-fast-500-300553178.html SOURCE Dashlane

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[November 09, 2017] Global Smart Card IC Market 2017-2021 with Infineon Technologies, NXP Semiconductors, Samsung & STMicroelectronics Dominating

DUBLIN, November 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Smart Card IC Market 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering. The global smart card IC market to grow at a CAGR of 8.22% during the period 2017-2021. Global Smart Card IC Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market. According to the report, one driver in the market is increase in number of financial frauds. The major driver for the global smart card IC market is the increasing number of financial across several countries. Most debit and credit cards use magnetic tapes to store data. These magnetic tapes are easily tampered, leading to insecure monetary transactions and monetary loss for users. Magnetic stripe cards can be subjected to frauds like card skimming. Card skimming is a technique wherein the details of the customer are stolen from the magnetic strip on the cards. This information can be used to forge duplicte cards and hence be used to make fraudulent transactions.



One trend in the market is SIM cards for M2M communication. An M2M SIM card is the technology that allows devices and machines to communicate with each other. In simpler terms, it is a SIM card that has been designed for machine use. Devices need to be equipped with interchangeable protocols that are necessary to receive and send data between devices. Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is growth of net banking and mobile wallets. The growth of the online marketplace has compelled customers to opt for net banking and mobile wallets. Customers find net banking convenient and safe to transfer money online. Multiple users find it convenient to transfer money online using internet banking, as it is the safest way to make transactions. Banks provide these services with high levels of security, and most of B2B transactions are done through the internet banking at present. Several large companies use online payment methods to make bank transfers and not cards to make a payment.

Key Market Trends SIM cards for M2M communication

Integration of biometrics into smart card ICs

Growth of advanced POS systems

Growth of 5G communications

Competitive scenario Key vendors Infineon Technologies

NXP Semiconductors

SAMSUNG

STMicroelectronics Other prominent vendors Atmel

EM Microelectronic-Marin

ON Semiconductor

Renesas Electronics

Shanghai HuaHong Integrated Circuit Key Topics Covered:



Part 01: Executive Summary



Part 02: Scope Of The Report



Part 03: Research Methodology



Part 04: Introduction



Part 05: Market Landscape



Part 06: Market Segmentation By Application



Part 07: Segmentation By Microprocessor Architecture



Part 08: Regional Landscape



Part 09: Decision Framework



Part 10: Drivers And Challenges



Part 11: Market Trends



Part 12: Vendor Landscape



Part 13: Vendor Analysis



Part 14: Appendix



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ffgh82/global_smart_card

Media Contact: Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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[November 09, 2017] WuXi NextCODE Appoints Baidu Veteran John Gu to Drive Growth of Genomic Data Platform in China

- Former CIO of China internet giant will oversee key China pillar of WXNC's global data platform strategy - The expansion of WXNC's platform will provide an ever more powerful engine for consumer genomics and precision medicine in China and worldwide SHANGHAI, CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts and REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Nov. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi NextCODE, the global standard platform for genomic data, today announced the appointment of John Gu as Chief Digital Officer, leading data onboarding for the company's growing China platform. Gu, who joins the company from digital innovation consultancy Silver Sand Technologies, was formerly chief information officer for Baidu, the leading internet service provider and search engine in China, and held successive senior technology positions at Alcatel-Lucent in Europe and the US. Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/600995/John_Gu_WuXi_NextCODE.jpg "John has played a key role in the growth of world-leading technology platforms and we are thrilled to have him leading the expansion of our data strategy in China," said Hannes Smarason, CEO of WuXi NextCODE. "Our aim is ambitious: to enable patients and consumers across China not only to benefit from their own genomic data but also empower them to use it to advance precision medicine for others across the country and around the world. John's experience in organizing massive amounts of data and connecting the individuals and enterprises that generate and use it is uniquely suited to executing this vision." "Putting the genome to work to improve health and medicine is the biggest data opportunity in the years ahead," said John Gu. "WuXi NextCODE's global platform for genomic data is leading the way in realizing this opportunity, and China is at the heart of this strategy. I am very excited to put my efforts to work building this platform in China and to develop and deliver the benefits of the genome to people everywhere." As the CIO of Baidu, Mr. Gu defined the enterprise IT strategy for one of the world's largest search engines and the leading cloud service provider in China. In the dozen years prior, ultimately as the group CIO of Alcatel-Lucent, he led global IT functions, including IT transformation, SW development, enterprise cloud services and data management. He also served as a management consultant at Booz Allen and PwC. Mr Gu holds a BS in computer science and electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, an MS in computer science from Loyola University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. About WuXi NextCODE WuXi NextCODE is a fully integrated contract genomics organization (CGO) building the global standard platform for genomic data. With offices in Shanghai; Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Reykjavik, Iceland, we serve the leading population genomics, precision medicine, diagnostics and wellness initiatives and enterprises using the genome to improve health around the world. Our capabilities span study design, sequencing, secondary analysis, storage, interpretation, scalable analytics, and AI and deep learning  all backed by the most proven and widely used technology for organizing, mining and sharing genome sequence data. We are also applying the same capabilities to advance a growing range of sequence-based tests and scans in China. WuXi NextCODE is a WuXi Group company. Visit us on the web at wuxinextcode.com.







Contact:

Edward Farmer, PhD JiaWei Wang [email protected] [email protected] +1 781-775-6206 +86 21 5046 5558

Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/601008/logo__wuxi_nextcode_Logo.jpg

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[November 09, 2017] Medical Device Innovation Consortium Announces CEO William V. Murray is Stepping Down to Return to Private Sector; Board Begins Search for New Leader

The Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) CEO William V. (Bill) Murray today announced he will step down as President & CEO effective February 2, 2018 to return to the private sector. Stated Murray, "Over the past four years, it has been my honor and privilege to lead MDIC as we have grown from concept to an established part of the ecosystem in accelerating patient access to safe and effective life changing innovation. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished." Murray continued, "The organization is fortunate to be led by a board of senior leaders throughout the medtech ecosystem, supported by an incredible group of member volunteers and dedicated MDIC staff that give me great confidence we will achieve a smooth transition." "The Board of Directors for MDIC would like to thank Bill for his leadership and contribution to advancing regulatory science for patients and expanding into real world data coordination," said MDIC Board Chairman Mike Minogue, President, CEO and Chairman of Abiomed. "We wish him well going forward as he returns to the private sector to pursue other opportunities." "MDIC has made great progress under Bill's leadership these past four years," said Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "The organization has evolved into an integral partner with patients, industry and the FDA in addressing the most challenging regulatory science issues required for faster, safer and more efficient development, assessment and review of life-changing medical technologies. The FDA looks forward to continued collaborations with MDIC and its new leadership."



Murray added, "My decision to return to the private sector has been difficult and emotional; we have built something very unique and rewarding at MDIC. Announcing my intention 3 months prior to leaving was the right decision to allow MDIC to move forward in a planned manner." Murray closed by saying, "I want to thank the MDIC Board for their support as I worked through this process." The MDIC Board today also announced it has initiated a search for the next CEO. Stated Minogue, "MDIC is an integral part of the medtech ecosystem, the Board is committed to find the next CEO leader that has the vision, passion and commitment to build on MDIC's success."

About Medical Device Innovation Consortium

Founded in 2012, the Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) is the first public-private partnership created with the sole objective of advancing medical device regulatory science throughout the total product life cycle. MDIC's mission is to promote public health through science and technology and to enhance trust and confidence among stakeholders. MDIC works in the pre-competitive space to facilitate development of methods, tools, and approaches that enhance understanding and improve evaluation of product safety, quality, and effectiveness. Its initiatives improve product safety and patient access to cutting-edge medical technology while reducing cost and time to market. For more information, visit www.mdic.org. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006697/en/

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[November 09, 2017] SELVAS AI to Receive CES 2018 Innovation Award for Disease Prediction Solution Using Artificial Intelligence

SELVAS AI (KOSDAQ:108860), an artificial intelligence company, will receive CES (News - Alert) 2018 Innovation Award for its AI disease prediction solution "Selvy Checkup" at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2018, one of the largest global consumer electronics tradeshows in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in January next year. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109005620/en/ SELVAS AI, an artificial intelligence company, will receive CES 2018 Innovation Award for its AI disease prediction solution "Selvy Checkup" at the CES 2018 (Graphic: Business Wire) Winners of CES Innoation Awards are chosen by Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) which evaluate products in 28 categories in terms of technology, innovativeness and design.



Selvy Checkup is a medical service that predicts the probabilities of incidence within two or three years for six most common cancers including lung and liver cancers and major adult diseases including cardio-cerebrovascular disease and diabetes. It is provided as part of health checkup. The service was developed through joint research by big data analysts and clinical research physicians in various fields. It is considered one of the best medical AI solutions. The CES 2018 award is meaningful to medical and IT industries in that it is a worldwide recognition of the superb technology and excellent innovativeness of the service jointly researched by large hospitals and SELVAS AI.

The incidence of adult diseases is rising due to rapid population aging and unhealthy habits of the modern life. Adult diseases are one of the leading causes of death in the world, but they are preventable and curable at an early stage if they are predicted and managed. Selvy Checkup has been selected as a CES 2018 Innovation Award winner in the category of "Tech for a Better World" in recognition of its intelligent disease forecasting system which contributes to the efficient control of adult diseases and the promotion of people's health. SELVAS AI will exhibit its products at a booth (Hall A-D Sands #43849) in the CES 2018 from Jan. 9-12 in Las Vegas, USA. SELVAS AI SELVAS AI is an artificial intelligence company that does AI-related businesses in diverse fields including medical care, finance, automobiles and assistive technology on the basis of machine learning techniques. It possesses core AI technologies such as voice, handwriting and image intelligences and AI convergence technology which combines those core technologies. All the technologies of SELVAS AI are based on machine learning platform. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109005620/en/

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Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Commences Investigation on Behalf of CenturyLink Inc. Bond Holders (CTL)

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of CenturyLink (News - Alert) Inc. ("CenturyLink" or the "Company") (NYSE: CTL) bond holders concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws. To obtain information or aid in the investigation, please visit the CenturyLink investigation page on our website www.glancylaw.com/cas/centurylink-inc-bond-holders.







The investigation concerns whether CenturyLink issued false and misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that the Company's 2017 financial results would fall short of guidance because of lower than expected revenue growth. Further pressuring the Company's performance are debt repayments for the $34 billion acquisition of Level 3 Communications, Inc.

Follow us for updates on Twitter (News - Alert): twitter.com/GPM_LLP.

If you purchased CenturyLink bonds, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, Esquire, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, by email to [email protected], or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006449/en/
[November 09, 2017] National Geographic and 360i Launch First-Ever Voice Powered Meditation App, Designed Specifically for Veterans

Ahead of Veteran's Day, National Geographic, in a partnership with 360i, has released Bravo Tango Brain Training, the first-ever voice activated meditation app designed specifically for veterans, with the aim of providing another tool in the effort to enhance mental health support for America's veteran community. The meditation app will be available for free on smartphones via the Google (News - Alert) Assistant app and Google Home Devices beginning today, November 9th. To begin, say "Ok Google, talk to Bravo Tango." This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006716/en/ Bravo Tango Brain Training was developed in partnership with former Air Force Psychologist and combat veteran Dr. Michael Valdovinos who specializes in military and veteran psychological health and has vast experience working with transitioning and reintegrating service members. Working together, National Geographic, their agency partner 360i, Dr. Valdovinos and app developer Xapp created a voice-powered app that will give veterans easy access to one of the most effective methods for reducing stress and maintaining healthy coping practices- meditation and mindfulness. "Many veterans are hesitant to try meditation and mindfulness because of societal stereotypes it carries in our community. In my practice, however, I've found meditation, mindfulness and voice therapy to be highly effective in reducing stress, refining focus and raising optimism. Bravo Tango Brain Training is a bridge to seeking help and brings a unique approach directly to the veteran community where we feel safest: our homes," says Dr. Valdovinos. The approach used in the app is supported by numerous studies, including those published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, Military Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Psychology that have found breathing-based meditation intervention to result in reduced stress, anxiety, feelings of depression and slowed respiration rates. In one case, 90% of veteran participants completed the study, suggesting high acceptability of meditation practices. In producing their scripted series, The Long Road Home, based on Martha Raddatz's New York Times best-selling book that chronicles the lives of service members and their families through deployment and post-deployment, National Geographic gained deep insights into the home life of veterans, ultimately realizing there was an opportunity to expand the impact of their stories. Inspired by the real-life veterans portrayed in the series, National Geographic along with 360i wanted to go a step further and do something to not only enhance mental health support for veterans and reduce barriers to seeking treatment but also bring renewed attention to important veterans' issues. As part of launching the series, the network has also partnered with numerous veteran's organizations including the Bob Woodruff Foundation, Team Rubicon, Blue Star Families, The Mission Continues,Veterans of Foreign Wars, Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation, and the USO. "We were so inspired by the real-life stories which The Long Road Home series was based on, and we wanted to expand our support with something tangible, useful and needed for the veteran community," says Courteney Monroe, CEO, National Geographic Global Networks. "As we began to explore the veteran support space with 360i, it became apparent that many of the current wellness app options for veterans do not address their specific needs. Technological advances often leave veterans behind, and we hoe we can do some good by providing this simple, but powerful technology."



"It was an incredible privilege to be a part of The Long Road Home project. In seeing it come to life, I again gained new insight into the daily struggles veterans so often face," says Martha Raddatz, "It means a lot to me that National Geographic is taking their support of this community one step further and providing easier access to the help they seek." Many from the veteran community have endorsed Bravo Tango Brain Training, including former Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter who says, "For many veterans, returning home is the toughest battle they face. Supporting their mental health requires an all-hands effort. I commend Bravo Tango for leveraging innovative technology to make practical and comforting wellness steps more accessible to our men and women in uniform."

Bravo Tango Brain Training is free and now available on all smart phones and voice-powered devices with Google Assistant. To use, open the Google Assistant app, and say "Ok Google, talk to Bravo Tango." The program will then guide the user to an appropriate exercise based on how they're feeling. Bravo Tango recognizes over 40 moods, including anger, loneliness, anxiety, disappointment, regret, sadness, fatigue, fear and insomnia. Exercises range from breathing, and focus, to grounding and visualization, even interpersonal connection and muscle relaxation. While Bravo Tango Brain Training is an effective and accessible method for reducing stress and anxiety, it should not be used as a replacement for ongoing professional care. For more information, please reference the Terms & Conditions. Click here for the official Bravo Tango press kit, including photos and video assets. About "The Long Road Home" No soldier fights alone. Based on the New York Times best-selling book by internationally acclaimed journalist Martha Raddatz, The Long Road Home tells the story of "Black Sunday," when a small platoon of soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division was ferociously ambushed in Sadr City, Baghdad, in April 2004. Eight Americans would make the ultimate sacrifice that day, and more than 65 would be seriously wounded. The global miniseries event airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on National Geographic and offers viewers a gripping and intimate look at the toll war takes on soldiers and their families. The adrenaline-fueled and deeply emotional journey follows the action on two fronts: the chaotic and terror-filled streets of Sadr City and the home front at Fort Hood, where family members desperately await news of their loved ones. The Long Road Home ensemble cast includes Michael Kelly (News - Alert), Jason Ritter, Kate Bosworth, Sarah Wayne Callies, Noel Fisher and Jeremy Sisto. About National Geographic Partners LLC National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between National Geographic and 21st Century Fox, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic's media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children's media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 129 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers  and reaching over 730 million people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeowild.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest. About 360i 360i is an award-winning agency that helps brands capitalize on change. As a highly strategic creative and media partner with a deep understanding of how people discover brands and share stories, we don't just react to changes in the marketplace - we predict and define them. By bringing together some of the smartest, most curious people with expertise in data, creativity, media, strategy, search, and social, we help our clients achieve their objectives and drive their business forward. And our hustle doesn't go unnoticed. We've been recognized in Advertising Age's (News - Alert) Agency A-List issue seven years in a row, named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, and ranked amongst the best Lead Agencies and Search Agencies by Forrester Research (News - Alert). That's some range. We work with brands including HBO, National Geographic, DSW, Mondelez and Capital One. To learn more about us, visit www.360i.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171109006716/en/

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[November 10, 2017] With Energy on the Agenda for Trump Visit to Beijing, Hanergy Is a Model Of Win-Win US-China Cooperation

BEIJING, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- As anticipated, U.S. president Donald Trump and his business delegation have energy high on the agenda for their official visit to Beijing. Yesterday representatives from the two countries confirmed $250 billion in deals, among which energy businesses figure prominently. As a global leading thin-film solar power company, Hanergy believes that the transactions between the two countries will greatly benefit the cooperation and the development of energy industry. As these companies move forward in their business with China, they might look to Hanergy's business presence in America as a model of win-win US-China cooperation. For the past few years, Hanergy has been actively pushing forward the US-China clean energy industry with its farsighted investments in thin film solar technology. Hanergy has acquired three US thin film solar companies -- MiaSole, Alta Devices, and Global Solar Energy, revitalizing them and bringing technological advantages together to expand the scope of the thin film solar industry to the entire globe within just a few years. Following the acquisition and successful technological integration of three U.S. thin-film solar companies, Hanergy's sbsidiaries have realized significant synergies. Hanergy continuously invests in research and development, enhancing the vitality of U.S. companies. In December 2012, Hanergy acquired Silicon Valley based solar company MiaSole, the world leader in Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) solar technology. In the five years since the acquisition, the money poured into research and development has allowed the company to increase the conversation efficiency of its solar cells at an average rate of 1 percent a year, eventually attaining its current conversion efficiency of 18% -- the world's highest for sputtering CIGS flexible modules.



Meanwhile, through global technical integration and independent innovation, Hanergy has become a world leader in thin-film solar technology, holding five world records in conversion efficiency. As of October 2017, the company holds over 2000 patents. In addition, Hanergy has over 1,800 employees working in R&D, including world leading experts on semiconductors and photovoltaics. Hanergy has also brought thin film solar technology to China, contributing to the green transformation of the country's energy mix. In July 2017, Hanergy launched Hantile, a new product combining highly efficient solar cells with traditional roof tiles. When deployed at a large scale, the tiles can abate significant amounts of carbon, making homes and buildings more eco-friendly. On the transportation side, Hanergy's U.S. subsidiary Alta Devices works with German car maker Audi to integrate solar cells into panoramic glass automobile roofs. Hanergy is also cooperating with major bike sharing companies, including Mobike, 99 Bicycle and MTBike to integrate thin-film solar panels into the bodies of more than 15 million bicycles over the next three years.

Media contact Danning Wang

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +86(10) 83914567 ext 3118 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/with-energy-on-the-agenda-for-trump-visit-to-beijing-hanergy-is-a-model-of-win-win-us-china-cooperation-300553787.html SOURCE Hanergy Holding Group

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[November 10, 2017] ColorChip's 100G 2km CWDM4 and 10km 4WDM-10 Transceivers to be Demonstrated in Next Generation SDN Platform in Collaboration with CalTech at SuperComputing 2017 Exhibition

DENVER, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ColorChip Ltd., a leader in hyper-scale single mode fiber optical transceivers for datacenters and HPCs applications, will take part in a demonstration of a next generation SDN platform using intelligent software defined networks. ColorChip's 100G QSFP28 2km CWDM4 and 10km 4WDM transceivers, used in Data Center Interconnect links, will be demonstrated in Caltech's booth #663 on November 13th-17th during SuperComputing 2017 Exhibition in Denver, Colorado, USA. 100G QSFP28 Transceivers for applications from 100m to 10km

The exhibition of the Next Generation SDN architecture will employ a family of ColorChip 100G QSFP28 Transceivers, all based on ColorChip's patented SystemOnGlass (SOGTM) TOSA/ROSA platform, including the 100G QSFP28 2km CWDM4 and 10km 4WDM-10 transceivers . The 100G transceivers are based on uncooled DML's on the CWDM grid and characterized by typical power consumption of 2.6W, highly compact QSFP28 packaging and a standard Duplex LC optical interconnect. The ColorChip family of 100G QSFP28 transceivers also includes a 500m CWDM-Lite datacenter transceiver, accepted by the Open Compute Project (OCP). High Volume 100G Manufacturing

In response to the rapidly expanding 100G datacenter and HPC market demand, ColorChip has invested $80M, secured over the past 2 years, to significantly increase the manufacturing throughput of its family of 100G QSFP28 transceivers, including the expansion of its industrialized-optics TOSA/ROSA assembly lines in the Israel based facility as well as doubling the optical module integration and testing floor space to 7,000 square feet in Contract Manufacturer Fabrinet. With a current annual production run rate of quarter of a million transceivers in2017, the ColorChip family of 100G 500m, 2km and 10km QSFP28 transceivers is ready for volume applications today.



Demonstration at SuperComputing 2017

The next generation of globally distributed science programs, exploring the nature and history of the universe, the evolution of our planet and our biological makeup, face unprecedented challenges in harnessing the wealth of knowledge hidden in exabytes of globally distributed data. The physicists, network and system engineers from Caltech, together with ColorChip and many other research and network partners are working to clear the way to the next round of discoveries by leveraging major advances in software defined Terabit/second networks, real-time analytics and state of the art long distance data transfer methods. As shown in the diagram below, the Caltech and Starlight/OCC booths will be linked through a pair of Data Center Interconnects at a rate of 1 terabit/second and out over the wide area to multiple remote sites through additional DCIs installed at the booths, supporting 200G and 400G wavelengths, with an aggregate capacity of several terabits/second. The demonstrations at these booths will be supported by multiple flows of up to 100G wire speed over many 100G wide area links to partner sites cited above, in the US as well as in Latin America and Asia, involved in the LHC, LSST and other data intensive science programs.

Harvey Newman, Professor of Physics at Caltech, a leader of the SC17 Network Research Exhibition demonstrations at the Caltech booth said, "ColorChip continues to be a key partner making our breakthrough developments in state of the art networks supporting the largest science research programs possible, through the use of their intermediate-range optical transceivers carrying 100 Gbps flows over dark fiber links among the Caltech, UNESP, SDSC and 2CRSI booths across the showfloor, extending out over the wide area to many sites in the U.S. and Latin America." The demonstration will take place in Caltech's booth (#663) at the Colorado Convention Center, Denver, Colorado. About ColorChip:

ColorChip (http://www.color-chip.com) is a global provider of hyper-scale optical transceivers supporting the growing need for bandwidth scale. ColorChip is headquartered in Yokne'am, Israel, where it's fully owned, industrialized optics-based FAB is dedicated to the production of PLC based SystemOnGlass, a dense, multi-lane, hybrid photonic integrated circuit used as the foundation of the company hyper scale Transceivers, providing a platform of scalability that seamlessly transitioned from 40G to 200G moving towards 400G and beyond as its natural horizons. ColorChip has a production facility in Thailand and offices in San Jose, California. Media Coverage

Noa Kotok

Manager, Sales & Marketing

+972-50-337-7716

[email protected] View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/colorchips-100g-2km-cwdm4-and-10km-4wdm-10-transceivers-to-be-demonstrated-in-next-generation-sdn-platform-in-collaboration-with-caltech-at-supercomputing-2017-exhibition-300553829.html SOURCE ColorChip Ltd.

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[November 10, 2017] Providence, Rhode Island Announced As First City In United States To Become Connected By Loud-Hailer

KINGSTON, N.Y., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Loud-Hailer, an innovator in hyperlocal digital communications, is pleased to announce the launch of their first Connected City app, Providence2GO. The app, which uses Loud-Hailer's cutting-edge, non-beacon based proprietary mesh networking technology, allows residents and visitors to experience the city of Providence in a way never seen before. Powered by proprietary, patent pending, groundbreaking technology, Providence2GO directly connects users with all the people and places that make Providence so uniquely special. They can learn what is available around them with just one tap of the app. Once the Providence2GO app is downloaded and Bluetooth is enabled through an iOS smart device like an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch or an iPod Touch, users are able to experience a Connected City all in one place. When in the "listening range" of a participating organization, users will receive content specific to where they are, including locals-only tips, special deals from nearby restaurants and shops, experiences at WaterFire, events at Roger Williams University, a peek inside the makers studios at AS220, or exhibits at Providence Public Libraryjust to name a few. "While the idea of using an app to look something up isn't new, Loud-Hailer's technology revolutionizes the process. Gone are the days of needing to open and close a variety of apps, login multiple times, or wonder about cell service when exploring a city," said Jack Chen, Co-Founder and CEO of Loud-Hailer. "With the Providence2GO app, you can see what is available around yu with one tap. Our technology works with Bluetooth Low Energy, so users will always be able to access the app and get valuable information when walking around Providence, starting with the historic downtown area."



Throughout the Providence community, Loud-Hailer has partnered with organizations including Roger Williams University, WaterFire, AS220, the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, Providence Public Library, Marsella Properties, State of Rhode Island Office of Innovation, Queen of Hearts, VP Fitness, Blake's Tavern and Rhode Tour, among others. "Loud-Hailer's technology and platform allows us to be creative in the way we reach students past basic e-mails," said Adriana Dawson, Assistant Dean, Center for Workforce & Professional Development at Roger Williams University. "We're excited to partner with Loud-Hailer and Providence2GO and know it will truly complement and enhance campus engagement in a way that will continue to grow."

"WaterFire is looking forward to working with Loud-Hailer on our upcoming art installations, events and exhibitions," said Barnaby Evans, Executive Artistic Director. "We're proud to be part of the acclaimed Providence Creative Capital-- the arts make Providence a nationally known destination city. Our partnership with Loud-Hailer and its unique technology will create new ways we can connect with our million plus audience through interesting and innovative content." "We're so excited that Providence has become the first city in the United States to use Loud-Hailer's cutting edge technology," said Chen. "Providence2GO users will be able to experience this beautiful city in a new and interactive way never seen before." To learn more about Loud-Hailer's revolutionary technology and Providence2GO, please visit: https://www.loud-hailer.com/. For a list of all the participating organizations and partners supporting Providence2GO, please click here. About Loud-Hailer Inc.: Loud-Hailer is a digital communications start-up based in New York's Hudson Valley that uses proven and proprietary technology in revolutionary ways. From its inception, Loud-Hailer has focused on providing connectivity solutions and alternative ways for people to communicate. The applications of its technology are vast: proximity advertising, offline payments, hyperlocal engagement and in real life analytics. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/providence-rhode-island-announced-as-first-city-in-united-states-to-become-connected-by-loud-hailer-300553850.html SOURCE Loud-Hailer, Inc.

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[November 10, 2017] Tacton Systems Announce Today that GRO Capital-led Consortium has Invested in Tacton to Further Accelerate Growth

STOCKHOLM, November 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tacton, a world leader in sales and product configuration for the manufacturing sector, today announced a transaction whereby an investor consortium consisting of the software focused private equity fund GRO Capital and the family owned investment company KIRK KAPITAL, takes majority control by acquisition of existing shares and injects up to USD 12 million to fund growth initiatives. The investment comes at a time of substantial growth for Tacton. 2017 is seeing continued strength with a significant number of new customers, and a very strong growth in annual recurring revenue. The past 12 months, Tacton has executed two strategic acquisitions and continued the expansion of its global footprint, opening offices in the US, Germany, and Poland. The funds raised will enable Tacton to further accelerate its global market expansion. Tacton will also leverage the investment to support the recruitment and on-boarding of new staff to boost the continued development of its ground-breaking CPQ (Configure Price Quote) solution including Design Automation and 3D visualization. "Tacton is a highly innovative company that is currently shaking up the whole CPQ market and indeed the entire digital transformation for manufacturing companies across the globe", says Lars Lunde, Partner at GRO Capital. He continues, "We are looking forward to working with Tacton managemen and seeing the company continue to leverage its cutting-edge technology and expand its offerings globally".



Frederic Laziou, CEO at Tacton says, "With manufacturers preparing for a much more customer-centric market, those who leverage the digitalization process and are able to embrace Artificial Intelligence will stand strong for the future. This is exactly what we offer our customers". He continues, "Our aggressive growth strategy is proceeding to plan, and this funding round is an important milestone on our journey. I am delighted that we can now extend our market reach and solution footprint - among others into the Salesforce ecosystem". About Tacton:

Tacton provides intelligent, customer based solutions, designed to bring together sales engineers and operations in manufacturing. We enable manufacturers to accurately address customers' needs while ensuring efficacy and profitability. Our intelligent sales and product configurator (CPQ) with built in design automation and 3D visualization seamlessly connects to CRM, ERP & PLM systems. Tacton is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with customers and resellers across the globe. More information about Tacton is available on http://www.tacton.com About GRO Capital: GRO Capital is a leading private equity fund with an exclusive focus on mature B2B software and tech enabled small and medium sized companies with strong growth prospects. GRO Capital serves as active owners and develop portfolio companies with a view to create long-term value. The partners behind GRO Capital have been investors in more than 20 technology and software related companies. In addition to Tacton Systems, GRO Fund I include investments in Trackunit, Targit, Auditdata, Boyum IT Solutions and Trifork, all successful software providers. More information about GRO Capital is available on http://www.grocapital.dk About KIRK KAPITAL: KIRK KAPITAL is a family investment office focusing on long-term value creation. KIRK KAPITAL business areas include strategic investments, financial investments and family office services. KIRK KAPITAL's activities within strategic investments are focused around acquiring minority positions in medium and larger sized companies, which have market leading positions in long-term growth industries. KIRK KAPITAL currently holds strategic investments in EasyPark, Kompan, Ferrosan Medical Devices and PNO among others. More information about KIRK KAPITAL is available on http://www.kirkkapital.dk SOURCE Tacton Systems AB

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[November 10, 2017] AACSB Joins CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion President's Circle

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AACSB InternationalThe Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the world's largest business education network, today joined a group of presidents from academic institutions and associations as a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion (CEO Action) President's Circle. The newly formed Circle will work to translate the pledge of CEO Action, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion within the workplace, into actions that can be taken to engage faculty, staff, and students to drive progress in diversity and inclusion. "To successfully develop the leaders of tomorrow, colleges and universities must continue to create impact through innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing, and an appreciation of diverse perspectives and elimination of unconscious biases are imperative to those goals. In our role as connector within the business education sphere, AACSB is proud to serve as an active champion of diversity and inclusion globally," said Thomas R. Robinson, president and chief executive officer of AACSB International. "Now, as part of the CEO Action's President's Circle, AACSB looks forward to partnerng with leading businesses and higher education institutions to outline ways that both industries can leverage diversity to cultivate a more just, inclusive, and global society."



In its role as "connector" within the business education community, AACSB is actively working to help its member schools distill value from the diversity that exists in the world and create new platforms where new perspectives can be shared, through actions including its first-ever Diversity and Inclusion Summit and the appointment of a chief diversity and inclusion advocate. Now, as a signatory of the CEO Action, the organization has the ability to accelerate the work it has begun while underscoring AACSB's belief that by sharing global, diverse perspectives, we are all stronger. Joining the CEO Action President's Circle also supports AACSB's goals in the area of diversity and inclusion to:

Drive advocacy and awareness of diversity and inclusion issues and effective practice including through ongoing development of the professional development portfolio.

Foster the development of a data- and research-driven approach to support advocacy of diversity and inclusion globally.

Explore and develop relationships and partnerships that enhance diversity and inclusion in the business education ecosystem. In its partnership with leading businesses and higher education institutions, AACSB will encourage, identify, and share ways that diversity and inclusion can be leveraged to cultivate a more just and inclusive global society. The President's Circle will continue developing its framework in the coming months in preparation for the first college commitments in early 2018. Higher education institutions that take the CEO Action pledge will raise awareness of their leadership in addressing diversity and inclusion on campus, will educate students and faculty on the importance of addressing the potential for unconscious bias, and will demonstrate the link and collaboration between the higher education and business communities on a critical issue. Additional signatories participating in the President's Circle include: the University of San Francisco (chair), Bentley University, Binghamton University, Lehigh University, Miami University of Ohio, National HBCU Deans Roundtable, Oregon State University, the University of Dayton, and Xavier University of Louisiana. For a more comprehensive understanding of AACSB's approach to diversity and inclusion, visit aacsb.edu/about/diversity. About AACSB International

As the world's largest business education alliance, AACSB InternationalThe Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) connects educators, students, and business to achieve a common goal: to create the next generation of great leaders. Synonymous with the highest standards of excellence since 1916, AACSB provides quality assurance, business education intelligence, and professional development services to nearly 1,600 member organizations and more than 790 accredited business schools worldwide. With its global headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA; Europe, Middle East, and Africa headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, AACSB's mission is to foster engagement, accelerate innovation, and amplify impact in business education. For more information, visit aacsb.edu. About CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion

CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion is the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion within the workplace. Bringing together more than 330 CEOs of America's leading organizations and universities, the commitment outlines actions that signatories pledge to take to cultivate a workplace and culture where diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed and respected, employees feel comfortable and encouraged to discuss diversity and inclusion, and where best knownand unsuccessfulactions can be shared across organizations. Learn more at CEOAction.com and connect with us on Facebook: CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion and Twitter: @CEOAction. The CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion is led by a steering committee of CEOs and leaders from Accenture, BCG, Deloitte US, The Executive Leadership Council, EY, General Atlantic, KPMG, New York Life, Procter & Gamble, and PwC. The coalition represents nearly 85 industries, all 50 U.S. States, and millions of employees globally. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aacsb-joins-ceo-action-for-diversity--inclusion-presidents-circle-300553956.html SOURCE AACSB International

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NHI to Attend REITWorld 2017 in Dallas, TX

National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE: NHI) announced that Eric Mendelsohn, President and CEO, along with other members of the senior management team, will be meeting with institutional investors at REITWorld 2017. The conference is to be held November 14 - 16, 2017, at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, TX.

About NHI

Incorporated in 1991, National Health Investors, Inc. (NYSE: NHI) is a real estate investment trust specializing in sale-leaseback, joint-venture, mortgage and mezanine financing of need-driven and discretionary senior housing and medical investments. NHI's portfolio consists of independent, assisted and memory care communities, entrance-fee retirement communities, skilled nursing facilities, medical office buildings and specialty hospitals. For more information, visit www.nhireit.com.







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[November 10, 2017] University of Maryland Dedicates A. James Clark Hall, Transforming Region's Biotech Corridor

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of Maryland dedicates the new A. James Clark Hall today, a 184,000-square-foot facility that will catalyze engineering innovation and bioengineering breakthroughs and serve as a hub for new partnerships and collaborations throughout the Baltimore-Washington region. A. James Clark Hall is the only space in the nation dedicated to bioengineering and the translation of health-related products that incorporates FDA-funded Centers of Excellence in both Regulatory Science and Pediatric Device Innovation. "Great ideas will turn into life-changing devices and biomedical treatments in this magnificent research building," said University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh. "Our students, faculty, researchers and partners will have what they need to produce bioengineering marvels, as well as advances in other fields." Made possible by the generosity and vision of the late A. James Clark, an alumnus and long-time supporter of the university; the State of Maryland; alumnus and biomedical pioneer Robert E. Fischell; and other donors, Clark Hall will help UMD attract the best and brightest students and faculty to make groundbreaking research possible. The building offers flexible classrooms, an innovation lab, capacity for collaborative student projects and nearly 40,000 square feet of state-of-the-art research laboratories. "My father felt the University's decision to name the School of Engineering after him was the most meaningful honor he would ever receive," said Courtney Clark Pastrick, board chair of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation. "I think he would be humbled to have this cornerstone of innovation named in his honor. Our family is proud of its potential to truly transform the future of education and health in our world." Clark Hall is designed to facilitate collaboration and advance cross-disciplinary work. At the heart of the building's first floor lies the Leidos Innovation Lab, supported by a donation from the Leidos Corporation. The lab provides 6,800 square feet of space for students to work together on cross-disciplinary research and designs, and features overhead utilities, digital displays and movable workbenches, creating an ideal environment for collaboration. Instructional laboratories and prep areas throughout the building will spur the organic flow of ideas, and a prototyping/fabrication lab will enable innovators to produce instant prototypes of their designs. Two flex classrooms will allow faculty to transform their space into lecture-style rows or small clusters of group tables. Student club rooms will give student startups, competition teams and other groups ample space to develop their ideas and innovations. "Clark Hall embodies the future of multidisciplinary engineering with human impact," said Darryll J. Pines, dean of the Clark School and Farvardin professor of engineering. "Our engineers have a long history of life-changing innovations, from the implantable insulin pump to 3-D printed vascular grafts. These state-of-the-art facilities will create the next generation of engineers who will advance human health worldwide, transforming millions of lives." Clark Hall will provide world-class research facilities to the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, dedicated to the research and development of new technologies to promote human health. Thanks to the vision and financial support from Fischell, bioengineering has become one of the universitys fastest-growing undergraduate degree programs.



"At the center of the region's biotech corridor, Clark Hall will offer new opportunities for engineers across all eight disciplines to connect with experts from the University of Maryland School of Medicine on innovations that will change the course of human health for decades to come," said Fischell Family Distinguished Professor and Bioengineering Department Chair John Fisher. "In this way, researchers from both the College Park and Baltimore campuses can utilize resources housed within Clark Hall to tackle challenges in areas ranging from cancer therapeutics and diagnostics to rehabilitation robotics and tissue engineering."

A dedicated instructional lab will house top-notch equipment for a broad range of applications, and an imaging suite with cutting-edge technologies that will allow close examination of the body and brain. A bioengineering computational lab will give UMD engineering students and researchers unprecedented modeling and computing power for critical tasks.

Clark Hall will also serve as a hub for new partnerships across the region, bringing students and faculty together with experts from venture firms, research labs, technology companies and federal agencies, to inspire new technologies and improve human health. A high-tech dynamic forum will be available to host national and international conferences, lectures and seminars, and educational programming aimed at convening the broader engineering community. Conference rooms on each floor and the commons and terrace space will provide additional areas for collaboration. The legacy of A. James Clark at the University of Maryland extends beyond Clark Hall. The late A. James Clark never forgot that his business successes began with an engineering scholarship at the University of Maryland. In October 2017, the university announced an unprecedented $219.5 million investment from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation. Building Together: An Investment for Maryland will increase college access and affordability, inspire the next generation of engineering leaders and spark innovation that tackle today's most daunting problems. Clark Hall is also made possible by the generosity of T.K. Patrick and Marguerite Sung, Lawrence C. and Melanie Franco Nussdorf, Ronald and Karen Lowman, Rajan and Sandhya Mittu, and Pepco Holdings, Inc. For more information about A. James Clark Hall, visit http://eng.umd.edu/james-clark-hall. For photos of A. James Clark Hall, visit https://go.umd.edu/clarkhallphotos. What People Are Saying About Clark Hall Robert E. Fischell: "I was pleased to be able to provide a substantial gift to the School of Engineering to start the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices to encourage future engineering students to create wonderful new medical devices for the benefit of all mankind." Roger Krone, Leidos Chairman and CEO: "The Leidos mission to make the world safer, healthier and more efficient requires an innovative workforce. Leidos proudly supports the University of Maryland's Fearless Ideas Campaign, further equipping the nation's future engineering labor pool by using our cutting-edge Leidos Innovation Lab on the first floor of the new A. James Clark Hall." T.K. Patrick and Marguerite Sung: "As strong proponents of innovation to enhance human health, we were excited to invest in A. James Clark Hall. We are thrilled to be part of this spectacular building project and look forward to hearing about the many ways Maryland engineers will help improve the human condition through bioengineering solutions." Lawrence Nussdorf: "Jim Clark was a builder. He leaves his mark on the building he built, the company that bears his name, the region he helped change, the personal values he passed down to those of us lucky enough to work for him and the good works and young students he endowed and mentored." Ron and Karen Lowman: "For an excellent program to continue to succeed, it needs to be continually enriched with the best students, a superior faculty, innovative ideas and improved facilities. We are proud to be a small part of moving the Clark School forward to future success." Rajan and Sandhya Mittu: "When we were at the Clark School in the 80's, there was nothing like Clark Hall. We feel very fortunate that we are able to fund an InTerp Suite, to help aspiring entrepreneurs build their companies." About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland, College Park is the state's flagship university and one of the nation's preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 38,000 students, 9,000 faculty and staff, and 250 academic programs. Its faculty includes two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, 60 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. The institution has a $1.9 billion operating budget and secures $560 million annually in external research funding. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit www.umd.edu. About the A. James Clark School of Engineering

The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland serves as the catalyst for high-quality research, innovation, and learning, delivering on a promise that all graduates will leave ready to impact the Grand Challenges (energy, environment, security, and human health) of the 21st century. The Clark School is dedicated to leading and transforming the engineering discipline and profession, to accelerating entrepreneurship, and to transforming research and learning activities into new innovations that benefit millions. Visit us online at www.eng.umd.edu and follow us on Twitter @ClarkSchool. About the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation

The A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation is the family foundation of the late A. James Clark, former head of Clark Construction Group, and his wife, Alice B. Clark. The Foundation invests in helping hard workers with a drive to achieve. Formerly the Clark Charitable Foundation, the Foundation has four priority areas: engineering education, D.C. education and community as well as veteran reintegration programs. Learn more at www.ClarkFoundationDC.org View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/university-of-maryland-dedicates-a-james-clark-hall-transforming-regions-biotech-corridor-300553947.html SOURCE University of Maryland

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Medicrea Files a Lawsuit against K2M Spine, Inc.

The Medicrea Group (Euronext Growth Paris: FR0004178572 - ALMED), pioneering the convergence of healthcare IT and next-generation, outcome-centered device design and manufacturing with UNiD Adaptive Spine Intelligence ("ASI") technology, announces that on Wednesday, November 8th, 2017, Medicrea USA, Inc., filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against K2M Spine, Inc. and several other defendants. The case has been assigned to the Honorable Analisa Torres, District Judge.

The lawsuit addresses the unlawful acts that K2M and the other defendants have taken over the course of the past year.

Medicrea has revolutionized spinal surgery through our innovative UNID technology, the first and only patient-specific spinal rod approved for use in the United States.

We will aggressively pursue all available legal rights to protect our market-leading business.

About Medicrea (www.Medicrea.com)

Through the lens of predictive medicine, Medicrea leads the design, integrated manufacture, and distribution of 30+ FDA approved spinal implant technologies that have been utilized in over 150,000 spinal surgeries to date. By lveraging its proprietary software analysis tools with big data and machine learning technologies and supported by an expansive collection of clinical and scientific data, Medicrea is well-placed to streamline the efficiency of spinal care, reduce procedural complications and limit time spent in the operating room.







Operating in a $10 billion marketplace, Medicrea is a Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) with 175 employees worldwide, which includes 50 who are based in the U.S. The Company has an ultra-modern manufacturing facility in Lyon, France housing the development and production of 3D-printed titanium patient-specific implants.

For further information, please visit: Medicrea.com.

Connect with Medicrea:

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE

Medicrea is listed on

EURONEXT Growth Paris

ISIN: FR 0004178572

Ticker: ALMED

LEI: 969500BR1CPTYMTJBA37

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005611/en/
[November 10, 2017] Readout - Federal, Provincial Ministers Discuss Ongoing Softwood Lumber Dispute With U.S. and Its Economic Effects

OTTAWA, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Jim Carr, and his provincial counterparts today discussed final determinations by the U.S. Department of Commerce in the countervailing and anti-dumping duty investigations into imports of certain softwood lumber products from Canada. Minister Carr and the other members of the FederalProvincial Task Force on Softwood Lumber denounced the unfair and punitive duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports that threaten the livelihoods of workers and communities that depend on the forest industry across our country. The ministers and the Task Force discussed the economic impacts of the dispute and the rollout of the Softwood Lumber Action Plan, which made available $867 million to diversify Canada's forest products and international markets and support affected workers and communities. The ministers and the Task Force reaffimed their commitment to forest workers and communities that rely on softwood lumber and reiterated the importance of coordinating and consulting with forest sector stakeholders and engaging with Indigenous communities and companies affected by the dispute. They also declared their continuing commitment to helping the industry transform and use wood in new ways, by selling to new international markets and continuing to lead as a major player in the low-carbon and bioeconomy. Market diversification for wood products will create Canadian jobs and benefit the communities that rely upon the forest industry.



The ministers and the Task Force will continue to consult closely on Canada's response to these duties. Canada will remain in close contact with the provinces, territories, Canadian industry and its workers on this issue.

The Government of Canada maintains the view that a negotiated agreement that brings stability to the softwood lumber industry is in the best interest of both countries. The Government will also continue to engage our American counterparts to encourage them to come to a durable, negotiated agreement on softwood lumber.

Follow us on Twitter: @NRCan (http://twitter.com/nrcan) NRCan's news releases and backgrounders are available at www.news.gc.ca. SOURCE Natural Resources Canada

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[November 10, 2017] CANARIE Summit to Focus on the Interdependence of Science, Commerce and Security

From pioneers of nanorobotic cancer therapies to experts in the science of cybersecurity, Summit welcomes innovators from academia, government and the private sector OTTAWA, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - CANARIE, a vital component of Canada's digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, today announced the final program for its National Summit, being held in Ottawa on November 14 and 15, 2017. The Summit will explore the technological impacts and economic opportunities driven by the interdependence of science, commerce and security. Building on national and global challenges and successes, speakers will provide insight on opportunities for Canada to accelerate research discoveries and create new economic growth. In order of appearance, Summit speakers include: Keynote - Super Cells: Our Partners in Design

Dr. Nina Tandon  CEO and Co-Founder, EpiBone; TED Senior Fellow

Taking Government Science to the Cloud

Dr. Jean Luc Berube  President, Communications Research Centre Canada

Communication and Security in the Quantum Era

Dr. Michele Mosca  Professor, Institute for Quantum Computing; Co-Founder, evolutionQ

5G and its Impact to Applications

Ray Sharma  Founder and CEO, Extreme Venture Partners

The Dynamic Environment for DigitalPrivacy in Canada





Dr. Michael Geist  Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, University of Ottawa

A Cyber Retrospective and Peek into the Future

Valarie Findlay  Research Fellow, Police Foundations

Digital Identity: The Needed Foundation for our Digital Economy

Joni Brennan  President, Digital ID and Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC)

Magnetic Fields & Bacteria: A Canadian Breakthrough in the War Against Cancer

Dr. Sylvain Martel  Director, NanoRobotics Laboratory, Polytechnique Montreal

Cybersecurity Sparking Research and Innovation

Roni Zehavi  CEO, CyberSpark ( Israel ) CANARIE is grateful for the support and collaboration of its sponsors. The Summit's Platinum Sponsor, Juniper Networks, has been a CANARIE technology partner for more than fifteen years. CANARIE and Juniper have worked together to ensure networking technologies continue to evolve to benefit Canada's research, education and innovation communities. "At Juniper Networks, we are leading innovation as the market transitions to secure, cloud-centric services, applications and network infrastructures allowing our customers and partners to capitalize on this new pace of innovation," said Doug Lindner, Director, Systems Engineering, Canada at Juniper Networks. "These advances lead to new models of business in enterprise, collaboration support for research, and policy influence in government - and it's this community that creates the spark that ignites these trends. Juniper Networks is pleased to once again sponsor the CANARIE National Summit 2017, collaborating to bring unique innovations, technology and leadership to Canadian leaders in research, private industry and government."In addition to the speakers listed above, CANARIE's executive team will host a Town Hall on the second day of the Summit. Attendees are encouraged to use this time to hear about the organization's current initiatives, ask questions, and provide feedback on the evolution of its programs.

The Summit has almost reached capacity, but limited seats are available. More information may be found at https://canariesummit.ca About CANARIE CANARIE strengthens Canadian leadership in science and technology by delivering digital infrastructure to support world-class research that directly benefits all Canadians. Thirteen provincial and territorial network partners, together with CANARIE, collectively form Canada's National Research and Education Network (NREN). Canadians at universities, colleges, research institutes, hospitals, and government laboratories rely on this ultra high-speed network to collaborate in data-intensive, cutting-edge research and innovation within Canada and with colleagues in over 100 countries. Beyond the network, CANARIE funds and promotes reusable research software tools to accelerate scientific discovery. CANARIE also supports Research Data Canada as it leads national research data management initiatives, and through the Canadian Access Federation, provides identity management services that enable secure, ubiquitous connectivity and content access to the academic community. To boost commercialization in Canada's technology sector, CANARIE offers cloud resources to startups through its DAIR service, and links a powerful community of public and private sector partners in the Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN). Established in 1993, CANARIE is a non-profit corporation, with the majority of its funding provided by the Government of Canada. SOURCE CANARIE Inc.

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Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C. Releases Statement on Behalf of Family of Veteran who Died at VA Hospital

The family of the 66-year-old veteran, who died last year after a nurse mistakenly led doctors and other personnel to believe that the patient had a do-not-resuscitate order, has released a statement through attorney Randall M. Blau, of Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C.

The family of the victim says they are thankful for the outpouring of support and would greatly appreciate privacy at this time.

The following is the full statement from the family through wrongful death attorney Randall M. Blau:

"On behalf of our family, we would just like to thank everyone for the thoughts and concern expressed over the loss of our loved one. We are hopeful the results of the recent report from the Inspector General's Office has brought to light the unacceptable and horrific care that our veterans are currently receiving in the veteran administration system.







"Although it is too late to save our family from this tragic loss, we can only hope that the investigation findings and pursuit of our claim will result in immediate changes to prevent any additional and unnecessary loss of life."

The family has asked all inquiries, and other communications, be directed to Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C., a Michigan-based personal injury and accident law firm.

About Buckfire Law Wrongful Death Attorney Randall M. Blau

Randall M. Blau earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Kalamazoo College in 1993 and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Detroit School of Law in 1996.

He is admitted to practice law in state and federal courts throughout Michigan and has handled cases in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota and Florida.

Blau specializes in medical malpractice, birth injuries, nursing home negligence, wrongful death, and automobile negligence cases. He is a member of the Michigan Association for Justice, the Oakland County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan.

Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C.: Michigan Personal Injury & Accident Law Firm

Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C. is a top-rated Michigan personal injury and accident law firm. Founded in 1969, Buckfire Law has earned the highest possible ratings in the legal profession for skill and integrity.

The Southfield, Michigan-based law firm takes great pride in providing the best possible legal representation to the people who need them the most.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005705/en/
By Trend





Azerbaijani state oil company SOCARs North American trading division will close its Calgary office in Canada and move all commercial and support functions to Houston in the next three to four months, Reuters reported citing a letter from the company.

SOCAR Trading, which entered the Canadian market in 2015 and opened a Houston office in late 2016, said Houston had continued to grow and had increasingly become a hub for its activities in North America, according to the letter.

It was not clear if any staff would relocate to Houston, says the report.

SOCAR Trading also said in the letter that while the plans do not affect any current business, it would likely reduce the scope of some of its activities over the coming months. It added that it would continue to operate business as usual to meet any physical and financial commitments.

Geneva-based SOCAR Trading was set up in 2007 as the marketing arm of Azerbaijans national oil company.
By Trend





Considering the results of the Geneva summit on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs plan to organize a meeting of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandyan by the end of the year, Spokeswoman of Russias Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on November 9.

As for contacts in different formats, they are not excluded, either, and are under consideration, she added.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Azerbaijans National Flag Day has been celebrated with a ceremony in the City of Monterey of the U.S. State of California. Hosted by the Monterey City Council in the City Hall, the event was attended by the City leadership, businesspersons, representatives of mass media, arts and culture as well as professors and students of the renowned Monterey-based graduate schools of the U.S. Department of Defense, Azertac reported.

Monterey and the City of Lankaran in Azerbaijan have enjoyed a sister-city relationship since 2011.

Opening the event, Monterey Mayor Clyde Roberson expressed the citys satisfaction to host such celebration. Speaking of the importance of sister-city relationships in building bridges between people, the mayor highlighted the partnership with Lankaran in Azerbaijan. Touching on the diversity of Monterey, Roberson stressed the significance of further developing mutually beneficial relationships with sister cities and expanding the outreach to their communities.

Speaking of Azerbaijans tumultous path to freedom and independence, Consul General in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev informed the event attendees about Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-20)  the first ever majority-Muslim secular democracy in the world  which adopted the current tricolor flag as the national flag of Azerbaijan on November 9, 1918. Aghayev mentioned that after 71 years as part of the Soviet Union, this flag became the national flag of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991. He stressed that when Azerbaijans National Leader Heydar Aliyev was the chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Azerbaijans Nakhchivan region, this tricolor flag was raised in November 1990  a year before the collapse of the USSR  as the flag of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The Consul General thanked the City of Monterey for hosting this momentous celebration and for their unwaivering friendship.

Speaking afterwards, the former City Councilwoman Nancy Selfridge, who played an instrumental role in establishing the Monterey-Lankaran sister-city relationship talked about the history of this partnership and expressed her hope that this relationship will become even stronger over the years to come.

Then a proclamation signed by Monterey Mayor Clyde Roberson regarding the Monterey-Lankaran partnership and Azerbaijans National Flag Day was presented to Consul General Nasimi Aghayev. The event also featured a phenomenal performance of Azerbaijani songs by local Azerbaijani community member Eldar Khudiyev.

In honor of Azerbaijans National Flag Day and the celebration, a central street (Alvarado Str.) of Monterey was decorated with many Azerbaijan flags, a short video of which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/Vnf_FztVXyM .




















Raytown man charged in deadly Blue Springs restaurant shooting BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. - A Raytown man is charged with several crimes after a shooting outside Bethlehem Cafe in Blue Springs left one man dead Thursday morning. John Jeffries, 24, is accused of second-degree murder, first-degree robbery, and two counts of armed criminal action. Around 11:15 a.m.

Here's a glimpse of an inner-suburban tragedy and the FIRST homicide in this neighboring city. Take a look:
When these horrific mass shootings take place over and over again, it leaves me empty and numb, but it also motivates me more than ever to demand change. The repetitive outcomes of innocent lives taken without reason, in cities and towns just like yours and mine, move me to fight for something different.





I know this town, Sutherland Springs, Texas. It is not too far from where I grew up in Waxahachie. I remember going to my Sunday service, feeling safe, feeling happy. No one should feel anything less in a place of worship.





Now is not the time to remain silent. Each time we put off the discussion, or wait for another time to talk about solutions, another senseless attack occurs. According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been 307 mass shootings across the United States just this year. Unless we do something different, unless we open the door to begin to talk about what can be done, these mass shootings will unfortunately become the norm of society.

released a statement following the tragic mass shooting Sunday at The First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II (MO-05)########You decide . . .








City Hall was "soaring" earlier this week following election victory and now this town has crashed back down to earth in the midst of horrific progress toward a record-breaking murder rate.While our blog community is more concerned about the ongoing war on local streets related to. . . Some of the best TKC TIPSTERS notice that the discussion of root causes is mostly focused on "social justice" and/or poverty.Check the links and you decide . . .Developing . . .
KCPD Media Guide

KCPD: Man who owns van seen speeding away from home where Brookside attorney was murdered is not a suspect KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City police confirmed to Fox 4 Thursday that David Jungerman is not a suspect in the murder of Tom Pickert. Jungerman is the man who owns the van seen speeding away from the home where attorney Tom Pickert was killed two weeks ago.

Cringe Worthy But Credible Alibi

David Jungerman talks about location of his van on day of Brookside fatal shooting Police said Thursday that Jungerman was not a suspect in the fatal shooting of Tom Pickert.

As a Kansas City homicide case becomes increasingly politicized and ultimately turns cold like nearly half of all local murders . . . Here's a bit of local reassurance of lack thereof . . .Developing . . .
Kansas City Stays Calm After Deadly Pimp Cane Stabbing

Violence doesn't deter West Bottoms improvements KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- On Wednesday, night there was a double stabbing in the West Bottoms. People we spoke with are proud of the developments in the area, and they believe the crime was an isolated incident. Sean Hogan is the president of the Historic West Bottoms Business Association; his business is located in the area.

Kansas City Eco-Devo Redux

KCATA hoping to develop property between the jazz district and the crossroads The job now is to find developers.

Data-Driven Crime Fighting

New crime coordinator for KCPD hopes to slow crime across metro by using statistics more effectively KANAS CITY, Mo. - Getting in front of a problem before it gets worse. That's a known goal for many police departments but something the Kansas City Police Department hopes hard data will help them do much faster.

Local Gunfire Testimony

Waitress recounts scary moment when man is killed at Blue Springs restaurant BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. -- Gunfire in a restaurant parking lot in Blue Springs killed one man Thursday. It happened near Interstate 70 and NW Woods Chapel Road. "I was inside, and we had a ladies luncheon coming in," said Michelle Lyons, a waitress at Bethlehem Cafe.

KC Tech Renaissance Redux???

How Google Fiber Changed Kansas City The hope was that the internet and TV service could attract new businesses and create a future-focused city. But seven years later, how much of that dream came true?

Here's a quick peek at a few items we've already links but might deserve a second look for readers this morning . . .Developing . . .
Citizens For Responsible Government - Kansas City: Wrap-up

A great big thanks to each of you who helped with our VOTE NO Campaign. We were not successful getting a restart on the airport project so it could be done correctly. CFRG was able to accomplish our main objective and that was to get the ordinance passed which gave the taxpayers the right to vote on the issue. Mission Accomplished!This airport thing is not over. There are myriads of FAA regulations to meet and certain design flaws in the proposed structure which will have to be overcome. Our architects and engineers dont think they can build what they have proposed for the price they are quoting. It is only a matter of time before they are asking the FAA for AIP funds which are YOUR TAX DOLLARS!I was disappointed to hear the mayor say this morning when asked for some specifics on contracts, etc. YOU DONT WANT YOUR BUSINESS ON THE STREET. In other words shut up; I got your permission to destroy your existing terminals and now I will go back behind closed doors to see what I can get in terms of a plan, MOU, contracts, costs, and you know what else.Please visit our website cfrgkc.com for updated details. We also need your help with donations. For CFRG to continue community activities and keep the website up to date will require additional funds. How much money we are able to raise will determine the level of future activities. This campaign cost CFRG about $14,000. Our competition spent $1,700,000 so you can see it is and always will be an uphill battle.For those of you who sent letters to the editor, (we had one Patriot Partner who sent eight letters to the Star only to see none published) thank you. Those who emailed and handed out flyers, attended meetings and helped with donations, we thank you! Also thanks to the two MSM radio stations, the local blogs and online newspaper who supported our effort and did give us some air time and print exposure.Again, we thank you all for your support!#############You decide . . .
KCI success inspires streetcar to investigate funding alternatives - Kansas City Business Journal The Kansas City Streetcar Authority will investigate alternatives to public funding for its proposed southern extension, the board motioned on Thursday. The authority will put out a request for information (RFI) to evaluate the possibility of working with a private partner.

A vote to require citywide approval before the next phase of construction along with Prez Trump pulling funding from transit programs championed by the Obama Administration puts the toy train in a bind. Here's their latest move:
A police interrogation of a Kansas City man charged with drug and gun offenses ended prematurely when an investigator was driven from the room by the suspect's excessive flatulence. A detective reported that when asked for his address, Sean Sykes Jr., 24, "leaned to one side of his chair and released a loud fart before answering."
KCPD: Man who owns van seen speeding away from home where Brookside attorney was murdered is not a suspect









Read and listen closely to the latest memorial talk on the topic of a Brookside lawyer gunned down after walking his children to school. A narrative is starting to emerge . . . One of heroism, good vs. evil and other 2018 campaign season talking points.Meanwhile . . .Mr. Jungerman's meandering, non-specific and evasive answers to questions about his van near the scene of the homicide and witness descriptions are unsatisfactory to most local media watchers as the investigation continues . . .Here's a recent headline that hopes Kansas City will suspend disbelief:Moreover, KCPD communication with Brookside on this topic has been criticized. They have advised thatbut have been otherwise exceptionally guarded on the deets of the case. And now an upper-middle-class Kansas City enclave has earned a glimpse of the gut-wrenching and slow pace of progress in the aftermath of a horrific slaughter like so many other urban core neighborhoods also enduring murder cases growing cold.Check the link round-up . . .Developing . . .
BEHIND THE SCENES . . . CRITICISM OF A RECENT STEVE KRASKE COLUMN ONCE AGAIN TOUTING MAYOR SLY AS "KING OF KANSAS CITY" EARNS LOCAL REBUKE!!!

Reader "Back To Basics" Demand - "How about an functional infrastructure? How about a reduction in crime? How about an educated workforce? NOPE, can't put your name on any of that."





Wisdom From The TKC Comments - So we've proven that in KC it's possible to fool some of the people all of the time. It's just too bad that the fooled consist of what is supposed to pass for local "journalists" and "reporters".





Following The Money: "Kraske on krack? The Star just paying it tribute for past tax breaks."





Super Dave Questions KCMO Progress: "Yup KC is on a roll, it's rolling right along gaining speed heading to the poor house."





Talking Airport Mechanics: "Now it appears Terminal A, which was to be demolished first, is the primary source of electrical and water lines for all three terminals.. let's hear you on that, Kraske. With the general slime factor of the whole deal, your praises ring hollow."

Kansas City voters want a new airport butlikes a kiss-up.And this morning, here's just a bit of insight into the sausage-making (nullus) of local journalism . . .Accordingly, here are some ofthat rebuke mainstream accolades of the local status quo . . .You decide . . .
AWESOME TOP ECHELON INSIDERS WARN OF CHEAP "PLASTIC AND GLASS" AIRPORT CONSTRUCTION TRENDS NOW THREATENING KANSAS CITY!!!

"Everybody loves new drawings but, the fact is that, we're going to be replacing some very solid concrete structures with nothing more than plastic and glass boxes glued together and framed by Chinese steel. That's how airports are built today. That's how construction companies make their margins."

"Terminal A, which was to be demolished first, is the primary source of electrical and water lines for all three terminals."

ARE KANSAS CITY POLITICOS AND UNION HONCHOS WILLING TO PROMISE VOTERS THAT SKETCHY CHINESE STEEL WON'T BE USED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW AIRPORT???

Kansas City voters desperately wanting a new airport might be disappointed with the quality of their billion dollar surprise.Accordingly . . .Here's the word . . .This concern comes as skeptics of the plan warn about Terminal A infrastructure problems soon to confront Kansas City . . .And despite campaign promises or union assurances . . . Chinese steel is used to build most new structures in the USA.despite the fact that their $4-BILLION renovationProbably not, or at least not in writing.And so, in Kansas City a solid concrete structure that stood the test of time for generations will now be replaced by a disposable plastic, glass and foreign steel building that cost more than abut is ultimately cheap.Developing . . .
Lampsa Hellenic Hotels S.A is expected to exercise its right to have a final say on the future of the King George Hotel at Syntagma Square, as the board of directors of Eurobank, which is the owner of the iconic hotel, will reach its conclusive decision on the matter next week. The bank had a contractual obligation, based on the lease agreement signed with Lampsa Group, who also own the adjacent Grande Bretagne Hotel, to inform Lampsa of the highest bid in the tender that started running last September for the hotel. According to sources, the only contender remaining in the running is US company Hines who made an offer close to 43 million dollars, which will reportedly be accepted by Lampsa.

The next step is for the board of directors of the owner company to give the green light for the final deal to close. It should be stressed that for the sale of the hotel, besides the American company who have already acquired the former Athens Ledra on Syngrou Avenue, Hines is interested in other investments in the Greek hotel market.

Lampsa has successfully and efficiently managed to operate King George Hotel, due partly to its synergy with Grande Bretagne Hotel, as Eurobank receives approximately 1.4 million euros a year. The group is becoming the dominant force in downtown Athens and is expected to consolidate its position after the latest developments as it will soon incorporate its portfolio the former Estate of the Agricultural Bank in the corner of Kriezotou and Panepistimiou streets, which will be transformed into a 5-star unit.

According to Lampsas official data, for the first half of 2017, the performance of the two hotels (Grande Bretagne and King George) has outperformed the rest of the Athens luxury hotels.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: A.Savin License: CC-BY-SA
Johnny Depp, who was the headline-maker of 2022 due to his infamous defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, is probably returning as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates Of The Caribbean. Neither the Hollywood star nor the makers have posted an official announcement yet, but rumours have been doing the rounds after Disney shelved Margot Robbie's spin-off. Other than this, Grammy 2023 nominations are out with Beyonce and Jay Z receiving the maximum nods. Here are other entertainment news of the day that you must know about.
Industry Preps for Derivatives Transaction Tax

Derivative operations teams have received a one-year breather from implementing much of the Internal Revenue Code's section 871(m), which aims to collect withholding tax from non-US persons who hold US equity-based derivatives.

Non-US persons will wind up paying a 15% or 30% withholding tax on equity-linked certificates, convertible bonds, indices, repos, securities lending, structured notes, swaps, and warrants depending in which foreign jurisdiction they are located.

The withholding tax applies to any equity-linked derivatives that pay dividends during their lifecycles and have delta valuations more than 0.8 or meet the substantial equivalency test. Aggregated transactions also fall under the regulation's purview even if the derivatives have a delta valuation less than 0.8.

Everyone is going to feel the pain of this sell-side tax, except for the instances when the transactions are between buy-side firms, Kerril Burke, CEO of Meritsoft told Markets Media.

Affected firms initially had until January 3, 2018, to implement a process to monitor the products that may be subject to the new regulation, implement withholding, and file the necessary reports, before the Internal Revenue Service granted a 12-month delay in August.

There is going to be a lot of heavy lifting for derivatives operations people as they have to do things that they had not had to do before, noted Burke.

He doubts that firms will be able to meet their obligations without some level of automation since they may have to track dividend payment through the lifesome instruments, which may have lifespans of 30 years or more.

"When you are called before the IRS in 10 years from now, you probably have already lost the spreadsheet by then," he said.

Although many firms may not see it as a silver lining, meeting 871(m)'s requirement will put firms in a good place for when other jurisdictions decide to put a similar transaction tax in place.

France already implemented a financial transaction tax on securities in 2012 and Italy enacted a similar tax on securities and derivatives a year later.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
Contact: Greta Andzenge, Marketplace Excellence +1 201 861-2056

BRITISH AIRWAYS SUPPORTS CARIBBEAN TOURISM RECOVERY FUND

LONDON, United Kingdom (November 10, 2017) - A generous contribution by British Airways to the Caribbean Tourism Recovery Fund of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) was gratefully received by its president, Karolin Troubetzkoy this week.

Speaking at World Travel Market in London, where the check was presented on behalf of British Airways and British Airways Holidays, Troubetzkoy warmly thanked the airline's representatives: "This is not just a handshake, this is a 25,000 handshake! On behalf of our Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, we are extremely grateful!"

In addition to the contribution to the Caribbean Tourism Recovery Fund of CHTA, which represents private sector tourism companies, Troubetzkoy noted the British airline also presented an additional 25,000 to the intergovernmental Caribbean Tourism Organization for its fund.

The Caribbean Tourism Recovery Fund unites the Caribbean hotel and tourism industry with the noted Tourism Cares organization, which has helped to lead private sector relief efforts globally following crises. The fund invites tourism industry stakeholders and global allies to pool their resources in support of vulnerable areas of the Caribbean.

It focuses on islands directly affected by the hurricanes, complementing relief efforts and empowering the tourism sector to combine and leverage resources to help the region bounce back better than before.

For travel updates, visit www.caribbeantravelupdate.com
Vietnam and Cambodia tour is good choice for all tourists from couple to family and group, from budget to luxury. Vietnam and Cambodia are the best countries in Indochina to discover unique culture and precious history that you cannot find in other parts of the world. Even your duration is short or long, your tours to Vietnam Cambodia with different but interesting tourist sites.



(TRAVPR.COM) VIETNAM - November 10th, 2017 - Vietnam and Cambodia tour is good choice for all tourists from couple to family and group, from budget to luxury. Vietnam and Cambodia are the best countries in Indochina to discover unique culture and precious history that you cannot find in other parts of the world. Even your duration is short or long, your tours to Vietnam Cambodia with different but interesting tourist sites.

The best time to travel in Vietnam Cambodia

From October to April are the best months to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia which are dry season with lowest rainfall and cool weather.

International flight

It is very easy to book suitable international flights for your Vietnam and Cambodia holiday as there are many international airports in both Vietnam and Cambodia such as: Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh, Danang International Airport, Siem Reap International Airport & Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia. If it is easier and cheaper for you to book international flights to and from Vietnam, you can start the tour in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh and take flight to Siem Reap from Danang, then take flight back from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi.

Duration

Shortest durantion for your Vietnam Cambodia trip should not be less than 10 days. You will have enough time to discover each destination. The trip should be started at Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh or Siem Reap in order that it will be easier for you to book internal and international flights and covering the best destinations as well.

Best place to see in Vietnam and Cambodia

For tours to Vietnam Cambodia, you shouldnt miss to visit Hanoi- the 1000 years- old capital of Vietnam, Halong Bay- the worlds heritage of Vietnam, Hue, Hoi An and Danang  the soul of Central Vietnam with crystal long beaches, ancient town with unique culture and delicious foods and imperial capital where you can understand more about Vietnam history with imperial city and tombs of Kings. Ho Chi Minh and Mekong delta in the south of Vietnam are a must- visit place in your Vietnam Cambodia itinerary. Then heading to Siem Reap to visit historical site, Angkor Wat. For adventure tours, you can add some trekking tour in Sapa mountainous area or Nha Trang Beach and Phu Quoc beach.

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Day 1: A Coruna

Day 2: Santiago de Compostela

Day 3: western coast

Day 4: Rias Baixas

Day 5: Ourense

Day 6: Lugo

Day 7: northern coast

There is SO. MUCH. to see in Spain that you could live there for decades and still not manage to see the entire country. From beaches to mountains, big cities to villages, and national parks and monuments, Spain is home to a rich and diverse heritage of culture, history, food, and languages.This can sometimes be overwhelming for folks who want to travel to Spain but who only have a limited amount of time. Cities like Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, and Granada all beckon, yet so do cozy corners of the country like Asturias and Aragon not to mention the 3,000 miles of coastline and myriad of islands.My recommendation for this quintessential #FirstWorldProblem is toRather than a whirlwind tour where you spend 1-2 days in the biggest metropolitan areas that are scattered at huge distances across the country, traveling like this slows you down and saves you the stress of forever catching that next train or flight; plus, it also lets you savor a regions unique character.Having lived for two years in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, Ive put together a suggested itinerary for folks interested inThis circuit starts in A Coruna, where you could fly in via Iberia or Vueling, but you could just as easily start this trip in Ourense or Lugo as a road trip from Madrid.Arrive in A Coruna in the early morning and introduce yourself to Galicia at a local cafe-bar. A small plate of sugar-drizzled churros will get you started for breakfast. Spend your first day in Galicia by exploring Corunas old town, by checking out museums and military forts, and by strolling along the oceanfront promenade, where you can appreciate the beauty of the citysor glassed-in balconies that stretch from one house to the next. An essential part of any visit to the Glass City is the Tower of Hercules, a monumental lighthouse that has been in continuous use since Roman times. What to eat here? A, or seafood platter, that you can order at any of the restaurants behind the Praza de Maria Pita square.(Read my post on how to spend 24 hours in Santiago Take the high-speed train from Coruna south and arrive in Santiago de Compostela, the Galician capital, half an hour later. Convalesce over a cup of coffee at Cafe Venecia before ascending to the rooftop of the cathedral for a guided tour of this interesting religious complex. Wander through the granite-paved streets of the old town, making your way to the local market , where you can gawk at freshly-caught seafood and marvel at local delicacies like Padron peppers. If its sunny, pick up ingredients for a picnic in Belvis Park ; otherwise, have a menu del dia (fixed-price lunch) at a restaurant on Rua de San Pedro.After an afternoon pick-me-up at Cafe Tertulia, go for a hike along the Sarela River or summit Mount Pedroso for panoramic views. In the evening, attend a pilgrim mass to watch the, a human-sized thurible, be swung across the transept. Finish your first day in Santiago by going on a pub crawl at tapas joints and historic cocktail bars in the old town.You probably had a late night in Santiago, so take this opportunity to sleep in. Once youve woken up, head out west to Fisterra , Galicias Lands End. Santiago may be the official ending point of the medieval pilgrimage route called the Camino de Santiago , but Fisterra, perched on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, is its true terminus If you drive to Fisterra, there are several highlights you can check out between Santiago and Fisterra. The fishing villages of Noia and Muros are replete with Gothic churches, fish markets, and cozy restaurants to grab a bite to eat in. Further west, Carnota Beach stretches nearly 3 miles long, and not too far away trickles the Ezaro Waterfall , the only point in continental Europe where a river empties into the sea via a waterfall.In summer months (i.e., Holy Week, May weekends, and June through November), take a daytrip to the Cies Islands , a three-island archipelago protected under national park status. Ride the high-speed train down to Vigo , hop on a 45-minute ferry, and enjoy sunbathing on pristine white-sands beaches or hiking up wooded hillsides. Be sure to pack a picnic lunch so you dont get gouged by the lone restaurant on the islands; I recommend, a thin Galician meat pie.The rest of the year, you can still enjoy the Rias Baixas or lower estuaries by exploring the villages and vineyards of the wine-producing region of the same name. Start in Pontevedra , a mid-sized city known for its charming plazas; check out Combarro , frequently included on lists of most beautiful villages in Spain; and wind down in Cambados, capital of the Rias Baixas wine region where Albarino grapes are grown.Its time to head to inland Galicia. Pack your bags and travel to Ourense , the regions largest metro area not along the Atlantic coast. In the morning, stroll across the mighty Mino River via any of Ourenses fabulous bridges, check out the cathedral and its well-preserved medieval sculpture, and take a dip in the riverside hot springs. Have Galician-style octopus in, contrary to what youd expect, the best part of the region to enjoy it inthe interior.After lunch, trace the Mino River up to one of its tributaries, the Sil River , which has carved a grand canyon out of the sheer granite bedrock. Take in the sweeping views but make sure to leave time to check out a couple of the numerous beautiful monasteries that were founded in this isolated region in the early Middle Ages. Pair your dinner at a local restaurant with a glass of local Ribeira Sacra wine.Take your time in Ourense in the morning, maybe going for one last dip in the hot springs before moving north to Lugo . Like its neighbor to the south, Lugos also a great place to have(octopus), so grab a wooden platter of the stuff for lunch right after arriving.Lugos claim to fame is being the only city in the world still encircled by its original Roman walls, so spend the afternoon making your circuit around the old town at ground leveland on top of the walls, where theres a nice footpath spanning the 2.1km-long walls. Explore the old town, step into the cathedral, peek into the odd museum or two. At night go out for (free) tapas, as in Lugo its customary to get not one but two free tapasone hot and one coldwith whatever you get to drink. Before you go to bed, look up the schedule for the tides on the north Atlantic coast, cause youll need it for tomorrow.Make a beeline for the Atlantic, crossing your fingers that your visit to, the Cathedrals Beach, coincides with low tide. Grab some fresh seafood in nearby Ribadeo. Continue on to your final destination: Betanzos . Wander around the old town, where you have your choice of several fine Gothic churches, and enjoy a slice of extra-runny Spanish potato omelet, a Betanzos specialty. Complete this seven-day circuit around Galicia by returning to A Coruna for the night.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Three ministers today made a presentation on ease of living before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his council of ministers, explaining how the quality of life of the people in the country has improved in the last few years.

The presentation was made by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Anant Hegde and Hardeep Puri, the ministers of state for Agriculture, Skill Development and Urban Development, respectively, sources privy to the proceedings said.

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Prime Minister Modi had recently said that ease of doing business also leads to ease of life.

"Is ranking ko bhale ease of doing business kehte hain lekin main maanta hun ki yeh ease of doing business ke saath hi ease of living life ki bhi ranking hai. (This ranking may be called ease of doing business, but I believe that along with ease of doing business, this is also ranking for ease of living life)," Modi had said after Indias ranking in ease of doing business improved recently.

The three ministers were inducted in the September 3 rejig of the Union council of ministers, which met for the first time since the reshuffle. A meeting of the Cabinet preceded that of the council of ministers, where the presentation was made.

Besides this, a presentation was also made by a PMO official on using social media to reach out to the people and spread information about various public welfare initiatives of the government. PTI JTR NAB TIR SK TIR

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By PTI: Ahmedabad, Nov 10 (PTI) The Border Security Force (BSF) has apprehended three Pakistani fishermen and seized five boats from the Harami Nala creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Gujarats Kutch district.

A patrol party of the BSFs 79th battalion, deployed to guard the Indo-Pak border, apprehended the three fishermen yesterday from the "vertical area of the Harami Nala creek", a senior official said.

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The men have been be handed over to the local police, the official said.

The incident comes at a time when a high-level delegation of Pakistani Rangers is in India for the bi-annual talks with the BSF.

Several fishing boats and Pakistani fishermen have been caught in the past while fishing in the Indian side of the creek area.

Given the sensitive nature of the area, even Indian fishermen are barred from fishing in the creek.

However, Pakistani fishermen often venture into Indian waters for a catch. PTI NES AKV DV

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Chandigarh, November 10

A local court today acquitted the driver of a man who was arrested for impersonating a CBI officer in 2011. The court acquitted Jaswinder Singh. Accused Aman Kumar and Mukesh Puri were declared proclaimed offenders on May 9, 2014, and July 6, 2013, respectively, while the trial against Singh went on separately.

Singh was booked under Sections 419, 420, 171 and 34 of the IPC.

On December 18, 2011, the police registered a case against Aman Kumar, who was faking his identity as the ACP of the CBI, his gunman Mukesh Puri and his driver Jaswinder Singh. While Kumar was arrested from a hotel in Chandigarh, his two accomplices were arrested near Attawa Chowk. However, he was acquitted on Friday after the owner of the firm that Singh worked for recorded his statement in the court claiming that Singh was his personal driver.  TNS
Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, November 10

A day after the death of a 19-year-old SD College student, the Panchkula police have identified his Mohali-based male friend who was with Tanishq before his death. The police have issued a notice to his family to send him to join the investigation at 10 am tomorrow. The victims friend is at large and his mobile phone is also switched off.

The body of Sector 4 resident Tanishq Bhasin was found in his car with a bullet injury on his forehead on the Panchkula-Morni road yesterday morning.

A senior Panchkula police official said before going to Morni, Tanishqs mobile tower location was in Mohali and at the same time his friends tower location was also the same. Tanishq had also called up the same friend on the evening of November 8 before going to Mohali. The mobile phones of both Tanishq and his friend were switched off at the same time and at the same tower location around Panchkula on November 8 night, the official said.

The police official said the father of the victims friend was a senior functionary of Verka in Mohali. The family had also not been able to contact him as his phone is switched off. In the evening, the police issued a notice to the family members asking them to send him to join the investigation, the official said.

Panchkula Police Commissioner AS Chawla said they were probing all possible angles and had sent his mobile phone and the laptop to a cyber lab in Gurugram for examination.

I cannot divulge any more details as the investigation is in progress, Chawla said.

Let my vest dry here, says note found in bag

A two-page note written in his notebook, which was found from Tanishqs bag in the car, reads, Let my vest dry here. Please do not remove it from there until I wake up. Also do not keep anything. The second page reads, Wake me up at 7.15 am...7.15 AM sharp...College. A police official said they were also investigating the Blue Whale challenge angle in the case.

WhatsApp was functional on laptop, not mobile

The police have sent his mobile phone and laptop for further examination to the Gurugram-based cyber lab of the Haryana Police. There was no WhatsApp on Tanishqs mobile, but he was using it on his laptop.

Postmortem rules out external injury

The postmortem, which was conducted at the General Hospital, Sector 6, Panchkula, has ruled out any external injury on the body. The bullet was also recovered from the head. The viscera and bullet were sent for further examination.

Family wants pistol owner traced

Tanishqs family lodged a police complaint on Friday evening to trace the actual owner of the German-made pistol used in the crime. The police have found that the pistol was not registered in Panchkula.

Cigarette butts recovered from car

The police recovered cigarette buts, a pack of cigarettes and a matchbox from the car. Tanishqs friends and family members told the police that he was not a smoker.

Told friends he would get weapon from UP

The police also questioned Tanishqs friends, who said around three months ago, he had told them about how weapons were easily available in Uttar Pradesh. Tanishq had even told his friends that one day he would get a sophisticated weapon from there, the police said.
By PTI: Nagpur, Nov 10 (PTI)AVice President Venkaiah Naidu today said agriculture and farmers deserve special focus from the government and issues related to cultivators should be widely discussed in legislative bodies and the media.

The focus should be more on villages and agriculture, he said and suggested removal of restrictions over movement of farm produce in the country.

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Naidu was speaking after the inauguration of Agrovision, a summit on the farm sector and its allied segments, at the Reshimbagh Ground here.

"I am a farmer myself and I am proud of it as farmers are providers of food to the country (andaata). The basic culture of India is agriculture and it is the responsibility of the government to look after the concerns of farmers," he said.

Issues related to the key sector should be discussed at various forums, the vice president said.

"The concerns of farmers, who was not organised, should be the main topic of discussion in Parliament, state legislatures, panchayats, research institutes and the media," he said.

Naidu emphasised on time-bound programmes for providing agriculture solutions in the form of cold storage, refrigerator van system, timely crop loans, godowns in rural areas, crop insurance and advice on farming techniques.

"These initiatives are very necessary so that the farmers do not move away from farming," the vice president said.

The government, the science and technology department, the NABARD and banks should come to the aid of farmers, who should be the top priority for the country, Naidu said.

Because farmers are not organised, there is a feeling in the rural areas that they are a neglected lot, he said.

"There is a need for increase inAbudget for agriculture and irrigation to ensure development of farmers," Naidu said.

The vice president highlighted the need for regular electricity and better roads in rural areas.

He praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the pro- farmer initiatives taken by his government. PTI CLS RSY KJ

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 10

The Partition Museum under the aegis of the Arts and Literature Festival of Amritsar (ALFA) hosted a book launch of The Quest Continues  Lost Heritage: The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan by the Member of Parliament, Gurjit Singh Aujla.

The book, written by Amardeep Singh, and titled The Quest Continues  Lost Heritage: The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan meticulously documents the tangible and intangible footprints of the Sikh legacy left behind during the partition. Through evocative photographs and writings that bear mute witness to these forgotten aspects of a proud and long Sikh legacy, the book invites readers to remember their heritage.

This book is a sequel to his first book Lost Heritage- the Sikh Legacy in Pakistan, which came out in 2016 to much appreciation, and was based on travels to 36 towns and villages. The author then travelled to further 90 cities and villages for this sequel. He documents religious places, arts, architecture, forts, and living cultural aspects across all the provinces of Pakistan. The book also brings in the forts constructed by Hari Singh Nalwa, a sikh warrior.

This was the fifth event organised under ALFA, which plans to continue hosting regular events related to the partition as well as the history and culture of Punjab.

Through the Arts and Literature Festival of Amritsar, we hope to continue to have regular discussions about the rich cultural heritage of Punjab. said Museum CEO, Mallika Ahluwalia.
S Nihal Singh

S Nihal Singh

CONTRADICTIONS between Mr Narendra Modi the Prime Minister and Mr Modi the street fighter are becoming more glaring by the day. After winning the 2014 general election, he discarded the convention set by his Congress predecessors that senior Central leaders, in particular the Prime Minister, did not campaign in Assembly elections.

Mr Modi has lustily intruded into Assembly elections for two reasons. He believes he is the best campaigner for his party, which is true. More importantly, he is keen to capture a majority in the two Houses of Parliament sooner rather than later to advance his and the Sangh Parivars political agenda.

What has lent an edge to Mr Modis contradictory pulls in the Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat Assembly elections is the embarrassing frequency of visits to the two states to bag one state from the Congress and retain the home state of Gujarat.

These elections are taking place after the highly unpopular demonetisation decision of a year ago and how the GST has adversely affected some industries in view of the haste with which the measure was adopted. There is a pronounced nervousness in the PMs camp on Gujarat, with a more articulate Rahul Gandhi leading the campaign and the contours of Dalits and Patidars combining with the Congress against the long arms of the BJP.

Mr Modi might well sniff at conventions but it is vital to separate a Prime Minister from his ruling party to govern the country. He can sport a Himachali cap one day and a Saurashtra turban on another, but his impartiality in running the country is inevitably affected by the insults he hurls at the Congress and other Opposition parties.

Let us envisage how Mr Modis double act will influence the nations polity. The GST, for instance, is a good measure brought in in haste, leading to a loss of thousands of jobs and much suffering. Demonetisation was, on the other hand, a reckless venture most economists criticise whether one agrees with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs description as a loot or not.

The GST has led to many jokes and jibes, with Mr Gandhi leading the attacks. With Mr Modi hurling insults at him every day, it is fair political game. In the larger perspective, it will give a bad name to a good idea. Congress governments have tried to introduce it in the past without success. It is obviously good to have a uniform goods tax structure across the country.

Mr Modis obsession with electoral politics and speeding the BJPs march to majorities in Parliament are having an adverse effect on the democratic structure. Take, for instance, the speculation over truncating, if not avoiding, the winter session of Parliament. It speaks for the BJPs cavalier attitude towards parliamentary democracy. It is more important for the ruling party to win the Gujarat election than to sit and debate issues in Parliament.

Thanks to the Election Commission, Mr Modi has had a bonanza run in Gujarat bestowing crores of rupees worth of goodies, including the running of a brand-new modern ferry service. One has to remind oneself that it is the Prime Minister, not a chief minister, acting as Father Christmas before the festive season.

Mr Modi the iconoclast might get better of the system, but the ruling party needs to be reminded that healthy conventions are the lifeblood of a democracy and need to be buttressed, rather than wiped out. There might be more advantages for the BJP to try to secure Gujarat than listen to speeches in Parliament but a democratic PM should enforce his party members attendance in Parliament.

Do Mr Modi and his principal political aide Amit Shah have a larger plan to subvert democracy? It would appear not because they are concentrating on Stage 1 of their plan to fold almost all states into the BJP palm. No one doubts that as the plan progresses, the RSS will be in the drivers seat.

In other words, Mr Modi is reaching a fork in his political career after he crosses the Stage 1 hurdle. Is he a true disciple of the RSS which nurtured him into adulthood or does he have a mind or will of his own to assert the countrys interests above the claims of an ideology of mishmash Hindutva? He showed his prowess as Gujarats CM but that is only one constituent state not a whole country with its diversity and ethnic and religious leanings.

Thanks to the opportunistic mores of Indian politics, the BJP is receiving defectors from other parties with open arms. Defectors bring their own problems and are ready to defect again if not offered adequate compensation in ranking. Previous establishments have tried to resolve the problem, without success and the BJPs open door policy to defectors serves it fine in its consolidation phase.

Mr Modis cap-and turban-changing exercises are plain for everyone to see. He is the ultimate campaigner symbolising his empathy for his local audience as he expresses his rage against the Opposition. Has anyone computed the expenses involved in the journeys his official plane makes from one election rally to another?

There are many chinks in the Indian practice of democracy, inevitable as the system works itself out. Constitutional amendments are the ultimate weapon. Will the BJP have the patience and sagacity to build a consensus before broaching the next amendment? The BJP Rajasthan Government has already burnt its fingers in trying to enact a law protecting civil servants. As usual, the BJP was in a hurry.

A question being asked in the Capitals political circles is whether Mr Modi has lost his mojo because he keeps repeating his mistakes. A battle of name-calling with Mr Rahul Gandhi does more harm than good. And the question that needs to be asked is whether his audiences are tired of listening to the same speeches with few variations asking them to condemn the Congress.
London, November 10

An Indian-origin doctor from the East Midlands region of England who was arrested for allegedly circumcising a baby boy without his mother's consent has been released without charge.

Dr Balvinder Mehat, a general practitioner (GP), was accused of carrying out a non-therapeutic circumcision or a procedure for religious rather than medical reasons on the three-month old baby four years ago.

"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deemed that there would be no realistic prospect of conviction, Nottinghamshire Police said, adding that they had thoroughly investigated the incident.

The baby's paternal grandmother, believed to belong to the Muslim faith, had taken the baby to Mehat's surgery in Nottingham for the procedure in July 2013.

The 61-year-old GP told the police when he was arrested back in June this year that he believed the mother had consented.

The police had also arrested the boys father and paternal grandmother on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, but they were released without charge as well.

In a letter to the boy's mother outlining its decision, the CPS said that had Mehat performed the operation knowing the mother did not consent, his actions may have amounted to an assault.

He may have failed in his professional obligations to discuss the issue of consent with you. But that in itself is not sufficient for there to be a criminal prosecution, it noted.

The boy's parents are separated and the procedure took place when he was with his father's family. Now aged four, the boy suffers from a number of recurrent problems, including inflammation and infections, as a result of the circumcision, according to his mother.

I will fight this until my last breath if I have to, it's the only way I can possibly look my son in his eyes, she told the BBC.

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal is appealing the CPS decision and has written a letter, "outlining numerous defects in their decision-making process and evaluation of this case".

Circumcision is widely practised in both the Jewish and Muslim faiths around the world.

Guidelines from the British Medical Association state that both parents should give consent for any non-therapeutic or "ritual" circumcision of children.

If parents disagree, a doctor may only proceed with the permission of a UK court.

Children old enough to express their opinion should be consulted, and their wishes must be taken into account.

Mehat, based at Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham, has declined to comment due to patient confidentiality rules.

PTI
ANY government, state or Centre, speaking right now on measures to be taken to fight the smog, or blaming anyone for its occurrence, is cheating people. That is because the situation was no different the last winter, or the winter before that. Everyone seems to know the causes  it is a long list from the Middle-East weather systems to Delhis hot-mix plants. Depending on who is speaking, and where the speaker is located, the extent of blame on a particular cause varies. But every stakeholder needs to answer as to what has been done specifically towards addressing the challenges under his purview over the past few years.

Debate on the specific contribution of particular pollutants is of little value when we have not conducted any comprehensive scientific study on the issue. Anecdotal and whimsical explanations and solutions are being offered, all of which seem to put the blame on the neighbour. The only way to even begin clearing up our air is to tackle every pollutant. In the larger region, smoke from farm waste burning seems to be the single largest cause, and has attracted the most media and political attention. There is a cost involved in managing it in an environment friendly manner. But in a farm economy which is entirely controlled from input costs to sale price, it will be irresponsible to blame farmers. The Central government has to be the anchor for any initiative, as it is also the primary driver of the crop choices through its price incentives designed to serve the national food policy.

Solutions to the stubble burning problem are available, and there are also certain funds available under various Central and state schemes. But these need to be brought together to make a concerted effort in conjunction with the farmers. States as well as the Central government have to take responsibility for that. There will still be certain financing requirements, and those the Centre cannot refuse to meet. It is a trade-off between the cost of food and health, and neither can be neglected.
Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, November 10

Ajmer Singh, an old cobbler at Shahabad Markanda town in the district, had an unforgettable meeting with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday afternoon.

As the CMs cavalcade was leaving for Chandigarh after offering condolences to a BJP leader on his mothers death at Shahabad, Khattar suddenly noticed the cobbler.

He alighted from the car to know why he was working while sitting on the floor on a cold day.

Ajmer told Khattar that after his sons death, he had no means of livelihood.

On being questioned further, Ajmer said he also had the responsibility of two grandchildren.

In a humane gesture, Khattar announced a sum of Rs 50,000 grant from CMs discretionary quota.

He also directed the Deputy Commissioner to provide a kiosk to Ajmer at Shahabad and ensure education to both his grandchildren.
Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 10

It is Chief Minister Virbhadra Singhs never say die attitude that kept the fund and resource-starved Congress in the fight in the Assembly elections with the Congress stalwart still exuding confidence of returning to power.

I am confident that the Congress will be forming the government with a comfortable majority, he says, sitting in the cozy winter sun in the well-manicured lawns of his private residence Holly Lodge. His two labradors and one-year-old granddaughter trotting around are too happy to see him around. His wife Pratibha Singh also spent the day at home after days of hectic campaigning.

He, however, refrained from giving any magical figure of the seats Congress was expected to win. Surrounded by supporters, he today spent a relaxed day at home taking feedback from supporters who came to meet him and over telephone from all over the state. I know the state like the palm of my hand and have toured every part, so there is no doubt in my mind that we are returning to power, he says.

Had it not been for the indomitable fighting spirit of the 83-year-old six- time Chief Minister, the electoral battle could have been one sided. With odds heavily stacked against him in terms of age, health issue and corruption charges, Virbhadra emerged as the star campaigner for the Congress as AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi spared only a day to address three election rallies at Paonta Sahib, Kullu and Nagrota Bagwan.

I certainly do not consider the just-concluded elections as a fight between me and PM Narendra Modi. He is Prime Minister of India, there is simply no comparison, he says modestly even as a parallel was drawn between the two. Earlier deciding to go to the polls without a chief ministerial candidate, the BJP projected PK Dhumal as its chief ministerial candidate much later.

Though not happy with the ticket allotment in about four segments, including Shimla (Urban) and Nalagarh, he says better selection could have given advantage to the Congress. He says with all his bank accounts seized, he too could not give money from his own resources to help the candidates. I am grateful to the high command that they tried to help us in conducting the elections but they could have done a little more, is all he says on support from New Delhi. He, however, regrets that level of political debate during the polls. I was surprised that all BJP stalwarts, including the PM, crossed all limits of decency, to say the least. People of Himachal appreciate sobriety and do not relish foul language, as it is not part of our culture, he points out.
Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 10

During the second leg of his five-day tour to the state, Centres interlocutor to J&K Dineshwar Sharma met 34 delegations in Jammu today.

Various organisations of Jammu, including lawyers and university teachers, called on Sharma here.

Press Club of Jammu members, led by its president Ashwani Kumar, apprised Sharma of the misgovernance and corruption, which they said had been legalised and posed the biggest challenge to the state. If these issues are addressed everything will be normal and peace will return, the Press Club delegation said.

J&K National Panthers Party told the interlocutor that lack of political will, disregard for public sentiment, betrayal of peoples aspirations by the PDP-BJP government, coupled with corruption, maladministration, lack of accountability and transparency, had created a situation which could best be described as a constitutional failure within the meaning and scope of Section 92 of the state constitution, which calls for imposition of the Governors rule.

The party feels that as long as the unethical alliance continues in the state, your noble efforts may not yield the desired dividend, the Panthers Party delegation led by its president Harsh Dev Singh said. If the purpose of the current initiative taken by the Centre is to reopen the settled issue of Jammu and Kashmir, then, please do not expect us to be a part of the said initiative, said the Bar Association of Jammu.

If the purpose is to further strengthen the integration of the state of Jammu and Kashmir with India then we suggest September 23 be declared a holiday, High Court Judges be increased from the existing 17 to 25 to mitigate the suffering of the litigant public, Article 35A be revoked, security forces given a free hand, citizenship rights to West Pakistan refugees, political empowerment and an equal and effective say in the governance of the state and much more, the Bar Association delegation said.

A delegation of the teachers of the University of University and the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, discussed with Sharma the need for a thorough review on the security cover provided to the protected persons, educated youth of Jammu and Ladakh provinces facing gross discrimination in government jobs and delimitation of the Assembly constituencies. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jammu, met Sharma and called for enforcing laws related to the use of public address systems at all religious places which are a major source of trouble and may lead to communal provocation.
Jammu, November 10

Dineshwar Sharma, the Centres special representative for Kashmir, on Friday said all Indian citizens in Jammu and Kashmir were stakeholders in the dialogue process and that he would keep coming to the state in the future.

Sharma, who arrived here on Thursday evening on the second leg of his visit to J&K, said the Centre had given him the task to restore peace in Kashmir and find some solution.

Asked whether he considered the Hurriyat Conference a stakeholder in the dialogue process, he said, All Indian citizens in Jammu and Kashmir are stakeholders. Sharma, who was appointed the Centres special representative last month for consultations with various groups and political parties, called on state governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti here last night and discussed the ways to reach out to the stakeholders, officials said.

On the issue of a meeting with Hurriyat leaders, he said, Let us see.

Asked further, the former Intelligence Bureau chief said, I am going to visit Jammu and Kashmir again and again. Replying to a question, he said his visit to the state had been successful.

He had arrived here on Thursday after spending four days in the Valley, during which he met various delegations and political leaders which included former chief minister Omar Abdullah, state Congress chief G A Mir and CPM leaders among others.

Representatives of the Bar Association of Jammu, who met him today, said they raised the issue alleged threat to the state due to the presence of Rohingya Muslims.

Other delegations, which called on him, included those from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Jammu (CCIJ) and the West Pakistan refugees.

Meanwhile, Panun Kashmir, an organisation representing displaced Kashmiri Pandits, boycotted a meeting with Sharma, claiming that the invitation to them was extended in a disrespectful manner.

The delegation of refugees, headed by West Pakistani Refugees Front president Labha Ram Gandhi, said Sharma was informed about the discrimination meted out to them, despite having lived in the state for 70 years.

The CCIJ delegation, led by its president Rakesh Gupta, said they referred to issues of unemployment and development.

PDP leaders from the Jammu region and those from the JK Panthers Party also called on him.

He met a BJP delegation, led by the partys state president Sat Sharma, here on Thursday. The Centres special representative is scheduled to return to the National Capital on Saturday. PTI
Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 10

The Union Home Ministrys expert panel, headed by its Special Secretary Rina Mitra, today began two-day visit of J&K and met border residents.

The panel has been entrusted with the job of reworking the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) to make it all-inclusive. The panel has also been given the mandate of having one-to-one interaction with border residents living along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) in the Jammu region.

The visit comes following Union Home Minister Rajnath Singhs tour of the state in September and his meeting with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on October 26.

On September 12, Rajnath had announced to constitute an expert group to study the problems of the people living in the border areas of J&K. The need to constitute the panel was felt in the wake of regular ceasefire violations.

During Rajnaths meeting with Mehbooba in New Delhi, it came to the fore that the BADP was not all-inclusive and it needed to be reworked to broaden its ambit.

It has been decided that border dwellers are fighting it out against the hostile neighbours nefarious designs with all bravery. There is a need to help them instead of demoralising them by not addressing their genuine issues, sources said, adding, the experts would look into all issues and problems confronting the border residents, who time and again, become the victim of any border skirmish.

Meanwhile, the panel members reached the Jammu airport this afternoon and drove to the Suchetgarh area in Jammu district where they held discussions with border residents and public representatives.

The panel also comprises Joint Secretary Gyanesh Kumar and MHA Director Ram Krishan. Accompanied by Principal Secretary, Home, J&K, RK Goyal, and Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Mandeep K Bhandari, and IGP, Jammu zone, SD Singh, they visited the BSF border outpost, Octroi, and Satowali and Floura villages in the RS Pura sector and Nanga village in the Ramgarh area to assess the ground reality and problems. In the evening, the panel also went to Chak Changa village in Kathua district and interacted with residents.

The major demands put forth by the people were proper utilisation of BADP funds, reservation of border areas on the pattern of areas near the LoC, shifting of barbed wire fencing to Zero Line, five-marla plots to each family at safer places, special recruitment in the J&K Police and Central security forces for border youth, special health facilities, compensation for agriculture land acquired by the BSF, degree college and school facility at Ramgarh, community and individual bunkers for border residents.

The team is scheduled to shelling-affected in the Nowshera sector of Rajouri district on Saturday. It would also visit Danaka, Langer and Jhanger villages in the district.

Set up by Rajnath

On September 12, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced to constitute an expert group to study the problems of the people living in the border areas of J&K. The need to constitute the panel was felt in the wake of regular ceasefire violations

The panel has been entrusted with the job of reworking the Border Area Development Programme to make it all-inclusive

The major demands put forth by the people were proper utilisation of BADP funds, shifting of barbed fencing to Zero Line, five-marla plots to each family at safer places, etc



(With inputs from Sanjay Pathak in Kathua and Vishal Jasrotia in Samba)
Amir Karim Tantray

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 10

Wrapping up his meetings with stakeholders in the state, Centres interlocutor for Jammu and Kashmir Dineshwar Sharma today said his visit was very fruitful and he would come to the state again and again.

It is just a beginning. As I have already said all Indian citizens are stakeholders. I will be visiting J&K again and again, Sharma said while replying to a volley of questions of mediapersons at the convention centre where he met various delegations today. With this statement, he held out hope to continue his efforts to bring separatists on-board the dialogue process.

On Thursday, replying to a question, Sharma had said that he had not succeeded in meeting Hurriyat leaders so far during his visit to the state as the interlocutor.

Sharma had a hectic day in the winter capital where 34 delegations comprising various political parties, non-government organisations, Bar association, Press Club and others, presented their view points, ranging from stopping the bid to talk to separatists, governance deficit, corruption and regional issues.

As there is no specific mandate for Sharma, many delegations raised issues, like poor road connectivity, reservation and other day-to-day matters in the discussions.

During his visit to the state, the interlocutor met 30 delegations in Kashmir and 34 in Jammu. He also met former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir separately in Srinagar. After reaching here on Thursday, the BJP delegation was the first to meet him. After that he met Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti at her residence and called on Governor NN Vohra at Raj Bhawan. Sharma, who will be flying back to New Delhi on Saturday morning, is expected to brief Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh about his visit. However, he did not say whether he would submit an interim report to the Central government about his visit or not.

To meet Rajnath
In the first week of November, an audio clip of a local woman journalist was doing the social media rounds in Assam. She was heard seeking help from an unknown person on creating a forum to unite the state's Muslims against the "heinous plot" to deprive them of government jobs and political rights in the next 10 years. The basis of her suspicion, the term "original inhabitant", mentioned in the Supreme Court by Prateek Hajela, state coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), an exercise to weed out illegal immigrants from Assam.

Though the NRC is supposed to be updated every 10 years, no state has done this since the first one was prepared in 1951. The Union government had agreed to update the NRC in Assam in accordance with the Assam Accord in 1985 but the first pilot project started only in 2010. Following violence during a protest by the All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU), the project was aborted. The updating exercise resumed in March 2013.

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In October 2014, the Supreme Court ordered that work on the NRC be completed by January 31, 2016, but the NRC authority missed the deadline and the apex court is now directly monitoring the exercise. The process hit a roadblock in March 2017 when the Gauhati High Court rejected the residency certificates issued by gram panchayats as proof of citizenship (it was one of 11 documents approved by a state cabinet sub-committee in 2010). On August 24, the Supreme Court directed Hajela to ready a "partial" draft NRC by December 31 not including the names of the 4.7 million people affected by the high court order. The court also asked him to segregate the 'original inhabitants' from among these 4.7 million applicants. The issue came up after Hajela's report to the court on October 10 stated that only 1.7 million were "original inhabitants" (OI) and the registering authority was satisfied about the citizenship status of this lot.

The Opposition Congress, AAMSU, All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), CPI(M) and several organisations from Barak valley in the state have objected to identifying applicants as 'OI' on the ground that the term is yet to be defined by constitutional authorities. Social media is abuzz with reports that not a single Muslim has been identified as OI and that they would all be denied citizenship. The AAMSU claims that in the absence of a clear definition of 'original inhabitants', names of many applicants from religious or linguistic minorities may be left out during the process of verification. Former Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi says this was a deliberate move, which will leave minority communities in the lurch. (The Congress and AAMSU, however, failed to explain their silence on the OI issue ever since the criteria was outlined by a two-judge committee on January 7, 2016.)

Following the protests, Hajela issued a clarification stating that in the draft and final NRC, nobody would be shown as OI or otherwise; they would be identified under only one category-citizen (or not). The fate of the 3 million people who submitted panchayat certificates but are not in the OI list will be decided by the SC on November 15. Meanwhile, fearing a law-and-order breakdown in the event of an adverse verdict, the state government has approached the Union home ministry for additional forces.

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Manpriya Singh

Poetryits long been alive; both respected and commercially neglected. With biographies, chick-lits and childrens books having already experienced a comparatively fair share of literary limelight at the festivals, its time that poetry got more than proverbial 15 minutes of fame.

Day 1 of the 6th edition of Chandigarh Literature Festival, an endeavour by Adab Foundation and Department of English and Cultural Affairs, Panjab University, brings in some of the regular names now like Nayantara Sehgal, Kiran Nagarkar and Annie Zaidi. Amidst the usual inaugural formalities, with an emphasis on poetry, any conversation on music, arts and literature finds a connecting thread with and its way back to poetry.

From Kerala to Paris

Born in Kerala, though brought-up all over India and settled in Paris for the past 17 years, places and cities understandably figure prominently in a lot of author Karthika Nairs literary works. Yes, there are a lot of places in my writings but when it comes to what inspires me more, it is different places at different times, shares the author, poet and dance producer who is back in Chandigarh after 40 years. I last came here when I was four, and I have very faint memories of green patches and red buildings.

While a lot of published titles fit in her resume, what brings her to city is her last book, Until the LionsEchoes from the Mahabharata. It is the epic from several different perspectives, as revisited from the eyes of 19 voices, with 16 of them being women. Well, thats an epic reconstructed for which she took five years, Two years of which were spent just reading and researching about Mahabharata! She adds, Silence of the marginalised characters provoked me, we havent seen it from their perspective. For instance, it doesnt matter who won on the battlefield; for soldier and his family it was a loss.

Coming up is Metro Lands, a book that brings together two poets and two publishers. It is poetry based on two cities of Mumbai and Paris, as they are seen entirely through their metros. Now, who doesnt like the sound of that?

Musically yours

What could a performance titled Poetrification by three musicians  Danish Husain, Denzil Smith and Beven Fonseca  from different backgrounds entail? Well, you have to watch it to know it, theatre and film actor Danish (you last saw him in Oscar-nominated Newton as the DIG) refuses to categorise his performance that brings together his love for both poetry and music.

Well, our musical performance is a celebration of poetry. Its a literary genre that is dying in penury and most poets in poverty. We have been in love with poetry for a long time now and thought that presenting it in musical format would be a better way of presenting and garnering audience, chips in Denzil Smith, also an actor with theatre background. He last came to the city as part of Lillete Dubeys Gauhar Jaan, while his last few films have been Jagga Jasoos, Bombay Velvet and Viceroy House. Coming up is a Happy Bhaag Jayegi Returns and Bazaar. But for now, music and poetry it is.

manpriya@tribunemail.com
Ratna Raman

Ratna Raman

ROOSTERS crow (verb) each morning but crows only caw. Eating crow is idiomatic acknowledgement of humiliation but crowing over announces victory. Apostle Peter denies knowledge of Christ, long before the rooster finished crowing. Popular portrayal of crows and ravens is a mixed bag in Occidental cultures.

Crow Tyrannosaurus (1970), a poem by Ted Hughes, classifies the crow as a devouring dinosaur because in the food chain, powerful humans are finally consumed by the very worms that the crow, lower down in the order, eats for breakfast. In Hughes visually powerful poems the crow is an emblem of human frailty and arrogance.

Charles Dickens, who kept ravens as pets, created Grip the raven in Barnaby Rudge to befriend simpleton Barnaby. Inspired by Dickens narrative and bird, Edgar Allan Poes poem, The Raven (1845), presents a dark, ominous bird, capable of prophecy. In Europe and in Scandinavian cultures, the birds black plumage and exterior allowed it to be co-opted as a bad omen.

Joan Aikens book for children, Mortimer Says Nothing, narrates the adventures of Mortimer the crow and Arabel. Aikens Mortimer is a wise, eccentric and social bird. Alfred Hitchcocks film, The Birds, has terrifying close-ups of crows sitting on the swings in a childrens park. Hitchcocks visuals tap into negative cultural associations, recalling usage such as a murder of crows or an unkindness of ravens to create fear. Currently, ravens are bred in the Tower of London based on an old belief that the tower would fall, were the birds to leave.

Sherman Alexies Crow Testament (2000) provides a brilliant rebuttal of the dark associations evoked in many cultures by these gregarious and gorgeous black birds. Rooted in the native American tradition, Alexies poem draws upon older memories of the crow in indigenous American communities. The crow was a familiar bird, funny and wise, part of creation genealogies, part totem and friend in several tribes. Alexies poem does away with sinister mythologies surrounding the crow. The crow personifies the Native American, at different points in history, deprived of his beliefs and traditional ways, pushed into reservations with little to hope for. The bird is sacred to Native Americans, and they never eat crow.

Perhaps, this is a good time to look closely at Indian crows. RK Laxman, Indias most loved cartoonist, has outstanding sketches of the bird proving that he loved the common crow as much as his common man.

An intelligent bird, the crows all- too-human susceptibility to flattery allows it to be tricked by the foxes in folk tales. Hurried baths in cold weather by reluctant youngsters were equated with crow-like bathing since crows perch gingerly at the waters edge, trying to avoid contact while using it.

Despite eating carrion, Indian crows have seldom been perceived as birds of ill omen. In fact, no shraadh is deemed satisfactory until a crow partakes of the offerings. Dead ancestors, it is believed, reincarnate as crows and turn up to eat their rightful portion. Even today, no such place of honour is extended to any other visiting bird at the shraadh.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 10

The Supreme Court on Friday witnessed an unprecedented drama over allegations of bribing judges to procure favourable orders in medical college admissions after advocate Prashant Bhushan asked Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to recuse from the case as there were direct allegations against him.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

What nonsense! retorted CJI Misra  heading a five-judge Bench  and went on to say, Theres not even a word in the FIR naming me or anyone else. Read our orders first. I am asking you to read our orders first.

As the CJI said, You are now liable for contempt, Bhushan dared the Bench to initiate contempt proceedings, saying So issue a contempt.

CJI responded: You are not worth it, much to the surprise of a large number of advocates and media persons present at a jam-packed Court No. 1 of the Supreme Court.

It all started with a two-judge Bench of Justice AK Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan taking up in the pre-lunch session a petition filed by Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms raising the issue of allegations of bribing judges to procure favourable orders in medical college admissions.

A separate petition filed by advocate Kamini Jaiswal raising the same issue was on Thursday referred to a Constitution Bench of top five judges, including CJI Misra by a two-judge of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice S Abdul Nazeer.

But Justice Sikri chose to refer the second petition to the CJI, who promptly set up a seven-judge Bench to take it up at 3 pm. But within minutes, the composition of the Bench was changed to five judges who finally heard the matter at 3 pm. Besides the CJI, other judges on the Bench were Justices RK Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and AM Khanwilkar.

During the proceedings, Bhushan asked the CJI to recuse from the case alleging that his name figured in the FIR but he could not point it out from records. The Bench repeatedly asked him to apologise but he didnt.

An Angry CJI asserted that he was the master of the roster and raised questions over the order passed by Justice Chelameswars Bench constituting a Bench of top five judges of the court.

Justice Arun Mishra explained an FIR cannot be lodged against sitting judicial officers of lower courts, judges of the higher judiciary because they enjoyed immunity. He said the contents of the petition were per se contemptuous.

Bhushan repeatedly tried to address the court but he was invariably interrupted either by other members of the Bar or the Bench.

A frustrated Bhushan angrily stormed out of the court amid commotion and demands to initiate contempt proceedings against him.

I have not seen such a proceeding in my entire life. Your Lordships are hearing all and sundry who are not parties to the case. But I am not being allowed to make my submissions, he said before leaving the court.

When lawyers again demanded contempt action against Bhushan, Justice Arun Mishra said, Our restraint is our power.

The Bench also rejected demands to gag the media. I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press. Prime facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression should be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press, CJI Misra said.

Later, Bhushan tweeted: Extraordinary proceedings in SC today in the case seeking SIT Investigation in medical college bribery case involving the CJI! CJI presided over a handpicked bench to override yesterdays order referring this case to top 5 judges. This despite having a direct conflict of interest.

Bhushan further tweeted: The court proceedings were extraordinary in that the CJI was asking all kinds of lawyers who were not parties to say things against the order of Court 2, w/o hearing petitioner. He tried to justify his role in the medical college case & speak against impropriety of Court 2 (Justice Chelameswar).
Bhuj, November 10

The Border Security Force (BSF) on Friday seized five Pakistani fishing boats and apprehended three fishermen from Bhuj in Gujarat.

The fishermen were apprehended from vertical channel of Harami Nala in Bhuj along the India-Pakistan border.

As per reports, a search operation for the same is under way.

Last month, the BSF had apprehended a fisherman of Pakistan origin and seized his boat along the India-Pakistan border of Gujarats Kutch district. ANI
By PTI: Mumbai, Nov 10 (PTI) Axis Bank is planning to raise equity and equity-linked capital worth Rs 11,626 crore from a set of marquee investors, including entities affiliated with Bain Capital and its key promoter LIC.

Entities affiliated with Bain Capital propose to invest Rs 6,854 crore and LIC will invest Rs 1,583 crore, the bank said in a statement after a board approval today.

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This will be one of the largest private equity investments in the domestic banking sector.

The bank proposes to raise Rs 9,063 crore through issuance of equity and the remaining Rs 2,563 crore through issue of warrants.

The bank has called for an EGM on December 8 to seek shareholders approval.

The bank proposes to issue 172,630,639 equity shares on preferential basis at a price of Rs 525 per share (a premium of 2.4 per cent), and 45,357,385 warrants convertible into equity shares at a price of Rs 565 per share (a premium of 10.2 per cent), which will add Rs 43.6 crore to the paid-up capital of the bank.

This would entail a dilution of 8.23 per cent for existing shareholders, the bank added.

The capital raised will bolster the capital adequacy, thereby providing growth capital for the core business of the bank and its subsidiaries.

Bank chairman Sanjiv Misra said, credit growth trajectory is turning and is well positioned to participate in this development.

"This significant capitalisation and the interest shown by marquee investors, positions us for even greater strength," Misra said.

Head of the bank Shikha Sharma said, "we are honoured by the faith reposed by Bain Capital and LIC in the long term strategy of the bank."

Axis Bank was advised exclusively by Axis Capital and Bain Capital was advised exclusively by JP Morgan on this transaction. Legal advisors to Axis Bank are Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Bain Capital was advised by AZB & Partners.

Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital, said Axis Banks leadership team is very well positioned to take advantage of what promises to be an exciting growth phase for private sector banks in the country.

"We are particularly excited about Axis strong and differentiated retail franchise that we believe will be an important driver of future growth," he said. PTI BEN NRB

--- ENDS ---
At a joint press conference in March with China's Premier Li Keqiang in Canberra, Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reflected, "China's history, 3,000 years of civilisation, is so remarkable". Without waiting for a second, Li interrupted him, holding up five fingers of his right hand. "5,000!" he said. "5,000 years?" Turnbull corrected himself, as the journalists laughed. "There you go! So remarkable!"

The episode highlights how seriously the rulers of China's Communist Party (CPC) consider China's "5,000 years of history". In the new book, Becoming China, Jeanne-Marie Gescher, who has spent over 25 years in China as a strategic advisor to a number of organisations -- from the British Embassy to corporates and NGOs -- makes an ambitious and valiant attempt to cover this broad sweep of 5,000 years.

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Gescher acknowledges she is not a historian: most of her writing is derived from Western and Chinese scholarship. As such, she doesn't offer any new or striking insights, and admits that her objective is to "convey the mechanism of the present era, and the landscape of the past, to provide a perspective" to understand today's China.

For a reader entirely unfamiliar with China or its history, Gescher's 784 pages aren't a bad first-time introduction. The writer demonstrates her mastery of the breadth of Chinese philosophical and historical traditions, ably covering a vast period of history right till Xi Jinping's rise to power.

But for those familiar with China-or seeking a deeper understanding of what underpins its rise-the work is filled with generalisations and tropes that can grate. In one instance, the author writes "they [the Chinese] seem to accept the top-down idea of order so much more readily than the West". To push her "5,000 year continuum" thesis, the writer employs narrative devices that stretch credulity. For instance, everything in China is "heavenly"-the CPC is the "heavenly party" and Xi Jinping is the "son of heaven"-and apparently every decision for Chinese politicians-for instance, Xi seeking a tough rural posting to burnish his credentials-is made by either "approaching ghosts and spirits" or "by looking at the weiqi board".

Her hope for the book is "whether we agree or disagree with China's ideas, we will be able to hear and understand them, as much for our sake as theirs". One cannot find argument with that sentiment. The problem is her thesis goes far beyond. That the history of the Chinese people is unique or exceptional is a political argument, not a historical one. It is one that many China-watchers are perhaps guilty of, in part because other old civilisations, whether in India or Egypt, simply don't enter into their field of vision.

What Gescher describes as a '5,000 year pursuit of utopia' is, in a sense, at the heart of the CPC's argument to sustain its one-party rule, framing itself as the rightful inheritor of this supposed continuum of history (no matter the contradiction of the party's own troubled relationship with China's traditions, most explicit during the Cultural Revolution).

A corollary to this exceptionalism is that ideas like liberal democracy-or, for that matter, universal human rights-don't apply to China or its people. Needless to say, in China, this is about more than history: perpetuating this exceptionalism has political consequences. "Destiny is forged," Gescher writes poetically, "at the point at which the soap opera of millions of small lives collide with grand event". In this grand rendering of China's history, the small lives don't seem to matter.

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By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 10 (PTI) Indias Dalveer Bhandari and Britains Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Based out of The Hague, the ICJ has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, AntAnio Augusto CanAado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

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Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-membered Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes have been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nations ICJ election rules, the candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council.

Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari, 70, was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines. PTI LKJ AQS

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Nov 10 (PTI) Indias Dalveer Bhandari and Britains Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Based out of The Hague, the ICJ has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, AntAnio Augusto CanAado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

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Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nations ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari, 70, was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines. PTI LKJ AQS CPS

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A new glider kit fitted with an old engine. Photo: Tom Berg

Following up on an August promise to review Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Standards Phase 2 rule due to concerns raised by certain manufacturers, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed rule on Nov. 9 that would repeal emission requirements for glider vehicles, glider engines, and glider kits.

As written, the new rule does not limit the kits production, but only allows them to be installed for their traditional uses, such as engine salvage.

The GHG Phase 2 rule, adopted during the final months of the Obama administration, is slated to go into effect Jan. 1.

Now, under the purview of Administrator Scott Pruitt, EPA is moving ahead with its promise to repeal the glider provision found in the 2016 Clean Truck Standards, despite support for the provision from some industry stakeholders.

According to The Washington Post, a Sept. 11 letter to Pruitt urged him not to reopen the rule, stating that glider kits should not be used for circumventing purchase of currently certified powertrains.

The letter was signed by executives from Volvo Group North America, Cummins, and Navistar. The companies noted that they were joining the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, the American Trucking Associations, and the Truck Rental and Leasing Association in supporting the mandate as written.

The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association declined to comment on Pruitt's latest move.

Environmental impact and public health are two of the biggest concerns for groups advocating for full application of the Phase 2 rule.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, used engine gliders can emit almost 40 times more pollution than modern engines and that, if allowed to operate until 2025, glider vehicles would cause as many as 12,800 premature deaths.

The health impacts are even more galling when you consider that this is essentially just a handout to one company, Fitzgerald Glider Kits, which manufactures the largest share of glider vehicles, Dave Cooke, senior analyst in the Clean Vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. Fitzgeralds CEO met with Administrator Pruitt in May to push him to reverse this rule. It looks like Administrator Pruitt listened, and hes willing to do one company a huge favor, protecting a polluter at the cost of our health.

Pruitt met with Fitzgerald Glider Kits May 8, according to his schedule.

Fitzgerald Glider Kits could not be reached for comment.

In the EPA request to repeal, the agency claims that representatives of the glider manufacturing industry wrote a joint petition requesting a review of Phase 2 rule. The petition claimed that EPA is not authorized under the Clean Air Act to regulate glider kits, glider vehicles, and glider engines and that the Phase 2 rule relied upon unsupported assumptions to arrive at the conclusion that immediate regulation of glider vehicles was warranted.

Petitioners also claimed a reconsideration of the rule was necessary due to Executive Order 13783, an energy independence order signed by President Donald Trump in March.

When Pruitt announced his intention to revisit the rule in August, he stated in a press release that EPA initiated a rulemaking process that incorporates the latest technical data and is wholly inconsistent with our authority under the Clean Air Act.

In the latest documents filed to repeal the rule, EPA cites court cases to claim that since there has been a change in administration, the agency must assess administrative records and evaluate priorities in light of the philosophy of the administration.

EPA now proposes to revisit the rule based on the view that it lacks authority under CAA to impose requirements on glider vehicles, glider engines, and glider kits, and therefore proposes to remove the relevant rule provisions.

Aside from the negative environmental impact of reopening the loophole, EDF said the repeal proposal would unfairly disadvantage freight truck companies complying with current standards.

The advocacy group claimed that glider vehicles have an unfair advantage over trucks that achieve clean air standards. It also said that reopening the rule could danger the clean freight truck investments made by truck fleet and put their employees' jobs at risk.

EPA will be holding a public hearing on the proposed rule at 10 a.m. Dec. 4 at 1201 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington D.C. The agency said the hearing will conclude once everyone has had a chance to speak.

For those who cannot attend the public hearing, online comments may be submitted here.

This article was updated Nov. 13 at 4:35 p.m. to include the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association decision not to comment.
Former members of the Pilot Flying J sales staff took the stand this week to give testimony in the Pilot Flying J fraud case against four accused former executives of the company, according to a detailed report posted by Knox News.com.

Prosecution and defense attorneys had called the former employees, who worked under the accused executives, to testify. Many of the witnesses painted a picture of a high-stress work environment in which there was implied and explicit pressure to take part in the fuel rebate scam.

A former salesman described his hesitation to reduce the fuel rebate for New Jersey trucking company Dynamic Express because he said there were rumors of a connection to the Gambino organized crime family. But in an email exchange, the director of sales for Pilots northeast region, Arnie Ralenkotter, pressured him to do it or lose the account altogether.

In another email shown to the court, Ralenkotter described cheating companies out of their full fuel rebates as "fun" when speaking with one of the accused executives, Karen Mann, according to another report, posted by Chattanoogan.com. Ralenkotter is among the 14 Pilot sales employees who had previously plead guilty to their roles in the case.

The facts of the case  that there was a scam to cheat trucking companies out of their full fuel rebates  are not being disputed in the trial. A primary goal of the prosecution and defense is to show what roles the four accused executives played in directing the scam and/or their awareness of it.

The testimony on Nov. 9 focused on Mark Hazelwood, the former president of Pilot Flying J and the highest-ranking executive on trial. Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam has not been charged in the case and denies any knowledge of the rebate scam.

Hazelwoods attorneys called witnesses who spoke to his dedication to his job and described him as so busy that he couldnt devote much attention to what his subordinates were doing. The defense also called witnesses to speak about Hazelwoods relationship to Pilots sales vice president John Freeman, implying that Hazelwood was jealous of Freemans allegedly closer relationship with Haslam.

Earlier this year, Freeman pled guilty to mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with the scam.
OKLAHOMA CITY  A referendum that would have increased the drop-off fee for cattle by $1 per head was defeated, according to results announced Thursday by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Members of the Oklahoma Cattlemens Association voted down the measure, 55.6 percent to 44.3 percent, that would have raised the fee and generated an additional $3.2 million to be used to promote beef sales.

The effort was opposed by some ranchers, who sought out Montana-based Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund and the Organization for Competitive Markets to file an injunction to stop the vote. The proposal called for raising the fee from $1 to $2 per head sold.

We were proud to stand with our Oklahoma members to ensure justice was carried out during this election, said Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF USA. It is good to know that in America, if you stand up for what is right, you can still win.

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, which backs U.S. and Texas beef check-off programs, supported the measure. Oklahoma would have joined 15 other states, including Texas, who have adopted a state-level beef check-off program.

I am disappointed that the Oklahoma beef check-off referendum was swayed by outside activists and did not succeed, said TSCRA President Richard Thorpe. Texas cattle raisers have seen an immense benefit from their state-level checkoff program, and I had hoped that same success would be extended to Oklahoma producers.
One of the oldest regiments of the Indian Army commemorated its 200 years of selfless service.

By Manjeet Negi: The 9 Gorkha Rifles, one of the oldest and highly decorated regiments of the Indian Army commemorated its 200 years of selfless service and sacrifice to the nation.

The 9 Gorkha Rifles is a Gorkha regiment of the Indian Army comprising Gurkha soldiers of Nepalese origin.

The bicentenary celebrations were held from 8 November to 11 November at 39 Gorkha Training Centre, Varanasi Cantonment.

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A series of events were organised on the occasion with pomp and gaiety attended by large number of serving and retired officers, veterans and veer naris.

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat graced the occasion by his benign presence on 9 November and 10 November, along with his wife Madhulika Rawat and senior officers, both serving and retired.

Photo Courtesy: Manjeet Singh Negi

Other 500 veterans, mainly from far flung areas in Nepal attended the celebrations along with their families.

During the event, the General interacted extensively with veterans and laid a wreath at the war memorial to pay homage to martyrs of the regiment. He also released the First Day Cover to mark the occasion.

A magnificent parade followed by felicitation of veer naris was conducted on the occasion.

Other events included scintillating act on motorcycles by Daredevils, Combat Free Fall, Para Motor Flight and there was a mass band display as well.

The regimental bonds were further strengthened due to the presence of 12 members of the family of veteran British Gorkha officers, who had arrived from the UK for the celebration.

Various events conducted over the two days provided an excellent opportunity to cement the bond between the present generation and the veterans

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OKLAHOMA CITY  The ACLU of Oklahoma has notified the Department of Human Services that it might file suit to prevent service reductions to those who are disabled and elderly.

The Oklahoma Disability Law Center joined the ACLU in sending a letter to Ed Lake, DHS director, asking that the notice of service reductions be retracted.

The agency notified those in the ADvantage and In-Home Support waiver programs that services were being eliminated as a result of budget reductions.

Gov. Mary Fallin called the Legislature into special session on Sept. 25 after the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers violated the law in passing a $1.50-a-pack cigarette tax as a fee, avoiding the constitutional requirement that revenue bills get a supermajority in both chambers or go to a vote of the people.

The action blew a $215 million hole in the fiscal year 2018 budget, but coupled with federal dollars, the figure is closer to $500 million.

The Department of Human Services, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services and the Oklahoma Health Care Authority were to receive the bulk of the funding.

On Wednesday, a massive revenue-raising measure failed to secure the needed votes in the House to restore funding levels.

Brady Henderson, ACLU of Oklahoma legal director, said it costs more to care for clients in a nursing home than it does to provide care in their homes on an ADvantage waiver.

The In-Home Support Waiver program serves people with development disabilities in their homes, said Samantha Galloway, executive director of Oklahoma Community Based Providers.

It allows people to have a vocational program or be employed, allowing their families to work, Galloway said.

These are adults who are no longer in school, living at home with their families, and their parents are able to work because they have these services, she said.

Henderson said the organizations are considering seeking an injunction in federal court to prevent the cuts to the programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held starting almost 20 years ago that somebody with disabilities has a right to an equal standard of living to someone in the community, Henderson said. You cant throw them in an institution for being disabled or force them to be removed from society against their will.

Termination of the waiver programs will do that, he said.

In addition, the situation affects due process rights, he said. The clients were given only a few weeks notice and have no way to contest a life-changing situation, Henderson said.

The Department of Human Services is reviewing the letter and has not formally responded, said Sheree Powell, agency spokeswoman.

We sincerely believe the state Legislature does not want to see these programs eliminated, and we hope they come up with a solution before that time, Powell said.

The $69 million in budget reductions the agency now faces are in addition to $24.9 million in cuts the agency is currently making and on top of $80 million in reductions the previous two fiscal years, she said.
The Oklahoma Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the Oklahoma Tax Commission needs to recalculate how all Oklahoma school districts receive motor vehicle tax distributions, not just the eight districts that sued the commission over how funds were being distributed.

But due to recent legislative changes, it wasnt immediately clear how the ruling applies to the way the tax commission distributes those tax dollars going forward. Thursdays ruling doesnt order the commission to undo or rectify any past incorrect distributions to school districts.

The appeals court ruling modifies an Oklahoma County District Court decision in October 2016 that said the tax commission gave eight districts the wrong amount of money starting on July 1, 2015. The commission was misinterpreting the law on how funds should be distributed, the district court said.

The appeals court said that decision applies to all Oklahoma school districts, not just the eight that sued the tax commission.

But there is a catch. The laws governing how motor vehicle funds are allocated to school districts were changed in May. Senate Bill 476 and the changes to distributing motor vehicle tax funds took effect Aug. 25, according to the bills text.

In the wake of those changes, Gary Watts, the attorney who brought the suit in March 2016, is left uncertain about what the appeals court ruling means.

Thats because the issue disputed by the eight districts, including Sand Springs and Muskogee, has been removed by the amended law.

Watts, when reached for comment, said he had not been able to read the entire appeals court opinion.

The amount of money districts receive no longer has anything to do with what they received the year before, Watts said of the recent change.

Instead, motor vehicle funds are distributed based on the districts average daily attendance as a proportion of all school districts average daily attendance.

The lawsuit came about in March 2016 because Watts believed the tax commission had incorrectly distributed funds.

Watts, then the Sand Springs Public Schools general counsel and chief financial officer, argued the law said that during months when less motor vehicle tax was collected than the year before, the difference should be proportionally split between all the districts.

The tax commission was distributing the money based on districts average daily attendance, shorting Sand Springs $184,000, Watts argued.

Oklahoma County District Court sided with him last year.
Sheriff Scott Walton said the man was an employee of Valmont Utility, but it was unclear whether he was on duty at the time of the call. He was later identified as William Fairweather, 39.
The Tulsa County District Attorneys Office on Thursday announced its intent to seek the death penalty against a man and a woman charged with beating a Tulsa man to death in a gang-related attack and subsequently burning his body.

The case marks the second time in two months that the DAs office has sought an execution.

In the current case, Gerald Keith Lowe Jr., 40, and Michaela Riddle, 25, face counts of first-degree murder, intimidation of a witness, kidnapping, desecration of a human corpse and committing a gang-related offense in the Nov. 11, 2016, death of 23-year-old Courtney Palmer.

The defendants, who were dating at the time, are accused of beating Palmer inside a home in the 4600 block of North Boston Place during a dispute tied to the Hoover Crips gang before taking his body to Muskogee, putting it in a shallow grave and setting it on fire.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, in a filing Thursday, said the case merits the death penalty because Palmers slaying was especially atrocious, heinous and cruel, and that the defendants are a continuing threat to society.

Lowe also has a felony conviction for an offense that involved the use or threat of violence on another, which is listed as a third aggravator against him.

Tulsa Police Department investigators found Palmers burned body in a shallow grave outside a dilapidated home in Muskogee on Dec. 15. An autopsy report from the state Medical Examiners Office says Palmer died of homicidal violence by multiple modalities, noting many of his facial bones and ribs were broken.

Charletha Mack, 40, is charged an accessory to Palmers death but is ineligible for the death penalty. Mack testified against Lowe and Riddle during a preliminary hearing in October, describing how she observed them repeatedly beat Palmer in her home until he couldnt breathe no more and explaining her reasons for not immediately notifying police.

Jeannetta Thomas, 19, was a co-defendant with Lowe and Riddle on the murder, witness intimidation and kidnapping counts, but all charges against her were dropped Monday and she is now a material witness.

Thomas testified in October that Palmer was attacked because of Lowes and Riddles belief that Palmer had set up a person named Duke, and that Palmer repeatedly denied the accusation.

Thomas told Assistant District Attorney Isaac Shields that she saw Lowe choke Palmer after Palmer had a blue dry cleaners bag placed over his head, and alleged that she saw Riddle pour a pot of boiling water on Palmers face.

Police said Palmer reported being a witness to an altercation in which Duke, later identified as his friend Carl Harris, was shot at an apartment complex near 61st Street and Peoria Avenue.

Lead homicide detective Jason White testified that Lowe and Riddle were linked to Palmers burial site by using DNA collected from a sock and a vacuum cleaner device recovered from the dilapidated home. Lowe and Riddle reportedly had sex in the house before they removed the mattress from the bedroom, placed it over Palmers body and set both on fire.

A probable cause affidavit states Palmers girlfriend told White in an interview that Riddle said, this is about to be some First 48 stuff after the girlfriend began crying upon seeing a news report on Palmers disappearance. The First 48 is a television show that tracks the Tulsa Police Departments Homicide Unit, among other agencies, as it works on open cases.

Lowe and Riddle are set for trial court arraignment Nov. 27 before District Judge Sharon Holmes, but their arraignments will likely be pushed back, in part so she can appoint attorneys with experience in death penalty cases.

Riddles counsel, Stephen Lee and Mark Cagle, have done capital punishment work but are expected to withdraw because they also are representing Michael Browning, whose 2003 death sentence was overturned and who is set for a re-trial in Tulsa next spring in a 2001 homicide.

Lowes attorney, Brian Boeheim, has not been involved in death penalty matters and could either withdraw or receive death penalty-qualified co-counsel via an appointment from Holmes.

Kunzweiler said the nature of the crime merits the request.

I do not make these decisions without giving thoughtful consideration to the alleged facts, as well as having extensive communication with the law enforcement officers who investigated the case, he said. With regard to these two defendants, my office believes there exist aggravating circumstances which should afford a jury the option of imposing the death penalty.

Kunzweiler also has requested the death penalty in the case of 41-year-old Gregory Jerome Epperson, who is charged with strangling 19-year-old Kelsey Tennant and trying to kill her boyfriend, Riley Allen, in an east Tulsa apartment on March 20.

Eppersons case, which became a capital proceeding in September, is the first such case handled in Tulsa County in nearly five years and the first for Kunzweilers tenure as chief prosecutor. Former District Attorney Tim Harris had last filed a bill of particulars in January 2013 against Jacob England and Alvin Watts, who were accused of murder in three shootings on Good Friday in 2012 that prosecutors said was a hate crime against black people.

The last death penalty trial in Harris administration culminated in a jury recommending in early 2014 that Darren Price serve two life without parole sentences for his role in the September 2011 Hicks Park homicides. Price was 19 at the time of his arrest, which prosecutors said then may have been a factor in why he did not receive a death sentence.

If the cases against Epperson, Lowe and Riddle go to trial and end in recommendations of death, they would be the first defendants from Tulsa County to face lethal injection since Raymond Johnson, who was sentenced in 2009 to die by lethal injection for killing a woman and her baby in 2007.

Oklahoma has not put anyone to death since the lethal injection of Charles Warner in January 2015, which was later found to have had a drug not listed to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections lethal injection protocol. Richard Glossip received a last-minute stay in September 2015 after Gov. Mary Fallin learned DOC staff obtained for Glossip the same drug that was incorrectly used in Warners execution.

The Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office issued a stay of all scheduled executions pending the DOCs release of an updated protocol, after which it said it will wait at least 150 days before placing anyone on schedule to die. The DOC, according to its Oct. 31 status report, has not said it is ready to resume with executions.

Here is the Tulsa World coverage of the case so far:
A federal judge has declined to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit filed against six defendants by the estate of Eric Harris, who was shot to death while being detained by Tulsa County Sheriffs Office personnel.

The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge John Dowdell clears the way for the lawsuit to move to the discovery stage.

Harris was shot to death April 2, 2015, by former Tulsa County Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, who said he mistook his handgun for a Taser when he fired the revolver into Harris back while other deputies held Harris on the ground.

Harris had briefly fled from deputies during an undercover gun sting.

The estate of Harris filed a civil lawsuit Jan. 6, 2016, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, naming Bates, former Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado and deputies Michael Huckeby, Joseph Byars and Ricardo Vaca. Huckeby is no longer employed by the Sheriffs Office.

A jury subsequently found Bates guilty of second-degree manslaughter in Harris death.

Bates, 76, served about 18 months of a four-year sentence before being released from prison in October.

The civil lawsuit brought by Harris estate claims Sheriffs Office personnel used excessive force and were deliberately indifferent to Harris serious medical needs after he was shot. The lawsuit alleges Glanz should be held personally liable for Harris death because the sheriff failed to train and supervise Bates.

Bates claimed the lawsuit should be dismissed because the shooting was accidental.

But Dowdell, in his opinion and order, noted that Harris estate alleged that Bates did not mistake his gun for his Taser, and that even the use of a Taser on a subdued, non-fleeing, unarmed person would have constituted excessive force.

The facts alleged as to Bates  that he used deadly force on an unarmed, subdued person who was not fleeing  state a plausible claim for excessive force against Bates, Dowdell wrote in his ruling.

Glanz, in his dismissal request, noted that he did not personally participate in causing Harris alleged constitutional deprivation, nor was he privy to any information that would allow a reasonable finder of fact to conclude that he ignored an excessive risk of harm to Harris.

However, Dowdell notes that Glanz recognizes that an official may be personally liable where he promulgated, created, implemented or possessed responsibility for the continued operation of a policy that caused constitutional harm and acted with the state of mind required to establish the alleged constitutional deprivation.

Harris has stated claims for individual liability against Glanz, Dowdell wrote.

Those allegations include that Glanz was responsible for policies of providing preferential treatment to his long-time friend and financial supporter, Robert Bates, which included exempting Bates from mandatory training requirements that were established to protect the public, with deliberate indifference to the known, excessive risks to the public who would encounter Bates, Dowdell wrote.

The judge also denied dismissal requests filed on behalf of the three deputies and Regalado, who is sued in his official capacity, or effectively as a representative for Tulsa County. Regalado was not an employee of the Sheriffs Office at the time of Harris death.

Indeed, the plaintiff alleges that training was falsified, policies put in place to protect the public were blatantly ignored in order to allow Bates to play cop, and regular TCSO employees who brought Bates alleged incompetence and lack of training to the attention of senior TCSO officials were ignored, silenced, moved from their supervisory positions over Bates, and/or subject to retaliation for raising any issue regarding Bates, the judge wrote in rejecting Regalados dismissal request.

A trial date has not been set.
The answer to reversing Tulsas growing crime rate starts with diverting resources to children in jeopardy, attendees of a forum addressing violence were told Thursday night.

More than 100 people gathered inside Oklahoma State Universitys Tulsa campus to hear area leaders discuss the issue of increasing violence in the city. The forum was hosted by the Tulsa World and featured Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan, state Rep. Monroe Nichols, University of Tulsa President Gerard Clancy and Family Safety Center Executive Director Suzann Stewart as panelists.

Tulsa World Publisher Bill Masterson started the 90-minute event by sharing crime statistics that have troubled law enforcement in recent years. Most concerning, he said, is the 22 percent increase in violent crime from 2015 to 2016, which is the largest year-to-year increase since 1989. Additionally, this years homicide rate is on pace to eclipse last years record.

Although Tulsas overall crime numbers  excluding homicides  are down about 8 percent from this time last year, Masterson said there is a long way to go just to break even with 2015.

The rest of the forum consisted of panelists addressing what they believe to be the issues at the root of the violent crime surge and answering questions from the community.

Stewart, who heads the grant-funded Family Safety Center, said a largely ignored trend of domestic violence plays a significant role in the worsening crime levels. She cited a recent study of Tulsa that found 33 percent of homicides, 50 percent of rapes and 66 percent of aggravated assaults in 2015 involved assailants with a history of domestic assault.

Of the 18 domestic-related homicides in Tulsa last year, none were committed by suspects who ever accessed services in the community designed to help them.

The best way to prevent these acts from occurring is to help abused children who could grow up to be abusers, Stewart said.

I think we as a community must realize that this kind of violence starts in childhood, with kids experiencing this at the hands of their family members, she said. Unless mitigated at an early age, three out of four of those kids are going to continue to be victims or abusers as they grow up.

Were raising our children to be criminals out of our homes.

Stewart said it is vital to develop solutions that address domestic violence at an earlier age from perspectives of education, prevention and intervention in an effort to break the cycle.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, who attended the forum, addressed the first question of the night, which asked whether the issue of violent crime can be solved through rigorous prosecution.

Kunzweiler said prioritizing the way children are raised is the answer to reducing crime in the long term. He said agencies must be empowered to deliver services to households affected by domestic abuse.

In the end, the true solution is to pour resources in at the very beginning of childhood, he said.

Clancy, who has worked extensively in the medical field, stressed the need for more resources to treat substance abuse. About 50 percent of people who abuse drugs suffer from an underlying mental illness, he said.

Many people resort to crime to fuel their addictions, said Clancy, who told a story about a time he was the victim of a home invasion. Nothing was stolen during the break-in, and police told him the intruder likely was seeking drugs.

The good news is that if you treat the mental illness, the demand goes away, he said. Ive seen it many times where the patient who Im taking care of, if I can treat the mental illness well, their desire to use an illicit substance goes away entirely.

Nichols, a Democrat whose district includes a diverse section of Tulsa, said a large problem is a widespread inability to talk about racial disparities as they relate to crime.

Too often, he said, people see disproportionate numbers of African Americans and Hispanics being treated unfairly in the criminal justice system. He said systemic abuse of minorities starts in school, as students of color are more likely to be subjected to harsher punishment.

Theres something in our psyche, and its not something thats on accident, Nichols said. Its a problem we have as a nation, but its something we see here in our own community. If you look like me, youre more likely to get suspended from school and go to prison. We know that, and we havent done enough to address it.

Jordan said Tulsa has seen significant progress with community policing, which he believes is the key to strengthening relationships with citizens and authorities.

The police chief pointed toward the creation of the Citizen Advisory Board, a community policing initiative created by Mayor G.T. Bynum. He also expressed his desire for officers to receive implicit bias training to help with community relations.
By India Today Web Desk: Hina Khan has been facing a lot of heat inside the house after her strategy in Mission BB 11 backfired and the prize money turned zero. The lady has admitted that she is wrong on camera, but not in front of housemates. In last night's episode, she broke down completely in front of Priyank, Luv and Benafsha.

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Her emotional meltdown however has her near and dear ones worried. Her boyfriend Rocky Jaiswal has written an emotional post after this episode and gave it back to her haters.

"I miss her and Of course it's difficult to see her going through such heart wrenching moments but that's what makes her a human being. @realhinakhan being what she is never said that someone else is jealous of her or insecure because of her popularity, even when she was showered abuses and cornered she fought back but never abused. She never tried to escape the house. She doesn't let go any tasks n gives her best which usually becomes the top standard in the house. She never shy's away from standing for what's right just because she's a celeb or is a target, (sic)" he wrote.

Hina Khan's father in an interview to TOI had said, "It's difficult for us to see Hina in this state. But I understand and feel her tears as Hina is a very hardworking girl, who has always given her 100 percent to her work. For her to see a loss due to her actions is extremely difficult. She started in this industry about a decade ago and continued playing Akshara in Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai for 8 long years. For her it has never been about taking a shortcut as she always believed in working hard and took each day as a new challenge."

Hope Hina stays strong on the show!

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Time has softened the memories of retired Tulsa pastor Andrew Phillips.

Born during World War I, he experienced a lot of racism in his 100 years of life, but he couldnt think of any examples of it on a sunny afternoon last week in his north Tulsa home as he reminisced with his wife and a longtime family friend.

What he does remember is how he handled those experiences.

Phillips, who pastored Mount Rose Baptist Church for 51 of his 64 years of ministry before retiring in 2010, will be honored next week with a 100th birthday party.

I dont know why, but I never had a problem with it, not meaning that I wasnt affected by it, he said. I guess it was just one of the things that I knew how to handle.

And it comes down to a biblical principle that has guided his life: Loving the Lord, and loving people. Its amazing what love will do.

Real love doesnt just love good people and good acts. It includes ... even those who dont practice returning love.

Phillips, who was raised in east Texas in a very different America, said dealing with racism was the most difficult thing he had to do growing up.

When I was in my teens, racism was awful, he said. I recall when all whites, generally speaking, loved all whites and hated all blacks.

Blacks, on the other hand, were taught by many of their parents to dislike whites because they were white.

Many whites thought it was a show of loyalty to their race to show how much they hated blacks.

I came along when many, not all, white people didnt hesitate to reveal and act upon their dislike of blackness. It didnt matter how good the people were, or how many good deeds they did, if he were black, he were just black, and considered black not only in human features, but in life and spirit, as well. So it was important to love and act on it.

Despite that, he said, one of his best friends as a young man was white.

Racial problems emanated mostly when someone tried to stop being black, he said.

I never tried to downplay my blackness. I can remember a few times when acting like I was proud of me and my blackness became dangerous to me. Back in those times, (some) white people didnt like for blacks to act like they were proud to be who they were.

White people, not all, preferred blacks who acted like some whites want them to act. Well, I never could bring myself to act like that.

I had that from a very young age. I never wanted to impose myself upon anyone, black or white, but treat me like Im human, black or not.

Racism doesnt change its clothes or its color, he said.

Wherever it raises its head, that place becomes affected by it. But its a good thing when humanity overcomes racism. I thank the Lord that I have been able to live in parts of the worst and the good.

Were doing much, much better in race relations.

Phillips, who once wrote a book titled How to Grow Old Without Aging, said his 100th birthday slipped up on me.

Frankly, I dont feel anywhere near my age. I feel about 60, and I thank the Lord for it, he said.

Its kind of new to me to wake up and find out that Im 100 years old. Its a good feeling, he said.

Phillips attributes his longevity to thinking good thoughts, and loving the Lord first, and loving people. To love others brings about the continuation of youthfulness in ones life, he said.

I think its very important for us to stay close to the Bible, especially to the point of loving others.

Some people say getting all you can get and keeping all you can have is whats important, but the more important thing in life is how much you love and share with other people.

Phillips was born and raised in Morris County, Texas, and received a masters degree in education from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas. He also studied at Perkins Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He holds a doctor of divinity degree from the Tennessee School of Religion.

He pastored four churches in Texas before accepting the pastorate of Mount Rose Baptist Church in Tulsa in 1959, which was then at 310 N. Lansing Ave. The church relocated in 1984 to 1137 N. Cincinnati Ave.

In Tulsa he got the nickname Little Big Man, because of his stature  5-foot-3 and 130 pounds  and his commanding presence, said Mary Howell, a longtime friend of the family.

Phillips became active in the civil rights movement in Tulsa and was one of the founders and president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Society.

He started the organization, he said, to do something that would hold on to his memory and teach the oncoming generations who he was and why he was who he was.

There was only five of us when it first started, he said. I dont recall anyone being negative toward the movement, black or white. So it was a pleasure and a joy.

The commemoration is now one of Tulsas major annual events.

Phillips was honored for his interfaith work, wrote several books, worked as a counselor in Tulsa Public Schools and taught locally and for the National Baptist Convention.

A high school and college athlete, for years he ran in the Tulsa Run and other runs. He earned a black belt in karate when he was in his 70s.

He preached his last sermon as pastor of Mount Rose Baptist Church at age 92.

Phillips will be honored with a brief 100th birthday party at 2 p.m. Nov. 18 at First Baptist Church North Tulsa, 1414 N. Greenwood Ave., just a block from his home.
When the chips were down, 71 members of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and 37 senators stood by the people of Oklahoma.

The rest stood by Big Oil companies, Big Tobacco and their partisan ideologies  and won.

A measure to raise state taxes on fuel, cigarettes, petroleum production and alcoholic beverages would have filled the states $215 million budget hole, funded a $3,000 teacher pay raise and a $1,000 state employee pay raise, re-created an earned income tax credit for working poor Oklahomans and prevented horrific state service cuts.

The measure fell five votes short of passage in the House on Wednesday. Its hard to say what alternative will replace the so-called grand bargain, but it almost certainly will not accomplish what still needs to be done.

House Bill 1054 was a tough vote for everyone. Those on the left complained that the tax mix was too regressive and oil companies and the wealthy were getting off easy. Those on the right complained that state government is beset by financial scandals and a higher oil production tax could cause some drilling rigs to leave the state.

There were elements of truth in all of their complaints, but the alternatives were far worse.

Three-quarters of the Senate and nearly three-quarters of the House recognized that, showed political independence, acted like adults and did what had to be done.

As for the rest, we have scorn and derision for their lack of leadership, courage and willingness to compromise in the states best interest.

We were particularly upset to see local legislators voting against the last best hope to save the state: Rep. Terry ODonnell, R-Catoosa; Rep. Michael Rogers, R-Broken Arrow, Rep. Dale Derby, R-Owasso; Rep. Eric Proctor, D-Tulsa, and Rep. Steve Kouplen, D-Beggs. Those five could have made the difference, and they failed.

There are local legislators (Republicans Mike Ritze and Chuck Strohm come to mind) who are lost causes to ideology, but we expected more of those five. We have defended ODonnell as a pro-education Republican for the last time. Rogers is the chairman of the House Education Committee, but couldnt vote for money for a state-funded teacher pay raise. Derby had said he would support virtually exactly this sort of funding package, and then he didnt. Proctor is a former school teacher. Kouplen is smart enough to know what the results of his vote will be.

Voters in their districts need to remember Wednesdays vote and remember who to blame for whatever results from it.
Heroes come in many forms.

A long line of heroes will gather Friday for Tulsas annual Veterans Day Parade, starting at 11 a.m. The parade has been a local tradition for nearly 100 years, and it deserves the warm public support it always gets.

Another hero stood in the White House recently as President Donald Trump hung a Medal of Honor around his neck.

Retired Army Capt. Gary M. Rose, a graduate of Cameron University and the University of Oklahoma, was honored for his valor Sept. 11-14, 1970, as the lone medic on a harrowing Green Beret mission into Laos.

During the fighting, he crawled into the thick of battle to save a wounded soldier, dragging the Montagnard fighter with one hand and firing his weapon with the other.

Wounded by a grenade explosion, Rose continued to aid soldiers, at one point shielded an injured man from machine gun fire with his body.

When his unit was being evacuated from the area, one of their helicopters crashed. Rose repeatedly went into the destroyed helicopter to pull injured soldiers to safety.

He refused medical treatment until other soldiers were treated.

His valor has earned him the respect of his fellow soldiers and his nations highest military honor.

As Trump said, during the medal ceremony, In every action during those four days, (Rose) valiantly fought for the life of his comrades, even if it meant the end of his own life.

Rose joins the elite of American military heroes, the 3,500th Medal of Honor recipient, the 174th soldier so honored from the Vietnam War era.

As the nation prepares to honor those who served in the armed forces, we salute Roses heroism and urge all Tulsans to take a moment to recognize fellow veterans at Fridays parade and throughout the day Saturday.
On Sunday morning Devin Patrick Kelley walked into a small church and shot it up, killing 26 and wounding 24 in what is the worst mass shooting in Texas history. Kelley, an Air Force veteran, had been dishonorably discharged after being convicted of domestic abuse. Apparently, he was targeting the small church because his ex-wifes parents worshiped there. They were not at the church, but his ex-grandmother-in-law was one of the victims.

The smell of gun powder was still in the air when the gun control debate began. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, (D-Connecticut) asked his fellow lawmakers, Can you sleep tonight, colleagues, when the price of gun lobby goodwill is this -- blood soaked church and school floors, city streets? Murphy said mass shooting are "uniquely and tragically American," and Congress must "shed its cowardly cover," and enact gun control. A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health last year found of 171 countries, America had the highest rate of mass shootings.

There is just one problem with Murphys argument. In Sundays case, a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun. Kelley was confronted by Stephen Willeford, a barefoot former National Rifle Association instructor, who shot Kelley twice, forcing him to flee the scene. According to law enforcement, Willefords action clearly saved lives. Three observations:

First, according to the FBI, roughly 16,459 murders were committed in the United States during 2016. Of these, about 11,961 or 73 percent were committed with firearms. At the 2016 homicide rate, roughly one in every 235 Americans will be murdered in the course of their lives. The world is becoming increasingly more dangerous. The second amendment guarantees every American the right to defend themselves.

Second, people who commit these heinous acts dont obey the law. Those willing to kill innocent bystanders are not above buying a gun in a back alley or building a bomb out of household chemicals and a pressure cooker to kill. There is already a law against murder, but that doesnt prevent it from happening. More laws are not the answer.

Third, restriction of gun ownership doesnt work. Chicago has one of the highest crime rates in the U.S., yet guns were outlawed in the city from 1982 to 2010. According to the Chicago Police Department during that period, 59 percent of all murders committed in Chicago were committed with handguns. Banning handguns didnt stop killing -- it allowed only the criminals to have guns.

So, is the answer for every able-bodied citizen to strap on a hog leg and draw down on any suspicious looking character? No, but the answer is for law-abiding citizens to have the right to own a weapon to defend themselves, their family and their neighbors. The National Institutes of Health study cited by Murphy found the underlying issue behind mass shootings wasnt gun ownership -- it was mental illness and emotional instability. If Murphy and Congress want to work on something constructive, they should be focusing on the mental health crisis in America, not gun ownership.

Steve Fair is 4th district chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party. He can be reached by phone at 580.252.6284 or by email at okgop@aol.com. His blog is stevefair.blogspot.com.
Janet Love returned from her college days in the San Francisco Bay area with a love for poke bowl restaurants. That set the wheels turning.

I tried all varieties of food out there, and I especially loved the poke bowl restaurants, she said. I knew there was nothing like it here and thought what a great concept to bring to Tulsa. Some restaurants have some sort of poke salad but nothing like this.

Love recently opened Poke Bowl Love downtown on the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Boston Avenue on the ground floor of the The Meridia apartment building.

Poke (pronounced poh-kee) is a traditional dish in Hawaii and generally features raw fish tossed over rice and topped with a variety of items, usually vegetables and fruits. Love calls it sushi in a bowl or sushi in a burrito.

What we call burritos are larger than a sushi roll, Love said. You can put a lot more inside them, and they are wrapped with a dry seaweed that has a different flavor than a normal sushi wrap.

Customers build their own bowl or burrito by picking a base (rice or greens), proteins (seafood and tofu), veggies and fruits, sauces and toppings. Shrimp and crab are the only cooked seafood. Prices range from $11.95 to $14.95.

We visited recently with a daughter for lunch and ordered two build-your-own poke bowls and one called The Works. Each was $12.95.

One bowl included carrots, tomato, avocado, shrimp, brown rice, seaweed strips, fried onions, crab salad, cucumber, edamame, salmon and bacon bits with the house shoyu sauce.

Another bowl started with a mixed greens base that was topped with shrimp, edamame, tomato, carrots, green onions, brown rice and the house shoyu.

The flavors blended well, and the ingredients tasted extremely fresh in both dishes. The dark shoyu sauce is a natural soy sauce made from soybeans, roasted hard red wheat, sea salt and water. It was less salty and had a cleaner, more mellow flavor than most bottled soy sauces found in supermarkets.

How can one pass up something called The Works? I couldnt. This bowl was filled with tuna, salmon, yellow tail tuna, cherry tomato, cucumber, tangy ponzu sauce, shoyu, sriracha aioli, masago and ginger. The ginger was a noticeable player in this dish, and the ponzu (soy and citrus) and sriracha aioli gave it some kick.

Poke Bowl Love obviously has a number of vegetarian options and also offers a gluten-free soy sauce. Beverage choices include soft drinks and teas.

Children have the same choices in a smaller serving for $8.95.

Customers travel down an order line and choose their ingredients. Servers put them in a bowl, mostly separately, so diners mix up everything to their liking at the table.

I also could not resist a dessert  macaron ice cream sandwiches ($5.75). They looked like the French-style cookie only with ice cream in the middle. They came in a variety of flavors. I chose chocolate chip mint and picked up a little coconut flavor, probably from the cookie. It was delicious.

The only other food items I noticed in the restaurant was Pocky biscuit sticks in a variety of flavors.

People who have been to California and Hawaii and dined in poke bowl restaurants tell us they have been happy to see us, Love said.

Poke Bowl Love has comfortable, shiny gray-cushioned chairs and eight two-top white composite tables. Little bottles with white rocks and flowers decorate the tables. The room is white except for a lime green wall behind the order counter.

Love said that most of the bowls and cups are compostable.

The building concept of going as green as possible meshes with us, Love said. Our modern design works with the building, too. It wouldnt work in all parts of downtown. When we saw it, we knew it was the place for us.
Toufic and Rabiaa fled conflict back home in Al-Qusayr, Syria.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

The final round of thematic discussions on a global compact on refugees will take place in Geneva next week (14 and 15 November), with UNHCR seeking concrete suggestions on how to more equitably share responsibility for refugee situations globally.

Discussions on Tuesday (14 November) will focus on boosting efforts to find solutions for refugees, including supporting conditions for the voluntary and sustainable return to countries of origin. The meeting will also examine how to expand opportunities for refugees to move to third countries (whether through resettlement or other pathways like family reunification, study or humanitarian visa schemes) and how local solutions can be made to work for refugees and host communities.

Wednesdays meeting (15 November) will explore how to address root causes of large refugee movements, how a broader range of actors (including the private sector) can help, and how regional institutions can contribute to a comprehensive response. A side event on statelessness will also take place.

The aim of the conference is to produce concrete suggestions to be included in the programme of action section of the refugee compact, which will underpin the comprehensive refugee response framework (CRRF) and provide a platform for cooperation for more equitable and predictable sharing of responsibility for large refugee movements. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was given the task of proposing a refugee compact by the UN General Assembly in last years New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants.

Next weeks meeting at the Palais des Nations will take place in room XIX. The main proceedings will be streamed live at webtv.un.org between 0900 and 1300, and 1400 and 1800. A limited number of seats will be available for accredited media in room XIX.

To promote discussion, UNHCR has put forward some preliminary suggestions in a concept paper.

Further information:
By India Today Web Desk: Priyank Sharma and Benafshah Soonawalla have been supporting each other since the very beginning of Bigg Boss 11. Priyank's re-entry in the BB 11 house has even made their bond stronger. We saw how Ben got emotional when Priyank returned and asked him to promise her that he would never leave.

Priyank also stood like a rock for Benafsha when she was body shamed by Akash. The two have known each other since Roadies day.

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Looks like the two friends are now developing feelings for each other. Benafsha says that she wanted to say something to Priyank but when he asks her what it is, she refuses to tell him saying it will not be good for the both of them. She asks Priyank how many female friends he has with whom he has been this close. Priyank says nobody except her. Ben says even she doesn't have such friends. The two try to understand why they are so special to each other.

Later in the night, Priyank asks Ben what's cooking between her and Luv. Ben teases him why he's feeling jealous. Priyank after making some cryptic gestures mentions that he knows her boyfriend and that he's a great guy. They then go on to tell the cameras that they both are just friends. Priyank says, he's not so sure though.

What do you think is cooking between the two?

--- ENDS ---
UNHCR has launched the LuQuLuQu campaign; a collaborative effort by the UN Refugee Agency and prominent African personalities and companies to promote the principles and values of sharing responsibility for one another, and sharing resources, in support of the displaced people in Africa.

The launch, which is the first of its kind in Africa, took place in Ghanas bustling Accra Mall last Saturday.

The term LuQuLuQu draws on the Africa philosophy of Ubuntu, Ujamaa, or yi bi ma  the spirit of sharing resources and caring for one another. It is a borderless movement that aims to redefine a better way of giving and involve for the first time on a global level, individuals to recreate the narrative of the African refugee.

The idea behind the campaign stems from the realization that African audiences generally empathize with refugees but previously had no established mechanism to demonstrate their support for the displaced.

LuQuLuQu Tribe: A New Way of Giving

UNHCR conceived the LuQuLuQu movement to provide a platform that allows audiences to see their contributions have an impact on refugees. Working closely with African personalities and companies, the movement urges the public to take ownership of shaping the narrative on the displaced in their midst through simple everyday philanthropic actions to promote self-reliance and independence, and in so doing, empower refugees.

The idea of coming together as a collective and changing the narrative of Africas displaced is a new approach.

The response from the public and African celebrities has been unexpectedly overwhelming, said Ioli Kimyaci, UNHCRs Representative in Ghana who was speaking at the launch. The idea of coming together as a collective and changing the narrative of Africas displaced is a new approach, she added. The assumption was that for Africans, there is no expected action beyond hospitality. So to have this immeasurable outpouring of love, time and donations is truly historic.

The event brought together members of the diplomatic corps, UN agencies and prominent Ghanaians that included actress Nikki Samonas, fashion designer Abrantie The Gentleman, award-winning TV host, Natalie Fort and celebrity Chef Biishville.

Being a refugee is not a choice. It is what happens to people like all of us, through no action that we take.

Being a refugee is not a choice. It is what happens to people like all of us, through no action that we take, said celebrity Chef Biishville. But our displaced mothers and children thrive despite all the odds. Lets come together and embrace them. It could be you. #doItLuQuLuQu

There were colorful performances by Ghanaian musician and current supporter of UNHCRs iBelong campaign eShun, hip-hop act CM and CMANI and Flashmob Ghana.

Corporates that have pledged their support to the campaign were also in attendance and included Yes Natural Mineral Water and fashion brand Brommon. Telecommunications company, Telefonika, donated 10 Gear VR sets which amped up the crowd's virtual reality experience.

Subsequent launches will follow throughout November in five other cities across the continent; Nairobi, Abidjan, Lagos, Dakar and Johannesburg.

LuQuLuQu awareness will be driven through social media to engage audiences in line with the diverse lifestyle categories represented by the campaigns prominent supporters. These include fashion, music, sports, culture, arts, business and media.

Follow the conversation with the hashtag #doitLuQuLuQu
Tony Kassab, from Syria, with his uncle Farhan Kassab and aunt Mariela Ullan at their home in Cordoba, Argentina. Tony has been living with the family since December 2016.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

Tony Kassab had little idea what the future held when he fled his home in the Syrian city of Homs and arrived in Argentina last year.

The 26-year-old was granted a humanitarian visa under the countrys new programme for Syrian refugees and he is now managing a takeaway restaurant which cooks Middle Eastern dishes for residents of the city of Cordoba.

Just a few years ago, he could not have imagined leaving Homs, let alone working some 8,000 miles away from there, despite the brutal conflict that has raged in his home country since 2011.

Tony, who has a university degree in tourism, had a close brush with death during a bombing which helped him decide it was time to leave.

He is one of 320 Syrians now living in Argentina under the governments Programa Siria, which grants humanitarian visas to people affected by the conflict in Syria if there is a sponsor in the country willing to help meet their living expenses during the first year.

The programme was originally launched in 2014 and reinforced in September 2016, when President Mauricio Macri announced that Argentina would accept 3,000 Syrians. A rule requiring visa applicants to have a family connection was relaxed. Any Argentine individual or non-government organization can now theoretically become a sponsor, known as a caller, and receive a refugee or migrant.

Tony is more fortunate than most. His uncle, Farhan Kassab, who has been living in Argentinas second-largest city, Cordoba, since 1998, and now runs his own restaurant business, submitted documentation to Argentinas Migration Directorate to become a caller and sponsored his nephew.

At first, the pair worked together at the business headquarters, as Tony learned to cook family recipes. When he realized that speaking Arabic with Farhan was holding back his Spanish, he requested a move to the second takeaway outlet, which he now manages.

People here dont have much of an idea about Arab food.

People here dont have much of an idea about Arab food, so its a chance to show my culture, he says.

His Spanish teacher, Veronica Segui, gives a free course for Arabic speakers at the National University of Cordoba, with an emphasis on practical conversation and comprehension. Interacting is the most important thing, Segui explains, and writing comes in second place, because its very different in Arabic.

Tony Kassab (right) chats to his uncle, Farhan Kassab, who moved to Argentina from Homs, Syria, in 1998 and now runs a chain of Middle Eastern takeaway restaurants.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

"People here don't have much of an idea about Arab food, so it's a chance to show my culture," says Tony (left) who works in his uncle's restaurant as manager and cook.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

Tony Kassab, from Syria, takes Spanish classes at the National University of Cordoba with teacher Veronica Segui.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

"Argentines are very friendly people," says Tony, who intends to apply for citizenship. Tony is one of 3,000 Syrians that Argentina has pledged to accept.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

Tony prepares empanadas in the kitchen of the Habibi food takeaway in Cordoba, Argentina.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

The Habibi takeaway restaurant in Cordoba, Argentina, is owned by Tony's uncle, Farhan Kassab, who migrated to Argentina from the Syrian city of Homs in 1998.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

Middle Eastern empanadas prepared by Tony are left to cool after being taken out of the oven.  UNHCR/Frederick Bernas

Another pillar of the programme is a volunteering scheme run by the White Helmets, a humanitarian assistance platform which is part of the Argentine Foreign Ministry, one of several state bodies that form national and regional working groups or Mesas Siria to help Syrians adapt to life in Argentina.

In Cordoba, Tony was matched with volunteer Gonzalo Fiore, a lawyer who has been vital in helping the young Syrian find his feet. Officially, the pair are required to meet three times a month, with Fiore reporting back to the White Helmets on a regular basis, but they quickly became friends and now see each other socially.

I learn more from Tony than from my textbooks, says Gonzalo, 26, who is now studying for a masters degree in international relations. Using English as a common language, they have forged a strong bond. Tony hopes to eventually speak Spanish all the time with his friend.

Argentina is among a group of countries in South America that have agreed to accept more resettled refugees and will soon start receiving Syrian refugees living in Lebanon referred by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

However, not all Syrians have integrated as well as Tony, and authorities are trying to strengthen the integration components of the programme that make the difference, such as language classes and the assignment of a local volunteer.

The state can provide tools, but the person has to make an effort as well.

Integration needs to come from both sides, says Diego Puente, who manages the national migration authority in Cordoba. The state can provide tools, but the person has to make an effort as well.

With 35 Syrians living in the region and 15 more expected soon, his role is to accelerate the process of adapting by developing measures such as free Spanish lessons and local employment networks.

Hearing Tonys story has given Gonzalo a new sense of appreciation of his lot in life. According to UNHCR, the voluntary assistance component is a distinguishing feature of Argentinas policy.

In the south of Latin America, the generosity towards refugees is a fact. An initiative such as the Programa Siria is innovative and constitutes an excellent opportunity through which the local communities can help refugees", says Michele Manca di Nissa, Regional Representative for UNHCRs southern Latin America office.

UNHCR provides technical and financial support to the Programa Siria through the Emerging Resettlement Countries Joint Support Mechanism (ERCM), a joint cooperation framework with the International Organization for Migration. The ERCM resources are focused to strengthen institutional capacity and to support the selection, reception and integration process of Syrian refugees in Argentina.

Argentina is also receiving support from the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative, which is helping countries establish community sponsorship models for refugees, learning from Canadas experience.

Esteban Tome Fuentes, a cabinet adviser on the Programa Siria, says Argentina plans to welcome another 100 Syrians this year, taking the total to 420. In the long term, he is focusing on organizing federal and provincial agencies as effectively as possible to help newly arrived refugees and migrants plan beyond the first 12 months with their sponsor, making sure they effectively enjoy all the same rights and opportunities as Argentines.

Its very good of Argentina to receive us."

After less than a year in the country, Tony already intends to apply for citizenship. He is exploring possibilities to have his Syrian degree certified in Cordoba, so he can look for tourism-related jobs when his Spanish is good enough.

I hate to be different, so I want to learn the language and be like other normal people here  not just seen as the Syrian guy, he says. Its very good of Argentina to receive us. They are very easy people. I want to thank Argentina for everything.

The Programa Siria is one of the schemes designed to help Syrian refugees travel further afield to third countries in an organized way.

It provides an example of responsibility sharing that could be replicated or adapted by other governments as part of the effort to develop a global compact on refugees and find ways of responding jointly to refugee movements, rather than leaving a handful of countries to shoulder the burden alone.

UNHCR is leading the process to develop the global compact and discussions will be held on the subject in Geneva this month. A key focus will be on helping refugees find a solution to their plight, which could include returning home voluntarily when conditions allow, finding ways to become self-reliant in the country of asylum, or moving to third countries.

Ahead of the talks, UNHCR has proposed measures in a concept paper on how to expand complementary pathways, alternative ways for refugees to be admitted to third countries in addition to the traditional resettlement routes. The goal is for these to be included in an action programme as part of the refugee compact.

These include community-based sponsorship and humanitarian admission programmes, expanding the eligibility criteria and simplifying procedures for family reunification, making access to education easier through scholarships, apprenticeships and traineeships, and opening labour mobility schemes to include refugees.
Manus Island 'Regional Processing Centre'.  UNHCR

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is urging the authorities of Papua New Guinea to show calm and restraint in the context of the closure of the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre. The Government of Papua New Guinea, and particularly the Immigration and Citizenship Services Authority, have made commendable efforts over the past four years to care for and protect refugees in difficult circumstances. UNHCR is urging that a humane approach is taken now in an increasingly complex situation.

Over 500 refugees and asylum-seekers remain at the Regional Processing Centre, becoming more and more vulnerable. After over a week with no provision of food and water, and poor sanitation without electricity, their physical and mental health is precarious.

Forced movement of these refugees and asylum-seekers is inappropriate and should be avoided. The ongoing situation at the Manus Island Regional Processing Centre requires rapid de-escalation and dialogue with the refugees and asylum-seekers concerned.

Greater understanding is needed for the perspectives of these vulnerable human beings, who have already suffered immensely, said Thomas Albrecht, UNHCRs Regional Representative in Canberra. People who have experienced unspeakable persecution and human rights violations need protection, not punishment.

Australia has a responsibility to urgently find appropriate long-term solutions for all who have sought its protection.

Media Enquiries

Catherine Stubberfield, +61 424 545 569, [email protected]
TURIN, 10 November 2017  Twenty-five social entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35 have completed an intensive ten days of training to strengthen their knowledge and skills and improve their use of business, legal and fundraising tools so that they can successfully pitch their business ideas to potential investors. The training is the first stage of Entrepreneurs for Social Change (E4SC), a United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) project funded by the Savings Bank of Turin Foundation (Fondazione CRT). E4SC provides support to young social entrepreneurs to bring about positive social change in communities of the Euro-Mediterranean region and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Entrepreneurs for Social Change offers the new generation of youth the opportunity to be part of a community of practice which sees in Fondazione CRT and UNIDO two fundamental partners at the international level. E4SC allows participants to develop and grow their start-up, it allows them to seize and understand the intercultural challenges of our time sharing an in-depth experience with their peers, presenting their projects to potential investors, become role-models for future entrepreneurs", said Massimo Lapucci, Secretary General of Fondazione CRT.

After receiving more than 500 applications from 26 countries in the Euro-Mediterranean region, 25 social enterprises from 17 countries were selected, and representatives attended the training, held in Turin from 27 October to 5 November 2017. The training provided a unique learning experience for participants, combining an intercultural approach to social entrepreneurship, with business-development training, promoting peer-to-peer support and networking at the same time. Building on the skills acquired during the training, the social entrepreneurs will receive 12 months of mentoring to support them in realizing their full economic potential while generating measurable positive impact in their communities to address pressing environmental and social challenges. This includes the creation of opportunities for decent jobs.

Millennials are getting engaged to make the change they aspire to see through social impact projects, says Gerardo Patacconi, former Officer in Charge of the UNIDO Agri-Business Department, Social entrepreneurship projects allow them to be drivers of change and to create, for themselves and for other young people, sustainable and decent jobswere building a community destined to last.

While the social enterprises selected covered a wide range of industries, including agro-industries, creative industries, green business, clean energy, and education, a focus was placed on their economic feasibility and the demonstrated social impact they can have.

With UNIDOs technical expertise, and through a network of alumni and mentors, we will be able to improve our business and financial models, while maximizing our social impact, said Rosemary Romanos founder of Lebanons SunRay Energy, which facilitates access to electricity in rural and marginalized communities. Anja Carapic, co-founder of UrbiGo, which aims at promoting sustainable food consumption and production through smart vertical gardens suitable for urban living spaces, confirmed that E4SC can support scaling my business and multiplying its impact in the next 12 months.

For more information on the programme: www.e4sc.org

For further information, please contact:

Matteo Landi

Email

Francesco Candelari

Email
Cabinet approves MoU b/n India & Philippines on agriculture

New Delhi, Nov10 (UNI) The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Philippines in the field of agriculture and related fields. This will boost bilateral cooperation in the field of agriculture and will be mutually beneficial to both countries.

The MoU will promote understanding of best agricultural practices in the two countries and will help in better productivity as well as improved global market access. Apart from this, the agreement will augment cooperation in the fields of rice production and processing, multi cropping system, dry-land farming systems, bio-organic farming, solid and water conservation and management, soil fertility, sericulture, agro forestry, livestock improvement as well.

It is going to provides for constitution of Joint Working Group composed of equal number of representatives. The Joint Working Group shall meet once every two years alternatively in the Philippines and India.
Cambodia PM Hun Sen says 2018 election result does not need international recognition

PHNOM PENH, Nov 10 (Reuters) Cambodia's long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday said the 2018 national election result does not require international recognition to be valid -- the latest sign of his determination to hold on to power after almost 33 years in office.

Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has gone after critics including members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in recent months in what opponents say is a bid to strengthen its grip on power ahead of the vote.

A court will rule on Nov. 16 whether to dissolve the CNRP after the government filed a lawsuit demanding its dissolution.
CCHAU, Netherlands to jointly work on project to tackle crop residue management issues

Chandigarh, Nov 10 (UNI) The CCHAU and the Netherlands government have decided to jointly work on a project to tackle issues like crop residue management and work on bio-defense strategy, protected cultivation, peri-urban and urban horticulture, floriculture and hydroponic vegetables.

Besides, the project will go into setting up of an Indo-Dutch Horticulture Centre at Jhajhar, an agri-business incubation centre and explore the scope for teacher-student training, exchange programme, special short-term training programme and knowledge gap analysis.

This was decided at a meeting of the Joint Working Group of the Indo-Dutch Collaboration presided over by CCSHAU Vice-Chancellor K P Singh on the university campus yesterday.
EU to preserve Iran nuclear deal - Mogherini

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Nov 10 (Reuters) The European Union will make sure that the Iran nuclear deal "will continue to be fully implemented by all, in all its parts", the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Friday.

Speaking at a conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the EU's Federica Mogherini said the agreement was "a major achievement of European and international multilateral diplomacy that is delivering".

US President Donald Trump on Oct. 13 dealt a blow to the pact by refusing to certify that Tehran was complying with the accord even though international inspectors said it was.

But US lawmakers signalled this week they planned to ensure the United States complied with the agreement under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for relief from economic sanctions.

Congress has until mid-December to decide whether to reimpose sanctions lifted under the deal.

REUTERS SV 1241
Islamist militants kill six soldiers in southern Philippines

MANILA, Nov 10 (Reuters) Pro-Islamic State militants killed six soldiers and wounded four others on a southern Philippine island, the military spokesman said on Friday, as the army focused on the remaining rebel groups after regaining control of Marawi City.

The army shifted its operations on Basilan island after ending the five-month combat operations in Marawi last month after killing the militants' top leaders, including Isnilon Hapilon, the emir of pro-Islamic State groups in Southeast Asia.

"We were going after the Abu Sayyaf elements who continue to exist in Basilan and up to this time, there have been skirmishes reported to us, specifically this morning," military spokesman Major-General Restituto Padilla told news channel ANC.
Mueller probing alleged Flynn plan to deliver cleric to Turkey -WSJ

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether U.S. President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was involved in an alleged plan to seize a Muslim cleric and deliver him to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Under the plan, Flynn, who was fired by Trump after just 24 days in the job, and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, were to receive up to

15 million if they forcibly removed Fethullah Gulen from his home in the United States and delivered him to the Turkish government, people familiar with the investigation told the Journal.
The latest buzz has it that Tumhari Sullu actress Vidya Balan will be coming to meet Sallu Bhai and the housemates.

By India Today Web Desk: Every year actors from the Bollywood industry come to promote their films on Bigg Boss. This year too, ensemble cast of Golmaal Again visited the show a few days back. And now the latest buzz has it that actress Vidya Balan, who is on a promotion-spree of Tumhari Sullu, will be coming to meet Sallu Bhai and the housemates of Bigg Boss 11 .

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Reports suggest that Vidya will interact with the contestants in the Bigg Boss house as a radio jockey. She will also play a game with them in which two contestants will compete against each other and ask questions.

Vidya will be essaying the role of a housewife in the film, who works as a night RJ. Tumhari Sulu also stars Manav Kaul (who plays the role of Vidya's husband).

Directed by Suresh Triveni, Tumhari Sulu is a slice-of-life comedy film. The film is slated to release on November 17, 2017.

Also, Kapil will be seen with Salman Khan on the Weekend ka Vaar episode. Salman has, on several occasions, made an appearance on The Kapil Sharma Show to promote his movies. Now, it is Kapil's turn to do the promotions.

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Islamabad, Nov 10 (UNI) Pakistan on Friday offered imprisoned Indian Kulbhudhan Jhadev, who is on a death row, a meeting with his wife.

The decision has been taken purely on humanitarian ground, a Foreign Ministry release said here.

A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad on Friday, it said.

Islamabad had so far been denying consular access to Jadhav sought by India.

Jadhav, a former Navy officer, was arrested in March 2016 by Pakistani agencies on charges of espionage and sabotage, which is strongly denied by India.

Pakistan accuses Jadhav of being an agent of the Indias intelligence agency RAW, and says he was picked from Balochistan where he was involved in subversive activities. India dismisses all these charges as rubbish.

India has approached the International Court of Justice to vacate the death sentence awarded to Jadhav by a Pakistan military court.

UNI NAZ SHK 2043
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The Cabinet today gave its green light to entering into an agreement between India and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China for avoidance of double taxation and prevention of tax evasion.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also approved the protocol amending the agreement between India and Kyrgyzstan for avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.

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The agreement with Hong Kong will stimulate flow of investment, technology and personnel, prevent double taxation and provide for exchange of information between the two contracting parties, an official release said.

It will also improve transparency on tax matters and help curb tax evasion and avoidance.

About Kyrgyzstan, an another release said new clauses are being inserted into the existing DTAA on exchange of information.

"The Protocol further empowers India to use information received under the DTAA to be used for other law enforcement purposes on the supplying State authorising such use," it said.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet also gave its approval for signing a Joint Interpretative Declaration (JID) between India and Colombia on the existing Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments between the two countries signed in November 2009.

The JID will impart clarity to the interpretation of the existing agreement, said another release.

Joint Interpretative Declarations and Statements in general play an important supplementary role in strengthening the investment treaty regime, it added. PTI NKD CS ARD

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By PTI: (Eds: With HRD Minister quotes)

New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The Union Cabinet today approved setting up of National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct entrance examinations for higher education institutions, a move hailed as "historic" by HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.

The NTA would initially conduct entrance tests that are currently organised by the CBSE, while other examinations will be taken up gradually, an official statement said.

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Currently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts nine type of exams including the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), on behalf of the Medical Council Of India and Health Ministry, and the National Eligibility Test (NET), on behalf of the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The other key exams conducted by the board are central teacher eligibility test (CTET), joint entrance exam (JEE) Mains and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) admission test.

"Setting up of #NationalTestingAgency is a historic decision and a much needed education reform," Javadekar tweeted.

"#CBSE as of now conducts 9-Types of exams including CTET, UGC NET, JEE Mains, NEET, JNV admission with about 70L students appearing in them. #NationalTestingAgency will take off the burden of conducting entrance exams from #CBSE," he added.

The statement said the decision will relieve the CBSE, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and other agencies from the responsibility of conducting these entrance examinations.

It will also bring in high reliability, standardised difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence and problem-solving abilities of the students.

The entrance examinations will be conducted online at least twice a year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best, it added.

In order to serve the requirements of the rural students, it would locate the centres at sub-district/district level and as far as possible would undertake hands-on training exercise for the students, the release said.

The NTA will be given a one-time grant of Rs 25 crore from the government to start its operation in the first year and thereafter, it will be financially self-sustainable, it added.

It will be chaired by an educationist appointed by Human Resource Development Ministry.

The establishment of NTA, an autonomous organisation, will benefit about 40 lakh students appearing in various entrance examinations, the release said.

It will be established as a Society registered under the Indian Societies Registration Act, 1860.

In view of the need to have a specialised body in India like the most advanced countries, the finance minister in the Budget speech of 2017-18, had announced setting up of NTA to conduct all entrance examinations for higher educational institutions. PTI MP ENM TIR

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November 10 2017

East Ayrshire Council has taken possession of its newest school following delivery of Whatriggs Primary and Early Education Centre in Kilmarnock by Morrison Construction and Keppie Design.Keppie were brought on board by the councils architecture department to finesse their plans for the 12.4m campus, required to facilitate the amalgamation of two existing schools.Keppie associate Lesley Buntain said: The collaborative working relationship that developed between East Ayrshire Council and Morrison Construction created an open atmosphere where decisions really were made as a team. East Ayrshire Council, although the originators of the exemplar, were always willing to consider changes where we felt improvements could be made or value added.Housing up to 500 pupils with a further 110 nursery places available the campus with Hirst Landscape Architects assuming responsibility for all external spaces.
Handsome Her is a vegan cafe in Melbourne, and it is trying to start a conversation about wage inequality.

By India Today Web Desk: The fact that women get paid less than men in most fields across the world is not unknown to us. Women celebrities from all over the world have spoken against wage inequality, and asked for the wage gap between men and women to be decreased, if not completely abolished.

But the people behind a cafe in Melbourne, Australia, has taken the matter in their own hands by applying an innovative "house rule"--male customers have to pay 18 per cent extra, as a "gender pay gap tax", during one week every month!

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Handsome Her is a vegan restaurant which is run mostly by women. The place has a number of "house rules", which are written with chalk on a board at the entrance. Take a look:

Would LOVE everyones thoughts on this. My friends cafe in #Brunswick, Handsom Her - is for women by women AND an has a 18% gender tax! pic.twitter.com/tVSX3PO4q8- Paige Cardona ?????? (@paigecardona) August 3, 2017

"Rule #1: women have priority seating. Rule #2: men will be charged an 18% premium to reflect the gender pay gap (2016) which is donated to a women's service. Rule #3 respect goes both ways."

Handsome Her is a new cafe in Melbourne, Australia. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Handsome Her

Also Read: Contestants at this beauty pageant explained their body size through statistics on gender violence

The "tax" that the owners of this cafe collect are donated to women's charities, and they are hoping to start a conversation about wage inequality through their act.

The The

"I do want people to think about it, because we've had this (pay discrepancy) for decades and decades and we're bringing it to the forefront of people's minds. I like that it is making men stop and question their privilege a little bit," Alec O'Brien, the owner, told Broadsheet Melbourne.

The cafe even has a Hall of Dames, with picture of inspiring women. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Handsome Her

O'Brien says the response has been positive so far, with one male customer even donating 50 Australian dollars! O'Brien also mentions that while they are putting the "tax" as a "house rule", it is actually voluntary. "Men are asked if they want to pay the charge before being charged,"she adds.

Also Read: Why #MeToo should be a conversation on sexual assault, not on gender alone

The funds collected so far have gone to Elizabeth Morgan House, an organisation that supports Australian aboriginal women and children who suffer from domestic violence. The funds from the collected taxes will actually be rotated between a number of charities, said O'Brien.

Pulled jackfruit with smoky barbecue sauce, rainbow slaw, mayo, onion rings, avocado, grilled pineapple on a charcoal bun. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Handsome Her Pulled jackfruit with smoky barbecue sauce, rainbow slaw, mayo, onion rings, avocado, grilled pineapple on a charcoal bun. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Handsome Her

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So while the larger issue of wage inequality still remains unresolved on the level of actual legislation all over the world, this little cafe is trying to make a difference in its own way.

Nutella Brownie Slices. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Handsome Her

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Travis Merriweather '15 is pursuing a music career in Los Angeles. Photo credit: Matt Sayles

(Nov. 10, 2017) -- Five years ago, Travis Merriweather '13 got the opportunity of a lifetime when he and his brother were invited among 1,000 students to the Clinton Global Initiative University. Founded by former President Bill Clinton, the forum offered university students the opportunity to meet with other student leaders from around the country to discuss solutions to global issues, including climate change, education, poverty and public health.

For Merriweather, the forum, which took place in Washington D.C., was an "amazing experience," where he met entrepreneurs and world leaders, including Craigslist founder Craig Newman, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and even President Clinton himself.

"My brother and I were the first UTSA students to attend the Clinton Initiative and that experience really shaped us into the adults we are today," said Merriweather.

Funding made available by a gift from Valero made the trip possible.

"We were so thankful to the Student Leadership Center," he said. "It played a huge role and were able to secure the funding from the Valero Energy Foundation for us to attend."

Merriweather said the forum inspired him to make positive changes when he returned to campus.

"I noticed a lack of fresh produce available on campus," said Merriweather. "So I promoted sustainability at UTSA and advocated to see more farmer's markets on college campuses in order to limit the distances food must travel to get from farm to dorm room table."

During his time at UTSA, Merriweather was also an active campus community organizer for the 2012 Obama campaign. It was through his demonstration of public service and commitment to the Obama administration that led him to an internship with former first lady Michelle Obama.

Travis' first love, however, is music. After graduating from UTSA with a bachelor of arts in music in 2013, Merriweather moved to California with hopes of catapulting Atlantisthe jazz inspired band he founded with his brother Rustein Merriweather '13into the spotlight. Upon arriving in L.A., he landed a job in the mailroom of mega talent agency Creative Artists Agency. It was during that time Merriweather was recruited by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

"It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities," said Merriweather. "I was part of her advance team and would travel ahead of the candidate to run the logistics and interact with the media."

Today, Merriweather is re-focusing his attention on Atlantis. He and his brother recently released their single, Sabrosa.

"We actually wrote Sabrosa at UTSA and performed it on campus. It's pretty cool to see the evolution to where we are now," Merriweather said. "If it weren't for the gift from Valero, I am not sure my brother and I would have had these opportunities. When I look back now, I am so grateful there are donors who helped make my experience at UTSA so memorable. I really can say that gifts to UTSA make a difference."
Wyoming Business Tips for Nov. 19-25

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 Susan Jerke, regional director of the WSBDC Network

I would like to purchase an existing business. Where should I start? Stacy, Buffalo

The short answer is that buying or selling a business is all about relationships.

In a traditional real estate transaction, such as buying a home or a building, there is zero relationship between the buyer and the seller. The property speaks for itself, and the parties may never actually meet face to face. However, a business sale is all about building trust and establishing relationships.

If you have found a business that seems attractive, and the seller says it is profitable -- plus, if you have some experience in the industry -- where do you start? Obviously, the financial information is critical, and often we want to begin by seeing the bottom line and running the numbers. But, there is often a bit of reluctance on the part of the seller to initially disclose complete financial information, usually due to confidentiality issues.

The author of The Guide to Buying a Small Business, Ed Pendarvis, suggests that an alternative way to view a business opportunity is to begin by looking at the top line to determine how the business performs. Ask for gross sales -- total sales, before any deductions for expenses. Immediately make contact with the seller, meet face to face and begin the process of really understanding the business.

Is it a good fit for your family and lifestyle? Can you envision yourself working there every day, and even evenings and weekends? How much money does the owner really take out of the business? Is the seller making a living from the business?

Visit the business and see firsthand how it is run, the condition of the equipment and the general feel of the operation. Once you make that initial date with the business, is it still attractive and something you may be interested in?

If so, you can begin the negotiation process by making an offer -- in writing -- with earnest money, obtain financial statements and tax returns, then go through the books and perform your due diligence with a CPA. Moving forward with the sale should be contingent on everything matching what the seller represented initially. The WSBDC Network can help you determine a fair market value for the business, based on the financial information, once you have access to it.

What should you focus on as a buyer? Much of your focus should be on what improvements you can make to the business -- less on what the seller has done with the business. Of course, you will only want to pay for what the business is currently doing, but your final decision should be based on how you would make it better.

So, whats the bottom line? The deal must work for both buyer and seller, and trust is the basis of the transaction. Certainly, the process is never exactly the same for every buyer or seller, so the WSBDC Network invites you to ask for assistance along the way.

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.
The Akhil Bharathiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had an embarrassing experience during their journey to Kerala. 15 members of the team were travelling without tickets.

By P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan: The Akhil Bharathiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP ) had an embarrassing experience during their journey to Kerala. Over 65 members of the ABVP who were travelling to Thiruvananthapuram were detained by Railway Protection Force after many of them were found to be travelling without tickets. It is also alleged that the general compartment was locked from inside restricting entry for other passengers.

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The incident unfolded in Kannur railway station on Thursday morning as train number 19332 Indore- Kochuveli express arrived on the second platform. Many passengers were waiting at the station for the train which came in during the morning rush hour in Kannur- Kozhikode sector. However, the passengers who tried to enter the general compartment was denied entry by alleged ABVP workers as they claimed the compartment was fully booked for them.

According to RPF, the ABVP workers were travelling from Madhya Pradesh to Kerala to attend the Chalo Kerala march. As the train reached Kannur, passengers waiting at the station were denied entry to the general compartment which was occupied by ABVP workers. When questioned, they allegedly said that they have booked the whole compartment for their programme. Passengers also said that the general compartment was locked from inside. As the passengers protested and since the train had already left, the information was passed on to the next station, which was Kozhikode.

At Kozhikode, RPF and Railway officials entered the compartment to verify their incident. In the inspection it was revealed that 15 members of the team were travelling without tickets. To avoid delay the Ticketing department at next station (Shornur) was assigned to collect the penalty as excess fare charges. The railway collected a total penalty of Rs 11,250 from 15 men. The compartment was later opened for other passengers as well.

The RPF have also registered cases against 2 men for pulling the chain unnecessarily and restricting the entry of other passengers.

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By PTI: open arms A A A Bengaluru, Nov 10 (PTI) Karnataka Chief Minister A Siddaramaiah today invited Chinese investors to invest inA Karnataka, saying the state is ready to receive them with open arms and promised the speedy implementation of projects. "Indias exports to China touched USD 8.86 billion, whereas Chinas exports were USD 61.54 billion. I urge investors from China to invest in Karnataka," he said at the inauguration of 6th India-China Forum here. India-China bilateral trade also had reached USD 70.4A billion in 2015, he added. Siddaramaiah said Karnataka is ready to receive ChinaA with open arms in future to keep discussions andAengagements moving forward. "We will do everything possible to enable seamlessA conduct of business, with total transparency and with theA assurance that your projects will be speedily implemented," heAsaid. Karnataka Government will continue to actively engage A with China and explore all possible avenues to make them itsA valued partners in building of a strong and prosperous state,A Siddaramaiah said.

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He also expressed happiness over Karntaka signing A Sister-State-Province agreement with Provincial Government ofA Sichuan of the Peoples Republic of China. "It is just the beginning in identifying synergies inA technologies which would strengthen and deepen the foundationA of a Future-oriented Partnership between India and China and A Karnataka and China, evolving business ties, particularlyAinA defence,energy,infrastructure,agriculture and foodAprocessing, Information Technology and environment,to name aAfew,"he said. Siddaramaiah said Karnataka?s Industrial Policy for 2014-19 was manufacturing centric with a vision is to make the state an innovative and hi-tech manufacturing hubAof India. He said India and Chinas relations has undergone an evolution in recent years developing along a positive track, into a friendly partnership. "It has made great strides in recent years and has become truly multi-dimensional, spurred by a significant convergenceA of interests, mutual goodwill and high-level exchanges," heA added. PTI BDN RA APR APR

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In celebration of this years United States Marine Corps Ball at Paris Las Vegas, Beer Park will offer discounts to active and retired military from Friday, Dec. 8 through Sunday, Dec. 10 (Pictured: Beer Park Philly Cheesesteak).

The Strip-side rooftop and bar will honor the 1,500 marines and families attending the Marine Corps Ball by offering 20 percent off food purchases to veterans and active-duty service members who present a valid military ID throughout the weekend.

Beer Parks expansive menu includes oversized sandwiches, burgers, beer-infused appetizers, house-smoked barbecue ribs and more. The popular bar offers more than 100 beer selections, including 36 drafts on tap. Along with incredible views of the Fountains at Bellagio, Beer Park also offers billiards and foosball, as well as oversized yard games, including Jenga and Connect Four.
By PTI: Ahmedabad, Nov 10 (PTI) Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel today said a meeting of the Congress and Patel quota agitators was a "total failure" and the opposition party is just trying to drag the reservation issue till the Assembly polls to get votes of the Patidar community.

Nitin Patel claimed the meeting, between a Congress delegation led by Kapil Sibal and members of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti(PAAS) on Wednesday here, was an attempt to "deceive" the influential community and aimed at finding ways to help the opposition party in the next months polls.

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"Though its been two days, neither the Congress nor the PAAS has said anything about the outcome of the meeting. It is very clear that the meeting was a total failure.

"We believe that whatever formula was offered by Sibal was just an attempt to drag the issue of reservation till the polls so that the Congress gets votes from the community," the senior BJP leader said.

Patel said any reservation over and above the existing 49 per cent limit is not possible to implement.

"Our sources have said the Congress might have offered 10 per cent additional quota beyond the existing 49 per cent. But, if you remember, the PAAS has always maintained that they want to be included in the 49 per cent quota, because anything above that cap is not possible due to a past Supreme Court order," he told reporters here.

Thirteen members of the Hardik Patel-led PAAS held talks with Sibal to know how the party plans to grant reservation to the Patidars if voted to power in the upcoming Assembly polls.

During the meeting, the Congress gave three options to the PAAS, spearheading the quota stir, on reservation.

The organisation members have said they would consult Hardik Patel, leaders of the community, and legal experts before taking a call on the issue.

According to Patel, any effort to create a separate backward class category for the Patidars by passing a Bill in the Assembly is bound to fall through.

"Just two days back, the Rajasthan High Court stayed additional quota given to the Gujjars by the government. Thus, if the Congress is promising to do the same here by passing a Bill and sending it to Parliament, then it will be nothing but an attempt to misguide the Patidars," said the BJP leader. PTI PJT PD RSY TIR

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Alipay intends to co-operate with several fintech payment companies in Vietnam

The burning question now is which Vietnamese market segment AliPay plans to conquer.

Further details regarding the business cooperation between the two parties have yet to be unveiled.

However, according to Alibabas spokesperson, the market penetration strategy of Alibaba would include resemblances with the firms strategy in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Specifically, initially, Alibaba would provide market strategies for firms in the field of fintech payment, from trading and electronic payments to wholesaling, followed by business development, which later on expands into the retail market.

In Vietnam, Alibaba officially came into operation in 2008 and specialised in business consultation and digital shopping platforms.

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba also asserted that Alibaba intends to partner up with a few Vietnamese firms whose business involve fintech payments, such as providing a digital shopping platform for export companies with the latest technological applications, exploiting the segment of digital retailing aiming to reach individual customers, as well as cooperation in digital payments, the QR code application, and the direct-indirect co-operation with several fintech payment companies.

In addition, Alipay in Vietnam will provide an online application for overseas Chinese travellers and Chinese travellers currently staying in Vietnam. Alipays domestic application in China at present only targets the payment services on Alibabas websites.

On November 6, Le Minh Hung, Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), stressed the potential of trading and digital payments in Vietnam as the country appears to be a nurturing environment for such activities.

SBV welcomes business concepts and strategies as well as the further co-operation with Alibaba in Vietnam.

Currently, SBV has licensed 24 non-bank financial institutions to provide intermediary payment services. So far, more than 40 commercial banks have participated in the co-operation with these 24 organisations to implement services.

Regarding the innovation of payment methods, fintech payment is a fast-paced technology that supports payments in banking and financial services, which aids transactions as well as saves time on conducting transactions.

Alipay is the leading third-party mobile and online payment platform which was established in Hangzhou, China, in February 2004 by Alibaba and founder Jack Ma.

National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (Napas) is the first intermediary payment services provider being granted a licence by SBV to supply switching and electronic clearing and settlement services in Vietnam.
Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull shared a banh mi breakfast with Australian-Vietnamese celebrity chef Luke Nguyen at a local street food restaurant in a Nang

Prime Minister Turnbull said Vietnamese food is enjoyed every day by Australians, which is just one of the many positive contributions of the nearly 300,000 Vietnamese who call Australia home. But this is the first time Ive ever tried banh mi! I love the fresh flavours of Vietnamese food.

Turnbull also said it was fantastic to see Australian agricultural exports featured in such iconic Vietnamese dishes.

Viet Nam is Australias second largest export market for wheat and beef - wheat is predominantly used to make wheat noodles, and the majority of banh mi that Vietnamese enjoy everyday, he said.

Viet Nam also imports Australian malt and barley for its growing beer industry. In 2016, Viet Nam imported AU$446.2 million of wheat, AU$94.9 million of barley, and AU$37.5 million of beef and veal from Australia.

Australian-Vietnamese celebrity chef Luke Nguyen is pleased that Vietnamese people increasingly have the opportunity to enjoy Australias premium food and beverages. As the Taste of Australia Ambassador in Viet Nam, Im excited to work with the Australian Government to bring more high-quality Australian food and beverages, including our famed beef, wine, wheat and dairy, to Viet Nam, he said.
The Supreme Court could decide to place Forcadell and the five former MPs in pre-trial detention. AFP/STR

Carme Forcadell and five former Catalan lawmakers are accused of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds after Catalonia's parliament voted last month to split from Spain.

A judicial source said prosecutors had asked for Forcadell and three others be detained on rebellion charges, which in Spain carries a maximum jail sentence of 30 years.

They are suspected of having followed a "concerted strategy to declare independence", before the official declaration on Oct 27, deepening Spain's most serious political crisis in decades.

That declaration was annulled on Wednesday by Spain's Constitutional Court.

The Catalan crisis has prompted hundreds of businesses to re-register outside the wealthy northeastern region and caused disquiet in a European Union still dealing with Britain's shock decision to leave the bloc.

On Wednesday, a general strike called in Catalonia by a pro-independence union triggered widespread travel chaos, cutting Spain's main highway link to France and the rest of Europe and disrupting trains from Barcelona to Paris, Marseille and Lyon.

Authorities said around 150,000 people were affected.

'WEAKENS EUROPE'

Encouraged by their charismatic figurehead Carles Puigdemont, Catalan leaders voted to declare unilateral independence from Spain after going ahead with a banned referendum on Oct 1.

Separatists said 90 per cent of voters opted for independence, but critics counter that pro-unity supporters had boycotted a plebiscite that violated Spain's constitution.

In response, the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suspended Catalan autonomy dismissing its parliament and government, and organised new regional elections for Dec 21.

A judge in Madrid last week ordered that eight members of Puigdemont's sacked government be detained for their role in the secession drive.

The Supreme Court could also decide to place Forcadell and the former lawmakers in pre-trial detention.

Forcadell's spokesman told reporters that as Catalan parliamentary speaker she didn't "have the freedom to stop a vote" in the chamber on independence.

Outside the court on Thursday a small group of protesters gathered, holding banners against independence.

There were also a handful of separatist supporters, facing opposition cries of "Jail for Puigdemont!"

Puigdemont and four former Catalan ministers are in self-imposed exile in Belgium and are due to appear before a judge next week after Madrid issued a EU-wide warrant for their extradition.

The 54-year-old deposed leader has ignored a summons to appear before a judge in Madrid, saying he wants guarantees he will receive a fair trial.

His presence in the European capital has raised some fears of stoking communal tensions in Belgium after Flemish separatists in the ruling coalition there spoke out in support of Catalan independence.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who was in Spain on Thursday, said that the bloc was "against any form of separatism that weakens Europe".

GROWTH FORECAST

Despite the crisis, the EU on Thursday upgraded its growth forecast for Spain to a robust 3.1 per cent for this year, leading the eurozone's major economies.

EU economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici said that the Catalan independence drive had so far only had a slight impact on Spain's overall economy.

Puigdemont in a letter to the Catalan daily El Punt Avui on Thursday called for "the liberation of political prisoners held by the Spanish state."

Amnesty International however said on Twitter that the jailed ministers could not be considered "political prisoners ... as they are accused of acts that may constitute a criminal offence."

Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million people that accounts for a fifth of Spain's GDP, is deeply divided over independence.
If you feel brave enough, head to Le Mat Village, the most well-known place in Viet Nam to enjoy delicious dishes prepared from snakes raised by locals. Here, you can see and even hold some snakes at the farm before you enjoy a feast of local snake delicacies.

Package: Snake meat wrapped in "la lot" leaves.

Le Mat is only seven km from Ha Nois Old Quarter. After a 30 minute drive, you will find yourself in the ancient village in Viet Hung ward of Long Bien District, where snake restaurants are abundant.

The most popular snakes served in these restaurants are grass snakes and cobras  the cobra is ten times more expensive than grass snakes, of course  and they are all alive.

Historic trade: Snake breeding became a Le Mat Village specialty centuries ago.

At the restaurant, you will have the chance to see how your chosen snake is prepared. Its heart and gall are poured into glasses of wine to drink. Other parts of the snake are cooked in different ways to make around ten dishes. Preparation methods include grilling, frying, steaming, wrapping in leaves and even soaking in traditional medicine.

Snake alcohol is quite popular because it is believed to be good for ones health.

Truong Khac Lap, owner of the villages Ran Rao restaurant, is proud of his restaurant, which has been open for 20 years.

Our customers can choose the live snakes in our farm. Then we will prepare dishes from those snakes following their demands, he said.

Sticky: Glutinous rice cooked with snake grease.

At first, visitors to the restaurant were overwhelmed with their fear of snakes. So the restaurant prepared the snakes out of sight to avoid scaring the already anxious clients.

Snake meat, he said, is quite similar in taste and texture to eel meat. Popular dishes include stir-fried crispy snake skin, pan-fried backbone with rice crackers, snake with fried vermicelli, snake wrapped in la lot leaf, snake soup and snake spring rolls.

Adventurous diners can taste snake wine, which is rice wine mixed with blood and heart of the snake.

It is very good for health, supporting immune function and bone health. Snake wine is especially good for male sexual vitality, he explains. We have more and more people coming here to visit snake farms and enjoy the many snake meats, not just for the taste, but also the considerable health benefits.

Beautiful legend

No one knows exactly when villagers in Le Mat began to breed snakes. But for centuries, they have told each other a legend explaining the origin of the job.

Fried: Spring rolls made with snake meat.

Legend has it that one day while the daughter of King Ly Thai Tong (1072-1127) was on a pleasant boat cruise with her maids on the Duong River, a big snake, which was considered a water monster, overturned the boat and caught the princess.

The crew could do nothing to protect the unfortunate princess. But a young man in the Hoang Family from Le Mat Village dove into the water, fought against the monster and, in the end, succeeded in killing it and saving the princess.

King Ly Thai Tong was deeply impressed by the young mans feat and gave him a reward of gold and court titles. But the hero graciously rejected the reward and, instead, requested the King allow him and a number of poor people to reclaim land in the areas west of the capital in Thang Long.

Swimming: Snake soup

As the King gave his assent, the young man led the poor to reclaim their land and established 13 prosperous and famous agricultural settlements in the neighbourhood of Thang Long. When the man passed away, the locals honoured him as the villages tutelary god and every year organize a festival to commemorate him.

Following the example of the man, inhabitants in Le Mat began to breed snakes.

Le Mat Village Festival consists of many unique rites and folk activities, such as the water offering ceremony, the snake killing dance  one of the ten ancient dances in the imperial capital of Thang Longand the rite of catching carp.

A lucrative, recognised speciality

There are roughly 100 snake-farming households in Le Mat.

It is hard to believe that not long ago, the business of snake breeding and meat production almost disappeared. From the 1960s to 1990s snakes around Le Mat were bred for restaurants and pharmaceutical purposes.

Also fried: Fried snake, one of the most popular snake dishes in Le Mat Village.

Then, in 1993, Viet Nam ratified the international convention on the protection of wildlife and imposed restrictions on the snake-breeding industry. Snake meat disappeared from menus. In 2007, aware of the negative repercussions on the local dining economy, Vietnamese authorities granted Le Mat craft village status. On this basis plans for development were drawn to turn snake breeding and meat production into an experience that would be popular with tourists eager to sample this most unique Vietnamese specialty.

If you are brave enough to experience meat, just jump on city Bus No. 10 to Long Bien Bus Station and walk a few hundred metres to Le Mat Village.
The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt

Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard.

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people.

Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched.

At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre.

In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units.

In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix.

Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter.

This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors.

This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency.

However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options.

With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said.

He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces.

Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy.

The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said.
Small business owners with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

As part of the small business roundtable talk, Vietnamese entrepreneurs shared stories of setting up their businesses, including the challenges they faced and the digital tools they used to grow.

The business owners represented Vietnam's diverse community of entrepreneurs, from fresh graduates to working mothers and professionals who have changed their career to pursue their goals of becoming entrepreneurs.

Small businesses are at the heart of our economies and create the majority of new jobs all around the world. I'm proud of the role Facebook plays in helping small businesses grow and create jobs, and were committed to creating more programmes that make a difference, Sandberg shared on her page.

In Sheryls words, 74 per cent of small businesses in the APEC report that being on Facebook helped them increase sales and nearly 70 per cent of small businesses that use Facebook start hiring more employees.

There are 70 million small businesses on Facebook, and one of them is run by Canh.

Canh is s a homegrown entrepreneur who is creating opportunities in rural communities that struggle to create stable jobs.

His businessDoc Moc Corporationis a company that sells traditional salt minerals to help with the treatment of arthritis.

It is based in a small village of only 5,000 people in the northern province of Ninh Binh. He employs 100 people from his village, 60 per cent of whom are women.

The roundtable was an opportunity for entrepreneurs like me to connect with and learn from others who are growing the digital economy in Vietnam. I was inspired by businesses such as Topica Edtech and iMedia that are harnessing technology and Facebook to build their businesses and help support the economic growth of the country, said Canh.

Empowered with these new insights and best practices, I look forward to continuing to build my business on Facebook, promote Vietnamese traditional products, reach out to more potential customers in other countries and help inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs in Vietnam, he added.

Facebook has trained 4,000 small businesses in Vietnam in person through collaborations with both governmental and non-governmental partners this year.

It has also trained more than 100,000 people in Vietnam through the online Facebook Academy.

Facebook's Boost Your Business and SheMeansBusiness programmes provide digital skills training to entrepreneurs who are looking to start and grow their businesses. Facebook has committed to expanding both programmes to more cities and provinces in Vietnam next year.
Daniel Moser was arrested in April on spying charges. (Photo: AFP/Andreas Arnold)

Daniel Moser, 54, was arrested in the German business capital Frankfurt in April on spying charges after he compiled information on officials tasked by Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state with uncovering wealth hidden at Swiss banks.

In a plea bargain, Moser admitted to the espionage operation and named his Swiss spy handlers.

The former police officer denied acting with criminal intent and said he was driven by "patriotism, love for adventure, profit-seeking motives and indignation".

Taking his confession into account, the court gave Moser a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months and fined him 25,000 (US$29,000) - a lighter penalty than the two year suspended sentence and 40,000 fine sought by prosecutors.

Moser had told the court he was paid 28,000 between 2011 and 2013 for the spying job.

Switzerland had been seeking the identities of three German tax officers, hoping to build a case against them for illegally obtaining banking data which are protected under the country's strict secrecy laws.

Swiss banks have come under intense pressure in recent years as several German states started buying CDs or USB memory sticks allegedly containing data on German taxpayers who had parked their fortunes across the border.

Fearing prosecution, many of Germany's rich and famous subsequently came forward to declare their hidden wealth, boosting the tax coffers of Europe's biggest economy by billions of euros.

In an extraordinary court statement in October, Moser, who once worked as a security officer at Swiss banking giant UBS, voiced regret for his action.

He described himself as a "middleman" between the Swiss secret service and a security company - which apparently helped to compile information on the targeted individuals.

The spying case had sparked outrage in Germany, with Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel rebuking Switzerland over the scandal and summoning Bern's envoy for clarification.

It was especially embarrassing for Switzerland, which in 2015 had signed a deal with the European Union to exchange bank data starting in 2018 as part of an international pledge to clamp down on tax cheats.
GV Energy has installed lighting systems power by solar and wind energy for two primary schools in Nghe An province

This is an activity in the Global Corporate Social Responsibility of Korean Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA Global CSR) in 2017.

Koreas GV Energy specialises in providing products using renewable energy such as solar power or wind power generators.

In line of KOTRA Global CSR 2017 of KOTRA in Vietnam, GV Energy has installed lighting systems powered by 200W wind generator and 600W solar generator for two primary schools in Nghe An at no charge. Additionally, GV Energy also donated hundreds of educational kits to disadvantaged students at these two schools.

Renewable energy brings many benefits to the economy, society, environment and people health. Power generated from renewable energy such as wind power, solar energy has become a trend that has attracted many countries all over the world.

KOTRA as well as GV Energy believes that renewable energy development is one of the critical solutions in response to climate change; creating new economic opportunities, benefiting enterprises, helping the poor access to clean energy, reducing environmental pollution and ensuring national energy security.

KOTRA Global SCR activities not only contribute to promoting the advantages of eco-friendly energy products of GV Energy in particular and Korea in general, but also enhance good relationship between the two governments and businesses. In the coming time, we will continue to coordinate with local authorities in order to install more hydropower, wind and solar power generation systems in Vietnam, said Jung Suk Won, CEO of GV Energy.

The company also donates hundreds of educational kits to disadvantaged students at these two schools

CSR is social responsibility activity that Korean government has consistently promoted over the years. KOTRA Global CSR is a social contribution project that has been continuously implemented by KOTRA for many years, contributed to creating a supportive business environment through the cooperation between Korean enterprises and other countries.

KOTRA has teamed up with Korean companies and developing countries, including Vietnam, to tackle social issues, educate human resources, and promote cooperative strategies. In addition to renewable energy in Vietnam, KOTRA also actively promotes supporting activities in other fields such as technology and urban development.

Especially since 2011, annually, KOTRA has cooperated with the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the Korean Embassy in Vietnam to hold CSR Awards in order to honour Korean enterprises which have the best CSR activities in Vietnam.
Culinary artists are changing Punjab's foodscape by introducing lovers of all things scrumptious to innovative dishes, fusion flavours and sinful desserts that look like plated paintings. Here's a curated list of the top gamechangers.

Our Jury

Chef Kandla Nijhowne

Among the top five finalists of MasterChef India Season 1, she now judges food contests and holds culinary workshops across the country.

Anukruti Jhamb

The first food blogger in tricity who started her blog Worth Eat five years ago, she also designs menus for cafes and restaurants across the region.

The Accidental Chef

Aditya Prabhu, 45, Owner, Gourmet Nine, Chandigarh

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A hospitality professional with over 26 years of experience, Aditya Prabhu left his comfortable job to open his maiden restaurant Gourmet Nine in 2013, to make and serve cuisines that he was really passionate about. Prabhu, who had earlier worked with brands such as Taj Hotels, Ramada, and Mainland China says, "I always had a fascination for food and a passion to cook."

Bite This Gourmet Nine's name comes from playing around with nine different types of cuisine from Bengal, Rajasthan, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Pan Asian. "My USP lies in regional cuisines. We always wish that people order things other than butter chicken at our restaurant because we want them to try out stuff from all these regions," he says.

Different Hats "Chandigarh never disappoints. The city loves me and vice-a-versa. I have always strived to do different things here. Be it preparing the menu and setting up the kitchen for tricity's largest European lounge, Barcode IXC, or for an upcoming tapas bar Palate, or that for Rebel Bar and Kitchen, or coming up with a fast food and buffet concept called Natwarlal at Ambala-with every project I dare to be different when it comes to cuisines," he says.

Five Years On Cooking exclusive regional delicacies and getting the city to accept it. Also I would love to serve chef Gordon Ramsay sometime.

A Dish in My Plate Meen Pulichattu from Kerala which has given me recognition in the city.

My Kitchen Idol All the chefs who have trained me.

Bespoke Bakes Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Sanchit Malhotra, 24, Crumbs, Chandigarh

When Sanchit Malhotra started Crumbs in Chandigarh in 2014, he knew that he wanted to target a niche audience with a discerning palate. No wonder he still works from home rather than opening an outlet for his desserts.

"And this has paid off. I know there are many who have broken away from the cliched pineapple and black forest cakes and are moving on to bespoke flavours. What they are looking for is exceptional taste," he says.

Future Plans Malhotra understands that the best way forward is to expand and establish as a national player. "Ideally, I want to make Crumbs a holistic experience --replete with freshly brewed coffee and artisanal pastries-and available at multiple places."

What's Different Deconstructed tiramisu, hazelnut cheesecake lava brownies.

Facing the Heat Working from home comes with its own perks and perils. "I don't have the advantage of visibility that a pop up or a flagship store enjoys by way of customers swarming in and out all day. On the other hand, it does make me work harder to reach out to even the odd elusive client and convert him/her into a Crumbs lover."

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In the Web Malhotra swears by social media and says, "social communities are the virtual equivalents of brick and mortar stores."

Gene cool Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Richa Johri, 37, Corporate Chef, The Whistling Duck, Chandigarh and Delhi

Passion for food is in her blood claims Richa Johri, who inherited culinary skills from her grandmother and mother.

"They could make magic with the most simple ingredients such as drumstick flower, pumpkin leaves or squash roots leaves and blossoms. My mother started a catering institute for women in the 1980s," says Johri.

It was the pressure to keep up the legacy that pushed her towards the profession. An Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Aurangabad graduate, where Johri specialised and topped in Indian cuisine, she started as a management trainee with the Taj Hotels. She has ever since worked and trained under renowned chefs in India, Hong Kong and Mauritius.

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New Beginnings When she started conceptualising her European-styled restaurant Whistling Duck four years ago, she spent endless days and nights exploring local cuisine. "We realised that the chicken loving capital of North India was missing on a lot of different flavours from across the globe. Whistling Duck has never done the typical cliche dishes and has introduced dishes from Indonesia, Morocco, Vietnam, Colombia and Brazil to the city," says the chef who wants to be the first Indian woman chef to get a Michelin star.

What Next "One day I would love to cook for the soldiers at Siachen Glacier since they never get the luxury of dining like us--sitting in a cafe in a normal environment," she says.

The Dish in My Plate Liver Pate. I always judge a chef by this dish.

My Kitchen Idol Chef Marco Pierre White.

Wok to table Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Bharat Khatri, 35, Executive Chef, The Kylin Experience, Chandigarh

No one in Bharat Khatri's family has any connection with the food industry, but since childhood, he liked to help out his mother in the kitchen. And that is how his tryst with food began. Once out of school, Khatri was sure he wanted to study culinary art. After graduating from IHM, Pusa, Delhi, he worked at various restaurants in Delhi. About four years ago he joined Kylin Experience in Elante Mall, Chandigarh as the Executive Chef. And ever since, he has been making Chandigarh fall in love with Oriental cuisine.

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He says, "At Kylin, we serve Pan-Asian cuisine such as Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Burmese and Asian."

New Experience When Khatri first moved to Chandigarh, he realised that the city-dwellers didn't know much about Oriental cuisine and neither were they interested in trying it out. He says, "Before Kylin Experience opened in Chandigarh, not many people were aware of sushi. It is only when we started serving them a variety that they developed a liking for it. They also enjoyed when we offered them Khowse (South African version of khow sue) soup," says Khatri.

Authentic Yet Local Khatri takes pride in the fact that his team serves authentic food.

Five Years On I see myself opening an Oriental cuisine restaurant in either Chandigarh or Delhi. My Kitchen Idol Chef Sam who hails from Singapore and with whom he has worked at The Westin Gurgoan and Crowne Plaza, Delhi. He says, "It is a myth that North Indians just like spicy food. Nobody has ever tried to serve them authentic food."

European Platters Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Chetan Pal Singh, 30, Owner, All Good Taste, Mohali

After completing his Hotel Management at IHM, Aurangabad in 2008, Singh, who specialises in European cuisine moved to San Francisco to work at Michelin-star restaurants such as Gary Danko and La Folie. After losing his parents, he decided to move back, and opened the restaurant All Good Taste in Mohali with his brother Ajay Pal Singh.

Early Start As a child, Singh used to observe his mother who would recreate complex dishes. "I inherited my love for cooking from my mother and my father inspired me to make good, natural dishes," he says.

Currently on Flame Singh, who is also the co-founder of the venture, Mi Chef, a gourmet personalised chef service with his partner Rajkanwar Singh, has started making health bars/energy bars under the name All Good Bars, which are natural and preservative-free.Getting Inspired Chef Grant Achatz, the founder of Alinea, a three Michelin star restaurant in Chicago is Singh's inspiration. "The man survived stage IV tongue cancer and is now ruling the world with his innovative ideas," says Singh.

Where I want to Eat El Bulli, Spain.

Fun With Fusion Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Manav Suri, 27, Chef and Co-owner, Dastaan-A Progressive Affair

During his school days, Manav Suri would often get bored with his tiffin. One day he decided to make his own lunch and carried salami sandwiches. Since then, there was no looking back for this young chef who has done his B.A. Hons in Culinary Arts from IHM, Aurangabad and has worked with brands such as Taj, ITC and Marriott. He says, "The journey got better when I left the comfort of five-star hotels and started working at standalone restaurants in Mumbai, Goa and Bangalore. This gave me the strength and motivated me to open my restaurant-Gusto Kitchen and Kaffe in 2013."

The latest addition to Suri's culinary career is the opening of Dastaan, which serves modern Indian food.Bumpy Ride Suri says the biggest problem he faces is sourcing. "There are a lot of unexplored ingredients that are yet to be brought to the attention of people in the city."

Chef's Speciality At Dastaan, Suri mixes ancient cooking with modern techniques. He has given a twist to age-old Indian recipes, blended them with global ingredients and infused them with molecular gastronomy.

The Dish on My Plate No prizes for guessing, it's rajma chawal.

My Kitchen Idol "At a personal level, it's my mom, dad and my sister. They have been my most willing guinea pigs, even while I was still in culinary school and are now my truest critiques. On the professional front it is Chef Grant Achatz of Alinea, Chicago.

Love to Cook For Sachin Tendulkar.

Cake Walk Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Gayatri Sood, 24, Monica's Pudding & Pies, Chandigarh

Gayatri Sood started baking at the age of ten armed with recipes from her mom's old cookbooks.

She eventually moved to Paris where she got a diploma from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in 2012, and a management degree from Le Cordon Bleu in London in 2015. She joined her family in their business and is now an active part of their bakery Monica's Pudding & Pies. One of the first places to come up with the concept of desserts in Chandigarh, Monica's, established in 1994, still boasts of a loyal clientele.

Secret to Success She believes in chemical and preservative free desserts, something that goes down well with the obsession of using natural products in the region. "We are using the finest of ingredients and brown sugar, wheat flour for many of our desserts," she says.

Not so Sweet The chef feels that in Chandigarh, almost every business faces the problem of high rentals.

"It cuts down profits significantly. The buying capacity of the people here is just not proportionate to the rentals," she says.

Future Perfect The young chef wants to increase the scale of the family business while ensuring that quality does not take a beating.

"I would really like to take the brand to bigger cities. That would be a great challenge," she says.

Queen of Flavours Picture courtesy: Sandeep Sahdev

Nandita Karan, 36, The Lalit, Chandigarh

She loves everything her mom cooks. A foodie since childhood who would not miss trying out any recipe she saw in a magazine, Karan, in her 15-year culinary journey, has worked with major hotels like The Oberoi Rajvilas in Udaipur, Grand Hyatt in Mumbai, Hilton London Gatwick Airport and Sheraton Hotel in Australia.

"During my college days, while studying at IHM, Patna, in 2002, I wanted to join the front office. However, it was during the industrial training in New Delhi's Ashok Group of Hotels that I became fascinated with the way chefs worked. The rest as they say is history," she says.

Whiz in the Kitchen Specialising in Italian and Continental cuisine, this chef does not like the fact that when it comes to Italian, most people cannot think beyond pastas and pizza. "For me, it is all about getting rustic and home-style Italian cooking to this region."

Region's Response Karan says it's a misconception that people in his part of the country are averse to cuisines other than Punjabi. "I have met many foodies who are happy to explore varied culinary delights," she says.

Her Philosophy "I believe in simple and fresh ingredients, specially green vegetables, which have their own unique flavours and identity. The key is to balance them with minimum spices and herbs, just to enhance their taste," she says.

Five Years On She would like to explore hidden cuisines, forgotten methods, lost trends and old techniques of cooking from different regions of India. "Maybe I will write a book on them or present them in a television show."

My Kitchen Idol Chef Jamie Oliver.

--- ENDS ---
By offering the loan guarantee, Britain is seen as helping Saudi Arabia to diversify its oil-dependent economy. (AFP/Fayez Nureldine)

Britain is seen as wooing the company ahead of a stock market flotation next year which it hopes will be in London, even if the government denied that this was the reason for it guaranteeing bank loans to the kingdom.

The guarantee will be supplied by UK Export Finance, a state credit agency which seeks to improve the country's trade balance by providing finance to foreign buyers.

"UKEF's support will take the form of a US$2-billion (1.72-billion) guarantee on bank lending," the government said in a statement.

It pointed out that UKEF had already provided Saudi Aramco with nearly 500 million in support to UK exports over the past five years.

"This (guarantee) has nothing to do with the potential float, it's about increasing UK exports," a Treasury spokesman told AFP.

Saudi Arabia last year announced plans to sell under five percent of Aramco in the world's largest ever initial public offering.

Britain is laying down the red carpet to convince Riyadh that it should choose to list in London, whose status as a leading stock exchange is at risk from the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

On a visit to Saudi Arabia with UK business leaders in April, British Prime Minister Theresa May pitched the London bourse as a venue for the expected listing, with Britain facing competition from other key financial centres, including New York.

May reportedly held a private meeting with Energy Minister Khaled al-Falih, who also heads Aramco, in the presence of London Stock Exchange Group chief, Xavier Rolet.

By offering the loan guarantee, Britain is seen as helping Saudi Arabia to diversify its oil-dependent economy.

But May's visit to the ultra-conservative kingdom faced criticism back in Britain and ahead of the trip, she had faced calls to raise rights issues with its leaders.
Kevin Spacey has faced a barrage of allegations of sexual harassment (Photo: AFP/Nicholas Kamm)

The film is expected to open on Dec 22. Sources say they plan to shoot Plummer's scenes over the next couple of weeks and insert his footage in time to make the release.

Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams also star in the movie, and are expected to be involved with the reshoots. Sources say the shoot is plausible, as there are plenty of scenes where Getty is the only main character in the shot.

Sources estimated Spacey shot around two weeks worth of footage, meaning the deadline is not impossible, but still quite tough to pull off.

The film was recently pulled from the AFI Fest due to the news revolving around Spacey, but the studio was standing by releasing the film on its original date.

The Black List screenplay, written by David Scarpa, centers on the 1973 kidnapping in Italy of J Paul Getty III - the rebellious teenage grandson of oil billionaire J Paul Getty, who was reluctant to pay the US$17 million ransom demanded by the kidnappers.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (centre) on Thursday talked to students from Ton uc Thang University in HCM City. - VNA/VNS Photo

He visited the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, striking a traditional Vietnamese gong to open the afternoon session before attending a roundtable with leaders of local businesses.

Trudeau later held a meeting with the leader of HCM City where he had visited 22 years ago as a young student.

He told the city Peoples Committee Chairman, Nguyen Thanh Phong, that he was impressed with the rapid growth of the city, especially in trade and investment sectors.

HCM City and Canada have a lot of potential to strengthen co-operation in trade and business to further contribute to the citys development, Trudeau said.

Phong, for his part, expressed a wish that HCM City and Canada could further strengthen their co-operation in several fields, including trade, urban management and education.

Students talk

On the same day, the Canadian PM spoke in front of students from Ton uc Thang University in HCM City, sharing with them his thoughts on the global role of the young generation.

During the event, the PM stressed the sound partnership between Canada and Viet Nam while expressing his hope for the further development of ties between the two countries.

He said he supports students who speak out and make efforts to enhance their education.

Trudeau urged them to think about the world today and in the future, and to face difficulties in life instead of avoiding them.

He talked about his travels across the globe, noting that he finds Vietnamese people hospitable and friendly.

Sharing his thoughts on the benefits of immigration, Trudeau said Canada has issued policies to protect the safety of its citizens and hoped the younger generation will think more positively about the matter.

He also highlighted a need to respect cultural diversity among nations and to balance economic benefits and environmental protection for sustainable growth.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says IPO plans for the ride-sharing giant are on track and not dependent on an investment from Japan's SoftBank. (AFP/Sergio LIMA)

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says IPO plans for the ride-sharing giant are on track and not dependent on an investment from Japan's SoftBank. (AFP/Sergio LIMA)

Speaking at a New York Times conference, Dara Khosrowshahi said "2019 is the target" and that co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick and the rest of the board agree on the plan for an initial public offering.

"We have all the disadvantages of being a public company as far as the spotlight on us without any of the advantages of being a public company," he said during an on-stage interview.

"So Travis and the whole board now agree we should just go public. The numbers support it, the systems support it and the fact is that if you set up the company in the right way and you are honest and plain spoken to your investors about being a long-term player ... you will find that right set of shareholders who will support it."

Khosrowshahi took the helm at Uber in August after it was rocked by a series of scandals and missteps, and pledged to change the culture which had sometimes been described as "toxic."

He said an investment from Japanese tech giant SoftBank - a deal which has taken longer than expected to seal - remains in the works and is unrelated to the IPO plans.

"It hasn't happened yet, but it will," he said.

SoftBank, which has amassed a US$100 billion fund for technology startups, is widely expected to become a major investor in Uber although the discussions have not yet produced an agreement.

Khosrowshahi said SoftBank has not made any demands about an IPO.

"If you talk to SoftBank they don't have any particular interest in going public. They are the ultimate long-term investor," he said.

The CEO said he sees Uber, which has lost vast amounts of money, still on a road to profitability in the long-term.

Uber still subsidises rides in most areas to get footholds in markets, he said, while noting that "over a period of time we can pull back on the subsidies" and make a profit.
US President Donald Trump lauded Vietnam's high-performing economy, making special note of students, the next generation of highly-trained professionals and business leaders

In his speech at the APEC CEO Summit within the framework of the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week today afternoon, US President Donald Trump said, Today, an opening Vietnamese economy is one of the fastest-growing economies on Earth. It has already increased more than 30 times over, and the Vietnamese students rank among the best students in the world. And that is very impressive. 

"Vietnam is a big story with economic successes across the Asia-Pacific region," President Trump said.

The US president also highlighted his desire for a free and open Indo-Pacific region at the APEC CEO Summit.

"The US has been an active partner in the Asia-Pacific since it first won independence," he said. We have been friends, partners, and allies in the Indo-Pacific for a long, long time and we will be friends, partners, and allies for a long time to come."

Yesterday, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released the findings of the 2017 APEC CEO Survey ASEAN.

Confidence levels are high among business leaders in Vietnam. This is not surprising. Close to half of foreign investors in Vietnam (47 per cent) plan to increase their investment capital in the country over the next 12 months, said PwC Vietnams general director Dinh Thi Quynh Van.

Positive sentiments can be seen in three areas: an expanding the domestic economy, expectations of new growth from trade agreements and export expansion (both regional and intra-regional export growth), along with a positive outlook on innovation in key sectors of opportunity. Sustained economic reform, coupled with a strengthening of public institutions and an emphasis on education and skills development will be crucial to make Vietnam fit for the future, Van said.

In the fall of 2017, PwC published three reports analysing prospects for business growth in Vietnam. The firm affirmed in these reports that prospects for revenue growth in 2018 are strong. Some 92 per cent of CEOs in Vietnam are confident in growth for their business over the next 12 months, with 38 per cent being very confident.

A net 62 per cent of CEOs in Vietnam will increase investments in 2018, higher than the APEC average of 50 per cent.

About 47 per cent of foreign investors in Vietnam plan to increase investment in the country over the next 12 months. Vietnam is among the top four economies, including China, Indonesia, and the US, where at least 40 per cent of foreign CEOs plan to raise spending.
This upgrade will provide further momentum to the two countries' already dynamic relations

The announcement was made after his talks with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc earlier today in the central city of Danang on the sidelines of the APEC 2017 Economic Leaders Week.

I am pleased to announce that Australia and Vietnam will enhance our bilateral relationship to the level of a strategic partnership, Turnbull stated.

The enhanced relationship will enable the two countries to co-operate more closely on a range of issues, including defence, trade, investment, development, education, labour, tourism, law, finance, as well as information and communication.

Australia and Vietnam will deepen bilateral trade and direct investment, and work together to bring the Trans-Pacific Partnership into force as soon as possible, Turnbull said. By bringing our economies closer together, we will drive economic growth and generate jobs in both countries.

Vietnam is already the fourth biggest source of international students for Australia and its sixth largest market for agricultural products. More than 75 per cent of the bread used for Vietnams signature dish, banh mi, comes from Australian wheat.

We also agreed on closer cooperation on defence and security, including military visits, peace-keeping missions, aviation and maritime security and safety, counter-terrorism, special forces, war legacy issues, and officer training, Turnbull said.

I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Phuc to Australia for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in 2018, he added.
Addressing the event, Vietnamese ambassador to Czech Republic Ho Minh Tuan highlighted stunning beauty of Vietnams tourist attractions such as Nha Trang and Ha Long Bay which have been recognised by UNESCO.

He also spoke of the countrys 4,000-year culture with diverse tourism products and culinary arts of different ethnic groups.

Mr Tuan noted that recent tourism cooperation between Vietnam and the Czech Republic has not matched the two countries potential as a direct flight is unavailable and obstacles in visa procedures.

Participants at the talks proposed solutions to remove difficulties, underlined the need to strengthen tourism promotion activities, design unique tourism products and boost cooperation among travel companies from both nations. According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), Vietnam welcomed more than 10 million foreign arrivals in 2016. However, the number of Czech Republics visitors to Vietnam was only 15,000.

The VNAT and the Vietnamese Embassy plans to implement a program to promote Vietnam tourism in the Czech Republic in 2018 to attract more Czech visitors to the country and vice versa.
With this sale, Viettel Global will take over Airports Corporation of Vietnam in market capitalisation

With these shares, Viettel Global will overcome Airports Corporation of Vietnam as the enterprise with the largest market capitalisation on UpCOM.

However, the specific capitalisation and the date of listing have yet to be disclosed.

Established in late 2007 with the chartered capital of VND960 billion ($42.3 million), Viettel Global specialises in investing and developing infrastructure and telecommunication services abroad. At present, Viettel Group owns 98.68 per cent stake in the company.

Viettel Global is currently one of the biggest Vietnamese overseas investors. It now operates nine telecommunications companies in nine countries across Asia, Africa, and Asia, representing a total population of over 175 million people, 13 million of whom are Viettel customers.

According to the companys financial report, in the first six months of this year, the company earned VND14 trillion ($616.4 million) in revenue from its nine international markets, up 25 per cent on-year. The increase in revenue came from 4G services, e-wallet, as well as information-technology projects serving enterprises and the governments of host countries. Besides, exchange rate differences also contributed to increasing the companys total revenue.

However, along with the massive capitalisation and revenue, the company suffers from a massive debt volume. Notably, as of June 30, it bore a total debt of VND29.98 trillion ($1.32 billion), VND13.01 trillion ($572.8 million) of which is short-term loans from banks. Furthermore, as of June 30, it also reported an accumulated loss of VND2.3 trillion ($101.3 million).

Previously, Viettel Construction JSC, a subsidiary of Viettel Group, received permission to list 47.1 million shares on UpCOM.

In April 2010, the company put 6.15 million shares on sale at its initial public offering (IPO) with the initial price of VND10,000 ($0.44) apiece. The entire share volume on offer was sold at the average price of VND14,484 ($0.65). The company started operations under the JSC model in June 2010 with the initial chartered capital of VND238 billion ($10.4 million), 72 per cent of which was owned by Viettel Group.

After five years, the companys chartered capital increased to VND471 billion ($20.6 million). As of September 7, 2017, Viettel Group held a 73.2 per cent stake in the company.

Viettel Construction JSC has constructed the telecommunications infrastructure of Viettel Group with about 50,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) and about 140,000 kilometres of optical fibre in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Haiti, Peru, Mozambique, Cameroon, Burundi, and Tanzania, among others.
Darul Uloom Deoband, one of India's largest seminaries, has been no stranger to controversy, thanks in no small measure to the various fatwas that have emanated from its hallowed precincts. But things hit a new low last month when it decreed that grooming eyebrows and trimming hair were for Muslim women 'unIslamic' practices. The fatwa not only drew widespread condemnation but also sparked off a debate among Muslims. The Deoband's next shocker was an edict against Muslim men and women uploading photographs on social media.

The Darul Uloom, established in 1892, has a wing called the Darul Ifta, which has been dedicated for the past 125 years to issuing fatwas. Never mind their purpose or relevance, the Darul Ifta receives nearly 15,000 fatwa requests from various countries every year. Of these, some 6,000-7,000 fatwas are sought online. 'Solutions' are sought on issues pertaining to faith, duty, agreements/ settlements, what is permissible or forbidden in Islam, etc.

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Numerous fatwas have got embroiled in controversies. Rewind to 1999. Gudiya, 22, from Meerut's Mundali village, had married an army man named Arif. Ten days into the marriage, Arif received a border posting during the Kargil war, and was subsequently declared missing by the army. In 2003, on the basis of a fatwa, Arif was considered a case of undeclared death and Gudiya married off to another man, Taufiq. Released as a prisoner of war by Pakistan, Arif returned home to find Gudiya pregnant with Taufiq's child. Another fatwa was issued, this time annulling Gudiya's marriage with Taufiq. It was even ruled that should she not return to her first husband, her child from the second marriage would be declared illegitimate. Arif agreed to accept Gudiya but not her child. Left in the lurch, Gudiya died in labour.

In 2005, Imrana, a 28-year-old woman from Muzaffarnagar, who had been raped by her father-in-law, faced a fatwa backing a panchayat diktat that her marriage be invalidated and she consider her husband as her son. In July 2014, the Supreme Court mentioned Imrana while ruling on another case: "Fatwa does irreparable damage to fundamental rights. Religious advice in the form of fatwa has good intentions but cannot be considered right if it infringes on a person's fundamental rights." In 2005, the court had ruled that fatwas were not legally binding.

Mufti Mohammadullah Qasmi, in-charge of the department that issues online fatwas at the Darul Uloom, says, "[Fatwa] guidelines are issued only in light of the Shariat when a person has a personal query. A fatwa is not issued unless asked for nor is it necessary to respond to unimportant questions." He admits, however, that fatwas are one-sided.

While some of these fatwas do beggar belief, it must be said that the Darul Uloom has issued some landmark edicts as well-like the one in 2008 denouncing terrorism as un-Islamic.

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A visit to East Kidwai Nagar in south Delhi revealed a wall being erected at the site of a housing project and labourers bringing in building material.

By Arpan Rai, Chayyanika Nigam, Anindya Banerjee: A cloud of noxious smog had the national Capital in a stranglehold on Thursday, but promises of crunch-time action from authorities came a cropper with polluting activities such as construction work, transit of trucks and burning of waste on in full swing.

A visit to East Kidwai Nagar in south Delhi revealed a wall being erected at the site of a housing project and labourers bringing in building material. A little distance away, a pile of cement was waiting to be mixed with water.

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A yellow JCB was getting ready to get on the job while tiles were being fitted in already constructed flats. Sand and cement were lying uncovered in brazen violation of strictures. Bricks and stones were also kept haphazardly.

A road was being constructed in another part of Kidwai Nagar. When asked, Iqbal, the labourer on duty, said, "We have no idea about any ban. We were not asked to stop work by our contractor. Work will go on."

Analysts point out that a jumble of agencies has led to poor or no implementation of the pollution-control measures announced by courts and the executive. While some of the bodies responsible for enforcing the rules report to the city's AAP government, others answer to the BJP-led Centre. The two political parties are bitter rivals.

Ask Dr Mohsin Wali, former physician to the President of India, and he said, "Don't call it pollution. Delhi is now a gas chamber. There's an unusual spike of complaints from patients of asthma and respiratory problems.

"Patients with high blood pressure and cardiac situation need to be extremely careful as it can prove disastrous for them."

Apart from private players, we also found government agencies such as the Delhi Jal Board and others digging pits and constructing concrete structures around the city. When confronted by our reporters, those involved in the projects claimed ignorance about any restrictions.

Only a couple of days ago, as many as 13 cars collided with each other and piled up in Dankaur on the Yamuna Expressway, leaving 6 people injured.

In another smog accident, eight students were killed in a road mishap in Bathinda on Wednesday.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has ordered the closure of all schools till Sunday with pollution levels due to the smog rising alarmingly.

BHALSWA LANDFILLL FIRE

The smog travelling through northern India and blighting the lungs of Delhiites is steeped with deadly methane emanating largely from the city's garbage catching fire at the Bhalswa landfill. But this apparently has not caught the local administration's attention yet.

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According to ragpickers, multiple fires at the waste dumping ground are a disaster in the making and the flames are expected to spread in the coming days.

"The garbage has caught fire in parts across the landfill. Even from outside, you can spot the flames. Despite a few visits by fire tenders, the situation has remained the same," said 13-year-old Jaidur Kumar, a ragpicker.

A similar situation triggered a spat last year when a Delhi government official accused the MCD of sabotaging the implementation of the odd-even car-rationing scheme. The administration has announced the return of the vehicular restrictions next week.

"At present, the air in Delhi is calm and lacks movement. The toxic fumes and spontaneous combustion erupting from rotting garbage hills are accumulated in the air Delhi is breathing," said environmentalist Anumita Roychowdhury.

IGNORANCE

The police and civic officials were also ineffective in stopping trucks from entering the city. Except for those carrying essential commodities, entry of heavy and medium-sized vehicles has been disallowed in Delhi till further orders.

Mail Today found that since Wednesday, trucks carrying construction material, and other goods that are not exempted, are still making their way into the Capital. Most of these vehicles were found crossing over from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

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When police officials on duty at the Delhi Noida Direct (DND) flyway were asked about this laxity, they said, "If the UP police have not stopped them then how can we? There is no U-turn point on the entire stretch. If we stop them there and ask them to park at the roadside, it will lead to a traffic jam."

The rule was also being flouted at Kalindi Kunj, Mayur Vihar, Badarpur, Mehrauli, Anand Vihar, Ghazipur, and Narela.

TRUCK DRIVERS UNAWARE ABOUT BAN

When Mail Today spoke to the truck drivers, they said they were unaware about the ban. "Our employer has asked us to transport the material from Aligarh to Delhi. We didn't know that we are not supposed to enter the city," said a truck driver.

Delhi traffic police, the government's transport department and the municipal corporations have been asked to keep a vigil at all toll points to prevent entry of banned vehicles. "The trucks use diesel as fuel, which triggers heavy pollution in the Capital.

"They enter around 11pm to 5am and 11am to 4pm. During this time, dust pollution increases in city," said a transport department official.

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The MCD staffers at toll booths on Delhi's border entry points also offered excuses.

"We are not authorised to stop any vehicle. We only collect the daily tariff and allow them to enter Delhi," said a worker at the MCD toll booth in Kalindi Kunj.

Delhi smog: Kejriwal asks Centre, neighbours to set aside politics; Union minister says no need to panic

Delhi smog: Why Kejriwal's odd-even formula may not help curb pollution

Delhi smog: Why govt needs to look beyond ad hoc measures to make city safe for breathing

WATCH VIDEO | Delhi struggling with heavy cover of smog, Congress blames AAP, BJP for not doing enough

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We did it, Greys fam! Three-hundred episodes! Yes, the writers, crew, actors, and Queen Shonda deserve a big ol congratulations for their hard work, but so do we. We have watched 300 friggin episodes of Greys Anatomy. Thats 300 hours of our lives we couldve spent doing so many other things. Good things. Things with loved ones. Things that bettered ourselves. Things that bettered the world. Instead, we chose to spend those 300 hours with Meredith Grey and her band of sexy, capable doctors who have a knack for getting into life-threatening situations. And thats nothing to say of those of us who have watched all 300 episodes more than once.

But you know what? I dont regret a single minute. Just kidding, I regret many of those minutes. Like the ghost-sex minutes. And the Penny minutes. And the Bailey suddenly has OCD minutes. There are many minutes I regret, but you learn to take the good with the bad because thats life and thats Greys Anatomy. And if we didnt put up with some of the bad, wed miss out on the Pick me. Choose me. Love me. And the dance-it-outs. And the fact that anyone who became Merediths person became ours, too.

Plus, if we didnt love to be tortured every once in a while, we would never have made it through 300 episodes. So, heres to you, Greys Anatomy fans. Youve done good. Seriously.

The actual 300th episode doesnt do much to push the overall plot forward, but, man, is it fun. It is a love letter to the longtime fans. It lets us laugh and cry and remember. It is all about the remembering. As Meredith says in her closing voice-over, That history and memory and the ghosts of our past are sometimes just as tangible as anything we can hold in our hands.

But before we dive into some of the best memories, lets quickly burn through the plot that will be important going forward. Meredith Grey wins the Harper Avery Award. Apparently, working at a hospital partially funded by the Harper Avery Foundation is no longer an important enough conflict of interest. You know what? Im totally fine with that because Meredith Grey deserves that award. She deserves that award so hard.

Elsewhere, Ben has told Bailey about his firefighting aspirations and she is not pleased. Shes doing things like riding the train to work, giving him Creepy Clown suture duty, telling him that hes just bored again, and taking his car keys while informing him that he can take a fire truck home. DeLuca and Intern Sam were crazy in love but also ruin each others lives, so, yes, they have hot on-call-room sex. Hot skills-lab sex, for that matter. Oh, and Sofia comes home. Both she and Arizona are scared about it. Lots of shades of green paint are involved.

That stuff is all cool, but we are here for this momentous occasion to enjoy all the callbacks and trips down memory lane weve been promised. There are so many, I doubt Ill touch on all of them, so please add your favorite moments from Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story below. Itll be like our own little Greys Anatomy support group. (Why havent we had one of those before? We need one of those.)

Meredith is preparing to head out to Boston  on a very tiny private Avery plane which she does not want to get on, for obvious reasons  for the Harper Avery Award ceremony. She prepares by forcing Alex to go on a ferry with her so that she can be one with Derek and let him know she might win this thing. Derek had a real thing for ferries. How does Derek feel about the award? Alex asks. Hes jealous, Meredith replies.

Anyway, Im already crying.

Its business as usual at Grey Sloan Memorial. There is a group of new, exhausted interns complaining while hanging out in the OG intern tunnel (a location that was so important to the early seasons, it was time they brought it back), until they get paged for an incoming trauma and book it out of there. Glasses even trips like George!

What is this trauma, you ask? A roller-coaster car (have you seen the Shondaland logo?) has gone off the tracks. Two people are trapped in the car, and one man is severely injured after jumping in between the car and some kids.

Lets talk about that man first. Hes a hero who risked his life in order to protect others and ends up getting hurt. And he cant speak. Hes the ghost of Derek Shepherd. Its why, even though Owen doesnt want Amelia to do a head CT because theres no apparent head trauma, she pushes for one. She pushes for one so hard that while Owen is performing surgery on his liver, Amelia brings in a CT machine and gives him a scan right there in the OR. Shes right: The man has a hematoma and he will die if she doesnt operate. When Owen tries to apologize from bringing up Derek, she tells him not to. You were right, about Derek, she says. He was in my head. And he saved this guy. He was that good.

Its not the last Derek Shepherd shout-out, either. Maggie and Zola are getting some auntie/niece time in the hospital and Zola brings up her dad. Shes going to be a brain surgeon like him. She asks if Maggie misses her mom. Every day, she replies. They hug. I weep into my Riesling.

As if McDreamys ghost isnt enough, his old pal McSteamy gets a mention, too. I really miss Mark Sloan, so this hits hard. Arizona misses him, too, which surprises her. During surgery, she keeps her patient calm by telling her all about Mark and how he could always make her laugh. Then she launches into a Mark Sloan impression and it is perfect. WHY, MARK, WHY?

Meanwhile, the real hullabaloo in the hospital has to do with the two people stuck in the roller-coaster car. They turn out to be second-year interns at Seattle Presbyterian, their names are Cleo and Greg, and they look and act just like Cristina and George. Oh, and they have a very tall, blonde, perky (and pregnant) friend named Liza, or Baby Izzie.

Everyone is freaked out, no one can stop looking at these three interns, theres a moratorium put on the word seriously, and Meredith certainly isnt flying off to Boston until she sees this thing through. Baby George is the one theyre worried about most  when they realize that moving his neck could fracture his spine, Meredith has to stand there and hold his head in place. Its cool, though: She has lots of experience from holding that bomb inside a guy.

When they pull Baby George out of the car (and Meredith is free to use her hands again), they notice that Baby Cristina has a puncture wound in her stomach. No, its not from an icicle. (BTW, if you need a good laugh, go and watch that insane scene when a legit icicle fell from the roof and impaled Cristina. God, I love this show.) Now Meredith definitely will not leave Seattle  her persons doppelganger needs her. Baby Cristina even tells Meredith to pretend she is Cristina, because Baby Cristina doesnt want to die today. Thats so Cristina.

Of course, Alex gets paired off with Baby Izzie. When Baby Izzie faints in the waiting room, ALEX CARRIES HER LIKE HE CARRIED REAL IZZIE WHEN DENNY DIED. Is this too much? Thats a dumb question, because there is never enough.

They discover that Baby Izzies baby has a tumor and shes suffering from mirror syndrome. Join the club, Baby Izzie: Tonight, were all suffering from mirror syndrome. Everyone ends up okay, but it does pave the way for Alex to get some Izzie closure. When Jo sees how spooked he is by this look-alike, she tells him its okay for him to call Izzie. But he doesnt need to. Hes invented an entire life for her, in which she has kids and is a surgeon and her house smells like muffins. He has a happy life with Jo, and he wants that for Izzie, too. Hed rather stick to that story than know the truth. So, I guess we are really closing that door on any surprise Izzie return ever. Noted, Greys.

After Meredith and April successfully finish the Baby Cristina surgery, Bailey and Webber have a surprise. All the doctors in the hospital gather in the OR and they watch a live feed of the awards show. Meredith wins! Jackson gives a heartfelt speech on her behalf about how shes suffered so much loss  Lexie, Derek, Ellis  but that pain gives her the drive to move forward, to be innovative, and to be the best surgeon she can. Its emotional and cheesy and a tiny bit ridiculous, just like this show.

The entire OR applauds, and as Meredith looks up into the gallery she sees her mother standing there, applauding her alongside everyone else. All Meredith has ever wanted was to make Ellis proud and now she has. Meredith exhales and cracks a smile. Girl just won the Harper Avery. And so, she celebrates the only way she knows how: She and Alex sit in the Intern Tunnel, pop some bubbly, and Cristina calls. Meredith is with her people in the place where it all started.

Call them OMalley Tears, call them Shonda Tears, whatever they are, they are flowing tonight.
Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Following a report by the New York Times in which several women came forward with sexual-misconduct allegations against Louis C.K., HBO is cutting all ties with the comedian. The I Love You, Daddy star, writer, and director was previously set to appear in Jon Stewarts annual fundraiser Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism, which will air on HBO later this month, but has been nixed from the lineup. Louis C.K. will no longer be participating in the Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism Programs, which will be presented live on HBO on November 18, the premium network said in a statement. In addition, HBO is removing Louis C.K.s past projects from its On Demand services. When the news broke earlier of women accusing C.K. of masturbating in front of them without their consent, the Orchard, the distributor of C.K.s I Love You, Daddy, announced it would be giving careful consideration to the timing and release of the film.
How did almost everyone get onboard for what continues to be Americas dumbest plan? And no, shouting FOR WES in unison is not a good enough reason. Listen, I know that Wes was very important to us all, but come on. Im way more interested in Annalises crusade for justice and Jimmy Smitss furrowed brow than whatever nonsense Laurel is up to. I get it. You hate your dad. Lets move it along.

To fill the vacuum that Wes and Wes-inspired flashbacks has created, were getting a lot of Connor and Oliver. The episode opens and closes with them in some sort of love tent. After last weeks episode, I was corrected that therapeutic letters are indeed a thing, but if you expect me to believe that two grown people regularly refer to their bed as a tent or a fort  or that they build full-size forts  you are asking for a lot. Connor feels like things are going right for the first time in his life. Neither of them have a job that would result in jail time. Theyre so boring and normal.

Annalise is arriving at therapy and she tells Jimmy Smits that its their final session together. Then we get a classic How to Get Away With Murder montage as we see Annalise meeting Jimmy Smitss ex-wife, Jacqueline, and trying to tell Jimmy Smits that shes done with him as a therapist. Jacqueline says that Annalise is triggering her husband, and he might be using again. Jimmy Smits thinks that this is just relapse behavior from Annalise and they can work through this. Clingy much? Annalise says she went through this with Sam and she needs another therapist.

Meanwhile, Michaela tries to make up with Asher by bringing him a very rare sandwich, which he immediately gives to someone else who says, Slam me that sammie. Whenever How to Get Away With Murder has to write a throwaway line for a background character, they sound like an NPC in a video game watching you do a skateboard trick.

Annalises major mission this episode is to get a judge to certify her class-action lawsuit. The Attorney General has taken up the mission against her and theyre looking for an immediate dismissal. Whats their strategy? Someone put a bottle of Scotch on her car and took a picture of her moving it. Like  what? Who drinks Scotch in the afternoon, outside, near their car, and just swans around holding it? It was like half a plan on behalf of the Attorney General. Still, theyre putting Annalise on trial.

Asher decides to tell Frank about Laurels brilliant plan, and his immediate reaction is absolutely not. Frank thinks they should go to the police and just solve things that way. Laurel and Michaela know that her father will deflect and they need to prove it. Ugh, Im so exhausted by this. The pieces are all coming together, though. Tegan asks Michaela to throw a party for the whole office to celebrate the public offering, and Oliver gets more access to office computers, including Simons.

Annalise gets the DA to work with her to discredit the photograph for  reasons. The DA offered up an employee to take the fall for the photograph and make the whole thing look like a conspiracy by the Attorney Generals office. The Attorney General objects that the DAs employee is lying, so Annalise cocks an eyebrow and asks, And how would you know that? Bonnie stops him in the parking garage and says she might have something that could help him. (Sidenote: The guy playing the Attorney General was in The Mummy wearing some definitely questionable ethnic garb. Im glad he moved up in the world.)

Its time for Laurel to completely wear Frank down. She tells him that if he loves her and really loves her, hell do this completely unreasonable plan. Hes in. Michaela suggests that theres an office party on Friday and everyone will be drunk and distracted. Still, she doesnt want to steal Tegans key card because thats somehow too far. Asher is furious that his tell Frank plan backfired. Asher says that everyone thinks hes a pushover and Michaela cares more about Laurel than about him. Honestly, only like 45 percent of this monologue feels motivated.

Annalise finally meets with Jacqueline, and Annalise isnt happy about it. This is all very creepy and weird, and Annalise thinks she cant be the only patient who talks about suicide. Jacqueline just says Jimmy Smits and Annalise are the perfect storm.

Asher and Michaela have the fight theyve clearly been putting off for months. Could their relationship not be as stable and happy as they thought?! He secretly hates being called the Barack to her Michelle. Maybe hes just a layover relationship until she gets the chance to meet the guy she can see her future with. Shes still got her wedding dress in the closet. Thats only because its $20,000, but hes still tired of feeling like a second choice.

Then, my favorite scene of the episode. Annalise is in the shower and she hears some banging in the other room, so she grabs a little gun from her nightstand. She checks under the bed and her eyes are bugging out and that lil gun is hilarious. Someone left a giant bottle of vodka on her counter. The Attorney General figured out that she doesnt drink Scotch; she drinks vodka. She heads over to Nates to spend the night, and he warns her that maybe shes reaping what shes sown after playing dirty after all these years.

The Attorney General has subpoenaed Jimmy Smits to testify in the certification hearing. The Attorney General asks if Annalise is at risk of relapsing and if shes stressing herself out. We see a few clips of Jimmy Smits saying that exact thing, but he tells the court no while making eyes at her. The Attorney General snaps at Bonnie and says this was supposed to destroy Annalise and that Bonnie keeps screwing up. He also says they look like two people banging. I really cant wait and I dont know why this show is making me wait so long to see it happen.

Laurel, Michaela, and Oliver decide to use Simons computer to get access into the server, even though hes at risk of deportation. These are not good people.

Annalise gets her certification because the case against her was mostly baseless personal attacks.

In the final montage, Michaela sprays ketchup on her wedding dress to prove shes all-in on her relationship with Asher. Laurel makes Frank take a paternity test. Annalise lets Connor answer a reporters questions. And Annalise goes to see Jimmy Smits.

She says he was at risk of perjuring himself and she asks him if hes using again. Who told her that? Annalise says that Sam tried to convince her it wasnt true, but she knows that she hurts people. Jimmy Smits tells her that she didnt make those things happen. These two have a real will-they, wont-they thing going on and they really need to just bang already. Jimmy Smits says he doesnt need to be protected and asks if Bonnie put her up to this. It wasnt Bonnie, though. IT WAS YOUR EX-WIFE.

Oliver comes home and Connor has set up a ridiculous tent in their living room, and he delivers an amazing proposal. Oliver breaks down and tells him everything about Laurels stupid plan.

Flash-forward to 48 hours later. Everyone has a reason to be at the party, and we get snippets of someone in surgery at the hospital, and the person on the operating table flatlines. Is it Connor? Its definitely Connor, right?
Photo: Theo Wargo/NBC/Getty Images for The Tonight Sh

Ms. Bullock is going to Washington. According to Deadline, the movie Let Her Speak has just attached Sandra Bullock to star as Texas state senator Wendy Davis, who staged a 13-hour filibuster on the Texas State Senate floor in January of 2013 in order to block the passage of a strict anti-abortion bill. The actress is reportedly attached so long as the production lands a director she likes. If they can find her the right match, Bullock would play out the day of the filibuster  during which time the senator was not allowed to eat, drink, sit, or go to the bathroom, in accordance with the rules of the Texas senate  as well as Daviss path from teen mom to Harvard-educated lawyer.
Pamela Adlon, Charlie Day, and Louis C.K. attend the TIFF premiere of I Love You, Daddy. Photo: Jeremy Chan/Getty Images

As the Orchard reevaluates the release of Louis C.K.s new movie I Love You, Daddy, the stars of the movie are backing away from it. Charlie Day, who plays the assistant to C.K.s character in the movie, provided a statement to the Los Angeles Times that said, I was as appalled as everyone to read the allegations made in the New York Times, adding, I do not condone sexual misconduct and, in light of the allegations, will not be promoting the movie further. A story published by the New York Times detailed allegations of sexual misconduct by C.K., and it included multiple accusations of the producer/comedian masturbating in front of women without their consent. In I Love You, Daddy, about a TV writer and producer (C.K.) whose teenage daughter gets involved with a 68-year-old filmmaker, Days character has a scene in which he pantomimes masturbation while discussing a female character with C.K. A publicist for Chloe Grace Moretz, who plays the teenage China, told the Times she backed out of all promotion for the film two weeks ago when she was made aware of numerous possible accusations.

FX Network, which has aired five shows produced by C.K., released a statement saying, The matter is currently under review, while HBO has declared that they will remove any C.K. projects from their streaming service. Days co-stars Rose Byrne, Edie Falco, Helen Hunt, Pamela Adlon, and Malkovich have not yet commented on the situation.
Photo: ADRIAN SANCHEZ-GONZALEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Over the past year, many of TVs late-night hosts have reasserted their place in the cultural consciousness by offering surprisingly incisive and/or impassioned commentary on the terrible people and things afflicting America. Then, a curveball: One of their own, a prominent comic, joined the terrible-person ranks. Heres how late night handled the story. (It should be noted that the story first broke around 3 p.m., only giving most shows two or three hours to prepare.)

Conan

Conan OBrien didnt talk about it during Thursdays show (which included Mel Gibson as a guest). Louis C.K. was a writer for Late Night With Conan OBrien when the show launched in 1993, and has reminisced about his time writing for OBrien on both Conan in 2013 and Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2015. Hes been a frequent guest on Conan.

The Daily Show

Trevor Noah referenced the Louis C.K. news as part of a larger bit about bad famous men. While discussing Facebooks new policy on submitting nude photos for review to protect its users, the host said, When I saw this story, I thought, man, this is the most pervy story of the day, and then Louis C.K. said, Hold my penis. Like, at this point, were going to need a new Oscar category this year  Best Actor Whose Movies We Cant Watch Anymore. Now that I think about it, all women in Hollywood should win double Oscars for acting like all the men were cool all along, every single one of them. Im just fucking saying.

Miming the repeated refresh-clicking of an obsessive social-media user, he continued, Its getting to the point where I see a beloved celebritys name trending on Twitter, and Im like, Please tell me theyre dead, please tell me theyre dead, please tell me theyre dead. Ah, dammit. Every day! Later in the episode, Lewis Black  while showing how many politicians, including Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham, didnt know the U.S. had troops in Niger  said, Why cant we just fire you guys, like President Kevin Spacey?

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Kimmel didnt talk about it. Louis C.K. has made multiple appearances on Kimmels show, and he and the host share the same publicist.

Late Night With Seth Meyers

In his monologue, Meyers joked, According to the Washington Post, controversial Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore reportedly engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with an underage girl when he was 32 years old. Man, politics is so full of perverts and deviants; Im just so glad I work in comedy. Then a photo of the New York Times story on Louis C.K. appeared on the screen, and Meyers yelled, Ahhhh, dammit!

The Late Late Show With James Corden

Corden didnt talk about it.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Louis C.K. was scheduled to be a guest on The Late Show Thursday night to promote I Love You, Daddy, but his appearance got canceled that afternoon. Colbert addressed the situation during his monologue, saying:

For those of you tuning in to see my interview with Louis C.K. tonight, I have some bad news. And then I have some really bad news. Louis canceled his appearance here tonight because the New York Times broke this story today: five women are accusing Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct  Now, these are disturbing allegations. Colbert then noted that its the latest in an avalanche of powerful men to be accused of serial assault and/or harassment, including Harvey Weinstein, Roger Ailes, Bill OReilly, and Kevin Spacey, and said that, A lot of men look at this misbehavior, and they feel Theres nothing I can do! Then he segued into a bit about soul-patch safe space Keith Urban and his new empowerment song Female. Colbert worked for Louis C.K. on The Dana Carvey Show in 1996.

The Opposition With Jordan Klepper

The newest member of late night, Klepper  in character as his conspiracy-loving, alt-rightish persona  started his latest episode with a segment aimed at Louis C.K., Alabamas GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, and a trait that seems to connect so many people accused of sexual misconduct: Big news today affecting the worlds most vulnerable population: powerful white men.

He went on to mock both the culture surrounding artists supporters, and the perviness of Louis C.K.s Woody Alleninspired film:

Good lord. Its a confusing time, so we should return to what we know: good old-fashioned phrases people say when sexual assault allegations arise. Phrases like, You should separate the man from the art. So please. When you are watching Louis C.K.s movie I Love You, Daddy, a film about an old man dating an underage woman featuring a serial masturbator, please: Dont think of Louis C.K.s accusers.
Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub in The Bands Visit. Photo: Matthew Murphy

Theres a saying: There are only two kinds of stories  someone goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. (Who said it? Unclear.) If thats true  at least its intriguing!  it seems to me that novels are particularly well-suited to the first type of narrative, while the latter often makes brilliant plays. On the one hand, The Hobbit. On the other, The Music Man. No wonder then that The Bands Visit, now playing at the Barrymore after a triumphant off-Broadway run at Atlantic Theater Company last season, makes such a beautiful piece of theater. Its a rare beast: a musical with zero razzle-dazzle, adapted from a delicate indie film (Israeli director and screenwriter Eran Kolirins 2007 feature of the same name), where none of the performers dance with Fosse flair or sing with the traditional glossy Broadway belt, where intimate character study replaces high drama and silences are as important as language. Director David Cromer, book writer Itamar Moses, and composer/lyricist David Yazbek are clearly unified in their pursuit of the specific and the humane over the grandiose. Together theyve created a play of deep integrity  funny, generous, sweet without sentimentality, poignant without melodrama, and emotionally expansive even as it insists upon its own smallness.

Once not long ago, reads a projected title at the start of the show, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didnt hear about it. It wasnt very important. The strangers who come to town are the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, whom we first encounter standing hesitantly at attention in an Israeli bus station, painfully obvious in their powder-blue uniforms (the thoughtful costumes, with their delightful little 1990s flourishes, are by Sarah Laux). The town is Bet Hatikva  With a B. The band, it turns out, was searching for Petah Tikva (With a P), a bustling metropolis with lots of fun, lots of art, lots of culture where theyve been invited to play a concert at the Arab Cultural Center. But when you dont speak Hebrew, the two town names sound practically identical (and Arabic has no P sound), and so the Egyptians have ended up on the wrong bus  only to arrive in a city whose residents describe it with bone-dry hilarity in the song Welcome to Nowhere:

Stick a pin in a map of the desert

Build a road to the middle of the desert

Pour cement on the spot in the desert

Thats Bet Hatikva.

Of course in a basically bleak and beige and blah blah blah town like this, theres not another bus till morning. Our strangers are stranded  their stuckness brilliantly underscored by Scott Pasks elegantly layered, sandy-hued set. Though the theaters walls are painted to evoke swirling expanses of desert sky, the back wall has a drab little window and satellite dish installed in it. The effect is almost Truman Showesque: The sky is quite literally the limit. The world has walls. The actual desert might stretch off infinitely in all directions, but the residents of Bet Hatikva live their lives inside a box.

Inside this box, The Bands Visit unfolds over the course of a single night, shifting gently amongst encounters silly and sad and bittersweet, as the Arab musicians and their provincial Israeli hosts move tentatively toward each other, from breaking bread to sharing secrets, suffering, and  most profound of all  music.

David Yazbeks exquisite, exuberant score, rich with Arabic classical influences, is brought to life not only by a small and mighty offstage orchestra but also onstage by the eponymous band: three stellar actor-musicians and four more world-class instrumentalists, playing everything from oud and darbouka to cello, clarinet, and violin. In a profession that loves to talk about risk but seldom truly takes one, The Bands Visit is quietly modeling real theatrical and musical courage. Its sound  dense and atmospheric and drawn from a non-Western musical idiom  is utterly distinctive on Broadway. It features numbers that are entirely instrumental, not to mention sequences of nightly improvisation by the superb musicians. There is no intermission, which means no big first-act finale. The closest thing in the show to an 11 oclock number is the heart-wrenching Answer Me, a song begun with a deep, steady sense of ache by Adam Kantor in a role known only as Telephone Guy. (In The Bands Visit, even the people without names feel whole, human.)

Telephone Guy spends his nights staring into the flickering sodium light of Bet Hatikvas one public payphone, waiting for a call from his girlfriend. Very soon. Very soon. Thats the sound of longing, he sings, and gradually his song spreads throughout the full ensemble. But even as their voices rise together, the actors remain solitary, isolated in little patches of light, staring out into the darkness. Their song is an anthem to loneliness, to the hunger for connection and the pain of hope. The single thundering, shimmering moment in which we hear every voice in The Bands Visit ring out at full forte together for the first time is a brief one  an echo almost before we have a chance to exhale.

The Bands Visit itself is a kind of astonishing, unreleased inhalation. Its characters are so full  of desires, fears, uncertainties, suffering  and Cromer allows each one sparkling moments of vulnerability and revelation without the sappy satisfaction of complete catharsis. Hes deftly striking an almost Chekhovian tone here: at once clinically observant and deeply humane. He  and we  can laugh at these characters (as for instance in Papi Hears the Ocean, a tragicomic masterpiece of teenage anxiety delivered with befuddled, hilarious angst by the excellent Etai Benson as Papi), but that laughter never feels unkind.

Fullest of all the yearning souls in Bet Hatikva is Dina, the cafe owner whose wry, decisive word seems to pass for law in these parts (when she invites the strangers to stay, theyre staying). As Dina, Katrina Lenk gives a gorgeous performance, her whole body writhing with unanswered hungers and her voice as rich and textured as sea salt in dark chocolate. As she sings in the shows most ravishing number, Omar Sharif, an ode to glamorous foreign film stars who opened up her childhood to the dream of romance:

Every day you stare to the west, to the south,

You can see for miles but things never change,

Then honey in your ears, spice in your mouth 

Nothings as surprising as the taste of something strange.

Dina longs for something to happen  something that frees the wild longings that make her spine twist and her arms dance even when all shes doing is sitting on a park bench. She senses real connection in the bands reserved conductor Tewfiq  the wonderful Tony Shalhoub, disappearing into a performance as heartbreaking in its secret shadows as it is amusing in its straight-laced foibles  but shell end up sleeping with the handsome trumpet-player Haled (the sensitive, self-aware Ariel Stachel, whose deliciously humorous attempts at flirtation contain their own bitter pill: Hes got an arranged marriage waiting for him back in Egypt). The familiarity of it all both stings and soothes: How many of us have felt longing pushing at the very insides of our skin? How many of us have reached out in our loneliness and taken the thing thats there, even if only for a moment, an hour, a night?

Americans are obsessed with happiness. We think we deserve it, that were owed it. But travel east and that self-important philosophy begins to dissipate. The Bands Visit is in many ways a play about unhappiness  but that doesnt mean its about despair. Far from it. In fact, in both form and content, the show gave me more hope for what Broadway might welcome, might foster, might become than any musical in a long time. Its a deceptively radical jasmine wind blowing through a stuffy room, bringing with it the possibility of change.

The Bands Visit is at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

*A version of this article appears in the November 13, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Trucks contribute about 43 per cent while two-wheelers 33 per cent to the total vehicular pollution in Delhi. Most of truck movements happen beyond odd-even time-zone while two-wheelers are not covered under the scheme.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has declared that the city has turned into a gas chamber. He had made similar declaration in 2015 also when he first introduced odd-even in Delhi in his government's bid to fight air pollution in the city.

The vehicle rota system on odd-even formula is set to return to Delhi from next Monday till November 17. The odd-even does not apply on weekends. The scheme will be in place from 8 am to 8 pm and there will exemptions for women drivers and two-wheelers.

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The government seems to believe that the cars are the major contributors to vehicular pollution turning air in Delhi noxious.

The number of registered vehicles in the national capital has crossed the 1 crore mark and of this, 31,72,842 are cars registered in the city. As per rough estimates, about 13 lakh cars will go off the roads every day during the operation of the odd-even scheme.

According to an IIT-Kanpur study, done for 2013-14, vehicles are the second largest and the "most consistent" contributing source of pollutants PM10 and PM2.5 during winters. In terms of percentage, vehicular pollution contributes about 20-25 per cent of overall air pollution during winters in Delhi.

The dominant summer pollutant road dust becomes negligible during colder months. This seems to be the template on which the Delhi government implements odd-even scheme. But, there is more to it.

HOW VEHICLES POLLUTE DELHI'S AIR?

The share of two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers, trucks and light commercial vehicles in the total vehicular contribution shows that trucks and two-wheelers are the major polluters.

According to the study, which was commissioned by the Sheila Dikshit government, the share of four-wheelers in the break-up of vehicular contribution is 10 per cent each in cases of both PM2.5 and PM10.

On the other hand, the share of trucks and two-wheelers stand at around 46 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. The government on Thursday temporarily banned the entry of heavy vehicles except those carrying essential commodities in the city's borders. But two-wheelers have been kept out of the ambit of the licence-plate policy.

Cars, however, have a huge share in terms of loading the air with gaseous pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide with the corresponding percentages of around 57 and 37. However, over the years, measures like roll out of CNG-enabled buses and autos have significantly brought down the level of these toxic gases in Delhi and helped keep them well within safe limits.

Suspended particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10, which can measure up to 30 times finer than the width of human hair, have emerged as the dominant pollutants in the recent years. According to CPCB member secretary A Sudhakar, the share of cars may be less compared to other factors, but "extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures".

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"It is not the question of impact during emergency situations. All measures which can bring some amount of reduction need to be rolled out. And odd-even is just one of the components in a raft of measures that have been announced," he told PTI.

WHAT IS THE EXPERT OPINION?

The IIT report and experts have also warned against judging the role of sources of pollution merely going by figures and instead factor in the chemical characterisation of pollutants.

Successive studies have proven that vehicular combustion, especially fumes of diesel cars, are qualitatively more harmful than pollution from sources such as road dust. Odd-even can also help in two other significant ways: bringing down congestion and the menace of road dust.

Congestion results in idling of vehicular engines which leads to incomplete combustion and more emissions, while more cars on roads makes dust air borne in greater volumes.

The IIT report had observed that the silt load on some Delhi roads is very high. Silt becomes airborne with the movement of vehicles, it said, estimating that PM10 emission from road dust was over 65 tonnes per day in Delhi.

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(With PTI inputs)

--- ENDS ---
With the Capital enveloped in a choking smog, you need to know how to take care of your skin.

By Radhika Bhalla/Mail Today: THE polluted haze over Delhi has been liked to the deadly 'pea soup smog', and though there is hope that the air will clear soon, your skin is silently suffering under the harsh weather conditions.

Yes, the damage is worse than you think. As Shikhee Agrawal, Head Training, The Body Shop India explains, "Pollution is one of the first enemies of our skin. Exposure to urban pollution doubles skin damage because when the sun's rays reach smog, they deteriorate into free radicals swarming around the environment. When these enter your body, they aggressively bounce around your cells' walls and rob their protective outer layer."

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Simply put, air pollution steals oxygen from the skin cells, making it look dull and sag. As the skin's oxygen supply decreases, it begins to wrinkle faster and forms fine lines. Meanwhile, the free radicals destroy healthy cells and reduce collagen production.

Photo: Mail Today

Agrawal adds, "Air pollution can also raise your risk of contracting the most common type of eczema, or atopic dermatitis. Reactions to smog pollutants - that have high particulate matter - can play a role in all kinds of skin conditions, like dryness, rashes, or even acne."

Also Read: #DelhiPollution: How you can save your lungs and skin from Delhi's air

Of course, this doesn't mean that you take the next flight out and shift to the Alps. Step up your beauty game by ensuring your skin is clean and can breathe through the day. Apply a cleanser and toner every four hours, followed by sunscreen to keep your face fresh and safe from UV rays. Agrawal also recommends carrying a hand sanitiser at all times to stay away from germs and infections, and to avoid touching your face.

Innisfree, 'Super volcanic' pore clay mask, Rs 1,100. Photo: Mail Today Innisfree, 'Super volcanic' pore clay mask, Rs 1,100. Photo: Mail Today

Next, unclog those pores that have been exposed to dirt in the air - especially if you have oily skin - as it can lead to blackheads and pimples. In order to bring out impurities, make sure to use a deep-cleansing mask that will absorb the extra sebum and exfoliate dead skin cells.

The Body Shop, 'Drops of Youth' emulsion with SPF 20, Rs 2,295. Photo: Mail Today

Also Read: Now that you are inhaling smog, how can you not let it harm you?

Another great way to fight back the damage is to increase your immune system. As Abhinandan Dhoke, MD and CEO, Organic India states, "The smog is a slow poison that is very detrimental for the body, especially for the lungs. Carbon monoxide in the smog retards oxygen absorption and encourages inflammation, and when that happens, immunity goes down."

Pond's, 'Pure White' anti-pollution face wash, Rs 200. Photo: Mail Today

In order to calm the inflammation and counter free radicals, he recommends natural remedies that contain antioxidants. Drink tulsi or 'holy basil' green tea during the day, as the super food has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. You should also increase your intake of vitamin C, through over-the-counter supplements or Ayurvedic alternatives like Amalaki. Dhoke also recommends consuming turmeric in food or as a supplement, as it powerfully combats inflammation and free radicals.

Organic India, Amalaki capsules, Rs 175. Photo: Mail Today Organic India, Amalaki capsules, Rs 175. Photo: Mail Today

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Other natural cures include cumin seeds and thyme as they detoxify skin from pollutants and reveal a healthy luminous glow.

--- ENDS ---
The city has been producing over 1.5 crore bicycles each year. However, after demonetisation rise in production cost and decrease in sale has left many manufacturers in a fix.

By Anand Patel: Ludhiana has given cycle brands like Hero, Avon to the country. But it's cycle industry is looking for tax relief to offset losses due to demonetisation. The city has been producing over 1.5 crore bicycles each year. However, after demonetisation rise in production cost and decrease in sale has left many manufacturers in a fix.

President of United Cycle Manufacturers Association Inderjit Singh Navyug said, "It was good decision by PM but implementation was bad, there was cash crunch so most of our labourers had gone back. Later came GST to make things even worse for us, there is a 50 per cent fall in business."

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The Rs 7,000 crore cycle hub is already facing tough competition from much cheaper Chinese cycles. To support and supply big brands like Hero, Avon. About 60 different cycle parts are produced by close to 1,000 ancillaries and assembled by another close to 100 units. The6 labour intensive industry is yet to recover from the cash crunch which set in post note ban.

Cycle part manufacturer Rajinder Singh says, "Small scale industry was hit, our labourers who come from UP and Bihar went back, we had to face labour crunch, we can't pressurise them and even after a year of note ban have to keep cash for payments to them, this is just for name that digital India is becoming a reality.'

Note ban is past for the cycle manufacturers. Now it's Goods and Services Tax-GST which they claim threatens their business.

Inderjit Navyug says, "GST is difficult to understand and our accountants have failed, now we have to depend on CA and they are charging high fees. Different slabs has hit us very badly and our input cost has gone up."

Despite digitalisation of transactions, most manufacturers here continue to pay salaries in cash. Some even had to cut production to offset losses.

Damanjeet Singh, a cycle assembly unit owner told India Today, "Since note ban not much investment has been made by traders, earlier our production used to be around 15,000 a month. However, we have not touched four thousand cycles for months now."

"Our business runs on credit. We have to pay advance GST every month. We get payments after 90 days and our refunds are getting stuck," he added.

Retaining labourers post demonetisation has been another big challenge for this labour intensive industry.

"Cycle is a poor man's ride, high tax on cycle parts has hit our sales, note ban has had not much of an impact, we are ready to put salaries in bank accounts but employees demand cash, they are also right since have to pay rent, pay for grocery.' 'Policies like these are suitable for big businesses..not like ours," Damanjeet added.

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Government has categorised GST on cycle parts under different slabs. Manufacturers are demanding a rationalisation to allow ease of doing business.

--- ENDS ---
CTWP, a Waco-based office supply company that has worked with the city for six years, has filed suit against the city of Waco over its bidding process for copying services, claiming the citys actions could cost taxpayers more than $300,000.

The lawsuit, filed in 170th State District Court by Waco attorney Jim Dunnam, seeks an injunction against the city of Waco and a temporary order to stop payments for copying services to Texas Document Solutions Inc., the company the city chose to replace CTWP.

A hearing on the injunction request is scheduled Wednesday, Dunnam said.

The suit alleges the city miscalculated bids for a three-year copying services contract by failing to account for per-copy costs included in the bids. The contract includes options for a fourth- and fifth-year extension.

The citys calculations did not reflect the higher per-copy cost for color copies in Texas Document Solutions bid, or the fact TDS bid would charge the city for black-and-white copies over a certain number per month, while CTWP would not, according to the lawsuit.

It also claims CTWPs bid for possible fourth and fifth years was thousands of dollars lower than the bid made by TDS. The effect of these miscalculations means the city understated the actual cost of the bid by TDS and overstated the bid by CTWP.

The suit claims CTWP faces imminent damage in that it has been asked to remove its copiers from city property. It said it has no other recourse because monetary damages are not recoverable against the city.

The city has filed a response contesting the claims, and city attorney Jennifer Richie defended the citys bidding process and denied it has taken action that squandered taxpayer dollars.

Texas Document Solutions officials did not return calls seeking comment.

According to the suit, city officials told CTWP officials the city was pursuing cooperative pricing quotes under Chapter 271 of the Local Government Code. It contends the citys bid process should have, but was not, done in compliance with Chapter 252 of the Local Government Code, which governs procurement when the total value of the contract will exceed $50,000, as is the case here.

According to the suit, city officials also told CTWP officials they had considered price differences for color copies between the various bids, a claim CTWP contests could not be true.

The suit also raises concerns with a round of bidding on a similar contract last year that did not result in any contract award.

The suit claims Texas Document Solutions last year submitted a bid of $5,582 for monthly copying services, less than half its bid price this year. The bid by CTWP in 2016 was within $1,250 of its 2017 bid, according to the legal action.

Had the city accepted TDS 2016 bid, city taxpayers would have saved at least $191,000 over the initial three years of the contract, and saved taxpayers over $319,000 if the contract were extended for five years, according to the suit.

Instead, the suit states, the city rejected all 2016 bids and upon taking offers this year found that TDS re-bid came in just under that of CTWP. In the legal filing, Dunnam described that as fishy.

In its response, the city said it violated no laws in its dealings with Texas Document Solutions, a member of a bidding cooperative called BuyBoard that includes an array of companies qualified to submit offers. It said it was looking out for taxpayers when it solicited a second round of bids, and that it is common to pursue even better deals with members of cooperatives.

The city also claims injunctive relief is not appropriate because the matter involves a city official using his or her discretion. For the court to intervene would encroach on separation of government powers, according to the city.
Wacos Richland Mall, the largest enclosed retail center between Dallas and Austin, is up for sale.

The approach of the California-based real estate company marketing the mall includes distribution of a 56-page document with annual sales, lease rates of tenants and other financial details.

Matthews Investment Services has tendered an offer to qualified buyers potentially interested in acquiring a best-in-class, super-regional mall anchored by Dillards, Bealls, Sears, Dicks Sporting Goods, H&M and JC Penney, according to a post on LoopNet, a real estate listing site.

The mall, which opened in 1980 and has been remodeled twice, features 697,000 square feet spread over 77 acres. The Matthews document states that more than 70 percent of inline stores, which excludes those scattered along the malls center walkways, enjoy average sales of $500 a square foot. The property attracts an estimated 6 million visitors annually.

Sears and the two Dillards locations in the mall are mentioned in descriptions of what the property has to offer, but both anchors own the spaces they occupy. The balance of the center, home to more than 100 retail and dining locations, belongs to Tennessee-based CBL Properties.

CBL spokeswoman Stacey Keating said in an email response to inquiries that the mall is not for sale.

While we look at various opportunities as part of our normal asset review process, we have no plans to sell this property, Keating said in her message. We are committed to the Waco market and see a lot of opportunity for future growth at Richland Mall.

Asked about the online presence of the offering memorandum from Matthews Investment Services, and after viewing a forwarded copy of the promotional brochure, Keating repeated her denial.

No one with Matthews Investment Services had returned calls by late afternoon Thursday. Mall manager Kandace Menning reportedly was out of her office and not available for comment.

Gregg Glime, a commercial sales specialist in Waco, said it is not unusual for real estate professionals to work behind the scenes to market property when a public announcement of its availability might prove to be detrimental or perceived negatively.

Glime said Richland Mall is by no means dying.

The malls recent commitment from Dicks Sporting Goods will attract a significant number of people and could snowball into a couple of other tenants, he said.

Bland Cromwell, a commercial specialist who worked to attract lessees for Richland before it opened in 1980, echoed Glimes assessment of the malls health.

As a young broker, I worked to secure tenants for the mall back in 1980. Everybody was so proud of the place, Cromwell said. It is dated, but Dicks gives it a shot in the arm and is good for other tenants there.

He said going public with plans to sell a retail property can make some people nervous, and landlords may try to sidestep the fallout by keeping their intentions under wraps as long as possible.

Brad Davis, a commercial real estate specialist at Coldwell Banker Jim Stewart Realtors, speculated that ownership may want to part with the mall before anchors JC Penney and Sears, both facing companywide financial challenges, are forced to shutter their Waco locations.

It is just a matter of time in both cases, Davis said. Brick-and-mortar retail sites are losing ground all the time.

Any interest in acquiring the mall could come from a real estate investment trust, a vehicle for selling real estate-backed securities, Davis said.

Pat Farrar, a commercial specialist with the Reid Peevey Company, said malls are suffering nationwide, but Richland seems to have been resistant to that trend and has held up pretty well, though it has lost some stores to Central Texas Marketplace, the sprawling retail-and-restaurant center at West Loop 340, Interstate 35 and Bagby Avenue.

I have clients in secondary and tertiary markets where malls have a lot of vacancies and are really struggling, Farrar said. But from what Ive seen, theyve done a good job of keeping Richland pretty full and healthy.

The financial snapshot included in the Matthews Investment Services marketing material states the mall at Waco Drive and State Highway 6 has an effective gross income of about $9.5 million annually, compared with operating expenses of $3.2 million.

Those figures include revenues generated by restaurants on outparcels near the Waco Drive entrance to the mall, Farrar said after viewing the marketing brochure online.

Put it all together and youre looking at a sales price of between $65 million and $75 million, considering its a Class B regional mall with an 8 to 9 percent capitalization rate, Farrar said. It would be a little riskier asset by lenders just because of factors that have been discussed, including the financial positions of Sears and JC Penney. But a 98 percent occupancy rate is strong, stronger than most retail centers.

The promotional material does not include an asking price. It does discuss Wacos strategic location between Austin and Dallas, and the qualities of those metropolitan areas. It says of Waco: The citys economy has seen consistent positive growth for multiple years.

The area in a 10-mile radius of the mall includes more than 200,000 people and enjoys a median household income of $62,000, according to the material.

It also mentions the arrival of the new Dicks Sporting Goods store in spring of 2018, its annual lease rate growing from $270,000 in years one through five, eventually escalating to $360,000 if options are exercised in the later years of a lease agreement.
Jurors in the Jacob Carrizal Twin Peaks shootout trial deliberated more than nine hours Thursday without reaching a verdict and were sequestered for the night.

At about 10:45 p.m., Judge Matt Johnson ordered the jury to be sequestered at a hotel and to resume deliberations at 9 a.m. Friday. After deciding they would discontinue deliberations, the jurors asked to call their families to let them know theyre OK and to make arrangements for fresh clothes and medication.

Johnson said they could make one phone call in the presence of a bailiff.

County officials say this is the first time in at least three decades a jury in McLennan County has been sequestered.

At 9:15 p.m. Thursday, the jury sent a note to Johnson saying they were deadlocked on all three counts against Carrizal. The note said Mr. P indicated he has personal experiences with the Cossacks and his opinion wont change. The judge instructed jurors to continue deliberations.

Court officials brought the jury dinner at about 8 p.m. as deliberations continued.

About four hours into deliberations, jurors asked if they could watch video from Waco Police SWAT officer Michael Buchers dash cam.

Johnson arranged for the video to be played in the jury room so the jury would not have to return to the courtroom.

Carrizal is charged with directing the activities of a criminal street gang and two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity with underlying offenses of murder and aggravated assault.

The May 2015 shootout at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco left nine bikers dead and 20 others wounded.

The courtroom was almost full Thursday morning as attorneys in the case gave jury summations after Johnson read 57 pages of the courts instructions.

Carrizals mother and father, two brothers and fiancee were seated on the front row. Waco Police Chief Ryan Holt, two assistant chiefs and a number of uniformed officers also were in the courtroom.

Among those at the courthouse waiting for the verdict Thursday night with Carrizal was Clifton Dozer Roberts, national Bandidos president.

Carrizals father and his brothers also are members of the Bandidos. His father was wounded at Twin Peaks and remains under indictment in the shootout. His uncle was president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter at the time of the Twin Peaks shootout and is also under indictment.

In closing statements, prosecutor Michael Jarrett said the state had proved the Bandidos are a criminal street gang involved in murders, drugs, weapons and extortion.

He also said the state had aptly documented the bad blood between the Cossacks and Bandidos.

On May 17, 2015, our community here in Waco, Texas, was forever changed by the actions of some people who believe a patch, a piece of clothing, was more sacred than human life, Jarrett told the jury.

Carrizals attorney, Casie Gotro, told the jury the state and its experts are using outdated intelligence that casts all Bandidos as members of a criminal street gang. The state also painted the biker culture and its members as either criminals or cowards, she said.

Today, you are going to carve out some room for something in the middle, more something I think, I believe, were better for as a society, she said.

Gotro said Carrizal and his Dallas chapter members are not criminals and did not come to Waco looking to pick a fight.

Prosecutors contend the shootout was the culmination of a turf war between the two groups and the Bandidos came to Twin Peaks to prove which group was dominant in Texas.

Gotro said Carrizal and his group were surrounded by Cossacks.

She said Carrizal had no chance to run, even if he wanted to. However, she said he stood his ground and stepped up to help defend his fellow Bandidos when they came under attack.

Jarrett said Carrizals claims of self-defense cannot be considered because as a member of a criminal street gang, Carrizal cannot lawfully carry a gun and, therefore, has no legal claim to self-defense.

Carrizal admitted he pulled a two-shot Derringer from his back pocket and shot at Cossack Jacob Rhyne, who he said was aiming a pistol at him.

Testimony showed Rhyne, who was killed, was shot by Waco police using .223-caliber rifles.

Gotro told the jury Waco police saved lives that day and saved Carrizals life twice.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna said Carrizal showed less courage than arrogance by leading the group to Waco to assert the groups control over Texas biker groups.

Gotro said the Bandidos are the victims of police profiling and are hounded because they are different and out of the mainstream. That doesnt make them criminals, she said.
Bill Johnson drew a mixture of puzzled stares and knowing nods when he brought up the rear of Wacos downtown Veterans Day Parade about a decade ago, leading a spotted white and strawberry roan stallion.

The horse, an Appaloosa named Jack, was fitted with a McClellan saddle, its stirrups holding an empty pair of riding boots turned backward.

Those unfamiliar with the military tradition of the riderless horse honoring the war dead asked Johnson what he was doing, but he kept his eyes straight ahead as he marched down Austin Avenue.

I walked that 13 blocks, and I had never experienced that much emotion, said Johnson, a Robinson roof company owner and a supporter of veterans causes. Men were saluting, talking to each other, saying, Thank you for the riderless horse. Women were crying. Kids would say, Why are you leading a horse? and their parents would teach them that its about respect, that they cared enough to give their lives.

Then here comes this Marine in full dress who looked at me with laser eyes. He marched straight to me, stopped and looked at everything and said, Good work. I guess I passed muster.

Since then, Johnsons riderless horse has become part of a tradition for Wacos Veterans Day. But when he lines up near the front of the parade at 11 a.m. Friday, he wont be leading his old faithful equine partner.

Just a few weeks ago, the stallions 27 years caught up with him. He took sick and died, and Johnson buried him on a hillside on his Robinson ranch.

On Friday, Johnson will be leading an Appaloosa mare named Honey, and he hopes she will bring the same honor to the fallen.

Still, he will feel the poignancy of a lost friend, one that had worked cattle and accompanied him to countless events for veterans.

He was a great friend, Johnson said. We were close. He was gentle, trustworthy, and kids could be on him  not a kicker or a biter.  He had all the vim and vinegar of a young stud, but he could turn on a dime and give you a nickels worth of change. He could stick it in the ground.

Johnson said that although he never served in the military he feels a duty to those who did. He said it was a veteran who originally asked him to enter Jack as a riderless horse in the parade, and he did so at the last minute.

Robert Carter, a McLennan County Veterans Association past commander and current parade organizer, said Johnson contributes something special to the parade.

I think its awesome, Carter said. He also does a lot of things for veterans with events at his ranch.

He said he has seen the parade grow over the last two decades from about 30 entrants to about 4,000.

My understanding is that this is the largest Veterans Day parade in the nation, said Carter, a retired Army sergeant who served in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm. When you go down the parade route and see people waving flags and showing their patriotism, it makes you feel good.

The tradition of the riderless horse in a funeral ceremony for a fallen military officer dates back to antiquity, when the horses of warriors were buried alongside them, according to the U.S. Army website.

A riderless horse walked in the funeral procession of President Abraham Lincoln, signifying Lincolns position as commander-in-chief. Lincolns boots were placed backward in the stirrups of the presidents horse. Nearly a century later, John F. Kennedys funeral would feature the same ceremony.

Johnson, 76, said he remembers watching that funeral on television and being touched by the gesture.

Johnson has been a horseman all his life. His father, a native of Gatesville who dealt in horses, took the family to Montana in 1952 and came home with a trailer and three Appaloosa horses.

Appaloosas, the spotted horses descended from the stock of Spanish explorers and the Nez Perce, became a signature part of the family business, and young Bills job was to help train them. He lost his front teeth and broke several bones in the process.

Johnson found 18-month-old Jack at an auction in Fort Worth a quarter-century ago.

I saw him. I was impressed with him, he said. He was just a handsome horse, a beautiful horse, and he seemed to have a good temperament. But dont doubt he was a stud. He was a stud to fare you well.

Johnson trained him to be his main working horse.

He was pretty spirited, Johnson said. We had ourselves a time. But I was younger then, too, and I had some spirit, too. He was never mean, just extremely dominant, but thats what you want in a stud.

He recalls trying to rope a dangerous bull that ended up dragging horse and rider across a road, but Jack finally got his traction and the two were able to attach the rope to a trailer.

A lot of people say theyre training a horse, but pretty much youre teaching each other, he said.

On Thursday morning he ferried a visitor to the ranch house he maintains behind Johnson Roofing and showed off a herd of speckled horses, many of which are descended from Jack. A young stallion he calls Jack Jr. approached the fence line and nuzzled his hand as a cold rain fell.

He had the most gorgeous babies, and now grandbabies, Johnson said of his old stallion. Every spring you go out and see all these babies. Theres nothing like it.
Johnnie Dale PendleyOct. 25, 1942 - Nov. 5, 2017Johnnie Dale Pendley, 75, went to be with his Heavenly Father on Sunday, November 5, 2017.Johnnie was born October 25, 1942, in Waco, Texas, to William Newton and Mary Lily Pendley. He graduated from LaVega High School and Baylor University. He served his country in the Air Force 1968-72. Johnnie is survived by son, Wesley; daughter, Kristi Paulson and husband, James, of Lewisville; granddaughters, Julie and Emma; siblings, nieces, and nephews.Funeral services will be at 1 p.m., Friday, November 10, at Pecan Grove Funeral Home, 3124 Robinson Drive, with Alan Richie officiating. There will be a private burial at a later time.Sign the Guest Book at www.wacotrib.com
One of the first U.S. servicemen to give his life in battle during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was a rifleman with the Marines, Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez. The story of this young recruit who fought with heroism and courage on behalf of our country and who lost his life in a firefight close to Umm Qasr, Iraq, didnt begin in an American city or town.

Lance Cpl. Gutierrez was born near Guatemala City, Guatemala, orphaned at 8 years old, and grew up as a street child. Seeking a better life, he trekked 3,000 miles as a teenager to America where he lived as a foster child and dreamed of a new beginning. Gutierrez wanted to give the United States what the United States gave to him. He signed up to fight for his adopted country. He was granted citizenship posthumously.

Immigrants have been fighting for our country since the Revolutionary War. From the Irish immigrants who fought during the War of 1812, to the nearly one-fourth of immigrants who fought to save the country during the Civil War, to the half-million immigrants who fought during World War I, to the major contributions immigrants made to war efforts in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the War on Terror, foreign-born recruits have bolstered our armed services abroad and made us safer here at home. In 2016, some 511,000 U.S. veterans were foreign-born.

Thats why on Veterans Day here in Texas, it would be prudent for President Trump, Congressman John Carter and Congressman Roger Williams to consider the unnecessary legal barriers to the enlistment of skilled foreign-born residents so that it becomes easier, not harder, to keep our country safe. Thousands of willing service members remain blocked from fighting for our country. Young undocumented immigrants  Dreamers  who were brought to the United States as kids and have grown up in this country would be willing to serve in the military. But right now, almost all cannot.

It makes no sense.

Thus far, Waco native Joe Barton, a longtime conservative Republican in Congress, and Republican Congressman Bill Flores, who represents Waco, are the sole Texas GOP co-sponsors of the Recognizing Americas Children Act, which would provide legal status to young undocumented immigrants who work full-time, enroll in school or serve in our military. If Carter and Williams vote to pass legislation to legalize the status of Dreamers, and President Trump signs it, the military would benefit from the addition of thousands of high-qualified recruits. Leaders at the highest level of our armed services have urged Congress to take action. The president has shown a willingness to get this done.

Now is the time.

Considering that one in five Medal of Honor recipients is an immigrant, common-sense immigration reform policies that expand the number of people who can fight for our country will strengthen national security and military readiness. And today, our military faces significant recruitment challenges while at the same time young people who lack immigration status are lining up to enlist.

In fact, the Center for Naval Analyses catalogued this need in a 2011 report. They listed three reasons immigrants are important to the military. First, the number of recruitable non-citizens in the United States in the desired age range is quite large, at approximately 1.2 million; second, immigrants possess skills critically needed in the armed forces, including language diversity and cultural competencies that support strategic interests; and third, non-citizen recruits have far lower attrition rates and are much less likely to leave early in their service, saving critical time and money.

Let me put it a different way. To keep America secure in a dangerous world, immigrants ready and willing to enlist are needed more than ever. And legislation to offer Dreamers that opportunity is well within Congress grasp. They would follow in the footsteps of Lance Cpl. Gutierrez, who told his adopted mother when he joined the military: Ill give my life if I have to.

On this Veterans Day, lets also think about the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have served for the love of their new country.
In the aftermath of war, military service members, veterans and their families can face numerous issues. Besides battling the emotional and physical challenges associated with combat, many veterans face serious legal issues that require the help of an attorney.

While a soldiers return to civilian life is a celebratory moment, the transition is not always easy. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, five of the top 10 unmet needs of veterans involve legal issues such as child custody, avoiding homelessness or eviction, handling credit problems or simply restoring a drivers license.

The magnitude of the problem can be overwhelming. More than 1.5 million veterans in the United States live in poverty. An estimated 12 percent of our nations homeless have served in the U.S. military. These individuals do not have the financial resources necessary to pay for an attorney. Yet they cannot move forward with their lives without one.

Thats where legal aid and pro bono attorneys can help. Legal aid organizations provide free legal services to qualifying individuals to help with civil matters including family law cases, landlord/tenant disputes, wills and consumer protection issues  many of the biggest legal challenges faced by veterans when they return home. Many private attorneys volunteer their time and expertise through pro bono programs. In Texas, these efforts make a difference.

This week is Texas Veterans Legal Aid Week. Legal aid organizations, law schools and local bar associations are hosting free legal clinics to help veterans get the help they need. Last year, more than 9,000 Texas veterans received free legal assistance. (More than 1.4 million veterans reside in Texas, making it the second-largest home to veterans in the country.) In Waco, Baylor Law School students assist local attorneys helping veterans at the Heart of Texas Veterans One Stop, 2010 La Salle Avenue, during monthly clinics. They provide services to a veterans population of some 16,000 in McLennan County and many more in surrounding counties. Contact the clinic at 710-4244.

These efforts are part of a larger commitment from the Texas legal community to help those who were prepared to give their lives to preserve our freedom. Over the last year, the Texas legal community has reaffirmed this commitment in several ways. For example, the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, leading funding source for legal aid in Texas, recently established the Joe Jamail Endowment for Veteran Legal Services, a fund that ensures veterans have access to legal help. Since its inception this year, the endowment has raised more than $675,000. So far this year, the Texas Access to Justice Foundation has provided $1.87 million in grants to 14 nonprofit organizations throughout the state to provide free legal services to veterans.

We have an obligation to ensure our veterans are taken care of back home. Please visit the Texas Access to Justice Foundation website (teajf.org) to make a generous donation in honor of a service member or veteran in your life via the Joe Jamail Endowment for Veteran Legal Services. And if you are a veteran in need of legal assistance, visit texaslawhelp.org/tvlaw-2017.
The petition has been moved against Haryana Home Secretary for not implementing the high court orders issued in December 2014.

By Manjeet Sehgal: Recovery of illegal weapons from Dera Sacha Sauda headquarter Sirsa and its centres located in various parts of Haryana may add to the woes of the Haryana government as a contempt of court petition has been moved in Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday.

The petition has been moved against Haryana Home Secretary for not implementing the high court orders issued in December 2014.

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The petitioner in his complaint has cited the recovery of illegal weapons from Dera Sacha Sauda and its followers which proves that the court orders were not implemented by the state government .

It is worth mentioning here that the High Court bench in its order had asked the Punjab and Haryana governments to regularly sanitize various Deras of the sect located in Punjab and Haryana.

List of weapons recovered from Dera followers from Sirsa on August 28, 2017

A revolver with five cartridges, a pistol with five cartridges 32 bore recovered from a Dera follower Sukhdarshan from Bajekan checkpoint in Sirsa.

A 12-bore gun and 13 cartridges were recovered from Nayab Singh Dera follower from Bajekan near Sirsa.

An AK 47 rifle with 50 cartridges one pistol 9 MM with 30 cartridges were recovered from Rohit Kumar, a Dera follower near Bajekan T point in Sirsa.

An AK 47 Rifle with 50 cartridges, 1 pistol 9 mm with 30 cartridges were recovered from Satbir Singh Dera follower near Bajekan, Sirsa

The police had also recovered a drone on September 3 ,2017 from a Dera follower Rajkumar near Nejia Khera, Sirsa.

Dera management on September 4 had submitted 23 weapons owned by 17 licence holders.

HIGH COURT OBSERVATION ON ILLEGAL WEAPONS

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on December 1, 2014, had directed Haryana and Punjab governments to unearth illegal arms and activities.

"Search of Dera to unearth illegal arms and ammunitions and monitoring its activities on periodic basis is the absolute need of the hour to avoid future bloody confrontation. Casualty will be more in dimension compared to the one we had faced while executing warrant of arrest as against contemnor Rampal," observed the High Court bench.

WEAPON TRAINING INSIDE DERA

Not only the Dera followers, but Indian Army intelligence had also warned about illegal weapon training inside Dera Sacha Sauda.An army intelligence circular issued on December 13, 2010 had said that Dera chief had been organising illegal weapon training camps inside the Dera which had direct implications on national security.

The matter had also reached Punjab and Haryana High Court in December 2014 .The high court bench had also observed that it cannot shut its eyes as it was a serious matter.

"We took note of shocking internal communication sent by Lt Colonel (Intelligence) as regards to the activities of DSS for information and necessary action through military major. In the above communication, it has been succinctly stated that some ex-servicemen were engaging themselves in imparting weapons training to the activists of Dera Sacha Sauda at their headquarters at Sirsa," the bench had observed.

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DERA GANG MOVED ILLEGAL WEAPONS ELSEWHERE!

The Special Secretary Home in an affidavit submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court has clearly stated that Dera gang may have moved assets, documents and articles elsewhere before or on August 25 as police had failed to cordon off some roads leading to Rajasthan.

The state government in its affidavit has also told court that there were 350 to 400 vehicles in Gurmeet Rahim's cavalcade on August 25 when he was being taken to Panchkula .The suspicious movement of Dera followers from Dera complex continued till August 28 evening till all entry points were sealed by police.

Honeypreet Insan had also left Dera on August 28 .She was also carrying two large suitcases when she had left Dera. Residents of Nejia Khera had told India Today that nearly a dozen suspicious trucks had left for Rajasthan via Nejia Khera road on August 28. Locals claimed that the Dera goons had transported illegal weapons in the trucks that were covered.

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WATCH | Congress leader facilitated Honeypreet's escape from Dera headquarters, sources to India Today

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The guest speaker will be Kris Driskill of Belton, Mo. Driskill will share her story from Worrier to Warrior. Guests are asked to bring or buy silent auction items including baked goods. Proceeds will go to Stonecroft Missions. Lunch will be catered by Cookies and Cream Cafe of Wahoo.
MALMO  The Village of Malmo Board of Trustees denied a nuisance appeal Monday evening.

Shannon Durand appealed the nuisance notice she received after the boards Oct. 11 meeting. At that meeting, the board declared Durands property a nuisance for maintaining or allowing animal manure, chicken pens and confined chickens which are kept in such manner that are injurious to public health, offends decency and offensive to the senses and interferes with the enjoyment of life and property of others.

Durand told the board Monday it was in violation of the Nebraska Open Meetings Act for several reasons and has sought the advice of the Saunders County Attorneys office.

Durand stated the board did not have the Open Meetings Act posted for public display and did not refer to it to open the Oct. 11 meeting. She also alleged that she was not properly notified of the special meeting, that the board was not specific enough regarding their intent for going into closed session and that several members of the board could not push forward with the nuisance due to a conflict of interest regarding an ongoing investigation of the board through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Durand also contended there was a lack of proof of any manure on the property.

The board unanimously denied Durands appeal. There was no discussion.

In other business, Village Clerk Gary Swartz said he will be looking into getting bids for a new garbage pickup service for the village.

The current contract with Waste Connections is set to increase by nearly $300 per month.
The unprecedented drama that unfolded in the Supreme Court this week has a medical admission scam at its core. Here is the full story.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Over the past three days, a few unprecedented things have happened in the Supreme Court which appeared as conflict between the top two judges of the apex court. The case pertains to medical admission scam.

The medical admission scam or simply MCI scam hit the national headline in September this year when the CBI arrested a retired judge of the Orissa High Court and five others for allowing a private medical college enroll students despite a ban by the Supreme Court on the same.

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According to the CBI investigation, Justice IM Quddusi, a judge with the Orissa High Court between 2004 and 2010, and his alleged accomplice Bhawana Pandey helped the Prasad Education Trust that runs Lucknow-based Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences to enroll students in different courses.

HOW SCAM WAS ENGINEERED?

The Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences of Lucknow was among 46 colleges barred by the government from admitting students. These colleges were found to have sub-standard facilities and non-fulfillment of the required criteria.

Justice Quddusi and Bhawana Pandey allegedly assured the Prasad Education Trust that they would ensure that their matter was settled in the Supreme Court. The CBI said that Quddusi and Pandey roped in a middleman identified as Biswanath Agrawala of Bhubaneswar.

Besides, Justice Quddusi, Bhawana Pandey and Biswanath Agrawala, the CBI also arrested BP Yadav, Palash Yadav (both from Prasad Education Trust) and an alleged hawala operator Ramdev Saraswat.

Agrawala claimed to have contacts with influential people. The CBI seized Rs 1 crore during searches from Agrawala soon after he got the money from Saraswat in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area. The CBI later recovered another Rs 90 lakh.

WHEN SUPREME COURT ENTERED THE SCENE

The Supreme Court came in the picture after the Prasad Institute challenged the government's decision to debar it from admitting students for medical courses. Some other medical colleges too had filed petitions in the Supreme Court.

In August this year, a Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Dipak Misra directed the Centre to review its order to debar medical colleges it found having sub-standard facilities.

On August 10, the government heard the arguments of the Prasad Institute. But, it refused to lift the restriction till 2018-19. It also asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to encash its bank guarantee of Rs 2 crore.

PRASAD INSTITUTE AND ORISSA HC JUDGE

Following the government's decision to continue the restriction on admission in the debarred medical colleges, the Prasad Institute got in touch with Justice Quddusi and Pandey, who, according to the CBI, live in the same building in a south Delhi locality.

The FIR registered by the CBI states that BP Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust contacted Justice Quddusi and Pandey through another person identified as Sudhir Giri of Venkateshswara Medical College of Meerut. The CBI FIR says they "entered into a criminal conspiracy for getting the matter settled."

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The CBI FIR further says that the Prasad Institute challenged the government order in the SC afresh. However, a few days later, on the advice of Justice Quddusi, the petitioner withdrew the plea from the Supreme Court and moved the Allahabad High Court.

ALLAHABAD HIGH COURT IN PICTURE

The Allahabad High Court provided temporary relief to the petitioner staying the debarment order. It also stayed encashment of bank guarantee by the MCI. The medical college regulator, in turn, challenged the Allahabad High Court order in the Supreme Court.

Now, the Prasad Institute also filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The CBI says that it is at this point of legal battle, Quddusi and Pandey roped in Agrawala. The CBI FIR states that Biswanath Agarwala was engaged to influence the judges of the Supreme Court. Most of the accused of the case are out on the bail as the CBI did not object in the court.

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FIGHT IN SUPREME COURT

Meanwhile, the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking setting up of an independent probe by an SIT headed by a retired chief justice of India. The petitioner, Kamini Jaiswal, contended that such a probe is urgently needed as it involved charges of corruption in the highest judicial bodies - the high courts and the Supreme Court.

The petition was first put up on Wednesday before the bench of Justice J Chelameswar, who posted the matter for hearing on Friday, that is, today. But, petitioner's counsels Dushyant Dave and Prashant Bhushan again mentioned the matter yesterday once again before the bench of Justice Chelameswar, who now agreed to hear the matter.

Admitting the petition, Justice Chelameswar passed an order to set up a constitution bench of five senior most judges of the Supreme Court for hearing the petition seeking probe by an SIT. The bench also issued notices to the Centre and MCI.

The petitioner contended that CJI Dipak Misra should not be on the constitution bench as he was on the bench that dispensed with the case relating to Prasad Education Trust in the past. Justice Chelameswar, however, left the matter to be decided by the constitution bench itself on Monday.

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While Justice Chelameswar was about to pass the order, another draft order was delivered to him. The draft order was apparently issued by CJI Dipak Misra, who listed the same matter in another court.

Justice Chelameswar interpreted the draft order differently. Citing Article 145(3), he observed that the matter relating to the SIT probe can be heard by a constitution bench without the CJI passing a specific order. As per existing practice and law, setting up a constitution bench is the administrative function of the CJI.

The matter took another turn today when the CJI set up a seven-judge bench to hear the order passed by Justice Chelameswar bench in the matter of SIT probe. Two of the judges, however, recused themselves from the bench. The five-judge bench annulled the order passed by Justice Chelameswar.

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Rome mayor organises non-political rally in solidarity with attacked journalist.

Rome mayor Virginia Raggi will lead a rally against organised crime and violence at the city's coastal district of Ostia on Saturday 11 November at 15.30.

The rally is in support of the reporter Daniele Piervincenzi who was violently attacked by Roberto Spada, a member of a notorious crime family, during an interview on 8 November in the wake of local municipal elections.

Piervincenzi was reporting for state broadcaster RAI on the outcome of the polls in which the neo-fascist CasaPound group received an unexpectedly high 9 per cent of the vote following the endorsement of the Spada family.

Spada headbutted Piervincenzi, breaking his nose, before attacking him and filmmaker Edoardo Anselmi with a cosh.

The incident received condemnation across the political spectrum, including from CasaPounds prime ministerial candidate Simone Di Stefano who described the attack as deplorable.

Spada was arrested on 9 November and is currently under investigation for grievous bodily harm, with the aggravating factor of acting in a Mafia context, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Health reasons cited for Vatican cigarette ban which takes effect in January.

Pope Francis has ordered a ban on the sale of duty-free cigarettes inside the Vatican due to the adverse health effects of tobacco.

The ban, which is effective from January, is expected to result in the loss of around 10 million in profits each year for the Holy See whose 5,000 employees, religious and retired staff will no longer be entitled to purchase up to five cartons, or 50 packets, of cut-price cigarettes every month. However the sale of duty-free cigars will continue.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke stated that the Holy See could not contribute to "an activity that clearly damages the health of people, citing World Health Organization figures that smoking causes seven million deaths a year.

The Vatican's duty-free cigarettes cost an average of 22 per cent less than in Italy, leading to the practice of employees of the Holy See buying for smoker friends and relations.

The move by the Vatican follows similar measures at Rome's Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations whose recently-closed commissary once did a brisk trade in duty-free cigarettes.

Image: Jude Law stars as Lenny Belardo in HBOs The Young Pope.
French President Emmanuel Macron's maiden visit to India on December 8 is likely to be leavened by two exciting items of military commerce, the sale of three additional French submarines and orders for 36 more Rafale fighter aircraft.

India is currently building six Scorpene submarines at the Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL) in Mumbai under a Rs 23,562 crore contract signed with France in 2005. France will deliver the first of the 36 Rafale jets, signed in 2015 for 7.7 billion euros (Rs 59,000 crore), by 2019. Both proposals under discussion at the service headquarters are worth billions and have 'option clauses' in the agreements, which mean additional numbers can be supplied at the cost of the original contract. The deals could cement the strategic partnership France enjoys with India and enhance Macron's pro-business image within his country. The IAF is believed to have recently projected a demand for 36 additional Rafale jets on the grounds that they would be 40 per cent cheaper than the original batch (the ground support and maintenance equipment is already built into the first contract). The defence ministry (MoD) is yet to take a call on this.

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French Defence Minister Florence Parley, meanwhile, visited the MDL on October 28 where the submarines are being assembled, amid a strong sales pitch for the additional submarines by French shipbuilder DCNS. The French shipbuilder has agreed to alter the original design, adding on new features like Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), which extend a submarine's underwater stay, and land-attack cruise missiles. The navy's present fleet of 13 conventional submarines are nearing the end of their service lives and are being given life extensions.

The first two Scorpenes, the Kalvari and Khanderi, are already undergoing sea trials. The last and sixth boat will be delivered by 2021 and DCNS has reportedly offered to start delivering the next three in 18-month intervals. This is an attractive proposition for the navy which needs new underwater platforms fast to deter China's increased maritime capabilities in the Indian Ocean. The indigenous option to make a new class of six submarines by private sector players in collaboration with foreign shipyards, under 'Project 75I', is at least seven years away. The government needs to clear strategic partnerships between private sector players and foreign technology partners, before construction contracts can be awarded.

Both repeat orders appear attractive in the short term, but in their present form could present a dilemma for the government because they fly in the face of its 'Make in India' pitch for making weapons indigenously.

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Appalled shoppers are calling on centres around Australia to take down life-sized advertising for a controversial lingerie chain that they have likened to "soft porn".

Sydney mother Kat Israel said she avoided walking past the Honey Birdette store at the Macquarie Centre because she did not want her children to see the its latest window banners.

Ms Israel said she found the advertising sexist, with women "posed to be very sexual" and "looking very sultry".

"People can buy what they like and that's fine but I think they shouldn't be allowed to have that sort of advertising there in a public space."
First, the Adani family, as distinct from the public company, is particularly exposed on its key asset, Abbot Point. If the mine doesn't go ahead, Abbot Point will be forced to operate well short of "optimum capacity", threatening losses to the family. Hence, a lower-tier investment bank, Jeffries, is apparently attempting to organise a near-junk bond issue towards the refinancing of the heavily leveraged Abbot Point. A NAIF loan will be fundamentally important to investor support for this port.

Second, with some 20-30 globally significant banks, including our Big Four, declaring their unwillingness to finance the Adani project, the company has been scrounging around for financial support. The latest rumour is that support may come from a Chinese company (CMEC, in conjunction with Downer EDI) as both EPC and bringing export credit finance, perhaps also backed by a government-owned Indian bank. Again the NAIF support would be fundamental to such a financial deal. Another rumour has the coal committed to be on-sold from India to Pakistan at near $US130 per tonne, about $50 more than what would be a "market price".

Against this background, the recent decision of Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk to refuse to sign the required support for a NAIF loan threatens to be a real hurdle. But her motives are not clear  ostensibly to deal with an accusation of a conflict of interest, as her partner has worked on the NAIF application. But perhaps it's more to do with her desire to shore up city votes against the Greens. She is still committed to giving royalty relief to Adani  perhaps also wanting to still be seen in some quarters as a supporter of the project.

The political support for the Adani project, especially from the Nationals, is also linked to a desire for the federal government to finance and build a new HELE coal-fired power plant in North Queensland. It would have to be government, as it is most unlikely it would be financed by the private sector, especially with the availability of cheaper solar and wind projects.

Evidence and commonsense suggests that Adani's Carmichael proposal should already be recognised as a "stranded asset". There is absolutely no justification for financial support from either the federal or state governments. To do otherwise is simply "intergenerational theft". Any short-term political arguments are entirely misplaced, the employment benefits exaggerated and the international reputational damage to Australia long lasting.
The Turnbull government has been hit by another constitutional set back, with NSW Liberal Hollie Hughes facing the prospect of missing out on a Senate vacancy.

Ms Hughes was set to fill the Senate seat left vacant after former Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash was found to be ineligible under section 44 (i) of the constitution.

NSW Liberal Senate candidate Hollie Hughes. Credit:Dean Sewell

But Justice Stephen Gageler referred Ms Hughes confirmation to a full bench hearing next Wednesday after hearing that Ms Hughes may be constitutionally ineligible to sit in the Senate because she was a Commonwealth employee for a time after the 2016 election.

The High Court on Friday did give the green light to three new senators, to fill vacancies created by other MPs struck down by dual citizenship laws.
The sister of former prime minister Tony Abbott said protesters "shredded" her outfit and tried to punch her in "ugly" scenes outside a Liberal Party fundraising dinner in Sydney on Friday evening.

Christine Forster said she was pushed and shoved by Manus Island protesters as she and her partner, Virginia Edwards, tried to make their way to the event at the Australian Technology Park at Eveleigh, near Redfern.

"Essentially people surrounded us, they were spitting, they were snarling," Ms Forster said.

"It was extraordinary, it was a riot with people screaming in our faces, trying to spit at us, trying to punch us."
MPs in favour of same-sex marriage reform are bracing for "a blizzard of amendments", or a rival bill, from Christian conservatives intent on delaying the legalisation until they have all the safeguards for religious freedom they deem necessary.

Conservatives believe the Parliament should ensure businessess and individuals who refuse services to same-sex couples on religious grounds are not exposed to adverse legal consequences under any change to the Marriage Act.

The looming progressive versus conservative battle is the next headache for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was criticised for ordering the $122 million protracted postal poll, while reassuring voters their verdict would be respected if they backed change by Parliament expediting the matter before Christmas.

With the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting that nearly eight in 10 Australians returned their forms, pessimistic "no" campaigners have confirmed they will insist on major changes to the way same-sex marriage is introduced if the "yes" vote gets up  as expected  when results are announced next Wednesday.
Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, has a disturbing warning about the social network: "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

Speaking to Axios, the entrepreneur and executive talked openly about what he perceives as the dangers of social media, and how it allegedly exploits human "vulnerability."

"The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them,  was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'" said Parker, who joined Facebook in 2004 when it was under a year old.

"And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you  more likes and comments.
"We have no idea what we might find," Dr Dean Miller, director of science and media at the Great Barrier Reef Legacy tells me.

"As scuba-divers we can get down to around 30 to 40 metres safely but with this ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) we are allowed to go to 150, so this really turns into exploration in its purist form."

Blueye's Pioneer drone is less expensive and more user friendly than previous gear. Credit:Blueye Robotics AS

Dr Miller is the first to use the brand new Blueye Pioneer underwater drone, embarking on a 21-day expedition to explore the Great Barrier Reef's most remote, unexplored reaches, and assess the region's declining coral reef corridor.

"I don't think there is anyone out there who didn't dream as a kid of being able to see what is down in the deeper regions of our oceans," Dr Miller enthuses.
Gone are the days of having to make the long trip to the hospital to consult with a doctor.

The doctor may see you now from the comfort of your own home and we are not talking about a home visit  we are talking about holographic doctors.

GP appointments via holograms will soon be the norm. Credit:Silver Chain

The Silver Chain group RDNS is looking towards the future by allowing doctors to appear in a person's home via hologram.

The health care organisation will be undergoing trials for their new program Silver Chain Enhanced Medical Mixed Reality (EMMR), which allows a health care professional to project themselves through a HoloLens headset developed by Microsoft.
The decision to ban horses using a popular beach in Perth's northern suburbs has been overturned.

Horses and their riders will now be allowed to use the 160 metres stretch of Hillarys beach off Whitfords Avenue again, after the ban was overturned by the Legislative Council.

Riding horses on the beach will be allowed again at Hillarys beach. Credit:AP

Horses were prohibited from the beach in January early this year when the City of Joondalup adopted the Animals Amendment Local Law to phase the closure of the horse beach over four years.

North Metropolitan MLC Martin Pritchard told the Joondalup Times his successful motion to overwrite the local law amendment received support from every member in the chamber.
UPDATED: A 35-year-old man charged with the murder of his baby girl in Brookdale has appeared briefly in court.

Arron Colin Martin remained expressionless when the murder charge was read to him.

Outside the home in Brookdale, which has now been declared a crime scene. Credit:Graeme Powell

It is alleged that on November 9 he murdered six-month-old Isabella Sully Jean Martin.

On Friday afternoon a police spokesperson confirmed Mr Martin was the child's father.
A nurse who is already serving a life sentence for two murders may have killed more than 100 patients over several years at two hospitals in northwestern Germany, prosecutors said Thursday.

Former nurse Niels H. (L) masks his face with a folder with the help of his lawyer Ulrike Baumann

By AP: A nurse who is already serving a life sentence for two murders may have killed more than 100 patients over several years at two hospitals in northwestern Germany, prosecutors said Thursday.

Investigators have completed toxicological examinations on patients who died during Niels Hoegel's time as a nurse in hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, prosecutors and police in Oldenburg said. They found a further 16 cases in which he is suspected.

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In late August, they said they had determined that he might have killed at least another 84 patients beyond the ones for whose murder he is already serving time. At the time, they said that they were awaiting toxicology results on another 41 fatalities, which have now been concluded.

Prosecutors reiterated in a statement that they expect to file additional charges against Hoegel early next year. Additional convictions could affect Hoegel's possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany .

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders at a hospital in Delmenhorst and was sentenced to life in prison.

During his trial, Hoegel had said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Hoegel worked at the Oldenburg hospital from 1999 to 2002 and in Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.

Prosecutors said he is now suspected in 38 cases in Oldenburg and 62 in Delmenhorst, but that in five of those cases further examinations are needed. It isn't clear when those will be concluded.

As part of a wider investigation involving both hospitals, police and prosecutors reviewed more than 500 patient files and hundreds more hospital records. They also exhumed 134 bodies from 67 cemeteries, and questioned Hoegel six times.

Police have said if local health officials hadn't hesitated in alerting authorities, Hoegel could have been stopped earlier.

Authorities are already pursuing criminal cases against former staff at the two medical facilities.

WATCH VIDEO: German nurse that has killed atleast 84 people

--- ENDS ---
Internationally celebrated Spanish street artist Okuda San Miguel has started work on his mural in Subiaco's 'Paint Subi' art project.

San Miguel's brightly coloured, geometric murals are famous the world over, often focusing on animals, modernity, and transforming urban spaces.

Spanish street artist Okuda San Miguel at work. Credit:Kira Carlin

He's been at work only a day and already the images on a four-storey apartment block in central Subi are breathtaking.

"In this case the inspiration came from the country, I took animals from here and introduced my personal landscape," he said.
"When I don't get a certain amount of work done, I'm laying [in bed] thinking about what I could have done. "I like to set myself goals during the day and if I don't achieve them, I'm left stressing at night." Emily said she was aware of several peers experiencing symptoms of anxiety. "As students we don't want to put our hand up and say 'hey, I'm struggling'," she said. "Everyone likes to joke about how hard things are, but if you really get down to the root of it, everyone is suffering.

"A lady that came in [to work] the other day said she basically lost a child for a year  her daughter sacrificed so much and didn't go out with friends because she was studying all the time." Emily expressed her disappointment in the lack of empathy from a number of people who had taken to social media, criticising the students for speaking out. "People say we don't understand what real stress is, but fail to realise that this is all we know," she said. "We don't know what it's like having a mortgage; we don't know what it's like to have kids. "Our life is school."

Headspace community awareness manager Annabeth Bateman said the issue was widespread and the organisation had reported an influx of students seeking advice. "We've seen a big increase since last year," she said. "Our numbers take a huge jump in August and September in the lead up to exams." Ms Bateman said although the students levels of anxiety were at their highest during the examination period, the number of students who seek help generally goes down - and that's part of the problem. "Students are usually busy studying and forget to seek help," she said.

"When you're struggling the most, that's when you really need that support in place." Ms Bateman said lack of sleep was a common concern amongst students. "Anxiety often leads to poor sleep and interrupted appetite," she said. "When students don't get enough sleep it makes things harder for them, because the next day they're only operating on half a tank." The study also indicated that stress, anxiety and pressure levels were found to be highest amongst girls.

But Ms Bateman encouraged students struggling to seek help, in aid of breaking down the stigma around mental health. "Stress is a normal part of life and it's to be expected when you have exams," she said. "But if it's getting to the point where it's interfering with your life, that's when you should be asking for help." School Psychology Service manager Chris Gostelow said exams often brought about additional stress, and school staff had been trained to use a range of strategies to help students cope during these times. "Staff work to build resiliency in students throughout their school years and by the time Year 12 arrives, students are well practised in sitting examinations," he said.

Ms Bateman claimed the impact of exams on mental health was not limited only to senior students. "It's not just year 12's, it's students all throughout highschool  but there's certainly extra pressure on senior students," she said. Emily said her school had recognised the widespread need for support and appropriate measures had been put in place to aid students during this difficult time. "The school psychologist [at Sacred Heart] and the health captains were handing out chocolates saying 'have a kit-kat, have a time out' - it was a great way to advocate the importance of mental health," she said. "We also received advice on how to stay calm during exams  there are some fantastic teachers here that are really supportive.

"It's good that at Sacred Heart we have teachers that aren't seen just as teachers - they're seen as adults and even friends." Emily said she was hopeful WA schools would continue to provide additional support and offered advice for future students. "My biggest regret was not getting into a good study routine throughout year 11 and 12 - the routine itself is so important," she said. "I'd definitely say keep up your sport and social aspect - keeping a balance is so important. "We can't put our life on hold for exams, it's just not reality."
Baldivis student Jordon Steele-John has officially become Australia's youngest senator after the High Court announced he would replace Senator Scott Ludlam on Friday morning.

The 23-year-old disability rights activist was third on the Greens' Senate ticket at last year's election and said it was a privilege to add his name to those who had represented WA in Federal Parliament.

Jordon Steele-John is now Australia's youngest Senator. Credit:Tony McDonough

"The future belongs to young people. We must be represented in our Parliament," Mr Steele-John said.

"There is a very large group of people who will now have a voice that truly understands and represents their interests."
Dr Kuhn, the author of a new guide to optimising the chances of conceiving via IVF, emphasises the need to take a realistic look at lifestyle habits before opting for fertility treatment that can be costly and stressful.

"If couples are prepared to tackle issues like being overweight, smoking and alcohol intake they can save a lot of heartache and money  and may not need IVF. But although some fertility clinics look at lifestyle factors before recommending treatment, that's not the case with all clinics," says fertility expert Dr Raphael Kuhn, a former chairman of Melbourne IVF Human Research and Ethics Committee.

When couples have trouble conceiving, it's natural to suspect a glitch in one partner's reproductive system  but it might be something to do with lifestyle.

Sometimes all it takes to boost fertility is weight loss, he says.

His book, IVF Success. An evidence-based guide to getting pregnant and why you're not pregnant now, includes the story of 28-year old Tanya who became pregnant with her first attempt at IVF  only to have a miscarriage.

Besides having polycystic ovarian syndrome (a problem that can affect fertility), Tanya had a BMI of 31 that put her into the obese category. Losing weight would give her a better chance of pregnancy, her specialist said. After a six-month program of weight reduction including exercise, she reached a healthy weight, conceived naturally and had a baby.

Overweight and obesity can sabotage fertility in both sexes  regardless of whether you're trying to conceive naturally or through IVF. In men it's linked to poorer sperm quality, while women who are overweight or obese have less chance of getting pregnant overall and twice the risk of miscarriage compared to women with a healthy weight according to Your Fertility, a website developed by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority.

"IVF studies have linked a BMI higher than 25 to lower live birth rates and higher rates of miscarriage. One problem is that obesity can create a state of oxidative stress in the body which can damage cells," Dr Kuhn explains.
Danang, Vietnam: Trade Ministers of 11 countries have reached agreement on a pact to salvage a Pacific Rim trade deal rejected by the United States that Australia has been lobbying for on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

But several countries, including Japan and Canada, disagree on how fast the agreement should be progressed. They differed, too, on what had been agreed.

A Vietnamese security official stands on guard outside the venue for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Danang, Vietnam. Credit:AP

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters after arriving in the Vietnamese seaside city of Danang the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will bring together economies with a collective GDP of about $US10 trillion.

"So that is a huge market," he said.
The GST Council has decided to keep only 50 items, mostly luxury goods in the top 28 per cent bracket, said Sushil Modi, who heads the Group of Ministers panel for tackling IT-related glitches.

By India Today Web Desk: In a massive decision, the GST Council today decided to revise its highest 28 per cent tax slab by removing most items from it, including chocolates, nutritious food, marble, deodorants, shaving cream and sanitary products, thereby bringing the number of goods in the slab from 227 to 50.

The GST Council has decided to keep only 50 items, mostly luxury goods, in the top 28 per cent bracket, Bihar's Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the Group of Ministers panel for tackling Information Technology-related glitches, told news agency PTI.

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"All items of common consumption have been reduced from 28 per cent to 18 per cent tax rate. Tax on goods of mass consumption like chewing gum, chocolates, shaving items, shampoo, skin creams, whose revenue implication is not much, has been reduced," Modi told reporters on the sidelines of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meet.

The estimated revenue loss from the reduced items in high tax bracket is expected to be Rs 20,000 crore annually, Modi said.

Modi said that it was important the system under GST regime stabilises as only four months were remaining for the close of the current financial year.

The two-day GST Council meeting was held in Guwahati to review the progress of the new tax regime three months after it was rolled out. The meeting was a closed door event with the media not allowed to cover it.

WATCH VIDEO | 28 per cent GST tax slab revised, now only 50 items under it from 227

--- ENDS ---
The GST Council meets today in Guwahati for a crucial round of discussion on removing several items like building material from the high tax slab of 28 per cent.

By Rahul Shrivastava: The battle for Gujarat has shattered the veneer of consensus in the apex decision-making body for one tax for all India GST council. The council meets today in Guwahati, Assam for a crucial round of discussion on removing several items like building material from the high tax slab of 28 per cent.

After the first time since GST was rolled out on July 1, the Guwahati meet may be considered the most comprehensive overhaul of rates and compliance system.

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The GST Council today in its 23rd meet may consider reducing items in the 28 per cent tax slab. Tax incidence on daily use items, building material like tiles, hand made furniture, and plastic products are likely to be reduced.

A group of finance ministers headed by Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had suggested two important changes and the first was lowering tax rates for eating out. The committee proposed removing the tax rate distinction between AC and non-AC restaurants. It had suggested restaurants with a turnover more than Rs 1 crore need to be taxed at 12 per cent compared to the existing 18 per cent.

The committee, after discussion, suggested the two slab systems for hotels charging more than Rs 7,500 per night should be done away with. Currently hotels charging Rs 7,500 charge 18 per cent while 5 star hotels attract 28 per cent. If the recommendation is accepted, 5 star hotel rates may come down.

DAILY USE ITEMS

Real estate is not part of GST but construction/building materials are. Now the GST council may take up reduction in tax on tiles, pipes, and several other items from 28 per cent to 18 per cent.

Tax on shampoo, plastic pimples switches, taps etc may come down as well.

Currently, there are 200 items in the 28 per cent GST slab. The list is likely to be much thinner after the meet. The items which were cheaper before GST came into play are also likely to get a good hard look for possibility of reduction.

REDUCING RETURN FILING PAINS

The hardship faced by traders and businesses in getting acquainted with the compliance system is creating more critics daily. "The GST network is failing to handle the volume of business. Since activities don't get matched payments are getting stuck. It is hurting small and medium enterprise," said Badal. The Council may review the GST returns filing system to make it taxpayer friendly. The group of ministers headed by Sarma has proposed permitting all businesses to file returns after three months. Currently, only those who record a turnover less than Rs 1.5 crore are allowed this relaxation.

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TARUN GOGOI STAGES DHARNA

The Congress, which has been taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Gujarat by calling PM Narendra Modi's top economic reform moves demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) 'twin torpedoes', on Thursday went ahead the war path. Former chief minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi staged a dharna outside the hotel in Guwahati where the council is scheduled to meet.

"The BJP used its superior numbers in the GST council and bulldozed decisions. Now it is facing trouble from traders, textile industry and others in Gujarat ahead of the polls. Hence, it is in a rush to make amendments," said Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, who holds the finance portfolio. The finance minister of Punjab too struck a discordant note. "The Congress wanted rates to be frozen at lower levels. But these suggestions were smothered with arrogance. A senior official even told me that the GST constitutional amendment is done and not one word can be changed," said Manpreet Singh Badal.

Interestingly, the Congress finance ministers said that the government facing the heat in Gujarat has gone on a relaxation in compliance spree and the party welcomes it. "The changes were brought about in compliance with rules and tax incidence on some products was reduced only when the Congress insisted," said Narayanasamy.

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The assertion from the Congress ahead of the Guwahati meet, which is likely to further rationalise and reduce tax rates, is more to corner credit.

"The Congress is trying to muscle its way forward to claim that if tax rates are coming down it is because of them. It is a pure political gimmick to turn around and say decisions were taken by a majority move and not consensus. The Congress was a party to several items inviting higher tax rates," said a BJP finance minister.

The Congress fired yet another salvo. The finance minister claimed that when GST was launched on July 1 only 7-8 of the 31 states and union territories with legislators were expected to earn lesser revenue than the pre-GST regime.

"But after the first two months, barring five all states failed to reach the target levels of revenue collection. This is due to the slowdown in the economy and the hasty manner in which the GST was implemented," said Karnataka agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda.

He added, "Karnataka was the second highest tax generator in the country. The target for the first two months - July and August was in the excess of Rs 7,000 crore. The actual harvest was less than Rs 5500 crore."

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The Congress finance minister, with an eye on Gujarat polls, will demand lowering of GST rate from 28 per cent to a minimum of 18 per cent. It's backing petroleum and real estate to be subsumed in GST. A proposal which will face opposition from other states and create more fissures. Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac told India Today, "Real estate by constitutional provisions is a state subject. It can't be subsumed in GST. We are against it."

LOWERED GST RATES NOT BENEFITTING PUBLIC

The government's readiness to amend compliance rules and tax slabs comes from the BJP's assessment of unrest over GST in Gujarat. The government has found that GST is generating opposition due to three reasons- difficulties in compliance and working capital flow, high tax rate on items and the public not benefitting from reduced taxes on items.

Interestingly, Kerala has already conducted an elaborate survey of how public has not benefited from the reduced taxes on a large number of daily use and essential items. Kerala government surveyed and compared the market price of 650 brands score after GST. It found that 150 odd brands were padding the benefit of reduced tax or input tax credit to the public. When GST was launched to keep an eye on companies which don't pass on benefits of reduced taxes or input tax credit to the consumers, a National Anti-Profiteering Authority was proposed by the government. The authority was to be empowered to cancel the registration of any entity which fails to pass on to consumers the benefit of lower taxes under GST.

"The Centre is yet to set up an anti-profiteering committee. We have asked the government to act against the 150 brands which violated the clauses. But at a time when the economy is sluggish and private sector isn't enthusiastic about investing, the government is not in a mood to act. It hasn't set up the anti-profiteering panel," said Kerala finance minister Issac.

ALSO WATCH VIDEO | GST will take India towards a modern tax regime: Modi at business event in Delhi

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The World Customs Organization (WCO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) conducted a first mission in Sierra Leone, under the C-RED Project funded by the Government of the Netherlands. The mission aimed at strengthening Sierra Leones coordination capacities and at ensuring priority clearance of relief goods in cases of regional epidemics or natural disasters.

The mission was held in Freetown from 30 October to 2 November 2017.

The objective of the mission was threefold:

to strengthen national coordination between all stakeholders, both governmental bodies and humanitarian actors, having a role in the clearance of relief goods,

to update existing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) regarding clearance of international relief consignments, so that it can be used in the future as a handbook for all involved stakeholders, and

to reach an agreement on procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and its delivery to front-line customs officers of Sierra Leone.

The 4-day programme was opened by the Director of the monitoring, research and planning Department of the National Revenue Authority (NRA).The workshop benefitted from a broad range of representatives from several government bodies (among those the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, the Police and the Office of National Security) - as well as representatives of the Humanitarian Community, such as the World Food Programme, IRC, UNICEF and Customs brokers.

In highly interactive sessions, the WCO and OCHA presented the C-RED Project, Customs challenges and the international tools to be used in the fight against regional epidemics or natural disasters. Stakeholders presented the current situation, challenges and bottlenecks related to the clearance of relief goods. Intensive group work resulted in a draft of SOPs and a list of recommendations to improve current procedures, to be finalized and endorsed at a later date. Deadlines were set for each recommendation as well as for the final adoption of the consolidated draft SOPs.

The mission was a valuable opportunity for a cooperative approach of the subject in Sierra Leone. Participants thanked the facilitators and called for continued support to further improve the clearance of relief goods in Sierra Leone.

It should be recalled that the overall goal of the C-RED project is to assist Customs administrations of West African countries to be better prepared to contain the effects of natural disasters and regional epidemics, such as Ebola outbreak. More information about the C-RED project can be found via this link
From technical glitches to cumbersome filing procedures to unreasonably high tax rates on certain goods and services, the many problems with the Goods and Services Tax (GST), introduced this July, have raised quite the furore in the business community. The latest grievance pertains to their working capital which businesses argue, is getting stuck with the government as the GST Network isn't clear on the manner of refund of tax on input paid by exporters on their purchases. Reports quoting Praveen Khandelwal, a member of the advisory group of the GST Council's law committee, said close to Rs 2 lakh crore was blocked in this manner ever since the launch of GST. This affected the functioning of many businesses, since they have been deprived of working capital, or the cash available for day-to-day operations, the very oxygen of any business enterprise. Exporters had no clarity on the amount of refund they would get, and in most cases ended up receiving as refund only a small portion of the original GST they paid on inputs. However, a new online form to claim the input credit launched on November 5 should bring more clarity to such businesses. "This will now initiate the process of filing refunds by exporters and should give relief to all the foreign exchange earners," said Abhishek Jain, a tax partner with consulting firm EY.

Other issues, including lowering the 28 per cent GST on some items of daily use, and rationalising taxes for small and medium enterprises, were to come up at a meeting of the GST Council headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley on November 9 and 10. This would be the second major set of changes, after October 6, when the council announced changes in the tax structure and policy aimed mainly at providing relief to exporters and small businesses and on reducing GST rates for 27 commodities. Reports suggest that in the latest action from the council, over half the goods in the top 28 per cent bracket were being reviewed, and the government was thinking of limiting the items under the 28 per cent slab to luxury and 'sin' goods (goods that will be taxed higher to discourage their use). There was also a possibility of allowing even larger firms to file returns once a quarter instead of every month. At an election rally in Himachal Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said many of the remaining problems with the GST would be addressed at the meeting.

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However, if firms are allowed to file quarterly returns instead of monthly filing, what would become of real-time invoice matching, touted as a major feature of GST? Invoice matching is a mechanism under which all the taxable supplies made under GST will be matched against all the taxable supplies received by the buyer. "Even if the council decides that filing of returns be done on a quarterly basis, they are not doing away with invoice matching," says Jain. As long as businesses show their liability, credit and the money they will pay to the government, the procedure will be just fine. To facilitate this, businesses have been given the option of filing the form GSTR 3B on a monthly basis till December this year. "The government will have to consider extending filing of form GSTR 3B beyond December, in case the filing of returns is made quarterly from monthly," Jain adds.

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Rahul Gandhi will begin his campaign from Chiloda Circle in Gandhinagar on Saturday and later go to Sabarkantha and Banaskantha.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will begin his fourth three-day tour of poll-bound Gujarat from Saturday.

The Congress leader, who has been touring the state extensively in the run-up to the two-phase election in Gujarat on December 9 and 14, will begin his campaign from Chiloda Circle in Gandhinagar and later go to Sabarkantha and Banaskantha. He is expected to visit the Ma Ambaji Temple in Banaskantha.

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Former PM Indira Gandhi had also visited the Ambaji Temple during her days. The shrine is one of the 52 Shakti Peetha, where the heart of Goddess Sati had fallen.

Considered a BJP stronghold, north Gujarat was the epicentre of the Patidar agitation. The districts that Rahul will pass through have a huge population of Thakors and Patidars. Gujarat Congress leaders and OBC leader Alpesh Thakor have already declared that the visit will be a show of strength in the next three days.

Thakor is keen to contest from Banaskantha. Meanwhile, discussions are already going on between Congress and Patidar leader Hardik Patel for a possible alliance.

Congress has already started deliberating on the candidates who will represent the party in the Gujarat election.

ALSO WATCH VIDEO | Gujarat model meant to serve the rich, of no help to the poor: Rahul in Bharuch rally

--- ENDS ---
Balwantrai Mehta died along with seven others who were travelling in the Beechcraft chopper during the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Even before the upcoming Gujarat Assembly election had heated up, the Congress conducted a poll on Twitter under its #KnowYourLegacy series.

It asked the name of former chief minister of Gujarat who is considered as the 'Architect of Panchayati Raj' in India. Among the four options were the names of Anandiben Patel, Keshubhai Patel, Balwantrai Mehta and Narendra Modi.

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Majority of the respondents voted for Balwantrai Mehta. They were correct. Mehta was the second chief minister of Gujarat and he is considered a pioneer in panchayati raj institutions in the country.

Which former Chief Minister of Gujarat is considered as the Architect of Panchayati Raj in India? #KnowYourLegacy- Congress (@INCIndia) August 28, 2017

However, one would wonder how many of the respondents even knew that Mehta was also the only sitting chief minister who was killed by an enemy country.

He died when the chopper he was flying in on September 19, 1965 was shot by a Pakistan Air Force pilot near the Indo-Pak border in the Rann of Kutch.

Mehta died along with seven others who were travelling in the Beechcraft chopper. They included his wife Sarojben, three members of his staff, one journalist and two crew members.

The ghastly incident took place at the height of the Indo-Pakistan war. Forty-six years after the incident the pilot of the Pakistani fighter aircraft wrote a letter to the daughter of the chief pilot of the Beechcraft and apologised to her. The daughter too replied to her father's killer and forgave him.

THE INCIDENT

On the fateful day, Mehta flew to the Kutch border after stopping at Mithapur, 400 km away from Ahmedabad. Minutes after taking off from Mithapur, his aircraft was intercepted by a Pakistani fighter pilot Qais Hussain.

According to reports, Hussain, then just 25 years of age, entered into the Indian airspace at 20,000 ft. It descended to 3,000 ft at which the Indian chopper was flying.

While waiting for permission from Pakistani ground-control interception, Hussain first hovered around Beechcraft.

Perhaps on spotting the Pakistani aircraft, Beechcraft started waggling its wings, in an indication to have mercy and spare it. The Indian chopper was flown by chief pilot of the Gujarat government Jehangir M Engineer, who was a former Indian Air Force pilot, and his co-pilot.

However, Hussain fired two salvos in the air on getting nod from his superiors. Both the salvos hit the chopper near Suthali village, about 100 km from Mithapur.The Beechcraft exploded in the air and turned into a ball of fire before falling on the ground. The All India Radio announced the tragic incident in its 7 pm news bulletin.

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HUSSAIN'S APOLOGY

In the first week of August 2011, Hussain sent an email to Engineer's daughter Farida Singh. Explaining the account of the fateful day, he apologised to her.

He wrote:"Dear Mrs Singh,

"I am glad that by now we know about each other and it is no surprise that I am writing to you, thanks to Naushad Patel and Jagan Pillarisetti."The incident happened 46 years back but it is as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. The aircraft flown by your father had drifted off course by many a miles and in his search for the destination, he had been going up and down in the border area of Rann of Katchh for quite some time and it made our Radar Controllers uncomfortable. I happened to be strapped up in my aircraft along with another pilot (my Leader) in his, on two minutes take-off alert. We were scrambled but I had to take off alone, and with the help from my radar controller, intercepted your father's aircraft which was considered to be on a recce mission to open a new war front. I caught sight of him at 3000' and made a pass so close that I could read his markings and the number of the aircraft. Your father spotted my presence immediately and he started climbing and waggling his wings seeking mercy.

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"Instead of firing at him at first sight, I relayed to my controller that I had intercepted an eight seat transport aircraft (guessing by the four side windows) and wanted further instructions to deal with it. At the same time, I was hoping that I would be called back without firing a shot. There was a lapse of 3 to 4 long minutes before I was given clear orders to shoot the aircraft.

"After the shooting, I had a sense of achievement and satisfaction that I had completed my mission and destroyed any recce data that might have been collected to open a new war front. I landed back at Mauripur, Karachi with my fuel tanks bone dry and was greeted by my seniors and other squadron colleagues. Later that evening, All India Radio announced the names of the occupants who had lost their lives in that aircraft.

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"The reason that I have been trying to get in touch with you since recently is an article by Air Cdre Kaiser Tufail in April 2011, in which he researched the whole incident and came out with his story by interviewing me, the radar controller (a Flying Officer) and his supervisor (a Wing Commander) who took the decision to order the shoot. I have also read numerous versions that appeared in the Indian media at the time, said to be eyewitness accounts from peasants of Mithapur which are unfortunately based on hearsay. Even the findings of an Enquiry Committee constituted by the Indian Government are nowhere near to what actually happened. I was alone at the site of incident while my Leader who took off finally about 6 to 7 minutes after me (due to change of aircraft and a new pilot), was perched at the border at 20,000' acting as a relay station between me and the controller at Badin. I had lost contact somewhere while descending to 3,000' and had we not had this aircraft at 20,000' at the border, I would not have found your father's aircraft and he would not have lost his life along with all the others. Nonetheless, the unfortunate part in all this is that I had to execute the orders of my controller.

"Mrs Singh, I have chosen to go into this detail to tell you that it all happened in the line of duty and it was not governed by the concept that 'everything is fair in love and war', the way it has been portrayed by the Indian media due to lack of information. I did not play foul and went by the rules of business but the unfortunate loss of precious lives, no matter how it happens, hurts each human and I am no exception. I feel sorry for you, your family and the other seven families who lost their dearest ones. I feel greatly grieved that you lost your brother Noshir recently. If an opportunity ever arises that I could meet you face to face to condole the death of your father 46 years back I would grab it with both hands. I would highly appreciate if you please convey my feelings to the other members of your family, who were equally hurt by the untimely departure of Jungoo to the next world."I hope and pray that you and your family stay well

"My best regards"

"Qais"

FARIDA'S FORGIVENESS

More than six years ago, Engineer's daughter Farida wrote an emotional reply to Hussain. Instead of holding him responsible for the death of her father, the then chief minister, his wife and others, she blamed it on circumstances.

"From: Farida Singh10 August 2011 09:49Subject: Re: CondolenceTo: Qais Hussain"

"Dear Mr. Hussain,

"Firstly, thank you for your condolences on the passing away of my brother Noshir.

"I am somewhat overwhelmed at receiving this letter, even though I was expecting it as Jagan Pillarisetti had been in touch with me recently on this.

"It took courage for you to write this. And for me, too, (I say this humbly) it takes the same to write back . But my father was Courage and Grace at their finest and I now speak on behalf of him, my extraordinary, gracious mother (who survived my father by just 16 years), my late brother Noshir and my elder sister in Canada who is unfortunately legally blind.

"Yes, this was the one incident which defined our lives henceforth. But in all the struggles that followed, we never, not for one moment, bore bitterness or hatred for the person who actually pulled the trigger and caused my father's death. The fact that this all happened in the confusion of a tragic war was never lost to us. We are all pawns in this terrible game of War and Peace.

"A little more about my father. An ace pilot if ever there as one. A WWII veteran fighter pilot, a great leader of men, a willing team player, strong in body and spirit. This would have been just the view of an adoring daughter, had it not been reflected by all those fortunate enough to know him. Most of all was the generosity of spirit, and his intuitive understanding of the pain of others. Hence it is now easy for me to reach out my hand to receive your message. This incident is indeed a prime example of what damage strife and mindless battles can drive even good men to do.

"Thank you again for your gesture. I know it was not an easy thing for you to do.

"In closing, I would like to say that I have no idea as to how your email has made the front page in some prominent dailies here. (Jagan knows how publicity-shy I generally am). A friend told me about it and I then re-checked my inbox and opened your mail this morning, 4 days after you sent it.

"However, I am glad that it is now public as it can do nothing but heal wounds, not just on a personal scale but in a much wider arena. And most of all, my father would have liked that it goes towards bringing a spark of forgiveness between our two peoples, who after all were one.

Warm regards,Farida"

VIDEO | Gabbar Singh: The flavour of Gujarat Assembly elections this time around

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Patidar and Patel community to play a big role in the outcome of this upcoming assembly election in Gujarat, says election opinion poll.

By India Today Web Desk: There is a lot of political struggle in the assembly elections of Gujarat. BJP is currently at their political peak with wins at both the state and central levels. All political parties are claiming their victory in the Gujarat elections. But this time, eyes of the whole country are resting on who will win the elections in Gujarat.

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This election is not just a question on the credibility of two major political parties, but its results will also be a major force in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. That's why this election is being dubbed as the semi-finals of 2019 in the political corridors. ABP News-Lokneeti-CSDS has done an Opinion Poll to measure the temperament of the public.

THE PATEL COMMUNITY VOTERS

This time, 24-year-old leader Hardik Patel has changed the scene of election in Gujarat. In August this year, 58 per cent of Patel voters were with BJP, but now only 20 per cent is with the BJP. This is a huge difference of 38 percent in just two months. This seems to have directly benefited the Congress.

WHO IS POPULAR IN THE COMMUNITY?

Hardik Patel - Favours 64% (+3) - Doesn't favour 30% (+3)

Alpesh Thakor - Favours 46% (-7) - Doesn't favour 34% (+15)

Jignesh Mevani - Favours 37% (+ 6) - Doesn't favour 31% (+10)

DID HARDIK USE THE PATEL COMMUNITY?

Kadwa Patel - Yes 20% (-11) - No - 70% (+9)

Leva Patel - Yes 30% (-14) - No - 55% (+9)

WHAT'S THE IMPACT OF PATEL COMMUNITY IN GUJARAT?

Patel's community makes up for 15 per cent of Gujarat's population. The Patel community has an impact on about 80 seats in the state and has been considered as the main vote bank of BJP.

Of the 182 BJP MLAs, 44 MLAs come from the Patel caste, but at present, Patidar is angry with the BJP. In such a situation, if the Congress takes the Patidar in their favor, then it can get a big advantage in the Gujarat elections.

WHY ARE PATIDARS ANGRY WITH BJP?

There are three types of Patel in Gujarat: Kadwa, Leuva and Aunga. Anjana Patel comes under OBC. Meanwhile, Kadwa and Leuva Patels are demanding OBC reservation. Patel community is angry with the BJP after not getting reservation.

An India Today-Axis My India Opinion Poll last month had predicted that BJP would win somewhere between 115-125 seats, while the Congress was likely to get 57-65 seats. The BJP's performance in the upcoming election is likely to be, more or less, a repeat of its showing in 2007 and 2012 assembly elections. Congress in 2012 election had won 60 seats.

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In India Today's Gujarat Opinion Poll , Rupani emerged as the top choice for the chief minister's post, while Congress' Shaktisinh Gohil followed as the next most favoured choice.

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VanMeter to be next Kentucky chief justice as Minton retires
By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 02, 2017 | 08:57 AM | PADUCAH, KY

The Paducah Parks & Recreation Department and the Veterans Day Planning Committee invite the public to attend the Veterans Day Opening Ceremony and Parade today.The opening ceremony will begin at 10:15 a.m. at the Korean War Monument located on the 6th Street side of Dolly McNutt Memorial Plaza. The annual parade will begin at 11 a.m. at 6th and Washington Streets. It will travel along Washington Street until it turns right on Walter Jetton Boulevard. It will then turn right on Broadway and head toward the riverfront. At 2nd Street it will turn left and disband in the parking lot adjacent to the Farmers' Market.

Students who are winners of the Veterans Day Essay contest organized by the Daughters of the American Revolution will be recognized at the opening ceremony. The Concord Elementary School Singsations will sing the National Anthem and a medley of patriotic music. James Cruickshank will play the bagpipes.

The opening ceremony includes the recognition of 2017 Distinguished Veteran Walter Eugene Lowrey who will serve as the parades grand marshal. The ceremony also includes the presentation of the 2017 Patriot Award to Cynthia Stevenson Byrd. The Patriot Award honors a non-veteran who dedicates his or her time to serving veterans and veteran causes in this community.

The WKCTC Television Production Department will record the parade (weather-permitting), set it to music, and televise it at a later time on Government 11 and Paducah-2 (for Comcast subscribers).

In addition to the parade and opening ceremony, the Distinguished Veteran and Patriot Award recipients will be honored at a Celebration Luncheon at the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) location in Paducah on Thursday, November 9 at 2 p.m. Furthermore, everyone is invited to attend the Veterans Day Fish Fry at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) location at noon on Saturday, November 11.

For more information about the Veterans Day Parade or related activities, visit the Parks & Recreation Department at 1400 H.C. Mathis Drive, call 270-444-8508, or visit online at www.paducahky.gov.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 10, 2017 | 06:27 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY, KY

A Paducah man was arrested on methamphetamine and marijuana charges following a traffic stop early Friday morning.

According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Office, at approximately 1 am, deputies conducted a traffic stop on a car on Yarbro Lane for traffic violations. Deputies received consent to search the car and found a backpack that contained a .45 caliber handgun, digital scales, 12.2 ounces of marijuana and 76 grams of crystal methamphetamine. According to police, the methamphetamine has an estimated street value of at least $7600.

One of the passengers, 30-year-old Christopher Cope, of Paducah, was sitting next to where the backpack was found. Deputies later confirmed that the backpack and its contents belonged to Cope.

Cope was arrested and lodged at the McCracken County Regional Jail. He's charged with trafficking methamphetamine (firearm enhanced), trafficking marijuana (firearm enhanced) and possession of drug paraphernalia.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 09, 2017 | 07:32 PM | MAYFIELD, KY

Republican State Rep. Richard Heath came out against Gov. Matt Bevin's proposed pension bill during a question and answer session with constituents in Mayfield Thursday night.

Heath said pension reform is needed but changes need to be made to the current proposal.

Once House leadership and Senate leadership have set down with all the information they have available and they reach what they say is the best compromise they can come up with that saves the pension and does the least amount of harm to the people that the pension is for, at that point, I'll be on board, Heath said.

Shanna Mills, a teacher at Graves County High School, says she would face a $120 per month pay cut under the governor's proposal, in addition to reduced benefits and no incentive to work after 27 years.

Mills says she understands that teachers will have to make concessions, but she says it isn't the teachers' fault that the pension system is in the situation that it is.

The legislators have caused this mess and I look to them for guidance in fixing it with as little penalties to teachers, current and future, as possible.

Republican State Senator Stan Humphries also attended Thursday night's meeting and said he too was opposed to the proposed pension bill. Republican State Representative Kenny Imes was also in attendance Thursday night but did not speak.

About 100 people attended the meeting, hosted by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
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By The Associated Press

Nov. 10, 2017 | NEW YORK, NY

By The Associated Press Nov. 10, 2017 | 04:55 PM | NEW YORK, NY

The financial fallout to Louis C.K.'s acknowledgement of sexual misconduct has begun, with FX Networks and FX Productions announcing they will cut ties to the comedian, stripping his title as executive producer and taking away any compensation for the four projects they were working with him on.



In a statement, FX Productions says it will cancel a deal it had with C.K.'s production company, Pig Newton. The four projects in the works were "Better Things," ''Baskets," ''One Mississippi" and "The Cops."



FX Networks and FX Productions say C.K. was a "professional" partner over the past eight years but "now is not the time for him to make television shows."



The announcement came hours after C.K. said recent allegations of sexual misconduct are true and he released a statement expressing remorse about using his power "irresponsibly."



C.K. released the following statement on Friday following allegations of sexual misconduct in a New York Times report. The statement is unedited except for explicit language:



I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.



These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my (penis) without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your (penis) isn't a question. It's a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.



I have been remorseful of my actions. And I've tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I'm aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position.



I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn't want to hear it. I didn't think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it.



There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.



I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.



The hardest regret to live with is what you've done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I'd be remiss to exclude the hurt that I've brought on people who I work with and have worked with who's (sic) professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You Daddy (sic). I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I've brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie and every other entity that has bet on me through the years.



I've brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.



I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen.



Thank you for reading.
By PTI: Mumbai, Nov 10 (PTI) Veteran lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar has penned a poem for the upcoming film "Kadvi Hawa".

The poem, titled "Mausam Beghar Hone Lage Hai", is based on the theme of climate change, which is also the central point of the film.

It is narrated from the perspective of nature which is detailing its torture at the hands of mankind. The poem talks about how mankind is hellbent on destroying each and every bit of nature just to satiate its lust for advancement.

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Gulzar liked the movie and its idea and therefore penned a poem on the climate issue, which has become the talking point of late after a thick smog engulfed the Delhi-NCR.

The film, directed by Nila Madhab Panda and produced by Drishyam Films, stars Sanjay Mishra, Ranvir Shorey and Tillotama Shome.

Kadvi Hawa will release countrywide on November 24. PTI RB BK

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Since its premiere in 1983  in Britain, at the National Theatre, oddly  David Mamet's gimlet-eyed study of desperate real estate brokers selling a distorted version of the American dream has become one of his most popular and most performed plays.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that its savage view of the kind of capitalism that sets a group of grown men at each other's throats to come top of the "board" and win a Cadillac or pay their daughter's medical bills has grown more relevant with every passing year. Perhaps it's because its portrait of the group dynamics of the protagonists arguing about what it is to be a man is so compelling.

Or maybe it is simply that its tightly-strung dialogue that perfectly catches the rhythm and lilt of salesmen's patter offers irresistible opportunities to its all-male cast. In this revival, they are led by a seemingly ageless Christian Slater as the smooth-talking alpha salesman Ricky Roma, a man who can turn a chance encounter into an opportunity to offload a vision and a patch of dodgy real estate. He'd fit perfectly into Donald Trump's America, where they venerate the art of the deal.

His mentor Shelly (Stanley Townsend) has lost the gift and fallen on hard times. The play opens with him begging the smooth office manager John (Kris Marshall) for some "leads" - the all-important potential clients who might decide to buy prime estate in Glengarry Highlands or another development. The play pivots on this tightrope between success and despair, the elation of the sale and the desperation of failure.

At this distance, you can appreciate the poetry of Mamet's Pulitzer-prize winning writing, the way the three opening scenes, all set in a Chinese restaurant beautifully conjured by Chiara Stephenson's set, feature one pattering character and one almost silent stooge, whose interpolations punctuate the sharp, ceaseless phrases. The second act, set in the sales office trashed by a burglary, plunges into the consequences triggered when there is no morality beyond the pitch.

Yet this production, directed by rising star Sam Yates, doesn't dig very deep. It seems so in love with Mamet's words, with the way they ebb and flow that it skates along the surface of them, losing their passionate meaning. When Shelly pleads with John to give him a break and is greeted with a brusque "F**k You", it should count for something. It is the harsh underside of the free market expressed in two phrases. Yet here in Townsend's oddly one-note performance it passes for nothing except a quick laugh.

As Roma, the part Al Pacino played in the 1992 film, Slater has a lot of energy but he never seems to believe what he says. Roma should hold the audience, like his clients, in the palm of his seductive hand; Slater keeps it at bay with a breezy smile. The best performance comes from Robert Glenister who endows the floundering Moss with righteous fury and a pent-up rage. Don Warrington is quietly effective as the washed up George.

But in the end, this is a lively but overly polite version of a great American play that pays it respect, without ever illuminating its dark and passionate heart.

Glengarry Glen Ross runs at Playhouse Theatre, London from 9 November 2017 to 3 February 2018, with previews from now.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The commerce ministry today said that for the first time the RCEP summit is taking place at the Head of Government level in Manila on November 14 to offer guidance to negotiators.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a mega trade pact among 16 countries, which aims to cover goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights.

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"This is for the first time that RCEP Summit is taking place at the Head of Government level on 14th November 2017 in Manila to give guidance to the negotiators," the ministry said in a tweet.

So far, 20 rounds of negotiations have concluded since 2012.

India is aiming to achieve comparable ambition in all key pillars of RCEP negotiations and seek balanced outcomes, it added.

The 16-member bloc RCEP comprises 10 ASEAN members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners ? India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Talks for the pact had started in Phnom Penh in November 2012. India already has implemented a free trade agreement with the ASEAN, Japan and South Korea.

The country is negotiating similar pacts with Australia and New Zealand. PTI RR ARD

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By PTI: By Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, Nov 10 (PTI) India and Egypt have discussed ways to step up cooperation in the renewable energy sector with experts from both the countries sharing ideas to promote clean fuel in the light of its increasing demand worldwide.

The Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture of the Embassy of India in Cairo yesterday organised a round table Renewable Energy: Lightening the path to future where experts from India and Egypt discussed, analysed and shared the Indian and Egyptian experiences in the sector.

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Indias Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said that the subject of renewable energy is particularly important in the light of increasing demand of clean energy worldwide especially when the traditional sources of energy affects the environment negatively.

Solar energy is becoming popular in several places in India including Rajasthans desert where the government gives six-month trainings to rural women to generate solar energy in far rural areas, he said.

India is stepping up its cooperation and exchange of experience with Egypt by offering training courses and workshops to Egyptian experts, Bhattacharyya said.

"Egypt started to cooperate with the leading countries in the field of renewable energy by the early 1990s. Recently, a special programme of nutrition tariff for solar energy based projects was designed to fit the Egyptian market needs," said Mohamed Khayat, Executive Chairman of New and Renewable Energy Authority in the Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy.

"The renewable energy projects need flexible dynamic policies in order to succeed," he said.

Renewable energy projects attract foreign investments and Egypt is also investing to save electricity consumption from the traditional sources, Khayat said, adding that the use of biomass energy is spreading in Egypt and there are chances in its expansion.

Former speaker of Ministry of Electricity Mohamed El Yamany said the Egyptian government succeeded in eliminating the power cuts though people are not saving electricity.

The Ministry of Electricity is working in two directions which are raising the efficiency of power plants and enhancing the efficiency of power consumption, he said.

Ashish Khanna, Program Leader for Sustainable Development (Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti), praised the Egyptian governments efforts in expanding the renewable energy projects and urged Egyptians to install solar cells in their houses.

Khanna said that renewable energy is the future of labour market for the Egyptian youth. PTI YES CPS

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By PTI: By Aditi Khanna

London, Nov 10 (PTI) An Indian-origin doctor from the East Midlands region of England who was arrested for allegedly circumcising a baby boy without his mothers consent has been released without charge.

DrABalvinderAMehat, a general practitioner (GP), was accused of carrying out a non-therapeutic circumcision or a procedure for religious rather than medical reasons on the three-month old baby four years ago.

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"The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deemed that there would be no realistic prospect of conviction,? Nottinghamshire Police said, adding that they had ?thoroughly investigated the incident?.

The baby?s paternal grandmother, believed to belong to the Muslim faith, had taken the baby to Mehat?s surgery in Nottingham for the procedure in July 2013.

The 61-year-old GP told the police when he was arrested back in June this year that he believed the mother had consented.

The police had also arrested the boys father and paternal grandmother on suspicion of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, but they were released without charge as well.

In a letter to the boy?s mother outlining its decision, the CPS said that had Mehat performed the operation knowing the mother did not consent, his actions may have amounted to an assault.

"He may have failed in his professional obligations to discuss the issue of consent with you. But that in itself is not sufficient for there to be a criminal prosecution," it noted.

The boys parents are separated and the procedure took place when he was with his father?s family. Now aged four, the boy suffers from a number of recurrent problems, including inflammation and infections, as a result of the circumcision, according to his mother.

"I will fight this until my last breath if I have to, its the only way I can possibly look my son in his eyes,? she told the BBC.

Human rights lawyer Saimo Chahal is appealing the CPS decision and has written a letter, "outlining numerous defects in their decision-making process and evaluation of this case".

Circumcision is widely practised in both the Jewish and Muslim faiths around the world.

Guidelines from the British Medical Association state that both parents should give consent for any non-therapeutic or "ritual" circumcision of children.

If parents disagree, a doctor may only proceed with the permission of a UK court.

Children old enough to express their opinion should be consulted, and their wishes must be taken into account.

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Mehat, based at Bakersfield Medical Centre in Nottingham, has declined to comment due to patient confidentiality rules. PTI AK PMS

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The late Milton Friedman was a Noble prize-winning economist who wholeheartedly endorsed free trade between nations. It was pretty hard to disagree with him. Or put another way, its impossible to argue with reality. The evidence is certain; free trade between countries was and is good.

If free trade is so great, why then is President Trump so hard-over about NAFTA and other similar trade deals? After all, how can anyone get excited about agreements that could be put on one piece of paper that virtually every rational economist in the world would agree with? Such agreements would consist of not much more than saying, We, the parties involved, all agree that we are not, henceforth and forevermore, going to impose tariffs on anything we trade with each other. Furthermore, our governments will not subsidize any industries who are involved in any trade between our countries. The end.

Again, why would Trump oppose trade agreements if they are such a great benefit for our workers, our economy, and for the world at large? He did go to a pretty fancy business school called Wharton you know. Supposed to be one of the best, if not the very best. You might think he learned something.

Because that is not what these trade deals are about. And no thanks to the idiots who report  rather, actually do not report  about these things, most of U.S. dont understand them either. Here is a clue. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that Trump axed, contained 5,544 pages.

Say what? Yep, 5,544 pages. That is at least twice the economic equivalent of the two thousand-plus pages of damage provided by Obamacare. This means that TPP contained nothing more than an excruciating long laundry list of carve-outs that would benefit some while under-cutting others.

Trade deal? Nah, crony capitalism. Fascism is another way to put it. TPP was also sickening testament to the existence of corrupt swamp and the swamp creatures in Washington, D.C. Its wretched denizens include the bureaucratic establishment, politicians of both parties, lobbyists, special interests and concerned corporations.

TPP a benefit to all U.S. workers and our economy? If you believe that, your thinking is so muddled that if your brain was put in a blender and the power setting was positioned to froth, it couldnt be more scrambled. One just needs to take look at how many jobs were lost here in the U.S. after NAFTA and how many of those ended up in Mexico. A giant sucking sound, someone once said.

Renegotiate NAFTA? Absolutely. People might wonder, though, how America can be competitive in the world if we bring jobs back to our higher paid workers. There are a number of good reasons that we can do that, including the already higher efficiency of U.S. workers and technological advances, but two other efforts being pushed by Trump definitely redound to our benefit.

One is eliminating onerous restrictions on U.S. energy production. The left, led by Obama, promised to destroy coal and carbon-based energy industries. They got a pretty good start on it. Trump fixed that. The upshot is that resultant lower energy costs are very attractive for industry. Make energy cheap and they will come.

Second is tax reform, especially lowering U.S. corporate income taxes, now among the very highest in the world. Lowering the corporate tax rate will make doing business here in the United States more profitable  and thus, much more attractive. Not only for our companies but for companies whose headquarters and manufacturing facilities are located around the world.

A side benefit is that corporations can bring back trillions of dollars of profits they keep overseas but dont return here because of high corporate taxes. Inject trillions back into our economy? What a good idea.

The result of all of this is that our economy will grow, jobs will become more plentiful, wages will increase and our living standards will rise. Thats the good news.

However, polling data suggests that there are some very worrisome trends as well; the kind of trends that could possibly cause a return to nonsensical leftist economic thinking and the horrible policies of cultural Marxism that we have been suffering with for so long. If we return Democrats and progressives to power again, America as we know it could then just easily disappear almost forever into a leftist progressive tyranny of divisiveness as we are trampled by millions of immigrants from who knows where, eco-wacko utopianism and severe limitations on many of our freedoms.

As the older generation passes away and millennials become ascendant, their voting power could be such that wed never see another conservative in office again. Though the beliefs and opinions of millennials concern me, they dont infuriate me.

The people who really anger me are the progressives/liberals in the education establishment and their educators who have created such an abysmally ignorant generation. They are who we should blame. They are the people I am absolutely furious with. And detest the most.

They are the people responsible for the fact that 20 percent of millennials believe that Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Kim Un are heroes. How twisted is that? They are the ones who have taught millennials to think that Karl Marx was an admirable man. Twenty percent think so, anyway. They are the ones who have completely twisted our understanding of socialism and capitalism to the extent that one-half of all millennials and one-third of all Americans say they would prefer to live in a socialist system rather than in a capitalist one. That is just plain nuts.

My anger, by the way, is not hate; it is righteous indignation. Righteous because of all of the vile and evil consequences this idiotic thinking has caused.

In the long run, can we recover from the catastrophes these people have created and are creating? Im not sure, Im just not sure. Thankfully, I am of an age where, if radical lefties take over again, I wont live long enough to be severely affected. I hope so anyway.

But your children will be, your grandchildren certainly will be, and your great grandchildren will absolutely suffer.

Socialism has never worked. But lets try it one more time. Really?
By PTI: (Eds: Changing dateline, adding more inputs)

United Nations, Nov 10 (PTI) Indias Dalveer Bhandari and Britains Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the ICJ as the UN could not decide between them after electing four out of five judges to the World Court.

The 193 members of the UN General Assembly and 15 of the Security Council will reconvene on Monday to decide between Bhandari, 70, and Greenwood, 62.

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Based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has a bench of 15 judges, five of whom are elected every three years for a nine-year term.

Established in 1945, the role of the ICJ is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions.

Along with justice Bhandari and justice Greenwood, three others -- Ronny Abraham of France, AntAnio Augusto CanAado Trindade of Brazil and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia -- were seeking re-election. Their terms expire on February 5, 2018.

Nawaf Salam of Lebanon was also in the fray, making a total of six candidate for five positions.

Judges of France, Somalia, Lebanon and Brazil were elected after fourth round of voting late in the afternoon, as they received absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council elections.

Stakes are now high for both India and Britain for the last seat.

In the fourth round, Bhandari received a majority -- 115 votes -- in the General Assembly, while Greenwood received 76 votes.

However, in the 15-member Security Council Greenwood got majority (nine) of the votes as against six votes by Bhandari.

As a result, another round of votes has been scheduled for Monday.

As per the United Nations ICJ election rules, candidates need to get absolute majority in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. Both elections are held simultaneously but independently of each other.

That means 97 votes in the Assembly and eight votes in the Security Council are required to win the ICJ election.

Several rounds of elections were held today at the General Assembly and the Security Council in the absence of any candidates getting absolute majority.

A former judge of the Supreme Court, Bhandari was elected to the International Court of Justice in April 27, 2012 following a vacancy after the resignation of sitting court judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh from Jordon on being appointed as the Prime Minister.

Bhandari had received 122 votes in the UN General assembly as against 58 for Florentino Feliciano from the Philippines.

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The ICJ, on Indias petition in May, stayed the execution of Indian national and former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by a Pakistan military court on the charge of "spying". PTI LKJ AQS CPS AKJ CPS

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St. Louis-based SSM Health, which includes St. Marys Hospital in Madison and Dean Medical Group, is cutting 1 percent of its jobs.

The job cuts are in addition to cost savings through attrition and changes in scheduling and workflow, Kim Sveum, spokeswoman for SSM Health in Wisconsin, said Thursday.

SSM Health has more than 35,000 employees in four states, so the total job cuts could be about 350. In Dane County, SSM Health has about 4,500 full-time workers and 2,100 part-time workers, so job cuts could exceed 45.

Sveum declined to provide numbers. Most of the positions affected are administrative, she said.

Like all health systems, we must continuously evaluate our operations to ensure we are providing services as efficiently and effectively as possible, a statement from Sveum said. As a result, we have identified some operational improvements necessary to better meet the needs of those we serve.

SSM Health also includes Dean Health Plan, St. Marys Care Center in Verona, St. Marys Hospital in Janesville, St. Clare Hospital in Baraboo and SSM Health at Home.

In July, SSM Health announced plans to acquire Monroe Clinic and Agnesian HealthCare, which includes the hospitals in Fond du Lac, Ripon and Waupun.

Like other health care organizations in the state and around the country, SSM Health has been examining ways to become more efficient as government and private payments for medical services focus more on the value, instead of the volume, of care.

Documents obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal provide some details of how SSM Health has been trying to cut costs.

In January, after experiencing a negative $30 million budget variance in 2016, the health system looked at reducing hospital admissions by 5 percent, prescriptions by 2 percent and emergency room visits by 10 percent. That is according to a memo from Damond Boatwright, the Madison-based regional president of SSM Health, Frank Lucia, then president and CEO of Dean Health Plan, and Dr. John Rose, then interim president of Dean Medical Group.

Lucia left in September to take a job in Virginia. Dr. Christopher Sprowl became president of Dean Medical Group in March.

An Oct. 26 memo from Sprowl said the budget gap remains at $16.86 (million). The memo calls for referring more patients to Dean specialists instead of doctors outside of the system and a continuing focus on hospital, pharmacy and ER expenses.

These are not suggestions. These are directions, the memo says.

An Oct. 10 SSM Transformation document discusses various ways to save $15 million, including reducing ER visits, reducing the use of anesthesia and converting some inpatient stays to observation stays  hospital care, with an outpatient status, that is supposed to last less than two days.

The document also talks about converting some Dean Medicare supplement plan members to a Dean Medicare Advantage plan.

Another document, from Dean Health Plan, discusses reducing costs from out-of-network hospital admissions, especially at UW Hospital.

St. Marys had an operating margin of about $15.4 million, or 3.8 percent, last year, compared with $37.9 million, or 9.1 percent, in 2015, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

Dean Health Plan made $15.9 million last year and $2.3 million the first half of this year, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Sveum declined to provide a detailed response to questions about the financial documents or make anyone available to discuss them.

While our financial outlook remains strong, we must be vigilant in ensuring the long-term sustainability of our ministry, she said in a statement.

We are working to reduce inadvertent misuse, underuse or overuse of services. For example, there are times when it may be more appropriate for a patient to be seen in a physician office or urgent care, versus a higher-cost hospital emergency room, she said.

By working to make high-quality health care services available and helping our patients find the right setting for them to receive the best care, we are able to make health care more affordable for everyone.
By Suhani Singh: With Hindi Medium Irrfan Khan scored a surprise hit this summer. He will hope for similar results with his upcoming release, Qarib Qarib Singgle . The romantic comedy marks the Bollywood debut of south star Parvathy. In an interview to India Today, Irrfan Khan talks about the first time he met Parvathy, working with another Kerala-born star in Dulquer Salmaan, reteaming with Deepika Padukone and acting alongside Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani.

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Parvathy is an acclaimed and award-winning actress down South. Were you familiar with her work?

Yes. When I met for the first time, she reminded me that we had met before and what I had done. I was invited for a South film awards function in Dubai as a presenter. As she was on stage to collect her award, her nose ring fell and came rolling towards my feet. She didn't want anyone to notice it. But I picked it up and gave it back to her thinking "Lagalo, achchi lagegi." She was embarrassed with that moment. I didn't know I had done wrong until she pointed it out. We laughed over the incident. She plays a girl who could never think of going on a date, and I am someone who is poles apart from her character.

You recently finished shooting a film with Dulquer Salmaan, another Kerala-born actor and rising star of South cinema. How was it working with him on Karwaan?

He is very charming. His head and heart are in the right place. I am so happy with his casting in Karwaan [ a film directed by Akarsh Khurana and co-starring Mithila Palkar]. I knew nothing about him before the shooting began. We met straight on the sets. It was very smooth and pleasant shooting with him. I used to detest doing commercial cinema with multiple cast members. There is this tension 'Kaun limelight leke jaayega?' It's the worst feeling for an actor. You are not concentrating on the drama and the situation and you are bothered who will get more limelight. That's why I have refused many movies. It's not an enjoyable environment to work in. I am not in any kind of race to tell I am better than you. Who will suffer with these games? I want to work for a long time in cinema and if the atmosphere is such then how will I work?

Your film with Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani The Song of Scorpions is doing the international film festival round. She has done her own dialogues in the film.

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It's very brave of her. A lot of hard work on her part. I saw her all the time learning her lines. She fit the part so well. Her face is a landscape. She has seen so much; t he society that she is coming from. She carries the pain of being an immigrant deep inside her. She is lovely too.

Recently someone shared with me a translation of an interview she gave to a French publication in which she shared her experience of working with me. She said: "Irrfan is like the desert. His presence soothes, and he is noble. He doesn't talk much, he laughs. He is a solitary soul. He's alone and mysterious. He's an extraordinary actor and I adore him absolutely."

And soon you will be back sharing screen space with Deepika Padukone in a Vishal Bhardwaj-written film.

I can keep doing films with her all my life. She is such a beautiful human being. It's the directorial debut of casting director Honey Trehan. I am looking forward to the experience.

ALSO WATCH: In conversation with National Award winner Irrfan Khan

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L'Oreal-Unesco awards doctoral fellowship to Wits student

Olawumi Sadare, a Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering PhD student at Wits has been awarded a doctoral fellowship by L'Oreal-Unesco.

Sadare was among 14 young female scientists across Sub-Saharan Africa celebrated at the 2017 edition of the LOreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa ceremony held in Johannesburg on 8 November 2017. They were honoured for their work and impact in the scientific field.

Her doctoral research work is on: Development and Evaluation of Adsorption coupling Bio-desulphurization (AD/BDS) process for the desulphurization of South African Petroleum Distillates.

The aim of her study is to develop and evaluate a hybrid process (AD/BDS) for the desulphurization of South African petroleum products (e.g. diesel) to obtain ultra-low sulphur content. Her research adds on to the few studies that have been reported on the bio-desulphurization of South African petroleum distillates.

Since 1998, the LOreal Corporate Foundation and UNESCO have been committed to women in science and to increasing the number of women working in scientific research. 150 years after Marie Curies birth, still only 28% of researchers are women and only 3% of Scientific Nobel Prizes are awarded to them.

For the past 19 years, the LOreal-UNESCO For Women in Science programme has worked to honour and accompany women researchers at key moments in their careers.Since the programme began, it has supported more than 2,700 young women from 115 countries and celebrated 97 Laureates, at the peak of their careers, including Professors Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Ada Yonath, who went on to win a Nobel Prize. The LOreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa programme was launched in 2010.

Sandeep Rai, Managing Director, LOreal South Africa highlighted the power of these women scientists and the women scientists who have been celebrated this year. The world continues to face unprecedented challenges such as climate change, water scarcity, illnesses and food security among other issues. Only a shared, controlled science, at the service of the worlds population, is able to meet the major challenges of the twenty-first century, and our researchers are the proof.

About the LOreal Corporate Foundation

Accompany, value, communicate, support and move boundaries. These convictions are the core values which drive the LOreal Corporate Foundations commitment to women every day. A commitment divided into two main areas - science and beauty. Through its For Women in Science programme, the LOreal Corporate Foundation motivates girls in High School to pursue scientific careers, supports women researchers and rewards excellence in a field where women remain underrepresented. Through its beauty programmes, the LOreal Corporate Foundation assists women affected by illness, who are economically disadvantaged or isolated, to recover their sense of self-esteem and femininity in order to feel better and to fare better. Its actions also include providing training programmes for beauty industry professions.

About UNESCO

Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization supports international scientific cooperation as a catalyst for sustainable development and for peace between people. UNESCO assists countries in the development of their public policies and bin building their capabilities in the fields of science, technology, innovation and scientific education. In addition, UNESCO leads several intergovernmental programmes for the sustainable management of freshwater, ocean and terrestrial resources, for biodiversity protection and to promote sciences role in combating climate change and natural disasters. To meet these goals, UNESCO is committed to ending discrimination of all kinds and to promoting equality between women and men.

Four tiers of the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science programme:
The Income Tax department raid continues on Friday at the premises of Tamil television channel Jaya TV, for a second day in a row. Following reports of tax evasion by the channel, a massive raid was held at 187 places simultaneously.

By India Today Web Desk: The Income Tax department raid continues on Friday at the premises of Tamil television channel Jaya TV , for a second day in a row. Following reports of tax evasion by the channel, a massive raid was held at 187 places simultaneously with the help of around 1,800 I_T officials.

Multiple locations in Tamil Nadu , Bengaluru were included in the search including the residence of M. Natarajan, Sasikala's husband, in Thanjavur, Kodanad Tea Estate belonging to late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, Jazz Cinemas, Midas Distilleries, Sharada Paper and Boards, Senthil Group of Companies, Nilgiri Furniture in Coimbatore, Jaya TV, Namadhu MGR and several other premises in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

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The operation was kept secret, so much so that the raiding tax officials hired private cabs and had pasted wedding stickers on the windscreens of vehicles involved in the operation so as not to arouse suspicion.

The allegation covers aspects like shell companies, dubious investments, fund flow and fudging of accounts, the I-T official had said. The searches at the TV channel's accounts section is part of 'Operation Clean Money', the official had said.

An I-T department official, who did not want to be named said, "We searched premises of some others linked to Dhinakaran and his jailed aunt VK Sasikala."

Late chief minister Jayalalithaa was the person who started the channel and has always been perceived to be favourably politically disposed towards Dhinakaran and Sasikala.

The raids started on Thursday morning and were part of 'Operation Clean Money' that was initiated post-demonetisation.

(With inputs from IANS/PTI)

WATCH VIDEO | Income Tax raids Jaya TV offices in Chennai

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An NIA team will leave for Jharkhand to probe a Naxal funding case which dates back to August - when the brother and business partner of a top CPM leader were caught with over Rs 37 lakh in cash and gold.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: A National Investigation Agency (NIA) team will leave for Jharkhand to investigate a Naxal funding case which dates back to August - when the brother and business partner of a top CPI (Maoist) leader were caught with over Rs 37 lakh in cash and gold.

CPI (Maoist) leader Sudhakar's brother B Narayan and business partner Satyanarayan Reddy were arrested by Ranchi police in the Jharkhand capital. The Rs 25 lakh cash and half a kilo of gold biscuits they were carrying were meant for Sudhakar's family in Telangana. It was Narayan's PAN card and Reddy's Aadhaar card that gave the duo away.

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The NIA sleuths will investigate close associates of Sudhakar, as well as his properties.

The agency will look into an inter-state module involving Jharkhand and Telangana. The Maoist trail to Telangana will be actively probed.

The NIA team is waiting for official orders.

Top sources said Sudhakar collected levies from his known associates in Palamau, Garhwa, Latehar, Lohardaga, Gumla and Simdega districts - collectively called the Koyal Sankh Zone - for his personal consumption. This, sources say, was part of a retirement plan.

But officials believe Sudhakar wasn't operating from just two states.

Sudhakar, sources believe, has also been extorting money from businessmen involved in mining, road construction and other activities in forested areas in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha.

ALSO WATCH VIDEO | NIA raids 11 locations in Srinagar, 5 in Delhi and Gurgaon in terror funding case

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Alumnus uses his unique experience to help fellow veterans transition to teaching

Troops to Teachers At the new Troops to Teachers Virginia Center at the William & Mary School of Education, Charlie Foster M.Ed. '17 is using his experience in the U.S. Marine Corps and his master's degree in higher education to help military veterans become teachers. Photo by Skip Rowland '83 Photo - of - Hide Caption

He didnt know it at the time, but each step along the way was preparing Charlie Foster M.Ed. 17 for his current job.

Foster, veteran liaison at the Troops to Teachers Virginia Center established at the William & Mary School of Education in May, cut an untraditional path that has paid off. He ended college in his second year to become a United States Marine, became a college student again, then an employee and most recently a graduate student.

Foster became a university employee again in May when, just after finishing his masters degree in higher education, he was hired at W&M. In his new role, he helps veterans and those transitioning out of the military find the best route to becoming K-12 teachers.

Were a resource for anyone who has served who wants to become a teacher, Foster said. We help them plan that next career.

As far as his own career, Foster really didnt have a plan.

The Alabama native attended the University of Alabama for three semesters before dropping out to join the Marine Corps at age 19. Foster became a combat correspondent, doing news writing and broadcasting for a year in Japan and two years in public affairs at the Pentagon.

The Pentagon role brought him into contact with many various people and their work for the military.

It was just a one-of-a-kind job, Foster said. I learned a lot about all the different things that people did.

He emphasized how even the most mundane work was important to the people doing it because it all supported the militarys overall mission. His stories ranged from covering field training to Marines packing parachutes to a harrowing tour of an explosive ordnance disposal facility.

While in public affairs, Foster also helped organize big events  including some for the White House Commission on Remembrance and the Secretary of Defenses air show  and to process requests for The Presidents Own U.S. Marine Corps Band and the Silent Drill Platoon. He also took calls from the public, which yielded myriad interesting conversations.

I think the highlight was meeting a whole bunch of different people and trying, sometimes in vain, to tell cool Marine Corps stories, Foster said.

He then used his GI Bill to attend Berea College in Kentucky, graduating in 2010 with an English degree and going on to work there in communications. A Thanksgiving visit to his aunt and uncle in Williamsburg brought up a discussion of higher education, and they suggested he visit W&Ms education school.

After talking with several faculty members, Foster applied and was accepted into the graduate school program. In May, he graduated with a masters degree in higher education

He was soon hired as part of the new Troops to Teachers Virginia Center, which is funded by a $400,000 Department of Defense grant and opened in June.

Its part of a national program started in 1993. Veterans are being tapped as an important resource to help fill teacher shortages across the country.

The center advises military members and veterans free of charge on how to obtain credentials necessary for teaching and how to get jobs. It serves the entire Commonwealth and considers every educational and financial option, including all four-year colleges and universities, and the Virginia Community College System.

Explaining the complications of the qualifications needed, means of funding and the GI Bill are all part of Fosters daily job. He has talked with more than 750 individuals and made more than a dozen presentations and visits to military installations, education and job fairs, transition programs and other venues.

Of the more than 50 case files he is currently working on, each persons situation is different, he said. The Virginia Centers specialized help can take into account all of the variables and show the best route for a potential teacher to take.

We know whats less expensive, and we know what programs take longer, Foster said.

He credits fellow staff members and W&M School of Education faculty with helping him become oriented in his new job, and points out how much of what he learned in the higher education graduate program connects with what hes doing now.

I have kind of an obligation to give people good information about education, and specifically higher education, so thats why this job is an interesting intersection of my experience, Foster said.

Because I was in the military and I also have a masters degree in higher education, I can help veterans consider their options. A lot of the veterans who become teachers have to go back to school, and I can help them research what school might be right for them.
For about half a century, Kathputli Colony in west Delhi was home to nearly 3,000 families. It was a neighbourhood of traditional performers-an orientalist's fantasy of snake charmers, acrobats, dancers and puppeteers. For about eight years now, the Delhi Development Authority has wanted to use the area in partnership with private developers to build public housing as well as commercial and residential properties. Since 2014, after years of protests and much public interest litigation, the DDA claims it has persuaded half the residents to leave their homes for a transit camp built by the developer. On October 25, families still holding onto their homes were ordered to vacate the colony. Just days later, bulldozers began reducing homes to rubble. The high court, which modified its stay order to allow the DDA to move on its demolition drive, has since criticised the haste with which it was begun. For leaving residents with little choice but to salvage their belongings from the rubble.

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By PTI: Kochi, Nov 10 (PTI) The Kerala High Court today ordered the arrest of a woman IAS officer in connection with a contempt plea after she did not appear in the court as directed earlier. AAAA A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Antony Dominic and Justice Dama Seshadri Naidu gave the direction to police after A Shanimol, Managing Director of Kerala Water Authority (KWA), failed to appear.

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The bench also directed the police to produce her in the court on November 15.

The bench also rejected a plea by the officer seeking exemption from appearing in person.

The court gave the order while hearing a contempt of the court petition filed by a Chennai-based firm alleging that the officer failed to implement a single bench order directing increase of amount of a contract work of the KWA. PTI COR TGB RC ZMN

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Ending speculation, RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Friday said his son Tejashwi Yadav will lead the party in the next Bihar Assembly polls.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Ending speculation, RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Friday said his son Tejashwi Yadav will lead the party in the next Bihar Assembly polls. He will also be the Rashtriya Janata Dal's Chief Ministerial candidate.

"RJD will contest the 2020 Assembly polls under Tejashwi's leadership. He will be our Chief Ministerial candidate," Lalu Prasad told the media here.

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He spoke after senior RJD leaders Abdul Bari Sidddiqui and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh reportedly said there was no clarity yet on the next Chief Ministerial candidate of the party.

On Wednesday, RJD state President Raam Chander Purve had proposed Tejashwi Yadav's name as the next Chief Ministerial candidate. Later, Siddiqui and Singh expressed their disagreement over Purve's view.

Lalu Prasad also praised his younger son's work. A former Deputy Chief Minister, Tejashwi Yadav, who turned 28 on November 9, is now Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar assembly.

WATCH VIDEO: Investigations show substantial evidence against Lalu Yadav in IRCTC hotel scam

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Roger Beaudry, AFGS treasurer, displays one of 11 new signs that will be donated to the city on Sunday to rededicate 10 public squares and a city park that were named for World War I veterans who died in the line of duty.
Paraguay is ranked as a middle-income nation, and its GDP was roughly $3.4 billion in 1986 in comparison to $58.3 billion in 2014. Paraguay's economy heavily relies on agricultural products, some of which like soybeans and corn are exported in large quantities. Its few mineral resources coupled with political instability are some of the challenges it has had to grapple with in its quest for economic development. The country benefited from positive economic changes in the 1970s going into the 1980s due to the tapping of its hydroelectric potential, cash crop exports, construction, and agricultural colonization. The agricultural economy was at the center of the country, and this over-reliance together with low tax collections facilitated an economic downturn. The distribution of financial benefits become even more inequitable. Paraguay enjoys some economic advantages such as vast hydroelectric power and a young population. Paraguay's government has been keen on developing this potential to improve the nation's economic standing.

Agriculture Industry

About 20% of the nation's yearly gross domestic product is derived from agriculture which is responsible for the employment of 45% of Paraguay's labor force. This industry witnessed rapid development in the 1970s and 1980s as soybean and cotton prices rose while agricultural colonization enabled more land to be utilized for cultivation. The sector was however severely impacted by flooding and droughts which slowed down the advances implemented. The country can cultivate adequate basic food products to be largely self-sufficient. Wheat, corn, and cassava rank as Paraguay's major food crops. Soybean production was promoted in the 1960s, and by 1980s it had become the nation's most prominent crop. An Italian-Paraguayan company group constructed a $10 million cotton-spinning plant near Asuncion and the processed cotton heads and exported primarily to Brazil and Italy. Brazilian investors have further constructed and renovated other cotton mills. Paraguay also produces coffee, citrus fruits, peanuts, rice, sugarcane, sorghum, beans, and sweet potatoes. The Chaco region, as well as the country's eastern plains, are home to a dairy and ranching industry. Beef exports constitute an important portion of the nation's agriculture industry. Paraguay's forests sufficiently satisfy the local needs for fuelwood and lumber although logging for export has reduced the State's once abundant forests.

Manufacturing Industry

The first manufacturing industries in the nation processed leather and hides from its numerous quebracho trees and abundant cattle. Such small-scale manufacturing as textiles prospered during the Francia dictatorship. The textiles and leather sub-sectors in Paraguay are supported by the availability of cattle hides and cotton fibers. Wood production and processing is another important sector in Paraguay. The country's native tree species have unique wood material, and it boasts over 18 million hectares of tropical forest. This wood material translates to high-quality products from building and carpentry components, timber, to floorboard wood. The pharmaceutical sector in the nation has been growing steadily and is now able to supply 70% of local consumption. The sector has been rivaling foreign firms, and it is even exporting drugs. Paraguay's primary manufacturing revolves around food and beverages, non-metallic mineral items, paper, and hides and furs. Imports, however, threaten the textile sector in Paraguay. The country is also the biggest exporter of organic sugar in the world, and it also has a significant cement producing sector.

Energy Industry

Hydropower represents almost 100% of Paraguay's electricity where 90% of the generated electricity is exported mainly to Argentina and Brazil. Paraguay's hydroelectric dams are the Corpus Christi, Itaipu Dam, and the Yacyreta Dam. These dams lie along the Parana and Paraguay rivers, and they were established as a result of collaborations with Brazil and Argentina. The National Electricity Administration oversees the nation's electricity market from generation to distribution. Only two firms purchase electricity from the state-owned utility and possess concessions to sell and distribute it. The Itaipu Dam boasts 13.3 gigawatts in power-generating capacity which is the 2nd largest in the world. Paraguay consumed a mere 16% of its 50% total share of the dam's production in 2004, and the rest was channeled to Brazil. Yacyreta Dam possesses an installed capacity of 900 megawatts. More than 60% of the electricity consumed in Paraguay is utilized in the Asuncion area. 41% of the electricity consumed in the state is utilized by residential households while 18.3% and 26% is used for commercial and industrial purposes respectively. Nearly 90% of Paraguay's inhabitants enjoyed access to electricity in 2005.

Service Industry

About 51% of the nation's GDP is derived from the service sector. Trade and transport is the most important sub-sector as Paraguay has been able to benefit profoundly from the Parana and Paraguay Rivers. Being a landlocked nation, these two rivers are of particular importance to its economy. The importations of items particularly from Brazil and Argentina for sale and also for illegal re-exportation creates jobs in the service sector. Other service sub-sectors are yet to contribute a substantial portion to Paraguay's GDP. Paraguay's territory represents various numerous tourism activities. It has a varied geography and suitable weather. The nation further prides in an enthralling history and unique folk art. Many urban inhabitants like to vacation in countryside ranches in addition to some global tourists. Visitors can engage in boating, horseback riding, swimming, and hiking. Rural establishments which engage in agriculture and livestock rearing welcome tourists interested in participating in sports, relaxation, and field activities. One of these establishments is the Agroganadera Jejui which lies 291 km from Asuncion. It offers first-class conditions for river trips and fishing.

Banking and Finance

The banking sector continues to recover from the 1995 liquidity crisis when reports of extensive corruption forced multiple significant banks to cease operations. Foreign firms completely or partially own Paraguay's financial institutions. The Republic's Central Bank is tasked with preventing such a crisis as the one witnessed in 1995 from taking place again. The Sudameris Bank is among the institutions operating in the nation. Paraguay's stock market has been operating since 1993 although economic uncertainty and a tradition of family-run businesses attracted low investment in the 1990s. A large credit union industry also exists in Paraguay which is not included in the Central Bank's purview.
If you're breathing in pollution, you could very well be more prone to fractures.

By Indo-Asian News Service: If you are living in areas of high pollution, you are more likely to have bone fractures from osteoporosis, according to a study.

The study was performed by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The researchers are the first to document high rates of hospital admissions for bone fractures in communities with elevated levels of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), a component of air pollution, with risk of bone fracture admissions greatest in low-income communities.

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The findings, from a study of osteoporosis-related fracture hospital admissions among 9.2 million Medicare enrollees in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic between 2003-2010, suggest that even a small increase in PM2.5 concentrations would lead to an increase in bone fractures in older adults.

Also read: Experts share pro tips on how to keep your skin healthy despite the smog all around

A concurrent analysis of eight years of follow-up among 692 middle-aged, low-income adults in the Boston Area Community Health/Bone Survey cohort found that participants living in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon, a component of air pollution from automotive emissions, had lower levels of parathyroid hormone, a key calcium and bone-related hormone, and greater decreases in bone mineral density than those exposed to lower levels of these pollutants.

Picture courtesy: Instagram/lkharthritisnmedical Picture courtesy: Instagram/lkharthritisnmedical

Osteoporosis, the most common reason for a broken bone among the elderly, is a disease in which bones become brittle and weak as the body loses more bone mass than it can rebuild.

Typically, no symptoms are present prior to a break, which often happens spontaneously or from something as harmless as a hug. In the year after an older adult has a bone fracture, risk for death increases by as much as 20 percent, and only 40 percent of those who had fractures regain their independence.

The researchers write that particulate matter, including PM2.5, is known to cause systemic oxidative damage and inflammation, which they suggest, could accelerate bone loss and increase risk of bone fractures in older individuals. Smoking, which contains several particulate matter components, has been consistently associated with bone damage.

Also read: Stove cooking to floor cleaning: 7 everyday activities that are leading to indoor pollution

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to cancer, and impaired cognition, and now osteoporosis," says Andrea Baccarelli, study's senior author.

"Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures."

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In two studies published earlier this year, Baccarelli, a world leader in the science of epigenetics, reported that Vitamin B can diminish the effects of air pollution-induced cardiovascular disease, as well as epigenetic damage to DNA.

It is unclear if the benefits of Vitamin B extend to bone loss. Even so, he says, the best way to prevent air-pollution-related diseases is through policies to improve air quality.

The findings are published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

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Residents urged to remain vigilant following distraction incident at town cash point

This article is old - Published: Thursday, Nov 9th, 2017

Those visiting the town centre are being urged to remain vigilant following a suspicious incident at a cash point in Wrexham.

It took place at a bank in the Regent Street area of town, in which a resident was stood waiting to withdraw cash from the cash machine, within the bank building, when they had a tap on the shoulder and they were told they had dropped something on the floor.

The resident picked up the item and went on to withdraw some cash. Within a few seconds they realised they could not find their card. The resident saw someone next to them pick something up but did not associate this with his missing card.

The victim reported the incident to the staff at the bank and the card was cancelled.

A card was handed was into bank staff by an individual, who said they had found it outside the bank. It is thought it was possibly discarded by the person who had picked it up within the bank, having realised it could not be used.

In this instance no money has been taken, however residents are being urged to remain vigilant of those around you when withdrawing cash from a cash machine.

The following advice has also been issued:

 Where possible, plan ahead and get your cash out during daylight hours.

 Be vigilant when using a cash machine. If you notice anything out of place, any unusual devices attached to the machine or anyone hanging around nearby, report it.

 Skimming or cloning devices are sometimes used to copy details from the magnetic stripe on your card as it is inserted into the machine. Criminals may also try to obtain your PIN number by fixing a tiny camera above the keypad.

 If you do notice any unusual devices, alert bank or building society staff straight away or call the number given on the machine if no staff are available.

 If the cash machine doesnt return your card when you expect it to, do not re-enter the PIN. 

 Report your lost card to the machines owner as soon as you can.

 Stand close to the machine and shield the keypad, so that nobody can see you enter your PIN number, and it cannot be recorded by a hidden camera.

 Ensure nobody is looking over your shoulder- they may see your PIN number and then target you to steal and use your card.

 Do not accept help from well-meaning strangers or allow yourself to be distracted.

 On completing your transaction, put your money and card safely away and out of sight before moving away from the cash machine.

 On a night out, dont be tempted to draw out more money when youve had a few to drink. Youll be vulnerable to opportunist thieves who look out for people with their guard down and youll be more likely to lose large amounts of cash

Always report anything suspicious to Police  dial 101 for non-urgent calls. Dial 999 if your -call is urgent.
Wrexham MP joins calls for independent inquiry into Carl Sargeants death

This article is old - Published: Friday, Nov 10th, 2017

Wrexham MP Ian Lucas has called for an independent inquiry into the tragic death of Carl Sargeant AM.

The Alyn and Deeside Assembly Member was found dead at his home in Connahs Quay on Tuesday morning.

Last Friday Mr Sargeant was sacked from his position as Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children last week amid unspecified allegations of his personal conduct.

Earlier this week Mr Lucas paid tribute to Mr Sargeant, described him as a great man to have at your side.

The tribute continued onto say: Solid as a rock, and built like one, I never, in the 14 years I knew him, saw him lose his temper. A gentle soul, he listened to everyone he met and carried forward the Labour cause of fairness and equality with dogged determination.

A son of Flintshire, he was a great example of achievement of high office without university education. He shared with me an appreciation of the value of families in the political world and I grieve deeply at his own familys unbearable loss.

It was a privilege to know Carl and he has given me precious memories which I shall cherish always.

Today the Wrexham MP has joined calls for an independent inquiry to be launched into the process followed which led to the death of Mr Sargeant.

The letter released by Mr Lucas this morning, states: I know you will share the shock and grief following Carls tragic death.

I listened to your statement yesterday and have heard the comments of Mark Tami MP which I fully support.

I believe it is in the best interests of all involved, above all Carls family, that there now be an independent inquiry into the process followed which led to Carls death. I do not believe a Coroners Inquest will address the issues necessary to learn the lessons of this terrible course of events.

I am especially puzzled that it appears Carl was dismissed as a Minister before any inquiry was carried out which enabled him to respond to allegations made against him.

I have a number of questions which, in due course, I would like an inquiry to address.

I do hope that you will announce and independent inquiry as soon as possible.

Yesterday First Minister Carwyn Jones held a press conference at the Welsh Government offices in Cathays Park  his first since the death of Mr Sargeant on Tuesday.

There had been calls for Mr Jones to stand down from his role as First Minister, however speaking yesterday he said he had no alternative to take the action that he did.

He said: There are a lot of inaccuracies in the press and many of you have questions to ask about what happened last week. Everybody is grieving and it is not appropriate for me to get into the precise detail.

These are matters for the future  things that will need to be properly disclosed through what should be a Coroners Inquest.

As there will in all probability be an Inquest, I and my team will of course be cooperating fully with any questions that are raised there.

The family deserve to have their questions answered and if that isnt possibly through the Inquest then I will endeavour to make that happen through other means.

There is a legal process to go through and I am obviously acting within that. I welcome any scrutiny of my actions in the future and it is appropriate for that to be done independently.

I quite properly did all that I could to make sure that everything was being done by the book. I had no alternative to take the action that I did and I hope that people will understand that.

Mr Jones also paid tribute to his friend whom he had worked with for 14 years, stating that Wales has lost a person of great warmth, ability and charisma.

He added that these are the darkest days any of us can remember in this institution  but they are the darkest of all for the family, and we must respect their right to grieve in peace at this time.
The Bhaavantar Bhugtan Yojana (BBY), or the price deficit financing scheme for agri-produce, is not proving to be the panacea for farmers it was built up to be.

The Bhaavantar Bhugtan Yojana (BBY), or the price deficit financing scheme for agri-produce, which came into force on October 16, is not proving to be the panacea for farmers it was built up to be. Under the scheme, announced in the aftermath of the police firing on farmers in western MP in June amid allegations of corruption and massive wastage of procured onion stocks, the state would not procure stocks on its own. Instead, the farmers would be paid the difference between the MSP and modal price of eight crops covered under the scheme. If the sale price was higher than the modal price, the farmer would get the difference between MSP and sale price. However, a fortnight into the scheme, the Bhaavantar price mechanism has become another quagmire.

The farmers have found the procurement process with its registrations and checks quite daunting. Traders have also been withholding cash payments and refusing to make online payments, offering post-dated cheques instead, citing government orders. There have already been agitations at several mandis across the state.

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On the face of it, it seems traders had formed cartels to suppress prices, especially in the case of urad. While the MSP for urad stands at Rs 5,400 per quintal, it is being procured at Rs 2,000-2,200 per quintal. The government initially put up a brave face. "The pre-bhaavantar implementation prices are in the same range as the post-implementation prices, except for urad. We will check procurement minutely to prevent cartelisation," said principal secretary, agriculture, Rajesh Rajora.

Sensing a potential blow-up, especially during the crucial overlapping months of kharif harvest and rabi sowing, the government has gone out of its way to soothe tempers. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, on his return from the US, immediately announced a slew of measures to smoothen things out. He also announced that traders would be able to pay up to Rs 50,000 in cash to farmers and the rest through RTGS.

The traders initially cried foul (delaying payouts was always profitable) but were soon brought in line. The state is now also paying for the transportation of the produce, from farm to the market. The CM also said that modal prices for every crop would be announced monthly. The state government expects about 5.6 million tonnes of crop purchases through bhaavantar at a cost of around Rs 3,600 crore, to be split evenly by the Centre and state.

Whether all this will help is yet to be seen. The Congress, expectedly, is not unhappy with the situation. "The farmers are not excited about the scheme as is evident in the number of registrations," says Opposition leader Ajay Singh. There are about 8.5 million farmers in MP (only 1.9 million have registered for the scheme so far) and their importance as a political group is not lost on anyone. The last thing Chouhan needs, in the run up to the assembly elections, is another farmer agitation.

--- ENDS ---
A four-month political crisis in Australia, triggered by the disqualification of federal members of parliament for being entitled to citizenship of another country, is increasingly calling into question the survival of the Liberal-National Coalition government.

What began as a nationalistic purge of parliament, demanding the ouster of those lacking undivided loyalty to the Australian nation state, has spiraled into a full-scale constitutional crisis.

Beyond the immediate fate of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his severely fractured government, the affair has thrown into doubt the functioning of parliament itself.

Five MPs have already been removed and as many as 30 more now face being forced out, mainly on the reactionary basis that at least one of their parents was born overseas, allegedly entitling them to citizenship of that country. A wave of by-elections to replace MPs is looming, if not a sudden dissolution of parliament and the calling of a general election.

While to many, the ongoing saga may have the appearance of an absurd fiasco, it has a deeply anti-democratic content. A full-scale McCarthyite witch-hunt is underway, with every MP being required to prove their citizenship purity. In the past few days alone, scores of new names have been added to media lists of MPs likely to be expelled, following last weeks forced departure of Senate President Stephen Parry.

The disqualification affair has risen to a new level since October 27, when the High Court, the countrys supreme court, disqualified five MPs by applying a strict and literal interpretation of section 44(i) of the British-authored 1901 Constitution. That provision forbids any citizen from even nominating for parliament if they hold allegiance to a foreign power or are entitled to citizenship rights of another country.

The seven High Court judges unanimously insisted on unqualified allegiance to Australia and single-minded loyalty, free from any foreign loyalties or obligations. There could be no excuses, they declared, not even ignorance of potential foreign entitlements that could date back two generations. Significantly, the judges explicitly referred to the need to ensure undivided allegiance, and freedom from any overseas military service obligations, under conditions of war.

For months, Turnbull and Labor Party opposition leader Shorten both rejected calls for a full audit of all 226 members of the Senate and House of Representatives. Those demands were spearheaded by the Greens, whose leader Richard Di Natale highlighted his partys unqualified commitment to the stability of Australian capitalism by insisting that two of the partys senators had to quit as soon as the dual citizenship accusations were made against them. Murdochs media outlets then took up the demand, praising the Greens, and insisting on the necessity for unquestioned patriotism.

In the face of this agitation, Shorten last Friday performed a backflip on the audit question, followed on Monday by Turnbull, who announced a process requiring all MPs to disclose their possible dual citizenship entitlements.

So paralysed has the parliament become that Turnbull asked Shorten to agree that only non-controversial legislation be considered until the cloud hanging over the eligibility of so many MPs is resolved.

When Shorten rejected that request, after a two-hour meeting between the two leaders on Wednesday, Turnbull raised the stakes. Fighting for political survival, in the face of escalating media derision towards his inability to resolve the crisis, he threatened to use the governments bare majority in the House of Representatives to unilaterally refer four Labor MPs to the High Court for disqualification, in the event that they had failed to complete the renunciation of their British citizenship before nominating for election.

Turnbull also informed a third party MP, Rebekha Sharkie, of the Nick Xenophon Team, that she should refer herself to the High Court. Earlier, Sharkie had indicated she might withdraw support for the government in a no-confidence vote.

Others caught up in the furore include extreme-right junior minister Alex Hawke, and several Liberal backbenchers, such as John Alexander. If any of these Liberals is removed, the government will lose its one-seat majority in the lower house. Already, the Coalition is ruling without a majority, because the High Court disqualified Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, the leader of the rural-based National Party. Having formally renounced the New Zealand citizenship he inherited from his father, Joyce is currently fighting a by-election for his seat.

Now some of the right-wing populists in the Senate have been named, including Senator Pauline Hanson, the leader of the anti-immigrant One Nation, and another xenophobic populist, Senator Jacqui Lambie.

Turnbull is currently proposing to give all MPs until December 7 to make declarations about their citizenship status. Shorten, responding to corporate and media demands for a speedier resolution, has insisted on a December 1 deadline. Labor also wants MPs to table documents to prove their sole citizenshipeven showing where their grandparents were bornon pain of being charged with serious contempt of parliament if they intentionally or recklessly provide misleading information.

In an ever-more diverse country, where almost half the population has at least one parent born overseas, the High Courts verdict bars millions of people from standing for election. Overnight, the court has rendered them second-class citizens. What comes next? Will they be relieved of their right to vote? What about other basic civil and political rights?

Moreover, in its extraordinarily anti-democratic decision, the court has arrogated to itself the right to determine the make-up of parliament and the future of a government. If the same literal interpretation of the Constitution were to be applied to the powers of the governor-general, the representative of the British monarch, he could simply dissolve the parliament. In 1975, Governor-General John Kerr invoked just such powers to dismiss the Whitlam Labor government, in the midst of a political and economic crisis. Todays governor-general, Sir Peter Cosgrove, is a former military general. Under the Constitution, he is now also commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Comments by corporate leaders provide an indication of the underlying economic and social crisis that has fuelled this political impasse. Westpac Bank chief executive Brian Hartzer this week denounced the continuing inability from governments to set and stick with policies to boost economic growth and restore business confidence.

Yesterdays editorial in Murdochs Australian declared that the Turnbull government was paralysed by indecision. There was growing doubt that Turnbull was capable of shifting the debate to the clear economic narrative he promised when he deposed Tony Abbott as prime minister in September 2015. In particular, the newspaper demanded the reduction of the company tax rate from 30 percent to 25 percent to remain competitive against sweeping global tax cuts.

The editorial in yesterdays Australian Financial Review warned of the disastrous instability of the political system since Julia Gillard knifed Kevin Rudd as prime minister in June 2010. The uncertainty, including two governments with zero or tiny majorities, has brought only years of policy mediocrity, it declared.

Successive governments, both Labor and Coalition, have failed to enact the austerity agenda being demanded by the financial elite. Every move to slash healthcare, education, aged care and welfare has provoked widespread popular opposition. Mass political hostility towards the political establishment as a whole is intensifying as sweeping job losses, falling wages and soaring living costs impact on the lives of millions of ordinary working people.

The purging of parliament indicates a concerted bid by the ruling elite to divert this discontent into nationalist and xenophobic directions. Both the Turnbull government and the Shorten Labor opposition have signalled their unconditional support for a US-led war on the Korean Peninsula, despite mass anti-war sentiment. Already, the witch-hunt against the alleged foreign allegiances of Australian politicians, and the railing against Chinese influence in domestic politics, business and education, recall the widespread victimisations carried out in Australia during World I and World II against foreigners at the time, i.e., long-standing residents who happened to be born in Italy or Germany.

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The dual citizenship furore in the Australian parliament: What is at stake for the working class?

[6 September 2017]
Jorg Baberowski has failed for a second time with an attempt to have a German court outlaw criticism of his right-wing extremist and historical revisionist positions.

The Humboldt University professor sought to have the Hamburg District Court prohibit the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP) from accusing him of historical falsification, with the threat of a large fine. When the court indicated it would rule against Baberowski, he withdrew his application for an injunction. He must now pay the costs of the proceedings.

In June, Baberowski lost a case in the Cologne District Court of Appeals against the general student committee (Asta) at the University of Bremen, which he wanted to ban from describing him as a right-wing extremist, glorifier of violence and a racist. During oral arguments, the court ruled that Baberowski had been correctly quoted by the Asta and that its evaluation of him was therefore legitimate.

The Hamburg District Court has now come to the conclusion that it is also legitimate to describe Baberowskis historical works as historical falsifications. It has thereby confirmed that no separation exists between the right-wing extremist propagandist Baberowski and his academic activities.

On September 29, shortly after the success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the German parliamentary elections, Baberowski demanded in writing that the SGP provide a legally binding declaration to cease and desist, committing not to employ the sentence, Jorg Baberowski calls himself a historian, but he is actually conducting historical falsification. By way of justification, Baberowski claimed that the accusation was scientifically incorrect and purposely personally injurious.

When the SGP did not respond, the professor applied for an injunction at the Hamburg District Court on October 17, based on the same demand. The court should rule that the accusation of historical falsification was an incorrect factual claim or a statement that is unlawful and massively injurious to the personal rights of the applicant, he argued in the application. In the event of non-compliance, Baberowski called for the imposition of a fine of 250,000 or a period of detention of up to two years.

The SGP submitted a precautionary pleading to ensure that the court could not impose an injunction without first holding a hearing. In the submission, the SGP argued that the evaluation of Baberowskis work as historical falsification was not only legal, but politically necessary. Mr. Baberowski systematically downplays the Nazis crimes and defends the Nazi apologist Ernst Nolte, it stated.

In February 2014, Baberowski told Der Spiegel, Nolte was done an injustice. Historically speaking, he was right. He explicitly connected this to Noltes relativising of the Holocaust.

The article in Der Spiegel stated, Concentration camps had existed in Russia since 1918. In a camp near Moscow, for example, four people shot and killed 20,000 people in one year. As evidence, the articles author, Dirk Kurbjuweit, cited Baberowski, who said, It was essentially the same thing: killing on an industrial scale.

In the same article, Baberowski was quoted declaring, Hitler was no psychopath, and he wasnt vicious. He didnt want people to talk about the extermination of the Jews at his table. Stalin, on the other hand, delighted in adding to and signing off on the death lists. He was vicious. He was a psychopath.

The SGPs submission to the court noted on this point, The statement that Hitler did not talk about the extermination of the Jews at his table is a blatant falsification of history aimed at calling into question the viciousness of the Nazis and their leader, Hitler. The SGP supplied several additional examples of the relativising of the Nazis crimes in Baberowskis works.

In an initial decision on October 24, the 24th civil chamber of the Hamburg District Court indicated that after reviewing the application and the pleading it would rule against Baberowski. It provided a period of one week for the submission of additional written evidence.

The chamber justified its decision by noting that the accusation of historical falsification also comprised the false classification of historical events. The respondent [the SGP] has however supplied sufficient material in its pleading, for example the statement, according to the pleading, publicised by the applicant about Hitler and Stalin is sufficient, the decision from presiding Judge Simone Kafer stated. The next day, Baberowski withdrew his application due to the judicial guidance.

Baberowskis defeat is all the more significant because he took the SGP to court in Hamburg, even though he lives in Berlin and the SGP is based in the capital. The Hamburg District Court is considered to be quite hardline among journalists (Spiegel). Yet even this court, like the Cologne court before it, which is also viewed as hardline, could find no grounds to support the injunction sought by Baberowski.

The courts ruling is a blow to all of those who accused Baberowskis critics of slander and defamation. This applies to the president of Humboldt University, Sabine Kunst, in particular, as well as to several professors who defended Baberowski in a joint statement after his defeat in Cologne and threatened his critics.

That statement, which remains accessible to this day through Humboldt Universitys media web site, indirectly accuses Baberowskis critics of violating elementary humane and democratic principles, as well as extremism and violence, and declares attacks in the media against Baberowski to be unacceptable.

The statements signatories found it difficult to deny the fact that Baberowski, during appearances on talk shows, at public events and in articles, agitates against refugees, portrays himself in the style of the AfD as a victim of a dictatorship of opinion and a virtuous republic, for which he received praise from the AfD and other right-wing extremist organizations. They had to acknowledge that his views expressed in debates were certainly controversial, but they asserted that his academic positions were not right-wing extremist and Baberowski was a renowned scholar, whose integrity is beyond doubt.

This is precisely what has now been disproved by Baberowskis defeat in Hamburg. His falsifications of historythe downplaying of the Nazis crimes and the slandering of the October Revolutionare aimed at legitimising right-wing extremist and militarist positions. The right-wing extremist ideologist cannot be separated from the scholar Baberowski. In fact, he is using his position at the university to spread propaganda and make right-wing extremist positions an acceptable part of public discourse once again.

For example, he includes all of his interviews and articles agitating against refugees on Humboldt Universitys web site in a list of his academic publications. His legal crusade against his critics is being carried out from his address at HU, rather than his private residence.

In addition, Baberowski no longer has any inhibitions when it comes to selecting his lawyers. While in the past he was represented by the celebrity legal firm Schertz Bergmann, he worked in the Hamburg case with lawyers who are part of the right-wing scene, from the firm belonging to Joachim Steinhofel, who is a member of the right-wing extremist milieu. In July of this year, he was the honoured speaker at the summer festival of the right-wing extremist newspaper Junge Freiheit.

The SGP and its youth organisation, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), have for years drawn attention to the connection between historical falsification and the rehabilitation of right-wing extremist and militarist viewpoints.

The book Scholarship or War Propaganda, published by Mehring Verlag in 2015, which documented the struggle at Berlins Humboldt University, contains a lengthy chapter on Jorg Baberowskis historical falsifications, which analyses in detail and criticises Baberowskis methods, theoretical conceptions and falsifications. He presents the October Revolution as a pogrom and the cause of the violence of the 20th century, and as a revolt of brutalised and alcoholic workers, which gave rise to Stalinism as well as fascism.

The SGP and IYSSE have spoken about these issues at dozens of meetings attended by thousands of students and workers, and found significant interest and support in the process. Student representative bodies in Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Wittenberg and other universities have protested against Baberowskis right-wing positions.

While a similar relativising of the Nazis crimes by Ernst Nolte in the 1980s triggered the Historikerstreit (historians dispute), Baberowski has been defended against all criticism by the academic milieu and in the media, apart from a few exceptions. The major newspapers and representatives of all parties in parliament have backed the right-wing professor, who is cited in school books and allowed to publish by the Federal Centre for Political Education, a state-funded body.

Baberowskis defeats in Cologne and Hamburg are a blow to this conspiracy. A right-wing extremist can still be called a right-wing extremist, and a falsifier of history is still a falsifier of history. The issue at stake, as the foreword to Scholarship or War Propaganda put it, is, Will the universities remain centres of scholarship and freedom of debate? Or will they, as they have before in German history, become state-directed training camps for right-wing and militarist ideologies?
This past Sunday, a group of newspapers, in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), began releasing leaked documents from a law firm and several companies who specialize in aiding the super-rich and giant corporations with avoiding taxes.

The Paradise Papers, as they are known, are a collection of 13.4 million electronic documents that were originally leaked to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

Many of the documents originate from a law firm called Appleby that employs a network of lawyers who set up shell corporations in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Island, Guersney, the Isle of Man, Jersey and other tax havens to protect the wealth of their powerful, wealthy clients. Other documents originated from corporate service providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, as well as business registries in 19 tax havens that show the shell companies used to avoid taxes.

The Paradise Papers come a year and a half after the Panama Papers exposed millions of files from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which like Appleby, hid and stored the ultra-richs fortunes in tax islands across the Atlantic.

The documents implicate several of the largest corporations in the world in the use of off-shore accounts to hide money from taxation. Apple, Facebook, Uber, Nike, Walmart, Allianz, Siemens, McDonalds, Yahoo!, and Allergan are some of the major corporations listed.

The documents also reveal how a variety of extremely wealthy individuals, politicians, businessmen and celebrities, have used the services of Appleby to hide their wealth offshore. The Queen of England, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus adviser Stephen Bronfman, the Queen of Jordan, and hundreds of corporate executives from around the world have been tied to the leaks.

The Boston Consulting Group estimates that at least $10 trillion is stored in offshore bank accounts, avoiding taxes. A study from inequality expert Gabriel Zucman this May found that, on average, at least a quarter of the wealth of ultra-high-net-worth individuals was stored abroad in tax havens.

Below are some of the newly revealed findings:

* Following scrutiny of Apples use of Ireland as a tax haven in 2014, Apple used Applebys services to transfer huge sums of its offshore wealth to Jersey, a tax haven in the British Isles.

Appleby stressed to its employees that it must be extremely sensitive concerning publicity in servicing Appleensuring no word would get out about what Apple was doing. Documents show that two of Apples Irish subsidies were transferred over to Jersey; however, one mysteriously disappeared. The Guardian suggests that this may be due to one subsidy taking over the other.

In 2016, Apple was reported to have $181 billion stored away outside of the USdespite the vast majority of its operations occurring within the US. Since 2014, Apple has made $122 billion in profits outside the US, but that has only been taxed at a rate of 5.4 percent, according to the Guardian.

* The largest commodity trading company in the world, Glencore, used its offshore holdings to secretly loan millions of dollars to an Israeli billionaire who placed political pressure on the Democratic Republic of Congo to give a Glencore-owned business mining rights in the Congo. The loan was effectively a large bribe that was only required to be repaid if Glencore did not receive the mining rights.

The Israeli billionaire in question, Dan Gertler, has been cited by the UN and the US Department of Justice for bribing DRC officials with huge sums of money, mainly used to buy weapons, in exchange for giving him critical mineral rights in the geologically rich country.

* The papers document how multiple members of the Trump Administration use offshore tax havens.

Steven Mnuchins former bank, CIT Bank, exploited offshore tax havens to sell private jets to the ultra-wealthy.

Rex Tillerson is named as director of Marib Upstream Services Company, whose nominal headquarters is in Bermuda. In reality, it was used by ExxonMobil to avoid taxes on its $5 billion natural gas venture in Yemen. Yemen later nationalized the operation, prompting the owner of the firm, Ray Hunt, a close friend of Tillerson, to sue the country, unsuccessfully, in international court. This occurred before the outbreak of the US-backed Saudi-led war against the country in 2015.

Gary Cohn, Trumps chief economic adviser, is shown in the documents to be the head of 22 different entities in Bermuda, all offshore shells of Goldman Sachs which the bank used to avoid taxes. Randal Quarles, supervisor of the Federal Reserve, led the investment of half a billion dollars in an offshore company that is under investigation by the US for tax evasion.

Billionaire Carl Icahn, a former adviser to President Trump on financial regulations, owns a $250 million mining company whose operations are in Brazil but is registered in the Isle of Man, Luxembourg and Malta in a complicated scheme that allows it to avoid taxes.

* The Queen of Englands estate parked millions of dollars in a Cayman Islands fund. Part of that fund went to a retailer, BrightHouse, which has been cited for exploiting poor families through its rent-to-own scheme.

The documents also show how a lobby group for offshore businesses, the International Financial Centres Forum, furiously worked to prevent changes to UK law that would crack down on its tax havens. It boasted of having superb penetration in its access to and influence over the highest members of the UK government.

* Over 100 renowned global universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania use offshore tax havens to park sections of their endowments whose total value exceeds $500 billion.

The Paradise Papers further expose what is already well known: the ultra-rich, who literally own the world, have a set of rules and laws that are entirely different from those faced by the vast majority of the population. While working people around the world struggle to get by day to day and flinch when they are asked to hand over a few thousand dollars in taxes to the government each year, the ultra-rich scheme and manipulate to avoid paying any tax on their unimaginably vast sums.

The global tax system is rigged not simply in favor of the well off or even the wealthy. Rather, it is run for the ultra-richindividuals whose net worth soars well beyond 10 or even 100 million dollars.

Indeed, while trillions of dollars are stored beyond the reach of taxation, the ruling class of the United States has the audacity to debate whether or not to further lower already nominal taxes on the ultra-rich. While workers everywhere are told there is no money left for social programs like health care and retirement, the reality is that there are trillions of dollars available for such programs, but these resources are kept hidden, locked, and out of sight, by those that rule.
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.

Europe

Strike by staff at five UK rail companies

Rail staff at five UK rail companies, Southern, South Western Railway and Greater Anglia, began a 48-hour strike on Wednesday, while staff at Merseyrail and Arriva Rail North began 24-hour strikes. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union are resisting plans by the rail companies to extend the use of driver-only operated (DOO) trains. The move to DOO train operations threatens around 6,000 train guard/conductor posts.

The series of strikes was well-supported, with picket lines at all workplaces, and resulted in a big disruption to rail services; South West Trains was particularly affected, with over a third of its services hit by the dispute.

The limited actions are one in a series of strikes against the use of DOO trains and appear aimed at dissipating workers militancy without seriously impacting management.

Walkouts hit bus services in northwest England

Around 2,000 bus drivers and engineers working for Arriva North West at 11 depots in northwest England, covering Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire, went on a 24-hour strike Wednesday in an ongoing pay dispute. The strike, coordinated with the rail strike on Merseyside, had a big impact on public transport access in the area. The workers have taken strike action for the last six Mondays.

The drivers are members of the Unite and GMB unions. Further strikes are planned for November 13, 20 and 27.

In a separate dispute, drivers working for First Bus in Rusholme area of Manchester were on strike Monday over pay parity. First took over the Rusholme depot from Finglands in 2013, but staff continue to be paid around 5,000 a year less than First Bus staff at other depots in the Manchester area.

UK nuclear plant staff fight for pay rise

On Wednesday, around 1,000 staff working for Sellafield Ltd, which decommissions nuclear material, held a 24-hour strike. Unite union members are opposing an imposed 1.5 percent pay increase back-dated till April.

The workers voted by more than 90 percent for strike action.

Housing workers in Manchester to begin series of strikes

Nearly 200 housing maintenance staff working for Mears and Manchester have voted to take 49 days strike action, beginning next week and spread over various dates through February of next year.

Members of the Unite union voted for the new round of strikes following 40 days of strikes earlier this year. They are contracted to maintain Manchester City Council housing stock and are in dispute over pay parity, receiving around 3,500 less than others doing similar work.

Job centre staff in southern England in dispute

Staff at the Exeter Street job centre in Plymouth held a 24-hour strike on Monday over plans by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to close the office along with other offices throughout the country. The staff are members of the Public and Commercial Services union.

Under DWP plans, around 50 staff at the Exeter Street office would be made redundant, while a further 350 would be relocated to other job centre sites.

London cinema staff demand living wage

Staff at five Picturehouse cinemas in London held strikes on Sunday and Monday as part of their ongoing fight to be paid the London Living Wage, currently set at 10.20. The members of the Bectu section of the Prospect union are also demanding sick pay and maternity pay.

Gas plant staff in northern Scotland set to strike

Workers at the Gas Plant terminal in Shetland, northern Scotland, owned by Total, have voted to strike over pay issues.

Around 80 staff employed by Aker Solution are members of the Unite union and voted by a more than 90 percent majority to take the action, which will involve striking every Monday and Wednesday beginning November 20. The terminal, which handles around 10 percent of UK gas production, is expected to be badly affected by the action.

Irish rail staff hold further walkout

Staff at the Irish Rail Company, Iarnrod Eireann, held a further one-day strike on Tuesday hitting commuter, intercity services and the Dublin Bay Dart service.

The staff, members of the National Bus and Railworkers Union and the Services Industrial, Professional and Technical Union are seeking a 3.75 percent pay rise. Further strikes are planned for November 14, 23 and December 8.

Finnish electrical workers return to work

Around 1,000 striking members of the Electrical Workers Union returned to work Tuesday. They were protesting the failure of employers, organised under the umbrella of the Technology Industries of Finland, to negotiate a continuation of the current collective agreement that expired at the end of October.

A further strike of electrical workers, involving 2,500 members from across the technology industry, is due to start today and would last till November 27 if no agreement is reached.

Cypriot power workers cancel action

A two-hour strike organised by four unions representing staff working for EAC, the countrys electric power company, due to have taken place on Thursday, was cancelled. A 24-hour strike was also due to take place next week. EAC workers are protesting government plans to open up the state-owned EAC to privatisation.

The strike was cancelled following promises by the Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, to meet with union representatives.

Middle East

Israeli trade union federation dispute over nursing care insurance

Last week, the Israeli general federation of labour, Histadrut, announced it would declare a dispute over plans by the government to end nursing care insurance from January 1. The proposed strike would hit education, as two educational unions would be expected to support the action. If it goes ahead, Histadrut would be able to call the strike sometime next week.

Egyptian government attacks union rights

On Tuesday, a draft bill was presented to the Egyptian parliament seeking to restrict the ability of independent trade unions to operate. In effect, it would mean that the state-controlled, Egyptian Trade Union Federation would become the only union able to represent workers.

Yemeni teachers strike

Teachers in the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen have gone on strike over non-payment of wages. Many have not been paid for more than a year. The teachers are represented by the Yemen Teachers Syndicate.

Africa

Ugandan doctors demand improvement in pay and conditions

Ugandan doctors went on strike Monday demanding a pay raise and equipment to carry out their work.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni threatened the strikers, who work in public hospitals, with a state of emergency and to jail the medics prior to them striking.

A spokesman for the doctors said they are working without such necessaries as painkillers, disinfectant and gloves.

Entry-level doctors salaries average 1.1 million shillings (US$300) a month, while a senior doctor earns around three times as much.

Reuters reported on November 6 that the doctors are demanding 8.5 million shillings (US$2,340) and 45 million shillings (US$12,400) a month, respectively.

Ugandas judicial workers were reported to be also preparing to strike next month complaining agreements with the government have failed to materialise.

College and polytechnic workers protest unpaid wages

Workers in tertiary education in Oyo state, Nigeria, went on strike last Friday over months of unpaid wages. In many cases, workers have gone without wages for up to 15 months.

The strike was called under the umbrella of the Joint Action Committee of All Trade Unions (JACATU) and has affected Colleges and Polytechnics across the state.

JACATU pleaded they have tried always to avoid a strike, but after issuing a warning strike notice October 19, the action had become unavoidable.

Apart from the wages arrears, the unions are also appealing to the state to return to paying wages in full. Workers have not been paid a full salary since January 2016, receiving only 25 percent of their pay while paying 100 percent tax.

Nationally, the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics said it would embark on a strike as soon as its 21 days warning to strike ends on November 13. The unions complain the government is not interested in coming up with an agreement even though the sector is on the verge of collapse.

Nigerian public sector workers demonstrate against autocracy

The National Labour Congress organised a march to protest the sacking of 21,780 teachers in the Nigerian state of Kaduna.

The state government is using a competency test to remove the teachers from their jobs.

Thousands of teachers supported by local government and health service workers from 23 administrations took part in the march, demanding the reinstatement of the teachers. Slogans featured included Kick Against Autocracy.

Pupils from the schools of sacked teachers came out to demonstrate in their localities, in some cases lying down across highways.

A sacked teacher, Ibrahim Yusuf, claimed that many of the retained teachers on the states list were security guards, retired teachers and, on the books, even people that had died long ago.

The National Union of Teachers has issued a strike warning to be implemented in two weeks unless the state reinstates the sacked teachers.

Kenyan nurses face lockout

Nurses returning to work at Kenyas Muranga hospital, after their strike had been called off last week, have been locked out.

The strike was ongoing since December 2016, with a brief interlude when the union called it off at the end of April based on a bogus settlement that included a non-victimisation clause.

To drive nurses back to work, the councils of governors across the counties advertised the nurses jobs and in some cases replaced them with a short-term scab labour force.

As part of a settlement, Kenyas Labour Court instructed the governors to remove any staff employed in place of the strikers, and return the nurses to their jobs. Nurses jobs that had been taken by scabs were paid at about a third less than the official rate and restricted to a one-year contract.

At the strike settlement, Murangas county governor directed hospital management to refuse to reinstate the original nursing staff, retaining 35 strikebreakers and 35 extra scabs it employed near the conclusion of the strike.

The Kenyan National Union of Nurses says it will uphold the rights of the nurses and, ostensibly, the Labour Court decision.

Kenyan university lecturers out on strike

Kenyan university lecturers came out on strike November 1 for the third time this year.

The federal government has continuously disregarded the 2013-2017 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), provoking regular disruption of the university system.

The CBA was signed with the University of Academic Staffs Association (UASA), but not implemented. Only five universities have put the CBA into operation, while UASA staff at all 31 public universities are supporting the strike.

Nine-thousand academic staff are owed around US$50 million in outstanding remunerations

Kenyan tea workers action called off again

Kenyan plantation workers have been sent back to work by their union on a Labour Court order.

Before the court order was issued, the general secretary of the Kenyan Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (also general secretary of the Central Organisation of the Trade Unions) had called on its members to stick with the strike, as it was legal.

The union leader accused the Kenya Tea Growers Association (KTGA) as acting in defiance of a Labour Court order for them come together and negotiate.

Sixty-thousand plantation workers had been on strike for three weeks to get the KTGA to honour a second payment of a 30 percent pay rise going back to 2015.

Unidentified arsonists were held responsible for setting fire to parts of a plantation to put the blame on the strikers.

The Labour Courts had to reassert a previous ruling stopping the KTGA from sacking and throwing its employees out of their accommodations.

Ghana aviation workers fight imposition of company union

Ghana aviation workers took strike action last Friday over working conditions and union representation. Workers complained that the management of the newly built airport were undermining their local union to impose a company union on them.

The hundreds of casual workers, represented by the local union, had not had safety and transportation facilities arranged for them at the newly built US$25 million airport. The new airport is extolled as a part of a leading state-owned business entity with a large-scale investments programme, which included the refurbishments of state-owned airports throughout the country.
In a half-hour address on Tuesday to the National Association of Medicaid Directors, Seema Verma, Trumps administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced that the CMS would actively partner with states to impose work requirements and other restrictions on Medicaid.

Verma called opposition to punitive work requirements soft bigotry of low expectations. That the government health insurance program for the poor serves working age, able-bodied adults does not make sense, she told the conference of state Medicaid heads. Let me be clear to everyone in this room: We will approve proposals that promote community engagement activities.

The Trump administration is inviting states to draft and submit broad waivers of federal Medicaid law that impose more than just work requirements. To demonstrate its commitment to innovationthat is, legislative assaults on workers living standardsthe CMS will work as a partner to state governments to approve waivers, expedite approvals for waiver programs that are either routine or have shown success in other states, and extend the maximum waiver effective period up to 10 years. (Previously, waivers were typically approved for a period of five years, with a possible three-year extension.)

Twenty-eight states have waivers currently pending with the CMS. Seven statesIndiana, Maine, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Kentucky and Wisconsinalready have waivers that would impose work or job-training requirements on recipients. Other waiver requests include the imposition of insurance premiums, lengthy lock-out periods for missed premium payments or failure to meet work requirements, lifetime enrollment limits, enrollment time limits followed by mandatory re-enrollment lockout periods, co-pays for emergency department visits that dont result in inpatient admission, and an end to premium assistance for employer-sponsored insurance.

One of the most egregious requests is from Maine, which wants to require upfront asset tests. These would screen applicants cash savings and property values in addition to their incomes, something which is prohibited under the ACA. This means workers either would not qualify for benefits, or would have to divest their assets in order to obtain health coverage for their families. The state of Texas also has a pending waiver to deny Medicaid payments to health care providers who provide abortion care.

In opposition to Maines Republican Governor Paul LePage, state voters on Tuesday became the first in the nation to approve at the ballot box the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. LePage has vowed to block the expansion unless the state Legislature funds Maines share of an expansion.

Stephen P. Miller, the Medicaid commissioner for the state of Kentucky, whose pending waiver was designed by Vermas own consulting firm, told the Washington Post, You heard what was said today, and were right in sync with that. He is expecting approval for Kentuckys waiver request soon and is hoping to begin implementing the new restrictions in mid-2018. Kentuckys waiver program would bar certain benefits to recipients who dont purchase them, and require 20 weekly hours of work activity, which may include unpaid community service.

Verma also announced the launching of CMS Scorecards to grade state Medicaid programs on how effectively they are using funds to produce positive results and help recipients lead more independent lives.

Every American deserves the dignity and respect of high expectations and as public officials we should deliver programs that instill hope and say to each beneficiary that we believe in your potential, she said of measures that would kick over 9.8 million unemployed adults off Medicaid.

The $1.1 trillion program provides health insurance to 80.7 million people, or nearly one quarter of the US population, including 11 million disabled and 34.8 million children. Half of all newborns are covered under Medicaid. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 79 percent of nondisabled adult Medicaid recipients come from working households. Fifty-nine percent work; 41 percent of recipients work full-time, yet still cannot afford access to decent health care.

Vermas career in the health care policy business spans over two decades. In the mid-1990s, she worked for the Marion County Health and Hospital Corporation, whose subsidized health insurance program required unemployed recipients to provide proof that they had a working adult helping them pay bills. In 2001, she founded her own consulting firm, SVC Inc. (now known as HMA Medicaid Market Solutions). The Medicaid program crafted by SVC for the state of Indiana, Healthy Indiana Plan, imposes a deductible of $1,100 (increased to $2,500 in 2015 with the approval of the Obama administration) and requires recipients to make monthly contributions to a special savings account to chip away at the deductible. Recipients who missed a payment lost coverage and were barred from re-enrolling for 12 months (reduced to 6 months in 2015).

Other states waivers, including a number currently pending approval, were also drafted by Vermas consulting firm. It has enjoyed millions of dollars in consulting contracts with both state governments, and with Medicaid claims processors, such as Hewlett-Packard, who are subsequently awarded lucrative management contracts with the states whose Medicaid programs have been drawn up by her firm.

When designing waivers, I found that many states wouldnt even put their own ideas forward because they assumed they would be rejected, Verma lamented. Those days are over. We are resetting the partnership between the states and the federal government and that work has already begun.

Verma criticized the Obama administration from the right for not having gone further to privatize and restrict workers access to health care, saying that the Affordable Care Act, which shifted health insurance costs from employers to employees, and coerced the uninsured to hand over money to insurance companies for minimum-coverage plans with exorbitant out-of-pocket costs, just put more people in the program. She blamed the expansion of Medicaid, which provided health insurance to 11 million people, for diverting state resources from other areas such as education and economic development and called for initiatives that restructure Medicaid away from an open-ended entitlement to a more fiscally-secure program.

Ultimately, Medicaid laws needs to change, so that states dont need permission from CMS to develop unique and innovative solutions.  But until the law changes, I am proud to announce we are taking action through a number of changes that make it easier than ever before for states to design innovative approaches. 

Workers must take Tuesdays address as a dire warning. In a country where nearly one quarter of the population cannot afford basic health care, the financial elite are preparing a brutal offensive to raid and raze any social institution that does not serve their profit interests. Always finding trillions of dollars for war yet never anything for education or health care, the well-being of workers families will not be supported by any section of the bourgeois political establishment.

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By PTI: By Aditi Khanna

London, Nov 10 (PTI) A 51-year-old man, believed to be of Indian-origin, has been arrested in Germany in connection with a murder following a restaurant war between Indian and Pakistani eateries in Scotland over 24 years ago.

Police Scotland said the man, who cannot be named at this stage, was arrested over the murder of Pakistani-origin Ansar Shah in the seaside town of Ayr in Ayrshire on October 4, 1993, and will now be returned to Scottish jurisdiction.

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"It is anticipated that proceedings to return the man to Scottish jurisdiction will take place in due course," a Police Scotland statement said.

The arrested man is believed to be Indian-origin Avtar Singh, who was arrested as he landed in Frankfurt from a flight from Delhi.

Singh was a waiter of an Indian restaurant in Ayrshire at the time of the murder and had disappeared after the murder, which local media reports at the time described as a restaurant war between rival Indian and Pakistani restaurants over migrant staff employed by them.

Shah, the owner of Armaan Brasserie which has since been renamed as Ayr India, was stabbed to death outside the eatery when a group of Pakistanis clashed with Indians, the Ayrshire Post had reported at the time.

Two other men had been severely injured in the attack and treated in hospital.

A nationwide manhunt was launched for Singh, also known as Tony and Dari, who had worked as a waiter in the Jewel in the Crown restaurant in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire.

The unsolved murder case was being re-examined by specialist cold case detectives in the UK since May this year.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Bell of Police Scotland Homicide Governance Review said, "Police Scotland is committed to pursuing those persons who are allegedly responsible for the gravest of crimes.

"Time and location is no barrier to the efforts and determination of our staff and partners to pursue justice for victims and their loved ones."

The arrest follows a joint operation coordinated from the Scottish Crime Campus, and led by Police Scotland?s Homicide Governance and Review Team, involving participation with Police Scotland?s International Assistance Unit, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Law Enforcement partners across Europe including Europol, French and German authorities, and the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The arrested man could accept the terms of the arrest warrant and agree to being flown to Scotland or fight it through the German courts. PTI AK NSA

--- ENDS ---

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According to a report published Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, the three richest AmericansJeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffettnow own more wealth than the poorest half of the US population, some 160 million people.

Americas 60 families, whose massive wealth was documented in journalist Ferdinand Lundbergs 1937 exposure, have been replaced by just three billionaires whose combined wealth is over $264 billion.

The Institute for Policy Studies report, Billionaire Bonanza: The Forbes 400 and the rest of us, reveals that the richest 25 Americans are wealthier than the bottom 56 percent of the US. The net worth of the 400 richest is roughly equal to that of the bottom two thirds of the country, a total of 200 million people. According to the reports authors, the US has become a hereditary aristocracy of wealth and power.

The unprecedented concentration of wealth is an international phenomenon. Oxfam reported in January 2017 that the worlds eight richest people own as much as the poorest half of the worlds population, down from 80 people in 2015. Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US.

The IPS report explains that the US data underestimate[s] our current levels of wealth concentration because the growing use of offshore tax havens and legal trusts has made the concealing of assets more widespread than ever before." A 2017 report published by Alstadsaeter, Johannesen, and Zucman titled Who owns the wealth in tax havens? estimates that the worlds superrich have between $5.7 and $32 trillion hidden from taxation or statistical analysis.

While the superrich dominate the commanding heights, the bottom 90 percent face hardship and crisis that vary only in terms of immediacy. The IPS report measures the net worth of working class families by subtracting the value of durable goods like automobiles, household appliances and furniture. According to its estimate, over 19 percent of US householdsroughly 60 million peoplehave zero or negative net worth when durable goods are subtracted.

Beyond the poorest 20 percent, the report explains, even those low- and middle-income families who do have some wealth often dont have any liquid assetscash or savingsat their disposal. Over 60 percent of Americans report not having enough savings to cover a $500 emergency.

Even above the roughly 200 million people with nothing saved, conditions for the 60th to 90th percentile are similarly difficult. The bulk of this section of the working classs net worth derives from housing equity, and when this is subtracted, most lack enough to survive through a few years of retirement. According to a recent study of Census data by the Economic Policy Institute, retirement account savings have plummeted in recent years among all age groups.

The IPS report is based on data from the US Federal Reserves Survey of Consumer Finances, which the World Socialist Web Site analyzed in detail last month. While the extremely wealthy have accumulated vast sums of wealth, a broader layer, comprising the top 10 percent, has also greatly enriched itself in recent years at the expense of the working masses. The richest 10 percent of the USthe social and political base for gender and identity politicsowns 77.1 percent of total wealth, while the bottom three quarters owns just 10 percent.

The explosion of social inequality is not an accidental process. It is the product of a decades-long campaign by both the Democratic and Republican parties to transfer trillions of dollars from the working class into the pockets of the rich. The accomplishments of both parties over the course of the last forty years are a litany of tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to social programs, the deindustrialization of broad swaths of the Midwest, gutting corporate regulations and spending trillions on imperialist war, state surveillance and mass deportation and incarceration.

The Obama administration marked a milestone in this protracted social counterrevolution defined by the Wall Street bailout of 2008-2009, the restructuring of the auto industry in 2009 and the bankruptcy of Detroit in 2013-14. With the help of the Democratic administration, the ruling elite cashed in on the financial crisis.

As a result, the United States is now an oligarchy. Through its immense wealth and control of the major corporations, the superrich have established total domination over all of the official institutions of political, cultural and intellectual power.

The courts, the congress, and the president not only operate on behalf of competing interests within the aristocracy, they are increasingly personally staffed by millionaires and billionaires, as expressed most directly in the figure of Donald Trump. The military wages permanent war across the globe to protect corporate profits. The mainstream media is nothing more than the official propaganda wing of the American oligarchy. The trade unions, in their typically brutish and corrupt form, are paid off by the corporations to police the workers and suppress opposition.

The obsessions and preoccupations of this privileged layer of the population are entirely alien to the concerns of the bottom 90 percent. The cost of health care is skyrocketing; thousands of immigrant families are torn apart each week by deportation; nearly 100 people die each day from opioid abuse; student debt crushes a whole generation; millions remain devastated by floods, fires and hurricanes; entire states have been stripped of womens health clinics; one veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes; and on and on.

Congress holds no hearings on these subjects. Its calendar is booked full with hearings on alleged Russian interference in US politics and the need to bring social media and tech companies to heel by censoring antiestablishment media. The Democrats and Republicans are working around the clock to reach a deal on a tax bill that will hand over trillions to the wealthy and corporations, with Senate Republicans announcing their version just yesterday.

The astronomical growth of inequality and the absence of any institutional mechanisms by which the population can address its social grievances presages an historic explosion of the class struggle. Strikes and protests involving tens of millions of workers and youth are inevitable, but they must be guided by a socialist program.

The billionaires wealth must be expropriated and redistributed to those in need. The corporations through which they derive their riches must be seized, placed under democratic control and reorganized by the workers themselves to serve public need and not private profit.

Companies like Bezos Amazon can be used to deliver medicine, food, water and construction equipment to disaster zones and impoverished areas. Gates Microsoft software and programming development can be harnessed to introduce an unprecedented degree of social planning into the world economy, allowing for production to be controlled so as to eliminate scarcity of basic resources and reverse environmental degradations. All industries can be made to serve the interests of the human race.

Under socialism, across all industries and in all countries, workers will come together in their workshops, plants and offices to plot a course for wielding the worlds productive forces in pursuit of equality and progress. But the ruling class will not give up its wealth voluntarily. To join the fight for socialism, contact us today.
As scores of public school teachers marched in San Juan Thursday to demand the reopening of their schools, US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visited Puerto Rico to further the ongoing project of converting the islands public schools into for-profit charter schools.

The billionaire heiress who has long funded schemes to privatize public education met with Puerto Ricos education secretary Julia Keleher, who is looking at post-Katrina New Orleans as the model for the US territory. The Bush administration and local Democratic Party authorities used the 2005 hurricane to lay off thousands of teachers and transform New Orleans into an all-charter school district.

Members of the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico rallied at the headquarters of the Department of Education in San Juan to demand a meeting with Keleher. The FMPR union has charged Keleher with deliberately keeping many of the islands schools closed, even after teachers and other volunteers have cleared them of debris and cleaned them, because she intends to permanently shutter them. Earlier this year Governor Ricardo Rossello announced a plan to close 184 schools as part of a debt restructuring plan to pay off the vulture funds that control much of the islands more than $70 billion in bond debt.

Puerto Rican Schools were badly damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. They began to reopen on October 23. Since then 614 out of 1,113 have reopened. However, most of the schools that are open still have no electricity, along with 58 percent of the islands inhabitants. More than 150,000 students have no school to attend.

Neither Keleher nor DeVos bothered talking to any teacher, protesting or not, during the trip by the US education secretary, who also visited the US Virgin Islands.

DeVos, Keleher and Rossello stopped at Loaiza Cordero Elementary School in San Juan, which still remains closed. Torrential rains and sewage-laden water flooded the school during and following Hurricane Maria. Both school officials declared that it would be hard to reopen the remaining schools.

An estimated 14,000 students and an unknown number of teachers have left since Hurricane Maria. Of these, 6,400 students now attend schools on the mainland, mostly Florida, but also in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

During a press conference, FMPR president Mercedes Martinez condemned Kelehers go-slow policy, pointing out that many of the 500 schools that have not been reopened are ready to go largely due to the volunteer efforts of the teachers and local parents. Keleher and other education officials, Martinez charged, have ignored those schools that need additional repairs, and said many of the students who left did so because it is taking too long to open the schools.

Last Monday, Emilio Nieves, the leader of the smaller Puerto Rican teachers union, UNETE (Union Nacional de Educadores y Trabajadores de la Educacio n, National Educators and Education Workers Union) called on Governor Rossello to sack Keleher. Nieves accused the education secretary of attempting to intimidate school principals who had welcomed children into their schools and pointed out that even undamaged schools, which had functioned as shelters during the first weeks after the storm, have yet to open.

According to the online journal the Intercept, Puerto Ricos Department of Education has indicated that about one-fifth of the existing schools will not reopen. The governor appointed Keleher, a businesswoman and founder of the consulting firm Keleher Associates, last December.

Keleher has made no secret of her plans to privatize public schools and transform them into charter schools. This May, way before the island was struck by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, Keleher closed 179 schools, which allegedly had less than 250 students attending them, to save $7 million. This forced many students from rural districts to travel several kilometers to distant schools. At the time, the BBC quoted social worker Luzaina Pena, the mother of a 5-year-old, from Toa Alta, saying, This is a mountain region and the new school is three kilometers (1.8 miles) from home.

At the time, the Education Department claimed it had selected the schools to be closed after performing an exhaustive analysis throughout the island. Not so, declared parents, who indicated never having been consulted.

Our school is our pride, said Adneri Rivera, herself a teacher and mother of a preschooler from the municipality of Corozal in the center of the island. This school has helped develop people who have shined become great sculptors, painters, even a Miss Puerto Rico, she told the BBC. Rivera described going to an assembly in which parents were informed of the decision to close the Hipolito Caldero school and were given just two minutes to speak.

Twenty-seven thousand students were forced to change schools and 2,700 teaching jobs were eliminated. The sackings affected mostly contingent, at will teachers. To this Keleher responded coldly that she was not running an employment agency.

In July, she declared her intention of converting 100 schools into charter schools. The transformation of schools into charters will allow the entry of private corporations who seek to profit from cost cutting and attacking teachers wages and benefits, including pensions.

The Education Secretary who said she considers the privatization of New Orleans schools as a point of reference declared in a recent tweet that Puerto Ricans should not underestimate the damage or the opportunity to create new, better schools. Last Monday she added that the catastrophic storm provides a real opportunity to press the reset button on Puerto Ricos education system.

She also told El Nuevo Dia, Consolidating schools makes sense. They can go out and protest in the streets, but that doesnt change the fact that we cant go back to life being the same as it was before the hurricane.

Keleher, like DeVos, sees the catastrophe wrought by the recent hurricanes as a golden opportunity for corporate school reform policies carried out by Democrats and Republicans alike, and their counterparts on the island, to line the pockets of edu-business executives and destroy public education and conditions and living standards of teachers.

For their part, the teachers unions in Puerto Rico, including the ostensibly more radical FMPR, have proven incapable of opposing the savage austerity measures and the sabotage by the American Federation of Teachers, the SEIU and other unions from the mainland.

Even before the hurricanes, Puerto Rican school children suffered from the consequences of poverty and the financial crisis, which is the product of the colonial legacy of the island and the looting by Wall Street. About 411,000 students attended the islands schools, 78.5 of them from households below the line of poverty; 31 percent of them require special education programs.
RT, the Russia-based TV and Internet broadcaster, announced Thursday that the US Department of Justice has forced it to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Washington has given the outlet until Monday to register as a foreign agent or its director could be arrested and its assets frozen.

The move is a product of the ongoing anti-Russia witch hunt being led by the Democratic Party, together with the US intelligence agencies, aimed at delegitimizing and outlawing domestic political opposition.

The Justice Departments actions will have a chilling effect on the numerous independent journalists who have either worked for or appeared on RT, as well as on press freedom in the United States as a whole.

In demanding RT America register as a foreign agent, the government has produced no evidence that RT qualifies as a foreign lobbying outfit, nor has it bothered to explain how this network is different from Al Jazeera, the BBC, or other state broadcasters, Max Blumenthal, senior editor for AlterNets Grayzone Project, and a regular guest on RT America, told the World Socialist Web Site.

The only conclusion to draw is that the US government is targeting RT on political grounds, on the basis of its role as a platform for critical perspectives on American foreign policy, and as a test case for a wider campaign of media suppression, he added.

On January 6, the US Director of National Intelligence issued a report on Russian intervention in US politics, which denounced RT as a platform for oppositional sentiment in the United States.

The report alleged that the channel portrayed the US electoral process as undemocratic and featured calls by US protesters for the public to rise up and take this government back.

The report continued, In an effort to highlight the alleged lack of democracy in the United States, RT broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates and ran reporting supportive of the political agenda of these candidates. The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a sham.

The Director of National Intelligence report further denounced favorable coverage by RT of the Occupy Wall Street movement, declaring, RT framed the movement as a fight against the ruling class and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations.

The World War II-era Foreign Agents Registration Act required companies or individuals considered to be working on behalf of a foreign government in the US to disclose their funding and relationship with foreign governments or actors with the DOJ. According to RT, over 400 entities are registered under the act, but not a single media outlet is included in the list.

The DOJ originally sent a letter to RT America in September suggesting that the company was obligated to register under FARA. Registration under the law would require the outlet to disclose confidential information, including the personal information of its staff. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated the action would have serious legal consequences and compromise the safety of [RT] employees.

RT America has announced that it will comply with the DOJs demand, but will challenge the decision in court. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan claimed the decision placed freedom of speech in the US under question.

We believe this requirement is not just contrary to the law, and we intend to prove it in court. This requirement is discriminatory, it contradicts both the principles of democracy and freedom of speech, she said. Simonyan added, It deprives us of fair competition with other international channels, which are not registered as foreign agents.

In his statement to the WSWS, Mr. Blumenthal condemned the silence of international human rights organization on the crackdown against RT. So far, liberal civil liberties and human rights organizations have said nothing about the governments assault on RT America. In their silence, groups from the ACLU to Amnesty International to the Committee to Protect Journalists, have made themselves accomplices in a McCarthyite crusade that is whittling away at press freedom.

In last weeks congressional hearings on extremist content, lawmakers demanded that social media companies take decisive action in censoring harmful content. Members of Congress chastised representatives from Google, Facebook, and Twitter into testifying their social media platforms had been used by a foreign power to influence the 2016 elections.

Earlier this month, Google removed Russia Today from its list of preferred channels on YouTube. At one of the hearings, Senator Dianne Feinstein pressed Googles legal counsel on why it took so long for YouTube to revoke the status of Russia Today as a preferred broadcaster. She demanded, Why did Google give preferred status to Russia Today, a Russian propaganda arm, on YouTube? ... It took you until September of 2017 to do it.

California Democratic representative Jackie Speier asserted that RT seeks to influence politics and fuel discontent in the United States. She asked: Why have you not shut down RT on YouTube?  Its a propaganda machine the intelligence community says its an arm of one of our adversaries.

In addition to its crackdown on RT, Google has made sweeping changes to its search engine and news service that have dramatically slashed traffic to left-wing, antiwar, and progressive web sites, including the World Socialist Web Site, which has had its search traffic from Google fall by 74 percent since April.

The Justice Departments action will dramatically intensify this campaign for online censorship, targeted first and foremost against left-wing political opposition.
In television interviews and an open letter to political supporters, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has renewed his pledge of eternal fealty to the second-oldest capitalist party in the world. He sent out the mass email under the title, Revitalizing the Democratic Party on Monday, on the eve of the off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia, which the Democrats won by wide margins.

The statement is the first major response from Sanders to the revelations by former interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile about the takeover of the DNC by the Hillary Clinton campaign in August 2015, six months before the first votes were cast in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The joint fundraising agreement between the Clinton campaign and the DNC gave Clinton veto power over DNC appointments and actions, even though the leading party body was required by its own rules to remain neutral in the nomination contest between Clinton, Sanders and several other candidates.

Rather than condemn the blatant collusion, which led to the DNC putting its weight behind Clinton at every point during the nomination fight, Sanders cited Braziles revelations as an argument for uniting with the former Clinton aides who now run the DNC, like the current DNC chair Thomas Perez, who was secretary of labor in the Obama administration and backed Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders wrote, What the recently released book excerpt from former interim DNC Chair Donna Brazile made clear is that unless we get our act together, we are not going to be effective in either taking on Donald Trump or in stopping the extremist right-wing Republican agenda.

In order to do that, we need to rethink and rebuild the Democratic Party. We need a Democratic Party that opens its doors to new people, new energy and new ideas. We need a Democratic Party that is truly a grassroots party, where decisions are made from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Contrary to Sanders, the Democratic Party is owned and operated by Wall Street, not by the American people. It is one of the two capitalist parties, controlled by the financial aristocracy, which exist to give the illusion of political choice in elections, while both carry out the instructions of the billionaires.

This perspective is not a new one for Sanders. Despite his nominal independence from the two-party system, he sought the Democratic presidential nomination while pledging from the outset to support the eventual Democratic nominee. Once defeated by Clinton, he threw his full support to the candidate who was the favorite of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.

His main task during the 2016 campaign, which continues today, is to give this corrupt party of corporate America a populist and even socialist gloss. In his long email statement, accordingly, Sanders outlined a series of cosmetic reforms that he urged his supporters to demand from DNC Chair Perez and the Democratic National Committee Unity Reform Commission, which is comprised of former Clinton and Sanders supporters as well as additional members selected by Perez.

These include reducing, but not eliminating, superdelegates, opening up participation in primaries and caucuses, and making the DNCs own procedures and budget more transparent. In support of this pathetic effort, Sanders urged his supporters to sign a petition to Perez urging action on the reform proposals at the commissions final meeting on December 8-9. Significantly, he said nothing in the email about the decision by Perez to remove several Sanders supporters from the bylaws and rules committees of the DNC.

Sanders continued in this vein in a series of interviews after the Democratic election victories on Tuesday. Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday, he praised Donna Brazile for displaying an enormous amount of courage in exposing the backroom deal between the DNC and the Clinton campaign, but declined to describe the nomination campaign as rigged. He continued, Anderson, to be very honest with you, my job, our job is to go forward, is do everything we can to defeat this right-wing agenda of the Republican Party in the Trump administration, not to look backwards. 

On Thursday, Sanders spoke at length with the Washington Post about his call for reform of the DNC, including changes in how the DNC decides on financial backing for candidates for local, state and federal office. We dont have transparency, he said. This is tough stuff, but it means to say that you cant have a few people in a meeting saying: Well, we cant support the guy in Kansas. We cant support the guy in Montana, or whatever. That process has to be much more open.

In other words, the reform of the Democratic Party is a grubby struggle over which candidates will receive the money doled out by the DNC from its fundraising from the millionaires and billionaires whose support Sanders claimed to disavow.

According to the Post, Sanders told them that the Brazile revelations should not become a distraction. The media likes all the divisiveness, and Clinton versus Sandersfine, he said, but he did not want to pursue the issue further.

These comments from Sanders do not represent any shift in his orientation, but only establish more definitively that he is continuing the political course set during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Shocked by the mass support from young people and sections of workers for his (purely nominal) pretensions to socialism, Sanders seeks to divert this leftward movement among working people back within the straitjacket of the corporate-controlled two-party system, to establish a roadblock against any break by the working class from the Democratic Party.
Labour Welsh Assembly Member (AM) Carl Sargeant tragically committed suicide Tuesday. By all accounts, he is the first fatality resulting from hysterical allegations of sexual harassment that are sweeping Westminster.

Sargeant, a 49-year-old husband and father of two, was a factory worker before being elected to the Welsh Assembly in 2003 and had served in several ministerial posts. He was found dead in his home in Connahs Quay, Flintshire, Wales.

His suicide came just days after he had been accused of certain incidents involving several women, which led to his suspension from Welsh Labour on Friday.

Immediately after his suspension, Sargeant said the unknown allegations as to his personal conduct  [are] shocking and distressing to me and called on Welsh Labours general secretary to instigate an urgent independent investigation into these allegations in order to allow me to clear my name. Four days later he took his own life.

In a statement, his family described Sargeant as a much loved husband, father and friend and said that Carl was not informed of any of the detail of the allegations against him, despite requests and warnings regarding his mental welfare.

The family wish to disclose the fact that Carl maintained his innocence and he categorically denied any wrongdoing.

The distress of not being able to defend himself properly against these unspecified allegations meant he was not afforded common courtesy, decency or natural justice.

Sargeants friends and colleagues have also denounced his treatment, saying that he had been left isolated and thrown to the wolves, despite none of the allegationslatterly said to involve unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or gropingbeing subject to investigation by the police.

The absence of common courtesy, decency or natural justice shown towards Sargeant is not unique to his case. It is intrinsic to a sex scandal, first initiated in Hollywood and then taken up with great enthusiasm in Westminster that involves jettisoning the presumption of innocence in favour of unsubstantiated assertions.

Those that have instigated, fuelled and led this railroading from behind the scenes, often in pursuit of concealed political and personal ends, are culpable in Sargeants suicide.

Correspondence from Sargeants solicitor Hugh Bowden to Labour Party officials, released by the AMs family, underscores the traducing of democratic norms involved. In one letter, Bowden said his client faced serious and career-threatening allegations and was anxious to ensure his name and the reputation of the Labour Party is preserved.

Noting that a hearing was not expected until January 16, Bowden warned the ongoing delay was both prejudicial to the preparation of our clients case but also to his physical and mental wellbeing.

In another, Bowden accused Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones of making comments to the media following Sargeants suspension that were clearly prejudicing what is allegedly an independent enquiry.

Jones, it should be noted, is an experienced barrister who had tutored law students for several years before entering the Welsh Assembly.

While Sargeant still had no details of the complaint or complainants, the first minister has felt able to conduct interviews with the BBC, Bowden noted, where he indicated he became aware of a number of incidents at the beginning of last week.

This is clearly prejudicing what is allegedly an independent inquiry by your office, Bowden complained. Moreover, the fact that a large number of people have spoken to the complainant or complainants from the First Ministers office, meant the very real possibility that the evidence of the witnesses is being manipulated 

Indeed. While Sargeant was denied his most basic right of knowing the allegations against him, and their source, others were free to fuel the witch-hunt atmosphere. Commenting on events on the BBCs Sunday Politics Wales show, for example, former Welsh government adviser Cathy Owens blamed an unspecified number of male politicians who are sexual predators who she said are protected by their parties.

Asked his opinion on her claims on Monday, Jones said, Ive got no reason to doubt what Cathy has said.

The Westminster scandal initially centred on the Conservative Party, with some 40 MPs accused anonymously of anything from consenting relationships with fellow MPs, through sexual inappropriateness, gay sex involving men wearing womens perfume to serious allegations of sexual abuse.

Last week, Michael Fallon resigned as defence secretary over allegations he had touched a journalists knee. Secretary of State Damien Green is currently under investigation, also accused of touching a journalists leg and of viewing pornography. He denies the allegations.

It has not taken long, however, for Labour to become the main focus of the campaign. Those in the party accused and under investigation over the last days include former frontbench MP Kelvin Hopkins for allegedly sending inappropriate texts and rubbing his crotch on a female member (suspended) and former frontbencher Clive Lewis, for allegedly touching the bottom of a woman at a Labour conference in September. Both deny the accusations.

Sheffield MP Jared OMara is also suspended over Facebook postings from 15 years ago and more recent comments that he disputes, while on Wednesday, David Prescottson of former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescottwas suspended from Labour for reasons yet unspecified.

Such is the nature of the allegations that their veracity cannot be judged, resolving in many instances to a case of he said, she said. However, it is surely more than mere coincidence that those cited above are associated with backing Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leadership (Prescott is a former speechwriter). And that many of those most vocal in demanding the exposure of alleged sexual predators come from the right wing of the Labour Party, and the political right more generally.

At the weekend, the Daily Mail leaked allegations of sexual harassment against Jim Mowatt, director of education at the Unite union, a principal backer of the Corbyn leadership. The newspaper revealed that Mowatt had been accused of degrading sexual harassment several months ago by Left-wing Unite activist Kate Bradley, who said he had belittled her by asking if her mother knew youre wearing make-up? and describing her as a femme fatale.

Bradley, a former organiser for the pseudo-left, pro-Corbyn RS21, condemned the Mails leak in a statement posted on the RS21 web site. Explaining that the newspaper had chosen to proceed with its article against her explicit wishes, she said the Mail is trying to use my complaint to undermine Unite, Jeremy Corbyn and the left, which is a totally cynical and unsanctioned use of my words.

Even more damning then is the blatant disregard of the pseudo-left for democratic rights under the guise of defending womens rights and anti-Toryism.

Only days before the Mail leak, Bradley herself on RS21 cited the sex-pest list as proof that sexually predatory behaviour in the [Tory] party has been known about and tolerated and complained, Nothing has been done to remove these people from their positions of power.

For its part, the Socialist Worker embraced the scandal for helping undermine Tory scum, while warning the left that they must not question the allegations or the political motives of those making them.

In a rambling statement, the Socialist Party lumped together Jimmy Saville, Harvey Weinstein, and the Westminster accusations as proof of horrendous crimes and symptoms of a rotten system. While stating for the record that socialists support all democratic rightsexcept apparently the presumption of innocenceits indictment of capitalism resolves itself to the call for Labour to lead the fight to transform Parliament into a far more democratic institution than it currently is.
At least 106 people have died over the past days, after Vietnams south-central coast was battered by Typhoon Damrey on Saturday. The typhoon was the second major storm to hit Vietnam in the past month, and the twelfth since January.

Typhoon Damrey landed on Saturday with 125 mile per hour winds. It completely destroyed weak residential infrastructure around the tourist hub, Hoi An.

Over the weekend, gale-force winds, floods and landslides damaged at least 116,000 homes, destroying 40,000 of them. Electricity poles were felled in many areas, and trees flung atop buildings and on roads. Six cargo ships capsized along with hundreds of smaller fishing boats.

Although the storm passed within 24 hours, heavy rainfall lingered for several days. The flooding has yet to cease, destroying farmlands and crucial infrastructure. Dozens of reservoirs are reportedly on the verge of overflowing, threatening impoverished villagers and farmers with further catastrophe.

At least 25 people remain missing and 197 have been reported injured. The death toll has risen sharply over recent days and is expected to continue growing. At least 30,000 people have been displaced, and four million people affected.

The death and destruction has led some to brand the typhoon the worst that has hit Vietnam in at least 18 years.

The latest storm follows Typhoon Doksuri, which struck central Vietnam in September. Despite its quick sweep through the region, at least eleven people were killed and more than 190,000 homes damaged. In August, heavy flooding and landslides in the northwestern provinces resulted in 27 deaths and over $45 million in damages.

The Vietnam Disaster Management Authority has boasted its response to Typhoon Damrey as a success, citing the 35,000 villagers that were evacuated safely before the typhoon and the 16,000 soldiers who are engaged in recovery efforts.

However, reports from the ground indicated that the victims of the storm were given virtually no warning, and were abandoned by the authorities for days.

In most areas, residents and tourists were given minutes to evacuate. At first we were given 30 minutes to get out. Later it got more serious and they said we had 15 minutes, a British tourist in Hoi An told the Sun.

Aid has been slow to reach the most damaged areas, due to blocked roads and ineffective bureaucracy. Nguyen Thi Dung, a local vendor in Hoi An cited by Agence France-Presse said, Our family spent some days on the second storey of the house, eating only raw instant noodles as the power was cut off. Other survivors also reported being stranded with nothing to eat, and limited supplies of fresh water.

Hoi An is a popular tourist destination and a UNESCO World Heritage site, just 30 kilometres from Danang, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit begins today.

Minimal structural damage was reported within central business districts of Hoi An and Danang. Both have increasingly been developed into wealthier hubs for travel and business. The surrounding rural provinces, on the other hand, have been decimated.

Residents of a number of the southern and central provinces rely on subsistence farming, low-paid rural work and fishing. Poverty rates are as high as 50 percent in some areas.

At least 250,000 hectares of farmland were destroyed by the storm, jeopardising the livelihoods of tens of thousands.

Tuoi Tre News reported on Tuesday that in the Van Ninh District of Khanh Hoa province, up to 85 percent of fishing boats had been destroyed. Villages in Van Ninh District now resemble a giant landfill as they are filled with debris from damaged homes and the wreckage of local fishing boats, the article stated.

One fisherman, Huynh Tai, commented: We rely on nature to earn our living. Now nature has taken everything from us. My house has been knocked down, my ship is broken. Tai said he would have to leave the village to find work elsewhere.

Those affected by the latest storm face a similar crisis to the victims of Typhoon Doksuri, who were given meagre state aid, and in many cases, were reportedly forced to rely on charity.

An article in the Conversation in September by Chinh Luu and Jason von Meding, who have researched flood disasters in Vietnam, noted: Rapid population growth, industrial development and agricultural expansion have all increased flood risk, especially in Vietnams riverine and coastal areas.

Luu and Meding stated that, Socially marginalised people often have to live in the most flood-prone places, sometimes as a result of forced displacement. A number of those hit by flooding disasters this year in northwestern Vietnam have previously been forced to leave their homes to make way for vast hydropower projects.

The plight of ordinary people is a product of the rapid growth of social inequality over the past three decades, as the Vietnamese Stalinist regime has pursued a program of capitalist restoration, and has sought to transform the country into a hub of foreign investment.

According to an Oxfam report on inequality released in February, there are now 210 super-rich individuals in Vietnam, with a combined wealth of $20 billion. This cohort, which accounts for around two in every million Vietnamese, controls 12 percent of national gross domestic product.

At the other end of the spectrum, millions eke out an existence below, or near the official poverty line. The Oxfam report noted that between 1992 and 2002, the income share of the poorest 40 percent of the population fell by over two percentage points, to just 17.28 of the national total.

The social divide is on display this week. While millions hit by the latest typhoon are facing destitution, the government is laying out the red carpet for dignitaries and heads of state, including billionaire US President Donald Trump, at this weeks APEC summit.

The government allocated at least $US17 million of last years budget to refurbishing central Danang for the event, which will doubtless feature discussions on how to maximize global corporate profits through the stepped-up exploitation of the south-east Asian working class.
By Mail Today Bureau: In a big leap towards allowing a 25 million-strong NRI population to cast their franchise in Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, the Modi government on Friday said they will soon be given proxy voting rights.

The government told the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that it proposes to amend the Representation Of People Act (RPA) for this purpose and intends to introduce a Bill in the ensuing winter session of Parliament.

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The government has in principle approved changes in the RPA which deals with elections to permit NRI to cast their vote. If the proposal passes political muster in Parliament, NRIs will be able to exercise their voting rights through proxy. Currently, only service personnel are permitted to vote through proxy.

However, the facility for NRIs will not be the same as that enjoyed by service personnel.

For instance, voters in the Armed Forces can nominate their relatives as permanent proxy to vote on their behalf. But the Union Cabinet's approval for proxy voting by NRIs carries a caveat - they cannot nominate one proxy for all polls.

According to the proposal, NRI voters will have to appoint a nominee afresh for each election - one person can act as proxy for only one overseas voter.

Until now, due to the high cost of travel and time involved, only a minuscule population of NRIs came to India to cast vote. The court was hearing PILs filed by two NRIs -Shamsheer V P, an NRI from Kerala, and Nagender Chindam, chairman of the UK-based

Pravasi Bharat - seeking the voting rights. "The US lets you vote from space. Texas laws have allowed astronauts the right to vote when on a space mission.

Here, NRIs are pleading for it," Chindam had said earlier. After the government's assurance, he said, "This is great news and is one of the key milestones in the path of our longterm campaign for NRI voting. Enabling remote voting rights in a such a large scale would be the first of its kind in the world. We are proud of our democracy."

In December 2016, the Centre had said it accepted the EC's proposal in this regard, claimed it formulated a draft Bill, and told the court that steps are being taken to get the Representation of People Act, 1951 amended. But things have not moved since. According to rough estimates, there are about 25 million NRIs of eligible voting age.

They could hold considerable sway in election results, especially in states such as Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala, where a number of expats hail from. The move to grant proxy voting rights to overseas electors is significant against the backdrop of BJP's claims of enjoying high goodwill among NRIs.

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The party sought to deepen its electoral appeal among them through Prime Minister Narendra Modi's outreach programmes during his foreign visits after coming to power in 2014.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (The News Service of Florida) - There's little doubt Sen. Jack Latvala isn't the most politically correct lawmaker in Tallahassee.

The Clearwater Republican, who's been dogged for a week by accusations that he sexually assaulted or harassed female lobbyists and staff, even admits he's made remarks about women's appearances that could be construed as inappropriate.

But in a lengthy interview Thursday with The News Service of Florida, Latvala steadfastly maintained that he's never groped the unidentified women --- or others --- as described in a news report that's sparked an investigation into the alleged wrongdoing and could result in his ouster from the Senate.

In an attempt to clear his name, Latvala released results of a lie detector test that he and his lawyer maintain prove his innocence.

Latvala, who's running for governor, tried to pick apart some of the allegations in an effort to shore up his position as the victim of an anonymous attack by his political foes.

I've put up. Now it's time for other people to shut up unless they've got some other kind of evidence, Latvala said of the lie detector test, conducted by a retired chief polygraph examiner for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and calling on his accusers to undergo the same tests.

The release of the lie-detector test results came shortly before Senate President Joe Negron announced the selection of Lewis Jackson, a national employment law firm, to handle the investigation into Latvala. Tampa lawyer Gail Holtzman will serve as the lead attorney, according to a memo issued Thursday by Negron, R-Stuart.

Latvala --- sardonic, straight-shooting and sometimes crass --- is in his 16th year in the Senate and has been a political player for four decades. He returned to the Senate in 2010 after an earlier stint that ended because of term limits.

Until this week, he was powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. But Negron stripped him of the post, at least until the pending investigation is complete.

For a guy who's entering his 16th year in the Senate, to destroy my reputation based on anonymous allegations is unfortunate, Latvala, 66, said.

Latvala did not dispute some of the allegations in the initial story by Politico Florida, which included accusations that he had made unwelcome remarks about women's bodies.

Do I let my mouth overload my good sense every now and then and maybe say, `You're looking good today? You've lost weight? You're looking hot today?' Yeah. But I haven't touched anybody against their will, he said.

But Latvala also said there are some big holes in the allegations in the news report, which was released on his birthday last Friday.

For example, Latvala said, one of women alleged that he groped her in a crowded elevator by putting his arm around her, touching the lower part of her abdomen and reaching up and touching her breast.

I tried to do that with my wife, demonstrate how that would work. My wife is pretty small. In order to reach her lower abdomen, I had to lean over sideways and forward, he said. It's sort of like O.J. and the glove. It didn't fit.

Another woman accused Latvala of fondling her buttocks while walking across the Capitol's fourth-floor rotunda.

I don't know who thinks I'm dumb enough to cup somebody on the rear end walking across the rotunda, Latvala said, adding that there are cameras and hundreds of people in the crowded area outside the House and Senate chambers. It's character assassination.

Latvala said it's true that he's told people to hire female lobbyists, several of whom have come forward over the past week to praise the veteran lawmaker for making the boys deal with them in the Tallahassee arena, which is dominated by men.

How many lobbying firms up here are run by females? Maybe one? That's empowering women. That's building women up, economically, which I think is real important, he said.

Latvala has enlisted the legal aid of Steve Andrews, an aggressive attorney who's no stranger to scorched-earth politics. Andrews has demanded that the investigation be wrapped up before the legislative session begins on Jan. 9, and, in a letter to Negron, insisted that the allegations must be proven by clear-and-convincing evidence that is submitted under oath.

On Wednesday, Senate Rules Chairwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, confirmed that a sworn complaint against Latvala had been filed with her committee, which will be responsible for determining what, if any punishment, should be doled out after the investigation is complete.

The Senate would not release any information in the complaint, citing a rule that keeps the record secret unless the accused agrees to release it.

But late Thursday afternoon, Latvala said he still had not been informed that a complaint had been filed against him --- something that also should have been kept secret, according to the Senate rule.

The difficult situation I'm going to have, if there is a complaint on me, then I have to make the decision about whether it gets released or not. I'm a little bit hesitant to waive my confidentiality if my accuser isn't going to have to do the same, Latvala said.

In Thursday's memo, Negron --- who was engaged in a battle for the Senate presidency with Latvala two years ago --- advised anyone with any information regarding the anonymous allegations to contact Holtzman.

The Senate has zero tolerance for sexual harassment, sexual assault, or misconduct of any kind, Negron wrote. A Identifying information regarding anyone who has been the victim of sexual harassment will be held confidential as permitted by law.

Without naming them, Latvala accused political enemies --- not restricted to individuals --- of masterminding the allegations.

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, a Land O' Lakes Republican who is considering a run for governor, has been highly critical of the senator, and demanded that Latvala resign.

I'm not much of a believer in coincidences, Latvala said.

Latvala said he believes he knows the identity of the woman is who made the complaint against him with Benacquisto's committee. Another woman who is the wife of a political consultant linked with some of Latvala's political foes blasted Latvala on Twitter over the weekend.

Out of seven women, to have two of them be the spouses of political consultants of my opponents, what do you think I've deduced? I mean, law of averages, Latvala said. So it's a planned effort to try to affect not only my governor's race but my future in the Senate.

The normally gruff senator paused when asked about the impact of the allegations and the ensuing scrutiny.

I don't want to use the word I want to use because you can't print it. But it's a very challenging time. Very challenging time. You really find out who your friends are at times like this, he said.
The Congress party has accused the Madhya Pradesh Police of getting 'saffronised' after the narcotics department released a calendar featuring a message from RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

By Hemender Sharma: The narcotics department of the Madhya Pradesh police is in the news for all the wrong reasons right now.

The department has been accused of blatant " saffronisation" by the opposition Congress party after its head, Additional Director General of Police Varun Kapoor shared a department calendar featuring a message from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat.

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The November calendar was released by Kapoor via a Facebook post. "The November page of the special calendar developed for the Narcotics Wing of Madhya Pradesh Police. The concept of addiction leading to individual, family and community disaster is highlighted succinctly," ADGP Thakur wrote in his post.

"Come forward and spread the message of "DRUG FREE SOCIETY". Its every citizens responsibility and duty!" Kapoor added while attaching a photo of the calendar that has a picture of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at the bottom along with a message from the RSS chief calling for eradication of the drug menace.

Soon after the calendar was released, Congress, which in opposition in Madhya Pradesh, cried foul.

"This is proof of blatant saffronisation of various organs of the government. What is shocking is that an IPS officer is doing it. It appears this over enthusiastic officer wants to please his political masters and be on their right side," Congress spokesman KK Mishra said while talking to India Today.

While Varun Kapoor refused to comment on the controversy, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lent him its support.

"What is wrong in it?" questioned BJP Spokesman Hitesh Vajpayee, "The people who are there on the calendar represent the people of the country and their aspirations. The Congress is feeling because they cannot tolerate pictures of anyone other than the Gandhis. But that is there problem not ours."

Notably, it is not Just Mohan Bhagwat who figures in the narcotics calendar of the Madhya Pradesh Police. Among other who have been previously featured include BJP president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and religious leaders such as Avdheshanand Giri and Tarun Sagar.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The leader of an American Legion post took time out from preparing for his group to host a free Veterans Day breakfast to give a shout out for everyone who has served in the country's military.

But Val Frailey, post commander of Sauls-Bridges American Legion Post 13, has a special place in his heart for certain veterans, those who chose to take up arms for their country without being drafted.

"But this is a select one percent because they chose to go," he said. "And certainly we should remember them even more than those who were drafted to go.

"However, the ones drafted to go, they went, and when they went, they served, and you and I are not speaking Japanese or German today because they went, and for that I am extremely happy."

The post Frailey leads and Leon County are inviting the community to honor veterans at an Operation Thank You Veterans Day Beakfast from 6:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Saturday. The event will be at the American Legion post, located at 229 Lake Ella Drive.

For more information about the breakfast, which is free and open to the public, phone (850) 606-1900 or visit LeonCountyFL.gov/OperationThankYou.

Veterans Day, which honors everyone who has served in the military, began as Armistice Day and noted the end of World War I, Nov. 11, 1918.

The day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, a federal holiday that honors those who died while serving in America's military and is observed on the last Monday of May.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Tallahassee Police Department has located Elaina Jolene Cummins safe and unharmed.

The Tallahassee Police Department is searching for 15-year-old Elaina Jolene Cummins.

They say there is concern for her welfare.

She was last seen Nov. 8, 2017, in the area of Tharpe Street and Old Bainbridge Road. She was wearing a tan flowered dress and Chuck Taylor shoes.

She stands at 5-foot-3, weighs 108 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes.

TPD asks that anyone with information call them at (850) 891-4200.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Administrators, students, parents, and even national Greek Life officials are meeting with the student affairs vice president at FSU after President Thrasher suspended all Greek Life activities.

The focus of the meetings is to find a solution and change campus culture.

President Thrasher issued the suspension following the death of a pledge and another fraternity member's drug related arrest.The student affairs VP says the discussions have been helpful.

"A lot of the ideas are centered around education, how can we improve our education efforts, how can we reach more members of the community and be more effective in it," said Amy Hecht. "And then accountability, how can students hold each other more accountable, and the University continue to hold them accountable? Those are the big two categories."

The university will not lift the suspension until they have decided specifically how they want to promote a better culture on campus.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A woman has been arrested in the stabbing death of a man she described as her fiance on the northwest side of Tallahassee.

Malinda Elizabeth Spargo, 22, was booked into the Leon County Detention Center on Thursday on a second-degree murder charge.

She is accused of killing Joseph Jackson, 27, in the 5000 block of Matthew Carter Court on November 2. She told investigators she and Jackson had been dating for five years.

Jackson died from his wounds at the scene as first responders tried to save him. He had a puncture wound to the left side of his chest and a six-inch cut in the middle of his chest, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Spargo told Leon County Sheriff's Office deputies that she had accidentally stabbed Jackson.

When deputies arrived on the scene, Spargo and the homeowner, Tara Hoffman, were providing first aid to Jackson.

She said the stabbing happened after Jackson began slapping her buttocks playfully as she was getting dressed and eventually they began to argue and things became physical.

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(RNN) - Zuri Copeland and Jia Sarnicola are best friends who live in Miami who do everything together and insist theyre twins.

Born two days apart, they had a joint birthday party back in June to celebrate turning 4  dressed alike, of course.

Recently at another friends birthday party, a girl told Jia there was no way she and Zuri could be sisters because they didnt have the same color skin.

Zuri is black and Jia is white.

Jia started to cry, yet responded with grace.

"You don't know anything," Jia said. "We have the same birthday and we share the same soul."

Zuris older sister, Victoria Williams, took to Twitter to express how proud she was of the two girls, and how impressed she was with Jias response.

"They were crying, but they were defending each other," Williams told BuzzFeed. "It was so sweet."

My sister and her bestfriend think that theyre twins because they have the same birthday and this was the outcome.. pic.twitter.com/x1dCZmIip3  la loba (@vickto_willy) November 5, 2017

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Saint Teresa of Calcutta had so much money that she could have emptied the entire Vatican Bank.

By India Today Web Desk: Who doesn't know Mother Teresa, an icon of selflessness and faith? Also known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, she was loved and was an inspiration to many. But, many people don't know that Mother Teresa saved up an awful amount of money.

Mother Teresa had so much money in the Vatican Bank that if she had withdrawn the money, the entire Vatican Bank would have emptied. According to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi's book, 'The Original Sin', Mother Teresa was believed to have "by far the most cashed up account."

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According to La Presse reports, if Mother Teresa had closed the accounts or transferred them, the institute would have risked default. In his book, Nuzzi talks about a block of power in the Vatican.

Photo: Reuters

"There is a power block in the Vatican that obstructs Pope Francis' reforming action just as it did with Benedict XVI - it existed with Marcinkus and his parallel management of the IOR and it still exists today," he wrote in his book.

The book reveals the deepest secrets of the Vatican. Nuzzi also talks about the President of the Vatican Bank, Paul Marcinkus, an American archbishop.

"Her [Mother Teresa] account in the Vatican bank is proof that these gentlemen were and still are within the Curia and they trust them. They were also trusted by Mother Teresa, who, as is told, entered the Ior by a secondary door and was welcomed by Monsignor De Bonis, Marcinkus's right arm."

--- ENDS ---
He wrote some of the funniest, yet most trenchant, columns in this newspaper for nearly 30 years, delighting readers while gently skewering politicians and doling out advice on how to grow prize-winning roses, dine on mini-Oreos, play tennis (or not), fish for trout at dusk and avoid chutney, and other newfangled tastes, on the dinner table.
By India Today Web Desk: As if a fatwa was not enough, a group of extremists today created ruckus outside the residence of a Muslim Yoga teacher from Jharkhand. Rafia Naaz, against whom a fatwa was issued by an extremist faction, while she was giving an interview to India Today.

The ruckus was triggered after a cleric from the locality watched the live telecast. The cleric who allegedly got offended by the interview soon came with an angry mob to Rafia's residence. An irate mob gathered outside Rafia's house resorted to stone pelting and sloganeering.

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The cleric said that during Rafia's interview an objectionable remark was made against him.

Rafia on Thursday said that she received many threats but expressed gratitude to the state government for providing her security. Rafia, a resident of Daronda in Jharkhand, said that she was being targeted for teaching yoga.

She alleged that extremists threatened her on Facebook and later called on her mobile phone. They even pelted stones at her residence. In view of the situation, the police have deployed bodyguards for the yoga teacher.

A defiant Rafia said that she will continue with her work despite the threats. She said that she was threatened for the first time in June 2015.

Rafia said that a man identified as Faiz Ullah messaged her -, "I am a well wisher. You being a Muslim girl should be ashamed of yourself. How can you perform on the stage without hijab?"

Meanwhile, yoga guru Baba Ramdev reacted sharply to the controversy.

"From Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Saudi Arabia so many Muslims practice Yoga. It is an exercise which is good for mental and physical wellness, religion shouldn't be brought into this," said Baba Ramdev.

--- ENDS ---
By India Today Web Desk: Social media is today abuzz with reports of death of former Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari. The condolence messages are all over social media for the former Andhra Pradesh Governor after unconfirmed reports of his death started pouring in.

Samajwadi Party leader Juhie Singh tweeted, "Narayan Dutt Tiwari passed away yesterday."

Narayan Dutt Tiwari passed away yesterday- Juhie Singh (@juhiesingh) November 10, 2017

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Narayan Dutt Tiwari the man who understood #excelled at governance and politics both we have much to learn from his life- Juhie Singh (@juhiesingh) November 9, 2017

ND Tiwari was admitted to Max Hospital in Delhi on September 20 following a brain stroke. His health reportedly deteriorated on November 5. But, according a report on the website of Hindi daily Nai Dunia, there has been some improvement in his health condition.

Tiwari was in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Max Hospital till October 12. He was again shifted to the ICU on October 26 following deterioration in his health condition. He continues to be on life support system.

The health condition of ND Tiwari, who has also served as the external affairs minister, is being monitored by a team of doctors led by senior neurosurgeon JD Mukherjee and cardiologist Sumit Sethi.

--- ENDS ---
President Donald Trump has arrived in Vietnam to attend an international economic summit amid regional tensions.

Trump touched down Friday in the coastal city of Da Nang to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Trump plans Friday to deliver the second of his two major speeches during the trip. He'll address a CEO summit and aides say the president will outline his vision of free trade in the region, as well as threats posed by North Korea's aggressive nuclear weapons development.

Trump flew to Vietnam from China, where he abandoned the tough talk that defined his presidential campaign. Instead, he flattered Beijing on trade and its approach to North Korea.
Top Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt said on Friday it was time that Saad al-Hariri, who resigned as prime minister on Saturday while in Saudi Arabia, returned to Lebanon.

Jumblatt said in a Twitter post that after a week of absence from Lebanon, "be it forced or voluntary", it was "time for Sheikh Saad to return". "By the way, there is no alternative to him," he added.

Hariri read out his resignation on television from Saudi Arabia on Saturday, citing assassination fears and denouncing Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife in Arab states.

Jumblatt is the leading figure in Lebanon's small but influential Druze community and has often played the role of kingmaker in the country's political deal-making.

Two top Lebanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday that they believed Saudi Arabia was holding Hariri.

A third source, a senior politician close to Saudi-allied Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.

Riyadh has denied reports that he is under house arrest.

On Thursday, in a televised statement indicating deep concern at Hariri's situation, his Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.
Militants from an Islamic State affiliate ambushed a convoy of cement trucks late Thursday from an army factory in the central Sinai Peninsula, killing eight civilian employees and two soldiers, security officials said.

Lt. Col. Ibrahim Hussein Mohammed was killed in the nighttime attack near the town of Nakhl, the officials added. The militants, from the group formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, stole the men's weapons and burnt seven trucks.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. ISIS did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun expressed concern on Friday over reports surrounding the circumstances of Saad Hariri, who resigned as Lebanese prime minister on Saturday while in Saudi Arabia.

Aoun, in a meeting with foreign ambassadors and representatives of the United Nations, EU and Arab League in Lebanon, urged clarification of these circumstances, presidential sources said.

Two top Lebanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday they believed Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia.

A third source, a senior politician close to Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.

Riyadh says Hariri is a free man.
NEW YORK  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday said he was "very worried" by the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and that it was essential to avert new conflict.

"It is essential that no new conflict erupts in the region. It could have devastating consequences," the United Nations chief told reporters.
The government approved last week using up the NIS 3.5 billion budgetary reserve intended for 2018's budget, and set off the usual intra-governmental power struggle over how those funds will be spent: how much of it will go to each ministry and what they'll spend it on.

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By law, the government has to decide on the usage of the approved budgetary reserve fundswhich constitute an adjustments budgetand report on its decision to the Knesset's Finance Committee by December 10. Then, it's the Finance Committee's role to approve the usage decided on by the government.

Finance Minister Kahlon (L) asked PM Netanyahu to set aside NIS 3.5 billion as budgetary reserve (Photo: Olivier Fitoussi)

The above means the time has started for the various government ministries to race to get their share of the approved budgetary "safety cushion" and to try and carve out a larger slice of the budgetary pie for themselves. The ministries are therefore in the midst of working on consolidating their requests, which they will then forward to the Ministry of Finance.

The 2018 budgetary reserve is, as mentioned above, NIS 3.5 billion, a sum Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in advance to set aside while work on the current bi-annual 2017-2018 budget was underway.

In effect, then, what the government approved last week was the differences report, which contained data showing the government whether it had met the limitations set by law on its allowed deficit on the one hand and spending on the other.

The government must forward the report on to the Knesset by November 1, since the current budget is bi-annual.

Considering the differences report the government was presented with showed it had not exceeded limitations set on its deficit and spending, the government may now release the adjustments reserve and to divvy it as it sees fit.

President and CEO of Mobileye Ziv Aviram. Proceeds from the sale of Mobileye will not be used as part of the reserve budget

While the government may decide to use these reserves in 2018, it may also postpone their usage to 2019. Indeed, some ministries hold onto their requests until the 2019 budget, which Kahlon is currently trying to promote and which will be presented and approved at the end of the Knesset's 2018 winter session, as mandated by law.

Concurrently, the Ministry of Finance is also readying itself for the NIS 20 billion tax collection surplus, explained by proceeds from the sale of Mobileye and Keter Plastic and the discount special applied to dividend taxes to be paid by significant shareholders in "wallet companies", which usually only employ one person: the company's owner.

If the NIS 3.5 billion is insufficient to finance the various requests, the collection surplus may not be used to cover the difference. Kahlon had already spoken about using part of the surplus for lowering income taxes for people earning less than NIS 11,000.

Regardless, the Finance Ministry does not consider the collection surplus to be precisely what they are, but views them as a one-time revenue, which may not be used to financing any ministerial demands. After being defined as one-time revenue, the excess tax collection will be put towards reducing the current 2017 deficit.

Finance Committee Chairman Gafni refused the Finance Ministry's request for a 1.3 percent cut from all government ministries (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Indeed, in light of the expected surplus collection, Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni refused this week to put to a vote the Finance Ministry's July request to cut NIS 1.1 billion across the board from all government ministries in order to preserve the fiscal framework and to allow the implementation of coalition agreements.

The cross-the-board cut was intended to trim 1.3 percent from the budgets all of government ministries equally, with no ministry exempt. Seeking the proposed cut stemmed from the gap between the overall budget as it was approved by the government and the additional expenses tacked onto it as the year went on due to MKs' demands.

Who's who in the NIS 3.5 billion sweepstakes

First and foremost is the agreement raising disability benefits, which Kahlon announced several weeks ago will be financed by NIS one billion from the reserve.

Second is the finance minister's "Net Family" plan, NIS 2.5 billion of which are already part of the 2018 budget, including NIS 1.8 billion for raising tax credits and NIS 700 million for lowering import taxes and annulling purchasing tax on baby clothes, shoes and mobile products.

The agreement signed between the government and the disabled people's organizations will be financed by NIS 1 billion from the reserve (Photo: Histadrut spokesperson's department)

However, the "Family Net" plan also includes some segments whose budget has not been approved yet and they will therefore be included in the reserve budgeting requests. The yet-to-be-financed portions of the plan are NIS 935 maximal fee per child for afterschool care, for a cost of NIS 900 million, and expanding the negative income tax at a cost of NIS 750 million. The total request to budget these portions of the plan from the reserve stands at NIS 1.65 billion.

An additional request pertains to shortening schoolchildren's vacation days, made by Education Minister Naftali Bennett and estimated to cost NIS 400 million.

Another request on the docket is Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman's state nursing care insurance reform, whose cost is still somewhat uncertain and may run anywhere from NIS 100 million to NIS 2 billion.

Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman was also said to be seeking an NIS 4 billion increment to the defense budget.

Minister of Welfare Katz wishes to raise old-age pensions and provide seniors with heating grants for the winter (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Minister of Welfare Haim Katz is said to be seeking the promotion of two significant bills. While he has yet to ask them to be financed through the reserve funds, the proposed laws are certainly on the minister's agenda and the likelihood of the ministry seeking to finance them in this manner is high.

The first plan will raise old-age pensions for seniors on a guaranteed minimum income in order to raise them above the poverty line. The law will assist 190,000 senior households and its cost is estimated to be NIS 662 million.

Another program Katz wishes to push through concerns the heating grants, as part of which 250,000 seniors on a guaranteed minimum income will receive an annual NIS 550 grant on the winter months to help them pay their electric bills. The cost of the plan is NIS 111 million.

The Ministry of the Interior, currently in the process of putting together its demands for the reserve budget, is said to be seeking extra budgeting for several reforms, including a business licensing overhaul, the regional cluster reform as part of which 93 local authorities will come together to create 14 regional clusters, the large unions in regional councils plan, the free beaches plan and the plan to create a local authority accessibility administration. The budgetary framework for these plans has yet to be set, but is said to be in excess of NIS 200 million.

The Ministry of Energy's requests for the reserve budget will only be presented after outgoing director-general Shaul Meridor is replaced

The Ministry of Transportation has yet to submit any requests for the budget reserve, whereas the Ministry of Energy is currently undergoing a director-general switch between outgoing chief Shaul Meridor and incoming Director-General Udi Adiri, which makes it likely the ministry will submit it requests at the conclusion of the transition.

The Ministry of Economy is currently consolidating its request to support, assist and strengthen Israeli industry, which will interweave with the goals of the "Net Industry" program, set to define the overall assistance given to the industrial sector and the requisite budgeting to achieve that aim. The ministry has yet to decide on the amount it will ask to finance the program.

While it was published recently Kahlon's "Net Industry" program will be financed by the reserve funds, and an NIS 500 million were already allocated for it, the Ministry of Finance claims no discussion on the topic had been held yet and its budgeting has not yet been linked to the reserve funds.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection will ask to dedicate some of the budgetary reserve funds to decreased pollution and environmental hazards.

Ze'ev Elkin's Ministry of Environmental Protection will seek financing for measures to decrease pollution and environmental hazards (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Some of the programs the ministry will ask to find financing for are expanding the national program to decrease transportation air pollution for NIS one billion, increasing energy efficiency for NIS 500 million, a national plan for reducing air pollution from open-area fires for NIS 500 million and more.

The Ministry of Justice has yet to put together requests, whereas the Ministry of Public Security is saving its requests for the 2019 budget.

This past July, the Tel Aviv District Labor Court found police officers and jailers' request to have their wages equated with the wages of regular army soldiers to have merit, but that decision will only affect the 2019 budget, should legislation putting it to practice be enacted until then.

This issue is expected to create a one-time NIS 7 billion budgetary hole on retroactive payments starting 2006, and an additional NIS 800 million annually going forward.

Israel Prison Service jailers demand their wages be equated with the wages of standing army personnel (Photo: Israeli Prison Service Spokesman's Unit)

However, the cops and jailers claim is insubstantial for 2018, and will be raised come the 2019 budget, despite the fact the numerator (the tool ensuring government ministries to spend more than the budget offers)which has predicted an NIS 10.5 billion deficit in 2019failed to take it into account since the labor court's verdict has not yet been made into law.

Lastly, the Prime Minister's Office is currently in the process of putting together its requests, and will only reveal them once they are submitted to the Finance Ministry.
PARIS  France's foreign ministry said on Friday it wanted Lebanon's Saad al-Hariri to be free of his movements and fully able to play an essential role in his country.

"Our ambassador to Saudi Arabia visited Saad al-Hariri at his home on his return from the trip he made to the United Arab Emirates, to which the (foreign) minister (Jean-Yves Le Drian) referred to this morning," French deputy foreign ministry spokesman Alexandre Georgini said.

"As the minister said, we wish that Saad al-Hariri has all his freedom of movement and be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon," he added.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah dragged Israel into the conflict between his organization and Saudi Arabia Friday afternoon, in light of the recent resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, saying in a speech the Saudi kingdom declared war on the terrorist organization and Lebanon and is trying to push Israel to attack Lebanon.

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"Saudi Arabia is inciting Israel to launch a war against Lebanon. I speak here about facts, not analysis. Saudi Arabia is ready to pay tens of billions of dollars to Israel for that," Nasrallah alleged.

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of paying Israel to attack Lebanon

In order to make the purported Israeli-Saudi relationship clearer, Nasrallah noted the Jerusalem Ministry of Foreign Affairs' instruction to Israeli embassies around the world to profess their support for the Saudi efforts against Hezbollah, as well as what he dubbed the "Israeli assistance" given to Syrian rebels and Al-Nusra Front, a Syrian terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda.

"Israel is trying to incite a civil war," Nasrallah claimed, before warning Israel not to make any miscalculations in trying to take advantage of the situation in Lebanon. "Israel must not think we're afraid or confused. We're stronger than ever today."

Nasrallah's speech came on the heels of Hariri's shocking resignation last Saturday, which he made while staying in Saudi Arabia. In his speech, Hariri launched into a vicious tirade against Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah for what he said was their meddling in Arab affairs and said "Irans arms in the region will be cut off."

In a televised address, ex-PM Hariri accused Iran of meddling in Lebanon's affairs by using Hezbollah as a proxy (Photo: Reuters)

Hariri's speech also contained other unprecedented accusations levied against Iran. The former Lebanese premier added war follows Iran wherever it goes and claimed Hezbollah was coercing Lebanon to follow its lead by using violence. Lastly, Hariri disclosed he'd recently learned of a plot to assassinate him, similarly to the killing of his father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

In his own televised speech Friday, Nasrallah attacked Saudi Arabia and once again accused the Sunni country of forcing Hariri to resign. "Let us say things as they are: (Hariri) is detained in Saudi Arabia and forbidden until this moment from returning to Lebanon," Nasrallah added.

The Hezbollah secretary-general alleged this was Saudi Arabia's way of imposing a new prime minister on Lebanon and that until recent developments, his country had enjoyed an extraordinary period of stability.

"A president was elected, a prime minister appointed and a unity government created, which has thus far conducted itself in a serious, effective manner. An election law allowing for parliamentary elections was passed and a budget was approved for the first time in 12 years. We've enjoyed unprecedented security and stability. Look at what's been happening in the United States over the past 40 days and look at Lebanon," Nasrallah suggested.





Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was said to be behind Hariri's resignation and detention (Photo: AFP)

The Hezbollah leader concluded by attempting to present himself as standing alongside Hariri against Saudi Arabia. "We denounce this blatant Saudi interference in Lebanon's internal affairs. It's improper. We denounce the shameful manner in which Hariri was treated from the moment he arrived at the Saudi airport. Humiliating the Lebanese prime minister is tantamount to humiliating every Lebanese citizen. At the moment we're of the opinion Hariri's resignation is neither legal nor constitutional. It has no value, because he was made to resign," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.
TOULOUSE  A man deliberately drove his car into a group of people outside a school near Toulouse in southern France on Friday, injuring three Chinese students, police sources said.

The driver of the vehicle, a 28-year-old man, was known to police for committing minor offences but was not on a terrorism watchlist, the sources said. He was arrested at the scene.

"For the moment, it is not being looked at as a terrorist incident although it is also not ruled out," the Toulouse prosecutor said in a statement. The driver has long suffered from psychological problems and was hospitalised until Dec. 2016, the prosecutor said.
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The following are PTIs top

New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The following are PTIs top stories at 2100 HRS:

BOM17 GJ-LD-PAK-FISHERMEN

Kutch: The Border Security Force (BSF) apprehends five Pakistani fishermen and seizes six boats from the Harami Nala creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Gujarats Kutch district, an official says.

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DES16 JK-SHARMA-DELEGATIONS

Jammu: The Centres representative to Jammu and Kashmir, Dineshwar Sharma, meets various delegations, including the Bar Association of Jammu, which raised issues ranging from the threat to the state due to Rohingya Muslims and the citizenship rights for the West Pakistan refugees.

DES14 SWARAJ-PAK-VISA

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announces that a Pakistani national requring liver transplant in India will be given visa.

DES26 ARMY-CHIEF

Varanasi: Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat says there was no shortage of arms and ammunition to the forces and they are fully prepared to give befitting reply to enemies.

DES27 MHA-TEAM-JAMMU

New Delhi: A five-member team led by a senior home ministry official is on a two-day visit to the Jammu region to find a resolution to problems of the people living in the border areas, an official says.

DES21 RJ-PADMAVATI-LD KATARIA

Jaipur: The arts and culture department of Rajasthan will look into the objections raised over the controversial period drama Padmavati, state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria says.

DES22 UKD-PADMAVATI-MLA

Dehradun: On a day the Supreme Court refuses to stay the release of Bollywood film Padmavati, BJP MLA from Laksar Sanjay Gupta accused its director Sanjay Leela Bhansali of presenting the Rajput queen in a bad light and says there would be strong protests in Uttarakhand against the films screening.

DES17 MOH-POLLUTION-HOSPITALS

New Delhi: The health ministry directs all the central government-run hospitals to take measures to deal with the increasing number of patients in the wake of a severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

DES12 UP-SWISS COUPLE-POLICE

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh polices "get well soon" campaign on social media, with the hashtag #GWSMarieAndJeremy, for a Swiss couple attacked by a mob in Fatehpur Sikri, garners appreciation from the Swiss embassy, a top official says.

DES18 DL-ODDEVEN-DTC

New Delhi: The Delhi governments decision to allow free rides on DTC buses during the five days of the odd-even scheme in the city could lead to losses of about Rs 9.5 crore, officials say.

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DES29 DL-ODDEVEN-AAP

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party strongly defends its governments decision to bring back the odd-even road- rationing scheme, saying vehicular pollution was the biggest source of ultrafine particulate matters measuring less than 2.5 microns.

DES20 DL-ODDEVEN-OLA

New Delhi: App-based cab aggregator Ola say there would be no surge-pricing during the implementation of the odd-even car scheme commencing November 13.

DES23 DL-ODDEVEN-GOEL

New Delhi: The Delhi governments decision to reintroduce the odd-even scheme is yet another "act of theatrics" by the AAP and would only add to peoples woes, Union minister Vijay Goel alleges.

DES28 POL-GJ-CONG

New Delhi: The Congress latches on to media reports, speculating a delay in the winter session of Parliament in view of the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls, to attack the BJP-led central government for its "Tughlaqi adhocism".

DES31 POL-GJ-GSFC-CONG

New Delhi: The Congress attacks the central government over the reported resumption of fertiliser subsidy to farmers in poll-bound Gujarat through a state body, terming it an "election lollipop".

DES30 PB-ARREST-KILLINGS

Ludhiana: The Punjab Police arrest the main accused in cases of targeted killings, including the sensational RSS leader Jagdish Gagneja murder case, taking the total number of suspects arrested to five.

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DES25 DL-CRIMINAL-ARREST

New Delhi: A suspected criminal, drawing inspiration from popular Bollywood film Agneepaths main character, arrested here along with his two accomplices when he had come to kill a businessman, police say. PTI KJ

--- ENDS ---
President Donald Trump's former Trump Organization Director of Security Keith Schiller testified in Congress this week that following a business meeting Trump held in Russia after the conclusion of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant he was offered by a Russian to have five women sent to his Moscow hotel room.

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Schiller's testimony was reported on by American media outlets Thursday, based on sources who were privy to his testimony.

Schiller (L) testified to declining an offer for 5 Russian women on behalf of President Trump (Photo: MCT)

Schiller testified he'd discussed the proposal with Trump on the way to the latter's hotel room and that the two shared a laugh about it, before the future president went to sleepalone.

"I waited outside Trump's room for a bit and then went to bed myself," he said. Schiller claimed he was certain nothing transpired in Trump's room after he'd left, despite not staying near the room.

He further testified to he and Trump were aware of the possibility of Moscow's hotel rooms being equipped with hidden cameras.

A former British intelligence operative said Trump received prostitutes in Moscow (Photo: AFP)

The interest generated by Trump's exploits in Moscow while he was still a private citizen stems from claimswhich have not yet been proven one way or the otherRussia has compromising information on the American president, which makes him a potential target of Russia extortion.

The sources who divulged the details of Schiller's testimony to American media said he spoke about the incident while providing a statement firmly denying claims by a former British intelligence operative that Trump met prostitutes in a Moscow hotel during the pageant.

"Oh my God, that's bull****," Schiller is said to have exclaimed in response.

Schiller started working for Trump as a body guard, and was later made Director of Security and the president's aide.

Presidents Trump (L) and Putin (Photo: Reuters)

The American political system is still in turmoil on the heels of the investigation examining alleged ties Trump's campaign officials may have had with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential elections.

American intelligence agencies have determined many Russian elements were acting on behalf of the Kremlin during said elections to influence their result, pushing for Trump's election on the assumption it would improve Moscow's lot.

The Russian officials' actions are said to have included hacking the Democratic Party's computers, which led to a leak that greatly embarrassed Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.
On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the first Hebrew air force, Israeli Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin hosted Lt.-Col. (res.) Alexander Ziloni, one of the air force's founders, in his office. Ziloni, 102, spoke to the corps commanders' forum on the creation of the aerial force.

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The modern Israeli Air Force is based on the Sherut Avir ("Air Service"), founded November 10, 1947. The Air Service Headquarters, as it was then called, recruited people for various positions within the nascent corps.

IAF Commander Norkin (L) with the corps' veteran Ziloni at the commanders' forum (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Sherut Avir planes (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

On the day the Sherut Avir was founded, then IDF Chief of Staff Yaakov Dori wrote head of the General Council For Hebrew Aviation in Israel Yehoshua Eshel to tell him, "The Haganah headquarters hereby informs you of its decision to found a standing air force starting from the date of this letter, to be called 'Sherut Avir'. Your submitted proposal for the Service's creation is also hereby approved. Your proposals for appointments and budget are requested without delay for immediate execution of the program."

Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

The nascent Israeli Air Force (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit

The Air Force's Commander Norkin then thanked Ziloni for his visit. "I wish you good health for many years to come. Exhibiting the legacy of the air force must be increased tenfold. You simply cannot dream ahead and think up new innovations without deep roots and knowing where you started. That's our mission as commanders. The Sherut Avir set the Israeli Air Force on the path it walks today," Norkin told the former pilot.

Ziloni made Aliyah from Poland when he was five, served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was one of the founders of the Israeli Air Force. He served in the corps until 1960 and participated in aerial operations during the Suez Crisis. Ziloni retired holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel, after serving as a military attache in Washington.
YORK  Six York College students are accused of shooting children with BB guns while they were trick-or-treating on Halloween night, according to York Chief of Police Ed Tjaden.

The male students from York College are also accused of stealing the BB guns from a local retail business, as well as shooting out windows in parked cars.

On Nov. 1, the York Police Department received reports of assaults and incidents of criminal mischief conducted with BB guns during the previous night, Halloween, explained Chief Tjaden. A group of seventh graders reported being yelled at and shot at with a BB gun, and two vehicle windows had been shot out during the same night. The York PD follow-up led to the discovery of a vehicle matching the victim-reported description at York College, which had BBs in plain sight. Further investigation led to the discovery of a receipt for the purchase of a BB gun on Oct. 31, also found in the vehicle. During the investigation, it was also discovered that BB guns were stolen from a local retailer.

Thankfully, no serious injuries were reported among the seventh graders, Chief Tjaden said.

A father of one of the children involved told the York News-Times that three of the kids in the group were hit with BBs  and also acknowledged that he was extremely grateful no one had serious injuries.

Chief Tjaden says the six York College students were cited for various charges including: second degree assault, criminal mischief and theft by shoplifting.

The case has been turned over to the York County Attorney for review and filing, Chief Tjaden said. It is notable that the follow-up that led to the resolution of this case began with specific descriptions of the suspect vehicle involved, offered by the seventh grade victims who paid specific attention to their surroundings and were able to offer a solid lead.

The total amount of the damages reported in the criminal mischief is approximately $400 and the total approximate value of the items stolen is $150, the chief added.

York College Dean of Student Development Catherine Seufferlein has issued a statement regarding the situation: We have been in communication with local law enforcement and we are in full cooperation with the investigation. We support the work that they are doing. Our students are being fully cooperative in the investigation. We are waiting to take action until we know more."

As of Thursday morning, formal charges had not yet been filed with the York County Court in this case and the names of the college students have not yet been released because formal filing has yet to take place.

College authorities said in a statement on Thursday: York College is thankful that no serious injuries were reported and the amount of damages reported from the criminal mischief and theft is small; however, representatives from the college are sincere in their apology to the community and specifically to those who were harmed.

We are as shocked and disappointed as the rest of the community by the behavior of these students. I dont know of any other incident like this in our history and it will not be tolerated, said Steve Eckman, president of York College.

This is very far from the standard of conduct we hold students to at York College. As a Christ-centered college, our mission is to equip students for lifelong service to God, family, and society. In this instance, that mission was violated in an egregious way. While York College is not responsible for the action of these students, we do sincerely apologize to the community for their behavior. Our partnership with the community is very important to us. We strive always to be a good partner in the community and we hope that this will not sully the perception of York College students as a whole in our community. These actions are not representative of our student body.
By PTI: Bhopal, Nov 10 (PTI) A candid confession by Madhya Pradesh minister Om Prakash Dhurve that he did not understand the Goods and Services Tax (GST) left the BJP red-faced as it argued that he is only a minister and not a chartered accountant.

According to Dhurve, even big CAs are not able to understand the GST leave aside traders and people like him.

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He made the remarks during an address to a gathering of BJP workers organised to mark anti-black money Day at Umaria town on November 8, the first anniversary of demonetisation.

A video of his speech has gone viral on social media.

"The results (of GST) would come after some time... there are problems as of now. What is GST, I am not able to understand myself... (Hence) I will not speak on this issue, let the experts speak," Dhurve told the gathering.

"Even big CAs are not able to understand. What it is.... even traders are not able to understand," he added.

The BJP, however, tried to defend him stating that Dhurve is right in saying that people would gradually understand the new taxation system.

"GST is a new tax regime. He (Dhurve) is a minister and not a CA. So, what he was saying is that people would gradually understand about this new tax system," state BJP chief Nandkumar Singh Chauhan said.

Dhurves statement gave an opportunity to the opposition Congress to slam the BJP-led NDA government as it said that the GST is complex and even the Centre is unable to understand it.

"The Centre has been making continuous changes in the GST since it was launched. Even the government is not able to understand its complexities. So, Dhurve ji was also right in saying that he is not able to understand it," state Congress spokesman Pankaj Chaturvedi said. PTI ADU NP ZMN

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Rajnandgaon: A 13-year-old physically challenged tribal girl was allegedly raped by two Class 12 students in Rewadi village in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district, police said.

The accused, aged 17, have been apprehended.

The incident happened on Thursday when the girl, who is disabled by hands, was alone at her home under the Laalbaag police station limits, a police officer said.

As per preliminary information, the two youths barged into her house and allegedly raped her before fleeing, the officer said.

The girl's mother came to know about the incident after she returned home and then approached the police.

The accused have been held under Section 376 (D) (gangrape) and 350 (criminal force) of the IPC, he said.
New Delhi: Adani Transmission Limited (ATL) will buy Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure's (RInfra's) Mumbai power business  Reliance Energy for around Rs 13,000 crore, reports, DNA Money, quoting sources.

As per DNA Money report, the deal valuation is less than what Greenko had offered a few months ago.

The Hyderabad-headquartered Greenko, backed by Singapore's GIC and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, had sought to acquire Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure's flagship Mumbai electricity business for an enterprise value of Rs 13,000-14,000 crore, which lapsed in September.

Last month Reliance Infrastructure had entered into a period of exclusivity with Adani Transmission for proposed sale of its integrated business of generation, transmission and distribution of power for Mumbai.

In a regulatory filing dated Ocober 10, 2017, Reliance Infrastructure had said, "It has entered into a period of exclusivity until January 15, 2018, in relation to discussions for the proposed sale of its integrated business of generation, transmission and distribution of power for Mumbai city to Adani Transmission."

The Anil Ambani-led Reliance Infra intends to utilise the proceeds of the proposed transaction entirely to reduce its debt and further strengthen its financial position to tap mega growth opportunities in defence and EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) for the infrastructure sector.

RInfra had consolidated debt of Rs 25,100.81 crore as on March 31.

According to Adani Transmission, the proposed transaction will strengthen its footprint in the power transmission sector and also mark its foray into the distribution space.
NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday will examine the Delhi government's decision to implement odd-even scheme from November 13 in the wake of deadly smog blanketing Delhi and all neighbouring states for past several days.

The tribunal asked the Delhi government on the rationale behind the application of the odd-even formula and the data on old cars in Delhi. It has directed the government to produce details of ambient air quality during earlier odd even schemes.

On Thursday, the tribunal banned construction and industrial activities and entry of trucks, as it rapped the Delhi government and civic bodies over the alarming pollution situation in the city.

As per reports, it ordered diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol cars older than 15 to be stopped from entering Delhi.

Slamming Delhi government and governments in neighbouring states, the NGT questioned the seriousness with which the stakeholders are dealing with the grievous situation.

It asked the Delhi government to take effective steps to curtail pollution and sought for details on the number of challans that have been issued to violators and the number of construction sites where work has been stopped. It also questioned why rain isn't artificially being triggered using helicopters.

On April 21, last year, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had told NGT that there was no data to suggest that the odd-even scheme has led to a decline in vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR.

The pollution monitoring body had said that there was no data to indicate that car rationing scheme has any impact on the decrease in vehicular pollution and the fluctuations in PM10 and PM2.5 is due to weather and change in wind patterns.

The national capital is experiencing 'severe' air quality under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels have breached permissible standards by multiple times.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recorded 'severe' air quality, meaning that the intensity of pollution was extreme.

The Delhi government yesterday announced that the odd-even car rationing scheme will be rolled out in the state for five days from November 13 as part of a graded response plan to tackle the air quality situation.
Cinematographer Priyan passed away at his residence on Thursday.

By India Today Web Desk: Noted cinematographer Priyan passed away at his residence on Thursday due to a cardiac arrest. He was 53. Priyan is survived by wife Kalyani and daughters Priya Vishwa and Srimathi.

Starting his career as an assistant director, Priyan has worked with Balu Mahendra in several films. He also worked with the National Award-winning cinematographer-director Rajeev Menon.

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After a brief stint as an assistant, Priyan made his debut with Thotta Chinungi in 1995. Priyan is a frequent collaborator with director Hari and worked in films like Saamy, Arul and Singam franchise.

He also worked with Kamal Haasan in Thenali and Vijay in Jilla. Priyan was roped in to handle cinematography for Saamy Square, which stars Chiyaan Vikram in the lead.

Many celebrities expressed their condolences on social media

Mere words cannot fully express the sorrow I feel after hearing about the sudden passing away of Priyan.. one of the sweetest people I have ever met in my life. It's a huge loss for everyone who has been touched by this gentle person. May his soul rest in peace. ( The 6pm post will be deferred to tomorrow. Thank you for understanding) A post shared by Vikram (@the_real_chiyaan) on Nov 9, 2017 at 4:17am PST

Kind, professional and extremely hard working cinematographer #Priyan is no more. Gone too soon. R.I.P sir. Deepest condolences to his kin.- Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth) November 9, 2017

Words fall short of expressing my sorrow 4de loss of my gud friend & wel wisher #Priyan.We hav lost a Gud human,May his soul rest in peace pic.twitter.com/wXKe11itiD- Vishal Film Factory (@VffVishal) November 9, 2017

Heartbroken to know the demise of #Priyan Sir DOP ! Cant express my grief in words. May your soul #RIP . Strength and power to his family.- Keerthy Suresh (@KeerthyOfficial) November 9, 2017

#RIP cinematographer #Priyan sir .had the opportunity to work with him in few of my movies ,can't believe it ; still in shock . Prayers to his family #GoneTooSoon- Hansika (@ihansika) November 9, 2017

Shocked to hear about the demise of Cinematographer #Priyan sir ! #RIP pic.twitter.com/LwSiJwM6QN- Shanthnu Buddy (@imKBRshanthnu) November 9, 2017

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New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has asked the police to produce before it a juvenile accused of raping a five-year-old girl in 2013.

Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal issued the order after the court was informed the minor, who was granted bail in June by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) here, was not traceable now.

The court was told that the notice issued to him were not served on his address in Bihar. Taking note of which, the court asked the investigating officer to find the juvenile and produce before it.

The police, meanwhile, in its status report to the court said they have conducted an enquiry about the date of birth of the 'child in conflict with law' (CCL) and according to the school record it was April 26, 1998.

"He was admitted in the first standard of the school on April 8, 2005 and his name is in the admission register. The attendance register is also checked and found that he often used to attend class. After class one, there is no record of the CCL in the school," the police said.

The police response came in the backdrop of the court's notice issued to them and the two accused - Manoj Shah and the juvenile - while hearing a plea filed by the girl's mother against the transfer of the case to JJB on April 12.

The court posted the matter for November 30 for further hearing.

"The order declaring one of the accused a juvenile is bad in law and unsustainable on multiple grounds," the girl's mother said in her petition filed through advocate Prabhsahay Kaur.

She said the ossification test conducted in February 2014, according to which the age of the accused was 20-22 years, was completely ignored by the trial court.

Even if the benefit of one year was granted to the accused, he would still be a major. His age was not found to be borderline, leaving no scope of doubt on his juvenility, Kaur, who was assisted by advocate Shilpa Dewan, submitted.

The plea challenged the trial court's decision to transfer the case solely on the basis of a headmaster's statement, who claimed to be the in-charge of the school where the juvenile had studied, in the nature of a mere declaration.

The petition contended that the sessions judge failed to complete the trial of the case, registered in 2013, within a year as mandated under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) but took three years to merely decide an application of juvenility of the accused.

Manoj, lodged in judicial custody, and the juvenile are accused of raping the girl and shoving off foreign objects in her private parts on April 15, 2013 in Gandhi Nagar area in East Delhi. The juvenile is facing trial before JJB.

The child was rescued 40 hours later on April 17, 2013.

The accused had fled after committing the crime, leaving the girl behind in Shah's room believing her to be dead. They were later arrested from Bihar.

The police said some foreign material - three pieces of a candle and one hair oil bottle - was taken out of the body of the victim and this was also proved by doctors during recording of their statements in the court.
New Delhi: The capital city once again shut its doors on trucks in its battle against alarming levels of air pollution. Delhi turned into a fortress of sorts with trucks from other states being turned back on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.

The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) had banned the entry of trucks - barring those with essential commodities. Trucks and several other heavy vehicles have been found to contribute to Delhi's high air pollution. Late on Thursday night, Delhi Police swung into action and sealed border entry points. "Traffic staff, local police and PCRs have been deployed at all border points. We are also in liaison with neighbouring states so that diversions can take place from Haryana and UP side also," said DCP DK Gupta who added that heavy and medium-heavy vehicles with essential commodities were being allowed passage after proper checking.

The ban on entry of these vehicles is part of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) which came into effect from October 15. Extremely high level of pollution has been choking Delhi residents and several factors - including stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana, as well as existing weather conditions - have been blamed for it. On Thursday, Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gehlot also announced the return of the Odd-Even road management system for five days starting November 13.
NEW DELHI: A Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student was fined Rs 6,000 for cooking and eating biryani near the stairs in front of the university's administrative building.

The incident allegedly took place on June 27. Amir Malik, a masters student at School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, cooked biryani near the stairs.

"In the proctorial enquiry you have been found guilty of being involved in cooking food (biryani) near the stairs in front of the Administrative Building and eating it thereafter along with other students This act is serious in nature, unbecoming of a student of JNU and calls for strict disciplinary action," said the university in an official notification issued by the Chief Proctor, Kaushal Kumar on November 8.

Rs 6000 fine imposed on a student, he was involved in cooking Biryani near the stairs in front of Administrative building on 27th June, and eating it thereafter along with other students. This act is serious in nature: JNU pic.twitter.com/zujhc2Iscp November 10, 2017

Calling it a 'serious act', the university authority asked Malik to deposit the fine within 10 days of the issuing of the notice.

The university also warned him 'to be careful and not to get involved in such incidents in future'.

Responding to the incident, former JNUSU General Secretary Satarupa Chakraborty alleged ABVP saying, "I condemn in strongest term possible the way Saurabh Sharma of ABVP is concocting false stories and spearing lies justifying the recent punishment. He is spreading cheap propaganda with blatent lies that 'beef biriyani' was cooked at Ad Block with the sole intention of inciting people on communal lines before Gujarat polls where the BJP sees imminent defeat. This incident took place in late June this year, today, when the report of punishment occupied space in many major national dailies, ABVP suddenly remembers of 'Beef Biriyani'."

She said, "Instead of standing by the students who are falsely framed by the university administration, Saurabh Sharma , maintaining his track record is up to spread fabricated stories just like previously the ABVP tried to malign JNU through circulation of doctored videos."

Chakraborty further added, "I reiterate my questions here. Is a university proctor office there to monitor who is cooking and eating what? Since when seeking an appointment to meet VC or shouting slogan against VC has become a crime? Since when it came into practice that without establishing any charges of indiscipline, actions will be taken by the whims and fancies of the VC? Is this how the 'discretionary power' is supposed to be exercised where student union members would be kept out of any dialogue with the university authority?."

"Finally, I would like to warn Mr. Saurabh Sharma to stop spreading such blatent lies and refrain from inciting people on communal lines for cheap political gimmick. As far as food is concerned, I respect everyone's right to chose his/her own food. The people of this country doesn't need any permission from any hindutva forces to decide what to eat and what not to eat," she concluded.
New Delhi: Congress leader P Chidambaram today said a "shower of changes" is expected from the GST Council meeting in Guwahati and the "panic-stricken" Modi government has no option but to change the new tax rates.

The high-powered committee headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is meeting in the Assam city to discuss GST rates.

Chidambaram said the government will be forced to heed the advice of the opposition and experts due to the Gujarat assembly elections next month.

"Expect a shower of changes in GST rates from GST Council meeting today. Panic-stricken govt has no option but to concede demands for change.

"Thanks to Gujarat elections, government forced to heed advice of Opposition and experts on flaws in implementation of GST," he tweeted.

Chidambaram said the letter from the finance ministers of Congress-ruled states to Jaitley will set the tone for discussions in the GST Council today.

"Congress FMs letter exposes the structural flaws in the design and implementation of GST. Government can no longer duck these issues," he said.

The Congress leader said the government had avoided debate and voting in Rajya Sabha on GST Bills but it cannot avoid a debate in the public domain or in the GST Council.

"Congress FMs will force changes in GST Council meeting today. Agra, Surat, Tiruppur and other hub towns are watching," he said.

The finance ministers of Congress ruled states last week demanded a major overhaul of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), alleging that the tax reform measure had turned out to be a "big disappointment" due to its "poor" implementation.

The finance ministers of the Congress-ruled Punjab and Karnataka, Manpreet Badal and Krishna Gowda, alleged that the country had "lost the opportunity" to bring tax reform and that there was "utter chaos and confusion", forcing many businesses to shut down.

They also alleged that there was "poor implementation" with regard to GST's concept, design, tax rates, exemptions, compliance requirement and technological preparedness.

They said the party would demand reduction of tax rates for many items and raise other concerns of the business community in the Guwahati meeting of the GST Council.
AHMEDABAD: The Border Security Force or BSF on seized five Pakistan fishing boats from the vertical channel of 'Harami Nala' creek area in Bhuj, Gujarat. The forces also have apprehended three Pakistan fishermen.

Details of the incident are still emerging.

A patrol party of the BSF's 79th battalion, deployed to guard the Indo-Pak border, apprehended the three fishermen yesterday from the "vertical area of the Harami Nala creek", a senior official said.

The men have been handed over to the local police, the official said.

Several fishing boats and Pakistani fishermen have been caught in the past while fishing on the Indian side of the creek area.

In September, a BSF patrol party detained two Pakistani fishermen and three boats in the same creek area along the Indo-Pak border in the Kutch district of Gujarat.

Few other items were recovered from the boats and the local police have been informed, the official said.

With agency inputs
Gandhinagar: A three-day BJP meeting chaired by party chief Amit Shah to select candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections began at Chief Minister Vijay Rupani`s house on Friday.



The meeting will conclude on Sunday. The list of finalised names will be presented at the BJP parliamentary board meeting to be held on November 15 in Delhi.



Besides Rupani, the meeting that began in the evening is also being participated by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former chief minister Anandiben Patel, BJP state president Jitu Vaghani, the Gujarat BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav and other senior party leaders. Shah will finalise a panel of list of candidates prepared at the state level.



Elections are less than a month away, and like all parties, the BJP too is planning full-fledged for it. The party, though unwilling to admit, faces an anti-incumbency in the state where it has been in power for more than two decades. Many agitations depicting issues of various communities have surfaced after the exit of then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the state politics.



Friday`s meeting agenda is likely to focus on the candidatures of 89 state assembly constituencies, which comprises of 14 districts.



According to sources, the party might consider fielding Patidar candidates for eight of the south Gujarat constituencies and 24 constituencies of Saurashtra region. As has been in the past, the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been known to go for the no-repeat theory, where many sitting MLAs` names are likely to be chopped.



The finalization of candidates will be done by the national parliamentary board at a two-day meeting in Delhi scheduled on November 14 and 15. Considering the fact that the elections are going to be held in two phases, there is likelihood of three panels of the list being prepared at the state meeting.



The saffron party has to face many fronts other than the opposition Congress, like the Dalit community`s ire, the recently evolved Karadia Rajput agitation against state president Jitu Vaghani, the Thakore community, which has been going against the saffron party. On top of that is the Patidar agitation, led by young turk Hardik Patel, who has pledged non-cooperation and opposition to the saffron party.
New Delhi: Ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls, a PIL was on Friday filed in the Supreme Court challenging the discretionary power of a returning officer to refuse counting of the paper trail from the VVPAT machines.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra agreed to hear the matter and directed the petitioner, who claims to be the president of a Gujarat-based political party, to provide a copy of his plea to the Election Commission's (EC) counsel.

With the direction, the bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, listed the matter for hearing on November 20.

The petitioner, Manubhai Chavada, has opposed Rule 56(D) (2) of the Conduct of Elections Rules 1961 which confers discretionary power on the returning officer, who conducts the election, to refuse counting of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

Chavada, who claims to be the president of the Gujarat Jan Chetna Party, has contended that such a discretion was "ex-facie illegal, arbitrary and an infraction of the fundamental rights of the citizens".

The petition, filed through advocate Devadatt Kamat, has also claimed that the paper used by the machine has a shelf life of a few months after which the printed matter on it fades away or disappears.

Apart from seeking directions to the poll panel to use appropriate technology to preserve the paper of VVPAT machines for at least a period of two years from the date of election, the PIL has also sought mandatory counting of the paper slips in each assembly or parliamentary election in future.

The petition has said that the apex court in a 2013 ruling had categorically held that paper trails were an indispensable requirement in the conduct of free and fair elections and therefore, it was mandatory to count the paper slips in every election where VVPATs are used.

"The introduction of paper trail was for the purpose of ensuring a safety valve against any defect/tampering of the electronic voting machine (EVM). The entire purpose of introduction of the VVPAT was to ensure that the electoral verdict is the true representation of votes cast by the voter," the PIL said.

It said that in the event of any discrepancy between the result shown by the EVMs and the VVPAT, "the result shown by the VVPAT was supposed to be the barometer reflecting the peoples' choice in the election."

It has contended that giving the discretion to a returning officer to refuse the application of a candidate or an election agent for counting of the paper trail would undermine the purpose behind introduction of VVPATs and sought striking down of Rule 56(D)(2).
Ahmedabad: With an eye on the Gujarat polls, state Congress is likely to release its final list of candidates for 70 assembly seats by Thursday next week.

We will announce (candidates) for 70 seats on 16th (November), said Bharat Sinh Solanki Gujarat Congress president.

The Congress's Central Election Committee (CEC) is expected to meet tomorrow to shortlist candidates. The meeting is likely to be chaired by party chief Sonia Gandhi and attended by senior leaders, including those from the poll-bound state, sources said.

Meanwhile, the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began its three-day board meeting on Friday, brainstorming on the final list of candidates contesting the 2017 assembly elections.

The BJP is likely to announce the first list of candidates immediately after the meeting, said sources.

Gujarat goes to poll in two phases on December 9 and December 14. The election result will be declared on December 18.
Ahmedabad: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will be on a three-day campaign tour of north Gujarat from Saturday, party sources said on Friday.

In his three-day road trip, Rahul Gandhi will cover six districts of north Gujarat. He will hold meetings with women, villagers and different communities during the tour, they said.

He will also visit the famous, Ambaji temple, in Banaskantha district on Saturday.

In the recent past, Gandhi had conducted such campaign tours in Saurashtra, central Gujarat and south Gujarat.
Gandhinagar: With an eye on the upcoming Gujarat polls, state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set begin its three-day meet on Friday. The party honchos are likely to brainstorm on the final list of candidates who'll be offered tickets to contest the 2017 assembly elections.

The BJP is likely to announce the first list of candidates immediately after the meeting, said sources.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, state party head Jitu Vaghani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former CM Anandiben Patel and state in-charge Bhupender Yadav will attend the board meeting. Party chief Amit Shah could also be a part of the meet.

The board is likely to meet at Rupani's official bungalow in Gandhinagar.

Meanwhile, the Congress election committee will meet on Saturday morning to finalised the list of Gujrat candidates. State president Bharatsinh Solanki, state party in-charge and former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and few others met the Congress high command in Delhi on Thursday.

The party likely to announce first candidate list on November 15, said sources.

The two-phase Gujarat Assembly elections will be held on December 9 and 14. The election results will be declared on December 18, the counting to be held along with that of hill state Himachal Pradesh, which went to poll on November 9.

The term of 182-member Gujarat assembly is due to end on January 22, 2018.
Kejriwal will, in a meeting today, discuss the implementation of the Odd-Even scheme that will be enforced for five days next week from November 13 to 17.

By India Today Web Desk: At 2 pm today in "gas chamber" Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will chair a meeting to discuss the implementation of the Odd-Even scheme that will be enforced for five days next week from November 13 to 17.

At exactly the same time, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) would examine the Delhi government's decision to roll out the third edition of the traffic rule to tackle the alarming pollution situation in the national capital.

WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR IN 10 POINTS: Kejriwal will be meeting his Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot, and other transport officials and the stakeholders of the Odd-Even programme. With Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) facing an environmental emergency due to toxic smog, the Aam Aadmi Party government had on Thursday decided to bring back the third phase of the traffic rationing scheme. Meanwhile, a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar has asked the Delhi government to submit the details of the ambient air quality during the earlier implementation of the Odd-Even scheme to justify its latest order. On April 21 last year, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had told the NGT that there was no data to suggest that the Odd-Even scheme had led to a decline in vehicular pollution in the Delhi-NCR region. The pollution monitoring body had said that there was no data to indicate that the car rationing scheme had any impact on decrease in vehicular pollution, and the fluctuations in PM10 and PM2.5 is due to weather and change in wind patterns. The national capital is experiencing 'severe' air quality under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels have breached permissible standards by multiple times. However, nearly 13 lakh private cars are expected to be off roads every working day next week after the Odd-Even scheme kicks in from Monday. The AAP government is looking to hire 500 buses to ensure smooth commute for the public. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has also promised to provide 100 small buses during the period. The Delhi Metro will run 3,335 trips as against 3,248 trips it ran during the second phase of odd-even drive during April 2016. The odd-even scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from November 13 to November 17. The scheme will be in place from 8 am to 8 pm; women drivers and two-wheelers have been exempted. With a poisonous cloud of smog covering Delhi and its surrounding areas, the government has already closed all schools this week. Some schools in the NCR region have also been shut down.

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WATCH VIDEO | Delhi struggling with heavy cover of smog, Congress blames AAP, BJP for not doing enough

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The siege in Mumbai has finally ended, with all the terrorists holding the city to ransom gunned down. <br><br> However, before the Taj Hotel siege came to en end on Saturday morning, the attacks that began at around 9.35 pm in the countrys financial capital on Wednesday night turned out to be Indias biggest horror story, leaving at least 160 people dead and over 327 injured. Terrorists holding innocent people, including MPs and foreigners, hostage at three places and killing many of them; top Mumbai police officers sacrificing their lives in the battle, including state Anti-Terror Squad chief Hemant Karkare; and blasts and firings throughout the three-day-long battle were all part of the drama that unfolded in Mumbai. <br><br> These were not just any other terror attacks that India sees every other day and has become immune to; these were attacks on an unprecedented scale. Till Wednesday, 1993 Mumbai serial blasts were considered to be the biggest attack ever on Indian state. However, whats happened in Mumbai over the past three days has surpassed any such attack by leaps and bounds. Never before has the country seen a terror attack on this scale  fidayeen terrorists, guns, bombs and grenades, hostage situations have all been part of these highly co-ordinated attacks carried out to inflict maximum damage on Mumbai, the countrys economic hub. If I may say so, the attacks appeared to be a WAR on Mumbai and seem to be planned on the scale of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. <br><br> Terrorists specially targeted foreigners in their attacks  foreign nationals were both killed and held hostage in the incidents. Some reports suggested that two US intelligence officials were also caught in the attacks on the posh Taj and Oberoi (Trident) hotels. Another Greek millionaire also succumbed to his injuries. A top French nuclear physicist is reported to have escaped from one of the two hotels. Israeli nationals were also held at gunpoint at a Jewish headquarter in the city. <br><br> Why Im calling this as a war because never before in the Indian history, a terror attack on a city has carried on for these many hours. In fact, Army, Navy and NSG teams were involved in the operations to flush out terrorists holed up inside hotels and try and save the hostages. What made matters worse is that the terrorists did not demand any ransom. According to government sources, they seemed determined to hold the state to ransom and their main motive appears to be deaths of innocent men and women, and not money or safe passage. <br><br> The consequence of the attacks was immediately seen  Mumbai was virtually shut on Thursday; the Bombay Stock Exchange, schools and colleges remained closed; curfew was imposed in various parts of the city. On a bigger scale too, the damage seemed to have been done. Visiting England cricket team has already called off its remaining tour, the upcoming T20 Champions League has been deferred after participating foreign teams expressed reluctance to play in the city. Mumbai is one of the three venues for the Champions League matches and four of the eight participating teams were supposed to stay at the historic Taj Mahal Hotel, one of the flashpoints of the deadly attacks. <br><br> Prime Minister Manmohan Singh travelled to Mumbai on Thursday to take stock of the highly volatile situation. He also addressed the nation that day. <br><br> What the country needs at this delicate moment is political unity and pro-active approach by the administration to sit down and find out how a few determined enemies managed to hold the country to ransom and wage a war on Mumbai  a symbol of a modern, progressive India.
NEW DELHI: An Air India pilot on Wednesday deserted a flight on the runway of the Jaipur airport leaving 48 passengers stranded, apparently because his working hours were over.

According to DNA, the plane was left standing at the airport till Thursday evening.

The Flight 9I 644 was supposed to fly from Lucknow to Delhi, via Jaipur. It was scheduled to arrive at Jaipur airport at 9 pm, however, it was delayed and arrived only at about 1:30 am. Due to the smog at the capital and other technical issues at Delhi airport, it couldn't take off until 2 am.

When it finally moved to the take-off point, the plane halted there again for 30 more minutes. At this point, the pilot declared that his shift was over and left the plane, said a source at the airport. Some of the 48 flummoxed passengers were sent to Delhi by bus early on Thursday morning, while others were accommodated in a hotel and flown up later.

Airport authorities confirmed the incident but refused to comment on it saying it is a matter concerning the airline. The airline staff on duty would also not comment on the bizarre incident, directed the media to the offices of the airline. There too the buck was passed: "We do not know. Such matters come under the Roster department of the airline in Delhi," said one employee.
PATNA: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Friday termed demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax as failures and asked Prime Narendra Modi to sack Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over GST.

Sinha, who was the former finance minister during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime, rubbished Modi's claim that demonetisation and GST were successful, saying both exercises had actually failed.

Describing the GST as a total mess, Sinha asked the Prime Minister to remove Jaitley in a bid to improve the country's economy.

GST has ruined the nation's economy, Sinha asserted, adding that "Jaitley as the Finance Minister did not apply his brain when he prepared and implemented the GST. This is evident the way he has been tinkering it time and again. Even today some changes have been made. But any patchwork will not work. GST needs an overhaul."

While addressing a function here organised by rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Uday Narayan Choudhary, the senior BJP leader hit out at Modi government over noteban saying, None of the black money has returned to the banks" after Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes were scrapped in November last year, adding that but as usual the central government has been telling lies to claim that it was a success.

Sinha's hard-hitting statements came two days after BJP celebrated the first anniversary of the exercise as 'anti- black money day' and the opposition observed a 'black day' on November 8.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said demonetisation was a "decisive battle" 125 crore Indians fought against black money and won.

The prime minister asked people to participate in a survey that is available on the Narendra Modi app to send him the feedback on how they feel about the government's efforts "to uproot corruption and black money."

While Opposition leaders such as the Congress' Rahul Gandhi and P Chidambaram, Trinamool Congress's Mamata Banerjee, RJD's Lalu Yadav and Left leaders argued that it had done none of the above and actually helped convert black money into white, the government fielded a host of ministers to counter the barrage of criticism and defend the move.
Ranchi: Some unidentified persons on Friday hurled stones at the house of Rafia Naaz - a Muslim girl who teaches yoga in Jharkhand's Ranchi.

Earlier, a fatwa had been issued against the girl asking her to stop teaching Yoga. The girl also faces threats to her life from the members of her own community.

Yoga guru Ramdev has now come out in her support. Reacting to the incident, Ramdev today said, ''From Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Saudi Arabia so many Muslims practice Yoga. It is an exercise which is good for mental and physical wellness.''

''Religion shouldn't be brought into this,'' Ramdev said while reacting to reports of stones being hurled at Rafia Naaz's house in Ranchi.

Earlier, Maulana Saif Abbas, a prominent Shia cleric, had come out in her defence.

"What is wrong if some woman teaches yoga?" Shia cleric Maulana Saif Abbas said while referring to the fatwa issued against Naaz.

"Protesting this is highly condemnable," he said, adding, "Some people have made religion a joke."

The reactions from the Shia cleric and Ramdev came days after a fatwa was issued against Naaz after which the Jharkhand government decided to provide her adequate security.

The matter was brought to the notice of Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das, and on his instructions, the police stepped up the security of the girl.

Acting on the instructions, Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kuldeep Dwivedi even sent a police team to meet the girl.

She was later provided two security guards - one male and one female.

A resident of Doranda locality in Ranchi, Rafia Naaz ekes out a living for her family by teaching yoga.

She is the eldest of her siblings and also doing M.Com from a local college.

Naaz rose to fame after she shared the stage with yoga guru Ramdev in the city some time back.

Her family members are scared of threats issued by the members of her own community.

Naaz, however, said, "I will continue to do yoga and teach yoga till the end of my life."

Naaz said that he had received many threats, and expressed gratitude to the state government for providing her with security.
Ranchi: Some unidentified persons on Friday hurled stones at the house of Rafia Naaz - a Muslim girl who is facing the ire of her community members for teaching yoga in Jharkhand's Ranchi.

The shocking incident occurred while Rafia Naaz was sharing her views with Zee Media on the fatwa issued against her by the members of her community recently.

Some members of the community gathered outside her house in Ranchi and hurled stones, which further petrified the young girl while was live on Zee Media and sharing how she was being targeted for teaching yoga.

Meanwhile, noted yoga guru Ramdev has now come out in her support.

Reacting to the incident, Ramdev today said, ''From Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Saudi Arabia so many Muslims practice Yoga. It is an exercise which is good for mental and physical wellness.''

''Religion shouldn't be brought into this,'' Ramdev said while reacting to reports of stones being hurled at Rafia Naaz's house in Ranchi.

Earlier, Maulana Saif Abbas, a prominent Shia cleric, has come out in her support.

"What is wrong if some woman teaches yoga?" Shia cleric Maulana Saif Abbas had said while referring to the fatwa issued against Naaz.

"Protesting this is highly condemnable," he said, adding, "Some people have made religion a joke."

The reactions from the Shia cleric and Ramdev came days after a fatwa was issued against Naaz after which the Jharkhand government decided to provide her adequate security.

The matter was brought to the notice of Sanjay Kumar, Principal Secretary to Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das, and on his instructions, the police stepped up the security of the girl.

Acting on the instructions, Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Kuldeep Dwivedi even sent a police team to meet the girl.

She was later provided two security guards - one male and one female.

A resident of Doranda locality in Ranchi, Rafia Naaz ekes out a living for her family by teaching yoga. She is the eldest of her siblings and also doing M.Com from a local college.

Naaz rose to fame after she shared the stage with yoga guru Ramdev in the city sometimes back.

Her family members are scared of threats issued by the members of her own community.

However, a determined says that she will continue to do yoga and teach yoga till her last breath.

While admitting that she and her family had received many threats, Naaz also expressed her gratitude to the Jharkhand government for providing her with security.
NEW DELHI: The Gurgaon police 'tortured' and 'drugged' bus conductor Ashok Kumar to force a confession out of him, alleged his family. Kumar was arrested on September 10 on charged with sexually assaulting and murdering Ryan International student Pradhuman Thakur.

Now it is almost clear that my son Ashok was framed and made a scapegoat. We have decided to file a case against Gurgaon Police SIT officers who framed and used torture and even drugged him to confess before the media that he had committed the crime," said Ashok's father Amirchand.

On Wednesday, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested the 16-year-old senior student of Gurgaon's Ryan International School in connection with the murder case.

"Villagers are with us and they all want us to demand justice for Ashok and action against irresponsible police officials," said bus conductor's father.

The CBI gave a clean chit to the conductor.

Kumar's family has decided to file a case against police officers who "framed" him.

As soon as the closure report comes will file bail for Ashok. Once he is discharged, we will file a case against the police and school management, Kumar's lawyer Mohit Verma told ANI.

The arrested minor has allegedly confessed murdering Pradyuman Thakur in front of his father and an independent witness said the CBI.

The CBI has been directed by the court to carry on questioning for seven hours between 10 in the morning to five in the evening during the custody period.

A four-member CBI team visited the incident site with the accused minor to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the September 8 murder.

The agency officials are said to have taken the accused, whose name is being withheld, to the Sohna Market, where he is said to have purchased the knife used in the murder of seven-year-old Pradhuman Thakur.
Varanasi: Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat on Friday claimed that there is no shortage of arms in the Indian Army.

"The Army has no shortage of arms. We have to keep modernizing weapons, arms as the technology are upgrading, and we are trying to bring in new and modernised technique ones in our Army," General Rawat told the media after attending the bicentenary celebration of 9 Gorkha Rifles at 39 Gorkha Training Centre here.

General Rawat also informed that stone pelting incidents in the valley have decreased.

"Stone pelting incidents have come down to some extent. The Army, the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Jammu and Kashmir Police are working together in the state. Solution to this can't be achieved overnight. The government, intelligence agencies, state administration all are making efforts. Will be successful if things go in this direction, can say this with belief," he said.

Speaking on nomination of late Field Marshal KM Cariappa for Bharat Ratna General Rawat said, "Final decision depends on the Government, whatever is decided will be acceptable."

Earlier in the day, General Rawat visited the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi with his family and prayed for the safety of soldiers on borders.

"Prayed for the safety and security of our jawans on borders," he said.

The Army Chief was on a two-day visit in Varanasi along with his family members to attend the bicentenary celebration of 9 Gorkha Rifles at 39 Gorkha Training Centre.
New Delhi: In an unusual action, the Supreme Court on Friday axed an order passed by a bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar to set up a constitution bench to hear a plea for a SIT probe into graft allegation involving a retired Orissa High Court judge, amidst high drama involving noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, Chief Justice Dipak Misra and fellow lawyers.



A five-judge constitution bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice RK Agrawal, Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Amitava Roy and Justice AM Khanwilkar said that the CJI was the "Master of Rolls" and he alone can assign cases to different benches and decide the composition of benches.



After a 90-minute hearing, the bench cited its 1998 judgement that had held that the Chief Justice of a High Court was the master of roll and said that same applied in the case of the top court.



The bench also referred to the convention in this respect.



Having said that the Chief Justice of India being the head of the top court was the "Master of Rolls", the five-judge bench in its order said that any order passed contrary to this will be "inactive in law and shall not be binding".



Complaining that he was not being allowed to speak, an emotional Prashant Bhushan told the bench it can do whatever it wanted, as fellow lawyers heckled him while he was leaving.



The hearing that started with Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha addressing the bench first, saw senior lawyers including SCBA president Rupinder Singh Suri, its secretary Gaurav Bhatia, senior counsel Ajit Sinha, Ashok Bhan, Supreme Court Advocate on Record president Gopal Singh, and other lawyers training their guns at Prashant Bhushan for raking up cases hurting the credibility of the Supreme Court as an institution.



However, an unrelenting Bhushan reiterated the plea that Chief Justice Misra should not be part of the bench hearing pleas seeking an SIT probe into the role of a retired Orissa High Court judge and pointed fingers at the CJI.



As Bhushan lost his cool in the initial stages of the hearing and levelled allegations against the CJI, Justice Arun Mishra told him that his "conduct was not proper".



"Mr. Bhushan you conduct is not proper. That is all we can say," Justice Arun Mishra told Bhushan.



"No condemnation in the court. We are not here for this," Justice Mishra said as some lawyers sought to condemn the conduct of Bhushan.



As some lawyers wanted the bench to haul up Bhushan for contempt, CJI Misra said, "He is not worth contempt." However, he remarked that "the court can't function like this".



The Chief Justice rejected the suggestion that media be restrained from reporting the proceedings and that it be held in-camera.



"I am not going to pass any order to restrain media. I hold the freedom of speech and expression in the highest regard," Chief Justice Misra said.



Friday's order came a day after the two-judge bench headed by Justice Chelameswar, the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice of India, ordered the setting up of a five-judge contitution bench to hear on Monday a corruption case involving former Orissa High Court judge, I.M. Quddusi.



Quddusi, an Orissa High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, is alleged to have helped a private medical college to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.



The judge was arrested in September and is lodged in Tihar Jail here after CBI accused him of guiding the private medical college and assuring its management of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court.



A petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal on Thursday sought an investigation into the case by a court-monitored Special Investigation Team. The petition was taken up for hearing by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar.



Jaiswal's petition was filed even as a plea by the NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms seeking a similar probe in the case was already listed before the bench headed by Justice A.K. Sikri.



The five-judge bench on Friday said the two petitions will be heard by an appropriate bench after two weeks and there will be no more hearing in the case till then.



Earlier in the day, the bench of Justice Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan took exception to the manner in which the second petition by Jaiswal was filed, and was heard by the bench headed by Justice Chelameswar. The bench of Justice Sikri and Justice Bhushan asked advocate Prashant Bhushan as to what was the urgency.



Making it clear that they were not underestimating the seriousness of the matter, the court in its order said that let the appropriate order be passed to tag the petition with the one by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, which was referred to a five-judges constitution bench on Thursday by the bench of Justice Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.



Pleading ignorance about the second petition, Bhushan said that since the allegations were in respect of the matter heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Misra, he should not have exercised his administrative and judicial authority.



Referring to the FIR filed by the CBI in the matter, Bhushan said, "Whole conspiracy was to bribe the bench hearing the (medical college) matter". At this, Justice Sikri said that whether the Chief Justice should have dealt with the matter or stayed away should have been left to him.



"The request that the Chief Justice should not deal with the matter should have been made to him. He should have decided," said Justice Sikri.



Expressing its displeasure, the court on Friday allowed the Supreme Court Bar Association to implead itself in the matter before the five-judges bench.
NEW DELHI: The controversy surrounding Padmavati is refusing to die down. After the Supreme Court dismissed a petition against the release of the movie, BJP lawmaker Subramanian Swamy had a few statements to make on it.

Dubai residents want Muslim kings to be presented as heroes in our movies and Hindu women eager to enter into relationships with them, said Swamy, further adding, We should keep tabs on fact if there's a larger international conspiracy behind it.

Expressing suspicion on the funding of the movie, Swamy asked the Enforcement Directorate to investigate the financing behind the Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie.

Many such films are being made now-a-days. Huge money spent on production... Many such movies started being produced, especially during UPA's rule in the last 10 years. This needs to be stopped, added the BJP leader.

In a huge relief for director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed against the release of his movie Padmavati, over claims of hurting sentiments of the Rajput community.

The plea had alleged that the movie wrongly depicted Rani Padmavati in the movie and distorted and twisted historical facts.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday said it will allow convicted Indian death row prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav to meet his wife, who has been sentenced to death by a military court.

Confirming the development, Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal on Friday said, "The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds, adding that "a Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Islamabad has said that Jadhav, allegedly an officer with the Indian Navy and attached to the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was arrested on March 3, 2016 after he crossed illegally into Pakistan.

Friday's statement also said Jadhav had "confessed" in a Pakistani court "that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organise espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan".

In a rare move, Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in April on charges of espionage and terrorism. The International Court of Justice in May halted his execution on Indias appeal.

India had requested for a Pakistani visa for Jadhavs mother, Avantika, who wanted to meet her son in Pakistan. Pakistan has repeatedly denied India consular access to Jadhav on the ground that it was not applicable in cases related to spies.

Jadhav has filed an appeal with Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa to seek clemency, which is still pending.

Earlier, the Pakistan Army had said it is close to a decision on the mercy petition of Jadhav.

The Jadhav case was taken to the world court on May 8 by India, which accused Pakistan of violating the Vienna Convention and conducting a "farcical trial" for convicting Jadhav without a "shred of evidence".

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested him from restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhavs sentencing has evoked a sharp reaction in India. After India approached the ICJ, a 10-member bench on May 18 restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav till adjudication of the case.

The ICJ has asked Pakistan to submit its response or memorial by December 13 before the court could start further proceedings in the case.
Travel for commuters in all DTC and cluster buses will be free during the third phase of the Odd-Even scheme, which will be applicable for five days starting November 13, the Aam Aadmi Party government has said.

By India Today Web Desk: The Delhi government today said travel for commuters in all DTC and cluster buses will be free during the third phase of the Odd-Even scheme, which will be applicable for five days starting November 13.

"The Delhi government will allow free travel for commuters in all the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and its cluster buses during the Odd-Even scheme," Delhi's Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot told PTI.

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The Odd-Even scheme will be rolled out in Delhi for five days from November 13 to November 17. The scheme will be in place from 8 am to 8 pm. There will be exemptions for women drivers and two-wheelers.

According to official data, DTC buses carry around 35 lakh passengers every day. Since the Aam Aadmi Party came to power, the DTC has not been able to purchase any new bus.

As per rough estimates, about 13 lakh cars will go off the roads every day during the operation of the Odd-Even scheme.

Gahlot had also said on Thursday that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has also promised to provide 100 small buses during the period.

The DMRC will run 3,335 trips as against 3,248 trips it ran during the second phase of the odd-even drive during April 2016.

WATCH VIDEO | Odd-Even traffic rule set to return to Delhi for five-day from November 13-17

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hailed the recommendations made by the GST Council and said that it will further benefit the people and strengthen the tax regime.

Modi also said public participation was at the core of the government's functioning and that all its decisions were "people-friendly and people-centric".

The PM took to Twitter and tweeted his reactions on the decision taken by the GST Council today.

The recommendations made by the GST Council today will further benefit our citizens and add strength to the GST. These recommendations are in spirit of the continuous feedback we are getting from various stakeholders on GST.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 10, 2017

"The recommendations made by the GST Council today will further benefit our citizens and add strength to the GST. These recommendations are in the spirit of the continuous feedback we are getting from various stakeholders on GST," he tweeted.

PM Modi stressed that the government was working "tirelessly" for the country's economic integration.

Reactions from the PM came shortly after the GST Council decided to cut tax rates on over 200 items, ranging from chewing gum to chocolates, to beauty products, wigs, and wrist watches.

The measures were taken to provide relief to consumers and businesses amid the economic slowdown, the GST Council.

The Council met in Assam's Guwahati earlier in the day.

As many as 178 items of daily use were shifted from the top tax bracket of 28 percent to 18 percent, while a uniform 5 percent tax was prescribed for all restaurants, both air-conditioned and non-AC, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after the GST Council meeting.

Currently, 12 percent GST on food bill is levied in non-AC restaurants and 18 percent in the air-conditioned ones. All these got input tax credit, a facility to set off tax paid on inputs with final tax.

The GST, implemented from July 1, has five tax slabs of 0 percent, 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent.

With PTI inputs
NEW DELHI: In a huge relief for director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed against the release of his movie Padmavati. The petition was filed by a group of persons seeking a stay on the release of the movie which they claim is hurting sentiments of the Rajput community.

The plea had alleged that the movie wrongly depicted Rani Padmavati in the movie and distorted and twisted historical facts. While dismissing the petition, the apex court said that the Censor Board has not yet issued certificate to Padmavati. "It is an independent body and therefore SC should not intervene in their jurisdiction," it said.

There has been a widespread uproar against the movie which is scheduled for release on December 1. Several groups have been protesting against its screening.

BJP member Arjun Gupta on Friday wrote to Home Minister Rajnath Singh urging that Sanjay Leela Bhansali should be tried for treason for distorting history. Gupta, who is the General Secretary of the Uttar Bharatiya Morcha, BJP, said something "disgusting" is being done in the pursuit of earning money and for boosting one's career.



"The whole country, not just the Rajput community, is standing against it. He needs to be severely punished by being tried for treason for his attempt to distort history, so that in future any filmmaker is wary of these kind of projects," he said.


San Francisco: When it comes to gender equality, Apple has a long way to go. According to the company`s annual diversity report only about a third of its employees are women.

The Cupertino-based iPhone maker`s annual "Inclusion & Diversity Report" said, as of July 2017, only 32 per cent of its workforce were women, which is the same level as it was in 2016.

The report is the first since Apple hired Denise Young Smith, former head of HR, as new Vice President to oversee the diversity as workplace, a report in CNET on Friday said.

Apple`s top leadership too, showed little improvement in terms of hiring women.

"In the past year, the number of women in leadership roles rose one percentage point to 29 per cent. That was after staying flat at 28 per cent from 2014 to 2016," the report added.

When it comes to female representation in the company, Apple, however, said "it is steadily increasing".

"For example, 36 per cent of our employees under 30 are women. That`s an increase of five percentage points since 2014," the company said.

Apple is still predominantly run by men who make up 71 per cent of the leaders at the company worldwide.

"White people make up 66 per cent of the leaders at Apple in the US. Only three per cent of Apple`s leaders in the US are black, only seven per cent are Hispanic and just one per cent are multi-racial," TechCrunch reported.

When it came to underrepresented minorities, Apple reported a one percentage point increase to 23 per cent.

"From July 2016 to July 2017, half of our new hires in the US were from historically underrepresented groups in tech -- women, Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander," Apple said.

Apple has 130,000 employees worldwide and 83,000 in the US.

"Diversity is our future. Apple is a multi-generational company with employees from 18 to 85.

"As Apple continues to grow, we`re highly encouraged that our employees under 30 reflect an increasing diversity," Apple said.
San Francisco: Alphabet Inc`s Google unit told US election regulators in a letter seen by Reuters on Thursday that it "strongly supports" tightening rules on online political advertising as part of efforts to curtail "foreign abuse and influence" in elections.

Federal lawmakers have criticized Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc for not doing enough to identify and block Russian agents from buying ads on their services. U.S. authorities say the ads were intended to influence voters during the 2016 presidential election.

U.S. law permits foreign entities to advertise about certain issues if they disclose such spending, but it is unlawful for them to interfere in elections.

In September, the Federal Election Commission, which sets campaign finance rules, voted to consider ensuring that those disclosure rules apply to online activity. It opened a public comment period that is set to expire Monday.

In the letter, Google on Thursday offered its formal response to the FEC`s deliberation.

"Now more than ever, we must work together to improve transparency, enhance disclosures and reduce foreign abuse and influence in U.S. elections," the company wrote.

The stance marks an about-face from 2010 when Google sought an affirmative exemption from a requirement that an ad should state who purchased it. The commission did not reach a consensus on the exemption at the time.

Google now is calling on the commission to extend disclosure rules that apply to TV and print ads to the Web.

"Google strongly supports the commissions proposal to proceed with a rulemaking so that the commission can provide the clarity that campaigns and other political advertisers need to determine what disclaimers they are required to include."

The company, which is the world`s top seller of online ads, also asked federal regulators and lawmakers to expand restrictions on foreign participation in elections to cover content distributed and advertised on the Internet.

Ratifying such provisions could give tech companies guidance on how to treat soft influence, or content from organizations such as RT, a Russian news outlet that has drawn concerns from lawmakers for peddling propaganda on Facebook and Google`s YouTube service.

In its letter, Google also reiterated plans to offer the public a database of election ads purchased through its service. In addition, the company has said information about buyers would be more accessible.

Technology news website Recode first reported the Google letter.
SRINAGAR: Terrorists on Friday fired upon a police vehicle in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district.

The incident took place in Kulgam's Qazigund. However, no injuries have been reported so far.

Further details are awaited.

J&K: Terrorists fire upon Police vehicle in Kulgam's Qazigund. No injuries reported pic.twitter.com/qp9oayVkot  ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

Last week, two police jawans were injured after terrorists attacked a police station in J&K's Pulwama district.

The attack happened at Rajpora police station. Heavy firing was also reported from the place.

In another incident on the same day, terrorists targetted a police party at Imam Sahab in the state's Shopian district.
BENGALURU: While Bengaluru gears up to celebrate 'Tipu Jayanti', the city on Friday is under a thick security blanket.

'Tipu Jayanti' will be celebrated across the state to mark the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan, the 18th-century ruler of the Mysore Kingdom.

Tipu Jayanti is being observed since 2015 following a government decision, which had triggered a major row and caused violence in Kodagu district that year.

Yesterday, the Bengaluru police had ordered restrictions on all kinds of public procession in Karnataka to avoid any untoward incident on the occasion of Tipu Jayanti.

"We are not giving permission to any procession, whether it is in favour of Tipu Jayanti or against it. The government itself is celebrating the event in various parts of the city for which we have made elaborate arrangement," Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar said while addressing the media.

As many as 13,000 policemen, along with personnel of the Garud Commando Force, 30 platoons of the Karnataka State Reserve Police (KSRP) and 20 platoons of the City Armed Reserve (CAR), will be deployed in sensitive and hypersensitive areas to prevent any untoward incident.

He further said that there will be celebrations only at the places identified by the government, adding that the police would deal firmly with those who plan to create trouble.

"We have not made any preventive arrests so far but if the situation rises, section 144 (prohibitory order) may be imposed," Kumar added.

On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court refused to put a stay on Tipu Sultan Jayanti celebrations, slated to be celebrated across the state on November 10.

Earlier, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker from the state Prahlad Joshi had alleged that Tipu Sultan was "anti-Hindu, anti-Kannada and exploited India".

Known as the "Tiger of Mysore", Tipu Sultan ruled the Mysore kingdom from 1782-1799 succeeding his father Hyder Ali.

Though Tipu Sultan was born in 1750 at Devanahalli on the outskirts of Bengaluru, his kingdom's capital was at Srirangapatna near Mysore.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An explosion took place at a building owned by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Kerala's Kannur on Thursday.

The explosive that went off was a country-made bomb

The police suspect that the explosion took place while RSS worker Valayangadan Raghu was making a bomb in the building.

At least 500 gms of gunpowder has been seized from the building, that was apparently used in the bomb-making. Roof tiles and window parts were blown away in the blast. No one was injured in the blast.

Police have registered a complaint against the RSS worker, however, he along with his son managed to escape after the incident.

Last year, a BJP worker lost his life while he was making country-made bombs in Koothuparamba.

In early January this year, several BJP and RSS workers were taken into custody in Kerala in connection with hurling of a bomb at the venue of public meeting of CP(M) state secretary in Kannur.
WAGS who will be in New Zealand cheering for Team India: IN PICS
MUMBAI: As many as 15,000 autorickshaw drivers in Maharashtra's Palghar District went on strike demanding the construction of brake test track that the Bombay High Court this month.

The strike left thousands of commuters stranded.

The Bombay High Court on September 14, had granted time till April end next year to provide 250-meter-long tracks to conduct brake tests of vehicles in all Regional Transport Offices (RTOs).

A division bench of justice Abhay Oka and justice Riyaz Chagla was hearing Srikant Karves PIL alleging that RTO officers were issuing fitness certificates to various vehicles without mandatory checks laid down under the Motor Vehicles Act.

"We have been told to visit Kalyan RTO for the brake test despite the closest being Vasai RTO. The government should ensure that they construct the track as soon as possible so that we do not suffer. The strike is called against the government for failing to develop the brake test track.", said Vijay Khetle, President, Auto Rickshaw Taxi Chalak Mahasangh.

"The Public Works Department should allocate the land and develop the track. Thousands of new transport vehicle owners will have to go to Kalyan and get the test conducted which will be a major hassle.", said Khetle.

(With DNA inputs)
BEIJING: United States President Donald Trump has hailed his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as a "highly respected and powerful representative of his people" and called his meeting with him "very productive" on both trade and the subject of North Korea.

"My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan!" Trump said in a tweet.

President Trump also accused his predecessors for the US' annual trade deficit with China. "I don't blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the US is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would`ve done same!" Trump tweeted.

Trump visited China as part of a nearly two-week tour through Asia and sought to convince president Xi to do more to reduce a trade deficit with China and rein in nuclear-armed North Korea.

Trump is scheduled to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vietnam and a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the Philippines during the trip.

His warm tone during the visit contrasted sharply to the rhetoric of his 2016 presidential campaign, in which he repeatedly attacked China, saying at one rally that "We can';t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they`re doing. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world".

The two countries also announced memorandums of understanding to increase trade by $253 billion, which the leaders said was a sign of greater cooperation. The deals include purchases of Boeing aircraft, Ford automobiles, US soybeans and joint development of liquified natural gas in Alaska.
"The Odd-Even formula cannot be imposed like this. Nothing has been done from your end since the past one year", the green panel said in its review meeting.

By India Today Web Desk: In a major rap to the Arvind Kejriwal government over its decision to implement the Odd-Even scheme in Delhi next week, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) today questioned why the traffic scheme has been implemented when pollution control bodies have called it "ineffective".

"The Odd-Even formula cannot be imposed like this. Nothing has been done from your end since the past one year," the green panel bench headed by chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said in its review meeting of the Odd-Even order, which is scheduled to be implemented next week from November 13 to 17.

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"The Supreme Court never asked for the imposition of this scheme. The SC and NGT have suggested 100 measures to curb pollution, but you have always opted for Odd-Even. The Delhi government will have to justify the implementation of this scheme", the NGT said.

"When the situation is improving, the government is trying to implement it. You should have done this earlier if you wanted to. This will now cause inconvenience to people", it said.

ODD-EVEN DIDN'T BRING DOWN POLLUTION, CPCB TO NGT

On April 21 last year, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had told the NGT that there was no data to suggest that the odd-even scheme has led to a decline in vehicular pollution in Delhi-NCR.

The pollution monitoring body had said that there was no data to indicate that car rationing scheme has any impact on decrease in vehicular pollution and the fluctuations in PM10 (particulate matter) and PM2.5 is due to weather and change in wind patterns.

The NGT asked the Delhi government to give an undertaking that it will roll out the Odd-Even scheme only when particulate matter levels are over 300. It also asked the Delhi government to prove whether the Odd-Even scheme has reduced pollution, "or else NGT will stay the imposition of the scheme".

The hearing on the matter will continue on Saturday.

ALSO WATCH VIDEO | Odd-Even traffic rule set to return to Delhi for five-day from November 13-17

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: 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.

On Friday, NASA released a stunning image of Jupiter's southern hemisphere captured by Juno.

The colour-enhanced view captures one of the white ovals in the "String of Pearls," one of eight massive rotating storms at 40 degrees south latitude on the gas giant planet, NASA said.

The image was taken on October 24, as Juno performed its ninth close flyby of Jupiter.

At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was 33,115 kilometres from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of minus 52.96 degrees.

Launched on August 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Juno arrived in orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.

During its mission of exploration, Juno soars low over the planet's cloud tops. 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.

(With IANS inputs)
CHENNAI: After Kamal Haasan, now Tamil superstar Rajinikanth is likely to announce his political debut on his birthday on December 12.

Media reports suggest the veteran actor will neither join the right wing nor the left wing. Rather, he would form his own party.

In August, Rajini first hinted about his entry into politics.

On Tuesday, Tamil film icon Kamal Haasan launched a mobile application to get in touch with his fans, pretty much confirming that he would soon float his own party.

"There is no going back," he declared. The actor further said that the groundwork needs to be done before making any announcement.

Kamal, who has been vocal about his political debut, had said he would join hands with superstar Rajinikanth if the latter enters politics.
HYDERABAD: A language war has broken out in Telangana over the declaration of Urdu as the states second official language. The announcement made by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has been roundly blasted by both the BJP and the Congress as appeasement politics.

Rao, or KCR as he is referred to, had made the announcement in the Telangana Assembly on Thursday.



'Urdu as a second language has been a demand for a long time, he said. I am declaring, not considering districts as a unit but the state as a unit, in the entire Telangana State, Urdu will now be practised as the second official language,'' he said.



Rao, also known as KCR, even asked all government offices  from the Chief Ministers Office to District Collectorate - to receive all petitions in Urdu as well.



The Chief Minister told the Assembly that the demand to make Urdu a second language has been there for a long time. KCR further said that every office in the state will have an Urdu speaking officer henceforth.



The Hyderabad-based AIMIM  which wields considerable influence in the city and other Muslim dominated areas across the state  has hailed the move and praised the CM for fulfilling its long pending demand.



Besides making Urdu as the second official language, KCR has even promised to hike reservation for Muslims under the OBC category.



At a previous occasion, KCR had stated that his party TRS will raise its proposal to hike reservations to backward sections among Muslims in Parliament and could also approach Supreme Court on the matter.
BEIJING: Ahead of the next round of border talks with India, China on Friday said both sides have "made great efforts" in resolving their dragging boundary dispute and the "mechanism" of special representative talks was working "very well."



The 20th round of Sino-India boundary talks is to be held in New Delhi next month.



The boundary talks will be the first after an over two-month military stand-off between India and China in the Sikkim section that began in mid-June this year, and saw a slide in ties.



"As you know both the Chinese and Indian leaders attach great importance to the boundary issue and we have made great efforts for many years to resolve this issue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.



China's State Councillor, the country's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and India's National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will hold the talks under the Special Representatives mechanism which was set up to solve the border issue between the two countries.



The 19th border talks were held in April 2016.



"Special Representatives on boundaries from both sides have had 19 meetings to fully exchanges views and made positive progress. Now, this mechanism is working very well and the two sides will decide the date and time of this year`s meeting in due course."



India and China have a de-facto boundary of 3,488 km.



While China claims India`s Arunachal Pradesh as its own, New Delhi lays claim to Aksai Chin held by Beijing.


DANANG: US President Donald Trump set out a strong message on trade at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries in Vietnam on Friday, saying the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.

Trump said the United States was ready to make a bilateral deal with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but only on the basis of "mutual respect and mutual benefit".

"When the United States enters into a trading relationship with other countries or other peoples, we will from now on expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules," he said in the seaside resort of Danang.

"We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment," he said in a speech ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders.

Trump arrived in Vietnam from China on the fourth leg of a 12-day trip to Asia. Redressing the balance of trade between Asia and the United States is at the centre of Trump's "America First" policy he says will protect US workers.

The difference between Trump's and China's approaches was made more stark by comments in a later speech from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who said globalisation was an irreversible trend and voiced support for multilateral trade deals.

While China has by far the biggest trade surplus with the United States, Vietnam is also on the list of those surpluses the Trump administration seeks to reduce.

APEC, which has long championed free trade, has itself been convulsed by the changes under Trump.

Since Trump abandoned the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal early in his presidency, the remaining 11 members have struggled to build momentum to keep it alive.

Leaders of TPP countries are due to meet on Friday after talks among ministers ended in confusion on Thursday with Japan`s economy minister saying that they "agree in principle" and his Canadian counterpart saying that was not true.

Trump broke early with the "Pivot to Asia" of the Obama administration, worrying some traditional allies that he would allow China to extend its increasing dominance.

SOUTH CHINA SEA

Danang itself sits on the shore of the South China Sea, one of the region`s biggest security headaches and where China`s neighbours challenge its sweeping claim to most of the waterway as having no basis in law.

Trump said the region's future depended on upholding "freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes". He also mentioned "territorial expansion" among evils such as drugs, people smuggling and terrorism.

Vietnam has become one of the most vocal critics of China's claims in the South China Sea and its construction of artificial islands.

In a sign of possible competition with China's grand Belt and Road plan, Trump said he would push the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to fund infrastructure development and would reform U.S. development finance institutions.

Trump said that would "provide strong alternatives to state directed initiatives that come with many strings attached".

"Above all, we seek friendship and we dont dream of domination," he said.

Although he was addressing a meeting alongside the summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, Trump repeatedly referred to the Indo-Pacific region and mentioned the importance of India in his speech.

Danang has a special place in US-Vietnamese history: it was where the first U.S. ground troops disembarked in 1965 in the escalation of a war that would last another decade before the communist victory.

Danang was close to some of the heaviest fighting and its air base was the route through which many Americans of Trump`s generation were sent to the war.

Trump himself did not serve, receiving five deferments - one for bone spurs in his heel.


US President Donald Trump will not hold a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam, the White House said Friday.

Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the city of Danang and there had been mixed messages about whether a face-to-face was on the cards.

"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters minutes before Air Force One touched down in the Vietnamese beach resort city.

On Thursday Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two would hold a meeting with the time and place still to be determined.

But hours later US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been taken.

The White House press secretary`s comments shortly before arrival in Danang appear to end any speculation that a bilateral meeting will take place over the next two days.

The two men last met at the G20 summit in Germany in July.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump`s former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials.

Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power.
DANANG: US President Donald Trump hailed the contribution of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Indo-Pacific region. "In the broader region, countries outside APEC are also making great strides in this chapter for the Indo-Pacific," he said in a speech at the APEC CEO summit in Vietnam on Friday.

"India is celebrating its 70th anniversary. It's a sovereign democracy, as well as, think of this, one of over one billion people is the largest democracy in the world. Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunity for its expanding middle class, and Prime Minister Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people together as one, and he's working at it very, very successfully indeed," he added.

In more and more places throughout this region, citizens of SOVEREIGN and INDEPENDENT nations have taken greater control of their destinies, and unlocked the potential of their people. #APEC2017 pic.twitter.com/a570IIGe0I  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2017

He added that the US was ready to make a bilateral deal with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but only on the basis of "mutual respect and mutual benefit".

Sending a strong message on trade, Trump said that the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.

"When the United States enters into a trading relationship with other countries or other peoples, we will from now on expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules," he said in the seaside resort of Danang.

"We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment," he said in a speech ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders.

Trump arrived in Vietnam from China on the fourth leg of a 12-day trip to Asia. Redressing the balance of trade between Asia and the United States is at the centre of Trump's "America First" policy he says will protect US workers.
BEIJING: As US President Donald Trump left Beijing bound for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam on Friday, first lady Melania stayed behind to play tourist, viewing pandas at the zoo and visiting the Great Wall of China.

At the Beijing Zoo, the 47-year-old former model fed a giant panda named Gu Gu and learned about his nutrition and training.

She greeted a group of school children waving miniature Chinese and American flags, handing out stuffed toy eagles after watching the children sing a Chinese folk song in front of the panda enclosure. "Thank you very much," she said.

Melania then signed a panda print, writing: "Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu! Melania Trump".

Melania will later on Friday visit the Mutianyu section of the more than 20,000 km (12,400 mile) long Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As with previous first ladies, Melania has used her platform to champion public causes such as the prevention of childhood bullying and combating the opioid epidemic in the United States.

Playing a prominent supporting role on the president`s multi-leg Asia visit, she gained traction on Chinese social media with netizens comparing her with China's glamorous first lady Peng Liyuan and remarking on the apparent ease with which she navigated the ancient cobblestones of the Forbidden City in super-high stilettos upon their arrival in Beijing on Wednesday.

Accompanied by Peng, Melania watched a cultural performance, painted pandas and participated in a cooking class at a primary school on Thursday.

Many on China's Twitter-like Weibo praised Melania`s grace and sense of style - as well as her cultural sensitivity.

While in China, she largely appeared in austere coats and dark gowns from Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen, in contrast with the magenta Delpozo outfit and electric-blue heels she wore upon landing in South Korea days before.

But most in China said they remained bigger fans of their own first lady, who is often referred to affectionately online as Peng Mama, which roughly translates as Mother Peng.

"I still think Mama oozes more grace, while also exuding a motherly air!" one Weibo post said.

Chinese social media sites are typically policed even more heavily than normal during important political events, with negative or sensitive comments swiftly blocked or removed by internet censors.

As Donald Trump departed Beijing on Friday, he said on Twitter that his wife`s next stop after China would be Alaska where she would "greet our AMAZING troops".

However, Trump's daughter and advisor Ivanka, who is very popular in China, did not accompany her father in Beijing, to the disappointment of her Chinese fans.
Beirut: Islamic State group jihadists have retaken nearly half of Albu Kamal in eastern Syria in a counter-attack on what had been the last significant town under their full control, a monitor said Friday.

"IS started counter-attacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal," Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

Syrian regime forces and allied fighters had recaptured the town, which lies on the border with Iraq in the eastern Deir Ezzor province, from the jihadists on Thursday.

Albu Kamal lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling "caliphate" the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

"The jihadists went back in and retook several neighbourhoods in the north, northeast and northwest," Abdel Rahman said. "IS is trying to defend its last bastion."

The jihadist organisation has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqa and Deir Ezzor.

Albu Kamal was the last town of note it controlled and losing it would cap the group`s reversion to an underground guerrilla organisation with no urban base.

According to Syria state TV, regime and auxiliary forces had retake full control of it by Thursday.

The Observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.
COLUMBUS, US: Ohio State University has accused 83 undergraduate students of cheating on classwork using a group messaging app.

The school says the students violated the code of conduct for "unauthorised collaboration on graded assignments."

A university spokesman says the use of group messaging apps is permitted, but is subject to the same rules as any other communication.

The university's Committee on Academic Misconduct investigated after a professor in the business school reported the allegations in April.

Potential penalties range from warnings to expulsion.


By India Today Web Desk: Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have never worked together post their bitter break-up over a decade and a half ago, and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's dream to recreate their famous Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam chemistry remains a distant dream.

It is common knowledge that Salman and Aishwarya were the original choice for Bajirao Mastani. The project was on the back burner for years because the exes refused to share screen space with each other, and the filmmaker was unwilling to make the period drama with anyone else. Eventually, he made the film in 2015 with Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone.

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Apparently, Salman and Aishwarya were also the first choices for Padmavati. Sanjay Leela Bhansali approached his favourite on-screen couple a few years ago and almost succeeded in getting them on board. The only catch was, Aishwarya laid down a condition - she would sign the film only if Salman played the role of the antagonist Alauddin Khilji, who has no scenes with her.

Salman was keen on working with Aishwarya, but did not agree to her condition. He wanted to be paired opposite her in a love story that would remind fans of their Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam days. He was unwilling to settle for a film where he wouldn't share any screen space with her.

Incidentally, real-life couple Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone were then roped in for Padmavati, but the two are not paired opposite each other. While Deepika will play the beautiful Mallika-e-Chittor Rani Padmini, Ranveer will play the barbaric invader Alauddin Khilji who is obsessed with her, so much so, that he sets out to capture her. It is Shahid Kapoor who plays Maharawal Ratan Singh, the husband of Deepika's character.

But casting Ranveer and Deepika in these roles has not come without its share of trouble. Speculation was rife that Sanjay Leela Bhansali would capitalise on their jodi by incorporating a romantic dream sequence between them, a rumour that the film is bearing the brunt of even today.

Political groups have been violently protesting against Padmavati for its 'distortion of history', never mind the countless denials issued by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the team that no such scene is part of the film. As of now, the film's fate hangs in the balance, with several groups determined to put a violent end to the film if it sees the light of day.

ALSO WATCH: Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrashed, sets of Padmavati vandalised by Karni Sena

--- ENDS ---
US First Lady Melania Trump hiked the Great Wall and spent some time with a couple of China`s most prominent diplomats in Beijing on Friday: the pandas Meng`er and Gu Gu.

While President Donald Trump jetted off to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China, his wife stayed behind to see the Beijing Zoo`s favourite tenants before heading to the Great Wall.

The former model was greeted by a group of schoolchildren who waved Chinese and American flags and led her to the panda enclosure.

They oohed and aahed as Meng`er crawled on to a platform and began munching bamboo. His name means "Cute No. 2" in Mandarin.

Melania Trump tours the Great Wall of China pic.twitter.com/03LpevBY5K  Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) November 10, 2017

Trump later "interacted privately" with Gu Gu behind-the-scenes, zoo director Li Xiaoguang told reporters.

Born in 1999, Gu Gu is a "good-looking panda with a robust memory," traits that serve him well as "goodwill ambassador of the zoo", Li said.

Gu Gu`s name doesn`t have a particular meaning, but the repetition of syllables is generally used in China to make names sound adorable.

Beijing has cultivated a global fascination with pandas as part of its diplomacy by sending the animals to overseas zoos where they have proven a wildly popular draw.

In 2015, former US first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan, chose the name for Bei Bei, a panda cub born at the National Zoo in Washington.

Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous southwestern China, have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss. Trump later visited the Great Wall.

After a short cable car ride, she braved the cold weather to spend about half an hour hiking the refurbished Mutianyu section of the famous fortification.

An official told reporters she had said: "This is beautiful. This is amazing."

Donald Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall, despite it being a usual stop for US presidents.

China treated the Trumps to a lavish state visit with a private tour of the Forbidden City on Wednesday and a banquet dinner on Thursday.

The president wrote on Twitter that his wife would later fly to Alaska to meet with US troops.

The US leader was in Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit and he will then head to the Philippines on Sunday for the final leg of his five-nation tour of Asia.


Beijing: US First Lady Melania Trump hiked the Great Wall and spent some time with a couple of China's most prominent diplomats in Beijing on Friday: The pandas Meng'er and Gu Gu.

While President Donald Trump jetted off to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China, his wife stayed behind to see the Beijing Zoo's favourite tenants before heading to the Great Wall.

The former model was greeted by a group of schoolchildren who waved Chinese and American flags and led her to the panda enclosure.

They oohed and aahed as Meng'er crawled on to a platform and began munching bamboo. His name means "Cute No 2" in Mandarin.

Trump later "interacted privately" with Gu Gu behind- the-scenes, zoo director Li Xiaoguang told reporters.

Born in 1999, Gu Gu is a "good-looking panda with a robust memory," traits that serve him well as "goodwill ambassador of the zoo", Li said.

Gu Gu's name doesn't have a particular meaning, but the repetition of syllables is generally used in China to make names sound adorable.

Beijing has cultivated a global fascination with pandas as part of its diplomacy by sending the animals to overseas zoos where they have proven a wildly popular draw.

In 2015, former US first lady Michelle Obama and her Chinese counterpart, Peng Liyuan, chose the name for Bei Bei, a panda cub born at the National Zoo in Washington.

Pandas, whose natural habitat lies in mountainous southwestern China, have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss.

Trump later visited the Great Wall.

After a short cable car ride, she braved the cold weather to spend about half an hour hiking the refurbished Mutianyu section of the famous fortification.

An official told reporters she had said: "This is beautiful. This is amazing."

Donald Trump, who wants to build his own massive wall along the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration, did not visit the Great Wall, despite it being a usual stop for US presidents.

China treated the Trumps to a lavish state visit with a private tour of the Forbidden City on Wednesday and a banquet dinner yesterday.

The president wrote on Twitter that his wife would later fly to Alaska to meet with US troops.

The US leader was in Vietnam for an Asia-Pacific summit and he will then head to the Philippines on Sunday for the final leg of his five-nation tour of Asia.
Two years after the deadliest terror attacks in modern French history, the only surviving suspect to take part in the carnage in Paris remains an enigma.

Captured after four months on the run following a massive international manhunt, Salah Abdeslam is now France`s most closely guarded detainee.

But the 28-year-old petty criminal-turned-jihadist has not been the goldmine of information investigators have hoped for: he refuses to talk.

Abdeslam`s role in the events leading up to November 13, 2015, when Islamic State jihadists armed with guns and bombs killed 130 people enjoying a Friday night out, has yet to be fully understood.

His suicide belt was found in the southern Paris suburbs several days after the bloodshed.

Did he change his mind about blowing himself up, as he told friends before he was finally arrested in Brussels? Or was the device defective?

Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin, is known to have played a key role in organising logistics for the attacks, renting cars and hideouts and helping several jihadists get into Europe via the migrant trail.

And the sprawling investigation has revealed links to the jihadists involved in the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016 -- four days after his arrest.

What is infuriating for investigators -- and for the families of victims seeking answers -- is Abdeslam`s refusal to cooperate since French authorities charged him last year with terrorist murders.

His silence has even prompted his lawyers, Frank Berton of France and Sven Mary of Belgium, to abandon his defence.Jailed in Europe`s biggest prison at Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, Abdeslam is being held in solitary confinement and monitored around the clock in his cell.

In recent months the conditions of his detention have been slightly relaxed after signs that his mental health was deteriorating.

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet on Thursday confirmed fears he could commit suicide -- something that the victims` families want to avoid, eager to see him stand trial.

"We are doing everything to make that impossible," Belloubet told LCI television, saying Abdeslam had now been granted a window and limited contact with others.He has received letters in prison -- sometimes praising his actions -- and responded to some of them, including to a woman whom he reportedly told: "I`m not ashamed of who I am."

Abdeslam surprised many by offering to appear at a separate trial in Belgium for the attempted murder of police officers injured in a shootout at an apartment in the Brussels neighbourhood of Forest, three days before his capture.

He is believed to have fled during the shootout before finally being captured across the city in Molenbeek, where he once ran a bar with his brother Brahim, one of the Paris suicide bombers.

The Brussels trial is due to take place from December 18-22, with a Paris appeals court expected to rule soon on whether to give the greenlight for Abdeslam`s temporary transfer.

It remains to be seen whether he will break his silence at the trial, and some of the victims` lawyers fear he will use it as an opportunity to avoid being sent back to France.

"Why would this guy, who isn`t talking to investigators in France, demand to be sent to trial in Belgium?" said Gerard Chemla, lawyer for some of the plaintiffs.

"We should ask ourselves `is this is an attempt to escape from French authorities?`"

A date for Abdeslam`s French trial -- expected to be one of the most closely watched in decades -- has not yet been set.
An Italian priest prompted outrage Thursday by going on Facebook to tell a girl who said she had been raped that it was her fault for getting drunk and hanging around with immigrants.

"I`m sorry but if you swim in the piranha tank you cannot complain if you lose a limb," Lorenzo Guidotti, a parish priest in Bologna wrote on the social media site, according to Italian media reports.

In a lengthy rant he chastised the underage girl, who had told police she had been raped by a North African man she had met in the city while drunk.

She said she was attacked by him and woke up later, half naked and with her bag gone.

"Sweetie, I`m sorry, but... you get revoltingly drunk... and then who do you go off with? A North African?" the priest said in the post, which was published by Italy`s main papers on their websites.

"Do you understand that, along with the alcohol, you`ve gulped down the ideological tirade about `welcoming everyone`?" he said in a reference to those who support Italy giving needy migrants shelter.

"Darling, at this point, waking up semi-naked is the least that could happen to you," he added.

The Facebook post was only visible to Guidotti`s friends, but was picked up and published by Radio Citta del Capo on its website, from where it went viral.

The Bologna archdiocese distanced itself from the priest, saying his opinion "in no way reflects that of the Church, which condemns every sort of violence".

Guidotti first claimed he had not been attacking the girl personally, just "trying to make kids and their parents think". He later apologised unreservedly to the victim and her family, La Repubblica daily said.
HOUSTON: Texas shooter Devin Kelley, who killed 26 people inside a church, bought animals from an advertisements website and had used dogs as "target practice", according to the gunman's former Air Force colleague.

Jessika Edwards, who worked with Kelley at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 to 2012, said the 26-year- old shooter had displayed a fascination with mass murders while he was enlisted in the Air Force.

"He would make jokes about wanting to kill somebody. And we would say, 'wait, that's not funny'," Edwards was quoted as saying.

She said Kelley told her he was "using the dogs as target practice".

Edwards said Kelley had revealed to her that he had bought animals on Craigslist with the sole intention of killing them.

The morbid admission came in Facebook messages starting in 2014, she said, after the two reconnected in civilian life.

She said Kelley's obsession for killing was so pronounced that when he was disciplined for poor performance she told her bosses to "back off or he would shoot the place up".

"He was always getting into trouble. It was problem after problem," Edwards was quoted as saying in the report.

A law enforcement source close to the Texas shooting investigation confirmed to the channel that the FBI agents interviewed Edwards about her interactions with the gunman.

In 2012, Kelley was court-martialed and convicted for assaulting his wife and stepson. Edwards said those domestic problems boiled over on the job and he would come in depressed and unfocused.

"He threatened to kill himself one time if I didn't let him go see a chaplain," Edwards said, adding that as a staff sergeant she supervised Kelley.

Armed with a powerful assault rifle and wearing black a tactical-style gear, Kelly opened fire on worshippers at a Sunday service inside a rural church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing at least 26 people and injuring 20 others, once again triggering a heated national debate on the need for stricter gun control laws.


Dubai: Iran manufactured the ballistic missile fired by Yemen's Shiite rebels toward the Saudi capital and remnants of it bore "Iranian markings," the top US Air Force official in the Mideast said today, backing the kingdom's earlier allegations.

The comments by Lt General Jeffrey L Harrigian, who oversees the Air Force's Central Command in Qatar, further internationalizes the yearslong conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

Saudi Arabia long has accused Iran of supplying weapons to the Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, though Tehran has just as long denied supplying them.

"There have been Iranian markings on those missiles," Harrigian told journalists at a news conference in Dubai ahead of the Dubai Air Show. "To me, that connects the dots to Iran."

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

Saudi Arabia says it shot down the missile November 4 near Riyadh's international airport, the deepest yet to reach into the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry later said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving "the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them."

It did not elaborate, though it also mentioned it found similar evidence after a July 22 missile launch. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly this week described the missile as "obviously" Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement Tuesday that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant.

Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Islamic State group militants in Syria over twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile they believed it was. He also didn't explain how Iran evaded the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition, which intensified after the missile targeting Riyadh.

"How they got it there is probably something that will continue to be investigated over time," the lieutenant general said. "What has been demonstrated and shown based on the findings of that missile is that it had Iranian markings on it. That in itself provides evidence of where it came from."

The Houthis have described using Burkan-2 or "Volcano" Scud variants in their recent attacks, including the one November 4. Those finless missiles are reminiscent of the Qiam, wrote Jeremy Binnie of Jane's Defense Weekly in a February analysis.

"The Burkan-2 is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran is helping Yemen's rebel forces to develop their ballistic missile capabilities," Binnie wrote.

Adding to that suspicion is the fact that Yemen's missile forces previously never had experience in disassembling and rebuilding the weapons, said Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy who previously worked in Yemen.

It is "not a stretch to believe that Tehran is supporting the Houthi missile program with technical advice and specialized components," Knights wrote in an analysis Thursday. "After all, the Houthis have rapidly fielded three major new missile systems in less than two years while under wartime conditions and international blockade."
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has been asked by US Congressional leaders to develop a "forward-looking" strategy to form an enduring defence relationship with India.

Congressional leaders reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA-2018) also asked the US and India to work closely in Afghanistan.

The new version of the NDAA-2018 requires the Secretary of Defence to "develop a forward-looking strategy" that would build upon current objectives and goals, underlining a mutual desire to develop an enduring defence relationship with India".

According to it, the US and India "should work closely with Afghanistan" to promote stability in the region to include targeted infrastructure development and economic investment, means to address capability gaps in country, and improved humanitarian and disaster relief assistance.

The US Congress in its last NDAA-2017 had designated India as a 'Major Defence Partner'.

In its latest conference report, the Congressional leaders on Thursday said that the designation of 'Major Defence Partner' is unique to India, and institutionalises the progress made to facilitate defence trade and technology cooperation between the United States and India to a level commensurate with the closest allies and partners of America.

"The designation promotes joint exercises, defence strategy and policy coordination, military exchanges, and port calls in support of defence cooperation between the United States and India," it said.

Reconciled version of the NDAA-2018 now heads to the House and Senate floor for formal approval, before it is sent to the White House for US President Donald Trump to sign it into a law.

Among other things, it asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Defence Secretary Jim Mattis to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India.
Several Republicans on Thursday urged their party's candidate for a vacant US Senate seat to quit the race if an explosive report that he had a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl is true.

Four women, speaking on the record said that Roy Moore of Alabama pursued them when they were 18 or younger and he was in his early thirties working as an assistant district attorney.

According to the Post, Leigh Corfman, now 53, said when she was 14 Moore took her into his house in the woods near Gadsden, Alabama, removed her shirt and pants, and fondled her over her bra and underpants.

Moore guided her to touch him over his "tight" white underwear, she said.

"I wasn't ready for that," Corfman told the Post.

Moore, who is 70, married for three decades, and the father of four, denied any sexual impropriety. His campaign called the Post story "fake news."

"After over 40 years of public service (by Moore), if any of these allegations were true, they would have been made public long before now," the Moore campaign said in an email to supporters.

Moore, an anti-establishment conservative and former judge, and Democrat Doug Jones face off in a special Senate election December 12 to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now US attorney general.

The stunning accusations by the four women reverberated through Washington.

"If these allegations are true, he must step aside," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. At least a dozen other Republicans followed suit.

Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, immediately declared the allegations "disqualifying" for Moore.

"He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of," McCain said.

But in Alabama, state auditor Jim Zeigler brushed off the bombshell allegations, telling the Washington Examiner "there is nothing to see here" -- and referencing the Bible as a defense.

"Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus," Zeigler told the conservative news outlet. "There's just nothing immoral or illegal here."

"Maybe just a little bit unusual."

Experts have told US media that Alabama's Republican Party or Moore himself could withdraw his name from consideration.

How that happens remained unclear. Alabama law prohibits replacement of a candidate up to 76 days before the election, meaning Moore's name will likely be on the ballot when Alabamians vote next month.

The natural replacement would be Luther Strange, the incumbent senator appointed to succeed Sessions, and whom Moore defeated in the party's September primary. The Post said it interviewed more than 30 people, including mothers and friends of the girls.

It detailed how Gloria Thacker Deason was 18 in 1979 when she and 32-year-old Moore began going on dates where they hugged and kissed, she told the Post.

Wendy Miller said Moore, in the presence of her mother, asked her out on dates when she was 16. Her mother said no, and Miller said she realized years later that the idea of a grown man wanting to date a teenager was "disgusting."

The particulars about Moore's relationship with Corfman, then 14, were the most alarming.

"I wasn't ready for that -- I had never put my hand on a man's penis, much less an erect one," Corfman said.

Moore could have faced prison time, but the statute of limitations has expired, the Post reported.

Moore had a controversial career as a judge, notably for refusing to remove a statue of the Ten Commandments in his court house.

"We are in the midst of a spiritual battle," he said in a fundraising email after the Post story broke.
DALLAS: Sunday school teacher Peggy Warden threw herself in front of her grandson when a gunman opened fire onto the congregation at First Baptist Church, getting fatally shot as she protected the 18-year-old, relatives said.

The teen then shielded a child hiding under a pew.

Warden, 56, was one of more than two dozen people killed in Sunday's shooting at the Sutherland Springs church.

Her grandson Zach Poston was one of about 20 other people injured and described what happened from the San Antonio hospital where he was still recovering yesterday, said Warden's brother Jimmy Stevens.

"Basically, Peggy stood up and just shielded him while the shooter was shooting. And when she got hit in the back he said he turned, because he heard her, and when he turned to see if she was OK, she passed away immediately," Stevens said.

Poston already had been hit in his arms, legs and side, Stevens said, when he saw a small child trying to get out from underneath a pew. So Poston shoved the child back under, Stevens said, and was shot again in the leg.

"So he took what Peggy gave him and he passed it on to help someone else," Stevens told The Associated Press yesterday. He said it's his understanding that the child survived.

Stevens said one of the congregants was a nurse who was able to help bandage Poston, likely keeping the high school senior from bleeding to death.

"He will recover physically at some point; we just don't know what that point will be," Stevens said. "Our prayers and concerns are going to be for him and those others in there because of the mental and heartfelt torture they went through. It's still going to be in their mind," he said.

The gunman shot and killed 25 people at the church.

Authorities have put the official toll at 26, because one of the victims was pregnant. The gunman died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased by bystanders and crashing his car.

Stevens said his sister taught Sunday school, but had only returned to being active in the church in recent months after spending more than a year caring for her husband, who had cancer and died in July.

"Her goal was always to teach children and to make sure she was a disciple," Stevens said, adding, "Her goal was to teach those children so that they grew up with that strength in their heart."
By Siraj Qureshi: Before its release, Padmavati has been embroiled in several controversies, across many states.

The film, starring Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Shahid Kapoor, revolves around the story of Rani Padmini, and the conquest of Chittor by Alauddin Khilji. Several political groups like the Shri Rajput Karni Sena were convinced that there was a love scene between Rani Padmini (Deepika) and Khilji(Ranveer), despite numerous clarifications that there is no truth to the rumour. They are violently protesting the release of the film.

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Agra has not been spared either, despite being the city that boasts of an Islamic heritage with little or no Rajput influence. Hindu organisations are threatening theatres with consequences, if they release the film in the city.

Threats have been issued by several political organisations against the December 1 release Padmavati in Agra. Notably, December 1 is also when the local body election results will be declared in the city. The organisations have said that if the film is released despite their objections, there would be dire consequences. As an example of what they can do, a few Hindu activists defaced the posters of Padmavati with black ink. The theatre owners lodged an FIR against the activists in this case on Friday.

Hindu Jagran Manch District President Amit Choudhary said that films that go against Hindu culture will be opposed. Already, former Uttar Pradesh Minister and BJP leader Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh has demanded that the film should be banned from all theatres as it is a mockery of the battle of Chittorgarh and Rani Padmini's dedication towards her honour, which was a matter of Rajput pride.

Expressing concern over the large number of weapons in the possession of these Hindu activists, social activist Mohd Arif Advocate said that both the election results and the release of Padmavati are sensitive issues and these people could create serious law and order problems, owing to the number of weapons they possess. He said that the administration should deposit the weapons with the police as a preventive measure, but since it is a declared Hindu government in the state, there was little hope that such a measure would be taken by the administration.

With UP becoming the state with the highest number of licensed and illegal weapons in civilian possession in India, the UP government has issued strict orders for weapons licenses of people with a criminal history to be cancelled. However, the Agra administration appears to be in no mood to follow these orders. This is evident from the fact that the weapons licenses of dozens of VHP leaders named in a criminal case in the Rakabganj area of Agra are yet to be revoked, despite the fact that these leaders had been involved in a conspiracy to plunge Agra into communal violence.

He said that the local police had sent a recommendation to the Agra district administration for the cancellation of the weapons licenses of over 50 VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) leaders, but the district administration has not taken any action in this regard. The leaders are roaming around freely in the district with their weapons. However, the license of a person involved in celebratory firing in a wedding was immediately cancelled.

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Arif said that UP will hold local body elections in a couple of weeks time and as a usual practice, all licensed weapons are deposited at the police stations and there are large scale cancellations of licenses held by people of dubious character. However, nothing of the sort is happening this time. Even those who were involved in inciting communal violence have not been asked to deposit their weapons. Neither are their weapons licenses being cancelled. It now remains to be seen if the election commission will take any steps in this direction to ensure free and impartial elections.

ALSO WATCH: Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrashed, sets of Padmavati vandalised by Karni Sena

--- ENDS ---
Padmavati has been in rough waters for a while now for its alleged distortion of history.

By India Today Web Desk: The furore surrounding Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmavati refuses to die down. The matter has now escalated to a point where the Supreme Court had to hear a plea challenging the release of the Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor-starrer.

The Supreme Court turned down the plea challenging the release of the film. It said that since Padmavati hasn't been cleared by the censor board yet, the court could not take it up.

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The Rajasthan government will also form a committee to probe the entire controversy and the fate of Padmavati in the state will be determined after the report from the committee.

Meanwhile, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) member Arjun Gupta wrote to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh that strict action should be taken against Padmavati director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and that he should be tried for treason.

BJP MLA Raj Purohit has also written a letter to the Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani seeking a ban on the period drama for showing Rani Padmini in a poor light.

Various groups have been protesting against Padmavati for its alleged distortion of history. There were reports that the film would show a romantic dream sequence between Rani Padmini (Deepika Padukone) and Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh). However, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the team of Padmavati have vehemently denied that such a scene is part of the film.

In fact, Sanjay Leela Bhansali released a video earlier this week, in which he reiterated that the film has been made responsibly and contains no such scene that will hurt the sentiments of the Rajput community.

Padmavati is slated to release on December 1.

ALSO WATCH: Sanjay Leela Bhansali thrashed, sets of Padmavati vandalised by Karni Sena

--- ENDS ---
The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday ruled in favor of the United States when it reaffirmed that Indonesias import licensing regimes for horticultural and animal products are inconsistent with the global trade bodys rules.



The World Trade Organization on Thursday ruled in favor of the United States when it reaffirmed that Indonesias import licensing regimes for horticultural and animal products are inconsistent with the global trade bodys rules.

This is a significant win for U.S. farmers and ranchers, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in a statement. Given Indonesias market size and U.S. competitiveness, we should be selling many more agricultural products to Indonesian consumers.

Since 2012, Indonesia has maintained a complex system of import licensing requirements that the United States says have restricted or prohibited imports of U.S. horticultural products and animal products, costing American farmers and ranchers millions of dollars per year in lost export opportunities to the Southeast Asian country.

U.S. products affected by Indonesias import restrictions include fruits, vegetables, flowers, dried fruits and vegetables, juices, cattle, beef, poultry, and other animal products.

In 2016, Indonesia was the ninth-largest U.S. agricultural export destination by value, and the country was the eighth-largest U.S. agricultural import source by value. The United States exported over $2.6 billion in agricultural products to Indonesia and imported over $2.8 billion in agricultural products from Indonesia. In 2016, exports of the horticultural products and animal products affected by Indonesias import licensing regimes totaled $170 million, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

At the request of USTR, the WTO established a panel to examine the U.S. complaint in 2015. In a report publicly released in December 2016, the WTO panel in this dispute found that each of the 18 challenged measures was inconsistent with Article XI:1 of the GATT 1994 because they restrict or prohibit importation of horticultural products or animals and animal products. It also found that Indonesia failed to demonstrate that any of the challenged measures is justified under Articles XX of the GATT 1994. In February 2017, Indonesia appealed a number of the panels findings.

The WTOs latest report upheld the original panels findings in the dispute that all 18 Indonesian measures challenged by the United States are inconsistent with Indonesias WTO obligations and are not justified as legitimate public policy measures. New Zealand has remained a co-complainant in this dispute.

The WTO ruling is confirmation of USTRs decision to bring the case and supports the need for a strong and transparent dispute settlement system in the WTO, said Philip Seng, CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

Todays WTO report sets the stage for expansion of Indonesias beef market, Seng added. We are excited about the opportunity to play a big part in its development by introducing U.S. beef to a much wider group of Indonesian customers.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The exclusive project of ARMENPRESS entitled Yerevan Bestseller brings the top ten bestselling books of Yerevan every week.

Edgar Harutyunyans Unfound Chamomiles is this weeks bestselling book of Yerevan. This is the second book of the author. Unfound Chamomiles is about human relationship, love, friendship and betrayal.

The Book of Lamentations by St. Gregory of Narek is ranked 2nd in the list. The mystical poem "Book of Lamentations" has been translated into many languages and has played a significant role in the development of the Armenian literary language. In 95 grace-filled prayers St. Gregory draws on the exquisite potential of the Classical Armenian language to translate the pure sighs of the broken and contrite heart into an offering of words pleasing to God. The result is an edifice of faith for the ages, unique in Christian literature for its rich imagery, its subtle theology, its Biblical erudition, and the sincere immediacy of its communication with God.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is ranked 3rd in the list. It is a 2006 Holocaust novel by Irish novelist John Boyne. Unlike the months of planning Boyne devoted to his other books, he said that he wrote the entire first draft of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in two and a half days, barely sleeping until he got to the end.

Mark Arens Where Wild Roses Bloom comes next. The story describes the inner world of an Armenophobic Turkish former serviceman, when he, already an old man, suddenly hears a lullaby song that reminds him of his mother and later finds out that the song is in Armenian: realizing his parents were Armenians. He spends his remaining life searching the graves of his parents, without knowing that it was a misunderstanding.

Davit Samvelyans Winter of Rodin this week is ranked 5th. It includes short stories and essays.

Collected Stories of Guy de Maupassant is 6th. It includes the authors best works. Guy de Maupassant is an author of numerous stories, novels depicting Frances daily life. His numerous works have been translated and published in Armenian.

Edgar Harutyunyans another book Art of Devotion or Ode to Rose is ranked 7th in this weeks list.

Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray returned to the list and is ranked 8th. Dorian Gray is the subject of a full-length portrait in oil by Basil Hallward, an artist who is impressed and infatuated by Dorian's beauty; he believes that Dorian's beauty is responsible for the new mode in his art as a painter. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, and he soon is enthralled by the aristocrat's hedonistic worldview: that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life.

Daniel Glattauers Forever Yours novel is a new book in the bestselling list of the week. Judith, in her mid-thirties and single, meets Hannes when he steps on her foot in a crowded supermarket. Hannes is an architect - single and in the prime of life. Not only is he every mother-in-law's dream, but Judith's friends are also bowled over by him. At first Judith revels in being put on a pedestal by this determined man who seems to have eyes only for her. But as time goes by, she finds his constant displays of affection increasingly wearying and his intensive attention becomes oppressive and overwhelming. The book is ranked 9th.

The Book of Lamentations: Odes by St. Gregory of Narek concludes this weeks list.

The following bookstores took part in a survey for the bestseller project: Bookinist (53-74-13), Hay Girk (54-07-06) and Zangak (23 26 49).

Yerevan Bestseller project presented by Angela Hambardzumyan
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. US Vice President Mike Pence expressed concern during a meeting with Turkeys PM Binali Yildirimn over the arrests of US citizens in Turkey, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said during a briefing.

The Vice President expressed deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, our Mission Turkey local staff who worked for our embassy there  or who still do work, journalists, and also members of civil society under the state of emergency, and urged transparency and due process in the resolution of their cases, she said.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on November 10 received President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe Gudrun Mosler-Tornstrom, press service of the government told Armenpress.

The Armenian PM attached importance to her visit and participation in the event dedicated to the 20th anniversary of local authorities in Armenia. According to the PM, Armenia highly appreciates the cooperation with the Council of Europe and is actively taking part in the works of the CoE all statutory and consultative authorities, as well as the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.

Ms. Gudrun Mosler-Tornstrom considered the cooperation with the CoE Congress of Local and Regional Authorities effective, stating that Armenia is a reliable partner for them. She informed that she had productive discussions with Armenian minister of territorial administration and development Davit Lokyan, is aware of the ongoing reforms in the field and expressed readiness to continue assisting this process.

Karen Karapetyan and Gudrun Mosler-Tornstrom also exchanged views on issues relating to strengthening local democracy in Armenia. The PM presented the logic of reforms launched by the government in territorial administration and local self-governance which aim at changing the mindset of community governance bodies, as well as increasing their role.

PM Karapetyan thanked the CoE Congress for the constant assistance to the field reforms.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Farewell ceremony for President of Moldova Igor Dodon was held in the Armenian Presidential Palace on November 10, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

Before the ceremony the Armenian and Moldovan Presidents held a private meeting during which they highly appreciated the results of talks during Mr. Dodons visit which will give new impetus to the development of bilateral friendly ties and deepening the cooperation in fields of mutual interest.

Dear Mr. President,

I want to once again express confidence that your visit to Armenia will enrich the agenda of our relations and cooperation in political, economic and humanitarian spheres since in fact we need this, and it derives from the interests of our peoples. Yesterday you visited the Parliament, today you will meet the Prime Minister of Armenia, in other words, there is a chance to hold talks on all issues.

Of course, we have a lot in common both in bilateral relations and aspirations of our peoples, as well as in our personal aspirations, and we will reach success through cooperation. I think we need to move forward in this way. Once again I want to thank you for the visit. We held productive talks discussing many issues of mutual interest, the Armenian President said.

In his turn the Moldovan President thanked his Armenian counterpart for the invitation and wonderful reception, stating that he can say for sure that the visit was effective as expected.

In fact, yesterday we touched upon all issues of bilateral cooperation. We agreed to hold a session of the Inter-governmental commission in near future. I hope it will take place in the first half of next year together with the business forum.

Yesterday we had many effective talks with the leadership of the Parliament and lawmakers. We agreed to propose an initiative, and we will invite Armenian MPs, who will work in the inter-parliamentary friendship group, to Moldova. I hope this will happen in the upcoming months. We have also discussed other issues relating to cooperation of our countries. I once again want to thank for the invitation.

Mr. President, we look forward to your visit to Moldova, Igor Dodon said.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Armenias minister of economic development and investments held a meeting with executives of the Lebanese AC Holding to discuss their investment program.

Lebanese investors are interested in production of household equipment in Armenia.

I am very happy to see you in Yerevan now after our last meeting in Beirut. I am hopeful that we will continue practical steps for implementing this investment program, minister Suren Karayan said.

The minister said the Armenian government is ready to assist and always focus on investment programs.

AC Holding executives said the territory acquisition procedure is nearing completion.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The people of Artsakh continue to unconditionally be in charge of their destiny, by purposefully leading their chosen path, Armenian Parliament Speaker Ara Babloyan said in his remarks during the 12th session of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the parliaments of Armenia and Artsakh.

It has been numerously said that Armenia is the security guarantor of Artsakh, however the people of Artsakh are in charge of their destiny on their own. There can never be in any format a decision which will be unacceptable for the people of Artsakh or will threaten their security, Babloyan said.

According to him, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict doesnt have an alternative to peaceful settlement.

The right of the people of Artsakh to freely decide its future must be recognized and respected and its security must be guaranteed. Artsakhs existence and status within Azerbaijan in any option is impossible and unacceptable, he said.

Babloyan said in order to achieve true progress in the talks, Azerbaijan must first of all refuse from the idea of even theoretically picturing Artsakh as its part.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of the Parliament of Artsakh Ashot Ghoulyan says the frequency of meetings with the partners of Armenias Parliament serve a base for completely ensuring the mutual partnership, reports Armenpress.

In his remarks at the 12th session of inter-parliamentary commission on cooperation between the Parliaments of Armenia and Artsakh, Speaker Ghoulyan said in April-June, 2016, after the April war, almost all MPs of the Armenian Parliament visited Artsakh together with dozens of representatives of foreign parliaments.

The agenda of todays joint session has identified issues which need to be thoroughly discussed. One of them are the discussions on the topic of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict in international parliamentary platforms and in this context the works carried out by Armenias parliamentary delegations, he said.

The Artsakh Parliament Speaker stated that they highly appreciate the efforts of their Armenian partners to properly present the stances of Armenia and Artsakh in international parliamentary structures, to counter the Azerbaijani biased formulations and initiatives distorting the essence of the conflict.




YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The constitutional changes in Armenia and Artsakh are necessary for the states more effective governance and increasing the level of democracy, Armenias Parliament Speaker Ara Babloyan said at the 12th session of the inter-parliamentary commission on cooperation between the Parliaments of Armenia and Artsakh, Armenpress reports.

The development path has been adopted in Armenia and Artsakh as a result of the referendum which best corresponds to the domestic and foreign features of the countries. Of course, the processes following the reforms in Armenia and Artsakh have similarities and peculiarities. The existence of the two Armenian states is the wealth of our people. We must protect and develop it through joint efforts and actions, Ara Babloyan said.

Speaker of the Parliament of Artsakh Ashot Ghoulyan said despite differences in public administration models after the constitutional changes in Armenia and Artsakh, there is a need for joint discussions in this field. This platform is not only a chance to exchange legislative experience, but also a unique link for us to establish ties with the parliaments of different countries, voice Artsakh stance in international parliamentary platforms, Ashot Ghoulyan said.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting today with the delegation of Artsakhs parliament led by Speaker Ashot Ghulyan. The delegation arrived in Armenia to participate in the 12th session of the inter-parliamentary committee of cooperation between the Armenian and Artsakhi parliaments.

The President welcomed the delegation and highlighted the activities of the inter-parliamentary cooperation committee, the regular joint sessions of parliamentary standing committees, and stressed that no matter in what format the partnership is displayed, it is the best way to exchange information and unite efforts for solving common issues.

I am always filled with optimism with the fact that although the imposed war, although the tension at the line of contact, our brothers and sisters of Artsakh are filled with great faith for their future and are strengthening their statehood with this faith, increasing welfare, developing democracy.

And this convinces all of us that we are on the right path, that our will is irrevocable. On this path, the February 20 constitutional reforms referendum was certainly an important milestone, which once again reaffirmed that there is no discrepancy between the executive and legislative powers of Artsakh and the people, and this is a very important fact to resist challenges. I think no one has doubts that on the way of passing this path, not only is Armenia and all our citizens with you, but also all Armenians, and it will be so always, the President said.

The Speaker of Artsakhs Parliament thanked the Armenian President for the reception and mentioned that being regularly hosted by the President during the sessions is very important for the lawmakers, because these meetings are a good opportunity to discuss other issues of mutual interest as well.

Although we have chosen different administration models, we have many similarities in this process, because the path we passed proves this also, he said.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Canadian-Armenian actress Arsinee Khanjian issued a statement calling on to release human rights advocate Osman Kavala who is arrested in Turkey, Armenpress reports.

The statement says: I met Osman, seven years ago, in Turkey. He's the man who instilled in me the trust I needed to feel in order to actually visit the country. While there was so much inherent tension in our disrupted histories, he also helped me understand that there was much to learn about today's Turkey.

Arsinee Khanjian said she worked with Osman on many cultural and artistic projects, conferences, always over topics that addressed identity, history, and memory.

I can go on about Osman in length. I won't. I only would like to add that now he is imprisoned without a date for trial for another 4 months, possibly more. We are witnessing yet another unfortunate and worrisome example of the government's purges at every level of the civil society in Turkey, the actress said.

She added that Osman Kavala is a friend to all who seek in Turkey and everywhere in the world good work to be carried out in the name of humanity and the compassion we can all and should be capable of.

Osman Kavala, chairman of Anadolu Kultur NGO, businessman, public figure, has been arrested after 13 days in detention.

He is famous for his pro-Armenian stances. He visited Armenia and announced that he recognizes the Armenian Genocide.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Moldova Igor Dodon is impressed by the Mother See of Holy Etchmiatsin, and by talking to people who preserve Christian values.

For me, as an Orthodox Christian, and a leader of a country where more than 98% of the population is Orthodox Christian, was very important to be in the cradle of Christianity. Christianity appeared on this land earlier than in other countries. The sacred sites, this 4th century Cathedral where are now is inspiring, and the interactions with people who preserve these values, Igor Dodon said during his visit to Etchmiatsin.

He wished to the Armenians of the Diaspora faith, optimism and mentioned that he is convinced that everything will succeed for both the Armenians and Moldovans.

The President and First Lady toured the Alek and Mari Manukyan Treasury-Museum and the Mother Sees Museum.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Moldova Igor Dodon and First lady Galina Dodon visited the Yerevan Brandy Company on November 10 where they were introduced on the history of the Armenian Ararat brandy and production process.

I already feel the smell of brandy, President Dodon said while entering the factory.

Igor Dodon got acquainted with the Barrel of Peace which was established in 2001 in honor of the visit of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. It is called peace, since it will be opened only when the Karabakh conflict will be resolved.

President Igor Dodon left his signature on the factorys memory book.

Arno Tadevosyan, manager at the Ararat Museum, said the Moldovan President was impressed by the visit. Igor Dodon was really excited: he photographed his personal barrel.

We have introduced the President on the history of Armenian brandy, as well as what role the Yerevan Brandy Company and Ararat have in Armenia and abroad. We have tasted the brandy and shared our impressions, Arno Tadevosyan told Armenpress.

He handed over to the President a brandy from the factorys exclusive series corresponding to the date of his birth.

I think when a leader of any country visits the company, it already speaks about the status of that company, Arno Tadevosyan said.
By PTI: By Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Nov 10 (PTI) Pakistan will construct community bunkers on the Line of Control (LoC) to protect civilians from firing by Indian troops, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said today.

Abbasi accompanied by Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa and PoK "Prime Minister" Raja Farooq Haider visited the Chirikot sector of the LoC, the Pakistan Army said in a statement.

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While interacting with families of those killed and injured in the cross-border firing, Abbasi appreciated their determination and resolve.

He announced enhancement in financial assistance to the families of those killed or injured in the firing and approved funds to develop community protection bunkers for the safety of civilians, according to the statement.

During the visit, the prime minister was briefed by the general officer commanding the area and was informed of alleged ceasefire violations by Indian forces.

?The prime minister condemned Indian unprofessional approach of targeting innocent civilians. He said Pakistan shall continue its political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris for their just struggle,? the Army said.

The prime minister also interacted with troops and praised them, saying "no other army of the world is parallel to Pakistan Army."

"Restoration of peace against terrorism despite our commitment to perpetual threat from eastern border is a milestone achievement and together we shall take it towards enduring peace and stability,? he said. PTI SH PMS AKJ PMS

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YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Chaired by Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, a working consultation on the reform of Sevan National Park was held at the Government on November 10.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Government of Armenia, Nature Protection Minister Artsvik Minasyan and Sevan National Park SNCO Director Vahe Gulanyan reported progress in the ongoing activities and the implementation of Premiers instructions.



It is envisaged to collect 287.6 million drams in 2017, 108 million more than in 2016. AMD138.4 million has already been collected in land lease payments, which exceeds the previous years index by 40 million drams. The SNCO Director assured that this years collection target will be met in full.

It was also reported that garbage collection and waste removal work is being carried out by means of regularly held cleanup campaigns. In this connection, the speakers advised that garbage collection contracts have already been signed with 260 out of 290 entities operating in the Park.



The meeting next touched upon the dismantling of illegal buildings, forestation issues, the investment projects under consideration and the development of water transport. The Premier instructed the stakeholders to continue making consistent efforts in this direction and periodically report back the results.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian gave an interview to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation talking about the expectations on the official recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Israel, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the relations with Iran and Israel, as well as Armenias expectations from Israel on receiving a military aid or military exports.

ARMENPRESS presents the full interview:

-This visit of yours, which I would say is very rare for Armenian Foreign Minister to visit Israel.

-I would rather say, this is very rare to receive Israeli Foreign Minister in Armenia. All Foreign Ministers of Armenia paid visits to Israel. I served for almost 10 years as Armenias Ambassador to Israel. That is why it is not my first visit to Israel. I am always very glad to be back to Jerusalem.

It was a new opportunity to be here on the invitation of the Prime-Minister and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was a short visit but very intensive one. I had meetings with the Prime-Minister Netanyahu, with Minister for Regional Cooperation Hanegbi, with Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Elkin, with Chairman of your Parliament Mr. Edelstein and also with the Vice-Chairman of Parliament, Tali Ploskov, who is also Chair of the Armenia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group.

I had an opportunity to see the Armenian Patriarch. We have very important, centuries-old Armenian presence in Jerusalem. As always, I used the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem and to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Visiting Yad Vashem, as I said, is not the first time. Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan, teach us, especially such nations, like the Jewish and Armenian nations, who suffered, passed through the horrors of genocide, we have moral obligation to join our efforts to fight against new genocides, new crimes against humanity.

-I wanted to ask you regarding this issue. What is your expectations from Israel regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide? Are you satisfied with the current situation? Has it been a topic during your meetings here in Israel?

-It was and it is always a topic of our dialogue. As I said, two nations passed through the horrors of genocide. Many scholars, many politicians consider that in case of adequate condemnation of the Armenian Genocide maybe could be possible to prevent Shoah and other genocides. That is why of course, we are expecting that Israel will recognize officially the Armenian Genocide. We feel that in the public opinion of Israel more and more people are in favor of the recognition, including in the Parliament. Yesterday I had a meeting with the Chairman of the Knesset. He again expressed his very clear position of the importance of the recognition by Knesset of the Armenian Genocide.

-I would assume that one of the issues that are being raised between Israel and Armenia is the relations between Armenia and Iran. How do you view the Iranian position in the Middle East and in the region? Is it a positive player in your view?

-We have good relations with neighbouring Iran, we cooperate in different fields. Taking into consideration that we have closed borders with other two neighbours, with Turkey and Azerbaijan, so you have to understand that Iran and Georgia are the two neighbours with whom we have not just normal relations, but good cooperation. And we are deploying efforts with the aim to develop our bilateral cooperation and partnership.

-Is it an obstacle to the relations between Israel and Armenia?

-I dont think this is an obstacle in our bilateral relations with Israel as the relations of Israel with any neighbouring country of Armenia is not an obstacle.

-We dont see an Ambassador of Armenia in Israel and we dont see an Israeli Ambassador in Yerevan. Whats the reason of not exchanging the Ambassadors directly?

-Our position was very clear: as soon as Israel will open an embassy in Armenia, we will reciprocate and open an Embassy in Israel.

-I would assume one of the difficulties in relationship between Armenia and Israel is the issue of your neighbour, Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis are claiming that in the past few months there have been difficulties with ceasefire through violations of the ceasefire. Whats your comment on that: is Armenia violating the ceasefire?

-We are never asking our friendly, partner countries to support Armenia against anybody and including against Azerbaijan. On Nagorno-Karabakh issue our expectation is to support and to be in line with the position of the international community. The international community gave a mandate to the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group- the United States, Russia and France - to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. This is the unique situation that the United States, Russia and France, on the level of the Presidents of those countries, adopted five statements on how the conflict could be resolved in a very detailed way with concrete principles and concrete elements elaborated as an integrated whole. And Armenias position is in line with the position of the Co-Chair countries, so with the position of the international community.

-The position of the international community is that those territories are Azerbaijani basically, isnt it?

-This is not the position of the international community. The position of the international community, as I said, is expressed in the five statements of the three Co-Chair countries presidents, and its very clearly said that the final status of the Nagorno-Karabakh has to be decided by the free expression of will of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which will have an internationally legally binding force, including for Azerbaijan. This is the position of the international community and we are expressing our support to this position, but Azerbaijan doesnt.

Concerning the ceasefire violations, and by the way this is also the position of the three Co-Chair countries, so of the international community, including Armenia, that we have to respect the trilateral ceasefire agreements reached between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1994-1995 without time limitations, three agreements about the ceasefire and about the consolidation of the ceasefire. Azerbaijan is always trying not to respect ceasefire agreements, and even to put under the question that those agreements are in force.

This is the difference between our position and the position of Azerbaijan. Even more, the international community through three co-chairs come up with the proposals to create investigation mechanism of violations of the ceasefire agreements. Armenia supports the proposal on the creation of mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations which could serve as a mechanism of prevention. Azerbaijan is rejecting to creation of this mechanism, so the position of the three Co-Chair countries, of course they are mediators and could not always express their opinion about it openly and publicly. Nevertheless, they are always saying that the side, which is rejecting to create this mechanism of prevention takes the responsibility for all the violations of ceasefire.

-Whats your expectations from Israel regarding the military aid or military exports because I know it has been an issue between the two countries.

-The trade of arms is not a trade of vegetables and such kind of trade always has its black side, which could have some negative consequences. Which is important in Armenias relations with Israel that we have no taboo for discussing all the questions, even sensitive questions we are discussing openly and we are trying to find ways out.

-Whats your expectation from Israel in that regard?

-I said what I could say to you. We are discussing in very open and very positive way.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Moldova is interested in applying Armenias experience of teaching chess in schools, President Igor Dodon said after touring Armenias Chess Academy.

Dodon, who was impressed by the Academy, said that similar conditions do not exist in Moldova.

I am happy that there are similar places in Armenia for the development of chess. Introducing the experience of teaching chess in schools is very important for us. We have studies chess textbooks of Armenian schools and we plan to do the same in Moldova, he said.

Igor Dodon also serves as president of Moldovas Chess Federation since 2011.

I play chess every day online both in the morning and in the evening. My wife caught me playing chess again this morning also, he said.

Prior to visiting the chess academy, Igor Dodon also toured Yerevans brandy factory.

He liked the Armenian brandy very much, however he said that brandy in Moldova is also not bad. I think we are competitors in this regard, he said.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. Azerbaijan regularly makes attempts to ignore the ceasefire agreement and even question the validity of that agreement, ARMENPRESS reports Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian told the Israeli ITV24.

Concerning the ceasefire violations, and by the way this is also the position of the three Co-Chair countries, so of the international community, including Armenia, that we have to respect the trilateral ceasefire agreements reached between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1994-1995 without time limitations, three agreements about the ceasefire and about the consolidation of the ceasefire. Azerbaijan is always trying not to respect ceasefire agreements, and even to put under the question that those agreements are in force.

This is the difference between our position and the position of Azerbaijan. Even more, the international community through three co-chairs come up with the proposals to create investigation mechanism of violations of the ceasefire agreements. Armenia supports the proposal on the creation of mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations which could serve as a mechanism of prevention. Azerbaijan is rejecting to creation of this mechanism, so the position of the three Co-Chair countries, of course they are mediators and could not always express their opinion about it openly and publicly. Nevertheless, they are always saying that the side, which is rejecting to create this mechanism of prevention takes the responsibility for all the violations of ceasefire, Nalbandian said.

The Armenian Foreign Minister added that Armenia never asks its friendly, partner countries to support Armenia against anybody and including against Azerbaijan.

On Nagorno-Karabakh issue our expectation is to support and to be in line with the position of the international community. The international community gave a mandate to the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group- the United States, Russia and France - to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. This is the unique situation that the United States, Russia and France, on the level of the Presidents of those countries, adopted five statement on how the conflict could be resolved in a very detailed way with concrete principles and concrete elements elaborated as an integrated whole. And Armenias position is in line with the position of the Co-Chair countries, so with the position of the international community, the Minister said.

He emphasized that the position of the international community is expressed in the five statements of the three Co-Chair countries presidents, and its very clearly said that the final status of the Nagorno-Karabakh has to be decided by the free expression of will of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which will have an internationally legally binding force, including for Azerbaijan. This is the position of the international community and Armenia is expressing support to this position, but Azerbaijan doesnt.
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The Kumayri Historic Center Rehabilitation Program was discussed during a regular working consultation held on November 10 by Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Government of Armenia, the Premier was briefed on the construction of infrastructures. Gyumri Mayor Samvel Balasanyan informed that strting from coming spring road reconstructing works will kick off with the funding of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Head of Government urged those responsible to complete the proposed construction work strictly in tune with the established timetable. Its planned to finish all the works by the end of 2018.

The activities carried out in the frame of Kumayri Revival non-public contractual specialized investment fund, as well as the steps aimed at attracting investors were also touched upon. According to the stakeholders, the private sector shows great interest towards the project and there are already concrete investment projects.

The Head of Government tasked those responsible to complete the proposed construction work strictly in tune with the established timetable, preserving the general view characteristic for Gyumri city. Karen Karapetyan expressed conviction that the project will become a key factor for the development of tourism in the city.
Kinetic-owned luxury motorcycle brand, MotoRoyale has joined hands with the iconic British bike maker, Norton Motorcycles. The joint venture has been announced to make way for the Norton bikes in India under the MotoRoyale brand.

The UK-based motorcycle manufacturer, Norton is expected to launch its first product in India by the first-quarter of 2018. The joint venture will also export the motorcycles to some of the selected Asian markets including Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, etc.

The first two products to make its way to India are Norton Dominator and Norton Commando. Both the motorcycles are built on the old-school cafe racer design and powered by a 961 cc twin-parallel engine.

Kinetic Group believes that it is the right time to bring the superbikes from British manufacturer to India. It is believed to create a good amount of hype and excitement in the Indian motorcycle market.

Norton Motorcycles CEO announced officially about the tie-up and expressed his delight. The British company is excited about the new alliance with the Kinetic Group. It believes that the style and passion of the Norton bikes along with the experience of the Kinetic Group will prove to be a good combination. The alliance is expected to deliver a fabulous range of motorcycles to the Asian countries.

At the initial phase, Norton is expected to import the models through CBU route while it has further plans for assembling the products locally. Kinetic is planning to localize 50 percent of the components, which will also help the manufacturer to offer a lower price for the upcoming bikes. The motorcycles will be sold through the MotoRoyale outlets in the country. Currently, there are four dealerships of the company present across some of the major cities in India.

In the present scenario, there is a surge in demand for this types of bikes in India. Motorcycles like the Ducati Scrambler and Triumph Street Scrambler are witnessing a growth in their demand.
STOWE, Vt.For the third year in a row, East Coast News and International Video Distributors took over Stowe Mountain Lodge in Stowe, Vt., for their annual Fall Show.

Sixty-four of the industrys top pleasure product manufacturers and production studios were on hand, showing off both their latest and best-selling products and DVDs to more than 200 retailers.

Over the course of three days, show attendees were able to get one-on-one time with manufacturers and studios, IVD and ECN sales and support staff, and other retailers and buyers in the industry.

This years IVD|ECN show was a phenomenal success, said Lynda Mort, vice president of sales and marketing. The purpose of our show is to bring together our customers, vendors and staff to give them an opportunity to interact on a more intimate basis. Our show allows our customers the chance to learn about products, review new releases and spend one on one time with each other. It also gives our customers the opportunity to mingle with other successful business owners and share best practices. I would say this was one of the most intimate and successful shows yet!

The 2017 IVD|ECN Fall Show officially started on the evening of Sunday, Oct. 22, with a dinner hosted by the IVD|ECN staff recognizing their vendor partners for everything they do. Co-owner Frank Koretsky capped off the night with a short speech where he thanked the vendors for their continued support throughout the year. The following day, after a day full of booth setup, last-minute preparation and customer arrivals, a world-travel themed dinner was held on Monday, Oct. 23, for customers, vendors and staff.

On Tuesday, Oct. 24, and Wednesday, Oct. 25, the Spruce Camp Base Lodge was as active as ever. New for 2017 was the introduction of personalized tablets for customers to use throughout the show. Customers loved how easy they were to use to keep track of their orders. Collections like Pillow Talk from BMS Factory, and Jil from Shots America, both exclusive to East Coast News, garnered a lot of interest. Newcomers to the show such as Fleshlight, Electrastim, and Earthly Body also reported high booth traffic and lots of interest.

Wow, what a show. I did not think they could top the last two years, but they did, claimed James Roark-Gruender of Passions Adult Boutique in Columbia, Mo. Every year after the show, I see my sales increase and I form new, lasting relationships with vendors and reps."

The Calexotics booth was also one of the highlights of the event, having the main room of the show floor to showcase their top collections like Kroma, Scandal, Mini Marvels, and more. The company also sponsored daily afternoon snack breaks for everyone in their booth, featuring Tiny Teasers and Jopens Amour line.

We had our best show to date and received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback on our latest releases, said Austin Ferdinand of Calexotics. Being able to showcase our product in the main room contributed to our success and drew large crowds throughout the entire show. Thank you to East Coast News for your partnership and support!

DVD vendors such as Pure Play Media, Girlfriends Films and Jules Jordan Video were happy to report an uptick in DVD interest. Representing Wicked Pictures, Jessica Drake was on hand to take photos with customers and sign copies of her recent releases, such as An Inconvenient Mistress and her showcase Jessica Drake is Wicked.

The show that IVD|ECN puts on every year is always amazing, and this year was no exception claimed Bonnie Kail of Wicked Sensual Care and Wicked Pictures. With the amount of customers we had at the Wicked Pictures booth to talk about our DVDs and visit with jessica, I can safely say that DVDs are still alive and well, and not going anywhere any time soon.

To close out the week, on Wednesday evening, dinner guests were asked to wear their plaid and flannel attire for a trip to the mountains. Not literally of course, but the theme of the night was everything camping and rural Vermont, with local merchants on hand to sell various local products such as cheese, syrups, and more. The night was capped off by a giant dance party.

Our World Revolves Around You has always been the motto of IVD|ECN, and the annual fall show is proof that they stand by it true and true.
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.
There are real journalists that ask topical questions, and right now, they are vindicated as such in this giant void of the Fake News, below:

This information revealed in this video, and the motives of Representative Nunes will have a profound impact of future investigative directives: Below.

Now that the Russia Collusion scandal has most completely boomeranged on core Democrats, the Democrat Media, and the Deep State, who have promoted this scandal for over one year: Should congress and Jeff Sessions's DOJ investigate the DNC, the Clintons, and, notably, the FBI /Obama DOJ with the same fervor that they have hounded all things connected to Candidate, then President Donald Trump? Yes, it is a necessity that we discover all that is corrupt, and stains the government of this land. No, investigate only everything connected to Donald Trump, as a candidate and then president. I generally don't pay attention to most things except what is normally pop culture. 165 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?



This revelation is just the core of a Democrat kabal to support Hillary Clinton through her many felonies that were only partially, and well unenthusiastically investigated by the FBI under Director Jim Comey (who well may be part of the Democrat cabal). This loosely associated core Democrat cabal, which will include some nominal Republican elitists, has always operated in the gravitational pull of perceived power, and that perception of power has been the Clintons, Bill and Hillary as that central gravitational body.The unravelling of this Clinton cabal, and its involvement in: this Foreign dossier, much of it fake, on President Trump's campaign and beyond; the Uranium One sale of 20% of the United States Uranium, by Obama and his Democrat cabinet sponsored CFIUS committee; and the cover-up /FBI Fake investigation, managed by Director Comey, of Hillary Clinton's Mishandling of Sensitive Documents, Obstruction of Justice by destroying of her government servers on her personal property, her Lying to State Department Officials, and probable Lying to FBI Personnel; and, the yet to be investigated FBI's role in the Uranium One sale, and the Clinton Global Initiative's role laundering 145 million dollars of donations (in relative terms a massive amount of money) from the Uranium One Board of Directors.Incredibly, this should probably be the beginning of the investigation, which may be subject to change as more information is uncovered. This investigation should unravel badly for those that have long covered up the truth and should drag the worthless, unprincipled Democrat Media /Fake News front out into the open, and may be that final nail in their self-made coffin constructed of the "House of Cards" of their unmitigated, prodigious supply of propaganda The Democrat Media, since Trump became the presumptive Republican Nominee in May, 2016, began their new avocation from quasi journalistic endeavors, to being "in the tank" for Hillary Clinton. When she unexpectedly lost, then attention was drawn to their Fake allegation that it was Russia's fault, thereby Trump's obvious, unsubstantiated collusion with Russia.Remarkably, as more initial evidence is unveiled, even super Liberal media guy Ed Schultz is seen here making much conversation , with his more conservative guest, that the Clintons /Democrats are in some deep doodoo over these recent develpments, and, accordingly, the Democrat Media either is collectively too unprincipled and ignorant of what real in their World, or, they just do not have the gravitas to become journalists again, a real which came first, the ... (?) scenario.More later on this thickening mess, as more is discovered and reasonably analyzed.
Kulbhushan Jadhav, accused of being an agent of the Research and Analysis Wing, is on death row in Pakistan. India has strongly denied the allegations against the Indian national.

By India Today Web Desk, Geeta Mohan: Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, sentenced to death in Pakistan for alleged spying, will be allowed to meet his wife on "humanitarian grounds", the Pakistan Foreign Office said today.

Jadhav has been accused of being an agent of the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external spying agency. New Delhi has strongly refuted Pakistan's allegations and has approached the International Court of Justice to vacate the death sentence given to Jadhav.

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The Pakistan Foreign Office, in a statement said, "The Government of Pakistan has decided to arrange a meeting of Commander Kulbhudhan Jhadev (sic) with his wife, in Pakistan, purely on humanitarian grounds. A Note Verbale to this effect has been sent to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, today."

The statement goes on to reiterate the allegations against Jhadav, saying he was apprehended by Pakistani agencies after he "illegally crossed over into Pakistan" and while he was "working with Indian Intelligence Agency/RAW".

"He confessed before a Magistrate and the Court that he was tasked by RAW to plan, coordinate and organize espionage, terrorist and sabotage activities aimed at destabilizing and waging war against Pakistan," the statement went on to say.

ARREST AND CONVICTION

Jadhav, who is a former Indian Navy officer, was arrested in March 2016 on charges espionage. Pakistan claimed the Indian national was involved in "terrorist activities" in the restive Balochistan region.

India, which completely rejected Pakistan's charges, reputedly sought consular access to Jadhav. Islamabad, however, all of New Delhi's requests, claiming that since the Indian national faces espionage charges, Pakistan is not obligated to grant India consular access to him.

On April 10 this year, a military court in Pakistan convicted Jadhav and sentenced him to death. "RAW agent Commander Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav was tried by FGCM under section 59 of Pakistan Army Act (PAA) 1952) and Section 3 of official Secret Act of 1923. FGCM found Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav guilty of all the charges," the Pakistani military said in a statement then.

In response, India slammed Pakistan for conducting a "farcical", secretive trial and said that Jadhav was kidnapped from Iran and later brought to Balochistan. New Delhi later took Islamabad to the The Hague, Netherlands-based International Court of Justice, contending that Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Access by not allowing India consular access to Jadhav.

On May 18, the ICJ put a stay on Jadhav's death sentence, saying that Pakistan could not execute the Indian national until the world court further heard the matter and decided whether Islamabad had indeed violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Access.

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--- ENDS ---
Kathy Manos Penn

Just in time for Veterans Day, I've once again had the privilege of interviewing a WWII veteran. My husband arranged for me to sit down with Cecil Hannaford, a local VFW member. Born in Reid, Mississippi, Cecil was the youngest child of a cotton farmer.After high school as his friends were being drafted, Cecil enlisted in the Army Reserve. He explains that he fell for the tale the recruiter spun: Enlist in the Army Reserve, finish college, tell us what you want to do, and we'll work it out. He felt pretty smart until, four months later, when he was called up to Camp Shelby, MS in the infantry. From there, he headed to Fort McClellan, AL before shipping off to England in August 1944. He jokes that at least he got his payday sooner than his fellow soldiers because he'd enlisted earlier.You're probably figuring out that Cecil has quite the sense of humor. Perhaps that's what sustained him during his service.He crossed the English Channel after D-Day, was sick like most everyone else, and quickly realized the seriousness of his situation when he saw a French hillside covered with crosses. Just as Cecil thought, things soon got serious.In the Battle of the Bulge, his regiment had been sheltering in buildings in Heinerscheid before his platoon was ordered to set up a roadblock at a nearby crossroads. They dug foxholes in the snow and ice, where for two days, they watched German tanks go by on the main highway. Cecil's theory is that after the war, the Germans used parts of those same tanks to build Volkswagens to sell to Americans. Again, that sense of humor comes through.The troops left in the village were all but wiped out when the Germans came through, but Cecil's group escaped unscathed. Eventually, his platoon joined the 116th Infantry division. Just before Christmas, walking up a hillside, they were ordered to dig foxholes in the frozen ground. With only a six inch deep foxhole hacked out of the ice, both he and his foxhole buddy somehow dove in and escaped fire as German tanks rumbled through.With a smile, Cecil described opening his one can of beans for dinner: "If you've never eaten beans frozen with ice, you're missing something." When he painted the picture of how he got frostbite, though, there was no hint of a smile. Ordered to take the highest hill overlooking the Rhine, the men removed their shoes and donned white capes and white rubber boots. Walking through two feet of snow in rubber boots that didn't breathe led to frostbitten feet.Most of the casualties on that hillside came from shelling. Cecil and many others were untouched by shells or bullets, but instead suffered from frostbite; and many, like Cecil, were evacuated to England for treatment. Cecil received his Purple Heart for his frostbite, an injury which bothers him to this day.His unit was preparing to deploy to Japan when the war ended. After the war, Cecil spent 23 years in the Air Force Reserve and enjoyed a long career in the life insurance and pension industry.What did Cecil take away from his WWII and Air Force Reserve experience? What's his message? "Service; everyone needs to get out there and serve. Our country needs us, and service is how we stay strong."To hear Cecil and other veterans tell their stories, visit Witness to War, http://www.witnesstowar.org/home, whose mission is to preserve the oral histories of combat veterans.Note: After writing this article, I learned that Cecil had passed away on Oct. 30. I am honored and thankful that I got to hear and share his story, and I will be at his funeral which will be held, appropriately, on November 11.Find Kathy's new book "Lord Banjo the Royal Pooch" and her collection of columns, "The Ink Penn: Celebrating the Magic in the Everyday," on Amazon and her website inkpenn119@gmail.com.
Communities In Schools program will assist at-risk students with graduating and preparing for a career

Concord High School-Cabarrus County Schools

Henderson County Career Academy-Henderson County Schools

Northwest Halifax Collegiate and Technical Academy-Halifax County Schools

Purnell Swett High School-Robeson County Schools

Wallace-Rose Hill High School-Duplin County Schools

Walter M. Williams High School-Alamance-Burlington School System

Wilkes Central High School-Wilkes County Schools

Contact: Ford Porter

Ford Porter govpress@nc.gov

RALEIGH: Governor Roy Cooper visited Walter M. Williams High School in Alamance County today to announce a $2 million grant to support college and career readiness programs in middle and high schools through Communities In Schools of North Carolina. Funded through statewide funds from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the grant will pilot the Jobs for North Carolina's Graduates program to assist students in middle and high school with graduating and preparing for a career.Gov. Cooper said.With this grant, Communities In Schools will pilot the Jobs for North Carolina's Graduates program, which will include two models: a model for seven high schools across the state and a model for six middle schools in Nash County, called AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). These models will identify the best strategies for helping students prepare for college and career.said Blaine Morehead, Board Chair, Communities In Schools of North Carolina.North Carolina will offer a student-centered college and career readiness program in seven high schools for the 2017-2018 school year.Jobs for North Carolina's Graduates is part of the national network, Jobs for America's Graduates, and will continue its mission to achieve high outcomes in graduation and employment rates, resulting in increased college access and completion. In 2016-2017, 95 percent of students in the Jobs for America's Graduates program graduated high school, and 90 percent had a full-time job placement after graduating.College and Career Specialists, who are trained to prepare students to achieve academic, career and life success, will serve in the following schools:In addition to the high school model, the Jobs for North Carolina's Graduates program will support six middle schools offering the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) model. AVID is dedicated to closing the achievement gap while equipping students with the skills necessary to succeed academically and socially. Students in the AVID elective receive daily instruction focused on academic strategies in writing, inquiry, collaboration, organizational skills and critical reading to develop a culture of college readiness while being supported in school and life.The AVID program will be offered in Nash County in the following schools: Parker Middle School, Edwards Middle School, Southern Nash Middle School, Nash Central Middle School, Red Oak Middle School and Tar River Academy.Communities In Schools of North Carolina (CISNC) is a leading partner in providing Integrated Student Supports, or wraparound services, to propel student success in more than 300 schools across the state. Based directly inside schools, student support specialists connect students and their families to evidence-based services and supports, as well as critical educational and community-based resources, to increase attendance, improve behavior, enhance coursework, and engage more parents and families in student success. Tailored to each student's specific needs, student support specialists create personalized toolkits for success and an educational experience where students can learn, thrive and power the future. Learn more at cisnc.org
Mr. Michael Wayne Nobles, age 52, a resident of 3392 River Road, Washington died Tuesday morning, November 7, 2017 at his home.A memorial service will be held 7:00 PM on Thursday November 9, 2017 at the First Baptist Church in Chocowinity officiated by Pastor Jack Franks and Jimmy Beasley. The family will receive friends 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM on Thursday prior to the service at the Family Life Center of the First Baptist Church in Chocowinity and other times at the home of his mother, located at 110 Hillcrest Drive, Washington.Michael was born in Beaufort County on May 29, 1965, son of William Isaac Nobles and Erma Woolard Nobles. He was an unsung hero, helping people in need and never expecting anything in return. He volunteered during the 1999 flood, trucked supplies to New Orleans and other places during emergencies and helped at Eagle's Wings food pantry. Michael was very creative and shared his talents and knowledge of plants and flowers and his flair for decorating, fashion and hairstyling. He was the former owner of Bella Salon in Greenville.Michael is survived by his mother and stepfather: Erma Nobles and Dennis Smith of Washington; numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends. He is preceded in death by his father: William Isaac "PeeWee" Nobles and his brother: Martin Wade Nobles. The family would also like to express their appreciation to Community Home Care & Hospice and caregivers: Libby Hyman and Sylvia Wallace. His "Mama" was his best friend along with his stepfather, Dennis Smith.Michael had a love for animals especially dogs and horses. His Jack Russell Terriers, Dory, Roley and Thomas were his world. He was active in the Freedom for Friends organization, which installs fences to keep dogs from being kept on chains.In lieu of flowers, please make contributions in memory of Michael to Freedom for Friends, P.O. Box 2992, Washington, NC 27889.On-line condolences may be offered to the family by visiting www.paulfuneralhome.com Paul Funeral Home & Crematory of Washington is honored to serve the Nobles family.
Can $9.4 million solve teacher shortages in a state? A new California organization plans to find out.

The California Center on Teaching Careers , which launched in October with a $9.4 million budget, is charged by state lawmakers to deliver millions of dollars in grants to support programs that attract, prepare, and retain more teachersparticularly those that focus on chronic teacher shortage areas, including special education, math, science, and bilingual teachers, as well as in rural schools.

See also: California Teacher Shortages Have Led to Severe Consequences, Report Says

The center, which is spearheaded by the Tulare County education office, has established six regional satellite centers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Sonoma, Shasta, Riverside, and Ventura. The center plans to tackle shortages at the ground level.

Their philosophy: Shortages are local crises, but theyre happening across the state. To find solutions, it will take both the resources of a statewide organization and the focus of local efforts.

To that end, the center will allocate grants, ranging from $100,000 to $1.25 million, to programs that address the shortage throughout the pipeline: by recruiting, preparing, and retaining.

We got teased that we are like Match.com, said Donna Glassman-Sommer, the centers executive director. Were not a program that is promoting any particular agenda, but we are a conduit for helping folks discover their passion, and helping them really understand that its not one-size-fits-allwhether its the [teacher-preparation program] or the district, its helping them discover what is the best pathway.

See also: Districts Turn to Emergency Measures for Hard-to-Staff Teaching Posts

Glassman-Sommer said she wants to build bridges and facilitate conversations between K-12 school districts and universities.

Its really important that each side understand what the needs are, she said. Its not only about putting folks in classrooms, but its about really looking at what are the obstacles in the way. ... Its going to take everybody. Recruitment doesnt just happen at the HR office.

The center will also guide interested peoplewhether high school students, college students, or people looking to switch careersthrough the process of training and certification via a vortal (verical digital portal). The vortal will be personalized so that aspiring teachers can find relevant information on different pathways and learn how to enroll in programs.

Glassman-Sommer, a former special education teacher, said her goal is to elevate teaching as a career. We really look at teaching as an honorable field to go into, she said.

When she started the work of recruitment, the message to prospective teachers was: Think about your most influential teacher. You can become that teacher to someone else.

Now, its different, she said. Young people want a social justice message and knowing they are going to make a difference, they can change things, they can have leadership.

A recent study found that most high-achieving high school students around the world dont want to be teachers . The researcher on the study said that an incentive for top performers would be increased societal value of the profession and a personal call to action: If they choose teaching, they believe childrens development is more important than anything else.
Five years ago, Benjamin Delpy was working for an unspecified French government agency and teaching himself to program in C, and had discovered a vital flaw in the way that Windows protected its users' passwords.

Delpy told Microsoft about his discovery, only to be rebuffed by Microsoft's engineering team, who told him that his security discovery was irrelevant because it would be too hard to exploit. As a way of proving his point and improving his C, he coded up Mimikatz ("Cute Cat"), a password stealing tool that has since grown into an "insanely powerful" Swiss Army Knife of Windows password-cracking.

Delpy released the sourcecode for Mimikatz after traveling to Russia to present on it at the Positive Hack Days conference in Moscow; that's because, while he was there, Russian spies repeatedly came after his code. First, he walked in on a spy who was physically tampering with his laptop while it was in his hotel room, then a "man in a dark suit" insisted that he put a copy of his presentation and sourcecode on a USB stick.

Andy Greenberg's Wired profile of Delpy exposes the complicated world of security research and disclosures. Companies would like to be able to control who can disclose defects in their products. Large firms have previously abused laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to threaten (and even jail) security researchers who disclosed true facts about errors in their code. Most recently, the largest tech companies on earth explicitly rejected a proposal that would have protected security researchers who went public with information about defects in browsers used by billions of people.

Delpy makes sure that he notifies Microsoft before he updates Mimikatz, but Microsoft sometimes insists that his discoveries aren't real problems. Without Delpy's public disclosures, the general public would have no way to know that these bugs existed and could be used to attack them. Security experts rely on Delpy's tool to evaluate whether their client's systems are well-secured.

But crooks also use Mimikatz. It has been folded into NSA hacking tools that have leaked into the public domain, and used by Russian spies to hack the German Parliament.





As Greenberg's experts say, though: if Delpy hadn't gone public with his bugs, someone else would have, and may not have been so willing to share their discoveries with the good guys who are trying to secure, rather than compromise, our systems.



Each of those featuresthe Minesweeper hack includedis intended not to enable criminals and spies but to demonstrate Windows' security quirks and weaknesses, both in the way it's built and the way that careless corporations and governments use it. After all, Delpy says, if systems administrators limit the privileges of their users, Mimikatz can't get the administrative access it needs to start hopping to other computers and stealing more credentials. And the Shadow Brokers' leak from the NSA in fact revealed that the agency had its own Mimikatz-like program for exploiting WDigestthough it's not clear which came first. "If Mimikatz has been used to steal your passwords, your main problem is not Mimikatz," Delpy says. Mimikatz is nonetheless "insanely powerful," says UC Berkeley security researcher Nicholas Weaver. But he says that doesn't mean Delpy should be blamed for the attacks it's helped to enable. "I think we must be honest: If it wasn't Mimikatz there would be some other tool," says Weaver. "These are fundamental problems present in how people administer large groups of computers." And even as thieves and spies use Mimikatz again and again, the tool has also allowed penetration testers to unambiguously show executives and bureaucrats their flawed security architectures, argues Rendition security's Williams. And it has pressured Microsoft to slowly alter the Windows authentication architecture to fix the flaws Mimikatz exploits. "Mimikatz has done more to advance security than any other tool I can think of," Williams says.

HE PERFECTED A PASSWORD-HACKING TOOLTHEN THE RUSSIANS CAME CALLING

[Andy Greenberg/Wired]


Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has made a name for himself as a crypto warrior who promotes a murky idea called "responsible encryption," through which software would somehow be designed so that its security worked 100% of the time when criminals and foreign governments were trying to break it, but fail 100% of the time when the US government was trying to break it.



He's fleshed out that idea somewhat in an interview with Politico Pro, in which he called crypto that the US government couldn't break "unreasonable," while simultaneously endorsing "strong encryption, because the stronger the encryption, the more secure data is against criminals who are trying to commit fraud."





Encryption experts are in virtual universal consensus that math can't distinguish between good guys and bad guys, so any math designed to stop bad guys from unraveling it will also stop good guys. Rosenstein called this position "absolutist."





This debate has been underway since the Clinton era, when the "Clipper chip" had been proposed as a way of squaring this circle: all phones would be fitted with a chip that would assist in encryption, and that chip would yield all its secrets to anyone who knew a special password that only the government would be allowed to know and would never, ever leak.





As implausible as this idea was in the 1990s, it's even less plausible today. That's because computers can run any code, not just code that the US government approves, and code hosted outside the reach of US regulators can be readily downloaded and installed on computers inside the US  while US adversaries in other countries are unlikely to abide by the US law that says that they must not install code that would help them resist surveillance by their enemies in the US government.





This proposal has never been far from the lips of authoritarian policymakers in the "free world." It was proposed by David Cameron in 2015, then by his successor Theresa May last June, then again that month by the Australian Attorney-General.

These other policymakers face impossible battles to ban crypto in their territories, something you can detect if you pay close attention to their rhetoric (in July, the Australian Prime Minister insisted that he would force the laws of mathematics to obey the laws of Australia!).

But US lawmakers have, if anything, an even more impossible battle. That's because of the 1992 Bernstein decision, which established that code is a form of expressive speech, protected by the First Amendment. That means that any attempt to ban working crypto in the USA would require all the implausible steps that any other country would need (mandating "app store" style computing for all devices so that only authorized code could run on them; establishing a national firewall to block sites that distributed working crypto; prohibiting visitors to the country from bringing computing devices, including phones, with them, etc), but also overturning a legal precedent at the appellate division of the Ninth Circuit.



"I favor strong encryption, because the stronger the encryption, the more secure data is against criminals who are trying to commit fraud," he explained. "And I'm in favor of that, because that means less business for us prosecuting cases of people who have stolen data and hacked into computer networks and done all sorts of damage. So I'm in favor of strong encryption." "This is, obviously, a related issue, but it's distinct, which is, what about cases where people are using electronic media to commit crimes? Having access to those devices is going to be critical to have evidence that we can present in court to prove the crime. I understand why some people merge the issues. I understand that they're related. But I think logically, we have to look at these differently. People want to secure their houses, but they still need to get in and out. Same issue here." He later added that the claim that the "absolutist position" that strong encryption should be by definition, unbreakable, is "unreasonable." "And I think it's necessary to weigh law enforcement equities in appropriate cases against the interest in security," he said.



DOJ: Strong encryption that we don't have access to is "unreasonable"

[Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica]

(Image: Facepalm, Brandon Grasley, CC-BY)
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is one of the few Republican politicians  besides Senator John McCain  who is publicly speaking out against Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore. Moore has been accused by four women of sexual misconduct that he initiated towards them when they were teenagers, including Leigh Corfman, who was 14 at the time.

In a tweet this morning, Mitt Romeney says, "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.  Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017

According to Time:

The politician's condemnation of Moore is a marked change from many of his Republican colleagues, who, though they have denounced Moore's alleged actions, have couched calls for him to step down in language that casts doubt about the veracity of allegations.

Image: Gage Skidmore
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) To mobilise subscribers under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has started a state-wide campaign in Uttar Pradesh this week.

The People First campaign began on November 7 and will go until November 14 in Uttar Pradesh. It has seen more than 15,000 APY accounts in the first three days of its launch in the state.

advertisement

The People First Campaign will be a series of campaigns conducted at various states across the country to increase APY outreach, PFRDA said.

The campaign has engaged all the bank and its branches as well as postal branches in the state to enroll people under APY.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) has more than 17,000 APY touch points which include all bank branches and post offices in the state. Out of 17,000 branches, more than 15,000 branches have sourced at least one APY account in the current year.

PDFRA Chairman Hemant G Contractor said the Authority will tap 12 big states including Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in coming days to increase APY subscriber base.

Contractor said UP is the largest state in the country with a population of 7.1 crore in the APY scheme age group of 18-40 years.

UP is the largest contributor so far in the scheme, with nearly 7 lakh enrolment.

"There is however considerable scope for future growth in APY enrolments in the state," he added.

Overall, APY subscriber base has reached 71 lakh and more than 10,000 APY accounts being opened every day.

PFRDA hopes to reach 1 crore subscribers under APY by the end of this fiscal. PTI KPM MKJ

--- ENDS ---
The Wall Street Journal reports that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into allegations that former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and his #pizzagate-promulgating son Michael Flynn Jr. were planning to kidnap a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and take him to Turkey in exchange for $15 million dollars. The FBI is investigating a meeting that took place in mid-December in New York City where "Mr. Flynn and representatives of the Turkish government discussed removing [Fethullah] Gulen, according to people with knowledge of the FBI's inquiries." At the time of the meeting, Trump had already selected Flynn as national security adviser.

The alleged plan was launched at a September 19 meeting, "where Turkish officials first raised the possibility of forcibly removing Mr. Gulen."

From The Wall Street Journal:

That September meeting, held in a hotel room and attended by former CIA Director James Woolsey, was reported earlier by the Journal. Mr. Gulen's removal was discussed as "a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away," according to Mr. Woolsey, who said he attended the meeting at the request of one of Mr. Flynn's business associates. Also present at the September meeting were Mr. Erdogan's son-in-law and Turkey's foreign minister, foreign-lobbying disclosure documents show. The Turkish Embassy has previously acknowledged that Turkish officials met with Mr. Flynn but declined to discuss the conversation. A White House spokesman deferred all questions to a spokesman for the Trump transition process. "We don't have any evidence that such a meeting took place," that spokesman said, referring to the December meeting. "And if it did take place it happened not withstanding the transition."

Image: U.S. Air Force photo by Susan A. Romano
Ray Moore is the ultra-conservative, racist, corrupt, homophobic, theocratic evangelical Christian Alabama Republican Senate nominee who was outed for repeatedly sexually assaulting girls as young as 14.



The right has rallied around him.

Steve Bannon blamed the Washington Post for reporting on the allegations, saying they'd "dropped a dime" on Moore as they'd done with Trump when they reported on Trump's hot-mic boasting about sexually assaulting women.

Bannon did not deny that Moore or Trump had sexually assaulted women, rather, he criticized the news media for disclosing this fact, claiming the disclosures  even if true  were politically motivated.

Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler, a Republican operator, gave an interviews in which he justified Moore's assaults on children by citing scripture, noting that "Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter" and stating that Moore's assaults on children were "nothing immoral or illegalMaybe just a little bit unusual."

'Mary Was a Teenager.' Alabama Republican Uses Jesus to Defend Roy Moore

[Abigail Abrams/Time]

Steve Bannon comments on Roy Moore accusations [CNN]

(Image: @Mooresenate)
The Watch Snob On Watchmakers to Look Out For

The Watch Snob Shares His List Of Watchmakers To Look Out For

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.

American Watchmakers

As most of the other inquiries you receive, I also enjoy and have been well educated by the information provided over these past few years of readership.

I am ready for another purchase and wanted to get your perspective of a US watch maker, "RGM". They have made some heads turn at recent watch shows with their interesting work and now I have turned my head toward the Pennsylvania Series 801 EE. It is advertised as an American made watch in total and the available options of a motor barrel system, wolf's tooth winding wheels and stop second "hacking second" all further my interest.

It seems this 25 year old brand may give a breathe of fresh air to the USA watch making market and if you would share your thoughts on this brand and might also speak toward the future of USA watch making.

I have never had the opportunity to visit Roland Murphy (the founder of RGM) nor have I ever seen any of his watches in person, although he has been a fixture on internet watch discussion forums for years. His watches have their fans and their detractors; I have never found myself having a strong reaction to them one way or another, and he has seemed content in his own quiet way to gradually build a fairly sizable portfolio of models, without much in the way of excess fanfare, which is all to the good; one is always pleased to see someone who has little time for extraneous folderol and would rather get on with the business of making watches.

The only cloud in this otherwise sunny sky, is that I look at the Pennsylvania series movement and once getting over the indisputably attractive bridgework (which does indeed resemble that of an E. Howard Railroad Chronometer, not a bad thing at all) I wonder if perhaps Mr. Murphy may not be entirely candid with respect to American Made. At the very least the balance spring and regulating system appear to come straight from a Unitas/ETA 6497 and the going train layout is nearly identical (with the exception of the mainspring barrel click which appears proprietary to Mr. Murphy).

There is no shame in adapting elements of an existing movement to a customized interpretation, and if Mr. Murphy is indeed making his own click, and bridges, why he has nothing to be ashamed of; it is a most attractive movement. But the terms American Made and in house have been so badly abused that I would be easier in my mind about buying one of his watches, were he entirely transparent about where exactly his parts are coming from  as so many so-called American Made watch brands have done in the last couple of years. This is not to impugn his honesty; I dont know the fellow nor his watches at first hand. But in todays climate of abuse of consumer trust and suspicion, I feel it would behoove him to clarify this essential matter. Caveat emptor.

New, Fun & Funny

Most watchmakers come to the attention of the muggles (those who don't visit any major or minor watch fair) through online reviews and editorials. It's fair to assume there might be plenty more up and coming fine watchmakers who haven't yet made the proverbial front page. Are there any 'new' watchmakers or one you came across recently whose work gets your nod?

Probably this will come as a tremendous surprise to many of my readers but one of my favorite new watchmakers, as unlikely as it sounds, is a Russian gentleman named Konstantin Chaykin, who has made an absolutely delightful wristwatch called the Joker. The hours and minutes are read off the pupils of a pair of hilariously goofy rotating eyes, that take up the top part of the dial; the lower is occupied by the enormous moonphase which has the form of an especially libidinous or inebriated grin (probably both).

It is not haut de gamme watchmaking, but who cares  it is fun.

Vintage Montblanc

Thank you very much for your column; I find it one of the best sources of honest opinion on watches to be found. I look forward every Tuesday to see what you have to say about all things horological.

My question today is about the Montblanc 1858 Chronograph. I am referring specifically to the steel version to which I have been drawn ever since I saw it. The reason for this is that I have always wanted one of the vintage Minerva chronographs on which it is based, and this is a fairly faithful homage. I am curious about your opinion on this piece. I know you have written dubiously of vintage-inspired pieces, and look for truly modern updates rather than slavish devotion to the original. Herein lies my question to you about this watch. The aesthetics are updated with that sunray blue dial, but the biggest question for me is the movement. It is essentially the same movement with a horizontal clutch as the original. One of the reasons I liked the original was the beauty of the movement, especially the devils tail, but it does seem to be lacking technological advancement. it certainly has crossed my mind to look for a vintage Minerva. The biggest problem for me has been finding a quality piece from a reputable dealer; making a deal over the web is not for the faint-hearted.

This is one of those instances in which it is perhaps best to know a bit about the history of both the design and the movement before making a decision. This is always true in watchmaking, of course, but in this case the point is especially relevant, because the watch is made by Montblanc (with caveats, which we will get to in a moment) and Montblanc is not a name most people associate first with watches; the objection to their watches is always, but its a pen company.

Montblanc has been selling watches for twenty years now; they started out in 1997 and faced predictable scorn for the effort. In 2008 they acquired Minerva, which had been sold by the family which owned the company to an Italian investor; by 2008, the firm had a portfolio of interesting movements, including the one you see in the watch in question. This is a quite large monopusher chronograph caliber, 16 lignes if Im not mistaken, and its directly based on a Minerva movement from the early 1900s. Its quite beautifully finished, and the watch is very similar if not nearly identical to the first wristwatch Minerva ever made, which had the original monopusher movement in a (big) wristwatch case. From both a design standpoint and a technical standpoint, its a praiseworthy watch  yes, its quite large but then so was the original and the movement is one of the most beautiful and interesting anyone is making right now. In terms of aesthetics it can in my opinion stand next to anything from Lange, Patek, or Vacheron.

The only problem, and its only a problem if you see it that way, is that it says Montblanc on the dial. Personally I couldnt possibly care less; after twenty years Montblanc is as much a watch company as it is a pens and leather goods firm and the watch is eminently admirable. Be prepared, if you buy it, from carping from less discerning alleged experts but rest easy in the knowledge that you have something of genuine horological interest.

Send the Watch Snob your questions at [email protected] or ask a question on Instagram with the #watchsnob hashtag.

Watches Mentioned In This Article: Pennsylvania Series 801 EE (Price Upon Request), Montblanc 1858 Chronograph (starting at $1,149.00)

AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use.
By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - About 20 asylum seekers on Friday left an Australian-run detention center due to close down in Papua New Guinea, but hundreds of holdouts faced forcible eviction amid an immigration standoff that has blighted Australia for years. Nearly 600 men have barricaded themselves into the Manus island center for more than 10 days without regular food or water, defying closure attempts by Australia and Papua New Guinea in what the United Nations calls a "looming humanitarian crisis". The deadline to move is Saturday. The asylum seekers fear reprisals if they move to transit centers pending possible resettlement in the United States. The main camp was closed on Oct. 31 and water and power have been cut off. Some locals are angry at what they perceive as preferential treatment for the asylum seekers, many of them well educated, in a poor, rural society, and some of the detainees have come under attack when on release from the camp. Bowing to pressure from Papua New Guinea, which said it would forcibly evict and "apprehend" any holdouts on Saturday, around 20 men left the camp for one of the transit centers, three asylum seekers told Reuters. The rest vowed to stay put, setting the scene for a possible clash. Volker Turk, assistant high commissioner for protection at U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, called on both governments to exercise restraint and not to use violence, taking into account people who had been in the processing center for years. Theyre in a very vulnerable state with not much hope in sight," he said. "We have been visiting Manus island several times over the last couple of years, we have reported on the very dire conditions in these centers. Its now really high time to bring an end to this unconscionable human suffering. In Sydney, about 200 protesters picketed a fundraiser for the ruling Liberal Party, heckling arriving guests and demanding that the men be allowed to settle on the mainland. In Melbourne, more than 1,000 people held similar protests, the Australian Associated Press news agency said. Australia has used the center, and a camp on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, to detain asylum seekers who try to reach its shores by boat. It says boat arrivals will never enter Australia, even if found to be refugees, as this would encourage people smugglers in Asia. Australia says the policy prevents people drowning at sea, but it has been widely condemned. "We aren't going to be stood over by people that have better accommodation to move to," Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in a radio interview. The U.N. Human Rights Committee urged Australia to bring its migration laws into line with world standards. It is concerned about conditions in Manus and on Nauru, citing safety fears and instances of assault, sexual abuse, self-harm and suspicious deaths. The asylum seekers, drawn largely from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Syria, use rubbish bins to collect rainwater and set up makeshift shelters to protect against the tropical sun and rain. Papua New Guinea police returned to dismantle parts of the camp on Friday, large parts of its fence having been removed the previous day. "They are destroying our shelters," said Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist from Iran, detained for more than four years. "They destroyed the rubbish bins where we have been collecting water too." (Additional reporting by Tom Westbrook in SYDNEY and Tom Miles in GENEVA; Editing by Nick Macfie and Ed Osmond)
By Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and John Irish BEIRUT/PARIS (Reuters) - Hezbollah's leader said on Friday that Saudi Arabia had declared war on Lebanon and his Iran-backed group, accusing Riyadh of detaining Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign as Lebanon's prime minister to destabilize the country. France became the first Western country to indicate that Saudi Arabia was holding Hariri against his will, saying it wished for him to have "all his freedom of movement and be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon". Hariri's resignation has plunged Lebanon into crisis, thrusting the small Arab country back to the forefront of regional rivalry between the Sunni Muslim monarchy Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite revolutionary Iran. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, said Saudi Arabia's detention of Hariri, a long-time Saudi ally who declared his resignation while in Riyadh last Saturday, was an insult to all Lebanese and he must return to Lebanon. "Let us say things as they are: the man is detained in Saudi Arabia and forbidden until this moment from returning to Lebanon," Nasrallah said in a televised speech. "It is clear that Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon and on Hezbollah in Lebanon," he said. His comments mirror an accusation by Riyadh on Monday that Lebanon and Hezbollah had declared war on the conservative Gulf Arab kingdom. Riyadh says Hariri is a free man and he decided to resign because Hezbollah was calling the shots in his government. Saudi Arabia considers Hezbollah to be its enemy in conflicts across the Middle East, including Syria and Yemen. Western countries have looked on with alarm at the rising regional tension. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries and groups against using Lebanon as vehicle for a larger proxy fight in the Middle East, saying Washington strongly backed Lebanon's independence and respected Hariri as a strong partner of the United States, still referring to him as prime minister. "There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state," Tillerson said in a statement released by the U.S. State Department. Tillerson told reporters on Friday there was no indication that Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia against his will but that the United States was monitoring the situation. The French foreign minister said earlier on Friday that he also believed Hariri was a free man - a statement at odds with the later French foreign ministry comment that it wanted Hariri to have "all his freedom of movement". Hariri has made no public remarks since announcing his resignation in a speech televised from Saudi Arabia, saying he feared assassination and accusing Iran and Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world. Two top Lebanese government officials, a senior politician close to Hariri and a fourth source told Reuters on Thursday that the Lebanese authorities believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia. Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon. While an Israeli attack could not be ruled out entirely, he said, it was unlikely partly because Israel knew it would pay a very high price. "I warn them against any miscalculation or any step to exploit the situation," he said. "Saudi will fail in Lebanon as it has failed on all fronts," Nasrallah said. Riyadh has advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon, or if already there to leave as soon as possible. Other Gulf states have also issued travel warnings. Those steps have raised concern that Riyadh could take measures against the tiny Arab state, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Hariri's resignation is being widely seen as part of a Saudi attempt to counter Iran as its influence deepens in Syria and Iraq and as Riyadh and its allies battle Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen. Hariri's resignation unraveled a political deal among rival factions that made him prime minister and President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, head of state last year. The coalition government included Hezbollah, a heavily armed military and political organization. STUCK BETWEEN "ANTAGONISTIC INTERESTS" Aoun told Saudi Arabia's envoy on Friday that Hariri must return to Lebanon and the circumstances surrounding his resignation as prime minister while in Saudi Arabia were unacceptable, presidential sources said. An "international support group" of countries concerned about Lebanon, which includes the United States, Russia and France, appealed for Lebanon "to continue to be shielded from tensions in the region". In a statement, they also welcomed Aoun's call for Hariri to return. In comments to Reuters, top Lebanese Druze politician Jumblatt said Lebanon did not deserve to be accused of declaring war on Saudi Arabia. "For decades we've been friends," he said. "We are a country that is squeezed between two antagonistic interests, between Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said. "The majority of Lebanese are just paying the price ... Lebanon can not afford to declare a war against anybody." The Saudi foreign minister accused Hezbollah of a role in the launching of a ballistic missile at Riyadh from Yemen on Saturday. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of "direct military aggression" that could be an act of war. Nasrallah mocked the Saudi accusation that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the firing of the missile from Yemen, saying Yemenis were capable of building their own missiles. (Reporting by Dominiqu Vidalon and John Irish in Paris, Sarah Dadouch, Lisa Barrington, Laila Bassam and Tom Perry in Beirut, Susan Heavey and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)
Premier Stephen McNeil leaves for France Sunday on a weeklong visit that will include meetings with tire maker Michelin aimed at convincing the French company, which is the province's largest private-sector employer, to expand operations in Nova Scotia.

The company operates three Nova Scotia plants, in Waterville, Bridgewater and Granton, and employs about 3,400 people in the province.

"We're going to look for opportunity," McNeil told reporters following a cabinet meeting Thursday.

Michelin's headquarters are located south of Paris in Clermont-Ferrand. McNeil said he would be meeting with senior executives who have ties to Michelin operations in the province.

There's no specific proposal on the table, according to McNeil, nor is the premier traveling with extra incentives to try to encourage an expansion.

"As you know, and all Canadians know, our economy is doing well in comparison to the rest of the country and we want to make sure they fully understand the opportunities that are here," he said.

"We've certainly dealt with Michelin on a number of occasions, ensuring that they know the programs that are available in the province."

McNeil noted the company and municipal officials in Kings County have both earmarked land surrounding the Waterville plant should Michelin decide to expand its operations in the Annapolis Valley.

"This is a way to continue to make sure that Michelin understands that the province of Nova Scotia is here and supporting local operations."

In March 2014, the company announced it was slashing 500 jobs from its Granton tire plant over the next 18 months. In the end, about 160 of those workers from Pictou County relocated to Michelin's other operations in Waterville and Bridgewater.

McNeil is also meeting in Rennes with senior officials at Ubisoft. The French game maker has a small operation in Halifax that employs 39 people. They develop games for mobile devices, including smartphones.

Story continues

He will also be meeting with executives at aerospace companies Thales and Stelia Aerospace, which was formerly known as Composites Atlantic.

The premier's entourage includes Laurel Broten, president of Nova Scotia Business Inc., and a staffer, Mike McMurray from the Department of Intergovernmental Affairs and two employees from the premier's office.

While in France, McNeil will lay a wreath at the Juno Beach memorial.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

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..jewishpress.com..09 November '17..An Arab extremist group has submitted an urgent petition to Israels Supreme Court, demanding that Palestinians be permitted to rescue Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who may be trapped in a terror tunnel bombed by Israel.And guess whos funding the petitioners? American Jews.The organization trying to save the terrorists is called Adalah  The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. What the rescue of Hamas and Islamic Jihad murderers in Gaza has to do with Arab minority rights in Israel is anybodys guess.But that doesnt seem to bother Adalahs many donors. In 2016 and 2017, the Swiss Foreign Ministry gave Adalah $165,000. Prominent charitable organizations in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Spain, and England also have contributed generously in recent years.One of the largest donors to Adalah is the liberal American Jewish organization New Israel Fund. According to NGO Monitor, New Israel Fund contributed more than $2 million to Adalah from 2008 to 2016.Its not as if Adalah ordinarily is a reasonable, moderate organization and this petition to save terrorists is some kind of aberration. On the contrary. Adalahs record of extremist activity is long enough to fill several filing cabinets at New Israel Fund headquarters.In other words, the folks at NIF have always known exactly what they were getting with Adalah. Yet they keep on signing the checks.Just this past June, Nadia Ben-Youssef, director of the Adalah Justice Project, spoke at an event in the U.S. House of Representatives, during which she accused Israel of oppressing Palestinian children through persistent human rights violations, systematic impunity, discrimination and a hyper-militarized environment.And that wasnt her first visit to Capitol Hill. Two years ago, Ben-Youssef spoke at a Congressional briefing on Israels use of American weapons in the fight against terrorists in Gaza. Ben-Youssef declared that Israel is guilty of indiscriminate war crimes.The seemingly tireless Adalah fanatics even helped draft the infamous anti-Israel section of the Black Lives Matter platform, in which Israel was described as an apartheid state committing genocide.Thats the interesting thing about Adalah. It doesnt hide its agenda. It openly and proudly incites against Israel. No, its the New Israel Fund thats doing the hiding.I received one of NIFs mass-mailing solicitations the other day. It declared: Please rush your gift to the New Israel Fund so we can keep working with organizations on the ground in Israel to win victories for minorities, for the voiceless, and for the powerless.The letter was accompanied by a glossy brochure listing the highlights of New Israel Fund activities from 1979 to the present. Buried deep in the long list was a passing reference to Adalah as one of the NIF-supported human rights organizations that acted in 2006 to force Israel to pay more compensation to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who were harmed by the Israeli army.The brochure had no reference to Adalah trying to incite the U.S. Congress against Israel. No reference to Adalah promoting BDS or spreading lies about Israel being racist and an apartheid state. No reference to Adalahs role in attempting to persuade African-Americans to hate Israel.Adalah is not fighting for minorities, for the voiceless, and for the powerless, as the New Israel Fund claims. Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists are not a persecuted minority. They are not voiceless or powerless. They have a voice through their many supporters around the world, and they have the power of their missiles, guns, and knives.And when a few Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists get trapped in a tunnel they were going to use to murder Israeli children, they know they can count on Adalah, and its American Jewish donors, to ride to their rescue.
FRIDAY, Nov. 10, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- If your sleep is continually disrupted by a condition called sleep apnea, you might face a higher chance of developing Alzheimer's down the road.

So claims a new study that has linked sleep apnea with an increase in the development of amyloid plaque in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers found that the more serious the sleep apnea was, the more plaque accumulated.

"Sleep apnea is very common among the elderly, and many aren't aware they have it," said senior researcher Dr. Ricardo Osorio. He is an assistant professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.

An estimated 30 percent to 80 percent of the elderly suffer from sleep apnea, depending on how it's defined, the study authors noted.

Although none of the participants developed Alzheimer's over the two years of the study, those with sleep apnea accumulated amyloid plaque, which could trigger Alzheimer's in the future, Osorio said.

Sleep apnea occurs when you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths during sleep.

Those pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes, and they can occur 30 times or more an hour. Normal breathing usually starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Alzheimer's disease is a fatal condition in which memory deteriorates over time. Alzheimer's affects some 5 million older Americans, and as the millions of baby boomers age, that number will only grow.

Osorio suggested that treating sleep apnea would likely reduce the accumulation of amyloid plaque and also the risk of Alzheimer's.

Sleep is necessary for the brain to clear itself of amyloid, Osorio explained. "During sleep, the brain does housekeeping and clears some of the proteins that have accumulated during the day, including amyloid," he said.

But sleep apnea hinders the brain in its efforts to flush out these plaques, he added.

To understand the effect of sleep apnea on the development of brain plaque, Osorio and colleagues studied 208 men and women, aged 55 to 90, who weren't suffering from any type of dementia.

The investigators collected samples of the participants' spinal fluid to measure a protein that indicates plaque development, and performed PET scans to measure the amount of plaque in the participants' brains.

In all, more than 50 percent of the participants had sleep apnea. Nearly 36 percent suffered from mild sleep apnea, and about 17 percent had moderate-to-severe sleep apnea.

Over two years of follow-up, Osorio's team found that among 104 of the participants, those who suffered from more severe sleep apnea had signs in their spinal fluid that indicated the development of brain plaque.

Osorio's group confirmed this increase in plaque by giving PET scans to some of the patients. Scans showed an increase in amyloid plaque among those with sleep apnea.

Although increases in plaque were seen, this did not predict mental decline, the researchers stressed.

The findings were published online Nov. 10 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Osorio noted that the study was too short to determine who might go on to develop Alzheimer's, but the researchers are continuing to follow the participants to see if dementia develops.

One Alzheimer's expert said the link is plausible.

"We think sleep disorders are an important aspect in the development of the disease, and they are also treatable," said Dean Hartley. He is director of science initiatives at the Alzheimer's Association.

People suffering from sleep apnea should have a full sleep workup and get treatment, Hartley said.

"People often ask what they can do now to prevent Alzheimer's," he said. "This is one of those things they can do now."

More information

For more about Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.
The prestigious university has announced this new rule for the students applying for a gold medal.

By India Today Web Desk: You might have thought scoring high grades in exams and being an active participant in a university's academic events are all one needs to be thought of as an ideal student who deserves a gold medal.

But a new rule announced by the University of Pune adds something more as desirable--you have to be vegetarian and a teetotaler.

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The university's rule has been announced to select the candidates eligible for a gold medal which will be given out under the name of Shelar Mama.

Also Read: 5 things that will make a student appearing for board exams hate you

Only students who are vegetarian and do not consume alcohol will be eligible for this gold medal, according to a report by The Quint. The news, once announced by the university, has caused quite a stir among the student population of this prestigious university.

Also Read: One in every three students of BMC schools is malnourished, reveals data

Reactions to the news on Twitter are also pouring in. Supriya Sule--who is an MP, and the daughter of Sharad Pawar--has expressed her shock at this news.

Calling the news "shocking", Sule asks a few pertinent questions about the announcement. "what about merit ????? pls focus fair and quality education for all .... Why dividing people ?????" (sic) she writes in her tweet.

The candidates for the Shelar Mama gold medal have to send in their applications by November 15.

--- ENDS ---
THURSDAY, Nov. 9, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to air pollution can increase the risk for osteoporosis and broken bones in older adults, a new U.S. study suggests.

Researchers analyzed data on 9.2 million Medicare enrollees in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic area who had been hospitalized for fractures from 2003 to 2010.

The investigators found that even a small increase in exposure to air pollution particulate matter called PM2.5 was associated with an increase in fractures among older adults. PM2.5 is the label for fine inhalable particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The researchers also examined eight years of follow-up among 692 middle-aged, low-income adults in the Boston health survey.

The findings showed that people who lived in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon -- a type of air pollution from vehicle exhaust -- had lower levels of an important calcium and bone-related hormone, and greater decreases in bone mineral density than did those exposed to lower levels of the two pollutants.

The study was published Nov. 9 in The Lancet Planetary Health.

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases to cancer and impaired cognition [thinking skills], and now osteoporosis," said senior author Dr. Andrea Baccarelli. He chairs environmental health sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

"Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures," he said in a school news release.

While the study found an association between air pollution and bone problems, it did not prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases has more on osteoporosis.
The state of Nevada is set to execute Scott Dozier on Nov. 14 for the 2002 murder of Jeremiah Miller in Las Vegas. And for the first time since the 2006 execution of Daryl Mack, the debate on capital punishment in Nevada shifts from philosophical abstraction to stark reality.





For the moment, lets ignore how they do it in other states and other countries. Pay no attention to the opinions of out-of-state politicians, national media pundits and global religious leaders. Nevadas death penalty is for Nevadans to debate.





And in the opinion of the RGJ Editorial Board, the death penalty does not serve Nevada in any way.





Proponents have argued that the crime of first-degree murder deserves nothing less than the ultimate punishment, and that the existence of the death penalty deters violent crime and gives prosecutors another weapon in their arsenal to solicit plea bargains. Available evidence suggests those things are not true in this state.



Fear of the death penalty doesnt deter violent crime.





The homicide rate hovered below 15 per 100,000 Nevadans in the mid-1970s, when the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional. The rate spiked to 20 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1980, four years after the death penalty was reinstated. Similarly, the rate of violent crime in the state surged in the late 70s and early 80s despite the return of capital punishment.





Over the past 13 years, as states have begun to place moratoriums on the death penalty or abolish it altogether, Nevada  one of 31 states practicing capital punishment  has ranked in the top 10 for violent crime per capita every year since 2002, and in the top 5 every year since 2006. If potential criminals in Nevada have any apprehension about committing violent crime, its not reflected in the numbers.



Prosecutors arent using the threat of the death penalty to encourage plea bargains.





The death penalty isnt used strategically to avoid trials or elicit plea bargains  in fact, plea bargaining takes place about 14 percent less often when defendants potentially face the possibility of capital punishment, according to a death penalty performance audit commissioned by the 2013 Nevada Legislature.





In fact, the bureau directly asked the district attorneys offices in Washoe and Clark counties if the death penalty was used as a bargaining tool. Both offices said no; Clark County DA Steve Wolfson said the practice would be unethical.





The cost of seeking the death penalty wastes taxpayer dollars that could be used for other law enforcement needs.





The Legislative Counsel Bureaus report found that costs for incarcerating inmates prior to execution were lower than incarcerating inmates serving life sentences without the possibility of parole  approximately $175,000 less per inmate. But 11 of the 12 inmates executed in Nevada since 1976 gave up on their right to continue appealing their conviction. When death-row inmates continue to pursue appeals, the LCB found that incarceration costs were slightly higher than those serving life without parole.





The most significant cost difference between the death penalty and life without parole is in trial and appeal costs. Pursuing the death penalty costs approximately $532,000 per case more than murder cases where the death penalty isnt sought, due to separate trials for sentencing, automatic appeals and other procedural safeguards to ensure fair, error-free trials.





Those are dollars that can and should be used by Nevadas counties for public safety  law enforcement salaries, crime lab equipment, search-and-rescue funding. The presence of capital punishment doesnt seem to have any impact on Nevadas rate of violent crime; allocating tax dollars to pursue the death penalty instead of other law enforcement functions is making Nevadans less safe.





Over time, we've changed our thinking.





Over the years, our thinking has evolved on the death penalty. As far back as the 1870s, the Nevada State Journal wrote both pro- and anti-death penalty editorials; the editorials, written years apart, both expressed the belief that Nevada's crime rate would be reduced based on their way of thinking.





Capital punishment does not diminish respect for life, but proclaims the high value of life for all its citizens, read a Reno Evening Gazette editorial in 1979. We lamented the seemingly endless string of appeals available to death-row inmates in a 1997 editorial.





But since 2001, the RGJ Editorial Board has grown increasingly wary of the death penalty, based on the cost, the sentencing of underage defendants and the mentally disabled, and the chance that insufficient legal counsel and a rush to prosecute could lead to the execution of an innocent person. For just over a decade, we have believed that the system is far too flawed to fix, and have called for the abolition of the death penalty in Nevada.





Once again, with another execution date approaching, the RGJ Editorial Board is calling for an end to capital punishment in the state of Nevada. As a crime deterrent, a prosecutorial tool and a use of tax dollars, it just doesnt make sense for the Silver State.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
A judge on Thursday postponed the execution of twice convicted murderer Scott Dozier, who was set to die early next week.





At Thursdays hearing, lawyers for the Nevada Department of Corrections presented a copy of the states execution protocol signed by the warden of Ely State Prison.





But District Judge Jennifer Togliatti denied the use of a paralytic drug called cisatracurium, and in turn granted a request from the prisons lawyers to stay the execution as the lethal injection process is reviewed by the Nevada Supreme Court.





The judge pointed to testimony last week from an anesthesiologist who said cisatracurium could mask signs of suffocation or other suffering if two other drugs in the execution cocktail  the anxiety drug diazepam, or Valium, and the pain reliever fentanyl  were not administered properly.





Within hours of the order, prison officials released a statement announcing that Tuesdays scheduled execution would not occur.





The Nevada Department of Corrections stands by the integrity of the protocol, the statement read.





In recent months, Doziers lawyers have pushed to ensure that his lethal injection would not lead to cruel and unusual punishment, asking for the elimination of the paralytic drug, but they did not directly ask the judge to stay the execution, standing by an agreement with the man convicted of two murders.





Dozier, who first requested last year that his appeals stop, told Togliatti on Wednesday that he was 98.76 percent certain nothing is going to change.





Dozier, who turns 47 later this month, would have been the first inmate executed in Nevada since 2006.





A Clark County jury convicted him in September 2007 of killing 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller at the now-closed La Concha Motel. In 2005, Dozier was convicted in Arizona of second-degree murder in another case.





Last year, the state completed construction of an $860,000 execution chamber. As Doziers death wish worked its way through the court system, prison officials scrambled to find a combination of drugs to carry out his punishment.





In the weeks leading up to what was supposed to be his execution date, Dozier wrote letters each Sunday to Togliatti, regularly telling her he remained steadfast in his request.





With the understanding that the prison system would continue to look for a way to kill death row inmates, Assistant Solicitor General Jordan Smith asked the judge to unseal the letters.





In Doziers statements in open court and the letters read by the judge, the man also known as Chad Wyatt, Raymond Dozier, Scott Raymond Dozier and Chadwick Quincy Wyatt, has offered no explanation for a desire to give up on the legal system and life.





The judge set another hearing for Dozier in early December, and lawyers left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.





The nonprofit American Civil Liberties Union has called for a more open execution protocol, while criticizing the unprecedented drug combination and the use of the paralytic.





Recent court hearings about the states experimental execution plan only confirmed the ACLU of Nevadas concerns about the likelihood of a botched execution, the groups legal director Amy Rose said in a news release. We were worried the proposed use of a paralytic would mask possible suffering by Mr. Dozier, and the judge agreed. We remain concerned about the proposed drug combination, however, with or without the paralytic. This case is ripe for review by the Nevada Supreme Court, and Nevadans deserve the chance to see this execution scheme fully vetted in public.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - A Mauritanian blogger condemned to death in 2014 for apostasy in a Facebook post about Islam will be freed because an appeals court on Thursday overturned his sentence, his lawyer said.





Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir has spent nearly four years in jail after a high-profile case surrounding a post in which he criticized the use of religion to justify social discrimination.





The case has highlighted tempestuous social divisions in the desert West African country, often based on ethnicity.





Thousands protested in the capital Nouakchott and other cities during the trial demanding Mkhaitir be put to death.





Mauritania has not carried out a death penalty sentence since 1987, but last year a group of influential Muslim clerics urged authorities to apply the harshest punishment.





The court reduced Mkhaitir's sentence to two years in prison and a fine of 60,000 ouguiyas ($170). He will be allowed to go free because of time already served in prison, his lawyer Me Mohamed Ould Moine told Reuters.





"This is a great victory for Mauritanian justice," Moine said after the appeal hearing in the northern city of Nouadhibou. "The judges respected Mauritanian law taking into account his regrets and repentance."





The streets of Nouakchott were calm immediately after the hearing, though there was extra security in place there and in Nouadhibou.





His lawyer and rights groups have expressed concerns about Mkhaitir's safety following death threats to him and his friends.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Nebraska's attorney general has chosen Norfolk killer Jose Sandoval as the next condemned prisoner to die, after a 20-year hiatus in executions in this state.





No request to the Nebraska Supreme Court for an execution warrant has been made, but Corrections Director Scott Frakes served notice to Sandoval on Thursday of the lethal injection drugs that would be administered to cause his death if an execution takes place.





That combination of drugs chosen has never been used in an execution.





State regulations require the prisons chief to notify condemned inmates 60 days prior to the attorney general requesting an execution warrant.





Attorney General Doug Peterson said he is prepared to request the Supreme Court issue Sandoval's execution warrant after at least 60 days have elapsed from the notice.





Corrections officials have chosen a new protocol for administering lethal injection drugs and have purchased diazepam, fentanyl citrate, cisatracurium besylate and potassium chloride.





The drugs were purchased in the United States and received into the department's inventory Oct. 10, said Dawn-Renee Smith, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.





She would not name the company or suppliers from which they were purchased, or say whether the supplier was local or a compounding company.





The Journal Star is pursuing the answers to those and other questions.





Nevada has a similar drug protocol, but uses three drugs: fentanyl, diazepam and cisatracurium.





That protocol is in question after a judge said Wednesday she may cut a paralytic (cisatracurium) from the states previously untried lethal injection plan, after hearing that it could mask movements reflecting awareness and pain, according to The Associated Press.





The Nebraska department has tested its drugs for quality, according to a Corrections news release.





Sandoval, 38, is housed on death row at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution. He was convicted and sentenced to death 13 years ago for killing five people at the U.S. Bank branch in Norfolk in September 2002.





Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, said in spite of the notice he doubted an execution was going to be carried out any time soon.





He and others need to know where the drugs came from, and whether there was a private compounding company manufacturing them, he said.





Other issues that have to be resolved, he said, include whether or not this combination of drugs has been used anywhere else, even though that would not bind Nebraska; whether or not the combination of drugs would be effective in accomplishing an execution; and whether they were designed to be used to take someone's life.





The Associated Press reported in April that a German pharmaceutical company spokesman said the potassium chloride the Nebraska Corrections Department had purchased in 2015 was not intended to be sold to a state corrections department.





A distributor had tried unsuccessfully to get the department to return the drugs.





The fact that the department is withholding certain information, Chambers said, indicates it is not fully transparent and may feel there are weaknesses in what it is doing.





Chambers charged that the notice of intended execution drugs is timed to coincide with Gov. Pete Ricketts re-election campaign.





Ricketts responded, saying: "Last year the people of Nebraska reaffirmed that the death penalty remains an important part of protecting public safety in our state."





Thursday's announcement is the next step to carrying out the sentences ordered by the court, he said.





ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said the organization was horrified" that the department planned to use Sandoval as a "test subject for an untested and experimental lethal injection cocktail."





"This rash decision will not fix the problems with Nebraskas broken death penalty and are a distraction from the real issues impacting Nebraskas Department of Corrections: an overcrowded, crisis-riddled system," she said.





America is a nation turning away from the death penalty, Conrad said, with more and more states seeing that ending capital punishment means improving public safety. Fiscal conservatives, faith leaders and public safety officials are increasingly leading efforts to replace the death penalty.





The ACLU will continue to discuss the states misguided plan with experts locally and nationally and evaluate the grave constitutional, legal and policy questions associated with this untested protocol, she said.





The attorney general said in a statement he agrees with the notice that was given to Sandoval.





"Sandoval planned the Sept. 26, 2002, Norfolk bank robbery when, in less than a minute, five innocent people were brutally shot and killed," Peterson said in a news release.





The dead included bank employees and customers. Sandoval personally killed three people, two more people were killed, and three more were in the midst of the gunfire that day. Sandovals crimes were captured on video.





The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld Sandovals convictions and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court then denied further review of the sentence. Sandoval never filed any challenges to the Supreme Court decisions, Peterson said.





The last execution in Nebraska was Robert Williams in December 1997. It was carried out using the electric chair.



Nebraska to use 4 drugs never tried together in an execution

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP)  Nebraskas corrections department took a key step Thursday to prepare for the states first execution since 1997, unveiling a new combination of lethal injection drugs that no state has ever used on an inmate before.





The state Department of Correctional Services notified death-row inmate Jose Sandoval of the lethal injection drugs to be used in his execution, although no date has been set.





State officials are required to notify an inmate of the drugs to be used at least 60 days before Nebraskas attorney general asks the state Supreme Court for an execution warrant. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said state attorneys plan to seek the warrant after the waiting period has ended.





The announcement came almost one year to the day after Nebraska voters reinstated capital punishment, overriding state lawmakers who had abolished the death penalty in defiance of Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.





Last year, the people of Nebraska reaffirmed that the death penalty remains an important part of protecting public safety in our state, Ricketts said in a written statement. Todays announcement by the corrections department is the next step towards carrying out the sentences ordered by the court.





A corrections department spokeswoman said the state intends to use the sedative diazepam, commonly known as Valium; the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl citrate; the paralytic cisatracurium (sis-at-rah-KYUR-ee-um); and potassium chloride to induce death.





The department has access to all four drugs, and all were purchased in United States, said correctional services spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith. Smith, responding to questions by email, did not say how the drugs were obtained or who provided them.





Nevada officials have been pushing to use three of those drugs in a scheduled execution on Tuesday. On Thursday, a Nevada state court judge ordered state officials not to use the paralytic cisatracurium. Federal public defenders argued that the paralytic could prevent observers from seeing if the condemnded inmate suffers during his death. Nevada officials also plan to use diazepam and fentanyl.





Sandoval, 38, was sentenced to death on five counts of first-degree murder for the September 2002 deaths of five people in a bank robbery in Norfolk, a city of 24,000 about 110 miles northwest of Omaha. Its unclear whether he has an attorney. The Norfolk lawyer who handled his most recent appeals did not immediate respond to a phone message.





He has to be given some sort of opportunity to challenge it, said Jeffery Pickens, executive director of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy, which has represented other death-row inmates. The commission cannot represent Sandoval because it defended some of the other men convicted in the crime, so it has a conflict.





Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers, a longtime death penalty opponent who sponsored the repeal law in 2015, said he believes the execution announcement was politically motivated.





Ricketts vetoed the death penalty repeal measure during his first year in office, and suffered a political blow when lawmakers overrode him. The former TD Ameritrade executive also helped bankroll the petition drive to place the issue on the November 2016 ballot with $300,000 of his own money. Nebraska voters reinstated the death penalty. Ricketts is up for re-election in 2018.





Theyre a good long ways from being able to carry out an execution, Chambers said. But I think the timing is suspicious.





Chambers predicted that attorneys for Sandoval would tear into the states plan and create more delays. Nebraskas last execution was in 1997, using the electric chair. The state has never carried out an execution with lethal injection drugs.





Ricketts did not address Chambers criticism in his statement.





State officials chose a combination of drugs that has never been used before in an execution, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a national group that has questioned the way executions are performed.





Dunham said the use of a paralytic could effectively hide any pain an inmate experiences during the execution, thus obscuring whether the execution was carried out without causing unconstitutional pain and suffering.





Its literally human experimentation, because no one has done it, Dunham said. That doesnt necessarily mean it wont work, but it means there are serious questions about it.





Potassium chloride has been used in other executions to stop an inmates heart, but it also caused severe chemical burns during a botched execution in Florida in 2014, Dunham said.





Source: The Associated Press, November 9, 2017







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By PTI: Jaipur, Nov 10 (PTI) Six of the doctors agitating in Kota, Bundi, Baran and Jhalawar districts over their various demands were arrested today under the Rajasthan Essential Services Maintenance Act (RESMA).

The arrests came as the medical practitioners continued to protest despite the government warning action against them if they did not return to work by evening.

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"Two doctors were arrested from Jhalawar, two from Bharatpur and one each from Tonk and Sawaimadhopur," ADG (Law and Order) NRK Reddy said.

Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf told reporters here: "We had issued them an ultimatum to return to work till 7 pm today."

He said the government will intensify action against the agitating doctors after 7 pm.

The minister held the leader of All Rajasthan State In Service Doctors Association Dr Ajay Chaudhary responsible for the strike.

"Dr Chaudhary seems to have some personal interest... he is trying to create hurdles in breaking the deadlock. He is being guided by someone," the minister alleged.

He said several rounds of talks were held with the agitating doctors, who proceeded on a mass casual leave in support of their 33-point demand on Monday, but "the talks failed due to their adamant attitude".

The protesters agreed to end the deadlock at a meeting last night but Chaudhary raised a demand related to resident doctors at the last moment, Saraf said.

"The matter was almost resolved but Chaudhary raised demand of resident doctors and insisted that it be met immediately. The demand of resident doctors was not in the agenda ... Therefore, it was not possible for us to meet the demand immediately and the meeting failed," he said.

The health minister said alternative arrangements have been made for patients in hospitals. Around 40 per cent of the in-service government doctors are agitating and the rest are on duty.

Normal services have been hit badly and doctors from the Army, BSF, Railways among others have been called in, he said.

A report from Kota said the alternative arrangements were of little help.

District hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres in rural areas wore a deserted look as a few patients reached there for treatment.

Two doctors in Bundi district today joined duty after counselling by the administration, officials said. PTI SDAA GVS

--- ENDS ---
A doctor studies a patient's brain damage.

Very soon, it will have been five years since I suffered a stroke, a story that has a happy ending. I was 35 years old and did not suffer from any health problems that could have led to a stroke. It was a moderate stroke since it developed little by little: it was not a brain hemorrhage. I got treatment for it very quickly as my partner took me to the hospital right away. One in eight patients who suffer a stroke are between 35 and 55 years old.

Like a hangover

That morning, I showered, and as I was drying off, my boyfriend walked into the bathroom. He spoke to me, I answered him and he just stared, eyes wide open.

 Are you seriously talking like that, or are you joking?

One in eight patients who suffer a stroke is between 35 and 55 years old

He took me to our room. I lay on the bed and I remember thinking I'm dizzy, like I have a hangover. The night before, we had watched Ratatouille, a childrens movie about a mouse that dreams of being a chef, and we did not have a single sip of alcohol.

Denying the evidence

My partner took me to the hospital without telling me where we were going, to avoid resistance on my part. So we got into a taxi and he showed the driver a piece of paper on which he had scribbled: To the hospital.

In the emergency room, we sat down with a doctor and my partner told him what was happening to me. I protested: What are you talking about? I feel fine! I do not know how I said it, but I do remember the doctors look of panic. Before I knew it, I was already on a stretcher and a nurse was taking my glasses off. My mind was still clinging to the denial of the obvious. When they arent looking, Ill hail a taxi and Ill go to the newsroom, I thought.

I had been assigned a series of stories about home evictions, and the previous day I had interviewed two children whose families were about to lose their homes. From the stretcher, I fixed my sight on the ceiling as we ran through the hospital at full speed, the idea repeated in a loop in my mind. Please, I have to write my story!

A brief improvement and memory loss

I entered the sixth floor of the hospital, into the ICU where I was in the care of a nursing assistant whom I nicknamed, the panther. What a strong woman she was. She told me that I had just had a thrombolytic therapy that would cure me. What happened next, I do not remember, but I improved within a couple of hours. I spoke with my parents who were on the AVE high-speed train on their way to Madrid, very concerned after my brother had informed them of what was happening to me. I feel really good, I told them.

A disintegrating sensation

It felt as if the core of my body was disintegrating

My memory returned at the hands of pain. I was still lying in the intensive care bed and I knew that at any moment the doctors who had been asking me questions were going to return. What is my name? How old am I? What year I was born? And the most difficult: Repeat this sentence: The scarecrow tried to cross the road at the red light. The pain was getting stronger and I got into a fetal position to try to stop it. Someone later asked me what I felt at that moment and the description I gave him was that it felt as if the core of my body was disintegrating. That's how simple my explanation was.

Awake during surgery

They put me in a room. I knew they were going to operate on me and I breathed a sigh of relief. They did not put me under, although I would have liked them to. They injected me with something I assumed was an anesthetic, but minutes passed and I was still wide awake. If I could have spoken, I would have mentioned it, but at that moment I could not articulate a word (although I did not feel frustrated about it). I had no idea what was happening to me. In that room it occurred to me that it could be something to do with my brain, because I saw that there was a screen in front of me and I remembered the open-skull operations that you sometimes see in movies. I instinctively touched my head. Phew, its closed, I thought, although I then discovered that my head was fixed to the stretcher with a kind of metal brace.

The operation was long and I did not quite understand what the heck they were doing to me. No one explained it, although my family members were aware of everything. I did not have my glasses on and my myopia did not help clarify things for me. Suddenly, the disintegrating pain returned. I started to complain and tried to take the fetal position again. A nurse scolded me: Do not move! The doctor, on the other hand, encouraged me. You are doing real good. But what was I doing right?

During the stroke, I lost my visual field and their faces were misshapen, as if someone had eaten the space between their eyebrows

It took me several days to understand it all. A radiologist had performed a catheterization operation on me. The futuristic medical device entered through my groin and went up to my left carotid artery, where three stents, or springs, were inserted to allow my blood flow to return to normal. My artery was now retreaded, a doctor from Doctor Egidos team told me.

After the surgery, the pain subsided. The radiologist and two young doctors stood over me. I tried to look at them but I discovered that they were not humans, but instead beings from another planet. During the stroke, I lost my visual field and their faces were misshapen, as if someone had eaten the space between their eyebrows. How are you feeling? the radiologist asked me. I was busy trying to understand what planet they were from. Maybe Uranus? He asked me again and got silence as an answer. One of the young doctors then uttered a phrase that hurt my pride: Leave her. Shes completely out of it.

A slight headache

They took me back to the ICU. That night I hardly slept, but I was an attentive observer of everything that went on inside that room, which was a lot, because there were two other people, one of them with complications. At about 4am I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, the only pain I felt was a slight headache that faded throughout the day.

The brain has to learn to do what the damaged part used to do and that takes time

I was in the hospital for seven days in total. It took me weeks to figure out everything that had happened. They did not want to scare me, so they were feeding me the information little by little. When they finally told me that I needed to take some time off, I thought they meant two weeks, but when my mother said it would be a minimum of three months I protested. For my relatives, the hardest thing was not knowing the degree of damage until a few days later. During my stroke, which was caused by a dissection of the carotid artery, I had lost my speech and was slow to recover. On the second day, my communication was reduced to okay. After two days, I was able to say to my partner: Dont worry.

The recoveries in some cases are miraculous. The brain has to learn to do what the damaged part used to do, and that takes time. The greatest improvements take place during the first year, but afterwards it continues to evolve (although slowly). Im lucky to have fully recovered. My partners reaction speed was essential. It is very hard for him and my family to think back on those days. But for me, who lived through it all with little awareness of the risk I was facing, it is a positive episode of my life, especially the stage of rehabilitation.

I am infinitely grateful to Dr Jose Egido, to Dr Ana Garcia, to the neuropsychologist Alvaro Bilbao, of CEADAC, to the speech therapist Elena Panizo and to the occupational therapist Cristina Florez. They all have a very special place in my heart... and in my brain.

English version by Debora Almeida.
From left: Antoni Comin, Carles Puigdemont, Clara Ponsati and Meritxell Serret in Brussels. THIERRY MONASSE (GTRES)

The party of ousted Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT), has agreed to delay a meeting to approve the list of candidates who will run in the regional elections scheduled for December 21.

The move reflects the divisions within the Catalan independence movement with regard to an early election that was called by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy using emergency powers under Article 155 of the Constitution. Rajoy has said the election seeks to restore legality in the region, so that the emergency powers can be lifted and normal relations re-established between Madrid and Barcelona.

Jordi Sanchez of ANC has already had four cellmates

Puigdemont, who fled to Brussels in early November with four aides after failing to appear in court to answer charges of rebellion and sedition, wants a united ticket of all separatist forces to contest the election.

But this seems unlikely, as other separatist parties have either expressed a desire to run separately or may even not run at all. The PDeCAT has already decided that Puigdemont will be their top contender, and agreed to push the party meeting to Thursday, a day before the deadline to file candidate names ahead of the campaign race.

The former premier has been pushing his idea for a united ticket through a website that has so far attracted 427,000 signatures of support.

We still believe that the unity of the secessionist world at the next elections is necessary

But the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), the party that has governed Catalonia in coalition with PDeCAT under the umbrella name Junts pel Si since the 2015 election, has shown little inclination to revisit the partnership.

Polls show that the ERC, once a minority party in the region, could now win the election if it runs on its own. Its leader Oriol Junqueras, who served as deputy premier until his removal by the central government, is currently in pre-trial custody in a Madrid prison on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds in connection with the independence push.

The ERC has already filed a coalition named ERC-Catalunya Si, which includes two new groups that broke away from the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC). Meanwhile, the far-left CUP party, which has provided Junts pel Si with legislative support inside the regional parliament, is considering several scenarios, which include sitting out this election or contesting it within a leftist front.

But a coalition with PDeCAT seems improbable, as the CUP already rejected that option in 2015 on the grounds that this party, formerly known as Convergencia, is too associated with cases of political corruption in the region.

Sources within PDeCAT said that Puigdemonts plan sounds good, but may not be possible due to the partys economic situation.

We still believe that the unity of the secessionist world at the next elections is necessary, and we are ready to explore any possibility in order to make that possible, said Marta Pascal, the party coordinator.

Life behind bars Sin titulo The eight former Catalan government members and two grassroots activists who are being held in pre-trial custody at three Madrid penitentiaries are being flooded with letters of support from sympathizers. Most of the mail is being sent from Catalonia, where pro-independence groups have launched letter-writing campaigns. So far, former deputy premier Oriol Junqueras is the only one of the group to not have received any family visits. There are inmates who would rather not have their relatives come, to spare them the unpleasantness of having to go through checkpoints and seeing them through a glass partition, said prison sources. Only one out of the 10 has had any issues with fellow inmates, added the same sources. Jordi Sanchez, head of the pro-independence civil group ANC, has already had four cellmates. The first one, a businessman from Asturias, was a smoker, and Sanchez asked to be transferred to a non-smoking cell. His second cellmate was a Peruvian who reportedly complained that he was sick and tired of Sanchezs pro-independence tirades. The third was a Catalan man who also began to express unease. But he did not ask for a transfer because he had a medical problem and had to be hospitalized, said the source. Sanchez is currently sharing a cell with another Peruvian inmate.

English version by Susana Urra.
These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

A pro-Catalan independence march in Moscow. YURI KADOBNOV (AFP)

The intense campaign to discredit Europe by Russian media outlets with ties to the Kremlin has set its sights on Catalonia. The Moscow propaganda machine, which sides with separatism, is working hard on disseminating fake news stories in an effort to destabilize democracy and erode social harmony. Some of the malicious disinformation that has been circulating includes claims that Spanish is already being taught as a foreign language in Catalonia, or that the Balearic Islands have joined demands for independence from Spain.

To remain immobile before the Russian narrative about a Europe in decline could have irreparable consequences

Before Catalonia, the disturbing effects of Moscows meddling had become evident during the US election that gave the victory to Donald Trump, and during the Brexit campaign. The fake news amplified by online portals were equally felt in Germany and France, where they aimed to favor the far-right parties Alternative for Germany and Front National. They also played a decisive role during the Ukraine crisis and Russias annexation of Crimea. Just this week, the populist Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovski, who headed a pro-Catalan independence march in front of the Spanish consulate in Moscow, sent out a very clear message: The disintegration of Europe is beneficial to us.

There is evidence of pro-Russian networks interest in Catalonia, as EL PAIS reported this week: Catalonia-related stories sent out by these sources have grown from four a week to more than 200, according to a team of specialists created by the EU  and known as the East Stratcom Task Force  to detect and fight orchestrated attacks from outside the EU using the internet.

Brussels acknowledges the great job being done by this department, which answers to Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, but officials complain about insufficient funds to do their work, particularly in view of the scope of this strategy of agitation and propaganda: eroding the EUs democratic image and presenting it as a failed, authoritarian, nonviable project.

The disintegration of Europe is beneficial to us

Vladimir Zhirinovski

The EU is aware of the threat to Western democracies posed by these Russian-orchestrated moves. Now it must accept that neutralizing the lies currently infesting the digital world will also require more financial resources. It does not seem a judicious option to ignore all the malicious messages portraying Europe like a collection of states filled with fascists and xenophobes. To remain immobile before this Russian narrative about a Europe in decline could have irreparable consequences.

Along the same lines, it is equally necessary for the Spanish government and political parties to be aware of the damage done to our democracys image by the current dissemination of malicious and deceitful claims, whose sole purpose is to discredit Spains constitutional institutions. It is also necessary to launch a parliamentary inquiry to determine the scope of this interference, and decide on the most adequate measures to deal with it.

English version by Susana Urra.
Sandra Kalniete, Vice President of the European People's Party Konrad Adenauer Stiftung

If there is anyone in the European Parliament who knows about independence and Russian interference, it is Sandra Kalniete, vice president of the European Peoples Party since 2014. She was born in 1952 in a Siberian gulag, to where her parents were taken as slaves. She did not see her country, Latvia, until she was seven years old. Her adult life under Soviet terror made her an activist for the Latvian sovereignty movement, which won freedom for its country in 1991. Today, she has two very clear messages for Spain: the Russian threat is real and must be taken seriously, and any comparison between Catalonia and the Baltic republics is fiction and an offense to the memory of the victims of communism.

Question. What interest could Russia have in the crisis in Catalonia?

Answer. Spain is one of the most important member states of the European Union, and the EU is already going through the Brexit crisis. It could be good for Russia to have another crisis to further the regionalization of Europe. There are nationalism problems in Belgium and in other countries, such as Italy. The EU would be so consumed by its own problems that our security and foreign policy would lack impact globally.

Do not waste time debating because we are facing a completely new, digital world

Q. What can Spanish politicians do to contain this threat?

A. First of all, do not waste time debating because we are facing a completely new, digital world, which requires new international instruments to manage it. For the time being, we are defenseless in the face of these new technologies. They were meant to help humanity, but when they are in the hands of evil forces, they can cause damage.

Q. In theory technology is not bad, what is bad is how you use it, right?

A. As I said thats why we need to have agreed-upon international rules, agreements and treaties, because this domain is extremely important.

Q. Russia is not trying to hide any of their campaigns. Why do you think they interfere so openly?

A. Im convinced that Russia does it on purpose to show that they are very strong and can intervene and meddle in the internal affairs of every country, to pursue their goals and no one can do anything to stop them. For Russia, its not important to be the best economically or socially, whats important is that other countries are afraid of them. For centuries, Russian politics has pushed the perception of the greatness of their country.

I believe that the Russians have a very detailed and elaborate strategy to weaken European unity

Q. Is Russia interested in weakening Western democracy?

A. Certainly because if democracies are united they can make a united front against the attempts to penetrate and weaken them. From an economic point of view, the EU is powerful; we continue to be one of the most important economical players globally. Russia is weak because its economy is based on a Third World structure, which is dependent on primary materials and not on advanced technologies. They are interested in benefiting from that weakness.

Q. So this is a detailed strategy, with clear objectives?

A. I believe that they have a very detailed and elaborate strategy to weaken European unity because its easier to face a fragmented EU, which already differs on basic, fundamental issues. The danger is the brainwashing of European minds saying that our values arent actually values, that most Europeans are hypocrites and that European politicians have double standards. They make comparisons between Crimea, Kosovo and Catalonia. They are very skilled in this sort of deviation.

Q. What would you say to those people who believe the Russian threat is science fiction or alarmist exaggerations?

A. People have to realize the extreme change that we are living through. Looking back at history, the magnitude of this change is of the same scale as the industrial revolution. We are living in digital revolution. Ideas that were far-fetched until now are becoming realities. In the virtual world, we have instant connections and a virtual economy. The direct threats that the Baltic states are receiving, as they are Russias neighbors, are not any more important than those received by Spain, which is separated by many mountains. In the digital world, mountains dont play a defensive role anymore.

In a democratic country, any political problem could be resolved with dialogue and negotiations

Q. Many pro-independence people have described the situation in Catalonia as similar to the Baltic republics before the crumbling of the USSR. What do you have to say about that?

A. I have a very simple answer to that. The Baltic States were occupied by a bloody, totalitarian regime. Spain is a democratic country with a Constitution and Catalonia has autonomy. In a democratic country, any political problem could be resolved with dialogue and negotiations, within the framework of the law. Laws can also be changed through negotiations, because in democratic societies we have outlined ways to do so. In the Baltic states, under a totalitarian regime you have no political options. You had to fight for your liberty.
Government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo in a file photo. Julian Rojas

Speaking after the weekly Cabinet meeting on Friday, government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo and Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal confirmed that Russian and Venezuelan hackers have been interfering in the ongoing crisis in Catalonia, and announced that they would be dealing with the issue at the next European Union Foreign Affairs Council meeting, which will take place this Monday.

This is a serious issue, where democracy must confront the challenges of new technologies, Mendez de Vigo told reporters on Friday. Its an issue that will be on the order of the day at the next Foreign Affairs Council meeting, where the [Spanish] foreign minister [Alfonso Dastis] will speak on the matter. [] We believe that Europe has to take this issue very seriously. It cant be that foreign forces, outsiders, whom we dont know who they are, want to change the constitutional order, he added.

This is a serious issue, where democracy must confront the challenges of new technologies Government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo

The government has corroborated the fact that many messages and operations that were seen via social networks come from Russian territory, Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal continued. And I use the correct expression: from Russian territory. Thats not to say necessarily that we have determined that it is the Russian government. As such, we must act with extreme caution. We have to be clear on the origins. They are partly from Russian territory, partly from elsewhere, also outside the EU. We are determining this at the current time.

Hackers from Russia and Venezuela have been publishing fake or distorted news stories related to Catalonia and to Spain. For example, one story claimed that the Balearic Islands was in favor of independence for Catalonia, while another reported that Castilian Spanish was no longer taught in the regions schools. The multiplication of news stories about Catalonia has increased exponentially since the start of the institutional crisis.

The government has corroborated the fact that many messages and operations that were seen via social networks come from Russian territory

Defense Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal

According to Popular Party spokesperson in the European Parliament, Esteban Gonzalez Pons, this meddling is designed to destabilize the European Union. And at the moment, the focus for achieving this objective has been put on Catalonia, he stated.

While the Spanish government and the countrys main political parties all agree that Russia has been interfering in the ongoing institutional crisis prompted by the regions bid for unilateral independence, the executive had, until now, kept a low profile on the issue. Discretion has characterized the script that has been followed, despite Gonzalez Pons already having sent his European partners a letter in which he informed them that the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had evidence about the activity of Russian hackers in Spain.

This Friday also saw Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis state that there are fairly well corroborated reports that attest to the fact that a group of Russian hackers is working to destabilize the European Union. Speaking to the COPE radio network, the minister said that Russian networks or hackers are behind something that is not exclusively against Spain, but rather a way of destabilizing the EU. The minister added that Russia has had this interest for some time, given that the country does not feel comfortable with the unity of the European project.

Whats more, foreign ministers on Wednesday called for the EU to increase the resources used against the Russian influence. Deputies and experts from more than 20 countries have also signed a declaration that calls on the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, to act more forcefully in cases such as that of Catalonia.

English version by Simon Hunter.
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed concern on Thursday about Iran's ballistic missile program saying it should be restricted either through negotiations or possible sanctions.

Accusing Iran for the missile fired from Yemen and intercepted by Saudi Arabia on Saturday, Macron said, "There are extremely strong concerns about Iran. There are negotiations we need to start on Iran's ballistic missiles."

The French president was speaking at a news conference held in Dubai at the end of his visit to United Arab Emirates and before heading to Saudi Arabia for a surprise visit.

"Like what was done in 2015 for the nuclear activities, it's necessary to put a framework in place for Iran's ballistic activities and open a process, with sanctions if needed, of negotiation that would enable (that)," Macron said and added, "The missile which was intercepted by Saudi Arabia launched from Yemen, which obviously is an Iranian missile, shows precisely the strength of their" program.

While backing the Shiite rebels known as Houthis in Yemen, Iran has denied providing ballistic missiles to them and says its missile program is purely defensive and should not be linked to the nuclear deal.

The ballistic missile launched Saturday night flew near Riyadh's international airport before Saudi officials said they shot it down.

Macron, however, reaffirmed his support for the nuclear agreement challenged by U.S. President Donald Trump. "If we were to walk away from it, it would lead to either immediate war or an absence of control which would inevitably lead to a North Korean-situation, which I could not accept."

French president also said, "Iran is a regional power...there should be no naivety in terms of Iran, it is about standing beside our allies, in particular the United Arab Emirates, but it is about not having any policy that could create imbalances, conflicts in the region."

He emphasized his intention to go to Iran as part of efforts to talk to all the actors in the region.

Macron also told journalists that the decision to go to Riyadh had been made on Thursday morning, and that his talks with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would include "regional questions, in particular Yemen and Lebanon".

"I believe it's important that we work with Saudi Arabia for the purpose of guaranteeing stability in the region and the fight against terrorism," he said.

According to Reuters, two top Lebanese government officials said on Thursday that Riyadh was holding Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri captive and a third source said that the Saudi authorities had ordered Hariri to resign while he was in Riyadh last weekend, and put him under house arrest.

Saudi Arabia has denied that he is under house arrest, but Hariri himself has not denied that his movements are being restricted.

France has close ties with its former colony and in particular Hariri, who is also a French citizen and spent several years in France. Macron said there had been informal contacts with Hariri, but no request to transfer him to France.

He said he would "emphasize the importance of Lebanese stability and integrity" in his talks in Riyadh, adding: "My wish is that all Lebanese political officials live freely in Lebanon ... which means having a very demanding stance on those who could threaten any leader."

In recent years, France has been able to nurture new links with the Gulf Arab region due to its tough stance on Iran in nuclear negotiations, and the broad similarity of their policies on conflicts across the Middle East.

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Sushil Barman, a rickshaw-puller, has been rewarded Rs 5000 by Paytm for supporting digital payments and giving 80 per cent discount to his passengers.

By India Today Web Desk: Sushil Barman, a rickshaw-puller from Siliguri, West Bengal, has taken a progressive step to support 'Digital India', an initiative started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Barman even provides discounts up to 80 per cent to his passengers in order to encourage them for using Paytm Payments.

Barman has taken the decision to go for digital payments due to his firm belief in PM Modi and Digital India. Paytm decided to reward Barman after they were informed about his unique initiative.

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Paytm rewarded him with Rs 5000 for adopting Paytm payments.

Wow! We are humbled. Thank you, #SushilBarman for driving awareness and adoption for Paytm payments. As a small token of our love, we have added ?5000 to your Paytm account. :-) https://t.co/i5wCiVVoi5- Paytm (@Paytm) November 10, 2017

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In a letter addressed to the United Nations, 34 nongovernmental organizations from around the world have urged General Assembly member states to actively support human rights in Iran, pressure it to stop persecuting its own citizens, and end the pattern of abuse and non-cooperation.

Specifically, the NGOs urged the assembly to support a resolution that will keep Irans human rights record under scrutiny, according to Amnesty International official Raha Bahreini.

The human rights situation has regretfully shown no improvement during the past year, she told Radio Fardas Roya Karimi Majd in an interview. The letter specifically refers to the high number of executions, widespread discrimination against women and minorities, and arbitrary detentions, as well as the fact that Iran still refuses to issue visas for UN special rapporteurs to assess the situation.

Speaking of the tangible impact of human rights resolutions on Iran, Bahreini explained, Though such resolutions are legally nonbinding, Iranian officials can feel ashamed at international forums. Thats why they are heavily invested in convincing the UN that the human rights situation in Iran should not be a case for concern.

Meanwhile, the NGOs letter, dated November 7, says, By voting in favor of this resolution, the UN General Assembly will send a strong signal to the Iranian authorities that the international community looks to see genuine human rights improvements in the country in line with Irans treaty obligations and voluntary pledges.

The letter also insists that Irans human rights record has shown no improvement during Hassan Rouhanis presidency. By the end of Hassan Rouhanis first term as president, expectations that his government would enact human rights reforms have not yet materialized, it continues. Hassan Rouhanis recent re-election now reinforces the Iranian authorities responsibility to deliver on his electoral promises and take action on long-awaited human rights reforms.

Referring to cases of human rights violation, the letter notes, The Iranian authorities have also continued to arbitrarily detain hundreds of human rights defenders including minority activists, environmental rights activists, trade unionists, as well as journalists, political figures, online media workers for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and religion or belief.

The NGOs also averred that the high number of executions in Iran is a matter of concern, saying, Indeed, Iran remains among the top executioners in the world and has executed at least 440 people since the start of 2017.

Furthermore, it has highlighted the fact that in the past year, Iran has failed to seize opportunities to cooperate meaningfully with UN human rights mechanisms in order to address these challenges. The country has continued to deny independent monitoring from key human rights experts.

Insisting on the necessity of passing the resolution to keep Irans human rights record under UN supervision, the signatories reiterate, By voting in favor of this resolution, the UN General Assembly will send a strong signal to the Iranian authorities that the international community looks to see genuine human rights improvements in the country in line with Irans treaty obligations and voluntary pledges.
A prominent political figure protesting the results of Irans 2009 presidential election, Zahra Rahnavard, has bitterly criticized being ignored by the secretary of the Supreme Security Council of Iran (SSCI).

SSCI head Ali Shamkhani recently said that the term under house arrest didnt apply to the gentlemen who protested Mahmud Ahmadinejads re-election in 2009.

After being under house arrest for nearly seven years, Rahnavard told her daughters, They dont even bother to admit they have chained up a woman for seven years.

While meeting with her two daughters on November 7, Rahnavard was responding to Shamkhanis recent comments, a website close to the Iran Green Movement, Kalemeh, reported.

Ten days earlier, Shamkhani had cautioned, It is not correct to use the term under house arrest for Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Though Shamkhani was trying to dismiss the fact that Mousavi and Karroubi are under house arrest but he did not acknowledge that Rahnavard, Mousavis wife, has also been confined with her husband since February 2011.

Rahnavards daughters cited her as saying, We did not expect Shamkhani to make such a comment. The gentlemen have chained up a woman for seven years and, depriving her of university, art, and social activities, kept her under ruthless house arrest but do not bother to even acknowledge it.

Rahnavard, who meets weekly with her daughters, insisted she has no demands.

However, on November 8, Kalemeh cited Karroubis son, Mohammad Hossein, as saying he had witnessed a breakthrough in his fathers case but not in that of the Mousavis.

Karroubi, the former speaker of the Iranian Parliament, has recently been allowed to receive more visitors. His fragile health has raised serious concerns, and several analysts argue that is the main reason behind relaxing restrictions against him.

The legality of keeping the trio under house arrest has in recent years been a bone of contention between President Hassan Rouhanis administration and the judiciary.

Karroubi and Mousavi were Ahmadinejads main challengers in the 2009 presidential election. Ahmadinejad was officially declared the winner, but the challengers protested the outcome, calling it an engineered result.

Their protest led to more than five months of demonstrations and was met with a harsh crackdown that left several killed and hundreds imprisoned.

Later, in February 2011, the Mousavis and Karroubi were confined to their houses after they called for street demonstrations in solidarity with the Arab Spring pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend:

The issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was raised at the Geneva Peace Week held at the UN office in Geneva on Nov.6-10,the International Eurasia Press Fund reported.

Talks held during the Geneva Peace Week are focused to support the peaceful initiatives aimed at conflicts resolution in different parts of the world.

President of the International Eurasia Press Fund Umud Mirzaev, Vice-President Ramil Azizov, Assistant to the President of the IEPF Anastasia Lavrina, Permanent Representative of the IEPF at the UN Office in Geneva Michael Montafi, President of the International Organization for Sustainable Energy (ISEO) Gustav Grob and the Secretary General of this organization Abdulreza Metghalchi participated in the negotiations.

The event "Preventing Conflicts Through Intercultural Dialogue - The Example of Azerbaijan" was organized within the Geneva Peace Week . The event was organized by The European Azerbaijan Society Foundation (TEAS), Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations.

Michael Montafi, addressing the event, said that he believes in the prospects of civil peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"The peace platform is a good way to peace formation between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities living together for many years," he said.

"Separatist challenges are contrary to international law and all international norms and rules," Grob said, further noting the role of civil society in conflict resolution and, above all, the importance of the liberation of the occupied territories for conflict resolution.

"Two parties are involved in global conflicts. On one hand, there are the occupiers, on the other hand, there are the victims of the occupation. Unfortunately, despite negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, there have been no serious decisions taken for over 20 years to resolve the conflict," Umud Mirzaev said.

Speaking at the meeting organized by the United Nations, the Vice-President of IFPE gave a speech on the role of impartial information in conflict resolution on "Capacity Building in Conflict Resolution: Adapted to Nonviolent Disagreements", Ramil Azizov urged UN agencies to support the peaceful platforms of civil society.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

Russia, in coordination with other co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, is ready to continue mediation efforts to assist the parties in developing a mutually acceptable consensus basis for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This was stated by the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in response to the statement by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group, the personal representative of the OSCE CiO and the head of the HLPG on Thursday in Vienna.

"We expect that the forthcoming contacts of the co-chairs will give an additional impetus to the peaceful settlement of this long-standing conflict," Lukashevich said.

According to him, the meeting of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which took place after a long break in Geneva on October 16, was a significant result of the mediation efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs in the course of active contacts with Baku and Yerevan.

"It is important that, at the end of the summit, the parties agreed to intensify the negotiation process. We are confident that this will further enhance confidence between the parties and, as a result, advance towards a compromise on the essential aspects of the settlement. We hope that the constructive atmosphere established at the meeting of the presidents in Geneva will be preserved at the talks. We count on the effectiveness of the meetings of the co-chairs planned with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia planned before the end of the year, "Lukashevich said.

The representative of the Russian Federation OSCE considers that the maintenance of peace and stability in the region is a prerequisite for the productive activity of the mediation mission of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

"In this regard, we highly appreciate the commitment of the sides to take additional measures to reduce tensions on the contact line of the troops. We note again that this goal would be met by the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the talks of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Vienna on May 16 and St. Petersburg on June 20, 2016 to reduce military risks, in particular, the increase in the number of OSCE observers in the conflict zone. We look forward to an early agreement on the expansion of the office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the basis of a scheme that will qualitatively enhance the capacity to monitor the situation in the region. The completion of the joint mechanism for investigating armed incidents in the conflict zone would also be in the interests of stability at the contact line of the troops and the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. The implementation of these fundamental agreements would strengthen the positive atmosphere in the dialogue of the parties and further stimulate the negotiation process, "Lukashevich said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

During ten days of October, representatives of Expert Council of the Baku International Policy and Security Network (Baku Network) held meetings in Washington, Philadelphia and New York in leading US think tanks and research institutes, Elkhan Alasgarov, PhD, head of the Expert Council of the Baku Network, told Trend Nov. 10.

The Heritage Foundation, the Jamestown Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, etc. are among them, he said.

Agreements were reached on the possibility of holding joint events in the future, in particular on the organization of discussions between experts of the two countries at the Baku Network platform, information exchange and rendering of all kinds of assistance to the activity of the Baku Network on international arena, he added.

Earlier, Baku Network had already established partnership relations with such authoritative organizations as the Valdai Discussion Club, the Baltic Development Forum, and others, he noted, adding that meetings and cooperation with colleagues from Europe are planned in the near future.

Regarding the meetings with the US think tanks and research institutes, Alasgarov noted that these institutions have serious impact on the formation of foreign policy of the US. Fruitful discussions were held in such organizations as the Caspian Policy Center, the Bipartisan Policy Center, as well as with representatives of the UN secretariat, he said.

During the meetings, the participants received objective information in detail on the political and socio-economic achievements of Azerbaijan under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijans fair position in the issue of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Alasgarov noted.

He said that the completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway project and the opening ceremony of the BTK railway, which was attended by high-ranking officials of Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan along with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was a notable factor during the delegations stay in the US.

This once again allowed us to emphasize the importance of Azerbaijan in the region, and this importance was unequivocally supported by representatives of the US think tanks, Alasgarov said. They stressed the important geopolitical location of Azerbaijan and the countrys role in the region.

Alasgarov added that this trip was very successful and fruitful, and, in particular, allowed to bring the Baku Network to a new level of recognition in the sphere of leading think tanks, which is another international success of the Baku Network and another demonstration of the high level of development of democracy and civil society in Azerbaijan.

In this context, a meeting with James McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, who is the author of the most authoritative global ranking of think tank institutions, is also a great success, Alasgarov said.

The sides held talks to include the Baku Network in this ranking and discussed issues of participation in events around the world, where the most pressing international problems are discussed, he noted.

He said that the meetings in the US were organized with the assistance of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, the US Department of State and the Meridian International Center.

Such a program of the think tanks cooperation with the US partners, put forward by the US Embassy in Azerbaijan, was implemented for the first time, he noted. This creates additional opportunities for making the US and world community aware of Azerbaijans position, objective coverage of events related to the country and the region, he added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today attended the inauguration of the new building of Ganja State Philharmonic.

President Ilham Aliyev laid the foundation of Ganja State Philharmonic in 2012. The construction work here was completed this November.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the philharmonic and toured the building.

The head of state was informed that the six-story building features administrative, training, make-up, director's and recreation rooms, and a canteen. The building also houses a 1,200-seat concert and a 300-seat conference halls, 11 boxes, including one VIP box.

The philharmonic will also feature the sale of books.

The statues of Uzeyir Hajibeyli, Fikrat Amirov, Gara Garayev, Niyazi and Arif Malikov are installed on the balcony on the third floor of the building.

An open-air summer concert stage, an observation tower, a 500-car underground parking lot and a two-story gallery of two blocks with a total area of 2,000 square meters were also built in the area.

Extensive landscaping work was done around the philharmonic hall and decorative flower bushes were planted here.

Two fountains decorated with national ornaments were installed in front of the building.

President Ilham Aliyev then met with representatives of the general public of the city of Ganja and posed for photographs with them.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has viewed the construction of Majestic Palace hotel as part of his visit to Ganja city.

The head of state was informed of the construction work.

The construction of the hotel started in April 2015 and has now entered its final stage. The seven-story hotel will feature a total of 52 rooms, including one kings suit, eight suites, 10 deluxe and 33 standard rooms. The hotel will also house a 120-seat restaurant and a 20-seat conference hall. The hotel has a 50-car parking lot.

Once put into service, the hotel will create 50 jobs.

President Ilham Aliyev was also informed of landscaping and construction work in the city.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today attended the opening of a newly-built 514-bed dormitory complex for students of Azerbaijan State Agricultural University in Ganja.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the dormitory.

Minister of Agriculture Heydar Asadov informed President Ilham Aliyev that 4,834 students are currently studying for bachelor's degree at the university.

A 520-bed student dormitory of the university was inaugurated in 2016 with the participation of President Ilham Aliyev. The complex, which occupies a total area of 13,640 square meters, consists of five blocks. All 257 rooms in the complex are equipped with the necessary furniture. There are a registration office, a 120-seat auditorium, a fitness club, a cafe, an atelier, stores, a laundry, a library, a medical room, a dental office and a room for meeting with parents.

Azerbaijan State Agricultural University was established in 1929 in Baku and moved to Ganja in 1931.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today attended the inauguration of Grand Qafqaz trade complex in Ganja.

Head of Ganja City Executive Authority Elmar Valiyev informed President Ilham Aliyev about Grand Qafqaz trade complex.

The construction of the complex started in May, 2014, and ended in October, 2017. The facility covers a total area of 20 hectares. Five Green Market wholesale centers were built in the complex. Some 3,500 trade facilities were built here. There is a parking lot, which occupies an area of 1.3 hectares.

The trade complex here will create 5,000 jobs.

President Ilham Aliyev also viewed the fruit and vegetables sale section of the complex.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today attended the opening of Mirza Shafi Vazeh Museum in Ganja.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the museum, which was built with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

The President was informed about the works carried out here. The construction of the museum started in March 2016, and ended in November 2017. The two-storey building of the museum has exhibition and conference halls and administrative rooms.

A park named after Mirza Shafi Vazeh, which covers an area of two hectares, was built around the museum. A statue of the poet was erected in the park.
By India Today Web Desk: Ever since the sequel to the 2012 spy thriller Ek Tha Tiger was announced, fans have not been able to keep calm. The trailer of Tiger Zinda Hai hit the internet on Tuesday, November 7, and the Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif film received a thumbs up from the audience. Such was the response to the trailer that it broke even Baahubali 2's record.

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The trailer of Tiger Zinda Hai has become the most liked Hindi trailer of all time, reports India.com. With over 6,48,000 likes, the trailer of the Ali Abbas Zafar film has overtaken the Hindi trailer of Baahubali 2, which has garnered over 5,41,000 likes so far. This is remarkable, considering Tiger Zinda Hai has achieved this feat in just four days.

In the film, which releases on December 22, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif will reprise their roles of a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent, Tiger, and an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agent, Zoya, respectively.

Tiger Zinda Hai is inspired by a true story from 2014, when Indian diplomatic corps secretly rescued 46 Indian nurses held captive by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, with some possible help from the intelligence agencies.

ALSO WATCH: Katrina Kaif talks about working with Salman Khan in Tiger Zinda Hai

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Details added (first version posted on 17:19)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

The settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should be on the agenda of US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron, Azerbaijani MP and Vice President of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Azay Guliyev told Trend Nov. 10.

The Azerbaijani side has repeatedly made statements on the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group and expressed its dissatisfaction, said Guliyev.

The Azerbaijani society does not trust the OSCE Minsk Group and those who lead it, noted the MP.

"Nobody thinks that these talks will have any results, especially when Armenias imitation policy still continues," he added.

Guliyev said the hope for a peaceful settlement of the conflict will increase only if it is on the agenda of leaders of the Minsk Group co-chairing countries, if they are personally interested in a fair solution to the problem, and if they use influence to make Armenia back off from its occupation policy and demonstrate a constructive position in negotiations.

However, unfortunately, this interest is not felt today. On the contrary, we are witnessing steps by all the three co-chairs that motivate the invader, and Armenia - getting inspired by this - acts inadequately in negotiations and is brutally violating international law, added the OSCE PA vice president.

If there is a lack of a coherent and unified approach by all the three presidents, the Minsk Groups activities and mediation mission will not have any significance, Guliyev noted.

Therefore, the expectation of the Azerbaijani public today is that the presidents of all the three countries should take specific steps to implement the decisions made by the heads of state at the 1992, 1994, 1995 OSCE summits and in the following years, said Guliyev.

He noted that all the three co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group are permanent members of the UN Security Council today.

They should at least respect the resolutions they adopted in the UN Security Council, and should not turn a blind eye to the fact that these documents have been ignored by Armenia, said the MP.

The OSCE PA vice president also added that the 3+2 format of the heads of state can be the most appropriate form of negotiations for a comprehensive discussion of the issue and finding specific way of solving the conflict.

If the co-chairing countries have political will and desire, it is possible to organize a summit of the US, Russian, French, Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in the first half of 2018 and achieve a serious change in the settlement process, added Guliyev.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

Twenty Petroleum Engineering and Chemical Engineering students of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) completed two-month on the job training at SOCAR Turkey company in Istanbul and facilities of Petkim and Star companies in Izmir, Turkey.

Upon completion of the internship, the students met with BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov. The undergraduates shared their impressions of the training, told about its results, and professional skills and practical knowledge they obtained. The internship program participants Sayida Aleskerova and Leman Sadigly made presentation and provided detailed information about their experience.

They said that BHOS undergraduates undertook the internship alongside students from Turkish technical universities. During first two weeks, the interns attended induction courses on safety at Petkim and Star companies and participated in a number of other training sessions including courses entitled Seven distinctive features of charismatic leader, Project management and Time management. In the second part of the internship, the students participated in on the job training at industrial facilities and laboratories.

The students spoke about their experience of work on projects and technical problems. They said that during the internship in Turkey the undergraduates also could observe differences in qualifications and level of preparation between students of various universities. In their words, they realized that BHOS students are more competitive and can easily adapt to new and challenging circumstances. They also quickly accept innovative ideas and successfully solve difficult technical tasks. The students expressed their sincere gratitude to the Higher School management for organizing training of undergraduates at a high level.

The Rector extended his congratulations to students on successful completion of the internship and expressed his gratitude for appreciation of BHOS management work and opportunities provided by SOCAR, Petkim and Star companies.
Details added (first version posted on 12:39)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Samir Ali  Trend:

A fire has broken out in AFEN Plaza business center in Narimanov District of Baku, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Emergency Situations told Trend Nov. 10.

Firefighters and ambulance teams are working on the scene, the ministry said.

The fire has not been fully extinguished yet. No injuries have been reported.
Details added (first version posted on 12:45)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

Former national security minister of Azerbaijan Eldar Mahmudov was again summoned to the Prosecutor Generals Office, Spokesman of the Prosecutor Generals Office Eldar Sultanov told Trend Nov. 10.

Mahmudov was summoned to the Grave Crimes Investigation Department of the Prosecutor Generals Office for interrogation in connection with a criminal case initiated against a group of employees of the Ministry of National Security, which had been abolished.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Ilhama Isabalayeva  Trend:

All official religious figures will receive salary in Azerbaijan from 2018, Gunduz Ismayilov, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, said.

Ismayilov made the remarks at the conference entitled "Religious educational work: the current situation and opportunities" in Baku Nov. 10.

Moreover, religious colleges that have passed registration will start to gradually operate, he said, adding that education will be free.

"The education at the Baku Islamic University must be also free of charge, Ismayilov said. Azerbaijan is one of the few countries in which religious education is paid."

Religious education must not be paid, he added. "If the country sees this sphere as a priority, then religious education must not be paid and it must be financed by the country."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

As part of Ganja visit, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the opening of the 110/35/10 kV Yeni Ganja substation.

Chairman of Azerishig Open Joint Stock Company Baba Rzayev informed the head of state about the work done here.

The substation occupies a total area of 11,000 square meters.

President Ilham Aliyev launched the substation.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov inspected the construction of a new international sea port in Turkmenbashi on the Caspian shore, the Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news agency reported.

The project is being implemented by Turkeys Gap Insaat.

The project is an important part of Turkmenistans complex industrialization, said Berdimuhamedov, adding that its implementation will create more than 2,500 jobs.

It was noted that a shipbuilding plant will become a fundamentally new enterprise for the national economy.

President Berdimuhamedov stressed that Turkmenistan is a transport corridor in the East-West and North-South directions, providing access to the worlds biggest markets.

The commissioning of a super-modern seaport on the Caspian shore will bring economic and trade cooperation between the countries of Asia and Europe to a qualitatively new level and open up enormous opportunities for optimizing transport flows in Eurasia, says the report.

Annual capacity of the port will be 17-18 million tons. Cost of the project is more than $1.5 billion.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

The work to simplify property registration is expanding in Azerbaijan, the countrys State Property Issues Committee said in a message quoting Kerem Hasanov, head of the committee.

Hasanov was speaking in Geneva at the 78th Session of the Committee on Housing and Land Management and Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

He spoke about the success achieved in Azerbaijan over the past 20 years in the field of real estate management and the reforms conducted by the countrys leadership in this field.

Hasanov said that Azerbaijans State Property Issues Committee pays special attention to increasing efficiency and transparency in its activity, rendering services to citizens at a high level, as well as efficient management of state property. He added that the committee actively uses advanced international experience and modern approaches in its work.

The committee also accelerated the process of introducing e-services, Hasanov said.

Today, Azerbaijani citizens can use almost 40 different services in real estate sphere, and this increases comfort and efficiency when registering a property, he added.

All these measures allowed Azerbaijan to increase its positions in the reports of international rating agencies, he said. He noted that Azerbaijan ranked 21st in the World Banks Doing Business 2018 rating in terms of registering property.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

Trend:

Heydar Aliyev International Airport served 3.46 million passengers in January-October 2017.

This indicator rose by more than 20 percent in January-October 2017 as compared to the same period of 2016 and exceeded the total statistics for the entire 2016 year.

During this period, Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) carried two million passengers, 504,000 of which were transported on domestic flights.

Eighty-five percent of passengers were carried by international flights and 50.6 percent of the total international traffic of the airport accounted for Azerbaijan Airlines, 49.4 percent  for foreign air carriers.

Currently, Heydar Aliyev International Airport serves 30 airlines on 53 destinations. Top ten most popular international destinations include Moscow, Istanbul, Dubai, Kiev, Tehran, Antalya, Tbilisi, Baghdad, Doha and St. Petersburg. 2.1 million passengers traveled to these destinations.

The new airport terminal of Heydar Aliyev Airport (Terminal 1) was put into operation in April 2014. Its total area is 65,000 square meters.

Heydar Aliyev International Airport was awarded the category of "4 stars" by the Skytrax, which is influential British consulting company specializing in the study of the quality of services provided by various airlines and airports worldwide.

In March 2017, Baku Heydar Aliyev Airport was named the best airport among airports of Russia and CIS countries for the level of the provided services, being awarded the prestigious Skytrax World Airport Awards.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

Kazakhstan will export goods worth $5.3 million to China under contracts signed during the Kazakhstan-China business forum held in Chinese Urumqi, the press service of Kazakh Invest said in a message Nov. 10.

Thirteen Kazakh manufacturers and about a hundred potential Chinese buyers participated in the business forum. Kazakh delegation included manufacturers of vehicles, fiberglass pipes, mineral fertilizers, fat and oil products, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, dry milk and fruits.

Representative of Kazakh Invest Nurlan Kudiyarov noted that the current year was a breakthrough in the development of cooperation between the two countries in the agricultural sector.

We are ready to assist all interested domestic producers in finding potential partners in China, especially in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, since it is the nearest market for export of Kazakh goods, said Kudiyarov.

To date, this is already the seventh consecutive business forum held in Urumqi. Previous forums resulted with signing of contracts worth more than $70 million.

Trade turnover between Kazakhstan and China increased by 31 percent and amounted to $6.5 billion during the first 8 months of 2017. Exports from Kazakhstan to China amounted to $3.5 billion (an increase by 28 percent), while imports amounted to $3 billion (an increase by 36 percent).
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Twenty students of a municipal school in the national capital, interacted with Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, during his visit to the country, the South Delhi Mayor said today.

"He (Prince Charles) was to visit an SDMC school in Lajpat Nagar-III, but owing to its closure in the wake of air pollution in the capital city, he couldnt.

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"So, these students were taken to the British Council, where they met him during another programme yesterday," Mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said.

Britains Prince Charles had arrived in India on November 8 on a two-day visit to invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), that will be held next year in the UK.

The prince was 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.

The mayor said that the school in Lajpat Nagar is being run in association with a UK-based NGO, ARK, under the school quality enhancement programme (SQEP).

"Children of these schools speak good English. SQEP is currently being implemented in 30 SDMC schools," she said.

The programme which was initiated by the South Delhi Municipal Corporations with the education alliance in 2015, now caters to over 6,000 children, the civic body said. PTI KND ANB

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijani state oil company SOCARs North American trading division will close its Calgary office in Canada and move all commercial and support functions to Houston in the next three to four months, Reuters reported citing a letter from the company.

SOCAR Trading, which entered the Canadian market in 2015 and opened a Houston office in late 2016, said Houston had continued to grow and had increasingly become a hub for its activities in North America, according to the letter.

It was not clear if any staff would relocate to Houston, says the report.

SOCAR Trading also said in the letter that while the plans do not affect any current business, it would likely reduce the scope of some of its activities over the coming months. It added that it would continue to operate business as usual to meet any physical and financial commitments.

Geneva-based SOCAR Trading was set up in 2007 as the marketing arm of Azerbaijans national oil company.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey told Trend that it has denied permission to two Turkish companies to conduct oil and gas explorations in the country.

Memba Enerji ve Madencilik A.S. and Alpay Enerji A.S. were denied permission to carry out oil and gas explorations in Turkey.

The ministry didnt disclose the reason for the refusal.

The two companies applied to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey in June 2015 to carry out oil and gas explorations in the vicinity of Istanbul, the ministry said.

In April 2014, a legislation allowing oil exploration in forests and national parks came into force in Turkey.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijan is a strategic partner of the UK in the energy sector, UK's Ambassador to Azerbaijan Carole Mary Crofts said.

Crofts made the remarks at a meeting with Azerbaijani Minister of Energy Parviz Shahbazov, the Energy Ministry said Nov. 10.

Shahbazov said the Azerbaijan-UK relations are at a high level and energy cooperation has a special place in these relations.

"The two countries have created a successful model of cooperation in the energy sector since 1994, he said. The UK has a special place among the countries which supported Azerbaijan's new oil strategy and first expressed interest in oil and gas reserves of the Caspian region."

During the meeting, Shahbazov spoke about the importance of joint projects with BP to strengthen the development of the Azerbaijani oil and gas sector and its role in energy security.

"The joint development of the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) block of oil and gas fields and the signing of a new ACG agreement will create new opportunities for the development of long-term relations between the two countries, the minister said. There are broad opportunities for cooperation in the non-oil sector."

In her turn, Crofts said that successful relations between the countries are based on energy cooperation.

The UK is interested in expansion of the economic relations, the ambassador said.

Crofts added that the UK is one of the most investing countries in Azerbaijan. Around 400 UK companies operate in Azerbaijan.

Further visits will play an important role in assessing the investment climate and identifying new cooperation areas, the ambassador said.

During the meeting, the sides also discussed the current problems of the modern energy market.
Crude was down slightly on Friday as expectations OPEC and other producers will extend their production cut agreement were offset by US drillers adding the most oil rigs in a week since June, indicating output will continue to grow, Reuters reported.

US energy companies added nine oil drilling rigs in the week to Nov. 10, the second increase in three weeks, bringing the total count up to 738, General Electric Cos Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report. [RIG/U]

Brent futures fell 38 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $63.55 a barrel by 1:12 p.m. EST (1813 GMT), while US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 45 cents at $56.72 per barrel.

Earlier in the week, Brent rose to $64.65, its highest since June 2015, and WTI rose to $57.92, its highest since July 2015.

Both contracts were on track to rise about 2 percent this week, which would put them both up for a fifth week in a row.

Traders said higher prices in recent weeks were the result of efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to tighten the market by cutting output, as well as strong demand and rising political tensions.

There are also expectations in the market that OPECs next meeting on Nov. 30 will agree to extend cuts beyond the current expiry date in March 2018.

Market participants expect OPEC to extend the production cuts beyond March 2018 and stocks to decline further, analysts at Commerzbank said, noting, however, that the higher price level should lead to a further rise in US shale oil production.

US production was forecast to rise to 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 and a record 10.0 million bpd in 2018 from 8.9 million bpd in 2016, according to federal energy projections this week. Output peaked at 9.6 million bpd in 1970. [EIA/M]

Goldman Sachs also warned of greater price volatility ahead, citing rising tensions in the Middle East, especially between OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Iran, along with soaring US oil production.

Hezbollahs leader said Saudi Arabia had declared war on Lebanon and his Iran-backed group, accusing Riyadh of detaining Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign as Lebanons prime minister to destabilise the country.

The political situation in Saudi Arabia remains sufficiently volatile to spike crude values by at least 50 cents at any given time as was the case (Thursday), Jim Ritterbusch, president of Chicago-based energy advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates, said in a report, noting he did not expect Fridays oil rig count to exert much price impact.

Another factor supporting prices was strong demand in southeast Asia, where the number of tankers holding oil in storage around Singapore and Malaysia has halved since June.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

Uzbek president Shavkat Mirzieev visited an industrial complex, organized on the territory of the former elevator plant in Samarkand to familiarize with the projects implemented in the light industry.

The president inspected samples of light industry products manufactured at the enterprises of the region.

Currently, work is underway on 19 projects foreseen for implementation in 2017-2018 in the light industry in accordance with the instructions given during the president's visit to the region in April.

Goods produced at such enterprises as Sam Rafoat Textiles, March 8, Iman Tex, Samarkand Euro Asia Textile, Amin Invest International, Marokand Seafat are directed not only to domestic market, but also the external market, which contributes to the growth of the potential of enterprises and creation of additional jobs.

A number of enterprises in Pastdargom, Samarkand, Bulungur and Akdarya districts are working on new projects.

The president further inspected household appliances produced at the Uzbek-Turkish enterprise "Ideal Elektroluks", refrigerators and freezers of the joint-stock company "Sino", gave instructions to promote products in foreign markets and increase export opportunities.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has proposed organizing annual meetings of the heads of state of the countries of Central Asia, Uzbek media reports.

Mirziyoyev, addressing the international conference in Samarkand Nov. 10, said that the solution of the pressing issues of Central Asia is possible only through uniting the efforts of the Central Asian countries on the basis of the principle of general responsibility.

He noted that this could be facilitated by the organization of regular consultative meetings between the heads of state of the region.

"We proceed from the understanding that today there is real need in the region for joint search for solutions to region-wide problems," he said.

He noted that the matter is not in creating a new international organization or some kind of an integration structure. The activities of the new platform will be "aimed exclusively at "synchronizing watches" on key issues, he stressed.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kairat Abdrakhmanov, speaking in Samarkand, said that Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev supported the idea of creating a new informal advisory platform for the heads of Central Asia.

"I would like to say that President Nursultan Nazarbayev supports this initiative, and he intends to invite the heads of Central Asia to hold the first meeting in this format next year during the celebration of Novruz," he said.

Samarkand hosts an international conference on security and sustainable development in Central Asia under the aegis of the UN "Central Asia: One Past and a Common Future, Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Mutual Prosperity".

The ministers of foreign affairs of the states of the region, leaders of such authoritative organizations as the United Nations, the European Union, the OSCE, the SCO, the CIS, the EBRD, representatives of the diplomatic corps, experts, media workers participate in the conference.

The two-day forum will discuss specific areas for enhancing cooperation in the political, trade-economic, investment, transport-communication, water-energy, environmental and cultural-humanitarian spheres, as well as issues of joint struggle against modern threats and challenges.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in addition to public sector assistance, will explore direct investments in the private sector and public-private partnership opportunities in Uzbekistan.

ADB Vice-President Wencai Zhang announced about this in Uzbekistan as he met Prime Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulla Aripov, the Bank reported Nov.10.

Zhang congratulated the government on its recently approved medium-term national development strategy and successful foreign exchange reforms.

I am highly encouraged by the governments determination on economic liberalization and infrastructure development, said Zhang. ADB looks forward to expanding its partnership with the government and other stakeholders at this important stage of Uzbekistans history to bring prosperity to the people of Uzbekistan.

He further reminded that ADB has recently approved its country operations business plan for 2018-2020, which fully supports the government strategy and reflects updated development priorities of Uzbekistan.

"ADB is prepared to provide lending, capacity development, and knowledge assistance to expand infrastructure development in energy, transport, and urban sectors; improve the quality of public services; and enhance access to finance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and agribusiness. The business plan includes a project pipeline of $2.9 billion for 2018-2020," he said.

In Uzbekistan, Zhang also met with Deputy Prime Minister Djamshid Kuchkarov, Minister of Finance and ADB Governor Batir Khodjaev, and other senior officials to discuss ADB operations and future directions of its partnership with Uzbekistan.

Zhang reiterated ADBs support for the governments development agenda and expressed confidence in the countrys economic prospects.

Since joining ADB in 1995, Uzbekistan has received 65 loans totaling $6.3 billion, including two private sector loans totaling $225 million, $6 million in equity investment, $200 million in guarantees, and $65.6 million in technical assistance grants.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Uzbekistan signed an $80 million loan agreement for Pap-Namangan-Andijan railway electrification project.

The signing ceremony took place within ADB Vice-President Wencai Zhang's visit to the country, the Bank reported Nov.10.

The project will electrify 145.1 kilometers of non-electrified track linking major cities in the Fergana Valley with the capital. This will facilitate direct and efficient operation of freight and passenger train services, and promote economic and social development in the Fergana Valley.

The ADB approved the loan back in April 2017 .The electrified track is part of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Corridor 2, a critical transport link in the region. An expected 10,000 tons of CO2 will be saved every year as a result of the project.

The total project cost is estimated at $177.45 million, with Ozbekiston Temir Yollari (UTY)  the public railway company  and the government contributing $97.45 million. ADBs investment will finance supervision consultants, procurement of plant, procurement of maintenance equipment and machinery, and procurement of materials for external power supply.

In mid-October, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a resolution On measures to implement the project Electrification of Pap Namangan-Andijan railway line with participation of the Asian Development Bank.

Then, the president authorized the Minister of Finance to sign a loan agreement with ADB on behalf of Uzbekistan, as well as an agreement on on-lending with Uzbekistan Temir Yollari and the first deputy chairman of the Board of Uzbekiston Temir Yollari to sign a project agreement with the ADB.

Since joining ADB in 1995, Uzbekistan has received 65 loans totaling $6.3 billion, including two private sector loans totaling $225 million, $6 million in equity investment, $200 million in guarantees, and $65.6 million in technical assistance grants.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend:

In Central Asia, more opportunities to take, than threats to tackle, said Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for foreign and security policy.

She made the remark while addressing the international conference "Central Asia: Shared past and common future, cooperation for sustainable development and mutual prosperity" in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Nov.10.

"The European Union and Central Asia are partners for change. We have supported Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan on their way to join the World Trade Organization, and we hope we can do the same for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Central Asia can be the gateway between Europe and the Far East," she said, noting that EU companies are keen to invest here.

Mogherini further reminded that the European Union is the largest development partner for Central Asia  as well as the largest development donor worldwide. "And we will remain so. Our assistance is focusing on citizens' and governments' main priorities: very concrete and tangible things, such as health, education and rural development," she added.

Speaking about the integration, Mogherini stressed that the decision in this regard belongs to Central Asian states themselves.

"But should you decide  and it seems to me that you are deciding this - to follow this path, it is important that you know that the European Union is not only ready and willing to share our experience and expertise on this but to support the region and each of you on its cooperative choices with all our means; our means are not irrelevant and are many. We can also help each other to find together collective answers to global issues: climate change, the environment, water and energy management," she noted.

Mogherini further noted that in Central Asia, she sees more opportunities to take, than threats to tackle.

"Opportunities for connectivity and economic growth; opportunities for greater security and regional cooperation; opportunities for human development, both in Europe and in Central Asia," she said.

"I think it is clear that it is partnership, not isolation, not confrontation, that is the only effective answer to the challenges of our times, and also the only way to benefit from the opportunities of our time."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend:

The EU Foreign Affairs Council will adopt a new EU Central Asia Strategy by late 2019, which should be based on mutual interests, common approaches and values of the EU and countries of the region.

This was announced at the 13th EU-Central Asia Ministerial Meeting held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Nov.10 with participation of the Foreign Ministers Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, and the European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, reads a joint communication released by the EU.

The participants reviewed the overall relationship between the European Union and the Central Asian countries, as well as addressed regional and international issues of mutual interest, the security situation in and around Central Asia including Afghanistan, and the security challenges facing the European Union.

The Participants also focused on the potential for enhanced economic relations between the EU and the Central Asian countries. "Strengthening the nexus between security, migration,climate change and economic sustainable development could contribute to stronger economies. Transparent rules and regulations, as well as increased use of e-governance solutions, are important for a favourable investment climate and private sector development in the countries of Central Asia, which will promote the regions further sustainable economic development," the message reads.

They noted that upcoming meeting of EU and Central Asian Ministers of Justice on 7 December 2017 in Brussels will provide a good opportunity to deepen the dialogue within the framework of the Rule of Law Initiative.

The FMs welcomed the EU's continued financial support amounting to 1 billion for programmes to be implemented in Central Asia until 2020 and involvement of EU Member States in regional and bilateral development programmes.

The European Union employs a comprehensive approach to its engagement with the individual countries and to the region, encompassing not only political meetings and multilateral financial assistance, but also support by individual EU Member States and the active engagement of European and multilateral financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, according to the message
Shahid Kapoor posted photos of him and Mira Rajput, dressed in royal attire, on Instagram.

By India Today Web Desk: Shahid Kapoor has ditched his Maharawal Ratan Singh avatar, from his upcoming film, Padmavati, and looks himself again, going by his photos on Instagram.

Shahid never leaves an opportunity to post a selfie of him and Mira Rajput for his fans. The actor was in Delhi on Thursday to attend a wedding with his wife, and shared a picture of him and Mira, and captioned it, "Night out."

Night out. A post shared by Shahid Kapoor (@shahidkapoor) on Nov 9, 2017 at 6:17am PST

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He looked dapper in a classic black suit, and Mira wore a purple-and-red ethnic dress. Mira posted a picture on her Instagram account and captioned it, "I can see his face again! Hello husband!"

I can see his face again! #hellohusband A post shared by Mira Rajput Kapoor (@mira.kapoor) on Nov 9, 2017 at 6:37am PST

Though Mira prefers to keep away from Bollywood, the couple has been quite active on social media and off it. The two did a photoshoot, and appeared on the cover of a magazine and got glowing praise for it.

Hello. A post shared by Shahid Kapoor (@shahidkapoor) on Oct 31, 2017 at 10:30pm PDT

The two got married in July 2015. Their daughter, Misha, was born in August 2016.

ALSO WATCH: Shahid stalked by Raaj Kumar's daughter

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

Kazakhstan and Russia signed the "Program of Interregional and Cross-border Cooperation for 2018-2023" within the XIV Forum of Interregional Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia, which was held in Chelyabinsk, the press service of Kazakh Ministry of Economy said in a message.

The document was signed by the Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan Timur Suleimenov and Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Alexei Gruzdev.

Kazakh and Russian Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev and Vladimir Putin have also participated at the signing ceremony.

The program is aimed at addressing issues of interregional and cross-border cooperation, as well as implementing joint events and projects in various fields.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbyaev paid an official visit to the Russian federation to participate at the XIV Forum of Interregional Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Russia.

The visit of the Kazakh president resulted with conclusion of several strategically important agreements, including the Memorandum on cooperation between JSC KazTransOil and PJSC Transneft, Memorandum on cooperation between the executive body of the Aktyubinsk region and JSC Russian copper company on implementation of investment projects in the region, the memorandum of understanding between JSC "Agrarian Credit Corporation" and JSC "Russian Export Center" and etc.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

The deputies of the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan approved the draft law on Denunciation of the Agreement with Kazakhstan on allocation of $100 Million as a Grant for Assistance to Kyrgyzstan in Joining the EEU," the press service of the Kyrgyz parliament said in a message.

The government of Kyrgyzstan sent a bill to the country's parliament on denunciation of the agreement with Kazakhstan in late October. The mentioned funds were purposed to modernize customs posts, transport infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan, as well as to increase fire safety, improve sanitary and epidemiological surveillance of the country.

The main reason for the decision - the protracted process of transferring funds and the border conflict between the two countries.

Kazakh side, in turn, stated that the process of transferring funds was on schedule and that Kyrgyzstan would have received the first part of the funds in November, adding that the late transferring of funds could be caused only by delay of paperwork in Kyrgyzstan.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 10

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The State Migration Service of Turkmenistan said in a press release Nov. 10 that it hosted a meeting with Kuhn Markverengin, a representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and international specialist David Newton.

The sides exchanged views on the work done within international agreements as well as on the prospects for partnership.

Turkmenistan is an active participant in the UN conventions on combating illicit trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as a number of regional and international projects.

Turkmenistan has a long border with Afghanistan, the territory of which, according to the UN, is actively used for cultivation of narcotic plants.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 10

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev received Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Thomas Greminger, the press service of the Uzbek president said in a message.



At the meeting, Greminger said that the priority areas of the Development Strategy of Uzbekistan for the next five years are fully in tune with the goals and priorities of the OSCE in all areas: security, economic-ecological and human dimensions.

Mirziyoyev congratulated a prominent Swiss diplomat on his appointment to a high and responsible post, emphasizing the interest of Uzbekistan in more active interaction with the OSCE, strengthening of mutual understanding on all issues of the organizations mandate.



The OSCE secretary general visited Uzbekistan to participate in the international conference Central Asia: Shared Past and Common Future, Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Mutual Prosperity which opens Nov. 10 in Samarkand region.

It was stressed at the meeting that in Uzbekistan, this visit is considered as confirmation of the interest of the OSCE towards the cardinal changes in all spheres of life in the country, including the process of democratization, ensuring human rights, freedoms and interests, improving investment climate, and other key aspects of large-scale reforms.

Thomas Greminger highly appreciated the consistent and constructive steps of Uzbekistan towards strengthening relations with neighboring countries, including Afghanistan.

The distinguished guest expressed confidence that the results of the upcoming Samarkand conference, unprecedented in terms of the number of participants, will make it possible to achieve new dynamics of regional cooperation, strengthen mutual understanding and trust in this strategically important region.



The support and readiness of the OSCE and its office in Uzbekistan for joint work, exchange of experience and expert assistance in implementation of ongoing reforms in the country on a long-term basis was expressed.



At the meeting, other issues on the OSCE agenda, including current regional and international issues were also discussed.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 10

By Diana Aliyeva  Trend:

Tashkent city hosted a meeting of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev with Miroslav Jenca, UN assistant secretary-general for political affairs, and Natalia Gherman, special representative of the UN secretary-general for Central Asia, the head of the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA), the press service of the Uzbek president reported.

At the meeting, it was stressed that Uzbekistan, as a full-fledged member of the world community, puts forward and implements concrete proposals, including those regarding constructive settlement of the accumulated issues, ensuring security and stability, as well as sustainable and long-term development of Central Asia.

The UN representatives arrived in Uzbekistan to participate in the international conference Central Asia: Shared Past and Common Future, Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Mutual Prosperity which opens Nov. 10 in Samarkand region.

The guests on behalf of the UN and its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed support for the goals and objectives of the international conference.

The Uzbek president congratulated Natalia Gherman on her appointment to the post of the head of the UNRCCA, and noted with satisfaction Uzbekistans fruitful cooperation with the UN in general and with the UNRCCA in particular.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov.8

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

The tariffs for transportation of freight through the International North-South Transport Corridor may drop after the completion of a railway segment connecting two Iranian and Azerbaijani border cities, Hossein Ashouri, the head of international transportation department at the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said.

"The transportation tariffs may drop after the inauguration of Astara (Iran)  Astara (Azerbaijan) railroad within the coming months," he told Trend on the sidelines of a meeting with the railway officials from Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan in Baku on Wednesday.

Saying that Iranian and Azerbaijani sides are working hard to inaugurate the two railway segments of Rahst-Qazvin and Astara-Asatar over the current year, he expressed hope that the Rasht-Astara segment would come on stream in three years.

Ashouri further added that Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus railways have also agreed to refrain from increasing the tariff for 2018.

The sides will meet again within the next three months in India, to present information about the capabilities of the transportation corridor to freight forwarders in India as the corridor is expected to be extended to Belarus and Northern Europe.

Hossein Ashouri noted that the three countries of Finland, Estonia and Latvia may join the North-South Corridor in the near future.

The International North-South Transport Corridor is meant to connect Northern Europe with Southeast Asia. It will serve as a link connecting the railways of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. At the initial stage, it is planned to transport 5 million tons of cargo per year through the corridor and over 10 million tons of cargo in the future.
Tehran, Iran, Nov. 8

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

The current prosperity of the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) is going to continue, a world markets analyst says.

The profitable sectors of TSE are export companies, oil and chemical companies, and mineral companies, Ali Khoshnoud told Trend Nov. 8.

"The profitability of the first group is due to the fact that the price of the US dollar is on the rise against the Iranian rial. The profitability of the second group is due to the rising oil prices in the global market. And last but not least, the profitability of the third group is that the commodity prices are on the rise in the global market," the expert noted.

Khoshnoud said that all of the three groups are expected to enjoy steady profitability for some time to come.

"The first groups profitability is obviously going to continue because the USD rate is going up. As for the second group, regional security disturbances as well as the fact that we are in the second half of the year contribute to demands. Also, Saudi Arabia is planning to sell 5 percent of Aramco next year, so it is trying not to oversupply. Therefore, chemical companies can be assured that oil prices are going to remain stable."

"As for the mineral sector, Chinas Silk Road project contributes to prices. Also, although US President Donald Trumps plan to rebuild the infrastructure of America has stayed idle, the lowering of taxes helps increase demand for commodity."

Asked whether the Wests political pressure on Iran influences the TSE, Khoshnoud said, "First of all we are used to this. We have been under such pressure for 40 years now. However, we have to consider the fact that when the financial statement of a company indicates profitability, the companys value will increase. The example of this is that while in October everybody was expecting modification of indices, there came the 6-month report with the adjustment of most companies profitability, which was under the influence of the post-JCPOA boom. So, that prevented indices from going down."

Main index of the TSE inched up 39.4 points or 0.04 percent to end trades at 87883.1 on Nov. 7. According to the TSE official website, over one billion shares, valued at $46.5 million (1.6 trillion rials), were traded for the day.
Tehran, Iran, November 8

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

In recent weeks Russian companies have reached new agreements with Iranian counterparts in the energy sector. This fresh turn for Iran comes after European companies faced new challenges regarding doing business in the Islamic Republic.

Russian gas giant Gazprom signed an initial agreement with Iranian state-run investment fund IDRO to cooperate in unspecified oil, gas and energy projects this Sunday.

Also, Otabek Karimov, Russneft vice president in commerce and logistics, Andrey Laveez, the company's chief geologist, and Vlada Rusakova, the vice president in gas business also recently met with Irans Deputy Oil Minister Amirhossein Zamaninia, expressing eagerness to launch cooperation with Iran on swap of crude oil as well as on expansion of Iranian oilfields.

Russia has been an old ally of Iran in political issues regarding the Middle East. This has earned Moscow the chance to develop two new nuclear power plants, besides the first one which the country also completed for Iran.

The Islamic Republic once appeared passionately interested in collaboration with Western giants like Shell and Total under the presumably protective umbrella of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted economic sanctions. Iran was hoping that in cooperation with Western companies, it would develop its ageing upstream and downstream infrastructure.

At such time, however, and despite the fact that Iran had already signed billion-dollar deals with some of these European companies, US President Donald Trump triggered a new round of pressure on Iran, calling on Americas European allies to push for more sanctions on Iran for issues such as Tehrans missile program and regional policy.

This has affected the prospects of prosperity in Iran for European companies. As a result, Russia which helped Iran to develop its nuclear facilities, now seems the fittest choice to develop its oil and gas sector as well.

However, there is concern that Russian companies might not be able to operate as European ones could have.

Abdolkarim Jamiri, former member of the Iranian Parliaments Committee on Energy, told Trend that Russian companies records do not indicate any spectacular deeds in the field of energy.

"You cannot really say they have had great achievements," he said.

However, the former MP noted, that at present Russian companies seem to be the best choice for Iran, because since Iran and Russia share interests, cooperation in the field of energy can be beneficial to both.

In order to develop its oil and gas industry properly, Iran needs to lure about $200 billion in investment by 2021. The prospects of succeeding in doing so have already took a hard blow from Trumps newly adopted Iran strategy, giving Russia a better chance to fill in the gap for Iran.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has reassured the world that his country remains committed to the principle of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, urging for dismantling nuclear weapons across the globe.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is not only religiously opposed to the production and use of such weapons, but also seriously believes that these weapons are destabilizing and undermining security. These weapons must be dismantled across the world, the minister told the Regional Security and Sustainable Development Conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Friday.

He added that the declaration of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Central Asian region is an action based on a sound understanding of security, IRNA reported.

Since 1974, Iran has been pursuing a proposal to establish a zone free of nuclear and mass destruction weapons in the Middle East, which has not been materialized due to Israel's policies on nuclear weapons and the US support for that country, he added.

Zarif further said that Iran has proved its commitment to the principle of non-proliferation as well as nuclear disarmament by reaching the 2015 nuclear deal and fulfilling its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran and the world powers in July 2015 agreed a nuclear deal to curb Tehran's nuclear program in return for the removal of international sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev have met to discuss expansion of economic and scientific ties.

The sides also discussed cooperation in the spheres of energy, transportation and fight against terrorism, IRNA news agency reported.

The sides also spoke about a plan to set up a group with Afghanistan for collaboration in the railway sector.

Minister Zarif launched his regional tour to the Central Asia on Wednesday. Following his visit to Tajikistan, the minister arrived in Samarkand to attend the International Conference on Security and Sustainable Development in Central Asia
By PTI: Chennai, Nov 10 (PTI) Singapore is keen on starting new ventures in Tamil Nadu and strengthening its ties with India, a diplomat of the country said today.

"Singapore accounts for 3.4 per cent of Indias foreign trade and is keen on starting new ventures in Tamil Nadu for improving trade and business," Republic of Singapore in Chennai, Consul General, Roy Kho said.

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During his brief interaction with Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Kho said, "India is a investment friendly and especially Tamil Nadu was known for its investment friendly policies, amazing architecture, rich culture."

Noting that Singapore was the second largest foreign investor in India, the consul general said that India and Singapore have marked 50 years of diplomatic relations.

"Both the countries share close and friendly relations for centuries together in trade, culture, industry, education, commerce", a Raj Bhavan release quoted him as saying.

The population of Indians in Singapore is about nine per cent, Kho said, adding that out of them a majority were from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The governor said that Singapore was known for its "cleanliness" and Prime Minister Narendra Modis mission was also to develop a clean India under the Swachh Bharat mission.

Tamil Nadu looks forward to many more investments and MoUs for promotion of tourism, educational exchange programmes and for sharing knowledge and technology, Purohit said. "The visit of Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam to India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Singapore in November 2015, further strengthened the India-Singapore bilateral relations", he added. PTI VIJ ANB

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano said Thursday that North Korea is a global threat, more today than ever, CBS NEWS reports.

"Our inspectors were requested to leave in April 2009 ... after that we don't have inspectors on the ground, but we continue to monitor the nuclear programs of North Korea by using satellite imagery and collecting open source information, and we have observed the progress in the nuclear program in North Korea in particular in the city of Yongbyon," he told CBS News on Thursday.

Amano, since last summer, has organized a team at the agency, ready to be on the ground "on short notice" if there is a diplomatic resolution.

We think our involvement is indispensable, verification is a very important part," Amano said, "We have experts, it's a small team, but expertise is very, very important, and these are the people who were in North Korea before, so we don't want to lose the knowledge."

North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. In recent years, the nuclear tests and missile launches have advanced its nuclear program dramatically.

Speaking in Seoul on the achievements of South Korea and the oppression of the North Korean government, President Trump pivoted from fiery threats against the government of Kim Jong Un, to an open offer to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

In China, Mr. Trump implored its newly-strengthened leader Xi Jinping, for more help to reign in Kim Jong Un's nuclear ambitions.

Amano said that, this past summer, he created North Korea "team" at the IAEA, to be ready to go back to North Korea, when and if the time comes, including training of inspectors and creating a possible verification plan.

That said, Amano has been dark in his assessment about the threats posed by the government in Pyongyang: "The nuclear test it conducted in September, its sixth and largest to date, was extremely regrettable."

Despite the defiance of North Korean leaders, the sanctions and tough enforcement are beginning to have an impact. Amano says that the IAEA is already observing North Korea, collecting all the information available, including satellite imagery and vessel tracking software.
President Donald Trump will not have a formal sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the two attend a summit, the White House said Friday shortly before Trump landed in Vietnam, the fourth stop on his first official visit to Asia, THE REGISTER CITIZEN reports.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force Once, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed scheduling conflicts on both sides for the fact that the leaders will not meet formally during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit taking place in the coastal city of Danang.

But Sanders said it was "possible" and "likely" that they could have a less formal encounter, either in Danang or later in the Philippines when Trump and Putin attend another regional conference.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that there was no reason to schedule a meeting if the U.S. and Russia are unable to make significant progress on issues including Syria and Ukraine.

"The view has been if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting," he said.

The news comes a day after Trump set aside his blistering rhetoric in favor of friendly overtures to China on Thursday, trying to flatter his hosts into establishing a more balanced trade relationship and doing more to blunt North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Winding down his two days in Beijing, Trump suggested that if the U.S. and China jointly took on the world's problems, "I believe we can solve almost all of them, and probably all of them."

In the name of furthering that relationship, Trump largely shelved his campaign complaints about China, at least in public. He focused on exhorting Beijing to help with North Korea, an effort expected again to take center stage at an international summit in Vietnam on Friday.
The EU is demanding Britain accept that Northern Ireland may need to remain inside the European customs union and single market after Brexit in order to avoid a hard Border on the island of Ireland, THE IRISH TIMES reports.

The explicit mention of an all-island approach by Dublin and Brussels directly contradicts the UK position and will infuriate the Democratic Unionist Party, on whose votes British prime minister Theresa Mays government depends for a parliamentary majority at Westminster.

The European Commission on Wednesday circulated an update on negotiations, seen by the Financial Times, which concludes that the avoidance of regulatory divergence on the island of Ireland is essential to protect the peace process.

It consequently seems essential for the UK to commit to ensuring that a hard Border on the island of Ireland is avoided, including by ensuring no emergence of regulatory divergence from those rules of the internal market and the customs union, the paper states.

The commission adds that the regulatory arrangements are (or may be in the future) necessary for meaningful North-South co-operation, the all-island economy and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement.

The statement comes days after Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire made clear that it would be impossible to imagine Belfast remaining within the EUs customs union and single market, in effect creating a trade border along the Irish Sea after Brexit.

We will leave the EU in 2019 as one United Kingdom,  Mr Brokenshire said in Brussels on Monday. We need to ensure that nothing is done that undermines the integrity of the UK single market. He added: I find it difficult to image how Northern Ireland could somehow remain in while the rest of the country leaves. I find it impossible.

The commission stance on the potential need for an all-island regulatory solution reflects the hardening position in Dublin over border issues as the Brexit divorce negotiations enter a critical phase.

One senior EU official said the Irish felt they were reaching a point of maximum leverage and were really worried by the UK position, which insists the Irish Border questions can only be fully addressed through a UK-EU trade deal.

Both Britain and the EU say they are committed to ensuring that Brexit does not undermine the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement or lead to the emergence of hard-Border infrastructure between the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Significant progress has been made in the six rounds of Brexit talks to date, including agreement on joint principles to maintain the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland.

But the Border issue has remained far from resolved. Sensitivities over Northern Ireland have been exacerbated by the UK governments reliance on the DUP for its parliamentary majority and by the breakdown in Northern Irelands power-sharing arrangements, which have left it without an executive since January.
Militants from an ISIS affiliate ambushed a convoy of cement trucks late Thursday from an army factory in the central Sinai Peninsula, killing eight civilian employees and two soldiers, security officials said, AL ARABIYA reports.

Lt. Col. Ibrahim Hussein Mohammed was killed in the nighttime attack near the town of Nakhl, the officials added. The militants, from the group formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, stole the men's weapons and burnt seven trucks.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. ISIS did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack.

Egypt is also facing a growing number of attacks by militants in its Western Desert, the latest of which killed 16 policemen according to an official tally issued by the Interior Ministry. Security officials, however, have told journalists that dozens more, including high-ranking counterterrorism officers, perished in the Oct. 20 attack some 135 kilometers (84 miles) southwest of the capital, Cairo.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Energy Minister of the Kurdish Autonomy of Iraq Ashti Hawrami fled to England, the Iraqi media reported Nov. 10.

Reportedly, Hawrami left Erbil following a referendum on independence in the Kurdish Autonomy.

The officials of the Kurdish Autonomy neither confirmed nor denied this information.

Since 2006 Hawrami has headed the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of the Kurdish Autonomy.

On September 25, the Kurdish autonomy of Iraq held the so-called independence referendum that is not recognized by the international community.

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Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi announced on Friday to extend the state of emergency for another three months, starting from Sunday, Xinhua reported.

This decision was made after his meeting with the Supreme Security Council in the presence of Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and senior security officials.

In addition to the security situation across the country, the meeting discussed taking strict measures to combat violence and illegal immigration, as well as the approval of a national strategy for border security.

The state of emergency has been in force since November 2015 following an attack in the heart of the Tunisian capital targeting a bus carrying the presidential guard.

The attack, which killed 12 people, was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Since then, the state of emergency has been repeatedly extended every year. It has been extended by one month since Oct. 13 this year.

Under the state of emergency, the security forces have exceptional power over media censorship, prohibition of strikes and social movements in addition to any suspicious gathering that could harm public order or national security.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence expressed deep concern to Turkeys prime minister on Thursday about the arrests of American citizens and local staff of U.S. missions in Turkey, the White House said, reuters reported.

The matters raised by Pence are some of the issues that have created tension between the two NATO allies in recent months, along with a dispute over a Turkish cleric living in the United States whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed military coup in Turkey last year.

In a White House meeting with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Pence voiced deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, Mission Turkey local staff, journalists, and members of civil society under the state of emergency and urged transparency and due process in the resolution of their cases, the White House said in a statement.

In May, a translator at the U.S. consulate in the province of Adana in southern Turkey was arrested. More recently, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration worker was detained in Istanbul. Both are accused of links to last years coup attempt. The U.S. embassy has said the accusations are baseless.

Before leaving for the United States, Yildirim had said Turkeys demand for the United States to hand over cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, would be discussed during his visit.

U.S. officials have said courts require sufficient evidence to order Gulens extradition.

Another issue to be raised, Yildirim had said, was the fate of some Turkish citizens arrested in the United States - a reference to a wealthy gold trader who was arrested over Iran sanctions evasion last year and an executive at a state-owned bank arrested this year.

The White House statement made no mention of any discussions about either subject.

It said the two officials expressed hope that their meeting would help to usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue, as friends and allies, on bilateral challenges.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 10

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has received Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, the countrys Economy Ministry said in a message Nov. 10.

During the meeting, the sides discussed development of bilateral economic relations, as well as the results of the Turkish-Uzbek forum held Oct. 25-26 in Istanbul, according to the message.

At present, there are 479 companies operating in Uzbekistan with the participation of Turkish capital, including 199 joint ventures.
Turkey and China share a common will for the peaceful resolution of conflicts as part of their foreign policy visions, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday, according to Chinas official Xinhua news agency.

In an interview with Xinhua, Cavusoglu said bilateral relations have been "elevated to a very positive and constructive level" in recent years, helped by regular bilateral meetings through various consultation mechanisms and multiple meetings between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

"Our strategic cooperation is strong; our economy and trade relations are stable and still offer a huge potential for further improvement," he said, adding that Turkey is enthusiastic about playing a more active role in both regional and global cooperation through the Belt and Road initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

He also expressed hope for more people-to-people contacts, saying the Turkish Year of Tourism in China in 2018 could give relations "a huge boost."

"President Xi's sincere approach toward Turkey is matched by President Erdogan's strong will to improve our ties with China," said Cavusoglu.

"I have no doubt that this vision and determination will continue to yield positive results."

He also added that Turkey believes the new Communist Party leadership will continue the country's path toward "a better and productive future" and put forth new ideas for international cooperation.

Cavusoglu said he believes that China will continue to put forward "new and fresh ideas" toward international cooperation.

"Building new partnerships, focusing on development, prioritizing mutual respect are all key factors for the future," he added.

On Chinas Belt and Road project, he said that Turkey has agreed to align its Middle Corridor project with the initiative, which aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

The Middle Corridor is a proposed transportation network extending from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and Azerbaijan to Central Asia and China.
KYODO NEWS - Nov 10, 2017 - 22:53 | World, All

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to strictly implement U.N. sanctions on North Korea and continue cooperating closely in trying to halt its nuclear program.

Just after holding a meeting with Putin in the Vietnamese coastal city of Danang, Abe also told reporters that they agreed to accelerate the pace of preparations for joint economic programs to be carried out on islands disputed between the two countries.

Putin said he is "very pleased" that ties between the two countries are "steadily developing," backed by active political dialogue and progress on economic cooperation, as they sat together for the talks, which lasted about an hour.

A senior Japanese government official told reporters that the two leaders held a separate 15-minute conversation, only accompanied by their interpreters, which mainly focused on issues related to the Russia-controlled islands.

But the official declined to disclose the specifics of their discussions.

The meeting, the 20th between the two leaders, on the sidelines of a regional summit came just days after the prime minister and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to maximize pressure on North Korea until it changes its nuclear and missile policies.

At Monday's formal meeting in Tokyo between Abe and Trump, the two leaders agreed that more cooperation from China and Russia is needed to rein in North Korea.

North Korea has halted a high-profile arms test for nearly two months, but it has not shown any sign of relenting in its quest to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile.

Meeting before the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit, Abe told Putin that he wanted to discuss steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Still, China and Russia, two of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have diplomatic and economic ties with North Korea, and they are traditionally reluctant to push Pyongyang too much into a corner.

Abe asked Putin that Russia play a "larger role" in addressing the North Korean nuclear issue, according to the official, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kotaro Nogami, who attended the meeting and provided a briefing on some of its outcome.

When Abe and Putin last held talks in September in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok, besides exchanging views over North Korea, both sides agreed to designate five candidate areas for the projects and agreed to undertake each of them as quickly as possible.

Abe said this time they agreed to speed up preparations "toward next spring" for the implementation of the five project areas.

Abe is planning to visit Russia in May next year. Japan is seeking tangible progress on the projects as soon as possible and both sides agreed to organize a meeting of senior officials early last year.

The five areas included aquaculture and wind power. While Russia is eager to develop its Far East region, Japan hopes that carrying out those projects will pave the way toward a settlement of the long-running dispute.

The dispute over Etorofu, Kunashiri and Shikotan islands and the Habomai group of islets, seized by the Soviet Union in 1945 after Japan's surrender in World War II, has prevented the two countries from signing a postwar peace treaty.

They are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the Southern Kurils.

As special grave visits by airplane to the islands by former Japanese residents materialized in September for the first time, Abe and Putin agreed to explore more measures for freer entry and exit by them.
By PTI: Ranchi, Nov 10 (PTI) Unidentified assailants today allegedly pelted stones at the house of a woman yoga teacher in the Hatia area here, following which security was increased at her residence, an official said.

Two days ago, Rafia Naaz was allegedly threatened by members of her community after she performed yoga. She had informed the Ranchi Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) about it, Deputy SP Vikas Chandra Srivastav said.

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Following her meeting with the SSP, the police had provided security to her. But after she gave an interview to a TV channel today, some people pelted stones at her house, the police officer said.

Two quick response teams have been stationed near Naazs house, Srivastav said, adding that senior police personnel have assured security to the teacher and her family.

The police are investigating the matter, he said. PTI PVR ANB

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Justice J Chelameswar had heard the matter despite orders from the Chief Justice of India (CJI) that his bench cannot hear the matter, since matters of roster are decided by the CJI.

However, senior advocate Dushyant Dave had on Thursday submitted that the medical admission matter was being heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, and hence, he should not be involved with it either on the judicial or on the administrative side.

Saying he is the master of the roster, Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Misra today said judges cannot assign matters to themselves. Reports coming in from the Supreme Court suggest CJI Misra asserted "only he is the master and the last word" on setting up of apex court benches to look into the cases, a snub to Justice J Chelameswar, who is the second senior-most judge in the Supreme Court.

The hearing was boycotted by senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, who is reported to have yelled at Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. "You are alleged to be a part of this scam. How can you hear the matter?" Bhushan is reported to have said in court.

Bhushan then walked out of the court after a heated debate with Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra. The Supreme Court Bar Association has recommended contempt proceedings against Bhushan.

The conflict is over a plea by the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms that has sought the setting up of a SIT to probe the role of Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi in enabling private medical colleges to admit students to MBBS courses despite the Supreme Court barring the institutes from doing so.

Quddusi, an Orissa High Court judge between 2004 and 2010, has been accused by the CBI of legally guiding the private medical colleges and assuring them of favourable settlement of their cases in the Supreme Court. The judge was arrested in September and is currently lodged in New Delhi's Tihar Jail.

"Extraordinary proceedings in SC today in the case seeking SIT Investigation in medical college bribery case involving the CJI! CJI presided over a hand-picked bench to override yesterday's order referring this case to top 5 judges. This despite having a direct conflict of interest," Bhushan had earlier tweeted.

"There must be an independent but credible & thorough investigation in this case of alleged Corruption at the top of the judiciary. Guilty must be held to account. Any attempt to cover it up will only undermine public confidence in judiciary," Bhushan said.
On Friday afternoon, Twitter was abuzz with reports of something "unprecedented" taking place in the Supreme Court. What was happening involved CJI Dipak Misra, Justice J Chelameswar, three lawyers and allegations of corruption in the higher judiciary.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court of India, even when it is hearing matters of great significance, is never really an exciting place to be in. The proceedings at the apex court and the judgements delivered by its judges are usually dull and monotonous.

Friday, however, was an exception. Twitterverse explored early Friday afternoon, talking about something "unprecedented" that was going on in the Supreme Court. Initial details of what was happening at the apex court were characteristically difficult to come by.

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What was known was that the situation involved three major players - the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the second-most senior Supreme Court judge Justice J Chelameswar, and a petition involving lawyers Prashant Bhushan, Dushyant Dave and Kamini Jaiswal.

As afternoon turned into evening, it emerged that a five-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by CJI Misra, had junked an order passed by Justice Chelameswar on the petition filed by the three lawyers. You can read a complete breakdown of what exactly happened in the Supreme Court today here.

Meanwhile, here is an explainer of the three main players who are seemingly involved in this supreme drama.

CJI DIPAK MISRA

Dipak Misra was sworn in as the Chief Justice of India on August 28 this year. He succeeded Jagdish Singh Khehar and will serve as India's top jurist until October 2, 2018. Before becoming a judge of the Supreme Court, CJI Misra served on the high courts of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

Notably, Justice Misra was part of the Supreme Court benches that confirmed the death sentence awarded to the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case, and passed the order for mandatory singing of national anthem in cinema halls.

As the Chief Justice of India, Misra is the "master of the roster", as the justice so proclaimed today. This essentially means that he is in charge of deciding what case goes to what judge and how a Constitution Bench, should one be needed to heard a matter, should be composed.

JUSTICE J CHELAMESWAR

A former chief justice of the Kerala and Gauhati High Courts, Justice Jasti Chelameswar is the second-most senior judge on the Supreme Court.

Justice Chelameswar has often spoken out against the current collegium system of selecting judges in the higher judiciary, saying it is inadequate in ensuring that the best legal minds are elevated to higher benches.

The 64-year-old Justice Chelameswar has been with the Supreme Court since 2011 and will likely retire next year before CJI Misra finishes his tenure, meaning that he will miss out on the opportunity to become the Chief Justice of India.

The most recent high-profile judgment Justice Chelameswar was involved in was the landmark right to privacy case in which a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that Indians have a fundamental right to privacy.

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THE PETITIONERS

The petition at the heart of today's high drama in the Supreme Court has been filed by an NGO - the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Judicial Reforms (CJAR). The NGO is run by Kamini Jaiswal, who filed the petition on her NGO's behalf.

Two other lawyers - Prashant Bhushan and Dushyant Dave - are involved in the petitions and are helping Jaiswal argue the matter in the Supreme Court.

The petition deals with alleged bribes being paid to secure favourable court orders in a matter relating to the government barring 46 private colleges from accepting admissions on medical seats.

--- ENDS ---
India Today gets you the details of corruption in medical colleges and how a sting operation by the channel exposed that such colleges, barred by the Medical Council of India after failing to meet basic standards, were still admitting students.

By Meetu Jain: It is a story that began simultaneously with an India Today sting aired on August 3 about corruption and how various medical colleges barred by the Supreme Court were still admitting colleges despite poor infrastructure and inability to meet the bar.

At the same time, the health ministry conducted a hearing of these medical colleges on the orders of the Supreme Court. Some of these colleges figured in the India Today sting.

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What has followed since has been a free for all culminating in the slinging match that passed off for a seven judge Bench hearing the medical college matter versus senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

It began with the CBI raiding the residence of the neighbour of a top television journalist on August 3. Even as the raid was on, the journalist walked into the house and literally into the net of CBI. He was allegedly the conduit between some of the medical colleges and officials of the health ministry.

FIR AGAINST ACCUSED

In the FIR registered subsequently, the journalist's name did not figure but he lost his job. Unknown Officials of the health ministry were named. Intercepted conversations between top echelons of power, the middlemen and the medical college owners threw up some interesting names of politicians who could be involved.

Sources told India Today that a minister of state in the Union Cabinet was dropped on these very charges of financial impropriety although the CBI later denied they had evidence of the involvement of the said minister.

What followed subsequently in the last month or so amounts to what can be called judicial anarchy. A medical college sought permission from the Bench hearing the case, none less than the Chief Justice himself, to withdraw the case. The CJI consented but with a caveat that the college would not get permission from any court in the country to admit students for the year 2017-18.

PERMISSION TO COLLEGE

The college then approached the Lucknow Bench. A judge of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad high court in contravention of this order went and gave permission to the college to admit students.

Top CBI sources claim they have evidence of malpractices that took place in this permission being given. Officials are however silent on whether permission was sought from the Chief Justice to raid the judge or if permission is denied. CBI officials also refused to deny or admit whether a PE was actually filed against the judge concerned.

What is for certain is that the judge was transferred out from Lucknow to the High Court at Allahabad. If that was not enough, in October the CBI raided a retired judge of the Orissa High Court in trying to get p[permission to various medical colleges through the Supreme Court.

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The judge according to sources boasted of his connections within the highest echelons of the judiciary. While Bhushan says the CBI has evidence about this, the question is if that was the case, then why did the medical college have to withdraw their plea from the Supreme Court.

WHY DID THE CBI NOT OPPOSE?

The CBI too will have a lot of answering to do if the case documents are laid out in open court. If this was such an open and shut case and the evidence against Justice Qudussi so strong, why did the CBI not oppose his bail when the lower court granted him bail with 5 days, something unheard of in cases as sensitive as this where so many high profile people are named. Interestingly, those arrested along with Qudussi were not granted bail.

While the Supreme Court has reacted sternly to Justice Chalameshwar appropriating the authority to hear a case which has not been designated by the Chief Justice, it is judicial anarchy at the lower levels too where a lower court judge can defy the orders of the Supreme Court to pass favourable judgements that will come up for scrutiny.

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VIDEO | Showdown in Supreme Court: What happened in apex court on Friday?

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With each passing day, murmurs seem to be growing over the delay and the government's deliberate silence on the issue of when the winter session of Parliament will begin.

By Poulomi Saha: It's over ten days into the month of November and the government is yet to announce the dates of the winter session of Parliament. In order to set the dates and make the announcement, the government needs to first call a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. But even that hangs in the limbo.

With each passing day, murmurs seem to be growing over the delay and the government's deliberate silence on the issue of when the winter session of Parliament will begin.

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Sources within the government indicated to India Today the ongoing assembly election schedule could be a primary reason the government is holding back on any announcement. The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are locked in high-stakes battles both in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The BJP is looking to wrest control from the Congress in Himachal Pradesh. In PM Modi's home state of Gujarat, on the other hand, the BJP, which has been in power there for nearly two decades, is facing a stiff contest, with the grand old party showing signs of resurgence.

Ever since the dates of elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were announced, the entire central Cabinet as well as the top leadership of the BJP have been immersed in electoral field work.

The party has prepared a tight schedule for its prominent faces, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leaving the government with little time to plan the winter session of Parliament. The session usually lasts a month and concludes just before Christmas.

Meanwhile, the opposition is livid over the delay in announcing the winter session's dates. Speaking to India Today, Rajya Sabha MP D Raja said, "I have received no communication so far from anyone. Why the delay? We don't have even 100 working days of Parliament. Elections can't be the reason for holding up a session."

The Congress has accused the BJP of being dictatorial. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, "This is absolutely Tughlaqhi. Are we having elections for the first time? Do you want to avoid discussions? Aren't you setting a terribly wrong precedent?"

The BJP, however, defended itself saying this isn't the first time elections have impacted a Parliament session; it has happened under Congress rule too, BJP leaders claim.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) India and Bhutan today initiated discussions on Indian assistance for the 12th five year plan (2018-2023) for the socio-economic development of the Himalayan nation.

India has already committed assistance of Rs 4,500 crore for implementation of development projects during Bhutans 11th Five Year Plan (2013-2018).

The discussion took place during the annual India-Bhutan development cooperation talks, which were co-chaired by Vijay Gokhale, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the external affairs ministry and foreign secretary of Bhutan Dasho Sonam Tshong.

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Todays meeting came nearly two-and-a-half months after the "disengagement" between Indian and Chinese troops on August 28, ending a tense 73-day-long stand-off near the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction in the Dokalam area.

A statement from the external affairs ministry said the talks were held in a friendly atmosphere in keeping with the close and friendly ties between the two countries.

The two sides also initiated discussions on Indias assistance to the 12th Five Year Plan (2018-2023) of Bhutan, the MEA said, adding India has been a "privileged" partner of Bhutan in its socio-economic development.

"Indias commitment to continue its support to Bhutan in its development efforts was reiterated by the Indian side... The annual development cooperation talks is an important bilateral mechanism to review the entire gamut of India?s development partnership with Bhutan," it said.

India has committed assistance of Rs 4500 crore for implementation of development projects during Bhutan?s 11th Five Year Plan (2013-2018), the MEA said.

Over 675 projects, including 595 small development projects, have been under implementation in Bhutan during the 11th plan period within Indias committed assistance of Rs 4500 crore, the ministry said.

With Bhutans 11th plan entering its final phase, the two sides noted with satisfaction the overall progress in the implementation of ongoing bilateral development projects in Bhutan, the statement said.

The Bhutanese side conveyed its appreciation for the invaluable support of India for their socio-economic development priorities, and for timely disbursements of funds for the ongoing projects.

The two sides agreed to hold the next round of talks in 2018 in Thimphu on a mutually agreed date. PTI PYK ZMN

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According to the latest Earnings Trends, 77.4% of the sectors companies in the S&P 500 index have reported their results as of Nov 8. Total earnings for these companies are up 23.2% on a year-over-year basis on 10.9% higher revenues. Moreover, 81.3% of these companies beat earnings estimates, while 87.5% surpassed revenue estimates.



The upbeat momentum can be attributed to impressive results from technology giants like Apple Inc. (AAPL), Facebook Inc. (FB), Google, Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation.



Apple has been a key contributor to the sectors strong performance backed by impressive iPhone sales. Facebooks advertising revenues continued to surge, while Google benefited from mobile strength, rapidly growing Google cloud and total paid click growth. Microsoft also gained from the strong Azure performance.

However, Intel was a surprise package in the quarter. Solid results from the data-center portion fully offset weakness in the pc-market related business.



Key Catalysts



The technology sector is benefiting from increasing demand for cloud-based platforms, growing adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, Augmented/Virtual (AR/VR) reality devices, autonomous cars, advanced driver assisted systems (ADAS) as well as Internet of Things (IoT) related software and hardware.



Rapidly expanding IoT market is driving growth for chip components to power applications, particularly ADAS, medical/healthcare and smart devices. Semiconductors are mainly gaining from strong demand for power-efficient and high-performance chips. These are essential to run cloud-data centers and process massive data by using IoT analytics, machine learning and deep learning applications.



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You could narrow down the list of choices by looking at stocks that have the combination of a favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) and a positive Earnings ESP.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE), headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, provides enterprise hardware. The company is facing tough times due to competitive pricing, heightened commodities pricing pressure and dilution from mergers & acquisitions. Nevertheless, the ongoing restructuring initiatives along with enhanced capabilities of its hybrid IT model are key drivers.



The company is set to report fourth-quarter fiscal 2017 results on Nov 21. Currently, Hewlett Packard has an Earnings ESP of +1.86% and carries a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), based in San Jose, CA, is a leading provider of technologies that encompasses networking, security, collaboration and the cloud. The companys expanding footprint in the rapidly growing security market presents significant growth opportunity. However, intense competition and slow order growth from service providers are headwinds.



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This Zacks Rank #3 stock has an Earnings ESP of +0.28%. The company is scheduled to report first-quarter fiscal 2018 results on Nov 15.



Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (MRVL), based in California, is a fabless designer, developer and marketer of analog, mixed-signal and digital signal processing integrated circuits. The strong demand for the companys 4G LTE products is a growth driver. The company will be able to meet this demand with its wide range of newly-launched IoT solutions.



Notably, the company beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in the last four quarters, with an average positive earnings surprise of 25.97%.



This Zacks Rank #3 stock has an Earnings ESP of +0.78%. The company is set to report third-quarter fiscal 2018 results on Nov 28.



Pure Storage Inc. (PSTG), headquartered in Mountain View, CA, is a leading provider of all-flash storage products. The company is benefiting from rapid proliferation of FlashArray, FlashStack and FlashBlade portfolios.



The companys expanding product portfolio (that includes platforms like NVMe, Purity FlashBlade, 75 blades up to 8 PB of storage, Object Storage, and Active Cluster) is a key catalyst.



This Zacks Rank #3 stock has an Earnings ESP of +8.70%. The company is set to report third-quarter fiscal 2018 results on Nov 28.



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Zacks Investment Research
The United States Senate released details of its version of a tax reform bill on Thursday, and in many key ways, it is consistent with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act released by House of Representatives leaders a week ago. For example, the new bill would reduce the corporate tax rate to 20%, repeal the alternative minimum tax, increase the standard deduction, and repeal many popular itemized deductions.

However, there are some major differences between the two bills, and this could pose a problem if both bills pass their respective chambers. Here are nine of the biggest differences Americans should be aware of in the Senate's tax bill, based on what we know so far.

U.S. tax forms covered in money.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. The corporate tax rate cut would be delayed until 2019

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced a week prior to the Senate's bill, called for an immediate and permanent reduction in the corporate tax rate to 20%. The Senate's version also calls for a permanent 20% rate, but the reduction wouldn't apply until the 2019 tax year. This would reduce the cost of the tax plan, and therefore would potentially make it easier to get the bill through Congress.

2. There would still be seven individual tax brackets

This is perhaps the biggest, and most surprising, difference since one of the key principles in the GOP's tax framework calls not only for a tax cut, but a simplification of the tax code. One way the ATax Cuts and Jobs Act achieves this is by consolidating the seven current tax brackets into just four.

The Senate bill is just a tax cut. It keeps the seven-bracket structure, but changes some of the rates. The seven marginal tax rates would become 10%, 12%, 22.5%, 25%, 32.5%, 35%, and 38.5%. While it's not yet clear the income ranges each one would apply to, this certainly looks like a tax cut for most people.

3. A slightly higher child tax credit

Many Senators have argued that the expanded $1,600 child tax credit in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act isn't enough, and some were pushing for $2,000. It appears that there was a bit of compromise here, because the Senate bill increases the child tax credit slightly to $1,650.

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4. The mortgage interest deduction would remain as is

The Senate tax bill leaves the popular mortgage interest deduction alone. Taxpayers who itemize deductions would still be able to deduct the interest on up to $1 million of mortgage debt, while the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cut the maximum to $500,000.

5. No deduction for property taxes

One of the most controversial parts of tax reform is the deduction for state and local taxes, which is a big tax break for people who live in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contained a compromise that allowed a deduction for property taxes up to $10,000. In contrast, the Senate bill repeals the deduction in its entirety.

6. The estate tax stays for the super-rich

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act proposes immediately doubling the estate tax exemption, and then repeals it after six years. On the other hand, the Senate version of the bill only does the first part.

Repealing the estate tax is seen as a massive tax break for the rich, so this could be an attempt from Republicans to address one of the main criticisms of the GOP's tax platform.

7. The adoption tax credit remains

Under current law, parents who choose to adopt can claim a tax credit for certain adoption-related expenses. This is a lucrative credit for those who can take advantage of it, as it is capped at $13,460 per child.

The Senate's tax bill keeps the adoption tax credit, while it would be eliminated under the House's plan.

8. Student loan interest would still be deductible

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would make several important changes to education tax benefits, including a repeal of the popular student loan interest deduction. The Senate bill keeps this deduction, which would be a major boost to all Americans with student loan debt, as the deduction can be taken even if a taxpayer doesn't itemize.

9. Medical expense deduction would remain

Another deduction that would survive under the Senate's tax plan is the medical expense deduction. Under current tax law, individuals can deduct unreimbursed medical expenses that are in excess of 10% of their adjusted gross income. This isn't a widely used deduction, as a small percentage of Americans have enough medical expenses to qualify, but it is a big deal for people who need it.

Take all of this with a grain of salt

There are many similarities between the two plans, but there are plenty of key differences as well. Before any tax bill can be signed into law, the House and Senate need to pass identical versions of a tax bill, so any final bill is likely to look significantly different than either of the bills we've seen so far.

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ABM Industries Incorporated ABM has started a series of energy-saving initiatives for Connellsville Area School District in Fayette County, PA, to save more than $26.4 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period. The comprehensive energy performance contracting program through ABMs Technical Solutions group is likely to be completed by October 2018.



In order to reduce energy costs, ABM is implementing several energy-efficient infrastructure upgrades to various buildings in the region such as rejuvenated HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems and maintenance, lighting upgrades to efficient LED lighting systems, water conservation upgrades and new energy management systems. Some facilities in the county that are likely to get an infrastructure facelift include four elementary schools and high schools like Connellsville Area High School, Connellsville Area Middle School, and the Connellsville Area Career and Technology Center.



ABMs energy performance contracting program aims to replace or upgrade the aging infrastructure facilities without incurring upfront costs. This is primarily achieved through the reallocation of current and future owning and operating costs while maximizing energy efficiency and lowering overall annual costs. The program is designed according to clients technical facility needs and sustainability goals. It seeks to eliminate redundant costs in a clients operating budget, allowing savings to fund the upgrades.



The company has embarked on a Vision 2020 Plan that outlines its vision for the next five years and hinges on three primary phases, the first of which is aimed to increase the efficiency of the company through diligent execution of the operating plan and stringent cost-reduction activities. The second phase will focus on driving growth across the realigned verticals through effective realization of the cost savings from procurement, account management and other organizational changes. The final phase of the transformation will include accelerated growth impetus from the vertical alignment and account planning systems with a continuous focus on additional cost savings. ABM is currently focusing on the second phase and remains confident of achieving $40-$50 million in savings through operational efficiencies by the end of 2017. These systematic and strategic plans of action are likely to help the company fuel its growth momentum.



However, ABM has underperformed the industry with an average year-to-date decline of 2% as against a gain of 17% for the latter. ABM has a significant presence in the U.K. and as the European economy is highly unpredictable post the Brexit referendum, it becomes difficult for it to increase revenues and reduce costs. The company is likely to be stifled by the renegotiated deals and restrictions imposed on trade with other European Union members. Brexit could further result in higher tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade between the U.K. and the European Union, lowering the productivity of the company. Strong competitive pressure could also limit the companys success rate in bidding for profitable businesses and its ability to increase prices in accordance with the rising costs.

Story continues





ABM currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are DCC plc DCCPF, SPS Commerce, Inc. SPSC and SGS SA SGSOY, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



DCC has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 16%.



SPS Commerce has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 25%. It has beaten earnings estimates in each of the trailing four quarters with a positive average surprise of 18.8%.



SGS SA has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 6%.



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The IAF made a presentation to the government to explain why Tejas alone can't meet India's requirements.

The IAF made a presentation to the government to explain why Tejas lags behind Sweden-made JAS 39 and US F-16.

By Sudhi Ranjan Sen: Tejas - the indigenously made Light-Combat single engine fighter - isn't enough to protect Indian skies, the India Air Force (IAF) has told the government. The response came after the South Block asked the IAF to scrap its plans of acquiring single-engine fighters from global, top sources told India Today.

The IAF said the Tejas is far behind its competitors like the JAS 39 Gripen manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab and the US made F-16 manufactured by Lockheed Martin, sources said.

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National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is understood to have raised the issue following which the government asked the IAF to scrap its plans to acquire foreign made single engine fighters and go for the Indian made fighters only. Recently, the IAF made a presentation to the government to explain why Tejas alone can't meet India's requirements.

Documents accessed by India Today reveal that the IAF has told the government that the "endurance" of Tejas in combat is just about 59 minutes as against 3 hours of Gripen and nearly 4 fours for the F-16. Also, Tejas can carry a pay-load of about three tons against nearly six tons and seven tons by the Gripen and F-16 respectively.

"In other words, for target that needs about 36 bombs to be destroyed, one will have to deploy six Tejas as against just three Gripen or F-16," the IAF has told the government.

The IAF has also said Tejas needs 20 hours of serving for every hour of flying as against six hours for Gripen and 3.5 hours for F-16.

The cost of maintaining the Tejas is much higher than the other fighters. Also, both the F-16 and Gripen has a life-span of 40 years against just 20 of Tejas. And, in some areas the vintage Russian made Mig-21 is better than Tejas, the IAF is understood to have told the government.

India is desperate for single-engine fighters to replace aging MiG-21s. The country needs at least 42 fighter squadrons to fight a two front war, but currently has only 33 squadrons. And, at least another 11 fighter squadrons of the IAF will have to be retired in the next two years.

So far, the IAF has ordered 123 Tejas fighters but wants a better single-engine fighter to make up for the huge-shortfall in the fighter strength. Of the 123 Tejas fighters, only 40 will be Tejas Mark-1 and the rest 83 will be an upgraded version.

--- ENDS ---
Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. AERI posted third-quarter 2017 loss of 71 cents per share (including stock-based compensation), wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 62 cents and the year-ago loss of 67 cents.

Being a development-stage company, Aerie has not generated any revenues from product sales yet.

Aeries share price has increased 59.2% in the last six months as against the industrys 2.7% decline. Last month, Aeries stock price has surged on positive news for its lead drug, Rhopressa.

Quarter in Detail

In the reported quarter, research and development expenses declined 2.2% to $12.4 million. General and administrative expenses surged 86.1% to $19.7 million. Higher operating expenses in the quarter were attributed to expansion of the employee base to support operations and commercialization preparatory activities, including commercial manufacturing costs for Rhopressa.

Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price and Consensus

Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Price and Consensus | Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Quote

Pipeline Updates

Aerie resubmitted a new drug application (NDA) for lead candidate Rhopressa 0.02% in Feb 2017 and expects a review period of 12 months after withdrawing the NDA filed in September 2016 as a third party manufacturing facility in Tampa, FL was not ready for pre-approval inspection by the FDA. The company initiated preparations to bring a second contract manufacturer online in 2018.

On Oct 13, the Dermatologic and Ophthalmic Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA voted in favor of Rhopressas approval. The members of the committee unanimously agreed that the trials support the efficacy of netarsudil ophthalmic solution for reducing elevated intraocular pressure in patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension.

In addition, majority of the members agreed that the Rhopressas efficacy outweigh safety risks.

The FDA has set a Prescription Drug User Fee Act date of Feb 28, 2018. We note that the FDA is not bound by the Advisory Committees guidance but takes its advice into consideration when reviewing drugs.

Story continues

Apart from Rhopressa, Aerie is evaluating Roclatan, a once-daily, quadruple-action fixed-dose combination of Rhopressa and Pfizer Inc.s PFE Xalatan. The NDA for Roclatan is expected to be filed in second-quarter 2018. The company also initiated Mercury 3 to support filings in Europe. The trial will be a non-inferiority trial comparing Roclatan to prescribed fixed dose combination of Ganfort (a combination of the bimatoprost along with timolol), marketed by Allergan plc AGN in Europe.

Our Take

The narrower-than-expected loss in the third quarter was encouraging. We are encouraged by the company's efforts in developing its pipeline candidates. A potential approval of Rhopressa in early 2018 will significantly boost growth prospects.

Zacks Rank & Key Pick

Aerie currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the health care sector worth considering is Exelixis, Inc. EXEL,carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Exelixis earnings per share estimates increased from 26 cents to 43 cents for 2017 and increased from 63 cents to 70 cents for 2018 over the last 30 days. The company delivered positive earnings surprise in the trailing four quarters with an average beat of 572.92%. The companys shares have moved up 19.4% so far, this year.

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FILE PHOTO: An Uber sign is seen in a car in New York, U.S. June 30, 2015. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

By Salvador Rodriguez

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and some smaller technology companies are launching campaigns to publicize Obamacare enrollment among their contract workers after the Trump administration slashed government marketing for the health program by 90 percent.

Freelance and contract workers are an important part of the workforce for many Silicon Valley companies, including drivers at Uber and rival Lyft Inc, and technology companies also have been among the most vocal in confronting Trump administration policies - particularly immigration - that they perceive as hurting their workforce.

Uber describes its program as a response to a growing need for drivers rather than a political act. The program is part of an effort started in June by Uber to improve the company's relationship with drivers by rolling out new initiatives and features, such as tipping, that better serve them.

Starting on Friday, Uber will hold events for drivers in 28 U.S. cities, from Los Angeles to Indianapolis, to offer in-person assistance in signing up for insurance plans offered through the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Uber did not disclose a budget for the initiative.

The Uber program is an expansion of a partnership with Stride Health, a health consultant startup that specializes in helping independent workers choose health, dental and vision insurance plans. Stride said it is also working separately with a group of companies, including Etsy Inc (ETSY.O), DoorDash Inc and Postmates Inc, to sign up independent contractors for insurance.

Uber has had a difficult year in the face of a federal probe into whether it broke bribery laws, allegations of sexual harassment, and other issues that led the company to bring in a new chief executive and promise to take better care of drivers.

Former CEO Travis Kalanick also drew criticism for joining President Donald Trumps business advisory council. Kalanick left the council in February.

Story continues

Across the United States, Obamacare enrollment for 2018 is clouded by uncertainty as experts expect reduced participation amid bitter political debate around the program's future.

Republicans in Congress have repeatedly failed to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's healthcare law, which they have said drives up costs for consumers and interferes with personal medical decisions. Democrats have warned that repeal would leave millions of Americans without health coverage.

Uber has about 600,000 drivers in 49 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Meghan Joyce, Uber's regional general manager of the United States and Canada, said in a phone interview this week that there was an appetite for healthcare among drivers. Nearly 150,000 Uber drivers searched for insurance plans through Stride Health last year, and most of them enrolled. This year we're doubling down on that, Joyce said.

The Trump administration has shortened the Affordable Care Act enrollment period, which is currently open. It also has cut the advertising budget to $10 million and slashed by 40 percent the budget for support staff, known as navigators, who help people choose policies.

Those are gone in most parts of the country," said Stride Health Chief Executive Noah Lang in a phone interview on Friday.

The enrollment period ends on Dec. 15. in most states.

Theres independent contractors who need coverage right now. The law of the land says they have access to it. Its our No. 1 job to make sure they get it, Lang said.

(In 10th paragraph, corrects to say 150,000 Uber drivers searched, not enrolled, for insurance plans through Stride Health last year.)

(Reporting by Salvador Rodriguez; Editing by Peter Henderson and Matthew Lewis)
President Donald Trump on Friday pushed for freedom and economic openness in a forceful speech that portrayed Washington as a more respectful trade partner to Asian nations than China has been. Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam , the president also warned against mistreating his country, accusing some countries in the region of "product dumping, subsidized goods, currency manipulation and predatory industrial policies." "We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses, and we will not tolerate them," Trump said. "From this day forward, we will compete on a fair and equal basis," he added. "We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first." Additionally, Washington will "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property, we will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technologies to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," he said. Many U.S. firms operating in China have complained of such policies. Trump said he did not blame China, the world's second-largest economy , or other countries for "taking advantage of the U.S. on trade," repeating a message he delivered in Beijing the previous day.

Those who play by the rules will be Washington's closest economic partners, Trump said. "Those who do not can be certain that the United States will no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression. Those days are over." "We cannot achieve open markets if we do not ensure fair market access," he said, adding that unfair trade "undermines us all." The world's largest economy will also sign bilateral trade agreements with Indo-Pacific nations that abide by fair and reciprocal trade, he continued. "What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that surrender our sovereignty." Trump pulled his country out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement , pegged as the world's largest trade deal, in January on concerns about American jobs. The U.S. leader also praised the economic transformation of many Asian nations, including Vietnam , Indonesia , Thailand and the Philippines , saying Washington has been an active partner in Asia-Pacific since the U.S. first won independence.

"We seek friendship and we don't dream of domination." Trump arrived in Vietnam on Friday as part of a milestone Asia tour that will take him to Manila next. The APEC summit, taking place in this year, is focused on regional trade, with particularly attention on the TPP. Since Washington's withdrawal from the landmark accord in January, the pact's 11 remaining members have been discussing how to move ahead with the agreement , which seeks to remove tariffs across certain industries as well as safeguard labor, environmental and intellectual property rights. A framework was expected at this week's APEC summit, but nothing final has been revealed so far. Trump was widely expected to hold a separate meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin , who will also be at the APEC summit. But that won't be possible due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said Friday.



More From CNBC


World markets slid a little further down a slipperly slope Friday (AFP Photo/JEWEL SAMAD) (AFP)

New York (AFP) - Global stock markets retreated Friday, extending the previous session's losses, as uncertainty over US President Donald Trump's much-vaunted tax cuts and lackluster corporate earnings took their toll on investor confidence.

At the close of the trading day in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped an eight-week winning streak, closing 0.2 percent lower, while the broad S&P 500 and tech-dominated Nasdaq were essentially flat.

Senate Republicans on Thursday released a tax plan that would put off promised steep corporate tax cuts for a year, and there was little in the way of US economic data to move markets in any direction as the quarterly earnings season winds down.

The Dow and Nasdaq have soared about 30 percent since Trump's 2016 election victory on hopes of slashed taxes and regulation. But Phil Davis of PSW investments told AFP the prospect of delayed tax cuts had taken much of the wind out of Wall Street's sails.

"A lot of the rally is priced on the full expectations of these companies to pay less taxes and earn more money," he said. "If the tax cut is delayed until next year I would expect a five percent correction."

In London the benchmark FTSE 100 index fell 0.7 percent on the day.

A stronger pound tends to weigh on the share price of exporters, and "a fall in the (UK) trade deficit and improvement in manufacturing and industrial production has helped to lift the pound," noted Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG trading group.

In the eurozone, Frankfurt's DAX 30 lost 0.4 percent and the Paris CAC 40 shed 0.5 percent, extending sharp declines Thursday of up to 1.5 percent.

In commodities trading, oil prices were up amid growing tensions in the Middle East, after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of "direct military aggression" over a missile attack near Riyadh by Tehran-backed Yemeni rebels.

- Key figures around 2200 GMT -

New York - DOW: DOWN 0.2 percent at 23,422.21 (close)

Story continues

New York - S&P 500: FLAT at 2,582.3 (close)

New York - Nasdaq: FLAT at 6,750.94 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.7 percent at 7,43.99 points (close)

Frankfurt - DAX 30: DOWN 0.4 percent at 13,127.47 (close)

Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.5 percent at 5,380.72 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.5 percent at 3,593.76 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.8 percent at 22,681.42 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.1 percent at 29,120.92 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,432.67 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1667 from $1.1642

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3190 from $1.3145

Dollar/yen: UP at 113.50 yen from 113.42 yen

Oil - Brent North Sea: DOWN 26 cents at $63.52 per barrel

Oil - West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 43 cents at $56.74

burs-dg/hs
(Corrects ShyaHsin's location as Kunshan city, not province, in the fifth paragraph)

By Carol Zhong and Kane Wu

HONG KONG, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Global asset manager Blackstone Group LP has reached a deal to acquire China-based cosmetics packaging firm ShyaHsin Packaging (China) Co Ltd for about $800 million to $900 million, four people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The deal will be Blackstone's first private equity investment in China since 2014, Thomson Reuters data showed.

The U.S.-based investment house has signed the deal agreement but is still lining up loan financing of about $600 million to fund the transaction, said two of the people, who declined to be identified as the information was confidential.

Blackstone declined to comment. ShyaHsin could not be reached for comment.

Based in Kunshan city in southeast China's Jiangsu province, Taiwanese-owned ShyaHsin specialises in the production of cosmetics packaging containers, with clients from China, South Korea, Japan and Europe, according to its website.

The investment comes as Blackstone seeks to raise up to $3 billion for its first pan-Asia buyout fund, aiming to lock in the first tranche of investment by the end of 2017. The fund will focus on sectors such as healthcare, high-end manufacturing and services, and the so-called consumer upgrade sector - goods and services geared to consumers who want to upgrade their lifestyles.

Blackstone's last investment in China was in medical devices maker Suzhou Xinrong Best Medical Instrument Co Ltd.

In the same year, it acquired Pactera Technology International Ltd, an information technology outsourcing and consulting service provider in China which it sold to a unit of conglomerate HNA Group Co Ltd last year for about $675 million in cash.

Blackstone is among potential bidders short-listed by Link Real Estate Investment Trust to buy Hong Kong retail assets valued at about $2 billion, Reuters reported in October.

It is also selling portfolio companies including Trans Maldivian Airways, a private airline headquartered in Maldives, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

(Reporting by Carol Zhong of Basis Point and Kane Wu; additonal reporting by Chien Mi Wong; editing by Christopher Cushing)
Last week, Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) CEO Dennis Muilenburg acknowledged to BA stock owners that China was an increasingly important market for the aircraft maker.

Boeing BA stock

Source: Wikimedia

When we look at the global aerospace market, its a growing marketa $7.5 trillion marketplace over the next ten years, he explained. We see a world that needs 41,000 new airplanes, and more than 7000 of those are in China.

In the context of being in response to President Trumps trip to eastern Asia, it would have been easy to chalk Muilenburgs thoughts up to simply being relevant, topical filler dished out more for publicity purposes than as a look at the companys long-term plans. As it turns out, however, Muilenburg may have been dropping a critical hint as to how current and prospective owners of BA stock might want to judge the company.

InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips

China is the Key

Muilenburg went on to say in his discussion with Foxs Maria Bartiromo:

Were 7% growth, year over year, in passenger traffic around the globe every year, 100 million people travel for the first time by airplane in Asia alone. as a result, we plan to continue ramping up production. For example, our 737 production line, we ramped it up to 47 airplanes per month this year. Next year well step to 52 a month and go to 57 a month in 2019, and a good portion of this growth is being driven in China.

Almost as if on cue, Boeing just announced it has delivered Air Chinas first 737 Max 8 passenger jet. By the end of next year, Chinas carriers are expected to take delivery of nearly 100 more of the same plane by the end of 2018.

Its just a sampling of the growth Boeing has enjoyed in China of late, and only a fraction of the revenue BA stockholders can expect to see in China for the foreseeable future.

Story continues

The specifics are buried within the documents Boeing posts for all BA stock holders to see, though most rarely do. Namely, on page four of Boeings 84-page outlook for how the aircraft market will change between 2017 and 2036, the aircraft company believes the Asia Pacific region, mostly China, will take delivery of more than 16,000 new passenger jets between now and then. Thats almost more than twice the next-biggest forecast; Boeing believes North America will need 8,640 new planes over the course of the next 20 years.

Boeing aircraft sales outlook by market



Click to Enlarge

The image on page 19 of the report illustrates why demand in the region should explode over the next couple of decades. Passenger traffic in Asia is projected to swell by 5.7% not counting Chinas part of the mix, while Chinas passenger traffic is projected to grow at a 6.1% clip for the same timeframe. No other market is expected to see even comparable traffic growth.

Air passenger traffic growth outlook



Click to Enlarge

And Boeing is already winning the hearts and minds of Chinese airlines. In addition to the delivery of Air Chinas first 737 Max 8, Hainan Airlines has tapped Boeings 787 as the first plane to directly connect New York and Chinas interior cities Chengdu and Chongqing. Previous aircraft only had the range to reach Chinas coastal cities Beijing and Shanghai.

The Hainan and Air China deals are just a couple of several such deals that have taken shape despite the advent of Chinas own efforts to supply its carriers with home-grown passenger jets. The C-919 from the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (or Comac) was built to compete with the aforementioned 737 as well as the 320 plane from Airbus SE (OTCMKTS:EADSY).

First taking flight in May of this year, the C-919 has promise, but Comac doesnt have the multi-decade history of quality Boeing has, nor is Chinas first passenger jet as proven as the 737 already is.

Bottom Line for BA Stock

Broadly speaking, most investors know Chinas growth translates into a significant opportunity for United States corporations that sell goods overseas. This, by default, includes Boeing.

What most investors may not have recognized, though, is just how big of a deal China is to Boeing, and by extension to BA stock. Its huge; huge enough to suggest if it is doing well there, it is doing well overall. Conversely, if Boeing hits a headwind in China, it may not be able offset that weakness through other markets.

Ergo, if youre a current or future owner of BA stock, pay particularly close attention to headlines about Boeings Chinese business and about Chinese airline industry as a whole.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. You can follow him on Twitter.

More from InvestorPlace

The post Boeing Co Stock Prices Will Depend on China in the Long Term appeared first on InvestorPlace.
By PTI: Hyderabad, Nov 10 (PTI) The Congress in Telangana today said the ruling TRS should not seek votes from minority Muslims if it failed to honour its promise of providing 12 per cent reservation to them.

The main opposition party said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao does not appear sincere in providing quota in jobs and education to the minority community.

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"We are questioning the sincerity of KCR (Rao) on reservations. We have doubts on his intentions. You had promised 12 per cent reservation each to Muslims and tribals.

"You repeatedly talked about Mission Bhagiratha. You dont have the right to ask for the votes of these groups if you dont implement 12 per cent reservation," state Congress president N Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters here.

Reddy was referring to the TRS statement it would not seek votes if it failed to implement the `Mission Bhagiratha (supplying piped water to every household) scheme by 2019.

Rao yesterday hoped the Centre would positively respond to his governments request to facilitate reservation for backward sections among Muslims as it needs to be included in the 9th Schedule of the Constitution (which provides a protective umbrella to laws placed in it).

Such a move is required as the percentage of quotas in the state would exceed the 50 per cent cap on reservations.

Meanwhile, state BJP president K Laxman said it is incorrect on the part of Rao to say that Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported reservations for Muslims.

He said it is conflicting when Rao said Modi had responded positively to the request for facilitating the quota for backward sections among Muslims and that the ruling TRS would fight in Parliament to achieve the reservations.

Laxman took exception to Rao appreciating the late Nizam (erstwhile ruler of Hyderabad) as people had fought against the Nizam rule. PTI SJR RSY

--- ENDS ---
FILE PHOTO: A sign of Tencent is seen during the third annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen town of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China November 16, 2016. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo (Reuters)

By Supantha Mukherjee and Munsif Vengattil

(Reuters) - Snap Inc <SNAP.N> said on Wednesday that Chinese tech and media investment firm Tencent Holdings Ltd <0700.HK> had taken a 12 percent stake in the company, a day after the owner of disappearing-messaging app Snapchat was punished by Wall Street for disappointing quarterly results.

Snap's shares fell 16 percent to $12.67, well below their $17 initial public offering price in March, as investors fretted about Snap's slowing user growth in the latest quarter and viewed Tencent's move as an investment rather than the precursor to a merger.

"(Tencent) buys all sorts of minority investments, and I don't think we can extrapolate that this means they intend to take over the company," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Snap said it had only received the details of the stake from Tencent this month. Tencent's 145.8 million class A common shares of Snap, worth about $1.7 billion at Wednesday's price, give the Chinese company no voting rights.

Tencent president Martin Lau told Snap his firm is "excited" to deepen its relationship with the firm, Snap said in a regulatory filing. A Snap spokesman declined to comment further.

The Chinese tech company, which owns mobile chat service WeChat, has bought stakes in several companies over the past few years, including electric car maker Tesla Inc <TSLA.O> and ride services company Lyft Inc. In 2013 it invested in Snap through an affiliate.

Investments in the United States by Chinese tech heavyweights have become common, and the two countries unveiled $9 billion in new deals on the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing on Wednesday.

Apart from Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd <BABA.N> and Baidu Inc <BIDU.O> have poured cash from a decade of growth in China into buying stakes in U.S. firms.

Snap's ownership structure, which reserves 95 percent of voting rights for its co-founders, made it likely Tencent was just accumulating a financial stake, analysts said.

Story continues

While the stake could lead to a business partnership with Tencent and help Snap expand its reach into China, Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi said Snap's problems remained, chiefly slowing user growth and competition from Facebook Inc's <FB.O> Instagram.

ROLE MODEL

Snap co-founder and Chief Executive Evan Spiegel, who has in the past referred to Tencent as a role model, said on Tuesday that he was looking to redesign Snapchat to reach a broader audience.

Snap's daily active users (DAU) stood at 178 million in the third quarter, below expectations of 181.8 million, according to research firm FactSet.

The company has disappointed investors each quarter since it floated on the New York Stock Exchange in March. Snap has fallen by more than a half since its high of $29.44 on March 3, a day after it went public.

Unlike many U.S. stock market-listed corporations, Snap is not obligated to disclose changes in Tencent's ownership of Snap's class A stock.

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sheila Dang in New York; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar and Bill Rigby)
FILE PHOTO: The Boeing Company logo is projected on a wall at the "What's Next?" conference in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., October 4, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young/File Photo (Reuters)

By Alwyn Scott

(Reuters) - Boeing Co said it signed an agreement on Thursday to sell 300 planes to China Aviation Supplies Holding Company worth $37 billion at list prices, one of several deals announced during a state visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing.

General Electric Co said it had signed jet engine deals worth $2.5 billion and a $1 billion agreement for power plant equipment and services.

State-run China Aviation Supplies, which leases planes to Chinese airlines, said the Boeing agreement covered 260 B-737s and 40 B-777s and B-787s. The breakdown between firm orders and non-binding commitments was not immediately available.

Analysts said, however, that some of the orders may be among more than 300 from undisclosed buyers posted this year, and it was not clear how much of the China deal was new business.

The new agreement also may overlap substantially with a similar, 300-plane agreement Boeing signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's 2015 visit to the United States..

That deal, valued at $38 billion at the time, included orders and commitments for 190 B-737s and 50 Boeing wide-body planes, as well as leases for an additional 60 B-737s.

A spokesman for the planemaker declined to comment on what proportion of the new China agreement represented new or existing orders, but it was believed that some of the orders were already in Boeing's backlog. Boeing typically lets plane buyers determine what details to reveal about orders.

Boeing shares were down 1.4 percent at $260.30.

STRONG DEMAND

Boeing says one out of every four jetliners now rolling off its assembly lines is being delivered to Chinese customers, suggesting Chinese demand is strong, despite vagueness about how many actual Chinese orders it has won.

Plane makers also acknowledge a multi-step wooing process with customers such as China. The government first determines how many airplanes its airlines will need, allowing detailed contract discussions to take place. After talks conclude, the government must give final approval to the contracts before the orders become firm.

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Some customers ask Boeing to not identify them as buyers even on firm orders, and China is typically among those, according to industry experts. Boeing had 323 orders by unidentified customers as of Nov. 7, of which 282 were for its 737 narrow body family.

Separately on Thursday, Boeing said it had received orders for 42 B-737 MAX jets and 10 B-787-9 Dreamliners from CDB Aviation, a unit of China Development Bank Financial Leasing Co . The order was worth $7.4 billion at list prices.

Boeing and European rival Airbus have been jostling for market share in China, the world's fastest growing aviation market, with both opening assembly plants in the country.

China's owned aircraft fleet is currently equally split between Boeing and Airbus, but going by order book trends, Boeing seems to have gained a big lead in terms of the number of aircraft orders from China, said Corrine Png, chief executive of transport research firm Crucial Perspective.

China Aviation Supplies has also played a prominent role in deals announced during previous government exchanges.

In July, it agreed to buy 140 aircraft from Airbus in a deal worth $23 billion at list prices during a visit by Xi to Germany. It also was among three Chinese companies involved in the 2015 Boeing order.

Boeing's latest signing in China follows an order for 39 wide-body jets from Singapore Airlines last month.

Earlier on Thursday, General Electric said it had signed deals worth $3.5 billion in China.

They included a $1.4 billion agreement for GEnx engines for 10 B-787-9 Dreamliners, signed with Juneyao Airlines Co Ltd and ICBC Leasing, the leasing arm of state bank Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

It also included an order valued at $1.1 billion for 80 LEAP engines made by CFM International, a joint venture between GE and Safran SA of France.

GE's power division also signed a partnership agreement with China Datang Group to provide gas- and steam-powered turbines and components, plus services and digital technology for power projects in China. It valued that deal at $1 billion.

A GE spokesperson said its engine orders were new, and deferred to Boeing on how much of aircraft order was new.

(Reporting by Brenda Goh in SHANGHAI, Ben Blanchard and Stella Qiu in BEIJING, Additional reporting by Jamie Freed in SINGAPORE and Alwyn Scott in NEW YORK; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Bernadette Baum)
BII_Sprint Sub Least Loyal

BI Intelligence

The long-rumored merger between T-Mobile and Sprint has officially been called off, the companies announced in a joint statement Saturday. Despite the failed merger, the US telecom industry could still face a shake-up.

Sprint is doubling down on network investments in the wake of the failed merger.

Immediately following the announcement, Sprint's parent company SoftBank said it would invest $5 billion-$6 billion annually to improve Sprint's network over the next few years. That's up from $3.5 billion-$4 billion the carrier had expected to spend this fiscal year.

Infrastructure investment is crucial for Sprint to become more competitive against the rest of the Big Four. Slow mobile networks and poor coverage are two of the carrier's most significant shortcomings. For example, Sprint's 4G network ranks last in terms of both availability and speed, according to the most recent measurements from OpenSignal.

Here's why increased infrastructure investment could make Sprint a more competitive player in the US telecom market.

Sprint has struggled because it hasn't delivered on the mobile offerings that US subscribers find most important. In fact, the carrier currently has the least loyal subscribers of the Big Four telecoms. Ninety-three percent of Sprints subscribers said they'd switch carriers when presented with a range of competitive mobile offerings  thats well above the share of AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon subscribers who said the same, according to BI Intelligences exclusive Digital Telecom Consumer survey (available to enterprise-level subscribers).

The most significant shortcoming Sprint has to fix to be more competitive is its poor network. The biggest reason Sprint subscribers would leave is for better coverage. Half said they'd switch carriers for better coverage where they live. Sprint's mobile coverage was ranked worst among the Big Four in terms of overall reliability in 2015 and 2016, making it a pain point for the carrier. Consumers who are staying with Sprint despite a desire for better coverage are likely doing so for the low costs and, therefore, high value, of Sprint's offerings.

One thing that's kept Sprint in the running despite its poor network is its low cost. Sprint ranks second best in perceived value for cost despite its substandard network; 47% of Sprint subscribers rank the carriers value as "outstanding" or "good," placing Sprint second only to T-Mobile. Its likely that consumers most value the carriers unbeatable low costs  across every single mobile offering, Sprint's prices are the lowest of the Big Four, sometimes by a considerable margin (see chart, below).

If Sprint can make significant improvements to its network while continuing to undercut its competitors on cost across the board, it could challenge T-Mobile's place in the market. T-Mobile may have the most loyal subscriber group in the US market, but it's not immune to competition. Eleven percent of T-Mobile subscribers said they'd switch carriers for lower cost, and 42% said they'd switch for better coverage at home, two categories Sprint could capitalize on.

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Sprint Plans are Least Expensive

BI IntelligenceSprint has a long way to go to catch up to the other telecoms, but it's not unprecedented. In 2011 T-Mobile, then the No. 4 US carrier, was losing subscribers each quarter. When the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T was tabled that year, T-Mobile embarked on a comeback plan that eventually materialized as the company's Un-Carrier initiative.

It launched in 2013 and has resulted in record-low churn and sustained subscriber growth. Through consumer-friendly practices and robust network investments, T-Mobile overtook Sprint and continues to make progress against Verizon and AT&T. Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has similar aspirations. In the joint statement announcing the merger failure, he said, "We know we have significant assets, including our rich spectrum holdings, and are accelerating significant investments in our network to ensure our continued growth."

BI Intelligences Digital Telecom Consumer survey examines consumers preferences and ratings of the major US telecoms and the features they provide. It rates Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, and other mobile carriers on loyalty and user experience, and it looks at consumers' real must-haves. The full report is available to BI Intelligence enterprise-access level clients. For more information or to see how you can gain access to this report, please reach out to Matt Jackson at mjackson@businessinsider.com.

See Also:
In crafting new projects for its still-untitled streaming service, launching in 2019, Disney is looking to some of its most popular film franchises for inspiration.

RELATEDStar Wars Rebels Final Season Gets Premiere Date  Watch New Trailer

During a phone call with investors on Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that a live-action Star Wars TV series is in the works for the service, as well as shows based on Pixars Monsters, Inc. movies and Disney Channels High School Musical trilogy. (A fourth HSM movie is already in the works for Disney Channel.)

The live-action Star Wars series news comes on the same day that Disney announced a new Star Wars film trilogy, detached from the original Luke Skywalker saga and to be written and directed by The Last Jedis Rian Johnson.

RELATEDHigh School Musical 4 Casting Troy 2.0 (Whos Ryan & Sharpays Cousin)

Iger told reporters that Disney plans to produce at least four original movies per year for the streaming service, in addition to exclusive TV projects.

And how much will this streaming service cost subscribers? Iger said he expects the monthly fee to be substantially below the $10.99 charged by Netflix. The service will initially have considerably less content than Netflix, and the price will reflect that.

Details may be scarce, but because its never too early to get excited, drop a comment and tell us which of these new series youll be checking out.

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Donald Trump has warned North Korea it is in grave danger and said: Do not try us.

The US president delivered a stark warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, telling him the weapons he is acquiring are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in grave danger.

In a speech to the South Korean National Assembly delivered hours after he aborted a visit to the heavily fortified Korean demilitarised zone due to bad weather, Mr Trump called on all nations to join forces to isolate the brutal regime of North Korea  to deny it any form of support, supply, or acceptance.

Donald Trump addressing the South Korean National Assembly (Picture: Getty)

He said: Today, I hope I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilised nations, when I say to the North: Do not underestimate us. And do not try us.

We will defend our common security, our shared prosperity, and our sacred liberty, he told South Korean politicians.

The US presidents remarks came a day after he encouraged North Korea to come to the negotiating table, saying he was willing to make a deal.

Mr Trump had been scheduled to make the unannounced early morning trip to the demilitarised zone  or DMZ  amid heightened tensions with North Korea over its nuclear programme.



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The Marine One presidential helicopter left Seoul at daybreak and flew most of the way to the DMZ but was forced to turn back just five minutes out due to poor weather conditions.

Reporters travelling in a separate helicopter as part of the presidents envoy saw fog through the windows, and weather reports from near the heavily fortified border showed misting conditions and visibility below one mile.

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Pilots, officials said, could not see the other helicopters in the air.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was disappointed he couldnt make the trip. I think hes pretty frustrated, she said. It was obviously something he wanted to do.

Before he left for Asia, a White House official had ruled out a DMZ visit for Mr Trump, claiming the president didnt have time on his schedule and that DMZ visits have become a little cliche.

But Ms Sanders said the visit had been planned well before Trumps departure for Asia. The trip was kept secret for security reasons, she said.

Mr Trump had been scheduled to make the visit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who travelled separately and landed about a 20-minute drive from the DMZ.

The US president and first lady arrive in Beijing (Picture: Getty)

Ms Sanders said the military and the US Secret Service had deemed that landing would not be safe, and Mr Trump deferred to them.

After returning to Seoul, administration officials had hoped they might be able to wait out the bad weather and make a second landing attempt.

At the US Armys Yongsan Garrison landing zone, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Ms Sanders frequently glanced up at the clouds to see if the sky was clearing. But time would not allow it.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un watches a missile test (Picture: Getty)

The aborted visit came hours before Mr Trump addressed the South Korean National Assembly before closing out his two-day visit to the nation and heading to his next stop, Beijing in China.

Visiting the border that has separated the North and South for 64 years has become something of a ritual for US presidents trying to demonstrate their resolve against North Koreas ever-escalating aggression.

Every American president since Ronald Reagan, save for George HW Bush, has made the trip, peering across the barren north through binoculars, hearing broadcast propaganda and reaffirming their commitment to standing with the South.
U.S. Senate Republicans unveiled a tax plan on Thursday that differed from the House of Representatives version on several key fronts, including how they treat the corporate tax rate, the tax deduction for state and local taxes, and the estate tax.

Complicating a Republican push for the biggest overhaul of U.S. tax law since the 1980s, senators said that, like the House, they wanted to slash the corporate tax rate to 20% from 35%, but in 2019, not right away.

The House was set to vote on its measure next week after its tax-writing Ways and Means Committee approved the legislation on Thursday along party lines, with Democrats united in opposition.

The Senates timetable was less clear, with a formal bill yet to be drafted in that chamber, where Republicans have a much smaller majority and a narrower path to winning approval for any legislation, let alone one as contentious as a tax package.

As President Donald Trump toured Asia, Republicans reiterated their goal of enacting final legislation by the end of the year. If that happens, it would be Trumps first major legislative accomplishment since he took office in January.

Stocks, which have rallied this year on hopes for business tax cuts, declined as details of the two plans emerged. Investors worried about divergence between the House and Senate and the Senates proposed corporate tax rate cut delay.

In a broad sense, the House and Senate plans matched up in calling for deep tax cuts for high-earners and businesses and for a dramatic reshaping of how the United States taxes multinational corporations, big winners if the plans become law.

Democrats, largely ignored in the closed-door drafting of both bills, have condemned them as giveaways to the rich and businesses that will do little for ordinary Americans.

White House economic adviser Gary Cohn handed them ammunition in comments in a CNBC interview, saying: The most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.

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The White House issued statements that praised the Ways and Means Committee and the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee and expressed confidence that further progress would be made.

ELECTION WAKE-UP

Victories by Democrats in state and local elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere on Tuesday increased the urgency for Republicans, who control both the White House and Congress, to make good on their campaign promises on taxes.

Were going to get this over the finish line, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, adding the House would not just approve whatever the Senate passes and that a House-Senate conference committee would be needed to reconcile differences.

One big disagreement between the two chambers concerns a deduction now available to Americans for state and local taxes (SALT), a keen concern for taxpayers in high-tax, typically Democratic-leaning states such as California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The Senate plan would entirely repeal the SALT deduction. The House bill would repeal it only for state and local income and sales tax, but preserve it for property tax up to $10,000.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York said repealing the SALT deduction and other parts of the Republican proposals would hurt middle- and upper-middle-class Americans.

Passing this plan wont help Republicans climb out of the hole they are in  This bill could be your political doom, he said on the floor of the Senate, where Republicans will need to be especially united given their slim 52-48 majority.

ESTATE TAX

Another point of friction is the estate tax on inheritances. The Senate would leave it on the books, but increase exemptions so fewer people pay. The House would increase exemptions, but repeal the tax over a six-year period.

The Senate calls for keeping the existing seven tax brackets and cutting the top tax rate for the highest-earning taxpayers to 38.5% from 39.6%. The House wants to reduce the number of brackets, but leave the 39.6% top rate alone.

The Senate would close a loophole that allows private-equity fund managers and other wealthy Wall Street financiers to pay the capital gains tax rate on carried interest income, instead of the higher wage rate. The House plan leaves the tax break in place, but further restricts who can claim it.

In another divide that will need bridging, both chambers call for slapping a mandatory tax on $2.6 trillion in foreign profits being held offshore by U.S. multinationals. The Senate wants that tax to be 12% for cash and liquid assets, and 5% for non-liquid assets. The House amended its bill on Thursday, going to 14% and 7%, respectively.

A late revision to the House bill exempted vehicle dealers from new limits on interest deductibility on inventories, responding to car dealers concerns about an earlier draft.

Such tweaks to both bills were expected to continue in days ahead as lobbyists descend on Capitol Hill seeking favors.

At every stage, the GOP tax scam grows more generous for multinational corporations and more destructive toward American workers and middle class families, Californias Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, said in a statement.

Both bills would add $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the budget deficit and national debt, a problem that not long ago would have drawn Republican criticism.

Pelosi said: It turns out that deficit hawks are extinct in the Republican Party.
"Thank you Gujarat. Your elections did what Parliament and common sense could not do," Former Finance Minster P Chidambaram tweeted after the government massively cut the list of items attracting the highest 28 per cent rate under the GST regime.

By India Today Web Desk: Former Finance Minster P Chidambaram in a late-night sarcastic tweet said the Modi government had "learnt its lesson belatedly" and that the Congress and he stood "vindicated" iafter the Goods and Services Tax Council today massively pruned the list of products attracting 28 per cent tax.

"When GST rate is capped at 18%, this Govt would have learnt its lesson belatedly," P Chidamabaram tweeted, referring to the GST Council cutting the number of items attracting the top 28 per cent tax rate to just 50 from 228 previously.

When GST rate is capped at 18%, this Govt would have learnt its lesson belatedly.- P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 10, 2017

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"Congress is vindicated. I am vindicated. The merit of capping GST at 18% is now recognised," Chidamabaram went on to say, before delivering his denouement: "Thank you Gujarat. Your elections did what Parliament and common sense could not do."

Thank you Gujarat. Your elections did what Parliament and common sense could not do.- P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) November 10, 2017

The former Finance Minister, whose party has sharply attacked the Modi government over the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, seemed to be suggesting that the Centre carried out the GST revision in order to further the Bharatiya Janata Party's chances in poll-bound Gujarat.

Gujarat, which has a larger trader population, has almost become a referendum on the Modi government's economic policies, with the Congress turning both demonetisation and the GST roll-out a poll issue.

GST REVISION

Earlier today, the all-powerful GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, announced major changes to how products and services will be taxed under the GST regime.

After the GST revision, the 28 per cent tax rate bracket, which previously had 228 items, now has just 50 mostly luxury and sin products.

The top tax rate is now restricted to luxury and demerit goods like pan masala, aerated water and beverages, cigars and cigarettes, tobacco products, cement, paints, perfumes, ACs, dish washing machine, washing machine, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, cars and two-wheelers, aircraft and yacht.

Chewing gum, chocolates, preparation for facial make-up, shaving and after-shave items, shampoo and deodorants and washing powder detergent are some of the items that will now attract a lower 18 per cent rate. These items were earlier taxed at 28 per cent.

Addressing the media after the Council Meet in Guwahati, Finance Minister Jaitley said that 178 items have been moved from 28 per cent slab to the 18 per cent GST bracket. The GST revision also brought relief for restaurants, with Jaitley saying that a uniform 5 per cent rate will be levied on all eateries, both air-conditioned and non-AC.

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"Consumers will be benefited by lower prices as most of the taxable items are in the 5 per cent, 12 per cent or 18 per cent slabs," Jaitley said.

(With inputs from PTI)

--- ENDS ---
China's President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump attend a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (AFP Photo/FRED DUFOUR)

Beijing (AFP) - Donald Trump showered Chinese leader Xi Jinping with praise during talks in Beijing Thursday, but prodded his host to work fast to help resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, warning "time is quickly running out".

Speaking on the second day of a trip to Beijing marked by pomp and pageantry, the US president also decried China's "one-sided and unfair" trade surplus with the United States but told Xi "I don't blame China", as the two countries signed more than $250 billion in business deals.

Xi hosted Trump at the imposing Great Hall of the People, next to Tiananmen Square, for the main event of the US president's five-nation tour of Asia.

While the two leaders exchanged pleasantries in keeping with their professed friendship -- with Trump calling Xi a "very special man" -- the former property magnate made clear that he expected China to do more to rein in North Korea.

"We must act fast. And hopefully China will act faster and more effectively on this problem than anyone," Trump said.

"China can fix this problem easily and quickly, and I am calling on China and your great president to hopefully work on it very hard," the US leader said.

"I know one thing about your president: If he works on it hard, it will happen. There's no doubt about it," he said, while thanking Xi for his efforts to restrict trade with Pyongyang.

The US administration thinks China's economic leverage over North Korea is the key to strong-arming Pyongyang into halting its nuclear weapons and missile programmes.

Xi said the two countries reiterated their "firm commitment" to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the implementation of UN resolutions.

He also repeated his plea for the issue to be resolved through negotiations, saying China was ready to discuss the "pathway leading to enduring peace and stability on the peninsula".

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Though China has backed UN sanctions, US officials want Chinese authorities to clamp down on unauthorised trade along the North Korean border.

But China has resisted taking more drastic steps, such as halting crude oil exports to the North. Beijing fears that squeezing Pyongyang too hard could cause the regime to collapse.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there are signs that sanctions are "creating some stress within the North Korean economy" but that Xi told Trump they could take "a little while" to make a dent.

Trump, who may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam on Friday, also urged Russia to "help rein in this potentially very tragic situation".

- Trade deals -

Washington has made no secret of its frustration at China's massive trade surplus with the United States, but at a signing ceremony for over $250 billion in US-Chinese business deals -- including $37 billion worth of planes from Boeing -- Trump said he did not blame Beijing.

"After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the sake of its citizens?"

He blamed past US administrations "for allowing this out-of-control trade deficit to take place and to grow".

The Trump administration has aggressively pursued trade remedies in commercial relations with Beijing -- investigating Chinese trade practices on intellectual property and in aluminium and steel.

"There has been some friction on bilateral trade," Xi acknowledged, while pledging to open up China's economy "wider and wider".

While US and Chinese officials played up the deals, several of them were nonbinding memorandums of understanding, which can take years to materialise or never become firm contracts.

Tillerson downplayed the outcome of the trade talks: "Quite frankly, in the grand scheme... the things that have been achieved so far are pretty small".

- 'Beautiful welcome' -

The trip comes as Trump faces the lowest approval ratings for a US president in seven decades, and with the one-year anniversary of his election Wednesday spoiled by big Democrat wins in state and mayoral votes.

Xi, by contrast, cemented his status as the most powerful Chinese leader in a generation at a Communist Party congress last month, when his name was inscribed into the constitution.

On Trump's first state visit to China, ceremonial cannon fire erupted and the two leaders reviewed a military honour guard just across from Tiananmen Square -- the site of the army's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.

Xi later hosted Trump to a lavish state dinner, during which screens played a video of the US leader's six-year-old granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing ballads in Mandarin.

"China and the United States, once involved in animosity, have grown into a community with our interests converging," Xi toasted.

Bonnie Glaser, China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said "emphasising pomp over substance is the Chinese way", hoping it will impress Trump "and buy China some goodwill".

Trump circumvented China's internet censorship system to thank Xi for the "incredible welcome ceremony" on Twitter, which is banned in the country.

"My feeling toward you is an incredibly warm one. As we said there's great chemistry and I think we're going to do tremendous things for both China and the United States," Trump told Xi during their meetings.

Despite the public bonhomie, Chinese history expert Sam Crane said the "flattery will not have significant substantive effect."
FILE PHOTO: Credit reporting company Equifax Inc. corporate offices are pictured in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Tami Chappell/File Photo (Reuters)

By Jim Finkle and Aparajita Saxena

(Reuters) - Equifax Inc on Friday issued a fourth-quarter profit outlook that fell short of Wall Street expectations, saying the massive breach of its consumer data earlier this year would hurt sales and result in costs of $60 million to $75 million during the period.

Executives at the credit-reporting company blamed the expected revenue decline on delays in contract signing from business and government customers, which began in the third quarter and continued into the current quarter.

"We're hoping to win back their trust and then be able to regain the business that we've indicated has been deferred," Chief Financial Officer John Gamble said in the call. "We're still working through that process."

Equifax shares were little changed in midday trading. They have dropped around 25 percent since the company's Sept. 7 disclosure of the breach that exposed sensitive data on 145.5 million consumers.

Analysts on Friday's call probed Equifax for further details on its recovery effort. The company declined to provide estimates on total costs from the breach or say how much might be covered by insurance.

"When is your cyber security going to be up to code, or up to standard, or however you want to define that?" asked Wells Fargo Securities analyst William Warmington.

"This is a journey," interim Chief Executive Paulino do Rego Barros Jr responded, saying the firm was working to make sure its security team could protect current systems.

The company forecast fourth-quarter adjusted profit of $1.32 to $1.38 per share, below the average forecast of $1.42 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It said fallout from the breach will cut revenue by 3 percent to 4 percent in the quarter. The company expects revenue of $825 million to $835 million, compared to the average analyst forecast of $833.65 million.

Investors are looking for clues to help assess whether the breach will have a long-term impact on the company's sales and profit, Stephens Inc analyst Brett Huff said.

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The latest management commentary generally supports the view that the long-term business model looks at least okay," said Huff, who has an "equal weight" rating on Equifax shares.

Equifax also said it has halted a share buyback program.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Toronto and Aparajita Saxena in Bengalaru; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
A couple walks by graffitis reading "We Are Hungry" and "Maduro Dictator" in Caracas on August 8, 2017 (AFP Photo/Ronaldo SCHEMIDT) (AFP/File)

Brussels (AFP) - EU member states on Wednesday backed an arms embargo on Venezuela in response to the deepening crisis in the oil-rich Latin American state, diplomatic sources said.

A package of sanctions to be signed off by EU foreign ministers on Monday also includes a bar on European companies exporting electronic surveillance equipment that could be used to repress opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's government.

The EU move follows Washington slapping punitive sanctions on Caracas after labelling Maduro a "dictator" as his country slides into chaos and economic collapse.

A blacklist for sanctioned Venezuelan individuals and entities will be created, the EU sources said, though for the moment it will be empty.

"The political aim remains to force the government to get round the negotiating table with the opposition and contribute to getting out of the current political crisis," a diplomatic source said.

"It's a gradual, flexible and reversible tool."

Venezuela has been rocked by deadly protests and economic chaos that has caused dire shortages of food and medicine. The UN Security Council will meet on Monday to discuss the crisis.

Last month the European Parliament awarded its Sakharov rights prize to the Venezuelan opposition and political prisoners.
By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is set to impose an arms embargo on Venezuela and will consider further sanctions in response to the political crisis in the South American country, two EU diplomats said. The measures will bring the EU more into line with the United States, which imposed sanctions earlier this year, and they signal a change of tone in Brussels, which had previously resisted taking a tougher approach toward Caracas. "The steps were approved today, paving the way for approval (by the bloc's foreign ministers) next Monday," an EU diplomat said, adding that the ministers' backing was a formality. Spain has long pushed for sanctions on those close to President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accuses of installing a dictatorship, but the EU has been divided over whom to target, while Britain is a significant arms supplier to Venezuela. Diplomats said the turning point for EU governments was regional elections that appeared to favor Maduro's ruling Socialists last month. Polls had suggested the opposition would easily win a majority but in the end it won only a handful of governorships, according to the pro-government electoral board. However, the decisions taken by EU ambassadors at a meeting on Wednesday only prepare the legal basis for sanctions, without any names. Travel bans and asset freezes would only be imposed on Venezuelan officials "should the evolution of the situation require it", a second EU diplomat said. Once approved, the arms embargo will be accompanied by a ban on exports of equipment that could be used for internal repression and of surveillance equipment, the diplomats said. Critics said it was hypocritical for the bloc to target Venezuela while European countries sold weapons to Saudi Arabia. "The idea of imposing an arms embargo on Venezuela while refusing to impose one on Saudi Arabia is beyond parody, not least because of Saudi Arabia's murderous assault on Yemen, which has created one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world," said U.S. philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky. "But it is easily understandable on the assumption that principles and values are intended for oratorical flourishes, while what matters is tens of billions of dollars in arms sales," Chomsky said in an email to Reuters. Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen's civil war starting in 2015, attacking Houthi militia and loyalists of a former president said to be supported by Iran. The war has killed more than 10,000 people. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alastair Macdonald, Gareth Jones, Grant McCool)
By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) - Two former executives at Dutch oil services company SBM Offshore NV (SBMO.AS) have pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that they participated in a scheme to bribe officials at three foreign state-run oil companies, including Brazil's Petrobras.

Anthony Mace, SBM's chief executive officer from 2008 to 2011, pleaded guilty on Thursday in federal court in Houston in one of the first U.S. Justice Department cases filed against individuals related to bribery allegations involving Petroleo Brasileiro SA, also known as Petrobras (PETR4.SA).

The plea by Mace, 65, to one count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act came after a former sales and marketing executive at a SBM U.S. subsidiary, Robert Zubiate, pleaded guilty on Monday, prosecutors said.

Lawyers for the two men did not respond to requests for comment and neither did SBM or Petrobras.

Mace's plea came after SBM on Monday said it had set aside $238 million amid advanced discussions to resolve a U.S. probe into improper payments to foreign government officials.

Prosecutors said that after becoming chief executive, Mace joined a scheme that began in 1996 to pay bribes to officials at Petrobras, Angola's state-owned oil company Sonangol and Equatorial Guinea's GEPetrol.

Prosecutors said Mace authorized paying $16 million to five people listed on a spreadsheet despite being aware of a high risk they were Equatorial Guinean officials or people accepting money on their behalf.

Mace also deliberately avoided learning whether the ultimate recipients of certain payments he authorized were to Petrobras officials, prosecutors said.

Mace, a British citizen, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 2. Zubiate, who was based in Texas and California while with SBM, is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 31.

Petrobras has been at the centre of Brazil's largest ever corruption scandal amid investigations into a political kickback scheme involving contractors.

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SBM previously in 2014 agreed to pay $240 million to settle a Dutch inquiry into improper payments to officials in Angola, Brazil and Equatorial Guinea.

SBM said at the time, the U.S. Justice Department said it was closing a related probe. But the department reopened the investigation after Brazilian prosecutors in 2015 charged a former U.S. employee, SBM said on Monday.

SBM last year had also set aside $280 million to settle related issues in Brazil. But it announced on Monday that the Brazilian case remained unresolved.

(This version of the story has been refiled to correct day Robert Zubiate pleaded guilty to Monday in third paragraph)

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Leslie Adler and Diane Craft)
Former Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer waits to testify before a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing on "Protecting Consumers in the Era of Major Data Breaches" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Reuters)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer apologised on Wednesday for two massive data breaches at the internet company, blaming Russian agents for at least one of them, at a hearing on the growing number of cyber attacks on major U.S. companies.

"As CEO, these thefts occurred during my tenure, and I want to sincerely apologise to each and every one of our users, she told the Senate Commerce Committee, testifying alongside the interim and former CEOs of Equifax Inc and a senior Verizon Communications Inc executive.

"Unfortunately, while all our measures helped Yahoo successfully defend against the barrage of attacks by both private and state-sponsored hackers, Russian agents intruded on our systems and stole our users data."

Verizon, the largest U.S. wireless operator, acquired most of Yahoo Inc's assets in June, the same month Mayer stepped down. Verizon disclosed last month that a 2013 Yahoo data breach affected all 3 billion of its accounts, compared with an estimate of more than 1 billion disclosed in December.

In March, federal prosecutors charged two Russian intelligence agents and two hackers with masterminding a 2014 theft of 500 million Yahoo accounts, the first time the U.S. government has criminally charged Russian spies for cyber crimes.

Those charges came amid controversy relating to alleged Kremlin-backed hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible links between Russian figures and associates of President Donald Trump. Russia has denied trying to influence the U.S. election in any way.

Special Agent Jack Bennett of the FBIs San Francisco Division said in March the 2013 breach was unrelated and that an investigation of the larger incident was continuing. Mayer later said under questioning that she did not know if Russians were responsible for the 2013 breach, but earlier spoke of state-sponsored attacks.

Senator John Thune, a Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, asked Mayer on Wednesday why it took three years to identify the data breach or properly gauge its size.

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Mayer said Yahoo has not been able to identify how the 2013 intrusion occurred and that the company did not learn of the incident until the U.S. government presented data to Yahoo in November 2016. She said even "robust" defences are not enough to defend against state-sponsored attacks and compared the fight with hackers to an "arms race."

Yahoo required users to change passwords and took new steps to make data more secure, Mayer said.

"We now know that Russian intelligence officers and state-sponsored hackers were responsible for highly complex and sophisticated attacks on Yahoos systems," Mayer said. She said "really aggressive" pursuit of hackers was needed to discourage the efforts, and that even the most well-defended companies "could fall victim to these crimes."

The current and former chief executives of credit bureau Equifax, which disclosed in September that a data breach affected as many as 145.5 million U.S. consumers, said they did not know who was responsible for the attack.

Senator Bill Nelson said "only stiffer enforcement and stringent penalties will help incentivise companies to properly safeguard consumer information."

Thune told reporters after the hearing the Equifax data breach had created "additional momentum" for Congress to approve legislation. He said Mayer's testimony was "important in shaping our future reactions."

The Senate Commerce Committee took the unusual step of subpoenaing Mayer to testify on Oct. 25 after a representative for Mayer declined multiple requests for her voluntarily testimony. A representative for Mayer said on Tuesday she was appearing voluntarily.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Susan Thomas)
donald trump kevin brady

Alex Wong/Getty Images

The NFIB reversed its position on the House Republican tax reform bill on Thursday, saying it supports newly proposed changes.

Last week, the group slammed the bill shortly after it was unveiled, saying it leaves too many small businesses behind.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) reversed its position on the House Republican tax reform bill on Thursday, backing the newly proposed changes by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas).

"We are very grateful to Chairman Brady for listening to our concerns and working with NFIB to ensure that tax reform benefits the greatest possible number of American small business owners," Juanita Duggan, president and CEO of NFIB, said in a statement.

"This amendment would create substantial tax relief for millions of small business owners who were left out of the original bill. We urge Republican and Democratic members of the House to support this amendment going forward," she added.

Brady's proposed amendment would provide a lower tax rate for smaller firms that otherwise wouldn't have qualified for the 25% rate on pass-through businesses.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans took a step forward in their attempt to overhaul the US tax code last Thursday by revealing the "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," which will include a broad set of proposed changes to the corporate and individual tax systems, building off a nine-page framework the White House and congressional Republican leaders released in September.

Last week, the NFIB slammed the tax reform bill shortly after it was unveiled, saying, "This bill leaves too many small businesses behind. We are concerned that the pass-through provision does not help most small businesses."

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Snowflake Politicians

When you see Indian politicians in their bullying, swaggering pomp, you imagine their hides are thick and scabrous, impermeable to shame. At other times, though, their skin is so thin, so easily bruised, you imagine even a baby can't be as sensitive. So a 19-year-old in Tamil Nadu uses "filthy language", according to news reports, about the prime minister in a Facebook conversation with a friend, who happens to be a BJP functionary, and is arrested once those remarks are reported to the police. What can possibly justify arresting someone on the basis of a comment, however crude, made to one friend about the most powerful public figure in the country? Even if said friend complains. And what can possibly justify arresting a cartoonist for drawing an accusatory cartoon about three of Tamil Nadu's most powerful public figures in response to the suicide of one of its least powerful private citizens? A daily wage labourer killed himself and his family because the police would not listen to his complaints about harassment by a moneylender. No doubt because they were too busy arresting kids and cartoonists.

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Happy DeMonniversary

The hashtag DeMoWins was trending on Twitter on the eve of the first anniversary of demonetisation. But the triumphalism of the hashtag was not matched by the sarcasm, disrespect, and general mockery it generated online. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made a long, laboured defence of the policy on his Facebook page. A Twitter user pointed out that more than an hour after the post it still had only one share, despite Jaitley's more than three million followers. At the end of the day, the post still had only 52 shares, and many of the comments took Jaitley to task.

Going Virile

Full of vim and vigour, the prime minister has been on the campaign trail in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. He may have let his enthusiasm get the better of him though in a tweet arguing that the people of the latter state would teach the Congress a lesson in these 'erections'. A more mature social media team might not have gone off at half-cock.

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Investor reaction to Equifax Inc.s EFX latest quarterly results were mixed as evident from yesterdays late-hour trade. Following the companys third-quarter 2017 results, the stock fell approximately 2.5%, then recovered and went up to nearly 1%. Finally, at the close of after-hour trading, it was down less than 1%.

Analysts and investors were waiting for the credit information providers third-quarter results to have a better picture of the impact of the data breach incident on the companys financial performance. Notably, this September, Equifax announced that very sensitive personal data of approximately 143 million consumers has been stolen from its database.

The company recorded $87.5 million of costs related to the data breach, which was the main reason behind the 27.5% decline in its third-quarter GAAP earnings. The company reported GAAP earnings of 79 cents, down from $1.09 posted in the year-ago quarter.

Equifax stated that it is still not sure how much its bottom-line results have been impacted by the above-mentioned data breach. In its 10-Q filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), the company reported that over 240 class-action lawsuits have been filed against Equifax. It is currently facing probe from a number of investigating agencies and regulators.

However, SECs rule of reporting financial results on a non-GAAP basis gave it a scope to overshadow the debacle. On non-GAAP basis (which excludes one-time items including the costs related to data breach), the company managed to report year-over-year earnings growth.

Equifaxs non-GAAP earnings of $1.53 per share came in 6.3% higher than the year-ago quarter. Moreover, quarterly earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.49 and were toward the upper-end of managements guidance rage of $1.50-$1.54 (midpoint: $1.52).

It is quite possible that investors will have different opinions on the companys bottom-line results, which may have resulted in such volatility during yesterdays late-hour trade. Furthermore, it is possible that investors will be waiting for the third-quarter earnings conference call, which is scheduled to be held today before the market opens, for a better view on its growth prospects.

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Notably, the stock is on a downtrend since it reported the data-breach incident on Sep 8. It has lost 23.7% of its value since then, while the industry to which it belongs to has gained 6.4%.

Lets discuss quarterly results in detail.

Revenues

Equifaxs top-line performance was also not impressive. Revenues of $834.8 million missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $847 million as well as managements guided range of $853-$861 million. Although, the figure was up 3.8% on a year-over-year basis, it was the slowest growth rate in the last several quarters.

Lackluster top-line performance was mainly due to the dismal performance at its U.S. Information Solutions (USIS) division which registered a year-over-year 3% decline in revenues to $307.7 million, reflecting a complete sign of impact from the data-breach scandal. The division witnessed revenue decline at all its sub-segments. Revenues from Online Information Solutions, Mortgage Solutions Services and Financial Marketing Services dropped 4%, 2% and 1%, respectively.

However, the companys other segments continue to perform well.

Revenues from the International division (including Europe, the Asia Pacific, Canada and Latin America) advanced 12% year over year to $239.8 million. On a constant-currency basis, revenues increased 10%. Growth was mainly driven by the Veda Group acquisition, which increased the Asia-Pacific regions contribution to revenues to $81.2 million, up 10% year over year. Moreover, revenues registered growth of 16%, 11% and 11% in Latin America, Canada and Europe, respectively.

Revenues from the Workforce Solutions segment climbed 9% year over year to $186.4 million, primarily on the back of 13% revenue growth in Verification Services. Revenues from Employer Services remained flat year over year.

Global Consumer Solutions contributed $100.9 million to total revenues. The figure was flat on a year-over-year basis.

Operating Results

Equifaxs adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 8.1% to $312.5 million. Adjusted operating EBITDA margin expanded 150 basis points (bps) to 37.4%. Adjusted net income came in at $185.9 million or $1.53 per share compared with $175.2 million or $1.44 per share reported a year ago.

Equifax, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Equifax, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Equifax, Inc. Quote

Balance Sheet & Cash Flow

Equifax exited the reported quarter with $315.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, down from the previous quarters balance of $403.9 million. Total long-term debt (excluding current portion) was $2.04 billion, flat quarter over quarter. During the nine-month period ended Sep 30, 2017, Equifax generated cash flow of $508.7 million from operational activities.

In the first three quarters, the company paid dividend of $140.7 million. Also, Equifaxs board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of 39 cents to be payable on Dec 15 to shareholders of record date as of Nov 24. Notably, the company has a history of paying quarterly dividend for more than 100 years.

Our Take

We believe that due to ongoing uncertainty the company has not provided outlook for the forthcoming quarter. Therefore, we will have to wait for the companys conference call today to have a clearer picture about its future prospects.

Its escalating expenses related to the cyber attack will remain a drag on the companys profitability. Also, per its 10-Q filing, the company expects to incur more expenses in the form of legal and professional services associated with the data-breach incident. Furthermore, it stated that its expenses might flare up due to increased investments in IT and security solutions as well as insurance services.

The brand image and creditability of Equifax has been in question and is facing huge customer criticism, while cybersecurity companies are questioning its preparedness and response to the massive data breach. Moreover, with lawmakers and investigating agencies probing the mishap, its troubles are unlikely to end any time soon.

We believe the entire issue may result in loss of customers and the company may also have to make huge compensation to its clients. This may have an adverse impact on the companys financial performance in the near term.

Currently, Equifax carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Envestnet, Inc. ENV, Global Payments Inc. GPN and Total System Services Inc. TSS, all carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Envestnet, Global Payments and Total System Services have long-term expected growth rates of 15%, 14.6% and 12.8%, respectively.

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By Richa Naidu and Sruthi Ramakrishnan

(Reuters) - J.C. Penney Co Inc (JCP.N) shares surged more than 19 percent on Friday after the retailer reported much better-than-expected same-store sales and said it will compete fiercely on price while keeping inventory lean during the crucial holiday quarter.

U.S. department stores have worked hard this year to rein in inventory and build better delivery services. They have also cut prices to boost declining foot traffic as shoppers turn to discount and online retailers.

"You're going to see in our new holiday campaign a huge emphasis on value and price," J.C. Penney Chief Executive Marvin Ellison said on a call to discuss earnings, noting that where the retailer did not have a centralized pricing strategy just over a year ago, it would now be aggressive on pricing online and in stores.

Ellison said the company had zeroed in on promotional strategies expected to improve both traffic and margins, having tested them out during the third quarter.

Third-quarter same-store sales far exceeded analyst expectations and rose by more than twice what the company itself had forecast just one day before the end of the period.

Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Davis attributed that wide difference to unexpected sales in the last few days of the quarter.

The retailer said comparable sales rose 1.7 percent, compared with the 0.6 percent to 0.8 percent it had forecast in October. Analysts on average had expected comparable sales to increase 0.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

J.C. Penney shares, which lost about a quarter of their value when the company made the sales forecast, were last up 15 percent in morning trading.

The company also slashed its full-year sales and profit expectations in October, saying it sold stagnant apparel inventory at heavy discounts amid an overhaul of its women's section.

Ellison said on Friday that J.C. Penney will not need to liquidate inventory again in the fourth quarter.

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"We took aggressive actions to clear slow-moving inventory, primarily allowing for an improved apparel assortment heading into the holiday season," he said.

Rivals Macy's Inc (M.N), Kohl's Corp (KSS.N) and Nordstrom Inc (JWN.N) said on Thursday that they were also entering the holiday season with tight inventory.

J.C. Penney's net loss widened to $128 million, or 41 cents per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 28, from $67 million, or 22 cents per share, a year earlier, partly because of the heavy discounting.

Excluding items, the company lost 33 cents per share, less than the 40 cent to 45 cent loss it had estimated. Analysts expected a 43 cent loss.

Net sales fell about 2 percent to $2.81 billion but beat the average analyst estimate of $2.77 billion.

(Reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Meredith Mazzilli)
By Sylvia Westall and Stephen Kalin DUBAI/RIYADH (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Riyadh on Thursday for hastily scheduled talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, notably over Lebanon and Yemen. Macron, who flew in from a visit to the United Arab Emirates, had earlier declined to discuss a wave of high-level arrests for corruption in Saudi Arabia, but said it was vital to work with the kingdom for the stability of the region. He told a news conference in Dubai that the decision to go to Riyadh had been made on Thursday morning, and that his first face-to-face talks with the prince would focus on "regional questions, in particular Yemen and Lebanon". Two top Lebanese government officials said on Thursday that Riyadh was holding Lebanon's Saad al-Hariri captive and a third told Reuters that the Saudi authorities had ordered Hariri to resign while he was in Riyadh last weekend, and put him under house arrest. Saudi Arabia has denied that he is under house arrest, but Hariri himself has not denied that his movements are being restricted. France has close ties with Lebanon, a former colony, and with Hariri, who has a home in France after spending several years in the country. Macron said there had been informal contacts with Hariri, but no request to transfer him to France. Two French diplomats also said they were unaware of any plans to bring Hariri to France. Macron said he would "emphasize the importance of Lebanese stability and integrity" in his talks in Riyadh, adding: "My wish is that all Lebanese political officials live freely in Lebanon ... which means having a very demanding stance on those who could threaten any leader." Television pictures showed a smiling Macron being met at Riyadh airport by the crown prince. In recent years, France has been able to nurture new links with the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states due to its tough stance on Iran in nuclear negotiations, and the broad similarity of their policies on conflicts across the Middle East. However, the 32-year-old crown prince has emphasized closer ties with U.S. President Donald Trump at a time when Macron has in turn sought to improve relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite rival for regional influence. "STRONG CONCERNS ABOUT IRAN" In Yemen, the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthi movement said on Monday it had closed all air, land and sea ports to stem the flow of arms to the Houthis from Iran. The United Nations said the move risked causing "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims". Macron said he would insist to Prince Mohammed that Riyadh must open the borders to allow humanitarian access. On Iran, Macron repeated that he wanted to keep the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, which U.S. President Donald Trump has challenged. But he said he was "very concerned" by Iran's ballistic missile program, mentioning a missile fired from Yemen and intercepted by Saudi Arabia on Saturday, and raised the prospect of possible sanctions with regard to those activities. "There are extremely strong concerns about Iran. There are negotiations we need to start on Iran's ballistic missiles," he said. "Like what was done in 2015 for the nuclear activities, it's necessary to put a framework in place for Iran's ballistic activities and open a process, with sanctions if needed, of negotiation that would enable (that)." Iran has denied providing ballistic missiles to Yemeni Houthi rebels and says its missile program is purely defensive and should not be linked to the nuclear deal. Macron reaffirmed his intention to go to Iran as part of efforts to talk to all the actors in the region, but warned about decisions that could destabilize the region further. "Iran is a regional power ... there should be no naivety in terms of Iran, it is about standing beside our allies, in particular the United Arab Emirates, but it is about not having any policy that could create imbalances, conflicts in the region." (Additional reporting and writing by John Irish; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Companies that are recently trading at a market price lower than their real values include Pan African Resources and iEnergizer. Smart investors can make money from this discrepancy by buying these shares, because they believe the current market prices will eventually move towards their true value. If youre looking for capital gains in your next investment, I suggest you take a look at my list of potentially undervalued stocks.

Pan African Resources PLC (AIM:PAF)

Pan African Resources PLC engages in the exploration of precious metals in South Africa. Established in 2000, and headed by CEO Jacobus Loots, the company size now stands at 3,932 people and with the market cap of GBP 251.77M, it falls under the small-cap group.

PAFs stock is currently hovering at around -64% less than its real value of 0.38, at a price tag of 0.14, according to my discounted cash flow model. signalling an opportunity to buy the stock at a low price. Also, PAFs PE ratio stands at around 9.4x against its its metals and mining peer level of 13.9x, suggesting that relative to its comparable company group, we can invest in PAF at a lower price. PAF is also strong financially, with near-term assets able to cover upcoming and long-term liabilities. Finally, its debt relative to equity is 6%, which has for the last couple of years signifying PAFs capacity

AIM:PAF PE PEG Gauge Nov 10th 17

iEnergizer Limited (AIM:IBPO)

iEnergizer Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides business process outsourcing (BPO), content delivery, and back office services in the United Kingdom, India, the United States, and internationally. The company was established in 2000 and with the companys market capitalisation at GBP 85.56M, we can put it in the small-cap stocks category.

IBPOs stock is now trading at -54% under its intrinsic level of $0.98, at the market price of $0.45, based on my discounted cash flow model. This discrepancy signals a potential opportunity to buy IBPO shares at a low price. Additionally, IBPOs PE ratio is trading at 7.5x compared to its it services peer level of 25x, indicating that relative to its comparable set of companies, we can invest in IBPO at a lower price. IBPO is also in great financial shape, as short-term assets amply cover upcoming and long-term liabilities. Finally, its debt relative to equity is 84%, which has been diminishing for the last couple of years signifying its ability to pay down its debt.

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AIM:IBPO PE PEG Gauge Nov 10th 17

Provident Financial plc (LSE:PFG)

Provident Financial plc provides personal credit products to non-standard lending market in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Poland. Established in 1880, and currently lead by , the company size now stands at 3,712 people and with the stocks market cap sitting at GBP 1.28B, it comes under the small-cap category.

PFGs stock is now floating at around -36% lower than its true level of 13.53, at a price tag of 8.59, based on its expected future cash flows. This mismatch indicates a chance to invest in PFG at a discounted price. Also, PFGs PE ratio stands at around 6x while its consumer finance peer level trades at 14.7x, suggesting that relative to its peers, we can invest in PFG at a lower price. PFG is also strong financially, as current assets can cover liabilities in the near term and over the long run. Its debt-to-equity ratio of 264% has been falling over the past couple of years signifying PFGs capacity to reduce its debt obligations year on year.

LSE:PFG PE PEG Gauge Nov 10th 17

For more financially sound, undervalued companies to add to your portfolio, you can use our free platform to explore our interactive list of undervalued stocks.

To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.



The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
Nvidia's stock has rallied for years on AI and cloud computing, but Thursday's Q3 earnings report is an important test.

Investors expect big things from Nvidia Corporation (NVDA, $212.03) when the graphics chipmaker reports third-quarter results after Thursday's closing bell. And considering Nvidia's stock has more than tripled over the past year, it had better not disappoint.

Nvidia has been on a remarkable run since the start of 2016 thanks to explosive growth in artificial intelligence. It turns out the company's graphics chips aren't just great for PC gaming. They're also integral to running data centers for cloud computing and have a place in technologies such as self-driving cars.

For instance, Nvidia's data center business more than doubled year-over-year in the second quarter. And NVDA shares got a jolt in early October after the chipmaker announced a new Drive PX Pegasus artificial-intelligence chip designed to enable the highest level of autonomous driving. The company says the Pegasus chip is "roughly the size of a license plate" and "can replace the entire trunk full of computing equipment used in today's Level 5 autonomous prototypes."

See also: 11 Best Tech Stocks to Buy for Dividends

In the past two years, the expansion of these applications has sent NVDA shares up nearly 650%. Heck, the stock has more than doubled in 2017 alone.

Nvidia has been the world's largest maker of PC graphics processing units (GPUs) for ages, but the rise of cloud-based computing and other applications lit a fire under shares. When a list of major customers reads like a who's who of tech giants - Alphabet (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN) all rely on Nvidia hardware in their data centers - you can understand why the market is so high in the name.

Indeed, the company's success has actually forced once-bitter rivals into one another's arms.

In a bid to compete with Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel (INTC) announced a partnership Monday, Nov. 6, to create a laptop-computer chip that combines an Intel processor with an AMD graphics unit. The idea is to catch up in notebooks built to handle graphically complex games, which is an area of growth.

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What Wall Street Expects of Nvidia

Nvidia's performance puts the onus on the graphics chipmaker to deliver perfection whenever it posts results.

A stock this hot can stumble when a company fails to meet or beat analysts' expectations. Consider the quick declines in Nvidia's stock this August despite beating profit and revenue estimates. The company's crime? More than doubling its data center revenues and growing its automotive business by 19.3% - results that still fell short of Wall Street's lofty bar.

See also: The 11 Best Tech ETFs for Years of Stellar Gains

Happily for Nvidia's shareholders, third-quarter expectations don't look too tough to meet. Consensus expectations are for 13% earnings growth to 94 cents per share on 17.9% revenue growth to $2.36 billion. Those are strong rates of expansion, to be sure, but both fall well under the pace Nvidia set in the prior two quarters.

Analysts may not have set the bar particularly high for the third quarter, but longer-term, they expect great things from Nvidia. They forecast revenue to jump 30% in fiscal 2018, according to data from Thomas Reuters. Average annualized earnings growth is pegged at 13% a year for the next five years.

The market is so excited about Nvidia's growth prospects that Wall Street analysts are having a hard time keeping up.

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst William Stein upgraded the stock to "Buy" back in July on expectations for upside across most of Nvidia's business. He then released another note in early October hiking his price target on NVDA to $200, which the stock eclipsed in a couple weeks.

With several growing businesses at its back, it's reasonable to expect yet another good quarter from the chip giant.

"We expect the company to benefit from growing strength in the artificial intelligence (AI) space," say analysts at Zacks Equity Research. "Moreover, the company's innovative product pipeline along with strength in gaming and high-end notebook GPUs keep it well positioned."

Nvidia is by no means a cheap stock, trading at 53 times forward earnings on that long-term growth forecast of 13% mentioned above, according to data from Thomson Reuters. A valuation as stretched as that is an invitation to a pullback on anything but a pristine earnings report.

Whether Nvidia can pull it off remains to be seen, but a stumble seems unlikely. More importantly, it wouldn't necessarily change an otherwise bullish bigger picture.

See also: The 30 Greatest Stocks of All Time

EDITOR'S PICKS



Copyright 2017 The Kiplinger Washington Editors
As the Congress-led Karnataka government is all set to celebrate Tipu Jayanti , a total of 11, 000 police personnel will be deployed in Bengaluru to ensure there is no violence.

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah paying respect to Tipu Sultan during the inauguration of the Hazrat Tipu Jayanthi in 2016 (Photo: PTI)

By Rohini Swamy: Even after massive protest, the Congress-led Karnataka government is all set to celebrate the birth anniversary of Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan today amidst tight security.

"A total of 11, 000 policemen will be deployed in Bengaluru. No pro or anti-processions will be permitted. If required we will impose Section 144 and strict action will be taken against anyone who breaks rules," told Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar to India Today.

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ADGP law and order Kamal Pant told India Today that prohibitory orders have been issued along coastal districts of Karnataka and a close watch will be kept on hypersensitive areas such as Kodagu, Chitradurga and Mangaluru.

Sale of liquor also has been banned and the police are holding peace meetings with various groups in Mysuru and Kodagu to ensure peace in the area.

Kodagu witnessed massive protests in 2015 which lead to the death of two people and has been the epicenter of violent protests from the day Congress decided to celebrate Tipu Jayanti.

The Karnataka Police has restricted all kinds of public processions or protests in the state on Friday to prevent untoward incidents during the event.

ADGP Bhaskar Rao visited Kodagu and also conducted a flag march to ensure that there would be no violence in the area.

Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah even directed all deputy commissioners of the state's 30 districts to not include in the invitation the names of MPs and MLAs who have formally stated that they do not wish to be a part of Tipu Jayanti celebrations.

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A petro-industrial factory is reflected in a traffic mirror in Kawasaki near Tokyo December 18, 2014. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/Files (Reuters)

By Scott DiSavino

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices settled slightly lower on Wednesday after U.S. government data showed rising domestic crude production, a surprise build in U.S. stockpiles and a decline in monthly Chinese crude imports, a triple blow that was offset somewhat by rising tensions in the Middle East.

Brent futures fell 20 cents, or 0.3 percent, to settle at $63.49 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 39 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $56.81 per barrel.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report that U.S. crude production rose to 9.620 million barrels per day during the week of Nov. 3, the highest weekly output on record according to federal energy data going back to 1983. [EIA/S]

"The most notable thing in the EIA report was that production increased. Were on our way to set record crude oil production in 2018," said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.

The current all-time high for average annual output was 9.637 million bpd in 1970, according to federal energy data.

The EIA also said crude stocks increased by 2.2 million barrels, shocking the market after analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 2.9 million-barrel draw and industry group the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a decline of 1.6 million barrel.

China's October oil imports fell to just 7.3 million bpd from a near record-high of about 9 million bpd in September, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

Traders said they were also watching escalating tensions in the Middle East, especially between regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Brent crude hit $64.65 earlier this week, its highest since mid-2015, as political tensions in the Middle East escalated after a sweeping anti-corruption purge in top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, which in turn has confronted Iran over the conflict in Yemen.

Brent futures have gained around 14 percent in the last month alone, propelled largely by evidence that output cuts by OPEC and its partners are reducing the global oil glut.

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"Stronger oil fundamentals and investor inflows have been the catalyst for higher oil prices, but adding further support now is a focus on several geopolitical risks that have been looming over oil markets for a while," said analysts at Citi.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' 2017 World Oil Outlook showed the group predicts demand for its crude will rise more slowly than previously expected in the next two years, as higher prices from its supply policy stimulate output growth from rival producers.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London and Henning Gloystein and Jamie Freed in Singapore; editing by David Gregorio and Marguerita Choy)
Panera Bread said Wednesday that its founder, chairman and CEO, Ron Shaich, will be stepping down from the CEO post, but not before repurchasing Au Bon Pain in one of his last acts as head executive. Shaich is no stranger to Au Bon Pain, having merged his cookie store, the Cookie Jar, with the bakery in the 1980s, creating the Au Bon Pain Company. In the early '90s the company acquired the Saint Louis Bread Company, which would go on to be renamed Panera. In 1991, the company went public, with Shaich on board as the CEO. However, seven years later, Shaich sold all of the Au Bon Pain divisions to focus on growing the Panera brand. The company did not disclose the terms of the acquisition of Au Bon Pain, which has about 300 locations. The acquisition will allow Panera to grow its business in locations with a smaller footprint. Au Bon Pain has shops in transportation terminals and hospitals that a traditional Panera restaurant would not fit into. "This is not about me," Shaich told CNBC. "This transaction makes powerful sense for Panera." Shaich's departure from the position of CEO and the purchase of Au Bon Pain comes just six months after Panera was purchased by JAB Holding for about $7.5 billion. Shaich said at the time that Panera had proven to be a successful public company, but that he would be able to do more as a private business. Shaich told CNBC that "our friends JAB completely supports" Panera's acquisition of Au Bon Pain. JAB, a privately held company headquartered in Luxembourg, may not be a household name, but its brands are. The company owns Keurig Green Mountain and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Dunkin' Brands, a long-speculated target for JAB, recently saw shares jump amid renewed chatter.

Meanwhile, JAB has been selling off several of its luxury brands in order to focus on faster-growing consumer sectors and has been steadily creating a coffee and breakfast empire over the last five years. Shaich, who will stay on as executive chairman, is handing the keys over to Blaine Hurst, the current president of Panera. Hurst will continue in his role as president, as well. "Blaine has been a key player in our efforts to transform Panera during the past half-decade," Shaich said in a statement Wednesday. "He is very well known and respected in our organization and in our industry for his innovative thinking, technological savvy and ability to drive change." Hurst joined Panera in 2010 to work on the company's $42 million investment, Panera 2.0. These efforts modernized the company's order and pay processes with fast-lane kiosks and mobile order to speed customers through the checkout and also improved the way it trained its staff. Hurst held several posts before becoming the company's president, focusing on manufacturing, supply chain, information technology, digital, human resources and consumer packaged goods. "This is the right time for me to step down as CEO while still staying involved in the business as Chairman," Shaich said. "I returned in 2011 because our growth was slowing and we needed to reposition Panera as a better competitive alternative with expanded growth opportunities. And I'm happy to say we've done just that."



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Nov 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- The acting chief of the Department of Homeland Security Elaine Duke rebuffed the wishes of the White House this week when she refused to end humanitarian protections for immigrants living in the U.S., people familiar with the deliberations said. http://on.wsj.com/2hpduZ1

- Musical.ly Inc, the maker of a lip-syncing app popular among teens and tweens, has agreed to be acquired by Chinese news and information site Beijing Bytedance Technology Co for as much as $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. http://on.wsj.com/2hnaPyZ

- Alabama's special election for a U.S. Senate seat was rattled Thursday by allegations that Republican nominee Roy Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl several decades ago, when he was 32. http://on.wsj.com/2hoMTvc

- A day after disagreements between AT&T Inc and the U.S. government over the company's proposed takeover of Time Warner Inc spilled out into the open, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said on Thursday he had no reason to believe that antitrust enforcers' examination of the deal was influenced by President Donald Trump. http://on.wsj.com/2hpMeJJ

- News Corp reported a 5 percent increase in revenue in the most recent quarter, with every segment of the company posting gains driven by positive currency fluctuations, acquisitions in Australia and U.K. and continued growth of its digital real-estate business. http://on.wsj.com/2hnVEWe (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)
Embarrassed as they were not invited to the official government function held by the chief minister Siddaramaiah, three of the direct descendants of Tipu Sultan spoke to India Today and said the government is using their family to play politics.

By Rohini Swamy: Apart from stray incidents of violence in Kodagu and Kalburgi, Tipu Jayanti celebrations took place quite peacefully in Karnataka. The Congress-led government in Karnataka ensured that the state was converted into a fortress and 44,000 police personnel were deployed in five major districts of the state to prevent any violence.

However, amid the celebrations Tipu Sultan's descendants, who have been fighting for their rights, were forgotten by the government. Embarrassed as they were not invited to the official government function held by the Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, three of the direct descendants of Tipu Sultan spoke to India Today and said the government is using their family to play politics.

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Speaking to India Today, Sahebzada Bakhtiar Ali Shah (sixth generation of Tipu Jayanti), Shahebzada Md Shahid Alam (seventh generation) and Syed Mansoor Ali (seventh generation), said "we don't know why the government is doing this. They are using our family to play politics now. We are very upset that we are not part of the celebrations. We want to question the CM, why did you leave us out?".

During the official government celebration of Tipu Jayanti, the CM Siddaramaiah hailed Tipu as a freedom fighter, a man who changed the state of Mysore to a progressive one and one who is known as the tiger of Mysore.

When asked why the descendants of Tipu Sultan were not invited to the government event, the chief minister said "I don't know, I don't know who they are".

Grander celebrations Tipu Jayanti celebrations next year

CM Siddaramaiah seems to be confident of coming back to power in next year's elections. In fact, he has already planned to celebrate Tipu Jayanti in 2018 as well. He said that these celebrations will be held on a grander scale next year.

Karnataka goes to the polls in May 2018. Invariably, in the last couple of decades, Karnataka has always had an alternative party coming to power every 5 years.

"I will keep celebrating Tipu Jayanti. Today it was celebrated peacefully and we will continue to do so. Whoever tries to break the law in the name of Tipu Jayanti, we will take strict action against them. I took the decision to celebrate it as a government function and it is the third anniversary that we are celebrating officially. Those who have been vehemently protesting against Tipu Jayanti are doing it with the sole purpose of politicising the event and I will not allow that", spoke a confident Siddaramaiah while addressing supporters of Tipu at a special function that was held within the Vidhan Soudha.

Tipu is a freedom fighter who fought four battles against the British. In the fourth battle he was killed. No ruler has been able to defeat the British four times in our history", said the chief minister amidst a thunderous applause from the audience.

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Siddaramaiah lashed out at the BJP leaders especially the Karnataka state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa, who is also the chief ministerial candidate for the BJP, and the former CM Jagadish Shettar for opposing Tipu jayanti when out of power. "The BJP stooped so low that they alleged that we added information about Tipu being a hero in the speech of the President of India Ram Nath Kovind when he addressed a joint session during the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Vidhan Soudha in Bengaluru. Why such double standards?", he asked.

No BJP leader attended the state function that was held at the banquet hall of the Vidhan soudha. Earlier, BJP leaders had written to the chief secretary asking him to exclude their names from the government invitation.

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Saudi Arabia 's foreign minister urged the international community to slap fresh sanctions against Iran Thursday, accusing its arch-regional rival of supporting terrorism. "We would like to see sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism and sanctions on Iran for violating the ballistic missile resolutions of the United Nations," Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi minister of foreign affairs, told CNBC Thursday. When asked whether Saudi Arabia was headed for a direct conflict with Iran, Al-Jubeir replied, "We hope not." The Kingdom's foreign minister went on to say the most effective way of dealing with Iran would be for the international community to hold Tehran accountable for "fixing" the nuclear agreement, supporting terrorism and for its ballistic missile program. Ballistic missile attack Saudi Arabia blames Iran for allegedly being behind a ballistic missile attack on Saturday . The missile, which was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, was intercepted in flight near Riyadh's airport. In response, Iran's United Nations Ambassador, Gholamali Khoshrou, described the allegations as "unfounded," Tasnim News Agency reported . Tehran also denied arming the Houthi movement, which has fought a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen's government since 2015. The ongoing civil war in Yemen is akin to a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and their competing ideologies of Sunni and Shia Islam, respectively. While Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia backs the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, its rival Iran backs the pro-Shia Houthi movement loyal to the country's former president Ali Abdulla Saleh. On Monday, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran's alleged actions may be considered " an act of war, " state media reported. Hezbollah 'hijacked' Lebanese systemFurther to the apparent proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen, the latest Middle Eastern country in danger of becoming an epicenter of hostile relations between the two arch-rivals is Lebanon.Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a long-term Sunni ally of Saudi Arabia, stunned the world by resigning at the weekend, citing assassination threats and blaming Iran for interference in Lebanon.On Thursday, Saudi Arabia warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those in the country to leave as soon as possible, the kingdom's official news agency (SPA) quoted an official source in the Foreign Ministry as saying, Reuters reported."Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing" in the country to leave it as soon as possible, the source added.Al-Jubeir described the situation in Lebanon as "unfortunate." He went on to accuse Hezbollah of "hijacking the system" and putting "roadblocks" in front of Hariri at every opportunity.Speaking from Riyadh, Hariri criticized Iran last weekend, and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, for igniting conflict in the region. Tehran later rejected the remarks of Beirut's outgoing leader, according to reports.Saudi Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan said Monday the Lebanese government would "be dealt with as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia" and made a thinly-veiled threat of further action, Reuters reported, citing comments from an Al-Arabiya TV interview with Sabhan.Trump waded into the escalating geopolitical uncertainty on Monday evening, offering encouragement to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. president tweeted that the Kingdom's leaders know "exactly what they are doing."Nuclear dealAl-Jubeir said Thursday that the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers was "weak," especially given Tehran would be capable of assembling a bomb "within weeks."He added he would like to see international agencies carry out a "much more robust" job when conducting inspections in Iran. The 2015 nuclear deal was a signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama 's presidency. The agreement lifted tough economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country's nuclear energy program. Last month, President Donald Trump announced he would not rectify the deal and instead asked U.S. lawmakers to toughen the agreement. European leaders and other supporters of the seven-nation pact have since jumped to the defense of Iran in an attempt to safeguard the landmark deal's future.TweetCNBC's Holly Ellyatt and Reuters contributed to this article. Saudi Arabia 's foreign minister urged the international community to slap fresh sanctions against Iran Thursday, accusing its arch-regional rival of supporting terrorism. "We would like to see sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism and sanctions on Iran for violating the ballistic missile resolutions of the United Nations," Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi minister of foreign affairs, told CNBC Thursday. When asked whether Saudi Arabia was headed for a direct conflict with Iran, Al-Jubeir replied, "We hope not." The Kingdom's foreign minister went on to say the most effective way of dealing with Iran would be for the international community to hold Tehran accountable for "fixing" the nuclear agreement, supporting terrorism and for its ballistic missile program. Ballistic missile attack Saudi Arabia blames Iran for allegedly being behind a ballistic missile attack on Saturday . The missile, which was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, was intercepted in flight near Riyadh's airport. In response, Iran's United Nations Ambassador, Gholamali Khoshrou, described the allegations as "unfounded," Tasnim News Agency reported . Tehran also denied arming the Houthi movement, which has fought a Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen's government since 2015. The ongoing civil war in Yemen is akin to a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran and their competing ideologies of Sunni and Shia Islam, respectively. While Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia backs the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, its rival Iran backs the pro-Shia Houthi movement loyal to the country's former president Ali Abdulla Saleh. On Monday, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran's alleged actions may be considered " an act of war, " state media reported. Hezbollah 'hijacked' Lebanese system Further to the apparent proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen, the latest Middle Eastern country in danger of becoming an epicenter of hostile relations between the two arch-rivals is Lebanon. Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a long-term Sunni ally of Saudi Arabia, stunned the world by resigning at the weekend, citing assassination threats and blaming Iran for interference in Lebanon. On Thursday, Saudi Arabia warned its citizens against travelling to Lebanon and asked those in the country to leave as soon as possible, the kingdom's official news agency (SPA) quoted an official source in the Foreign Ministry as saying, Reuters reported. "Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing" in the country to leave it as soon as possible, the source added. Al-Jubeir described the situation in Lebanon as "unfortunate." He went on to accuse Hezbollah of "hijacking the system" and putting "roadblocks" in front of Hariri at every opportunity. Speaking from Riyadh, Hariri criticized Iran last weekend, and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, for igniting conflict in the region. Tehran later rejected the remarks of Beirut's outgoing leader, according to reports. Saudi Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan said Monday the Lebanese government would "be dealt with as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia" and made a thinly-veiled threat of further action, Reuters reported, citing comments from an Al-Arabiya TV interview with Sabhan. Trump waded into the escalating geopolitical uncertainty on Monday evening, offering encouragement to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. president tweeted that the Kingdom's leaders know "exactly what they are doing." Nuclear deal Al-Jubeir said Thursday that the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers was "weak," especially given Tehran would be capable of assembling a bomb "within weeks." He added he would like to see international agencies carry out a "much more robust" job when conducting inspections in Iran. The 2015 nuclear deal was a signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama 's presidency. The agreement lifted tough economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country's nuclear energy program. Last month, President Donald Trump announced he would not rectify the deal and instead asked U.S. lawmakers to toughen the agreement. European leaders and other supporters of the seven-nation pact have since jumped to the defense of Iran in an attempt to safeguard the landmark deal's future. Tweet CNBC's Holly Ellyatt and Reuters contributed to this article.



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The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia has refused to quell rumors that his country is working with Israel to tackle the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.Abel Al-Jubeir said Thursday that Hezbollah, a political and militant Shia-Islamist group, has hijacked the system in Lebanon and is spreading a malign influence throughout the Middle East.He said many countries want to push back against Hezbollah but would not be drawn either way on whether Saudi Arabia was now working with Israel."I can't comment on rumors," Al-Jubeir said. "What I do know is that Iran is an outlaw state and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism , that Iran harbors terrorists and was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden since the 1990s," he added. Al-Jubeir also claimed that al-Qaeda's "virtual board of directors" fled to Iran in 2002 and have been directing terror operations from the country ever since.The foreign minister was himself the subject of a failed assassination attempt by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but denied that his criticism of Tehran is in any way personal. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia has refused to quell rumors that his country is working with Israel to tackle the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah. Abel Al-Jubeir said Thursday that Hezbollah, a political and militant Shia-Islamist group, has hijacked the system in Lebanon and is spreading a malign influence throughout the Middle East. He said many countries want to push back against Hezbollah but would not be drawn either way on whether Saudi Arabia was now working with Israel. "I can't comment on rumors," Al-Jubeir said. "What I do know is that Iran is an outlaw state and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism , that Iran harbors terrorists and was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden since the 1990s," he added. Al-Jubeir also claimed that al-Qaeda's "virtual board of directors" fled to Iran in 2002 and have been directing terror operations from the country ever since. The foreign minister was himself the subject of a failed assassination attempt by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, but denied that his criticism of Tehran is in any way personal.



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Al Franken

In a speech, Sen. Al Franken cast doubts on the big tech companies' ability to police their sites.

At congressional hearings last week looking into how Russian-linked groups used Google, Facebook, and Twitter to spread propaganda, the big tech companies promised to do a better job of blocking such efforts.

Franken called for regulators to step in to further investigate and oversee how those sites are being used and abused.



In the wake or revelations that groups linked to Russia used their sites to influence last year's election, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have tried to reassure public policymakers that they can be trusted to police their services.

Color Sen. Al Franken dubious.

In a speech on Wednesday, Franken offered up a damning critique of the companies, charging them with having unchecked influence that even they don't know how to control.

"These companies may not be up to the challenge that they've created for themselves," he said.

The business model of Facebook in particular is predicated on amassing "massive troves of information" about its users, Franken said. That's given the company untold power.

"We are not their customers, we are their product," he said in his speech to the Open Markets Institute in Washington.

Instead of simply trusting the big tech companies to police how their services are being used and abused, Franken suggested that regulators need to step in. Lawmakers should take a closer look at the influence technology plays in the everyday lives of Americans by conducting "vigorous oversight in the form of investigations and hearings to fully understand current practices and the potential for harm," the Minnesota senator said.

"I'm hopeful that recent events will encourage regulators, as well as a broader contingent of my colleagues  on both sides of the aisle  to give this issue the attention it deserves," he said.

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Franken's speech comes little more than a week after representatives of Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified at congressional hearings looking into Russia's alleged use of their sites to influence the election. At those hearings, the companies' representatives promised to do a better job of regulating themselves.

This isn't the first time Franken has expressed doubts about Silicon Valley's products. In September, he wrote a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, raising questions about the privacy implications of the iPhone X's new facial recognition feature as well as whether that feature might be tainted by racial bias.

You can watch the full video of Franken's speech below:

NOW WATCH: Google Pixel 2 vs iPhone X: The biggest differences between the two

See Also:

SEE ALSO: The CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter are getting blasted for not showing up to congressional hearings on fake Russian ads
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates. AT&T (NYSE: T) Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson spoke at The New York Times' DealBook Conference in New York City on Thursday. Stephenson's comments come a day after the Justice Department demanded as a condition of approving AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) that CNN parent Turner Broadcasting or Direct TV be sold off. Time Warner owns Turner Broadcasting. AT&T owns Direct TV.Late Wednesday, Stephenson said the company has "no intention" of selling CNN. This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates. AT&T (NYSE: T) Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson spoke at The New York Times' DealBook Conference in New York City on Thursday. Stephenson's comments come a day after the Justice Department demanded as a condition of approving AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) that CNN parent Turner Broadcasting or Direct TV be sold off. Time Warner owns Turner Broadcasting. AT&T owns Direct TV. Late Wednesday, Stephenson said the company has "no intention" of selling CNN.



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Stones were pelted by protesters in Bengaluru as they opposed celebration of TIpu Jayanti by the Siddaramaiah government.

By India Today Web Desk: Protest erupted in Bengaluru today to oppose the Tipu Jayanti celebrations organised by the Siddaramaiah government. Protesters pelted stones at a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation bus in Madikeri area.

Three window glasses of the bus including the front one were broken by the protesters. The KSRTC said in a statement that the incident took place at around 8am at Madikeri.

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Meanwhile, some local BJP workers were arrested after they staged protest and showed black flags at a government function in Madikeri.

Bengaluru has come under a thick security blanket ahead of the 'Tipu Jayanti' celebrations organised across the state by the government today to mark the birth anniversary of the 18th century ruler of the Mysore Kingdom.

A large number of policemen have been deployed in the sensitive places. The police have made it clear that no procession will be allowed in the city that is related to Tipu Jayanti, except for the one organised by the state government.

SECURITY BEEFED UP IN BENGALURU

Bengaluru Police Commissioner T Suneel Kumar said, "We are not giving permission to any procession, whether it is in favour of Tipu Jayanti or against it. The government itself is celebrating the event in various parts of the city for which we have made elaborate arrangements."

He said 30 Karnataka State Reserved Police (KSRP) platoons and 25 armed platoons, besides policemen and officers of city police will be deployed. "There will be more than 11,000 policemen all over the city . Besides the regular police, we will deploy Home Guard personnel," Suneel Kumar said.

BJP workers take part in anti-#TipuJayanti protests in #Karnataka's Hubli & Kodagu; protesters detained by Police at both places. pic.twitter.com/i9Zz95gjEI- ANI (@ANI) November 10, 2017

He said there will be celebrations only at the places identified by the government, adding that the police would deal firmly with those who plan to create trouble. "We have not made any preventive arrests so far but if the situation rises, section 144 (prohibitory order) may be imposed," Kumar said.

Security beefed up in Bengaluru for Tipu Jayanti. (Photo: @ani)

The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government started celebrating Tipu Jayanti two years ago. The BJP, some right wing groups and the members of Kodava community are opposing the celebrations alleging that Tipu was a religious "bigot" who had massacred many people and forced them to embrace Islam.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka High Court had rejected a plea against holding Tipu Jayanti celebrations on November 10.

Karnataka: Kodagu turns into a fortress for Tipu Jayanti celebrations

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(With PTI inputs)

WATCH VIDEO | BJP chief slams Siddaramaiah over Tipu Jayanti, says he is indulging in votebank politics

--- ENDS ---
The AT&T logo is pictured during the Forbes Forum 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico, September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido (Reuters)

(Reuters) - AT&T Inc is ready to litigate if the U.S. Department of Justice blocks its $85.4 billion Time Warner Inc deal, Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said on Thursday.

"If we are going to go for litigation our preference would be sooner is better. We are prepared to litigate now," Stephenson told CNBC on the sidelines of the New York Times Dealbook conference.

"We have been working very diligently on a litigation strategy and a litigation plan," he said, adding: "We would obviously ask for an expedited hearing. We feel that a transaction of this size you would likely get an expedited hearing."

The U.S. Department of Justice has demanded significant asset sales in order to approve the deal, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, and asked AT&T to sell CNN-parent Turner Broadcasting or its DirecTV satellite TV operation in discussions on Monday.

(Reporting by Arjun Panchadar and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; editing by Patrick Graham)
Weve now got competing tax-cut bills in the House and Senate, which means some epic political battles are underway over who will win and who will lose in the final legislation. While there are major differences in the two bills, however, there are also some important similarities, which suggest points of agreement likely to end up in a final bill. Such as:

A 20% corporate tax rate. Both chambers want to slash the top corporate rate from 35% to 20%, while also cutting taxes for privately owned business. That wont affect most taxpayers directly. But it forces some important changes on the individual side of the tax code, because some of the revenue lost to corporate cuts must be made up elsewhere.

The state-and-local deduction is very vulnerable. The Senate wants to kill the so-called SALT deduction completely, while the House would put a new cap of $10,000 on the deduction, and limit it to property taxes only. About one-third of all taxpayers claim this deduction, which costs Washington about $100 billion in foregone revenue each year. So, killing or capping it will affect a lot of people.

Personal exemptions could disappear. Both chambers want to eliminate personal exemptions, while doubling the standard deduction. In general, personal exemptions favor families with kids, since they can claim a $4,050 exemption for each one, at current levels; if you had five kids, that would lower your taxable income by $20,250, plus another $8,100 for two parents. The higher standard deduction will be a break for some filers who dont itemize, and some who do itemize now may find theyll pay less with the higher standard deduction.

The alternative minimum tax would die. Taxpayers subject to this provision hate it, because it seems like a surtax pushing their payments higher than theyd be under the regular tax code. Both the House and the Senate want to kill it completely. But this doesnt automatically mean taxes will go down for people who now pay the AMT. I used my 2016 tax return to calculate how my own taxes would change under each proposal. Under the House plan, the end of the AMT was one factor that helped cut my total tax bill by about $5,000. But under the Senate plan, my tax bill went up by about $1,500, even with the demise of the AMT. A filers ultimate tax burden will depend on many changes, not just the fate of the AMT.

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The mortgage-interest deduction will become less valuable. Congress wont dare kill this cherished tax break for home owners, but two changes could reduce its usefulness. The House wants to limit the size of a mortgage on which interest can be deducted from $1 million to $500,000, and do so only for new purchases. That would affect a small portion of future home buyers. But capping or killing the SALT deduction, combined with raising the standard deduction, will sharply reduce the number of people who itemize their deductions and get the benefit of the mortgage-interest break. With fewer itemized deductions allowed, it will simply make sense for more people to stick with the standard deduction  one reason the real-estate industry strongly opposes the new limits on SALT deductions.

Some important things wont change. There were rumors a few weeks ago that a tax-cut bill might include new, lower limits on the amount of 401(k) contributions that are tax-deferred. But neither bill includes any such changes. Theres no significant change to capital gains taxes, either. The House wants to eliminate the estate tax, while the Senate wants to double the threshold at which it kicks in, to $10 million. But its possible nothing will change there, either, since leaving the estate tax intact might be one concession Republicans make to get wavering moderates to support their bill. The current threshold of $5.49 million means the federal estate tax only affects wealthy families.

That would still leave plenty to fight over. Congress must still determine what the new tax brackets must be and what income levels they apply to. Early analysis has already shown that taxes will go up for some taxpayers under the new legislation, which can obviously create political problems. The real effort now is harming as few Americans as possible. Harming none would be ideal.

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
A banner hangs for China-based Sogou Inc to celebrate their IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

(Reuters) - China-based Sogou Inc's (SOGO.N) shares rose more than 10 percent in their U.S. market debut, as investors expect a massive base of Chinese smartphone users to help the Tencent-backed search engine company narrow the gap with market leader Baidu.

Shares of Sogou rose as much as 13.1 percent on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning, valuing the Beijing-based firm at $5.76 billion.

Sogou's initial public offering was priced at $13 per American depository share, at the high end of the expected $11 to $13 range, and raised $585 million.

Its IPO follows Wednesday's hugely successful Hong Kong IPO of China Literature Ltd , the e-book unit of Chinese internet and media giant Tencent Holdings Ltd .

It also represents the latest in a recent flurry of New York listings by Asian companies, joining other Chinese firms as well as startups from Singapore and Taiwan in tapping U.S. equity markets for capital this year.

Founded in 2005 by internet firm Sohu.com Inc (SOHU.O), Sogou runs China's second largest search engine by mobile queries, rivaling Baidu Inc (BIDU.O), and Alibaba's (BABA.N) UCWeb. It generates revenue mainly through search advertising services.

Google, the world's most popular search engine, is largely blocked in China.

Sogou expects the size of the domestic online search industry will balloon to $30.7 billion in 2021 from $11.5 billion in 2016, driven by the hundreds of millions of Chinese who browse the internet on their mobile phones. Sogou says this massive user base represents a largely untapped opportunity to make money through ads.

Sogou, the default search service on Tencent's Mobile QQ browser and qq.com, has about 483 million mobile monthly active users, according to its IPO paperwork http://bit.ly/2jdluwP with U.S. securities regulators.

Baidu, in contrast, had some 665 million monthly active mobile search users in December 2016, the last period for which it disclosed the metric.

Sogou's net income climbed 47 percent to $66.7 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30. Its revenue jumped 29 percent to $630.6 million in that period.

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Sohu will remain Sogou's controlling shareholder after the IPO, while Tencent will own a 38.7 percent stake.

Tencent's other notable investments include stakes in ride service Lyft, electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and most recently a substantial investment Snapchat owner Snap Inc (SNAP.N).

JPMorgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and CICC were among the underwriters to Sogou's IPO.

(Reporting by Roopal Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 2: Signage for Snap Inc., parent company of Snapchat, adorns the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), March 2, 2017 in New York City. Snap Inc. priced its initial public offering at $17 a share on Wednesday and Snap shares will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Thursday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Tencent, the Chinese internet giant valued at $470 billion, may have a hand in rebooting the Snapchat app to make it more competitive with Instagram and Facebook.

Off the back of some very poor financials announced this week, parent company Snap said it is retooling the messaging app "to make it easier to use."

Now Tencent, which upped its stake in Snap with the purchase of 12 percent of the company -- forking out around $2 billion in the process -- may be on hand to help. It said is positioned to enable Snap to dig into its experience of growing WeChat, China's dominant messaging app which boasts 800 million monthly users worldwide, and potentially tap into other business lines, including its games business which includes Clash Of Clans maker Supercell.

"The investment enables Tencent to explore cooperation opportunities with the company on mobile games publishing and newsfeed as well as to share its financial returns from the growth of its businesses and monetization in the future," a Tencent spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.

Tencent first invested in Snap in 2013 although the size of its stake in the company is not public information. As backers go, the company brings considerable clout and know-how in the messaging space. Most impressive is the manner in which it turned WeChat from a messaging app into a social 'Swiss army knife' that users in China turn to for a range of services including payment, e-commerce, local services, investments, banking and more.

Tencent also has a long-standing interest in U.S. tech companies, and it hasn't been shy backing a number with investments. Its U.S. portfolio includes chat app Kik, Tesla and games firm Activision, while it has invested in global messaging apps like Hike in India and South Korea's Kakao.

This experience is likely to be welcomed by Snap as it looks for what trends will come next in messaging and alternative ways it can engage users to compete with Instagram.

[Update: Snap confirms to TechCrunch that this purchase of shares by Tencent was done on the open public market for non-voting Class A shares, so Tencent will not have direct influence on Snapchat's roadmap.]
A new method of fundraising exploded in 2017: the initial coin offering (ICO). According to a tracker at CoinDesk, more than $3 billion has been raised in ICOs to date, almost all of it in 2017. This despite the fact that ICOs are high-risk, and in many cases likely fraudulent.

In an ICO, an Internet startup raises money by selling tokens that can be used within its own ecosystem. Investors buy the tokens using established cryptocurrency like bitcoin or ether, the token of the Ethereum network.

The future value of the token should go up or down based on the perceived value of the company, not unlike a stock. But unlike buying stock, investors in an ICO typically have no voting power and no ownership in the company. You only have your tokens, which may prove worthless. And most of the companies raising hundreds of millions of dollars in an ICO have not actually launched a business yet when they do their ICO, but have merely published a white paper detailing their business plans.

One example that provides a cautionary tale: Tezos, which set a record when it raised $232 million in its ICO this year, but is now at risk because of infighting among its founders and a class action lawsuit.

And yet: Tim Draper, an influential Silicon Valley venture capitalist and cofounder of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has hopped aboard the ICO train.

Left to right: Ethereum Founder Joseph Lubin, Canvas Ventures Cofounder Rebecca Lynn and DJF Founder Tim Draper at Web Summit 2017

On a panel this week at Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal, moderator Connie Loizos of StrictlyVC asked Draper, How can people invest safely in these things?

Draper answered: Oh, safety is not in the ICO vocabulary. If youre investing in ICOs, you better understand the entire cycle of the coin, the token. Is there a real use for it, is there a reason to buy it? How does that whole cycle work, is it a valuable cycle? Is it one thats going to increase the value of the token and who are the people behind it?

In too many instances, those questions are unanswerable. But people are buying in anyway, handing companies millions, often in a matter of minutes. And its not just crypto companies doing ICOs: Kik, a chat app that launched in 2010, launched an ICO to create a token, Kin, for use on its app. Kik raised $100 million in its ICO.

Story continues

The cool thing about ICOs is that theyre banking the unbanked, Draper raved. Banks are so heavily regulated that if you want to put a small amount of money, 3 euros, into a bank account, the bank will push you away because it costs them $200 to handle the regulation of your account. So all of a sudden, weve created a liquidity for the rest of the people of the earth. And this is a big deal, and its so exciting.

On raising tens of millions in a token sale before product market fit, many entrepreneurs now say "why not if I can?" It may become clear why not after several large-scale blowups  Nick Tomaino (@NTmoney) November 8, 2017

Joseph Lubin, cofounder of Ethereum (the backbone on which most ICOs are offered), was on the panel with Draper and cautioned that companies ought to have multiple, smaller ICOs when they need money rather than all at once: I think that an ICO should be just the first of many offerings, so that people can raise money as they need it whether than raising it all at once. If I raise the $240 million that Tezos raised, and it sits in this weird, convoluted legal structure in Switzerland, what do you do with that? How do you manage that money when you only really need $2 million or $3 million a year to run the software?

For now, the best recipe is to only invest in an ICO if you feel certain youll want to use the platform youre investing in, and thus use the token youre buying, rather than buying and holding.

People who are interested in buying a utility token, Lubin said, should be buying that utility token for the usage of the platform that it enables.

Disclosure: The author owns less than 1 bitcoin, purchased in 2015 for reporting purposes.



Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.

Read more:

Everything you need to know about initial coin offerings

Why bitcoin matters

Japan is poised to become the leading bitcoin market

Why Chinas central bank fears bitcoin

Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency

More than 75 banks are now on Ripples blockchain network

Expect more blockchain hype in 2017
Here are four stocks with buy rank and strong income characteristics for investors to consider today, November 10th:

The Western Union Company (WU): This payment services provider has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings advancing 5.2% over the last 60 days.

Western Union Company (The) Price and Consensus

Western Union Company (The) Price and Consensus

Western Union Company (The) price-consensus-chart | Western Union Company (The) Quote

This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has a dividend yield of 3.49%, compared with the industry average of 0.00%. Its five-year average dividend yield is 3.17%.

Western Union Company (The) Dividend Yield (TTM)

Western Union Company (The) Dividend Yield (TTM)

Western Union Company (The) dividend-yield-ttm | Western Union Company (The) Quote

Arbor Realty Trust, Inc. (ABR): This specialized real estate finance company has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 8.7% over the last 60 days.

Arbor Realty Trust Price and Consensus

Arbor Realty Trust Price and Consensus

Arbor Realty Trust price-consensus-chart | Arbor Realty Trust Quote

This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company has a dividend yield of 8.50%, compared with the industry average of 4.06%. Its five-year average dividend yield is 7.97%.

Arbor Realty Trust Dividend Yield (TTM)

Arbor Realty Trust Dividend Yield (TTM)

Arbor Realty Trust dividend-yield-ttm | Arbor Realty Trust Quote

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM): This seller of specialty plant nutrients has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings advancing 8.1% over the last 60 days.

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Price and Consensus

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Price and Consensus

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. price-consensus-chart | Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Quote

This Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company has a dividend yield of 2.55%, compared with the industry average of 1.31%. Its five-year average dividend yield is 2.95%.

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Dividend Yield (TTM)

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Dividend Yield (TTM)

Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. dividend-yield-ttm | Sociedad Quimica y Minera S.A. Quote

National Health Investors, Inc. (NHI): This real estate investment trust has witnessed the Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current year earnings increasing 0.2% over the last 60 days.

Story continues

National Health Investors, Inc. Price and Consensus

National Health Investors, Inc. Price and Consensus

National Health Investors, Inc. price-consensus-chart | National Health Investors, Inc. Quote

This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has a dividend yield of 4.96%, compared with the industry average of 4.06%. Its five-year average dividend yield is 4.95%.

National Health Investors, Inc. Dividend Yield (TTM)

National Health Investors, Inc. Dividend Yield (TTM)

National Health Investors, Inc. dividend-yield-ttm | National Health Investors, Inc. Quote

See the full list of top ranked stocks here.

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Zacks Investment Research
By Steve Holland and Christian Shepherd BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pressed China to do more to rein in North Korea on Thursday and said bilateral trade had been unfair to the United States, but praised President Xi Jinping's pledge that China would be more open to foreign firms. On North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, Trump said "China can fix this problem quickly and easily", urging Beijing to cut financial links with North Korea and also calling on Russia to help. Trump was speaking alongside Xi in the Chinese capital to announce the signing of about $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese firms, a display that some in the U.S. business community worry detracts from tackling deep-seated complaints about market access in China. Xi said the Chinese economy would become increasingly open and transparent to foreign firms, including those from the United States, and welcomed U.S. companies to participate in his ambitious "Belt and Road" infrastructure-led initiative. Trump made clear that he blamed his predecessors, not China, for the trade imbalance, and repeatedly praised Xi, calling him "a very special man". "But we will make it fair and it will be tremendous for both of us," Trump said. Xi smiled widely when Trump said he does not blame China for the deficit and also when Trump said Xi gets things done. "Of course there are some frictions, but on the basis of win-win cooperation and fair competition, we hope we can solve all these issues in a frank and consultative way," Xi said. "Keeping opening up is our long-term strategy. We will never narrow or close our doors. We will further widen them," he said. China would also offer a more fair and transparent environment for foreign firms, including U.S. ones, Xi said. MODEST PROGRESS Trump is pressing China to tighten the screws further on North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. sanctions. At least modest progress is hoped for, although there are no immediate signs of a major breakthrough, a U.S. official said earlier. Referring to Xi, Trump said: "I do believe there's a solution to that, as do you." Xi reiterated that China would strive for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but offered no hint that China would change tack on North Korea, with which it fought side-by-side in the 1950-53 Korean war against U.S.-led forces. "We are devoted to reaching a resolution to the Korean peninsula issue through dialogue and consultations," Xi said. Briefing reporters after the talks, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump told Xi: "Youre a strong man, Im sure you can solve this for me." Tillerson said both leaders agreed they could not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea but he acknowledged they had some differences over tactics and timing. Tillerson pointed out that Trump, in a speech in Seoul, had "invited the North Koreans to come to the table," in line with the Chinese desire for a negotiated solution. He added, however, that Trump was prepared for a "military response" if he deemed the threat serious enough, but "that's not his first choice". "We are going to work hard on diplomatic efforts as well," he said, but did not elaborate. In a show of the importance China puts on Trump's first official visit, Thursday's welcoming ceremony outside Beijing's Great Hall of the People overlooking Tiananmen Square was broadcast live on state television - unprecedented treatment for a visiting leader. Earlier on Thursday, Xi said he had a deep exchange of views with Trump and reached consensus on numerous issues of mutual concern. "For China, cooperation is the only real choice, only win-win can lead to an even better future," he said. Xi said China and the United States strengthened high-level dialogue on all fronts over the past year and boosted coordination on major international issues, such as the Korean peninsula and Afghanistan. "Relations between China and the United States are now on a new historical starting point," Xi said. Trump and Xi hit it off at their first meeting in April at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and continued their "bromance" on Wednesday with an afternoon of sightseeing together with their wives. However, divisions persist over trade and North Korea. And while Xi is riding high after consolidating power at a twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress last month, Trump comes to China saddled with low public approval ratings and dogged by investigations into Russian links to his election campaign. 'HORRIBLE' TRADE SURPLUS Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of China's massive trade surplus with the United States - calling it "embarrassing" and "horrible" last week - and has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices. For its part, China says U.S. restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States and on high-tech exports need to be addressed. Several corporate chief executives were in Beijing as part of a delegation led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, with General Electric and semiconductor maker Qualcomm Inc among those announcing billions of dollars in sales to China. [L3N1NF2IA] But Qualcomm's agreement to sell $12 billion worth of components to three Chinese mobile phone makers over three years is non-binding, and critics say such public announcements are sometimes more show than substance. "This shows that we have a strong, vibrant bilateral economic relationship, and yet we still need to focus on leveling the playing field because U.S. companies continue to be disadvantaged doing business in China," said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Trump railed against China's trade practices during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and threatened to take action once in office. But he has since held back on any major trade penalties, making clear he was doing so to give Beijing time to make progress reining in North Korea. A U.S. official said both sides were "in sync" about wanting to minimize friction during the visit and recreate the positive tone of the April summit. Trump was not expected to put much emphasis in his talks with Xi on thorny issues such as the disputed South China Sea and self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its own, although the leaders' aides may deal with those matters privately, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. China has repeatedly pushed back at suggestions it should be doing more to rein in North Korea, which does about 90 percent of its trade with China, saying it is fully enforcing U.N. sanctions and that everyone has a responsibility to lower tension and get talks back on track. (This story was refiled to restore dropped word in paragraph 16.) (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Matthew Miller, Philip Wen and John Ruwitch; Writing by Ben Blanchard and Tony Munroe; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)
U.S. President Donald Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday that he believes, like Xi, that a solution can be found to the North Korean nuclear issue, a day after warning Pyongyang of the grave danger of developing nuclear weapons.

Speaking alongside Xi in the Chinese capital, Trump also said it was disappointing that his predecessors had let the bilateral trade balance get out of kilter.

But we will make it fair and it will be tremendous for both of us, Trump said, expressing respect for Xi.

Trump is pressing China to tighten the screws further on North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons. At least modest progress is hoped for, although there are no immediate signs of a major breakthrough, a U.S. official said earlier on Thursday.

Referring to Xi, Trump said: I do believe theres a solution to that, as do you.

In a show of the importance China puts on Trumps first official visit, Thursdays welcoming ceremony outside Beijings Great Hall of the People overlooking Tiananmen Square was broadcast live on state televisionunprecedented treatment for a visiting leader.

Xi said he had a deep exchange of views with Trump and reached consensus on numerous issues of mutual concern.

For China, cooperation is the only real choice, only win-win can lead to an even better future, he said.

Xi said China and the United States strengthened high-level dialogue on all fronts over the past year and increased coordination on major international issues, such as the Korean peninsula and Afghanistan.

Relations between China and the United States are now on a new historical starting point, Xi said

Trump and Xi hit it off at their first meeting in April at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and continued their bromance on Wednesday with an afternoon of sightseeing together with their wives, followed by dinner. However, deep divisions persist over trade and North Korea.

And while Xi is riding high after consolidating power at a twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress last month, Trump comes to China saddled with low public approval ratings and dogged by investigations into Russian links to his election campaign.

Story continues

HORRIBLE TRADE SURPLUS

Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of Chinas massive trade surplus with the United States  calling it embarrassing and horrible last week  and has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices, fueling worries of increased tension between the worlds two largest trading countries.

For its part, China says U.S. restrictions on Chinese investments in the United States and on high-tech exports need to be addressed.

More than $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese firms were signed during the visit, Chinas commerce minister said. Several corporate CEOs are in Beijing as part of a delegation led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Some in the U.S. business community have expressed worry that contract wins could come at the expense of resolving long-standing complaints over market access restrictions in China.

This shows that we have a strong, vibrant bilateral economic relationship, and yet we still need to focus on leveling the playing field because U.S. companies continue to be disadvantaged doing business in China, said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Trump railed against Chinas trade practices during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and threatened to take action once in office. But he has since held back on any major trade penalties, making clear he was doing so to give Beijing time to make progress reining in North Korea.

IN SYNC

A U.S. official said both sides are in sync about wanting to minimize friction during the visit and recreate the positive tone of the Mar-a-Lago summit.

Trump was not expected to put much emphasis in his talks with Xi on thorny issues like the disputed South China Sea and self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its own, although the two presidents aides may deal with those matters privately, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

China has repeatedly pushed back at suggestions it should be doing more to rein in North Korea, which does about 90 percent of its trade with China, saying it is fully enforcing U.N. sanctions and that everyone has a responsibility to lower tensions and get talks back on track.

Trump used some of his toughest language yet against North Korea in a wide-ranging address in Seoul on Wednesday that lodged specific accusations of chilling human rights abuses, although he offered no evidence to support the accusations.

He also called on countries around the world to isolate Pyongyang by denying it any form of support, supply or acceptance.

Chinese state media praised the tone of the initial get-together on Thursday, part of what China has promised will be a state visit plus for Trump.

Trump seems to be pragmatic on his Beijing policy, and has no interest in ideological diplomacy.He hasnt used the issue of human rights to make trouble for China so far, and this means theSino-US relationship can focus on substantive matters, influential tabloid the Global Times said in an editorial.
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with more quotes)

Danang (Vietnam), Nov 10 (PTI) US President Donald Trump today praised Indias "astounding" growth after it opened its economy and also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he has been working successfully to bring the vast country and its people together.

Speaking at a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in the Vietnamese port city, Trump cited India as one of the countries in the Indo-Pacific region making strides.

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He pointed out that India was celebrating the 70th anniversary of its independence and highlighted that the country was a sovereign democracy with a population of over 1 billion as well as the largest democracy in the world.

"Since India opened its economy, it has achieved astounding growth and a new world of opportunities for its expanding middle class," Trump said.

"And Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has been working to bring that vast country and all of its people as one. And he has been working at it very, very successfully indeed," the US President said.

Earlier, a senior Trump administration official told reporters travelling with the President from China to Vietnam said that India is a major economy that has registered fast growth.

"Prime Minister Modi has been doing a lot in the way of pressing reforms to allow India to pull even more people out of poverty," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

India, the official said, is increasingly a partner of America in security terms as well, and it also happens to share many values in common with the United States.

"India and the United States are the worlds first and second largest democracies, and both of us have an abiding interest in the maritime commons remaining open and trade continuing to flow freely," the official said.

"So it is no accident that we are viewing the region with a wider aperture to include India as one of the "bookends", as Secretary (of State, Rex) Tillerson calls it, of the region -- the United States being the other bookend," the official said, defending the use of term Indo-Pacific instead of Asia-Pacific for the region.

The Indo-Pacific is a term that, in a sense, widens the aperture for the region, the official said.

It talks about a region that encompasses everything from India to the West Coast of the US; all of the Asian countries in Northeast Asia; down in Oceania with Australia; the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand in the south; India to the west; the United States to the east; and, of course, Southeast Asia as the crossroads to all of that, the official said.

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With a vibrant area, a young demographically, one should be envious of the demographics, said the official.

Prime Minister Modi is leaving for the Philippines on Sunday to attend the India-ASEAN and East Asia summits. Trump is also scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit, where he is expected to meet Modi.

Meanwhile, in a veiled attack on China, Trump said the US would "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property."

"We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state, and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," the US president said.

American firms have long complained about China failing to honour intellectual property rights.

Trump had travelled to Danang from Beijing, where he had also discussed Americas huge trade imbalance with China.

In the speech, Trump said he had spoken "openly and directly" with Chinese President Xi Jinping "about Chinas unfair trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produced with the US."

Trumps tone in Vietnam was strikingly different from the day before in Beijing, where the US president appeared to be friendlier toward the Communist giant as he sought Xis help to reduce the massive trade deficit and to rein-in nuclear- armed North Korea.

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The bilateral trade between the US and China was worth USD 648 billion last year, but trade was heavily skewed in Chinas favour with the US amassing a nearly USD 310 billion deficit.

Xi, speaking at the same APEC event shortly after the US President, did not respond to Trumps remarks, but said economic globalisation had become an "irreversible historical trend."

Trump also used his speech at the APEC business meet to promote his vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

"We have been friends, partners and allies in the Indo- Pacific for a long, long time," he said.

"The story of this region in recent decades is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future."

The use of the term Indo-Pacific by President Trump has led to speculation that it may have something to do with Washington preparing the ground for a revival of the so-called Quadrilateral strategic alliance between the US, Japan, Australia and India to counter Chinas rise.

China has already reacted cautiously over the proposal by the Trump administration for a working-level quadrilateral meeting, saying Beijing hopes that it would not target or damage a "third partys interest". PTI AKJ/LKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---

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Farmer Edward Ford demonstrates granules of the weedkiller glyphosate on his arable farm in Brentwood, Britain November 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mary Turner

LONDON, (Reuters) - - A large long-term study on the use of the big-selling weedkiller glyphosate by agricultural workers in the United States has found no firm link between exposure to the pesticide and cancer, scientists said on Thursday.

Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), the study found there was no association between glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto's popular herbicide RoundUp, "and any solid tumours or lymphoid malignancies overall, including non-Hogkin Lymphoma (NHL) and its subtypes".

It said there was "some evidence of increased risk of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) among the highest exposed group", but added this association was "not statistically significant".

The findings are likely to impact legal proceedings in the United States against Monsanto, in which more than 180 plaintiffs are claiming exposure to RoundUp gave them cancer - allegations that Monsanto denies.

The findings may also influence a crucial decision due by the end of the year on whether glyphosate should be re-licensed for sale across the European Union.

EU countries had been due to vote on the issue on Thursday, but again failed to agree to a proposal for a five-year extension.

The EU decision has been delayed for more than a year after the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed glyphosate in 2015 and concluded it was "probably carcinogenic" to humans. Other bodies, such as the European Food Safety Authority, have concluded glyphosate is safe to use.

The research is part of a large and important project known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which has been tracking the health of tens of thousands of agricultural workers, farmers and their families in Iowa and North Carolina.

Since the early 1990s, it has gathered and analysed detailed information on the health of participants and their families, and their use of pesticides, including glyphosate.

David Spiegelhalter, a professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Britain's Cambridge University who has no link to the research, said Thursday's findings were from a "large and careful study" and showed "no significant relationship between glyphosate use and any cancer".

Story continues

He added that the possible association with AML "is no more than one would expect by chance" and was not a concern.

Reuters reported in June how an influential scientist was aware of new AHS data while he was chairing a panel of experts reviewing evidence on glyphosate for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in early 2015.

But since it had not at that time been published, he did not tell the expert panel about it and IARC's review did not take it into account.

The publication of the study on Thursday comes more than four years since drafts based on the AHS data on glyphosate and other pesticides were circulating in February and March 2013.

In a summary of the results, the researchers, led by Laura Beane Freeman, principal investigator of the AHS at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said that among 54,251 (pesticide) applicators studied, 44,932, or 82.9 percent, used glyphosate.

"Glyphosate was not statistically significantly associated with cancer at any site," the summary said.

Scott Partridge, Monsanto's vice president of strategy, said the study results clearly showed the weedkiller was safe.

"This is the largest study of agricultural workers in history, over the longest period of time," he told Reuters. "It is the gold standard,... and it definitively demonstrates in a real-world environment that glyphosate doesn't cause cancer."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, Editing by Gareth Jones)
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) arrives for a House Ways and Means Committee markup of the Republican Tax Reform legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A proposed tax on $2.6 trillion in foreign profits held offshore by U.S. multinational corporations would be raised under an amendment offered on Thursday by the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives tax committee to his own tax-cut bill.

Texas Republican Representative Kevin Brady called for raising the tax to 14 percent for cash and liquid assets and 7 percent for illiquid assets, up from his earlier proposal of 12 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

The proposed increase would raise more federal revenue under the tax bill being offered by House Republicans, with Senate Republicans offering a separate bill.

(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi isnt afraid to set boundaries.

What I told Travis very early on is that any new CEO needs space, and needs distance from the old CEO, Khosrowshahi said at todays DealBook Conference in New York, referring to Uber cofounder and former CEO Travis Kalanick. Youve got to let me engage with the team, engage with the company, engage with the culture. And I was a little worried about that conversation, but actually he took it really well.

Khosrowshahi and Kalanicks relationship has been the subject of much speculation since the former Expedia CEO took charge of Uber in August. Kalanick had resigned in June under pressure from investors, one of whom later sued him for gross mismanagement. His leadership came under scrutiny earlier this year after a former Uber employee published a blog post detailing the sexual harassment and discrimination she experienced in her year at the company.

At the DealBook conference on Thursday, Khosrowshahi made it clear that he respects Kalanick, but has no intention of being pushed around by Ubers ousted founder.

Ive got to put my stamp on the company, the new team has to put the stamp on the company, and over a period of time I would be foolish not to use Traviss incredible genius and his knowledge that really was largely responsible for getting the company to where its at, he said.

Kalanick didnt go quietly. In late September, he surprised Ubers board by appointing two new members: former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain. Khosrowshahi called the move unusual and disappointing. More recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ubers effort to close a multibillion-dollar investment from Japans SoftBank could be derailed by Kalanicks quibbles with other Uber board members.

Khosrowshahi said the board appointees incident put him in a tough spot because Burns and Thain were great fits based on their resumes and experience. The folks that he picked were great, but we didnt like how he got there, Khosrowshahi said. He had his own personal reasons, I dont want to recount them.

Story continues

Khosrowshahi said he has tried not to take sides in the drama among Ubers board members, which dominated headlines about the company for much of the summer. Im not interested in what happened in the past, Im interested in the company, and the employees, and the brand, and how we move forward, he said.

Ubers new CEO is also optimistic that the SoftBank deal will move forward, which SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said on an earnings call earlier this week was not decided yet. It hasnt happened yet but it will, Khosrowshahi said.

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Major investors from Saudi Arabia and Japan are not pushing Uber to go public  but it's the right thing to do and  by 2019, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Thursday.

"We have all of the disadvantages of being a public company, as far as the spotlight on us, without any of the advantages," he said in his first high-profile appearance since he became CEO. "So Travis [Kalanick] and the whole board now agree we should just go public. The numbers support it."

Kalanick, Uber's co-founder who stepped down as CEO amid intense scrutiny of the company's culture, had previously said it should go public "as late as humanly possible." He did not immediately reply to CNBC's request for comment on Thursday.

While Uber is unprofitable, Khosrowshahi said, the "math is working" in certain geographies, and the company is simply subsidizing other investments. The U.S. won't be profitable for about the next six months, depending on how rival Lyft performs, he said in an interview by New York Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Conference.

The IPO goal of 2019 is not due to pressure from potential investor SoftBank, the ultimate long-term investor, Khosrowshahi said. Uber also has an existing $3.5 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which could be compounded by a SoftBank's Vision Fund, also backed by Saudi Arabia 's sovereign wealth arm.

Khosrowshahi has already made waves since officially joining Uber at the end of August . He did not inherit an easy company to manage. When he took over, Uber was reeling from regulatory investigations and a workplace culture investigation that resulted in the exodus of key staffers.

"I don't know exactly when it went sideways. Winning can hide rot within an organization, and I think Uber was winning ... and I think winning gave some excuses for bad behavior," Khosrowshahi said.

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Khosrowshahi said he ignored calls early on to gauge his interest in the CEO role, wanting to avoid the "media circus." He said he viewed himself as a back-up option behind "giants of industry" like Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Meg Whitman and Jeff Immelt , formerly of GE.

"I was really worried about the leaks, et cetera, that were going on, and really happy that my name did not leak out there until the very end," Khosrowshahi said. "Things are never as bad as the press makes them out to be."

Khosrowshahi said he has read some of the allegations of sexual harassment at Uber, but he did not ask to see the workplace culture report before taking the job. He said he thought about making it public once he joined the company.

"When I got into this role, I didn't want to take sides. And I wasn't interested .... in what happened in the past. I'm interested in the company, and the employees, and the brand, and how we move forward," Khosrowshahi said. "Don't tell me what happened, tell me what we're going to do."

On top of that, Kalanick was sparring with top investors, dividing the board of directors. Major investors like SoftBank and potential foes like Alphabet's Waymo have also been circling amid Uber's shakeup.

"The board went in a very bad direction," Khosrowshahi said. He added: "We're reconstituting the board. It's going to be a big board, but that's OK. ... Our bringing in SoftBank as a strategic investor at the right price would be a good thing."

One of the disputes at Uber was the extent to which certain shareholders could control the makeup of the rest of the board. Many companies have multiple share classes and are able to make long-term investments, Khosrowshahi said. But in Uber's case, the structure needed to be simplified.

"You have two parties here who are far from being in concert and are shooting at each other," Khosrowshahi said. "And to some extent, what I told the board is, 'If we're going to shoot at each other, at least let's shoot at each other with conventional weapons instead of nukes.' ... This is not about control, this is about the company."

Khosrowshahi said he pushed Kalanick, who is still a board member, to back off, and he took it "really well."

"Over a period of time, I would be foolish not to use Travis' incredible genius and his knowledge. ... Some weeks we won't talk, some weeks we talk 10 times," Khosrowshahi said. "I think he understands the 'why,' which is that early on I've got to have my space. ... He's been very plain with me that he wants to be involved in the company, and I've told him I want him involved."

He's also reformulated the company's cultural code from the bottom up as the massive start-up prepares to go public. When Uber's license to operate in London was canceled, Khosrowshahi did something that's stereotypically un-Uber: Apologized.

"I think we were generally immature about how we dealt with regulators," Khosrowshahi said.

But Khosrowshahi is not softening on one of Uber's other battles, namely, a lawsuit from Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car venture.

"It's going to court," Khosrowshahi said. "The damages claims that they have, I think, are highly questionable."

Khosrowshahi also pushed back at proposals that all drivers should be staffers instead of contractors, saying that drivers like to be their own bosses. He pointed to changes Uber has made under his tenure, including allowing tipping, to support driver happiness and higher pay.

"Part of the issue is the cost of insurance, and the biggest winner in this is the insurance companies," Khosrowshahi said. "Believe me, we're not making a ton of money here in the U.S. on the drivers."

More from Dara Khosrowshahi
Dara Khosrowshahi said Uber has 'all the disadvantages of being a public company with the spotlight being on us with none of the advantages' - AP

Uber's chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi has said the ride hailing company is planning to float in 2019, adding that ousted boss Travis Kalanick was now on board with the idea.

Speaking in his first public interview since joining Uber this summer, Mr Khosrowshahi said Uber has "all the disadvantages of being a public company with the spotlight being on us with none of the advantages".

He said Mr Kalanick, together with the board, was backing the float, in what would mark a change in stance for the visionary behind Uber.

Mr Kalanick, prior to his resignation this year, had said he wanted Uber to float "as late as humanly possible". He stepped down from the chief executive role amid criticism over the company's culture and after major investors asked him to leave. However, he still holds a place on the board after being granted rights to appoint three board seats whilst chief executive.

Mr Khosrowshahi said he had asked Mr Kalanick to take a step back from the business, which he said he took "really well".

However, he added: "He's been very plain with me that he wants to be involved in the company, and I've told him I want him involved."

Mr Khosrowshahi also addressed the company's toxic culture, which led to employee complaints, including sexual harassment allegations, in the interview, which he said came from the fact that "while it was scaling, it was not necessarily scaling in terms of culture and some of the executives there".

"The fact is that everyone wants to play on a winning team. Sometimes the winning can hide rot that can happen in an organisation. Uber was winning."

"There were certain cultural values at Uber...that mean't well. But they were twisted into excuses for bad behaviour and being an a**hole," he said.

Uber controversies timeline

He said Uber was working to change this culture as it prepares for an initial public offering.

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This is not the first time Mr Khosrowshahi has spoken about the possibility of an IPO, having set out a timetable of between 18 and 36 months on joining the group.

However, the comments on Thursday, made at the New York Times' Dealbook Conference, provide more clarity over when the float may go ahead. It is thought the float will take place in New York.
Uber's new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has vowed to fix the company's work culture and business practices (AFP Photo/Sergio LIMA) (AFP/File)

New York (AFP) - Uber is on track for a 2019 public stock offering and the plan is not dependent on new funding from Japan's SoftBank, the global ride-sharing giant's CEO said Thursday.

Speaking at a New York Times conference, Dara Khosrowshahi said "2019 is the target" and that co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick and the rest of the board agree on the plan for an initial public offering.

"We have all the disadvantages of being a public company as far as the spotlight on us without any of the advantages of being a public company," he said during an on-stage interview.

"So Travis and the whole board now agree we should just go public. The numbers support it, the systems support it and the fact is that if you set up the company in the right way and you are honest and plain spoken to your investors about being a long-term player ... you will find that right set of shareholders who will support it."

Khosrowshahi took the helm at Uber in August after it was rocked by a series of scandals and missteps, and pledged to change the culture which had sometimes been described as "toxic."

He said an investment from Japanese tech giant SoftBank -- a deal which has taken longer than expected to seal -- remains in the works and is unrelated to the IPO plans.

"It hasn't happened yet, but it will," he said.

SoftBank, which has amassed a $100 billion fund for technology startups, is widely expected to become a major investor in Uber although the discussions have not yet produced an agreement.

Khosrowshahi said SoftBank has not made any demands about an IPO.

"If you talk to SoftBank they don't have any particular interest in going public. They are the ultimate long-term investor," he said.

The CEO said he sees Uber, which has lost vast amounts of money, still on a road to profitability in the long-term.

Uber still subsidizes rides in most areas to get footholds in markets, he said, while noting that "over a period of time we can pull back on the subsidies" and make a profit.
LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 22: An Uber driver poses for a photograph in an Uber t-shirt and holding a smart phone displaying the Uber app after delivering petitions to the Transport for London headquarters on December 22, 2015 in London, England. The Uber drivers formally handed in the petition, signed by over 205,000 people, to oppose proposals such as introducing minimum 5 minute waiting times. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Another blow for Uber's UK business: The company has lost its appeal against an employment tribunal ruling which last year judged that the Uber drivers who brought the case should be classified as workers, rather than self-employed contractors -- meaning they are entitled to benefits such as holiday pay and the UK's National Minimum Wage.

Uber's appeal against the ruling was heard in September. But the Employment Appeal Tribunal has now upheld the original verdict -- denying a first appeal.

And while the original employment tribunal ruling only applies to the group of individuals who brought the case it sets a legal precedent for other Uber drivers to mount challenges over their own employment status.

The company has previously said that if it had to provide all the ~50,000 'self-employed' Uber drivers on its platform in the UK with workers' rights it would cost the company tens of millions of pounds.

In its appeal, Uber had sought to argue that it merely acts as an agent on the drivers behalf -- likening its operation to that of a traditional minicab operator. Clearly the tribunal was not swayed.

Commenting on losing the appeal in a statement, Uber UKs acting general manager, Tom Elvidge, said: "Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed. The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal.

"The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80% of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the UK."

Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. Weve also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and well keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better, he added.

One of the (now ex-) Uber drivers who brought the employment rights challenge, Yaseen Aslam, had this statement on the result: "I am glad that the judge today confirmed what I and thousands of drivers have known all along: that Uber is not only exploiting drivers, but also acting unlawfully. We will carry on fighting until this exploitation stops and workers' rights are respected.

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Co-claimant and former Uber driver, James Farrar, added: "Uber cannot go on flouting UK law with impunity and depriving people of their minimum wage rights. We have done everything we can, now it is time for the Mayor of London, Transport for London and the Transport Secretary to step up and use their leverage to defend worker rights rather than turn a blind eye to sweatshop conditions.

Uber's decision to appeal the judgement means it's not the end of the story. And there are two further avenues open to it at this point: The UK's Court of Appeal and also the Supreme Court.

But, at the same time, the direction of travel for legal opinion over gig economy employment rights is not looking good for the sustainability of Uber's current business structure in the UK.

Commenting on the tribunal ruling in a statement, Sean Nesbitt, partner in international law firm Taylor Wessing LLP, said: "The judgment is not a surprise. In recent reported UK cases, workers have won eight out of eight challenges, including at higher levels than this case.

"Notably, the judge seemed to struggle with the idea that there is really a two-sided market, when there appears to be a one-sided bargain."

Although he also suggested it could be difficult for a class action-style legal action to monetize claims for thousands of Uber drivers off of this ruling -- owing to the tribunal's assessment of how to determine working time being "partly determined by whether a worker holds themselves out as available for other jobs", meaning the exact value of working time and minimum wage rights "will still depend on the facts of their individual situation".

"If the case proceeds to the Supreme Court, it will be keenly fought by excellent lawyers but the signs suggest that Uber will continue to be driving uphill," he added of Uber's longer term appeal prospects.

Meanwhile, Uber is also fighting an appeal against London's transport regulator which in September shocked Uber by declining to renew its license to operator -- citing concerns over its behavior and safety issues, including criticism of how Uber operates from London's Met Police.

(In public comments on its situation in London yesterday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company had been "guilty of not communicating", adding: I think we were generally immature in how we deal and dealt with regulators.)

The tribunal judgement also adds more fuel to the debate in the UK over gig economy rights in general, ramping up pressure to accelerate reform of employment law to take account of business models that have sought to circumvent traditional employment structures and thus avoided having to be liable for paying worker benefits.

Last year the UK government commissioned an independent review of gig economy working practices, which came up with a series of recommendations -- including suggesting creating a new classification for workers on tech platforms.

Although the government has yet to signal which recommendations it might adopt and how it generally intends to move forward.

MPs continue to take soundings. Last month, for example, a parliamentary committee grilled representatives for Uber and Deliveroo on their working practices -- including asking about approaches to sick pay; attitudes to safety; and whether they can be sure they always pay workers on their platforms the minimum wage.

Uber losing another employment tribunal over workers rights will likely also feed politicians' thinking as they work to reshape UK law to accommodate the business models that sought to disrupt it.

While the possibility of future rule changes meaning Uber could have to shell out tens of millions more to operate in its most important European market will add further dampeners to its profitability prospects.
A fund to compensate the victims of convicted financier Bernard Madoff has made its first compensation payments, sending $772.5 million to over 24,000 investors worldwide who lost their savings in the Ponzi scheme (AFP Photo/MARIO TAMA) (GETTY/AFP)

New York (AFP) - Thousands of victims of Bernie Madoff's multi-billion-dollar fraud, who lost their savings and were ruined when the investment scheme collapsed in 2008, have been paid compensation, officials announced Thursday.

The Madoff Victim Fund paid out $772.5 million to 24,631 victims around the world in the first payments to those who lost their money with Madoff, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The fund, established by the Justice Department to handle victim complaints, was tasked with returning $4 billion seized by American authorities. It has received 65,000 complaints from 136 countries from investors who lost a total of $40 billion to Madoff, according to the fund.

"No amount of money in the world could ever reverse the catastrophic effects Madoff's historic Ponzi scheme had on individuals and businesses alike," said William Sweeney, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Division.

"But now, nearly a decade after this crime was exposed, it is our hope that victims will finally be able to see the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel."

The Madoff scheme was revealed during the financial crisis in 2008 when he was unable to satisfy growing client demands to withdraw their investments.

Madoff currently is serving a 150-year prison sentence for orchestrating the world's largest Ponzi scheme, which bilked investors of an estimated at $65 billion when principal and lost interest are counted.

The victim fund is separate from efforts overseen by attorney Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee chosen to recover assets from Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Those efforts already have collected and returned billions invested by Madoff clients.

A pyramid, or Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which returns on investments are generated only by bringing in from fresh investments from new victims. Cash from new clients is used to pay existing clients until the scheme eventually collapses.
U.S. government debt yields were slightly higher Thursday after data releases and a Treasury auction. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note (U.S.: US10Y) rose to 2.327 percent at 1:35 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond (U.S.: US10Y) was up at 2.803 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices. Earlier, the yield on the 2-year Treasury note hit a new high of 1.658 percent, its highest level since Oct. 2008 when the 2-year yielded as high as 1.716 percent.The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, according to the U.S. Labor Deparment.Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 239,000 for the week ended Nov. 4, suggesting that hurricane effects on claims processing has begun to improve, according to Reuters. The Treasury Department auctioned $15 billion in 30-year bonds at a high yield of 2.801 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of demand, was 2.23. Indirect bidders, which include major central banks, were awarded 61.8 percent. Direct bidders were awarded 6.4 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump is continuing his journey across Asia. In China, the U.S. incumbent pressed Beijing on Thursday to do more when it comes to reining in North Korea.Leaders from both countries also commented upon trade ties, and announced the signing of around $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese companies, according to Reuters.  CNBC's Gina Francolla contributed to this report. U.S. government debt yields were slightly higher Thursday after data releases and a Treasury auction. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note (U.S.: US10Y) rose to 2.327 percent at 1:35 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond (U.S.: US10Y) was up at 2.803 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices. Earlier, the yield on the 2-year Treasury note hit a new high of 1.658 percent, its highest level since Oct. 2008 when the 2-year yielded as high as 1.716 percent. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, according to the U.S. Labor Deparment. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 239,000 for the week ended Nov. 4, suggesting that hurricane effects on claims processing has begun to improve, according to Reuters. The Treasury Department auctioned $15 billion in 30-year bonds at a high yield of 2.801 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of demand, was 2.23. Indirect bidders, which include major central banks, were awarded 61.8 percent. Direct bidders were awarded 6.4 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump is continuing his journey across Asia. In China, the U.S. incumbent pressed Beijing on Thursday to do more when it comes to reining in North Korea. Leaders from both countries also commented upon trade ties, and announced the signing of around $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese companies, according to Reuters.  CNBC's Gina Francolla contributed to this report.



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By PTI: Abhishek Anshu and Manohar Lal

New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) The tussle within top judiciary today came to the fore with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster".

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The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had yesterday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.

Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra.

However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned yesterdays order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters.

In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter.

"There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge, nor a three- judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.

"Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annuled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners.

"Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he belived in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

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The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution.

Perturbed by yesterdays order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.

Members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), including its President R S Suri, vice-president Ajit Sinha, Secretary Gaurav Bhatia and several senior advocates including Ashok Bhan, Aman Sinha and others strongly countered the allegations levelled in the petitions and said strong action should be taken against any attempt to "browbeat" the judges.

"Getting orders by terrorism should not be tolerated by this court. Strong action needs to be taken against any such attempt," SCBA members said while requesting the bench to initiate contempt proceedings in the matter.

The hearing in the jampacked courtroom saw allegations flying thick and fast with Bhushan even raising his pitch while asking the CJI to recuse himself from hearing the matter as his name has allegedly figured in the CBIs FIR.

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The CJI retorted by asking Bhushan, who was accompanied by advocate Kamini Jaiswal, one of the petitioners, to read the contents of the FIR and warned against losing his temper.

"We have been giving you indulgence and you cannot deny that, despite you levelling wild allegations against me. You can afford to lose your temper but we cannot", the CJI said.

Bhushan, who was representing an NGO Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Jaiswal, seeking constitution of an SIT to probe the corruption case allegedly involving judges, said the CJIs name features in it.

"What FIR against me? It is nonsense. There is not a word in the FIR naming me. Read our orders first. I feel sorry. You are liable for contempt now," the CJI said.

Bhushan dared the bench to issue a contempt notice to him and said the hearing cannot be conducted in this manner without allowing him to speak.

The activist advocate was also rebuked by Justice Arun Mishra, who observed that FIR cannot be lodged against sitting judicial officer of lower courts, judges of the higher judiciary, the Vice President of India or the President of India because they have immunity.

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He said the contents of the petition filed before it was per se contemptuous.

Bhushan left the court in a huff midway during the hearing, alleging that he was not being allowed to speak while the court has heard "all and sundry". He was seen apparently being pushed and jostled while he was leaving the courtroom.

The CJI also said he had set up the five-judge constitution bench as a two-judge bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, while hearing a separate plea with similar allegations of bribery earlier in the day, had said that the matter should be placed before the CJI for passing an appropriate order.

At the fag end of the hearing, one of the bar members requested the bench to pass an order gagging the media from reporting the case, claiming it would tarnish the image of the institution which is a "temple of justice".

The CJI refused to accept the oral submission, saying "I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".

"Prime facie, I am always of the view that freedom of speech and expression should be respected. I am not going to pass any order restraining the press," CJI Misra said.

The constitution bench also made it clear that the pleas regarding alleged bribes taken in the names of judges would be taken up by an appropriate bench after two weeks.

The CBI, in its FIR, has named several persons, including former Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, as accused in the alleged corruption case. PTI ABA MNL SJK RKS ARC

--- ENDS ---
A man walks past a gate with the corporate logo of the state oil company PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela November 3, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Corina Pons and Davide Scigliuzzo

CARACAS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Venezuela has promised investors that government officials under sanction by the United States will not participate in debt talks next week, three market sources told Reuters on Thursday, but several creditors said they were still unlikely to attend.

President Nicolas Maduro has urged bondholders to meet for debt restructuring talks in Caracas with officials from the cash-strapped OPEC nation, which is struggling under a failing socialist economic system and Washington sanctions that block it from refinancing its debt.

Many investors have said they would be reluctant to take part in the Monday talks, as Venezuela's two chief debt negotiators have been sanctioned by the U.S. government, which has warned investors of stiff penalties if they break the rules.

The Venezuelan government had promised that sanctioned officials would not attend the meeting, said a local finance industry source with knowledge of the preparations. In New York, two other sources knowledgeable of the Venezuelan debt situation said they had heard the same pledge.

Venezuela's Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Creditors still seemed skeptical. As well as the sanctions, they have cited concerns about security in Caracas and a lack of clarity on the proposals.

"We are not going," said Kaan Nazli, senior economist for emerging debt at investment manager Neuberger Berman. "It is unclear what the proposal will be ... there are so many obstacles that you don't see in any other restructuring."

A fund manager at a U.S.-based emerging markets advisory boutique said: "I personally do not know anyone who would entertain this 'invitation.' I can tell you right now that there's no way my wife (and mom) would let me go!"

Maduro has invited creditors to discuss the restructuring of some $60 billion of bonds, but also vowed to continue making debt payments. Investors say they would have little reason to participate in renegotiation talks if payments continue, and that such talks generally begin after a default has taken place.

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U.S.-based creditors are not prohibited from attending meetings, but are barred from dealings with sanctioned officials.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has imposed several rounds of sanctions this year, accusing Maduro's government of undermining democracy and violating human rights. Vice President Tareck El Aissami is under sanction for alleged drug trafficking, while Economy Minister Simon Zerpa has been sanctioned for corruption.

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury added 10 officials of modest influence to its list of Venezuelans under sanction, including several members of the National Elections Council.

The new sanctions do not show any evident link to the debt talks. They appear to have come in response to October elections for state governors that broadly favoured the ruling Socialist Party amid opposition complaints of fraud and voter intimidation.

"CREDIT EVENT"

Creditors have also asked finance industry association ISDA to determine if Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA is in default due to a delayed bond payment.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) website showed PDVSA was on its agenda for Friday at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).

The full payment for PDVSA's 2017N bond of $1.169 billion, which includes $1.121 billion in principal and $47 million in interest, was due on Nov. 2.

In one sign of progress, settlement agent DTC has told creditors that it has received the principal payment on bond, three market sources told Reuters. DTC declined to comment.

If ISDA determines that a "credit event" has taken place, that could allow debtholders to collect on derivatives known as credit default swaps, a form of insurance against default.

Since October, Venezuela and PDVSA have been skipping interest payments, invoking a 30-day grace period in an apparent effort to ease a cash crunch that has left the country desperately short of basic goods such as food and medicines.

Maduro said last week that the bond would be paid in full. He says Venezuela is victim of an "economic war" led by his political adversaries and fuelled by Washington's sanctions.

An ISDA spokeswoman said Friday's meeting may not be conclusive. "It is always possible that they will need more time to deliberate," said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named, in an email to Reuters.

PDVSA did not respond to an email seeking comment.

(Additional reporting by Umesh Desai in Hong Kong, Lesley Wroughton in Washington and Karin Strohecker in London; Writing by Brian Ellsworth,; Editing by Rosalba O'Brienand Leslie Adler)
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(CNBC) The Senate Banking Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Nov. 28 for Jerome Powell, President Trump's nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell is garnering support from GOP lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Reuters) Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein said today that his firm's agreement to establish a $5 billion investment vehicle with China's sovereign wealth fund is aimed at putting money into "U.S. companies that could be helped by better access to China." (CNBC) * Blankfein: Trump's rhetoric is sometimes 'excessive' but he has America's back on the world stage (CNBC) Authorities say the first known DREAMer to allege he was improperly deported was arrested for trying to re-enter the country for the second time this year. Juan Manuel Montes claimed he was deported by Border Patrol agents despite having deportation protections. (USA Today) AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson says the company has never offered to sell CNN, nor does it have any intention to sell it, despite the Justice Department's demand the company sell it in order to approve the Time Warner acquisition. (CNBC) FBI agents say they are unable to unlock the iPhone of the shooter behind Sunday's deadly Texas church shooting, and a search warrant allowing investigators access has been executed. (USA Today) Snapchat's (SNAP) biggest design shakeup since its launch is reportedly scheduled to take place in December. The redesign would make the popular social media app "easier to use," according to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. (Business Insider) * Cramer says Snap shouldn't even be a public company due to its 'hellish earnings' (CNBC) * Snap's big Chinese investor just revealed some of its plans (Reuters) Wal-Mart (WMT) isn't making any big changes to its Black Friday store hours this year, as some other retailers have. The big-box retailer's website on Thanksgiving will kick off its online Black Friday sale at 12:01 a.m. ET. In-store doorbuster deals begin at 6 p.m. (CNBC) STOCKS TO WATCH21st Century Fox (FOXA) matched consensus estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 49 cents per share while revenue beat forecasts. Fox saw higher ad sales during the quarter, with revenue rising by 10 percent at its cable division.Square (SQ) came in 2 cents ahead of estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 7 cents per share, and the mobile payments company also beat forecasts with its revenue. Square saw a growing number of businesses adopt its payment platform during the quarter, and raised its full-year profit and revenue forecast.IAC/InterActiveCorp (IAC) reported adjusted quarterly profit of 55 cents per share, compared to a consensus estimate of 83 cents. Revenue did beat forecasts for the website operator, thanks in large part of the performance of majority-owned dating site Match Group (MTCH), but the bottom line was impacted by an increase in expenses.Hostess Brands (TWNK) came in six cents higher than consensus forecasts with adjusted quarterly profit of 18 cents per share, although the snack maker's revenue was below forecasts. Hostess said supply constraints at one of its manufacturers was an issue that cost it more than $3 million.AstraZeneca (AZN) saw sales fall during its third quarter as it faces increasing generic competition, although the decline in the drug maker's revenue was slower than in prior quarters.WATERCOOLER Fans of Netflix's (NFLX) show "Stranger Things" crashed a local museum's website buying $400,000 worth of dinosaur hoodies. Dustin Henderson, a central character on the show played by Gaten Matarazzo, sported the museum's hoodie on the show. (CNBC) IN THE NEWS TODAY A Senate tax bill, differing from one in the House, is expected to be unveiled today, further complicating a Republican tax overhaul push. The bill could reportedly delay implementation of certain measures, including the corporate tax cut until 2019. (Reuters) President Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will likely meet on the sidelines of an economic summit in Vietnam tomorrow, according to a Kremlin spokesperson. The leaders first met in July at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. (CNBC) The U.S. upholds and sticks to the "one China" policy , Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping today. As president-elect, Trump broke with protocol and accepted a congratulatory phone call from the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. (Reuters) * Trump: 'I give China great credit' for taking advantage of the US ... but that must change (CNBC) Saudi Arabia's foreign minister urged the international community to slap fresh sanctions on Iran for its alleged support of terrorism today. Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind a ballistic missile attack on Saturday. (CNBC) The Justice Department is reportedly seeking to reach a plea deal in its investigation of the former son-in-law of onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort was indicted on 12 counts related to hiding foreign payments last month. (WSJ) After months of questioning President Trump's temperament and fitness for office, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., has announced that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will convene a hearing to examine the president's authority to use nuclear weapons. (CNBC) The Senate Banking Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Nov. 28 for Jerome Powell, President Trump's nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell is garnering support from GOP lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Reuters) Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein said today that his firm's agreement to establish a $5 billion investment vehicle with China's sovereign wealth fund is aimed at putting money into "U.S. companies that could be helped by better access to China." (CNBC) * Blankfein: Trump's rhetoric is sometimes 'excessive' but he has America's back on the world stage (CNBC) Authorities say the first known DREAMer to allege he was improperly deported was arrested for trying to re-enter the country for the second time this year. Juan Manuel Montes claimed he was deported by Border Patrol agents despite having deportation protections. (USA Today) AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson says the company has never offered to sell CNN, nor does it have any intention to sell it, despite the Justice Department's demand the company sell it in order to approve the Time Warner acquisition. (CNBC) FBI agents say they are unable to unlock the iPhone of the shooter behind Sunday's deadly Texas church shooting, and a search warrant allowing investigators access has been executed. (USA Today) Snapchat's (SNAP) biggest design shakeup since its launch is reportedly scheduled to take place in December. The redesign would make the popular social media app "easier to use," according to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. (Business Insider) * Cramer says Snap shouldn't even be a public company due to its 'hellish earnings' (CNBC) * Snap's big Chinese investor just revealed some of its plans (Reuters) Wal-Mart (WMT) isn't making any big changes to its Black Friday store hours this year, as some other retailers have. The big-box retailer's website on Thanksgiving will kick off its online Black Friday sale at 12:01 a.m. ET. In-store doorbuster deals begin at 6 p.m. (CNBC) STOCKS TO WATCH 21st Century Fox (FOXA) matched consensus estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 49 cents per share while revenue beat forecasts. Fox saw higher ad sales during the quarter, with revenue rising by 10 percent at its cable division. Square (SQ) came in 2 cents ahead of estimates with adjusted quarterly profit of 7 cents per share, and the mobile payments company also beat forecasts with its revenue. Square saw a growing number of businesses adopt its payment platform during the quarter, and raised its full-year profit and revenue forecast. IAC/InterActiveCorp (IAC) reported adjusted quarterly profit of 55 cents per share, compared to a consensus estimate of 83 cents. Revenue did beat forecasts for the website operator, thanks in large part of the performance of majority-owned dating site Match Group (MTCH), but the bottom line was impacted by an increase in expenses. Hostess Brands (TWNK) came in six cents higher than consensus forecasts with adjusted quarterly profit of 18 cents per share, although the snack maker's revenue was below forecasts. Hostess said supply constraints at one of its manufacturers was an issue that cost it more than $3 million. AstraZeneca (AZN) saw sales fall during its third quarter as it faces increasing generic competition, although the decline in the drug maker's revenue was slower than in prior quarters. WATERCOOLER Fans of Netflix's (NFLX) show "Stranger Things" crashed a local museum's website buying $400,000 worth of dinosaur hoodies. Dustin Henderson, a central character on the show played by Gaten Matarazzo, sported the museum's hoodie on the show. (CNBC)



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FILE PHOTO: The Sinopec logo is seen at one of its gas stations in Hong Kong April 26, 2010. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/File Photo

By Josephine Mason

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's biggest state oil company Sinopec, one of the country's top banks and its sovereign wealth fund agreed on Thursday to develop a $43 billion natural gas project in Alaska, as the cash-poor U.S. state seeks to revive its dwindling energy industry.

The deal had been in the works since April and was sealed during U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to China. It is the second-largest pact among a slew of agreements signed during the trip between the world's top two economies that are worth as much as $250 billion.

Sinopec , China Investment Corp [CIC.UL] and the Bank of China will work over the next year with the state government to hammer out the details of their involvement in the Alaska LNG project, according to a statement from project sponsor Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC).

Alaska LNG is designed to carry natural gas from fields in the North Slope through an 800-mile (1,287 km) pipeline to south central Alaska for in-state use and to a liquefaction plant to produce up to 20 million tons of LNG per year for export.

Sinopec will buy some of the LNG and may supply engineering work for the project's construction, Bank of China will provide funding and CIC may take an equity stake, Alaskan Governor Bill Walker said on a call with reporters. AGDC will remain a majority shareholder, he said.

Alaska created AGDC in 2010 to build the project to tap the North Slope gas reserves, where production is expected to average about 3.5 billion cubic feet per day, according to Alaska LNG's website.

Alaska aims to shore up its oil and gas sector, which has struggled to compete with lower-cost shale projects in states such as Texas. Securing a Chinese customer, lender and investor would help Alaska overcome a multi-billion dollar budget deficit and create jobs.

"It's been a long courtship with these folks," said AGDC President Keith Meyer on the call. "We're now engaged."

The LNG will meet China's growing appetite for cleaner-burning fuels as the government tries to wean the country off coal to reduce air pollution. The Trump administration has touted natural gas exports from the United States as a way to reduce its trade deficits and boost domestic employment.

Story continues

A final investment decision (FID) for Alaska LNG is expected in the first quarter of 2019, with construction starting in the same year and the first cargo expected around 2024 to 2025.

Most of the gas from Alaska LNG is expected to go to China, with Sinopec also helping with the marketing, although AGDC is also speaking to Japan, South Korea and Vietnam about potential off take, Meyer said.

Another energy-rich state, West Virginia, signed a memorandum of understanding with China Energy Investment Corp, the world's largest power company by asset value.

At the signing ceremony, Chinese President Xi Jinping said one of the world's top energy markets will expand its imports of LNG and crude oil from the United States.

ECONOMIC BOOM

Alaska has the advantage of being closer to China than LNG projects on the U.S. Gulf Coast, but its main issue is its high cost, said Kerry-Anne Shanks, head of Asia gas and LNG research at Wood Mackenzie.

"Sinopec may be able to secure cheaper LNG supply elsewhere," she said in a note.

Alaska Governor Walker said the project will generate $8 billion to $10 billion in revenue each year, including $1 billion from gas sales.

"This is an agreement that will provide Alaska with an economic boom comparable to the development of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System in the 1970s," Walker said in a statement.

The U.S. State Department said in a separate statement the project will create up to 12,000 jobs during construction and reduce the trade deficit between the U.S. and Asia.

(Reporting by Josephine Mason; additional reporting by Matt Miller; Editing by Richard Pullin and Christian Schmollinger)
General John Nicholson, the top U.S. Army commander in Afghanistan, says the Taliban cannot win on the battlefield in Afghanistan. In an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Nicholson sounded upbeat about the chances of pressuring the insurgents into reconciliation.

RFE/RL: In your assessment earlier this year, you said the security situation in Afghanistan was at a stalemate. Now, after the new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan was unveiled, are you moving from a stalemate to success in the country?

John Nicholson: Yes, I think the conditions are set for success. [Afghan] President [Ashraf] Ghani has said he believes we are turning a corner, and I agree. And the reason for that is the combination for U.S. commitment as demonstrated by President Donald Trump's South Asia strategy coupled with NATOs Warsaw summit declaration and what we saw today: commitment by two dozen additional nations to add additional forces to Afghanistan. So this answers the key question right off the bat that we in the international community have the will to see this through.

U.S. policy and NATO policy are conditions-based, not time-based, and they are designed to apply pressure on the enemy so their only choice is to reconcile. The Taliban cannot win on the battlefield in the face of this pressure, and it is time for us to begin a peace negotiation. But until that happens, we will maintain military pressure; there will be diplomatic pressure on external neighbors and even social pressure at the ballot box. All of this is designed to bring the Taliban to the bargaining table.

RFE/RL: You previously said Russia was legitimizing the Taliban. What is Moscow after in Afghanistan?

Nicholson: We have common interests with Russia in Afghanistan. Number one would be counter-narcotics. Narcotics emanating from Afghanistan kill tens of thousands of Russians every year, and these narcotics are trafficked by the Taliban. Counter-terrorism, we share the interest of not seeing Daesh (eds: local name for Islamic State militants) spill out from Syria or from Afghanistan into Central Asia. This will not happen; the U.S. government and the Afghan government together are defeating Daesh inside Afghanistan. Finally, Russia has an interest in peace and stability in the region, as do we. So we think we need to work together with Russia on these shared interests as opposed to their current attempts to legitimize the Taliban and by so doing contributing to instability in the country. We [would] rather see Russia, and indeed everyone, support the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

RFE/RL: Another major question is the issue of Pakistan. How successfully are you dealing with insurgent safe havens in Pakistan?

Nicholson: From a military perspective, it is very difficult to defeat any insurgency that enjoys external safe havens. So this is an absolute must in our policy going forward. As Trump said in late August, as [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis has said, as Secretary [of State Rex] Tillerson has said: We need Pakistan to work with us to shut down these safe havens and put pressure on the enemy. So we are hoping to see Pakistan do that in the coming months. These conversations are going on in private.

Thus far, we have not seen any change in Pakistan's behavior. The enemy is still operating from safe havens in Pakistan, but we hope to see over the coming months a change in that behavior. This is essential if we are going to have a peaceful resolution in Afghanistan.

RFE/RL: Lastly, in 2010-2011, at the height of the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan, more than 100,000 U.S. troops were based in Afghanistan, but the war continued. Could the deployment of nearly 3,000 additional troops to the country bring an end to the 16-year war in the country?

Nicholson: During this 16-year war, we had 150,000 troops for a period of about 18 months. We used that period to grow the Afghan security forces to their current size of over 320,000. Now the 320,000 are being enabled by the 15,000. It doesn't require 150,000 troops to help 320,000 Afghans prosecute this war.

What we have seen is that we are able to work by, with, and through the Afghan security forces to accomplish our ends. It doesn't require a large number of troops; it doesn't require NATO to go back to a combat role. Afghans are on the fight. They are willing to fight for their country. All they ask for is our help and more time to achieve their ultimate success.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says the Pakistani government has told the international charity to close its last remaining facility in the violence-plagued tribal region along the Afghan border.

MSF on November 9 said that the Interior Ministry refused to issue it a no-objection certificate," leaving it unable to provide medical services in the Bajaur Agency of the impoverished Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

It said the closure will bring to an end four years of MSF working in the agency.

The move comes less than two months after the Geneva-based charity, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, was told to close its facilities in FATA's Kurram Agency following 14 years of operation.

The aid group said it has 120 staff members, all Pakistani nationals, in Bajaur, which has a population of 757,000.

"Health care services are very limited in the area, and most of our patients cannot afford to pay even for basic medical care," said Azaad Alessandro Alocco, the group's representative in Pakistan.

"As the only major hospital providing free, quality health care in the area, the closure of MSFs activities will leave a major gap and have serious negative implications for the health of people living in Bajaur," he added.

Reuters news agency reported that Pakistan's Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Much of FATA has been subject to attacks by militant groups battling Pakistan's army the past decade, devastating health care, education, and housing services.

On September 17, Pakistani officials said a roadside bomb blast killed a government administrator and six tribal police officers in Bajaur. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

With reporting by Reuters and The Express Tribune
TORONTO, Nov. 09, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lydian International Limited (TSX:LYD) (Lydian or the Company) announced today its results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017. All dollar amounts referenced in this news release are, unless otherwise indicated, in United States dollars.



Third Quarter 2017 Highlights

During Q3 2017, Lydian achieved full-scale construction at its Amulsar Gold Project. The workforce exceeded 1,400 employees and contractors, with significant work advancing at all elevations. Earthworks remained the principal focus for much of the quarter, but activities increasingly transitioned to concrete and equipment assembly. As of September 30, 2017, total commitments reached 80% of estimated total project costs, and overall completion was tracking on plan at 60%.

Howard Stevenson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lydian International, stated, During the third quarter, we continued to make significant progress in the construction and development of the Amulsar Gold Project. We received the second advance of $25 million under the Term Loan Agreement, utilized an initial $36.7 million under the ING Bank equipment financing facility, and ended the quarter with a strong cash position of $72 million. With total project cost commitments at 80% and overall project completion at 60%, we continue to de-risk the project and move closer to becoming a large-scale gold producer in 2018.

Mr. Stevenson continued, We are also proud to have published Lydians first Sustainability Report. Our inaugural report reflects our Companys commitment and comprehensive approach to sustainability and is a significant step in our journey towards developing and operating a world-class mine in Armenia. To read the Sustainability Report, please visit www.lydianinternational.co.uk.

Recent Developments

Key developments occurring during Q3 2017 and more recently include:

Materials Handling System  Fabrication, delivery and assembly of crushing and conveying equipment progressed as planned. Most remaining equipment for the crushing and screening plant arrived at site. This included the three secondary cone crushers, the primary crusher, apron feeder, motors, and the dust collection system. Also, the major supply of structural steel for the crushing plant was delivered. Pre-engineered steel buildings for the crushing and screening plant have also been delivered to site.

Crushing and screening components are warehoused on-site. Assembly will begin as concrete work is completed. Deliveries for the overland conveyor included the pre-cast concrete sleepers and most of the modular overland conveyor galleries. Assembly of the galleries is progressing with about one-third of the units complete. Placement of the sleepers and setting of the conveyor galleries has commenced.

Earthworks to prepare the crushing area and overland conveyor platforms were a priority during the quarter. This work progressed well in the crushing area, but geotechnical conditions required additional excavation and backfilling. This delayed handover for concrete work by about one month. A limited section of the overland conveyor platform also requires additional work due to geotechnical conditions. Given the ability to advance work in other sections along the platform, this is not expected to cause delay. The crushing area platform was completed at quarter end and turned over to the structural, mechanical, piping and electrical contractor. Concrete foundations are now being poured. Placement of pre-cast sleepers and setting the modular conveyor galleries has also commenced along the conveyor corridor. Construction of the crushing and screening plant and the overland conveyor are scheduled to proceed concurrently. Time allowances to offset weather constraints have been made in the planning, but winter weather will be a driver in keeping to the current schedule.

Mine Operations  One Caterpillar 6040 hydraulic shovel, one Caterpillar 994 loader, and four Caterpillar 789D haul trucks arrived as scheduled during Q3 2017. The 6040 shovel, which is the largest load to be transported to site, cleared customs and was delivered without incident. With this delivery and other equipment received during the quarter, transportation and logistics risks have been greatly reduced. Mining equipment is being assembled on site by Zeppelin, the local Caterpillar dealer. Five additional 789D haul trucks are expected to arrive during Q4 2017.

Construction of the mine haul road continues to advance and will provide access from the mine pits to the crushing plant and barren rock storage facility (BRSF). Initial access along the west face of Erato is now complete, which will support acceleration of work at higher elevations. Construction of the BRSF has also commenced. Once the first deliveries of the mobile mining fleet are commissioned and operators are trained, Lydian plans to supplement construction of the mine haul road with this equipment.

Heap Leach Facility  Topsoil stockpiling is complete and construction earthworks are advancing with the dam raise, toe-bench embankment back fill, and preparation of the sub-base for the geomembrane. Installation of the primary underdrain piping is complete and installation of the secondary piping network is advancing. Fabrication of the geomembrane liner continues with delivery and installation expected to begin in Q4 2017. Fabrication of pre-engineered steel buildings is under way.

Processing Plant  A concrete batch plant is assembled and operational adjacent to the ADR platform. Concrete pours for equipment foundations were completed and additional concrete work for the ADR plant is ongoing. Fifteen containers of pre-assembled modules for the carbon-in-column and carbon regeneration circuits have shipped from the manufacturer with delivery expected during Q4 2017. An additional 16 containers of gold recovery equipment and materials are scheduled to ship within the coming weeks.

Infrastructure  Other earthworks are advancing for the truck shop, truck wash bay, administrative facilities, and mine warehouse platforms. Steel for the truck shop buildings has arrived at site. Phase 1 of the residence camp is completed and occupied. Galvanized steel structures for the main 110kV substation switches have been received, and the modular e-house for the crusher area and plant transformers have shipped from the manufacturer. Excavation for pre-cast concrete installation at the substation has started and installation of the 35kV electric distribution towers to the crushing and screening plant is in process.

Financing  Lydian received the second advance of $25 million under the Term Loan Agreement. The Company also utilized an initial $36.7 million under the ING Bank equipment financing facility, including $32.8 million received by Lydian and $3.9 million to be funded from ING to the export credit agency. Lydian has arranged a total financing plan of $442 million, of which $167 million remains available, subject to satisfaction or waiver of applicable conditions, as of September 30, 2017.

Sustainability  Biodiversity programs are successfully advancing as planned to achieve compliance with Armenian and international standards. Potentilla porphyrantha studies demonstrate positive potential for ex situ conservation and propagation from seed. Planning activities and assessments are being completed in support of establishing the Jermuk National Park as a biodiversity offset. Lydian is also supporting Armenias implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative with membership on the EITI Multi-Stakeholder Group and participation in several working groups. Lydian published its 2016 Sustainability Report.

To view construction photos and videos, please visit www.lydianinternational.co.uk.

About Lydian International Limited

Lydian is a gold developer focusing on construction at its 100%-owned Amulsar Gold Project, located in south-central Armenia. Amulsar will be a large-scale, low-cost operation with production expected to begin in the third-quarter of 2018. Open pit mining and conventional heap leach processing contribute to excellent scale and economic potential. Amulsar will be Armenias largest gold mine and make Lydian one of the largest emerging gold producers of 2018. Estimated mineral resources contain 3.5 million measured and indicated gold ounces and 1.3 million inferred gold ounces. Gold production is targeted to average approximately 225,000 ounces annually over an initial 10-year mine life as outlined in the Q1 2017 Technical Report. Existing mineral resources beyond current reserves and open extensions provide opportunities to improve average annual production and extend the mine life. Lydian is committed to good international industry practices in all aspects of its operations including production, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. For more information and to directly contact us, please visit www.lydianinternational.co.uk.

For further information, please contact:

Doug Tobler, CFO

+1 720-307-5087 (d) or +1 303-905-4442 (m) Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations

+1 720-464-5649 (d) or +1 303-810-4863 (m) Or: moreinfo@Lydianinternational.co.uk

Caution regarding forward-looking information



Certain information contained in this news release is forward looking. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical fact, that address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects, is expected, intends, anticipates or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, will, would, should, or occur or the negative or other variations of such terms. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, among others, statements with respect to: the realization of mineral resource estimates and the timing of development of the Amulsar Gold Project, including the expected start date of production; the current Amulsar Gold Project construction schedule, including the Companys plan to begin and advance various on-site construction activities; current expectations regarding forthcoming operational objectives and the timing and satisfaction of such objectives; the Companys approach to sustainability, including the biodiversity programs; the fabrication, delivery, and assembly of certain equipment; the ability to access funds under current and future financing arrangements and the timing and terms of such funding; results of future exploration and drilling; the commitment to and implementation of good international industry practices; the expected gold production from, and life of mine of, the Amulsar Gold Project; the expected mining methods at the Amulsar Gold Project; and the expected cost of operations at the Amulsar Gold Project. Statements concerning mineral resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward-looking information to the extent that they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered when the property is developed.

Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and factors include, without limitation: changes in gold and silver prices; adverse general economic, market or business conditions; failure to achieve the objectives of the future exploration and drilling programs; regulatory changes; as well as "Risk Factors" included in the disclosure documents filed on and available at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results and future events could materially differ from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. All of the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.
By PTI: Rahul

(EDS: With additional quotes and details about Gandhis candle light vigil)

Surat, Nov 8 (PTI) Stepping up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the first anniversary of the note ban today, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said the "twin blows" of demonetisation and GST "broke the legs" of Surat, the textile and diamond hub of the country.

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Gandhi, who has visited poll-bound Gujarat several times in the recent past, tonight participated in a candle light vigil against demonetisation at Chowk Bazar.

Gandhi, who spent the day visiting various textile and diamond units here, said that industries in Surat have the potential to compete with those in China but the government "destroyed" them.

He, however, conceded that the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government too did not extend enough support to industries in Surat.

Gandhi interacted with industry representatives and workers at Nirman Industries loom factory in Katargam and seven different places.

He termed demonetisation as an "attack" on Indias economy.

"I interacted with the people here and they told me that notebandi (demonetisation) and then GST have broken Surats legs. The industry has been finished by the twin blows not only here, but in the entire country," Gandhi said.

Hitting out at the government over the new indirect tax regime rolled out on July 1 this year, Gandhi said, "We told (Prime Minister) Narendra Modiji and (Union Finance Minister) Arun Jaitleyji not to implement the GST in this way."

"This is not a political thing, this is not something between the Congress and the BJP. This is about Indias competitiveness, we have to compete with China. You please do not kill our industries and businesses. But they said that we are going to implement it at 12 midnight," he said.

He said the Congress wanted to save Surat and the country by obstructing the GST bill brought by the government.

"GST means one nation, one tax. But this GST implemented by Modiji, which has five layers, will not work. We said the tax should be capped at 18 per cent but they did not listen to us," Gandhi said.

In his interaction with industry representatives, Gandhi assured them that if Congress was voted to power he will make structural changes to the GST.

During his day-long stay, Gandhi visited a powerloom unit, a dyeing and processing factory, an embroidery unit, and interacted with women workers. He met cloth wholesalers, and also visited a diamond polishing unit. His talks with workers and owners of these units were focused on the effects of demonetisation and GST. PTI KA PD GK NSK SK SK

--- ENDS ---

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Franco Moretti, Stanford professor emeritus in the English department, has been accused of sexual assault by a former graduate student.

By India Today Web Desk: "I'm encouraged to report in the wake of the Weinstein and #metoo movements," wrote Kimberly S Latta, a Philadelphia based PhD student in a letter to Stanford University about her alleged abuse and rape by a professor at UC Berkeley.

Kimberly Latta, a graduate student at UC Berkeley during 1984-85 took to Facebook to make her letter public about how her then-professor Franco Moretti. Latta said that he sexually stalked, pressured, and raped her.

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Franco Moretti is Stanford professor emeritus in the English department.

She remembered the ordeal she had to face with the continued abuse even after reporting the matter to Title IX officer at the UCB. The officer who was friends with the professor pressured her to state only Moretti's initials.

Latta said that, "He (Moretti) threatened to ruin my career if I pressed charges against him." She talked about remaining silent for all these years but with so many women coming out speaking on the issue of abuse and rape, she finally got the encouragement to share her ordeal with the world."

Here is what she said on her Facebook post:

After earning her degree at the UCB, Latta went on to become assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and Saint Louis University. Later on, she switched careers to psychotherapy and writing.

Moretti retired from Stanford during last spring and is on leave this academic year. He is known for his work on literary theory and digital humanities.

--- ENDS ---
Washington, Nov 8 (IBNS): A new NASA study adds evidence that a geothermal heat source called a mantle plume lies deep below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land, explaining some of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice sheet.

Although the heat source isnt a new or increasing threat to the West Antarctic ice sheet, it may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed rapidly in an earlier era of rapid climate change, and why it is so unstable today.

The stability of an ice sheet is closely related to how much water lubricates it from below, allowing glaciers to slide more easily, read the NASA website.

Understanding the sources and future of the meltwater under West Antarctica is important for estimating the rate at which ice may be lost to the ocean in the future.

Antarctica's bedrock is laced with rivers and lakes, the largest of which is the size of Lake Erie. Many lakes fill and drain rapidly, forcing the ice surface thousands of feet above them to rise and fall by as much as 20 feet (6 meters).

The motion allows scientists to estimate where and how much water must exist at the base.

Some 30 years ago, a scientist at the University of Colorado Denver suggested that heat from a mantle plume under Marie Byrd Land might explain regional volcanic activity and a topographic dome feature. Very recent seismic imaging has supported this concept. When Helene Seroussi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, first heard the idea, however, "I thought it was crazy," she said. "I didn't see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it."

With few direct measurements existing from under the ice, Seroussi and Erik Ivins of JPL concluded the best way to study the mantle plume idea was by numerical modeling. They used the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM), a numerical depiction of the physics of ice sheets developed by scientists at JPL and the University of California, Irvine. Seroussi enhanced the ISSM to capture natural sources of heating and heat transport from freezing, melting and liquid water; friction; and other processes.

To assure the model was realistic, the scientists drew on observations of changes in the altitude of the ice sheet surface made by NASA's IceSat satellite and airborne Operation IceBridge campaign. "These place a powerful constraint on allowable melt rates -- the very thing we wanted to predict," Ivins said. Since the location and size of the possible mantle plume were unknown, they tested a full range of what was physically possible for multiple parameters, producing dozens of different simulations.

They found that the flux of energy from the mantle plume must be no more than 150 milliwatts per square meter. For comparison, in U.S. regions with no volcanic activity, the heat flux from Earth's mantle is 40 to 60 milliwatts. Under Yellowstone National Park -- a well-known geothermal hot spot -- the heat from below is about 200 milliwatts per square meter averaged over the entire park, though individual geothermal features such as geysers are much hotter.

Seroussi and Ivins' simulations using a heat flow higher than 150 milliwatts per square meter showed too much melting to be compatible with the space-based data, except in one location: an area inland of the Ross Sea known for intense flows of water.

This region required a heat flow of at least 150-180 milliwatts per square meter to agree with the observations.

However, seismic imaging has shown that mantle heat in this region may reach the ice sheet through a rift, that is, a fracture in Earth's crust such as appears in Africa's Great Rift Valley.

Mantle plumes are thought to be narrow streams of hot rock rising through Earth's mantle and spreading out like a mushroom cap under the crust.

The buoyancy of the material, some of it molten, causes the crust to bulge upward. The theory of mantle plumes was proposed in the 1970s to explain geothermal activity that occurs far from the boundary of a tectonic plate, such as Hawaii and Yellowstone.

The Marie Byrd Land mantle plume formed 50 to 110 million years ago, long before the West Antarctic ice sheet came into existence.

At the end of the last ice age around 11,000 years ago, the ice sheet went through a period of rapid, sustained ice loss when changes in global weather patterns and rising sea levels pushed warm water closer to the ice sheet -- just as is happening today. Seroussi and Ivins suggest the mantle plume could facilitate this kind of rapid loss.

Their paper, "Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions," was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

Image credits: NSF/Zina Deretsky
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.
Image: Screengrab from YouTube

New Delhi, Sep 26 (IBNS): Air travel in India may soon become paperless, according to reports.

"The aviation ministry is linking the databases of airlines and airports with passenger IDs such as Aadhaar and passport numbers for this," a Times of India report reads.

Upon its completion, passengers will require bio-metrics to prove their identity, as opposed to the prevailing practice of producing ID cards.

"We have set up a special unit in Airports Authority of India for giving shape to this 'digi yatra' programme. Airport operators, especially from Bangalore and Hyderabad, are part of this as they have done a lot of work in this field. We will soon know the indicative cost of the project and time frame in which it can be implemented," aviation secretary R N Choubey was quoted as saying by the network.

"Airlines will also be able to know the last level the missing flyer was at in case he does not report for boarding in time," Choubey added.

The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security and Central Industrial Security Force have already stopped tagging handbags in at least 17 airports.

According to reports, a trial run will be conducted in another 10 airports, including Ranchi and Pune.

Image: Screengrab from YouTube
Canberra, Nov 1 (NITN): When you think of travelling to Australia, a few key spots to visit spring to mind: Bondi Beach, the Great Barrier Reef, and of course Uluru - which commonly was known for many years as Ayers Rock.

Tourists come in droves to visit the grand scale of Uluru, the sandstone rock which is famous for its red glow. But according to the BBC, from October 2019 nobody will be allowed to climb the 348-metre-high natural structure.

The landmark decision came after the board of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, where the rock is situated, voted unanimously against allowing tourists to scale it. The decision was made for a reason; Uluru is a sacred site for Aboriginal Australians, and to allow visitors to climb it has long been deemed disrespectful to the indigenous population.

For a long time now, locals have requested that visitors don't climb up the site formally referred to as Ayers Rock, but this has consistently been ignored. That's despite signs being placed at the beginning of the climbing path urging tourists not to proceed.

Speaking about the decision, Anangu Aboriginal man and chairman of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Sammy Wilson said: "It is an extremely important place, not a playground or theme park like Disneyland. If I travel to another country and there is a sacred site, an area of restricted access, I don't enter or climb it, I respect it."

So while the views might be beautiful, it's something visitors should know they don't have the right to access, and this new rule will enforce that for the benefit of the local indigenous people.
New York, Nov 4(Just Earth News): While progress has been made in response to the plague outbreak in Madagascar, and the number of suspected new cases continues to decline, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that sustaining operations through the remainder of the plague season will be critical as there is still a risk of potential further spread of the disease.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said that as of 30 October, a total of 1,801 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of plague, including 127 deaths, had been reported. He told reporters at the regular press briefing in Geneva that a large majority of the reported cases concerned people who had already recovered.

As of 30 October, there are only 106 people receiving care in medical facilities, he noted.

Since the second week of October, the number of new cases and the number of patients hospitalized owing to suspicion of plague has declined. While this trend is encouraging, he said that WHO expects more cases of plague to be reported from Madagascar until the typical plague season ends in April 2018.

Sustaining ongoing operations, including active case finding and treatment, comprehensive contact identification, follow-up and antibiotic treatment for cases and identified contacts, as well as rodent and flea control, is crucial throughout the plague season in order to minimize bubonic plague infections and human-to-human transmission of pneumonic plague, Jasarevic explained.

WHO estimates that the risk of potential further spread of the plague outbreak remains high at national level, moderate at regional level, and low at the global level.

[WHO] is working with countries that have strong travel and trade links with Madagascar on preparedness. Advice to international travelers has not changed: upon arriving in Madagascar, they should be informed about the current plague outbreak and the necessary protection measures, he said.

Travellers should protect themselves against flea bites, avoid contact with dead animals, infected tissues or materials, and avoid close contact with patients with pneumonic plague. In case of sudden symptoms of fever, chills, painful and inflamed lymph nodes, travellers should immediately contact medical services and should avoid self-medication.

Responding to questions, Jasarevic said that WHO was working with the neighbouring Comoros, Mauritius, Mozambique, Reunion and Mayotte, Seychelles, South Africa, and Tanzania on increased plague preparedness and surveillance.

The agency has also helped Ethiopia and Kenya to raise preparedness levels because of their direct airline connections with Madagascar. Such efforts include, among others: increasing awareness about the plague, providing equipment and supplies, including rapid diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment and antibiotics; contingency planning; and technical assistance through guidance and training as required.

Photo: WHO/OMS Madagascar

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Nov 9(Just Earth News): The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Major Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, a commander in the Al-Saiqa Brigade accused of murdering 33 people in the context of the ongoing conflict in Libya, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the United Nations Security Council.

Addressing the Council in New York, the Prosecutor also urged the international community to turn over Al-Tuhamy Mohamed Khaled, former head of the Libyan Internal Security Agency, and Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi.

Busayf Al-Werfalli, is a commander in the Benghazi-based Al-Saiqa Brigade, who, according to Bensouda, has been  and possibly still is  active in the Libyan National Armys (LNA) Operation National Dignity.

In her remarks to the Council, the ICC Prosecutor appealed directly to General Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan National Army, to demonstrate, by concrete actions, respect for international justice by ensuring Mr al-Werfallis immediate transfer to the Libyan authorities so that he may be surrendered to the court without delay.

My Office continues to request States Parties, non-States Parties and organizations to assist in securing the arrest of persons subject to an ICC warrant, Bensouda told the Council.

The call for accountability comes amidst continued concern over the security situation in Libya, which has been in conflict since a disputed election in 2014 following the 2011 toppling of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In recent months, Bensouda said she noted with grave concern reports of unlawful killings, including the execution of detained persons; kidnappings and forced disappearances; torture; prolonged detentions without trial or other legal process; and arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and other ill-treatment of migrants in official and unofficial detention centres.

Reports have also emerged that 36 male corpses were found in the totem of al-Abyar, outside of Benghazi.

This is also of grave concern, she said. The bodies were reportedly handcuffed, showed signs of torture, and displayed bullet wounds to the head.

The prosecutor also echoed Ghassan Salame in condemning recent airstrikes in a residential neighbourhood in Derna that appear to have resulted in the tragic deaths of civilians, including at least 12 children and women.

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Nov 10(Just Earth News): One out of every four people in Central African Republic (CAR) is either displaced or living as a refugee in another country, a senior United Nations official said Thursday, urging the international community to provide more resources for a humanitarian plan that up to now is only partially funded.

The aid community has very limited capacities and is struggling to provide basic services outside of the main two cities, Najat Rochdi, told journalists in New York, saying the situation hinders on life and death.

Briefing on the latest humanitarian developments in CAR  where she is the Deputy Special Representative for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSCA) and UN Resident Coordinator  Rochdi said the nearly $500 million Humanitarian Response Plan for 2017 is only about 39 per cent funded.

This is not the time to give up on the people of CAR, Rochdi said, highlighting unprecedented levels of hunger in a country where people are dependent on agriculture, and where women and children are particularly vulnerable.

In addition to food, one of the main concerns in CAR is the lack of medicines and access to healthcare. Some 60 per cent of the health structures are managed by international organizations and non-governmental organizations, according to on Thursdays briefing.

Underfunding hampers the ability to respond, said Rochide. Failing to address the current needs will hamper all; affecting not only the country but the entire central African region.

She pleaded for the international community to leave no stone unturned and leave no one behind.

The security situation continued to deteriorate since May 2017, relapsing into violence that could lead to peak levels not seen since 2014, some along ethnic lines, said Rochdi.

She warned that the high number of people displaced from their homes renders reconciliation between the predominantly Muslim and the predominantly Catholic communities, as well as rebuilding services and homes destroyed in the fighting, extremely difficult.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited CAR last month, highlighting a crisis that he said had been largely forgotten by the international community. During the visit, he travelled to the PK5 area, a traditionally Muslim section of the capital Bangui, that had been the site of violence. He also met with local Christian leaders who spoke of reconciliation.

Peacekeepers from MINUSCA are working to protect people from communal tensions and stabilize areas where fighting had taken place.

Photo: MINUSCA/Nektarios Markogiannis

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Riyadh, Nov 10 (IBNS): The Middle East is rife with tension as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have all ordered its citizens to return from Lebanon, while urging them to not travel to the former nation, reports said.

Saudi Arabia's official news agency, SPA, quoted an official in the country's Foreign Ministry as stating, "Due to the situations in the Republic of Lebanon, the official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Saudi nationals visiting or residing in Lebanon are asked to leave the country as soon as possible."

"The Kingdom advised all citizens not to travel to Lebanon from any other international destinations," the official added.

Following the order, UAE and Kuwait too urged its citizens to refrain from travelling to Lebanon.

Bahrain, an important ally of Saudi Arabia had already ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon on Sunday.

Experts have said that the decision was taken amid standoff between Saudi Arabia and Iran, exacerbating the situation.



Riyadh has accused Lebanon based Hezbollah of being Tehran's proxy, hence placing the order.

The situation is so volatile, it may end up in a military confrontation, feel experts.

Image: Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al Hariri

Source: Twitter
Washington, Nov 5 (IBNS): US President Donald Trump has wished Sikh Americans and Sikhs around the world on the occasion of birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

"Today, President Donald J. Trump sends warm wishes to Sikh Americans and Sikhs around the world as they celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Devji, the founder and first guru of Sikhism," read a statement issued by the White House.

"The Sikh community today exemplifies the fundamental values that all Americans share: peace, tolerance, compassion, and service. President Trump also recognizes the many contributions Sikh Americans have made to our great Nation for more than 100 years, including through military and public service," it said.

The birth anniversary of the Sikh leader was observed on Saturday.
By PTI: (Eds: corrects a typo in para 2)

New Delhi, Nov 10 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modis pet Swachh Bharat mission today came in for sharp criticism by a top UN expert on sanitation who said it "lacked a holistic human rights approach", drawing swift reproval from the government.

The government also took exception to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation Leo Hellers reference to Mahatma Gandhis spectacles in the missions logo, and his "rambling" report containing "inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases".

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"In the last two weeks I have visited rural and urban areas, slums and settlement camps where undocumented population is residing... and I have found that these initiatives lack a more human rights approach," he said.

A press release by the office of the High Commissioner, United Nations Human Rights, on the issue, which had a reference to Mahatma Gandhi, drew strong criticism from the government. The release was distributed at the press conference.

"Everywhere I went, I saw the logo of the Clean India Mission- (Mahatma) Gandhis glasses. In its third year of implementation, now is a critical time to replace the lens of those glasses with the human rights lens," Heller was quoted as saying in the release.

Taking a strong note of his remarks on the logo of the Clean India Mission, the government issued a statement deploring that it showed "serious insensitivity towards the Father of the Nation".

The statement said the world knows that the Mahatma was the foremost proponent of human rights.

"Instead of taking the human rights approach to sanitation in a holistic way, a piecemeal approach is there," Heller told the press conference, and urged the government at all levels to impart a human rights perspective to its national programmes on safe drinking water and sanitation.

Heller today concluded his fortnight-long visit to the country during which he met several government officials and visited New Delhi, Kolkata, Imphal, Lucknow and Mumbai where he also visted a few slums.

The expert, charged by the UN Humans Rights Council, to monitor, report and advise on the realisation of the human rights to water and sanitation worldwide, said he also found that in certain areas people belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes faced "discrimination" in accessing toilets.

Eliminating open defecation is not just about building latrines, Heller said.

Heller said he had a "mixed perception" about the mission which was a unique initiative of India and launched by the Prime Minister himself.

"On my last day in India, the website of Clean India Mission showed 53 million toilets built in the last years, in rural areas only, (besides in urban areas). I need to recognise that it is very impressive," he said.

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He also brought up the issue of the human rights of manual scavengers.

"The governments emphasis on building toilets should not involuntarily contribute to violating the fundamental rights of others, such as those specific caste groups enagaged in manual scavenging, or those who are marginalised such as ethnic minorities living in remote rural areas," he said.

The government dismissed his preliminary findings as a "rambling report" and said it contained "inaccuracies, sweeping generalisations and biases".

"The report has been produced after only a two-week visit with fleeting trips to a few states and including some anecdotal reference," the government said, asserting its "highest commitment" to human rights in general and water supply and sanitation in particular.

The UN expert, who visited India at the invitation of the government will submit a full report on his findings with recommendations at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2018.

Heller was also critical of the certification mechanism being followed while declaring a particular area open- defecation free (ODF).

"The certification procedure is not very straightforward. According to responsible ministries, the protocol to certify an ODF area is not the same for rural and urban areas. I also learned that in some places, ODF certified areas are not de facto open defecation free," he said.

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Heller said the information, education and communication (IEC) mechanism used for the mission lacked proper methodology. He said just a few workshops and events were not enough for effective implementation of the mission and that sustained efforts needed to be made.

"Just dedicating funds is not enough. It is good the government has earmarked dedicated funds for the mission, but proper implementation through IEC is needed," he added.

The UN expert also said both sanitation and provision of safe drinking water should be accorded equal priority. PTI KND JTR SK SK

--- ENDS ---
The Islamic Republic is one of a very few nations to be subject to such a resolution on an annual basis, as widely reported domestic human rights issues continue to be perpetuated by the government regardless of international outcry. The vote on the latest resolution is scheduled to take place on November 14, and it is expected to pass easily. However, the precise breakdown of yay and nay votes is never exactly the same, and the joint letter seeks to widen the margin as much as possible, in order to send a stronger message to the Iranian regime.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran, being one of the signatories of the letter, published its full text on its website. It called attention to the fact that some observers had expected human rights improvements under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, but these have not materialized. Rouhani was embraced by some Western officials as a relative moderate when he first ran for the presidency in 2013, on a campaign that promised such popular moves as the release of Green Movement leaders who have been under house arrest since 2011.

This same promise, and others besides, were reiterated when Rouhani campaigned for reelection in May of this year. However, soon after his electoral victory, he began to distance himself from such promises, saying for instance that the release of the Green Movement leaders was primarily dependent upon the action of other state entities, including the notoriously hardline judiciary.

Other expectations stemming from Rouhanis moderate campaign platforms included a reduction in the rate of executions in the Islamic Republic, which carries out more death sentences per capita than any other nation on Earth. However, in 2015 alone, Rouhani oversaw nearly 1,000 confirmed executions. And Wednesdays open letter reported that at least 440 executions have been carried out so far in 2017.

These include numerous individuals who had been convicted of non-violent drug crimes, as well as some political prisoners and several individuals who had been juveniles at the time of their arrest. Each of these categories of killings is in violation of international laws and covenants, which are laid out in documents to which Iran is a signatory. The issue of juvenile executions has been a subject of recurring international activism, and it was meant to be addressed by a periodic review of UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which Iran participated in at the start of last year.

Despite this, the letter notes, at least nine juvenile offenders have since been put to death in the Islamic Republic. At least 20 others remain on death row. Irans non-responsiveness to the outcry on this issue is reflective of a broader refusal to participate in international dialogue on human rights issues. Iran maintains a domestic office that is supposedly charged with monitoring human rights, but in practice this office only functions to issue denials of international criticism, albeit without presenting evidence that the information cited by international human rights monitors is false.

Furthermore, Iran has barred the UNs special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran from entering the country, and has sentenced Iranians to prison for communicating with this and other human rights defenders. The office of the special rapporteur is currently occupied by Asma Jahangir, having been vacated by Ahmad Shaheed last year. Last month, Jahangir presented the United Nations with the results of a semi-annual report of the human rights situation. In doing so, she acknowledged positive signs in the form of some of Rouhanis public statements, but ultimately observed that various aspects of human rights had only grown worse in the Islamic Republic.

Even so, Rouhanis statements are not the only positive signs, though the significance of any of them is a matter of some debate. For instance, there has long been a push by more reform-minded politicians in the Islamic Republic to reduce the countrys rate of executions by changing the drug laws that account for the vast majority of death sentences.

These efforts had previously failed in parliament or been blocked by the Guardian Council, which is tasked with vetting all legislation and candidates for high office, to assure that they are in line with Islamic law and the will of the supreme leader. But recent reports indicate that the latest drug law reform measure successfully passed both of these obstacles. However, the actual reforms are modest and retain mandatory death sentences for some drug crimes, none of which rise to international standards for the most serious crimes, which arguably justify death sentences.

Furthermore, it is not clear what, if any, effect these changes will have on the actual activity of Iranian judges. No plan has been outlined for commuting the sentences of individuals who have already been sentenced to death for the lower-quantity drug trafficking crimes supposedly targeted by the reforms. And on Wednesday, the Iran Human Rights website reported that four drug offenders had been put to death in Urmia Central Prison. The report added that these killings were not officially announced by Iranian officials or state media, possibly suggesting a developing effort to mask non-compliance with the recent legal changes.

On the other hand, secrecy is not unique to this situation but is a common feature of the Iranian regimes record on human rights. As mentioned above, Iranians are barred from speaking to human rights defenders like the UN special rapporteur; and the regime will sometimes go to shocking lengths to enforce this ban.

According to a report issued by CHRI at the end of October, recent actions against the activist Mahmoud Salehi may stem in large part from the fact that he sent a letter to the office of the special rapporteur in 2015 after he was granted medical release while serving a sentence for propaganda against the state and creating an opposition group, namely a labor union. The letter explained that Salehi had lost both of his kidneys after prison officials cut off his medication and barred him from receiving specialized treatment until his urinary condition had greatly worsened.

The CHRI report and a subsequent follow-up describe how Salehi was re-arrested in October after security officials interrupted his dialysis treatment so as to order him to begin serving a one-year sentence handed down in February. The prisoner needs constant medication and specialized treatment twice a week, but since returning to prison he has reportedly been kept in conditions which led to him developing a further illness and ultimately being hospitalized after experiencing mild heart failure.

In addition to highlighting the lengths to which Tehran will go in criminalizing the spread of human rights information, this case also calls attention to the familiar use of medical deprivation as a means of exerting pressure on political prisoners. On Tuesday, Iran Human Rights Monitor reported upon one of many other such cases, namely that of Majid Asadi, an alleged supporter of the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran who was held in solitary confinement for 50 days after his February 18 arrest and who continues to be denied medical care despite digestive symptoms that may be indicative of bowel cancer.

The issue of medical deprivation gained particular traction in September when photographs began to circulate of the activist Alireza Rajaie, who lost an eye and part of his jaw as a result of cancer that went undiagnosed for months as he was refused access to specialized medical care, in defiance of the recommendations of prison physicians.
The Saudi response was widely regarded as the latest escalation of tensions between the Arab Kingdom and Irans Shiite theocracy. The Yemeni Civil War largely functions as a proxy war between the two regional rivals, with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition to push back against the Houthis and, more broadly, against Iranian imperialism throughout the region. Yemens missile capabilities were much lower before the civil war than they are today, and the improvements are presumably due to Iran, which has previously been credited with bolstering missile capabilities for Hamas, Hezbollah, and others.

Despite this track record and in contrast to the Saudi assignation of blame to the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials deny that they have provided the Houthis with sophisticated missile technology or other direct forms of support. But several weapons caches have been seized en route from Iran to Houthi territory in Yemen, and it is all but certain that others have made it through the international blockade of the southern Arabian country.

Presumably influence by this and similar evidence, the United States weighed in on the attempted missile strike on Wednesday, repeating the Saudi accusations against Iran. As reported by the Associated Press, the White House statement on the topic vowed to stand with Persian Gulf allies against Irans blatant violations of international law. This, of course, comes as no surprise in light of President Donald Trumps recent moves to further strengthen American posture toward Iran  a strategy that includes decertification of Iranian compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement and the imposition of broad-ranging counterterrorism sanctions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The IRGC is responsible for the lions share of Iranian intervention into foreign territory, and despite its officials repeating denials of direct Iranian involvement with the Houthi, the IRGC also used the attempted missile strike to boast about Irans regional network and to predict additional attacks. A day after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and IRGC head Mohammad Ali Bagheri issued statements praising the missile launch and predicting more of the same aimed at both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Houthis issued virtually identical threats.

On Wednesday, Irans English-language propaganda network Press TV quoted the political office of the Houthi movement as saying, All airports, ports, border crossings and areas of any importance to Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be a direct target of our weapons, which is a legitimate right.

Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir asserted a similar right of the Arab kingdom to respond in kind if attacked by Iran, as reported by UPI. Presumably, this threat was intended to implicitly refer to an attack from Irans proxies as well as from the armed forces of the Islamic Republic itself. However, the Washington Post issued an analysis of Saudi Arabias multi-front response to Iranian imperialism in which it concluded that Riyadh was very unlikely to launch a direct military campaign, at least without the explicit consent of the United States, which has so far emphasizes a more indirect approach to containing Iranian influence.

Nevertheless, the Washington Post piece justified the expectation of ongoing escalation in a number of proxy conflicts, by no means limited to Yemen. In fact, the immediate aftermath of the Houth missile launch has seen a spate of accusations on both sides regarding Iranian and Saudi designs for areas of competing influence. Prominent among these is Lebanon, where Iran controls a significant portion of the political and social infrastructure through its sponsorship of the Hezbollah paramilitary group. Saudi interests in that same country had been advanced by its Saudi-origin Prime Minister Saad Hariri, until he unexpectedly resigned after traveling to Riyadh at the end of last week.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had responded publicly to this situation, calling it an act of sedition by Saudi Arabia against the government of Lebanon. Rouhani also called Saudi interference in Lebanese affairs unprecedented, on the assumption that Hariri had been directed or even forced to resign by his Saudi patrons. However, Hariri himself claimed to be in fear of potential assassination plots, presumably originating with Hezbollah. And as previously reported, his resignation came one day after a meeting with Ali Akbar Velayati, a close advisor of the Iranian supreme leader, during which the Iranians may have issued an ultimatum regarding the protection of their militant proxy.

Indeed, in his resignation speech from Riyadh, which closely coincided with the Houthi missile launch, Hariri made explicit reference to the Iranian regime, accusing it of broad interference in Arab affairs and of using Hezbollah to hold Lebanon hostage. Separately, Saudi officials accused the Lebanese government of siding with Hezbollah and sowing strife in the region  actions that they characterized as possibly constituting a declaration of war against Saudi Arabia.

It may be difficult to determine which side, if either, is more correct in its accusations of undue interference by the other. But it is fairly clear that each side is proceeding with its foreign policy on the assumption that its rivals influence presents a significant threat. According to the aforementioned Washington Post analysis, Saudi Arabia has full support from the Donald Trump White House in its efforts to confront Tehran on multiple fronts  a conclusion that was backed up by the White House statement on the Houthi missile launch.

But the same analysis also suggests that this confrontation has so far proven ineffective in contracting Irans imperial reach. No doubt this is largely because of countermeasures employed by the Iranian regime, which have helped to defend recent gains from such developments as the collapse of the opposition to Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Saudi Arabia, the United States, and their allies face an uphill battle to weaken Iranian influence there, as a number of Iran-backed Shiite militias have become closely integrated into the countrys armed forces while retaining their own organizational structures. Meanwhile, Iranian officials are putting forth effort to encourage further cooperation between their government and that of Assad. Reuters reported that Velayati, the same Iranian figure who may have sparked the Lebanese PMs resignation, was in the devastated city of Aleppo on Wednesday, where he once again praised a supposedly broad network of alliances centered on Tehran.

This visit came only about two weeks after Bagheri, the IRGC commander, made his own trip to Syria. And while Irans adversaries struggle to secure their own, comparable footholds in Syria, the IRGCs sponsorship of and apparent provision of missile technology to the Houthi continues to force Saudi Arabia to play defense much closer to its own borders.
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Actor Kevin Spacey is facing more career problems as the number of accusations of sexual wrongdoing against him increase.

Friday, a major movie company said it planned to replace the actor in a film set for release next month.

Sony Pictures says it will remove Spacey from the film project All the Money in the World. It says it will re-shoot his parts with Academy Award winning actor Christopher Plummer.

Movie director Ridley Scott is working quickly to make the changes to the film in order to meet the planned release date of December 22.

In the movie, Spacey played the late oil businessman J. Paul Getty. The film tells the story about the kidnapping of Gettys grandson, John Paul Getty III, in 1973. Getty refused to pay for his grandsons release.

Sony announced earlier that it was withdrawing the movie from the American Film Institute film festival in Los Angeles.

Several movie and television companies have cut ties with Spacey after the actor Anthony Rapp accused him of sexual assault. The incident is reported to have taken place in 1986 when Rapp was 14 years old.

In a statement, Spacey said he did not remember such an event but that he was sorry if it happened.

Since then, more than 10 men have accused Spacey of sexual wrongdoing.

The movie and television streaming company Netflix has since dismissed Spacey from its series House of Cards and withheld another Spacey film.

On Wednesday, a former television news reporter, Heather Unruh, accused Spacey of sexually attacking her son last year. The incident reportedly took place on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

Unruh says a criminal investigation is taking place. However, Nantucket police are barred from confirming or denying the case because it involves sexual assault accusations.

Unruh said, I just want to see Kevin Spacey go to jail. She added that she wanted this not just for my son, but for the many others.

British news reports say police in London are investigating sexual assault claims from 2008.

At least two other men have accused Spacey of sexually molesting them when they were teenagers.

Im Lucija Millonig.

Kenneth Schwartz and Richard Green reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

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Words in This Story

assault n. carrying out an act of violence or threatening to do violence against someone

streaming adj. related to send video content such as movies, television shows or live material over the internet

harassment n. to repeatedly have unwanted interactions with someone

molesting v. to harm someone in a sexual way

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.
By PTI: mills

Lucknow, Nov 10 (PTI) Taking a serious note of the boiler blast at Unchahar power plant and loss of lives, Uttar Pradeshs sugarcane department has issued instructions making ash cleaning compulsory in every shift in all the sugar mills.

Strict instructions have been issued to general managers of sugar mills to ensure proper and smooth operation of boilers, Principal Secretary, sugar industry and sugarcane development, Sanjay Bhoosreddy said.

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The GMs are required to ensure operations of shoot blower on every shift for internal cleaning of boilers to avoid clinker formation and ash deposition, use of quality water and not using raw water in any case, he said.

The blast in Unchahar power plant in Rae Bareli, which claimed several lives, was reportedly triggered in the duct connected to the boiler which is used for transferring ash of burnt coal. It is believed that the ash pipe got choked, leading to the blast. PTI SAB ABM

--- ENDS ---


November 11 is Veterans Day in the United States. But because Veterans Day falls on a Saturday this year, Friday, November 10 is a federal holiday.

A veteran is anyone who has served in the armed forces. Veterans Day honors the living. A separate holiday, Memorial Day in May, honors those who died in military service.

The United States has about 18.5 million veterans. The term veteran is not just for those who have served in wars. It describes anyone who has ever been in the military.

On November 11, communities across the country hold ceremonies and parades to mark Veterans Day. Military bands play. Public officials take part in the events. And soldiers fire guns into the air in a salute to remember those who died in service to their country.

The history of Veterans Day relates to World War I. Many people at the time called it the war to end all wars.

The United States entered the fighting in Europe in 1917. But the U.S. armed forces were small. So the government began to draft men between the ages of 21 and 31.

The men came from cities and farms. Some were rich. Others were poor. There were doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and college students. Many were married.

The following year, the government expanded the draft. Now it called on men between the ages of 18 and 45. More than 13 million reported for duty.

Many women joined the armed forces, too. Most got office jobs at military bases in the United States. Some, however, went to France to work as nurses in battlefield hospitals.

World War I ended when Germany surrendered at 11 o'clock in the morning on November 11, 1918 -- in other words, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

The following year, President Woodrow Wilson signed a declaration to observe November 11th as Armistice Day in the United States. It would be a day to honor the men and women who had served in the U.S. armed forces during the war.

In 1926, Congress made Armistice Day a national holiday.

But new problems were on the way. Soon, everyone knew that World War I would not be the war to end all wars.

In all, more than 4,000,000 Americans served in the armed forces during the first World War. And 16 million would serve during the second one.

Armistice Day in 1945 was a special day in the United States.

Germany had surrendered in May 1945. And Japan surrendered in August of that year.

Most of the men and women who had served in the war were home. So, instead of honoring just veterans of World War I, Americans also honored veterans of World War II.

In 1954, Congress decided to change the name of Armistice Day. The holiday became Veterans Day.

Im Dorothy Gundy.

Jerilyn Watson wrote this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

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Words in This Story

draft  v. to choose for some purpose, such as military service

nurse  n. someone who has training to care for sick or injured people

oclock  adj. used to show position on a close or time piece

hour  n. the time of day, based on two 12-hour periods
The film Casablanca is one of the most famous American movies of all time.

At the end of the film, the actor Humphrey Bogart says a heartbreaking farewell to the woman he loves.

Bergman: But what about us?

Bogart: We'll always have Paris.

Besides affecting ones emotions, this movie scene can teach you a lot about English grammar. It can show you how English speakers use adverbs in a sentence.

In our program today, we explore a single word: always. We will discover why Bogart said his famous line the way he did.

Do not worry. Unlike the ending of Casablanca, we will not leave you in tears!

Adverbs and Movability

In other Everyday Grammar stories, we explored adverbs.

Adverbs are words that change the meaning of a verb, adjective, or sentence. They are often used to show time, place, or a way of doing things.

Adverbs are often movable. They can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence.

Consider these examples:

Occasionally I eat seafood.

I occasionally eat seafood.

I eat seafood occasionally.

In this example, the adverb occasionally appears in three different places in the sentence. The placement of the adverb does not change the meaning. All three sentences have the same meaning. Most English speakers would not think it strange if you used any one of these sentences.

Always is not as movable

What about the adverb always?

In general, the adverb always is not as movable as other kinds of adverbs  like the word occasionally.

You will not often hear an English speaker use always at the beginning or the end of a sentence.

Most often, you will hear always in the middle of the sentence, before the verb it is modifying.

In some cases, you might hear it at the beginning of a sentence  when giving an order or command, for example.*

Or you might hear it at the end of a sentence, but usually only in an artistic setting: a poetry reading or a musical performance, for example.

But the central point is this: in speaking and in writing, always does not move its position as often as other adverbs.

So, if you were to take our example sentence, "I eat seafood," and use the adverb always, you could say, "I always eat seafood."

Always generally is found after BE verbs and auxiliary verbs, but before other verbs.

You will find this structure in many popular films. Consider this famous line from A Streetcar Named Desire:

"Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951

In the example, always appears after the auxiliary verb, have, and just before the main verb, depended.

This same idea is true of Bogart's famous line from Casablanca,

"We'll always have Paris."

"We'll" is a short way to say, "we will." Always appears after the auxiliary verb, will, and before the main verb, have.

Emphasized always

You might think that our story about the word always ends here, but it does not!

English speakers can also change the meaning of always.

When you hear or read the adverb always in its usual position, before the verb it is modifying. It generally has the meaning of habitually.

However, sometimes you will hear English speakers emphasize the word always.

In this case, the meaning of the sentence has changed. Think back to our example sentence: "I always eat seafood."

This sentence means that you usually eat seafood  perhaps when you go to a restaurant.

If the speaker says, "I ALWAYS eat seafood," with the emphasis on the word "always," then the speaker is expressing annoyance. Perhaps the speaker is angry that another person  a close friend, for example  did not remember they like to eat seafood when they go out to dinner.

Here is another example: you hear a child say, "My father always works late on Thursdays." This sentence uses the adverb always to express a habitual or common action.

However, if you hear the child say, "My dad ALWAYS works late on Thursdays," then you know that the child is unhappy with the father's work schedule.

What can you do?

So, now you know that if Bogart had used the emphasized always in the film Casablanca, the ending of the film would have been very different.

The next time you are listening or speaking, try to pay attention to the placement of the word always. Then, try to identify if it is emphasized or not. This will help you understand the speaker's feelings.

Remember: English does not always communicate meaning through grammar. Emphasis plays an important role in showing the meaning of a sentence.

With practice, you, too, will be able to use always like a native speaker!

Im Pete Musto.

And I'm John Russell.

John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

*Always can begin imperative sentences. Here is an example: Always wear your seatbelt.

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Words in this Story

farewell  n. an act of leaving

adverb  n. a word that describes a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a sentence and that is often used to show time, manner, place, or degree

occasionally  adv. sometimes but not often

emphasize  v. to place emphasis on (something)

auxiliary verb  n. a verb (such as have, be, may, do, shall, will, can, or must) that is used with another verb to show the verb's tense, to form a question, etc.

modify  v. to limit or describe the meaning of (a word or group of words)

scene  n. a part of a play, movie, story, etc., in which a particular action or activity occurs
2 The Irati River flows rapidly after the rainfall during an autumn day, near the small Pyrenees town of Arce, Spain.
Pocahontas is one of the most famous figures in American history. Many books and films portray her as a beautiful American Indian princess who made sacrifices to serve British colonial interests. These stories also suggest that she saved Englands first Virginia settlers from death and starvation.

Most likely none of that is true.

Pocahontas was the daughter of Pamunkey Chief Wahunsenaca. He was leader of an alliance of about thirty Algonquian tribes and bands in Virginia when the British arrived in 1607.

This did not make her a princess however. Royalty was a European idea. Her family called her Matoaka, flower between two streams. This likely referred to their home between Virginias Mattaponi and Pamunkey Rivers.

Tradition has said that her father also called her Pocahontas. This has several possible meanings, including wanton to mischievous. The name suggests she had a lively personality.

Little is known of Pocahontas childhood. Linwood Little Bear Custalow was a member of the Mattaponi tribe, an ally of Wahunsenacas. Dr. Linwoods book, The True Story of Pocahontas, the Other Side of History reports about Mattaponi oral history. It says Matoakoa married a young Potowomac fighter named Kocoum when she was about 14. They had a child called Little Kocoum, who was raised among the Mattaponi. The book also says that the English murdered the older Kocoum.

Pocahontass imprisonment

In 1613, the English took Pocahontas and imprisoned her because they thought it would help influence negotiations with her father. They kept her for a year at the settlement of Jamestown.

At some point during her imprisonment, Pocahontas was declared a Christian and her British captors gave her a new name: Rebecca. The Mattaponi say at one point the English settlers permitted her sister to visit her. During that visit Pocahontas told her sister that she had been raped.

During her time at Jamestown, a British farmer named John Rolfe took an interest in her. The details of their relationship are not clear. In his writings, Rolfe said that he loved Pocahontas but also recognized that a marriage alliance between Britain and Virginia tribes would be helpful.

Rolfe married Pocahontas in 1614, and she gave birth to a son, Thomas. The Mattaponi say her father did not attend the wedding. However he gave her a necklace made of pearls harvested from Virginia's coastal waters as a gift.

Pocahontas later traveled to England with Rolfe and Thomas to help bring attention to the new Virginia colony. She was presented to the Queen as Virginias first Christian. Historical records say she was well-received.

However, Pocahontas became sick, and later died before she and Rolfe could return to Virginia. She was buried at St. Georges Church in the Kent town of Gravesend on March 21, 1617. A memorial statue for Pocahontas stands there today.

Famous for an unclear story

Pocahontas is most famous for an event that likely never happened: Saving British explorer Captain John Smith from death by Chief Wahunsenaca in 1607.

Smith claimed that he had been taken prisoner by a group of fighters, who brought him before Chief Wahunsenaca. Smith said they were ready to kill him with a club. But, he wrote, Pocahontas threw herself down on top of the prisoner, which saved his life.

Today, the Mattaponi say it could not have happened. They say such behavior would not have been consistent with Virginia Native culture or custom. Non-Native researchers also suspect the truth of this story, taking note that even in his own time, people saw Smith as a liar who had an inflated sense of his own importance.

Im Phil Dierking.

This story was originally written by Cecily Hilleary for VOANews. Phil Dierking adapted the story for VOA Learning. Caty Weaver was the editor.

Does your country have history stories that might not be true? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

alliance - n. a union between people, groups, countries, etc.

baptize - v. to officially make someone a member of a specified Christian church through the ceremony of baptism

exaggerate - v. to think of or describe something as larger or greater than it really is

mischievous - adj. causing or tending to cause annoyance or minor harm or damage

oral - adj. of or relating to the mouth

pearl - n. a hard, shiny, white ball that is formed inside the shell of an oyster and that is often used as jewelry

royalty - n. members of a royal family

wanton - adj. showing no thought or care for the rights, feelings, or safety of others


00:00:02 OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.

00:00:08 ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.

00:00:14 LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.

00:00:19 DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.

00:00:27 CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.

00:00:35 JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.

00:00:40 JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, youd better not miss them.

00:00:52 LEE BERGER: These bones that were finding are of individuals that lay somewhere in our deep family tree.

00:01:03 ALICE WINKLER: This is What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement. Im Alice Winkler, and this is Lee Berger. He hunts for human ancestors, and is transforming our understanding of evolution.

00:01:23 LEE BERGER: Every single person is interested to know who their parents are, who your grandparents are, who your great-grandparents are. Genealogy websites and that work are hugely popular. Why? The reason is because every human being on this planet at some point realizes that the people who they descend from in the past carry traits and behaviors that are now part of them.

00:01:54 And as we try to understand ourselves as humans, something only humans can do, we explore our inner selves. We are looking for causality, reason. We want to know not only why we look physically like this, but often, the more important, why we behave like this. Well, people like me just do that in the deep depths of time.

00:02:19 ALICE WINKLER: People like Lee Berger are called paleoanthropologists, but it would be hard to argue that there are many paleoanthropologists like Lee Berger. In 2008, he found a new species, an ancient relative of humans called Australopithecus sediba, or just sediba for short, and in September of 2015, Lee Berger made headlines again when he announced hed found a cave filled with skeletons of another human relative no one had seen before, a species he named Homo naledi.

00:03:00 These two discoveries are forcing a rewrite of the story of evolution. Lee Berger sat down with the Academy of Achievement twice to talk about his pioneering work, once in 2012, and again soon after the Homo naledi news broke. Both times he was wearing the kind of leather jacket you might expect to see on an intrepid explorer, a la Indiana Jones. You can occasionally hear the creak of the leather as he talks.

00:03:32 And Bergers stories are often jaw-dropping, filled with enough suspense and drama to warrant a Hollywood movie. But Berger has also known years of fruitless searching, epic dead ends, and academic acrimony. We will cover all of that and more in this episode, but it seemed more fun to start with the tales of action and adventure.

00:04:03 In the autumn of 2013, Berger was hoping to find new bones  well, new very old bones, in whats known as the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, in South Africa. Its where hed found sediba several years before. This time he sent a team of cave explorers underground.

00:04:26 LEE BERGER: And on September 13, they went into one of the best-known cave systems in the entire region, if not all of South Africa, the Rising Star system. They went off the map, though, and they found a place at the top of a collapse we call Dragon's Back, and there they looked down a seven-and-a-half-inch slot. Now imagine, they're already a hundred feet underground. They're looking into this slot and, of course, what do they do?

00:04:51 They go into it, and they go down it about 50 feet and drop into a chamber, and in that chamber are bones scattered across the floor. They're bones that they thought were the kind that I was looking for, and their camera didn't function, so they had to come back out. It was about a four-and-a-half-hour trip at that time. They told me that they thought they'd found something, but I said, you know, "Bring me pictures, and I'm not going to believe you unless I see pictures of this," because I get that kind of thing all the time.

00:05:22 You know, people call you up and say they found a skull, and it's a plastic baby doll head or something that they got out of their backyard.

00:05:28 ALICE WINKLER: A few weeks went by. Nothing. Berger says he forgot about the whole thing, and then one night at about nine p.m., someone showed up at his door.

00:05:39 LEE BERGER: I answered the intercom, and Pedro, who was a student that I had enlisted as sort of the team leader, was on the other end. He said, "You're going to want to let us in," and I almost didn't because it was kind of a creepy voice like that. In they came, lifted up a laptop, and there I saw a picture that I thought I'd never see. There, sitting on this photograph, was a jawbone that I could see was a primitive hominid, but it was just lying there on the floor. Next picture was a skull.

00:06:07 Next picture, a series of bones of a body, it looked like. I'd never seen anything like that in all of my career, just lying there on the floor, and so we celebrated a little. I couldn't sleep that night. Picked up the phone at two a.m., called National Geographic.

00:06:25 ALICE WINKLER: National Geographic agreed to fund an expedition to bring up the bones, but because of the extremely tight and treacherous space the scientists were going to need to get through  remember, seven-and-a-half inches wide  Berger had to advertise for skinny little risk-taking scientists. He ended up with six volunteers who fit the bill, all women. He calls them underground astronauts.

00:06:54 LEE BERGER: Within a week, we had the richest hominid site ever discovered in the history of South Africa, and by the end of a 21-day expedition, wed found more fossils of primitive hominids than had been discovered in the entire history of the search for human origins, and we left thousands in the chamber. It's probably the richest site ever discovered in the world. It's like our version of Tutankhamun's tomb.

00:07:23 ALICE WINKLER: Before the expedition began, Lee Berger explains, he thought that they were onto one skeleton, which would have been miracle enough.

00:07:32 LEE BERGER: You know, this is a field of fragments. We dont find these things, and I'd already had my lottery ticket punched with sediba, you know. I had my skeletons from that discovery. I went after this second one with all the expectation of a fragmented skeleton that we would get out of some species. I never in the world expected that chamber to have that richness, and I really didn't expect to find another new species.

00:08:01 ALICE WINKLER: Berger and his team were able to put together enough complete skeletons - male, female, young and old, to confidently form a picture of what this creature looked like.

00:08:12 LEE BERGER: So the easiest way to sort of describe Homo naledi is, it's not a human, first. You've got to get that out of your mind, but it is standing on two legs. Imagine something standing on two legs. It's probably about five feet tall but ultrathin. If you were looking at it across a room, you'd immediately know you're not looking at a human, or if you are, there's something wrong with him because perched atop that five-foot body is going to be a pinhead, a head literally with a brain the size of an orange.

00:08:45 The shoulders would be high and almost a brought-up sort of  held like an ape would hold its shoulders, but then you'd notice that the arms would be more human proportioned. The hands would look like a human hand, except they'd be held and curved out at the end so that they wouldn't be flat. They would just be sort of more like an ape at the end but human proportioned.

00:09:11 When you got down to the hips, they'd be sort of flared, but again, a very slender body, and then long, skinny legs, which, at the very end of that, a humanlike foot.

00:09:23 ALICE WINKLER: Homo naledi may have just been discovered, but because of the huge number of bone fragments involved  over 1,500 pieces from 15 individuals  scientists probably already know more about it than almost any other species of human relative ever discovered. Berger says they dont yet know its age because the tools now available arent well suited for the condition these bones were found in.

00:09:51 Homo naledi may have lived a hundred thousand years ago or as much as three million years ago. Either way, naledis physique and its behavior are providing scientists with crucial new insights.

00:10:06 LEE BERGER: And so, we can say that Homo naledi was a climber, but we dont know what it was climbing. It has these very different hands than any kind of hominid we've ever seen before, with those long, curved fingers.

00:10:20 We know it's a long distance walker. It's got these long legs, and it's walking in much the way a human is. We can even see that in the way the foot and ankle are constructed, but it's doing it somehow a little bit differently because the pelvis is constructed differently. So you've got a climbing, long distance walker, but perhaps what's most amazing about it is that we've also had a glimpse into its behavior.

08:45:55 We've hypothesized, after eliminating pretty much everything else, that Homo naledi was deliberately disposing of its dead, which means it's got a mind that has the capacity that we previously thought was not only unique to humans, but perhaps identified humans  the concept, perhaps, of the recognition of self-mortality.

00:11:07 ALICE WINKLER: That bears repeating, repeating and elaborating. Lee Berger and his colleagues are quite certain that these creatures were intentionally disposing of their dead. Baruch Shemtov, who spoke to Dr. Berger for the Academy of Achievement in 2015, asked how he could be so sure.

00:11:28 LEE BERGER: We were faced with a dilemma. About day four, we realized that there was nothing in this chamber but hominids. All of us have degrees in archeology, forensic anthropology, and we kind of knew what it meant to see a truly monospecific assemblage. It's rare to the point of unique in the paleontological record. Well, except for one species, Homo sapiens. This wasn't Homo sapiens. We knew that very early on.

00:11:57 We knew it was primitive, and so we began trying to eliminate things. We could easily eliminate, eventually, that it wasn't a predator. There were no marks of that. There was no scavenging. We knew that it wasn't a mass death assemblage because they had come in one after the other. We could tell that from studies of how the bones had  were laid out, and also how they were weathering. We knew that they hadn't died in some collapse. We knew they weren't washed in there. We could see that from the sediments.

00:12:26 We went through everything, and we were eventually left with this one hypothesis, that this non-human species of animal was doing something that we previously thought only humans did, deliberately disposing of its dead.

00:12:44 BARUCH SHEMTOV: And why would that be so significant?

00:12:47 LEE BERGER: Well, up until September 10, when we announced that we have a species of non-human animal that deliberately disposes of its dead in a ritualized fashion  at least that's the best hypothesis  it was thought that that was not only unique to humans, but perhaps identified us. Now we have to rethink what it means to be a human.

00:13:12 ALICE WINKLER: Lee Berger emphasized several times during this interview that no one knows where this species, Homo naledi, fits into the human family tree. And more than that, he said, its probably the wrong question to be asking. If anything, Homo naledi and Bergers previous discovery, sediba, seem to indicate that there is no one family tree. More likely, there are branches that split off, developed, and came back together at times.

00:13:42 Thats why Berger calls these two species human relatives rather than human ancestors. On the path to humankind, he says, there were lots of different experiments. I want to switch gears here and take you on Lee Bergers personal path, the path that brought him to sediba and Homo naledi eventually, but that began in the mid-1960s on the farm where he grew up outside the tiny town of Sylvania, Georgia. It's far, far away in every way from where he now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

00:14:19 LEE BERGER: I was always collecting things. I would spend my time in the woods whenever I could. Some unfortunate animals ended up in terrariums or aquariums in my house, or I would be out in the plowed fields looking for arrowheads or Native American artifacts or rocks. I came from a sort of long line of these sorts of explorers, if you will. My grandfather was an oil wildcatter. I have deep history in sodbusters, the first pioneers going out, and all types of sort of people who were always never happy to be right where they were but always looking for something.

00:14:55 And I found a real thrill in seeing things other people missed, you know, seeing the anomaly, if you will.

00:15:04 ALICE WINKLER: His dad sold insurance. His mom was a math teacher, but all he wanted to do was stay outdoors. He was an Eagle Scout, head of the Georgia 4H Club. You get the picture.

00:15:17 LEE BERGER: I began to become interested in wildlife conservation and biology. I found out there was an endangered species in my region called the gopher tortoise, and that took me to national competitions, and it also introduced me to the first scientists Id ever met, and they were hugely formative. And I ended up starting the first gopher tortoise preserve in the state of Georgia.

00:15:41 It's now the state reptile, and it was a big part of teaching me not just about passion when you find something, but about the process of what you do to study something or to actually make something happen. It also taught me a little bit about politics, which, you know, getting some other people to become interested in something and assist you in accomplishing something.

00:16:05 ALICE WINKLER: But Lee Berger decided he ought to study law. Why is not such a big mystery, he explained in this interview with journalist Gail Eichenthal. Anyone whos ever had parents can figure it out. When youre young, he said, what other people want you to be is often the easiest way out. Berger got into Vanderbilt University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but after his first few pre-law courses, he says, he was ready to die.

00:16:36 But he had gotten a scholarship to do what he was doing and didnt see an escape.

00:16:41 LEE BERGER: My transcript looked sort of like F, D, D, F in my core subjects of what I was supposed to be, and then A, A, A in everything I was taking as an elective. And I reached a critical point where it was literally one of those situations where I was going to fail out of college, or I had to do something radical in my life.

00:17:05 And I had one of those incredible moments when I met a person who didnt realize how influential he would be in my life, in the young lieutenant who was my advisor in the Naval ROTC, because I went in on the verge of failing out. Now I was lucky enough at that time that we had the two-year process, so I'd gone a year-and-a-bit into it, so I wouldnt have to go enlisted, but I was in trouble.

00:17:33 And I went to him, and I said, "Gosh, you know, it's not working, and I think I'm maybe going to drop out for a while, maybe enlist in the Navy, and find myself, because this isn't working." And this young lieutenant, who had my life in his hands, he could have told me  and it would have been in his interests, because they're recruiting officers in some ways, to say, "Absolutely." Or, you know  he leaned across the table, and he said, "What is this, when you look at it?" And he had my transcript, and he shoved it across, and, you know, I was like, "Failure?"

00:18:09 You know, that was  and he said, "No, look at it again. Don't look at the Ds and Fs. Look at that again." And I said, "I don't see it." And he said, "I see your passion there. I see what you love. You just don't realize it." He said, "Youre not enlisted material. You need to find your love." And he said, "I will let you out of here right now as long as you promise me to go do what you love."

00:18:38 And he signed my release papers. I put my stay at Vanderbilt in abeyance, and I walked out the door into a very interesting period, but where I then found that thing and never looked back.

00:18:55 ALICE WINKLER: It wasnt a straight shot to paleoanthropology. His journey included a stint as a news cameraman and the dramatic rescue of a drowning woman, but eventually Berger did get back to school, this time at East Georgia College.

00:19:10 LEE BERGER: And there I met a geologist who just exploded the world of fossils that were all around me. I had no idea, in the place that I lived, this low country, of what was around me. I met this  these passionate English professors and mathematicians. My grades, of course, rocked, because it wasn't work anymore. I stayed there for a brief period, got my grades back, went down to Georgia Southern University because it was the only place I could afford.

00:19:38 You know, I was on my own on this one. Id had my scholarship chance. And I walked into another place with  that was just full of these rare, passionate academics and scientists. I had, by that time, read a book that fundamentally changed my life, and it was Lucy, and I actually took this book from the library. I did eventually pay the fine and put it back, but I couldnt put it down.

00:20:06 ALICE WINKLER: Lucy, discovered in 1974 by Don Johanson and Tom Gray, was the first skeleton found of an early hominid, which is to say an animal that walks upright on two legs. Until Lucy, the field of paleoanthropology was based mostly on scraps and conjecture, which the book Lee Berger was reading made clear.

00:20:30 LEE BERGER: And there was one line in there that struck me, when Don, who would eventually become a great friend and mentor of mine, said that these early hominid fossils are effectively the rarest sought-after objects on Earth, and there's something like a one-in-ten-million chance of finding one. And I had just before then been thinking of becoming a dinosaur paleontologist or something, and I  that line so intrigued me because the first thought that came into my mind was not, "Gee, who would want to go into a field of science where you have no chance of finding something?"

00:21:11 But, "There's a field that you can make a difference with even the smallest discovery," and I wanted to make a difference.

00:21:21 ALICE WINKLER: Not too much later, Lee Berger met his hero, Don Johanson. Johanson liked him and invited him to join in on a project in Tanzania. When the project didnt come through, though, Johanson arranged for Lee Berger to join a different research expedition in Kenya with the other most-famous paleontologist of that era, Richard Leakey.

00:21:44 LEE BERGER: My first morning there, I couldnt sleep. Here I was. You know, these are the fossil fields of Africa. I woke up early. All the rest of the students stayed asleep, and I walked in. I saw the light on in this small encampment in the middle  right on the edge of Lake Turkana, middle of Africa, and there I met a man, John Kimengich, one of Richard Leakeys fossil hunters, and he chatted to me for a moment. He was having tea.

00:22:12 It was probably 4:30, and then when he said, "You know, you want to go look for fossils with me? I'm going out now." I said, "Of course." Over the next several hours, he taught me how to find these anomalies, how to see these things, and as we were walking back to the Land Rover, 11:00 in the morning  it gets too hot to work  a hundred meters from the Land Rover, I look down, and there was a piece of a femur, this leg bone, of an early hominid. I found my first hominid  one-in-ten-million chance  my first day. It was completely  I was hooked.

00:22:46 ALICE WINKLER: Fast forward not too many years, Lee Berger, now just in his early 30s, had rocketed to a position as chair of a very prestigious research unit at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

00:23:01 LEE BERGER: I'd taken over from a very powerful and famous paleoanthropologist named Phillip Vallentine Tobias, and I had made some discoveries. And when I first got to South Africa to do my Ph.D., I discovered two little hominid teeth, but those two teeth were the first new early hominid site discovered in Southern Africa in 48 years. They appeared in National Geographic, two teeth. That's how rare this stuff was at the time.

00:23:32 I had done other work looking at what killed the Taung Child. I had looked at body proportions, but I had not made major hominid discoveries because they are just that rare. And I had gotten into the type of ups and downs and wars  I'd had the most ferocious fights with colleagues, and I was always pushing boundary. I also took a stance in the late 1990s about open access to fossils.

00:24:03 Youve got to remember  it's very important to remember  that I'm almost the first generation of scientists, people my age and just maybe a year older, that were never without a computer. It makes us think differently, and, in the late 1990s, there were some behavioral abnormalities within paleoanthropology that bothered me a lot. And I was in a very powerful position, a young man made director in seemingly one of the most powerful chairs in the science of paleoanthropology. And I had fossils that had been found by other people, albeit in the very distant past, under my control.

00:24:40 And in this science, those are resources, and I decided to open them up, let everyone look at them. It now is called open access. We didnt have a name for it at that time, really, but I took a relatively public stance on that, that I was going to let people see these fossils. It was not the way it was done.

00:25:00 ALICE WINKLER: Keep in mind, the idea of an online database was still pretty novel at the time, so that's not what Lee Bergers talking about here.

00:25:09 LEE BERGER: That was yet to be. No, I meant physically look at them. I meant  and it may sound strange to people, but let scientific colleagues see material, published or unpublished. And that was not the norm. The norm at that time was  and I'm not criticizing it, I'm just explaining how the science worked. You would gather a small team of people around you when you had important fossils, and you would study them over years and years and years and years, and then, at times, you would pronounce on the analyses that you had carefully conducted.

00:25:46 While that's not wrong in any way, shape, or form, it was different than the way my generation thinks about the value. We grew up in the age of where you have a Google or a Facebook or the Internet, where we didn't know what anything was worth until you put it out there and began to establish its worth as a community, as you tested the robusticity of it as you went along.

00:26:13 And so, I was looking at the fossils the same way, and I said, "I'm going to open the safe door." Well, it was probably a decade too early to say that, and it caused wars. It coincided with also a discovery of a very major fossil by a person older than me that worked for me. That caused tension and conflicts.

00:26:34 ALICE WINKLER: All in all, it was one of the lowest periods in his career. Berger says some of the academic infighting caused him to dissolve his own unit, which hed spent six or seven years building. Eventually, he rebuilt it, but the problems persisted, and then technology shifted with the advent of 3D imaging and reliable large data.

00:26:58 LEE BERGER: Because my exploration efforts looking for fossils in various sites and stuff had not produced any really big hits, the push by things like the universities and colleagues was to move away from exploration. There was very much a real feel that wed probably pretty much discovered every major fossil field in Africa, and, in fact, some scientists even wrote that down at the turn of the millennia.

00:27:27 ALICE WINKLER: It was becoming clear to Lee Berger that the future of paleoanthropology was going to be in the lab, looking at the fossils already discovered decades before with new tools. Berger began thinking about a career shift.

00:27:43 LEE BERGER: It was going to be very hard to continue to get the kind of resources to fund risk-taking exploration. People were clearly not believing that there were other sites out there. There were talks of not even allowing digging at new sites because they clearly had failed, and I'd almost been a demonstration of that over 17 years. It was at that moment that I became the last human being on Earth to discover Google Earth.

00:28:09 ALICE WINKLER: Berger had spent the previous three years using a handheld GPS and satellite maps he bought from NASA for thousands - sometimes tens of thousands - of dollars, to try and plot the coordinates of known fossil sites. Its complicated and pretty technical, but he was looking for clues on the terrain that might help him discover where to search next. This technology was a big leap forward, he thought. Then, as he said, came Google Earth.

00:28:42 LEE BERGER: Well, you know, after looking at my house, like everyone does the first time they do it, I saw that little window over to the left that you could put GPS coordinates in. And I had some of the most expensively obtained GPS coordinates on the planet to put in that window, and I typed them in, and I saw what everyone sees, that amazing Google Earth phenomena of flying from the sky and popping right down onto the point that that coordinate is.

00:29:09 And my coordinate, the first one, which I'd put in because I knew it better than any place on Earth, landed on nothing. It landed hundreds and hundreds of meters away. Second point I put in, the same thing. Third  they were all useless. They were all wrong. I had wasted three years of my life. I had wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars of research grant.

00:29:34 Did not take me long to Google why the U.S. government had put deliberate error into those GPSs in the late 1990s, for military purposes, and that, with my  the errors that were inherent in those handheld GPSs had created a compounding error. Well, that was like adding low to low on my life at that moment, and so I spent the rest of December and January moving those points physically on Google from where they landed to where I knew they should be, because I could see these sites.

00:30:10 It was one of the most important moments in the entire story of my scientific career because it was in correcting that error that I began to see patterns, that I began to see that they fell in linear structures, that I began to see the fossil sites clustered together. Caves might be in more random situations.

00:30:37 And I also began to see and learn what a site would look like, all the different varieties, and I began to think that if thats a site, that looks like a site, and this looks like a site.

00:30:52 ALICE WINKLER: First thing he did was make a list of targets, gathered a team, and started out. Within the year, hed found 40 new fossil sites in an area world-famous for having 20. Then one morning he went out with a student; his dog, Tao; and his nine-year-old son, Matthew, to look at a potential site where some miners, looking for lime 100 years ago, had blasted a few holes with dynamite. For some reason, though, the miners had left the site otherwise untouched.

00:31:26 LEE BERGER: Matthew shouts, "Dad, I found a fossil!" He was 15 meters off the site in high grass. I could see he was holding a small rock, and just for a moment I almost didn't go look because I knew what he would have found. He would have found an antelope fossil because for every one of these early hominins we find, these human ancestor pieces, we find about 250,000 pieces of antelopes. We just don't find these things.

00:31:55 My nine-year-old son and  encouraging fossil-hunting  I started walking towards him, and five meters away I knew that his and my life were going to change forever. Because he was holding a small rock  you have to visualize and crouch down, and there on the outside of it was an S-shaped bone. And that S-shaped bone was a hominin clavicle, and the reason I knew that is very few mammals, first, in Africa have hominin clavicles.

00:32:24 Bats have them because they fly. Moles have them because they dig, and primates have them. We're primates, and only amongst primates do humans and our ancestors have this very characteristic S-shape, and at that time I was probably one of the world's only experts on hominin clavicles. I did my Ph.D. on them. All six or seven pieces, never a complete one, had been found.

00:32:49 I did my thesis on the clavicle, the proximal humerus, and the scapula, and one of the reasons I did is there were no complete bones in the entire record of those, and it was about the only thing left to study, and it was all scraps. And I was looking at one.

00:33:04 ALICE WINKLER: Berger turned over the rock, and on the other side was a jaw and a tooth. It turned out he and nine-year-old Matthew had found the partial skeleton of a child, a tween actually. Up until that day, there were only something like seven partial early hominid skeletons ever found, and two of those were discovered by Bergers role models and mentors, Don Johanson and Richard Leakey. Overnight, Lee Berger had joined their ultra-elite club.

00:33:39 And all three, I can't help mentioning here, are members of the Academy of Achievement. But anyway, when Berger went back to the fossil site to hunt for the rest of his skeleton, he discovered another, and another, and another  six skeletons in all, belonging to that species he named Australopithecus sediba. At the time he talked to the Academy of Achievement about sediba, four years later, he was still in the glow of it.

00:34:10 After all, it was the discovery of a lifetime, as he told journalist Gail Eichenthal.

00:34:16 LEE BERGER: That started this adventure Ive been on. It has  the site of Malapa, which I would eventually call it, which means my home, has turned into perhaps the richest early hominid site ever discovered in the history of this planet.

00:34:29 ALICE WINKLER: But remember, this conversation about sediba with the Academy of Achievement took place in 2012. The very next year, lightning struck again when Lee Berger discovered another new species, Homo naledi, and a way bigger collection of skeletons deep inside a cave, intentionally buried, it seems. Just weeks after news of that discovery went very, very viral, Lee Berger spoke with the Academy for the second time.

00:35:03 LEE BERGER: Homo naledi has done something that I thought would never happen to me as a paleoanthropologist. I went into a field to study and interpret bones. Suddenly, not only are there bones, but you've got a discovery that's giving you insight into behavior in a way that I never anticipated. The idea that we're getting a window into another species' mind from this chamber  that's amazing, you know?

00:35:33 That's something that I think the whole world is going to have to think about. You know, you've got something here, a discovery that's making us question our own humanity. I guess I dont know how I feel about that. I haven't had enough time to digest the effect of that in something that I wasn't really prepared for. I'd spent my life as a biologist, a paleontologist, and now I have to also think like a philosopher. That's kind of neat though.

00:36:09 ALICE WINKLER: Lee Berger doesnt know what hes looking for next. At any moment, he says, his phone could ring and one of his explorers could be on the other end saying, "Hey, youve got to see this," and that, Berger says, is the thrill of it. This is What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement. If you want to learn more about Lee Bergers life and work, go to achievement.org, and because you are a particularly curious form of hominid, make sure to follow us on Twitter to find out about upcoming episodes. Our handle is @WhatItTakesNow. Im Alice Winkler.

00:36:49 And thanks, as always, to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for funding What It Takes.
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US State Department has announced a grant of 493,827 dollars for NGOs who "seek to reduce religiously-motivated violence and discrimination in India".

By Geeta Mohan: India on Thursday said that they are seeking more details to a proposal put out by the US State Department but added that whatever is done should fall within the ambit of law.

US State Department on Wednesday announced a grant of 493,827 dollars for NGOs (non-governmental organisations) who "seek to reduce religiously-motivated violence and discrimination in India".

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In a notice put out by the Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, the US authorities have invited organisations who are interested in submitting applications for projects that promote religious freedom in India and Sri Lanka.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar at the weekly media briefing said, "We haven't got time to go through the report. We have requested for details and will comment once we have it. But on the issue of such funds I have to say, any such activity in this area has to follow laws and rules of the land."

The focus of the program for the NGOs is to "develop and implement early warning systems to mitigate large-scale violence"; implement "conflict mitigation programmes" between minority and majority groups; as also to "counter hateful or discriminatory public messages" with positive messages through means such as print or social media or via traditional means such as loudspeakers and community gatherings.

The organisations will also have to focus on a pro-active approach by educating the civil society and journalists about legal protections for religious freedom, particularly for members of religious minorities; documenting and reporting religious freedom violations to authorities; educating law enforcement on human rights standards; and engaging law enforcement to better protect rights of religious minorities, including preventing incidents of discrimination and violence and holding perpetrators accountable.

This is the first time that India has been added to a State Department program to prevent "religious discrimination". Modi administration in the past had reacted very sharply to observations by foreign governments on growing incidents of religious intolerance and violence against minorities in India. There have been concerted efforts made to show the secular and tolerant social fabric of India. But US administration, like many other governments, has made keen observations in the recent past regarding religiously-motivated violence and discrimination in India.

The countries currently receiving grants in the region from US on similar program are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhastan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

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Hi Tom, You took my question last week about whether or not to get the tasting menu at Fish, and said to write back since reports about the new restaurant have mixed. Here's how it went: We were seated promptly near the bar. Service was okay - the waiter was pleasant without being too chatty, but we refreshed our own water for most of the meal (not a big deal, the bottle was on the table, but it seems to irk some of the readers). There was a bit of a rush when our drink orders were taken - my husband, in passing, said he'd be having the steak. The waiter said that the steak needed to come to room temp, it might be 45 min, could he put it in now? We agreed - and didn't realize until after we opened the menus that there were two beef options, and we'd almost certainly just signed up for the the $70 one rather than the $30 one. It's likely that's the one my husband would have ordered anyway, but he grumbled a bit. I did get the tasting menu, on the principle that we probably wouldn't be back soon and I wanted to try as much as possible. The shrimp and grapefruit cocktail, shrimp and grits, kale salad and salt cod fritters were fantastic! The seared sea scallop was tasty. I'm not a big fan of oysters or clams, so I can't really speak to those dishes. The salmon was okay. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing that made it stand out. The Brussels sprouts were VERY LOUD - salty, sweet, oily, aggressive - and I couldn't eat more than a forkful. They came out towards the end, too, where lighter fare would have sat more easily. The Atlantic beach pie was actually delightful, and my skeptical Jersey shore husband, without having read anything about it, said that it did taste like the sea. Husband liked his steak and potatoes, but wasn't really sure it was a $70 steak, you know? He had the banana caramel custard dessert. I assume it was good, as he didn't offer me a bite (which he usually does)! We enjoyed our meals and don't regret the splurge, but didn't exactly leave wowed, either. The two shrimp dishes really stood out for me, but otherwise we didn't feel it lived up to the pricetag. As a $150 dinner, it would have been amazing; at $300, it was okay.
In this cross section of a cornea in a person with Fuchs' dystrophy, the green rectangles represent endothelial cells. The magenta dots are outgrowths of Descemet's membrane known as guttae. Guttae are bumps on the back surface of the cornea that grow larger as the disease progresses. During Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK), Descemet's membrane and the endothelium are stripped away. Only part of the donor cornea is transplanted. This tissue includes a very thin layer of the corneal stroma, and the Descemet's membrane and endothelium. The tissue is held in place by an air bubble until it adheres to the back of the patient's cornea and begins to function, removing excess water from the swollen cornea. Credit: George Rosenwasser, M.D.

Results from a large, national clinical trial show that corneal donor tissue can be safely stored for 11 days without negatively impacting the success of transplantation surgery to restore vision in people with diseases of the cornea. The cornea is the eye's clear outer covering. Currently, donor corneas are generally not used for surgery in the United States if they have been preserved for longer than seven days. Two reports from the Cornea Preservation Time Study (CPTS), which was funded by the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, appear online Nov. 10 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Expanding the window in which donor tissues can be considered suitable by even just a few days should help safeguard quality donor tissue and access to vision-saving transplantation procedures. The study's lead investigator was Jonathan Lass, M.D., of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Eye Institute, Cleveland. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. The first received corneas preserved up to seven days, and the second received corneas preserved for eight to 14 days.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of solutions to preserve donated corneas for 14 days. "The current practice of surgeons to use corneas preserved for no longer than seven days is not evidence-based," said Lass, "but rather a practice based on opinion, which hopefully will change with this new evidence."

Researchers looked at three-year graft success rates among a total of 1,090 individuals (1,330 eyes) who underwent transplantation via Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty by 70 surgeons at 40 surgical sites. Most of the patients underwent transplantation for Fuchs' endothelial corneal dystrophy, a progressive disease that causes cells to die in the innermost layer of the cornea called the endothelium. Death of corneal endothelial cells is a normal part of aging. However, Fuchs' accelerates this cell death. Corneal transplantation is the only treatment available to restore vision.

Overall, the investigators were unable to conclude that three-year success rates were the same for corneas preserved for eight to 14 days compared with up to seven days (92.1 percent versus 95.3 percent). However, parsing out the data, they found that much of the difference between the groups was accounted for by those who received corneas preserved 12 to 14 days. There was no meaningful difference between those who received corneas preserved up to seven days and those who received corneas preserved eight to 11 days.

While it is true that patients who received corneas preserved 12 to 14 days had comparably lower success rates, Dr. Lass emphasized that even their success was impressively high at 89.3 percent, which may support the use of these tissues as logistics dictate.

In a separate analysis of the CPTS data, the investigators analyzed the extent of endothelial cell loss (ECL), that is, the loss of cells in the corneal endothelium that continued to occur as a normal part of aging in the grafted donor cornea three years after it had been transplanted. They looked to see if differences in corneal preservation time affected ECL after three years. They noninvasively measured ECL in the 945 eyes with successful grafts and found that corneas preserved up to seven days had a 37-percent loss of cells versus a 40-percent loss in corneas preserved eight to 14 days. However, taking a closer look at the data revealed that the effect of corneal preservation time on the loss of endothelial cells was comparable from four to 13 days.

Taken together, the separate analyses looking at graft success rates and ECL support the use of corneas stored up to 11 days.

Currently, there is a sufficient supply of donor corneas available for people in the United States who require transplants. In 2016, nearly 50,000 corneal transplantations were performed and, on average, it took only about three to four weeks for donor tissue from an eye bank to become available for scheduled surgery. However, corneal donor tissue is scarce elsewhere in the world and corneal disease is the third leading cause of blindness outside the U.S.

"Additionally, factors balancing supply and demand in the U.S. may shift unfavorably as the population with age-related diseases of the cornea grows, and the supply of donors is challenged by the increasing prevalence of conditions in deceased donors that make their corneas ineligible for donation," said study investigator Marian Macsai, M.D., an ophthalmologist at NorthShore University Health System, Glenview, Illinois, and president of the Cornea Society, a U.S.-based international society of corneal surgeons. Prior to transplantation, tissue from a donor must be rigorously screened for safety and viability. That means ruling out certain infectious and communicable diseases in the donor.

"Finding ideal donor-patient matches requires time, technology and manpower. Lengthening the timeframe for tissue evaluation will ultimately help expand the donor pool," Dr. Macsai said.

Case Western Reserve University and the clinical trial sites plan to distribute this information in an educational campaign targeted to the eye banking and ophthalmology community, and then follow up to see if clinical practice changes.

More information: George O. Rosenwasser et al. Effect of Cornea Preservation Time on Success of Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty, JAMA Ophthalmology (2017). George O. Rosenwasser et al. Effect of Cornea Preservation Time on Success of Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty,(2017). DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2017.4989 Jonathan H. Lass et al. Corneal Endothelial Cell Loss 3 Years After Successful Descemet Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty in the Cornea Preservation Time Study, JAMA Ophthalmology (2017). DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2017.4970 Journal information: JAMA Ophthalmology
Credit: icwn

When you were in school, did you ever wonder why your grades fell short yet your puzzled teachers insisted that you were intelligent? As an adult, have you struggled to gain recognition for your work, despite making what you feel are creative and valuable contributions? Do you often feel like your mind works more quickly than others do? Could it be that you're exceptionally gifted, yet don't know it?

It's a comforting thought in today's society, given its strong emphasis on intelligence. But before rushing off to complete the latest phoney online IQ test, it's important to take a closer look at the terminology. Although the terms "gifted", "precocious" and "high potential" are often used interchangeably, they're not synonymous.

Talent as a "gift"

Logically, the most common one  "gifted"  implies the possession of a gift. It conjures up images of fairy godmothers endowing a child with beauty, grace, and intelligence in the cradle, Sleeping Beauty-style. A gift is seen as a bonus, a special ability granted by genetics, chance or the heavens.

The notion of precocity is linked to time. Psychologist Todd Lubart, a professor at Paris Descartes University, explained this in greater detail in a 2006 book. The term implies a linear conception of intellectual development, from birth to adulthood  a theory developed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in the mid-1960s.

To be considered "precocious" is to be seen as being ahead of the majority of students of the same age. The educational system will occasionally offer such students the opportunity to skip ahead a year.

Yet more recent work in psychology is challenging this linear vision of development. Numerous studies have demonstrated that intellectual development accelerates at certain times while regressing at others. Even adults are capable of making blatant errors in logical reasoning, while babies turn out to be far more logical than previously thought, as French psychologist Olivier Houde demonstrated in 1995.

Aptitude may be obvious, or not

"High potential" is a more subtle and, no doubt, more useful term. It refers to the difference between a person's aptitudes and their performance. What an individual demonstrates  their performance  is not always representative of their actual abilities, in other words, their aptitudes.

A person with high potential has specific potential, meaning an aptitude in a particular area. As American psychologist Joseph Renzulli has explained, potential may either be fulfilled or not, depending on the individual's environment. Therefore, an individual with high potential may not show any particular talent  a word that refers to observable performance.

To better understand this paradox, we can draw a parallel with physical potential. A child with hypermobility, for example, has great elasticity in certain muscles, tendons and ligaments and, therefore, a high potential for flexibility. If the child is born into a circus family, he or she may become a contortionist. Otherwise, this potential flexibility may never express itself as talent, but remain hidden. Had Mozart been born into a family where music was never played, would he have become a great composer?

Potential in sport and music

Consequently, there are more people with high potential than people with talent, because not all those with high potential will benefit from the conditions required for their potential to manifest.

It should be stressed that high potential exists outside of the intellectual domain. This becomes clearer when seen through the lens of the theory of multiple intelligences, developed by American psychologist Howard Gardner in 2004. While the theory is not yet sufficiently vetted scientifically for use in research, it draws attention to areas that are often undervalued in schools, such as sports, music, drawing, the capacity for introspection, and even charisma. Gardner argues there are eight separate forms of intelligence, some of which we refer to as intelligence, such as verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities, while others are less typical, such as musical-rhythmic and bodily-kinaesthetic.

It is too often assumed that high potential is simply a matter of IQ. Psychologists assess IQ using psychometric tests, notably WISC-IV (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) and, recently, WISC V for children, and WAIS IV for adults. However, two researchers in psychology have demonstrated that a high IQ is a necessary condition to qualify as having high potential, but not sufficient per se.

The necessity of enthusiasm and perseverance

Let's start with Renzulli. In his 2002 model, he argued that high potential requires several factors to be united, including elevated intellectual abilities (which can be measured with an IQ test) and creativity (the ability to produce original responses), but also a high level of commitment, meaning strong personal motivation, entailing interest, enthusiasm, curiosity, perseverance, endurance, self-confidence, and a need for achievement.

In this theory, high potential can still be viewed as a "gift." However, it should first be identified, then sustained by the individuals themselves and those around them, who will make the necessary efforts so the potential is eventually manifested as talent.

Canadian psychologist Francoys Gagne published his own model in 2004. He theorized several types of catalysts required for high potential to manifest itself. The first relates to exceptional mental or physical capacities as well as personality traits, such as open-mindedness, conscientiousness, and high motivation. The second relates to the person's environment  for example, a favourable sociocultural background, or positive feedback from family, friends or teachers. The third is made up of life events, positive or otherwise, such as a birth, a new home, or the death of a loved one. He also highlighted a fourth type of catalyst  luck, correlated with meeting the right person at the right time.

All of these possible catalysts work together to bring out a person's natural capacities (gift). This model places great importance on an enriching environment, conducive to the manifestation of a person's potential (child or adult), in the home, at work, and in leisure activities.

So what should we do if we want to understand our own potential, or that of our children? The first step is to consult a psychologist who can provide a complete analysis. In addition to an IQ test, he or she will examine the areas where high potential can be expressed, with the use of recognized diagnostic tools by trained professionals. These will establish, with little margin for error, whether or not you have "high potential."

Note that this label is of little value in and of itself. The most important thing is to establish a picture of your strengths and weaknesses, to help you better know yourself and reach your own potential.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Apart from the scribes, the political leaders and supporters, no one had a clue as to what she was saying and why from the festival dais.

By Romita Datta Sengupta: "I normally don't go. Last year I went and this year I had gone to get the Kanyashree award," she said at a packed auditorium of Netaji Indoor Stadium, much to the confusion of Amitabh Bachhan, Shahrukh Khan and Kajol, who were exchanging glances trying to figure out the context.

The need arose after Mukul Roy said today that Mamata is frequently touring London like the Left Front chief minister Jyoti Basu, who had a propensity to spend the sultry summers in English weather.

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It was Roy's first exposition before the public after he donned the saffron robe. Flanked by Kailash Vijaybargiya, Dilip Ghosh and Rahul Sinha and holding hands with them, he blasted Banerjee and the way Trinamool Congress was being run by police by implicating the critics of the government with false cases.

He also leveled a set of allegations over the controversial meeting at Daelo where Mamata was engaged in a meeting with the Saradha boss, Sudipta Sen along with tourism minister and suspended TMC MP, Kunal Ghosh.

Mamata had ruled out any meeting with Sen on earlier occasions. Today Roy confirmed that he too was present at the meeting which mainly discussed about tourism prospects. He alleged that Sen had invested Rs 850 crore for tourism projects in Bengal, media houses and for buying ambulances.

The allegations had left the BJP camp euphoric as the ruling party leaders and administration scurried to give the reaction on behalf of the party chief and the CM.

Mamata is flying to the UK tonight to attend a ceremony over inauguration of Sister Nivedita's home in England. So, she wouldn't be having anytime to clarify her position, especially when talks are doing the rounds that she was visiting foreign lands when people in her state were dying of Dengue.

Roy had said that while 80-100 people have died of Dengue, the CM, oblivious to all this, was going to London and celebrating film festival, exactly the same way her predecessor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee held festival in the middle of the Nandigram carnage in 2007.

"Had I not gone, it would have been a disgrace for Bengal. The Ram Krishna Mission monks changed the dates to ensure that I attend. This year I had gone to Netherlands to collect the Kanyashree award," she reasoned out.

The erudite speech by Amitabh Bachchan on the history and impact of music in films was just over. The mesmerized audience, which had loudly cheered for Bachchan, was at its wit's end.

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But bewilderment was writ large on Shahrukh Khan's face, who was looking at Kajol confused. Perhaps he was asking her to translate what Mamata had said.

Apart from the scribes, the political leaders and supporters, no one had a clue as to what she was saying and why from the festival dais.

But Mamata hardly had a choice. Since she was rushing to the airport from the festival venue, she wouldn't be having an opportunity to answer Roy back, at least not in the next few days.

Though she had deputed the TMC spokesperson and the state home secretary to counter some of the allegations, she felt that only words coming out of her mouth would be able to convince her supporters and party workers.

"If Bengal has to roam around the world to establish itself, where's the harm and I don't see any cause of reservation. This is nothing but narrow politics," she asserted.

In the same breath, the CM said, Bengal takes pride in celebrating film festival, Yatra Utsav and will celebrate them and many more of such fairs in future because culture in Bengal is the succor of people.

"We will rather celebrate Durga puja, Kali puja than take up party flags, agitate and shout Inquilab Zindabaad slogans," she said.

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For the moment Mamata might have succeeded in giving a repartee, but this is just the beginning or in Roy's own words - the first edition of the expose.

There will be more editions, more chapters to unfold, Mukul promised. But whether he'll be able to hold onto the attention of the audience will depend on the merit of the matter being exposed.

--- ENDS ---
Our brain swims. It is fully immersed in an aqueous liquid known as cerebrospinal fluid. Every day, the human body produces about half a litre of new cerebrospinal fluid in the cerebral ventricles; this liquid originates from the blood. This same quantity then has to exit the cranial cavity again every day. Researchers in the group led by Michael Detmar, Professor of Pharmacogenomics, have now published a study showing that in mice, the cerebrospinal fluid exits the cranial cavity through the lymph vessels. The ETH Zurich researchers have thus identified another central role played by the lymphatic system, and refuted a decades-old dogma. The scientists have published their findings in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications.

Past research has inadequately explained how cerebrospinal fluid exits the cranial cavity. Scientists knew that two paths were available - blood vessels (veins) and lymphatic vessels, but for a long time, and due due to insufficient research tools, they had assumed that drainage through the veins was by far the predominant pathway.

Rewriting the anatomy textbooks

The researchers led by Steven Proulx, Senior Scientist in Detmar's group, have now been able to refute this assumption. They injected tiny fluorescent dye molecules into the ventricles (cavities) of the brain in mice and observed how these molecules exited the cranial cavity. They used a sensitive non-invasive imaging technique to examine the blood vessels in the periphery of the animals' bodies, as well as the lymphatic and blood vessels directly draining the skull. It turned out that the dye molecules appeared after just a few minutes in the lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes outside the brain. The researchers were unable to find any molecules in blood vessels so quickly after the injection.

They were also able to determine the exact path of the dye molecules and thus the cerebrospinal fluid: it leaves the skull along cranial nerve sheaths - in particular around the olfactory and optic nerves. "Once in tissue outside the brain, it is removed by the lymphatic vessels," explains Qiaoli Ma, a doctoral student in Detmar's group and lead author of the study.

The scientists are not entirely able to rule out whether a small portion of the cerebrospinal fluid also leaves the brain as previously assumed - through the veins. However, based on their research findings, they are convinced that the lion's share travels through the lymphatic system, and that the anatomy textbooks will have to be rewritten.

Irrigation system for the brain

Scientists assume that the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid has a purifying function. "The immune system eliminates toxins elsewhere in the body, but the brain is considered to be largely disconnected from this system. Only a few immune cells have access under normal conditions," explains Proulx. "The cerebrospinal fluid steps into the breach here. By constantly circulating, it flushes the brain and removes unwanted substances."

This flushing function could offer a starting point for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is caused by misfolded proteins that accumulate in the brain. Proulx and his colleagues speculate that these misfolded proteins could be eliminated by, for example, drugs that induce lymphatic flow. Similarly, studies could be undertaken to examine whether it is possible to manage inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system, such as multiple sclerosis, through influence of the lymphatic flow.

Slower turnover in old age

The scientists also showed that much less cerebrospinal fluid flows out of the brain in older mice than in younger ones, presumably because less fluid is produced in old age. Since Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia occur in old age, the researchers think it will be interesting to examine whether stimulation of the flow of cerebrospinal fluid could slow down the progression of dementia. This is the question the ETH scientists would like to explore next in a mouse model.

Detmar's group has already shown that other diseases outside the brain can be treated by stimulation of the lymphatic flow. In the case of rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, the researchers succeeded in relieving symptoms through stimulation of the lymphatic flow.

Greater attention in research

The researchers say that studies on cerebrospinal outflow in humans may be conceivable in the future. The fluorescent marker molecule does not trigger an immune reaction and is efficiently eliminated by the body. Before the molecule can be used in humans, the scientists must first apply for the necessary approval.

"Research on the lymphatic system did not receive the attention it deserved until recently. Some in the scientific world have even ignored the lymphatic system altogether," says Proulx. Now that the ETH scientists have succeeded in demonstrating another important function of the lymphatic system, they hope that it will attract greater attention in scientific research.

More information: Qiaoli Ma et al, Outflow of cerebrospinal fluid is predominantly through lymphatic vessels and is reduced in aged mice, Nature Communications (2017). Journal information: Nature Communications Qiaoli Ma et al, Outflow of cerebrospinal fluid is predominantly through lymphatic vessels and is reduced in aged mice,(2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01484-6
Electron micrograph of a negatively stained human papilloma virus (HPV) which occurs in human warts. Credit: public domain

Women may only need three cervical screens in their lifetime if they have been given the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Cancer today (Friday).

The Cancer Research UK-funded team from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), found that three screens at 30, 40 and 55 would offer the same benefit to vaccinated women as the 12 lifetime screens currently offered in England.

The results are based on how the HPV vaccine and the improved cervical screening programme will work best together. The new programme called HPV primary testing is set to be introduced in England by December 2019. It means that cervical samples are tested for HPV but only checked for abnormal cells if the virus is found. The current test checks for abnormalities first, which is less efficient.

Scotland and Wales are also preparing their own plans to introduce this new HPV test.

Since 2008, the HPV vaccine has been offered to schoolgirls aged 11-13 across the UK. This group is now reaching the age for their first cervical screening invitation. This new research shows that these women can still be effectively protected from cervical cancer with fewer screens, which could also save the NHS resources.

Professor Peter Sasieni, Cancer Research UK's screening expert and lead author based at QMUL, said: "The NHS should benefit from the investment that it's made by introducing the vaccination programme. These women are far less likely to develop cervical cancer so they don't need such stringent routine checking as those at a higher risk. This decision would free up resources for where they are needed most. The change in the screening system is a unique opportunity to reassess how often women are invited for cervical screens during their lifetimes."

HPV infects most people at some point. Most infections go away on their own, but if an infection is not cleared it can go on to cause cervical cancer. Without HPV infection there would be almost no cervical cancer.

The current HPV vaccine protects women against the most dangerous forms of HPV significantly reducing the chance of developing cervical cancer. As the risk of cervical cancer is considerably reduced, the study suggests that the number of screens should be decreased accordingly, avoiding unnecessary procedures for women.

The study also suggests that unvaccinated women should only need seven lifetime screens when the new screening test comes in, five fewer than is currently standard.

Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK said: "This is great news for women. The cervical screening programme is already very successful, and has led to a dramatic fall in deaths from the disease since its introduction. While we hope to see these improvements to the screening programme in the future, it's important that women continue to take up invitations for cervical screening. So if you're all set for your next screen, keep that appointment."

More information: Rebecca Landy et al, What cervical screening is appropriate for women who have been vaccinated against high risk HPV? a simulation study, International Journal of Cancer (2017). Journal information: International Journal of Cancer Rebecca Landy et al, What cervical screening is appropriate for women who have been vaccinated against high risk HPV? a simulation study,(2017). DOI: 10.1002/ijc.31094
Walking the challenging Kokoda Track, climbing Mt Kosciuszko, and undertaking other adventurous pursuits may help treat depression in military veterans, new research shows.

This preliminary finding is from a University of South Australia study of 45 current and ex-serving Australian military personnel who signed up for adventure-based tours in the past 12 months.

These adventure experiences were run as part of a rehabilitation adventure challenge program provided by Mates 4 Mates, a not-for-profit, ex-service organisation that helps support wounded, injured or ill Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel and their families.

UniSA PhD candidate Daniel Padovan, who led the study, found strong evidence that psychologist-supervised adventure tourism not only reignited a sense of camaraderie among veterans but also improved their social interaction in the months afterwards.

Separate groups of up to 10 ADF veterans bonded over life-changing experiences in the jungles of Papua New Guinea as well as the NSW Snowy Mountains, tackling the Aussie 10 Peaks Challenge.

"Veterans who took part in such challenges reported increased self-esteem as well as less reliance on alcohol and other negative coping behaviours afterwards," Padovan says.

"Crucially, their levels of depression significantly decreased, which is an outstanding outcome."

The findings come in the light of a 2016 study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) revealing that 325 ADF veterans took their own life between 2001 and 2015 as a result of depression.

Another News Corp special investigation also found that between January and July 2016 alone, 41 ADF personnel and veterans committed suicide. These seven months in 2016 equalled the total number of ADF personnel killed in Afghanistan during 13 years of war at the time.

"This year marks the 70th anniversary of the ADF's involvement in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping activities and the 103rd anniversary of its involvement in global conflicts since the beginning of the First World War. It is important that we recognise and value the significant contributions that our military personnel have made  and continue to make," Padovan says.

"With these global deployments in mind, we need to look at the impact of war on mental health and how we can address the psychological fallout on members of our defence forces."

The UniSA study could also have positive spinoffs for people working in other dangerous and stressful professions, including police, firefighters and emergency services personnel who often experience job-related depression, Padovan says.

"It is sobering to note that suicide due to depression or post-traumatic stress disorder is the number one killer of men and women in dangerous professions year on year. In Australia, more military personnel and first responders die from these causes than are killed in the line of duty."

The group of 45 veterans who undertook the adventure challenges served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam as well as peace-keeping operations in East Timor.

Daniel Padovan is a PhD candidate in the School of Management at the University of South Australia. His thesis, "Examining the effects of adventure tours as a treatment approach for depression: a focus on military veterans," is supervised by Dr Michael Gross, Dr Duncan Murray and Adjunct Professor Sam Huang.
Credit: iStock

Researchers at EPFL can now see what happens in our brains when we hear music in our heads. The researchers hope that in time their findings will be used to help people who have lost the ability to speak.

When we listen to music, different parts of our brain process different information  such as high and low frequencies  so that our auditory perception of the sounds matches what we hear. It's easy to study the brain activity of someone who is listening to a song, for instance, as we have the technology to record and analyze the neural responses that each sound produces as it is heard. It's much more complicated, however, to try and understand what happens in our brain when we hear music in our heads without any auditory stimulation. As with analyzing real music, the brain's responses have to be linked to a given sound. But when the music is in our heads, that sound doesn't actually exist  or at least our ears don't hear it. Using a novel approach, researchers with EPFL's Defitech Foundation Chair in Human-Machine Interface (CNBI) were able to analyze what happens in our brains when we hum in our heads.

Recording an imaginary sound

EPFL researchers, in cooperation with a team from the University of California, Berkeley, worked with an epileptic patient who is also an experienced pianist. Initially, the patient was asked to play a piece of music on an electric piano with the sound turned on. The music and the corresponding brain activity were recorded. The patient then replayed the same piece, but this time the researchers asked him to imagine hearing the music in his head with the sound on the piano turned off. Once again, the brain activity and the music were recorded. The difference this second time around was that the music came from the mental representation made by the patient  the notes themselves were inaudible. By gathering information in these two different ways, the researchers were able to determine the brain activity produced for each sound, and then compare the data.

Experimental task design. (A) The participant played an electronic piano with the sound of the digital keyboard turned on (perception condition). (B) In the second condition, the participant played the piano with the sound turned off and instead imagined the corresponding music in his mind (imagery condition). In both conditions, the sound output of keyboard was recorded in synchrony with the neural signals. Credit: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

The experiment may seem simple, but in fact it's truly one of a kind. "The technique used  electrocorticography  is extremely invasive. It involves implanting electrodes quite deep inside the patient's brain," explains Stephanie Martin, lead author of the study and a doctoral student with the CNBI. "The technique is normally used to treat people with epilepsy who cannot take medication." That's why the researchers worked with this patient in particular. The electrodes, in addition to being used for treatment purposes, can measure brain activity with a very high spatial and temporal resolution  a necessity given just how rapid neuron responses are.

Possible future language-related applications

This is the first time a study has demonstrated that when we imagine music in our heads, the auditory cortex and other parts of the brain process auditory information, such as high and low frequencies, in the same way as they do when stimulated by real sound. The findings have been published in the journal Cerebral Cortex. The researchers mapped out the parts of the brain covered by the electrodes based on their function in this process and their reactions to both audible and imaginary sounds. The scientists' aim is to one day apply these findings to language, such as for people who have lost their ability to speak. "We are at the very early stages of this research. Language is a much more complicated system than music: linguistic information is non-universal, which means it is processed by the brain in a number of stages," explains Martin. "This recording technique is invasive, and the technology needs to be more advanced for us to be able measure brain activity with greater accuracy." While more research needs to be done, a first step for researchers will be to replicate these results with aphasia patients  people who have lost the ability to speak  and determine whether the sounds they imagine can be recreated. The researchers hope their findings will eventually help such individuals speak again by 'reading' their internal speech and reproducing it vocally.

More information: Stephanie Martin et al. Neural Encoding of Auditory Features during Music Perception and Imagery: Insight into the Brain of a Piano Player, Cerebral Cortex (2017). Journal information: Cerebral Cortex Stephanie Martin et al. Neural Encoding of Auditory Features during Music Perception and Imagery: Insight into the Brain of a Piano Player,(2017). DOI: 10.1101/106617
Beds with patients in an emergency hospital in Camp Funston, Kansas, during the influenza epidemic around 1918. Credit: National Museum of Health and Medicine., CC BY

Vaccination is underway for the 2017-2018 seasonal flu, and next year will mark the 100-year anniversary of the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed roughly 40 million people. It is an opportune time to consider the possibility of pandemics  infections that go global and affect many people  and the importance of measures aimed at curbing them.

The 1918 pandemic was unusual in that it killed many healthy 20- to 40-year-olds, including millions of World War I soldiers. In contrast, people who die of the flu are usually under five years old or over 75.

The factors underlying the virulence of the 1918 flu are still unclear. Modern-day scientists sequenced the DNA of the 1918 virus from lung samples preserved from victims. However, this did not solve the mystery of why so many healthy young adults were killed.

I started investigating what happened to a young man who immigrated to the U.S. and was lost during World War I. Uncovering his story also brought me up to speed on hypotheses about why the immune systems of young adults in 1918 did not protect them from the flu.

The 1918 flu and World War I

Certificates picturing the goddess Columbia as a personification of the U.S. were awarded to men and women who died in service during World War I. One such certificate surfaced many decades later. This one honored Adolfo Sartini and was found by grandnephews who had never known him: Thomas, Richard and Robert Sartini.

The certificate was a message from the past. It called out to me, as I had just received the credential of certified genealogist and had spent most of my career as a scientist tracing a gene that regulates immune cells. What had happened to Adolfo?

A bit of sleuthing identified Adolfo's ship listing, which showed that he was born in 1889 in Italy and immigrated to Boston in 1913. His draft card revealed that he worked at a country club in the Boston suburb of Newton. To learn more, Robert Sartini bought a 1930 book entitled "Newton War Memorial" on eBay. The book provided clues: Adolfo was drafted and ordered to report to Camp Devens, 35 miles from Boston, in March of 1918. He was later transferred to an engineer training regiment.

To follow up, I posted a query on the "U.S. Militaria Forum." Here, military history enthusiasts explained that the Army Corps of Engineers had trained men at Camp A. A. Humphreys in Virginia. Perhaps Adolfo had gone to this camp?

While a mild flu circulated during the spring of 1918, the deadly strain appeared on U.S. soil on Tuesday, Aug. 27, when three Navy dockworkers at Commonwealth Pier in Boston fell ill. Within 48 hours, dozens more men were infected. Ten days later, the flu was decimating Camp Devens. A renowned pathologist from Johns Hopkins, William Welch, was brought in. He realized that "this must be some new kind of infection or plague." Viruses, minuscule agents that can pass through fine filters, were poorly understood.

With men mobilizing for World War I, the flu spread to military installations throughout the U.S. and to the general population. It hit Camp Humphreys in mid-September and killed more than 400 men there over the next month. This included Adolfo Sartini, age 29. Adolfo's body was brought back to Boston.

His grave is marked by a sculpture of the lower half of a toppled column, epitomizing his premature death.

The legacy of victims of the 1918 flu

The quest to understand the 1918 flu fueled many scientific advances, including the discovery of the influenza virus. However, the virus itself did not cause most of the deaths. Instead, a fraction of individuals infected by the virus were susceptible to pneumonia due to secondary infection by bacteria. In an era before antibiotics, pneumonia could be fatal.

Recent analyses revealed that deaths in 1918 were highest among individuals born in the years around 1889, like Adolfo. An earlier flu pandemic emerged then, and involved a virus that was likely of a different subtype than the 1918 strain. These analyses engendered a novel hypothesis, discussed below, about the susceptibility of healthy young adults in 1918.

Exposure to an influenza virus at a young age increases resistance to a subsequent infection with the same or a similar virus. On the flip side, a person who is a child around the time of a pandemic may not be resistant to other, dissimilar viruses. Flu viruses fall into groups that are related evolutionarily. The virus that circulated when Adolfo was a baby was likely in what is called "Group 2," whereas the 1918 virus was in "Group 1." Adolfo would therefore not be expected to have a good ability to respond to this "Group 1" virus. In fact, exposure to the "Group 2" virus as a young child may have resulted in a dysfunctional response to the "Group 1" virus in 1918, exacerbating his condition.

Support for this hypothesis was seen with the emergence of the Hong Kong flu virus in 1968. It was in "Group 2" and had severe effects on people who had been children around the time of the 1918 "Group 1" flu.

To 2018 and beyond

What causes a common recurring illness to convert to a pandemic that is massively lethal to healthy individuals? Could it happen again? Until the reason for the death of young adults in 1918 is better understood, a similar scenario could reoccur. Experts fear that a new pandemic, of influenza or another infectious agent, could kill millions. Bill Gates is leading the funding effort to prevent this.

Flu vaccines are generated each year by monitoring the strains circulating months before flu season. A time lag of months allows for vaccine production. Unfortunately, because the influenza virus mutates rapidly, the lag also allows for the appearance of virus variants that are poorly targeted by the vaccine. In addition, flu pandemics often arise upon virus gene reassortment. This involves the joining together of genetic material from different viruses, which can occur suddenly and unpredictably.

An influenza virus is currently killing chickens in Asia, and has recently killed humans who had contact with chickens. This virus is of a subtype that has not been known to cause pandemics. It has not yet demonstrated the ability to be transmitted from person to person. However, whether this ability will arise during ongoing virus evolution cannot be predicted.

The chicken virus is in "Group 2." Therefore, if it went pandemic, people who were children around the time of the 1968 "Group 2" Hong Kong flu might have some protection. I was born much earlier, and "Group 1" viruses were circulating when I was a child. If the next pandemic virus is in "Group 2," I would probably not be resistant.

It's early days for understanding how prior exposure affects flu susceptibility, especially for people born in the last three to four decades. Since 1977, viruses of both "Group 1" and "Group 2" have been in circulation. People born since then probably developed resistance to one or the other based on their initial virus exposures. This is good news for the near future since, if either a "Group 1" or a "Group 2" virus develops pandemic potential, some people should be protected. At the same time, if you are under 40 and another pandemic is identified, more information would be needed to hazard a guess as to whether you might be susceptible or resistant.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Single and parallel operation of four diesel generators was also tested. "The frigate had the fire, drying, potable water and air conditioning systems tested. The medical unit and the galley became operational, as well as cabins, the officers and crew mess and quarters, sanitary and everyday facilities. The contractors delayed supplies of furniture for several months which delayed the preparation of cabins and quarters. At present the final furniture batch is being delivered and the frigate readies to furbish cabins. Primary painting of the premises is proceeding at a rapid pace. A total of 500 premises have to be painted. The final painting is to be accomplished before the handover of the warship to the customer," it said.



In late November the Northern Shipyard will present the Admiral Kasatonov to the warship construction and repair team. After acceptance by the team the crew of the warship will begin two-three month training. It is likely to complete in February 2018 after which the crew will inhabit the warship. Running trials are scheduled for early summer.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Greek authorities temporarily ban export of firewood from country

Azerbaijan protests to France in connection with Senate resolution

Blinken calls on Aliyev to observe ceasefire and limit provocations

Pashinyan: We're advancing rights of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinyan: Armenia invites Azerbaijan to sign framework agreement on peace

Pashinyan: Most of the arable land of 4 villages in Tavush Province is occupied by Azerbaijanis

Armenian Prime Minister: Let the opposition loudly reject Russia's proposals

Pashinyan: 2023 budget growth in social protection compared to 2018 is 56%

Inflation in UK up to 41-year high of 11.1% in October

Pashinyan: We don't want to provoke war between CSTO and Azerbaijan

Pashinyan's explanation: How should we fight inflation?

Pashinyan: Armenia submitted its proposals for peace treaty to Azerbaijan, we are waiting for a response

Pashinyan: Army budget 2023 more than doubled compared to 2018

CNN: CIA director visits Kyiv

Macron urges Iran to calm down and respect the French

IRGC forces detain Mossad spy in southern Iran

Iranian Foreign Minister expresses dissatisfaction with number of 'unrealistic comments' by Azerbaijani officials

Parliament Vice-Speaker: Armenian military-industrial complex able to establish serial production of military products

Armen Grigoryan receives Major General Daniel Lasica

Ivanka Trump says she will not participate in her father's presidential campaign

KGB of Belarus states about 'threat of intervention' from Baltic States, Ukraine, and Poland

Belarus says AFU blew up bridges in direction of Gomel and Mozyr

22-year-old soldier dies in accident with army truck in Armenia

Indonesian president hands over G20 presidency to India

Azerbaijani Ombudswoman's distorted perception of reality: French Senate Resolution 'will undermine peace in the region'

Nikol Pashinyan holds telephone conversation with Irakli Garibashvili

Four explosions blow up in sky over Belgorod

NATO Secretary General to hold meeting of alliance on incident in Poland

Finnish Foreign Ministry: Many in NATO believe that Turkey has created an awkward situation for the alliance

Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem receives group of wounded participants of 44-day Karabakh war

AP: Drone with explosives attacks oil tanker off the coast of Oman

LPR announces attack by AFU from Popasna to Kharkiv Oblast

Toyota reveals next-generation Toyota Prius hybrid

Central Bank head: State Budget deficit in Armenia to grow to 3.1% of GDP in 2023

Erdogan believes Russia had nothing to do with the missile incident in Poland

Thanasis Bakolas shares concerns that Armenian politician banned from leaving Armenia

Biden and Sunak discuss missile incident in Poland at G20 summit

Russian Defense Ministry: Elements of the Ukrainian S-300 system fell in Poland

Erdogan: Biden administration is determined to sell F-16s to Turkey

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

Erdogan plans to discuss fertilizer transportation and grain deal with Putin

Oil price falls

Blinken calls on Armenian Prime Minister to maintain momentum of peace talks with Azerbaijan

CNN: NATO aircraft tracked the trajectory of the missile that fell in eastern Poland

Armenian FM to visit Tunisia

Yerevan draft budget 2023 revealed

U.S. Embassy: Major General Daniel Lasica arrives in Armenia

Armenian MOD refutes another misinformation of Azerbaijani MOD

Media: Fire in Istanbul is caused by several explosions, not just one

Drone 'allegedly' blows up oil depot in Oryol Oblast

Trump officially announces that he will run for president in 2024

Anwar Gargash: UAE has no interest in choosing sides between great powers

Ukraine suspends oil pumping through Druzhba pipeline towards Hungary

Germany urgently needs gas turbines to stabilize power grids

Polish media report on fall of two missiles on country's territory

Economic downturn worsens in eastern EU due to a spike in inflation

U.S. believes that meeting between Biden and Jinping was strong signal to rest of world

Karabakh MFA welcomes resolution adopted by French Senate

Italy bans facial recognition technology and smart glasses

Germany to establish maintenance center in Slovakia for weapons supplied to Ukraine

Energy Ministry: Russia carried out most massive shooting of Ukraine's energy system since war starts

French Senate passes resolution calling for sanctions against Azerbaijan

Rishi Sunak hints that he will abandon plans to declare China 'threat' to national security

EU supports any call to phase out fossil fuel use

Secretary of Security Council of Armenia receives delegation of EU special envoys, member states

Armenian President Vahagn Khachatryan receives newly appointed ambassador of Cyprus

Zelenskyy's adviser: The situation after Russian shelling is critical

Newly appointed ambassador of Cyprus visits Armenian Genocide memorial

Borrell: EU countries must work together to replenish their military stocks

French Senator: Are the lives of Armenians worth less than the lives of Ukrainians?

Turkey plans to strike targets in northern Syria

Emergency power outages in Kyiv due to explosions

Lavrov calls Zelenskyy's speech at G20 summit performance beyond all regulations and decency

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince embarks on Asian tour

Ukrainian media report missile strikes in number of areas

Chinese 50-year-old man runs marathon smoking

Pashinyan receives delegation of EU special envoys, EU member states on Eastern Partnership

Bloomberg: Paris overtakes London to become Europe's largest stock market

Anti-Iranian rally held in Baku

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin: Pashinyan's approaches and wordings do not contribute to solving urgent problems

Borrell announces appearance of EU rapid reaction force in 2023

Norwegian Defense Minister pledges $30 million to NATO fund for Ukraine

Italy auctioned biggest truffle for record 184 thousand euros

Serviceman kills fellow soldier in Armenia

Kyodo: 67-year-old Japanese princess diagnosed with breast cancer

Mehriban Aliyeva hurriedly gives up her role of UNESCO 'Goodwill Ambassador' before French Senate meeting

Jeff Bezos says he's ready to give away most of his fortune

Britain to allocate $11.8m to rebuild Ukraine's energy infrastructure

Peskov: Kyiv cannot and doesn't want to negotiate, SVO will continue

Turkey detains another suspect in planning terrorist attack in Istanbul

Tasnim: Iranian authorities released 38 protesters in southeast

Terrorist attack: Number of detainees in Istanbul grows to 50
YEREVAN.  Karabakh residents cannot be isolated from the rest of the world, said Chairman of the Armenian parliament's Committee on Foreign Relations Armen Ashotyan.

Whatever the political expediency may be, Karabakh residents human rights must be fully respected, he said during a briefing in the Armenian parliament on November 10 after a meeting with the parliamentary delegation from Karabakh.

Recognition of diplomas, professional and cultural contacts, international projects on public health and nature protection are the main topics discussed at international platforms.

We raised the issue of the right to impact on environmental issues in Artsakh at the recent Euronest Assembly in Kiev, Ashotyan said.

The Karabakh conflict should not be compared with others, he believes.

We represent the Karabakh conflict as it is: it is not a geopolitical or non-religious issue. Its solution is in the hands of the Karabakh residents, Ashotyan said.
Although US President Donald Trump called his visit to China very productive, both experts and the media believe that Trump has not achieved any significant results.

Trump and his wife, Melania, were received with a pomp on their arrival to China. Trump, on advice of the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, used flattery to appeal to Xi. It is too early to talk about rapprochement among these countries. Moreover, it was not possible to solve the trade disagreements.

I dont blame China. I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100s of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I wouldve done same Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trade issues

Tillerson said, The things that have been achieved thus far are pretty small, despite long hours of trade talks between the U.S. and China, adding the U.S. concerns about the pace of progress was communicated to Chinese officials Thursday, Voice of America reported.

According to recent data released by Chinas General Administration of Customs, for the first 10 months of the year, Chinas trade surplus with the U.S. was $223 billion.

Trump noted that the U.S. trade deficit with China is, shockingly hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Past administrations allowed it to get so far out of kilter. But I dont blame China. I give China great credit, U.S. President said.

Xi Jinping, in turn, said there is prosperous future for U.S.-China trade cooperation, adding that $250 billion worth of business deals were signed during President Trumps visit to China.

However, most agreements unveiled in Beijing are mostly non-binding memorandums of understanding and, according to Bloomberg News could take years to materialize  if they do at all.

Derek Scissors from the American Enterprise Institute doubted that such deals can help solve real problems in trade relations with China.

The president likes deals, and he likes big numbers, but were not going to change something he doesnt like, like the trade deficit without changing Chinese trade practices, expert said. China has to have a different approach to trade in the world than it does.

Diplomatic issues

Although Trump received a royal reception from Xi Jinping, leadership in Beijing has a low opinion of President Trump, but hides it. The only exception was made before the party congress: the propagandists of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping of the Higher Party School, said that no one abroad can compare with Si, reported Die Welt.

Amid the pomp that President Xi Jinping of China is bestowing upon his visiting American counterpart, President Trump, its hard not to see two leaders  and two countries  heading in very different directions.

While Mr. Trump is obsessed with building walls, Mr. Xi is busy building bridges

All of this positions China to become, in Mr. Xis words, a new choice for other countries and the principal arbiter of something long associated with the United States: the international order. With Mr. Trump ceding ground to China, the liberal international order that defined the second half of the 20th century could give way to an illiberal one, wrote Antony J. Blinken from NY Times.

North Korea

Trump believes that he is optimistic that the United States and China will find a solution to the North Korean nuclear problem. Referring to Xi, Trump said: I do believe theres a solution to that, as do you.

Tillerson confirmed that there is no disagreement on North Korea. Theres no space between both of our objectives, Tillerson said. We have our own views of the tactics, the timing and how far to go with pressure and thats what we spend a lot of time exchanging views on.

The concern of the US allies on the Korean issue is connected with concerns on China's position and its relations to United States. Both countries can conclude a secret deal on North Korea that will not take into account the interests of Japan and South Korea, despite the fact that they are concerned about the growing Chinese military influence in their region, Al Bayan reported.

Trump has not won concessions from China on global politics. North Korea issue is at the very top of the list of priorities with which he went on his Asian tour, and the US president did his best to persuade China to increase pressure on Pyongyang, reported Kurier.

Unlike the USA, China demonstrates to the whole region its reliable force, said Thomas Wright from the Brookings Institution, adding that Trump's stupidity allows China to present itself as globalization champion.

According to Zhang Liangui, an expert on North Korea at the Central Party School of the Communist Party, both Beijing and Washington realize that there is no other way than dialogue. Sanctions against Pyongyang have been influenced, but their strengthening will not lead to the renunciation of nuclear weapons. The US intends to turn to military means, said the expert.

The only question is whether Trump will tell Xi Jinping about his plans and how much Xi will find them acceptable, Die Welt reported.

Based on the materials of the Voice of America, Bloomberg, New York Times
The United States reiterates strong support for OSCE Minsk Groups work and appreciates their your unwavering engagement with the sides to advance a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, US diplomat said during the OSCE Permanent Council.

The United States welcomes the joint statement by Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders following the October 16 summit organized by the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group in Geneva, Harry Kamian, Charge dAffaires at the U.S. mission to OSCE, said in response to the Co-Chairs.

This summit was an important signal showing that the sides are ready to re-engage in negotiations in good faith. We are pleased that the presidents agreed to take urgently needed measures to reduce tensions along the Line of Contact, and we encourage the sides to build on this positive momentum and refrain from mutual accusations and recriminations, he said.

The diplomat reiterated the calls for the sides to implement the measures agreed upon at the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg last year.

The sides agreed then to expand the monitoring by the Office of the Chairmanships Personal Representative, which we hope can eventually be reflected in the 2018 OSCE budget. The United States also encourages the sides to work on the proposal to establish an OSCE investigative mechanism.

Ambassador Kasprzyk, we appreciate your assessment of the situation on the ground  that it is relatively stable, but tense, and that even a small ceasefire violation could spiral quickly out of control. The work of your agile, small, yet highly effective mission to promote transparency and confidence among the sides is indispensable, and deserves all of our full and unconditional support.

The United States appreciates the close collaboration of the Austrian Chairmanship and the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office in supporting the Co-Chairs mediation efforts and stabilizing the situation on the ground.

We also support confidence-building measures and increased dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis that can help stabilize the security situation and create a more constructive atmosphere for negotiations. Those participating in dialogue must be able to do so freely, without fear of harassment when they return home.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, we share the frustration of the sides that this conflict has indeed gone on far too long, and we believe the status quo is unacceptable. At the same time, we all agree that there can be no military solution to the conflict. As a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the United States remains deeply committed to working with the sides to find a lasting and peaceful resolution to the conflict, one based on the principles shared by participating States of non-use of force, territorial integrity, and equal rights and self-determination, as embraced in the Helsinki Final Act.
We are never asking our friendly, partner countries to support Armenia against anybody, and including against Azerbaijan.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Edward Nalbandian, stated the above-said speaking to i24NEWS television of Israel.

To the journalists remark that the Azerbaijanis are claiming that there have been difficulties with the ceasefire in the past few months and when asked whether Armenia is violating the ceasefire, Nalbandian responded as follows:

We are never asking our friendly, partner countries to support Armenia against anybody and including against Azerbaijan. On Nagorno-Karabakh issue our expectation is to support and to be in line with the position of the international community. The international community gave a mandate to the three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group- the United States, Russia and France - to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. This is the unique situation that the United States, Russia and France, on the level of the Presidents of those countries, adopted five statement on how the conflict could be resolved in a very detailed way with concrete principles and concrete elements elaborated as an integrated whole. And Armenias position is in line with the position of the Co-Chair countries, so with the position of the international community.

And when asked whether or not the position of the international community is that those territories are Azerbaijani, the Armenian FM said:

This is not the position of the international community. The position of the international community, as I said, is expressed in the five statements of the three Co-Chair countries presidents, and its very clearly said that the final status of the Nagorno-Karabakh has to be decided by the free expression of will of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which will have an internationally legally binding force, including for Azerbaijan. This is the position of the international community and we are expressing our support to this position, but Azerbaijan doesnt.

Concerning the ceasefire violations, and by the way this is also the position of the three Co-Chair countries, so of the international community, including Armenia, that we have to respect the trilateral ceasefire agreements reached between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1994-1995 without time limitations, three agreements about the ceasefire and about the consolidation of the ceasefire. Azerbaijan is always trying not to respect ceasefire agreements, and even to put under the question that those agreements are in force.

This is the difference between our position and the position of Azerbaijan. Even more, the international community through three co-chairs come up with the proposals to create investigation mechanism of violations of the ceasefire agreements. Armenia supports the proposal on the creation of mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations which could serve as a mechanism of prevention. Azerbaijan is rejecting to creation of this mechanism, so the position of the three Co-Chair countries, of course they are mediators and could not always express their opinion about it openly and publicly. Nevertheless, they are always saying that the side, which is rejecting to create this mechanism of prevention takes the responsibility for all the violations of ceasefire.
Russia and China will look for new areas of cooperation and will spare no effort to implement the projects they already have, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, TASS reported.

"I would like to note that our efforts are not in vain. Trade growth exceeds 35%. This is good news. You have mentioned a number of big projects in various areas. We will continue to work hard on them," Putin said at a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. "We will look for new areas of cooperation. I am sure we will find them."

The Russian leader congratulated Xi Jinping on his reelection Secretary General of Chinas Communist Party at the October congress. "The results of the congress proved not only your high authority but also the wide support of the Chinese people to your course," he said, adding that comprehensive strategic cooperation with China remains a top priority of Russias foreign policy.

The Chinese leader, in turn, thanked Putin for his congratulation. He also hailed successful implementation of a number of joint projects, including in the gas sector and aircraft building, as well as progress in linking Chinas The Belt and the Road initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Xi Jinping stressed that China is ready to further develop relations with Russia.




Brasilia (AFP) - The European Union and the South American economic and political bloc called Mercosur are close to concluding a free trade accord after decades of fitful talks, an EU official said Friday.

Holding his index finger and thumb just slightly apart, Jyrki Katainen, an EU Commission vice president, said: "We're that close to having a new association and trade agreement between EU and Mercosur."

He spoke after talks with Brazilian President Michel Temer and the foreign ministers of Mercosur. The member countries are Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Venezuela is a member but has been suspended, while Bolivia is in the process of joining.

"At a time when some are building walls, we want to build bridges," Temer said as he stood with the ministers. He was clearly referring to President Donald Trump's drive to construct a wall along the US border with Mexico.

The two sides are working hard to complete an agreement, at least at the political level, so they can make an announcement next month in Buenos Aires during a ministerial-level meeting of the World Trade Organization.

The two sides have been trying to negotiate a free trade accord for nearly two decades.

But the process has been hampered by setbacks and the discussions were suspended altogether in 2004.

They resumed six years later with a commitment on both sides to sweeten their original offers.

Bones of contention include Mercosur exports of beef and ethanol to the EU.

Other touchy issues that remain to be settled include government procurement, some agricultural goods and intellectual property rights, Brazilian officials said.

After Donald Trump took office in January with his vehement stance against free trade accords, the EU went on an offensive in the opposition direction and in July sealed with Japan a political agreement similar to the one it is trying to close now with Mercosur.




'Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

: From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned  from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.Enter Mia Warren  an enigmatic artist and single mother  who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood  and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.





Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

: In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.In this last remnant of the Wild Westwhere oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the Phantom Terror, roamedmany of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organizations first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.





Exit West by Moshin Hamid

: In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meetsensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doorsdoors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.





'The Dry by Jane Harper

: After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Lukes steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didnt tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if theres more to Lukes death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.





The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

: From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping, heartfelt saga about the course of one man's life, beginning and ending in post-war IrelandCyril Avery is not a real Avery -- or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he?Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more.In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit. Book Post??
he doesn't appreciate cults other than his cult-of-personality.

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yashar ali is so interesting, he gets so many exclusive celeb/politics crossover scoops and came outta nowhere

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I like to have him on my timeline but sometimes his Maggie Haberman stanning is too much lol. He can messy.

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mm ya i followed him for a bit but it was too much ia

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yes, he is messy. but he has some nice scoops.

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his maggie stanning is so creepy. so is his obsession with sean hannity.

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Yeah, who the hell is he? He's like the Shady Music Facts of the politics/journalism world.

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team nobody?

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in terms of tr*mp admin vs scientology

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lock them in a cage and let them destroy each other

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I'm ready for Tom to shed his human form and do what needs to be done

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Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see David Miscavage, Anne Archer, etc lose everything.

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And Anne's horrible son, the Tom Cruise wannabe who badgered that British reporter. What an asshole.

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oblig in every scientology post: fuck anne archer, racist bitch.



yeah her demonic son created like, the celebrity center for scientologists I think?

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Im...confused. So they reached out to her because shes the poster child of Scientology oppression? And now this same aide is hanging out with a Scientologist?



Am I missing more to this scandal than the usual stupidity of this administration and the obvious legal implications? Am I complacent? Numb?



Sigh.

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I know this gif is overused but it's the only thing really applicable here

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this reminds me! Steve fucking Bannon had an event 2 miles from me today, so we had a sizable demonstration. about halfway thru our protest a garbage truck pulled into the parking lot of the venue. I couldn't help but to shout out "look! it's him!" which sparked a chant of "Bannon's in the truck"

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omg ilu

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this makes me so happy

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Lolololololololol

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LOL! That is awesome.

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Watching me some FotB right now. I love her.

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isn't not going to happen. and this administration if they did it, would be sure to do it in a horrifying way that had long reaching effects that would be a disaster.





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I mean if all religions lost their tax exempt status that would be pretty awesome tbh.

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But I could see this admin going after all with tax exempt status, including charities. i mean it's not like that's beyond the monster in chief.

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as if christians would allow their churches to lose exemption.

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Not sure if this is already how it's supposed to be, but I think churches should have to show a certain % of their income (tithes, etc.) going to outside verified charities to keep their tax-exempt status.

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Those Scientologist investigators will find the pee-pee tape.

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He rejected the offer. And, "After several minutes outside of Trump's door, which was Schiller's practice as Trump's security chief, he said he left."



Hi. Then what? https://t.co/I7Ya59pSkB  Jeffrey Wright (@jfreewright) November 9, 2017



knowing his security guy confirmed that setting even took place today has me really thinking the piss tape is real lmao

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Team "I hope they both destroy each other"

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ive always wanted to comment on yoyur comments because your level headed and your icon is so cute. but how amazing would it be if they both exposed each other and COS got shut down and 45 got impeached (in a perfect world)

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It makes me feel really icky to agree with something Drumpf wants.

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lbr it's only because Trump has no use for Scientology. He runs with another bunch of grifters. Actually, several other bunches of grifters -- the GOP, Fox/Breitbart/Infowars, Putin/Russian oligarchs, his own family, etc.

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They might start a campaign to destroy Scientology, it will rile up their base and distract press from the Mueller investigation...

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No part of me think his intentions are good but Id still love to see Scientology taken down.



I need that curb your enthusiasm gif because its exactly how I feel lol.

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Think of it this way: one of them will destroy the other, and no matter what happens, we all win!

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Fuckers shouldn't have had a tax-free status to begin with. My country refused Scientology's request to be classified as a religion. Wish the US would get on that shit.

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They literally blackmailed their way to tax-exempt status

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The IRS backed down and gave $cientology their tax-exemption because they filed something like 1600 lawsuits against the agency.



This is why so many people are hoping Luis Garcia is successful in suing the "Church" because it could be a start in having a lawsuit rainfall on them that will be instrumental in its destruction.

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Look up Operation Snow White.

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YAS im here for trump vs scientology

fight to the death until one (or both) is destroyed! plz.!!!!

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Cant wait to see how Scientologists retaliate.

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this. they will come for him.

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I wonder what Leah has to do for them to kill her, I think threatening their tax exemption might be it...

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BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA fuck you

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What a strange year. Suddenly actions have consequences.

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now if only that applied to our president

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unless you're the u.s. president

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Come thru 2017!

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Considering all the deaths that ended 2016, it's weird seeing all the career deaths 2017 is taking.

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It's interesting to see how the social/political climate has changed in the past year, it makes me wonder what 2018 will bring. I want every last abusive man in power exposed, honestly.

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mte, after all the shit we've been through, at least this is SOMETHING

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for once i'll co-sign this year shit. i always think it's silly but not this time.



2017 really has taken some careers down and i'm here for it.

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Wow!!! The men of Hollywood are shook rn

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"And if you're one of those men that I know? One of those men whose palms are sweating reading this? Wondering if your names are about to be exposed because of what you've done? How you've abused. How you've twisted. How you've lied. Good. Sweat. Be afraid. Welcome to our world. And watch your backs. We have looked over our shoulders in fear, every day and night, for long enough. Your turn. To you abusers and the ones who stood by and stayed silent? Consider this your notice. From me and from women everywhere. We are roaring, alright." Yes! Taking me back to Sophia Bush's amazing post

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YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSS.

I've been loving all those whiney men suddenly being afraid like "oh we can't speak to women now? we can't flirt? We're going to be labeled a rapist and have our lives ruined?" YUP YUP AND YUP. LIVE IN FEAR FUCKERS. WE'RE TAKING YOU ALL DOWN.

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YAAAAASSSSSSSSSS

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yesssss. you know the shitty ass men in Hollywood are scrambling. it's time.

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I remember having to explain to one of my male college friends that I, and all of my female friends, are afraid every day. Not all day, but every single fucking day of our lives. He was shocked. I ran through a typical mindset of, say, me getting off the metro and walking to the dorm: "Be aware of who else is getting off; walk down the escalator to put distance between us; have my keys in my hand; look and see if there is an attendant in the booth; walk quickly up the station stairs; decide which way to go - longer and well-lit or shorter and darker?; text my roommate to let her know I should be there in five minutes; cross the road to avoid drunk frat boys."



All that and more in less than five minutes. No wonder women are on edge all the fucking time. I've been living that life since I was ten.

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me too. they had their fuck ups but they also didn't deserve to be shut down by a billionaire with a grudge. still a scary precedent in media.

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I remember watching some of his stand up awhile ago and he was talking about riding elevators with strangers and how something the strangers did/didn't do made him frustrated/annoyed/??? to the point of wanting to ejaculate all over them, and he mimed jacking off all over an invisible person. I did not understand the "joke" whatsoever but honestly now it seems to have a little more context. Not sure why the audience was howling with laughter tho???

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he has constantly talked about how obsessed about sex he is. in one of his stand ups he says that he feels trapped in sexual thoughts, that sometimes he just wants to do simple stuff without being bothered, like borrow a book from a library, and he finds it impossible if theres a woman remotely attractive close by, he will be distracted thinking about her giving him head or sth



he says it like it is universal for men, that all of them are like this, so I just never thought much about it... but maybe he's just sick tbh



Edited at 2017-11-10 05:32 pm (UTC)

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Yeah I remember an episode of his show where he was riding the elevator with an attractive woman and it goes into his weird fantasy of like what he wants to do to her and it made me so terrified that all men might think like that but Im hoping hes more perverted than most???? Idk.

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It's not. At all. I've found one of the rare ones that isn't like that or doesn't think it's normal to be like that. My boyfriends always thought Louis CK was fucking gross.



Most men are creepy shits yes but I can't with men who make excuses like omg biology I just can't help my nasty ass perversions. Bull fucking shit.



Edited at 2017-11-11 02:57 am (UTC)

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Yeah, I remember getting that impression from some of his bits, but like... It is so hard to find enough mainstream entertainment that isn't at least tinged with male entitlement that I tamped my feelings down like so many of us do. I am so tired of it.

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perfect good behavior gif

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refreshing to see men actually face some damn repercussions for acting like trash and scum

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Oh shiiiiit, bye!



I need to admit that I was in the audience for his HBO Special "Oh My God" back in 2013. My [ex] bf and I drove all the way to Phoenix from Austin on a whim to go to the show. It was a great trip.



Now, of course, I feel differently about our experience at the show itself, but Phoenix was an overall rad place! We drove north through Flagstaff and the scenery/nature was beautiful.

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Bill Cosby: Himself used to be what I'd watch if I was having a bad day. It always cheered me up even after I'd seen it 100 times.



Yeah, never going to be able to watch that again.

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Phoenix is a hellhole of shopping malls and endless red lights.

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Eh, we've all enjoyed shit made by ass holes. I have distinct memories of watching his 2 or 3 stand-up specials on HBO, watching the Cosby Show on Nick at Nite, loving Blue Jasmine (for Cate), thinking Spacey was hot, etc... as long as we aren't out defending them or whatever, we didn't know then that they were like that.

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I posted the NYT article on my facebook and a male friend I have known since I was 15 said he didn't see what was wrong with it and if I could explain. I told him if he genuinely didn't understand then I would have no problem talking to him over the phone, no on fb, about why he doesn't think it is wrong. a friend chimed in saying that louie masterbting in front of women is sexual assault. but my male friend goes 'he asked, they said no, so he didn't'.



im just kinda like..... I don't want to or feel like I should have to explain why it is wrong bc this guy ive known for 17 years isn't an idiot and he should just know it's wrong. I guess his issue is that if he asked and someone said no how is that wrong...which is a whole other issue in itself. so I guess im asking for some advice on how to get through to this man I have known for so long and who has pretty much never gave me pause in anything he's ever said.



yes I know he's trash and I should just not talk to him but I feel like if I just brush him off as another asshole man without maybe trying to get him to see why it's an issue, he's another man with an asshole view. I dunno im fucking torn right now.



Edited at 2017-11-10 04:00 pm (UTC)

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Get him to engage into some critical thinking. Ask him what he considers sexual harassment/assault. Where does he draw the line? Why is it okay to ask women to watch you masturbate in a work environment? Why is it okay to make women feel unsafe in their work environment? He made these women feel unsafe and violated, why isn't that considered, at the very least, harassment?



If he still remains obtuse, I think he's revealing more about his character than you'd like and you should consider reevaluating talking to him.

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I wouldn't just adopt the idea that he's trash and that you shouldn't talk to him. It would be one thing if he responded to your post by immediately saying that, in a defensive tone, but he did ask what was wrong with it and if you could explain. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had genuine curiosity and wanted to learn something. What we're dealing with are men who are in positions of power and have been raised to have a toxic view/idea of what masculinity is. ONTD may not entirely agree with my viewpoint but it's totally psychological and their entire way of thinking needs to be rewired. If you don't have the energy to do that, it's one thing, and you are well within your rights to say, "I'm not the person for this conversation." But there's nothing wrong with opening a dialogue and, like the user above me said, engaging him in critical thinking because..unfortunately...some men just don't know. Like they just truly don't, as it wasn't ever taught to them and they've never experienced what we do on a daily basis. We can't just put a blanket over every human being and say, "You should know better." It's just not reality.

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Clementine Ford has some great tweets about this. I'm really bad at linking Twitter from my phone, so I hope this works: https://twitter.com/clementine_ford/status/928797019606413313?s=17

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tell him there are stories where Louie didn't ask. that while asking is crude as fuck, ok he asked, they said no and as long as he didn't seek revenge on them it's scummy behavior but not illegal. but still women don't appreciate some rando, no matter how famous asking them to witness a sexual act. that women deserve better.



and then frankly the homeless guy on the subway thing got a lot of guys i know to see the point. "Would you be ok with a homeless guy on the subway jerking off in front of you? on you? would you be A-ok if he asked you first, no matter if he ignored your no or not?



then point out again there are stories where louie didn't give someone a choice. that he admitted to forcing someone into a bathroom and then was shook up he had the wrong person.

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What a waste of energy to even feel torn about this. Id delete the fucker and move on, he isnt not gonna be a fucking asshole no matter what you say. Its not your responsability to ~educate him. He will, at best, pretend to understand.

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wait WHAT WHAT WHAT. Louis CK apologized for shoving a woman into a bathroom, but called the wrong person? https://t.co/oJllGxSQdL pic.twitter.com/tWtV9PnXPV  Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) November 9, 2017



First of all, he apparently confessed to shoving a woman into a bathroom and then exposing himself and masturbating in front of her, but he has so many victims that he confused the woman he apologized to with another woman!



And you also need to explain rape culture to him. What Louis CK did was sexual coercion, which is a form of sexual assault.



This pyramid may be helpful



I also think you need to highlight this part of the articleFirst of all, he apparently confessed to shoving a woman into a bathroom and then exposing himself and masturbating in front of her, but he has so many victims that he confused the woman he apologized to with another woman!And you also need to explain rape culture to him. What Louis CK did was sexual coercion, which is a form of sexual assault.This pyramid may be helpful

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questions for him:



why would anyone ask to masturbate in front of a woman they're not dating and they've never been intimate with? does he think that's an appropriate way to approach a woman?



would he ask a colleague or his boss or a subordinate if he could masturbate in front of them? does he think that's an appropriate question for a workplace?



does he think there's any woman or man who would ever answer yes to that question, when coming from a near stranger/random acquaintance?



if a man asked him "hey, can i whip out my dick and jerk off in front of you?" how would he feel? isn't the question itself inappropriate and offensive?



does he think masturbating in front of a near stranger is some regular sexual act, and it's not, in fact, fueled by the need to embarrass and violate the person watching without their consent?



is he a complete and total idiot?

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Because those women were at work, and/or in public and/or they shouldn't have to even contemplate sexual requests from someone they're not intimate with and have given no sign they would like to be.



Edited at 2017-11-10 05:03 pm (UTC)

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lmao all of these fucking long ass answers. just tell him the following: think about a gay man going that exact same thing to you, in the exact same circumstances. would he feel that he was experiencing any sort of violation of his liberties as a human fucking being? or would he say that behavior is normal?



straight males usually only get assault when they about a gay men doing to them tbh

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Edited at 2017-11-10 07:05 pm (UTC) Since men sometimes only hear other men - you can send him his statement where identifies it's wrong: http://deadline.com/2017/11/louis-c-k-apology-statement-on-sexual-harassment-charges-1202205889/

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yo where my progressive comedy bro's at? the silence is deafening. #lck https://t.co/vWXTh5GwGH  June Diane Raphael (@MsJuneDiane) November 10, 2017





I definitely noticed that male comedians who are usually all about social issues are being totally silent rn or they're tweeting about Roy Moore but not saying word about Louis CK which I knew would end up happening anyway.

I love June Diane RaphaelI definitely noticed that male comedians who are usually all about social issues are being totally silent rn or they're tweeting about Roy Moore but not saying word about Louis CK which I knew would end up happening anyway.

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pic.twitter.com/nAmdv2T8Or  Adam Conover (@adamconover) November 10, 2017







Here is my simple philosophy: If a comedian is credibly accused of a sex crime, its reasonable to withhold my entertainment dollar and support. Same goes for politicians and my vote. Pretty straightforward stuff.  Adam Conover (@adamconover) November 10, 2017



Adam Conover tweeted about him. I love his show!

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She is amazing tbh and she has a good point that these male comedians need to come out and condemn this full stop, but most won't until they don't have a choice.



So far I've only seen Michael Ian Black talk about it.

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so many "i have been friends with louis for a long time, i don't think twitter deserves my statement" kind of tweets on my timeline from ppl like marc maron and michael ian black tbh

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It's not kicking someone when they are down when you are acknowledging and supporting those who are finally able to get up.  Paul Scheer (@paulscheer) November 10, 2017 i love june. i like her husbands comment on it too

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dang, this is powerful.

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this is great.

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i love this

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late af but I had no idea they were married!!

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Unlike everyone in this thread, I think June is messy as fuck. However, she is right: where are them?

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Timothy Simons (Jonah on Veep) had a great tweet but I'm on mobile so I can't embed it. https://twitter.com/timothycsimons/status/928832671769280512

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JUNE 



i love her twitter. i'm actually seeing HDTGM live tonight

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Has Aziz Ansari said anything yet? He worked with this guy on Parks and Rec and they have the same manager. I only found references to interviews where he's previously been asked about Louis CK and he refused to say anything about him.

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Paul F. Tompkins has been tweeting about it too.

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2017 has been a rollercoaster of emotions.

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Thank you for stating the obvious Mr "If you want Trump to fail, fuck you" Cranston

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MTE. I am no longer interested in his opinions.

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mteeeeee

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I never like the way he words stuff. Who gives a shit about how good an actor he is?

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Hey, @IJasonAlexander, did you ever apologize for pulling this dehumanizing shit on Mary McCormack in 2005 during a Celebrity Poker taping? Pretty sure a dude who is that comfy humiliating his female betters on live television should focus on mending his own fences right now. pic.twitter.com/PcyVFjACcl  The Harpy (@Theremina) November 10, 2017



Bloooooooooooooop

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What the FUCK......

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ughhhhhh this is horrible.

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What the actual fuck. How incredibly vile.

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holy shit

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What the helllllllll

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JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

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Oh my God

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oh my god?????

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What a fucking scumbag.

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Men are a pest.

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this is so fucking disgusting.

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that is fucking insane

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thats so fucked up

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wtfff

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what a FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT

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:( this is so humiliating and disturbing.

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I am so angry now. The audience laughing and not telling him to stop. Fuck him and fuck them.

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Very dirty move.

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https://www.pokertube.com/video/celebrity-poker-showdown-s05-ep02--part-2



22:18 if anyone wants to witness this shit 22:18 if anyone wants to witness this shit

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I don't even have words for how fucked up that is.

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For some reason this made me tear up. That is so incredibly fucked up.

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WTF



My jaw is dropped.

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i can't hear her say go to hell. that's sad, i would have liked that.

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I remember this.

Every male cast member on that shit show about nothing is garbage.

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wow, in the video he did it for a second but then he keeps going... and going... everytime it's her turn. what an ass.

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THIS NEEDS ITS OWN POST.

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ah man I loved her show about the US marshall on USA. Jason Alexander is a dick

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Men were a mistake.

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WOW what a piece of shit.

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This is the most bizarre thing

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Ew what the fuck?

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WOW...that's fucking disgusting.

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JFC I didn't even know this was a real thing. I thought Dwight was just being an ass hole on The Office/it was fake.

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idk why but I'm so shocked by this, maybe because this scenario would never occur to me, it's so fucked up!

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OMG??? Men find new ways to show how disturbing they are every day

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holy SHIT that is fucked up.



Literally just kill all men. Kill all of us. Set the entire human population of fire.

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jfc what the fuck

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lol wtf.

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holy SHIT

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god, what a dick

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I don't even know who this man is but he is a pig.

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woop

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delete all men

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this is fucking evil, theres no other way to refer to this but pure evil.

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That is.... fucked up, to say the least.

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Dear god...no words...

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I think if he does ever go back to acting on screen it'll be a very long time from now (like over a decade at least), and probably only in small-budget indie stuff and foreign films. He's never going to be the A-list leading man he was before again.

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Who asked you and what is it hiding

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Mfte

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"The pillars of what was are falling. Everything is being exposed"



I don't care about Bryan Cranston's opinion but I really hope this statement is exactly what's happening to the systematic abuse. Drain the fucking swamp!



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mte and honestly it seems like that's what's happening, I just really hope our patriarchal society doesn't let them ~redeem~ themselves. Hollywood and gymnastics are both crumbling under abuse accusations right now and I want every single one of them who has ever treated a person under their power like shit to fucking burn.



Im feeling particularly angry today in light of the Aly Raisman story.

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This dude should really just keep his mouth shut.

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no shit

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I was reading an interview with Jon Bernthal and how shocked he was at how awful a person Kevin Spacey was on the set of Baby Driver. His behaviour and attitude was apparently fucking terrible. He didnt go into specific details but he was really disappointed cause he looked up to him.

Why does the industry embrace such terrible ppl smh

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it's so complicated for some of us in the biz tho, some more complicated than others, some complicated enough to feel insurmountable or too scary to approach. no 2 incidents are ever identical (yes, i know harvey had his "system" and whatnot, that's not what i'm talking about).



i personally had a conversation over tea today with my union prez and boy does that expression "when it rains it pours" resonate so much now. i had only a minor grievance but the thing we kept returning to was that idea of, just how many minor grievances add up to an appropriate and sufficient response? when do i stop looking like a victim and more of a willing participant in a toxic environment, even if it's just diet toxic, low-calorie toxic, etc. and etc.? i mean, all i wanted to talk about was just how uncomfortable i'd started to become with an older fellow worker's comments toward me, which don't make me feel terrified or harassed, per se, but at the same time, i can't speak for someone that may see us carrying on the way flamboyant gay men are wont to and see it instead as me being, again, an active agent in a toxic environment.



so the light conversation turned quickly to larger issues and she gave me some very very good advice. i absolutely respect my brothers and sisters and believe that the best is what we bring to every job. but... there's always that lingering feeling, that comment that just didn't sit well, that touch that went a little over the usual boundaries. and i've even crossed boundaries and had dalliances (well, one, in my entire working career, only once did i fall hard and fast for someone and it actually freaked me, my partner and my newfound partner the fuck out..... but that's another story). so i'm fine if i'm eternally pegged as closed for business, a spoil sport, a buzzkill, a boner killer, "no fun", etc. and etc. if people think those kind of comments have ANYTHING to do with my work and talent, that's their mistake to make and i believe in people enough to believe that they should be given the chance to learn from their mistakes. at what cost? that's not for me to decide... just as it's not for me to decide for all my stage and screen sistren and brethren, who live and die by curtain calls and craft services, how we should deal with these issues...



sorry for the rambling but again, to bring it back to where i started, these things are complicated and every incident should be treated with the same respect and seriousness that we owe anyone that we profess to care about, even to those whom we feel may have trespassed against us. that's just me and how i see people, my idealism and bleeding heart, all wrapped up in a greasy, imperious, mint tea-sipping package!

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thank you for your obvious input, also who asked you again????

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BBC Newsbeat

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When Kevin assaulted Anthony, he wouldn't have even been a big star, he'd been in basically nothing. So it was likely that Kevin was using societal homophobia to help him assault children.

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I'm hoping that all of these stories coming to light about these performers will give Natalie Wood's sister the courage to finally out that piece of shit, Kirk Douglas, as the rapist that he is.

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lol but if Kevin Spacey was president I'd have to stfu and support him anyway, right Bryan?

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HMMMTTT MTE

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Stop bringing up an artist's talent when discussing their crimes. It's totally unnecessary. When I think about my uncle I'm not like, "He was really good at reheating pasta. Too bad he liked molesting me." Like who fucking cares?

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It gives leeway for what people like Kate Winslet are doing-separating the "personal" and the "professional"

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Every news story about Louis C.K. that I've seen on TV and heard on the radio has started with his talent, how much he's achieved and how he's a the "top of his field", etc. Such bs.

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As long as it's not another Suicide Squad lol

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Apparently they cut A LOT out of the movie to make it tighter. The studio execs wanted it to be shorter. Cant wait to see the uncut version lmao. Shame Iris had to be cut out.

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We still have The Cw's Iris.

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Ugh I didn't know Iris was supposed to be in this! Sad she got cut :(

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deathstroke was even supposed to make an appearance right?

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nooooooooooo why did they cut iris!!! i'm dying for lois and iris to interact.

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Ahhh, I'd have liked to have seen Iris since who knows when the hell we're getting that Flash movie

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I don't plan to see this but I want to know if we see GL (probably in that credit sequence) and who is playing them.

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Have they cast a living lantern for the film?

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IDK I really hope they've kept it a TOTAL surprise and that we see them in the credits.

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smells like another age of ultron

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is that the F word i see?





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cyborg is the only one that doesnt have lines in any in any of the trailers

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Cuz hes boring as f

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He's DC's Hawkeye lbr.

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lmao he's had a few actually, chiefly the "don't worry, alfred. i'll take it from here" line. he screams barry and says booya in another.

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And YAY-YUH in one of them, which makes me laugh every damn time.

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It'll be a shame if they don't do anything with his character. I love him in the Teen Titans cartoons.

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I can't wait for this to come out. Going to get wrecked to this with a group of friends. I'm excited to see how Ezra does.

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"#JusticeLeague is clunky & uneven as hell"



Is the only believable out of these.



I'll be shocked, SHOCKED if it's any better than Suicide Squad. Is the only believable out of these.I'll be shocked, SHOCKED if it's any better than Suicide Squad.

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I'm getting the vibe that it will be similar to Thor in that it will mostly be fun with little story or complexity which would probably be a good route for them after BVS.

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Late to the party - saw the film today and decided to check back on this post. Not sure where all the "fun" was. Basically it's not dark enough to be dark and not fun enough to be fun. Mostly it's awkward. So if you plan to see it and haven't yet, adjust your expectations accordingly :)

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Edited at 2017-11-10 06:11 pm (UTC) If social media people are saying it's uneven and they are supposed to be kinder than critics, the critics are lurking waiting to chew this movie apart.

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Some of these are like lightweight critics. I recognize two of these handles from Slash Film and IGN Movies



But yeah, I wonder what those Top Critics are going to say

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I hate the filming style of the DC movies. I cant even really describe it. The over the top filter, the lighting and green screen always takes me out of the movie like nothing looks like anything that would appear this way in the nature. Its like a video game



That gif alone ... ugh



Edited at 2017-11-10 06:14 pm (UTC)

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That's Snyder's doing. Everything is too damn grimm.

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I am glad that Snyder is done directing the DCEU after this. I am fine if he gives input but thats all I want from him.

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Same, I can't stand it! I can't immerse myself in these movies.

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im genuinely surprised the reviews are somewhat positive. it wouldve had to pull off a miracle to even touch what WW did, but im glad to see its not being completely panned.

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lol at Justice League is okay!

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So, basically better than BvS, but not as good as Marvel.

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i don't trust most of these people lmao. if the most positive thing they can say is that it's "fun" and a "superhero film" (thanks) they're being a lot more generous with the movie than they want to admit.

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Yes, exactly. It's reading between the lines. The reactions I've been seeing is what I describe begrudging at best. So I'm not hopeful.

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and a "superhero film"



Right like damn I didn't know Captain Obvious was in this movie too.

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i feel like everyone doesnt want this to be a disaster but its inevitable at this point lmao no point in trying to sugar coat it.

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The only thing I took away from the reviews is that the movie is meh but Aquaman is yay. I wasn't sure whether to spend my two free tickets on this or watch Thor Ragnarok again, I guess I got my answer.

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I never trust twitter reactions, theyll always more generous than they should be

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Yes you are completely right but I dont think this are just twitter people I think these are actual critics? But I could be wrong

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Some of the people are actual legit RT reviewers. They tweet just like everyone else lol.

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New Orleans Mayor Seeking More Federal Counter-Terrorism, Crime Funding

"Local police departments don't have the funding, training, or equipment to fully protect our country from terrorists," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. "We need more police officers on the streets with the tools to do both community policing and homeland security support."

Citing terrorist attacks and mass shootings in New York City and Sutherland Springs, Texas, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu sent a letter this week to the two U.S. senators from Louisiana, Republicans John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, calling for increased funding for counter-terrorism efforts and crime fighting.

"Whether a terrorist attack comes from a radicalized lone wolf or a coordinated cell, local and state police officers are now the tip of the spear in the domestic fight against both terrorism and violence. The ever-changing threat from terrorism and violence inside our country threatens cities of all sizes, with the attacks in New York, Las Vegas, San Bernardino, Orlando, St. Cloud, and more. Local police departments don't have the funding, training, or equipment to fully protect our country from terrorists," Landrieu said. "We need more police officers on the streets with the tools to do both community policing and homeland security support. We know that this looks like a well-funded COPS program in partnership with a robust UASI program. Unfortunately, both of those programs and more have been cut in recent years."

Landrieu had sent letters to Sen. Kennedy calling for this assistance earlier this year -- in March, July, and October. This latest one comes before Kennedy joins Landrieu to meet with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions; Landrieu's statement indicated he will discuss how Congress and the Trump Administration can strengthen local police departments in the fight against crime and domestic terrorism.

"Like the COPS program, which has been cut by over 80 percent since the 1990s, funding for homeland security grant programs to support local capabilities to prevent and respond to terrorist incidents have been cut by approximately 50 percent since they began in 2004. Last year, for example, only 28 metro areas received support through the Urban Area Security Initiative program, down from 64 in 2010," the mayor said. "We, the city of New Orleans, have not received this award since 2012. Unfortunately, President Trump wants to cut these critical terrorism-fighting resources by 25 percent. I have written our two U.S. senators before on these vital national security and public safety issues but have not even received a written response from our delegation members."
You meet the most interesting people while digging around in archives and museums. Bill Mosby is surely one of the most interesting that I've come across.

Born in 1916, Bill Mosby did a bit of everything once he arrived in Milwaukee from Memphis, Tennessee  where he worked in the fields picking cotton: he was a poet, a union leader, active in politics and a restaurateur.

According to Ben Barbera, who wrote about Mosby in his UWM dissertation, "An Improvised World: Jazz and Community in Milwaukee, 1950-1970," Mosby stopped off in Chicago for a few years where he found work as a doorman at a nightclub. In 1935, Mosby moved to Milwaukee where he again worked as a doorman at a nightclub until it closed in 1939."

I first "met" Mosby while visiting the Wisconsin Black Historical Society, 2620 W. Center St., where an ad for Mosby's restaurant  Bill Mosby's Gay Paree, on 7th and Galena in the heart of Bronzeville  is displayed on the wall.

The phrase "better-batter chicken" and Mosby's infectious smile hooked me, two of my favorite words  frozen custard  reeled me in, and the tagline, "we can serve 6,000 people six at a time"  suggesting Gay Paree was an extremely petite version of the city for which it was named  and "served by waitresses with personality" had me sold.

I had to know more.

Though the Gay Paree ad is undated, I learned that Mosby  who had "hoboed" his way to Brew City as part of the long Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the North  also had a place in the mid-'50s called "Bill Mosby's Chateau," nearby at 836 W. Walnut St. According to Barbera, Mosby closed the Chateau, which was a tavern that hosted live jazz, around 1957, "because he could not make enough money to take care of his 11 children."

In the early '50s, he ran Bill Mosby's Chicken Shack at 1516 N. 8th St. It's possible these were all basically the same restaurant with different names in different locations.

One interesting news clipping about Mosby dates to 1945, during his pre-restaurant days  when he was working at A.O. Smith and, simultaneously honing his poetic sense.

"To most war workers," wrote an unnamed Journal reporter, "the humming of a lathe may be just plain noise, but to Bill Mosby, 28, of 1830 N. 10th St., it is music and poetry. All day long he stands at his machine and translates the noises and rhythms into songs and poems which he writes during his spare time."

Though Mosby's music  rarely referenced outside that lone newspaper article  hadn't earned him fame and fortune at that point, he was getting noticed, according to the article, which was accompanied by a great photo of a smiling Mosby, complete with tobacco pipe.

"One of his songs is being plugged by Rochester, Jack Benny's stooge. He introduced Bill's song, 'Boy, What A Gal,' during his personal appearance tour recently. Jimmy Lunceford features 'It's Only You,' which Bill wrote in conjunction with Frank Keppler, a local musician who works in the same war plant. Louis Jordan, whose Tympani Five recordings are big gits with hot music loves, is boosting two of Bill's compositions, 'Meet You on the Outskirts of Town' and 'Throw It Out of Your Mind.'"

Even then, just a decade after his arrival in Milwaukee, Mosby was a community treasure. (Did I mention Mosby also founded the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation and, at nearly 70 years old, had his first visual arts show?)

"Bill is a leader in local Negro community affairs and a sixth ward celebration is hardly complete without a poem written for the occasion by big Bill Mosby. He is a machine operator in one of Milwaukee's largest war plants. The company recently presented him with his sixth merit award for suggestions which boosted production."

A year earlier, one of big Bill's poems, "My Comrades and I," was read as part of an honor roll project paying tribute to neighborhood residents serving in the war. A plaque in their honor was placed outside Roosevelt Junior High.

According to Barbera, "Mosbys life in Milwaukee was both exceptional and typical of the black migrant experience. On the one hand he was able to find industry jobs, and eventually fought through remaining elements of discrimination to land a semi-skilled position. However, the economic realities, and the physical effects of the work, took their toll.

"Then he was able to reinvent himself as a businessman in Milwaukees Bronzeville district. But the declining economic status of the area, as well as the effects of early urban renewal and expressway projects, meant that for many owning a business was no longer tenable in 1960s Bronzeville. Mosby then found a decent job as a longshoreman, but again the effects of the economy in the city  this time the shift away from manufacturing

 and the physical demands of the job, meant that he had to retire early.

"Nonetheless, Mosby was able to do important things for his community and his family throughout his life, and despite hardships was able to realize some aspects of the migrants dream."

If Mosby was a gift to Milwaukee, this son of a sharecropper and a housekeeper seemed to think the reverse was true, too.

"When you are young and black and poor and growing up in the South, the Dream is Chicago," he told the Journal's Melita Marie Garza in 1989. "But I didn't really find my dream until I moved to Milwaukee."

In later years, Mosby appears occasionally in newspapers via his work as a leader of the longshoreman's union and as a political delegate. Interesting, years after his Bronzeville neighborhood was erased from the map, Mosby still lived at 7th and Galena, where in 1991 he was rescued by firefighters from his burning apartment at 792 W. Galena St.

"All the best things in my life happened to me on Walnut Street," he told Garza. "I met my two wives on Walnut Street. I got my education on Walnut Street. I never would have had the opportunity to do all the things I've done here in Milwaukee had I stayed in the South."

You can't help but wonder if, in those days, Mosby  who died in 1993  would step out of the Plymouth Apartments, look around and see a mental picture of all the shops and taverns and theaters and homes that once occupied the area. Big Bill was a poet, so I bet he did.
A bit bruised but still standing, old Orthodox churches can be found around Bucharest, having escaped the frenzied demolition of the Romanian capital in the 1980s ordered by ex-communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. At least 10 jewels of Romania's religious heritage from the 16th to 19th centuries survived due to an engineering tour de force: they were moved and hidden away. Engineer Eugeniu Iordachescu was head of an institute at the time that was confronted with the architectural whims of Ceausescu and his wife Elena. The couple had been impressed with Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and got the idea to bulldoze the historic centre of Bucharest to make way for a government district dominated by a gigantic "House of the People". The demolitions had already started when Ceausescu inquired about the width of Bucharest's main Kiseleff road. "Someone said 50 metres (165 feet), another 70 metres. Then Ceausescu said, 'Make the boulevard 90 metres wide'. That had major implications. You had to destroy 20 metres more on each side," recalled Iordachescu, now 88 years old. When the engineer went out to evaluate the impact of the destruction, he was enchanted by a small Orthodox church, Schitul Maicilor (meaning the Nuns' Convent), built in 1725. "A jewel that had to be saved no matter the cost," he told AFP. "After months of wracking my brains, God enlightened me." Inspired by "the waiter who carries glasses on a tray without spilling a drop", he said he imagined a "concrete tray" built under the church. Detached from its foundations, the church was lifted and placed on rails and moved to a new location with the help of hydraulic jacks and winches. - Out of sight - Schitul Maicilor, with its beautiful exterior paintings, was the first church saved in June 1982, moved 245 metres. It was tucked away behind a massive building that today houses the state's intelligence service. "The sight of a church bothered Ceausescu. It didn't matter if they demolished or moved it, as long as it was no longer in sight," according to the capital's former chief architect Alexandru Budisteanu. "Relics that were seen (by the Communists) as forming part of an outmoded city model were to be removed.... Some churches were kept but banished to the backyards, possibly to avoid provoking the religious population," according to the recently published "Mobile Churches", a book of photographs by Anton Roland Laub, a Romanian photographer. Nine more churches, including seven in Bucharest, were saved thanks to the "concrete tray" method and then concealed behind the new huge communist buildings. Among them was the Mihai-Voda church, built in 1594 by Prince Michael the Brave, which endured the longest trip, moved some 289 metres. Iordachescu says his proudest feat was the moving of the Orthodox synodal palace, a 9,000-tonne building, including the basement, in 1985. - A 'priceless' effort - While some churches were saved, many more were lost. Bulldozers knocked down 22 churches between 1977 and 1987, making way for Ceausescu's grandiose plans for Bucharest, which ultimately demolished a fifth of the capital, the legacy of the dictator executed in 1989 after the overthrow of communism. "When are you going to move that church?" Iordachescu recalled Ceausescu would say during his weekly visits to the construction sites. A simple wave of his hand could lead to the demolition of a building or an entire road. "The Orthodox Church managed to save what it could. A more radical attitude, an open conflict with the communist regime, would not have accomplished more," the spokesman for the patriarchate, Vasile Banescu, told AFP. But paradoxically, Ceausescu, who advocated atheism, paid for moving the churches, which Banescu attributed to his "peasant origin which preserved a certain respect for religion". A campaign led by Western media to save Romania's heritage also helped, Iordachescu added. And how much did that rescue effort cost? "A building erected 400 or 500 years ago is priceless," the engineer simply responded.
Papua New Guinea authorities destroyed makeshift shelters and removed water stores in a shuttered Australia refugee camp Friday, just hours ahead of a deadline for the inmates to leave or be forced out, detainees said. The Manus Island camp held asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by boat under Canberra's tough immigration policy, but was ruled unconstitutional by PNG's Supreme Court and closed on October 31. Some 600 men barricaded themselves in the camp despite water and electricity being cut off, citing fears of a hostile reception from locals near three new transition centres set up for them. Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee on Manus, tweeted Friday that shelters were torn down, while rubbish bins used to collect rainwater had been destroyed. "Police and immigration destroyed our shelters. Inside the rooms is very hot without power for fans. We built these shelters to provide shade & cover from tropical sun & rain," he wrote. He said workers on Thursday had also removed security fences around the centre. Footage released Friday by Australian advocacy group GetUp showed the men enduring deteriorating conditions, with detainees sleeping on tables outside shipping containers to escape the heat, as well as blocked toilets and makeshift wells dug to store water. "Death or serious illness is inevitable in coming days," GetUp human rights co-director Shen Narayanasamy, who visited the camp, said in a statement. "These men are sick, thirsty and hungry. The conditions are appalling and it's obvious you wouldn't choose to stay here if you thought you could be safer elsewhere." - Hundred 'refusing' to go - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Friday called on the refugees to "comply with the lawful requests and requirements of the PNG authorities", and stressed they would not be taken to his country. PNG police said Friday that "almost 60 refugees have voluntarily boarded" transport to their new locations". Police spokesman Superintendent Dominic Kakas added that he expected "all refugees will leave the centre" Friday. But Boochani told AFP only a few people had left the centre with hundreds of others "still refusing" to go. A notice at the camp Thursday warned that "force may be used to relocate those who refuse to move voluntarily" by Saturday. PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill added that "appropriate means" would be used to "apprehend individuals who are causing unnecessary anxiety and violence". - 'Free the refugees' - Canberra has been under pressure from refugee advocates and the United Nations to close the camp on Manus, and another on Nauru, amid concerns about their conditions and the impact of prolonged detention on mental and physical health. But the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva Thursday slammed the closure of Manus "without adequate arrangements for long-term viable relocation solutions for all refugees and asylum-seekers transferred there". The refugees remain barred from resettling in Australia even though Canberra has struggled to transfer them to third countries. Late Friday hundreds of protestors in Sydney clashed with police as demonstrators tried to stop guests from entering a political fundraising event with former conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Rally-goers were calling on immigration minister Peter Dutton, who was also attending the fundraiser, to end offshore detention and bring refugees to Australia. Armed with loud speakers, demonstrators chanted "Free, free the refugees", and "Abbott, Dutton, blood on your hands", while blocking the paths of Abbott's guests and shouting "Shame on you". Riot police were forced to form a guard around dinner party attendees to get them through the crowd, with occasional scuffles breaking out between protestors. Hundreds more people marched in the streets of Melbourne.
Artistic rendition of the Chicxulub impactor striking ancient Earth, with Pterosaur observing. Credit: NASA

(Phys.org)A pair of researchers at Tohoku University has found evidence suggesting that if the asteroid that struck the Earth near Chicxulub 66 million years ago had landed almost anywhere else, it would not have been nearly as destructive. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, Kunio Kaiho and Naga Oshima suggest that had the asteroid struck another part of the planet it is likely the dinosaurs would have survived.

Scientists around the world have reached a consensus regarding the reason that the dinosaurs (except for bird relatives) went extincta large asteroid struck the Earth just off what is now the Yucatan peninsula, hurling so much soot and other material into the atmosphere that the planet became too cold (for approximately three years) for the dinosaurs and most other land animals to survive. But now, it appears that they might have survived had the asteroid struck almost anywhere else.

To learn more about the event that had such a huge impact on the history of our planet, Kaiho and Oshima used a computer to analyze multiple data sources surrounding the impact and the location where it struckthe resulting simulation showed how much soot would have been generated based on the amount of hydrocarbon material in the ground near the impact site. Such hydrocarbons would include not just oil or coal deposits, but other rocks that also contained oilmore hydrocarbons would mean more soot and gases making their way into the atmosphere. The research pair also created a map showing surface hydrocarbon densities across the globe at the time.

They found that the site where the asteroid struck was particularly dense in hydrocarbons87 percent of the planet surface was less dense. That means, they claim, that if the asteroid had struck a place where it was less dense (which would have been almost anywhere else), much less soot would have been generated, and thus, the planet would not have cooled as much. And if the planet had not cooled so much, the dinosaurs might have survived, and that might have meant that we humans would never have had a chance to evolve.

Mass extinction only occurred when the asteroid having 9-km diameter hit the orange areas. Credit: Kunio Kaiho

More information: Kunio Kaiho et al. Site of asteroid impact changed the history of life on Earth: the low probability of mass extinction, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-14199-x Abstract

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid approximately 9 km in diameter hit the hydrocarbon- and sulfur-rich sedimentary rocks in what is now Mexico. Recent studies have shown that this impact at the Yucatan Peninsula heated the hydrocarbon and sulfur in these rocks, forming stratospheric soot and sulfate aerosols and causing extreme global cooling and drought. These events triggered a mass extinction, including dinosaurs, and led to the subsequent macroevolution of mammals. The amount of hydrocarbon and sulfur in rocks varies widely, depending on location, which suggests that cooling and extinction levels were dependent on impact site. Here we show that the probability of significant global cooling, mass extinction, and the subsequent appearance of mammals was quite low after an asteroid impact on the Earth's surface. This significant event could have occurred if the asteroid hit the hydrocarbon-rich areas occupying approximately 13% of the Earth's surface. The site of asteroid impact, therefore, changed the history of life on Earth. Journal information: Scientific Reports

 2017 Phys.org
Apple's leadership remains mostly white and male despite growing pressure on technology companies to diversify their workforces from the board room to the rank-and-file.

Some 81% of the company's senior officials are men and 82% of them are white, according to a 2016 government filing Apple released Thursday.

Of 107 leaders in the Silicon Valley company, 10 are Asian men, four are Asian women, two are black men, one is a black woman and two are Hispanic men. There are no Hispanic women in the Apple leadership, according to the EEO-1, an annual report that Apple makes to the federal government.

Apple has faced and rejected shareholder proposals to increase the diversity of its executives and board.

More: Congressional Hispanic Caucus calls out Apple, Google, Facebook for hiring practices

More: Silicon Valley's race gap is getting worse, not better, new research shows

More: It's called the 'Pao effect'Asian women in tech are fighting deep-rooted discrimination

Less than a third33%of its global workforce and 23% of its technical staffers are women, according to Apple's estimates. It says 9% of its technical staffers are African American and 13% of them are Hispanic.

Apple says it's making progress. Some 29% percent of its leaders are women, up one percentage point from July 2016 to July 2017, the company said.

And, Apple says half of all new hires are from historically underrepresented groups in tech: women, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.

These efforts aside, white and Asian men still make up the majority of Apple's workforce.

Major technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google release pie charts to illustrate the demographics of their workforces. They also release a form they file with the federal government called the EEO-1.

In a statement, Apple said "The EEO-1 has not kept pace with changes in industry or the American workforce over the past half century. We believe the information we report elsewhere on this site is a far more accurate reflection of our progress toward diversity."

Since 2014 when Google released its demographics for the first time, technology companies have pledged to close the gender and racial gaps in Silicon Valley yet the gaps have been stubborn.

In fact, black and Hispanic representation is declining in San Francisco Bay Area technology companies, according to research published last month by the non-profit Ascend Foundation, which advocates for Asians in business.

The employment data from 2007 to 2015 examined by the Ascend Foundation showed that people of color are being denied opportunities from the entry level to the executive suite and are losing ground in the tech industry.

Thursday's diversity report was the first released by Apple since Denise Young Smith was named vice president of diversity and inclusion in May. Previously she served as head of human resources.

Last month, Smith apologized for controversial remarks she made during a panel discussion in Colombia.

"I focus on everyone," Smith said at a summit in Bogota when asked about whether she would focus on black women at Apple.

"Diversity is the human experience," she continued. "I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT."

"There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blonde men in a room and they're going to be diverse too because they're going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation."

In an email to her team at Apple that was obtained by TechCrunch, Smith wrote: "I regret the choice of words I used to make this point. I understand why some people took offense. My comments were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it."

2017 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
A 3D printer used by Keio researchers to digitally fabricate objects such as a pen holder and cranial model for nursing and healthcare. Credit: Keio University Social Fabrication Lab

3-D printing technology has important medical applications, such as manufacturing prosthetic parts, implants, and models of human organs. Here, researchers at Keio University in Tokyo, describe the potentially important role of 3-D printing in nursing and long-term care for the elderly. Given Japan's rapidly ageing society, demand for terminal care in hospitals or care facilities will exceed capacity in the near future. Furthermore, there are insufficient visiting nurses to provide in-house care. Therefore, strengthening in-house care is an urgent task for healthcare of the elderly. The introduction of information technology (IT) is an essential strategy from both aspects of work efficiency and providing high quality care.

Specifically, Shoko Miyagawa and colleagues at Keio University noticed the increased availability of 3-D printers in self-help community centers throughout Japan. Based on interactions with nurses, medical practitioners, engineers and material designers, Miyagawa and her collaborators established a benchmark for specific digitally fabricated objects needed by patients and classified them into three types.

Firstly, are self-help devices enabling individuals to carry out specific tasks. For example, someone with paralyzed fingers who is unable to pinch, is assisted by a customized 3-D-printed penholder for signing important documents.

Second, 'caring tools' facilitate interaction between care-givers and care-receivers. For instance, cutting out plasters in fun shapessuch as animalswith a laser cutter helps patients overcome negative perception of surgical tape.

Third, Miyagawa and colleagues identified educational objects as tools to learn how to perform therapy actions. For example, a 3-D-printed semi-transparent cranial model can be used for practicing the insertion of a tube for vacuuming phlegm from a patient's throat with light-emitting diodes acting as guides to follow its position inside the model. The researchers also addressed the question of safety, as the proposed 3-D-printed objects must be washable and not produce skin irritation. Another important aspect of the research project of the Keio scientists is an assessment of the usage level of the objects. To this end, the researchers are currently developing an Internet of Things sensing system: a data logger that can collect information about an object's use for one month.

Having established the relevance of 3-D printing techniques for improving the quality of life and the independence of elderly people, Miyagawa and colleagues conclude that, "in order to make digital fabrication more useful it is necessary to further reduce the cost of introduction and operation and to develop technologies to do so."

More information: Vijay K. Varadan et al. 3D printing and IoT for personalized everyday objects in nursing and healthcare, Nanosensors, Biosensors, Info-Tech Sensors and 3D Systems 2017 (2017). DOI: 10.1117/12.2261651

Provided by Keio University
Mantle plumes rising from the deep Earth form a chain of volcanoes at the surface above as the tectonic plates move over them. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Hawaii sits at the end of a chain of volcanoes running across the Pacific Ocean floor, but in the middle of this chain lies a bend of 60 degrees. For many decades geoscientists have struggled to explain exactly how and why this feature occurred around 50 Million years ago. A new study in Science Advances led by postdoctoral researcher Mathew Domeier along with colleagues from the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo, sheds light on this long-standing geological controversy  A massive collision at the edge of the Pacific Ocean was the culprit.

Mantle plumes and volcanic chains

There is more than meets the eye with the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean. The islands presently sit above a so-called mantle plume, or a conduit of anomalously hot rock upwelling from thousands of kilometers deep in the Earth's interior. This hot feature explains why the islands are dotted with active volcanoes. But the Hawaiian Islands also reside on the Pacific tectonic plate, which is moving across the top of the mantle plumeat the blistering pace of a few cm/yearwhich means that in a few million years the islands will have moved off the hot conduit and volcanism in the Hawaiian Islands will cease.

As Hawaii's active volcanoes die in the future, new volcanic islands will appear elsewhere on the Pacific Plate, specifically at spots that replace the Hawaiian Islands above the hot conduit. This process is much like what would happen if you moved a sheet of paper over a stationary candle: the movement of the paper will be recorded as a trail of burn marks from the heat of the candle beneath. Hawaii is presently over the "candle," but in the future it will have moved away from it and the candle will begin singing a new spot on the paper.

Seafloor topography (bathymetry) of the Pacific showing the volcanos and submerged seamounts of the Hawaiian and Emperor Chains together with the 50 million-year-old bend between them. Credit: Google Earth

This process has happened over and over again in Earth's long history, and Hawaii is just the latest volcanic chapter in a story that extends backward at least 80 million years. The Hawaiian Islands lie at the end of a chain of now-extinct volcanoes and seamounts (submerged volcanoes) that stretch ~6,000 km northwest across the floor of the Pacific Plate, to the junction between the western Aleutian Islands and the Peninsula of Kamchatka. Returning to our paper and candle analogythis chain is the same as the path of singed marks leading backwards from the present location of the candle beneath the paper. In the Pacific, the volcanoes and seamounts that constitute this chain grow progressively older to the northwest, as would be expected if the chain marked the slow and progressive drift of the Pacific Plate above a mantle plume.

But something curious catches the eye about this submerged volcanic chain in the Pacific: it isn't straight. A very conspicuous kink divides the chain into two segments: a mostly west-trending segment (the "Hawaiian Chain') and a mostly north-trending segment (the "Emperor Chain'); the kink between is thus commonly referred to as the "Hawaiian-Emperor Bend." Volcanic rocks sampled from seamounts on either side of the bend have been dated, and indicate that the bend developed approximately 47 million years ago.

So what caused it? This very question has been the source of debate and controversy among researchers for half a century. The classical explanation is that the bend marked a swift and substantial change in the direction of motion of the Pacific Plate about 50 million years ago, but supporters of this interpretation have struggled to explain why that sudden change occurred.

The research team from University of Oslo carefully collected together a variety of evidence that suggests that the Pacific Plate changed its course about 50 million years ago because an archipelago that previously formed the northern end of the Pacific Plate crashed into eastern Asia at that time. The archipelago comprised what is known as an island arc: an elongate chain of volcanoes and volcanic rocks formed above a subduction zone (a zone where the seafloor of an oceanic tectonic plate is pushed under another tectonic plate and sinks into the mantle below). The team was able to work out the fiery history of the island arc and its relation to the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend from three key sources of data: Exotic rocks: The pieces of that island arc, which are now found on the peninsula of Kamchatka and in the Japanese Islands, are geologically exotic, meaning that they do not have the same characteristics of other rocks from the same region and were clearly transported from somewhere elseand they specifically reveal that they formed far away from any large continents (like Asia). Magnetic rocks: Magnetic information preserved in the island arc rocks (acquired from the Earth's magnetic field when the rocks originally formed) can be used to determine the latitude at which they originatedand the magnetic information from the island arc rocks reveals that they came from further south than where they are located today (this also corroborates their exotic nature). Deep rocks: Island arcs only develop along a subduction zone, so the formation of the island arc should have been accompanied by subduction, and subduction, in turn, is associated with the sinking of oceanic tectonic plates into Earth's interior. The relics of subducted oceanic plates can be "imaged" by seismic waves generated by earthquakes, in much the same way that your bones can be imaged with X-rays during a CT scan. By such seismic imaging techniques we have identified the relics of a subduction system that was formerly located at the northern end of the Pacific Plate, at the same place that the island arc rocks were located according to their magnetic data.

Seismically imaged relics of subducted oceanic plates (warm colors surrounded by dashed green line) that reveal that subduction was once active in the northern Pacific. The island arc was sitting above these subducted oceanic plates at this time, and it later collided with northeast Asia. Credit: CEED

A crash caused the bend

Together, the geologic, magnetic and seismic clues from the North Pacific indicate that subduction and island arc construction began 80 million years ago at the northern end of the Pacific Plate. Immediately after subduction started, the subduction zone began moving north, pulling the island arc and the Pacific Plate north with it. This northward migration continued from 80 to 50 million years, at which time the Emperor Chain was formed by the northern drift of the Pacific over the mantle plume.

By about 50 million years ago, the northern migration of subduction led to a colossal collision between the island arc at the northern end of the Pacific Plate and the northeast edge of Asia. This massive crash left large segments of the former island arc stranded in northeast Japan and on the peninsula of Kamchatka, and terminated subduction there.

The crash and the cessation of subduction effectively halted the northward course of the Pacific Plate at that time, and it was this event that was responsible for suddenly re-routing the direction of the Pacific Plate 50 million years ago. So in the end, it was a continental-scale fender-bender that gave the Pacific its spectacular bend, according to the new study published in Science Advances.

More information: Mathew Domeier et al. Intraoceanic subduction spanned the Pacific in the Late CretaceousPaleocene, Science Advances (2017). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao2303 Journal information: Science Advances

Provided by CEED
Credit: Imperial College London

Specialised schemes could protect lives and jobs against extreme weather, say experts at Imperial's COP23 side-event.

The effects of climate change, such as droughts, wild-fires and extreme weather are a particular concern for those living in countries where people cannot afford to protect themselves against such disasters.

Globally, 70 percent of the damage caused by climate change events, and 98 percent in developing countries, doesn't get compensated unless the government steps in, delegates heard at the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is taking place in Bonn, Germany.

Climate risk insurance  which provides financial compensation for people following climate-related disasters  could be a powerful tool to build resilience to global warming trends, but financial concerns are holding up progress.

These concerns were raised by experts at an official side-event organised by the Imperial College London delegation at COP23, with Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII)_and Munich Re Foundation.

The need for climate risk insurance is clear

Climate change is already affecting people's lives worldwide, and are predicted to worsen as greenhouse gases from human activities cause further global warming.

"By looking at the changing distribution of different weather parameters, such as temperature or precipitation, we know that, as a result of climate change, some weather extremes are becoming more frequent," said Professor Joanna Haigh, co-director of the Grantham Institute  Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial's Global Institute addressing the challenges of global warming and environmental change.

"For example, in July 2010, Russia experienced a series of heatwaves: such events used to have a 99-year repeat time but now this is reduced to about 30 years," she said.

The COP23 conference is presided over by Fiji who, drawing on their experience as a Small Island Developing State in the Pacific, have prioritised discussions on accelerating climate action for the most vulnerable nations. Imperial's event addressed the topic of climate risk and insurance and its relevance to developing nations.

According to Christian Barthelt, Project Manager at the Munich Re Foundation, climate risk insurance has broad, multi-faceted benefits. "It is much more than just a pay-in pay-out scheme," he said.

"Insurance can cover many aspects of disaster risk management. It's a constantly evolving process that can be understood as a cycle, incorporating research, data and constant improvements. This approach can bring transparency, a much greater awareness of climate-related risk, and improved resilience  if applied correctly."

Everyone must be involved

Speakers at the event emphasised that climate risk management is a long-term intervention, requiring commitment to improve communities' resilience to climate change and their role in avoiding its worse effects.

"An effective insurance policy depends on partnerships between the public and private sector, and the active participation of communities at risk," said Barthelt.

"You need to promote the project on the ground, develop a sustained dialogue with the different stakeholders, and ensure the long-term commitment of all those involved."

This sentiment was echoed by Soenke Kreft, Executive Director of Munich Climate Insurance Initiative: "The whole thing is rooted in international cooperation  shared responsibility between countries, both developed and developing, access to data, and the political will to see projects through long term".

Momentum is growing, but there's more to do

Over the past few years, climate risk insurance has been recognised by major policy fora, including the Paris Agreement, the UN Sustainability Development Goals and G7 and G20 discussions.

However, Simone Ruiz, Managing Director of Allianz Climate Solutions, highlighted that only 2 percent of the developing world is insured against climate disasters.

"In developing countries, 98 percent of the damage caused by climate change events doesn't get any compensation unless the government steps in  and of course, behind the damage there are people who lose their homes, work places, or worse," she said. "Insurance can be a mechanism to prevent livelihoods falling back into poverty after extreme weather events."

Financial and technical constraints

Admasu Feyisa from Ethiopia's Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation, introduced the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which consists of 48 member countries particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. He explained that most member countries haven't yet started implementing climate risk insurance because of financial and technical constraints.

"Over the past few decades, these countries have suffered from repeated extreme weather events. Their frequency disrupts any recovery progress, and has significant adverse effects on economic, social and environmental conditions," he said.

To overcome these constraints in vulnerable countries, the private sector, governments and the populations at risk need to work together to develop approaches that enable insurance to be used as a tool to promote sustainable development and adaptation to climate change.

One approach discussed was a pooling of contributions beyond national boundaries to share the financial outlay between more governments. "Although this would require would require significant political will, it could deliver significant social and environmental dividends," said Soenke.

To find out more about climate risk insurance, download MCII's latest publication, "The role of insurance in integrated disaster & climate risk management: evidence and lessons learned"
An artists impression of the Orion crew capsule with ESAs service module. The module sits directly below the capsule and provides propulsion, power, thermal control, and water and air for four astronauts. The solar array spans 19 m and provides enough to power two households. A little over 5 m in diameter and 4 m high, it weighs 13.5 tonnes. The 8.6 tonnes of propellant will power one main engine and 32 smaller thrusters. Credit: ESAD. Ducros

NASA's Orion spacecraft aims to send humans further into space than ever before, and ESA's European Service Module will provide the essentials for keeping the astronauts alive and on course.

A review of the programme by NASA to assess progress is now showing a launch date from December 2019 to June 2020.

The first Exploration Mission-1 will circle the moon without astronauts to lay the foundation and prove the technology for a second mission with a crew.

In Bremen, Germany, integration of the service module is well under way, with work already starting on the second.

More than 11 km of cables are being laid and connected to send the megabytes of information from the solar panels, fuel systems, engines, and air and water supplies to the module's central computers.

Recently, the Orion's 24 orientation thrusters were installed, complementing the eight larger engines that will back up the main engine.

The module's complex design requires 1100 welds for the propulsion system alone, with only 173 left to complete.

Teams in Bremen at the Airbus integration room are on eight-hour shifts to keep work running 24 hours a day, aiming for a shipment of the completed module to the USA in the summer of 2018.

It will be flown to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be combined with the crew module before they are moved to NASA's Plum Brook station in Ohio for extensive tests to ensure they are ready for launch and the voyage into deep space.

Set to be shipped to the USA in the first half of 2018, ESAs contribution to NASAs Orion spacecraft is taking shape at Airbus in Bremen, Germany. This is no test article: the service module pictured here will fly into space, past the moon and farther than any other human-rated spacecraft has ever flown before. Credit: ESA

The service module is based on technology from ESA's tried-and-tested Automated Transfer Vehicles that flew to the International Space Station on five missions. For Orion, the design is more complex with more systems but the technology behind it has been miniaturised to fit into the smaller Orion structure.

ESA's David Parker, Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration, says: "The Orion spacecraft and service module is an inspiring international cooperation at the forefront of technology and humanity's drive for exploration. All the teams involved are justly proud to be part of such a complex and important project."
Credit: University of Colorado at Boulder

Search the hashtag "flu" on Twitter and you'll find a free-flowing stream of comments from people across the country. In 140 characters or fewer, they offer threads of information about their symptoms, how long they've been sick, whether they received a flu shot, and more.

While these tweets may seem inconsequential on their own, they collectively weave together a vast quilt of information not only about who is sick, where and when, but also about how people think and behave throughout flu season.

For researchers like Michael Paul, author of the new book Social Monitoring for Public Health, this type of social media-based data represents a massive opportunity to better monitor, understand and carry out public health.

"If you think of social media as people sharing things in their everyday lives, then social media data is helpful for understanding how those everyday things intersect with people's health," said Paul, who is an assistant professor of information science at CU Boulder.

In 2010, when Paul and his co-author, Johns Hopkins University Associate Professor Mark Dredze, first considered the possibility of mining social media for data, Twitter was only four years old. The two wondered if people ever discussed health issues on the platform, which led them to write a paper outlining the ideas that have driven much of their work since.

Today, researchers like Paul use data from social media to monitor everything from diseases like the flu and Zika virus, to opinions like anti-vaccination sentiments and mental health issues like suicide prevention.

"The work is taken a lot more seriously now," Paul said. "It's not just this niche thing in the computer science community. It is being picked up by actual public health practitioners."

Government entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention do a good job of tracking infectious diseases like influenza, but researchers can forecast diseases even faster using social media data, the authors note.

"Official monitoring by government health agencies is delayed by at least one to two weeks," Paul and Dredze write in their book. "So social media has been used as a real-time supplementary source of monitoring."

With an infectious disease like the flu, an extra week or two can make a big difference for health agencies. If an outbreak is severe, agencies may need that time to increase hospital staffing, alert or close schools and advertise vaccination programs, the authors write. In some areas around the globe, like South Africa, data from Twitter can beat traditional forecasting methods by more than a month.

Not only do platforms like Twitter offer real-time results, they also provide cheaper, easier access to data than many traditional disease forecasting methods.

"I think it's had the most impact on disease surveillance and forecasting like the flu," Paul said of social media data.

However, he sees broader prospects for the field in the future, especially when it comes to understanding and monitoring mental health.

Sites like Twitter and Reddit offer users a particular combination of visibility and anonymity. People who may fear judgment or embarrassment when speaking with doctors, psychologists or loved ones can sometimes more comfortably discuss illness, depression, anger or any other sentiment with a community of strangers online.

"On Reddit, you're sort of anonymous," Paul said. "People might even create a new account just for this one community, so it's not even tied to their other Reddit identity."

As research develops, Paul believes social media data will be most useful in understanding these types of mental health issues and in creating and assessing public health campaigns.

"All the things people share about what they're doing or thinkingthat they don't tell their doctors but still affect their healthare things that social media will help us understand," he said.

More information: Michael J. Paul et al. Social Monitoring for Public Health, Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services (2017). DOI: 10.2200/S00791ED1V01Y201707ICR060
Credit: iStock

Sunny days predict higher house prices at auctions, but rain and long weekends bring buyers a discount, according to new research led by the University of Technology Sydney.

"There is a link between sentiment, or mood, as measured by consumer sentiment surveys, and asset prices  including house prices," says Dr Adrian Lee, Senior Lecturer in Finance at UTS Business School.

"Weather is known to affect mood, and some studies have shown a link between the weather and stock prices, so we decided to look at weather and house prices," he says.

Lee, together with Real Estate and Finance Assistant Professor Maggie Hu from CUHK Business School, examined data from auctions and private sales in Sydney between 2000 and 2014.

They compared this with corresponding Bureau of Meteorology information, including temperature, rainfall and solar exposure, as well as consumer sentiment survey data.

They found that for auctions, but not private sales, a sunny day increased the price by 0.974 percent or nearly $11,500, based on the current median Sydney house price of $1,178,000.

Warmer days also achieved a higher auction price than cooler days  a 10 degree higher maximum temperature resulted in a 0.635 percent increase or around $7,400 extra.

Rain, however, appeared to dampen enthusiasm, resulting in 0.174 percent lower prices at auction than on a clear day, or around $2050 less on the median Sydney house price.

"Houses are not priced rationally. The price is partly driven by people's feelings, particularly at auctions. So if you are buying or selling a house, it is good to be aware of these influences," says Lee.

The analysis also found that on a long weekend, auction prices were lower than average. Selling around a public holiday resulted in a -1.3 percent discount for the buyer, who was likely forgoing a weekend away.

On the other hand, selling around Melbourne Cup, either one week before or after, was linked to a 1.7 percent increase in auction prices in Sydney.

"Our analysis was rigorous as we adjusted our estimates for the type of home  apartment, house, townhouse  as well as number of bedrooms, bathrooms and whether there was parking among other housing characteristics.

"We also looked at the suburb, year of sale and quarter of sale  which controlled for seasonal weather patterns," says Lee.

Lee says weather influences auctions, but not private sales, because sentiment has more sway in an auction situation, which is confined to a particular day and is usually held outside.

"Private treaty sales give buyers time to negotiate, so emotions factor less in the final outcome," he says.

The analysis showed sentiment provided a premium on auction prices particularly when the housing market was booming, or there was a higher turnover.

A preliminary paper on the findings will be presented at the prestigious American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association Conference in Philadelphia in January next year and at the upcoming UTS Business School 2017 Finance Research Showcase on Monday 27 November.
Reuters

The Indian rupee could end the year higher than earlier forecast, according to a few analysts who have reviewed their calls based on sliding dollar and improving outlook on Asian currencies following the U.S. inflation data. The rupee, on the back of the softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data, hit a seven-week high of 80.52 per dollar on Monday. Bank of America now expects the rupee to be about 81 per dollar by December and at 83 by March, compared to its previous forecast of 84 and 85-levels, respectively.
Insurance Back Romania: Reducing the contribution for second pension pillar will lead to a significant decrease of the pension's value for a high number of participants - AURSF

AURSF - The Association of Romanian Financial Services Users warns about the consequences of reducing the contributions for the second pension pillar, the action leading to a significant decrease of the pension's value for an extremely high number of participants.



The association's reaction comes after the Romanian Government approved, on 8 November 2017, the decrease of contributions payed for the 2nd Pension Pilar, from 5.1% to 3.75%, starting next year.



"AURSF will take every legal action deemed opportune and necessary to determine the authorities to reconsider their decision and increase the contribution quota back to their current level at least", Alin IACOB, President of the Association, explained.



At the same time, "AURSF asks the authorities to solve urgently other highly important aspects, including creating a strict calendar for the adoption and implementation of the private pensions payment law, which has already been postponed for many years now, as well as identifying solutions for encouraging new private pensions participants to opt for a private pensions fund, instead of being randomly allocated to one, as it is currently happening", Alin IACOB added.



AURSF also points out that the Romanian State took upon itself the legal obligation to increase the contribution for the second pension Pillar to 6%, which did not happen.



In 2008, when the mandatory private pensions system (the Second Pillar) was launched in Romania, the graphic indicated a 0.5% increase of the contribution annually, from 2% of the gross income of employees in 2008 up to 6% in 2016. However, due to increasingly high budgetary pressures, authorities decided a few times to postpone the annual increase.



Moreover, Alin IACOB also highlighted another important aspect: the money accumulated in the Second Pillar fund are inherited by family members in case the participant dies before he/she requests his/her right to receive the pension.



Recently, APAPR - The Romanian Association for Privately Administered Pensions expressed its concern about the Government decision, estimating that it will affect the future pensions of millions of Romanians.



"Reducing, for the first time, the private pension contribution, from the current 5.1% to 3.75% (instead of increasing it to 6%, according to the law) sends a negative signal, affecting the long term viability of the private pensions system. Thus, the decision translates into private pensions reduced by at least 20% for future pensioners and reduced financing potential for Romanian businesses through capital market", APAPR representatives declared.



At the end of September 2017, in Romania there were 7 million participants to the second pillar private pension fund. The total accumulated sum in their accounts was RON 38 billion.





Author: Andreea RADU on 10.11.2017





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GuocoLand has been recognised as the regions Best Developer at the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final...

GuocoLand has been recognised as the regions Best Developer at the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final after being named as Singapores top home builder in the local leg of the awards.

One of the Singapores leading developers, GuocoLand believes that every project should possess poetic ambience and offer a lifestyle thats comfortable and usable. GuocoLand achieves its goal by incorporating well-designed public spaces, sustainable and green amenities, and choosing the most premium locations for the benefit of consumers, said grand final jury.

Not only was its GuocoTower hailed as Asias Best Office Development, its Tanjong Pagar Centre (TPC) was crowned as Singapores Best Green Development, with the latters Wallich Residence component securing the top local prize for luxury condominiums.

Other local regional winners were Stars of Kovan by Property Enterprises Development that bagged the Best Residential Interior Design in Asia, while High Park Residences by Fernvale Development was recognised for the Best Landscape Architectural Design.

Overall, Singapore got the highest number of regional awards (4), followed by Macau (3). Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines each got two. Hong Kong and Malaysia each obtained one, but the latters Bon Estates took home the second biggest regional award for Best Boutique Developer.

There were also six to eight country winners from Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Mongolia, but they failed to secure any regional accolades.

The PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final presented a total of 17 regional prizes. It was also even bigger and better as 33 domestic awards were handed out to new participating markets, namely Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Macau.

Below is the complete list of country awardees and the overall regional winners at the prestigious event held at Sands Expo and Convention Centre at Marina Bay Sands here on Wednesday night (8 November).

DEVELOPER AWARDS (ASIA)

Best Developer (Asia)

Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Ananda Development Public Company Limited  Thailand

Blue Ocean Group of Companies  Sri Lanka

Borey Peng Huoth Group  Cambodia

CapitaLand Vietnam  Vietnam

GuocoLand  Singapore  WINNER

Marga Landmark  Myanmar

Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

Tropicana Corporation Berhad  Malaysia

Story continues

Best Boutique Developer (Asia)

Bon Estates Sdn Bhd  Malaysia  WINNER

Lian Beng Group Ltd  Singapore

PT Supermal Karawaci  Indonesia

DEVELOPMENT AWARDS (ASIA)

Best Condo Development (Asia)

Capital TRUST Residencies  Vajira Road by Capital TRUST Residencies (Pvt) Ltd  Sri Lanka

High Park Residences by Fernvale Development Pte Ltd  Singapore

Langham Residence by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Panorama Nha Trang by Nha Trang Bay JSC  Vietnam  WINNER

Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited  Macau

The Central by Marga Landmark  Myanmar

Tropicana Residences by Tropicana Corporation Berhad  Malaysia

Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited  Hong Kong

Best Housing Development (Asia)

Aster 2  Double Storey Semi-Detached House by UMLand Seri Austin  Malaysia

Baan Sita Wan by Charn Issara Development PCL  Thailand  WINNER

Belgravia Villas by Fairview Developments Pte Ltd (a unit of Tong Eng Group)  Singapore

Evelyn Gardens Residential Neighbourhood, ParkCity Hanoi Township by Vietnam International Township Development JSC  Vietnam

Grand Star Platinum by Borey Peng Huoth Group  Cambodia

Green Valley by Home Lands Skyline (Pvt) Ltd  Sri Lanka

Jakarta Garden City (Cluster River Garden) by PT. Modernland Realty Tbk  Indonesia

Best Mixed Use Development (Asia)

8 Forbes Town Road by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd.  Hong Kong  WINNER

District 8 Mixed Use by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

MontAzure by MontAzure  Thailand

One Galle Face by Shangri-La  Sri Lanka

Tanjong Pagar Centre by GuocoLand  Singapore

The Central by Marga Landmark  Myanmar

Tropicana Metropark by Tropicana Corporation Berhad  Malaysia

Best Hotel Development (Asia)

Courtyard by Marriott Phnom Penh by Khou Investment Co., Ltd  Cambodia

Hilton Garden Inn by PT Supermal Karawaci  Indonesia

Langham Hotel Jakarta by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited  Macau  WINNER

Sofitel Singapore City Centre by GuocoLand  Singapore

Wynn Palace Cotai by Wynn Resorts, Limited

Best Office Development (Asia)

Alliance Global Tower by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

District 8 Office Complex by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

FYI Center  For Your Inspiration Workplace by Golden Land Property Development PLC  Thailand

GuocoTower by GuocoLand  Singapore  WINNER

Proposed Show Room & Office Complex at No 288, Sri Jayawardanapura MW, Kotte, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka by D. P. Jayasinghe Group of Companies

The Vanguard by Phnom Penh City Center  Cambodia

Best Retail Development (Asia)

Robinsons Galleria Cebu by Robinsons Land Corporation  Philippines  WINNER

Tanjong Pagar Centre (Retail) by GuocoLand  Singapore

The Central by Marga Landmark  Myanmar

The Oxygen by CapitaLand Vietnam  Vietnam

Best Universal Design Development (Asia)

15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd  Hong Kong

MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited  Macau  WINNER

District 8 Mixed Use by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Paya Lebar Quarter by Lendlease  Singapore

Mortiz Private Estate by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

The Central by Marga Landmark  Myanmar

The ZEN Residence (Gamuda Gardens) by Gamuda Land  Vietnam

Best Green Development (Asia)

15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd  Hong Kong

ArthaLand Century Pacific Tower by ArthaLand  Philippines

FYI Center  For Your Inspiration Workplace by Golden Land Property Development PLC  Thailand

Seasons Avenue by CapitaLand Vietnam  Vietnam

Sequis Tower by FARPOINT  Indonesia  WINNER

Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited  Macau

Tanjong Pagar Centre (Retail) by GuocoLand  Singapore

Tropicana Gardens by Tropicana Corporation Berhad  Malaysia

DESIGN AWARDS (ASIA)

Best Condo Architectural Design (Asia)

Achilleion by Blue Mountain  Sri Lanka

Ashton Residence 41 by Ananda Development Public Company Limited  Thailand  WINNER

BW Premier Collection BluPhere Pattaya by Habitat Group Co., Ltd.  Thailand

COO Residence by Couture Homes Properties Limited  Hong Kong

Gold Coast Sea View Apartment, developed by Agung Sedayu Group and designed by PT Ong and Ong  Indonesia

Isola@KLCC by O&C Resources Berhad  Malaysia

Langham Residence by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

One Uptown Residence by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

Panorama Nha Trang by Nha Trang Bay JSC  Vietnam

Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited  Macau

Spottiswoode Suites by Spottiswoode Development Pte Ltd (a JV between Lian Beng Group Ltd & Centurion Properties Pte Ltd)  Singapore

Stars of Kovan by Property Enterprises Development (S) Pte Ltd  Singapore

The Leaf Residence by IME Property Co., Ltd  Myanmar

Wang Residence, developed by Citicon Propertindo and designed by PT Ong and Ong  Indonesia

Best Housing Architectural Design (Asia)

Evelyn Gardens Residential Neighbourhood, ParkCity Hanoi Township by Vietnam International Township Development JSC  Vietnam  WINNER

Issara Residence Rama 9 by Charn Issara Development PCL

Residence90 by Phnom Penh City Center  Cambodia

Best Residential Interior Design (Asia)

Capital TRUST Residencies  Vajira Road by Capital TRUST Residencies (Pvt) Ltd  Sri Lanka

District 8 Apartment by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Feliz en Vista by CapitaLand Vietnam  Vietnam

Langham Residence by Aguing Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Mandarin Residences by PT Bali Ragawisata  Indonesia

Stars of Kovan by Property Enterprises Development (S) Pte Ltd  Singapore  WINNER

The Leaf Residence by IME Property Co., Ltd  Myanmar

The Sapphire Bloc by Robinsons Land Corporation  Philippines

U Residence  Biz Lofts by PT Supermal Karawaci  Indonesia

Best Hotel Architectural Design (Asia)

District 8 Oakwood Premier & Studios by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Jetwing Surf, Pottuvil Point by Balmond Studio  Sri Lanka

Hotel Mercure Pantai Indah Kapuk by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited  Macau

Novotel Singapore on Stevens, Mercure Singapore on Stevens by Oxley Holdings Limited  Singapore

Wynn Palace Cotai by Wynn Resorts, Limited

Best Office Architectural Design (Asia)

ArthaLand Century Pacific Tower by ArthaLand  Philippines

Oxley Tower by Oxley Holdings Limited  Singapore

Sequis Tower by FARPOINT  Indonesia

Best Retail Architectural Design (Asia)

PIK Avenue by Agung Sedayu Group  Indonesia

Stars of Kovan by Property Enterprises Development (S) Pte Ltd  Singapore

The EDGE by Phnom Penh City Center  Cambodia

The ParkCity Club Hanoi, ParkCity Hanoi Township by Vietnam International Township Development Joint Stock Company  Vietnam

Uptown Mall by Megaworld Corporation

Best Landscape Architectural Design (Asia)

Grand Star Platinum by Borey Peng Huoth Group  Cambodia

High Park Residences by Fernvale Development Pte Ltd  Singapore

Lavila by Kien A Corp  Vietnam

Mandarin Residences by PT Bali Ragawisata  Indonesia

Nova Serai Phu Sa by Novaland Group  Vietnam

Paya Lebar Quarter by Lendlease  Singapore

The Estate by Bon Estates Sdn Bhd  Malaysia

The Florence by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

The ParkCity Club Hanoi, ParkCity Hanoi Township by Vietnam International Township Development Joint Stock Company  Vietnam

Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited  Hong Kong

Uptown Mall by Megaworld Corporation  Philippines

DOMESTIC WINNERS & HIGHLY COMMENDED

PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards (Macau) 2017

DEVELOPMENT AWARDS (MACAU)

Best Condo Development

WINNER: Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited

Best Integrated Hotel Resort Development

WINNER: MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited

Best Luxury Hotel Development

WINNER: Wynn Palace Cotai by Wynn Resorts, Limited

DESIGN AWARDS (MACAU)

Best Condo Architectural Design

WINNER: Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited

Best Contemporary Hotel Architectural Design

WINNER: MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited

Best Luxury Hotel Architectural Design

WINNER: Wynn Palace Cotai by Wynn Resorts, Limited

SPECIAL AWARDS (MACAU)

Best Green Development

WINNER: Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited

Best Universal Design Development

WINNER: MGM COTAI by MGM China Holdings Limited

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Sky Oasis by yoo by Concordia Investment Properties Limited

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Wynn Palace Cotai by Wynn Resorts, Limited

DOMESTIC WINNERS & HIGHLY COMMENDED

PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards (Hong Kong) 2017

DEVELOPMENT AWARDS (HONG KONG)

Best Condo Development

WINNER: Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited

HIGHLY COMMENDED: COO Residence by Couture Homes Properties Limited

Best Mixed Use Development

WINNER: 15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd

DESIGN AWARDS (HONG KONG)

Best Condo Architectural Design

WINNER: COO Residence by Couture Homes Properties Limited

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited

Best Landscape Architectural Design

WINNER: Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited

HIGHLY COMMENDED: 15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd.

SPECIAL AWARDS (HONG KONG)

Best Green Development

WINNER: 15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd.

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited

Best Universal Design Development

WINNER: 15 Middle Road by Henderson Land Development Co. Ltd.

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Twin Peaks by K. Wah International Holdings Limited

DOMESTIC WINNERS & HIGHLY COMMENDED

PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards (Mongolia) 2017

DEVELOPER AWARDS (MONGOLIA)

Best Developer

WINNER: NCD Group

Best Boutique Developer

WINNER: Turelt LLC

DEVELOPMENT AWARDS (MONGOLIA)

Best Apartment Development

WINNER: Olympic Residence by Asia Pacific Investment Partners

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Parkview Residence by Jiguur Grand Group

Best Hotel Development

WINNER: Red Rock Resort and Conference Center by Undur Ulaan Travel LLC

SPECIAL AWARDS (MONGOLIA)

Special Recognition in CSR

WINNER: Jiguur Grand Group

Special Recognition in Sustainable Development

WINNER: NCD Group

DOMESTIC WINNERS & HIGHLY COMMENDED

PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards (Sri Lanka) 2017

DEVELOPER AWARD (SRI LANKA)

Best Developer

WINNER: Blue Ocean Group of Companies

DEVELOPMENT AWARDS (SRI LANKA)

Best Condo Development (Colombo)

WINNER: Capital TRUST Residencies  Vajira Road by Capital TRUST Residencies (Pvt) Ltd

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Treasure Trove Residencies by Home Lands Skyline (Pvt) Ltd

Best Residential Development (Greater Colombo)

WINNER: Green Valley by Home Lands Skyline (Pvt) Ltd

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Grand Capital Residencies  Thalawathugoda by Grand Capital Residencies

Best Office Development

WINNER: Proposed Show Room & Office Complex at No 288, Sri Jayawardanapura MW, Kotte, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka by D. P. Jayasinghe Group of Companies

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Proposed Show Room & Office Complex at No 717, Baseline Road, Colombo 09, Sri Lanka by D. P. Jayasinghe Group of Companies

Best Mixed Use Development

WINNER: One Galle Face by Shangri-La

DESIGN AWARDS (SRI LANKA)

Best Condo Architectural Design

WINNER: Achilleion by Blue Mountain

HIGHLY COMMENDED: King Alfred Palace by Blue Ocean Group of Companies

Best Hotel Architectural Design

WINNER: Jetwing Surf, Pottuvil Point by Balmond Studio

Best Residential Interior Design

WINNER: Capital TRUST Residences  Vajira Road by Capital TRUST Residencies (Pvt) Ltd

HIGHLY COMMENDED: King Alfred Palace by Blue Ocean

Best Office Interior Design

WINNER: Huawei Technologies Lanka Company Pvt Ltd by Widac Commercial Interiors (Pvt) Ltd.

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Regus by Widac Commercial Interiors (Pvt) Ltd.

SPECIAL AWARDS (SRI LANKA)

Special Recognition in CSR

WINNER: Home Lands Skyline (Pvt) Ltd

Special Recognition in Sustainable Development

WINNER: Blue Ocean Group of Companies

BEST OF SRI LANKA AWARDS

Best Condo Development (Sri Lanka)

WINNER: Capital TRUST Residences  Vajira Road by Capital TRUST Residencies (Pvt) Ltd

Best Housing Development (Sri Lanka)

WINNER: Green Valley by Home Lands Skyline (Pvt) Ltd

This article was edited by Keshia Faculin.
Former Argentine president Cristina Kirchner on Thursday rejected charges she engaged in money laundering. Kirchner, who won a seat in the Senate last month that protects her from going to prison if convicted, submitted a written request to Judge Julian Ercolini asking that the case be dismissed. The leftist former president faces money-laundering and bribery charges in the so-called Hotesur case, named after a Kirchner family hotel business in Patagonia, the suspected source of the allegedly laundered funds. "There are at least seven firm judicial decisions which, after analyzing the same acts, have ruled out the existence of any type of illicit activity," Kirchner wrote. Saying she wanted to avoid a "media show," Kirchner asked her supporters not to gather outside the courthouse as they have several times in the past. She arrived at the courthouse in Buenos Aires some 90 minutes before the start of the hearing to deliver her letter but declined to respond to reporters' questions. Kirchner's children, Maximo, 40 and Florencia, 27, have been summoned to testify in the same case next week. On Twitter, she described the case as a "new chapter of judicial persecution order" by President Mauricio Macri, who succeeded Kirchner in 2015. In her letter to the court, she said she was "aware that the explanations provided will not even be considered and that the fate of this instruction has already been decided a long time ago." Several prominent members of her former government have been detained on corruption charges in recent weeks, including ex-public works minister Julio De Vido and Amado Boudou, Kirchner's vice-president from 2011-2015. Kirchner won a seat in the Senate for Buenos Aires province in last month's legislative elections. She takes up her seat on December 10. In Argentina, parliamentary immunity protects against arrest but does not prevent judicial cases from going ahead.
A billboard which reads Advance solidly to execute the strategy of loving the people and enforcing the border. Police and citizens collectively build a harmonious and civilized Wukan, is shown on a main road leading to Wukan village in China's Guangdong province October 31, 2017. Picture taken October 31, 2017. REUTERS/James Pomfret

By James Pomfret

WUKAN, China (Reuters) - Surveillance cameras peer at residents from every major street corner. Informants are everywhere, villagers say. And more than a dozen villagers are languishing in prison or detention.

The southern Chinese village of Wukan was once a symbol of grassroots democracy in China. Now, a year after the authorities quelled protests over land grabs and the jailing of a local leader, Wukan is locked in a stifling security squeeze.

A rare visit to Wukan by a Reuters team and interviews with half a dozen villagers and sources familiar with the situation revealed that the village and surrounding area remain tightly policed as the government tries to maintain security at all costs.

Villagers in Wukan once warmly welcomed the media, but many are now afraid of speaking for fear of reprisals.

"There's nothing left here," said one young man in Wukan who was edgy and wouldn't talk for long. "You know what happened," he added before moving quickly away.

The sources said that a provincial-level "Wukan Mass Working Group" had been set up with about 100 full-time personnel and charged with ensuring "stability" by marshalling a network of informers, security patrols, surveillance systems and floodlights in the village.

In the 1980s, the Chinese government began allowing elections in villages nationwide, although democracy activists say the votes for village committees were rarely free from official influence.

But after a series of protests against local officials in Wukan in 2011, when government offices were ransacked, authorities eventually backed down, allowing the village to hold open elections that became a beacon for democratic hope in China.

But now, Wukan, once famous in China as the "democracy village", has succumbed to China's tightening grip over civil society and individual rights, said Zhuang Liehong, a former Wukan protest leader who helped lead an uprising against local authorities in 2011.

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"What is happening in Wukan is what is happening in China," said Zhuang. "It's a dark reflection of China, with no freedom of expression. No individual rights."

There was no immediate response from the Guangdong provincial government to faxed questions from Reuters seeking comment.

Under President Xi Jinping, the government has intensified efforts to deepen the reach of the Communist Party into all aspects of life in China. Critics say it brooks no dissent, and has been cracking down on civil society, which it sees as a challenge to central authority.

"When Xi took the reins in 2013, repressing boundary-pushers in civil society was a cornerstone of his political campaign to consolidate power," Diana Fu of the University of Toronto and Greg Distelhorst of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote in an academic paper on "Grassroots Participation and Repression in Contemporary China".

With China's recent leadership transition further consolidating Xi's power, the next five years will likely see a continuation of tough social stability policies that will have an impact on places like Wukan, some analysts say.

"The party has decided to double down on authoritarianism after the problems they've faced," said Nicolas Bequelin, Amnesty International's director for East Asia.

VILLAGE IN THE GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT

During the 2011 protests, Zhuang helped barricade the coastal hamlet of 15,000 people against battalions of riot police. He spoke by telephone with Reuters from New York, where he is now in exile after leaving Wukan in 2014.

Wukan sits in a picturesque region flanked by hills and a deep water harbour, with lush farmland, ponds teeming with fish and shrimp, and the occasional flash of kingfishers.

Its troubles began in the 1990s when swathes of farmland began being sold off to property developers by the village leadership in a series of opaque deals.

In 2011, these problems came to a head, when many villagers began demanding that the land be returned.

A months-long insurrection against local authorities and riot police put a global media spotlight on Wukan, leading to a rare populist victory in Communist China when the provincial authorities eventually backed down.

The village committee at the centre of the land deals was removed and a free election was allowed that saw all seven of the protest leaders voted into public office.

This village committee soon came under pressure from allies of the old leadership seeking retribution, they said. Over the course of the next few years most of the protest organisers left public office, including their leader, Lin Zuluan, who was jailed for corruption last summer.

The protests last year erupted after villagers demanded Lin's release. Many villagers say the charges were concocted and that a confession by Lin on state television was forced.

The protests ran for several months and were quelled by hundreds of riot police firing rubber bullets, hurling tear gas and beating up villagers with batons, victims and witnesses told Reuters at the time.

Last December, the People's Court of nearby Haifeng town, which oversees Wukan, sentenced nine villagers to jail terms ranging from two to nine years for a number of charges including illegal assembly, disrupting traffic and spreading false information, according to a notice on its website.

There was no immediate response to a Reuters request for comment from the Lufeng government, which has jurisdiction over Haifeng and Wukan.

One villager, Zhang Bingchai, was jailed for two years for allegedly spreading false information, the court said. Two acquaintances who knew him said he had spoken about the situation in Wukan, to outsiders on his mobile phone and had posted some images of the crackdown.

Zhuang said his 67-year-old father, Zhuang Songkun, was jailed for three years on a charge of gathering a crowd to block traffic during the protests.

The hard line against the protests reflects the government's desire to ensure stability, said Xiong Wei, the founder of New Enlightenment, a village advocacy organization in Beijing who has visited Wukan on numerous occasions.

"And they've been very successful," said Xiong. "No one dares raise their head. But the problems haven't been resolved," he added, referring to the land seizures.

A NEW 'ETHOS' AND RESENTMENT

Beyond a checkpoint manned by paramilitary police with guns, the main road into Wukan is now lined with giant billboards and colourful flags projecting a new narrative of stability and peace. Propaganda billboards and posters were also displayed around town.

"Advance solidly to execute the strategy of loving the people," read one, illustrated with a flock of doves flying over uniformed officers clutching rifles as they look across towards a portrait of Mao in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

"Police and the people build a harmonious and civilised Wukan together," it read. Another sign urged a "New Ethos".

Beneath the surface, however, resentment lingers amongst those who spoke to Reuters.

"Wukan has reached a dead end now," said one villager. "People won't do anything."

Back in New York, Zhuang, the exiled former Wukan protest leader, said he'll keep speaking out.

He said his mother has been harassed and his house surveilled with cameras. Visitors to his house have been questioned and several detained, he said. His assertions could not be independently confirmed.

All of the other former Wukan protest leaders have since quit their posts, been jailed, or harassed, he said.

"Besides me, there are no voices left. It is silent now."

($1 = 6.6380 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Philip McClellan)
The Taiwanese economy experienced some serious challenges in 2015, but it finally seems to be exiting this recession

Despite having a strong presence in the global tech industry, Taiwans economy has been experiencing serious challenges, influencing the countrys economic growth. To increase competitiveness with other global players like mainland China and Singapore, Taiwan-based companies are shifting from traditional hardware and OEM sectors to software and services.

Yet, if these companies want to dominate global markets, they must develop stronger international communication skills.

With a capitalist economy largely based on hi-tech exports to the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, the U.S., Singapore, and Japan, Taiwan is a major player in the global supply chain of tech-related products. The Taiwanese economy experienced some serious challenges in 2015, but it finally seems to be exiting this recession.

Taiwans National Development Council: Taiwan Must Increase Competitiveness

According to the United States Census Bureau, Taiwan is the tenth-largest trading partner of the U.S., accounting for 1.8% of the countrys total trade. Yet China (first-largest), Japan (fourth), and South Korea (sixth) account for a total of 24.2% of U.S. global trade. So how can Taiwan increase its competitiveness?

The first, and possibly the easiest thing it can do to compete with mainland China, is to improve its global communications.

Taiwan ranks #33 of 72 countries and #9 of 19 Asian countries in the Education First English Proficiency Index, lagging behind countries like Singapore and Malaysia (ranked first and second respectively in Asian countries). According to PISA (The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment) results, Asia has many strong education systems, Taipei included, yet out of Asian countries, only Singapore has high English proficiency.

Also read: Taiwan can be the next innovation hub in Asia, with deep tech as its main driving force

In a press conference following the American Chamber of Commerce Taipei Offices 2016 Annual Business Climate Survey, the then AmCham chairman, Thomas Fann () stated: English capability is the major problem  I must say, that most Taiwanese talents English is not very good.

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Fann mentioned the engineering, finance, and marketing industries as those suffering the most, since many Taiwanese talents are recruited to Hong Kong and Singapore. He also added, It is my understanding that many companies in Taiwan decide to use English as the company language. I think it is a good thing to elevate the capability but the total amount of these companies is not good enough.

Why Dont More Taiwanese Companies Work with U.S. Marketing and Media Agencies?

The main problem many Taiwanese companies face when collaborating with U.S. agencies is the incredible time difference. Taiwan is 12 hours ahead of East Coast, and 15 hours ahead of West Coast time, meaning there are no overlapping working hours between the two countries, making communication slow and messy.

A convenient solution is to look for English marketing services elsewhere.

Israel: The Startup Nation

With a population of only 8 million people, Israel is leading the way in hi-tech global leadership, and is often referred to as The Startup Nation. With Israeli companies like Waze purchased by major global players and an increasing interest from Chinese and American VCs, Israeli tech and tech-related fields, such as marketing and finance, are flourishing.

And as the only Jewish state in the world, its a country full of multilingual immigrants with very high English proficiency.

Israel and Taiwan share many similarities. Both are small democratic countries surrounded by enemies, both grew to become hardware and software hubs in the hi-tech industry, and most importantly  the time difference between the two is a mere 5 hours.

These similarities, along with the 2011 reciprocal visa-free program for Taiwanese and Israeli travelers, help strengthen business collaborations between the two states. In an article published in The Times Of Israel, Ernest Lin, a top executive of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) stated that the two countries  have good business relationships with China, and there are a lot more markets to serve there. Theres no reason we cant all work together on projects that will benefit all of us.

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Editors note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Featured Image Copyright: elwynn / 123RF Stock Photo

The post Can Israel hold the key to a global comeback for Taiwan? appeared first on e27.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun meets with Saudi Charge d'Affaires Walid al-Bukhari at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, November 10, 2017. Dalati Nohra/Handout via REUTERS (Reuters)

By Tom Perry and Sarah Dadouch

BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Michel Aoun told Saudi Arabia's envoy on Friday that Saad al-Hariri must return to Lebanon and the circumstances surrounding his resignation as prime minister while in Saudi Arabia were unacceptable, presidential sources said.

The Lebanese authorities believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia, two top Lebanese government officials, a senior politician close to Hariri and a fourth source told Reuters on Thursday, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the frontlines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Riyadh says Hariri, a long-time Saudi ally, is a free man and it had nothing to do with his decision to announce his resignation on Saturday while in Saudi Arabia.

Since Hariri's announcement, Saudi Arabia has accused Lebanon and its Shi'ite Hezbollah movement of declaring war on it. Riyadh has advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon, or if already there to leave as soon as possible. Other Gulf states have also issued travel warnings.

Those steps have raised concern that Riyadh could take measures against the tiny Arab state, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

Lebanon, where Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians and Druze, all backed by rival regional powers, fought a civil war from 1975-1990, maintains a governing system designed to ensure each group is represented.

The shock resignation of Sunni political leader Hariri has thrust Lebanon back to the centre of a regional struggle between the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Islamist Iran, whose powerful Lebanese Shi'ite ally Hezbollah has major sway.

An "international support group" of countries concerned about Lebanon, which includes the United States, Russia and France, appealed for Lebanon "to continue to be shielded from tensions in the region". In a statement, they also welcomed Aoun's call for Hariri to return.

During the meeting with the Saudi envoy, Aoun expressed concern over reports about Hariri's circumstances and urged clarification, presidential sources said.

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Hariri, whose father, a long-serving prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005, said in his resignation that he feared assassination and blamed Iran for meddling in Lebanon's affairs.

His resignation unravelled a political deal among rival factions that made him prime minister and Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, head of state last year. The coalition government included Hezbollah, a heavily armed military and political organisation.

In the first direct Western comment on Hariri's status, France and Germany both said on Friday they did not believe Hariri was being held against his will.

"Our concern is the stability of Lebanon and that a political solution can be put in place rapidly," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

"As far as we know, yes: we think (Hariri) is free of his movements and it's important he makes his own choices," he said.

JUMBLATT SEES NO ALTERNATIVE TO HARIRI

On Thursday, Hariri's Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.

Aoun has refused to accept the resignation until Hariri returns to Lebanon to deliver it to him in person and explain his reasons.

Top Lebanese Druze politician Walid Jumblatt said on Friday it was time that Hariri returned to Lebanon. After a week of absence, "be it forced or voluntary", it was "time for Sheikh Saad to return," Jumblatt said on Twitter. "By the way, there is no alternative to him," he added.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected to address the crisis at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT) in a public address to mark a religious occasion.

Saudi Arabia considers Iranian-allied Hezbollah to be its enemy in conflicts across the Middle East, including Syria and Yemen.

The Saudi foreign minister accused Hezbollah of a role in the launching of a ballistic missile at Riyadh from Yemen on Saturday. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of "direct military aggression" that could be an act of war.

The resignation of Hariri, who as well as a politician is a business tycoon with major investments in Saudi Arabia, also comes as Riyadh has rounded up dozens of senior princes and businessmen in a corruption investigation.

(Reporting by Dominiqu Vidalon and John Irish in Paris, Sarah Dadouch and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)
By Aidan Lewis and Ulf Laessing

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Nearly a year after Islamic State was driven from its Libyan stronghold Sirte, residents surveying their wrecked homes feel neglected and vulnerable, still afraid of the militant threat that has waned but not vanished.

Though security in the Mediterranean coastal city has improved, residents remain wary of jihadists in the desert to the south who have stepped up their activity in recent months, setting up checkpoints and carrying out occasional attacks.

In a country where fighting between rival forces frequently flares, Sirte is particularly exposed. It sits in the centre of Libya's coastline on the dividing line between loose alliances aligned with rival governments in Tripoli and the east.

"If the situation continues like this then Daesh (Islamic State) will come back, no doubt. There was a reason why they came. People were angry, felt sidelined," said Ali Miftah, a civil servant and father of five.

"Now we don't get any support from the government. Look at these ruins. We lost everything."

Last month, Islamic State gunmen staged a suicide attack in Misrata, the coastal city about 230 km (140 miles) to the northwest that led the campaign last year to expel the militants from Sirte.

IS also has sleeper cells in other cities along Libya's western coast, security officials say, and there is concern foreign fighters seeking sanctuary after defeats in Syria and Iraq could once again exploit the country's security vacuum and link up with al Qaeda-linked militants in the desert south.

Divisions among Libya's many armed factions and uncertainty over how long the forces from Misrata that drove Islamic State out will remain in Sirte are compounding residents' worries.

AIR STRIKES

In parts of the city, life is slowly returning to normal, though Islamic State's black logos are still visible on some shops and inhabitants struggle with cash shortages and failing public services, as they do elsewhere in Libya.

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But in areas that saw the heaviest fighting, families see little hope of rebuilding their homes.

Sirte, the home city of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was pounded by nearly 500 U.S. air strikes between August and December last year.

In El Manar and Giza Bahriya, once among Sirte's best neighbourhoods, houses looking onto the crystal blue Mediterranean are now crumpled piles of twisted metal and concrete, doors blasted from their metal frames.

A damaged primary school said to have once been attended by Gaddafi lies abandoned.

Residents say skeletons among the rubble have been left to be tested to see if they belong to Islamic State fighters, or their captives. They are also scared to search their ruined homes because of the unexploded ordnance in the wreckage.

Local forces man checkpoints on the outskirts of Sirte and carry out patrols to the south. But they say they lack the vehicles and weapons to pursue the jihadists, who have retreated into mobile desert camps.

Instead, they rely on the U.S. air strikes that have killed dozens of suspected militants this year.

"We contain the threat but we cannot chase them in their camps because we lack the right equipment like four-wheel cars needed to drive in the desert," said Taher Hadeed, an official with the forces securing Sirte.

"It won't be possible for Daesh to take back the city, but there is a risk of attacks."

LACK OF SUPPORT

The forces that led the campaign against Islamic State in Sirte last year are nominally loyal to the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli to the west - and Sirte now represents the eastern limit of their control.

Beyond, forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army control oil terminals they seized during the campaign. But for now, the two sides do not coordinate, said Mohamed al-Ghasri, a military spokesman from Misrata.

Residents and officials in Sirte say the threat cannot be dealt with without proper support from the state and professional security forces.

"They are suffering from a lack of services and we don't see any real efforts or results on the ground at any level," said Siddeeq Ismaiel, a municipal official.

An estimated 2,500-3,000 homes need to be built so families forced to live in other parts of Sirte or Misrata can return.

"This will never end if there is no government," said Hamza Ali, a 34-year-old university employee, standing near his brother's ruined house.

"It will stop maybe for two, three, four, five, six months, then you will hear an explosion somewhere if there is no official security, police."

(Editing by David Clarke)
An estimated 14 million Shiite pilgrims thronged Iraq's holy city of Karbala on Friday to mark the annual Arbaeen commemoration, as Baghdad looks to wipe out the Islamic State group that has targeted their branch of Islam. Arbaeen is one of the biggest religious festivals on earth and marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the 7th-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid -- a formative event in Shiite Islam. Under tight security, around 14 million worshippers crowded into the golden-domed mausoleum where the Prophet Mohammed's grandson is buried, Karbala's religious authorities said, beating their chests in unison against a background of religious music. Imam Hussein's killing in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD was part of a fierce dispute over who should succeed the Prophet, which eventually developed into a bitter schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. Tens of thousands of security personnel and Shiite militiamen were deployed, as in past years, around the perimeters of the sanctuary as well as on all roads leading to Karbala, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad. The expulsion of IS from Iraqi cities has added an extra dimension to this year's pilgrimage, as the Sunni extremist group has repeatedly targeted Shiites. Last year, a suicide bombing killed at least 70 mainly Iranian worshippers returning from the commemoration. The jihadists have seen their self-styled "caliphate" disintegrate on the battlefield, and are currently fighting to hold a last pocket of territory in Iraq on the Syrian border. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the security operation to protect the millions of pilgrims was a "success" and "another victory" for Iraqi forces who have routed IS from most of the country. - 'Finished with IS' - Believers from across the Middle East and beyond made the pilgrimage to Karbala. Shiites make up some 60 percent of Iraq's population. Ahead of the peak of the commemorations local governor Aqil Tourihi told AFP that over 10 million Iraqis had arrived. More than two million Iranian pilgrims also crossed the border into Iraq for Arbaeen, an Iranian official said. The overall attendance of around 14 million appeared down on the roughly 17 to 20 million people estimated to have attended Arbaeen in 2016. "There are pilgrims coming from Arab countries, from Turkey, from the US, the Gulf, from everywhere in the world, and this is the proof that Muslims all over the world are united," said Shia al-Mussawi, a pilgrim visiting from Iraq's Misan province. Helicopters flew overhead to ensure security in the city, located some 300 kilometres (185 miles) southeast from where Iraqi forces are battling to snuff out IS. Along hundreds of kilometres of road leading to Karbala, thousands of volunteers greeted the pilgrims, most of whom walked to the Imam Hussein shrine, to offer food, drink and a variety of services. Behrouz Mahdavi, a pilgrim from Iran, brought with him a six-metre-long tent in which he invited pilgrims aching from the long walk to rest while he massaged their feet. Calling themselves "servants of Imam Hussein" these volunteers took pride in preparing tea for the pilgrims, handing out water bottles, some dates or even home-cooked meals for the hungry. Tahsin Jundi al-Hassan and Ahmed Rahim set up a "taxi service" offering pilgrims a free ride on a wooden cart for the last few kilometres to the shrine. "The conditions are perfect, above all in terms of catering for pilgrims and security," Kuwaiti pilgrim Fadel Yaqoub told AFP. Bandar al-Hamami brushed off the concerns about security after walking some 350 kilometres with his family from their home in the southern city of Nasiriyah. "Thanks be to God, we are finished with IS," he said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he stabbed a person to death as a teenager, in a defiant speech to promote his drug war ahead of a summit of world leaders in Manila. Speaking to the local Filipino community in the Vietnamese city of Danang on Thursday, Duterte also threatened to slap a UN rights rapporteur if he met her, and used obscene language to hit back at critics of his deadly drugs crackdown. "When I was a teenager, I would go in and out of jail. I'd have rumbles here, rumbles there," said Duterte, who is in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. "At the age of 16, I already killed someone. A real person, a rumble, a stabbing. I was just 16 years old. It was just over a look. How much more now that I am president?" Duterte won last year's presidential elections after promising to eradicate illegal drugs with an unprecedented crackdown that would see up to 100,000 people killed. Since he took office 16 months ago, police say they have killed 3,967 people in the crackdown. Another 2,290 people were murdered in drug-related crimes, while thousands of other deaths remain unsolved, according to government data. Duterte, 72, remains popular with many Filipinos who believe he is making society safer. But critics at home and abroad warn that he is orchestrating a campaign of extrajudicial mass murder, carried out by corrupt police and hired vigilantes. He at times denies inciting police or others to kill, but also consistently generates headlines for his abusive language and incendiary comments defending the drug war. Duterte said last year he would be "happy to slaughter" three million drug addicts and branded then US president Barack Obama a "son of a whore" for criticising the drug war. Duterte also said in December last year that he had personally shot dead criminal suspects when he was mayor of southern Davao city to set an example for the police. His then spokesman later sought to clarify the remarks, saying those killings were during a "legitimate police action". - Killer, or killer jokes - Esquire magazine quoted Duterte as saying in an interview before he became president that he "maybe" stabbed someone to death when he was 17 years old, in what may be a reference to the incident described in Danang. In an election campaign rally Duterte also said he was expelled from college for shooting a fellow student who was insulting him. The victim reportedly survived. Duterte's aides have repeatedly told journalists not to believe everything the president says, cautioning that he often jokes or indulges in "hyperbole". His new spokesman, Harry Roque, indicated that may be the case with his stabbing-to-death claim. "I think it was in jest. The Pres uses colourful language when w Pinoys (Filipinos) overseas," Roque said in a text message. In Danang, Duterte also targeted the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has been a frequent critic of the drug war. "This rapporteur," he said, after referring to Callamard by name. "I will slap her in front of you. Why? Because you are insulting me." Duterte's latest comments come ahead of him hosting US President Donald Trump and other leaders for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. Trump is due to fly into Manila from Vietnam along with many other leaders on Sunday evening, ahead of two days of talks. Trump has praised Duterte's handling of the drug war, telling the Philippine leader in a telephone call in April that he was doing a "great job". Human rights campaigners have said the summit will be a public relations coup for Duterte, with Trump and other leaders expected to ignore the drug war controversy. "Duterte will enjoy the gift of tacit silence from East Asian leaders on his murderous drug war during the upcoming summit," Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine told AFP. Adding to a sense of supreme confidence ahead of the event, Duterte on Thursday also proposed hosting a global summit on human rights in which all nations would be placed under the microscope. "Let us investigate all violations of human rights committed by all governments," he said, specifically naming the United States, France and Russia.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday warmly thanked Russian leader Vladimir Putin for shipping weapons to his struggling military, adding that he will buy more Russian arms in the future. "I want to pass on words of thanks from the Philippine people for the timely aid that Russia provided by giving us trucks and weapons," he said as the two met on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Danang, Vietnam. Duterte said the military "was delighted at the weapons" in remarks translated into Russian. Last month Russia handed over army trucks and thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles to Duterte during a visit by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a first-ever visit by a Russian defence minister to the US ally. The weapons shipment is also believed to be the first ever from Russia to the Philippines. The Philippine military in October declared an end to a five-month battle in the southern city of Marawi where the poorly-equipped army struggled to oust militants loyal to the Islamic State group. "These are high-precision weapons. We had to lead a new type of warfare, we had to fight snipers... we were fighting back house-by-house. That's not so easy," Duterte told Putin. He said he initially intended to buy weapons in the US but "the United States has equal authority of Congress and President, so it was not so simple." Duterte last year threatened to sever defence ties with the United States following criticism from the administration of former US leader Barack Obama over his crackdown on drugs, which has seen police kill thousands of people. However relations warmed under the presidency of Donald Trump. "The weapons we received from Russia, modern weapons, were given to special police regiments. That was very important. I intend to continue buying these weapons in the future." In a reserved response, Putin said that "weapons are important" but Duterte's "readiness... to fight the threat of terrorism" is even more significant. "We are ready to develop our relations, including in the military sphere," he said.
The Saudi-led coalition is still blocking desperately-needed UN aid deliveries to Yemen despite the re-opening of the port of Aden and of a land border crossing, a UN spokesman said Friday. "Humanitarian movements into Yemen remain blocked," said Russell Geekie, spokesman for the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian aid OCHA. "The reopening of the port in Aden is not enough. We need to see the blockade of all the ports lifted, especially Hodeida, for both humanitarians and for commercial imports." The coalition shut down Yemen's borders on Monday in response to a missile attack by Huthi rebels that was intercepted near Riyadh airport. UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council this week that unless the blockade is lifted, Yemen will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims." After an outcry from the United Nations, the coalition on Wednesday reopened Aden, which is controlled by pro-Saudi government forces, and on Thursday opened the land crossing at Wadea on the Saudi-Yemen border. But Geekie said no aid had gone into Aden yet and the reopening of the Wadea crossing did not affect UN operations. The transport minister of Yemen's internationally recognized government, Murad al-Halimi, said that two airports in the loyalist-held southern cities of Aden and Seiyun would also reopen from Sunday, Yemeni media reported. He said national carrier Yemenia would resume its flights to and from the two airports, from where it flies to destinations including Amman and Cairo. The sea port at Hodeida, which is in rebel-held territory, is key to UN aid efforts as it is closest to the majority of people in need. The coalition accuses rebels of using aid shipments to smuggle in weapons. Before the blockade, UN aid agencies were delivering food and medicine through Hodeida, Saleef and Aden ports. "There can be no alternative for all these ports being fully functional and receiving commercial and humanitarian cargo," said the spokesman. The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million people in need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine. More than 2,000 Yemenis have died in a cholera outbreak now affecting nearly one million people. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in neighboring Yemen in March 2015 to push back the Iran-backed Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa, and restore the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
Effects of deforestation in Brazil presented at London retail conference

United Kingdom

This important topic will be presented at the Leather & Sustainability in Retail Conference 2017 on Thursday, November 16 in central London, where Simon Hall from the NGO, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), will provide an update on the current situation in Brazil and the impact deforestation will have on the supply chain traceability of brands and retailers. There are only 10 delegate places remaining so please book quickly if you would like to attend.

Deforestation in Brazil remains a major concern for corporate investors and consumer stakeholders alike, especially surrounding traceability of leather back to the source farm and the legalities of the farms operations. Supply chain traceability is essential for brands and retailers to understand not only the origins of material sources in their global supply chain, but to also understand whether their suppliers are abiding by the correct legislation and ethical practices. The situation in Brazil surrounding the deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest appears to grow ever more politically tense. Currently, the financial rewards of farming far outweigh the value of retaining the rainforest habitat which increases the risk of illegal land-grabbing and deforestation for farming purposes. This, coupled with an apparent rise in deforestation and violence against activists, causes environmentalists to accuse the Brazilian government of driving legislation that will benefit loggers in the Amazon region, leaving the native people and the rainforest environment with little protection and virtually no security. Furthermore, deforestation in Brazil is an emotive issue and it is often difficult for organisations to obtain correct information and form a balanced view of the topic.

Simon Hall is the Manager of the Tropical Forest and Agriculture Programme at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). He leads NWFs portfolio of work on cattle and soy in Latin America. Simon serves as NWFs liaison to the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) and the Brazilian Roundtable on Sustainable Livestock and will look to present a balanced view of the current situation.

National Wildlife Federation (NWF)

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is one of the oldest and largest wildlife conservation and education organisations in the U.S., and has over six million members and supporters across 50 state and territorial affiliates. For the past thirty years, NWF has worked to protect wildlife habitat in key regions across the tropics.

Leather & Sustainability in Retail conference  only a few places left

The Leather & Sustainability in Retail Conference 2017 is sponsored by Stahl, Smit & zoon and TFL, and is supported by Lonza. The half-day conference will be held on Thursday, November 16 at One Great George St., Westminster, London and is jointly organised by BLC Leather Technology Centre Ltd (BLC) and International Leather Maker (ILM). As well as a full speaker programme, delegates will be able to network with leading brands and retailers, as well as listen to a discussion panel of industry experts.

Click here to see the full conference speaker programme and full details about the conference.

Register your place today

The cost of the conference is 310 + VAT (360) per delegate and will be invoiced at the time of registration. Discounts will be offered for multiple registrations. Do not miss out on this leading leather sustainability conference. Register your attendance today by completing the registration form and returning it to Deborah Taylor: deborah@blcleathertech.com
Spain said Friday it had noted news manipulation about the Catalan crisis on social media originating "from Russian territory," adding the issue would be raised at an upcoming EU ministers meeting. Spanish media have already accused Moscow-backed outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik -- which have Spanish language services -- of playing a destabilising role in the crisis triggered by Catalonia's banned October 1 independence referendum. Defence Minister Maria Dolores de Cospedal told reporters the government had established that "many messages and interventions via social networks come from Russian territory." But she insisted that authorities had not established whether the Russian government was behind them or not. Cospedal was responding to a journalist who asked about "Russia's interference in preparing messages that could alter the internal workings of some countries," pointing specifically to the Catalan crisis in Spain. She did not give specific examples of the types of messages that had been identified. The El Pais daily wrote an editorial Friday denouncing "the intense campaign by Russian media that are close to the Kremlin," whose "propaganda machine" it accused of siding with the pro-independence movement. Earlier Friday Spain's Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said there was evidence of activity by "Russian networks, hackers." "They're not exclusively aimed against Spain, but it's a manner of destabilising the EU," he told Spanish radio. Spain's government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo, meanwhile, said disinformation on social networks was a "serious issue." "The foreign minister will raise this issue which Europe must take very seriously," he added, pointing out that strategic communications and the fight against disinformation were on the agenda at an EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday in Brussels. On Thursday, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, demanded Russia "stop meddling" in European elections amid concern over Kremlin interference in the Catalan crisis. Moscow is also suspected of interfering in last year's US presidential election and Britain's Brexit vote, and Scaparrotti said he was concerned by "Russian malign influence" in other countries.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin briefly shook hands at a gala dinner during an Asia-Pacific summit on Friday after days of frenzied speculation on whether the two would meet. It is still unclear whether the pair plan to hold substantive talks during their visit to Vietnam following days of mixed messages from the Kremlin and the White House. Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted as a US probe has accused Trump's former campaign aides of secretly meeting Kremlin-connected officials -- a charge Russia denies. Trump had previously indicated that he hoped to hold talks with his Russian counterpart during his Vietnam visit, to pressure Moscow into supporting his moves to challenge North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Both leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in the Vietnamese city of Danang. At a gala dinner on Friday evening they shook hands and posed briefly for a photo with regional leaders dressed in loose-fitting shirts commissioned for the gathering by current APEC hosts Vietnam. But there had previously been conflicting indications on whether a full face-to-face was on the cards. Earlier in the day White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had ruled out a bilateral meeting, but the Kremlin suggested it would go ahead. Pressed on the issue later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov swatted away the question. "Why are you asking me? We are saying that we have heard President Trump's wish to meet President Putin, expressed by President Trump himself." "I do not know what the rest of his penpushers are saying, I cannot answer that." Both Moscow and Trump had previously suggested that talks were likely to take place. On Sunday the Trump administration said "it's expected we'll meet with Putin" to discuss North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Trump's relationship with Moscow has haunted the first year of his presidency. His former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate are under house arrest on charges including conspiracy to launder money, linked to the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into allegations that the campaign colluded with Russia. Russia has denied allegations of interfering in the US election last year that brought Trump to power. The two last met during a G20 summit earlier this year. burs-apj/jta/eb
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres gestures during the inauguration of Web Summit, Europe's biggest tech conference, in Lisbon, Portugal, November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday he had serious concerns over escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and that it was essential to avert new conflict in the region.

"We are indeed very worried, and we hope we wont see an escalation," the United Nations chief told reporters. "It is essential that no new conflict erupts in the region, it could have devastating consequences."

Guterres said he had "very intense" contacts yesterday with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and other countries in the region.

His comments come amid a deepening crisis between the two Middle Eastern nations that has thrust tiny Lebanon between Saudi Arabia and the region's other powerhouse, Iran.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia accused Lebanon of declaring war against it, citing aggression by the Iran-backed Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of declaring war on Lebanon and Hezbollah.

In the midst of the conflict is Saad al-Hariri, Lebanon's former prime minister, who unexpectedly resigned his post over the weekend. Lebanese authorities have said he is being held against his will in Saudi Arabia, a charge that Riyadh has denied.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
The United States on Thursday slapped more sanctions against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government, targeting 10 officials it said engaged in election irregularities to perpetuate what Washington called a dictatorial regime. The new sanctions come as EU member states prepare to impose an arms embargo on Venezuela, whose leftist government has sought to tighten its grip on power amid a prolonged economic and political crisis that led to street clashes and 125 dead from April to July. Things are so dire in oil-rich Venezuela that people line up to buy not just food and medicine but basics like soap and toilet paper. Maduro calls the crisis a plot contrived by rich conservative business people backed by the government of President Donald Trump. The new sanctions came in response to October 15 state elections in which pro-Maduro candidates unexpectedly won 18 of 23 gubernatorial seats. The US Treasury Department said irregularities "strongly suggest fraud" was used to elect Maduro candidates. For instance, one of the people sanctioned, Sandra Oblitas Ruzza, vice president of the National Electoral Council, announced the relocation of polling stations just days before the voting, the US said. So people showed up where they thought they could vote, but could not, it added. "As the Venezuelan government continues to disregard the will of its people, our message remains clear: the United States will not stand aside while the Maduro regime continues to destroy democratic order and prosperity in Venezuela," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. He said the US will continue to go after Venezuelan officials who are complicit in efforts to undermine democracy, violate human rights, and act corruptly "unless they break from Maduros dictatorial regime." Venezuela reacted angrily to the new sanctions, with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza saying on Twitter they were designed to trigger violence. "They aim to once again generate destabilization and violence in our country," he said, referring to the street protests this year. He dismissed the new punishment as "imperialist, absurd and desperate." In those demonstrations the Venezuelan opposition was hoping to force Maduro from power so new elections can be held. - Censorship and corruption - The two sides announced Thursday they will resume talks on the political crisis next week in the Dominican Republic, specifically on how to guarantee that presidential elections scheduled for 2018 will be free and fair. Facilitators from the United Nations, the Vatican and selected countries will be present. The sanctions named government ministers and members of Venezuela's National Electoral Council and the new, all powerful Constituent Assembly, which has replaced congress, even taking over its building, chamber and seats, can rewrite laws as it sees fit and is made up solely of Maduro loyalists. The Treasury Department said the October elections were held amid censorship, abuse of state media and corruption extending to the distribution of food. Also among those designated under the new US sanctions was Elvis Eduardo Hidrobo Amoroso, second vice president of the Constituent Assembly, which Washington deems illegitimate. Culture Minister and former Information Minister Ernesto Emilio Villegas Poljak, the head of Venezuelas state telephone utility Manuel Angel Fernandez Melendez, Urban Agriculture Minister Freddy Alirio Bernal Rosales and current ambassador to Italy Julian Isaias Rodriguez Diaz were named as well. Rodriguez Diaz, for instance, who used to be second vice president of the Constituent Assembly, signed a decree forcing newly-elected governors to take the oath of office before that body, the US statement said. The sanctions effectively freeze those named out of much of the global banking system, requiring most international banks not to process transactions on their behalf, and block their access to any assets under US jurisdiction. Sanctions imposed by Trump's administration in August banned US trade in any new bonds issued by the Venezuelan government or state oil company PDVSA -- a needed step in any restructuring of the oil-rich country's debt. The embattled government in Caracas announced last week it was calling a meeting of creditors for November 13 to try to restructure its foreign debt, estimated at $150 billion. The move came the same day the International Monetary Fund said it was sanctioning the government for failing to provide economic data, as all IMF member states are required to do. There are growing fears Venezuela might default on its huge $150 billion debt. Creditors are to meet Friday in New York to discuss the state oil company PDVSA's failure to make a bond payment.
A nine-point margin of victory on Tuesday night for Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, appears to have vanquished the doubts that clung to his campaign in the days before the election. That his victory speech was interrupted by three protesters with signs that read, Sanctuary for all, a reference to the governor-elects waffling on a state-wide pre-emption law for so-called sanctuary citiesjurisdictions in some way uncooperative with federal immigration policewill be an afterthought. To the extent anyone remembers the sanctuary city issue in the Virginia gubernatorial election, theyll remember it for the fear-mongering advertisements of Northams opponent, Ed Gillespie, that drew condemnation from Republicans and Democrats as prominent as President Obama. But the Democrats handling of the sanctuary issue ought to be a warning, too, that the party has yet to find the language they will use to defend a policy that has simultaneously become both a liberal bona fide and a right-wing dog whistle.

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Heres the backstory. In February, as lieutenant governor, Northam cast a tie-breaking vote against a pre-emption measure to ban sanctuary cities in Virginia. Accused by his opponent of voting to enshrine sanctuary cities and, by extension, let MS-13 gang members run wild in the DC suburbs, Northam seemed incapable of defending his decision, except to say (correctly) that the whole thing had been a stunt, since Virginia has no sanctuary cities and the veto of Gov. Terry McAuliffe, also a Democrat, was certain. Then Northam said he had always been against sanctuary cities. Finally he said that, as governor, he would sign the very bill he had voted down.

That sanctuary cities became an issue at all in Virginia tells you something about the insidious conflation of national and local issues in American politics. This problem predates Trump, though it has been exacerbated by his monopoly on our attention. Local races that should be about land use and bond issues are now suffused with talk of, say, immigration or Trump. Local candidates are elected according to voters national party preferences, in what the law professor David Schleicher calls second-order elections. Slates Jeremy Stahl has explained how sanctuary cities, in particular, grew from a niche dispute between localities and the Department of Homeland Security into a widening front of the culture war.

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Politicians confronting the issue in 2018 should take a look at Texas, where Democrats across the state rallied this spring and summer against an anti-sanctuary bill called SB 4. True, SB 4 is a broader policing directive that, among other things, allows local police to turn run-of-the-mill detentions into immigration law inquiries. True too that the opposition in Texas ultimately failed; the bill passed and is being disputed in court. Still, the debate and passage of SB 4 was a moment of exuberant, unabashed protest for Democrats in Texasa far cry from the retreat Ralph Northam made under fire.

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Heres what opponents of SB 4 did in Texas. First, they embraced the religious righteousness of humane immigration policy. I have a strong belief that we should welcome strangers, that we are all Gods children, State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, who represents Houston, said to begin her questioning. Religious groups filed court briefs against the bill, and spoke up to attack it. SB 4 is contrary to the moral imperative that we love our neighbor, welcome the immigrant and care for the most vulnerable among us, the episcopal bishop C. Andrew Doyle said in July. In a statement opposing the law, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops wrote, S.B. 4 neglects Christs call to welcome the stranger and undermines our nations heritage to offer the light of freedom to the oppressed.

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Its part of a larger trend in which religious leadersand in Texas, Catholics in particularhave become the most compelling defenders of immigrants rights. This summer, the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark J. Seitz, criticized Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for threatening to sue the federal government over DACA. When I hear this legalistic insistence upon every letter of our broken immigration law being carried out to this cruel degree, I can hear Jesus indignant response: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, Seitz wrote. Its more effective than invoking the economic benefits of migration, more specific than calling on Americas moral-historical obligation, and much more effective than, as Matt Yglesias sardonically labeled the Democratic strategy du jour, shouting yo thats racist at racist fliers.

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Second, the anti-SB 4 coalition invoked the Constitution. One of the most fundamental issues with the immigration detainers that so-called sanctuary jurisdictions decline to enforce is that they sometimes require local jails to hold suspected immigration law violators indefinitely without a warrant. That has left some municipalities exposed to Fourth Amendment lawsuits for holding American citizens without charges. Garcia, questioning the sponsor of SB4, asked: Has it ever occurred to you that these law enforcement officials are upholding the rule of law according to the Constitution, which trumps all other laws? One reason a U.S. district judge blocked parts of SB 4 in August? He thought the bill would inevitably lead to Fourth Amendment violations.

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Third, the anti-SB 4 coalition included law enforcement officials defending the discretion of local policing practices. Police chiefs from Dallas, Houston, Austin, Arlington, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, joined by the director of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, wrote an op-ed saying the policy would make police officers jobs more difficult. This bill, they said, will lead to distrust of police and less cooperation from members of the community. And it will foster the belief that people cannot seek assistance from police for fear of being subjected to an immigration status investigation. Sheriffs representing Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso published their own letter. We cannot drive crime victims and witnesses into the shadows without undermining local public safety, they wrote.

There you have the three-part playbook for a political defense of sanctuary cities, brought to you by the state of Texas: God, the Constitution, and the police.
Dreamforce, Salesforces massive user conference, took place this week, with more than 170,000 registered attendants descending on San Francisco. And while there was plenty of keynotes and sessions taking place for businesses of all sizes, there were also more than 200 sessions geared specifically towards small businesses, including the SMB Keynote session hosted by Marie Rosecrans, Salesforces Senior Vice President for SMB Marketing.

As part of the Dreamforce event, Salesforce announced Salesforce Essentials, a new entry level platform for small businesses new to CRM, as well as a new partnership with Google, which sees two companies integrating their platforms for sharing important information to provide a fuller look at customer interactions taking place across their offerings.

Marie shared with me some details about the announcements, how Trailhead, Salesforces learning system, is integrated into Salesforce Essentials, will help small business customers get up to speed quick with using CRM, and some of the key takeaways from the SMB keynote which features stories from SMBs  including Stella & Dot, Kabbage, and Code.org.

Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. To see the full interview click on the video or SoundCloud player below.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: You did the SMB keynote, and were going to talk a little bit about that. Were going to talk a little bit about Small Business Essentials. Before we do that, you got to tell us a little bit about you.

Marie Rosecrans: Ive been at Salesforce for nearly 10 years in a variety of capacities; just joined this role approximately four to five months ago, super passionate about small business. As I mentioned in the keynote, my father immigrated to the US, and started a small business. I witnessed what he went through as a small business owner many, many years ago, but, its funny, because I, oftentimes, think about what benefit Salesforce wouldve had on his business had it been around back then.

Small Business Trends: Thats an interesting thing to think about  Lets talk about what small businesses are going through today, tied in a little bit to the theme of the keynote and how essential CRM is.

Marie Rosecrans: Today, we announced the general availability of Salesforce Essentials, which is bringing the number one CRM platform Salesforce to every small business. There are, I believe, 27 million small businesses in the US and 127 million globally, and here at Salesforce, we really do believe that the earlier you start thinking about technology, the better off youre going to be in terms of really setting up your small business for growth long term.

Small Business Trends: Its 2017, technologys all over the place, its easier to use, its less expensive than ever before, and yet CRM is still new to a lot of small businesses.

Marie Rosecrans: It is.

Small Business Trends: What is Salesforce Essentials going to do to help small businesses understand that CRM is for them, and that they can benefit from it?

Marie Rosecrans: First and foremost, as a company, we made some really significant investments in Trailhead, which is a free but fun, easy interactive way to learn, not only about Salesforce but about the surrounding business processes as well as topics that are of interest to small businesses. One of them is why should I consider a CRM? What is CRM? What kind of value can I gain from a CRM?

At the end of the day, small businesses differentiate themselves based on the customer experience that they offer. Having a Customer Relationship Management Solution allows you to not only understand your customers, but also serve them in the way that they want to be served and serviced.

Small Business Trends: A lot of folks thats on the small business side, they think heavily about customer acquisition, how do we get new customers in the door. But theres also that customer retention side, and when you see a lot of businesses today starting as recurring revenue businesses, subscription-based, whats the role of retention in a growing, small business?

Marie Rosecrans: Its everything. We just recently completed a small business trend study that said 78% of customers will switch over, basically leave your brand, if you dont provide them with a positive customer experience. I fundamentally believe gaining the customer is the easy part. Keeping them is the hard part.

Any business, but particularly as a small business where your customers are your lifeline, it could mean the difference between making payroll or not making payroll, you know? You need to be laser-focused on making sure that customer experience you offer is really unique and differentiated. Even in a recurring revenue model, you need to continue to engage and re-engage with your customers. You talk about re-recruiting your best employees, you always need to be engaging and re-engaging your customers.

Small Business Trends: What were some of the big things that came out of the SMB keynote? I really appreciated the Stella and Dot story, and, of course, the things that we talked about with Kabbage and with Code.org. But what were some of the main things that you wanted the small businesses in the audience to take away from those experiences?

Marie Rosecrans: On the marketing piece was the Code.org story that we talked about today and featured. Code.org, for the benefit of your audience is an organization, a non-profit, that is really laser-focused on changing education one line of code at a time. They are trying to standardize computer science and education just like Algebra, just like Chemistry. What we talked about there was how they engaged with parents and teachers, but it was all about finding prospects, right? When youre a small business, youll need an easy solution to attract those customers.

Pardot, which was one of the solutions that we talked about today, allows you to do that. I joked during the keynote about Pardot giving me control, but Pardot does give the marketer control, or anyone in your small business thats playing that role. You may not even have a marketer on your staff, but, with Pardot, you can create campaigns, emails, landing pages, and then nurture all of those leads from Pardot. One person can do that, and has all of that creative leverage. I think that thats particularly meaningful for a small business.

Then we talked about sales, which was a story of Kabbage. They are an Atlanta-based Fintech company that is all about providing small business loans to businesses quickly. What we talked about there was taking advantage of innovations that exist in our solution today. Something like Lightning is really important. Its a modern user interface thats all about clicks. Its all about productivity, and small businesses need to be spending less time. They need to be working with an intuitive application and Lightning gives us the ability to do that.

We saw a lot of just great efficiencies that any user can benefit from because of the intuitive major of the application. Then, I joked but I fundamentally believe it is true that once you found those prospects and won those deals, you need to keep those customers happy. In this day and age, its more than just keeping customers happy. Its really about how do I make them so happy that theyre shouting from the mountain tops. Mountain tops to me means on Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Snapchat referring you to your friends. Thats the type of loyalty and brand advocacy that we need to be building particularly in small business and solutions like Service Cloud allow you to do that. Together, marketing, sales and service, I mean, that single view of the customer, youre managing that entire customer journey, you will be so successful as a small business if you are really honed in on what that customer experience looks like, and then leveraging and using that customer data to your advantage.

Small Business Trends: I cant end this without talking about AI, and Einstein. Over the last 12 months, you have really done a great job with evangelizing the importance of AI. Talk about it from the standpoint of a small business. How can AI impact how small businesses use CRM, and what kind of things that they benefit from with you?

Marie Rosecrans: I would be remiss if I didnt bring up the fact that weve incorporated some elements of artificial intelligence directly into Salesforce Essentials, which we just launched. Today, small businesses  super small businesses  spend too much time with manual data entry. In fact, thats one of the reasons why small businesses tend to abandon their CRM implementations is what we found. In Salesforce Essentials, we are really working where the customer works  in their email, in their calendar. All of that information gets automatically captured into Salesforce Essentials, and thats all done via artificial intelligence and activity capture.

To address your question specifically, I think the biggest benefit that small businesses can leverage AI most immediately is lead scoring and opportunity scoring. Oftentimes, these small businesses are overwhelmed frankly with leads, and sometimes overwhelmed with the number of opportunities that are created. You need to be able to focus on those that are most important, that have the highest likelihood to close. If you use artificial intelligence to help tell you that, it is no longer a manual process. Youre having the data scientist, Einstein, do that for you. Thats a huge productivity gain as well for your entire marketing and sales organization.

Then, on the service piece as well, recommended actions  recommended responses can be a huge benefit to the efficiencies and productivity of your agents. Helping you understand what that customer needs before they even contact you or as theyre engaging you, having a sense of what that customer sentiment is before you engage with them as an agent, that can create really powerful customer experiences on the other end.

Small Business Trends: You touched a little bit on Trailhead. Whats the impact that you see Trailhead having, working right from within CRM? To me, having a great platform from the technical standpoint is great, but a lot of these small businesses, they dont know how to get the most out of the technology in certain instances, and CRM, I think, is one of those areas where you can have a great system, but if you really dont know what to do with it, it doesnt really help out that much.

Marie Rosecrans: That was really one of the guiding principles for us as we were designing as Salesforce Essentials was incorporating  What we knew was very small businesses had an expectation of us, that we were going to be delivering a solution that was easy to start using immediately. What weve done is weve incorporated elements of Trailhead, I call it bite-size chunks of Trailhead, directly into the Essentials. Ill call it friendly walk-throughs, a guided setup, those moments of delight that make that experience in engaging with the solution just positive, right? Ultimately, that helps motivate the user to come back and use it again day after day after day. Ultimately, thats how they realize the value.

I feel so strongly about where were taking Trailhead and how its going  Youll see it become part of the product experience not only in Essentials, but, quite honestly, I hope theres a forward-looking statement somewhere in some of our other additions as well.

Small Business Trends: There was a big announcement around partnership with Google and Salesforce, can you talk a little bit about what it was, and what it means to small businesses in particular?

Marie Rosecrans: Were super excited about the partnership with Google particularly for our small business customers. Weve been given this opportunity to give G-Suite away at no cost for three months, not only to Essentials customers, but also to existing Salesforce customers. If youre an existing Salesforce customer and are interested in looking at G-Suite, you have the opportunity to do that at no cost for three months. You can do that directly yourself if youre an existing customer on our salesforce.com site. Its a capability that will allow you to request G-Suite for free or at no cost.

Small businesses are in email and spreadsheets. Now, with this partnership with Google, because of that activity capture that I talked about earlier, all of that information in Gmail and your Google Calendar, its directly in your CRM. Hows that for awesome?

Small Business Trends: Youre able to take all that information maybe in your Gmail account with all the interactions you have, and now you can leverage it with all the CRM activity, and find potentially more insights that you probably wouldnt have found any other way?

Marie Rosecrans: Ultimately, thats why you have a CRM, right, and you invest in a CRM because if youre tracking things in spreadsheets, and youre tracking things in email, what type of analytics or reports are you looking at to really tweak and refine your business, right? Youre not, candidly. Having all of that information in a CRM not only allows you to see whats going on in your business today, but, ultimately, continue to fine tune and finesse your business based upon your performance and what youd been doing. Thats what having all of that information in a CRM is really all about. You need to be continuing to refine, and refinement requires having an understanding of whats going on.

Small Business Trends: Where could people go to learn more about Trailhead and Small Business Essentials, and any other thing that they should know?

Marie Rosecrans: Sure. Trailhead, www.trailhead.com. On the Salesforce website, you will see an Essentials section, and I believe it is salesforce.com/essentials. In terms of Salesforce live, salesforce.com/live.

This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it's an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher.
Lots of material will be reused

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The old Mlynske Nivy bus station is yielding place to the brand new station to be merged with a shopping mall. Developer HB Reavis is gradually dismantling the bus station so that individual materials can be reused. The site should be prepared for new construction in late January.

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Cement from the platforms will be used for foothpaths in our other projects. A specialised firm will process iron and aluminium, said Martina Jamrichova, spokesperson of HB Reavis.

Part of the facing from the Spis travertine will be used to renovate the inverted Slovak Radio pyramid. The latter may soon be declared a national cultural monument. The Slovak Radio building was constructed at the same time as the Mlynske Nivy bus station and travertine from the station is practically identical with the one used on the inverted pyramid.

The Slovak Design Museum, the Transport Museum and the Cvernovka Foundation have taken plenty of materials too. The latter took a total of 16 tons, which included benches, ashtrays, chairs and stone facing. They will use the materials for the repairs and equipping of its new location in the former secondary chemical school on Racianska Street.

Cvernovka has also taken into temporary storage the more than three-tonne CSAD sculpture by Juraj Melis that used to stand in front of the bus station. It is too big to be stored in the design museum. It will be decided later where it will be re-installed.

Fans of public transport took over the Ikarus buses that served as cafes in the bus station. They will take spare parts from them for the repair of the still operational iconic buses.
The Melos-Etos festival of contemporary music brings musical pieces to Slovakia that you normally dont hear or see.

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When it started back in 1991, Melos-Etos had a crucial role: it was meant to bring musical trends to the country that could not be presented here during the communist regime. Some 25 years later, it has developed to show the most intriguing and interesting music people would not normally hear.

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Alongside premieres and rare works, the festival commemorates Slovak composer Ilja Zeljenka with a Sunday matinee concert presenting pianist Magdalena Bajuszova playing his 24 Preludes for Piano (2005), as well as a series of documentary films and feature films about the life of the renowned Slovak musician, hailing his 85th birthday (December 21, he died in 2007). The compositions to be performed come from the time towards the end of his life, some being finished shortly before his death.

Zeljenka was one of the first avant-garde artists who defined himself as early as the 1960s against period trends, Igor Valentovic, head of Music Centre Slovakia which organises the festival, told the Sme daily. It was a generally dynamic period when many new methods appeared.

Other concerts offer musical bodies and personalities like the Symphonic Orchestra of the Slovak Radio with Mario Kosik as conductor and Milan Pala on violin; Polish Orkiestra Muzyki Nowej with Diana Buffa and Ivan Buffa on piano; Ensemble Spectrum conducted by Matej Sloboda; Japanese virtuoso Toshiya Suzuki; Synaesthesis Ensemble led by conductor Karolis Variakojis; Mucha Quartet with Martin Adamek on clarinet; Osterreichisches Ensemble fur Neue Musik and Slovak Miki Skuta  on piano and electric guitar, as well as a host of accompanying events.
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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United Rentals, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an equipment rental company. It operates in two segments, General Rentals and Specialty. The General Rentals segment rents general construction and industrial equipment includes backhoes, skid-steer loaders, forklifts, earthmoving equipment, and material handling equipment; aerial work platforms, such as boom and scissor lifts; and general tools and light equipment comprising pressure washers, water pumps, and power tools for construction and industrial companies, manufacturers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners, and government entities. The specialty segment rents specialty construction products, including trench safety equipment consists of trench shields, aluminum hydraulic shoring systems, slide rails, crossing plates, construction lasers, and line testing equipment for underground work; power and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning equipment, such as portable diesel generators, electrical distribution equipment, and temperature control equipment; fluid solutions equipment for fluid containment, transfer, and treatment; and mobile storage equipment and modular office space. This segment serves construction companies involved in infrastructure projects, and municipalities and industrial companies. It also sells aerial lifts, reach forklifts, telehandlers, compressors, and generators; construction consumables, tools, small equipment, and safety supplies; and parts for equipment that is owned by its customers, as well as provides repair and maintenance services. The company sells used equipment through its sales force, brokers, website, directly to manufacturers, and at auctions. The company operates a network of 1,360 rental locations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. United Rentals, Inc. was incorporated in 1997 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. 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Research

Boosting Number of Girls in Math Class Can Improve Test Results

Does gender composition and peer achievement in high school make a difference to math test scores or school attendance? That's what a researcher from Louisiana State University set out to explore. Ozkan Eren, an associate professor of economics, earlier this year published evidence that having a higher proportion of female students in the classroom improves girls' math test scores in less advanced courses (such as general high school math). A 10-percentage point increase in the proportion of female peers lifted the average math test scores by 0.11 of a standard deviation.

An apparent side effect is that the presence of more girls in class also dampens student absenteeism among male students while having no effect on female absenteeism. Also, while having more girls in the class has a "positive" impact on math achievement by male students, Eren reported, it's not particularly measurable.

When the average math achievement score of the whole class rises, that doesn't boost overall math test scores by young women; however, male students in the bottom and middle quartiles of the class do perform better. A one standard deviation increase in peer achievement boosted boys' math achievement by 0.42 of a standard deviation, a "large improvement," according to the researcher.

In his conclusions, Eren suggested that having more female students in the class "is likely to make gender less salient," thereby possibly improving the self-concept girls have of their math abilities. It also explains why the effect dissipates as the math levels go up, he added, because the girls "gain more confidence" as they progress into more advanced courses. At the same time, he noted, girls appear to compete more effectively only when it's against their own gender. Pitted against the entire class boys tend to be more competitive (and do better on tests), while girls are less likely to respond (and don't do better).

Should math classes be single-gender then? Eren advised against it. As he wrote in a draft version of his paper, "Our results indicate that some degree of gender segregation at the classroom level may improve female achievement but that may be at the expense of male students. Moreover, gender segregation may also exacerbate student absenteeism for boys and may further trigger the risky behaviors."

The results are based on data collected from a previous randomized experiment involving 5,320 middle and high school students in 80 schools in 20 districts. The researcher used only the data for high school students and examined results from four types of math courses: general high school math, algebra I, geometry and algebra II.

Oren's research was published in Demography.
Incoming United States Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink paid a visit to the University of Da Nang on Thursday as part of the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Week.

Ambassador Kritenbrink, who arrived in Hanoi on Saturday last week for his new post, toured the Maker Innovation Space at the University of Da Nang on Thursday evening, accompanied by representatives of the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City and American businesses.

The space aims to provide students with a suitable area and fully equipped laboratory to test and launch new technology and innovative solutions for community development challenges.

U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink speaks at the forum. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The ambassadors visit was part of the APEC Economic Leaders' Week being held in the city from November 6 to 11.

This years Vietnam-U.S. public-private partnership forum is themed building the next generation of technological and engineering innovators.

During the visit, Ambassador Kritenbrink shared his goal of fostering and expanding partnerships between universities from the two countries in the fields of science and technology development as well as innovative business.

A student introduces a project to the ambassador. Photo: Tuoi Tre

He expressed his delight at touring, for the first time, the Maker Innovation Space, a project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Kritenbrink was introduced during the tour to various student-developed innovations at the center and spoke with several students about their aspirations and the difficulties they face in their work.

Representatives of several U.S. enterprises took advantage of the event to search for potential-rich inventions among the students designs on display.

Professor Tran Van Nam (second right), rector of Da Nang University, guides the ambassador through the universitys Maker Innovation Space. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Kritenbrinks first major assignment as the U.S. ambassador for the 2017-2020 tenure was accompanying President Donald Trump during his trip to Vietnam for the APEC summit week and subsequent state visit to the Southeast Asian country.

President Trump arrived in Da Nang on Friday afternoon for the APEC summit.

His state visit will be conducted in Hanoi on November 11 and 12.

Representatives of U.S. enterprises hear presentations of student inventions. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The Economic Leaders Week is the culmination of Vietnams year-long hosting of a series of APEC meetings.

APEC is a forum of 21 Pacific Rim countries that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

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DANANG, Vietnam -- U.S. President Donald Trump set out a strong message on trade at a meeting of Asia-Pacific countries in Vietnam on Friday, saying the United States could no longer tolerate chronic trade abuses and would insist on fair and equal policies.

Trump said the United States was ready to make a bilateral deal with any country in the Indo-Pacific region, but only on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit.

When the United States enters into a trading relationship with other countries or other peoples, we will from now on expect that our partners will faithfully follow the rules, he said in the seaside resort of Danang.

We expect that markets will be open to an equal degree on both sides and that private investment, not government planners, will direct investment, he said in a speech ahead of a summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders.

Trump raises his hand during his speech at the APEC CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, November 10, 2017. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Trump arrived in Vietnam from China on the fourth leg of a 12-day trip to Asia. Redressing the balance of trade between Asia and the United States is at the center of Trumps America First policy he says will protect U.S. workers.

While China has by far the biggest trade surplus with the United States, Vietnam is also on the list of those surpluses the Trump administration seeks to reduce.

APEC, which has long championed free trade, has itself been convulsed by the changes under Trump.

Since Trump abandoned the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal early in his presidency, the remaining 11 members have struggled to build momentum to keep it alive.

Leaders of TPP countries are due to meet on Friday after talks among ministers ended in confusion on Thursday with Japans economy minister saying that they agree in principle and his Canadian counterpart saying that was not true.

Trump gestures during his speech at the APEC CEO Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam, November 10, 2017. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Although he was addressing a meeting alongside the summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, Trump repeatedly referred to the Indo-Pacific region and mentioned the importance of India in his speech.

Trump broke early with the Pivot to Asia of the Obama administration, worrying some traditional allies that he would allow China to extend its increasing dominance.

Danang itself sits on the shore of the East Vietnam Sea, one of the regions biggest security challenges and where Chinas neighbors challenge its sweeping claim to most of the waterway as having no basis in law.

Danang has a special place in U.S.-Vietnamese history: it was where the first U.S. ground troops disembarked in 1965 in the escalation of a war that would last another decade before Hanoi's victory in 1975.

Danang was close to some of the heaviest fighting and its air base was the route through which many Americans of Trumps generation were sent to the war.

Trump himself did not serve, receiving five deferments - one for bone spurs in his heel.
On 60 Minutes this Sunday, Ross Coulthard on the Russian connections surrounding Donald Trumps Presidency, and forgotten stories from the Batavia (once a drama project abandoned by TEN).

For the Love of Leah

When Ben Debonos wife of three months, Leah, died of melanoma earlier this year he was heartbroken  until his grief was overtaken by anger. Ben says 29-year-old Leah should still be alive. Like most Australians, she was sun-smart and knew the dangers of melanoma. When she noticed an unusual mole on her arm she immediately had it examined by two doctors. They reassured Leah she had nothing to worry about, but they were wrong. Now Ben is on a crusade, travelling the country on the honeymoon he never had, warning other Australians about the risks of this deadly disease.

Reporter: Allison Langdon

Producer: Bryce Corbett

The Russian Connections

For anyone who thinks Malcolm Turnbulls leadership is in turmoil, its nothing compared to what is happening in the United States with President Donald Trump. A year on from the election, he continues to be dogged by accusations that he only won the top job because of Russian meddling. The most serious claims  currently being investigated by the FBI  are that Russian spies offered the Trump campaign dirt on Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton in return for a promise to overturn tough anti-corruption laws. Ross Coulthart reports from the United States that if the allegations are proven, key members of Donald Trumps inner circle could go to prison  and eventually, even the President himself.

Reporter: Ross Coulthart

Producer: Phil Goyen

Island of Horror

As far as gripping, real-life crime thrillers go, this one has everything. A mutiny, a psychopath and a brutal mass murder. Its a 388-year-old cold case mystery that dates back to 1629 when the Dutch sailing ship, Batavia, struck a tiny atoll off the West Australian coast near Geraldton. Almost 300 passengers and crew survived the shipwreck but over the next few months, as they waited to be rescued, more than 100 were slaughtered. For centuries their bodies lay buried, the story forgotten. But now the search for the truth about Australias greatest mass murder is underway as archaeologists from Australia and the Netherlands dig up new clues  and victims.

Reporter: Liam Bartlett

Producer: Nick Greenaway

8:30pm Sunday on Nine
US comedian Louis C.K. is the latest to be thrust into the spotlight of harassment allegations in Hollywood, along with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner.

Five women have alleged to the New York Times the comedian exposed himself and masturbated in front of two female comedians in 2002, masturbated while speaking to a female comedian over the phone in 2003 and asked to masturbate in front of another comedian, who declined, in 2005. A fourth woman, identified only as a production employee on The Chris Rock Show, said C.K. masturbated in front of her as well.

The article was written by investigative reporter Jodi Kanter, the co-author of the Times Oct. 5 Harvey Weinstein story.

One woman, Rebecca Corry, was working on a pilot produced by Courteney Cox and David Arquette at the time.

What happened to Rebecca on that set was awful, said Courtney Cox, adding that she felt outrage and shock. My concern was to create an environment where Rebecca felt safe, protected and heard, said Cox. Corry said she also received a later apology from C.K., who told her, I used to misread people back then.

When contacted about the claims, C.K.s publicist Lewis Kay said, Louis is not going to answer any questions.

Updated:

We are obviously very troubled by the allegations about Louis C.K. published in The New York Times today, FX said in a statement. The network has received no allegations of misconduct by Louis C.K. related to any of our 5 shows produced together over the past 8 years. FX Networks and FXP take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace. That said, the matter is currently under review.

Louis C.K. will no longer be participating in the Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism Programs, which will be presented live on HBO on November 18, an HBO spokesperson said in a statement. In addition, HBO is removing Louis C.K.s past projects from its On Demand services.

Meanwhile Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has been accused by former staff writer Kater Gordon.

Gordon, who won an Emmy for her writing on the series, alleges that while working together late one night on the series, Weiner told her that she owed it to him to let him see her naked. A year later, she was let go and hasnt worked in the industry since.

In a statement, representatives for Weiner said, Mr. Weiner spent eight to ten hours a day writing dialogue aloud with Miss Gordon, who started on Mad Men as his writers assistant. He does not remember saying this comment nor does it reflect a comment he would say to any colleague. During the nine years he was showrunner on Mad Men, Mr. Weiner had a predominantly female driven writers room. He has long believed in and implemented an egalitarian working environment including the highest levels of production and writing based on mutual respect for all.

Lastly Jeremy Piven has denied latest allegations in this statement:

Source: Hollywood Reporter
There is no stopping The Good Doctor right now with yet another night at #1.

The US drama drew 1.01m viewers last night, with almost all evening slots going Sevens way.

Instant Hotel won its slot at 687,000 viewers ahead of RBT and 7:30. That left Cram at 363,000 down on last weeks 558,000 to battle it out with Great British Railway Journeys on 358,000. That said, Insert Name Here and Food Safari Earth were lower still.

The Good Doctor was out in front of Gogglebox on 588,000 and Piers Morgan on Nine. The Ex-PM struggled on Thursday at 302,000, denied the Wednesday comedy line-up.

Regulars Seven News, ACA and The Chase all won slots once more.

Seven network won Thursday with 33.2% then Nine 24.2%, TEN 19.4%, ABC 15.5% and SBS 7.7%.

The Good Doctor was #1 with 1.01m for Seven then Seven News (846,000 / 839,000), Instant Hotel (687,000), Home and Away (657,000), The Chase (436,000 / 112,000 in 2 cities), and movie: City of Angels (230,000).

Nine News (788,000 / 780,000) was best for Nine then A Current Affair (741,000), RBT (681,000), Hot Seat (430,000 / 250,000) and Killer Women with Piers Morgan (385,000). Wolf Creek was 205,000.

Gogglebox (588,000) led for TEN then The Project (430,000 / 323,000), TEN Eyewitness News (406,000), Cram (363,000), Law & Order: SVU (328,00) and Family Feud (317,000).

ABC News (680,000) was best on ABC followed by 7:30 (493,000), Insert Name Here (307,000), The Ex-PM (302,000), Grand Designs (217,000), Bucket (199,000), Upper Middle Bogan (166,000) and Back (159,000).

On SBS it was great British Railway Journeys (358,000), Food Safari Earth (249,000), River Cottage Australia (198,000), SBS World News (123,000) and Bosch (101,000).

Even at 190,000 Shaun the Sheep still topped multichannels.

OzTAM Overnights: Thursday 9 November 2017
FILE PHOTO: A sign displays the crest and name of the London Stock Exchange in London, Britain August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall/File Photo (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) - Activist investor TCI Fund Management called on Thursday for a shareholder meeting to vote on removing London Stock Exchange <LSE.L> Chairman Donald Brydon, saying the company had not explained why Chief Executive Xavier Rolet was leaving.

TCI said in a letter to the LSE that it also wanted the company to terminate its search for a new CEO and, if Rolet accepts, extend his tenure until 2021.

Activist investors typically push for CEOs to leave a company in order to make changes that benefit the share price, but under Rolet's tenure the LSE's stock has risen from around 6 pounds to 37 pounds.

"Xavier has been a very successful CEO of the London Stock Exchange and hes created a lot of value for shareholders," a top-25 shareholder told Reuters. "If hes been forced out for personal reasons or for reasons with no justification, then its likely that shareholders will back him to stay. If theres something more to it, then shareholders need to know."

The LSE said on Oct. 19 that Rolet would step down by the end of 2018, just under a decade after he took charge.

The exchange must now arrange an extraordinary shareholder meeting (EGM) within three weeks or TCI, founded by British billionaire Chris Hohn, will conduct its own meeting within three months at the company's expense, the hedge fund said.

TCI holds just over a five percent stake in the LSE, enough for it to be able to call such a meeting.

We have spoken to the LSE and explained that we need more information in order to be able to assess the situation," said the top-25 shareholder. "We only spoke to the investor relations guy and there wasnt a lot he could say but he seemed to agree that they will need to say something at some stage."

TCI first raised its complaints about Rolet's planned exit in a letter to the LSE last Friday, in which it said Brydon and the board were trying to force the CEO out, an allegation denied by the exchange on Monday.

Story continues

A subsequent letter to the LSE on Tuesday demanded the company let Rolet speak about his reasons for leaving and reiterated a threat to call an EGM if the company did not act.

A source close to LSE shareholder Egerton Capital said the hedge fund would back TCI in a resolution for Rolet to remain at the company.

A spokesman for the LSE declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

($1 = 0.7607 pounds)

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan and Simon Jessop; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Mark Potter)
Wind power turbines are seen behind the Carbosulcis establishment in Carbonia, west of Cagliari, during a protest 400 metres (1312 ft) underground by Sardinian miners as they block the entrance of the mine August 30, 2012. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi (Reuters)

By Stephen Jewkes and Massimiliano Di Giorgio

ROME/MILAN (Reuters) - Italy is looking to phase out all coal power plant production by 2025 and boost the role of renewable energy as it seeks to reduce its carbon footprint, the government said on Friday.

Laying out its roadmap for energy policy, Rome said the aim was for green energy sources to account for 28 percent of overall energy consumption by 2030 from 17.5 percent in 2015.

In particular it said it wanted renewable sources to make up 21 percent of energy consumption in the transport sector, from 6.4 percent in 2015.

Italy is also aiming to introduce more electric and hybrid vehicles. Industry minister Carlo Calenda, presenting the government's framework document, said one idea being considered was to use power bills to help fund electric car incentives.

But Rome said gas would continue to have a key role in the country's energy future. It said it would promote new gas import pipelines to diversify supply, including the TAP pipeline to Azerbaijan and the EastMed pipeline that will import gas from the Mediterranean.

The document made no mention of encouraging new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities but said current capacity would be awarded by auction and not on a fixed tariff basis.

Italy imports about 90 percent of its gas needs, much of it from Russia.

On Thursday the head of Italy's biggest utility Enel ENEI.MI said the strategy needed to give a greater role to green energy to wean the country off its reliance on gas. (Full Story)

Last week Enel and other top utilities called the European Union's green energy targets unambitious, urging the bar to be raised in the fight against climate change.

Calenda said the early retirement of around 8,000 megawatts of coal power capacity would cost some 3.8-4.0 billion euros while the overall energy plan could generate investments of 175 billion euros ($204 billion) to 2030.

Besides exiting coal, Rome also intends to cut its use of petrol products by 13 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2030 and boost energy efficiency by 30 percent.

Italy, which imported 76 percent of its overall energy needs in 2015, aims to cut that level to 64 percent by 2030.

(Editing by Isla Binnie and Elaine Hardcastle)
FILE PHOTO: Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni greets people after casting his ballot at a polling centre in Kaaro High School in Rushere, Kiruhura district, west of Kampala, Uganda February 18, 2011. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

By Elias Biryabarema

BUSHENYI, Uganda (Reuters) - When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni returned to his home region to throw an Independence Day party last month, the uniformed security outnumbered the small crowd of bored spectators. Museveni slowly drove past the crowd, a mix of schoolchildren and farmers, in a top-of-the-range pick-up truck, giving them a wide smile and a thumbs-up, the ruling party symbol. He was met with blank stares. The apathy - on a continent where strongman rulers are traditionally feted in their home areas - reveals the slow leaching away of political support from one of Africa's longest-serving rulers.

Now, as his party plans to extend his rule, the president is increasingly reliant on a military unit from his home area, the Special Forces Command, to quell dissent over collapsing public services, corruption, growing poverty and brutality by security services. "We've had enough of him," said butcher Steven Ruturukirira bluntly. In a lengthy speech, the 73-year-old Museveni studiously ignored the day's hot topic: a legislative plan to remove the 75-year age limit for the presidency, clearing the way to extend his leadership of the oil-rich nation. "The pursuit of social and economic transformation of Africa is not a simple matter. It calls for visionary leadership," Museveni told the crowd.

Relieved to see Uganda freed from the yoke of brutal dictators, the West has given Museveni an easy ride over the last three decades, glad of his support against radical Islam and his role as power broker in the volatile Great Lakes Region.

Uganda has also welcomed foreign investors like France's Total, China's CNOOC and Britain's Tullow, who hope to start pumping 6.5 billion barrels worth of crude reserves through a planned $3.55 billion pipeline.

But as the opposition makes inroads in urban areas, Museveni relies on support in rural heartlands, as well as his special forces, exacerbating ethnic tensions and potentially sowing the seeds for conflagration when he eventually leaves power.

Story continues

MILITARY SUPPORT

Currently, the age cap bars Museveni from standing in Uganda's next elections, scheduled for 2021. But last month a ruling party lawmaker introduced a bill to scrap the rule.

The government gave each MP $8,000 to help them consult voters on the bill, provoking fury among ordinary citizens like quarry worker Ronald Malongo, 27, who is among a growing number of Ugandans who make less than a dollar a day.

"Museveni works only for his stomach and those around him," Malongo panted as he lifted a load of granite. "We're trash to him."

An opinion survey of 1,200 Ugandans by pollster Afrobarometer a year ago found three quarters opposed the bill. Some legislators trying to promote it were met with jeers or violence in their home constituencies, media reported. Protests have been crushed by riot police, killing two. Opposition lawmakers tried to filibuster the bill in September, but said they were forcibly ejected from parliament by the Special Forces Command (SFC), a loyalist military unit heavily staffed with soldiers from Museveni's Hima ethnic group. Several MPs sustained serious injuries, like Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who said SFC forces dragged him from the debating chamber and choked him in a nearby room. Uganda is "gradually moving into some sort of a military regime," he said. "I don't see Museveni turning back, he has a group around him that can't allow a change (because they are profiting from this)." At the time, the police chief told television reporters he had invited "sister" security agencies into parliament, a euphemism usually used for the military.

But military spokesman Richard Karemire denied soldiers had ejected legislators or strangled Nganda, telling Reuters: "Uganda is not a military state ... it's a democracy."

PRIVILEGED UNIT

Estimated at about 10,000, SFC has evolved from a small presidential guard to a fully fledged branch of the military that enjoys better welfare and training and controls superior equipment.

Soldiers in the SFC get an $80 per month "food basket allowance" that ordinary soldiers don't get. That's a powerful incentive when the number of Ugandans who spend less than a dollar a day has surged to 27 percent of the population, up from 20 percent five years ago, according to the statistics office.

The starting wage for an ordinary soldiers is $105.

The unit also gets better housing, training, and weapons than regular soldiers, two military officers told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"It's an army within an army," one the officers said. It was formerly commanded by Museveni's son, Major General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, now a presidential adviser. Many believe he is being prepared to succeed his father after a military general, David Sejusa, wrote a widely published letter to the head of internal security in 2013.

Sejusa, an old comrade of Museveni's, asked for an investigation into an alleged plot to assassinate top government officials opposed to the Museveni "family project of holding onto power in perpetuity".

Sejusa fled to the United Kingdom but returned to Uganda in 2014. He remains in the military, which bars him from politics, but has been sidelined from power.

Kainerugaba's successor at the head of the SFC is also from the Hima ethnic group. Other prominent members include military chief David Muhoozi, and Museveni's wife, Janet, the education minister.

"SFC is ethnic, it's an army built on ethnic lines," said Nganda, a former member of a parliamentary committee that oversees the military. The danger with rewarding ethnic loyalists with favors and privileges is that beneficiaries "will not sit back and watch power slide out of their hands," Uganda political analyst Nicholas Sengoba said.

"These people will try by hook or crook to maintain the status quo," he said. "That is where you have potential for violence."

(Editing by Katharine Houreld and Giles Elgood)

See Also:
(Reuters) - An Arizona man was found guilty on Wednesday of murder and other charges in the death of a 10-year-old girl who was locked in a small bin for taking a Popsicle, media in the southwestern U.S. state reported.

The verdict by the Maricopa County jury allows the trial of John Allen, 29, to move to another phase, in which the panel will determine if he should face the death penalty, the Arizona Republic reported. That phase could take weeks.

Sammantha Allen, John Allen's wife, was sentenced to death in August after she was also convicted of murder in the 2011 death of 10-year-old Ame Deal, who was her cousin.

Police said the child, who was left in the Allens' care, was forced to exercise intensely for hours in the summer heat as punishment for taking the Popsicle without permission.

The couple then ordered her to get a hinged, plastic container and climb into it, police have said. Sammantha Allen watched as her husband padlocked the girl in the box and the couple then fell asleep, police said.

The dead girl's body was found inside the small container, which only had tiny air holes at its handles.

The jury found John Allen guilty of first-degree murder, three counts of child abuse and conspiracy to commit child abuse, the Republic newspaper reported.

Family members initially told police Deal died in a hide-and-seek game that turned tragic. Police unraveled that story during their investigation.

In John Allen's trial, jurors watched a video of him confessing to locking the girl in the box and going to sleep, the Republic reported.

Arizona has not executed an inmate in three years. The state's last execution took nearly two hours, and resulted in a lawsuit by several inmates who claimed the state's lethal injection protocol caused prolonged suffering.

John Allen's attorney argued that his client took full responsibility and did not intend for the girl to die, according to the Republic.

Maricopa county prosecutors and Allen' attorney, Gary Beren, could not be reached for comment late on Wednesday.

Story continues

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait)

See Also:
VIENNA (AP)  Austrian government officials say that police and customs officials have found 400,000 ecstasy tablets worth millions of euros in a truck headed to Istanbul from Amsterdam and the driver is in custody.

Andrea Doczy of the Finance Ministry says the street value of the haul is 4 million euros (about $4.64 million). She said Tuesday the drugs were found Oct. 31 during searches at a truck terminal near the city of Wels, in Upper Austria province.

She says the pills were hidden behind a load of kitchen appliances in five barrels, two boxes and a tote bag.

The Turkish driver says he was paid 10,000 euros ($11,590) to transport the drugs to Turkey. Dozcy says an accomplice in Germany has also been arrested and the search continues for other suspects.

See Also:
The disputed President of Catalonia has told Sky News the Spanish state has "damaged democracy in order to stop independence".

In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Carles Puigdemont said the European Union is failing to recognise the reality of the situation in Catalonia and failing to act in the face of "authoritarian actions".

"It is very disappointing to see that in a Europe Union that we are all a part of, they can respond to situations in Poland and Hungary but cannot respond to the situation in Catalonia," he said, speaking from a secret location in Brussels.

"To be treated like a criminal, like a drug trafficker, a paedophile, like a serial killer, I think this is abuse... this isn't politics, this is using the courts to do politics."

:: Catalan leader slams EU for backing Spanish 'coup'

Mr Puigdemont is the subject of a European arrest warrant which he is appealing through the Belgian courts.

He is wanted in Spain on crimes of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds after the 1 October referendum and subsequent declaration of independence, both deemed illegal by the Spanish government.

When asked if he was willing to spend 30 years in jail he replied: "It's a threat because the crime I am accused of could result in 30 years in prison. It's madness. It's not justice. It's vengeance."

He added: "I am not a rebel. I don't have the spirit of a rebel nor the wish to be one. I consider myself to be very disciplined. I just want to carry out what my parliament has approved.

"This is very normal, there is nothing rebellious about that. It's very uncomfortable for me to have this role of a 'rebel' and I don't want to play it."

The exiled president left Barcelona for Brussels a week ago. He claims he is not running from justice but seeking it. He said he will not receive a fair trial in Madrid.

:: What next for Carles Puigdemont?

Eight Catalan ministers, who appeared in court in Madrid last week, have been denied bail and jailed pending their trial.

Story continues

After the referendum, the Spanish government triggered Article 155 of its constitution, removing Catalonia of its autonomy and dissolving the parliament.

Fresh elections were called by Madrid for 21 December in an attempt to diffuse the situation and settle the matter. The gamble by Madrid is that anti-independence parties will secure the most votes.

He said: "The Spanish state has damaged democracy in order to stop independence because through democracy which is the only thing we believe in, the reality is undeniable. So we need to recover that democracy that has been damaged by the Spanish state."

No European country has recognised his declaration of independence and the European Commission has repeatedly said the matter is a domestic one for Spain.

In a clear expression of disappointment and even isolation, he said: "We deserve respect and we have earned the right to be listened to... maybe not understood, but don't just listen to one side, to the powerful Spanish institutional machinery, which is very powerful, listen to the other side too."

He added: "I admit that what's happening in Catalonia is not pleasant for the European Union, but it's a reality nevertheless.

"The problem is that the EU doesn't recognise the reality."

:: Scars, cars and cigars - a tale of two leaders

The result of the 1 October referendum was 90% for 'yes', but it was secured on a low turnout of just over 40%. Most anti-independence voters boycotted the vote.

How does that make his independence declaration valid, he was asked.

"Yes - they are very good questions. In conditions with a very aggressive state, 'chasing' [confiscating] ballot boxes, arresting politicians and propaganda, 43% turnout is a miracle," he said.

He said that the number of Catalans who voted "yes" was bigger than the number who voted yes to the Catalan statute of autonomy, implying that the independence vote was legitimate.

One of the central motivations and justifications for Catalan independence is the claim that they are a persecuted and suppressed people.

Challenged on how he can claim this in light of accepted persecutions like that of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar or the historic persecution of Catalans under Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, which he lived through, he was adamant:

"It depends. Is Catalan language equal to spanish language. No. No. Are the Catalan parliament powers protected? No."

He said he would accept the result of the 21 December election, but doubted whether Madrid would accept the result if independence parties won.

And he called for a proper Madrid-sanctioned referendum to settle the issue.

The December vote, he claimed, would not be objective because people would fear the consequences of voting with independence parties.

"[The election] is not exactly a referendum. It's an abnormal situation."

:: Read more about Catalonia

In recent weeks more than 2,000 companies have moved their headquarters out of Catalonia, concerned about the uncertainty and the economic impact of the crisis.

He blamed their relocation not on his own declaration of independence but on the Spanish government for introducing a law making relocation out of Catalonia easier.

"The economic cost of authoritarian actions against Catalonia will be paid by the whole of the EU not just Spain and Catalonia. It's not very intelligent to declare an economic war against Catalonia just to fight against the independence movement."

Catalonia accounts for 2% of European Union growth. The region has a growth rate of 3.5% which is now threatened by the crisis.

Mr Puigdemont is due before Brussels judge on 17 November to answer his arrest warrant but he can appeal any decision against him to a higher court.
Typical Fiji huts and palm trees are displayed during the COP23 UN Climate Change Conference 2017, hosted by Fiji but held in Bonn, Germany November 9, 2017. Picture taken November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Alister Doyle

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Fiji has turned a tiny part of Germany into a tropical Pacific island as it leads global negotiations on climate change, securing a stage for islanders' worries about rising sea levels.

The first small island state to preside at U.N. climate negotiations since they began in the 1990s, Fiji has enlivened a conference centre with canoes, dancers, huge photographs of palm-fringed islands, virtual reality shows and flowers.

Some delegates at the 200-nation, Nov. 6-17 meeting dub the riverside venue "Fiji-on-the-Rhine", a contrast to the grey November skies outside in Bonn, Germany. Fiji says "we are all in the same canoe" in confronting climate change.

Small island states have often felt overlooked by big powers even though they are on the frontlines of a rise in sea levels that is causing more storm surges, washes salt onto cropland and could swamp some low-lying coral islands.

Fiji's chief negotiator Nazhat Shameem Khan told Reuters others should not underestimate small states.

"If you think you're too small to make an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito," she said, attributing the quote to Anita Roddick, the founder of the cosmetics firm The Body Shop.

Average sea levels have risen 26 cm (10 inches) since the late 19th century, driven partly by melting ice, according to the U.N. weather agency, and could rise by up to a metre this century as temperatures rise.

At the indoor Fijian pavilion in Bonn, delegates can also sample virtual reality glasses with 360 degree views showing young people re-building homes devastated by mudslides.

"We wanted to think 'how do we bring Fiji to Germany?'" co-director Kvaku Aning said. "Short of being able to smell it, or feel the rain or the sun on you, this is the best thing."

Many delegates say the Fijian approach makes an often abstract debate about greenhouse gas emissions more real. "It delivers a really stark message," said Elina Bardram, head of the European Commission delegation.

Story continues

The negotiations in Bonn, to write a rule book for the 2015 Paris climate agreement, have been overshadowed by what to do after President Donald Trump decided in June to withdraw the United States from the pact, instead preferring to promote coal and oil.

Khan said Fiji wanted to embed the hard-to-translate Fijian concept of 'Bula' into the negotiations. "It's friendship, it's inclusiveness, it's happiness ... We're seeing a lot of the 'Bula' spirit here."

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
By Fatos Bytyci

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo accused Serbia of undermining a European Union-sponsored dialogue between the two countries by refusing to withdraw an international arrest warrant for Kosovo's prime minister.

Tensions between the states heightened early this year after Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovar guerilla leader who in September took over as prime minister, was arrested in France on an arrest warrant issued by Serbia. He was released after a French court rejected Belgrade's extradition request.

Western officials based in Kosovo's capital of Pristina, as well as local security officials, fear Haradinaj could be arrested if he travels abroad for official visits if the arrest warrant is not withdrawn.

A visit to Brussels next week, Haradinaj's second trip to a foreign country since he took over two months ago, will be the next test.

"Creating lists and accusing people with false evidences belongs to the dark times of the Serb state under (Slobodan) Milosevic, Halil Matoshi, a political advisor to Haradinaj, said on Friday.

"This does not contribute to the dialog between Kosovo and Serbia as two sovereign and neighbouring states and the normalisation of the relations between Belgrade and Pristina."

In September Serbian authorities said that the arrest warrant against Haradinaj remains in place.

Kosovo seceded from Serbia in 2008. Both states want to join the European Union but Brussels says they must normalise relations before their applications can go ahead. Both countries committed in 2013 to an EU-sponsored dialogue to resolve outstanding issues.

Serbia has charged Haradinaj with murdering Serbs in the late 1990s war. The 1998-99 conflict ended after NATO bombed the now-defunct Yugoslavia, then comprising Serbia and Montenegro, for 78 days to force a withdrawal of its troops from Kosovo and end a counter-insurgency campaign against ethnic Albanians.

Haradinaj, who has twice been tried and acquitted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague, denies any wrongdoing.

Story continues

Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Serbia refuse to recognise its former breakaway province.

Backed by Russia and China, Serbia is blocking Pristina's membership in international organisations including United Nations and Interpol.

"Pristina is constantly sending requests to Interpol to remove his name from the red notice but unfortunately that is not happening," a senior Kosovo security source told Reuters.

"These are politically motivated charges but any police officer at any border post will see his name in red notice and it is his or her obligation to respect that notice."

Kosovo is not a member of Interpol and any request to add or remove Kosovar nationals to watchlists goes through an office of United Nations in Pristina.

A western diplomat in Pristina who asked not to be named said: "A quick solution must be found. This is a nonsense."

(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Toby Chopra)
By Tom Perry, Ellen Francis and John Irish

BEIRUT/PARIS (Reuters) - Hezbollah's leader said on Friday that Saudi Arabia had declared war on Lebanon and his Iran-backed group, accusing Riyadh of detaining Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign as Lebanon's prime minister to destabilise the country.

France became the first Western country to indicate that Saudi Arabia was holding Hariri against his will, saying it wished for him to have "all his freedom of movement and be fully able to play the essential role that is his in Lebanon".

Hariri's resignation has plunged Lebanon into crisis, thrusting the small Arab country back to the forefront of regional rivalry between the Sunni Muslim monarchy Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite revolutionary Iran.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, said Saudi Arabia's detention of Hariri, a long-time Saudi ally who declared his resignation while in Riyadh last Saturday, was an insult to all Lebanese and he must return to Lebanon.

"Let us say things as they are: the man is detained in Saudi Arabia and forbidden until this moment from returning to Lebanon," Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

"It is clear that Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon and on Hezbollah in Lebanon," he said.

His comments mirror an accusation by Riyadh on Monday that Lebanon and Hezbollah had declared war on the conservative Gulf Arab kingdom.

Riyadh says Hariri is a free man and he decided to resign because Hezbollah was calling the shots in his government. Saudi Arabia considers Hezbollah to be its enemy in conflicts across the Middle East, including Syria and Yemen.

Western countries have looked on with alarm at the rising regional tension.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries and groups against using Lebanon as vehicle for a larger proxy fight in the Middle East, saying Washington strongly backed Lebanon's independence and respected Hariri as a strong partner of the United States, still referring to him as prime minister.

Story continues

"There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state," Tillerson said in a statement released by the U.S. State Department.

Tillerson told reporters on Friday there was no indication that Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia against his will but that the United States was monitoring the situation.

The French foreign minister said earlier on Friday that he also believed Hariri was a free man - a statement at odds with the later French foreign minstry comment that it wanted Hariri to have "all his freedom of movement".

Hariri has made no public remarks since announcing his resignation in a speech televised from Saudi Arabia, saying he feared assassination and accusing Iran and Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

Two top Lebanese government officials, a senior politician close to Hariri and a fourth source told Reuters on Thursday that the Lebanese authorities believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia.

Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon. While an Israeli attack could not be ruled out entirely, he said, it was unlikely partly because Israel knew it would pay a very high price. "I warn them against any miscalculation or any step to exploit the situation," he said.

"Saudi will fail in Lebanon as it has failed on all fronts," Nasrallah said.

Riyadh has advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon, or if already there to leave as soon as possible. Other Gulf states have also issued travel warnings. Those steps have raised concern that Riyadh could take measures against the tiny Arab state, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

Hariri's resignation is being widely seen as part of a Saudi attempt to counter Iran as its influence deepens in Syria and Iraq and as Riyadh and its allies battle Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Hariri's resignation unravelled a political deal among rival factions that made him prime minister and President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, head of state last year.

The coalition government included Hezbollah, a heavily armed military and political organisation.

STUCK BETWEEN "ANTAGONISTIC INTERESTS"

Aoun told Saudi Arabia's envoy on Friday that Hariri must return to Lebanon and the circumstances surrounding his resignation as prime minister while in Saudi Arabia were unacceptable, presidential sources said.

An "international support group" of countries concerned about Lebanon, which includes the United States, Russia and France, appealed for Lebanon "to continue to be shielded from tensions in the region". In a statement, they also welcomed Aoun's call for Hariri to return.

In comments to Reuters, top Lebanese Druze politician Jumblatt said Lebanon did not deserve to be accused of declaring war on Saudi Arabia. "For decades we've been friends," he said.

"We are a country that is squeezed between two antagonistic interests, between Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said. "The majority of Lebanese are just paying the price ... Lebanon can not afford to declare a war against anybody."

The Saudi foreign minister accused Hezbollah of a role in the launching of a ballistic missile at Riyadh from Yemen on Saturday. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran's supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of "direct military aggression" that could be an act of war.

Nasrallah mocked the Saudi accusation that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the firing of the missile from Yemen, saying Yemenis were capable of building their own missiles.

(Reporting by Dominiqu Vidalon and John Irish in Paris, Sarah Dadouch, Lisa Barrington, Laila Bassam and Tom Perry in Beirut, Susan Heavey and Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)
By Saad Sayeed

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan on Friday blocked off roads into Islamabad, the capital, as an Islamist party that backs strict blasphemy laws staged a sit-in on a key highway, demanding the resignation of a minister it blames for changes to an electoral oath.

Dozens of Pakistanis are on death row, convicted of having insulted Islam's prophet, a charge that carries a mandatory death sentence, although no executions have been carried out.

More than 500 supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, or Movement of the Prophet's Followers, chanted slogans as speakers addressed them from atop a cargo truck, pledging their lives to protect Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

The protesters demanded the resignation of Law Minister Zahid Hamid, whom they hold responsible for the law change, and denounced him as a blasphemer.

"Immediately appear before us and beg for forgiveness," said one speaker.

Two high court lawyers who joined the sit-in said they would work to advance Labaik's agenda in the courts.

"He (Hamid) has insulted the blasphemy laws, the punishment for which is death," said one of the lawyers.

Pakistan's interior ministry did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek comment.

The ruling Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) unexpectedly set off a firestorm last month after voting through the alteration of the oath, among seemingly small changes to the nation's electoral law.

The changes prompted accusations of blasphemy from religious parties and the government retreated, apologising in parliament for what it called a "clerical" mistake.

But the apology did not satisfy Tehreek-e-Labaik, triggering the sit-in, as the culmination of a march of nearly 400 km (249 miles) from the eastern city of Lahore.

The party rose to prominence in September, after placing third in a by-election in Lahore, edging out a major opposition party to pick up 6 percent of the vote.

Story continues

Last month, it gained nearly 8 percent in a by-election in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

While Tehrik-e-Labaik is unlikely to break out of single digits in coming votes, its rapid rise could present a challenge for the PML-N.

On a bridge overlooking the highway demonstration site, drivers of trucks halted by blockades erected by city authorities complained about cargo delivery delays.

One commuter unable to take public transport to work told Reuters his business had suffered.

"I run a tailoring shop and can't go to work today," said Mohammad Altaf. "I have lost a day's earnings."

(Reporting by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
(Repeats story published Wednesday)

By Dan Freed and Pete Schroeder

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Small Main Street banks vowed on Wednesday to fight any review of a ban that prevents retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc and tech companies like Amazon.com Inc from becoming fully fledged banks.

Keith Noreika, a top U.S. banking regulator, stirred disquiet among community bankers with his call for a review of the current regulations. The proposal by the acting Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) was made at a banking conference in New York and comes as technology companies such as Amazon and Apple Inc have already broken into the financial arena with payment services and different types of lending.

"Mixing banking and commerce is a bad idea that keeps recurring like a bad dream," said Paul Merski with the Independent Community Bankers of America.

"It's one of our bedrock resolutions to oppose the threat of full blown mixing of banking and commerce."

Mixing banking and other commercial activities has traditionally been prohibited in the United States, amid fears customer deposits would be used to fund or subsidize unrelated and potentially risky non-banking business.

Even so, technology companies have been making inroads.

Earlier this week, Apple released a product called Apple Pay Cash. The feature allows iPhone users to send each other cash that can then immediately be used in stores that take Apple Pay. The system uses a so-called virtual debit card to enable in-store payments. Amazon, meanwhile, offers small-business lending.

Nonetheless, Wells Fargo & Co Chief Executive Tim Sloan said he does not view Silicon Valley as a threat to banks. "I don't think Apple fundamentally wants to become a bank. I don't think Amazon wants to become a bank," he said during a CEO round table at an industry conference in New York Tuesday. "They want to use financial services products to help their customers succeed."

Story continues

Amazon had no immediate comment and Apple did not return a request for comment.

THE NEXT FDIC BOSS

Technology firms would have to submit to a welter of regulation and oversight and apply for a banking charter from the OCC if they wanted to become full-service banks. Bank holding companies are also prohibited from engaging in nonfinancial activities.

In a statement, Colin Walsh the CEO of mobile banking startup Varo Money, said its charter application was going through the approval process. Student online lender Social Finance Inc withdrew its application last month.

Mobile payments company Square, which reported better-than-expected results on Wednesday, has applied to be a so-called industrial loan company, an entity that enjoys some of the same privileges as a traditional bank but falls short of a full bank charter.

"It (industrial loan charter) does allow us to engage more directly with regulatory bodies so its great to hear that comment coming today from the OCC," said Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of Square.

The comments from Noreika, who has built up a reputation for a strong deregulatory bent since taking over in May, puts a spotlight on the OCC's sister organization the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

While the OCC issues the bank charter, the FDIC insures any deposits and must also approve the charter.

The term of current FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg, a holdover from the administration of former President Barack Obama, expires this month. Gruenberg has the option of staying on as chairman until his replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

Some bankers said they were comfortable with corporations entering their turf, as long as they were subject to the same rules.

"If Wal-Mart wants to be a bank that's fine, as long as they make the appropriate investments to protect the parts of the banking system that are so critical," said Kelly King, chief executive at regional lender BB&T Corp.

King added that he was absolutely opposed to the idea of a limited banking license.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, abandoned plans for its own bank in 2007 after opposition from lawmakers, bankers and watchdog groups.

Wal-Mart does not intend to resurrect those plans after Noreika's comments, spokeswoman Erin Hulliberger said.

Wal-Mart already operates hundreds of money centers within its stores, which offer services like check cashing, money transfers, bill payment along with prepaid debit cards and credit cards.

Facebook Inc in 2015 began letting people send money to friends through its Messenger app, but a move into banking is not on the companys roadmap, said spokeswoman Vanessa Chan.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Rucker in Washington, Anna Irrera in New York, Jeffrey Dastin and David Ingram in San Francisco and Nandita Bose in Chicago; Writing by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

See Also:
SWNS

<p>Feeling under the weather? Try the rom-com remedy  three in five Americans say its their go-to movie genre when down for the count.</p><p>Thats according to a new poll of 2,000 millennial parents of kids ages 4-12, where theyre also watching action and adventure movies (37%) and series like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games (36%).</p><p>When sickness strikes, more than four in five (82%) spend most of their time in their bedroom, with 42% staying put on the couch in their living room.</p><p>This may contribute to the fact that the average parent watches five hours of TV or movies each sick day.</p><p>Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of <a href="https://delsym.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-safelink="true" data-linkindex="1">Delsym</a>, results showed how respondents are optimizing comfort with their favorite things.</p><p>Results revealed that respondents get sick about three times per year.</p><p>Respondents were more likely to prefer old favorites than to wrap their heads around new content when feeling ill. (23% vs 15%).</p><p>When parents are sick with their children, the most popular movies to watch are the Harry Potter series (32%) and the Toy Story series (32%).</p><p>They also watch movies like Frozen (30%), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (28%) and Moana (25%).</p><p>More than half (56%) of respondents have a go-to or favorite feel-better comfort movie, with the average person saying they can watch it four times in a row without getting sick of it</p><p>In fact, 45% of those admit they can watch it more than four times and one in 10 of those (11%) even say they can watch it an infinite amount of times.</p><p>In total, respondents have watched their feel-better movie about 34 different times.</p><p>This movie has been respondents favorite for about six years, perhaps because it reminds them of good times (61%) and makes them laugh (53%).</p><p>Parents report feeling relaxed (54%), happy (48%) and calm (40%) after watching their favorite movie.</p><p>Almost two-thirds (63%) of parents agree that theyve passed their love of their favorite movie along to their child.</p><p>Nothing brings a family together quite like movie night, and nothing makes movie night better than a feel-good flick that fills you with warm, fuzzy feelings  especially when youre sick. We understand that feeling better means more than just relieving your cough symptoms  its about cozying up on the couch as you and your family work to feel better together, said Albert So, Marketing Director, Upper Respiratory Brands at Reckitt, including Delsym.</p><p>The survey also delved into how respondents are remedying their ailments by caring for their five senses. </p><p>In order to alleviate their symptoms, parents tend to want to taste soup (42%) and hot beverages like tea or coffee (26%).</p><p>They also want to touch things like their favorite blanket (40%), their significant other (19%) and their pet (14%).</p><p>When it comes to smell, respondents like to breathe in something clean like fresh linens (42%), medicine (36%) and something cooking in the kitchen (26%).</p><p>And while trying to feel better, respondents like to listen to music (58%) and their friends and family talking (29%).</p><p>When a family member is under the weather, the entire household is caught in the storm and that daily routine can be thrown off course, bringing with it discomfort and chaos. Families not only need fast-acting relief, but they need comforting remedies to help them navigate that storm, said So. Whether its moms chicken soup, your go-to feel better movie or cozying up with your kids, whatever it is that makes you feel better can go a long way.<br><br></p><p><em>Survey methodology:</em></p><p><em>This random double-opt-in survey of <strong>2,000 millennial parents of kids aged 4-12</strong> was commissioned by <strong>Delsym</strong> between <strong>October 6</strong> and <strong>October 10, 2022</strong>. It was conducted by market research company <a href="https://www.onepoll.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-safelink="true" data-linkindex="2">OnePoll</a>, whose team members are members of the <a href="https://www.mrs.org.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-safelink="true" data-linkindex="3">Market Research Society</a> and have corporate membership to the American Association for Public Opinion Research (<a href="https://www.aapor.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-safelink="true" data-linkindex="4">AAPOR</a>) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (<a href="https://www.esomar.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-safelink="true" data-linkindex="5">ESOMAR</a>).</em></p>
Specialist services and engineering company TP Group announced that TPG Maritime had been awarded a contract by the Ministry of Defence, following successful negotiations first announced on 4 July 2016.

The AIM-traded firm said the agreement would see TPG Maritime manage equipment availability and spares provision for air purification systems on board Royal Navy submarines currently in service.

It said the five-year contract had an option for a further two-year extension, and was estimated by the company and the MoD to be worth at least 22m at 2017 prices over 7 years, although the final value remained dependent on spares usage, among other things.

We are delighted to confirm this significant contract which will see TPG continue to support advanced, safety-critical systems in the Royal Navy's submarine programme, said chief executive officer Phil Cartmell.

This recognition reinforces our long-term partnership with the Ministry of Defence and provides visibility of future work and revenue in Portsmouth.
Transport for London announced an update to its iconic Johnston typeface on Tuesday, bringing it into the digital age with the launch of Johnston100.

The local government body said that, after 100 years of helping Londoners navigate the capital, the upgraded typeface now included a hashtag (#) and at (@) symbol for the first time.

It said that as its presence expands beyond stations to digital mediums including apps and social media, the updated typeface was necessitated.

Johnston was initially commissioned by Frank Pick - managing director of the then-London Transport - in 1913, and designed by calligrapher Edward Johnston.

It was designed to bring readability and visual simplicity to Londons fledgling transport network - in particular the Underground.

It was revised in the 1970s by Eicchi Kono for the era of computer-based typography, but a number of symbols have never been designed for as they were deemed unnecessary until now.

Over the past 100 years Frank Picks vision and Edward Johnstons typeface has served London well, said TfL head of design Jon Hunter.

TfL is committed to protecting this legacy and over the years weve worked closely with designers such as Eicchi Kono and most recently Monotype Type, to make subtle changes to the typeface.

Hunter said releasing the updated Johnston100 typeface is an important step forward, and it will start appearing across the network later this year in a number of guises.

We plan to announce the first place it can be seen on the Underground very soon.

We hope this version of the lettering of London for the digital age, will last for another 100 years and beyond, Hunter added.
Shares in US defense and space engineering group Lockheed Martin were sent lower at the start of the week following criticism from US President-elect via social platform Twitter.

In a tweet posted to his account, Donald Trump echoed fairly prevalent criticism in the industry of cost overruns in the companys F-35 next-generation fighter jet development programme.

"The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th," Trump said.

The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016

The F-35 Lightining II is a so-called 5th Generation fighter sporting advanced stealth capabilities which is meant to become the next leading-edge platform for the US Air Force, Navy and Marines, as well for the armed forces of nearly 10 US allies, including the UK, Netherlands and Australia.

As of 1402 GMT shares in the engineer were down 2.70% at $252.51.
Reports that European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi was not planning to signal a policy shift at a key conference next week weighed on the euro, in turn giving a lift to stocks across the Continent.

As of 1203 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 0.79% or 2.96 points to 379.45, alongside an advance of 0.79% or 96.53 points in Germany's Dax to 12,274.31.

In Italy, the Milan FTSE Mibtel was ahead by 1.12% or 243.37 points at 21,965.05.

According to a sourced report from Reuters, Draghi was not planning any fresh messages for the upcoming Jackson Hole Symposium in the States.

Instead, his intention was reportedly to focus on the venue's main theme, namely fostering a dynamic global economy, preferring to hold off on any debate until autumn.

That weighed on the euro/dollar rate,which was down by 0.28% to 1.1702, although for Michael Hewson at CMC Markets UK, as long as the pair remained above 1.1620 another move towards 1.20 continued to be the most likely scenario.

During the night Anthony H Cordesman at CSIS minimised the purported risk from North Korea's missile test, explaining that "firing an unproven missile with an unproven warhead in an unproven re-entry vehicle with unproved accuracy and reliability at these ranges against a major nuclear power goes from stupidity to insanity."

Nevertheless, recent events on the Korean peninsula did hold the potential for escalating tension in Northeast Asia over the next decade, he said.

Front month Brent crude oil futures were also gaining altitude, rising 0.86% to $51.24 per barrel after the American Petroleum Institute reportedly revealed a 9.16m barrel stockdraw for last week.

The Stoxx 600's gauge of Basic Resource companies' shares was among the best performers with an advance of 1.77% to 412.18 despite a Bloomberg report that hedge fund manager Crispin Odey was 'shorting' metal stocks in anticipation of slower economic growth in China.

On the economic front, Eurozone gross domestic product growth picked up from a 0.5% clip in the first three months of 2017 to a 0.6% pace in the second quarter, amid strong expansions in the Netherlands and Spain.

Later in the day, the US Commerce Department is expected to release July data on housing starts and permits, followed by the minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve policy meeting at 1900 BST.

On the corporate front, shares in Carlsberg were holding lower after the company disappointed investors by failing to raise its full-year earnings forecasts, instead reiterating it was expecting a mid-single digit increase in profits.

Maersk was headed in the other direction; despite under-delivering with its second quarter results, while company chief Soren Skou sounded a cheery note on the industry's outlook.

Akzo Nobel reached a three-deal truce with activist hedge-fund Elliot Management.

Arcelor Mittal's South African unit was reportedly mulling layoffs in a bid to lower costs.

Fiat was in the spotlight amid reports that a Chinese suitor had presented a bid for the company this month.
The 'Leave' camp was continuing to build momentum going into the final fortnight ahead of the referendum on the UK's continued membership of the European Union, according to the results of the latest poll published on Friday evening, which sent the pound reeling.

Of the 2,000 people canvassed by ORB, a full 55.0% said they were now backing the option to leave the EU, against 45.0% who aid they were supporting 'Remain'.

ORB's last such poll, the results of which had been adjusted to take into account how likely people were to vote, had put suport for 'Leave' at 51.0% and for 'Remain' at 49.0%.

The resulting ten point lead for 'Leave' was "by far the biggest lead the Leave camp has enjoyed since ORB began polling the issue for The Independenent twelve months ago.

According to the pollster, 56.0% of Labour voters at the last national elections had thrown their hat in with 'Remain' as opposed to 38.0% for Tory voters - with support greatest in Scotland.

Howeverm in one "crumb" of good news for 'Remain', a small majority of 52.0% still appeared to think 'Remain' would come out ontop, with 'Leave' expected to garner 48.0% of the vote.

News of the poll's results on Friday evening saw the pound weaken by 1.39% to end the day at 1.4253.

Commenting on the Brexit debate, Erik F.Nielsen, chief economist at UniCredit Research, on Sunday told clients that: "My point is this: Brexit will be a disaster for the UK well beyond issues of trade and investment vis-a-vis the EU  and both short- and longer term (if Brexit, well revise our UK GDP forecast to show recession in 2017, followed by a slower trajectory) while the rest of Europe will suffer short-term.

"Longer term, the EU-27 will all depend on the policy reaction (therell be a special summit  excluding the UK  already on June 28-29 to discuss the approach.) Further integration is inevitable. At a minimum, itll include defence and security, as already discussed, but my money would be on closer economic policy making as well, probably along the lines suggested by French governor Villeroy de Galhau (which I discussed two weeks ago.)."




"When the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) was made a compulsory requirement to World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership in 1995, it showed how integral intellectual property was thought for economic development. Since then, there has been debate about how domestic and international IP policies can provide protection for businesses interests at a global level whilst still helping advance health development goals in developing countries. One major component of this debate has been the role of IP in connection with the availability of drugs.Against this background, countries such as China, South Africa and Brazil have challenged certain IP laws, especially those that preclude access to essential drugs. For example, the cost of cancer-treating drugs in both South Africa and China are unaffordable for the majority of the population, amounting by one estimate to 286% of the monthly salary of the average Chinese cancer patient. More generally, governments and NGOs have claimed that IP protection imposed by TRIPS serves to maximise multinational pharmaceutical companies profits rather than foster innovation.Under the presidency of Nelson Mandela, the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act (1997) was put into place to allow parallel importation of off-patent drugs, allowing generic substitutions. This act enabled widespread access to HIV/AIDS drugs in the country, but it was unfortunately followed by years of multilateral pressure from the Pharmaceutical Industry Association of South Africa and certain developed countries to stop the production of these drugs. Two decades later, too many people are still not able to obtain the necessary medication at an affordable price.On 25th of October of this year, a total of 36 patient and civil society groups marched to the South African Department of Trade to request a revision to the patent laws. This was done to commemorate fellow activist, Tobeka Daki , who died in an unsuccessful struggle against HER2 breast cancer, unable to access the necessary patented drug, costing R500,000, over $35,000. Claire Waterhouse, the Access Campaign Advocacy Adviser for Doctors Without Borders Southern Africa claimed that  [u]ntil the relevant Acts are amended, people will continue to suffer and die in South Africa because they cant access affordable medicines.Numerous developing nations have claimed that TRIPS allows wealthy nations to impose their agenda through the WTO, stifling domestic innovation and increasing the cost of medicines. Mark Duggan, Craig Garthwaite and Aparajita Goyayal (2014) have found that the creation of a textbook patent system (one in which foreign firms are granted monopoly rights while domestic firms are immediately pushed out of the market for the length of the patent term because of infringement) results in higher prices and a low number of pharmaceutical products being sold in the market. study from the Cancer Alliance reported the South African government registers patents that may well be rejected if the country adopted stronger patentability criteria, patent examination processes and opposition procedures. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon called out developing countries for not taking into account TRIPS flexibilities, which can help reduce the price of cancer drugs. These flexibilities include compulsory licensing (the governments authority to approve the production of patented products without the approval of the patent holders), and the right for national firms producing newly patented molecules to pay international businesses to continue their access to the national market. In terms of market monopoly, pharmaceutical companies have argued that while patent monopolies do restrict price competition, they also provide fixed welfare benefits by improving incentives for marketing, which is a form of non-price competition, offsetting the costs of monopoly pricing.Should individual countries seek, at least in part, their own way to ensure that domestic IP laws and policies improve health and pharmaceutical accessibility, or is the framework created by TRIPS adequate as it is? TRIPS works on the basis of a common global consensus that patent protection promotes the greater good of countries and stimulates interest in research. However, this system can be distorted, as is the case in South Africa, where patent laws mainly serve large pharmaceutical companies, who often buy the rights to drugs and raise prices, regardless of consequences to the public. The recent South African IP policy proposed by the Department of Trade extends beyond patent protection in accordance with international norms and strongly favours patent holders.An example is that the policy enables companies to easily amend their patent criteria to comply with section 7.1.4 of the IP policy when a third party attacks their patents validity. This makes litigation with parties extremely hard as they can continue to amend their specifications to comply with South African patent law and thus maintain a monopoly over a product. Here, it is the local law that may well contribute to the lack of accessibility to necessary drugs. As such, at least in part, domestic structures and systems may also contribute to the issue of inadequate accessibility to drugs in the developing world."Picture at lower left by Pollo and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
If Britain votes for Brexit there will be an emergency budget which will include spending cuts and a rise in taxes, Chancellor George Osborne warned on Wednesday.

Osborne said when the country votes in the EU referendum on the 23 June the UK was facing a recession in just over a weeks time.

The basic rate of income tax would rise from 20p to 22p, the top rate would rise from 3p to 4p and inheritance tax would rise 5p to 45p in the Brexit Budget.

There would also be cuts to state budgets: 2.5bn cut to the NHS, 1.2bn to defence and 1.15bn to education. Spending on pensions would be cut by 2bn, Home Office, transport and local government by 5.8bn. Alcohol and petrol duties would rise by 5%.

Osborne said the figures were based on a study by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). The IFS said Brexit could trigger an extra one to two years of austerity.

However, 57 MPs including Dr Liam Fox, Owen Paterson and Iain Duncan Smith wrote a letter saying they would vote down the proposed Brexit Budget, as reported by Sky News.

Both George Osborne and his predecessor Lord Darling wrote in The Times, ahead of a planned speech on Wednesday, that Brexit will have a "profound economic shock that would hit the economy and could tip Britain back into recession.

"We know all too well what happens when Britain loses control of its public finances. We're agreed that a vote to leave risks doing the same thing to Britain all over again."

Osborne told BBC Radio 4s Today programme on Wednesday morning: "For first time for we have a Conservative and Labour chancellor agreeing the scale of the decisions needed to fix the public finances if we quit the EU. There would have to be increases in tax.

There would have to be cuts in public spending to fill the black hole. We have the markets warning us now what will happen. Youve got the experts spelling out the consequences. It would be self-imposed austerity for many years to come. For years weve been dealing with the consequences of the last recession.

He added that the people on low and middle incomes will be affected the most due to job insecurity. He warned that Brexit will be an enormous leap in the dark and that it will be one-way exit.

However, Leave campaigner and MP Chris Grayling dismissed the claims and predictions of the pound falling and a reduction in consumer spending as unreliable.

He added: I dont think its coincidence this is happening when the Remain campaign is struggling in the opinion polls.

If the UK votes to leave the UK and a Brexit Budget proposed, the voting down of the budget by the 57 MPs could lead to an early general election as budgets are considered a vote of confidence.The Conservative government has a narrow majority of 12 MPs in the House of Commons.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the Labour Party would never support Osborne's proposed post-Brexit emergency budget.

"This maybe a natural Tory approach but no Labour chancellor would respond to an economic shock in this manner. And neither did Alistair Darling in 2008," he said.

"Any credible economist would tell you that raising taxes or cutting spending or both in response to an economic shock is the wrong thing to do."
This and other out-of-class experiences, coupled with his Virginia Tech work, defined Murthys direction. Now he is applying to medical school. He eventually wants to work as a physician and then progress to a career in politics and health care policy.

Murthy and a team of three other Virginia Tech students want to create a campus hub for students to learn about these same kinds of out-of-the classroom opportunities, from internships and study abroad to research and service-learning projects. Students, they said, often dont know about the options available to help them embark on these important ventures.

The four students  Murthy, Najla Mouchrek, Danielle Jeffers, and Jarrodd Davis  comprise Virginia Techs first team of University Innovation Fellows. Stanford Universitys Hasso Plattner Institute of Design runs this fellows program, and it advocates for college students across the globe to devise new ideas and projects for their institutions related to innovation, entrepreneurship, and design.

The Virginia Tech student team, who represent different majors and academic interests, presented their ideas to university administrators on Nov. 9 during a ceremony in Burruss Hall.

We all love the university, and we want to see it prosper, said Murthy, who is majoring in biochemistry.

For the team, faculty chose students with an innovation mindset and whose interests cross many disciplines.

They are movers and shakers at the student level, said Leigh Lally, the teams faculty mentor who proposed the fellows program for Virginia Tech. She is the universitys space manager.

The program delves perfectly with Mouchreks work as a doctoral candidate pursuing Virginia Techs first interdisciplinary Ph.D. in human-centered design. Working as a designer within universities for the last 17 years, Mouchrek developed a passion for applying design as an agent of change for youth development and engagement with social change.

I really like the idea of participating in change at Virginia Tech, she said.

On Nov. 16, the student team is headed to Stanford for several days to meet fellows from at least 62 institutions around the world, participate in workshops, and visit Googles headquarters.

Their work started in September when they began an intense six-week online training for the program. They mapped Virginia Techs campus to highlight spaces that encourage entrepreneurship and interviewed students and faculty about challenges and opportunities for innovation and learning outside of the classroom, also called experiential learning.

After working for several hours each week, the students created a series of short- and long-term plans that they hope will lead to the launch of this proposed virtual and physical campus hub.

Students need that, said Jeffers, a junior who is majoring in journalism and already has had five internships and externships as a college student. The world is bigger than the textbook.

In one of her internships, Jeffers met a mentor Thomas Harrelson, chairman of GMH Global International, who helped her develop the idea for her own business, Dough 4 Degrees. It teaches students how to earn scholarships to go to college and graduate debt-free.

The proposed hub also would offer tips for funding out-of-the-classroom experiences, and peer mentoring from students who have had similar opportunities.

The fellows plans remain in the preliminary stages. Their next step includes more campus research, and the team also will help with a new student experiential learning conference planned at Virginia Tech for April 13.

The team, which will remain intact from year to year, hopes to develop a prototype of the hub by next November. As students graduate, new team members will be added and will undergo the same training process to further the work begun by the current leadership.

Davis said he hopes that his work as a fellow will show future employers that he is innovative.

I want to demonstrate that I can be an agent of change where I am, said Davis, a public and urban affairs major who plans to become an urban designer.

Written by Jenny Kincaid Boone
iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- George Papadopoulos, the Trump foreign policy aide who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, initially misled agents out of what he claimed was loyalty to President Donald Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.



Trump had publicly denied that there had been any contact between his campaign and Russian officials, and Papadopoulos did not want to contradict the official line, the source said.



Its all fake news, Trump said of any alleged connections in January. Its phony stuff. It didnt happen.



Papadopoulos met with the FBI agents investigating those alleged ties shortly thereafter, and he later acknowledged that he lied during that meeting about the timing of certain contacts.



According to federal court filings, Papadopoulos initially claimed his contacts with a professor who had deep ties in Russia occurred before he became an adviser to the campaign.



In truth and in fact, the filings read, the professor only took interest in defendant Papadopoulos because of his status with the campaign.



There are also lingering questions about the role Papadopoulos played in the campaign.



After the plea agreement was made public last month, Trump sought to distance himself from Papadopoulos, tweeting that few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George.



But the low level volunteer made several trips overseas throughout 2016, purportedly on behalf of the campaign, making appearances where he was introduced as a Trump adviser.



In April, he traveled to Israel to speak at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an appearance arranged by the former Israeli ambassador to Greece. In May, he met with the president of Greece in Athens. In September, he met with officials at the British Foreign Office in London.



During inaugural festivities, Papadopoulos met with advocates for Israeli settlements, telling them, "We are looking forward to ushering in a new relationship with all of Israel.



In an interview with ABC News, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes Papadopouloss campaign credentials changed only when it became clear he was a political liability.



Youre a senior foreign policy adviser until you do something that exposes the campaign, Swalwell said, adding that he would like to know who paid for Papadopouloss globetrotting.



It is certainly of deep interest to know whether the Russians were paying for any of Papadopouloss travel through Europe during his time with campaign, he said.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
As allegations against Spacey have come to light, television and moviemakers have taken steps to distance themselves and their companies from the actor. Netflix has booted him from the sixth and final season of House of Cards and canceled the release of its already-shot film Gore, with Spacey as Gore Vidal.

Plummer will play J. Paul Getty in the movie about the 1973 kidnapping of Getty's teenage grandson J. Paul Getty III, directed by Ridley Scott. Though Spacey wasn't the main character, his scenes were filmed over two weeks in different locations, and the reshoots with Plummer will require visual effects and new takes by costars Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams. The Hollywood Reporter calls the situation "virtually unprecedented," but it looks as if it will save the film, which was dropped by the influential AFI Fest.

Spacey was dropped by his agent and publicist, and a planned International Emmy Founders award for him was scuttled. There is no word yet on what will happen to his other unreleased film, Billionaire Boys Club, about a deadly real-life scam by rich L.A. kids in the 1980s. Spacey, who has grossed $1.5 billion as a movie actor and $124 million as a producer, and earned a Golden Globe and five Emmy nominations for Cards, may be history.



Netflix should come out all right, thanks to its swift, decisive action, and Cards was waning anyway. Now Netflix is less dependent on Spacey, with hits like Stranger Things, The Crown and Orange Is the New Black. A House of Cards spin-off is under consideration, possibly starring Michael Kelly, who played Spacey's chief of staff. Many celebrities urged Netflix to make Robin Wright, who played Spacey's wife, the original show's star, and critic Mark Harris wrote an imaginary opening scene for her: Wide shot. Rainy funeral at Arlington. Robin Wright: If theres one thing my late husband stood for ...  

Ironically, Plummer, unlike Spacey, is the right age to play Getty. And he was reportedly the director's first choice for the role.
National Archives

A half-century after the peak of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, there are still insights to be gained and emotions to be triggered by documents and images that few have seen.

Thats the premise behind a major exhibition at the National Archives in Washington called Remembering Vietnam, from Nov. 10 through January 2019, in the building housing Americas most cherished artifacts.

There were some records we found that historians have been excited to see, says Alice Kamps, a curator at the Archives who designed the exhibit, cosponsored by AARP.
How to watch and what to know about Northern Iowa at South Dakota

USD
SANTA FE  Three Santa Fe High School students were arrested Wednesday and Thursday for a letter that described plans for a school shooting, which the arrested students maintained was only a joke.

Teenagers Aaron Encinias, Santiago Trujillo and Julian Carter face charges including engaging in terrorist activity.

All three students told police they thought of the letter as a joke. Other students found the letter Tuesday and notified school officials, according to Santa Fe Public Schools spokesman Jeff Gephart.

According to police reports, Encinias admitted to creating the letter with a list of student and teachers names that were intended targets.

It also included a map of the school showing where the shootings would take place and noting the best location in the school to kill; instructions on what to do during the shooting and afterward, like bringing extra clothes to help keep him from being caught and killing himself in the end; and derogatory comments about the school, students and teachers, including racial and homophobic slurs.

The letter also included statements like I love being a school shooter its awesome and Just want to get an awesome kill count. Detectives were led to Encinias because he signed the letter with his first name and his handwriting matched. He told police his close friends Trujillo and Carter conspired with him, the police reports say.

The arrested students are in the range of 14 or 15 years old. The police reports, which do not include the students exact ages, say Encinias was born in 2003 and Trujillo and Carter were born in 2002.

Trujillo and Carter admitted to knowing and viewing the letter but not writing any of it. Trujillo told police he told Encinias to add one students name to the target list, according to the police accounts. But both Trujillo and Carter said they also told Encinias to add their own names.

Carter told police that the two others discussed the list in class and then talked about it again in class about a week later.

A police press release says the school district notified those named in the list. Gephart told the Journal Thursday afternoon that all Santa Fe High parents of the police investigation Wednesday via robocall. The police reports state that the fear of violence and potential loss of life led some parents to take their kids out of school.

Keeping everyone safe is of the upmost importance, Gephart told the Journal. We appreciate the students who brought this to our attention.

The police reports dont say if the teens are currently incarcerated. Police spokesperson Greg Gurule said he did not know if the three students have had previous arrests or run-ins with law enforcement.
Mysteriously, almost maddeningly cool, The Killing of a Sacred Deer exists to give you the chills. Its eerie first shot is an extended close-up of open-heart surgery. After that negative note, things in this heartless drama get much worse.

Exercising his disturbing vision like a scalpel, brilliant Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos transforms the orderly life of a prominent cardiologist into a nightmare of suffering stripped of any mercy. An amazingly weird assemblage of notions from Greek mythology and concepts from pessimistic geniuses like Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and Michael Haneke, the film creates something akin to a dreadful dream.

Colin Farrell, who played a portly wallflower in Lanthimos The Lobster, the darkest science fiction romantic comedy of all time, stars once again. He is trim and dapper here as Steven, a Cincinnati surgeon at the top of his professional game. Walking the big hospitals sterile corridors with aloof confidence, hes the sort of specialist who seems faultless.

Yet, almost from the first instant, the film quietly sows seeds of doubt. One of the first images of Steven shows him after that realistic, worrying heart operation, peeling off his blood-spattered latex gloves and dropping them out of sight in the trash like evidence hidden at a crime scene. Add to that his detached, impersonal conversation about wristwatches with his anesthesiologist colleague as they stroll an endless, antiseptic hospital hallway in an ominous wide shot, and a virtually subconscious impression of suspicion begins to taint our sense of who Steven is and how much we can trust him.

That contamination spreads as we watch Steven in an odd relationship with 16-year-old Martin (Dunkirks Barry Keoghan), the son of a man who died after visiting his operating theater. As they sit face to face in a diner, Farrell subtly shows us that Steven lacks the supreme confidence he feels in his professional element. Speaking to Martin, theres less authority in his voice, an awkward effort to establish an arms-length rapport less intimate than the close relationship the boy is seeking.

Is Martin stalking him? Is Steven trying to buy his silence  with a wildly expensive wristwatch  to conceal some secret they share? How will Martin react when Steven begins to neglect him?

Little in the films foreboding first act is what you might think, including Stevens tranquil, prosperous home life with his physician wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman). Its clear that the couple face problems as Kidman channels the damaged emotional and sexual timbre of her haunting performance in Eyes Wide Shut. Their suburban mansion is beautiful, immaculate but as icy as their distant relationship to their well-behaved daughter Kim and son Bob (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic).

Martin, always polite but uncomfortable keeping others in extended eye contact, begins moving into their domestic lives. Kim feels attracted, but Martin, who has sought the childrens friendships to help him complete an unspoken mission, insists that they remain platonic and pure. Its his goal to take hold of or deliver a mysterious abstraction concerning the idyllic family. When he announces his prize as justice, it gives us the sense of having fallen down a rabbit hole on our way to a surreal and sinister landing.

This is a startling, difficult film. It cant be watched easily, and though it doles out blasts of pitch-black humor, it shouldnt be examined casually. Stylishly polished with slow camera moves, scored with somber pieces ranging from Schubert to Gyorgy Ligeti, the film follows Stevens misery attentively. His fate is observed as if he were an arrogant adventurer in a Greek tragedy, being tortured by the gods.

The storys cultural roots are clearly announced when Kims school principal praises her report on the myth of Iphigenia, whose father suffered the gods fury for killing a sacred deer. By the time Steven reaches the breaking point, the film has examined the limits of the human soul as closely as Steven began it by probing the human heart.
SAN FRANCISCO  Disguised Russian agents on Twitter rushed to deflect scandalous news about Donald Trump just before last years presidential election while straining to refocus criticism on the mainstream media and Hillary Clintons campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis of since-deleted accounts.

Tweets by Russia-backed accounts such as America_1st_ and BatonRougeVoice on Oct. 7, 2016, actively pivoted away from news of an audio recording in which Trump made crude comments about groping women, and instead touted damaging emails hacked from Clintons campaign chairman John Podesta.

Since early this year, the extent of Russian intrusion to help Trump and hurt Clinton in the election has been the subject of both congressional scrutiny and a criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. In particular, those investigations are looking into the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

APs analysis illuminates the obvious strategy behind the Russian cyber meddling: swiftly react, distort and distract attention from any negative Trump news.

The AP examined 36,210 tweets from Aug. 31, 2015, to Nov. 10, 2016, posted by 382 of the Russian accounts that Twitter shared with congressional investigators last week. Twitter deactivated the accounts, deleting the tweets and making them inaccessible on the internet. But a limited selection of the accounts Twitter activity was retrieved by matching account handles against an archive obtained by AP.

MSM (the mainstream media) is at it again with Billy Bush recording  What about telling Americans how Hillary defended a rapist and later laughed at his victim? tweeted the America_1st account, which had 25,045 followers at its peak, according to metadata in the archive. The tweet went out the afternoon of Oct. 7, just hours after The Washington Post broke the story about Trumps comments to Bush, then host of Access Hollywood, about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women, saying, when youre a star, they let you do it.

Within an hour of the Posts story, WikiLeaks unleashed its own bombshell about hacked email from Podestas account, a release the Russian accounts had been foreshadowing for days.

WikiLeaks Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election, tweeted both SpecialAffair and ScreamyMonkey within a second of each other on Oct. 4. SpecialAffair, an account describing itself as a Political junkie in action, had 11,255 followers at the time. ScreamyMonkey, self-described as a First frontier.News aggregator, had 13,224. Both accounts were created within three days of each other in late December 2014.

Twitter handed over the handles of 2,752 accounts it identified as coming from Russias Internet Research Agency to congressional investigators ahead of the social media giants Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 appearances on Capitol Hill. It said 9 percent of the tweets were election-related but didnt make the tweets themselves public.

That makes the archive the AP obtained the most comprehensive historical picture so far of Russian activity on Twitter in the crucial run-up to the Nov. 8, 2016, vote. Twitter policy requires developers who archive its material to delete tweets from suspended accounts as soon as reasonably possible, unless doing so would violate the law or Twitter grants an exception. Its possible the existence of the deleted tweets in the archive obtained by the AP runs afoul of those rules.

The Russian accounts didnt just spring into action at the last minute. They were similarly active at earlier points in the campaign.

When Trump reversed himself on a lie about Barack Obamas birthplace on Sept. 17, declaring abruptly that Obama was born in the United States, period, several Russian accounts chimed in to echo Trumps subsequent false claim that it was Clinton who had started the birther controversy.

Others continued to push birther narratives. The Russian account TEN_GOP, which many mistook for the official account of the Tennessee Republican Party, linked to a video that claimed that Obama admits he was born in Kenya. But the Russian accounts werent in lockstep. The handle hyddrox retweeted a post by the anti-Trump billionaire Mark Cuban that the MSM (mainstream media) is being suckered into chasing birther stories.

On Sept. 15, Clinton returned to the campaign trail following a bout with pneumonia that caused her to stumble at a 9/11 memorial service. The Russian account Pamela_Moore13 noted that her intro music was I Feel Good by James Brown  then observed that James Brown died of pneumonia, a line that was repeated at least 11 times by Russian accounts, including by Jenn_Abrams, which had 59,868 followers at the time.

According to several obituaries, Brown died of congestive heart failure related to pneumonia.

Racial discord also figured prominently in the tweets, just as it did with many of the ads Russian trolls had purchased on Facebook in the months leading up to and following the election. One Russian account, Blacks4DTrump, tweeted a Trump quote on Sept. 16 in which he declared it is the Democratic party that is the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow & the party of opposition.

TEN_GOP, meanwhile, asked followers to SPREAD the msg of black pastor explaining why African-Americans should vote Donald Trump!

___

Barbara Ortutay reported from New York. AP Data Journalist Larry Fenn contributed from New York.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia  Dozens more people have been taken into custody by Saudi authorities, the kingdom said Thursday, bringing to 201 the number detained in a sweep that investigators say has uncovered at least $100 billion in corruption.

Saudi critics and experts have called the unprecedented purge of top princes and businessmen a bold and risky move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at consolidating power as he keeps an eye on the throne, sidelining potential rivals and dismantling alliances built with other branches of the royal family.

The sweep comes at a time of increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and its main regional rival, Iran, over the ongoing conflict and suffering in Yemen and a newly erupting political crisis in Lebanon.

Saudi Attorney General Saud al-Mojeb said 208 people had been called in for questioning, and that seven were released without charge, leaving 201 in custody.

The new figure is far larger than what was previously reported by the government, reflecting a continuing series of arrests throughout the week. The stunning purge began overnight Saturday, initially catching 11 princes and 38 officials, military officers and business leaders. They are being held at five-star hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.

The 32-year-old crown prince, who is the son of King Salman and is popularly known by his initials MBS, is leading the investigation as head of a newly formed anti-corruption committee.

Among those detained are billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and two sons of the late King Abdullah, including Prince Miteb, who until Saturday had headed the powerful National Guard. Several years ago, he was considered a contender for the throne and was believed to have opposed MBS becoming crown prince.

The government declined to identify many of the other individuals being questioned, saying it is respecting their privacy during this phase of the investigation.

An estimated 1,700 individual bank accounts have been frozen.

The potential scale of corrupt practices which have been uncovered is very large, al-Mojeb said, adding that based on investigations in the past three years, at least $100 billion has been misused through corruption and embezzlement.

Al-Mojeb confirmed that action was taken to suspend personal bank accounts, but he did not disclose any figures. The government stressed that only personal accounts have been frozen, leaving businesses untouched.

Saudis have complained for years of rampant corruption and misuse of public funds by top officials in a system where nepotism is also widespread.

In recent years, Saudi families have also had to contend with austerity measures that have driven up costs while simultaneously being told they can no longer count on cushy government jobs.

Meanwhile, members of the sprawling royal family and their business associates had long been seen as operating above the law. Members of the royal family receive undisclosed monthly stipends from state coffers built up over years of high oil prices.

After oil prices fell three years ago without fully recovering, Saudi Arabia introduced new taxes and lifted some subsidies in order to boost revenue and cut government spending.

Supporters of MBS say fighting corruption is part of the crown princes Vision 2030 plan, a blueprint for how to restructure the country and wean it from its dependence on oil revenue.

Faisal Abbas, the Saudi editor-in-chief of the daily Arab News, wrote in a widely shared column this week that the kingdom is damned if it acts against corruption, damned if it doesnt.

Anyone who understands who is who in Riyadh knows only too well that none of those arrested  whether royals or non-royals  has or would have had any political sway in the current climate whatsoever, he wrote.

More importantly, it is just mind-boggling that very few are noticing the obvious; which is that all of those being detained are incredibly wealthy, Abbas added.

Still, independent Saudi observers say the anti-corruption probe targets only select members of the royal family, government and business community. Additionally, several of those arrested were ministers under King Salman, raising questions about where responsibility begins and ends.

While few would argue against allegations that some top princes and officials have enriched themselves during years in power, the selection of who has been detained raises speculation that the purge is political.

Prince Mitebs detention stands out because he was the last remaining prince of his generation in a position of real power, which made him a potential obstacle to the throne for MBS.

Earlier this year, the crown prince engineered the ouster of another more experienced prince from the line of succession.

Many also have questioned a recent purchase by MBS of a yacht estimated at anywhere between $200 million to $500 million.

Saudi observer Thomas Lippmann said it is difficult to draw the line between what constitutes corruption in Saudi Arabia and how business deals, contracts and access have been won over the years.

I dont believe for a minute this is really about disrupting the payout system or corruption, said Lippmann, author of Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally.

This is about getting rid of the centers of power, he said.

As the purge unfolded, U.S. President Donald Trump gave his stamp of approval, saying the king and the crown prince know exactly what they are doing.

French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists in the United Arab Emirates that he wasnt making any judgments.

This is not the role of a president, and similarly I would not expect a leader of a foreign country to come and infringe on domestic matters, Macron said.

Macron visited Saudi Arabia later Thursday and met with the crown prince. Their discussions likely also touched on the crisis in Lebanon sparked by the sudden and mysterious resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He announced his resignation in a pre-recorded message from Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and one of Lebanons most powerful figures, has openly speculated that Saudi Arabia played a role in Hariris resignation and might have been held against his will in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia ordered all of its citizens to immediately depart Lebanon amid heightened tensions with Hezbollah and the militant groups patron, Iran. A brief statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency also warned Saudis against travel to the country.

Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned earlier this week that his government would deal with Lebanon as a hostile state as long as Hezbollah was in the government. He said Hezbollahs participation in government is an act of war against Saudi Arabia.

In Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling Shiite rebels since March 2015, the United Nations and more than 20 aid groups said a blockade of all ports in the war-torn country was threatening to bring starvation and death to millions of people.

Unless the coalition lifts the blockade, Yemen will face the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims, said U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock.

The coalition closed all ports and halted aid shipments after Yemens Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile over the weekend that was intercepted near Riyadh. Saudi Arabia blamed the strike on Iran, which supports the Houthis but has denied arming them.

___

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
A few years back, Jeff Gilkey discovered the most astonishing thing.

Out on Laguna Pueblo land, in Rio Puerco country south and west of Albuquerque, on the tops of two islands of rock 100 feet high, Gilkey found the ruins of old Indian structures.

They were two sister cities, about a half mile apart, Gilkey said. I just has no idea they were there. There are a lot of places in New Mexico, thousands of weird, little spires; secret pools; hidden canyons and ruins that people dont even know about.

But Gilkey knows about, has seen and photographed a lot of them.

Of course it helps to find these natural and archaeological treasures if, as is the case with Gilkey, you fly thousands of feet above the ground in an ultralight trike with a 30-foot wingspan and an 80-horsepower motor. Thats how he discovered those ruins on the Laguna land; incredible gaps in rock formations on the Mount Taylor plateau; gaping, almost perfectly round vents or holes on Zia Pueblo; remnants of volcanic chimneys up and down the Rio Puerco.

Most of these places you cant get to on foot, Gilkey said. They are on Indian land, or there are chains across the gates. But you can fly over these places. Trespassing doesnt apply to flying.

Jumping off cliffs

Since he started flying ultralights in 2004, Gilkey, 61, has logged more than 1,600 hours in his Aerotrike Cobra, soaring over most of New Mexico and into Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Texas. He uses both video and point-and-shoot still cameras to record the fascinating things he finds as he flies.

His photographs and video have provided the jaw-dropping core of several presentations he has done at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. His fifth such presentation, Secrets of New Mexico: Views From An Ultralight Pilot, will take place at the museums five-story Dynatheater screen from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday. This program will focus on those hidden places and obscure ruins Gilkey prizes so much.

The museum (programs are) great fun because a lot of people come and are just amazed, and the kids get excited and want to learn to fly, Gilkey said.

For Gilkey, whose childlike enthusiasm, easy smile and quick laugh make him seem much younger than he is, all this started because he wanted to learn how to fly.

He grew up in El Paso, earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1978 and was introduced to New Mexico during a summer internship at Sandia National Laboratories. He got his first taste of flying when he took up hang gliding while doing graduate work at Stanford University.

After earning a masters degree in mechanical engineering in 1979 and a doctorate in the same field in 1984, both from Stanford, Gilkey started a career at Sandia Labs.

I was a control engineer for a bunch of rocket projects, he said. The rockets all have computers on them that need to be programmed.

The move to Albuquerque also meant hang gliding out of the Sandia Mountains for about eight years, experience he said proved useful years later when he turned to ultralights.

Hang gliding is a lot like flying the trike without the gas pedals, he said. You are learning to turn and read the thermals over the mountains. The difference with the trike is that you are taking off from an airport instead of jumping off a cliff. And with the trike, I can fly forever and land on wheels instead of on my feet.

Very memorable

Gilkey retired last year after more than 30 years at Sandia Labs. He and his wife, Amy, live in a Northeast Heights home with three dogs, including Holly, a 12-year-old golden retriever who snored contentedly at his feet as Gilkey used a Google Earth computer program to show a visitor routes he has flown in his ultralight over the years. He keeps extensive written and video accounts of his high-flying adventures, which can be found at jeffsflightlog.com.

Gilkey and his wife are the parents of two daughters, both adults now. When the girls were little, however, he gave up hang gliding to spend more time with them. His kids were in high school when Gilkey, during a vacation in Hawaii, saw a man giving tours in an ultralight and thought, Hey, I can do this.

He spent a year with an Albuquerque ultralight club learning about the aircraft that would become his passion. He has a sport pilot license that permits him to fly at an altitude of 10,000 feet or 2,000 feet above the terrain.

If I were flying over the Sandias, which are 10,000 feet, I could fly at 12,000 feet, he said.

Gilkey said his ultralight is capable of flying at speeds between 40 and 75 mph, but seems happiest at about 55 mph. He can get more than 350 miles or seven hours in the air with the ultralights 21-gallon fuel tank. His longest flight to date, 6 hours and 10 minutes, happened just two weeks ago when he flew from Bluff, Utah, to the Belen Municipal Airport, where he keeps the ultralight.

Gilkey said ultralights are exceptionally stable, but if you were to get blindsided by a fierce thermal the aircraft could go into a bad stall and drop 500 feet.

Usually, they recover within 100 feet, but you dont want to do any stalls down low, he said. In November 2011, I was flying on the backside of Mount Taylor and dropped for a couple of hundred feet. My stomach was up in my throat. It was very memorable.

No Charles Lindbergh

Gilkey has come to understand that what started for him as the thrill of flying has evolved over the years into the excitement of exploration.

All my trips now are focused on what I am going to see, he said. And what he is going to show others at his museum programs or on his website.

Id thought I was going to fly around the world, he said. But Im no Charles Lindbergh. I just got started in this country. Ill just fly around the U.S. in my trike and have enough adventures to fill out my life.
Many of Albuquerque Public Schools bus drivers and attendants could be unionized by December.

The American Federation of Teachers  New Mexico has advocated for the union over the past month, and, on Wednesday, the APS Board of Education unanimously approved a timeline for the process.

AFT NM still has to meet a number of requirements, including a card check to demonstrate that at least 60 percent of the 234 eligible drivers and attendants have signed union cards.

Wendy York, a retired 2nd Judicial District judge, will verify whether the threshold has been met, then the APS Board can vote to allow the workers to organize.

APS Board President Dave Peercy said he hopes the board can sign off during its Dec. 15 meeting.

Stephanie Ly, AFT NM president, told the Journal that over 60 percent of the eligible drivers and attendants already have supported the union, so the process should go smoothly.

I give Dr. Peercy a lot of credit because he has had to deal with a lot of phone calls, Ly said. We do have a good relationship with the district and the board.

The union effort has been two years in the making.

In 2015, roughly 230 APS bus drivers and attendants started working directly for the district, rather than private firms, making them eligible to unionize.

APS still contracts with independent bus companies, which provide roughly 300 drivers and 65 attendants. These employees will not be able to join the union.

Ly said she is receiving daily calls from APS transportation workers who are eager to take part in the union.

In October, dozens of bus drivers and attendances pushed for the card check during the public comment period at two board meetings.

AFT NM has helped unionize transportation workers in a number of other New Mexico districts. Teachers, educational assistants, secretaries and maintenance workers are also organized.

When employees decide they want a union, they want a voice in the workplace, Ly said.
Two organizations have ended their business relationship with Molina Healthcare: DaVita Medical Group and the national pharmacy chain Walgreens.

The Long Beach, Calif.-based Molina confirmed the split on Thursday, but would not comment on the reasons behind the contract terminations. Molina is an investor-owned company that serves more than 250,000 members in New Mexico through Medicaid, Medicare and the state health insurance marketplace.

The contract change with DaVita affects Molinas Medicaid and insurance exchange members, Molina said.

Molina makes adjustments to its provider and pharmacy networks while ensuring a robust network to accommodate member needs, meet contractual requirements with the state and to provide the most cost-effective, high quality care, Danielle Smith, a Molina spokeswoman, said in a statement. Although we were unable to reach an agreement with DaVita Medical Group in Albuquerque, our members still have access to a robust network of health care providers in the community.

Smith said Molina members will still have access to about 400 chain and independent pharmacies throughout the state.

A Walgreens spokesman confirmed the contract termination and directed questions back to Molina.

A spokesman for DaVita said its contract with Molina will end Dec. 1.

We want to create meaningful, value-based relationships with payer partners that share our goals and values: high quality, lower cost healthcare for the people of New Mexico, a DaVita spokesman wrote in a statement. We strive to create alignment with payer partners around data and administrative support while building respect for our medical groups priorities.

DaVita has 17 locations in the Albuquerque metro area and 900 employees.

The company merged with ABQ Health Partners four years ago.
Looking adorable is only part of the job description.

Also required is the ability to remain calm in public spaces and to impart that peaceful feeling to others, particularly children.

Filling the job openings are Lucy and Kasey 2, golden retrievers who are being trained as courthouse facility dogs.

The program involving the dogs is an offshoot of Kasey Says, in which a trained dog, Kasey 1, goes into schools and becomes the trigger for discussions on a host of topics, all of which begin with Kasey says  as in Kasey says dont do drugs, or Kasey says dont drink alcohol.

While working with this program I had the opportunity to go to Haven House and other places that asked me to talk to children who had been abused, said Lt. Dean Alexander of the Sandoval County Sheriffs Posse and a special agent with the 13th Judicial District Attorneys Office.

It became apparent that we needed a dedicated facility K9 dog, so when children who have been abused and are in the court system, when they give depositions, attend hearings or theres a trial, the facility dog goes with the usually upset child and serves as a calming presence that allows the child to tell what happened, Alexander said Thursday.

Alexander, who developed the Kasey Says program in 1999 and the facility program 18 months ago, owns and trained Kasey 1 and her sister Lucy, both 5.

Kasey 1 will continue as the furry face of the school-based program, but Lucy will be the go-to dog in the 13th Judicial District, which includes Sandoval, Valencia and Cibola counties.

Meanwhile, a second dog, Kasey 2, a year-old male English golden retriever, is being trained as a courthouse facility dog for the 9th Judicial District, which includes Curry and Roosevelt counties in eastern New Mexico.

Facility dogs are specifically trained to work in the environment of a particular facility  in this case a courthouse  because you dont want a dog in the courtroom that keeps popping up and looking around or wants to greet people, Alexander said. They are trained to accompany a child into the courtroom and sit quietly by the child, and to be as unobtrusive as possible to a judge or a jury.

Barbara Romo, deputy district attorney in Sandoval County, said she expects that Lucy will be used extensively in cases involving children in all three counties in the 13th District.

For the most part, judges are OK with the facility dogs in the courtroom, and regard them much the same way as service dogs that are used by people attending courthouse proceedings, she said.

Lucy is on loan to the 13th Judicial District until such time as it can purchase its own dog for the facility program, Alexander said.

Kasey 2 is owned by the 9th Judicial District, but lives with and is cared for by handler Miranda Gonzales, a senior victims advocate with the DAs Office in Clovis. He goes to work with me and goes home with me. He is part of my family, she said.

Kasey 2 is being trained by Tracie Dulniak, owner of K9 Rehab Institute in Rio Rancho. She is donating her services and will provide free training for other dogs that enter the facility program in the future.

Training involves getting the dogs socialized to being around other dogs and other people, Dulniak said. So we take them to libraries and schools and courtrooms to get them acclimated to those kinds of situations. We want to make sure they are completely obedient and perfectly calm so they dont interfere with court proceedings.

Ultimately, she said, the goal is to provide a presence for the child, and when the dog is calm, thats transferred to the child.
District Court in Albuquerque is launching a pilot program that will let judges oversee and mandate outpatient treatment for certain individuals with severe mental illnesses.

Leaders from the city, county, the University of New Mexico Hospital and 2nd Judicial District Court announced the new Assisted Outpatient Treatment Pilot Program at a news conference Thursday.

The pilot program, funded by the city, will work with up to 20 individuals who have shown difficulty engaging in voluntary treatment. They will be referred to the program by UNMH psychiatrists, often shortly after hospitalization, when the person is stable.

The idea is to engage at that moment with a judge and to imbue them with a sense that there are expectations that they are going to follow a treatment plan, Brian Stettin, a policy director for the Treatment Advocacy Center in Virginia, said during the news conference. He added that the program relies on a judges power to assure people that their situation is being monitored and that the court has expectations of them.

For a person to be included in the program, there must be sufficient evidence that he or she needs court monitoring in order to safely function in the community. Each participants plan is individualized and developed in consultation with the patient, and may include therapy and medication.

Mayor Richard Berry said such programs have been shown to reduce hospitalization, arrests, homelessness, victimization and violent behavior associated with mental illness.

Berry said the city will offer $250,000 to pilot the program in the 2nd Judicial District Court. Of that, $92,000 will pay for a new court administrator to oversee the program, and $132,000 will fund legal representation for those in the program.

The program comes nearly two years after the passage of legislation commonly known as Kendras Law, which gave the courts the power to order people diagnosed with mental illness into mandatory treatment programs for up to one year.
The Sabinoso Wilderness in northern New Mexico will finally become accessible to the general public beginning at noon today (Friday, Nov. 10).

The U.S. Interior Department announced late Thursday that the pristine habitat for elk, mule deer, and other wildlife is for the first time accessible to the public for hunting, fishing, and other recreational activities. The 16,000-acre Sabinoso had been surrounded by non-federal land, making it inaccessible to the general public.

The private donation of 3,595 acres formerly known as the Rimrock Rose Ranch adjacent to the Wilderness was accepted by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and will allow for the public access. Click here for New Mexicos hunting rules and regulations.

Im happy to announce today the Sabinoso Wilderness Area is finally open and accessible to hunters and all members of the public for the first time ever, Zinke said.

The rugged and remote wilderness area is east of Las Vegas in San Miguel County in northeastern New Mexico. The Sabinoso Wilderness boasts some of the most pristine elk habitat in the country. Zinke had previously voiced concerns about accepting the donated ranch as wilderness itself and whether there should other kinds of access beyond on foot or horseback.

I originally had concerns about adding more wilderness-designated area, however after hiking and riding the land it was clear that access would only be improved, Zinke said Thursday.

The rugged area in San Miguel County was designated by Congress as a Wilderness Area in 2009. Sen. Martin Heinrich, an ardent hunter, had introduced legislation to open the Sabinoso Wilderness to the public. Heinrich, Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan all cheered the announcement late Thursday.

This is a major gain for New Mexico and would not be possible without the generosity of the Wilderness Land Trust and the dedication of the local community and sportsmen who have championed this effort for many years, Heinrich said.

Land Tawney, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers president and CEO, said Thursday was a good day for public access.

A deal has been signed to expand and provide access to the Sabinoso Wilderness, which until today was the only inaccessible wilderness in the United States, Tawney said. Sen. Heinrich and Sen. Udall deserve major kudos for their unwavering doggedness to get this project across the finish line. Sec. Zinke deserves credit for listening to hunters and recognizing a good deal for all Americans. The generous landowner who made possible this victory has set an example for others to follow. Finally, sportsmen and women deserve credit for raising their voices. We have been heard.

Directions to the Sabinoso Wilderness, according to the Bureau of Land Management: From I-25 take exit 345 on to NM104 heading east. Travel 32.7 miles east to Trujillo, NM. Turn left on to San Miguel County Road C51A at Trujillo and travel east for approximately 7 miles on an improved dirt road. Follow BLM directional signs by turning left at the Y and heading north for 3 miles on the lightly maintained route to the Sabinoso Wilderness parking area. This road is not passable when wet. Please leave gates as you find them.
SANTA FE  The City Council late Wednesday night approved Meow Wolfs request for a full liquor license, which will allow its House of Eternal Return to serve spirits as well as the beer and wine that has been previously available.

Meow Wolf plans to transfer a license from a now-closed restaurant in Hobbs. The request was postponed at an Oct. 25 council meeting to get verification from state regulators that a full liquor license was Meow Wolf was the only option for a planned cafe because beer and wine licenses are available only to businesses with food as the primary source of revenue, which wont be the case at the House of Eternal Return. Meow Wolf also says it needs to be able to sell spirits to compete with other music venues.

The council unanimously approved a waiver to allow liquor sales within 300 feet of day care La Petite Academy, which did not oppose the license. Only Councilor Carmichael Dominguez voted against the license transfer, expressing frustration with a lack of local authority because state regulators can approve liquor license transfers without council consent, and often do.

The council had postponed a vote on issue last month amid concerns about adding another liquor license in Santa Fe, whether Meow Wolf was veering from a family-friendly business model and whether it was putting too much emphasis on its secondary role as a concert venue.

Mayor Javier Gonzales said Wednesday night the city needs to encourage local business and that Meow Wolf has proved itself responsible. The beer and wine already served at the House of Eternal Return, a smash-hit interactive art installation, is under a Duel Brewing license.

To deny this transfer, this opportunity, really is to discount the effort that Meow Wolf has undertaken to create a responsible environment for people to be served alcohol and enjoy our nighttime economy, he said.

Councilor Ron Trujillo, who recused himself from considering the license at the Oct. 25 meeting because Meow Wolf CEO Vince Kadlubek was attacking him via social media, stayed Wednesday. He and Gonzales got into a heated back-and-forth after Trujillo cited nearly 30 police calls to the House of Eternal Return since its opening last year and mentioned seeing guests and an employee illegally vaping electronic cigarettes indoors.

Di Ianni said he has never seen employees vaping. He said the police calls, for various incidents including assault and vandalism, didnt seem related to alcohol. Gonzales said told Trujillo he hasnt questioned other businesses about vaping and that the number police reports had to be taken in the context of Meow Wolfs about 450,000 visitors annually.

When Trujillo ultimately voted for the license, activist Roger Rael, who set off controversy earlier this year for bringing a handgun to a council meeting earlier this year and had one again Wednesday night, to scream that Trujillo was a sell out. He was removed by police.
A couple of big criminal cases in Santa Fe have been affected in the past month because the Santa Fe Police Department reportedly did not give key evidence to prosecutors in time for important court hearings.

Police and prosecutors are now giving inconsistent statements about evidence that may or may not have been provided.

One of the cases ended with charges being dropped and the other had to have its trial postponed, even though a jury already had been picked.

Benjamin Maes, 27, was supposed to stand trial Wednesday in Santa Fe District Court. But the trial was postponed because SFPD did not provide thumb drives and CDs that contained substantive pieces of evidence until last week, according to a prosecution motion filed in Santa Fe District Court last week. A jury for the case had been selected Oct. 24.

Maes is accused of beating his girlfriends 2-year-old boy in September 2015 so badly that the boy had to be flown to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque and was left partially paralyzed. Maes is currently out of jail on a $25,000 bond, according to court records. New jury selection is now scheduled for mid-February.

And last month, felony battery on a peace officer charges were dropped against Fiestas de Santa Fe Entrada protester Jennifer Marley because, according to District Attorney Marco Serna, prosecutors didnt get lapel videos and officer statements in time for her preliminary hearing in Magistrate Court Oct. 11. At the hearing, prosecutors would have had to convince a judge that there was enough evidence to proceed to trial.

But now, SFPD is saying that it did in fact deliver video discovery to the District Attorneys Office about a week before Marleys hearing. Chief Patrick Gallagher had said in October that he wasnt sure why video wasnt sent to the DA and that he was going to look into it.

A deputy district attorney still says that no discovery, or evidence, was provided in time for Marleys preliminary hearing.

In the Maes case, Deputy District Attorney Susan Stinson wrote in an expedited motion to postpone the trial filed last week, on Halloween, that prosecutors believed they had received all discovery from the police department last year.

But after some last-minute pretrial interviews by the defense, she had a concern that there was additional discovery that had not been provided to the District Attorneys Office, despite our prior request in March 2016.

The DAs Office asked the police again about possible missing audio/video and was notified after 5 p.m. Oct. 30  eight days before the trial was to start  that there was additional evidence.

Stinson wrote that two thumb drives and four CDs were handed to the DAs Office at 10:50 a.m. Oct. 31, the same day she filed the motion to postpone the trial. Stinson wrote that three pieces of the evidence were located on devices other than the central evidence system at SFPD.

The State realizes that a motion for continuance is very late in this case, and we also realize that a jury has been selected.  Stinson wrote. As a result, the State is fully aware of the difficulty this presents the Court. However, too much total information has been received by both parties in just the last one and one-half weeks for us to proceed to trial without additional time to adequately prepare.

Judge T. Glenn Ellington granted a continuance, according to court records. A new jury is scheduled to be selected Feb. 13.

SFPD spokesman Greg Gurule said in an email that the department has no record of the March 2016 discovery request mentioned by Stinson. Im not saying one doesnt exist or was sent, we just dont have a copy of it as proof it was received  and we keep extensive records, Gurule said.

Gurule, in contrast to Stinsons description of the late evidence as CDs and thumb drives, said the newly uncovered evidence is an old report, a Word document from two years ago that had been found by an officer reviewing documents.

Gurule added that the discovery requests go through a single employee at the department. SFPD has an acting person in that role right now after the previous employee left in March, but Gurule said someone has been hired to fill the position permanently and is currently in training.

Hans Erickson, Maes attorney, said he opposed Stinsons motion to postpone the trial because the case had been pending for some time and he said his client is ready to clear his name. He also said having to pick a new jury put a burden on all his other cases and the would-be jurors who had been picked.

Its an inconvenience for the defendant and the defense attorney because we spend a lot of time reviewing jury questionnaires, Erickson said. We spent pretty much all day doing jury selection itself, so thats something that has to be done over. Mr. Maes doesnt have to pay me for the time, but I have other clients. But the biggest inconvenience is the time the jury spent to be there.

Gurule also said in an email Thursday that video in the high-profile Jennifer Marley case was sent to Deputy District Attorney John Rysanek on Oct. 3, even though Chief Gallagher told the Journal Oct. 11 that he was going to find out why video was never shared with prosecutors.

Records show our discovery person send (sic) the requested material which consisted of video material (there were no written reports in the system at that time) to John Rysenik (sic) (Oct. 3), Gurule wrote. Youll have to contact Mr. Rysenik (sic) to determine what happened to that material. 

Prosecutor Rysanek said Thursday that he didnt have any discovery from the SFPD for Marley, a member of the Red Nation group, by Oct. 10 so he had to drop her charges. She was accused of hitting officers with a protest sign during the September Entrada, the annual Plaza re-enactment of the Spanish reoccupation of Santa Fe 12 years after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

Thats categorically not true, Rysanek said about Gurules statement that records had been sent earlier. None of that was here Oct. 10 when I dismissed the case. If something came in, it would be recorded. Theres nothing in here with an entry in early October for Jennifer Marley.

Rysanek said he only got a full discovery packet from police Oct. 16. And he said he still needs one more police video before determining whether Marleys charges should be refiled.

Both the DAs office and SFPD say records foul-ups are rare occurrences and that the two departments are working well together.

You have to understand, we deal with thousands of cases from the Santa Fe Police Department alone, District Attorney Serna said this week. Were human and things fall through the cracks. These are a few cases out of a couple of thousand where we havent seen anything.  We dont have constant issues where were not receiving discovery and have to ask for it several times. We have our systems in place and theyre working well.
MATTOON -- Wells Fargo Advisors has for the ninth consecutive year designated Dan Cunningham, Managing Director -- Investments, as a member of the firms Premier Advisors Program, a distinction that reflects Cunningham's achievement of professional success by meeting or exceeding Wells Fargo Advisors high standards as measured by one or more of the firms criteria for revenue generation, educational attainment and client-service best practices.

According to a press release, Cunningham has been a financial adviser with Wells Fargo Advisors for over 15 years and has 42 years of experience in the financial industry. He has a bachelor of science in business from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. Cunningham also graduated from the Northwestern University National Graduate Trust School.

Cunningham lives in Mattoon with his wife, Jeanne. He is a past chairman and current member of the Board of Directors for the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center Foundation. In addition, he is a past president of the Mattoon Chamber of Commerce, past president and current member of the Mattoon Kiwanis Club, and a past treasurer and charter board member of the Mattoon Area Family YMCA.

With $1.6 trillion in client assets as of June 30, 2017, Wells Fargo Advisors provides investment advice and guidance to clients through 14,527 full-service financial advisors and 4,271 licensed bankers. This vast network of advisers, one of the nations largest, serves investors through locations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Wells Fargo Advisors is the trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, Members SIPC, separate registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company. All data includes Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, as of June 30, 2017. For more information, visit www.wellsfargoadvisors.com.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

The glamor shot of Jessica Kelley on Facebook, hair pulled back tight with red lipstick and shades, is dated Aug. 15, 2016.

So u still on paper or free as a bird, a friend asked in a post.

Free, was Kelleys reply.

Kelley was back in town, she told her Facebook followers, released after a 233-day stint at the state womens prison in Grants.

What did you go back (to prison) for? another person asked in a post.

Trafficking And parole violation Got snatched up with strippers, she replied in an apparent reference to strips containing the drug Suboxone.

Eight days after her Facebook post, Kelley was arrested by Albuquerque police after she jumped off a two-story balcony in the West Side apartment complex where the sexually abused and dismembered body of 10-year-old Victoria Martens lay burning. Kelley is charged with first-degree murder, criminal sexual assault and other crimes in Victorias death  along with Kelleys cousin, Fabian Gonzales, and Victorias mother, Michelle Martens.

Records show Kelley had been in and out of jail since 2007 on convictions for assaulting a police officer, drug trafficking, DWI and conspiracy to commit criminal sexual penetration.

But the Journal has learned that if not for a prosecution lapse, Kelley could well have been back in prison on new drug charges the night Victoria Martens was murdered.

And as the Journal previously reported, her cousin and co-defendant Gonzales should have been under strict supervision by a state probation officer at that time, but his criminal case had fallen through the cracks.

Drug case dismissed

In September 2015  less than a year before Victoria was murdered  Jessica Kelley was facing a felony drug possession and trafficking charge after her state probation officer discovered 19 strips of the drug Suboxone and baggies in her purse during an unscheduled search.

Kelley was charged with drug trafficking and possession, but the office of then-District Attorney Kari Brandenburg dismissed the case Sept. 18, 2015, citing the need for a forensic drug analysis and additional discovery.

While Kelley went back to prison on a probation/parole revocation, the drugs from her purse were submitted to the Albuquerque Police Departments crime laboratory for testing on Nov. 20, 2015.

APD says it sent the test results back to the DAs office on Dec. 16, 2015. That would have cleared the way for the drug charges against Kelley to be refiled.

But for more than eight months, the case languished at the DAs office.

In fact, more than a year went by before Kelley was indicted on the drug charge  and that occurred just weeks after she was indicted in Victoria Martens death.

Kelley quietly pleaded no contest to the drug charge in January, and faces a minimum of three years in prison on the drug case with a possible repeat offender enhancement.

Brandenburg didnt return a phone call Thursday.

Michael Patrick, spokesman for current Bernalillo County DA Raul Torrez, who took office in January, said theres no explanation in the DAs files as to why the drug case wasnt indicted until after the killing.

Theres nothing saying, Heres why were waiting on this,' Patrick said. Theres just a gap.

Mandate on prisons

Court records show the dismissal of Kelleys 2015 drug charge was filed without prejudice so the case could be refiled later, according to court records signed by then-Deputy District Attorney Todd Heisey.

That year, because of a Supreme Court mandate aimed at clearing up a backlog of criminal cases in Bernalillo County, Kelleys was one of more than 800 criminal cases that were dismissed without prejudice from February through December 2015.

Prosecutors have criticized the mandate, officially called the Case Management Order, contending it forced many dismissals because of the tight discovery deadlines imposed on prosecutors and police.

As the 2015 drug case languished in the DAs office, Kelleys days in prison were drawing to a close.

An Albuquerque judge had sent her back to the custody of the New Mexico Corrections Department after revoking her probation  the fourth time in five years  based on the discovery of drugs in her purse. The state Parole Board also revoked her parole.

Kelley had prior convictions for drug trafficking in 2010 and conspiracy to commit criminal sexual penetration  stemming from a 2012 incident in which she was accused of forcibly detaining a female prisoner during a sexual assault at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

But because she had completed her sentences for those crimes, Kelley, 32, was released from prison with no strings attached on Aug. 15, 2016.

Victoria Martens was murdered eight days later.

Parole revoked

The New Mexico Parole Board in 2014 approved a plan under which Kelley would live at the La Pasada halfway house and remain under probation/parole supervision.

But on Nov. 20, 2015, the board found Kelley was a threat to public safety and revoked her parole. Under state rules, such offenders return to prison to serve the remainder of their parole terms. But after their parole term in prison expires, the inmates are considered to have completed their sentences and are released without supervision.

News reports state that after Kelley left prison she moved in with her cousin, Fabian Gonzales, and his new girlfriend, Martens, in Martens apartment.

Kelley wasnt required by law to register as a sex offender, state officials say, because the conspiracy sex offense conviction didnt fall into a category that would require it under state or federal law.

And the 2015 drug charge?

Three weeks after the Martens slaying, Kelley was indicted on the third-degree felony of distribution of a controlled substance based on the discovery of strips of drugs in her handbag a year earlier.

One witness, an APD officer who responded to the probation officers discovery of the drugs, testified before the grand jury.

Two police officers, the APD chemist who tested the drugs and Kelleys probation officer, were listed as prospective witnesses if the case went to trial. But Kelley pleaded no contest last January and is awaiting sentencing.

The process  from indictment to plea  took less than four months.

Had the prosecution occurred before her incarceration ended in August 2016, Kelley may well have been sentenced to a new prison term and wouldnt have been released back into the community.

Torrezs office in January filed notice that Kelley qualifies as a repeat offender so her sentence on the third-degree felony drug charge could be enhanced by four years.

Meanwhile, Jessica Kelley is in jail awaiting trial in the Martens case, which is set for next year. Neither Kelleys public defender in the 2015 case nor her current attorney in the murder prosecution returned Journal phone calls seeking comment.

Probation order lost

As previously reported, Kelleys cousin, Gonzales, was supposed to have been on supervised probation at the time of Victorias death. He was sentenced to serve two years probation as part of a plea deal in February 2015 on a child abandonment charge.

District court officials say they sent notification of Gonzales probation order to the state Probation and Parole department in an emailed packet that contained information on 23 other cases.

State Corrections officials have said they never received the email packet from the court and didnt know Gonzales was supposed to be on probation.

They blamed the courts for sending the probation directive to an email adddress that had been shut down. Court officials say the email address was in operation at the time.

Nevertheless, Gonzales, an admitted methamphetamine user who like his cousin Jessica Kelley had a history of violating probation, failed to check in with probation department officials as directed. That could have led to an automatic revocation of his probation and could have landed him in jail. Probation would likely have included home visits and drug testing.

Cover photo: Jessica Kelley, one of three defendants charged in the sexual assault and murder of 10-year-old Victoria Martens took to Facebook social media after her release from prison in August 2016. Days later, she was arrested by police for her alleged role in the slaying at an apartment complex on Albuquerques West Side.


Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

More than a year after the heinous sexual assault and murder of 10-year-old Victoria Martens, Albuquerque police investigators are poring over phone and social media records, and now believe there are unknown individuals who ultimately may be witnesses in this case, court records show.

Up to now, three people  Jessica Kelley; her cousin, Fabian Gonzales; and the girls mother, Michelle Martens  have been charged in the death of the young girl, who was strangled, stabbed, dismembered and burned between the evening of Aug. 23, 2016, and the early morning of Aug. 24, 2016.

Investigators in court records stated the information culled so far showed the three defendants engaged in photo-taking, chats and other Facebook activity before and after Victorias death.

Most recently, the focus has been on Kelleys cellphone and Facebook social media traffic.

Kelleys cellphone indicates multiple uses of Facebook messenger to communicate with unknown individuals who may ultimately be witnesses in this case or have important information related to it, APD Violent Crimes Detective Josh Brown stated in an affidavit.

Investigators have sought court orders to extract additional evidence from the private cellphone companies involved.

The State has demonstrated that the Defendants were using their phones to communicate with outside individuals before and leading up to the crime at issue here, states one court document, that they were either in possession of or using their phones at or near the time of the killing, and  when they apparently left the apartment at certain key times of the day.

A similar motion by prosecutors sought information from Facebook.

The State has demonstrated that each Defendant was using Facebook to communicate with outside individuals before and leading up to the crime at issue here, that they were using Facebook to communicate with each other in the same time frame, and that they were using Facebook after the killing of V.M.

Court records show state District Judge Charles Brown of Albuquerque on June 22 signed an order requiring Martens and Gonzales cellphone information to be produced from phone companies, but Kelleys cellphone was left off the order.

Months went by before the judge signed a new order for T-Mobile USA/Metro PCS to produce cellphone records, data and information for Kelleys cellphone. The documents do not explain the delay in retrieving the information from Kelleys phone.

In an Oct. 10 order, Brown noted that prosecutors have provided specific articulable facts that demonstrate that reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of  Kelleys cell phone records are relevant and material to this ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution.

Tying up loose ends

The initial analysis by the New Mexico Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory showed the defendants were actively using Facebook in the hours after the apparent homicide, including chats with each other and the sharing of at least one photograph, the Bernalillo County District Attorneys office states in one court record.

According to police reports, someone in Martens apartment that night gathered up the defendants cellphones and placed them into a white purse found inside an orange laundry basket in the living room. The positioning of the handbag and its contents suggested to the officers that the defendants had gathered the phones with the intention of disposing of them.

Police needed court orders to find information that isnt stored on the phones, such as accurate time and space data related to each phones contact with cellphone towers.

Much of this information is likely evidence of the crime or may be information that will help establish, among other things, communications and conspiracy, timelines, activities, and consciousness of guilt, states a prosecution motion.

Here is a partial timeline, extracted from court records, police complaints and news reports:

n At about 8 p.m. on the evening of Aug. 23, 2016, a young neighbor noticed Michelle Martens and her new boyfriend Fabian Gonzales sitting in her Gold Buick listening to music in front of her West Side apartment.

At some point, Gonzales cousin Jessica Kelley was seen coming down the stairs of the second story apartment building holding 10-year-old Victoria Martens. Kelley then turned around and went back upstairs with the girl.

 At 9 p.m., Gonzales or someone using his phone was watching YouTube.

 At about 10:16 p.m., well after investigators have concluded the child was likely dead, Michelle Martens sent Gonzales a photo.

 Well into the late evening and morning hours, Michelle Martens was browsing Facebook looking at photos of her children and family. By that time, police have determined, her daughter was already dead.

 Kelleys last incoming call was at 10:22 p.m., but the court records dont say who called her. Location data suggests her phone was used to access the maps application at about 3:56 a.m. the next morning, just minutes before police were called to the scene.

Prosecutors seeking cellphone and social media evidence hope to tie up loose ends, expand their knowledge of what happened and possibly show contradictions in the defendants stories.

For example, Michelle Martens accessed Facebook at a time she claimed to have been asleep.

Gonzales, meanwhile, used Facebook to communicate with both Martens and Kelley in the time leading up to the crimes.

Investigators said in court documents that Victoria Martens was likely killed sometime before 10 p.m. that night. But police didnt arrive on the scene until after 3:30 a.m. the next morning, responding to an aggravated assault call. They found Victorias dismembered body inside a blanket set on fire in a bathtub in Martens apartment.

All three defendants were apprehended at the apartment complex. All three remain jailed on first-degree murder and child sexual abuse charges awaiting trial.
SANTA FE  Scott Jarrett describes himself as the last man standing in the contemporary music department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, which will shut down operations on its city-owned campus next spring.

But he and other faculty members at the school are hoping their idea to keep the music alive will resonate with city officials as they try to figure out what to do with the 64 acres of prime real estate near the geographic center of town, at the intersection of Cerrillos Road and St. Michaels Drive.

Im working on a business plan, he said of his idea to create an arts education collective utilizing current facilities at SFUAD. There are some people who may invest and theyll want to see a business plan, as well. And I think we would need to ask the city for some help.

Jarrett is trying to work out an idea for a public-private partnership for a music or arts school. He has pitched the idea to the City Councils Finance and Public Works committees and to the full council when it last month approved a resolution that aims to bring a vision for the future of the campus into focus.

Jarrett believes his goal is achievable. Just this year, Bostons prestigious Berklee College of Music entered into a public-private-nonprofit partnership to establish a center at the famous Power Station Studios in New York City.

But Santa Fe may not be in a position to offer much help. City government bought the property in 2009 after the College of Santa Fe closed and still owes roughly $27 million on the loan. The lease payments from SFUAD, a for-profit school under Laureate International Universities, to date have covered the annual debt service. Without the rent, the city is left with a $2 million annual hole in its operating budget.

We cant give it all away for free, City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez, who chairs the citys Finance Committee, said at a council meeting two weeks ago. Taxpayers need to understand that there is a mortgage to be paid on this.

Dominguez and his colleagues agreed the City Council has a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers to make something of the property, and the sooner the better.

The longer it takes to decide, The more it will cost taxpayers, he said.

The first order of business for me is the what, said Councilor Mike Harris of plans for the campus, in an interview. The next big question is how.

Becoming a magnet

Jarretts idea for an arts school started as an effort to salvage SFUADs contemporary music program after the university closes at the end of the current school year, but it grew into something bigger after speaking with faculty at the film school. A new arts education collective could also incorporate studio arts, he said.

If someone wanted to paint, they could come here to paint. If they wanted to sculpt, they could come here and sculpt, he said. We dont really have that in the Santa Fe community. We would be the magnet.

The City Councils October resolution on plans for the campus indicates a preference for retaining at least a portion of the property for educational purposes, as well as expanding film and sound studios, but it also encourages residential development, and seeking out partnerships with businesses, government agencies and neighboring landowners.

Bolstering Jarretts case for an arts education center, the resolution was passed with an amendment from Harris that gives special consideration to purpose-built buildings. In fact, the suggestion came from Jarrett, who offered the idea during a meeting of the councils Finance Committee.

It makes sense that, to the greatest extent possible, we maintain the usage for what they (campus facilities) were created for, and certainly theres a lot of sentiment and drive to keep the same kind of usage of those buildings, Harris said.

Harris said purpose-built would apply to buildings housing Garson Studios, a long-standing professional film facility;, Greer Garson Theater; the film school; the Driscoll Fitness Center; and to some degree Fogelson Library and the dormitories on campus. And while Benildus Hall may not have originally been built to house a recording studio, theres one there now with a newly installed $150,000 Daking recording and mixing audio console.

Jarrett said he was surprised the console was put in this summer after it was already known the university was going to close.

For whatever reason, its here and its working, he said, adding that it ought to be utilized both as a practical piece of equipment that can be used to record and mix music, and as a teaching tool for those aspiring to make it in the music business as recording engineers, audio technicians, music producers or recording artists.

Im not asking anyone to change the building, Jarrett said. Im saying that Santa Fe could save some money if it didnt have to tear it down.

Councilor Harris said its unlikely Benildus Hall would be torn down in any case because its still in good condition.

He also said when the SFUAD lease terminates June 30, the city and Laureate International will have to negotiate the distribution of FF&E  furniture, fixtures and equipment. Its not a sure thing the Daking recording studio stays.

Saving the film school

While the film industry has exploded in New Mexico, theres still room to grow. Jarrett sees an opportunity at the nexus between film and music. Thats where the composition of his original idea came to a crescendo to include SFUADs film school.

Liam Lockhart chairs the film school. He says that while the college may have failed, the film school is a success story, helping to produce a workforce that propels the film industry in New Mexico.

What a shame it would be to throw it all away, he said.

Lockhart says Santa Fe would be losing more than a film school if the program fizzles out; it would also lose human assets.

We have so many talented individuals at the school, he said, rattling off the names and accomplishments of several students and faculty members. What are they going to do when the college shuts down? Theyll leave.

The film school is attached to Garson Studios, making it a natural fit.

There needs to be integration, he said of the assets offered by the university. It has to be a practical model where students build skills that will lead to careers.

Lockhart, too, is speaking with potential investors. Seeing the film school shut down would be a tragedy, he said.

Anything we can do to keep it going, he said.

What will become of the idea of an arts education collective remains to be seen. Councilor Harris is heading a working group that includes fellow City Councilor Signe Lindell, City Manager Brian Snyder, Economic Development Director Matt Brown and Asset Development Director Matt ORielly. The councils SFUAD resolution calls for undertaking various outreach and planning efforts within 90 days.

Harris says its still unclear where that might lead. But he noted that one of the objectives of the resolution is to envision a site focused on innovation and developed in a supportive, inclusive, and risk-taking culture.

Thats what happened nine years ago when the governing body took a risk by voting to purchase the campus, he said, adding that he appreciates the ideas of Jarrett, Lockhart and other faculty members. I applaud their effort to put themselves out there and take some risk, whether its a film school or a music school.

What first needs to be determined is what. And then comes the how.
Inside a dark, remodeled computer lab at Santa Fe Community College is a massive sphere suspended in the air, held by nearly invisible wires. It displays data about Earth and other planets varying from the effects of climate change to drone footage of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

Science on a Sphere (SOS), a technology patented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was installed at SFCC this spring after more than two years of planning.

The goal is to use the sphere, which is six feet in diameter and weighs about 60 pounds, and its nearly 600 included data sets for science classes ranging from elementary school to college.

I see it as a student-driven model of education, said Maria Meyer, a member of the SOS Advisory Committee and an agriscience teacher at the Santa Fe Indian School. More curiosity-based, interest-based, observation-based, and then we can develop predictions, hypotheses and get more students into the sciences.

Lenny Gannes, chair of SFCCs Sciences Department, said the college is slowly rolling out use of the sphere while school personnel learn how to operate it. He has used SOS to teach his environmental science students about climate change, using displays of how the Earth has become warmer over the past several centuries and could continue to do so.

It gives us an opportunity to tell those stories in a different way than I can in the classroom, Gannes said. He said the goal now is to raise enough funding for a full-time coordinator to schedule visits, a task now handled by a student worker.

At a launch event in October, those trained to operate the technology showed guests the kinds of data it can project, such as photos of planets in the solar system and beyond; animal migration trends; the spread of diseases worldwide; and footage of Santa Rosa, Calif,, following its deadly wildfires last month.

The SOS cost about $200,000 for equipment, licensing from NOAA and room remodeling, according to Ed Barker, chair of the SOS Advisory Committee and a retired planetary astronomer. It was funded through private donors, the state Legislature and SFCC.

This is the first SOS in New Mexico and one of two installed at a community college. Local resident the Rev. Dr. Dave Wasserman saw an SOS at a nature center while working as a regional minister in Rockport, Texas.

When I first saw this, I experienced not only the stimulation of the knowledge, but a sense of awe and beauty, he said. Theres a side of this for me that evokes the artistic and not (only) the scientific. They both go together.

He organized the advisory committee of about 25 local science experts and educators before partnering with the community college. Wasserman said hes currently working with UNM-Taos to install a new, less expensive version of SOS that displays data sets on a flatscreen.

Gannes said he hopes to get SFCC students to make their own data sets for the sphere, whether its science majors compiling information or film students who want a different way to screen work.

Whatever sort of area theyre in, theres opportunity to do something with the sphere, he said.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  The head of the federal agency that produces U.S. nuclear weapons has privately proposed to end public access to key safety reports from a federal watchdog group that monitors 10 sites involved in weapons production.

Frank Klotz, administrator of the Energy Departments National Nuclear Security Administration, made the proposal to members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in an Oct. 13 meeting in his office overlooking the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, multiple U.S. officials said.

Klotz contended that recent media reports about safety lapses that relied partially on the boards weekly disclosures were potentially counterproductive to the NNSAs mission, the officials said. His solution was presented as the Trump administration considers an acceleration and expansion of nuclear warhead production at the federally owned sites inspected by the board in eight states, including California, New Mexico, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Four of the safety boards five members heard Klotzs appeal and one of them  Bruce Hamilton, a Republican  responded by drafting and briefly circulating a proposal among the members to stop releasing the boards weekly and monthly accounts of safety concerns at nuclear weapons factories and laboratories.

Under Hamiltons proposal, these accounts of accidents and problematic incidents  prepared by board staff that routinely visit or are stationed at these sites  would be replaced by oral reports by those staff members to their superiors in Washington. The reports would not be divulged to the public, according to multiple federal officials.

The proposal represented the second effort by federal officials in recent months to curtail public access to information about persistent safety problems in the nuclear production complex, which the Center for Public Integrity documented in articles published between June and August.

In June, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Boards chairman, Sean Sullivan  Hamiltons fellow Republican on the board  secretly urged the Trump administration to eliminate the safety board altogether. The White House has said it will address the idea early next year, but some lawmakers have already expressed opposition.

The Centers articles detailed a series of alarming safety problems, including the mishandling of plutonium, a radioactive explosive, at Los Alamos and a federal laboratory in Idaho; the mis-shipment of hazardous materials, including nuclear explosive materials; and the repeated contamination of work areas and scientists by radioactive particles. The articles were based in part on the boards reports.

The federal facilities where nuclear weapons are produced are run by corporations that have collectively earned more than $2 billion in profit from the work over the past decade. Many of the firms officials have expressed chagrin at occasional publicity about their mishaps and accidents.

Hamilton withdrew his proposal on Oct. 19  the same date that CPI disclosed in an article copublished with USA Today Sullivans plan to eliminate the safety board. Reached by telephone, Hamilton declined comment on the proposal or its withdrawal.

Klotzs proposal drew criticism from several independent observers of the boards work. Greg Mello, director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nonprofit organization that monitors the governments activities at nuclear sites in New Mexico, said the reports at issue provide almost the only window into the safety status of defense nuclear facilities. Without them, he said, the public might never know if an accident occurs.

Its not (Klotzs) job to tell the safety board how to do their work, Mello said. Shame on him.

Bob Alvarez, a former senior policy adviser and deputy assistant secretary at the Energy Department, said this is regressive behavior, rolling back to the old days of the Cold War. The logic behind this is that what the public doesnt know cant hurt us, and theres nothing to be gained by the public knowing what were doing. The site reports make sure that the Department of Energy, which includes the NNSA does not  (rely only on) blind, undocumented faith in its contractors.

Klotz, 67, is a retired Air Force lieutenant general and former commander of the Air Forces Global Strike Command  which is responsible for nuclear bombers and missiles  who was appointed NNSA administrator and Energy Department undersecretary for nuclear security by President Obama in April 2014. He was retained in the role by President Trump. The NNSA finances and manages the production and maintenance of all U.S. nuclear warheads, a $10.8 billion-a-year effort that Trump has said he wants to fund more richly.

Asked about Klotzs proposal, his spokesman Gregory Wolf declined any direct comment, but wrote in an email that to ensure an open line of communication, NNSA and DNFSB leadership meet periodically.  The conversations traditionally have been casual and informal in nature and are not intended nor designed to arrive at any conclusions or decisions.

September news report

During his meeting with safety board members, according to the officials, Klotz pointed in particular to a Sept. 22 article published in The Santa Fe New Mexican that described persistent safety shortcomings at the governments laboratory in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The article was based on a Sept. 1 public report by the safety board that faulted workers for positioning plutonium so closely that it risked an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, which could be deadly to anyone nearby  a persistent lapse the lab has struggled to overcome. (Editors note: Journal North published an article on the same safety board report about a criticality safety event at the lab the same day as The New Mexican).

The report also disclosed that several workers at the labs Plutonium Facility had been accidentally contaminated by radiation.

The officials said Klotz told the safety board members that if safety lapses like those depicted in the article continued to attract public attention, nuclear workers will grow reluctant to expose their corporate employers to public embarrassment by telling the board about unsafe conditions.

His argument, in short, was that only secrecy could encourage accountability for the corporate managers of the nuclear weapons complex.

The Santa Fe newspaper report that irritated Klotz built on CPIs recent reporting about unsafe handling of plutonium that has plagued Los Alamos for more than a decade, placing workers in danger and causing setbacks to the labs national security mission. Soon after those accounts were published, Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charles McMillan and Kim Davis Lebak, the top NNSA official assigned to oversee work at Los Alamos, announced plans to retire.

The safety board was created by Congress in 1988 to foster public trust in nuclear weapons work by providing independent oversight of its workplace practices. It is authorized to recommend safety improvements to the Energy Department secretary, based on its inspections. The secretary is not obligated to accept the recommendations but must respond publicly. The public reports that form the basis of these recommendations do not divulge the names of workers who bring safety issues to the boards attention.

Government officials familiar with the on-site inspectors weekly reports say they are one of the most effective ways of inspiring better behavior at the weapons facilities because the contractors intensely dislike public criticism. But the contractors have complained bitterly that the public nature of the discussion goads the NNSA into imposing more costly safety precautions than their managers feel are warranted.
Back in January, I was among dozens of New Mexico faith leaders who signed a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke expressing how much we treasure our national monuments. The words of the letter still ring true:

 local faith communities and tribes continue to access and use these sacred lands as they have for generations. Whether gathering herbs, interpreting petroglyphs, collecting firewood, picking pinon nuts, grazing, hiking, fishing, hunting or prayerfully meditating on the beauty of Gods creation, protecting the monument designations for the Rio Grande del Norte and Organ Mountains Desert Peaks will continue to safeguard New Mexicos and Americas rich cultural and spiritual heritage.

As leaders of faith and stewards of Gods creation, we urge you to work to ensure the continued existence of, funding for, and access to Americas public lands and not allow efforts to roll back or shrink these National Monuments to succeed.

Since we first contacted him in January, the path Secretary Zinke has chosen has shown disregard for our guidance and disrespect for our communities.

One of the first tasks President Trump assigned Secretary Zinke was to review national monuments established since 1996 and assess whether they should be closed, diminished or eliminated. Secretary Zinke had mere months to determine the fate of dozens of our countrys national monuments. The Secretary could have told President Trump that this was an inappropriate, impossible assignment. Instead, he did the Presidents bidding.

When the Department of Interior opened a public comment period for dozens of national monuments, the public outpouring of support was overwhelming. More than two million people urged Secretary Zinke to uphold national monument protections for our public lands.

After the comment period, Secretary Zinke did a series of whirlwind visits to states where he was considering shrinking, cutting off access or eliminating national monuments. His short visit to New Mexico was an insult to decades of hard work by our communities to protect our public lands. In New Mexico, Secretary Zinke chose to hold no public meetings  despite the offer by many New Mexico community members to host a public forum. Moreover, Pueblos and Tribal Nations  who have the largest stake in the fate of their ancestral lands  have been marginalized from Secretary Zinkes review process.

On Aug. 24, Secretary Zinke turned in a secret set of recommendations to diminish 10 national monuments. Weeks later, the secret recommendations were leaked to the media. We learned two national monuments being recommended for diminishment are in New Mexico: Organ Mountains Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte national monuments.

It grieves me that our national leaders would demonstrate such irreverence for our natural, historical, cultural and spiritual heritage. I urge New Mexicans to appeal to President Trump to reject Secretary Zinkes irresponsible recommendations and instead to uphold all our treasured national monuments.

Arnold is senior minister at the United Church of Santa Fe.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  Iran manufactured the ballistic missile fired by Yemens Shiite rebels toward the Saudi capital and remnants of it bore Iranian markings, the top U.S. Air Force official in the Mideast said Friday, backing the kingdoms earlier allegations.

The comments by Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, who oversees the Air Forces Central Command in Qatar, further internationalizes the yearslong conflict in Yemen  the Arab worlds poorest country.

Saudi Arabia long has accused Iran of giving weapons to the Shiite rebels known as Houthis and their allies, though Tehran has just as long denied supplying them. Riyadh quickly backed up Harrigians allegations in a statement to The Associated Press.

There have been Iranian markings on those missiles, Harrigian told journalists at a news conference in Dubai ahead of the Dubai Air Show. To me, that connects the dots to Iran.

There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.

Saudi Arabia says it shot down the missile Nov. 4 near Riyadhs international airport, the deepest yet to reach into the kingdom. Saudi Arabias Foreign Ministry later said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them. It did not elaborate, though it also mentioned it found similar evidence after a July 22 missile launch. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly this week described the missile as obviously Iranian.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement Tuesday that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant. Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Islamic State group militants in Syria over twin militant attacks in Tehran.

Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile U.S. officials believed it was, nor did he show any images of the debris. He also didnt explain how Iran evaded the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition, which intensified after the missile targeting Riyadh.

How they got it there is probably something that will continue to be investigated over time, the lieutenant general said. What has been demonstrated and shown based on the findings of that missile is that it had Iranian markings on it. That in itself provides evidence of where it came from.

The Houthis have described using Burkan-2 or Volcano Scud variants in their recent attacks, including the one Nov. 4. Those missiles are reminiscent of the Qiam, wrote Jeremy Binnie of Janes Defense Weekly in a February analysis.

The Burkan-2 is likely to heighten suspicions that Iran is helping Yemens rebel forces to develop their ballistic missile capabilities, Binnie wrote.

Adding to that suspicion is the fact that Yemens missile forces previously never had experience in disassembling and rebuilding the weapons, said Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute For Near East Policy who previously worked in Yemen.

It is not a stretch to believe that Tehran is supporting the Houthi missile program with technical advice and specialized components, Knights wrote in an analysis Thursday. After all, the Houthis have rapidly fielded three major new missile systems in less than two years while under wartime conditions and international blockade.

Saudi Arabias Ministry of Culture and Information later contacted the AP and sent military briefing papers alleging Iran smuggled weapons into Yemen by boat and truck.

The parts are later assembled under supervision of Iranian military experts, who also help the Houthi militia plan attacks targeting Saudi civilians, the ministry said in a statement to the AP. Smuggled Iranian Qiam or Zelzal warheads are mounted onto Yemeni-made Burkan ballistic missiles.

The U.S. already is involved in the war in Yemen and has launched drone strikes targeting the local branch of al-Qaida, though it stopped offering targeting information under the Obama administration over concerns about civilian casualties. That prohibition continues today, though the Air Force continues to refuel warplanes in the Yemen theater and offers support in managing airspace over the country, Harrigian said. The Saudi-led coalition also uses American-made bombs and ordinance in its attacks.

The U.S. has come under attack once amid the Yemen war. In October 2016, the U.S. Navy said the USS Mason came under fire from two missiles launched out of Yemen. Neither reached the warship, though the U.S. retaliated with a Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemens Red Sea coast.

At the time, authorities said the missiles used in that attack were Silkworm missile variants, a type of coastal defense cruise missile that Iran has been known to use.

When the Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014, their allied fighters also took control of the countrys ballistic missile stockpile. The Yemeni military was widely believed to possess around 300 Scud missiles at the time, though exact figures remain unknown.

The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015 on the side of Yemens internationally recognized government. It then attacked Sanaas ballistic missile base in April 2015, touching off massive explosions that killed several dozen people. Saudi Arabia implied at the time that the Scud arsenal in Yemen had been seriously degraded, if not entirely destroyed, as a result of the airstrikes.

But by June 2015, the rebels fired their first ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia near the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. In the time since, Yemens rebels have fired over 70 ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies missile defense project.

For its part, Iran long has denied offering any arms to Yemen, though it has backed the Houthis and highlighted the high civilian casualties from the Saudi-led coalitions campaign of airstrikes.

But others in Iran have been coy about the ballistic missiles in Yemen. Mehdi Taeb, an influential hard-line cleric who is a brother to the intelligence chief of the hard-line Revolutionary Guard, said in April that Iran tried three times to send missiles to Yemen. The Guard, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversees Irans missile program.

The cleric said ultimately the administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered the transfers stopped over negotiations on the nuclear deal with world powers, without offering a specific time for the attempted shipments.

They said come back because the Americans said, If you send missiles to Yemen, we will end the negotiations,' Taeb said.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .
BONN, Germany  Environmental activists protested at a German coal-fired power plant on Friday  the same day that Italy became the latest country to announce a deadline for ending its use of the heavily polluting fossil fuel.

Protesters projected images of Pacific islanders threatened by climate change onto the cooling tower of the lignite-fuelled power station in Neurath, in western Germany, along with the words coal destroys our future.

The visual display, organized by representatives of Pacific island nations and the environmental group Greenpeace, took place as diplomats from around the world are meeting in nearby Bonn to discuss implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord.

The German government claims to be a leader in the fight against climate change but has refused to set a date for phasing out the use of coal, which emits large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide when burned. Coal accounts for about 40 percent of Germanys energy mix.

Several other countries, however, have set a cutoff date for coal, including Italy, which announced it will stop using coal for its national electricity needs by 2025.

Italys plan calls for investments of 175 billion euros ($203.5 billion) through 2030 in infrastructure, renewable energy and energy efficiency development. According to government statistics, coal provided 16 percent of Italys national electricity in 2015.

Italys new energy strategy calls for carbon emissions from energy use to decrease 39 percent by 2030 and 63 percent by 2050.

Coal has become a key issue at the Bonn climate talks. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore told delegates there Friday that making the switch away from fossil fuels wont be easy given the industrys political clout, but that it makes both environmental and financial sense.

It is insane to force taxpayers to subsidize the destruction of our civilization, and of course, the coal and gas and oil lobbies have a lot of political power, Gore said. They built it up over a hundred years, and they have the influence with politicians, not only in my country, but also in China, also in Japan.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Friday in New York that he will urge participants at Bonn conference to respond to the latest alarming data by further cutting emissions, helping countries respond to climate shocks and mobilizing the $100 billion promised to help developing countries.

He said recent reports send two messages: accelerate climate action  and raise ambition.

The 2015 Paris climate accord set a target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)  or 2 degrees at the most  by the end of the century.

Guterres pointed to new worrying data: The World Meteorological Organization reported that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached new highs in 2016. A U.N. Environment Program report showed that greenhouse gas levels are likely to be so elevated in 2020 that reaching Paris targets for 2030 will be very hard to meet.

Guterres warned that the window of opportunity to keep temperatures to the 2-degree target may close in 20 years or less  and we may have only five years to bend the emissions curve toward 1.5 degrees.

We need at least a further 25 percent cut in emissions by 2020, he said.

Guterres also called for greater action by governments, businesses and citizens to combat climate change, and he announced he will hold a climate summit to mobilize political and economic energy at the highest levels in September 2019.

___

Jordans reported from Berlin. Edith M. Lederer contributed from the United Nations.
FORT COLLINS, Colo.  A Colorado man who evaded police for 14 hours during a manhunt in March has been sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to seven felony charges.

Adam Fulford, 34, addressed the Fort Collins courtroom before a judge accepted the plea deal with the stipulated sentence on Thursday, the Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald reported .

As part of the agreement, the charges to which Fulford pleaded guilty included assault, aggravated robbery, burglary, possession of a dangerous weapon and aggravated motor vehicle theft. At one point during the case, Fulford was charged with 48 felonies.

Fulford apologized to Tara Hildebrand. She and her two children were injured when Fulford struck their vehicle during a high-speed police chase.

Violence never enters my thoughts unless Im condemning it or trying to prevent it, Fulford said. The accusations I faced are so out of my character. My heart broke into 1,000 pieces when I found out I injured a family.

Fulford said he was convinced officers would use deadly force when they tried to serve an arrest warrant in connection with a missed court appearance in a felony drug case. So he ran and hid. Fulford said he covered himself with mud and rocks during the overnight search, and police came within feet of him.

Hildebrand also spoke and criticized the Larimer County Sheriffs Office for continuing the pursuit despite knowing Fulfords address.

Ive been told the crash was worth his arrest. No childs life is worth arresting a drug addict, Hildebrand said. I have had three police officers tell me they had so much fun during the chase. I was shocked to hear the department thinks the cost and the risk is worth the chase. I firmly believe they do not know the actual cost or risk.

Hildebrand and her 9-year-old daughter broke multiple bones from the crash. Her 11-year-old son broke his hand. Hildebrand said her daughter will require additional surgeries to ensure her bones grow correctly.

Deputy District Attorney David Vandenberg defended the actions of law enforcement officers. He said it was Fulford who controlled the speed of the chase.

This was not a person they were trying to arrest because he was using or possessing drugs, Vandenberg said.

___

Information from: Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, http://www.reporterherald.com/
After 42 years in the economic development world, Steve Jenkins knows the signs that a business may be relocating or closing its doors altogether.

Some of them are obvious: mass layoffs, tumbling share prices things that can easily be discerned from media coverage with a well-placed Google Alert.

Other indicators are more personal.

When a business owner at a private company is getting a divorce, things can get nasty, said Jenkins. An ex-spouse could decide to sell their part of the company, maybe even to the competition. It can mean the end of an operation.

As president and CEO of the Sandoval Economic Alliance, such endings are exactly what Jenkins wants to avoid. So he created a 15-point early warning system to help his organization decide when to proactively approach a company with an offer to connect them with economic development resources.

The early warning system is part of the Alliances new program aimed at retaining businesses in Sandoval County, specifically those that infuse the New Mexico economy with out-of-state money. Its also part of a broader effort by the economic development community to add rigor to processes some have criticized as being inefficient or too susceptible to political pressure.

Jenkins said the complete 15-point list is proprietary, but he acknowledged a few other data points: an upcoming lease expiration, social media activity from employees complaining about the company or a new manager with a history of shuttering departments.

Alliance spokeswoman Tiffany Avery said the group can offer a variety of solutions to a company identified by the system, including the states Job Training Incentive Program.

What about marriage counseling?

Not yet, Jenkins said.
EFFINGHAM -- The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit health care ratings organization, today released new Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades. The Safety Grade assigns letter grades of A, B, C, D and F to hospitals nationwide based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harms. HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital was one of 832 awarded an A for its commitment to keeping patients safe and meeting the highest safety standards in the U.S.

This A rating for our hospital from The Leapfrog Group is a confirmation of the steadfast commitment to enhancing patient safety by HSHS St. Anthonys colleagues and Medical Staff, said Theresa Rutherford, President and CEO of HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital. Our team is dedicated to living out our mission to reveal and embody Christs healing love for all people through our high quality Franciscan health care ministry. Part of fulfilling this mission to provide high quality care is our ongoing journey of performance improvement on behalf of our patients and their families. This A rating is a testament to our teams continued efforts to live our mission by ensuring patients receive the highest quality and safest care possible at St. Anthonys.

It takes consistent, unwavering dedication to patients to achieve the highest standards of patient safety. An A Safety Grade recognizes hospitals for this accomplishment, said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. We congratulate the clinicians, Board, management and staff of HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital for showing the country what it means to put patient safety first.

Developed under the guidance of a Blue Ribbon National Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign A, B, C, D and F grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. It is calculated by top patient safety experts, peer reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.

To see HSHS St. Anthonys full grade and to access patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit www.hospitalsafetygrade.org and follow the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade on Twitter and Facebook.

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrogs other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.

For more information about HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital, visit St. Anthonys Web site at stanthonyshospital.org. HSHS St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital is part of the Southern Illinois Division of Hospital Sisters Health System, which also includes HSHS St. Elizabeths Hospital in Belleville, HSHS St. Josephs Hospital in Breese, HSHS Holy Family Hospital in Greenville, and HSHS St. Josephs Hospital in Highland.
Albuquerque business leaders on Thursday quizzed candidates in the District 5 City Council runoff election about issues ranging from crime, economic development and the city budget.

Cynthia Borrego, 59, emphasized her 28-year experience as a planner for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County and her familiarity with city government, budgets and project management. She retired from the city in 2010.

I have worked in City Hall, Borrego told members of the New Mexico Business Coalition at a job interview for candidates in the city runoff election. I know how it operates. I know how the budget operates.

Robert Aragon, 60, an Albuquerque attorney, told business leaders that he would advocate overhauling the city budget to reflect public safety and take a hands-off approach to business development.

We dont have any economic opportunity on the West Side, Aragon said. We have had problems with development on the West Side because of redundant and job-killing rules and regulations.

Increases in gross-receipt taxes have stifled economic growth, he said.

The candidates expressed differing views to a question about a proposed sick-leave ordinance, which voters narrowly defeated on Oct. 3. The Healthy Workforce Ordinance would have required employers to allow workers to earn paid sick time off.

Aragon expressed opposition to the proposal and said he favors making the process more rigorous for groups that want to place a proposed ordinance on the city ballot.

Whatever a private company wants to do is their own business, Aragon said during the forum at the MCM Elegante Hotel in Albuquerque. We must make it harder to get public initiatives on the ballots.

Borrego said she supported the now-defeated ordinance, but she also said that business owners need to be involved in any discussion about sick leave.

I think everyone needs to come to the table on that issue, she said. I dont think it needs to be passed by a small group, and just a few people who support it. I think businesses need to buy into that.

Both identified crime as the top issue facing District 5 in far northwest Albuquerque, and both have said the city needs 1,200 police officers.

The West Side has been inundated with property crime, calling for a city budget that prioritizes public safety, Aragon said. The city needs to begin with a zero-based budget, that requires each department to make a case for its survival, rather than the usual process of starting with the previous years budget, which replicates mistakes in prior budgets, he said.

Make every department justify their existence, Aragon said.

Property crime needs to be added as a criterion in the Public Safety Assessment, or PSA, a risk-assessment tool that judges use to determine whether an inmate should be released from jail pending trial, he said. Currently, the PSA is based largely on violent criminal activity and failures to appear to determine a defendants flight risk.

We know we have frequent fliers who are in and out of jail chiefly for property crimes, Aragon said.

Borrego identified theft and auto burglary as the top crimes in District 5. She began to list a five-point plan for addressing crime but was cut off by a time limit.

She has proposed a plan that includes new leadership at the Albuquerque Police Department, increasing the force to 1,200 officers, and a greater emphasis on community policing, crime prevention, and behavioral health treatments.

I think people are living in fear, she said, and that is an issue we have to focus on as a community.

District 5 voters can cast votes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at any city polling site. Also on the ballot are mayoral runoff candidates Tim Keller and Dan Lewis. The winner of the District 5 runoff will succeed Lewis on the City Council.
BEIRUT  Lebanese officials insisted Friday on the return home of Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Saudi Arabia, and the leader of the militant group Hezbollah said the Saudis had declared war on Lebanon by holding Hariri against his will.

The U.S. added its voice to those urging that Hariri be allowed to return to Lebanon. A political crisis has gripped the country and shattered the relative peace maintained by its coalition government ever since his stunning announcement Nov. 4 from the Saudi capital that he was resigning.

The announcement from the Saudi-aligned Hariri jolted Lebanon and thrust it back into the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The move and exceptionally strong statements by the Saudis against Iran that followed have deepened the mystery about Hariris fate and led to rumors that he is being held in the kingdom against his will, despite his denials.

For the past year, Hariri has headed a coalition government that included members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia. He cited meddling in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region by Iran and Hezbollah in his decision to step down, adding that Irans arm into the region will be cut off.

Saudi Arabia appears to want to see Lebanon headed by someone would form a government without Hezbollah, perhaps believing Hariri has become too lenient toward the group.

In a message apparently aimed at the Saudis but which could easily include Iran, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cautioned against using Lebanon as a venue for proxy conflicts.

If Hariri wants to step down, Tillerson said, he needs to go back to Lebanon and formally resign, so that the government of Lebanon can function properly.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun told Saudi Charge dAffaires Walid al-Bukhari on Friday that the manner in which Hariri resigned was unacceptable, a Lebanese official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. He called for Hariris return.

In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Hariri was being detained in Saudi Arabia and that his forced resignation was unconstitutional because it was made under duress.

It is clear that Saudi Arabia  declared war on Lebanon, he said.

Nasrallah said he was certain that Hariri was forced to resign as part of what he called a Saudi policy of meddling in Lebanons affairs. Hariri is being prevented by Saudi officials from returning to Lebanon, he said, adding that his detention should not be accepted.

But Tillerson said hes seen no indication that Hariri was being held against his will.

An official in French President Emmanuel Macrons office also said Hariri has told foreign ambassadors in Saudi Arabia, where he has been since the resignation announcement, that he is not a prisoner.

The French and U.S. ambassadors met with Hariri, who says he is not a prisoner, the (Saudi crown) prince says he is not a prisoner, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Macron visited Saudi Arabia on Thursday and met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the tensions between the kingdom and Lebanon, a former French protectorate.

The official said Hariri did not ask to see Macron, and French officials dont have any specific signs that Hariris life is in danger.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe-1 radio that to our knowledge, Hariri is not being held against his will, adding that France believes he is free in his movements, and it is up to him to make his choices.

The crisis was widely seen as a bid by Saudi Arabia to wreck Lebanons coalition government to try to undermine and limit Irans influence in the country through the power that Hezbollah wields.

In the first concrete action against Lebanon after days of threats by Saudi government officials, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries ordered their citizens to leave the country amid the soaring tensions. Dozens of citizens of Gulf Arab countries were seen leaving Lebanon early Friday via Beiruts international airport.

In remarks to reporters while flying from China to Vietnam, Tillerson said Washington supports the stability of Lebanon and is opposed to any actions that could threaten that stability.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said its essential that Lebanon remain peaceful, warning that a new conflict could have devastating consequences in the region.

Hariris appointment as prime minister and the formation of a government was a result of a tacit agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to sideline Lebanon from other regional proxy wars, particularly in neighboring Syria.

Iran is widely seen to have prevailed over mainly Sunni rebels in Syria, and with the wars in Yemen and the crisis in Qatar at an impasse, the Saudi crown prince may have decided to try to curb Irans influence in Lebanon.

It is unclear what Saudi Arabias long-term calculation is with Hariri. So far, it appears to have united the Lebanese against the kingdom, with most people seeing the incident as an affront and a humiliation for him.

Any Saudi military moves in Lebanon would likely be opposed by the international community, which wants to see Lebanon remain calm. Many fear an escalation will pave the way for Israel to strike Hezbollah. The two have fought a number of wars, but there appears to be no immediate indication of an attack.

There is concern that Saudi Arabia could impose punitive measures that would hurt Lebanons fragile economy.

Lebanese officials are acting with caution, insisting on Hariris return before starting the complicated task of forming a new government.

In his speech, Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia is punishing Lebanons people instead of his group. He said the kingdom has shifted its attention to Lebanon after a failed 30-month war in Yemen and with Saudi-backed rebels in Syria suffering setbacks.

If you think that you can defeat Lebanon, the resistance (Hezbollah)  then you are wrong, mistaken and will fail, the way you did in all arenas, Nasrallah said.

Without providing any proof, Nasrallah said that Saudi Arabia had asked Israel to attack Hezbollah in return for billions of dollars.

Nasrallah said war with Israel is unlikely amid the Hariri crisis, adding that the group is watching carefully for any Israeli attempts to use it to begin hostilities against Lebanon. He said Israel is cautious and unlikely to make such a move.

Still, he warned Israel against miscalculation or taking advantage of the situation.

___

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet and Angela Charlton in Paris, Josh Lederman in Washington and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed.
RALEIGH, N.C.  A Marine Corps drill instructor was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for choking, punching or otherwise tormenting recruits, especially three Muslims  one of whom ultimately killed himself by leaping down a stairwell.

A military jury handed out the punishment to Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix a day after convicting him of abusing more than a dozen trainees at the Marine boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.

Among other things, he taunted the Muslims as terrorists or ISIS and ordered two of them to climb into an industrial clothes dryer, spinning one of them around in the scorching machine until he renounced his faith, the jury decided.

Felix, a 34-year-old Iraq veteran, was also ordered to forfeit all pay, demoted to private and given a dishonorable discharge.

Felix was a central figure in what was found to be a group of abusive drill instructors at Parris Island. After the March 2016 suicide at the base, a hazing investigation led to charges against Felix, five other drill instructors and the training battalions commanding officer. Eleven others faced lesser discipline.

Abusive drill instructors have long been stock characters in books and movies like Full Metal Jacket. But that 1987 film was set during the Vietnam War, and the Felix trial shows that since then the Marines have drawn clearer lines between what instructors can and cannot do, said Michael Hanzel, a former Navy attorney who attended the proceedings at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

This generation now, theres things that I think that were much more focused on. In particular, in this trial, its calling people names based on their religion and targeting people based on their religion, said Hanzel, now a private attorney specializing in military law. I dont think anyone would say that was acceptable ever, but it probably was not prosecuted in the past the way it would be now.

The charges against Felix included commanding recruits to choke each other; ordering them to drink chocolate milk and then training them until they vomited; and punching recruits in the face or kicking them to the ground.

He wasnt making Marines. He was breaking Marines, prosecutor Lt. Col. John Norman told the jury on Wednesday. He called Felix a bully who heaped special abuse on three Muslim recruits because of their faith.

One of them, Raheel Siddiqui, a 20-year-old Pakistani-American from Taylor, Michigan, hurled himself to his death after what the jury decided was mistreatment by Felix that included slapping Siddiqui and calling him a terrorist. Siddiquis family sued the Marine Corps last month for $100 million.

The government did not charge Felix with any crime directly related to Siddiquis death. The judge, Lt. Col. Michael Libretto, did not allow testimony about whether Felixs actions were responsible for the recruits suicide.

Felix also was convicted of ordering Lance Cpl. Ameer Bourmeche into a dryer, which then was turned on as Felix demanded, Are you still Muslim? Bourmeche testified that he twice affirmed his faith and Felix and another drill instructor twice sent him for a bruising, scorching tumble inside the machine.

After a third spin, Bourmeche said, he feared for his life and renounced his religion. The drill instructors then let him out, he said.

Felix was found guilty as well of ordering Bourmeche to simulate chopping off the head of a fellow Marine while reciting God is great in Arabic.

The jury decided Felix also ordered Rekan Hawez, a native of Iraqi Kurdistan, to climb into the dryer. The machine was never turned on.

Felix was convicted, too, of rousing nearly two dozen recruits from their sleep, ordering them to lie on the floor, and then walking on them along with two other drill instructors.

In a closing statement Wednesday, defense attorney Navy Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Bridges, said the government unfairly fashioned contradictory witness accounts into a case against the brawny drill instructor who called all recruits terrorist.

___

Follow Emery P. Dalesio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/emery%20dalesio
PROVO, Utah  A new group is beginning a push to change the name of Squaw Peak in Provo to something more honorable to Native American women.

The Repeak Committee is leading the effort to remove the word squaw from the name of the iconic jagged mountain, The Daily Herald reported Thursday.

The push comes after a U.S. government board voted to rename another geological feature, Moabs Negro Bill Canyon, to Grandstaff Canyon.

Provo resident Chauma Jansen, who is working with the new independent committee, believes the term Squaw is both derogatory and demeaning.

It is meant to belittle somebody or belittle their worth. Historically it has been used to (mean) prostitution as well as sexual violence against women, said Jansen, whose heritage is Navajo, Sioux and Assiniboine.

The mountain located near Brigham Young University was named around the 1850s. The origins are cloudy of the name are cloudy. The most common story is that it was named after a member of the Timpanogos Ute tribe who fell to her death as they were being pursued by white settlers, BYU history professor Jay Buckley said. But, he said, the story may be more anecdotal than historic fact.

The committee is preparing a proposal to send to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which is responsible for standardizing geographic names.

A Squaw Peak in Arizona was renamed in 2003 to Piestewa Peak in honor of Lori Piestewa, the first Native American woman to killed in US military combat.

The Provo group hopes to the rename the mountain after a Ute woman, and has reached out to the tribe for name recommendations and approval.

It hopes to finalize the proposal by February. The group will present its message at a lecture at Utah Valley University next week.

___

Information from: The Daily Herald, http://www.heraldextra.com
DENVER  A Denver police officer shot and killed a man suspected of robbing a nearby bank in a crowded downtown area on Friday afternoon, the citys police chief said.

Chief Robert White said the officer had just come on duty in the 16th Street Mall area, an outdoor area with restaurants and stores that is often crowded with tourists and workers from nearby office buildings. Someone came up to the officer and pointed out a man who allegedly had just robbed a nearby bank, White said.

The officer, who has not been named, followed the suspect into an alley, he said. The police officer gave the man several commands and at some point fired his weapon and hit the man multiple times.

No one else was injured.

A gun and money were found at the scene, said White, who called the cash evidence from the bank robbery.

White said he didnt know if the man drew a weapon during the encounter with the police officer. He also did not know if the officer was wearing a body camera at the time.

The mans name has not been released.

The officer will be on administrative leave until an investigation is complete, White said.
When stacked up against powerhouse cities like Seattle, Austin and Denver, a new report isnt exactly bullish on Albuquerques real estate prospects going into next year.

The Urban Land Institute predicts the Albuquerque areas development will trail other metros with much stronger economies in 2018, according to the organizations new report on emerging real estate trends.

Of the 78 metros the report tracked as markets to watch, Albuquerque at least made the list. Ranked at No. 72, the Duke City is sandwiched between Tucson and Memphis. Buoyed by job growth, a diverse economy, the presence of well-known international companies headquartered there, and a young and well-educated labor pool, Seattle took the No. 1 spot.

In its ranking of eight Mountain region metros, Denver and Salt Lake City were at the top of the heap with green dots, a sign of improving and strong prospects, according to the 101-page report. Tucson and Albuquerque are at the bottom with yellow designations, or fair.

The report was highlighted at ULI New Mexicos annual trends conference held Thursday at the Embassy Suites. Keynote speaker Anita Kramer, vice president of the ULI Center for Capital Markets and Real Estate, kicked off the program with a presentation that provided an outlook on real estate investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets and other real estate issues throughout the U.S.

The report is important for several reasons, said Kramer. One, real estate is often an indicator of where job growth and new business is  and is heading. Secondly, out-of-state investors, developers and others use the annual analysis as source for new markets to enter.

The report is compiled through survey responses and interviews of more than 1,600 investors, developers, bank officials, home builders and land developers across the U.S., said Kramer.

In terms of strengths, respondents said the lower cost of living in Albuquerque is an advantage to the economy. On the challenges front, respondents said capital, while available, may be a little less accessible than during previous cycles to fund new commercial construction in the city.

Said Kramer: You need to do a better job of getting the word out. You have so much here to offer to business prospects.

Despite the low score, a panel of local real estate experts discussed how some of these trends will affect the Albuquerque area and initiatives underway to move the needle in coming years, especially development that will use existing commercial space or prompt new construction.

Drew Dolan, president of Titan Development, talked about a recent $200 million equity raise that will fund some of the companys Albuquerque projects. These include multi-family housing, senior living facilities and self-storage buildings. Titan is behind the $68 million Legacy @ Journal Center, a mixed-use development which is anchored by Cabelas.

Dolan called for the cities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe to forge stronger links in attracting development. Were more competitive as a region when we emphasize our respective strengths, he said.

Deborah Burns, who helped coordinate the recent US-China Business Matchmaking Summit, said the event gave New Mexicos business community an opportunity to connect with 160 visiting Chinese delegates. Coming out of the summit, we have over 100 business dialogues and six MOUs (memorandums of understanding), which may mean commercial real estate will enter the picture at some point. The matchmaking continues, said Burns. Were trying to bring deals together as we speak.

Several of the delegates from China are looking to tap into Albuquerques aviation expertise, she said. China, which lacks aviation schools, is planning to build 130 airports by 2025, and is desperate for trained pilots and other aviation personnel.
A possible ban on long haul trucks from Mexico under a renegotiated North American Free Trade agreement wont have much impact, according to a trade expert in New Mexico.

In reality, very few Mexican or American trucking companies have taken advantage of that long haul trucking right under NAFTA, said Jerry Pacheco, president of the Border Trade Alliance based in Santa Teresa.

Under NAFTA, trucks from the U.S., Canada and Mexico were supposed to be able carry cargo across North America but almost from the start, Mexico ran into opposition.

U.S. negotiators are now seeking to exclude or strictly limit long-haul trucks from Mexico, according to Bloomberg News, which cited unnamed sources who were not authorized to comment publicly.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has long opposed giving Mexican trucks a green light to travel throughout the U.S., saying that would cost U.S. jobs and pose a safety hazard.

Trucks from Mexico do cross the border, but most are limited to a 25-mile buffer zone where they transfer cargo to U.S. carriers or railroads.

After years of denying trucks access, the U.S. created a pilot program from 2011 to 2014 to allow select carriers to deliver merchandise anywhere in the country if they passed a pre-authorization safety audit and completed a compliance review.

The Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation evaluated the program and found the Mexican-owned trucks performed no worse than U.S. or Canadian motor carriers but said the small group of 15 trucking companies that participated in the pilot program was insufficient to project safety performance overall.

In 2015, the U.S. allowed a handful of licensed Mexican trucking companies to haul loads beyond the border without much fanfare.

Its like when you light a firecracker and you expect it to go boom and instead its poof, said Pacheco.

Even so trucking is among the contentious issues as trade representatives from the U.S., Mexico and Canada try to renegotiate NAFTA. The 5th round of talks is scheduled for next week November 17-21st in Mexico City.
WACO, Texas  A judge declared a mistrial Friday in a case involving a leader of the Bandidos biker gang after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked in the first trial stemming from the deadliest shootout between biker groups in U.S. history.

Jurors had deliberated for 14 hours in the trial of Christopher Jake Carrizal, the president of the Bandidos Dallas chapter. Carrizal had testified that a rival biker club, the Cossacks, provoked the May 17, 2015, brawl and gunfight at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco that left nine bikers dead.

The mistrial leaves unclear the prospects faced by other defendants charged in the shootout. Experts had been looking toward a verdict from the Carrizal trial as an indicator of how solid the governments cases against other leaders and dozens of members might be.

Local police arrested 177 bikers after the mayhem, and more than 150 people were eventually charged.

No retrial for Carrizal was immediately scheduled. Calls to the prosecutors office after State District Judge Matt Johnson declared the mistrial rang unanswered.

Carrizal was charged with directing the activities of a criminal street gang and two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity with the underlying offenses of murder and aggravated assault.

Testifying in his own behalf, Carrizal told the McLennan County jury that the Cossacks were behaving provocatively when Carrizals group arrived at the restaurant for a meeting, and a brawl quickly erupted.

Carrizal said a Cossack was trying to punch him through his safety helmet with brass knuckles when he heard gunshots. He said he tried to reach for the knife in his pocket but couldnt grasp it. As the fight continued and he was on the ground, he reached for a two-shot Derringer pistol in his back pocket and fired it at a Cossack. When he couldnt reload, he took cover behind a light pole and yelled for his father, who also was part of the brawl. He said he saw one member of his group lying dead and another bleeding from the head, so he crawled under a truck.

He finally saw two police officers helping his father, who was shot in the shoulder.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reported that in a note Thursday night, the jury foreman reported a juror identified as Mr. P told the other jurors he had prior experience with the Cossacks and would not change his mind because of it. That juror has ties to a McLennan County motorcycle shop, which he disclosed on his juror questionnaire in early October.

Biker gangs are a small but violent criminal force in the U.S., with some 44,000 members or associates of a handful of outlaw gangs, according to a 2015 FBI report. The Bandidos, founded in Texas, is among the largest of the criminal gangs, along with the Hells Angels and a couple of others.

The Cossacks were considered less violent until the Waco confrontation.

The start of any Waco trials was delayed by the enormous volume of evidence and several bikers attempts to have their cases dismissed.

Carrizals attorney, Casie Gotro, had complained before and during trial about delays in receiving evidence from prosecutors and law enforcement agencies that she was entitled to.

The issue prompted Gotro to object when the judge instructed the deadlocked jurors on Friday morning that another jury would hear the same evidence if he had to declare a mistrial.

She said the delays in the disclosure of evidence against her client created an absolute inability to use that evidence to prepare for trial.

I believe a second jury is going to hear a very different set of evidence, Gotro said.

___

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CHARLESTON -- The Eastern Illinois University geography department is taking part in an effort to shed light on their field, which those in the department consider woefully underserved.

Jay Gatrell, EIU provost and vice president for academic affairs and professor in the department, will be presenting a lecture titled, Urban Greening: Assessing Urban Change and Uneven Development using Proxy Data, at noon Monday in Room 3040 in the physical science building.

Gatrell said the lecture investigates how greenness varies by socioeconomics.

This coincides with Geography Awareness Week next week, a few days set aside to recognize geography and its importance. Christopher Laingen, an EIU geography professor, said a week like this is a step to address the disparity in geography knowledge in the country.

Unfortunately, geography is neither widely taught nor well-taught in our schools today, Laingen said. Illinois does not require geography to be taught in middle schools or high schools.

Laingen said this disparity follows students to college.

By the time students move on to college, geography is a foreign concept to them or, at best, courses where they think they might have to memorize world capitals or continents' longest rivers, he said. While that is geography, it's the equivalent of saying that all of mathematics is about knowing how to count from 0 to 9.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, about three-quarters of eighth-grade students were not proficient in geography in 2014.

Specifically, these students had not demonstrated solid competence in the subject, and the proficiency levels of eighth-grade students have shown no improvement since 1994, GAO reports.

Laingen said a week is not enough to pay attention to geography but it is a start.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Zambia has donated one hundred thousand sanitary pads to the Esther Lungu Foundation Trust (a brainchild of Her Excellency, The First Lady of Zambia - Madam Esther Lungu). The donation, which is part of AHFs one million pad initiative for Africa, happened at a ceremony hosted by Her Excellency at the State House in Lusaka yesterday.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005232/en/

First Lady of Zambia (Madam Esther Lungu) receives Sanitary pads from Dr. Mabvuto Kango (Country Program Manager - AHF Zambia) (Photo: Business Wire)

According to a UNESCO report, 1 in 10 girls in Sub-Saharan Africa misses school during their menstrual periods, which is about 20% of a given school year, and so many more drop out of school completely once they start menstruating due to lack of sanitary pads and menstrual health services.

These dire statistics spurred AHF to roll out its One Million-Pad Initiative at the just concluded International Day of the Girl Child commemoration (observed October 11th) in order to help keep girls in school and reduce their risk of contracting HIV.

At the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, we believe in giving every child every means necessary to live up to their greatest potential. Every child should be celebrated, and being a woman should never be treated as an impediment. Girls will shape the world of tomorrow and we all have the obligation to give them the confidence to succeed in building a better world, said Michael Weinstein, President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).

In his address, Dr. Mabvuto Kango, AHF Zambia Country Director, explained the reason for the donation  AHF decided to intervene for three reasons:

- Providing the girl child with basic needs such as sanitary pads reduces their chances of going to ask for such commodities from persons who could take advantage of them.

- It would help improve their performance in class; leading them to become educated and self-reliant.

- To support Zambias government new policy of providing sanitary pads to school girls.

This one hundred thousand (100,000) sanitary pads donation to the Esther Lungu Foundation, is in addition to the fifty thousand (50,000) we donated last month, and we trust that the foundation will use its vast network and ability to reach the vulnerable girls, especially those in hard-to-reach areas, he added.

Receiving the donation from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Her Excellency, Madam Esther Lungu expressed deep respect for AHFs work in the country over the past ten years.

I have noted with admiration the different work you are doing such as HIV Counselling and Testing, especially the door-to-door testing, inclusion of notable change agents such as our own BFlow in your prevention activities, and training of community volunteers. I am excited that some of your achievements recorded till date include treatment of over 65,585 clients on ART and HIV testing of over one million five hundred people, she stated.

She also commended AHFs response to address issues that affect the girl child globally, underscoring a similarity of vision with her foundations commitment to empower young women and girls.

The issue of sanitary towels as one of the barriers to girls completing their education and a key driver to HIV infection for this population is real. It is for this reason that the Esther Lungu Foundation Trust in its current and future deliverables, included the commitment to facilitate for the provision of sanitary towels for rural girls, she explained.

It is gratifying that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has risen to the challenge to partner with my organization in this program. Your generous support through the donation of one hundred thousand sanitary towels will go a long way towards the elimination of HIV transmission and also reduce girls' absenteeism from school, she enthused.

This year, AHF Zambia is commemorating its 10-year milestone of providing free HIV/AIDS services and lifesaving treatment in Zambia.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 819,000 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: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171110005232/en/

AHF ZAMBIA MEDIA CONTACT

Francis Kasonde | Prevention Program Manager

Francis.Kasonde@aidshealth.org

or

AHF AFRICA MEDIA CONTACT

Oluwakemi Gbadamosi | Senior Manager PR and Communications  Africa

Oluwakemi.Gbadamosi@aidshealth.org
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Instacart, the technology-driven, nationwide on-demand grocery delivery service, and Big Y World Class Market, one of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England, have expanded their same-day grocery delivery service to select stores in the Boston and Worcester area. The service allows Big Y customers to complete their grocery shopping online, and have their orders delivered to their doors in as little as an hour.

Big Y and Instacart first joined forces in May 2017 and are expanding the partnership to provide customers in the Boston and Worcester area with the great experience of shopping at their local Big Y World Class Market, while getting back something truly valuable: time.

"We know our customers are busy, and that any found time in their week can make a difference," said Michael D'Amour, Executive Vice President for Big Y. "By partnering with an industry leader like Instacart, we're able to provide our customers with the quality and service they've come to expect from Big Y, without leaving their house."

Big Y customers can now visit https://www.instacart.com/big-y or download the Instacart app to fill their virtual carts with all their favorite items -- from produce and meat to everyday essentials -- and have them delivered straight to their doorstep by Instacart. At checkout, customers can add their Silver Savings Club number to receive advertised discounts, then choose a delivery window within one hour, two hours, or up to seven days in advance. Instacart's shoppers will do the rest.

"Instacart's success hinges on our ability to offer customers same-day delivery from the stores they love within their own communities," said Andrew Nodes, Vice President, Retail Accounts for Instacart. "We are proud to partner with Big Y to give customers a convenient, time-saving option to get the products they have come to rely on from this beloved brand."

Instacart delivery starts at just $5.99 on orders of $35 or more. Instacart Express membership is also available, enabling unlimited, free same-day deliveries on orders over $35. After a free trial period, Instacart Express membership is just $14.99 a month or $149 a year.

About Big Y World Class Market

Big Y Foods, Inc. is one of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England. Big Y operates 77 locations throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut including 70 supermarkets, 39 pharmacies, Fresh Acres Market, Table & Vine Fine Wines and Liquors and 5 Big Y Express gas and convenience locations throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts with over 11,000 employees. Big Y has been named a 2015 Employer of Choice by the Employers Association of the Northeast. Founded in 1936 by brothers Paul and Gerald D'Amour, the store was named after an intersection in Chicopee, Massachusetts where two roads converge to form a "Y".

About Instacart

Instacart helps people cross grocery shopping off their to-do lists with just a few clicks. Customers use the Instacart website or app to fill their virtual shopping cart with items from their favorite, local stores and Instacart connects them with shoppers who hand pick the items and deliver them straight to their door. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Instacart has quickly scaled to over 150 markets nationwide and partnered with retailers across the United States, including popular national chains as well as local, regional grocers. By combining a personal touch with cutting-edge technology, Instacart offers customers a simple solution to save time and eat fresh food from the most trusted grocery brands. Instacart is the only grocery service that can meet today's on-demand lifestyle by delivering in as little as one hour. First delivery is free at www.instacart.com.

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SOURCE Instacart
BETHESDA, Md., Nov. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The law firm of Paley Rothman proudly announces that the Navy League of the United States has named Ryan Spiegel as its new National Judge Advocate. Spiegel was appointed November 6, 2017. His term will continue through the Navy League's June 2018 annual convention in Portland, Oregon.

The National Judge Advocate serves as the General Counsel of the Navy League, advises the organization and the National President, and serves on the Executive and Steering Committees and the Board of Directors.

Spiegel is a principal at Paley Rothman, one of the capital region's most respected law firms with 40 attorneys based in Bethesda, Md. He chairs the firm's Government Contracts practice and is a member of its Litigation, Corporate, and Science & Technology practice groups. He has received a number of awards and recognitions for his legal work, including being named a Rising Star by both Law360 and Super Lawyers. Spiegel also serves as an elected City Council member in Gaithersburg, Md. and on the boards of the Maryland Municipal League and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Alan Kaplan, Navy League National President, stated, "Ryan is a great addition to our team and we are thrilled to welcome him as our new National Judge Advocate."

"The values and mission of the Navy League are near and dear to my heart," Spiegel stated. "As we prepare to commemorate Veterans Day, I recall my grandfather who served valiantly during WWII. His service to the Navy and to our nation meant a great deal to him. I'm honored to be welcomed into this organization and look forward to serving the organization and advancing its mission."

The Navy League of the United States is a nonprofit civilian, educational and advocacy organization that supports America's sea services: the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and US-flag Merchant Marine.

Founded in 1972, Paley Rothman (http://www.paleyrothman.com) is committed to listening to its corporate and individual clients to understand needs and provide practical and cost-effective solutions. The attorneys provide a wide range of legal counsel and representation in diverse and demanding areas, including government contracts, employment law, tax, real estate, estate planning, litigation and a variety of other matters for clients nationally and throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

MEDIA CONTACT: Kristin Brunett

301-656-7603 | kbrunett@paleyrothman.com

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ryan-spiegel-named-national-judge-advocate-for-navy-league-of-the-united-states-300553953.html

SOURCE Paley Rothman
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 9, 2017

Congress released Nov. 9 an annual defense bill that calls for $705 million for Israels missile defense program, a tacit acknowledgment of the threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah.

The requested figure is included in compromise legislation between the House and Senate Armed Services committees, both of which had called for that level of funding in their respective defense bills. It represents a $558 million increase over the Donald Trump administrations request for fiscal year 2018, including $268.5 million for research and development and $290 million for procurement of the jointly developed, three-layered missile system that protects Israel from small projectiles, artillery and ballistic missiles.

The Israeli request, which must still be allocated through separate spending legislation, is part of a $700 billion authorization for the Pentagons activities around the world. A Senate Armed Services Committee aide told Al-Monitor that legislators wanted to give Israel additional protection from enhanced threats from regional actors, including low-grade rockets fired by Hamas and Iranian proxies in Syria and Lebanon, and a growing ballistic missile threat from Tehran.

Israel is arguably under the greatest threat of rockets and missiles in the world with the exception of South Korea and Japan, said Ian Williams, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

The $500 million boost, Williams said, is just kind of how it's played. The president's budget will be a certain number, and Congress' budget will come in and more than double it. Legislators added more than $1.5 billion to presidential requests for Israels missile defense between 2014 and 2016.

By law, Congress has a mandate to maintain Israels qualitative military edge over its Middle East neighbors, which this move could expand. With backing from the United States, Israel has recently reinforced its three layers of protection against incoming missiles. Last year, the United States and Israel inked a 10-year memorandum of understanding worth $38 billion  a more than 20% bump over the previous memorandum. Washington also pledged $500 million each year for Israels three-tiered missile defense scheme under the agreement.

Davids Sling, a joint US-Israeli development that can shoot down missiles that range up to 190 miles, is authorized to receive an additional $120 million under the new defense bill, according to a Senate summary. The bill also requests $92 million for the Iron Dome system, designed to intercept small projectiles and artillery, expanding it from 10 to 15 missile batteries. And the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 batteries that took down Syrian anti-aircraft missiles headed for Israeli fighter jets in March are also in line to get $120 million under the bill.

The money could be coming at a critical time for Israel, analysts say, as Israel could face shortages for interceptor missiles. The Iron Dome program, for instance, takes advantage of the fact that these rockets are very inaccurate, Williams said, shooting down only about 16% of small missiles headed for Israel since the rest land far from populated areas.

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Iran or Hezbollah's rockets will get more accurate, he added.

The move also comes just months after the establishment of new US military facilities in Israel that could signify a deepening commitment to bolstering Israels missile defenses.

Pentagon officials stressed that a September ribbon-cutting was not for a new American military base, but rather for new living facilities at an Israeli air base at Camp Bisla, in the south of the country. Still, it will give US troops serving there a more permanent foothold in the region as Israel faces continued security threats from incoming drones and ballistic missiles.

US soldiers at Camp Bisla are assigned to the US Army Europes 13th Missile Defense Battalion. First reactivated in Germany after a 19-year post-Cold War lapse in activity, that unit tracks intercontinental ballistic missiles using early warning and surveillance systems.

US European Command and the Israel Defense Forces also hold a joint military exercise every two years  most recently in 2016  designed to strengthen ballistic missile defenses against Israels foreign adversaries such as Iran. US officials did not respond to an Al-Monitor request for the number of US troops serving at the Israeli site.

The fact that [joint training] is being done proudly and publicly is an important signal of the US commitment to Israels security and common adversaries in the region, Daniel Shapiro, who served as US ambassador to Israel during the Barack Obama administration, told Al-Monitor.

The move, Shapiro added, signals that US commitment to missile defense is ongoing and deepening.
MATTOON -- Two Mattoon residents are assisting the Landmarks Illinois nonprofit organization with recording the location and condition of outdoor World War I memorials and monuments statewide.

The two residents, Steve Thompson and Carolyn Cloyd, are also helping spread the word about a new matching grant program that Landmarks Illinois is offering to provide monetary assistance to preserve these World War I monuments. Thompson and Cloyd are both members of the Coles County Historic Preservation Advisory Council.

Since Thompson started working on Landmarks Illinois' survey about 10 months ago, the historic preservation consultant said he has seen the list grow to include 225 monuments in 113 communities statewide so far. He said the majority of these monuments were put in place in the 1920s and 1930s, so many of them are showing a lot of wear and tear.

Thompson, who is an Army veteran, said he hopes that the Landmarks Illinois World War I Monument Preservation Grant Program matching grant program will provide an emphasis for the organizations that own these World War I monuments to take action on cleaning and restoring them.

"It all comes back to the veterans. I am in it because I want the veterans to be recognized and the monuments to veterans to be in the best shape possible for future generations to reflect on," Thompson said of the survey and grant program.

Landmarks Illinois, which advocates for the protection of historic and architecturally significant properties, launched the grant program on April 6 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I.

(The grant) program provides critical funding for aging historical markers that pay homage to local heroes who served in the Great War, Landmarks Illinois President and CEO Bonnie McDonald said in a press release at the time of the launch. Often called The Forgotten War, we cannot stand by and let these landmarks to our veterans go unnoticed."

Nonprofits and government agencies are encouraged to apply to the grant program to help fund their WWI monument restoration projects. Eligible scopes of work include monument/memorial cleaning, repointing and stabilization, replacement of missing elements, monument/memorial relocation or general repair work. The grant program is made possible with support from the Pritzker Military Foundation.

The grant program will consist of four rounds of grant funding through 2017 and 2018. Grant applications for the first round of funding were due May 15. McDonald said during a recent interview that grant applications for the current round will be due on Wednesday. She said the deadlines for the final two rounds will be May 15 and Aug. 15 in 2018.

Applications will be evaluated by Landmarks Illinois on the condition of the subject resource, the submitted scope of work and the ability of the applicant to execute the proposed project. Grants range from $500-$5,000. The grant size will be determined by the need of eligible application and will be awarded on a matching basis. A match may be a direct dollar amount or, using volunteer labor or services, equal the value of the grant.

WWI monuments included in the grant applications will be added to Landmarks Illinois ongoing survey of outdoor World War I monuments. Landmarks Illinois has been conducting the survey to better understand the volume of monuments and condition.

McDonald said the survey has shown that World War I monuments were put in place throughout Illinois, which demonstrates the high degree of respect that communities gave to the service of their local veterans. She said the monuments range in size from plaques and sculptures to large structures, including memorial bridges. She noted that Neoga's memorial is unique in that it involves trees planted alongside a park.

Additional information about the monument survey is available by emailing sgermann@landmarks.org or visiting www.Landmarks.org/ww1-monument-survey. More information about the grant program is available at http://www.landmarks.org/resources/financial-resources/landmarks-illinois-grants-landmarks-illinois/.
November 10, 2017

On Nov. 3, NASA published clear images taken by its satellites of the severe dust storm that hit Iraq recently. The climate changes sweeping Iraq are causing human casualties and economic damages. Hundreds of cases of suffocation were recorded. The Ministry of Health announced Oct. 30 that there were more than 4,200 cases of suffocation in most governorates, including 528 in Karbala. During the dust storm, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority canceled its flights, and Iranian flights to Baghdad and Najaf airports were also canceled. Ninevah province recorded 1,108 cases of suffocation in the camps for internally displaced persons.

The storms also affected the course of the battles between the Iraqi forces and the Islamic State (IS). On Oct. 31, the Iraqi forces were forced to postpone the campaign aimed to retrieve the city of Qaim, west of Anbar, from IS because of the lack of visibility caused by the dust storms.

While dust storms are occurring in neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Iran, "Iraq is one of the most affected countries by the storm, at the level of its environment, individuals health and economy," said Amer Habib of the Technical College Musayyib in Babil province and the director of a project on organic fertilizers in Babil. "This is due to the fact that Iraq is a barren land where vegetation is scarce. Human activities have swept away orchards and agricultural lands, which also led to the decrease of the rivers water levels and the lack of rainfall, which resulted in the drying up of huge areas of agricultural spaces."

In 2011, the World Meteorological Organization identified dust storms as a natural disaster. Several countries around the world have strengthened their defense strategies against this environmental threat with green belts of trees that are resistant to drought and harsh environments. The stakeholders, especially local governments in Iraq, have been following the same approach for years and have developed projects to help eliminate desertification.

Habib added, But these projects, mostly short term, have ended up as a fiasco because of the lack of interest and professional staff. He also stressed that "corruption, the lack of good planning and funding led to the failure of the sandstorm bumper projects.

Habib's talk about the failure of the projects was reinforced by the failure of the Green Belt Project in 2017 in Wasit province, which planted green areas in mostly sandy regions. However, the project has not been completed due to financial austerity.

Drought has drained the Green Belt Projects trees in Karbala, forcing the local government on Oct. 10 to abandon the project to other parties able to finance it and complete it.

Suhaila Abbas Al-Khikani, a member of the Babil Governorate Council and an official of the Agricultural Committee, told Al-Monitor, The government measures to combat the phenomenon of desertification are not enough, which is increasing the environmental threat of storms.

She added, "The establishment of a green belt has become a necessity that cannot be delayed, because it will be the only source of resistance to desertification coming mostly from the western border.

Khikani continued, "The region of the island across the border between Syria and Saudi Arabia was one of the most fertile areas in the region and had a huge economic return, but today it has become a desert."

The government is becoming more serious in its fight against dust storms. On May 21, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi discussed with Erik Solheim, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, the formation of a green belt within a regional program involving a number of countries, including Iraq. The United Nations had in fact launched in 2013 a project to establish a green belt along the land border between Iraq and Kuwait to reduce dust storms, provided that the project was funded through Kuwaiti compensations. The Ministry of Environment announced in 2015 its intention to set up green belts on the Iranian, Kuwaiti and Syrian borders.

Over the years, there have been many statements and proposals for projects to reduce dust storms. In 2012, Hassan al-Janabi, an expert on irrigation and the current minister of irrigation, proposed a project to establish a body or ministry for the National Green Belt along with a suitable route from northern to southern Iraq.

Modern technology has introduced new treatments for desertification, which the Ministry of Agriculture intends to follow, according to Hamid Nayef, the official spokesman of the Ministry of Agriculture. Nayef told Al-Monitor, "The ministry is cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as other countries. This was strengthened at the conference on combating desertification held in the Chinese capital Beijing on Sept. 12. All those who were interviewed by the ministry believe that the security situation will be an impediment to investment and funding in projects aimed to combat desertification.

Nayef said, "The new modern project is not only combating desertification through planting trees, but also by digging wells with modern technologies.

The creation of green belts throughout the country will not only reduce the quantity and degree of dust storms, but will also alter Iraq's extreme temperature, improve the environmental balance, provide wildlife with new opportunities for living and create thousands of job opportunities for unemployed youth.
November 10, 2017

The Weinstein effect is spreading. The American actresses who have gone public with their stories about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein over the past month undoubtedly inspired Israeli women to speak openly to the media about the men who harassed and assaulted them. There have been dozens of recent headlines about sexual harassment and assault in Israel. One common denominator among so many of them is that the women sharing their stories are well-known, influential figures at the top of their professions.

For the past few years, most of the stories that have come out about sexual assault have featured perpetrators in positions of power over their victims. Senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers were accused of assault, such as retired general and former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, Ofek Buchris and Liran Hajbi, and major political figures including former President Moshe Katsav, former ministers Haim Ramon and Silvan Shalom, Knesset member Yinon Magal and highly regarded actor Moshe Ivgy.

Each of the brave women who filed complaints showed immense courage by standing up to such wealthy and influential men, although most of them were identified in the media only by the first letter of their names. This last wave, however, is different. The women telling their stories occupy prominent public and professional positions, including top journalists and senior politicians.

Oshrat Kotler, a highly regarded senior anchor on Channel 10 News, admitted during a live broadcast on Nov. 2 that at the start of her career, she was propositioned by Alex Gilady, the president of Keshet Broadcasting, which operates Channel 12. Gilady is one of the most powerful people in the Israeli television industry. Kotlers account was chilling not only because of the identities of the people involved, but also because of Kotler's public persona as a strong, even combative woman. Nevertheless, like so many women who are targets of sexual harassment, she was afraid to tell her story for years. "It's too bad I wasn't brave enough 15 years ago. I would have spared a lot of women the misery," she said.

Kotler's confession had a snowball effect. Neri Livneh, a journalist with Haaretz, spoke out about a sexual assault that took place at Giladys home. The incident followed the same pattern, with the offer of a job on condition that she "spend time" with him. Livneh is famous for being a sharp and opinionated journalist. Nevertheless, it took her years to reveal her story. Gilady responded, "Neri's remarks are largely correct," but denied Kotler's allegations. He has decided to step down from Keshet temporarily.

A few hours later, veteran journalist Sylvie Keshet released a statement that former Justice Minister Yosef Lapid tried to rape her in London 50 years earlier, when he was still a journalist. Lapid, who died in 2008, is the father of Yair Lapid, the chair of Yesh Atid. The younger Lapid responded to the claims by saying, "It saddens and pains me.  I have no way of knowing if the story is true or not. I can't ask my father. If he were here, he would have something to say about it."

On Nov. 4, former Health Minister Yael German, from Lapid's own party, mustered the courage to admit that her gynecologist had sexually assaulted her. In German's case, too, some people find it hard to process the dissonance between her being such a strong and successful woman and having said nothing about being a victim of sexual assault until now.

The same is true of Dana Weiss, a political correspondent for Channel 2 News and one of Israel's top journalists. This week, she revealed that the belligerent radio host Gabi Gazit tried to kiss her against her will 15 years ago.

November has become a turning point in the fight against sexual harassment in Israel. These have been very formative days in which awareness of sexual harassment has gathered momentum to become a revolution. It all started with small steps 20 years ago, when the Knesset passed a law meant to prevent sexual harassment. Now the dam has burst, and what happened before can no longer continue.

When the law was passed in 1998 under pressure from women's rights groups, it was considered very progressive, even when compared to other countries. It was the first time that sexual harassment in the workplace was recognized as a serious social issue and a crime. Nevertheless, the law's strength was also its weakness. Many women who were sexually harassed were discouraged by the emotional costs of submitting a complaint to the police, so many serial sex offenders continued their behavior without interference.

For example, the case of Mordechai remained an open secret for years while none of the women he harassed or assaulted complained to the police. Many media outlets tried to investigate Mordechai, since it was widely known that he habitually harassed women under his command in the IDF and later as a politician. It was only in 2000, when a clerk at the Ministry of Transportation complained to the police about an indecent act, that the story blew wide open. He was eventually convicted of two counts of sexual misconduct.

After the breakthrough legislation of 1998, the social network revolution was the next major turning point in the struggle against sexual harassment and assault. Social media gave women the opportunity to take action in the public space without needing to go through the exhausting and often painful process of filing a complaint with the police or giving testimony in court. Magal resigned from the Knesset on Nov. 2, 2015, after a female journalist he worked with at Walla wrote a Facebook post about him. This new, open atmosphere also led to the resignation of Shalom and forced Ivgy to step out of the public eye.

In the long struggle against sexual assault, we are now witnessing the final collapse of the old order. Women are being freed from having to not only endure these kinds of attacks but also to remain quiet about them. That is a real victory.
November 10, 2017

Meretz member Issawi Frej is expected to be appointed to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the next few days. He will replace Meretz Chair Zehava Gal-On, who resigned from the Knesset Oct. 22. Frej will be the third Arab Knesset member to serve on the prestigious committee. He is preceded by Taleb al-Sana of the Arab Democratic Party (Taal), who served in 2006, and Hashem Mahameed of the United Arab List (Ra'am), who served during the 15th Knesset, 1999-2003.

When Sana's appointment was approved in April 2006, he said, "Until now, we've been disqualified for racist reasons. This time, they ran out of excuses. It's important for them to hear other opinions, and we have [something] to say on this important committee." Sana lasted only a few weeks on the committee, resigning after the committee's chairman, Minister Yuval Steinitz, arranged to exclude him from discussions on sensitive topics.

"They turned the committee's discussions around so that they focused on procedural issues, while the main discussions were moved to subcommittees, where I was not a member," Sana told Al-Monitor. "There was no content involved with my membership, and I realized that it was ineffective."

Sana said that the committee cast aspersions on his loyalty to Israel, and he felt like a pariah, until he decided to resign. Perhaps it was because of this that after the 2015 elections, Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh requested positions for his party on other committees instead, even though his party was the third largest in the Knesset.

"We want to be part of every committee and all the official institutions of the state, except for three ministries: defense, foreign affairs, and immigration and absorption," Odeh said at the time. "We want the occupation to end, and we want to see a Palestinian state established alongside the State of Israel. We cannot be part of the Ministry of Defense as long as the occupation continues."

Frej is taking a different position. "I really feel like I am part of Israeli society," he told Al-Monitor. "I want a proper society and state in which I have a place, so it is important to me to be a member of this committee. Not because I want to be defiant, but because I want to have an impact."

He said that because of his attitude, a short membership like Sana's will not be repeated in his case. He explained, "If they move some of the sensitive discussions to the subcommittees, I'll just smile and carry on."

Nevertheless, Frej is not taking the situation lightly, caught as he is between a rock and a hard place  between an Arab society that potentially sees him as collaborating with the Israeli security establishment sustaining the occupation and a Jewish society that might consider him a fifth columnist.

"I come from the heart of Arab society," Frej said. "I'm a resident of Kafr Qasim, a Muslim and an Arab. It's not easy to have them saying about me, 'Look at him! A member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee! How dare he? How can he take part in their discussions?' But given that I was elected to the Knesset, I look at it differently, from the perspective of a desire to bring about change and contribute to the State of Israel, which I consider to be my country. When I participate on panels, Arabs ask me how I can partner with a Zionist party [Meretz], and when I go to the Jewish side, they ask me about how Zionist I am. You have to walk a tightrope, like an aerial artist, so as not to anger your own people and not to anger your partners."

Frej is upset about the criticism surrounding his appointment simply because he is an Arab. "The loyalty of every [Israeli] Arab citizen is tested from the day he is born, and that infuriates me," he said. "Those people who are surprised whenever an Arab is appointed ambassador or consul or minister are the same people who want to separate Arabs and Jews and prevent the Arabs from having any influence. I'm allowed to support the left, even if I am an Arab. I believe that the fact that I am different or that I support the left does not signify hostility. Not every leftist is hostile, and of course, not every Arab is hostile, just like all of Israel is not [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu."

On the day Frej spoke with Al-Monitor, Yisrael Hayom ran a feature headline criticizing the appointment of Malakuba Nassar as the head of information in the Arab sector for the National Road Safety Authority, which is under the Transportation Ministry. "Senior government official Is an anti-Israel activist," blared the headline. The paper had concluded that Nassar was an anti-Israel activist based on a Facebook post she wrote about the Nakba and her participation in a march to commemorate it.

"Arab loyalty to Israel should not be doubted simply because they think differently from the Israeli right and do not want to forget their past," said Frej. "Israeli society must absorb and integrate the Arabs instead of pushing them out."

As a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Frej plans to concentrate on issues that are not necessarily the major focus of the other members. "It is important for me that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] maintain the highest level of ethical behavior and civil rights in the West Bank and everywhere else," he explained.

There is still one obstacle standing in the way of Frej's appointment. The Zionist Camp claims that the committee seat belongs to them. Frej does not believe that this will prove to be a problem, because the center-left Zionist Camp would not block the appointment of an Arab member of the Knesset to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. On the other hand, Frej could be wrong given recent statements against a coalition with the Joint List by Zionist Camp leader Avi Gabbay and his attempts to appeal to the right.
November 6, 2017

Some Jordanians want their country to stop exporting olives to Israel, citing political and economic reasons. Jordan officially opposes Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, and many of its citizens are of Palestinian origin. Those protesting olive exports say the practice is a form of normalization and benefits Israel, which resells the produce under Israeli brand names.

Manaf Majali, a Jordanian dentist and member of the Jordanian Anti-Normalization Committee, told Al-Monitor that exporting olives to Israel goes against Jordan's national interests.

"This is a crime against Jordan and Palestine, and a gift to Israel," Majali said. In addition to the political aspect, exporting raw olives hurts the local economy, as Jordanians would otherwise be hired to run local presses to process the fruit.

Rand Haddadin, spokesman for the Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture, rejected the committee's claims, saying Jordan exports very little of its olive production to Israel.

Last year, we produced 180,000 tons of olives and this year, we are expecting to reach [252,000 tons]," he told Al-Monitor. "The amount exported to Israel last year was less than 3,000 tons and this year the amount will be about the same."

Hneifat estimated in September that of this year's olive production, 201,000 tons will be pressed to make 36,000 tons of oil. About 50,000 tons will be pickled, he said.

Jordan's olive harvest runs from October through November and most of the produce is consumed locally. A 16-kilo (35.2-pound) container of olive oil is expected to sell for 80 Jordanian dinars ($112) this season. Shoppers told Al-Monitor that a kilo (2.2 pounds) of olives is selling for 10 dinars ($14) in the farmers markets.

Abdel Rahman Ghaith, a board member of the Jordan Exporters and Producers Association for Fruit and Vegetables, told Al-Monitor that exports do affect the local economy. "While olive exports to Israel are about 3% to 5% of the total production, we believe they have had a negative effect on prices," he said, adding that most of the olives exported to Israel are for table use. He insists that if fewer table olives are available in Jordan, their price will rise there.

The government, however, has said Jordan produces plenty of olives to satisfy local demand and exports to Israel.

Ghaith noted that while Jordan does have a peace treaty with Israel, he is personally opposed to the sale of olives to the country. According to Ghaith, some of those sales are arranged by Palestinian-Israelis who work with Jordanian farmers and Israeli companies. "They come to the Jordanian farmers long before the harvest and offer to pay a deposit in advance. This is very tempting to farmers who are in need of the cash."

Haddadin told Al-Monitor that the ministry will not hinder olive sales to Israel, saying, "In general, we do not put any restrictions on the exports of agricultural products. We actually try to encourage it because it is good for the farmers and for the national economy. We will not make an exception of the sale of olives to Israel."

Jordan has about 20 million olive trees. According to the Jordanian National Center For Agricultural Research and Extension, 36% of Jordan's agricultural land is used to cultivate olive trees. Hneifat said olives provide a source of income for 20% of Jordanian. About 80,000 Jordanian families benefit from the annual olive harvest and olive products generate a total annual income of about $145 million.

Israeli daily Hamodia reported Oct. 27 that Israel has decided to increase the amount of olive oil it imports without taxes or other fees by as much as 2,000 tons over three years, bringing its total duty-free olive imports to about 35% of Israel's total olive oil consumption each year, which is estimated at roughly 20,000 tons. Israeli Economy and Industry Minister Eli Cohen hailed the decision, saying it is expected to reduce the price consumers pay for olive oil. Israel's usual duty on imported olive oil is roughly a third of its market price.
November 10, 2017

TEHRAN, Iran  The unprecedented and curious resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri while he was in the Saudi capital Riyadh has become the center of speculations regarding the possible impacts on the Iranian-Saudi struggle over influence in the region. Its not a secret that the whole story is a piece of a bigger puzzle. Hariri, Saudi Arabias close Lebanese ally, headed a coalition government that has Hezbollah, Irans Lebanese partner, in it. This coalition came to life Dec. 18, 2016, and the process was seen then as an outcome to an unwritten agreement between the two main regional powers to keep Lebanon away from the regions turmoil.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are fighting proxy political and military wars in several areas around the Middle East. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has so far failed to defeat Irans allies, Ansar Allah, known also as the Houthis, despite 2 years of daily bombing that has left thousands of people dead. Riyadh is backing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in his attempt to retake power, yet the main objectives of this effort were hurdled due to the differences among the coalition because of the fierce resistance Tehrans allies are showing. On Nov. 4, the Houthis targeted an airport in Saudi Arabias capital with a ballistic missile. According to Saudi Ministry of Defense, the missile was intercepted.

This prompted Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to accuse Iran of direct military aggression by supplying missiles to the Houthis. The involvement of the Iranian regime in supplying its Houthi militias with missiles is considered a direct military aggression by the Iranian regime, Mohammed said on Nov. 7. This came after Saudi Gulf Affairs Minister Thamer al-Sabhan threatened that Lebanon's government would "be dealt with as a government declaring war on Saudi Arabia" because of what he described as "acts of aggression" committed by Hezbollah. This wasnt the first warning.

On Oct. 30, Sabhan promised the Lebanese that the coming developments will definitely be astonishing. He added, It is not strange for the terrorist militia party to declare and take part in the war against the kingdom at the instructions of the masters of global terrorism.  But whats strange is the silence of the government and people over this! This was a clear indication that Riyadh was dismayed with the Lebanese government, and specifically with Hariri for not standing firm to Hezbollah. This, however, wasnt the first indication Saudi Arabia was planning to punish the group as part of a wider strategy to confront Iran and its allies. The Saudi move came in accordance with US measures in this regard, mainly US President Donald Trumps Iran strategy that was announced on Oct. 15 and warnings in Washington of a potential threat by Hezbollah to the US homeland. On Oct. 8, Sabhan called for an international coalition to be formed against Hezbollah. He wrote on his Twitter account, US sanctions against the terrorist militia in Lebanon would be good, but the solution is to form a strict international coalition to confront it and those who work with it, in order to achieve regional security and peace.

An international coalition against Hezbollah means a war, and a war on Hezbollah while its inside the Lebanese government means a war on Lebanon.

An international coalition against Hezbollah means a war, and a war on Hezbollah while its inside the Lebanese government means a war on Lebanon, a Lebanese official source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He added, Therefore, Saudi Arabia is pushing to get Hezbollah outside the government at any price to be able to initiate such a move. According to the official source, The Saudi-Iranian standoff is threatening the stability of the country, but theres no chance that we distance our country from this struggle. If its not a war, it might be harsh economic measures, maybe similar to the ones that were taken against Qatar.

On Nov. 9, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE called on their nationals in Lebanon to leave the country. According to Saudi Arabias national news agency, the kingdom asked Saudis who intend to visit Lebanon from any destination not to do that. Bahrain reminded its nationals of its previous warning to leave Lebanon. On Nov. 10, Saudi charge daffaires Walid al-Bukhari visited Lebanese President Michel Aoun to discuss the issue of Hariris resignation. According to Lebanese media, Bukhari told the Lebanese president that Hariri is a Saudi national and Lebanons caretaker prime minister. This came after Hariris Future Movement convened Nov. 9 and stressed the necessity that Hariri should return. Lebanese Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk, when asked whether Hariris brother Bahaa could replace him, told reporters, We are not a flock of sheep.  In Lebanon, politics is governed through elections and not by pledging allegiances, in what was seen as a rare message of dismay to Saudi Arabia.

Given that Hariris resignation came on the same day several Saudi princes and former officials were arrested, people tried to link both events. In this regard, a Saudi diplomat who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said, All thats taking place is normal. The Saudi political rhetoric toward Lebanon has been clearly changing during the last month. According to the diplomat, All the analyses linking the resignation to the corruption file are baseless.

Hariris resignation came only 72 hours after meeting Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Irans supreme leader, in Beirut on Nov. 1. Hariri flew back to Riyadh on Nov. 3, and on Nov. 4 he was reading his resignation on Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya channel. He clearly blamed Iran and Hezbollah for his decision to step down, vowing that Lebanon would rise as it had done in the past and cut off the hands that wickedly extend into it.

To Iran the whole scene is part of an adventure thats been going on in Saudi Arabia since the war on Yemen, a diplomatic source told Al-Monitor. The Iranian diplomat refrained from giving any further comments. In a country where dozens of stances are given on a daily basis by politicians, military commanders and officials, it was strange that only a few commented on this crisis. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded firmly during the Cabinet meeting on Nov. 8 to Prince Mohammed's threats: You know the might and position of the Islamic Republic. People more powerful than you have been unable to do anything against the Iranian people. Iran is clearly taking the Saudi threats seriously, yet not independent from the US and Israeli threats.

Now that the scene has become ready for the next step in Lebanon, the Saudis continue to make threats, the Iranians continue to anticipate the coming action and the Lebanese understand very well that they are once again in the middle of a storm that is certainly going to shake the whole region.
November 10, 2017

Thousands of Syrian refugees residing in several municipalities across Lebanon are under threat by eviction campaigns that have ramped up in recent weeks. Aid workers from several humanitarian organizations say that reports of refugee evictions have increased in a number of predominantly Christian areas.

Nowhere is the issue more evident than in Haddath, where up to 6,000 individuals  including 1,800 children  could be at risk of expulsion, Allison Zelkowitz, the country director of Save the Children Lebanon, told Al-Monitor. Throughout the municipality, local police are conducting door-to-door investigations, profiling individuals and issuing eviction notices to Syrian refugees.

Haddaths mayor, George Aoun, contends that his administration is expelling displaced Syrians on the basis of illegal employment, unregistered rental arrangements or the lack of residency permits. I have the labor law and we are implementing it word by word, Aoun announced at a press conference Oct. 26, referring to a January decree from the Ministry of Labor.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, municipal council member George Haddad said, Refugees are asked to leave  each one at a specific time. In some cases certain refugees were asked to leave a year ago, while others who are now being identified are given 15 days to leave.

Mahmoud Youssef, a Syrian who has lived in Haddath for eight years, provides for his wife and daughter through his work at a grocery store. Of course [evictions] are escalating in the last two weeks, Youssef told Al-Monitor. "Theyre kicking lots of people out and everyone who is working in Haddath  even the concierges  they are evicting them.

According to Youssef, the municipal police told him and his family to vacate the area in spite of his sponsorship agreement with his employer. Subsequently, Youssef began searching for another home but was unable to find an alternative before the police returned a week later.

So they said, Why didnt you leave? You have to pack your stuff and take your family and leave now. And they started yelling, You have to leave, you have to pack now. We dont care [if you didnt find a house] were going to take your stuff and throw it outside, and this kind of stuff. He [police officer] almost hit me. Following the incident, Youssefs wife and child managed to move to another area of the city.

Refugees who do not live in Haddath have also been issued evacuation notices. Hassan Tillarni, who came to Haddath four years ago, works at a local restaurant. They [police] came for me twice here and the last time they took me with them and they told me I had to leave. They made me sign an agreement that I will leave, he told Al-Monitor, showing a security camera video of police escorting him out.

They came twice or three times and the [restaurant] owner told them that he was trying to find Lebanese [to work for him], but that he has not found any Lebanese who want to do this job. So he will close the restaurant for one month, Tillarni said.

In practice, the municipality may be attempting to evict all Syrians from the area, regardless of legal status. Ahmad al-Obeid, 16, came to Lebanon six months ago, after fleeing war in Syrias Deir ez-Zor. He told Al-Monitor that the municipal police came to his home and ordered him and his relatives out on short notice without asking if he was working or inquiring about his residency papers. They came here and they told us we have to leave in two days.

The Lebanese Constitution very ambiguously grants municipalities power to "protect" the areas under their jurisdiction. Some municipalities have tried to clear their areas of all Syrians on the basis of their ethnicity alone, alleging the implementation of the constitution, and the central government hasnt intervened to stop them.

Furthermore, evictions were announced in the Mount Lebanon municipalities of Mansouriyeh, Kahaleh and Joun, according to the United Nations refugee agency's communications officer, Lisa Abou Khaled. Also, the village of Bcharre posted a notice Oct. 1 stating that the municipality will deploy police to expel Syrian refugees as of Nov. 15, citing fears of demographic shifts.

We havent been able to triangulate all the information, but we know so far that it could be Haddath, Bcharre, Mansourieh, Hazmiyeh, Baabda. So it [affected area] is quite larger than just Haddath, George Ghali, the programs manager at ALEF, a Lebanese human rights organization that monitors the protection of Syrian refugees, told Al-Monitor.

The pace of evictions has stepped up notably in 2017 amid calls from Lebanese officials for the countrys 1.5 million refugees to return to Syria. In early April, the army told up to 11,000 displaced Syrians that they had five days to leave the area surrounding the Rayak air base. Then, the mass relocation of refugees was orchestrated by the municipality of Miziara early last month. The expulsion came in response to the rape and murder of a 20-year-old Lebanese woman by a Syrian concierge. Following the event, Haddath increased its evictions and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil visited the suburb  considered a bastion of electoral support for his political party, the Free Patriotic Movement  and praised the municipalitys efforts.

As Haddath began to implement evictions, the minister of interior and municipalities issued a statement declaring that his office was not affiliated with the initiative. The statement, however, stopped short of calling for the cessation of eviction activities. Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Mouin Merhebi also denounced the policy and the spread of a racist spirit, yet no further actions have been taken by the national government to curb expulsions.

What happened in Miziara actually accelerated the process [of evictions] because the government did nothing to prevent the evictions given the sensitivity of the situation that could have escalated to a public uproar against Syrian refugees. The municipality just put all the Syrians in trucks and evicted them from the village. So when other municipal leaders saw this happen with nobody flinching they were emboldened to follow suit. I dont think stakeholders will intervene as aggressively as they used to in the past because of the current [parliamentary] election season, Ghali said, adding, This years new development to the recurrent eviction orders is that municipalities are no longer deterred.

Correction: Nov. 16, 2017. An earlier version of this article said evictions had been conducted in Mansouriyeh, Kahaleh and Joun. In fact, evictions have only been announced in these municipalities.
November 8, 2017

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants to resurrect an old deal it made with Israel, but the pact is no more popular with Hamas today than it was 12 years ago.

As part of the recent Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah/PA in the West Bank, the PA took over administration of the Gaza border crossings on Nov. 1. The PA insists on reviving the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), which sets restrictions on the use of Gaza Strip crossings. Hamas roundly rejects the idea.

The AMA, which the European Commission supported, covered all Gaza Strip border crossings, including the Rafah crossing into Egypt, but was suspended in June 2007 immediately after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and expelled the PAs security officers. As a result, the commission withdrew and Israel announced that the AMA was no longer in effect.

The PA says the AMA is needed now to guarantee security at the crossing. Hamas says the pact unnecessarily invites Israel and the European Commission to interfere in Palestinian concerns and will impede individuals' movements through the crossing.

Mustafa al-Sawwaf, a political analyst and former editor of the local Felesteen newspaper, believes the PAs quest to revive the AMA is a bid to flirt with Israel and demonstrate that the PA is committed to the agreements signed between them. He told Al-Monitor that the PAs insistence on cooperating with Israel is a betrayal and was labeled a crime under the failed 2011 reconciliation agreement.

This is a Palestinian-Egyptian crossing, and Israel has nothing to do with it. So why is the PA insisting on the AMA? Sawwaf asked.

Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the PA's Civil Affairs Authority, said in an Oct. 31 press statement that the PA will meet all the requirements to open the Rafah crossing, in accordance with the AMA, in mid-November.

Well-informed Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Hamas and other factions are developing suggestions for how to operate the crossing without the need for the AMA. This will be discussed in dialogue sessions to be held in Cairo on Nov. 21.

Palestinians in Gaza can only hope the factions can persuade the PA to change its mind during those sessions. The AMA was used to prevent many Palestinian faction members from traveling through the Rafah crossing in 2005 and 2006.

Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of Fatahs Central Committee, told Sawt Palestine radio Nov. 1, All required arrangements have been made on the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, and the European police will be present in accordance with the 2005 AMA. The presidential guard will be deployed along the border with Egypt and will ensure the security of the crossing.

A delegation from the European Commission visited the Rafah crossing Oct. 25 at the request of Kenneth Deane, head of the EUs security commissions. Deane visited Israel and the Palestinian territories and met officials from both sides to discuss the crossing's future.

Nazmi Muhanna, the PA's director general for border crossings, told Al-Monitor the PA would not mind if the EU Commission returned to work at the crossing.

Shadi Othman, a spokesman for the Office of the European Union Representative in the Palestinian Territories, confirmed to Al-Monitor the EU Commission is discussing possible AMA implementation with the PA, Egypt and Israel, but so far no AMA signatory party has submitted a formal request for the commission to return to the Rafah crossing.

Israel's involvement is repeatedly cited as the deal-breaker to the AMA. Kayed al-Ghul, a member of the political bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al-Monitor, The AMA must be suspended once and for all, especially since it restricts the Palestinians movement and reflects a direct Israeli presence at the crossing. The AMA confers to Israel the power to decide who gets to enter and leave Gaza.

The AMA states, The PA will notify the Israeli government 48 hours in advance of the crossing of a person in the excepted categories  diplomats, foreign investors, foreign representatives of recognized international organizations, and humanitarian cases.

Ghul added, The presence of the European Commission at the crossing aimed to ensure Israel's control of the movement of individuals. The computers and cameras that are inside the crossing are operated by Palestinians and Europeans and electronically linked to the Israeli armys computers, enabling it to directly see everything that goes on at the crossing.

Ghul pointed out that breaking free of the AMA is necessary because the Rafah crossing is located at the Palestinian-Egyptian borders, so Israel has nothing to do with it.

In the same vein, Yahya Moussa, a Hamas leader and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Al-Monitor the PLC refuses to resume use of the AMA since the agreement is devoted to what he called Israeli dominance and guardianship of the crossing.

In the last 10 years, the crossing would operate intermittently under the Palestinian-Egyptian administration without ever resorting to the AMA. This is why we find the PAs insistence to adopt the AMA surprising because it only lasted for a year and can only be renewed with the consent of both parties of the agreement," Moussa said.

The presence of the European Commission at the crossing favors Israel, allowing it to control who gets to pass through the crossing and who does not, he said: In the past, Israel would instruct the commission to withdraw [from the site] whenever it felt like it and close the crossing."
Photos of a Samsung phone said to be the SM-W2018 have now surfaced online. The photos come from @MMDDJ_ on Twiiter and as is clearly evident from the images, this is a flip phone. What is further adding to the likelihood of this being the SM-W2018 is that it does display the model number of the device when booting up (as shown in the first image below). Of course, Samsung is no stranger to flip phones, as in spite of what is considered to be a general decline in the appeal of the form factor, the company has continued releasing new models aimed at specific regions. Most recently came the Samsung SM-G9298 which was announced in August of this year and before that, the SM-W2017 which was announced back in November of 2016 and which this latest model is considered to be the follow-on device to.

Which is where things get more interested as the SM-W2017 was designed to be an ultra-premium device. In addition to sporting a flip phone form factor, the SM-W2017 also came with a heightened build quality and also a spec list to rival most current (at the time) flagship smartphones. Which is exactly what is being suggested with this follow-on device. As back in July of this year a report came through suggesting the SM-W2018 may come with another set of specs to rival the current crop of flagship smartphones. For example, the suggestion is the SM-W2018 will feature 6GB RAM, 64GB storage, and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835. A spec combination which can be found on most 2017 flagship devices.

Irrespective of its premium design, build quality, and specs, as has been the case with previous flip phones from Samsung, all indications point to this new one also being a phone which will be limited in its availability. Namely, it is unlikely to make it to markets outside of China. More pertinent to most buyers though, is that like the previous version it is is expected that the SM-W2018 will arrive with a very high price attached. One which greatly eclipses the likes of the Galaxy Note 8, the Pixel 2 XL, or the iPhone X for that matter.
Earlier this week HTCs mobile business reported its unaudited revenue for the month of October 2017, and unfortunately, despite its efforts surrounding the HTC U11 flagship, it appears that the company continues to lose ground as revenues decline on a monthly and yearly basis. HTCs entire revenue from January to October 2017 topped NT$ 52.44 billion ($1.75 billion) representing an 18.18 percent decrease compared to the same period of time a year ago, and throughout October 2017 alone HTCs revenue was down 6.86 percent compared to the previous month, amounting to NT$ 6.06 billion ($200 million) down from NT$ 6.51 billion ($215 million).

In addition, compared to the NT$ 8.1 billion ($268 million) in revenues registered in October 2016, HTC experienced a 25.79 percent year-over-year decline. This is despite the fact that this years flagship phone  the HTC U11  was reportedly securing better sales than the previous premium smartphone models including the HTC 10 and HTC One M9. Nevertheless, the company hasnt given up on the smartphone market segment and it just recently unveiled two new models based on the U11, namely the HTC U11 Plus and U11 Life. These products which are set to hit the shelves before the end of the year will hopefully leave a positive mark on the companys revenue in the coming months, however its worth noting that as yet, HTC doesnt seem to have any plans on bringing the U11 Plus model into the United States, which in turn could hurt the flagships sales figures in the longer run.

HTC has been battling with declining revenues for years now despite its efforts to create unique features and experiences that would set its products apart from most of its rivals. In August 2017 the companys consolidated revenues have hit a 13-year low, and shortly after, new reports of Google possibly acquiring HTCs smartphone business re-emerged. This hasnt entirely come to pass, but earlier in September Google did acquire part of HTCs smartphone team along with non-exclusive intellectual property rights for the sum of $1.1 billion. Its not entirely clear how the Taiwanese tech company will move forward beyond the release of the HTC U11 Plus and U11 Life, but hopefully, these two devices will contribute to a more positive financial outcome in early 2018.
CHARLESTON -- Eastern Illinois University ROTC Cadet Joseph Winkler of Paris received The Legion of Valor Bronze Cross for Achievement, one of the highest honors a cadet can achieve, during the Veterans Day ceremony Friday morning on campus.

Eastern President David Glassman presented the award, which was a surprise to Winkler, to this cadet during the annual ceremony in the Old Main atrium. Winkler, who was already helping lead the ceremony, received a standing ovation.

"Thank you for the wonderful support. I had no clue," said Winkler, who was visibly moved by the surprise award.

Glassman read Winkler's biography as part of the award presentation. Winkler graduated from Paris High School in 2012 and then joined the Illinois National Guard. He continues to serve in the 1544th Transportation Company in Paris.

The cadet joined Eastern's ROTC program in fall 2014. He conducted a Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency mission in the Philippines in summer 2016. He graduated from Air Assault School at Fort Benning, Ga.; completed Advanced Camp at Fort Knox, Ky., in the top 15 percent of his group; and attended cadet troop leader training at Fort Bragg, N.C., in summer 2017.

Winkler served as cadet battalion command sergeant major in his junior year and is now the cadet battalion commander. He will commission in May as a National Guard transportation officer. He has been awarded the National Defense Transportation Award and was recently selected as a cadet marshal for the 2018 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

He is a senior majoring in sociology at EIU and plans to pursue his masters in clinical psychology and counseling there.

"In all sincerity, congratulations on this momentous accomplishment. You make us very, very proud," Glassman said.

Eastern reported that the criteria for the award of the Bronze Cross for Achievement has been developed by The Legion of Valor in conjunction with officials of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Administration of the program is conducted by the services with the support of The Legion of Valor. EIU reported that due to rigid standards and screening, only 80 Bronze Crosses are being awarded in the nation this year.

Friday's ceremony also include a performance of the national anthem by the Unity Gospel Choir, prayers by the Rev. Matthew Thomas, remarks by EIU student veteran Adam Griffy, three volleys by EIU ROTC cadets, and a performance of taps by Benjamin West. Glassman, Griffy and Shannon Bell placed a wreath at the veterans memorials in front of Old Main.

Third-graders from teacher Suzie Bosler's class at Carl Sandburg Elementary School attended the ceremony and shook hands with ROTC cadets and veterans afterward.

Griffy, who served as a Navy Corpsman in Iraq, said during the ceremony that when he is asked what Veterans Day means to him, he thinks of "sacrifice" and "support." Griffy said he thinks every day about the sacrifices made by his brothers at arms and other service members, and of the sacrifices made by their families. He said knowing that the community stands with service members makes a significant impact on them.

"Remember their sacrifices, remember their service, remember that you are an American and remember, of course, that you are always free," Griffy said.
OnePlus is giving away ten units of its upcoming OnePlus 5T Android flagship to fans interested in reviewing its latest device, the Chinese phone maker announced earlier this week. The move is part of the latest iteration of The Lab, an online workshop targeted at OnePlus fans from all corners of the globe. The Shenzhen, Guangdong-based original equipment manufacturer said its looking for the ten savviest applicants willing to review the OnePlus 5T and pledging to provide its picks with the handset in exchange for an honest write-up on its capabilities and other characteristics. As was the case in previous years, the main point of The Lab is to serve as a platform for OnePlus to gather user feedback on its latest devices, providing the company with a direct method of communication with its biggest loyalists.

The reviews written as part of The Lab program will be published on the companys official forums and discussed with other members of the community, the OEM said. Submissions are open until the day before the handset is set to launch, with users having until 10:00 PM EDT on November 15th to apply. Anyone interested in becoming a member of the companys digital workshop and get a chance to receive the OnePlus 5T free of charge should refer to the banner below, fill out a short form, and hope OnePlus responds. Users picked to participate in the program will have a deadline for their review and should honor it, less they want to return the device beforehand and provide someone else with the opportunity to write their impressions of the Android flagship, the company said.

The successor to the OnePlus 5 will be officially announced in New York City on November 16th but wont have a global release. Instead, its set to become commercially available in stages, with North America and Europe being the first markets to receive it on November 21st. OnePlus is also planning a flash sale in India on the same date, with the smartphones general availability in the South Asian country being scheduled for November 28th. The OnePlus 5T should be available for purchase in most parts of the world by December 1st, which is when it will start retailing in China.
Project Loon has successfully connected at least 100,000 individuals in the island of Puerto Rico to the internet, according to a tweet made by X, Alphabets moonshot laboratory. The project has collaborated with US carriers AT&T and T-Mobile to quickly rebuild the cellular networks and provide basic communication and internet service to the companies customers. After the FCC approved Googles application to fly the balloons in early October, it launched its balloons in Nevada and navigated them towards Puerto Rico. To ensure that the balloons will stay on the island, the search giant stated that it is using machine learning-based algorithms. Google and its carrier partners have already pushed a separate update that people should install on their devices in order for them to connect to Band 8, the frequency that the search giants balloons use.

Puerto Rico is home to around 3.5 million residents, which means that many more people are still unable to use the internet or call their loved ones. Around 44 percent of all base stations in the island is inactive and In four counties, at least 80 percent of the cell sites are still down. A similar number of counties note that less than 20 percent of the base stations are inactive. In other areas, carriers are deploying cells-on-light-trucks, cells-on-wheels, and portable generators to restore their services to their subscribers.

Aside from providing the necessary infrastructure to restore and maintain cellular connectivity in disaster-stricken areas, Project Loon may start renting its facilities to carriers in order to bring internet connectivity to remote areas soon. For example, Google has inked a joint venture deal with the Sri Lankan government and local service operators to extend the local carriers coverage to include remote areas in the country. Moreover, the search giant has signed partnerships with carriers to utilize spectrum possessed by the companies, aside from the unlicensed spectrum, in order to provide last mile connectivity to customers. The balloons used by Project Loon contain base station and point-to-point communication equipment, the latter of which is important in relaying data between balloons. Polyethylene, a material that can survive ultraviolet radiation and intense winds, is used to make balloons. Each balloon can provide service at a range of 20 kilometers or around 12 miles, and users can attain maximum data speeds of 10Mbps.

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Since turning on service, #ProjectLoon has delivered basic internet connectivity to more than 100K people in Puerto Rico. https://t.co/s0zmFB9dRy  The Team at X (@Theteamatx) November 9, 2017
Without much attention drawn, Roku acquired a Denmark-based company, Dynastorm, back in September of this year, according to a new report out of Variety. The information on this originally came from filings seen by the publication which although did not explicitly state Dynastrom was the company purchased, Roku did reportedly confirmed the purchase to Variety following the initial filings having been reported on. Further adding how Daystrom will continue to operate in Denmark and largely as an independent entity.

However, what makes this acquisition more interesting is that Dynastrom is understood to be an audio-focused company who specializes in a multi-room technology. In particular, the startup works on software which can be integrated into products like speakers to provide a connected audio experience within the home. Which has led to speculation now that Roku may be preparing to enter the connected audio and/or smart home market as well. What has further compounded the speculation is another report which emerged back in September of this year, and also originally from Variety.

That report drew on recent hires by Roku to suggest the company is likely working on, or planning to develop, voice command-enabled smart speakers. This was based on some of the new open positions focusing on audio-related software, with other vacancies aimed more towards voice control features. When taken together, the hiring push in general seemed to suggest that the company could be preparing some sort of voice-controlled audio-based product. For example, something which could be positioned as a direct competitor, and offering similar functionality, to Amazon Echo or Google Home. Of course, that initial speculation came through before the most recent news of the acquisition of a company which happens to focus on connecting such speakers in a multi-room manner. Again, in a similar way to how both Amazon Echo and Google Home do. Therefore, with the different threads of information now coming through and all occurring within the same short time-frame (the acquisition seems to have occurred during the same month Roku was noted listing the job vacancies) has now further added to the speculation that at least one voice-controlled audio-based product will arrive from Roku in the future.
Samsung is rumored to be working on a new device with a full or all-screen display. While this may not sound like anything new considering the last few major smartphones to come from Samsung have come through boasting a full-screen or Infinity Display display, the suggestion with this rumored one is that it will be designed for consumers looking to take advantage of a full-screen device, but on a smaller screen in general.

In particular, the information (which comes from Weibo tipster Ice Universe) states the display on this full-screen device will measure less than 5-inches. Typically speaking, devices which come with an all-screen device have come through with a view to offering as much of a display as possible within a body of a smartphone that is not notably smaller than the previous generation phones. Which at the flagship level has usually referred to a device with a display size between 5.5-inches and 6.3-inches. So if the information is correct a device sporting a 5-inch (at the maximum) size will be quite the change from the majority of the other all-screen options now coming through.

Of course, there is nothing to say that this will be positioned as a premium or flagship device as full screen displays have now started to filter down to mid-range smartphones as well. Furthermore, with Samsungs bulging smartphone portfolio the company could easily release a 5-inch all-screen display for just about any price bracket. Especially when also taking into consideration how Samsung does already have a number of models available for the mid and entry-level segments which are of a similar smaller size. For example, the current Samsung Galaxy A5 comes with a smaller display (not quite under 5-inches however) and in the last few days a model number believed to be associated with the 2018 version of the phone was spotted along with the suggestion it will boast an 18:9 aspect ratio  meaning it will likely come with an Infinity Display. Whether the two reports are connected and do refer to the same phone remains to be seen, although they could be, or at least part of the same Samsung ethos for 2018 which will see the company expand the number of handsets it offers boasting a bezel-less or limited display. In either case, besides the suggestion of the less than 5-inches the tipster did not provide any other firm information on the device, including the specs, when it will be released, or even where it will be released.
Android TV-powered Sony 4K HDR BRAVIA TV models are now receiving support for Amazons artificial intelligence assistant Alexa, the Japanese tech giant announced on Friday. All eligible devices from the company will be updated with the new feature by the end of the month, with the functionality itself presently being limited to units sold in the United States and the United Kingdom, presumably due to the limited overlap between the availability of Sonys BRAVIA TVs and Amazons Alexa-enabled devices. Support for the digital companion is being distributed as a regular over-the-air update which is rolled out in stages, so it may take up to several weeks for your model to receive the newly announced feature.

As expected, by integrating its TV offerings into the Alexa ecosystem, Sony is allowing its customers to control their devices by issuing voice commands to Amazons AI service. Everything from changing channels and controlling volume to pausing or resuming playback and turning ones TV on or off is part of the package thats presently being distributed to Sonys devices, the company said. The feature itself spans all Alexa-enabled smart speakers from Amazon and should theoretically work with third-party devices capable of summoning Amazons assistant, though such offerings werent explicitly mentioned by either Sony or Amazon. The Japanese original equipment manufacturer described the latest development as yet another step in its efforts to ennoble the end-user experience of its BRAVIA TVs, adding that Alexa will make these devices even more versatile and convenient.

Only Sony-made TVs released in the last two years are set to receive the update with Alexa support in the coming weeks. The 2016 models eligible for the software upgrade are those from the XD70, XD75, XD80, SD80, XD83, and ZD9 lineups. Likewise, only XE80, XE83, XE85, XE90, XE93, XE94, and A1 product families released this year will be able to take advantage of the new functionality later this month. Some of Sonys future TVs will presumably boast Alexa support out of the box, with the company possibly unveiling first such devices at the next iteration of Consumer Electronics Show scheduled to start in mid-January.
Tencent and Snapchat maker Snap will explore collaboration opportunities related to mobile games and advertising, Business Insider reported earlier this week, citing a spokesperson of the Chinese tech giant. Tencents recent decision to acquire approximately 12 percent of Snaps outstanding shares on the open market is described as the first step in those efforts, according to the Shenzhen-based firm, though no further details on the matter have been provided. Game-related partnerships will be pursued by the two through the prism of publishing, whereas ads in which Tencent is interested in will be of the newsfeed variety, according to the same source.

The latter point is the first hint at what users can expect from the upcoming redesign of Snapchat that Snap announced as part of its disappointing financial report for the third quarter of the year. The ephemeral photo-sharing app presently doesnt feature any kind of news feed, though one such element appears to be set for implementation in the near future. Initial reports suggest that the overhaul of Snapchat will start rolling out on December 4th and may make the app more similar to Facebook. Such a move would mark a significant departure from Snaps existing product strategy that rarely saw it deliver features inspired by Facebooks offerings, with the largest social network on the planet usually being the one to copy Snapchat. Snap co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said that the redesign is meant to make the app easier to use and address some user complaints regarding the intuitiveness of the ephemeral service.

Snap is equally inexperienced in regards to games which werent featured in its app so far, disregarding some interactive ads. Tencent will likely take the lead of this particular aspect of their collaboration, with the Chinese firm being the publisher of whats widely touted as one of the most addictive mobile games ever created  Honor of Kings, sometimes translated as King of Glory and Arena of Valor. Tencents stake in Snap is larger than the 12 percent one acquired by the company earlier this week, with the conglomerate previously participating in the startups $60 million Series B funding round in 2013. The Chinese tech giant still doesnt have any formal say in Snaps management, with all of its shares being of the non-voting variety.
Trend Micro has released findings of its analysis of a new malware that could affect many devices running Android 7.1 Nougat or older, allowing attackers to sneak in other forms of malware to the affected device via a Toast Overlay attack called TOASTAMIGO. Trend Micro uncovered the Android malware which was demonstrated only as a proof-of-concept earlier this year, and according to the security firm, the malicious apps are designed to exploit the accessibility features of Googles mobile operating system in order to automatically click on ads without the device owners consent, install malicious apps and hide from the detection of security tools.

Toast is an Android feature that works to superimpose notifications over a running application, window or process, and the Toast Overlay attack is doing just that: displaying Android View over other running apps in order to lure users into clicking a bogus window or button created by the attacker to replace the real one. It also disguises itself under the cloak of app lockers that use a PIN to supposedly protect device applications. Once downloaded and installed, the malicious applications would try to secure accessibility permission from the user for the apps to function on the device. After this is done, the apps begin to execute commands and actions to install another malware, taking advantage of the previous permission the apps gained from the unsuspecting user.

The attack method takes advantage of a vulnerability in Android that was fixed in September of this year, though it could not be immediately known how the Toast Overlay attack came to being again with the same functionality. Thankfully, the malware has low-key functionalities at present, meaning that it has not gained much traction among attackers as of this time, though it is only a matter of time before the other bad actors are going to replicate the technique. Trend Micro said it is likely that the functionalities of the attack can be modified by other cyber criminals to spread other forms of attacks. The security firm recommends updating devices that could be potentially affected by the malware and, if possible, releasing a patch for the vulnerability. Toast Overlay is just the latest in a long list of malware affecting Android lately. For its part, Google has already removed the malicious apps from the Play Store following Trend Micros recommendations.
Uber and the United States National Aeronautical and Space Administration are jointly developing flying taxi solutions, with the ride-hailing company recently winning a related services contract from NASA, Reuters reported earlier this week. While speaking at a Wednesday conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden was cited as saying that the San Francisco, California-based firm is hoping to start a pilot program in 2020, with that particular test being planned to take place in Los Angeles. The company is presently focused on developing software for a four-passenger aircraft capable of flying 200mph (322kmph) which will be tested in Los Angeles after an initial pilot run in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Uber is already working with federal regulators in the country to obtain all of the necessary licenses it needs to start testing low-altitude aircraft and possibly use it to provide commercial services, as suggested by Mr. Holden. Such an approach stands in stark contrast to Ubers previously employed business strategy which propelled the company to the title of the worlds most valuable startup on the back of constant clashes with regulators and repeated testing of legal boundaries. Whereas such approach is said to have sometimes entailed Uber launching its ride-hailing service in cities without permission, then using robust software to avoid officers while only obtaining the necessary permits at a later date, the company now opted for an entirely different strategy that shouldnt place any additional strain on its relations with lawmakers. The project itself is understood to be headed by Ubers Advanced Technologies Group, the same one developing self-driving vehicles that are meant to be the backbone of the tech giants future business.

Uber is presently in the middle of a cultural transition started by its new Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi whos been trying to repair the companys infamous reputation earned while it was still headed by co-founder Travis Kalanick. Mr. Khosrowshahi has essentially been on an apology tour since taking over the ride-hailing firm in August, having already apologized to London officials for Ubers transgressions that prompted them to deny its operating license renewal request, in addition to trying to repair the startups relations with various stateside actors.
The UberEATS app is now able to recommend individual dishes at establishments based on a number of metrics including a users previous preferences, and can also keep track of favorite restaurants and dishes, and show them first in searches. Other new features of the app include a ranking system that shows a user the most recent community rankings for a given establishment when searching, along with a thumbs up or thumbs down for individual dishes. This change also shares ratings with restaurant owners in the same way, helping them to get up-to-date feedback on a near-constant basis.

These changes to the ratings system and searching are designed to get both users and restaurants more involved in the apps community and ratings systems. Users will see the latest ratings and recommendations based on community data and their own favorites, and restaurants will see a wealth of new data in their dashboards concerning search rankings, result hits, and ratings. Once a customer goes into a restaurant in the app, dish recommendations are based on a mix of other users ratings of dishes, the users history with similar dishes, and whats going on in the users current session. This means that the app can help a user decide between ordering seafood or beef from a Chinese restaurant, or pizza or pasta from an Italian restaurant, for example.

This change is part of a larger overarching initiative by Uber to be more user-friendly. With former CEO Travis Kalanick replaced during the companys 180 Days Of Change campaign, new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wasted no time in rearranging the company culture, making life easier for drivers, and reworking the core Uber experience and things like UberEATS to be easier to use and more useful. Khosrowshahis humble approach has some analysts predicting that the company could be headed for a rough patch, with Uber performing what seems to be a complete turnaround in many aspects of how it operates at a core level. Only time will tell exactly what changes the new CEO will want to make over time, so its hard to predict right now just how easy or hard things may get for Uber going forward.
TransCanada Corp. gave its strongest signal yet that it has enough demand from producers to fill the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline with oil. Now the ball is in Nebraska's court.

While the company has long said it expected sufficient support from oil producers, TransCanada completed an open season for them to bid for space on the line last month, giving it hard data on demand.

Then, on a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings on Thursday, Royal Bank of Canada analyst Robert Kwan asked, "Is it fair to say, based on what you're seeing in terms of the submissions, that you pretty much have the volumes that you need but that obviously there are some conditions and other things that you need to work through?"

"Your comment is accurate," replied Paul Miller, head of TransCanada's liquids pipeline business, who added that the company is still evaluating issues raised by potential shippers. "We're quite encouraged by the results we have seen."

With the question of producer support mostly settled, the focus turns to a decision from regulators in Nebraska later this month on whether the pipeline can proceed. While any ruling there will almost certainly be challenged in court, a go-ahead would give TransCanada unfettered authority to begin laying pipe for the first time in its almost decade-long push to build the pipeline, which would bring more crude from Canada's oil sands to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.

Last month, the company canceled its proposed Energy East pipeline, which would have carried about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries and a marine-shipping terminal in eastern Canada. That move has been widely seen as increasing the commercial case for Keystone XL because western Canadian producers, denied access to those new markets, will be eager to ship more oil to the U.S.

TransCanada has pressed Alberta's government to buy capacity on Keystone XL, seeking the same support it had pledged for Energy East. The provincial government has its own oil to sell since it collects barrels of sandy bitumen in lieu of royalties from some producers under a royalty-in-kind program. Alberta had pledged to pay to ship 100,000 barrels a day on Energy East, a commitment projected to have a "minimum" government cost of C$4.6 billion over 20 years, or a higher figure depending on volumes.
Mysteriously, almost maddeningly cool, The Killing of a Sacred Deer exists to give you the chills. Its eerie first shot is an extended closeup of open-heart surgery shown in morbid detail. After that negative note, things in this heartless drama get much worse.

Exercising his disturbing vision like a scalpel, brilliant Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos transforms the orderly life of a prominent cardiologist into a nightmare of suffering stripped of any mercy. An amazingly weird assemblage of notions from Greek mythology and concepts from pessimistic geniuses like Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and Michael Haneke, the film creates something akin to a dreadful dream.

Colin Farrell, who played a portly wallflower in Lanthimos The Lobster, the darkest science fiction romantic comedy of all time, stars once again. He is trim and dapper here as Steven, a Cincinnati surgeon at the top of his professional game. Walking the big hospitals sterile corridors with aloof confidence, hes the sort of specialist who seems faultless.

Yet, almost from the first instant, the film quietly sows seeds of doubt. One of the first images of Steven shows him after that realistic, worrying heart operation, peeling off his blood-spattered latex gloves and dropping them out of sight in the trash like evidence hidden at a crime scene. Add to that his detached, impersonal conversation about wristwatches with his anesthesiologist colleague as they stroll an endless, antiseptic hospital hallway in an ominous wide shot, and a virtually subconscious impression of suspicion begins to taint our sense of who Steven is and how much we can trust him.

That contamination spreads as we watch Steven in an odd relationship with 16-year-old Martin (Dunkirks Barry Keoghan), the son of a man who died after visiting his operating theater. As they sit face to face in a diner, Farrell subtly shows us that Steven lacks the supreme confidence he feels in his professional element. Speaking to Martin, theres less authority in his voice, an awkward effort to establish an arms-length rapport less intimate than the close relationship the boy is seeking.

Is Martin stalking him? Is Steven trying to buy his silence  with a wildly expensive wristwatch  to conceal some secret they share? How will Martin react when Steven begins to neglect him?

Little in the films foreboding first act is what you might think, including Stevens tranquil, prosperous home life with his physician wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman). Its clear that the couple face problems as Kidman channels the damaged emotional and sexual timbre of her haunting performance in Eyes Wide Shut. Their suburban mansion is beautiful, immaculate but as icy as their distant relationship to their well-behaved daughter Kim and son Bob (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic).

Martin, always polite but uncomfortable keeping others in extended eye contact, begins moving into their domestic lives. Kim feels attracted, but Martin, who has sought the childrens friendships to help him complete an unspoken mission, insists that they remain platonic and pure. Its his goal to take hold of or deliver a mysterious abstraction concerning the idyllic family. When he announces his prize as justice, it gives us the sense of having fallen down a rabbit hole on our way to a surreal and sinister landing.

This is a startling, difficult film. It cant be watched easily, and though it doles out blasts of pitch-black humor, it shouldnt be examined casually. Stylishly polished with slow camera moves, scored with somber pieces ranging from Schubert to Gyorgy Ligeti, the film follows Stevens misery attentively. His fate is observed as if he were an arrogant adventurer in a Greek tragedy, being tortured by the gods.

The storys cultural roots are clearly announced when Kims school principal praises her report on the myth of Iphigenia, whose father suffered the gods fury for killing a sacred deer. By the time Steven reaches the breaking point, the film has examined the limits of the human soul as closely as Steven began it by probing the human heart.
It seems that the Attorney General Offices intervention in the Berkshire Museum case was too little, too late in the view of Judge John Agostini of Berkshire County Superior Court. He ruled this afternoon (full text here) that the museum could proceed with its controversial planned art sales, notwithstanding the opposition of several plaintiffs and the Attorney Generals Office (AGO), all of whom sought a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to delay the sell-off.

The judge also rejected the plaintiffs argument that the museum was restricted from selling objects that had been owned by its forerunner, the Berkshire Athenaeum. I suspect we may soon hear that the 21 works that had been pulled from the Sothebys auctions will eventually be offered, bringing the total of Berkshire Museum cast-offs back up to 40.

According to the judges ruling:

The AGOs initial indifference to this litigation, compounded with its later faint-heartedness, strongly suggest that the AGOhas little expectation of discovering evidence supporting its concerns. The publics interest in having the AGO continue its tepid investigation pales in comparison to the public interest in ensuring that a public charity does not needlessly lose potentially millions of dollars by canceling a contract that it has every right to make.

Here are the reactions from the affected parties:

From Elizabeth McGraw, board president, Berkshire Museum:

We believe we acted consistent with our responsibility to this community and our collections, to keep this museum open now and strengthen it for generations to come. We are grateful the Judge recognized the care and diligence the Board exercised in arriving at this decision, and that todays decision will ensure we can move forward. Zenas Crane created this museum to provide his less well-traveled neighbors with what he termed a window on the world. Were working to keep that window open.

From the museums legal counsel WilmerHale:

Judge Agostinis thorough and thoughtful decision recognizes the Berkshire Museum took great care to make sure this important resource can continue to serve the community for generations to come.

From Sothebys:

Sothebys is very pleased that the court reaffirmed that the board of trustees acted in good faith and fulfilled its fiduciary duties. We are looking forward to successful auctions beginning next week that will ensure a bright future for the Berkshire Museum in support of the community of Pittsfield and Western Massachusetts.

From Nicholas ODonnell, attorney for three of the plaintiffs:

My clients had certainly hoped for a different outcome, but we are reviewing the decision and considering my clients options.

From Michael Keating, attorney for other plaintiffs, including descendants of Norman Rockwell:

We are disappointed our clients and others who are Berkshire County residents will no longer have an opportunity to see this treasured art. We are especially disappointed on behalf of the Rockwell family whose father was promised his paintings would always remain home and be shown in Berkshire County. The sale of these artworks represents a huge loss to the community.

Joint Statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Alliance of Museums:

[We] are disappointed at the Courts unwillingness to halt the proposed sale of works from the Berkshire Museums collection. Our organizations remain deeply concerned that the Trustees of the Berkshire Museum are considering deaccessioning works from their collection to support operating expenses and fund an endowment. Museums acquire collections for the benefit of present and future generations. Responsible stewardship of a museums collection, and the conservation, exhibition, and study of these works, are at the heart of a museums service to its community and to the public. It is, therefore, a fundamental professional principle of both AAM and AAMD that there are clear limitations on the use of funds from deaccessioned works, and these limitations prohibit the use of these funds for operating costs, capital expenses, or general endowments. We will continue to seek out appropriate opportunities to make this case with respect to the Berkshire Museums plans, and we stand ready to assist it and other museums facing financial difficulties to avoid resorting to sale of collections as a remedy.

From the Massachusetts Attorney Generals Office:

We are reviewing the decision and no further comment at this time. Thanks for checking in.

As I eyeballed the museums two deaccessioned Rockwells on Friday at a Sothebys press preview, I was struck by how much more vibrant and energetic they are in person than in reproduction:

Surprisingly, they were installed with the auction houses Impressionist/Modern highlights (where more monied collectors congregate), not with the American Art offerings on a different floor (which included other Rockwells from other consignors), with which they will be sold on Nov. 13.

The Berkshire Museums five other American art consignments were clustered here:

As AAMD and AAM doubtless realize, this is a huge setback for museum ethics that may encourage other small museums to take the easy, irresponsible way out when they face financial shortfalls. It remains to be seen whether other legal remedies may yet be found.
To say The Florida Project is a film about childhood thats carried by the near-perfect performance of 7-year-old Brooklynn Prince only gets to part of writer-director Sean Bakers deeply involving film.

To say that its a portrait of American poverty and the struggles of millennials trapped in that world also gets to a piece of the picture.

Baker's mastery is that The Florida Project combines those elements via observational realism that creates a kind of innocent beauty thats destroyed by a crushing finale.

The setting of The Florida Project is as important as any of the characters  a run-down, low-budget, purple-colored motel on the outskirts of Orlando. It's a few miles from Disney World but about as far away from the "Happiest Place in the World" as it can get.

It's there single mothers, single fathers and their kids live, cramped together in a room, paying rent week to week and getting kicked out one day a month so they dont become legal residences.

One of them is Halley (Bria Vinaite), the heavily tattooed, unemployed, party-seeking mother of little Moonee (Prince).

A bright, active kid, Moonee spends most of her time running around the motel grounds and through surrounding businesses with her pals Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto).

While theyre out playing, Moonee, clearly the leader of the pack, pushes lots of boundaries, constantly getting in trouble  and knowing shell face no consequences from her mom. Halley, suffice it to say, will never win any mother of the year awards.

Watching all of this is motel manager Bobby, played by Willem Dafoe in one of the best performances of his career. Constantly under pressure to keep order in the hotel  and keep things running, Bobbys gruff, but underneath, he keeps a protective eye on the kids and, much to his chagrin, their parents.

Baker lets this play out over the course of a summer, capturing the rhythms of life for the kids, the moms and Bobby  getting handouts of free waffles daily from a mom who has a job, the kids scamming tourists for tips and begging for change to get ice cream and Bobby dealing with everything from a possible child molester to cranes walking through the motel driveway.

Its all presented without a lot of narrative drive  except for that contained in each scene, be it the hassle of moving to another motel or the kids playing hide and seek in Bobbys office.

But things, which werent that bright to begin with, get ever darker as Halley, surprise, surprise, starts making some very bad choices that cant help but come back on her and Moonee. And when they do, its devastating, making it hard to hold out hope for any of the characters, including the plucky Moonee.

Vinaite, who Baker cast after seeing her Instagram account, is a revelation in her debut performance, creating a character so self-absorbed and deluded that the first comment after the screening I attended was she was the worst mother ever. Thats saying something.

But little Prince is the heart of the picture, acting without the usual child actors playing to the camera and overworking of the role. That makes Moonee ever more real and what happens to her even more heartbreaking.

Sadly, I know that the same thing has happened to kids in Lincoln whose lives have paralleled The Florida Project story. That makes Baker's film even more resonant and valuable.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has come to the defence of a website, telling Taylor Swift and the lawyer representing her to shake it off.



The blog PopFront published an article on 5 September that discussed the American pop star and racist groups. On 25 October, the site and the articles author, Meghan Herning, received a takedown letter from Swift and her attorney, William J. Briggs II, a partner at Venable LLP.



Briggs said that the post is replete with demonstrable and offensive falsehoods which bear no relation to reality or the truth about Ms. Swift and that it is baseless fiction masquerading as fact. The story is a classic example of defamation per se, Briggs wrote.



The Venable partner also said that the letter is a confidential legal notice that is not for publication and invoked copyright protection.



The ACLU, however, wasnt having it.



Ms. Herning and PopFront will not in any way accede to your attempt to suppress their constitutionally protected speech, ACLU attorneys Michael Risher, Christine Sun and Matt Cagle wrote in reply to Venable. The blog post is a mix of core political speech and critical commentary; it discusses current politics in this country, the recent rise of white supremacy, and the fact that some white supremacists have apparently embraced Ms. Swift, along with a critical interpretation of some of Ms. Swifts music, lyrics, and videos.



The ACLU said that Swift, as a celebrity and household name, is a general public figure under the First Amendment, thus protecting the story under freedom of speech unless it is demonstrated to be false, or that the author knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard as to whether it was false. Fame is a double-edged sword, the ACLU said, and Swift should take the bad with the good.



Criticism is never pleasant, but a celebrity has to shake it off, even if the critique may damage her reputation, the ACLU said.



Furthermore, since the story is opinion, it cannot be proven true or false, and thereby cannot constitute defamation, the ACLU said. Being published in a blog, the story is also not expected to be an assertion of facts.



The ACLU also said that the assertion of the notice having copyright protection can only be described as odd, particularly coming from a lawyer. The organisation said it will publish the letter because it is permitted under fair use.



Attaching the letter to this one transforms it from a clumsy legal threat to suppress constitutionally protected speech into an expose of that attempt in order to educate others who might receive these types of letters that they need not be intimidated. Although the text of the letter has not changed, the use has, which weighs in favor of fair use, the ACLU wrote.



And even if fair use was put aside, the ACLU said that the claim to copyright protection has no merit. Quoting the countrys constitution, the ACLU said that copyright is meant to promote the progress of science and useful arts, and not to allow lawyers to send threatening, speech-suppressing letters in secret.



In short, you may no more use copyright law to hide the contents of your letter from public scrutiny than a kidnapper could use it to prevent his victims family from giving a copy of the ransom note to the police, the ACLU said.





Related stories:

Johnny Depp spreads blame for vanished fortune to showbiz lawyer

Corrs wins Australias largest defamation damages for Hollywood star
As winter looms on the horizon in the Northeast, rehabilitation facilities stock up on supplies and increase staffing levels to be ready to help sea turtles, caught too far north when the cold weather arrives. Hundreds of endangered and threatened turtles wash up every year along the beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, stunned by the cold waters, and in need of medical care to survive. For the last few years, general aviation pilots have volunteered to transport the turtles from the Cape to sites around the country where they can be cared for. Using flights instead of ground transport reduces travel time and, consequently, stress to these sick turtles, thereby increasing their chance of survival and ultimate release back into the wild, says Leslie Weinstein, of Idaho, who has organized the GA flights.

Weinstein says the effort, now branded as Turtles Fly Too, is recruiting more GA pilots who can pitch in for the coming cold season. The GA community has been amazingly generous in donating time, fuel, and planes to transport sea turtles to rehabilitation facilities for long-term medical care, he said. We hope to continue to recruit new Turtle Fliers and welcome back our generous pilots from the last few years. Weinstein added that the organization has teamed up with several universities and high schools to use the turtles that dont survive to help train pre-veterinary and science students in turtle anatomy. Pilots who are interested in helping out in the effort can contact Weinstein via www.turtlesflytoo.org.
Republicans who initially endorsed Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race. John Cornyn (far left) and Mike Lee (second from left) pulled endorsements after allegations against Moore came to light. Photos: AP

Sens. Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, Mike Lee and Steve Daines have pulled their respective endorsements of Roy Moore's candidacy, in light of the sexual assault accusations against the Alabama Republican. Sen. Rand Paul is the only senator still endorsing Moore. Tuesday, the RNC also pulled its support for Moore.

Why it matters: It's too late for Moore to be removed from the ballot, but the statements from Republicans suggest they don't want him running and that he could add a negative image to their party. Pressure is mounting for Moore to step down.

Four women have accused Roy Moore  Alabama's Republican nominee for Senate  of sexual advances when they were between 14 and 17 and he was in his 30s. And a 5th accuser came forward Monday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he believes the women and called on Moore to "step aside." House Speaker Paul Ryan called the allegations against Moore "credible" and also said the candidate should step aside.

What Republicans are saying:

Vice President Mike Pence said, via his spokesperson, that Pence believes that if the allegations against Roy Moore are true, then "this would disqualify anyone from serving in office."

said, via his spokesperson, that Pence believes that if the allegations against Roy Moore are true, then "this would disqualify anyone from serving in office." Sen. John McCain: "The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they are proud of."

"The allegations against Roy Moore are deeply disturbing and disqualifying. He should immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they are proud of." Sen. Lindsey Graham: " In light of the most recent allegations and the cumulative effect of others, I believe Roy Moore would be doing himself, the state, the GOP, and the country a service by stepping aside ... If he continues this will not end well for Mr. Moore."

In light of the most recent allegations and the cumulative effect of others, I believe Roy Moore would be doing himself, the state, the GOP, and the country a service by stepping aside ... If he continues this will not end well for Mr. Moore." Sen. Todd Young: "After giving Roy Moore ample time to unequivocally deny the disturbing allegations against him, those allegations remain far more persuasive than the denials. Roy Moore should immediately drop out of the race. The appearance of grossly reprehensible behavior disqualifies him from service in the United States Senate. If he does not step aside, we need to act to protect the integrity of the Senate," hinting at an expulsion vote, reports Jake Tapper.

"After giving Roy Moore ample time to unequivocally deny the disturbing allegations against him, those allegations remain far more persuasive than the denials. Roy Moore should immediately drop out of the race. The appearance of grossly reprehensible behavior disqualifies him from service in the United States Senate. If he does not step aside, we need to act to protect the integrity of the Senate," hinting at an expulsion vote, reports Jake Tapper. Former Gov. of Massachusetts Mitt Romney: "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside."

"Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside." Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, "I'm horrified and if this is true he needs to step down immediately." She also said she has spoken to Luther Strange about becoming a write-in challenge, ultimately challenging Moore in the Dec. 12 election.

said, "I'm horrified and if this is true he needs to step down immediately." She also said she has spoken to Luther Strange about becoming a write-in challenge, ultimately challenging Moore in the Dec. 12 election. Sen. Ted Cruz , who endorsed Roy Moore: "These are serious and troubling allegations. If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations."

, who endorsed Roy Moore: "These are serious and troubling allegations. If they are true, Judge Moore should immediately withdraw. However, we need to know the truth, and Judge Moore has the right to respond to these accusations." Sen. Jeff Flake: "If the choice is between Roy Moore and a Democrat, I would run to the polling place to vote for the Democrat." And he told Talking Points Memo's Cameron Joseph he would vote to expel Moore if elected.
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping didn't take reporters' questions after a news briefing in Beijing Thursday, with AP noting that Trump has cooperated with China's effort to control the image of the state visit. When asked why the leaders didn't take questions, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters it was "at the Chinese insistence."

Counterpoint: NBC's Chuck Todd tweeted, "Previous press secs used to fight with Chinese counterparts for press access when in China," and Susan Rice, Barack Obama's national security advisor, said: "They always insist, Sarah. The trick is to use diplomacy to extract that concession as a matter of principle, despite their resistence [sic]." Obama's press secretary Jay Carney also weighed in, saying letting the Chinese "dictate press access is an embarrassing capitulation."

Trump has called the media "the enemy of the American people," and his visit to China  where the press is heavily regulated  provides a break from tough questions on the Russia probe and gun control in the aftermath of the Texas church shooting.

Flashback: During then-President Obama's visit to Beijing in 2014, Xi took one question from a Chinese reporter representing a state-run outlet.
A senior official from Nagorno-Karabakh said on Friday that it is still too early to speak of territorial concessions to Azerbaijan that would be part of a broader Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal.

I believe that now, especially after April 2016 [fighting in Karabakh,] we have a much better idea of all components of our security system, Ashot Ghulian, the Karabakh parliament speaker, told reporters in Yerevan.

That system includes both territories and our economic viability. I am deeply convinced that we cannot weaken that reserve with anything or give up anything in return for some unknown things, he said.

I dont think that we should engage in such talk prematurely because that would only undermine our internal strength as we would start looking for those who said concessions can be made and who said they cannot, added Ghulian.

In that regard, Ghulian declined to comment on President Serzh Sarkisians recent remark that a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh dispute could only be painful to both conflicting sides.

Sarkisian spoke two weeks after his October 16 meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that was held in Geneva. The two leaders pledged to intensify the peace process and bolster the ceasefire regime in the conflict zone.

The U.S., Russian and French mediators announced in the Swiss city that they will soon hold follow-up working sessions with Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov. The talks could be held as early as next week.

Ghulian said that the Armenian side has toughened its position on Karabakh peace since the April 2016 hostilities. I think that for the moment there are no grounds for softening that position, he said.

Ghulian spoke after a delegation of Karabakh lawmakers headed by him held a regular meeting with members of Armenias parliament. The delegation was received by Sarkisian later in the day. A statement on the meeting released by the presidential press service did not say whether they discussed the upcoming Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.

Over the past decade the international mediators have advanced a framework peace accord calling for a phased settlement that would start with the liberation of Armenian-controlled districts around Karabakh. In return, Karabakhs predominantly Armenian population would be able determine the territorys internationally recognized status in a future referendum.

Armenias leadership has repeatedly said that this peace formula is largely acceptable to it. Karabakh Armenian leaders have been far more skeptical about it.
A standing committee of Armenias parliament rejected on Friday a Defense Ministry proposal to scrap a law allowing Armenian men who illegally evaded compulsory military service to buy an amnesty.

Under the law enacted in 2004, they can avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for a hefty fee depending on the number of years they have spent on the run. The amnesty-for-cash scheme was originally applicable to those fugitive men who were aged 27 or older by June 2004. This age threshold has been repeatedly raised since then.

The parliamentary factions of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) and all other political groups represented in the National Assembly are now seeking another extension that would apply to male citizens who have turned 27 before December 1, 2017.

The Defense Ministry has put forward an amendment to their joint bill stipulating that there will be no further extensions of the scheme. The chairman of the parliament committee on defense and security, Koryun Nahapetian, and several other lawmakers affiliated with the HHK publicly criticized the amendment earlier this week.

The committee formally opposed the proposal at a late-night meeting. Most of its members stood by their view that the measure sought by Defense Minister Vigen Sargsian would deprive thousands of fugitive men of a chance to return to their homeland.

One of the Republican deputies, Karine Achemian, also argued that Sargsians amendment would restrict lawmakers constitutional right to come up with any bill.

The parliamentary panel also rejected another ministry proposal that would drastically raise the legal cost of the amnesty to at least 9 million drams ($19,000). The latest version of the bill approved by it sets the figure at around 3.6 million drams.

Nahapetian said on Wednesday that 700 and 800 draft dodgers have been granted such amnesty annually since 2004. He also revealed that almost 9,500 other men remain on the run on draft evasion charges.
10 November 2017 10:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 115 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on November 10.

Armenians were using large-caliber 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.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 November 2017 10:35 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani defense minister, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov has attended the meeting of defense ministers of states contributing to the NATO Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, the press service of Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported on November 9.

During the meeting, issues of security in Afghanistan, the future of the NATO Resolute Support Mission, the development of the Afghan Defense and Security Forces were discussed.

Speaking at the meeting, Zakir Hasanov noted the contribution of Azerbaijan to the mission of supporting international peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, and highlighted the implementation of various programs in educational, infrastructure, transport, investment and other fields with the aim of support to Afghanistan.

In his speech, the minister of defense brought to the attention of the meeting participants that Azerbaijan, as a reliable partner of the Alliance, will continue its contribution to the security of Afghanistan beyond 2017.

Especially noting the historic importance in the great geopolitical space of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which was officially inaugurated last week, the defense minister has also stressed that this project has become an important part of the transport map of Europe and Asia, and creates great opportunities to provide the needs of the Resolute Support Mission.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
10 November 2017 12:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

A colorful Moroccan Fashion Show timed to the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relation between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Azerbaijan was held at the Residence of Moroccos Ambassador in Baku on November 9.

Members of diplomatic corps, cultural figures, fashion industry experts, famous designers, including Azerbaijans Honored Art Worker Fahriya Khalafova, and mass media representatives attended the event.

Ahead of the Fashion Show, Ambassador of Morocco to Azerbaijan Mohamed Adil Embarch, told Azernews about the event, stressing that today there are many things to celebrate.

We celebrate so many things at this event - the National Flag Day, 25th anniversary of diplomatic relation and beautiful women. The show is all about the beauty of women - a Moroccan woman and also an Azerbaijani woman, he said.

Commenting on the anniversary of diplomatic relations, the envoy noted that our countries enjoy very good relations.

The main thing is that we have very good relations with Azerbaijan. In the political level, we support each other with regards to the territorial integrity of both countries. We enjoy very good economic ties. We organize so many events both in Azerbaijan and Morocco. The relations between the leadership of both states are at the highest level. We conduct exchange of visits at different levels. At the same time, we are trying to improve the relations and make them even more fruitful, he said.

In his opening speech, Ambassador congratulated the people of Azerbaijan with the National Flag Day. Furthermore, he expressed gratitude to Hind Joudar, CEO of the Paris-based Oriental Fashion Show, and her team for the support.

During the show, leading Moroccan designers  Zineb Joundy, Manale Dinar and Abdel Fatah Qadience - introduced their collections of traditional clothes with national motives. The creation of the Moroccan caftan takes a long time as it is handmade.

Zineb Joundy took her first steps in the world of fashion under the watchful eyes of Karl Lagerfeld and Lanvin. Her caftans are bespoke art pieces and her avant-garde exhibitions have been presented all over the world, including Paris, London, New York, Istanbul, Bahrain and Baku.

Manale Dinar made a big jump in the world of fashion and joined a renowned school of fashion and design for three years. Proud of her Moroccan culture, she makes her heritage shine through magnificent collections of caftans.

Abdel Fatah Qadience is labeled and recognized by the Moroccan Ministry of Handicrafts. He is a bearer of the Moroccan clothing heritage that he wishes to reveal internationally.



The event, which fascinated the quests with the colorful and gorgeous caftans, was held within the framework of Azerbaijan Fashion Week (AFW) that is currently taking place in the capital of the country.

The headliners of the sixth season of the Fashion Week are the designers of the Oriental Fashion Show, the first of its kind defile, organized in Paris and intended to open the world to the high fashion of the East.

AFW showrooms will be available on November 8-10, from 15:00 to 21:00.

Azerbaijan Fashion Week is held twice a year in November and May. The event is organized by Fashion Consulting Group and supported by Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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10 November 2017 14:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani pianist Shahin Novrasli gave a concert in Le Duc des Lombards jazz club in Paris.

Synthesizing traditional jazz rhythms with mugham, jazzmen conquered the hearts of the French jazz lovers. The pianist brilliantly performed folk music, jazz, as well as compositions by jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal, Azertac reported.

Ambassador of Azerbaijan to France Rahman Mustafayev, employees of the embassy, as well as members of the Azerbaijani community in Paris and jazz lovers were all fascinated by great performance.

Shahin will once again delight the audience this time with the American jazz pianist and live legend of the post-pop jazz music genre Ahmad Jamal at the Paris Congress Hall of the Azerbaijani jazzman on November 14.

The hall is always open to the pianists who perform in all styles. Jamal appreciates and cooperates with the style of the Azerbaijani jazzman.

Novrasli arrived in Paris not only for the concert, but also for preparing his new album.

The Azerbaijani jazzman said that he worked with the producers of Jamal, and that the new album was the idea of the American jazz pianist.

He stressed that the new album will include Azerbaijan, America, classical music, as well as improvisations. The musician will stay in Paris for two months to prepare his new album.

Notably, Ahmad met with an Azerbaijani jazzman a few years ago at the Festival Jazz a Saint-Germain-des-Pres Paris. Since then, two musicians have been actively cooperate with each other.

Shahins rare talent emerged from Azerbaijans various compositional influences as well as its unusual and rich musical heritage. At only eleven years old, he performed with the local Symphony Orchestra at the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall.

Elegantly blending his classical knowledge, Azerbaijans traditional folk Mugham and his jazz influences, Shahin created his own unique and accomplished musical universe, among which he combines eastern and western cultures.

Acclaimed musician has performed on some of the most prestigious stages in the world, such as Londons Royal Festival Hall, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Black Sea Jazz Festival, Pragues Mezinarodni Piano Festival and numerous clubs and festivals throughout the United States.

With a solo project, a trio with Ari Hoenig and Nathan Peck, countless collaborations with notably Kenny Wheeler, Iain Ballamy and Tim Garland, to name a few, Shahin is today an icon for Azerbaijan Jazz and has received enthusiastic comments from worldwide critics and audiences.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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Though Black Friday has lost some of its appeal with the advent of e-commerce, there are sti
10 November 2017 17:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Painting of Azerbaijani artist Maryam Alakbarli was awarded at the autumn exhibition of Beaux-Arts society in Boulogne-Billancourt commune of Paris.

Maryam Alakbarli `s work "Rosemary Beach" was named the best work on exhibition, Report.Az informs.

Young artist created the painting of non-standard size (250/180). With high skills and improvisation of live colors she reflected the beautiful view on canvas.

More than 50 artists, sculptors and photographs introduced their works to the exhibition dedicated to nature.

The exhibition will end on November 22. Beaux-Arts society was established in 1934 by famous French sculptor and artist, author of a number bronze monuments Marcel Looy.

Born in 1991, Alakbarli, whoe suffers from Down's syndrome,developed a taste for painting and sculpting at a very early age. The artist chooses colors masterly. The inherent feeling of color distinguishes her art.

She puts much sincerity, harmony and goodness into her paintings.

Artist's works have earned big success both in her motherland Azerbaijan and beyond its borders including Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey Lithuania and France.

While suffering from Down's syndrome, lists of her work which mainly characterize educational themes are representative of her zeal and creativity.

Sensing deeply the real world with its problems, Maryam heartily incarnates her works with the warmness of her heart, her subtle perception of reality, although not appreciated in the way she warrants, the young artist shows all the beauty of the world by dints of the language of colors and brush.

Once, Juliette Binoche, world famous French actress, said, "Maryam has her own vision on the color combination.She shares her feeling of being impressed on the creativity of the young artist by stating that Rose-red, yellow and brown tint, bright green, bloody red, black as antimony - she boldly works with these colors, like the nature creating the bright and harmonious world."

Earlier in 2013, "Colours of the Soul", a catalogue which features paintings of Maryam including her approval and appraisal by other artists, came out.



The colorfully illustrated catalogue, which was printed by the publishing house Sharq-Qarb, has published a complete series of the talented painter's light work.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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10 November 2017 17:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Aysel Mammadova, who will represent Azerbaijan at its 11th enty at the Eurovision 2018 Song Contest in Lisbon, expressed her gratitude to all those who supported her on her Instagram page.

"I would like to thank everyone for their warm and sincere wishes, and I have a wonderful opportunity to represent my country at the Eurovision Song Contest. It's a great honor for me, and I will do my best to make proud everyone who believes and supports me," she wrote.

Forty two countries will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The logo and slogan of the next song forum  All Aboard!  were unveiled recently. The creative theme and logo of the competition are closely linked to the history of Lisbon and underscore the main values of the Eurovision, including diversity.

Portugal won the right to host the Eurovision 2018 after the triumph of Salvador Sobral at the contest in Kiev this year. The Semi-finals of the Eurovision 2018 will be held on May 8 and May 10. The Grand Final will take place on May 12 in Lisbon.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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10 November 2017 10:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijan expects undertaking practical steps by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen with a view to intensifying the negotiations.

This was announced by the Azerbaijani delegation to the OSCE at the 1163rd Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in response to the statements by the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE MG, the Head of the HLPG and the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office on the Conflict Dealt with by the Minsk Conference in Vienna Nov.9, the Azerbaijani mission told Trend.

The Azerbaijani delegation reiterated that the country welcomes the efforts of the Co-Chairmen aimed at reinvigorating the substantive, results-oriented talks.

The summit of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, held in Geneva, on 16 October 2017, is the step in right direction. The meeting proved that attempts to precondition the resumption of substantive talks are doomed to failure. We generally positively assess the fact of the meeting and its outcome, as reflected in the joint statement. We expect undertaking practical steps by the Co-Chairmen with a view to intensifying the negotiations, the delegation said.

However, the Azerbaijani delegation continued, unlawful practice by Yerevan on altering the demographic, cultural and physical character in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan demonstrates its systematic policy aimed at consolidating the occupation and imposing a fait accompli.

Such steps by Armenia, including armed provocations along the Line of Confrontation, undermine the peace efforts, and shall be comprehensively addressed by the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairmen, the Azerbaijani delegation said, further urging the OSCE participating States to implement their commitments under international humanitarian law and human rights instruments to prevent and reverse illegal economic and other activities of their natural and legal persons, wherever located.

Further reminding that the UN Security Council resolutions, the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the decisions and documents of OSCE form the basis for the conflict resolution, the Azerbaijani delegation said if Armenia is genuinely interested in seeking a political solution to the conflict, then it must engage constructively in the conflict settlement process on this precise basis.

The step-by-step approach for the conflict settlement has no alternative and remains the best chance for achieving a peace. The underlying concept of this approach is based on removing consequences of the conflict, which are identified in the UN Security Council resolutions, in particular starting with withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces, while deferring remaining political issues for future negotiations within the Minsk Conference. This approach is the main thrust and is at the core of the proposals currently on the negotiation table, the delegation 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.

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10 November 2017 10:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Geneva meeting was an important signal showing that the sides to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are ready to re-engage in negotiations in good faith, Harry Kamian, the Charge d Affaires, a.i., to the U.S. Mission to the OSCE said this at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting in Vienna on November 9.

As a Co-Chair country, the United States reiterates our strong support for your [the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group] work and we appreciate your unwavering engagement with the sides to advance a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Kamian said, reads a message posted by the U.S. Mission to the OSCE.

The U.S. diplomat further noted that the United States welcomes the joint statement by the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan following the October 16 summit organized by the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group in Geneva.

This summit was an important signal showing that the sides are ready to re-engage in negotiations in good faith. We are pleased that the presidents agreed to take urgently needed measures to reduce tensions along the Line of Contact, and we encourage the sides to build on this positive momentum, he added.

Kamian further reiterated calls for the sides to implement the measures agreed upon at the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in May and June 2016, respectively. The sides agreed then to expand the monitoring by the Office of the Chairmanships Personal Representative, which can eventually be reflected in the 2018 OSCE budget. The United States also encourages the sides to work on the proposal to establish an OSCE investigative mechanism, he noted.

Further stressing the importance of the OSCE monitoring mission assessment of the situation on the ground, he noted that even a small ceasefire violation could spiral quickly out of control.

The United States appreciates the close collaboration of the Austrian Chairmanship and the Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office in supporting the Co-Chairs mediation efforts and stabilizing the situation on the ground, he added.

We also support confidence-building measures and increased dialogue between Armenians and Azerbaijanis that can help stabilize the security situation and create a more constructive atmosphere for negotiations, Kamian said.

The U.S. diplomat stressed that this conflict has indeed gone on far too long, adding the status quo is unacceptable.

At the same time, we all agree that there can be no military solution to the conflict. As a Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the United States remains deeply committed to working with the sides to find a lasting and peaceful resolution to the conflict, one based on the principles shared by participating States of non-use of force, territorial integrity, and equal rights as embraced in the Helsinki Final Act, he concluded.

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.

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10 November 2017 10:26 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijan expect the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Group and the OSCE participating States to condemn any effort to promote and propagate the illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

This was announced by the Azerbaijani delegation to the OSCE at the 1163rd Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in response to the statements by the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE MG, the Head of the HLPG and the Personal Representative of the Chairman-in-Office on the Conflict Dealt with by the Minsk Conference in Vienna Nov.9, the Azerbaijani mission told Trend.

The Azerbaijani mission said that statements of the high-level officials of Armenia before and immediately after the Geneva meeting raise questions as to real intensions of Yerevan.

In this context, we expect the Co-Chairmen of the Minsk Group and the OSCE participating States to condemn pointless legalistic exercise by Armenia to justify secession of the Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, and any effort to promote and propagate the illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, the mission said, further mentioning that such attempts were denounced by the UN Security Council back in 1993.

The Azerbaijani mission stressed that Armenia must understand and remember that neither Azerbaijan, nor the international community will ever recognize the results of unlawful occupation of territories and ethnic cleansing.

No peace settlement of the conflict can be reached which violates the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and is inconsistent with international law. The military occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan does not represent a solution and will never produce a political outcome desired by Armenia, the mission said.

The Azerbaijani mission also hailed the activity of the HLPG, which took several initiatives for familiarizing with the current trends and developments in international peacekeeping, increasing its visibility both within the organization and vis-a-vis the outside relevant actors and exploring possibilities of enriching its peacekeeping options.

We remain of the view that the HLPG, as one of the three pillars of the OSCE dealing with the conflict, should be better integrated into overall peace process. HLPGs participation in monitoring exercises along the Line of Confrontation is important to ensure its situational awareness and in this regard, we underline the necessity for granting equal access for all members of the Group to monitoring without any undue restrictions. We condemn attacks on and discrimination against the HLPG members on the ground of their nationality, the mission said.

The Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office is an important element of the Minsk Process. We value the mandate of the Personal Representative to support activities of the Co-chairmen and the HLPG in discharging their mandate.

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.

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10 November 2017 10:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The facts concerning detention of Azerbaijani women in Iraq are being investigated, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesperson for Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry, told Trend on November 9.

Earlier, a member of the Iraqi parliament Vian Dakhil wrote on her Twitter page that 512 Russian and 200 Azerbaijani women as ISIS members were captured and incarcerated by Iraqi forces.

Hajiyev said that such statements are not new.

"Facts are being investigated and studied. The Azerbaijani side is in constant contact with the relevant Iraqi authorities through the embassy in Iraq on this issue, he concluded.

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10 November 2017 11:34 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijans National Flag Day has been celebrated with a ceremony in the City of Monterey of the U.S. State of California. Hosted by the Monterey City Council in the City Hall, the event was attended by the City leadership, businesspersons, representatives of mass media, arts and culture as well as professors and students of the renowned Monterey-based graduate schools of the U.S. Department of Defense, Azertac reported.

Monterey and the City of Lankaran in Azerbaijan have enjoyed a sister-city relationship since 2011.

Opening the event, Monterey Mayor Clyde Roberson expressed the citys satisfaction to host such celebration. Speaking of the importance of sister-city relationships in building bridges between people, the mayor highlighted the partnership with Lankaran in Azerbaijan. Touching on the diversity of Monterey, Roberson stressed the significance of further developing mutually beneficial relationships with sister cities and expanding the outreach to their communities.

Speaking of Azerbaijans tumultous path to freedom and independence, Consul General in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev informed the event attendees about Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-20)  the first ever majority-Muslim secular democracy in the world  which adopted the current tricolor flag as the national flag of Azerbaijan on November 9, 1918. Aghayev mentioned that after 71 years as part of the Soviet Union, this flag became the national flag of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991. He stressed that when Azerbaijans National Leader Heydar Aliyev was the chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Azerbaijans Nakhchivan region, this tricolor flag was raised in November 1990  a year before the collapse of the USSR  as the flag of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The Consul General thanked the City of Monterey for hosting this momentous celebration and for their unwaivering friendship.

Speaking afterwards, the former City Councilwoman Nancy Selfridge, who played an instrumental role in establishing the Monterey-Lankaran sister-city relationship talked about the history of this partnership and expressed her hope that this relationship will become even stronger over the years to come.

Then a proclamation signed by Monterey Mayor Clyde Roberson regarding the Monterey-Lankaran partnership and Azerbaijans National Flag Day was presented to Consul General Nasimi Aghayev. The event also featured a phenomenal performance of Azerbaijani songs by local Azerbaijani community member Eldar Khudiyev.

In honor of Azerbaijans National Flag Day and the celebration, a central street (Alvarado Str.) of Monterey was decorated with many Azerbaijan flags, a short video of which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/Vnf_FztVXyM .

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10 November 2017 15:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan offered the member countries of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) to sign a multilateral agreement on the implementation of measures for mutual recognition of electronic signatures, said the ministry in a message on November 10.

Azerbaijani Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies Ramin Guluzade made such an initiative during the second meeting of ICT ministers of the Turkic Council member countries, held recently in Istanbul.

The minister noted the importance of carrying out joint work on the recognition of e-signature between the member countries of the organization, which is important for the development of turnover in e-commerce, and suggested as a first step to sign a multilateral agreement.

Guluzade also spoke about holding the next high-level meeting on the construction of the TASIM cable line during the upcoming 23rd Azerbaijan International Telecommunications and Information Technologies Exhibition and Conference (Bakutel) on December 5, 2017.

He highly appreciated the cooperation of the Turkic Council member countries towards the implementation of this project which, according to him, is of strategic importance, for the countries of the region, and is an important component for eliminating digital inequalities in landlocked countries.

The TASIM construction project envisages the creation of a major transit link from Frankfurt to Hong Kong. Russia (Rostelecom), Kazakhstan (KazTransCom), Turkey (TurkTelecom) and China (China Telecom) are also involved in the TASIM project.

Azerbaijan is represented in the project by AzInTelecom LLC.

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10 November 2017 11:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Tajikistans Minister of Defence, Lieutenant General Sherali Mirzo and Ambassador Tuula Yrjola, Head of the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe, inked an agreement to establish a Regional Explosive Hazards Training Centre in Dushanbe Nov.9, the OSCE reported.

The establishment of the Centre is foreseen under the Memorandum of Understanding on the OSCE extra-budgetary project Integrated Co-operation on Explosive Hazards Programme, which was signed on November 9. The project is part of the OSCEs efforts in developing a co-operative mechanism among Central Asian states to address concerns and challenges stemming from the disposal of explosive hazards.

The Memorandum of Understanding consolidates the partnership and co-operation efforts of the Ministry of Defence and the OSCE to establish the Regional Explosive Hazards Training Centre of the Ministry of Defence, said Lieutenant General Mirzo. He also noted that the Ministry has a well-established reputation in providing explosive ordnance disposal and related trainings in the region.

Ambassador Yrjola, in turn, said the OSCE has been a steady supporter of the Government of Tajikistan, in particular the Ministry of Defence, in developing its operational, but also training capacities in Mine Action, in line with international standards and best practices.

Sine its launch in mid-2013, this OSCE extra-budgetary project has so far provided training opportunities to more than 170 national trainers and experts in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). The courses focused on improvised explosive devices, the demilitarization of explosive ordnance, explosive hazards risk awareness, and response and medical support to EOD operations.

The project has also provided a practical platform to facilitate the exchange of experience and best practices at a regional level, as part of the OSCE confidence- and security-building measures.

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10 November 2017 14:18 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) eyes long-term cooperation with Uzbekistan as it continues to heavily invest in the country.

As part of its new engagement in Uzbekistan, the EBRD is channeling funds into the countrys pharmaceutical industry to renew production facilities, foster research and development and support export potential, according to the bank's press release.

A loan of up to $11.2 million will support the construction of a new plastic ampoules production facility at Mutabar Medical Standart LLC (Mutabar), Uzbekistan. The blow-fill-seal (BFS) equipment to be installed at Mutabar will ensure better product safety and a high degree of sterility.

This is a modern technological process that also reduces the cost of medicines since the ampoules are produced in-house, in compliance with the highest industry standards. It will help increase the overall quality of production and replace widely used glass ampoule injections in Uzbekistan.

Part of the loan is earmarked for research and development, which will allow Mutabar to introduce new generic products otherwise not available on the domestic market.

A properly functioning pharmaceutical sector can make a big difference to the quality of peoples lives. This project will support necessary innovation, the impact of which will be felt in hospitals across Uzbekistan. It will also make Mutabar more competitive domestically and in the Central Asia region, EBRD First Vice President Phil Bennett said.

Davron Abdullaev, director of Mutabar Medical Standart, noted that the introduction of new plastic ampoules to the market eliminates the risk of human injury and eases the process of waste utilisation.

Previously, the bank approved a $120 million credit line to the republic for three projects. In addition, the EBRD intends to allocate another $300 million to Uzbekistan by the end of next year. The bank plans to develop projects in various sectors of the economy, including municipal infrastructure, support of financial institutions, agriculture, commerce and other areas.

Uzbekistan joined the EBRD in 1992. According to the EBRD, the bank invested almost 900 million euros in the country and implemented about 54 projects in energy, entrepreneurship, transportation, construction, development of mineral resources, etc.

The EBRD is the largest institutional investor in Central Asia, with close to 11.6 billion euros ($12.3 billion) committed to projects in a variety of sectors, from infrastructure to agriculture, with a focus on private sector development. It has successful experience of bringing innovation to Uzbekistans pharmaceutical sector through direct and indirect lending and a number of consultancy projects, which helped companies improve operational and financial management and obtain ISO 9001 and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certificates.

The Bank has to date invested 894 million euros in Uzbekistan. Its current portfolio in the country is 8 million euros.

Currently, the Bank together with the involved ministries and departments of Uzbekistan is in the process of development a draft of the EBRD country program for Uzbekistan, which will further expand the Bank's interaction with the Central Asian nation.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) plans to approve a new country program for Uzbekistan next summer.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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For 24 years, the Lincoln Sertoma Clubs have put on the Okto Beerfest event in Lincoln as a benefit for the Nebraska State Stroke Association (NSSA).

In 1993, Charlie Huff, then-president of the NSSA board and manager of the Villager Motel, presented the idea to Gateway Sertoma Club, where he was a member. Since then, this philanthropic event, run entirely by volunteers, has raised more than $275,000 for education and awareness on stroke prevention and for assisting stroke survivors and their families.

In 2017, the Okto Beerfest planning committee included 18 people who put in more than 2,000 volunteer hours. Most of the Sertoma volunteer leaders have worked on the event for at least 10 years  and some, including James Plucknett, Jim Krysl, Harold Klein and Al Borchardt, have helped more than 20 years.

The mission of all Sertoma service groups is to improve the quality of life today for those at risk or impacted by hearing loss through education and support. Most stroke survivors suffer a loss in some or all of their hearing or speech, so by supporting the Nebraska State Stroke Association, the Lincoln Sertoma Clubs directly accomplish their mission by providing both education and support.

The newest member, Colten Zamrzla, who joined Gateway Sertoma and the Okto Beerfest Committee in 2016, runs the event Facebook page and website. He said, It aligned two of my favorite hobbies: helping people and craft brewing.

Event coordinator Darlene Berks, who has led the Okto Beerfest silent auction for 13 years, loves serving the community. My brother, Stevie Berks, had a stroke a couple of years ago while he was on the dance floor, she said. He got straight over to the hospital. He works construction and is now back at work again.

I have seen strokes affect several family members, so Im glad to be able to help, said LaRita Lang from the University Sertoma Club, who has been involved for at least 10 years.

The 24th annual Okto Beerfest, held Oct. 19 at the Lancaster Event Center, included 30 craft breweries, 14 food vendors, more than 20 vendor booths and more than 80 silent and live auction items.

The Nebraska State Stroke Association, a 501(c)(3) based in Lincoln at 6900 L St., was founded in 1985. Learn more at NebraskaStroke.org.
10 November 2017 11:28 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Fresh investments into the agribusiness sector mark a new phase of the EBRDs engagement in Uzbekistan, the EBRD said in a press release.

The Bank is stepping up its efforts to support the country in its efforts to become a major agricultural producer in Central Asia.

A $10 million loan by the EBRD to LLC JV Agromir Juice (Agromir), Uzbekistans leading juice manufacturer, will help introduce best industry standards and will send a positive signal for private sector investors interested in the country.

Up to $5 million will be used for the construction of a modern warehouse equipped with an automated management system. It will help reduce losses and achieve better stock management as well as contribute to savings in production and logistics. The remaining $5 million will be used by Agromir for working capital needs and the restructuring of its balance sheet.

EBRD First Vice President Phil Bennett said: This is our first agribusiness project in the country for almost 10 years, exactly the time when we first started working with Agromir. It is very symbolic that our new engagement with Uzbekistan coincides with our re-engagement with the company. Our financing will not only improve its efficiency but also enhance its corporate governance standards.

The EBRD is the largest institutional investor in Central Asia, with close to 11.6 billion euros ($12.3 billion) committed to projects in a variety of sectors, from infrastructure to agriculture, with a focus on private sector development.

The Bank has invested 894 million euros in Uzbekistan; with a current portfolio of 8 million euros in the country.

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10 November 2017 17:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The board of Russian Railways JSC decided to change the level of tariffs for rail transportation of fruit from Uzbekistan.

Thus, in particular, until 2019, a discount of 50 percent will be imposed on the tariff for the import of fruit and vegetable products from Uzbekistan to Russia in refrigerated rolling stock.

"This reduction is in effect provided that Russian Railways is exempted from the charge for using the refrigerator rolling stock belonging to the states involved in transportation. The coefficient comes into effect in accordance with the established procedure and is valid until December 31, 2018," the press service of the company reported.

Uzbek fruit products under the UzAgro brand were recently sent to Russia for the first time. Currently, agreements on the organization of a simplified procedure for the conduct of customs operations when moving goods and vehicles, as well as on simplifying the phytosanitary control procedure between the two countries are in effect (green corridor).

Trade and economic cooperation between the two states, 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

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10 November 2017 18:06 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

A decision to export products of Kazakh manufacturers for a total of $5.3 million was made following the business forum "Kazakhstan-China" held in Chinas Urumchi on November 10, the press service of the national company KAZAKH INVEST reported.

Thirteen Kazakhstani manufacturers and about 100 Chinese potential buyers took part in the business forum.

The Kazakh delegation included manufacturers of cars, fiberglass pipes, mineral fertilizers, fat and oil products, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, dry mare's milk, bread products and apples.

As a whole, the results of the event included export contracts worth $5.3 million, KAZAKH INVEST said in a statement.

Director of the KAZAKH INVEST department Kudiyarov Nurlan noted that 2017 was a breakthrough in the development of cooperation between the two countries in the agricultural sector.

Thanks to the work of the Governments of Kazakhstan and China, the issues of supplies of Kazakh products are gradually being resolved. We are ready to assist all interested domestic producers in finding potential partners in China, in particular in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), as this is the main nearby market for Kazakh products, he said.

To date, this is already the seventh similar event held in Urumchi. As a result of past trade missions, contracts worth more than $70 million were signed.

The foreign trade turnover between Kazakhstan and China in the first eight months of 2017 increased by 31 percent and amounted to $6.5 billion. Kazakhstans exports amounted to $3.5 billion showing an increase of 28 percent, while imports grew by 36 percent and equaled to $3 billion.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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10 November 2017 18:14 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has received Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, the countrys Economy Ministry said in a message on November 10.

During the meeting, the sides discussed development of bilateral economic relations, as well as the results of the Turkish-Uzbek forum held on October 25-26 in Istanbul, according to the message.

At present, there are 479 companies operating in Uzbekistan with the participation of Turkish capital, including 199 joint ventures.

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10 November 2017 18:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The current prosperity of the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) is going to continue, a world markets analyst says.

The profitable sectors of TSE are export companies, oil and chemical companies, and mineral companies, Ali Khoshnoud told Trend on November 8.

"The profitability of the first group is due to the fact that the price of the US dollar is on the rise against the Iranian rial. The profitability of the second group is due to the rising oil prices in the global market. And last but not least, the profitability of the third group is that the commodity prices are on the rise in the global market," the expert noted.

Khoshnoud said that all of the three groups are expected to enjoy steady profitability for some time to come.

"The first groups profitability is obviously going to continue because the USD rate is going up. As for the second group, regional security disturbances as well as the fact that we are in the second half of the year contribute to demands. Also, Saudi Arabia is planning to sell 5 percent of Aramco next year, so it is trying not to oversupply. Therefore, chemical companies can be assured that oil prices are going to remain stable."

"As for the mineral sector, Chinas Silk Road project contributes to prices. Also, although US President Donald Trumps plan to rebuild the infrastructure of America has stayed idle, the lowering of taxes helps increase demand for commodity."

Asked whether the Wests political pressure on Iran influences the TSE, Khoshnoud said, "First of all we are used to this. We have been under such pressure for 40 years now. However, we have to consider the fact that when the financial statement of a company indicates profitability, the companys value will increase. The example of this is that while in October everybody was expecting modification of indices, there came the 6-month report with the adjustment of most companies profitability, which was under the influence of the post-JCPOA boom. So, that prevented indices from going down."

Main index of the TSE inched up 39.4 points or 0.04 percent to end trades at 87883.1 on Nov. 7. According to the TSE official website, over one billion shares, valued at $46.5 million (1.6 trillion rials), were traded for the day.

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10 November 2017 18:34 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkey is ready to support the development of the Central Asian countries, Turkish media cited the countrys Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci as saying on November 10.

Zeybekci made the remarks during his visit to Uzbekistan.

Solidarity between the Central Asian countries is extremely important as it is beneficial not only for the region, but for the whole world, the minister added.

Zeybekci also stressed that Turkey pays special attention to the development of relations with the Central Asian countries.

Currently, 479 companies with Turkish capital, including 199 joint ventures, operate in Uzbekistan. More than 20 companies were established in Uzbekistan with Turkish investments in 2016.

Representative offices of 53 Turkish companies have been accredited under the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade.

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Here are four gastroenterologists making news this past week.

Rome (N.Y.) Memorial Hospital will bestow Physician of the Year honors on Ajay Goel, MD.

Former AGA President and Gastroenterology Editor Marvin Sleisenger, MD, 93, died Oct. 19.

Nitesh Ratnakar, MD, will continue to serve as the American College of Gastroenterology's West Virginia Governor.

The Inquirer recognized Noel Fajardo, MD, during the seventh annual The Outstanding Filipinos in America awards in New York City.
An article, published in ASC Focus, offered several tips for ASCs to stay ahead of drug-shortages caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

Here's what you should know:

1. Sheldon Sones and Associates President Sheldon Sones suggests ASCs cultivate good, active relationships with wholesalers. A center could leverage this relationship in times of need.

2. Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Audubon Surgery Center COO Rochele Hovasse suggests establishing relationships with local hospitals and pharmacies as well. She said, "We have a strong relationship with our local hospital, so if we go low on a certain drug, the hospital shares it with us because the hospital gets its supplies before the ASCs do."

She echoed Mr. Sones comments about establishing relationships with distributors and vendors as well. In fact, several vendors reached out to Ms. Hovasse about possible hurricane-related shortages as soon as Hurricane Maria was developing.

3. Ms. Hovasse also recommended ASCs stock up on needed supplies. She said, "Look at your case mix to determine the level and the type of supplies you should have on hand."

4. PurNet CEO Darlene Vortherms said her company notifies its 2,000 members immediately after pharmaceutical companies inform her of potential shortages.
The following hospitals announced or completed plans in the last week to expand, upgrade or renovate their facilities.

1. ER physicians open 4th urgent care clinic in Nashville

A group of emergency room physicians is opening its fourth urgent care clinic, this time in West Nashville, Tenn.

2. Tennessee hospital receives state OK for $47M expansion

Murfreesboro, Tenn.-based St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital received state approval for its $47 million expansion project.

3. Halifax Health to build $105M hospital after board approval

Daytona Beach, Fla.-based Halifax Health is planning to build a $105 million, 95-bed hospital after the health system's board of commissioners agreed to fund the construction, despite an ongoing court battle over the site.

4. New Orleans children's hospital on track with $300M revamp

The Children's Hospital of New Orleans is on track with its $300 million expansion and renovation project.

5. Cleveland Clinic Children's to open first freestanding outpatient center

Cleveland Clinic Children's will build its first freestanding outpatient facility  a $20 million, 120,000-square-foot children's center.

6. Altru Health System announces $250M expansion

Grand Forks, N.D.-based Altru Health System is planning a $250 million expansion.

7. 3 things to know about Kaleida Health's new $270M children's hospital

Buffalo, N.Y.-based Kaleida Health will open its John R. Oishei Children's Hospital this week.

8. New Era Partners to build $25M medical complex in Texas

New Era Partners, a medical real-estate company, will construct a $25 million medical complex in Garland.

9. Scripps Health to launch $2.6B expansion

San Diego-based Scripps Health is planning a $2.6 billion expansion  the largest construction project in the organization's 125-year history.

10. University of Florida Health neuromedicine, heart and vascular hospitals to open in December

University of Florida Health in Gainesville will open the UF Health Heart & Vascular Hospital and the UF Health Neuromedicine Hospital next month.

11. Illinois hospital to relocate Nov. 4

St. Elizabeth's Hospital, currently located in Belleville, Ill., will relocate Nov. 4 to a $330 million facility in O'Fallon, Ill.

12. Mercy breaks ground on $40M clinic in Arkansas

Springfield, Mo.-based Mercy broke ground on a $40 million multispecialty facility in Springdale, Ark., Oct. 26.
Lancaster County's juvenile detention center can't hire additional staff to handle overcrowding spikes but can turn young people away if it's full, a divided Lancaster County Board decided Thursday.

The decision followed weeks of discussion about crowding issues at the Lancaster County Youth Services Center and Thursday turned into a heated debate about how the county and state work together.

The county runs the detention center, but state probation is responsible for placing teens once theyve been through the juvenile court system. A majority of young people in the detention center are waiting placement in treatment or therapeutic settings.

The debate highlights the difficulty of finding such placements for young people  primarily with private providers outside Lincoln that can choose not to accept young people or can send them back to detention if they violate rules.

A juvenile justice steering committee made up of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys, state human services workers and law enforcement officials asked to advise the County Board on the issue overwhelmingly said theres a need for more group homes or therapeutic placements for young people.

Thats where were at now, said Deputy County Attorney Bruce Prenda. The supply clearly cannot meet the demand.

Committee members also said they would prefer expanding the number of beds in an existing shelter run by Cedars Youth Services rather than relying more heavily on using the detention center, but did not want the center to turn children away.

Tonya Peters, an assistant city attorney and legal counsel for the Lincoln Police Department, said the elephant in the room is the need for consistent funding so providers can keep enough beds available even if theyre not always full.

The County Board began debating the issue when Sheli Schindler, director of the detention center, asked for permission to hire five additional employees to staff an additional unit for high-risk boys. While the center has empty beds for low-risk boys and girls, the unit for high-risk boys has been full on various occasions over the past months.

If the board did not want to hire more staff, Schindler said she needs the authority to turn away teens when the units theyd be placed in are full. The contract between the state and county allows the detention center to do that, but so far that hasnt happened, because juvenile justice officials are reluctant to turn young people away.

While the board voted unanimously not to hire additional staff  something members said goes against the overarching goal of reducing the number of juveniles in detention  it was split on whether to allow Schindler to enforce the contract and say no when the center is full. That measure narrowly passed: Commissioners Todd Wiltgen, Deb Schorr and Bill Avery voted to allow it; Roma Amundson and Jennifer Brinkman voted against it.

Schindler told the board she needs the ability to enforce the existing contract to maintain a safe environment.

But Brinkman said she didnt want to stick a finger in the eye of state probation by authorizing the detention center to turn kids away, taking a defensive position instead of working collaboratively.

Schindler said the relationship has to go both ways, and said it wasn't her intent when she requested additional staff.

I care about the kids. Ive devoted 25 years of my life to those kids, she said. That view of my actions is, frankly, insulting.

Wiltgen said allowing Schindler to enforce the contract isnt intended to turn kids away, but to give detention center officials a management tool that will force the state to find placements more quickly.

Im saying no because its a way to get to yes, he said.

Lori Griggs, the chief probation officer in Lancaster County, said detaining juveniles in another city would cause problems for families and complicate local court proceedings.

Thats a world weve never gone to before, Griggs said. I would hate to see that happening.

The number of young people in detention has decreased dramatically over the past few years, she said, and delays in getting young people placed happen for a variety of reasons.

We talk about this daily, she said. We are constantly working on it. We dont just sit there.

Although the detention center has room for 60 youth, staffing levels have decreased because fewer juveniles are put in detention. The average daily population at the center each month this year has ranged from 27 to 41. Schindler said she staffs for about 30, but total numbers might be down when individual units are full.

In deciding not to hire additional detention center staff, County Board members said they want to continue to work to find additional placements for young people, and asked that probation and county justice officials work more closely together.

What we need to focus on is finding additional ways to find services, Amundson said.
Michigan families are getting medical debt relief thanks to efforts from nurses.

The Michigan Nurses Association, which represents about 13,000 registered nurses statewide, recently worked with Rye, N.Y.-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to clear more than $1 million in medical debt for more than 500 Michigan individuals and families, the union said via news release. These efforts, led by MNA members at Lansing, Mich.-based Sparrow Hospital, affects families and individuals across Michigan, including those in the Greater Lansing area.

MNA officials said since RIP Medical Debt buys medical debt for less than its value, the union paid about $10,000 to clear $1 million in debt.

Overall, they say their goal is to support hospital reforms to help alleviate excessive medical bills.

"It's heartbreaking to see medical debt driving so many families into financial ruin and preventing them from getting essential care for themselves and their kids," said Jeff Breslin, RN, president of the Professional Employee Council of Sparrow Hospital/Michigan Nurses Association. "We know that wiping out debt for 500 families won't solve everything, but MNA members want to do whatever we can to help while also calling for hospitals to make changes that end this epidemic."

This calling includes Sparrow, which nurses are asking to contractually agree to "guarantee that its policies that offer free or discounted healthcare to financially eligible individuals or families will continue." Nurses said they also want the hospital to "stop reporting patients with unresolved medical debt to credit scoring agencies."

Sparrow is currently in contract negotiations with the union.

John Foren, a spokesperson for Sparrow, told the Lansing State Journal via statement the hospital has an average annual commitment of $80 million toward charity and uncompensated care, free and discounted health clinics, and covering the funding shortfall for Medicaid and Medicare patients.

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Houston-based Texas Medical Center unveiled the TMC Venture Fund, a $25 million initiative to support young startups aiming to advance health education and research.

Officials revealed plans for the fund to 600-plus investors, hospital stakeholders, advisers and members of the Houston startup community during the medical center's "TMCx Demo Day" Wednesday.

"The TMC Venture Fund is a quintessential example of the Texas Medical Center's ongoing commitment to driving collaboration across our medical city and further establishing Texas as the third coast of life sciences in the United States," said William McKeon, president and CEO of Texas Medical Center.

The TMC Venture Fund investment committee also selected five companies to receive funding.

To learn more about the recipients, click here.
The Massachusetts state Senate passed a healthcare reform bill Thursday that sets a basement reimbursement rate of 90 percent and fines certain hospitals if industry growth exceeds 2.7 percent annually, among other provisions, according to The Boston Globe.

The bill passed 33 votes to six, though it remains to be seen if it will receive similar support in the House. Under the bill, pharmaceutical companies would have to submit pricing data to the Health Policy Commission and testify at the group's annual hearing.

Republicans have criticized the bill for failing to address the rising costs of MassHealth, the state's Medicaid plan, while health systems have also voiced opposition to the proposal.

An earlier draft of the bill planned to fine the state's three highest-spending hospitals if industry growth exceeded 2.7 percent. Boston-based Partners HealthCare, which operates Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital  both of which are based in Boston  complained the measure unfairly targeted their system. The bill was amended and penalties will no longer be limited to the three hospitals.

Gov. Charlie Baker, R, also criticized the bill for not going far enough to help the state's budget.

"My big concern with the Senate healthcare bill is it doesn't save the state any money," Mr. Baker said, according to The Boston Globe. "If we don't do some things to change the way our system operates, we put education spending at risk, we put transportation spending at risk, and we put general local aid to cities and towns, public safety and fire protection at risk."
In 2016, Massachusetts had the highest percentage of female physicians, in comparison to Utah, which had the lowest percentage of female physicians, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The "2017 State Physician Workforce Data Report" analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the American Medical Association Masterfile to examine current physician supply, medical school enrollment and physician retention.

In the report, AAMC data breaks down the percentage of physicians in each state by gender.

Here are 10 states with the highest percentage of female physicians.

1. Massachusetts (41.3 percent)

2. Vermont (40.2 percent)

3. Rhode Island (39.8 percent)

4. Maryland (39.7 percent)

5. Oregon (38 percent)

6. New York (37.9 percent)

7. Illinois (37.7 percent)

8. Delaware (37.5 percent)

9. New Mexico (37.4 percent)

9. Colorado (37.4 percent)

Here are 10 states with the lowest percentage of female physicians.

1. Utah (23.8 percent)

2. Idaho (25.1 percent)

3. Wyoming (25.4 percent)

4. Mississippi (26 percent)

5. Arkansas (27 percent)

6. Alabama (27.2 percent)

7. Nevada (27.9 percent)

8. West Virginia (28.9 percent)

9. Oklahoma (29 percent)

10. Tennessee (29.3 percent)

In total 34.6 percent of active physicians in the U.S. were female in 2016.

To read the full report, click here.
Two Chicago health systems are suspending plans to further engage with Outcome Health in light of recent allegations employees at the Chicago-based technology and advertising startup manipulated pricing and sales information and that the company engaged in fraud and breach of contract, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Spokespeople for Downers Grove, Ill.-based Advocate Health Care and Naperville, Ill.-based Edward-Elmhurst Health told the Chicago Tribune they plan to hold off on expanding their use of Outcome Health technologies.

"We are monitoring the situation closely. In the meantime, we've paused plans to expand screen installation," a spokesperson for Advocate told the Chicago Tribune via email Thursday.

A spokesperson for Edward-Elmhurst Health, which announced its partnership with Outcome Health earlier this month, said the health system is holding off on its previous plans to roll out the technology systemwide.

"We partnered with Outcome Health because of the company's mission to educate and empower patients, and its alignment with our own vision to transform the healthcare experience," the spokesperson told the Chicago Tribune Thursday. "In light of recent developments, however, we are putting further technology and equipment installations on hold."

The startup also recently revealed a partnership with Macon, Ga.-based Navicent Health. Navicent did not return Becker's Hospital Review's request for comment.

The allegations against the company stem from an October report by The Wall Street Journal, which claimed a group of Outcome Health employees manipulated pricing and sales information to mislead pharmaceutical advertisers. On Tuesday, a group of investors sued the company and its two founders, alleging Outcome Health engaged in fraud and breach of contract.

In the wake of the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed several Outcome Health investors Thursday. The court filing also indicated potential involvement by the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the report.

According to documents filed in court Wednesday by a lawyer on behalf of the company's two co-founders, there is no evidence senior management was involved or aware of the alleged misconduct, the Chicago Tribune reports.

In a statement on the company's website, Outcome Health CEO and co-founder Rishi Shah wrote: "Integrity is the foundational value at Outcome Health  that has always been our commitment.  Outcome Health is committed to and has always expected all of our employees to operate with the highest ethical standards and in accordance with our values.  We appreciate the hard work of our dedicated employees, and want to reiterate that adherence to our policies is not optional  anyone who violates them will be held accountable."
The U.S. Department of Justice is dismissing its False Claims Act lawsuit against HCR ManorCare, a Toledo, Ohio-based provider of short-term, post-hospital services and long-term care, the nursing home chain confirmed Thursday.

The DOJ sued HCR ManorCare in 2015 for allegedly submitting false claims to Medicare and Tricare for medically unnecessary therapy.

Joining a whistle-blower civil lawsuit, the federal government said the nursing home chain "exerted pressure on SNF [skilled nursing facility] administrators and rehabilitation therapists to meet unrealistic financial goals that resulted in the provision of medically unreasonable and unnecessary services to Medicare and Tricare patients." HCR ManorCare was also accused of keeping patients in facilities longer than medically necessary to increase Medicare payments.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan in a recent hearing criticized the federal government for its actions with the case, HCR ManorCare President, Chairman and CEO Steve Cavanaugh wrote in a letter to employees, patients, families and business partners.

"I don't think this case should have ever been brought," the judge said, according to the nursing home chain. "I'm appalled, I'm embarrassed, I'm ashamed that the Department of Justice would rely on this kind of nonsense." HCR ManorCare added the judge also called the case a "waste of money" and a "'house of cards' built on the testimony of a single alleged expert witness hired by the Department of Justice."

The federal government has since filed a motion saying it intends to dismiss the case.

"The government has stated its intention to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning that, with no payment of any kind by HCR ManorCare, the lawsuit is over. To be perfectly clear, we are not settling the case  the government is dismissing it, fully and finally," Mr. Cavanaugh wrote.

Both sides are expected to file formal dismissal motions later this month, according to Skilled Nursing News.

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A teenager was arrested after stealing an ambulance from Dallas-based Parkland Memorial Hospital Thursday morning, according to NBC DFW.

The 19-year-old man jumped into a running ambulance at 11:55 a.m. Nov. 9 and drove away. Police responded immediately and followed the driver for roughly five miles before he surrendered.

The investigation into the theft is ongoing. No further information was available.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, R, sent a letter to the state's attorney general, calling for an immediate investigation into physician's prescribing practices, according to report from The Arizona Republic.

Mr. Ducey made the request after examining information on state opioid prescriptions from the state board that monitors controlled substances.

The board found four Arizona physicians operating in sparsely populated Mohave County prescribed a total of 6 million opioid pills in a single year. The four physicians are among the state's top opioid prescribers, even though Mohave County is home to just 200,000 people. The top-prescribing physician from Mohave County wrote 20,232 opioid prescriptions, amounting to more than 1.9 million pills in a single year, which breaks down to about 7,350 pills a day. Statewide, 15 physicians prescribed 14 million opioid pills in the first half of 2017, according to the report.

"While there are legitimate reasons to prescribe opioids, these prescribing rates are shocking and profoundly disturbing," Mr. Ducey told Attorney General Mark Brnovich in a letter obtained by The Arizona Republic. "I am deeply concerned that this information may reveal serious violations of Arizona's criminal laws."

Mia Garcia, a spokeswoman for Mr. Brnovich, declined to discuss the letter with the publication.

"The attorney general's office cannot disclose information related to ongoing criminal investigations," Ms. Garcia told The Arizona Republic via email. "We must protect the integrity of our investigations. In addition, we have to a duty to protect the law enforcement officers who investigate complex and dangerous criminal cases."

To read the full report, click here.

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Nashville (Tenn.) Mayor Megan Barry announced Thursday Nashville General Hospital will end all inpatient services and transition to an ambulatory surgical care center providing only outpatient services, the Tennessean reports.

Ms. Barry said her administration will submit a "substantial request" to The Metropolitan Council for funds to stabilize the hospital until the end of the year. She also said she plans to create an indigent care fund to pay the hospitalization costs for low-income patients at privately run hospitals, the report states.

Officials cited competition and skyrocketing costs as reasons for the facility's transition.

The mayor's announcement regarding the hospital reportedly came as a surprise to many hospital employees and Nashville residents, according to the report.

The announcement also followed reports Nashville-based HCA Healthcare signed a partnership agreement to train students from Nashville-based Meharry Medical College at one of its hospitals in Tennessee. Students previously undertook clinical training at Nashville General.

The transition in services must still garner approval from The Metropolitan Council, the Nashville Hospital Authority and Meharry Medical College, a spokesperson from Nashville General told the Tennessean.

"We anticipated the need for Meharry Medical College to explore alternative options for its residency and teaching program. The Hospital Authority Board of Trustees and the Nashville General Hospital leadership team have been working on a long-term strategic plan to strengthen our facility for the future. To allow Nashville General to maintain core services within the City's $35 million subsidy, key components of this plan included service line changes that would affect Meharry's teaching programs. As a result, leadership from both Nashville General Hospital and Meharry Medical College have been exploring other collaborations that will allow us to diversify and expand the ways we care for underserved populations," Jan Brandes, MD, chair of the hospital authority board of trustees for Nashville General Hospital told Becker's Hospital Review via email Nov. 13.

"We wish Meharry the best in its new partnership. ... We look forward to collaborating with the mayor's office and metro council to bring proposals for the future of Nashville General Hospital together and ensure that all of our city's residents  regardless of socioeconomic status  have access to the compassionate care and support they need and deserve," Dr. Brandes added.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 13 to include a statement from Nashville General Hospital.
Here are the 12 biggest payer stories making headlines this week, beginning with the most recent.

1. Major employers urge Hartford HealthCare, Anthem leaders to 'resolve this dispute once and for all'

Representatives from some of Massachusetts' biggest employers called on the CEOs of Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare and Anthem to end a monthslong feud over reimbursement rates.

2. Aetna CEO: Taking on Apple's business model a 'real deal'

Although Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini deferred comment on a potential $70 billion deal with CVS Health, he said Aetna's future delivery system will harness personalized treatment.

3. How Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealth fared in Q3

Five of American's largest commercial payers  Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group  reported strong earnings in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.

4. AmeriHealth Caritas to lay off 400, cease Iowa Medicaid management

Managed care health plan AmeriHealth Caritas Iowa will leave the state's Medicaid program at the end of this month.

5. Humana to lay off 1,300 employees

Louisville, Ky.-based Humana will lay off 1,300 employees in early 2018.

6. Florida's largest insurer to stop covering a brand-name opioid

Florida Blue, part of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, will drop coverage of OxyContin, a brand name prescription opioid, Jan. 1, 2018.

7. Fitch: BCBS financial performance improves significantly in first half of 2017

Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies witnessed significant financial improvement in the first half of this year.

8. Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish to be replaced by former UnitedHealth executive

Gail K. Boudreaux has been named president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Anthem and appointed to the company's board of directors, effective Nov. 20. She is replacing Joseph Swedish, who will stay on as executive chairman of the board until May 2018 and then serve as senior adviser through May 2020.

9. Kaiser Permanente Northwest expands Oregon footprint with PeaceHealth agreement

Vancouver, Wash.-based PeaceHealth and Portland, Ore.-based Kaiser Permanente Northwest collaborated on healthcare delivery and coverage in Lane County, Ore.

10. Florida hospital, UnitedHealthcare reach contract impasse

Negotiations between Sarasota (Fla.) Memorial Hospital and UnitedHealthcare are stalling.

11. Molina Healthcare posts $97M net loss as restructuring efforts continue

Following leadership changes and layoffs earlier this year, Molina Healthcare reported a net loss in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, but said it made significant progress on its restructuring plan to save $200 million by Jan. 1.

12. Kentucky health system to shut down insurance arm, lay off 34 employees

Louisville, Ky.-based Baptist Health plans to shut down its health plan operation in 2018.
A 32-year-old Lyman man died Thursday afternoon after his pickup rolled into a ditch in rural Scotts Bluff County.

Scotts Bluff County Sheriff Mark Overman said in a news release the man's family initially contacted deputies at about 12:45 p.m. Thursday, requesting assistance, saying the man suffered from mental problems and was possibly armed with a shotgun or crossbow.

While deputies were responding, family members reported the man had fired several shots outside a residence. A short time later, he left in his Ford F-150 pickup and a family member followed. Deputies requested assistance from the Nebraska State Patrol.

At about 1:25 p.m., officials received a report of a single-vehicle crash.

Deputies and patrol troopers arrived and found the pickup on its top in a ditch.

Also at the scene was a rural mail carrier and the family member who had followed the man. The mail carrier told officers he encountered the pickup at the crest of a hill, driving in the middle of the road at a high speed. The truck swerved and crashed.

The man was flown to Regional West Medical Center and later died. Overman said the investigation is ongoing and the victim's identification has not been released.
Insurers called for revisions to a Massachusetts bill proposing price regulations for the state's highest-performing hospitals Tuesday, Telegram & Gazette reports.

Here are five things to know.

1. The goal of the healthcare reform bill is to lessen the gap between rates paid to hospitals with lower expenses and those with the highest. Larger research hospitals argued the higher prices allow teaching and research to take place, while community hospitals counter the bill would boost their financial performance.

2. Insurers are calling for the bill to regulate prices of all hospitals in the top tier of Massachusetts' market, rather than only the three largest, all in Boston: Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Boston Children's Hospital, the report states.

3. Top executives of Massachusetts' six largest health plans  Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Fallon Health, Tufts Health Plan, UniCare, UnitedHealthcare of New England and United Healthcare Community Plan of Massachusetts  expressed their concerns about the bill in a letter to state Senate President Stanley Rosenberg on Tuesday.

4. As part of their argument for tighter rate restrictions, payers said leaving the current health system unchanged would lead to higher coverage costs, the Telegram & Gazette reports. Payers expressed concern over the bill's proposals to raise rates for lower-paid hospitals to 90 percent of the average for Massachusetts hospitals in the previous year, and create target growth rates for total hospital spending.

"Specifically, increasing the prices paid to lower-paid hospitals without including sufficient measures to constrain the rates paid to high cost hospitals will lead to higher premiums for employers and consumers," the insurance executives wrote. They are also arguing for penalties for providers beyond the top three hospitals who add "excess growth," which the bill already establishes a council to levy penalties on should growth targets be missed.

5. The state Senate said it would hold a two-day debate on the bill on Wednesday and Thursday, the report states.



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Uber is making efforts to help its contract workers sign up for health coverage under the ACA, according to Reuters.

The company plans to hold events for drivers beginning Friday where they can get help enrolling in ACA health plans, the report states. Events are planned for nearly 30 U.S. cities.

According to Reuters, the initiative expands on Uber's partnership with health consultant startup Stride Health and is part of an overall goal to better serve drivers.

Meghan Joyce, Uber's regional general manager of the United States and Canada, told the publication many of their drivers have expressed interested in purchasing healthcare coverage through the company. Nearly 150,000 Uber drivers searched for insurance plans through Stride Health last year, a majority of which ended up purchasing plans. "This year we're doubling down on that," she added.

Uber is launching its campaign after President Donald Trump's administration cut the ACA's advertising budget by 90 percent. The ACA enrollment period, which is now open, is shorter this year than in years past, lasting from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15.

Read the full Reuters report here.
Concurrent surgeries in which a surgeon runs two operations simultaneously are safe for neurosurgery patients, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery.

Many members of the healthcare community have questioned the safety of concurrent surgeries after The Boston Globe's Spotlight Team released a controversial report about Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital's use of the surgical practice in 2015. In 2016, Congress called on hospitals to ban concurrent surgeries.

To assess the safety of this practice in the neurosurgery field, researchers assessed 2,275 neurosurgeries performed at Emory University Hospital from January 2014 through December 2015. A total of 972 surgeries were nonoverlapping, while 1,303 were overlapping. Researchers compared deaths, complications and patient functional status at 90-days post-surgery for patients who underwent both types of procedures. Patients in both study groups experienced comparable rates of mortality, complications and functional status, suggesting no difference in procedural safety.

"These data suggest that overlapping neurosurgery is safe and has the potential to benefit patients by maximizing efficiency and making highly sought-after specialists available to a greater number of patients," concluded the study's authors. "An evidence-based approach to policy surrounding [overlapping surgery] is crucial not only to maximize patient safety but also to make highly specialized surgical care available to as many patients as possible."

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The American Hospital Association sent a letter to the FDA urging the agency to address the worsening shortage of parenteral solutions, such as saline bags, dextrose and intravenous nutritional products.

The AHA, on behalf of its nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other healthcare organizations, called the current shortages unacceptable and a threat to patient care.

"We are concerned that the shortages of widely-used and critical products are quickly becoming a crisis and looming threat to the public's health," the letter reads. "Therefore, we call on the FDA to both vigorously pursue strategies with the current manufacturers of these products and to seek out new suppliers in order to ameliorate the current shortage, as well as prevent such shortages from occurring in the future."

In addition, the AHA says hospitals are currently managing the shortfall by switching patients to alternative products. Yet, they call these alternatives a short-term solution.
Thomas Scully, MD, Tucson, Ariz.-based Northwest NeuroSpecialists, discusses which innovative spine techniques  including non-fusion technology and titanium devices  impact how he practices. He also shares the greatest challenges he faces as a spine surgeon today.

Dr. Scully will be speaking at the Becker's 16th Annual Future of Spine + The Orthopedic, Spine and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference. To learn more and register, click here. Contact Maura Jodoin at mjodoin@beckershealthcare.com or Kristelle Khazzaka at Kkhazzaka@beckershealthcare.com for further information about sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities.

Question: What are one or two new spine techniques you think will impact your practice? Are you implementing any of them now?

Dr. Thomas Scully: I have been using more non-fusion technologies, such as coflex as well as cervical total disc replacements. I anticipate I will continue to use them. In addition, I am excited about various fusion surfaces for our implants. I have moved away from PEEK. I have been experimenting with various titanium devices as well as a newer implant.

RTI's Tetrafuse is a novel surface that I have implanted in some ACDF patients and I really like its properties. It is also much easier to determine fusion status with it compared to titanium. In addition, it possesses some of the benefits of PEEK from the modulus of elasticity perspective. However, it is not hydrophobic, rather, it promotes fusion.

Q: What are spine surgeons' greatest concerns or challenges right now?

TS: There are, as usual, many! Insurance companies' continued lack of authorizations for procedures or imaging and the incessant hoops to jump through to care for patients continues to loom large. I really think the progressively aging community makes it difficult to know how aggressive to be with octogenarians, etc. We need to be good stewards with Medicare dollars, but, also not deprive patients of increased quality of life given the right spinal surgical procedure.
The North American Spine Society in partnership with other organizations coordinated several efforts to remove legislative language from a Department of Defense spending bill that would have eliminated a funding stream for spinal cord injuries through the U.S. military.

Here are five things to know:

1. Congress initially established the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program as part of the Department of Defense's Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program to fill the gap in medical research areas that other agencies ignored. Since then, Congress appropriated more than $150 million to projects that improve the "function, wellness and overall quality of life" for military members, their families and the American people.

2. For the fiscal year 2018 defense appropriations bill, Congress considered making a change. The Senate bill included four provisions that would have weakened the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, imposing barriers to grant applications and funding. The House bill did not include those provisions.

3. NASS teamed with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, which benefited from the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program Funding, as well as the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Paralyzed Veterans of America, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons and other organizations to oppose funding cuts.

4. While the House and Senate worked to reconcile the two bills, several organizations signed a letter to the Chairman of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee advocating against the provisions that would weaken funding. A second letter signed by 179 members of the House requested the committee chairs remove the language imposing restrictions on spinal cord injury funding as well.

5. The Chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees removed the language from the final bill that would have eliminated key funding. "We thank members of the House and Senate for ensuring that this funding remains available for U.S. armed forces who incurred significant injuries while protecting our country," said Alan Hilibrand, MD, NASS Advocacy Council Director.
Irwin's Bakery has landed a 500,000 deal to sell its batch bread loaves into more than 300 Asda stores across the UK.

The Portadown firm will sell three new lines of batch bread, and one speciality fruit and oat muffin to the supermarket giant.

The products are being sold under Asda's premium own label range - Extra Special.

The batch, or plain loaf, is baked on the sole of the oven, rather than in individual tins.

Michael Murphy, chief executive of Irwin's Bakery, said: "We have a very strong partnership with Asda and have worked with its customer insight teams to develop innovative ranges which meet growing consumer demand for new tastes and flavours."

He added: "It's great that one of our best loved local breads has been given a 21st century twist and, with exposure on the shelves of Asda across the UK, has the potential to grow at a national level."

Michael McCallion, Asda NI buying manager, said: "Irwin's has been a trusted supplier to Asda on both an own-label and branded basis for many years, so we're delighted to see the company secure new contracts at a national level."
The beloved bear from darkest Peru is back with fantastic new adventures as his domestic life with the Brown family is thrown into upheaval. Laura Harding talks to Hugh Bonneville and the rest of the star-studded cast about the secrets on set.

We all think we know who Paddington is. He comes from darkest Peru, he loves marmalade sandwiches, was named after a train station and found a home with the Brown family. What you might not know is he's really a woman called Lauren.

Of course, that is not how we see him on the big screen, rendered to furry and cuddly perfection and voiced by Ben Whishaw, but it turns out that is how it was on set during the filming of the highly anticipated Paddington 2.

Instead of actors having to imagine the famous bear, who would be added to the film later through computer wizardry, Lauren donned a blue duffel coat and red hat with bear paws on her feet to help actors get into not only the right spirit, but also the right eyeline.

"All acting is pretending anyway," says Hugh Bonneville, who reprises his role as Mr Brown. "And you're just projecting a lot of that pretence onto something that may or may not be there. We have a lot of help in different ways."

Madeleine Harris, who is back as Judy Brown, adds: "We have Lauren, who stands in as the bear, and she's so lovely. She's really great. If we're doing a scene where we were are all moving it's so helpful to have her there, obviously, because then we have an eyeline all the way through instead of someone holding a stick in shot and trying to move it in the same way the bear would.

"Then we have Gus, who is absolutely brilliant at voices. He does a really good impression of Ben Whishaw's voice, so it's brilliant - you can almost imagine the reactions to give and it makes it so much easier because instead of talking to nothing you do have something to react to and you can actually act."

And these stand-ins include the crucial duffel coat and hat? "Yes!" Samuel Joslin, who's back as Jonathan Brown, affirms. "And she (Lauren) has little woollen bear feet. I remember in the first one there was a bit that was cut out where there was a dog barking at the bear and she had to wear these little glasses that had a sausage on it to get it to look at her."

The first Paddington film, released in 2014, was a smash, so it was almost inevitable the bear and the Browns would be back for a second adventure.

While the first outing saw Paddington pitted against Nicole Kidman's psychotic taxidermist, who wanted to see him stuffed in a museum, the second sees him take on Hugh Grant's vain and embittered actor, whose best days are well behind him, after he is framed for a crime he did not commit.

Grant, who dives into the role with gleeful abandon, is a new addition to the cast for the second film, and, running his hand through his trademark floppy hair, jokes he had very mixed feelings about the part of a pompous thespian who has resorted to doing dog food adverts.

"It was hurtful," he says, with a wicked glint in his eye. "But it came with a lot of money attached. It was a very funny script and I hadn't seen Paddington 1, so I then watched it and laughed and cried and all those things, then I went to meet Paul (King, the director and co-writer). I found him a little weird, to be honest, but it was a very easy thing to say yes to."

Grant's character, Phoenix Buchanan, was even originally called Hugh Grant in early versions of the script, according to King and fellow scribe Simon Farnaby.

"It played into all those psychoses of every actor, I think," Grant says. "Deep, dark impenetrable narcissism and insecurity and selfishness and greed."

Bonneville chimes in: "As Mrs Bird says, we are some of the most evil people on the planet - we lie for a living."

But for the Downton Abbey star, who looks a million miles away from Lord Grantham in a pale pink shirt, casually unbuttoned at the neck, the chance to lie for a living in films about a fixture of his childhood is still a happy novelty.

"My folks read me the stories when I was a kid and then they became the first books that I read for myself, so I've had a long history with Paddington and he's been my pal for a long time, so it's nice to meet him in this incarnation too."

And Bonneville isn't Paddington's only famous pal. Pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge dancing with the bear shortly after she announced her third pregnancy were enjoyed right around the world.

"Paddington is a national treasure," Bonneville says. "And it's lovely to be associated with it. Bearing in mind the first book was published in 1958 and its themes of a stranger in a strange place looking for the hand of friendship and acceptance and trying to fit in... I think that is one of the reasons this character has resonated down the decades, because we have all been that person, we have all been in that situation.

"We have all been a Paddington in a new school or a new country, in a new town, and I think that is not just a British characteristic - it's universal, That is one of the reasons he's survived, as well as the fantastic scrapes he gets into.

"I'm enormously proud to be latterly associated with the books I grew up with."

Those books were, of course, penned by Michael Bond, who created Paddington after spotting a forlorn bear on a department store shelf on Christmas Eve.The author made a much-lauded cameo in the first movie, cheerily raising a glass to the bear as he arrives in London. In a sad turn of events, he died on June 27 this year, the final day of shooting on Paddington 2.

"There is an extra element of poignancy to that," Bonneville says. "Karen, his daughter, has taken on the mantle of protection of the bear, and she says the second film looks after him just as much as the first one did, so we feel she's part of the family and we are part of her family, and it's all thanks to this beloved bear."

Paddington 2 is out today. Read our critic's verdict on page 28.
John Bishop is to play the Belfast Waterfront in January as part of his Winging It tour.

The Comedian plays the venue on Thursday, January 18, before heading to the 3Arena in Dublin on Friday, January 19.

Tickets go on sale this Monday, November 13 at 9am.

Winging It sees John back on stage for his fifth UK and Ireland tour, performing in his own inimitable style. His last tour Supersonic was watched by more than 500,000 people and received huge critical acclaim.

John said he couldn't wait to return to Belfast with the tour.

He said: "The people are always a great crowd to perform to and it's going to be a fantastic couple of nights."

Within three years of his first ever comedy gig, John was playing to sold out arena audiences across the country and released the fastest selling stand-up DVD in UK history.
Council members including (front left to right) Chief Minister of Jersey Ian Gorst, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ahead of a meeting of the British Irish Council. Pic: Rousseau/PA Wire

The only way to avoid a hard border in Ireland after Brexit would be for Northern Ireland to continue to apply the rules of the EU single market and customs union, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

But the Irish premier said this did not necessarily mean the UK or Northern Ireland remaining members of either area, suggesting that a "bespoke" arrangement may be reached as part of the Brexit negotiations.

The Taioseach's comment came in response to the leak of a European Commission document which suggests that the Republic is now pushing hard for concrete reassurance on the border question ahead of the crucial EU leaders' summit in December at which Theresa May hopes to gain a green light for trade talks to begin.

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The one-page paper entitled "Dialogue on Ireland/Northern Ireland", which was obtained by the Daily Telegraph, states that in order to preserve the Good Friday Agreement peace deal, the Brexit divorce deal must respect "the integrity of the internal market and the customs union".

Along with the question of expat citizens' rights and the UK's "divorce bill", the Irish border is a key issue in the first stage of Brexit talks, on which "sufficient progress" must be made before the leaders of the remaining 27 EU states will give the go-ahead for trade talks. Any obstacle to finding a solution in time for the December summit would be a considerable blow to Mrs May's hopes of moving on to phase two of negotiations by the end of the year.

Expand Close Council members including (front left to right) Chief Minister of Jersey Ian Gorst, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ahead of a meeting of the British Irish Council. Pic: Rousseau/PA Wire PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Council members including (front left to right) Chief Minister of Jersey Ian Gorst, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ahead of a meeting of the British Irish Council. Pic: Rousseau/PA Wire

Speaking at the British-Irish Council summit in Jersey, Mr Varadkar said he was "loth to comment in too much detail on papers that have been leaked to the media".

But he added: "When it comes to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, what we have all agreed to is that there shouldn't be a hard border, there should be no physical infrastructure along that border and that there should be no return to the borders of the past.

"It is our view, and has been our view for a very long time, that the only way that can be achieved is if the United Kingdom as a whole or Northern Ireland continues to apply the rules of the customs union and the single market. That doesn't mean that they have to be members of it, but it would mean continuing to apply the rules of the single market and the customs union.

"That's the position that we hold and the best way to achieve our common objectives."

Mr Brokenshire stressed that Mrs May had made clear that the UK will be leaving both the single market and the customs union under Brexit, which is due to have effect in 2019.

But he added: "We are very clear on the need to be pragmatic and open to these practical solutions that recognise the unique circumstances. That is what David Davis, the Secretary of State for Leaving the EU has been focused on in his negotiations in this first phase - making that sufficient progress - and I think there has been good progress."

Mr Varadkar noted that the Isle of Man was not a member of either the UK or the EU, and traded with each under a protocol to the Treaty of Rome which involves the island applying the body of EU law, known as the "acquis".

"We are looking for a bespoke solution here that achieves the objective that we all share, which is no hard border, no return to the borders of the past and no physical infrastructure along that border," he said.

Speaking alongside Mr Varadkar at a press conference at the end of the summit, Mr Brokenshire added: "Absolutely we do want to see a positive outcome for Northern Ireland through the Brexit talks, as for all parts of the United Kingdom.

"We do acknowledge that there are unique circumstances that will require practical, pragmatic solutions, bespoke solutions, that we as a Government are determined to advance and see secured.

"This isn't some sort of abstract context. It's actually about how people live their lives on the island of Ireland, the ability to work, to study, to see family, to see relatives, just being able to seamlessly go across the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Absolutely, that is what we want to see preserved into the future."

Mr Varadkar added: "There is no demand from the Irish Government that any part of the United Kingdom should remain in the customs union or the single market.

"The United Kingdom would be welcome to if it wishes to, but it's not our demand that the United Kingdom should do so.

"What we want, though, is the language that we've all agreed to to be turned into reality. We've agreed that there will be no hard border in Ireland, that there will be no physical infrastructure and that there will be no return to the borders of the past. How do we actually realise that and make that a practical fact, so that people can continue to live their lives as normal on the island or Ireland?

"We believe that can be best achieved by continuing to apply the same sort of rules and regulations. If we do that we can avoid those things we wish to avoid."
It's time for both sides to find solutions to the Irish question in the EU talks, Brexit minister David Davis said stressing that will not mean a border created separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

David Davis said there had been good "technical discussions" and joint principles agreed on the common travel area and associated rights. However, he stressed any solution will not involve a border created within the United Kingdom.

The Irish Sea has been raised as a possibility as acting as a border after Brexit.

Mr Davis said there had been a change in pace in the negotiations. In a joint news conference with Michel Barnier, Mr Davis said the negotiations had narrowed to "a few outstanding - albeit important - issues". He said any solution on the border needed to be taken in the context of the future trade agreement.

Frank discussions have been held on the big challenges of the border. Davis

He said his "top priority" was to secure sufficient progress on the issues of citizens' rights, the border with Ireland and Britain's "divorce bill" by the time of the next EU summit in December.

"Now is the time for both sides to move together and find solutions... this is a serious business," he said.

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Discussing Ireland, he said there had to be "frank discussions on the big challenges of the border" and they remained "firmly committed" to having no infrastructure between Northern Ireland and the EU on the island.

"Let's be under no illusion, we will only be able to conclude the talks finally in the context of the future relationship," he said.

"We respect the EU's desire to protect the legal order of the single market and customs union but that can not come at cost to constitutional and economic integrity of the UK.

"We recognise the need for specific solutions for the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland. Let me be clear this can not amount to creating a new border within the United Kingdom.

"We are resolutely committed to upholding the Belfast Good Friday Agreement in all its parts. We need to address the challenges that arise with pragmatism, creativity and high degree of political sensitivity.

"We owe that to people of Northern Ireland and Ireland."

We need to ensure the same reading on conditions, consequences and implications of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement. Barnier

Mr Barnier said dialogue would continue on post-Brexit arrangements for the border in Ireland.

"We need to ensure the same reading on conditions, consequences and implications of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement and the Common Travel Area that lead us to identify technical and regulatory solutions necessary to prevent a hard border - while preserving integrity of single market.

"A unique situation requires specific solutions."

Mr Davis said progress on citizens rights had been made as too with the divorce bill. He said the UK would pay for all its financial commitments made while it was a member of the union.

"But we need to see flexibility, imagination and willingness to make progress on both sides if these negotiations are to succeed and we are able to realise our new deep and special partnership."

Mr Davis would not be drawn when asked about a possible change in the UK's government before midnight (Brussels time) on March 29, 2019 when the divorce will be made final.

Mr Barnier said he would not comment on internal British politics but said that his role was to work with the UK government no matter who was the head of it.

Following the latest round of talks in Brussels, the EU's chief negotiator said they still had to see "sufficient progress" on the arrangements for Britain's withdrawal before they could move to the second phase of negotiations.
Brothers Charles, 45, and James Valliday, 51, did not return to Maghaberry prison after being granted compassionate bail

Two prisoners have gone on the run in Northern Ireland after failing to return from compassionate bail.

Brothers Charles Valliday, 45, and James Valliday, 51, did not return to Maghaberry prison on Thursday under conditions allowing them to attend a relative's funeral.

Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy of the PSNI said: "Charles and James Valliday, who are awaiting trial for serious offences, were last seen at 10am yesterday in the area of St Jude's Chapel on the Falls Road where they attended a relative's funeral.

"James is described as 5ft 9ins in height, of medium build with short, dark brown hair and blue eyes. He has a tattoo on his left arm - a scroll saying 'mum and dad'.

"Charles is described as 5ft 9ins in height, of stocky build, with short, brown hair, protruding ears and green eyes. He has a tattoo on his left arm - a bulldog, panther and snake - and a fish tattoo on his right arm.

"They have a history of violence and I would urge the public not to approach them but to contact police immediately."
Police are seeking information as to the whereabouts of two remand prisoners who failed to return to Maghaberry on Thursday.

Brothers Charles Valliday (45) and James Valliday (51) failed to return to the prison under the conditions of compassionate bail which they had been given at court, to attend a relative's funeral.

The two brothers who are awaiting trial for serious offences were last seen at 10am on Thursday at St Jude's Chapel on the Falls Road.

Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said: "James is described as 5ft 9 ins in height, of medium build with short, dark brown hair and blue eyes. He has a tattoo on his left arm  a scroll saying mum and dad.

Charles is described as 5ft 9ins in height, of stocky build, with short, brown hair, protruding ears and green eyes. He has a tattoo on his left arm  a bulldog, panther and snake - and a fish tattoo on his right arm

They have a history of violence and I would urge the public not to approach them but to contact police immediately.

I would ask Charles and James to hand themselves into the authorities without any further delay and ask anyone who knows of their current whereabouts or who has any information to contact police on 999.
The bullet-riddled minibus in South Armagh where 10 Protestant workmen were shot dead by IRA terrorists in January 1976

Claims that a British soldier could have been at the scene of the Kingsmill massacre are "inconceivable", a court has been told.

There have previously been rumours that Captain Robert Nairac could have been at the scene of the 1976 attack, in which 10 Protestant workmen were gunned down in south Armagh.

The sole survivor of the attack, Alan Black, has testified that he heard one of those involved speaking with an English accent.

That sparked speculation about the English soldier who served in Northern Ireland during the conflict and was later abducted and killed by the IRA.

However, a military witness from the Ministry of Defence has told an inquest at Laganside Court into the incident that Capt Nairac's presence at the scene was "inconceivable".

Colonel Marcus Simpson, from the MOD's personnel unit, told the court that the military could not vouch definitively for exactly where Capt Nairac was on the day of the January 1976 attack.

However in the weeks before and after he was involved in intensive preparations for work in London and in Kenya meaning he could not have feasibly found the time to travel to Northern Ireland unnoticed.

Col Simpson said: "The period of time over December and January would have been very busy for his battalion in terms of preparing the men and moving them and equipment in good order.

"Getting that right would have been demanding. All the officers in key roles would have been involved. I assess that Nairac would have been very busy at that time as a key member of the battalion.

"For me, it is inconceivable that he could have engaged in any other significant activity at that time."

The inquest also heard anonymous evidence from a former Special Branch figure, who testified from behind a screen to protect his identity.

Referred to in court only as "MOD3", the man said he was well acquainted with Capt Nairac during the time they both spent in Northern Ireland and that they developed a "warm friendship".

He told the court: "Nairac was an individual of strong morals, whose moral compass would not have allowed him to take part in any terrorist attack.

"It is simply not credible that he ever could have been in a position to go over, if you like, to the Provisional IRA."

The man added: "He certainly wouldn't have had the time to do that while in Northern Ireland. I know from experience that a soldier's time is not his own. He simply would not have had the time to return to Northern Ireland."

The Kingsmill massacre was one of the deadliest attacks in the Troubles. No-one has ever been held to account for the deaths.

An inquest was opened into the incident last year. It was stalled earlier this year after questions were raised over the quality of fingerprint evidence in the case and later reopened in September.
A diabetes sufferer who pays up to 1,200 a year for a life-changing new testing kit has called for Stormont politicians to reach a deal so it to be rolled out to patients for free.

The FreeStyle Libre kit was given the green light for NHS use across the UK this month for Type 1 and 2 patients - but is subject to local health authority approval.

It means it is not guaranteed to be available for everyone, so people with Type 1 diabetes - who have a greater clinical need for the device - may get it free, but not those with Type 2.

In Northern Ireland, only patients with Type 1 diabetes, the most severe form of the condition, will be considered.

The device works by placing a sensor on the arm that allows diabetics to effortlessly test their glucose levels without using a finger prick test.

Around 100,000 people here Ireland have various forms of the condition.

Banbridge farmer James Kerr (50) has had Type 2 diabetes for over a year, and to date has had to pay privately for the Libre.

A starter pack, which includes a reader and two 14-day sensors, costs 159.95. The two-week patches also need to be replaced at a cost of 50 each time.

"Type 2 diabetes is a progressive disease and will always get worse," said Mr Kerr.

"How you control it determines how fast this happens, this is why the Libre is so important.

"I live alone so if I become hypoglycemic in the middle of the night and don't show up at work, someone would have to come and check on me.

"Then they would need an ambulance and two paramedics to come out and spend an hour with me, with a possible stay in hospital. How much is that going to cost?"

Mr Kerr called on local politicians to reach agreement in order to make the change.

"It's typical of politicians here, they save pennies but they waste pounds.

"I find it very upsetting they're paid very generous wages and they're sitting on their backsides doing nothing.

"It's time they did the decent thing of either resigning or getting back to work."

Meanwhile, there was confusion for Type 1 diabetes patient Jane Patterson (48) from Newtownards, who was denied the Libre.

After a visit to a Belfast hospital this week she was told she couldn't be considered for the Libre as there was no Health Minister in place to authorise it.

She added that hospitals had been "inundated" with calls about the kit.

Having had the condition for 24 years, she has spent almost 2,000 over the last 18 months on Libre.

The Health and Social Care board said yesterday that it believed this was down to a "miscommunication" between Ms Patterson and the clinical staff and insisted that she was eligible to be considered. It added: "FreeStyle Libre is a glucose monitoring technology which has been available on the Northern Ireland Drug Tariff since November 1, 2017.

"People living with Type 1 diabetes who have an interest in this product should speak to their hospital diabetes healthcare specialist at their next routine appointment.

"An assessment will be made of whether the product might be suitable for them."

Describing the impact the Libre has had on her health, Ms Patterson said: "For me it's actually been a blessing.

"I've bumped into people who have had diabetes for 50 years and they say it's the best invention ever."

She said that the pin prick system many still use meant diabetics would have to constantly test throughout the day, including before driving and while at their work.

"If you have a young child with diabetes, you have to wake them up during the night and prick their finger to check the blood," she said.

"With the Libre all you have to do is run it down the arm, so there's no pain there.

"That means you don't have to wake children up, teenagers can go through school without having to test in front of people.

"It even works through clothing, so it helps with the anxiety of diabetes.

"At 100 a month, it does add up, and is definitely a drain on the bank.

"For me it would definitely be more cost-effective, so it must be for the thousands living with diabetes in Northern Ireland as well. It's also more cost-effective for the NHS, as far as I'm aware, than to test your blood constantly."

Benedict Jephcote, editor of Diabetes.co.uk, said he also hoped in time it would be more widely available.

"The FreeStyle Libre offers significant advantages over blood glucose testing alone and we hope that the system will be made available to as many people that wish to benefit from it as possible," he said.
A Flybe pilot who carried out an emergency landing on Friday with no nose gear has been praised for his skills.

Flight BE331 had 56 people onboard when it carried out the emergency landing at Belfast International Airport.

Pictures and video show the Bombardier Q-400 aircraft with its nose unsupported hitting the ground.

The plane, which was due to travel to Inverness, burned fuel in a holding pattern off the coast of Belfast for around two hours after it declared the emergency.

Flybe CEO Christine Ourmieres-Widener, said: "Our crew took the necessary precautionary actions to ensure the aircraft landed as safely as was possible and I am proud of their professionalism in the circumstances.

"Safety is our highest priority and our crew are highly trained and undergo regular training to calmly and professionally handle any such situations.

"We sincerely apologise to the passengers for the disruption to their journey and any distress caused and out Customer Care team will remain in close contact with them over the next few days."

Expand Expand Previous Next Close A Flybe aircraft making an emergency landing at Belfast International Airport. Pic Alan Lewis - PhotopressBelfast.co.uk Photopress Belfast The plane at Belfast International. Pic Geoff Coyles / Facebook

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Whatsapp A Flybe aircraft making an emergency landing at Belfast International Airport. Pic Alan Lewis - PhotopressBelfast.co.uk

Belfast International operations director Alan White said: It was a very good landing. The flying skills, landing the aircraft, were superb.

The flight deck crew were superb, they landed on the main undercarriage, they held the nose of the aircraft up to the last possible moment, bleeding off all the air speed and still keeping control and just dropping it at the very last minute.

"That meant it stopped relatively quickly, no issues, no fire with it, and they got it stopped safely on the runway.

Flybe confirm 52 passengers and Four Crew were on board the aircraft that landed at Belfast International without nose gear @AllyRH pic.twitter.com/tiylUCDrNa  Flight Alerts (@FlightAlerts777) November 10, 2017

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch have sent a team to Belfast to investigate the incident.

The flight which took off at 11.07am landed at Belfast International Airport just before 2pm with the nose gear up and stopping on the runway.

Fire crews were on standby at Belfast International Airport for the emergency landing and said "no action" was required.
Puppy smuggling has become the third most profitable organised crime in the European Union after drugs and weapons, the European Parliament has claimed.

Brendan Mullan, chief executive of the USPCA, said: "The European Parliament has stated that the illegal puppy trade is not only an animal welfare issue, it is the third most profitable organised crime within the EU after narcotics and weapons."

Earlier this month the animal rights organisation said Northern Ireland was being used as a corridor to transport thousands of illegally bred puppies into the UK.

The USPCA is also part of Operation Delphin - a joint effort with SPCA's in Scotland and Ireland, the HMRC, port authorities and Stena Line - to disrupt the illegal trade.

"This criminality represents a massive risk to public health," Mr Mullan explained.

"Puppies are produced under appalling conditions and usually not vaccinated. Many carry severe transmissible diseases and pose a real threat to animal and human health. As an active member of Eurogroup for Animals, the USPCA welcomes a joint declaration by five EU Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden), calling on the European Commission for action to stop the illegal trade in pet animals across the EU - particularly with regard to the smuggling of dogs across member states."

Today, the newly-formed EU Platform on Animal Welfare is to host their second meeting.

"The USPCA regard this as an incentive for the European Commission to act," said Mr Mullan.

"It is a step in the right direction, but we need to speed up action to end the suffering of millions of puppies."

Reineke Hameleers, director of Eurogroup for Animals commented: ''The numbers of dogs and cats being smuggled has grown enormously over the past decade, fuelled by a consumer demand for certain breeds, an increase in online classified advertisements, and a pet passport system which currently does not work.

"There is a huge amount of suffering endured through long journeys, a high risk of transmissible disease, and those surviving often become poorly socialised, leading to abandonment. The joint declaration by member states shows a willingness to act together. This is a truly welcome step in the right direction to protect our pets."

David Wilson from the USPCA said there was also serious concern about how cross-border puppy smuggling would be managed after Brexit.

"It's shocking the scale of money involved in this, it's not just a few dogs hidden in a box," he said.

"There's a major worry about improving animal welfare and how to limit exports within world trade rules. Right now you will have young puppies travelling from the north of Scotland to the south of Spain via Northern Ireland and it's often with animals who are far too young."

Katie Baxter (12) from Belfast rescued her beloved pet pooch Harley from a puppy farm just over a year ago.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph last month she said: "We're not sure of his age. He was on a puppy farm most of his life. He pees on the carpet quite a bit but he has good qualities and he'll just snuggle up and hug you."

It is unknown how long Harley spent in appalling conditions which left him unable to walk up steps or play with toys when he was first adopted, but he has been growing in confidence since finding his new home.

Mum Cheryl added: "He would still be timid but he's spoilt now and follows me around everywhere. He's a lovely wee thing."
Victims' campaigner Willie Frazer said last night that a protest planned for Dublin on November 18 has been called off following a meeting with the Garda.

The decision follows what he described as "significant progress" towards providing documents the Kingsmill families believe could aid the inquest into the 1976 atrocity in which 10 Protestant workers were shot dead by the IRA.

Mr Frazer said: "I have always said we would be happy to call the protest off if Irish authorities came forward and produced the historic documentation which we had requested.

"This afternoon I met with senior Garda and was shown documents which are to be provided to the NI Coroner.

"It is my firm belief that significant progress has been made toward providing families and the inquest with what was requested many years ago."

Mr Frazer said he was confident that legislation to be passed in the Dail and commitments by Irish Government departments would see the information passed on.
David Davis said there had been "frank discussions" on the issue of the Irish border

David Davis has insisted he will not accept any solution to the issue of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border that damages the "constitutional and economic integrity of the UK".

The Brexit Secretary said there had been "frank discussions" on the issue in the latest round of negotiations in Brussels after a leaked paper suggested a hardening of the European Commission's stance.

The European Union's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said "some progress" had been made in the Brexit talks but more needed to be done - including on the so-called divorce bill - before he would be able to recommend moving on to discussions about a trade deal.

He indicated he would need clarifications or concessions from the UK on key sticking points within two weeks to have time to consider whether "sufficient progress" had been achieved ahead of December's European Council summit

On Northern Ireland, Mr Barnier said: "We have to ensure a common reading of the conditions, consequences and implications of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement and the Common Travel Area.

"This should lead us to identify the technical and regulatory solutions necessary to prevent a hard border while preserving the integrity of the single market.

"The unique situation on the island of Ireland requires specific solutions."

Mr Davis said: "We respect the European Union desire to protect the legal order of the single market and customs union.

"But that cannot come at cost to the constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom."

Although there would need to be "specific solutions" for the unique position of Northern Ireland "this cannot amount to creating a new border inside our United Kingdom".

Mr Davis said the UK was "ready and willing" to engage with Brussels "as often and as quickly as needed" ahead of the December 14-15 summit of EU leaders.

"But we need to see flexibility, imagination and willingness to make progress on both sides if these negotiations are to succeed and we are able to realise our new deep and special partnership."

Mr Barnier refused to be drawn on speculation that Brussels was concerned that Theresa May's Government could collapse following recent upheaval which has seen two Cabinet ministers quit, although he admitted the situation was being watched closely.

"I am not going to comment on the internal political situation in the United Kingdom," he said. "We are, of course, watching it very closely."

The latest round of talks in Brussels came as Mrs May committed to write the date of the UK's departure from the EU into law - and warned would-be Tory rebels that any attempt to prevent Brexit would not be tolerated.

Amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill going through Parliament will spell out that the UK's membership of the EU will end at 11pm GMT, midnight in Brussels, on March 29 2019.

Mrs May's fragile grip on power, relying on DUP votes for a Commons majority, means the Government is vulnerable to any Tory rebellion.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister said: "We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union."
John Halligan has faced calls to resign over the incident

Independent Alliance minister John Halligan has offered to pay legal fees as well as 7,500 euro compensation to a senior civil servant who he asked about her marital status in a job interview.

Mr Halligan, minister of state for training and skills, who has faced calls to resign over the affair, said he would also apologise in person to the woman if she wanted.

"I will not be found wanting. I will do the right thing," he said.

Mr Halligan was on an interview panel to select a new private secretary in May 2016 and claimed he had "good intentions" when he asked about her marriage and family.

The civil servant has 23 years experience and two children.

In a case successfully taken to the Workplace Relations Commission, she said she felt the questions were unfair and inappropriate and was awarded 7,500 euro compensation.

Mr Halligan, who is in Thailand on government business, told Today with Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio: "I'm apologising sincerely.

"If I was to meet the lady I would say that to her."

Mr Halligan said he operates a family-friendly policy when appointing people.

He said he was stressed about the error of judgment and wanted to show he would accommodate a prospective private secretary and the frequent requirements for early-morning and late-night work.

Mr Halligan said: "My record championing women's rights is there for all to see. It would never be my intention to offend women."

He also claimed he asked the other two candidates the same question.

The Workplace Relations Commission found that one candidate volunteered information about spending time with his son at weekends and the third was not asked about their family.
David Davis has visited European capitals in an attempt to build support for the UK's position

The date of Brexit will be written into law as Theresa May warned Tory rebels that the process of leaving the European Union will not be derailed.

Amendments to legislation going through Parliament will spell out that the UK's membership of the EU will end at 11pm GMT, midnight in Brussels, on March 29 2019.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said the change will make the UK's departure date "crystal clear".

And the Prime Minister issued a blunt message to pro-EU MPs, saying any attempt to block Brexit will not be tolerated.

The move comes as Mr Davis was set to meet the European Union's chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels, where officials have been engaged in the latest round of Brexit talks.

The amendment enshrining Brexit day in law will be considered by MPs when the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the Commons next week.

Mrs May's fragile grip on power, relying on DUP votes for a Commons majority, means the Government is vulnerable to any Tory rebellion.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph the Prime Minister said: "We will not tolerate attempts from any quarter to use the process of amendments to this Bill as a mechanism to try to block the democratic wishes of the British people by attempting to slow down or stop our departure from the European Union."

Mr Davis indicated that he was talking a "pragmatic" approach to MPs' concerns by writing Brexit day into the Bill.

He said: "Our amendment makes it crystal clear that the UK is leaving the EU at 11pm on March 29 2019.

"We've listened to members of the public and Parliament and have made this change to remove any confusion or concern about what 'exit day' means.

"This important step demonstrates our pragmatic approach to this vital piece of legislation.

"Where MPs can improve the Bill, whatever their party, we will work with them.

"We look forward to further debate in the House of Commons when committee stage begins next week."

Ahead of the meeting in Brussels, Mr Barnier called on the UK to make clear whether it will stick with the "European model" on issues like food and environmental standards and financial regulation when it leaves the bloc.

With a crunch leaders' summit in December, Mr Barnier also said the moment was approaching for a "real clarification" of Britain's position on issues like citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's financial settlement.

If the 27 remaining EU members agree next month that sufficient progress has been made on these issues, they will give a green light for negotiations to move on to the questions of trade and transition to a new post-Brexit negotiation.

The Prime Minister will attempt to win support from European businesses for her goal of moving the negotiations on to trade talks.

She will meet leading business organisations on Monday to set out her vision of a "bold and deep economic partnership" between the UK and EU after Brexit.

The Brexit Secretary and Business Secretary Greg Clark will also attend the Downing Street event, which the CBI has helped to organise.

Groups represented include the BDI and BDA from Germany, Medef from France and the EU-wide BusinessEurope.

Ministers hope that business groups can lobby their national governments to support a trade deal which will be in the interests of both sides in the negotiations.

But in a sign of business unease about the impact of Brexit, motor manufacturers Honda, Ford and Vauxhall set out their concerns in evidence to a Commons select committee.

In a written submission to the Business, Energy and the Industrial Strategy committee, Honda, which employs 4,000 people at its Swindon plant, said it had concerns about disruption to supply chains, regulatory divergence, restrictions on free movement of labour and the impact of tariffs.

"With 35% of exports from our Swindon factory exported to the EU, and 40% of the components used to build cars at Swindon imported from EU27 suppliers, frictionless, tariff-free access to the single market and customs union is vital to our competitiveness," the Japanese motor giant said.

Honda also warned that non-tariff barriers could potentially have a greater impact than import and export tariffs.

Ford said any transitional deal should be a "standstill agreement" preserving current rules because "we do not believe that the new customs, border and documentation arrangements necessitated by the UK leaving the EU and customs union could be put in place by April 2019".
Lord Kerr is the former UK ambassador to the European Union (PA)

A future trade deal between the UK and Brussels could be blocked by referendums in European Union countries, a former Foreign Office chief has indicated.

Lord Kerr, the architect of the Article 50 process for leaving the European Union, hit out at Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as he claimed voters were in danger of being misled over Government claims that Brexit could not be reversed.

The former UK ambassador to the EU said he was puzzled by Government suggestions that a trade deal could be concluded by the time the UK leaves in March 2019 and added that any agreement could require ratification by the other 27 members, which in some cases would need public votes.

Insisting that the Brexit process could be halted, he said: We are not required to withdraw just because Mrs May sent her letter. We can change our minds at any stage during the process.

He said a political decision has been made by Mrs Mays Government to maintain that there can be no going back.

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But, he continued: As new facts emerge, people are entitled to take a different view. And theres nothing in Article 50 to stop them.

I think the British people have the right to know this  they should not be misled.

In a speech in London, he said Article 50 only covered the withdrawal process and any agreement about the future relationship on issues such as trade would probably require ratification in every member state, which in some countries would require referendums.

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He said he was puzzled by UK suggestions that a fully comprehensive agreement about the future can be completed and initialled by this time next year in order to be signed off before the March 2019 withdrawal date.

Lord Kerr pointed out that the Canadian deal has taken seven years to negotiate and got stuck in the Wallonian parliament.

In a speech hosted by the pro-EU Open Britain group, he said it would be possible to extend the two-year Article 50 process and suggested other EU countries might agree to that if the UK wanted to hold a second referendum on whether or not to leave.

He said the EU found the UK puzzlingly dogmatic and doctrinaire and hit out at the Prime Ministers decision to call a snap election after beginning the Article 50 countdown.

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I dont know why Mrs May was in such a rush to send her letter in March, before her Cabinet had an agreed plan, he said.

It was odd to start the clock and not start negotiating, instead calling an election.

He also hinted that Mr Johnsons suggestion that Brussels could go whistle if it wanted a large divorce bill from the UK had entrenched the EUs position on the timetable for the negotiations.

It was unwise for Brussels to insisted on sufficient progress being made on the divorce bill before beginning trade talks, he said.

I think they were misled by suggestions here that they could go whistle and that we might refuse to honour our commitments: Im sure we never would.

Lord Kerr said that once the UK was out of the EU, the only way back in would be through the accession process  and that the rebate secured by Margaret Thatcher would be gone, making it more expensive to rejoin than to remain in the bloc.
Chief Minister Guernsey Government Gavin St Pier, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire, Chief Minister of Jersey Ian Gorst, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and First Minster Nicola Sturgeon ahead of a meeting of the British Irish Council at the Hotel L'Horizon in Jersey (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The islands of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have signed up to a joint commitment with the British and Irish governments to tackle tax evasion and abusive tax avoidance.

The commitment comes amid ongoing controversy over the use of complex tax arrangements by celebrities, wealthy businessmen and multinational corporations to minimise their liabilities, exposed in the so-called Paradise Papers.

The leak of millions of documents from Bermuda-based law firm Appleby has cast attention on tech giant Apples use of corporate entities in Jersey, as well as racing driver Lewis Hamiltons avoidance of millions in tax by using an Isle of Man scheme to rent a private jet to himself.

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Speaking at the British-Irish Council in Jersey, the islands chief minister Ian Gorst stressed that none of the activities exposed in exhaustive analysis of the papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists amounted to illegal tax evasion.

All that the ICIJ have released, they themselves have said that there is nothing illegal, said Senator Gorst.

The word evasion has not been used at all, which would be a criminal offence if it had been taking place in any of our three jurisdictions.

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We joined with the UK Government in committing ourselves to ensure that our island and financial services community are not used for what we might call rogue operators and we continue to meet the very highest international standards and well work together to ensure that we continue to do that.

A communique agreed by Mr Gorst, Guernsey chief minister Gavin St Pier, Isle of Man chief minister Howard Quayle, Irish Taioseach Leo Varadkar, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire, representing the UK Government, reaffirmed the administrations shared commitment to meeting international standards and to working with the international community to tackle tax evasion and abusive tax avoidance.

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It added: Members noted that this is also a global issue and requires a commitment from the whole international community to be effective.

Mr St Pier said: All the member administrations committed to continue to press for global standards, for that international level playing field where standards are objectively and consistently applied.

Ms Sturgeon said she believed that all the representatives present shared her belief in the need for proper tax transparency and the closure of loopholes.

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We must have rules and regulations in place that properly promote tax transparency but also operate to close down any tax loopholes that people are using in order to unfairly minimise the tax that they pay, said the Scottish First Minister.

I very strongly believe that the approach to tax should not simply be that wealthy people concentrate on how little they can get away with paying. People should pay what they are fairly due to pay.

Ms Sturgeon described tax as our individual contribution to the collective good, adding: The tax we pay funds our public services, but it also funds the infrastructure and the support that businesses need to create wealth.

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Thats the social purpose of tax and this is a good opportunity to remind everybody of that.

Absent from the summit was Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones, and Mr Gorst said all those present offered their condolences to the family of former Welsh Assembly member Carl Sargeant, who took his own life earlier this week after being sacked from Mr Joness administration.

There was also no representation from Northern Ireland, due to the continuing deadlock over the formation of a power-sharing executive.
Jim Mattis during a bilateral meeting with Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson at the Ministry of Defence in London (Rick Findler/PA)

US Secretary of Defence General Jim Mattis has said America and Britain will stand shoulder to shoulder in facing down the increasing threat from North Korea and Russia.

Newly appointed Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was hosting his US counterpart in London for a bilateral meeting following two days of Nato defence ministers meetings in Brussels.

Congratulating him on his appointment, which came last week in the wake of sleaze allegations that led to the resignation of Mr Williamsons predecessor Sir Michael Fallon, Gen Mattis said it highlights the confidence Prime Minister Theresa May has placed in him.

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In what they both called a volatile and dynamic security environment, Gen Mattis said they stand united in condemning North Koreas aggressive provocation and violation of international law, as well as the threat from Russia.

Together we send a message of transatlantic resolve, he added.

For many years Britain has galvanised the international community through the power of its moral voice, and today I look forward to strengthening that special relationship in defence of our way of life.

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Describing British armed forces as a national treasure, and one the US respects greatly, Gen Mattis thanked the UK for their efforts at the talks in Brussels to modernise Nato and an increased contribution to defeat Islamic State.

The UK and the US maintain an unmatched, enduring relationship. It is not artificial or a historical artefact  it is in fact a pathway for the future, he added.

It identifies common values and democratic ideals which I look forward to reinforcing alongside you.

Flanked by the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Mr Williamson said the UK has been the United States closest partner for a century  from fighting in the trenches of the First World War to tackling Islamic State.

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We face some major threats going forward, we have to be constantly vigilant to defeat the Daesh death cult. This year they have murdered citizens in New York, Manchester and London, Mr Williamson said.

We must continue to confront increased Russian aggression, and deal with the disruptive and dangerous behaviour of North Korea. We must never, ever flinch in the face of aggression.

Highlighting how the UK is proud to be one of only six Nato countries hitting a 2% defence spending target, Mr Williamson also said they want to continue to build on the existing defence trading relationship  worth 3 billion a year.

The United Kingdom and the United States, when we are united, quite simply, the world is a safer and better place, and let us make sure that unity continues going forward, he added.
The Catalan parliament's speaker has been released following a night in prison after posting bail, amid a rebellion investigation stemming from the Spanish region's declaration of independence.

A Supreme Court judge ordered the release of Carme Forcadell after the 150,000 euro (133,000) bail was posted on Friday.

Ms Forcadell and five other Catalan political figures were quizzed by the judge on Thursday over the regional parliament's October 27 vote to declare independence from Spain.

The judge jailed Ms Forcadell immediately, ordered four to pay 25,000 euro (22,000) bail in one week to remain out of custody and released another who opposed the declaration of Catalonia as a separate republic.

Ms Forcadell left the Alcala Meco jail close to Madrid in an official Catalan parliament car shortly after 2pm (1pm GMT).

In his ruling, magistrate Pablo Llarena wrote that all six "have expressed that either they renounce future political activity or, those who want to remain active, will do it renouncing any actions outside the constitutional framework".

Ms Forcadell, long one of the leading figures of the Catalan independence movement, testified on Thursday that the independence declaration was "symbolic", according to lawyers familiar with the proceedings.

Spanish foreign minister Alfonso Dastis told Cope radio that it "remains to be seen" if Ms Forcadell will follow Spanish laws and court rulings preventing Catalan lawmakers from unilaterally seceding.

If she does not, Mr Dastis expects the judge to consider revoking Ms Forcadell's bail.

Eight members of the now-defunct Catalan government remain jailed in a related rebellion case.

Former regional president Carles Puigdemont and four other ex-cabinet members fled to Belgium where they are fighting extradition.

Two other grassroots secession group leaders have also been jailed in a parallel sedition probe.

One of the two groups, the National Catalan Assembly that was formerly headed by Ms Forcadell, said it had paid her bail.

Spain's Constitutional Court warned that the parliament's October 27 vote declaring a new Catalan republic would be illegal. Most opposition MPs boycotted the session.

The Spanish government responded by seizing control of the wealthy north-eastern region, the first time in the four decades since General Francisco Franco's dictatorship ended that Madrid removed powers from any of the country's 17 regions.

Central authorities dismissed the Catalan regional president and his government, dissolved the parliament and called a new regional election for December 21.

Catalonia, with 7.5 million people, represents a fifth of Spain's gross domestic product and polls show its people roughly evenly divided over independence.

Mr Puigdemont claimed a banned October 1 secession referendum gave it a mandate to declare independence.

AP
The presidents of France and Germany have said Europeans must stand up to nationalism and build a "common future", as they prepare to mark 99 years since the end of the First World War.

French president Emmanuel Macron said it is "necessary and urgent" to reinforce the European Union over the coming year to stop "scepticism and rejection" from spreading.

At his side in Paris, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier acknowledged fears of Europeans "who don't feel protected from the consequences of globalisation".

But he also insisted that Europe must move forward "so that events like those we knew over the past century ... don't repeat themselves".

Both leaders will inaugurate a museum on a rocky peak overlooking the Rhine Valley, where about 25,000 French and German soldiers were killed during the First World War.
Workers hang a poster of outgoing prime minister Saad Hariri with Arabic words that read "We are all Saad" at a seaside street in Beirut (AP)

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said the country's prime minister is currently being detained in Saudi Arabia and that his "forced" resignation is unconstitutional because it was carried out under duress.

Mr Nasrallah said he was certain that Saad Hariri, who resigned last week in an address from Saudi Arabia, was forced to do so as part of the kingdom's policy of meddling in Lebanon's affairs.

He said Mr Hariri is being prevented by Saudi officials from returning to Lebanon, and said his detention should not be accepted.

Mr Nasrallah said war with Israel is unlikely amid the crisis facing his country.

The Hezbollah leader said the group is watching carefully for any Israeli attempts to use the crisis in Lebanon to begin hostilities. He added that Israel is cautious and unlikely to make such a move.

Mr Nasrallah is calming a jittery population following Saudi Arabia's escalation against Hezbollah's patron, Iran.

The resignation of Mr Hariri from Saudi Arabia last week was seen as a move by Riyadh to take its rivalry with Iran to Lebanon.

Many fear the escalation will pave the way for Israel to strike against Hezbollah, against which Israel has fought a number of wars.

Mr Nasrallah warned Israel against "miscalculation" or "taking advantage of the situation".

He said Israel should not think "we are troubled. No, absolutely not".

"Today, we are more confident and feeling stronger in the face of any threat," Mr Nasrallah added.

AP
Ratko Mladic is on trial over allegations concerning the conflict in the former Yugoslavia

United Nations judges have rejected a defence motion to postpone the verdicts in the long-running genocide and war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb military chief General Ratko Mladic.

Defence lawyers had argued that the judgment scheduled to be delivered by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on November 22 should be delayed so Mladic could be examined by Serbian doctors.

The lawyers said the 75-year-old Mladic's health was deteriorating.

The judges said in a ruling on Friday that reports from independent medical experts and staff at the tribunal's detention unit "show that the accused's health has remained stable".

Mladic was tried on 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly overseeing atrocities by Serb forces in Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

He insists he is innocent.

AP
The bin Laden family has been active in construction at Mecca, Islam's holiest site

Bakr Binladin, the chairman of the Saudi Arabia's most renowned building firm and half-brother to Osama bin Laden, is among those reportedly arrested in this week's corruption crackdown in the oil-rich kingdom.

It was a stunning end to a decades-old alliance between the ruling Al Saud and Binladin families that saw the Saudi Binladin Group secure a near-monopoly on mega-expansion projects in Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, throughout the reigns of successive Saudi monarchs.

The government says 201 people have been taken into custody in the purge, which comes amid an anti-corruption probe it says uncovered at least 100 billion US dollars in corruption and embezzlement.

Saudi critics and experts have called the arrests a bold and risky move by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman aimed at consolidating power as he sidelines potential rivals, silences critics and dismantles alliances built with other branches of the royal family.

The 32-year-old crown prince, who is the son of King Salman and is popularly known by his initials MBS, is leading the anti-corruption investigation.

He is also the force behind the so-called Vision 2030 plan, a blueprint for how to restructure the country and wean it from its dependence on oil revenue.

The arrests of Binladin and the others not only signal the end of old alliances, but also speak to the larger demands being made on the business community to pay into the crown prince's economic vision in an era of lower oil prices.

"This is the beginning of the rise of economic nationalism," said Ayham Kamel, head of the Middle East and North Africa division of the Eurasia Group.

A centrepiece of that plan is NEOM, a 500 billion US dollar project that promises to be the world's most futuristic and technologically-advanced city, which was unveiled by the crown prince at a headline-grabbing global investment conference in Saudi Arabia last month.

But instead of receiving major pledges to the project by Saudi business leaders, MBS "got deafening silence", Mr Kamel said.

Since the 1950s, the Binladins have been the royal family's go-to contractor for some of its most sensitive projects, including construction of private palaces in the immediate boon years after oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia.

As the royal family spent lavishly on trips abroad and new palaces at home, the Binladins became their creditors, as well as contractors.

Reliable and discreet, the Binladin Group would go on to build confidential defence projects in the kingdom, as well as landmark skyscrapers, universities, a military hospital, an airport, a financial district and much more.

Run as a private company by members of the large Binladin family, the firm is no stranger to political upheaval and changes in the kingdom. In fact, part of its success has been in its ability to adapt to the whims of kings and princes.

"The Binladins were able to remain essential to the royal family despite very dramatic events within the royal family," said Steve Coll, author of The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.

The Binladins were also no strangers to controversy.

They weathered the blow to the family name and reputation after the 9/11 attacks in New York masterminded by Osama bin Laden, a son of family patriarch Mohammed Binladin.

In 1931, the elder Binladin, a poor Yemeni migrant who had travelled north in the 1920s to the Red Sea port of Jiddah, founded the company that bears his name.

He married some two dozen women and fathered more than 50 children, including the future al Qaida leader.

After the 9/11 attacks, the Binladins hired lawyers and public relations specialists in the US to try to communicate their disdain for Osama bin Laden, and their willingness to cooperate with Washington, Mr Coll said.

In the 1990s, under pressure from the Saudi government, Bakr Binladin oversaw proceedings to strip his brother of all his shares in the family's company and wealth, a move that came as the kingdom stripped the al Qaida leader of his nationality.

"Bakr achieved what he set out to do, which is he kept the company intact, he kept it legitimate in the international economy and went on to concentrate primarily on construction in the region, and in Saudi Arabia in particular," Mr Coll said.

The Binladin Group was crucial to Saudi rulers in 1979 when militants laid siege to Islam's holiest site in Mecca for 15 days.

The company, which had been working on expansion projects there, helped flush the rebels out of tunnels because they had the blueprints and maps, Mr Coll said.

But while the Al Saud-Binladin alliance has been a pillar of how the royal family retained power over the years, the needs of the kingdom have changed, Mr Kamel said.

"They helped the Al Saud family in their time of need, but the utility of that relationship has been exhausted," he said.

"It is no longer attractive for Al Saud to retain that, nor can they afford to."

In 2015, the Binladin Group suffered two major blows: the collapse of oil prices and the collapse of one of its cranes.

The crane disaster killed 111 hajj pilgrims on the pristine marble floors of the Grand Mosque housing the cube-shaped Kaaba.

The firm came under investigation, a travel ban was imposed on Bakr Binladin and the company remains embroiled in litigation to this day.

AP
The prison riot was in Brazil's southern state of Parana

A prison riot in Brazil's southern Parana state has left at least two inmates dead - one of whom was decapitated - and six others injured.

The prison affairs department in Parana said negotiations are under way after the riot began on Thursday afternoon at the Cascavel penitentiary.

It said the inmates are holding two guards hostage.

The G1 news portal reported that the inmates are demanding better food and the transfer of three guards to other facilities.

About 700 of the facility's 980 inmates are taking part in the uprising, which Governor Beto Richa of Parana attributed to rival prison gangs.

AP
Lilly Ross meets Andy Sandness, sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Mr Sandness the face that once belonged to her late husband (AP)

Two people linked by an extraordinary facial transplant procedure have had an emotional meeting in Minnesota.

At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Lilly Ross was introduced to Andy Sandness, the 32-year-old man who now has her late husband's face.

Mrs Ross, whose husband Calen "Rudy" Ross died in 2016, reached out and touched Mr Sandness' face, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless patch on his chin she once had known so well.

"That's why he always grew (his beard) so long - so he could try to mesh it together on the chin," she told Mr Sandness.

Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Mr Sandness the face that had belonged to Mr Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart's visage to a man who lived nearly a decade without one.

The two came together last month in a meeting arranged by the Mayo Clinic, the same place where Mr Sandness underwent a 56-hour operation, marking the first time the facility had performed such a procedure.

With her toddler Leonard in tow, Mrs Ross strode toward Mr Sandness, tears welling in her eyes as they tightly embraced.

Before the meeting, Mrs Ross had been fearful of reminders of her husband, who took his own life.

But without Calen's eyes, forehead or strong cheekbones, Mr Sandness did not look like him, she said.

Instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband's gift, newly confident after 10 years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes.

"It made me proud," Mrs Ross said of the 32-year-old Mr Sandness.

"The way Rudy saw himself ... he didn't see himself like that."

Mr Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, 10 years and hundreds of miles apart.

Mr Sandness put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face.

Mr Ross shot himself and died in south-western Minnesota a decade later, aged just 21.

By then, Mr Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries. Surgery to rebuild his face had left him with a tiny mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off.

Hope arrived in 2012 when the Mayo Clinic started exploring a face transplant programme, and again in early 2016 when he was wait-listed for the procedure.

Mrs Ross had already agreed to donate her husband's lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients in need.

Then, LifeSource, a Midwestern non-profit organisation which facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic.

Mr Ross and Mr Sandness' ages, blood type, skin colour and facial structure were such a close match that Mr Sandness' surgeon, Dr Samir Mardini, said the two men could have been cousins.

Mrs Ross consented, despite her hesitation about some day seeing her husband's face on a stranger.

Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple's child to one day understand what his father did to help others.

More than a year after a surgery that took a team of more than 60 medical professionals, Mr Sandness is finding a groove in everyday life, while still treasuring the simple tasks he lost for 10 years, such as chewing a slice of pizza.

He has been promoted in his work as an oilfield electrician and is expanding his world while still prizing the anonymity that comes with a normal face.

"I wouldn't go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities," he said.

"And now I'm just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on - going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing."

Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Mr Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication.

He is constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering.

"I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted," Mr Sandness told Mrs Ross.

Dr Mardini and the rest of Mr Sandness' medical team have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from.

"It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought," Dr Mardini said.

"He's enjoying these times, where he's missed out on 10 years of his life."

Mrs Ross and Mr Sandness say they feel like family now. They plan to forge a stronger connection, and Mr Sandness said he will contribute to a trust fund for Leonard's education.

On the day of their meeting, the boy stared curiously at Mr Sandness at first. But later, he walked over and waved to be picked up. Mr Sandness happily obliged.

For Mrs Ross, just meeting Mr Sandness felt like a huge release - a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and difficult decisions about organ donation.

"Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure," she said. "Everything happened so fast."

AP
James Joseph Magennis, who received the Victoria Cross for his gallantry during the Second World War

As a schoolboy of around 12 years of age about 50 years ago, before the outbreak of the Troubles, I was left in no doubt by Brother Osmond, the headmaster of my secondary school in Enniskillen, that I had done, at best, a very silly thing.

One morning, early in November, I went into school wearing a poppy on the lapel of my blazer.

The afternoon before, I had put a few pence into a British Legion collection box (the Royal prefix was added in 1971) on my way home from school, thinking that I was merely supporting veterans still recovering from their injuries and respectfully remembering soldiers who had perished in the two World Wars.

Brother Osmond did not quite see it that way.

During a break from classes, he approached me in the playground and, rather than ask me to remove the poppy, he snatched it from my lapel and told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be wearing what he called "a symbol of British imperialism".

One doesn't forget such things.

I was taken aback and I think I blurted out something about honouring the dead as he marched off.

But who was I to argue with my headmaster, a man from Waterford, whom I regarded with awe, wearing a clerical collar to boot.

I should add that he was a very good headmaster, who wanted the best for his boys and his overall tutelage must have helped me to become only the second pupil of that school - now St Joseph's College - to go to university.

It was also a school where I was taught to respect Protestant as well as Catholic clergymen and told to salute them when I met them in the street.

The experience left me in no doubt, at that early age, that somehow or other the poppy, or more precisely what it represented and/or was perceived to represent, did not enjoy support - let alone acceptance - in my community.

Half-a-century on, that is still the case.

No one attending a GAA match this Sunday, or cheering for the Republic against Denmark in the pub, and hardly anyone at Mass in any church in Northern Ireland, will be wearing a poppy.

For reasons - many of them historical - that we need not go into in great detail here, that is the reality and if we are to live up to the principle of parity of esteem we all should accept and respect that fact of life in a spirit of tolerance and respect for diversity.

That said, in the interests of fairness and of truth, it is worth further saying that at least a good part of the reason for Catholic and nationalist aversion to the wearing of the poppy has its roots in the historical distaste in the unionist establishment for acknowledging the sacrifice of Irish Catholic nationalists in the two World Wars.

The most egregious example of this was the failure of Belfast Corporation to honour, in his lifetime, James Joseph Magennis VC, the only Northern Ireland native to receive the Victoria Cross for gallantry in the Second World War, an injustice acknowledged candidly and courageously by Peter Robinson while First Minister.

Only this week, the elderly son of an RUC sergeant, the most moderate of nationalists you can imagine, who lost two relatives who were brothers in Flanders in the Great War, told me: "The unionists hijacked the poppy and remembrance and gave the cold shoulder to Catholics who wanted to join in."

Maybe I am just imagining it, but there appears to have been less public rancour this year about the wearing (or non-wearing) of poppies in the period leading up to Armistice Day tomorrow and Remembrance Sunday and that may indicate some baby steps towards greater maturity and tolerance.

However, the atmosphere has been soured by the unfortunate and needless failure to agree a site for a completed memorial to the victims of the Poppy Day Massacre in Enniskillen 30 years ago this week.

One does not have to know all the details to discern that such an unedifying affair is not fair to the relatives of those who died and not good for community relations. The sooner the Catholic Church authorities and relevant others in the town can resolve this, the better.

As recently as a few years ago, BBC Northern Ireland insisted that broadcasters who did not wish to wear a poppy on screen during Remembrance-tide - a not unreasonable stance, given the respective national identities in this society who are served by the BBC - had to remain off-screen for the duration.

Nowadays, presenters are free to choose whether to wear the poppy, or not, during their broadcasts, and no one seems to mind very much.

That is progress, as is the initiative of the Taoiseach (a title once banned in the BBC), Leo Varadkar, to honour the sacrifice of around 50,000 Irishmen, Protestants and Catholics, in the Great War, by wearing "a shamrock poppy" that bears the words "Lest We Forget".

Varadkar's move is as welcome as it is significant, because it builds on the efforts of the Irish authorities in recent decades, most notably during the presidency of Mary McAleese, to attempt to make up for the airbrushing out of the national narrative of those Irishmen who lost their lives in places like the Somme, Flanders and Gallipoli, or were shunned, or despised, when they returned home to a transformed Ireland post the 1916 rising.

The failure, for too long, of what we might call "official Ireland" to recognise and honour that sacrifice and the embarrassment (and worse) that this caused to countless families of former soldiers was brought home to me last year when, on a visit to the Somme and the battlefields of Flanders, I spoke to people from Dublin, who had pilgrimaged to where their great-grandfathers and great-grand-uncles had fallen.

The poppy and even the shamrock poppy may never be symbols that the communities here can unite around, but that does not absolve all of us from our responsibility to listen to our respective aspirations and fears with mutual respect and roll up our sleeves and practice tolerance at every opportunity in a spirit of Christian goodwill.

Martin O'Brien is a journalist and communications consultant and a award-winning former BBC producer
Culture in Northern Ireland has been "used as a continuation of conflict by other means" - so says the draft bid for Belfast to become European Capital of Culture (ECOC) in 2023.Perfectly true, but it's hardly a big secret.

We know that the whole damn show, going back to the Good Friday Agreement, is predicated on a hostile sectarian carve-up between two divided communities. So why was Belfast City Council opposed to the BBC revealing details of the draft proposal for ECOC 2023?

Leeds, one of the other cities in the running for the title, along with Dundee, Milton Keynes and Nottingham had already chosen to release its proposal, presumably to demonstrate ambition and confidence in what the place has to offer and how it can grow. The Leeds team believed in the bid, so they wanted to get it out there.

But the Belfast grandees preferred to keep their bid under wraps ahead of the decision by the ECOC judging panel. They issued a pompous, reproachful statement: "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."

The instinct to keep business behind closed doors is a well-entrenched one in our hucksterish and politically immature statelet, so the council's reaction was hardly a surprise.

It seems that the only acceptable response to any new project, development or plan - whether cultural or otherwise - is a round of wildly enthusiastic applause.

But I don't believe that this sort of uncritical boosterism, where everything is wonderful, world-class, 100% fabulous, serves the people of Northern Ireland. It's far better to have an open, frank conversation in which all views, both positive and negative, are aired.

We have to acknowledge the realities of this place, to put a finger on what is holding us back, if we really want to find a way to move forward.

So instead of indulging in an ill-advised huff about the draft bid being revealed, why didn't the council have the courage of its convictions and stand proudly behind the statements in the document?

Why not choose to engage the public, who have a perfectly legitimate interest in these matters, by initiating a wider conversation about the limitations of the tired old "two communities" model? It should have done, because this document contains some significant home truths.

For instance, the document says that in Belfast and Derry, which is participating in the bid, "culture is still seen by some and used at times as a tool to intimidate and exclude".

It also says that cultural diversity - the interplay between a mixture of culture and ethnic groups in society - is a failed concept in Northern Ireland.

Instead, the peace process has "focused on cultural differences" between the two largely separate communities. "The binarisms of 'us and them', of Catholic or Protestant, British or Irish, have stifled our institutions, blunted our creativity and reduced our sense of personal identity," it states.

By way of example the ECOC bid uses the council's own draft linguistic policy, which "comprises separate policies relating to the minority languages of Irish and Ulster-Scots, rather than one policy which has shared principles of diversity at its root".

Reacting to the bid, Dr Eamonn Hughes of Queen's University made an astute observation. He said that while parity of esteem - the notion that each side had to respect the other's culture and traditions - was a necessary stage in our recent history, we have managed to get stuck there.

"Culture has then simply become another aspect of how we engage in this me-too politics," he said. "I think we need to move beyond that. I think the document does have interesting things to say about potentially moving beyond that - thinking of ourselves as citizens rather than allowing ourselves to be given an identity by membership of a community."

The bid for Belfast to become the 2023 European Capital of Culture is made in our name. It's being taken forward on behalf of us, the people of this city. So isn't it right and fair that we should be aware of what's being proposed and have the opportunity to have our say about it?

If winning ECOC 2023 can really help us see ourselves as individual citizens - capable of coming together in unity, or standing alone - rather than "me-too" members of one community or the other, then the bid has my wholehearted support. But let's approach it in a spirit of openness, confidence and generosity.

There's no better way to demonstrate how much we want - and need - to change.
It is a fascinating piece of social history, how four Catholic priests who nursed Protestants during a cholera outbreak in Belfast in the 19th century were honoured by having streets named after them. The irony was that these streets were in the Shankill Road area.

But the follow-up is even more astonishing. Two priests went on to the Shankill during the darkest days of the Troubles and removed the street nameplates before they were about to be lost in redevelopment.

One of them, now rebel cleric Bishop Pat Buckley, will today hand two of the signs to a Shankill museum. He deserves credit for preserving an unlikely heritage.
RACINE  Sitting side by side at SC Johnsons Fortaleza Hall on Friday, Foxconn Technology Group Chairman/CEO Terry Gou and Gov. Scott Walker signed a contract that will likely forever change Racine County and southeastern Wisconsin.

Gou and Walker signed the states $2.85 billion Foxconn incentives contract with House Speaker Paul Ryan, SCJ Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson and about 400 others watching at the companys world headquarters campus. The audience included at least about two dozen Foxconn employees and executives.

The contract signed Friday spells out the tax credits Foxconn will receive if it follows through with plans for an approximately $10 billion manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant to build liquid crystal display panels and finished products. On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. board approved the contract with Taiwan-based Foxconn, the worlds largest contract manufacturer of electronics.

Foxconn hopes to employ up to 13,000 people at the manufacturing campus which was expected to total 20 million square feet, according to previous figures given. However, Friday Foxconn upped that to an astounding 32 million feet, the size of 15 Lambeau fields.

That campus will have much more than LCD manufacturing. There also will be a tool-and-die plant, an assembly plant and a packaging plant.

The construction of the Foxconn campus alone is projected to create about 10,000 construction jobs.

The companys chosen area, where acquisition specialists have been negotiating purchase agreements with property owners, is on 1,198 acres between Interstate 94 and Highway H and between Highway KR and Braun Road.

Referring to SCJ, the host of Fridays event, and Foxconn, Walker said: What a concept: Weve got a global powerhouse on either end of the county.

Were going to take the world over when it comes to high technology, Walker said.

He said Foxconn is expected to do an estimated $1.4 billion in business per year with Wisconsin companies  quadruple the volume that Oshkosh Corp. does.

Immediately after Gou and Walker signed the contract, the governor presented Gou with a Wisconsin license plate that reads FOXCONN.

Show and tell

Gou took to the podium to a lengthy standing ovation wearing a white Wisconn Valley cap, a cap that was in abundant supply after the signing event. His first words were: It is great to be home.

Gou did less talking than showing, with videos about what Foxconn plans to do in Mount Pleasant and what it can do in general.

A representative for Gou said the campus will be producing 6,955,200 displays per year, enough panels to cover one-third of the City of Milwaukee.

He also said Foxconn will be building 2,362 pieces of equipment weighing 70,000 tons in total, the weight of an aircraft carrier.

A short video followed those statistics, showing a rapid time-lapse representation of the construction of the proposed Foxconn campus.

Other videos followed, showing what Foxconn technology can do and how it can bring improvements and solve problems across many industrial sectors.

Through speakers and videos Foxconn officials said, for example, that for the security sector it can produce high-precision surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology that can greatly improve identification of criminal suspects  or help locate a missing child at an amusement park.

For the healthcare field, Foxconn showed how it can help doctors in endoscopic surgery with crystal-clear images so they can cut and remove just cancerous tissue while leaving healthy tissue alone. It can also provide the technology for remote doctor consultations as well as for digital microscopes.

Gou said the campus will enrich peoples lives.

Another video gave a glimpse into what Foxconns manufacturing floor will look like, with self-organizing, intelligent manufacturing. The complex will also include an experimental and training center.

We are working closely with many regional partners and manufacturers, Gou said.

New chapter

Ryan noted that Johnson and his family have been providing generations of really good-paying jobs right here in southeastern Wisconsin. And we are now about to kick off a whole new chapter, with a new, iconic employer, doing the same for the people here in southeastern Wisconsin.

You ever heard of this term brain drain?  Ryan said. This reverses brain drain.

And Ryan lavished praise on Gou by saying, Visionary doesnt even skim the surface with this man. He said that Gou started his company in 1974 with $7,500; it now employs about 1 million people around the world.

Reed Cordish, assistant to the president for intragovernmental and technology initiatives, represented the White House and President Donald Trump, who is traveling in Asia.

This is about returning our manufacturing strength to where it should be, Cordish said about the Foxconn development and called Gou truly one of the worlds great entrepreneurs.

The incentives contract

Under the terms of the contract, released publicly for the first time Wednesday, the company will be able to collect up to $1.35 billion in construction-related tax credits if it creates a gradually increasing number of construction jobs, up to 8,450 through 2025.

Foxconn also will be able to collect up to $1.5 billion in tax credits if it creates up to 13,000 manufacturing jobs by 2022 and maintains that number through 2032. The jobs must pay at least $30,000 per year and average $53,875 annually.

Gou is pledging to personally back 25 percent of the amount that would be refunded to the state should the company default. Publicly traded parent company Hon Hai Precision Products would back the rest.
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It was a hot Saturday morning. My family had driven two and a half hours from our home in Lae, Papua New Guinea, to worship with a growing village church in the Markham Valley. We sat under a shady tree on a woven mat just meters from the over packed church listening to the pastors sermon. Seated beside us were a young woman and her 12-month-old son. My husband had given the baby our keys to play withI couldnt help but notice that the little fellow had one significantly crossed eye and had difficulty focusing on objects he was trying to see.

With the mothers permission, I took some photos of the baby playing. After the service had concluded I introduced myself to the mother, taking mental note of the names of her and her baby so that I could locate them again after I talked to an ophthalmologist friend of mine.

The child has esotropia, my doctor friend said. He gave me a rundown on how it would affect the child and how it would best be managed. With difficulty we located the childs mother through a pastor from a nearby village and made arrangements for her to bring her baby to Lae to visit an optometrist with me. The optometrist was to assess the baby and decide whether glasses would correct his condition, or whether he would require surgery.

I Think Im Helping Here, But Am I?

In Papua New Guinea, gaining an education and obtaining a good job seems to be the best way out of poverty, and since parents depend on their offspring to care for them in their old age, parents have a vested interest in ensuring their children overcome poverty. It appeared to me that the small amount of money I might spend on the childs eye treatment could have lasting dividends for his family.

But on Marys two visits to the optometrist in Lae, she appeared to begrudge the time spent in both travel and consultation, commenting that she didnt think it was necessary: her baby would only pull glasses off anyway and she had relatives with crossed eyes that corrected as they grew older.

I paid for the consultations and both times gave Mary enough money to cover the cost of her travel. However, before leaving Mary asked if I could meet two immediate needs (or at least perceived needs): a mobile phone and accommodation when she visited Lae. It appeared that she would prefer I spend my money on these things, rather than on her sons eye condition. Perhaps we might question Marys wisdom in this regard, but it did change the way I think about poverty.

What Would the Bible Say about My Approach to Poverty?

Throughout the Bible, there are references to assisting the impoverished with their needs:

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. (Proverbs 19:17).

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land (Deuteronomy 15:11).

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of our Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive (>Acts 20:35).

These are just a few of the biblical passages about the impoverished; so there is no doubt in my mind that we who love the Lord are called to bless those in need around us. We are meant to use the blessings that we have graciously been given from above to offer hope to others. But my experience with Mary raises an issue with that in my mind: How often do we, in our approach to the impoverished, decide for ourselves what they surely must want and need, instead of asking them?

I think Jesus has an answer to this dilemma. When responding to the cries of the two blind men in >Matthew 20:2934 and Bartimeus in >Mark 10:4652, Jesus both times asks What do you want me to do for you? He does this before taking action.

Helping the Impoverished with What They Actually Need

Before moving to Papua New Guinea, I lived in a remote country town in Australia with a large aboriginal population. I had heard that many aboriginal people slept on mattresses under the bridges around the town and many other places that did not seem at all appropriate to those of my cultural background. I had even heard of the aboriginal people in the town breaking apart their government-funded housing as quickly as new housing was being built. This all disturbed me, until I read an article that explained everything. In a local newspaper, an aboriginal person stated that the government need not spend its money on things that the aboriginal people, with their unique cultural background, did not need or want. The author believed that the aboriginals did not need or want housing. They merely wanted some land, with some shady trees and a washing/bathing block.

It is profound that countless dollars are probably spent on aid work meeting needs that are perceived by Westerners, but not felt by the recipients. Naturally, when something is not wanted, it is hardly going to be appreciated, preserved, or respected in the way that donors might expect.

It would appear that the best approach to meeting the needs of the impoverished would be to follow Jesus example: Ask the question, what do you want me to do for you? The answers of the impoverished might surprise us.

Kriselle Dawson writes for Jesus Economy, a non-profit dedicated to creating jobs and churches in the developing world. Jesus' Economy provides an online fair trade shop and is working to Renew Bihar, India. Kriselle lives in Lae, Papua New Guinea, where she is a full-time mom and homeschool teacher; she also serves with Papua New Guinea Union Mission and Lae City Mission.
Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister presented the awards at the National Entrepreneurship Award Ceremony, 2017 in New Delhi

Dr. Renu Swarup, Senior Adviser in the Department of Bio-technology, Ministry of Science & Technology has been awarded with National Entrepreneurship Award, 2017 under Mentor (Government) category in the Recognition Track.

Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister presented the awards at the National Entrepreneurship Award Ceremony, 2017 in New Delhi.

Dr Renu Swarup is presently Senior Adviser for Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology and also holds position of Managing Director, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Public Sector Company.

A PhD in Genetics and Plant Breeding, Dr. Renu Swarup completed her Post Doctoral at The John Innes Centre, Norwich UK, under Commonwealth Scholarship and returned to India to take up the assignment of a Science Manager in the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, in 1989.

As a Science Manager, issues related to policy planning and implementations are a part of her assignment. She was actively engaged in formulation of the Biotechnology Vision in 2001, National Biotechnology Development Strategy in 2007 and Strategy II, 2015-20 as the Member Secretary of the Expert Committee.

Dr. Renu Swarup also holds charge of Managing Director, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a Public Sector Company incorporated by the Government of India to nurture and promote innovation research in the Biotech Enterprise with special focus on Start-ups and SMEs. Through Biotechnology translational research and industry academia partnerships she has supported more than 1000 Start-ups and Entrepreneurs and nearly 500 small companies for innovation research and product development.

A Member of the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI), she is also a Member of Governing Body of National Institutes, Universities and Centers. She was awarded the Bio-Spectrum Person of the Year Award in 2012.
ROCHESTER  A home sustained significant damage after a car crashed into it Friday morning.

At 7:24 a.m., the Racine County Communications Center took several 911 calls of a crash in the 28200 block of Washington Avenue (Highway 20) in Rochester involving a vehicle hitting a house.

Upon arrival, deputies found that the crash involved a westbound Ford Taurus that did not negotiate a curve in the area, went off into the gravel shoulder, over corrected, crossed the center line and struck an eastbound Ford Explorer, according to a release from the Racine County Sheriffs Office.

After striking the SUV, the Taurus continued into the yard of 28217 Washington Ave. and struck the front of the house, causing significant structural damage to the houses living room wall.

There were two people inside the house when it was struck, but neither sustained any injuries.

Both drivers, who were the lone occupants of their vehicles, were transported by Rochester Fire and Rescue to Aurora Memorial Hospital of Burlington for minor injuries.

The crash site is located just east of the intersection of Washington and Beck Drive, which veers north toward Waterford. Washington Avenue at that point continues west toward Highway 36 and downtown Rochester.

The driver of the Taurus, a 20-year-old Racine man, was cited for causing the accident, sheriffs officials said.
As expected, the centenary of the October 1917 Revolution has been greeted with a cacophony of distortions and slanders, especially against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Hundreds of newspaper articles, books as well as TV and radio documentaries, have been produced with this express purpose in mind, all of which talk of coups and the Bolsheviks being German agents.

The Great October Revolution! Today, theyre calling it a military coup, the Bolshevik conspiracyThe Russian catastropheSaying Lenin was a German agent, and the Revolution was brought about by deserters and drunken sailors. I cover my ears. I dont want to hear it! (Margarita Pogrebitskaya, doctor, 57-years-old. Quoted in Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich.)

Most recently, the historian, Stephen Kotkin, who has produced a biography of Stalin, when interviewed in the Financial Times, stated that Lenin had been sent to Russia by the Germans. One of his first decisions was total surrender on the Eastern Front. The Bolshevik coup turned the Soviet Union into an international pariahAfter all, Lenin was originally a German agent. (28/10/17)

The irony of all this is that it was not Lenin, but the Russian bourgeoisie who acted as German agents, desperate for the German army to overthrow the Bolsheviks and restore the Old Order. But this slander is widespread. A whole layer of conservative and liberal historians have joined forces in an effort to bury the truth about the October Revolution. They can hardly contain themselves on this centenary. They howl and gnash their teeth at every reference to Revolution, Lenin and Bolshevism. The whole revolution must be portrayed as a historic mistake and an unforgivable tragedy.

There is nothing new in all of this. The apologists of capitalism have always displayed a seething hatred for the Russian Revolution. The opening of the Soviet archives some 20 years ago saw a whole host of academics, such as Robert Service, Orlando Figes, Richard Pipes, among many others, rushing off to Moscow, not to enhance historical truth but to dig up as much dirt as possible about Lenin and the October Revolution. On their return, such scholars would churn out a few books in the process. It reminds one of what was said about the Webbs in the 1930s:

To Russia, to Russia to take a quick look, Back again, back again, to write a big book.

Their theme is always the same: Bolshevism is the same as Stalinism and Lenins dictatorial methods gave rise to the horror of Stalin and the death of millions. Their assertion is that if only the October Revolution  for them, a coup  had not happened, the moderate Provisional Government could have established a constitutional monarchy with all the trappings of Western bourgeois democracy and life would have been happy ever after.

Bourgeois historians do not seek the truth

Breadlines before the February revolution - Photo: Public DomainThis appears to be Professor Orlando Figes view, who has recently re-published his book, A Peoples Tragedy. If only the Tsar had acted differently things would have been a lot better! What a tragedy for the people! What a tragedy of history! But this line of argument is itself tragic. If the Bolsheviks had not come to power in 1917, not democracy, but a monstrous fascist dictatorship would have been established, over the bones of millions of workers and peasants. The idea of a rosy democracy being possible in Russia under Kerensky or Kornilov is a complete fairy tale.

The whole approach of modern bourgeois historians is not to explore the truth, but to present Lenin and Trotsky as ruthless cold-blooded fanatics, whose utopian plans could only end in a nightmare. The Russian masses are simply viewed as pawns, cynically manipulated by the Bolsheviks in a ruthless pursuit of naked power. For these bourgeois apologists, revolution has no other outcome. Their views, however, reflect their political prejudice, and nothing more.

The reality is somewhat different. The October Revolution was a world-shattering event, which abolished landlordism and capitalism, and in its early days introduced the most democratic regime ever seen in history, based upon the rule of the deputies of the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. For the first time in history, it put power into the hands of working people and became a beacon to the war-weary masses everywhere.

For the defenders of capitalism  precisely because it brought to power the workers and peasants  the Revolution constituted an unpardonable crime. For Professor Orlando Figes, the Revolution was indeed a Peoples Tragedy.

Professor Figes A Peoples Tragedy of 20 years ago has been republished with a new introduction, in which, among other things, he blames the rise of fascism and the Second World War on Bolshevism: The fear of Bolshevism was a major factor in the rise of fascist movements, leading to the outbreak of the Second World War, writes Figes (p.xi). The depth to which Figes is prepared to sink in his unscientific approach to history seems to have no limits. The outbreak of the Second World War was an expression of the insoluble contradictions that had accumulated between the major powers, and was in essence a continuation of the First World War. Maybe in a future republication of his work, Figes could add to the causes of the First World War the very existence of the Bolsheviks in Russia, even though they were then still a small minority. We shall see!

There is a logic in Figes distorted portrayal of history. By blaming the Bolsheviks for almost everything, he can conveniently avoid the embarrassing fact that fascism was supported and welcomed by big business, which armed and financed the Hitler movement. Winston Churchill and a section of the British ruling class openly admired Mussolinis Blackshirts before the war, and saw fascism as a bulwark against communism.

In his new preface, Figes even has the effrontery to link Bolshevism with todays Islamic terrorism:

All the methods used by ISIS  the use of war and terror to build a revolutionary state, the fanatical devotion and military discipline of its followers, and its brilliant use of propaganda  were first mastered by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. (p.xvii)

He prefers to ignore that fact that the fanaticism and methods of ISIS are more akin to those of fascism of the 1930s, the very opposite of Bolshevism. It is a counter-revolutionary ideology pursuing counter-revolutionary aims. But this does not fit in with Figes aim of drawing false parallels with Bolshevism, the better to discredit the party of Lenin and Trotsky.

Lenin comes in for particularly harsh treatment by Figes. Lenins ideas are ripped out of context and distorted to prove the opposite of what he actually said. Everything is done to discredit him as well as the Russian Revolution.

On the very first page of the Preface to the 1996 edition, Professor Figes sets out to show how terrible and bloody revolution is:

[A]t the risk of appearing callous, the easiest way to convey the revolutions scope is to list the ways in which it wasted human life: tens of thousands were killed by the bombs and bullets of the revolutionaries, and an equal number by the repression of the tsarist regime, before 1917; thousands died in the street fighting of that year; hundreds of thousands from the Terror of the Reds  and an equal number from the Terror of the Whites, if one counts the victims of their pogroms against Jews  during the years that followed; more than a million perished in the fighting of the civil war, including civilians at the rear; and yet more people died from hunger, cold and disease than from all these put together. (A Peoples Tragedy, p. xvii)

In other words, the Russian Revolution, according to our professor, can be easily summed up (its scope) as a catalogue of death, disease and bloodshed. Thus, the Revolution is reduced to a gigantic minus. We see here how Professor Figes attempts to place the actions of heroic Russian revolutionaries on the same level as the Tsarist butchers. The oppressed and the oppressors are placed in the same boat as both, you see, were responsible for bloodshed.

These bourgeois historians have a particular story to peddle, irrespective of the facts. They are like the scribes of Rome who sought to justify slavery, while trying to cover themselves in so-called objectivity.

In the Russian Civil War, the Whites were the forces of counter-revolution and reaction, behind which stood world imperialism, determined to destroy the young Soviet Republic. It was the intervention of 21 imperialist armies that sustained the barbarism of the Civil War, and the death and misery that accompanied it.

Again, this should not surprise us. The imperialist powers had already perpetrated world war in which 12 million had died and millions more were maimed and crippled. The imperialist blockade of Russia alone, following the carnage of 1914-17, brought famine, death and disease on a vast scale, in which millions perished.

Violence and the revolution

Despite Figes concerns for the Revolutions wasted life, the October Revolution was in fact a bloodless affair, at least in Petrograd, more like a police mopping up operation, where a tiny handful of people lost their lives. The wholesale bloodshed came with the Civil War, the real blame for which lies squarely with the actions of imperialism and its agents.

Bruce Lockhart - Photo: Public DomainThis is not simply our view, but also the view of the British government agent, Bruce Lockhart, who was stationed in Russia at the time:

"I mention this comparative tolerance of the Bolsheviks, because the cruelties which followed later were the result of the intensification of the civil war...For the intensification of that bloody struggle, Allied intervention, with the false hopes it raised, was largely responsible. I do not say that a policy of abstention from interference in the internal affairs of Russia would have altered the course of the Bolshevik Revolution. I do suggest that our intervention intensified the terror and increased the bloodshed." (R.H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent, 2002 edition, p.242, my emphasis.)

A victory of the counter-revolution in the early 1920s and the restoration of capitalism and landlordism would not have ushered in an idyllic democracy, but a bloodbath of workers and peasants, as the White slaughter in Finland, where up to 20,000 workers were butchered, proved. In the intervention, we have the spectacle of the ruling classes of the Allies and the Central Powers putting their differences aside and joining forces in order to crush the young workers state and restore Tsarist rule. Their common class interests based upon private property were paramount.

The Russian masses, on the other hand, rallied to the Revolution, as for them it meant freedom and dignity; peace, bread and land. The Revolutions goal of liberation from capitalism and landlordism was something worth fighting for. It was the fervour and enthusiasm for October that eventually saved the young workers state in its life and death struggle with the Old Order. The defeat of the counter-revolution demanded the total commitment of the Russian people, which they unreservedly gave. The human sacrifices demanded by the Civil War were of course monumental. The fact is that millions of ordinary Russians were prepared to risk their lives for such a noble cause.

Were the Bolsheviks ruthless and bloodthirsty?

Bourgeois historians continue to peddle the idea that the Bolsheviks were ruthless and bloodthirsty. The truth is the Soviet government was slow to react to the acts of counter-revolution and imperialist aggression. The Soviet Government, explained the left-wing historian Marcel Liebman:

[W]aited several months before it ordered the systematic repression of all counter-revolutionary activities  at the beginning of the Civil War, it went out of its way to stop and punish all excesses. And though the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle against Sabotage and the Counter-revolution) was established in December 1917, it was not until 18 June, 1918, that a revolutionary tribunal passed a death sentence. (Liebman, The Russian Revolution, p.337)

During the October Revolution, on several occasions military cadets who were arrested were immediately released on promises not take up arms again against the Revolution. Those captured in the Winter Palace, were allowed to go free after Antonov-Ovseenko, the Bolshevik commander, personally intervened on their behalf to get his men to release them! Of course, those released immediately broke their word. Arrested government ministers were also quickly released, while members of the Pre-Parliament, much to their surprise, were left to get on with what they were doing.

The reactionary General Krasnov, whom Kerensky ordered to recapture Petrograd, was seized by the Bolsheviks, but was then released having promised not to further engage in counter-revolutionary activity. He immediately rushed south and helped to found the White Army. The Soviets paid a grave price for this needless benevolence. So much for their so-called ruthlessness!

Eventually, after so many bloody provocations, the Soviets were forced to abandon their soft approach. But this change did not come about until the summer of 1918, more than six months after the Revolution. During this period, bourgeois parties acted with complete freedom, despite continuously conniving with the Whites and the imperialist powers. The only party to be banned was the fascist Black Hundreds. The other bourgeois parties, including the Cadets, continued to operate openly.

As the British agent Lockhart reveals, regarding the events of June 1918:

"The Bolsheviks had not yet succeeded in establishing the iron discipline which today characterises their regime. They had, in fact, made little attempt to do so. There was no terror, nor was the population particularly afraid of its new masters. The anti-Bolshevik newspapers continued to appear and to attack the Bolshevik policy with violent abuse...The bourgeoisie, still confident that the Germans would soon send the Bolshevik rabble about its business, was more cheerful than one might have expected in such disturbing circumstances. The population was starving, but the rich still had money. Restaurants and cabarets were open, and the cabarets at any rate were crowded. On Sundays, too, there were trotting races before our house, and it was strange to contrast these beautiful, well-groomed horses with the starved and skeleton nags of the unfortunate 'droschke' drivers." (Lockhart, p.241, my emphasis)

Lockhart adds:

The one aim of every Russian bourgeois (and 99 per cent of the so-called loyal Russians were bourgeois) was to secure the intervention of British troops (and failing British, German troops) to re-establish order in Russia, suppress Bolshevism and restore to the bourgeois his property. (Lockhart, p. 231)

The bourgeoisie was openly delighted at the prospect of the German advance, which had emboldened the anti-Bolshevik Press to attack the Bolsheviks with a frenzied fury. (ibid, p.228)

This gives you a real and clear picture of the pro-German sympathies of the Russian bourgeoisie. How different they are dealt with in Lockharts text in contrast to the so-called German agent Lenin, a lie that has been constantly peddled ever since!

In relation to the anti-Bolshevik organisations that operated at that time, Lockhart reveals:

Through Hicks I increased my contact with the anti-Bolshevik forces. As far as we were concerned, they were represented in Moscow by an organisation called the Centre which was subdivided into two wings of Left and Right, and the League of the Regeneration of Russia founded by Savinkov. There was constant bickering between the two organisations. The Centre was in close touch with the White Army in the South. (ibid, p.291)

Russian trenches during World War I - Photo: Public DomainThe fact that these counter-revolutionary organisations could operate quite freely in the capital, shows how slow the Soviet government was to react.

Despite the fact that Figes quotes some of Lockharts book to bolster his analysis, he never refers once to Lockharts views as quoted above. The reason for this seems to be that Lockharts eyewitness account does not fit the one being presented by our learned professor.

The assassination of Volodarsky, the Commissar for Press Affairs, then the murder of the German Ambassador Mirbach, followed by the attempted overthrow of the government and the attempted assassinations of Lenin and Trotsky changed the entire situation. The naivety of the early days of the revolution soon dissipated.

The Soviet government was forced to take decisive action to answer the assassinations and counter-revolutionary actions with a firm hand. The Bolsheviks had to fight fire with fire - or perish. They had no alternative. They were forced to fight a civil war, where obviously the rules of warfare apply. As the White Armies advanced into Soviet territory, they did not hesitate to organise the mass butchering of workers, who they correctly saw as the main supporters of Bolshevism. In addition, they rounded up the Jewish population and massacred them for the greater glory of Mother Russia.

The Soviet government under Lenin and Trotsky had, therefore, no recourse but to defend itself and the revolution, with arms in hand. This was no game of chess, but a civil war. In attempting to hide this fact, bourgeois historians place the blame for the bloodshed not on the imperialists, but the Soviets and revolutionaries, i.e., not on the slaveowners, but on the slaves for daring to cast off their chains.

Devastating consequences of civil war

It took three years for the Soviets to finally drive out the imperialists and put an end to the Civil War, which left behind a terrible legacy of destruction. Deutscher in his biography of Trotsky gives a graphic account of the situation:

At the end of the Civil War Russias national income amounted to only one-third of her income in 1913; industry produced less than one-fifth of the goods produced before the war; the coal mines turned out less than one-tenth and the iron foundries less than one-fortieth of their normal output; the railways were destroyed; all stocks and reserves were utterly exhausted (The Prophet Unarmed, p.4)

Cases of cannibalism were reported, as starvation became rife. The cities had lost 8 million inhabitants compared to 1914; the population of Petrograd alone had fallen from 2.5 million to 600,000; while Moscows population fell from 1.5 million to 900,000. At the beginning of 1917, industry employed 3 million workers, but by January 1921 this had shrunk to 1.2 million.

This was the horrendous situation facing the Bolsheviks at the end of the Civil War. The most dedicated class-conscious workers had gone to the fronts, many of whom perished, and those remaining in the factories were utterly exhausted. As a result of forced requisitioning to feed the cities (war communism), relations between the towns and the peasants broke down.

Facing starvation, there was a desperate exodus from the towns to the countryside in search of food, as the figures show. The Soviets as organs of power withered as the activity of the weary proletariat waned and the struggle for survival took precedence. The emerging bureaucracy, a relic of Tsarism and arising from the backward conditions, elbowed the workers aside. The effects of the Civil War had completely drained the reserves of the Revolution.

Lenin and Trotsky were therefore forced to call a retreat and announce the New Economic Policy, which abandoned war communism and made a number of concessions to capitalism. The peasants were allowed to retain and sell their grain, and instead pay a tax, which stimulated the market. This led to the dangerous rise of the kulaks  rich peasants  and Nepmen. The main task of the Soviet government was now simply to hold on against all the odds until help came from the European revolution.

Equating Bolshevism and Stalinism

It has been the prime task of bourgeois historians to discredit the October Revolution and equate Bolshevism with Stalinism. Thus, Orlando Figes states in his original Preface:

[O]ur story ends in 1924, with the death of Lenin, by which time the revolution had come full circle and the basic institutions, if not all the practices, of the Stalinist regime were in place.

So as not to forget, he repeats the same line:

It seems clear that the basic elements of the Stalinist regime  the one-party state, the system of terror and the cult of the personality  were all in place by 1924. (Figes, p. 807, 1996 edition)

Joseph Goebbels believed that by repeating a lie often enough it would come to be regarded as the truth. In the same way, the bourgeois historians constantly repeat the lie that Stalinism emerged from Bolshevism, while, in reality, Stalinism is the antithesis of Bolshevism and  a small detail  only triumphed with the murder in the Moscow Trials of all the Bolshevik leaders who led the Revolution and those with any direct connection with Lenin. As Trotsky explained, a river of blood separated Bolshevism from Stalinism. That is why as a Bolshevik he fought Stalinism to the bitter end.

Professor Figes open hatred towards Bolshevism is hardly surprising or original. It is simply a reflection of his class prejudices. He takes every opportunity to twist, distort and blacken Lenins name, who is made out to be a blood-thirsty monster and dictator:

Lenin was the first modern party chief to achieve the status of a god: Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao Zedong were all his successors in this sense. (Figes, p. 391)

While the Mensheviks are regarded by our learned Professor as moderates, for their preparedness to capitulate to the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks are viewed as a bunch of ruthless fanatics.

From this point of view, Figes book is like all the other right-wing literature on the Russian Revolution. At least credit can be given to E.H. Carr, the celebrated historian, who made an honest attempt to understand the Russian Revolution. In comparison to him, our latter day historians are simply dishonest charlatans.

Bolsheviks opposed individual terrorism

Figes writes a whole section to prove that Lenin was a dedicated disciple of individual terrorism, who advocated the seizure of power by a revolutionary minority. Again, this is complete nonsense, as we will show. Abdication of the Tsar - Photo: Public Domain

Clearly, Lenin, as with many of his generation, had been sympathetic to the ideas of Populism, which tried to get rid of Tsarism. How could it have been otherwise? The Tsarist system banned any democratic or socialist activity: there was no parliament, freedom of speech, free press, free assembly or the right to organise or strike. Everything was ruled by the autocratic Tsar and his bureaucracy, who acted to ruthlessly crush any sign of progressive or radical thought. The Populists heroically fought against this tyranny.

Not a few despots were dispatched by the actions of these young idealists and heroes who made up these fighting groups. The Populists reached their height with the assassination of Alexander II. Other unsuccessful attempts were made on Tsar Alexander III, for which Lenins brother was hanged. In face of Tsarist repression, many of their members displayed courage, devotion and self-sacrifice, a million miles removed from the closeted corridors of academia.

It was the hatred of Tsarist despotism that nurtured terrorism. Let us recall that this was a bloody regime. It encouraged hundreds of pogroms against the Jews. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution, the prime minister became known as Stolpin the Hangman, when 1,100 people were executed from September 1906 to May 1907. The Tsarina, Alexandra, urged her husband:

Be an Emperor, be Peter the Great, be Ivan the Terrible, be the Emperor Paul. Crush them all (Quoted by Liebman, The Russian Revolution, p.22)

But despite the displays of heroism by the Populists, Marxists understood that this method was a blind alley. Individual terrorism played into the hands of reaction by allowing the old regime to use such actions to justify its repression. Moreover, it reduced the struggle against Tsarism to single-combat between the regime and the terrorist groups, which were isolated from the masses. While you might rid the world of one hated Tsarist official, the system of Tsarism remained and the silent masses continued to be oppressed. Individual terrorism was a failure and counter-productive.

As opposed to the method of individual terrorism, the Marxists instead advocated a revolutionary mass struggle organised by a revolutionary vanguard. Such a struggle served to instill confidence in the masses and in their own strength and capacity. As Figes refuses to allow Lenin to speak for himself, let us see what he actually said on the subject:

Little is known in other countries of the fact that Bolshevism took shape, developed and became steeled in the long years of struggle against petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which smacks of anarchism, or borrows something from the latter and, in all essential matters, does not measure up to the conditions and requirements of a consistently proletarian class struggle When it came into being in 1903, Bolshevism took over the tradition of a ruthless struggle against petty-bourgeois, semi-anarchist (or dilettante-anarchist) revolutionism, a tradition which had always existed in revolutionary Social-Democracy and had become particularly strong in our country during the years 190003, when the foundations for a mass party of the revolutionary proletariat were being laid in Russia. Bolshevism took over and carried on the struggle against a party which, more than any other, expressed the tendencies of petty-bourgeois revolutionism, namely, the Socialist-Revolutionary Partythis party considered itself particularly revolutionary, or Left, because of its recognition of individual terrorism, assassinationsomething that we Marxists emphatically rejected. (Lenin, Left-wing Communism, an infantile disorder)

As we can see, Bolshevism, contrary to Figes suggestions, was born in a struggle against individual terrorism. Of course, our professor does not wish to reveal this as it would undermine his aim to smear Lenin and the Bolsheviks as terrorists and followers of the Narodniks.

Figes tries his damnedest to equate terrorism with Lenin and Bolshevism:

This new spirit of violence and hatred...was even more pronounced in the writings of Sergei Nechaev. Lenin placed a high value on them as a theory of revolutionary conspiracy. (p. 132)

Again, this is completely false. Nechaev was an anarchist and extreme conspiracist. The Russian anarchist Bakunin had been Nechaevs mentor, although even he recoiled from Nechaev. Lenin had certainly nothing to do with him. As Trotsky explained in his biography of Lenin:

In revolutionary circles, the word Nechaevism was long to be a term of harsh condemnation, a synonym for risky and reprehensible methods of attaining revolutionary goals. Lenin was to hear himself accused hundreds of times of Nechaevist methods by his opponents. (The Young Lenin, p.42).

Professor Figes is simply regurgitating these same slanders!

Desperate for some mud to stick, Figes keeps repeating the myth:

He [Nechaev] was, in short, a Bolshevik before the Bolsheviks. (p. 133)

What a baseless assertion! You can see where our professor is trying to lead us. Again he writes:

Its twenty-six articles [of Nechaevs Revolutionary Catechism], setting out the principles of the professional revolutionary, might have served as the Bolshevik oath. [Only might?] The morals of that party owed much to Nechaev as they did to Marx. (p. 133)

What an absolute travesty of the truth!

Nonetheless, our professor keeps pressing on regardless:

The writings of Petr Tkachev marked the crucial watershed. They formed a bridge between the Jacobin tradition of Nechaev, the classic Populist tradition of Land and Liberty, and the Marxist tradition of Lenin. The Bolshevik leader owed more to Tkachev than to any other single Russian theorist. (p. 137, my emphasis)

Again, what nonsense! Lenin owed nothing to Tkachev, who was close in his ideas to Blanqui, who favoured a coup detat carried out by a small minority. This was never Lenins position.

Georg Plekhanov - Photo: Public DomainThere certainly was a Russian theorist to whom Lenin owed a great deal, and who he openly acknowledged, but this was not Tkachev, but Georg Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism. Lenin looked to Marxism, not to anarchism or Tkachevism.

But Figes will have none of it! He refuses to budge and stubbornly continues:

Lenin used the ideas of Chernyshevsky, Nechaev, Tkachev and the People's Will to inject a distinctly Russian dose of conspiratorial politics into a Marxist dialectic that would otherwise have remained passive To begin with, like many provincial revolutionaries, he merely added Marxs sociology to the putschist tactics of the Peoples Will. (p. 146).

Again, absolute balderdash! Orlando Figes offers not a shred of proof for this fairytale, but he keeps on repeating it.

Lenin in his own words

Lenin was firmly opposed to Blanquism, namely the seizure of power by a minority. We can furnish some examples.

Lenin in April 1917:

To become a power the class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side. As long as no violence is used against the people there is no other road to power. We are not Blanquists, we do not stand for the seizure of power by a minority. We are Marxists, we stand for proletarian class struggle against petty-bourgeois intoxication, against chauvinism-defencism, phrase-mongering and dependence on the bourgeoisie. (LCW. Vol. 24. Moscow: Progress, 1974, p. 40.)

Ignorant persons or renegades from Marxism, like Mr. Plekhanov, may shout about anarchism, Blanquism, and so forth. But those who want to think and learn cannot fail to understand that Blanquism means the seizure of power by a minority, whereas the Soviets are admittedly the direct and immediate organisation of the majority of the people. Work confined to a struggle for influence within these Soviets cannot, simply cannot, stray into the swamp of Blanquism. (LCW. Vol. 24. Moscow: Progress, 1974, 48-49.)

Lenin in May 1917:

Anybody who says take the power should not have to think long to realise that an attempt to do so without as yet having the backing of the majority of the people would be adventurism or Blanquism (Pravda has made a special point of warning against this in the clearest, most unmistakable and unequivocal terms).

There is a degree of freedom now in Russia that enables the will of the majority to be gauged by the makeup of the Soviets. Therefore, to make a serious, not a Blanquist, bid for power, the proletarian party must fight for influence within the Soviets. (LCW, vol. 24, p.217, emphasis in original)

Blanquism was a striving to seize power with the backing of a minority. With us it is quite different. We are still a minority and realise the need for winning a majority. (LCW. Vol. 24. Moscow: Progress, 1974, 145.)

All your efforts must be devoted to consolidating your own ranks, to organising the workers from the bottom upwards, including every district, every factory, every quarter of the capital and its suburbs! Do not be misled by those of the petty bourgeoisie who compromise with the capitalists, by the defencists and by the supporters, nor by individuals who are inclined to be in a hurry and to shout Down with the Provisional Government! before the majority of the people are solidly united. The crisis cannot be overcome by violence practised by individuals against individuals, by the local action of small groups of armed people, by Blanquist attempts to seize power, to arrest the Provisional Government, etc. (LCW. Vol. 24. Moscow: Progress, 1974, 216.)

When the masses are free, any attempts to act in the name of a minority, without explaining things to the masses, would be senseless Blanquism, mere adventurism. Only by winning over the masses, if they can be won, can we lay a solid foundation for the victory of the proletarian class struggle. (LCW, Vol.24, p.263)

Lenin in October:

Marxism is an extremely profound and many-sided doctrine. It is, therefore, no wonder that scraps of quotations from Marxespecially when the quotations are made inappropriatelycan always be found among the arguments of those who break with Marxism. Military conspiracy is Blanquism, if it is organised not by a party of a definite class, if its organisers have not analysed the political moment in general and the international situation in particular, if the party has not on its side the sympathy of the majority of the people, as proved by objective facts, if the development of revolutionary events has not brought about a practical refutation of the conciliatory illusions of the petty bourgeoisie, if the majority of the Soviet-type organs of revolutionary struggle that have been recognised as authoritative or have shown themselves to be such in practice have not been won over, if there has not matured a sentiment in the army (if in war-time) against the government that protracts the unjust war against the will of the whole people, if the slogans of the uprising (like All power to the Soviets Land to the peasants, or Immediate offer of a democratic peace to all the belligerent nations, with an immediate abrogation of all secret treaties and secret diplomacy, etc.) have not become widely known and popular, if the advanced workers are not sure of the desperate situation of the masses and of the support of the countryside, a support proved by a serious peasant movement or by an uprising against the landowners and the government that defends the landowners, if the countrys economic situation inspires earnest hopes for a favourable solution of the crisis by peaceable and parliamentary means. (LCW. Vol. 26. Moscow: Progress, 1977, 212-213.)





Professor Figes does not feel the need to offer any evidence for his false assertions. The reason being is that he cannot find any such evidence. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Our professor tries to be very clever by asking:

[W]hat should the revolutionary leaders do if the people rejected the revolution? What if the peasants proved conservative? Or if the workers were more interested in sharing the benefits of capitalism than in trying to overthrow it? (Figes, p. 135)

What this has to do with the Russian Revolution is anyone's guess. And, in any case, Lenin had an answer to this nonsense. The task of the revolutionary party is not the seizure of power by a minority, but to first win over a majority by patient explanation. If workers are keen to share in the benefits of capitalism, as Figes hopes, clearly there is no basis for a bid for power. A revolution cannot be imposed by a small group from above. This is ABC to Marxists.

On 18 April 1917, a matter of months before the October Revolution, Lenin wrote:

[W]e want by explanation to make the majority of the nation see the necessity for such a transfer of power. (LCW, vol.24, p.173)

He repeated this position ad nauseam. Despite its voluminous size, Figes book contains not a single reference to Lenins real position.

Lenin the dictator?

Figes portrays Lenin as a dictator, starting within his own party. Lenin had never been tolerant of dissent within his partys ranks, states our historian. Figes deliberately mixes up intolerance with political debate. Lenin mocked his political opponents, both inside and outside the party, in crude and violent language, states Figes.

This is completely misleading, as anyone who is acquainted with Lenins writings is fully aware of the fact that he deals fundamentally with ideas and arguments and not offensive language. But to emphasise his point, our professor has sought out Lenins terrible language: Russian fools, windbags, stupid hens, silly old maids, blockheads, cretins, scum, bastards, etc. (p. 391) Such language! It hardly compares with the language employed by Tory cabinet ministers against one another, let alone the language of the Blairites in their attacks on Jeremy Corbyn! Figes is scraping the bottom of the barrel arguing that such language is the basis for dictatorial rule. Such language would hardly cause a ripple even in a student's common room in Cambridge university.

The idea that the life of the Bolshevik Party was undemocratic is patently untrue. Contradicting himself, Figes is forced to admit later on that:

The idea that the Bolshevik Party in 1917 was a monolithic organisation tightly controlled by Lenin is a myth  a myth which used to be propagated by the Soviet establishment, and one which is still believed (for quite different motives) by right-wing historians in the West. (p. 392)

If so, then why repeat this myth?

In fact, the Bolshevik Party was extremely democratic and with a lively internal life. It enjoyed a degree of freedom that caused the historian E.H. Carr to remark that such has rarely been equalled by any other party in the world. Under Lenin, the partys factions could speak out without fear or favour, engage in heated debate, but remain comrades-in-arms. It was a school of hard knocks, but nothing more. The authority of the Bolshevik leadership was not achieved by wielding the big stick. It was a political and moral authority. And this was especially the case with Lenin.

Lenin was never afraid of being in a minority, which was the case on different occasions. He was initially in a minority of one in the Party in April 1917 and had to wage a struggle for his ideas. In the most heated discussion in the party over the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, Lenin was more often than not in a minority in the Central Committee and even within the rank and file. This simply highlights how democratic the internal regime of the Bolshevik party was.

The democracy of the Bolshevik Party was destroyed later by Stalin and the emerging Stalinist bureaucracy. These bureaucrats put an end to the democracy within the state and within the party, turning it into a Stalinist monolith where all dissent was stamped out. Lenin fought against this bureaucratic degeneration with all his strength. In fact, the last fight of his political life was in a bloc with Trotsky against Stalin and the rise of party bureaucracy. His last writings were an attempt to deal with this threat of bureaucratic degeneration, which called for the removal of Stalin as general secretary. This was, however, suppressed by the Triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev, after Lenins death.

For Figes, this is a sealed book. He maintains that Lenins undemocratic method went back to the 1903 split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. But this is not an original idea, and it has been repeated again and again by opponents of the revolution, conservatives, social democrats and reformists alike. Figes states that the 1903 split occurred over the definition of a party member and Lenins insistence of a centralised party, as opposed to Martov who, says our professor, wanted a broad-based party.

Again, this is false. Both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks were in favour of a centralised party, which was based upon the model of the successful German Social Democratic Party. A working class party working openly in a country teeming with agents provocateurs would have been quickly suppressed. It had to be a clandestine, centralised and highly disciplined party to survive, as Lenin had argued in What is to be Done? Everyone in the Russian revolutionary movement agreed with this idea initially.

The 1903 split occurred not over membership criteria, however, but over the composition of the editorial board, where Lenin wanted to replace the more inactive members. The old timers rebelled and created a stink, which lead to the split. It was only after this that the Mensheviks came out against Lenins centralism. But all Lenin wanted to do was to professionalise the party, nothing more. Nevertheless, it is true to say that the split over the composition of the editorial board was an anticipation of future political differences.

Was it a coup detat?

Among the many other things, Figes cannot resist raising the hoary old chestnut of German Gold. This is used to imply that Lenin was a German agent and a tool of the Kaiser. These lies were first raised by the monarchists and Allied imperialists, starting with Lord Robert Cecil, and were then used to launch a witch-hunt against the Bolsheviks in July 1917, which forced Lenin into hiding. Figes here once again scrapes the bottom of the barrel. There is no doubt that the Germans had financed the Bolshevik Party  the Provisional Government had known that since April, states Figes, without a shred of evidence. The actual amount of German finance was not very great, he adds, leaving the reader with the impression that he has the facts on these mythical amounts, but unfortunately he cannot supply us with any concrete figures or sources for what he states.

When Figes repeats the old nonsense that the Bolshevik Revolution was a coup detat, carried out by a small conspiratorial group behind the backs of the masses, the implication is that the insurrection had no popular support. But this is certainly not the case. The revolution was very popular and was fully supported by the Soviets, which in turn had the overwhelming support of the masses. The reason why there was a relatively small number engaged in the actual insurrection and arrest of the old government was that there was very little opposition. Nobody  not a single regiment  was prepared to defend the Provisional Government. The revolution met no resistance, which explains why there were only five known deaths in Petrograd. It was a peaceful revolution. It was a political rather than a military achievement. In fact, it wasnt force of arms, but Trotskys powerful speeches that won over first the garrison and then the Motor-Cycle Battalion at the Peter and Paul Fortress.

We cannot give orders to fight to the last man or the last drop of blood, said Maliantovich, the minister of Justice, because in this hour we may possibly be defending no one but ourselves. The word possibly was superfluous. (Quoted by Liebman, The Russian Revolution, p.269). A left Menshevik, Sukhanov, states:

To call it [the October Revolution] a military conspiracy rather than a national uprising is utterly absurd since the [Bolshevik] Party was already the de facto power in the land, and since it enjoyed the support of the enormous majority of people. (ibid, p.286)

Sukhanov, who was no friend of the Bolsheviks, underlined the point:

In actual fact the overturn was accomplished the moment the Petersburg garrison acknowledged the Soviet as its supreme authority and the Military Revolutionary Committee as its direct command. Such a decision, as we know, was made at the meeting of the garrison representatives on October 21st. But in the unprecedented setting this act may said to have had an abstract character. No one took it for a coup detat. And no wonder. The decision, after all, did not really change the situation: even earlier the Government had had no real power or authority. The real power in the capital had already been in the hands of the Bolsheviks of the Petersburg Soviet long before (Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917, p.587)

LEntente, a conservative French paper published in Petrograd, said much the same on 2 November 1917:

To call it a government of conspirators is quite wrong No, there is no conspiracy; on the contrary, quite boldly, without mincing their words, without disguising their intentions, they have stepped up their agitation, intensified their propaganda, in the factories, in the barracks, at the front, in the countryside, everywhere, going so far as to proclaim in advance the precise day on which they will take up arms, the day on which they will seize power. (Quoted in Liebman, The Russian Revolution, p. 286)

Figes also falsely asserts that Lenin was only interested in cynically controlling the mass movement:

No doubt Lenin viewed all these movements [the surge in local soviet rule as well as workers control] as a means to destroy the old political system and thus clear the way for the establishment of his own partys dictatorship.

He adds: there is of course no proof of this In other words, it was just made up. He then says:

It is hard to swallow the notion, which some historians on the Left have favoured, that Lenin was a libertarian at heart and encouraged all these localised forms of power in order to construct a new decentralised state, as set out in the State and Revolution; a plan which was only later blown off course by the centralised demands of the Civil War. (Figes, p. 503)

Yes, hard to swallow by those who have their own agenda! The truth tends to stick in Orlando Figes throat like a fishbone, but this was Lenins position. He favoured the maximum initiative from below:

We need not only representation along democratic lines, but the building of the entire state administration from the bottom up by the masses themselves, their effective participation in all of lifes steps, their active role in the administration. Replacement of the old organs of oppressionnot by introducing it from above, but by raising the vast mass of proletarians and semi-proletarians to the art of state administration, to the use of the whole state power. (LCW, vol.24, p. 181)

Lenin put forward measures to begin the revolution: namely, rule by the Soviets, election of all officials, with the immediate right of recall; all representatives and officials to be on no more than skilled workers wages; no standing army, but a workers militia; all offices of state to be rotated for when everyone is a bureaucrat, no one is a bureaucrat. In spite of what Figes tries to claim, it was the Civil War that forced the Bolsheviks to shelve these measures and concentrate everything on self-defence and the survival of the nascent workers state.

Lenins monstrous mistake

Our professor finally ends his book by demonstrating his ignorance, by suggesting that Lenin on his deathbed was tormented with the fear that the Revolution had turned out to be a monstrous mistake!

It was as if he acknowledged [in his last writings], perhaps only to himself that the Mensheviks had been right, that Russia was not ready for socialism (Figes, pp. 797-98)

What utter nonsense! Lenins last writings were about safeguarding the Revolution and combating the rise of bureaucracy, nothing more, nothing less. Lenin had never entertained the idea that backward, semi-feudal Russia was ripe for socialism. However, Lenin believed, along with Trotsky, that the Russian revolution would be the beginning of the world revolution. Only with the help of several advanced countries would Russia be able to move towards socialism. In other words, the fate of the Russian Revolution was tied to the fate of the world revolution. That is why they set up the Communist International in 1919 to promote this aim.

Lenin, Trotsky and other Bolsheviks - Photo: Public Domain

Behind his so-called objectivity, Orlando Figes cannot hide his hated for the Revolution. From the comfort of his Birkbeck College study, our professor asserts that the experiment went horribly wrongbecause their ideals were themselves impossible. (Figes, p. 823) It is of no surprise that a bourgeois academic should consider socialism an impossible utopia and that the domination of the market economy and the rule of the bankers are the only things possible.

But Figes is also aware that not all is well with bourgeois society. Alas, he mourns:

The ghosts of 1917 have not been laid to rest.

And in this he is absolutely correct. He admits that there can be a revival of Communism:

As long as the mass of the ordinary people remain alienated from the political system and feel themselves excluded from the benefits of the emergent capitalism. (Figes, p. 824)

He repeats this warning in his new Introduction:

The recent rise in populist mass movements across Europe should remind us that revolutions can erupt unexpectedly: they are never far away.

Our champion of capitalism, when he first published his book, was reduced to pleading from his ivory tower:

As we enter the twenty-first century we must try to strengthen our democracy, both as a source of freedom and of social justice, lest the disadvantaged and the disillusioned reject it again. (Figes, p. 824)

Well, more than 20 years have passed since this appeal and his peoples tragedy opus was published. Since then a new epoch has opened up. But not the one that Figes had hoped for, instead, an epoch of capitalist crisis and upheaval, where millions have become disenchanted with his beloved market economy. Subversive anti-capitalist ideas are being revived among the new generation, even in Russia, where after 1991 the counter-revolution triumphed, as the following extracts from interviews carried out in Russia demonstrate:

In 1991, I was, of course, in front of the White House, in a human chain, prepared to sacrifice my life to prevent the return of communism. Not a single one of my friends were communists. For us, communism was inextricably linked with Terror, the Gulag. We thought it was dead. Gone forever. Twenty years have passedI go into my sons room, and what do I see but a copy of Marxs Das Kapital on his desk, and Trotskys My Life on his bookshelfI cant believe my eyes! Is Marx making a comeback? Is this a nightmare? Am I awake or am I dreaming? My son studies at the university, he has lots of friends, and Ive started eavesdropping on their conversations. They drink tea in our kitchen and argue about The Manifesto of the Communist PartyMarxism is legal again, a trend, a brand. They wear T-shirts with pictures of Che Guevara and Lenin on them. [Despairingly.] Nothing has taken root. It was all for naught. () Everyones talking about revolution, about how Rublevkas growing vacant [unofficial name for prestigious residential area in suburbs of Moscow]The rich are fleeing abroad and taking their capital with them. Theyre shuttering their palaces, For Sale signs are everywhere you look I believe in revolutionRevolution is long, hard work. In 1905, the first Russian revolution ended in failure and defeat. But twelve years later, in 1917, it took off so forcefully that it shattered the Tsarist regime to smithereens. Were going to have our own revolution! (Quoted in Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich)

We have entered a period of class struggle, wars, revolution and counter-revolution. As night follows day, the basis for the re-emergence of the ideas of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and a new October Revolution is being prepared, which in turn will lay the basis for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of world socialism.

The academic apologists of capitalism can write what they like, but they cannot hold back the tide of history. Orlando Figes peoples tragedy represents nothing more than the desperate gasps of liberalism, overshadowed by the terminal decline of capitalism. The collapse of the Soviet Union was devastating, but the collapse of capitalism will be even more earth shattering.
STURTEVANT  Two former Andis employees and one of their relatives have pleaded guilty after allegedly stealing hair clippers and blades, selling and shipping them to barbershops in four states, totaling more than $545,000 in losses for the company.

Bettye Kidd and her niece, Tracie Edmonson, both of Racine, along with Kidds son, Franklin Allen, reportedly sent more than 1,400 packages to barbershops in Mississippi, Texas, Illinois and Georgia barbershops between September 2012 and January 2017.

Kidd and Allen reportedly solicited orders from the shops. At first, Allen would bring the stolen products directly to clients, according to a plea agreement filed Nov. 3 with the U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin.

Later, Kidd began printing UPS labels at the Andis facility, 1800 Renaissance Boulevard in Sturtevant, and shipping the stolen products to the recipients  at Andis expense.

The stolen products were received by the shops, who paid Kidd, Allen or Edmonson in cash, cashiers checks, money orders and MoneyGram transfers, the plea agreement states.

Kidds niece, Edmonson, became involved after one of Kidds customers could not reach her, the agreement states. The customer reached out to Edmonson, who worked in Andis receiving department.

When the customer asked Edmonson to send the stolen product, she reportedly did so and collected the money, the agreement states. Edmonson allegedly continued to take orders from that customer at least twice a month.

In October 2015, Kidd and Edmonson reportedly had a conversation about a change to Andis shipping process. This allegedly ended Edmonsons involvement.

Between Sept. 13, 2012, and Oct. 6, 2015, UPS records show 173 packages were sent from Andis to one barbershop in Mississippi. The loss exceeded $63,000, the plea agreement states.

Edmonson reportedly did not know Kidd continued selling stolen products after October 2015.

Theft discovered

The scheme unraveled in January after the company found a shipment to one of the shops Kidd and Allen were selling to waiting to be picked up by UPS.

After checking surveillance video, Kidd was allegedly seen preparing a shipping label for the package. When confronted, Kidd reportedly admitted to selling and shipping the stolen products.

FBI agents talked with some of the barber shop employees who received the stolen products. They said they had been doing business with Allen and Kidd since 2010. When the recipients asked Allen why the products were so cheap, Allen reportedly told them it was because he received an employee discount.

In addition to the manufacturing cost of the stolen products, which totaled $545,000, Andis also picked up the tab for Kidds shipment of the stolen products, which cost an additional $12,155.

Kidd, Allen and Edmonson were each charged with felony interstate transportation of stolen property. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/11/2017 (1832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Manitoba resident who works as a sheriffs deputy in Minot, N.D., claims he is being discriminated against because of his Canadian heritage, after he was told to remove a Remembrance Day poppy from his work uniform on Thursday.

Yesterday morning while on duty, deputy Tim Poston was told to remove his Canadian poppy by his boss, Sheriff Bob Barnard, which he had pinned to his normal uniform. He was told that it did not meet the dress code guidelines and that he had not been given authorization to wear this insignia.

The poppy is the same kind of pin handed out by veterans through the Royal Canadian Legion, though it is held in place by a pin keeper, which requires a tiny alan key to remove it.

Submitted Ward County sherriff's deputy Tim Poston, wearing his on-duty uniform.

Poston, who was born in Brandon and grew up in Virden, has worked as a deputy in Minot since April, 2016. He says that he did not ask for authorization to wear the bright-red poppy, as he did not think it was necessary.

I explained to him why I wear it, Poston told The Sun yesterday afternoon. He said that doesnt matter. Its a violation of policy. Take it off.

Sheriff Barnard wrote an official letter of instruction regarding the poppy at Postons request, a copy of which was sent to The Sun Thursday morning.

On November 9th while on duty it was noticed by staff that you were wearing some type of a red flower type insignia on the left side of your chest on your duty uniform, Sheriff Barnard wrote. This item has not been authorized by myself or the Ward County Sheriffs Department as wearing apparel on a Ward County Deputys uniform, therefore I am requiring that it be removed.

Barnard did not respond to an attempt by The Sun to reach him at his office on Thursday.

For several months, Poston has been at odds with his workplace. In September, he filed a sexual harassment complaint against the states attorney Roza Larson, and had asked the county commission to seek her resignation.

A subsequent investigative report quoted Poston as stating that while court was in session at the end of August, Larson motioned him over to where she was seated at the counsel table. As he knelt beside her, she leaned over to talk to him, placing her hand on his leg for about 15 seconds  a situation he described to commissioners as groping.

The same week, Larson reportedly made a joke regarding fuzzy handcuffs in his presence after he finished explaining the significance of various colours of handcuffs to an assistant states attorney. Fuzzy handcuffs carries a sexual connotation.

The investigation found the complaint failed to rise to the level of sexual harassment as defined by Ward County policy or state or federal law. The commission had tabled any action related to a grievance filed by Poston but voted, following a closed meeting with outside counsel, to take no disciplinary action against the states attorney.

The commission also took no action against Barnard, whom Poston wanted removed from office in connection with his separate complaint. That complaint alleged a hostile work environment and discrimination based on his Canadian citizenship.

On Tuesday, commissioners rejected Postons request to get on that days agenda, and upon concluding the agenda, adjourned the meeting when Poston approached the podium. Poston previously had been told by chairman Larry Louser that he would not be allowed on the agenda because of the potential for a lawsuit. Commissioner Alan Walter told the Minot Daily News that the commission was acting at the advice of its attorney not to discuss the personnel matter.

Postons letter to the commission, which he had hoped to read aloud on Tuesday, addressed a personnel concern of another employee, John Roll. He also submitted a letter from Roll detailing grievances related to his work in the maintenance department. Roll wrote that his reports of harassment by his department head were dismissed by the human resources officer on different occasions and also by the maintenance department commissioner last year.

Since coming forward with his allegations, Poston says he has been targeted directly by the sheriff and the administration. The demand to remove his poppy is merely the latest incident in what he says has been a difficult situation. Letters of admonishment from Barnard to Poston, which were obtained by the Sun, have been given on at least two separate occasions  one for talking with courthouse employees about his complaints while on duty, and another for speaking to the media while wearing his uniform.

But the poppy incident, Poston believes, does more than merely discriminate against him. He says it insults veterans in both Canada and the United States.

Submitted The poppy that Ward County sherriff's deputy Tim Poston was forced to remove. Poston, who was born in Brandon and grew up in Virden, claims he is being discriminated against because of his Canadian heritage.

Down here there are poppies on Veterans Day, but as you know we wear on and up to Remembrance Day, Poston said. I think its just more discrimination against me.

I think its very disrespectful to Canada and to all veterans to ask me to remove it.

The deputy has been seeking information as to the resolution of his issues with the county.

Poston referenced an Oct. 31 letter in which he stated he was reluctant to return to work until issues he raised were resolved. Prior to Postons complaint about the states attorney and sheriff, Barnard had suspended Poston for disciplinary reasons, including aggressive driving, not meeting the standards of professionalism and forcefully shoving a table into a seated inmate. An additional suspension for using his credentials while suspended was dismissed by the Personnel Committee.

Barnard later placed Poston on temporary administrative leave while the grievance was being resolved.

Poston has asked for a clear and definitive answer as to the status of the investigation into his complaint against Larson after having challenged the investigators findings. He has asked for a written letter of the final disposition of the suspension with a full explanation.

Simply returning me to work as if nothing happened is not sufficient, he wrote in the Oct. 31 letter.

He also sought to have personal leave taken during this process treated as administrative leave, entitling him to compensation for those days.

As of today, there has been no response to the matters, which I presented, either oral or written, or even an acknowledgment indicating my issues have been received, reviewed or are being considered, Poston wrote. I returned to work last week, solely to mitigate additional exposure of Ward County for continuing back pay, as the Countys failure to resolve the issues in a timely manner and in accordance with the Ward County, North Dakota, Home Rule Charter, simply increases the back pay exposure.

 mgoerzen@brandonsun.com, with files from the Minot Daily News

 Twitter: @MattGoerzen
CALEDONIA  Two teens were arrested Thursday for their alleged involvement in a string of recent thefts and vandalism of cars in the southeastern portion of Caledonia.

The incidents began Oct. 29 and escalated this past weekend, with 11 separate crimes committed Friday night and Saturday morning, according to a news release issued by the Caledonia Police Department Thursday evening.

Punctured tires, writing and cuts on vehicle seats and phallic images scratched into exterior paint were reported to police, the release said. If vehicles were left unlocked, the teens went through them and stole items.

On Thursday, the Caledonia Police Department arrested two teens, ages 14 and 15, in connection to the offenses, the release stated. Both teens reportedly admitted to being involved in the acts.

Caledonia Police recovered several firearms related to these offenses, but one is still unaccounted for, the release stated. They also recovered two shotguns taken by the teens which are not related to these incidents.

Police credited the community for providing information used to identify the teens, the release said.

Anyone with information about the incidents can contact Capt. Brian Wall of the Caledonia Police Department at 262-835-4423, ext. 139.
MOUNT PLEASANT  The village is preparing for some of the environmental effects of Foxconns manufacturing development by studying affected wetlands.

The village hired a surveying company to determine how many acres of wetlands will be affected by road reconstruction in the project area.

Jim Machnik, an independent consultant who is acting as the villages project manager for real estate activities, said the village is taking inventory of all the wetlands that are located in the project areas rights-of-way.

The areas are being marked off with pink flags that say wetland delineation.

Per state law, large projects that fill in wetlands require the developer to create a replacement wetland. The village has not yet determined exactly how many acres of wetland will be affected by the road work or precisely where it will create a replacement, Machnik said.

Gov. Scott Walker is scheduled to sign the states contract with Foxconn at a ceremony in Racine today. The contract offers Foxconn up to about $3 billion worth of incentives to build a liquid crystal display panel plant in Mount Pleasant. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation approved the agreement Wednesday.

The village scheduled informational meetings next week concerning its plans to acquire property for the development. There will be short presentations on the hour at 3, 4, 5 and 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Village Hall, 8811 Campus Drive, according to a notice sent to property owners.
The largest assault on Australia's retail sector in decades has begun, with key Amazon executives flying into Australia during Melbourne Cup week in preparation for a pre-Christmas launch of the global retail giant's fashion brands.

BusinessDay has been told that Amazon deliberately chose Melbourne Cup week, when key rival Myer is partying at the races, to begin its foray into the local market.

Jeff Bezos Credit:Steve Jurvetson / Wikimedia Commons

The move is being co-ordinated by Prateek Ranjan, Amazon's Seattle-based head of marketing and international expansion. Mr Ranjan was previously the head of Amazon Fashion, and is now responsible for "expanding Amazon's footprint in new countries across the globe".

Amazon's New-York-based global production manager Nickole Brown is leading the biggest series of fashion shoots Melbourne has ever seen. Amazon is scheduled to undertake three fashion shoots per day, five days per week, at secret locations across Melbourne over the next month.
Just five years ago, it would have been almost unthinkable that one of the world's biggest mining companies would not dig any coal. It's now likely to become a reality.

Rio Tinto Group, the world's second-largest miner, has been steadily backtracking from coal to focus on better assets. It's now looking for buyers for its remaining coal mines in Australia, and a sale will mark a complete exit from the fuel.

Rio's potential coal-free future is in stark contrast with many of its rivals.

Glencore, the world's top coal shipper, this year increased its exposure by agreeing to pay $US1.1 billion plus royalties for a large stake in Australian assets sold by Rio.
Management at wagering giant Tabcorp "should have done more" to meet the company's obligations to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, a federal judge has found.

Earlier this year, the ASX-listed Tabcorp agreed to a massive $45 million fine to settle a case launched by the financial intelligence agency over extensive breaches of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act between 2010 and 2014.

Tabcorp has pledged to better monitor customer transactions to prevent money laundering activities. Credit:bradleyphotos.com.au

Federal Court judge Nye Perram on Friday released his reasons for approving the penalty in a settlement between Tabcorp and Austrac, which he said averted a "very large trial at considerable public expense".

He noted that the breaches were not deliberate. "The contraventions did not arise as a result of a deliberate intention to contravene the act," Justice Perram said.
Road closures in and around George Street this weekend will impact drivers in the Sydney CBD.

Changes to Surry Hills roads for the duration of the light rail works will also come into effect this weekend.

More CBD roads will close this weekend as light rail construction continues in Sydney's CBD. Credit:Jessica Hromas

The King and George street intersection in the CBD is set to close at 10pm on Saturday and will remain closed until 5am on Monday.

King Street will also be also closed between York and Clarence streets.
A cyclist has allegedly been punched by a random jogger and a woman remains in a critical condition after crashing into a pole in separate south-east Queensland incidents.

Most recently, a 60-year-old woman has been left fighting for life after crashing into a traffic light pole in Caboolture on Friday night.

A man has been charged after allegedly running up to a cyclist and punching him in the arm. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

Her car was heading east along Lower King Street about 11.15pm when it crashed at the intersection with Charles Street.

The local woman remains in the Royal Womens and Brisbane Hospital and the Forensic Crash Unit is investigating.
Petrol prices are expected to hit a two-year high next week.

RACQ spokeswoman Renee Smith said south-east Queensland had not hit the 145 cents per litre threshold since August 2015, but could do so in the coming days.

The RACQ have encouraged drivers to fill-up at the cheapest petrol station, regardless of whether it's an independent or multinational.

She said the days of 'cheap Tuesday' when petrol prices were almost guaranteed to drop on the same day of the week were gone, with the current price cycle expected to be shorter than usual.

In recent years the price cycle in south-east Queensland has lasted four or five weeks, however today [Friday] its day 22 and prices could rise by next week, Ms Smith said.
The man who walked into a Gold Coast service station on Thursday and told a service station attendant he had a child in a bag he was carrying, has walked free from court.

Mr Jensen walked into a Labrador service station on Thursday and made threats towards a child he claimed to be carrying in his bag. Credit:Queensland Police Service

Ian Jensen, 44, pleaded guilty to one count of public nuisance in the Southport Magistrates Court on Friday and was sentenced to two months in prison.

However, the jail time was wholly suspended and he was given a two-year probation period before being released.

An Amber Alert was issued on Thursday, after Mr Kensen walked into a Frank Street service station about 10.30am and made threats towards a child he claimed to have in the bag.
Gold Coast toddler Tyrell Cobb told his uncle he'd been punched in the stomach by his mother's partner, a court has heard.

Tyrell Cobb died in 2009.

Heidi Strbak pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of criminal negligence but is facing a contested sentencing hearing because prosecutors allege she was responsible for the blunt force trauma that caused her four-year-old son's death.

Her brother Danial Allan testified in the Brisbane Supreme Court his nephew told him shortly before he died on May 24, 2009 he'd been punched in the stomach by Strbak's then-partner Matthew Scown.

Mr Allan said he couldn't recall if Scown was in the home at the time of his conversation with the little boy, who didn't say when the alleged blow was dealt.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 9th, 2017  Alan Korwin alan@bloomfieldpress.com  602-996-4020

Today, Nov. 9, is the anniversary of Kristallnacht:

Is Kristallnacht Deceptive?

"Night of the Broken Glass"

Why would Jews deceive themselves so badly?

How did Never Again! Become Never Forget ?

by Alan Korwin

Too many liberals and progressives, a majority of reform Jews among them, became almost psychotic and even violent after the defeat of their anointed presidential candidate in 2016. They convinced themselves -- against all evidence to the contrary -- that the elected winner Donald Trump is a virtual dictator. They believe he leads us to a second Holocaust. Some have been acting out on the fantasy. They even have a billboard as proof of their self-defined delusion:

Too many Jews and radical left-wing malcontents have convinced themselves

the elected president is a Nazi. They need medical treatment. They have no idea

what they're talking about. Can it be traced back to self-deception now rampant

about the original Holocaust, and refusal to recognize real threats, and what's

needed/to protect ourselves from those who have announced plans to destroy us?

PHOTO CREDIT: ALAN KORWIN

We are so far from this it defies description. It is an irrational fantasy. It is wrapped in a special fantasy and distortion surrounding the original horror.

Jews the world over know what Kristallnacht is -- Nov. 9, 1938 -- the day Nazis got serious about wiping out the Jews. Using the assassination of one low-level German officer in Paris as an excuse, Germans went about murdering Jewish people, burning their stores and homes, destroying synagogues, Torahs and other artifacts. Basically, the gloves came off, the so-called final solution was on.

Millions of Muslims Want Kristallnacht Again

It is exactly what tens of millions of Muslims all over the world seek to accomplish today--wipe Jews off the map, Kristallnacht II. The non-partisan Pew Center estimates the precise number at "only" 180 million radicalized Islamists (15% of all believers). It is exactly what Mr. Hussein-Obama refused to even pronounce, for reasons confounding half the country. They are a genocidal enemy that the current office holder is confronting directly -- leading irrational leftist hordes, Jews among them, to aim not at the enemy, but at the defenders of freedom. The roots for this are in history.

"Crystal Night" Sounds Pretty

Why call Kristallnacht, "Crystal Night"? That's the literal translation, crystal night, a glaring deception. Sure, windows in Germany got broken everywhere. The English version, commonly used here, is Night of the Broken Glass, an even deeper deception, broken isn't even in the original German. Streets were indeed glass strewn.

It's so neat and antiseptic, it hides the ugly truth. It wasn't glass night at all. Today we call that fake news. It was Holocaust Commencement Day. Orgy of Jewish Blood in the Streets Night. Kill All The Jews Night. Vicious Hate Death to Juden Night. Burn Down the Temples Night. Lawless Murder and Destruction Night. Night and Day of German Atrocities. Gentlemen, Start Your Holocaust Night. Dachau survivor Theodore Hess called it, "The Night The Fires Of Hell Engulfed The Soul Of Humanity."

It's equivalent to calling radical islamic terrorism workplace violence. Or blaming guns. Not even.

Nice orderly Jews to this day are revulsed in horror at those thoughts, and instead rely on euphemisms and stick with "glass night" for Declaration of Holocaust Week. Within days 30,000 victims were sent off to the death camps. More than 1,000 synagogues were burned to the ground or otherwise damaged, and 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were ransacked while police and fire departments were ordered to not intervene unless Aryan property was at risk (the orders are preserved in archives). Stores and homes were gleefully looted. Give it a nice name? Provide the perps with cover? For shame.

Break a Glass, Get Married

Think about this: What does a Jew do to conclude a marriage? The man breaks a glass. He stomps on a cloth-wrapped glass (something delicate so he's assured of breaking it), like a light bulb, or a wine glass, wrapped so sharp pieces don't hurt anyone.

What a ghastly coincidence that Glass Night, and broken glass at the end of wedding ceremonies are opposite ends of a continuum -- ultimate horror and ultimate joy. Who coined the start of the Holocaust as Crystal Night anyway (in German) and then changed it (in English) to Night of the Broken Glass -- like a wedding? Such savage irony grates the soul.

How closely related are those deceptions? Is there a connection to the fact that so many Jews hate guns, but claim it's not good to hate? They work diligently in our Congress and our culture to disarm the innocent, and would not lift their fingers to protect themselves or anyone else at risk of death from tyrants, criminals, police, agents, illegals, gangsters, jihadis or anyone?

It All Gets Real in Temple

At a recent presentation on Kristallnacht (at a Jewish reform temple of all places), people sat literally wallowing in self-pity, quietly absorbing (for the umpteenth time) projected images of Nazi atrocities, the atrocity leader and his cohorts, insisting we must remember. Never Forget they droned.

Should we do anything about it, be Maccabees, fearless freedom fighters, stalwart guardians against those waiting for a chance to repeat history? Were they gearing up for resistance, steeling their nerves for battle, preparing to defend against those bragging and tooling up and drooling to do it all again?

No glimmer of defiant behavior was evident. Resistance was repugnance. Watch, remember... and be depressed. Never forget, they admonished. What happened to Never Again! someone asked? It wasn't present. Jews there complained at the thought.

Recall the searingly accurate insight of JPFO's founder Aaron Zelman: It was a room full of self-hating Jews eagerly waiting to sniff the gas. (JPFO: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, jpfo.org)

We should do something about it! -- one solitary voice implored. The suggestion was ridiculed, scowled down. The voice persisted against the storm of angst. "And what of the assault on Israel at the U.N.?" This was right after Obama let that world body censure Israel, "by the very person you have all supported and voted for--isn't that more of the same?" The room fell dead silent. "This isn't the time or place for that," the discussion leader scolded. "Really? Then what is?" More silence. Guilty silence. Kristallnacht is a deception. These Jews are encouraging more of the same.

One woman, well aged but still with wits, came up meekly afterwards to agree. She had escaped the Nazis in Poland, as a child. She knew. The rest maintain their vigil for the glass and the gas.

#####

Alan Korwin, an award-winning author of 14 books, is concerned about the increasing levels of violence perpetrated by the people described in this article. He can be reached at GunLaws.com.

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, jpfo.org, maintains an uphill struggle to resist the bizarre Jewish desire to seek disarmament of innocent civilians by government, despite the unending tragic history people everywhere have faced when disarmed, then slaughtered in genocides by governments that have disarmed them.

Alan Korwin, Publisher

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A family who went missing while travelling between two remote Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley has been found by emergency services, but police are continuing the search for 63-year-old Robert Dutchie.

Mary Lou Bedford, 29-year-old daughter Myrelle Bedford and her six children were found by police after an extensive search in the East Kimberley after they went missing on Monday.

From the left: Mary Lou Bedford, Myrelle Bedford and Robert Dutchie. Credit:Kununnura Police

They were last seen leaving the Warmun Community in a white 4WD Nissan Patrol, and it's understood the family had been travelling to the Imintji Community.

After a two-day search involving local police, emergency services and an aerial patrol, police found the family's Nissan 4WD with a flat tyre on a track at Teronis Gorge on Friday morning.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls will not face off in one of the traditional debates of the election campaign after failing to agree to a date.

The Queensland Media Club debate is usually held in the last week of the campaign, however Labor and the LNP wanted it held on different days.

It is looking unlikely Annastacia Palaszczuk and Tim Nicholls will debate this campaign. Credit:Darren England and Glenn Hunt/AAP

"Obviously they're very busy, especially in the final week of the campaign, and their schedules didn't match up," a QMC spokesman said.

Instead, the club will host both leaders separately in the final week before the November 25 poll, where they will each give a speech and take questions from journalists.
Illustration: Joe Benke They were joined on this downward dip by fellow infant formula company Bellamy's Organic, which fell 2.67 per cent on November 3, then gained 0.24 per cent (3) the next day, before falling 6.93 per cent (or 86) on Cup Day. For a2 in particular it was an unusual event. Because for, what seems like almost every week this year, the sought-after stock has climbed higher and higher. As one analyst commented to Fairfax Media this week: "A2, it's the one that's really ridden the perfect wave. There's been no hitches along the way, it's done an extremely good job." Year of recovery

While a2's basic story is one of a one-way climb, 2017 for Bellamy's Organic has been a year of recovery. After a tumultuous time over the summer of 2016-17 where its shares plummeted, Bellamy's has risen strongly throughout 2017. It was as low as $3.654 in January, but has since tripled to more than $11. You've got 100,000 Chinese students that come here for education. So you've got this deep connection with the Chinese consumer where they come out to our country, they see the clean air and the clean water and they build a really strong connection to that. Michael Harvey, Rabobank dairy analyst. For both companies, perhaps the falls seen in the past fortnight will only be minor blips and profit-taking that have come after spectacular rises. In 2017 the two companies have ridden a wave of investor optimism about both their performance, as well as optimism about their future prospects in the enormous China infant formula market. A2, for instance, now has a market capitalisation of about $4.87 billion, a bigger market cap than names like Blackmores, Murray Goulburn and Bega combined.

The stock prices of small Australian infant formula companies have also surged this year, with the price of Bubs Australia growing about seven-fold, and Wattle Health Australia growing about 12-fold. If these spectacular gains have flown under your radar, consider them alongside the ASX 200's general performance this year. At the end of Thursday, when it closed at 6049 points, the index had risen 6.8 per cent since the last trading day of 2016, when it closed on 5665 points. A fundamental foundation behind the boom in infant formula stocks over the past year or so is the rise of China, largely thanks to its vast middle class and the many millions of babies born into these families. But that explanation alone is too simplistic to account for all the activity going on in the infant formula space.

Industry figures and observers say that succeeding in the China infant formula market is far more complicated and challenging than simply producing infant formula, putting it in a tin, stamping the tin with made in Australia, shipping it to China and waiting for the cash to flow in. Point of difference The companies with the strongest outlook have a point of difference. There is strong brand recognition and years of experience, they say. A2's point of differentiation is that its product does not contain any of the A1 protein, while Bellamy's is that its product is organic. The China infant formula market, according to one respected analyst, is potentially "a massive opportunity" for capable Australian infant formula companies.

But the market is also being serviced by international big-hitters with deep pockets and vast experience. So what makes the China infant formula market so inviting to both Australian and other international producers? And why is there so much activity in this space at the moment? Firstly, the Chinese middle class is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, their incomes are rising, and the relaxation of China's one-child policy means more babies will be born. Other international factors are also assisting. Australia's reputation as a clean and green producer of high-quality foods is a blessing for Australian infant formula producers, especially in light of the food safety scandal in China in 2008 when six babies died and thousands more became ill after having Chinese-made infant formula.

The rise of the Internet and social media in China is also playing a role, making it easier for Chinese consumers to buy their preferred infant formulas and for Chinese daigou  which means "personal shopper" in Chinese  to highlight Australian infant formula to friends, relatives and other customers in China. 'Little Emperor Syndrome' Another factor highlighted by one industry figure is the so-called "Little Emperor Syndrome". This expression explains the circumstance whereby in China, there are often three sets of parents contributing towards the care of one infant, i.e. the child's parents and two sets of grandparents. This can lead to a quest to buy the best things possible for the much-loved child.

A key factor that seems to be propelling investor sentiment in Australia over recent times is also the complex Chinese regulatory requirements, and the fact that some Australian companies have either hurdled them, or are expected to. Under a tougher food safety and regulatory regime from January 1, infant formula sold in China must have been produced in a facility with approval from Chinese authorities. This means the facilities must be certified by China's CNCA (Certification Accreditation Administration of the People's Republic of China). The nutritional and scientific recipe of the infant formula products must also have gained approval from China's Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) for the product to be sold in China from January 1. The changes are tipped to dramatically slash the number of infant formula brands sold in China. Peter Nathan, chief executive officer of a2 Milk Asia Pacific, has seen the role played by Chinese daigou first-hand while visiting Melbourne supermarkets.

Mr Nathan says he has seen daigou standing in the supermarket aisle, holding a mobile phone and filming a shelf of infant formula cans while talking about the stock into the mobile phone's microphone. "The first time we saw it was literally two to three years ago, and now it's a very common occurrence," he says. The WeChat touch For a2, the combination of Chinese daigou, Australian supermarkets and the Chinese social media messaging application WeChat seems to have been a winning formula. "It [WeChat] plays a massive role because [of] what it enables the Chinese to do," he says.

"And also very importantly Australia is in a similar time zone, so they can communicate in real time to their friends and their networks. And also, they can actually transact. "What you'll find is they'll go into a store, in Australia, they'll actually take, often, a video and [say] 'this is a2, this is the one that everyone wants, this is the best brand. "'Here it is, I'm going to buy it from Coles in Burwood. Here we are in Coles in Burwood, I'm going to send this over to you and now we're going to transact it.' So you can pay it in the PayPal system. "So WeChat has been the technology which has allowed this entire channel to flourish, the daigou channel." Mr Nathan is upbeat about the outlook for the infant formula market in China.

He says a2 is investing heavily in promotional staff who are stationed in Chinese "Mother and Baby" stores. It is also planning to advertise for the first time on Chinese television. "We do believe that the market [in China] will continue to grow for the medium term," he says. "There's some demographic drivers which will deliver that. Longer term it's harder to predict as to what will happen. But certainly in the medium term the market will continue to grow more quickly, than markets in the West." Wonderful journey Asked about the company's strong performance in 2017, he responds cautiously: "We're very encouraged by consumer engagement with our brand and the growth that we've had, and it has been a wonderful journey," he says.

At the other end of the scale to the likes of a2 and Bellamy's sits the infant formula company Bubs Australia. The company, headquartered in Sydney, now has a market capitalisation of about $275 million, and a stock price hovering around $1. It also has a major point of differentiation to most other infant formula companies, because its infant formula is made from goat milk, rather than from cow milk. The company was in the news last week, announcing that it had agreed to a deal valued at about $84 million that will guarantee it exclusive supply from the country's biggest goat milking herd. Bubs will acquire 100 per cent of NuLac Foods in the deal, which produces a range of goat milk products. The move was also strategic, because it will deliver Bubs a 49.9 per cent equity interest in a Melbourne factory which is currently a CNCA certified producer of adult goat milk powder and other dairy foods.

This gives the company the prospect of using that factory for its infant formula in future, although it isn't CNCA certified now for infant formula canning. The company's CEO, Nicholas Simms, says goat milk formula makes up about 5 per cent of China's infant formula market. "This is part of the opportunity that exists for us  there's one clear market leader which is a Chinese company that uses European product. And then there's a couple of New Zealand brands," he says. "But the reality is there's daylight between the number one and the number two ... there's a clear number two position to be had," he says, before adding, "That's why I'm here." Goat milk segment hits $1b

Mr Simms says China's goat milk infant formula segment was worth about $1 billion last year, but is growing. "It's growing at about 50 per cent compound annual growth rate at the moment," he says. "Goat is only approximately a 5 per cent share of the total infant formula market, but it's a premium [product] and it's growing very quickly as people are starting to understand the benefits of goat." While it plans to sell in the China "Mother and Baby" store network, Bubs currently does not sell its goat milk infant formula in these outlets. Currently, all of its infant formula arrives in China via "cross-border" sales. Despite this, Mr Simms estimates that Bubs now occupies about the fifth or sixth position in terms of goat infant formula sales in China.

"I think if we execute well the reality is the sky's the limit from where we are today," he says. "It's absolutely a wonderful growth opportunity. But it really comes back to executing on the basics, and doing those properly and consistently and well. And if we do that, then at the end of the day we should be rewarded for that." Wattle Health Australia is another Australian player hoping to make its mark in China. Its infant formula is now in about 100 "Mother and Baby" stores in China, Chinese duty free stores and a couple of Chinese supermarkets, says the company's executive chairman and co-founder, Lazarus Karasavvidis. The product is also widely distributed in Australia, he says. "Yes, we're at the start of the race, there's no doubt," he says.

"Our sales are still quite small as we build our brand. But we're starting to get cut-through as far as brand awareness is concerned." Mr Karasavvidis says there are good reasons why investors are backing his company. "We've secured supply, we've started to get brand awareness, we've secured the largest factory, we're well underway in the process of CFDA application to enter the world's largest market post the 1st of the 1st '18," he says. No automatic rewards Belinda Moore, an analyst with Morgans, agrees that the China infant formula market represents a big opportunity.

But she says the rewards for companies trying to succeed in it will not come automatically. "In China there are actually thousands of players, when you include all the Chinese brands and everything else," she says. "So it's a very competitive space. You've got some very big companies with enormous balance sheets, and very strong brand names and market presence. "Certainly we think that Australia's infant formula companies have a massive opportunity in China. And those that have got a point of differentiation that are in the premium, or the ultra-premium category, are growing the strongest and making good margins. "So we've seen huge success from the likes of a2. And look, Bellamy's went through a bit of a hard time in the last 12 months but under new management they've turned the corner and they're growing sales and earnings strongly again.

"A2  it's the one that's really ridden the perfect wave. There's been no hitches along the way, it's done an extremely good job." Ms Moore says the next scheduled event in the sector is a2's annual general meeting, on November 21. "We're certainly expecting a very strong trading update," she says. "I suppose the question is though, is it factored into the share price [already]." Tourists spread the word Andrew Mitchell, from Ophir Asset Management which invests in a2, says China's new regulatory regime will significantly reduce the number of infant formula brands sold in China, presenting a significant potential opportunity for those approved to be in the market.

"There is no reason why one or two Australian brands can't take 10 per cent market share of the US$15 billion Chinese infant formula market," he says. "We think in financial year 17 a2 Milk averaged around 2.5 per cent market share giving you an idea of growth available. The Chinese infant formula market on our calculations is $US15 billion in size and is growing at around 10-15 per cent a year." Rabobank dairy analyst Michael Harvey says the Free Trade Agreement between China and Australia provides an important pathway for Australian infant formula producers. But he also offers some other analysis of factors that he believes are helping sell Australian infant formula in China. "You've got to keep in mind that Australia has something like a million tourists from China coming out to Australia every year," he says.
Police arrest suspects involved in the London Bridge and Borough Market attack.Lord Evans said it was vital for relations with the community to be strengthened during quieter times. Credit:PA "It's a puzzle to me because actually you could create physical damage through cyber attack - particularly as we move towards an environment where almost everything is connected to the internet - and therefore you can hack into it and create physical damage," he said. Lord Evans directed MI5, Britain's spy agency, between 2007 and 2013 and oversaw the security for the London Olympic games which were staged without any attack. He was giving security advice to organisers of large conferences at a lunch arranged by Business Events Sydney and the International Convention Centre. People flee a terror attack in London's Borough Market. Credit:AP He revealed how "community spying" whereby MI5 officers turned up on the doors of potential attackers before the Olympic Games "suppressed" the likelihood of them carrying out an attack.

"We arrived there at six o'clock in the morning and we did it in a coordinated way with the police and we said 'hello we just wanted to ask whether you were thinking of coming to the Olympics'. "And this of course, really put the wind up [them] because they didn't know that we knew about them and every time that this happened they then get in touch with their friends and they said 'yeah, yeah, they were here as well,' and so we tried to deter them from doing anything which actually seems to have worked." Describing himself as an "analogue" spy whose early work in espionage involved "running around cars" and following them to London's embassy district, Lord Evans described the threat of a cyber attack as a "tier one national security threat". He said all smart criminals were moving online and it made sense that terrorists were too. He said he had "no doubt" states like Russia would continue to use the "opportunities afforded by the digital environment" to "create an atmosphere of distrust in democratic institutions". US intelligence agencies say they have proof Russia tried to meddle in the 2016 presidential elections, a claim the Kremlin denies. Lord Evans has recently warned that the "the huge upswell in threat" posed by the rise of Islamic State is likely to continue for another two decades.

He said that, when he left MI5 in 2013, they thought they had successfully confronted Islamic terrorism, then posed by al-Qaeda. "If somebody had asked me, I would have said that we would probably see a long tail but this was of one of those issues which we had not kind of got on top of but which we could see the end. "Fortunately no-one did ask me that so I didn't say it, because if had said it I would have been proved comprehensively wrong." He said the type of crude attacks being carried out in the name of IS were much harder to disrupt because the terrorists had scaled back the ambition of their attacks from 9/11 plots to vehicle rammings and stabbings, requiring less planning and coordination and making them harder to detect. "Those days are past and so we are now in a situation where just anyone can hire a car and mount some form of attack, not a strategically threatening attack but certainly one that could cause death and misery and one which will attract media attention."

He said overall, the agencies were disrupting the majority of attacks before they took place but warned not all can ever be prevented. Europe has suffered multiple attacks this year, with the vehicle ramming in Barcelona and five attacks in the United Kingdom since March. This week the Home Office released data of its intervention program called PREVENT, which critics complain is akin to spying. In 2015/16, 7,631 individuals in Britain were referred to the program with a third of those referrals made by teachers and education workers. Of the 7,631 people, 78 per cent were male and 56 per cent were aged under 20.

Lord Evans said working with minority communities to reduce the threat was "very difficult" but said overall members of those communities were "sensible people". "They know there are bad things happening and they don't want them on their watch." He said the British police had made efforts to create dialogue with community groups and said it was vital those links were made during quieter times so that if arrests needed to be made they weren't carried out by "faceless" law enforcement officers. "If this is being done to you by a faceless state that you don't know anything about then you can be find it frightening or infuriating," he said. Loading
What counts as 'autonomous'? Jervis Bay is known for the dolphins playing in its clear waters year round. But, one weekend next year, the holiday spot on the NSW South Coast will be infiltrated by other creatures. Defence scientists and firms from the Five Eyes nations  US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand  will converge there to trial underwater, surface and aerial machines. Part industry show, part military exercise, the "Autonomous Warrior" challenge will test robots that look nothing like humans but "assess intent by probing/interaction". It is part of the Defence Force's plan to create "game-changing" systems that "enable trusted and effective co-operation between humans and machines".

Australia already uses unmanned drones and mine-clearing robots. The ADF has trialled the IBM supercomputer Watson (better known for beating humans at the US quiz show Jeopardy) to select targets of "psychological operations" which project Australian influence abroad. And this year Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne pledged $50 million for a collaborative research centre on "trusted autonomous systems". But other countries are much more advanced. The US-based Northrop Grumman has an unmanned drone that can take off and refuel on its own. The Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov has said it is building an artificially intelligent machine gun. And the US military last year said it was a decade away from being able to build an independent machine that could decide whom to kill (although it did not plan to).

What counts as autonomous? The term can be as slippery as "intelligent"; it lacks a single scientific or mathematical definition. Engineers grade autonomy against a scale and ADF researchers are aiming for Level 4 plus: "May be human piloted but never needs to be." So far Australia has been "very cautious" about military AI, perhaps reflecting a "deep-seated fear of losing control of the system", says Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Davis argues countries including China and Russia are in an autonomous arms race and Australia should develop the weapons, even if it does not deploy them outside of a "war for survival". "If we get caught up in legal and ethical wrangling while our adversaries race ahead, then we could be at a severe disadvantage," he says.

Workers assembling robots at a factory in Shenyang. Beijing hopes to dominate cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence. Credit:YUYANG LIU For now, only humans can make distinctions between combatants and civilians, between active fighters and those who are surrendering or incapacitated. But that could soon change, according to Sue Keay, chief operating officer of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, which is developing a robotics "road map" with Defence. Citing "crazy" progress in the field, Keay predicts robots may be able to pick out combatants "at least as well as humans". One machine advantage could come from something they lack: emotion.

Flesh-and-blood soldiers seek revenge and commit atrocities. They may shoot prematurely, fearing for their own safety. "Why are we always assuming that human judgment is better?" asks Ron Arkin, a robotics professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who has worked with the US Defence Department. Arkin believes robots could one day conform to international humanitarian law better than humans, clearing battle zone buildings with more restraint and fewer deaths. "I believe firmly that technology can assist in helping to protect non-combatant lives better than we are currently doing." Who makes the decision to shoot?

DefendTex's Tempest drone can carry 80 rocket-propelled grenades or the same number of miniature drones. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen One Australian company is pushing autonomy from a flipped perspective: rather than empowering machines to choose and fire on targets, DefendTex is working on making them smart enough to decide when they should not pull the trigger even if a target has already been designated. At an army "innovation day" in Canberra this week, DefendTex was showing off one of its latest creations: the Tempest, a fearsome-looking drone that can carry 80 rocket-propelled grenades or the same number of miniature drones that the company also makes. Those mini-drones can either act as spies in the sky or as one-use precision munitions themselves, turning into a swarm that can overwhelm an enemy. Four Tempests working together and launching their mini-drones would present such a formidable sight they may not even have to use their munitions, says the firm's electronic combat systems engineer Damien Cahill. "What's your reaction if there are 320 of these things coming at you? Self-preservation becomes top of mind and while you are concentrating on survival and avoiding the drones, you are not firing on our troops and have therefore been effectively taken out of the battle without firing a shot."

At the same time the firm is using machine learning  and has made an application for funding to the government's trusted autonomy research centre  to develop autonomous capability to disarm. CEO Travis Reddy says an autonomous machine will follow exactly the same laws and rules of engagement as a person. They won't strike schools or hospitals for instance, he says. The purpose of autonomy is making sure the machine can carry out the military commander's intent on a shifting battlefield. That means the machine must be able to make some decisions on its own once it's out there. "If the machine is executing a completely pre-programmed path, it will result in mission failure because the battlefield is dynamic and things are changing," Reddy says. "It's about how do we take those changing parameters and execute the commander's intent without violating the rules of engagement?" But how far do we allow that independent decision making to go? Does it include killing without human involvement? Never, Reddy says.

"We never foresee a situation where a machine should be able to identify a target and initiate contact without a person being involved. This is the view of DefendTex," he says. Part of an autonomous drone tracking test at the US Joint Base, Cape Cod. Credit:New York Times But there are ways an autonomous machine could have more involvement in finding targets. Reddy explains that there is an adjustment to the oft-used "human in the loop" phrase  a variation known as "human on the loop". This means that instead of having a drone like a Predator that is entirely human controlled and takes a small team of people, you might have a largely independent drone that must only go to a human for clearance before firing. It can pick its own targets, again based on the rules of engagement and all relevant laws. That would mean one person could oversee several drones rather than needing several people per drone. DefendTex isn't currently doing this kind of work. Reddy acknowledges that "there's no denying that the use of autonomy, if done poorly, has the ability to raise concerns", which is why the company is "doing the flipside".

"Let's look at the advantages of autonomy  reducing and negating collateral damage rather than finding new targets. We can make these platforms more ethical." Most obviously that means an autonomous weapon such as explosive mini-drone deciding at the last moment not to strike. Even precision-guided munitions, once they are fired, generally will detonate on their target. But what if a child walks into the frame at the last moment or, on close inspection, a seemingly valid target turns out to be something entirely innocent? The idea of "trusted autonomy" goes both ways, he adds. An exhausted battlefield commander who's been awake for 36 hours can accidentally call in a strike on the wrong target. An autonomous machine could decide not to trust the human and could ignore, or at least question, the order. Is it all a slippery slope? Reddy says it is ultimately up to any military how it uses autonomy but if it can make the use of force more discriminating and precise, it is worth taking the step of handing over more responsibility to machines.

"We make sure it's only the combatants who are engaged," he said. "Life and liberty is protected. In our view those advantages far outweigh the disadvantages." 'No moral qualms against killing humans' Plenty of researchers are more pessimistic. Hundreds from Canada and Australia wrote to prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Malcolm Turnbull last week, calling for an international ban on "weaponised AI". "Autonomous weapons systems will be the perfect weapons of terror because they will have no moral qualms against killing humans," UNSW professor Toby Walsh told Fairfax Media. Walsh fears advances on robot swarm technology could lead to weapons of mass destruction. "They will allow us to scale warfare in a way that we've never been able to," he says.

The petitions, ahead of the first formal UN talks on a possible ban, oppose machines that do away with "meaningful human control". The UK has stipulated "operation of weapon systems will always be under human control". The US has said humans will always be "in the loop" to make the final decision. Major-General Kathryn Toohey, the army's head of land capability, says any autonomous system used by the ADF would follow the rules of armed conflict and adds that "the government's been quite clear that we will always have a human in the loop when it comes to armed UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]". She says the army is developing a robotics and autonomous systems strategy over the next 12 months. Ed Husic, federal Labor's spokesman on the digital economy and the future of work, says few governments worldwide were thinking enough about the impact of AI or about "boundary setting" and where the "no-go zones" should be.

"AI evangelists will hate this kind of talk but the reality is this: we need to ensure the tech remains a tool for good and a tool we always have control of." In the absence of global leadership, Australia should promote more thinking about it, he says. Meanwhile other Australian Defence research is exploring scenarios where machines might make up their own "minds". One 2017 study, "Human-Machine Integration, Legal & Ethical Decision Support", had as an objective to "identify the qualities needed for a fully or partly autonomous system to become sufficiently trusted by stakeholders to make or recommend life/death decisions". The Train Problem

In other words, look for a series of moral rules that could be programmed into a lethal robot. To do so, the military is twisting a 50-year-old philosophical thought experiment. Colin Wastell, a Macquarie University researcher specialising in decision making, has approached the ADF project by tweaking the classic Trolley Problem. The original asks people if they would pull a lever, diverting a trolley, or tram, from one set of tracks where it would crush five people to death to another, where only one person would die. Another version asks if it would be permissible to push onto the tracks a fat man whose body would jam the wheels and spare the others. In Wastell's version, an autonomous train can carry aid on a dangerous mission to a city ravaged by natural disaster. But the train would likely kill displaced people crossing the tracks. If 10 people were expected to be killed, how many lives would the aid need to save to justify the mission?

Before he puts scenarios to military personnel, Wastell posed this question to 80 to 100 university students of different ages and from various subject areas. "It was a shocker," he says of the response data. Answers ranged from one life saved to 20 million. It made no difference whether the people killed on the tracks were women or children. "We really haven't got guidance as to what number we should set for a machine making a decision," Wastell says. Even if a consensus emerges from experiments with defence force members, would that be enough?

Rob Sparrow, a professor of philosophy at Monash University, says it is no way to approach ethics. "If you're facing a moral dilemma, you can't escape that by just asking around, taking a bit of a poll amongst your friends," he says. Sparrow argues that even if machines lead to fewer deaths overall, their use would still not be justified, as fighting just wars goes beyond casualty numbers. "Sending a robot to kill someone expresses a profound disrespect for them," Sparrow says. With regular military technology, the instruction to fire can be traced back to an individual. With smart machines it becomes harder to apportion blame when something goes wrong. If a machine goes rogue or just makes a mistake and kills an innocent, whose fault is it? The battlefield commander, the software programmer, the manufacturer? It's a thorny legal question for governments that applies to self-driving cars as much as military drones.

Others worry leaders will be more likely to go to war if they do not have to send in troops and then watch coffins being unloaded at airbases. Or the machines could fall into the wrong hands. Greg Rowlands, a lieutenant colonel and project manager in the army, believes hacking may represent a "security nightmare". "ADF drones equipped with missiles could be 'compelled' to use those weapons against ADF force elements realising a form of forced autonomous fratricide," Rowlands wrote on a Defence blog. From drones to Skynet Driverless cars are already posing their own versions of the Trolley Problem. Credit:Christopher Goodney

The term "killer robot" brings to mind hellbent humanoids with red eyes, like the Skynet technology of the Terminator films. But many researchers say human-like intelligence is decades away, at least. "To the military's credit, they have a very realistic view of what can be achieved," says Jai Galliott, a defence analyst and ethicist at UNSW. Galliott believes more worrying are driverless cars, already posing their own versions of the trolley problem. And one of the most prominent voices against "killer robots", Elon Musk, is also the head of the driverless car pioneer Tesla. Loading
It is a theory that applies to all procrastinators, everywhere, not just to do-nothing prime ministers and to MPs who dilly dally in checking their nationality status.

All of this newsy indecisiveness enables your columnist to mention a lovely, new(ish), poetic-sounding but scientifically-supported theory of why people procrastinate. I've put off writing about it for far too long.

Derek Parfit. says that we humans are not just one person moving through time, but a chain of successive selves, Credit:Tamara Voninski

No wonder recent insightful pieces in unimpeachable Fairfax publications have had headlines thundering "Malcolm Turnbull is Australia's weakest and most indecisive prime minister since Billy McMahon" and "Malcolm Turnbull is drowning in a sea of indecision and ambivalence."

PM Malcolm Turnbull's legendary indecisiveness has been on display yet again this week. His response to the dual citizenship crisis has been wishy-washy. His failure to do anything about the Manus Island horror helps confirm that he is a lank and weedy leader.

I am grateful to the brain-tickling online magazine Nautilus for its precis of this theory.

The theory is that when we think of our future selves, even our near-future selves, we think of that person as a stranger. And so we don't feel confident about making decisions for him or her. Perhaps today's hesitant Malcolm doesn't know who tomorrow's Malcolm will be and what that mystery Malcolm will believe.

The notion begins with British philosopher Derek Parfit. He says that we humans are not just one person moving through time, but a chain of successive selves, each one quite distinct from the previous and subsequent ones.

So for example the schoolboy begins to smoke despite being told he will one day suffer from the habit. "This boy does not identify with his future self," Parfit writes. "His attitude towards this future self is in some ways like his attitude to other people."

Nautilus reports that some research psychologists now fancy that Parfit may be right about our decision-making, that we see our future selves as strangers. Though we will inevitably share their fates, the people we will become  are unknown to us.
Danang, Vietnam: President Donald Trump has warned the United States will no longer tolerate "chronic trade abuses" and would insist on fair and equal trade policies in a defiant speech to Pacific Rim countries in Vietnam.

Delivering the keynote speech at the 21-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit, Mr Trump said he won't allow the US to be "taken advantage of anymore."

He vowed to correct the US's huge trade imbalance with China and Japan.

"I will always put America first," he said.
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Theyre not sold on these street changes.

The city must hit the brakes on a plan to add dedicated bus lanes to a stretch of Fulton Street spanning Fort Greene and Clinton Hill because the people-movers paths will hurt local establishments by cutting street parking and further congesting the already crowded commercial strip, according to owners of businesses along the thoroughfare.

Its going to impact a lot of businesses, not just mine. Theyre taking a lot of parking spaces away from us, said Rocky Widdi, who runs the Key Food grocery store between St. James and Cambridge places. Deliveries are going to be almost impossible, and its not going to help traffic. I just think its a terrible idea. Everybody is upset.

The Department of Transportation is planning to divide a Downtown-bound swath of Fulton Street from Greene to Grand avenue and a Bedford-Stuyvesant-bound stretch from Lafayette Avenue to St. James Place  both of which now accommodate moving vehicles and parked cars  in two, creating dedicated travel and curbside bus lanes on each side of the road.

And in order for the B25 and B26 buses to cruise the new people-movers paths without getting stuck in rush-hour traffic, agency officials said they must prohibit street parking between 7 and 10 am on the Downtown-bound side of the thoroughfare, and between 2 and 7 pm on the Bedford-Stuyvesant-bound side.

The new lanes are an extension of already-in-place bus paths on Fulton Street, which run from Boerum Place in Downtown to Lafayette Avenue.

The citys current plan followed a February proposal that called for even more no-parking hours along the new bus lanes, which Community Board 2 members demanded the agency return to the drawing board with.

Transit honchos then came back suggesting the reduced parking limitations in June, which they claimed are necessary to ease the flow of traffic and mitigate double-parking on Fulton Street.

Members of CB2s Transportation and Executive committees both voted in favor of the agencys revised proposal that month, according to the panels district manager, who said the full board did not vote because the plan was presented during its summer recess.

But the parking restrictions will harm local businesses that need to receive daily deliveries, according to an opponent, who said that establishments could be penalized as a result of the constraints.

Its a ticket sting, because trucks will be forced to stop and try to make deliveries, said Schellie Hagan, who organized a protest against the planned bus lanes outside the Fulton Street Key Food on Nov. 16. The small businesses seem to always be taking a beating from the city in terms of regulations and fines and all, and this is the latest issue.

And another entrepreneur who owns a restaurant on the thoroughfare said hes also worried about the changes, because they will complicate his patrons ability to find spots in a nabe thats already desperate for more parking.

Theres not so much parking area around here, said Yucel Yuksel, the owner of Mediterranean eatery Deniz between S. Elliott and Fort Greene places.

In addition to the dedicated people-mover lanes, the city will also add painted sidewalk extensions that shorten pedestrian crossings at seven Fulton Street intersections between S. Portland and Grand avenues as part of its plan, according to information from the transportation department.

The agency will begin work later this month, a spokeswoman said.

Reach reporter Julianne Cuba at (718) 2604577 or by e-mail at jcuba @cngl ocal.com . Follow her on Twitter @julcuba.
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This bully did not pick on someone his own size.

A bike-riding teenage baddie harassed a 9-year-old boy while he was waiting for his school bus on Oct. 26, before forcing the kid to hand over his cash, according to authorities.

The victim was waiting for the people mover near Spencer Street and DeKalb Avenue when the suspect rode towards him at 8:00 am, demanding the kids belongings, cops said.

The squirt surrendered $3 and then the jerk fled, according to police, who said the boy was not injured in the incident.

Authorities described the suspect as a teenage male who is around 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds.

Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 5778477. The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All tips are strictly confidential.
the view

UB expert offers suggestions to reduce anxiety following terror events

By DOUG SITLER

We have tended to defer to authority the responsibility to keep us safe, sometimes at the expense of taking responsibility for our own safety. 

Finger-pointing by authorities, the media and a feeling of helplessness are increasing the stress levels of Americans following terror-inducing events like the recent shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas, a UB expert on the psychological effects of traumatic events says. But there are some practical things people can do to help ease their anxiety.

There is a notion by the public that someone of higher authority should do something to keep everyone safe, says Steven L. Dubovsky, professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB. We have tended to defer to authority the responsibility to keep us safe, sometimes at the expense of taking responsibility for our own safety. This makes us feel helpless if someone is not immediately present to protect us.

Dubovsky suggests that authorities and prominent figures adjust their own behavior to make people feel safer.

Its not helpful for the public to see finger-pointing by authorities, he says. Nobody is saying that weve got to work together to solve these problems. They need to take responsibility for the impact of their behavior.

Authorities and politicians should realize that when they attack each other instead of unifying to address a common threat, it frightens people who look to them for common leadership, he says.

Leaders should be saying, were all in this together and we should all do our part to stay safe and vigilant.

Dubovsky notes the media also is playing a major role in making Americans feel uneasy.

The media attitude of putting all the gore out there, or focusing on the feeling of helplessness is making people feel less in control, he says. By focusing primarily on dramatic injuries, grief and feelings of helplessness, the media add to the global sense of feeling overwhelmed and helpless in response to tragic events.

Dubovsky says there are some actions people can take to make them feel better and more in control. He cites as examples the countries of Israel and Switzerland, where some of these suggestions have worked to calm fears and empower residents.

Citizens can start feeling better by taking steps to protect themselves, rather than waiting passively for someone else to ensure their safety. The world has always been a dangerous place, and each of us is responsible for taking care of ourselves and others, Dubovsky says.

Participating in such activities as joining a neighborhood watch and taking CPR classes or basic medical courses can contribute to making society a safer place, and at the same time help individuals feel more competent and more secure.

People should have some basic training on how to be safe. Increasing environmental awareness  being knowledgeable about what may be suspicious activities or people, and knowing where the exits are in public places  can make people feel safer.

Dubovsky points out that Israel has been under attack consistently since its founding, with citizens having to deal with bombings, shootings, stabbings and more for decades. This lengthy history of violence has forced Israelis to be vigilant and pro-active in thwarting attacks, he says, adding that this sense of control  over uncontrollable situations  gives citizens a sense of calm and eases their anxiety.

And in Switzerland, all male adults are obliged to serve in the military and are trained in the use of firearms. This provides them with a feeling that they are prepared and competent, he says.
Senior members of the Irish agri-food industry today were urged not to be complacent when it comes to meeting the ongoing challenges for the sector and to consider the development of a 'National Food Strategy'. The message was delivered to more than 150 delegates at the Shaping the Vision for Irelands Agri-Food Industry 2030 conference in the Convention Centre, Dublin.

The event was organised by Ceres, a new women in agri-business network, which aims to develop and promote leadership and diverse thinking within the industry. The event featured contributions from leading figures from right across Irelands agri-food sector offering their perspectives on what the industry needs to do to remain competitive and relevant over the next decade.



In a panel discussion highlighting the agri-food industrys obligation to continue to produce safe and nutritious food, Pamela Byrne, CEO of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), called for the development of a 'National Food Strategy' with clearly defined roles and responsibilities as a matter of urgency.

In the same panel, Darina Allen outlined her vision for Ireland as an organic food island and stressed the need to prepare farmers in a post-glyphosphate era who have forgotten how to farm without chemicals. In response, Michael Hoey, MD of Country Crest said that a completely organic industry was not practical but stressed that the industry could aspire to produce the cleanest, most efficient, most sustainable food in the world.



Speaking at today's event, one of the founding members of the Ceres Network, Monica Gorman said, "Agriculture in Ireland and globally is facing many challenges and within those challenges are opportunities and risks. We were challenged this morning to be proactive and take responsibility for finding solutions. One thing we know is that no one person or organisation has all the answers and that realistically there are no easy solutions - or none that come without a cost."

She added, "With this conference we wanted to create a space for diverse voices and people to discuss in an open way some of the challenges and opportunities and we would encourage people to now take responsibility for finding the answers to your questions and actively seek these kind of spaces to create new energies, new chemistries and innovative thinking."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Bank of Ireland said on Thursday it will make a 150 million euros to 175 million euro provision this quarter to cover compensation for an additional 6,000 mortgage customers it overcharged.

Irish banks are under threat of being penalised by the government if they do not speed redress for at least 20,000 borrowers who should have paid less on their mortgages.

The industry-wide compensation scheme concerns customers who should have been given the option of a cheaper "tracker" mortgage that follows the low European Central Bank rate or kept on a better rate years ago.

Ireland's Central Bank, which launched the probe into the overcharging in 2015, said in a statement that the customers were a group that it had identified as having been impacted but Bank of Ireland had previously disputed.

Putting the pressure back on other banks, the regulator said it would continue to challenge all disputed cases and that it expected the total number of impacted customers to increase as other lenders include previously disputed cases.

Bank of Ireland said its core tier 1 capital ratio would fall back to 12.5% from 12.8% as a result of the provision, wiping out the increase in capital it recorded in the third quarter.

The additional customers included on Thursday brings the total number due compensation from the bank to 10,300, by far the most identified by any lender under the review so far.

Ireland's largest bank by assets had previously set aside 25 million euros for compensation - less than Ireland's other four retail lenders. The latest provision charge equates to around 15 percent of its pretax profits for last year.

New Bank of Ireland chief executive Francesca McDonagh said the bank had made substantial progress on the issue since she took up her role last month and made it a top priority.

While the additional provision was larger than analysts had estimated, Investec and Davy Stockbrokers maintained their view that it would not constrain the bank from resuming dividend payments as planned for the first time since the financial crisis early next year.

"We view this as an attempt by the bank to draw a line under the issue and move on and we do not believe that the expected restoration of the dividend with FY17 results to now be in doubt," Davy's Stephen Lyons said.

The bank's shares fell 2.5% on the news but recovered slightly to close down 1.3% at 6.46 euros.

Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has said he will decide by mid-December whether banks have made sufficient progress to avoid potential sanctions. These could include an increase in its annual bank levy, stricter reporting requirements or shareholder action.

The scandal rose to the top of the political agenda after a number of customers gave evidence in parliament of the problems it caused them, forcing the government to act.

"The bank is telling us two years into the investigation, the number of affected customers has increased overnight by a whopping 140%. This is nothing short of staggering," Michael McGrath, finance spokesman for Fianna Fail said. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Dublin ranks in the Top 7 European cities for real estate investment for the last five years running. This is according to a new report published jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PwC. The report is based on the opinions of over 800 real estate professionals in Europe, including investors, developers, lenders, agents and consultants (including Ireland).



Berlin takes the top spot for real estate investment and development for the fourth year in a row, followed by Copenhagen (Joint 2nd), Frankfurt (Joint 2nd), Munich (4th), Madrid (5th) and Hamburg (6th).



The report finds that Dublin is universally viewed as one of the cities likely to benefit from Brexit. With a skilled local, English speaking workforce, Brexit will add another few years to demand for commercial property in Ireland, including attracting banks and financial services companies, the report finds. However, concerns are noted about the potential negative effects if the UK were to go into recession as a result of Brexit, particularly on Irish tourism.

The citys infrastructure is viewed by respondents as not keeping pace with growth and is noted as another risk where more investment is needed. The report also notes that Dublin needs more housing. Respondents see the private rented sector and student housing as a huge opportunity in the next three to five years.



Commenting on the report, PwC Ireland Real Estate Tax Leader, Ilona McElroy said, "According to the report, fuelled by consistently strong Irish economic growth, the capitals property market is close to fully recovered with most of the yield compression having already happened. Investors see Dublin as a good location for stable income with tenant demand from growing companies being healthy."

She added, "The city has developed strong niches in financial services, US tech companies and aviation leasing and its airport is exceptionally well-connected to the UK and the US. Retail is also a hot topic in Dublin with city centre streets, shopping centres and retail parks being targets for big investors over the last two years."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Britain's government said on Thursday it would use legislation to fix the time and date of the country's European Union exit, addressing concerns of Brexiteers who fear slow negotiations and opposition to the divorce could cause delays.

The government said it was proposing a change to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill currently making its way through parliament to set the exit for 2300 GMT on March 29, 2019.

"Weve listened to members of the public and Parliament and have made this change to remove any confusion or concern about what 'exit day' means," Brexit minister David Davis said in a statement.

The date has previously been implied by a fixed two-year negotiating period triggered on March 29, 2017, but not explicitly stated in law.

Prime Minister Theresa May and her team are battling to keep exit negotiations with the EU moving, amid growing concern that talks have yet to begin on a transitional deal to smooth the exit for businesses or the complex terms of a future trade deal.

At home, May's government is facing a rough ride in parliament on the withdrawal bill, which forms the central plank of her Brexit strategy.

After losing her parliamentary majority in an ill-judged election in June, May has to unite a Conservative Party deeply split over leaving the EU and rely on the support of a small Northern Irish party to get the bill through without defeats.

The decision to define the date of Brexit in law came with a clear statement that the government is prepared to consider other concessions - even those proposed by political opponents.

"This important step demonstrates our pragmatic approach to this vital piece of legislation," Davis said. "Where MPs (Members of Parliament) can improve the Bill, whatever their party, we will work with them."

The bill will begin the latest stage of its journey through parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday, when lawmakers will debate and vote on some of the 186 pages of changes that have so far been proposed. The bill is at an early stage, and is expected to take months to make its way through both houses of parliament. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
Bryan Minghui Bi, professor at the School of Arts at Peking University, has been involved in the Chinese Music Institute of Peking University (PKUCMI), a student association, since 2009. He has conducted several concerts of the institutes traditional Chinese music orchestra. Photo provided by PKUCMI

Peking University (PKU) professor Bryan Minghui Bi is on a mission to make music accessible to all by putting less importance on the competitive grading system for players of instruments and by creating more opportunities for amateurs.

Bis career is also an example of how scholars trained in Western music can help bring traditional Chinese music to the world stage.

Bi graduated from the countrys top Central Conservatory of Music, studying piano, music pedagogy, ethnomusicology and Western music history. But for the past eight years he has led the Chinese Music Institute, a PKU student association, which brings traditional Chinese music to a global audience.

According to Bi, Western music advocates have at time discriminated against traditional Chinese music, though things have improved.

There is still a sense of divisiveness in the music community. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Conservatory of Music even spun off a group of Chinese music advocates to separately form the China Conservatory of Music to focus on traditional Chinese music, he said.

But the gap is gradually narrowing, he added. Generations of musicians have contributed to the development of Chinese music, through research into instruments, sound field and composition, especially after traditional performers learned to form orchestras based on Western philharmonic orchestras, Bi said.

However, domestic orchestras in both the Chinese and Western styles have been less visible on the global stage because music education in the country puts far more emphasis on solo performances, Bi said.

In China, music learners can have their solo skills graded by one of several conservatories, and extra marks are given to musically talented performers when they compete for a place in a good middle school or high school. Universities, including PKU, are also willing to overlook a spotty academic record of some talented students who can get admitted through auditions so they can join official orchestras that tour on behalf of the school.

But Chinas tough grading system has made music education fiercely competitive, as opposed to making it something that everyone can enjoy, Bi said.

Bi was instrumental in establishing the orchestra at the Chinese Music Institute (PKUCMI), the countrys first student orchestra for classical Chinese music that doesnt take these grades for performances into account.

The institutes orchestra performs at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing in 2011. Photo provided by PKUCMI

The orchestra has grown quickly, starting from a dozen in 2009 to now more than 70 members. Together with other PKUCMI projects, the orchestra has contributed immensely to promoting traditional Chinese music, Bi said.

Bi spoke to Caixin about the need to explore the connection between Chinese and Western styles and why musicians need to have a cross-cultural understanding of music. The following are edited excerpts from the Chinese-language interview.

Caixin: Do Western music students in conservatories in China look down upon those who study classical Chinese music?

Bi: This kind of discrimination absolutely exists, and there is still a sense of divisiveness in the music community. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Conservatory of Music even spun off a group of Chinese music advocates to separately form the China Conservatory of Music with a focus on traditional Chinese music.

But it is more a personal preference than arrogance among the whole group, and equality has grown between the two sides. Many respectful musicians have set an example by lowering barriers. Notable pianist and music academic Yao Jinxin studied music in Germany and the U.S., but later shifted her research to focus on Chinese music. My teacher Zhong Zilin, who is a student of Yao, started with Chinese folk music, but later did research on modern Western music.

Bi joins a group photo of institutes members in Edinburgh, the U.K., where they performed two concerts in 2012. Photo provided by PKUCMI

Traditional Chinese music is linear, which has long served as an accompaniment to vocalists, while instruments in the west started to be independent from songs and explore opportunities for solo performances in the 17th and 18th centuries. Chinese music decorates lyrics. It is based on language, while Western music sets its foundation in mathematics.

When several instruments are brought together, the Chinese ones try to differentiate the sounds from each other through diversified timbres, or tone quality, while Western music seeks to fuse different sounds.

There is an ongoing debate on whether traditional Chinese music instruments can be used to form an orchestra. What are your views?

There have been debates. In history, these instruments were created for solo performances, or at most very small bands. They are not very stable, their production process isnt standardized, and neither is the rehearsing and training system.

But, I personally think a traditional Chinese music orchestra still works, but it requires improving the instruments, and being creative about the way they are arranged on stage. In addition, there arent many symphony pieces that perfectly match the acoustic beauty of traditional instruments.

Do students of classical Chinese music lack training on how to perform as a group?

I dont have data to prove it, but based on my impressions, yes. Teachers dont give them specific lessons on the relationship between their instruments and the orchestra, while the grading system focuses on solo performances. When it comes to learning Western instruments, things might be better.

China has a very short history of orchestra, either the Western or the Chinese form. Today, even our most professional orchestras cant compare with the top ones overseas. They lag behind in only in what music pieces they can perform and how they demonstrate it, but also in terms of official support and market demand. These have led to the lack of orchestral training in music education.

Why did you get involved with the Chinese Music Institute, and what progress have students there made in terms of promoting Chinese music?

At first I didnt think that deeply. When some students came to ask for help, as a teacher I couldnt say no and had to stick to my commitment. I also learned about some unfairness at PKU (the gap between the official orchestra and other so-called amateurs), and I wanted to change it.

PKUCMI members have set a good example in promoting traditional Chinese music. They have organized classes on several instruments for adult starters, and formed small teams to conduct research on whatever music issue they are interested in, hosting lectures and publishing articles on what theyve discovered.

As the key department of PKUCMI, the orchestra has helped our student musicians perform. Besides the concerts we organize (about twice a year), we have for the past few years trained some student conductors.

Many parents push their children into majors like computer science, but dont want their children to major in music. What is your take on this?

This mindset is normal for a developing country like China where practical subjects such as computer science and mathematics are more popular, while music is a minor subject. But as the society evolves, peoples passion for art and culture will certainly grow. It is the responsibility of music teachers like us to be well-prepared for that era to arrive.

Youve had many interactions with music communities overseas. Are there any good examples to show how other countries have protected their traditional music that have impressed you?

Ill tell you two stories. Ive been to Hungary many times. It is a small European country, but people there are generally excellent at performing, composing and appreciating music. One of the reasons is that they have two important musicians, Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly from a century ago. Both have composed world-renowned music and done research after studying Hungarian folk music.

I am working on a book for the Chinese on appreciating music, and have referred to similar books from the U.S. and the U.K. I found that the proportion of local music in their text books has largely increased. I myself have made efforts to imitate their approach and let my students grasp a cross-cultural understanding of music.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com)

Caixin Hot Pot is a regular feature that introduces you to the colorful array of players in todays China  from the leaders of top U.S. companies doing business here to the migrant woman selling noodles from a push-cart.
Actress "Vicki" Zhao Wei and her husband, Huang Youlong, were both fined $45,200 by the China Securities Regulatory Commission for disrupting the market and undermining investor confidence in their company's failed acquisition of the present-day Zhejiang Sunriver Culture Co. Photo: Visual China

Vicki Zhao Wei  who rose to fame in the 1990s for her leading role in the mainland TV drama My Fair Princess  and her husband were banned from the securities market for five years for seriously misleading the market and investors, the regulator said.

The China Securities Regulatory Commissions (CSRC) ruling followed an investigation of last years attempted acquisition of animation studio Zhejiang Sunriver Culture Co., which was Zhejiang Wanjia at the time, by a company controlled by Zhao and her husband, Huang Youlong.

The ruling, which also includes fines of 300,000 yuan ($45,200) each for Zhao and Huang, was disclosed in a statement that Zhejiang Sunriver issued on Thursday.

The regulator said the market misconduct caused huge volatility in Wanjias share price, severely disrupted the market, and undermined retail investor confidence.

Longwei Culture & Media, controlled by Zhao and Huang, announced in December a plan to acquire 29% of Zhejiang Wanjia for 3.06 billion yuan.

However, Zhao and Huang were found to have given investors the impression that they had secured sufficient funding for the deal when in fact they had not, the statement cited the CSRC as saying. The deal was eventually scrapped due to its insufficient funding.

Zhao and her husband had purchased 9.18% Jack Mas Alibaba Pictures for HK$3.1 billion ($397 million) in December 2014.

Longwei was officially set up on Nov. 2, 2016, nearly two months before the Sunriver deal was announced. Longweis registered capital was only 2 million yuan, with Zhao holding a 95% stake.

The CSRC found that Longwei did not properly disclose the uncertainties on its funding in its regulatory filings, failed to provide more details at the regulators requests, and falsified some of the information in its disclosures.

The regulator at that time found the attempted acquisition was heavily leveraged by loans that had not been secured.

Longwei told the Shanghai bourse that of the 3.06-billion-yuan price tag, 60 million yuan would be raised from their own shareholders, 1.5 billion yuan would be borrowed from Tibet Yinbixin Asset Management Co. Ltd., and another 1.5 billion yuan would be borrowed from financial institutions with stocks pledged as collateral. Essentially, Zhao and related parties were borrowing 51 times the cash they had on hand in order to close the deal.

When the deal was believed to be on the verge of closing, Longwei said on Feb. 13 that it decided to acquire only 5% now for 529 million yuan, citing huge uncertainties for securing funds on time. On April 1, Sunriver announced that both parties agreed to cancel the deal.

Contact reporter Dong Tongjian (tongjiandong@caixin.com)
Toronto, Ontario

November 9, 2017

Dr. Caroline J. Simard, Vice-Chairperson, Broadcasting

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

Check against delivery

Thank you for that kind introduction. Id like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional territory of Indigenous peoples. I thank them and pay respect to their Elders.

Its a pleasure for me to participate in Connection 2017 on behalf of the CRTC.

Did that five seconds of silence feel long to you? Five seconds is not a long time, but five seconds of silence on the radio can be a disaster. The reason is simple: because it cuts the connection with listeners. And as everyone in this room knows, maintaining a strong audience connection is the key to success in broadcasting.

Thats a lesson I learned the hard way. Many years ago, I auditioned for an on-air job at a radio station. I have always had a passion for both communications and law, and at the time I was still trying to figure out my career path.

So, I auditioned for a station that was far from my hometown. I didnt know much about the people who lived there and wasnt even sure about how to pronounce the names of nearby villages. Worst of all, though, was my accent  listeners could tell that I wasnt from their region. Accents change from one part of Quebec to another, just as they do in many other parts of Canada.

Needless to say, I didnt get the job. But, I learned about the importance of connecting with the audience. Successful broadcasters nurture this connection. Their audiences often feel a kind of personal link to on-air personalities, to stations and to programs.

After abandoning my dreams of becoming a deejay, I went on to study this aspect of broadcasting. In fact, my doctoral thesis looked at how technological forces and convergence affect this connection.

Audiences crave a personal connection. And technology alone  no matter how powerful or innovative  cannot create that kind of connection. Successful broadcasters use whatever technology can best create a strong relationship with the audience. The rapid evolution of communications technologies in recent years makes it incredibly difficult for broadcasters to decide which technology is best.

And its not only the technologies that evolve, but also the way that people use technologies. Technological change drives social change. Satellites, streaming, podcasts, mobile broadband  all of these impact the way people consume and share media. Regardless of whether they access content through a car radio, a cellphone or a computer, audiences are all looking for the same thing: a personal connection.

The CRTC understands the crucial importance of connecting with audiences. We also know that broadcasters must maintain successful business models.

Nearly 50 years ago, Canada created the CRTC as a way to serve the public interest. And while it might sound obvious, its worth saying that one of the best ways to serve the public interest is to have a strong Canadian broadcasting industry.

The CRTCs job is complex and challenging, especially in an era of rapid technological and social change. We must work within Canadas legal and regulatory framework, and honour its international obligations, when considering the interests of all Canadians, from individuals to private and public broadcasters.

Part of the rationale to regulate broadcasting in this country is based on the idea that the airwaves are public property  that they belong to all of us.

Many countries face the same challenge. In fact, there are more than 100 regulatory bodies for communications around the world. During my time with the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency, I learned more about how regulatory agencies share best practices with one another. The CRTC actively collaborates with regulators in other countries. This collaboration is increasingly important in an interconnected world that is constantly evolving.

Change is nothing new to broadcasters, of course. The invention of radio helped to create the industry in the first place. And the industry has successfully met the challenges presented by a long list of new technologies. Im confident that the men and women here today will find ways to meet current and emerging challenges by building on what you do best: connecting with people.

Building a sense of personal, one-on-one connection with individual listeners has always been the cornerstone of radios success. Creating this connection has enabled radio to overcome an ongoing series of new technologies, such as LPs, tapes and MP3 players.

Today, radio faces new challengers, such as streaming services and podcasts. To succeed, I believe that radio stations must make the most of the intimacy they create with audiences and the connections they forge with the community. Applications such as iHeartRadio and Radio Player Canada are technologies that broadcasters may use to connect with audiences.

Accessing current data and informed analysis are also valuable ways to overcome the challenges posed by technological and social change. This conference will certainly help, in part by providing you with opportunities to learn more about audience trends and emerging technologies.

This mornings presentation from Jeff Vidler of Audience Insights, for example, featured valuable intelligence about people 25 to 54 years of age  a group that is vital to broadcasters. This afternoons Radio Matters session will also provide important insights into how some broadcasters continue to exploit what many of us still consider the most intimate of all media.

Another valuable resource is the 2017 edition of the CRTCs Communications Monitoring Report. Just yesterday, we published the broadcasting data from the report. It shows some of the changes in how television and radio audiences access content.

During the last five years, the amount of time the average viewer spent watching traditional television fell by one hour per week. During the same period, though, the amount of time that Canadians spent watching television shows online increased by more than two hours.

Similarly, the amount of time Canadians spent listening to traditional radio fell by more than two hours over the last five years. And the percentage of Canadians that stream personalized music services has doubled from 13% to 27% in the last five years.

Most analysts expect these trends to continue, for both television and radio. Broadcasters must find ways to make the most of their digital platforms.

Canadians have access to more and more media options from anywhere, at any time and through a growing range of devices. The shift in the ways that audiences access programming is certainly of key importance. Last month, the Government of Canada requested that the CRTC produce a report on future content-distribution models. Consultations will feature prominently in the report. Its crucial that broadcasters share their views and I encourage you to participate. The deadline for the first phase of comments is December 1.

Consultations are essential to the CRTC, because they enable us to listen to views of all stakeholders. Last month, we held a public hearing on the licence renewals for a number of cable companies, and we recently launched a proceeding to renew the licences of the TV services that benefit from mandatory-distribution orders.

Later this month, the CRTC will hold a hearing in Toronto to consider applications to operate new radio stations in Grimsby/Beamsville and Georgina.

And we will also soon begin the process of reconsidering the licence renewals of large TV ownership groups, as per Cabinets request. Stay tuned for the announcement for more details.

Technology will continue to evolve, as it has throughout the history of broadcasting. The industry will continue to adapt, by leveraging and incorporating whatever new technologies enable them to build and maintain connections with audiences. And success, as always, will come to broadcasters that build the strongest audience connections. I urge you to continue to innovate and to connect with individual Canadians.

I know that you are all waiting to learn about this years award winners. I wont keep you in suspense any longer, but I extend my congratulations to those who are being honoured today.

Thank you.

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Longueuil, Quebec, November 10, 2017  On November 15, 2017, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen will speak to youth about the astronaut job and the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning during a Canada 2067 Youth Summit in Toronto, presented by Lets Talk Science

Jeremy Hansen will give a short presentation during the STEM Talks (i.e., TED-style talks) and will then be available for media interviews.

Media are invited to attend the event.

Date:

November 15, 2017

Who:

Jeremy Hansen, CSA astronaut

When:

8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. EST  Presentation

11:00 a.m. to noon EST  Media availability

What:

Short presentation during STEM Talks with other inspirational speakers

Where:

Toronto Reference Library  Bram and Bluma Appel Salon

789 Yonge Street

Toronto, Ontario M4W 2G8

Media registration opens at 8:00 a.m. EST

2nd floor

Toronto Reference Library, outside Bram and Bluma Appel Salon

For more information about the Canada 2067 event or to RSVP, please contact Canada2067@hkstrategies.ca.

To book a media interview with Jeremy Hansen, please contact the Canadian Space Agency Media Relations Office.

- 30 -

Contact information:

Canadian Space Agency

Media Relations Office

Telephone: 450-926-4370

Website: http://asc-csa.gc.ca

Email: ASC.Medias-Media.CSA@canada.ca

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Published On Nov 10, 2017 06:02 PM By CarDekho

To set up a plant in Zhejiang province with vehicles produced likely to be sold under a new Chinese brand

Sales of hybrid and pure electric vehicles in China have grown by 50 per cent over the last year, and the fact that other manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Volkswagen have already partnered with Chinese manufacturers to produce EVs in China is a clear indication of the EV boom that the Chinese auto industry is likely to witness in coming years.

Wanting a piece of the same pie, Ford Motor Company recently announced that it will be entering into a joint venture with Anhui Zotye Automobile Co. of China to develop electric vehicles for sale in the country. Being an 50:50 joint venture, the two companies will invest a total of $756 million. The two manufacturer are likely to set up a new factory in Zhejiang province with vehicles produced from the plant likely to be sold under a new Chinese brand.

Ford plans to have 70 per cent of its vehicles offered in China to be powered by an electrified powertrain by 2025 as it expects the Chinese markets to grow to an annual sales of 6 million by 2025.

Fords collaboration with Zotye is in synergy with the American manufacturers collaboration with Mahindra and Mahindra as both of these ventures are focused towards developing EVs for the respective countries. In India, Ford will benefit from Mahindras electric presence and would be able to prepare itself to take on the paradigm shift that the Indian auto industry will see in the coming years.

Read More: Ford And Mahindra Enter A Three-Year Courtship
Modified On Nov 10, 2017 01:02 PM By Khan Mohd. for Renault Captur

The camp will be organised from November 13 to 19, 2017 across Renault service centres in the country.

Staying ahead of the competition, Renault India has announced the first winter service camp of this season, which will be a week-long affair starting from November 13, 2017. Under the Renault Winter Camp, the French carmaker is offering attractive discounts on select parts and services, comprehensive car check-up and assured gifts among others.

According to Renault, the objective of this camp is to ensure optimal performance of cars, which is generally impacted by the dip in temperatures during the winter months. Existing Renault customers can visit any company service centre across the country to enjoy the benefits of this camp.

Besides the comprehensive car service, customers can also avail an exclusive plan on Renault Assured insurance renewal, 15 per cent discount on select parts and accessories, and a similar discount on other Value Added Services. Furthermore, a flat 10 per cent discount is offered on labour charges, extended warranty enrolments and Road Side Assistance (RSA) services. A free car wash and a special price on select tyre brands will also be on offer. Additionally, the dealerships will be organising customer engagement activities as well.

In recent times, Renault India has been quite aggressive in its after-sales service strategy. Some of its key initiatives include Renault Finance  for fast processing and simpler processes for auto loans; Renault Assured  for cashless accident repairs across all company dealerships; and Renault Secure  for providing RSA, extended warranties and holding mobile workshops in remote locations under the Workshop on Wheels (WoW) scheme. It also introduced My Renault APP, which covers all Renault models in the country and works with Android and iOS platforms.

Currently, it has 300 dealership outlets in the country and it plans to ramp up the number to 320 by the end of this year.

Read More on : Renault Captur diesel
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At one time, marijuana legalization in the United States was unthinkable. But things change fast  and when it comes to cannabis, they change very fast. Today, a majority of Americans support legalization or decriminalization. There are numerous states that have gone on to grant full-on legal status to cannabis (though those local laws still conflict with federal ones), and a majority of the states grant access to medical marijuana.

How quickly the times change.

And it all started five years ago as of November. Back in 2012, when President Obama was fighting for reelection against then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney, two states boldly put initiatives on the ballot that would legalize marijuana for recreational use and consumption. Voters in those states, Washington and Colorado, would go on to pass those initiatives, allowing  for the first time  adults over the age of 21 to produce, sell, and consume marijuana legally.

Legalization changes everything

At the time, nobody really knew how legalization was going to pan out. These experimental laws, as many saw them, could usher in a new era of depravity. Making a dangerous substance more readily available surely would corrupt the youth, hurt public health, and lead to an uptick in crime, detractors thought. Those in the pro-legalization camp saw things much differently. Both Colorado and Washington already had functional, gray-market medical cannabis industries  how would this be much different?

For one thing, taxation would enter the conversation. And theres also the prospect of the Department of Justice coming in and putting a stop to the whole thing, given that these new legal markets would be operating in direct violation of federal law. But here we are five years later, and the doomsday scenarios havent come to fruition. In fact, legalization has spread to other states, and legislators in even more are looking to give it the green light in others.

The question remains, though: Now that were five years out, how has legalization in those first two states worked out? Well get into it, in terms of jobs, crime, tax revenue, and more.

Marijuana legalization: 5 years later

In November 2012, Washington passed I-502 and Colorado passed Amendment 64 legalizing cannabis for recreational use.

Well jump back to the beginning for a minute. In November 2012, Washington and Colorado pulled the trigger on legalization. Since then, theyve been joined by Oregon, Alaska, California, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Maine. What you can surmise from that list is that the experiment was a success  so much so that other states quickly followed suit. Even more are lining up to push for legalization in 2018 and beyond. But the federal government still isnt budging. Looking at the numbers, though, its hard to deny that legalization has been a success in both Washington and Colorado.

Next: What has happened as a result? Well start with a look at one of the biggest concerns: Crime.

Whats happened: Crime

Crime has dropped in both Washington and Colorado over the past five years.

One of the biggest concerns about legalization? That crime would increase as a result. This hasnt come to pass. There are are a number of potential explanations for it, but the key takeaway is that crime hasnt increased as a result of legalization. Pot stores arent hot spots for crime (though some have been robbed). People arent using cannabis and committing violent crimes. Underage use has actually declined in the wake of legalization, too. And that goes for both Washington and Colorado.

Next: Aside from crime, what other public safety issues have bubbled up as a result of legalization?

Public safety

According to the King County Sheriffs Department in Washington, legalization takes a huge burden off the criminal justice system.

Crime is a part of the whole public safety mosaic, but its not the only element. You have to take things like public health concerns and law enforcement into account, too. But just like with crime, things seem to be going smoothly on both of those fronts. Police and law enforcement officials have largely praised legalization as its freed up resources and saved them money. In terms of public health? Were still gathering data, but so far, there hasnt been much of a negative impact on public health due to legalization.

Next: How about the economy?

Jobs and the economy

In Colorado and Washington alone there are nearly 50,000 jobs in the legal cannabis market.

The economic arguments for legalization are hard to ignore, now that were five years into the great experiment. Both Colorado and Washington have made billions in tax revenue, which is being directed to state coffers. On top of that, hundreds of businesses have started up, creating around 50,000 jobs in Washington and Colorado alone. Even California, which only legalized in 2016, has already created more than 43,000 jobs.

Next: What about the negatives?

The bad?

Unless you think less opioid abuse is a bad thing, there hasnt been much to gripe about.

As for the drawbacks to legalization, there are a few. But its hard to make the argument that the bad outweighs the good. As for those negatives, one is that taxation can make marijuana more expensive, pushing some to the black market. There have also been issues with taxes on medical marijuana. Another concern is that people are using cannabis and driving, and that trafficking has increased from legal states to surrounding states.

So, yes, there have been some bumps. But again, its hard to look at the big picture and still think that legalization was a bad idea.

And these drawbacks have done little to stop the green wave that is cascading over America.

The green wave

Since 2012, seven more states have passed legalization measures  including the entire West Coast.

The green wave, of course, is the push for legalization in more states. Were also seeing large-scale changes in sentiment and attitudes toward cannabis. Whereas a couple of decades ago, legalization was opposed by a majority of Americans, every new poll seems to show a record high in terms of the percentage who support it. Just recently, a majority of Republicans  folks who typically have remained steadfastly against legalization  have jumped on board. What does it all mean? Big things may be in store, and soon.

Finally: Whats next for the legalization movement?

Whats next?

In 2018, voters in more states could opt for full-blown legalization.

So, whats next? Its hard to say for sure, but we can expect more and more states to try and push for legalization as the federal government sits on its hands. With the current administration, its hard to think that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will move away from his antiquated (and often flat-out ignorant) views on cannabis. But the next slate of states is lining up for 2018, and that includes Michigan, Arizona, Missouri, and even Oklahoma.

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Nine Christians were buried in north-central Nigeria yesterday after Muslim Fulani herdsmen ambushed and killed them earlier this week, sources said.



The victims, all members of the Church of Christ In Nations (COCIN), were buried after a funeral service in Plateau states Riyom Local Government Area. They were killed, and three others seriously injured, on Tuesday (Nov. 7) evening at about 7:30 p.m. in Rim village as they returned from a nearby market.



In a text messsage to Morning Star News, COCIN Church Rim elder Gyang Dahoro identified those killed as Felix Ngwong, 34; Gyang Emmanuel, 29; Chuwang Bitrus, 31; Daniel Nini, 52; Dagam Danbwarang, 29; Rueben Danbwarang, 25, Sunday Danbwarang, 52; Dachollom Shom, 37; and Daniel Shom, 45.



Dahoro said the injured Dalyop Bwede, Darwang Samuel and Toma Sunday were being treated at the Plateau State Specialist Hospital in Jos.



The Rev. Dacholom Datiri, president of the COCIN, confirmed the killing of members of his church.



We are saddened again by yet another attack on members of our church, he said. We have continued to be forced into mourning the death of some our members for no just cause. Whatever it is, our faith is dependent on Jesus Christ, our Savior.



Istifanus Gyang, a member of parliament in Nigerias National Assembly, decried unabated attacks on Christians in Plateau state. Gyang said the attacks were carried out by blood-thirsty killers and terror militia whom he said were prosecuting ruthless banditry and brutal slaughter in order to wipe out Christian communities and occupy their lands.



We shall therefore overcome this season, as it is written, weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning, he said.



A similar attack was carried out in the same area a few weeks ago, when a Christian woman and her son and a daughter were brutally killed by armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen who have been raiding Christian communities in the central Nigerian states of Plateau, Kaduna, Benue, Taraba and Niger.



The chairman of the Riyom Council, Emmanuel Damboyi, called for the arrest of Fulani leaders in Riyom, according to Nigerian newspaper The Nation, as they had vowed to attack Berom communities due to the alleged killing of a missing Fulani boy.



The Fulani leaders made the threat at a Security Council meeting, according to Damboyi.



I think the Fulani leaders are not ready for peace, they should be arrested and questioned for these killings, he reportedly said.



Plateau State Police Command spokesman Terna Tyopev said in a press statement that the number of those killed was 11, with four injured.



Eleven people who were returning from a weekly village market of Makera were shot dead at about 7:30 p.m., he said. No arrests yet, but investigations are ongoing, and we shall definitely get to the roots of this.



Christians make up 51.3 percent of Nigerias population, while Muslims living primarily in the north and middle belt account for 45 percent.



Nigeria ranks 12th on Open Doors 2017 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution.





If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.o rg/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.



If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at http://morningstarnews.org/don ate/ ?
Gay sex and dodgy banking in the Vatican: Latest book exposes Catholic corruption

The Italian journalist who was on trial for publishing confidential Vatican documents has released another book documenting gay sex in the Vatican's youth seminary and the vast amounts in Mother Theresa's bank account.

Gianluigi Nuzzi told reporters a copy of Original Sin, that went on sale on Thursday, had been sent to the Vatican's chief prosecutor over allegations of sex involving a child inside the Holy See, according to Crux.

The Vatican did not immediately comment on the accusations.

Nuzzi said Mother Theresa's account with the infamous Vatican bank was so large that the whole institution would have collapsed if she withdrew her funds. However the Calcutta-based missionary trusted the officials although they were 'more acquainted with the jet set of the world of film' than 'the poor of Mother Teresa', Nuzzi claims.

The journalist also discusses the alleged gay-subculture in the Vatican's St Pius X pre-seminary for middle and high schoolers considering the priesthood. The book includes a letter from a now gay ex-seminarian who described how a priest used to come into their dormitory at night to have oral sex with one of his roommates, who was under 18 at the time.

Neither the roommate nor the priest were identified.

The book comes after Nuzzi along with fellow journalist Emanuele Fittipaldi were put on trial by the Vatican for publishing books based on illegally leaked documents that exposed greed, mismanagement and corruption at the highest levels of the Catholic Church. In July 2016, after an eight-month trial, the Vatican's criminal court declared that it had no jurisdiction to prosecute them.
John Lewis' #MozTheMonster: Why is it so meaningless?

The Christmas ads are back  with John Lewis unveiling their latest stab at vacuous sentimentalism today. It's 'the most wonderful time of the year' if you love generic, cynical corporate marketing  but for others it might be the nail in the coffin of 2017.

Bizarrely, when I search 'John Lewis Christmas advert' on Youtube my first result is titled 'The Soon-coming Antichrist  Unstoppable World Tyrant!', which opens with an American pastor sternly warning me: 'This may be the single most chilling message you will ever hear. Watch it all.'

Whether a message from God or just a sign that I need to adjust my Youtube preferences, perhaps it's an appropriate sentiment for the deluge of festive-themed corporate advertising that greets us once again this year. Lo, the Christmas Ads hath returned, a moving reminder that it may indeed be time for the world to end.

John Lewis  arguably the real muscle, the defending champion of the festive ad contest, today released its 2017 effort titled #MozTheMonster. I'm sadly baffled by 'Moz', whose story left me not with warm, fuzzy feelings inside but a sense of utter meaningless. The kindly monster emerges from nowhere and to nowhere he returns. The flatulent beast befriends a child only to leave him alone again, with a starry night-light in his place.

Is the lesson that you don't need emotional connections if you have technology? Or that even with imaginary/CGI pals we remain inevitably and tragically alone? Several have expressed confusion on Twitter. The ad seems to tick the boxes of cuteness, novelty, kids and festive vibes, but doesn't amount to much real substance. Perhaps this wasn't made for me and I've missed an intended message about sleepless nights, but it wasn't very clear. From Ebeneezer Scrooge to modern animations like Arthur Christmas, there are wonderful stories to tell in this season. For an ad that cost 7 million to make, this seems a wasted opporunity.

Perhaps it's hard to sympathise when you know these works are often crafted by a committee of advertising execs who now know well the formula for securing a viral and lucrative hit. But I don't hate them for it: these films can still be profound. The M&S Christmas ad embraces the bankable charm of Paddington the Bear, who redemptively teaches a rumbled Christmas Eve thief the value of giving and sharing gifts, instead of hoarding them.

I'm biased for the Debenhams Christmas Ad since its narrated by the charming Ewan McGregor, but it also features a simple but nice tale of human connection gained, lost then found again. Previous hits have shown the value of making peace in a time of war (Sainsbury's, 2014), or of looking out for the lonely at Christmas (John Lewis, 2015). These are important messages, not quite the centre of the Christian festival but still a part of it, crucial to affirm.

Supermarkets know that putting Jesus Christ at the heart of their marketing probably isn't going to pay the Christmas bills, and that's understandable. But it's nice when they still try to make something meaningful, that doesn't just feel like a cynical grab but a thoughtful celebration of what it means to be human  at a time of year that's a real trial for so many.

Sorry for not cheering on #MozThe Monster, but I did quite like Paddington. Perhaps there's hope for Christmas (adverts) yet.

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'Mary was a teenager': Alabama official uses Bible's Mary and Joseph to defend Roy Moore from paedophilia claims

An Alabama state official yesterday dismissed abuse allegations against GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, who stands accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl. The official  Alabama state auditor Jim Zeigler  pointed to the age gap between Jesus' parents Mary and Joseph, saying there's 'nothing immoral or illegal here'.

Judge Roy Moore, 70, has denied the claims that he made sexual advances on a 14-year old girl while he was in his 30's, as well as allegations about sexual encounters with three other teenagers near the same time. Supporting Moore, Ziegler said there was 'nothing to see here', according to the Washington Examiner.

He said Moore's relationship with the girl had not involved 'sexual intercourse', and that the encounter 'happened almost 40 years ago'. Ziegler also pointed to Scripture as an apparent precedent for the age gap.

'Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

'There's just nothing immoral or illegal here,' Ziegler said. 'Maybe just a little bit unusual.'

The Alabama official faced heavy criticism from leading evangelicals for his defence of Moore. Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center, told the Washington Post: 'Bringing Joseph and Mary into a modern-day molestation accusation, where a 32-year-old prosecutor is accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl, is simultaneously ridiculous and blasphemous...Even those who followed ancient marriage customs, which we would not follow today, knew the difference between molesting and marriage.'

Leading Southern Baptist Russell Moore tweeted yesterday: 'Whether in the hills of Hollywood or the halls of power, it doesn't matter. This is true: sexual assault and child molestation are evil, unjust, satanic.'

Roy Moore has a strong evangelical Christian base, but it's unclear whether he'll maintain their support in the Senate election. Republicans who had previously supported Moore called for him to step down from the race when allegations surfaced.
Nine Christians shot dead in Nigeria in suspected Fulani attack

Nine Christians were shot dead in Plateau State, Nigeria, on Tuesday night by attackers believed to be militant Fulani herdsmen.

The victims were returning home from a weekly village market before being attacked in the Riyom Local Government Area (LGA), at around 7.30pm, according to World Watch Monitor.

Seven were killed immediately, while two more died in hospital and four others were injured. They all belonged to one of two churches: the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) and the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA).

One witness said the attackers were Fulani Herdsmen, part of a violent Islamic extremist militia that's become established as one of the deadliest in the world. Some sources suggested Nigerian soldiers had also been involved in the attack, an assertion strongly rejected by army spokesman Captain Umar Adam, who said an official investigation had been immediately undertaken, and that findings would be released.

The victims were buried in their village, Rim, on Wednesday. They were named: Daniel Shom, Dachollom Shom, Emmanuel Gyang, Daniel Niri, Felix Gwom, Reuben Danbwang, Sunday Danbwang, Dagam Danbwang and Bitrus Chunwang.

The attack, the latest in a string of mass killings in Nigeria, was widely condemned by various state officials and lawmakers, who called for action and renewed security measures. Riyom LGA legislator Istifanus Gyang said the 'ruthless banditry and brutal slaughter' of the nomadic Islamic extremists was probably driven by a quest for land occupation.

Chairman of Riyom LGA, Emmanuel Jugul called for government intervention following the displacement of most people in the communities of Mahanga and Gweba at the hand of the Fulani.

'You can imagine that there are villages that indigenous [people] cannot go,' he said. 'Today, a native of Riyom cannot go Mahanga because they will be killed by the Fulani people. Fulanis are saying that they have captured the place. Are they fighting [a] jihad? Why should they be talking about capturing communities?'
'Star Wars Rebels' season 4 episode 9 spoilers: Rebels clash with enemy fighters

Hera leads an attack against the forces of Grand Admiral Thrawn, but things get messy and the courageous attack quickly turns into an escape mission. She must survive in order for the rebellion to live in the latest episode titled "Rebel Assault" of the animated television series from the "Star Wars" franchise, "Star Wars Rebels."

The synopsis from Den of Geek teased that if she is to survive the clashes she leads against Grand Admiral Thrawn's forces, the battle must become a daring escape for the rebels. This suggests that she possibly could not make it alive of the episode.

The promo for "Rebel Assault" shows Hera flying her battleship, ordering her troops to form up and head for the target. When Grand Admiral Thrawn is informed that the rebels have broken into their perimeters, he orders to contact the second wave to intercept the attack led by Hera. Later in the clip, One of Hera's pilots detect enemy fighters nearby, and soon their forces clash, and the preview ends with Hera looking seemingly worried as she prepares to face the enemies.

The previous episodes "Kindred" and "Crawler Commandos," Grand Admiral Thrawn sent his personal bodyguard, Rukh, to go after Ezra and the rest of the rebels. However, Jai was able to foil his plans and knocked him out when he suddenly attacked Ezra.

At the Celebration Orlando, it was announced that the current season will be the show's last. With only three episodes left for the fourth season, fans of the series will soon find out who makes it out alive of "Star Wars Rebels." Will Hera make it out of their assault against The Empire with her life intact? Find out when "Star Wars Rebels" season 4 episode 9 airs on Nov. 13, Monday at 9 p.m. EST on Disney XD.
Texas church shooting: The shocking series of errors that allowed Devin Kelley to buy a gun

The US Air Force missed at least two chances to block the shooter in last weekend's deadly church attack in Texas from buying guns after he was accused of a violent offence in 2012, according to current and former government officials and a review of military documents.

A third opportunity to flag shooter Devin Kelley was lost two years later by a twist of bad luck when a Pentagon inspection of cases narrowly missed the former airman.

The Air Force said on Monday it had failed to provide information as required about Kelley's criminal history to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's criminal databases. It gave few other details about the omission.

A review of Department of Defense procedures by Reuters shows that the military twice should have flagged Kelley, then serving at a New Mexico base, after he was accused of repeatedly beating his wife and stepson.

If Pentagon rules had been followed, the Air Force should have put Kelley into national criminal databases used for background checks soon after he was charged.

The Air Force should then have flagged Kelley, 26, again later that year after his court-martial conviction for assault, which permanently disqualified him from legally getting a gun.

When presented with this account of how the FBI was not alerted about Kelley, Air Force officials confirmed the procedures that should have happened.

'That is what the investigation is looking at now,' Brooke Brzozowske, an Air Force spokeswoman, said. The FBI confirmed it never received Kelley's records.

Kelley bought guns from a store in Texas in 2016 and 2017, although it is not clear whether these were the weapons he used last Sunday to attack churchgoers in Sutherland Springs before killing himself. Authorities said he killed 26 people, including a pregnant woman's unborn child.

If the Air Force had flagged Kelley to the FBI either when he was charged and convicted, he would have been unable to get a gun legally.

Reuters has been unable to determine exactly how or why Kelley's records were not shared.

Kelley also narrowly slipped through the system in 2014 when the Pentagon's inspector general told the Air Force it was routinely failing to send criminal records to the FBI, and urged them to correct this in some old cases like Kelley's

The then inspector general, Jon Rymer, raised the alarm with the military.

He looked at 358 convictions against Air Force employees between June 2010, and October 2012. In about a third of those cases, fingerprints and court-martial outcomes were wrongly not relayed to the FBI, the inspector general's report said.

Rymer recommended that the Air Force send what missing fingerprints and records it could from his sample period to the FBI, and the Air Force agreed. But Kelley was convicted in November 2012, a week after the sample period ended, and it appears that his case was never looked at again.

The inspector general's office said it was investigating what happened with Kelley's file, and suggested that the military should have done more after its report to correct errors in sharing information.

'Our recommendations, while directed at the period that was reviewed and future investigations, also applied to the entire system,' said Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office.

According to statements from the Air Force and FBI and a review of Defense Department rules, the first mistake came when the Air Force failed to send along Kelley's fingerprints.

The military makes it mandatory to collect fingerprints when someone is accused of a serious crime such as assault, as Kelley was in June 2012.

By then, the US military had recently switched to using the FBI's automated records-submission system for all fingerprints, which digitally scans prints and adds them to FBI databases.

It was not clear what happened to Kelley's fingerprints. The Air Force said it was investigating whether they were even taken.

Entering his fingerprints and other information in the FBI's so-called Interstate Identification Index (III) would have been enough to flag Kelley as needing further investigation in 2016 when he tried to buy a gun at a San Antonio store.

'When they hit on a record like that they delay the transaction,' said Frank Campbell, a former Justice Department employee who helped develop the FBI's background check system that licensed gun dealers must consult before a potential sale.

The FBI would then have asked the Air Force the outcome of Kelley's case. The airman was convicted of a crime involving domestic violence that carries a maximum penalty of more than one year in prison, both of which disqualify a person from buying guns and ammunition under federal law.

The FBI could have then added Kelley's name to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Indices (NICS Indices), which would mean he would instantly fail future background checks.

Instead, Kelley cleared the background check and walked out of the store with a gun, and returned the following year, passed another background check and bought a second one, the store said.

According to Defense Department rules, the Air Force should have caught its error after Kelley's court-martial ended when it was obliged to notify the FBI that Kelley had been convicted, and that his crime involved domestic violence

The FBI said on Wednesday it had no record in its three databases for background checks, including the III database and the NICS Indices, of ever receiving information from the Air Force about Kelley's conviction.

Air Force officials said it was the responsibility of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the force's law enforcement agency, to take fingerprints and share any necessary information with the FBI, and it was not immediately clear why it had not.
2 held with homemade weapon in Rolpa

In the run-up to the parliamentary and provincial elections, police have arrested two persons in possession of homemade weapon in Rolpa on Wednesday. They were arrested from a Kathmandu bound bus (Ba 4 Kha 2608).
Election Day attention focused, predictably, on high-profile statewide races regarded as bellwethers. But local races were important too, such as the one in Westchester County, New York, in which a back-bench New York State senator unseated two-term incumbent Republican County Executive Rob Astorino. Westchesterlike Fairfax County in Virginia or Montgomery County in Marylandis no minor jurisdiction. Its population is just under 1 million (larger than that of six states) and includes such nationally known, upper-class communities as Scarsdale and Chappaqua. The county is far from uniformly wealthy, howeverit contains white working-class bastions (Yonkers), poor African-American cities (Mt. Vernon), and immigrant magnets (Port Chester, Mamaroneck). It makes a good political testbed, even if registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, two to one.

A one-time radio and television producer for ESPN and a pragmatic, innovative Republican who put up a respectable showing in the state gubernatorial race in 2014, Astorino had twice won deep-Blue Westchesterwhere high incomes meet some of the nations highest property taxesas a fiscal conservative. He made good on his promise to hold the line on county taxes, which have been flat, overall, since 2010. He did so in part by reducing the countys workforce by 1,000 employees and by playing hardball with public-sector unions, whom he pushed to pay a share of employee health-care costs. He advocated for the privatization of management and maintenance at the dilapidated county-owned airport in White Plainsan arrangement that would have netted millions annually in lease payments and private capital investment for upgrades, but will likely not go forward now, with his defeat. He responded to public concern about Uber and Lyft by initiating a program of voluntary driver-background checks. In a region with a large Hispanic immigrant population, he held off a sanctuary county effort led by the Democratic-controlled county legislature, promoting instead a plan for local police to refrain from checking immigrants legal status, except when arrested or suspected of criminal activity. Astorino was adept at reaching the compromise in short supply today in American politics.

Ultimately, though, his good ideas couldnt stem a Democratic tide, even against weak opposition. Astorinos opponent, State Senator George Latimer, had driven an unregistered car, amassed unpaid parking tickets totaling thousands of dollars, and missed a state budget vote because he was vacationing in Londonwith a woman not his wife. No matter: Astorino was likely hurt by liberal voter resentment against President Trump. In one television ad, the Latimer campaign flashed a mock cover of Trumps book The Art of the Deal, doctored to feature the president and Astorino, along with a voice-over: Its the Trump playbook, and Rob Astorino copies every word.

Astorino had romped previously in conservative and Italian-American parts of the countybut he had also won, or come close, in more liberal and moderate sections. In 2013, he narrowly won liberal, multicultural Ossining, by about 100 votes; this year, he lost by almost 2,000. In 2013, hed come within 150 votes of winning liberal, Jewish Scarsdale; this time he lost it by some 1,300 votes. Last time out, hed won liberal Pelham outright; this time he lost it badly. Whats more, throughout Westchester, not only did the Democratic vote rise dramatically, but Astorinos Republican vote also declined. The victorious Latimer received 35,000 more votes than the Democratic loser in 2013, while Astorinos total was down by 12,000. Democrats were energized, and Republicans appear to have been disaffected.

Astorino may have hurt his cause by permitting a gun show to go on at a county-owned auditorium and generally sticking to a socially conservative agenda. The Blue-state Republican playbook seems to require a mix of fiscal conservatism and social libertarianism; consider Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, currently the nations most popular governor. Astorinos defeat means that New Yorkers have lost a serious policymaker and proven candidate who might have made noise at the state level. In his 2014 gubernatorial run, he held Andrew Cuomo to 54 percent and won most of the states counties outside New York City. This year, though, Astorino was apparently sunk by a surge of anti-Trump sentiment.
A sidebar to the story of the ISIS-affiliated Somali men convicted on terrorism charges last year in federal district court in Minneapolis: one of the men who pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution had worked on the tarmac at MinneapolisSt. Paul International Airport (MSP) and could have done serious harm. So had the one who turned informant and was never charged in the case. When his FBI interlocutors persuaded him to turn, he had a question for them: Can I get my job at the airport back?

Thats not all. In his March 29, 2016 Star Tribune story, Stephen Montemayor reported in passing that local imams and Muslim community leaders had received a behind-the-scenes security tour in February last year at MSP. Montemayor mentioned the tour when he noted that Hassan Mohamudalso known as Sheikh Hassan, an imam working as a legal assistant for one of the defendantshad been uninvited from the tour.

What was that tour for Muslims only all about?

I asked MSP spokesman Patrick Hogan, who Hogan referred me to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), agencies under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). A TSA spokesman denied knowledge (wrongly, as it turned out). Several calls to CBP led me to Midwest CBP spokesman Kristoffer Grogan, in Michigan. Grogan explained by email:

Per our conversation U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conducted a community engagement tour at the St. Paul International Airport on February 18th. The tour included roughly 20 community members from the greater Minneapolis area and was facilitated through the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The tour showed the participants the process that all arriving passengers go through when arriving at the Federal Inspection Services (FIS) area at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. CBP conducts these types of tours regularly as part of our outreach efforts to improve ties between CBP and our community members. The tour was conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection leadership assigned to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. I currently do not have a list of those who attended the tour. You would need to reach out to the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties for that information.

I followed up with calls and inquiries to the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the number provided by Grogan. I received an unilluminating response from DHS press secretary Marsha Catron, who advised me of the departments procedure for submitting a Freedom of Information Act request. Catron didnt respond to further inquiries.

Getting information about the tour from DHS has been like pulling teeth without benefit of anesthetic. After two FOIA requests, two appeals of the responses to my FOIA requests, and one FOIA lawsuit filed in federal district court here, I have received 78 heavily redacted pages about the 2016 tour. (Ive posted the documents on Scribd.) Two pages listing the tour participants and their nationalities are blacked out. The text of the invitation, however, was provided:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would like to invite you to participate in a tour of the MinneapolisSt. Paul International Airport as part of our ongoing efforts to engage with community leaders and members. During the event, participants will be provided with a step-by-step tour of our operations, designed to offer a greater understanding of airport processes and procedures. Throughout the event, we will discuss traveler expectations, rights, and procedures. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of representatives from DHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration. . . . Participants will be met by airport officials and led into the secure area of the airport. . . . Please note that this event will be closed to the press and participants will not be allowed to take pictures or video recordings during the event.

I wrote to DHS, seeking a spokesman or officer who would give me background on the rationale for the tours. I heard back again from Grogan, who responded: Every year CBP conducts numerous events and programs around the country in which civic, religious and community leaders, as well as interested residents, are afforded an inside look at how CBP secures the border at and between ports of entries. CBP is committed to fostering a positive relationship within the communities we live and serve.

One such group, it turns out, is the immigration-law section of the Minnesota State Bar Association, whose members I joined for the tour given on October 12 by Minneapolis CBP Chief Brian Nevanen and Officer Abby Hair at MSP. Walking us through the international-arrivals area on the west end of MSP, the CBP officers explained the current processing of passengers arriving at the airport for admission to the United States. The officers took us to an area that I hadnt seen before, where passengers get interviewed by officers. The immigration lawyers asked technical questions about forms, detention and removal procedures, attorney-client communications, and other such matters. Nevanen and Hair answered every question, including one asking about the officers strangest experience. Answer: an arriving physician slit his throat awaiting an interview (his life was saved). We received some useful advice regarding the CBPs protection of trademarks. CBP officers seize trademarked product knockoffs, we were told, but one knockoff per trademark is allowed. (Rolex is an exception: none is permitted.)

In truth, the lawyers tour only occasionally escaped the mundane. The documents produced in response to my FOIA request, however, show the lawyers tour to be something like a poor mans version of the 2016 edition given to local Somalis. They received the deluxe version.

Invitations to take the February 18, 2016, tour went out to selected imams and Somali community leaders. It was a big event: unlike the bar association tour, the Somali tour included TSA representatives to provide an overview of their operations and processes and address what the memo calls stakeholder community questions. After the tour, community members . . . shared comments about their experiences with DHS at a roundtable discussion. TSA representatives discussed steps being taken to improve ties with local Somali community members. CBP and TSA job vacancies were also discussed: Attendees responded with requests for DHS outreach efforts during Somali community events to further advertise these positions to interested individuals.

Security concerns permeate the documents. Those Somalis invited to attend the 2016 tour were required to submit passport and other such identifying information. (The bar association required us to submit only our full names and birthdates.) Some did not submit the required information; if they failed to supply it on further request, they were excluded from the tour.

The documents refer to four closed cases involving those invited and a man who gave Chicago CBP a hard time after attending the last outreach eventguessing that they might bring it up so whoever is going to be there might want to read over the [redacted]. One case is described as open, but barely. The United States Attorney was to be consulted on that one. At least two of those invited failed the security screening. We know that one who had already taken the tour the year before (Hassan Mohamud) failed it. The Star Tribune reported that a group of 50 had been invited on the tour; the documents show that, after vetting, just 17 were permitted to take it.

All of which raises the question: Why was this tour given in the first place? Grogan told me that tours like the one I took with the bar association have been given at MSP since 2005, but he could not tell me how long the deluxe version, given to Somalis only, has been conducted. As usual, my inquiry to Marsha Catron in the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties went unanswered.

Chief Nevanen told us that the tours are intended to educate the public and publicize the agencys good work at the airport. DHSs approach to my requests for basic information regarding the Somali tour, however, suggests reluctance to get the word out. The tour given to Somali community leaders appears to be little more than another extraordinarily foolish legacy of the Obama era of good feelings.

Photo by Michael Ocampo
One typically busy morning in a charity office, an older woman walked in unannounced and asked to see someone about making a donation. A fundraiser, who was about to start a full day of meetings and activities, came to reception and asked how he could help. The visitor explained that her husband had recently died and that she wished to make a gift in his name. Aware that the clock was ticking, the fundraiser could have simply asked: How much would you like to give? or How would you prefer to pay? But instead, he invited her to take a seat, arranged for some hot drinks, and said these words: Tell me about your husband.

The newly widowed woman seemed glad  indeed, relieved  to be asked this question, and in the course of talking about her late husband, the fundraiser learnt a lot of useful information that helped him to understand why the couple had a connection to the cause, what level of donation was likely, and what sort of recognition would be most suitable. That first chat was the start of a mutually beneficial, lifelong relationship that ended with a generous bequest for the charity.
When Alice Rogoff bought Alaskas largest newspaper from media publishing chain McClatchy in 2014, she was making a bullish bet on the state and what she saw as its expanding role in the nascent economy of the far north. Oil prices were cruising above $100 per barrel. The shrinking Arctic ice pack seemed to indicate surefire growth in shipping, oil and gas development, and fishing. Russia loomed as a vague but steady threat, ensuring the continuation ofand a possible increase inmilitary spending.

Rogoff brought her family wealth to bear in a deal to purchase the Anchorage Daily News at a premium and turn it into her own media brand, Alaska Dispatch News. (Rogoff is married to David Rubenstein, a billionaire three times over who, until recently, was chief executive of the Carlyle Group, one of the worlds largest private equity firms.) She is among a handful of uber-rich individuals who have in recent years bought into print media markets across America. Theres Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos; Boston Red Sox and Boston Globe owner John Henry; and famed investor Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns 31 small dailies and 47 weeklies.

ICYMI: Newspaper rocked by plagiarism scandal

Moneyed owner-benefactors can be a boon to struggling print news outlets, often showering much-needed resources on newsrooms and having greater tolerances for loss than corporate owners. Thats all fine until the money runs out, which is what has happened over the past three years at the Dispatch. The newspaper went from being a lean but profitable McClatchy property to near-fatal insolvency under Rogoff, who served as owner and publisher until September.

Oil prices plunged not long after she bought the paper. The resulting recession, which is ongoing, and the general flight from print newspapers did ample damage to subscriptions and advertising. But an unavoidable fact is that Rogoff ran the Dispatch like a philanthropic project, one in which loads of cash could, for a time, paper over a series of business decisions that would ultimately lead to bankruptcy.

***

Rogoffs willingness to pour her personal wealth into Alaska journalism was apparent from July 2009, when she bought a 90-percent share of a struggling online news startup, Alaska Dispatch, founded by Tony Hopfinger and his now ex-wife, Amanda Coyne. Soon the newsroom, in offices attached to an airplane hangar, was stocked with beer, wine and enough food to provide the staff with three square meals a day. Rogoffs private plane was available for reporting and photography trips. She published a coffee-table book called Alaska Dispatch: The Places Weve Gone and hosted company parties at her rambling, shingled mansion on Campbell Lake.

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But even with Rogoffs support, Alaska Dispatch could not come close to matching the print and online reach of the hometown paper of record, the Anchorage Daily News. And although the online-only news model was the future, print was still a major Daily News revenue source. In 2013 the Dispatch, whose motto had been, We dont do dead trees, began angling to do dead trees in hopes of picking up more advertisers and readers.

Hopfinger says he had reservations about purchasing the competition given long-term declines in print subscriptions. Not only myself, but others tried to tell her not to buy the paper, Hopfinger says of Rogoff. A lot of people told her not to do it. Rogoff bought out Hopfingers share of Dispatch and proceeded with the deal, valued at $34 million, in 2014. (By comparison, Henry purchased the Globe and several other media properties for $70 million in 2013. The Globes weekday circulation of 246,000 was six times greater than that of the Daily News.)

To meet the steep sales price, Rogoff took out a $13 million personal loan from Northrim Bank and put in another $6 million herself. She also sold the Daily News building to Alaska telecom company GCI for $14.5 million in a related deal.

The loss of the newspapers former headquarters presented an immediate problem. The immense, three-story printing press that had spit out thousands of Anchorage Daily News editions, and was still vital to the paper in its newest incarnation, was cemented to the floors of a building that the company no longer owned. A second, smaller press that brought in millions in revenue through commercial printing operations was also there.

Ron Duncan, chief executive of GCI, wanted to turn the space occupied by the presses into a warehouse. But Duncan was friendly with Rogoffthe two once co-owned an airplane hangar at Anchorages Merrill Fieldand agreed to lease the space to the paper under the assumption the presses would soon be removed. The latest in a series of lease agreements had the Daily News committing to vacate the building by December 2016 or else incur financial penalties.

In addition to meeting the papers steep sales price, Rogoff began her time as owner with a growing mass of fixed expenses. Aside from leasing the newspaper building rather than own it (as McClatchy had done), she entered a second lease at a Midtown Anchorage office building to house the news and business operations. She took on new operating costsaccounting, advertising, page design and morethat McClatchys corporate offices had previously handled. And she balked at reducing the payroll of the newly merged newsrooms. She in fact hired more staffers, myself included, even after it became clear the paper was losing money.

Her idea was to build an Alaska-based media powerhouse that would dominate coverage of not just the state, but the entire Arctic, a region Rogoff ardently believes is on the verge of a full-fledged economic bonanza. To that end, Rogoffs ADN sent a veteran Daily News reporter to live and work in the remote Western Alaska community of Bethel. For a time, the paper discussed opening other rural bureaus in Nome and Utqiagvik. ADN hired a former Politico reporter to cover Alaska news coming out of Washington, DC, and a seasoned videographer from Seattle. Arctic Fellows from the Columbia Journalism School worked in the newsroom during the summers, receiving stipends, free lodging and vehicles. (Rogoff is on the Board of Overseers of CJR.)

In March 2016, Rogoff published a piece on the opinion page that said To quote Jeff Bezos, were in investment mode,' echoing assurances the Post owner had given to his own staff a month earlier. She announced the purchase of a higher-quality printing press and reassured readers of the papers plans to be printing for years, and perhaps decades to come.

But before the newly acquired press, purchased for $500,000 and transported from Indiana to Alaska, could replace the old press in the GCI building, Rogoff had to find it a home. After placing ads in the paper and asking staff to pass along any leads, she finally found a warehouse in an out-of-the-way industrial area on Arctic Boulevard and began the complex and costly job of refurbishing it. Rogoff had decided to convert what court documents later called the Arctic Road property to house not just the newly purchased and commercial presses, but ADNs entire operation. The decision added a third building lease and a big remodeling project to the balance sheet.

I knew from the beginning these mistakes were having an effect, but I assumed her deep pockets would cover our problems.

The main mistake was having to sell the building in order to buy the paper because that meant we lost control of the press, says Rich Mauer, who worked as an investigative reporter at the Daily News and as an editor at the Dispatch. I knew from the beginning these mistakes were having an effect, but I assumed her deep pockets would cover our problems.

***

Rogoffs came to ADN with a strong media pedigree. Fresh out of Harvard Business School, Rogoff, who says she was a news junkie even then, became an assistant for Donald Graham at The Washington Post. She later served as chief financial officer at US News & World Report.

Her first Alaska-related endeavors were unrelated to media. She initially visited the state in 2001 during a family vacation. A trip to St. Lawrence Island the following year inspired her to found the Alaska Native Arts Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the cultural contributions of the states indigenous peoples, and Alaska House, a Soho boutique selling Alaska Native art.

While Rogoffs enthusiasm for journalism in Alaska could be measured in dollars, her vision for the paper was often difficult to interpret, according to multiple managers who reported directly to Rogoff.

She would come in and give one direction and then a contrasting direction a week later and wonder why we hadnt done the first thing when she had said the second thing, says one senior manager who asked not to be named out of concern for their professional reputation.

The lack of clear instruction led to constant tension, but no resolution, over how to manage finances and whether or not to commence layoffs. According to Hopfinger, Rogoff said the paper had to make more money because all the funds were coming from her piggy bank.

And yet for nearly three years she continued to cover the losses, sometimes abruptly coming up with the money just as bills were coming due, Hopfinger says.

Rogoff disagrees with the characterization of her wishes for the paper and her managerial decisions as being difficult to interpret.

I did not want to force managers to do things they didnt want to do, she says. If I seemed to back off from something its because they seemed to resist and that becomes kind of a standoff. I was always a consensus-style manager, not a dictatorial one.

ICYMI: A recent op-ed made a very important point about the word collusion

The single-owner model introduced a new element of instability that hadnt existed under McClatchy. Even in the years when Rogoff willingly poured millions into the ADN, there remained the inescapable fact that the newspaper was linked to the fortune and fate of one individual. In July 2016, on her way to a friends 91st birthday celebration, Rogoff crashed her small plane into the waters of Halibut Covean incident that underscored ADNs vulnerability. (Rogoff was uninjured and later attended the party.)

Adding to the uncertainty was a public falling-out that summer with Hopfinger, who had left the paper the previous year to care for ailing family members. In April 2014, Rogoff had written a note on a cocktail napkin promising to pay him $100,000 annually for 10 years. She later changed her mind.

Hopfinger, who in addition to being a business partner was once a close friend of Rogoffs, filed a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, among other counts, in a case that is ongoing.

As far as me and her, I absolutely hate that Im in litigation with her, Hopfinger says. But we had a deal and she didnt honor it. Rogoff would not comment on the lawsuit.

The truth of the matter is, Alice staffed up the newsroom so readers probably enjoyed more content in print than without her taking it. One would have thought circulation would have increased more when she was subsidizing it, but that didnt happen.

Paid print circulation numbers did not significantly change in the three years Rogoff owned the paper. Under McClatchy, circulation declined annually by eight to 10 percent for at least two years before the sale and they continued to do so under Rogoff, according to audited figures provided by Roger Weinfurter, ADNs vice president of circulation.

The truth of the matter is, Alice staffed up the newsroom so readers probably enjoyed more content in print than without her taking it, Weinfurter says. One would have thought circulation would have increased more when she was subsidizing it, but that didnt happen.

***

By the beginning of 2017, the paper no longer spent so freely. Rogoff, who did away with the Daily News online paywall erected by McClatchy, put up one of her own. The paper stopped printing a Saturday edition. Open newsroom positions went unfilled.

Then came the news that work on the Arctic Road property had encountered delays and exceeded its budget. The project was managed on Rogoffs behalf by Ed McCoy, the contractor who transformed Rogoffs large home into a bona fide mansion, but had no experience supervising the complex job of dismantling, moving, and reassembling a newspaper printing press.

Rogoff says McCoy clashed with the contractor who represented the property owner, Arctic Partners, LLC.

Ed and that contractor had different points of view, Rogoff says. But I dont want to place blame on anyone. I managed that project in a way that disappointed me, and lets just let it go at that.

On June 1, a local electrical contractor, M&M Wiring, filed a lawsuit claiming that $454,000 in invoices for work done on the Arctic building at ADNs behest had not been paid. Catalyst Paper Company did the same about three weeks later, claiming ADN owed it about $50,000.

On August 11, GCI filed an eviction notice against ADN. Multiple deadlines for moving the printing press out of the building had come and gone, and the paper owed GCI $1.4 million in rent and utilities, according to the filing. The company also claimed that removing the press would cost the paper $1.5 million.

The next day, ADN filed for bankruptcy.

I simply ran out of my ability to subsidize this great news product. Financial realities cant be wished away, Rogoff told ADN business reporter Annie Zak in an article on the bankruptcy.

The subsequent public airing of company finances showed the paper never made money under Rogoff. After the sale to McClatchy, net operating losses rose to several million dollars annually in 2015 and 2016. Losses stood at $4 million for the first half of 2017.

Rogoff told the court she had poured nearly $17 million of her own money into shoring up the paper, which she wholly owned through her limited liability company, The Moon and the Stars. She also owed Northrim Bank $10 million on the personal loan she had taken out to purchase ADN.

In court filings, Rogoff reiterated the loss of her ability to personally finance the papers future operations. The total debt her newspaper owed to dozens of unsecured creditors was $2.5 million.

The limited liability structure Rogoff used as the papers owner has so far shielded her personal assets from the claims of creditors. Though Rubenstein sent money to Rogoff under a marital settlement agreement, he was not involved in the newspaper. Neither is obligated under the law to repay the unsecured creditors in the case, including ADN reporters who are owed reimbursement expenses.

Embed from Getty Images

David Rubenstein and Alice Rogoff pose on the red carpet during the The 36th Kennedy Center Honors gala at the Kennedy Center on December 8, 2013.

Rogoff would not comment on the record about the unpaid bills, or the role her husband might have in helping to settle her ADN debts. I make it a rule not to comment on private, family matters, she wrote in an email.

Duncan, of GCI, has some regrets about engaging in a business relationship with Rogoff. They had attended Harvard Business School at the same time, and he had trusted her resume. Plus, she had, he says, talked a good game. On a personal level theyd had what he describes as a good relationship.

We probably should have done better due diligence, Duncan says. In my mind, the failure of the newspaper was the result of gross incompetence.

***

Rogoff began a national search for buyers in early 2017. The strongest expression of interest came from the Binkleys, a well-to-do family of riverboat tour operators from Fairbanks, whose experience in the news business amounted to an unsuccessful attempt to buy their hometown paper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, in 2015.

Ryan Binkley, president of the family business, took over the role of publishing the paper throughout the bankruptcy process, while Rogoff remained the owner. The Binkleys brought in Jerry Grilly, a longtime publisher of the Anchorage Daily News who is also widely credited with turning around the Denver Post, as a consultant. Jason Evans, owner of three rural Alaska newspapers, served as co-publisher.

When asked why she believed the newspaper went bankrupt, Rogoff says the Binkleys and Duncan, of GCI, worked in concert to force her to sell the ADN, with GCI starting the process through its filing of the eviction notice.

I believe the Binkleys and GCI together decided to force me to sell and the only recourse I had was to go into bankruptcy, she says. I think at the end of the day it was probably political. The management of GCI wanted to see the paper in the hands of people with conservative state politics. There is a sizable group of business people in Anchorage who believe the role of a newspaper is boosterism. Ron Duncan is one of that group. Time will tell whether the Binkleys are as well.

I could be wrong, she adds. Maybe they didnt like the color of my hair.

Binkley calls Rogoffs allegation not factual.

I dont understand. Why did she think this? he says. Nobody forced her to do anything.

Binkley describes the state of the paper on the day Rogoff filed for bankruptcy: ADN was occupying the GCI building, where the press was, without a lease; almost $3 million in bills had gone unpaid, including two months of employee insurance premiums and rent at the Arctic Boulevard and GCI buildings; Rogoff owed $10 million to Northrim Bank; half a payroll period was in danger of going unpaid for lack of cash; and losses were averaging $25,000 a day. There were also the lawsuits brought by contractors, the paper supplier, Hopfinger and GCI.

Binkleys father, John, a former Republican state legislator, is pondering a run for governor. Ryan Binkley insists the newspaper purchase is unrelated to his fathers political aspirations.

We didnt buy the paper for political reasons, Binkley says. We already tried to buy our hometown paper because we think its a viable industry. Theres no political motivation for us.

Duncan says GCIs filing of the eviction notice was purely a business decision, based on ADNs failure to pay rent and utilities for three straight months. The telecom company occupies several warehouses throughout the city. Since purchasing the former Anchorage Daily News building in 2014, it has been planning to consolidate storage there, following removal of the press, for a projected monthly savings of about $200,000, Duncan says.

We were essentially subsidizing the newspaper, Duncan says. My concern was never for the politics of the paper, my concern was over our economic interests.

Whatever the reasons, the newspaper is, once again, in the hands of wealthy owners. But Ryan Binkley emphasized in several meetings with staff that he and his three siblings, who would all be owners along with Evans and Evanss wife, did not have the resources Rogoff had.

The Binkleys loaned the newspaper $1 million during the bankruptcy proceedings to keep the paper from shutting down. The sale price was $1 million. And the parties agreed that the entirety of the loan would go toward the purchase, leaving the rest of the outstanding debts with the newspapers old owners.

The price, then, of the newspaper that Rogoff had paid millions for three years earlier, minus the cash the Binkleys put into it?

$0.

TRENDING: New York Times makes important statement about mass shootings with a series of clocks

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Jeannette Lee Falsey is a former business reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and was one of 17 editorial staffers who were laid off after the sale to the Binkleys. Previously she worked at the Associated Press and Atlantic Media Company.
2 injured as NC, left alliance cadres clash in Solukhumbu

Two persons have been reported injured in a clash that broke out between the cadres of Nepali Congress (NC) and left alliance in Sotang of Solukhubmu on Friday.
TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer outlined policy changes Thursday after a backlash from a report that revealed how comments detailing sexual assaults and rape were removed from the site.



Multiple people told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that their stories of blackouts and rapes, among others, had been removed from TripAdvisor. In response, the company announced it would suggest edits to posts instead of simply rejecting them. It also plans to add a designation to resorts that had been flagged for issues like sexual assault.

Kaufer said TripAdvisor allows "firsthand descriptions of horrific events, like rape." However, he noted, secondhand information could cause for a post to be deleted.

"When reviews have been rejected in the past, it's never been because they've said something bad. It's occasionally been because the review itself contained secondhand information. It contained other rumors or innuendo that was posted," Kaufer said on Thursday, in an interview with NBC News.

"And that's another policy change," he added. "We won't just reject the review, we'll encourage the reviewer to come forward, perhaps taking out a sentence or two that we'll highlight for them in order to get that firsthand story reported so that everyone else can see it. I really think that in turn will go a long way in presenting a much more complete story for travelers all around the world."

TripAdvisor last week announced a new marker to indicate hotels and resorts that have garnered accounts of sexual assaults and other concerns like health, safety and discrimination issues. Three resorts in Mexico have already been flagged.

TripAdvisor started thinking about the idea months ago, Kaufer said Thursday, noting that the designation does not always need to start with a review. A resort may receive a badge if a credible media report identifies an issue, he said.

"We came up with the idea that even when the reviews themselves may not mention something that we feel is important for travelers to understand, we want to have a mechanism to be able to post that, and so that's what we've finally rolled out now," Kaufer said.

The site's mission is to help travelers understand what their vacation will be like, Kaufer said. And the badges add an extra layer to that.
Chinese bank staff member counting stacks of 100-yuan notes at a bank in Huaibei, China.

China will lift the ceiling on foreign equity ownership in joint-venture firms involved in the futures, securities and funds markets to 51 percent, a vice finance minister said on Friday.

No specific timetable was given for lifting the equity ownership limit to 51 percent from the current 49 percent.

China will remove all equity ownership limits in many financial sectors after three years, Vice Minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao told a news conference.

China will relax controls on foreign ownership in Chinese banks, insurance companies, and asset management firms, the official said.

Zhu said the time is right for China to step up the liberalization of its financial sector.

CNBC contributed to this report.
China's largest cutter-suction dredger, the Tian Kun Hao, takes water on November 3, 2017 in Qidong, Jiangsu Province, China. Measuring 140 meters long, the vessel is capable of dredging 6,000 cubic meters per hour. It can dig up to 35 meters deep and boasts a maximum conveyance of 15,000 meters.

Beijing has a new ship capable of creating artificial islands  potentially the largest of its kind in Asia  raising fears it could be deployed in the tension-laden South China Sea.

The world's second-largest economy is testing a new deep sea dredger, an excavation vessel used for land reclamation, state-run media recently reported. The 140-meter-long Tian Kun Hao is capable of gathering 6,000 cubic meters of sand per hour from 35 meters beneath the sea and moving it away to create new land features, according to propaganda outlet Global Times.

China has many land reclamation projects along its coastlines, so the presence of a new dredger isn't unusual. But the nation's track record of territorial aggression has spurred concerns the device will be used to create man-made islands in the South China Sea.

Beijing has previously utilized dredgers to create seven fortified islands  some of which now house airfields, missile bases and radar systems  in the international waterway. That happened despite contesting assertions of sovereignty from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping's administration relies on a concept known as the nine-dash line to mark territorial claims, which extend roughly 1,000 miles from the nation's southern shores.

"Given the strategic importance of the South China Sea islands and the extent of their recent development it would certainly be reasonable to suspect that this dredger might be used there," said Duncan Innes-Ker, Asia regional director at The Economist Intelligence Unit.
CNBC's Jim Cramer knows that the cybersecurity industry isn't going anywhere but up anytime soon.

"Cybersecurity is, unfortunately, a secular growth business, meaning that long term, hackers and digital terrorists [are] going to keep trying to steal our data and mess up our systems," the "Mad Money" host said. "That's why I think it's worth circling back to the companies that combat this stuff, especially since the whole cohort pulled back today, so it's a good opportunity. When a secular growth group pulls back, you need to use the weakness to dip your toe in the water."

Cramer started with Mimecast , a cloud-based data security company that came public less than two years ago. With shares up 72 percent so far in 2017, Mimecast specializes in protecting employees' email accounts at large companies.

Emails may not sound like the most exciting medium for mitigating cyberattacks, but it's anything but stale: in September, Mimecast's CEO told Cramer that hackers are increasingly realizing that humans, not computers, are the "weakest links" when it comes to breaches.

While the company's second-quarter results took the stock down slightly on Thursday, Cramer said that the metrics still looked good and that investors might be getting a rare buying opportunity.

Israeli cybersecurity firm Cyberark was another one of Cramer's picks. The company protects administrator accounts, which hackers often target because they can unlock digital ecosystems.

Cyberark has a strong long-term track record, but the stock is down 3 percent for 2017 due to management's full-year guidance cut in May and a weak earnings pre-announcement in July.

But Cyberark's third-quarter earnings report last Thursday showed improvement, beating top- and bottom-line estimates and raising full-year guidance.

"The stock rallied more than 11 percent on the news, but since then, it's pulled back a bit, including today," Cramer said. "I think you're getting a buying opportunity in Cyberark."

Cramer also liked the stock of Proofpoint , which helps companies handle advanced cyberattacks that occur via email, mobile and social media.

"Sure, defending mobile apps may not seem as important as defending the demilitarized zone in Korea or crushing ISIS, but there's no denying that Proofpoint is a lucrative business," the "Mad Money" host quipped to a room full of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Shares of Proofpoint have rallied almost 700 percent over the last five years, including a 24 percent run just in 2017. The stock declined on Thursday, so Cramer blessed the strategy of scaling into it slowly on the way down.

But Cramer's favorite pick in the space was the stock of Palo Alto Networks , an enterprise-level cybersecurity giant led by West Point alumnus Mark McLaughlin.

Even though the company boasts 42,000 customers in more than 150 countries, Palo Alto's stock has been struggling, far off its 52-week highs due to sales issues in its second quarter. That said, some analysts on Wall Street have re-valued the company's platform and since upgraded the stock, lifting it off its April lows.

Cramer agreed with the upgrades, recommending that investors carefully buy into some shares ahead of the company's next earnings report.

"Here's the bottom line: Some of these cybersecurity stocks have been consistent winners while others, like Palo Alto, have been humbled. But this theme's not going away, which is why it's safe to pick up stocks like Palo Alto into weakness, and you have a ton of weakness right now," the "Mad Money" host said.
40 injured as bus carrying schools kids meets with accident

Forty students have been injured when a bus carrying students met with an accident at Sukrauli, Nawalparasi on Friday.
Their lawyer in court documents said the women were "lured" to New York by Rubin and his accused co-conspirators to meet Rubin "on the pretense of 'companionship and photoshoots,' only to have Rubin assault and rape them."

The suit, which seeks more than $30 million in damages, says Rubin paid the women for their travel and time with him in New York.

The suit also says the women each returned to New York from Florida, sometimes with other women, to visit him even after allegedly experiencing injurious violence at his hands.

The women are identified by pseudonyms in their lawsuit.

That lawsuit, filed by two self-identified Playboy models and another model from Florida, claims they were beaten, sexually abused and raped by the married Rubin, a former top manager at Soros Fund Management and Bear Stearns, in multiple incidents in New York City in 2016.

Balestriere also told CNBC that the Brooklyn, New York, federal prosecutors' office reached out to him about potentially investigating Rubin after he filed suit on the women's behalf. A spokesman for federal prosecutors declined to comment.

But the women's lawyer, John Balestriere, said that man has nothing to do with the women's claims and was not acting on the women's behalf in any conversations the man may have had with Schnur.

New Jersey prosecutors told CNBC that a Maryland resident identified by Schnur as that man is due to surrender next week to face extortion charges.

Rubin's lawyer, Yifat Schnur, also said a Maryland man tried to shake Rubin down for almost $10 million in exchange for keeping quiet about the women's claims in the weeks before a lawyer for the women sent Schnur a draft version of their lawsuit.

The lawyer for famed money manager Howie Rubin said that claims in a shocking lawsuit accusing him of rape and human trafficking of women are "a web of lies intended to extort Mr. Rubin."

Lawyers for the women said Rubin and several cohorts worked together to entice women "to travel across the United States to a secret penthouse Rubin controlled in Midtown Manhattan."

"In the penthouse, Rubin would beat and rape the women," the lawyers said.

Rubin's lawyer, Schnur, said the women's attorneys asked Rubin to pay the women $32 million before the complaint was filed.

Schnur, a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

The suit claims Schnur drafted the nondisclosure agreements "that are provided to the victims prior to meeting Rubin" in an attempt to prevent the alleged crimes committed against the women from being exposed.

Schnur, in a statement, said, "The allegations against Mr. Rubin and his attorney, Ms. Schnur, contained in the complaint are fabricated, baseless and without merit."

"The plaintiff's complaint is a web of lies intended to extort Mr. Rubin," Schnur said. "All appropriate law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been contacted."

The FBI's field office in New York did not respond to a request for comment.

Balestriere, the women's lawyer, said, "If she's contacted the FBI, I'll speak to them any day of the week."

In another layer of claims, Schnur said that on Aug. 11, a Maryland man named Robert Aloi emailed a board member of a charitable organization that Rubin is involved in.

Aloi, whom Schnur described as a friend and former employer of two of the plaintiffs, told the board member that it was urgent that Rubin speak with Aloi about one of the plaintiffs, Schnur said.

Schnur says she spoke with Aloi via phone on Aug. 14. A spokesman for Schnur said Aloi asked for $9.95 million in exchange for keeping quiet about Rubin's alleged activities with the women.

On Aug. 21, Schnur said, she contacted law enforcement about Aloi's alleged extortion effort against Rubin. Schnur said that several weeks later, on Sept. 15, Aloi canceled a meeting with her that had been scheduled for Sept. 18.

On Sept. 18, a warrant was signed for Aloi's arrest on a charge of theft by extortion by a judge in Middlesex County, New Jersey.

That warrant, provided to CNBC by the Middlesex County prosecutor's office, said that Aloi, between Aug. 11 and Sept. 18, engaged in extortionate conduct by demanding in excess of $75,000 "from the victim in return for not exposing any secret or asserted fact, whether true or false."

The victim was not identified by name in the warrant.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said she could not comment on whether Rubin was the victim in Aloi's case.

The spokeswoman also said Aloi is due to surrender Monday in New Jersey and is slated to appear in court the following day.

When CNBC called Aloi's home in Maryland, a woman who answered said she would get him to the phone. After a minute or so, the woman returned to the line and said Aloi was "no longer available to talk."

When told that a reporter wanted to speak to Aloi about allegations that he tried to extort money from Rubin, the woman said "OK," and took the reporter's contact information.

Aloi did not return that request for comment, nor did he respond to an email sent to his company.

Schnur said that the women's lawyer, Balestriere, on Sept. 19, emailed to her a draft of the civil lawsuit that ended up being filed by him last week in Brooklyn federal court.

For his part, Balestriere said, "our clients have nothing to do with him," when asked about Aloi. He said that any contact Aloi may have had with Rubin or Schnur was done without the participation of his clients or their knowledge.

Asked why his clients had returned to New York to see Rubin even after experiencing violence at his hands, Balestriere said the women "were very afraid of this man." The lawyer said that even before the women met Rubin, he had obtained "a lot of information about them," including their dates of birth and addresses.

"They were afraid of not cooperating" with Rubin, and also believed, erroneously, that nondisclosure agreements they had signed prevented them from telling lawyers what was happening to them, Balestriere said.
Nvidia's chips have proven valuable in the mining of digital currencies like bitcoin and ethereum, but it appears that the market is experiencing some cooling.

Revenue from crypto-related products dropped by more than half to $70 million in the third quarter from $150 million in the prior period, Nvidia said on Thursday.

Cryptocurrencies have been a boon for Nvidia's graphics processing units, which are prominent in gaming and machine learning. GPUs are used by crypto miners for performing the sophisticated computing work required to accumulate currencies.

"Crypto is small for us but not zero, and I believe that crypto will be around for some time," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on the earnings call.

, which competes with Nvidia in the GPU market, has warned investors of slowing growth. CEO Lisa Su said last month that the company expects "some leveling-off of some of the cryptocurrency demand."

Still, Huang is optimistic about the future of Nvidia's CUDA GPUs in the crypto market as new virtual currencies emerge.

"The ideal platform for new emerging digital currencies turns out to be a CUDA GPU," he said.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attend a ceremony in the port of Manila on Oct. 25, 2017.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is facing international criticism for his bloody war on drugs, said his country was willing to host a "world summit" to tackle how nations can protect human rights.

The firebrand leader, who spoke in a news conference late on Thursday while in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, said the summit should focus on human rights violations not just in the Philippines but globally.

Some western countries and human rights groups have strongly criticised Duterte's anti-narcotics campaign that has killed more than 3,900 suspected drug users and peddlers, in what the police called self-defence after armed suspects resisted arrest.

Critics dispute that and say executions are taking place with zero accountability, allegations the police reject.

"Let's have a summit of how we can protect human rights for all human race," Duterte said shortly after meeting with the Filipino community in Vietnam, where he also renewed his attacks against United Nations human rights expert Agnes Callamard.

"What makes the death of people in the Philippines more important than the rest of the children in the world that were massacred and killed," he asked.

He said all victims of human rights violations are welcome to attend the summit and air their grievances.
A few days after President Donald Trump made a high-profile pitch for Saudi Aramco to list on the New York Stock Exchange, prominent investor Mark Mobius said the city is "pretty much out" of the running.

A number of exchanges including those in New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore are gunning for the initial public offering of Saudi Arabia's state oil company  estimated to be one of the most valuable companies in the world. Aramco has said it will float its shares on the local Saudi exchange, Tadawul, and another one or two overseas markets in the second half of 2018.

"I think New York is pretty much out because of the risk that they have litigation. London may be out too because they don't want to disclose a lot of the inner workings of Aramco, so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens with that deal," Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said Friday on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

A Financial Times report in June said lawyers warned Saudi Arabia that a New York listing posed "the greatest litigation risk of any jurisdiction." Reuters followed up with a report in August that the Middle Eastern kingdom still favored New York despite the risks.

Trump on Sunday tweeted that it was "Important to the United States!" that Aramco float its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Trump's tweet on Saudi Aramco: Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!

But Mobius said the decision, a closely-watched one amid the anti-corruption drive and political purge in Saudi Arabia, seems to still be up in the air.

He added that a "full and fair disclosure" will be the key for Aramco to attract investors, including his firm Templeton.

"Disclosure is really the key," he said. "Of course, it could be quite exciting. It could be one of the most exciting companies listed ... but they have to disclose what's going on, what are the inner workings and also what will be the decisions regarding earnings because a big part of their earnings go to the government."

Even as Mobius takes a cautious approach when it comes to Aramco, he was explicit in his optimism about Saudi Arabia. He said reforms in the kingdom "have been a long time coming" and it is a good sign that the authorities are accelerating those efforts.

He was referring to the crackdown over the weekend that saw the arrest of dozens of Saudi princes, ministers, officials and businessmen.

"Long term, (I'm) very optimistic," he said. "I think it's just the beginning. I think you're going to see a lot more coming down the road and of course the key now is to set up the institutions to continue this fight."
U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp., taxi on the tarmac during the Max Thunder Air Exercise, a bilateral training exercise between the South Korean and U.S. Air Force, at a U.S. air base in Gunsan, South Korea, on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

The U.S. Air Force needs stable budgets and is too small for all the missions it's being asked to carry out, Air Force officials told reporters Thursday.



"The fiscal 2018 continuing resolution is actually delaying our efforts to increase the readiness of the force, and risk accumulates over time," said Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. "We are stretching the force to the limit, and we need to start turning the corner on readiness."



The Air Force flew over 14,000 sorties in the last three months alone: It's tasked with supporting not only operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan and Europe, but also the pressure campaign against North Korea and hurricane relief efforts, among other missions, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein. Also, he said the Air Force plans to have "a continuous bomber presence" in Guam or the nearby region in response to the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea.

Wilson recalled meeting a pilot last week who just came back from his 17th deployment. "They're carrying a heavy burden," she said. We're burning out our people because we're too small for what the nation is asking."



Appearing at a Pentagon press conference, both officials called for an end to sequestration, or the automatic federal spending cuts mandated under the 2011 Budget Control Act. They said the sequestration has negatively impacted the force in many ways, including in retaining experienced pilots.



"Our biggest need right now is for a higher and stable budget to provide security and solvency for the nation," said Wilson.



The current short-term continuing resolution funding the Pentagon is set to expire Dec. 8. In recent years, Congress has relied on continuing resolutions or so-called omnibus measures to keep the U.S. government operating.



"Our high operations tempo over 26 years of combat have taken its toll and budget instability is not helping," said Goldfein. "So you understand why Secretary Wilson and I remain adamant that Congress turn off the auto pilot and get back in control of the budget. We must find a way to lift sequestration as it is currently structured."

Wilson also provided figures showing the Air Force's pilot shortage has deepened.

According to Wilson, the Air Force has a deficit of about 2,000 pilots out of a total force of about 20,000 aviators. "That's one in 10 that we're short," she said, pointing out that last summer the pilot shortfall was only about 1,500 pilots.



"If we go through sequester again, a 2,000 pilot shortage will be a dream," said Wilson. "People will walk."

The pilot shortage is a national problem that also has been felt in commercial and business aviation, and private industry has been known to offer generous compensation to attract seasoned military aviators. In response, Congress has given the Air Force authority to offer aviation bonuses to pilots who extend their service.

Goldfein said it takes an average of 10 years to raise a fighter pilot and about $10 million. "You're 1,000 short, that's $10 billion of capital investment that just walked out the door. So we're first and foremost looking to retain everyone we can."



At the same time, Goldfein said, the Air Force is preparing to accelerate its flight training efforts. He said the force plans to increase the number of pilots earning wings annually, from about 1,200 at present to some 1,400 pilots. Also, more focus will be put on increasing the number of fighter pilots.
As Obamacare enrollment season begins, the number of Americans signing up for the health insurance coverage has been much higher than expected. That likely includes an overlooked segment of individual health-care buyers: America's military veterans. Recent headlines make clear that after multiple failures to repeal Obamacare this year, the GOP has no plans to pull back from its Affordable Care Act repeal effort. That means many military veterans  already dealing with the stress and uncertainty of return to civilian life after deployment  will be among Americans in continued health insurance limbo as long as the ACA political battle lasts.

President Donald Trump embraces veteran Max Morgan during an event to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the war in Vietnam, as part of a visit to Danang, Vietnam November 10, 2017. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Analysis from RAND reveals that the ACA increased health insurance coverage rates among veterans. The study states that an Obamacare repeal would reduce the health-care options provided to veterans and also could place additional stress on the already challenged VA health-care system.

There are 20 million veterans in the United States, according to the VA, and Census data reveals that 5.5 percent, or 510,000 non-elderly veterans (under 65), are uninsured. Only 3 out of 5 non-elderly veterans are eligible for Veteran Affairs health care. If they are not eligible for the VA, many veterans turn to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Some also rely on both Medicaid and the VA system. Before major state Medicaid expansions took place in 2013, only 1 in 10 non-elderly veterans were insured, according to the RAND study. By 2015 uninsurance rates fell by 36 percent. "What we found is non-elderly veterans were more likely to be insured in 2015 than they were in 2013," said Michael Dworsky, co-principle investigator of the RAND report study. "There was not just a reduction in numbers of uninsured, but a reduction of veterans who said their only source of health coverage was the VA." Out of 2.8 million non-elderly veterans enrolled in the VA health-care system, only 25.8 percent of them rely on it as their sole source of health insurance. "People very often think that people that serve in the military get health care for life, but that's not really how the VA works," Dworsky said. "Although many veterans are enrolled in the VA, there is still a large number who are uninsured and have no regular access to health care."

Military veterans who served for 24 consecutive months  or another specified full duty period  are eligible for coverage for five years after being discharged. Elderly veterans qualify for Medicare and about half of all veterans in 2016 had health insurance coverage through the government program. But that leaves many veterans who served in recent decades with a potential health insurance gap after their five-year period and before they become eligible for Medicare. Census data found that for the other half of the veteran population  who were of working age (ages 19 to 64)  both the number and rate of those without health insurance declined to a new low during the past four years.

The GOP's next moves in killing Obamacare

After the failure of the American Health Care Act and "skinny repeal," President Donald Trump is reportedly working on an executive order to repeal the individual mandate requiring health insurance purchases within the Affordable Care Act  if Congress doesn't do the same thing within the tax-reform legislation. Even if those efforts stall, House Speaker Paul Ryan has already said Obamacare repeal will be back on the docket in 2018. Trump has already signed two executive orders in order to take steps toward an ACA repeal  one he signed hours after being sworn in as president and another in October. The RAND study projected that had the American Health Care Act passed, uninsurance levels would surpass what they were even before ACA levels of coverage. "It's not just the numbers of veterans insured, but it's also which ones they are," Dworsky said, adding that the negative effect concentrates among the low-income and unhealthy veterans.

If the ACA were to be repealed and replaced, it would be devastating to veterans and to military families. Will Fischer director of government relations at VoteVets

Maine just became the first state to pass the ACA's Medicaid expansion by way of an Election Day ballot referendum that defied the state's governor, but that was matched by President Trump's administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, saying this week the administration would approve proposals from states to require work or community engagement for people who want to receive Medicaid, which critics say will cut off access to health care. The ongoing uncertainty has led some veterans advocacy groups to throw their political weight behind efforts to protect the ACA from GOP attacks. "One out of every 10 veterans in the United States would be losing their Medicaid," said Will Fischer, director of government relations at VoteVets, a left-leaning veterans' political advocacy group, and a veteran of the war in Iraq. The RAND report showed that the largest growth of insured veterans was found in Medicaid expansion states, particularly Oregon, Arkansas, Nevada, Kentucky and Washington. Among low-income nonelderly veterans, Medicaid expansion increased enrollment in Medicaid by 8.4 percentage points relative to similar veterans in non-expansion states. Among all veterans there was a 2.4 percent increase. More from Modern Medicine:

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How to handle stress after traumatic events RAND stressed that there were other factors at work in recent years that contributed to an increase in health insurance coverage for veterans. The increase in nonelderly veteran Medicaid coverage occurred parallel to an increase in private insurance purchases that Dworsky attributes to the growing economy. "Individual market coverage should go up when the economy is doing well," he said. Other veterans and advocacy groups are pushing for health care reform that would benefit those who have served the country in combat, but are not focused on the ACA repeal debate.

Reforming the scandal-ridden VA in Trump era

The bigger problem, according to Dan Caldwell, an Iraq war veteran and policy director of Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative veteran advocacy group backed by Charles G. and David H. Koch, is that some veterans are not receiving proper insurance coverage because of the VA's outdated infrastructure. That's why Concerned Veterans is advocating that private health care be allowed to compete with Veterans Affairs hospitals for the patronage of the nation's veterans. "I think the biggest issue with the VA right now is it is not effectively set up to serve the VA population of today or the future," Caldwell said. Among the reasons for the low numbers of veterans receiving health care at the VA are eligibility requirements, such as income level, disability, or former prisoner of war status. In other cases, it's about distance from VA centers, or even preference. "I think that a lot of veterans have stayed away from the VA because of either reputation or they have had a negative experience with the VA and have chosen not to go back," Caldwell said. "They believe that if they go they are not going to get the best service." The RAND study found that Medicaid expansion led to larger coverage increases for low-income veterans living far from VA facilities, suggesting that Medicaid expansion may have provided a valuable new coverage option for veterans facing barriers to accessing VA.

A patient at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Jeff Hutchens | Getty Images

Caldwell served as chief of staff for Arizona Republican Congressman David Schweikert from 2011 to 2013, originally starting as a constituent caseworker focused on issues with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense. In recent years Caldwell's group has proposed the Veterans Independence Act to place veterans at the center of the VA health-care system. It also wants to streamline the process to fire, demote and punish VA employees who perform poorly or are guilty of misconduct. Over the past decade, the VA has been hit with multiple scandals and whistleblower complaints. The government's Office of the Special Counsel has investigated staffing, equipment and patient service issues, as well as individual VA centers manipulation of data, and millions paid out in bonuses to VA executives amid the scandals.

There is a lot of legislative momentum to pass expanded choice legislation because the only choice program in place, the Veterans Choice program, is set to run out of funding before the end of the year, putting pressure on lawmakers to find a solution. Jim Fellinger Concerned Veterans for America spokesman

Since Trump took office, changes at the VA are one of the few areas where the president has been able to find bipartisan support, though some of the measures were under consideration before the election. He signed the VA Accountability Act, which makes it easier to fire misbehaving VA officials as well as a law which makes it faster and easier for vets to appeal their VA decision about disability ratings. The government has also begun publishing wait times online for every VA facility, and delivering same-day emergency mental health services at every VA medical center.

What lies ahead
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Just 17 days before the United States announced a fresh round of sanctions against Venezuela, two American drilling executives stood in the presidential palace alongside President Nicolas Maduro. CEO Todd Swanson and general counsel Brent Mills were there to sign a memorandum of understanding between their little-known drilling company, Horizontal Well Drillers, and Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. Swanson, who once served on the board of Massey Energy for Dan Loeb when he worked for Loeb's hedge fund Third Point, made a speech at the event.

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"I first came to Venezuela in 1996, and I immediately fell in love with the country because of the spirit of the people and the physical beauty of the landscape," Swanson said. "And we are pleased to be working closely with you to help expand oil production in Venezuela and help it become one of the largest oil producers in the world." Swanson even shook Maduro's hand.

Horizontal Well Drillers CEO Todd Swanson signs a memorandum of understanding with Venezuelas state-run oil company as President Nicolas Maduro looks on. Source: PDVSA

The timing of the deal is curious considering the country is on the verge of economic collapse. Numerous corporations have stopped doing business there. More than 20 have filed cases against the Venezuelan government at the World Bank after their assets were seized by the socialist government. And when it comes to oil, Venezuela's most important sector, the country is struggling to pay its bills  issuing promissory notes because it can't come up with the cash. According to their latest quarterly reports, Halliburton has $429 million in outstanding bills; Schlumberger has about $700 million. Baker Hughes has $100 million in receivables and inventory at risk in Venezuela. And the red flags don't end there. PDVSA is also at the center of an ongoing bribery investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. In October, Florida businessman Fernando Ardila Rueda pleaded guilty to his role in paying bribes to employees at PDVSA. Rueda is just the latest of 10 individuals who have pleaded guilty in the DOJ's investigation, raising questions about doing business with PDVSA without violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. companies from engaging in corrupt activities in foreign countries.

Horizontal Well Drillers employees work on one of the companys rigs in Purcell, Oklahoma. Source: CNBC

It's not illegal for an American company to drill in Venezuela. But why would a small Oklahoma firm want to do business in Venezuela, when many companies think the best option is to get out? For weeks the company declined to answer any questions. When a CNBC investigative team showed up in Oklahoma and started knocking on the doors of Horizontal Well Drillers' executives and former executives, the company finally agreed to answer questions via email. In that statement, the company said it has a deal to drill nearly 200 wells in the Carabobo area of the Orinoco heavy oil belt, a region that is home to some of the world's largest oil reserves. Horizontal Well Drillers noted, too, that it has a Master Services Agreement in place with oil services company Halliburton to provide drilling tools and equipment. Texas-based Halliburton confirmed its participation in this agreement. Horizontal Well Drillers says it is "uniquely qualified" to take on this project because its drills are "well suited" for the geologic formations found in Venezuela's Orinoco oil belt. The company credits its rigs' large capacity and small footprint for allowing it to drill in difficult-to-reach areas. Pedro Burelli, a former member of PDVSA's board who opposes the current Venezuelan government, isn't buying it. He said he has never seen a deal like this awarded to a company like Horizontal Well Drilllers. "I'm not questioning their ability to do small jobs. I'm just questioning their credentials to do large jobs," Burelli said. "I'm questioning their financial whereabouts to guarantee the work that they're doing. And definitely, I'm questioning their managerial talent to operate in an environment like Venezuela." An environment, he says, where equipment theft is rampant and corruption is prolific. In its statement to CNBC, Horizontal Well Drillers said the company takes compliance with U.S. sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act very seriously. While the company may be physically equipped to take on this deal, its financial backing raises more questions. According to a press release from PDVSA, the deal requires the companies to provide the upfront investment capital for the drilling. Paperwork filed with the Oklahoma County clerk shows the company has been financed, at least in part, by Callidus Capital, a Canadian firm that provides "funding solutions to companies that cannot access traditional lending sources." Court filings show Callidus is suing a former employee because that employee "allowed Horizontal to create a letter on forged Callidus letterhead, purporting to make financial commitments on behalf of Callidus" to provide to Venezuelan government officials comfort that Horizontal would be able to meet its financial commitments. Horizontal Well Drillers told CNBC it did not create a fake letter and that it is not a party to the Canadian litigation. Callidus and the attorney for the former employee, who is disputing the allegations, declined to comment on the litigation. As a private company, Horizontal Well Drillers declined to comment further on its finances. Callidus declined to clarify whether or not it is still providing capital to the Oklahoma company. Horizontal Well Drillers' executives did explain why they attended the lavish signing ceremony in Caracas: The company said it was required by the Venezuelan government. Burelli said he's not surprised. He thinks Maduro used the two executives as props.

A photo tweeted by PDVSA shows PDVSA President Nelson Martinez (left), Chevron President for the Americas and Africa Clay Neff, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami meeting in Caracas, Venezuela. Source: PDVSA
A C919 passenger jet takes off from Pudong International Airport for its maiden flight, on May 5, 2017 in Shanghai, China.

China's domestically developed passenger jet has completed its first long-distance flight.

The C919 took off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport on Friday and flew for nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes before landing 800 miles away at Xi'an Yanliang testing base in the Shaanxi province.

The aircraft has a layout of 158 to 168 seats, and a maximum range of around 3,400 miles. It is viewed as a natural rival to Boeing's 737 and the Airbus A320.

In a statement reported by local media, the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China Ltd (COMAC) said the flight "marks the move into research and development flight-testing and airworthiness certification work."

Although viewed as Chinese-built, the engines are French-U.S.-built while the navigation and communication system is provided by U.S. firm Rockwell Collins.

COMAC said in September that it has orders for 730 C919s from 27 clients. All the customers are Chinese except for the Irish-American GE Capital Aviation Services, which has made 10 firm orders with an option to buy 10 more.

COMAC plans to produce six test aircraft, with the second expected to make its maiden flight at the end of this year.

The jet has now completed six flights in total and, in April, Europe's aviation safety regulator agreed to begin the certification process.
Baitadi DAO to ban production, sale of alcohol from Nov 21

In view of the upcoming elections, the District Administration Office has decided to bar the production, sale and consumption of alcohol in the district from November 21.
If Republican lawmakers are able to end state and local tax deductions in their tax-reform bill, Americans will "never see it again," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNBC on Friday.

The Senate GOP's tax plan, unveiled on Thursday, would eliminate federal deductions for state and local taxes. The House plan also calls for eliminating the deduction but allows a property tax deduction of up to $10,000. Tax analysts say the move could harm high-tax blue states, such as New York and California, where the state and local tax deduction is a major item.

"State and local deductibility has been in place since 1913. It has been something agreed upon by Democrats and Republicans throughout. Once it is gone, you'll never see it again," de Blasio told "Squawk Box."

He added that if the provision is removed, at least 100 million Americans would be subject to double taxation. "So, that puts downward pressure on state and local revenue," he said.

"The second problem is, the federal government then at any point can start raising the federal tax rate again. There's no prohibition," he said. "So, you lose the protection for homeowners, for everyday people, for middle-class people."

The Democratic mayor also says the U.S. needs higher growth rates, but the Republicans' tax bill is unlikely to facilitate that. Instead, growth comes from fixing our infrastructure, he said. "Our infrastructure is falling apart," de Blasio said, and "we need a strong federal government."

De Blasio was elected to a second term earlier this week, beating GOP state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and several third-party candidates. He is the first Democrat to win re-election as New York mayor since Ed Koch 32 years ago.

When asked whether he would seek a third term like Mike Bloomberg, de Blasio said "oh, no."

"I have differences with Michael Bloomberg and things I also really appreciate," he said. "I think it was a mistake to go for a third. Two-term limit. The people chose it. The people were right."
President Donald Trump on Friday pushed for freedom and economic openness in a forceful speech that portrayed Washington as a more respectful trade partner to Asian nations than China has been.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam, the president also warned against mistreating his country, accusing some countries in the region of "product dumping, subsidized goods, currency manipulation and predatory industrial policies."

"We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses, and we will not tolerate them," Trump said.

"From this day forward, we will compete on a fair and equal basis," he added. "We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first the same way that I expect all of you in this room to put your countries first."

Additionally, Washington will "no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property, we will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technologies to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access," he said.

Many U.S. firms operating in China have complained of such policies.

Trump said he did not blame China, the world's second-largest economy, or other countries for "taking advantage of the U.S. on trade," repeating a message he delivered in Beijing the previous day.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Turkey on November 8, 2017.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took a photo in Turkey that has earned more likes than anything else he has posted to Instagram.

Musk posted a shot of himself at the memorial of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of modern Turkey and a champion of secularism and modernization. The post has nearly 1 million likes.
British Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Brexit Minister) David Davis (L) and European Union Chief Negotiator in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain Michel Barnier address media representatives at the European Union Commission in Brussels on October 12, 2017.

The EU's Brexit negotiator has pressed the U.K. once again to move fast with its negotiations to leave the bloc.

Michel Barnier told reporters in Brussels Friday that the U.K. needs to clarify its position in the next two weeks in other to kick off trade talks in December.

The EU and the U.K. concluded another round of Brexit talks but there are still several key issues to fix, including its exit bill  this is how much the U.K. needs to pay to fulfill its remaining obligations to the bloc. Without agreements on these issues by December, it becomes harder to foresee how both will cooperate once the U.K. leaves the EU in March 2019.

"We need to work further on a number of points," Barnier said, adding that settling the accounts is "vital" before they can move on to trade talks.
Over 3,000 public transport fare evaders in London have been sentenced electronically after a new paperless system was introduced.

The system, which is being used at Lavender Hill Magistrates' Court in south London, allows authorities to punish those evading fares or using fraudulent tickets "more swiftly and effectively."

It is a joint effort between Transport for London (TfL) and HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), the U.K. government said Friday.

Under the system, TfL does not have to manually process and then "physically deliver" case papers to the court. Evidence is now transferred electronically to the court, where a magistrate and legal advisor consider each case using a laptop.

This, the government said, freed up time to "focus on more serious crimes." The system has processed roughly 4,200 cases since April, returning 3,000 sentences, and made enforcement faster. It has also negated the need for staff to physically move documents between TfL and the court.

"We are investing 1 billion ($1.32 billion) to digitize the justice system  making it more accessible for all citizens, more sensitive for witnesses, and delivering better value for taxpayers' money," justice minister Dominic Raab said in a statement.

Siwan Hayward, TfL's head of transport policing, said that the transport authority had worked with HMCTS to streamline what had historically been a labor intensive and paper heavy process.

"The real-time aspect of the system results in court notices being issued within weeks of an offense and prosecutions are concluded sooner so individuals and businesses receive a faster resolution," she said.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.
President Trump pushed for freedom and economic openness in a speech today that portrayed Washington as a more respectful trade partner to Asian nations than China has been. The president also warned against mistreating his country. (CNBC)



* These are the 37 major deals US firms signed with Chinese entities during Trump's visit (CNBC)

The White House today responded to allegations that GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore once pursued a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl when Moore was 32. If the allegations are true, Trump believes Moore will "do the right thing and step aside." (CNBC)



* McConnell: Roy Moore should drop Senate bid if teen sex allegations are true (CNBC)

Trump will not have a separate meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said today. (Reuters)

The Senate Republicans' tax plan has key differences from the House GOP's plan and would delay the corporate tax rate cut until 2019, a source told CNBC. Trump wants the reduction to go into effect next year, while a House bill has called for an immediate change.



* Here's what's in the Senate Republican tax plan (CNBC)

* House Republicans advance tax bill, aim to bring it to a vote next week (CNBC)

* More Americans think wealthy, not middle class, will benefit from tax reform (Reuters)

Robert Mueller, investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, is reportedly investigating an alleged plan involving former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey for millions. (WSJ)

An Arctic blast will bring frigid temperatures and howling winds across the central and eastern U.S. over the next few days. The National Weather Service says, overall, temperatures this weekend will be below normal and resemble temps typically found in January. (USA Today)

HBO says they are removing comedian Louis C.K. from their annual charity telecast after he was accused of sexual misconduct by five women in The New York Times. The comedian's publicist told the Times his client would not answer any questions at this time. (Axios)

The Justice Department pushed back on allegations that it is trying to get AT&T (T) to sell CNN and other properties as part of its plans to acquire Time Warner (TWX). In another strange twist to the deal, AT&T's CEO backed up that account. (CNBC)

Uber lost an appeal at a U.K. employment tribunal today over its treatment of its drivers. It has been forced to quit several countries, such as Denmark and Hungary. Uber has long argued that its drivers are self-employed rather than workers at the firm. (CNBC)

Walt Disney (DIS) has announced that Rian Johnson will craft a new trilogy for the "Star Wars" universe, expanding the director's command over the space saga created by George Lucas. The new films will be separate from the Skywalker saga and introduce new characters. (AP)

Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google unit told U.S. election regulators in a letter seen by Reuters that it "strongly supports" tightening rules on online political advertising as part of efforts to curtail "foreign abuse and influence" in elections.

Twitter (TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey said that it should not have been possible for one of his employees to deactivate the president's Twitter account. Trump's account was deactivated by a departing employee for 11 minutes earlier this month. (CNBC)
watch now

The past and the present

The company's woes have been well-dissected a flat-footed investment strategy in which decision-makers always seemed to be at least one step behind prevailing trends. GE made poorly timed bets against financials and for energy and paid the price. More immediate, though, are the lingering questions over the dividend, which currently stands at 96 cents, translating to a 4.19 percent yield, or the highest in 30 years not including the financial crisis. There's both an expectation and a drumbeat that the company either will pare or eliminate the dividend at the investor day. Company officials, though, haven't tipped their hand yet. "We will be reviewing our outlook for 2017 and 2018 in terms of sources of cash and (cash flow from operating activities) generation," new CEO John Flannery said during the third-quarter earnings call. "We will do that with an appropriate balance of growth investment and dividend payout, and we will share our overall capital allocation framework with you in the November meeting." That same call marked what, optimistically, could be a seminal moment for the company. Flannery stunned investors with his candor, openly acknowledging how poorly GE has performed and vowing to do better. "While the company has many areas of strength, it's also clear from our current results that we need to make some major changes with urgency and a depth of purpose. Our results are unacceptable, to say the least," he said, adding: "Things will not stay the same at GE."

Accepting an activist

Just in the odd case that Flannery wasn't serious, he'll have somebody new looking over his shoulder to monitor the company's performance. Among the indignities with which GE has had to deal is the presence of an activist investor. The board in October agreed to bring on Ed Garden, chief investment officer and founding partner at Trian Partners, the hedge fund he runs alongside the more high-profile Nelson Peltz. Believing that the corporate restructuring was not moving quickly enough, Trian decided to get more aggressive in its oversight. Trian's stake in GE most recently was valued at $1.43 billion, down from $2.1 billion at the end of 2016. "Like other GE shareholders, I am disappointed by the recent performance of GE's stock," Garden said when he was appointed. "But I continue to believe that GE represents an attractive long-term investment opportunity with significant upside." Trian declined to comment. GE is in a quiet period heading into the investor day and declined comment, referring a reporter to recent presentations by Flannery.

A bevy of concerns

Other investors as well as analysts have been giving the company as hard time as well. The earnings call featured a number of pointed questions emanating from concerns over where GE is headed. GE badly whiffed on third-quarter earnings, with just 29 cents a share against expectations of 49 cents. "So, how is that level of dividend sustainable without jeopardizing the future growth of the company?" UBS analyst Steve Winoker asked, reflecting similar sentiments from his cohorts. Just four of 18 analysts have a buy rating on GE while two have it rated as outperform. Only one has a sell on the stock and three have an underperform on the shares, according to S&P Capital IQ. Most are on the fence, with six hold ratings. Credit agencies are generally downbeat though not in despair. S&P has GE on credit watch negative and Fitch has a negative outlook, meaning the debt is still considered stable but could be downgraded if the company does not address concerns. In addition to all the other concerns, GE has run up a huge pension liability that has investors concerned. "There would be a lot of different viewpoints" on GE's health, Fitch's Ause said. "They've got good diversification, strong market positions in a number of key markets and a fair amount of financial flexibility."

Then there's the dividend

Yet perhaps no issue represents just now far this mighty company has fallen than the dividend. Having to take that away would amount to maybe the toughest blow the company, and its investors, would have to face. "Clearly a dividend cut would free up a lot of flexibility for John Flannery to execute his restructuring; $8 billion a year in dividends is a big burden," longtime GE shareholder Jack De Gan told CNBC recently. "It would upset the shareholder base. And the stock would be dead money for [a] while. [But] this is when he should do it, if he's going to do it." Investors have bought GE stock over the years in large part because it provided a reliable cash cow even in lean times. Income investors would lose an important incentive, possibly sending more shareholders to the exits. The situation is exacerbated by the shrinking level of free cash flow, which is down to $7 billion, about half the normal level. The company's market cap has contracted by about one-third over the past year as it struggles with some fundamental business issues. "They've been making some changes to the board. That will all play into their long-term decisions, what the mix of their business should be and how they get there," Ause said. "Their dividend is a significant cash use." Then there's perception: A few years ago there were headlines about GE's maneuvering to get out of paying taxes; this year it was the embarrassing story of the company allocating not just one but two corporate jets for Immelt. All of it will be on the table when management faces the investor music Monday. "We're looking for some additional information and details on what they expect to do," Ause said. "It's hard to know how much they'll talk about Monday."

WATCH: An analyst looks at the challenges ahead for Flannery
Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, Roy Moore, speaks at a campaign rally on September 25, 2017 in Fairhope, Alabama.

The chief fundraising vehicle for Republican Senate campaigns on Friday severed its ties to Roy Moore, the party's nominee in Alabama's special election next month.

The break with Moore came a day after The Washington Post reported allegations by four women who said Moore had pursued sexual relationships with them when they were teenagers. At the time, Moore was in his early 30s.

According to new paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is no longer a part of a joint fundraising committee that includes Moore's campaign, the Alabama GOP and the Republican National Committee.

Moore has denied the allegations against him, and his campaign on Thursday said the Post's report, which cited 30 sources, was "garbage," and "the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation."

In Washington, Republican senators responded to the report with shock and dismay, telling reporters that if the claims were true, Moore should exit the race immediately.

Moore's campaign did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment about the NRSC's decision to abandon the race.

As of 2 p.m. ET Friday afternoon, the RNC and the Alabama Republican Party both remained in the joint committee.
A woman checks her phone as she walks on Wall St. during the morning commute in New York's financial district January 22, 2014

Apple will issue a software update to fix iPhone X screens that act up in cold weather, the company told CNBC.

Some social media users complained that the iPhone X screen would become unresponsive or inaccurate in the cold, unless users locked and unlocked the phone. The issue became more widely known when it was reported on popular Apple blog The Loop.

"After several seconds the screen will become fully responsive again. This will be addressed in an upcoming software update," an Apple spokeswoman said.

The pricey new iPhone X is the first iPhone to feature an OLED display, which allows darker blacks, brighter colors and is more flexible and durable. This newer type of screen is tricky to produce, even for industry-leader Samsung: The Galaxy S6 handset faced supply constraints in 2015 because of this type of screen.

The iPhone X issue surfaced just as many Americans are preparing for record low temperatures over the weekend. A blast of Arctic air is expected to chill areas of the northeastern United States for the next two days.
Airbnb has been a major disruptor in the travel and hospitality industry, but the CEO of Hyatt Hotels said the popular app has only made his business stronger.

The rise of Airbnb as a competitor to hotels has pushed Hyatt to up its game and focus on the way it provides services to its core high-end traveler clientele, Mark Hoplamazian said during a presentation Friday.

"Airbnb has demonstrated that people really do care about the interpersonal human experience. Their founding was about connecting individual travelers to real people," he said at the Baron Investment Conference in New York. "Airbnb has actually expanded travel and they've inspired us to think about how we do business."

The app allows travelers to book private accommodations at prices that often are cheaper than what they would pay at big hotels.

Rather than watch its business shrink amid what Hoplamazian called "fierce" competition, the Hyatt brand has expanded.

The company is opening at least 60 new hotels this year and also is at a record pace for new building. Hyatt employees are being trained to focus on letting guests "let them be themselves."

Much of that growth is coming from China, which he said has accounted for 120 million of the world's travelers this year.

"The wind is at our back, because people are looking for experiences," Hoplamazian said. "There are more and more people around the world who can afford to travel. That base of travelers that is expanding is significantly driven by travelers coming out of China."

Other new trends in the industry he outlined are a focus on wellness and a continued emphasis on corporate culture.

"Many, many more companies are turning to mindful practices in their businesses to allow their own employees to be their best selves and to be balanced. A lot of it is to manage stress," he said.
CEC Yadav urges govt bodies to curb normal election expenditure

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Ayodhee Prasad Yadav has urged the concerned government bodies to monitor the abnormal campaign expenditure incurred by candidates and political parties for the upcoming provincial and parliamentary elections.
In 2010, U.S. Army veteran Jerry Flanagan was at a low point. The economy had slumped and wiped out his small business operating kids' birthday party stores. "[My wife and I] went from having a successful retail business, to the economy crashing, to having to file bankruptcy in 2010," Flanagan, 50, tells CNBC Make It. "We literally hit rock bottom." Guarantees they had signed on leases for their stores forced them to file for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, Flanagan explains. But still determined to own his own business, Flanagan researched industries that had survived the recession and came up with hauling junk as a business. In 2011, he scraped together money to buy an old Jeep, and started his own one-man operation, which he called JDog, his nickname in the military.

JDog president and CEO Jerry Flanagan Courtesy of JDog Junk Removal & Hauling

Now that business is a Berwyn, Pa.-based franchiser, JDog Junk Removal & Hauling, which has 92 active franchises in 27 states. Ninety percent of the businesses are owned by veterans and the other 10 percent by veterans' family members. For 2017, Flanagan says he estimates that all the franchises together will bring in around $18 million in junk removal sales. As a franchiser, the JDog brand collected $1.5 million in total revenue in 2017. Flanagan attributes the success of the business to lessons he learned as a young person in the military, like the value of working hard and treating others with respect. He served in the Army from 1987 to 1989 doing electrical jobs at Ft. Stewart, Georgia. But after leaving the military, he struggled to find his purpose. "When I got out of the Army, I attempted college, and I lasted about five months," he says. He was going to school on the GI Bill, a program that helps veterans finance their education, but says the amount he received wasn't very high at the time. "So, I ran out of money. I went ahead and did multiple minimum-wage jobs." He worked as a bouncer, a dishwasher and at a gas station. "Those were my three go-to's, all at the same time, basically just to make ends meet until I figured out what I wanted to do in life," he says.

JDog President and CEO Jerry Flanagan Courtesy of JDog Junk Removal & Hauling

That started to become clear after he got a job loading trucks and sweeping floors at a store called Halloween Adventure. He rose through the ranks to store manager, then district manager and eventually to facility operations manager, where he learned about marketing and leasing. Then, he decided he wanted to go into business for himself. "I felt that I had the work ethic," he explains. "Why not get paid for my own efforts instead of making someone else rich?" With financial backing from a partner, he opened his retail business and ran it for three years, until it succumbed to the aftermath of the recession. That business's demise eventually led to JDog, but it wasn't easy. At "44 years old, starting from scratch again on something you've never done before without any college education is a pretty scary situation. Especially when my two daughters were getting ready to start high school," says Flanagan, who was afraid he could lose it all again. "My wife and I would go buy packs of white index cards, and we would hand write in magic marker 'Jdog Junk Removal: neighborhood junk removal service, call Jerry' with my number," he explains. "I put it at the pizza shop right in my development, and that is how I got my first [junk-hauling] job."

Jerry Flanagan with his wife Tracy Flanagan. Courtesy of JDog Junk Removal & Hauling
Joe Biden has one major regret: that he's not president. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this week, the former vice president talks candidly about resilience, power and his decision not to run for president in the 2016 election.

"I have a regret that I am not president," Biden admits. "Because I think there's so much opportunity. I think America is incredibly well-positioned."

Yet the former vice president says that he still stands by his ultimate decision not to run.

When Biden announced in October 2015 that he would not be seeking the presidency, just a few months had passed since the death of his son Beau Biden earlier that year.

"I don't regret the decision I made because it was the right decision for my family," Biden tells Winfrey.

The politician explains that no one should announce a presidential candidacy unless two questions can be answered: Are you qualified and can you give it your all?

Biden says that he checked off the first question but the second caused him to hesitate.

"Was I prepared to give my whole heart, my whole soul and all my attention to the endeavor? I knew I wasn't," says Biden. "My family was broken. I was broken."

His decision to not pursue the presidency is just another example of the many times Biden has put his family's needs before his professional goals.

Shortly after he was elected to the Senate at age 30, his wife and daughter were killed, Biden says in a commencement speech at Colby University.

"All of a sudden everything changed," he tells the crowd. Instead of attending his swearing-in he headed to the hospital.

"I later learned I was probably the only senator in history ever sworn in in a hospital because I didn't want to leave my sons," Biden says. "So they sent the secretary of the Senate up to the hospital to swear me in."

Though he's no longer in the White House, the 74-year-old says he plans to stay actively involved in politics.

"Failure at some point in your life is inevitable," says Biden. "But giving up is unforgivable."

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
On Friday, FX announced it was ending its association with C.K. The network canceled its deal with his production company, Pig Newton, and removed him as executive producer on four shows - Better Things, Baskets, One Mississippi and The Cops. He also will also no longer receive compensation for those shows.

The distribution company behind C.K.'s latest film "I Love You, Daddy," set for release next week, pulled the plug on the project Friday morning. In addition, Netflix opted out of an upcoming comedy special featuring the comedian, and HBO dropped C.K. from its "Night of Too Many Stars" special.

His full statement is below (Note contents of his statement contains graphic language):

I want to address the stories told to the New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.

These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn't a question. It's a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I've tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I'm aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position. I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn't want to hear it. I didn't think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with. I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work. The hardest regret to live with is what you've done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I'd be remiss to exclude the hurt that I've brought on people who I work with and have worked with who's professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I've brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie. and every other entity that has bet on me through the years. I've brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.

I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen. Thank you for reading.
For years, rumors of sexual harassment have swirled around comedian Louis CK. Now, five women have come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, as reported at The New York Times. Their accounts are remarkably similar, involving incidents where the Louie star either asked if he could masturbate in front of them, or simply did so without their consent.

Although his agent said he would decline to comment, Louis CK previously brushed off rumors of sexual misconduct, telling Vulture in 2016, "I don't care about that. That's nothing to me. That's not real." According to the five women who have come forward at the Times, however, it was very real  and they've finally found a way to make him care about it.

More from The Verge:

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Turning the specter of internet surveillance into art

The accusations follow a massive wave of sexual misconduct allegations published at the Times and elsewhere, aimed at prominent men like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Roy Price, Ben Affleck, and even former president George H. W. Bush. Shortly before the publication of the article, Louis CK pulled out of an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the New York City premiere for his new film I Love You, Daddy was canceled hours before it was scheduled to begin. The cancellation was attributed to "unexpected circumstances," but those observing the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein revelations have been vocally expecting this particular revelation for the past week.

Louis CK wrote and directed the controversial I Love You, Daddy, and he stars as a television writer and producer whose teenage daughter (Chloe Moretz) is seduced by a predatory 68-year-old filmmaker (John Malkovich). The film explores the messy, controversial issues around sexual consent, an astonishingly hubristic subject choice for a filmmaker under a cloud of suspicion around sexual misconduct.

One scene in the movie features a character pantomiming masturbation for an extended period of time, though Louis CK told the Times in September that it was not intended as an allusion to the rumors. "It's funny. I didn't think of that." The comedian's routine often included masturbation jokes, and in 2007, he told a radio show a story about exposing his genitals to an old man in public when he was younger, adding, "I don't know why."

According to several of the women who came forward, the star was very aware of what he was doing when he masturbated in front of them or propositioned them  not only that it was non-consensual, but that it was wrong.

Actor and comedian Rebecca Corry told The New York Times that while she was working on a pilot in 2005, Louis CK came in as a guest star, and asked to enter her dressing room, where he planned to masturbate in front of her. When rebuffed, Corry said, "his face got red and he told me he had issues." In 2015, she says he offered another apology, claiming that he "used to misread people back then."

Writer and performer Abby Schachner said that when she called CK to invite him to one of her shows in 2003, he started to tell her his sexual fantasies, and she could hear him masturbating on the other end. Later, he sent her a Facebook message that said, "I remember thinking what a repulsive person I was being by responding the way that I did." Schachner said the experience discouraged her from pursuing a career in comedy.

Alongside the accounts of three other women, these accusations paint a picture of a powerful man who was fully aware that he was a compulsive sexual harasser, routinely apologized for it, and yet failed to curb his behavior. It's a stark reminder that neither talent nor self-awareness are impediments to being a sexual abuser. If anything, those traits only make harassers more adept at avoiding consequences  or at least, one hopes, they used to.

On Thursday evening, HBO responded by dropping Louis CK from their upcoming Night of Too Many Stars benefit concert and pulling his past projects from its On Demand services. FX, home to his Emmy Award-winning show Louie, issued a statement saying that the cable channel is "very troubled" by the allegations, and will "take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace... The matter is currently under review."
Mark Cuban on Friday denied that he talked to Steve Bannon about his possible run for president in 2020.

Earlier in the day, the Daily Beast cited four sources and reported that the billionaire entrepreneur has been in touch with Bannon, President Donald Trump's former chief strategist, "for months" about a potential campaign. Bannon urged Cuban to run as a Democrat, the report said, which would pit him against Trump in 2020 if both men won the major parties' nominations.

Cuban told the news site that he texted Bannon "a few" times and believes that none of those were "more than one full sentence."

Cuban told CNBC that running for president did not come up in his exchanges with Bannon.

"Nope. Not even remotely close," the Dallas Mavericks owner said.

On Thursday, Cuban publicly said he is considering running for president as an independent, depending on whether his wife and family would endorse it. The "Shark Tank" panelist added that he would prefer to run as a Republican rather than mounting a bid as a Democrat.

Cuban would "absolutely not" run as a Democrat, he said.

The billionaire's wealth could help him avoid the need for party infrastructure, should he decide to run.

It is unclear why Bannon, a staunch Trump ally, would want Cuban to run against the president.

CNBC could not immediately reach Bannon for comment.

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank," which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the extent of the U.S. opioid crisis was the thing that surprised him the most during his travels throughout America this year.

"The biggest surprise by far is the extent of opioid issues, it's really saddening to see," Zuckerberg said during a live Facebook broadcast from the University of Kansas.

Zuckerberg grew emotional and had to pause to compose himself as he recounted talking to opioid addicts and the effects the epidemic has taken on them, their families and the country.

"One thing we don't fully internalize, how this epidemic has affected people's attitudes more broadly...it's one of the worst public health issues," he said.

Zuckerberg, the world's fifth-richest person, suggested the epidemic may have even impacted last year's election.

The issue is "so pervasive, it's affected attitudes on political issues more than people realize...counties that swung from Democrat to Republican were those with some of the highest opioid addiction rates," Zuckerberg said.

The opioid epidemic "is getting attention, but nowhere near what it needs. It's a public health crisis," he said.

has been widely criticized and last week faced tough questioning in Congress for allowing Russians to use its ad targeting to influence last year's election.

Despite this and other problems, Zuckerberg said he remains an optimist, pointing to the France, which had a drug epidemic problem a decade ago.

"It won't happen overnight, but there is a road map for how to improve."

"People who are addicted to opioids don't want to be," he said.

Zuckerberg also addressed the pervasive negative effects that economic globalization has had on some parts of the country he visited.

"When you lose a job, it doesn't just affect your family in the short term. It affects your view of what you want to do in the long term," he said.

Zuckerberg recounted a discussion he had with workers who had lost their jobs at a paper mill in Millinocket, Maine, after the work there moved across the border into Canada.

"People there were very entrepreneurial...but many of these folks were afraid the next job they would get would also be replaced," he said, decreasing the chances they would seek job re-training.
Nvidia shares are surging as Wall Street is growing more bullish on the company's opportunities in key secular growth markets.



The chipmaker reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter earnings and guidance Thursday.

Its data center segment sales, where its cards are used for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications, came in at $501 million versus the $461 million FactSet consensus estimate. Gaming-related sales also beat expectations with $1.56 billion in revenue versus the $1.28 billion estimate.

The quarter and outlook was "well above our recently raised expectations, with upside coming primarily from the gaming segment," Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore wrote in a note to clients Friday.

Nvidia shares closed at an all-time high Friday, rising more than 5 percent. The stock is up 203 percent in the past 12 months through Thursday compared with the S&P 500's 19 percent gain. That performance ranks No. 1 in the entire S&P 500.

Analysts believe Nvidia has an unstoppable leadership position in the key technology growth trends.

"The most important reason to own NVDA is its 10+ year heritage developing and expanding a single hardware (GPU) + software (CUDA) platform. This platform has proven to be continuously leverage-able in some of the biggest and fastest growing markets in technology including gaming, artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous cars, and virtual reality," Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

"NVDA's proprietary CUDA application programming interface has become the de-facto software platform for AI."

Arya reiterated his buy rating and increased his price target to $251 a share from $210, representing 22 percent upside to Thursday's close.

Even the company's skeptics are giving up on their negative views after the results.

"We've been bearish for most of this year, anticipating that a slowdown in gaming would drive sharp revenue deceleration in 2017," Nomura Instinet analyst Romit Shah wrote in a note to clients Friday entitled "Falling On Our Sword and Upgrading."

"However, Nvidia demonstrated good diversity in gaming with Nintendo Switch and crypto-currency, offsetting weakness in core gaming earlier in the year. In addition, Datacenter results have been stronger than forecast and we underestimated the value the market would assign to this franchise."

Shah raised his rating to neutral from reduce and his price target to $190 from $110 for Nvidia shares.



 CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.
John Moore | Getty Images

Some of the communities hit hardest by the opioid epidemic are in rural America. However, many of those same communities lack access to comprehensive treatment. To address the epidemic's increasing reach, the White House declared a public health emergency on Oct. 26. The administration outlined a need to expand treatment in rural communities, most notably by making telemedicine more readily available. Telemedicine, also referred to as telehealth, aims to improve treatment access by allowing people to consult their provider remotely  for example, by using videoconferencing. As a researcher of opioid treatment in Michigan, I'm excited to see the call for greater availability of telemedicine as a way to help rural communities. However, telemedicine has important limitations that need to be considered.

Rural struggles

Drug overdose deaths are rising in rural areas across the United States. In 2015 the overdose death rate for rural areas surpassed the death rate for urban or suburban areas. People living in rural areas were four times more likely to die from overdoses in 2015 than they were in 1999. The opioid epidemic hit states east of the Mississippi River hardest, with the highest death rates in relatively rural states: West Virginia, New Hampshire and Kentucky.

The opioid epidemic hit states east of the Mississippi River hardest, with the highest death rates in relatively rural states: West Virginia, New Hampshire and Kentucky.

In northern Michigan, for example, roughly 400,000 residents live north of the closest clinic in Otsego County that provides both methadone and behavioral therapy. People in need of comprehensive opioid treatment in these remote areas require their own transportation and finances to support multiple hours of travel. The shortage of providers is also an obstacle for rural communities in less remote areas of Michigan. In Lenawee County, which is situated roughly an hour from Ann Arbor and Toledo, there are approximately 100,000 citizens with access to a handful of buprenorphine treatment providers. The few rural providers in areas like this typically offer opioid treatment within small family medicine practices and have limited staff to provide behavioral therapy.

Telemedicine pros and cons

Not just rural areas

Steps toward a solution
Pop-up shops are still popular among retailers, especially around the holidays.

There is a "burst" of pop-ups expected to round out the year, an annual holiday survey from commercial real estate firm CBRE found.

The holiday season offers companies a sliver of time to test new features, experiment where there is heavier foot traffic, or bring their online operations offline  as companies such as Warby Parker, Bonobos and Allbirds have done.

More importantly, "landlords have an appetite for pop-ups that they didn't have in the past," Melina Cordero, head of CBRE Americas' retail research division, told CNBC. "Given customers are increasingly bored with the copy-paste mall model, [pop-ups] can be a pretty effective traffic driver."

It's true more mall owners are opening up to the idea of putting pop-up spaces  even permanent ones  within their properties.

is opening " ," which will rotate retailers throughout the year on short-term contracts. , another U.S. mall landlord, is finalizing plans to launch a pop-up marketplace called "Tangible" in its malls.

"A lot of times landlords themselves are actually investing in these projects," Cordero said. "I think this is at the forefront of the holidays."

Toys R Us has its this year. Yankee Candle is opening its first pop-up store in New York's SoHo neighborhood, through Jan. 3. Sharper Image, once a staple retailer in American malls, is also opening a temporary shop in New York for the holiday season. And these are just a few examples.

Amazon is also bringing holiday pop-ups to some Whole Foods locations.

CBRE's 2017 holiday survey found other trends this season to be: more shopping completed on mobile devices, off-price players winning with their discounts, and more warehouse space needed  on a short-term basis  to fulfill a surge in online orders.

As a retailer, "you really need to be as efficient as possible," Cordero said. And around the holidays, no one company can risk not following consumer trends.

In a separate holiday sentiment survey, real estate investment firm Jones Lang LaSalle is predicting a 6 percent increase in spending this season after speaking with more than 2,000 consumers.

"As we head into the holiday season, consumer confidence is the highest it's been in nearly 17 years," Greg Maloney, CEO of JLL Retail, said in a statement. "We expect that holiday spending will mirror overall retail sales trends ... due to favorable economic conditions and the strength of the labor market."

Nearly 40 percent of consumers surveyed will shop at more than six stores throughout the holidays, JLL found. And roughly two-thirds of shoppers indicated they will shop at superstores this year, while 44 percent said they plan to make purchases online.
China ready to fund phase 2 of Ring Road project

The Chinese government has shown interest in funding the second phase of the Kathmandu Ring Road Improvement Project which includes upgradation of a 17-km stretch linking Kalanki, Chabahil and Koteshwor.
Russia's sovereign wealth fund on Friday said the country was enjoying its best-ever relationship with China.

While Moscow's ties with Bejing have historically been benign, those comments constitute a reiteration of the two countries' strong alliance  at a time of heightened uncertainty and simmering tensions between them and the United States.

"China is definitely a very strategic partner for Russia and we have the best relationship in the history of Russia (and) China right now," said Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

"We have a Russia-China investment fund, which is a partnership between us and (sovereign wealth fund) China Investment Corporation. And today ... we are announcing our participation in NIO," a China-based electric vehicle joint venture, Dmitriev added.

In April, the Kremlin said relations between Moscow and Washington were "in their worst period since the end of the Cold War," and Russian President Vladimir Putin compared U.S. accusations of a Kremlin-led chemical attack in Syria to its justification of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
"The current U.S. administration has not shied from using inflammatory rhetoric and exploring novel approaches to Middle East diplomacy. Now is not that time for that. The U.S. must act as the global policeman, as it has since World War II."

Of course, the strait could also be closed as a direct result of military hostilities, for example, by Iran.

The impact of such a closure on the global economy would be severe and immediate. For example, the Suez Crisis of 1957 saw 10 percent of the world's oil production taken off the market. Within a month, the U.S. and Europe were facing a recession which would last the better part of a year.

In 1973, the Arab-Israeli War and resulting Arab OPEC embargo would bring long lines to gas stations as the oil price quadrupled. On an annual basis, global oil production held steady, but Persian Gulf exports to the U.S. fell by 1.2 million barrels / day, or about 7 percent of total U.S. consumption. This oil shock would plunge the U.S. into a recession which lasted for two years.

In the event of a Saudi-Iranian hostilities lead to a sustained outage of Persian Gulf exports, a severe and prompt global recession will follow similarly.

Much as in 1973, U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf still amount to 8 percent of consumption, the loss of which was sufficient to knock 10 percent from GDP from 1973 to 1975. However, China and other importers would seek to outbid the U.S. on its imports from countries like Nigeria, Angola and even Brazil and Columbia. In all, U.S. imports could fall by 15 percent of total consumption--twice the drop from 1957 to 1973 and sufficient to plunge the U.S. into a deep recession lasting years.

On the other hand, U.S. import dependence has fallen dramatically since the start of the shale revolution. Even as the U.S. coastal regions would suffer from high oil prices, boom times would return to Louisiana, Texas and on up to North Dakota and Canada's Alberta province. A loss of 20 percent of the world's oil supply would push oil prices into the $200 / barrel range. The shale sector would see its glory days.

Those countries without material oil production would suffer the most, notably Europe and East Asia, in particular Japan and South Korea.

China's situation would be dire. In the last few years, Chinese import dependence has become acute. Oil imports cover more than three-quarters of total Chinese consumption, and half of China's imports originate in the Persian Gulf.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz would not only put China into recession, but given the high degree of financialization of the economy, could create a wider societal and political crisis. The reaction of the Chinese government is difficult to anticipate, but China would certainly bring maximal pressure on the U.S. and Persian Gulf countries to end the conflict, by whatever means. The ultimate takeaway for China would be the necessity to build, at all speed, a global military and diplomatic presence capable of projecting force to influence events in the Middle East and, if necessary, to displace the U.S. in the region.

Finally, given the history of cooperation between North Korea and Iran on missile programs, the threat of missile strikes from Iran could exacerbate tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon could become the absolute priority in the conflict and lead to a rapid escalation of the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

For investors, the best hedge, if events can be reasonably hedged at all, would be long positions in oil futures, U.S. shale operators and land drillers, and western hemisphere operators like Canadian oil sands producer Suncor and Brazilian oil major Petrobras.

However, hedging is no substitute for conflict mediation. The current U.S. administration has not shied from using inflammatory rhetoric and exploring novel approaches to Middle East diplomacy. Now is not that time for that. The U.S. must act as the global policeman, as it has since World War II. The country must calm tensions in the Middle East and reassert U.S. commitment to a fair and principled diplomacy which seeks to resolve conflicts through negotiation, not reckless force. If the U.S. fails to do so, the result will be an unmitigated disaster, not only for the region, but for all of us.

Commentary by Steven Kopits, managing director, Princeton Energy Advisors.

For the latest commentary on markets in the U.S. and around the world, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.


But some Republican lawmakers are questioning the plans, threatening to trip up the momentum.

The House Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, advanced that chamber's tax legislation on Thursday . The GOP aims to pass it out of the House next week.

On Thursday, the Senate unveiled its plan to broadly chop business and individual taxes , which largely overlaps with a House tax bill but contains several differences. Senators plan to mark up, or debate and amend, the proposal starting Monday.

Republicans just took their biggest steps yet toward tax reform, but the GOP faces challenges in its push to overhaul the American tax system this year.

After the Senate plan's release Thursday, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., voiced fears about the effect of broad cuts on the national debt. The budget resolution approved by Congress allows it to pass a plan that adds as much as $1.5 trillion to federal budget deficits over a decade.

While the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has not scored the Senate plan, it estimated that an earlier version of the House bill would increase federal budget deficits by $1.7 trillion over 10 years.

The current plans appear to come nowhere close to canceling out tax cuts with new revenue.

"I remain concerned over how the current tax reform proposals will grow the already staggering national debt by opting for short-term fixes while ignoring long-term problems for taxpayers and the economy," Flake, who will not run for re-election next year, said in a statement. "We must achieve real tax reform crafted in a fiscally responsible manner."

Along with Flake, Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have expressed concerns about ballooning the national debt. Corker, who will also leave the Senate, has previously said he would not vote for a tax plan that adds "one penny" to the deficit.

The CBO also projected that debt would rise to 97.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2027, up from 91.2 percent under current CBO projections.

The forecast did not include the estimated effects of economic growth. Republicans argue that growth sparked by the bill will help to offset, or cancel out entirely, the budget shortfall caused by broad tax cuts.

However, it is not clear if the tax cuts can spark the growth necessary to do so.

Meanwhile, two other GOP senators called for more changes to the child tax credit to further reduce the burden on middle-class taxpayers. The Senate plan would increase the credit from $1,000 to $1,650. Sens. Marco Rubio, F-Fla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, on Thursday called for a $2,000 credit.

"We continue to believe that the best way to provide real relief to working families is through a straightforward, significant, and permanent expansion of the child tax credit  preferably doubling the credit to $2,000 per child and expanding its applicability to payroll taxes," they said in a statement. "The Senate is not going to pass a bill that isn't clearly pro-family, so we look forward to working with our colleagues to get there."

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has previously called for even deeper tax cuts.

The GOP, which holds 52 seats in the Senate, is working on a tight margin to pass a bill. Republicans can only lose two votes.

Meanwhile, in the House, Republicans can lose just 22 votes to still pass a plan.

The proposal's fate in that chamber may hinge largely on how a bill treats state and local tax deductions. Many Republicans  enough to sink legislation on their own  represent districts in high-tax blue states, which benefit from the provision. They have expressed concerns about eliminating those deductions.

The House bill changes the provisions to allow taxpayers in those states to deduct up to $10,000 of property taxes. The Senate bill scraps all state and local deductions.

No GOP senators represent the states that benefit most from the deductions, like New York, California and New Jersey.

If the House and Senate pass separate bills, they will have to reconcile them before approving a final bill. Agreeing on the state and local measures could prove contentious at that time in the negotiations.

Republicans, who have long sought to trim corporate and individual taxes to spark economic growth, see passing a tax plan as critical to their electoral chances in the 2018 midterms.
The unemployment rate for veterans is the lowest it has ever been since September 2001, and it continuing to fall. This achievement is due in part to the employers who have made a commitment to hire those who have served in our armed forces. In advance of Veterans Day, job site Monster worked with a panel of veteran hiring experts and Military.com to gather a list of the 10 best companies for veterans. All of the companies in the top 10 employed at least 15 percent veterans. Evan Guzman, founder of The MiLBRAND Project, which helps companies attract and retain veteran hires, says the reason that companies love to hire veterans is because of the values that military service instills in them. "Veterans are loyal, resilient, possess a strong work ethic and are masters of teamwork," he says. "Companies, especially the nominees and winners on our list, know that veterans bring advanced experience in meeting mission objectives and will adapt those skills into their jobs." Read on to see Monster's list of the 10 best companies for veterans:

10. Boeing

Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 15 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 15 percent Monster's company description: "Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. Their products include commercial and military aircraft, satellites, weapons, electronic and defense systems, launch systems, advanced information and communication systems, and performance-based logistics and training." How they support veteran employees: Boeing's veteran hire retention rate in 2016 was 92 percent and the Boeing Military & Veteran Engagement Team (BMVET) integrates Boeing's efforts within the military and veterans communities. Boeing is a frequent sponsor of Veterans in Aerospace Symposium and the Veterans Transition Initiative.

9. Union Pacific Railroad

Headquarters: Omaha, Nebraska Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 20 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 17.5 percent Monster's company description: "Union Pacific Railroad is North America's premier railroad franchise, covering 23 states across the western two-thirds of the United States." How they support veteran employees: Union Pacific hosts regional Military Leadership Hiring programs to place vets in management positions and sponsors UPVETS, which provides support, networking and mentorships to veteran employees. The company has a 61 percent veteran retention rate.

8. BAE Systems

Headquarters: Arlington, Virginia Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 21 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 16.5 percent Monster's company description: "BAE is an international defense, aerospace and security company that delivers a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and customer support services." How they support veteran employees: BAE aims to hire 100 veterans a month in 2018, with an emphasis on female veteran hiring. Their Warrior Integration Program focuses on integrating combat-wounded veterans into the workforce through on-boarding, mentoring, and career development. The CEO of BAE Systems recognizes 5,000 veteran employees a year for their accomplishments and contributions to the company.

7. USAA

Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 22 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 15 percent Monster's company description: "USAA provides insurance, banking, investments, retirement products and advice to more than 11 million members who are serving or have received an honorable discharge from the military, plus their eligible family members." How they support veteran employees: In 2018, USAA aims for 30 percent of all hires to be veterans or military spouses. USAA offers a 12-month VetsLeaD (Veteran Transition Leadership Development) program which offers classroom training and executive mentorships.

Terry Vine/J Patrick Lane | Getty Images

6. Schneider National

Headquarters: Green Bay, Wisconsin Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 22 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 28 percent Monster's company description: "Schneider National is a provider of trucking and transportation logistics services." How they support veteran employees: Schneider was ranked the best company for veterans in 2016. Over a quarter of all Schneider employees are veterans, in part because the company accepts driving certifications through the Military Skills Test Waiver.

5. Booz Allen Hamilton

Headquarters: McLean, Virginia Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 27.2 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 29.8 percent Monster's company description: "Booz Allen Hamilton provides management and technology consulting and engineering services to major corporations, governments, and not-for-profit organizations." How they support veteran employees: Booz Allen Hamilton runs the Veteran Recruiting Center of Excellence (VRCE) with a specific talent acquisition team geared wholly to recruiting and retaining veterans. Programs like these are why 49 of the company's leaders are veterans.

Job fair for veterans FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP | Getty Images

4. Lockheed Martin

Headquarters: Bethesda, Maryland Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 28 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 23 percent Monster's company description: "Lockheed Martin is a global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology defense contractor." How they support veteran employees: Lockheed Martin employs a full-time military relations and recruiting team that attends over 170 military recruiting events a year. The company also hosts an annual Military/Veterans Leadership forum to explore solutions for better supporting veterans in the workplace.

3. U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Headquarters: Washington, D.C. Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 31 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 29 percent Monster's company description: "U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), one of the world's largest law enforcement agencies, is charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S., while also facilitating lawful international travel and trade." How they support veteran employees: CBP makes strategic use of Special Hiring Authorities for Veterans, which allow CBP to circumvent the typical job-application process by directly appointing qualified veterans into positions within the workforce.

2. Intelligent Waves

Headquarters: Reson, Virginia Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 37 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 47 percent Monster's company description: "New to the list this year, Intelligent Waves LLC is a veteran-owned small business that specializes in providing IT and communications support to a wide variety of U.S. government customers." How they support veteran employees: Intelligent Waves offers an Employee Assistance Program that provides counseling and referral services to their veterans, whether they are in need of personal, health or wellness assistance.

1. ManTech International Corporation

Headquarters: Fairfax, Virginia Percentage of 2017 hires who are vets: 64 percent Percentage of workforce who are vets: 46 percent Monster's company description: "ManTech provides advanced technological services to the U.S. government in the areas of defense, intelligence, law enforcement, science, administration, health and other fields." How they support veteran employees: ManTech hired a higher percentage of veterans in 2017 than any other company on the list. A whopping 64 percent of their hires in 2017 are veterans and ManTech plans to increase this percentage in 2018.
It's been seven weeks since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico with 150 mph winds and feet of rain. The Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR), the largest public university system in Puerto Rico, is open but some services are interrupted, leaving 58,000 UPR students with uncertainty about their educations and the future. To help students bounce back, multiple colleges across the U.S. are accepting Puerto Rican college students, tuition-free.

Trees block the main entrance, leading to the historic clock tower, at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, after Hurricane Maria on September 22nd 2017. Pablo Pantoja/Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

New York University

On Thursday, New York University (NYU) introduced the Hurricane Maria Assistance Program, which will provide 50 Puerto Rican students with free tuition, free housing, health insurance and a meal program for the 2018 spring semester. "The situation in Puerto Rico is obviously something that we've all been watching with great concern over the last several weeks," NYU president Andrew Hamilton told the New York Times. "We're pleased to be able to do this."

Tulane University

Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, was one of the first universities to offer this kind of assistance to Puerto Rican students. On October 13th, Tulane announced that it would offer Puerto Rican college students a tuition-free guest semester. Jeff Schuffman, Director of Admission at Tulane shared in a blog post, "After Katrina, universities and colleges around the world took in our students with open arms; it's now our turn to pay it forward and assist students in need."

Cornell University

Cornell University announced on October 30th that up to 58 students from UPR will be accepted to attend Cornell for the spring 2018 semester for free, including tuition, room and board. "These young people, and nearly everyone in Puerto Rico, have gone through a terrible trauma," said Cornell President Martha E. Pollack. "This is our way of reaching out to them and our university colleagues in Puerto Rico to show we stand with them and their families during this difficult time in their academic, professional and personal lives."

Brown University
Here's a roundup of the most important deals in venture capital from the past week.



Exits

China's ByteDance, the company behind the news app Toutiao, acquired Musical.ly for a sum between $800 million and $1 billion, according to and other reports. Since it was founded in 2014, Musical.ly, has amassed a reported 120 million users, many of them adolescents in the U.S. The Musical.ly mobile app is used to create and share lip-synch videos, and live video streams. The company raised $146.9 million in venture funding from ChinaRock, Susquehanna International, GGV Capital and GX Capital among others. Apple acquired imaging sensor start-up InVisage Technologies for an unreported sum. Rumors of the deal had swirled in October. The company's core technology, QuantumFilm, enables cameras to capture images in poor lighting. Investors in InVisage included: Intel Capital, Nokia Growth Partners and GGV. It's not just tech companies acquiring machine-learning start-ups. Shiseido purchased Giaran, an early stage start-up backed by MassChallenge. Giaran's virtual mirror software lets users see how different makeup will look on their skin. The software works well with new, high-definition cameras on smartphones, and uses machine learning to make product and make-up recommendations.

Start-ups funded

watch now

Nio, an electric vehicle maker in China, raised more than $1 billion in a new funding round and attained a $5 billion valuation, Reuters reported. Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent led the investment. Tencent is also an investor in Nio's U.S. competitor, . Nio planned for its first mass production car to be released in December 2017. It's a sport utility vehicle dubbed the ES8 which the company has promised will have "more features" but cost less than Tesla's Model X SUV. The company's U.S. chief executive, Padmasree Warrior, previously told CNBC . Hip hop's Will.i.am has raised $117 million in new venture funding for his start-up, I.am+. The company started out making Bluetooth wireless headphones but is now working on enterprise software, including chatbots and voice assistants for automated customer support. Investors in I.am+ have included Salesforce Ventures and GVA Capital. Amgen's venture arm joined a $25 million Series B round for Boston-based Fortuna Fix, a regenerative medicine start-up using stem cells to treat Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries. The new funds will go toward helping Fortuna Fix move into clinical trials, Fierce Biotech reports.

Interaxon

InterAxon in Toronto has raised $11.6 million in new funding for its mind-reading hardware. The company's flagship product called the Muse may sound like the stuff of science fiction but it is already sold at Best Buy, Target and on Amazon. The headband shows wearers data about their brain activity when they meditate, and is meant to improve the quality of their meditation. AI start-up Embodied Intelligence raised $7 million in seed funding for technology that can help robots quickly learn to do new tasks, and can help people teach their robots what to do whether that's in a factory or a hospital. Amplify Partners led the round, joined by Lux Capital, SV Angels and others.

Funds and firms

Hayley Barna, co-founder of Birchbox Inc. Peter Foley | Bloomberg | Getty Images
With some tech companies struggling post-IPO, Silicon Valley could start looking elsewhere for cash  namely, to Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, technology investor Jason Calacanis told CNBC's "Squawk Alley" on Friday.

"There's this other optionality, the Masa-IPO," Calacanis said. "In Silicon Valley now, everybody's talking about, 'Why IPO when you can just Masa-PO?' Masa's going to save all these companies and put the money in and we're good. So I feel great about it."

Son, the SoftBank CEO, has pledged to invest $100 billion in artificial intelligence, including robots and autonomous vehicles, using an unrivaled sum of money known as the Vision Fund.

SoftBank has invested in companies such as Nvidia and SoFi, both of which the Vision Fund  which is also backed by non-SoftBank investors  may also invest in.

Calacanis was an investor in Uber  a company that's considering taking money from SoftBank after a flurry of controversies earlier this year.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said this week that while he and his board want Uber to go public, SoftBank is a long-term investor with little interest in an IPO.

"Our bringing in SoftBank as a strategic investor at the right price would be a good thing," Khosrowshahi said in an interview by New York Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Conference.

Not everyone is as bullish as Calacanis and Khosrowshahi. Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks said the "willingness of investors to invest in a shockingly large fund for levered tech investing with a questionable structure is a further indication of an exuberant, unquestioning market."

Bill Gurley  another venture capitalist who invested in Uber  has long cautioned that a sparse IPO market and high private valuations could lead to recklessness from start-up founders and investors.

"Founders have come to believe that more money is better, and the fluidity of the recent funding environment has led many to believe that heroic fundraising is a competitive advantage. Ironically, the exact opposite is true. The very best entrepreneurs are relatively advantaged in times of scarce capital," Gurley wrote in 2016, before SoftBank's Vision Fund entered the scene. "Loose capital allows the less qualified to participate in each market."

Son has brushed off the idea that the Vision Fund is affecting start-up valuations or creating any sort of peak.

"My track record the last 18 years is 44 percent, compound every year," Son told Sorkin in a separate conference in October. "People call me high risk, high return. High return, definitely yes. But I don't know if it's high risk. If you think deep enough, if you work hard enough, if you smartly select ... I think it's not only high return but could be good."

 CNBC's Sally Shin and Leslie Picker contributed to this report.
A user scans for an available vehicle using the Uber's app on a smartphone in London.

Uber lost an appeal at a U.K. employment tribunal Friday when a judge ruled that its drivers should be classified as formal workers and not self-employed.

The tribunal found that two drivers, Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, were working for Uber and consequently entitled to a minimum wage and holiday pay, among other rights.

Uber has long argued that its drivers are self-employed rather than workers employed directly by the firm.

The tribunal's decision is not only a challenge for Uber's business in Britain, but for the so-called "gig economy" as a whole.

"For Uber's estimated 40,000 drivers in the U.K., this is another positive sign that their true employment status is that of a 'worker' and, as such, they should be entitled to worker rights," Alan Price, employment law director at Peninsula, said in a note Friday.

"The decision is also a further indication to 'gig economy' employers and companies with similar business models that they may need to reassess their treatment of their staff to ensure they are giving the correct rights."

Another firm operating in the gig economy, online takeaway service Deliveroo, was faced with a legal challenge of its own from delivery drivers earlier this month. Deliveroo's riders are seeking to gain employment rights including the minimum wage.

Uber has said it plans to appeal the ruling, either through Britain's Court of Appeal or through the Supreme Court, the nation's highest court for civil matters.

In a statement, Tom Elvidge, acting general manager at Uber U.K., said:

"Almost all taxi and private hire drivers have been self-employed for decades, long before our app existed. The main reason why drivers use Uber is because they value the freedom to choose if, when and where they drive and so we intend to appeal.

"The tribunal relies on the assertion that drivers are required to take 80 percent of trips sent to them when logged into the app. As drivers who use Uber know, this has never been the case in the U.K.

"Over the last year we have made a number of changes to our app to give drivers even more control. We've also invested in things like access to illness and injury cover and we'll keep introducing changes to make driving with Uber even better."
U.S. Air Force lieutenant general Steve Kwast speaks at the New Worlds 2017 conference in Austin, Texas. Michael Sheetz | CNBC

Air Force Lt. Gen. Steve Kwast believes a "Kitty Hawk" moment will begin a new era in space. But while the U.S. still leads every other country in space, Kwast cautions that the edge is whittling away. "In my best military judgment, China is on a 10-year journey to operationalize space. We're on a 50-year journey," Kwast told CNBC. Kwast, who is also the commander and president of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, said the United States must "bring together the right talent to accelerate the journey." He said this would push the space industry to a Wright Brothers-like moment. "We could be on a five-year journey because it's all about how aggressively we are going about this journey," Kwast said.

Regulations in the way

A half century of regulating satellites has made it nearly impossible for entrepreneurs to succeed, he said. The current regulatory environment is like needing to submit an itinerary for every item you plan to bring on a flight from D.C. to Los Angeles  one year before the flight, he said. "You have to detail everything in your suitcase  each item's material, manufacturer, weight and more  the government takes a year to go through it and then tells you what you can and can't take," Kwast said. "And, if you have to update your request, then you have to start all over." He continued, "When you finally get approval you have to spend your entire life savings for the airplane, which, when you land, you have to burn to the ground." Officials want to evolve regulatory methods but must placate taxpayers that discarded rockets will not begin falling on their homes. "You need technological innovations to reassure Congress that this is safe and effective, as the FAA cannot do this unilaterally," Kwast said. "Low-cost access to space is the first domino to making this possible." The Federal Aviation Administration told CNBC in September that it is working to make access to space more efficient. SpaceX has also criticized the regulatory process, with President Gwynne Shotwell noting the process takes six months "and then you reapply at 90 days, 30 days, and then 15 days to file a flight plan." "If we want to achieve rapid progress in space, the U.S. government must remove bureaucratic practices that run counter to innovation and speed," Shotwell said.

National security and global prosperity at stake

Militaries will soon work more extensively in the space between the Earth and moon, according to Kwast. That realm is the next high ground, where nations are straining to gain a strategic advantage. "China is working on building a 'navy in space'" that would work even beyond Earth's gravity, Kwast said. Yet China is the not the most pressing threat. North Korea, with its continued missile testing, is "a real problem," Kwast said. "Right now, if North Korea were to launch a missile into space and detonate an electromagnetic pulse, it would take out our eyes in space," Kwast said. The Cold War-era "Star Wars" concept was "very strategic," Kwast said, but the technology was not feasible. The more the U.S. innovates in space, the lower the potential threat from a missile. Even though the space industry is poised to become eight times as valuable over the next 30 years, Kwast believes it's too early to think about a new military force in space. "We could have an operational space force in three to five years," Kwast said. "However, that would be jumping to answering what the form looks like, before you know the function." In a January study called "Fast Space," Kwast wrote a list of recommendations to the Air Force's U.S. Space Command. He details that public-private partnerships must be the nation's focus, not an "an Air Force in space." "It took from the Wright Brothers in 1903 to 1945  two World Wars  to get flying to where we needed an Air Force."

Finding balance in public-private partnerships

Kwast is a staunch supporter of corporations partnering with government. But he warns against the military completely depending on the private sector, giving the example of how the Air Force contracts launches to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. "I think the balance between public and private is reasonable right now, but we're still not doing enough, and we're not aggressive enough," Kwast said. At the New Worlds conference in Austin, Texas on Friday, Bill Gerstenmaier, the NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, said his agency shares a similar vision. He does not expect "to get another huge budget like the Apollo missions," and says NASA will focus on "orchestrating human spaceflight," instead of conceptualizing, funding, building and operating all on its own. Gerstenmaier told CNBC that he sees NASA now operating more akin to a venture capital firm, picking investments and helping to build them up. He cited Morgan Stanley's recent report on the industry as a look into the direction space is heading. Kwast applauds the high-risk, high-reward entrepreneurial spirit of modern space companies. He calls himself "a very strong advocate" for partnerships "based on economic realities" that create competition. "Corporations have a vicious, clear-eyed view of the bottom line, which is a very healthy thing," Kwast said, before adding: "Companies that fail should fail."

WATCH: National Space Council meets for first time in 25 years
Development practitioners can put words into the mouth of weak counterpart

Nepal has been receiving official development assistance from various countries for the last six decades. Over these years, billions of rupees have been poured into the country.
Firearms Deer Season

WHAT: Missouri's firearms deer season opens Saturday.

WHEN: The November portion of the season runs through Nov. 21. The antlerless only season is Dec. 1-3.

HOURS: Legal hunting hours are from one half-hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset. On Saturday, that will be from 6:27 a.m. to 5:37 p.m.

LIMITS: Hunters are limited to one antlered deer and two antlerless deer across all firearms and alternative methods seasons.

OTHER SEASONS: The archery season for deer and turkey, which began Sept. 15, will be suspended during the main firearms season. It will resume Nov. 22 and continue through Jan. 15.

A second firearms season for youth hunters, those 15 and younger, is Nov. 24-26.

The alternative methods season, which allows hunters to use weapons such as muzzleloaders, center-fire pistols, air-powered guns and atlatls, is Dec. 23 through Jan. 2.
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
Edu consultancy operator duo held for swindling foreign job aspirants

Two operators of an education consultancy were arrested on the charge of swindling foreign job aspirants.
This profile was first published on March 27th 2016, and is now republished following the subjects promotion to International Development Secretary.



Could Penny Mordaunt be the next leader of the Conservative Party? This question might be thought to invite ridicule. After all, Mordaunt has only been an MP since 2010.

But when I asked half a dozen Tory MPs whether she was conceivable as leader, only one of them said the idea was absurd, and he happens to be supporting another candidate.

Another backbencher said he expects the next leader to come from the Brexit wing of the party, and instanced Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Priti Patel as three of its most prominent members. He reckons those Eurosceptic ministers who opted to back the Prime Ministers campaign to remain in the EU have severely damaged their chances.

Mordaunt decided to back Brexit, and used a trenchant piece for the Daily Telegraph, and an interview with that paper, to announce her allegiance.

Predicting the next leader of the Conservative Party is a bit like trying to work out, some time in advance, who is going to win the Grand National. The leadership race is almost impossible to predict: David Cameron, who only entered the Commons in 2001, was for many months during the contest of 2005 regarded as an outsider, with good judges saying David Davis was bound to win.

But it is interesting that Mordaunt is at least considered a plausible runner. Last summer she threw a party at Shepherds, in Westminster, to which she invited a large number of MPs.

One of them said, as he arrived at the restaurant with a group of ministers, Surely this isnt Pennys leadership bid, only to decide that actually it was. Mordaunt has a go-for-it mentality, which emerges at quite frequent intervals in her career, and is accompanied by a gift for publicity.

In 2014 she went on a ludicrous television programme called Splash!, in which supposedly well-known people were taught by Tom Daley how to dive off a high board, and competed to see who could do it best. Her excuse was that she was paid 10,000, of which she donated 7,000 to the renovation of a lido in her constituency of Portsmouth North, and divided the rest between four services charities.

Use of the television set is not, in my household, as restricted as it should be, and one evening I found myself summoned, owing to my interest in politics, to watch a Conservative MP, resplendent in a bright red one-piece swim suit, attempt a tricky backward dive.

Mordaunt over-rotated, as the expert commentator observed, and did a crashing belly flop. Even to watch this was painful. Then she did the same dive again, and belly-flopped worse.

Many of us would have been reluctant to try that second dive. Mordaunt got full marks for courage. She is from a services family: her father was in the Parachute Regiment, and she was named after HMS Penelope, a Second World War cruiser which, as Mordaunt recounted in her maiden Commons speech, latterly became known as HMS Pepperpot because of her ability to endure massive amounts of shelling and remain afloat and able to return fire.

She was born in Devon in 1973, was brought up in Portsmouth, and at an early age conceived an invincible admiration of Margaret Thatcher, of whom she later recalled:

Her ability to escape the normal bounds of politics and penetrate our day-to-day lives is evidenced by the fact that when I was six and when she had been Prime Minister for less than a year I had perfected an uncanny impression of her, which caused Mrs Thatcher to be written into my primary school production of Dick Whittington.

When Mordaunt was 15, her mother, a special needs teacher, died of breast cancer. She herself went to a comprehensive school and to Reading University, where she read philosophy, after which she progressed through a variety of jobs to become director of Diabetes UK.

But at the same time she pursued her political ambitions. Her family links are to the Labour Party: she is related to Philip Snowden, Labours hair-shirted inter-war Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to George Lansbury, who led that party from 1931-35. But in 2003, she became the Conservative candidate in her local seat of Portsmouth North, where at the general election of 2005 she did not quite manage to defeat the Labour candidate, Sarah McCarthy-Fry.

Mordaunt persisted, and in 2010 was elected for Portsmouth North with a majority of over 7,000. One of her early parliamentary roles was to serve on the European Scrutiny Committee, where one of her fellow members says she asked intelligent and thoughtful questions, as well as being absolutely charming.

Another backbencher says of her: She was very sound on the Lords Bill [where Mordaunt was one of the 91 Tory rebels]. She doesnt yet have a huge number of followers. But she is very widely liked.

David Cameron formed a high opinion of her. In 2014 she was forgiven her rebelliousness and made a junior minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government, and after the last general election she was moved to the Ministry of Defence, where she is the first woman to serve as Minister of State for the Armed Forces, only one step below the Cabinet.

The Prime Minister had followed his frequent, though in British terms unusual, practice of promoting someone to a department they know something about. Mordaunt is a Royal Naval Reservist, wore naval uniform at Margaret Thatchers funeral, and never misses a chance to proclaim the virtues of the Senior Service.

As befits a Portsmouth MP, her turn of phrase is salty. In the manner of one of Donald McGills seaside postcards, she somehow manages to be risque without being revolting. Her greatest parliamentary success was the speech with which, in 2014, she opened the debate on the Queens Speech, where she broke new ground by remarking:

I have benefited from some excellent training by the Royal Navy, but on one occasion I felt that it was not as bespoke as it might have been. Fascinating though it was, I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for the penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect kit.

Will Mordaunt train on? One cannot say. It is more than possible that like her namesake, HMS Penelope, she will eventually be sunk by enemy fire.

But with her constant references to the Navy, she is in some ways a reassuringly traditional figure, who shows a fitting respect for the great naval figures of the past, including her predecessor as MP for Portsmouth North, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes.

In May 1940 Sir Roger hastened in uniform to the Commons to denounce the hopeless pusillanimity with which the campaign against the Germans in Norway had been conducted. He concluded with Nelsons words, since quoted by Mordaunt:

I am of the opinion that the boldest measures are the safest.

This is inspiring stuff, and is the attitude which many Eurosceptics take. If the Conservatives ever find themselves wishing to recruit a high-spirited warrior as their leader, they might do worse than to turn to Mordaunt.
Iain Dale is Presenter of LBC Drive, Managing Director of Biteback Publishing, a columnist and broadcaster and a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

On a personal level, it is always sad to see a political resignation. Ive known Priti Patel for the best part of 20 years, and shes one of those people who by nature is an optimist. She always has a twinkle in her eye and is very good company. However, Ive always thought that being a minister robbed her of her natural bubbliness. Whenever I interviewed her, I could almost hear her thinking to herself: I must stay on message, I must stay on message. Back in September 2015, I wrote this:

I really think some politicians are injected with some sort of serum before they go on the broadcast media, and that it turns normally sparkling, interesting people into complete drones whose only intention is to bore us to death about the long-term economic plan and hard-working people. Step forward Priti Patel who is an exceptionally rabid addict of this serum. Ive interviewed her seven or eight times, I suppose, and on each occasion I end the interview wanting to slit my wrists. If I feel like that, God only knows what the listener thinks. And so it was on Saturday. She and Michael Fallon were doing the media rounds to comment on Jeremy Corbyns victory in the Labour leadership contest, and both had clearly taken a strong dose. Britains security is in danger, they chirruped in unison. So is the security of hard working families. Oh, pass the sick bucket.

Its ironic, I suppose that both Patel and Fallon have now gone to meet their political maker. Ironic, but a terrible pity, and so avoidable. What on earth was she thinking? Any rookie Minister reads the Ministerial Code and knows that they have to obey it. Patels transgressions might have been survivable had she not told the Prime Minister on Monday that there were no further revelations to come. There were  and that meant she had to go.

Theresa May showed a bit of human compassion and allowed Patel to resign but, lets face it, it was a sacking. I am told that the meeting in Downing Street lasted all of six minutes. The Prime Minister has never been one for small talk. It was an interview without coffee. Both women knew what the outcome must be.

While today Patels political career lies in tatters, she should take comfort from the fact that it is possible to come back from this. Shell never again be seen as a leadership contender, but it is perfectly possible for her to return to the front bench in the future. Liam Foxs resignation in 2012 was in vaguely  very vaguely  similar circumstances, and Patel can look at his example to see how to return to ministerial office.

In the meantime, I expect her to enter a period of relative silence until after Christmas, but after then I hope we see the return of the bubbly, effervescent character that ministerial office somewhat suppressed. If we do, she will be a player again.

         

So where does this leave May and the Government? I dont see that she or it are any weaker than they were a week or ten days ago.

Indeed, it is possible to argue that she is in a slightly stronger position given Boris Johnsons bad week. There is no plot to get rid of her, mainly because there is no obvious successor. The Foreign Secretary has had a dreadful few months, and many people I speak to doubt hed even get into the final two if there were any leadership contest.

The big unknown, though, is how many letters Graham Brady has received calling for a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister. There needs to be 48 to trigger a vote. I suspect that he has got 20-30. However, I doubt if there will be many more, despite some of the disgraceful anonymous briefing that is going on in the papers. Turkeys surely dont vote for Christmas.

Conservative MPs need to know what if they continue to show this kind of disloyalty to the Prime Minister they can only help bring a general election closer. And if that happened, many of them would end up with a P45 courtesy of the electorate. And deservedly so.

         

Given the antics of Patel and Johnson, the sexual harassment scandal has moved to the inside pages from the front pages  unless you live in Wales where Carl Sargeant took his own life. The poor man reportedly hadnt even been told what he had been accused of. Charlie Elphicke makes the same claim.

On a basic human level, surely if someone is accused of committing a crime, or something highly distasteful, they ought to have a right to know what it is, even if the identity of the accuser isnt disclosed.

In Sargeants case, his family have been robbed of a husband, son and father. They deserve some answers from the political establishment in Wales, and Carwyn Jones  a transparently decent man  needs to examine his own conscience about how he handled this and what he said to the media in the immediate aftermath of Sargeants suspension.

        

If you like to listen to political podcasts, I do hope youll give mine a try. Its called For the Many, Im doing it with Jacqui Smith, and the first episode will be available first thing on Monday morning.

Were going to cover political and media issues and have a good old gossip along the way. It will have the tone of our Sky News paper review partnership. and will be recorded weekly on a Sunday evening.

So do go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts from and subscribe, so you automatically get it on your phone without having to remember to download! For the Many has a Facebook page and you can follow us on Twitter @ForTheManyPod.
Lewis Baston is author of Reggie: The Life of Reginald Maudling and several books about British general elections. He is a consultant on politics, elections and constituencies.

It has not been a good couple of weeks for the reputation of Parliament and government, to put it mildly. Westminster scandals start in the most unexpected places, from the bankruptcy court in Wakefield in 1972 to Mohamed Al-Fayeds offices at Harrods in 1993 and now to the exposure of the sordid Hollywood kingdom of Harvey Weinstein in 2017. Here we are again: a different issue, but one with a lot of similarities to three recent periods in which Westminsters seedier side has come to public attention.

There have been four recent scandals about standards of conduct in Parliament that have raised systemic questions about the way the whole place works, rather than being isolated examples of individual misfortune or misconduct. The history of scandals and low parliamentary standards obviously goes back a lot further. We have the precedent of the 1920s sale of peerages, the flagrant bribery during the passage of the 1840s railway bills, the electoral corruption Dickens satirised as Eatanswill, the machinery of patronage and money that kept Walpole as Prime Minister for 21 years but, for current purposes, let us start with the 1970s.

The first systemic scandal of our times  or at least, as a child of the Heath era, my times  was about lobbying, contracts, conflicts of interest and influence-peddling. It goes under the general title of Poulson, and a lot of it did revolve around the Pontefract architect, but it threw up a lot of other questions. There were MPs on all sides in the 1960s known for open lobbying: Jim Callaghan, as Chancellor, said across the floor of certain MPs that: I have almost forgotten their constituencies, but I shall never forget their interests.

The rules on disclosing interests at the time were largely left up to the individual conscience of MPs, and many fell short of the standards expected even then, let alone the tighter ones that we now expect. During the late 1960s, Gordon Bagier, a Labour MP, signed up as a parliamentary consultant for a PR agency and spoke up in support of the firms client, the fascist regime in Greece. There were inconclusive discussions about acknowledging and registering interests, but these lapsed with the 1970 election.

The problem returned with a vengeance with the bankruptcy hearings of John Poulson in 1972, at which evidence of payments and consultancies to a range of political figures was produced, and in the criminal trials that followed. Reggie Maudling was the only Cabinet casualty; on the face of it, his resignation in July 1972 was on the grounds that, as Home Secretary, he was in charge of the Metropolitan Police, who were investigating his erstwhile business partner. The full extent to which he was involved in Poulsons corrupt activities overseas did not emerge until much later although, by 1974, it was clear that he had lobbied government for overseas development funds that would help a Poulson project in Malta, and extracted extensive personal benefits from his association with him.

The response to the Poulson scandal was fumbled; it was a lost opportunity to change parliament. The Register of Members Interests was introduced in 1974, but it was voluntary, only taken occasionally and negligently policed; many MPs made partial declarations, and an impression grew up that if there was some allusion to an interest on the Register, then it was automatically acceptable. The Royal Commission on Standards in Public Life of 1974-76 led nowhere. The Select Committee on the Poulson MPs reported in 1977, and censured John Cordle (who had boasted on paper that he had participated in a Commons debate mainly for Poulsons benefit). He resigned, but the Commons failed to support even a slap on the wrist for the other two MPs, Maudling and Albert Roberts. This encouraged MPs during the buccaneering 1980s to take ever greater risks for money, encouraged by the seedier side of the growing public relations industry.

Failure in the mid-1970s therefore led to the next round in the mid-1990s, when there were overlapping sets of scandals  some around personal lives, encouraged by Majors Back to Basics speech of 1993 and a restive press, but others because of the re-emergence of the problems over conflict of interest and advocacy when the Cash for Questions affair broke in 1994.

The response was less fumbled this time, with Lord Nolan establishing guiding principles of public life in 1994, followed by the 1995 code of conduct for parliamentarians, and the establishment of a more effective investigatory system under the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Parliament arguably ended up over-reacting, with a ban on paid advocacy which is drawn so widely that it does interfere with the ability of MPs to speak knowledgeably about foreign affairs in particular. But over-reaction is part of the pattern, and perhaps a necessary one; a minority bring an institution or a set of practices into disrepute, but the institution as a whole needs to pay a price. This episode did not directly bring about any Cabinet resignations, although the fall of David Mellor (September 1992) was a prelude to the personal scandals and the issues swirling around Jonathan Aitken (resigned 1995, jailed 1997) had some common themes to cash for questions in terms of declared interests, business abroad and dishonesty.

The gap until the next systemic parliamentary scandal was shorter  expenses broke upon the scene in 2009, although it had been in the post for a while, as journalists sought disclosure using the Freedom of Information Act 2000: the Scottish Parliament had already been rocked by an expenses row in 2005 which caused the resignation of the Conservative leader, David McLetchie. As with the 1974 scandal, it was all the more lurid for being revealed against the background of economic recession and, like both predecessors, contributed to the impression of a fag-end period of government and public life. Many in the press and public fell into the lazy temptation to conclude that they were all at it, and not distinguish properly between fraud, the abuse of a system that was open to abuse, minor transgressions and, in several cases, total innocence.

Although the scandal broke in 2009, which was the year in which Michael Martin, then the Speaker, stood down, and when MPs were most under pressure, the two Cabinet level casualties fell later. David Laws served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury for a short time in May 2010, before his expenses claims relating to his London flat proved difficult to explain to a public who were being invited to embrace austerity. Four years later, the then Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, eventually resigned after trying, with Downing Street support, to fight off criticism of her housing expenses that first came to light in 2012. As with the 1990s scandal about outside earnings, the expenses scandal resulted in a strong response from Parliament as an institution, which involved the establishment of IPSA and a regime of transparency.

The current one about sexual harassment has not yet run its course, although it has claimed one Cabinet casualty in Michael Fallon and, while allegations have been made against Damian Green he has denied them and retained his position, though there is an official investigation. As with other scandal-hit periods, other incidents and allegations seem to rain in from all sides, so the historical significance is a bit obscured by the sudden end to Priti Patels real-life Ugandan discussions. But the parliamentary sexual harassment scandal fits the systemic criteria in that while it has affected the Cabinet it clearly goes wider than party. As with exploiting outside consultancies and imaginative expense claims, people on the inside have known for some time that it goes on, and have generally also known which individuals are most guilty, but little effort was made to do anything about the problem until it blewup in public.

There are some other common themes to these scandals. None have come out of a clear blue sky, and struck down a government that was in command of the political environment. In 1994 and 2009 governments were on the way out after a long period of office (the same can be said for the Profumo scandal in 1963, although that was less systemic and did not revolve around Parliament). In 1974 and 2017, governments lacked proper parliamentary majorities and faced daunting circumstances. Most scandal seasons implicate people in more than one party if they are truly systemic  the 1990s being an exception.

The response to systemic scandals has generally been to increase transparency, tighten the rules and set up new institutions, distanced from parliamentarians, to police them. It is hard to argue against the logic, but the process is not without its own problems. If revenge is wild justice, transparency can be wild scrutiny; while too often self-regulation has demonstrably failed, the alternative should involve the public in something better than indiscriminate condemnation. An environment in which there is a strict set of rules and an unforgiving attitude towards breaches of the letter of the rules can be a harsh one, but it is perhaps a just punishment for institutions (and the individuals that comprise institutions) when reliance on individual integrity has let down the interests of the public or of people who have to work alongside MPs.

In the best of all worlds, we would have a system under which standards are upheld voluntarily, with a shared ethos being understood by representatives and potential transgressions identified and corrected by colleagues before they become too serious. But in the world we have, we seem to need the rules, and occasional periods when there is a public need to recriminate and extend them. Its not very nice out there in the pouring rain, which rains alike on the just and the unjust, but the place is cleaner and fresher after the storm.
Priti Patel was in the unusual position, when she went to head the Department for International Development, of having called for its abolition. This will not have gone down well with its civil servants, many of whom choose to work there, because they are believers in its cause. And, sure enough, she began her tenure, as her two immediate predecessors did, by declaring herself horrified by wasteful spending, and proclaiming her determination to root it out.

Meanwhile, the departments budget, though a relative minnow compared to many others at 13 billion or so (the two biggest chunks by far are pensions and healthcare, consuming over 140 billion each), was specially protected, first by the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent a year of gross national income on aid, and second by the unique writing into law of this pledge. We wonder whether Patel ever compared herself to Casablancas Captain Renault: Im shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! Your winnings, sir. Oh, thank you very much.

If so, she will have worked out quickly that the comparison doesnt altogether hold. Renault didnt own Ricks Cafe Americain, and didnt close it for long. Her position was more like that of Rick himself. And even he is a bird of passage (since he eventually sells the cafe). This being so, Patel knuckled down to do more, in effect, than complain about her circumstances. We can discern three main trends.

First, she boosted DfiDs communications capacity. Tim Singleton came in from ITV as Director of Communications. Rhodri Phillips arrived from the Sun as Head of News. Patels team began to get on the front foot, making more of the good that the department was going, rather than being continually forced onto the back foot  more often by aid waste in other departments, such as the Foreign Office, than her own. The aid charities liked the change. But Patel had a more meaningful task than improving publicity  namely, implementing policy.

So, second, she strove to put last Junes Conservative Manifesto into effect. Its most striking section on aid declared that we do not believe that international definitions of development assistance always help in determining how money should be spent. It went on to promise an attempt to change the rules. If that does not work, we will change the law to allow us to use a better definition, it concluded. This was a novel departure in a policy area that tends to work by international consensus.

Patel had a big success in this field. Earlier this month, she got change through the OECD which allowed aid money to be spent richer countries if they were hit by natural disasters. It is ironic that this reform, agreed in the wake of Hurricane Irmas destruction of much of the British Virgin Isles, and arguably her biggest achievenment, came on the verge of her exit from the Cabinet. The adjustment also enabled Britain and other countries to spend more aid on UN peacekeeping missions. Patel also became a forceful banger of the drum at the UN  such as her push last year over Yemens forgotten crisis.

This leads to a third point. Theresa May has her own development priorities, such as helping to combat modern slavery. But perhaps the biggest shift in policy has been to seek the alignment of aid more closely with Britains foreign policy aims, and its delivery through departments other than DfID. The Government aims to spend 30 per cent through other departments, such as the Foreign Office and Defence, by 2020.

So it is that both Rory Stewart and Alistair Burt find themselves serving not only as Foreign Office Ministers but as DfID ones too. The change has doubtless been put in place partly to appease Boris Johnsons ambitions of swallowing the department up within his own. But it is also a sign of a wider push to get other spending reclassified as development spending, thus easing the constraints on other departments  or, if you prefer, to recognise that security and counter-terrorism spending can themselves be a form of aid. This shift comes at an interesting time.

One of the reasons why the Israeli Government will have been keen to lobby Patel  who delivered enough of her programme to be counted an effective DfID Secretary  is because of the relationship between aid and Brexit. It will have spotted that Britain will soon have a new freedom of foreign policy manouevre, and unsurprisingly wants to tilt it in the direction of Israels interests. Penny Mordaunt will perhaps be brooding more widely on this new freedom as she gets her feet under her new DfID desk. Roughly ten per cent of that 13 billion or so budget is channelled through the EU.

1 billion or so out of a public spending of over 800 billion is a tiny proportion  though a staggering sum in itself  and the Government is keeping its intentions for the money very close to its chest. It seems willing to see the sum spent through the EU institutions in much the same way as nowif by agreeing to do so it can gain something else that it wants during the negotiation. But if the money both returns and stays here, Mordaunt will have to make  or at least help make  an interesting decision: what to do with it.

Ministers will doubtless debate the priorities that the manifesto outlines in line with the Sustainable Development Goals  ending extreme poverty, saving childrens lives, educating girls, combating the slave trave, tackling sexual violence in conflict. Stephen Crabb and Huw Merriman have advanced what they describe as a distinctly Conservative agenda for the new Global Britain  based on getting some of the worlds very poorest into a position whereby they can better help themselves. They stress the need in particular, to unlock the potential of the millions of small businesses in developing countries.

This does not seem to be where our readers are. Most, like this site, are not wedded to hitting a particular spending target. Like us, too, they will doubtless oppose writing spending targets into law, on the ground that the Parliament must continuously be reviewing public spending  and that moves to the contrary are usually, as in this case, pieces of virtue-signalling. But if our surveys are anything to go by, most of them, like us again, support overseas aid in principle, and strongly back aspects of it.

In one conducted two years ago, 92 per cent backed funding for emergency relief  that same relief that Patel fought successfully to extend  82 per cent immunising children against preventable diseases, 76 per cent water provision and 73 per cent sanitation. The numbers dropped for school funding, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and supporting governance and economic reform. But even here, up to a quarter or so backed these less direct forms of aid. Is Mordaunt, who actually has hands-on experience herself as an aid worker, thinking what theyre thinking?
With more than 1,600 entries, the 2018 Bacardi Legacy Global Cruise Competition now has three finalists.

Now in its 13th year, the annual cruise competition is the longest-running cruise cocktail/bartender competition, setting out to recognize the best professional talent in the industry, where bartending standards continue to be raised from year to year., according to a statement.

Since 2016, cruise has been a dedicated sector of the global Bacardi Competition and this years cruise winner will go on to compete in the world finals in Mexico City in April 2018.

The three most promising contestants have been selected based on judging of their original Bacardi rum cocktail recipe, especially created for the competition.

The finalists are:

Dayonel Duenas Gomez, Carnival Cruise Lines

Originating from Colombia, Dayonel has been in the bartending profession for five years and loves to share his combined passion for mixology and gastronomy in original cocktail experiences for cruise guests on the Triumph. The inspiration for his Mamita Chula is fuelled by his mothers influence in building strong family ties and the importance of food and flavors in creating a unique family legacy across the generations. Dayonel said: Passion, love and devotion are at the heart of my recipes; I am really aware of creating a new legacy experience every time I make a cocktail.

Shekar Grover, Royal Caribbean International

A Bachelor of Science graduate in Hotel and Hospitality Management from Gurdaspur in India, Shekar has been drawn to the art of mixology and innovation, especially at sea where he can express his love of travelling and discovering new horizons. Hospitality is his natural arena and the bar his center stage as Shekar explained: "As soon as I step behind the counter I have a real sense of belonging. I love nothing more than working out the perfect blend of flavors and satisfying my curiosity, one cocktail at a time, on whether its best to muddle or to shake. The Royal Legacy is inspired by the Old Fashioned, one of the all- time classics, a great drink which speaks for itself.

Andrej Malic, Celebrity Cruises

With a long-time passion for craft cocktails and the mixology profession, Andrej started bartending in 2008, joining Celebrity Cruise Line in 2012 and has since become something of a competition veteran, reaching the finals of several bartending contests. The inspiration for his Paloma Rica comes straight from the heart of BACARDI following his visit to the distillery in Puerto Rico.

Zachary Sulkes,International Key Account Manager (Cruise), Bacardi Global Travel Retail, noted: As the Bacardi Legacy Global Cruise Cocktail Competition comes around each year, we are always blown away by the increasing standards of professionalism and the sheer ambition amongst the cruise bartending community to keep developing their craft. Many leading cruise operators share our energy and commitment to this competition as an aspirational benchmark for their bartenders. No other brand or spirits company has engaged more with the cruise industry than Bacardi and we are really proud of how, with these cruise partners, we are collectively recognizing and developing up-and-coming talent, which in turn continues to elevate the on-board drinking experience.

The next stage of the competition sees finalists embark on a three-month promotional campaign to publicize and build support for their drink ahead of the cruise finals in Miami in February 2018.

The winner will then go on to compete in the global finals in Mexico City in April 2018. Each of the three finalists receives $1000 and a trip to Miami for the cruise finals. The winner will receive a further $4000 and a trip to Mexico City for the global finals.
As we reflect on U.S. Veterans Day, our thoughts often turn to the difficult transition that many military veterans face as they move into the civilian workforce. Many veterans have a challenging time envisioning how their military skills transfer to civilian jobs, and many find the job-search process hard to navigate.

At the same time, we face a huge talent gap in the cybersecurity industry. Some analyst firms predict a shortage of millions of employees by 2020. In fact, Cybersecurity Ventures, in its 2017 jobs report, predicts 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021, with growing cybercrime leading to a tripling of job openings in the next five years.

That labor shortage is a huge problem for businesses, government agencies, and other organizations trying to keep their networks and data secure.

One way to address this problem is matching up veterans retiring from the military with cybersecurity jobs. While the unemployment rate among veterans has been falling in recent years, younger veterans tend to have a harder time finding jobs than the rest of the U.S. population.

Fortinet sees a huge potential for military veterans to become excellent employees in cybersecurity fields, even though veterans may not immediately see how their training prepares them.

The reality is many veterans receive extensive technology-related training during their active service. Even when they havent received technology instruction, their training teaches them to operate effectively under extreme pressure and take quick responsibility for decisions.

In recent years, Fortinet launched new initiatives aimed at helping veterans find cybersecurity jobs and at training students, recent graduates and other professionals to work in cybersecurity jobs. In 2013, we stood up the FortiVet Program, with the goal of training veterans for cybersecurity careers and helping them navigate the job-search process.

FortiVet operates as part of the Fortinet Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) organization, after hearing our MSSP partners frequently asking us to refer qualified job candidates to them.

The FortiVet Program, with no cost to enrollees or employers, provides the opportunity for veterans to receive cybersecurity technical training and IT certifications. Participants are enrolled in the Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) Program, where nearly 100,000 NSE certifications have been awarded to date. More advanced participants can acquire Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and other high-level certifications, including all eight levels of NSE training and certification as a part of internships with participating partners.

Client supplied imag

The program also assists veterans with soft skills, helping them learn how to interview for jobs, write resumes, and how to build and use a LinkedIn page. The soft skills program even helps them put together a personal battlecard that presents job candidates with a complete profile, with life objectives, interests, and pictures in uniform and civilian attire -- all to help employers visualize them playing a role in their organizations.

The FortiVet Program helps veterans make a smooth transition back into the civilian work world, said Joel Chapman, a former captain in the United States Marine Corps. The program leader worked tirelessly with me, answering questions and helping me to understand a new environment and compare different opportunities, he said.

FortiVet helped Chapman streamline his job search, he said. When I first began searching for jobs I was spending eight hours a day looking through job postings, completing applications, making phone calls, and trying to find contacts who could help me, he added. However, through the auspices of this program I was sought out by senior leadership at different companies to compete for positions with their organizations.

The FortiVet Program is especially valuable because it provides both technical and soft-skills training, added Christopher Armstrong, also a former captain in the United States Marine Corps. The program helps entry-level cybersecurity workers bridge the skills gap through highly valuable training and certifications, all while providing them with general job-related skills such as interviewing, resume drafts, LinkedIn profile reviews, and more, he said.

For veterans with cybersecurity experience, the program gives them access to a vast network of people and companies, Armstrong added. Great jobs are all about who you know and what you know, and FortiVet has all the answers.

In addition to the FortiVet Program, we have another program that students and veterans attending a university can take advantage of. In March 2016, Fortinet launched its Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA), designed to develop and train cybersecurity experts to manage new and advanced threats on the horizon.

Working with 81 institutions, spanning 67 countries, the FNSA provides the widely recognized Fortinet training and certification programs to students around the world. The goal is to address the international shortage of cybersecurity experts and to build a workforce with expertise in Fortinets end-to-end network security fabric.

FNSA brings the training and certification opportunities previously only offered to Fortinet customers and partners to educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and veterans programs. Additionally, training for faculty is free.

The Fortinet Network Security Academy allows schools to provide enhanced cybersecurity training and education to our students, said Rima Aristocrat, CEO of Willis College in Canada.

Putting these programs together to help bridge the cyber security skills gap, Fortinet is doing well, while doing good.

On this Veterans Day, we encourage military veterans to consider cybersecurity careers, and we hope businesses will look to hire veterans as their next cybersecurity professionals.
The rout of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been accompanied by an element of alarmism which is reflected in newspaper headlines screaming that Islamic States foreign fighters are coming home. Quite frankly, this is a little over the top because the guys "coming home" arent exactly some sort of an invasion force. They are mostly a bunch of dysfunctional, depraved and delusional guys who have just got their jihadist backsides kicked real hard out of their make-believe "Caliphate" and are now returning to their home countries virtually with their tail between their legs.

Virus

The fact that these guys are returning defeated doesnt, of course, mean that they will just roll over and play dead. Chances are that while most of them will deny having had any role in the unspeakable crimes committed by the ISIS, very few of them are going to express any genuine remorse over the barbarity and savagery they indulged in as soldiers of the "Caliphate". The simple truth of the matter is that in the absence of an effective antidote, the virus of jihadism that has infected their minds will at best remain latent, and at worst erupt very soon.

This means that their home countries will have to keep a very close watch over them. This, at the very least, means incarcerating them not in ordinary prisons but in special prisons and that too in isolation lest they infect others with their pernicious ideology and impart terror skills like bomb making, covert communications, weapons training, sourcing weapons and procuring funds.

In India, for example, most of the wannabe terrorists inspired or influenced by ISIS have been remarkably amateurish and therefore their networks have been easily busted. More than worrying about the ISIS returnees, what countries need to worry about is the ideology and mindset that seduced their citizens to make a beeline for the "Caliphate".

Some analysts are of the view that as long as the underlying drivers that gave rise to the ISIS in Iraq and Syria are not addressed, this abomination will recur, and with even more virulence. Whatever it was that propelled tens of thousands from all parts of the world to join the ISIS is really what should be of greater concern to authorities in South Asia and other parts of the world. This is because the utopian idea, or even wet dream, of a pristine Caliphate in which true Islam would reign that ISIS sold to its adherents, will survive long after the ISIS ceases to exist as an organisation.

Brazenness

ISIS is just one manifestation other such groups include Taliban and its offshoots, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab etc  of this millenarian idea which has been around for decades, even centuries.

It remains dormant for decades and then erupts violently. Mostly the eruptions are local and easily quelled. But in this day and age of globalisation, these eruptions are now acquiring global proportions. The ISIS gained notoriety not just because of its meteoric rise, but also because of its brazenness, resources and its ability to hard-sell its version of Islam and attract people from every corner of the world.

However, as Amarnath Amarasingam and JM Berger have argued: The loss of the caliphate  and all the traits and qualities that went along with it  will dramatically reduce the Islamic States recruiting appeal Even ISIS ability to run a virtual Caliphate will be severely impaired by their loss of territory. Already, there are signs that the once formidable online propaganda network built by the ISIS is finding it difficult to operate as effectively and efficiently as it did when the Caliphate existed on ground."

Magnet

As it generally happens in these situations, the most die-hard fanatics will continue to indulge in either terror attacks or get involved in guerrilla warfare in different hotspots under different banners which may or may not be affiliated with ISIS. All others will simply pipe down on their jazba-e-jihad because they wouldnt like to be seen on the losing side. But while their sympathies will continue to be with the radical Islamists, they will bide their time until another potent group emerges to challenge the "Kuffar" (infidels).

Therefore, denying both physical and mind space to the radical Islamists is a sine qua non for defeating them. It will be critical to ensure that no jihadist group is allowed to either control a territory or get a safe haven anywhere in the world because this will then become a magnet for all sorts of despicable characters.

This is precisely the reason why India, even as it works to disrupt and destroy jihadist networks within the country, must at the same time put its weight behind the international communitys efforts to secure Afghanistan from falling under the baleful influence of the Islamists, whether of the Taliban or the ISIS variety because at the end of the day there is little to distinguish one from the other.
Myanmar's brutal crackdown on the Rohingya  a largely Muslim group in Rakhine, north-western Myanmar  has forced 6,07,000 people from the community to seek refuge in Bangladesh since August 25, 2017.

The recent exodus, which is a fallout of an armed attack by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA, also Harakan Al Yaqin, a militant Rohingya group) on police bases in Rakhine state on August 25, has been called "unprecedented in terms of volume and speed" by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) and was also called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" by Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The recent escalation is a result of years of repressive government policies and crackdown against the Rohingya, resulting in a new armed conflict in the region.

However, despite reports of burning villages and the rapes and killings of Rohingya civilians, Myanmar's political class and military consistently deny the atrocities. They claim that the military is carrying out clearing operations targeting "Bengali extremists".

Moreover, the government discourages the use of the word "Rohingya", as its use invariably legitimises their presence as an indigenous ethnic group in Rakhine, and prefers the term "Bengalis".

This has led to a series of policies that has disenfranchised the community, restricting their movement within Rakhine and denying them rights guaranteed to the rest of the country's inhabitants.

Therefore, a look into the history of the conflict will not only help contextualise the crisis, but can also help find solutions.

History and evolution of the conflict

The ethno-religious divide between the Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims dates back to World War II, where the Rohingya and the Buddhists supported the British Allied and the Japanese troops respectively, and both sides were responsible for violence and attacks on each other between 1942-1943, which is also believed to have led to displacement on both sides.

Following the partition of India in 1947, a Muslim insurgency erupted in Rakhine state with the aim of annexing the Muslim majority districts, namely Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung, into what was then East Pakistan (Bangladesh).

However, Pakistan's lack of interest in their objectives forced the insurgents to seek an alternative, which was to establish an autonomous region for Muslims within Burma (now Myanmar) through an armed struggle.

Initially, the insurgents were successful in capturing large parts of Rakhine and expelling Buddhist villagers in the areas they controlled. Their success was primarily due to the Burmese military's preoccupation in supressing ethnic conflicts across the country.

It was only after 1954, when the military launched an offensive, that it managed to recapture territory from the insurgents, eventually supressing them in 1961.

Thereafter, in what seemed as a concession to the Muslims after the insurgency, the government established a short-lived, semi-autonomous region comprising the Muslim majority regions in Rakhine, called Mayu Frontier district.

Rohingya refugees at Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. Photo: Reuters

However, the 1962 military coup subsequently led to the dissolution of the Mayu Frontier district and saw a resurgence of Muslim militancy through the formation of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation in 1982, which was around the same time the Rohingya were stripped off citizenship, thus making them a large disenfranchised population in the country.

While the violence between the two major communities in Rakhine divided them, a series of repressive policies in the 1990s made life for the Rohingya intolerable in Myanmar.

Numerous government orders - some confidential - limit the movement of Rohingya within the Rakhine and the rest of the country. They even restrict marriage and cap the number of children to two among Muslims in the northern parts of Rakhine.

These laws and policies are not only discriminatory, but also a violation of articles 7, 13 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, pertaining to the freedom of movement and the right to existence worthy of human dignity.

There is little doubt that the systematic state-driven policy has not only alienated the population, but has made life impossible for the Rohingya in Myanmar. Moreover, the increased violence against civilians along with the rise of the ARSA, coupled with the proliferation of non-state Rakhine nationalist militia, such as the Arakan Army (AA), risks escalation and complicates the road to peace.

The Arakan Army (AA), formed in 2009, bolstered operations against the military after an older Rakhine militant group called the Arakan Liberation Army began peace talks and finally signed a ceasefire agreement with the Army in 2012.

While they have primarily been involved with fighting the military in pursuit of an independent Rakhine state, the AA has unequivocally stated that Rohingya are immigrants from Bangladesh and have called ARSA "savage Bengali Muslim terrorists".

They have even called out "successive Burmese regimes" for failing to curtail "the Bengalis intrusion and territorial expansion" into Arakan (Rakhine) due to "population explosion of Bangladesh".

They have also stated that they are prepared to fight ARSA for and safeguard the interests and territorial integrity of Arakan in case the army, government and police are incapable of doing so.

Response of neighbouring countries

Neighbouring countries are sceptical of the influx of Rohingya refugees into their territory. Bangladesh, for example, has been overwhelmed with estimates of 8,00,000 Rohingya in the country, which is 62% of the total 1.3 million Rohingya.

While camps have been established to accommodate refugees, human rights organisations have claimed that Bangladesh has a policy of housing some refugees in remote uninhabited flood-prone islands with the motive of discouraging them to stay in the country.

Additionally, there are fears that the presence of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, particularly in the Chittagong Hill Tract, might reignite tensions between Muslims, Bangladesh military and indigenous non-Muslim tribes.

The Indian government, too, has expressed displeasure with the presence of 40,000 Rohingya in the country, and has been vocal about its plan to deport them. The government of India has stated that the presence of Rohingya is a threat to its own national security and claims they have links with terrorist networks.

The Supreme Court of India, however, has intervened on the pleas of activists owing to apprehensions of human rights violations, which highlights the responsibility of the neighbours in a conflict that has assumed extra-territorial implications.

It has temporarily barred deportation while the case is being heard and has explicitly stated that the Government of India must not be oblivious to the plight of women and children and that they should strike a balance as the case deals with the human rights of many. While the Supreme Court may have stayed deportation, India's move has been widely criticised both internally and internationally, as many in the country believe that it is influenced by the Hindutva ideology and a fear among radical Hindus about the threat of Muslim refugees altering the demographics in the country.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also stated that India's "ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the obligations of due process and the universal principle of non-refoulment, India cannot carry out collective expulsions, or return people to a place where they risk torture or other serious violations".

Moreover, Myanmar's non-recognition of Rohingya Muslims would result in Myanmar refusing to accept returnees, which has been their objective all along.

Nonetheless, India's geopolitical and national interests have influenced its relationship with Myanmar. In order to counter China's growing influence, India has been crucial in developing Myanmar's infrastructure and has also funded the port in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine.

India has also strategically utilised both the non-state actors and the Myanmar military to check its own insurgency in the North-East, particularly in Nagaland.

Yet, despite a robust foreign policy with Myanmar, India seems oblivious to the humanitarian catastrophe across the border. This attitude is unbecoming of a democracy and instead of deporting refugees, India must utilise its diplomatic channels to intervene in ending the conflict in Myanmar.

The current situation of the Rohingya is deplorable and highlights the consequences of conflict in multi-ethnic societies, and its implications to regional peace and security. Unwanted both at home and in neighbouring countries, the Rohingya need the international community to take a far more holistic approach in dealing with the crisis.

Myanmar's status as a state in transition towards democracy from a dictatorial regime had brought hope of an all-inclusive state, but the Rohingya seem to have been ignored in this process.

Myanmar's government and leaders must understand that ignoring the grievances of the Rohingya will only exacerbate the conflict, potentially leading to a far more violent insurgency.
Electricity generated from Chak Khola connected to natl transmission line

Electricity generated from Chak Khola Hydropower Project, in northern Ramechhap, has been connected to national transmission line from Friday.
The indigenously made single-engine fighter Tejas, now 30 years in the making, isn't yet good enough to protect the Indian skies on its own. This is what the Indian Air Force (IAF) has gently but firmly told the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.

The government recently told the IAF to scrap its plans of acquiring single-engine fighters through the "Make In India" route and instead go for the totally homemade Tejas.

There are only two proven single-engine fighters. They are the JAS 39 Gripen, a single-engine multi-role fighter manufactured by the Swedish aerospace company Saab, and the US-made F-16, manufactured by Lockheed Martin. While the USA has been applying diplomatic pressure on India to go for the F-16s, former defence minister Manohar Parrikar's Sweden visit in 2016 indicated that India was also considering the Gripen.

The Modi government is keen to reduce India's dependence on foreign defence platforms and wants to create a defence manufacturing hub in India. Parrikar, during his short but eventful tenure, ensured that the IAF agreed to induct the homemade fighter, and to be fair, Tejas has received the support of the forces, especially the IAF, which has agreed to buy 123 Tejas fighters, though not fighting fit yet.

India's quest for a home-grown fighter

What the Modi government is doing now has been tried earlier too. Tejas isn't India's first homemade fighter.

Charged by the Nehruvian vision of industrial and economic self-reliance, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) - a defence public sector unit (PSU) that now produces the Tejas - had produced the twin engine HF-24 Marut, India's first indigenous fighter-bomber in the 1960s. Work for the Marut began in mid-1950s. Kurt Tank, who had designed the Focke-Wulf-190 - one of the top performing German fighters during World War II - was persuaded by Jawaharlal Nehru to take over the responsibility of making the Marut.

The first fighter was handed over to IAF's Dagger Squadron on April 1, 1967. The Marut proved its mettle in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. Two squadrons of the Marut would fly more than 300 combat sorties during the fortnight-long hostilities between India and Pakistan. Not a single Marut was shot down or damaged by the enemy. By the mid-1970s, the fighter had reached 70 per cent indigenisation. A total of 147 Marut fighters were built before they were decommissioned in the 1980s.

However, the Marut was under-powered and proved too expensive to maintain. And like the Marut, the Tejas too has technical limitations.

The homemade dream and the problems therein

According to those who have given the best years of their life to the IAF, the Tejas is small, nimble, and unique, but it has its share of problems as well.

The Tejas requires more man-hours to maintain, cannot carry as much ordnance as its counterparts and most importantly, cannot fly as far as the others in a single sortie. Other single-engine fighters can be effective over a radius of over 500km whereas the Tejas can do just 300km. The radius of action of the Tejas is far smaller, making it less effective.

Balancing the short-, medium- and long-term needs of India

The IAF's firm rejection is based on the short- and medium-term need to build capabilities to deal with threats from either Pakistan or China or both. The number of fighter aircraft IAF has is dwindling steadily. It will lose another 11 fighter squadrons by 2019-20, bringing the total strength down to 22 fighter squadrons.

Lack of spares and poor serviceability of fighter aircraft means a further drop in number of fighters for operational task on a given day.

In contrast, Pakistan has between 24 and 27 squadrons and is now inducting the Chinese-made J-17 fighters. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (Air Force) has about 3,000 fighters. However, the entire fleet of fighters of neither Pakistan nor China are new or up-to-the-mark. But numbers do matter if these outdated, old and new fighters of Pakistan and China can be deployed in a concentrated manner in a given theatre. Clearly, the IAF's refusal to go only for homemade fighter aircraft is driven by its anxiety "to do the job".

The government's decision to go for the homemade fighters is driven by a slightly different perspective. It aims to make India a manufacturing hub - including defence - in the long term. Giving up on the homemade Marut in the 1980s wasn't the best decision. But, hindsight always gives wisdom. A developing country with competing needs would definitely invest more on food, health and education than funding weapons programmes. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former head of Pakistan, who was later hanged, once famously remarked "we will eat grass" but will build a nuclear bomb. Pakistan did build the bomb but, in the process, became a textbook example of a failed state.

We, as a nation, decided to invest more on IITs and medical colleges, roads, dams, agriculture, and airports and thereby building a composite and progressive India. There have been slips and the job could have been done better, but over the years, the Indian economy has emerged strong and resilient.

So, who is wrong and what is the way forward?

In the day and age of instant food, Any Time Money, and quick gratification, problems or difficult questions necessarily require binary answers - right or wrong. Unfortunately, in this case there is neither a right nor a wrong answer.

Both the IAF and government are right and wrong. The IAF, because of the nature of job at hand, is looking at the immediate scenario and wants to be prepared. Similarly, by insisting on the homemade fighter, the government too wants to be prepared for the long-term.

Perhaps what Nehru did in the 1950s is the way forward. Just as Nehru hired Kurt Tank for the Marut, India can hire another expert to fine-tune the Tejas. India today can well afford to do that. And, in the interim, India can also well afford to buy few more fighter aircraft through the "Make In India" route to fill the gaps.
Apollo Global Management, Inc. is a private equity firm specializing in investments in credit, private equity and real estate markets. The firm's private equity investments include traditional buyouts, recapitalization, distressed buyouts and debt investments in real estate, corporate partner buyouts, distressed asset, corporate carve-outs, middle market, growth capital, turnaround, bridge, corporate restructuring, special situation, acquisition, and industry consolidation transactions. The firm provides its services to endowment and sovereign wealth funds, as well as other institutional and individual investors. It manages client focused portfolios. The firm launches and manages hedge funds for its clients. It also manages real estate funds and private equity funds for its clients. The firm invests in the fixed income and alternative investment markets across the globe. Its fixed income investments include income-oriented senior loans, bonds, collateralized loan obligations, structured credit, opportunistic credit, non-performing loans, distressed debt, mezzanine debt, and value oriented fixed income securities. The firm seeks to invest in chemicals, commodities, consumer and retail, oil and gas, metals, mining, agriculture, commodities, distribution and transportation, financial and business services, manufacturing and industrial, media distribution, cable, entertainment and leisure, telecom, technology, natural resources, energy, packaging and materials, and satellite and wireless industries. It seeks to invest in companies based in across Africa, North America with a focus on United States, and Europe. The firm also makes investments outside North America, primarily in Western Europe and Asia. It employs a combination of contrarian, value, and distressed strategies to make its investments. The firm seeks to make investments in the range of $10 million and $1500 million. The firm seeks to invest in companies with Enterprise value between $750 million to $2500 million. The firm conducts an in-house research to create its investment portfolio. It seeks to acquire minority and majority positions in its portfolio companies. Apollo Global Management, Inc. was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in New York, New York with additional offices in North America, Asia , India and Europe.
BASF SE operates as a chemical company worldwide. The company operates through six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care, and Agricultural Solutions. The Chemicals segment provides petrochemicals and intermediates. The Materials segment offers advanced materials and their precursors for applications and systems, such as isocyanates and polyamides, as well as inorganic basic products and specialties for plastic and plastic processing industries. The Industrial Solutions segment develops and markets ingredients and additives for industrial applications, such as polymer dispersions, pigments, resins, electronic materials, antioxidants, light stabilizers, oilfield chemicals, mineral processing, and hydrometallurgical chemicals. The Surface Technologies segment offers chemical solutions and automotive OEM, which include refinish coatings, surface treatment, catalysts, battery materials, and precious and base metal services for the automotive and chemical industries. The Nutrition & Care segment provides nutrition and care ingredients for food and feed producers, as well as pharmaceutical, cosmetics, detergent, and cleaner industries. The Agricultural Solutions segment offers crop protection products and seeds, such as fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and biological crop production products, as well as seed treatment products. The company has strategic partnerships with Contemporary Amperex TechnologyCo., Limited on battery materials solutions, including cathode active materials and battery recycling. BASF SE was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany.
Ex-Prez Yadav awarded with Jana Aandolan Gold Medal

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has decorated for former President Dr Ram Baran Yadav with the 'Jana Aandolan Swarna Padaka (gold medal), 2074' and honoured him on the occasion of the 103rd birth anniversary of the late Ganesh Man Singh, the commander of the Jana Aandolan or People's Movement I.
Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.
Koppers Holdings Inc. provides treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds in the United States, Australasia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC), and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC). The RUPS segment procures and treats crossties, switch ties, and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. It also provides rail joint bars to join rails together for railroads; transmission and distribution poles for electric and telephone utilities; and pilings. This segment also provides railroad services, such as engineering, design, repair, and inspection services for railroad bridges. The PC segment develops, manufactures, and markets copper-based wood preservatives, including micronized copper azole, micronized pigments, alkaline copper quaternary, amine copper azole, and chromated copper arsenate for decking, fencing, utility poles, construction lumber and timbers, and various agricultural uses; and supplies fire-retardant chemicals for pressure treatment of wood primarily in commercial construction. The CMC segment manufactures creosote for the treatment of wood or as a feedstock in the production of carbon black; carbon pitch, a raw material used in the production of aluminum and steel; naphthalene for use as a feedstock in the production of phthalic anhydride and as a surfactant in the production of concrete; phthalic anhydride for the production of plasticizers, polyester resins, and alkyd paints; and carbon black feedstock for use in the production of carbon black. The company serves the railroad, specialty chemical, utility, residential lumber, agriculture, aluminum, steel, rubber, and construction industries. Koppers Holdings Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Indian publishing and Nepali writers

Where does Indian publishing currently stand, and how can Nepali writers benefit from it?
Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. operates as a specialty retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies. The company operates through two segments, Sally Beauty Supply and Beauty Systems Group. The Sally Beauty Supply segment offers beauty products, including hair color and care products, skin and nail care products, styling tools, and other beauty products for retail customers, salons, and salon professionals. This segment also provides products under third-party brands, such as Wella, Clairol, OPI, Conair, and L'Oreal, as well as exclusive-label brand merchandise. The Beauty Systems Group segment offers professional beauty products, such as hair color and care products, skin and nail care products, styling tools, and other beauty items directly to salons and salon professionals through its professional-only stores, e-commerce platforms, and sales force, as well as through franchised stores under the Armstrong McCall store name. This segment also sells products under third-party brands, such as Paul Mitchell, Wella, Matrix, Schwarzkopf, Kenra, Goldwell, Joico, and Olaplex. As of September 30, 2021, the company operated 4,777 stores, including 134 franchised units in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany. It also distributes its products through full-service/exclusive distributors, open-line distributors, direct sales, and mega-salon stores. Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. was founded in 1964 and is headquartered in Denton, Texas.
TP ICAP Group PLC provides intermediary services, contextual insights and intelligence, trade execution, pre-trade and settlement services, and data-led solutions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in Global Broking, Energy & Commodities, Agency Execution, and Parameta Solutions divisions. The Global Broking division operates in rates, foreign exchange and money markets, emerging markets, equities, and credit products; and offers broking, facilitating price discovery, liquidity, execution, and risk management services to participants in the wholesale financial markets. The Energy & Commodities division operates in various commodities markets, including oil, gas, power, renewables, ferrous metals, base metals, precious metals, soft commodities, and coal. This division also assists in canvassing the market for expressions of interest, intelligence gathering, negotiations, and post-transaction processing; and provides insights on the impact of unpredictable factors, such as weather conditions, geopolitics, and exchange rate movements. The Agency Execution division operates Liquidnet, a cash equities dark/block electronic trading network; and Coex Partners, a trade advisory and agency execution service that covers listed derivatives, foreign exchange, government bonds, cleared interest rate swaps, and cash equities. This division serves hedge funds, asset managers, and asset owners. The Parameta Solutions division provides unbiased data products that facilitate trading, enhance transparency, reduce risk, and improve operational efficiency; and post trade solutions. This division also offers real-time price information for the OTC financial and commodity markets delivering independent data for various asset classes, including rates, foreign exchange and money markets, volatility, oil, energy, inflation, credit, and equities. TP ICAP Group PLC is based in St Helier, Jersey.
VirnetX Holding Corporation, through its subsidiary VirnetX, Inc., operates as an Internet security software and technology company primarily in the United States. The company develops software and technology solutions, including secure domain name registry and GABRIEL Connection Technology that are designed to secure communications over the Internet using zero trust network access. It also offers a portfolio of licenses and services, such as VirnetX One, a security-as-a-service platform that protects enterprise applications, services, and infrastructure from cyber-attacks; GABRIEL Connection Technology software development kit to assist with rapid integration of its techniques into existing software implementations; and War Room software that offers safe and secure video conferencing meeting environment where sensitive communications and data is invisible to those not authorized to view it. In addition, the company provides GABRIEL Collaboration Suite that enables seamless and secure cross-platform communications between users' devices. It serves domain infrastructure and communication service providers, and system integrators; and enterprise customers, developers, and original equipment manufacturers of chips, servers, desktops, smart phones, tablets, laptops, net books, and other devices in the IP-telephony, mobility, fixed-mobile convergence, and unified communications markets. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Zephyr Cove, Nevada.
Yext, Inc. organizes business facts to provide answers to consumer questions in North America and internationally. It operates Yext platform, a cloud-based platform that allows its customers to provide answers to consumer questions, to control the facts about their businesses and the content of their landing pages, and to manage their consumer reviews, as well as provides customers to update their information and content through its knowledge network of approximately 200 maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories, and social networks. The platform enables its customers to centralize, control and manage data fields, including store information, such as name, address, phone number and holiday hours; professional information, comprising of headshot, specialties, and education; job information, consisting of title and description; and FAQs and other information. It serves the healthcare, retail, and financial services industries. The company was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
EPAM Systems, Inc. provides digital platform engineering and software development services worldwide. The company offers engineering services, including requirements analysis and platform selection, customization, cross-platform migration, implementation, and integration; infrastructure management services, such as software development, testing, and maintenance with private, public, and mobile infrastructures for application, database, network, server, storage, and systems operations management, as well as monitoring, incident notification, and resolution services; and maintenance and support services. It also provides operation solutions comprising integrated engineering practices and smart automation; and optimization solutions that include software application testing, test management, automation, and consulting services to enable customers enhance their existing software testing and quality assurance practices, as well as other testing services that identify threats and close loopholes to protect its customers' business systems from information loss. In addition, the company offers business, experience, technology, data, and technical advisory consulting services; and digital and service design solutions, which comprise strategy, design, creative, and program management services, as well as physical product development, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual reality. It serves the financial services, travel and consumer, software and hi-tech, business information and media, life sciences and healthcare, and other industries. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
Maoist Centre disciplines 10 leaders for defying orders

The CPN (Maoist Centre), a constituent of the left alliance, on Thursday ousted 10 leaders, including three politburo members, from the party for defying its orders.
Mechi Pari locals feel snubbed by leaders

In Bhadrapur Municipality of Jhapa lies a small village known as Mechi Pari, which means across the Mechi river.
Delek US Holdings, Inc. engages in the integrated downstream energy business in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Refining, Logistics, and Retail. The Refining segment processes crude oil and other feedstock for the manufacture of various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, asphalt, and other petroleum-based products that are distributed through owned and third-party product terminal. It owns and operates four independent refineries located in Tyler, Texas; El Dorado, Arkansas; Big Spring, Texas; and Krotz Springs, Louisiana, as well as three biodiesel facilities in Crossett, Arkansas, Cleburne, Texas, and New Albany. The Logistics segment gathers, transports, and stores crude oil, intermediate, and refined products; and markets, distributes, transports, and stores refined products for third parties. It owns or leases capacity on approximately 400 miles of crude oil transportation pipelines, approximately 450 miles of refined product pipelines, an approximately 900-mile crude oil gathering system, and associated crude oil storage tanks with an aggregate of approximately 10.2 million barrels of active shell capacity; and owns and operates ten light product distribution terminals, as well as markets light products using third-party terminals. The Retail segment owns and leases 248 convenience store sites located primarily in West Texas and New Mexico. Its convenience stores offer various grades of gasoline and diesel under the DK or Alon brand; and food products and service, tobacco products, non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, and general merchandise, as well as money orders to the public primarily under the 7-Eleven and DK or Alon brand names. It serves oil companies, independent refiners and marketers, jobbers, distributors, utility and transportation companies, the U.S. government, and independent retail fuel operators. Delek US Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
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.
Energizer Holdings, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, markets, and distributes household batteries, specialty batteries, and lighting products worldwide. It offers lithium, alkaline, carbon zinc, nickel metal hydride, zinc air, and silver oxide batteries under the Energizer and Eveready brands, as well as primary, rechargeable, specialty, and hearing aid batteries. The company also provides headlights, lanterns, and children's and area lights, as well as flash lights under the Energizer, Eveready, Rayovac, Hard Case, Dolphin, Varta, and WeatherReady brands. In addition, it licenses the Energizer and Eveready brands to companies developing consumer solutions in gaming, automotive batteries, portable power for critical devices, LED light bulbs, generators, power tools, household light bulbs, and other lighting products. Further, the company designs and markets automotive fragrance and appearance products, including protectants, wipes, tire and wheel care products, glass cleaners, leather care products, air fresheners, and washes to clean, shine, refresh, and protect interior and exterior automobile surfaces under the brand names of Armor All, Nu Finish, Refresh Your Car!, LEXOL, Eagle One, California Scents, Driven, and Bahama & Co; STP branded fuel and oil additives, functional fluids, and other performance chemical products; and do-it-yourself automotive air conditioning recharge products under the A/C PRO brand name, as well as other refrigerant and recharge kits, sealants, and accessories. It sells its products through direct sales force, distributors, and wholesalers; and through various retail and business-to-business channels, including mass merchandisers, club, electronics, food, home improvement, dollar store, auto, drug, hardware, e-commerce, convenience, sporting goods, hobby/craft, office, industrial, medical, and catalog. Energizer Holdings, Inc. was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri.
Mishra strives to make inroads into NC bastion

Swarna Bikram Shah, 40, of Bhimsengola Marga, used to be one among those who often say Things are bad, but Im not just that into politics. Frustrated with same old faces in politics and same political agendas over the years, he even chose to boycott elections in the past.
White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides insurance and other financial services in the United States. The company operates through five segments: HG Global/BAM, Ark, NSM, Kudu, and Other Operations. The HG Global/BAM segment provides insurance on municipal bonds issued to finance public purposes, such as schools, utilities, and transportation facilities, as well as reinsurance protection services. The Ark segment writes a portfolio of reinsurance and insurance, including property, marine and energy, accident and health, casualty, and specialty products. The NSM segment operates as a managing general agent and program administrator for specialty property and casualty insurance to various sectors comprising specialty transportation, real estate, social services, and pet. The Kudu segment provides capital solutions to boutique asset and wealth managers for generational ownership transfers, management buyouts, acquisitions and growth finances, and legacy partner liquidity, as well as strategic assistance to investees. The Other Operations segment offers insurance solutions to travel industry through broker channel and on a direct-to-consumer basis; and manages separate accounts and pooled investment vehicles for insurance-linked securities sectors, including catastrophe bonds, collateralized reinsurance investments, and industry loss warranties of third-party clients. White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
Cenovus Energy Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas liquids, and natural gas in Canada, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region. The company operates through Oil Sands, Conventional, Offshore, Canadian Manufacturing, U.S. Manufacturing, and Retail segments. The Oil Sands segment develops and produces bitumen and heavy oil in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. This segments Foster Creek, Christina Lake, Sunrise, and Tucker oil sands projects, as well as Lloydminster thermal and conventional heavy oil assets The Conventional segment holds assets primarily located in Elmworth-Wapiti, Kaybob-Edson, Clearwater, and Rainbow Lake operating in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as interests in various natural gas processing facilities. The offshore segment engages in the exploration and development activities. The Canadian Manufacturing segment includes the owned and operated Lloydminster upgrading and asphalt refining complex, which upgrades heavy oil and bitumen into synthetic crude oil, diesel fuel, asphalt, and other ancillary products, as well as owns and operates the Bruderheim crude-by-rail terminal and two ethanol plants. The U.S. Manufacturing segment comprises the refining of crude oil to produce diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, asphalt, and other products. The Retail segment consists of marketing of its own and third-party refined petroleum products through retail, commercial, and bulk petroleum outlets, as well as wholesale channels. Cenovus Energy Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
More women in campaigns as most of men are abroad

Election campaigns in Dolakha of Province 3 are seeing a remarkable participation of women, in what could be a striking manifestation of change the society is witnessing. But this also brings to the fore one of the major issues the country has been grappling withunemployment.
Imperial Brands PLC, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures, imports, markets, and sells tobacco and tobacco-related products in Europe, Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. It offers a range of cigarettes, fine cut and smokeless tobacco, papers, and cigars; and next generation product (NGP) portfolio, such as e-vapour products, oral nicotine, and heated tobacco products. The company sells its products under various brands, including Davidoff, Gauloises, JPS, West, L&B, Winston, Parker & Simpson, blu, Pluze, Zone-X, Kool, Horizon, Backwoods, Skruf, Golden Virginia, Rizla, and Dutch Masters. It also engages in the distribution of tobacco and NGP products for tobacco and NGP product manufacturers; and various non-tobacco and NGP products and services. In addition, the company is involved in the management of a golf course; distribution of pharmaceuticals, POS software, and published materials and other products; printing and publishing activities; and provision of long haul transportation, industrial parcel and express delivery, advertising, and support management services. Further, it owns the trademarks; and retails its products. The company was formerly known as Imperial Tobacco Group PLC and changed its name to Imperial Brands PLC in February 2016. Imperial Brands PLC was founded in 1901 and is based in Bristol, the United Kingdom.
GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.
National medical college row: NMC decides to ride out ministrys pressure

Nepal Medical Council (NMC) has decided not to follow the Ministry of Educations directive to allocate seats to the controversial National Medical College to run MBBS programme.
Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc., through its subsidiaries, produces, markets, and distributes fresh and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Fresh and Value-Added Products, Banana, and Other Products and Services. It offers pineapples, fresh-cut fruit, fresh-cut vegetables, melons, and vegetables; non-tropical fruits, such as grapes, apples, citrus, blueberries, strawberries, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries, and kiwis; other fruit and vegetables, and avocados; and prepared fruit and vegetables, juices, other beverages, and meals and snacks. The company also engages in the sale of poultry and meat products; and third-party freight services business. In addition, it manufactures and sells plastic and box products, such as bins, trays, bags, and boxes. The company offers its products under the Del Monte brand, as well as under other brands, such as UTC, Rosy, Fruit Express, Just Juice, Fruitini, Mann's Logo, Arcadian Harvest, Nourish Bowls, Broccolini, Caulilini, Better Burger Leaf, RomaLeaf, and other regional brands. It markets and distributes its products to retail stores, club stores, convenience stores, wholesalers, distributors, and foodservice operators. Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. was founded in 1886 and is based in George Town, Cayman Islands.
No female Muslim FPTP candidate in Province 1

A total of 39 women can-didates are contesting in the upcoming federal and provincial elections in Province 1, but the political parties have failed to pick even one female candidate from the Muslim community under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system.
President Bhandari authenticates HPE ordinance

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari has finally endorsed the much-awaited Health Profession Education (HPE) Ordinance, nearly three weeks after the Cabinet decision to enact a new law as demanded by senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC.
The following companies are subsidiares of TransDigm Group: 17111 Waterview Pkwy LLC, ARA Deutschland GmbH, ARA Holding GmbH, Acme Aerospace, Acme Aerospace Inc., Adams Rite Aerospace GmbH, Adams Rite Aerospace Inc., Advanced Inflatable Products Limited, Aero-Instruments, AeroControlex Group Inc., Aerosonic, Aerosonic LLC, Air-Sea Survival Equipment Trustee Limited, Airborne Acquisition Inc., Airborne Global Inc., Airborne Holdings Inc., Airborne Systems, Airborne Systems Canada Ltd., Airborne Systems Group Limited, Airborne Systems Holdings Limited, Airborne Systems Limited, Airborne Systems NA Inc., Airborne Systems North America Inc., Airborne Systems North America of CA Inc., Airborne Systems North America of NJ Inc., Airborne Systems Pension Trust Limited, Airborne UK Acquisition Limited, Airborne UK Parent Limited, Aircraft Materials Limited, AmSafe, AmSafe Aviation (Chongqing) Ltd., AmSafe Bridport (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., AmSafe Bridport (Private) Ltd., AmSafe Bridport Ltd., AmSafe Global Holdings Inc., AmSafe Global Services (Private) Limited, AmSafe Inc., Angus Electronics Co., Arkwin Industries, Arkwin Industries Inc., Armtec Countermeasures Co., Armtec Countermeasures TNO Co., Armtec Defense Products Co., Auxitrol SAS, Auxitrol Weston Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Auxitrol Weston Services China Ltd., Auxitrol Weston Singapore Pte. Ltd., Auxitrol Weston USA Inc., Aviation Technologies, Aviation Technologies Inc., Avionic Instruments LLC, Avionics Instruments, Avionics Specialties Inc., AvtechTyee Inc., Beta Transformer Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Beta Transformer Technology Corporation, Beta Transformer Technology LLC, Breeze-Eastern Corporation, Breeze-Eastern LLC, Bridport Erie Aviation Inc., Bridport Holdings Inc., Bridport Ltd., Bridport-Air Carrier Inc., Bruce Aerospace Inc., Bruce Industries, CDA InterCorp LLC, CEF Industries LLC, CMC Electronics Aurora LLC, CMC Electronics Inc., CMC Electronics ME Inc., Champion Aerospace LLC, Chelton Avionics Holdings Inc., Chelton Avionics Inc., Chelton Limited, Cobham Aero Connectivity, Cobham CTS Limited, Cobham Defence Communications Limited, Cobham Defense Products Inc., DART Aerospace, DDC Electronics K.K., DDC Electronics Ltd., DDC Electronics Private Limited, DDC Electronique S.A.R.L., DDC Elektronik GmbH, Darchem Engineering Limited, Darchem Holdings Limited, Data Device Corp., Data Device Corporation, Dukes Aerospace Inc., EST Defence Company UK Limited, Edlaw Limited, Electromech Technologies LLC, Elektro-Metall Export GmbH, Elektro-Metall Paks KFT, Esterline, Esterline Acquisition Ltd, Esterline Europe Company LLC, Esterline Foreign Sales Corporation, Esterline International Company, Esterline Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Esterline Technologies Corporation, Esterline Technologies Corporation, Esterline Technologies Europe Limited, Esterline Technologies France Holding SAS, Esterline Technologies French Acquisition Limited, Esterline Technologies Global Limited, Esterline Technologies Holdings Limited, Esterline Technologies SGIP LLC, Esterline Technologies Unlimited, Esterline do Brasil Assessoria e Intermediacao Ltda, European Antennas Limited, Extant Components Group Holdings Inc., Extant Components Group Intermediate Inc., GQ Parachutes Limited, Guizhou Leach-Tianyi Aviation Electrical Company Ltd, Harco, HarcoSemco LLC, Hartwell Corporation, Hytek Finishes Co., ILC Holdings Inc., IRVIN AEROSPACE LIMITED, IrvinGQ France SAS, IrvinGQ Limited, Janco Corporation, Johnson Liverpool LLC, Kirkhill Elastomers, Kirkhill Inc., Korry Electronics Co., Kunshan Shield Restraint Systems Ltd., Leach Holding Corporation, Leach International Asia-Pacific Ltd, Leach International Corporation, Leach International Europe S.A.S., Leach International Germany GmbH, Leach International Mexico S. de R. L. de C. V., Leach International UK Ltd, Leach Mexico Holding LLC, Leach Technology Group Inc., MarathonNorco Aerospace Inc., Mason Electric Co., Mastsystem Int'l Oy, McKechnie Aerospace, McKechnie Aerospace (Europe) Ltd., McKechnie Aerospace DE Inc., McKechnie Aerospace DE LP, McKechnie Aerospace Holdings Inc., McKechnie Aerospace US LLC, Mecanismos de Matamoros S. de R.L. de C.V., NAT Seattle Inc., NMC Group Inc., Norco, Nordisk Asia Pacific Limited, Nordisk Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Nordisk Aviation Products (Kunshan) Ltd., Nordisk Aviation Products AS, Nordisk Aviation Products LLC, North Hills Signal Processing Corp., North Hills Signal Processing Overseas LLC, Norwich Aero Products Inc., Palomar Products Inc., Pexco Aerospace, Pexco Aerospace Inc., PneuDraulics, PneuDraulics Inc., Pressure Systems International Ltd, Schneller, Schneller Asia Pte. Ltd., Schneller LLC, Schneller S.A.R.L., Schroth Safety Products, Semco Instruments, Semco Instruments Inc., Shield Restraint Systems Inc., Shield Restraint Systems Ltd., Signal Processing Matamoros S.A. de C.V., Skandia, Skandia Inc., Skurka Aerospace, Skurka Aerospace Inc., Symetrics Industries, Symetrics Industries LLC, Symetrics Technology Group LLC, TA Aerospace Co., TA Mfg Limited, TDG Bavaria GmbH, TDG ESL Holdings Inc., TDG France Ultimate Parent SAS, TDG Germany GmbH, TEAC Aerospace Holdings Inc., TEAC Aerospace Technologies Inc., Tactair Fluid Controls Inc., Takata Protection Systems, Telair International, Telair International GmbH, Telair International Services PTE Ltd, Telair US LLC, TransDigm (Barbados) SRL, TransDigm Canada ULC, TransDigm European Holdings Limited, TransDigm Ireland Ltd., TransDigm Receivables LLC, TransDigm Technologies India Private Limited, TransDigm UK Holdings plc, Transicoil (Malaysia) Sendirian Berhad, Transicoil LLC, Wallop Defence UK Limited, Weston Aerospace Ltd, Whippany Actuation Systems, Whippany Actuation Systems LLC, XCEL Power Systems Ltd., Young & Franklin, Young & Franklin Inc., and exas Rotronics Inc..

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Ranipokhari reconstruction resumes

Reconstruction works of the Ranipokhari has resumed after a hiatus of four months. Executive Officer at Kathmandu Metropolis, Dhaniram Sharma, directed the construction company to accelerate the reconstruction.
Kennametal Inc. engages in development and application of tungsten carbides, ceramics, and super-hard materials and solutions for use in metal cutting and extreme wear applications to enable customers work against corrosion and high temperatures conditions worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Metal Cutting and Infrastructure. It offers standard and custom products, including turning, milling, hole making, tooling systems, and services, as well as specialized wear components and metallurgical powders for manufacturers engaged in various industries, such as the manufacturers of transportation vehicles and components, machine tools, and light and heavy machinery; airframe and aerospace components; and energy-related components for the oil and gas industry, as well as power generation. The company also provides specified product design, selection, application, and support services; and standard and custom metal cutting solutions to aerospace, general engineering, energy, and transportation customers. In addition, it produces compacts, nozzles, frac seats, and custom components used in oil and gas, and petrochemical industries; rod blanks and abrasive water jet nozzles for general industries; earth cutting tools and systems used in underground mining, trenching and foundation drilling, and road milling; tungsten carbide powders for the oil and gas, aerospace, and process industries; and ceramics used by the packaging industry for metallization of films and papers. It provides its products under the Kennametal, WIDIA, WIDIA Hanita, and WIDIA GTD brands through its direct sales force; a network of independent and national distributors; integrated supplier channels; and through the Internet. The company was founded in 1938 and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The following companies are subsidiares of MetLife: 10700 WILSHIRE LLC, 1201 TAB MANAGER LLC, 1350 EYE STREET MANAGER LLC, 1350 EYE STREET OWNER LLC, 150 NORTH RIVERSIDE PE MEMBER LLC, 1925 WJC OWNER LLC, 23RD STREET INVESTMENTS INC., 500 GRANT STREET ASSOCIATES LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, 500 GRANT STREET GP LLC, 6104 HOLLYWOOD LLC, AFP GENESIS ADMINISTRADORA DE FONDOS Y FIDECOMISOS S.A., AGENVITA S.R.L., ALICO HELLAS SINGLE MEMBER LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY, ALICO OPERATIONS LLC, American Life Insurance Company, BEST MARKET S.A., BLOCK VISION HOLDINGS CORPORATION, BLOCK VISION OF TEXAS INC., BORDERLAND INVESTMENTS LIMITED, BOULEVARD RESIDENTIAL LLC, BUFORD LOGISTICS CENTER LLC, CC HOLDCO MANAGER LLC, CHESTNUT FLATS WIND LLC, CLOSED JOINT-STOCK COMPANY MASTER-D, COMPANIA INVERSORA METLIFE S.A., CORPORATE REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS LLC, COVA LIFE MANAGEMENT COMPANY, DAVIS VISION INC., DAVISVISION IPA INC., DELAWARE AMERICAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, EURO CL INVESTMENTS LLC, EXCELENCIA OPERATIVA Y TECNOLOGICA S.A de C.V., FORTISSIMO CO. LTD, FUNDACION METLIFE MEXICO A.C., GLOBAL PROPERTIES INC., General American Life Insurance Company, Grand Bank N.A., HASKELL EAST VILLAGE LLC, HOUSING FUND MANAGER LLC, INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL AND ADVISORY SERVICES LIMITED, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO DOS LIMITADA, INVERSIONES METLIFE HOLDCO TRES LIMITADA, LHC HOLDINGS LLC, LHCW HOLDINGS LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING 2002 LLC, LHCW HOTEL HOLDING LLC, LHCW HOTEL OPERATING COMPANY 2002 LLC, LUMENLAB MALAYSIA SDN. BHD., Logan Circle Partners, MARKETPLACE RESIDENCES LLC, MC PORTFOLIO JV MEMBER LLC, MCJV LLC, MCPP OWNERS LLC, MCRE BLOCK 40 LP, MEC HEALTH CARE INC., MET 1065 HOTEL LLC, MET CANADA SOLAR ULC, METLIFE 1007 STEWART LLC, METLIFE 1201 TAB MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 425 MKT MANAGER LLC, METLIFE 425 MKT MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 555 12TH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE 8280 MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ACOMA OWNER LLC, METLIFE ADMINISTRADORA DE FUNDOS MULTIPATROCINADOS LTDA., METLIFE ALTERNATIVES GP LLC, METLIFE ASHTON AUSTIN OWNER LLC, METLIFE ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., METLIFE ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE ASIA SERVICES SDN. BHD, METLIFE ASSET MANAGEMENT CORP., METLIFE ASSIGNMENT COMPANY INC., METLIFE BORO STATION MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CAMINO RAMON MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CAMPUS AT SGV MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CAPITAL CREDIT L.P., METLIFE CAPITAL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, METLIFE CAPITAL TRUST IV, METLIFE CB W/A LLC, METLIFE CC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CHILE ADMINISTRADORA DE MUTUOS HIPOTECARIOS S.A., METLIFE CHILE INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS DE VIDA S.A., METLIFE CHILE SEGUROS GENERALES S.A., METLIFE CHINO MEMBER LLC, METLIFE COLOMBIA SEGUROS de VIDA S.A., METLIFE COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE INCOME FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CONSQUARE MEMBER LLC, METLIFE CONSUMER SERVICES INC., METLIFE CORE PROPERTY FUND GP LLC, METLIFE CREDIT CORP., METLIFE DIGITAL VENTURES INC., METLIFE ENHANCED CORE PROPERTY FUND GP LLC, METLIFE EU HOLDING COMPANY LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE INSURANCE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPE SERVICES LIMITED, METLIFE EUROPE d.a.c., METLIFE EUROPEAN HOLDINGS LLC., METLIFE FINANCIAL SERVICES CO. LTD, METLIFE FM HOTEL MEMBER LLC, METLIFE FUNDING INC., METLIFE GENERAL INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE GLOBAL BENEFITS LTD., METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY I GMBH, METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDING COMPANY II GMBH, METLIFE GLOBAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION S.A. De C.V., METLIFE GLOBAL INC., METLIFE GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE GROUP INC., METLIFE HCMJV 1 GP LLC, METLIFE HCMJV 1 LP LLC, METLIFE HEALTH PLANS INC., METLIFE HOLDINGS INC., METLIFE HOME LOANS LLC, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE LIMITED, METLIFE INNOVATION CENTRE PTE. LTD., METLIFE INSURANCE AND INVESTMENT TRUST, METLIFE INSURANCE BROKERAGE INC., METLIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF KOREA LTD., METLIFE INSURANCE K.K., METLIFE INSURANCE LIMITED, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HF PARTNERS LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED LLC, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND I LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND II LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND III LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND IV LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND V LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND VI LP, METLIFE INTERNATIONAL PE FUND VII LP, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT EUROPE LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT HOLDINGS LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LLC, METLIFE INVESTMENTS ASIA LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS PTY LIMITED, METLIFE INVESTMENTS SECURITIES LLC, METLIFE INVESTORS DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, METLIFE INVESTORS GROUP LLC, METLIFE IRELAND TREASURY D.A.C., METLIFE JAPAN US EQUITY FUND GP LLC, METLIFE JAPAN US EQUITY FUND LP, METLIFE JAPAN US EQUITY OWNERS BLOCKER LLC, METLIFE JAPAN US EQUITY OWNERS LLC, METLIFE LATIN AMERICA ASESORIAS E INVERSIONES LIMITADA, METLIFE LEGAL PLANS INC., METLIFE LEGAL PLANS OF FLORIDA INC., METLIFE LHH MEMBER LLC, METLIFE LIFE INSURANCE S.A., METLIFE LOAN ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC, METLIFE LONG SHORT CREDIT FUND LP, METLIFE LONG SHORT CREDIT MASTER FUND LP, METLIFE LONG SHORT CREDIT PARALLEL FUND LP, METLIFE MAS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO HOLDINGS S. DE R.L. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE MEXICO SERVICIOS S.A. DE C.V., METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT FUND II LP, METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT GP II LLC, METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT GP LLC, METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT II RATED FUND LP, METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT PARALLEL FUND LP, METLIFE MIDDLE MARKET PRIVATE DEBT PARALLEL GP LLC, METLIFE MMPD II SPECIAL LLC, METLIFE MULTI-FAMILY PARTNERS III LLC, METLIFE OBS MEMBER LLC, METLIFE OFC MEMBER LLC, METLIFE ONTARIO STREET MEMBR LLC, METLIFE PARK TOWER MEMBER LLC, METLIFE PENSION TRUSTEES LIMITED, METLIFE PENSIONES MEXICO S.A., METLIFE PET INSURANCE SOLUTIONS LLC, METLIFE PLANOS ODONTOLOGICOS LTDA., METLIFE POWSZECHNE TOWARTZYSTWO EMERYTALNE S.A., METLIFE PRIVATE EQUITY HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE PROPERTIES VENTURES LLC, METLIFE RC SF MEMBER LLC, METLIFE REAL ESTATE LENDING LLC, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF BERMUDA LTD., METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF CHARLESTON, METLIFE REINSURANCE COMPANY OF VERMONT, METLIFE RETIREMENT SERVICES LLC, METLIFE SECURITIZATION DEPOSITOR LLC, METLIFE SEGUROS S.A., METLIFE SENIOR DIRECT LENDING FINCO LLC, METLIFE SENIOR DIRECT LENDING FUND LP, METLIFE SENIOR DIRECT LENDING GP LLC, METLIFE SENIOR DIRECT LENDING HOLDINGS LP, METLIFE SERVICES AND SOLUTIONS LLC, METLIFE SERVICES CYPRUS LTD., METLIFE SERVICES EAST PRIVATE LIMITED, METLIFE SERVICES EEIG, METLIFE SERVICES EOOD, METLIFE SERVICES SOCIEDAD LIMITADA, METLIFE SERVICES SP Z.O.O, METLIFE SERVICIOS S.A., METLIFE SINGLE FAMILY RENTAL FUND GP LLC, METLIFE SINGLE FAMILY RENTAL FUND LP, METLIFE SOLUTIONS PTE. LTD., METLIFE SOLUTIONS S.A.S., METLIFE SP HOLDINGS LLC, METLIFE STRATEGIC HOTEL DEBT FUND GP LLC, METLIFE SYNDICATED BANK LOAN LUX GP S.A.R.L., METLIFE THR INVESTOR LLC, METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO FUNDUSZY INWESTYCYJNYCH S.A., METLIFE TOWARZYSTWO UBEZPIECZEN NA ZYCIE I REASEKURACJI S.A., METLIFE TOWER RESOURCES GROUP INC., METLIFE TREAT TOWERS MEMBER LLC, METLIFE WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, METROPOLITAN GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN GLOBAL MANAGEMENT LLC, METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN LIFE SEGUROS E PREVIDENCIA PRIVADA S.A., METROPOLITAN LIFE SOCIETATE de ADMINISTRARE a UNUI FOND de PENSII ADMINISTRAT PRIVAT S.A., METROPOLITAN TOWER LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, METROPOLITAN TOWER REALTY COMPANY INC., MEX DF PROPERTIES LLC, MFA FINANCING VEHICLE CTR1 LLC, MIDTOWN HEIGHTS LLC, MIM CAMPUS AT SGV MANAGER LLC, MIM CLAL GENERAL PARTNER LLC, MIM CM SYNDICATOR LLC, MIM EMD GP LLC, MIM I LLC, MIM LS GP LLC, MIM METWEST INTERNATIONAL MANAGER LLC, MIM ML-AI VENTURE 5 MANAGER LLC, MIM OMD MANAGER LLC, MIM PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LLC, MIM PROPERTY MANAGEMENT OF GEORGIA 1 LLC, MIM SPOKANE INDUSTRIAL MANAGER LLC, MIM THIRD ARMY INDUSTRIAL MANAGER LLC, MISSOURI REINSURANCE INC., ML 300 THIRD MEMBER LLC, ML ARMATURE MEMBER LLC, ML BELLEVUE MANAGER LLC, ML BELLEVUE MEMBER LLC, ML CAPACITACION COMERCIAL S.A. DE C.V., ML CERRITOS TC MEMBER LLC, ML CLAL MEMBER LLC, ML CORNER 63 MEMBER LLC, ML DOLPHIN GP LLC, ML DOLPHIN MEZZ LLC, ML HUDSON MEMBER LLC, ML MATSON MILLS MEMBER LLC, ML MILILANI MEMBER LLC, ML OMD MEMBER LLC, ML ONE BEDMINSTER LLC, ML PORT CHESTER SC MEMBER LLC, ML SENTINEL SQUARE MEMBER LLC, ML SLOANS LAKE MEMEBR LLC, ML SOUTHLANDS MEMBER LLC, ML SOUTHMORE LLC, ML SPOKANE INDUSTRIAL MEMBER LLC, ML SWAN GP LLC, ML SWAN MEZZ LLC, ML TERRACES LLC, ML THIRD ARMY INDUSTRIAL MEMBER LLC, ML VENTURE 1 MANAGER S. DE R. L. DE C.V., ML VENTURE 1 SERVICER LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 1 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 2 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 3 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 4 LLC, ML-AI METLIFE MEMBER 5 LLC, ML-URS PORT CHESTER SC MANAGER LLC, MLIA MANAGER I LLC, MLIA PARK TOWER MANAGER LLC, MLIA SBAF COLONY MANAGER LLC, MLIA SBAF MANAGER LLC, MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS II LLC, MLIC ASSET HOLDINGS LLC, MLIC CB HOLDINGS LLC, MLJ US FEEDER LLC, MM GLOBAL OPERATIONS SUPPORT CENTER S.A. DE C.V., MMP CEDAR STREET OWNER LLC, MMP CEDAR STREET REIT LLC, MMP HOLDINGS III LLC, MMP OLIVIAN OWNER LLC, MMP OLIVIAN REIT LLC, MMP OWNERS III LLC, MMP OWNERS LLC, MMP SOUTH PARK OWNER LLC, MMP SOUTH PARK REIT LLC, MNQM TRUST 2020, MREF 425 MKT LLC, MSHDF HOLDCO I LLC, MSV IRVINE PROPERTY LLC, MTL LEASING LLC, MTU HOTEL OWNER LLC, NATILOPORTEM HOLDINGS LLC, NEWBURY INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, OCONEE GOLF COMPANY LLC, OCONEE HOTEL COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND COMPANY LLC, OCONEE LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LLC, OCONEE MARINA COMPANY LLC, OMI MLIC INVESTMENTS LIMITED, PACIFIC LOGISTICS INDUSTRIAL NORTH LLC, PACIFIC LOGISTICS INDUSTRIAL SOUTH LLC, PARK TOWER JV MEMBER LLC, PARK TOWER REIT INC., PJSC METLIFE, PLAZA DRIVE PROPERTIES LLC, PREFCO FOURTEEN LLC, PREFCO XIV HOLDINGS LLC, PROVIDA INTERNACIONAL S.A., SAFEGUARD HEALTH ENTERPRISES INC., SAFEGUARD HEALTH PLANS INC., SAFEHEALTH LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, SOUTHCREEK INDUSTRIAL HOLDINGS LLC, ST. JAMES FLEET INVESTMENTS TWO LIMITED, SUPERIOR PROCUREMENT INC., SUPERIOR VISION BENEFIT MANAGEMENT INC., SUPERIOR VISION HOLDINGS INC., SUPERIOR VISION INSURANCE INC., SUPERIOR VISION INSURANCE PLAN OF WISCONSIN INC., SUPERIOR VISION OF NEW JERSEY INC., SUPERIOR VISION SERVICES INC., Safeguard Health Enterprises, Security First Group Inc., THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH AVENUE MEZZANINE LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL HOLDING LLC, THE BUILDING AT 575 FIFTH RETAIL OWNER, THE DIRECT CALL CENTRE PTY LIMITED, TRANSMOUNTAIN LAND & LIVESTOCK COMPANY, UVC INDEPENDENT PRACTICE ASSOCIATION INC., VERSANT HEALTH CONSOLIDATIONS CORP., VERSANT HEALTH HOLDCO INC., VERSANT HEALTH INC., VERSANT HEALTH LAB LLC, VIRIDIAN MIRACLE MILE LLC, VISION 21 MANAGED EYE CARE OF TAMPA BAY INC., VISION 21 PHYSICIAN PRACTICE MANAGEMENT COMPANY, VISION TWENTY-ONE MANAGED EYE CARE IPA INC., Versant Health, WDV ACQUISITION CORP., WFP 1000 HOLDING COMPANY GP LLC, WHITE OAK ROYALTY COMPANY, WHITE TRACT II LLC, and Willing.

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Slaving away

Govt has proven toothless, instead of taking strong position to protect migrant workers
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. provides investor communications and technology-driven solutions for the financial services industry. The company's Investor Communication Solutions segment processes and distributes proxy materials to investors in equity securities and mutual funds, as well as facilitates related vote processing services; and distributes regulatory reports, class action, and corporate action/reorganization event information, as well as tax reporting solutions. It also offers ProxyEdge, an electronic proxy delivery and voting solution; data-driven solutions and an end-to-end platform for content management, composition, and omni-channel distribution of regulatory, marketing, and transactional information, as well as mutual fund trade processing services; data and analytics solutions; solutions for public corporations and mutual funds; SEC filing and capital markets transaction services; registrar, stock transfer, and record-keeping services; and omni-channel customer communications solutions, as well as operates Broadridge Communications Cloud platform that creates, delivers, and manages communications and customer engagement activities. The company's Global Technology and Operations segment provides solutions that automate the front-to-back transaction lifecycle of equity, mutual fund, fixed income, foreign exchange and exchange-traded derivatives, order capture and execution, trade confirmation, margin, cash management, clearance and settlement, reference data management, reconciliations, securities financing and collateral management, asset servicing, compliance and regulatory reporting, portfolio accounting, and custody-related services. This segment also offers business process outsourcing services; technology solutions, such portfolio management, compliance, fee billing, and operational support solutions; and capital market and wealth management solutions. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in Lake Success, New York.
RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. provides reinsurance and insurance products around the world. The company was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Bermuda with offices in Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, and the US.

The company operates through two segments that include multiple underlying businesses and investment vehicles. The two main segments are Property and Casualty & Specialty. The company operates through intermediaries that include DaVinci Resinsurance Inc, Top Layer Reinsurance LTD, and RennaisanceRe Syndicate 1458 among others.

Top Layer Re is the first major venture and was started in 1999. It is a joint venture with State Farm targeting high layers of the US reinsurance business. DaVinci Re was formed in the wake of 9/11 to assist with capacity and it was given added capacity in the wake of hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Medici was formed in 2009 and is an open-ended fund intended to spur investment in the catastrophe bond market.

The Property segment writes catastrophic insurance policies to insure insurance and reinsurance companies against natural and man-made catastrophes. These include but are not limited to hurricanes, floods, freezes, and terrorism.

The Casualty & Specialty segment provides a wide range of consumer products including business insurance, malpractice insurance, liability insurance, workers' compensation, mortgage insurance, and health insurance among others.

Among RenaissanceRes Specialty businesses is capital management. The firm offers 6 investment vehicles and has more than $11 billion under management making it the #1 ILS or insurance-linked asset manager in the US. In regards to its credit ratings, the firm and all of its vehicles carry an A or better rating from every credit rating agency.
Sounding the alarm

Delhis smog is a warning for all countries and cities in Asia where the pollution level is high
Ecolab Inc. provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Global Industrial, Global Institutional & Specialty, and Global Healthcare & Life Sciences segments. The Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, refining, and petrochemical industries. The Global Institutional & Specialty segment provides specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, government and education, and retail industries. Its Global Healthcare & Life Sciences segment offers specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the healthcare, personal care, and pharmaceutical industries, such as infection prevention and surgical solutions, and end-to-end cleaning and contamination control solutions under the Ecolab, Microtek, and Anios brand names. The company's Other segment offers pest elimination services to detect, eliminate, and prevent pests, such as rodents and insects in restaurants, food and beverage processors, educational and healthcare facilities, hotels, quick service restaurant and grocery operations, and other institutional and commercial customers. This segment also provides colloidal silica for binding and polishing applications in semiconductor, catalyst, and aerospace component manufacturing, as well as chemical industries; and products and services that manage wash process through custom designed programs, premium products, dispensing equipment, water and energy management, and reduction, as well as real time data management. It sells its products through field sales and corporate account personnel, distributors, and dealers. The company was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Stalled pipeline project likely to start soon

Construction of the long-stalled Amlekhgunj-Raxaul oil pipeline is likely to start soon as Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has completed preparations to despatch the required equipment to Nepal. The shipment is expected to arrive by November-end.
Students protest against 9th amendment to Edu Act

The education stream students from Tribhuvan University have launched a protest, threatening self-immolation unless the government rolls back its decision to give permanent status to a majority of temporary teachers without competitive tests.
Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in North America. The company operates through two segments, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services, and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment offers specially designed parts washers; automotive and industrial cleaning products, such as antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, degreasers, glass and floor cleaners, hand cleaners, absorbents, mats, and spill kits; pickup and transportation services for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water and sludge, and other fluids from customers oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as remove and collect waste fluids found at metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, packages, distributes, and markets lubricants; and provides containerized waste, vacuum services, used motor oil collection, and contract blending and packaging services. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.
Upper Mustang folks want better road to Korala border

Korala Customs Office wears a deserted look as usual. The office, which sees activities only two times in a year during the business fair, is close to the road that connects Korala (Nepal-China border point). Locals feel happy when they see staffers working at the office.
Woman arrested on charges of conning Rs 300,000

The police have arrested a woman on charges of swindling people with a false promise of a job in Nepal police.
The dominant subject at this weeks AfricaCom was, as it has been many times before, connecting the millions of Africans who still have no access to any kind of network.

Multiple speeches and panels were devoted to the subject, with ministers from Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe sharing the policies of their Governments at a seminar hosted by Huawei.

South Africas Minister of Telecoms and Postal Services Dr Siyabonga Cwele made it clear that his governments IT policy was aimed squarely at facilitating digital transformation across the country to overcome inequality.

He noted that the countrys e-government and ICT strategies had been finalised last week ahead of their reveal this week. He added that the digital strategy would be agreed upon later this month.

Meanwhile, African Telecoms Union Secretary General Abdoulkarim Soumaila emphasised that all people must be able to access the internet to enjoy a better quality of lifegovernments have a responsibility to ensure that internet access is available to all.

Soumaila noted that the challenges in building rural networks continue to be regulatory regimes, economic disparity between urban and rural, and a lack of electricity. To this end, he recommended that energy ministers should be included in ICT policy making.

The GSMAs Head of SSA operations Akinwale Goodluck drew a round of applause from the audience when he declared that the best time to connect everyone in Africa is yesterday. The next best time is today, and the next best is tomorrow.

He emphasised that connectivity is now a safety and security issue and that governments need to look at issues around taxation to address affordability issues and encourage investment.

Namibias ICT Minister, the Honourable Tjekero Tweya, outlined her governments Vision 2030 strategy and said that while today more than 70% of Namibians are connected to a mobile network, very few enjoy mobile broadband as it is prohibitively expensive.

Explaining that MTC Namibia had been rebranded to Make The Connection, she also added that her governments priority was to help operators become profitable without being overtaxed, noting that they would be encouraged through their own successes to pay their taxes.

She noted that regulations for infrastructure sharing mean that players of all sizes can share infrastructure, preventing one single operator from becoming too dominant.

The idea that infrastructure sharing should be encouraged was echoed by Zimbabwes Minister of ICT and Courier Services, The Hon Supa Mandiwanziram, who claimed: There is absolutely no reason why you should go to top of a mountain and find three towers, three diesel gensets and three security guards.

However, he added that it has proven a challenge to convince operators of the advantages of sharing infrastructure as they want to own their own. Nonetheless, the government strongly believes that sharing is now global best practice and has implemented regulations to encourage it.

Meanwhile, World Telecom Labs (WTL) issued its annual survey about rural telephony in Africa. WTLs surveys provide the latest insight and opinions from operators, ISPs, Governments and vendors building networks across rural Africa.

The surveys findings were mixed, revealing an air of cynicism amongst industry stakeholders. In answer to the question Which African operators are really trying to build networks in rural areas? 33% of respondents said that no operators were really trying whilst 40% said MTN was the most proactive.

However, there is a clear push towards commercially sustainable networks in the rural telephony space, with 94% saying that every element of a rural network could and should be shared  and that network sharing, spectrum sharing and neutral wholesale players all offer a way to spread the CAPEX costs of rural networks.

The question What do you think Governments in Africa should do to speed up the rollout of rural networks? offered several options as potential answers, and responses were split across these, with the following percentages of respondents answering that governments should:

Legislate, giving operators targets: 10%

Establish policies to allow all types of infrastructure sharing: 10%

Allow the creation of dedicated MVNOs for rural service: 10%

Ensure that roaming agreements in rural areas are in place: 16%

Collaborate with local municipalities to support and facilitate the deployment of shared infrastructure: 9%

Subsidise the backhaul infrastructure: 12%

Reduce the industry-specific supply tax rate: 10%

Build open access networks: 11%

Offer fair and non-discriminatory access to public infrastructure: 11%

Other: 1%

Food for thought for all ministers at AfricaCom this week
Indian operator Aircel may have no other option but to shutter its operations following the collapse of its merger with Reliance Communications (RCom).

The operator has debts of around US$3.7B and continues to make losses. It holds no 4G spectrum, and the countrys apex court has issued an order to prevent it selling any of its 2G or 3G spectrum before representatives from its parent firm Maxis appear in court.

The Maxis representatives in question - promoter T Ananda Krishnan and former executive Ralph Marshall  controlled the Malaysian company when it acquired Aircel. The fact that neither has yet appeared before Indias Supreme Court was a key factor behind the collapse of Aircels merger with RCom.

Aircel may now attempt to shift some of its wireless assets  along with its 89 million subscribers - to a larger operator. It also has 40,000 towers that it will likely try to sell. However, this could change if the Supreme Court grants Aircel permission to sell any of its spectrum.

Filing for bankruptcy will be an unappealing option for Aircel as it would rely on bank guarantees from Maxis, and this would likely instigate a lengthy legal process. The operator is attempting to restructure its debt while streamlining its operations to focus on its strongest areas, including Tamil Nadu, the Northeast and Jammu & Kashmir.

Industry observers were blunt about Aircels options, with former Bharti Airtel chief executive Sanjay Kapoor saying: there is no point in staying if you are losing more money and relevance in the market. Its only option is to sell its customers and revenue to one of the incumbents and offset its debt.

Bharti Airtel has been cited as a likely buyer for Aircel as it is looking to strengthen its footprint in order to compete effectively with the entity that will result from Vodafone and Ideas merger, as well as a fast-growing Reliance Jio Infocomm. Vodafone-Idea could potentially buy Aircel but are currently occupied with combining their operations.

Airtel has demonstrated the biggest appetite to consolidate market share by acquiring marginal players. However, given their moves, their appetite for more at a higher value may not exist. Given that Idea-Vodafone combined have to play a catch-up game on 4G, versus Jio and Airtel, their ability to accord greater value to Aircel cannot be ruled out, added Kapoor.
InterSat and ABS have launched iDirect platforms on ABS-3A C-band and Ku-band beams.

These platforms will provide quality broadband internet across Sub-Sahara and South Africa, as well as serving French-speaking African countries.

With the growing demand for broadband internet services, users in Africa demand services at low entry cost including hardware and bandwidth. InterSat and ABS can now offer Software Virtual Network Operator (SVNO) access to resellers in Africa to distribute and manage internet services at affordable pricing on both C and Ku-band.

Resellers can control their VSAT network and manage services to their clients without the need for investment in hardware. InterSat will operate the services from its new and state-of-the-art teleport in Nairobi using ABS-3As pan-Africa beams. Both Ku- and C-band coverage offers excellent elevation across Africa.

The requirement for satellite capacity in the broadband market in Africa continues to grow, said Hanif Kassam, CEO of InterSat. At InterSat, we are now ready to start a new chapter towards accelerated growth and our renewed collaboration with ABS marks that new beginning. With our high-quality and affordable service offerings on ABS-3A satellite, we are confident that our customers in Africa will reap many benefits of a next-generation network.

Flavien Bachabi , MD of Africa for ABS, commented, ABS-3A is a new choice for high profile broadband as well as broadcast distribution in Africa, MENA, Europe and the Americas. Our VNO services in cooperation with InterSat will provide a cost-effective way for resellers and clients to establish a comprehensive communication network without the capital investment on a hub infrastructure.
Huawei has previously built similar OpenLabs in Munich, Mexico, Dubai, Singapore, and China. The aforementioned labs will support cooperation between Huawei and over 400 solution partners globally.

Huawei has announced the construction of their new OpenLab in Malaysia, which were previously built by the company in Munich, Mexico, Dubai, Singapore, and China. The company announced this during the Huawei Asia-Pacific innovation day and together, the aforementioned labs will support cooperation between Huawei and over 400 solution partners globally. Huaweis event focused on promotion of digital economy in the APAC region with special focus on digital transformation models for emerging markets, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and core industries like services and tourism.

Read the complete press release below

Over 200 government officials, technology experts, scholars, and representatives from tech companies gathered today from all across the Asia-Pacific region for the third annual Huawei Asia-Pacific Innovation Day, held in Kuala Lumpur. The event was co-hosted by Malaysia's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the Malaysia-China Business Council, and Huawei Technologies.



This year's event focused on fostering digital economy in the APAC region, with special focus on digital transformation models for emerging markets, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and core industries like services and tourism. At the event, Huawei announced the construction of a new OpenLab in Malaysia, which will serve as an open, flexible, and secure platform for joint innovation with local partners. Huawei has built similar OpenLabs in Munich, Mexico, Dubai, Singapore, and China. Together, these labs support extensive cooperation between Huawei and over 400 solution partners globally.



At the event, Huawei's Deputy Chairman of the Board and Rotating CEO, Guo Ping, spoke about the different stages of digital transformation, and what countries can focus on at each stage of development. "We've all heard about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," said Guo. "When a country goes digital, they experience a similar evolution of needs. I would divide this hierarchy into four layers. The first is ICT infrastructure, which is the foundation of a digital economy. The second is security, for both the physical and digital worlds. Security is necessary for further development. The third layer is developing a supportive environment for industries to go digital. Building on a solid foundation of privacy protection, the fourth and highest layer is enabling broader information sharing. More data will help cities and national governments better manage the digitization process, ultimately promoting safer cities and smarter countries. "



Guo stressed that technological innovation and an open ecosystem are critical to the success of digital initiatives in the APAC region. "We need to collaborate more broadly and share views across the ecosystem, including between industries and universities worldwide. Close collaboration between industry and academia will help ensure a thriving digital economy. As always, Huawei remains committed to the Asia-Pacific region, and will continue working with our partners to drive digital economic growth and ensure a better connected future for all of APAC."



The Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and Minister of Home Affairs, YB Dato' Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid bin Hamidi, also delivered a keynote speech at the event. He expressed his optimism about the future of digital transformation in the Asia Pacific region. He encouraged all APAC countries to communicate more and work more closely together to drive positive, sustainable economic outcomes.



Also at this event, The Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank, released the global safe city report, a blueprint of safe cities around the world. Findings from the report indicate that, from an infrastructure perspective, the Asia Pacific region has enormous potential for smart city and safe city development. Huawei highlighted its own experience helping the Longgang District in Shenzhen, China, build out its safe city infrastructure.



Openness, innovation, collaboration, and shared success were the common themes of this year's event. Tony Q.S. Quek, Associate Professor from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), spoke about Huawei's Innovation Research Program, which funds joint innovation with universities. Professor Dr. Ong Hang See from Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) and YBhg Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, CEO of Malaysia Petroleum Resource Corporation (MPRC), presented real-world examples of the electric power industry and the oil and gas industry going digital.



Xue Ding, co-founder of ofo, outlined the shared bike company's partnership with Huawei, which helped ofo embed Internet of Things (IoT) chips in their bicycles and leverage artificial intelligence to offer riders more personalized services. Xue indicated that ofo would like to join forces with Huawei and other partners to build out the global IoT ecosystem.



During the event, Huawei signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with the SME Corporation Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Terengganu State Government, and CyberSecurity Malaysia, expanding cooperation across a number of domains, including scientific research, innovation, talent, smart campuses, and cyber security. Together, they will promote a thriving digital economy and ensure prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.



Since its debut in 2013, Huawei Innovation Day has been held in London, Milan, Munich, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney.
A flagship smartphone is composed of various aspects, that comes together to form a premium experience. The imaging capabilities (or the camera) is clearly one of the most important aspects of a flagship phone today. When evaluating a flagship smartphones camera on a standalone basis, its easy to get swayed by the high quality performance that it offers across the board. Its only when you pit the cream of the crop against each other that you unearth the finer differences that make them win or lose against each other. With our camera comparison between the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, the Google Pixel 2 XL and the Apple iPhone X, we aim to do just that. Find which one is worthy of being crowned as the best, while bringing out the strengths and weaknesses of each to give you a clear picture on which one would serve you the best. Do note that we have only focussed on the still image capture capability of the primary (or rear) camera of the three flagships, along with a selfie test. We shall be doing a separate comparison for evaluating the video capture capabilities of the 3 flagships via another comparison.

On paper:

Apple iPhone X Pixel 2 XL Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Single / Dual camera Dual Single Dual Resolution (Rear) 12MP + 12MP 12.2 12MP + 12MP Aperture (Rear) f/1.8 & f/2.4 f/1.8 f/1.7 & f/2.4 Sensor size 1/3-inch 1/2.6-inch 1/2.55-inch Resolution (Front) 7MP 8 8 Aperture (Front) f/2.2 f/2.4 f/1.7 OIS Yes Yes Yes PDAF Yes Yes Yes Optical zoom Yes No Yes Laser autofocus No Yes No

Test 1: Food

Social Media is a big part of the lives of millennials. We catalogue moments and things we encounter throughout the day, food being one of them. The test image used here was taken in the morning with plenty of natural light. We observed that the image captured by the iPhone X is more vibrant. It has a better colour saturation and looks more true to source, unlike the rather warm tone reproduced by Samsung Galaxy Note 8. The Google Pixel 2 XL on the other hand offers distinctly better details, but it is unable to offer the same level of colour accuracy as the iPhone X.

Apple iPhone X

Google Pixel 2 XL

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Apple iPhone X: 5/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 4/5

Test 2: Fauna

The next subject here is the commonly found pink Bougainvillea flower. The image has been taken in a breezy environment, with the subject swaying slowly making it a little difficult for the cameras to focus. We observed that the Google Pixel 2 XL does a better job in getting focus and details right. The subject looks sharp and background (statue + wall) and foreground (flower) separation is better. The iPhone X still manages to offer better white balance and the Samsung Note 8 captures a vibrant image, but it also sacrifices on details and definition, thanks to a very strong noise reduction algorithm at work. Ideally, with the given light conditions, the Note 8 shouldnt have been so heavy handed on noise reduction.

Apple iPhone X

Google Pixel 2 XL

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3/5

Test 3: Outdoor (overcast conditions)

Here is a perfect example of clicking a picture in overcast conditions. The subject here is the painting on the wall. In this image, it is easier to see the inconsistency in the Pixel 2 XLs camera, that we discussed in the review. The white balance is off in the image captured by the Pixel 2 XL, there is visible noise and astonishingly, the photo even has lesser details.On the other hand, the iPhone X offers a sharp photo with more details, but at the same time it adds some noise. Samsungs algorithm waters down noise quite well, but in doing so, it decreases overall image sharpness. The Note 8 though offers better white balance than the Pixel 2 XL in this photo.

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 3/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3.5/5

Test 4: Natural light (indoors)

The Pixel 2 XL is unable to redeem itself in this simple natural light test, but then again none of the cameras have managed to capture the subject properly on this test. Still, Apple takes the lead here, offering better overall image quality, thanks to better white balance and more accurate colour reproduction. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 manages to reproduce better colours than the Pixel 2 XL, but all three phones end up at almost at par in terms of image details.

Apple iPhone X

Google Pixel 2 XL

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Apple iPhone X: 3.5/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 2/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3/5

Test 5: Incandescent light (indoors)

This is the same subject taken in incandescent light and one can see Googles new camera algorithm working overtime here. The image by the Pixel 2 XL looks sharp and its more true to source. The phone captures plenty of details though white balance is still not spot on, it is better than the other two contenders. The Note 8 offers better details than the iPhone X, but then ends up with a similar score as the X, losing out on colour accuracy. Which the iPhone X seems to be consistently good at.

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 4/5

Test 6: Outdoors under incandescent light

We took this image late at night, under bright incandescent lighting. The Google Pixel 2 XL loses out here, just because of low colour accuracy. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the iPhone X at least try to retain the colours. The iPhone X takes the lead as colours are more true to source. There is some noise in all images, but details are still best preserved by the Google Pixel 2 XL.

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 3/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3.5/5

Test 7: Low light 1

In this low light shot, it is quite visible that the colour reproduced by Samsungs Galaxy Note 8 are not true to source. The low light algorithm used by the Samsung phone induces a red hue to the image, which sets it below the other two contenders. On the other hand both the Google Pixel 2 XL and Apple iPhone X do a better job here. Both phones capture details quite well, even when it is taken against the light. The Pixel 2 XL however inches ahead of the iPhone X with a slightly sharper image and deeper colors.

Apple iPhone X

Google Pixel 2 XL

Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Apple iPhone X: 4.5/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3/5

Test 8: Low Light 2

We observed the same results in this second low light image. The Pixel 2 XL not only manages to offer more true-to-source colours, but also keeps finer details intact. The iPhone X image may look better from the laymans perspective here, offering a slightly warmer tone that many like. However, like the image taken by the Note 8, it has less details and inferior colour accuracy.

Apple iPhone X: 4.5/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 4/5

Test 9: Dynamic range

In this test, we wanted to know if the camera can capture subjects with usable details when the background is brighter in contrast. Here, Googles camera is better than the iPhone X, offering a visible, sharper and detailed subject (statue) against the bright background (building). Samsung also manages a better photo in this test over the iPhone X, offering a more visible subject. However, in doing so Samsung offsets the white balance in the image, again adding that warmer hue we saw during the low-light tests.

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 4/5

Test 10: Macro

Macro images are the best kind to showcase a cameras prowess and in this image we have taken an image of a flower cluster of the Holy Basil, commonly known as Tulsi. The flowers are no more than a centimetre in size and this whole cluster shown in the image is less than 5 cm in size. Still, the Google Pixel 2 XL manages to click a superb image. There are plenty of details and colours are accurate, while you also get perfect background separation.

In contrast, the Apple iPhone X ends up with a less detailed image than either of the two contenders, which has visible noise as well. The image does look good as a whole, especially on a mobile screen, but as soon as you put it up on a larger display, the minor differences are quite visible. Lastly, the Galaxy Note 8 is slightly better than the iPhone X in overall details. The image is brighter, which looks good, though the colors are not true to source.

Apple iPhone X: 4/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3.5/5

Test 11: Selfie

Taking a portrait image in low light and against the light is any front facing cameras nightmare. That being said, Googles Pixel 2 XL nails it like a champ. However, the image captured is not perfect. You can still see that the headphone wire going in the ear has been chopped off in order to provide that blurred bokeh background. But it is still the best image among the three.

Googles camera algorithm manages to perfectly separate the foreground and background, almost like a DSLR camera. The selfie taken by the Apple iPhone X here is clearly a few steps behind. The image is not as sharp, less vibrant and the foreground and background separation is not as good as the Pixels. Samsungs Note 8 does not have a portrait mode on the front camera and hence comes in last of the three.

Apple iPhone X: 3/5

Google Pixel 2 XL: 5/5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 3/5

Scores:

Google Pixel 2 XL: 46.5

Apple iPhone X: 44.5

Samsung Galaxy Note 8: 38.5

Apple iPhone X Pixel 2 XL Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Sample 1 5 4.5 4 Food Sample 2 4 5 3 Fauna Sample 3 4 3 3.5 Wall art Sample 4 3.5 2 3 Indoor natural light Sample 5 4 4.5 4 Indoor incadecent light Sample 6 4 3 3.5 Resolution Sample 7 4.5 5 3 OIS Sample 8 4.5 5 4 PDAF Sample 9 4 4.5 4 Dyanmic range Sample 10 4 5 3.5 Macro Sample 11 3 5 3 Front camera Total 44.5 46.5 38.5

Final thoughts

The Google Pixel 2 XL wins our shootout, though the gap against the iPhone X is marginal, while the Note 8 becomes a clear third. However, the Pixel 2XL is not the fastest, especially when it comes to portraits. It takes the image instantly without any shutter lag, but one cannot see the end result immediately as post processing is done in the background and takes a second or two to finish. The iPhone X is the fastest of the lot in terms of focussing and capture, though it seems to have dialed down a bit on the details and definition level, with its (Apples) newly found love for heavier noise reduction. Where iPhone X scores however is the consistency in white balance and color accuracy departments. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 while being good in low-light (specially in terms of delivering bright images in low light scenarios), ends up making significant sacrifices on details and uses heavy image enhancement algorithms that often takes away the natural tone and balance of the image.

However, wed once again like to remind you that we are looking at the absolute top of the crop flagships and while weaknesses and strengths are exposed in comparison to each other (which was the purpose of this shootout), on absolute terms, each of these smartphones offer stellar cameras that are head and shoulders above mid-range smartphone cameras. And, you will not really have any complaints against any of these in terms of still image capture quality, as long as you are aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
Samsung has reportedly dropped the under display fingerprint sensor from the final specifications of the Galaxy S9. The company will instead place the fingerprint sensor at the back like existing models.

Samsung has decided to drop the under display fingerprint sensor from its 2018 flagship Galaxy S9 smartphone. According to The Korea Herald, Samsung will instead place the fingerprint sensor at the back of the device on both the S9 and S9 Plus. The approach will be similar to existing flagships Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ and Galaxy Note 8.

This new report comes just days after a Samsung patent suggested that the Galaxy S9 will include a front-facing fingerprint sensor embedded under the display. Samsung is said to have finalised the specifications for the Galaxy S9 duo and the pilot production reportedly began this October. The mass production of the smartphone is expected to begin in December.

The new report says Samsung tried to embed a fingerprint sensor under the display, but failed to do so in time due to technical difficulties. With the bezels on the device shrinking and screen-to-body ratio getting higher, Samsung seems to be struggling to find places to put sensors and modules that were previously housed under the bezels. Most reports suggest that even Apple tried to embed a fingerprint sensor under the display of iPhone X, but failed to get the technology right and instead decided to ditch the biometric technology altogether.

Samsung is not giving up on under display fingerprint recognition technology, which is expected to debut first on the Galaxy Note 9. Earlier, KGI Securities had suggested that the Galaxy Note 9 and not Galaxy S9 will be the first Samsung smartphone to feature an under display fingerprint sensor. "Samsung won't get rid of fingerprint sensors in its handsets, as there many services and platforms running based on the technology," an industry watcher who wished to be unnamed told The Investor.

Qualcomm is the only technology company to have demonstrated a working prototype of an under display fingerprint sensor. However, the technology is not available commercially yet and is expected to become mainstream only in the second half of 2018. Samsung, on the hand, is also expected to launch Galaxy Note 9 codenamed Crown with under display fingerprint sensor in August next year.
Samsung is preparing to launch the SM-W2018, the successor to last year's W2017 flip smartphone. The flip phone has leaked online in the form of hands-on images revealing a premium design and high-end specifications.

Samsung may have given up on bezels with the launch of the Galaxy S8 duo and the Galaxy Note 8, but it is not giving up on flip phones just yet. Pictures of the rumoured Samsung SM-W2018 have appeared online, revealing the company is working on the successor to last year's W2017 flip phone.

The upcoming Samsung SM-W2018 flip phone appeared in the form of hands-on pictures posted by Chinese tipster, who goes by the handle @MMDDJ on Twitter. The smartphone will be the most premium flip phone yet and will feature dual displays with Super AMOLED panels. It is also expected to feature flagship internals including 6GB RAM and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 chipset.

Samsung and LG are the only two smartphone makers still building flip phones but they are mostly restricted to Chinese market. The Korean smartphone maker's last flip smartphone was Samsung G-9298, an incremental update to the W-2017 with Snapdragon 821 chipset. The full specification of the Samsung SM-W2018 flip phone are not known yet.

The leaked imagesshow premium design with metal unibody casing and probably a glass back similar to other Galaxy flagship. The smartphone seems to be getting single rear camera with fingerprint sensor placed next to the camera module. The Samsung SM-W2018 should launch first in China and rumours suggest it could be priced around $2,000 (around Rs 1,30,000). Samsung is also planning to launch a foldable smartphone next year with dual-display and redesigned user interface. The smartphone is expected to launch under company's Galaxy Note brand.
The Wave BP comes with enhanced sensors to help monitor blood pressure and the Wave FIT functions as an all-day activity tracker.

China-based Smart gadget brand Riversong on Friday launched its own series of fitness trackers - Wave BP and Wave FIT, priced at Rs 3,299 and Rs 2,199 respectively in India.

While the Wave BP comes with enhanced sensors to help monitor blood pressure, Wave FIT empowers the users through an all-day activity tracker.

"We are thrilled to launch our premium Fitness trackers -- 'Wave BP' and 'Wave FIT' -- in the Indian market," Navin Kumar, CEO (India), Riversong, said in a statement. "We are committed in providing an extension to the fitness goals while keeping the outlook for having fun intact," added Liu Chunming, Founder, Riversong.

Both the products are connected via an app that can be downloaded from Google Playstore -- H Band 2.0 for "Wave BP" and RS Band for "Wave FIT".

The products are exclusively available on Amazon India.
African Agricultural company Agriterra has announced the resignation of its finance director, Daniel Cassiano-Silva with effect from 31 December 2017, with Mr Cassiano-Silva to remain a non-executive director of the Company thereafter.

Agriterra said it is now in the process of finding a suitable candidate to assume responsibility for the company's financial function during an interim period in order to ensure smooth transition, as it searched for a full-time Mozambique-based finance chief.

Meanwhile, Brendan Scott, currently the company's chief operating officer, agreed to take the position of acting chief executive officer, helping the local management team to implement the company's development strategies.

Agriterra also said that it intended to hire a permanent CEO in the coming months, at which point Mr Scott would revert to his current position of chief operating officer.

Ms Havers, chair of Agriterra said: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dan for his considerable input into the development of the Company over the past four years. In particular we are grateful for his extensive efforts in realising value from our Sierra Leone assets, facilitating the recent transformational investment by Magister Investments, and developing our Mozambique assets.

"I am confident that in his new role of Non-Executive Director we will continue to benefit from Dan's extensive experience in the agricultural industry and particularly his deep knowledge of, and connection to, Mozambique."
Following its announcement of an updated resource statement on 2 November, Caledonia Mining Corporation announced on Friday that it plans to extend the depth of the central shaft at its 49% subsidiary, the Blanket Mine in Zimbabwe.

The AIM-traded company said the central shaft - which was currently under construction - would be extended by a further 250 metres to a shaft bottom depth of 1,330 metres, and fully commissioned by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

It said the extension of the central shaft would add two further production levels on the 34 and 38 levels, in addition to the two levels that were already planned at the 26 and 30 levels.

The extension and associated capital development of additional production levels would cost approximately $18m, which would be funded by Blanket's internal cash generation.

Caledonia said the additional capital investment was not expected to have any effect on the continuation of Caledonia's existing dividend.

A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) indicated a project net present value over the life of mine of $193m based on a gold price of $1,260 per ounce, and a 10% discount rate.

The addition of two further production levels would provide access to the indicated and inferred resources below 30 level, the board explained, and potentially increase Blanket's projected life of mine by a further four years to 2031.

Caledonias board said the indicated resource below 30 level of 37,000 ounces, as a standalone project, justified the investment of $18m for the shaft deepening and the additional two production levels.

Total production from measured and indicated resources over the life of the mine were expected to be approximately 420,000 ounces, and production from inferred resources was expected to be approximately 550,000 to 600,000 ounces between 2018 and 2031.

The company said it expected that its long term all-in sustaining cost guidance was expected to remain in the range of $700 to $800 per ounce.

It said the extension of the central shaft before it has been completed, equipped and commissioned was understood to be significantly cheaper, quicker and less disruptive than a subsequent extension after commissioning.

Caledonia also initiated a mid-shaft loading system at Blanket using the existing central shaft infrastructure to handle development waste.

That was expected to improve Blanket's waste handling capacity and alleviate pressure on the Number 4 shaft, which it added should have a positive effect on both production flexibility and horizontal development.

We are very pleased that the long track record of sustained resource growth at Blanket, particularly the continued discovery of resources at depth with good grade continuity, supports an extension of the central shaft project at Blanket, said Caledonia CEO Steve Curtis.

The central shaft is already a transformational project for our business, and to extend the project an additional 250 metres in depth including development on 34 and 38 levels will potentially secure Blanket's operating future for the next 20 years taking exploration potential into account.
Oil and gas company Gulfsands Petroleum said it will no longer pursue the Moulay Bouchta Petroleum Agreement in Morocco and begin winding down the activities of the group in the country, enabling the company to focus its management and capital resources in the Levant region instead.

The decision was taken even after the licence, which focused on an oil prospective area identified to the east of the depleted Haricha oil field, enabled Gulfsands to identify new lead concepts with gross recoverable prospective resources internally estimated at 149m barrels of oil.

As a result, according to the company the Office National des Hydrocarbures intends to call in $1.75m worth of restricted cash held as performance guarantees under the Moulay Bouchta contract.

After having expired on 20 June 2017, Gulfsands had received an offer from the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines to extend the initial phase of the contract from three to four years through to June 2018.

However, the decision to pursue the contract in Morocco hinged on finding an appropriate partner to help take the project forward, the company said, with the outfit having clearly stated that Morocco was "non-core" to the group's business strategy.

Failing that, it had concluded not to continue discussions on the extension of the Moulay Bouchta contract.

Separately, Gulfsands announced that $6m of restricted cash held as performance guarantees under the Rharb and Fes Petroleum Agreements, which expired in 2015, were "inappropriately" taken and retained by the Office National des Hydrocarbures, and that it was asking for their return.

The funds were to help the company finance remaining work that its subsidiaries had outstanding in Morocco.

John Bell, managing director said: "Our clearly stated strategy continues to be to focus capital and management resources on the Levant region and to manage down the non-core parts of our business. Today's important and necessary decision is another key step towards achieving that goal"
E-commerce infrastructure payment solution and platform provider MobilityOne announced on Friday that, on 9 November, it signed - via its recently incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary MobilityOne South Asia - a sale and purchase agreement with Zahir Uddin and Shahin Hossain to acquire a 55% shareholding in MiTP for a nominal cash consideration of BDT 0.55m, payable from the group's existing cash resources.

The AIM-traded firm said completion of the acquisition remained subject to the original share certificates and transfer forms in respect of the sale shares to be transferred to M1SA, and a directors' resolution of MiTP to approve the transfer of the sale shares to M1SA.

It said the acquisition was expected to complete within three business days from the date of the agreement.

On completion, Hussain Rahman and Derrick Chia Kah Wai, - existing directors of MobilityOne - will join the board of MiTP.

As it previously announced, the group - via its wholly-owned subsidiary MobilityOne Malaysia - entered into a partnership agreement in place with MiTP on 10 April.

Under the terms of that agreement, MiTP also provided MobilityOne Malaysia with an option to acquire 55% of the enlarged share capital of MiTP through the issue of new equity.

Following completion of the acquisition, that agreement would remain in place although the company said it has no intention at the current time to exercise that option since they would hold 55% of the current issued share capital of MiTP on completion of the acquisition.

The acquisition of a majority interest in MiTP will allow the group to expand its services to Bangladesh and to explore other business opportunities in that region, said MobilityOne CEO, Dato Hussain Rahman.
Chancellor Philip Hammond announced on Thursday evening that the Treasury was considering implementing a new tax on diesel cars as part of a move to improve air quality in the UK that was set to be unveiled in his Autumn budget on 22 November.

Hammond said the 200 levy on all sales of new diesels would be implemented to help boost environment secretary Michael Gove's clean air initiatives announced in July and would either raise VAT on diesel fuel itself or institute new taxations on diesel vehicles to lure drivers into switching to more environmentally friendly modes of transport.

The announcement was just the latest in a series of penalties for diesel drivers, leading to lower sales of traditional vehicles across the UK.

Angry drivers demanded the government reassess its position on the matter, claiming they had already been subjected to the likes of congestion charges and 'toxic taxes', along with the ever-rising cost of fuel.

Former Conservative party MP Rob Halfon told the Sun on Friday, "The Government should be providing a fuel duty freeze, no new diesel taxes and scrapping hospital car parking charges."

We need a defence minister for motorists, not an all-out assault on workers, he added.

While more than 1.3m diesel cars were sold in 2016, the new car market as a whole saw sales decline 12.2% throughout October, with diesel vehicles dropping a sharper 29.9% against the same time a year earlier, leading SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes to accuse Downing Street of having manufactured confusion amongst consumers regarding the government's diesel policy.

On the other hand, the burgeoning electric vehicle and hybrid segments continued to grow, up 36.9%, or 8,244 in terms of new registrations, in October alone, making up 5.2% of the total new vehicle sales market.

Germany announced it would halt the sale of new diesel cars in the future, as had Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City.
The FTSE 100 finished the week down 127.36 points, or 1.68%, at 7,432.99.

Equity view

Plumbing and heating products distributor Ferguson - formerly known as Wolseley - has agreed to sell its Nordics building materials distribution business, Stark Group, to an affiliate of private equity firm Lone Star Funds for 1.03bn on a debt-free and cash-free basis.

Galliford Try's council partnerships arm has benefited from "increased certainty" following recent government announcements and has a record order book, while housebuilding sales rates and the construction order book have remained unchanged since the year end.

Ultra Electronics said on Friday that a decision from the US Department of Justice about its proposed acquisition of NYSE-listed Sparton is now expected at the end of March 2018.

Developer and manager of student accommodation, Unite Group, has exchanged contracts to acquire a development site in Leeds on a subject to planning basis, it announced on Friday.

Europe-focussed bottling giant Coca-Cola HBC updated the market on its third quarter trading on Thursday, reporting excellent revenue performance, with foreign exchange-neutral revenue growth of 6.0%.

CLS Holdings has acquired Columbia Bracknell, a multi-let office property in Bracknell, Berkshire, for 14.7m excluding costs, it announced on Thursday.

Dairy Crest posted a rise in first-half revenue and profit thanks to good growth across its brands and despite challenges in the butters business.

Electricity transmission network operator National Grid reported good progress against its key priorities in its interim report on Thursday, with adjusted operating profit excluding timing up 4% to 1.4bn.

Workspace posted a jump in interim pre-tax profit and net rental income on Wednesday amid good customer demand.

Low-cost Hungarian airline Wizz Air said on Wednesday that it was lifting its profit outlook following record first-half results, with robust trading across all of the groups markets.

Persimmon said demand for its properties remained strong in the third quarter as the housebuilder benefited from the government's Help to Buy programme.

Energy generator and retailer SSE performed in line with its recently-published expectations in its first half, it reported on Wednesday, with adjusted earnings per share falling 8.8% to 31.2p and adjusted operating profit falling 8% to 586.2m.

International sales, marketing and support services group DCC announced on Tuesday that its DCC LPG division has reached agreement with NGL Energy Partners to acquire its Retail West LPG division, Hicksgas, based on an enterprise value of $200m (152m).

Associated British Foods reported full-year better earnings than the market forecast after a "highly successful" year, with further progress expected in the coming 12 months, though investors felt slightly let down by the dividend.

Direct Line issued a mixed update for the first nine months of the year, in which it warned that the impairment charge in 2017 could exceed that incurred last year.

Tobacco volumes fell less than expected at Imperial Brands this year and the cigarette maker once again lifted its annual dividend 10% as currency tailwinds were not enough to puff earnings above consensus forecasts.

EasyJet passenger numbers rose 9.9% in October as the load factor ticked higher.

Wood Group has agreed to sell Amec Foster Wheelers North American nuclear operations to Kinectrics Inc for around CAD 10m in cash.

Plastics maker Synthomer said volumes of sales in the third quarter remained flat on last year and that it continued to hunt for acquisition opportunities.

Rio Tinto has appointed Simon Trott to the newly-created role of chief commercial officer as it reinforces its focus on driving value across the business from mine to market.

Economic news

Brexit negotiations have seen some progress in the latest round of talks, but according to chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier, the UK has only two weeks left to agree to a financial settlement.

UK construction activity is worsening, data from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday.

Britain's property market is slowing as political and economic uncertainty take their toll on sales, buyer demand and prices, a closely watched survey has shown.

If Brexit negotiations totally break down, Britain's gross domestic product is likely to fall 2% in the year after due to significant increase in trade disruption even if the government is able to agree a basic trade arrangement.

Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer for Scottish Power, came for the UK government on Tuesday as he challenged ministers to choose whether or not they would back the free market or fully regulate the energy industry.

UK house prices rose more than expected in October, according to a survey released on Tuesday, making the third monthly rise in a row.

UK retailers endured a "meagre month" of sales in October, with non-food retailers having the worst sales for at least six years and trading expected to remain muted over the crucial Christmas period.

An influential group of MPs has launched an inquiry to determine whether British households are saving adequately in the current economic environment and how government policy could be changed to improve household finances.

Theresa May indicated to British businesses that the government is intent on arranging a post-Brexit transition period in order to avoid a cliff edge split from the European Union in 2019, while opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn stressed Labour had more "common ground" with business than was thought.

The UK car recession skidded on last month amid continued soft business and consumer confidence.

International events

US President Donald Trump has lashed out at unfair trading practices during a key speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

Consumer sentiment in the US is a little bit weaker at the start of month, although still at lofty levels, even as Americans and analysts ponder the prospect for rising official rates and try and anticipate their potential impact on spending.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, according to data from the Labor Department.

The euro zone economy is expected to grow at its fastest rate in a decade this year, after European Commission forecasts were hiked on Thursday, while investment in UK seen weakening next year.

Both inbound and outbound trade from China cooled last month, but some economists are confident that any slowdown will be modest despite a loss of momentum in other emerging markets.

A general strike organised by independence supporters in Catalonia has left many of the regions roads blocked, bringing much of its industry to a standstill as several local government officials remain in jail.

China's central bank appears to have reverted back to net foreign exchange purchases last month, but that does not mean it is seeking to weaken its currency artificially, analysts said following the release of the latest foreign exchange reserve data by the country's monetary authority.

Eurozone retail sales rose more than expected in September, according to data released by Eurostat on Tuesday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced on Monday that William Dudley, the bank's president since January of 2009, would be stepping down from his position in mid-2018.

German factory orders shot higher last month on the back of a surge in demand for capital goods from other euro area nations.
The 125cc scooter segment in India is witnessing a surge in popularity owing to its higher-power compared to 100cc or 110cc scooters. Honda sells the Activa 125 in the segment, and now, the Japanese manufacturer is looking to offer a sportier 125cc scooter for the Indian buyers.

Does the well-established Honda Activa 125 fare better than the sportier Grazia? Let us compare the Honda Grazia with the Activa 125 and find out which is a better Honda 125cc scooter.

Design

Regarding design and styling, the Honda Grazia has a premium stance. The front apron of the Honda Grazia is dominated by the twin-pod LED headlight, which is a segment-first feature in a scooter in India. Also present are LED positioning lights. Above the headlight on either side are large and stylish turn indicators.

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Other equipment includes a small visor, a new instrument console with a fully digital display along with a small storage space in the interior panel, and a USB charging port in the under seat storage compartment.

The Honda Activa 125 wears a formal look and design, featuring clean lines. While the Activa 125 is a step up to the best-selling Honda Activa, it gets contrasting design elements like a more extended front apron with chrome panel and alloy wheels with disc brake at the front.

The new Honda Activa 125 receives LED pilot lamps positioned above the turn indicators and is integrated into the front apron. The Activa 125 also comes with semi-digital instrument console, and the USB charging port comes with optional fitment.

Comparing the Honda Grazia and the Activa 125, the Grazia does have better design and styling, while the Activa 125 feels Honda has kept it safe when it comes to the styling of the scooter.

Overall Design Rating

Honda Grazia 8/10

Honda Activa 125 7.5/10

Features

The Honda Grazia comes with loads of features such as LED headlight, front glove box with a mobile charging port, fully digital instrument console, front disc brakes, alloy wheels, telescopic front forks among others.

The Honda Activa 125 does not lose out on the convenience-enhancing feature like the telescopic front forks, front disc brakes (optional), semi-digital instrument console, LED pilot lamps among others.

The Honda Grazia does edge out the Activa 125 regarding features and is practical as well.

Overall Features Rating

Honda Grazia 8/10

Honda Activa 125 7.5/10

Engine Specifications & Gearbox

Both the Honda Grazia and the Honda Activa 125 share the same engine specifications and gearbox. A 124.9cc single-cylinder, air-cooled engine powers both the Honda scooters. The engine produces 8.52bhp and 10.54Nm of torque and comes mated to a CVT gearbox.

Overall Engine Rating

Honda Grazia 8/10

Honda Activa 125 8/10

Pricing

Prices for the Honda Grazia start at Rs 57,897 and goes up to Rs 62,269, while the prices of the Honda Activa 125 start at Rs 57,497 and goes up to Rs 61,869. All prices are ex-showroom (Delhi).

The Grazia has an edge over the Activa 125 when it comes to pricing as the former offers loads of features compared to the latter.

Verdict

In all departments, the Honda Grazia is a better scooter compared to the Activa 125. That said, the Activa 125 is a simple and elegant looking scooter, but sorely misses out on features.

DriveSpark Thinks!

While the Honda Grazia might suit young and urban buyers, the Activa 125 is a simple looking scooter, yet stands its ground as a clean and no fuss scooter.
Green Valley Oil Services awarded Nijhuis Industries the order to deliver a turnkey wastewater treatment plant for the South Port Said Industrial Zone (SPIZ) in Port Said, Egypt.

The capacity of the plant is 60.000 m3/day  equalling 4 million PE - and will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 will treat 35.000 m3/day and another 25.000 m3/day of industrial wastewater will be treated after the second phase, which is expected to be in operation in April 2019.

The industrial wwtp will be one of the largests in the world.

Existing industrial wwtp of Green Valley Oil Services near Alexandria, Egypt.

Energy self-sufficient

The plant consists of Nijhuis technologies for the physical-chemical, aerobic and anaerobic biological treatment, active sludge and tertiary treatment, to meet the strict effluent requirements, and will also recover as much as possible biogas and energy from the effluent.

Based on the current composition of the wastewater collected from over 250 companies in the Port Said Industrial Zone the plant is designed to be self-sufficient on its energy demand, but will also sell access power to the grid, a true example of turning the cost for wastewater into profit.

Fifteen-year BOT contract

According to chairman and CEO Mr. Ahmed Ramadan at Green Valley Oil Services the contract marks the new policy of the Egyptian Government to work in public private partnership with industry together

Ramadan: The fifteen-year BOT contract to operate this wastewater treatment facility is of very big importance to the GVOS Group and builds on our reputation to deliver solutions for environmental challenges.

Dutch-Egyptian team that will be working on the project.

Largest order ever

CEO Mr. Menno M. Holterman at Nijhuis Industries: For Nijhuis its the largest order since the company was founded in 1904, integrating almost all Nijhuis technologies into the most state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility in Egypt, the Middle East and Africa region.

It also supports our successful waste-to-value strategy offering turnkey solutions to address the ever-growing demand for larger and more complicated wastewater treatment in emerging countries like Egypt, Holterman adds.

About GVOS Group

Green Valley Oil Services is a registered and independent operating company under the law 43 of 1976 for Free Zone companies in Egypt with its headquarters based in Egypt covering the Middle East operations with three branches located in KSA, UAE and Libya.

About Nijhuis Industries

Nijhuis Industries delivers solid solutions for sustainable water use & resource recovery, with the highest level of intelligent innovations across a wide range of industries.

It offers customized installations, to create profit out of (waste)water, process water and waste.

This news item was originally published on the website of Nijhuis Industries.

Read also on this website

 Nijhuis Industries installs modular wastewater solution in record period of time, 19 October 2017

 Nijhuis Industries completes low-cost wwtp for fertilizer producer Azomures, Romania, 23 September 2016

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RIO DE JANEIRO  Over 350 participants descended on Rio De Janeiro recently, for the 33rd annual IAF World Fashion Convention. At which, speakers from globally recognised brands, manufacturers and consulting firms including Hugo Boss, Esquel, McKinsey and the C&A Foundation shared insight into why the Brazilian textile sector is in need of a digitalised revamp and a greater understanding of sustainability. Anton Schumann reports from Brazil.
Monsanto has been quick to point fingers at farmers for the dicamba disaster that drifted across millions of crop acres in the U.S. this summer, but a special report from Reuters suggests that the seed giant knew for years that such a catastrophe could unfold.

The controversy surrounding the highly volatile weedkiller started in early 2016 when Monsantoin a

highly criticized movedecided to sell its genetically modified, dicamba-tolerant Xtend cotton and soybean seeds before getting federal approval for the corresponding herbicide.

Why would Monsanto do that? Well, as President of Global Strategy Scott Partridge explained to Reuters, the alternative would be to not sell a single soybean in the United States.

Essentially, the agritech firm could have lost a lot of money if they waited for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to green light its Xtend herbicide. Monsanto also anticipated that the EPA would quickly approve the product but actually had to wait another 11 months as the EPA evaluated its safety.

After the seeds hit the market, farmers ended up planting one million acres of Xtend soybeans before 2016 even ended. But without the proper herbicide, growers illegally sprayed older versions of dicamba onto their crops and inadvertently damaged nearby non-target crops due to drift and volatilization. Last year, hundreds of thousands of crop acres across 10 states were adversely impacted by misuse of the herbicide.

Monsanto, DuPont and BASF SE now sell federally approved dicamba formulations that the companies say are less drift-prone and volatile than older versions when used correctly.

Still, dicamba is now at the very problematic center of 3.6 million acres of crop damage in 25 states just this year alone, University of Missouri weed scientist Kevin Bradley estimated. The companies have blamed farmers for not following instructions or improperly using their products.

However, the real kicker in the new Reuters report is that Monsanto was warned by crop scientists as early as October 2011 that releasing a dicamba-tolerant seed without the corresponding herbicide could cause problems.

At a conference on the future of dicamba in Columbus that year, three Monsanto employees, including Industry Affairs Director Douglas Rushing, as well as representatives from Dow Chemical and BASF, attended a meeting where conference organizers and crop scientists warned about an increased risk of illegal dicamba spraying by farmers once dicamba-tolerant seeds were released.

The conference organizers also warned that farmers with damaged fields would want to buy their own dicamba-tolerant seeds to protect themselves from further drift.

Indeed, some growers feel they have no choice but to switch to the new Xtend system, as the St. Louis Dispatch reported last November.

Absolutely killer story via @FlitterOnFraud on #Monsanto $MON and their use of Dicamba  and not waiting on the EPA. pic.twitter.com/br7fJ6ZzrQ  (((David Gaffen))) ?? (@davidgaffen) November 9, 2017

Monsanto also saw damage reports back in 2015 for its dicamba-resistant cotton seeds when farmers applied old dicamba stockpiles on the crops. But Partridge told Reuters that these cases were extremely isolated and those who applied dicamba illegally should be held responsible.

Monsanto is facing several lawsuits over dicamba damage. In February, farmers across 10 states sued the company, alleging that Monsanto knowingly marketed its Xtend cotton and soybean seeds to farmers without any safe herbicide.

Monsanto chose to sell these seeds before they could be safely cultivated, said Bev Randles of Randles & Splittgerber, the Kansas City, Missouri law firm representing the farmers. Monsantos own advertising repeatedly describes its Xtend seeds and its accompanying herbicide as a system intended to be used together. But when Monsanto failed to get approval to sell the herbicide, it recklessly chose to go ahead and sell the seeds regardless.

Monsanto steadfastly denies responsibility.

The illegal misuse of old dicamba herbicides with Xtend seeds was not foreseeable, the companys attorneys have said about the lawsuit. Even if it were foreseeable that farmers would illegally apply old dicamba to their Xtend crops, which it was not, Monsanto is not liable for harms caused by other manufacturers products.

The dicamba controversy is far from over. On Wednesday, an Arkansas regulatory body moved to ban the chemical (again) next summer. Monsanto has filed a lawsuit to stop the proposed ban.
Between Aug. 21 and Sept. 5, conflict palm oil grower PT. Tualang Raya cleared another 18 hectares of critical lowland rainforests inside the Leuser Ecosystem. This rogue actor has continued razing forests with impunity despite Rainforest Action Network exposing its ongoing destruction since September 2015.

PT. Tualang Raya is clearing in disregard of a government moratorium on forest clearing for palm oil development. According to satellite imagery analysis, PT. Tualang Raya has cleared a total of 205 hectares of forest since June 2016 when a government circular letter demanded that palm oil companies halt forest clearance.



Satellite analysis shows 18 hectares of critical elephant habitat was cleared by PT. Tualang Raya between Aug. 21 and Sept. 5, 2017.

The PT. Tualang Raya palm oil concession is located in a region of the Leuser Ecosystem called Aceh Timur, an area containing the worlds best remaining habitat for some of the last populations of Sumatran elephants, a species that is on the brink of extinction.

Ancient elephant migratory paths run through this region and are being disrupted by palm oil expansion. Herds rely on these paths to find food and water, and when destroyed, elephants often stray onto cleared lands and come into direct contact with communities and plantation workers, increasing human-elephant conflict. If these key lowland rainforests continue to be destroyed, we will lose sufficient, viable habitat needed for the survival of this critically endangered species.



A critically endangered Sumatran elephant calf found sick after having been separated from his mother in a palm oil plantation in East Aceh. Nanang Sujana / RAN

PT. Tualang is also beginning to develop its own palm oil mill; this facility will only further drive the destruction of critical forests in the region.

Urgent action and intervention is needed by the Indonesian government to stop this destruction. PT. Tualang Rayas violation of the moratorium warrants revocation of its permit in order to halt further expansion into these irreplaceable forests.

While PT. Tualang Raya is not yet selling palm oil fruit, the destruction of the rainforests found in its concession is driven by the global demand for palm oil. Major brands like PepsiCo feed this demand by sourcing conflict palm oil. All brands must enforce a moratorium on forest destruction in their supply chains, including all palm oil companies with operations inside the Leuser Ecosystem.

Satellite imagery showing forest clearance in the PT. Tualang Raya concession from April to August 2017:
Photo: Craig Sherod Photography



Bruce Fuller, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, works on how schools and civic activists push to advance pluralistic communities. He is a regular opinion contributor to edweek.org where he trades views with Lance Izumi, on the other side of the political aisle. Read Lance Izumis response to this essay .

The reign of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, lording over the kingdoms schools, seeks to levy higher taxes on struggling peons. Gluttony inside the castle, after all, must be fed.

So goes the Lefts attack on President Donald Trumps education secretary: Shifting public dollars to private schools. Taxing the many to enrich the gilded class. Off with Robin Hoods head.

Yet, is this caricature fair? How far does she depart from her bosss pro-choice predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama?

Make no mistake, DeVos and Trump aim to move public dollars to well-off families who prefer tony private schools. This priority appears in the House Republican tax bill, debated this week on Capitol Hill, hijacking an existing college-savings deduction, known as 529 plans, to permit redirection of up to $10,000 to cover private K-12 tuition costs. According to a report published by the Brookings Institution, the provision almost exclusively benefits the seven in 10 families with 529 plans who have six-figure incomes.

Democrats lack a coherent narrative about how to build colorful schools free of stultifying bureaucracy and recalcitrant unions."

DeVos silent nod with Trumps effort to scrap the option of deducting local tax levies when filing federal taxes further betrays her royalist leanings. It currently cuts 28 cents from federal taxes , on average, for each dollar paid in state and local taxes, now aiding roughly 24 million Americans earning under $100,000, according to a report by the Government Finance Officers Association.

Most people will notice higher taxes under the Republican plan, a senior congressional aide told me on the condition of anonymity, and think, Hey, I cant spend more on my local schools.

This return to double taxation of middle-class income would fatten the U.S. Treasury by $1.8 trillion over the coming decade, paying for cuts going to big corporations and wealthy families. When fully implemented, the richest 1 percent would enjoy nearly one-half of this tax bonanza, reports the Urban Institutes and Brookings Institutions Tax Policy Center.

Most governors now oppose Trumps move to shred the local tax deduction. Theres not a governor in the room that doesnt want a strong education base to help their kids and families get ahead, Aaliyah Samuel, the director of the education division at the National Governors Association, told me recently.

DeVos, moving on a third front, advocates federal tuition credits, where well-off donors score tax savings when contributing to private school vouchers. But this is falling flat in the Senate. It would take a sustained and lengthy engagement by the president, not just the [education] secretary, to move a choice initiative, a senior Republican aide shared with me on the condition of anonymity. Out in big western states, Republican senators dont see vouchers as viable, where scarce private schools are scattered across wide distances, the aide explained.

Distasteful profiteering also marks tax-credit schemes, as in Arizona where the Republican state Senate leader, Steve Yarbrough, earns about $125,000 a year from a scholarship organization that distributes private school vouchers while pushing to expand the program in his legislature , according to the New York Times.

Trump budget officials rightly argue that failing federal programs should be killed. But under that empirical standard, voucher initiatives that underwrite private schools in the nations capital , for example, should be shut down, showing no buoyant effects on student learning relative to peers attending nearby public schools. Vouchers have displayed positive competitive effects in Florida, the evidence repeatedly cherry-picked by DeVos.

At times, DeVos pious devotion to choice undercuts her own cause. Some 428 private schools have closed in Los Angeles over the past 15 years, mostly Christian academies, as detailed by my Berkeley colleague Malena Arcidiacono. Why? The unrestrained growth of charter schoolsspurred by DeVos allieskills off religious competitors.

Still, Democrats lack a coherent narrative about how to build colorful schools free of stultifying bureaucracy and recalcitrant unions. And whats happened to the Lefts historical fealty to schools that foster tighter neighborhoods? Is the concerted attack simply playing into Trumps polarizing hand?

Opening a dual-language Armenian school in Los Angeles wins praise from a variety of liberals. Then, they cringe when the Conference of Catholic Bishops urges teaching to the mind, body, and soul, as its policy director Greg Dolan puts it. We really appreciate how [DeVos] advocates for placing parents first, [offering] a truer range of choices.

Progressives like Mayor Bill de Blasio in New York City eagerly grow nonprofits to run quality preschools. In 1972, Democrats made federal aid to higher education, in the form of Pell Grants, fully portable so students can choose to attend the college of their choice.

Betsy DeVos may become a weathered bumper sticker, faintly echoing Trumps political base while flitting about in her personal jet. But the choice movement sprouts from progressive roots: cultivating schools in synch with the nations ethnic and religious pluralism.

Rather than vilifying DeVos, Democrats must surely hammer on her feudal tendencies and her blatant disregard for evidence. Then, articulate how a rainbow of public school options can respond to Americas differences, while speaking to our shared yearning for fulfilling communities.
Thank you to Dunitz & Company for providing me with products to facilitate my blog review. All opinions are 100% my own.

Today, I would like to introduce you to a company named Dunitz & Company. Dunitz & Company specializes in handmade jewelry from Guatemala.

Dunitz & Company founder, Nancy, fell in love with the people of Guatemala while on a trip there in 1989. While touring, she noticed all the beautiful art being created by locals- weavings, paintings, carvings and more. Nancy knew that with the tough economy, political unrest, and minimal tourism, locals didnt have an outlet for selling their goods. She had a vision to work with local artisans to design products that would appeal to US buyers and to create an opportunity for them to sell their goods. Thus, Dunitz & Company was born.

In 2011, Nancy debuted a line called the Joanie M collection. Joanie M collection is named after Nancys mom. This collection is comprised of beautiful fused-glass jewelry. Some of my favorites from the Joanie M collection include the Glass Dots stud earrings, Double Moon Glass Earrings, and the Glass Tiny Round Earrings. All of these earrings were handmade in Guatemala. They all have surgical steel ear wires/posts. Glass Dots stud earrings, Double Moon Glass Earrings, and the Glass Tiny Round Earrings are available in a rainbow of color combinations. Each pair of earrings is truly one of a kind!

I absolutely love the items I received from Dunitz & Company. I plan to gift them this holiday season. I look forward to seeing each of the recipients reactions when they open their gift.

Buy It: Please visit the Dunitz & Company website to see the great selection of products they offer and convenient shopping locations.

Connect: Dont forget to follow Dunitz & Company on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for the latest product announcements and special offers.

WIN IT: One winner will receive a Dunitz & Company Wrap-It Glass Lariat necklace with coordinating Glass Dots earrings. This is a US giveaway and it is scheduled to end on 11/23/2017. Good luck.

Hello, my name is Laurie. I have been married to my husband for 16 years. We have two young daughters, ages 15 and 13 years old. My family and I live in Oregon so that means we are just minutes from the beach, mountains, and desert. We love it here and try to spend as much time outdoors playing as we can. When we arent outside playing, I enjoy reading, gardening, refinishing furniture, and other crafts. www.emilyreviews.com/category/laurie
The South African property developer focuses on shopping centre investments and retail development opportunities in Europe.

From the distinctive office building Leiden Central Offices, Atterbury Europe will expand its operations particularly in the Mediterranean and in the upcoming eastern European region.

Expanding to Europe

Over 23 years, Atterbury has successfully developed real estate across South Africa and on the African continent. Since 2014 they have expanded their activities into Europe, starting out in Austria and now concentrating operations in Leiden from where the development of prime commercial, retail and residential property in Europe is being effectively managed.

The distinctive Leiden Central Offices building is strategically located at the intersection of the historic centre with all its inner-city facilities and Leidens central train station. With only a 15-minute train ride, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is in close proximity, making traveling throughout Europe easy and fast.

Atterbury Europes CEO Henk Deist: As our business grew into a meaningful size, we decided that from an economical and practical perspective our activities should be centrally headquartered in Europe.

The Netherlands was chosen, not only for its competitive fiscal regime, but also for its access to top professional advisors and the fact that the Dutch use English as their main business language. We are five employees in the office, that is when were not travelling  four South Africans and a Romanian, on the lookout for the first local to join  we have enough space for growth!

Based in Leiden

Deputy Major Robert Strijk of the City of Leiden: Were very pleased that Atterbury Europe is well aware of the attractive Dutch business climate and concluded that Leiden offers great opportunities. The city is an ideal, solid and hopefully prosperous basis from which they can expand their operations in Europe and I have no doubt the Leiden office will soon feel like Die Klubhuis for their employees!

On behalf of the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) and the City of Leiden, InnovationQuarters Director of Foreign Investments Chris van Voorden welcomed Atterbury Europe in Leiden.

Van Voorden says: The arrival of this highly rewarded South African property developer with an impressive track-record and portfolio, underlines our continuously improving business climate.

We have noticed a growing interest from South African companies setting-up business in West Holland. Besides linguistic and cultural similarities, maybe also our direct approach in conducting business is a unique characteristic our countries share. With our partners, we are pleased to help Henk Deist and his team establish useful contacts and support them in their European growth ambitions.
A recent HyTrust survey [PDF] of 323 attendees at the VMworld 2017 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada found that just 21 percent of respondents said their companies are concerned about GDPR compliance regulations and have a plan in plan for it.

Another 27 percent are concerned about GDPR but have no plan in place for it, 23 percent arent concerned and have no plan in place, and 29 percent are unaware of GDPRs relevance to their organization.

If you think GDPR doesnt apply to your organization, think again, HyTrust president and founder Eric Chiu said in a statement.

Most organizations today are very aware of their security risks, but are not as far along with technology and processes to meet the GDPR compliance requirements, despite a May 2018 deadline that has significant fines for failure to comply, Chiu added.

The survey also found that 22 percent of respondents are not using public clouds at all, and that the leading public cloud risk cited by respondents was malicious or accidental exposure of workload data.

Still, 10 percent of respondents admitted that they dont encrypt data in public cloud deployments.

Overly Confident?

A separate Carbon Black survey of 120 business decision makers found that while 86 percent of respondents said theyre reasonably or very confident in their ability to comply with GDPR requirements regarding users rights to control all aspects of their personal data, 58 percent arent yet leveraging recognized frameworks or technologies to assess data risk.

The survey, conducted with Computing Magazine, also found that less than 10 percent of respondents believe their toolsets for classifying critical data and prioritizing risk to data are effective and easy to manage.

Twenty-four percent of respondents admitted theyre unsure whether their company conducts Data Protection Impact Assessments as required by GDPR, and 13 percent said they definitely dont conduct them.

In order to effectively identify and neutralize data breaches, its essential to know what constitutes normal network behaviors versus what is suspicious, Carbon Black senior director for compliance and governance programs Chris Strand said in a statement.

Failing to align the right data protection toolsets with people and processes, many organizations are at risk of non-compliance with the GDPR and, more importantly, putting their customers information in jeopardy, Strand added.

Investing in Compliance

A recent IAPP-EY survey of 548 privacy professionals worldwide found that fully 95 percent of respondents, more than 75 percent of whom are located outside the EU, say the GDPR applies to their organization.

Seventy-five percent of EU survey respondents said GDPR compliance is the main reason for their privacy program. The same is true for 50 percent of U.S. respondents.

Responding organizations expect to hire a total of more than two full-time employees just to help with GDPR compliance.

Fifty-five percent of respondents plan to invest in technology to help with GDPR compliance, up from just 29 percent last year  and 63 percent plan to invest in training, up from 50 percent in 2016.

Even though the EUs GDPR has yet to take effect, organizations the world over are spending money on hiring and promoting privacy staff, training employees on privacy, purchasing technology to help with GDPR compliance, and pushing privacy awareness into every corner of the firm, the report states.

Still, just 40 percent of respondents believe theyll be fully compliant by next Mays GDPR deadline.
Exposure to air pollution is associated with osteoporosis-related loss of bone mineral density and risk of bone fractures, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Their findings are published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The researchers are the first to document high rates of hospital admissions for bone fractures in communities with elevated levels of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5), a component of air pollution, with risk of bone fracture admissions greatest in low-income communities. The findings, from a study of osteoporosis-related fracture hospital admissions among 9.2 million Medicare enrollees in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic between 2003-2010, suggest that even a small increase in PM2.5 concentrations would lead to an increase in bone fractures in older adults.

A concurrent analysis of eight years of follow-up among 692 middle-aged, low-income adults in the Boston Area Community Health/Bone Survey cohort found that participants living in areas with higher levels of PM2.5 and black carbon, a component of air pollution from automotive emissions, had lower levels of parathyroid hormone, a key calcium and bone-related hormone, and greater decreases in bone mineral density than those exposed to lower levels of these pollutants.

Osteoporosis, the most common reason for a broken bone among the elderly, is a disease in which bones become brittle and weak as the body loses more bone mass than it can rebuild. There are an estimated 2 million osteoporosis-related bone fractures in the U.S. each year, resulting in as much as $20 billion in annual direct health costs. Typically, no symptoms are present prior to a break, which often happens spontaneously or from something as harmless as a hug. In the year after an older adult has a bone fracture, risk for death increases by as much as 20 percent, and only 40 percent of those who had fractures regain their independence.

The researchers write that particulate matter, including PM2.5, is known to cause systemic oxidative damage and inflammation, which they suggest, could accelerate bone loss and increase risk of bone fractures in older individuals. Smoking, which contains several particulate matter components, has been consistently associated with bone damage.

"Decades of careful research has documented the health risks of air pollution, from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, to cancer, and impaired cognition, and now osteoporosis," says Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, chair of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School and the study's senior author. "Among the many benefits of clean air, our research suggests, are improved bone health and a way to prevent bone fractures."

In two studies published earlier this year, Baccarelli, a world leader in the science of epigenetics, reported that Vitamin B can diminish the effects of air pollution-induced cardiovascular disease, as well as epigenetic damage to DNA. It is unclear if the benefits of Vitamin B extend to bone loss. Even so, he says, the best way to prevent air-pollution-related diseases is through policies to improve air quality.

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Co-authors include Diddier Prada (first author) and Luis A. Herrera, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City; Jia Zhong and Elena Colicino, Columbia's Mailman School; Antonella Zanobetti, Joel Schwartz, and Francesca Dominici, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA; Nicholas Dagincourt, Shona C. Fang, and Benedetta Bartali, New England Research Institute, Watertown, MA; Itai Kloog, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Joseph M. Zmuda, University of Pittsburgh; Michael Holick, Boston University; and Lifang Hou, Northwestern University, Chicago.

Financial support for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, Institute on Aging (AG020727), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES02173, ES00002, ES05172), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (83479801). Diddier Prada was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia and the Fundacion Mexico en Harvard. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

About Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Mailman School is the third largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its over 450 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change & health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with over 1,300 graduate students from more than 40 nations pursuing a variety of master's and doctoral degree programs. The Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit http://www.mailman.columbia.edu.
Fulvia Pilat, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society. The honor is bestowed by members of APS on their peers for exceptional contributions to their fields.

Pilat is Jefferson Lab's acting associate director for Accelerators and accelerator program director for the Electron-Ion Collider initiative. She has held leadership positions at Jefferson Lab since her arrival in 2010, and, according to Jefferson Lab Director Stuart Henderson, she has made lasting contributions not only to Jefferson Lab, but also to the international accelerator physics community.

In her fellowship citation, Pilat was recognized for her contributions to the commissioning of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility accelerator complex following the completion of its upgrade to 12 GeV. She was also honored for her leadership of efforts toward an electron-ion collider and efforts in support of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The American Physical Society has more than 54,000 members in more than 109 countries. Pilat was nominated for the fellowship by her peers in the APS Division of Physics of Beams.

"It is indeed an honor to be nominated fellow of the APS," said Pilat. "The recognition of individual accelerator physicists' contributions help highlight the widening impact of the physics of beams on science, as well as on society in general."

Recently, Pilat accepted a position as the new director of the Research Accelerator Division in the Neutron Sciences Directorate at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The directorate manages and operates the Spallation Neutron Source, for which Jefferson Lab scientists, engineers and technicians provided 23 cryomodules and the cryogenics plant in the early 2000s. Pilat will start her new position later this month.

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Contact: Kandice Carter, Jefferson Lab Communications Office, 757-269-7263, kcarter@jlab.org.

Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, a joint venture of the Southeastern Universities Research Association, Inc. and PAE, manages and operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or Jefferson Lab, for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Jefferson Lab is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
Japan -- Stars like our Sun eject large amounts of gas and dust into space, containing various elements and compounds. Asymptotic giant branch -- AGB -- phase stars, near their end of life, are particularly significant sources of such substances in our galaxy.

Formation of dust around AGB stars has been considered to play an important role in triggering acceleration of stellar wind, but the detailed mechanism of this acceleration has not been well explained.

And there is yet another conundrum. In space, silicon is ten times more abundant than aluminum. However, many oxygen-rich AGB stars are rich in aluminum oxide dust -- the major carrier of aluminum -- but poor in silicate dust -- the carrier of silicon, which has puzzled researchers: why is aluminum oxide dust so abundant around oxygen-rich AGB stars?

In a paper published in Science Advances, a research team led by Aki Takigawa of Kyoto University have utilized the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array -- ALMA, as the high spatial-resolution radio interferometer in Chile is known -- to obtain detailed images of gas molecules forming dust surrounding an AGB star.

"Previously, there was a limit to how well we could observe dust forming regions close to stars," explains Takigawa. "Now, thanks to the high spatial resolution of ALMA, we can obtain images of gases in these regions in finer detail. So we pointed ALMA toward an aluminum oxide-rich AGB star, W Hydrae."

Gas molecules aluminum monoxide and silicon monoxide -- AlO and SiO -- eventually form aluminum oxide and silicate dust. The team observed that AlO was distributed within three stellar radii of W Hydrae, which was surprisingly similar to the previously-observed dust distribution.

Meanwhile, SiO was detected beyond five stellar radii, and moreover 70% remained gaseous, without forming into dust.

"These results indicate that as aluminum oxide grows and accumulates near a star, the addition of a small amount of silicate dust may trigger wind acceleration," elaborates Takigawa. "This decreases gas density, suppressing further silicate dust formation."

"This may explain the presence of aluminum-oxide-rich but silicate-poor AGB stars."

These new results shed light not only on the dynamics of gas and dust surrounding stars, but also on the importance of studying both together. The team plans to continue using ALMA to elucidate gas and dust dynamics in the universe.

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The paper "Dust formation and wind acceleration around the aluminum oxide-rich AGB star W Hydrae" appeared 1 November 2017 in Science Advances, with doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aao2149

Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at both undergraduate and graduate levels is complemented by numerous research centers, as well as facilities and offices around Japan and the world. For more information please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en
NOVEMBER 10, 2017, New York -- A Ludwig Cancer Research study led by Benoit Van den Eynde, Director of Ludwig Brussels, has identified a novel mechanism by which tumors of the aggressive skin cancer melanoma can resist cancer immunotherapy. Their paper, which appears in Nature Communications, describes how an immune cell recruited to the tumor induces the programmed suicide, or apoptosis, of the killer T cells harnessed by many immunotherapies. It also identifies the specific molecular interaction responsible for this effect. That interaction--between a protein on T cells known as FAS and its ligand produced by suppressive immune cells--could be disrupted to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies.

"Immunotherapy has been delivering some impressive results, but only for a fraction of patients," says Van den Eynde. "Now the million dollar question is, what can we do to improve the proportion of patients that respond to these treatments? There are a variety of mechanisms of immune resistance that operate in the tumor. This is what we are addressing in our studies."

Researchers typically transplant tumors into genetically suitable mice to study the effects of immunotherapies. But such tumors do not reflect how cancers develop in people. To take root and grow, a tumor must evolve mechanisms over months or years to evade immune attack.

"That's what happens in clinical situations and that's what we want to model in our studies," says Van den Eynde. "If you just inject a million tumor cells in a mouse to create a tumor, you do not recapitulate this process--the interplay between the host and the tumor, the immune response that starts but then gets dampened by the tumor, or the tumor's ultimate escape from that response."

To recapitulate that process, the Ludwig Brussels team engineered a mouse to express a cancer-causing gene and a cancer antigen known as P1A, but only when given a particular drug. The researchers then induced melanoma tumors in their model and evaluated the effects of a battery of immunotherapies. These included cancer vaccines against the P1A antigen, and various regimens of checkpoint blockade therapies, which unleash a T cell attack on cancer cells. None worked against the induced tumors. They then tried adoptive T cell therapy (ACT), in which T cells directed against a tumor are infused into a patient.

"To my great surprise, even injecting 10 million activated T cells specific to the P1A antigen did not affect tumor growth in this induced tumor model," says Van den Eynde. When the same induced cancer cells were transplanted into mice to generate tumors, the T cell therapy invariably cleared the transplanted tumors.

To find out why, the researchers took a look at what happened to the T cells delivered by ACT. In both induced and transplanted models, they found, T cells were flooding into the tumor and ready to combat cancer cells. But, after that, their fates diverged significantly.

"We found that in the induced tumors, about half of the T cells were already apoptotic four days after ACT," says Van den Eynde. "This explained why they did not persist: The induced tumor behaves like a sink for these T cells. That does not happen in the transplanted tumors."

Since the cancer cells in both types of tumors were the same, the researchers compared the noncancerous cells present in the induced and transplanted tumors to explore what might be causing the T cell apoptosis. One type of cell, the polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cell (PMN-MDSC), was present exclusively in the induced tumors. MDSCs are a family of immune cells that are known to support immune evasion in a variety of ways.

Molecular analysis of the induced tumors revealed that the PMN-MDSCs in the induced tumors express high levels of a surface protein known as FAS-ligand, which induces T cell suicide when it binds its receptor on T cells. The researchers show that depleting PMN-MDSCs from the tumors or blocking FAS-ligand binding to its receptor restored the ability of the T cells to kill induced tumors.

"This is a novel mechanism by which these cells suppress immune responses in tumors," says Van den Eynde. "Targeting FAS-ligand could be a good adjunct therapy to boost the effects of immunotherapeutic drugs." Such drugs, he notes, are already under development. Meanwhile, Van den Eynde and his team are already hard at work looking for the other novel mechanisms of immune suppression in their model.

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This research was supported by Ludwig Cancer Research, Walloon Excellence in Life Sciences and Biotechnology (WELBIO, Belgium), FNRS-Televie (Belgium), Foundation Against Cancer (Belgium), de Duve Institute and Universite catholique de Louvain (Belgium).

About Ludwig Cancer Research

Ludwig Cancer Research is an international collaborative network of acclaimed scientists that has pioneered cancer research and landmark discovery for more than 40 years. Ludwig combines basic science with the ability to translate its discoveries and conduct clinical trials to accelerate the development of new cancer diagnostics and therapies. Since 1971, Ludwig has invested $2.7 billion in life-changing science through the not-for-profit Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the six U.S.-based Ludwig Centers. To learn more, visit http://www.ludwigcancerresearch.org.

For further information please contact Rachel Steinhardt, rsteinhardt@licr.org or +1-212-450-1582.
Researchers from the Physics Department of Moscow State University and their colleagues have discovered a mechanism that allows gas sensors, based on nanocrystalline metal oxides, to work at room temperature. This invention will raise the efficiency of environmental monitoring at nuclear power plants, on submarines and spacecrafts. The discovery was reported in Scientific Reports.

Scientists have proposed a new fundamental principle of operation of hydrogen sensors. Unlike most resistive gas detectors, it does not need to be heated and only requires visible light. This discovery will significantly reduce the energy consumption of the sensor and expand its scope.

"Such sensors can be used in explosive environments or be built into mobile devices without constructing additional heat sink systems," said Alexander Ilyin, a co-author of the study, a PhD student at the Physics Department of Moscow State University.

Researchers have found out that composites based on zinc and indium oxides can significantly increase the sensitivity of the sensor to hydrogen. Physicists have also proposed an explanation for the hypersensitivity of the designed composite. In their opinion, the sensor response mechanism consists in a change in the processes of generation and recombination of nonequilibrium electrons when the composite is interacting with hydrogen. Composites with a certain structure provide a more significant change in these processes.

Samples for the sensor were made from nanocrystalline indium and zinc oxide powders. The structure and particle size were studied by the means of transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. The electrical and sensor characteristics of the structureswere studied in the new designed setup, in which the required temperature of the composite and the concentration of hydrogen were well controlled.

The obtained results would allow the scientists to develop a new type of resistive hydrogen sensor that works under additional illumination without heating. Such sensors are promising not only for effective monitoring of environmental pollution in industrial plants, but also for constant monitoring of air in closed facilities (submarines, mines, spacecraft) where the slightest change in the chemical composition can lead to human casualties.

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The research was carried out jointly with the scientists of N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics RAS, National Research Center Kurchatov Institute (NRCKI) and Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry (NIFKhI).
Behind every weather forecast--from your local, five-day prediction to a late-breaking hurricane track update--are the satellites that make them possible. Government agencies depend on observations from weather satellites to inform forecast models that help us prepare for approaching storms and identify areas that need evacuating or emergency first responders.

Weather satellites have traditionally been large, both in the effort needed to build them and in actual size. They can take several years to build and can be as big as a small school bus. But all of that could change in the future with the help of a shoebox-sized satellite that will start orbiting Earth later this month.

The NASA-funded CubeSat, called Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration (MiRaTA), will be launched into Earth's orbit from the rocket carrying the next big U.S. weather satellite (NOAA's JPSS-1) into space. MiRaTA is designed to demonstrate that a small satellite can carry instrument technology that's capable of reducing the cost and size of future weather satellites and has the potential to routinely collect reliable weather data.

Microwave radiometers are one of the workhorse instruments aboard today's weather satellites. These sensitive instruments measure radio frequency signals related to the thermal radiation emitted by atmospheric gases, such as molecular oxygen and water vapor, and also detect particles such as cloud ice. These data are key inputs for models that track storms and other weather events. Calibrating these radiometers is important for keeping them from drifting so their data can be used for accurate weather and climate models. Therefore, a calibration target is usually included in the satellite to help the radiometer maintain its accuracy.

Miniaturizing microwave radiometer instruments to fit on a CubeSat leads to the challenge of finding a calibration instrument that is not only accurate but also compact, said Kerri Cahoy, principal investigator for MiRaTA and an associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "You don't have room for the bulky calibration targets that you would normally use on larger satellites," Cahoy said. "Microwave radiometer calibration targets on larger satellites can be the size of a toaster, but for CubeSats, it would have to be the size of a deck of cards."

Cahoy and her colleague William Blackwell, the microwave radiometer instrument lead at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, have come up with a solution based on a technique she studied in graduate school called radio occultation (RO), whereby radio signals received from GPS satellites in a higher orbit are used to measure the temperature of the same volume of atmosphere that the radiometer is viewing. The GPS-RO temperature measurement can then be used for calibrating the radiometer.

"In physics class, you learn that a pencil submerged in water looks like it's broken in half because light bends differently in the water than in the air," Cahoy said. "Radio waves are like light in that they refract when they go through changing densities of air, and we can use the magnitude of the refraction to calculate the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere with near-perfect accuracy and use this to calibrate a radiometer."

In 2012 NASA's In-Space Validation of Earth Science Technologies (InVEST) program issued a request for technology demonstration proposals, which prompted Blackwell and Cahoy, who was then teaching at MIT, put their theory to the test by offering a project to Cahoy's students in her sensors and instrumentation class to determine if the idea was feasible. When two students demonstrated through computer modeling that radio occultation could indeed function for radiometer calibration, Cahoy and Blackwell asked The Aerospace Corporation's Rebecca Bishop, who has developed GPS-RO receivers for CubeSats, to join the team. They then submitted a full proposal for MiRaTA to NASA, which gave the greenlight for funding in the spring of 2013.

Building MiRaTA was a team effort. Bishop modified an off-the-shelf, low-cost GPS receiver to make the radio occultation measurements for calibration; MIT Lincoln Laboratory and University of Massachusetts Amherst applied their engineering skills to further miniaturize the microwave radiometer; and Cahoy and her student team, guided by expert mentors at MIT Lincoln, built the satellite that would house everything.

"Building a CubeSat can be hard because you have to put batteries, a radio, a computer, your instruments, wheels that you spin to tip and turn your satellite, and folded solar panels and antennas all into a very small space," Cahoy said. "And you're using the space equivalent of scotch tape and super glue to constrain this mess of wires and connectors and get it into its housing.

"But," Cahoy added, "the hard work will really pay off in great science data if it all goes as planned."

In the best-case scenario, three weeks after launch MiRaTA will be fully operational, and within three months the team will have obtained validation data from both the radiometer and the GPS receiver. The big goal for the mission--declaring the technology demonstration a success--would be confirmed a bit farther down the road, at least half a year away, following the data analysis.

If MiRaTA's technology validation is successful, Cahoy said she envisions an eventual constellation of these CubeSats orbiting the entire Earth, taking snapshots of the state of the atmosphere and weather every 15 minutes--frequent enough to track storms, from blizzards to hurricanes, in real time. "Our goal is to have our radiometers perform just as well as those on current weather satellites and be able to provide the kind of data that helps agencies and people in the path of a natural disaster prepare early and wisely," she said.

"This is a very exciting mission as it will be the first on-orbit demonstration of an all-weather, three-frequency radiometer CubeSat using atmospheric GPS-RO-based calibration," said NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Charles Norton, a program associate in NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) and the task manager for MiRaTA. "It's a true testament to the creativity and innovation of the teams involved that they're advancing measurement technologies for future small satellite constellation missions," he said, while adding that Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory and NASA Wallops Flight Facility are supporting ground station and mission operations for the CubeSat.

MiRaTA and other Earth science InVEST missions are funded and managed by NASA's ESTO program in NASA's Earth Science Division. ESTO supports technologists at NASA centers, industry and academia to develop, refine and demonstrate new methods for observing Earth from space, from information systems to new components and instruments.

Small satellites, including CubeSats, are playing an increasingly larger role in exploration, technology demonstration, scientific research and educational investigations at NASA, including: planetary space exploration; Earth observations; fundamental Earth and space science; and developing precursor science instruments like cutting-edge laser communications, satellite-to-satellite communications and autonomous movement capabilities.

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For NASA's ESTO program, visit: https://esto.nasa.gov/
North Chicago, IL -- Advances in battlefield trauma care, fueled by evidence-based research and practice, are saving lives in both combat and civilian settings. At Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, researchers in the Resuscitation Institute are working under a $1.9 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense to investigate a better way to manage simultaneous hemorrhagic shock and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

"We're determined to find a way to treat wounded combat personnel who suffer both severe bleeding and TBI," said Resuscitation Institute Director Dr. Raul J. Gazmuri, the principal investigator for the grant. Dr. Gazmuri is also a professor of medicine and physiology at RFU's Chicago Medical School and chief of critical care at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center.

The need for more effective treatment for the deadly combination was recognized as a research priority by the Defense Health Board in 2012. The board reported that "optimizing hemorrhage control and managing hemorrhagic shock in the battlefield offered the greatest potential to avoid preventable deaths." It emphasized the need for studies investigating optimal resuscitation strategies for casualties with TBI and who are in, or at risk of, hemorrhagic shock.

Seriously wounded fighters often die from severe bleeding before they can be evacuated to a medical treatment facility. An analysis of 4,596 battlefield fatalities from operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, 2001-2011, reported in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, revealed that 87 percent of all injury-related deaths occurred in the prehospital phase of care. Of these, 24 percent were deemed potentially survivable. Death was largely associated with hemorrhage in 91 percent. In addition, 50 percent of casualties who died after admission to a medical treatment facility presented with essentially irreversible hemorrhagic shock at the time of admission.

Conflicting treatment protocols pose a serious dilemma. Current guidelines for treatment of severe bleeding call for administration of the smallest possible amount of fluids to maintain the lowest tolerable blood pressure. Excessive fluids can reduce the ability of the blood to clot and intensify bleeding. But more liberal fluid administration maintains a higher blood pressure that could protect the brain from secondary injury caused by a shortage of blood and oxygen to the heart. Outcomes of TBI are strongly associated with systolic blood pressure -- an important determinant of brain blood flow.

Dr. Gazmuri and his team, in previous animal models of severe uncontrolled bleeding, found that the drug vasopressin and similar compounds have the ability to increase blood pressure by constricting arterial vessels in peripheral areas of the body. He hypothesizes that vasopressin could also help maintain blood flow to the brain when TBI occurs concomitantly with severe bleeding -- protecting the brain and saving lives.

"Our idea is that for a patient with hemorrhagic shock and TBI, you don't give fluids, but you stabilize them hemodynamically," Dr. Gazmuri said. "We're hypothesizing that vasopressin will help maintain blood flow to vital organs despite severe bleeding without having to give large amounts of fluid. We think we can do it with higher pressure that facilitates perfusion of the brain, which protects against further injury."

If successful, the approach could lead to a major shift in the care of casualties who sustain both hemorrhagic shock and TBI, Dr. Gazmuri said. The strategy would treat both conditions with vasopressin or similar compounds, while achieving hemodynamic stability with a small amount of fluids. It could benefit the logistics of fluid transport to combat zones and potentially lead to the more cost-effective development of fluids with oxygen-carrying capacity and hemostatic (stopping the flow of blood) properties, achieving the desired effects with less volume.

The findings could be translated to civilian settings, where hemorrhage and TBI also cost lives and inflict permanent disability.

The three-year study, "Sustained V1A Receptor Activation for Prolonged Hemodynamic Support and Neurological Protection after Non-Compressible Hemorrhage and Traumatic Brain Injury," will be conducted by Dr. Gazmuri and co-investigators Pierre Riviere, PhD, and Regent Laporte, PhD, who bring expertise in peptide development. The team will investigate currently available drugs and work on novel compounds for easier use on the battlefield.

Ronald Kaplan, PhD, RFU executive vice president for research, said federal funding in this area is key to advancing medical research that can help save lives.

"Rosalind Franklin University is committed to improving the health and well-being of our nation's military members and veterans," Dr. Kaplan said. "Our Resuscitation Institute, under Dr. Gazmuri's leadership, is making important advancements in critical care medicine that could potentially save and improve the quality of their lives and the lives of civilians in need of emergency treatment and care."

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About Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Formed in 1912 as the Chicago Hospital-College of Medicine, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science is a national leader in interprofessional medical and healthcare education and biomedical research. RFU includes the Chicago Medical School, School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, College of Health Professions, Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine and College of Pharmacy. More than 18,000 RFU degreed alumni are active throughout the United States and around the world. Learn more at rosalindfranklin.edu.
Researchers from the Camborne School of Mines have identified methods to predict the environmental and social cost of resourcing new deposits of rare earth minerals used in the production of mobile phones, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

The team are pioneering techniques to develop the equivalent of a 'Fairtrade' model for ethically and sustainably resourcing raw materials that are crucial in the manufacturing of next generation technologies.

In the research the team highlight the pivotal role that geoscientists can play in developing 'life cycle assessment techniques" for potential new deposits of rare earth elements, to meet the growing worldwide demand.

The research is published in the journal, Elements.

Robert Pell, PhD student at the Camborne School of Mines, based at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, and co-author on the paper said, 'It is important that we understand the environmental costs of generating these rare earths so that we can select the right projects to support, but also research and improve the areas of production with a greater environmental cost. This is especially important when you consider the demand growth of rare earths, and their importance in the proliferation of green technology."

The manufacture of new technologies is using a wider range of elements than ever before, and many of these are very specialist, used in small quantities and mined from only a few sources. However, it is near impossible for consumers buying cars, computers or phones to check whether they have responsible supply chains right back to the source of the raw materials.

The traditional 'Fairtrade' and responsibly sourced schemes, commonly used for coffee, tea, bananas and jewellery are hard to apply to mining because of the complex supply chains associated with the raw materials.

However, geoscientists have the unique insight into this area, and have the ability to measure environmental and social impacts associated with the mining and processing these raw materials.

Geologists play an important role in determining the amount of rock required to produce the desired amount of raw material, and can also provide important environmental information such as radioactivity of the rocks being extracted. Metallurgists and mineral processors provide data on energy requirements for extracting and processing these raw materials. Chemists, such as French co-author, Alain Rollat, have perhaps the most difficult task, of separating the rare earth elements from each other, ready for the next stage of manufacturing.

Frances Wall, Professor of Applied Mineralogy said: "Manufacturers are likely to be interested in the sophisticated life cycle assessment approach that can interface with their own technical calculations in determining the complete life cycle figures for their products. Experience shows though that the public more likely to be interested in just one or two high profile issues, such as radioactivity or conflict minerals.'

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The paper is part of a thematic set on Mineral Resources and Sustainability published this month in Elements. The University of Exeter research was funded as part of the NERC SoS RARE project.
Friday, November 10, 2017

Aaron Myers was furious when he heard that Joe Ricketts, the billionaire chief executive of the company that owns D.C. local news blog DCist, had abruptly shuttered the site after employees voted to unionize, reports The Washington Post, which added that he bought the DCistNow.com domain name and on Monday launched a local news blog of his own.

In the sites introductory post, he was critical of Rickettss decision to close DCist, and he described his site as an effort to fill the void. He hopes to recruit DCists former reporters to write for his new site and eventually pay them as freelancers.

It was (and is) my goal to have a community resource (blog) that is based in DC, that will be a consistent source of quality information filled with innovation, integrity, and that same investigative spirit that I believe the DCist and many other blogs possess, Myers wrote. I do not take kindly to outsiders trying to disrupt my home.

Ricketts does not appear to have the same enthusiasm for Myerss idea. On Wednesday Partridge Partners, an intellectual property law firm representing DCists parent firm DNAinfo, contacted Myers requesting that he cease and desist.

In a Nov. 8 letter reviewed by The Washington Post, the firm admonished Myers against adopting any name or mark that is composed of the components DC and IST in any form or combination.

DNAinfo has acquired substantial goodwill in its DCIST trademark and actively promotes that goodwill, the letter reads. Your use of the Domain Name and DCist Now is anticipated to cause confusion, mistake and deception with DNAinfo and its DCIST name and mark in violation of U.S. trademark law.

The letter said Myerss blog may also violate the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, a 1999 law that concerns deceptive domain names. The firm said Myers may be liable for $100,000 in damages not including attorneys fees.
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A Northern Irish farmer has been fined 1,500 after he pleaded guilty to two charges of failure to present all animals for bovine TB testing.

Robert Armstrong, from Enniskillen in County Fermagh, also pleaded guilty to one charge of failure to notify the deaths of nine cattle.

This case arose from Mr Armstrongs failure to carry out a tuberculosis test on two occasions and offences discovered during a cattle identification inspection carried out by inspectors from Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) Veterinary Service Welfare and Enforcement Branch.

The control of Bovine TB is dependent on identifying reactor animals at tests conducted by the Department. Failure to present animals for tests is seen as undermining efforts by both farmers and government to reduce the incidence of disease.

In a statement, DAERA said the majority of herd keepers fully comply with the requirements of the TB eradication scheme.

However, current disease levels have risen to levels not seen for several years and therefore, especially at this time, the department said it is vital all stakeholders work together to reduce the prevalence.

The offence relating to the undisclosed deaths of nine animals "breaches" the Cattle Identification Regulations.

A statement read: "Breaches of the Cattle Identification Regulations weaken and undermine the cattle traceability system in Northern Ireland, including the integrity of the Departments Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS).

"The current interest in food safety by both Government and consumer groups means it is essential that the Department is clearly seen to be implementing all legislation pertaining to the traceability of livestock."
A new documentary film profiling the story behind small food producers and farmers who grow outside the industrial mainstream farming system will be released this month.

The Landworkers Alliance, a campaign group which represents small-scale farmers, will be hosting the premier for its feature documentary In Our Hands at on Friday 17th November 2017 at The Cube cinema in Bristol.

The film profiles the story behind the "blood, sweat and tears" of the farmers who are "outgrowing" the industrial food system and a vision for post-Brexit food production that is hoped will redefine the UK's relationship with food.

As the UK is set to engage with its most significant change to food and farming for a generation, In Our Hands is set to offer viewers a unique perspective on a new agricultural landscape.

In a statement, the Landworkers' Alliance said the film "will bring back life to the soil, a fair wage to the farmer and a flavour to our tomatoes."

With interviews from beef, dairy, cereal and horticultural farmers, academics and activists across the UK, In Our Hands builds a narrative to describe what the Alliance calls a "revolution" that is transforming the way food is produced and distributed.

In April this year, Landworkers Alliance launched their post-Brexit policy recommendations outside Defras offices in London.

The launch features the release of a report outlining their key policy proposals for re-orientating agricultural support to deliver "high quality food" to UK consumers while building an "environmentally, socially and economically resilient" farming industry.

The campaigning group called for government policy to cater to a plurality of food producers, arguing that Defra policy has historically favoured large farms and big business approaches to food production.
A huge new solar farm has been unveiled which plans to cover 900 acres of farmland in Kent, dwarfing output of UKs current largest solar site, developers have said.

A consortium of two energy companies has announced plans to build the 400m solar farm on agricultural land at Cleve Hill, near Faversham.

Hive Energy and Wirsol Energy's proposals would be larger than Londons Hyde Park and even Central Park in New York. If plans are successful, it will be able to generate more than 350MW by the time it goes live in 2020.

They said the project will be built upon a site of "relatively low-grade" farmland, and would bring in more than 1million a year in business rates to Swale Borough and Kent County Councils.

But rural campaign group Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) said the size of the proposal makes the it environmentally unfriendly and unsuitable to the area.

Hilary Newport, director of CPRE Kent, told the BBC that development there would harm the landscape and threaten wildlife.

"If I was to think of the worst possible place to put a solar farm it would be here," she said.

"We absolutely support the principle of renewable energy, but [the panels] should be on roofs, not trashing landscapes in an astonishingly beautiful part of the Kent marshes."

The UK's biggest existing solar farm is government-owned, located at Lyneham in Wiltshire and produces 69MW.
A new study has concluded that there is no link between exposure to glyphosate and cancer, scientists said on Thursday.

The large long-term study taken as part of the Agricultural Health Study and published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute on Thursday (9 November), looked into the use of the world's most commonly used herbicide by US agricultural workers.

It monitored the health of nearly 90,000 people in Iowa and North Carolina from 1993 to 2010, including farmers licensed to apply pesticides to their crops, and their spouses.

The researchers said that among more than 54,000 pesticide applications taken into account in the study, 83 per cent contained glyphosate. Yet they found no significant increase in cancers among those exposed to the chemical.

However, among applicators in the highest exposure quartile, there was an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), though this association was not "statistically significant".

The study comes into conflict with the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancers (IARC), which in 2015 decided to class glyphosate as a probable carcinogen to humans.

But in the same year, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans, showing the contradictory nature of the debate.

David Spiegelhalter, a professor of public understanding at Cambridge University who has no link to the Thursday's research, told Reuters he believes that the most recent analysis has been large and careful and shows no significant relationship between glyphosate use and cancer.

The news could impact a decision expected in the EU by the end of the year as to whether or not the herbicides license should be renewed.

The European Commission has once again postponed its decision on the vote for the renewal of glyphosate on Thursday (9 November) after Member States could not agree on it.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has urged the European Commission to take "decisive action" to reauthorise the use of glyphosate to stop the politicisation of the process.
Farmers in Northern Ireland have been told to face a possible situation where milk could be scarcer than expected as winter approaches.

With one of the most difficult years in terms of weather continuing to take its toll on Northern Irish farmers, the Ulster Farmers Union (UFU) have called upon dairy traders to take heed of the warning signs coming out from industry sources as the winter months come closer.

Northern Ireland saw fierce flash flooding in August. A number of farmers lost livestock or suffered damage to farmland or properties. For example, tens of thousands of chickens were killed in the floods.

And a severe cold plunge in April affected crop production. Some growers experienced delayed outdoor fruit production.

For the looming winter months ahead, UFU deputy president Ivor Ferguson said many dairy farmers are readying themselves for a fodder shortage on the back of cows being housed early, depleted silage stocks and later cut silage with negligible nutrient content.

'Accurate reflection'

Mr Ferguson said the dairy industry could be facing a situation where milk could be scarcer than expected later in the year.

To date, whilst milk production levels are on the rise after months of consecutive decline, they have not increased by the levels expected in the price cycle, Mr Ferguson said.

Consequently, we were puzzled to read in the dairy industry press that some traders are talking down the price of mild cheddar.

There is no denying the fact that some dairy commodity products have been facing downward price pressure, however, as far as mild cheddar is concerned, the price is holding up due to limited stocks and lack of available product, the UFU deputy president said.

With other commodity prices falling, the base price paid to local dairy farmers needs to be an "accurate reflection" of the product mix in Northern Ireland and cheddar cheese is a sizeable proponent of that basket, Mr Ferguson said.

The reality is that the price of mild cheddar is sustainable at the current higher levels. With ready product not available until the New Year, we are calling for traders to stop talking down the price of mild cheddar as this is an unrealistic reflection of the market, he said.
Scottish farmers are "substantially in the dark" about what happens after Brexit through the "unconscionable" neglect of the UK government, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Ms Sturgeon called on the UK government to make good on its promise to give the devolved administrations a "genuine role" in discussions, saying they had been "cut out" of talks.

The First Minister is trying to gather reassurance on what kind of transition arrangements are planned for the farming industry.

She said Westminster was still unable to say whether the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) would end immediately in March 2019, saying there was confusion at the top of government.

Farmers do not know what subsidies would be available to support them, Ms Sturgeon explained.

During a Scottish parliamentary session, Labour's Rhoda Grant asked what the SNP government would do for farmers after Brexit. She said the SNP would do all it can.

She said: Right now, it is the UK Government that requires to provide that clarity.

We do not even know right now whether the UKs membership of the CAP and CFP will continue during any transitional period or whether the UK will exit them at the point of Brexit.

It is unconscionable that our farmers and fishermen, who, as [Ms Grant] said rely on EU subsidies, still have no clarity whatsoever.

'Left in the dark'

The First Minister will be meeting the British Irish Council in Jersey on Friday (10 November). The political deadlock in Northern Ireland and Brexit are expected to top the agenda.

Ahead of a meeting, Ms Sturgeon said: "In less than 18 months' time, the UK will be leaving the EU, but despite reassurances that all devolved administrations will be consulted on the withdrawal negotiations, we remain substantially in the dark.

"The UK government assured us that the Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC) would seek to agree UK positions and discuss issues stemming from the negotiations, respecting the devolved competencies, but the UK government then allowed that process to fall short of what is required."

Later on Friday, the Brexit Secretary David Davis will meet his EU counterpart Michel Barnier in Brussels for round six of the Brexit negotiations.
Solar must go on rooftops instead of farmland, charity says
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Halley Berry & The Ladies

"The world is getting smaller and girls are owning their place. @ananya_birla and I with the most amazing @halleberry today! What a warm, intelligent, gracious woman India loves you Halle!"

Fangirl Dia

"Can't wait to have you back. It was such a joy speaking with you! Stay well and keep spreading your magic," captioned Dia Mirza on Instagram.

Ananya Birla

Ananya Birla's caption was short and sweet, "You're such an inspiration," said the entrepreneur.

Trip Details

Details of Halle Berry's trip to India has not been revealed and is a secret.

Women Entrepreneurs

We guess it has to do something with a speech for women entrepreneurs.

Bollywood Offer

While some speculated that Halle Berry must have got an offer in Bollywood, it looks like it might not be true.

Wait & Watch

If she indeed got an offer in Bollywood, we'll have to wait for an official confirmation.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry posted a picture walking the streets of Mumbai all alone.

Sunrise

She shared a sunrise image overlooking a few slums as well.
India's official entry for the Oscars, Newton, and the highest grosser till date in the country, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, are among the 26 films selected for the Indian Panorama Section of the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

Pihu, directed by Vinod Kapri, will open the feature film category of the Indian Panorama Section at the festival, where Rima Das's Assamese film Village Rockstar will also be screened, an official release said.

The festival, which takes place in Goa every year, will run from November 20 to 28.

Among the films to be screened will be Amshan Kumar directed Manusangada (Tamil), Nila Madhab Panda's Kadvi Hawa (Hindi) and Akshay Kumar starrer Jolly LLB 2 (Hindi).

Marathi film Kaasav, which won the Best Feature Film Award at the 64th National Film Awards, was given a direct entry into the list, it said.

The jury for the feature films category was headed by director Sujoy Ghosh. It previewed a total of 153 entries.

A total of 16 films, including "Fireflies in the Abyss", which won the Best Non-Feature Film Award this year, figure in the non-feature film category.

Among the other films are Chutney (Hindi), Palash (Bengali), The Waterfall (English), Baluta (Marathi) and Khidkee (Marathi).

Director Sudhir Mishra headed the jury for the non- feature film category, which previewed 154 entries.
Kapil & Ginnis Marriage

When asked about his marriage with Ginni, Kapil told the leading daily, "Wohi chakkar hai - ek time pe show kar liya, film bhi kar liya, ab shaadi karne ke liye bolenge toh zyada mushkil ho jayega!"

Kapil Is Not Ready For Marriage!

He further added, "I feel I need to be more settled before getting married. I don't think I'm ready for marriage right now."

Why Kapil Is Not Ready To Marry Now?

When asked why Kapil is not ready for marriage, he said, "See, whatever has happened with me over the last few months, sometimes I doubt myself if I'm responsible enough. Yes, I'm a professional and doing a show but will I be able to manage all of it and marriage too?"

Kapil Adds

"I keep telling her (Ginni) that see, this is how I am, we work like crazy people when we do. But I also feel that marriage is also in God's hands. We can keep planning but honi hoti toh sarkar ne 21 saal ki umar rakhi hai, toh tab tak ho chuki hoti."

Kapils Family & Ginni Share A Stronger Bond!

Kapil says that his family is more connected to her than him! He was quoted by DNA as saying, "I have stayed in Mumbai only and I go there only once a year on Diwali. So they have a stronger bond."

Kapils Mother Is Forcing Him To Get Married To Ginni!

"They stay in Amritsar-Jalandhar so she's extremely close to my mother. Actually, my mom knows more about Ginni than I do which is why my mom is forcing me to get married to her. She feels I'm mad and Ginni is perfect for me because she can handle that madness."
Apples iPhone 7 was the worlds best-shipping smartphone in Q3 2017: Canalys News oi -Priyanka Apple shipped 46.7 million smartphones in Q3 2017.

According to the new research firm Canalys, Apple's iPhone 7 was the world's best-shipping smartphone in Q3 2017, with 13.0 million units shipped, while the iPhone 6s was a distant second, after an uptick that resulted in 7.9 million shipments.

Apple shipped 46.7 million smartphones in Q3 2017. The new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus accounted for 11.8 million of these. This falls well short of its predecessor, the iPhone 7 line, which topped 14 million in its first quarter. But while Apple shipped 5.4 million units of the iPhone 8, it shipped 6.3 million of the larger iPhone 8 Plus. This makes the iPhone 8 Plus the first iPhone Plus model to out-ship its smaller sibling in a single quarter, the report said.

Shipments of older devices, such as the iPhone 6s and SE, saw an uptick in Q3," said Ben Stanton.

"The iPhone 7 also shipped strongly after its price cut in September. Apple grew in Q3, but it was these older, cheaper models that propped up total iPhone shipments. Apple is clearly making a portfolio play here. With the launch of the iPhone X, it now has five tiers of iPhone and delivers iOS at more price bands than ever before. This is a new strategy for Apple. It is aggressively defending its market share, but it will not compromise its rigid margin structure to do so," Stanton added.

On the other hand, Samsung's Galaxy J2 Prime was third, with 7.8 million shipped, while Oppo took fourth and fifth place, with its A57 and R11 shipping 7.8 million and 7.2 million units respectively. Apple's iPhone 8, which launched in mid-September, did not make the top five. Worldwide smartphone shipments reached 375.9 million, up 5.9 percent year on year.

Samsung shipped 82.8 million smartphones in Q3, 8.2 percent more than in Q3 2016. This was thanks to growth in its J-series, which did particularly well in India and the Middle East. Samsung's new Galaxy Note8 dispelled any remaining negative sentiment around the Note series, shipping a solid 4.4 million units. For a product line aimed at driving value, not volume, this was a positive result.

"Samsung had a positive quarter," said Canalys Analyst Ben Stanton. "It discounted the Galaxy S8 in several major countries in Q3, which helped ease inventory buildup from the previous quarter. In total, it shipped 10.3 million devices from its Galaxy S8 range in Q3. But Samsung's golden period of having a differentiated product has now ended. Apple, Google, Huawei, and others have all introduced new smartphones with 18:9 displays and thin bezels. As the battleground at the high end moves toward AI and AR, Samsung is behind, and needs to catch up with competitors such as Huawei and Apple."

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Gionee M7 Power with 18:9 display India launch pegged for November 15 News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Gionee has sent out invites for a launch to happen on November 15.

A few days back, it was reported that Gionee is all set to announce a new smartphone soon in the Indian market. There were claims that this new device could be the Gionee M7 Power as the tweet had the hashtag #MpowerWithGionee.

Now, the company has acknowledged the same by sending out media invites for an event that is slated to happen on November 15. The device was initially unveiled in China at the end of September and was introduced in the global markets later. The highlight of this smartphone are its FullView 18:9 display and 5000mAh battery with intelligent power management. While we are yet to know the pricing and availability details, there are claims that this smartphone might be priced at Rs. 19,999 in India.

Initially, a few reports tipped that the smartphone might be launched in the country on November 2 but it did not happen for reasons unknown. However, we never had an official confirmation from Gionee regarding the same.

The Gionee M7 Power features high-grade 6-series aluminum back shell with laser-drilled and laser-engraved finishes. The smartphone features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor that can also act as the camera shutter key and more. The Gionee M7 Power comes in three color variants - Gold, Black, and Dark Blue.

To refresh on its specifications, the Gionee M7 Power bestows a 6-inch FullView 2.5D curved glass display with 18:9 aspect ratio and 85% screen-to-body ratio. Under its hood, this Gionee smartphone employs a 1.4GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC coupled with Adreno 505 graphics unit, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal memory capacity. There is expandable storage support up to 256GB as there is a hybrid SIM card slot.

Booting on Android 7.1.1 Nougat topped with Amigo OS 5.0, the Gionee M7 Power boasts of a 13MP main camera with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF and LED flash. At the front, the device features an 8MP front-facing selfie camera. The connectivity features on board the Gionee smartphone are 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and GPS. As mentioned above, the Gionee M7 Power is powered by a capacious 5000mAh battery with support for fast charging. It is touted that the battery features intelligent power management that lets it last for up to two days.

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Nokia 8 Oreo beta-testing successfully completed: Rolling out soon confirms company executive News oi -Samden Sherpa Android Oreo stable builds will be available soon for Nokia 8 device owners.

HMD Global had already promised Android Oreo for its Nokia smartphones. And the company has teased Nokia 8 with the OS earlier stating that it would roll out the update once it's "perfect." Further, the company last month had announced that it was allowing Nokia 8 users to test Android Oreo before it goes official.

And now it seems that Nokia has completed the final testing and the rollout of the stable version is going to happen soon. In a recent Twitter post, Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer at HMD Global has posted that they have more or less completed the testing and that Oreo stable version is going to be rolled out soon for Nokia 8 users.

His post further highlights that they had over 2000 Nokia 8 beta testers. He has also thanked the users for their passion and providing great feedback about the software. The company has taken the feedback and necessary action and it is now ready to roll-out the update for everyone. Basically with Oreo Nokia will be creating smoother software which will deliver a fluid experience to the larger user base.

We have well over 2000 #Nokia8 #nokiamobilebetalabs users! Thank you so much for your passion and great feedback. We've listened, we've taken action and we will soon roll out official #AndroidOreo release for everyone! pic.twitter.com/9jRydOcoch  Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) November 10, 2017

However, as of now, the company has not provided any details or information on when the final Nokia 8 Oreo update will start rolling. But again as the beta testing has concluded it's safe to say that it will happen soon maybe by end of November. It should happen before 2017 ends.

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OnePlus will allow 10 lucky fans to test the OnePlus 5T before the official launch News oi -Samden Sherpa 10 savviest Never Settlers will be selected to test the OnePlus 5T before the launch.

The internet has been flooded with the news about OnePlus 5T in the last few days. We have been hearing about its design, features, specs, possible launch and even the pricing. While they are still in speculation, OnePlus is going in a different direction from the rest of the smartphone manufacturers.

The Chinese company has yet again announced another edition of "The Lab" project exclusively for the OnePlus 5T. What is it about? Well "The Lab" project basically allows fans to experience and review the product before the official announcement or launch. 10 lucky fans will be selected to get their hands the device.

"Do you have a knack for reviewing flagship-level technology? Join The Lab! We'll pick the 10 savviest Never Settlers we can find and send them a freshly minted OnePlus 5T. Those who get the honor of being selected will be among the first ones to receive the OnePlus 5T in the world," the company says in its blog post.

Besides all 10 members of the reviewer squad will have a single mission - to share their impressions and reviews with OnePlus in the community. Candidates will need to follow a link which will direct them to page where they will have to fill in details about themselves answer some questions and write a short review (up to 300 words) about the most impressive phone they have ever used. Users will also need to share some of the most amazing photos they have taken. That is pretty much it and then interested users can submit their entries.

Submissions will be open until November 15, and the final selection will happen by 10 PM EDT.

Meanwhile, OnePlus says, "Since we first opened the doors to the Lab, it has become something of a OnePlus tradition. It's something fun for the community to look forward to every time we launch a device. This time is no exception." "After every product release, the forum is the first place we go for your advice and feedback. Thanks to all of you, we're able to share the best technology with the world. With our launch next week, this feels like the perfect time to get you involved."

There are some terms and conditions which interested candidates need to keep in mind. It reads as follows:

If chosen, you agree to complete all requirements on time and in an honest manner; if you are not able to do so, you agree to return the device in its original condition and give your spot to the next candidate.

As a reviewer, you agree to provide OnePlus with the free right to use and publish any production materials (video, pictures, articles, etc.) that are generated and submitted during the review period.

When you apply, your entry will be added automatically to an internal backup reviewer list. We reserve the right to contact backup reviewers for additional review purposes at any time.

OnePlus reserves all rights to this event. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OnePlus.

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Qualcomm signs $12 billion deal with Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo News oi -Priyanka Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf was part of President Trumps Department of Commerce Trade Delegation to China, that included executives of leading American companies.

Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated has announced that it has signed a deal of $12 billion with Chinese mobile handset.

The company has signed three non-binding memoranda of understanding (MoU) wherein Xiaomi, OPPO Mobile and Vivo to supply components, including processing chipsets over the next three years.

The MoUs were signed at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing led by President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping and President of the United States Donald Trump.

Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf was part of President Trump's Department of Commerce Trade Delegation to China, that included executives of leading American companies.

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, OPPO CEO Chen Mingyong, and Vivo CEO Shen Wei attended and signed for their respective companies.

"I'm honored to represent Qualcomm as part of this important Trade delegation, which showcases the importance of win-win business relationships between the US and China," said Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer, Qualcomm Incorporated.

"Qualcomm has longstanding relationships with Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo and we are continuing our commitment to investing and helping advance China's mobile and semiconductor industries," Mollenkopf added.

Qualcomm Technologies has been supporting the Chinese mobile ecosystem for almost 25 years and continues to expand its investments and projects in China, establishing a number of branches, joint ventures and R&D centers in Guizhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, among others.

To recall, Broadcom Limited a leading semiconductor device supplier to the wired, wireless, enterprise storage, and industrial end markets, announced a proposal to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Qualcomm Incorporated for per share consideration of $70.00 in cash and stock.

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Reliance Jio to launch its own dedicated VR app in 2018 News oi -Samden Sherpa Reliance is hoping to collaborate with experts at Birmingham City University in England.

The new entrant in the telecom industry, Reliance Jio, has been disrupting the mobile world since it launched back in 2016. While it has ignited intense competition in the telecom space, it is working to create more stir in the mobile handset segment. In fact, the company has already managed to create some buzz with the launch of JioPhone.

However, it seems the Mukesh Ambani-led company is now planning to launch its own Virtual Reality (VR) app in 2018. And to achieve this, Reliance Jio is hoping to collaborate with experts at Birmingham City University in England.

Aiming to explore potential partnerships in the future, the Head and Creative Director of Jio Studios, Aditya Bhat and Ankit Sharma respectively, visited the university on Wednesday to learn more about how it is training the next generation of Virtual Reality (VR) professionals.

From what it looks like the Jio executives are keen on establishing a new partnership where they will be able to make the best use of the technology and which they could incorporate in their own platform as well. It could possibly be on a smartphone making it VR or AR ready device.

Apart from this, the Founder and Managing Director of philmCGI, Anand Bhanushali, also spent time with senior academics of the university as part of a visit organized by the UK's Department of International Trade.

Just to give you a backdrop, philmCGI is an animation studio based out of Mumbai with some 90 artists that provide computer-generated images and visual effects services in films and television for some of the biggest studios in Europe and Asia. Apparently, this studio is also expanding its offer in VR and Augmented Reality (AR).

The visit seems to be beneficial as Bhanushali has revealed, "Today we have discussed a number of opportunities for collaboration." In a positive tone, "Birmingham City University has state-of-the-art media facilities; it is no wonder so many Indian students want to come to the UK to study! Lots of innovative solutions can be developed when applying fresh minds to companies such as ourselves," he added.

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DoD Pledges to Improve Background Investigation Procedures

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2017  The Defense Department is pledging to improve the way background investigations are done, according to Garry Reid, DoD's director for defense intelligence and security.

There is currently an enormous backlog in the investigations, Reid said. Some personnel have been waiting up to nearly two years for a top secret security clearance, he said, explaining the goal for completing a top secret investigation is 80 days.

The delays are impacting readiness, he explained to DoD News.

"Units are deploying without a full complement of cleared intelligence analysts and technical experts," Reid said.

"Service members competing for positions that require top level clearances are held in check," he said. "Our research and development programs are not operating at capacity due to shortage of cleared defense industry contractors."

The long delays in processing clearances result in loss of talented people, particularly those just entering the workforce who have highly desired technical skills but cannot afford to wait a year or more before starting the job, he said.

"We are prepared to take this matter in hand and aggressively develop better approaches that can deliver quality investigations, at sustainable cost, within acceptable timelines," he said.

Changes in Procedures

The fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Section 951, Enhanced Security Programs for Department of Defense Personnel and Innovation Initiative, directed the defense secretary, to provide the following to the DoD committees:

-- An implementation plan, by Aug. 1, 2017, for the Defense Security Service, or DSS, to conduct, after Oct. 1, 2017, background investigations for DoD personnel, whose investigations are adjudicated by the DoD Consolidated Adjudications Facility.

-- A report, by Aug. 1, 2017, on the number of full-time equivalent employees of the DoD management headquarters that would be required by DSS to carry out the transfer plan.

-- A plan, by Oct. 1, 2017, along with the Office of Personnel Management, to transfer government investigative personnel and contracted resources to the DoD from OPM, in proportion to the background and security investigative workload that would be assumed by DoD if the implementation plan were executed.

Backlog Impacts Readiness

DoD does not plan to assume the cases the OPM is already investigating, according to Reid. The pending cases are in various stages of completion and the department has already paid OPM's National Background Investigation System to conduct those investigations.

"The enormity of the backlog is staggering," Reid told members of Congress last month.

The backlog hurts readiness, erodes warfighting capacity, debilitates development of new capabilities, and wastes taxpayer dollars, he explained to the House Oversight and Government's Subcommittee on Government Operations.

He said 93,000 DoD cases were waiting in a queue for a top secret investigation, and the prices for the investigations continue to rise at a "staggering rate."

"In 2015, after promising to provide credit monitoring to 22 million government employees and federal contractors whose personal data was compromised, OPM retroactively passed on these costs on to its customers -- resulting in an additional $132 million bill for DoD," he said.

DoD to Reset Process and Procedures

Reid said the situation is "unacceptable and must be remedied through immediate mitigation measures and a long-term reformation of the personnel vetting system."

He said that is why Congress directed DoD in 2017 to develop plans for assuming control of the background investigations.

In August, the defense secretary approved the plan and notified Congress, the director of national intelligence, the director of OPM, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget of his intent to execute the plan over a three-year period, according to Reid.

"The DoD plan goes far beyond a transfer of personnel and resources associated with the legacy process at OPM; this will be a full resetting of process and procedures in desperate need of modernization and system reform," he said.



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Dedication to Defeating ISIS Evident By Progress, Mattis Says

By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2017  The dedication of the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is evident by its progress, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in his welcoming remarks today at a defense ministerial at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

The secretary confirmed that 95 percent of the territory ISIS once controlled in Iraq and Syria is now liberated while coalition partners continue to secure more ground each day.

"Mosul, Tal Afar and Hawijah have been liberated; efforts to liberate the final pockets of ISIS-held territory in Anbar province are progressing rapidly," Mattis said.

Under Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's leadership, Arab and Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite forces have worked together with unprecedented levels of cooperation, he said.

Additionally, the Kurdish independence referendum in October has created tension, but the coalition appears to be on track to resolve it constitutionally, thanks largely to Abadi's patience, Mattis said.

Raqqa Liberation

Two weeks ago, the coalition's local partners in Syria liberated Raqqa, as ISIS' leadership crumbled and many fighters surrendered, the secretary said.

"Despite these successes our fight is not over," Mattis emphasized. "Even without a physical caliphate, ISIS remains a threat to stability in the recently liberated areas, as well as in our homelands."

The fight to defeat ISIS will remain long-term, requiring all elements of the coalition's collective national powers -- military, economic, diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement, counter finance and counter messaging, the secretary said.

"We are stabilizing the territory liberated from ISIS through continued engagement with our Iraqi partners," he said.

"Every battlefield is also a humanitarian field. Even after the fighting stops, [it's] something we must hold actively in our operations as a situation that cannot be overlooked," Mattis said.

"Our greatest weapon against this enemy, our greatest strength is our unity," the secretary said. "ISIS is opposed to all nations' civilized values, and we must remain focused on the common threat: denying them "their sick and twisted objectives," he added.

"Groups like ISIS -- groups that would seek to sow murder and mayhem -- cannot be allowed to succeed," Mattis said.

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Military Aviation Leaders Discuss Readiness, Urge Budget Certainty

By Lisa Ferdinando DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2017  Top aviation military officials from the four services addressed Congress today on aviation readiness, all underscoring the urgent need for predictable budgets.

Army Maj. Gen. William K. Gayler, commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and of Fort Rucker, Alabama; Lt. Gen. Mark C. Nowland, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations; Lt. Gen. Steven R. Rudder, Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation; and Navy Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, commander of Naval Air Forces, spoke on aviation readiness at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's readiness subcommittee.

"Every hour of every day, airmen support homeland defense, deter aggression from abroad and provide a robust and reliable nuclear deterrent," Nowland said.

However, the Air Force is quickly approaching an inflection point, he said, noting that 26 years of continuous operations have taken a toll on the force and adversaries are beginning to close the technological gap. The president's budget for fiscal year 2018, he added, lays the foundation to restore readiness and increase joint lethality.

"But most importantly an approved budget with stable, predictable funding levels will build the bridge to the future," he said. "Continuing resolutions and a return to the Budget Control Act measures reverse all the progress we've made to this point."

Army

Gayler said Army Aviation has provided an "unparalleled advantage" to the nation as a fundamental element of the joint force. "There's no doubt that aviation will remain an essential element of any combat in the future," he said.

Army Aviation units and soldiers have been tested routinely in a variety of harsh operational environments over the past 16 years and through it all, have performed magnificently, Gayler said.

"However," he added, "force structure reductions, increased global requirements, funding uncertainty and the requirement to train our forces to a higher level of preparedness raise concerns about the overall future readiness of Army Aviation."

Challenges in Naval Air

Consistent, predictable funding is "absolutely required" to improve readiness and quality of service in naval aviation, Shoemaker said. "Then we must buy back the readiness we've lost from years of resource-constrained budgets."

To illustrate the challenges, he discussed the deployments of West Coast-based aircraft carriers.

"We are meeting the combatant commanders' requirement for ready, lethal carriers and air wings forward, but at a tremendous cost to the readiness of our forces at home," he said.

He described a "shell game" in moving various jets to equip the USS Carl Vinson, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt for their deployments this year. Once those jets are moved, nondeployed squadrons are left without an adequate number of assets to keep the aviators proficient and progressing toward career qualifications, he explained.

That has detrimental impacts on retention and experience levels, he said. In addition, parts had to be cannibalized from other jets, and hundreds of sailors had to be temporarily reassigned or have their sea duty extended.

Nation's Expeditionary Force in Readiness

Marine aviation readiness is improving, but fragile, Rudder saidThe readiness recovery of the Marine Corps lies in modernization and repair, he told the panel. He reiterated the need for consistent funding, and he highlighted the work of the men and women of the force who serve around the globe.

"The Marine Corps continues to be the nation's expeditionary force in readiness, and Marine Aviation is prepared to surge and fight wherever you ask them to," Rudder said.

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-387-17 November 09, 2017

Readout of Secretary of Defense Mattis' Meeting with German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen

Pentagon Chief Spokesperson Dana W. White provided the following readout:

Today, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis met with German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen at the NATO Defense Ministerial reaffirming the longstanding defense relationship between the United States and Germany.

The leaders discussed a broad range of defense issues, emphasizing the importance of the U.S-German relationship both bilaterally and in the NATO Alliance.

Secretary Mattis thanked the minister for her country's strong leadership in a complex global security environment.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1368864/

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-386-17 November 09, 2017

Readout of Secretary Mattis' Meeting with Norwegian Minister of Defense Frank Bakke-Jensen

Pentagon Chief Spokesperson Dana W. White provided the following readout:

Today, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis met with Norwegian Minister of Defense Frank Bakke-Jensen at the NATO Defense Ministerial reaffirming the long standing defense relationship between the United States and Norway.

Secretary Mattis thanked the minister for Norway's commitment to international security, including its significant contributions to NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, the Defeat-ISIS campaign, and its leadership on security in the Nordic-Baltic region and the North Atlantic.

The secretary also thanked the minister for the opportunity to improve interoperability and strengthen defense cooperation through training and exercises between the armed forces of both nations.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1368856/

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis November 09, 2017

Press Conference with Secretary Mattis at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JIM SEC. MATTIS: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Jim Mattis. I'm from the United States. As you know, we just concluded our NATO Defense Ministerial.

A couple of the subjects we discussed -- and I realize you've just heard from the secretary general. But we did talk about the implementation of our strengthened deterrence and defense posture -- you know, that's something that's been ongoing for some time; I'll say a few more words about that in a minute -- the role of our new NATO cyber operations center and our stance in response to the DPRK's reckless and destabilizing provocations, recognizing the unity of our individual and collective assessments of the Kim regime's danger to the world.

We recognize that European capitals are closer, in fact, to Pyongyang than Washington D.C., and Europe is keenly aware. From our discussions, it was obvious to me that Europe is keenly aware of this threat. And we are all aligned in terms of characterizing the threat and in solving this sobering issue through economic and diplomatic processes, if at all possible.

We also discussed at length Russia's now constant efforts to intercede in our nations' sovereign democratic processes. We discussed our strategic nuclear issues, in which I received input from our allies to our ongoing posture review in Washington D.C. NATO is a nuclear-armed alliance, and it is natural and necessary for us to have such discussions among trusted allies.

The discussion included a consideration of the Russian Federation's violations of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and our collective efforts to bring Russia back into a -- compliance with the INF. This is absolutely necessary to sustain confidence in arms control agreements. And we're doing so in a substantial, transparent and verifiable fashion.

During our meetings, NATO defense ministers collectively stressed the importance of a NATO alliance fit for its current purpose, an alliance where political and military decision-making and military mobility across borders move at the speed of relevance.

We appreciate and support the Netherlands's leadership on the mobility issue and the European Union's embrace of the suggested approach to solve this problem. And they will be meeting on it next week.

2014, as you all know, was a watershed year in Europe and around the world, confirming a Russia that was choosing to be a strategic competitor to NATO and the violent rise of terrorism in the form of ISIS. From increased defense budgets to refined decision processes and our changed military organizational initiatives, NATO's defense stance is keeping pace with our new challenges from the east and from the south.

Defense ministers also discussed NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan alongside our coalition partners, non-NATO nations which gathered with us. We discussed orchestrating our fight against terror and the next steps from Afghanistan, actually, to the Middle East, over the two days, and I shared President Trump's South Asia strategy, which was very well received and firmly supported.

Specifically to Afghanistan, reconciliation remains the political goal of NATO's military campaign and our comprehensive approach. Reconciliation must be Afghan-led, with an open door to the Taliban if they choose to stop killing and live by the Afghan constitution. This strategy, carried out by, with and through our Afghan partners and within the coalition framework, ensures this regional campaign is politically, fiscally and militarily sustainable.

NATO nations and coalition partners are in the process of finalizing troop increases and additional support efforts. Over two dozen nations have stated that they intend to raise the troop numbers that they have on the ground there now, including some very small nations, for whom this is the largest overseas deployment they have been engaged in. We appreciate their commitment to stabilizing the South Asia region.

This week's discussions also afforded the opportunity to further align the alliance posture, ensuring we fully implement the Wales and Warsaw decisions, and in emphasizing our shared values regarding the rule of law, territorial integrity and transatlantic security, to include attention to the sea lanes of communication between North America and Europe.

All in all, ladies and gentlemen, I've been engaged in these ministerials since 2007, both in uniform and as secretary of defense. I've never been more impressed by the collective, shared appreciation of our challenges, or by this body's necessary decision-making to protect our populations and our democracies' freedoms.

So thank you. I can take a few questions here.

STAFF: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Idrees Ali, Reuters.

Q: Mr. Secretary, you mentioned North Korea. The Navy today confirmed that three aircraft carriers are going to be carrying out a joint exercise in the western Pacific for the first time in a decade.

What exactly is the message to North Korea, with that specific exercise? And do you think there is a chance of miscalculation, where it could be misread by the North Koreans and could exacerbate an already pretty tense situation in the region?

SEC. MATTIS: Well, you'll have to ask the second question of North Korea. I don't -- I don't suppose to read the dictator's mind. However, the message to Korea has been consistently -- to DPRK, to North Korea -- has been consistently sent by the international community, by the United Nations Security Council in unanimous Security Council resolutions, sanctioning their activity.

It -- their activity had been condemned by NATO, by European Union. I can go on. This is a diplomatically led and, certainly, economically -- economic sanctions-reinforced effort to either isolate them and reduce their economic situation, or they can come to the negotiating table. And everything we do is inside that diplomatic framework.

STAFF: Teri Schultz, Deutsche Welle.

Q: Hello. Teri Schultz with Deutsche Welle and NPR.

Sir, I'm interested in why you decided now to raise the issue of what the U.S. views as the Russian violations of the INF Treaty. Did you share evidence with allies? And when you say you're discussing those responses, where is the U.S. now on possible responses?

Are you worried that, if there's no administration response, it will simply embolden the Russians to violate other treaties, to push the edges on these things? And how does this fit in with your overall Russia strategy?

SEC. MATTIS: Sure, Teri.

The bottom line is you have to have respect for other nations' sovereignty. When you make agreements, when you sign treaties, you have to live up to those treaties.

And we have a firm belief, now, over several years, that the Russians have violated the INF. And our effort is to bring Russia back into compliance. It is not to walk away from the treaty. But, just like with the Vienna agreement, the Minsk accord, the Helsinki accord, we now have an increasing concern about Russia's willingness to live up to the accords that it's signed, the treaties it's signed.

So we will -- many of the nations already have their own evidence of what Russia's been up to, and we've been in active discussions amongst ourselves on the issue. It will be going forward, and we will be engaging with Russia as we try to come to a resolution of this.

STAFF: Dan Lamothe, Washington Post.

Q: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your time.

You briefed the South Asia Policy here today. We've had some details about that. But one mystery, I think, for a lot of us, in there so far is what exactly is changing with Pakistan. In light of the additional requests for troops, here and at home, in the United States, what is changing? Can you provide any specifics? And is that going to be sufficient to not undermine U.S. and coalition operations in Afghanistan?

SEC. MATTIS: Yeah.

Dan, this is, as you know, a key part of the strategy. When we talk about the strategy, ladies and gentlemen, we talk about for RS, and it starts with regionalization. It also goes to realigning our forces, reinforcing them and to reconciliation, the political goal. There's no military campaign that doesn't have a political goal.

In this case, it starts with regionalization, directly pointed at the point that you made about the problem that we've incurred with organizations -- no matter how badly they get beat up, they retreat across the border and then they come back again.

So, what we want to do is start with -- from India to -- across the region is make certain that everyone's working off the same sheet of music. We want to make certain that no terrorist organization can find a haven anywhere, and, with a border adjoining Afghanistan, that makes Pakistan a priority.

So we're engaging with the Pakistanis. We're engaging a whole-of-government effort. We've got international efforts going on. And one of the reasons we brought it up here was to make certain we were all aligned about where we stood on this. And it was remarkable alignment about us all working together to get Pakistan to do everything it can to cut the insurgents off, the terrorists off.

I -- as far as what's different about this, obviously, there are ways that we can reward Pakistan and there's ways that we can ensure they're held to account. But our principle, going into this, is that we are going to work with Pakistan and make this work, so that there's no longer a threat coming across the border there.

And this is an international effort. This isn't an American-alone effort. So that in itself, that we're aligned internationally, now, with what we're doing, is probably the biggest change.

STAFF: Last question, Ana Pisonero, Europa Press.

Q: Hello, thank you. Ana Pisonero from the Spanish news agency Europa Press. How many effectors -- how many troops are we short, still, for Afghanistan?

And the second quick question, if I may, concerning the military movement: Are you worried that we can't get the -- a sufficient number of troops and equipment, like tanks and other heavy equipment, in time, anywhere in the eastern flank, to meet a potential threat, whether it's from Russia, mainly, or any of the other one ?

SEC. MATTIS: Yeah. I -- okay~.

Q: Is that a real worry today? Thank you.

SEC. MATTIS: Yeah. Okay. I don't want to talk specific numbers. Some of the American press have heard me preaching so much on this, they could probably give my reasons without me even speaking for -- up for myself. Basically, I don't give the enemy information they could use to their advantage. And I'm told by some, "Well, people used to do that." That's not me.

On the mobility issue, you bring up a very good point. You know, if you want to have a NATO that is truly capable of protecting the democracies here, you've got to be able to work together. And one of the most fundamental points of that is at the point of borders, where you speed troops across if they're needed somewhere else in the alliance.

And I would just tell you that the issue has been exposed during exercises. It has been solved imperfectly in the local area at that moment. But, as a result of defining the problem so well -- and I salute what the Netherlands did.

The Netherlands took the issue on, came up with what they thought would be a way to approach it. They -- the European Union is meeting next week about it. We support the European Union's efforts in this regard of taking the Netherlands from "Here's a proposed solution," to implementing it.

So no, I'm not worried in the sense that we've worked it out on exercise, and they had local solutions. But we should get a standardization effort, so we're not having to work it out locally each time. But the short answer is no, I'm not worried.

STAFF: That's it?.

SEC. MATTIS: Okay~.

STAFF: Thank you, sir.

SEC. MATTIS: Well, thank you very much. I've got to go to another meeting now. Thank you.

STAFF: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1369428/

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Transcript

Presenter: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg November 09, 2017

Remarks by Secretary Mattis at D-ISIS event at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium

SECRETARY GENERAL JENS STOLTENBERG: Welcome. I think we are ready to start. Welcome to this meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. I'm pleased to see you all here at the NATO Headquarters.

It is a decisive time for the Global Coalition, as the military campaign nears its conclusion. Raqqa and Mosul have fallen, 95 percent of Iraqi territory once held by ISIS has been retaken and stabilization is spreading: More than 2 million people in Iraq can now return to their homes.

That success is due to the nations gathered in this room -- most importantly, to Iraq, whose forces have shown great courage and resilience, and also to the many other nations around this table, nearly all of whom are NATO allies or NATO partners.

But our work is not done. As ISIS loses territory, they may seek to prove their relevance by stepping up terrorist attacks in the region and beyond, including here in Europe. So we must stay vigilant. We must stay engaged and we must work together to counter new challenges. That is exactly why we are gathered here today.

So. once again, welcome to NATO Headquarters to all of you, and then I hand over the floor to Secretary Mattis. Please.

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JIM MATTIS: Well, thank you, Secretary General Stoltenberg, very much for hosting this event.

Your excellencies, fellow ministers, generals, our nation's dedication to defeating the terrorist enemy is evident in the progress we have made since our last gathering here. As Secretary General just pointed out, 95 percent of the territory once held by ISIS is now liberated, and our partners continue to secure more each day.

Mosul, Tal Afar and Hawija have been liberated. Efforts to liberate the final pockets of ISIS-held territory in Anbar province are progressing rapidly. Arab and Kurdish, Sunni and Shia forces under Prime Minister Abadi's leadership have worked together with unprecedented levels of cooperation.

The ill-advised Kurdish referendum has created tension, but we appear to be on track to resolve this constitutionally, thanks largely to Prime Minister Abadi's patience.

Two weeks ago, our local partners liberated Raqqa in Syria. ISIS leadership crumbled and many fighters surrendered. Despite these successes, our fight is not over. Even without a physical caliphate, ISIS remains a threat to stability in the recently liberated areas, as well as in our homelands.

This will be a long-term fight requiring all elements of our collective national powers -- military, economic, diplomatic, intelligence, as well as law enforcement, counterfinance and countermessaging.

We are stabilizing the territory liberated from ISIS through continued engagement with our Iraqi partners. Every battlefield is also a humanitarian field, even after the fighting stops, something we must hold actively in our operations as a situation that cannot be overlooked.

Our greatest weapon against this enemy, our greatest strength, is our unity. ISIS is opposed to all nations' civilized values, and we must remain focused on the common threat, denying them their sick and twisted objectives. Groups like ISIS, groups that would seek to sow murder and mayhem, cannot be allowed to succeed.

I will now transition to my closed remarks. Thank you, press, for being here.

-END-

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1369231/

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NATO Ministers boost troops for Afghan training mission

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2017

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed today that NATO will increase its support for Afghanistan as part of its Resolute Support Mission.

The United States briefed on its new South Asia strategy, under which its troop numbers in Afghanistan have increased. 27 other nations have also said they will increase their troop numbers in the coming months. As a result, NATO's Resolute Support Mission will increase from around 13,000 to around 16,000 troops. "I strongly welcome the strengthened commitment and support demonstrated by Allies and partners," said the Secretary General.

Defence Ministers from NATO Allies and partner nations also confirmed they will continue the fund the Afghan security forces until at least 2020. In addition to a significant financial contribution from the United States, "other NATO Allies and partners will continue to provide almost a billion US dollars each year to the Afghan defence and security forces," added Mr Stoltenberg.

Ministers were joined by Afghanistan's Acting Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami, who briefed on ongoing reforms, including on good governance, the rule of law, fighting corruption, and protecting the rights of all Afghans, including women and girls.

Mr Stoltenberg said that NATO continues to support an Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process. "We welcome the Kabul Process initiative launched by President Ghani earlier this year. And we urge all regional and international actors to support this process."

The Secretary General was speaking following the meeting of Resolute Support Mission defence ministers at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels.



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NATO Defence Ministers agree to adapt command structure, boost Afghanistan troop levels

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2017

Defence Ministers agreed today (9 November 2017) to increase the size of NATO's Resolute Support training mission in Afghanistan from around 13,000 to roughly 16,000 personnel. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the announcement at the end of a two-day meeting of the alliance's Defence Ministers in Brussels. Mr Stoltenberg welcomed the fact that "Afghan forces are making progress, even though the situation remains very challenging." Ministers also agreed on the importance of funding for the Afghan security forces, and welcomed Afghanistan's intention to make further progress on reforms and reconciliation.

In response to changes in Europe's security environment, Ministers agreed an outline design for an adapted NATO Command Structure on Wednesday (8 November 2017), with new commands to improve the movement of troops across the Atlantic, and within Europe. "We need a command structure which can make sure that we have the right forces, in the right place, with the right equipment at the right time," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference in the margins of the meeting.

With cyber-attacks a growing threat, Ministers endorsed a set of principles for how the Alliance can integrate the cyber capabilities of its Allies into Alliance military operations. Ministers also agreed to the creation of a new Cyber Operations Centre to help integrate cyber into NATO planning and operations at all levels. This follows steps last year to recognise cyber as an operational domain along with land, sea and air.

Another key focus of discussion among ministers was North Korea's illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Secretary General Stoltenberg stressed that UN sanctions need to be fully and transparently implemented. Mr Stoltenberg added that Russia and China have a special role to play both as neighbouring countries and as permanent members of the UN Security Council. In the margins of the NATO ministerial discussion, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis also chaired a meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

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NATO Allies brief Russian arms control inspectors

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2017

As part of NATO Allies' ongoing commitment to transparency, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are hosting Russian arms control inspectors this week. The inspectors toured a number of military sites, including some used by multinational NATO battlegroups. NATO deployed defensive forces to the region  known as enhanced forward presence  following Russia's aggressive actions against Ukraine. One battlegroup, roughly 1,000-strong, is now stationed in each of the Baltic countries and Poland to deter any possible aggression.

In Estonia, Russian inspectors visited the Defence Forces Central Training Area, headquarters of the 1st Infantry Brigade in Tapa, and met with NATO personnel stationed there. In Latvia, the Russian inspection team visited Latvian Armed Forces units and training grounds, and were briefed by the Commander of the Mechanised Infantry Brigade and the Commander of the National Guard 2nd Brigade. They also conducted an observation flight over the central part of Latvia. In Lithuania, the inspectors conducted an overflight and visited units within the Mechanised Infantry Brigade "Iron Wolf" in Rukla, where they were briefed by the Brigade Commander and met with NATO battlegroup personnel.

All of these visits are being carried out within the framework of the Vienna Document, an agreement on military transparency reached among the 57 member nations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2011. Designed to promote mutual trust and transparency, the Vienna Document commits OSCE members to accept a number of inspection visits by other members each year, in order to verify there are no undeclared military capabilities or activities of concern.

NATO strongly supports efforts to build confidence and transparency on military activities. Allies respect the letter and spirit of the Vienna Document, and NATO regularly updates its schedule of military exercises online.

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NATO discusses defence and security sector reforms in Skopje

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2017

A team of representatives from NATO's Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP), together with experts from Bulgaria, Germany and the United States, visited Skopje, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia from 30 October to 2 November 2017. They reviewed the government's progress on defence education reforms and identified clear priorities for the future.

During the visit, the Minister of Defence, Radmila Sekerinska, emphasised the importance of the programme. "I can say, with conviction, that our inclusion in this NATO programme will help us reform and develop our military education and achieve better results," she said.

The DEEP team will complete an assessment report in close cooperation with Skopje. An initial action plan will then be developed to focus on defence education priorities. The DEEP project is expected to begin in February 2018 and could take up to three years.

The foundations for these negotiations were laid during the meeting between Defence Minister Sekerinska and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller in Brussels on 27 September 2017. Both expressed strong support for strengthened cooperation and emphasised that education remains a critical factor of transformation.

DEEPs are tailored programmes through which the Alliance advises partners on how to build, develop and reform educational institutions in the security, defence and military domain. Projects are currently running in 12 countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, the Republic of Moldova, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia1, Tunisia and Ukraine. They focus in particular on faculty building and curriculum development, covering areas such as teaching methodology, leadership and operational planning.

1. Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional name.

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11 NATO Allies and Finland united in buying Precision Guided Munitions

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

09 Nov. 2017

On Thursday (9 November 2017), Hungary, the United Kingdom, and Finland joined a long-standing multinational effort to acquire Air-to-Ground Precision Guided Munitions. During a signing ceremony, the Defence Minister of Denmark and his counterparts from the new participants signed an amendment to the existing Memorandum of Understanding to mark their official accession.

This project was launched by six Allied Defence Ministers through a Letter of Intent during the Wales Summit in 2014. With Thursday's ceremony, the number of participants has doubled reflecting the potential nations see in this effort. Through this framework, participants will be able to lower their acquisition cost by aggregating their individual demands. They will also obtain greater flexibility for their munitions stockpiles as all Precision Guided Munitions acquired under this scheme can be easily shared and exchanged amongst the participants.

The first multinational order is being executed by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) on behalf of the participants with delivery of munitions to nations scheduled for 2018. This first order is a major new opportunity for the nations and NSPA within the framework of US Foreign Military Sales. Additionally, this order under the PGM initiative demonstrates the benefit to nations of international cooperation in multinational logistics.

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ICC launches probe into Burundi crimes despite exit

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 07:05PM

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has decided to launch an investigation into atrocities committed in Burundi, despite the country's pullout from the international body last month.

ICC judges authorized the tribunal to open an investigation into crimes committed in Burundi or outside the east African country, ICC said on its website on Thursday.

The alleged crimes include murder, rape and torture, which started in 2015 after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans to run for a third term, which he succeeded.

"According to estimates, at least 1,200 persons were allegedly killed, thousands illegally detained, thousands reportedly tortured and hundreds disappeared," the court said in a statement.

The alleged acts of violence, it said, have reportedly resulted in the displacement of 413,490 persons between April 2015 and May 2017.

Judges issued the authorization on Oct. 25, two days before Burundi's withdrawal from the ICC.

The Burundi investigation is the 11th full-scale investigation by the ICC. Almost all the investigations are in Africa, prompting some of the countries to exit the international body.

Government defiant

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her investigation found proof suggesting police and security forces, "acting pursuant to a state policy, carried out a deliberate attack against the civilian population."

The attacks, she said, entailed "multiple acts of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance and persecution, constituting crimes against humanity."

Burundi remains obliged to cooperate with her investigation, despite the country's withdrawal from the ICC, she added.

The Burundian government remained non-committal, saying the country would not be helping with the investigation.

"We are no longer a state member," Burundi Government spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba said. "They can do whatever they want, they can take all initiatives they want, Burundi will not cooperate because we stopped collaboration."

Forgotten crimes

International human rights groups voiced support for the ICC's decision, saying the probe would help deliver justice to victims and the people whose rights had been violated.

The probe "signals that ICC withdrawal does not shield a government from scrutiny about its role in grave human rights violations," said Param-Preet Singh, the group's associate international justice director.

Earlier this year, a UN commission of inquiry report based on interviews with more than 500 witnesses revealed that crimes against humanity, including killings and sexual violence, were still being committed in Burundi.

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Hariri's party says he still PM, urges him to return to Lebanon

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 03:47PM

A Lebanese political party led by Saad Hariri, who recently resigned in Saudi Arabia, says the politician is still the country's prime minister.

In a televised statement on Thursday, Future Movement threw its weight behind Hariri, calling for his immediate return to Lebanon.

"We confirm our support for Prime Minister Saad Hariri and for all the decisions he makes under any circumstances," the movement said, adding that Hariri's return "is necessary to restoring the internal and external balance of Lebanon with full respect to Lebanese legitimacy."

Hariri quit his post on Saturday in a speech from Saudi Arabia and has not returned to Lebanon since. In his speech, he accused Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, of sowing strife in the Arab world.

Hariri's departure has sent shockwaves throughout Lebanon as the country is struggling to maintain stability at a time when much of the Middle East is gripped with Takfiri violence rooted in Saudi Arabia.

Analysts believe that Hariri, a pro-Saudi politician, was coerced into resignation by Saudi Arabia, which has stepped up its belligerent rhetoric against Iran and Hezbollah in recent weeks.

Some Lebanese politicians and officials say Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia under a house arrest.

Riyadh warns citizens against traveling to Lebanon

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia urged its citizens visiting or residing in Lebanon to quit the country immediately.

"Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing" in the country to leave it as soon as possible, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted an unnamed official source at the Foreign Ministry as saying.

The source also advised all Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon from any other international destinations.

Additionally, Kuwait has also ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

In a statement carried by state news agency KUNA, a source at the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry urged the country's nationals not to travel to Lebanon.

The developments followed a similar warning issued last week by Bahrain, which ordered all its citizens in Lebanon to "leave immediately and exercise extreme caution."

The developments in Lebanon coincided with a sweeping crackdown by Saudi rulers at home, where a number of royals and businessmen have been rounded up as part of a purported anti-graft campaign.

New appointments in Saudi judiciary

Separately on Thursday, the SPA reported that Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had issued a royal order that promoted 26 judges and appointed 30 others at different levels of the judiciary.

This comes as dozens of high-profile royals, ministers and business tycoons were arrested in the weekend purge soon after the creation of a so-called anti-corruption commission headed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The detainees face allegations of bribery, money laundering, extortion and exploiting public office for personal gain.

It was unclear if the judges will have anything to do with the widening crackdown in the kingdom.

The development came after it was announced that regulators in the United Arab Emirates had asked banks for information about citizens detained in Saudi crackdown, in what has been seen as a possible prelude to freezing their accounts.

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Yemen to keep up missile attacks in response to Saudi aggression: Ansarullah

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 11:35AM

Yemen's Ansarullah movement has warned that Yemeni forces will continue missile attacks against Saudi Arabia as long as Riyadh and its allies press ahead with their military aggression against the impoverished nation.

Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, said on Thursday that Yemen's missile launches are purely aimed at defending the nation in the face of Saudi attacks, Yemen's al-Masirah television network reported.

On Saturday, Yemeni forces, backed by popular Houthi fighters, had launched a Borkan H2 long-range missile at King Khalid International Airport in northeastern Riyadh, the first to reach the Saudi capital.

Saudi military authorities said at the time that the missile had been fired at an international airport by Houthi fighters, who have been on the forefront of fighting against the Saudi war machine since 2015.

The Houthi forces have launched a number of long-range missiles across the border in recent years. However, Saturday's strike appeared to be the deepest yet within Saudi territory.

The US and Saudi Arabia also accused Tehran and Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement of helping the Yemenis against the Saudi-led coalition. Tehran has dismissed the accusations as baseless.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Abdulsalam said the White House's condemnation of Yemen's missile attack is further proof that the US is covering up the kingdom's crimes, while assisting Riyadh militarily.

Saudi Arabia has intensified its attacks on residential areas and civilian targets and blocking international humanitarian aid to Yemen.

On Tuesday, Saudi fighter jets targeted residential areas in the province of Hajjah, killing at least 60 people, including women and children.

Medics said Saudi war planes hindered rescue operations, with at least 10 paramedics killed in the strikes, according to reports.

Ansarullah, the national army and popular groups have joined forces to defend the country against an ongoing brutal military campaign launched in 2015 by the Saudi kingdom and a coalition of its allies with the aim of reinstalling the former Riyadh-backed government in Yemen.

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US lawmakers agree on $700bn military budget

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 08:23AM

Lawmakers in the US Senate and the House of Representatives have agreed on a $700 billion military bill for the next year that hikes spending beyond what President Donald Trump had requested.

The National Defense Authorization Act 2018 negotiated Wednesday by the armed services committees in both chambers of Congress raises the base spending budget to $634.2 billion from Trump's already record breaking $603 billion.

The proposed bill also sets aside $65.7 billion for overseas military operations, compared to $59 billion in 2016.

"We are tremendously proud of this NDAA, which will strengthen our military, provide our troops a pay raise, bolster missile defense, drive innovation in military technology to secure our global advantage, and build on the defense reforms Congress has passed in recent years," Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Armed Services committee, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Representative Mac Thornberry said Wednesday in a joint statement.

The budget hike would allow the US military to spend $26.2 billion for 14 new ships and $10.1 billion for the purchase of 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

Under the new deal, US military commanders will also be able to dole out $5.9 billion for Virginia-class submarines, $5.6 billion for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, $4.4 billion for aircraft carriers, $3.1 billion for Army helicopters and $1.9 billion for procuring 24 F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft.

The legislation also lets the US military to expand the Army by 7,500 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 1,000. The Army Reserve force and the Army National Guard are also slated to grow by 500 soldiers each while a 2.4-percent pay increase for service members will be possible.

Although the agreement has increased the bill's chances to pass Congress, lawmakers still need to raise Budget Control Act caps that limit the base spending at $549 billion. Overseas operations spending isn't subject to the caps but there is a $85 billion difference that Congress needs to sort out.

The budget also rejected some proposals, including a House plan for the creation of a Space Corps under the Air Force's command. The idea's opponents, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, went as far as including language in the bill the prohibits a Space Corps.

Earlier this week, news broke that Trump had asked lawmakers for a $5.9 increase in military spending.



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UN warns over mass famine in Yemen over Saudi blockade

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 12:54AM

The UN's aid chief has warned that Saudi Arabia's blockade on Yemen is putting millions of people in danger of a mass famine.

The UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Mark Lowcock, on Wednesday stressed that unless the war-torn country's borders are reopened, "it will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."

On Sunday, Saudi Arabia announced that it was shutting down Yemen's air, sea, and land borders, after Yemeni fighters targeted an international airport near the Saudi capital.

Lowcock made the remarks following a closed-door UN Security Council meeting held over the situation in Yemen.

He went on to stress that UN humanitarian flights must be given access to the capital Sana'a and the port city of Aden.

"Immediate access to all sea ports" must be returned in order to deliver fuel, food and other vital supplies to the country, the UN official stated.

Lowcock added that assurances must also be given that the Saudis will not interrupt the said access.

The Security Council earlier issued a statement calling on the Riyadh regime to keep Yemen's air and sea ports open to ensure humanitarian aids reach the war-torn country.

During a closed-door meeting, council members expressed concern about the "dire humanitarian situation in Yemen," and stressed "the importance of keeping all of Yemen's ports and airports functioning," Italian Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, who holds the council presidency, told reporters.

Aid agencies slam air, sea, land blockade

Meanwhile, the Oxfam charity group, CARE and Save the Children along with 14 other humanitarian agencies have voiced deep concern over the blocked imposed on Yemen.

"Aid ships in Hudaydah haven't been allowed to off-load, and at least three United Nations humanitarian air assistance flights have been denied approval since November 6. We are deeply concerned as this has a direct impact on our ability to maintain life-saving assistance. Yemen is one step away from famine, cholera is rife and provision of public services continues to deteriorate," said the director of CARE, Johan Mooij.

"It's already been tough enough to get help in  we've been forced to rely on routes that are long and slow for years. But if access shuts off entirely, even for a single week, then disaster will be the result. This is the nightmare scenario, and children will likely die as a result. It is crucial that aid workers and vital supplies like food, medicine and fuel are permitted to enter Yemen freely and without delay, and all blocks are removed," said Save the Children Director Tamer Kirolos.

"Yemen is the world's biggest humanitarian crisis, with 21 million people in desperate need of assistance. To prevent more lives from being lost and the needless suffering of millions, it is vital that aid is not delayed or impeded another hour," said Oxfam country Director Shane Stevenson.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two-and-a-half years ago. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

Another 2,100 people have died of cholera since April as hospitals struggle to secure basic supplies across the country.

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NATO To Increase Troop Numbers In Afghanistan, Commanders Want More

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

BRUSSELS -- NATO has announced it will increase the number of troops in Afghanistan from the current 13,000 to 16,000 to aid the Kabul government in its fight against the Taliban.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made the announcement on November 9 at the end of a two-day meeting of the alliance's defense ministers in Brussels.

Stoltenberg reiterated that the extra troops would not be involved in combat missions but would be part of NATO's Resolute Support mission, whose aims is to train, advise, and assist the Afghan government forces.

"Currently, around 13,000 troops from 39 different countries serve in our Resolute Support mission," Stoltenberg told a news conference after the meeting.

"Allies welcomed the United States briefing on the implications of the new South Asia strategy on our mission. This has already led to an increase in the U.S troop contribution, and 27 other nations have also committed to increase troop numbers in the coming months," Stoltenberg said.

"So the size of our Resolute Support mission will increase, from around 13,000 to around 16,000 troops."

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lauded the commitment shown by most NATO member states toward beefing up the Afghan mission.

"Over two dozen nations have stated that they intend to raise the troop numbers that they have on the ground there now, including some very small nations for whom this is the largest overseas deployment they have been engaged in," Mattis said after the meeting. "We appreciate their commitment to stabilizing the South Asia region."

However, the alliance's pledge still falls short of commitments, U.S. commanders said November 9. They told the defense ministers' meeting that nearly three months after Trump announced his South Asia strategy, the promised troop numbers don't expand the NATO training presence as much as hoped.

They declined to say what percentage had been filled after the meetings, but acknowledged that there was still a shortfall. NATO officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed after the meeting that there would be a shortfall approaching 10 percent.

"We have made it very clear to the allies that we really need their help in filling these billets that we have identified," General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and head of Resolute Support, said after the Brussels meeting.

The gap, Nicholson said, has contributed to the lowest level of capabilities and the "highest level of risk we faced" in the 16-year war.

U.S. Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's top military officer, also stressed that the level of troops was still not high enough. "Coming out of today, it won't be at 100 percent today," he said.

"We're still in discussion with more than a few nations that are looking at an increase above the initial one.... So, I'm encouraged," he added.

Two unnamed diplomats told Reuters that at this stage, the United States is likely to provide 2,800 troops, while non-U.S. NATO allies and partners will send an additional 700 troops, potentially making up a 3,500-strong personnel increase.

The United States led an invasion to drive Taliban extremists from power after Al-Qaeda militants whose leaders were sheltering in Afghanistan killed nearly 3,000 people in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The United States, NATO, and other partners had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan for a time, but the Taliban has been resurgent since NATO ended combat operations in 2014. The extremist group Islamic State (IS) has also stepped up attacks.

With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, dpa, and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-meeting-increasing -troops-afghanistan/28843747.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Trump Presses China On North Korea, Trade During Visit

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump, who is on a state visit to China, has urged Beijing to use its influence to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue and stressed that bilateral trade had been unfair to the United States.

Trump spoke on November 9 alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, announcing the signing of about $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese firms.

In recent months, Pyongyang has tested intercontinental ballistic missiles and carried out its sixth nuclear explosion, prompting Trump to warn in August of "fire and fury" in response to the North's moves.

Trump, who wants Xi to put further pressure on North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons, said that "China can fix this problem quickly and easily," calling on Beijing to cut financial ties with North Korea and also calling on Russia to help.

China is Pyongyang's main ally and trading partner.

Xi said China's economy -- the world's second-largest after the U.S. economy -- would become increasingly open and transparent to foreign firms, including those from the United States.

Trump has said he would use the three-day China visit to press Xi on Beijing's massive trade surplus with the United States, which was valued at $26.6 billion last month according to official Chinese data.

Trump made clear that he blamed his predecessors, not China, for the trade imbalance, and repeatedly praised Xi, calling him "a very special man."

In unprecedented treatment offered to a foreign leader, the welcoming ceremony outside Beijing's Great Hall of the People overlooking Tiananmen Square was broadcast live on state television.

Earlier on November 9, Xi said he had a thorough discussion with Trump and reached consensus on numerous issues of mutual concern. "For China, cooperation is the only real choice, only win-win can lead to an even better future," he said.

Trump blasted China's trade practices during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and threatened to take action once in office.

But he has since refrained from any major trade penalties, making clear he was giving Beijing an opportunity to make progress on the North Korea issue.

Trump is to travel on November 10 to Vietnam, where he is scheduled to deliver a speech to leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had also been scheduled to address the 21-country forum on November 10, but his speech has reportedly been canceled.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on November 9 that Putin and Trump were "most likely" to hold a meeting on November 10 on the sidelines of the summit.

However, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said no decision had been made on whether Trump will have formal talks with Putin at the summit.

Tillerson, who is accompanying Trump on his Asia tour and spoke to reporters in Beijing, said the question was whether a Trump-Putin meeting would have sufficient substance.

Trump said earlier that he expected to meet with Putin during his Asia tour, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on November 8 that Putin was "ready" for such a meeting and "the Americans know that."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, Interfax, and RIA Novosti

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-china-trump-visit-xi- deals-north-korea/28843873.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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Five Things On (And Off) The Possible Agenda Of A Trump-Putin Meeting

Mike Eckel November 09, 2017

The last time that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met, four months ago, both the U.S. and Russian presidents reiterated that they were committed to shifting the tone of relations between the two nuclear powers, relations that were already spiraling downward.

Now, with a second meeting of the two leaders possible on the sidelines of a November 10-11 Asian-Pacific leaders' summit in Vietnam, things have worsened considerably.

The Trump administration faces a drumbeat of U.S. investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and interactions between Trump campaign staff and Russian officials. A Justice Department probe resulted recently in two criminal indictments and a guilty plea from former Trump advisers.

Congressional pressure has also mounted on Trump to punish Moscow for the suspected election interference, including through sanctions signed into law in August that target Russian military and intelligence services. The Pentagon has also proposed providing lethal aid to Kyiv as it battles Russia-backed separatists that control swaths of Ukrainian territory, a plan that would anger Moscow if it went forward.

For his part, Putin's grip on power at home remains unrivaled. But even with a Russian presidential election four months away and the expectation that he'll win a fourth term in office, the Kremlin might be nervously eyeing the country's continuing economic malaise, rampant corruption, and other issues that could erode Putin's popularity. A former KGB officer whose tenure atop Russian government has spanned four U.S. presidencies, Putin has sought to assert Russian relevance in international affairs from Eastern Europe to Syria and the Korean Peninsula.

"There are things to discuss and we are ready for it," Putin's lead foreign affairs adviser, Yury Ushakov, told reporters in Moscow on November 8 in connection with a possible Putin-Trump face-to-face.

What "things"? Here are a few that could top the agenda of any eventual meeting in Vietnam.

North Korea

Trump has made the issue of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs a top priority for his administration. In his diplomatically unorthodox approach, he has exchanged insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

During the Cold War, Moscow was a stalwart supporter of the North Korean regime, providing subsidies and critical economic support. That assistance dried up with the Soviet collapse, and longstanding personal ties between Russian officials and North Korea's leadership are also said to have withered.

Still, there are those who believe that Russia, which shares a border with North Korea, may be the only country after China that Pyongyang will at least listen to, and Trump is hoping Putin can help bring additional pressure on the North.

In a speech to South Korea's parliament on November 8, Trump signaled that he will press Putin, and China's leadership. He said he wants Moscow and Beijing to fully implement United Nations sanctions, severing trade and technology ties, and downgrading diplomatic relations in order to squeeze Pyongyang.

"You cannot support, you cannot supply, you cannot accept," Trump told South Korean lawmakers.

Syria

The fight against international terrorism, and against Islamic State (IS) militants in particular, is an area of potential Russian-U.S. cooperation that Trump has repeatedly heralded. In Syria and Iraq, both U.S. and Russian forces have pounded IS fighters for months now, rolling back their territorial gains, and putting them on the verge of battlefield defeat. But Russian bombardments have also targeted U.S. allies who oppose President Bashar al-Assad's leadership in Damascus.

And competing units on the ground, backed by the two powers and their allies, have operated in close proximity as they consolidate their holdings, and skirmishes have again raised the prospect of an inadvertent clash between U.S. and Russian forces, "de-conflict" efforts notwithstanding.

Moscow and Washington are also on opposite sides of the question of the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, reported by UN-backed international monitors. The United States and its allies have repeatedly condemned such weapons' use and sought to use the UN Security Council to further pressure Damascus. Moscow, meanwhile, has used its influence to deflect more aggressive UN investigations and condemnation of Syria.

In a statement released on November 9, about a week after international monitors confirmed the use of sarin gas by Syrian forces in an April attack, the White House called Moscow out explicitly in an effort to nudge Russia and other Security Council members to hold Assad's government accountable.

"Those countries that do not support renewal or are attempting to water down the JIM's mandate -- such as Russia -- are protecting the Assad regime and the terrorists who continue to use chemical weapons," Trump's administration said in a reference to the investigation, the so-called UN/Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). "We urge Russia to change course before the JIM expires, and we believe all responsible nations must vote in favor of extending this critical body."

In Iraq, meanwhile, as Islamic State fighters have been routed, Russia moved quickly to sign major oil deals in the restive Kurdish north, which has historically been closely allied with Washington. Those deals could give Moscow bargaining power at a time when already-tense relations between the Kurds and the central Iraqi government have worsened, and Washington has tried to prevent all-out conflict.

Ukraine

Fighting in Ukraine's east has returned to a slow simmer, with daily exchanges of gunfire but no large-scale fighting. At least 10,000 people have been killed since April 2014, when the conflict erupted between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian government troops, and Russia maintains its occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.

To date, the only reasonably successful efforts at a political settlement have been the so-called Minsk agreements, but they have gone largely unfulfilled.

In September, Putin floated the idea of UN peacekeeping forces deploying to eastern Ukraine. But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has insisted that such peacekeepers should patrol the two countries' international border, where Russian forces, mercenaries, and materiel are routinely shipped in and out. The Russians, however, have pushed for peacekeepers to monitor the unofficial cease-fire line near the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, and suggested changing how violations are logged and reported.

Critics of Russian actions in Ukraine, including former U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Steven Pifer, have warned that Moscow's peacekeeping proposals appeared aimed at maintaining a "frozen conflict," similar to unresolved disputes in other parts of the former Soviet Union where a lack of resolution gives Moscow leverage over the region.

Trump has been publicly cautious in his statements on Ukraine, though he appointed veteran diplomat Kurt Volker as a special representative for resolving the crisis, and Volker has been blunt in his criticism of Russia's actions.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have suggested that the White House may be close to heeding Kyiv's request for more defensive weaponry like antitank missiles.

Bilateral Relations

The Kremlin is openly scornful of Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. Before and after Trump's election, Moscow made no secret of its hopes that a Trump administration would be less antagonistic and more conciliatory. That included the return of two diplomatic compounds that had been ordered seized by Obama in December in retaliation for Russia's alleged meddling in last year's election.

Those hopes have been dashed -- or at least put on hold -- as the Trump administration has continued its refusal to return the compounds. Congress added its heft by passing new sanctions legislation to further punish Russia, over the White House's objections.

Moscow eventually responded by ordering a sharp cut in U.S. diplomatic staffing in Russia, which was followed by similar moves by Washington, including the outright closure of the Russian consulate in San Francisco.

Adding further to the tensions are suspicions that have hung over Trump regarding his associates' contacts with Russian officials before and after the U.S. election.

Aside from the criminal indictments of former campaign manager Paul Manafort and a business partner, a guilty plea by former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, and other indictments said to be expected soon, congressional investigators have been scrutinizing a salacious report compiled by a former British spy on Trump known as the Steele Dossier.

They've also been digging into Russian-controlled social-media accounts on Facebook and Twitter that appear to have sought to influence Americans on hot-button social issues and topics that arose during the campaign.

Russian officials have appeared eager to deflect attention from the allegations of interference in internal U.S. politics, instead blaming holdovers from the Obama administration for a poisonous bilateral atmosphere. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov echoed that approach in remarks shown on state-run TV this week, predicting that any agreement the two might reach would be undermined by "political infighting."

"They will immediately become an element of internal political fighting, internal political games aimed at making President Trump's life and activities as difficult as possible," he said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-putin-meeting- possible-agenda/28845074.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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Tillerson Says No Agreement Yet On Trump-Putin Talks, 'Substance' Needed

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says there has been no decision on whether President Donald Trump will have formal talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an Asian economic summit this week.

Tillerson's remarks came after a senior aide to Putin said earlier on November 9 that Trump and Putin were likely to meet on November 10.

"There's never been an agreement, certainly not to a full bilat," Tillerson said, referring to a formal bilateral meeting.

"The question is whether we've got sufficient substance, and we're working with the Russians, as you know, on a number of difficult areas," said Tillerson, who is accompanying Trump on a five-nation Asia tour.

Tillerson said it would not be unusual for the two presidents to have an informal "pull-aside meeting" if they bumped into each other.

"We're in contact with them and the view's that the two leaders are going to meet if there's something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting," he added.

Yury Ushakov, Putin's senior foreign policy aide, said earlier in the day that a meeting on the sidelines of a November 10-11 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam "is being agreed at this moment."

"It will most likely take place on November 10," Ushakov said.

The Kremlin later seemed less certain.

Asked about Tillerson's comments, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that a possible meeting was still being discussed. He predicted that Trump and Putin would cross paths "one way or another."

U.S.-Russian relations are badly strained over issues including Moscow's aggression in Ukraine and its alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The only face-to-face meetings between the two presidents since Trump 's inauguration in January took place during a G20 summit in Germany in July.

At those talks in Hamburg, Trump and Putin discussed accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but indicated that they agreed to focus on moving forward rather than arguing about past actions.

Relations have been further strained since then, however, amid multiple U.S. investigations into the alleged meddling and whether associates of Trump colluded with Moscow. Putin denies that Russia interfered, and Trump says there was no collusion.

Under pressure from Congress, Trump signed a bill strengthening sanctions against Russia in early August. Moscow ordered the United States to make major cuts in its embassy and consular staff in Russia, and Washington took retaliatory steps.

Meanwhile, tensions over Russia's seizure of Crimea and support for separatists fighting Kyiv's forces in eastern Ukraine -- as well as Russia's role in the devastating war in Syria -- persist.

Trump said on November 5 that he expected to meet with Putin during his current Asia trip, and Peskov said on November 8 that there was a "high probability" they would meet.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, dpa, RIA Novosti, and TASS

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-putin-meeting- talks-no-agreement/28844762.html

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EU Ready To Start Talks On 'Ambitious' Bilateral Agreement With Kyrgyzstan

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

BISHKEK -- During a visit to Bishkek, Europe Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has expressed the bloc's readiness to start negotiations on a new bilateral agreement between the EU and Kyrgyzstan.

Mogherini held talks on November 9 with Kyrgyzstan's President-elect Sooronbai Jeenbekov, outgoing President Almazbek Atambaev, and Prime Minister Sapar Isakov in the Kyrgyz capital -- the first leg of her two-day Central Asian trip that will also take her to Uzbekistan.

During her meetings, she "reiterated the European Union's continued support to the reform processes in the Kyrgyz Republic in the area of electoral reform, as well as in the rule of law and the reform of the judiciary," according to a statement issued by her office.

Mogherini's visit to Bishkek comes one month after an EU decision to launch negotiations on "a new, ambitious, and comprehensive" bilateral agreement between the 28-member bloc and Kyrgyzstan to replace one that was adopted in 1999.

The EU and neighboring Kazakhstan concluded a new agreement last year. Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have close ties to Moscow and are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, a grouping of ex-Soviet republics that is dominated by founding members Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.

Speaking to RFE/RL ahead of the visit, a spokeswoman for Mogherini, Maja Kocijancic, said that the human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan is among the issues Mogherini will discuss in the meetings.

"We believe that...respect for human rights is a very important aspect of our relations and for the Kyrgyz Republic as a democracy. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are all values enshrined in the country's constitution and its international commitments," Kocijancic said.

On November 10, Mogherini is set to attend the 13th annual EU-Central Asia ministerial meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where she will meet with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev and foreign ministers of Central Asian countries.

Relations between the EU and Central Asia's most populous nation of more than 30 million people were strained in 2005, when Uzbek government forces shot and killed hundreds of mostly peaceful protesters in the eastern city of Andijon. The bloc reacted to the crackdown by imposing sanctions and an arms embargo against Tashkent.

However, the EU and Uzbekistan have engaged in fence-mending moves in the past years.

The EU and Tashkent signed an agreement on energy cooperation in 2011 and the bloc set up a diplomatic representation in Tashkent the following year. And in 2013, Mogherini's predecessor, Catherine Ashton, visited Uzbekistan and held talks with then-President Islam Karimov.

In July of this year, the EU-Uzbekistan council held its first session since 2015. Ahead of the gathering in Brussels, EU officials told RFE/RL of their hope for "renewed engagement" with Uzbekistan and said they had been encouraged by some liberal steps taken by Mirziyoev, who came to power after Karimov's death was announced in September last year.

Before leaving Brussels for Kyrgyzstan, Mogherini said that Central Asia was a very important region for the EU.

"From security to countering radicalization and extremism, from trade to the support of civil society, the EU and the countries of the region are strong partners. Our annual meeting gives us a chance to review what has been achieved over the past year and to look ahead to a new agenda to foster growth, security and stability in our regions, for the benefit of our citizens," Mogherini said.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz and Uzbek services and Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan -mogherini-visit/28843969.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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Macron In Saudi Arabia Amid Regional Tensions

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Saudi Arabia late on November 9 for an unscheduled visit at a time of heightened tensions between Riyadh and its regional rival Tehran.

During a visit to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Macron announced that he would travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss Lebanon and Yemen with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"I believe it's important that we work with Saudi Arabia for the purpose of guaranteeing stability in the region and the fight against terrorism," he said.

The Sunni kingdom and Shi'ite Iran are standing on opposite sides of disputes in Lebanon and Yemen.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced he was stepping down on November 4 while visiting his ally, Saudi Arabia. He cited the "grip" of the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hizballah on the country and also said he feared for his life.

Saudi Arabia has called on its citizens to leave Lebanon, as has the Kuwaiti government.

And on November 6, Saudi Arabia accused Hizballah of firing a ballistic missile from Yemen that was intercepted near the Saudi capital.

Saudi Arabia's crown prince later accused Iran of "direct military aggression" by supplying missiles to Huthi Shi'ite rebels in Yemen.

Tehran has dismissed the allegations as "false and dangerous."

"The missile that was intercepted by Saudi Arabia launched from Yemen, which obviously is an Iranian missile, shows precisely the strength" of Iran's weapons program, Macron told reporters in Dubai.

The French president said that the firing of the missile showed the need to reach a new agreement on Iran's ballistic-missile program.

"There are extremely strong concerns about Iran," he said. "There are negotiations we need to start on Iran's ballistic missiles."

Macron also said that France still backs the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, which has been thrown into doubt after U.S. President Donald Trump last month refused to certify the accord curbing Tehran's atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief.

"If we were to walk away from [the deal], it would lead to either immediate war or an absence of control which would inevitably lead to a North Korean situation, which I could not accept," Macron said, referring to Pyongyang's continued development of nuclear weapons.

In an address on October 13, Trump slammed Tehran for what he said are violations of the "spirit" of the agreement between six global powers and Tehran, in part for its continued testing of ballistic missiles and its support for extremists in the Middle East.

He asked Congress to strengthen a U.S. law related to the deal in order to put additional pressure on Tehran by setting up triggers for the imposition of sanctions.

The U.S. president also said he would seek the removal of so-called sunset clauses, which set expiration dates for some restrictions on Iran's nuclear program under the deal.

He threatened to withdraw the United States from the deal if his goals are not met and has repeated that threat in subsequent remarks.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/macron-saudi-arabia- iran-missile-yemen/28845227.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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Eight Countries Participate in Colossal Air Force Exercises Over Israel

Sputnik News

23:46 09.11.2017

The largest aerial exercise of 2017 took place on Thursday as eight different Air Forces all conducted war games in the skies over Israel. The Blue Flag exercise, also the largest in the history of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), saw a fictional "war" between the countries of Falcon Land and Nowhere Land.

The eleven-day exercises began on Sunday and involved dozens of aircraft flying over a hundred sorties. This was the third Blue Flag exercise. The first in 2013 was attended by Italy, Greece, and the US. Poland joined in for the second in 2015. But the third exercise was the largest yet, adding three new nations to the list: France, Germany, and India, three of the ten largest militaries in the world.

Together, the eight nations made up the country of "Falcon Land", waging war against their hated enemies Nowhere Land  played by a squadron of IAF F-16 fighter jets, missile batteries, and drones.

Col. Itamar, the commander of Ovda air base, claimed that the scenario was designed to be generic practice for a wide variety of aerial combat scenarios, not to simulate a war between, say, the US bloc and Iran. The Nowhere Land Air Force simulated the capabilities of Russian Sukhois and MiGs in addition to operating as F-16s. "They imitated the tactics that will give our 'blue guys' the best exercise," he said.

While the aerial dogfights and surface-to-air missiles being launched are all simulated, actual bombs are being dropped  on empty patches of desert.

In a statement, IAF officials said the purpose of the exercise was to improve diplomatic relations as well as military cooperation between the eight participating countries as well as expose the participating militaries to new tactics and styles.

The exercise is taking place at Ovda air base near the southernmost tip of Israel, about 40 miles north of the Red Sea and the resort town of Eilat. Located in the middle of the Negev Desert, the air base is surrounded by barren land which makes it perfect for large scale exercises.

This is the first time since World War I that German planes have flown over Israel (or Ottoman Palestine, as it was called in those days). The Luftwaffe has never participated in Israeli military exercises before, but this time a half-dozen German Eurofighters were present for Blue Flag.

Germany and Israel have a friendly-but-complicated relationship, largely due to Nazi Germany's perpetration of the attempted genocide of the Jewish people in the 1930s and 40s. The modern Luftwaffe is symbolized by the Iron Cross  a German symbol for centuries, but often associated with the Nazis who frequently used the symbol for military medals.

"Seeing the Luftwaffe airplanes [adorned with Iron Crosses] entering our hangars  it's something I'll always remember," said Itamar. "It's sensitive. It's emotional. The past can't be changed."

However, Itamar added, the two nations have been able to put history behind them and work to their mutual benefit.

India's contingent included a Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules and a retinue of about 90 special forces soldiers who will participate in exercises to simulate commando drops behind enemy lines.

Their participation has been a marker of the closer alignment between India and Israel. In July, Narendra Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. The two nations have also bolstered military ties: Israel's defense industry is famous for its high-quality military equipment and Modi has made strengthening the Indian military a centerpiece of his policy.

The other participating nations sent multirole fighter jets: France sent five Dassault Mirage 2000AD's, Italy sent five Panavia Tornados, and the US, Poland, and Greece each sent F-16s.

 Sputnik

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US Navy to Conduct 'Rare' Tri-Carrier Exercises Near Korean Peninsula

Sputnik News

22:06 09.11.2017

Thirty percent of the entire Nimitz-class US aircraft carrier fleet is convening east of the Korean Peninsula for the US Navy's first three-carrier naval exercise in over a decade.

"For the first time in 10 years, 3 US Navy carrier strike groups will operate together in @US7thFleet during a rare 3-carrier strike force exercise," US Naval Surface Forces tweeted Wednesday, noting it is "sure to be a great example of unique operational capabilities and surface forces ships."

The USS Ronald Reagan, USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt strike groups will stage drills in the Western Pacific from November 11 through November 14, the 7th Fleet said in a statement Wednesday. The last time three carriers conducted joint drills was in 2006 and 2007 as part of Valiant Shield exercises near the US territory of Guam.

The carriers reached the Pacific training area last week.

"Currently stationed in the vicinity of this peninsula are the three largest aircraft carriers in the world, loaded to the maximum with magnificent F-35 and F-18 fighter jets," US President Donald Trump said during an address to South Korea's National Assembly Wednesday.

The US leader warned "we have nuclear submarines appropriately positioned," presumably to strike North Korea, before stating "I want peace through strength."

Training two carrier strike groups together is "rare," US Pacific Fleet Cmdr. Scott Swift said, but it's "even rarer" to train three together. "Multiple carrier strike force operations are very complex," Swift said.

The exercises will feature air defense maneuvers, ocean surveillance, aerial refueling at sea, air combat simulation and "close-in coordinated maneuvers," according to the Navy.

The South Korean Navy is not slated to join the drills, a Ministry of National Defense spokesman told reporters Thursday, Stars and Stripes reports.

Beijing has urged peace amid a time of heightened tensions between North Korea and allies South Korea, the US and Japan. "All relevant parties should exercise restraint, avoid provoking each other, jointly stay committed to easing tensions on the peninsula and meanwhile make positive efforts to pull the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue back to the track of seeking settlement through negotiation at an early date," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters this week.

 Sputnik

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Afghani Defense Minister: No Evidence of Russia Supporting Taliban

Sputnik News

17:59 09.11.2017(updated 18:44 09.11.2017)

Both Afghani and Russian officials have commented on allegations of Moscow supporting the Taliban.

"There have been certain rumors that the Russians are linked with the Taliban and help it, but we do not have any evidence at the moment," acting Afghan Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami told reporters.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has also dismissed allegations of weapons being supplied to the Taliban as "absurd and baseless," while the Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Sputnik that the claims are a lie aimed at justifying the failed US mission in Afghanistan.

Several US officials have spread such claims, with US State Secretary Rex Tillerson directly accusing Russia of supplying weapons to the Taliban.

While blaming Russia for allegedly supporting the Taliban despite the fact that it only maintains contact with the militants to promote national peace talks, Tillerson stated that the US sees a place for "moderate" members of the terrorist group in the Afghan government.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who called the US accusations baseless and unprofessional, Moscow is only working with the Taliban in order to assist in the implementation of a UN Security Council decision requested by the Afghan government that would allow the group to take a role in the political process.

US Acting Special Representative for Afghanistan Alice Wells expressed her position in an interview with RIA Novosti earlier today.

"There is nothing I can confirm on if there are weapons flowing to the Taliban," Wells said in response to a question regarding allegations that Russia is supplying military equipment to the Taliban.

Taliban Legal Status

In her interview with RIA Novosti, Alice Wells has also touched upon the issue of the Taliban's legal status, stressing that the United States does not support this idea.

"I do not think it is helpful to legitimize the Taliban military as a fighting force against ISIS [Daesh]. To defeat ISIS, we need to work with the Government of Unity," Wells said.

The statement comes in the wake of the new US Afghanistan strategy, revealed by US President Trump in August, according to which Washington will expand the authority of US troops to target terrorists and send an additional 4,000 troops to the country.

The strategy has sparked a tough response from the Taliban, which threatens to continue jihad in Afghanistan if the US enhances its military presence.

 Sputnik

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Yemen facing largest famine the world has seen for decades, warns UN aid chief

9 November 2017  Yemen will be gripped by famine  one the likes of which the world has not seen in years  if the blockade on basic supplies into the country imposed by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition is not lifted immediately, the top United Nations humanitarian official has warned.

"It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades," Mark Lowcock, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told the media late Wednesday, after briefing the Security Council.

Three years into a brutal conflict, Yemen depends on imports  amounting to up to 90 per cent of its daily needs  and millions in the country are being kept alive by humanitarian aid.

The fighting has also all but collapsed the country's health, and water and sanitation systems. Combined with the lack of food, millions of lives  including those of children  will be lost as their bodies will simply not have the strength to fight off disease.

"What kills people in famine is infections [] because their bodies have consumed themselves, reducing totally the ability to fight off things which a healthy person can," added Mr. Lowcock.

Underscoring that an immediate resumption of regular UN and relief organizations' air services to the capital, Sana'a, and Aden are critical to save lives, Mr. Lowcock, also the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that a clear and immediate assurance is also urgently needed that those services will not be disrupted.

Furthermore, all vessels that have passed inspection by the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism should not be subjected to interference, delays to or blockages so that they can proceed to port as rapidly as possible, he added.

"This is really important because humanitarian access through the ports was inadequate even before the measures that were announced on 6 November," said the senior UN official.

He also called for an immediate agreement to the prepositioning of the World Food Programme (WFP)  the UN's emergency food relief agency  vessel in the waters off Aden, assurances that there will be no further disruption to the functions the vessel supports, as well as resumption of humanitarian and commercial access to all the seaports of Yemen.

At the stakeout, Mr. Lowcock, also underscored the Organization's condemnation of the missile attack on the Saudi capital, Riyadh, over the weekend, terming it an outrageous act.

The coalition imposed the restrictions following the attack, effectively closing air, sea and land access to the war-torn country.

Vaccines will run out in a month  humanitarian group

Meanwhile, the humanitarian community in Yemen also warned that the current stock of vaccines in the country will only last one month and if not replenished, outbreaks of communicable diseases are to be expected with fatal consequences, particularly for children under five and those already suffering from malnutrition.

"The humanitarian situation in Yemen is extremely fragile and any disruption in the pipeline of critical supplies such as food, fuel and medicines has the potential to bring millions of people closer to starvation and death," said humanitarian organizations, including the UN, working in Yemen in a joint statement Thursday.

"The continued closure of borders will only bring additional hardship and deprivation with deadly consequences to an entire population suffering from a conflict that it is not of their own making," they added.

Calling for the immediate opening of all air and seaports to ensure the entry of food, fuel and medicines into the country, the humanitarian community ask the Saudi-led Coalition to facilitate unhindered access of aid workers to people in need, in compliance with international law, by ensuring the resumption of all humanitarian flights.

"We reiterate that humanitarian aid is not the solution to Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe. Only a peace process will halt the horrendous suffering of millions of innocent civilians," they stressed.

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'Leave no stone unturned' to secure aid funding for Central African Republic, senior UN official urges

9 November 2017  One out of every four people in Central African Republic (CAR) is either displaced or living as a refugee in another country, a senior United Nations official said Thursday, urging the international community to provide more resources for a humanitarian plan that up to now is only partially funded.

"The aid community has very limited capacities and is struggling to provide basic services" outside of the main two cities, Najat Rochdi, told journalists in New York, saying the situation hinders on "life and death."

Briefing on the latest humanitarian developments in CAR  where she is the Deputy Special Representative for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSCA) and UN Resident Coordinator  Ms. Rochdi said the nearly $500 million Humanitarian Response Plan for 2017 is only about 39 per cent funded.

"This is not the time to give up on the people of CAR," Ms. Rochdi said, highlighting "unprecedented levels of hunger" in a country where people are dependent on agriculture, and where women and children are particularly vulnerable.

In addition to food, one of the main concerns in CAR is the lack of medicines and access to healthcare. Some 60 per cent of the health structures are managed by international organizations and non-governmental organizations, according to today's briefing.

"Underfunding hampers the ability to respond," said Ms. Rochide. "Failing to address the current needs will hamper all;" affecting not only the country but the entire central African region.

She pleaded for the international community to "leave no stone unturned and leave no one behind."

The security situation continued to deteriorate since May 2017, relapsing into violence that could lead to peak levels not seen since 2014, "some along ethnic lines", said Ms. Rochdi.

She warned that the high number of people displaced from their homes renders reconciliation between the predominantly Muslim and the predominantly Catholic communities, as well as rebuilding services and homes destroyed in the fighting, extremely difficult.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited CAR last month, highlighting a crisis that he said had been largely forgotten by the international community. During the visit, he travelled to the PK5 area, a traditionally Muslim section of the capital Bangui, that had been the site of violence. He also met with local Christian leaders who spoke of reconciliation.

Peacekeepers from MINUSCA are working to protect people from communal tensions and stabilize areas where fighting had taken place.

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US Airstrikes Target Al-Shabab in Somalia

By Carla Babb November 09, 2017

U.S. forces conducted an airstrike against al-Shabab in Somalia on Thursday, killing "several militants," according to the U.S. military.

The drone strike hit targets in the Bay Region of Somalia, about 160 kilometers west of the capital, Mogadishu, Pentagon spokeswoman Audricia Harris told VOA.

No civilians were killed in the strike, Harris said.

According to a statement from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the strike occurred about 3 p.m. local time in Somalia in coordination with the Somali government.

"U.S. forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect Americans and to disable terrorist threats," AFRICOM said.

The strike came less than a week after U.S. airstrikes targeted Islamic State fighters in the country's north.

Jama Mohamed Qurshe, the chairman of the town of Qandala, told VOA Somali that the U.S. strikes last Friday hit a base for IS militants at Buqa village, about 60 kilometers south of his town, in the semiautonomous region of Puntland.

An AFRICOM official told VOA those two strikes killed "fewer than five" IS fighters. They were the first U.S. airstrikes against IS militants in Somalia.

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Former South Sudan Army Chief of Staff Released from House Arrest

By John Tanza, Waakhe Simon Wudu November 09, 2017

South Sudan's former army chief of staff, General Paul Malong, who has been held under house arrest by the Kiir administration since May, has been freed.

His wife, Lucy Ayak, told VOA's South Sudan in Focus program that Malong was released Thursday. "My husband has been released and has been allowed to go for a medical checkup in east Africa," she said.

Recently, dozens of tanks and troops were deployed along the road leading to Malong's home in Juba after Malong refused a presidential order to release a platoon of 30 soldiers guarding him. Ayak told VOA on Monday that some of the men deployed to her husband's home were police while some were from military intelligence.

"They came and surrounded all of the house," Ayak said.

Ayak said she would hold President Salva Kiir responsible if anything happened to her husband. Ayak also said she had written Kiir several times pleading with him to release her husband, but received no response.

Lual Dau, the former deputy governor of Lol state, told South Sudan in Focus on Tuesday that most soldiers in the South Sudan army hail from Malong's home area of Aweil and were not happy about the way in which President Kiir was treating Malong. Dau resigned his position in May after accusing the Lol state governor of being corrupt.

Talks continued all week to peacefully resolve the standoff between Malong and the Kiir administration. The U.S. Embassy in Juba on Monday posted a security alert on its web site to American citizens regarding the deployment of soldiers.

"Although there is an increased military presence in a number of locations, the security situation in Juba is unchanged," read the message. But the embassy also advised U.S. citizens "to review your personal security plans, remain aware of your surroundings, and monitor local news stations for updates."

Order to surrender bodyguards

On Wednesday, Information Minister Michael Makuei told reporters in Juba Malong was informed several days ago that he must surrender his bodyguards to authorities.

"When he came back here, he was allowed to go into his house and stay with his forces, but being a former chief of staff, you cannot be allowed to continue with your platoon in your house," Makuei said.

At the same time, Makuei said he was confident the standoff would be resolved peacefully.

Garang defects

Meanwhile, Lt. Colonel Chan Garang said this week he has joined the SPLA-in Opposition, but a government spokesman says he left the army to escape prosecution for crimes including rape and murder.

Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang said in Juba Thursday he learned of Garang's defection on South Sudan in Focus.

"The news of his defection came to us not long ago. We heard about his defection on Voice of America," said Koang.

Koang accused Garang of committing several crimes since 2003, such as murder and rape. Garang is accused of looting and cattle rustling. Koang says Garang was sentenced to death by firing squad in the past but escaped detention and later joined a militia under the command of Abdul Bagi Ayii in former Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State. Koang said when Garang joined the SPLA in 2006, he was given amnesty, but Koang said Garang continued to commit crimes, noting that fewer than two months ago, Garang stole a truck from a civilian.

"All these crimes he had committed reflected in the verdict and a decision was made that he would be dismissed from the SPLA without post-service benefits. He disappeared, only for us to hear on the Voice of America, South Sudan in Focus that he had defected," Koang said.

Garang told the program earlier this week he defected because he believes President Kiir's regime is unjust and has wronged many people.

Garang is said to be a close ally of Malong, but Garang told the program he has no connection with the former army chief.

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Trump-Putin Meeting Likely at APEC Summit, but US Officials Urge Caution

By Peter Heinlein November 09, 2017

There's nothing official yet, but sources close to President Donald Trump are hinting he is likely to hold talks Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific economic summit in Vietnam.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, traveling with the president on his 12-day Asian tour, kept the rumor mill going Thursday. "Clearly the leaders are going to be at the summit together. It wouldn't be at all unusual if they ended up with some kind of a pull-aside," he told reporters.

At the same time, the U.S.'s top diplomat suggested the meeting might not be a full-blown bilateral discussion, wondering aloud whether such a formal meeting would be worthwhile.

"When the two leaders meet, is there something sufficiently substantive?" he asked rhetorically. "No conclusion has been made on that. If we're going to have a meeting, let's make sure it's a meaningful meeting," Tillerson said.

The Russian side is talking as if a bilateral chat is in the works.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian news agencies that the two leaders would meet while they are both in Danang for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Later, however, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said only that the possibility of a meeting was being discussed, according to Reuters. Peskov predicted that the two men would cross paths "one way or another."

Tillerson acknowledged that Moscow and Washington are working behind the scenes on a "number of difficult areas." But less than 24 hours before the summit is to begin, he cautioned that U.S. officials have not decided whether it's the right time for a follow-up to the first Trump-Putin meeting at the G-20 summit in Germany last July.

That meeting in Hamburg lasted more than two hours, more than twice as long as scheduled. Trump was reported to have pressed Putin at that meeting on the question of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections. Later in the day, the two men were reported to have spoken again informally during a dinner for G-20 leaders, with only a Russian interpreter present.

Since then, however, ties between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated. In August, Trump grudgingly approved new congressionally mandated sanctions against Russia. The Kremlin responded by ordering Washington to substantially cut its diplomatic staff in Russia.

Trump himself mentioned the possibility of a follow-up meeting last weekend, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he expected to meet Putin in Vietnam to ask for help in reining in North Korea's nuclear weapons development. He made a similar comment Thursday in Beijing after meeting with China's President Xi Jinping.

Tillerson said officials from the two countries also are discussing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, while Trump also said that Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election also remains on the table for discussion.

Several scholars of U.S.- Russia relations are leery of direct Putin-Trump talks at this delicate time in the relationship.

Kremlin critic Andrei Piontkovsky, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, says Putin stands to gain much more from the meeting than Trump.

"It would be better if the United States and Russia have good relations, but the fact is, Putin is challenging the U.S. everywhere in the world, including on their own turf, and Trump doesn't seem to consider that is hostile to western values, democracy and human rights," Piontkovsky told VOA. "It's very strange because Trump declines to notice these worrisome facts."

Piontkovsky considers it foolish to ask for the Kremlin's help in lessening the North Korean threat. "That ignores the fact that the tremendous progress of the North Korean nuclear program is enabled by Russian help," Piontkovsky argued. "Putin is much more an enthusiastic supporter of Kim Jung Un than Xi Jinping. He demands that the U.S. reconcile itself with the idea of a new nuclear power."

Charles Stevenson, associate director of the foreign policy program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, called a Trump-Putin meeting "risky" for U.S. interests.

"Presidential-level meetings can be helpful in smoothing over misunderstandings and allowing exchanges beyond the glare of publicity or even the knowledge of subordinates," Stevenson said in a written reply to VOA. "But they can also be extremely risky if not coordinated in advance in order to achieve some agreed communique. I have real doubts that President Trump is skilled and knowledgeable enough to reach any substantive agreements with President Putin."

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Philippine Leader to Host US Counterpart in Meeting of Mavericks

By Paul Alexander November 09, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump and Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte have some things in common. Both rose to power by vowing to shake up their political establishments. They refuse to back down, no matter how hot the controversy. They attack critics with blistering insults, and they have shown a strong dislike for Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

Now the two mavericks will meet face to face Monday amid questions about whether they will get along or something will set off a conflict between two alpha males that will further fray strained U.S.-Philippine relations.

Trump arrives Sunday for a summit to mark the 50th anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Duterte recently issued a terse warning to Trump to avoid criticism of the draconian measures he has imposed to tackle the Philippines' many problems. But it seems unlikely the U.S. leader will jab at the most sensitive subject, Duterte's war on drugs, considering that Trump already has praised the effort.

'Lay off'

"You want to ask a question, I'll give you an answer: Lay off," Duterte told reporters in Manila. "That is not your business. That is my business. I take care of my country and I will nurture my country to health."

Riding an anti-crime, anti-corruption platform that resonated with voters weary of holdups, kidnappings for ransom and terror attacks, Duterte has been in office about half a year longer than Trump. He has maintained a strong approval rating, despite the bloody war on drugs that by most counts has left nearly 4,000 people dead.

There appears to be an understanding by much of the public that the country had to suffer some pain to roll back the steady decline that left investors and tourists hesitant to commit to the sprawling archipelago, despite its beaches, diving and a populace of 100 million where English is widely spoken.

Duterte has acted decisively, setting curfews that left the country's lively nightlife businesses groaning, cutting soaring crime rates, and telling police he would back them if they killed drug dealers and addicts.

He has brusquely, and vulgarly, lashed out at those who claim his methods amount to widespread human rights violations, including the United Nations and the United States, specifically Obama.

The Philippines' relationship with the United States is best described as complicated. The United States was the colonial power for decades after Spain departed, and while Washington has provided significant aid, including humanitarian assistance for the disaster-prone country, many bristle at the perception that Washington still treats it like a colony.

Duterte has plugged into that sentiment by threatening to break ties completely and cozy up to China. He has courted Chinese aid and investment, and he has managed to play Beijing's desires to spread its clout against U.S. concerns of losing influence in the region.

Chinese spending

The result has been billions of dollars in commitments from China and a rise in business confidence in the country without the severing of U.S. security ties that Duterte had threatened. Only two of dozens of annual joint exercises and engagements with U.S. forces have been eliminated. Others have been shifted to other parts of the country to avoid possible conflict with China over his buildup in the disputed South China Sea.

And while polls show that perceptions of U.S. importance have slipped and those of China have risen, the changes have been considerably less than Washington had feared.

One of the key areas of cooperation with Washington, the war on terrorism, has been left untouched. American military counterterror trainers flowed in after the then-al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group carried out mass kidnappings and terror attacks in the early 2000s.

In what the U.S. called the second front in the war on terror after its invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, that aid has continued and the format has been used by Washington as a model in Indonesia and elsewhere. The training and donations of American arms, ships and aircraft have bolstered the underfunded Philippine military and raised its professionalism.

Duterte most likely will have a wish list for Trump as he continues to play his balancing act between Washington and Beijing. With the United States eager to maintain a presence in the region amid Chinese expansionism and North Korea's threats, it's likely the deal-making Trump will have an open mind and try to cultivate a lasting friendship.

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In China, Trump Strikes Gentler Tone on N. Korea, Trade

By Steve Herman November 09, 2017

President Donald Trump struck a markedly softer tone on touchy subjects like North Korea and trade with President Xi Jinping of China Thursday, and highlighted his "incredibly warm" feeling toward his counterpart.

During joint statements after talks in Beijing, Trump expressed optimism the U.S. and China will resolve the North Korea nuclear crisis. "I do believe there's a solution to that, as you do," Trump said.

Trump said he has "great respect" for Xi's leadership on trade and noted the U.S. must change its policy.

"It's too bad that past administrations allowed it go get so far out of kilter," Trump added. "But we'll make it fair, and it will be tremendous for both of us."

Trump concluded remarks by touting his "great chemistry" with Xi.

The Chinese leader said Beijing's relationship with Washington "now stands at a new starting point" and vowed to "enhance communication and cooperation on the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula" and other key topics.

"For China and the United States, cooperation is the only viable choice, and win-win cooperation can take us to a better future," said the Chinese president.

Trump is on a 12-day, five-nation tour of Asia that will take him to Danang, Vietnam, on Friday, where he will speak at a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

North Korea

Much of Trump's Asia tour has focused on North Korea, which is developing a nuclear and missile program in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Trump pressed Xi privately on the North Korea nuclear issue, according to Trump administration officials. According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump told Xi, "You're a strong man, I'm sure you can solve this for me."

Speaking in Beijing, Tillerson noted "there is no disagreement on North Korea" between the United States and China. The diplomat pointed out the Chinese have been clear and unequivocal over two days of talks that they will not accept a North Korea with nuclear weapons.

"There's no space between both of our objectives," said Tillerson. "We have our own views of the tactics, the timing and how far to go with pressure and that's what we spend a lot of time exchanging views on."

Later, Trump and Xi spoke to a meeting of business leaders. Trump said, "I thank President Xi for his recent efforts to restrict trade with North Korea and cut off banking ties. China can fix this problem easily and quickly."

Bilateral trade

The shift in Trump's rhetoric on trade was especially notable because the U.S. leader has long complained about the trade imbalance between China and the United States.

For the first 10 months of the year, China's trade surplus with the U.S. was $223 billion, according to recent data released by China's General Administration of Customs.

Trump said the U.S. trade deficit with China is, "shockingly hundreds of billions of dollars" annually.

Xi said there is a wider and prosperous future for U.S.-China cooperation on trade, adding that $250 billion worth of business deals were signed during Trump's visit to China and that, "Chinese investment in the United States is rising rapidly."

But the roughly 15 agreements unveiled in Beijing are mostly non-binding memorandums of understanding, and according to Bloomberg News, "could take years to materialize  if they do at all."

Derek Scissors, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is pessimistic that such deals will do much to address the real hindrances to trade relations with China.

"The president likes deals, and he likes big numbers, but we're not going to change something he doesn't like, like the trade deficit, without changing Chinese trade practices," Scissors said. "China has to have a different approach to trade in the world than it does."

Scissors said that more than the deficit, it is what is behind the numbers, such as the fact that Chinese state-owned enterprises never go out of business.

"Which means American goods and services can't ever win in the China market," he said.

In his joint statement, Xi said, "there needs to be in-depth discussions on the trade imbalance" with the United States, among other issues.

After the trade talks, Secretary Tillerson said the accomplishments were "pretty small," adding the U.S. concerns about the pace of progress was communicated to Chinese officials Thursday.

Human rights

Trump and Xi also had a "frank exchange" on human rights, according to Tillerson, though human rights did not appear to be a major part of Trump's agenda.

The U.S. president made no public mention of China's alleged human rights abuses during his stop in the country, which is ruled by a one-party, authoritarian government that severely restricts dissent.

That is in contrast to many of Trump's predecessors, including Barack Obama, who on his trips to China would often bring up human rights concerns during addresses to students or other members of the Chinese public.

While Trump has not forcefully and publicly raised human rights concerns in authoritarian countries such as China, White House officials have suggested that he is doing so in private  a strategy they say is more effective than public shaming.

"Show me the money," said Sophie Richardson, China director for Human Rights Watch. "All I see is a half-sentence reference in Tillerson's remarks from yesterday that he and Trump discussed human rights. I have no idea what those were, or if anybody actually suggested that one side improve."

But it was unclear how effective such a public condemnation would be coming from Trump, who at various times has referred to Xi as a "terrific guy," a "great leader," and a "very special man," Richardson said.

No questions taken

Many rights activists also were concerned after Trump did not take questions from reporters during an appearance alongside his Chinese counterpart on Thursday.

Such a move reinforces China's "authoritarian impulses," according to Richardson, even while noting that Obama also did not take reporters' questions during his first visit to the country in 2009.

"It is a catastrophically stupid thing to do in China, where the press is already deeply limited, and in fact, Chinese journalists get locked up for honest reporting all the time," she said.

When asked why Trump did not take questions from reporters, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "It was at the Chinese insistence," according to CNN.

VOA's Bill Ide, William Gallo and Mary Alice Salinas contributed to this report.

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Xi and Trump tackle DPRK, trade relations in 'successful' visit

People's Daily Online

By John Goodrich (CNTV) 15:34, November 09, 2017

Chinese President Xi Jinping praised US President Donald Trump's "successful and historic visit" to Beijing on Thursday afternoon, as the two leaders addressed tensions on the Korean Peninsula and bilateral trade relations at a press conference in the Great Hall of the People.

President Xi noted that while China and the US have different opinions on certain topics, common ground can be found with good communication, cooperation, and respect.

Earlier in the day, the leaders held talks which touched on cooperation on achieving peace in Afghanistan, before overseeing the signing of commercial deals worth 253.5 billion US dollars.

Korean Peninsula denuclearization

Xi emphasized China's commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and said both sides would "strictly implement" UN Security Council sanctions.

The Chinese president stressed that solutions could be found "through peaceful communication and consultation."

Trump earlier agreed that a solution to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issue was possible, telling Xi: "I do believe there's a solution to that, as do you."

At the press conference, Trump described the DPRK as a "nuclear menace" and warned that the world "not to replicate failed approaches of the past."

"All responsible nations must join together to stop arming and financing, and even trading with the murderers in the North Korea (DPRK) regime," Trump said.

The US president added that "collective action, collective strength, and collective devotion" was essential to a finding successful solution to the DPRK issue.

Trump spoke out a day after issuing a grave warning to Pyongyang not to test the US while addressing South Korea's National Assembly in Seoul, while offering "a path to a better future" through the denuclearization.

Xi and Trump also spoke of working together to achieve stability in Afghanistan, with Trump said they were both "committed to working towards a peaceful future for Afghanistan."

Trade relations

Xi underlined that China planned further reforms and steps to open up market access to foreign companies, which he said would increase the space for further China-US trade and investment.

The Chinese president urged US companies to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative.

The issue of access to the respective markets of each country was in focus ahead Trump's visit, with the US president previously criticizing China's trade surplus with the US.

At the press conference, Trump stated: "We want a vibrant trade relationship with China, we also want a fair and reciprocal one. Today I discussed with President Xi the chronic imbalance in our relationship when it comes to trade."

In brief remarks earlier in the day, Trump twice blamed previous US administrations for trade imbalances between China and the US.

"The US really has to change its policies because they've gotten so far behind on trade with China, and frankly with many other countries," he said. "And I have great respect for you for that, because you're representing China."

"It's too bad that past administrations allowed it to get so far out of kilter. We'll make it fair and it'll be tremendous for both of us."

Commercial deals

Xi and Trump oversaw the signing of commercial deals and MOUs at the conclusion of the US-China Business Exchange.

Agreements with a combined total value 253.5 billion US dollars of cooperation deals between Chinese and US companies in industries as diverse as liquefied natural gas, aviation, soybeans, and banking.

One gas deal alone -- between Alaska, Alaska Gasline Development Corp, Sinopec, China Investment Corporation (CIC) and the Bank of China  involves a total investment of up to 43 billion US dollars.

China-US ties

Xi said the meetings with Trump had set a solid relationship for the growth of China-US ties.

"The meeting between me and President Trump sets the tone and laid a solid foundation for the solid development of China-US relationship. It will achieve more results and more benefits for people around the world."

The US president added he looked forward "to building an even stronger relationship between our two countries."

Earlier on Thursday, Xi and Trump inspected a guard of honor outside the Great Hall of the People at an official welcome ceremony for the US president.

China is the third leg of Trump's five-nation Asian tour, after visits to Japan and South Korea. The US president is due to leave Beijing on Friday for an APEC meeting and state visit in Vietnam, before rounding off his trip at an ASEAN conference and the East Asia Summit in the Philippines.

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India Again Seeking US Deferment on C-17 Aircraft Purchase

Sputnik News

17:32 09.11.2017

India has once again deferred the purchase of the C-17 Globemaster heavy lift helicopter from the US. The request is a continuation of the last such extension by India, following which the US had given a grace period of until November 17.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  The Indian government has once again asked the US to extend the validity of the Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) for the acquisition of a C-17 Globemaster heavy lift helicopter by 120 days i.e. till mid-February of next year.

Sources told Sputnik that the Indian defense ministry had submitted a request for an extension of the validity of the LOA by 120 days after the date of expiry i.e. October 17, but it was extended by only one month.

India's Defense Acquisition Council had approved the purchase of the heavy lift transport aircraft last December at cost of $366 million under the foreign military sale route while the US Department of State had authorized the US Defense Security Co-operation Agency to sell the aircraft to India in June this year. Since then, the acquisition has been in limbo as India has been dithering on the purchase.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) currently has 10 C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft for its major operations to lift armed personnel and equipment. Interestingly, the IAF had planned to buy three C-17 from the US in April 2015.

However, the paperwork for this purchase took longer than anticipated and US manufacturer Boeing decided to sell four of the remaining five C-17s to Qatar. As the production of C-17 aircraft at Long Beach in California has ended, the IAF had to revise its purchase plan and settled on one C-17 transport aircraft.

India first signed a contract in 2012 to purchase 10 C-17 aircraft at a cost of $4.1 billion with an option for a follow-up offer to purchase six additional aircraft. India did not opt for the follow-up offer because Boeing did not fulfill the terms of the contract. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)  India's apex auditing body  had found massive under-utilization of the aircraft.

 Sputnik

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Defeated Daesh terrorists in Iraq, Syria heading to Libya, says Egyptian president

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 03:36PM

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi says the defeat of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in Iraq and Syria is likely to have forced militants to seek a safe haven in neighboring Libya.

Sisi told a wide-ranging, two-hour news conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in southern Sinai late Wednesday that it was only "natural" for militants to move to Libya, where mostly militias wield influence over large swathes of territory, and eventually to Egypt.

Sisi said Egypt's ongoing arms buildup was designed in part to equip the country to deal with terrorism and redress the "imbalance" in the region created by turmoil engulfing several regional countries.

"We must have the military capabilities that compensate for that imbalance in the region and to counter terrorism," said the general-turned-president, adding, "This is a threat not just faced by us, but also by Europe."

In recent months, there has been an uptick in attacks in Egypt's western desert close to the Libyan border, raising questions as to whether the area has become a second theater of operations for the militants beside the volatile Sinai Peninsula.

The latest such attack was last month, when dozens of police officers were killed in an elaborate ambush. Sisi said that subsequent operations by his security forces had killed 14 militants. A "foreign" militant who also took part was captured alive, he added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Sisi stressed that joint army and police forces were actively combing the entire length of the country's porous borders with Libya to the west and Sudan to the south.

He also said that up to 20 vehicles loaded with weapons, ammunitions and militants had been destroyed in the past week, all in the vast western desert.

Libya has been rife with chaos since a 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Rival militias, many led by extremists, hold sway over large swathes of territory, while three rival administrations struggle to exercise authority.

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US Congress Weighs Sanctions on Myanmar Military Over Rohingya Crisis

By Katherine Gypson November 09, 2017

Proposed sanctions against the Myanmar military should move quickly through the U.S. Congress due to strong bipartisan support, lawmakers told VOA.

The Burma Sanctions Bill in the House of Representatives and a companion bill in the Senate would apply economic pressure on military generals with the aim of ending the ongoing violence inflicted on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, also known as Burma.

"This sends a very strong message to the Burmese military that we're not going to tolerate business as usual while they reap economic profits at the same time as they are perpetuating ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya people," said Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the crisis last month, Chairman Ed Royce called on Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to be more forceful in condemning the crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh.

"Those responsible for these atrocities must face justice. She and the military generals must rise to this challenge," Royce said. "This is ethnic cleansing."

Engel said it is important for Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out about the crisis, "but we also have to take it in the context where her hands are tied because she's not able to do things because of the way the constitution was written."

A spokesman for Myanmar's leader told the Reuters news service, "We need internal stability to improve the country's economy. Imposing international sanctions directly affects the people in travel and in business investments, and there are many bad consequences."

The House bill's Republican co-sponsor told VOA the sanctions are meant to give Aung San Suu Kyi more leverage with the military.

"We would be able to work with her perhaps to relieve sanctions once in place if the military does reform itself and does certainly cease the hostilities and the atrocities that have occurred," said Representative Steve Chabot, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

If passed, the legislation would stop U.S. military cooperation with Myanmar in training and regional exercises, as well as reimposing bans on the country's lucrative gem trade that then-U.S. President Barack Obama lifted by executive order last year.

If hostilities do stop, the bill also provides economic assistance to foster development in Myanmar and encourage the return of Rohingya.

"The goal here is to get those who have been displaced and in general have gone to Bangladesh to allow them to return to Burma to return to their homes, although a lot of those homes have been burned to the ground by the military, so there's an awful lot of economic development that's going to be necessary," Chabot told VOA.

Senate support

The Senate version of the sanctions bill is co-sponsored by Republican John McCain and Democrat Ben Cardin. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a longtime supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi, dating back to her time under house arrest.

McConnell told reporters in September that he does not support a congressional resolution calling on Aung San Suu Kyi to be more forceful in condemning the crisis.

"I think she's the greatest hope that we have to move Burma from where it has been, a military dictatorship, to where I hope it's going," McConnell said.

Even with time running short for Rohingya, the lobbyists who have mounted years of effort on their behalf are hopeful.

"This is one issue where everybody across the political spectrum comes together in support of human rights in Burma," said Simon Billenness, executive director of the International Rohingya Campaign.

"We think that bodes very well for the progress of this bill and getting it to the president's desk."

Engel said he hopes to see the bills pass Congress by the end of this year.

"There's no reason why it shouldn't happen  what's happening with the Rohingya is documented; it's not as if we have a question about it; we know the military are the perpetrators of it and the United States cannot just do business as usual," he said.

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Security Experts Chide West On 'Limited, Weak' Response To Russia

Rikard Jozwiak November 09, 2017

BRUSSELS -- A group of security and foreign-policy experts says Western governments have been "limited and weak" in their response to the Kremlin's barrage of "hostile actions" toward democracies.

In a declaration initiated by the Prague-based think tank European Values titled How The Democratic West Should Stop Putin, some 70 experts said steps need to be taken to halt what they called Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to play "divide and rule in the Euro-Atlantic area."

"Vladimir Putin has decided to intimidate and harass democracies and a large part of the Western political establishment has not realized it yet," the declaration, published on November 9, states.

"Some countries get intimidated by threats, others are given promises such as seemingly sweetheart energy deals if they adopt a more anti-Western, antidemocratic and antiliberal posture," it continues. "Regardless, almost all countries are attacked with a mixture of espionage, corruption, organized crime, and unceasing multilevel and multichannel disinformation campaigns."

The declaration comes ahead of a November 13 meeting at which European Union foreign ministers will take stock of how the bloc's strategic communication with its eastern neighbors is working.

The think tank's declaration urges political leaders to acknowledge the threat Russia poses to Western democracies and to investigate and expose its hostile activities.

"Putin's Russia poses a major threat to Western democracies. Its use of subversive tools to project hostile foreign influence in the internal affairs of democratic countries is unacceptable and should be countered with resolute defensive actions to deter further hostile conduct," the declaration says.

EU leaders responded to Russia's disinformation campaign in 2015 by creating the East Stratcom task force aimed at promoting the bloc's values and policies in the "Eastern neighborhood."

'Call It Out By Name'

The task force also aims to increase public awareness of disinformation activities by external actors such as Russia and improve EU capacity to anticipate and respond to such activities.

The EU has also imposed asset freezes and visa bans on more than 150 people after Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but only a handful of those are high-ranking officials in Moscow.

But the group of signatories says these efforts have fallen short, creating an "urgent need to deliver basic knowledge concerning threat assessment, understanding the modus operandi and reasonable policy options to people outside the specialist community."

"There is comparatively limited understanding of Russian subversive methods in Western European countries; therefore, Central and Eastern European governments and civil society groups need to actively engage in delivering lessons learnt from countering Moscow's hostile influence operations," the statement says.

The declaration comes after eight of the bloc's foreign ministers, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, sent a letter to EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini asking her to enhance the capabilities of East Stratcom.

Mogherini is criticized in the declaration, which claims she has "spent the last two years trying to avoid naming Russia as the main source of hostile disinformation."

"If Europe wants to defeat this threat, its leaders need to call it out by name. Russian leaders need to hear from European representatives that these hostile subversive efforts against our democracies must stop," the declaration says.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-threat-to -democracy-western-response-european-values- think-tank/28842909.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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Mattis Says NATO Ministers Discussed Russian Missile Treaty 'Violations'

RFE/RL November 09, 2017

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says NATO defense ministers have addressed Russia's "violations" of a key arms-control treaty and discussed ways to bring Moscow back into compliance.

"The discussion included a consideration of the Russian Federation's violation of the Intermediate[-Range] Nuclear Forces Treaty and our collective efforts to bring Russia back to compliance," Mattis told reporters on November 9 in Brussels following a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers.

"This is absolutely necessary to sustain confidence in the arms-control agreement," he added.

Signed in 1987, the treaty, known as the INF, eliminated an entire class of cruise and ballistic missiles in Europe and is considered a bedrock treaty for U.S.-Russian arms control.

The U.S. State Department's annual arms-control compliance report, issued in April, asserted for the fourth consecutive year that Russia had developed a ground-launched cruise missile in violation of the treaty.

Moscow rejects the U.S. accusations and says the United States' deployment of antimissile systems in Romania and Poland contradicts the treaty provisions -- something Washington denies.

"The bottom line is, you have to have respect for other nation's security when you make agreements, when you sign treaties, you have to live up to those treaties, and we have a firm belief now over several years that the Russians have violated the INF and our effort is to bring Russia back into compliance," Mattis said in Brussels.

The U.S. defense secretary said that "many" NATO nations have their own evidence that Russia is violating the INF treaty, adding that the United States and the alliance would be engaging with Moscow to try and resolve the issue.

Speaking at a news briefing in Brussels on November 8, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the NATO allies "stressed -- just as they did at the Warsaw summit in 2016 -- that the INF treaty is very important and that a strong and viable INF treaty is a pillar of European security."

Mattis said on November 9 that NATO defense ministers also "discussed at length Russia's now-constant efforts to intercede in our sovereign democratic processes."

The U.S. Justice Department and lawmakers are investigating alleged Russian interference in last year's presidential election in the United States. Moscow has also been accused of trying to influence votes in France, Germany, and other European countries.

More recently, Spanish media have accused Russian state-funded media of playing a destabilizing role in the crisis triggered by Catalonia's controversial October 1 independence referendum.

Asked about the claims, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, U.S. General Curtis Scaparrotti, said, "It is something that we've seen in the United States, we've seen it in a number of countries here.

"It should stop meddling in other nations, [in] what is their sovereign right to determine their government and how it works," he told reporters in the Belgian capital on November 9.

Russia denies trying to influence foreign elections.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-mattis-russia-inf- treaty-violations/28844967.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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Over 200 Detained on Corruption Charges in Saudi Arabia - Attorney General

Sputnik News

21:51 09.11.2017(updated 21:55 09.11.2017)

Saudi Arabian authorities have announced the first results of its massive anti-corruption campaign.

DUBAI (Sputnik)  Over 200 have been detained for questioning amid anti-corruption investigation into the practices that resulted in misuse of at least $100 billion in Saudi Arabia, according to the country's attorney general.

"The investigations of the supreme anti-corruption committee are proceeding quickly, and we can provide the following updates: A total of 208 individuals have been called in for questioning so far. Of those 208 individuals, seven have been released without charge," Saud Mojeb said in a statement, as quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

According to the official, the investigations had shown that more than $100 billion had been misused because of embezzlement and corruption.

On Saturday, Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud issued a decree establishing a new anti-corruption committee in the country chaired by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that was given the power to investigate and arrest individuals involved in corruption cases, as well as restrict their movement, freeze their accounts, and track their funds and assets.

Over 40 members of the Royal family, including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, ministers, military officials and businessmen, were arrested in Saudi Arabia the following day.

On Wednesday, Reuters reported citing sources familiar with the situation that Saudi Arabian authorities have made additional arrests as part of the anti-corruption campaign. Some suspects were detained while others are being telephoned by investigators about their finances.

 Sputnik

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Saudi Anti-Graft Campaign Reveals At Least $100 Billion Stolen

Sputnik News

18:03 09.11.2017

As many as 208 people have been called in for questioning as part of an ongoing crackdown on corruption in Saudi Arabia.

The attorney general of Saudi Arabia has quantified the economic damage inflicted from longtime corruption activities in the kingdom.

"Based on our investigations over the past three years, we estimate that at least $100 billion has been misused through systematic corruption and embezzlement over several decades," Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.

He also reiterated a statement by other top officials that normal commercial activity had not been affected by the anti-corruption campaign and that only personal accounts had been frozen.

Over 40 members of the royal family, including billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, ministers, military officials and businessmen, were arrested in Saudi Arabia on Sunday at an order of the kingdom's newly established anti-corruption committee headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Reuters reported citing banking sources that the number of domestic bank accounts frozen as a result of the crackdown reached over 1,700 on Wednesday.

 Sputnik

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Gov't Forces Destroy Last Daesh Stronghold in Syria, Army Command Confirms

Sputnik News

13:50 09.11.2017(updated 14:51 09.11.2017)

The town of Abu Kemal in the Deir ez-Zor province has been considered the last Daesh terrorist group's stronghold after the liberation of al-Mayadin by the Syrian government forces.

The Syrian army command confirmed Thursday that it fully regained control over the city of Abu Kemal, destroying the last Daesh stronghold.

"The Syrian army and allied forces liberated the city of Abu Kemal in Deir ez-Zor province, the last stronghold of the IS [Daesh] terrorist group in the east," the statement read.

The forces are patrolling the town to clear it of mines and explosive devices.

"Abu Kemal is the last Daesh stronghold, but we should understand that terrorists are changing their tactics and can follow a guerilla strategy. The government forces, as well as special forces, will have to do their best to eliminate terrorists in Syria," military analyst Andrei Koshkin said.

Abu Kemal has been a target of the Russian aviation for quite some time. In early November, six Russia's Tu-22 bombers and Russia's submarine Kolpino attacked Daesh positions near the town.

The Syrian army has been conducting a major operation in the Deir ez-Zor province following the historic lifting of the three-year Daesh siege of Deir ez-Zor city, which has so far resulted in its complete liberation and the victory in al-Mayadin, the once largest terrorist stronghold in the region that had been used by the jihadists to accumulate weapons and manpower to launch attacks on the cities of Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry's data, over 90 percent of the Syrian territory has already been liberated from terrorists with the assistance of Moscow that had launched the operation in the Arab Republic at the request of President Bashar Assad in September 2015 and is due to "be completed soon."

 Sputnik

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Syrian conflict has now lasted longer than World War II - UN humanitarian envoy

9 November 2017  While there had been a period of de-escalation in many areas of war-riven Syria  reducing human suffering to some extent  the fighting now seems to be returning to some of the "bleakest days" of the conflict, a senior United Nations official warned Thursday.

The situation is particularly concerning in eastern Ghouta, near the capital Damascus, where some 400,000 men, women and children are living in besieged towns and villages, and extremely high prices have put food and basic supplies beyond reach. There are fears that conditions could get much worse as winter closes in and temperatures could plummet to freezing.

"[They have been through] a seven-year war, longer than the second World War," Jan Egeland, the Special Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told journalists after a meeting of the Humanitarian Task Force in Geneva.

"With little, if any, reserves, no heat in their houses and living amid ruin, [for them] it will be a horrific winter," he warned.

Since September, eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the capital, Dmascus, has been completely cut off and the sole life-line for those still there are humanitarian convoys which, when successful in getting to the location, brings in food and medical supplies.

There are also growing numbers of acutely malnourished children, noted Mr. Egeland, calling on the parties to the conflict to allow medical evacuation urgently.

An estimated 400 patients  about three quarters of whom are women and children  need to be evacuated.

"We have confirmation that seven patients died because they were not evacuated and a list of 29 critical cases [] including 18 children, among them young Hala, Khadiga, Mounir and Bassem [] they all have a name, they all have a story, they all have to be evacuated now," stressed the Senior Advisor.

Evacuation, is however, not the solution, he stressed, calling for the fighting and shelling to stop.

Further, the UN envoy informed that the situation is equally dire in Berm, a desolate area in south-east Syria, where as many as 55,000 civilians are in need of assistance but the last time relief was able to reach them was in June.

Also in his remarks, Mr. Egeland also said that a trilateral mechanism, initiated by Russia, and having the UN and Syria onboard, offers hope to help address problems.

"[The mechanism] had its first meetings. It still hasn't produced the results needed, but it is our strong feeling that Russia wants us to get the access and wants to help us, so we are hopeful that this trilateral mechanism will yield results soon," he added.

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Taiwan to ask for foreign assistance in search for missing fighter jet

ROC Central News Agency

2017/11/09 14:02:17

Taipei, Nov. 9 (CNA) Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan () said Thursday that Taiwan will seek the assistance of neighboring countries in the search for a Mirage-2000 fighter jet that went missing off northeast Taiwan two days ago.

With the search yet to yield any results, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) is planning to expand the search area, Feng told lawmakers during a legislative hearing.

He said Taiwan will request the Japan Coast Guard and neighboring countries to help locate the missing aircraft and pilot in recognition of the fact that the first 72 hours of any rescue mission are crucial to saving the life of personnel in distress.

When asked about rumors that the pilot could have defected to China, Feng said he found such suggestions infuriating, adding that it was incredible people might think an ROC air force pilot would defect to China.

"I will not tolerate such remarks," he said.

The single-seat Mirage 2000, serial number 2040, piloted by Captain Ho Tzu-yu (), disappeared from radar tracking 34 minutes after take-off from Hsinchu Air Base on Tuesday evening during a regular training exercise at sea, according to Air Force Command.

The aircraft was about 90 nautical miles (167 km) north-northeast of Keelung when it vanished from radar screens at 6:43 p.m., the Air Force said.

The search has been underway since but no oil slick or wreckage has been located, the MND said in a statement Thursday.

It added that the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sent helicopters, a Cheng Kung-class frigate and additional vessels to an area near Pengjia Islet on Wednesday afternoon when an intermittent distress signal was received apparently from the pilot, but have so far failed to locate him.

Meanwhile, the CGA said that as of 8 a.m. Thursday it had dispatched 162 personnel, four frigates and two cutters to join the search.

(By Fan Cheng-hsiang, Hsieh Chia-chen, Lin Chang-shun and Evelyn Kao)

Enditem/AW

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China urged to improve ties not only with U.S. but also Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

2017/11/09 22:50:23

Taipei, Nov. 9 (CNA) Taiwan on Thursday repeated its request for China to improve relations with the island, as Beijing receives U.S. President Donald Trump on an important state visit aimed at improving relations between the world's two most powerful countries.

The spokesman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said that improving relations across the Taiwan Strait was consistent with the strengthening of China-U.S. ties.

MAC Vice Minister and Spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng () was responding to comments Chinese President Xi Jinping () reportedly made to the U.S. president that Taiwan was the "most important, most sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations."

According to China's Xinhua News Agency, Xi told Trump that "the Taiwan issue is the most important, most sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations and is the political basis for the China-U.S. relationship."

Xinhua said Xi expressed his hope that the U.S. would continue to abide by the "one-China" principle under which Beijing defines Taiwan as a part of China.

In response, Chiu called for cooperation between Taiwan and China as well as for Taiwan and the U.S. to ensure the peaceful development and stability of the Taiwan Strait, a key issue of concern for all three parties.

Chiu said that Taiwan's government was willing to work with China to find a new mode of interaction, and underscored the importance of dialogue and mutual understanding in order to push cross-strait relations in the right direction.

He said the Taiwanese government was happy to see regional peace and prosperity, which is why it is important for Taiwan and China to work together to create new opportunities for development.

As for Taiwan-U.S. relations, the vice minister welcomed extensive cooperation with the U.S. on all fronts, a comment coincidentally made on the same day that news broke of U.S. Congressional defense committees including a provision to strengthen defense partnership with Taiwan in its compromise defense spending plan.

Taiwan meanwhile continued to monitor the situation in the Asia Pacific and any changes or development, especially during Trump's nearly two-week visit to five countries region.

(By Miao Zong-han and Kuan-lin Liu)

Enditem/cs

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Taiwan urges China, U.S. to continue to promote regional peace

ROC Central News Agency

2017/11/09 19:03:21

Taipei, Nov. 9 (CNA) Taiwan expects the United States and China to continue their efforts to ensure peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, the Presidential Office said Thursday.

The Presidential Office was commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China and his meeting earlier in the day with Chinese President Xi Jinping () at the Great Hall of the People.

"Our position is clear: we hope the two countries will continue their efforts to actively promote regional peace, stability and prosperity in the future," Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang () said one day after Trump's arrival in Beijing as part of a 12-day Asian tour.

At a joint press conference later in the day, neither Trump nor Xi mentioned Taiwan but according to China's Xinhua News Agency, the issue was raised during the meeting between the two leaders.

"The Taiwan issue is the most important, most sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations and is the political basis for the China-U.S. relationship," Xi told Trump, according to Xinhua. "China hopes that the U.S. will continue to abide by the 'one China' principle."

In response, Trump assured Xi that the U.S. government would continue to uphold the "one China" policy, according to the Xinhua report.

At the joint press conference, Trump was focused more on the North Korea issue, urging Xi to do more in that regard.

Trump's visit to China was the third leg of his five-nation tour of Asia that started with Japan and South Korea and will take him next to Vietnam and the Philippines.

(By Yeh Su-ping and Ko Lin)

Enditem/pc

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Turkey Intends to Develop Own Air Defense System With France and Italy's Help

Sputnik News

20:49 09.11.2017(updated 21:15 09.11.2017)

Turkey aims to boost home-made air defense technologies.

ANKARA (Sputnik)  Turkey, collaborating with France and Italy in the joint production of air defense systems, aims to develop such a system of its own manufacture, Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said Thursday.

"Along with [Russian missile systems] S-400, we plan a joint [with France and Italy] elaboration of SAMP/T air defense systems. Thus, we will manage to address deficiencies in this field more fully. This project will make a significant contribution to the creation of a domestic air defense system," Canikli said at a press conference in Brussels, as quoted by the Anadolu agency.

Turkey, France and Italy signed a memorandum that provides for joint manufacturing and the deliveries of SAMP/T air and missile defense systems during NATO defense ministers on November 8-9.

In September, Moscow and Ankara had reached an agreement and signed a contract on the deliveries of Russia's S-400 missile systems to Turkey, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying that Turkey had already made the first payment for the systems.

Nevertheless, Turkish officials have repeately stated that Ankara aims to develop a home-made air defense system.

 Sputnik

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UK committing jets, troops to deter 'assertive Russia'

Iran Press TV

Thu Nov 9, 2017 11:24AM

The UK Royal Air Force is set to deploy four Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Romania to deter "an increasingly assertive Russia," the new British defense secretary has announced.

Gavin Williamson, who has recently replaced Michael Fallon as the new UK defense minister, made the announcement at his debut NATO defense ministerial meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, noting that he will commit the aircraft as part of the US-led military alliance's southern air policing mission.

The Typhoons were first deployed to patrol the skies over the Black Sea alongside other NATO jets in May and will be sent to carry out the same mission this time alongside their Romanian counterparts, Williamson said.

The so-called air-policing mission is NATO's response to what it calls increased Russian air activity around Eastern Europe in recent years.

"In the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, the UK has significantly stepped up its commitment to Europe and today I can confirm a further package of support, showing how we remain at the forefront on European security," Williamson said.

He added that the UK is preparing to increase its presence in eastern Europe, pledging to keep a battalion of 600 soldiers at "high readiness to respond to any situation in the region at short notice" from 2018.

This is separate from the troops the UK has already deployed to Kosovo as well as its contributions to the European Union's Op Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The UK defense minister also promised that the Royal Navy's HMS Ocean amphibious assault ship will make a return to "the NATO standing maritime group."

NATO has been patrolling the Baltic skies since 2004, when the three Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia joined the military alliance but lacked the aviation power to monitor their own airspace.

The alliance has recently completed positioning about 4,500 soldiers in the three Baltic States, as well as Poland, as a deterrent to what they call Russian aggression.

Moscow has repeatedly criticized the military buildup on its borders, saying it undermines regional security. In response, it has beefed up its southwestern military capacity, deploying nuclear-capable missiles to its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland and Lithuania.

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Dr. Mary Neal knows without a doubt God is real. But before her near-death experience where this skeptical scientist visited Heaven, she had way more doubt than faith. And her testimony is truly incredible!

Credit: Thinkstock/bestdesigns

As a child in the 1950's, Mary's parents made certain she went to church. But as she grew up, her claims to Christianity were purely superficial. Then Mary went off to college, where she joined "the religion of the intellect." She traded spiritual beliefs for truth grounded in scientific facts.

Still, she called herself a Christian. She agreed with the moral guidelines Christianity offered. But Mary lacked a personal relationship with Jesus. She aimed at being a "good person," but didn't necessarily acknowledge Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

But all that would soon change. God had a special plan for finding a way into Mary's heart!

Kayaking Accident Leads To Near-Death Experience



In 1999, Mary took a trip to Chile. But while kayaking, Mary found herself trapped underwater, drowning.

"We were kayaking on a section of river well known for its waterfalls," the former nominal Christian scientist begins her story. "As I crested the waterfall, I knew that things were not going to go well for me."



RELATED: Borderline Atheist Sought The Supernatural, Then Had Brush With Death

As Mary's kayak went over the waterfall, it capsized and became pinned beneath eight to ten feet of raging water. The weight of the current pushed Mary into the front of the boat, where she could do nothing to free herself.

During this time, Mary experienced what she describes as a "radical shift in time and dimension." Despite a lifetime fear of drowning, Mary found herself surprisingly at peace.

"I was being held and comforted and being reassured that everything was fine, regardless of whether I lived or died," she recalled, also noting that she knew it was Jesus who was comforting her. "I was taken through a life review that was the first of many very profound parts of this experience for me."



During this "life review," Mary says she saw and understood things in a profound way, and from the perspective of all of the individuals involved in each moment they reviewed.

"I was shown the truth in God's promise that beauty really does come from all things," she said.

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If you recall, Google accidentally posted an unfinished app on the Play Store, one called Files Go. This app would let users manage their internal storage and microSD card memory by clearing unnecessary files, wipe junk, and remind you to uninstall unused apps. Check out a quick tour of the app from that news post.

In response to the leaked app getting reposted and covered by many other outlets, Caesar Sengupta, a member of the Google Team in Singapore has tweeted a link for the same app, this time back on the Play Store, at the same web address as the broken link from the original story.

Looks like some of you found our Files Go Beta :-) We thought wed make it available for a few more of you on the Play Store. Feedback welcome! https://t.co/qXLb1V0bKu  Caesar Sengupta (@caesars) November 9, 2017

At the time of this writing, the app that you can now download from the Play Store is the same, unfinished version that we saw in the recent leak. The app isnt finished, and may freeze when you try to refresh the apps home screen.

Otherwise, the file sharing feature is there, which is like Android's equivalent of Apples Air Drop: it works with a combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. We havent tested this feature yet, so do let us know if it works.

Google thinks since folks are already talking about it, they may as well test the app and provide feedback.

Play Store Link
The new, red colored variant of the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, which first launched last month - has now arrived in the United States.Amazon has the model listed on its website for $599.

The company's home country of Japan was the fist market to get this new color. Shortly after, it arrived in Malaysia and Germany.

Source
Sony's Xperia XA1 Plus got announced at IFA at the end of August, and now it's finally time for it to reach the UK. The phone is being exclusively offered by Carphone Warehouse. It's available today for 329.99 SIM-free and unlocked.

Although this retailer usually also sells handsets with operator contracts, the XA1 Plus is only up for grabs without such a commitment for the time being. Compared to the XA1 launched in April, the Plus model comes with a bigger screen, bigger battery, a fingerprint scanner, better audio, an extra GB of RAM, and a dual-SIM slot.

The new device keeps the old one's 23 MP Exmor RS rear camera, the 8 MP selfie shooter, octa-core processor, USB Type-C charging, and microSD card slot for going beyond the included 32GB of storage. Obviously though with all these upgrades, the XA1 Plus is also more expensive than the XA1 was.
People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny has made a last-ditch appeal to other political parties to support his bill to legalise medicinal cannabis.

Ahead of a debate on the proposed law, Mr Kenny said: "If they vote against our bill they'll be on the wrong side of public opinion, science and history."

The Oireachtas cross-party health committee has recommended that the bill does not proceed, a move Mr Kenny has described as "sabotage".

The Government has adopted the committee's position, amid concern that the bill may lead to unintended consequences, such as cannabis making its way onto the recreational market.

Mr Kenny said that Government proposals for a compassionate access scheme are too restrictive and would not help everyone who needs medicinal cannabis.

Backed

Expand Close PBP TD Gino Kenny. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins Dublin / Facebook

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He said his bill is backed by Vera Twomey, the mother of Ava Barry (7), who has a severe form of epilepsy and is currently being treated in the Netherlands, where medicinal cannabis is legal.

"Hopefully we can get the bigger parties to change their mind on the health committee's report," Mr Kenny said.

His People Before Profit (PBP) colleague Richard Boyd Barrett said that Sinn Fein has indicated that it may support the law, and Fianna Fail is still considering its position.

Solidarity TD Paul Murphy also appealed to the larger parties not to "block and kill" the proposed law.

"We've always said we're open to any changes that are necessary in order to make it workable in terms of legislation," Mr Murphy said.

PBP TD Brid Smith said Ireland is lagging behind other countries in legislating for medicinal cannabis.

"Poland are in the process of legalising medicinal cannabis. Already Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and over 23 states in the USA have legalised medicinal cannabis," she said.

"I have friends who suffer with extreme pain because of cancer and other illnesses and they're being deprived the use of medicinal cannabis.

"It's time we caught up with the rest of the planet."
A serial shoplifter who was described by a judge as a "threat" to retailers in Dublin has been jailed for eight months.

Mother-of-one April O'Brien (24) "could not walk into a Boots without stealing something", said Judge Anthony Halpin.

He acknowledged that O'Brien had a difficult life, having started taking drugs at the age of 10.

However, he said the courts had been "compassionate" in the past towards O'Brien, who was already under a suspended sentence.

Judge Halpin imposed a nine-month sentence, with the final month suspended.

O'Brien, of Carman's Hall, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty to multiple theft charges.

Dublin District Court heard that most of the thefts happened at Boots on Grafton Street.

Convictions

O'Brien shoplifted hundreds of euro worth of razors and make-up on March 13, 22 and 25 and April 2.

She also stole cosmetics from the Ilac Centre branch of Boots on October 18.

She had 63 previous convictions, mostly for theft, and had been given suspended sentences.

O'Brien had started using cannabis when she was 10, before moving on to heroin at 14.

She was "heavily strung out" by the age of 18, and had been on and off heroin since then, her solicitor Stephanie O'Meara said.

The accused was "genuinely remorseful".

O'Brien had been given a suspended sentence last February and it did not convince her it was wrong to steal, said Judge Halpin.

"She is a person who represents a de facto threat to commercial retailers in Dublin city centre," said the judge.
One of the country's most dangerous criminals narrowly avoided being caught with a loaded firearm during a massive garda operation, it has emerged.

Around 100 officers were involved in the lengthy investigation on Monday, which led to four dangerous criminals being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

Two of the thugs were caught with a loaded Beretta fitted with a silencer on Philipsburgh Avenue, while another two high-profile criminals were detained in the south inner city.

They were on their way to take out Hutch gang associate Gary Hanley (28) when they were intercepted.

Further details of one of the most significant operations in the State's history emerged last night.

The Herald can now reveal that a 38-year-old thug regarded as one of the most dangerous individuals in the country was moments from being caught red-handed with the loaded gun.

Expand Close Hutch gang associate Gary Hanley was the intended target / Facebook

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A surveillance operation uncovered how the firearm to be used in the murder plot was handed over on the Old Finglas Road, Glasnevin.

The criminal, who is a suspect in up to 10 murders, was travelling in the vehicle with the hitman and getaway driver as they were en route to carry out the shooting.

However, the thug got out of the van just moments before members of the elite Emergency Response Unit (ERU) stopped the vehicle transporting the loaded firearm.

Despite not being caught at the scene in possession of the handgun and ammunition, the thug was arrested moments later as he drove in a vehicle near his home in Christchurch, Dublin 8.

It has also emerged that Hanley came across the scene just moments after armed gardai arrested the hit team on their way to kill him.

Assault

"Hanley bizarrely walked past just minutes after the ERU hard-stopped the hit team," a source said.

"He asked one of the officers 'Was this for me?' and was told to get himself home."

The convicted criminal was warned last month of the threat against his life, but he refused to leave the country.

Hanley has more than 30 previous convictions for offences including drug dealing, serious assault and other crimes.

He was once brutally assaulted in Mountjoy Prison by a convicted killer.

Now a feared enforcer, he was convicted of an armed robbery when he was only 15.

Sources said he had "risen through the ranks" within the Hutch gang after being released from his latest jail sentence around a year and a half ago.

Gardai were last night continuing to hunt for a 33-year-old cartel associate who they want to question over the murder conspiracy.

Four criminals are also continuing to be questioned over their suspected involvement in the elaborate murder plot.

Those detained include the 38-year-old hitman for hire who was only recently released from prison.

Another man being quizzed is a 35-year-old criminal who is a high-ranking member of the Kinahan cartel.

This individual was arrested at his apartment in the south inner city by members of the Armed Support Unit. Investigators suspect that he was the person responsible for organising the hit.

It emerged last night that the gangster had become an "organiser" within the cartel's operations.

Also arrested was a 23-year-old thug who previously survived an attempt on his life, as well as a 37-year-old career criminal who was only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for explosives and firearms offences.

This drug addict was previously busted with the high-ranking cartel member.

A 39-year-old man who lives in the leafy Blackrock area is also suspected of being involved in the murder plot.

Searched

He has been linked to the Kinahan cartel for a number of years, and his home was searched as part of the probe into Monday night's foiled murder.

Assistant Commissioner John O'Driscoll said the operation was one of the most significant carried out in the history of the State that didn't involve subversives.

He also paid tribute to the officers who were involved.

"Clearly with an intervention like this there is a serious level of risk assessment that takes place," said Mr O'Driscoll.

"You have members of An Garda Siochana putting their own lives at risk,"

He also warned of more arrests. "There are people whose doors we will be knocking at," he said.
Barry Keoghan, with girlfriend Shona Guerin, is glad to take advice from Colin Farrell

After a whirlwind year on the big screen, Irish actor Barry Keoghan has been named as one of Hollywood's top rising stars aged under 35.

Film industry bible The Hollywood Reporter has included the Dubliner on its list of up-and-coming talent who look poised to be the next big things.

It has been a stellar year for Barry, who appeared alongside Harry Styles and Cillian Murphy in the war drama Dunkirk and opposite Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman in The Killing Of A Sacred Deer.

The 25-year-old, who found fame as cat killer Wayne on Love/Hate, was frank with the publication about why he decided to become an actor.

"I was like, 'I'll get paid? Sure, I can do this s**t'," he said.

The Summerhill native joins newcomers such as Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown, Twin Peaks star Caleb Landry Jones, Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Kelly Marie Tran, and Get Out actor Daniel Kaluuya.

The honour comes not long after the actor was featured on Variety's 10 Actors To Watch list for 2017.

Barry has his eye on several big names in the industry and cited Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio as two people he would love to work with.

Famine

He will next be seen in the famine drama Black 47 with Sarah Greene and Moe Dunford, and he will also star in the crime feature American Animals.

Barry was given advice by his co-star and compatriot Colin Farrell on how to cope with finding fame at a young age, and said he will always be in touch with his roots.

"He did tell me that stuff can go mental when you're young and everything is happening for you, but he thinks I've a good head on my shoulders," said Barry.

"Colin knows that I'm aware of the dangers and that I can see the fine line between films and reality.

"I'm always in touch with where I'm from," he added.

Things didn't go smoothly when Barry first tried his hand at drama.

"I did Christmas plays at school but they banned me because I was messing about," he said.
Fears have been raised for the future funding of RTE as the Department of Communications' most senior civil servant said the TV licence system is "broken" and commercial revenues are plummeting.

The perilous financial situation at the State broadcaster was raised as officials from the department were quizzed by the Dail's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Fianna Fail TD Shane Cassells hit out at people who "bash" RTE and said the broadcaster should be valued, particularly its journalism, during an era of "fake news".

But he said he feared for the station, citing licence fee evasion, staff cuts and the sale of land, which he pointed out could only be done once to raise cash. He asked Department of Communications secretary general Mark Griffin if he shared these fears.

"We in the department have a real concern about the future funding of the company," said Mr Griffin.

Evasion

"I would say the TV licence model is broken. I'm not sure whether it can be fixed."

He noted a reduction in licence fee income and an 85m drop in commercial revenues since 2008.

Licence fee evasion was at 14.6pc, a loss of around 40m a year, Mr Griffin said.

Mr Cassells said people were watching online streaming service Netflix when they came home in the evening and advertisers were "copping on" to this and spending less on traditional media.

He asked if the commercial side of RTE was "banjaxed".

"How are we going to fix this?" he asked.

Mr Griffin said previously abandoned plans for a broadcasting charge that would cover people who watch TV services on laptops and tablets may need to be reconsidered.

He also said there was the possibility transmission fees could be paid by satellite companies for broadcasting RTE, though he conceded the likes of Sky had been resisting such proposals.

Mr Griffin said the department was awaiting the report from the Oireachtas Communications Committee, which had been considering how to fund public service broadcasting.

Mr Cassells said he hoped a solution could be found because "otherwise we're going to have a dead product".

He said he didn't want a situation similar to America, where commercially-owned channels dictated editorial policy.

"I don't want to live in a world where I'm looking at the Irish version of Fox News to get my information," he said.
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.
T heres some positive news for Londons tenants this week as a new report reveals rents across the capital have fallen by an average of two per cent over the course of the year.

The average cost for a room in a shared house is now 725 a month, down from 741 this time last year, according to the latest data from SpareRoom.

This 16 saving will come as a small relief to Generation Rent who are now spending 40 per cent of their wages renting in London, according to a recent report released by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In comparison, the average rent-to-income ratio among private renters was 28 per cent outside of the capital.

London rents maintaining their three-year low probably looks like great news for the capitals renters, but for most its a case of too little, too late, says SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson.

Many renters are hitting their affordability ceiling so what were seeing is a shift within London towards traditionally cheaper areas in the South East of the city. At the same time, the number of people fleeing London in search of cheaper housing is at a five year high.

RENTING ACROSS THE UK

London remains, by far, the most expensive city to rent in the UK, so it comes as little surprise that the number of Londoners looking to relocate outside of the city is up by 54 per cent.

Glasgow, where rents are more than a third cheaper, has seen the biggest increase in interest from Londoners - up a mammoth 1,063 per cent. This is followed by Manchester which has seen a 223 per cent increase.

Both cities are seeing more investment from the tech and business sectors which is attracting young professionals. This rise in popularity is also believed to be a contributing factor to higher rents - up by four per cent on average.

After London the next highest rents in the UK are found in Oxford where room rates average 587 per month, followed by Cambridge, where it costs 564 per month.

RENTING IN LONDON

London heatmap: average rents for a double room inclusive of bills / SpareRoom

In line with house buying trends, average rents fell the hardest in some of the most expensive parts of London.

Rooms in Chelsea in west London are down more than 100, from 1,056 to 952, and rents in south-west Londons Clapham, ever-popular with university leavers, have fallen from 846 to 778.

North Londoners are saving around 35 a month with rents now averaging 703.

Meanwhile east Londoners are around three per cent up, with rents dropping to 697 on average.
Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok is pleased to announce the appointment of Andreas Johan Magnus as Hotel Manager. Andreas has relocated to Bangkok together with his family from The Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center in China where he held the position of the Hotel Manager since 2015. Andreas is a Norwegian national and obtained his hotel management diploma and bachelors degree in Business Administration from the Institute Hotelier Cesar Ritz and from the Hotel Institute Montreux, both in Switzerland. Andreas native language is Norwegian but he also speaks fluent English, French, German and good command of Russian. He began his career in Norway before moving with Orient Express Hotels to New Orleans, before receiving an internal transfer to Belmond Grand Hotel Europa in St. Petersburg, Russia where he spent three years working in the Food and Beverage field. In 2011, Andreas joined the Kempinski Hotel Group, first with the Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates in Dubai where he held the leadership of the food and beverage department for two years, before moving on to the Djibouti Palace Kempinski to take up the role of Executive Assistant Manager. With his experience in food and beverage roles and his sound knowledge and appreciation of the Kempinski brand, Andreas will be applying and bring his extensive expertise to the luxury hospitality segment at the Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok.
Tilman Fertitta today announced Pilar Florez as the Director of Marketing, Communications and Leisure Sales at The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston. In this role, she will oversee and implement a strategic marketing, communications and public relations business plan for the International and Domestic Leisure and Business Travel segments. Pilar will also develop a comprehensive social media and digital campaign aligned to The Post Oaks goals and strategies. Prior to her time at The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston, Florez served as the Director of Tourism at Visit Houston, where she successfully launched sales, marketing and awareness strategies across top international markets, which resulted in increased brand awareness, destination knowledge and visitor growth. Florez honed her skills during her decade of service with Starwood/Marriott International. She began as the Business Travel Sales Manager for The Westin Galleria & Westin Oaks in Houston before moving to Bogota, Colombia where she served as the Director of Sales and Marketing for W Bogota. Pilar earned a Bachelor in Economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and holds a certificate in Marketing & Public Relations from Universidad de La Sabana in Bogota, Colombia.
Robert Cheng has been appointed vice president of brand marketing and communications for Rosewood Hotel Group. Cheng will spearhead the groups overall strategic branding and communications to further strengthen awareness and market positioning, drive revenue and enhance development of the individual brands.Cheng brings two decades experience in strategy, marketing and business development across a variety of industries in the U.S., U.K., France, Hong Kong and mainland China. Prior to joining Rosewood, Cheng was group vice president of marketing for The Peninsula Hotels following a year as director of sales and marketing for The Peninsula Shanghai. Previously, he served as global marketing director for De Beers Diamond Jewellers, business development manager for the London-based developers, Candy & Candy, and director of international premium products for American Express managing Centurion and Platinum card portfolios. He started his career as a strategy consultant with the Monitor Group in New York City. Cheng holds an MBA with honours from INSEAD in France, a bachelors degree (hons) in International Relations, Economics and French Literature from Brown University, U.S.A., and a diploma from Sciences Po in Paris. In addition to English, he speaks French, German, Cantonese and Mandarin.
As director of sales & marketing, Gregory is responsible for developing and maximizing strategies to provide optimum revenue streams for all of the resorts departments. In his role, Gregory provides training, support and guidance to members of the resort sales team to boost individual talents and booking potential. Gregory joined Montage Palmetto Bluff from The Omni Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, where he was director of sales & marketing. Preceding his time in Virginia, Gregory has held director of sales & marketing positions at a number of luxury resorts, including Sea Island Resort in Georgia; Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Arizona; and Wild Dunes Resort in South Carolina. Gregory earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia.
ORLANDO, Fla.  Hard Rock International  owner of one of the world's most-recognizable and iconic brands  announces the appointment of Michael Coury as Corporate Executive Chef. In his new role, Coury will draw on 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry, to lead culinary efforts and menu innovation for 178 corporate and franchise locations around the world. Coury will report directly to Hard Rock Cafe's Vice President of Food and Beverage, Leigh Merritt. Prior to joining Hard Rock, Coury was Executive Chef of New York City-based OTG Management, a hospitality group that operates more than 200 restaurants and retail concepts in 10 airports across North America. In this position, Coury oversaw airport terminal culinary concepts and broke new ground in dining trends for travelers. Coury collaborated with renowned chefs such as Michael White, Andrew Carmellini and Alain Ducasse to bring unique culinary techniques such as ramen making, smokehouse cooking, twists on dim sum recipes and Japanese hand-pulled noodles to airports around the country. Coury has also worked closely with acclaimed chefs like Charlie Trotter and Mario Batali, and was the lead chef for Julia Child's 80th Birthday Party. In his role at Hard Rock, Coury will bring his vast knowledge of food trends to ensure the brand's various menus remain relevant to consumers and epitomize the latest culinary developments. Coury is a graduate of the International Culinary Institute in New York City, and went on to receive further education at California Sushi Academy in Los Angeles and Italy's Toscana Di Saporita. Over the course of his career, Coury has overseen more than 300 units and 200 chefs throughout the United States, while maintaining an incredible reputation of food excellence, innovation and quality. Internationally-recognized as a world-class restaurant and hospitality brand, Hard Rock operates cafes across the world that are visited by more than 79 million guests each year. Its first cafe opened in London, England, and from there the brand has expanded to major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris, Sydney and Tokyo, and exotic settings such as Kuala Lumpur, Dubai and Malta. Hard Rock Cafe offers a one-of-a-kind dining experience with a commitment to serving fresh, high-quality ingredients. To satisfy the consumer's ever-changing palate, Hard Rock continually updates its menu with limited-time offerings including burger pairings, innovative cocktails and more. For more information on Hard Rock Cafe, please visit www.hardrock.com/cafes.
HX is sponsored by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), the Hotel Association of New York City, Inc. (HANYC), and the New York State Hospitality & Tourism Association (NYSH&TA) and is managed by Hospitality Media Group (HMG).

HX is co-located with the 8th annual Boutique Design New York (BDNY), a trade fair tailored exclusively to hospitality design professionals.

Organizer HX: The Hotel Experience is organized by HMG LLC

For more information please contact Allison Traylor
K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd. (KRM), a global developer and manufacturer of sound masking technology, today announced the launch of MODIO, a sound masking device specifically designed for hotel guest rooms. MODIO provides a solution to one of the most common hotel guest complaints: noise.

MODIO addresses the hotel noise problem using a sound similar to soft airflow. It covers up intruding noises or reduces their disruptive impact by minimizing the amount of change between volume peaks and the guest room's baseline background sound level. In the past, guests tried unsuccessfully to use the HVAC system, 'white noise' apps or other gadgets in this manner.

Prior to MODIO's launch, KRM successfully implemented its commercial sound masking system, LogiSon Acoustic Network, in properties for Hilton, Marriott, Fairmont, The Ritz Carlton, and Dream Hotel, as well as the Roxy Hotel (formerly Tribeca Grand) and Fogo Island Inn. Although feedback from both hotel guests and managers who experienced the technology was overwhelmingly positive, the company decided to go back to the drawing board to integrate what they had learned into a new product specifically designed for hotel guest rooms.

KRM developed the LogiSon system with office applications in mind. Prior to MODIO, the company often had to get creative with installation techniques in order to handle all of the unique environments presented by the hospitality industry. MODIO is a commercial-grade device that is as easy for guests to use and as effective at covering noise as the LogiSon system, but only takes minutes to installmeaning no lost room night.

Niklas Moeller, Vice President, KRM, underlines the importance of offering a commercial-grade masking system. "It's vital that the sound be properly generated, adjusted via effective volume and frequency controls, and produced over a high-quality loudspeaker. Introducing a poor-quality sound will irritate rather than help the guest," said Moeller. "Other approaches haven't caught on, because they simply can't do the job," he added.

Source: K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd.

Noise presents a significant operational and consumer issue for hotel owners, operators and guests. In 2011, a survey from JD Power (North American Hotel Guest Satisfaction Survey) ranked noise at the top of the list of complaints industry wide.

"Many hotel guest rooms exhibit the type of acoustic conditions we've successfully addressed in offices over the last forty years," said Moeller. "Basically, their low ambient level makes it very easy for occupants to hear noises occurring in other areas, whether it's from a conversation, television or telephone, mechanical or plumbing equipment, car or airplane traffic, the hotel's pool or bar. These noises irritate guests and disrupt their sleep."

Hotel owners/operators can choose to install MODIO in one or a few rooms with consistent noise problems, or in every room to prevent unforeseen complaints. The device quickly mounts to the back of any flat screen TV using standard VESA brackets, to furniture or the wall, allowing installation to be handled by the hotel maintenance staff in approximately 10 minutes.

MODIO's location also means the device is virtually hidden and ensures the masking sound is evenly diffused into the bed area and across the room.

The sound spectrumor 'curve'MODIO produces is specifically engineered to balance acoustic control and occupant comfort. The company recommends customizing the curve to each guest room using specialized software and a sound analyzer, a service offered by MODIO representatives. However, in cases where this option is not feasible, a default setting can be used, which still delivers industry-leading masking performance in guest rooms.

Instructions on the control pad and in the guest services guide tell guests about the purpose and use of this amenity. The dial on the control pad allows an occupant to set their room's background sound level according to personal preference or as needed to cover disturbances. "These days, a dial might seem low-tech, but it makes MODIO easy for all guests to use," said Moeller. "There's no need to fuss with pairing to a mobile app. It also prevents guests from having to look at a blue-light emitting device, a known sleep disruptor."

"Guest feedback to our technology is very positive," said Moeller. "They like the feature, feel it works well, and perceive it as an amenity. It also shows a proactive approach to dealing with noise in that the hotel is addressing it before it becomes a problem. It's much better to prevent a complaint in the first place than try to fix it later," he added.

MODIO is certified for use in commercial applications in numerous regions around the world including North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Southeast Asia. The device is covered by a 5-year warranty. Patents are pending.

For more infiormation, please contact:

Niklas Moeller, K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd.

905.332.1730

About K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd.

K.R. Moeller Associates Ltd. is a global developer and manufacturer of sound masking technology, including the first networked sound masking, paging and music system: LogiSon Acoustic Network. K.R. Moeller is committed to product innovation and high-quality customer service, as well as to providing sound masking education for customers and related professionals. K.R. Moeller is headquartered in Burlington, Ontario, Canada and is a privately-held company. For more information about MODIO, visit www.modio.audio. For more information about the LogiSon Acoustic Network, visit www.logison.com.
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French Montana turned 33 years old and how else do you celebrate other than throwing a massive birthday party. The rapper threw a star-studded event that kicked off in Beverly Hills and everyone from DJ Khaled to the Weeknd made an appearance. However, like most great birthday parties, it doesnt end until the sun comes up, which is exactly what happened with French. The rapper brought the party back to his Calabasas home where things got a bit rowdy.

According to TMZ, the police had to pull up to the Unforgettable rappers crib after a girl fight broke out. Their sources say two women got into it at Frenchs house around 7 A.M. and after one of them got kicked out, she got salty and called the police. The police and paramedics had to show up and both women were checked up on. Both females were involved but neither of them needed any sort of medical attention or treatment. The police decided against arresting either women. However, they were forced to vacate the property. TMZ says that the police had no interaction with the rapper during their visit to his home.

Earlier today, TMZ posted a video of the overall crazy evening that took place at Frenchs party. The party was sponsored by Diddys Ciroc (obviously) and was DJd by Marshmello. French made sure to celebrate with his closest friends as the whole XO squad came through as well as DJ Khaled, OT Genesis, Scott Storch, Lil Uzi Vert, Belly and more popped by to celebrate.

The party was extravagant and well deserved for French Montana. This year has been one of the biggest ones hes had yet. Hes made an impact in the music industry at large, being a go-to guy for features in not only hip hop but other realms as well. Along with that, his single Unforgettable has gone multi-platinum since its release and hes also done an enormous amount of philanthropic work. So the wild birthday celebrations are definitely well deserved considering all the work that French Montanas put in.








This Big Indian Joint Family Has 72 Members Living in The Same House in Maharashtra
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar vowed to use his time in Government to improve the lives of working families

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has vowed to safeguard the rights of border communities in the midst of Brexit.

In an address to the Fine Gael ard fheis - his first as head of Government - Mr Varadkar said he was certain Ireland will remain at the heart of Europe.

"I want to reassure all border communities that we are listening to you, we hear your concerns and we promise you that we will safeguard your rights, and all that we have achieved," he said.

The Taoiseach said he accepted the Government could not control all decisions in terms of Brexit.

But addressing his party faithful in the Slieve Russell Hotel in Co Cavan, only a few miles from Fermanagh, he repeated his insistence about the future of the open border.

"A shared space is not a lost space. So on this island, let's build bridges, not borders," the Taoiseach said.

"There can be no return to the border on our island."

The Taoiseach also recalled how Ireland had moved away from Britain four times in the past - in 1921; the formation of the Republic in 1948; the break of the link with sterling in 1979; and joining the Eurozone in 2001.

"While there were challenges, on every occasion we overcame them and emerged stronger and more prosperous as a result, and we approach the challenge of Brexit with the same spirit," the Taoiseach said.

Mr Varadkar used his speech to list achievements of the Government.

He also noted that next year marks the centenary of women getting the vote and the election of Constance Markievicz to parliament.

He said: "It is high time that we had equal pay for equal work, and equality of opportunity in all things."

The Taoiseach also vowed to use his time in Government to improve the lives of working families.

He said it was a priority. Mr Varadkar said he wanted to introduce paid family leave that can be shared between parents in the first year of their child's life.

"We are determined to make it a reality," he said.

The Taoiseach also said there would be a reformed social insurance system to provide sick pay for people who have to take time off work to care for seriously ill loved ones.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said there is a still "a way to go" in negotiations between Britain and the European Union before enough progress on Irish issues has been made to move on to the next phase of Brexit talks.

"I think that there is a way to go between the two negotiating teams to be able to provide credible answers and sufficient progress in the context of the Irish border before we can move on to Phase Two," Minister Coveney told RTE's Morning Ireland on Friday.

The EU has said that talks on Britain's future relationship can only start after the EU is satisfied that "sufficient progress" has been made on the terms of Britains departure, including on Britains border with Ireland.

"While we welcome the language we get from the British government in the context of north-south challenges... there has always been a scepticism on how we are going to get there in the context of the British approach to Brexit as a whole," he said.

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In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, Mr Coveney said it was "not realistic" to agree upon a UK-EU free-trade deal next year, despite the intention voiced by Theresa May.

An outcome "that is good for the British economy and Irish economy and the EU economy . . . requires a sensible and pragmatic approach towards a transition arrangement. For me, thats closer to four or five years rather than two," Mr Coveney told the paper.

Theresa May has already formally requested what an implementation period of "about two years" to soften the blow of Britains exit from the EU in March 2019.

During this transition period, the UK would stay in the single market and customs union.
Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said Northern Ireland remaining 'in' while the rest of the UK leaves the EU would be 'impossible' Photo: PA

Ireland is demanding Britain signs up to some 100 rules and regulations in order to ensure an open Border with the North.

The toughened Irish stance, reflected in a leaked European Commission document, is said to have blindsided British officials at Brexit negotiations in Brussels yesterday.

The demands have also thrown British hopes of opening trade and transition talks this December into renewed doubt. UK officials had believed the question of how to avoid a hard Border had been 'parked' until the EU opened talks over trade and the future relationship.

However, the leaked talking points paper entitled 'Dialogue on Ireland/Northern Ireland' shows Irish officials now pushing hard for concrete reassurance on the Border question ahead of a crucial EU leaders' summit in December.

The one-page paper stated that in order to preserve the Good Friday Agreement peace deal, the Brexit divorce deal must respect "the integrity of the internal market and the customs union".

It added that it is "essential" that the UK commits to avoiding a hard Border by remaining part of the EU customs union and continues to abide by the "rules of the internal market and customs union".

It concluded that Britain must ensure "no emergence of regulatory divergence" from the rules of the EU single market and the customs union which are "necessary for north-south co-operation, the all-island economy and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement".

The Irish position was described by a senior EU source as reflecting the "state of play" on the Irish question and reflected the "guiding principles" of the EU's approach to the problem.

It is understood that there are about 100 EU rules and regulations, including many covering customs and agriculture, that Ireland wants maintained to ensure an open trade Border.

But British officials are concerned that the demands present an apparently impossible dilemma. They fear it either means the UK remains in the EU customs union and accepts the rules in entirety, or gives the North special status in the EU that would undermine the territorial integrity of the UK.

UK officials have already warned that any attempt to create a special status would have a destabilising effect on the Good Friday Agreement. The gambit also comes just days after James Brokenshire, the UK's Northern Ireland secretary, travelled to Brussels to meet Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, and a host of MEPs and other top officials.

Mr Brokenshire said he found it "difficult to imagine how Northern Ireland could somehow remain 'in' while the rest of the country leaves".

But the Irish paper flatly challenged that position, with an EU source telling 'The Daily Telegraph' that there were signs Dublin could use the ongoing tussle over the 60bn bill as a pretext for holding up 'sufficient progress' in the talks.

A senior Government source said the British should not feel blindsided.

"We have a taskforce on what we want - it's nothing that would surprise. We want to ensure the common travel area, north and south cooperation to continue, and no hard Border, thus regulatory equivalence between north and south on customs," the source said.
'In the meantime, Government plans to ramp up infrastructure investment should be targeted at ensuring that whatever Brexit deal is arrived at means the least interruption for trade' Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

Dublin Port could face 9km tailbacks of trucks and will need three hectares of extra space to cope with a full customs regime being reintroduced as a result of Brexit, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce has warned.

A worst-case scenario Brexit, with the reintroduction of a full customs regime, would mean stopping all of the 400,000 trucks a year that cross from Dublin to Holyhead and back, the chamber's director general John McGrane told the Irish Independent.

He was speaking ahead of today's publication of the chamber's 'Policy Paper on Infrastructure'.

Brexit potentially means interrupting a highly efficient port infrastructure that currently accounts for 80pc of all freight trade into and out of the country, he said.

Business needs to campaign now, for a Brexit settlement that won't mean every truck being stopped, he said.

In the meantime, Government plans to ramp up infrastructure investment should be targeted at ensuring that whatever Brexit deal is arrived at means the least interruption for trade.

"Substantial investment is required in ports, airports, transport, water services and broadband," the reports says.

Investment in ports infrastructure should be targeted to ensure goods leaving Dublin can continue to cross the UK so-called land bridge to markets in northern Europe, while Rosslare and Cork can be used to access southern Europe.

"It is almost inconceivable that Irish exporters would have to go around the UK (rather than crossing from Holyhead to the Channel ports by land), trade with northern Europe relies on the land bridge," Mr McGrane said.

To keep it open, a Brexit deal will have to include recognition of driver permits for those crossing Britain as well as a customs agreement, he said.

There is an opportunity now to influence the outcome of Brexit talks under way in Brussels.

"We're calling for a national discussion.

"We think the Government is doing an excellent job, but now is the time for businesses to be laying out clear priorities," he said.
Dublin has slipped in a ranking of European cities with the best prospect of rising real estate markets.

The annual forecast of over 800 real estate professionals in Europe by PwC and the Urban Land Institute found that the capital's infrastructure was seen to be failing to keep pace with growth.

The report cited seven years of "almost no domestic investment in new infrastructure".

However respondents, who included investors, developers, lenders, and consultants, see the private rental sector and student housing as a huge opportunity for investment in the next three to five years.

Dublin's ranking as a real estate prospect has fallen to seventh position from fourth in Europe last year, and from the number three slot two years ago.

"The report puts context on what is happening in our city. Investors are looking beyond traditional investing and at student accommodation and build-to-rent properties," said Joanne Kelly, PwC Ireland's real estate leader.

Dublin is also viewed as one of the cities likely to benefit from Brexit. In terms of the people and institutions investing in infrastructure here, there are fewer US private equity capital buyers and increasing amounts of institutional money, largely from Europe.

"The report highlights that Dublin is settling into a new phase as a normalised, mature and safe market to invest in after years as an opportunistic investing story.

"The make-up of buyers is changing accordingly - fewer US private equity capital and much more institutional money, largely from Europe, especially from Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK," Ms Kelly said.

But industry experts did note their concerns about the potential negative effects if the UK were to go into recession as a result of Brexit, particularly on the Irish tourism sector.

Looking beyond Ireland, for the fourth year in a row, Berlin has taken the top spot in Emerging Trends city rankings, further establishing its dominance in the European property market.

Frankfurt, which is seen by many as the main competition to Dublin in attracting companies looking for a European alternative to London, has risen to second place after a year of solid growth, much of which has come from the financial sector following the Brexit vote.

Tied for second spot with Frankfurt is Copenhagen, which has a booming residential market that it capturing the attention of the international real estate industry. Munich and Madrid complete the top five cities for property investment and development in a good performance overall by German cities.

However London was ranked only 27th in the report, behind a number of other UK cities including Manchester, Birmingham, and Edinburgh, with the industry experts taking a "dim view" of the city's prospects on account of Brexit.

"London's lower ranking is largely because of the uncertainty around Brexit, however there is a lot of Asian capital still flowing in and London is still seen as the financial capital of Europe," Ms Kelly told the Irish Independent.

Overall the property industry is cautiously optimistic about its European business prospects in 2018.

Around half of respondents predict that profits and head-counts will increase next year, while 42pc expect an increase in business confidence - up 10pc on last year.
Brazil needs to make progress on inspections before any timeline can be set to end a U.S. ban on imports of fresh Brazilian beef, the U.S. agriculture secretary said on Monday.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and his Brazilian counterpart Blairo Maggi met in Washington, D.C., on Monday to discuss the ban that went into effect on June 22. The United States has said a high percentage of beef shipments from Brazil did not pass safety checks.

In June, the United States blocked shipments of fresh Brazilian beef and said it had found abscesses in the meat and signs of systemic failure of inspections in meat from the worlds largest beef exporter.

In March, some Brazilian meatpackers were hit with a scandal involving alleged bribery of health officials, which briefly shut Brazils protein exports out of major global markets from China to Europe.

Brazilian cattle ranchers have said they believe the abscesses were linked to foot-and-mouth vaccines used in Brazil, the only country where foot-and-mouth disease can be found in cattle that can sell to the United States because it uses vaccinations.

After the meeting, Brazils Agriculture Ministry released a recording of Maggis remarks in which he said the United States could lift a ban on imports of fresh Brazilian beef in 30 to 60 days but the final decision would be made after analysis of information presented by Brazil.

Perdue said in a statement that Maggi had pressed for a timeline for restoring imports of fresh Brazilian beef to the United States, but he said any timeline would depend upon progress being made by Brazil.

Brazil had been selling fresh beef to the United States since July 2016 when the countries signed an agreement ending 17 years of talks about such imports.

Fresh beef shipments to the United States represent 3 percent of Brazils beef exports and were worth $58.1 million from January to June.
Next week thousands of athletes from around the world will take part in 'Run in the Dark' in aid of research into a possible cure for paralysis.

It is something very close to the heart of former amateur jockey, turned full-time farmer Jonjo Bright who suffered catastrophic injuries in a fall during a point-to-point race in 2013.

From Dublin to Belfast, and New York to Sydney, it is hoped that 500,000 can be raised for the Mark Pollack Trust which works tirelessly to find a cure for young men such as Jonjo who, with the help of technology, may walk again unaided.

In March 2013, the Co Antrim native was forging a career as a jockey when a horrific fall at Tyrella Point to Point left him with permanent spinal damage, and wheelchair bound.

His days in the saddle were over, but right from the start Jonjo showed incredible strength and willpower which would stand to him as the years went by.

Initially paralysed from the waist down, with sheer determination he now has regained movement in his arms which allows him to take an active role in the day-to-day running of the family farm.

He has also regained limited use in his legs.

"I still believe that a cure might be available in the future, so I have to continue to work towards that and keep my body in good condition," he said.

As well as attending intense physiotherapy sessions several times a week, Jonjo also has regular access to the exoskeleton suit which has been helping him to get back on his feet since it was introduced into Ireland in 2015.

Designed to help people with mobility disorders to be upright and mobile, it enables him to use his own body weight to walk in the machine.

"At the start there was only one suit in Ireland. That was brought in by the Irish Injured Jockeys. Now there are three suits here and so many people are benefiting from them," he said.

"The thing is, the body was not designed to sit down all day and so the suit allows me to walk for up to an hour at a time. I can usually walk 700 or 800 steps at a time, and each time it gets easier and more like a natural walk."

Since its establishment in 2014, the Irish Injured Jockeys has been offering both financial and emotional support to jockeys who have suffered both temporary set-backs and career-ending injuries on the track.

Support

"They have been incredible and have put me in the best position to make as good a recovery as possible," he said.

"In no other sport I believe would you find an organisation who would look after you so well."

Jonjo also credits Dr Adrian McGoldrick with giving him immense support through the bad times.

As the Turf Club's Senior Medical Officer, he has seen his fair share of race-riding injuries over the years and knows the emotional impact it can have on jockeys whose careers have been cut short. By looking forward, and not back at those dark days, Jonjo is now concentrating on developing the family farm with his father John, as well as continuing to enjoy his love of horses by doing some buying and selling from time to time. "My family always had the farm and I knew it was something I could get involved with again after the accident," he said.

In addition to a herd of 40 Stabilizer cows, they also keep some 75 breeding ewes on their 140-acres of grassland.

"We got the Stabilizers because we were told they were easy calvers, and we have reduced our ewe numbers to save the ground but hope to get back up to 100 or so again in a few years."

Jonjo and his father recently introduced Romneys, with the intention of lambing outdoors from next year. "We are slowly making changes to make the farm as easy to run as possible. We may not be able to control beef and lamb prices but we can control management and the way we run the farm."

Having been involved in horses from a young age, Jonjo will always have that special bond with them. Last year he purchased a few thoroughbred yearlings with the hope of selling them on as three-year-old stores.

"My girlfriend Reah also keeps a few show hunters, so it's nice to stay involved in horses in any which way I can."

Jockeys rally around their injured comrades

Jonjo Bright attended the Downroyal Racing Festival to present a cheque for 10,500 to the Irish Injured Jockeys. It was raised during an annual barbeque held by Jonjo and members of the East Antrim Hunt.

The Irish Injured Jockeys has been a fantastic support to me throughout so its nice to give something back, he said.

Led by chairman Ruby Walsh, Irish Injured Jockeys vision is to provide long-term care and guidance, not only when jockeys have suffered injury through race-riding, but when they will need help in their secondary careers and in their lives after they have finished riding.

They work with individual cases and also support The Jockeys Emergency Fund, The Drogheda Memorial Fund and The Irish Jockeys Trust.

Each year various fund-raising events take place throughout the country. One of the most recent, the Corinthian Challenge for amateur jockeys, saw participants each raise 10,000 for this worthwhile cause.

Held at three racecourses, The Curragh, Gowran and Leopardstown, the series attracted participants from all walks of life, from Cork school teacher Jessica OGara to British show jumper Tim Gredley.

After a thrilling finish the series was won by Lynne McLoughlin from Baltinglass.

Michael Higgins, General Manager of Irish Injured Jockeys, said: Fair play to Lynne on a fine achievement of winning the Corinthian Challenge. She put in a lot of work and was a deserving winner. Great credit also goes to the rest of the riders, its a huge commitment and we are really appreciative of their efforts.
Troubled Swiss-Irish baked goods firm Aryzta has confirmed that Juergen Steinemann will not seek election to its board at this time.

Troubled Swiss-Irish baked goods firm Aryzta has confirmed that Juergen Steinemann will not seek election to its board at this time.

Mr Steinemann is a director of German retail giant Metro, which is under investigation by German prosecutors regarding possible insider trading.

Metro said that Mr Steinemann had no inside information when he bought shares in Metro last year in advance of a significant strategic announcement that Metro was planning to separate its retail and wholesale business from its consumer electronics arm.

The prosecutors did not name the individuals being investigated, but confirmed that the chairman of Metro's supervisory board and a senior executive were the subjects of the probe. Mr Steinemann is the chairman of the supervisory board.

The prosecutors have claimed there are indications that three people from Metro, and one from outside the group, "were acquiring shares in Metro or forwarding insider information".

Earlier this week, a spokesman for Metro and Mr Steinemann said the group was working with prosecutors.

A Metro spokesman said last Friday that at the time Mr Steinemann and another executive bought shares weeks in advance of plans for the company split being made public, "no insider information was available".
The third edition of the Irelands Edge conference, which takes place alongside the eir Other Voices Festival, has been launched.

Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys joined Irelands Edge and Other Voices founder Philip King to announce details of Irelands Edge 2017: Migration Nation.

The two-day event, with Intel as lead sponsors, will take place at the Dingle Skellig Hotel in Dingle, Co Kerry on December 1 and 2.

"It gives me great pleasure to launch the Irelands Edge 2017 conference, which will this year explore Irelands relationship with the diaspora through the lenses of culture and creativity," Minister Humphreys said.

"Irish artists, designers, thinkers and engineers have always been close to the edge of where new things happen, so it is fitting that the conference will focus on our countrys powerful tradition of invention and innovation in the context of a changing world."

Syf Khan a virtuoso bouzouki and oud player originally from Syria, performed at the Irelands Edge launch along with the celebrated Irish musicians Cormac Begley and Libby McCrohan.

Khan recently arrived in Ireland with his wife and daughter. Initially based in Mosney Accommodation Centre, they are now living in Carrick-on-Shannon, where he began collaborating musically with Cormac Begley and Libby McCrohan.

Speakers at Irelands Edge will include internationally acclaimed Irish artist, John Gerrard, Emmy nominated, multi-award winning documentary director and feature film editor Emer Reynolds and Forbes contributor and author of finance & economics blog Frances Coppola.

The conference will also be live streamed through Facebook at www.facebook.com/IrelandsEdgeHQ

Irelands Edge is run in partnership with sponsors Intel and with the support of Nokia Bell Labs, Microsoft, IDA Ireland, The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and The Department of Culture, Heritage and The Gaeltacht.
Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh has emerged as a backer of Dublin-based waterless vehicle washing company No-H2O.

Filings just lodged with the Companies Office show that Mr Murtagh (pictured) invested 400,000 in the business last year.

The investment makes him the second-largest shareholder in the No-H2O after its founder, Emmet O'Brien.

Mr O'Brien has a background in motor racing and established No-H2O in 2007.

The wash service uses a biodegradable liquid cleaner, and the company provides a mobile wash and valet service, as well as static locations in premises such as car parks.

It also has a corporate customer base, supplying clients including Hertz, An Post and Europcar with cleaning products.

In 2014, Mr O'Brien acquired the global intellectual property rights for the cleaning system.

The first franchise was established in 2015, in Dubai.

A second was established in 2016 in Czech Republic. It also has a number of franchise operators in Ireland.

The company has also signed distribution agreements with retail outlets in the UK, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Australia and New Zealand.

Mr O'Brien told the 'Sunday Independent' this year that his company was on track to generate turnover of 1.2m, with 85pc of that coming from exports.

No-H2O made almost 150,000 in profit last year.

Mr Murtagh's investment in No-H20 is thought to have valued the business at about 2m.
Dublin-headquartered plastics group One51 intends to press ahead with its initial public offering (IPO) after discussions with CapVest Partners regarding a possible offer for the company ended without agreement.

CapVest had been offering a bid of 2.50 a share in cash for the company.

In confirming that it would hold an extraordinary general meeting of the company on 6 December to proceed with an IPO and Listing in 2018, the company confirmed that it was no longer in talks in relation to a possible offer for it.

As part of the IPO the company, which employs around 1,700 people in Ireland, the UK, North America, and China, said that it plans to re-brand itself as IPL Plastics.

One51 confirmed that it has received an undertaking from its majority shareholder, the Canadian investor CDPQ, which owns approximately 26.47pc of the company, to vote in favour of the proposed EGM resolutions.

The reorganisation would involve the minority shareholders in IPL (CDPQ and FSTQ, a Canadian development capital fund) exchanging their equity investment in it for One51 shares. This would be implemented in conjunction with an IPO and Listing or earlier, if agreed.

In results announced in August, revenue at One51 jumped 32.4pc to 225.8m in the first half of 2017.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), excluding discontinued operations, soared 31pc to 32.4m in the period.

The company said at the time that its performance in the first six months of the year was boosted by strong organic growth in IPL, its Canada-based North America plastics unit.

A six-month contribution from Encore Industries, which One51 acquired last November for 32m, also supported the first-half performance.

One51, whose chief executive is Alan Walsh, has completed its transformation from being a waste management firm to one that now focuses exclusively on the manufacture of rigid plastics used for packaging, environmental containers and industrial products.
BANK of Ireland may not be able to pay a dividend as promised this year after owning up to thousands of extra tracker mortgage overcharging cases.

The fact that the bank has now admitted to an additional 6,000 cases has also raised issues about the honesty of the bank, a leading banking analyst said.

It comes as a banking trade union claims thousands more people who work in banks are due to get tracker mortgages back and be refunded.

Earlier this week Bank of Ireland said it had identified another 6,000 customers who were wrongly removed from low-interest tracker mortgage loans.

This brings to 10,300 the number of people affected by the controversy at Bank of Ireland alone.

The total cost of putting customers back on low tracker rates, refunding them for overcharged interest payments, and compensating them at a rate of 10pc of the refunds, will cost the bank up to 200m.

This is up from 26m previously set aside by the bank.

Banking analyst at Merrion Stockbrokers Darren McKinley questioned the honesty of the bank, and said it may not be able to pay a dividend.

We are concerned about the broader implications of such an announcement, weeks after Bank of Ireland had stated that they had the issue under control post an internal review in 2010.

It questions Bank of Irelands ability to communicate honestly about the banks operational and financial performance. To rebuild trust with investors, we assume that there needs to be further changes to management and culture.

Mr McKinley said the tracker mortgage redress will hit Bank of Irelands net income for 2017 by 20pc and it may impact its plan to pay a dividend.

Bank of Ireland, under the leadership of new chief executive Francesca McDonagh, has set aside up to 140m this year to pay a dividend.

It had been expected to pay a dividend of between 2.5pc and 3pc. But this could now fall to between 1pc and 1.5pc, if it pays a dividend at all.

Almost 2,000 of Bank of Irelands own employees are among those affected and all are set to be compensated.

General Secretary of the Financial Services Union Larry Broderick welcomed the Bank of Ireland admission, and said AIB had promised to treat staff members denied a tracker the same as customers in general.

But he said there are likely to be between 1,000 and 1,500 bank staff affected by the tracker issue in other banks.

The concern for us has always been for bank officials or customers having to take on the powers of a bank who have huge legal support. We need a resolution to this that recognises unfairness in the interest of staff and indeed customers, he told RTE Radio.

Mr Broderick said the challenge was that the banks took a legalistic approach to the tracker mortgage issue and did not consider implications for the people concerned.

He said this scandal had been going on for eight years and that the culture in banking needed to change. The scandal was first reported on in the Irish Independent in 2009.
Facebook has denied any wrongdoing and continues to fight the case. Stock photo

Facebook has claimed that US tax authorities are unjustly denying it a right of appeal, against a decision stemming from a 2011 audit of the social network's 2008 to 2010 taxes, including the treatment of assets in Ireland.

Facebook's fight against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now six-year-old audit returned to a federal court in San Franciso on Wednesday, where the company's demanding an independent review of its tax bill, and accused tax authorities of illegally denying it access to an appeals forum.

The IRS previously said Facebook may have understated the value of intellectual property it transferred to Ireland by "billions of dollars", unfairly cutting its tax bill in the process, according to court papers.

Last year, US Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking to enforce IRS summonses served on Facebook and to force the world's largest social network to produce various documents as part of the probe.

The tax authority is examining whether Facebook understated its US income by selling rights to an Irish subsidiary too cheaply.

Facebook has denied any wrongdoing and continues to fight the case.

Facebook is seeking a court declaration that it was denied its appeal rights and an injunction compelling the IRS to give the tech giant independent review.

The complex tax structuring used by big technology companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook is now in focus on both sides of the Atlantic, including intense scrutiny from the European Commission, which is pushing a so-called digital turnover tax that would levy technology firms based on where they make sales, rather than where profits are booked.

In Brussels yesterday, California's governor Jerry Brown said he did not know how a digital turnover tax on internet companies, such as the one the EU is considering, would "work".

On a two-day visit to the EU capital, he also refused to criticise the tax policies of Silicon Valley companies such as such as Facebook and Alphabet subsidiary Google, despite numerous EU member states insisting they do not pay their fair share of tax.

Ireland, which is the European base for many of the firms, does not support the turnover tax plans.

Criticism increased in recent days after revelations in the Paradise Papers that Apple moved billions of dollars to the offshore financial centre on the island of Jersey in order to avoid paying tax in the EU.

"These are my constituents," Mr Brown told Bloomberg Tax in an interview.

"I am not in a position to say anything on this issue."

He also said the issue of Silicon Valley company tax policies had not been raised during visits to the European Commission and the European Parliament on November 8.

On Wednesday, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced she is reopening the tax probe into Apple and accused US tech companies, including Google and Facebook, of pursuing policies she claims are driven by "greed". (Additional reporting Bloomberg)
Alannah O'Leary (16) and Luca Bishop (17) from Newpark Comprehensive School in Blackrock, Dublin, at the #DigitalYouth17 event Photo: Mark Stedman

A group of 50 young people attended a special event on digital rights in Dublin.

The consultation was jointly held by Unicef and Twitter as transition year students from across the country joined industry leaders at the #DigitalYouth17 gathering. The group was invited to Twitter EMEA Headquarters to come up with solutions to the challenges posed by the influence of technology in young people's lives.

Executive director of Unicef Ireland Peter Power said: "Unicef protects and promotes children's rights all over the world.

"In Ireland, we make policy recommendations to ensure Irish children get the best opportunities in life. Involving young people in that process is crucial."
Coca Cola created one of the most enduring Christmas ads of all time in 1990 which featured branded Christmas trucks rolling into town to presumably supply everyone with that most festive of drinks...

Anyway, the trucks are big and red and decorated in twinkly lights and look as Christmassy as can be and if that's your thing you can see one IRL this festive season as it tours Ireland.

From November 30 it will stop off at ten locations - Cork, Limerick, Galway, Dublin, Belfast, Derry, Dundalk, Drogheda and Kilkenny.

Were getting the holiday season off to a flying start with our famous Christmas Truck Tour, are you as excited as we are?" asks Coca Cola.

We're not sure how we feel, but if you're excited you can see the truck at the dates and locations below the ad, which we've included if you, like us, need a little help getting excited.

We need your consent to load this Social Media content We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Manage Preference

Cork

Nov 30, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Mahon Point Shopping Centre

Video of the Day

Limerick

Dec 1, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Parkway Shopping Centre, Dublin Rd

Galway

Dec 2, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Galways Shopping Centre, Headford Rd

Dublin

Dec 3, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Liffey Valley, 22 Fonthill Rd, Clondalkin

Belfast

Dec 6, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

The Odyssey Arena, 2 Queens Quay

Derry

Dec 7, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Foyleside Shopping Centre, Orchard St

Dundalk

Dec 8, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Marshes Shopping Centre, Marshes Avenue

Drogheda

Dec 15, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

M1 Retail Park, Mell, Drogheda, Co. Louth

Dublin

Dec 16, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Smithfield Square, Smithfield, Arran Quay

Kilkenny

Dec 17, 2017

2:00 PM - 8:00 PM

The Parade, Kilkenny
Julien Baker, 22, sings her heart out in ways both new and reassuringly familiar.

The Memphis, Tennessee songwriter, whose Irish debut was an instant sellout, is confessional and troubled in an often conventional fashion.

Her heart has been broken; she has a sneaking inclination the world is against her; she doesnt, in that millennial way, know whether to laugh, cry, or throw her hands in the air.

But there's a powerful defiance behind the angst, while her lyrics brim with oblique references to her Christian faith. An added imponderable is that she is gay  conjuring a powder keg of contradictions in the context of Americas religion and homophobia infused culture wars.

Happily here in Ireland she can be welcomed, straightforwardly, as the most exciting new songwriter of the past several years. A set loaded with cathartic dirges, many drawn from new LP Turn Out The Lights, is unexpectedly uplifting, with Baker flitting between guitar and piano to deliver material simultaneously suffused in darkness and lit up with optimism.

One annoyance is a typically eager to be loved Dublin crowd, whose insistently matey sing-alongs occasionally overshadow the sparse majesty of Baker's voice. She, however, enjoys the sweltering adoration even as she pushes her sad and exquisite compositions once towards ever more melodramatic heights.
THE brother of embattled Government minister John Halligan has lashed out at the decision by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) to award 7,500 to a senior female civil servant who was discriminated against in a job interview.

Brendan Halligan, who also serves as the election agent for his brother John, described the ruling as fundamentally wrong and said he does not believe his brother should foot the bill.

His comments appear to put him at odds with his brother who today said he will contact the WRC to discuss the issue of how he can cover the costs associated with the decision.

Minister Halligan has been at the centre of a sexism storm after it emerged he asked a senior civil servant during a job interview whether she was married and had children. The womans application for the job in Mr Halligans office was unsuccessful.

The minister today tried to draw a line under the controversy, telling RTEs Today with Sean ORourke programme that he was sorry for his actions.

But the controversy has since reignited following a separate radio interview given by the ministers brother, Brendan.

In an interview with Eamon Keane on WLR radio, Brendan Halligan cited a number of areas of trauma, such as rape and abortion, saying that his brother has always stood up for victims.

And he suggested that the WRC ruling was fuelled by what he described as a claims culture in Ireland.

While insisting that his brothers comments were wrong and careless, Brendan Halligan said it was the incorrect decision to issue a 7,500 fine.

Im saying he shouldn't pay it. It is my view he shouldnt pay it. Ill tell you why he shouldnt pay it. I think the diktat that came down from Workplace Relations Commission... I think they were fundamentally wrong in making that sort of payment for that sort of discrimination, Mr Halligan told the Deise AM programme.

While insisting that he is not minimalising or diminishing the womans experience, Mr Halligan then cited a number of other areas of trauma.

What I call distress and trauma is a woman or a girl who has been raped. And she makes a decision that she wants to go and have an abortion and she can't do it because the supports aren't in this country to do it, Brendan Halligan said.

What I consider distress and trauma is somebody thats after being violated or abused and doesnt have the supports there.

Brendan Halligan attacked Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger, saying that there was a concerted effort to force his brother out of the job.

And he attacked what he said is a claims culture in Ireland.

I think it becomes easy for someone to say theyve been discriminated against or hard done by, Mr Halligan said, stressing that he is not talking about this case particularly.

Many senior figures have commended the female official involved for bringing her case to the WRC, who ultimately ruled that Mr Halligan's comments were in breach of equality legislation.

Among them was Arts Minister Heather Humphreys who last night praised the woman for her courage in taking the case and said the line of questioning was unacceptable.

"While I don't think he meant anything untoward, anyone going on an interview panel needs to make themselves aware of what they can and cannot ask," Ms Humphreys told the Irish Independent.

"I would like to commend the official who came forward with her complaint because it took bravery and conviction to do so. What this case does show us is that the processes we have in place work - the official was asked an inappropriate question in a job interview by a minister, took a case to the WRC, and won."
The company behind The Ivy restaurant, a celebrity hangout in London's West End, has secured the green light to bring its glamour and style to Dublin.

Dublin City Council granted planning permission for The Ivy to fit out a new restaurant on Dawson Street. In giving The Ivy Brasserie the go-ahead, the planning authority has backtracked on earlier demands that a large portion of the ground floor be dedicated to retail.

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A letter from The Ivy Collection stated that it had signed a 20-year lease with Green Reit plc on the premises with no break clause "so we are committed to making a long-term investment in Dublin".

Some of the celebs who frequent The Ivy in London include Hollywood stars Bradley Cooper, Tom Cruise, and Angelina Jolie, while Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham, Uma Thurman and Kate Hudson have all been on the reservation hotline.
THE mother of a prison inmate who died weeks after he was assaulted by another prisoner in a row over a TV remote control has settled her High Court action against the State for 3,000.

Father-of-one, David Byrne, who was serving a six months in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin for theft, was hit over the head with a sock containing two batteries by an inmate who thought he had taken the TV remote control.

Byrne was taken to hospital but later brought back to prison.

The 29-year old was found unconscious in his cell the following morning. He remained in a coma for 25 days in hospital where he passed away on July 3, 2009.

On Friday, the High Court was told the case had been settled for a very modest sum of 3,000 after an expert report showed there was no intelligence among prisons staff that Mr Byrne was under any threat from other prisoners. It also found there was no evidence Mr Byrne was anything but a normal type of prisoner.

Mr Byrne's mother, Margaret Byrne , Mariners Port, Sheriff Street, Dublin, had sued the State over the assault.

It was claimed there was an alleged failure to prevent Mr Byrne from being assaulted and an alleged failure to take appropriate precautions to protect persons at or in the prison.

The claims were denied and it was contended there was no delay in coming to Mr Byrne's assistance. It was also denied the assault was foreseeable.

Approving the settlement Mr Justice Kevin Cross sympathised with Mrs Byrne but said if the case had gone to trial it would not have been successful.

Six years ago, Alan Smith (34) of Ballybough House, Ballybough Road and Buttercup Park, Darndale, both Dublin, pleaded guilty before the Central Criminal Court to the manslaughter of Mr Byrne.

That court heard on the evening of June 3, 2009, Smith hit Byrne over the head with a sock containing two batteries because he thought the victim had taken the TV remote control.

Byrne was seen by a nurse in a hospital A&E but insisted on being brought back to prison. He also declined to see the prison doctor.

He was found unconscious in his cell the following morning. He remained in a coma for 25 days in the neurosurgical unit of Beaumont Hospital, where he died on July 3.

Mr Justice Paul Carney, who suspended the last three years of Smith's sentence, said matters would probably have turned out differently, had David Byrne not insisted on rejecting medical attention.
THREE TEENAGERS including two brothers have appeared in Tallaght District Court this morning charged with the rape of a 15-year-old girl in 2016.

The first teenager, aged 17, who has an address in Tallaght, the second teen, also 17, who also has an address in Tallaght, the third teenager, aged 15, who has an address in Dublin and is the second teenager's brother, all appeared separately before Judge Patricia McNamara.

They are all charged with raping the female at a location in Tallaght on January 25, 2016.

The third teenager is also charged with sexually assaulting the same female also on January 25, 2016.

The three teenagers would have been aged 16, 16 and 14 at the time of the alleged incident.

Sergeant Eithne Madden gave evidence of arrest, charge and caution by certificate in respect of each accused. She said the DPP had directed trial on indictment and asked for a remand for eight weeks for service of the book of evidence.

The first teenager appeared in court accompanied by his aunt and grandmother. The two brothers were accompanied by their parents.

Sgt Madden asked that a bail condition be added to each accused directing that they stay away and have no contact with the alleged injured party.

Judge McNamara asked if there would be a Section 75 enquiry under the Childrens Act to try the case summarily in the District Court.

The first teenagers solicitor, Michael Hennessy, said that due to the nature of the charge, a Section 75 enquiry would not apply and the case would go straight to the Central Criminal Court.

Adding the bail condition, Judge McNamara remanded the three teenagers on bail to a date in December for service of the book of evidence.
Gardai have arrested a 35-year-old man in relation to the murder of Anne Colomines.

French native Ms Colomines (37) was found stabbed to death in her Dublin home.

The financial executive was killed on October 24, 2017.

Gardai arrested the man earlier today in Dublin city.

He is currently detained at Mountjoy Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 as amended.

The investigation is ongoing and further updates will follow.
The law banning the sale of cheap alcohol looks set to be delayed until the measure is in place in Northern Ireland.

But Health Minister Simon Harris has been warned that any further watering down of the Public Health Alcohol Bill will cost lives.

The Irish Independent yesterday revealed that controversial legislation aimed at outlawing cheap drink would see the price of some beers and ciders double in the supermarkets.

The proposal will force alcohol to be sold no cheaper than 10c per gramme, pushing the cost of a bottle of wine to a minimum of 7.50.

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But there was immediate concern that the shift in pricing would send shoppers north of the Border in their droves.

A spokeswoman for Mr Harris confirmed "he would like to see an all-island approach to minimum unit pricing and notes that there has been considerable support for minimum unit pricing in the North".

However, there is no sign of devolved government in Northern Ireland being restored following the collapse of the assembly in January.

And the introduction of minimum pricing across the UK has had to be put on hold due to a legal challenge to proposed legislation in Scotland.

The prospect of yet another delay in the Public Health Alcohol Bill, which eventually returned to the Seanad this week, drew heavy criticism from health experts last night.

They warned they are witnessing at first hand the damaging effects of excessive drinking, including suicides.

"The legislation has already been delayed for long enough. At this stage, it is at risk of dying from a thousand cuts," warned Dr John Hillery of the College of Psychiatrists.

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He added that if the legislation was passed by the Oireachtas, it needed to proceed without delay.

"We see children experiencing severe emotional problems against a background of abuse and neglect caused by parental heavy drinking," he said.

"Teenagers are drinking two years earlier than a generation ago and this is linked to an array of mood and psychological problems.

"Suicidal behaviour can emerge in the teenage years with one-third of episodes alcohol-related.

"Half of all suicides are alcohol-related.

"Many of our adult patients with depression have their problems greatly exacerbated by their own, or by their partner's, drinking."

Alcohol is already more expensive in the Republic compared to Northern Ireland, due to differences in Vat, excise duty and pricing strategies by retailers in both jurisdictions.

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It means that a 2.05 can of lager in the Republic costs the equivalent of 1.70 in the North.

A 24.89 bottle of whiskey in the Republic costs 21.46 in the North.

Even if minimum pricing is introduced in Northern Ireland, it would need to be a considerable hike to bring the threshold on a par with that planned for the Republic.

A spokesman for the UK Home Office told the Irish Independent yesterday: "The minimum price of alcohol is under review pending the outcome of the legal case between the Scottish government and the Scotch Whisky Association, and any subsequent introduction in Scotland."

Meanwhile, there are also indications that other unpopular elements of the legislation may be toned down.

It would mean shops would be spared having to structurally separate alcohol if they introduced turnstiles at the stores instead.

Meanwhile, the majority of Independent.ie readers have said that the new proposal won't change their drinking habits.

Almost 16,000 people responded to our poll and 80 pc said it won't make a difference to them.

17 pc of respondents - 2,697 - said the measures will impact on how they drink, while 5 pc said they aren't sure how it will affect them.
A young mother of a boy with severe autism says she has "nowhere to turn" having waited more than two years for respite care for her child.

Five-year-old Cathal Griffin was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. His mother Catherine Griffin (34) has her hands full caring for her autistic son as well as his younger brother Joey (4).

Cathal, who is nonverbal, has been put on a waiting lists for two different facilities.

His condition requires round-the-clock care, which Ms Griffin said can "take its toll".

"I am a full-time carer day and night, and without hesitation gave up my career to look after Cathal. There's no help and nowhere to turn," she said.

She has been asked to be bridesmaid at her sister's wedding next year, but doesn't know if she can attend, as she has nobody who is able to look after her son. She feels she is not getting adequate support for Cathal's needs.

"The bigger he gets, the harder it will be," the mother, who lives in Kilcoolan, near Ballyneety village, Co Limerick, told the 'Limerick Leader'.

A spokesperson from the HSE said that in the Mid-West, children with complex needs can avail of multi-disciplinary supports through seven Early Intervention Teams and six School Age Teams.

Ms Griffin said that it is "all reports but there is no follow-up and interventions. If anything happens to me, I don't know what would happen to Cathal, as my parents wouldn't be able to look after him".

According to Ms Griffin, who previously worked in hotel management, the last time Cathal got speech therapy was seven months ago and she said that "it's not the therapist's fault, it's down to staffing issues".

A spokesperson for the HSE said: "In general, there is a high and increasing demand for respite services for children across the country and the Mid-West is no different in this regard.

"We do provide respite through our partner agencies."

While the HSE explained it does not comment on individual cases, it encourages families and parents who are in difficulty to contact a health professional most familiar with them, or its complaints mechanism "Your Service, Your Say".
Junior Minister John Halligan has insisted he will not resign over the sexism scandal that has thrown the Independent Alliance into turmoil.

But Mr Halligan said he was prepared to personally pick up the 7,500 compensation sum paid by the Department of Education to a senior civil servant who failed to land a job in his office.

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He said he regretted his action and would not appeal the decision, despite previously indicating that he was considering doing so.

The Waterford TD has found himself at the centre of a political storm after it emerged he asked the woman during a job interview whether she was married and had children.

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The woman this week won a case at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which found that she was discriminated against.

The Labour Party and Sinn Fein have called on Mr Halligan to consider his position, while various Fine Gael and Fianna Fail figures criticised him. Last night, Arts Minister Heather Humphreys praised the woman for her courage in taking the case and said the line of questioning was unacceptable.

"While I don't think he meant anything untoward, anyone going on an interview panel needs to make themselves aware of what they can and cannot ask," Ms Humphreys told the Irish Independent.

"I would like to commend the official who came forward with her complaint because it took bravery and conviction to do so. What this case does show us is that the processes we have in place work - the official was asked an inappropriate question in a job interview by a minister, took a case to the WRC, and won."

Other senior ministers such as Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty, Children's Minister Katherine Zappone and Regional Affairs Minister Michael Ring criticised the comments.

Sources close to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the incident should not have happened.

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But speaking to the Irish Independent from Thailand last night, Mr Halligan said: "I'm out here with the Thai government and my officials working on educational issues," he said.

"I like what I'm doing and I'm not going to resign.

"I made a mistake and it was a genuine error," he added.

The WRC ruling found the executive officer, who has been employed by the civil service since 1993, applied for one of two posts of private secretary in May 2016 to two junior Government ministers in the same Government department.

At the interview, Mr Halligan said to the official: "I shouldn't be asking you this, but... are you a married woman? Do you have children? How old are your children?"

The female official answered the questions and confirmed that she was married and that she was the mother of two children, and she indicated their ages.

In reply, the minister observed: "You must be very busy."

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Last night, fellow Independent Alliance member, Minister Shane Ross, backed his colleague on RTE's 'Prime Time'. "It's not untenable, it's something for which he has said he's extremely sorry," Mr Ross said.

"He's offered to pay the 7,500 himself and to ask for him to pay the ultimate price of resigning, when he's a very fine minister, I think is going too far."

Meanwhile, Mr Ross confirmed he and two other members of the Independent Alliance will not travel to North Korea for a proposed peace trip, which had been widely ridiculed. "It's off. The trip to North Korea, it is not Government policy and we are not doing anything which is in breach of Government policy," Mr Ross said.
One of Sinn Fein's most high-profile councillors has quit the party amid claims he and his family were subjected to "unfounded and untruthful allegations".

Tipperary representative Seamus 'Seamie' Morris will now serve as an independent councillor after becoming the latest figure to resign over an alleged bullying culture.

Sinn Fein bosses were not surprised at Mr Morris's announcement as he has repeatedly threatened his resignation in recent weeks.

But the move puts the spotlight back once again on the alleged bullying culture as the party prepares for its Ard Fheis, which is likely to be Gerry Adams's last one as Sinn Fein president.

Mr Morris has been engaged in an internal inquiry process after claiming he was subjected to a smear campaign.

In September, Mr Morris said he had considered taking his own life after he was expelled from his local party branch in Tipperary.

He said then that he was a "victim of an intense nine-month hate campaign of harassment and slander".

He has been one of a number of councillors and former party officials who have acted as confidantes to other members who have considered quitting the party over the alleged bullying culture. A recent meeting of disaffected members took place in Waterford.

In a statement released to the Irish Independent yesterday, Mr Morris detailed his decision to resign.

"These unaddressed allegations have had a desperate impact on my family and myself over the last number of months," Mr Morris said.

"Due process has not been followed to resolve the situation to a point now, where for the sake of my family and my own health, I am leaving the party."

Mr Morris said he had quit knowing that he had "served Sinn Fein well and leave with my core beliefs of honesty and integrity being fundamental intact".

He added: "It is with regret that I say that I have no faith in the Sinn Fein process of investigation.

"Any further participation in this [investigative process] will be through my own legal counsel."

In a statement, Sinn Fein said Mr Morris's resignation was not a surprise. The party rejected the claims made in his statement.

"Contrary to Councillor Morris's public comments, there was an exhaustive review process put in place at his request," a spokesman said.

"The party found no evidence of a smear campaign against Councillor Morris.

"As part of that process, complaints were made against Councillor Morris regarding his behaviour towards fellow party members in the constituency.

"The party had been looking into these complaints.

"Councillor Morris was due to answer the complaints last week. He sought an extension of time. That was granted and he was due to answer the complaints in writing this evening.

"It seems he has decided to leave the party rather than answer the complaints made against him."
When a friend recently turned 40, I called her to see what shed like for a gift. I was thinking shoes, scarf What she asked for was a donation to help her cover the cost of freezing her eggs.

My friend desperately wants children and hasnt met Mr Right. So although she knows she has left it a bit late, shes decided to freeze her eggs, just in case.

Egg-freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) is a medical procedure whereby a number of eggs are extracted from the ovaries and frozen for use in the future.

The rising trend among women now is known as social egg-freezing, where eggs are frozen for lifestyle, rather than medical, reasons.

Social freezing gives women time to focus on their career or meet someone with whom they want to start a family. Other women do it in case they never meet Mr Right and decide to go it alone. Essentially, it gives women options and takes the pressure off their ever-ticking fertility clocks. My friend was a bit late in freezing hers. Most clinics urge you to freeze your eggs a decade earlier  at 30  before your fertility falls off a cliff.

Beacon CARE Fertility expert Bart Kuczera warns that fertility levels in ladies plunge dramatically as they approach 40. A womans fertility begins to decline at 30, with a significant drop at 35 and an even more significant drop by the time a woman reaches 40. Often the biggest problem facing patients is reduced egg quality, which often leads to failed IVF or miscarriage.

Of the profile of women coming to the Beacon CARE Fertility clinic for egg freezing, medical director Ahmed Omar says: The average age for freezing their eggs is around 37. Ideally, women should be 36 or less. It is not advisable after 38.

But as well as the social freezing, there is also the medical side. For a woman who has cancer, freezing is something she can do to protect her eggs from being damaged by chemotherapy.

Although social freezing is a relatively new option, increasing numbers of young women are open to the idea as a kind of insurance policy for their future.

The average age of Irish women having a baby in 2016 rose to 33.

On top of which, 43,761 fewer women aged 20-39 had babies compared to similar figures from the 2011 Census.

The highest number of babies born to women aged 45 and over was recorded in Donegal, with the lowest rate in Galway city. It looks like Donegal might be the place where fertility clinics should spend their advertising budgets.

Companies now are getting on board with egg-freezing too, in an effort to help young female employees. Among the many perks employees enjoy at tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google is egg-freezing.

It started in 2014, when Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg heard from a female employee with cancer that she couldnt afford to freeze her eggs; nor could she convince her insurance provider to cover the cost. Without egg-freezing, she and her partner were unlikely to have children of their own, due to the risks posed by her cancer drugs.

I talked about it with our head of HR and said, God we should cover this, Sandberg said. And then we looked at each other and said, Why would we only cover this for women with cancer, why wouldnt we cover this more broadly?

The benefit of offering egg-freezing is meant to help younger female employees who may not want children in their 20s but dont want all the risks that come with delaying childbirth into their 30s and sometimes 40s.

So, how much does it cost and what are the success rates? One egg-freezing cycle, plus storage for a year, costs about 3,000. However, if you later decide to have IVF using your frozen eggs, the cost will double. It is certainly not a decision to be taken lightly physically, emotionally or financially.

The concern among the medical field is that the option of freezing eggs can lull women into a false sense of security. Many women presume that by freezing their eggs when they are 30, theyll easily have a baby when they are ready at 40.

But its not straightforward.

The main challenge to success with frozen eggs is to survive the thawing process. According to Ahmed Omar: Chances of survival is 80-85pc but the survival is much lower for eggs frozen in women above 38 years. It is accepted that if the eggs survive the thaw, the chance of success is comparable with fresh eggs, which is dependent on female age.

A large study performed by the CDC (American National Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion) in 2012, looking at the national outcomes of assisted reproduction cycles using frozen non-donor eggs, indicated clinical pregnancy rate of 35.9pc for all ages.

This statistic is similar to outcomes with fresh eggs, said Mr Omar.

Whatever their reasons for doing it, egg-freezing gives women options they previously never had.

And even if the success rates are still low, if it can give a young woman peace of mind while she undergoes chemotherapy or merely the time to find the right partner, then its worth a shot.
Two pages from Ryanair's new 'Getaway Cafe' menu

Taking off? Hungry? Ryanair has just launched a "healthier" in-flight menu.

The new menu for its 'Getaway Cafe', the name given to its onboard food and drinks service, is published in the airline's latest in-flight magazine.

It offers "a wide range of delicious" food, snacks and drinks along with "some tempting new healthier additions, including Fulfil Nutrition bars," the airline says.

And the price for staying healthy at 30,000 feet? Fulfil bars cost 3, a ratatouille is priced at 6, and a pack of olives will set you back 1.50.

Despite the handful of healthy additions, however, the menu also includes a familiar line-up of paninis, sambos, super noodles, snack packs and treats.

Ryanair's top sellers?

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"Our freshly brewed Lavazza coffee, Boxerchips and our world famous ham and cheese paninis," the airline told Independent.ie Travel.

Dining out on those three favourites will set you back 3 (coffee), 2.50 (Boxerchips) and 5.50 for the "world famous" paninis.

Mile-high menus: Whats' cooking?

Short-haul in-flight menus aren't exactly Michelin Star territory, but airlines have upped their game in the years since they started charging for snacks.

British Airways partnered with Marks & Spencer for its ' M&S on board' offering, for example, while Aer Lingus teamed up with Clodagh McKenna for its 'Bia' revamp.

Ryanair has long prided itself on its 12oz fresh Italian Lavazza coffee, now complemented by a smaller, 8oz 'Intenso' brew on the revamped menu.

Expand Close Clodagh McKenna designed a range of in-flight meals for Aer Lingus. / Facebook

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Both it and Aer Lingus charge 3 for teas and coffees, 3 for 500ml bottles of water and 6 for 187ml bottles of red and white wine.

While Ryanair's Fulfil bars and Boxerchips are Irish products, Aer Lingus plays a little more with local provenance - 'Bia' is dotted with brands ranging from Barry's Tea and Franciscan Well beers (5.50) to Tayto crisps (1.50) and Ballymaloe Relish.

The pride of its fleet is an 'Irish breakfast' featuring sausages, bacon, hash browns, tomato, pudding, brown bread, butter, marmalade, OJ and a hot drink for 10. It's a firm favourite with regular customers.

Ryanair also offers several meal deals, however, with a panini or sandwich bundled together with water/hot drink and crisps for the same price.

Fancy an All-Day Breakfast Burrito? The Ryanair wrap, stuffed with "tasty bacon, onion, potato and egg" will set you back 5.50.

You can browse Ryanair's menu here and Aer Lingus's 'Bia' here.

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I'm a creature of habit.

I have been using slightly tweaked variations of the same makeup and worn the same hairstyle for most of my adult life - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? It can take some coaxing for me to try something new and even more for me to fall head over heels in love with a treatment, so you can trust me when I say, I've fallen in love and want to shout it from the rooftops.

Facials that promise the sun, moon and stars are a dime a dozen in Dublin these days, but to deliver on a skincare promise is something of a rarity; that is, before I visited Everyoung salon in Dun Laoghaire.

Owned by Iris Tighe, a beauty industry veteran who was the first woman to bring semi-permanent makeup to Ireland in the '90s, is bringing her cutting edge technologies to the market again. In 2015, she was the first person to bring Fibroblast to our shores and her low-key use of innovative techniques makes for a refreshing change from the over-packaged promises made by some beauty businesses that can often fill our social media feeds.

Now that I'm in my 30s, my skin is changing and more maintenance is required than using the cheapest moisturiser I can find at Boots along with some micellar water.

For more mature skin (which can apply to anyone over 30), there's the Bio Ultimate Facial, which is a non-surgical facelift that helps stimulate natural collagen growth. The machine uses microcurrent technology to reduce the appearance of fine lines and intensely hydrates all your skin - all the things we want (and need)! Its price tag is even better - it's 85 for 75 minutes.

The Personalised Facial (135) delivers what it promises: it's a customised facial that will leave your skin super cleansed, rejuvenated, tightened and glowing after 100 minutes in the salon and it's my personal favourite. It combines the microcurrent and radio frequencies in one treatment, which is another first among Iris' list of achievements in beauty.

Radio frequency is a big buzz word in beauty and is said to be among the anti-ageing secrets of A-listers like Julianne Moore, which is good enough for me.

On arrival, you are tucked into a cosy treatment bed while Iris begins with a deep cleanse using RF, which makes surprisingly little noise. What is most impressive though is how much dirt comes off my 'clean' skin, which has been apparently weighed down by fake tan and makeup that micellar water just couldn't catch. A facial massage follows, which is just as glorious as it sounds, and naturally stimulates the skin before a cell renewing elastine soft mask is applied.

Overall, it's a relaxing experience in the confines of Everyoung's serene surrounds and I've been known to fall asleep on occasion as Iris works her magic on my skin, which is just an added bonus. I'm hooked.

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Verdict: 10/10

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US First Lady Melania Trump attends a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017

U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

US First Lady Melania Trump visits the Beijing Zoo in Beijing on November 10, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURINICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

US First Lady Melania Trump visits the Beijing Zoo in Beijing on November 10, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURINICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

US First Lady Melania Trump visits the Beijing Zoo in Beijing on November 10, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURINICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. first lady Melania Trump attends a welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

U.S. first lady Melania Trump walks along the Mutianyu Great Wall section in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

U.S. first lady Melania Trump reacts to photographers as she walks along the Mutianyu Great Wall section in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

US first lady Melania Trump isn't giving up her luxurious taste with her relatively new role.

Since marrying US president Donald Trump in 2005, the former model has a well documented taste for the finer things in life, including a wardrobe most would kill for. During 'moving day' at the White House, she was toting a 12,000 Hermes Birkin bag and during the G7 Summit in May, she wore a 50,000 coat by Dolce & Gabbana.

Expand Close U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY / Facebook

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With such a precedent, her choice of ensembles have been in keeping with trademark luxury, including a Delpozo coat for 3,595, she looked catwalk ready as she explored the Great Wall of China in a high waisted wool skirt, black polo neck and rather practical shoes - a pair of nude Ballalla Nappa Shiny shoes by Christian Louboutin, which retail for 450.

On Thursday night, she wore a China-themed Gucci gown with pink trim cuff at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
French First Lady Brigitte Macron is seen walking to the United Nations Headquarter on September 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

Ivanka Trump addresses the event "A Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking" on September 19, 2017 at the United Nations in New York. / AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERTDON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump addresses the event "A Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking" on September 19, 2017 at the United Nations in New York. / AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERTDON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump attends the event "A Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking" on September 19, 2017 at the United Nations in New York. / AFP PHOTO / DON EMMERTDON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images

Ivanka Trump departs the United Nations after listening to her father, U.S. President Donald Trump speak at the UN General Assembly on September 19, 2017 in New York City. President Trump addressed his first General Assembly meeting. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

French First Lady Brigitte Macron Takes a Walk along the Hudson River on September 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

French First Lady Brigitte Macron Takes a Walk along the Hudson River on September 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

Brigitte Macron brought her signature style as she jetted to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.

The French first lady (64) was dressed for the autumnal chill in a pair of black skinny jeans, zip up boots, white cotton top and tailored black coat with embellished collar. She landed in the Big Apple on Monday and was pictured exploring the city in her off-duty uniform, strolling along the Hudson River and visiting Ground Zero.

Expand Close French First Lady Brigitte Macron Takes a Walk along the Hudson River on September 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp French First Lady Brigitte Macron Takes a Walk along the Hudson River on September 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

Macron was pictured today walking towards the UN HQ in a creme dress with leather detail, but more interestingly, tied her hair up, brushing her fringe away from her face. The former teacher, who married French president Emmanuel Macron in 2007, is among the many notable international guests representing at the conference - US first daughter Ivanka Trump attended on Tuesday, speaking at the "A Call to Action to End Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking" event.

She was joined by her brother Eric and his wife Lara, who is expecting their first child.

Meanwhile, Brigitte is in town in her capacity as France's official first lady.

"We'll post my meetings and my commitments on the presidency website, so that the French people know exactly what I'm doing," she told French Elle in August.

Expand Close French First Lady Brigitte Macron is seen walking to the United Nations Headquarter on September 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp French First Lady Brigitte Macron is seen walking to the United Nations Headquarter on September 19, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

"What's important is that it is clear. I dont feel like a First Lady. Thats the translation of an American expression, and I dont like anything about it. I dont feel like the first, or the last, or a lady. I am Brigitte Macron!"
French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L) arrive for a state dinner with Lebanon's President General Michel Aoun (2L) and his wife Nadia Al Chami at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on September 25, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / LUDOVIC MARINLUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, poses with Nadia Aoun, wife of Lebanon's President Michel Aoun and their daughters Claudine and Chantal at the Elysee Palace at a start of a state visit in Paris, France, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C) arrive with their dog called Nemo to pose for a family picture with French chefs during an event at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on September 27, 2017

French First Lady Brigitte Macron Takes a Walk along the Hudson River on September 18, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Pierre Suu/GC Images)

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L) arrive for a state dinner with Lebanon's President General Michel Aoun (2L) and his wife Nadia Al Chami at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on September 25, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / LUDOVIC MARINLUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) and his wife Brigitte Macron (R) wait for guests before a state dinner given in honour of Lebanon's President Michel Aoun at the Elysee palace in Paris, France September 25, 2017. Picture taken September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (C) arrive with their dog called Nemo to pose for a family picture with French chefs during an event at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on September 27, 2017

Brigitte Macron doesn't do off days.

In just a few months, the French first lady's personal style has becoming something to look forward to at state dinners or official engagements and on Wednesday, she stayed true to form in a dove grey ensemble - with just the right amount of edge. The 64-year-old opted for a suede dress with zip front detail and buttoned collar by Louis Vuitton, under a masculine-style blazer and matching suede heels.

Brigitte (nee Trogneux) was joined by her husband, French president Emmanuel Macron and their dog Nemo on the grounds of the Elysee Palace in Paris to celebrate the nation's talented chefs with an event and photo op. It was a whirlwind 24 hours of quick changes for the burgeoning style icon. Earlier this week, she dazzled in an LBD while hosting Lebanon's President General Michel Aoun and his wife Nadia Al Chami for a state dinner at the presidential palace.

Expand Close French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L) arrive for a state dinner with Lebanon's President General Michel Aoun (2L) and his wife Nadia Al Chami at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on September 25, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / LUDOVIC MARINLUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp French President Emmanuel Macron (R) and his wife Brigitte Macron (L) arrive for a state dinner with Lebanon's President General Michel Aoun (2L) and his wife Nadia Al Chami at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on September 25, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / LUDOVIC MARINLUDOVIC MARIN/AFP/Getty Images

On Monday, she emphasised the importance of sharp tailoring in a black tuxedo suit, over a white cotton top with a ruffled neckline and a signature pair of killer heels.

Expand Close Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, poses with Nadia Aoun, wife of Lebanon's President Michel Aoun and their daughters Claudine and Chantal at the Elysee Palace at a start of a state visit in Paris, France, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe / Facebook

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Whatsapp Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, poses with Nadia Aoun, wife of Lebanon's President Michel Aoun and their daughters Claudine and Chantal at the Elysee Palace at a start of a state visit in Paris, France, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
A malnourished Yemeni child receives treatment at a hospital in the port city of Hodeidah earlier this week

The UN humanitarian chief has warned that unless the Saudi-led military coalition lifts its blockade on Yemen, the war-torn nation will face "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims".

Mark Lowcock told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council behind closed doors that there must be an immediate resumption of regular air flights to the cities of Aden and Sanaa by the United Nations and its humanitarian partners.

He added there also had to be immediate access to all ports, especially for food, fuel, medicine and other essential supplies.

The coalition tightened its blockade in Yemen this week after a ballistic missile fired by Houthi rebels was intercepted near the Saudi capital - an act condemned by Mr Lowcock and the Security Council.

The UN said aid agencies were given no prior notice of the Saudi decision to shut down all land, air and seaports in Yemen.

Mr Lowcock said he told the council that "there will be famine in Yemen" unless five steps are taken immediately.

"It will not be like the famine that we saw in South Sudan earlier in the year where tens of thousands of people were affected," he said.

"It will not be like the famine which cost 250,000 people their lives in Somalia in 2011. It will be the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims."

He said the five immediate steps needed were: resumption of air services; assurances flights will not be disrupted; opening of all ports to humanitarian and commercial vessels, especially those with critical supplies; agreement to keep a UN World Food Programme ship in waters off Aden; and a halt to interference with all vessels that have passed inspection by the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism.

Mr Lowcock stressed the last point, adding: "This is important because humanitarian access to the ports was inadequate even before the measures announced on November 6 [by the coalition].

"What we need to see is a reduction of blockages on all sides, not an increase in them."

David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, said on Monday that out of Yemen's population of 27 million to 28 million people, 19 million to 20 million "do not know where they're going to get their next meal".

The agency is reaching only seven million Yemenis, he said, "partly because of lack of funds and partly because of lack of access" by the coalition and the Houthis.

Mr Lowcock said he couldn't put a timeline on famine if the Saudi blockade isn't lifted, but it was inevitable.
Talks on a Pacific Rim trade pact abandoned by US president Donald Trump appear to have stalled as Canada baulked at a basic agreement worked out in top-level talks hours before.

Mr Trump pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in January, and l eaders of the 11 countries remaining in the pact had been due to meet and endorse a deal worked out at a ministerial level overnight.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said that the 11 leaders had to postpone their meeting on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (Apec) in Danang, Vietnam.

Mr Abe, who was due to co-chair the meeting, said: "It was said that it is not at a stage where (the agreement) can be confirmed at the summit level."

He made the comments to Japanese reporters after meeting with his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, who stayed away from the planned TPP leaders' gathering while most other leaders showed up.

There was no immediate word from Canada on its stance. However, Mr Trudeau had said days earlier that Canada would not be rushed into an agreement.

The chances for a deal by the time the summit ends on Saturday are unclear.

Earlier in the day, officials from Japan and some other countries expressed differing opinions on whether an "agreement in principle" had been reached.

The TPP member countries are trying to find a way forward without the US, the biggest economy and, before Mr Trump took office, one of its most assertive supporters.

Mr Trump has said he prefers country-to-country deals and is seeking to renegotiate several major trade agreements to, as he says, "put America first".

Vietnamese officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr Trump reiterated his markedly different stance on trade before the 21-member Apec summit convenes on Friday with a gala banquet.

The US president lambasted the World Trade Organisation and other trade forums as unfair to the United States and reiterated his preference for bilateral trade deals, saying "I am always going to put America first".

Mr Trump said he would not enter into large trade agreements, alluding to US involvement in the North American Free Trade Agreement and the TPP.

In contrast, Chinese president Xi Jinping told the same group that nations need to stay committed to economic openness or risk being left behind.

The Chinese president drew loud applause when he urged support for the "multilateral trading regime" and progress toward a free trade zone in the Asia-Pacific.

Apec operates by consensus and customarily issues non-binding statements.

TPP commitments would eventually be ratified and enforced by its members.

But even talks this week on a declaration to cap the Apec summit had to be extended for an extra half day as ministers haggled over wording.

It is unclear what the exact sticking points were, but officials have alluded to differences over the unequal impact more open trade has had on workers and concerns over automation in manufacturing that could leave millions of people in a wide array of industries with no work.

As a developing country with a fast-growing export sector, this year's host country, Vietnam, has a strong interest in open trade and access for its exports to consumers in the west.

The summit is an occasion for its leaders to showcase the progress its economy has made thanks largely to foreign investment and trade.

Danang, Vietnam's third largest city, is in the midst of a construction boom as dozens of resorts and smaller hotels pop up along its scenic coastline.

Apec's members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.

AP
Beijing Zoos world famous giant pandas refused to be upstaged when Melania Trump came to visit, with one cheekily photobombing the First Lady.

The 47-year-old former model met giant panda Gu Gu on her trip and got to learn about his nutrition and training.

She was greeted by a group of school children who waved Chinese and American flags while singing a Chinese folk song at the panda enclosure.

The pandas seemed to appreciate the song, with one of the animals appearing in the background as Melania posed for a photo with the children.

Expand Close U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter / Facebook

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She also signed a panda print during the visit, writing: Thank you to the Beijing Zoo! Wonderful to meet Gu Gu! Melania Trump.

The zoos director Li Xiaoguang told AFP that Gu Gu, born in 1999, is a goodwill ambassador of the zoo and a good-looking panda with a robust memory.

Melania was later taken on a tour of the Great Wall of China, where she spent around 30 minutes hiking a section of the famous fortification.

This is beautiful. This is amazing, she said of her visit.

Expand Close U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter / Facebook

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Meanwhile, Donald Trump headed to a summit in Vietnam after his state visit to China as part of his five-nation tour of Asia.

He tweeted: I am leaving China for #APEC2017 in Vietnam. @FLOTUS Melania is staying behind to see the zoo, and of course, the Great WALL of China before going to Alaska to greet our AMAZING troops.

Earlier in his trip, the US presidents unorthodox fish-feeding technique was a talking point on social media.
A Taiwanese man who was missing on a mountain in Nepal for 47 days has been rescued, but his girlfriend died just three days before they were discovered, trekking officials said.

Asian Trekking agency official Madhav Basnet said 21-year-old Liang Sheng Yueh was found on Wednesday on a ledge under a waterfall and was flown by helicopter to a hospital in the capital, Kathmandu.

He said the body of his girlfriend, 19-year-old Liu Chen Chun, was also taken to the capital.

They were on a long trek on the Ganesh Himal trail, which is not as crowded as other popular routes, and were caught in a snowstorm in March and lost their way.

According to Mr Basnet, they appeared to have followed a river hoping to find a village but slipped and fell over a waterfall.

They landed on the ledge and were unable to climb up or down. The area is an altitude of 2,600 metres.

Mr Basnet said the weather improved a few days after the snowstorm, but the temperature was unclear.

They had no guides or porters and were carrying their own food, tent and sleeping bags.

For the first two weeks they survived on food they had in their backpacks, but after that they consumed only salt and water, he said.

Rescuers first scoured the area for two weeks before suspending their search, but resumed the search on April 20.

Mr Basnet said they spotted a red tent and managed to climb down.

"We found the man alive and able to speak to us, but the woman was already dead. We could not carry them so we called a helicopter," Mr Basnet said.

The man was winched up by the helicopter and immediately flown to Kathmandu, followed by the body of the woman.

The man appeared to be in good health in the emergency room.

"He appears exhausted and lost some 30 kilogrammes of body weight," said Ajay Singh Thapa, a doctor at the Grande Hospital.

"He was suffering from severe malnutrition. His foot was covered with maggots and hair full of lice. Despite having to live like that for 47 days, he appears to be mostly normal."

He said the man probably could survive because he was able to get both salt and water in his body.

The man said he spent the past three days next to the body of his dead girlfriend.
US President Donald Trump lavished praise on Chinese leader Xi Jinping yesterday, touting "great chemistry" between them while refusing to criticise his counterpart for the trade imbalance that Mr Trump railed against during his campaign.

Speaking at a joint appearance with Mr Xi in front of business leaders, Mr Trump said the US trade relationship with China was "a very one-sided and unfair one". But, he quickly added: "I don't blame China. Who can blame a country that is able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit."

During the presidential campaign, Mr Trump accused China of "raping" the US economy and threatened to label the country a "currency manipulator" - even though economic analysts have said Beijing has not artificially inflated its renminbi currency for years. In his remarks yesterday, Mr Trump reiterated that the United States must "change its policies" but he offered no details about actions his administration will pursue.

"We've gotten so far behind on trade with China and frankly many other countries," Mr Trump said ahead of a bilateral meeting with Mr Xi, before adding he had "great respect" for Mr Xi for "representing China".

Expand Close China's President Xi Jinping arrive at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo: Thomas Peter/Getty Images / Facebook

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Mr Trump blamed past US administrations "for having allowed it to get so far out of kilter. We'll make it fair, and it'll be tremendous for both of us. My feeling toward you is incredibly warm. We have great chemistry. I think we'll do tremendous things, China and the US."

Their high-stakes, two-day summit is being closely watched for signs of how the leaders of the world's two biggest economies will be able to co-operate on issues from North Korea to trade to cyber security amid mounting challenges in the Asia-Pacific. Mr Trump is hoping to win concessions from Mr Xi, but the Chinese leader is in a strong position after having consolidated power at a Communist Party congress last month.

The two countries announced memorandums of understanding to increase trade by $253bn (217bn), which they said was a sign of greater co-operation.

In contrast to Mr Trump's effusive praise, Mr Xi appeared reserved and spoke in carefully scripted language about "win-win" co-operation and a "new starting point" for the bilateral relationship - language Beijing has employed in a bid to get the United States to agree to allow China to operate in its "sphere of influence" in Asia without meddling.

Mr Xi did not talk in personal terms about Mr Trump.

The United States and China had clashed on issues from cyber security to trade in the final years of the Obama administration, though they had struck a landmark climate deal during Barack Obama's 2014 visit to Beijing that served as a prelude to the Paris climate accord.

Mr Trump has announced intentions to withdraw the United States from that agreement, but Mr Xi has pledged to make China a leader on reducing carbon emissions.

Mr Xi vowed to work together in the "spirit of mutual respect and mutual benefit."

During a joint statement with Mr Xi in front of reporters, Mr Trump reiterated his harsh criticism of North Korea and said he and Mr Xi discussed their shared goal of pursuing the "complete denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula. "We call on all responsible nations to join together to stop arming and financing and even trading with the murderous North Korean regime," Mr Trump said.

But the two leaders did not take questions from reporters, a win for Mr Xi, who oversees an authoritarian system that has sought to sharply limit free speech and press freedoms.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, briefing reporters after the meetings, said the US delegation was "quite pleased" because there was "no disagreement" on North Korea. Mr Trump pressed Mr Xi to fully implement the economic sanctions on Pyongyang authorised by the UN Security Council, Mr Tillerson said, and Mr Xi outlined additional steps his government is taking to crack down on banks doing business with the North.

"There was no space between both of our objectives," Mr Tillerson said.

But he cautioned that Mr Xi also emphasised that "it will take time" for the new sanctions to create stress on the North. Chinese state media appeared pleased with the summit. The 'Global Times', known for its nationalist rhetoric, declared that Mr Trump "respects our head of state and has repeatedly praised President Xi in public". ( Washington Post)
The United States and Russia area nearing an agreement on how they hope to resolve Syria's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated, officials have said.

If clinched, the deal could be announced by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after a meeting in Vietnam on Friday, four US officials said. The United States has been reluctant to hold a formal meeting between the leaders unless they have a substantive agreement to announce.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Friday that the two men will not hold a formal meeting due to scheduling conflicts on "both sides" but it was possible they could have a less formal encounter while in Vietnam.

The potential understanding comes as an array of forces are close to a final defeat of IS, which once controlled vast stretches of both Iraq and Syria. Fighting the extremist group is no longer top priority, shifting the focus back to Syria's intractable conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and rebels - and to concerns that foreign powers such as Iran will now dominate the country's future.

The US-Russia agreement being discussed would focus on three elements, officials said: "deconfliction" between the American and Russian militaries, reducing violence in the civil war and reinvigorating UN-led peace talks.

The US and Russian militaries have maintained a "deconfliction" hotline for years to avoid unintended collisions and even potential confrontations as they each operate in Syria's crowded skies. A heavy air campaign by Russia has been credited with shoring up the position of Assad, a close ally of Moscow.

With IS nearing defeat, the US and Russia are losing their common enemy in Syria and will remain in a proxy battle in which Russia backs Assad and the US lends at least rhetorical support to armed opposition groups fighting the government. That has increased the need for close communication between the two powers about where their forces are operating at any given time, officials said.

The agreement also seeks to build on progress in establishing "de-escalation zones" in Syria that have calmed some parts of the country. In July, when Mr Trump held his first meeting with Mr Putin in Germany, the US nd Russia announced a deal that included Jordan and established a ceasefire in south-west Syria. The US has said that ceasefire has largely held and could be replicated elsewhere in the country.

A key American concern, shared by close ally Israel, is the presence of Iranian-backed militias in Syria that have exploited the vacuum of power. The US and Israel have been seeking ways to prevent forces loyal to Iran - Israel's arch-enemy - from establishing a permanent presence. One idea hinges on a "buffer zone" along Israel's border with Syria.

A third element of the deal would reaffirm support for the United Nations effort being run out of Geneva to seek a political transition in Syria and resolve the civil war. The US and Russia have been at odds for years over whether Assad could be allowed to remain in power in a future Syrian government.

The UN talks, which have come in fits and starts without yielding significant progress, are not the only discussions about Syria's future. Russia, Turkey and Iran have been brokering their own process in Astana, Kazakhstan. The US views those talks warily because of Iran's involvement, though they have led to local ceasefire deals that have also reduced violence.

"We believe that the Geneva process is the right way to go," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. "Unfortunately, it is a long way off, but we're getting a little bit closer."

The US-Russia deal may also seek to expand the mandate of a joint "monitoring centre" established this year in Amman, Jordan, to watch for ceasefire violations and other developments on the ground. It has focused on south-west Syria, where the ceasefire is in place, but could be used to monitor broader stretches of the country.

Although Moscow has sought a formal meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Putin while both are in Vietnam this week, the US has not committed to such a meeting. Washington's concern is that it would not serve US interests unless there is progress between the countries to announce - on Syria or something else. Mr Putin's aides have said a meeting is likely on Friday and that the time, place and format are being worked out between the governments.

"We have been in contact with them, and the view has been, if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting?" Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Beijing on Thursday.

AP
Test-tube pioneer Professor Robert Edwards with Louise Brown - the first of six million babies born using IVF since 1978 Photo: Chris Radburn/PA Wire

The world's first 'test tube baby' has said she hopes families who undergo cutting-edge fertility treatments - such as 'three parent' babies - are not subject to the same harassment her family received after pioneering IVF.

Louise Brown's family was bombarded with hate mail after she was born. In an interview with the Press Association, Ms Brown (39) said she was still subject to "cruel and ill-informed" comments online.

Expand Close Louise shortly after her birth Photo: PA Photo / Facebook

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She hoped people who undergo today's pioneering fertility treatments - such as mitochondrial replacement therapy - did not suffer the same barrage of negativity.

On November 10, 1977, exactly 40 years ago, Lesley Brown, who with husband John had been trying to conceive for nine years, fell pregnant after undergoing in-vitro fertilisation.

Nine months later, their daughter Louise was born. Six million babies have been born thanks to the technique.

Ms Brown, a clerk at a freight company, said: "People put cruel and ill-informed comments on the internet just about whenever there is a story about me. But I just ignore it."

Asked whether she thought families who use the 'three-person baby' technique will get similar mail, she replied: "I hope they don't."

The world's first three-parent baby was born last year. Abrahim Hassan, whose Jordanian mother was treated by a US team in Mexico, was conceived from an egg containing DNA from his mother and father, and a tiny amount of mitochondrial DNA from a third person - a female donor.

The aim was to prevent a fatal nervous system disorder.
Puppy Sasha was returned to her family several days after she was snatched from her home Victoria Police

A four-year-old girls stolen puppy has been returned to the family seemingly by the thieves who took it.

The eight-week-old labrador, Sasha, was taken along with a laptop, an iPad and jewellery from the familys home in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday.

The puppy had only lived with the family for one week before she was stolen and has a medical condition.

In an attempt to get their pet back, the owners - including four-year-old Maia - posted an appeal on social media that was widely shared.

A couple of days later, Sasha turned up at home - having apparently been dropped off by the remorseful thieves who took her.

A Croydon Hills family have been reunited with their puppy after it was stolen during a burglary on Monday morning, Victoria police said in a statement issued on Thursday morning.

Labrador Sashas owners noticed their beloved pup had been returned to the backyard of their Croydon Hills Drive home about 7.20am this morning.

Speaking to Australia's ABC News, Ryan Hood told reporters his daughter had been left devastated when their dog was snatched.

We didnt want to get our hopes up. And then this morning, my wife got up to make herself a coffee, walked past the sliding door and noticed that there was a figure moving by the kennel, he said.

We think whoever took her has either has a conscience or got scared and just dropped her over the fence, we dont care to be honest, were just glad to have her back.
Dozens of women have made allegations of inappropriate conduct against the movie mogul (AP)

An Israeli intelligence company has apologised for its work with disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and has pledged to donate the proceeds to women's groups.

Asher Tishler, a member of the Black Cube advisory board, said: "Of course we apologise to those hurt by this. Of course women were hurt. Now, in retrospect, it's a shame that we took this job."

Mr Tishler made the apology in an interview to Israel's Channel 2 News this week. He said the firm intends to give the profits from the project to women's groups.

His remarks came after the New Yorker reported Weinstein hired the company, comprised of former intelligence officials, to get information on those working to expose allegations of sexual harassment against him.
US first lady Melania Trump poses for photos near the panda enclosure at a zoo in Beijing (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

US first lady Melania Trump has toured China's Great Wall at Mutianyu.

President Donald Trump's wife rode a cable car to a watchtower, signed a guestbook and strolled along a stretch of the wall situated two hours north of Beijing city centre for about half an hour, accompanied by a small group of aides and security officers.

Mrs Trump received a scroll as a gift and chatted with her Chinese hosts before she departed.

The first lady stayed in China as Mr Trump flew to Danang, Vietnam, to participate in a regional economic and security conference.

She planned to return to Washington after touring the Great Wall. The president tweeted that his wife will first stop in Alaska "to greet our AMAZING troops."

Earlier on Friday, she went to the Beijing zoo to check out the pandas, before being serenaded in English and in Chinese by elementary school children.

Mrs Trump looked on with the students from the Shija elementary school as one panda chomped down on a late breakfast of bamboo shoots and leaves. She then presented the students with gifts of plush bald eagle toys.

Parts of the zoo in Beijing's western fringe were shut down for the visit, but Wang Xumei, pushing her one-year-old granddaughter in a buggy, said she was not put off.

"She's very beautiful and we're very happy to have her and the American president in Beijing," Ms Wang said, adding: "Come back soon."

On Thursday evening the US president and first lady were the guests of honour at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Mr Trump offered a toast to Chinese president Xi Jinping, touting bonds "that will only grow stronger and stronger".

He then introduced a video of his granddaughter Arabella, the daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, singing a traditional Chinese song in Mandarin.

The dinner capped off two days of pageantry and negotiations between Mr Xi and Mr Trump.

At the dinner, neither man made mention of thorny issues like trade and attempts to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

AP
A private, Christian school in Florida is offering bulletproof panels for its students' backpacks.

Florida Christian School in Miami lists a $120 ballistic panel for purchase on its website, under items like red t-shirts and winter gear.

The panels, according to dean of students and head of school security George Gulla, offer "another level of protection" to students "in the event of an active shooter.

"The teachers are trained to instruct the students to use their backpacks as a shield to protect themselves," Gulla told CNN.

Mr Gulla declined to comment when reached by The Independent.

The panels are slim, binder-sized pieces of armour that weigh less than a pound, according to the Miami Herald. They are build to withstand bullets like a .44 Magnum and a .357 SIG, but not those from rifles.

The panels are manufactured by Applied Fiber Concepts, a body armour company owned by Florida Christian parent Alex Cejas. Mr Cejas has been putting the panels into the backpacks of his children, ages 11 and 13, since they started school.

When Mr Gulla started running active shooter drills with students, Mr Cejas took note. He reached out about setting up a custom order for other parents. Mr Gulla told the Herald the reaction from parents has been largely positive.

Mr Gulla started working at Florida Christian in 2012, shortly after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty children and six adults were killed in the shooting, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fire on the Newtown, Connecticut school.

More than 200 school shootings have occurred in the US since then, according to the Los Angeles Times. In October of 2015, for example, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured seven others at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. In 2013, John Zawahri shot and killed four people at Santa Monica College, before killing himself.

In the wake of these shootings, a market has sprung up for bullet-proof school accessories. At bulletblocker.com, parents can buy bulletproof backpack inserts, tablet cases, and binder inserts for their children. A school district in Minnesota spent upward of $25,000 outfitting their classrooms with bulletproof whiteboards.

Many school safety experts, however, are sceptical of the idea.

"After every high-profile school shooting, we have an explosion of gadgets, gurus and charlatans," school safety consultant Kenneth Trump told NPR. "Corporations see dollar signs, and believe that schools have huge budgets to buy new products and services.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the APEC CEO Summit in Danang, Vietnam November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The United States and Russia are nearing an agreement on Syria for how they hope to resolve the Arab country's civil war once the Islamic State group is defeated, officials said on Thursday.

If clinched, the deal was expected to be announced by President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vietnam on Friday, four US officials said.

The United States has been reluctant to schedule a formal meeting for the leaders unless they have a substantive agreement to announce.

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Friday that they will not hold a formal meeting due to scheduling conflicts on "both sides."

Still, Ms Sanders said it was possible Mr Trump and Mr Putin could have a less formal encounter while in Vietnam.

The potential understanding comes as an array of forces are near a final defeat of IS, the extremist group that once controlled vast stretches of both Iraq and Syria.

Fighting the group is no longer top priority, shifting the focus back to Syria's intractable conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and rebels - and to concerns that foreign powers such as Iran will now dominate the country's future.

The US-Russian agreement being discussed would focus on three elements, officials said: "de-confliction" between the US and Russian armed forces, reducing violence in the civil war and reinvigorating UN-led peace talks. The officials weren't authorised to discuss the deliberations and requested anonymity.

The US and Russian armed forces have maintained a "de-confliction" hotline for years to avoid unintended collisions and even potential confrontations as they each operate in Syria's crowded skies.

A heavy air campaign by Russia has been credited with shoring up the position of Mr Assad, a close ally of Moscow.

With IS nearing defeat, the US and Russia are losing their common enemy in Syria and will remain in a proxy battle in which Russia backs Assad and the US lends at least rhetorical support to armed opposition groups fighting the government.

That has increased the need for close communication between the two powers about where their forces are operating at any given time, officials said.

The agreement also seeks to build on progress in establishing "de-escalation zones" in Syria that have calmed some parts of the country.

In July, when M Trump held his first meeting with Mr Putin in Germany, the US and Russia announced a deal that included Jordan and established a cease-fire in southwest Syria.

The United States has said that cease-fire has largely held and could be replicated elsewhere in the country.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has praised Donald Trump's tweeting and called him one of the "great global brands" in a supportive interview on American television.

Mr Johnson told Fox News that Mr Trump was penetrating the "global consciousness" more than many previous presidents.

Mr Johnson said that while some were frustrated with Mr Trump's "rambunctious" tweeting, it was an effective method of communication.

Mr Trump has the approval of just one-in-three Americans and is dogged by party splits and an investigation into his campaign's Russia links.

Mr Johnson's remarks follow a deliberate attempt by the British government to get close to Mr Trump early in his presidency in an attempt to influence his decision-making.

UK prime minister Theresa May became the first foreign leader to visit Mr Trump after his inauguration in January, while Mr Johnson publicly knocked back European critics of the US president around the same time.

Appearing on 'Fox & Friends' during a trip to Washington DC, Mr Johnson gave a positive account of Mr Trump's record in office. He said: "You've got to realise that the American president is just one of the huge, great global brands, and he is penetrating corners of the global consciousness that I think few other presidents have ever done. His method of tweeting early in the morning, no matter how rambunctious those tweets may be, they are communicating with people. And yes, a lot of people don't like it but a lot of people relate to it."

The remarks come with Mr Johnson facing controversy at home over comments about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail term in Iran.

Mr Johnson said Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been "simply teaching people journalism" when she was arrested - contradicting her own account of being on holiday.

The comment has been pounced on by Iranian figures as proof of what Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was really doing in the country.
The crash happened in the Toulouse area of France

A car that rammed into a group of students in France was driven by a man known to have "psychiatric" problems, a prosecutor said.

Toulouse prosecutor Pierre-Yves Couilleau told France's BFM television that three students were injured on Friday when the motorist drove into the group in Blagnac.

Mr Couilleau said the driver claimed he acted deliberately and has been arrested.

BFM television reports that the three people hurt are Chinese students and none of their injuries is considered life-threatening.

The prosecutor said the driver was known to police for about 10 minor crimes and not listed on a French register of people suspected of being radicalised by extremists.

The case has not been referred to France's counter-terrorism prosecutors.

AP
Trade ministers and delegates from the remaining members of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) attend the a ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit on Thursday (AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen, Pool)

US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have shaken hands at a summit in Vietnam.

The two leaders were spotted on video greeting one another ahead of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit gala dinner in the coastal city of Danang.

Mr Trump and Mr Putin were expected to hold a formal meeting on the sidelines of the summit.

However, as Mr Trump was about to land on Friday, the White House announced no meeting would take place.

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed scheduling conflicts.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said earlier this week that the pair would not meet unless they had something substantive to discuss.

Mr Trump is attending a welcome event and gala dinner as part of the summit.

Earlier in the day, Mr Trump used a speech in Vietnam to denounce multilateral agreements embraced by the region, and deliver what appeared to be a rebuke to China, railing against trade practices he says have put Americans out of work.

Promising to put "America first" in his trade practices, he told a gathering of CEOs on the sidelines of the summit: "From this day forward we will compete on a fair and equal basis.

"We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of any more. I am always going to put America first."

It was a striking change of tone from the day before in China, where Mr Trump had taken a friendlier approach toward the country as he sought to establish a more balanced trade relationship.

In his speech, Mr Trump told executives gathered in the coastal city of Danang that he was happy to enter into bilateral trading agreements with any of the nations in the Indo-Pacific region - but only if they are reciprocal and fair.

The US president said: "What we will no longer do is enter into large agreements that tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty, and make meaningful enforcement practically impossible."

As one of his first acts as president, Mr Trump rejected the far-reaching Pacific Rim trade pact, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), disappointing many nations in the region, including the summit's host, Vietnam.

Mr Trump also took aim at what he described as abusive trade practices he said had "hurt many people in our country".

He described "jobs, factories and industries" being "stripped out of the United States and out of many countries" as a result.

Without singling out China by name, Mr Trump argued the US had adhered to World Trade Organisation principles, only to be taken advantage of by counties that had ignored the rules and engaged in harmful practices such as product dumping, currency manipulation and government subsidising of goods.

"We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses and we will not tolerate them," he said.

In the speech, Mr Trump said he had spoken "openly and directly" with Chinese president Xi Jinping during his visit about "about China's unfair trade practices and the enormous trade deficits they have produced with the United States".

Mr Trump said China's trade surplus, which stood at 223 billion dollars (169 billion) for the first 10 months of the year, was unacceptable, and repeated his language from Thursday when he said he did not blame China or any other country "for taking advantage of the United States on trade".

But Mr Trump went on to say that the US would "no longer turn a blind eye to violations, cheating or economic aggression".

He said: "We will no longer tolerate the audacious theft of intellectual property.

"We will confront the destructive practices of forcing businesses to surrender their technology to the state and forcing them into joint ventures in exchange for market access.

"We will address the massive subsidising of industries through colossal state-owned enterprises that put private competitors out of business, all the time."

All are allegations the US has previously lodged against China.

Mr Xi followed Mr Trump to the microphone, but did not directly respond to the US leader's claims of trade unfairness toward the US.

Mr Trump also continued to talk tough against North Korea and its development of nuclear and ballistic missiles weapons, as he has throughout the trip.

"The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator's twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail," he said.

Apec is the first of several summits Mr Trump is scheduled to attend on his first official visit to Asia.

It will be a change in pace for the president, who has spent much of the week basking in elaborate welcome ceremonies and banquets between meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and China.

AP
U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, in Beijing November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

U.S. first lady Melania Trump reacts to photographers as she walks along the Mutianyu Great Wall section in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

U.S. first lady Melania Trump walks along the Mutianyu Great Wall section in Beijing, China, Friday, Nov. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

US first lady Melania Trump has toured China's Great Wall at Mutianyu.

President Donald Trump's wife rode a cable car to a watchtower, signed a guestbook and strolled along a stretch of the wall situated two hours north of Beijing city centre for about half an hour, accompanied by a small group of aides and security officers.

Mrs Trump received a scroll as a gift and chatted with her Chinese hosts before she departed.

The first lady stayed in China as Mr Trump flew to Danang, Vietnam, to participate in a regional economic and security conference.

She planned to return to Washington after touring the Great Wall. The president tweeted that his wife will first stop in Alaska "to greet our AMAZING troops."

Earlier on Friday, she went to the Beijing zoo to check out the pandas, before being serenaded in English and in Chinese by elementary school children.

Mrs Trump looked on with the students from the Shija elementary school as one panda chomped down on a late breakfast of bamboo shoots and leaves. She then presented the students with gifts of plush bald eagle toys.

Parts of the zoo in Beijing's western fringe were shut down for the visit, but Wang Xumei, pushing her one-year-old granddaughter in a buggy, said she was not put off.

"She's very beautiful and we're very happy to have her and the American president in Beijing," Ms Wang said, adding: "Come back soon."

On Thursday evening the US president and first lady were the guests of honour at a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Mr Trump offered a toast to Chinese president Xi Jinping, touting bonds "that will only grow stronger and stronger".

He then introduced a video of his granddaughter Arabella, the daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, singing a traditional Chinese song in Mandarin.

The dinner capped off two days of pageantry and negotiations between Mr Xi and Mr Trump.

At the dinner, neither man made mention of thorny issues like trade and attempts to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
New Delhi, Nov 10 (IBNS) : The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday said it would examine the Delhi governments decision to implement odd-even car rationing scheme for five days starting from November 13, The Hindu reported.

The AAP government had on Thursday announced introduction of the odd-even scheme from eight am to eight pm for five days as part of a Graded Response Plan to tackle the alarming pollution situation in the national capital.

The region has been suffering from intense smog over the past few days, which has forced the administration to declare an 'emergency'.

Life have been thrown out of gear in many places, with schools shut, accidents on highways, delay in train and flight timings, etc.



The National Green Tribunal has banned construction and industrial activities in Delhi-NCR till November 14, media reports said on Thursday.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also sent notices to the Centre, and to the governments of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana in view of the life-threatening pollution levels in the Delhi-NCR region.

In its advisory on Wednesday, the Union Health ministry had recommended those with breathing difficulty to remain indoors.

Parents have been asked to keep children indoors as much as possible.

Delhiites have been advised to avoid morning walks or any other strenuous outdoor activity that increases breathing rate.

The advisory has suggested all to drink plenty of water and fluids; avoid smoking; minimize the use of deodorants and room sprays as much as possible; and to avoid the areas with smoke or heavy dust.

For those with heart ailments and chronic respiratory disease or asthma, the ministry has recommended them to continue their medication as advised by physician.

"In case of any difficulty in breathing, increase in breathing rate, palpitations or severe bout of coughing and/or sneezing consult for medical assistance," the advisory stated.

On Wednesday, Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia ordered all the schools in Delhi to remain closed till Sunday as a huge blanket of poisonous smog covered the national capital for the second consecutive day.

"The condition of air in Delhi is getting worse. We cannot compromise on children's health in such a condition. I have asked all schools to remain closed till Sunday," Sisodia tweeted in Hindi.

The Government's decision followed a tweet by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday, in which he called the city a "gas chamber" and asked Sisodia to consider shutting the schools for a few days.
Kolkata, Nov 10 (IBNS): Kolkata's Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industries and Protiviti (a global consulting firm) recently organised a programme to help members of the healthcare industry to face and resolve some of the key challenges facing them in execution of their duties.

According to members of the health care industry, they are going through a rather trying phase with compliance issues, protection concerns from breach of practice and increasing costs. Also there is constant need for IT and digital updation in their execution coupled with demand for end users to have information at their fingertips.

The programme titled Disruptive Risks in Healthcare, recently held at the Bengal Chamber premises focused on providing tips and guidance to combat the challenges faced by healthcare sectors so that relevant and fast solutions emerge.



Cheryl Taylor, Centre of Excellence - Health Care Practice Protiviti Inc., who has about two decades of expertise and professional experience in leading healthcare operations, revenue cycle activities and organized optimization across business models, was the chief speaker.

Also present was Jennifer Stout, Manager-Centre of Excellence Healthcare Practice Protiviti Inc.

Both addressed the issues of prevalent health care focus among patients and healthcare providers.

According to the speakers, digital transformation is something that cannot happen in one go. Its a gradual process. To transform from a manual data into a digitized format is a step by step process that needs a structured roadmap. It involves organizational education, implementation, monitoring and then subsequent digitization occurs, they stated.



They also said that there is wide spread belief among industry leaders that digital technology is the fourth industrial revolution and the engine and enabler behind innovation and disruption that will radicalize the levels of efficiency and customer experience. Like internet, digitalization will cause sweeping transformation, across multiple aspects of business inspiring opportunities for value creation, while also creating a major source of risk at the same time. The introduction of digital services will be one of the most important factors transforming healthcare sector in India and across the world over the next decade.



Healthcare is among the few industries that can profoundly impact larger populations with technology innovation, according to the speakers. The challenges of new regulations, varied demographic spread/ providing care to aging population, access to patient data, prevalence of chronic diseases, straining public finances et al can find some path breaking solutions with digital playing a vital role and providing superior patient care.

As stakes increase, status quo is not an option, they said.



According to the speakers, the healthcare system will look very different in India in the next decade. It will be consumer centric, allowing them to take more responsibility in managing their health. The two big shifts that this change in focus is going to bring about are: Disruptions to the location of the care (from out of hospital to in-home care) and Disruptions to the type of care (from diagnose and treat to prevent and manage).

The first one can exponentially improve the healthcare outreach in the country and in particular to the rural areas.

The second has the potential to reduce the burden on public healthcare service providers, since the focus will shift towards quality services at affordable costs.

With the advent of patient-centric healthcare greater emphasis will be on prevention and access to using digital technologies to improve efficiency, boosting productivity and driving down costs.



Subrata Bagchi, Senior Managing Director, Protiviti India Member Firm said, At Protiviti, we have worked extensively with organizations across the healthcare value chain and invested in developing our Global Healthcare Centre of Excellence (CoE). We plan to leverage these insights and experiences from the CoE and serve healthcare providers in India by formulating a customer-centric digital blue print, performing holistic analysis to determine capabilities to make them digitally intelligent, enabling them to create a data governance structure, managing transformation risks, assessing the risks in their digital journey, perform in conjunction with the medical profession advance analytics to make more informed decisions and becoming a destination partner by helping them create a digital ecosystem.
Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder and CEO of EuroKids International, received this award on behalf of the company at an event held in New Delhi recently.



At EuroKids, we feel equally responsible towards giving all our partners right tools to succeed in their entrepreneurial journey and assist them in multiple ways to achieve a mutually fulfilling growth path, said Prajodh Rajan, Co-Founder and CEO of EuroKids International.



He added, Our Franchise in a Box concept, powered with factors like brands reputation, product offerings and structured processes, positively impacts performance of our partners' hard earned investment and efforts, making the franchise venture a success.

Image:wikimedia commons
New Delhi, Nov 10 (IBNS): The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved appointment of Second National Judicial Pay Commission (SNJPC) for Subordinate Judiciary in the country.

The Commission is to be headed by Justice (Retd.J P.Venkatrama Reddi, former Judge of Supreme Court of India.

R. Basant, a former Judge of the Kerala High Court is the Member of the Commission.

The Commission will make its recommendations to the State Governments preferably within a period of 18 months.

It will examine the present structure of emoluments and conditions of service of Judicial Officers in the States and UTs.

The Commission aims to evolve the principles which would govern pay structure and other emoluments of Judicial Officers belonging to the Subordinate Judiciary of the country.

It will examine the work methods and work environment as also the variety of allowance and benefits in kind that are available to Judicial Officers in addition to pay and to suggest rationalization and simplification thereof.

The Commission will devise its own procedures and formulate modalities necessary for accomplishing the task. The Commission also aims at making the pay scales and conditions of service of Judicial Officers uniform throughout the country.

The recommendations of the Commission will help in promoting efficiency in Judicial Administration, optimizing the size of judiciary etc. and to remove anomalies created in implementation of earlier recommendations.
New York, Nov 10(Just Earth News): Youth groups working in Africas Congo Basin countries are supporting economic progress in isolated rural communities while protecting the forest, and it is high time their voices were heard, a young woman at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, said on Thursday.

Young people in the Congo Basin have been doing things on the ground that often go ignored, explained Marie Tamoifo, President of the Cameroon Green Youth Association (Association de la Jeunesse verte du Cameroun  AJVC) and Regional Coordinator of the Youth Network for sustainable management of forest ecosystems in Central Africa (Reseau des jeunes pour la gestion durable des ecosystemes forestiers dAfrique centrale - REJEFAC) in an interview with UN News.

REJEFAC brings together youth organizations from 10 Congo Basin countries  Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe and Chad).

Its aim is to promote the effective participation of young environmental actors in decision-making in the Congo Basin and to contribute to the emergence in the region of a new type of leadership, more sensitive and open to the requirements of sustainable development.

[As for] actions on the ground, there are reforestation, awareness and education programmes for young people. It's about strengthening the work that is done by governments, said Tamoifo.

A solar panel programme in isolated communities

For several years, AJVC has been developing a programme in Cameroon for the electrification of isolated rural areas with solar panels. The programme started in 15 pilot communities in the east, in the center and in the far north of the country with the installation of solar panels in homes and schools. A contribution is made by the community itself, representing 25 to 30 per cent of the cost.

In these 15 communities, we trained 85 young people in solar installation techniques but also in psycho-socio-organizational methodology," explained Ms Tamoifo. When we arrive in a community, we first hold a discussion with that community. We try to see with [them] what the glaring problems are.

The youth participating in this programme are from the community. They are trained and they provide maintenance for the solar panels that have already been installed. For now, they are not really paid. They receive a small allowance, added Tamoifo.

The association needs more financial support to maintain and expand this programme. "We have received more than 100 requests from villages and we cannot answer them given [our] modest means. And young people who are trained on Thursday also need to make a living to be able to continue this work, she said.

A climate caravan in Cameroon

Among other actions carried out by young people in the Congo Basin region, the REJEFAC Coordinator mentioned a tree planting initiative by volunteers in the Republic of Congo, and a programme focusing on handicrafts and conservation of natural resources in Rwanda.

Before coming to COP 23, the network organized a 'climate caravan' in Cameroon with the participation of young people from the ten countries of the Congo Basin to show what youth organizations are doing in terms of sustainable development and protection of the planet.

"We organized this caravan which was named the COP at home, said the Coordinator of REJEFAC. Young people have been designated as climate ambassadors.

The climate caravan travelled in the Douala region, coastal areas and went to Equatorial Guinea. It showed how we could talk about the theoretical aspect and go on the ground to experience the realities of conservation parks and conflicts between humans and elephants, concluded Tamoifo.

Photo: FAO/Giulio Napolitano

Source: www.justearthnews.com


The situation is particularly concerning in eastern Ghouta, near the capital Damascus, where some 400,000 men, women and children are living in besieged towns and villages, and extremely high prices have put food and basic supplies beyond reach. There are fears that conditions could get much worse as winter closes in and temperatures could plummet to freezing.



[They have been through] a seven-year war, longer than the second World War, Jan Egeland, the Special Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told journalists after a meeting of the Humanitarian Task Force in Geneva.



With little, if any, reserves, no heat in their houses and living amid ruin, [for them] it will be a horrific winter, he warned.



Since September, eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of the capital, Dmascus, has been completely cut off and the sole life-line for those still there are humanitarian convoys which, when successful in getting to the location, brings in food and medical supplies.



There are also growing numbers of acutely malnourished children, noted Egeland, calling on the parties to the conflict to allow medical evacuation urgently.



An estimated 400 patients  about three quarters of whom are women and children  need to be evacuated.



We have confirmation that seven patients died because they were not evacuated and a list of 29 critical cases [] including 18 children, among them young Hala, Khadiga, Mounir and Bassem [] they all have a name, they all have a story, they all have to be evacuated now, stressed the Senior Advisor.



Evacuation, is however, not the solution, he stressed, calling for the fighting and shelling to stop.



Further, the UN envoy informed that the situation is equally dire in Berm, a desolate area in south-east Syria, where as many as 55,000 civilians are in need of assistance but the last time relief was able to reach them was in June.



Also in his remarks, Egeland also said that a trilateral mechanism, initiated by Russia, and having the UN and Syria onboard, offers hope to help address proble



[The mechanism] had its first meetings. It still hasnt produced the results needed, but it is our strong feeling that Russia wants us to get the access and wants to help us, so we are hopeful that this trilateral mechanism will yield results soon, he added.



Photo: UNICEF/Al Shami







Source: www.justearthnews.com








Berline, Nov 10 (IBNS) : A former German nurse has emerged as the country's worst serial killer as he is being linked to at least 106 deaths, media reports said.

Niels Hoegel, who is already serving a life sentence for six murders, is suspected of killing the patients during his time working at two clinics in northern Germany.

Police are investigating 100 additional deaths.

After announcing scores more killings in August, on Thursday prosecutors in the northern city of Oldenburg said toxicologies had identified a further 16 deaths that the nurse may have caused, though they cautioned that they had not necessarily stopped counting yet.

"It could be more," chief prosecutor Martin Kozoliek has been quoted by Deutsche Welle on Thursday.

A court sentenced Niels H. to life in prison in 2015 for two counts of murder and four of attempted murder. German media, who began identifying the nurse after the initial guilty verdict, have resumed calling him by his first name and last initial because he has not yet gone to trial for the new deaths.

During his 2015 trial, Niels said he had murdered even more patients than initially suspected, injecting them with pharmaceuticals that can cause heart failure or circulatory collapse and trying to revive them to impress his medical peers.

He testified that he acted "out of boredom" at times, feeling euphoric when he managed to bring a patient back to life and devastated when he failed.

Following that admission, experts exhumed more 134 bodies to test them for traces of drugs.

Earlier this year, investigators said the nurse might have killed an additional 24 people. By August, police were implicating the 41-year-old in at least 90 murders  a death toll "unique in the history of the German republic," in the words of chief police investigator Arne Schmidt.
Kabul, Nov 10 (IBNS): During a clash in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province, two policemen and three Talibans were killed on Friday, media reports said.

Police official Ghulam Dastagir Almas was quoted as saying by Pajhwok Afghan News that overnight clash broke out after some 70 Taliban fighters stormed security posts on the Uruzgan-Kandahar highway in Gardan Gaw area on late Thursday night.

The clash took place for several hours.

Two policemen were reportedly injured in the attack.

More details are awaited.
Lashkargah, Nov 10 (IBNS): At least one person was killed as a car bomb attack rocked southern Helmand province of Afghanistan on Friday, media reports said.

The attack left one person dead and eight others injured.

The deceased person was identified as a border policeman.

The early morning attack targeted personnel of the second border police battalion in Bolan area of Lashkargah at about 8am, the governors spokesman was quoted as saying by Pajhwok Afghan News.




Image: twitter.com/POTUS

Beijing/Washington, Nov 10 (IBNS): US President Donald Trump was all praise for his Chinese counterpart Xi Jingping after their meeting in Beijing on Thursday.

However, he took a subtle jab at the nation for taking advantage of the United States, while blaming his predecessors for allowing the Communist nation to do so.

"I dont blame China, I blame the incompetence of past Admins for allowing China to take advantage of the U.S. on trade leading up to a point where the U.S. is losing $100's of billions. How can you blame China for taking advantage of people that had no clue? I would've done same," he said.

Speaking about the nature of their meeting, he termed it as productive and said that issues like North Korea and trade were successfully discussed.

Hailing Xi as a respected leader among his tribe, the American President said, "My meetings with President Xi Jinping were very productive on both trade and the subject of North Korea. He is a highly respected and powerful representative of his people. It was great being with him and Madame Peng Liyuan."

With the conclusion of his China tour, Trump is heading towards Vietnam, where he will join the other leaders and take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2017.

However, the First Lady of the State, Melania Trump, has stayed back in the nation as she will later take a tour of the zoo and the Great Wall of China.

"I am leaving China for #APEC2017 in Vietnam. @FLOTUS Melania is staying behind to see the zoo, and of course, the Great WALL of China before going to Alaska to greet our AMAZING troops," he said.

Image: twitter.com/POTUS
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Weddings, they say , are made in heaven. This one was made in the conference room of a city hospital. The groom is Md Shahnawaz Alam, who is a mechanical engineer working in Saudi Arabia's Dammam. The bride is lawyer Heyra Javed, who has been working for a Hyderabad-based legal services unit.

TOI

Their wedding was supposed to be hosted at United Palace in Beniapukur. But a day before that, medical emergency forced Heyra's family to rush her to the GD Hospital and Diabetes Institute. After a lot of tension, the qazi solemnised the wedding at the hospital in presence of 15 family members.

"There is still humanity left in this world. Heroes are not seen only in movies. My brotherin-law is a hero for us. I told him that he is like the Shahid Kapoor of `Vivaah' who went on to marry a girl who had got burnt after the house was on fire," said the bride's cousin Nahid Shamim.

Heyra too is aware of this comparison. On Thursday, after her Ryles tube was removed, the newly-married Heyra told TOI: "I know everyone is comparing him to Shahid Kapoor from `Vivaah'. I am both happy and sad. I am happy because the wedding finally happened on the day it was scheduled. But I am sad that it didn't happen the way it was supposed to."

On Wednesday night, 28-year-old Heyra, decked up in a red lehenga, was ta ken to the conference room in a wheelchair from Bed No. 536 of the female ward. There was an IV channel on her hand. The Ryles tube was attached as well. It was Nahid's father Shamim Hassan Khan who had brought up Heyra after she was bereaved in 2001. Heyra was a student of Pratt Memorial and then studied law in Hazra Law College. The couple had met after the families had arranged their marriage.

A few days back, Shahnawaz had flown down from Daman for the wedding to his ancestral home in Dalkhola.

TOI

Along with the 'baraat', comprising some 30-odd people, he had boarded the Kanchankanya Express to reach Kolkata on Tuesday. Heyra's haldi ceremony had got over on Monday. In the evening, she complained of extreme stomach ache and started vomiting. By Tuesday evening, the pain was unbearable and Heyra had to be hospitalised. "On Tuesday evening, she was diagnosed with intestinal obstruction. We could not discharge her on the day of her wedding because the treatment wasn't over," said Musrefa Hossain, the CEO of GD Hospital and Diabetes Institute.

Tension mounted for both families.

"In our religion, cancelling a wedding after the haldi ceremony is a bad sign. Finally, it was decided that the wedding would happen according to the schedule. I am so thankful for the cooperation of the hospital staff. They opened the conference room, served sandesh, tea, coffee and biscuits to us too," Nahid added.

Describing her cousin's act as "heroic", she explained that it was extremely difficult for Heyra to speak since she had the Ryles tube on. "But in our custom, we have to hear the bride say `kabool hai'thrice over for the nikaah to be solemnised. We strained our ears while didi said those words," Nahid added.

Once the nikaah was over, the bride was shifted back to her room. The groom went to the United Palace to treat the guests with mutton biryani, chicken chnab, baby naan and shahi tukda.

"The bride is still under observation.We will try a conservative treatment. If she doesn't respond, we will go for a surgery," Hossain said.
This story's a modern day fairytale, the stuff of legends. One nerd who wrote some code which ended up impacting the whole wide world -- before even the Internet was up and running!

That's the story of Bill Gates and Microsoft's first truly user-friendly operating system -- Windows 1.0. Without it, there would be no desktop computers, and all that we take for granted in this digital world of ours wouldn't have existed.

This is what Windows 1.0 looked like

On November 10, 1983, Bill Gates -- Microsoft's president and board chairman -- held a posh event in New York City. The main attraction at this event was an operating system with a simple and intuitive graphical user interface. This was the Windows 1.0.

Considering what existed in terms of OS functionality at the time -- which wasn't much, to be honest, if you look at the command-based MS DOS -- Windows 1.0's graphical user interface was a breath of fresh air. It had dropdown menus, tiled windows, even mouse support and multitasking with several apps. For the first time, it proved to people that operating systems could be simple enough to be used by non-geeks, too. The rest, as they say, is history.

Bill Gates showing off Windows

On that note, here are some interesting historical facts about Windows 1.0...

No, Bill Gates didn't come up with the 'Windows' name

He wanted to call the new graphical operating system 'Interface Manager'. I know right? What was Bill Gates smoking?! Luckily Rowland Hanson, a Microsoft marketing wizard at the time, thought along the same lines and convinced Gates to rename the OS to 'Windows'. Phew!

What Bill Gates said about Windows 1.0 in 1983

"Windows provides unprecedented power to users today and a foundation for hardware and software advancements of the next few years. It is unique software designed for the serious PC user, who places high value on the productivity that a personal computer can bring." This line from Gates was included in the original press material for the Microsoft operating system.

Early Microsoft logo circa 1985 in Windows' boot loader

Windows 1.0 had insane hardware requirement

Windows 1.0 demanded a daunting 256KB of RAM, a graphics adapter, either two floppy drives or a hard drive. Don't laugh but these were astronomical requirements for a PC sold in the mid-1980s.

How much did Windows 1.0 cost in 1983

At the time it was revealed by Bill Gates, Windows 1.0 had a price tag of US $99. Seems like a lot, doesn't it? Wrong! Personal computers were an expensive hobby at the time, and Microsoft's Windows wanted to be the cost-effective, value-for-money alternative to the likes of Apple's Lisa and Visi On against whom Microsoft was competing with.

Windows 1.0 came with all these cool applications

It had a notepad application, calendar, a clock that looked like the real thing. It came with a terminal application to enter DOS commands, a dedicated file manager, and Windows Write -- a precursor to WordPad. A reversi game and Windows Paint was also included. No support for Microsoft Word or Excel came till much later.
Approximately 66 million years ago, we know an asteroid almost 10 kilometres wide slammed into the Earth, just off what is now the Mexican coast. The collision occurred with the force of 10 billion nuclear bombs setting off a chain reaction that ended with the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.

At least 75 percent of all known species at the time died because of that one incident, paving the way for humans to evolve and climb to the top of the food chain. And yet, had things gone slightly differently all those dinosaurs may have survived.

Scientists believe that at least three different asteroids likely crashed into our planet in the 175 million years the dinosaurs were alive, about one every 50 to 100 million years. Yet, only one of those ended with the extinction of the great beasts. Researchers now say that, had the asteroid that killed them all hit in a different location, they may have actually survived.

In a research paper published this week, scientists say that only 13 percent of the Earths surface at the tim had the right material composition to instigate a mass extinction event, in the case of an asteroid hit. The lead author, Kunio Kaiho, had last year theorised that oil reserves that were destroyed in the crash released soot into the atmosphere, causing drastic climate changes that ended up killing the dinosaurs.

However, not all researchers in the field agree. I agree with the concept that location matters when you think of an asteroid strike, Geophysicist Sean Gulick says. It's hard to create a global level extinction event without it being related to the climate. However, he says he hasnt found evidence of hydrocarbons at dig sites in asteroid impact craters, and that he doesnt believe soot alone could set off the chain reaction we know occurred.

Reuters

I fall on the side that it's not a singular thing. Theres a huge range of possibilities that were testing and I dont think it was a single punch.

What Gulicks team did find was carbon-rich rocks formed in an ocean environment. This led him to believe that it wasnt just the soot in the air and wildfires caused by flaming debris, but that vast amounts of sulphur and carbon dioxide were also released into the oceans. This ended up turning them acidic, and dissolving the shells of marine animals as well.

Had the asteroid been timed differently, it may have slammed into the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. In that case, instead of soot and aerosols it would have just flung harmless water vapour into the air. While some marine life would have perished, most other creatures would have survived

Who knows, if that had happened we might have actually experienced a time where humans lived alongside T.Rexs and other gigantic land creatures.
By 2020, which is not that far away, the aggregate market size of Chinas cloud computing industry is expected to hit 686.6 billion yuan (about $103.6 billion), according to Forward Intelligence. Chinas cloud computing industry has experienced strong growth since 2010, with a market size reaching 178.2 billion yuan in 2016, up 18.8 percent annually.

The major public cloud providers saw this coming, and most already have major points of presence in China. Moreover, Chinas late-to-the-cloud upstart, Alibaba Cloud, is already getting a great deal of interest from Chinese companies looking to benefit from use of the public cloud.

For enterprises outside China, at issue is the ease of trade with China. Although many businesses import and export to China, information sharing, legal practices, and political issues have been problematic. Thats made foreign companies wary of using cloud providers in China, even subsidiaries of American providers.

First the bad news: Foreign-invested cloud computing services operating in China need to be aware of the restrictions on data governance and other legal issues. Even if you have a local partner in China, US companies should consider the legal compliance of your cooperation agreement, including qualification compliance, data storage restrictions, and other regulatory policies.

In other words, its not that easy to do business electronically with Chinaand the use of public clouds does not circumvent the restrictions. Using cloud computing in China is a complicated exercise, owing to the governments security measures and active supervision of internet traffic.

Now the good news: Whether based in the US or China, cloud providers should be the ones that provide the guidance and automated systems that let you work within these restrictions. Your cloud provider becomes the primary intermediary when doing business in China, automating compliance subsystems that keep you and the companies you transact with in the cloud out of trouble. Yes, that means you should use the same cloud provider as your partners.

There is a lot of profit to be gained by US-based companies in trade with China. Although difficult and costly regulations kep manhy foreign companies out of China in the past, the common use of public cloud providers could make electronic integration of partner systems both easier and compliant with both Chinese and US laws. For the all-mighty dollar, we welcome China to the cloud.
Indianapolis, Indiana  Attorney for Plaintiff, Thor Industries, Inc. of Elkhart, Indiana filed suit in the Northern District of Indiana alleging that Defendant, The RV Factory, LLC, also of Elkhart, Indiana infringed on the U.S. Patent Nos. 7,575,251, titled Travel Trailer Having Improved Turning Radius (the 251 patent), and 7,938,427, titled Recreational Vehicle Chassis (the 427 patent). Plaintiff is seeking judgment in favor of Thor Industries, Inc., damages, and all infringing products be recalled.

Plaintiff is the owner of the patents, which deal with the design and functionality of travel trailers. Specifically, the 251 patent deals with an RV chassis having certain types of angled front corners, as opposed to squared corners. The 427 patent covers a type of chassis with a curved or bowed front end, instead of a flat or straight front.

According to the complaint, Defendant has been manufacturing and selling RVs with chasses containing the patented design elements. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants RV model Luxe Luxury Fifth Wheel infringes on the 251 patent. Plaintiff also alleges that Defendants Luxe Elite, Luxe Gold, and Weekend Warrior models infringe the 427 patent by using a curved forward surface.

Plaintiff also claims that Defendant has induced and contributed to infringement by third parties who have bought and used the allegedly infringing RVs.

The case has been assigned to Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen and Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich in the Northern District and assigned Case 2:17-cv-420-JVB-APR.

Complaint
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News 1 of 24 State-owned Factories Operating at a Loss Starts to Yield Profits

Myingyan Steel Factory. (Photo: Ministry of Industry)

NAYPYITAW  The National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government has made one of 24 state-owned factories operating at a loss profitable, said Union Industry Minister U Khin Maung Cho.

A textile factory in Myingyan Township of Mandalay Region has started to yield profits after 18 months of overhaul and partnership with a private company, said the minister.

We had to innovate in order to improve product quality and design for customer satisfaction. The process took around a year and a half, said the minister.

However, the minister did not disclose the detailed profits and losses of the factory.

The parliamentary Investment and Industrial Development Committee has formed two teams comprised of officials from the Planning and Finance Ministry, Ministry of Industry and representatives of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) to inspect these state-owned factories to assess their financials.

We have invited expression of interest from businesspeople to operate these factories. Well discuss with interested parties and privatize some, turn some into joint ventures, and terminate some as necessary, said U Aung Kyaw Kyaw Oo, who is a member of the parliamentary committee.

The Ministry of Industry has partnered with private companies to operate 12 of 24 of the factories operating at a loss. The rest are currently suspended, said minister U Khin Maung Cho.

Steel plants in Mandalay Regions Myingyan and Shan States Pangpet, paper mills in Irrawaddy Regions Thabaung Township, and heavy industry in Bago Regions Thagara are among the biggest factories to be inspected, said Myingyan Township lawmaker U Paw Khaing, who is also the secretary of the parliamentary committee.

Those factories were not able to produce products beneficial to the country. The product portfolio just didnt fit the needs of the country, said minister U Khin Maung Cho.

We the new government will try to manufacture practical products for the country. And we are cooperating [with the private sector] to acquire technology, said U Khin Maung Cho.

The minister also wants to re-operate the suspended Myingyan Steel Plant, and is waiting for the approval of the parliament.

The steel plant is ready [for resumption]. It is a massive investment, and we dont want to waste it. We will run it again to make up for losses. We have hired international experts, and they have recommended [resumption], said the minister.

According to the minister, his ministry will also cooperate with Japans Hitachi Co for power generation from tidal waves, which is the latest in energy technology, in Mon States Thaton Industrial Zone.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
News Analysis: How will the Myanmar Army React to US Sanctions?

Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing (L) shakes hands with National League for Democracy (NLD) party leader Aung San Suu Kyi before their meeting in Naypyitaw December 2, 2015. (Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

YANGON  It has been nearly a month now since the EU and US State Department issued announcements on taking action against Myanmars military leadership and the consideration of targeted sanctions. But the military is yet to officially respond.

Both the EU and US suspended invitations to the Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces and other senior military officers and pledged to review all practical defense cooperation due to the disproportionate use of force against Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine State.

The military leadership has remained tight-lipped on the US sanctions. The Facebook page of the military chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing has been radio silent on the issue.

The page normally posts important statements as well as lengthy meeting minutes between the Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing and international dignitaries in which the army chief talks about the Rakhine issue and how the army is operating on the ground.

Only the countrys defence minister Lt-Gen Sein Win told the media at a sideline interview that they were not concerned about the restrictions against the military leadership on Oct 15, one day before the EUs announcement to cut ties with the Myanmar military.

We are not much worried about what other people said [about the sanctions] as we are doing right things to defend the country, he said.

The State Counselor Offices director-general U Zaw Htay told The Irrawaddy that the US actions could hinder the governments ongoing peace process, development and democratization as a whole.

Their actions are not compatible with where we are heading now. Ordinary people are the most vulnerable when it comes to sanctions, he said.

Analysts said the sanctions were meant to shame the Myanmar military in to pursuing the armys accountability for human rights abuses in Rakhine State.

On the other hand, its interesting to know if the sanctions would put more strain on relations between the Myanmar military leadership and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

It has been reported that the government and the militarythe most powerful and established institution in Myanmarare not stable. When asked in an interview with Radio Free Asia, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi described relations as normal. But other signs suggest relations are not good, the most recent example being the declaration of a state of emergency in Rakhine State.

For the recent sanctions, the military leadership would surely feel annoyed, for they have been identified in the Rakhine issue as a main culprit of the atrocities there. The military has historically been suspicious of the Lady given her proximity to the West. What if they think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is behind the sanctions against them in an effort to divert mounting international pressure on the Rohingya issue?

If they really have that impression, the national reconciliation between the armed forces and the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led government would be rockier.

Once again, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would be walking a difficult tightrope, as she cant officially defend the military against the sanctions.

Any act to stand with the army on the Rakhine issue would severely tarnish her global reputation, one that has already been tainted due to her silence on the Rohingya issue. But she is also in danger of being seen as an accomplice in the sanctions.

So far, she hasnt made any comments about the issue. The strongest statements she has made about the army operation was in her diplomatic briefing in September: Human rights violations and all other acts that impair stability and harmony and undermine the rule of law will be addressed in accordance with strict norms of justice.

Next week will see Rex Tillersons visit to Myanmar, where he is supposed to meet with the countrys leaders, including Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing. It should be taken for granted that the army chief and the secretary of state will discuss the sanctions in more detail.

Actually, they already had a conversation right after the US sanction announcement, but the outcome hasnt been publicized yet. Hopefully, next weeks meetings in Naypyitaw will shed more light on the issue, and the US will learn more about how the Myanmar military really feels about the return of sanctions.
News Child Rights Groups Campaign Against Corporal Punishment

Children react to visitors in a village in Nyaung Tone, Irrawaddy Delta, about 60 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  For the first time, child rights groups in Myanmar will conduct a campaign to raise public awareness about eliminating all corporal punishment against children from Nov. 11 to 18, ahead of Universal Childrens day.

Daw Ni Ni Hla, Head of Program of Child Rights Governance of Save the Children, told The Irrawaddy that the campaign hopes to raise public awareness of positive alternative methods for the benefit of children as opposed to the physical or mental abuse sometimes inflicted.

It seems like its no big deal. But it could undermine self-value and self-respect of children and make them grow fearfulIf they dont learn to respect themselves, they wont respect others. The physical admonition is just being used as a means to assert authority.

Hitting or beating children in other words, corporal punishmentand verbal abuse for indiscretions are regarded as normal behavior among many adults in Myanmar society.

But with a handful of cases of harsh punishment against children going viral on social media, netizens voiced anger over the disciplinary method.

In a recent case, a teacher at a primary school in Bago Region gave two girls and three boys in her classroom the punishment of standing in front of the class half naked. In another case in 2015, a household maid repeatedly beat a naked 8-year-old girl living in the home of a military lawmaker in Bahan Township of Yangon.

The Stop Corporal Punishment Campaign, which was organized by the NGOs Child Rights Working Group (NCRWG) will start on social media platforms, sharing campaign posts and videos on Save the Children in Myanmar page and local artists pages, from Nov. 11 to 17.

As part of the campaign, an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 campaigners will also gather at Mahabandoola Park in Yangon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 18. The campaign will also be conducted in Karenni and Shan states, and Magwe Region along with Yangon.

Daw Ni Ni Hla from the Save the Children said under the draft bill of the revised 1993 Child Law, corporal punishment against children is prohibited. Physical or mental abuse against children, including beating or any kind of punishment, by anyone including parents, teachers or employees will bring a month to two years imprisonment or a fine of between 300, 000 kyats and 500, 000 kyats, or both, as penalties.

The child or the representative in respect of his or her rights can file complaint under the law.

Daw Ni Ni Hla stressed that public awareness of the law and the directive issued by the government that said corporal punishment shouldnt be used at schools needs to be raised widely.

When the public shares incidents of child abuse, they also need to be aware that they should cover the kids private areas and faces. But most arent aware, she added.

She said the rights groups will consult with the parliamentary Bill Committee in the coming weeks ahead of the revised Child Law going to Parliament.

NCRWG, formed in 2009, is a working group of more than 50 child-focused INGOs and local NGOs that work together to fulfill the rights of children in Myanmar.
News Journalists Sentenced Under Unexpected Charge for Flying Drone Over Parliament

The mother of Aung Naing Soe hugs him as he makes his way to court in Naypyitaw today. (Htet Naing Zaw/The Irrawaddy)

YANGON  Two foreign journalists and two Myanmar nationals were sentenced to two months in jail at a Naypyitaw court today under an unexpected charge after attempting to fly a drone near Myanmars Parliament.

Journalists Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia along with interpreter Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin were charged under the colonial-era 1934 Myanmar Aircraft Act.

The four also face charges under the 2012 Export and Import Law for illegally bringing the drone into the country, which carries a penalty of up to three years in jail. They have been in custody since Oct. 27 and will face the charge in the next trial on Nov. 16.

The defendants and their lawyers were aware of the export/import charge, but the plaintiffs lawyer informed the court today of another complaint under the aircraft act.

Mok Choy Lin asked the judge of the punishment for breaching the aircraft act, who replied it would be either three months imprisonment or a 50,000 kyats fine, according to U Khin Maung Zaw, the lawyer for Aung Naing Soe, Hla Tin and Mok Choy Lin.

Mok Choy Lin and Lau Hon Meng agreed to each pay the fine and admitted to the charge. Initially, Aung Naing Soe and Hla Tin rejected the complaint, arguing they were not journalists.

The judge told the driver and interpreter he would call for witnesses and investigate whether they breached the aircraft act, which would lengthen the court process.

On the advice of their lawyer, the pair then accepted the complaint. However, the judge sentenced the four to two months imprisonment.

We did not expect this charge, said the lawyer, who had prepared a defence only for the export/import charge. This case is the first time the aircraft act has been used to penalize drone flying.

When The Irrawaddy asked the lawyer whether it was legal to add a new charge during the trial, he replied: They can do it based on the rule of law in Burma.

The journalists were working for Turkish state broadcaster TRT World, which stated Lau Hon Meng, a camera operator, and producer Lau Hon Meng had entered Myanmar on journalist visas on Oct. 21. The journalists had already informed authorities about their plans to film beforehand, according to TRT World.

Attending the trial were the families of Lau Hon Meng, Aung Naing Soe and Hla Tin, and a friend of Mok Choy Lin. It was the first time relatives and friends could see the defendants since their arrest, as authorities blocked visits due to the ongoing investigation.

Rights activists criticized the refusal of visiting rights, saying the defendants had not been charged with a serious crime. Previous cases against media members, including under the Unlawful Association Act, have also barred visitors.

The two foreign journalists were being held at No. 1 Police Station in Naypyitaw and the two Myanmar nationals were being held at Pyinmana Prison, also in Naypyitaw. After the trial they were taken to No. 1 Police Station and will be transferred to Yamethin Prison in Mandalay Region later this evening, according to Ko Ye Htoo, a close friend of Aung Naing Soe.

The sentencing marks the first time the authorities have taken action against journalists since the outbreak of the latest Rohingya crisis in late August.

Aung Naing Soe is well respected among Myanmars journalistic community as a fixer, photographer and cameraman. As a Muslim, he has faced anti-Muslim sentiment while workingincluding being blocked entry to some hardline nationalist monk meetings.
News Police Confirm Protest Ban in Downtown Yangon

Various faith groups gathered and prayed for nationwide peace on Oct. 31, 2017 in Yangon. Amid unrest in Rakhine, the interfaith rallies were held across the country. / Chanson / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Yangon police have confirmed that demonstrations and rallies will no longer be permitted in the citys downtown and other dense urban areas, according to an order from the Regional Home Affairs Ministry.

The 11 townships covered by the protest ban are Kyauktada, Pabedan, Latha, Lanmadaw, Botahtaung, Bahan, Sanchaung, Dagon, Ahlone, Mingalar Taung Nyunt and Pazundaung.

The areas are in critical parts of the city and have thoroughfares used by the public and VIPs. Rallies interrupt commuter traffic, cause a nuisance to the public, and raise safety concerns, the directive said.

Groups applying to hold rallies within the 11 townships will be directed to Hit Taing field in Tamwe Township. Police officials from Botahtaung and Pabedan townships confirmed to The Irrawaddy that they had received the order on Wednesday.

Yangons City Hall is located in Kyauktada Township in the heart of downtown and is one of the most concentrated areas in the city. Most rallies and demonstrations are held outside Mahabandoola Park, which is located in front of City Hall, to draw attention from the public.

The latest gatherings to be held in front of City Hall were an interfaith peace rally organized by the Yangon chapter of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party on Oct. 31 and attended by Divisional Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein, and a pro-military and nationalist rally, in which thousands of people participated.

The rallies caused severe traffic congestion and attracted complaints from commuters.

U Kyaw Zay Ya, a regional lawmaker representing Dagon Township, told The Irrawaddy that the move would inconvenience those who wanted to hold rallies.

Prohibiting protests in specific areas where there is a school or government offices is acceptable but restricting them in a whole area [township] is not logical, he said.

Myanmars Peaceful Assembly and Procession Law requires demonstrators to notify local authorities 48 hours in advance of staging a protest or rally in a public area.
News Rohingya row to Bangladesh as Myanmars Suu Kyi Runs Summit Gauntlet

Rohingya refugees sit on a makeshift boat as they get interrogated by the Border Guard Bangladesh after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, at Shah Porir Dwip near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh November 9, 2017. (Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

COXS BAZAR/YANGON  Blessed by calmer seas, several hundred more Rohingya Muslims on Thursday joined a multitude of refugees in Bangladesh, as calls grew for upcoming regional summits to exert more pressure on Myanmars Aung San Suu Kyi to stem the crisis.

A Myanmar military operation has driven out more than 600,000 Rohingya since late August and the latest refugees to find sanctuary in predominantly Muslim Bangladesh say many thousands more are still trying to leave.

Ariful Islam, of Bangladeshs Border Guard, said about 200 people arrived on Thursday morning on the stretch of coast he commands at Teknaf, at the southern tip of Coxs Bazar district.

More than 200 Rohingya have drowned in the strong currents and high surf trying to reach Bangladesh from Buddhist-majority Myanmar over the past two months.

But the sea was fairly flat on Thursday morning as Abdus Sabir came ashore at Shamlapur along with a large group of Rohingya after a six-hour boat journey to complete an escape begun weeks ago.

We fled because the military is still burning our houses, Abdus, who had abandoned his home in the Rathedaung region of Myanmars Rakhine State, told Reuters.

Nearby, Husain Shorif, from the Buthidaung region, said he had rowed for four hours to help bring across 56 people on a raft cobbled together from bamboo and plastic jerrycans.

Some boatmen were asking for huge money we didnt have. So we made our own boat and came, Shorif said, adding that thousands more Rohingya were still stranded at Pa Nyaung Pin Gyi at the mouth of the Naf river.

Reuters was unable to verify that claim as Myanmars military has restricted access to northern parts of Rakhine, where it launched a clearance operation it says was aimed at Rohingya militants behind attacks on 30 security posts on Aug. 25.

UN officials described the operation as ethnic cleansing, an accusation Myanmar has denied.

The storm of opprobrium over the humanitarian crisis will expose Myanmar to more diplomatic pressure, at least from leaders of Muslim-majority countries and the United States, during three summits hosted by Vietnam and the Philippines.

Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmars less than two-year-old civilian administration, left on Thursday to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnams central seaside resort of Danang.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for standing up to the generals who had ruled the country for nearly half a century, Suu Kyi now has to share power with them, under a constitution drawn up in 2008 when junta was still in control, and has little control over what they do.

After Fridays APEC gathering, Suu Kyi will meet leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) grouping in Manila on Sunday, followed by an East Asia Summit in Angeles, just north of the Philippine capital.

Outcry

Setting up a regional trade block, and concerns over North Koreas ambitions to become a nuclear-armed state are priorities, but New York-based Human Rights Watch beseeched the Asian leaders to ensure stronger action by Myanmar to end the crisis.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet Suu Kyi on Nov. 15 for talks on the Rohingya crisis, and they are expected to hold a joint news conference.

World leaders shouldnt return home from these summits without agreeing to targeted sanctions to pressure Burma to end its abuses and allow in independent observers and aid groups, Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that referred to Myanmar by its old name.

Desperate for help to cope with the massive influx of people, Bangladesh is lobbying furiously for pressure to be put on Myanmar.

We want international communities to continue building pressure on Myanmar. Otherwise, they wont resolve the crisis, a foreign ministry official in Dhaka told Reuters, adding that ministers from Germany, China, Japan and Sweden were expected to visit both countries later this month.

HRWs Adams said leaders meeting Asia should discuss how to investigate alleged rights abuses and atrocities in Rakhine, and refer them to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The rights group also urged the Security Council to impose an arms embargo, economic sanctions and travel bans targeting Myanmar military officials.

Some US senators are pressing for the United States to impose its own sanctions, also targeting the military.

The Security Council this week opted for a strongly worded statement scolding Myanmar, as diplomats said China and Russia would have vetoed any resolution.

China has publicly supported the Myanmar governments efforts to maintain stability in Rakhine. The stance taken by China and other Southeast Asian governments fighting insurgencies by Muslim militants should spare Myanmar from any harsh spotlight in the summits final communiques.

On the Rohingya, the leaders will agree that there is no quick fix to the long-standing inter-communal problem with deep historical roots that needs to be carefully managed, an ASEAN diplomat told Reuters, adding that the group aimed to deliver US$500,000 of relief supplies to Myanmar.
Wednesday, Jul 26th, 2017 (2:39 pm) - Score 2,784

Ofcoms Business Connectivity Market Review (here), which last year pledged to open up access to Openreachs (BT) national Dark Fibre network, cut leased line (Ethernet) prices and deliver quicker installs, has been sent back to the drawing board by the Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT).

A key part of the regulators review of the 2bn leased line market was its proposal for BT to make Dark Fibre available in all parts of the UK except central London (including the City of London and Docklands)  where Ofcom deemed that there is sufficient competition in the market  and Hull, where most leased lines are provided by KCOM (KC) rather than BT.

The Dark Fibre requirements would also only apply to a particular type of leased line(s) known as Contemporary Interface Symmetric Broadband Origination (CISBO), which use newer Ethernet and WDM technologies.

Ofcoms Market Definitions (BCMR 2016) 4.1 Introduction This section sets out our market definition and SMP assessment for the wholesale 4.1leased line services provided using newer technologies i.e. Ethernet and WDM. These are referred to as Contemporary Interface Symmetric Broadband Origination (CISBO) services. In this section, we first present our market definition analysis. We define:  A single product market for CISBO services: This includes Ethernet and WDM services at all bandwidths (including EFM services) and;  Three distinct geographic markets: These are Central London Area (CLA), London Periphery (LP) and Rest of UK (RoUK) excluding the Hull area.

The new Dark Fibre service is based off Openreachs 1Gbps capable Ethernet Access Direct product (details) and gives rival ISPs physical access to the national operators existing fibre optic cables (i.e. allows them to take direct control of the connection), which means that they can then install their own equipment at either end of the optical fibre within the cable ducts.

At the time Ofcom claimed that DFA could foster more competition and speed-up the roll-out of faster broadband services around the UK (e.g. backhaul capacity for new networks), although big infrastructure builders like BT, Virgin Media, Cityfibre and Zayo all feared that it could discourage similar operators from investing to build their own fibre optic networks. Nevertheless a number of ISPs, such as TalkTalk and SSE Telecoms, have shown interest in the product.

However Ofcoms review and its measures may now have to be revisited after the Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) ruled that the regulators market definitions for many of the proposed changes were incorrect.

CAT Ruling 5. The Tribunal is in the process of preparing its judgement on the market definition issues, but it is aware that the parties would soon have to start expending substantial resources preparing for the remedies hearing. The Tribunal is concerned to assist the parties and to avoid unnecessary costs from being incurred, and has therefore determined to give its decision on the market definition issues now with its reasons for that decision to follow in writing later. 6. The Tribunal finds unanimously that: (1) Ofcom erred in concluding that it was appropriate to define a single product market for CISBO services of all bandwidths;

(2) Ofcom erred in concluding that the RoUK comprises a single geographic market; and

(3) Ofcom erred in its determination of the boundary between the competitive core segments and the terminating segments of BTs network. 7. Ofcoms decisions in respect of all three matters will therefore be quashed. However, as will be explained in the full reasons, the Tribunal is not in a position to substitute its own findings in relation to any of the above matters. The matters will therefore be remitted to Ofcom for reconsideration. 8. Pursuant to Rules 19(2) and 107(1) of the Competition Appeal Tribunal Rules 2015 (2016 S.I. 1648) the Tribunal extends time for the making of any request for permission to appeal until three weeks after the notification of the Tribunals written reasons.

The appeal was pushed forward by BT against Ofcom, although there were several intervening parties including Vodafone, TalkTalk, COLT, Virgin Media, Three UK and Gamma Telecom. A spokesperson for Openreach said, We note todays ruling by the Competition Appeals Tribunal which found that Ofcoms market review definitions were inaccurate. The UK has a vibrant business connectivity market with a large, diverse and growing choice of providers  and this decision means that future regulation, where necessary, can be placed on a sound footing.

A Spokesperson for Ofcom said: We are disappointed with todays judgement. Once we have the Tribunals reasoning, we will know how best to proceed in order to protect competition and consumers. We continue to believe that dark fibre can bring significant benefits for businesses and consumers.

At the very least this could result in a longer delay before their proposed changes are introduced, although its currently unclear whether or not Ofcom will need to run the whole BCMR again from scratch or if they will appeal the decision. Meanwhile it looks as if Openreach wont be forced to launch their Dark Fibre product in October 2017.

UPDATE 27th July 2017

Cityfibre has this morning given their reaction to yesterdays ruling.
US software and experience management solutions vendor Qualtrics has appointed financial services veteran David Faugno as chief financial officer.

Faugno joins Qualtrics after 10 years as CFO for cloud-enabled security and data protection solutions vendor Barracuda Networks, including when the company completed a successful public offering.

He also served as senior director of corporate finance  M&A at Cisco Systems, was CFO for Actona Technologies and spent eight years at AT&T, including as CFO of the EMEA region.

Faugno will be based at the Qualtrics Provo, Utah headquarters in the US.

We couldnt be more excited to add David to the Qualtrics team, said Ryan Smith, co-founder and chief executive of Qualtrics. His experience helping to scale an early stage, high growth start up to a public company is incredibly unique. As Qualtrics continues to scale, well benefit a great deal from the experience David brings to the table. Im looking forward to continuing to build the experience management category together.

The most exciting part of this new move is the immense opportunity in front of us in the experience management market that Qualtrics has pioneered, Faugno said. Every organisation needs an experience management platform. Its absolutely critical to their business objectives and Qualtrics is the only company positioned to provide that single system of record.

Just last month Qualtrics appointed 20-year IT industry veteran Mark Vozzo as head of digital, Asia Pacific and Japan to lead marketing efforts across digital channels.

Prior to joining Qualtrics, Vozzo played a role driving digital marketing and overseeing SEO, SEM, display and social ad campaigns for Google Cloud and also led campaigns to launch new data regions in Singapore and Sydney.

Vozzo also worked for Salesforce, Microsoft Australia, Fairfax Media, and Citect.
Close on the heels of announcing that it would be cutting 6000 jobs over the next three years, the National Australia Bank has said that it will be hiring 600 technology specialists, beginning immediately.

The bank said today that the jobs  in software engineering, data, architecture and security  were part of its strategy to reshape its global workforce and create up to 2000 jobs by 2020 to meet what it said were "the changing needs of customers".

This will mean that the overall number of staff lost from the bank's rosters  which number about 30,000  will be in the region of 4000.

NAB chief technology and operating officer Patrick Wright said the bank was aiming to recruit the best talent both locally and globally.

We want the top talent in the industry to come and join us, as we change dramatically to become the very best bank we can be and give our customers the products and services they demand and deserve, he said.

We know this is an ambitious target and acknowledge the war for talent is intense, but these are the essential skills and roles we need in order to deliver our plan."

Yuri Misnik, Patrick Wright and Kyle McNamara.

In what is a change of policy, NAB said it also aims to shift from outsourcing work to local and foreign agencies, and bring talent back to its own offices to "increase competitive advantage".

The bank said it had already begun the tech recruitment drive, with the appointment of two senior executives.

Yuri Misnik, a senior technologist, will join NAB as executive general manager business enabling technology, and Kyle McNamara will take up the role of executive general manager leading the Program Management Office.

Misnik has held senior roles with HSBC, Microsoft and Amazon. In his last job, as digital chief information officer of HSBC Group London, he drove digitally focused transformations, changing service provisions to customers as well as internal business operations.

McNamara was with Canada's Scotiabank for the last 18 years, leading global teams across technology, strategy, risk management and operations.

NAB said McNamara was a specialist transformation executive, with deep expertise in project management.

Both Misnik and McNamara will report to Wright.

Photo: courtesy NAB
Telecommunications services provider iTalkBB Australia has been warned to take compliance seriously by the telecommunications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, over its second breach in less than three years of the consumer protections code.

The direction follows an ACMA investigation that found iTalkBB had breached direct debit, complaints-handling and record-keeping rules in the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code 2015.

Customers should have confidence that their telco will abide by rules designed to protect consumers, said ACMA chair Nerida OLoughlin.

This direction sends a strong message to iTalkBB Australia that it is time it took code compliance far more seriously to deliver better outcomes for its customers.

Pointing out that this is the second time in under three years the ACMA has taken enforcement action against iTalkBB Australia for breaches of the Code, OLoughlin stressed that the ACMA could commence proceedings in the Federal Court seeking a pecuniary penalty from a provider that breaches a formal direction.

In this latest breach, iTalkBB Australia failed to give customers 10 working days to check their bill on 43 occasions and did not obtain correct direct debit authorisations from two customers. It also failed to keep records for three complainants and did not document or make available its complaints-handling process.

The TCP rules require that telcos offering direct debit as a payment facility must obtain customer authorisation and comply with that authorisation, and customers must be given at least 10 working days to check their bill before the associated direct debit transaction takes place.

And, telcos must also document and make available their complaints-handling processes.
Economics Professor Honored for Technology Use

Nov. 10, 2017

Illinois Wesleyan University Professor of Economics Diego Mendez-Carbajo has been honored for his innovative use of technology to improve economic education.

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Illinois Wesleyan University Professor of Economics Diego Mendez-Carbajo is the recipient of the 2017 Abbejean Kehler Technology Award, honoring his innovative use of technology to improve economic education.

Presented by the Council for Economic Education (CEE) and the National Association of Economic Educators (NAEE), Mendez-Carbajo was recognized for introducing several innovations to online economic education while serving as a visiting scholar with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He was presented the awarded at the CEE-NAEE 56th Annual Financial Literacy & Economics Education Conference in Brooklyn, New York, last month.

It was a great professional honor to be recognized by my peers in the field of economic education, Mendez-Carbajo said. The opportunity to join a multidisciplinary group of experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis during my sabbatical leave offered me a unique perspective on teaching economics. The work at the Federal Reserve Bank is truly collaborative, proving that the whole can be larger than the sum of the parts.

While at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Mendez-Carbajo conducted research on the effectiveness of online learning modules and online assessment strategies and broke new ground with his idea for Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) interactives, which are self-paced online modules that make full use of the FRED database and web interface.

The online resources we developed are free and open to the public, Mendez-Carbajo said. We look forward to seeing new generations of college students make use of them and build data-analysis skills. I am grateful to my colleagues at IWU for accommodating my semester-long leave from teaching.

Mendez-Carbajo  whose research is focused in the area of applied economics  regularly mentors Illinois Wesleyan undergraduate student research focused on real-world, local data. Some previous projects include: The economic impact of local arts and culture organizations, an economic impact analysis of tourism associated with a new local visitors center, and the economic impact of local foreclosures.

By John Twork
Bach Event Celebrates Anniversary of Reformation

Nov. 6, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. As part of its Religion, Music and the Humanities series, Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Evelyn Chapel will host an event celebrating the music of German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. The event, Bach Against Modernity: Revelation, Revolution, and Religion, will take place at Evelyn Chapel ( 1301 N. Park St., Bloomington) and is free and open to the public.

Coordinated by Associate Professor of Music Adriana Ponce and University Chaplain Elyse Nelson Winger, the series aims to enliven the connections between music, religion, and the humanities in today's multifaith and multicultural context. By offering programs that highlight artists, theologians and scholars from across the ages and across the globe, Ponce and Winger said they hope to educate students and the community.

Celebrating the Universitys annual intellectual theme The Evolution of Revolution, and the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Sundays event will engage the ways in which Bach responded musically to his own time in the late 17th- to early 18th-century, and to the 16th-century theology of the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther.

Weaving together a scholarly talk, a live performance of music, and a theological reflection, Ponce and Winger said the event revolves around a lecture by renowned Bach scholar and the Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music at Swarthmore College Michael Marissen.

In his lecture, Bach against Modernity, Marissen will argue against the widely accepted view of Bach as a modern figure, explaining that Bachs music reflected and promoted what could be described as a pre-modern world and life-view by 18th century standards.

Following Marissens lecture, Illinois Wesleyan faculty and guest artists will perform Bachs Cantata BWV 12, Weeping, wailing, grieving, trembling.

Ponce and Winger said the live performance will allow the audience to immerse themselves in some of the music that Marissen discussed in his lecture.

The experience of the music is enriched by the preceding talk and allows audiences to better experience the meaning and power of a Baroque-era work.

Sundays event is sponsored by the Merwin Multifaith Fund.

By Vi Kakares 20
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Middle East Monitor |  

1. Saudi bans Citizens from traveling to Lebanon:

Saudi Arabia has advised its citizens against traveling to Lebanon and asked those in the country to leave as soon as possible, the Kingdoms official news agency (SPA) quoted an official source in the Foreign Ministry as saying.

Due to the circumstances in the Lebanese Republic, the Kingdom asks its citizens who are visiting or residing there to leave as soon as possible, the source quoted by the news agency said, adding that Saudis were advised not to travel to Lebanon from any country.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned on Saturday while in Saudi Arabia, accusing Iran and Hezbollah of sowing strife in Arab states and saying he feared assassination.

Two top Lebanese government officials accused Riyadh of holding Hariri captive. A third told Reuters that the Saudi authorities ordered Hariri to resign and put him under house arrest.

Saudi Arabia and members of Hariris Future Movement have denied reports that he is under house arrest.

2.

Middle East Monitor: Lebanon believes Hariri detained in Saudi, demands return

Lebanon believes Saad Hariri is held in Saudi Arabia, from where he resigned as prime minister, two top Lebanese government officials said, amid a deepening crisis pushing Lebanon onto the frontlines of a power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

A third source, a senior politician close to Saudi-allied Hariri, said Saudi Arabia had ordered him to resign and put him under house arrest. A fourth source familiar with the situation said Saudi Arabia was controlling and limiting his movement.

In a televised statement indicating deep concern at Hariris situation, his Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.

Hariris shock resignation, read out on television from Saudi Arabia, came as a shock even to his aides and embroils Lebanon further in a regional contest between Riyadh and Tehran.

Hariris exit fuelled wide speculation that the Sunni Muslim politician, long an ally of Riyadh, was coerced into stepping down by Saudi Arabia as it seeks to hit back against Iran and its Lebanese Shia ally Hezbollah.

In his resignation speech, Hariri denounced Iran and Hezbollah for sowing strife in Arab states and said he feared assassination. His father, a veteran former prime minister, was killed by a bomb in 2005.

Saudi Arabia has denied reports he is under house arrest.

But he has put out no statements himself to that effect, and has not denied that his movements are being restricted.

Keeping Hariri with restricted freedom in Riyadh is an attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Our dignity is his dignity. We will work with [foreign] states to return him to Beirut, said the senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the government had yet to declare this position.

Saudi Arabia says Hariri resigned because Hezbollah, which was included in Hariris coalition government, had hijacked Lebanons political system.

#SaudiPurge

The resignation of Hariri, a business tycoon whose family made their fortune in Saudi Arabia, happened at the same time as a wave of arrests of Saudi princes and businessmen accused of corruption by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

The senior Lebanese politician close to Hariri said: When he went [to Saudi Arabia] he was asked to stay there and ordered to resign. They ordered him to read his resignation statement and he has been held under house arrest since.

Two US officials said the Saudis, led by Crown Prince Mohammed, had encouraged Hariri to leave office.

The fourth source said: He is under controlled movement by the Saudis, limited movement.

Creative Commons License This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Via Middle East Monitor



Related video added by Juan Cole:

CBS: Saudi Arabia tells citizens to leave Lebanon amid alleged corruption crackdown
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 06, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ashanti Gold Corp. (Ashanti or the Company) - (TSXV:AGZ) is pleased to announce it has begun field mobilization on the Kossanto East project in Mali (the "Project") for its second season of exploration work.

The Project is a 66.41 km2 concession in the prolific Kenieba Inlier, the northwestern-most exposure of Birimian rocks in West Africa. Over the last twenty-five years more than 40M ounces of gold has been discovered in proximity to key structures resulting in the construction of multiple mines, including the Loulo, Sadiola, Yatela, Gounkoto, Segala and Tabakoto gold deposits.

Ashanti purchased 100% of Kossanto East, see press release August 8, 2017, (after including the Mali State carried interest of 10%, Ashanti ownership of the Project is 90%). Prior to Ashantis purchase of the Project 91 holes were drilled for a total of 10,119m of Diamond Drilling (DD) and Reverse Circulation drilling (RC) in 2013  2014. Ashanti completed 53 holes for a total of 6,073m of RC between June  July 2017. Ashantis drill program verified historic data and extended the data along strike at the Projects two main zones of mineralization. For its second season at Kossanto East, the Company intends to drill approximately 60 holes for a total of 10,000m of both DD and RC. This drill campaign will increase drill data density, test for mineralization down to 200m below surface, and test new targets on the Project site. Additionally, the Company will collect mineralized material for metallurgical testing. The Company notes that the top 30 to 40 metres of the Project's mineralized zones is oxidized material. Additionally, no significant occurrence of sulphide material has been noted to date in the geology of the Project. After the second season, the Company anticipates it will publish a maiden NI 43-101 report on the Project.

Tim McCutcheon, Ashantis CEO, said: The team at Ashanti is advancing our projects efficiently and the results speak for themselves. Our goal in the short to medium term is to provide metrics in a Project-report that allow the capital markets to benchmark Ashanti to other peer companies and guide our efforts for future exploration.

ABOUT ASHANTI GOLD

Ashanti is a gold-focused, exploration and development company that targets projects where it has a competitive advantage due to past work experience of the team and specific project know-how. The Company is driving forward its 100%-owned Kossanto East project in Mali on the prolific Kenieba Belt of Mali, which hosts such deposits as Loulo, Fekola and Sadiola. Ashanti is also working to advance, together with its earn-in partners, the Anumso project and the Ashanti Belt project in Ghana, which are near-adjacent to the Akyem deposit.
HALIFAX, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - Namibia Rare Earths Inc. ("Namibia Rare Earths" or the "Company") (TSXV: NRE) today announced it has entered into an agreement ("Agreement") to acquire a portfolio of critical metal properties (the "Properties") from Gecko Namibia (Pty) Ltd. ("Gecko Namibia") in consideration for the issuance of 64,000,000 common shares of Namibia Rare Earths ("Property Acquisition").

In conjunction with the acquisition, Gecko Namibia and Gerald J. McConnell, Chair of the Board of Namibia Rare Earths, have each agreed to complete a private placement with the Company in the amount of $250,000 at $0.05 per share for total gross proceeds to the Company of $500,000 ("Private Placement"). A total of 10,000,000 common shares of Namibia Rare Earths will be issued pursuant to the Private Placement. The Private Placement is subject to the approval of the TSXV.

This transaction provides Namibia Rare Earths with a high quality, diversified portfolio of critical metals and at the same time has secured a highly experienced strategic partner. Gecko Namibia and its subsidiaries are substantial participants in the Namibian resource sector with 327 employees and a proven track record in the mining industry. The Gecko Namibia portfolio of properties will expand the Company's commodity base from solely rare earths to a variety of highly critical commodities including cobalt, copper, zinc, lithium, graphite, tantalum, niobium, nickel, and gold. Ground holdings in Namibia will increase from 221 km2 (Lofdal) to over 6,850 km2.

Property Acquisition and Private Placement

Namibia Rare Earths has entered into an agreement with Gecko Namibia to acquire its 95% interest in a portfolio of exploration properties consisting of 14 exploration prospecting licences ("EPLs") four of which are pending, one mineral deposit retention licence ("MDRL") and Gecko Namibia's rights under an option agreement to acquire a 60% interest in a further exploration prospecting licence which interest may, subject to the terms of the option agreement, be increased to 80%.

The Property Acquisition and Private Placement are expected to close on or before January 31, 2018 and are subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals including the approval and acceptance by the TSXV. Upon completion of the Property Acquisition and Private Placement, Gecko Namibia will own 69,000,000 common shares of the Company representing 43.75% of the outstanding common shares of the Company. The Property Acquisition is further conditional upon receipt of the approval of shareholders as required by the TSXV.

The proceeds of the Private Placement will be used to carry out work on the properties acquired from Gecko Namibia with an initial focus on advancing the Kunene cobalt-copper project and to fund general corporate requirements. The common shares of the Company issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a four-month hold period.

Namibia Rare Earths and its insiders are at arm's length with Gecko Namibia and there are no finder's fees payable in connection with the Property Acquisition or the Private Placement.

Following the closing of the Acquisition, Gecko Namibia will nominate two members to the five-member board of Namibia Rare Earths with Gerald McConnell remaining as Chair. Pine van Wyk will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Namibia Rare Earths based in Namibia and Donald Burton will remain as President. Dr. Rainer Ellmies will be appointed Country Manager of Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd. based in Namibia.

Gecko Namibia  A Strategic Partner

Gecko Namibia is a private, Namibian-owned, fully integrated exploration and mining company with diversified interests in Namibia. Headquartered in Windhoek, the company and its subsidiaries operate with a work force of 327 employees with a professional management team of 24 people dedicated to every stage of mineral resource development including exploration, mining, mineral beneficiation and processing, and the provision of mine services (drilling, blasting, laboratories, plant construction, processing and contract mining).

Gecko Namibia and its sister company Genet South Africa (Pty) Ltd. ("Genet") were founded by Kobus Smit who is the Chairperson of both groups. Genet is a similar resource focused company providing mining and mineral processing services in South Africa with 703 employees and a team of 20 professional managers. The group also employs 285 people in its various tourism related businesses.

Genet Mineral Processing introduced an innovative dry process, using air clarification to upgrade coal for the South African market, including to clients like Exxaro and Eskom. Mr. Smit's entrepreneurial spirit has led to the establishment of a diversified portfolio of business interests that include some of the most valuable mining and tourism assets in private ownership within the Southern African region. Most notably, in 2003 Mr. Smit and his partners established a new coal mining company, namely Umcebo Mining, which grew into a significant coal producer in South Africa with annual production of approximately 9MT. Over a period, 7 coal mines were developed as greenfield projects, all with in-house capacity. The success of Umcebo was mainly the result of innovative technology in coal processing developed in-house that gave Umcebo Mining a significant competitive advantage over other coal producers. The most significant contract recently completed was a coal supply agreement with Eskom to the value of R6.8 billion. In 2011 Glencore acquired a 41% share in Umcebo Mining. Umcebo Mining was valued R2.2 billion at that time. During 2017, Mr. Smit disposed of all his interest in Umcebo Mining in order to focus on the expansion of his business interests in Namibia.

The Portfolio  Diversification into Critical Metals in Namibia

The transaction dramatically increases the Company's exposure to a wide variety of critical metals and minerals at various stages of development, providing a pipeline of projects spanning the spectrum from near-term discovery to preliminary economic assessment. All the projects are located in Namibia, a stable mining jurisdiction in which the Company has operated for the past seven years and where in-coming senior management have worked for over 20 years. This diversification will provide the Company with considerable flexibility in targeting those commodities which can provide immediate shareholder value. The strategic partnership with Gecko Namibia will allow for fast tracking to mine development as projects mature to feasibility stage. The portfolio of eight projects, their principal commodity targets and development stage are summarized in Table 1 and more fully described below. Project locations are shown in Figure 1.

1. Lofdal Heavy Rare Earth Project

In terms of project maturity, Lofdal is the most advanced with a 43-101 resource in place and completed Preliminary Economic Assessment1. In 2016 the Company completed an Environmental Impact Assessment and filed for an Environmental Clearance Certificate from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, and concurrently filed for a Mining Licence with the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Lofdal is a unique opportunity to develop a relatively low cost, heavy rare earth mine that could produce significant quantities of dysprosium, terbium and yttrium from the principal mineral, xenotime. The project has very similar mineralogical characteristics to the Brown's Range deposit in Australia which is currently under development by Northern Minerals (ASX:NTU) with AUS$97M of financing in place to complete an initial three year pilot phase operating at 72,000 tpa.

2. Kunene Cobalt-Copper Project

In terms of commodity interest, the Kunene cobalt-copper project offers the most attractive near-term value add opportunity for the Company. The Kunene project builds upon the recent exploration success led by Dr. Rainer Ellmies to explore for "copper belt" style deposits in northern Namibia. This work led to the first recorded discovery of Copperbelt-type stratabound cobalt-copper mineralization in Namibia in a sedimentary horizon termed the dolomite ore formation ("DOF"). The mineralization is uniformly 5 to 10 meters thick, stratabound within a dolomitic shale horizon, and averages around 0.5% copper and 1000-2000 ppm cobalt. The initial discovery is currently under intense exploration by Celsius Resources (ASX:CLA) including a 15,000 meter drill program to complete a maiden JORC resource estimate by February 2018. As per Celsius Resources' press release dated May 18, 2017 "Data from the first 20 holes drilled across this 11 km zone has enabled the Company to generate an Initial Exploration Target of between 33 and 41 million tonnes, grading approximately 0.13% - 0.17% cobalt and 0.45% - 0.65% copper. It is noted that the potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature, and that there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource."

The Kunene cobalt-copper project comprises a very large area of favourable stratigraphy contiguous with the DOF discovery adjacent to the ground held by Celsius Resources. Secondary copper mineralization over a wide area points to preliminary evidence of a regional-scale hydrothermal system. Exploration targets on EPLs held in the Kunene cobalt-copper project comprise direct extensions of the DOF style mineralization to the west, sediment-hosted cobalt and copper, orogenic copper, and stratabound Zn-Pb mineralization. Most of the occurrences are likely spatially related to what Dr. Ellmies' geological team has interpreted as a large hydrothermal center termed the Steilrand hydrothermal system. There is considerable scope for further discoveries both along strike of the Celsius discovery and in equivalent stratigraphy elsewhere on the property. Initial investigations will trace the western extension of the DOF which may continue for over 10 km in the project area, and will follow up on numerous copper-cobalt targets drilled in the past but never analysed for cobalt.

3. Black Range Graphite Project

The Black Range flake graphite prospect was discovered in the late 1980's and was explored by Rossing Uranium Ltd. between 1988 and 1992. Rossing interpreted the graphite horizon in a fold structure with a total strike length of about 8 km. Based on 3,821 m of percussion drilling and 3,931 m of diamond drilling from a 1 km segment of the horizon, employing a cut-off grade of 2% graphitic carbon and using the polygonal section method, an historical estimate of 12.46 MT grading 4.63% graphitic carbon was utilized by Rossing to assess the project (reference "The Black Range Graphite Deposit, Feasibility Study Final Report" dated August 1992). This historical estimate does not cite reference to CIMM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. Additional drilling and sampling will be required to validate the historic database. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and this historical estimate is not being treated as a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. Preliminary mining plans were drawn up and preliminary metallurgical work was carried out by Mintek of South Africa but the project was terminated before the flowsheet was fully optimized when the decision was made to focus instead on the graphite deposit at Okanjande. Okanjande was brought into production in 2017 by Gecko Namibia in a joint venture with Imerys.

Black Range is slightly lower grade than the producing Okanjande Graphite Mine (but the potential resource is much larger than the 1 km of strike length that has been tested to date. The data cannot be used in its present form for reporting under JORC or NI 43-101, however a similar problem was encountered at Okanjande and was addressed by a program of twinning of old drill holes and assaying of the core with full QAQC. That work largely validated the Rossing work so it should not be necessary to re-drill all the holes at Black Range. The near-term focus will be on metallurgical test work and, with a viable flowsheet, the project could be taken rapidly to a compliant PEA stage.

4. Warmbad Lithium Project

The Warmbad project is located in southern Namibia near the South African border in an area of historic small-scale pegmatite mining known as the Tantalite Valley. The Tantalite Valley pegmatites have been mined since about 1946 for beryl, columbite-tantalite, lithium and bismuth minerals. Mining has been re-activated by Kennedy Ventures Plc who control African Tantatite (Pty) Ltd. and are producing concentrates of >40% Ta2O5 being sold into global markets. Initial production of 20M tpa concentrate is ramping up to 120M tpa. An initial lithium resource estimate is being prepared by MSA Group for early 2018 following the sampling of lepidolite bearing pegmatites grading >1.6% Li2O.

The Warmbad EPL covers 605 km2 and hosts three pegmatite occurrences of undetermined extent from government maps. There are no records of any systematic exploration over the EPL. The area has recently been mapped by the Geological Survey of Namibia and the Council of Geosciences (South Africa) which has provided updated geological information. A key result of the mapping campaign is the delineation of previously unknown extensive pegmatite swarms of up to 13 km strike length. None of these pegmatites have ever been sampled and assayed. This new data will be utilized to undertake systematic sampling of the pegmatites.

5. Epembe Tantalum-Niobium Project

Epembe is an advanced stage exploration project with a well-defined, very large multiphase carbonatite dyke that has been mapped and sampled at surface over a strike length of 10 kilometers of which at least 7 km of strike length is mineralised. Gecko Namibia has completed detailed mapping and over 11,000 meters of drilling on the dyke, with preliminary mineralogical and metallurgical studies. The carbonatite contains variable concentrations of pyrochlore which is unusually enriched in tantalum. The other commodities of interest are niobium (hosted in pyrochlore) and apatite. Drilling covered only 15% of the pyrochlore hosting carbonatite. Grades of the drilled portion of the carbonatite average on the order of 150 ppm Ta2O5, 1,300 ppm Nb2O5 and 2.4% P2O5. Initial sorting tests (XRT) indicate the potential for significant physical upgrading. Planned work will focus on improving grade by optimizing XRT sorting and investigating amenability to XRF sorting. There is potential to delineate a substantial open pit resource by further exploration, both by extending known mineralized zones along strike and vertically.

6. Grootfontein Nickel-PGE Project

Grootfontein is an early stage conceptual target based on geophysical and historical evidence for a large buried mafic-ultramafic intrusive complex. It is a poorly explored geological complex due to the extensive coverage with Kalahari sands and calcrete.

Based on historic drill holes and airborne magnetic survey interpretations, Grootfontein constitutes a huge mafic complex covering 360 km2 with the potential to host magmatic nickel, copper, vanadium, platinum group elements and chromite mineralisation as cumulates or late magmatic disseminations and stockworks. Previous work by Ongopolo Mining proved that the main intrusive phases are depleted in nickel and copper. The metals were likely fractionated as sulphides during the intrusive phase, gravitationally accumulated in the magma and intruded in the adjacent, preexisting rocks. As in other mafic hosted copper-nickel deposits such as Norilsk and Voisey's Bay, sulphidization by scavenging of sulphur from country rocks and tectono-magmatic concentration of the sulphide-rich melts are the key for the formation of this type of magmatic copper nickel deposits. Only two shallow drill fences (total of 1,386 m) were drilled by Anglo American in 1988 leaving 55 km of strike length untested.

There is also potential for zinc-lead-vanadium mineralisation of the Berg Aukas type where dolomite-hosted deposits bordering the mafic complex, which according to historical records, produced 1.6 MT of ore grading 16.77% Zn, 4.04% Pb and 0.93% V2O5 during the period 1967-1975.

7. Otjiwarongo Carbonatite Project

Otjiwarongo is another early stage conceptual target based on remote sensing data in proximity to known alkaline intrusive complexes, most notably the Okorusu complex which hosts the Okorusu fluorspar deposits. The area of interest is completely hidden by cover. The circular anomaly measures one kilometer in diameter and can be easily tested by drilling to determine if in fact a carbonatite body is the source and what styles of mineralization might be associated with it (fluorspar, rare earths, tantalum, niobium etc.).

8. Erongo Gold Project

The Erongo gold project covers an area of over 600 km2 within the Navachab-Ondundu gold trend. There are numerous mineral occurrences within the project area including at least two gold occurrences. The area has been prospected but not systematically explored. Potential targets include skarn and greisen gold-(copper-bismuth) and tin-tungsten mineralization; pegmatites formed during the late Damaran orogeny hosting lithium minerals and semi-precious stones and structurally controlled gold mineralisation. Historical figures indicate small scale mining for all of those deposit types on the property.

Project Management Strengthened  Operational Experience Focused on Namibia

Operations in Namibia for all projects will continue under Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd., the Namibian operating company of Namibia Rare Earths. Project management will be streamlined through utilization of Gecko Namibia's in-country administrative and service providers drawing upon the resources of the following senior personnel:

Pienaar-Schalk (Pine) van Wyk (NHD Met. Eng. B.Com, MBA), Managing Director of Gecko Namibia will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Namibia Rare Earths based out of Namibia. Pine joined Gecko in 2008 bringing over 25 years of extensive process and project management experience to the Gecko Group. Prior to joining Gecko Namibia he worked for Rossing Uranium as Engineering Manager and later with Paladin Energy at the Langer Heinrich uranium mine where he held the positions of Operations Manager and Business Development Manager. As Managing Director for Gecko Namibia, Pine has developed a strong network of contacts throughout the mining sector and with government agencies in Namibia. In addition to his professional qualifications as a Metallurgical Engineer from Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria), Pine holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of South Africa and Masters of Business Administration from University of Bloemfontein with a focus on project management.

Rainer Ellmies, PhD., General Manager of Gecko Exploration since 2016, will be appointed Country Manager of Namibia Rare Earths (Pty) Ltd. based out of Namibia and will carry principal responsibility for the design, implementation and development of all projects through to feasibility stages. Rainer has been instrumental in assembling the property portfolio for Gecko Namibia and has been directly involved in a number of significant mineral deposit discoveries in Namibia including the heavy rare earth deposit at Lofdal, Namibia's first sediment-hosted cobalt deposit at Opuwo, tantalum-niobium at Epembe, copper, zinc-lead-barite in the Kunene region and light rare earths at Keishohe/Dicker Willem. Rainer brings a combination of extensive technical and commercial skills as well as in-country knowledge of Namibia's mineral sector through his seven-year tenure as Manager of German-Namibian Development Cooperation in the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy. Rainer received his Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Economic Geology from the Technical University of Berlin.

Other Interests within Gecko Namibia

Graphite Mine in Production

Gecko Namibia was instrumental in bringing the 500,000 tpa run of mine Okanjande Graphite Mine into commercial production in 2017 through a joint venture partnership with Imerys, a global leader in the production of mineral-based, high value specialty products. Gecko Namibia re-designed a portion of the crushing, milling and flotation facilities at the Okorusu Mine for graphite processing of up to 20 000 tpa of graphite concentrate.

Fluorspar Mine and Processing Facilities

Gecko Namibia acquired all the mine and processing facility assets of the Okorusu Fluorspar Mine from Solvay in 2016. A comprehensive test program has been developed with the objective of re-opening the fluorspar operations at Okorusu. Gecko Namibia envisages a metallurgical process with dual product output of high grade acid spar and low grade metallurgical spar, following on-going mineralogical studies of all ore bodies, gravity separation tests and high-end flotation tests. Okorusu produced close to 1.8 million tons of fluorspar concentrates over a 27-year period between 1998-2014, when Solvay made the corporate decision to close down its global mining division.

Various Salts and Limestone Operations

Gecko Salt, a subsidiary of Gecko Namibia, operates a small-scale salt production plant located approximately 120 kilometers north of the coastal town of Swakopmund. The project is currently operating at a rate of 200,000 tpa and targeting to increase to 1,000,000 tpa. The first shipment of 25,000 t of salt for the North American market was exported in August 2017.

An internal assessment has been completed over portions of the Otjivalunda salt pans, located north of Etosha National Park, which comprise natural deposits of burkeite, thenardite and sodium sulphate. Gecko Salt intends to initially produce approximately 100,000 tpa of sodium sulphate as well as washing powder, soap and other salt products for sale into the South African market.

An internal resource of 5 million tons of high-quality white marble with >98% calcium carbonate has been defined by drilling near Swakopmund together with an internal resource in excess of 25 million tons of calcitic marble rock for a calcining project. An Environmental Impact Assessment for the project has been completed and the company has received the Environmental Clearance Certificate.

Industrial Corporate Vision

Gecko Namibia envisions substantial industrial growth for Namibia, in part through the realization of its multi-faceted resource portfolio. To this end, Gecko Namibia has initiated two high level projects related to industrial development in the Swakopmund-Walvis Bay area.

An application for the development of a 200 ha industrial park named Nonidas Industria to be located 11km east of Swakopmund is at an advanced stage. The site is uniquely situated between the B2 National Highway and the main TransNamib railway leading inland from Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. The Vision Industrial Park (VIP) is a much larger concept that has been proposed by Gecko Namibia to develop a new deep-water port with an associated industrial development zone to be situated 25 km north of Swakopmund. The Namibian Cabinet awarded Gecko Namibia the right to develop a private port together with 700 ha of industrial land for the development of chemical and mining related industries. The port will be designed to accommodate Panama size vessels and have the capacity to handle 5-10 million tons of cargo volume per annum. The concept is very similar to the Coega Project of South Africa where an industrialized development zone was created with a dedicated port facility in 2009. Since its inception, Coega has attracted 54 industrial firms that have brought in over R30 billion in investments.

Donald M. Burton, P.Geo. and President of Namibia Rare Earths Inc., is the Company's Qualified Person and has reviewed and approved this press release.

About Namibia Rare Earths Inc.

Namibia Rare Earths Inc. is focused on the accelerated development of the Lofdal Rare Earths Project and on building a critical metals portfolio in Namibia. The common shares of Namibia Rare Earths Inc. trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "NRE".

1 Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Lofdal Rare Earths Project Namibia dated October 1, 2014 authored by David S. Dodd, B. Sc (Hon) FSAIMM - The MDM Group, South Africa, Patrick J.F. Hannon, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. and William Douglas Roy, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. - MineTech International Limited, Canada, Peter Roy Siegfried, MAusIMM (CP Geology) and Michael R. Hall, B.Sc (Hons), MBA, MAusIMM, Pr.Sci.Nat, MGSSA - The MSA Group, South Africa
The Herald reports:

Ministers from countries in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agree in principle on the trade pact after a meeting in Vietnam, Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said on Thursday.

Ministers from the 11 member countries met in the resort of Danang in Vietnam on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to discuss how to proceed with the deal after the United States withdrew.

When asked what the results of the talks had been, the Japanese minister said agree in principle, according to Reuters.
SBS reports:

Victorias euthanasia bill has passed the Upper House 22 votes to 18 in its second reading after robust debate over the controversial proposal.

It earlier passed the Lower House by 47 to 37.

It will be interesting to see if it passes the third reading and becomes law.

The End of Life Choice Bill will not come up for a first reading for a while. Ahead of it in the queue is:

New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands) Bill  committee stage and 3rd reading Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill  3rd reading Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill  3rd reading Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2)  committee stage and 3rd reading Rates Rebate (Retirement Village Residents) Amendment Bill  2nd reading, committee stage and 3rd reading Newborn Enrolment with General Practice Bill  1st reading Employment Relations (Restoring Kiwis Right to a Break at

Work) Amendment Bill  1st reading Education (Public Good not Profit from Charter Schools)

Amendment Bill  1st reading

Id estimate that is 19 hours of debate. Each members day had around 4.5 hours so maybe on the 5th members day which is after ten weeks or so of house sitting.

So best guess is March or April.

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San Diego, CA Epic Epic wildfires rampaged through Northern California in the fall of 2017 destroying everything in their path leaving thousands of people to literally start over from the ground up. An estimated 6,000 homes and buildings were destroyed and at least 42 people died.

In terms of the damages, it is going to be the largest fire in the history of California, if not the country, says attorney Gerald Singleton from the Single Law Firm based in San Diego. In terms of the number of homes destroyed and the total amount of the damages I think it will be between $10 and $12 billion.Many of the thousands of people who were forced to run from the flames, leaving homes and businesses to burn, have filed lawsuits blaming Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), a California utility company, for starting some of those fires.Singleton currently represents 220 from the four counties where the most serious fires occurred. They are homeowners, business owners and renters who lost either their personal possessions or their homes and their property.There were 28 fires in the northern California area, says Singleton. The most serious ones were in four counties Sonoma, Mendocino, Napa, Lake Counties and it appears PG&E was responsible for a number of those.We have filed against PG&E on behalf of about 70 of our clients and we anticipate filing a number of additional suits, but we wanted to get one on file just to make sure that PG&E allowed us to inspect any of the potential evidence, says Singleton.The exact cause of the fires is still being investigated and it is not known what role, if any, PG&E played. However, it is believed that in some cases PG&E power lines and blown transformers may have turned dry vegetation into fires.We are suing in cases where the power lines are believed to be at fault.There were very high winds combined with low humidity, says Singleton. Sometimes trees hit powerline wires that would cause the circuit break, start to arc or spark and that would start the fire.It is believed in a couple of fires the lines slapped together and there have been reports of equipment failures in the transformers that blew and caused fires.We are not going to know exactly what happened until we get the investigation and the discovery done but we have filed at this point so that we could get the process started and go forward with discovery, says Singleton.The Singleton Firm has specialized in fire damage litigation for over a decade. In 2015, it recovered millions of dollars on behalf of individuals who lost property after PG&E was held liable for faulty maintenance practices that caused the Butte Fire near Sacramento, California.The Butte litigation and medication process moved along quite quickly and there were settlements within a year, but I think the 2017 fires are going to be different because of liquidity issues.PG&E only has 800 million in insurance and it is unclear what they are going to be held liable for.It may be PG&E did not cause all the fires so they may not be responsible for the entire 10 to 12 billion but it is likely going to be substantially more than their insurance, he says. There may be some procedures worked out so that the damages are paid over time. I dont think PG&E is in a position to write a check for the amount of damages that are being claimed.
Nov 10, 2017, 8 AM

The David Feldman auction series includes a session of Mauritius material on Dec. 7. This 1854 cover is the only one known to bear a combination of both the 1-penny orange and 2d blue Queen Victoria Post Paid issues as early impressions.

The front of the 1883 China cover. Addressed to Countess Caroline Tattenbach in Munich, Germany, it is struck with a number of Chinese, French and German postal markings.

Described as the crown jewel of Chinese philately, the 1883 Countess Caroline cover franked with a block of nine of the 5-candareen stamp will be offered during the Dec. 5-9 David Feldman auction.

By Michael Baadke

An envelope described as the crown jewel of Chinese philately, mailed nearly 135 years ago from China to Germany, will be offered at public auction by David Feldman International Auctioneers in Geneva, Switzerland.

Feldman is offering an auction series Dec. 5-9 that is documented in nine separate catalogs broadly encompassing the world of stamps and postal history.

The auction celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Feldman firm and its recent move to a new location.

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The Countess Caroline cover from China is just one of the many rarities collectors will encounter.

The auctions begin Tuesday with 245 lots of classic Finland that includes the Erkki Toivakka Finland grand prix collection, followed by more than 600 lots of Tibet presenting material from the Larsson and Olsson collections.

On Wednesday the firm will feature lots from a French Levant grand prix collection, France and colonies, and the first selections from a sale of general Europe.

The Europe offerings resume on Thursday morning and lead into a 117-lot Rarities of the World sale, followed by 278 lots of Mauritius.

Friday presents material from specialized collections of Mafia Island (formerly part of German East Africa) and Indian Princely States (from the Dan Walker collection).

The Friday sessions conclude with Great Britain and the British Empire, a selection that features the award-winning collection of Montserrat postal history by Peter McCann.

Saturday will close the series with international material from outside of Europe, and 200 all-world collections.

The Countess Caroline cover is a star of the Rarities of the World catalog. The 1883 cover is franked on the reverse with a block of nine of the rare China 5-candareen orange yellow Imperial Dragon stamps with wide setting.

The cover is widely acknowledged since its appearance at public auction in the 1970s as the most valuable cover of China, Feldman notes in the auction lot description.

The cover is addressed to Graefin (Countess) Caroline Tattenbach in Munich. The scarce Chinese stamps are canceled and tied by blue oval Peking pa-kua cancels and showing I.G.Customs/Peking circular datestamp of March 25, 1883, according to Feldman, plus a Chinese Customs Shanghai circular datestamp of March 30.

The auction description further notes that the cover was sent to Germany via the French post office in Shanghai, and two French stamps on the front are tied by French post office Shanghai postmarks dated April 1. The cover front bears additional French maritime and Germany arrival markings.

Accompanied by a 2015 FIAP certificate, this rare cover is listed by Feldman with a start price of 700,000, or roughly $815,000.

The Mauritius auction on Thursday includes two dramatic covers representing the early postal history of the island.

The first of these, mailed in 1854, is the only one known franked with a combination of the early impressions of both the 1-penny orange and the 2d blue Queen Victoria Post Paid issues.

The second is simply described by Feldman as the most beautiful cover of Mauritius, franked with a pair of the 2d blue in which the left stamp shows the famous PENOE variety.

These two covers each carry an estimate of 300,000 to 400,000, or $350,000 to $465,000.

The catalog for the Dan Walker collection of princely states of India not only offers some 325 lots of this exotic material, but also carefully details the stamp history and location of each of these regions that are identified as Indias feudatory states in both the Scott and Stanley Gibbons catalogs.

The All World catalog for this auction series lives up to its name with items from all over the globe. It is particularly strong with lots representing the Otto Z. Sellinger collection of Belgium, as well as Egypt, and Russia and the Soviet Union.

The catalogs for the David Feldman auction series can be viewed here, with an option for online bidding available.

For additional information contact David Feldman SA, 59 route de Chancy, Batiment D, 1213 Petit-Lancy, Switzerland.
Flawed stamps for the taking: Weeks Most Read

May 1, 2021, 4 AM

This flawed United States Scott 30 stamp could be a good example for anyone who needs a less expensive example of the stamp. This story got readers' attention this week.

By Colin Sallee

Its time to catch up on the week that was in stamp-collecting insights and news.

Linns Stamp News is looking back at its five most-read stories of the week.

Click the links to read the stories.

5. 2018 Scott Classic Specialized catalog now available: Special thanks also go to our many advisors who offer improvements each year to make this catalog an invaluable reference for collectors.

4. Creativity at the Postal Museum: Who doesnt enjoy a beautiful work of art? For stamp collectors its easy to enjoy multiple works through our hobby.

3. When it comes to topical stamps, this 1965 Malaysian issue ranks near the top: Peninsular Malaysia occupies the southernmost part of the Asian continent, while East Malaysia occupies the northern part of the island, Borneo.

2. Freaks & Errors: A Rare Collection documentary premiere at Monacophil 2017: Filmmaker Mark Cwiakala, the movies executive creative director, told Linns Stamp News that he is now looking to partner with a distributor.

1. Collecting flawed stamps is an ideal way to start collecting: Poor relations of stampdom need a home, too. We cant all afford the most pristine of examples for our albums.

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Apr 29, 2021, 6 PM

A 1973 8 Christmas stamp from the United States also features Raphaels The Small Cowper Madonna.

Prince Charles with the two winners of Royal Mails childrens design contest: Arwen Wilson and Ted Lewis-Clark.

Ted Lewis-Clark, 10, created the winning design Santa Claus on his sleigh on a starry night, which appears on Great Britains first-class stamps for standard and large mail.

One of the 12 Christmas stamps issued Nov. 7 by Great Britains Royal Mail reproduces a detail of The Small Cowper Madonna by Raphael. The painting is in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The winning design by Arwen Wilson, Snow family, is shown on stamps for second-class standard and large mail. This is the fourth time that children have designed Britains Christmas stamps.

A souvenir sheet includes the Madonna and Child stamps with moisture-activated gum. The stamps show paintings in collections and museums in Great Britain, Spain, France and the United States.

By Denise McCarty

A new Christmas stamp from Great Britain showing a detail of The Small Cowper Madonna by Raphael may look familiar to collectors in the United States. This painting from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., also was featured on a U.S. Christmas stamp in 1973 (Scott 1507).

The British stamp is among a dozen Christmas stamps issued Nov. 7 by Royal Mail.

Four of the stamps show the two winning entries in a childrens design competition, and eight stamps reproduce Madonna and Child paintings.

As reported in the Aug. 7 Linns, page 11, Ted Lewis-Clark, age 10, and Arwen Wilson, 9, won the Christmas stamp design contest arranged by Royal Mail.

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More than 200,000 entries from children ages 4 through 11 were received in the competition. These were narrowed down to the top two from 12 different United Kingdom regions, and, from those 24 designs, Prince Charles chose the two winners.

The prince presented framed examples of their stamps to Lewis-Clark and Wilson at a Nov. 7 ceremony held at Clarence House in Westminster.

Lewis-Clarks design Santa Claus on his sleigh on a starry night is featured on the nondenominated first-class stamp for standard mail and the nondenominated first-class stamp for large mail.

The Snow Family by Wilson appears on the nondenominated second-class stamp for standard mail and the nondenominated second-class stamp for large mail.

The stamps for large mail are physically larger than those for standard mail and also include the word large on them. The stamps for standard-size mail measure 24 millimeters by 28mm, and the large-mail stamps are 34mm by 28mm.

Royal Mail defines standard-size mail as letters not exceeding 24 centimeters in length, 16.5 centimeters in width and 0.5 centimeters in thickness with a weight limit of 100 grams. Large letters can be up to 35.3 centimeters in length, 25 centimeters in width and 2.5 centimeters thick with a weight limit of 750 grams.

The current rates are 56p for standard-size second-class letters, 65p for standard-size first-class letters, 76p for second-class large letters; and 98p for first-class large letters.

The nondenominated first- and second-class Madonna and Child stamps also are available in two versions: one for standard mail and the other for large mail.

The first-class stamps depict a detail from The Madonna and Child by 19th-century Scottish artist William Dyce.

This painting is part of the Royal Collection. According to the Royal Trust, which looks after the Royal Collection, this oil-on-canvas hangs in the queens bedroom at Osborne House. It was purchased by Prince Albert in 1845.

The website of the Royal Collection, www.royalcollection.org.uk, describes the painting: While the pose here is tender, the focus is more on religious devotion than maternal affection, the spiritual rather than the sensual. The Virgin reads a Bible passage referring to the stock of Jesse (Isaiah 11) and the child points to Mary as the origin of Christ.

The two second-class Madonna and Child stamps show a detail from The Virgin and Child. This oil-on-canvas work is believed to have been painted around 1520 and is attributed to Gerard David. Now part of the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, this painting was once part of the collection of King Phillip II (1527-98), who sent it to Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in 1577.

The 1.17 stamp features a detail of a painting that is still part of the collection at El Escorial, Virgin Mary with Child attributed to 15th-century Flemish artist Quinten Massys.

The 1.46 stamp depicts the detail of The Small Cowper Madonna, so named because it was sold to George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, the third Earl Cowper around 1780 and stayed in the family until the early 20th century.

The painting dates from Raphaels years in Florence (1504-08).

Reproduced on the 1.57 stamp is a detail of The Sleep of the Infant Jesus by 17th-century Italian painter Giovanni Battista Sassoferrato. The painting was acquired by the Louvre in 1816.

The high denomination of the set, 2.27, depicts a detail from St. Luke Painting the Virgin by Austrian artist Eduard Jakob von Steinle. Part of the Royal Collection, it was painted in 1851 for Prince Albert, who gave it to his wife, Queen Victoria, as a birthday gift that year.

The denominated stamps meet the following rates: 1.17, letters to Europe up to 20 grams and international letters up to 10 grams; 1.46, international mail up to 20 grams and domestic small parcels and printed papers up to 750 grams; 1.57, letters to Europe up to 100 grams; and 2.27, international letters up to 100 grams.

Royal Mail Group Ltd. designed all of Britains 2017 Christmas stamps. The Madonna and Child stamps were based on initial concept ideas by Kate Stephens.

De La Rue Security Print printed the stamps by gravure.

The denominated Madonna and Child stamps (1.17, 1.46, 1.57 and 2.27) are in separate sheets of 50.

The nondenominated stamps for are in four different combined sheets of 50 (one sheet for standard-size first-class mail, a sheet for first-class large mail, a sheet for standard-size second-class mail and a sheet for second-class large mail).

Each sheet contains the Madonna and Child stamps in the top pane of 25, and Childrens Designs stamps in the bottom pane of 25.

Royal Mail divides its sheets of 50 into panes of 25 for sale to customers.

The stamps are self-adhesive and perforated 14.5 by 15.

A souvenir sheet, measuring 179mm by 74mm, contains all eight of the Madonna and Child stamps with moisture-activated gum. Supple Studio designed the selvage of this sheet; the typography is by John Stevens.

The Madonna and Child stamps also were issued in a sheet of 20 stamps (eight first-class and eight second-class standard mail stamps and one each the other denominations) and se-tenant labels with traditional Christmas greetings, against a celestial background.

A sheet of 20 Childrens Design stamps and labels contains 10 of each design. Items related to the Christmas season and to design are pictured in the selvage.

The nondenominated first-class and second-class stamps for standard-size mail also were issued in two booklets of 12.

The booklet of first-class stamps includes six Childrens Design stamps and six Madonna and Child stamps. Similarly, the other booklet includes six of each of the second-class stamps.

International Security Printers printed the booklet stamps by gravure.

Other products to be offered in conjunction with the Christmas stamps include first-day covers, a set of 13 postcards reproducing the designs of the stamps and the souvenir sheet, and a presentation pack with all 12 stamps.

To order the Christmas stamps and related products, visit Royal Mails shop on the Internet. Ordering information also is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland.

Royal Mails two agencies in the United States are Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557; and the British Stamp Service in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008.
If you were sitting in the upper rows of the ancient Greek amphitheater of Epidaurus 2,300 years ago, could you have heard the whisper of an actor's sigh, or the crackle of a match as it flared to life, as accounts have claimed?

Probably not, according to a new study.

Despite extravagant descriptions of amphitheaters' superior sound quality, these impressive-looking open-air theaters from the ancient world may not have been acoustic marvels after all. A team of researchers with the Eindhoven University of Technology (EUT) in the Netherlands recently conducted the first on-site experiments at three Greek amphitheaters that are thousands of years old. They found that while a person speaking loudly could be heard in the most distant seats, most quiet sounds would have been inaudible even to those seated right next to the stage. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]

The Epidaurus theater held 55 semicircular rows of seats that could accommodate up to 14,000 people, and, according to research published in 2007, even unamplified performances were easily heard in the farthest rows. Sound carried exceptionally well due to the slope of the walls and acoustic properties of the limestone seats, according to the researchers of the 2007 study.

But the EUT scientists' interest in the Epidaurus amphitheater's acoustics was piqued by a more grandiose description in a travel guide published in 1989, which declared the sound to be "extraordinary" in no uncertain terms. According to the book, people seated in the theater's last row  about 194 feet (59 meters) from the stage  could hear the smallest sounds "where the tour guide whispers, walks around, tears a piece of paper, lights a match, beats his chest, snaps his fingers, turns a page of a book, drops a coin and sighs heavily."

To find out if these claims were true, the researchers conducted the first acoustic maps of ancient amphitheaters, visiting the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which dates to A.D. 200; the theater of Argos, dating to 200 B.C., and the Epidaurus theater, dating to 400 B.C. The scientists brought wireless acoustic measuring tools they designed themselves, gathering over 10,000 measurements from hundreds of locations in the three theaters, according to a video shared by EUT on YouTube.

They found that the theater acoustics, while good, were not as extraordinary as the guide book claimed.

Voices that were projected loudly were audible in the farthest seats. But voices at a normal volume were less intelligible, the scientists found. And contrary to the guide book's claims, the sound of ripping paper and the ring of a dropped coin were audible for a distance extending only about halfway up the seating area. And a struck match or a whisper would have been heard only by those in the very front row, according to the EUT statement.

"Using the sound sources mentioned, no evidence of the often claimed exceptional sound transmission was found," the researchers reported in a summary of their study, presented June 28 at the Acoustical Society of America's "Acoustics '17" conference in Boston.

Original article on Live Science.
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The tweet went viral on Nov. 6: a photo of a lone rhinoceros, resting with its chin on the dusty ground of a wooden enclosure. Accompanying the photo, the caption read, "Want to know what extinction looks like? This is the last male Northern White Rhino. The Last. Nevermore."

The photo struck a chord, though the rhino in it has been the last of his kind for years now. The second-to-last male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), Angalifu, died at the San Diego Zoo in December 2014. That left a single male, Sudan, shown in the viral photograph, who turns 44 this year and is very unlikely to produce any more offspring.

Sudan's story may not be new, but the stark framing of the tweet by biologist and activist Daniel Schneider earned the lonely male more than 44,000 retweets and 1,700 replies. Unfortunately, it will take more than awareness to save northern white rhinos from extinction. At this point, it may take a technological miracle. [In Photos: The Last 5 Northern White Rhinos]

Last of their kind

Sudan lives at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, along with the only two remaining females of the species, Najin and Fatu. Sudan technically belongs to the Dvur Kralove Zoo, in the Czech Republic, but was moved to Kenya along with another male in 2009 in the hope that breeding attempts in the rhinoceroses' native range would be more successful than trying to breed them in Europe. But natural mating attempts produced nothing. In 2015, veterinarians found that Sudan's sperm count is very low, and that both Najin and Fatu have age- and uterine-related conditions that make carrying a pregnancy impossible, according to Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on June 25, 2015. (Image credit: Georgina Goodwin/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

The only hope, researchers now say, lies in rhino in vitro fertilization. Veterinarians have harvested eggs from female northern whites, including some who have since died, and have been collecting sperm from males since their numbers started dwindling. At the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, scientists are racing to figure out how to fertilize a northern white rhino egg in the lab and transplant it into the uterus of a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum).

This isn't as easy as it might sound, the director of reproductive physiology at that institute, Barbara Durrant, told Live Science in 2016. Conditions in the uterus are different between animal species, and no one has ever developed an IVF procedure tailored to rhinos before.

In the worst case, scientists are considering inseminating a southern white rhinoceros with northern white rhino sperm, to at least save some of the subspecies genetic diversity, if not the species itself.

Driven to the brink

The northern white rhino once lived throughout northwestern Uganda, southern Chad, southwestern Sudan, the eastern part of Central African Republic, and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. No individuals have been spotted in the wild since 2006.

Both the northern and southern white rhino subspecies were poached to near-extinction by the late 1990s, but southern whites made a comeback after conservationists focused on breeding and relocating individuals to protected areas. As of 2010, according to the IUCN, there were about 20,160 southern white rhinos in the wild, mostly in South Africa.

But poaching is still a problem. The practice of killing rhinos for their horns has actually increased in recent years, bolstered by a black market in traditional Chinese medicine, which uses the horn in concoctions meant to increase health and vitality  even though horns are just keratin, the same protein that makes up human hair and fingernails.

Original article on Live Science.
A photograph of two male lions seemingly in an amorous embrace has some humans clutching their pearls.

After the release of the photograph, taken in August at Kenya's Masai Mara National Reserve, Ezekiel Mutua, the chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board, blamed humans (or maybe demons) for the male-on-male mounting.

"[P]robably, they have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly," Mutua told Nairobi News, before suggesting that the lions be isolated and studied because the "demonic spirits inflicting in humans seem to have now caught up with animals."

The actual story behind the photograph shows that Mutua got some things wrong. The mounting behavior isn't actually sexual. And the official jumped the gun on attributing human motivations to animal behavior, experts said. ['Gay' Animals: 10 Alternative Lifestyles in the Wild]

"It's rare, it's not really sexual and it tells us a lot more about those officials in Kenya and their homophobia than anything else," Craig Packer, the director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, told Live Science. "It's a bizarre overreaction."

Lion loving

This isn't the first time two lions have been seen in a same-sex embrace. In March 2016, another photographer snapped a male mounting and humping another male in Botswana.

The latest pictures were taken by Paul Goldstein, a British guide for Exodus Travels, who said the lions first stood side by side, and then one lay down and was mounted by the other. The lions stayed that way for over a minute, Goldstein said in a caption accompanying the photo.

"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," Goldstein said.

This sequence is fairly similar to what was described in Botswana, where the two lions spent a long time in the mating position. But in both cases, these lions aren't mating, Packer said. When male lions mate, they zealously guard a receptive female for days at a time, having sex every half-hour or so and refusing to let any other males come near the female. A male lion ejaculates almost immediately upon inserting his penis into the female, Packer said, and accompanies his ejaculation with a particular yowl.

The male-on-male behavior in Kenya was nothing like that, and the male on top didn't ejaculate, Packer said.

Same-sex affections

Instead, the photograph captures a rare moment of social bonding between male lions. These lions spend their lives trying to reproduce. To up their odds, they work together in small groups of two, three or more males, called coalitions. These groups cooperate to drive off rival males and take over prides of females, killing any babies fathered by previous males, Packer said. Long-term studies dating back to the 1970s show that lions who manage to become part of a coalition, particularly a larger one (opens in new tab), get more access to females and ultimately produce more surviving offspring than other individuals.

Coalition males are typically affectionate with each other, Packer said. They'll flop down on each other, lick each other and rub each other's faces. On rare occasions, they'll display the mounting behavior that Goldstein witnessed. It seems to be a way to smooth over social tensions. The same sort of behavior occurs in baboons and many other social mammals, Packer said. Female lions do it too, he added.

"It's a social interaction that has nothing to do with sexual pleasure," he said.

Original article on Live Science.